E93 - Actor W. Earl Brown: Deadwood, Bloodworth, Country & More - Part 2

(editing in progress)

Actor W. Earl Brown: Deadwood, Bloodworth, Country & More - Part 2

00:00:00 - 00:05:06

Hey, this is Hank Hill. And you're listening to my favorite podcast Mouse and wins? It's an amazing feeling send a message off of the mouse and we need a mouse and winds. I'm Mouse. I'm Joel. I'm the mom one and I am with jeans. I am the single Julianne One up in La that's right. And we are going to hear part two of our interview with W. Earl Brown It's amazing check out the first interview and this will be the second half of that. That's right. We have learned all about him being an actor in Something About Mary we learned about him in Scream. We heard about him and Deadwood. We're going to continue the talk about Deadwood and then move on into took his project his movie called blood worth which stars Kris Kristofferson Val Kilmer and he wrote and produced it was an amazing accomplishment and Dwight Yoakam was it and Hillary? And then also we're going to hear about his project right now. You can go and see it on YouTube called Dad band and there's a member of Alice in Chains in there too. So it's a really cool. That's right. And and we're going to hear about his own band found sacred Cowboys and hear about all his adventures. So let's just get right into it here is W Earl Brown. I would not take anything for those four years spent or three seasons, but four years total that we were creating that story. So why did they cancel it? I had read something about you going to a party and meeting with one of the execs who said that was a huge mistake, right? It was a huge mistake. Yeah, he said that he didn't say it to me at that part. Okay, the guy that ran the network he was a comedy guy. He was never drama wasn't his thing and we were developed under the regime before him. So we were never a favored son Deadwood meaning the show and they were expecting us to become Sopranos in the irony as we were on track to become Sopranos because they didn't become the water cooler show till their third season. So we had all of that momentum building up and looking back there was writing on the wall. I just didn't recognize Chris Bacchus from our premier date in March, they bumped us and that happened in November and that took us out of any contention because we weren't on airing time. So all of that shit's MoMA Yeah, you know all of that the awards and all that stuff one thing leads to the other and it's a snowball and so Chris it wasn't until you know, the fact that I don't know whether you stumbled on I guess I have told that story about walking into the Emmy party or are they Oscar party and first fucking person I run into was him cuz I blame him for what happened. And that was only a year after the show had been unceremoniously killed off it was in there was a book called difficult men, which was about the second golden age of television and about David milch and David Chase and all those great shows Breaking Bad The Sopranos and the wire Simon and there's a whole chapter devoted to Deadwood and Mulch and in it. Chris says, you know, he said that that was my mistake. That was my biggest mistake and he explained himself more and again he said, As a negotiating Ploy I needed to cut down the costs. I needed to get the production rented in under control and we were out of control expensive. They still made money. That's that's the thing. They were still making money. Yeah, but a lot of Backstage politics Paramount had a housekeeping deal with David so they own the rights outside of North America, but they weren't putting any production funds no overages or anything. So that was a bee in the Bonnet or a burr under the saddle. Yeah, and there was a myriad of things went into him making that and thought he said it was my beginning of a negotiation and in David just went off the rails and called everybody and said the show was canceled. So so yeah, I guess it has blamed all around but where was the money I did cuz every costume every background person had on beautiful outfits. Where was the majority of the money? Was it mostly shot at Melody Ranch? Yeah one location. We hardly ever left off. We left when the very beginning when I throw Brom Garrett off the mountain, I throw them off the mountain and Angels Crest and I crack his skull in Pine Mountain. We were two different locations or vice versa. I'm suck him off at Pine Mountain practice school there. We had the gold mindset and the cemetery set were off. They were up at Pine Mountain. Brian Haynes pretty well too long the location manager on that number.

00:05:06 - 00:10:09

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember him. Yes. Yeah. I worked with him a few times. He recently passed from cancer to a couple of years ago, but he was on he was on the whole show too. And he just he said it was the best job he's ever had in his life and he's a vet everybody every single person involved felt that yeah, and that's why having the movie Being able to have a final chapter to some one of our on our own terms to be able to say hello and goodbye to those people that you shared such an intimate part of your life with and your home forever bonded to seeing Dave's decline. I had not seen him in person and and been about a year-and-half before we started production he knew then he was diagnosed then when when I had lunch with him and he was having real memory problems, but the the physical depletion was was difficult, but it was a blessing to be able to say hello and goodbye because I couldn't let it go before I could not come to terms with the way things happened with, you know to give so much of yourself, and I'm Not The Lone Ranger in that everybody did in everybody felt that way and for us to get cut off at the knees as I said earlier for it off. Stop you didn't end stopped. So it was a blessing to make that movie all my shit got cut out of it. You know, who did that a lot of stuff got cut out. But thank God they did the movie though that gives people some peace in some closure wage. There's a great lyric by Ray Wylie Hubbard that I try to live my life by when and it sounds so simple and I've never heard it phrased that way till I heard race saying it in a song Mother boost every day that my gratitude is higher than my expectation. I have a good day. So that's amazing. You haven't heard that but it does feel like that is the counter to I think it was also like a famous quote of man's greatest downfall as his expectation was like Kierkegaard or something and it's true and if you just kind of put that gratitude in the beginning of the day off. That's good. Okay now couple of questions for the people that would kill me all of the fans that wrote in about Deadwood. First of all, what is the goo or gel that you smear all over Europe? So that was my question. It was Tara was the fight scene and the goo and the gel season that will bear bear Grease. We went out and killed bear Bowl off fat. He's all fixed. So what is that with the punches slip off you is this like the beatboxer? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well boxers use Vaseline. Yeah. I used to blame them in the corner. So the glove won't grabs can go see that's how your skin gets torn when you when you get punched the skin tears, but if so, they would freeze up in a big fight like that what it actually was KY Jelly and not and not forget what else you put in like bits and pieces of stuff to look like fat. That's fine. And you got you got down with that KY Jelly to you you went there with it. Also, huh all of them all of them. I was widowed greed cuz you don't know where they're going to grab that was good. And I thought you were going to come out with your haircut after after he made that comment like oh you at a disadvantage with that Harrisburg, but they kept your hair. I was glad well. Well, there's one that that second scene and this is an example of talking to David and it's the only example where David did not rely on the he let the image over the written word the scene afterwards with Johnny burns after that fight was a seen it was written. It was like two or two three pages between me and Johnny Cochrane. I don't want to leave the room. I don't want to see how and he's trying to convince me. And and I said David I I said, I think it would be stronger if I don't say anything and if I'm naked like if you just see you see the damage of his body you see the cuts and scrapes and the bruising that starting and he can't speak. I think that would be more powerful and that was when days says yeah that let me think about that and then he came back with their you know, half an hour later. He had Rewritten it cuz we were starting to let's say that was written the day of because I remember, you know, not that I clamored to be naked nor has anyone clamoring to see me naked. It was powerful though. Yeah. No, it's just an incredibly powerful image because he's there by that lamp light in a dark room in this guy who you've just seen, you know, pull the eye eyeball out of another human being and then crack his skull kill somebody with his bare hands.

