459: Steven Grayhm—Sheepdog

Speaker 1 Hello, friends. It's the way I heard it.
I'm Mike Rowe. My guest today is Stephen Graham.
He made a movie called Sheep Dog. It is remarkable.

Speaker 1 And, Chuck, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I do believe it made you cry like a 10-pound baby girl.

Speaker 2 I told you that in confidence, Mike.

Speaker 1 Yes, it made me cry.

Speaker 2 It made a young woman by the name of Tracy cry.

Speaker 1 It stuck with us for days. Yeah, I'm not going to tell you why the movie is called Sheep Dog.
You're smart. You'll figure it out.
But this is,

Speaker 1 I'm going to call it a passion project. Stephen Graham is an actor who's been kicking around now for some time, but he spent the last 13, 14 years getting this independent film made.

Speaker 1 And it is,

Speaker 1 I'll say, an unflinching, gritty,

Speaker 1 super honest look. at post-traumatic stress, what it does to an individual, what it does to the loved ones, what it does within a community, and

Speaker 1 a potential way out.

Speaker 2 It's getting praise from a lot of real vets who are seeing it and saying, I want to show this to my family because it nailed it.

Speaker 1 And I wish my ex-wife could have seen this.

Speaker 1 I wish my kids. from whom I'm estranged

Speaker 1 could have seen this or will see this. You know, there's so much about this topic that is difficult.
You know,

Speaker 1 it's difficult. People don't flock to the theater and they don't buy books and they don't watch TV shows that deals with this topic because it is heavy.
But as you guys know,

Speaker 1 we've been trying as best we can for a long time in my little company to shine a light on lots of different ways to deal. with post-traumatic stress.
And this film does it in a very ambitious way.

Speaker 1 I didn't know this guy, Stephen Graham.

Speaker 2 The audience might know him from White Chicks.

Speaker 3 Yes. He got his butt.

Speaker 1 He wound up in a wheelchair because of Terry Cruz, I think.

Speaker 1 In a most unfortunate, yes, hilarious way.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But who knew? He was a screenwriter and a director and the star of this film.

Speaker 1 And who knew this Canadian kid who studied in England cared so deeply about this country and about our military and wanted so very much to create this love letter around an issue that actually matters.

Speaker 1 It's,

Speaker 1 I mean, I hate to say it, but it's a very important film.

Speaker 2 I would agree, and he wouldn't be here if it weren't for U.S. servicemen, and I'll let him tell the story in there.

Speaker 2 But I do want to say about this movie, first of all, that it stuck with me really hard. You know, I called you immediately and said, hey, Ben, this is really something.

Speaker 2 This movie has won 15 awards in the film festival circuits, including Best Actor and Best Screenplay.

Speaker 1 Both of which, you know, he got Stephen Graham did. That's right.
Yeah. He spells his last name funny, and he'll explain why right out of the gate.

Speaker 1 And then we'll have a conversation that I hope you'll share because people ought to see the movie. And they,

Speaker 1 I think,

Speaker 1 look, there are a lot of ways to say thanks and to be grateful and to acknowledge what's happened to a lot of men and women who put on the uniform. It's important to do that.

Speaker 1 But to Chuck's point, it does stick with you. I just watched the film in real time last night.

Speaker 1 If you're listening to this now, it's probably because the film is about to be released in theaters nationwide. My advice is to check it out.
It's thoughtful.

Speaker 1 It's a great use of the word sheepdog, which frankly, I haven't heard enough since the Bugs Bunny Roadrunner hour.

Speaker 2 Well, I just want to say that I believe it will be in limited release in December, and it will be nationally distributed in January.

Speaker 1 Find it. See it.
It's called Sheepdog by Stephen Graham. You'll meet him next.

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Speaker 1 Stephen, are you prepared to be interesting for roughly 90 minutes?

Speaker 3 I hope so, yeah.

Speaker 1 Me too. Hey, thank you for coming.
From where did you come?

Speaker 3 From Western Massachusetts. That's where I'm currently living with my wife and my 13th month old.

Speaker 1 And where you filmed this amazing movie.

Speaker 3 Thank you. Yeah, Sheepdog, yes.
I wanted, we'll get into the film details, but just you bet we will. But just about western Massachusetts and why that was so important.
So my wife's from there.

Speaker 3 She grew up there.

Speaker 3 I grew up a little six hours north of that, just across the Canadian border. And

Speaker 3 I did 21 years in LA. My wife did 10 of those last 21.
It's so funny when people say that.

Speaker 1 It's like, that's the thing. I said when you talk about prison.
Yeah, well,

Speaker 3 I mean, anyone that's lived here that long is like the city underwent a lot of changes, you know, and we were blessed that she got pregnant. And

Speaker 3 like anyone in that situation, you got to make some big decisions. And, you know, it's no longer about yourself.
And, you know,

Speaker 3 so we went back to Western Mass. And

Speaker 3 that's where we currently are. And it's great for so many reasons.

Speaker 1 Let me say, as we get into your film and a whole lot of other things,

Speaker 1 I watched it last night. I so appreciate that you made it.

Speaker 1 I loved watching it most of the time, but I got to be honest, man, there were parts of it, and I'm in this world.

Speaker 1 The combination of grit

Speaker 1 and like unflinching reality around this issue, PTS.

Speaker 1 Do we say the D anymore, or is it just PTS?

Speaker 3 I don't like to say it, but yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's so well acted, and it's so poignant. But there are moments where it's as real as a great dock.

Speaker 1 But before I even got pulled into the story or anything else, I got pulled into Western Mass.

Speaker 1 Those drone shots, or did you use a West Cam? Geez helicopter?

Speaker 3 No, those were drone shots. Yeah, that's

Speaker 3 TJ Millard was our aerial cinematographer. He does all Taylor Sheridan stuff.
He's a veteran. Keep him.
He's just a wonderful human being.

Speaker 1 My compliments because I'm...

Speaker 1 I'm such a stickler for

Speaker 1 place. Yeah.
You know, like in novels and movies, it's sometimes you just get such a sense of the place and you can't do it with exposition and you can't do it with like, you know, monologues.

Speaker 1 You just have to show it and somehow get the, what do they call it? The

Speaker 1 patois. Yeah.
Right?

Speaker 1 And you got it in drone shots. You got it in the interior of that paper mill.

Speaker 3 A real paper mill?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was. And I've been in a few and I looked at that.
Yeah. And, right? And I said out loud, holy shit, that's a real paper mill.
Yeah. Obviously, have closed right and left.

Speaker 1 So I guess the word is verisimilitude.

Speaker 1 And your movie is filled with it. And congrats, man, because I know that was not easy to make and it must have took a long time.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was a 14-year journey to today sitting here in front of you. And I never.

Speaker 1 It all comes to this. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 3 And, you know, and thank you. for allowing it to come to this.

Speaker 3 Yeah, look, you know, I've spent years on the road sitting in front of veterans, and I'll get to the Genesis story, but just speaking about Western Massachusetts, it was imperative that as the storyteller, as the screenwriter, that if I'm holding up the mirror, I have to be authentic, I can't judge the characters, and I have to show the audience the truth.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 Western Massachusetts was perfect because everywhere I had gone across the country, I was going to a lot of small towns, a lot of working class folks, especially those that serve in the military, mental health workers, same thing.

Speaker 3 And I wanted it to reflect that. We were very fortunate just in terms of the paper mill.
That paper mill shut down in 2017.

Speaker 3 My brother-in-law, who worked his butt off there for years, he had a contact and the guy who ran the mill and they let us in there. And

Speaker 3 because it needed to be authentic. It needed to be, I mean, even the pulp, that was real pulp.
You know, that's, it's not even paper. It's actually like cotton rags.

Speaker 1 Why is it important that the detail like that in a film like this?

Speaker 3 Because one

Speaker 3 false note and you're dead.

Speaker 1 And the whole song. Yeah, it's a house of cards.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I knew that. And oftentimes when I'm asked, like, what was the hardest part of the 14-year journey,

Speaker 3 it was getting it right.

Speaker 1 Why do you know that? When did you learn that the devil truly lives in the details?

Speaker 3 Okay, I can answer that probably in two parts.

Speaker 3 When I learned the responsibility of what I was embarking on, it wasn't until I met with the first veteran that I met with in 2011 in McAllen, Texas, George Rice.

Speaker 3 I was idealistic. I set up cameras just like this, and he was very open, and he was lovely, and someone, And then we cut the cameras and broke for lunch.

Speaker 3 That's when he pulled me aside, and he was like, hey, so are you the screenwriter? And I didn't know at the time if I was going to write a screenplay, I was journaling.

Speaker 3 I was just trying to get the story of like understanding what was going on in our country.

Speaker 3 And he began to open up about a military operation that now you've seen the film. My character talks about it.

Speaker 3 In the film, it's loosely inspired by these events.

Speaker 3 But at the end of that conversation, off camera, he took off his immemorium band that had the name of three of his fallen brothers and he held it out to me and he said don't let me down and I remember in that moment I did not want to take the band and he said again don't let me down you have to take the band and I did and I got in the car And I remember my co-star in the film Matt Dallas, he did, you know, he went on the road with me and we sat there in the car in silence and we knew we had bit off more than we can chew.

Speaker 3 We had no background. We had no, there was nothing to equip us but our curiosity and the sense of responsibility that we felt.
But we didn't know what we were doing.

Speaker 3 And we sat there and I remember thinking, well, the easy path right now is to go back to LA and just call it a day and go like, hey, we're not cut out for this.

