RE-RELEASE: Don Cheadle AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast SmartLess

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Episode: "RE-RELEASE: Don Cheadle"

Author: Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, Will Arnett
Duration: 01:06:24

Episode Shownotes

Watch out, folks— it’s Don Cheadle, a.k.a. “Donchalant.” What is Jazz? Did Don have a good slumber last night? Get ready for some hard-hitters, like a deadly mignonette, the most rarified air, and both Kansas Cities. From our lips to pods’ ears, it’s an all-new SmartLess.This episode was originally released

on 4/8/24. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Summary

In this re-released episode of 'SmartLess,' hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett engage in a humorous dialogue with Don Cheadle, exploring topics like education, sleep habits, and the importance of music and acting. The conversation highlights Cheadle's diverse career in television, film, and theater, his affection for Atlanta, and personal anecdotes from his early days in the industry. The episode illustrates the unique chemistry among the hosts, offering insights into the unpredictability of the entertainment world alongside witty banter and clever culinary references.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page ("RE-RELEASE: Don Cheadle") to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:06 Speaker_02
Hi, everybody. How was your day today? Are you asking us or the audience, and you're expecting an answer from the audience?

00:00:11 Speaker_01
You know, the audience is not mic'd.

00:00:13 Speaker_02
You got it. Sorry.

00:00:14 Speaker_04
Well, no, I was asking... Oh, they're not? Well, since when do you call me and JB everybody? Yeah. No, I call you guys the audience.

00:00:20 Speaker_01
Oh, God. Because you think that's the only people listening to you is just us two? Yeah. You've got higher responsibilities than that. Let's come with the good stuff.

00:00:27 Speaker_02
Judging by this opening we're up to, it's going to be a great smart list. Welcome to it.

00:00:48 Speaker_01
Sean, what's on your cap there? Is that a college?

00:00:51 Speaker_04
It's ISU, Illinois State University, where I have an honorary doctorate and a scholarship fund set up for people who want to go into music, or the arts, and, sorry, acting.

00:01:00 Speaker_02
Are they still accredited? I mean, after you got a diploma, I heard that after they give you a diploma that they were stripped of their power.

00:01:08 Speaker_01
That sounds like a real, is that an online university? I still wear my sash to bed.

00:01:13 Speaker_02
Once they did an assessment of your intellect, they're like, we gave this guy a fucking diploma.

00:01:18 Speaker_04
Did you really go to ISU? I went to Illinois State University. Yeah, it's one of the greatest colleges ever.

00:01:24 Speaker_02
Okay. Well, hang on. Let's quickly Google that. Because I don't think you're going to like the results. For theater.

00:01:31 Speaker_04
For theater. By the way, you know who went there? Me, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, and I were music majors together.

00:01:38 Speaker_02
I know. We've had him on the podcast. I know. We talked about that. We talked about it for like half an hour. Hey, Arnett, where'd you go to school? I didn't. I dropped out, man. No, but you did go. You went to boarding school. You know where I went?

00:01:49 Speaker_02
I went to fucking Hard Knocks, dude. Oh, bro. The streets. The Hard Knock life with Annie. The streets of Toronto.

00:01:56 Speaker_01
The streets of Toronto. Excuse me. Excuse me. You went to additional voluntary school?

00:02:03 Speaker_02
I did for half a year.

00:02:04 Speaker_01
I love that you call it additional voluntary. No, actually, I should invert that. Voluntary additional school. And I just didn't understand the concept of that. You know? Like... Well, yeah. I mean... I now have an option to not go, so taking that option.

00:02:27 Speaker_01
Sure. You want a good joke? Yeah, sure. I'd love one. I'll just jump in.

00:02:31 Speaker_02
I didn't realize that you were grabbing the reins here. We were just merrily going down a path, but... Let's talk more about your school. Let's just go fucking... Okay.

00:02:38 Speaker_04
Let's talk more about your school.

00:02:39 Speaker_02
I didn't go.

00:02:40 Speaker_04
No, let's not.

00:02:41 Speaker_02
Here we go.

00:02:41 Speaker_04
Ready? The best gift I ever received was a broken drum. You can't beat it.

00:02:48 Speaker_01
Okay, that's all right. That's okay. He doesn't claim these to be great jokes. They're dad jokes. I got a couple laughs in the background there. You should say, do you want to hear a dad joke?

00:02:57 Speaker_01
If you say you want to hear a joke, people are ready for something good. Dad joke means it's not gonna be good. I don't like the term dad joke.

00:03:05 Speaker_02
I think that's lazy to call it a dad joke.

00:03:06 Speaker_01
How about bad joke? Just say bad joke so people aren't expecting to laugh.

00:03:09 Speaker_02
Or like a pun.

00:03:10 Speaker_04
That's okay to say. I got one more. You got one more? Are there any mom jokes? Here's a mom joke. What's faster, hot or cold? Hot, you can always catch a cold.

00:03:19 Speaker_01
That's good. That's good. That's pretty good. I guarantee you at least one of our listeners will be using that today after they get out of their car. Of course. Or off their subway or done with their jog. You know? It's fun. You're welcome.

00:03:35 Speaker_02
I love just... No, hang on, Sean. I love Jason trying to imagine what regular people do. It's so fun. They get on the subway, and then they talk. And then they kiss their kids goodbye, walk out, door, go to job, say hi, boss, office. Want to hear a joke?

00:03:57 Speaker_02
Want to hear a joke at Water Cooler with me. I love Succession, too. What are you watching? I'm also watching Succession. Are you watching it? I am also worried about saying that I don't like it. Do you worry that you're saying it? I do like it.

00:04:11 Speaker_01
I'm just making the joke. Real good opening patter, everybody. Did everybody sleep well?

00:04:16 Speaker_04
I slept really well.

00:04:18 Speaker_01
Patter's over. Let's get to our high-level guest. I slept really good, though. Did you? Actually, that is worth a derail. You wanna talk to us about your sleep? The guest is not gonna wait for your sleep report.

00:04:28 Speaker_02
Well, it's very rare that he has good sleep. Before we get into it, it is true, Sean, and I'm happy for you, and there's nobody... We talk about it all the time.

00:04:36 Speaker_02
Sean, yesterday morning, JB, Sean, I said to him, hey, you got a second, let me know when you got a second, like seven, I'm up at six. I said, let me know when you got a second. It was at seven, he calls me.

00:04:47 Speaker_02
And I thought that he was back, you know his usual thing, he wakes up in the middle of the night and then he goes back to bed at 6.30 until 10, it's whatever. And he was up, and he'd been up since 3.30.

00:04:56 Speaker_02
He's been on a bad run of not being able to sleep, so... So, I slept all through the night.

00:05:02 Speaker_04
I got up to pee, and I went right back to sleep. And why do you think that is? Did you load up on a bunch of sugar before you went to bed? I did a little bit, but because of yesterday, I think, that Will's talking about.

00:05:13 Speaker_04
I think I ran myself around in circles like a little child, being up at 3.30, and then I just crashed, and it made me sleep all night long. It was awesome.

00:05:20 Speaker_01
You nap. Boy, what a fucking story.

00:05:23 Speaker_04
I'll nap like ten.

00:05:23 Speaker_01
I'll nap like ten.

00:05:28 Speaker_04
Good that we stopped for that.

00:05:31 Speaker_01
You were right, Will. Silly me. So today's guest is so immensely accomplished.

00:05:42 Speaker_02
We're gonna see Bateman's face. What a fucking story.

00:05:47 Speaker_01
God, who else slept through the whole night? Make sure you call in. Our lines are open and love to hear about it. So our next guest is so accomplished and so universally loved, okay? He's done everything. He's done television, film, theater.

00:06:14 Speaker_01
It's even got a Grammy, I believe. It's been comedy. It's been drama. It's been popcorn movies. It's been Academy movies. I just don't know what else to say about this fella, except he's a new friend. Oh, okay. Okay. We met online.

00:06:32 Speaker_01
And he is also a Capricorn. And, no, he is a new friend that I'm very excited about. He swings a mean golf club.

00:06:44 Speaker_02
The way that started was he swings... I know, I know. I was like, uh-oh, what?

00:06:52 Speaker_01
He'll take you where you want to go on the weekends, okay? Well, that's what I'm saying. But listen, I love him. He's here. Very kind of him to say yes, because this is a big shot. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Don Cheadle. Hello, Don.

00:07:05 Speaker_04
Oh, I love Don Cheadle!

00:07:06 Speaker_01
People! What's happening, Mr. Don? Good morning.

00:07:11 Speaker_04
Don Cheadle's done everything.

00:07:12 Speaker_01
You know what I was trying to remember, Don? What is that great nickname that you were given because you're so smooth? I couldn't remember it. You told me this on the golf course.

00:07:24 Speaker_05
I think Kelly Slater said that was very Don Chalant.