00:10:09 - 00:15:05

And then that's what led Dave came it was written, you know a rough draft before but that whole speech that how has that's what happens when you kill a man, you know up close and you see the light go out of their eyes, you know, I can't even give address just to try to quote it. But but yeah, that's that's awful was it took so much out of Dan and it was also the time the closest he'd ever gotten to dying cuz he was he was one breath away from Death em and through a mirror twist of fate. He found that I bought Yeah, and that comes from that comes from a true story. I don't know if you want to hear that people right fight. All right. Yeah, this is crazy. Well, I had written in season two off my grandfather. My mother's dad would not allow anybody to call him son of bitch cuz don't you allow that cuz that's defaming my mama and nobody nobody to find my mama. This was a man who was very violent and I told my mother what he had said this was back when he was still alive and mother she goes well that was ironic cuz if there was ever a bitch that walked the planet it was my grandmother that woman was evil, which went a long way to explaining why my grandfather was the way he was but my mother's first husband has abandoned my got my mother pregnant. She had her child at sixteen years old my sister and he was twenty-seven and he abandoned him. My mother went back to high school wage. She was her class salutatorian and as a single mother she had tried to go to college she wanted to but she couldn't so long story. My mother made a great success of her life and she did it herself. So you can say I'm drawn to strong women and Freud can can work on that one, but her first husband. He had abandoned my sister. They were living back home. My grandparents my uncles who was nine years old witnessed it. They were at the local Fillin Station and her ex-husband pulled up and he's getting a beer to ice down his his ice ice down his beer out driving around drinking and my grandfather said low Lowman Lowman. We need to talk they go around back. He says you gotta daughter. I you know, you don't want to be a daddy that's obvious but there's diapers there's food you're going to pay for that turns to walk away and Lomas is yeah, you better walk away your son of a bitch my uncle said he goes daddy turned and he always taught me how to hit cuz he was a big man and he said he hit lohman's so hard woman's eye ball popped out. He goes home and fell to his knees gave us his eyeballs literally dangling on his cheek and he said and they fell over on his side. He was by a coal pile and he said first of all granddaddy starts taunting him with his boots and then he grabs it. Chunk of coal, and he's about to crack his head open and my grandfather. I saw it. I witnessed it three times in my life. And I don't doubt. There's his pupils would dilate his eyes would go black cats when I say that scene. That was so fucking felt that I'm sure some of that Blackness should see through my jeans, you know, his pupils were dilated girl said I saw his eyes. I knew he was going to kill him and he nine years old. He goes I go running up. He's got the chunk of coal above his head. He's about to bring him and he said I grabbed him by the chest and I'm pleading with him. Daddy. Stop. Daddy. So I wrote that and called it son-of-a-bitch that soapy the soap seller bar soap $5 inside bar soap that he's pulling the scam inside the gym so long and I toss it and he calls me his son of a bitch and I wrote exactly what happened in my family. Well, we never used it and and I had called it Story song. Son of a bitch. So when it rolls around to the fight and season 3 David had brought us together meet me Al Graf who played Captain Mike Watts chunt coordinator and Dan. Minahan the director and he said cuz it's just written it says dan and Captain fight to the death at the last minute when you think Dance Gotta Die, he's Victorious. That's all it said and he said you have three days to make up a fight. He said I have three rules. Number one. I want everything realistic. I don't want any big Cowboy around houses flying through plexiglass. None of that bullshit. Number two. I want every time I don't want the audience to be able to draw their breasts every time. They think it's going to Deb. I wanted to escalate I want five minutes of increasing tension and violence and number three. I want something I ain't never seen before so you guys make it up. So we had three days to rehearse create it and we had two days to shoot it.

00:15:05 - 00:20:07

So David would come in at the end of every day and watch what we had done and we tried a bunch of different things down in Manhattan was when he goes we he said I want to use the meat market we've never been in it and you guys in amongst the raw meat and blood is a great image and I had suggested the drowning in horse piss. I said, these are like two cavemen, you know beating themselves and he's trying to drown me in this mud and piss. And so we tried try this try that so David at the end of the second day. We don't have an ending yet. We've marked through everything that we've done and Dave said, I don't know how to fuck we're going to get out of this. He goes. I went back to that son-of-a-bitch thing that you wrote and I was thinking maybe we but that's you know, he's killing you. He's overpowering you there was well not use the name, but he was an advisor on the show who used to be enforcer in Vegas and his thing was to take people's eyeballs out. He would hold them down. He was a huge man. He used his thumb put it by their Bridge of their nose and pop an eyeball. So milk says he said looked at your son of a bitch thing and then watching me he said I was thinking about you know with him, but but that's not going to work either because of you know, you're dying you're being overpowered. I don't know how we're going to get out of this fucking thing. So I play poker with Jake Cantrell the music Alice in Chains the Hard Rock Band, but Jerry is one of my close friends and I play cards at his house and he he was being in the dead wood. That's how we met. He was a dead would freak. I was an ALICE free month. And you guys did Dad Rock together too bad band Yes. Yeah, but it was at his house playing poker. I told him about what we were doing and I told him about son of a bitch. I told him and he goes that happened to my brother Dave. I said what he goes day was in a biker bar in Oklahoma. He got in a fight and he goes this guy had him on the pool table. Bully had him by the ears and he was a straddle of him on the table and he's cracking his head against the Slate the edge of the pool table and he said Dave thought he was going to die. He goes he was getting tunnel vision off. The lights are going out and he said he was just trying to push the guy off of him and he felt his ring finger. He couldn't see it but he felt the spring figure hit something soft and Squishy and he knew it's an eyeball jammed his finger into this guy's skull pulled his eye out and saved his life. So I go to work the next day and I go David David David. I got an ending. So I lay out the David Moss Trail Oklahoma biker story that works paper effects. Can we get a dangling eyeball? Yeah. Okay. Yeah get a day make an eyeball. It's dangling so clean up reading it and Al Graf who was playing the captain who played in the NFL? Who's who was a tough sumbitch? Our other guy the other advisor was was there that day that the enforcer and graphs says what would happen like if the eyeballs out I said, well your other the capillaries would all burst your good I would probably be flooded with blood if any I if your optic nerves still there, the I bouncing could probably still see. Well I see the advisor down the way I went I'll get an answer. So I go jogging down there and I got I got I got a question what happens when somebody loses their eyeball? This old man. He's leaned up against the post and I go I asked him if he goes. They scream scream a lot. Oh God. I felt that chill down my spine of like push it off and down your optic nerve. This is not pretend. This is a guy who's who is literally held people down and took to take an eyeballs out of their skull. He's probably dug holes in the desert of homes yet. This ain't pretend. Yeah, so I go back down and crafts goes. You know what he say, you scream just scream a lot screen and and that's what took in. The scene is him. Just screaming over and over again. Yeah. It's chilling that scene is I mean I the ABS and flows were there. I mean when your face down in that puddle, I'm like, this is Faith Leading Edge of the edge of your seat. If anyone has its season to season 3 episode 5. Okay. Yeah, you noticed the coup de gras is not showing it's off screen. You hear me split his skull and you hear the Watermelons crack open. You don't see it. I'm very glad you didn't show that whoever decided that it was too much at that point. We'll David David wanted to see the impact on it's it's Swearingen and and Hurst he wanted to see it on them.

