Michael J. Fox: Exterior Night Jungle Rain (Re-Release)

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Your book was great. Oh, thanks. Even my misadventures. Misadventures. I think you make an appearance in my book. Yeah, I do. Misadventures. 28 years sober is all I can say. 28 years sober.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to Literally. I feel like I say I'm excited all the time for my guest. And guess what? I usually am. Sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I'm acting. I mean, how excited can a man be? But Michael J. Fox. Okay? Really, there's not much more to say. I've known Michael since the 80s. We were rivals.

And then we were best buddies. He did not like that he was not in the Brat Pack. Didn't like it. Told me that he started his own thing called the Snack Pack. That's what he said. And then, of course, we sized each other up. And we became fast friends. And I actually write about some times I had with Michael in my first book, Stories Only Tell My Friends, which is inspired by the success of Michael's first book, Lucky Man.

which is a great book. And he has a new book out now called No Time Like the Future, An Optimist Considers Mortality. And the guy is just a tremendous writer. Along with being hilarious and being in the kind of movies that you're going to remember forever. I mean, the kind of movies that change, you know, the culture. And of course, I'm talking about Teen Wolf.

You know, let's face it. Anyway, he doesn't like it when I talk about Teen Wolf. Just watch. You'll see. It's great. I can't wait to have my friend, the lovely and inspirational and genius Michael J. Fox. So it's a book about golf originally.

Well, usually we go golf. And then I get this spine thing, this tumor on my spine. It was really out of left field. And they told me, I mean, I'm dealing with Parkinson's and that's just kind of like. I'm used to that. It takes up this much of my life and the rest of my life thrives in the other spaces. But then this back thing happened. They found a tumor on my spine. It was constricting my spinal cord.

So they had to operate on it, but nobody wanted to do it because they didn't want it. The guy said, the doctor eventually did it. It was a really great doctor, Dr. Theodore at Johns Hopkins. He said, well, I understand why they didn't want to do it. And I said, why? And he said, because he wants to paralyze Michael J. Fox. I like the way you're thinking.

So it was going to paralyze me anyway. So they took a shot that they could arrest it and stop it from getting any worse, which is what they did. They did a great job. But anyway, the point of the story is... So that happened, then that happened, and then I started taking notes on it, just kind of like this happened, and I felt like this, and I pissed off about this. And then it started to collect, and then as I was collecting these notes about it, I had this accident where I broke my arm.

Shadow my humorous. It wasn't humorous. No fucking joke. No. Broken humorous is no fucking joke. No. But anyway, it was, it was, so it was like this whole pile of things happened. And then I just found myself in a deep morass that I'm normally kind of optimistic and positive person. And I was just really doubting it all and feeling like a Charlotte and feeling like someone who peddled this idea of optimism.

chin up and get through it and then when it got shady for me i was like i was like fucking i'm out of the lemonade business i don't want to i don't want to put a shiny face on this this sucks and i started banging my misery against everyone else's misery and i realized everybody else misery 10 times worse than mine. I'm complaining about this and how I've been holding up optimism is a panacea for people when really everybody has their own condition. Everybody has their own experience.

And so I found my way back to my positivism, my optimism through this journey. And so I sit down with Nell Formberry, who's my producer at Carter. And she, because I tried everything else and I can't type, I can't write. anything that anyone but me can understand without a Rosetta Stone. And so I just dictate to her and say, I want to talk about this today. And I write, I have it all in my head.

I speak it like it's going to be on the page. But anything that isn't going to be on the page, then I take a pencil to it and I book it. Like, it's hard to explain that. I know you know this. Like, if you're writing humor. It's different than timing humor, like as an actor, you know, you kind of timing and things that you go off. But on the page, you have to, I mean, I keep reaching for the ellipsis. Yeah, it's, it's.

The reason I don't dictate is when I dictate, it sounds exactly, it's not the way I want it to look on the page. So I totally hear you, particularly around comedy. And being funny, your book is hilarious. As you are and full of, and by the way, before I forget, I want to just tell you one of the, there's that moment in the book where.

The guy, you run into a guy in a shop, I think you're buying something, and he says, I just want to thank you because you've helped me get through some tough times. I have post-traumatic stress as a serviceman. It's a very thrown away, simple little... snapshot of the day in your life. And I'm sure it happens to you all the time, but I'm going to do my own version of it. So my son, Matthew, when he was growing up, really, really, really, really struggled with anxiety, big time.

And one of the things I said is that, hey, my friend Michael Fox has a great quote about if you imagine the worst thing that can happen. and then it does happen, then you've lived it twice. And so that made a big difference for him, and he's here.

you know, COVID-ing with me. And I just saw him before I came down here. I said, I was interviewing you. And he said, hey, remind him how much that means to me. And I use it all the time. So thank you. Thank you, dear sir. I mean, you really, I know you heard all the time, but you really do.

touch a lot of people's lives, for sure. It's beautiful. That's great. I'm happy about that. I sometimes wonder, that's again, that's what I was referring to. I was lying on the floor waiting for the ambulance to come with my arm in an impossible angle. I was thinking, just thinking like all the times I've said that, those sort of things to people. And could I back it up now in this situation? Could I back it up? And I had a hard time backing it up. I had a hard time rising to it.

