One on One: Gregg Henry

I am all in. Let's kiss you.

I am all in with Scott Patterson an iHeartRadio podcast.

Hey Everybody, Scott Patterson, I am all In podcast, iHeartRadio, iHeart Media, iHeart Podcasts. One on one interview with the one and only Greg Henry, who portrays the lovable Mitchem Huntsberger. He is the father of Logan. We all know who he is. Let's get to know Greg a little bit

I get to wear my hat backwards on this, you know, because let's face it.

When.

That is correct. So look, thanks for joining us. Uh so we'll just get started here.

You are.

You know, we're getting some real opinions about your character on this show. So I'm glad you're here so we could dive in and hear what your your thoughts are an opinion, So let's take it from the beginning. How did you get the role?

I got offered the role.

Nice.

It's one of those you know, when those things work out, it's always so nice.

You know.

There's like rumors going around and like, oh, actors would much rather read for the part.

And no, no way.

It's much nicer for them to call up and you say, yeah, yes, I'd love to yes.

So yeah, so you so they just ordered to tell us about how you saw mitcham how you interpreted the role, because it's in the writing, right And I always found that Amy and Dan's writing was so ultra specific that you didn't really need to do much with it. I mean, it's just there on the page. So how did you approach this role?

Oh?

Yeah, Well, first of all, I totally agree about their writing. It's so clear and specific and uh and uh and musical and unique and and uh and that's you know, what was exciting about the part is the language, first of all. But then they then it was in terms of Mitch and I.

You know, I I looked at him and his uh a.

Guy who's doing his job and is trying to in trying to do his best to help uh young Rory in the in the situation that he's put in, and uh and and believes believes all of his advice to her, and uh and I think it's some good advice to her times of course, where the opinion's part is where it's where I say, I don't I don't think you got it. I don't think you can cut it. And that, of course is a great great smack to all the fans and to Rory herself.

But then then it sort of escalates, as as.

I guess, uh, the relationship of Logan and Rory escalated, and so I it was then other things kind of became clear about him, you know, that we're that he that was kind of revealed actually that he had a harder line about sort of family and class and that sort of thing than then I originally thought when I originally started working on it, you know what I mean?

Hm, Right, things came out in scripts that you hadn't seen yet, Yeah, right, you're right. Yeah, that was a big scene. I think one of the most satisfying scenes that I have witnessed so far. And because I'm only up to season six, episode nine at this point, because I never saw the show, I never watched the show. I mean I saw the pilot obviously, but I and I was forced to see one of the Netflix iterations because I had to go to the premiere and I was forced to sit in the theater and watch it.

They're taking a great weight off of my shoulders.

Because I was going to say, my knowledge is not encyclopedic of the whole show.

Nora is mine.

I know the fans are so wonderfully dedicated and their knowledge is encyclopedic.

So right it is. But one of the more satisfying and bizarre and funny scenes I ever have ever seen on that show or any show, was when Logan brings Rory to the Huntsburger home for dinner. It was divine, It was existential, surreal, anything you want to throw at it, it was. It was just beautiful filmmaking. It was unbelievably funny, and the woman who plays your wife was hysterical. It was hysterical. I haven't laughed that hard at that show.

She's not you know, I you know, I think that that's very much part of the assessment, you know, not just her writing skills, but the whole package.

Right, And now we're gonna let's talk about Matt Zukri, who I find to be Mattie Alphabet, Matt terrific guy, h terrific actor. And just I think that's the thing that people don't realize how good he is, because if he can stand with you. And the one thing I do remember that I haven't seen that I haven't seen the episode, but the Malibu fallout in the Malibu, Yeah, the Malibu. That scene to me was, I mean, if if Maddie can stand up to you and go back

Oh, he has big skills. And he's a you know, just real talent. But he's a real hard worker too at what he does. You know, he's like he's very very.

Intent on that.

It was still while maintaining you know, very you know, sort of cool equili delibrium you know, on.

Set and everything.