00:07:28 Speaker_01
Yeah. Don Chalant.

00:07:34 Speaker_05
Is that a new nickname? That's really clever. It's, I'm trying to put it out there, you know. I was gonna try to trademark it, but I was unsuccessful.

00:07:43 Speaker_02
Don Chalant is out there now, just FYI. It's fully out there, and if you happen to run into Don Cheadle on the streets, just immediately, Don Chalant. Let him know.

00:07:53 Speaker_05
Mr. Chalant. You can single gun it or double gun it. I don't know. Okay. Don.

00:08:03 Speaker_04
Don Cheadle, hi. Good morning. What's up, gang? I love Don Cheadle.

00:08:07 Speaker_05
You know, the team was like, you've got to do these guys' podcast. You're going to love them. I love all of you individually and collectively. Not as much when I sat through the banter.

00:08:20 Speaker_01
It's kind of, it's like, remember the, remember the joy that the Regis and Kathy Lee used to give you with that, with that first 10 minutes of coffee patter? That's what we're reaching for, Don, you know?

00:08:32 Speaker_01
No, it was a strong, it was a strong six minutes.

00:08:36 Speaker_02
Don, where are we finding you right now? Because, and the reason I ask is, because you look like you're either coming from or going to the golf course, because you're wearing a zip-up.

00:08:44 Speaker_02
But I want to say, which is surprising, because you are such, you're so busy, and rightfully so, because you're always, you fit in that category for me, too, of people who are always good, no matter what the project is.

00:08:57 Speaker_02
You're so consistently awesome all the time.

00:08:59 Speaker_05
Wait till you see this one.

00:09:01 Speaker_02
Who's gonna take that down? I don't know.

00:09:06 Speaker_04
You know what, Scotty and I just... But I appreciate that. Yeah, Scotty and I just watched, just last week, not even knowing, obviously, that we were gonna be on, because you're Jason's guest, we watched Mission to Mars. I was in that.

00:09:16 Speaker_04
And I was like, there's Don, again. And you're brilliant in it. Always. Always brilliant.

00:09:20 Speaker_01
Because you know I'll watch anything sci-fi. I am picking up on surprise in Sean's voice, though. Right? When he says, and you're brilliant.

00:09:26 Speaker_04
It was like... No, no.

00:09:27 Speaker_01
You were pretty good.

00:09:29 Speaker_04
No, I meant, to Will's point, you're always... I didn't know you were an actor.

00:09:32 Speaker_05
You're... And that you could grow facial hair. I thought it was only Jason who could do that.

00:09:39 Speaker_01
This is not really facial hair.

00:09:41 Speaker_05
This is disgusting. No, it was great.

00:09:44 Speaker_01
You're great.

00:09:45 Speaker_05
I'm in Atlanta, Will, to answer your question. I'm in Atlanta. You're in Atlanta.

00:09:48 Speaker_01
Okay. And what's happening there in Atlanta? Working on something, no doubt?

00:09:53 Speaker_05
I am working on something. It's a project called Fight Night. And I am in this wonderful project with who you guys had on the show, Kevin Hart, Sam Jackson, Taraji Henson, Terrence Howard. Wow. Yeah. It should be, I'm looking forward to it.

00:10:15 Speaker_05
I've shot one day, so I'm looking forward to this.

00:10:19 Speaker_01
You can still be fired. They can still easily reshoot one day. Yeah, it's early enough. Yeah, so watch it.

00:10:24 Speaker_05
I've been replaced before. It wouldn't be the first time. Have you?

00:10:26 Speaker_01
No. Have you? No. I've been replaced before. Oh. I have. I didn't mean to bring up something pink.

00:10:32 Speaker_02
I love that Don's like, no, I haven't. Sorry, I was just kidding.

00:10:37 Speaker_01
Of course not.

00:10:38 Speaker_05
Why do you think I'm on your show?

00:10:42 Speaker_01
Mine was the cruelest though, because I worked my nards off on this pilot. We shot the pilot. It went well, so I thought.

00:10:49 Speaker_01
And then like a couple of days before the big announcements happen about whether pilots are going to get picked up to go to series, I get a call from my agent saying, you are going to, Good news, bad news. Good news is the show got picked up.

00:11:03 Speaker_01
And I said, unbelievably, he goes, here, let me finish. The bad news is that they're going to go a different direction with your character. And I said, OK. Two days later, found out they're actually not picking up the show.

00:11:16 Speaker_01
So could you, I mean, it's just like the worst 48 hours. So good, bad, good. Good, bad, good. I agree with Don. I could have been spared. I could have been spared all of it by just them saying, well, we're not picking up the show.

00:11:27 Speaker_01
Basically, we're all fired, you know. Are you still with this agent? Yeah, that's a good idea. Exactly. No, no, no. That's three or four ago.

00:11:35 Speaker_02
But it's good to know, like, it is personal a little bit, because they were like, hey, we know the show's not getting picked up, but let's let Bateman know that even if it did, he wasn't coming away.

00:11:49 Speaker_05
In the event that this is going forward, not you.

00:11:52 Speaker_02
I got fired, too. I got fired off a pilot that went to series the year before we started Arrested Development. Oh, God bless. And had I not been, I would have been stuck on that show. Don, wait a second.

00:12:04 Speaker_02
So you're in Atlanta, you're doing this thing with Sam Jackson. Are you potentially playing golf with Sam today?

00:12:13 Speaker_05
You know, Sam has been on IR for a minute. I hope he comes off because I would love to. You know, we used to play a lot, but... What's IR? He's nursing an injury or two, so fingers crossed.

00:12:24 Speaker_01
How's his game?

00:12:25 Speaker_05
Sam was like a four. What? Wow. Yeah.

00:12:29 Speaker_01
Damn it. Wow. There's all these people. The game is just so easy to so many people.

00:12:34 Speaker_05
Well, you know, Sam famously, you know, whenever he would get a gig, a part of his contract was they had to get him a membership to whatever local course there was because he's such a freak about it.

00:12:45 Speaker_01
Oh, really? No shit?

00:12:47 Speaker_05
Yeah, he played everywhere. I was like, you can do that? Sam also was, you know, Mr. If you force me, you're bringing me $900 in cash in an envelope the next day, like a drug deal. I was like, this dude's my hero. Yeah.

00:12:59 Speaker_02
By the way, Jason, right now, you see he looked down? He's just gone on his phone, speed dialed the CAA right now. He's like...

00:13:07 Speaker_01
What the fuck? I'm about 12 country club short, damn it. Yeah. All right. Now, how do you like Atlanta?

00:13:17 Speaker_01
You know, I've worked there a lot, and I always thought that it was not going to be a place for me, and every time I worked there, I just love it more and more and more. Are you enjoying yourself there? You've worked there a bunch, yes?

00:13:30 Speaker_05
I've worked here a bunch because a lot of the Marvel stuff was here.

00:13:33 Speaker_03
Right. Oh, right.

00:13:34 Speaker_05
And I've kind of been around it a little bit more, but this is probably the longest stretch that I'm going to be here, so I'm looking forward to, like, getting up to the mountains and going to the lakes and just checking it all out.

00:13:46 Speaker_04
So I did a movie there a long time ago in Atlanta during the summer. Did you guys shoot all those Marvel movies in like the summertime? Because you can't breathe, it's so hot.

00:13:55 Speaker_05
Hot Atlanta. Hot Atlanta.

00:13:57 Speaker_04
Yeah. Yeah. And how do you, you're in those costumes and running around in that heat. Is that what it is? And you're in space?

00:14:05 Speaker_05
Yeah. I mean, I think that was the, oh, there's a callback. Yeah, yeah.

00:14:10 Speaker_04
No, but I mean, isn't that brutal?

00:14:12 Speaker_05
Yeah, it's brutal. I mean, I was, you know, I'm from Kansas City, Missouri, where, you know, 98 degrees and 98% humidity. So I was, I was, I was born for this, you know? Um, but yeah, it's not, it's not fun. But right now it's very cold, actually.

00:14:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, it gets cold. I like it. I like it too. I like JB. I spent the last few years about, last year I spent six months, I think, almost in Atlanta. And, uh, I really liked it. I really liked the people.

00:14:38 Speaker_02
Uh, once you find a kind of a good zone where you can find your stuff and whatever, I liked it a lot.

00:14:44 Speaker_05
You gotta find a zone.

00:14:45 Speaker_02
But I was down in, like, uh, I was down, like, um, right near sort of little five points, like, all in there. Like, that's where I was staying. It was awesome. A lot of great, like, restaurants and... Okay.

00:14:55 Speaker_01
Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um... Jason, have you had enough? Yeah, that's... You opened it. You opened it.

00:15:01 Speaker_02
You opened it. This is like a... This is like the fucking court case.

00:15:04 Speaker_01
You... Good sleep last night, Don?