Speaker 3 Or I take this band and I continue on. And that was the summer of 2011.

Speaker 3 So there was no way to, if you were going to continue onwards through the country, that you could ever,

Speaker 3 there was inauthentic wasn't an option, right? It wasn't. Shooting the movie,

Speaker 3 all I wanted to do was, you know, in telling the truth and telling people's stories,

Speaker 3 hundreds of people that we met with,

Speaker 3 I wanted to do them a service to be like to represent their lives as best as I knew how to.

Speaker 3 That wasn't a glossy Hollywood story or movie. I raised all the production budget, independent financing out of Texas.
I had no studio notes.

Speaker 3 I took a lot of script notes from people I trusted in the veteran community, mental health community.

Speaker 3 But I didn't have anyone trying to, I had no agenda personally, but I didn't have anybody looking over my shoulder with an agenda.

Speaker 1 And that's how other than your soul and your conscience and the incredible weight of the project that you assumed. I want people to understand something.

Speaker 1 I've done,

Speaker 1 I don't know, maybe 14 stories about vets and various organizations that are trying to

Speaker 1 help people like the character you portrayed who are struggling so terribly with this stuff. But I live in a very, very specific kind of TV land where there's no pre-production.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's really no second takes in my world. There's no casting.
There's no

Speaker 1 very, very, very little of that. And so

Speaker 1 I have a certain amount of freedom to move and pivot and zig and zag fast. I can touch things like they're hot

Speaker 1 in relative terms.

Speaker 1 You can't.

Speaker 1 You're in a whole different type of world. So I think it's important for people to understand that

Speaker 1 I get a certain amount of credit for trying to shine a light on this issue, but I can do it quick.

Speaker 1 I don't know that I would have

Speaker 1 bitten off the bite.

Speaker 3 You spit. It was terrifying.

Speaker 1 Dude, it was terrifying. I feel like if I listen carefully, I can hear the echo of your sphincter slamming shut 14 years

Speaker 3 down the road. Echoing

Speaker 1 through the heartland.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Look, I

Speaker 3 was surrounded by good people. I was surrounded by people, Gold Star family members.
You cast them. I did, five of them.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 then I was just, you know, people that, veterans that would check in and make sure everything was okay.

Speaker 3 How many vets in the movie already? 17, 17, yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 why that was important too,

Speaker 3 not just in the storytelling, but through my production company, Team House Studios.

Speaker 3 You know, our mission is to hire and train veterans and Gold Star family members in front of the camera and behind the camera.

Speaker 3 And, you know, what I had learned very quickly was that, and this is not my opinion, this is just from the feedback from vets that have worked on our set,

Speaker 3 was a return to the camaraderie.

Speaker 3 So if you put a group of veterans, say, in an Airbnb and they're sharing a house, when you rap and they go home and they're eating chow together, there's a sense of camaraderie that they miss from the service that they get again, you know.

Speaker 3 A lot of people don't realize this filmmaking, you're working with your hands, you know, and it's a very blue-collar job and it doesn't get glossy and all the Hollywood nonsense until you get to the red carpet.

Speaker 3 But the actual making of the movie, I mean, you're moving sea stands and sandbags. I mean, you know this, right?

Speaker 1 You were doing it up and down sewers.

Speaker 3 And then the hours are wild, right? So just to touch on what you've been doing in your work, too, because this is a good, this tethers very well to why that is the mission of the production company.

Speaker 3 Veterans show up on time. They'll stay late.
As you've said in your own words, they'll tuck in their shirt. They don't whine, right?

Speaker 3 And I don't want to like ever blanket statement something, but I say this with so much honor and pride. That's only been my experience.

Speaker 1 They want the ball. It's the top of the ninth.
The bases are loaded. Yep.
Give me the ball.

Speaker 3 Yep.

Speaker 1 Yep. So yeah, I don't, you know,

Speaker 1 that's a quality. to search for.
Yeah. And it's easier to find in the cohort you're describing.
Yeah. For sure.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And And so many other things, you know, that it's all, I think you're talking about soft skills. Yeah.
Basically, you know. And yeah,

Speaker 1 it's hard to even talk about that in the real world, certainly in a traditional HR department, in a traditional company. You know, let's sit down and talk about how to train your employees to behave.

Speaker 1 Good luck. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I think it's interesting because for me, out in Western Massachusetts, there's a technical school.
It's Franklin County Technical.

Speaker 3 And my wife has childhood friends that went there. And again, I don't want to generalize here, but I'm just saying they're all flourishing.
They work very hard.

Speaker 3 From what I understand, they're all happy. And, you know, they have their sense of purpose out there.
Many of them are like family to me.

Speaker 3 That's been like, think about that shift from Los Angeles to to being in that kind of environment. And it's been very healthy for me having someone.

Speaker 3 Yeah, especially being someone who grew up you know on my grandparents fruit farm like it's been really good for me what kind of fruit

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Speaker 1 Okay, grapes.

Speaker 3 Strawberries are probably the hardest to pick because you're bent over and

Speaker 1 apples,

Speaker 3 cherries.

Speaker 3 And then there was in the early days a little bit of livestock just for milk and so on. But I remember going with my grandmother.

Speaker 3 My mom's parents are Polish immigrants. And

Speaker 3 we would go to the market with whatever we picked, you know, to sell it. And

Speaker 3 that's how I spent most of my summers if I wasn't playing baseball.

Speaker 1 Why is your last name spelled so funny?

Speaker 3 You know, it's a long story,

Speaker 3 which I actually haven't told.

Speaker 3 So here we go. Okay.

Speaker 3 You can't have two names in the union.

Speaker 1 In the Screen Actors Guild. That's correct.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I remember, you know, my early manager

Speaker 3 at the time, my agent was like, oh, you might have to change your name and everything. And

Speaker 3 I didn't want to change. I'd heard stories that Leo DiCaprio, he had a manager that said, change your name to Lenny Williams.
Your name is too ethnic or something.

Speaker 3 And yeah, and it's just so ridiculous. Thank God he didn't.

Speaker 1 Hey, Chuck used to be called Brad Pitt once upon a time.

Speaker 3 It didn't work out.

Speaker 1 It didn't stick.

Speaker 3 And so I didn't, I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my parents. I'm like, I don't want to change my name.
Do I go with my middle name?

Speaker 3 And my mom was like drawing out letters letters and whatever. And she,

Speaker 3 with me at the table, said, okay, there you go. And that's it.
And I never looked back.

Speaker 1 She just grammed. You basically, you're just playing Wheel of Fortune with that.
But that's those are the mom. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 that's, you know, what they had asked that I had to do or whatever. But I, look, I wasn't going to go with, you know, Stephen Sweetwater or something like that.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 Like, are you joking?

Speaker 1 You mean the Western Massachusetts Sweetwaters? Yeah. Yeah.
I read read about you guys.

Speaker 3 So, yeah, that's just one of the things.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's funny because, you know, I read in Harrison Ford's biography that at the time he was joining the union, there was already a Harry Ford or a Harrison Ford, and he was going to have to change his name.

Speaker 3 And I believe it was, don't quote me, but it might have been like a jazz musician or something. And on the day he was going to change his name,

Speaker 3 the gentleman, may he rest in peace, I don't know who he is, passed away and he got to keep his name. Well, there you go.
And it could have been, you know, something very good.

Speaker 3 Charlie Ford stars in Frank. Yeah, Return of the Jedi.

Speaker 1 Is Han Solo. Yeah.
No, I had a heck of a time with a guy named Mike Rowe who had bought micro.com years ago, and he didn't do anything with it. He just held it.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I learned later that he basically bought the thing like in season three of Dirty Jobs.

Speaker 1 Oh, no. Yeah.
He watched a show and he's like, you know what? I think this son of a bitch is going to do something with his life.

Speaker 1 And he bought it because it was his name too and we eventually reached out say hey look if you're not using it can I sure can I buy it from you yeah and you know what he simply asked for too much

Speaker 1 and so I passed yeah and then he passed and then I think you got it you're like got it yeah what is the moral of this story of both of these well I think One moral is patience. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, it's very Shakespearean, what's in a name. Right.
Right. You know, it just seems like,

Speaker 1 but it's also really, I mean, we hear these stories, but I'm always fascinated by them because,

Speaker 1 like, I wonder if I'd be sitting here talking to you today had

Speaker 1 my name been Zach, which it was for 24 hours, apparently. But my mom had second thoughts.
And so, you know, does Stephen Graham, by a different spelling, wind up taking a different road?

Speaker 1 Or if Stephen becomes Simon or Sven?

Speaker 3 Yeah. No, no, it's funny that you say that because it definitely

Speaker 3 at the time, it was because I booked a gig, right? So you have to make that decision there, you're joining the union. Yeah.

Speaker 3 At the time I was in university, it was in my second year, and I was pretty sure I was going to go pre-med and I was pretty sure I,

Speaker 3 I don't know, maybe I wasn't going to do that. Right.

Speaker 3 And so I think it definitely, oddly, if we're talking about consonants and a last name, it definitely, whatever reason, defined a different path. Because I went all in.
I went all in.

Speaker 3 To my parents' devastation, I

Speaker 3 was very expensive. I was on an academic scholarship, but it didn't cover all of it.
I was staring down the barrel of tens of thousands of dollars. Sure.
And

Speaker 3 I jumped ship. I was like, I'll just, you know, and I moved to Vancouver, Canada at the time.

Speaker 3 To act. To act, right.
But I had, I have to say, I did train classically. I had studied at the Royal Academy in England and everything.
So this all was in that year of dropping out.