You know, he's great to talk with and everything, and and it's funny.

I I have.

A good buddy that's works with him on The Resident for all those years and talks about how he's just his work thick, you know, just amazing, and in that's in that scene I recall just just you know, having fun is just like the gates.

The gates went up and off we went.

You know.

The thing, the thing I appreciate about his work so much is how like all of that hard work pays off and how smooth his delivery is and how effortless and how easy it is. And it's just I love watching that kid. I really do that scene between you two guys, is just the class. It's you're involved in classic Gilmore scenes in my estimation, love love, love the work. All right, So you're you're, you're, you're in a one minute conversation with Orys where you tell her she doesn't

Guy given all the fan reaction.

Absolutely, But if I think on if I think on it, I I think it was without a second chance, you know what I mean?

It was. It was it was a pretty harsh you know, he didn't he didn't, you know, send it to the minor leagues for a little while or anything. He really just said, you're out of here. You know, it's not

So mm hmm. There's another scene you do with ed Herman in the bathroom. Richard confronts you and you come clean about offering her an internship and how your family treated Rory to dinner. How do you remember what do you remember most about working with that and that scene?

If you remember, He's just a wonderful guy and I was a fan of his work, you know, and so it was it was just a great thrill, and he was he was quite funny on the set and very sort of you know, he's he plays all these kind of very close to the best tight guys, you know, and I didn't find him to be that way, and I found him to be, you know, very very fun and and.

And again not a lot of you know, there there wasn't a lot.

Of razzle dazzle or discussion or anything. It was it was just kind of let's play and we did.

Yeah, you think you were pushing you think Mitcham was pushing logan too hard to get into the business.

I mean, I think he's I think he was a harsh critic of his son, and I think he's a tough, a tough father to have.

I think that that's certainly true.

How many newspapers did mitcham control? How powerful? How wealthy was he?

Well?

Was he a billionaire? Was he what level was he Rupert Murdoch level? I don't think he was.

I don't know, But that's what's just kind of my understanding.

My understanding was kind of because he was so personally involved, you know what I mean, because he.

Was so.

Tight on with you know, who is writing, who's the assistant, who is and how they're sort of like restructuring this business and everything. To me, it seemed like it was a lesser empire, an empire, but a lesser.

Okay, but certainly significantly greater than the Gilmore Empire, I think so, right right, Yeah, so you you actually got to work getting back to Matt's Matty Matty alphabet. You got to do an episode with him in the Resident. What was that reunion?

Like, Well, that was reunion was just us saying hello, we didn't act together in that thing.

Oh you didn't you didn't do an episode.

Somebody else, So that all this that stuff was with my good buddy Bruce Greenwood. But but Maddie and I, you know, we we got to spend a little little bit of time together saying hey and catching up.

And I ran into Bruce green where we did a Batman film together, animated film together. He voiced Batman and I voiced a couple other characters, and there was this big premiere. He told me about you guys have a band, and that you you play, you play out and you you have you have some kind of very special band. Tell us a little bit about that.

But we do a lot of music, you know, the definition of a not a band. I'm I'm a I'm a songwriter. I'm a singer songwriter and and Bruce is also a great singer songwriter. And we sort of shared that sort of passion of music and uh and uh and through a lot of jam sessions in that and uh and Bruce was very good at.

Well, very good at a lot of things. He's kind of a renaissance man.

But but he's good at these sort of engineering and recording and you know, which I don't particularly excel at but so he Uh. So, we worked on a couple of CDs that I had of my songs, and uh and.

I was, yeah, I was.

I was gigging out, you know, about once every two months or something like that that at that point in time at Genghis Cohen and uh and and Bar five and some other places and uh uh and and he'd come, you know, and and sing with me. But it was all my songs, right and then uh and I'm a piano player, he's a guitar player, and you know there's the they feud for life.

You know.

So uh but any rate, uh So, on the second sort of CD that we worked on together, he he was shooting, uh, oh god, what was it?

Hollywood Homicide.

