Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - GGACP Classic: M. Emmet Walsh

Episode Date: March 21, 2024

GGACP salutes the life and career of the late, legendary character actor M. Emmet Walsh (“Blade Runner,” “Fletch,” “The Jerk”) by revisiting this memorable (to say the least) interview from 2018. In this episode, Emmet talks about nailing auditions, stealing scenes, reinventing characters and humanizing heavies and bad guys. Also, Laurence Oliver gets “the wish,” Henry Fonda rallies the troops, Lauren Bacall reads the riot act and the Coen Brothers pay in cash. PLUS: The Stanton-Walsh rule! J. Carrol Naish! Loving Lee Grant! Deconstructing “Blood Simple”! And Emmet plays “tennis” with Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Harrison Ford! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TV comics, movie stars, hit singles and some toys. Trivia and dirty jokes, an evening with the boys. Once is never good enough for something so fantastic. So here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Here's another Gilbert and Franks. Colossal classic. Hey, I'm Clint Howard, and you're listening to Gilbert Godfrey's amazing Colossal Podcast.

Right here, right now. Stay tuned. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and this is Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast. Amazing Colossal Podcast. I'm here once again with my co-host, Frank Santopadre, and we're once again recording at Nutmeg with our engineer, Frank Ferdarosa. Our guest this week is someone who Frank and I have admired for many years, and we're thrilled for the opportunity to have him on the podcast. He's one of the busiest, and we mean busiest, and most respected and versatile actors of the last half century with over 219 film and TV credits. Memorable television appearances include Bonanza, All in the Family, Ironside, The Waltons, The Bob Newhart Show, Amazing Stories, Unsub, co-starring former podcast guest Richard Kind, The X-Files, Ken Burns, The Civil War, Frasier, and Damages, just to name a few. to name a few. He's also made his mark with unforgettable performances in dozens of movies, such as Little Big Man, Serpico, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, What's Up Doc, Slapshot, Slapshot, Ordinary People, Reds, Straight Time, Blade Runner, The Jerk, Fletch, Back to School,

Clean and Sober, and of course, as the double-crossing private eye, Lauren Visser, and the Coen Brothers' Blood Simple, for which he was awarded the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor. Over the course of a six-decade career, he shared the screen with and often stolen scenes from, heavyweights such as Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Harrison Ford, Gene Hackman, and Paul Newman. And if you don't believe us, just watch the films for yourself. His dependable and consistently impressive body of work led film critic Roger Ebert to coin the phrase the Stanton-Walsh Rule, meaning any movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmett Walsh couldn't be all bad. Please welcome to the show an actor's actor and a man who says he never understood what the hell the original Blade Runner was all about. The legendary M. Emmett Walsh. I guess I'm supposed to say thank you.

I mean, it's an hour-long show and you just took off 55 minutes. That's it. The intros are a little lengthy, Hammett. I mean, it's an hour-long show, and you just took off 55 minutes. That's it. The intros are a little lengthy, haven't they? Yeah, they serve as an intro and an obituary. Holy gee. It made it sound like my career is over. Thank you. Well, it's a retrospective.

You've done a lot. Is profanity a lot on these shows? Absolutely. We insist on it. Who else calls you two assholes assholes? Lots of people. Okay, good. Fine.

I want to be in the marching crowd. Now, can we hit on that Stanton-Walch rule? Again, you said you've broken that rule. No, well, who came up with it? Roger Ebert. Ebert, Cisco and Ebert. Yeah, there was a review later on, something I did, and he said I broke the rule. It wasn't watchable.

Wild Wild West. Was that the one? Wild Wild West? I don't know. It could have been. It could have been. I have no idea, but I met them both at different, or I talked to the guy in Chicago, the last one to die.

You know, I talked to him in Chicago one time on a radio type of thing, way, way back. Ebert. But Cisco and Ebert. Well, they were very nice to me, a radio type of thing, way, way back. Ebert. But Cisco and Ebert. Well, they were very nice to me. And a lot of people do remember that Cisco-Ebert quote. So it's nice. What the hell?

Yeah, I think you said Stanton broke the rule. We dream a little dream. Well, I don't know that. I don't know. Harry Dean just died within the last year, didn't he? Just died, yeah. Big talent. Well, it's true.

It's true. The two of you in a movie is a sign that you're in for a decent experience. Well, the thing is, you know, Harry Dean, I did something with him. What in the hell was that one? We did a film together was it straight time? oh he's in straight time yeah oh right yeah with Harry Dean

well Harry Dean you know Harry Dean was Harry Dean you know I basically don't want you to know Emmett Walsh. I want you to know a cop or a minister or a killer or the president of Princeton. And then when I say that, I get

374 letters from Princeton saying, get our college off your fucking lips. Will you? You prefer to disappear into the role than somebody say, there's no there's emma i don't yeah i'm i'm not you know and you know i'm not saying that they had come to me at some early stage and offered me tons of money to play the same character for 30 years i wouldn't have done it

but i have fun not being michael emmett walsh and uh when i joined my first union i couldn't there was a michael walsh. There could not be two... There could not be two Spencer Tracy's at one time. They protect a person's name, the unions. So rather than becoming, you know, rather than becoming, what, Gilbert or Frank, you know,

I decided to go with my first initial and my middle name. That was supposed to be a laugh. These guys are dull. We're being roasted by EmmettM. at Walsh. Five minutes into the show. Yeah, I think Michael Keaton took the name Keaton because he was Michael Douglas.

No, no, no. Oh, Michael Keaton, yeah. Yeah, it was well known that when I got my first union card, which I think was equity, a stage union in New York, and I knew I couldn't use a name. There had been a wonderful character actor back in the 30s and 40s, J. Carol Nash.

Oh, sure, we know him. And I always liked the sound of it, J. Carol Nash. Oh, sure, we know him. And I always liked the sound of it. You know, J. Carol Nash. And then I went with the M, rather than going with one of the clown's names here or something. And... But no one can say M. Emmett Walsh.

It scans all right. You can read it. Like Harry Dean Stanton. You know, J. Carol Nash has a poetic sound to it. But you can't say M. Emmett Walsh with... It looks okay

on paper, but you can't say it out loud. But that's where it came from. The, uh, and, um, you know, I'm, uh, my mother's favorite brother was Emmett Sullivan, so that's where the middle name came from. So you took that.

And it's spelled E-M-M-B-T, the Irish way. You know, Robert Emmett, a Nathan here of Ireland, who was hung by the English back in 1820-something. It was a surname. He was a Protestant. But Robert Emmett spelled it with one T. And the Irish who were uneducated and so forth to pay homage to this great person spelled his name wrong for the next 200 years.

Oh, man. Well, tell us what you were, before we turn the mics on, Emmett, you were telling us the story of how you're from Vermont. You came to New York against your mother's wishes. Are you telling me the mics aren't on now? They are now. Yeah. They were until Gilbert read his intro.

