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O'REILLY I'm almost Larry King-ing here, thinking about my own, my next question. What was it like growing up with a Jewish father, a mother who's half Filipino.
SCHNEIDER Yeah.
O'REILLY Right. I mean, you're a United Nations down there in the suburbs of San Francisco.
SCHNEIDER Well, it was really great because we lived in a place that money didn't really matter. Everybody was...it was definitely the suburbs. This is, we were at the end of the baby boom, and it was a really great time in America. So you know where, and we were actually, you know, we had Filipinos, there were Jews, and the Filipinos, they assimilate. And that's why the Filipinos were so successful. Most people don't know this, but the earners in America are Filipino Americans. They average 93,000 per cap. And so that's, and you don't hear about it, because they don't want you to know. Rob, don't tell anybody, please. Let the black and white people kill each other. We're gonna be okay in the suburbs. So, but they really do well because they assimilate. And when you get somebody from over the Philippines, they'll marry into the culture. They'll meet people. They'll become part of the culture, and they'll definitely know and learn the language. So that was what I really grew up with. And I also grew up as somebody who appreciated America like you wouldn't believe. I remember my mom, anyone who said anything against America, she had two words for them. Get out! You don't like America? It's the greatest country in history. We have freedom and opportunity. You have no idea what it's like. Get out.
O'REILLY Yeah, because she was in the Marcos era over in the Philippines, with the Japanese, then you go into the Marcos people, and it's rough.
SCHNEIDER Well, you have people that are, I don't know if people understand how incredibly rare it is to not have a case system, a case where you're born into a particular strata in society, and you're not able to get out. The English have the best phrase that I know. The man does not know his place. So you're there, and you're gonna stay there. And I remember my mom telling me, she said, even the maids in the Philippines have maids. Poverty, it's an ever-descending level of poverty there with no bottom. And in America, very uniquely, you can have a comedian like me who's Filipino, who's Jewish, and can work his way up and get to a place from your talent and from being successful. This society allows that opportunity. But it also allows that opportunity for people like from Somalia to come over here, go to maybe the most naive state, Minnesota, and completely take advantage of these people. And that is a potential problem of our society that I think is new, and we have to wake up to.Interesting, like the Jews side of the family had really good jokes and it was really cool because Uncle Norm, Norm Applebaum, who changed his name to Appel, hiding, I guess, a little bit, but my dad never liked that, that he changed his name. But he never told him to his face. But so. You know, be proud that you're Jewish. So they would go around, and everyone would have to tell a joke. Stand up and tell a joke. And you knew that going in. So you also, you wanted to tell the joke. You'd have to have a joke and also get a laugh. And so that was big. And my dad was a big laughing person, had comedy albums. And Jewish humor was really- Yiddish humor specifically was really important.
O'REILLY And it's a tough crowd, you'd better have a good joke.
SCHNEIDER Better have a good joke. And then the Filipinos on that side, no jokes, just good food.
O'REILLY That's right.
SCHNEIDER And nice people. Robert, they never talk about themselves, the Filipinos. Robert, tell me about, how was your day, Robert? What are you up to? So they were very sweet. So it was nice to have both.
O'REILLY When I saw you in the Madison Square Garden show with Sandler, you did a riff where you used an Asian voice, hysterical, and I'm going, he's going to get nailed for this. The political correct cadre is going to come after you. The crowd didn't. The crowd was into it. It was a different crowd, a younger crowd. But you were violating every tenet of political correctness by using this voice.
SCHNEIDER Well, the idea of it is to push the audience so that you can challenge them. Those are always the best comedians. George Carlin would come out and really attack the audience, in a sense, but to do it from a place of calm and also from a place of logic and a place to show the absurdity. You know, like, you think you have rights, you don't have rights. You think you have rights. And I really enjoyed that. But the key to remember is always to get laughs. But if I'm not challenging the audience or pushing mores, you know, and challenging them, then I'm doing my job. But the thing is, you could offend them, I swear. When I did some, I mean, probably the most offensive thing that Adam Sandler had me do was...
O'REILLY Forced you to do it.
