The Season with Peter Schreeger is a production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to the Season with Peter Schreger. We are in the beginning of June, so you might say not much football going on, but there is. The Chiefs are at the White House as we speak. DeAndre Hopkins is a free agent as we speak. Dalvin Cook is potentially going to be moving but yet is still a Minnesota Viking as we speak.
But I had a really cool weekend and an opportunity to speak with two of the biggest stars in the NFL, amongst many other stars, some of them being previous guests on this very podcast. So a couple of years back, when I became pretty close with Paul Rudd, who we've had on the show, he invited me to come to an event held every year in Kansas City called the Big Slick Case, and I saw it as a cool opportunity to play in a celebrity softball game. I've never
been invited to do anything like that. I've never considered myself a celebrity. I said that'd be neat. What I didn't realize is that it's one of the coolest I guess impactful weekends of the year for me, And every year it hits me in a different way. And it's because they use all the money and they raise all the awareness and they do this amazing auction and they sell tickets to an amazing show and it all goes
to Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. And on Saturday morning of the weekend, you visit the hospital and what you're meeting is just right in your face, and it's kids who are coping with cancer and you're visiting with them, going room to room. And in your groups, you're with some of the biggest entertainers in the world, but you're also with some amazing athletes and just people that have rare skills that can make a kid's day. So in my group, Heidi Gardner, who is on SNL and it's
one of the main organizers of the group. We did it last year together. She's just amazing. This comedian Sarah Tiana, who you've probably seen before. She's hilarious. She was awesome and was so good with the kids. And these two twin brothers, the Potash Twins, who if you don't know their work, they one of them plays Oh, I'm gonna get them. One one plays trumpet, maybe they both play trumpet. The other one plays what's hey, Aaron, you're listening, what's
the slide? One the trombone. Yeah, yeah, that's probably not a great gift to go out there. Adieve is trumpet, Ezra is the trombone. These kids are awesome. They're like thirty from Omaha, Nebraska to Twin Brothers, and they've performed with everybody in like jazz and in that world but all. They've also been featured on countless different They've worked with Drake, They've worked with Flow Rider, They've worked with just about everybody.
And they used to be in like John Baptiste's opening band, like just and so we'd go around and we're meeting with these kids and it's life changing for me. Its unelievable. It's a smack in the face. I just had a kid. You see what these parents are going through, You see what these nurses and doctors do, and most partly see what these kids are going through. So over the course of the weekend, with various auction items and selling tickets, we raised more than three million dollars over three days,
which is the coolest thing. You want a list of the celebrities, Okay, I'll go there. So it's Paul Rudd, Jason Sadeikis, Eric stone Street, Rob Wriggle, David Keckner, Heidi Gardner. They organize it, and then I get to know. You're with these people for seventy two hours, really, so you get to know all the other people that come in for it. And I really had a blast, like I'd never met the comedian will Forte before. Aaron will Forte is unbelievable. Obviously, we love them from Saturday Night Live
and mcgruber. He's a Raiders fan, he loves football, He's made. How about this kid? And I sound so old and so like, you know, not not out of my waters here, but Finn Wolhard or wolf Hard? How am far? He's from Hard Stranger Things in the Ghostbusters with Rudd. I talked to him for an hour about the Seahawks. This dude is an incredibly talented actor but also a musician and knows his Seahawks inside and out because he was
from Vancouver and he loves football. You go down the list here, you know Bobby Knavali, Joe Latriglia, you know, Dylan Baker. These are these are like legends that I've
been watching for years and they're all hanging. And then i meet weird Al Yankovich, who I'm like, all right, weird Ayankovitch is a childhood I would say, not hero, but like my brother and I would listen to weird Al every album, no, every track, Like this is before Sandler did his cdsbably probably after like Steve Martin and his you know CDs and uh, you know, long after Bob Newhart and his stuff, but like the Weird Al albums, like I could tell you thirty songs by heart that
I used to love. And you're talking and I'm like, do I call you weird Al or do I call you Al? He's like, just call me Al and he's awesome. He's awesome. And then obviously you know the the Grand Pumba two big showcase items where Kelsey and Mahomes who Aaron I got to hang out with Kelsey and Mahomes for hours at a time in like an intimate setting, and they're unbelievable. They're awesome guys. And it's funny because Mahomes and again, we're always cognizant of the aggregators. I
don't know where this story will go. Mahomes and I are talking ball for a while, and then we're talking, you know, stuff that's probably not for air, about the chiefs and what's going on in that organization and what they're what what young players he's excited for, and you know, then I get to you know, the other people in the room, and you know, I weird Awl's there and I'm like, you obviously love weird Al Yankovic. And He's like, you, I know, I recognize the name, or I'm not familiar
with it. I'm like, oh, like that. I'm an old I'm an old if you you know, I'm an old man. Mahomes was born in the nineties. He has no feel for weird Al Yankovic. Then we're on stage and I'm sitting next to Mahomes and it's cool how the setup is. There's all these different performers, so over the course of the now this guy Logan Miz who's a country singer
and is awesome, just a great dude. David Cook from American Idol, Chris Daughtry from American Idol, Darius Rucker from Hoody and the Blosh, of Moffish mal but currently one of the biggest acts in country obviously and the singer of Wagon Wheel. He's there, but in the middle of it is weird Al, and weird House steals the show. Weird Alse steals the show, and I'm sitting next to
Mahomes and I'm like, you get it now. He's like, Oh, this guy's amazing, this guy's unbelievable, And I just love the idea of like me introducing Patrick Mahomes to weird Al Yankovic. Like there in in the craziest mad libs of a celebrity film in the blank, World's Greatest football player unfamiliar with weird Al Yankovich, and Peter Schrager is showing him the ropes and teaching him about songs like eat It and Uh I Lost in I Lost in
Jeopardy Great Songs. Anyway, weird A Yankovitch was amazing. Uh go down the listen more. Jake Tapper from CNN and Earon met him, but I've been seeing on my TV for years diehard Eagles fan. Great dude.