Yeah. But you were fascinating us. You were telling us how your mother did not want you to come to new york and you took a chance i have a degree in marketing i have a degree in business and uh uh my mother you know lovely irish lady my father uh olivier laurence olivier said his his mother had the wish. The way he got into theater, into acting, was his mother had the wish and never did anything with it. My father had the wish, you know, if I picked it up from somewhere in the family. But my father never did it. You know, he was a machine gun in the First World War and all this other stuff. But I got the wish from my father.

And then when I was finishing up in college, you know, the dean of students had me in, you know, Clarkson University. And that was Clarkson College up in Potsdam, New York. St. Lawrence is right next to Clarkson up there in the north. My college is only 150 miles from where I grew up in Vermont. And the dean of students had me in when I was finally graduating. And I wasn't doing it for years. It was taking a little bit longer than that. And he said, okay, well, she said, you're going to graduate.

We can't stop it. But we want you to know you're graduating with the lowest marks of anyone in seven years. Wow. So that's the way Clarkson College put me out. Of course, they had me back for the fifth year, and gave me the Golden Knight Award. Right now that you made it, they'll take you back. You think I did not rub their asses in it, you bastard?

Yeah. Now, you received one of, like, the worst insults, I guess, that any man can receive. When you did straight time with Dustin Hoffman, in one part, Dustin Hoffman handcuffs you to a street pole. I know where you're going here. And he pulls your pants down. So you're there with your naked ass out. And you said at one point you turned around and you could see your dick. point you turned around and you could see your dick and that caused like an argument over whether it would be an r or x rating yeah and well uh then uh yeah so no one wants an x rating

because you know you know you've done you've done a terrible job of setting up this line okay so you tell it i'm telling you so you can do it i i feel like my career is over and i came here just to do what anyway at that time at that time any frontal nudity in in a film was an automatics x-rated any frontal nudity and uh dustin overpowers me in the car i'm his parole officer taking him away to someplace and he he ends up he ends up handcuffing me to a freeway divider where my hands are up above my head and then he pulls down my trousers i am exposed on the freeway and cars are going by with their honking their horns and so forth. And I'm tied there with my trousers down.

At one point in there, I kind of swung towards where the camera was, which was across the freeway. And I exposed what had before just been my bare ass. So you saw it from the other side. At that time, any frontal nudity in a movie was an automatic X rating. And I was told that the committee that gives the rating to the films

looked at it, saw the scene, saw me turn towards the camera and said, that's not worth an X. To hell with it. Give him a nod. He does tell it better. So your dick is not worth an X, Ray? Well, I've got three dead wives that died under mysterious circumstances

that didn't complain that much, but I got sick of them. I like another line you said, Emmett, about, tell us what people would see if you were in a movie playing Jamie Lee Curtis's lover. I thought that was very funny and very telling. Oh, that's right. Jamie Lee. Yeah, I said, if the movie opens up and I am Jamie Lee Curtis's husband or lover or boyfriend or something, you know I'm dead in ten minutes. And then she spends the next hour and a half looking for the killer.

I love that. Yeah, I don't stay there very long. You know, Jamie Lee, she's a sweetheart. She is. So you came to New York to do serious theater. You had an interest in doing Moliere and Shaw and those kind of things. You didn't say, I'm going to be a character actor. Well, intellectually, I could understand Shaw and Shakespeare and Moliere.

But I'd been deaf in my left ear since the time I was three years old. I had a mastoid operation when I was three. Now, 90% of the time, they can clear that up with penicillin. But in 1938, there was no penicillin, really. And so they did an operation that more or less deafened me in my left ear. And I grew up in northern Vermont. And I did come down in New York, and I wanted to intellectually do Sean Shakespeare. But I said things like, Pfeffer.

And they said, what? Pfeffer. And they said, what are you saying? What did you want to go and do that for? Pfeffer. And they said, you want to do Shaw and Shakespeare? I said, well, they understand me at home. So that's where I started.

It was obvious I wasn't going to do Shaw and Shakespeare and Moliere. My speech was just simply too bad. You couldn't go back. And kids 14 were doing Shakespeare, and I couldn't speak English. So I had to figure out if I was going to do it, what I could do that no one else could do. And that's the hard point. could do that no one else could do. And that's the hard point.

People go and try to become the next Pacino or the next Meryl Streep or something. They don't want that. They want something new, something different. They want you. And actors have a hard time figuring that out. So I had to figure out who I was and what I could do no one else could do. And that's where I started fooling around and all that. I'm an old jock.

I led it in four sports. I'm a power golfer. And athletically, I can do anything. And I just had fun. People brought me in. Once they got on to me and figured me out, they'd say, well, this is terrible crap. Get Walsh. At least he makes it believable. I love that.

And I got a lot of old jobs. I've done 118 feature films. It's amazing. There's a lot of stuff out there. And I'm not ashamed of, you know, they're not all Hamlet but I'm not ashamed of any of it some is quite interesting yeah some of the some that we read and and you have played I think what's been described as the nice villains and and it makes you even more scary that you're one of those villains with like the smile on the face and you know a good old boy attitude yeah well uh i don't know about the ninth villain but uh the uh i think he said i think

he said nice villain yeah oh nice nice nice well that you try to you try to you try to add humanity to these characters i finally meet someone someone whose speech worse than mine. Thank you. I'm so nice, Phil. This is like interviewing Bob Einstein. We're being ripped apart. No, it's, I don't know, where are we? You were talking about how you try to humanize bad guys.

You were talking about how you try to humanize bad guys. No, well, like Blood Simple was a film I did for the Coen Brothers, the Coen Brothers' first movie, Blood Simple, where I played the private detector, the fumble type of guy. And if you're playing, I learned early on, if you're playing a villain, the villain goes home and he, you know, he flirts with his wife. He takes the kids out to the park. You know, he's the nicest guy in the world.

He has a bad job on the weekends, you know, but he's not a villain. If you play a villain as a villain, it's not very interesting. Early on in the theater, you learn if the character cries, the audience doesn't. So the most interesting thing about acting a bit is to avoid the tears and let the audience cry. And most actors want to cry, you know, type of thing. And that kind of kills it a little bit. I don't know if that means anything to you guys. That's interesting.

I'm looking at you and I said, did either one of them get out of high school? Look at that. You flatter us. We're much older than that, Emmett. So you went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts? Yeah, for two years after, you know know i went down in the art right and i didn't know anything i said i couldn't you know i and somehow i had the wish olivier said he got the wish for his mother i got the wish for my father and i'd done i'd done theater in high

school and college and you know and so forth you know i i enjoyed it out on stage. Being on stage was fun for me. I was never scared of it, afraid of it. And so I went to New York, but I didn't know anything. I auditioned at a school called the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and they take more or less anybody for the first year. Then they weed it out and invite it back for the second year. I came very close and I didn't even be invited back for the first year. Then they weed it out and invite it back for the second year. I came very close and I didn't even be invited back for the second year. Now both the schools on the West Coast and the East Coast have a third year

connected to it. But that's where I, you know, I would, in New York when I started, you could see any play you wanted to. You put on a jacket and a tie and you kind of hang around outside the theater at the first intermission. And they come out to have a cigarette or something. And you kind of walk in with them. And there's always an empty seat or something. And I watched the last two acts of Miracle Worker or Raisin in the Sun 10, 15, 20 times.