Speaker 3 And I moved to Vancouver, Canada, and I was very fortunate to work right away. And it was, I moved to Vancouver.
I didn't know a soul. So you're kind of redefining yourself, but you're still yourself.

Speaker 3 Like I never, I felt more me

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 there was no guardrails or there was no training wheels. It was all in.
And I was very fortunate. And then within those, gosh, I don't know, two or three years,

Speaker 3 I booked work. I was able, and that's when I moved to Los Angeles, and then there was no looking back.

Speaker 1 It is interesting if you think about what happens when you change your geography. Yeah.
Right. And we started with geography, but it really

Speaker 1 influences your surroundings have an undeniable influence on who you become. I think your name.

Speaker 1 also has an influence on your identity. And to be forced or at least asked at the

Speaker 1 tip of a sword to change it if you want the gig.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like it's one more example of, all right, I am transforming in a lot of different ways. Your movie is about identity.
It's about transforming.

Speaker 1 It's about what happens to a guy who goes in to hell with a band of brothers and comes out different.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 what's he do? He can't fix his problem. The character you play, Cole.
Calvin Cole, yeah. Calvin Cole.
Sergeant Cole, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he can't fix his problems by buying a vowel or juxtaposing some letters. And he can't fix his problems by moving to a new town.
His problems, you know, are up there in the undiscovered.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I think it was really important to me in the storytelling to

Speaker 3 like, Calvin is not broken. There might be fragments, but he is not broken, and he does not feel sorry for himself, you know, and I think that

Speaker 3 you know if I share with you now the genesis of how I got to doing the research and why I'd love to tell you because that really connects to the character that I thought was important to play.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 3 beginning of 2011, speaking of Vancouver, I'm shooting up there, but I'm now I'm living in LA.

Speaker 3 I shoot a film up there, I rap on it, and I drove through the night as I typically would do when I would go up to Canada. Three hours north of the city, my car breaks down.

Speaker 1 North of LA? LA.

Speaker 3 And I call AAA and they send the local tow guy out. And

Speaker 3 so this guy shows up and he was like, oh, we're driving all the way into LA.

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 3 And he's like, all right, well, saddle up, partner. We got a long ride in there.
I'm exhausted because I've been driving through the night. So I'm kind of nodding off, you know, falling asleep.

Speaker 3 And he just started to to open up to me and he started to talk about the challenges of his marriage, of being the father of three, his financial hardship.

Speaker 3 And then he began to open up about all of the medications that he was on

Speaker 3 for his post-traumatic stress from his military service, multiple deployments. I don't think I said three words on that drive.
I just listened. And I remember throughout this

Speaker 3 you know, one-sided conversation

Speaker 3 that he kept saying to me, I can't believe I'm telling you this. I've never told my wife.
I can't believe I'm telling you this. I haven't even told a therapist this, and so on.

Speaker 3 We get back to Los Angeles. I thank him for getting me home safe.
Give him a hug. I'm like, brother, if you ever need anything, I'm here.
You ever want to grab a beer?

Speaker 3 And I looked into his eyes, and I was certain that there was comfort for him to never see me again.

Speaker 3 And I was like, all right, you know,

Speaker 3 I couldn't stop thinking about him that week. And I was like, how could a guy who served his country

Speaker 3 feel this alone and disconnected from his family, his community, from his country?

Speaker 1 And just so I'm clear, in spite of this connection, you see in his eyes a look of relief that he doesn't have to see you again.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that there was something that was just cathartic. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Well, maybe because now you're walking around with his secrets.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I mean,

Speaker 1 it's one thing to unburden yourself. It's another thing to run into the person

Speaker 1 that you've unburdened.

Speaker 3 That's correct. And I think that that speaks to what it was that, like, having shared that with somebody maybe in his direct circle, that he would have felt judged or I don't know.

Speaker 3 But I do know that that lit the spark. And it wasn't just a sense of curiosity.
It felt like a sense of responsibility.

Speaker 3 So a month later, I'm on the Paramount Ranch shooting a Western with Matt Dallas, who became my co-star in the film. And I said to him, hey, man, I had this experience, and I tell him all about it.

Speaker 3 And I said, I've been journaling ever since, and there's got to be more men and women like him. And I feel compelled.
I got to go out on the road and find out.

Speaker 3 If this becomes anything more than just journaling in a screenplay, I think you should play my best friend.

Speaker 3 And the reason I said that to him was because a week earlier during filming, Matt had shared a very personal story with me. And I'll never forget

Speaker 3 as he was describing the pain of the personal story, he smiled through it like the tow truck driver in some ways. And I was like, so that's where that came story-wise.

Speaker 3 Matt agreed to go on the road with me that summer to see it for himself.

Speaker 3 And as I told you the story with Staff Sergeant George Rice, once he handed me that in Memoriam band, there was no looking back. And 13 years, 14 years later, here we are.

Speaker 1 But you know that, I mean, there's nothing intrinsically or inherently magical about that band.

Speaker 1 It was the meaning you consciously or unconsciously assigned to it. So the question is,

Speaker 1 you know, I mean, I get your road to Damascus.

Speaker 1 You had a moment.

Speaker 1 But still,

Speaker 1 Canadian?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'm dual citizen. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Studied in England. Yep.

Speaker 1 Why do you give a damn about the trials and tribulations of the people who fought for this country.

Speaker 3 Because I wouldn't be here.

Speaker 3 My grandfather was a POW for five years during World War II and he was tortured.

Speaker 3 I grew up with him sleeping on the bottom bunk to his stories at night in his broken English about what happened to him.

Speaker 3 He can just at that time he described in my childhood mind as I remember it anyway literally a scene of American and allied troops coming over the horizon to liberate them from these labor camps that was my dog in the fight if they hadn't have been he wouldn't have got to North America I wouldn't be here that's part one part two

Speaker 3 when Operation Iraqi Freedom first happened I remember sitting on the freeway and hearing the news of 48 hours, I believe it was,

Speaker 3 for Saddam Hussein to get out of the country. And I remember I had auditions all that week,

Speaker 3 and the first casualties began to come in. And this was at the advent, I think, of like internet updates, like Yahoo internet updates or whatever.
And the first American casualties began to come in.

Speaker 3 And for whatever, like,

Speaker 3 I couldn't focus. I was so...

Speaker 3 I just couldn't believe we were sort of living through this, right? And you see the faces of the fallen or whatever.

Speaker 3 And I basically

Speaker 3 for those following weeks I called off any appointments I had or anything and I was just trying to work through it I don't know why Mike I don't but I I just my empathy

Speaker 3 and then all those years later you know because I had read books on it I had you know studied

Speaker 3 you know I'd read Generation Kill. I had read books like on combat, on killing, just out of fascination and so on.

Speaker 3 But it wasn't until that personal

Speaker 3 sort of seminal moment with a tow truck driver where I was like, okay,

Speaker 3 this has to be a calling. And I was willing to accept that if it wasn't, I could have made that decision once I was out on the road.

Speaker 1 Dumb.

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Speaker 3 And I have to say, like, the research didn't stop there. I was very fortunate.
The Detroit VA Medical Center,

Speaker 3 that first summer, I was able to build their trust. They allowed me in there to role play with their doctors, their therapists, their neurologists, neuropsychologists.

Speaker 3 That informed so much of the film. It informed Virginia Madsen's character who plays my trauma therapist.
It's terrific, by the way. I also, yeah,

Speaker 3 she's just incredible. And then I also did Honor Flight out of Austin.
That's where you take veterans, as you know, to their respective memorials in D.C.

Speaker 3 So Vietnam veterans and World War II veterans that I had the great fortune do multiple times. Most of Von D.
Curtis-Hall's dialogue was informed directly. I didn't invent that.

Speaker 3 That stuff I heard down at the bar with my respective veteran that that I was with or with the group over whiskey.

Speaker 1 You're putting words in actors' mouths that you had heard in real life or that are coming out of a transcript?

Speaker 3 No, that are in real life. So like, so here's the thing.
I'll give you an example.

Speaker 3 At the end of Honor Flight, they do your coming home, okay?

Speaker 3 And again, I want to be really careful because I don't want to blanket statement things, but I'm just giving you my own personal experience of what it was for me.

Speaker 3 So you get your coming home.

Speaker 3 As you get off the plane back in Austin, they announce over the PA, hey, everybody, we have national treasures that are going to be walking through or in their wheelchairs through, all standing ovation.

Speaker 3 And it's

Speaker 3 unbelievable. You get chills all the way up your neck.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 3 some Vietnam veterans, certainly mine that I was chaperoning, had no interest.

Speaker 3 And I'll never forget that on one particular occasion, he turned to me, my guy,

Speaker 3 and he said, I don't need this.

Speaker 3 We were spat on when we came home. We had to exit out the back.
Your medals are in the mail.

Speaker 1 That's in the movie. That's right.
You spit in the movie. Somebody says, thanks for your service at a bar and walks away and you basically repeat it.

Speaker 1 Like you spit the words out as you say.

Speaker 3 Because in my experience, look, I know that civilians oftentimes don't know how to thank veterans.

Speaker 1 They mean well.

Speaker 3 Of course, they just don't. And I often say to vets that I know, look, it takes a lot of courage to come up to a stranger and go, hey, thank you for your service.
So just understand that side of it.

Speaker 3 But most veterans in my experience said, well, don't give me some hollow gesture. Just ask me how I'm doing.

Speaker 3 And so I felt like... That's why my character reacts that way because I had just seen it so much.
Where if I was out with a group of veterans and, you know,

Speaker 3 civilians come up and like, oh, you know, thank you for your service and whatever, and it always felt empty and hollow.

