April 7, 2025 • 64 mins
Let's do the Dance of Joy as the gang digs deeper into the TGIF-verse to hang with our distant cousin from Mypos - Balki Bartokomous (a.k.a. the legendary Bronson Pinchot)!
Bronson shares stories from his iconic roles in “Beverly Hills Cop," “Risky Business” and “True Romance," but also opens up about the challenge of playing silly characters when in reality…not everything is silly.
A Friday night neighbor on "Perfect Strangers" AND "Step By Step," he details how he's become an absolute powerhouse in audiobooks and how he responds when someone KINDA recognizes him. Grab a seat, because Bronson Pinchot is chatting on a brand new Pod Meets World...
Follow @podmeetsworldshow on Instagram and TikTok!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Well, this is a bit of a weird update considering, uh,
you know, we're multiple months into the year of twenty
twenty five, but we get a lot of emails. We
get a lot of emails about whether or not we
have exchanged our Christmas gifts. You guys are so cute
(00:40):
with how much you pay attention and care about these
little moments in our lives.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What's gonna happen Like, it's just gonna the pressure is
gonna keep building, Like ten years from now, we're gonna
have to be like buying each other cars.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We don't have to keep getting each other bigger and
better gifts.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
They just want to know what, Yeah, guess yeah, it
sixs a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I mean, whatever when I buy you a Lamborghini next year,
because I know you so well, I know.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
How much you want Lamborghin exactly? Can you also go
camping in it? Can you press a button and then becomes
another thing?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
You can?
Speaker 6 (01:13):
I do have a poster of a Lamborghini as a kid,
of course, a Lamborghini cuontash.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Yeah, one of the worst driving automobiles in history.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
By the way, Yes, they're not a sponsor.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
They know they were. Lamb I don't want a Lamborghini.
I don't want a Lamborghini. I don't I don't want
a laborghady.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, So we did get together.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
We had a wonderful little lunch and we exchanged our
Christmas gifts. So, writer, why don't you go first and
tell everybody what you got?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I got superhero underwear, Yes you did, Spider Man, it's
still in its packaging.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
And how did you fly without them?
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Oh my god? And then you framed our baseball cards, which.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is Allen and ginter tops cards.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Each one of those. I got one myself too.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yes, that was very sweet. Will what did you get?
Speaker 6 (02:09):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
First of all, Danielle, you also got superhero.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
Underwear from me?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I most certainly did. I got superhero boxers.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Shopping for it was really creepy, I.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Know, because at first you didn't go right to boxers,
no superhero, but it was.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Like all these super I was like, wow, oh my god,
I can't look Batman the same if it's a Batman.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
You thought jewelry was too personal to buy me, you know,
tutic imagine buying me a thong.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
So I'm talking to Sue, I'm like, I don't feel
comfortable with this.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
She's like make them boxers. I'm like, okay, that makes
more sense. You guys both got the same pair, And yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
We got the same Christmas gift this year, which is
very cool.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
We both got.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Superhero boxer shorts and are framed.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Down I got, which I'm actually it's funny.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
I'm starting to read about Rider got me an electronic calendar,
which is really cool. But the problem with it is
the screen is small, so as I'm writing on it
with sharpie, there's not a whole lot of room to
put my day stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
The story behind this is that Will can never schedule anything, yes,
without his physical what he calls the big calendar that
is in their house. And so if we're texting or
figuring out and we have to schedule a lot of things,
guys like it's a constant can do this together. That's
why it takes it April, and it's always like I'll
(03:26):
have to tell you when I get home tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
And look at the big calendar, like I can't really.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Also doesn't take a picture of it on his phone.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I've started doing that.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
He can't reference it, he can't tell you what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And he started doing that. I started doing that, so.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
My idea was, let's get Will a big calendar that's electronic,
and then maybe there will.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Be a way to learn how to use it. It
reminds me of my our frame, which I love so
much for a calendar. And then from uh, Danielle, I
got my Batman and it actually works. Huh like it
really Jeck sabacity and it's so cool.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I actually pictured it in your theater room.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yes, I don't know if you can see it.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Now, Will, when you were Batman, was it a slightly
different symbol? It was, right, Yes, it was red. It
was also a different what it's this symbol? Oh right, right, yeah,
that's the Batman beyond symbol.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
This is original. This is a this is eighty nine.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
Old school Yeah yeah, cool.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So I love that. So yeah, I've got it right.
Speaker 6 (04:26):
Here and that stuff.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
It was.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
It was very I don't have my gift.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
If I was recording at home, I could show off
the gift that Danielle got me. Daniel and Jensen got
me this amazing little work of art.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
I don't do you do you have? Do you know
the artist's name, yes, the of your head.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So the artist's name is Scott Hildebrandt and he makes
incredible works of art inside vintage clocks.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, so it's like a vintage alarm clock. I wish
I was in my office show.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
But it's a vintage alarm clock.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And it has this little camper scene of like a
car and a trailer and a little it has a
flickering light so you turn it on. It's the coziest,
coolest little thing. And it's in my office now, it'll
be it'll be behind.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
Me when I'm recording there normally.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Wait, what did you get from?
Speaker 7 (05:10):
Writer?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I got an incredible pullover that has the Grateful Dead
dancing bear on it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
What's the designer?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Writer?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
It's like a design it's a clothing brands clothing.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Oh, Huckberry, like anybody if you if you go on Huckberry,
it's like the rider's strong clothing, like you just look.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So they were doing they did a special like Grateful
Dead limited edition sweat sweater and this was like in
September or whatever, and I was like, oh, gotta get
it for Danielle because she's a dead head now and
I just think it's steral.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
But yeah, it's it's a little Bear's. It's a nice sweater.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
It's such a nice pullover.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's a good quality, it's nice and thick, it's beautiful.
I love it so happy and and we already mentioned well,
got me the Allen and Ginter cards. I'm gonna put
my Allan in Ginter cards. I think right under over
here is where I have the Thomas Guide that I
frame for.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
And I know that so writer obviously doesn't care. But
have you worn your superhero boxers to bed yet?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I haven't. But I don't sleep in boxer shorts.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
But do you either?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
If it's really cold, I have sweatpants on, or I
just like in a T shirt.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Okay, you porky piket in bed?
Speaker 6 (06:21):
Really have this conversation on this podcast. I feel like
we've talked about but because we.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Talked about sleeping naked, so naked, you cover the bottom.
You keep the top is one thing, but cover the bottom. Okay,
I get it. You are You're Donald ducking it in bed?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Welcome to Bond Meets World. I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm right
or Strong, and I'm Wilford. We are very excited for
today's guest. During our journey through Boy Meets World. In
(06:58):
addition to trying to create a definitive audio time capsule
for our own show, we have taken on some quick
side missions, hoping to learn a little bit more about
our Friday night neighbors and the details surrounding a programming
block that would change TV forever. Whether it was Jim Janisek,
the brainchild behind the TGIF campaign, or Nick Backay, a
man who went from a writer to the voice of
(07:19):
a cat who could somehow make us time travel, we
are interested in all the info, and today we're not
only talking to someone who was the star of TGIF's
first ever anchor, but his legendary run on TV and
unforgettable appearances in classic movies makes him a first Ballot
Comedy Hall of Famer. You know him best as Balki
(07:41):
Bartolomeus from the Island of Mepos, a lovable goofball who
has immigrated to Chicago to live with his distant and
unsuspecting cousin Larry. The show ran for eight seasons and
it was a massive hit, with Balki becoming the face
of the channel, and the ratings were so high they
would lead the way on the mission to turn Friday
Nights from a TV graveyard to appointment family viewing. And
(08:03):
even before Balky touchdown in the US, our guest was
already a bona fide movie star. His first movie ever
was alongside Tom Cruise in the seminole eighties movie Risky Business.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Awesome movie, awesome role.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
I'm gonna be saying that all day to day, just
so you know everything you're about to mention.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And it didn't stop there.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Beverly Hills, Cop one, two and three, Ah, After Hours, Ah,
the First Wives Club, I can't And True Romance.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Oh my god, he's got Oh he was so guy.
You've forgot about True He was so good in True Romance.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Oh my Truman, Okay, I have to be honest. True
Romance is the only one of those I've seen.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
You've never seen any of the No, I know, there's
like Cepy Holes and then Risky Business.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
I've never seen either.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
After you've never seen the hours of Scorsese film, Yes, yes, okay,
I have.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
After I know. I just it's actually on my list,
Like I'm dude, it is. It is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Everything.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
You just listen and actually you forgot He's done four
of the uh, Beverly because they just did the new
one and the whole cast got together, got back together.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
He was one banger after and next. And he's never
the lead. He always is a character actor who comes
in and then steals whatever the hell he's in. It's
so good, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
His performance in the first Beverly Hills cop movie, Eddie Murphy.
You see him on camera just trying to keep it
together as he's speaking to him. He's like, Eddie Murphy
is trying not to break. It's so funny, funny, it
is amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
There is no TGIF without cousin Balki, and so we
are honored to welcome a legend to the podcast this
week break out the Dance of Joy.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It's Bronze and Pinchot Bronson. We are so honored that
you agreed to spend some time.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
With us today. So first off, thank you you so much.
It is really great to see you. Before we get
into the branches of our big TGIF family tree, we
wanted to delve a little into your.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Actor origin story.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I know you were born in New York, but you
moved to California at a very young age. But neither
of your parents were in the business. So how did
acting find its way into your life?
Speaker 7 (10:24):
It found its way in. I had a friend I
was I was all ready to be an illustrator and
an artist, you know, painter, illustrator. And I had a
friend who I was an actor at the UCSB Santa Barbara, Yeah,
(10:45):
And I went to see him in a play, a
really interesting, you know, dark Russian play, and I came
home and felt a strange emotion which was something like
I guess initially it it might have been something like jealousy,
(11:06):
but it was so much deeper than that. It ended
up being that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And
now what do I do because I don't have any
acting training, but that's obviously what I need to be doing. So,
uh we were very poor, we were poort so but
but I had gotten a scholarship to go to Yale,
which I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Just just just a scholarship.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
School. I got this scholarship.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
Part of the system.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
So I went and I started to to do you know,
drawing and painting and studying ancient philosophy. But but they
had uh, you know, student plays you could audition for,
and I auditioned for, uh a Shakespeare play and I
got it. I didn't know what I was doing, but
(12:02):
the head of the acting department came to see it
and said, you don't know what you're doing, but there's
something there because when you walk on stage, it's like
a breath of fresh air. Would you like to actually
learn how to do this? And I said I would.
So he created a little tutorial for only just five
(12:24):
of us, and he started to teach us how to act.