But I'm watching actors do this stuff, you know, and eventually, you know, and eventually the people in the theater, the door people, they give you, come on in, sit down, you know, the whole thing. But I was an empty disc picking up an impression. You know, I didn't have to unlearn something. If you're a football player and you go to Notre Dame, they spend the first two years unlearning what you learned in high school so you could be a decent college football player.

I didn't have to unlearn anything. You know, I was spooking it all up. And then in time, I would go to a play, and I was amazed by it all because I was a theater actor. I wasn't a movie actor or television actor. And I'd watch and watch. And then finally I started seeing performances. And acting is beat to beat to beat with the character. And I'd see an actor do something on a given beat.

And I'd say, no, that's not the way you should do that beat. And then I'd see another performance. I'd start to pick on things where before i've been totally awed by it all and then then it became obvious that if i'm sitting in the chair in the audience why am i not up on that stage you know i said well how do i get my ass from here up to there if I'm so bloody smart, you know? And that became marketing. You know, I had to learn how to, if I got a chance to go meet people on something, to walk in, there would be seven Emmett Walshes before me and six coming in after me.

How could I win that job? Oh, that's fascinating. You know? And so I had to learn how to go in there, but that was the marketing background. You know, you walk, I talked to the kids about this. I'd walk in there and basically they give you a page or scene and you're reading with somebody

and there's seven or eight people watching. And you feel it. You know what's going on, you know. And there's an instinct type of thing. And if you thought it was not going well, you say – I worked this all out before. I'd say, hey, you know, what if this guy was – as opposed to his – what if he had a really bad stammering? He had trouble around people. What about that?

And they'd say, well, sure, sure, what do you mean? I take another one. I say, what if this guy was, you know, as opposed to, what if he's very hostile? You know, yeah, sure, I'll do that. Yeah, yeah, sure, yeah. What don't you want me to do? You know, yeah, sure, I'll do that.

And they'd say, well, yeah, well, we hadn't thought about that. You know, and I learned how to interview, how to audition. And also, there was only me. I mean, women found me totally repulsive. So it was only me in the bar type of thing. So these people, I might not get the job on that interview, but they remembered me the next time I came in. Absolutely.

And I learned how to handle. That's marketing. I learned how to sell the product. That's great. I was the product. How to separate yourself from the other Emmett Walsh's. Yeah. And you can sit there at a casting call and watch people come in,

and you can see people that they're thinking about the car payments or the kid needs more books for college or something. They're not there. You can see that. You read these stories about somebody got the job in a cold interview, and it's just that they learn how to handle it. I learned how to kind of handle it. And I had a good time, and there wasn't – it was me.

I could always work. What got the ball rolling for you, Emmett? You were in a couple of plays. Was the death of the well-loved boy, was that sort of the first legitimate role? I was going with a girl who worked for an advertising agency, McCann Erickson. They're still around. She she got i don't know if they are or not yeah they are and she got she got me a job doing an eso commercial eso gas eso gasoline you know now it's chevron i don't know what the hell it is now but it was eso

and um just on camera talking for you know 10 or 15 or 20 seconds, you know, doing an SL commercial. And the casting person on that gave a call to an agent she knew, Don Buchwald, who's head of the Buchwald agency. He's still around too. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, he's big time. Yeah, Howard Stern's agent. Yeah, Howard Stern's man. Right.

And she got a hold of Buchwald, who was just getting into the agenting business, and he got a hold of me. And, you know getting into the aging business and he got a hold of me and you know and as I say I'm a loose cannon and I'd go for an interview and he'd call and said what did Walsh do? And he'd say hey look at what you can't do.

And he honed my interviewing process. Don was involved. And I started to make money doing commercials. So then they'd call and say, we got a chance, there's a play they're doing off-Broadway. You'd carry a spear.

And I said, fuck you and your spears. I ain't carrying a spear. And they only knew me as a spear carrier, you know? So they can't take an insult. They say, well, give him this, he'll fall on his face. By then they were hiring a cannon to kill a car coach. I was so ready that there's no way.

And that's the way I started. And I started doing, you know, I did the commercials. Then I started doing the movies because the same casting people were doing commercials on television. And the word got out. He looks good on camera. He's interesting. You know, the whole thing. The 80% of acting, or maybe 75% of acting, can be taught.

The other 25% is the gift. You know, I had nothing to do with it. You know, that was a gift. I did the study. I learned everything I could. And then the gift got got me to the next stage that's interesting the things that audition the way he the way he handles an audition because gil gilbert's done some acting roles in his career and he absolutely

hates auditioning well i'm looking at him i can understand what i'm saying emmet turned it to his advantage. Yeah. To separate himself from the people in the waiting room. He found a way to. Well, the thing is, you've got to, you know, like, but this was my degree in college. Marketing. A strange marketing. I came in handy.

How do you sell the product? You know, how do you sell the product? But, you know, I have, my father saw my success. You know, he came to New York, I was doing a Broadway play and so forth. And my mother got Parkinson's and she was in a, you know, in a nursing home for the last 10 years of her life. Just, you know, shrinking to nothing.

My mother never saw any of it. And, but, it was what I wanted to do. It's what I figured out how to do. And I knew how to deal with money. You know, you live at this line. You know, if your things are going well, you still live at this line. And if things are going poorly, the money that you saved above the line goes down here.

You know, but most actors end up actors end up, they chase the money. They're doing well, then they do very well, then they buy the two Cadillacs and the Mercedes and the house and the whole thing. And then when things don't go well, then they're in trouble. I always, because of the business background, learned how to handle the money I had and put it away. And normally, at this stage of my life, I have enough money not to do interviews like this.

Hilarious. That was a perfect payoff to that story, Emmett. Don't go away. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. I'm going away. Stop it, you. Gil and Frank went out to pee.

Now they're back so they can be on their amazing colossal podcast. Kids, time to get back to Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal podcast. So, let's go. So, the marketing and the business background really paid off. Yeah, in my case. Yeah, good for you. It paid off as far as being able to live financially and also to get parts. To sell himself, to know how to market as the product

and and you said you i think you have a quote i get paid to do nothing i know the quote is i i get paid to do what i do for nothing and that means you understand you understand the difference yeah yeah he loves it that much much. All actors will do anything. They love acting, you know. And, you know, I get paid a lot of money. Well, you know, now I'm either, what am I, 97 or 103. I'm something. They, but I've had a good time.

I've met interesting people, had a lot of fun with them. No one screws with me. If I walk on set or if I walk in front of the camera and you're doing a scene with me, you better damn well be good or I'll kill you. But if you're good and you see me coming in, you are going to make sure you don't lose to me. So you end up with a tennis match. I love that. You say something, the ball comes back. I say something.