00:15:08 Speaker_05
You know, what's hilarious with Sean was talking about that is I was very jealous because I did not sleep well last night. That's what I'm saying.

00:15:15 Speaker_01
I had the worst- Worst episode we've ever recorded, right? We're right- From what I did? No, no, it's all my fault. All my fault. I'm talking about fucking Atlanta. We're talking about the weather. We're talking about sleep.

00:15:27 Speaker_01
It's like, let's get to something hard hitting. Now, somebody told me the other day that Kansas City- Oh, here we go. Kansas City is actually split right down the middle, the border between Kansas and Missouri. You still don't have it, JJB.

00:15:42 Speaker_01
You still don't have it. You still haven't got it. That's a whiff. No. Help me, people.

00:15:49 Speaker_05
No, no, no. There's one in Kansas and there's a Kansas City in Missouri. I mean, they're close.

00:15:55 Speaker_01
Wait, there's two different places called Kansas City. No, honestly.

00:16:00 Speaker_02
I know, I know. John's about to leave. John, this is, this is every day, by the way.

00:16:04 Speaker_01
This is how it goes. 54 years old, and this is, this is, I'm just now getting clarity on this. Let's, let's, let's do it publicly. There are two, two places called Kansas City. One's in Missouri, one's in Kansas. Yeah. Correct. Yeah.

00:16:15 Speaker_01
And which one's got the Chiefs? There is a border. Which one's got the Royals? Missouri. Missouri.

00:16:20 Speaker_02
Missouri's got what let me just say this Don take a look at JB's face. Yeah, JB walked on through the gummy routine This is gonna explain a lot.

00:16:30 Speaker_01
Welcome through the timing and guys are still up.

00:16:32 Speaker_05
I'm still up from last night's chew No, now we talked about this a little bit on the golf course.

00:16:38 Speaker_01
I don't remember.

00:16:38 Speaker_05
I don't know if you remember I'm sure you don't remember because your gummy program

00:16:42 Speaker_01
No, no, never, never when I'm golfing. Golfing's serious business. You said that. Now, wait a second. What, but what sports team does Kansas City, Kansas have? The Royals? He's still, he's here. Is it the Royals? It's crazy. No, no, honestly.

00:16:56 Speaker_01
Is it the Royals? No, that's also necessary.

00:17:00 Speaker_05
Do we want to just ask, go to like the, the interwebs?

00:17:02 Speaker_01
So Kansas City, Kansas has nothing. Is that correct? Yeah. No sports teams. No professional sports teams. Yeah, man. I'll let it rest now.

00:17:11 Speaker_05
I mean, honestly, honestly, they're all looking it up. America. I've never looked into it this deeply. You might be absolutely right. I just know he's not right.

00:17:20 Speaker_04
He's not right. No, you're right. Kansas has the Royals. Are there any sports teams in Kansas city? I'm so sorry, America. And specifically, Kansas city has had teams in all five of the major professional sports leagues. Three major leagues remain today.

00:17:33 Speaker_04
Is that Missouri or is that Kansas? That's Kansas city, Kansas.

00:17:37 Speaker_02
Okay. Who's in Kansas city, Kansas.

00:17:39 Speaker_01
I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Boy, this is again. This is Kansas City. We're gonna pick this up. Hey Don, how'd you get started in the business? Yeah, I know. I want to know. JB, fuck you. You have... I want to know that.

00:17:51 Speaker_05
He's in a little porn called Don Chilantes.

00:17:58 Speaker_04
No, I do want to know, because to me, I've seen you in so many things, and like Will said, always brilliant. Like, to me, you were born on screen. Like, I don't know anything about you other than... I was born on screen. Yeah.

00:18:10 Speaker_04
Other than we run into each other a few times and had lovely conversations. But tell me, how did you get, like, you were in theater in high school?

00:18:18 Speaker_05
Well, sidebar, we played around with doing a movie together at one point. I don't know if you ever got that off. I did.

00:18:25 Speaker_04
Did you get it off? Yeah, it didn't do well. But thank you for your consideration.

00:18:30 Speaker_05
Way to dodge a bullet, Don. I was trying to give a compliment and went right in the trash bin.

00:18:39 Speaker_04
No, but were you interested in high school? Like what age, how early did you get the bug?

00:18:44 Speaker_05
So I kind of got the early acting bug, I think I was in sixth grade. I was Templeton the Rat in a production of Charlotte's Web that was written about extensively in the Denver, Colorado periodicals. You can look it up, I'm sure it's still there.

00:19:02 Speaker_05
Sure, no, I don't have time. And I was singled out. I'm just saying I was singled out.

00:19:10 Speaker_01
The standout was the rat.

00:19:12 Speaker_05
Yeah, and when Cheadle hits the stage, hold on to your, yeah. So I did that, but I was also doing music kind of at the same time. That's when I got involved in playing my saxophone and instrumental jazz.

00:19:29 Speaker_05
So I kind of was on these two tracks of really studying music. And when I went to high school, I had a great acting coach, a great acting teacher, a great drama class. And I was in a really, a really good jazz band. So I was kind of on these two tracks.

00:19:46 Speaker_05
And I graduated from high school. I had applied for both things to go into music to go into vocal jazz to go into instrumental jazz and also to study acting, theater acting. And I got some scholarship money from a bunch of different places.

00:20:01 Speaker_05
And I kind of made... For acting or music or both? Both, I had both. But I kind of made not only a weather choice, but I think I made a choice based on what I believed I was going to be able to actually do.

00:20:15 Speaker_05
Because I grew up with musicians now who are like professional musicians and who are hugely successful and incredible.

00:20:21 Speaker_05
And I knew what it was going to take to actually be able to do that, go down that road and shedding and learning theory and doing all those things that I was like, I'm not, I know I'm not going to do that.

00:20:35 Speaker_05
I think I'm probably going to spend my time more being out of the house, being with other people and pursuing acting. And I loved it equally, so I kind of went up that road.

00:20:46 Speaker_04
Yeah, there's definitely science and math to music that you have to want to

00:20:50 Speaker_05
And I think it kind of, I was intimidated by it a little bit, to be honest. I think I was a little, you know, I'd gotten by, I had really good ear and I'd gotten by on really being able to hear music rather than understanding how it broke down.

00:21:02 Speaker_05
And I was kind of wide-eyed when I'd get into the weeds on that.

00:21:05 Speaker_04
I get that.

00:21:06 Speaker_05
I kind of ran into something that I felt more comfortable with. But it's funny that the music has kind of come back around and that's become a bigger part of my career now, too.

00:21:13 Speaker_02
But, Don, did you ever, and Sean, forgive me for taking your question, but did you ever think about, you know, kind of like when that guy dropped the chocolate in the tub of peanut butter and they came up with the Reese's, did you ever think of taking the music and dumping that into the theater and going into musical theater, Sean?

00:21:30 Speaker_02
Five, six, seven.

00:21:34 Speaker_01
Did you ever get into that stuff? Oh, he sure did. Let's talk about the Tonys. Go ahead.

00:21:40 Speaker_05
Well, I've never gotten one, but I did produce the Tonys, award-winning show called Strange Loop.

00:21:49 Speaker_04
Yes. Oh, my God. That's right. With Barbara Whitman. Yes. Right? And she produced the play I just did. That's right. Yeah. Congrats on that.

00:22:00 Speaker_05
Thank you. Thank you. Crazy. Great show.

00:22:03 Speaker_02
But did you yourself, were you yourself at, like in high school or afterwards in college?

00:22:09 Speaker_05
Absolutely. Yes. I mean, when I graduated high school, the choice I made was to go to, I came to California and I studied at California Institute of the Arts. And we, you know, did everything there. Musicals and dramas and classical piece.

00:22:26 Speaker_05
We did everything. It was really a great, um, experience for me and a place to be able to try everything and make a lot of mistakes and not get fired for it as a result.

00:22:37 Speaker_04
Get ready, because I love horrible theater stories, things that go wrong. So just get one ready.

00:22:41 Speaker_05
Oh, yeah. They're the best.

00:22:43 Speaker_01
You can't wish them to the wrong people. Before we get to one of those, can you guys extend your tolerance for my lack of intelligence again? Is Kansas City, are you gonna go to the Chiefs and the Royals again?

00:22:52 Speaker_02
It's worn pretty thin at this point.

00:22:54 Speaker_01
It's stretched very, very thin. Yeah, don't bring that back. So if I'm on the border between, no. And we will be right back.

00:23:06 Speaker_03
And now, back to the show.

00:23:08 Speaker_01
So, jazz. Talk to me about jazz. Now, I'm a big music fan, and specifically classical music, and so I feel like if I love classical music, I could really love jazz, because it's a little easier to love. It's a little more toe-tappy. But,

00:23:26 Speaker_01
I got to understand it a little bit more. And I'm hearing that jazz, its real appeal is knowing that for the most part, it's improvised. Is that correct? Or is it more traditionally written out in their sheet music?