SCHNEIDER He forced me to, I didn't wanna do it, I swear. No, it was in Chuck and Larry where I played an Asian minister. And it really was. The makeup was out of Breakfast at Tiffany's. I mean, I wouldn't do it again today, honestly. But the guy who did the makeup was a Japanese guy named Kazu. And Kazu was a great artist, and he worked with this guy named Rick Baker, who's the guy who's most incredible Academy Award-winning artist for makeup. He's the guy who did, you know, an American Werewolf in London. So Rick Baker's a genius. So this is a guy who, it was his best worker he ever had. This guy's an artist. So Kazu, the Japanese guy, he made the makeup. And I said, well, if he likes it, it should be fine. But I almost got censored by the Asian American community. But luckily, because I'm Asian enough.
O'REILLY You got in. You're in the club a little bit.
SCHNEIDER But the idea is to make fun of everybody.
O'REILLY But my larger point is that it's harder today to do the edgy stuff because you got all these people offended every two seconds about everything.
SCHNEIDER I think so, but I think that there's a really interesting thing that this comedian, Judd Apatow, uses, and other left-wing or liberals call punching down, which I really I find, I'm offended by that. Because the preposition of the...is that somehow there are people beneath you. I said, what? There are people beneath you? There's nobody beneath you, they may have less money than you. They may not live next to the beach like you do, but they're not beneath you. So the idea somehow that these people need to be defended because they're so feeble and they're so weak that you, as the higher-up in society, need to defend these people. I'm offended, that I find offensive.
O'REILLY Yeah, it's called patronizing them. But even Saturday Night Live, you remember in the beginning, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin. Jane, you ignorant slut.
SCHNEIDER Written by Jim Downey.
O'REILLY You could not say that now.
SCHNEIDER Yeah, written by Jim Downey. Well, the thing about that was I don't think people, people weren't looking to be offended then. I think they were looking for laughs. And also, it's late at night, it's 11:30. And maybe it's midnight by the time that got on. And you were just looking for something that was funny. And being offensive was, I mean, that's not the goal. The goal was to be funny, but how you be funny by potentially offending somebody. And I would just look at things like you have to attempt to. I mean, just having this conversation, we are, as Jordan Peterson would say, if you're trying to have a point or be confident about a point, you're risking offense. But to not do that, I think, is to take our culture and diminish it.
O'REILLY Right. But it is diminished because the money boys don't want that anymore.
SCHNEIDER They don't, like, for instance, my latest comedy special probably would not get on Netflix now, the stuff that I'm doing. And that's okay, because the whole landscape is shifting dramatically. Whereas, you know, I haven't been on late-night TV because if you're a conservative, it's like, they say we need equity, and equality, and diversity, but they don't want diversity of thought.
O'REILLY That's right.
SCHNEIDER They want diversity of look.
O'REILLY It's a shame.
SCHNEIDER It is a shame, because it's diminishing. Because it, you know, you need to have your certainties questioned. Your foundational thinking needs to be challenged. So make it better and to be open. And the fact that they don't have me on the late-night TV is sad for them. But it also, it affects their ratings because I can do a tweet now, and I can have millions of people see that, or put out something on X or put it on Instagram and millions of people will see that, and maybe 150,000 people watch the late-night.
O'REILLY Well, I get the same thing. I used to be on—well, I was on Letterman a dozen times and Kimmel and everything, and now, Trump changed it all. So if you give Trump a fair shake, you don't have to kiss his butt. If you even give him a fair shake, you don't loathe him, they don't want you. And they shut you down. They shut you out. And we did a documentation. The other thing that was curious about growing up with you, and you were an adult when this happened, you converted to Catholicism.
SCHNEIDER Yes.
O'REILLY From nothing? Or were you Unitarian, or what were you?
SCHNEIDER Well, you know, as Bill Maher's joke applies to me, my father was Jewish, my mother was Catholic, so when I went to confession, I bring my attorney. Father, this is Mr. Cohen, he'll be answering all the questions. I found it curious because I was interested in, well, Judaism, of course, because I grew up with my father, and I think that's the basis of all Western civilization. And then Christianity, which sprung from Judaism and the very observant Jew, Jesus Christ. And I was also interested in the reformation of Buddhism, which was China. That's why China is, and I hope they can come out of this communist hellhole that they're in now. And as a matter of fact, my friend Jan Jekielic has a book about kill to order, about the Uyghurs and the Falun Gong that are being taken. And, you know, their body parts, murdered on demand, killed on demand.
