Fitzdog Radio - Tim Robbins Pt. 2 - Episode 1066

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

So grateful to do a 2-parter with film legend Tim Robbins. Here is the thrilling conclusion. A lot of laughs and cool stories.

Hey, welcome to FitzDog Radio. Welcome back to FitzDog Radio. I took the week off last week and man, did people get upset. I'm sorry. Summer's here. I gotta take a little break. It was actually not a break. I was so fucking slammed. I went to, first I went to New York and did shows for a few nights in the city. Then I went up to Mamaroneck to do a show at the Emmeline Theater. My whole family showed up, my sister, my brother, all of her friends, high school friends, college friends. I had friends from when I was like eight years old show up and a lot of listeners. It was amazing.

Sold out show. We're going to hopefully go back there every year. That was like a homecoming. It was just so great to have people say they're proud of you. And you forget that it actually means something to people that you're in show business and you've known them for so long and i take it for granted i'm because maybe because i'm in la and i'm surrounded by people that are all doing the same stupid shit as me the same narcissistic pursuit of some kind of uh you know reaction reaction from, and then they go like, here's people that are just living good lives

and they're kind of psyched that you are doing something that's, I don't know, that took a big risk and kind of paid off to some degree. And it was very meaningful and it was so great to see people that I have loved for so long and I do my best shows. When those people are in the audience,

I fucking dig in and say, I'm just so happy. I think happiness, I think I'm kind of like maybe angry on stage sometimes or whatever, but sometimes when it's just people I love, I think another energy comes out

that, you know, maybe I shouldn't invite all my friends and family to my next television taping. Who knows? Or maybe not. It's distracting. But anyway, did that, came back. I was home for about 12 hours after a week in New York. And then I flew to Salt Lake City, got on Bert Kreischer's tour bus. And we some dates in Denver Omaha Salt Lake City uh it was fun as shit we had we had one night off we went out to see Bill Burr he's getting ready to do a new hour so he's got a great hour um and it was just so much fun to like go watch another comedian's show without having to perform.

Because it's nerve wracking. I've been doing it for 35 years. I still get nervous. You're still a little wary whenever you go on. And you don't always enjoy watching the other comedians as much. But to just watch one of the greats, Bill Burr is truly one of the greats of all time. Bang Out an Hour was just so much fun uh loved watching him and watching burt burt's got a new hour that's fucking really good um and he is just a he's a he's not a different guy. What's Burt like? You've seen him. That's how he's like.

Kreischer is just the most upbeat, fun, up for anything kind of guy. Funny and kind of loving. Just a great, great dude. I had a really nice time with him. And we went to Matt and Trey's mexican restaurant what the hell is that place called the casa bonita in denver which seats 1500 people a night and it's it's this amusement park where you feel you feel like a kid in a toy store meets uh a pervert because there's like, you know, people in bathing suits doing fucking cliff diving that are hot. And you feel like, I don't know, it just

brings out your imagination. The place is so imaginative. And we got treated so well by the concierge because I was with Bert. Apparently it takes like years to get in. There's like a 6,000 person waiting list to get in or something crazy. And it was great. It was great. So did that, worked out with this lunatic named Josh. What was his name? Josh. We're going to write it. I wrote it down. Bridges. Josh Bridges is a guy who's famously wins all these CrossFit competitions. And he worked me way too hard. I'm working out with Bert, who does CrossFit every single day. And Pete, who's his assistant, who was a wrestler. He was a competitive wrestler and is in great shape. And then the, oh, what's the other guy's name? There was another guy on

the bus who's a former Navy SEAL. And I'm trying to keep up with these four fucking maniacs and the guy's wife, Josh's wife, who I worked out with. And we were doing we were pushing a fucking sled across his driveway and doing swing up burpees with 20 pound weights in my hands. And then I'm doing hangs and rowing machine. It was insane. It was so on my back is so fucked. I went to the chiropractor yesterday and I just, I got limitations. I don't need to work that hard anymore. Just, just a medium workout is good. I can handle that. Um, and then I've tore a meniscus. I went to the doctor last week and he said, I tore a meniscus in my knee. So I started physical therapy for that today.

And I guess once you tear a meniscus in your knee, it doesn't heal because there's no vascular flow. There's no blood around your meniscus, so it just stays torn. And you just have to build up the muscles around it. And you'll always have a little bit of pain so that's nice to know that till death my my wife and my torn meniscus for life one of them i'm happy about one i'm not missed my wife when i was gone i came back and my my daughter said which was very sweet or was it yeah she said that she has very high standards of any guy that she's going to have a relationship with because she sees me in my wife's relationship.