00:23:42 Speaker_05
That is a component of it. And I think the umbrella of jazz under that are many, many subdivisions and categories. It's a huge sort of a blanket term, especially by now.

00:23:53 Speaker_05
You know, if you think of somebody like Robert Glasper, who I won a Grammy with for producing the album Miles Ahead. Anyway.

00:24:02 Speaker_02
Sorry, your cough sounds terrible. Your cough sounds really bad.

00:24:06 Speaker_05
My second Grammy, sorry.

00:24:07 Speaker_02
You've got a really terrible cough.

00:24:10 Speaker_05
Yeah, thanks, Bill. Let me get a little water here. Wait, are you close to an EGOT? Two Grammys. Oh, now you have to clear.

00:24:18 Speaker_04
Your throat's clear now. I want to get that look back. Okay, that's good now.

00:24:22 Speaker_01
Do you have a nomination EGOT? I think you do. Yes? I have a nomination EGOT, yes, but not- Wow. I don't have them all. That's pretty fucking good.

00:24:32 Speaker_05
Wow. But like Rob Glasper, you look at his music and he's, you know, he's- spans the globe of what his musical knowledge is and his experience.

00:24:42 Speaker_05
And he does popular stuff, black radio, which is sort of, I think you would think of more as like R&B influenced, and then he does straight ahead, you know, jazz and standards, and he does everything in between.

00:24:53 Speaker_05
So I think if you were to ask a musician like that what jazz is, Or even if you were going to go back and ask Miles Davis what jazz was, he hated that word. He was like, that's a word to box somebody in. It's about good music. It's about social music.

00:25:07 Speaker_05
So I think there are different, like when I get in the car and the driver taking you somewhere is like, let's put on some jazz. And he puts on smooth jazz. It's like, I want to shit. I hate it.

00:25:18 Speaker_02
I'm the same. Don, you have to forgive Jason, because they don't do explanations of jazz on the Hollywood Reporter homepage, so he wouldn't read it. But let me just say this. We did this bit in our show Flaked. Nothing, huh? Okay.

00:25:33 Speaker_02
So, where we had, uh, where we did, uh, this guy's getting ready to have this girl over for a date, and then his buddy suggests he put jazz on.

00:25:42 Speaker_02
And they look at each other, and they're like, and they're unsure, and he goes, I'm not sure where I fall on jazz.

00:25:46 Speaker_02
And our joke was always that, like, I can't figure out if it's cool to say I do like it, or if it's cool to say I don't like it, and I'm still trying to decide where I land on that. Yeah, yeah.

00:25:58 Speaker_04
Me too, like I just feel like I you know, everyone says you should go to New Orleans for the jazz festival or when you should Yeah, I'm more like I'm open to it if there's a melody that I can hum back like a song I'm not open to the Jazz that's just people just playing sort of fusion the improvised fusion is anything you can't whack off to anything

00:26:29 Speaker_05
I love it all, because if you're really, you know, if you're... Jazz, you can whack too. Sorry. Jazz. No, latch on to it. Grab your thing and have some fun. Yeah.

00:26:41 Speaker_02
A new thing. A new channel. JB, you heard it too, right? I think I might have.

00:26:45 Speaker_01
So, Don, so you're learning the saxophone at an early age. That gets you into music. Eventually, you find an appreciation for Miles Davis and then that project comes about. Was that a documentary that you produced? No, no.

00:27:03 Speaker_05
No, no. A movie.

00:27:04 Speaker_01
A film. And you played him? Yes? Yes.

00:27:08 Speaker_04
We're not good journalists. Brilliantly. And I remember you telling me when I ran into you, you were working on that. You were so great. Some nominations or even some wins for that, I believe.

00:27:16 Speaker_05
Well, that was the Grammy that we got for the soundtrack, which is really cool. That one we put together with Rob Glasper. He and I put that together. So that was really cool. But yeah, I think it's a big category. Talk about jokes on shows.

00:27:27 Speaker_05
We had one on Black Monday where I'm talking to, thank you very much. I'm talking to Regina Dawn, her name, the character's Dawn about it. And she goes, yeah, I can never get into jazz.

00:27:38 Speaker_05
It just always sound like a bunch of instruments thrown down the slightest stairs.

00:27:46 Speaker_01
Now, in my incredible research, did you really work on the Fresh Prince?

00:27:53 Speaker_05
Funny enough, I did. I was on one of the first episodes of Fresh Prince and I have a funny pilot firing story too. I love it. About a pilot that didn't go.

00:28:03 Speaker_05
So I did the, I think it was the second or third episode of the Fresh Prince where Will was still super green. He's like mouthing everyone's words, you know, along with his, so he'd say his line and he'd be staring at you and you'd say your line.

00:28:17 Speaker_02
Yeah, he's mouthing it. That's such a thing. We've all worked with people who do that. It's such an actor thing, right? Where you're like, are you mouthing my dialogue to me as I'm saying it?

00:28:27 Speaker_05
Yeah. So he was so studious. You know, he knew everybody's lines, and then he would, like, mouth everybody's lines.

00:28:33 Speaker_05
But so we did that one, and by the third or fourth show, the creators, Susan and Andy Borowitz, who were the head writers on the show, they said, we want to do a show around you. Uh-oh.

00:28:47 Speaker_05
Not necessarily based on the character that you're playing on this, but we just want to do a show around you." And I was like, okay, that's cool. So they wrote this show. How old were you? I don't know. when I did Fresh Prince. Yeah. Early 20s?

00:29:00 Speaker_05
Is that really germane to the story?

00:29:02 Speaker_01
I think it is. I mean, you're just gonna come in with the outlaw dream.

00:29:04 Speaker_05
When you get offered your own show, it's like, what? I was six, okay? I was fucking six. No, he's just jealous.

00:29:08 Speaker_02
He's just jealous because he's like, when are you getting offers for your own show? And he's like, I worked my whole life. Michael Landon didn't create a show for me. Sorry, JB. I know that guy.

00:29:18 Speaker_05
Michael Landon. Um, so no, I, this, so I did, so third day, they come down, they're like, we want to do the show. I said, okay, great. So they wrote this pilot. We shot the pilot. It's called In the House. I wrote the theme song to the thing.

00:29:32 Speaker_05
It was just, everything was great.

00:29:35 Speaker_01
Heavy saxophone.

00:29:37 Speaker_05
Super, super heavy saxophone. It was on the schedule. And I, you know, I'm pretty like, I don't believe it until I see it. And I just kinda wasn't believing that it was real. And also it just was a huge thing.

00:29:50 Speaker_05
It was the biggest thing that had happened in my career at that point. I was like, I don't, something's telling me this isn't real. But it was on the schedule, it was going. So like the day before I got this fateful call, I gave my brother my car.

00:30:04 Speaker_05
I was like, hey, it's on, take the car. I'm about to have this huge windfall. I'm ready, and the next day I got a call and they said it's off the schedule. How old I was was Brandon Tartikoff was still running NBC at that time.

00:30:19 Speaker_05
I don't know if people are listening now, but when he stepped down and Warren Littlefield came in, he killed all the shows that were under Brandon and that was one of the casualties.

00:30:29 Speaker_02
You know, Sean, you told me a story, and correct me if I'm wrong, about where you shot the pilot because they had Minionette sauce instead of cocktail sauce for your oysters. Is that true?

00:30:40 Speaker_02
And you guys were about to leave Van Nuys, and you shot... You were so mad. You shot... Because you were like, I hate Minionette sauce. I like cocktail sauce.

00:30:49 Speaker_05
And you shot the pilot and left him on the... But I spared the co-pilot. as a lesson so he could live to tell the story to other pilots to get the sauces right.

00:30:59 Speaker_01
Now, alright, so now Don, could you imagine if that show had taken off, became a big success, you would have been a big sitcom star, I wonder where your career would have Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.

00:31:14 Speaker_01
So going back before that, was there another significant fork in the road, either where you grew up, like a fateful move to a certain city, or what your parents were doing, or saying, or sibling, where you could have easily seen, oh, if I'd just simply gone right instead of left, I would be a veterinarian today, or I would be an architect today, or was there a fork that- That's such a good question.

00:31:39 Speaker_01
Thank you.

00:31:40 Speaker_05
I mean, you know, it's crazy that my fallback was music. Like, if this acting thing doesn't work out, I'll be a jazz musician. That'll get me there. It's like... So, I mean, that's where I was trending. That's what I wanted to do.

00:31:54 Speaker_05
And quite honestly, there's still no greater pleasure that I have, you know, in any sort of performance capacity than being with musicians and creating music. Really?

00:32:05 Speaker_00
Really?

00:32:05 Speaker_05
That's, to me, the highest.