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And I saw that now that's funny. I had my ultimate the first time I saw that with Dusty and Billy of ZZ Top I invited them. They were Heroes. I still had one of my posters from 1970s of those guys. They were one of my favorite bands and I got to know them and not invite Dusty was huge in the Deadwood. So they're going to come out and play Cowboy with us. They're going to be all kinds of guns their first day on set milk kind of knew who they were. You know, you got a music band, but he knew home and everybody's like, oh my God ZZ Top's going to be here. Well David week, I introduced him and he goes I have something to show you fellows Earl. You're going to want to see this come to me and it was in the editing job. And it was the first edit of that fight. So I not only got to create that I got to watch it with my rock and roll Heroes, you know in the editing room. So you had a choice I would when that kind of stuff happens, you know, you know if I died today, that's interesting. Yeah, that's great. Okay, so I'm going to segue into another question from Phil rude home superfan the character of Dan and Deadwood could have easily been made an anonymous Coon, but you managed to really make him memorable and a kind of complicated character who's a mix of charismatic and dangerous and apathy realized person. How much of the character was developed by you as opposed to being on the page when it first came about I was sent the script found or t there's only three or four lines in the pilot and I said, it's the thug in the shadows I had committed to doing Steve earle's play in Nashville. He'd written the play theater play and I'd come home. To being in it and this rolled around and I read it and I said to my agent I you know, I don't want to be the thug in the shadows for seven years. I said Jack McCall that's kind of showing off because it's only four episodes and he gets killed I said, I don't give a shitt. I'd rather play that than be stuck as the thug. So I go and I need the casting directors. I've worked with him before wage and Libby comes out because you've got doored. Yes. Yeah, but I want to read McCall. Okay, do you do you have both can we do both of us? Yeah, we can do both of them. So I go in we do McCall indeed kind of looks at her Walter Hill was there at that point he was still a ball and she goes. Oh, no, we're doing dority. We're doing Dorothy also, so we do the dorty seen and I can see Dave kind of perk up on the couch. So we get through it and he leaves sort of us. All right, we're going through this again. Now once you think about this and he goes through every single word. There's a specific reason why I said everything I said it there's a specific reason why it's phrased that way there's subtext all as he's explaining all of this. It hits me like, oh my God. This guy doesn't write Thugs and shadows. This guy brings complexity off everything now I had guest-starred on NYPD Blue. So I'd already had just a little snippet of the craziness of milk, but it was there in the room where I got excited of like oh my God this so it David took who as I said, he could see through you he's so I think a big part of Doherty was me but filtered through Dave, you know, so it was it was a creation of both of us as all those characters were right because again David was able to use who you are as a person who can see the shadows and he could see the light and he was able to paint with both of them. So I'm sure he gave you more lines and more as he yeah. I thought there were things would happen. There was an issue a personal issue that another actor was having that I was privy to and no one else was dead and there was frustration due to some and I just pulled Dave aside and I said, hey, I didn't give away any secrets, but I I that was the point this was in the first season. That's the point dority became so loyal. So it's literally just me taking up for a fellow castmate. I'm trying to go you need to cut this guy some slack. And so David kind of developed that into Dan going on down the line, you know, so you'll be sweaty Palms. That's all Billy Sanderson cuz Billy would get nervous in his palms and Stark sweat. Well, how is it with Ian McShane? Did you end up becoming protective of him as a person? What was your guys's dynamic? Just pretty much end up resulting like it was on the show. Wow, Ian and I we kept up we would have every about twice a year.

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We'd have breakfast over near his name. He lives in Venice Beach lives there in London, but we would have our Deadwood breakfast before she would invite and I was inevitably there as part of every one of them down our relationship really kind of unfolded like Allen dance. It's nice and he was sober right because I read that isn't he a milch both and there was so much booze all the scenes. I just wonder if anyone and ironically Ian new Lemmy kilmister from London cuz they used to drink at the same Pub. Oh, that's funny. You ain't got sober back in the eighties and had been sober is sober ever since but yes and David. I think David got sober for Deadwood, you know, he got off the the drugs, but he said I was going to set up going to exercise that was good doctor said I need good exercise. They said I started running in that bucket hurts when you're old and you know, what takes away the hurt Vicodin and you know who I watch is Vicodin down really good vodka, they go good together. So hooked on Vicodin and and so I think before Deadwood David was off illicit substances, shall we say? Yeah. Um, I don't know, you know, I don't know about David's sobriety. I don't know if he was ever part of you know, the anonymous or not. I know Ian, but yeah, I just wondered cuz watching the show it's just so you guys are drinking all the time. Yeah. Yeah, so they couldn't really trust water. So yeah, that was a reason number. Was another reason that direct so much alcohol is Because unless you had a fresh spring. And you get a bunch of people living together like that. You got a lot of sewage and you creat right? Gosh the things you think of I read a little bit Yeah and Wikipedia just about the town itself and the history of that place is incredible. And did you do a lot of research before like of the town? And yes, I went there I went several times but I went there before we ever started actually may have changed the end of my first year John Hawkes had gone before we started production and then after our first year I went and there's a great museum there the Adams House Museum, which David had used, you know his initial research and I went spent a lot of time there. Jerry Bryant is historian local historian who's passed away he gave you know, he he knew every story and he took me in his golf cart off these places up in the hills where stuff happened. Yeah. Yeah. It's a and I love visiting there. I love going that that place. Wow. Well, you're a country boy at heart to write would you say? Yeah, that's cool. We're the scenes crazy. I mean shooting at night all that mud was it just dirty and icky all the time. It was my wife has said this to Mom says people going to a night shoot. There was almost like stepping back in time because you know the lights you can't see the Hillside and the homes that were there. Cuz it's in a residential area. It's a ten acre lot and it's been developed the rest of the valley. So you're driving through, you know, Suburbia big houses and horses and then you're at Melody Ranch but at night time when we just had, you know, our little segment lit it was it was a magical time. It was a magical experience both cool and crazy hours. Were you there around the clock or yeah. Yeah I can imagine. Did you just sleep there a lot? I would think so. I've never spent the night there. It was off. Me driving home is about a twenty-minute drive to go. I know there were some people that did. Yeah who live like on the west side or something, but I just drive home. I worked on a just World pilot and we were right by the set there and they used some of the set and all anybody talked about was Deadwood at Melody Ranch the whole time. Yeah. Can I talk about Bloodworth? How do you that we watched it? It's amazing. It seemed like it was hard. Do you want to talk about kind of the Inception of the idea? And how do you get funding to do it? Yeah. Well, I we were doing Deadwood my wife had interviewed William Gay for a project she was working on and that's how I first got to know William and he's author of the book. Yeah, he wrote the book provinces of night. And and I said that that was my Catcher in the Rye. You know, when I read Catcher in the Rye. I was twenty, you know, I wasn't a teenager anymore, but Holden Caulfield just seemed like an asshole to me. You know, I didn't yeah, he's real killers thought so too and following him.