That meant a lot to me. My son was like, yeah, you guys are like he's like, you'll be driving home to see mom and you'll talk to her for 20 minutes on the phone and then hang up as your keys are opening the front door of the house and it's true i fucking i just i love her i love talking to her i know that sounds like uh they say guys that say they love their wives are really yeah it's just how it is she's it 25 years next month 25 plus dating for three, so 28 years. So very close to half my life. In two years, it will be 30 years and I will be 60. So in two years, it will be exactly half my life I have spent with this woman.

Isn't that amazing? Jesus. Anyway, we got some good podcasts coming up. Touring. I just got a new date. I come to the Denver Comedy Works, which is one of our stops on this tour that I just did with Bert. And, I mean, what a great bunch of people. Great staff. Insanely great show room. And, uh, Wendy Curtis who runs it has been doing it for, I don't know how many years that

place has been running, but it is top notch. I would put it top two, maybe, maybe number one comedy club in the country. Definitely top two. And, uh, I, what else? I got dates coming up in Bear Mountain, California, Pittsburgh, Buffalo. Go to FitzDawg.com. And also, don't forget, rate the show. Leave a comment on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts. Let's get this show up into the top two. I'd like to be one of the top two podcasts in the world. Or the top 100 would be good.

I did. I got some good ones coming up. Paul Verzi, Rachel Feinstein, Harlan Williams, Andy Richter, all coming up this month. But this week is part two of a podcast I did with the great Tim Robbins, who is my neighbor. And I used to play on an ice hockey team with him for a couple years in New York. He's an Oscar winner. You know him from Shawshank Redemption, Jacob's Ladder, Mystic River, The Player, Bull Durham, Bob Roberts,

The Creatable Rock, Arlington Road, Hudsucker Proxy, High Fidelity. He's the tallest Academy Award winner of all time at 6'5". And just a great dude. We sat down and talked for an hour and we talked for two. So I split it into two podcasts, get the most out of it. And he's got a show that's going on in Culver City right now at the Actors Gang Theater, which is amazing. And you should go check it out. Why am I forgetting the name? I've got the name written down somewhere. But

just look up Actors Gang and go see his show. It's avant-garde. It's interesting. It's funny. And I think that's it. So enjoy part two of my interview with Tim Robbins. I had a kid do that. I wasn't a good kid when I was growing up. I hung out. I wasn't necessarily a bully, but I hung out with some bullies. And there was one kid that came to school, and he was a guy that we just teased a lot.

And his mother came to school one day, and she marched down the hallway, and she said, you're on the list, said you're on the list and you're on the list and it was like you just you just destroyed your son yeah crippled him yeah yep and uh i am i'm ashamed of how i was sometimes as a kid i think you know i think i was insecure and i was you know as a kid i was beat up by my parents and i think i took it out on other kids i was angry and it's gonna be a long time to realize that and to sort of like i transformed i think in college i started to feel better about myself when i started questioning

how i was raised and uh but you know there's such shame if i if i wish i could find that kid mark i won't say his last name but mark i wish i could find him kid, I won't say his last name, but Mark. I wish I could find him and apologize. Yeah. You know? I have a kid like that. Yeah. Yeah. I actually ran into him on the street in New York.

Really? Yeah. Many, many years later. And I wanted to say it, and he just kept walking. Oh, no kidding. And I felt really bad. Wow. Yeah.

Now, what were you like as a kid? Because were you tall, young? I was taller than most kids in the class. Hung out, played hockey on the street after school or softball. I was athletic. Ran with a bunch of kids that were tough. So there was some fighting. Never, and I was never really in a gang that fought with other gangs,

but we would play hockey and fight. Yeah. We got kicked out of the CYO League for fighting. Catholic Youth Organization League. What rink was that? Was that that one that was like on the 12th floor of a building? Oh, that was, no, that was Sky Rink. Sky Rink, right.

No, it was a roller hockey league. Oh, okay. Yeah, the CYO League. You know, that's why I don't like violence, is because if you've ever been really hit in a fight and seen the ramifications of it or actually even worse when you hit someone and hurt them. Yeah. It's just something I have a problem with. Yeah. Because I experienced it, you know? Yeah. First hand.

Right. And what was it like, I'm always curious about a kid that grew up at the time you did in New York city. Like, were you going to CBGBs? Did you go to like, what clubs were you hanging at? Did you see the beastie boys when they were coming up? Like what was your musical taste? they were coming up like what was your musical taste so i was uh my dad was a folk singer so i actually was hanging out at the gaslight when i was 10 years old really so i saw like sunny terry and brownie mcgee and doc watson and libbix taylor and uh cat Cat Stevens when he was starting out. Clancy Brothers, you ever see them down there? Never saw the Clancy Brothers, but, you know, all these different folk singers, Eric Anderson.

And so I was exposed to a lot of really interesting entertainment. Music was always in my household. My parents were both classical musicians as well. Exposed to opera and classical music. Early rock and roll. My brother got his electric guitar when he was 12 and started playing really loud and was in rock bands. He was the older brother?