00:32:07 Speaker_00
It is.

00:32:08 Speaker_05
It really is. I think because of, as you were talking about, improvisation, that you're creating things spontaneously.

00:32:15 Speaker_05
I don't know what it's doing biochemically to you, but I'm sure if you have electrodes on and they were testing you, you're getting dopamine hits that are just through the roof because It's just so alive.

00:32:27 Speaker_01
Yeah. And it necessitates this connection with these fellow, pardon the term, artists that you're kind of communicating without speaking and there's a handoff and a yes and thing. You get that also in acting.

00:32:40 Speaker_02
Yeah, you do. And there's also that thing you do when you perform live when you also get that feedback from an audience when you're on stage and you get that thing and it starts to inform you a little bit.

00:32:51 Speaker_02
They become part of your creative process because you get juice from that. I think. Yeah, I agree. Absolutely, you do.

00:32:57 Speaker_05
And it transcends language and it transcends, you know, English, Spanish. We can all speak this language. Yeah, yeah. There's a big unifying thing that it does that's just like beyond.

00:33:11 Speaker_04
I had the same thing, Don. You know, I always had music to fall back on should the, you know, the acting thing, and I still have the music to fall back on if the acting thing doesn't work out.

00:33:20 Speaker_04
But I always thought my fallback was gonna be, oh, I'll just be a pop star.

00:33:25 Speaker_05
Well, you can sit your ass off. So, you had a shot.

00:33:28 Speaker_04
Well, no, but when I was younger... Let's play it.

00:33:30 Speaker_02
Can we just play him a little bit of it right now? We do this every once in a while, Don. Sean? Yeah, no. Now, Don, do you... Bennett's gonna find it for us. He's gonna play it before Don leaves. Bennett or Rob are gonna play it. Drop that needle, Bennett.

00:33:41 Speaker_01
Hey, Don, do you have a place where you go... Like, Woody Allen famously took his clarinet out, I don't know, once a week or whatever, and that's not a... Not a euphemism. Not a euphemism. Right in there, Will.

00:33:54 Speaker_05
You're the best. You're my new favorite guy on the podcast.

00:33:58 Speaker_01
Do you have a place where you go whip out your sax and go play it?

00:34:03 Speaker_05
Rocket, hang on, man. I just said Will got that one. You don't have to jump on Dr. Will's thing.

00:34:09 Speaker_01
I'm trying to piggyback on that.

00:34:10 Speaker_05
Hey, did you hear what I did? Jump on Dr. Will's thing? This is the Triple L funny. Your turn, Sean. Get in there. Ooh, that was a good one too.

00:34:17 Speaker_01
I'll take it all. I'll take it all. There it is. Do you have a band that you play with or a jazz club that you go to every once in a while?

00:34:27 Speaker_05
No, and I've been like bouncing around on, so I played the sax and then I didn't do that, you know, when I went to Cal Arts, it was kind of like a conservatory, the amount of time that you had to spend on all that.

00:34:39 Speaker_05
There was no time really to do anything but theater and voice and movement and dance and all that stuff.

00:34:46 Speaker_05
So I just kind of dropped it and then I was in New York doing a play and I walked by a pawn shop and I saw this beautiful tenor sax and I was like, I'm gonna, pick it back up again. I'm going to see if I have any facility."

00:34:59 Speaker_05
Because you lose your embouchure, you lose that musculature to be able to play it. It's hard to get it back. So I started playing it again. It sounded terrible. I was like, no, just hang out. Just stay with it. So I started doing that.

00:35:11 Speaker_05
And then I took a gig, actually, the Rat Pack movie and playing Sammy Davis Jr., who played drums and played trumpet and, you know, gun twirled and could play piano.

00:35:28 Speaker_05
And so I kind of went back to school again, having lessons from all of these teachers to learn how to do all these different things.

00:35:37 Speaker_05
And that's when I started trying to pick up the trumpet, which became something that I didn't know I was going to need later. when I did the Miles Davis thing. So I've been playing bass more than anything lately and piano more than anything lately.

00:35:51 Speaker_05
I haven't gone back to the sax. I did bring, I bought a really beautiful brand new sax and let this dude play and he just recorded an album with it.

00:35:59 Speaker_05
And it's like, so it's always in the periphery somewhere, but I haven't, you know, I think the most amazing experience I had in musical experience in the last couple of years was

00:36:10 Speaker_05
Rob Glasper, he was recording something, he said, hey, come by, come listen. And I said, yeah, keep a track open because I'm going to bring the bass and I'm just going to kill you guys with some shit. So just keep the track open.

00:36:22 Speaker_05
I was completely joking. And so I came over and I listened to him for a while and he goes, okay, here's the bass, let's go. I said, no, no, no, I was joking. I don't want to play. He's like, oh no, you're going to play. And it became sort of like,

00:36:34 Speaker_05
you know, trial by fire. And I don't play like that. But when you play with great musicians, you know, they lift you up. Yeah.

00:36:44 Speaker_02
And they it's just like, I wish I could find that. Yeah. I just fucking I believe I'm just dragging these guys.

00:36:54 Speaker_04
You seem to be like, like so great at surrounding your life with the things that mean, you know, have great value to music, acting, family, you always seem to be in a great mood to like, golf? Yeah. How do you do that?

00:37:10 Speaker_04
How do you for people who don't know how to do that, where, where they're like, I'm, I'm in this rut, like, to us, we've all found the thing that we love to do or things we love to do. Yeah.

00:37:20 Speaker_04
How did you learn how to gravitate towards the good versus the bad? You know, the things that are good for you, the things that fill your soul, rather than... This is a question.

00:37:28 Speaker_01
This is a question. This is an interviewer, Will. This is somebody who knows how to shape a question, okay?

00:37:34 Speaker_02
Sorry.

00:37:35 Speaker_01
Go ahead, Don. I love the commentary.

00:37:37 Speaker_02
I'm just here for the pot shots from the sideline, man. You know that.

00:37:40 Speaker_05
Will's killing, and you're killing the pot shots from the sideline, by the way.

00:37:43 Speaker_01
I appreciate it, man. Don't encourage him.

00:37:45 Speaker_05
I honestly have to attribute a lot of it, I have to attribute a lot of it to... my upbringing. I was very fortunate to have, and people get to it however they get to it, you know, I was very fortunate to have

00:37:59 Speaker_05
really solid parents, you know, really sort of, you know, corny, traditional, picket fence, three, you know, the 3.5 kids and a dog and the whole thing.

00:38:10 Speaker_05
I really was able to grow up like that with parents that never dissuaded me from going after what I wanted to go after.

00:38:16 Speaker_04
That's great.

00:38:16 Speaker_05
I think it was, you know, really fortunate that my mom was sort of a frustrated, you know, performer, a frustrated singer. So when I wanted to be an actor, she was like, Yes.

00:38:26 Speaker_01
So after that, do you have an older, do you have an older sibling that knocked the crap out of you when you got too, too, too big?

00:38:32 Speaker_05
Yeah. Well, she's a, she's a girl. So I like took advantage of the different months, you know, I had, I was stronger than her. Uh, and then we moved into weapons and that's when I was like, Oh, she's leveled the playing field. So we got to chill out.

00:38:44 Speaker_05
And that's when we stopped fighting. Um, but, uh, just really close-knit family. And it's something I think I just wanted to replicate in my life.

00:38:53 Speaker_05
And I'm really lucky that, you know, I have friends from when I was in elementary school still and from college. And the people that I'm close to are still in my life.

00:39:02 Speaker_05
And I think we all know people who have gotten to a certain place and have looked around and they don't know anybody that's No one that's around them has been around them for five years, and you go, that person's probably gonna have some problems.

00:39:15 Speaker_05
So you need people who will laugh at you and say, you're not important, chill out.

00:39:20 Speaker_02
I don't keep those people around because people can't breathe the air up here the way I can.

00:39:25 Speaker_05
Yeah, you're one of those people we were talking about, Will.

00:39:28 Speaker_02
The air is so thin up here. It's so rarefied that I can barely... I'm handing out masks to these two, because I'm like, guys, we're going on a ride. We're going somewhere. We're going down. Or we're going down. No, it's so important. I love that.

00:39:42 Speaker_02
It is a measure of somebody, by the way, how many old friends they have from back... in the day, and I think I'm with you on that. I think it's really great. I've got a lot of my old buddies, too.

00:39:53 Speaker_01
Now, Don, I got a question here. You've been a part of so many incredible projects. I want to know if any of them felt or smelt like turds right in the middle of it, and you were shocked at the end of it that it turned out so well. Projects like...

00:40:14 Speaker_01
Crash, Oceans 11, 12, or 13. Traffic, out of sight, boogie nights. I mean, yeah, any of the Marvel stuff. Did any of them just like go, oh Jesus, what did I do here?