I got into it. So at a certain point, the
fine arts department makes you do a portfolio review where
you put up all your stuff and they tell you
what they think. And I remember very distinctly with what
they said. The guy leaned back and he looked at
(12:45):
everything and he said, well, it's very exuberant, although heavy handed,
and I guess we'll take you. But this acting crap
has to stop. And I thought, what is it? You know,
life is just so well scripted. I was like, you're
I went an arrogant butt head, What are you talking to?
(13:08):
What the hell are you talking about? I'll do plays
if I want to. What difference does it make? But
I mean I didn't. It was like done. I don't
want you, you know, you're arrogant and uh, anyway, you know,
drawing and painting is the thing you do by yourself
in an attic, and I'm a very social creature, and
he made the decision for me. It was it was
(13:30):
a terrible thing to say to a nineteen year old,
but a wonderful thing because I literally just was like,
screw you, I don't have anything. No. So fast forward
about a year and I did a I did a
play by Ian Escoll called The Lesson, which is just
a crackpot professor teaching this one student and kind of
(13:54):
coming on to her. And it's it's a very weird play.
But anyway, the director had come in every single day
and just hump. He would just had me get on
top of this actress and it was like an acting exercise.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And I finally said, wait, I'm sorry, did you say
hump or hum?
Speaker 7 (14:12):
Hum?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Oh? I heard hump, and then I wasn't sure how
you were Okay.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
You did have a sexual undertone undertone. So I finally said,
the play is opening in like ten days and we're
doing theater games and I feel really odd about that.
I mean, there's no play happening, So I will I
will propose to you that you go away and I'll
just figure it out myself. And if you don't go away,
(14:42):
I'll go away because you've really had us here for
three weeks.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
You've done nothing well also.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
You know, doing voyeuristic weird stuff. So he went away.
I figured out to play with this with this wonderful
young actress and another young actress who was in it,
and somebody came to see it who was in He
was studying music composition. I wish I remembered his name,
because he's responsible for my whole career. He came to
see it, and then he went back to his class,
(15:09):
which was being taught by a composer named Maury Yeston.
And Maury Yeston was writing incidental music for a play
off Broadway called Cloud Nine, and he mentioned, in passing
to his students, we're seeing people professional actors in New York,
and they're supposed to be funny. They're not. Isn't it
a pity? Because I'm sure there's somebody right, you know,
(15:30):
within spinning distance who is funny. And his students said,
I just saw somebody in a play called The Lesson,
and he's funny. So that the Yeston said well, I'll
get him an audition, and he got me an audition
site unseen. I went down. They kept me waiting five
hours because I was the charity case. But at the end,
(15:51):
at the end of five hours, I did a really, really,
really a good audition and the casting director kim all
the way out of the back of the theater because
she's the one that had kept me waiting five hours,
and she said, where did you come from? I said, well,
I've been in the lobby for five hours, and she said,
well you've you're I didn't. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
(16:14):
see what's up here. So she she took me under
her wing. Her her name was Mary Cahoun. She took
me under her wing, and she she she brought me
to casting sessions. And then I got a play in
New York and the producers of Risky Business came see
the play and cast me in Risky Business, and then
I was off. And so it it it's that's that's
(16:37):
my acting origin story, and that's the that's how it happened,
you know. It's I saw Isabella Rossellini on a thing
the other day saying that she asked her mother Ingrid Bergman,
how do you get into acting? And her mother said,
you don't. If it's a calling, it comes for you,
which is true because you can knock and knock and
(17:02):
knock and knock and knock on the door, but you know,
it's like the mailbox opens and somebody reaches out and
pulls you in. And so that's how that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Wow, And so Risky Business was your first movie.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
It was my first movie.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
And is that the movie that you were auditioning for
at the time where she came out and got you
or was that a different project? And then she.
Speaker 7 (17:26):
Product at the plate the thing where I said, in
the lobby for five hours, which is funny because it
then happened again the second most important juncture of my career.
They had a movie called Beverly Hills Cop and there
was a character in it who was named Jack. He
was American, and there was just a brief scene where
(17:49):
Axel comes into a store, a clothing store called can
you Imagine with a question mark? And there's a character
named Jack who's described as an extremely this is why
I said I wouldn't go in it is described as
incredibly good looking and gay, and he had just a
few lines, and the whole purpose of the scene was
(18:09):
for it was nineteen eighty four, for Axel to just
be like, you know, kind of beat on him because
he was gay and leave. And they came to me
and said, we can't make this funny. And I looked
at it and said, I wonder why there's there's it's
a it's a one beat. You know, it's one beat.
It's it's the main character being kind of like a
(18:31):
jerk too. So they said, well, can you can you
come up with something? So I said, I don't know,
there's nothing really there. But I took a long, long
walk with the script and I kept doing it and
doing it. I was like, what, And then it came
to me that it might work if I did the
voice of this Israelian makeup lady that I'd worked with,
(18:51):
and also her body language because she had no bones.
So I went and the director, Marty Breast, he really
loves actors. He loves them so much that I sat
there for three hours. Three hours is a long time,
so long, and I sat there for three hours and
I thought, I should you know, I've I've been in
(19:14):
risky business, and I've been in the Flamingo kid, and
why do I have to wait three hours? So I
called my agent and she said, yeah, you're absolutely right,
you can leave if you want. But I stayed. But
over the course of three hours, I cycled through. I
cycled through these these emotions about six times, which were
(19:35):
how dare they too? Well? I mean, really, there's a
there's a nice couch. I mean, you could go get
a you could go get a nature valley. How bad
is it to how dare they? I mean, what where?
What do you got to do? What are you going
to do? You know? And so by the time I
finally went in to see the director, I had cycled
(19:59):
through there so many times that I was relaxed enough,
even though I was twenty four, to say, so, here's
what I got, and this is all I've got. So
if you don't like it, I'll totally understand. And if
you do like it, then we can talk. I mean.
And I didn't say it arrogant. I just was like,
this is it. I mean, I didn't say I'd been
here three hours, but that's what I'd cycled through. And
I did it, and he said he he went like this, Marty,
(20:22):
so shit done? He went I love that, And what
would you call him? And I said, I just came
up with this name, Sash and so so uh that.
So you know, those were the most important eight hours
of my life because you have to cycle I think
in absolutely everything, everything, whether you're meeting a person who's
(20:45):
going to change your life, or auditioning or even sitting
in traffic, you have to cycle through. I shouldn't have
to wait. This has been too who are you? Just
once you get a few times to what who are you?
Then you get to the good stuff. So those were
and I think of that now quite often nowadays. I'm
(21:08):
sitting on a set and I'm like, oh god, I've
been here five hours and they haven't even and I'm like, so,
who are you? A big deal? Wait my four hours?
Because you're doing a great project and they're taking their
time with it, and who are you? Who the hell
are you? And it's a it's really it's really a
foundational thing for anything, which is just get to the
(21:32):
point where you're like, you're you're a big deal. You know,
we're all sitting in traffic, so calm down and mellow
out and get over yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I also love I'm sorry I love how you are
so casually mentioning so many films that were so growing up,
just like throwing up like oh, and I mean from
Risky Business to Flamingo Kid, which I used to watch
on a loop.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So Risky Business in Beverly Hills, Copper about a year
apart career.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Wise for you.
Speaker 7 (22:17):
Here's the math I love the most because it makes
me happy. I came out in the play in nineteen
eighty two. The producers of Risky Business came to see
it and put me in Risky Business, which came out
in eighty three, and by the by nineteen eighty four,
(22:39):
I was shooting Beverly Hills cop and Christmas of eighty
four eighty five it came out and I was so
so poor. I was at the end of my tether.
Somebody had given me as a Christmas present the littlest,
stingiest gift basket you can imagine. It was a packet
(23:02):
of water crackers and apple, a Granny Smith apple, and
a little chunk, not even a whole thing of cheddar cheese.
And I had nothing else to eat. So every day
would I would take a sliver of the apple and
a sliver of the cheese and a one cracker and
eat it till I couldn't stand it anymore, and then
(23:23):
do it again, and the apple was starting to go brown.
The movie came out and I a friend said, you've
got to go read what they wrote about you in
Newsweek magazine. I said, well, why would they write about me?
He said, go read it. So it was a review
of Beverly Hills cop and I walked to the supermarket
to read it, and then on my way home, a
(23:46):
carful of teenagers drove off of a Point Statia Avenue
and onto the sidewalk and came right up to like
three feet in front of me and jumped out and
started hugging me. And that's when they happened.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Your whole life changed. So how drastically does your life change? Then,
what's the first thing that you do when all of
a sudden, you know your reviews are out, you're a star.
What's the first thing you do to turn your situation around?
Speaker 7 (24:14):
The first thing I did was I ran away. I
got because it was you know, we have not caught
up at all with the way our brains are wired
is still from two hundred thousand years ago. So I
got a residual check for risky business, and I ran away.
I went to Greece and I just would turn the
(24:38):
lights out at night and I would take out a
big map of grease and I would put my finger
on it. Whenever my finger landed, I would I would
go there wow. And I remember once there was a
guy yep my age, so that was twenty five. He
was coming down a very steep hill with the sheep,
(24:59):
and he was a sheepherder, and he had a book
under his arm, and so I thought there's a fair
chance he might speak speak English. The people Tom Miller
and Bob Boyatt and Dale mccraven had come to me
with this idea that I didn't think sounded very good
for this TV show about an innocent sheepherder. And I
(25:21):
didn't think that I had any business playing innocence. I
thought I was rather sophisticated and urbane. So I said,
I said, I don't know about that. But anyway, I
ran out of money and I had just met this
sheepherder whose dog was named Dog and uh, so I
(25:42):
went to a phone booth in Athens and called them
and said, do you still want to do that show?
I didn't add because I'm out of money.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Right and I just met Ader whose dog is named Dog,
and they said, yes, we do still want to do
the show.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
I said, okay, like.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Soon, how soon can we get it going?
Speaker 6 (26:04):
Can you check so I can get home.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
I was completely out of money, so I went back
and uh, and we we shot it, and then uh,
the network wanted to replace the guy playing cousin. Uh
Louis was was his name, because he was played by
Louis Anderson. They wanted to replace Louie, so they did
auditions and incomes marklyn Baker and we realized instantly, and
(26:34):
then it's it's the same way today. We can read
each other's minds. And I'm not even kidding. If he
was sitting right here, he would if you asked us
a question, he would know what I was going to answer,
and he'd start laughing, and then I'd start laughing at
the fact that that he knew. And we the you know,
no speaking would happen that when we when we do
(26:56):
Q and A with audiences, we just we just rock
back and forth, laughing, and then he has to hold
my mouth and explain to them all the all the
things that they've missed because someone would just say something like,
are you friends in real life? And then I started
laughing because of course we're must closer than friends, but
(27:18):
I want to say something like like, it's ridiculous, and
then he and so we just laughed. So the whole
whatever when we were interviewed, we laughed for ninety percent
of it, and he explains for nine percent of it,
and I have one or two things to say, and
it's so he walked in the room and and that happened,
(27:41):
and and then and then we were we were off.