So I've returned to it now, but it means a lot to me that it resonates with people because otherwise you're just a gas bag. But even – see, this might be my favorite book of yours because of what you're talking about right now is like just because you can't live up to – What you want to live up to 100% of the time doesn't negate it. And I think that's really important is like, I know you're a perfectionist. I know that about you. And so the notion that you could have down days.

Probably didn't seem like it fit for you. That's what I'm hearing you say. But that's the other gift is like nobody's perfect every day. There's nobody who's an optimist every day of their lives. No, it can't be. You've got to find a way to deal with being an optimist and a realist at the same time. Being someone that can accept. I mean, we know a lot about acceptance.

Acceptance is everything. If you can accept the situation, you can understand it. It doesn't mean you can't endeavor to change it. It doesn't mean you have to validate it or think it's great. But it is what it is. It's truth. And so the diagnosis of the spine with the arm, the more I accepted it and understood it and said, that's it. It takes up this much space in my life. How much spaces are left around that to work in?

And what it came down to for me was the experience I kept having that brought me out of this kind of fugue state I was in were about gratitude. Because everything kept coming back to gratitude. If I could find gratitude in something and my optimism was sustainable, little bits of gratitude will feed your sense of... Your sense of optimism, your sense of being okay. Where did you find gratitude? Where were the places that you were able to find it in those really gnarly times?

Well, unfortunately, my father-in-law passed away, and he was a great mentor of mine and a great guy. He lived gratitude every day of his life, and he would always say, I go to him with some problem, and he'd listen to me, and he had this hat.

big wave of silver hair. He was not a heavy set guy, but a big guy and a great guy. They have his red sweater and his fishing cap. And he, and he, he would say to me, whatever I said to him, I talked to him and I'd say, you know like about tracy like i did she had a bum deal she got this guy she missed some health she had the sickness part and i had maybe i just had a deal so and he would say to me listen to me and say you know what kiddo gets better

And he said that every day. And when he passed away, we sat vigil around his bed. My whole family and I looked around and I saw a lot of sadness, but no despair. Just gratitude that we had him. And we knew he was grateful that he had us. And that gratitude was just like, I just kept thinking about it. I kept thinking with gratitude, optimism is sustainable. Like if you, if you're grateful, if you can find something in it, whatever it is to be grateful for.

Whether it's the reaction of someone to some misery you had, but someone reacted to it in a beautiful way. I'm grateful for that. I'm glad this original thing happened, but I'm grateful for the reaction that inspired others or the reaction that inspired me.

So gratitude is everywhere if you look for it. Well, gratitude and acceptance is like you say. And again, not to belabor it, but if you can be... filled with gratitude and acceptance with the physical challenges that just were piling up for you, then most people, it should be a really easy thing.

By the way, maybe the greatest thing ever in the book is your love of golf and people asking you what your handicap is and you saying, isn't it obvious? That might be. My other favorite thing is when they say, be still over the ball. I can't be still over my soup. I can't be still over the ball. When I was looking back at it, what I was amazed was how much my friends put up. Like golfers are really fun. You golf, right?

I'm golfing. The minute we're done with this interview, I'm going golfing. The thing I love about golfers is that you can't wait to play. You're dying to play. You have tea time and you're ready to go. Maybe you can get on early.

And you get your guys and you're all ready to go. And then the whole time you're playing, how am I doing? How are we doing this time? How are we doing? Are we playing a fast round? You want to play a fast round? You want to play quick? Why? So you're over? You're done? It's like... I like to make it last, but I realized that nobody gives a shit about anybody's game but theirs. So as long as you keep the pace up, if you're in the...

fairway bunker and everyone else is on the green, just put the ball in your pocket and catch up and get the next mile. I don't have to worry about being first off the tee at the next tee because I'm going to be fourth. You're good at it. See, your golfing team was Stephanopoulos was in there, right? Georgie. Stephanopoulos and Harlan Coben. Yeah. Played with Fallon a few times. That's a good group. Give me a little insight into Stephanopoulos' game.

I'm very competitive with him. You know, we have a hair contest going, and I'm beating him on height, and I always will. But I want to know what his game's like. It's a tidy little game. He always wears a sweater and jeans. He catches a figure. And he's had a nice game. He's had a real tight game.

Did I read in your book correctly that you were studying TM? Yeah. Tell me about, okay, you know how things keep coming up in life where all of a sudden somebody mentions TM and then another person mentions TM and no one's ever mentioned TM.

before to you. And like, that is like, I'm getting a message. I actually am signed up to start TM. I'm going to start with the David Lynch foundation. Great. That's perfect. Great. Right. Am I going to love it? I mean, you know me, am I going to love this thing? I bet I am.

It's so cool. It's so simple. There are books written about it, and people talk about it, and it's really basic. It's simple, but you still want to be connected to the greater, something about being connected to the greater wah. that is that community yep and um yep um oh that's beautiful but but the the actual act itself is just it's just again it's it's it's more than acceptance it's it's just non-judgment just if something comes comes into your head

Just look at it and say, yeah, that's a thing. Let it go. And then pretty soon you get to where it's just this place that you enter that's just nothing and everything. See, I actually struggle with judgment. I do. It's just a thing. It's my least favorite characteristic about myself. You're judging yourself. And others. I hate to admit it. You're judging yourself now.

You're judging yourself about your judgment. That's a good point. I'm judging myself. It's very meta, but it is true. Yeah, it is. It's meta. It's meta. Big time meta. And TM will help me then, potentially. Well, there's a list of things that might help you. It's great. That's for sure. It's really cool. If you set the time, like I said, the timer.