O'REILLY Sure.
So, for me, I really had an awakening during COVID, when I saw society giving in to tyranny very quickly, and you see a rise in evil, and it's something you can't ignore. And there's not, you'll never see dark without light. You can't have day without night. You don't have front without back, and that's very much Alan Watts' philosophy of his Eastern mysticism.
O'REILLY Okay. So this is what I don't understand. So your mother is Jewish, and your father is Italian. That must have been quite a house.
SCHIRRIPA Well, you know, the thing is, my mother was raised kind of like by Italians. So she was, she fit right in. You know what I mean? She was cursed in Italian, cooked Italian. So she was, like, kind of more Italian than she was Jewish, you know, but I had a whole Jewish side of the family. I had a aunt Ida and aunt Sylvia, and we would go and visit, and my grandmother, my grandmother's maiden name, my grandmother's name is Sally Moskowitz. My mother's maiden name, Lorraine Bernstein. So I knew that whole part of the world.
O'REILLY Cross-cultural.
SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, it was great. And I'm very proud to say I'm half Jewish, very proud.
O'REILLY And working class, right, Bensonhurst?
SCHIRRIPA My father was below working class. He was a small time wannabe gangster and did not, he was a bad father. And we had five kids who grew up on welfare. My mother held us together, and he was a bad guy, he didn't want to work. He was one of these guys, he would love what's going on now, free stuff. You know, he sat on the couch literally for 30 years.
O'REILLY The welfare guy. Did your mother know he was a bad guy?
SCHIRRIPA Yeah, but I guess she was kind of trapped in...
O'REILLY Well, she's got five kids.
SCHIRRIPA She's got five kids, did the best she can, I'm the middle kid. Everybody turned out okay, and she held it together.
O'REILLY Did you forgive your father in the end?
SCHIRRIPA No.
O'REILLY You held it against him.
SCHIRRIPA I-I still hold it against him. He's been dead for 20-something years.
O'REILLY That's the Italian.
SCHIRRIPA Absolutely. So yeah, yeah, no. And you know what? This is the thing, Bill, you're a dad, right? I'm a dad. The more that I got into being a father, I'm saying, how could you allow this to happen? How could you get the lights shut off? What could the power bill have been in 1965? $17? I mean, how can you allow that? I have two daughters. I have a responsibility. I've got to take care of these two. This is what I signed up for. Even if something happened to me and her mom, which she's the greatest mom on earth and a wonderful wife to me for 37 years, but these kids I've gotta take care of.
O'REILLY But the leap that you make from an unstable home, lower working class, lights coming out, into stardom, celebrity status, that's a pretty big leap.
SCHIRRIPA Yeah, you know, look, my mother, you know, badgered that we're going to college. Right, so she had that...
O'REILLY Drilled it into you.
SCHIRRIPA She put that into me, we're going to college. So my one sister went to college, and I went to college. I went to John Jay. I played basketball. Went to John Jay College my freshman year, 1975. Played there and then transferred to Brooklyn. Took the train from Bensonhurst at all hours of the night to John Jay. I mean, I'm stunned that I did it then. 1975, the city was a disaster. I'm taking the train at one o'clock in the morning, you know, from 59th Street, where it was, you know. Went to Brooklyn, graduated, actually tried out for a team in Israel. They wanted me to work on a kibbutz. I didn't want to do that. A friend of mine that I grew up with, he moved to Vegas. He said, I can get you a job. I went out to Vegas...
O'REILLY as a greeter, as one of the...
SCHIRRIPA First, I started delivering pizza. Yeah. I was delivering pizza, and then I became a bouncer at Paul Ica's club.
O'REILLY But did you have in the back of your mind that you wanted to be a performer?
SCHIRRIPA No, never, never ever.
O'REILLY Never dawned on you.
SCHIRRIPA Not in the least bit. I didn't know, I never knew what I wanted to do. I just knew to look people in the eye, be honest, shake their hand. That is-.
O'REILLY Yeah, well, you have a good personality.