But I still what I had missed because then I
was really famous. I had not yet had a chance
to at all find out how to be a functioning
human being. And I also didn't really know what my
(28:03):
process was as an actor. I had no idea, so
I didn't know how to be a person or an actor.
And then they were in the top ten, and and
they were, you know, to me, it's almost like not
my life, but more like a movie I saw, because
the level of craziness was was was I can't even
(28:27):
really quite grasp it now, but I mean it was.
It was crazy. And then there were stilly things like
I bought my first house I ever bought was the
house where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had moved right
after their marriage. So there were people from Europe.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, driving by your house.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
No no, no, no, no, not driving, camping to take pictures
of it. And then I would come out like this
to go get the mail and oh my god, it's
not only Marilyn's house, but he's there too, so you know,
and but so I that it's I'm not complaining, but
(29:10):
it delayed. I was not ready to come out of
the egg. I was not ready to be a person,
for sure. I had never had money. I'd grown up
on welfare and then been, you know, eating an apple,
a Browning apple when the first so he was kind
of like taking a toddler and saying, here, you're going
(29:34):
to drive this submarine and you'll be fine.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
So I was.
Speaker 7 (29:39):
I was not equipped to do anything at all except
to play the character. I knew how to play the character,
but I didn't know how to do anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So how did that play out for you?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Then?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Over the course of the years that you were on
the show, What did that look like?
Speaker 7 (29:54):
What it looked like? Very soton very soon I would
play the thing, and people would make you know, they
would roar and and and love it. And then I'd
get in my car to drive home and I would
I would fantasize about a truck hitting me head on.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
And just.
Speaker 7 (30:14):
Because I didn't know how to live, I didn't know
how to do anything except do that performance. And I
was I wanted it. I wanted some some some, I
wanted something. I wanted it to stop. But I didn't
know how to tell anybody. So that that meant that
how can I explain it? It was really almost like
(30:36):
being you know, if you took a chair and waved
a wand over it and said now you're a person.
And and they don't really know how to fake being
a person. They just wait for it to you know,
wait for the enchantment to be over. It was just
too soon.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, it happened so fast.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
It happened so fast, And it wasn't It wasn't just
that I was a guy with no money who suddenly
had money and fame. It was that I was the
person who didn't even know how to I didn't even
know how to be a person.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Did you feel more like you were a person when
you were in character than you did when you were
were not acting.
Speaker 7 (31:13):
Yes, but then something would happen like, I mean, everybody,
you know, they really adored that character. But of course
he was. He was the kind of person that's like,
you know, you at your very best. And then when
I would go home, uh, to normality, and my girlfriend
(31:36):
would be sitting watching TV with the dogs and not
look up, I would be crushed to a point like
something was wrong. Well, yeah, I mean there were police
holding people back from coming and giving hugs, and then
there were you know, and then there was just a
person who was bored by me or whatever the problem was.
You know, I started playing the happiest, happiest, most optimistic,
(31:59):
loving person alive, and I was the most unhappy.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
So you're Polachi essentially kind of.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
Yeah, And I was afraid. I was afraid to go
get treatment because I was afraid whether they fixed me
and then I couldn't act anymore or I couldn't play anymore.
But that turned out not to be the case, because
it just gave me more, It gave me more control
over my acting, and it gave me better access. But
but because of that doubt, I waited until nineteen ninety
(32:30):
six to go to go get you know, to go
get help. And by that point I would have if
somebody says something that I thought was hurtful or whatever,
I would go dark for like three days. And when
I say dark, I mean zombie. Wow. So I finally,
(32:53):
you know, I finally got sorted out. And then then
then I then I started to and enjoy myself and
live and do Broadway and do the West End and like,
and I was like, oh, is this what it's like?
Because markln Baker used to say to me all the time,
ro so, just let stuff roll off your back, And
(33:14):
I thought he was making that up. I didn't think
that was a thing that a human being could actually do.
I thought that was just a phrase. I didn't know
that somebody could come up and be unkind or just
dumb and that you could let that roll off your back.
I thought he was making it up to just get
me through the moment. I had no idea people could
(33:38):
do that. So that's been really eye opening, because you know,
there's lots of people who were ridiculous. I mean there
was somebody once I was getting on a plane and
I had lots of suitcases and things, and she ran
up just as we were boarding, and I don't like flying.
It makes me nervous. And she ran up and said,
could you sign this? And I said, I'd love to,
but as you can see, I don't have a free hand,
(33:59):
and I'm just getting on the plane and I I
hope I'll meet up with you again someday. So she's
she stood there and she yelled at the top of
her lung as well. I helped. The plane crashes, and
so there we all were, Oh my god, And that's
you know, that's that's bad enough if you've got if
you've got anxiety, if your own you know. Yeah, but
(34:21):
that's the kind of thing that happens if you're on
people's if you're on people's TVs and you're playing somebody
incredibly loving.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Do you ever look back on those years then that
you were on the show and feel sad that you
didn't get to really celebrate those wins of that time.
Speaker 7 (34:42):
Yeah. And I mean every day the whole cast and
lots of you know, members of the staff would go
out for lunch, and every day, God blessed them, they
would ask me, and I would say, no, I have
to stay you know, in character, and I have to
stay here and on perfect strangers. I have to stay
in my dressing room and be very simple and quiet
and have my berry because I was a vegan at
(35:02):
the time, and every day they would ask me, which
was so sweet when I look back on it. They
never gave up on me. But I'd never socialized. I never,
I mean, it all had to be for the character.
I wouldn't party, I wouldn't do anything for me. Life
was like I had an oxygen tank and I didn't
know how long I would be down snarkling, and so
(35:25):
I couldn't give any of the oxygen for anything else.
Like yes, so just just the way it was, I mean,
I look back on it, I couldn't even even with
my family. I would come and I would do Thanksgiving,
and one of my brothers would always have a new
girlfriend for Thanksgiving and then there'd be a new one
for Christmas. Every which meant that I had to make
(35:48):
a rule, which was no show biz at all, because
at Thanksgiving, I'm gonna have to sit there and talk
about what's so and so like, and what's so and
so like, and then three weeks later do it all
over again. And I don't like that. No show biz,
No show biz so I had I had a million
rules because I didn't have the skill set like nowadays.
(36:09):
There was a woman on a plane a few months
ago and she didn't know who the hell I was.
She sit next to me, and a flight attendant came
up and said, would you sign this menu? I said shirt,
and the woe next to me looked over, like, what's
that all about? And I didn't yeah. And then and
then somebody else came up and said would you sign
(36:29):
my napkin? And I said okay. And finally the woman
next to me said why are they doing that? And
I said because I'm an actor. And she said the
thing that they always say, well have you ever been
in anything that I have seen?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Right?
Speaker 7 (36:44):
Like?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You know?
Speaker 7 (36:46):
So instead of you know, getting up up at the
I just said, let the words just come to Bronston
because you're a friendly, nice, warm person and you can
do this with humor. And it came to me and
I said to her, I don't know, why don't you
list everything you've ever seen and if I was in it?
(37:09):
And she laughed and I laughed, and then we had
a nice flight and we talked about nothing, because I
I there is a there is a fantastically nice, funny,
warm way to say no, I'm not gonna listen to
my credits. And I didn't when I was younger. I
didn't know that if you just take a breath, something
(37:30):
will come to you. That's that's kind of like true
but also fun. And we were laughing. We were laughing.
She was like, oh, yeah, I get it. Yeah, And
if we had the Greens time we chatted, we we've
made fun of the movie. We but I, you know,
like I didn't know that if you just took a second,
(37:52):
the right, the right, and and and and just choice
words that let everybody still be a human would come
to you.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Well, now I'm so curious.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
You talked about how essentially you were one person in
the early eighties, and like we all do, we change,
but you really had a big change in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
So when you got to go back to then play the.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
Same character again that you did in something like Beverly
Hills Cop, did you come at it from a different
way because now you were such a different person When
you went back to the character again, you came back
it the same line characters.
Speaker 7 (38:28):
You know, as any astrophysicists will tell you, there really
is this thing as time, and as any psychotherapists will
tell you, the unconscious has no grasp of time. So
I mean, I kai smell if someone makes big plant
farmers dount exactly the way my mom did, I'll start
(38:48):
crying because that's it. So what you know, characters certainly
have no concept of time. No, And as soon as
you start to do it, or I do that, and
it's the same, it's nineteen eighty four again, and there's
no there's no passage of time at all. And also
(39:12):
I was quite lucky in around two thousand and three,
two thousand and four, two thousand and five, as fate
would have it, I did two plays back to back
where I played multiple characters, and I'm talking about one.
In one play, thirty eight different characters, and then right
(39:34):
after it a play where I played eight different characters.
And in both plays it was male, female, old, young,
in between every nationality, every ethnicity, every everything. And in
both plays it was part of the magic of the
play that you didn't have. There were no costumes, there
were no props. You just transformed. So doing that for
(39:58):
three years really expunge the final you know, I used
to be the kind of person who would say, well,
I'm you know, if you want me to play this
seventeenth century musketeer and you don't have the musketeer hat
and the exact rapier, how am I supposed to.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Be having from?
Speaker 7 (40:17):
But after you play thirty eight plus eight forty six
characters without having anything, and you have to turn, you
have to go from an eighty five year old Irish
priest to a five year old you know, and to
it for a little boy to a box and sexy
amazing female movie star boo boo boo boo boom blah
(40:38):
boom like that. Then you stop, you know, you stop
saying if you don't give me the hat and the rapier,
I can't do it. You never the final the final
piece was that I did for two seasons on DIYTV.
I did my version of a home renovation show on
(40:58):
the DIY TV where I worked on my own homes.
I had half a dozen I would redo rooms, I
would redo the whole house using pre Civil War architectural salvage.
And it was called the Bronzen Pinchow project. And once
in a while they would say, oh yeah, when you
(41:22):
went to the salvage yard, you got out of the
truck before the truck even stopped moving, and we didn't
get a clean shot of that, so let's do it again.
And I would say, well, no, that's what I do.
I'm excited. And I got out of a moving truck
and they called the Bronzon Pincho Project and it ain't
going to get any more bronze and pinch show than that, right,
(41:44):
And they'd say, well, the shot is, the SHOT's not cleaned,
and I would say, well, maybe you should be readier,
because I mean, I wasn't being a brat. I was
just there was another time where you know, they move
into your house and the cameras are there, they live there.