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Yeah. I took my red provinces of night like, oh my God, I found my Holden Caulfield. It's Fleming Bloodworth. You know the the kid that's the main character in that book, which is really Loosely autobiographical story of William himself. So Shane Taylor, I had seen his first move. We he's from Kentucky and and I had met him super nice guy worked for ESPN for years. He'd always wanted to be a film director and he made a little homemade movie and I really liked him and I kept putting it off it shot in my hometown in Murray, Kentucky because it's set in the illegal cockfighting world and there was a huge cockfighting Arena illegal as hell but there was a breeding Farm & Country know that was in my County he found it and got access to it. Hence. They shot there and people home said Hey Man Nice Shot a movie here last summer. I don't know they said movie. There's people here from Hollywood. They shot moved here. I never heard it. So I ended up meeting shame super nice guy, and he he was inviting me to watch the movie and I kept putting it off cuz I'm like it's going to suck. He's only got three professional actors. It's mostly local people. It's get a long story short. I couldn't avoid it. I finally saw it. It was fun. Aminul for a little no budget films. So I approached him I said, hey man, I will love this book take a look at so he was still working for ESPN there and he was flying to New York and he had read about half of it by the time he landed he call me as soon as they landed he goes. We got to get the rights. I want to do this. So it took us that would have been with three we were set up to go 106. We'd gotten funding and we were in production in a twelve hour span of time. Deadwood was canceled and we lost the money in the film. So I go in 12 hours from I'm a writer supporting actor on Earth best show on television. I've got my first movie in pre-production at 5 million dollar budget. I'm riding High twelve hours later nothing. So we had a coupe. It took us three more years to kind of get all the horses back in the barn. We had a third partner who lists guys put a delicately and say he was a lot of big dog. He was all hat no cattle and we got a really bad feeling about so we parted companies with him. We had to come up with a dog. Long long and sordid story. I got far more involved in financing than I ever thought. I wanted to be I had to I had to work for a dollar. I had to work for nothing. I had to reinvest all the money's worth paying each other. We were paying ourselves minimum Union minimums paying ourselves $1 as producers. We were forced by our major investor to reinvest all funds. So I worked for fourteen months off for nothing. Wow, but we got to make the film that we wanted to make we sold it. We got Distribution on it. I've told Shane we discussed this several times if she if I had cuz that was that was tough man, cuz I was broke and at the end of the shoot I got walking pneumonia from so much fucking worried and I wasn't sleeping and wage and then that that role was screwed with my head anyway, and I didn't write that to be me. I offered it to John C. Reilly. I went to school with John well and Riley cuz I knew wage. Christopherson and I knew Riley was a big music not so Riley at the last minute turned it down. So I was kind of the guy on the bench. I told Shan I'll play whatever if we have to you know off but having bowel having Val Kilmer onboard Justified our budget, so can you talk so I know it's for the people who've not heard about this movie. It's called bloodsworth and your main actors. You were one of them you had Val Kilmer Kris Kristofferson Dwight Yoakam Bryan Hilary Duff and reached Thompson and also the woman from Six Feet Under I can't recall any branch Conroy. Okay. Yeah. She was great. So phenomenal and she is a phenomenal human being this movie was amazing. Can you give us just a little little premise of it? And it's the story of this teenager from a very poor rural Appalachian area whose father has abandoned his mother left him and then his boss has left and it's family dysfunction his father and his two uncles have been screwed up their entire lives because their dad abandoned them when they were a little boys. So they grew up without a father. Neither of none of them knowing how to be a father and ironically, you know Dwight.

00:35:01 - 00:40:02

Yoakam's character has this grandson. So the grant the grandfather shows back up in their lives. That's Kristofferson. What it is is he's dying and he has to come to terms with his life. Now. There's a great Dark Secret in his past that I had to change somewhat from the book cuz there was a definite. Peace in the 1940s and it was an attempted murder of a law officer, but he got away with it and he ran away and I'm thinking cuz we wanted the Timeless feeling. Still somewhat contemporary. So I thought there's no way he's going to get away with unless he murdered the guy if he killed him and did away with the body and nobody ever found the body and it was a cop that deserves killing that everybody hated so that I changed that element. So that was it. He had committed this murder and he told himself I'm leaving my family behind cuz the Wrath of the devil's coming down on them. I'm protecting them but as as the one son said to him, yeah, you left us standing on that porch, but you took your goddamn guitar. Yeah, so I spent his life going around chasing a song Staying drunk chasing women playing music. And so he's faced with his own death and he shows back up. So this grandson has this grandfather suddenly back in his life that he's never known and he's never had a real father figure and suddenly he has one and then tragedy ensues because the sun's all hate their father and it just leads to a add a new model. That's a great tragedy. But but it's actually uplifting if you get to the end with you know, the lessons that the kid learn it was it was great. It had just the right amount of of mystery and crime and violence and sex and family and then and romance to it was great. Yeah, and it's like in the part which I want to try back to you, you know, we've all gotten a father issues or most of us who are a lot of us and they all did and your move but how did you pull from your own story or your your character was prob? Your hardest to play I would imagine you were angry. There was a great line in the novel that describe that character to a T. I couldn't really use it in the script. There was no place wage was so poetic. It wouldn't have felt right tripping off the tone of of one of the characters, but William wrote Childhood polio left him with an arrow left leg, but further Twisted inside further Twisted in ways invisible to the human eye childhood polio left him with an RO left leg, but in further Twisted in ways not visible to the human eye. So that was it. So he had created his own belief system of fundamentalist religion and Voodoo and and he thought he control he was insane and there were Snippets of that. I forget we we did a re-edit on it and I think you do briefly off of him sitting there at the grave of his father where he's just completely lost sense of reality. But yeah, it was on the slippery Edge and he was a vile. He was a mean sucker to yeah, but then almost righteous because he was left to take care of his mom. So he had that side of him to yeah. Yeah, but but that sense of the chip on his shoulder. Cuz his nephew gets published that his he wants to be a writer. He he knows writing is the only way he can deal with this all of these ghosts that are in his head and around him if he can write about them if he can get them on a page that controls them and Brady the character I played was threatened by that, you know, and he was he was somebody cuz he holds up that magazine we finds out the magazine kids been published in and Young Voices of the South this you This you and the kids proud, you know, and then he rips the magazine up right in front of him. So it's that you know, there was this getting above my raisins, you know was the mentality of folks back home getting above your raising thinking you're better than where you came from. And you know, I my dad and I did not have that kind of a contentious relationship took a complicated wise a complicated relationship but it wasn't like that. I think I'm mostly Drew as a drawn most of my grandfather the the eyeball story him in my uncle's relationship because that's exactly what it was. They were so much alike. You know, I I witnessed them try to beat each other to death once as a kid that stays with you a lot of money. Yeah. How did they support you your family as an actor? How do they feel about that? Yeah. It was my grandfather had.