A little chime goes off after 30 minutes. And sometimes it's like I have a chime that starts with my meditation, a chime that ends my meditation. Sometimes it's like bing bong. Really? Yeah. you just half an hour goes in no time because you're in no place, you're nowhere, you're in no time, you're in no place, you're nowhere. And it's hard to say that, hard to explain how you don't think about anything, you don't judge anything, you don't.

fomenting the ideas, you know, you don't get lost and you don't sleep. I mean, that's the most amazing thing. Like, if I just say when a cash flow happens, I'm going to sleep. Me too. Yeah, and I'll just pass on. But when I started meditating, it really amazed me that I could be – it's just – you want to go like – you want to go as low as you can go, like a sleepy –

Not as sleepy, but as calm a place as you can get to. And it's like the duck thing. Duck is smooth on the top and his legs are going like this. Yeah. You want to get the legs slow down. There's stuff underneath that's going on all the time. We can say, I'm not going to care about that. I'm not going to pay any attention to it. Or you can literally not be conscious of it. That's amazing. I'm really excited. I'm supposed to start this week.

I had to have, I've been shooting and you have to have, as you say, four days off to, you know, four straight days. So I finally, looks like I have a schedule that I can do it. And I'm really excited because I, I, I. drive into work and it's a, it's an hour and a half every day. And, you know, they're like, I'm like, do I have to be on a mat in an ashram? Well, you don't want to be driving. Well, no, no, no, I'm not gonna be driving. I'm being driven so I can be like in the back meditating.

Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. I do it all the time. I do it on planes. You know, as long as you get the time and you're going to be still, it's great. And I think you'll withstand the blood ritual. And you pick a digit that you give up and they chop it off. Oh, that's good. Thank you. That'll be really fun. You know the other TM people when you see the missing finger? Yeah, they're missing a digit. Yeah. Do I?

It's the Illuminati, let's face it. People listening to the podcast are like, yeah, I always knew Michael J. Fox and Rob Lowe were in the Illuminati. It actually makes perfect sense. We may not have been in the Brat Pack together, but we are in the... Fucking Illuminati. Illuminati pack. I also learned that Michael J. Fox is an homage to Michael J. Pollard. Never knew that. Yeah, and I turned the union. They told me I had to change my name.

My middle initial was A. I thought Michael A. Fox was presumptuous. And it also reminded me of the Canadian accent. Michael A. Fox. He's pretty good in that movie, eh? I think there's more to him than Teen Wolf, eh? When I'm with the wolf, people like me. Is there any notion that you got... Teen Wolf because you were a fox? Did they? I don't know. It may have been some lupine, vulpine. I think. Transpecial. I don't know. Transpecial. That was a weird thing because I...

Meredith Pastor Bruni got pregnant. And so in the middle of production, she was having twins. So we had to shut down for a while. So I had five weeks. So these guys came to me and said, do this werewolf movie. So I said, now what the hell? What? I got nothing else going on.

I sit around and roll my other types of babies. So I did this movie, and then I sort of left out and got Back to the Future. I'm doing like this big movie, Back to the Future. And Teen Wolf, I know it's floating out there like a bad planet. Don't kid yourself. It's not a bad planet. I remember this day. I was sitting in my trailer and I had this yak hair glued to my face. I had this foam piece in my mouth and I was sucking my lunch through a straw.

And I just thought, what happened? What happened? It was all going so well. And then at that moment, at that moment, as I was this rubber face and I was sweating into this yak hair. And I hear these two PAs talking about location scouts are there for anyone, for Steven Spielberg or something. So it's kind of the same locations we're shooting for a new movie called Back to the Future that Christmas Glover is going to be in.

And I said, Chris McGlover, he's doing that movie. And then two weeks later, I was on it. You know, there's so much to unpack with Back to the Future, but I will begin with this. We were shooting St. Elmo's Fire on the Universal lot, and they were shooting Back to the Future with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly. Yeah. And I actually came and watched Eric as Marty. And that's a very different Marty than your Marty. And his Marty McFly was a very intense, troubled.

Youth was very misunderstood and he had like trench coats and Jack boots as I remember it and crazy dyed hair jobs. And then you came in, we're all light and funny and charming and killed it. It was an interesting thing. I never saw any of Eric's footage. I'm a big fan of Eric. We all know Eric. It's a great actor. And so I never felt...

I felt that they wanted something completely different, so I didn't feel any kind of competitive thing with them. I didn't feel like, now I'm going to go and do it right. I just feel like I'm going to do it the way I did it. And I just went with the tone of the material as I interpreted it.

But the one thing I did, not having seen any of his stuff, I did see his reaction, the reaction shots of the people that he had scenes with. A lot of times I do a scene and they use their coverage from the scene with Eric. And so they'd be reacting to Eric, and they'd cut to me, and I'd say my lines, and they'd cut to them reacting to Eric. So I could kind of take it from the way the new footage that they shot with me, the way they reacted to me, compared to how they originally started it.

with the shot, the first day of the shot. It was amazing. I could tell from that that it was different energy. There's a script out there, I don't even know if you're aware of it, about the making of Back to the Future. Do you know about this? No. So, you know, the blacklist, right? It's the blacklist in Hollywood is a list every year. They call it the blacklist. A great unproduced screenplays. Exactly. So this was on the blacklist.

uh two or three years ago it's genius um have your folks dig it up just just for you to you'll just really enjoy it but it's a very heartfelt highly researched um story of the making of Back to the Future. It's really cool. Yeah, it's cool. You also talk about in the book that you have become a character actor. I love that. There's nothing better, right?