All right.
Sean Evans, the host of Hot Ones, we did this together last year. We became friends. We text all the time. I think Shawn and I might be just like the same person, just except Sean does his celebrity interviews and I do mine in football. We have the same likes, the same everything. And then our VENN diagram that's completely shaded is a gentleman named Richard Christy. Aaron, Does Richard Christie's name mean anything to you?
Not at all?
Okay, so I'm not shocked. Richard Christy. I would say he's a staff member slash whack pack member, slash the greatest prank phone caller in the history of time from the Howard Stern Show. And Richard has a long library of disgusting bits and stuff that I wouldn't feel comfortable even sharing on this iHeart podcast that has made me cry over the years, and just how disgusting his bits are, and yet he's also the most genius prank call magician,
maybe since the Jerky Boys. So Richard CHRISTI, Sean and I sat with Richard Christie on Friday night as we're having a few cocktails slash a dozen beers, and he's going through his greatest prank calls and his inspirations and how they come about. And I could do a documentary on like the the the nucleus of a great prank phone call, and Richard Christi, of course is the master
of them all. And Sean and I are just like, you know, at his on his knee, like listening like two kids at like at the campfire to like a great mentor teaching us the ropes. Shawn Evans is I think I've said this, uh, and I'm not looking to be on a show. I love this because he was telling me that, like people like pitch themselves on a show and they're not. They're not necessarily a list and it's always a very awkward conversation. And I'm like, I'm
so glad I've never like pitching myself too. I think it goes like for me personally, Howard Stern as far as celebrity interviewer goes Letterman because he was so off kilter in his ways. He didn't like worship the guests. I really do you know. I think Mark Marin's a great celebrity interviewer, as much as people want to knock him in some of his own you know, whatever it
is in his way about going it. And then I think it's Sean Evans for this generation and if you're not familiar with hot ones, it's so hard to explain.
Like Jason mccordy wasn't familiar with it, so I started to explain it to him today on Good Morning Football off camera, and I'm like, so, there's a gimmick, And the gimmick is there's ten hot wings and you're asking ten questions as you eat wings that get increasingly hotter and hotter and hotter, and by the end the interviewee is sweating and they're all out of sorts and like, and he's like, oh, it's kind of like that like Potato Chip Hot Chip Challenge. I'm like, I hate that.
It's like limit, Aaron, You've watched all the hot ones, right, he's.
An encouraged not all of them, but yeah, I've.
Seen but like most of them.
Right.
Like, first of all, I would say this hot Ones is the equivalent now of like being on the cover of GQ magazine or Sanity Fair in the two early two thousands, or like, you know, the cover of Esquire there's a spread, there's an art of Vogue. Like those don't really exist in the same way these. No one's like buying you know, Vogue to read the Big Interview
anymore or buying GQ to read the Big Interview. But back when I was starting off as a writer, like you do one celebrity profile when you're promoting a movie, and you do it with one of these men's magazines, and that's just what it would be, and you do it and then you get the access to it. That's
what Sean Evans' show is now. I mean this week I just looked he got Julia Louis Dreyfus, So I don't see doing a ton of you know, last week with Sadeikis as ted LASO was doing their finale, he had Paul Rudd, obviously, Matt Damon, Jake Jonhall, and like they're the greatest interviews. They're the greatest interviews we've got
right now. And I'm not, you know, at all advertising or doing commercial but to hang with Sean, like he's cool, he's a cool dude, and that event, the Big Slick is a great opportunity to get to know people like this and oh, by the way, diehard Bears fan who is all in on Justin Fields and it's Buddy Nick who he brought as his guest, and we were hanging the whole time. He's a diehard Bears fan who's all
in on Justin Fields. And if the two of them are at all symbolic of Bears fans right now, we might as well cancel the season and just have the parade and put the gold jacket on Justin Darnfields. Like the amount of Bears fans who I did a list of, like breakout players or something, and on the show I didn't put Justin feel like the Justin Fields hype is out of control right now, and maybe I'm proven wrong, And then I'm saying, let's temper it for a second.
Long story, short Seaan Evans, diehard Bears fan, knows his stuff and big Seleck. They as a whole raised three million dollars this weekend, but over the course of fourteen years have raised twenty one million dollars for a children's hospital. Real quick, before we get to our guest, I will tell you that Patrick Mahomes made the greatest play I've ever seen in a baseball, softball t ball game. And he did it. And let me set the context for you.
