Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade - Dennis Quaid
Episode Date: August 14, 2024Playing Reagan, favorite roles, and assassination attempts with Dennis Quaid. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn mo...re about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Get ready for Las Vegas style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos.
Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for
when you play the classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack,
Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection
of online table games and signature BetMGM service, there is no
better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM
Casino.
Download the BetMGM Casino app today.
BetMGM and GameSense remind you to please play responsibly.
BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs, 19 plus to wager.
Ontario only.
Please play responsibly.
If you have questions or concerns
about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600
to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement
with iGaming Ontario.
Attention all soccer fans. From Orlando to Los Angeles, take to the fields of the USA for your next vacation.
Ready to kick off? Discover exciting games and events. Plus, find amazing hidden gems in cities full of adventures, delicious food and diverse cultures.
You'll love it so much you'll want to extend your stay beyond the matches. Get the ball rolling on your soccer getaway. Head to visittheusa.com.
Dana Dennis Quaid is on the show this week and I really like Dennis Quaid. You know, what a stud,
versatile actor, especially because he's playing Reagan now, which I wouldn't have seen coming.
He's got a new movie coming out where he plays Ronald Reagan.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And he plays him at every age, basically.
I mean, from 30 to to the 85 or whatever it was.
So, yeah, it's great to have him.
He was one, it's like a real movie star.
I mean, he he came out in the early 80s and he's been just making consistent,
great stuff, fun to talk to, super casual.
One thing we must say to you,
which is kind of humorous, he brought this very adorable bulldog. Oh, right, right. That was lying
at my feet and it had its legs out. It was almost like on its back and it was just sort of sleeping,
I thought, and snoring. He said, no, I think it was a she, she's not asleep. It's just- Peaches maybe? Peaches is just really content.
So if you hear kind of heavy breathing, don't think anything's going on.
I was literally looking at Dennis going, are we going to keep going?
So anyway, you might hear a low buzz saw in the background.
Yes.
And we get to talk about the right stuff, which is still the favorite movie he was ever
part of, which is like this classic first time astronauts.
And it was his coming out movie where, and then he just had all these amazing, amazing
hits.
Right.
Even movies like, I say even movies, but like the day after tomorrow with Jake Gyllenhaal,
I thought was cool.
He does good movies.
He's been around for a while.
Good comedy. He does good movies, he's been around for a while, good comedy, he hosted Great Dude,
Good Looking which is the most important and he was a lot of fun.
He came in and we did it in person which we don't always do and we got to do that.
He has no errors about him.
He's just like a casual dude and I ask him toward the end, are you a pirate or a cowboy
and when you listen you'll find out his answer.
Yeah. You were married to Meg Ryan. That's another piece of trivia.
We had a great time with him. Here he is. Dennis Quaid.
Nineties paid for this. Nineties, everybody come on over.
Come on, boss. Yeah, come on down.
Come on over. Come on boss.
It doesn't look great.
Come on down.
We all did better.
Let me see.
The 90s.
Are we always recording?
We're always recording.
What was your biggest financial decade?
The wisdom of McConaughey, A-B-R.
Always be ready?
Always be recording.
I do McConaughey as a roller coaster operator.
All righty, ride, ride, ride.
That's all I got.
Well. Nice and quick.
I guess we'll have to talk about that too.
I know.
So you're still ripped.
You did.
What?
He's still ripped.
I'm vain.
Yeah, are you?
So I'm not gonna give it up.
I'm vain, I'm not that ripped.
I'm vain too, can't you tell?
Oh, great.
Well, I'm a lighter frame.
This would be a VA, vein anonymous, I guess.
At your peak musculature, were you like 5'10", 180 kind of guy?
Uh-uh.
Because you look like you could beat someone up in a movie.
I'm six feet.
I'm six feet, 180.
Six feet, 180.
Yeah.
Always have been.
So I'm in a movie with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and they throw in punches and
it's just,
so my character, I don't know how anyone thinks about it. My punch is like, dink.
I go, fuck guys.
You were in a movie with Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Their last movie.
The top guys.
The Wyatt Earp Doc Holliday reunion.
Basically.
Yes.
It was an extraordinary thing to be around them.
I mean, mind blowing and ridiculous.
No kidding.
Yeah.
Especially Kirk.
Oh, Kirk, man.
Yeah, he was in shape when he was in his nineties.
Kirk, yeah, he was still doing, oh yeah.
He would do like max pushups, max sit ups.
He had weights in his place.
And apparently when the director would go in there,
he just wouldn't have any clothes on.
I don't even know if it was homoerotic,
he just had on an act of wear clothes.
And he's doing pushups naked.
I go, I don't wanna see that.
He and Dick Van Dyke.
Dick Van Dyke, Jesus.
Dick Van Dyke also was a nudist?
No, he's nearing 100.
Yeah, oh right.
Yeah, I mean, this is a good topic actually,
actors who make it.
Mel Brooks is 98.
George Burns.
Lovitz ran into George Burns in Vegas and he said,
"'I got 18 months.'
It got down to like 18 months is what he felt he had
and he died 18 months later.
Was it some cigars?
What did he die from?
Well, he was 100.
I know, but was there anything that was supposed to give?
Something that's smoking eventually gets you.
Yeah, see, I told you, smoking kills.
So that's an old Norm MacDonald joke.
So you made it.
We got Dennis Quaid here, but we do an intro before,
so don't worry, we're gonna fucking help you up.
We got his height and weight.
He's still ripped.
I know I'm in great hands.
Yeah.
Nothing bad can happen here.
Nothing bad can happen here.
And there are no rules and we've already started
and we're halfway done.
Yeah, you're almost out of here.
How are you, man?
It's been a long, last time I saw you was on an airplane.
Yeah.
Coming from New York.
What were we doing?
Was it some up fronts or something?
I was, yeah, I was doing up fronts.
Yeah, that's right.
That's why we were both on the plane.
Cause we took a picture on the plane.
Yeah, and I had just done that hoax.
Oh, that's right.
About that I had had a meltdown on the set.
Oh, that's right.
And then why do you like in a headlock
or you had me in a headlock on the photo?
Three days later I released it,
that it was all a hoax.
We were on set.
You did a hoax together?
He did a hoax online and people thought he flipped out on the set, I think that was it, but it was all a hoax. We were on some- You did a hoax together? He did a hoax online and people thought
he flipped out on the set, I think.
That was it, right?
Yeah.
And that someone caught it from a camera.
Yeah, funny or die.
Oh, funny or die thing.
Yeah, that I'd had a serious meltdown on the set.
Very believable meltdown.
And then it turned out that it was just a comedy skit.
The last time I saw you, I don't know if we interacted,
I was at the par three golf course at Studio City
with Lovitz.
With it?
Oh yeah. Yeah.
And-
Is Lovitz still there?
Yeah.
He never leaves that place.
He's a caddy.
If there's pie there, he's there.
We love you, John.
Yeah, we love you.
No, I talked to him earlier today.
And anyway, he's-
Tell Dennis Quaid-
He's hysterical.
Yeah, he gets excited.
But you were just booming, driving the ball.
Cursing in between.
Are you still any good?
I could be.
Well, not quite there yet.
No time?
Yeah.
Do you understand what it means to maybe at one point
have a one handicap?
Is that true?
Yeah.
That's like not normal for an actor.
Oh, it's called too much time on your hand, I guess.
It's kind of between films.
You have these deluded dreams of,
wow, maybe I could actually go on tour.
But that was a passing phase and you know,
take one of that.
Do you know how bad most golfers are?
I mean, I mean just-
Yeah, I know I'm one of them.
No, but-
I'm an eight handicap now.
But that means, I mean, I would shoot a hundred, okay?
If I was playing by real rules on a real course.
Yeah, I have shot a hundred before.
Oh, I feel better.
Sometimes you do go by the real rules.
You have to.
I'm a 800 handicap.
I don't know what that means,
but I was told that early on.
No, I actually try to play with-
That's about a 15 hour round.
Yeah.
That's what it is.
You live here or not?
I live in Nashville, primarily.
Oh.
My kids are here.
And so during the school year,
I come back here every other two weeks.