Well, you do that too. You do that brilliantly. A lot of things. Take a little Liberace thing. Thank you. It was fantastic. It was so good. I remember rooting you on. I was watching that going, yes. It's great to see you take those chances and do so well with them. It's not like it's like that thing when someone comes backstage and says, you say, what do you think? And they say, you were so brave.

It wasn't like that at all. It was sincerely great. It was really good. Thank you. I always feel weird about those when I did a couple of out there things. It was, yeah, it was a good time. It was like, I think of that thing where they say a short movie star, a short actor stands on a box and a short movie star makes everyone else stand in the ditch.

And there was none of that stuff with the kind of role of characters I did. It was just like just showing up to work and just with the lunch pail and being like number 12 on the call sheet. Having no sweat, no burden on you to come through and do something spectacular. You just had to be in the moment and play the guy. It was really fun.

Well, that's what I'm wondering because, like, you know, you're a huge star, but you also, like, hit it out of the park when you just – it's kind of like being Mariano Rivera, right? I feel like. You come out of the bullpen, you know, somebody else has basically won the game for you. And you get to come in and just crush it and then go back and that's it. Is it the lack of pressure? Is that what makes it so freeing? I make them play Enter Sandman.

I love that you know that. I love it. I love that cranking out. It's like my friend Cam Neely. Do you know Cam Neely? Of course I do, yeah. Hockey Cam. Hockey Cam, yeah. When he would... Come on in, I say play Bad to the Bone. It was always so great. What would you, what would, it's fine. Okay, this, now you're playing a game that the Lowboys like to play. This is the game of what is our walk-off, walk-on music for life.

Oh, that's good. You wake up in the morning. You're walking in to brush your teeth, to look at yourself in the mirror. You're getting ready to do your TM. What's playing? You know, the first thing that came to my head when you said that, and I have no idea why, is running away with the devil. You know, that great crescendo thing. Not crescendo, it's the opposite of that glissendo.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I'm going to actually hear you now doing it. Running with the devil. Michael J. Fox. Running with the devil. Michael J. Fox. How's that? I love that. That's great. Thank you. This is great because it's not a song that has anything to do with anything I'm doing in my life. I'm not running with the devil. I'm like shuffling down the hallway to the elevator, the service elevator, because the main elevator just...

Broken and going down to my office. I ain't doing anything major. Hold the thought. We'll be right back. What I love about this podcast is that when I'm interested in the subject, I get to speak directly with the people who are true experts, from filmmaking to artificial intelligence.

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Okay, I need you to give me a little more context to one of my favorite little nuggets in the book. Paul Simon. Yeah. I love him. He's great. Very jealous. Very jealous of you. that you apparently were playing me and Julio down by the schoolyard with him. How that happens, I don't know. But only in Michael Fox world does that happen. And you had a...

Fantastic interaction with him. Yeah, it's one of my favorites. It's so happy that it gets, because the original context in the book is that I'm at a concert with Tracy and then this vampire weekend is playing that song. I don't want to live like this, but I don't want to die. So I kind of broke that up as a dialectical conversation. And so as I was thinking about that, I was thinking, well, I'm not going to call the guy up and say, what did you mean by this?

because you never get an answer from an artist about what you'd figured out. And I used an example, the time that I was doing this thing with Paul Simon, and I said, and I was struggling with the lyric, and I said, it's so cryptic. And he looked at me and said, yes, Michael. Yes, they are cryptic. And I was just like, I'm an asshole. I am. It's so great.

Let's just break down, me and Julio down by the schoolyard, and find out what's creepy. Mama Pajama rolled out of bed and went to the police station. When Papa found out, he began to shout and started the investigation. It's against the law. It's against the law. It was Mama Saw. It was against the law. Right? I can't track it. You can't track it.

Yeah, I can't look at it. We're like, Paul, what is against the law? What did mama saw? Yeah. My favorite is the radical priests come to get me released and weasel on the cover of Newsweek. Yeah. By the way, could we be any more white and old? Is it possible? We're old white guys. We're old white guys. This is terrible. This is terrible. I mean, we should be...

I don't know. We should be dissecting, I don't know, Billie Eilish. Instead, look at us. Look at us. I did a thing the other day with Luna's ex. No way. Yeah, he did. I was in a trailer for it. It's so complicated. The business now, I can't begin to track it anymore. I did a trailer for the premiere of his video. I wasn't in the video.

But you're in the trailer for the premiere of the video you're not in. I love this. Yeah. Because I often think of you two in the same breath. So that all makes perfect sense. Yeah. We have the same clothing store. Yeah, he was really great. He was really sweet. And then they asked me to do this thing where I said, hey, it was Marty McFly as Clint Eastwood in part three. And I was also known as the Pro Pack to the Future. Whoa.

And I had the Clint Eastwood hat on and I say, whatever you do, don't go to 2020. That was my line. I've done whole movies that got as much attention as the one line they did in the Lil Nas X video. Video, trailer. I mean... It's crazy what our, what, I mean, you know, dude, we're all, you know what? We're old timers. I remember being in the business and people be like, you see you sitting in the corner.