You've got all these actors and comedians and like you know, there's a couple guys who might have played college athletics at some point. There's a few who maybe play in a men's softball league. Patrick Mahomes will be the greatest athlete living right now. So it's a bunch of third theater nerds more or less, and Patrick Mahomes playing softball, so you think he would take it easy. Mahomes hit a home run. Didn't have to do that to show everybody up, but he did. And then there was a
ground ball. The ball, I want to say, was hit by Eric stone Street, who we've had on the show and is just a lovely guy and great ambassador for Kansas City and the Big Slick. It's a dribbler to third base. Mahomes picks it up, throws a softball behind the back from the third base line to first base, where I believe Bobby Countavalli, the actor was playing first base. Throws it on a rope and you can google this,
you can look for it online right now. Mahomes throws it perfectly, and it's a behind the back flip ninety yards whatever, ninety feet whatever it is from third base to first it's on a rope. He throws out stone Street and everyone's just like, oh, Mahomes. It's insane. It is an insane athletic play. I've never seen more. Imagine throwing a softball. Softball is not a baseball softball behind your back, ninety feet, sixty feet whatever, third to first is on a rope. And he did that. And so
after the night. Next night we're hanging out backstage and I got a lot of time with Patrick. He was cool, and I was like, I'm like, you realize you didn't. You didn't look like you pick up the ball and in one motion you'd throw it like that's an insane thing to do athletically. It's it's just not normal. And he's like, and I'm gonna do my Mahomes voice was like, h you know, if I if I you know, if I threw it until the stands, we would all laughed
about it. So I figure, why not I went for it? Yeah, yeah, why not? I went for it as if, as if it's the easiest thing. Like in one hundred tries, I could not have done what Mahomes did with that flipper over behind the back, and yet he nails it. He throws him out. Mahomes and Kelsey hung for like five hours on Saturday, night and they were just great. Kelsey did Hot Ones Challenge. He was sweating his face off and just eating the hottest wings. And I can't say
enough about those two guys. What great ambassadors for the sport. Two awesome young men, and I had an amazing weekend. Myhomes had a good point. We were talking for a while again, I feel like I'm his you know, biographer at this point, because we hung out one night. He's like, I'm not sure this could work in LA or New York or
Kansas City. Special. You've got a this great celebrity corps that these guys all love to give back, but also like the city really really really you know, rallies around causes like this, and for they sold out an arena for this Saturday night event and for all these different celebrities. Darius Rutger was on a we do the thing and there's like a little post party, and post party went
longer for others than they did for me. And I take the elevator down for the post party with Darius Rucker, who I'm like, oh my god, Like I'm in an elevator just you know, me and him and his guys from his band and I'm like, I'm going to bed. What are you doing? And he's like, Oh, we're hopping in the tour bus. We've got to show in Nashville tomorrow, like for him on his one night off to be in Kansas City. But that's kind of what Kansas City is that it attracts these people to come and those
fans are amazing. So as I go on and on about why the Kansas City Chiefs fans are the greatest thing and why Kansas City is most amazing city, I record this from New York City, where I would never leave in a million years if I didn't have to, because I'm a New Yorker. But if there's a second city I can say I can call a home. In a weird way, I do love that Kansas City, Missouri. All right, we've got an awesome guest. I'm so excited for it. I've got a backstory. I'll share it with
you once we get him on. But right after this, one of the icons of comedy and acting over the last thirty to forty years and truly an awesome dude, the Great Hanka's Area joins us after this. As I said in the monologue, I've been a fan of this man for many, many years. You know, I'm from the Simpsons, from the Bird Cage. And now he's got this new amazing program on HBO called The Idol, which I want to hear all about. But more than anything, I just want to geek out with him because's a New York
sports fan. Hank Azariel, Welcome to the season with Peter Scheger.
Thank you, Peter. Very happy to be here.
I've told you in person and now through zoom and now and for everybody. I'm a big fan of yours, so I'm excited to join you as a sports fan and just as just as a human.
Being as well.
I am a great purveyor of pop culture and sports. So can I share where we saw each other In the most amazing of situations. I'm jogging, so if you know me and you see me, I'm not in shape. I'm trying to get in shape. So I was jogging one morning, like putting on a farce that I'm gonna suddenly be the guy who runs around Brooklyn Heights. And I'm running and out of the corner of my eye I see Hanka's area and I'm like it was eight in the morning, and I'm like, this is unbelievable. I
love this guy. Do I stop? Do I keep on going and listen to my Mark Maren podcast as I'm running around the block, or do I just And then Hank gives me the nod. I'm like, I gotta stop. We had an awesome short conversation. But I even know you lived New York. I love the fact you're in New Yorker.
I grew up in Queen's moved back here ten years ago. I had seen you a little before, just from a distance, at the Nick gad one of the Nick playoff games, one that they won. So yeah, I've been you know, I know, I know you anywhere. I've been a fan for a long time.
The next thing was cool because Joe Shane, the GM of the Giants, was there and he was sitting I guess a row in front of you. And I go and say hi to Joe, and Mike Breen starts coming up from the stands and I think Mike Breen's making a gesture to say hi to me, and I was about to geek out. He blows right past me and I look behind me and there's Hanka's area that Mike Breen is saying hello to him, like, all right, that's humbling, that's fun.
I love Mike Green also, I've been chatting with him for years at nick Games and elsewhere.
Awesome voice. The move to New York. You were in California for years, I'm sure because I'm raising a kid in New York now too, and it's a fight every day, and yet I've tried to grit it out, like why did you move back to New York from LA after all those years?
One of the reasons was you mentioned kids.
I really didn't want to raise my son in the to show business, which you can't avoid in Los Angeles, There's just no way. So I wanted him to have a more eclectic, a more varied look at humanity.
Than just through the lens of people who work in show business.
Yeah there's anything wrong with those people, but it's really only one province heard from.
And this sounds like a joke, and it kind of is. There's only have a joke.
I wanted to raise a Mets fan, yes, just so that I have support for this in my old age, and even in doing that, and it's worked. I have a Mets fan. He's about to be fourteen tomorrow. In fact, oh congrats, I'd say twice a year though all through his childhood he has come to me very earnestly and said, Dad, are you sure.
We can't be Yankee fans?
Yeah?
I'm like, it's a very smart question. I don't blame you for asking it, but no, sadly we can't.
Yeah. I love that. And the Mets this year, everyone picking him before the season to win the World Series. They actually got hot again. But it's so funny. I'm like, oh, my Mets, are you guys seriously buying in?
I mean, you know.
Something assure enough. They start the season just a million things go wrong, But that's the life and the ethos of being a metsvan.
Yeah, I'm Mets Jets nick. So I hear it from three corner. I'm getting it from my friends now about the Jets. You don't really believe they're canna have a good season, do you. It's like, well, that part of being Jets Mets nicks, as you have hope to start out and then you get destroyed totally.
And the Jets thing is unbelievable. I mean, he's doing everything right. You and I live in New York, like he's doing it. It's almost like, if I can go back to my younger self, how would I have done this? Rogers is thirty nine, so he can see the script before.