And it goes back and back and back. And the audience is going whack, whack, whack, whack, whack. And that's what makes the great theater. That's what makes great acting. You really watch the tennis match going on. And no one screws around with me because they know I'm there to help the material. Of course. I'm not there to make an Emmett Walsh type of thing.

Get Walsh, move the story along, I've heard you say. Yeah, well, as they say, they're not writing movies for me. They're writing movies to watch me fall off a curb. Can we ask you about some of the early, and did you room with William Devane at one point, Emmett? Yeah, Devane came down from Albany. Yeah, we all started at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, which, as I said, was a two-year school.

And Bill Devane came down with another friend of his by the name of James Sloan, who was the voice of Lexus for years and years and years recently. But they came down together, and we ended up five in a little downstairs underneath the street apartment up on 75th Street in Amsterdam Avenue or something. And, yeah, Devane and I, and we were all together. Good actor. Devane got a leg up earlier. You know, we went to school for two years and so forth. Devane was kind of a male lead, you know, type of thing.

I was a character person. I had to grow in, you know, into my stuff. And Devane studied and worked hard on the whole thing. And he's had a very good job. Very nice career. Yeah. And like everybody knows, he did John Kennedy back there. That's right.

And that's still a hell of a good work. But he's done some very good films. He's always working. And he's believable. Yeah. No matter what it's in. That's what we learned. Did you work with Nichols and May back in those days too?

I did a play. and that's curious. Thank you. I did a play that Elaine May wrote, and Mike Nichols directed up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. It might have been called A Matter of Position, but I'm not sure what it was. But all good character people from New York, and we're up in stockbridge mass and uh that's where i met elaine and uh and mike right and uh i you know i've dealt with elaine afterwards i might you were in mikey and nicky mikey yeah yeah and uh the other guy the male

whoever we're talking about. Mike Nichols. Mike Nichols. Mike Nichols had me in a movie or two, too. Yeah, yeah. Well, the thing is, what happens with a casting situation or a director or something, they say, look, there's 130,000 members of the Screen Actors Guild. 130,000 members. They'll say, look, I only want to see 10 people.

Now, how do you get ahead of all those people to be one of the 10 that gets in to see somebody? And that's, you know, what the hell. Yeah. And so I auditioned well, and I met Mike well. And they would simply say, okay, we got Walsh for this. That takes care of their problem. Now let's see who we can get for the girl.

You know, a problem solved. They didn't have to worry about spending two days casting this. Does that make any sense to you? Yeah. But I'm interested in those early days because you were in Midnight Cowboy with John Schlesinger, Alice's Restaurant with Arthur Penn. I mean, looking back. Arthur Penn.

Arthur Penn directed. I did a play. Arthur Penn did a play up in Sackbridge, and that's where he met me. Uh-huh. You know, maybe it might have been an Elaine May play. And then after that, when Arthur, you know, Arthur gave me, Arthur brought me up for, what was that? Alice's Restaurant. Alice's Restaurant.

Yeah. You know, I played Sergeant Group W or something. But Arthur Penn, there was a thank you for what I'd done in the play, you know, type of thing. But it goes back to what I said. If you're casting something and you've got 12 problems, if they got me, they only had 11 problems. And I would take care of whatever it was they needed. And they could go on with something. I don't want you, I said before, to see a Michael Emmett Walsh. I want you to see the garbage collector.

Right. You know, and they knew that I wasn't going to do anything other than the garbage collector for them. And it solved the problem. We always, like on this show, both of us, always admired the character actors because. Yeah, we've had some good ones here. Bruce Dern and Steve Buscemi's been here. because yeah we've had some good ones here bruce stern and steve buscemi's been here and it's like because when you see a movie you'll go wow you know tom hanks and meryl streep were great and you forget the great character actors you know because you'll go oh that was a doctor in that

scene or a cop and you believe it's a doctor or a cop. You're not going, oh, that's a great performance. Well, that's what character acting is about. That's what you, you know, it's, look, we're talking about, I'm a stage actor. You know, I started out in the state. I never thought in terms of movies and television. I just thought if I could ever make a living as an actor on stage,

that would be wonderful. I did get to that, but I never saw what happened when I was on film. I never had anything to do with that. That's a gift. The acting, I said before, is 75%. The gift is what

you know, Vanessa Redgrave had the, you know, she walked on film and you said, wow, you couldn't watch anything else. You know, there are other actors like that. You know, the USMV, wow, they just burn it. They just burn the film.

And so I was given, you know, I was given the gift of, you know, I can walk on stage and people would watch me. I could walk on film and people watch me. Those are the gifts. You don't always get it in both cases. But, you know, come on, that's luck. That's luck.

And also, you know, I might have just stayed home and ran a bar, you know, type of thing. Yeah, I'm glad you didn't. And you had, I remember I'd heard this quote once before, and I forget the exact quote. Olivier said something about the angels. Okay, before you ruin that quote. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Olivier said there are nights in the theater when the gods seem to come and sit on your shoulders that's great but on the nights when the gods don't come the audience does

oh that's profound so they're there either way whether you have it or not they're there the guy next to you understand that at all he's fascinated but that's that's the olivier's quote and it is true yeah i mean yes yes you open the play and uh you opening night you're dynamic you know the great line in the theater is watch the second night. That's when it goes right in the toilet. You're so high for the opening, the second night just goes.

And I did something with Henry Fonda one time. And one of Fonda's things was like he did Mr. Roberts for a year or more or something on Broadway. And you're going out there eight times a week. You know, basically you don't do anything from noon on. You know, just your energy is all getting ready for that curtain to go up at 8 o'clock at night. You know, if you're going to do anything, you do it afterwards, all theater bars. You drink and you eat after the show. You don't go in there with a full stomach.

But on the nights when Fonda didn't know anybody out in the audience, because if somebody comes back after a show and you say, Tony, Tony, why didn't you tell me you were out there? Because you knew you would have done it different if you had known Tony was out there. Fonda would go when he knew nobody. He played for over a year at those plays. He would look through the peephole in the curtain,

and he'd say, see that woman in the fifth row, two seats in with the pink hat? He said, that's the one. And he'd do the performance for her? Like it was his mother. So he wouldn't be gray. So he wouldn't be sloppy. And she never knew.

But it prevented him from slipping. He'd come off the stage. He said, come on, fellas. That was a damn 83. No, we were 87 last night. Come on, let's get it back up there. He wouldn't grade them. He wouldn't.

Wow. But that was the great stage actors. What a pro. Well, now you ask someone to do a play, they won't do it more than 10 weeks or something. You know, they get bored. You know, the whole thing before that was theater. You couldn't get bored. You know, they get bored. You know, the whole thing before that was theater. You couldn't get bored. You know, Life with Father, you know, ran for five, six, seven, eight years,

all the way through the Second World War. You know, Harold Lindsay, Harold Lindsay and his wife. But whatever we're talking about. These people put their time in. Well, so we're talking about money. Let's talk about Blood Simple because did you have the brothers pay you in cash when you took the gig? They're trying to get the IRS on me. I don't know nothing about that.