Everyone loves Nashville now.
What's the deal?
Tax rate, Nashville, which I've played there.
It's great town.
It's fantastic.
Zero state tax.
They have zero state tax.
That's true.
Fucking man.
The vibe that is going on there,
there's got an artistic collegial atmosphere
that's happening there.
It's not your grandpa's Nashville anymore.
It's hard to find a hush puppy in fact.
I see, yeah.
And it's just great.
75% of all music done in the United States,
regardless of genre, is done in Nashville.
That's what I would tell people.
If you walk down the main drag
and you go into a bar or whatever,
you see like one of the best country Western bands
you've ever seen.
And then you walk a few more feet
and then you see a family doing it.
Yeah. Right, country Western.
So, and that's another one of your things we'll get to.
You are a number one gospel song, Fallen,
which I listened to today.
Yeah. Great song.
Thanks. And you really can sing.
Do you have- Sometimes. Do you really can sing. Sometimes.
But do you ever look at other bands of actors?
Cause the people, you have to earn a lot of respect
when you're an actor and guess what?
I could do this other than Costner has one.
Jim Belushi has-
Keanu Reeves.
Yeah. Keanu Reeves.
So it's pretty cool that you've made a name.
Quite a bit, it's either that or, you know,
athletes wanna be actors or they want to be
basketball players and football players.
Or, you know, it's just something I've always done.
You know, music is just something I've done since I was 12 years old and, uh,
songwriting, I knew I was never going to shred a guitar.
So I turned to songwriting early.
And then I've always had a band.
And so it's just something I do.
So what hit you hard,
because we're pretty much the same age.
Yeah.
So that would be,
but your kind of country Western got you more
like Johnny Cash or were you,
were you blown away by the Beatles and all that?
All of that. All of it.
All of that. All of that.
Yeah.
Grew up in Houston.
It's a pretty eclectic place actually.
Grew up musically and you know, I remember Elvis.
I remember Hank Williams.
I remember, you know, my dad would croon around
to Bing Crosby.
That was his Elvis and Dean Martin.
And then, you know, the Beatles came along and
shut everything out of the water.
Yeah. Yeah.
We'd love it.
Yeah.
Do you ever go to Kid Rock's country shit kicker circus?
Yep.
That's a bar down there.
Yep, I have.
It should be called Bubba Trump's to be honest.
Yeah.
Is that in mind?
He's got another one over at his place too.
Oh, his house.
Was, yeah.
Yeah, it was fun.
His church or something, yeah. Yeah. Oh, I've been to the old too. Oh, his house. Was, yeah. Yeah, his church or something.
Yeah.
Oh, I've been to the old-
He's quite a guy.
He's the mayor of Nashville, pretty much.
He's the mayor of Broadway, that's for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's actually every other, Dana, if you go there,
when I did the Ryman or whatever last time,
every couple bars is a country Western singer's bar.
Like Aldine, I think there's one of those.
There's-
Tanya Tucker's-
Is there Tanya Tucker?
She's gonna, it's Tanya.
It's Tanya.
She's getting ready to open a place.
What is the Tennessee accent?
I always thought it was almost like an Al Gore or something.
Well, Al Gore is from Tennessee.
Al Gore is Tennessee. I just Al Gore is from Tennessee. Al Gore is from Tennessee.
I just say Elbridge kind of matter.
So many people in Texas came from Tennessee.
It's kind of like very similar, I think.
You know, it was the West back then.
It's an Andrew Jackson accent, I think.
Is that the president?
Well, I'm doing Andrew Jackson
because no one can prove it's not a good one.
Yeah, you're doing good.
I am Andrew Jackson. I'm Andrew Jackson here right one can prove it's not a good one. Yeah, you're doing good. I am Andrew Jackson.
I said, boy.
I'm Andrew Jackson here right now.
If you can't do the impression.
Guy, you've done just about every president there is.
Between you and me, you did Clinton in a movie.
Yeah, I did.
Which was great.
Yeah, it was fantastic.
They, you know, what's interesting is someone asked me
and wrote a really good script as a live streaming show
to do Perot in a biopic, like what you just did with Reagan.
Yeah.
And it was a really good script.
I just didn't, I didn't,
wouldn't even know how to approach that,
but that, I don't really wanna get into how you're,
you know, because you don't wanna do a caricature,
you wanna be the character.
I voted for Ross Perot.
Can I bust my buns and bite me with a butterfly?
You're welcome, sir.
Can I, I knew Ross Perot was James Brown now.
Because like you said, saving and to get around
the economic crisis, it'll be fun.
I'm surprised that we even had a baby
that learned to walk around here, it's hell so much.
The greatest character in the history of politics.
It was fabulous.
I act, in my act now I do him as James Brown.
Can I come in on the one?
Can I come in on the one?
See, he gets the joke.
I get it.
Okay. Music joke.
Can I come in on the one?
Yeah, it was a revolutionary thing that James Brown came.
It's not one, two, three, four.
It's one, Which creates this whole, you know, good stuff.
Okay, well, you did Reagan.
Sorry, David, just talk shop like this.
Now I wanna talk about Reagan,
because he does Michael J. Fox, getting pegged,
from the movie, Casualties of War.
If you haven't heard it, you have to do it.
If you've heard it, don't do it.
It's hard to get me out of my shell.
Michael J. Fox from Casualties of War.
Oh, remember Casualties of War?
Casualties, yes I do, yes.
Sean Penn, Sean Penn.
Yes I do, yeah, yes.
Hey Sarge, what are we doing here exactly?
You gotta give me a minute on this.
Mallory?
I combined it.
That's all I got, Dennis.
The fact that it exists is funny.
It's fabulous that someone thought to do Michael J. Fox
from that particular film.
And he did that movie, which was-
When you do it, it's not like an impersonation.
It's like, you are Michael J. Fox.
Yeah, Sean Penn, John C. Reilly.
It was a good-
I didn't even see the haircut.
I think I wanted to be like Michael J. Fox
when I got into show biz.
And then I gave that up quickly,
but he was too famous, too good.
He was great.
Well, let's give a little shout out to Michael J. Fox.
Yes, let's do that.
If you look at Back to the Future
and how hard it is to play that part
and how brilliantly he did it, you know, it's amazing.
He's in love with his mom.
He had to go back in time.
And many, many other films, so.
He's, besides being an incredible person,
he really has been.
He's, you know, what a guy.
Extraordinary.
What about this Reagan thing?
Let's talk about that.
The Reagan thing.
You played Reagan in another-
First of all, contextually, it's interesting
that this has now probably started two years ago
or whatever, it's coming out.
Started really six years ago.
Yeah, so this is the most tumultuous time
in the history of American politics by any measure
at the very moment we're doing this podcast.
And your Reagan biopic is coming out August.
August 30th.
Right after the Democratic National Convention.
I guess so, yeah.
I think they're gonna close with the screening.
Yeah, finally.
Here's the biopic about Dennis Quaid.
He's gonna, what?
I told you, come on.
Hey, Reagan's here.
Let's get real.
The fact of the deal is, come on.
There's no doubt what we did there
and there's people's fun.
Do you think you have the cognitive discipline
to be president?
Yeah.
Sorry, he's my new toy.
But so, Reagan, let's start like you did Clinton.
I did Clinton.
And you want to go over to that.
That was back in what, 2005, something like that.
And I actually played a George Bush type character
in American Dreams.
That's right.
With a Z.
You weren't technically George W, but you were George.
So how did that guy sound?
Kind of sort of, I can't even go there anymore.
He kind of sort of sounded like George Bush.
Then, you know, you got a cheney character, you know.
So it was pretty obvious, but then I was offered Reagan,
I guess this is 2018.
So, and, uh, I, uh, you know, he was my favorite president and, uh, he's probably,
he's like Muhammad Ali, you know, he's like known all over the world and like this.
So I, it took me a while to say yes, cause it was just scared to death to play him.
And it seems like you were the perfect choice.
I didn't see it that way.
We have kind of a head, I mean, there is-
A big head, is that what you're trying to get to?
Your head is square jawed.
It's like, I can't play Reagan,
but you mean you kind of,
you were physically, they could kind of suspend disbelief.