Speaker 3 And I thought that that was fair to share.

Speaker 3 Asking, how are you doing

Speaker 3 and really meaning it goes a long way.

Speaker 3 Goes a really long way.

Speaker 1 I wonder sometimes, I've talked to a lot of vets about this too, and

Speaker 1 one guy

Speaker 1 said,

Speaker 1 My question was:

Speaker 1 why is that expression of gratitude so often taken or mistaken for something else? And he said,

Speaker 1 it's because I really don't need to hear a tacit admission of guilt from someone I've never met.

Speaker 1 And the truth is, if I'm being brutally honest, I didn't really do it for you.

Speaker 1 I did it for the

Speaker 1 ephemeral you,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 most people enlist for very personal reasons, even if they're patriotic reasons, they're personal.

Speaker 1 In the same way, I think that when it gets down to the short strokes, it's not about the chain of command.

Speaker 1 It's not about your family at home. It's about

Speaker 1 the guy next to you.

Speaker 3 Absolutely.

Speaker 1 And so that is what I think you were talking about earlier.

Speaker 1 When you find that Band of Brothers mentality, maybe it's in a paper mill in a movie.

Speaker 1 Maybe it's in a sewer in a reality show.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that's part of the thing I think that I'll generalize and say men, women too, but mostly men are

Speaker 1 starving

Speaker 1 for

Speaker 1 that kind of connection. And so when we see that connection made real in films and we see it depicted on the battlefield, you know, that I don't think that's a lie.

Speaker 1 I think it's a portrayal, but I think it's real. And then when you break that and then throw those guys back into polite society with no reverse boot camp to help them sort it out, that's a problem.

Speaker 3 I think too, though, is that the older generation of warrior,

Speaker 3 you know, the VFW and the American Legion are very popular

Speaker 3 at one point, but I've walked into VFWs and American Legions all over the country. And I'll see different generations of veterans, but predominantly older.

Speaker 3 And I think in the advent of social media, oftentimes it's like you're part of like a Facebook Facebook group maybe so you're still like you're connected but you're not right you're you know like you're you're especially if you're out in a rural area

Speaker 3 you know some vets don't want to go to the VFW if they think oh that's for the old timer having the cheap beer right I've heard that

Speaker 3 but I always argue to that but it's so important to it doesn't have to be about that and it's so important to connect with if you're having trouble connecting with civilians it's so important to connect with those

Speaker 3 that might have walked a mile in your shoes, just different conflict. I saw that a lot on Honor Flight.

Speaker 3 I saw when the vets, it was a younger generation that were, and I'm laughing because I think of like some of the

Speaker 3 Some of the conversations between the younger and older generation vets, and they just get on each other, and it's sometimes going to be hilarious. But it's so healthy.

Speaker 3 And then you have this incredibly communal experience, whether you're at the Vietnam Wall, very sobering, or at the World War II Museum, or not museum, at Memorial. At the Monument, yeah.

Speaker 3 At the Monument. And

Speaker 3 then that night, if you're so lucky, you get to have a couple of whiskeys together. And there's just something,

Speaker 3 it's like a sweat lodge. There's just something in that.
And then to be a civilian who didn't serve and to be able to be invited into that,

Speaker 3 it's life-changing.

Speaker 1 It heartens me to hear you say it. I agree violently.

Speaker 1 It's not just something. It's something eternal.
Man, how much fun did we have in VFW halls growing up? A lot of fun.

Speaker 1 A lot of fun. And precisely because it was populated

Speaker 1 with a generation that was distant from us and yet

Speaker 1 available to us.

Speaker 1 And these were men who sang the old songs and four-part harmony and who ate their peanuts and drank their national bohemian and would sit you down and would tell you a story, like a real story about foxholes and grenades and uncommon valor, you know, and then pause to sing a song.

Speaker 1 And that

Speaker 1 was communal. And I'll tell you, man,

Speaker 1 it's funny. I did a movie a couple years ago and filmed a scene at the World War II Memorial.

Speaker 1 I was just doing a stand-up, basically, and an honor flight came in.

Speaker 1 It was totally unplanned. And I called the crew over because there was an old man in a wheelchair who knew me, had seen me on the TV.
Turns out he grew up like a mile from my parents.

Speaker 1 And he and my dad were in Korea at the same time.

Speaker 1 And suddenly I'm just squatting there. Crew comes over and we film this moment.

Speaker 1 And so that this kind of goes to my earlier point, and I don't know if it's even worth making again, but these moments that you're describing,

Speaker 1 they occur in real life, and your job is to somehow make them believable on screen.

Speaker 1 My job too, smaller screen.

Speaker 1 But the moral of my story is the...

Speaker 1 The moments that we used to promote that project were the moments I had with that old man that were completely unscripted, unanticipated,

Speaker 1 and utterly real. That's what I meant before when I said,

Speaker 1 I think I have an unfair advantage. Like, we're both trying to do the same thing, but to be able to grab that moment

Speaker 1 and put that on screens to promote the project is a gift.

Speaker 3 It was Sheepdog was lightning in a bottle. Yeah.
I really mean that, and I'll tell you why.

Speaker 1 Who's the sheepdog, by the way? I still can't figure it out.

Speaker 3 That's for you to determine, but there could be multiple sheepdogs. What I did with the story was take David Grossman's

Speaker 3 from On Combat, take, it was a metaphor that a Vietnam veteran said in his book.

Speaker 3 I didn't want to make it sort of the literal sense of as we know sheepdogs in our society, those that are law-abiding citizens that are comfortable with violence if need be, the wolf being, you know, somebody who would commit a violent act that's immoral,

Speaker 3 and then the sheep being the general populace.

Speaker 3 I wanted to take it further and make make it more of a metaphor for our story's sake of the wolf at your door

Speaker 3 because

Speaker 3 I'm not showing you war scenes in the film, right? No, I'm showing you the war of the soul. And that's what I saw, because I've never walked on a battlefield and that's what I saw.

Speaker 3 But I do want to say that like what informed so much of so much of that writing and how it sort of came to be that was I felt and why we pick up in the story 10 years after his first deployment.

Speaker 3 I hadn't seen that film for my generation. I hadn't.
I'd seen Coming Home. I'd seen The Deer Hunter, that sort of thing.
American Sniper?

Speaker 3 He's back. It's only a few years.
I'm going like, if you were to pick up 10 years after that, right?

Speaker 3 Because I felt like

Speaker 3 in some ways, that's where a lot of my research began. Like, I think guys that I was sitting in front of, men and women, were only out two, three years in the beginning.
And then I remained friends

Speaker 3 and I would follow their lives to see, like, where are they ending up and all that.

Speaker 3 And as it took longer to get the film made, and if I was going to play the part, I got older, the characters got older, and it became more interesting to me.

Speaker 3 It just took on something in its own light. But I do want to say this about it being lightning in a bottle.
And I appreciate you talking about the authenticity of the performances.

Speaker 3 The independent filmmaking,

Speaker 3 you have no money to throw at any problem.

Speaker 1 Zero. Zero point.
Right, zero. Right.

Speaker 3 I had to trust that the research I did in my screenplay and the words on the page were enough.

Speaker 3 So there was never a moment on set where I ever went over into the corner going, gosh, what would Calvin do in this moment?

Speaker 3 It was just pure instinct. I would typically do two takes, like Clinice would style.
The last person I would typically speak to was my cinematographer, Evans Brown, who is like Gandalf.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he would have this calming voice. I had already mapped out the camera movements and everything, and we rehearsed.
And then I would step in front of the camera, and that's what came out.

Speaker 3 And so I was never overthought. And that was also very similar to my entire cast.

Speaker 1 Had you directed before?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I directed music videos and stuff, like just nothing like, you know, and I directed a,

Speaker 3 you know, a kid's sort of like

Speaker 3 not like this.

Speaker 1 Free children film.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, no, no, but nothing, nothing like this, not a serious drama. And

Speaker 3 so, no, this was like a foray for sure. And

Speaker 3 I can't tell you how many times over the years that people said to me, and we were laughed at of Hollywood offices, right? And that's why, partly why it took so many years. And I understood it.

Speaker 3 Like, nobody saw it. And they they certainly didn't see me on the poster.

Speaker 3 And I had gotten to a place where this is not a vanity project.

Speaker 3 But what I did know was that the work that I was going to do as the actor and the researcher and the writer, typically in LA and Hollywood, you're lucky to get 30 days before you're rolling, before you're on camera.

Speaker 3 When you hear about, you know,

Speaker 3 Daniel Day-Lewis getting a year to prep for Abe Lincoln. Well, that was something he worked out with Spielberg, who wasn't happy about that, by the way.

Speaker 1 No, that's luxurious.

Speaker 3 Right. So my concern was I didn't want someone stepping into it who was just going to give their version of what they thought it was.
I wanted to give my version of what I knew it was.

Speaker 3 And that was the difference. And that's how I ended up there.

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Speaker 1 Chuck, can you find the poster for the film? I want to look at some of it. Something to stand for? Oh, for this one? No, no, no, this one for sweet dog.
It's not all about me all the time, anyway.

Speaker 1 Are you sure? I'm sure. Okay.
Yeah, you know what? You're right. Bring up my movie.
I'm sorry about that.

Speaker 1 No, I want to.

Speaker 3 I don't know that I have the poster, but this is the website, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm looking for the reviews.
Oh, yeah. So,

Speaker 3 yeah, if you go down,

Speaker 3 yeah, we can see that.