Hello to Mike, by the way, whoever this is playing to. When I was doing Silkwood with Meryl Streep in Dallas, and I got a call from my agent at the time, and I had heard that they had turned a couple things down that were being offered to me or something, and I never heard about it, and I got totally pissed. I said, I want to read everything. I want to see see everything you don't turn anything down without me seeing it so i'm down there and i get this script um from these two brothers down and down uh down in uh austin texas you know the joe and ethan cohen yep and they came out of minnesota joe was Minnesota. Joe was a theater major at NYU.

Ethan was a Princeton graduate, philosophy or something. So I get this script, and it's blood simple. And it all takes place at night. It's very hard to shoot at night. It's hard to get any depth. It's tough, tough to do. It's hard to get any depth. It's tough, tough to do.

And I slink around with his suit, his Panama suit and his hat and the whole thing. And it was interesting. I said, look, I can take this character and it's like a Sydney Green Street. And I can work it out. And in 20 years' time, when I'm old enough, I can do it in a real movie. You have a lot of faith. Yeah, yeah. I'd flush it out because nothing would come of this thing. And I told the agents, I said, go see what they got.

And the agent came back and said, they'll give you 1% of the profits. I said, I have a degree in business administration from college. 1% of zero is zero. I mean, what the fuck are we talking about? And the agent comes back the next day and said, they'll give you 2% of the gross i said you went from profits to gross in one day i said it's still going to be nothing no one's ever going to see the fucking film but i own part of the film i get checks on it all the time i love that from blood simple and uh

so i went down i met the coen brothers down there, you know, in Austin. And they had this little film they'd made up and so forth. And I'm up there doing Silkwood with Merrill, you know, and I'd go down to Austin for a week or two. And they had it right down to the very nth degree. They had been working on it for two years. You know, they raised their $300,000 or $400,000, and they had the whole thing and i went down and and uh uh the first time i'm there i think i was

getting five hundred dollars a day in expense money you know so they gave me they gave me a check and i don't know who you guys are i don't want your check so they came back and gave me gave me five one hundred dollar bills you So I put them in my pocket. Then week after week after week. Finally, I got a wad going out, and I know everybody's looking at my pocket, and I'm going to get mugged. I put them in the ice cube tray. I didn't know what to do.

You're hiding money. I had created my own monster. I was paranoid. But I did their thing, and Joe would – they kind of looked through the camera together. Joe was the director. But Ethan, they're just talk, talk, talk together. And Joe would say – he'd say, well, I want you to go over there. And I'd say, well, what if I look this way?

And they said, no, we can't afford that and then I'd say something and then I'd say what if I do he said one of the great lines where Joe said just humor me Emmett will you please just humor me and that became one of them and at one point in there

when I was up working at Silkwood, he gave me a call and said, do you smoke? I said, no, I'm not a smoker. He said, can you blow a smoke ring? And I said, I'm not a smoker. And he said, what do you work? And we want you, Danny Hydea, you know, is a guy, you know, the whole thing in the bar, a bar owner.

And he said, so I tried to, you know, and they wanted me to blow smoke rings. And I have the cigar. I'm trying to do it. And all I did was get sick. And I called back and I said, I can't, you know, that's not working. He said, don't worry. We've got a machine.

We got the whole thing solved. So I go down and I'm talking to Danny and Danny's there and I want to piss him off. And I blow a smoke ring right at his face, right going across him, you know. And, you know, really pissing the character, really pissing Danny off. And they got these billows right beside my ear. But the smoke rings keep breaking.

They don't stay together long enough. And, you know, because it's important within the frame of what they wanted to do. And find a little costume, a little makeup girl. They had just hired her. She was her first job. And she said, give me that goddamn cigar. She said, I used to smoke Silkwood with my four brothers out behind a barn.

And she took the cigar, pow, she blasted him. You know, one after the other. Boom, boom. I mean, beautiful, you know. And you've got to inhale the whole thing to get it right, you know, one after the other. Boom, boom. I mean, beautiful, you know. And you've got to inhale the whole thing to get it right, you know. She blasted them out, and they said, boom, boom, boom. We got the whole scene. And I'm saying, well, this is what low-budget movies are all about.

And I went out about two hours later. We were in a roadhouse outside of Dallas. There's Austin. And there she is sitting on the steps, just puking her guts out. She'd given her life for this fucking movie. I love that. Something to tell her grandkids. I ran into her within the last five or ten.

She's still in the business. She's a prop lady. And she stayed in all the way. But I think, did I answer the question? Yeah. And then some. all the way. But I think, did I answer the question? Yeah. And then some. Good for me. Now, a question I wanted to ask you, being a stage actor, doing the same dialogue night after night, do you find yourself going into autopilot?

And what do you do about that? Well, I'd mentioned before about Henry Fonda. Yeah. You know, like if you know somebody's on the audience you really you know you don't want to do a bad one yeah um every audience plays differently it why why does somebody go out and fish on the gulf or or in lake champlain or something you know there's something about fishing it's not that you catch a bass and a bat you know they they play you differently.

Each audience plays you differently. They miss this laugh. Why is that? What do we do? Then you try to make sure you don't miss the next one. You can sense the audience. You're playing them. And that becomes the life of it.

There's also the pride of the business. You don't want an audience to hate you. You want an audience that loves you. And you've got to do the play. And if they're not responding in the right places, you try to find out why and get them back in the other places. Does that make any sense to you? Oh, yes.

You don't look that smart. He's not. Well, he's a stand-up, Emmett. He does stand-up three or four nights a week, so you must have a similar experience. Why didn't the audience laugh at the joke they laughed at last night? Oh, my God, yeah. Yeah. Why is that audience different?

It's like sometimes a joke that kills in the first show, in the second show they're staring at you. Mysterious. your your question had nothing to do with me it had something to do with well the sit by the way the scene they're picking up the hat uh little business in in blood simple i know you've been asked this that that was that was your invention that was your little bit of business i i'm not sure. At one time, I might have said it was, but I'm not sure. The Coen brothers are so fucking smart. I mean, no one does a first movie and have it like Blood Simple. I mean, you know, there are hundreds of movies made by people that you never hear about.

You know, never a word. Absolutely. And Visser, my character, had an image of himself. Obviously, the hat was part of it. But he just went through the whole pounding of the wall, getting his hands, you know – The knife in the hand, yeah. The whole thing and pounding the wall to get the knife out and the whole thing. And during all that, my hat had fallen off.

You know, this – you know, whatever the white thing was, you know, the Western hat, that hat on. Yeah. And then he gets his hand back. He turns around. And, you know, he's totally wiped. You know, he turns around, and he's looking towards the door where he thinks whoever is involved, he's going to come get them. And then he looks down and goes out of frame, comes back up and puts the hat on. It's a great moment.

Now, yeah, and I, with hindsight, I like to think I might have thought of that because it was part of the character. But the Coen brothers might have thought of it too. I'm not sure. It's a great performance. Yeah, well, it's a good performance. I won an award for it. You deserved it. It was the first Spirit Award, the Independent Spirit Award.