He's wiser than some of the other young quarterbacks. He's wiser than some of these other Jets rookies that have come in where he knows little gestures, going to the next game at the Garden, taking a young star like sauce with him, going to the Rangers game, going to Taylor Swift a couple of nights, just being present. It goes such a long way to be like I am for Aaron Rodgers to be like I am proud to
be a New York Jet. It is I mean, Jets fans are over the moon right now just actually having a reason to be proud and excited.
Well, yes, one, it would be hard. It would be very difficult not to be wiser than many of the Jets rookies who have come in. That's a very low bar. But my cynical friend points out, like, yeah, and the camera's been there every time he's done a thing.
That's the Giants fans talking. That's what the Giants fans are saying. Like enough can he go into public without having you know, a million cameras around a hilarious but you know, honestly, I.
Was against the Rogers thing, adamantly talk about it. I did not.
I think he gotta get you know, because I know from Diva energy coming into situation, you don't want it.
See it's a deal with the devil. You don't want to do it.
They have nice chemistry in that locker room. They need a mench I was all I was on the car train. No, no weird pun intended there, but I thought that, you know, that's I think that car I still think I don't know how I'll do in New Orleans, but I think he was the change of scenery is going to really help.
Him, and I think he was about to raise his game.
And I saw nothing but misery and problems from Aaron if we even got them, you know, which was not a slam dunk at all. But now I gotta say, I mean, I do admit that for one or two seasons it's a bigger swing. There's a lower floor because so many crazy things can go wrong, but it is definitely a higher ceiling and he is doing all the right things. And now I'm kind of psyched to see he seems revitalized.
He just seems psyched.
He went he goes to the I mean he go to Ota in the last few years. Yeah, the Packers. He's there, he's president. And then we had a great story. Zonovan Knight, who's one of the running backs, told us a great story on Good Morning Football last week that you know, they're in the running backs room, which is such a you know, it's only five guys and it's a running backs coach and Hacket's going through the offense and it's in a dark room and they're talking about
some play and it's just the running backs. And then in the back of the room, without them knowing it, a voice pops in, like the voice of God, and it's like, actually, Hackett, I think we should do this, this and this, And it was Rogers just like over listening like the running backs room, just wanting to lend a hand to like teach the offense. And you hear that and you're like heart melts. You're like, yes, that's what we've been waiting for.
That's you know, my main problem with him, apart from you know, immunization, word games and Joe Rogan appearances and just weird stuff. Was that like last season? And finally I think you said it, and not too many people did, but I was wondering why more people didn't.
It was like the dude wouldn't get with his receivers. Last year, they didn't gel till Week nine.
They probably would have made a playoff run if he bothered in the office.
They started clicking later on in the year because he wasn't with these young guys the first, you know, not to.
Mention if you noticed his first game or two, which I'm sure you did, Peter, I mean throws to who is this good Watson? Judiam once got kid, dropped it, rolled his eyes and throwed him again for two weeks.
Come on, kind of parenting is this? So?
I just hated that, you know, but it doesn't seem like he's doing that.
I think he needed to change his scenery worse than Derek Carr.
No, totally, and you know Derek Carr when they were meeting with him. I too, I said it on Good Morning Football. I said it at the combine. I'm like, he's an adult in the room, he's got four kids. He's not going to embarrass your franchise. In any way. He's not going to do anything out of school, and like he'll come and he'll be a complete professional and he'll be what the Jets probably needed at quarterback and upgrade an adult in the room. Rogers was a huge
home run swing, and I'm with you. At first, I was like Car would have been enough. They have a really good team and Car's fine and he needed to And then you know, I'm just hearing things from the Jets coaches like they are freaking out. This guy. Rodgers has been unbelievable.
Well his first press day, just the way he talks about Joe Namath, I gets it.
Hello, And it's not hard to attract the Jet fan. Like I'm not saying that he's patronizing condescending, but like there are some real easy roads to go down to like attract. I want to be here his first and then you start referencing name it and you talk about, you know, all the young talent and how good these guys are. He gets it. That's the thing. I don't think he's playing anybody. I think he's honest and genuine, but he also he knows what to do in this situation.
And his pr game has been ten out of ten. Since he got here.
To the point where, you know, it feels like God, he should have been here ages ago. Like, right, the guy was kind of made. Who else could step into this media market and be like you No, no, the guy makes news every time he opens his mouth anyway, so.
It makes sense, all right. So I'm sitting at home and I'm watching The Succession finale and I'm all wrapped up in Tom Wabm's gams and.
What spoilers because I'm about to binge season.
I'm not saying a word. I'm not saying a word, all right. You know there's a character named Tom Wams gams. I know that's all it is. And there's a promo for this show, The Idol, and I'm like, this looks interesting. The weekend is in it, and I want to say, Lily Rose Depp, who is Johnny Depp's daughter? Is it this? I'm like, and there your head, your face pops up doing an accent. I go, what is Hank's love? I love Hank's What is this show? And I haven't seen
it yet? Only one episode is aired, but everyone's texting me like, have you seen The Idol yet? It's awesome. Have you seen it yet?
So?
What is this show and what is your role on the program?
I play and it was an Israeli accent to her. I play again named Ram, who is the manager of Lily Rose.
Deb's character named Jocelyne, kind of a you know, a pop eyed, a troubled pop idol, you know of the shall we say, maybe the Britney Spears moment, and she's in the middle of a bit of a personal and professional crisis. As the story picks up, gets involved with this Weekend character.
He's really good. He plays this like Sico club owner the Weekend does want to a producer who They strike up this pretty intense physical emotional relationship pretty quickly, and he starts moving in on our life, and me and the team of folks who make a lot of money
off her aren't too thrilled. Yeah, And I actually my character really loves her like a daughter found her when she was eleven performing a ball in the valley and took her through like the whole Disney thing, and then she, you know, her first album went huge, and so it's really kind of a voyeuristic window into the music industry.
And Dan Levy, who we loved in Shit's Creek, Key's I believe the agent.