Yeah, well, I said we're both actors.
We both have sunny dispositions, I think.
But it was like, everybody in the world
knows what he looked like, sounded like.
And I just didn't really feel, it was just a-
It's a tough one.
A tough one to like take on.
Yeah, sure.
Oh yeah. So I thought about it for a take on. Yeah, sure. Oh yeah.
So I thought about it for a while
and then because where's the way in?
You don't want to do an impersonation, you know?
No.
That's, well, that's pretty easy.
Yeah, Nancy and all that.
That's right.
And so it took me a while to really kind of get into
who he was as a person.
And I went up to the Reagan ranch,
was Western White House back there.
And it's not a public place.
His friends bought it to keep it as it was.
They're closer in the closet there.
You expect them to like come back any second.
They didn't change a thing.
And you go up five miles of the worst road in California and get to the top.
And you realize, I realized that, uh,
Reagan was a humble man.
He wasn't a rich man.
And he, you know, like, uh, they had a king-size
bed, but it was two single beds that were zip tied together.
Jesus.
They did have GE, they had GE appliances, you know,
that's for me. General Electric. Yeah did have GE, they had GE appliances.
You know, that's for me.
General luxury.
Yeah, yeah.
For GE.
Fucking money bags now.
And his bookcase was there, which had every book he'd ever read going back
to when he was nine years old.
And there was just a feeling there that you could just feel
his presence in a way.
And his secret service agent, John,
was kind of the caretaker of the place.
He told me all kinds of stories about him.
And that's when I decided, yeah, I'll do it.
He's still guarding it even though Reagan's gone.
John is gone too.
He passed right before we started shooting
because we wanted to put him in the movie.
One thing that's interesting to me is being around during that time
and Reagan was hung in effigy over,
they wanted a nuclear freeze and no, we're going the other way.
And now he's become so bright and shiny
that even the New York Times will refer to him
how he dealt with Israel once.
And Fox News likes him.
I mean, he's become this character
that sort of transcends politics in a way.
Yeah, there were Reagan Democrats
that came over at the time, but he was,
you know, if'll remember those times
that he was called a warmonger.
He'd kind of get us into a nuclear war for sure.
Yeah.
You know, his, uh, his economic policy was just for the rich and, uh, didn't care about
the working man and, uh, kind of like what's going on today in a sense.
But he was, he was who he was, you know, and he also just, he knew how to lead.
Something in him knew how to lead.
He was tough.
I mean, right in the first part of his administration, the air
traffic controllers went on strike.
Right.
And he fired all of them.
Yeah.
That was like a tough thing at the time.
Yeah, I mean, shut down the airspace, you know,
and the FAA and that had never been done.
An entire agency fired all of them.
And I think that's when, in fact, him doing that
actually made the Russians think that this guy is like, he's
crazy.
We better watch out.
And Reagan won the Cold War, I mean, along with the Pope and elect Valenza, uh, it took a cold warrior like that to, uh, deal with the Russians because they respected
him.
Yeah.
You know, they said there was 80% thought, Oh, well he's reasonable.
And the, that 20%, they thought, well, he just might, he might just, he might just,
if we, if we're not careful, he might do something we would regret.
One thing that I think in terms of Plainum, I wonder what you think about this because
watching all these different debates, different politics these days, and Reagan had a thing and
he did it with Carter and it seems to speak to him so much that he would never get angry.
And if he was misrepresented in his way, in his mind, he would say, well, there you go again.
It's the most benign, likable way to say, you're lying motherfucker.
Yeah.
There you go again.
The best one was in the debate with Mondale.
Oh, right.
When he was about his age.
Yeah.
He said, I will not for political purposes exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience.
Brought down the house.
And it brought down the house. Even Mondale couldn't help it. He cracked up. And then
Reagan did a thing that I'm sure you will recognize. He did a Jack Benny.
Because he had them laughing and he just picked up his glass of water.
Oh, and just did a...
Just soaked it in. Stillness. Just his glass of water. Oh, and just did a take on his stillness.
Just drank to pass over.
Oh, killed.
It's called killing. phone activations with major carriers. Visit your nearest Best Buy store today. Terms and conditions apply.
Hey, I'm Rhett.
And I'm Link.
Maybe you know us from our daily YouTube show,
Good Mythical Morning.
But this is a little trailer for our podcast Ear Biscuits,
where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time.
And nothing is off limits.
We talk about our sex lives, our mental health journeys,
but we try to never take ourselves too seriously.
So we invite you to not do the same or to do the same.
We invite you to listen.
Follow and listen to Ear Biscuits.
Now for free on the Odyssey app
and everywhere you get your podcasts.
It's a privilege kind of to inhabit him for a while.
I mean, he just comes off so likable.
Yeah.
You know, he was everybody's dad, I think,
to the boomers especially, you know,
and that's for worse, better or worse.
You know, there's a lot of people who still,
Yeah.
You can't mention his name
and they'll kind of fly off the wall.
Sure.
This is like a nonsense.
But it was either you're good dad or you're bad dad.
Or bad.
Yeah.
I ran into Patti Davis right after 9-11 at a gym and she was going, I know, I'm just
remembering this now.
And she goes-
Tricep machine.
I know this might come off weird, but I kind of wish daddy was in the Oval Office now.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
It's not that weird.
That would be great.
You know, there was a reason they,
Iran hostages got released the day of his inauguration.
I know.
Because they did, the Iranis didn't want to deal with Reagan.
Well, he was the kind of guy guy we will not negotiate with hostages.
And Jimmy Carter's like, well, if we're not, we're finessed to them.
If we're vernis, maybe they'll release the hostages.
They'll be reasonable.
They'll be reasonable.
Like us.
I think that's what, you know, that's the problem.
That's, that's the wall with Americans.
We're like that. We grew up like that, you know, the golden rule and all with Americans, we're like that.
We grew up like that, the golden rule and all that,
what we get taught, and that we think the whole world
is the same way.
Like Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best.
Yeah, it's an episode of Leave It To Beaver
where you could talk to Gaddafi and reason with a guy,
and you should be more like Warren Beatty, you know, if you want to protest, but
uh, his cousin.
Yeah.
Uh, but, uh, they looked alike, but there's, there's really bad, bad people
and bad leaders of nations out there.
And they've grown up in a culture that's based on political violence or
personal violence or whatever and that's what the way they act.
Right. So I agree with you. There's not, you can't, you got to play it a different way.
Because we always think if we do the right thing, they'll do the right thing.
And that doesn't always work. And they sort of show their cards. no one, they're not hiding it. No, they don't.
Since we are the world, literally, there is in the DNA in Americans a lot and the people who fought
to get here and all the immigration we had and all our ancestors that we want freedom above
everything. And we don't want anyone to tell us what to do. I think if the government had said,
well, would you take the COVID shot?
You don't have to, but we'd kind of like you to.
People might've said, okay,
but once you tell a certain kind of American,
hey man, fuck you,
it's like there's a rebellious side to us.
Yeah, there's true.
I am that too.
I'm not a very good rule follower.
I'm just not. I don't know if it's based on personal freedom or just, I don't know.
Well, when we grew up, it was question authority. That was the bumper sticker.
Whoever's the authority, just question them. They worked for us. Remember it's our government. Yeah. Watergate that really, that did a lot after that.
And Kennedy getting shot, uh, you know, Bobby Kennedy getting shot, Martin Luther
King, and then Watergate pretty much, you know, we were, I think, uh, America
was kind of walking wounded back then.
That was our formative years.
David's a little younger, but that was,
that informed everything.
That's what we came into.
David's a lot younger, but-
I'm like a child here.
I'm like my two dads.
So when people-
No, I'm old and gross.
Well, listen here son, he's my little brother.
He's very bright.
And so David, do you have any questions?
What I do is I take it in.
I think we all got introduced to Dennis
during the Let's Give Us Something to Talk About video.
That's where I first was introduced to you.
Do you remember that video?
The subject you talk about with Bonnie Raitt?
Yes.
Yes, I remember that very well.
Yeah, you look very cute in that.
I was, there was a lot of fun.