Yeah, but my father didn't instill it in me. I always knew a lot of people like playing basketball. I played in the garden my senior year. I always was around a lot of people. I had a lot of friends, always, you know. Played basketball all over the city, the worst neighborhoods, the best neighborhoods. That was my thing. That's what I was passionate about. You know, when you try, this is my opinion, you know, like when you try, like, they go, Yeah, I want you to meet this guy. He could help you, that guy. That's not my bag, ever. I've never met someone for that reason or went to lunch with them, or maybe this guy could advance. Never. If I liked you, I liked you. If I didn't. There's a guy, he was from Israel. He used to come into the club, I was a bouncer, and he was lonely. He moved there, he was working at the Riviera Hotel, and I'd buy him a drink. His family was there, and by himself. He worked the front desk in the hotel. Long story short, six months later, the guy became Vice President.
O'REILLY Of the hotel.
SCHIRRIPA Of the hotel. Yeah. And he calls me up, he said, we're opening up this comedy club. He said, I want you to have the job. So I go in, I interview for everybody. I get the job.
O'REILLY So you managed the comedy club.
SCHIRRIPA Managed the Comedy Club, that's where I started, was in improv, then I took over, there was a topless show, and then there was female impersonator show, so I was running it, making a lot of money, lot of tips, those are the days you could still, you know, I wore a tuxedo, you still had to pay, you had to get a good seat, and that's when I started acting, of course I was working with a lot comics. Bill Maher, Richard Belzer.
O'REILLY Were you the MC?
SCHIRRIPA No, no. I was just seeing people in the back of the room. They would say, hey, you know what? I'm doing this little short film. You know, why don't you come and do this. Kevin Pollock, he said, come on, do an HBO special. I played a bouncer in his thing, and it was just fun to me, it was fun. I had no, I never read a script, never did anything, I flew myself to LA, I had a ball. Literally a cliche, I got literally high from doing it.
O'REILLY So it was meant to be. You didn't seek it.
SCHIRRIPA Did not.
O'REILLY It wasn't on your mind. You're a basketball player from Brooklyn. You ride that train, then you go to Vegas, you ride that train, then you start to get little roles in L.A., and you wind up in two of the biggest monster hits in modern television. So let's zero in on The Sopranos, which you are still making money from.
SCHIRRIPA Oh, yeah.
O'REILLY You're going out all over the world. You were just in England, and they couldn't get enough of you over there.
SCHIRRIPA It was great. We did 14 cities, 14 shows in 10 cities, started in Belfast, Nottingham, Birmingham, London, Edinburgh- I mean, we went through the whole thing, me and Michael Imperiali. We have a comic with us on stage. Sold 27,000 tickets.
O'REILLY Unbelievable.
SCHIRRIPA Telling stories, funny behind-the-scenes stories...
O'REILLY We'll get to that in a minute, but Gandolfini and Tom Selleck were the two titans that these shows revolved around, both very interesting personalities. I know Selleck a little bit, I never met Gandolfini. Now, when you went on the set to play a low-level gangster, a New Jersey gangster, alright, there's Gandolfini, who already had established himself as one of the great actors in the country. How did he behave on the show?
SCHIRRIPA Complete Pearl. Always, always trying to help you. My first scene is with him, Stevie Van Zant, Vinnie Pastore, big pussy, Paulie Walnuts, Tony Sirico. That's my first scene. I didn't know anyone. A lot of these guys knew each other. I came in the second season, at the beginning of the second season. I knew no one. Said hello, did the scene. Jim is trying to help me. I'm supposed to be intimidated, scared. He's helping me. I was green. I had work. Don't get me wrong. I had done a bunch of stuff, but this is a different level. Boom. I did a few movies, and he's trying to help me. He's yelling at me, screaming at me. He's trying to get me where I need to be. Once I do that, the scene's over. I'm one of the guys. He's just trying to help. At one point he said, come on, me, him, Dominic Kianese, Uncle Junior, come to my trailer. Let's go over the lines, let's run lines. It's almost an out-of-body experience. I'm going to myself, how the hell did I get here? I'm watching these guys on TV a week ago. Now, I'm here with the three of them.
O'REILLY And they're all very eccentric characters.
SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, but good guys. Jim was always a pro. That, you know, people say, did you guys have fun on the set? Yeah, we had fun. It was all business. He was working 16 hours a day, five days a week.
Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.
SCHIRRIPA And listen, a great guy, not without problems. I mean, that's common knowledge. But not on the set, never when he was working. You saw none, there was none of that.