And another time, these two beautiful like eighteen forties gas
(42:08):
lamps arrived and they had been poorly packed and they
were broken into a million pieces. But you have a deadline,
so they're filming me. I opened the box and I want, okay,
get the dealer, you know. I sent an email to
the dealer and find out if you ensure them. All right,
what are we doing next? And they said, cut, cut,
(42:29):
cut cut. You really need to be a lot more upset,
said I just was in real time, just out as
Bronson Pincho at my own house, opening a thing in
real time, no happening to be what what do you
want me to do? Reality TV? That's that's as upset
as I have the time and energy to get. That's
(42:51):
what you got to be kidding me, Well, we need it,
it would be more accident. No, thank you. I actually
I had a great I had a great line. He said,
we need we need you to be more worried all
the time about something you can pick. I said, well,
I'm worried that you're not giving me enough money to
do these episodes. And they said no, but but you know,
(43:16):
could you can we can we make it that there's
a giant storm coming And I said, And the director
loved this so much because he was a goofball. He
said that the network said, like, if if you could
do like there's a storm coming, or there's a there's
a you know, like a building inspector coming or something
that just makes it all like worried all the time.
And I said, I am not participating in bull crape.
(43:40):
The only real stress I have is that they're not
giving me enough money to do these rooms the way
I want. So I'm using my own money, so I'm
not making any money the real stress and if you
don't want to show the real stress, I'm not doing stress.
So I'm not participating. And all the crew who all
(44:01):
lived up there and would be in the house and
they went went you. Did you hear them in the
other room say that. Samony would say, do you want
to get like chicken salad? And I'm not participating inpating.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Well, a few years ago we did a commercial together
for the ABC reboot of TGIF. It was me Reginald
Bell Johnson and you and Mark Lynn Baker, and I
vividly remember they wanted you to to do the dance
of joy and yes, and there was like a real
(44:37):
hush on the set and it was so incredible because
both of you were not really sure you fully remembered it,
and then you guys rehearsed it very briefly. You nailed it.
It was perfect. It was like no time had passed
and the both of your faces just lit up, and
(44:59):
there was so much.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Joy around the two of you.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
I just I just had to mention that because are
you guys still very close?
Speaker 7 (45:09):
Oh? Yes. The funny thing is we're so close that
I don't even know every once in a while I'll
think of something and I'll just text him. And we
share an agent for personal appearances. And the agent, well,
he's a very nice guy, but he'll he'll say to me,
are you on board? Uh, We're gonna do a personal
(45:30):
appearance in Knoxville in July. Are you on board uh
for these? Uh? This, this and this? And I'll say yes,
and he'll say great. And I'll say, but I but
only if Mark is nude. So I know that he
has to professional. As a professional, he has to pass
that message.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I wanted to talk very briefly about another classic movie
or in True Romance. It was written by Quentin Tarantino,
directed by Tony Scott, a star studded cast.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
What was that experience like for you?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
Well, I want to tell you about the most Hollywoodish
thing that ever happened to me ever, all all in
one thing. Okay. So there's a scene in it where
I'm driving in a was it open that was open convertible?
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Yeah it was. It was a nine to eleven slant
nose with the open top, the white one.
Speaker 7 (46:33):
Okay, So with this adorable actress playing a crackhore and
we're driving and then I and then we shot me
driving first, and then I had to pull over, and
because the cop was behind me, so we had already
shot a good portion of the scene when it was
time to pull over. And when it was time to
pull over, Uh, I looked down and realized, because they're
(46:57):
they're toning you. They're toning you, you know, and shoot
you tell truck is playing. So yeah, I could pretend
I'm driving, but then it's time to pull over the car.
And I said, oh my goodness, this is stick shift.
I don't know how to drive stick shift. And you
can't very well pull over in park if you can't
drive stick shift. So Tony says, are you kidding me?
(47:23):
Nobody elst him. If you can drive, the fuck are
you're going to get this stop? And so he was
because we were really just so We're way up on
mulhalland drive in LA and I'm like, to dude, he's
not my fault. So my hair is black at that
point in time. So they hurriedly decide, and I had
(47:44):
not been wearing sunglasses. They hurriedly decided the only way
out of it is to get this one of the
one of the crew who knew how to drive stick
They just spray painted his hair black, and then he
pulled the car over, and Tony said, does it look
a thing Bronson? So somebody said, how about sunglasses? And
he said, but he's not wearing glasses in the scene.
(48:06):
And so somebody said maybe Bronson would would pantomime putting
on sunglasses and some other part of the scene, and
I said, I will, It's fine. So they're they're painting
this guy's head. They're painting his head and he's pulling over.
Tony is still hyperventilating. The man's head is painted and
he's pulling over, and I have nothing to do while
(48:27):
I do that, And just at that moment, Madonna cycles
by in head to toe lycra. God, it's never gonna
get any more holiday, right, They just they just painted
somebody to pretend to be me. Everybody's upset and yelling,
and nobody but me sees that Madonna has just cycled
(48:51):
by in in like purple and lime green lycra. This
is so wonderful. Nobody is paying attention because they're busy
watching the man painted to be me and so funny.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
God.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Also, to call you prolific in the world of audio
books would be a wild understatement.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Well over four hundred books.
Speaker 7 (49:23):
Well over four hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Please, oh my gosh, well over four hundred and fifty books,
tons of awards. You are a legend in the field.
What makes giving a voice to a book so exciting
to you?
Speaker 7 (49:37):
Well, it is like it is like going to the
acting gym like constantly, and I have to say, because
you're sitting in the booth the size of the front
seat of a car, and I'm claustrophobic, and you have
to be the narrator. You have to give it the
(49:58):
narrator a voice, and then you have to give every
single character a voice. And then sometimes I just did
a book where the I just did a book the
narrator is he's been brainwashed with drugs to think he's
three different people. So you have to have three different
voices for different sections of the book. And this one
(50:18):
is been throwing up all the time, so his voice
has to be hoarse, and this one on some different
kind of drug. And then you have to be all
the characters. And then one character is when when people
are around, she's in hiding, so she has a fake
Southern accent when there's people around. But then when people
aren't around she she's got her own accent and blah
blah blah blah blah. And so it is like, I'm
(50:41):
not a big fan of juggling, but when people are
really good at it, I'm like, And so it's like that.
It's like the kind where you're catching things you didn't
even throw. It's like you're juggling and then there's a
bird and then there's fire. And it's awfully good for
keeping the whole acting musculature super fit because you don't
(51:04):
have any time. I mean, I would say really, between
those multi character plays and the books, my prep time
nowadays is negative one minute. I because you you know,
you think when you're twenty five, well, I have to
have an hour in pitch dark with no sensory anything
(51:31):
so I can get into this one character. And then
you know, after you've done forty eight characters on stages
from London, Sacramento, and four hundred and fifty audiobooks with
ten characters each, you're like, character boom, It's like what
and so I it it has and I do them.
I do them all the time, and they keep me
(51:52):
from going nuts in between acting gigs. But it also
teaches you something we already all know. You know, if
if you and I are going to take a friend
out to dinner, and it's a very important thing, and
(52:13):
one of us dropped the ball and forgot to make
the reservation, we will look at each other and go
all right, the person doing the reservations that they look
like they like guys or girls. In fact, they like guys, Bronson,
So I will go up and be so flirtatious. I
will get us at table, because the stakes are life
(52:34):
and death. And if we decide that they like girls,
you'll go up and be like ah, and you will
just do it right. You do it all the time.
You you act all the time in life all the time.
My mother, you know, was in a she had an
operation once since she was she had to go to
a rehabilitation center. And I had bought a house, but
(52:55):
I knew my mom would disapprove, so I hadn't. I
bought it in my sisters name. And my mother looked
at me on the pillows and went, tell me the truth,
look into my eyes and tell me did you buy
that house? And I said no. And so when the
(53:18):
when the stakes are high, we all act all day
long with no prep at all, you know, or if
you're trying to get a toddler to eat their yogurt
or whatever, and just do it. And so if you
do doing the audiobooks reminds me like, dude, you don't need,
you know, to be like one guy dying on the
battlefield and his best friend holding him and crying. You
(53:40):
don't have time you like do a prep for each character.
You cry, and then you say it will be all right,
and then you cry and then you die and then
you say, oh my god, my friend died. Now I'm crying,
and then you just do it. Yeah, and and so
it's it's the it's the acting gym. It really is
the acting gym. And it makes me chuckle a little
(54:02):
bit when people say, Okay, I'm sorry, I've got to
stop this conversation out because in three days I'm doing
the scene. I'm like, there are three days you don't
need it, But that's what it does for you. Plus
there's you know, there's people that are bed ridden or
they're on a twenty hour trip or whatever. And I
always think, okay, so I'm just gonna do this in
(54:26):
such a way that you'll laugh or you'll cry or
you'll forget you know that you're on up a big
long and it's it's marvelous. It's really fun, and it's
so intimate because most acting, even if the camera is okay,
so this this phone here is like seventeen inches from
(54:47):
my face. But when you do an audio book, I'm
speaking into a mic, I like the mic really close.
So my mic is like there, I like it. I
like the you're too young to remember Tom Jones, you guys.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
Times of course had the mic like.
Speaker 7 (55:06):
Inside him.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 7 (55:10):
I like the mic pretty close. I could, so I
could be super intimate. And then I think to myself,
this is so amazing because when somebody listens to the book,
they're going to have earphones on, and the earphones are
how how close are your earphones to your actual brain?
Maybe an inch? Yeah? Maybe right? Yeah, I've got the
(55:35):
mic maybe an inch from my mouth. And then the
the the people that are going to experience this storytelling,
it's an like that is the closest you are ever
going to get, even if you're lovers. Even if your
lovers you have to back up a little. It's like
you're it's the most intimate.
Speaker 5 (55:53):
You're literally well you're the voice in our head, you're
the voice in their head when we're reading ahead.
Speaker 7 (55:58):
And what happens sometimes that's a marvelous something that the
book that's latent in the book becomes much more pronounced
in the audio version. And one version I can give
is there was a somebody that wrote a book about
the race of the North Pole. It was a Norwegian
explorer who actually got there first, and then it was
(56:21):
a British explorer who actually froze to death before he
got there. The book was written by a brit and
he was kind of hard on the British explorer. He
kept saying all the way through the book, if he
had been less stuffy and less British, he would have
understood this, this, and this. So he was kind of
hard on the British explorer, and it just as it happened.
(56:43):
The very last page of the book was the piece
of paper they found in his frozen hand when they
found his dead body, his frozen body, he was writing
with a pen in his tent and he froze to death.
So the very last page of it was this entry
from his diary saying, I know people have found fault
(57:07):
with me, and I know I haven't been the best.
But for the love of God, whoever finds this way,
you please please take care of my wife and children.