You know, Meryl Streep got, who am I talking about, got it for Crypto Bonifal. She got the first female award and I got the first. Oh, Out of Africa. Yeah. No, no, no, no. Is she in Crypto Bonifal?

Doesn't matter. No, I didn't say Out of Africa. I said Crypto Bonifal. Who in hell was in that? Geraldine Page. Yeah. Well, Geraldine got it for that performance, and I got it for Blood Simple. That were the first two acting awards for the Spirit Awards.

You know, after that, now they got about 17 different categories. But also, the producer was there. We had a little function when they gave out the first Spirit Awards at some little restaurant in Hollywood. The producer was there and he was going to go up and get the award for best film. He panicked the last minute. He said, Emmett, Emmett, Emmett,

you do it, you do it. So I went up and they're giving this award for the best independent feature film. And I said, Rocky 2 for the best independent feature film. And I said, Rocky II just opened on 1,900 screens around the country. At no time during the run of Blood Simple were there 10 prints.

Wow. And that's what a low-budget phone was. Right. Isn't that wild? Stick your finger up the wrong person's ass. You know, a friend of mine a a while back, broke his hand and put in a cast. The very next day he falls, protects his bad hand, and he breaks his good one. So he breaks that too, you know. So now he's got two busted slippers. So I said to

him, I said, Creighton, I hope your wife really loves you because for the next five weeks, you can't even wear your own goddamn hat. That's the past, ain't it? Test the true love. I got a job for you. Test the true love. I got a job for you.

Oh, well. If it's right and it's legal, I'll do it. They, you know, it became its own life. Sure, but it's more than made its money back. Oh, yeah. Oh, no. It's made money for me. And, of course, the Coen brothers, every time the Coen brothers do a new movie, they mention Bud Simpels.

So it's kept my career going. And you showed up in the next one, too, in a wonderful little cameo in Raising Arizona. Well, I talked them into that. They weren't interested. I remember I took them to the Players Club in New York I belonged to at the time. And I took them to lunch down there. And I said, look it, I'll do anything. And that was Raising Arizona. Yeah, your moment and uh and i said look at i'll do it anything and that was raising arizona yeah your moment is right i said i'll do i'll do anything and they didn't they said okay well let them do this so i went to phoenix or something they did uh

every time nicholas cage gets out of jail he's in the same right it's great bill partner talk about finding this guy's head on the freeway. That's fantastic. Now, you worked with someone whose name has popped up on this show a bunch of times, Herschel Bernardi. Oh, you were in Arnie. Do you have any memory of doing that show? He was a blacklisted actor. Yeah, well, I've worked with other blacklisted actors, too.

Yeah. I'm trying to think who um but uh that'll come to uh uh i knew i knew him we did the show you know he had a series and so forth um you did a fair amount of tv in those days too i was doing tv before i was doing yeah your jimmy stew Stewart show. You did the Don Rickles show. You know, the, yeah, I, as my reputation for doing these, you know, these non-sequential parts and little things became known that it helped the thing along. You know, my reputation grew, and they kept getting me to do other things, other things, other things to help along.

But I know, you know, I did this show with them. I don't remember that. Who did Detective Story? Got an Oscar for it. Oh, Lee Grant. Lee Grant. Lee Grant was blacklisted.

Yeah, we had her on this show. Yeah, Lee Grant was wonderful. She's in her 90s now. Yes, she lives a few blocks from here. Yeah, she's a sweetheart. She is. We're doing a play in Stockbridge, Mass. Lee Grant was playing.

It was a new play, and they're doing a workshop of it. She played with Bill Devane. Bill Devane and Lee Grant. And I come in. It's set in the country or something, you know, typically. And it was a workshop, and we were there for a two-week rehearsal or something, and there was a little nightclub away from Stockbridge.

I can't think of anything I'm going to tell. But you'd go down, and there was music. You'd go down these stairs to get into it, the whole thing. And we're getting smashed like we always did. And we're leaving there. We're leaving there. And Lee Grant, Devane's going up. And Lee Grant's behind him.

And I'm right behind Lee Grant. And I'm right there. And there's her rear facing right at me. And a tight little ass. And I just kind of reached up and squeezed it. And as I squeezed it, I said, uh-oh, I'm in big trouble. And she stopped, and she looked down at me, and she said, thank you. Great story.

Oh, I know what to do. Oh, we have to ask Lee about that. I just saw her a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I just had the pleasure of having dinner with her a couple of weeks ago. She's great. Tell her, yeah, because I watched her do a session at the Actors Studio four or five years ago.

I'll say hi for you. I think she's 93 years old. She is. You were in Airport 77 with her, by the way. Yeah, that's right. And she said things to me there, too. She said, don't do this or don't do that. You know, giving advice to a young actor.

And we've been friends for a long time. She's lovely. And we've been friends for a long time. She's lovely. Of those people that you played the tennis match with on screen, the Pacinos and the Redfords and the Beatys and the Paul Newmans, was there somebody that you particularly enjoyed going back and forth with more than others? You worked with Hoffman more than a couple of times.

Paul Newman in Slapshot. Yeah. I think I did another movie with Paul. Maybe Twilight? Yeah, Twilight Zone or something. Not Twilight. Twilight. Was it Twilight?

Yeah. Yeah. And Paul, you know, and look, I was there, and I'm working with these big people, and I'm just Emma Walsh. And I was there, and they knew I was helping, and I appreciated helping. And none of them ever came at me.

I mean, anybody that did, there were only two or three that ever tried. What does that mean? They tried to best you in the scene? Yeah, they thought they could take it. I see. They're in the unmarked part of the cemetery now. But in answer to your question, no, they were all just wonderful, and I was there to help.

It was a tennis match. We hit the ball back and forth in the audience and it worked and that's why I was brought in. They were good people. I didn't have trouble. Who did I mention to you about

the guy that changed all the dialogues? The television actor. What was his name? I can't think of it. The star Beretta. Huh? Robert Blake?

Yeah, Robert Blake. Robert Blake, he did Beretta, you know. And I was brought in to do a Beretta type thing at one time. And it was a lot of dialogue. So learning dialogue has nothing to do a Beretta type thing at one time, and it was a lot of dialogue. So learning dialogue has nothing to do with acting. It's a mechanical stunt. You get it out of the way. Then the acting happens.

So if I remember around actors who haven't learned it, they don't even know the first step of acting type of thing. So I had a whole bunch of dialogue. I come in to do this Beretta with Robert with robert blake and uh he comes in and then uh to my dressing room where i went to his and we read the scene over he said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you know because i'd write it hammer it you know gonna kill it and uh a few minutes later his assistant comes to me and says uh uh here you know bobby wants to change this and this and this and this. He'd take a sentence out of a paragraph. Suddenly, Bobby Blake didn't learn it.

He was just trying to get through the job, but he wasn't going to let some actor come in and make him look bad. He was going to make sure they looked bad also. Wow. Wow. You get me on that one? Yeah. And I learned that one, that you can't win. They'll switch it around.