Yeah. Uh-huh. And I gravitated towards Motown. And, you know, of course, we had our Beatles obsession when we were children. And then eventually found punk rock when i was in college you did yeah okay yeah and it was out here in l.a i was going to the mask and i was going to mud club and madame wong's and that kind of scene uh saw x and fear and uh black flag and dead Kennedys. Wow. Did you see the Chili Peppers early on? No.

No. Fishbone, though. Oh, yeah. Remember Fishbone? Right, right. Yeah. They were one of my favorite bands. That's wild.

It's funny how it all leads to punk rock at some point. It takes some people longer to get there than others, but if you're into music, you end up there. Yeah. Even if it's just a phase, you got to hit it. Yeah. All right, listen,'s just a phase, you got to hit it. Yeah. All right, listen, I don't want to keep you,

but I can't tell you what an honor it is to have you in here today. I mean, you know, we've skated together, we've been neighbors, but we never sat down and got to talk for an hour.

So this was really great. Well, it was my pleasure. Are we done? Is that it? Do you want to talk more? I always feel like I don't want to keep a guest longer than an hour.

It's all right. I'm good. All right, let's keep talking. I have some notes that i want to talk about uh so actors gang early on was john cusack part of the founding of it no it was your college friends it was my college friends uh we we did ubu the king we that was our first production oh Oh, really? Yeah. That's why we did it last year. It was our 40th anniversary. I was there. Yeah. Yeah.

And so we were thinking about doing this big, you know, gala. And, you know, and I had screened the original videotape of the original Ubu for the company. And we were just trying to figure out what we were gonna do in the fall. And the thing that we wanted to do was just too big. And so a bunch of the younger members of the company were like, let's fucking do Ubu. Can we do Ubu?

Like, I don't know. Are you in shape? Are you in physical shape? Can you? It's a lot of running. Yeah, yeah. It's a hardcore. And those that don't know what Ubu is,

it's this insane scatological play written in 1898. The first performance of this play, there was a riot in Paris. It was in Paris. It was a riot. And the audience tore up the seats of the theater because they were so offended. No, really? Yes. And the reason we know this is because W.B. Yates, the poet, was in that performance and wrote about it and wrote this essay on it, at the end of which was, After This, A Savage God. Wow.

And basically predicted the 20th century. It was something that all of the people that made a change in art knew about this play. And was this the beginning of Comedy Del Arte? No, no, no. This this the beginning of comedy dell'arte no no no this is this is uh this is the beginning of dadaism the absurdism surrealism yeah uh the uh this is this was someone that just took a hand grenade and threw it into the whole institution of theater and said fuck you right and uh the theater at the time being flowery romantic not really about anything yeah and this was about absolute scatological truth

yeah and uh so i found this in college when i read it and I was like there's a stage direction that says a pal content explodes or the entire Polish army enters and I'm like as a director I'm like that's a challenge how do you do that how do you do that and so So I did a production at UCLA, and it was very successful, and I took a number of that cast and some other friends that I had and said, you know what, I just graduated. I found a theater in Hollywood. I didn't have any money, but they were going to allow us to use it at midnight, and we would have to strike the set of the play that had played earlier and put it back up and and we just on a whim just did it and it became

this huge hit was played for six months that's amazing yeah started at midnight at midnight fridays and saturdays on this dingy street in holly Seward Avenue. Yeah. And dark, foreboding, no lights. And we had the play started with this. When you came to the theater, there was this dude outside with a boom box who kept switching the stations like he was insane. And he made you super uncomfortable. and then he winds up coming into the theater and sitting uh in there with his with the boombox still playing his radio and so people are

like like first of all it's midnight hollywood dark street what the fuck who is this dude and it turns out you know four scenes into the play my voice is on his boom box doing a scene with actors oh that's amazing yeah i remember when we went to the play on saturday night we were waiting to get in and there was a kind of a homeless looking guy standing out front and i and aaron goes knowing this, he's part of the play. And we really did look at him like, I don't know, are you coming inside? Yeah.

Oh, you know who else I recognized in the cast was Molly Kirshenbaum, whose grandfather was like my mentor in New York. He was a famous Borscht Belt comedian. No way. Like one of the big Catskills guys. Do you remember a show called Catskills on Broadway? Uh, yeah. It was like they had Malzie Lawrence and Dick Capri.

And it was like four or five of like the Mount Rushmores of Borscht Bell comedy. And her grandfather started that. And he was the emcee of it. And he was a member of the Friars Club. And so my father, I grew up in New York. And my father was on WNEW for 20 years. And he was a member of the Friars Club and he was the token Irish guy. Everybody was Jewish. It was, you know, comedians and producers and managers and then a bunch of guys from the garment district. It was very Jewish. And so during high school, we had this thing called intercession where you got, I think it was two months off from school to pursue

what you thought you were going to do with your life. And so it kind of went to a progressive school. And so I said, I want to be a comedy writer. And so my father paired me up with Alan Zweibel, who was a big Saturday Night Live writer and Freddie Roman, cause they were both, they were both, uh, friars. And so Freddie used to put me in his Cadillac and drive me up to the Catskills. And I would sit at Grossinger's and watch him do stand up. And he was so kind to me and so supportive. And and he was my he was he sponsored me to join the Friars Club. And then I became a comedy writer. I'm a stand up comedian, but I'm also a comedy writer.