And so my voice I broke down reading it and
I said to the engineer, do not you don't you
dare ask me to do another take of that that
because that is what he was feeling. And so the
(57:31):
audiobook version of this book, where the British author was
kind of ragging on him, he gets the last word,
please please think of me with humanity. I mean, I
choked up thinking about it. And that's like I didn't
really change it. It's just the last word is by
this man who died as he wrote these words. No
(57:53):
matter what you say about him, he actually is having
the last word because it's an audiobook and you can't
it's wonderful. That happens quite a lot in audiobooks. Is
a quality that may or may not have. Either it's
in the book, but it becomes much more luminous, or
(58:14):
it's kind of not in the book but there's no
way around it, and that's it's kind of neat, that's
wonderful special, or or sometimes there's like in a mystery,
you know, there's there's a there's a character with an
identifiable accent, and he's actually the murderer, and at a
crucial point of the book, he comes up behind the
(58:35):
main character and says, now, I've got you. Well, on
the page, it doesn't say who it is, but if
you're doing the same voice you've already created, then the
listener does know who it is. And that's fun. It's
like whoa, it's it's suddenly in three D. This isn't
(58:55):
this is what you isn't what it would look like
on the page. My favorite example ever was there was
there's a book that ended with this guy. He's getting
stabbed and he's he makes his way into a building
and he knows he's dying. So he's crawling across the floor,
dying of blood loss, and he's trying to stay aware
(59:19):
and alive until he reaches the phone and he's talking
to himself and talking to himself, and finally, right in
the middle of a sentence, it stops and the rest
of the page is blank, so that you understand reading
it that he has died of blood loss. That's it
doesn't say he died of blood loss. He just stops thinking.
And so it's very, very meaningful on the page. You
(59:43):
see this blank page. So I did it like that.
I just stopped right like that, and the note came
back from the proofreader. The thought seems unfinished.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:00:01):
Yeah he's dead.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Yeah he's gone.
Speaker 7 (01:00:03):
And that's the way it's got to be.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah, it's going to stay that way.
Speaker 7 (01:00:09):
That's what the You know, if you don't have the
book in front of you, this is I'm not even
sure it's the next best thing. It's it's just as
good as it's like this. The existence of this brain
has ceased. But it's so funny the notes you get unfinished.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
I have one last question for you, and forgive me
if you do not know this, but we are one
year away from Perfect Stranger's fortieth anniversary. Yeah, I wanted
to know if you could go back and tell young
Bronzon something on the set of his massive, huge hit
TV show, what would be the one message you would
give young Bronson.
Speaker 7 (01:00:46):
I wouldn't say a thing he for for acting wise, No.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Just any message now, knowing what you know now, having
lived the life you've lived, now, if you could go
back and tell him.
Speaker 7 (01:00:57):
Anything, because he did it as he did it to
the best of his abilities. What he did was conserve
one hundred percent of himself for that performance, and at
the time that led to people saying, you don't socialize
(01:01:19):
very much, and you know, but the performance stands and
now I'm still here, So I wouldn't change I wouldn't
change anything. Not that he would have listened, but his
feeling was one hundred percent of it belongs on screen
and I'm going to pour my heart into it and
it's still there. Yeah, So I mean nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Wonderful Bronson, Thank you so much for spending some time
with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
We so appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (01:01:48):
Thank you for your patience.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Oh my gosh, so wonderful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Have a great day. Enjoy the rest of your weekend
as well.
Speaker 7 (01:01:58):
Big love, Thank you so much, Thank you bye.
Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Oh my gosh. He's got so many interesting stories he
is in.
Speaker 5 (01:02:06):
Like I mean, if you listed twenty of my favorite movies,
he's probably in eight or nine of them.
Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Seriously, he has one of those.
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Get to ask about after hours after our.
Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
And I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want
to jump in and interrupt any of his stories. But
he's there for like the start of the careers of
Tom cruise Matt Dillon.
Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
I mean, you know, it's what Eddie Murphy you need.
Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
It's one after another of these people that became went
on to define Hollywood, and he was right there for
for just star after star after star.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
It's amazing when you love.
Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
You know, his laugh with his co star, like the
idea that they have, that mind meld, and I'm like, oh,
I get it, we get it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
That's that's that's still in us.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
I know, I know he described it so well, but
also just watching him do it, like they kept happening
to him and we brought him up.
Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
He's like, well, let me tell you about this, and
then he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Even really have much of a story because it's just
their connection. It's like it's even probably not that funny,
but he's a perfect Yes, it's so cool speaking a
witch rider.
Speaker 5 (01:03:07):
Right now you have the perfect Superman Clark curl.
Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Look at that right Wow? Wow?
Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
Yeah, there you go, straight up Clark Kent. I love it, Yeah, yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Time to take some heads shots.
Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
But if you put on a haired glasses, I would
know who you were. Who are crazy?
Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
Who are you crazy? But the Curl's never there when
he's Clark right.
Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
The curl is yeah, it's part of Superman mostly Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com and
we've got merch.
Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Merch well, merch well for me.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
If you know, you know, Pod meets Worldshow dot com
will send us out.
Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
We love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
Podmeats World is nheart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy
Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton
of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at
(01:04:15):
Podmeets World Show or email us at Podmets Worldshow at
gmail dot com
Well, this is a bit of a weird update considering, uh,
you know, we're multiple months into the year of twenty
twenty five, but we get a lot of emails. We
get a lot of emails about whether or not we
have exchanged our Christmas gifts. You guys are so cute
(00:40):
with how much you pay attention and care about these
little moments in our lives.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
What's gonna happen Like, it's just gonna the pressure is
gonna keep building, Like ten years from now, we're gonna
have to be like buying each other cars.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
We don't have to keep getting each other bigger and
better gifts.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
They just want to know what, Yeah, guess yeah, it
sixs a lot.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I mean, whatever when I buy you a Lamborghini next year,
because I know you so well, I know.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
How much you want Lamborghin exactly? Can you also go
camping in it? Can you press a button and then becomes
another thing?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
You can?
Speaker 6 (01:13):
I do have a poster of a Lamborghini as a kid,
of course, a Lamborghini cuontash.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Yeah, one of the worst driving automobiles in history.
Speaker 6 (01:21):
By the way, Yes, they're not a sponsor.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
They know they were. Lamb I don't want a Lamborghini.
I don't want a Lamborghini. I don't I don't want
a laborghady.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Okay, So we did get together.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
We had a wonderful little lunch and we exchanged our
Christmas gifts. So, writer, why don't you go first and
tell everybody what you got?
Speaker 2 (01:43):
I got superhero underwear, Yes you did, Spider Man, it's
still in its packaging.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
And how did you fly without them?
Speaker 6 (01:55):
Oh my god? And then you framed our baseball cards, which.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Is Allen and ginter tops cards.
Speaker 4 (02:04):
Each one of those. I got one myself too.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Yes, that was very sweet. Will what did you get?
Speaker 6 (02:09):
Well?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
First of all, Danielle, you also got superhero.
Speaker 7 (02:11):
Underwear from me?
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I most certainly did. I got superhero boxers.
Speaker 4 (02:15):
Shopping for it was really creepy, I.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Know, because at first you didn't go right to boxers,
no superhero, but it was.
Speaker 5 (02:25):
Like all these super I was like, wow, oh my god,
I can't look Batman the same if it's a Batman.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
You thought jewelry was too personal to buy me, you know,
tutic imagine buying me a thong.
Speaker 5 (02:35):
So I'm talking to Sue, I'm like, I don't feel
comfortable with this.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
She's like make them boxers. I'm like, okay, that makes
more sense. You guys both got the same pair, And yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
We got the same Christmas gift this year, which is
very cool.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
We both got.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Superhero boxer shorts and are framed.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Down I got, which I'm actually it's funny.
Speaker 5 (02:52):
I'm starting to read about Rider got me an electronic calendar,
which is really cool. But the problem with it is
the screen is small, so as I'm writing on it
with sharpie, there's not a whole lot of room to
put my day stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
The story behind this is that Will can never schedule anything, yes,
without his physical what he calls the big calendar that
is in their house. And so if we're texting or
figuring out and we have to schedule a lot of things,
guys like it's a constant can do this together. That's
why it takes it April, and it's always like I'll
(03:26):
have to tell you when I get home tomorrow.
Speaker 6 (03:28):
And look at the big calendar, like I can't really.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Also doesn't take a picture of it on his phone.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
I've started doing that.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
He can't reference it, he can't tell you what he's doing.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
And he started doing that. I started doing that, so.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
My idea was, let's get Will a big calendar that's electronic,
and then maybe there will.
Speaker 5 (03:42):
Be a way to learn how to use it. It
reminds me of my our frame, which I love so
much for a calendar. And then from uh, Danielle, I
got my Batman and it actually works. Huh like it
really Jeck sabacity and it's so cool.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
I actually pictured it in your theater room.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yes, I don't know if you can see it.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Now, Will, when you were Batman, was it a slightly
different symbol? It was, right, Yes, it was red. It
was also a different what it's this symbol? Oh right, right, yeah,
that's the Batman beyond symbol.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
This is original. This is a this is eighty nine.
Speaker 6 (04:22):
Old school Yeah yeah, cool.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So I love that. So yeah, I've got it right.
Speaker 6 (04:26):
Here and that stuff.
Speaker 7 (04:27):
It was.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
It was very I don't have my gift.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
If I was recording at home, I could show off
the gift that Danielle got me. Daniel and Jensen got
me this amazing little work of art.
Speaker 6 (04:37):
I don't do you do you have? Do you know
the artist's name, yes, the of your head.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
So the artist's name is Scott Hildebrandt and he makes
incredible works of art inside vintage clocks.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Yes, so it's like a vintage alarm clock. I wish
I was in my office show.
Speaker 6 (04:54):
But it's a vintage alarm clock.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
And it has this little camper scene of like a
car and a trailer and a little it has a
flickering light so you turn it on. It's the coziest,
coolest little thing. And it's in my office now, it'll
be it'll be behind.
Speaker 6 (05:06):
Me when I'm recording there normally.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Very cool.
Speaker 4 (05:09):
Wait, what did you get from?
Speaker 7 (05:10):
Writer?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
I got an incredible pullover that has the Grateful Dead
dancing bear on it.
Speaker 3 (05:18):
What's the designer?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Writer?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
It's like a design it's a clothing brands clothing.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
Oh, Huckberry, like anybody if you if you go on Huckberry,
it's like the rider's strong clothing, like you just look.
Speaker 7 (05:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So they were doing they did a special like Grateful
Dead limited edition sweat sweater and this was like in
September or whatever, and I was like, oh, gotta get
it for Danielle because she's a dead head now and
I just think it's steral.
Speaker 6 (05:42):
But yeah, it's it's a little Bear's. It's a nice sweater.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
It's such a nice pullover.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
It's a good quality, it's nice and thick, it's beautiful.
I love it so happy and and we already mentioned well,
got me the Allen and Ginter cards. I'm gonna put
my Allan in Ginter cards. I think right under over
here is where I have the Thomas Guide that I
frame for.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
And I know that so writer obviously doesn't care. But
have you worn your superhero boxers to bed yet?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
I haven't. But I don't sleep in boxer shorts.