Speaker 1 I'm not going to make you read these. No, but there's a couple.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's a couple there. Yeah, this,

Speaker 3 yeah, Joe Neumeier. We were, I was floored.

Speaker 1 A thoughtful, engaging, beautifully acted drama that can stand tall in the company of such giants as Coming Home, American Sniper, and The Messenger. Holy crap, dude.
Real, raw, powerful.

Speaker 1 Scroll up a little, Chuck, because there's more. Oh, you mean this way? No.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's a couple at the top.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there you go. Oh, there's.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, dude, this one of the best films of the year, a rare, perfect film.
Oh,

Speaker 1 I mean, come on.

Speaker 1 That's got to make you blush.

Speaker 1 I mean, in places where you don't know.

Speaker 3 I really mean this, like, because even at the awards that we won on the Film Festival Circuit, like,

Speaker 3 because right now I'm feeling a little shaky just talking about this.

Speaker 1 This is almost gross. I don't blame you.
This is ridiculous. These are these love letters.
Look at the two of you there.

Speaker 3 Every time that we've ever won an award, we're typically shocked. And I say that because there's a machine out there.

Speaker 3 And I know you know this. You've been in the business a long time.
And just to lighten things up a little bit, because I'm going to tell you.

Speaker 3 So we went to the Beverly Hills Film Festival. It was one of the, we were very fortunate.
We screened there. Tons of veterans came out.
We were sold out, 250-seat theater.

Speaker 3 I had first responders, Vietnam veterans. Like we had already, that night, we won the night.
It was emotional. The impact was great.

Speaker 3 The next day is the award ceremony so i show up with matt dallas you know it's at the uh beverly hilton you know where they do the globes and uh you know we show up and and our table is at the very back corner literally beside the bus stand

Speaker 3 you had to there's a there was a railing i took photos because i was like my mom won't believe this if i and my wife won't believe it there was a railing we had to go underneath the railing on the way to the bathroom bus stand that's fantastic to get to it and i said to matt enjoy the champagne we're not going to win anything tonight.

Speaker 3 I said,

Speaker 1 they never would have put us here. Sure.
And they're serving as MREs. This is right, right?

Speaker 3 So it's just like, you know, glamorous thing. And, you know, the whole thing, everybody's black tie, whatever.
And we're just there, just trying to take in the moment.

Speaker 3 You know, we had a great night again the night before. We already felt like we had won.
And they call my name for breast screenplay.

Speaker 3 And I was like, it was that moment of like, was it that they say me? And Matt's like, you got to get up there, go, go.

Speaker 3 So I get up there, and you're like on a jumbotron, you know, on each side and you're like, and you got to understand for where I'm coming from and everything I've been through on this project, that couldn't be more wildly far from anything that you did.

Speaker 1 That's why you did it.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 3 So you're up there and I had nothing prepared. I just, you know, speak from as you wouldn't, you know, and I just spoke from my heart.
And then

Speaker 3 a few awards later, they call best actor. And again, I'm like, this has got to, there's this,

Speaker 3 I feel like I'm being punked. So I go up there.

Speaker 1 So it's you.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And I, but

Speaker 3 best screenwriter, best actor. And I was so nervous up there.
I even bumped the microphone with my chin. I'm like, oh, sorry, to the, you know, MC and everything.

Speaker 3 And let me tell you, full circle moment.

Speaker 3 We're at the after party. And wait a minute.

Speaker 1 No best director?

Speaker 3 They got to spread those awards out.

Speaker 1 They got to spread those awards out.

Speaker 3 You can't be greedy. Hey, we were the only film that took two awards home that night.

Speaker 1 And did like, did you have to climb over the railing to get it? We did.

Speaker 3 You know, I'm not joking.

Speaker 1 I had it like this, and I had one arm, and I put it on the table.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 if anyone out there doesn't believe me, I'll have to release footage of it.

Speaker 1 But look. I want to see that.
That's just

Speaker 3 a, but, but you know what, though? For us, we had such a good laugh about it.

Speaker 3 And then at the after party, you know, I have a young child and I said to Matt, you know, I, I, I got to get home to my wife and I'm just really tired and everything, but we'll say thank you to everybody and then I got to go.

Speaker 1 I'm sure you understand how Hollywood works.

Speaker 3 Right. I know, but I just just like, I don't, I get,

Speaker 3 I was never, look, I ran a moving company while people like, I didn't go to the Hollywood Hills parties and stuff like that.

Speaker 3 I was always focused on the work, but I will tell you, I'm standing there with the awards. Matt's gone to the bar to get a beer.
And

Speaker 3 the C's part and who walks towards me, it looks like John Voigt, but I've worked with John. It's not John.

Speaker 3 And the guy's like a foot shorter. And I'm like, why do I know? And he said, hey, how are you? I just want to say I was really moved by your speech.

Speaker 3 You know, in my career, I had the good fortune to do a film that dealt with our Vietnam veterans. And just in that moment, I'm like, Mr.
Savage, John Savage.

Speaker 1 Good grief.

Speaker 1 You're under John Savage?

Speaker 3 Yes. And I'm like floating above my body.
I'm like, put down the awards. Matt, Matt, like Matt Dallas, get over here.

Speaker 1 Don't worry about the beer. Get over here.
Right.

Speaker 3 He comes over

Speaker 3 and

Speaker 3 we had this great moment together and

Speaker 3 and I said to him, you have to understand how surreal this is for us because we've watched that film so many times.

Speaker 1 It's his film in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 I said to Matt Dallas

Speaker 3 when I wanted him to first watch that film over a decade ago, I said if we can have the same humanity in our characters as John Savage has,

Speaker 3 we'll be in good shape. We'll be in good shape.
And I was able to tell that to him to his face. And it was emotional.
I was like, that's it. Anything that happens now,

Speaker 3 we don't have the money for the Hollywood machine to spend $50,000 in LA Times articles and variety and all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 We don't have that.

Speaker 3 I just hope that we're the people's movie. And that's all we can be.

Speaker 3 I just hope that the men and women that we set out to represent, the Gold Star families, the first responders, their families that have committed their lives to service and sacrifice, that's all I care about.

Speaker 3 And if we've done them solid, solid, then we're going to be okay.

Speaker 1 Well, look, you've done them solid, for sure, but you've made a movie that

Speaker 1 can't be watched casually.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean? It's like you don't put it on in the background, look up every now and then and see what's going on.

Speaker 1 You need to sit down and you take a deep breath. Take this for what it's worth because people...
People will watch with different agendas, and I think maybe for different reasons.

Speaker 1 I would have watched it, Well, I mean, you were coming in, so of course I'm going to watch it, but like out in the real world,

Speaker 1 I'm not sure what I would have done, Stephen, to be honest with you, because

Speaker 1 I've spent a lot of time in the space, and it always leaves me feeling like a giant pair of hands came down from the sky and just like wrung me out.

Speaker 1 And then just like said, okay, now

Speaker 1 you think about all that. Count your blessings, you selfish bastard, right? Yeah.
I mean, And so

Speaker 1 the movie is both a love letter

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 the people it portrays, but it's also a challenge to the rest of us. And by the way, let's go there because the rest of us includes me and you.

Speaker 1 And I'll ask you a question I get all the time, and forgive me.

Speaker 1 Did you have an imposter syndrome going on ever? Did you ever feel?

Speaker 3 Not when we were filming because I didn't have time to think about that.

Speaker 3 Because you didn't serve. And I didn't didn't.
That's right. That's right.
Yeah. And I did, I think in the beginning.

Speaker 1 And you surrounded yourself with people who did.

Speaker 3 Yes. But I think that, like,

Speaker 3 like, look, the performance is as good as it is because I didn't overthink it. I, my North Star were

Speaker 3 the stories that both uplifted me, but for years haunted me. in my own nightmares.
That was it. It was that simple.
When I gave that monologue to Virginia Madsen about the sheep pen,

Speaker 3 that was one take.

Speaker 3 I had met with all the guys in that unit that had loosely inspired, many of the guys that had were in that unit that had inspired that story. There was never, I mean, when I delivered it, I saw it.

Speaker 3 I saw it all because I had heard so many different

Speaker 3 perspectives of how that all went down. And then, of course, the time I spent with Brad Link in Pittsburgh, where in 2011 I went and lived with him.

Speaker 3 I stayed in his sister's attic and I thought it was only going to be a day or two with him.

Speaker 3 I ended up staying with him for a month and he used couch cushions as military homes to like explain this particular operation.

Speaker 3 And there's just certain things that stick with you when he talks about the crack in the sheep pen wall and how ominous it was.

Speaker 3 So those things for years had haunted me.

Speaker 1 So a two-foot crack.

Speaker 3 A two-foot crack in the wall that when he walked by it, he had this awful feeling. And it wasn't anything else but that.
And I started to see that in my own nightmares.

Speaker 3 And amongst all the other stories over the, you know, the years that have been shared with me. But I think that when you talk about imposter syndrome, look, it's a heavy lift.
It was terrifying.

Speaker 3 It's still terrifying. You can read all the quotes and awards and everything,

Speaker 3 but it's not out there yet. to the public.
The response has been incredible from the veteran community on the Film Festival Circuit

Speaker 1 all over the country.

Speaker 3 But it's a heavy lift. And I know, like, just talking tonally about the film,

Speaker 3 there are parts that are very heavy. But I had to go to that place

Speaker 3 because in honoring the stories of those that were shared with me, I wasn't going to get into some of the movies that have been made in the genre that get into, for lack of a better term, blood and guts and so on.