00:40:28 Speaker_05
I think I've had the opposite where I'm like, this thing's gonna crush. And then it comes out and I'm like, ooh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:36 Speaker_01
Not so much.

00:40:37 Speaker_05
Not so much, right. I mean, we don't know, right? You just go in with, you know, your best, you know, you've made the best decision you could and you go in and throw everything into it. And then sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.

00:40:50 Speaker_05
But I've never, you know, I've always had, I've always believed that the thing I've said yes to has value and it's going to be good and the experiences. And then it turns into being what it's going to be.

00:41:02 Speaker_05
I've been really fortunate to have really, really great experiences. I've had very few, experiences where it's a toxic set and people are horrible.

00:41:13 Speaker_05
You know, I've just been very, very, I've been, the things I've gravitated toward have gotten made and I've just been very, very fortunate. I've had a very blessed career.

00:41:21 Speaker_01
You've clearly got a nice connection going with Steven Soderbergh, yeah?

00:41:24 Speaker_02
Yeah. I heard the set of Chernobyl was toxic. Nice, Will.

00:41:28 Speaker_01
Hey, uh... That's a great show, by the way. It's a fucking great show. You and Soderbergh have a great rhythm going, yeah? You see working with him again in the future, probably? Yes, of course, right?

00:41:40 Speaker_05
Yeah, I mean, we have stuff... We're trying to develop things as we speak. There's a couple things.

00:41:45 Speaker_02
I love... Out of Sight is such a great fucking movie, man. Isn't it good? So underrated and overlooked. such a good movie. Yeah. God damn it. Despite Clooney's looks, it's so good.

00:41:57 Speaker_01
I know, it's tough to get around. But Soderbergh's just, he's, Soderbergh's such a beast. What a good guy too, but I mean like writing and directing and camera operating and editing and I just, I would imagine that's got to be um,

00:42:11 Speaker_01
an easy voice to follow considering he's kind of... Are you trying to dovetail into you?

00:42:16 Speaker_05
No, no.

00:42:16 Speaker_01
No, no. That's what I'd like to do.

00:42:18 Speaker_05
But can I take a minute to honestly actually... Spike it.

00:42:23 Speaker_02
Spike it. He served it up.

00:42:25 Speaker_05
He might as well spike it. Guys, take a second. I do wanna spike it. I'm a big, I'm a big Jason Bateman fan.

00:42:31 Speaker_05
I'm just gonna say I'm a big Jason Bateman fan and I'm really, I love everything that I'm seeing you do and I saw you in a round table talking about, you know, understanding as an actor what you were going to be doing as an editor and knowing when you get into the editing room what you're going to be able to use and not use and how you kind of craft

00:42:51 Speaker_05
your performance based on that. And I was like, that's so fucking smart. And such a cheat, by the way.

00:42:58 Speaker_02
It's really fun, because he lives his personal life like an editor, too. So he's always thinking about the results.

00:43:03 Speaker_01
Cut you off. Fuck off. Trimming you. Well, now, Will, what Don's doing here is he's dovetailing into his accomplishments as a director as well. That he has... I wanted to get into that.

00:43:15 Speaker_01
He has gone ahead and he's taken all the incredible set experience he's had and lent that to the directing experience, right? And made everybody's life a lot easier, I would imagine. They'll never do it again? Come on. They'll never do it again. Why not?

00:43:29 Speaker_01
Bullshit, you must love it.

00:43:30 Speaker_05
I don't anticipate ever doing it again.

00:43:32 Speaker_01
Come on, you've done it a handful of times at least. That was enough. Really? Why? Is it the workload or the pressure or the time commitment or what?

00:43:43 Speaker_05
It's the pressure. Honestly, it's the pressure. I think, you know, my agent one time said, you know, good actors are just like, can be, and sometimes need to just be hard sons of bitches.

00:43:56 Speaker_05
They just have to be able to, not necessarily in how they deal with people, but you have to have a, the ability to have stuff kind of roll off and be thick skinned and not have it be, you know, penetrate and keep moving.

00:44:11 Speaker_05
And I think I have more, I'm more like sort of bandied about by the things that happen and the things I wasn't able to get. And I just, and it's something that I'm learned about myself going through that experience.

00:44:26 Speaker_05
I'm like, oh, I'm a lot more porous in that regard than I thought I was.

00:44:29 Speaker_01
As an actor, you can ignore a lot of drama or problems or complications with the production. You just kind of sit in your trailer and someone else will figure it out. As a director, you can't hide from anything. None of it.

00:44:40 Speaker_03
Yeah. We'll be right back. And back to the show.

00:44:47 Speaker_02
John, you bring up a really good point, though. It is true, you know, actors, as we know, historically, you take a lot of heat. People go like, oh, fucking actors.

00:44:54 Speaker_02
Or you hear people write, like, even people you grew up with, like, what's your life like now you're an actor? You see that people have this sort of thing. And I always say, and they're like, oh, yeah, but you're just an actor and everything.

00:45:04 Speaker_02
Like, yeah, I am friends with, I am an actor. I'm friends with tons of actors, some of the most creative, amazing people. And on top of that, to what you were saying,

00:45:14 Speaker_02
There also, it is a tough road, as you know, from when you're younger to start to do the things that you want to do. And you have to, you do put up with a ton of disappointment. You get kicked in the nards on a daily basis.

00:45:27 Speaker_02
You know, my own experience, I lived in New York for ten years and was trying to get fucking work and just got kicked in the nards. And then as I'd go down, wincing in pain from getting kicked in the nuts, I'd get kicked in the face.

00:45:38 Speaker_02
You know like Jason's like you saying like the show's here's the better you you you're fired And then the next day the show's fucking gone, and you're like fuck. I didn't need those two kicks Yeah, and by the way, and it's not once a year.

00:45:51 Speaker_01
It's like yeah, two three times a week for years Things are going well for you because those two or three those two or three rejections each weeks mean you got two or three auditions that week which is really good and

00:46:02 Speaker_02
And I'm not saying to feel sorry for it, but it is... Right, Don? It's a tough... You just gotta keep going. You do have to have a little bit of... You show your mettle a little bit.

00:46:11 Speaker_05
Well, for me, I really could... I'd sound like an idiot, Aaron, you know, complaining about anything about my acting. career because, again, I was super, super fortunate. I've never done anything but this to support myself.

00:46:25 Speaker_05
I got my first job when I was still in college in my junior year. I got a gig. Oh, I did get fired from a job. That was actually the first job. I got an AT&T commercial.

00:46:40 Speaker_05
where a kid was supposed to be on the phone and sort of trying to dodge the questions that his mom was asking because he was not doing so well. She goes, how are your grades? And he's like, uh, my grades? I can't hear you. This connection is bad.

00:46:53 Speaker_05
She's like, no, I can hear you great. And it was AT&T. You know, you can't fake the funk, you know, one of those things.

00:46:59 Speaker_05
So I was running on my, I was going out of the door to do this audition and the phone rang in the hallway and I just kind of knew it was for me and I picked it up. It was my agent. She goes, uh, Don, bad news.

00:47:11 Speaker_05
They're not, they're not going to use you in the spot. I was like, what? Why? She goes, they don't want to portray a black kid as failing out of college. I was like, so they're going to give a white kid my job?

00:47:24 Speaker_04
Wow, yeah, the irony of that.

00:47:27 Speaker_05
That is crazy. That's what's gonna happen. So, I actually did get fired from a job I got. That was the first one. But yeah, but for me, the acting thing has been, I've been, like I said, I've been very blessed, very fortunate.

00:47:39 Speaker_05
But the directing part of it, yeah, it's really just, it's been... these particular experiences I've had, not when I've directed my show.

00:47:49 Speaker_05
That's a little bit more of a comfort zone, a little bit more support I've had, and a little bit more resources and people to rely on. But, you know, I made, we made Miles Ahead for $8.5 million.

00:48:02 Speaker_05
in a town that had only done one other movie before that, where we would show up and there was no redundancy in the departments. We'd have two cameras and only one cameraman. I'd be like, where's Phil? It's like, oh, he took a commercial with Dayton.

00:48:17 Speaker_05
You know, coming in one day and I was like, where's the, we had her in the scene. She's like, yeah, she didn't want to come today. I'm like, but we shot, she's in the scene. They're like, yeah, she doesn't want to come.

00:48:26 Speaker_05
So I'm like, put this woman in the dress, turn her back to the camera. Like every day it was something like that.

00:48:31 Speaker_01
Always solving problems.

00:48:33 Speaker_05
But the problems that didn't make sense, like the fire alarm going off and then the fire, then the actual firemen coming and coming in while we're shooting the scene. And so, okay, August, we'll shoot this MOS and just mime all these things.

00:48:45 Speaker_05
We'll do it in post. I get, you know, just every day it was something like that. My wife came out to see me and she said, you can't do this anymore. You know, I lost weight. It was just, yeah, it's bad. So I have a lot of scar tissue.