Jimmy Stewart. Now, I'm not saying we have that kind of iconography, but we've been around that long now. It's like crazy. I did a cameo on a movie, a Stephen Bristol movie that Spike Lee produced. And it was weird. I was on the set and then people were treating me. I was going to see people behaving towards me in a certain way that I just went, they think I'm Jimmy Stewart.

I'm like, you know, I'm like this, I think Margaret Hamilton came to do a cameo. But, well, just, if you just do the math, think about it. Like the people on the set were, some of them weren't born. when Marty McFly was crushing. A lot of them, a lot of my friends were born when Marty McFly was crushing. It's bizarre. We're really old. I mean, and by the way, just don't, don't you think that...

Outsiders, I was, I mean, that's, I mean, came out in 80. 40 years ago. 40. I'm exaggerating a little bit. No, you're not. It's about right. You're not. You're not. I wish you were exaggerating. It was 81, 82. Okay. Power of Love is playing on the radio, and you changed the channel, and St. Elmo's Fire is playing on the other channel.

Which song do you listen to all the way to the end? Incredified Night Ranger's Secret of My Success. Oh, dude, that might be the greatest ever. I'd forgotten about that. The secret of my success is working 24 hours a day. Oh my God. I'm so getting that right now. So good. Oh my God. I forgot about that. Why don't you even find that? On iTunes. The secret of my success is working 24 hours a day. I was hoping I would get a little more color surrounding.

The De Palma movie. Why can't I think of the title of it right now? Casualties of War. Casualties of War. Well, you know, I was in the jungle with Sean for six months. Well, that's what I'm saying. I know where the stories are buried. Sean, I gave Sean at the end of the movie, I gave him a gifted pair of Muay Thai boxing shorts and some gloves to take aggression on somebody.

I can't say it was a pleasure, but it's certainly a privilege. He would like that. That's the ultimate compliment. Yeah, it's true. It was an interesting movie. I'm trying to think, have you done any jungle film? I have not done a jungle film. By the way, that might be my favorite.

You've done any jungle films? It's like, it's only an old time movie star. You don't need desert pictures. Jungle pictures. You don't need jungle pictures? The thing I think about is Bob Zemeckis has a thing as well as the slug line from the... top of the script that says exterior night, jungle rain. He said, if I ever see exterior night, jungle rain, I'm off the fucking movie. I'm not doing it. That's amazing. And you had that. That's basically the entire movie. It was a whole movie.

I did a whole movie of exterior night, jungle rain, like an idiot with Sean Penn. I think, I feel like I was on a plane flight with Tracy and she was coming to visit you. I feel like. She came over to visit. Yeah, I was like, how's Mike doing over there? And she's like, mmm. Extreme Night Jungle Rain. Exactly. I worked with Ricky Gervais. He wrote and directed this movie that I did.

He had actually adapted the script. And the very first thing he did was took out all the night shoots. It's the very first thing he did. He's like, this script needs work. The character, third act needs to be typed. Night shoots out. I kind of like that. I love it because it imposes something on the movie that it becomes a choice, becomes an artistic choice, but it's actually just a slovenly habit of someone who doesn't want to stay out late.

We stayed out late enough. We did that. Yeah, people say, are you tired? I say, I'm tired since Teen Wolf.

They never got any better after that. And I went so fast, but it feels like it took forever. I remember people always talk to me about the difference between movies and television. And by the way, now. That conversation. It is so different that I don't even know how to answer it because movies aren't what they used to be. And TV isn't what it used to be. And what is streaming television? It's all so fucking weird and fucked up. I can't. But back in the days when TV was TV and movies were movies.

I remember so vividly being in, is it possible a Ferrari, Michael? Yeah, it's entirely possible, unfortunately. Okay. So I remember being in, I remember it vividly being in a Ferrari with you. On Santa Monica Boulevard. No, we were not cruising. Let me just say. No backseat. No backseat. So couldn't have been. Yeah. And I remember in St. Elmo's Fire was out and Back to the Future was out.

And this group of people like, well, saw you and they went so nuts. And, and I realized that the tell of it, because family between family ties and it really is. In television, they – you're friends. Like, you're in their lives. You are part of the fabric of – you're a family member. And in movies, there's a distance to it that – that I found that the reactions were totally different. But the very first time I sort of saw that was with you and the commotion you were causing. Yeah.

The thing about that was Richard Schickle talked about that, the old critic, time critic, about the fact that television, you are part of the family. Literally people are sitting on the toilet looking through the open door at the TV in the bedroom and watching and they're that familiar with you. And so there is that kind of familiarity and that kind of feeling like they don't worry about bursting a bubble, getting inside some.

guard. You're totally accessible because then they have every right to approach you. That's so cool. With movies, you go into a cathedral with a bunch of strangers and you look at a gigantic image of James Dean. And it transcends that kind of familiarity. It becomes more iconic. And so those people mean it's bigger. It's like to meet a film star. They'd be like, oh, this is Pacino. To me, hey, it's Ted from Cheers. Yeah. They'd slap Ted on the back.

And tell them a joke. Who is your big idol? I know you're a big Cagney guy, right? Yeah, I like Cagney a lot. But my big idol, I don't know what it has to be. Actors that I really liked. I loved guys like Jack Borden and these guys. Character guys. So you really, truly do. I mean, dude, Michael J. Pollard. I mean, that kind of tells you right there. I mean, and he's a great character actor, but he's not.