O'REILLY Was he the leader of the gang?
SCHIRRIPA Absolutely, in a positive way. So you can't come in and, you know, it was a good vibe. It really was like a family. We were close, very respectful. Nobody could come in and be disrespectful to one another. That wasn't flying.
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Now, you were born in Toronto, Canada, and raised as a Canadian, correct?
O'REILLY Yes, I am. Did you have skates on when you were four and you were with the little hockey stick? Did you do that? I mean, you were doing that?
MANDEL No, we were, I was at a young age, I was sent out in the forest to retrieve maple syrup from the tree. That's what they do with their children, the youngens. The youngens are sent to work, and I had to draw sap, maple sap, from the maple tree.
O'REILLY In southern Canada, there's a lot of funny people. Ackroyd comes out of there, Lorne Michaels comes out of there, a bunch of the SNL people, you and all of this. So is it just the region that produces this humor? Or are you just so happy you don't live in Nova Scotia that you're making jokes all the time?
MANDEL Now you're making fun of the country. I will tell you that it is even fascinating to me that so many people that I am fans of, in front of and behind the camera, come from Canada per capita. We probably have the highest rate of talent, whether that is even in music, from Celine Dion to Drake to so many others, to film directors, Norman Jewison, and writers, and comedians, and just producers like Lorne Michaels. For such a, you know, we have a tenth of the population of all of America. You guys have 300, we have, I live here, 330 million people. We have 30 million people, and most of that population is in like three little ponds of population, and that would be Southern Ontario, like Toronto, in Quebec, around Montreal, and then on the West Coast around Vancouver. And so many, that's where Michael Buble comes from, so much talent in such a small area is, there must be something in our water. I don't know what it is.
O'REILLY When you look back, the contrast of your upbringing to your daughter's upbringing in L.A. must be, it's two different worlds, right?
MANDEL And I say to my wife, and I, my wife's also from Toronto. I've been married for 46 years to the same woman, and my world, her...I'm talking about my daughter's world, my son's world, and my other, I have three children, is so vastly different. Well, first of all, when we first moved here, and I don't know if it's LA as much as it's America, this was somewhat of a culture shock. You know, just the American way is a very different culture. And it was a culture that I adhered to, that I love. It's that go-get-it kind of, you know, Canada is a beautiful place to live and a beautiful, safe, wonderful, giving environment. And here it is like it feels like, and there's nothing wrong with this. And that's what I liked about it. And this is what I got my career about. But it is every man for themselves. You know, and it's that go-get-it attitude, and you can have a dream and make that dream come true. That's what AGT is about. And I did, you know. Everything I've ever been punished for, expelled for, gotten in trouble for is what I seem to get paid for. And I turned what was considered a behavioral problem into my own little industry. But my kids, you know, they went to public school. And my, both my wife and I, we come from, you know, I grew up in an apartment and shared a room with my brother. They didn't, they were lower middle class, and I've tried to instill into my kids the importance and the gratitude of hard work and respect. And they've all done that. You know, the daughter that you met spent every day driving out to, you know, Crenshaw and Watts and East LA, which are really kind of underserved areas in in LA and she taught and was in those schools where there was violence and corruption and you know so that they did that. My son, who actually runs my company and not because I gave him a job, it's not nepotism, it's more nepotism that he hired me. He does one, I'm one of maybe 30 different podcasts that he produces that have nothing to do with me, and he built this building that you see. He was a YouTuber and made a fortune by himself as a YouTuber as a kid, and then realized he kind of gleaned that entrepreneurial spirit that I have. I'm much more entrepreneurial than I am creative. And my other daughter, who doesn't ever want to be on camera, doesn't even want her picture taken. It was hard to talk her into being in her wedding album, is a physiotherapist. So I think they're... They see things that I never got to see in Toronto as a kid. I mean, they're obviously much more privileged, and we get to do things. And I feel like nobody's more excited and feels surprised and blessed by what this has afforded to me to do for me and my family, but they all earn their own livings, they work very hard, they invest their money, they have their own little, they'll buy a property and then rent it out and build their own little world. And I'm very proud of them, and they don't act like anything is coming to them. But I am vastly aware that this is not the world that I grew up in.