And I moved out to L.A. to write, and Freddie put me in touch with Alan, who was Molly's father, who then brought me into writer's rooms and helped me get work in L.A. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

And so I saw that name in the flyer, and I was like, there's only one fucking Kirshenbach. And I remembered them both talking about molly and i hadn't seen her did you talk to her oh yeah yeah and we've been communicating we've been dming we're going to get together for coffee she just said once the play gets settled we'll go out and get some coffee yeah i gotta i gotta do something to help her career yeah she's great yeah yeah well you you do it's your it's your responsibility oh yeah if i owe anybody

it's definitely yeah that's awesome yeah because her dad's gone now and and freddie just died a year ago just a year ago so and then uh so i want to talk more about new york so uh what what high school did you go to i was in high school oh you did yeah oh that's where my uh my wife's brother went there what year he would have been about 80 probably 80 yeah i was i graduated 76 okay did you have frank mccord as a teacher you did i didn't have him as a teacher but i knew him no kidding i had a different english teacher yeah but i he was around wow yeah it was um teacher yeah but he was around wow yeah it was um you know those those that don't know uh there were three high schools that you you could test into in new york city bronx science yeah brooklyn tech right and otherwise you had to go into the public school system which my brother had to do at seward Park and didn't make it through because

it was too crazy and violent and nuts um uh Stuyvesant was I was I was outmatched from the start as a Catholic school kid so St. Joseph's Parochial School on Christopher Street, four doors down from the Stonewall Inn. Oh, yeah, right. Very gay neighborhood. Well, it was a neighborhood that was infused with liberation. Yeah. And so there was a lot of, it was an interesting dichomy of the catholic nun and the drag queen because nuns are kind of drag queens we don't know if that's a woman in there

and i i was dealing with this uh you know being a kid of the streets and being a jock uh but also being from a creative family so my sisters were working at this place called the theater for the new city which was at the time over at westbeth and then moved to jane street on on on west street and they were doing, you know, this is off-off Broadway. This is like late 60s, early 70s, plays with naked people in them, plays about the social problems of the world, radical new thought, new liberation plays. And so I was going from hockey practice

to running spot for the Angels of Light, the production of Gossamer Wings, which was this wild, wild, beautiful show where men were women and they were doing musical numbers from 1930s Hollywood musicals and it was very camp and fun and but also they were all badasses you know they were like you know so That's interesting. So I had to hide one life with the other, right? Right.

And I remember one time I was finishing up a hockey practice and I said to the coach, when's the next rehearsal? And the frills popped out of the sleeve and he says what are you queer instead of calling it a period he called it an act am i am i skating in the next act that's hilarious so uh high school was you know a nightmare for me because i was the smartest kid at my grade school and i was now the dumbest kid right you know and well stuyvesant now is so hard to get, and they're trying to figure out how they can make it. It's like 80% Asian right now. Right.

Because there's this prep, these prep tests that these parents put their kids through for years. Oh, I know. To get into Stuyvesant. I know. And it's lost a lot of diversity. And, you know, look, you can knock the the immigrant group that's pushing their kids the hardest but i might have been part of a quota of uh you know catholic i catholic irish

kids what was the what was the uh default kid then the the well the the people that got into Stuyvesant at that time were mostly Asian and Jewish. Yeah. Right. Right. But I had no, you know, science, for example, in grade school. It was God made it. That's it. That's all you need to know.

Oh, shit. So there's no earth science or any kind of preparation for what i was about to go through yeah i didn't know what i had no pre-algebra i was lost lost i was so stupid you know and um that's how i found theater to express myself how was theater at stuyvesant um they have the thing this thing called sing which you know every class has to do a performance at the end of the year and so that was my freshman year the first time that people actually

laughed or paid attention to me I did a bit on roller skates because I could roller skate and then I did this thing where I was making out with myself people found it hilarious a star is born I was addicted yeah and then in my second year I I actually directed my first play oh no kidding I directed a production of story theater Paul Sills thing then I directed a play every year in high school you know I had wanted to go to performing arts high school but my dad said absolutely not

and I said why not and he said well he was an actor at the time. He said, there's nothing less interesting than an uneducated actor. Oh, I like that. And I hated him at the time for that, but he was right. Yeah. Got a really good education at Stuyvesant. By the time I was in college, everything was easy. Because I had been through the mill at Stuyvesant. And it gave me great critical thinking to deal with all the challenges that were to come.