He's not Jack Warden. I mean, I don't think he's that famous, right? I know that performance was just popped in my head. In terms of television, I thought of genius. And apparently, I don't know about him as a guy or whatever else work he did. But this particular role, Carol O'Connor in All the Family was unbelievable, just impeccable. And Bea Arthur, for that matter. Just timing, like timing you could cut.

piece of garlic back then. It's time it was so sharp. I remember being a kid in Ohio and watching All in the Family every single Saturday night. That's also hilarious is that there was a time when that's where you put your hits on, on television. It was Saturday night, I think, or Friday, whatever it was. But it's a night that we don't put television on anymore. But I remember seeing her win must have been an Emmy and being so shocked that she didn't talk like this in real life.

That's good. I was like, right? It was not a bad B. Arthur just out of the fly, right? No, it was Gene Stapleton. B. Arthur was mod. Oh, B. Arthur. Oh, sorry. I was mixing her up. Yeah. Gene Stapleton. That was awesome. That was a great Gene Stapleton. It was a shitty mod. Shitty B. Arthur. Yeah, B. Arthur has really sucked. Maude was Jean. Oh, no, she had her timing. She did the withering look. Yeah, she did the slow burn. Well, this is funny because it's an interesting thing.

People always ask me how, they don't always ask me, but I have asked me in the past, two different people at least, about the difference between millennial humor and between their humor and our humor. Glyphs and glyphs and stuff in that. Memes and their crazy stuff. They're new. And all that wacky stuff. And I explained to somebody, I said, like, when we did Family Ties.

And I had a joke. Like, let's say I had a – Justine said she and her boyfriend were going out and how close they were. And it was like they had one heart, one mind, one brain. And it said it for me. So now – On his cut to me, the audience laughs. I haven't said anything yet. I go walk across the kitchen to the fridge, open the fridge, take the juice, orange juice, glass out, pour the orange juice. All the while they're cutting to me and I'm getting laughs.

The laugh is building and building and building and building and building. And then I walk over to the table. I put the glass down. They laugh. I sit down in the chair. They laugh. I look at her. They laugh. I hold, I hold, I hold, I hold. And then I say, who's using it tonight? And the place goes crazy. And I showed that to my kids. They said, what's all the, you say the joke. They want it faster. They want it. They want cut to the, cut to the chase, cut to the joke. They want her to blow up.

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I was moved and sad and happy the same time in the book where it's your second retirement chapter. Yeah. I thought first of all, it was really beautifully written, really evocative. What I love about your book, X, are that they deliver on all the things you want them to deliver on. Right? Like authenticity, look behind the curtain, deeply personal, honest, dishy in just the right way. Right? Because you can't like, you can't be like.

a famous person and not like pretend like you didn't know any other famous people. So you got to like, but then it's also really sneaky moving. And I was really moved by that, but more so by your attitude about it. And you're like, it is. It is what it is, you know? I mean, maybe this is it, maybe it isn't, but it feels like it is it. Yeah, I don't want to push it. It was an interesting moment because I hadn't seen it yet.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But there's a great scene where Leo does this thing and he's a guest actor on another guy's show and he can't remember his lines. He goes back to the dressing room and he just excruciates himself and rips into himself, tears himself apart.

about how he's falling apart and he's no good anymore. I had a similar thing on The Good Fight, which I'd done The Good Wife for all those years and they did the spinoff and I went to reprise the character that I played on The Good Wife. And I couldn't remember the lines. It became almost funny, except that it was slowing down the production and everyone was getting pissed off. So I went back to the dressing room and I expected to have that moment.

I looked in the mirror and said, what is the matter with you here? And I said, I went, meh. I mean, I'm not going to kill myself because I can't remember seven pages. I think they actually had an alternate version of that. In the Tarantino movie where Leo came back and looked at himself, but it didn't test well. The audience wasn't compelled by that. They didn't love it.

So that was it? That was the light bulb moment for you? Yeah, it just kind of said, I don't need to be doing anything I don't want to be doing. And I just, I don't, I don't, I like, I like acting in a certain way. There's certain ease about it. No matter how much I challenge myself, it was a facility and an organic talent to do it. And if that's impeded in some way, and I can't access that.

then there's no joy in it for me. And so I'm going to do it. But that's not to say someone can't come up with a great idea and a great concept in a way that I can use my challenges and my gifts in equal proportion. So that may happen, but I'm not pounding the pavement looking for it. Who's got a screenplay that can take me to the top again? By golly.

Yeah, it's really inspiring. It really is. The other thing is you've got nothing to prove. You left it all in the gym. It's not like you don't have a billion other areas in your life that you have interests. cool stuff to go do. That's the amazing thing is that this is kind of where we started this conversation. Gratitude about recognizing what you've got and what's hard and what's challenging and what's difficult. It only takes up so much space. It can't take up everything.

It can only take up so much space and then you have all this other space to live your life. If you don't delineate it that way, if you don't clarify it and make those acknowledgements. then it's going to just become this ooze that's going to seep in every crevice and cranny of your life. And you're never going to deal with it. And so it's going to be there. So it's just going to be eating away at you. So best to just confront it.

I can't do this. I've tried a couple times and I can no longer do it. So I'm going to just step back and see what happens. I'm going to write a book. I hope you write more books.