O'REILLY That's for sure, but I'm giving all the credit to your wife for the kids turning out well. So I'm going to Mandel's studio in a place called Van Nuys, which is north of LA. And we had never been to the studio before, and we walked into the studio, and it's very elaborate. So your son has done a very good job with it. But there's actually a band in this studio of human beings, five or six of them. And they write a song while the guest, which was me, was talking to Mandel. And then after the podcast is over, they sing the song. It was great.
MANDEL I, during COVID, and you know I've been very open about my mental health and OCD and my germaphobia, but...And I'm not crying a river, but the OCD was really hard for me. I almost went overboard, and one of my little panaceas was that I was on TikTok and listening to live streams, and I heard this Sonny in the Black Pack. They would play, he's got a beautiful voice and they're great, and they would live stream for hours. And I DM them, and I just said to them, Hey, listen, I'm a huge fan. I'm not a huge fan. Where are you? They turned out to be in Northern California. They were in San Francisco. And I said, if you ever think of coming to LA and you need a space, you know, I have space here. You know, I'm based in a warehouse. I spend my day in a warehouse, that's where I am right now, and you could, you know, whatever you're doing, you could do it from here, and maybe because you're in LA, there are connections you could make and people you can... And you can do content, you know, you can meet Bill O'Reilly, you can sing a song about him, and they moved down, and now Sonny and the Black Pack are my house band.
O'REILLY It's unique, I've never seen it before. It was very, very impressive. Now, on linear TV, that requires a different discipline than social media and the podcast world. So you do America's Got Talent, you do Canada's Got Talent. And I went, are we talking hockey here? Wise guy remark. But a linear situation is different. Because, you know, you've got to hit the breaks, you've gotta do this, you've gotta do that. The shows that you do, are they fun to do, or is it going to work?
MANDEL Well, listen, I'm...Nobody's more thrilled and excited and blown away by the fact that I'm invited to the party. This is even fun, sitting and talking to you. You're somebody that I watched, that I fanboyed on, and then I get to sit and talk to you, and you're interested in asking me questions, amazing. So everything I do, I have joy for. My most exciting thing that is not work, and that nothing stands in the way of, is stand-up comedy. I love stand- up comedy, and I still tour. I'm doing, I do, you know, well, three times a week, I drop in at the comedy store, the Laugh Factory, or the Improv, and any given night, Chapelle, and Leno, and everybody who's anybody is up there, Sebastian, and we just write. And there, now in the clubs, they lock away your phones, so they can't be recorded, and they can be repeated. And that's the fun. But linear television is ad-supported television. And I also know that I have the responsibility to be responsible because there are people like...And all these people supporting it.
O'REILLY How do you, when you say you love stand-up, many, many stand-up comics are dark people. You know that, I'm sure. I mean, they're funny, and they have unbelievable wit and talent, but off camera they're kind of morose. And it's not an easy industry. It isn't, because you've got to make these people react to you. So number one, do you write everything down when it comes into your mind that that's pretty funny, an observation, do you write it down? Or is it just stream of consciousness?
MANDEL I will write down, during the day, I write down if there's something that I think is a tidbit that I can expound upon. I don't write word for word. I'm not as disciplined as Jerry Seinfeld, you know, who is a wordsmith and brilliant at it. I just have an idea, and then in front of the audience I will go, like, tonight I'll be at the improv and the comedy store. And so I'll go and try something. That I wrote down, and I didn't write the jokes. I just wrote, there's a funny area, and I'll do it there and then I'll drive over to the comedy store at the improv, and then drive over to the comedy store and I do it again there, and then tomorrow night I'll do it again, and then you can hone these moments and then maybe create a piece.
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O'REILLY Before we get to the One Bad Movie thing, because I am interested in Hollywood to some degree, I need you to straighten this out for me. We don't invite anybody on this long form that we feel isn't gonna tell the truth. Because I don't wanna have to beat the hell out of you- not physically, but let's have a nice conversation. In 1989, you did a movie called Casualties of War.
BALDWIN Yes, sir.
O’REILLY Brian De Palma was the director, big, big director. Okay, and you left the movie, and there were all kinds of stories about you, Sean Penn, and Michael J. Fox.
BALDWIN Right.
O'REILLY You wanna clear that up for me?