00:48:58 Speaker_05
So maybe if I get some sort of procedure where I can scrape that off, I'll try it again.

00:49:02 Speaker_04
For the emotional scars. I have a question just about your acting style and approach because when I first saw Ocean's Eleven, and which you were brilliant in.

00:49:14 Speaker_04
I'm not making this up, like halfway through the movie because of your accent, I was like, oh, wait, is that Don Cheadle? Like you didn't do anything to your appearance. You just changed your kind of way. I don't know how to describe it.

00:49:29 Speaker_04
And it's amazing what just an accent can do. How did you find the trust to do that? Why that character like that? And how do you do that like in any character you approach?

00:49:42 Speaker_05
It was written like that and I was going to change it. And my manager at that point said, there aren't black British people? I was like, oh, I mean, yeah. He's like, so why don't you just do it as how it's written? And I was like, yeah, fuck.

00:49:57 Speaker_05
I'll try it. And so while I'm in my trailer with, you know, a vocal coach, a speech coach going over like diphthongs and schwas and stuff, they're out playing basketball. I'm like sitting in my trailer watching them play poker and have fun.

00:50:10 Speaker_05
And I'm like, you know, no, this works. No, uh, no, ah, no, uh.

00:50:15 Speaker_02
Sean, stand up real quick. Sean's wearing a diphthong. Stand up real quick.

00:50:22 Speaker_05
Oh, that's nice. That's a nice diphthong. But I was famously murdered. You know, people hate... People are split right in the middle on that. The people that hate that... I hate it.

00:50:34 Speaker_05
When I was in London, I almost had to get security because people wanted to kill me. Your accent? Based on how bad they thought that accent was. Oh, the accent in... Why? They hated it and me.

00:50:45 Speaker_05
People literally drove, they would see me and come across four lanes of traffic to pull up next to me to scream at me about how bad the accent was.

00:50:55 Speaker_01
No. Oh, my God. I totally bought it. I totally bought it. Is it safe to say you'll never do another British accent again? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah, doing an accent, I believe, that would be... It takes a lot of guts.

00:51:05 Speaker_01
...very, very tough for me, because you're acting twice, right? You've got to do performance and you've got to do the accent. And some somehow just fit.

00:51:11 Speaker_02
Would you make them pay twice, Jay? I know Jay very well. I would like to. Would you make them pay twice? I would like to. I would like to.

00:51:17 Speaker_05
What were you going to say, Don? No, I'm just going to say, and some of them, you know, fit better than others that I've attempted to take on, you know. But they're all, like you said, it's all tricky.

00:51:28 Speaker_05
Like you're kind of acting through a mask and you're trying to make that mask be as real and as facile as you can. It's tricky.

00:51:36 Speaker_01
Right, right, right. Now of all of these incredibly high-profile films, which one do you think gave you the most useful bounce? Was it Devil in the Blue Dress?

00:51:53 Speaker_05
I would guess. Devlin in a Blue Dress was probably, I was on Picket Fences for a couple years before that. You know, I was 12th on the call sheet and you guys know what that is.

00:52:03 Speaker_05
I'm sitting in the trailer all day and they're like, we're coming to you next, we're coming to you next. And they're like, oh no, we're not gonna use you today. And you'd been in the trailer for 12 hours.

00:52:11 Speaker_05
So I started writing, that's when I started writing and just as survival, just to not go crazy.

00:52:17 Speaker_01
But then along comes this film with Denzel Washington and it was, did you leave that project with any pearls of wisdom from Mr. Washington?

00:52:28 Speaker_05
I mean, it was an incredible experience. It was directed by Carl Franklin, who I did his AFI thesis project, you know, his graduation project. So I had known him from before. So that was really old home and felt great.

00:52:45 Speaker_05
And Denzel and I, from the audition on, which is online actually, our audition is online. Oh, no way. Yeah. And so is that pilot that I mentioned, by the way. People find shit and upload everything. But we just had a great time.

00:53:02 Speaker_05
And of course, I was just in awe of him and, you know, worked as hard as I've ever worked on anything to make sure I was in the pocket you know, when I was with him, I didn't come out. I was super methody. I was not great character.

00:53:18 Speaker_05
I was mouse all the time. You know, I just stayed in it. And I, yeah, I had a great experience. I loved that movie and I loved that experience.

00:53:26 Speaker_01
Would you, if you had, if you had, say you had a scene with, cause you know, you're Denzel now to, to, to, to, to a young actor, if you were to do a film with it, what, what, what would you say to a young actor today that you wish you'd known back when you were just starting out?

00:53:43 Speaker_01
Stay out of my fucking light. Do you upstage me or shadow me? Don't you dare attempt to overshadow me. But we do have a tendency to overcomplicate things, right? And things get more simplistic as we get older. I wondered, aside from just that generality,

00:54:02 Speaker_01
Is there anything specific? I'm trying to think myself what I would tell somebody, you know?

00:54:07 Speaker_02
Probably, probably step away from my BMW. Would you?

00:54:10 Speaker_01
Yeah.

00:54:12 Speaker_05
Which, which, which of your BMWs?

00:54:14 Speaker_02
That's a great.

00:54:21 Speaker_05
I just think that, you know, like we, I think people, underestimate, you know, to what Will was saying earlier, is what we really do.

00:54:30 Speaker_05
I think people think it's super, super easy, and then they try it, and they're like, oh, you're actually trying to be very naturalistic inside a completely unnatural environment where somebody's standing in your eyeline chewing gum, and you know, somebody's making noise off, somebody's, you know, walkie-talkies going off, and you've got to act like this is the first time you've ever done or said any of these things.

00:54:53 Speaker_05
And I think that you only do that well if you're really prepared and you've really done your homework and you're not here just because you think it's going to be cool to cut line at a restaurant.

00:55:05 Speaker_05
You know, it's like, this is, this is a, this is really, I'm not, we're not rocket scientists and we're not, you know, jumping out of airplanes or whatever the hardest shit there is to do or ditch digging, but there is a craft. But we can play them.

00:55:17 Speaker_05
That's what we play the shit out of. And we learn about them. That's another thing. Good actors are students. So we're always in the lab, right? We're always trying to, if I play a doctor, I'm going to read up on doctors. I'm going to follow doctors.

00:55:30 Speaker_05
I'm going to go to hospitals. I'm going to try to sit next to them. If I'm playing a cop, I'm going to do a ride along. So I feel like that part of it often gets overlooked, that we're always in school. learn new things.

00:55:44 Speaker_05
So I think that's a great boon for us as artists, that we're always expanding ourselves.

00:55:50 Speaker_01
Yeah. Now, Sean doesn't want you to get away without, you know, searching your memory for a really tough theater story, you know, like forgetting your lines or trying to give up, you know.

00:56:03 Speaker_02
A sandbag fell from above. And I landed in the first row in the woman's lap, and she said, you think you're drunk, wait till O'Toole comes out, or something like that. Right, Sean? Is that what you were at? Oh, you were at that performance.

00:56:17 Speaker_02
You were there.

00:56:18 Speaker_05
That's exactly right. But I said, wait till my tool comes out. Double guns. Yes!

00:56:29 Speaker_04
Don Chalant. Don Chalant. Don Chalant strikes again. Is that you, Sean? Oh, this is me singing, yeah. It's horrible. Here we go. It's so bad. Okay.

00:56:46 Speaker_05
That's enough. Is that tabla? Is that some tabla? Okay, that's good.

00:56:53 Speaker_02
It's like Jimmy Somerville from Bronski Beat was put in the back of a van and driven to Beirut and forced to make a fucking Middle Eastern dance record.

00:57:03 Speaker_04
Jimmy Somerville in Beirut, that's the name of the album. Oh, Sean. Yeah, did you ever see, by the way, did you ever see Ricky Gervais' music videos or anything? Oh, yeah, those were tough.

00:57:12 Speaker_03
Brilliant. Yes.

00:57:13 Speaker_04
Yeah, that's what, that's some other path. But yeah, do you have any, like, tragic, horrible theater gone wrong?

00:57:21 Speaker_05
My tragic, the most tragic thing other than a real injury that I suffered during a play, same play, by the way,

00:57:28 Speaker_05
We were doing Cymbeline at The Public that Joanne Echolitis directed, who is an experimental director from Mabu Minds, if people want to go back and look at all that stuff. She's great. But we had an actor, Stefan Schnabel,

00:57:46 Speaker_05
who played the doctor in this play. And you know, it's kind of a stereotypical Shakespeare fifth act wrap up where one character knows everything that happened in the play. Like, you're his niece and she actually has the potion.

00:58:05 Speaker_05
And this king knew him as a... Like they unwrap the whole thing and we're all on stage going, Oh, that's how I did that. So he had this last, you know, speech that he had to give. Stefan was, I think, 98 at the time.