I can't remember the title exactly, but it was a movie with Dwight Yoakam and we were doing the master mix on it, and he uh he asked why if he would listen to something, and Dwight said okay, So he listened and uh and then like two days later he called up and he listened to one song. And two days later he called up and said, you mind, I think Greg in mind if I recorded that song?

Oh nice?

And uh uh yeah, I would mind.

No, no way, not you.

So so Greenwood has always been my sort of my my promoter, my producer, my uh my partner.

In all of that.

But but we don't have a band like to my left on bass and to my right.

Wait, what happened with the Dwight Yoga song? Did he record it? Oh?

Yeah he did. I mean, you know, for a long time.

On an album, whether he recorded it for like seven months, six months something like that, we didn't know whether he recorded it. And then and then he called us up and said, you know, you guys could come out to the studio and listen to what we've done with it.

And we went out to the studio and.

Listened and uh and it was, you know, it was like one of those things where, uh, I I didn't know quite what I imagined, but it was it was so much.

More than I imagine.

It was just you know, this just the waterworks are coming down and uh so, you know, it was like so fulfilling and uh uh and we walked away, you know, clicking our heels and shouting woohoo and like it's.

Definitely made the album. They right, And so then we go to see him.

He's playing at the at the Henry Fonda and uh in a in a small tour it's called Dwight Alone. It was just him and one other guy, an acoustics sort of tour, and uh we said, well, maybe he's going.

To play this all, you know, And we get there and no, he doesn't play it.

So we go out to the bus afterwards and uh, you know, say, you know, we're here to see what And then.

You know, after they make room, they lead us up in and he comes out and he goes, oh, I got something I want to show you.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Yeah.

Well we're sitting there in the in.

The win a Bago in the bus and he comes out and he pops in a DVD and he plays video of the song and he said, we're making it the single.

Oh my gosh, he made it.

He made it the first single from the album. The population me.

Yeah, what's the name of the song?

The back of your hand?

The back of your hand. Oh that's so exciting.

Oh god, it was.

Yeah, it was goodnight for for for both of us, for all of us, and so uh yeah, and it went well.

The video did very well.

The video was like number one on country music television.

Oh my gosh, so you must have been. Did you get flooded with offers and no, go down to Nashville work?

You know?

You know, I went down to Nashville. I ended up signing with a you know, a.

Publisher there to uh, to manage my catalog and stuff like that.

I have the publishing on my stuff.

Is it Warner Chapel?

It wasn't Warner Chapel. Had a very nice meeting with Warner Chapel, but I went with Music. It was a smaller company which has since been bought up by the.

Big behemoth BMG. But yeah, but it was, it was very it was a very exciting time.

And so yeah, that's very exciting.

That song got a lot of play and then got on.

Country Music, Television's Greatest Hits, got on Dwight's Greatest Hits of the twenty first century.

So it's good for you.

Yeah, that's fun.

Yeah. So, so how's it been going with the song?

In my music?

You got to go to Greg Lee, Henry, you can go anywhere like Spotify, Apple, but my middle name.

So has that continued? Have other artists recorded your stuff?

No, I've spent No. No, other artists have recorded. I did you know it was played in concert the back of marine by none other than Taylor Swift.

Oh my goodness, you can barely.

Hear it for the screaming fans. But that was kind of a thrill, you know.

So if Taylor Taylor's ever looking again, I immediately wrote like four for her.

But you know she's does a pretty good job on her own, right.

That's very very exciting. So you played Grandpa Quill in all three Guardians of the Galaxy movies. How fun is it to be a part of that cast?

Oh?

We know that James gun created all that stuff. That's right. He wrote, he writes and directs all that stuff. That's that. Sean Gunn's brother, Sean is involved with all those things. He just had a big role in the latest movie, in the latest iteration. You're in these films. Tell us about this experience being a part of such a brilliant and fun film franchise.

Yeah, it's crazy, it's crazy fun. And I know James Gun from Slither, which was his first directorial event. And and and also in that cast was Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker.