That's fascinating. I know it. I'm fascinated. Emmett, I got a couple of questions from listeners, if you'll indulge me. Emmett, I got a couple of questions from listeners, if you'll indulge me. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. These are a couple of questions from guests. There's a guy named Robert Martin, a listener, wants to know, do you have any memories of filming a movie with Jason Robards called Raise the Titanic?

Yeah, I did. Yeah, I've known I knew Jason for a long time I knew him in New York as a matter of fact he was doing Little Big Man I think it was he was doing a Broadway play

they taught us in New York hang out where the actors hang out go where the actors go I was in the Broadway soft go. I was in the Broadway softball league. I was in the Broadway bowling league. They get used to seeing it. You really are

a jock. Yeah, I am a jock. I'm a little power golfer. Then you'd go to the bar afterwards after the show and you'd drink with them. I knew Jason for a long time. I do a lot of barroom poetry the robbery service and uh casey in the back you know the whole thing i learned it all as a kid and uh jason and i are drinking one time and he said hey hey i got the kids last fight on uh you know on a cassette that was a famous poem about two guys that grew up together

went a different way, then they suddenly end up fighting together, and neither one wants to hurt the other guy. The whole thing was called The Kids Last Fight. It's a great little poem. Jason and I go up to his apartment in the Dakota, around

76. He was married to Lauren Bacall then, you know. And we go in there and we're drunk as fiddlers, bitches. And he's over there trying to put the needle. Drunk as fiddlers. Trying to put the needle on the – and Lauren Bacall comes out with a broom and she starts beating the shit out of me. You drunken bum.

So I went back a long time with Jason. I love that. But we did, what was the film? Raise the Titanic. Raise the Titanic. Yeah. Well, Jason and I are flying over to Greece, you know, from L.A., I guess. And we're in first class, of course.

We're flying all night or something. And Jason's sitting with me, I guess, in a seat. And I think his wife is with the two kids in a seat in front of us or something. And Jason said, you know what I'm proud of? I said, no. He said, see those two kids? I said, yeah. He said, they never saw me drunk.

They never saw me drunk. Wow. And that's what Jason was proud of. Wow. And he didn't recognize me. Once he stopped, he stopped. But he crashed himself up on the freeway, wrapped his face all up. Took him over a year and a half before he went back to work.

But he was very proud of that. Wow. But Jason was a good guy. That's quite a story. But I knew him on both sides. I didn't run the drunk side. And what the hell. I heard you say that Clean and Sober was material that you were attracted to

because you knew drinking. Well, I'm an old drunk, you know. I was a periodic. My father was an alcoholic. He was a U.S. Customs officer on the border. And, you know, I grew up with AA, you know, around it. You know, my father, it never clicked with my father until he finally buried everybody. Then there was nothing to do but go talk about it. It never clicked with my father until he finally buried everybody. Then there was nothing to do but go talk about it.

It became one of the legendary speakers in AA back in Vermont. That's basically what happens with alcoholics. You literally can't take it. The whole family was the Irish on both sides. You know, they're performers, you know, that type of thing. And I came out of that.

And your question initially started with what? Oh, I was just saying how – and it's a great performance in Clean and Sober, how you were attracted to the material. You know, because I was a drunk. Yeah. You know, I had a real – I had a few, and the basic, the surprise of the whole thing on Clean and Sober,

it opens with a monologue of the just camera on me doing the whole, doing the whole thing. And, and my, my background, I was never AA,

but I was a drunk. And, and my father was AA. My, my whole idea was not to make them look bad you know tepid thing and uh and then when i saw the movie i realized it it made me look like an asshole as opposed to someone that really believed in what he was up to with the a thing interesting

as i recall there's something in there but i'm very I'm very much, you know, if you don't know how to drink, what the hell? In Clean and Sober, there's a scene where you're in a diner and you have a bowl of chocolate ice cream, a chocolate cake, and a chocolate ice cream shake. Yeah. Okay, I'll tell you what that's all about. With my background in alcoholic anonymous, what they try to do is substitute one addiction for the other addiction. So if you were a drunk, you know, you'd try to get them in the macrame or you'd try to get him spending his time.

And I was a drunk talking to Michael Keaton. I got him over there. We're in this diner. And I said, tell me your story. And Michael's going on and on. He's filling in with his own lies and everything. And I was the alcoholic interviewing them you know doing the whole thing and uh i had substituted food or or uh sugar or ice cream or something

for my addiction right and that's that's what they do and i just kept it going i remember i remember i the the whole the the whole cast and the whole crew went crazy because we shot for a day and I did nothing but eat ice cream. You know, and got, obviously, in time incredibly sick. But I wanted to show that

that's what the alcoholic person was. You want to see me on this a little bit? What am I doing? You don't like it? He said none of this has been recorded. person was that he you know you want to say me on this a little bit oh yeah yeah yeah what am i doing yeah you don't like it he said he said none of this has been recorded it just changed my so so basically what i was trying to do is while i'm listening to michael and he's going through all the lies that alcoholics would you know boom boom boom boom then he says the one thing that I jump on,

which was the girl had died in his bed, the whole thing, what it was. But I wanted the reformed alcoholic to show. And of course, I've had alcoholics come to me and say

that really nailed it. You know, that's what it was all about, you know, type of thing. It wasn't an actor. It was, you know, that's what an A does. Sure, sure. Yeah. Is there a moment, Emmett, when you're rapping for the day, is there a moment where you say, I know I nailed that, that it just felt right?

Or is there always a degree of uncertainty until you see the finished product? I can look at my work from 30, 40 years ago and say, yeah, he did that pretty good type of thing. I didn't phone it in. I didn't phone it in. I worked hard on everything I did, you know, type of thing. But I have people who are not my biggest fans. You know, there are people in companies that are not, they didn't like that or they didn't like this or they didn't like that.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, and, you know, the ones that I let live, you know. Did you have a disagreement with Ridley Scott when you were making Blade Runner? Something about him making you smoke? You threatened to hang him by his balls? Do I have this right? You guys can take good stories and really ruin them.

Okay, I fucked that one up. Yeah. Okay, I fucked that one up. Yeah. Really? On Blade Runner, Harrison and... We're in a room and I'm showing film of the Blade Runners. They've gotten out or something, and Harrison is there. The replicants.

The replicants. And showing film of the replicants. And Ridley says at some point, would I smoke? So I start smoking, and we go on, and we're shooting and shooting and shooting. And I get incredibly sick. and it really shoots a lot. He shot a lot of film. And I'm getting sicker and sicker. And Alan Ladd Jr. was one of the producers on it, and I wasn't aware of it.

And there are people who come in behind the camera and watch for a while. No one watches a movie very long being shot if they're a civilian and it's so boring you know the uh and alan ladd came in and the whole thing and uh at some point ridley did something and i said you know i got sick or something i said i said you ought to be fucking hung from the ceiling by the balls and twits slowly from left to right. You know, and Ridley says, I feel that way a lot anyway. And Alan Ladd Jr. had me pulled off my next movie. Wow.