I haven't read a modern novel. Yeah, I was going to say, have you ever been compelled to write nonfiction? Yeah, that's what I like to try next. Or fiction, I mean. Fiction. You've written nonfiction now. I'm sorry. Fiction. Yeah, I like to write. Harlan Coben is a good friend of mine. I just can't marvel at the way. I love golfing. I'll say, who's writing these books? I'm golfing with you all the time. I'm not golfing with you. I'm texting with you.

When are you writing the books? Saturdays? It's amazing. I think it's a great calling to be able to do that. And Tracy's good. How's my girl? Love her so much. You married well, sir. By the way, that's... People say, Cheryl and I have been married 30 years now, and we're sort of the same in the long marriage department. People always ask, what are you attributed to? And I say it's like when they asked Hitchcock.

about what do you attribute a hit movie to he said it's all about casting and and i i feel like marriage is like that too it's like you got to choose the right person It's funny you say that because I actually used to tell people, how did I meet Tracy? I cast her. I cast her as the girlfriend in Family Ties. The thing about Tracy, she didn't blink.

When it got very early in our marriage, and it got twisted very early in our marriage, I was diagnosed, and then I got sober a year later, and then... The first couple of years after you get sober, like a knife right in the closet. It's not fun. And she didn't blink and she stayed with me. And then they just become, you know, all the regular stuff, the man, woman stuff.

but also there's just friend stuff. It's so deep to trust that you have in each other and the understanding and the sense of humor. The fact that, like, you look at something and say, we can react to it this way or we can laugh and move on. And we laugh and move on. And it's just something beyond... It's beyond anything else. It's just like this bond, you know, after 30 years where you just start each other's sentences. Yeah.

And the kids all seem to be doing great. I was happy to get to spend two seconds with them. I guess we ran into each other in Mexico last time. Yeah. And I couldn't believe how. They're so big. First of all, why are my kids smaller than me and your kids are bigger than you? Is that Tracy? What the hell? That's Tracy. My goal is just to have, as far as my son goes, I just wanted him to be...

Taller, smarter, better looking. And I accomplished those goals. We saw all those things. And my daughters are amazing. They're all grown up now. My youngest is 18. My oldest is 31. My son is 31. I don't know where it goes. It's amazing. Yeah, I really resonated with that. You and Tracy learning to just chill now that the kids, your work is sort of done. Now it becomes about you again. Yeah. And it's time to just reacclimate. Cheryl and I spent a lot of time doing that. And then COVID hit.

And the kids are back. Yeah. The minute I figured out my life without my kids in the house, they're back in the house. I had the same experience. It's so weird. Yeah, we had them all in the house. And it was amazing. It was like I got to know them all over again. I got to. Because Tracy cooked all these amazing meals. And we were having this experience. You've got to recognize at the outset that there was this weird thing happening in the world, this dichotomy.

where you had people like us and you, presumably, having our families together and using the time to have conversations and to do jigsaw puzzles and watch movies and share books. do all that stuff because there's nothing else to do. And it was so energizing and beautiful. And then you have people looking through windows at loved ones they can't get to while they are in ventilators and hallways and overcrowded hospitals.

It didn't make the other any less sweet, but you had to recognize it. It was a really interesting time.

So you're saying it's about gratitude, you know, that's definitely the theme of this talk is being grateful for even in a time like that for finding the good in it. You're the expert. I mean, I think you're a black belt in that. Black belt optimist. Yeah. You know, it's just, I always enjoy life. And I think there's always a...

The only thing we had going back in the 80s, we were having a good time. We never been conscious of a lot of it, but we were having a good time. We did. It really was a simpler time. Can you imagine if they had the internet then? Dude. We wouldn't be able to move. I mean. I'm telling you, bro. The adventures. You and I could write a book on the celebrity bus tour we did through California for whenever some proposition. It was the best. It was so fun. I love that those pictures resurfaced.

My kids find this. They do my Instagram, right? My daughters do it. And so they find these pictures and they say, I have this picture of you and Rob Lowe and who's this guy? And they said Nelson. And then they made him watch The Breakfast Club. And it's also a great movie. Oh, such a good movie. I mean, for my money, that's the one. I mean, that's, to me, that and Fast Times, they're the two.

Yeah. Fast times was brilliant. So good. So it all connects. It all moves around because my kids are discovering. I found a picture. Eddie Van Halen passed away. And I was bumming about it. We were at breakfast and I was saying how sad I was and how great he was. The first time I heard Eruption, I couldn't believe that the human being did that. And then the school that they used his music in Back to the Future. So I was talking about it at Van Halen. And then meanwhile, my daughter's on.

tapping away on her cell phone and she was a picture of me and Eddie Van Halen from 1981. And I said, my son was like, how cool is that? He's trying a picture of dad and Eddie Van Halen. You know, it's amazing. It's a weird world. It is. I mean, you've got that Zellig vibe going, you know? It's like there's something about that time, you know?

You know, I could Google you with almost anybody, and I bet you I could find it. Really, truly. There's some pictures. There's a picture of me, like me and boy George, talking at it. Because you'd just be talking to someone. You know, Ozzy Osbourne would come up behind you and throw his arm around your neck.

You know, like I never met the guy, but we've been, you know, looks like we've known each other since the Middle Ages. It's so great. You and, I mean, we didn't even talk about you and Joan Jett. Joan Jett. Yeah. Joan Jett, baby. That's a co-star. I had a picture of me, Joan Jett, and Alan Arkin. What? Because we were in Chicago and we went to see...