Speaker 3 But I really had to go into the quiet spaces of trauma. It's not necessarily what's said, it's what's not said.

Speaker 1 And I had to go there.

Speaker 3 That's what not only what I saw, but if you're going to sit there and relate to something,

Speaker 3 I felt that that was my duty. So at these film festivals, we do a Q ⁇ A typically.
When you have Vietnam veterans that stand up, summon tears and say, you eff and nailed it.

Speaker 3 And that's all they want to say, and they sit back down.

Speaker 3 When you have an OIF or an OAF that come up to you and hug you in tears or say in front of a full auditorium of people, I finally have a film to show my family why I am the way I am, but why they are the way they are.

Speaker 3 And then say, I wish I could show this to my ex-wife.

Speaker 3 You know? And so like,

Speaker 3 it goes the full gamut, no question. But I hope the takeaway for folks when they see it is a few things.
It's not a post-traumatic stress movie. It's a post-traumatic growth movie.

Speaker 3 You don't have to do it alone.

Speaker 3 You don't have to do it alone. But you have to do the work.
You have to do the work.

Speaker 1 No shortcuts.

Speaker 3 I don't want to sound pompous, but just in what I saw, there isn't a shortcut.

Speaker 3 And I promise you, and I'll try not to be emotional about this, but I promise you. If you do the work, if you do the work, there is light at the end of that tunnel.
I promise you, I've seen it.

Speaker 3 I've seen it firsthand.

Speaker 1 And it's a worthy path.

Speaker 3 It's a worthy journey. And that's all I hope that people get out of it by the end.
And if you're a civilian, the call of action is to be more connected in your community. Go up.

Speaker 3 If you have a veteran that lives on your street, how are you today? It's that simple, you know? And I think that... That's our duty, I think, as civilians.

Speaker 3 And I'm hoping that the film, at the very least,

Speaker 3 I think if we can save a single life with the film, it'll be the greatest Hollywood success story.

Speaker 3 But if we can at least build the bridge with that gap between the civilian and the military and the veteran community,

Speaker 3 I think we've done our job.

Speaker 1 I'd bet my own life that this movie will save lives.

Speaker 1 I really would. And I'll tell you something else.

Speaker 1 Two other men have sat where you're sitting. One you know for sure, Gary Sinise.
Of course. And Gary said something very similar.
And of course, he uses music

Speaker 1 the way you're using your film. It is a bridge.
It's a reason.

Speaker 1 It's a connector.

Speaker 1 The other one is Scott Mann. You know Scott?

Speaker 3 I don't know personally, no.

Speaker 1 Scott wrote the book about Pineapple Express. Yeah, Pineapple Express, right, about getting out of Afghanistan.
Yes.

Speaker 1 He did this basically. Oh, my God.
The story's amazing. But he managed it from Florida, I believe, where he was living.
And he's getting calls, and everything has gone to hell at Abbey Gate.

Speaker 1 And it's just,

Speaker 1 so he did that,

Speaker 1 but it still wasn't enough. This is Green Beret who...
Saw all the things and did all the things and now he's home and now this happens and now today What is he doing? He's building bridges.

Speaker 1 He's writing books.

Speaker 1 So you got books, you've got music, you've got film. You have an artistic community who's trying

Speaker 1 as best they can to use the

Speaker 1 clay on their potter's wheel.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And then you've got all the citizens. And then, of course, you've got the cohort with whom we're most concerned.

Speaker 1 How bad is it? Like, what's your latest understanding of the stats? 17 a day, 20 a day?

Speaker 3 So when I started out on the journey, the report came out, I think, in 2012.

Speaker 3 So in 13, 2013, they reported 22 a day. And,

Speaker 3 you know, that's an interesting thing, too, because

Speaker 3 at the time, I was trying to get people to care as I was going into the research and so on. And I would talk sometimes to the press.
Sometimes I would do local television.

Speaker 3 If you ever mentioned veteran suicide, you would literally have a producer behind the camera freaking out like that wasn't on the docket.

Speaker 3 Why is he not talking about white chicks or whatever movie he's in? No, right?

Speaker 3 And you're like, oh, wow. So then I looked into like, well, how do we make this palatable? And at the time, I was working with a VSO out of, and that's a veteran service organization out of Dallas.

Speaker 3 And at the time, we were going into recruitment centers and we would videotape pushing out 22.

Speaker 3 And at the time, I think it was around the ice bucket challenge. and we were like, we should hashtag this.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 this is the only way we can make it palatable that we thought anyway, at the time, to bring awareness to it. And it took about a year, I think, or so, to really take off.
And that's when,

Speaker 3 because it started off, we hashtagged it sweat for vets.

Speaker 3 And then we changed it to 22 push-up challenge. And, you know, a year later, The Rock's doing it, Chris Pratt's doing it.

Speaker 1 Those new guys?

Speaker 3 Yes. And those things take on their own.

Speaker 1 I did that. Did you? Yeah.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I did the push-up thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Well, there you go.
And I hope at the, like, look, I want to be also honest. Like,

Speaker 3 as the original architect of that with the group, with the VSO that we worked with,

Speaker 3 I wasn't managing that weekly or something of where that mission, because what happens when those viral campaigns go, they turn into something else, right?

Speaker 3 Where people are doing it for awareness, for all the right reasons. Some people do it for clicks, whatever it is.
But as long as the message is getting out there, which was veteran suicide.

Speaker 3 And just for this small period of time, it seemed like we could talk about it.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 it's even going into press on this movie, I feel like we're back to this place where we can't talk about it again. What is it you think?

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 3 you got to sell car commercials on the commercial break. I don't think it, I don't, I don't know.
And do we, and to be honest, as a viewer, do we just tune it out?

Speaker 3 We don't want to know what's behind the curtain. We don't want to know that.
That's ugly. That's scary.
I don't want to know.

Speaker 3 That's also why when you have an all-volunteer military, which is, you know, such a small percentage of the population, it's those families that are carrying that weight for the rest of the country, right?

Speaker 3 It's easier if it's over there.

Speaker 1 For sure. Look, well, I'll tell you, I got to be very careful with this episode because I learned a lesson just a few months ago, like with regard to,

Speaker 1 I mean, this will make the rounds, but it'll be on YouTube. So

Speaker 1 I got to think about the thumbnail and I got to think about the description because I went to Fredericksburg. Taylor and I shot a story down there

Speaker 1 six months ago, maybe?

Speaker 1 Black Horse Forge, Steve Hotz, former interior designer

Speaker 1 who signs up to fight 10, 12 years ago.

Speaker 1 82nd airborne, breaks his back, lots of jumps, and then loses an eye.

Speaker 1 Comes home.

Speaker 1 He's spiraling. And he's this close to checking out.
And he goes in his garage and he pulls out a forge,

Speaker 1 which he's had for years, and he fires it up. He just starts hammering metal, old railroad ties, starts making knives, you know.

Speaker 1 And he finds the time compresses when he does this, and it gets out of his head. And his his friends are struggling, and he calls them, and they come over, and they start making knives.

Speaker 1 They start forging. This is probably nine years ago, 10 years ago, he started doing this.

Speaker 1 22,000 vets have gone through the Black Horse Forge. Zero suicides.
Yeah. Zero.

Speaker 1 Now, we shoot this story. We tell it, and we put it out there.
And what pops up? A black screen instead of the thumbnail, which is important when you're out there and social, right?

Speaker 1 It's like your poster. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That P ⁇ A stuff matters, right? Prints and advertising.

Speaker 1 And so it's replaced, YouTube replaces it with a black screen that says warning,

Speaker 1 suicidal ideation, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 It might as well have said, nothing to see here. Keep scrolling or you might become sad.

Speaker 1 Now.

Speaker 1 That's what we're dealing with. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 3 I'm really sorry. Well, because I'll fix it.
But let's have the hard conversation.

Speaker 3 I can have it.

Speaker 3 Let's talk about, there's two sides to this, in my own experience again.

Speaker 3 A sense of purpose is very important to wake up in the morning. You know that.

Speaker 3 You've dedicated your life's work to this, of providing jobs for people or inspiring people to get out there and work and feel useful. That's so important, and it's critical.

Speaker 3 A sense of direction, especially if you're coming out in the military, you know, there's structure in everything that you do in the military.

Speaker 3 And if you come out and you don't have that sense of structure, you don't have that sense of purpose, again, in my experience, it affects your self-worth.

Speaker 3 How can I be useful to myself, to my family, to my community, to my country?

Speaker 3 So that's a really unfortunate story. The second part of it, though, is what's between your ears.

Speaker 3 And the whispers can lie. And I'm just telling you from personal experience that like when you take on,

Speaker 3 especially taking on everybody else's trauma, it affects you. I would go into restaurants.
I couldn't have my back to the door. I was always watching people's hands, what's in their bags.

Speaker 3 You're hyper-vigilant, hypersensitive. And that's somebody who's not served.
That's just somebody who was exposed to it for years, right?

Speaker 3 I think that what we need to try to do better, and again, I don't want to stand on a soapbox here because I respect the heck out of what you're trying to do.

Speaker 3 And I do think that there's a lot of value, and I know you know that.

Speaker 3 That sense of worth, that purpose, whatever it is that you're doing.

Speaker 3 You know, Michael Landon, wasn't he the actor from

Speaker 3 Little House in the Prairie who said to be the best ribbon tire, you know, best ribbon maker. I remember that story as a kid.
And

Speaker 3 that stays with you. And I think that there's a lot of value in that.
And I think that there has to be a balance, and then we've got to be able to talk about it, about the psychological, right?