But a great musician, Bonnie Raitt, and your music.
How do you even get involved in that, Hon?
At the time I had a band, The Athletics, that was also Bonnie's road band.
See, nobody knows that. That's a good way to put that together.
How was Bonnie?
She seems cool as shit, huh?
I've been a fan of her since I was working
at Astroworld in Houston.
That's when her first record came out,
that blues record that was like,
man, it was so different from anything in music.
And I just fell in love with her and her music.
And then she was one of the first
people I actually ever met.
I had met her like when I got to LA about very soon
after that, and she was just so nice and you cannot
give her a compliment.
She just, that's her only fault.
She won't take the compliment.
Yeah.
She will not do it.
And, uh, not me, but, uh, that's what's great about you. Take a compliment. Yeah. She will not do it. And- Not me.
But-
That's what's great about you.
You took a compliment.
By the way, you got into one of her best songs.
That song is great.
This song is fantastic.
That song is unreal.
She's brilliant.
And that was before,
then I did a movie called Something to Talk About.
Oh, you did?
It was in that, but that was just a quinky dink.
That had nothing to do with-
Does this ring true with you that I was with Bonnie Raitt
at an SNL party and Eric Roberts and Christopher Walken
were sitting next to each other.
Wow, they take me back to the covies.
Bonnie Raitt looked at them and goes,
"'God, I feel like I'm having sex just looking at them.'"
I thought that was a really funny line.
Yeah.
And they were kind of in their prime,
you know, they looked like bad asses.
Yeah.
I was like.
Well, you did, I was just talking to Dana
about when you did SNL and it was probably
right when I got there.
I think you said right when Sandler got there, right?
Because it was December.
Yeah, it was the Christmas show.
Christmas show, 1990.
Yeah, that was he just joined.
Yeah.
It was a pretty big show.
It was a great show.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, because we he just joined. It was a pretty big show. It was a great show. Yes.
Yeah, because we did dysfunctional.
Please don't touch me.
Leave me alone.
I'm doing fine, just go away.
I'm doing fine.
Wow, I know that one.
The family Christmas.
Dysfunctional.
We just talked to Bonnie and Terry Turner,
the writers who wrote that.
Yeah, they were just on it.
One of their favorite sketches they ever wrote on SNL.
It was beautiful.
That got stuck in my head.
That was hilarious.
You played the crazy pilot.
Yeah.
Mike Myers was on the show at that time.
Yeah.
Did you do Sprakets?
I was on Sprakets.
Sprakets.
Did you touch the monkey?
Yes.
You did touch my monkey.
Yeah.
That was my favorite part of that, the arbitrary.
Happy on fast on Samstag and doobas on Aladdin.
What a great time to be on the show though, how fun.
That was a great time.
Who was your music, you remember?
The Neville Brothers.
Oh, is that because of you?
I guess it was, but I didn't ask them.
That was all done, it was mysterious how that all happened.
Made sense.
But yeah, they were,
Yeah, what a great time.
I finished, yeah, Pilot Renegade guy
and then Mustang Calhoun.
So they did get you on the six string.
It's a pretty funny name for a country Western guy
or whatever.
Mustang Calhoun.
Mustang Calhoun.
Mustang Calhoun.
They still use it, MC.
So what do you want,
I just finished up with Reagan a little bit.
Yeah, I love Reagan.
What's your hopes for that?
Have you seen it?
Are you feel great about it?
I've seen it, yeah.
And we finished shooting like almost four years ago.
Oh, for real?
Four years ago, it would be this October
when we started shooting it.
Has COVID stopped the whole thing?
And so it's, you know, it's been a journey.
And then-
The movie got COVID.
Yeah. That's never happened.
Yeah, we got COVID, like-
Did you get shut down?
I see the scene where I got COVID in this.
Oh, really?
The assassination scene.
Oh yeah, that's the worst kind.
Yeah, in the hospital, you know?
Oh, shit.
By gurney, past all these extras,
like that at two in the morning,
in a basement with no ventilation.
You must, when this happened with Trump,
you must know more about assassination attempts
just from knowing about the movie.
So was there any questions you had about that?
That was the last time a president was shot, was Reagan.
And you do it, it's by, I mean, you do him young,
you're doing him middle-aged.
I mean, that's also a huge challenge to do.
I play him from 35, you know,
when he first came to Hollywood through,
when he said goodbye to the American people
in his letter, when he had diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
Beautiful letter, I mean, only Reagan.
It was an incredible letter. Yeah, it's just so human. Yeah, and I mean, only Reagan. It was an incredible letter.
Yeah.
It's just so human.
Yeah.
And it was a challenge.
I mean, first, just the voice, because in his younger days,
he's like way up here.
We all have kind of a higher pitch,
and eventually get down to where it's well.
And it's that and just meeting so many people that were close
to him. And one thing I found was that even to those who were very close to him, probably
including Nancy, there was kind of a private place in him that was kind of unknowable.
A little bit of something there. Yeah, that was kind of unknowable. A little bit of, yeah, something there.
That was kind of separated and distant
from the rest of the world.
Nancy was, who plays Nancy?
Penelope Ann Miller.
Okay.
And she is Nancy.
She is a Nancy.
Cause she was in the enforcer, right?
When it came to Ronnie.
A lot of people would think that, but no, they just.
Or even just.
There would have not have been a President Reagan
without Nancy.
Okay.
Because she was just there for him.
She really dedicated her life to their love
and his aspirations. But she wasn't what I call the enforcer or anything like that.
Well, I think that she protected him in a different way. Like when Reagan went to Japan,
it was a seven day trip. And Nancy insisted first they go to California, rest for a day,
then they're in Hawaii.
Then they're in Guam.
Oh, Brian, I remember about that.
Rather than just like when they're whipping Biden around,
you know, I mean, that is tough at 81.
You go there and back.
Right.
She was protected that way.
But so did you, was the assassination attempt,
did you act that out?
Yeah. The whole thing?
Yeah, we recreated that.
Okay.
And that was.
Was James Brady's shot and then also someone else, right?
James Brady and then also the Secret Service guy.
Okay.
The famous shot where he did the.
Takes it in the gut like that.
And the shot that got Reagan
and was actually a ricochet off the car. Oh, they're off the bulletproof glass or the metal.
And he was going like this, you know, saying hello to everybody.
And it caught him right here.
And that, you know, they, it wasn't like four minutes of, you know, why they
clear your thing, they just go, they just put a hand on top of his head, shoved
him in there on top of him.
He got up and he said, gosh, you almost broke my ribs.
He was admonishing the secret service for that.
And then, you know, they were going to the White House.
They weren't going to the hospital because he was okay, untouched.
And then about four or five blocks down, he coughed up some blood.
And that's what made him go to the hospital.
And he still didn't feel, oh wow. Yeah.
And if they hadn't done that, he would have died for sure.
The bullet had gone here.
They, it was just the smallest little tiniest little hole, but it had stopped
like a quarter inch from his heart.
Jesus.
And it's like Trump with the ear.
I also thought when they, they took them away,
he doesn't know there could be one in his back.
If you're in shock and your adrenaline, I wasn't sure
everything was okay, you know, same reason.
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you never know.
And, you know, I think those guys on the ground,
I mean, they took four minutes And, you know, I think those guys on the ground, I mean, they took four
minutes, but they did the right thing.
You know, thinking about other shooters.
It seemed to me too, that when they got him on the ground, what they did,
because he, remember he said, I want my shoes.
Yeah.
I think they basically ripped open his shirt.
Yeah.
You know, had checked, had checked him everywhere for any kind of wounds
that he might have, you know, before they got him up
and knew they could transport him.
Because you don't, if somebody shot-
And his shoes are what, he just fell?
What?
What was the shoes?
Well, they must've taken off the shoes.
I don't know, maybe they took his pants off.
When they tackled him, maybe they were low for,
I don't know what.
I don't know what.
When they grabbed him, somehow his shoes got off. His I don't know what. When they grabbed him. So they're giving him a quick check. Somehow his shoes got off.
His shoes got off because I think they took him off.
Yeah.
Oh, they just took him off, took the tie off.
They're just looking for.