BALDWIN Okay, before I forget, I'd like you to be on my show, One Bad Movie. And this... You're going to love this dovetail right now because I'm setting up some episodes for New York, and my first guest is Michael J. Fox when I do the New Yorks.
O'REILLY Okay, good.
BALDWIN So now it's going to be Michael J Fox and you, if you're available, sir. So yeah, listen, listen, listen. Can I- do you want to hear the whole thing?
O'REILLY No, I want to hear why you left the movie.
BALDWIN I left the movie because Sean Penn was my idol. And when I auditioned, I auditioned thinking, wow, what a shot I got here. Right? Wow. What an opportunity.
O'REILLY Spicoli.
BALDWIN Well, more than Spicoli.
O'REILLY To me, it'll always be Spicoli.
BALDWIN Me too!
O'REILLY Right.
BALDWIN But he's done, you know, Carlito's Way, and he's done some other legendary stuff. So, I get this opportunity to go read for Art Linson, the legendary producer with De Palma. I read for Art Linson. I'm doing stuff in the script with the character that's not there. I added, like a stutter, and I did some weird stuff, and just this is the character. Forgive me. This is the character I came up with. I read for Linson and he goes, it's not what's on the page. Why are you doing it like that? I said, it just what came to my mind. He goes, great. Can you go in two hours and meet De Palma? It's all in Manhattan. I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, I'm going to see Brian De Palma. I go see De Palma at his house, Upper West Side, blah, blah, bah, blah. I sit down, I do the audition. He goes, that's not in the script. Why are you doing it that way? I said, this is just the character. This is what I came up with. He goes, Great. Sean Penn has final approval of the casting. Can you meet him in two hours at this restaurant on the Upper West Side? I'm laughing, like, I swear to you, in eight hours. I go to see Penn. We're at that white rocking horse on the Upper West Side, some fancy place. And we're in this back little booth, and he's smoking in the restaurant. I'll never forget it. I couldn't believe he was smoking in the restaurant. So, he sits down, and he goes, okay, when we get there, I'm the sergeant, you're this, da da da, this is how it's gonna go, but you can't talk to Fox. When we get to Phuket, Thailand, with De Palma and everybody, big movie, you gotta just shut your mouth and do what I tell ya. I'm telling ya, you speak to Fox once, your ass is grass.
O'REILLY Why didn't he want you to talk to Michael J. Fox?
BALDWIN Because it was a method thing he was doing.
O'REILLY That nobody talks to each other?
BALDWIN Penn wanted absolute control in the wrath of his leadership as the sergeant in this story.
O'REILLY In the platoon.
BALDWIN Right. But so he turns around and, you know, I am my father's son here, Bill, you tell me not to do something, right?
O'REILLY You've gotta do it.
BALDWIN So I get over there, and Fox is one of my heroes too. I mean, what am I? I'm gonna piss on Michael Fox.
O'REILLY Or disrespectful, right.
BALDWIN You know, in some kind of a method actor way, because this guy's telling me this and that. Long story short, we were like two weeks into filming. And Penn comes up to me during a lunch break. And he says to me, you know, everything all right? Everything good? But he knows I've been hanging, like I've been rapping. You know, the word got back to him.
O'REILLY With Fox.
BALDWIN Yeah, and he just turns around, he says to me, you know, okay. Okay, as long as you're following my orders. The next morning, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Linson would like to see you before you head to the set. No, no, no. It's Thailand. So I get in the car, I go to his office. Now you're gonna love this one, Bill. I walk in, he goes, Steven, this is the hardest part of a producer's job. I said, Art, we're already filming for two weeks. There's no way you're getting rid of me. He goes, we're sending you home. I said Do I get paid? He goes Absolutely. I said, Well, let me go get my stuff, and I'll just swing by the set and say goodbye to the guys. He goes, Your room's already been packed, and your belongings will meet you at the airport. Dude, forgive me, sir. Mr. O'Reilly, these guys demonstrated for me in that very extreme Hollywood way. But what it's like to get replaced within the system.
O'REILLY Were you angry at Penn?
BALDWIN Not now, I'm just turning 60 years old.
O'REILLY Back then.
BALDWIN Well, sure, I was furious.
O'REILLY Back to the Future, like Michael J. Fox, you're in the car.