00:40:02 - 00:45:00

He was still alive when I got accepted into the theater the graduate program a theater school. And I decided I'm moving to Chicago. I'm going to pursue this at first, you know, cuz getting in was a big deal. There were hundreds of people that auditioned in only a handful got in but then my old man was like, oh hail you going to be going to college to you 40 you're going to be one of them, you know, so it wasn't all about it and I had driven the summer of nineteen eighty-five the summer before I had driven every four-six weeks. I drove to Chicago every weekend to take classes at the Second City with Don King Pollo as an 840 mile trip every weekend. That's how committed I was a minute. So but it was my grandfather who had buried my grandmother and was just waiting around to dig his own whole. I mean literally he said we should have dug two holes on but he was sitting there in The Farmhouse and I went over and I told him you know, I'm going to do this I've been dead. I said don't you have $0.02 to put in like everybody does and they said well ever since she was a little bitty boy you everything you said that you was going to do you did it off so I ain't got no doubt you'll do this too. So that was kind of the final blessing like that was the final string to cut that are I can let this go and move forward but he died. He died that January. So yeah that so I drew on that completely as him and my uncle were they were too much alike month and you were that you were the boy that broke the curse a little bit you got out of there and yeah you were that's what I was thinking. Yeah connected you were the kid that did you said you were going to do I love that that's life and my aunt was quite a bit of him was was the Val Kilmer character in that movie. Wow, he didn't impregnate my teenage girlfriend. Well, I was going to say I hope that twist wasn't true age. It was crazy. Finally Val Kilmer. How was it? I've met hung out with them a couple of times and worked with him and interesting guy, right? That's a nice way of putting it. Yes musn't I will say this he is an immensely talented actor. Yes. He is a very complicated man. And you know, let's just leave it at that. Okay and Kris Kristofferson. Oh my God, that's yeah, that's a guy my mother my sister just the they went to see A Star is Born multiple times in nineteen Seventy-Six, you know, I was a little girl might have been conceived two stars. Yeah, we had the record and we just played it on the loop. And I'm so good our momma love seeing all Barbie yards and we grew up listening and then went through some bad periods in life and her life and there was a period where why me. Lord was on constantly. It was like a life preserver for her. You know, I was a little kid I couldn't quite wrap my head around my mom didn't get out of Bad, you know the covers over her head all weekend. And so, you know, so that song meant that to my mom, you know, my sister's birthday teenage sexuality was drawn to it. Yeah, when when we were doing the movie my wife said cuz we're about to close the deal. There was a magazine no depression magazine. He was on the cover off and carry. We didn't know him at that point. I had done a western with him. So I had met him but I didn't know him know him my wife walks by and she looks at it at the photo and he was Chris was seventy-two when that photo was taken and she said, you know what? I don't really know what it is. But whatever it is that men got a double scoop so cute. So well, he's got he's a certain know. Yeah, he's a Rhodes scholar a Golden Gloves boxer a war veteran. And yes, well, here's the story and actually cover that. She kind of looks like you is I think about it this this girl in this story am hanging out a place called the Blue Post in Wilmington. We just we hit it off and we hung out every night in my apartment. We would play songs to each other and smoke a joint and tell stories and so I got all the stories and I sang him that I had written and he would sing me these fucking songs that you knew and tell me where it came from how he wrote it but not where the blue post and had a great jukebox of reached Thompson the kid that played his grandson had never heard of Kris Kristofferson until we started doing the movie and then he just absolutely idolized him. So I go to the Jukebox I play leopard pillbox hat my billon and it comes on we're sitting in the corner and Christmas.

00:45:00 - 00:50:06

I remember the day Bob recorded this. So what he was the janitor Columbia Studios when Bob recording he said there was a buyout no musicians or songwriters were allowed in the building. He said there was one because he was empty in the ashtrays Em Up in the floor. It was me. He said so I would sit there and I would watch through the window. I watched Bob work he goes he would sit underneath this grand piano and he was right in a notebook and every now and then he'd reach up over him and he took out some notes and then he'd go back to his notebook and he goes, I remember the day he wrote that one cuz the band came in about 5:00 as they listened to him cut it through that's a special one. So it's the song that's playing. He's telling us the story. Oh cool. Just this girl built went to college girl gorgeous voluptuous. She walks. She goes, excuse me. I don't could could be dead. Could I get your autograph Chris? Oh, yeah. Yeah, sure. Sure. So he signs bar napkin or something. And this is in the day of flip phone phones cameras and she can we get it. Can we get a photo? Can I get a photo? Yeah, so she hands her photo out with somebody of hers and she's all snuggled that said she was holding him close like she was afraid he might catch a cold and she said she gets off. I just I just adore you. I love you. The Blade movies are my favorite movies ever. Increase cuz I think you should know I love I love those movies and recent their race goes. Well, you should go play them on the jukebox and she went what she does go play them on a jukebox The Eagles Greatest Hits over there. She went what you're a singer. Okay, so he's spans like how many different Generations know about this guy why it was my daughter had got off. My daughter was a little girl when we did it she would she was dying when we shot and her weight know she was eleven it was when she was in high school years later. I forget what I was watching was one of the early films and she went no no, it's a photo as a photograph that she saw and it was on my iPad. She went who? Who's that? That's Chris. That is Kris Kristofferson. And I said yeah. Oh my God, you know three generations of my family took well for accounting my sister my mother my sister my wife and my daughter all crushes on Chris. Yeah. So whatever it is man's got a double scoop. Yeah, exactly last three pages. He makes you doubt things. That's true. Okay. And so I remember looking at you. You got T Bone Burnett to do music producing on it and supervising. We did wrong. It's huge. Yeah. Well, you know, we couldn't have gotten him three months later. It would have been impossible. But Steven can we can we say also he did Oh Brother Where Art Thou off we could leave it at that but he's a big deal. Well Crazy Heart happened while we were in post-production. Well, there's a story in and of that and that's where TBonz rate went through the roof, but what happened is dead. Routing who crazy heart was Loosely based on Bruton and Bruton was the adviser for that film. He was Christmas lead guitar player through the whole time and they were best friends. Will Bruton was dying. He had terminal cancer. T-Bone had brought him out here. He was staying at T-Bones place his Studio house and he was going through alternative therapies and he died there in T-Bones place, but we got a phone call now Travis Nicholson who was working on the film with us behind the scenes his dad Gary Nicholson started out in Texas with Kristofferson with T-Bone. He's a musician songwriter off. Travis's don't Christians today. He was born so we all kind of had everything's connected right? Well Chris got the phone call that Bruton. It's it's happening. He's he's leaving us. So we arranged the schedule and Travis got it cuz his dad knew also, cuz he was talking bird. So we changed our schedule to allow Chris to get back here to LA to say goodbye. So Chris flies back in he spent the afternoon with Stephen Colbert at T-Bones house and then Steven died the next morning. There's a story in that that Tebow tells he has a meditation Bell off this this Asian. I forget what country it was from but it's it's got this puretone. It's it's an antique Ivan all how many but he brought it out and showed it to me know cuz we got him is so Travis is already tried to get T-boned to do our music. Chris comes back with say goodbye to Brewton. This is all I'm doing this movie about a musician. We're shooting in in North Carolina off. The bone is getting it from Every Avenue. This project keeps coming across and then Chris did something he had never written original music before he wrote that original song for our movie.