Yeah, they were just looking for any kind of.
Yeah.
And then they're like on top of him going,
okay, we gotta make a move.
Yeah.
And then they got a plan.
Then they heard about the shooter.
They said the shooter's down.
Right.
That was about 45 seconds.
Did it surprise you that the guy got close
and wasn't seen?
Incredible.
It's incredible.
When you are seeing this video,
I don't know if it's a policeman or the Secret Service,
the sniper looking at the bad guy, let's say,
and he sees him, aren't you allowed to just shoot
if the guy's got a gun?
You see a guy laying there with a gun,
do you have to wait to get orders or?
Because remember he looked up, then there's a shot,
then he goes down and hits him.
But if you've got him in the sights, he's wearing camo
and he's got the gun.
So is it just a rule you can just take a shot?
Well, who knows?
There's a person here between three of us
that is qualified to play the head of the security team in a biopic.
We're going to write a report.
This is a commission.
With three, you have a commission, right?
You'll be the hard-boiled guy coming and going,
what the fuck went on here?
This is called...
I want this perimeter locked down.
We can take all the lines from every movie we've done.
Three dip shits.
I'm getting too old for this shit.
Who's your agency?
CAA, UCA, just put it in their ear.
This has got motion picture written all over it.
But yeah, we'll find out.
We cracked the code right here.
And everyone's like,
wow, no one thought of this.
When is this episode gonna come out?
August 14th.
August 14th.
Yeah, so everything we say now will be-
That will be useless.
We'll find a sleep on the freeway.
Yeah, it was like, what were they thinking?
So I think we better shut up right now.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's impossible.
No, it'll still be going on
knowing the way it works in America.
All I can say is thank God we can laugh about it
in as far as Trump goes.
Absolutely.
But that the firefighter lost his life.
We talked about him yesterday. Was it the same yesterday, trying to protect his wife and daughter.
I'm trying to figure out where he was.
Was there, it was a grand stand over between him and the shooter.
I don't get it, but probably the guy dove on his family when things came up.
And, uh, it's because of all the, oh, he's okay.
No one knew right then, no, someone was not okay.
Yeah.
You know, when they get Trump out, you think he's okay,
but no one knew if someone got hit.
The randomness of human existence, it's just so tragic.
Yeah, it really is.
And heroic, of course, the instinct,
you always think the impulse would be to dive on your loved ones.
But he actually did it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He sacrificed himself.
You know, I think when I watched that, or when I was
seeing replays, it was so weird to see if Biden or
Trump, if something happened to them on live TV, it
would be so disturbing to the, it's so weird.
Cause you know, there was not since Kennedy
where it was like really, but no one really saw that.
They saw a video later, but to see it happen in real time,
it would have shook the shit out of anyone.
We all know it would have been the most gothic thing.
I talked to a military guy, a friend of mine,
and what would have happened would have been beyond
what we can imagine.
And with bright color, 8K television globally.
So, it's just, we're all a little still shook from it.
I definitely was adrenalized after I saw that.
It would have been one of those things
you could never unsee.
Summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need
for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats.
What do we mean by almost?
Well, you can't get a well-groomed lawn delivered, but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered.
A cabana? That's a no. But a banana? That's a yes.
A nice tan? Sorry, nope. But a box fan? Happily yes.
A day of sunshine? No. A box of fine wines? Yes.
Uber Eats can definitely get you that.
Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats.
Order now.
Alcohol in select markets.
Product availability may vary by Regency app for details.
Psst.
Want to get in on the best savings hack ever?
Only Kudos saves you up to 40% on a sweet phone plan,
reliable home internet, and all the streaming you could ever need
with Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime.
That's right.
When you bundle with the Happy Stack,
you can spend up to 40% less a month, every month,
all year long, as long as you're with Kudo.
Dare I say saving this much money
has never been this easy?
Stack more, spend less, like way less.
The Happy Stack, only at Kudo.
Now with internet.
What was your first,
I'm gonna get away from this because you guys
actually don't know what you're talking about.
Okay, but it's the Ronald Reagan extravaganza picture.
August 24th.
Yeah, but I'm very proud of the movie to tell you the truth.
Of course.
That speaks volumes.
Editing and we try,
I don't see it as political.
Uh, the film it's, you know, it's about a man's life.
Yeah.
It's not a total love letter.
You know, Reagan missed, uh, you know, a few, the way he has response to AIDS at the time was wanting, I think, you
know, uh, later on, I think he came around about
it, but the initial response was, it was not
there.
I ran contra.
I don't think he was involved in it, but it was
on his watch.
Yeah.
You know, he delegated a lot and I think he would
say things and then those below would carry them out.
And, you know, so there's, you know, some things
which I, which were not the best, but overall I,
you know, I myself, I think he was the greatest
president of the 20th century.
He and maybe Franklin Roosevelt.
Well, he was, he was charming.
And even going back to this, but after he got
wounded and just again, very Reagan, I'm sorry,
mommy, I forgot to duck.
I forgot.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, just all those.
He, he did bring unity to a nation and he, he brought
us back.
We were a declining nation.
Everything it's very, it's so strange about how
the today is so similar.
You know, Carter was in there,
who I voted for too, by the way.
Thank you very much.
Because after Watergate, you wanted somebody out.
We wanted somebody outside of Washington.
That was the anti Nixon joke.
Yeah.
Yeah. And Carter, like he gave away the B-1 bomber.
The economy was really down the tubes.
And you know, it just, 20% was the interest rates back then.
You know, and that may have been caused by the Vietnam War,
not just, you know, Carter's administration.
The 70s was an odd decade.
It was, yeah.
We felt like we were a nation and declining
and Reagan came along and really made us feel proud
to be Americans again.
Well, and also there's this great picture.
Tip O'Neill was the leader of the Democrats and then Ronald Reagan and they would go in
and have a drink and tell dirty jokes.
And then Reagan would say, what do you need?
You know, they'd negotiate and there's a picture
of them coming out, just laughing their asses off.
And that's like, if that would be, you know,
the speaker of the house, I don't know,
Schumpf, Schumer and whatever, Trump are being friends.
So he did rotate that a little bit and he negotiated with the Democrats.
Yeah.
It'd be like Nancy Pelosi and Trump laughing, laughing, and getting together
for a beer on a Friday afternoon.
And that's basically the way it was.
They even said at the beginning that, you know, we're going to be
bitter enemies until five o'clock. Yeah. And then we're, you know, we're going to be bitter enemies until five o'clock.
Yeah.
And then we're, you know, we're just a couple of Irishmen having a beer.
Yeah.
And they were.
I did like that Biden called Trump. I do like when there's something, some normal things happen in the world.
Yeah, I did too.
It just drops it for a second and it's not going to go away, but you just go, okay, so we have real people trying to be real people for a second.
That was, you know, that was a time back then, which I think Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan
kind of exemplified that I think that's what we need to get back to, at least, to be able to talk
back and forth.
That would be great. I don't know. Sounds so simple.
Yeah, it does. So, I mean, we pass each other in street every day.
We go into each other's businesses, uh, no matter what side, and we're
polite to each other, treat each other like human beings until you find out
they're a label and then all of a sudden they're demonized.
Well, whoever made social media, I guess, uh, programmed the robots to get more views and the robots figured out the way to get
more views is to get people angry. And so,
so anyone who doesn't know they're being hypnotized into darkness on the worldwide
web, you know,
at least be aware that it's trying to feed you what gets you going. So I think,
I don't have any answers. Exactly.
You hit something right on the point there. And that starts, I think, with kind of
self-examination. I tell every human being I meet whatever their opinion is. Okay, now read the
opposite. Yeah.
Read the opposite. Yeah. I juxtapose the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
They're just in the morning. It's a hundred bucks a year each. I just go,
well, what does New York Times take?
What's the Wall Street Journal's take?
You know, just, and you find,
I find myself watching stuff I disagree with more
because I know my opinions.
Yeah, exactly.
But if everyone would say,
okay, I'm gonna just read the opposite for a week.
I might learn something.
Yeah, that's all.
You know what I mean?
Even if it's that, why is the other side not even covering this?
You know, sometimes.