What's his role in ex He's a publicist?
Perfect.
Yeah.
And it's created by Sam Levinson, who did Euphoria, right.
Sam Levinson, who does the does Euphoria. Euphoria is an amazingly great show. But every parent's nightmare that show.
I have not seen it, and everyone's like, if you ever have a daughter, do not or son go down that road? Or son? Okay, yeah, I.
Mean look, that's why I didn't. I'd worked with Sam is Barry Levins and son Legendarya Barry Levitz. I worked with them a few years ago on an HBO film called The Wizard.
Of Lies, doing de Niro as Bernie Madoff.
It was great. I remember it.
He was good and got along well with Sam. Then he called me about this. I was like, sure, this sounds amazing, but I didn't even realize that Sam had done Euphoria. And then I started working with Sam and loving him, trying to make a sports analogy to Sam. Sam, he's a genuine filmmaker, like when there aren't too many around anymore, writer, director, with a real vision. He would be like somebody to make an NFL comparison like innovating an offense, like somebody bringing in the next version of
an offense. You know, I haven't been with somebody like that in a long time, and you noticed it right over. You're like, because nothing's being done the way it usually.
Is, and this is a different approach to it and you're just as unique and the results are there.
Well at first you're like, what the hell is all you know?
And can give us an example because like Chip Kelly came in and did the spread offense and everyone was like that don't never work in the NFL, And it did for a little bit. But like on the set or in a movie or a show, what would be something unique to the million other directors who you've worked with.
Well, the way I experienced that, Peter was I got there and you you you know, you get the schedule. We got three sheet scenes we're going to shoot today, and you prepare them. Yeah, be like knowing the playbook. Okay, so you get there and first thing that somebody we're not doing those today, Like okay, any reason, we don't know, Welcome to the idol, Like all right, well what are
we doing? They're doing these three scenes and the explanation in that day seemed to be that Sam was shooting on film, which is different than shooting digitally, and the light had changed in a way. That and we're shooting this big glass house which happened to be the Weekend's reel house, but in the movie we were shooting it as if it was Joscelyn's house, so the light changed.
He even wants to make sure those scenes are shot in a certain type of lights, so we're going to switch to these other scenes.
Okay, that's a very filmic reason. Yeah, all right, So I learned those three scenes over the next two hours, and.
Then they change it again. Oh, like, no, we're not going to do those today. And it turned out that based on how the morning's work had went, they decided they needed another scene where they were already shooting.
So they decided to go stay there.
All this is very on the run, and you know, here's the equivalent. It'd be like a really great in game coach making adjustments.
This is what I see and is what we need for the better of the team right now. Yeah that we prepared all week, we did our game plan, but in this moment, this is the adjustment.
Yeah, but this is what we're doing today because this is what it feels like it needs.
And I think I actually called the first ad.
The poor guy who was in charge of raging, so I think I actually called him a young man.
Or young man, what is this? What are we doing here today?
And he's like, yeah, no, often there's audibles that are called. And so after about two days of this, I said, Okay, do me a favor. Just give me the ten or twelve scenes that are in play all right, that you think we will do, because I'm sure you can limit it loss I could prepare, yeah, exactly, so at least in others a playbook like I'll stick. I'll have a wide playbook and then you guys tell me what we're
doing and I'll be able to adjust, no problem. And then not only that, but so he would kind of go with the creative hot hand, if.
You will love this.
Not only that, but then once we started the scene, he would start changing it based on what we were doing, how things were working. We would he goes, do my favorite, just improvise the scene, forget about the dialogue, and we would do that, or we would do the scene and then we'd improvide the next ten minutes what might follow the scene. So he started combining a sort of more jud Appatow, you know, Larry David approach.
I was gonna say, like, it's going to bring up curb where they say, here's the here's what happens, but the dialogue, go ahead and just let it rip, right? Is that? Is that how this was?
But it was it was more like a legendary filmmaker Robert Altman, and that it wasn't so much to try to be funny sometimes it won't, but it was more to try to get more emotionally real, like a filmmaker named Mike Lee works. This way took where you know, you get to the more raw emotion of certain things if you just kind of let it fly and don't let words constrain you. And a lot of it wasn't h He had a ton of materials, so they had to edit a lot.
In the end.
But I'd say half the performance of my own half, a scripted half, was the stuff we came up with in the moment or on the day.
You know the Apatow reference. Now he says, we'll do fifty takes this. We don't know what the final version is. Going to be and then whatever felt right for Judd in the edit is what ends up in the final. Would you guys be doing like twenty ten of this or would be like Clint Eastwood one take or Woody Allen one take. That's good, let's move.
More more like it was neither, because that's also the twenty takes starts to crush your soul so much. One take is not enough. It was more like just extended, like Judtle, let the camera run. I have a work which I love to I did a movie that he produced that was short of Sun in a fimilar way, but it was more like extended. We never really heard cut. We just would kind of keep going and then sometimes you know, it was like a true good coach like Lily and I. A lot of our scenes were exactly
is written, you know what I mean. We just it was written, well, it seemed to work. We got it fast bang.
You know.
Some others seat there were a lot of actual music industry people in this, so for them acting wasn't.
It's more accuracy and consulting.
Yeah, yeah, So Sam would say, well, I don't worry about the words, just say what you really say. There, cool, I forget even about the script, just what would you really do in this circumstance. And so the professional actors on the set, not that they weren't pros, but you know what I mean, the more experienced actors would have
to sort of roll with whatever they were doing. So I loved it on that from that standpoint, not to mention Peter, but then after a while, cumulatively another sports analogy, right, So great coaches they take their actual player, they chuck their game plan after a while and go with the strengths of their players. And that's what Sam started doing
a lot too. It's like you seem I started playing it a different way than he expected, so he started writing to that that's changing things, you know, And he did that for everybody's character, even the Weekend. I don't want to give away too much, but yeah, the original vision for the thing, it turned into something else given on how the Weekend was doing with it, and very profoundly,
you know. So it was really fun and creative. I hadn't worked that way on a set that creative since I worked with Mike Nichols, you know, on the p Yeah.