Speaker 7 (06:12):
But do you either?
Speaker 3 (06:15):
If it's really cold, I have sweatpants on, or I
just like in a T shirt.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Okay, you porky piket in bed?
Speaker 6 (06:21):
Really have this conversation on this podcast. I feel like
we've talked about but because we.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
Talked about sleeping naked, so naked, you cover the bottom.
You keep the top is one thing, but cover the bottom. Okay,
I get it. You are You're Donald ducking it in bed?
Speaker 6 (06:35):
I get it.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Welcome to Bond Meets World. I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm right
or Strong, and I'm Wilford. We are very excited for
today's guest. During our journey through Boy Meets World. In
(06:58):
addition to trying to create a definitive audio time capsule
for our own show, we have taken on some quick
side missions, hoping to learn a little bit more about
our Friday night neighbors and the details surrounding a programming
block that would change TV forever. Whether it was Jim Janisek,
the brainchild behind the TGIF campaign, or Nick Backay, a
man who went from a writer to the voice of
(07:19):
a cat who could somehow make us time travel, we
are interested in all the info, and today we're not
only talking to someone who was the star of TGIF's
first ever anchor, but his legendary run on TV and
unforgettable appearances in classic movies makes him a first Ballot
Comedy Hall of Famer. You know him best as Balki
(07:41):
Bartolomeus from the Island of Mepos, a lovable goofball who
has immigrated to Chicago to live with his distant and
unsuspecting cousin Larry. The show ran for eight seasons and
it was a massive hit, with Balki becoming the face
of the channel, and the ratings were so high they
would lead the way on the mission to turn Friday
Nights from a TV graveyard to appointment family viewing. And
(08:03):
even before Balky touchdown in the US, our guest was
already a bona fide movie star. His first movie ever
was alongside Tom Cruise in the seminole eighties movie Risky Business.
Speaker 4 (08:15):
Awesome movie, awesome role.
Speaker 5 (08:17):
I'm gonna be saying that all day to day, just
so you know everything you're about to mention.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
And it didn't stop there.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Beverly Hills, Cop one, two and three, Ah, After Hours, Ah,
the First Wives Club, I can't And True Romance.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Oh my god, he's got Oh he was so guy.
You've forgot about True He was so good in True Romance.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Oh my Truman, Okay, I have to be honest. True
Romance is the only one of those I've seen.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
You've never seen any of the No, I know, there's
like Cepy Holes and then Risky Business.
Speaker 6 (08:50):
I've never seen either.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
After you've never seen the hours of Scorsese film, Yes, yes, okay,
I have.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
After I know. I just it's actually on my list,
Like I'm dude, it is. It is absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
Everything.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
You just listen and actually you forgot He's done four
of the uh, Beverly because they just did the new
one and the whole cast got together, got back together.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
He was one banger after and next. And he's never
the lead. He always is a character actor who comes
in and then steals whatever the hell he's in. It's
so good, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
His performance in the first Beverly Hills cop movie, Eddie Murphy.
You see him on camera just trying to keep it
together as he's speaking to him. He's like, Eddie Murphy
is trying not to break. It's so funny, funny, it
is amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
There is no TGIF without cousin Balki, and so we
are honored to welcome a legend to the podcast this
week break out the Dance of Joy.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
It's Bronze and Pinchot Bronson. We are so honored that
you agreed to spend some time.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
With us today. So first off, thank you you so much.
It is really great to see you. Before we get
into the branches of our big TGIF family tree, we
wanted to delve a little into your.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Actor origin story.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I know you were born in New York, but you
moved to California at a very young age. But neither
of your parents were in the business. So how did
acting find its way into your life?
Speaker 7 (10:24):
It found its way in. I had a friend I
was I was all ready to be an illustrator and
an artist, you know, painter, illustrator. And I had a
friend who I was an actor at the UCSB Santa Barbara, Yeah,
(10:45):
And I went to see him in a play, a
really interesting, you know, dark Russian play, and I came
home and felt a strange emotion which was something like
I guess initially it it might have been something like jealousy,
(11:06):
but it was so much deeper than that. It ended
up being that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And
now what do I do because I don't have any
acting training, but that's obviously what I need to be doing. So,
uh we were very poor, we were poort so but
but I had gotten a scholarship to go to Yale,
which I mean, I mean.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Just just just a scholarship.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
School. I got this scholarship.
Speaker 6 (11:37):
Part of the system.
Speaker 7 (11:39):
So I went and I started to to do you know,
drawing and painting and studying ancient philosophy. But but they
had uh, you know, student plays you could audition for,
and I auditioned for, uh a Shakespeare play and I
got it. I didn't know what I was doing, but
(12:02):
the head of the acting department came to see it
and said, you don't know what you're doing, but there's
something there because when you walk on stage, it's like
a breath of fresh air. Would you like to actually
learn how to do this? And I said I would.
So he created a little tutorial for only just five
(12:24):
of us, and he started to teach us how to act.
I got into it. So at a certain point, the
fine arts department makes you do a portfolio review where
you put up all your stuff and they tell you
what they think. And I remember very distinctly with what
they said. The guy leaned back and he looked at
(12:45):
everything and he said, well, it's very exuberant, although heavy handed,
and I guess we'll take you. But this acting crap
has to stop. And I thought, what is it? You know,
life is just so well scripted. I was like, you're
I went an arrogant butt head, What are you talking to?
(13:08):
What the hell are you talking about? I'll do plays
if I want to. What difference does it make? But
I mean I didn't. It was like done. I don't
want you, you know, you're arrogant and uh, anyway, you know,
drawing and painting is the thing you do by yourself
in an attic, and I'm a very social creature, and
he made the decision for me. It was it was
(13:30):
a terrible thing to say to a nineteen year old,
but a wonderful thing because I literally just was like,
screw you, I don't have anything. No. So fast forward
about a year and I did a I did a
play by Ian Escoll called The Lesson, which is just
a crackpot professor teaching this one student and kind of
(13:54):
coming on to her. And it's it's a very weird play.
But anyway, the director had come in every single day
and just hump. He would just had me get on
top of this actress and it was like an acting exercise.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
And I finally said, wait, I'm sorry, did you say
hump or hum?
Speaker 7 (14:12):
Hum?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Oh? I heard hump, and then I wasn't sure how
you were Okay.
Speaker 7 (14:19):
You did have a sexual undertone undertone. So I finally said,
the play is opening in like ten days and we're
doing theater games and I feel really odd about that.
I mean, there's no play happening, So I will I
will propose to you that you go away and I'll
just figure it out myself. And if you don't go away,
(14:42):
I'll go away because you've really had us here for
three weeks.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
You've done nothing well also.
Speaker 7 (14:48):
You know, doing voyeuristic weird stuff. So he went away.
I figured out to play with this with this wonderful
young actress and another young actress who was in it,
and somebody came to see it who was in He
was studying music composition. I wish I remembered his name,
because he's responsible for my whole career. He came to
see it, and then he went back to his class,
(15:09):
which was being taught by a composer named Maury Yeston.
And Maury Yeston was writing incidental music for a play
off Broadway called Cloud Nine, and he mentioned, in passing
to his students, we're seeing people professional actors in New York,
and they're supposed to be funny. They're not. Isn't it
a pity? Because I'm sure there's somebody right, you know,
(15:30):
within spinning distance who is funny. And his students said,
I just saw somebody in a play called The Lesson,
and he's funny. So that the Yeston said well, I'll
get him an audition, and he got me an audition
site unseen. I went down. They kept me waiting five
hours because I was the charity case. But at the end,
(15:51):
at the end of five hours, I did a really, really,
really a good audition and the casting director kim all
the way out of the back of the theater because
she's the one that had kept me waiting five hours,
and she said, where did you come from? I said, well,
I've been in the lobby for five hours, and she said,
well you've you're I didn't. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna
(16:14):
see what's up here. So she she took me under
her wing. Her her name was Mary Cahoun. She took
me under her wing, and she she she brought me
to casting sessions. And then I got a play in
New York and the producers of Risky Business came see
the play and cast me in Risky Business, and then
I was off. And so it it it's that's that's
(16:37):
my acting origin story, and that's the that's how it happened,
you know. It's I saw Isabella Rossellini on a thing
the other day saying that she asked her mother Ingrid Bergman,
how do you get into acting? And her mother said,
you don't. If it's a calling, it comes for you,
which is true because you can knock and knock and
(17:02):
knock and knock and knock on the door, but you know,
it's like the mailbox opens and somebody reaches out and
pulls you in. And so that's how that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Wow, And so Risky Business was your first movie.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
It was my first movie.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
And is that the movie that you were auditioning for
at the time where she came out and got you
or was that a different project? And then she.
Speaker 7 (17:26):
Product at the plate the thing where I said, in
the lobby for five hours, which is funny because it
then happened again the second most important juncture of my career.
They had a movie called Beverly Hills Cop and there
was a character in it who was named Jack. He
was American, and there was just a brief scene where
(17:49):
Axel comes into a store, a clothing store called can
you Imagine with a question mark? And there's a character
named Jack who's described as an extremely this is why
I said I wouldn't go in it is described as
incredibly good looking and gay, and he had just a
few lines, and the whole purpose of the scene was
(18:09):
for it was nineteen eighty four, for Axel to just
be like, you know, kind of beat on him because
he was gay and leave. And they came to me
and said, we can't make this funny. And I looked
at it and said, I wonder why there's there's it's
a it's a one beat. You know, it's one beat.
It's it's the main character being kind of like a
(18:31):
jerk too. So they said, well, can you can you
come up with something? So I said, I don't know,
there's nothing really there. But I took a long, long
walk with the script and I kept doing it and
doing it. I was like, what, And then it came
to me that it might work if I did the
voice of this Israelian makeup lady that I'd worked with,
(18:51):
and also her body language because she had no bones.
So I went and the director, Marty Breast, he really
loves actors. He loves them so much that I sat
there for three hours. Three hours is a long time,
so long, and I sat there for three hours and
I thought, I should you know, I've I've been in
(19:14):
risky business, and I've been in the Flamingo kid, and
why do I have to wait three hours? So I
called my agent and she said, yeah, you're absolutely right,
you can leave if you want. But I stayed. But
over the course of three hours, I cycled through. I
cycled through these these emotions about six times, which were
(19:35):
how dare they too? Well? I mean, really, there's a
there's a nice couch. I mean, you could go get
a you could go get a nature valley. How bad
is it to how dare they? I mean, what where?
What do you got to do? What are you going
to do? You know? And so by the time I
finally went in to see the director, I had cycled
(19:59):
through there so many times that I was relaxed enough,
even though I was twenty four, to say, so, here's
what I got, and this is all I've got. So
if you don't like it, I'll totally understand. And if
you do like it, then we can talk. I mean.