Well, censorship by omission is the greatest use of censorship.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And I'd like to see at least more of that.
Well, more awareness. I mean, I...
No, more in coverage.
Yeah. Reporters, I mean, I- No, more in coverage. Yeah. More in reporters.
I mean, people who call themselves journalists actually not giving you their judgment of
something that's had putting themselves in the story to actually tell the story.
To humanize all that.
I think that is very, I agree 100%.
That's called journalism, I think.
There's a quote by Thomas Sowell,
who's an economist I always like
in terms of the whole political theater
and the intensity of it.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs.
We are always trying to make better,
but there's not like one side
has it all perfectly worked out.
So there's no reason to demonize the others.
Yeah, I mean, that's what our country's based on.
They call it a compromise.
Compromise. Right from the very beginning. You like equality, that's what our country's based on. They call it a compromise. Compromise.
Right from the very beginning.
You like equality, I like freedom,
let's work out a relationship, how they work together.
I would run on a ticket with you, just for,
you would run for governor,
I'd be lieutenant governor in California.
Oh, we could switch it out.
I'm just throwing it out.
What do I do, look after the stalling?
I think in California, you have a better chance.
In Texas, I would have the better chance.
Oh, in Texas.
In Texas, yeah. But you do such a great George Bush. I'd go to Texas, and I would better chance in Texas. I would have the better chance. Oh, in Texas. In Texas, yeah.
But you do such a great George Bush. I go to Texas and I would just do George W.
Yeah, most of your impressions are.
I think Lieutenant Governor Quaid.
That sounds good, doesn't it?
I like being W because he was our frat boy president, emotional and just that kind of,
you know, he's just a cheerful.
You get me every time with that. And just that kind of, you know, he's just a cheerful.
You get me every time with that.
Then you also dealing in between him and the father,
George the one.
Well, education, doing well down here,
Quaid, podcast, fly, wall, spade,
Greg, Heather, somebody in a room.
Thousand points of light. A thousand points of light.
A thousand points of light coming at you.
No, but to the point, that was the most extreme
if you reverse extrapolate, whatever, interplay.
That I made fun of him, you lose the election
and he calls me and we become friends.
People go, but I didn't know him while I was doing him.
Nah, I didn't know.
But the impression's so silly and dumb, it's nothing. That's when I was like that. That was I didn't know. But the impression's so silly and dumb.
It's nothing.
That's when I was like-
That was so perfect.
If he'd had Twitter back then,
he might have been Dan Agarney
doing that impression of me right now
on Saturday Night Live,
waving his arms around like a spastic monkey,
hashtag dick.
Son.
Twitter man, but there was no Twitter.
So I was out there anyway.
So we all hope for a better time.
I'd like to talk about the right stuff.
Yeah, I was about to say,
did any of these movies ring a bell?
I was asked by that movie.
Right stuff.
I love it.
I mean, just, just the truth.
The right stuff was actually my favorite movie
I ever done. Really?
Until Reagan, actually.
It kind of, after 40 years, that's been taken over.
I judge, the movies I do,
I judge by the time I had on them.
You know what I mean?
That, you mean the shooting?
Yeah, well, the time that I had experienced
while making it, I mean, that's really what I know.
Martin Sheen said that to Rob Lowe
and all the Brad Pack guys.
And he says, and they were, he just, that was his advice.
You just think about, do you like who you're working with?
Do you like the job you're doing?
Don't think about outcome and all that other stuff.
So that's really interesting that you loved making the right stuff.
Well, I was, I was from Houston, you know, which was space city.
And I was right there first grade when they rolled in the TV so
we could watch Alan Shepard go up.
Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut.
He was the youngest, he was the rock and roll astronaut.
And I love that name Gordo.
And then the book comes out and I read it like in two days. And if they ever make a movie of this, I would, you know,
gosh, I want to, I want to play Gordo.
And I was not Dennis Quaid back then.
Sure.
You were, you were, so you auditioned.
You've done some work.
I'm just trying to get a job, you know.
That's a while back.
Yeah.
So you had done a few things and you were lucky to get in, just even an audition.
I got in for the audition
because somebody dropped out of the role
that I got on there and I got the part.
And then it turned out that Gordo Cooper
lived three miles from me in LA, over in the Valley.
So I called him up.
Oh, you got to see him?
And met him and then he turned me on
to a flight school in Van Nuys and I got my pilot's
license while we were making the movie in secret.
And did that come naturally to you?
I mean-
No, I was afraid to fly.
Actually, before that, I felt like you're going to fall out of the sky.
I don't really like it.
Yeah. before that, I felt like you're gonna fall out of the sky. I don't really like that. But I had this teacher, my instructor was Bud Wallen,
and he was three years younger than aviation itself.
And you could solo if you want to, but you don't have to.
That was his thing, and he had me throw it.
That hat on the side of the plane,
you can solo if you want to, but you don't have to.
That must be scary as shit to solo.
Seat of my pants falling.
Oh, it was after I got my license.
I really, it's just a license to really scare yourself.
I mean, the first time, even if you're good,
is it just terrifying.
It's a license to kill yourself.
Yeah.
So you get, until you get like an instrument rating on top of that, you know, because you got your bad word. It's too scary, kill yourself. So you get a, until you get like an instrument rating
on top of that, you know, cause you get a bad word.
It's too scary, cause anything can happen.
You're by yourself.
Yeah, I was lucky.
John Kennedy is kind of, you know, God love him.
Yeah, you know, I don't think he really had any business
flying that night.
Yeah, it's a common thing of the disorientation.
You can't tell up from down.
No, you're just completely.
Like when you do your instrument training, they put a hood on you.
You take off and they put a hood on you that's like this, just, you know, covering.
The only thing you can see is the dashboard with the instruments.
You can't see outside and you have to fly for maybe two hours like that.
And you have to fly for maybe two hours like that.
And then they take the, you get 50 feet above the runway and they take it off.
And you see if you, you're there. Did John of Kennedy Jr.
get that train?
But you have the, your inner ear is telling you that you're in a turn,
that you're at an angle.
And so you're constantly trying to, at first, trying to level what you think is
the wing, but your instruments are saying you're straight and level.
Wow.
But you're gonna trust your inner ear.
Damn.
So you're trusting your panel?
That's the thing you have to get over.
The notes itself, don't take pilot lessons.
Don't leave the house.
That was something else.
And then Chuck Yeager was on the set every day.
So he's arguably like the coolest, bad-ass test pilot,
or is the test pilot of the 19th.
Of all time.
Nobody will ever touch it.
He was checked out in 192 separate aircraft.
He locked us in a room and told us his whole story,
going back to when he was a lawn mower repairman in West Virginia, you know, farm kid to, uh, like
World War II, you know, five, uh, shoot, shoot downs in, uh, World War II and, uh,
and the whole test pilot stuff.
And the X 15, I think the first speed of sound.
Yeah.
He never, he never, that was the X-1.
X-15, he never flew.
Okay.
But he was out of it by that time.
But he was an incredible human being.
Was like hanging out with John Wayne for four months.
The thing about that book and that movie,
it's just so interesting when you don't know anything
and really get just the idea of these young men
or whatever age they were,
and how you kept going back and forth
with the German scientists,
we want a window, all that stuff.
And what a tin can it was,
and the technology was so lo-fi,
the bravery or the craziness,
I don't know what, how did you?
Well, you know, the only thing,
like I said, is my favorite movie I I loved making. It was nine months.
I was, I wish it had never ended when I was doing it.
But the one thing that I think was kind of the Achilles heel
about the film is the way they treated Gus Grissom.
You know, the second one into space, you know,
lost his capsule, went to the bottom of the ocean.
Right, he blew the chute, or what was the phrase?
Yeah, screwed the pooch.
Screwed the pooch.
Where they say, you know, they were always trying
to get to the top of the pyramid.
Right.
And then if you screwed up, that was, you know,
it was your fault, it wasn't the machine, even if it broke.
That's kind of like you panicked,
if you pulled that thing before you're supposed to.
You lost your cool.
Lost your cool, you panicked,
worst thing could happen.
Yeah.
Now, do you think that was fair or unfair?
Not fair.