Really great teachers. And I had a couple of teachers that got me through exams, too. I mean, like Regents. They were pulling for you. Yeah. Because I was, you know, they clearly knew I wasn't going to be a mathematician. Right. Physicist.

Yeah. Had one teacher, you know, give me the answers to the Regents exam. No kidding. In the exam. Wow. With his fingers. It's like a third base coach. Yeah. It was just like on the table. It his fingers. It's like a third base coach. Yeah, he was just like on the table.

He was like. That's awesome. Thank God. Did you know a kid named Josh Golden? Yeah. That's a good friend of mine. He went to Stuyvesant. I'm just thinking he must have graduated the same time as you.

That's a writer, screenwriter, does some directing. Yeah, we got kids in the Westinghouse scholarships and all these really brainy kids that would go to MIT and Yale and Harvard and Princeton and, you know, incredibly smart people. People wound up, like Eric Holder went to Stuyvesant. No kidding, really?

All these, Eric, what was the guy named Eric something? He's in the administration now. A lot of, you know, very, very smart yeah went there and and me but but well i mean i think it's it's interesting because it's an all boys school right it was yeah until three years before i went so there were girls there yeah yeah okay scared girls they were fabulous girls it didn't go 50 50 did it not quite yeah not quite but it was getting disadvantage no we did all right well you're six foot five you weren't you were never at a disadvantage i wasn't six foot five in high school i grew through high school yeah um but no i i you know you know tell me about prom night.

Oh my God. We didn't really have a prom. We went, it was, we went to a Latin disco. Nice. And this was 76. So this was like the peak.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't really have a prom prom. We went like a group of us went, okay, we're gonna have our prom. We're going to go a group of us went, okay, we're going to have our prom. We're going to go to one of these new discos they have.

Yeah. So you weren't wearing the polyester pants and the open shirt or anything? Yeah, I was. Hey, man, it's all we could afford. We didn't have a lot of money. Polyester was the only way. Right, right.

We didn't have like linen shirts. That Polyester was the only way. Right, right. We didn't have like linen shirts. That was the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, you know. The village was polyester. Thrift stores? We did our best. Yeah. Yeah, no thrift stores, but you know, Macy's Bargain Basement. Uh-huh.

Yeah, or Gimble's. Gimble's. Yeah, right. Woolworths. And what about the, what did you guys used to do on St. Patrick's Day? Was that a big day for the Irish kids in New York? Because we used to go to the parade every year. I wasn't really aware of, I mean, yes.

I never went to the parade, but I'll tell you where I did go to school when my classmates were going to Princeton and Yale and Harvard, I went to State University of New York at Plattsburgh, which is 20 miles from the Canadian border. It was the only school that responded to my inquiries about a theater department. So I said, well, I'm going there. And, you know, immediately, you know, after one semester had like a 3.9 GPA

because I'd been at Stuyvesant. I was like, you know, it was so easy. Everything was so easy. Yeah. Like, you know, it was so easy. Everything was so easy. Yeah. And I got involved in, you know, doing productions up there. But, yeah, it was, I went there for two years.

And then eventually transferred out to UCLA. Oh, okay. So you got your degree from UCLA. Yeah. And that's where you met up with the people that you started Actors Gang with. Right, okay. So you got your degree from UCLA and that's where you met up with the people that you started actors gang with. How? Right. But wait, let's go back to the St. Patrick's day because I mentioned Plattsburgh because Plattsburgh, New York was written up in Playboy magazine as the second best place to be on earth other than Dublin on St. Patrick's Day. No kidding. Yeah.

It was insane. It was like a, people came from as far away as Michigan. It was like from Canada, from all different colleges. Yeah. Thousands and thousands of people came to St. Patrick's Day. Wow. It was, it was a phenomenon a phenomenon was it was it just because it was all new york city kids like long island kids not sure what it was but for some reason it had this reputation that that's the place to be on saint so random i even have my i survived saint patrick's day in plattsburgh new york shirt still um uh two years after i left the school got wise to it and they um and they uh they arranged their spring break to be on say oh how lame i know right whoever whatever administration meeting that was had no sense of humor. And also like things like that,

kids actually will apply to a college for things like that. I mean, it's like when Boston college won the national championships, the application spiked the next year, nothing to do with academics. I know. I know. There's also,

I think it might be Charleston or rally, uh, has an, has also has a freakishly big St. Patrick's day parade. I don't know. I believe it. Yeah. There's it. It's, it was so big St. Patrick's Day parade. I don't know why. I believe it. Yeah.

It was so much fun, I got to tell you. Yeah. Wow. And I learned how to party there. Yeah. In a healthy way. Well, look, we all saw your film where you played a fraternity brother. What was that?