Speaker 3 What you go through, and how we manage that

Speaker 3 with the practical, with the physical, whether that's physical fitness, your diet, job, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 Well, each according to his own. Yeah.
You know, you can make movies. I can make TV.
Gary can make music. Yeah.
Scott can write books.

Speaker 1 Google and YouTube can just as easily throw gas on the content as they can turn the dial down. It would be just as,

Speaker 1 it would be a very simple matter for regal theaters, just throwing out a name, could be any of them, to take your film and make it available for free on Veterans Day all over the country.

Speaker 1 It would be a relatively simple thing for Amazon or Netflix or HBO Max or Roku to do the same thing.

Speaker 1 So, you know, I don't think it's enough to fight for equal treatment. Honestly, I think that, and this gets a little icky and I'm not sure how to navigate it.
Sure. You know, but

Speaker 1 it's, if your film is viewed purely as an entertainment property, then we miss all of the upside. of a public service announcement.

Speaker 1 If it's seen as a public service announcement, it's a lecture and nobody wants that. Yep.
And nobody wants a sermon.

Speaker 1 It has to be both. And so it's a monumental struggle, I think, for artists of all stripes.
What we could use collectively is

Speaker 1 the kind of corporate enthusiasm. Yes.

Speaker 1 Yes. And that's.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, and that's why I think it's unfortunate, again, without seeing the video, that that would ever happen.

Speaker 1 It was a film. It was a good video.

Speaker 3 I can only imagine, and you probably were like, this is, what is going on? What world am I living in? That this that could potentially help somebody would just by this time.

Speaker 1 That segment will save lives as surely as your film will. Guaranteed.
And I can't even point to some dastardly maniacal bean counter in the corner twirling his mustache.

Speaker 1 It's not that. It's an algorithm.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's garbage in, garbage out. And somebody is painting with a very broad brush.

Speaker 1 And we're covering up a lot of really important things. And it's dumb.
You know, it's dumb. But this is a...

Speaker 3 But I want to talk to you, though, and I agree agree with all of that. I do want to say, like, in the corporate aspect of things, we did partner.

Speaker 3 We're announcing this soon, but we did partner with VetTix, right? Great. It's a 501c3.

Speaker 3 VetTix has committed their mission to creating memories that last forever for veterans, first responders, and their families. Get you out of your house.

Speaker 3 You want to go see a country music or a concert or

Speaker 3 your favorite sporting event. They do that.
We're the first film they've ever partnered with on this.

Speaker 3 And we had to go out there and find those relationships because we knew we weren't going to get them in the system. Just as you're saying, we knew we weren't going to get that.

Speaker 3 We had already experienced, we had more than a decade of the no's and people, you know, not wanting to help you out.

Speaker 3 We have an incredible VSO coalition, corporate sponsors that have come in that see the need, especially for the veterans that they might employ.

Speaker 3 You know, Navy Federal Credit Union has already purchased $20,000 worth of tickets through VetTICs to send veterans, first responders, their families to the movies. Terrific.
So we're finding ways.

Speaker 3 I know that it's not going to be easy, but nothing on this journey has been.

Speaker 3 So I kind of go into it of like,

Speaker 3 you know, with we just work our butts off, keep our heads down, and hope that the message and what we're trying to do reaches folks.

Speaker 1 Forgive me for thinking like a marketeer. I can't help it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Tell the vets who see the film with a vet tick

Speaker 1 to take their phone out after the movie

Speaker 1 and record their honest reaction to it.

Speaker 1 Find a place where they can upload those videos with the proper releases and then start building the kind of campaign that is just brutally and relentlessly, transparently authentic.

Speaker 1 And you start putting together 30, 90, two-minute clips of vets with tears of gratitude in their eyes saying straight to their cameras, I felt alone and now I don't. Somebody finally gets it.

Speaker 1 I wish my ex-wife could have seen this. I wish my kids could see this and so forth.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 look, I don't have a crystal ball, but

Speaker 1 I've got a pretty good idea, I think, of what is persuasive today.

Speaker 1 And anything other than that

Speaker 1 feels like marketing. It feels

Speaker 1 like P ⁇ A.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And the thing is, and I appreciate you saying that,

Speaker 3 we began to do that on the festival circuit because we were seeing such a profound reaction. So Vietnam veterans, if you go to our Instagram

Speaker 3 or TikTok, you'll see

Speaker 3 veterans of all generations sharing their heartfelt feelings. Now, to build upon what you said with VetTIX,

Speaker 3 first of all, if you sign up for VetTIX and you're a veteran or you go to FirstTicks and you're a first responder, you, as I said, you can get entered into these lottos for different things, you know, and then they notify you if you're one of the people that get the tickets.

Speaker 3 You know, you can get up to three other family members can come with you.

Speaker 3 But what they do to incentivize and encourage you to share your experience, which only helps the community, if you really loved something, right?

Speaker 3 If you went to a concert, a sporting event, or now our movie, and had an experience that you felt was unforgettable or worth sharing, If you post it on social media, they actually give you basically tokens, if you will, towards other events to encourage you to do that, to be willing to put yourself out there, right?

Speaker 3 But I do, to build on what you said, that is the grassroots that we hope for, campaign, because we don't have the big Hollywood marketing dollars. We don't have that machine working for us.

Speaker 3 And like I said, this was always about ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And I just I hope that Sheep Dog becomes the people's movie.

Speaker 1 I hope it does too. When can the people see it?

Speaker 3 It'll be in select theaters this December and then nationwide in January.

Speaker 1 How excited are you?

Speaker 1 Very nervous.

Speaker 3 Sure.

Speaker 3 But I'm

Speaker 3 I'm mostly honored.

Speaker 1 Who's your favorite Canadian actor?

Speaker 3 John Candy.

Speaker 1 Oh man.

Speaker 1 Have you seen the documentary?

Speaker 3 Not yet. But I can tell you as a kid, Summer Rental,

Speaker 3 I can watch that even as an adult. It's a masterpiece.

Speaker 1 What is it? The whole, I mean, the Second City TV.

Speaker 3 Oh, like SC TV.

Speaker 3 But even Uncle Buck, I mean, he had some,

Speaker 3 he shows up in movies like, oh, in planes, trains, and automobiles.

Speaker 3 That's Oscar. That's Oscar worthy.
He was heartbreaking in that.

Speaker 1 To hear, I saw Steve Martin interviewed

Speaker 1 about that, and he just couldn't have been more effusive about the whole thing. But he said that there's an incredible scene where he basically comes clean and tells Steve Martin

Speaker 1 who he is. His wife's been dead for 10 years.
He's just been living on the road. And

Speaker 1 Steve said, I think that's the scene. If I'm wrong, it's one that comes a little later on the street, but

Speaker 1 it was so much longer.

Speaker 1 And he said, it's the only time I've ever agreed that, okay,

Speaker 1 it's tighter, shorter,

Speaker 1 but it felt like we were cutting into

Speaker 1 something kind of sacred. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I, yeah, I wish I could see that. That moment and that crazy moment when they're driving down and they're going the wrong way,

Speaker 1 and he screams, he looks over, and all he sees is the skeleton version of his head. Yeah, I fell out of my chair laughing.
John Camy was a freaking genius.

Speaker 3 Yeah, no, he was, he was it. He could break your heart and make you laugh in the same moment.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah. I mean, he shows up even in, doesn't he show up in like, he had a cameo in Home Alone? Oh, yeah.
And he just, that was all improvised, from what I understand. And he just riffs.

Speaker 3 And he, but you know what it is?

Speaker 3 Like, yes, he's a comedic genius, right?

Speaker 3 But it's like his humanity. Oh, man.
It just comes out. It just like, yeah.

Speaker 1 Heart sleeve. Yes.
Here you are. Yeah.
And he's, he was so, it's so interesting to hear him talk about his weight and how he was really hurt by the way people

Speaker 1 couldn't not ask him about it. They just couldn't not ask him about it.

Speaker 1 And yeah, man.

Speaker 3 And I think that the story goes, and I hope I'm right about this, that he was also aware that

Speaker 3 of the health issues in his family. So there was something that

Speaker 3 came across that he felt like or knew he was on board with time, as we all are, but maybe a shorter time span. And I think he just loved Hart and gave it everything he had.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know,

Speaker 1 what about Nathan Fillion?

Speaker 3 You know, Nathan? I don't.

Speaker 1 Canadian boy.

Speaker 3 No, I don't know.

Speaker 1 The guy was on Castle and

Speaker 1 the rookie. He's on the rookie now.
He's on the rookie now, but he was famous for

Speaker 1 Castle, wasn't it? Yeah, but before that,

Speaker 1 he plays Malcolm in that

Speaker 1 Josh Whedon big freaking space cowboy movie.

Speaker 1 Huge. Yeah, people.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't.
What's he thinking? Yeah.

Speaker 1 What? Guardians of the Galaxy. No, before Guardians of the Galaxy.
Oh, man. He's listening out.
He's a friend of mine before that. Right around Galaxy Quest.
Right around. You got to find it, Chuck.

Speaker 1 It's going to drive you nuts.

Speaker 1 What about Jimmy Dewan from Star Trek?

Speaker 3 He's Canadian.

Speaker 3 Are we talking? I don't.

Speaker 1 Look, William Shattler is, isn't he? William Shattler.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but I don't, I mean, no disrespect to him. Oh, you're going to tell me how young you are now? No, I just, like, I don't know that.

Speaker 1 Are you so young?

Speaker 1 With the funny misspelled last name?

Speaker 1 So young.

Speaker 3 I don't know that.