How's the reception been so far? And have you been happy with what you've heard from people who've watched the episode so far.
Well, we had a lot of negative press leading up.
Because because of this, because of what the way it was made or what the topic.
Well there was there was an article Rolling Stone that what I described accurately just now as the creative nature of that set, you know, got called chaotic and dysfunctional. And I made a point at the press conference and ken of saying no, no, no, I've been on sets that were chaotic and dysfunctional.
It wasn't that, been on bad teams.
Okay, this wasn't that, And it was the opposite of that, this sexual you know, gratefully for everyone involved, I'm not. I wasn't involved in the sexual shenanigans in the show. That's for the young folks. So I can't really to speak to it. I just know that Lily was very, very comfortable with everything she had to do, felt very collaborated with as I did on anything I was doing. And Sam's work is very much that way. You know, Euphoria really pushes it. So does this mean it might
not be everybody's cup of tea? I get that, but I don't think you can deny the filmmaking and the compelling story and the great characters and stuff.
I haven't seen Euphoria, which makes it sound like I'm talking out of my you know what, but it's it's the most streamed show I think HBO has ever had, and it's also one of the rare shows that has, you know, attracted the younger audience where they're not just watching YouTube clips all day. They actually watched this show.
Love this show, And what might not be digestible for a certain generation might be something that is actually being craved and not satisfied in entertainment, And this is what might be he be writing. You know, it's a different audience necessarily than what the same audience has been watching TV for sixty years.
That's exactly right here.
I've talked to Sam at length about this because I got kind of morbidly fascinated with Euphoria after the fact, and I watched it, and sure enough, especially the first two episodes. As a parent, it's like, they're great, but they're great the way watching a horror.
Movie is great.
You're like, oh my god, what am I seeing? It's terrifying but very compelling, and then it settles in. It's just really good storytelling and filmmaking, and it's very good. And then I'm like, well, what am I really going to care about? Ostensibly a teen drama, you know, those days are way gone for me, but they totally translated. The characters are so good. The story of Zendaiah's journey into sobriety is the most realistic depiction of that I've
ever seen. It's amazing. It's just gripping. And you know, Sam said, he purposely he's young. He's not a teenager, but he's a young guy himself. He was hyper aware that his audience, as you just said, as you see a YouTube clip is like a feature.
Film to that's all.
Yeah, So he was like, I can't.
He purposely designed it so as not to let young attention spans waiver, things like no establishing shots. Kids shut down and start looking at their phone if you show an.
Establishing shot, it's interesting.
He was hyper aware of as few cuts as possible and as not letting the attention span go away, and he designed it that way and it apparently worked.
You've been in so many great films, so many shows, and yet I think everyone has a different entry point for Hankaus area. So I ask you, you know, we live in New York where it's not everyone stopping you on the street every two seconds. But when you do get stopped, is it a Simpson's voice? Is it friends? Is it birdcage? Is it another felt?
Like?
What do you feel like? Is the thing that you're getting the most these days? As far as a Brockmeyer like, what is it that people are stopping you and saying, hey, love your work in X something?
It depends on where I am.
I can sort of tell by the demographic of the person what they're likely to. If I'm at the Mets game, I'm gonna hear a lot of brockmrk. You know, most of all it's bird cage. Okay, Young folks are very friends obsessed.
You're not interesting. It's how this second life of like a number one show.
You're right, every eleven year old discovers friends, you know, since the show's been on, So I get a lot of that, And a lot of folks from foreign countries are friends.
Obsessed as well.
Interesting.
But I get, you know, i'd say probably the most of Burke And then I've been around so long now that I really never know, I get weird, like really you like Herman's head.
Okay, let Herbert said Fox.
Let's go early days of Fox. You know, so I never totally know you. Know what I get more than anything else, Peter is people know me, but they don't know from where. Oh?
Is that the worst though? Why do I know you? Is that the worst question? In an airport? I get people coming. Why do I know you?
I have very good pat answers for it.
What do you say?
I get a lot of you. I know you're an actor.
I don't know your name, so I think, well, I'm George Clooney.
I just look really ugly in person.
I was reading you know, I do my research before any of these things. But I'm fascinated with like your career because it's got such a depth in so many different roles. Before Simpsons, I mean, there was was it Hollywood?
Dog?
Was the show? What was the show?
You are good?
Tell me, tell me what your entry points to the Simpsons was? And whatever happened to that show?
Well that never even made it to air?
So what was it?
Early days of Fox?
As you said, remember the show the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Yes, Bob Hoskins.
Bob Hoskins and Zamacus so animated rabbit live action people that got popular. Fox decided to try one of those. They did a pilot of a show called Hollywood Dog, based on a comic strip this Popper at the time.
It was called Hollywood Dog and it would be like in your Sunday paper.
Okay, I guess I did the voice of the dog White. They talk like this, Hey doing this Hollywood Dog.
I love already Hollywood Dog.
And that back then, back in the old days, Peter, they made every network, even.
Fox, made like one hundred.
Pilots and they picked pilot seasoned.
Yes, so everybody worked pilots.
Everyone loved pilot season because almost every actor worked, but only ten or fifteen of them made it to air out of like fifty to eighty they made. Hollywood Dog was one of them. So not long after that, I got a call from head of casting The Simpsons, a woman named Bonnie Pietila, who worked on the show for years but has stopped and knew me from that just through Fox, and it was like almost an open calls, an open call, but I didn't have a voiceover agent.
It just came through my regular agent.
Wow, And I.