Unfair, completely unfair.
It was used as a device,
a literary device by Tom Wolf.
And then, and Phil carried it over
and directing it.
And it, but it wasn't true.
I mean, his, you know, his family's still alive.
And this is more people saw the movie than
remember all those things.
And that's his legacy.
But what happened was, is that they, it was the
first time they were trying out that, uh, the
escape hatch that they put, needed an escape hatch.
Right. And they didn't take into account that when you go into space and you come back down to uh, the escape hatch that they put, and we needed an escape hatch. Right.
And they didn't take into account that when you go into space and you come back
down to earth, the pressure building up and stuff like that, uh, it inside the
capsule and the air outside.
So when he hit the water, the escape hatch actually blew itself.
And then the hat, the, the spacecraft went 16,000 feet down and his, he was
filled up with water in his spacesuit.
He barely made it outside.
It was heroic how he actually got out of that
spacecraft and, uh, so that's what he gets.
And if he had screwed the pooch, then why did they
give him the first Gemini mission?
And why did they give him the first Gemini mission? And why did they give him the first Apollo mission where he wound
up getting fried on the launch pad? Burned alive. He was actually the one that, because the
astronauts were also kind of in charge of quality control and he was constantly complaining about how shoddy these things were put together in the electrical
system and that's what happened in the Pure Oxygen.
I know, I remember that day too.
But to his legacy, what happened, that's my one regret of that film.
Well, we have 1,300 peaches.
The dog okay? She's just agreeing. She's just agreeing. That's what we have 1300. Peaches. Is the dog okay?
She's just agreeing.
She's just agreeing.
That's what we're talking.
It's snoring and there's a fart once in a while.
It's not actually snoring.
It's kind of like her talking.
Right, Peachy?
Peachy.
Yeah.
Peachy's like, jeez.
She's super happy on this carpet.
Riveting convo, Peachy.
Yeah.
Like incredibly comfortable. She goes everywhere with me. She's a service. She's a service. I'm super happy on this carpet. Riveting convo for you.
Incredibly comfortable. She goes everywhere with me.
Ew.
She's a circus.
Sandler too always has dogs like that, right?
Bulldogs.
Does he?
Yeah.
He's got bagel right now.
So then you go into,
what's the movie that turned you into a 80s sex symbol? Was it, it was sort of ease with the one in New Orleans.
Yeah, I guess so.
Big easy.
Big easy.
Who's in that?
Oh, Ellen Barkan.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
And that was a cool movie.
That was a cool movie.
Yeah.
Atmospherically.
Jim McBride directed that and he was kind of, you know, he had just done, um,
Breathless with Richard Gere.
He was kind of a, he was actually over there, you know, during all that French
new wave stuff in France and he kind of brought that sensibility to the film.
And, uh, it was, it was so much fun.
So they tell me, uh, to do that. Okay. It was so much fun.
So they tell me to do that movie. Okay, we can read through the lines a little bit.
They can all be, but.
In New Orleans, we were in New Orleans for like six months.
You mean in New Orleans?
New Orleans, yeah.
Yeah, New Orleans, that's right.
Now that we're into.
You had accent and all that stuff.
That world, you were literally riding a rocket
once Dennis Quaid came into being,
you know, the movie star, Kevin.
That movie came out and it was, I remember it was like,
it didn't really do well.
Really? It kind of resonated.
It was kind of down the line, you know?
And then it's the only time this ever happened
in my whole career is like the second weekend.
They said it went up.
It went up.
Yeah.
That's almost possible.
It kept going up and then it turned into this kind of like,
you know, girl get together.
Pure word of mouth.
Right, did they have a name?
They were called Quades or did they have a name,
the fan group?
Big Easiers, I don't know.
Yeah, big easier.
Yeah.
Big and easier.
The Dennis Doll.
Bigger and easier, whatever it is.
Yeah.
So.
Quadeludes.
So that's,
Quadeludes.
There you have it.
That's what I was remembering that it got into the-
For a movie to go up.
Yeah.
There's very, I think Titanic,
there's very few movies that go up this first week,
the second weekend, and the third.
Almost never.
It's impossible.
Almost never.
Bonnie and Clyde was the only other one I could.
Oh really?
Yeah, you know, they brought that out
at the beginning of the summer, I remember,
when I was like 12, and it didn't do well.
It just fell on its face,
and then they brought it out again in the fall.
And it was all about Faye Dunaway's wardrobe.
It was a huge hit.
Oh, she was.
I saw it in the theaters.
I was a little disturbed by it.
I didn't quite know what was going on.
At certain times they were rolling around in the bed
and he had his gun.
I didn't know quite what it meant.
What's happening?
Yeah, yeah, no love at all. Dana was scared. And he had a gun. I didn't know quite what it meant. What's happening? Yeah, yeah, no love ball.
Dana was scared.
I did see Enemy Mine.
I saw Enemy Mine.
Was that a fun one to make?
You were on a planet with Lou Gossett Jr.
Yes.
That was affecting.
I thought that was really landed, emotional.
Yeah, I did too.
A stranded astronaut meets an alien.
Yeah, I remember that movie.
Lou was like, he was so incredible.
He was key committed. He was key.
I was talking.
The whole time.
Really?
Yeah.
I did see it.
And then, Inner Space.
Inner Space, which is probably the most seen movie
worldwide that I've been in the back of India. And I've worked- Really? Inner Space. most seen movie worldwide.
I've been in the back of India and I've worked.
Really?
Innerspace.
Innerspace.
I love it.
Oh, Tuck, the Pindleton.
Yeah.
Is that your character's name?
You go, Guy.
You go, Guy.
Hey, Guy.
Innerspace, you're very tiny in the movie.
You're not so tiny now.
You're bigger than the movie time.
Okay.
So I have a Hindu cardiologist.
So I could have been a past-friar.
Dr. P.K. Shaw.
Who won't let me not.
There was nothing not racist
or there was nothing racist about that.
Not at all.
And politically correct.
Great Balls of Fire, another one.
I saw these in the theater.
Another incredible high energy memorable movie.
The Great Balls of Fire.
Jerry Lee Lewis, who was like 18 when he made it,
or 16, I mean.
Yeah, he was 21.
And a crazy man on the piano,
for people to remember him, Shulman.
Yeah, but he was on the set every day.
I didn't play piano when I got that role, but I had a year to prepare for it.
And luckily I was on cocaine at the time because that will make you obsessed about anything.
And so I was 12 hours a day on the piano.
Smart.
Yeah, not exactly.
For our listeners.
Yeah, but the movie ended six months after the movie
came out, I was in rehab for that, by the way.
But for that part, you had to be like, so, whoa.
It's been over 30 years for that.
But you were playing the piano really pretty skilled.
I mean, very.
I stuck with it.
Jerry was one of my teachers.
He was teaching you piano?
Yeah.
Jerry Lee, probably his only student he ever had.
How do they do, he had a young bride, right?
How do they do that on a movie where you have to,
they have to hire someone 18 to play, how old was she?
Uh, Winona was-
Oh, it was Winona?
Yeah, Winona, writer, she turned,
I think she turned 17 in the film.
Oh, and she had to play 13 maybe, 14, whatever.
How old was she in the movie?
In real life, she was on the cusp of 12, 13.
And he was 21.
They were cousins.
And, you know, it's like, it really seems outrageous.
And this is in no way in defense of anything.
All I could say is about, you know, culturally,
that the, you know, back of the day of farm families,
there's a reason that you have bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs.
It means that you are grown up and that's when, you know,
people got married back then at that age.
Henry VIII was 14 when he got married too.
And it's, you know, historically thatIII was 14 when he got married too.
And it's, you know, historically that's, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
People are early, but you know, it's still.
Did people flip out back in the day
when he actually did it?
Yes, they did.
Once they got up, no one here knew about it in the States.
And it's when they went to England
and she was tagging along and some reporter in the welcoming airport press conference asked her, who are you little girl?
And she says, Mrs. Jerry Lee Lewis.
And that was the end of his career, just like that.
It turned off just like that.
And it was done.
It was like, he was, he was as big as Elvis at that point.