And I didn't say it arrogant. I just was like,
this is it. I mean, I didn't say I'd been
here three hours, but that's what I'd cycled through. And
I did it, and he said he he went like this, Marty,
(20:22):
so shit done? He went I love that, And what
would you call him? And I said, I just came
up with this name, Sash and so so uh that.
So you know, those were the most important eight hours
of my life because you have to cycle I think
in absolutely everything, everything, whether you're meeting a person who's
(20:45):
going to change your life, or auditioning or even sitting
in traffic, you have to cycle through. I shouldn't have
to wait. This has been too who are you? Just
once you get a few times to what who are you?
Then you get to the good stuff. So those were
and I think of that now quite often nowadays. I'm
(21:08):
sitting on a set and I'm like, oh god, I've
been here five hours and they haven't even and I'm like, so,
who are you? A big deal? Wait my four hours?
Because you're doing a great project and they're taking their
time with it, and who are you? Who the hell
are you? And it's a it's really it's really a
foundational thing for anything, which is just get to the
(21:32):
point where you're like, you're you're a big deal. You know,
we're all sitting in traffic, so calm down and mellow
out and get over yourself. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (21:45):
I also love I'm sorry I love how you are
so casually mentioning so many films that were so growing up,
just like throwing up like oh, and I mean from
Risky Business to Flamingo Kid, which I used to watch
on a loop.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
So Risky Business in Beverly Hills, Copper about a year
apart career.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Wise for you.
Speaker 7 (22:17):
Here's the math I love the most because it makes
me happy. I came out in the play in nineteen
eighty two. The producers of Risky Business came to see
it and put me in Risky Business, which came out
in eighty three, and by the by nineteen eighty four,
(22:39):
I was shooting Beverly Hills cop and Christmas of eighty
four eighty five it came out and I was so
so poor. I was at the end of my tether.
Somebody had given me as a Christmas present the littlest,
stingiest gift basket you can imagine. It was a packet
(23:02):
of water crackers and apple, a Granny Smith apple, and
a little chunk, not even a whole thing of cheddar cheese.
And I had nothing else to eat. So every day
would I would take a sliver of the apple and
a sliver of the cheese and a one cracker and
eat it till I couldn't stand it anymore, and then
(23:23):
do it again, and the apple was starting to go brown.
The movie came out and I a friend said, you've
got to go read what they wrote about you in
Newsweek magazine. I said, well, why would they write about me?
He said, go read it. So it was a review
of Beverly Hills cop and I walked to the supermarket
to read it, and then on my way home, a
(23:46):
carful of teenagers drove off of a Point Statia Avenue
and onto the sidewalk and came right up to like
three feet in front of me and jumped out and
started hugging me. And that's when they happened.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Your whole life changed. So how drastically does your life change? Then,
what's the first thing that you do when all of
a sudden, you know your reviews are out, you're a star.
What's the first thing you do to turn your situation around?
Speaker 7 (24:14):
The first thing I did was I ran away. I
got because it was you know, we have not caught
up at all with the way our brains are wired
is still from two hundred thousand years ago. So I
got a residual check for risky business, and I ran away.
I went to Greece and I just would turn the
(24:38):
lights out at night and I would take out a
big map of grease and I would put my finger
on it. Whenever my finger landed, I would I would
go there wow. And I remember once there was a
guy yep my age, so that was twenty five. He
was coming down a very steep hill with the sheep,
(24:59):
and he was a sheepherder, and he had a book
under his arm, and so I thought there's a fair
chance he might speak speak English. The people Tom Miller
and Bob Boyatt and Dale mccraven had come to me
with this idea that I didn't think sounded very good
for this TV show about an innocent sheepherder. And I
(25:21):
didn't think that I had any business playing innocence. I
thought I was rather sophisticated and urbane. So I said,
I said, I don't know about that. But anyway, I
ran out of money and I had just met this
sheepherder whose dog was named Dog and uh, so I
(25:42):
went to a phone booth in Athens and called them
and said, do you still want to do that show?
I didn't add because I'm out of money.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Right and I just met Ader whose dog is named Dog,
and they said, yes, we do still want to do
the show.
Speaker 7 (25:59):
I said, okay, like.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Soon, how soon can we get it going?
Speaker 6 (26:04):
Can you check so I can get home.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
I was completely out of money, so I went back
and uh, and we we shot it, and then uh,
the network wanted to replace the guy playing cousin. Uh
Louis was was his name, because he was played by
Louis Anderson. They wanted to replace Louie, so they did
auditions and incomes marklyn Baker and we realized instantly, and
(26:34):
then it's it's the same way today. We can read
each other's minds. And I'm not even kidding. If he
was sitting right here, he would if you asked us
a question, he would know what I was going to answer,
and he'd start laughing, and then I'd start laughing at
the fact that that he knew. And we the you know,
no speaking would happen that when we when we do
(26:56):
Q and A with audiences, we just we just rock
back and forth, laughing, and then he has to hold
my mouth and explain to them all the all the
things that they've missed because someone would just say something like,
are you friends in real life? And then I started
laughing because of course we're must closer than friends, but
(27:18):
I want to say something like like, it's ridiculous, and
then he and so we just laughed. So the whole
whatever when we were interviewed, we laughed for ninety percent
of it, and he explains for nine percent of it,
and I have one or two things to say, and
it's so he walked in the room and and that happened,
(27:41):
and and then and then we were we were off.
But I still what I had missed because then I
was really famous. I had not yet had a chance
to at all find out how to be a functioning
human being. And I also didn't really know what my
(28:03):
process was as an actor. I had no idea, so
I didn't know how to be a person or an actor.
And then they were in the top ten, and and
they were, you know, to me, it's almost like not
my life, but more like a movie I saw, because
the level of craziness was was was I can't even
(28:27):
really quite grasp it now, but I mean it was.
It was crazy. And then there were stilly things like
I bought my first house I ever bought was the
house where Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio had moved right
after their marriage. So there were people from Europe.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yeah, driving by your house.
Speaker 7 (28:48):
No no, no, no, no, not driving, camping to take pictures
of it. And then I would come out like this
to go get the mail and oh my god, it's
not only Marilyn's house, but he's there too, so you know,
and but so I that it's I'm not complaining, but
(29:10):
it delayed. I was not ready to come out of
the egg. I was not ready to be a person,
for sure. I had never had money. I'd grown up
on welfare and then been, you know, eating an apple,
a Browning apple when the first so he was kind
of like taking a toddler and saying, here, you're going
(29:34):
to drive this submarine and you'll be fine.
Speaker 6 (29:37):
So I was.
Speaker 7 (29:39):
I was not equipped to do anything at all except
to play the character. I knew how to play the character,
but I didn't know how to do anything else.
Speaker 3 (29:49):
So how did that play out for you?
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Then?
Speaker 3 (29:50):
Over the course of the years that you were on
the show, What did that look like?
Speaker 7 (29:54):
What it looked like? Very soton very soon I would
play the thing, and people would make you know, they
would roar and and and love it. And then I'd
get in my car to drive home and I would
I would fantasize about a truck hitting me head on.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
And just.
Speaker 7 (30:14):
Because I didn't know how to live, I didn't know
how to do anything except do that performance. And I
was I wanted it. I wanted some some some, I
wanted something. I wanted it to stop. But I didn't
know how to tell anybody. So that that meant that
how can I explain it? It was really almost like
(30:36):
being you know, if you took a chair and waved
a wand over it and said now you're a person.
And and they don't really know how to fake being
a person. They just wait for it to you know,
wait for the enchantment to be over. It was just
too soon.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Yeah, it happened so fast.
Speaker 7 (30:54):
It happened so fast, And it wasn't It wasn't just
that I was a guy with no money who suddenly
had money and fame. It was that I was the
person who didn't even know how to I didn't even
know how to be a person.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Did you feel more like you were a person when
you were in character than you did when you were
were not acting.
Speaker 7 (31:13):
Yes, but then something would happen like, I mean, everybody,
you know, they really adored that character. But of course
he was. He was the kind of person that's like,
you know, you at your very best. And then when
I would go home, uh, to normality, and my girlfriend
(31:36):
would be sitting watching TV with the dogs and not
look up, I would be crushed to a point like
something was wrong. Well, yeah, I mean there were police
holding people back from coming and giving hugs, and then
there were you know, and then there was just a
person who was bored by me or whatever the problem was.
You know, I started playing the happiest, happiest, most optimistic,
(31:59):
loving person alive, and I was the most unhappy.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
So you're Polachi essentially kind of.
Speaker 7 (32:06):
Yeah, And I was afraid. I was afraid to go
get treatment because I was afraid whether they fixed me
and then I couldn't act anymore or I couldn't play anymore.
But that turned out not to be the case, because
it just gave me more, It gave me more control
over my acting, and it gave me better access. But
but because of that doubt, I waited until nineteen ninety
(32:30):
six to go to go get you know, to go
get help. And by that point I would have if
somebody says something that I thought was hurtful or whatever,
I would go dark for like three days. And when
I say dark, I mean zombie. Wow. So I finally,
(32:53):
you know, I finally got sorted out. And then then
then I then I started to and enjoy myself and
live and do Broadway and do the West End and like,
and I was like, oh, is this what it's like?
Because markln Baker used to say to me all the time,
ro so, just let stuff roll off your back, And
(33:14):
I thought he was making that up. I didn't think
that was a thing that a human being could actually do.
I thought that was just a phrase. I didn't know
that somebody could come up and be unkind or just
dumb and that you could let that roll off your back.
I thought he was making it up to just get
me through the moment. I had no idea people could
(33:38):
do that. So that's been really eye opening, because you know,
there's lots of people who were ridiculous. I mean there
was somebody once I was getting on a plane and
I had lots of suitcases and things, and she ran
up just as we were boarding, and I don't like flying.
It makes me nervous. And she ran up and said,
could you sign this? And I said, I'd love to,
but as you can see, I don't have a free hand,
(33:59):
and I'm just getting on the plane and I I
hope I'll meet up with you again someday. So she's
she stood there and she yelled at the top of
her lung as well. I helped. The plane crashes, and
so there we all were, Oh my god, And that's
you know, that's that's bad enough if you've got if
you've got anxiety, if your own you know. Yeah, but
(34:21):
that's the kind of thing that happens if you're on
people's if you're on people's TVs and you're playing somebody
incredibly loving.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Do you ever look back on those years then that
you were on the show and feel sad that you
didn't get to really celebrate those wins of that time.
Speaker 7 (34:42):
Yeah. And I mean every day the whole cast and
lots of you know, members of the staff would go
out for lunch, and every day, God blessed them, they
would ask me, and I would say, no, I have
to stay you know, in character, and I have to
stay here and on perfect strangers. I have to stay
in my dressing room and be very simple and quiet
and have my berry because I was a vegan at
(35:02):
the time, and every day they would ask me, which
was so sweet when I look back on it. They
never gave up on me. But I'd never socialized. I never,
I mean, it all had to be for the character.