Walked over one day to Fox and Sam Simon and MATC. Graining were in the room and Sam has passed away since, but he and Matt and Jim Brooks with the original creators. And I was doing to play in Hollywood at the time. I was playing a drug dealer in this play, and I was doing an impression, a vocal impression of Pacino from Dog Day Afternoon in that place.
So I was sort of talking like this, that's sort of an early Alpatuna.
I hear MO already, Well, yeah it, so I do that, and they were like, well, we wanted to be gravelly, so you take young al Pacino and you make it gravity and you get motor bought. And they said, great, can you come record this. I'm like, now, I never had that appenue, Like you get the job in the room and then.
You do it.
I realized now they probably they probably had like eight guys do that that day, and then they just kept the one they liked. So even when I thought I had the job, I probably didn't. But I guess they liked what I did. And then each week I'd come back and do another voice or to had like wig them the next week, and on and on.
And after about a year that they made me regular.
You know what I found out years later here, how about this for craziness?
So apparently.
There was an original mode the bar They were replacement casting at that point they had had a mod the bartender, And then I was like, oh wow, really. And then years after I found that out, I think Matt Groening and I were doing some like we were being judges on some Food Network food show, right.
Okay, chopped one of these things and one of those.
Not it wasn't chopped, but it was. I said, you know, Matt, why did you fire that? What didn't you like about the voice work of that original Mo? And he said, oh, we thought he was great. We liked him a lot. So well, then what did you fire him for?
He said? The guy was just kind of a jerk.
Just what a lesson? Right?
Oh my god? So the guy, the poor guy, he's since passed away.
I think, can you imagine the rest of his life?
Well, that's to me.
The guy was like the peak best of the Simpsons, you know what I mean. And it's like, dude, don't that's terrior. I felt really bad, actually yeah, And.
He was probably in his twenties, young guy like you know and live with that the rest of his life. That's heartbreaking.
He was a really established voiceover guy and Jim Brooks talk about takes in the early days of The Simpsons and Jim Brooks of everything he does, he.
Likes to do take after take.
He really tried to get it right and I think the guy didn't like it and sort of snapped at them all one day.
When I was a kid. And I'm not trying to date you, obviously, you know Simpsons been going on for five not even years old, but it's just Simpsons. I'm certainly not dating you. If I say I grew up watching the Simpsons. I think everyone grew up watching the Simpsons.
But I remember like being a craze, like I mean, I know now you could say, oh well, no, this is bigger now or American Idol was a bigger craze in the two thousand, but like every kid had the T shirt, I wasn't allowed to wear the T shirt in school. It was banned to have Bart Simpsons in school.
Can you believe at the time when Bart Simpson was considered edge?
You think about that now because it's you know why, because I said, eat my shorts me you can't can't have it, you know, cawipunk, you can't have it? Did you guys feel it like it was the biggest? It was on the cover I think Bart Simson's on the cover of Time in Newsweek at the same time, like a Springsteen like celebrity. But like, did you feel that when you were recording those first episodes that this thing could be what it forget what it's become. But that first year, what a sensation it was?
Yes, and no knowing that Fox itself was two years old.
What was it? Mara Children, you guys, Horman's head, Tracy Almond, and a few other things.
Cops Cops for sure, Cops.
Was a huge hit for them, and that was the first, you know, new network. It was ABC, CBS, at NBC and PBS and whatever couple of local channels you had, and that was it. Children, that was it, and so a new network. You were like, you kidding that it's not going to last. So you didn't even know if the network was going to survive, let alone an animated primetime show on the network. I mean that said James L. Brooks at that point was a legend, a legend deservedly
so I mean, the guy was arguably the greatest. I mean, I don't know if anybody before or since it's at that kind of success in TV and film at the same time, you know, winning Emmys and Oscars at the same time, and doing it himself like the real deal, writing it all and.
Creating it all.
And so the fact that Jim Brooks was standing there, to my twenty two year old self, it is how old what I started doing.
Is twenty two? Really?
Yeah, my first of us was impressive, and you know, back then, I take it for granted. Now now again, I don't you know, my finger is hardly on the pulse beat of pop culture and comedy anymore. But then it was without my even realizing it. There was less to track back then. But I had a strong sense, just from a youthful comedic standpoint, that this thing was pretty special.
And then I remember it was an LA Film.
Festival and they showed the shorts of The Simpsons in it, and the audience went crazy, really crazy.
Before even they were in the Tracy Almonds show. They were showing them at this festival.
They were cold from the Tracy alemend shows. Before we premiered as a half hour.
Show and the audience went nuts.
Yeah, my peers, my, it just struck a chord with us youngsters.
I don't know exactly why.
I mean, my friend, I mean, we were in I guess middle school. We would I mean, and then they would air in syndication. We would memorize lines. You could put on a Simpsons episode. For the first ten seasons, I could tell you every line of every episode, and that was kind of the norm.
That's what we did, you know, Yes, and I had equivalent. You know, I grew up worshiping Bugs, Bunny and all the Warner Brothers cartoons, and then you know, there were certain shows that meant everything to me. You know, I was like Happy Days and yeah, all in the Family early Days, that Jim but you know, Mary Tyler Moore and even to my early twenty like I grew up as a teen on family Ties. So I know, I do know well what it's like to have a show
mean a lot. And I'm thrilled that, you know, both from an animation standpoint and just an iconic standpoint, that to pass, to be able to be a part of passing that traditional law awesome.
We're going to wrap it here as we record on this June day, If I ask you in six months, what's the ideal situation for your New York Jets as we close, paint the picture for me here it's a winter day, you got your fourteen year old son. Are we headed towards a playoff game? Or what? What are we thinking?
Is?
Actually, you know what would you be happy with if you could sign up for it right now?
Well, I mean the ceiling is an obvious answer, but I mean I saw the Interesting World Today article today Peter that the projections are like all over the board, all.
Over the sportsbooks, have no consistency and like everywhere from eight wins to fourteen wins.
I even see I saw a four win projection.