We were traveling in the latter day, and we went to see Glengarry Glen Ross, and Alan Arkin was in it. It's just weird. Three people like you'd never – you'd put everybody in a bag and shake out three. Mix them up. He'd never come up with those three. My kids found a picture of me and Drake. Oh, nice. And they were like, all of a sudden, I was really cool. Yeah, he's Canadian. I know. But he's recent.

There's a picture I got from... You might even be in this picture. It's a picture from NBC from 1986. And they had all the NBC stars over the years in it. And so there's me and Cosby and guys like that. But there was... There was like Red Buttons and Jack Benny and all these guys that were just still around then. Who was the guy with the Big Schwanz? Oh, Milton Berle. Milton Berle, yeah.

I was going to say, it wasn't James Woods. He wasn't in that photo. No, James Woods. You get James Woods and Stoneboro mixed up all the time. So, if you're a listener and you don't know the famous Milton Berle story, I think, Mike, I think it's incumbent upon one of us to tell it, don't you think? What do you tell it? Yeah, so it's... My producers are shaking their heads at me. Oh, I see. This is a bridge too far, is it? All of the things we've talked about in the podcast. Oh, I see.

I don't want to offend their delicate sensibilities, but basically, here's a story about Milton Berle's dick. So, he's notoriously, right, Mike? I'm not making the... Please, Mike, you've got to back me up because my producers are giving me these looks like... This is a terrible... And there's a way you can tell the story without getting to the meat of it, so to speak. Yes. There's some contention about who was bigger. By the way, in the contention part of this story...

Who did you hear was the rival? I have heard various people. Me too. Everyone from Marlon Brando to Jackie Gleason. No, I never heard that. You know the two I heard? I heard... Wally Cox? I've heard that too, but not in this. I heard Lee Majors, which makes sense timing-wise, and Chuck Norris, the rifleman. Oh, yeah. Chuck Connors. Chuck Connors. Sorry. So they meet. They know that they know that every girl says about this one and that one. You know, you just know, you know, you just know.

I think they call it Big Dick Energy now. There's a whole thing the kids call it. It's only these days. Ask your kids. There's a whole thing, and it's been created by the kid from SNL. He's the originator of Big Dick Energy. From the skinny guy? Yeah. Pete Davidson. Yeah, Pete Davidson is the originator of today's Big Dick energy. But before Pete Davidson, there was Milton Berle.

So they say, I'll bet your minds know that. And then they go, okay, let's look at them. And Milton Berle's friend leans over to Milton and says, Milton, just take out enough to win. I thought it was different. I thought it was, are you really going to pull it out? Milton and Milton said, just enough to win. I love it. I like that version better.

Yeah, I do the comedy thing. Just enough to win. Just enough to win. That's really good. Just enough to win. And who do you like better? Who do you cast in the other part? I like the Lee Majors thing. It's really great. Me too. That's where I was going with Marlon Brando. It's going to be something like... guy who's like a stud. Yeah, $6 million man. What do you think they spent the money on? Yeah. They rebuilt him. They didn't stop at his arm. His eye. They're like...

If we're going to rebuild him, let's really do it. We're rebuilding him and they kind of like, you have any ideas for down there? Or better yet, he woke up a doc while you're at it. Yeah, while you're down there. A little something for the effort. Which is nice. This could go on forever. This is the greatest. What's your plan for today? What do you got on the docket? I got to do a daily show. Oh, no way. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So you're my warm up. I love it. I don't want to exhaust you.

Well, what happened was my drugs wore off, so I've turned into a pumpkin, but you're accommodating it very well. No, you're the best. Mike, you know how much I love you, and there are very few people that... that I just, that you really know that no, I mean, we'd been through it, the ups and the downs and, and.

We'll go years without seeing each other, but it doesn't make any difference. I feel like you're like a fraternity brother of mine. Yeah, very much so. I think the same thing. I think we went through a time and an experience that was really... It was crazy and dangerous and sordid, but it was lovely and sweet and very fraternal and very much kind of a look in the eye of someone, whether it's you or whether it was...

Whoever, I mean, you look into it and you know what didn't need to be said and what could be said several times. Well, I love you, brother. And I'll let you know when I get the TM thing going. And, uh, I'll meet you on the TM highway and congrats on the book. Have fun on the book tour. Give, give Tracy a hug for me. Tell those kids I said, hi. All right, brother. I love you. All right. Thank you.

You bet. Bye. Wow. That leaves me feeling so great. Oh, my heart is just warmed. I'm always warmed seeing Foxy or as he could have been called Michael A. Fox. I think he should have gone with it. I think that should have been his name. He is a fox. He always will be in my book. All right. I hope you guys loved it as much as I did. That was a pretty great talk with a pretty great man.

All right, y'all. I will see you next week. By the way, if you like the show, give us a nice rating on Apple or wherever the hell you rate the show. I like that. I like when, because I read them. I do. Comments are good. So keep them coming. And thank you. And I'll see you next week. You have been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe. Produced and engineered by me, Devin Torrey Bryant. Executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile. Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco.

and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Stitcher. The supervising producer is Aaron Blair. Talent producer, Jennifer Samas. Please rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Check in on your health at the same place you already shop. Visit Walmart Saturday, January 24th for our semi-annual wellness event. Flu shots subject to availability and applicable state law. Age restrictions apply. Free samples while supplies last.