Where you're like, weren't you doing a beer funnel or something in a movie i snarfed what i snarfed what's a snarf something my friend frank bednash invited uh invented um basically you know you get a can of beer you shake it up you throw it down on the ground it's a whole ritual and then it's got all this pressure built up inside and you take take it and you open it up and you drink it really quickly your throat flies down your throat and then the rest of it you have to crush with your crush with your fist and then after it's crushed you take the can and smash it into your forehead until it's flat right covered with beer um actually great when it's cold because it like stays in your skin and keeps your eyes open um and we started inventing new ways to snarf spider snarf or in a in a dormitory where

you can go up the walls like this and have someone apply it to your face and smash you in the head. Problem was the pull tabs, it was pull tabs back then. So this, imagine, we used to cut the lid. Oh, right. So it would be like a snarfing scar. A snarf scar. Yeah.

A badge of honor at Plattsburgh. I bleed for my beer. I introduced that tradition to my friends at UCLA when I, you know, and so we had some snarfing at UCLA. But how did it end up in the movie? Was it there? Did you? What was the name of the movie it

was called it was called Wendell when I agreed to do it and then it was called fraternity vacation when it came out and that was the most oh my god we shot in Palm Springs it was right it was it was the most libidinous set I've ever, ever been on. Just all young people. All young people with hotel rooms. Yeah. And getting paid. Yeah.

And you were how old? 22, 23. Man. That's amazing. And did you say, did you explain to them what a scarf was? or what's it called a snarf was yeah i said uh yeah we're gonna do a drinking beer i'm gonna snarf in this scene is that okay yeah what's that oh you'll see with real beers yeah that's awesome where can people see that movie i don't want people to see that movie why would i want god i wish i bought a budweiser today that would have been so great you know

all my generation of actors we had certain things that we had to do you know like it seems like everyone did like a get laid film with porkies or you know you know all those get laid films yeah friends of the nerds this was my get laid film yeah it was my you know like uh college kids get laid yeah right they used to be on the usa network later yeah at night edited yeah edited with all the good stuff yeah yeah right and then the other the other litmus test that for my generation of actors was a vietnam film oh right you had to do your get laid film and your vietnam film yeah and then you were in the club right what was your vietnam film uh jacob's ladder, of course. Right. Post-war. Post-war. Yeah.

Amazing film. Thank you. That was great. Did you get nominated for that? No. No. That's bullshit. That's bullshit.

Let's go back in a time machine and fix that. I remember they had a great soundtrack. I forgot I did the soundtrack. There was good music on that. So, speaking of music, so Actors Gang, when did Jack Black and Kyle Gass enter the picture? Because I know you're still close with Jack, and I've seen him at the-

I'm with Kyle. So Jack, I cast in a play when he was 12 years old. No shit. Called Inside Eddie Binstock that I'd written at the Deja Vu Coffee House in Silver Lake. And that's where I first met Jack. Wow. And then he started hanging around.

When he was in high school, he started hanging around the actors gang. Because I think he knew someone through Crossroads where he was going to school. And so it was like this kid was hanging around. And then when he got old enough, I think he went to UCLA for a little bit and got to know some other people that we knew. I cast him in a play called Carnage, a comedy that we toured to the public theater and to the Edinburgh Festival. And that's when he started working with the Actors' Gang. Wow. So he was, what, like 17 at that point?

He was super young, yeah. Yeah. And then I cast him in his first film, in Bob Roberts. Wow. And he was amazing in that film. Yeah, yeah. That's so cool. Psychotic fan of Bob Roberts. Yeah, right, right.

And did Tenacious D start as part of Actors Gang? Yeah. Yeah, they got to know each other actually on the Carnage tour because Kyle was in that as well. Yeah. And then Jack started learning how to play the guitar, and they started making up these songs, and we'd do it for friends, and play some more video games,

and play some songs. And I remember once outside the theater in Hollywood, I had been in New York, and I came, and they said, well, we have a new song. Okay, what is it? He goes, it's our OJ song.

And they never recorded it. It's so good. Oh, that's great. That OJ song. I can't believe he's great. That OJ song. I can't believe he's gone. That's just... I'll miss his tweets. Did you watch his social media at the end? No.

He'd come on like he was everybody's pal and nothing ever happened. And, hey, kids, it's the juice. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I remember watching. Where were you for the Bronco chase? It's the juice. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. I remember watching.

Where were you for the Bronco chase? On the set of IQ in New Jersey. And I had the TV. I had the. The Knicks game was going on. Well, I had the satellite there because of the Ranger games. Okay. It was 94, I think.

Yeah. And so we watched it on the set. Oh, okay. I had the satellite there because of the Ranger games. It was 94, I think. And so we watched it on the set. Oh, okay. It's like, what the fuck? Everyone's watching this. What the fuck is happening? It was the first car chase ever on TV. By the way, I am down for any. I will always watch those.