They seem to be averaging out at like eight point six or something.
Weird like about what they did last year? Was Zach Wilson and.
Stribler, Yeah right that.
I think I even heard you talking about how much a defense can fluctuate year to year. And their schedule is a lot harder this year it was last.
AFC is loaded, But in a way you look.
At it like they're going to have to beat those teams if they're gonna win.
So let's let's find out. To me, honestly, like I'll.
I answer this from a Brett Favre perspective, Okay, guy came, we were all excited in a similar.
Fashion, he went eight and three.
Yep, hurt his freaking shoulder, and they lost the rest of the games except for one, and they missed the playoffs.
The next year, he took the freaking Vikings to the NF Championship.
A couple plays away from the super Bowl.
And because obviously he just wanted to do that, I mean, it's hard not to think about what if he just stayed a Jet for that second year. So to me, honestly, especially because I'm being Jets men's knicks, I'm so I have such PTSD that if the team just really plays well and his competitive, I think if they don't make the playoffs.
I'll be genuinely disappointed disappointed.
But if they're really competitive and make any version.
Of a run, I'll be very very happy.
And if it looks like Aaron would come back one more year and try it again, I'd be thrilled with that.
But I don't, I don't dare hope beyond.
I love it. You're your two season as a fan to to start, you know, planning a parade down Broadway and yeah, so many art.
Well you imagine it.
You can't mean the next beat when the next beat the Cavaliers. I just could not help him imagining, I know, a Knicks Lakers final, like.
A nationally televised Eastern Conference final. I forget that. I was in the same bat, you know, obviously, and it's like, wow, what if we're hosting at the garden like the Eastern Conference final? Like what? Like it's insane.
I know, I know, I know, I know.
You're a good man. Thanks for going along here, appreciate it. You're in the idol on HBO. I've got this. I feel so ridiculous. I've got my home set up if you're listening on audio, and my one loan sports Emmy is behind me. I'm talking to Hank, who's probably got six hundred and he doesn't have any behind me.
Came up here there.
Bobbleheads and Emmy looks so good. I felt cycle like such a loser. I've got one.
Like it's a nice it's a nice starter at me, Peter, it's a nice starter at me.
We'll get there. Uh, Hank is area such a fan of yours from TV and also I also think you're the best guest on Eisen, you're the best guest on Dan Lebuttar, and I think you're a tremendous voice in the sports media world too.
Jim Bradmeyer has you the checks he's been. I've been back the last couple of weeks.
Okay, so not the normal podcast, but I do a segment of Dan pretty much every week, usually on Thursdays.
So good. You're great with those guys, Henk, thanks so much for joining this podcast. Thanks Peter Aaron. How good was Hanka's area?
Hearing him do the voices?
Like?
While we were it was.
I didn't know how far to go with that. I was tempted to be like, all right, do Wigham do Gigham calling a play? Do Wigam commented, And then I'm like, all right, he's not a circus clown.
You know.
I haven't seen the idol. I kind of want to see it now. I haven't seen you for you though. Do you watch you for it?
I don't you know. I maybe we should for some reason, I'm not up on all the HBO shows.
Okay, everyone says it's incredibly uncomfortable and unsettling, but like awesome TV. I don't know if I need uncomfortable and unsettling him.
I did love him talking about like it's catered to the younger audience, so there is no establishing shots there.
Yeah, no theme song.
It just go it keeps you in there. Yeah, So I think that's fascinating. I haven't seen it diehard.
Jets Mets Knicks. That's a tortured trio right there.
I mean, at least it's Knicks, not Nets, right, I mean, Jets Mets Nets would be harder. I mean that doesn't fit.
I guess. You know, with Jets and Mets are typically if you're like not from New York, that's there's like a queen side of that where it's one was in They both played in Shay Stadium, and they both were like kind of created at the same time in the sixties. And if you weren't a traditional Giants and Yankees fan who have been around for much longer, you're like, this are my teams. These are new, they're fun, and yet they have the same tortured history. Of course, they both
won championships. You know, the Mets have won in eighty six and sixty nine, the Jets won in sixty eight, but gosh, it's been a long long time, and Hank lives it, and I have so many friends who have that combo of Nicks, Jets, Mets, and it's just a miserable existence when it comes to post postseason success of the last thirty years.
And I feel like they haven't. I don't know baseball well enough, but Jets at least that lot of excitement last season, but not nothing that compares quite to like bing Bong for the Knicks, like the Jets the Knicks.
That's so the Knicks was such a sensation and that's one playoff game, the bing bong thing. All right, I love this episode. I hope you're listening at home. We're going to try to keep on bringing on good entertainment style guests and then we're going to sprinkle in some coaches and some gms over the next few weeks. But
the podcast will be rocking and rolling on. Behalf of the great Aaron Wang Kaufman on, behalf of my dear buddy Jason English at iHeart on, behalf of all the crew in LA who worked for NFL Network and helped put this together. The Jason Kleman and Matt Schneider and Meredith Batton and David Juranka and that crew and then on behalf of the Awesome guests. Hank Kazaria brought it. He was tremendous. Last week, David Cross brought like, I
want to be different with this thing. Hopefully you're just finding it or you're listening every week, but you'll see it's a different kind of podcast than the other football podcast. We're trying to be a little bit more broader and show some different lanes and try to bring in some entertainment guests who have a love for football and can speak it. As Hank so eloquently did about the New York Jets, and he's right. I think every Jets fan is bracing themselves and trying not to get too far
in advance. But it's hard not to be optimistic.
I mean, I don't have optimism for the Jets personally.
You're a Bills fan, I hear you. No, all right till next week, guys, this is this season with Peter Schrager. Love doing it, and go support Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Donate a dollar if you can. Amazing organization. I'm still kind of relishing in all that we did this week for that org and the big slick weekend Till next week, guys, Thank you. The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the NFL and partnership with iHeartRadio.
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