Whatever it was, I'd been hired for it. It was Michael Keaton's first movie or something. One of his early films. And he had me pulled off it. And then Ridley, we had to change dialogue on how many replicants there were. We kept changing and changing and changing. I'd come back in three months and come back. And at one point, one of the producers on...

Oh, Bud Yorkin. Bud Yorkin. Bud Yorkin is in there. And I'm redoing a couple lines. You know, not on camera, redoing the lines. And we do a number of replicants and that kind of shit. And I said, Bud, I said, I'm going to be back. And Bud says, you're not coming back.

That's it. I said, no, there's going to be a change. And this is, you know, we're a year and a half into the movie. You know, not even getting close. Ridley's, you know, we're a year and a half into the movie. You know, not even getting close. Ridley's, you know. And I said, and we ended up betting $10, you know. And a couple months later, I get a call from Ridley Scott saying, what the fuck did you say to Bud Yorkin?

He said, I need you to the fucking film, and he won't let me have you. He said, what the fuck's going on? It was at $10. It was at $10. It was at $10. So I came in and did it, and there was an envelope with a $10 bill in it. But that was the number of replicants in the whole thing. But Ridley's a good guy. Made some great films.

Yeah, you know, he lost his brother. That's all sad. Yes, that's tragic. You know, one more question I have here just from a listener. I know you're shocked that we have anybody listening to the show, Emmett, but Ray Gustini has a question about the jerk. He says the phrase die milk face has long been a part of his daily parlance. Those things that you're yelling at Steve Martin's character

when you're the crazy sniper and the jerk, what was scripted and what was improvised by you? How much of that stuff? We're shooting in a shooting gallery underneath the house. Right. That's where I'm practicing. That's where all that dialogue is. Right.

You know, that type of thing. That's where I'm practicing. That's where all that dialogue is. Right. You know, type of thing. The, what was, what, it was, who was it? Carl Reiner. Carl Reiner.

Who wrote it? Did Carl, Carl wrote it? I think it was Carl and, yeah, and Carl Gottlieb. Yeah. They, you know, they, great freedom with Carl. You know, like, you know, like, you know, you, you, you think of how to do it. Then you think of how to maybe do it and, and, you know, that type of thing all around and, and how the dialogue came up or something, you know, if he gave it to me or else I kept, you know, like, you know, the stupid profanities and all, but you say die milk face.

I wouldn't, you know, I won't take it away from carl he might i might be saying his all his dialogue i might add in a couple of mine yeah you know dead sinners say your prayers half breathe Hey, Harry! Look at this! What's the matter with these cans? Die, milface! These cans are defective! They're springing leak!

Come over here and look at this! Listen, you better run for cover or you're going to spring a Lee. Huh? We don't have defective cans. We have a defective fight slot there. He hates these cans. Stay away from the cans. Die, gas pumper.

I got to get away from those cans. You're very funny. I mean, I want to say, too, that at some point you talk about having a gift. But, you know, in scenes like, in movies like Fletch and The Jerk, you seem to have, in Raising Arizona, certainly, you seem to have a natural way with comedy. Well, I'm not a comedic actor. You know, I'm an actor. I'm an Irishman. So they're all, you know, God damn, if they look in the mirror and you're an Irishman, you've got to laugh.

But, no, I, you know, I had the gift. I have the gift, and I got lucky. But there are a lot of people that never get lucky, you know. But I've had a grand time. It's a great body of work, Emmett. You know, like who's the guy now doing the one about the costumer, the movie that's out now, up for an Academy Award? You know who I'm talking about.

Which costumer? Oh, he's a dresser. Come on. But he said it's his last movie. He'll never do another movie. Oh, Daniel Day-Lewis. Yeah, he's burned out. He's done some great work.

He's quit several times. Yeah, he's playing a lot of different people. But, you know, shit, I don't know how old he is. He's done some great work. He's quit several times. Yeah, he's playing a lot of different people. But, you know, shit, I don't know how old he is. He's probably 60, 65. But he's had it. I've never had it. You know, it's always fun. You know, it's always let me go out and see what I can get away with.

I love that. But, again, he's playing major roles. I've just been walking in for two or three days. This is a quote from you. You said, when I get to 100 movies, I guess I die. But now 108 and counting, you're still here. It's 118. 118 and you're still working.

Still working. And I look at your IMDb page today and I see you've got four or five films in production and things in pre-production. No, I don't think they're in production. What's the one that's coming out that I got to, it's opening a film festival. Yeah, give us a plug. A Change in the Air. Okay.

Olympia Dukakis plays my wife. Oh. I don't know if she says who plays her husband, but I'm using her. I saw that indie you were in with Christopher Plummer from a couple of years ago, too. It was excellent. That was, yeah, that was excellent. That was interesting. Very good. Man in the Chair.

What was it? Man in the Chair. You were the retired screenwriter living in the nursing home. I did a scene with the guy that Natalie Wood. Oh, Robert Wagner's in it. They're picking on him. It's a good film. No, the Man in the Chair was interesting.

Yeah. Very good. Chris was interesting. A nice man in the chair was interesting. Yeah. You know, type of thing. Very good. Chris was interesting. A nice man. To work with Christopher Plummer. But he grew up in Montreal. That's only 60 miles from me.

That's right. He's a Canadian. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yes, he is. He, yeah. Okay, you guys had it? You got anything else

for this man before we let him go and get on with his life? How much editing do you have to do to do this? I mean, we've been here for seven hours. A little bit. We're about done. Also, I just wanted to say I heard you. Do you cut after this?

Do you cut it down someplace? Yeah, we'll cut it down. We'll trim it down a little bit. Not much because people want to hear from you, Emmett. Can you send me a cassette of this? We're going to send you the link, and I'm going to send... And I also want to say that Emmett is the only guest that ever sent gifts before he was a guest on the show. He sent me a trading card from Wild Wild West.

He sent me a $2 bill. Not sure what he was trying to tell me with that one. You want to ask this man anything else? No, I guess I'll... Okay, I'll... He's going to rap. If you let me know where you're performing when I'm in New York, I won't go into that area.

Have you ever seen his act? No, I don't want to. I dare say I think you'd enjoy it. All right. I have a quote here from you, Emmett. You said, for a guy from a small town, you didn't do badly. I was senior class president in high school. Ten girls and three boys.

I mean, I'd come from the big time. You did pretty well. And thanks for doing this. I know it was a schlep, and thanks to Mike Gargano for making it happen. Well, thank Mike, because he just became my enemy. So Gilbert's going to wrap up. Well, I'm Gilbert Gottfried, and this has been Gilbert Gottfried's amazing, colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre.

And we have been talking to one of the kings of the great character actors, M. Emmett Walsh. Emmett, keep going. Never retire. All right. Fine and dandy. I'm going to go. Web and social media is handled by Mike McPadden, Greg Pair, and John Bradley-Steeles. Special audio contributions by John Beach. Special thanks to Paul Rayburn, John Murray, John Fotiadis, and Nutmeg Creative.

Especially Sam Giovonco and Daniel Farrell for their assistance. Bye.