00:50:06 - 00:55:12

So we needed somebody to cut it. So T-Bone agreed but when we were over there at the place, we were in the place where Steven died the bedroom is right across the hall. He brought this meditation bail out and he said this Steve is like 4 in the morning or 5 somewhere in there around around the time the sun start to come up Stephens girlfriend was with him and she heard the bell toll and said I think said there were three tones and she thought T-Bone was there like, oh he's here awfully early. And then she rolls over and Stevens dead. So as T-Bone said this bell rang, it's tone the moment that Stephen left this room. Wow, so all that stuff kind of tied down to you know, bringing us all together at the same place at the same time. And so I was there in Village recorders, you know in the studio with T Bone and Chris and we heart and and so yeah, it was it was yeah and then T-Bone as we were mixing we had cut and we were mixing and we when he got the phone call about Crazy Heart about the studio was moving up the Crazy Heart release date cuz he stepped out it was going to take this guy's he steps out and he steps back in and goes we gotta stop. I gotta finish Crazy Heart. So so we got laid Yeah, we got delayed for about three weeks so that you could finish that movie and then that movie his you know, his rate skyrocketed off and Yaki, but having him and Chris it was all just all the right Spirits were supposed to all come together at that time. You know, that's awesome. So congratulations to finishing that it is so hard to get a film up and running and made and produced and distributed. Congratulations. Yeah, and people can find it streaming now, right? I mean we found it on off an Apple TV Apple TV. Okay. Yeah. I'm not sure that it's on any streaming service free at the moment. Yeah, but I do know it out there that you can buy it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it. You can stream it for $4. It's nice if you don't want to buy it. Yeah, everybody watched that. Yeah. Yeah. I love the story-telling there and I realize now this late in my life. I've never been a big country music fan, but God. Just doing this research with you and hearing about can't believe that we were born in the same. I know we had a we lived on a ranch. We were born on a ranch in Northern California. We grew up on Dolly Parton. I know my mom my mom's from Texas are Dad they both grew up in folk music in the sixties. So it was very, you know, we get the guitar and play by the fire and harmonica and the whole thing. I don't know. I just I found Rock I guess I I grew up liking that a little bit more. It's all good. Yeah. I was my my mom is still a huge music fan. My first concert. I was the Cross County Fairgrounds 1968 right before I turned four years old was the Porter Wagoner show with Dolly Parton and spec Road. Wow, Dolly had just started on Porter show and I was a little boy was four years old. It was the first time I'd seen him person people that I saw on TV. So my four year old brain kind of put together like, oh my God, they're real real people, but it was me wage. Puberty hit and I discovered kiss was my gateway drug into Punk and heavy metal cuz I love yes. Oh, yeah, and so it was until I moved to Chicago and I was learning to play wage. And wxrt the cool rock station played Steve Earle Copperhead Road and the hair on the back of my neck stood up like oh my God. This is this is a country song but this is kind of metal. This is dark and and I was learning to play and then my appreciation for Hank Williams the first song I ever remember. I mean I was a toddler toddler was I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry because both my grandmothers said Hank Williams records They had different covers, but they were you know, they were Collections and both of them had that song on it and I can remember as a little boy hearing that and thinking that man sounds so sad. You can see that's your testimony to your emotional depth at that age, too. Yeah and Dolly Parton talks about that. They have the podcast Dolly Parton's of marriage and I think it's like, you know, maybe ten parts or something. So it's something you can kind of binge and listen to but she talks about these are stories from her people, you know in the mountains and and just the store scheduling is so beautiful. And now I'm I'm I need to get into this. I'm feeling my country Roots. There's there's a lot of there's a lot of Pap, you know, there's a lot of slick stuff off and and you know, some a dolly stuff is is Vegas Dolly right? But you listen she did three Bluegrass records about fifteen twenty years ago.

00:55:13 - 01:00:08

The first was called the grass is blue and and she does Bluegrass versions of like Stairway to Heaven, you know, but there's some songs. There's a song called Down from Dover I dare you listen to that song and not dead. Emotionally wrenched down from Dover by Dolly Parton and then again you find those nuggets look for the you know Townes Van Zandt thought it was a great writer Some of the records. I don't care for I don't care for the production but the songs are are Dylan level good and Steve Earle is my favorite, you know, so yeah, if you'd like there's some great great music Spider-Man grew out of Folk Music and country music or first cousins. Yeah. There are a lot of similarities in that in rock, you know taking the old Delta Blues Clues and then the Led Zeppelin's and it all ties together forever country is just Blues. It's it's American blues music combined with Scots Irish folk music. You got country music. Yeah. Yeah now speaking of all of this your band. Are you guys playing what's going? What's the name of your band? And what's happening with that? We are sacred cow birth. Just we we we were a band we started back in Austin kind of evolved out of Deadwood. I met this musician who was worth the background who was a Musician musician who played pedal steel Mike Johnstone and season 2 of dead wood. I've been playing with some guys we got together. It was a dad bag of sorts. It started by 40th birthday party. We had rented the Cat Club. So we decided we're going to play so we put a forty-five minute set together of of cover songs and like there was something like oh there's something here like we and the the guys were musicians musicians far more than me. So we kind of kept it up, but it was all rock music and mostly Hard Rock and then we had bought a House of Blues for the season 2 rap of dead wood and the producer said hey if you want to bring your band if you guys want to play some well I met Mike and I need he played pedal steel. I wanted to do some country music cuz it's dead. So for Deadwood, so I went to Mike and then I went and got Ralph Stephens. So used to be my neighbor who used to play piano for Jackie DeShannon. Well, Mike and Ralph are both a generation older than me. That's kind of how it involves if we had that group of personalities in a room. There was that spark I felt it from the moment. We started playing there's damage and not everybody there. It's not like everybody's best friends in that van, but that that combination of sensibilities. So we became a band band. We played quite a bit well, and then we hook it up. I I had a problem when Deadwood stopped it was always promoted like the guy from Deadwood. So people would come out, you know, it's country rock music Club guy from Deadwood. Well after the show was over I felt like a loser like I believed in the band like whatever brings people through the door. I know this ban is going to knock them on their off. Box, but the Glad do promotion and shit like the show's over. Yeah, so I was busy we got booked to do Stagecoach weird kind of spread and cause I love telling this story the band that opened they played before us on the Palomino stage. I don't know where whatever happened to those guys the Zac Brown Band song. We played the Palomino stage at 3 on that Saturday and Stagecoach 09. The response was phenomenal and we were at the point of like, okay, we gotta do this do this which means getting the white van and tour I could not afford to do it. We were in production on on Bloodworth at that point and I had to give myself the Bloodworth so I kind of mothball the band like right when the momentum is building up for us and I couldn't do it. So I missed it like crazy and we decided when the dead would move. Came around where like bucket. Let's all get back together and see if we can still play. So we we have tracked new music. We have two videos that I am over the moon about how good they were I conceived them and then I brought in these artists to do them. And then P Peter is a oscar-nominated film maker by lead guitar player. Well, he made these things. I cannot wait to share them. We're just trying to find the right time and the right way we can distribute them. So we've had a couple of songs used stuff has been used in films like what we use when the closing credits on the Bloodworth is sacred boys.