Oh, yeah. Because you get them a lot more here in LA. Yeah. You know, I watched one the other day that, you know, for an hour and a half. Well, because you don't know if it's going to be an hour and a half. Could be 12 minutes. Right. And that's kind of the excitement of it.

It's the only thing on TV. Well, I guess other than like a baseball game, you never know when those fucking things are going to end. But it's kind of exciting to not know. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little purient. It's like,

it's a little gross and I know it's gross when I'm watching. I'm like, yeah, I don't, I, I, I worry about it. Something really bad happening in me witnessing.

Right. That's that New York thing is like, you know, when you've seen someone get stabbed, you know, you're just like, yeah, right.

Yeah. It's traumatic. That's the problem problem by the way with this the social media right now is that there are there are times that i'm just like scrolling through something and they'll before you can switch it you see some really horrible violent thing happen i'm like are are we there is this have we arrived are we now watching snuff films? Is that what's going on? Well, I can't imagine what my kids, one of them here today, like what they grew up watching at such a,

like my son told me that he saw like beheadings, you know, in the Middle East, like as a nine-year-old. Yeah. What does that do to a child's psyche? Exactly. It's a snuff film. Yeah. Remember when we were like, oh, there's these things called called snuff films faces of evil or whatever the fuck that was faces

of death yeah and it was like no i don't want to watch that i don't want to watch anyone get killed that'll that'll scar me for life right but now it's just like what yeah yeah they should uh i don't know i i just find that like it's hard enough for me to deal with it what is what it must do to a child yeah i know so what now you've done it all you've acted you've directed you've you've started you have a theater company you're in prisons you're a great neighbor accomplished you you won the uh police and firemen's league in new york city the most hockey i don't know if you remember you took us all out for a huge dinner i do remember went to a steak house we got cigars scotch yeah i it i think you said this is the happiest i've ever been in my

life during the evening it might have been it might have been we had Ian Bagg as our defenseman. Remember Ian? That's right, Ian Bagg. Big Ian. I still hang out with him. I still play hockey with him. Oh, sweet. I haven't skated since before the pandemic. Are you still lacing him up?

I play every Sunday roller hockey. Oh, you do? Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. Great. But I haven't played ice

for a long time. Yeah. I've been wanting to get back. Yeah. There's something special about ice hockey. Just, you know, just the smell of it, the feel of the cold. It just brings back so much childhood stuff. I know.

I know. It's cool. Yeah. I have a place out in Westchester in New York, and we used to flood our – I built a tennis court with a lip around it, like a curb around it, like a curb. Yeah. So that we could flood it in the winter and freeze it.

Nice. And we used to have games out there for hours and hours on the weekends. Just, you know, kids from our neighborhood just come over. There was one rule at the – well, two rules. No drills. Just games only. Yeah. And if an adult knocks a kid down they have to sit for two minutes that's it two minutes that's all yeah well because because you'd have these adults getting out there like in their minds they're like 10

and they're like and but you're big and you could hurt someone with your clumsiness. So be careful. And then occasionally like we would have a, like NHL players show up. Oh, that's amazing. And the kids, Oh my God. I was like,

Messier ever play? No, but Buka boom. And, uh, really, uh, Sean Avery came up once.

Yeah. We, we, we had some legendary games there. That's awesome. And I'm kind of thinking about doing it again next year because I got grandkids now. I think they need to experience what shinny hockey is. Yeah.

Yeah. I love shinny hockey because the aesthetic is if you're an adult, you don't need to score. You need to pass to a kid to score. Yep. That's cool. Absolutely. You put a perfect pass on a kid's stick. Yep.

That's a gift. That is awesome. Yeah, when I grew up in, you know, Tarrytown, New York? Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's where I grew up. We had a lake there, and it would freeze. It was before global warming. Right.

It used to freeze, like, after Thanksgiving. I know. And it would be frozen until the end of march i know and we would be out there after school weekends we would skate for we'd play hockey for six seven hours on saturday yeah and then um and they had goals they had legitimate big steel goals and they had uh plows and they would they would plow when it snowed they would plow out perfect ovals so we had rinks and uh and so we play hockey all day and then at night we would first we go go to the uh bodega and we'd buy a case of beers and we'd bury it in the snow bank next to the lake and then they

had this big wooden shed that that had benches where you could put on your skates it was heated they had a little snack bar they sold hot chocolate and hot dogs and they had uh telephone poles with loudspeakers and spotlights wow and at night you went there and you skate and they opened till 11 o'clock at night and that was where i had my first kiss my first beers me and my buddies used to get into fist fights with each other it was like our whole world. So good. Yeah, it was amazing. And that lake has not frozen in the last 15 years. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it is.

It's sad. Yeah. The ponds around my place used to freeze and my thing used to freeze. I think if I do it on ice next year, I might have to get those with coils. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Global warming. on ice next year I might have to get those with coils yeah right yeah right global warming that's what the next play is about

well I uh I think we have a lot of problems with pollution and and people that are doing bad things to our food supply and to our water. And I think that's the issue to tackle, I think. Monsanto? Exactly. Dark waters. DuPont. Yeah.