00:58:19 Speaker_03
Uh-oh.

00:58:20 Speaker_05
Wow. So it comes time for him to wrap this up. And he goes up. Forgets his lines. Yeah, forgets his line, goes up, forgets his lines for those who want the theater vernacular. And he starts,

00:58:37 Speaker_05
stammering and making up words and basically just sort of like, you know, standing in place and teetering. And no one, you can't give somebody in Shakespeare, you know, it's not, we're not doing something naturalistic.

00:58:52 Speaker_05
You can't come up with some, you could try to come up with some iambic pentameter and like slip a line there to help him along the way.

00:58:59 Speaker_05
but it went on so long that first the audience sort of laughed and then realized, oh, it's not a bit and stopped laughing. And then the other half of the audience laughed and then half the audience shushed that part of the audience that laughed.

00:59:13 Speaker_05
And then the actors on stage kind of were starting to laugh. You know, those two that would start to laugh and everyone's like, shut the fuck up. And then everybody stops laughing. And he's still kind of- He's still trying to pull it off.

00:59:24 Speaker_05
He doesn't think anyone's noticed. Trying to pull it off. This went on for probably two minutes. You know how long two minutes is. You guys have died for two minutes, for sure, collectively on this show, for 100%. It feels like a long time.

00:59:40 Speaker_05
Yeah, it's a long time.

00:59:41 Speaker_01
She says it's not.

00:59:43 Speaker_05
Joan Cusack, who was the lead in it, who played Cymbeline, just finally just started saying his lines. She just couldn't take it anymore. And he kind of revved up and got through it and then got off stage and he said, I want to kill myself.

00:59:55 Speaker_05
I have to quit.

00:59:57 Speaker_02
And you're like, you're 98, there's no point.

01:00:00 Speaker_05
Yeah, you're gonna be dead soon, I guess, is what Joan said, to try to like, you know, bolster his ego.

01:00:06 Speaker_02
Good Lord, yeah. That's the scariest thing ever. Wow, fuck. It was really sad. Going up on your dialogue like that on stage.

01:00:13 Speaker_01
It's the scariest thing in the world. Right? There's just nothing. You don't need that crap at 98. There's nowhere to hide.

01:00:18 Speaker_04
Yeah, there's nowhere to hide. Right. But now, Don, you're like one of the sweetest people ever. What pisses you off? Because I can't, the few times I've met you, even today, you're always just very in the middle, very cool, calm, collected. Gummy.

01:00:33 Speaker_04
Gummy program.

01:00:35 Speaker_05
What's that? I said I'm on that gummy program.

01:00:37 Speaker_01
Yeah. I bet he's not happy when he blades a bunker shot, right? You hit that ball right in the belly coming out of the sand trap. It's just, you're never happy.

01:00:46 Speaker_05
That's what pisses you off.

01:00:48 Speaker_01
Yeah.

01:00:48 Speaker_05
Immediately, but then I kind of let it go, you know. I think, like, stupidity without any desire to not be stupid pisses me off. I don't mind if you're stupid. People can be stupid.

01:01:01 Speaker_05
But when there are, like, incurious and don't want to actually look under the stupidity and see where that stupidity is coming from, that kind of pisses me. And, you know, as we can see, it's incredibly dangerous.

01:01:14 Speaker_05
And, you know, we're in a sweet spot of stupidity right now for a lot of people.

01:01:20 Speaker_02
Would that extend across all sort of areas, that sort of stupidity, like whether it's history or language or just geography, even basic geography of states and cities within the country that we live. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

01:01:34 Speaker_02
Like if people didn't know where a city was or where a team was.

01:01:38 Speaker_05
It's been explained to them like five times.

01:01:39 Speaker_01
This feels like a shot.

01:01:40 Speaker_05
This is definitely a shot. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think Will's just trying to use... No, no, no.

01:01:45 Speaker_01
It's very general. It's very general. I'm just trying to get a general sense of what Don... Yeah, because Sean, remember earlier in the show, and I had a problem with Kansas City... Well, ignorance isn't stupidity.

01:01:53 Speaker_05
You know, ignorance is anyone can be ignorant, you know.

01:01:55 Speaker_02
That's true. Anybody can be ignorant. Thank you, Jason. So, Don, honestly, you've been a dream. You're such a cool guy. We've never hung out. We threatened once. I was on a, um... I was, Joey Russo wanted me to get into a football fantasy league.

01:02:13 Speaker_02
And I said, no. And Joe said, well, just stay in the chat and talk shit, even though you don't want to play. And I did for about six months, I think. Really? Yeah, you were in there. You were in there. It was great. I was there with Don and Pratt and Rujo.

01:02:26 Speaker_02
And yeah, it was fun. It was a lot like this, just like pot shots from the side.

01:02:31 Speaker_01
It was a lot of pot shots. Well, you know, Will, you and Don should go out and play some golf while I'm on my golf hiatus. And then I'll rejoin you guys in the end of fall. What happened? Why are you on a hiatus?

01:02:43 Speaker_02
He's on a hiatus because he's working. He shot an even par 70 two weeks ago.

01:02:49 Speaker_01
But who cares, really? It's not a big deal. But listen, thank you for joining us today, Don.

01:02:58 Speaker_02
John, will you make me this pledge when you come back that you and I will play? Can we do that? Can we say that'll happen?

01:03:04 Speaker_05
Okay, great.

01:03:06 Speaker_01
He's the absolute greatest.

01:03:07 Speaker_05
Sean, do you play? This should be the foursome.

01:03:09 Speaker_04
I always say I could drive the cart. He loves to drive the cart. It's a date. It's so much fun.

01:03:14 Speaker_02
We get him a soda, we get him like a float, like a root beer float, and he drives that cart.

01:03:17 Speaker_04
No, Donnie, next time you're...

01:03:20 Speaker_02
Sometimes it's early temple, but it's a lot of sugar. It's a lot.

01:03:25 Speaker_05
He's very groggy, and by the 17th hole, he's kind of irritable, a little... Guys, it's good.

01:03:32 Speaker_01
Just pick it up. We gotta go.

01:03:34 Speaker_04
That's totally me.

01:03:37 Speaker_01
Love you, Don. Thank you for saying yes. Love you, pal. Enjoy the rest of your day down there in Atlanta, and say hi to our friend, Mr. Hart, please. I will. Thanks, guys. Great seeing you today. Great to see you, dude.

01:03:49 Speaker_05
Thank you, Don.

01:03:51 Speaker_02
Bye, buddy. Yep, yep.

01:03:54 Speaker_04
I love Don Chalant, it's so good.

01:03:56 Speaker_02
J.B., what a great, what a great, great, great guest. Yeah, yeah, he's the best. God, he's so good, I love that dude.

01:04:00 Speaker_01
Didn't your shoulders just drop when you're talking to him? Yes. Yeah, he's cool. Yeah. I mean, he's just, I can't even find a word.

01:04:06 Speaker_02
Another one of those, mega talent, he falls into that category, mega talent.

01:04:11 Speaker_04
And universally loved. And, yeah, we say this all the time, it seems like the people who work all the time also have wonderful personalities. Yeah, I agree.

01:04:21 Speaker_02
Well, Jamie, you know, you're a director. It's a big part of your career now and your life. And when you're deciding between... You have a lot of options to do stuff with a lot of different people.

01:04:32 Speaker_02
And part of the calculus, I imagine, is, who do I want to spend the next four months with?

01:04:37 Speaker_01
It's huge. And it's before I even start to get excited about the idea of them coming on. And that's cast or crew. I'll do Zooms with people that I may not even see on the set.

01:04:51 Speaker_01
And I just need to know that they're not going to wreck it with their not being nice people. Important. But he's amazing. I could have just gone on forever and ever. We didn't get to much of anything, which is what we do on this show. Sorry, listeners.

01:05:10 Speaker_02
You know, we get a lot of complaints about that. I think that some, from some people who say like, oh, you guys didn't, you just, and what they forget is like, we're just so excited to see Don. So I got like, Don, so we just start talking.

01:05:21 Speaker_02
Yeah, we're not journalists.

01:05:22 Speaker_01
We're just dummies that want to just talk a little bit and can't believe anyone's listening.

01:05:28 Speaker_02
So if you're like, oh, why didn't you, why didn't you get to do what Don's favorite dog type is? We're like, sorry, we're just excited. We just want to talk shit with them. You know what I mean?

01:05:38 Speaker_01
That's on the Smartless Extras, if you want to know his favorite dog type. Exactly.

01:05:42 Speaker_04
Or talk about like vacation spots. Like, I don't know, like, has he ever been to Thailand or Mumbai or like... Mumbai!

01:05:49 Speaker_00
You glaze right over it, Mumbai!

01:06:07 Speaker_02
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