Speaker 3 But I mean, you know, a lot, I guess also, too, let's be honest, a lot of great comedians came out of Canada. You know, Jim Carrey, Mike Myers,

Speaker 3 you know, everybody from SCTV and Second City, you know, so I think like those become your sort of like

Speaker 3 folk, yeah, your folk heroes almost, like you're, you know,

Speaker 3 and hey, you know, the humor and the joy that they've brought so many people.

Speaker 3 But that was kind of, those were my, like, you know, there's serious actors that I like and so on, but, you know, that was, you know.

Speaker 1 Serenity.

Speaker 1 Serenity? Pretty sure the ship was called Serenity.

Speaker 3 Oh, yeah, it's Firefly.

Speaker 1 You're Firefly. Yeah, the Firefly.
That's it. Firefly.

Speaker 1 Well, you got your work cut out. You got to go home.
I know.

Speaker 3 I got to do. It sounds like I watched it.
You got to watch Firefly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're probably going to have to re-watch Star Trek with particular emphasis on Scotty,

Speaker 1 who was at Normandy and who was shot. I think it's

Speaker 1 cigarette-riddled. Yeah, okay.
He got shot to pieces, blew his finger off.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you never noticed that in Star Trek. Scotty, he's got

Speaker 1 to look at the facing fingers. Yeah,

Speaker 1 left it in France. Wow.

Speaker 1 I mean, he really did, yeah. But talk about a tear jerker.
I'll leave you with this, man.

Speaker 1 Talk about man's humanity to man. That guy,

Speaker 1 that guy

Speaker 1 spoke at conventions Star Trek conventions all over the country and he took a phone call from a fan who was

Speaker 1 at the end of her rope and

Speaker 1 basically telling him look I'm I'm going to end my life but I've always so admired you and I've so loved your work and I just I just wanted to call you and tell you that

Speaker 1 And he hits her with all this reverse psychology, asking her, well, how's she going to do it? You know, and blah, blah, blah. And really freaks her out and then says, Look, I don't have time for this.

Speaker 1 If you want to meet me and discuss the details of your demise, there'll be a ticket waiting for you at the convention center up in Boston. And so this woman comes.
Oh, my God. And they talk.

Speaker 1 And she comes to

Speaker 1 four, five, six subsequent Star Trek conventions. And they become friends.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 she drops out of his life for years.

Speaker 1 And then he gets a call over a decade later. She's healthy.
She's married. Second kid's on the way.

Speaker 1 Thanks for saving my life, Jimmy Dylan.

Speaker 3 I'm so glad that story ended that way. That's the power.
That takes a lot of courage to handle it that way, to come in at it that way.

Speaker 3 He must have known enough about it, though. He knew.
Like, I don't mean about her personal life, but about

Speaker 1 the struggle. That's right.

Speaker 3 He knew enough to be able to go in there. And here's why.

Speaker 1 say thank you for your service in a moment like that.

Speaker 3 The trauma therapists that I studied with for Sheep Dog, some of their tacts, I was really uncomfortable with.

Speaker 1 I bet.

Speaker 3 Where I was like,

Speaker 3 you know, I would say we would like, I do work with them all day at the VA, and we'd go up for a beer later, and I would be like, hey, I just wanted to kind of talk to you about that.

Speaker 3 Like, do you think that was okay? Like, that tact was a little either abrasive or like, like, there's a lot on the line here. And, you know, precisely.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 That's exactly what they would say there's everything on the line right and i'll never forget um standing in the cafeteria at the detroit va a five or a six foot five corpsman pointing across the room of the cafeteria to a five foot and i only mentioned size because you have to think of a warrior right

Speaker 3 a five foot tall trauma therapist and he says that lady right there saved my life

Speaker 3 and I find that, and she was someone that had a very different, I would say unorthodox, unique tact in there, just as you mentioned of this channel.

Speaker 1 Well, you know what you call her. I'd be a sheepdog.

Speaker 3 Yes.

Speaker 1 Great movie. It's only going to save a bunch of lives.

Speaker 1 But the important thing is you got two awards, and I hope those wind up on a mantle someplace where. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Well, it's an embarrassment of riches, but we have 15.

Speaker 1 Oh, geez. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And I only say that because it matters to the other film festivals. Omaha, Iowa, all over the country.
Yes. We're grateful.
Naples, Florida.

Speaker 3 But I, yes, and I mean this when I say this, those aren't ours. They are not ours.
Those are the people that we represent in the film. They're on the loan.

Speaker 1 Sure. You're a custodian.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 But they...

Speaker 3 If that can help elevate the message and the awareness of the film, we're filled to the brim.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I know we're over, but last question. Sure.
Because

Speaker 1 I asked it out loud when I watched your movie last night. What did it feel like at the very, very, very, very, very end to see yourself on Larry King

Speaker 1 13 years ago? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Talking about what this thing might turn into?

Speaker 3 So first off, when I look at that Larry King clip, I laugh in the beginning because I'm wearing a t-shirt in there

Speaker 3 and Matt's wearing like a suit coat. And why that was was because we were racing to get to his studio.
I left my jacket. I was all flustered.
I get there. I'm sitting in his makeup chair accidentally.

Speaker 3 It was like that. And so when I got in front of him,

Speaker 3 you know, I was just dialed in of like, I'm here to talk about this subject matter and that's what we're in.

Speaker 3 And so when I look at that and I think of like, one, how young we look in it, but also I just look like a fish out of water because I was.

Speaker 1 You were. I was.
But you knew the mission.

Speaker 3 But I did. And I have to say this because, you know, I know Larry did a lot of work for veterans.
Like, he took a shot, just as you're doing here today, which I'm so grateful for.

Speaker 3 He took a shot on us. And

Speaker 3 he, you know, most people that are going to be watching this, they don't know who I am, right? And they don't need to.

Speaker 1 That's okay.

Speaker 3 But providing this platform for us, I look at that Larry King clip and I am filled with gratitude. And I also think of...

Speaker 3 We had been on the road at that point for two or three months. So we were literally just coming off it.
And I can see

Speaker 3 my family jokes about this because

Speaker 3 how direct I was with them where I was like, I would sit there and I would listen or I would say, well, think about it, Larry. And I wasn't saying it to be condescending.

Speaker 3 I was exhausted and everything that had been shared with me on that road trip, right?

Speaker 3 And I was frustrated and I was angry and I was motivated. And when I see those clips at the end of our movie, that's what I see.

Speaker 1 You know, as much as I agree and believe that people

Speaker 1 need rest and are better off when they're rested,

Speaker 1 there's no denying the long list of great things that have happened because exhausted people kept pushing. You're tired right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm tired all the time. Yeah.
I mean, I fell asleep 20 minutes ago, man.

Speaker 3 I don't know. But I will say it's a good tired.
I'm the father. I have a beautiful son.
He's healthy. My wife's happy, healthy.

Speaker 3 And here we are, and we're able to talk about this meaningful and beautiful film. And like,

Speaker 3 it is a labor of love. I could have spent 2026, you know, catching up on rest from 14 years, but it'll be well worth it.

Speaker 1 Final, final, final. Okay.

Speaker 1 For those people who are just listening and not watching,

Speaker 1 you're probably saying, who does this? Who am I listening to? Who's this guy selling? And maybe, could it be Matt Damon?

Speaker 1 Well, it's not Matt Damon, but even watching the movie, they're like five times. Now, maybe it was the Boston thing.

Speaker 3 I didn't go hard into the pain on that, though. No, you didn't.

Speaker 3 Because I was like, it'll be farcical. Nobody's going to buy it.
And we already saw Goodwill Hunting. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But, but, but I was like, my father-in-law, he's an industrial tow truck driver, and I love him to death. And he

Speaker 3 kind of has that accent. So I'm around him a lot, right? And so that's where that kind of, you kind of pick up on.
And it just gently sort of like.

Speaker 1 Are you telling me I had to wait for 90 minutes to learn that your dad is an industrial tow truck driver and your moment on the road to Damascus happened basically with a tow truck driver.

Speaker 3 That opening shot bringing you into the paper mill. Yeah.
That's who's behind the wheel of that truck. That was my father-in-law.
And the man doesn't miss his mark. We lined it up.

Speaker 3 You cannot make this up. The cinematic gods blessed us that day.
It's like six in the morning. The sky opened just as he was coming through frame because that was my homage to Deerhunter.
Sure.

Speaker 3 I wanted the truck to come in and hit you hard, the sound of the diesel engine to bring you in, and then you push past it and there's the paper mill right and that was him who could get on the walkie with him and i'm like you got it you're wrapped for the day that's it that's it you know um but yes i uh i'm very fortunate to be surrounded by salt of the earth people who work very hard and uh

Speaker 3 and my wife i you know comes from a military family both of her brothers are combat veterans that served in killa vanessa boy's name River.

Speaker 1 Vanessa River, you should be proud of the old man. You did a good thing, man.
Your move is going to save lives, that's for sure. Pity about your last name, but people will get over that.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Keep an eye out for the film. It's called Sheep Dog.
It's awesome. Thanks, Stephen.

Speaker 3 Thanks, Mike. Anytime.

Speaker 1 This episode is over now.

Speaker 1 I hope it was worthwhile.

Speaker 1 Sorry it went on so long, but if it made you smile,

Speaker 1 then share your satisfaction in the way that people do.

Speaker 1 take some time

Speaker 1 to go online

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Speaker 1 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.

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

Speaker 1 All you've got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is leave a quick five-star review.

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Speaker 1 video.

Speaker 1 Thank you.