And Rooker and Elizabeth Banks.

And I've spent a few evenings with Rooker. Yeah, I've been ROOKERD. As I said, of nature, he is a force of nature for sure.

Absolutely.

Oh my goodness. If you haven't been Rookard, then you have. Then you're a different kind of person. Once you've been ROOKERD. Once you've been ROOKERD, you've been rokered man.

You for life.

But uh, so I knew, you know, And I did another movie with him, super and I did another couple of things with James, and so James is the guy that took me, you know, and uh, you know, cast me in Slither first of all.

And and that's how that all sort of began. And then he called me up. He was in London already sort of shooting, already shooting.

And and called up and asked me if I wanted to play a part and I said yeah.

I said what's part? And he said Grandpa And I said grandpa. He's a young grandpa.

Okay, fine, So so so that's that's how that began. And then uh it went to London and shot that and uh and there were always uh you know, we did a little bit of stuff for the end of the first episode if you will, Volume one.

M and uh uh.

That was a sort of a collection of all the characters, kind of a doing a while the credits run sort of thing, you know, which was.

Never which was never used.

But I had no idea that, you know, I was pretty sure James was going to hit it out of the park with that one, but just how deep, I mean, I didn't.

Quite get that, you know.

And then you know, James is just uh, not only a brilliant guy, but he's a lovely guy, a warm guy.

And and uh when.

He did too, he called up and said, I got something, but I don't know, it's not much, but come and and I went. And it was sort of a time when all the family was there, Jamie Shawn's family was their brother's father, mother, everybody.

So that was kind of fun.

And then the big sort of like idle wave that's taking over the town.

Everybody got to play sort of parts.

And Grandpa was kind of in that because it's the rare eye that can actually find Grandpa in volume two. But that's what's called to do to do volume three and have that little bit it was, which was a lovely sort of like bookend culmination of the character and the story. Uh, it was great and being a part of you know that gang.

I mean there's a lot of laughing involved.

I mean they are all genuinely funny, fun people, good folks.

All Right, we're going to do something called rapid fire a bunch of questions. I'm to fire them at you. You do not have to answer them quickly.

Oh, this is not a required fire slow answer.

Yeah, correct? How do you like your coffee? Black? Are you team Logan? Well, we already know Team Logan, Team Jess team.

You should know that.

I know that I'm team Logan too. Who's your favorite Gilmour Girls couple? Luke, Laurela, Emily or Richard.

I think I'm gonna go Luke Laurela.

You know.

Would you rather work with Michelle or Kirk Kirk? Why? Oh, well, obviously you work with it. Would you rather hang out with Paris Geller or Lane Kim, Paris Galer?

Was that Lizon?

Yes? Yeah, Hers, Paris Harvard or Yale? Yale? Or drop out and live in the poolhouse?

Well?

Would you rather attend a DAR event with Emily or a town meeting with Taylor?

A town meeting with Taylor? I think still want to go to a DAR.

Meeting Gilmore girl's character that you would want as a roommate.

I don't know. I'll take the kid, I take Maddie.

There you go. Something in your life. You are all in on.

Thing in my life. I'm all in on songwriting, which is the name of this acting. Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah, writing writing of that, that's what women.

Who are your influences? Who are your song Who do you consider to be your favorite songwriters? Who do you find inspirational?

Well, uh, a bunch of you know, there's there's lots of people. But you know, Randy Newman is kind of my songwriting god. And I was lucky enough to work with him one time, doing a show called The Education of Randy Newman down at South Coast Rep, which was a bunch of his songs. And he was down there with us once a week, regaling us with tales and making us laugh and showing us also what phenomenal ear and how precise he is. And then we got to watch him go and conduct at Fox to conduct the

Life wise, I find him great.

But but my favorite, my favorite right now is Jason Isbel. Of course, love Tom Waits, I love Bruce Springsteen, I love you know, just Merle Hagger, you know all kinds of people.