Those are, I just feel like we could get, if we want to try to look at the whole thing, it could get us distracted from the things that we actually can do. Okay, that's interesting. We can start by holding those people that have poisoned the earth accountable. Yeah. yeah as far as the larger picture I'm not sure what I can do personally for that yeah I have lived my entire life you know as one of the characters says in the play we recycle she's not talking about us and living irresponsibly had prius and you know all this stuff but i also i just you know i i i wonder i wonder about stuff these days that i didn't wonder about yeah all right all right well that's the next podcast before we go, because Jesus Christ, hour and 40 minutes.

I never go this long. This is amazing. This is my favorite interview. We get to a very long time. Yeah. Maybe we'll make two out of it. So finally, and this comes from Paul, who is the purveyor of this place. What's next for Tim Robbins? What is it that you need to accomplish at this juncture of your career? Well, I'm going to do a concert in the end of, well, the beginning of August

in Italy with my band. Nice. What's the name of the band? It's called The Rogues Gallery. All these great musicians live over in London and occasionally

I'll get invited to a film festival where they want me to come and, you know, give me an award or something. Yeah. And I've learned

to respond with that's great. Would you be interested in having my band there to play a concert? Amazing. And so they've agreed. And so I'm going to be playing in Italy. It's something I haven't done since pre-pandemic. Something I love doing. Is your brother in the band? No, he has been in the past, but not in this incarnation. What do I want to do? I think writing is the next step for me. I got to write a book.

I got to... Like a memoir? Yeah. I got some stuff I need to say. And I'm good, though. I'm content. That's nice to hear i uh i've always you know been thinking since i turned like 60 didn't people used to retire yeah you know if you were successful, you could retire at 60. If you weren't, maybe 65. Now it's 67.

At least, yeah. But nobody retires. Nobody wants to stop. And I've been thinking about that. I've been thinking about what that would mean or look like, right? If nothing else, just to liberate myself from the stupidity of my business you know that the that kind of randomness or you know one of the things that I've really enjoyed about working on silo that I'm doing with Apple right now we've done two seasons I might do another my kids love it is that first

of all there were 10 hour days and I I think I'm done doing I I said to my agents you got to negotiate something for me on this one I don't want to work any day over 12 hours I'm done with that yeah and they came back to me with oh i think we're going to be okay it's done in london and they only shoot 10 days 10 10 hours a day there so it was incredibly human we could have a life we could have you know dinner with each other we could have dates you know all the all that stuff that is so inhumane about the business that I'm just, I,

I, you start looking at it and you go, we're in the 21st century and we have a union that's okay with us working 18 hour days. There's something really wrong with that. And the fact that that didn't have even a breath as part of the negotiations this past strike just tells me how out of touch uh people are with what it is to actually have a life and be human no when the actors were asking for there's a thing called

turnaround right where it's basically if you finish at two in the morning they have to give you eight hours now 10 they're supposed to give you 12 oh 12 but you got you got somebody living out long island and they're working in you know jersey and it takes them an hour and a half to get home each way they got to shower they got to eat try to fall asleep after being jacked up and now they're driving to work and they're getting into car accidents that's exactly right and it's even worse than that it's it's this this idea that they'll come the producers will come to me as an actor saying will you wave your turnaround uh-huh so that we can get the crew in earlier

right and not only that they'll offer you a grand in cash to do it really yeah and i i remember when that they first did that to me i was like like, I didn't think about it much. But then the second time they asked me, I realized this is really a betrayal of the crews. You got people that are, you got to remember that, you know, actors work on a job for 8, 10, 12 weeks. And then they go, they can take some time off. Whereas a crew member is going right to another job right away. They're doing this all year long. And there's just a certain degrading part of the business I just am done with. I can't, I can't, I've worked with really efficient, good directors that work eight hour days and get everything done.

All that, the 12, 14 hour, that means you suck. You should be embarrassed when you're a director and it's a 14 hour day. You didn't get focused. You didn't have a plan. You didn't get the shots you needed. That's on you. That shouldn't be on everybody else.

Right. But they'll work the crews into the ground. And I think someone's got to start standing up for that and it was amazing what happened with the the crew in in london the you know people actually wanted to be at work and they were healthy and they had gotten sleep and yeah you know it's it's a whole different way of working and i realized just how inhumane what we've accepted to be normal yes right and uh so I'm not so interested in you know doing that forever uh but I but I am uh curious about what writing will do for me and uh I'm gonna see if I can find a way to get some time off to do that.

Perfect. Yeah. Tim Robbins, what a pleasure. Thanks, Greg. Thank you so much, neighbor. We'll see you next time. Thank you. God bless America.

God bless America. Bye. Bye. Bye. you