01:00:08 - 01:05:01

Okay, tell me your seat we cut that with with people T-Bone remixed version that I already took but yeah that closing credits song and Bloodworth is sacred Cowboys. That's so all the songs are great. Was that also you guys with that two-part Harmony just the acapella the two game Singing and Bloodworth that is Tim O'Brien and Daryl escapes. No is not a yeah, that was that was Ingles to that was an amazing song and gasoline and matches. I sang that I sing sometimes in was with a band and we did a cover of that too. Beautiful song. Well, I knew with that we couldn't do the storm like we could not afford to do a tornado in the book. It's a blizzard what we knew that's out. We can't do that. Yeah, so it's going to be a tornado. So we set up you know that it's blowing in off like there's a hurricane that sending weather up that's kind of seated earlier in the movie that bad weather is come in their way, but we couldn't afford to to Really properly film the image of it hitting the house. So, I'm the one that came I said, how about if we just use Music if we just use this Heart of Gold, what's what it's a Hank Williams song. Recorded it was a Hank Williams song Darrell Scott and Tim O'Brien. And and I just yeah, it's that's one of my favorite moments in the movie cuz he just had these two incredible voice is and you know, yeah, but thank you for noticing that makes me happy that you picked up on it like that. It is gorgeous. Yeah so much so much art in that two months and I was going to say this sounds kind of kooky but going back to Deadwood and you're seeing after the fight and sitting there and not able to talk and wondering if you're okay. It did have this kind of Rome an thinker sculpture kind of yeah, just the Artistry you pull it off really well so good. Thank you. Well, I would like to say that that was the reason I did. It was more like I'm trying to hide my balls from he had a clean. It's so profound. Yep. Does your wife think of any love scenes and stuff like that? I'm always so curious about this with acting. I mean, she's okay with it. We never had a problem. There was one movie. I did that there was an actress I was working with that. We had intimate scenes and there was wage kind of a spark like if we were both single people. We probably would have dated my wife could smell that on me a mile away. Yeah, and that's been the the only time where she was like hm. But all the other times, you know, there was one in it's a great little small film that lead guitar player. My band made it called Dunsmore a little low budget film and and I had you know, multiple full-on new sex scenes in it and the the actress that was planted the younger actress who was in it. We were we hit it off and bring my wife was friends with her and I really cuz she's young and pretty and you know, and Kerry had no, you know again she she can smell a boner on me from a mile away. So there's no used be ever even trying to pretend to hide it. Can we quote you on that can that be the lead of our a boner? I'm writing a song or a specific. Yeah. Do you want to end with something ridiculous? And do the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to we came up with a game idea. All right. So now she has always been a super fan of Chris. I love Coldplay. This is like talking about love stories and heartbreak and all this right? I went through big break up with my husband sounds like you guys with Kerry that you had a break up and get back together and you finally ended up together that was us and Coldplay got me through so I transferred all those love feelings on to Chris Martin because he and my husband looked a lot of like, it's straight talk about some forty and stuff. But so I was still love Chris Martin can't help myself. He married Gwyneth Paltrow. So I say instead of the Kevin Bacon game. Let's play with wo Brown will play the the gweneth Paltrow's a game or whatever you want to call it. So can you connect yourself through your movies your Works back to well Chris Martin or go to Paltrow? Well, I saw a sudden your email didn't I see Adam Sandler on birth? Yeah. Oh, yeah, it was my yeah. Yeah, that would connect all of them together know.

01:05:01 - 01:10:05

Oh, well, I can connect to Gwyneth. What was her cousin? I used to watch a check off class out here in in in Nineteen Ninety Four with her first cousin and then we used to go out to Bruce and Bruce Paltrow was father and it was Blythe her mom. Yes, I'm beginner her parents house going to still live there. We had class at their house a few times. I never met Gwen and then her her cousin. She was in a mood. She was in a few movies and she had a t show Name Escapes me at the moment. But the Adam Sandler and Chris Martin when Judd Apatow decided he was going to get back into doing stand-up. He did shows over at that theater down by the the mall over in Beverly, at least they're slappers no wage. No, no, no to see yeah, it's in Beverly Hills. What's the big indoor mall in Beverley? The Beverley Center? Oh, there's a theater just like a block away. Oh God. What's the name of it? Oh and well thirty-seven Margo Margo at the Coronet. Yeah Largo Coronet. Yes, so I went to see one of Judge. I want to say it was the second night. It's good. I saw Shack kabu, and it was a great. Well, he had special guests that were going to pop in and and one of them was Adam Adam Sandler Adam was there so he brought him out a bit and then he goes, I got a buddy out to I got a buddy in the audience. Hey, Chris come up here sitting right in front of me was Chris Martin? Yeah it brings Chris up on stage to improvise a song and you could tell this wasn't a plant. Chris did not want to get up and join I come on come on up here. Come on, and so he gets it the piano on The Improv wage. Song about how uncomfortable he is. And he makes the audience laughs and he finishes an appetite walks out and he goes, all right. You look like Chris Martin you play music like Chris Martin. I don't look like that. I can't play music like that. But you're funny. You're funny you off laughing on the fucking funny guy. He's good. He's so cute a Largo that included Adam Sandler and Chris Martin. That's amazing job. You did it. You did it very good and comedy bringing it all back around. I love it. Yes. Do we have any more questions more questions that I didn't I mean feel like we oh, I wanted to know about a fight scene with Joaquin Phoenix. Oh that was crazy to npt Anderson because he's a I'm a fan of his and if you had a well, I mean I I was a fan also off again cuz I knew Riley so I I've seen since hard hate cuz Riley was in it knows two guys were Best Buds and I actually met Paul this what would Tom Petty and Steve Earle playing? The Santa Barbara Bowl and John and Paul were there they were sitting right behind us John and introduced introduced me to him. But I mean, I just knew this was after Bill going up next month. So with with the master, I knew that movie was being made because they were so super secretive about it cuz they were afraid of Scientology mutts and with them, you know, so I got a call from my agent and he said are you comfortable fighting? Yeah, he was like but like really fighting not stage five. Oh, yeah guys were it looks so, you know, no stunts. Right? No. No, it was just us and it's all in one take ya home. I said, yeah, I'm fine. I said actually like hitting people I don't like getting hit that much but I'm not real quick. So, you know, it's a trade-off. So I usually avoid it. But yeah, I'm fine fighting and he said well, there's a Paul Thomas Anderson film Cassandra has called and they want somebody that can go toe-to-toe with Joaquin Phoenix cuz walking doesn't do he can't do stunts. He gets so into the moment. So they they need an actor who unless? Yeah sure. So I expected Paul because he's so cinematic. I expected him to be one of these guys that's got every shot and every cut in his head. If you know, I figured storyboarded cuz there are guys that are so visual they know every place they want to take it. So I went I met him the day before we shot when I had makeup confab and stuff and they went and said hello. We were in the department store. They were shooting at that location super nice guy came in and introduced me to wakeen and Joaquin didn't you know, he called himself walking. He wasn't one of these you gotta call me by my child killer Jim Morrison. Yes. Yes song he wasn't like that but he stayed in that headspace the whole time and and in addition to see how thanks for coming out now I did they they tell you when we do this when we do this job.