BALDWIN Right.
O'REILLY Were you mad?
BALDWIN Michael J. Fox makes a good joke. He says, he's happy about Eric Stoltz because Eric Stoltz was supposed to actually do Back to the Future, it didn't work out. Michael J. Fox took his part. Okay, John C. Reilly, you ever hear of him? He replaced me in that movie.
O'REILLY In the movie, you would have been better, though.
BALDWIN He, well, listen, John C. Reilly's a--
O'REILLY He's a good actor.
BALDWIN A talented guy.
O'REILLY Right. But you were mad at Penn, pulling rank.
BALDWIN Well, only because, you know, it was a dream come, it was the biggest jump in my career. As far as if I'd have remained in the movie, who knows?
O'REILLY I don't know Penn very well, but I... A couple of times, and he wouldn't mess with me. He would be foolish, too. But I asked Clint Eastwood about him.
BALDWIN Oh, really?
O’REILLY Because and this might be something for your podcast. They did a movie, Mystic River.
BALDWIN Yes, of course.
O'REILLY Up in Boston.
BALDWIN Brilliant film.
O'REILLY Right. And Penn is an edgy guy. Edgy. Okay, you say smoking in a restaurant, it's not all he's doing in a restaurant.
BALDWIN But that was 30 years ago. Go ahead.
O'REILLY Right. But you weren't allowed to smoke back then.
BALDWIN Correct.
O'REILLY So he's gonna do what he wants to do. So, Clint Eastwood is a very level-headed guy.
BALDWIN Right.
O'REILLY But extremely powerful.
BALDWIN Yeah, and not a scaredy-cat.
O'REILLY I said, how did she get along with Penn? I mean, my God. And he looked at me, he goes, no problem. One or two takes, he did it the way I wanted to do it because he's who directed it. And that was it. And Jack Nicholson said the same thing. Nicholson loves Penn. And Nicholson's no raving liberal, okay? So he's an interesting guy. Now on your podcast, One Bad Movie, what movie and what guy or gal surprised you the most by saying that movie is terrible and I'm sorry I did it?
BALDWIN What a fabulous question because literally it's the person that's on right now.
O'REILLY You.
BALDWIN No, no, no. The guest, you mean?
O'REILLY Yes.
BALDWIN Yeah. Yeah, so Brian Austin Green, famous for 90210. Right. He's the current guest on the show, and we're about to drop part two on the YouTube channel. And like I told you, Bill, one bad movie podcast hosted by me. It's like, if I sat with you and said, hey, did you do a cameo, or did you play a part in something? Did you do a TV commercial? What's the thing where you ate the sushi for lunch, and you got food poisoning, and you were like, or the car ran over your toe, or somebody showed up on set, they were wasted. What's that thing that was just the nightmare that now, in the retrospect, is kind of humorous. So once we start doing all that, it becomes a lot more fun, you know, because now, instead of me doing a direct... Kind of like, you know, like, oh, what's your favorite movie you've done or what? You know, so right now I sit down with Brian Austin Green, and I say to him something like, and like, oh, well, you know, I just think times have changed. And now you have a lot of, you know, actors who are moving into these kind of commercial, kind of corporate positions and these titles. And they're making tons of money. Some of these stars, you know, as I said, I said Margot Robbie and Barbie, you know, like, this gal made 70 million dollars on the back end. Now, God bless her. Go, Margot, go. But I'm just saying to Brian, you know, things have changed, and I just, I don't agree with it, and I don't think movies like that, which is kind of like a fictional, kind of silly kind of...
O'REILLY Frivolity.
BALDWIN Right. Exactly. I said, I just don't think those are the great movies Hollywood could, you know, it could and should be making now. And B.A.G., Brian Austin Green, came back at me, Bill, like, you couldn't believe it. He's like, oh yeah, well, I disagree. And here's what, and he kind of, very reasonably and quite logically from a financial perspective, made a lot of sense. But I'm an old-school guy. You know, I like Stand By Me. I like 16 Candles. Now Brian likes that stuff too, but he's more of a contemporary, open to this other stuff. Nobody believes me when I say this, if I got offered some huge movie tomorrow, but I had to be like in front of a green screen on hooks flying all around. Bill, I'm out. I don't care what you want to pay me.
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