Interesting. Well, good luck, thank you for your time. Keep writing that sweet music. It is something that I do as well, Is that right? Oh sure? Yeah? I mean I Warner Chappel invited me down on several occasions now to come work with some of their song writers, some of their artists, and I've never co written before, and I'm eager to do it, but I just have there's always been a project that got in the way and

This is an interesting thing because that was kind of the thing too, when you know, Bug was saying, well, come down here will set you with writers, and I was like, I kind of write them all myself, you know.

Matter of fact, I remember a Warner.

Chapel the guy was like, so you wrote these all by yourself, and I'm like, yeah, I wrote them all by myself, right, And and they have a different philosophy down there, right, or an additional philosophy, let's say, of that, And I didn't. I didn't partake in that either, and I kind of regret that. You know, I'm going to the time when the iron was hot, and you know, I still like to do.

I mean, I'm eager to have the experience. I'm curious to see what comes out of it because I've never I've tried to do it a couple of times with friends, and it's just like it's like, you know, it's it's it's because it's such a different process for me than having anybody in the room. It's about you know, I don't know how you do it, but I think a lot of people do it the same. Right, You get a chord progression, and then a feeling comes, and then a lyric comes, and then a melody might emerge, and

Yeah. I find it a curious thing as well, because it's it's interesting.

One of the things that Dwight and I talked about in terms of it about writing was that very thing, the melody thing he says that he says, I always have to have something to record something because a melody will come in and go out and it will never come back right.

You have to record You always have to have that thing exactly right.

And I can't tell you how many times I've gone, god damnit, he told me right, because you.

Can't get it back. No, and you can almost get it back, but you know, it's not that magic, and.

Most of them just doesn't really count.

Yeah right right, Yeah, very frustrating. And you know, I've written things for the for the theater as well. I've written music and lyrics and composed sort of for a couple of different musicals and and so there there's a little bit of a collaboration with the book writer and you know, and and other people sort of like contributing lyrics. But when I, you know, other than you know, and Greenwood and I have written a couple songs together, but even all the music that we do together, that's not.

What we really do together. We don't really do that. We sort of write individually.

Yeah.

Interesting, All right, Well, look, thanks, I don't want to take up any more of your time. Thank you. Soul pleasure much pleasure.

Man.

Fans are gonna love this. They are going to love this. They eat this stuff up. They loved all that behind the scenes stuff. They love getting to know you, So thank you.

One thing I do know for sure, over the years of beating fans, you know, I've played a lot of really bad people in show business, you know, doing doing dastardly things, as villains are to do. But nothing incurs wrath like the wrath of the fans of when I said, I.

Don't think you cut it.

That's serious.

Yeah, I tipped my hat to the whole project. And of course Amy, you know, I did the last season when she was not there when or was you know, and and the scripts were still fine, but it was like and it's funny after talking about songwriting and it's just talking about melody, talking about the little things that are different.

It's a close, but it's not. It's not the music. It wasn't really really the music. I just think she's so gifted and she and Dan do such great stuff.

One thing I did notice about season seven, David Rosenthal took over. He was a writer on the staff and he wrote some fantastic episodes. Actually, one of my favorite episodes or the first six seasons, David Rosenthal wrote. So he is a gifted, gifted writer in his own right, but to ask somebody to come in and do that is an impossible ask. You're not you can get close, but it's it's these are voices that Amy and Dan hear. These are their voices. This cannot be duplicated. And I

They make that that that choice, and and and again they all all respect it.

To David Rosenthal, it's just it's different.

It's just different almost, you know, in a in a in that's in that slight way, you.

Know, mm hmm, yeah, little little differences make a huge difference in that in that regard. Anyway, thank you so very much. Great welcome to you, great catching up with you, good luck with everything.

Thank you. YouTube.

Hopefully we can talk to.

How the how the factory work in Nashville goes, you know, the whole bridge. No, no, it's the opening line of the bridge.

All right, allry, buddy, all right, take care, all right, take care, bud.

Everybody talks again. Follow us on Instagram at I Am all In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeart radio dot com.