01:10:05 - 01:15:02

Comfortable if you if if you just if you if you hit me or you are you comfortable if you hit me. Yeah. Yeah, I was told yeah sure. It was. Okay. Yeah, cuz yeah, just yeah. Yeah, it starts to walk waiters. Cuz what about what about what about what if I hit you but you should be okay if I get you yeah, man will just work it out whatever sure so the next day we get there and Paul we're we're in costume and we were rehearsing the whole Cruise there and it was a scene. It was like a two pages of dialogue an up going back to Deadwood like the post-fight seen it was dialogue and I was a businessman I was there to get my palm taken but I thought maybe I could get a print for my wife. She probably like that. So I was supposed to be this jovial, you know, and so we're reading it and Paul walks up and he goes this is dead. This is not good. This is really not good, which is the first fucking thing. You want to hear your director. Say yeah, and he says this is It's the writing. It's my it's the writing. I'm too on-the-nose. It's too obvious. Can you improvise you mean? Yeah, cuz you find within yeah mine off close the set everybody off everybody off. Close it out. So sets clear. All right, let's let's just let's see what happens. Let's see. So we start kind of blocking through it and we lead up and the first thing he grabbed me by the throat and and I punch him and you know, but I knew like I can't fully hit him cuz I'll knock his ass out cuz I got a clean shot right to the side of the home. So I was trying to like Lucinda punch when we went through it a few times that we would get to that Crescendo and and I noticed Paul like calling people over department heads. And at one point he goes, we're just I'm going to turn the camera on turn the just turn it on. Will Tales like turn it on. Okay, we're just going to let's just do one. Let's just do one. So he backs off we get it six times six takes there's no cuts. It is it's that it stays on Joaquin. There's a lot of headspace in there in the frame. You don't see me at first you hear me, but you don't see me which brings this tension, you know, and you have him on this side of the frame but the camera and then as he moves over toward me the camera pans back pulls back Simon Pegg trucks with him. And then you got a two-shot most of that interaction happens with the two shots wage then our knock the shit out of him. He and I shove him out of frame. So you get the empty frame and then Paul moves back and then we both entered then, you know didn't go through a chair someone threw a chair in a 1.25 through. Yeah. Yeah and that take I flipped the heat there's a loveseat and I flip it as he's throwing glass at me, but we had breakaway glass we knew we had that that was available to us, And so every single review picked out that scene talking about the tension seen and I went back to it time and again of like how long All and his DP got that with they got it with their framing. You know, they got it with their sound mix, you know, but he trusted he knew that he had it in one take off. That's crazy that he didn't need cutaways and it was so cool. And with a dolly, I'm sorry. Yeah, I was going to say I don't know all the terminology cuz I'm Not In The Biz but they dilated it and then you'll lose walking behind that column and then he comes out which was so realistic. It was just like you knew it was a real Scene It was great. Yes. It was it was on a dolly off. So I want to say it was it I want to say it was tracked that that we had track. But yeah, it did Dolly it moved over when when he walked over it file hate pan back a little bit to open the frame up and he moved with him which sets us in a two-shot and then the fight starts happening and then the frame just Sinners us it moves back over and centers us as I am. The couch over and I'm chasing him and he's throwing containers at me. And then as he starts the the camera then follows him past that post and then he walks out of frame by the way. That's another sorry. I got excited though with your six degrees with Adam Sandler. You got Petey interested in Punch-Drunk Love right there. Yeah. Yeah, but that that was an amazing scene. That was hugely stand out in that film. Yeah, and and again, I I've watched it countless. I mean Paul may have conceived of it as a one. He never ever said that and he wasn't there setting up, you know multiple shots.

01:15:02 - 01:20:05

He just trusted the frame and he was able to so much of it is is the space and stuff that he allows in the frame that that builds up that sense of tension. I mean the app was there that was there but we weren't the only things that made it what building was it was it downtown LA Uptown. It was an old abandoned Apartment Store that the first month. Or was now like a sandwich shop or whatnot. The second floor was still there just abandoned. I just press it, you know, so I'm not sure what it was like to make some brand company that you you know, what it once men. But yeah, I was downtown LA. Well my friend work on Punch-Drunk Love he worked on that and he said that PT Anderson would show up sometimes just like that fish tank is amazing and they would just throw away the script and some how the story would get created around something in the moment. So I wonder if he was a bit like that which is so cool. But these black budget films that you would just I've Loved I mean, I've loved everything I did not care for the based on that book know the one based on the book. He had let's see Boogie Nights device inherent Vice. Oh, yeah. That wasn't my favorite either. I didn't I didn't care. I did like one of the best sex scenes ever filmed overall u c e Face, it's a long answer. It's a great Rapport. You don't see anything really but it works that that was the only part of the film. I didn't care much for the rest of it. Yeah, I just re-watched Magnolia. And anyways, too long since since corn beans happen. Brilliant. Yeah. Mine's a lot of time for that. That's good. Alfred Molina is still my favorite Jessie's Girl, but we want to end on you because you're and let's see. Let's find a good. Well, you suck dad band earlier. Let's encourage everybody. We're trying to make something more of dead man. In an Ideal World. We could do 10:00 half hour episodes that tell a whole story. I've got it all laid out. I'm writing a feature version also, but we we made that would just with kentrell and my buddy Ted Camp who plays the key birth. Player in the band he and I came up with he had the idea for the song and then I said well if we're going to do a song in the video, we should make a short film. So that's how it evolved. We've found one point 1 million views on YouTube. That's great. Yeah, and the response has been phenomenal. So we've only done the one, you know, we we want to do more but we're not going to it. You know, we gotta have a budget we gotta get paid. I'm not going to do it for free, right? So so yeah Dad band on YouTube dad ban ban for himself is food. Wo Brown do you want to give us a little premise of that or just go look it up and give you a one-sentence premise. It is about the formation and dissolution of a Suburban dad band on a single Saturday afternoon. I love it. It's like the the minivan commercial that was all the rage for a while. Did you see that one? Which one? Oh, it was the Suburban. Couple Rakim. Even it was right when I was in my minivan face. So I was like, I was feeling the vibe but I'll look it up will send it to you. Okay, Dad band. Everybody looked it up. Yep. Very good. Want to make more often you guys look up W Earl Brown on IMDb and just look at the plethora of movies and T and your body work. I mean we're going back to Backdraft to current-day amazing and what a get we're so honored that you came on our show couldn't be happier me too and and talk with you. All right. It's been fun. Yay. Thank you much. Okay, folks there you have it that wraps up. Our inner was so cool. Brown wins. Yes. How did you feel about the whole thing? I just think he's a great guy. I think is interesting and God, there's so many cool stuff. I learned a lot and I'm so happy to have met him so many years ago and I'm very excited that he came on the podcast. That's right. So you guys check them out at dad band on YouTube. Just look for that page. Also keep an eye on this guy because he's got a big upcoming project that's going to hit. I don't know when but he's starting filming December through the spring. It's a big deal and we saw a little info on the internet that often it's linked or not. But yeah, it's big stuff. Yeah. So keep your eye out on him follow him on all his social media. I think he's real findable on Instagram and think he's on Instagram Facebook Twitter W Earl Brown. Thank you for listening. And please follow us to Mouse in Wayne's. Com. We are also over on patreon Mountain winds is the backslash. Yep. Turn back and wins and we want to thank our other patrons.

01:20:05 - 01:21:12

We love you guys. We really appreciate your support and it really does keep us motivated and thank you for partnering with your $5 a month. You are on your way to getting your free t-shirt. If you listen for four months, we send you a t-shirt. We send you a swag bag of Welcome gifts. We make you a song all sorts of fun things. So often do find us over on patreon while we're talking about let's look up W Earl Brown on Cameo as well. And maybe he'll do his any special request that you have. He will do private special requests audios and videos for you guys. So go check that out on Cameo. Anything else means I just thank you very much. We're happy to be here and please come back. Well, that's right. Subscribe to all your friends. We love you by what song Blue again, please. Let me break through let me break off

Tags: acting,actor,kilmer,david,deadwood,film,hbo,hollywood,horror,milch,movies,preacher,scream,joaquin phoenix,bloodworth,tv,kristofferson,country,music,dad band,chris martin,gwyneth,sandler,jerry cantrell,sacred cowboys,fight scene,dan dority,steve earle,rock