Elvis in fact was, uh, had just gone into the military and he was
doing a rock and roll and that was the end of that.
58, shit.
And then he just trundled around, but he never really got headlining gigs
or record deals or a lot less.
Well, it, it, you know, it was about eight years went by
and he got into country music, which was his roots.
I think he was huge in country music.
Really, he did come back.
So he slowed down the music then?
Because in the 50s it was really bebop.
Oh, he'd still do that.
I went on tour with him a couple of gigs when,
With the Sharks?
Before, no, with his band and his like Learjet,
you know, six guys jammed, jammed.
Lear 25 with the Seamly's here.
All right.
Yeah.
Oh man.
I had a guy with cowboy boots.
They pulled Gs on that thing.
I saw him, he would just go all night.
I saw him when we were recording the music,
sit at the piano for 10 hours
without even getting up to go to the bathroom.
Yeah, 10 hours.
Adderall?
Yeah.
On Medicaid?
Well, Jerry, Jerry, in this back pocket,
he had a 38.
Yep.
And in this other pocket, he had a bottle of Segrim 7.
He had a 38. And in his other pocket, he had a bottle of Segrim 7.
And that he soaked his pills in, most probably.
Oh, that old chest.
I know people who took like one sip of that stuff
and went down into the floor.
Show business is fascinating.
Show business.
The amount of self-destruction in artistic people.
And he was like, he was a really sweet, genuine person.
And then he could be like a 14 year old
school yard bully at the same time.
And, but he was genuine and he was like,
there'll never be another like him.
He was a genius at the piano.
When you go super famous to, that happens to,
it goes away, it must screw with your head so much.
Yeah.
It's too weird.
And plus he probably wasn't ready for fame anyway.
No one really is.
I think we've all had like many versions of that.
Haven't we?
Yeah.
I mean, not scandal, if you didn't want to say scandal,
but you know, the ebbs and flows.
Sure.
Suddenly, you know, the tap has turned off
because of this or that for, you know.
Oh, absolutely. You know.
But I always go back to Hollywood jail.
I make, I do the.
Hollywood jail.
Hollywood jail.
One bad movie, Hollywood jail.
Yeah.
But I, you know, to be able to just to make a living
was always the goal.
Like I'm working right now.
Exactly.
And it's extraordinary to lose that humility about it
because there by the grace of who?
God, you know, there still is some whimsy
to this whole chapter and brilliant people
might've just missed, I knew comedians that were brilliant
and just missed the timing of being on SNL
and have a fine, they do stand up and they're fine,
but there's a lot of whimsy to it.
It's hard to get cocky when you see people
better than you all the time and you go,
they just didn't,
it didn't happen.
Yeah, we all grew up with people like that in our classes.
We're so lucky to be here.
And you're exactly right about that.
They just get wanting to get a job.
I still carry that around because it's like,
that makes it real.
And it makes it enjoyable actually.
Oh, absolutely.
Doesn't it?
Yeah, because then it's just fun. I'm still in the game here. By the way, something you did recently,
I just love, I just want to insert this because I loved Billy Bob Thornton,
everything he does and I love Goliath and I love the season where you were the bad guy.
Yeah.
It was with Billy Bob Thornton. Did you love that? Cause it seemed like you were having a blast.
I had so much fun.
It's almost like a Columbo thing in a way
that you're the bad guy.
Billy Bob and I have been friends for 25, 30 years.
Yeah.
He's just, he's in his own frequency
and it's so fun to be around.
We're both very much alike
cause we're both down at the bottom, we're rednecks.
They just happened to break out over here.
And he's the ultimate one.
He's so smart and he's so great to work with
and so much fun.
It's the other way.
You know, it's like we were talking about before.
It's about the experience you have while you're making it.
And it affects your work.
Yeah.
Yeah, when you look back on movies, you go,
oh, that one was fun.
And then you start to appreciate that part
because you're usually so looking ahead
and just getting through the day and memorizing your lines.
Just, you gotta stop and say, this is actually fun.
He's like a nonstop poet, basically.
Or he just, I ran into him at this photo shoot
and it was for Paramount
hundred year anniversary and I never met him and everyone's there, streep, just every actor,
giant thing, they're taking pictures. And I get over in the stands, I'm way over,
away from everybody. And then he happens to be next to me and goes, he says, you're the one I
wanted to meet. I go, what the fuck? And Jerry Lewis is there and Tom Hanks, and you know, it's just weird.
And he taught, he was, Trump was just starting
to run for president and he goes,
we got some John Wayne shit going on.
You know, it says all, you know, stuff about furniture.
He gets right to the point.
He's quirky.
It did sound like him, that did sound like him.
He is a poet.
It sounds like him.
When I was hanging out with him,
I used to be able to do him.
I need to get a tape and learn how to do them again.
Billy Bob, if you're listening, if you wanna come on,
you can come back on with Dennis.
Dana will work on his impression.
We will cater.
Yes, let's do it.
Yeah.
Let's do it, bud.
Dennis, thank you for coming in with your,
still looking good, still looking ripped.
So are you, man.
All of us, yeah.
Yeah, we're still here.
Still here.
It's very nice. Yeah, let's wax poetic a little bit and be philosophical.
Okay.
Very lucky to sum up.
Yes.
Good fortune, still employed.
Thousand points of light.
Moving, shaking, acting, talking, singing, dancing.
Be grateful.
Be grateful.
Never get cocky.
Don't think you're special.
Treat the catering man the same as you would as the lead.
I'm just on a roll here. Hold on.
Peaches is there with you too.
I use him to, if I'm feeling anxious, I do him in my head summing up making a list of where I am.
You know, here, Spade's mansion, large, not too big,
but special, extra bedrooms, empty, Dennis Quaid played Doc Holliday, parent trap, didn't
get to it, another classic, keeps going round and round.
So you're saying that Bush actually keeps you in the now.
He's your-
He's calming.
He's your guru.
Yeah, just make a list of what you're doing.
Like, are you gonna go fly a plane today
or what are you doing after the podcast?
Are you gonna wrestle a cow?
You're like a cowboy.
I always say, when you get past 60 or something,
you can be a pirate or a cowboy.
A pirate would be-
A weekend boater?
No, a pirate would be from the band, sorry, Steve.
You're gonna get this.
Oh no, we're gonna let you die on the line.
Oh, from the band?
The band, the band?
Steven Tyler is a pirate.
He's got scars.
Guy from the band.
Yes, you are. He's a pirate. He's a pirate. He's a pirate, you're a cowboy. Yeah, yeah, I'm a pirate. He's got scarves. He's a pirate.
He's a pirate.
He's a pirate.
You're a cowboy.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm a cowboy.
So is Billy Bob.
Billy Bob's a-
Or a redneck.
He's an honorary cowboy.
Well, of all the bad asses in Hollywood,
who do you look to,
would you like to work with Russell Crowe?
You guys would be good to pair up, probably. I you like to work with Russell Crowe? You guys would be good to pair up probably.
I'd like to work with you, Dane.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's what I'd like to do.
Note to self. Yeah.
And Reagan too.
Reagan too. You can play Bush.
Can I do a cameo as Roswell?
You actually should have come.
Yes, you could.
Can I come in on the one?
I can keep.
Can I? Come on, you're not That would be great. Can I come in on the one? I can keep. Can I?
Come on, you're not listening.
Let me put it this way, Dennis.
You can't put a porcupine on the barn, light it on fire,
and expect to make licorice.
Boom.
God love them all.
Love you guys, man.
Well, Peaches, Dennis, really thanks for coming.
I thank you.
It was very interesting.
Thanks for coming to the house,
and it's great seeing you again, bud.
You too, man.
All right, here we go. Great. Pe for coming to the house and it's great seeing you again, bud. You too, man.
All right, here we go.
Great.
Pitches.
That's it.
That's your camera.
This has been a presentation of Odyssey.
Please follow, subscribe, leave a like, a review.
All this stuff, smash that button, whatever it is, wherever you get your podcasts.
Fly on the Wall is executive produced by Dana Carvey and David Spade, Jenna Weiss Berman
of Odyssey, and Heather Santoro.
The show's lead producer is Greg Holtzman.