I wouldn't party, I wouldn't do anything for me. Life
was like I had an oxygen tank and I didn't
know how long I would be down snarkling, and so
(35:25):
I couldn't give any of the oxygen for anything else.
Like yes, so just just the way it was, I mean,
I look back on it, I couldn't even even with
my family. I would come and I would do Thanksgiving,
and one of my brothers would always have a new
girlfriend for Thanksgiving and then there'd be a new one
for Christmas. Every which meant that I had to make
(35:48):
a rule, which was no show biz at all, because
at Thanksgiving, I'm gonna have to sit there and talk
about what's so and so like, and what's so and
so like, and then three weeks later do it all
over again. And I don't like that. No show biz,
No show biz so I had I had a million
rules because I didn't have the skill set like nowadays.
(36:09):
There was a woman on a plane a few months
ago and she didn't know who the hell I was.
She sit next to me, and a flight attendant came
up and said, would you sign this menu? I said shirt,
and the woe next to me looked over, like, what's
that all about? And I didn't yeah. And then and
then somebody else came up and said would you sign
(36:29):
my napkin? And I said okay. And finally the woman
next to me said why are they doing that? And
I said because I'm an actor. And she said the
thing that they always say, well have you ever been
in anything that I have seen?
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Right?
Speaker 7 (36:44):
Like?
Speaker 3 (36:44):
You know?
Speaker 7 (36:46):
So instead of you know, getting up up at the
I just said, let the words just come to Bronston
because you're a friendly, nice, warm person and you can
do this with humor. And it came to me and
I said to her, I don't know, why don't you
list everything you've ever seen and if I was in it?
(37:09):
And she laughed and I laughed, and then we had
a nice flight and we talked about nothing, because I
I there is a there is a fantastically nice, funny,
warm way to say no, I'm not gonna listen to
my credits. And I didn't when I was younger. I
didn't know that if you just take a breath, something
(37:30):
will come to you. That's that's kind of like true
but also fun. And we were laughing. We were laughing.
She was like, oh, yeah, I get it. Yeah, And
if we had the Greens time we chatted, we we've
made fun of the movie. We but I, you know,
like I didn't know that if you just took a second,
(37:52):
the right, the right, and and and and just choice
words that let everybody still be a human would come
to you.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
Well, now I'm so curious.
Speaker 5 (38:02):
You talked about how essentially you were one person in
the early eighties, and like we all do, we change,
but you really had a big change in the nineties.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
So when you got to go back to then play the.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
Same character again that you did in something like Beverly
Hills Cop, did you come at it from a different
way because now you were such a different person When
you went back to the character again, you came back
it the same line characters.
Speaker 7 (38:28):
You know, as any astrophysicists will tell you, there really
is this thing as time, and as any psychotherapists will
tell you, the unconscious has no grasp of time. So
I mean, I kai smell if someone makes big plant
farmers dount exactly the way my mom did, I'll start
(38:48):
crying because that's it. So what you know, characters certainly
have no concept of time. No, And as soon as
you start to do it, or I do that, and
it's the same, it's nineteen eighty four again, and there's
no there's no passage of time at all. And also
(39:12):
I was quite lucky in around two thousand and three,
two thousand and four, two thousand and five, as fate
would have it, I did two plays back to back
where I played multiple characters, and I'm talking about one.
In one play, thirty eight different characters, and then right
(39:34):
after it a play where I played eight different characters.
And in both plays it was male, female, old, young,
in between every nationality, every ethnicity, every everything. And in
both plays it was part of the magic of the
play that you didn't have. There were no costumes, there
were no props. You just transformed. So doing that for
(39:58):
three years really expunge the final you know, I used
to be the kind of person who would say, well,
I'm you know, if you want me to play this
seventeenth century musketeer and you don't have the musketeer hat
and the exact rapier, how am I supposed to.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Be having from?
Speaker 7 (40:17):
But after you play thirty eight plus eight forty six
characters without having anything, and you have to turn, you
have to go from an eighty five year old Irish
priest to a five year old you know, and to
it for a little boy to a box and sexy
amazing female movie star boo boo boo boo boom blah
(40:38):
boom like that. Then you stop, you know, you stop
saying if you don't give me the hat and the rapier,
I can't do it. You never the final the final
piece was that I did for two seasons on DIYTV.
I did my version of a home renovation show on
(40:58):
the DIY TV where I worked on my own homes.
I had half a dozen I would redo rooms, I
would redo the whole house using pre Civil War architectural salvage.
And it was called the Bronzen Pinchow project. And once
in a while they would say, oh yeah, when you
(41:22):
went to the salvage yard, you got out of the
truck before the truck even stopped moving, and we didn't
get a clean shot of that, so let's do it again.
And I would say, well, no, that's what I do.
I'm excited. And I got out of a moving truck
and they called the Bronzon Pincho Project and it ain't
going to get any more bronze and pinch show than that, right,
(41:44):
And they'd say, well, the shot is, the SHOT's not cleaned,
and I would say, well, maybe you should be readier,
because I mean, I wasn't being a brat. I was
just there was another time where you know, they move
into your house and the cameras are there, they live there.
And another time, these two beautiful like eighteen forties gas
(42:08):
lamps arrived and they had been poorly packed and they
were broken into a million pieces. But you have a deadline,
so they're filming me. I opened the box and I want, okay,
get the dealer, you know. I sent an email to
the dealer and find out if you ensure them. All right,
what are we doing next? And they said, cut, cut,
(42:29):
cut cut. You really need to be a lot more upset,
said I just was in real time, just out as
Bronson Pincho at my own house, opening a thing in
real time, no happening to be what what do you
want me to do? Reality TV? That's that's as upset
as I have the time and energy to get. That's
(42:51):
what you got to be kidding me, Well, we need it,
it would be more accident. No, thank you. I actually
I had a great I had a great line. He said,
we need we need you to be more worried all
the time about something you can pick. I said, well,
I'm worried that you're not giving me enough money to
do these episodes. And they said no, but but you know,
(43:16):
could you can we can we make it that there's
a giant storm coming And I said, And the director
loved this so much because he was a goofball. He
said that the network said, like, if if you could
do like there's a storm coming, or there's a there's
a you know, like a building inspector coming or something
that just makes it all like worried all the time.
And I said, I am not participating in bull crape.
(43:40):
The only real stress I have is that they're not
giving me enough money to do these rooms the way
I want. So I'm using my own money, so I'm
not making any money the real stress and if you
don't want to show the real stress, I'm not doing stress.
So I'm not participating. And all the crew who all
(44:01):
lived up there and would be in the house and
they went went you. Did you hear them in the
other room say that. Samony would say, do you want
to get like chicken salad? And I'm not participating inpating.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Well, a few years ago we did a commercial together
for the ABC reboot of TGIF. It was me Reginald
Bell Johnson and you and Mark Lynn Baker, and I
vividly remember they wanted you to to do the dance
of joy and yes, and there was like a real
(44:37):
hush on the set and it was so incredible because
both of you were not really sure you fully remembered it,
and then you guys rehearsed it very briefly. You nailed it.
It was perfect. It was like no time had passed
and the both of your faces just lit up, and
(44:59):
there was so much.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
Joy around the two of you.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
I just I just had to mention that because are
you guys still very close?
Speaker 7 (45:09):
Oh? Yes. The funny thing is we're so close that
I don't even know every once in a while I'll
think of something and I'll just text him. And we
share an agent for personal appearances. And the agent, well,
he's a very nice guy, but he'll he'll say to me,
are you on board? Uh, We're gonna do a personal
(45:30):
appearance in Knoxville in July. Are you on board uh
for these? Uh? This, this and this? And I'll say yes,
and he'll say great. And I'll say, but I but
only if Mark is nude. So I know that he
has to professional. As a professional, he has to pass
that message.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
I wanted to talk very briefly about another classic movie
or in True Romance. It was written by Quentin Tarantino,
directed by Tony Scott, a star studded cast.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
What was that experience like for you?
Speaker 7 (46:13):
Well, I want to tell you about the most Hollywoodish
thing that ever happened to me ever, all all in
one thing. Okay. So there's a scene in it where
I'm driving in a was it open that was open convertible?
Speaker 4 (46:28):
Yeah it was. It was a nine to eleven slant
nose with the open top, the white one.
Speaker 7 (46:33):
Okay, So with this adorable actress playing a crackhore and
we're driving and then I and then we shot me
driving first, and then I had to pull over, and
because the cop was behind me, so we had already
shot a good portion of the scene when it was
time to pull over. And when it was time to
pull over, Uh, I looked down and realized, because they're
(46:57):
they're toning you. They're toning you, you know, and shoot
you tell truck is playing. So yeah, I could pretend
I'm driving, but then it's time to pull over the car.
And I said, oh my goodness, this is stick shift.
I don't know how to drive stick shift. And you
can't very well pull over in park if you can't
drive stick shift. So Tony says, are you kidding me?
(47:23):
Nobody elst him. If you can drive, the fuck are
you're going to get this stop? And so he was
because we were really just so We're way up on
mulhalland drive in LA and I'm like, to dude, he's
not my fault. So my hair is black at that
point in time. So they hurriedly decide, and I had
(47:44):
not been wearing sunglasses. They hurriedly decided the only way
out of it is to get this one of the
one of the crew who knew how to drive stick
They just spray painted his hair black, and then he
pulled the car over, and Tony said, does it look
a thing Bronson? So somebody said, how about sunglasses? And
he said, but he's not wearing glasses in the scene.
(48:06):
And so somebody said maybe Bronson would would pantomime putting
on sunglasses and some other part of the scene, and
I said, I will, It's fine. So they're they're painting
this guy's head. They're painting his head and he's pulling over.
Tony is still hyperventilating. The man's head is painted and
he's pulling over, and I have nothing to do while
(48:27):
I do that, And just at that moment, Madonna cycles
by in head to toe lycra. God, it's never gonna
get any more holiday, right, They just they just painted
somebody to pretend to be me. Everybody's upset and yelling,
and nobody but me sees that Madonna has just cycled
(48:51):
by in in like purple and lime green lycra. This
is so wonderful. Nobody is paying attention because they're busy
watching the man painted to be me and so funny.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
God.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
Also, to call you prolific in the world of audio
books would be a wild understatement.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
Well over four hundred books.
Speaker 7 (49:23):
Well over four hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (49:25):
Please, oh my gosh, well over four hundred and fifty books,
tons of awards. You are a legend in the field.
What makes giving a voice to a book so exciting
to you?
Speaker 7 (49:37):
Well, it is like it is like going to the
acting gym like constantly, and I have to say, because
you're sitting in the booth the size of the front
seat of a car, and I'm claustrophobic, and you have
to be the narrator. You have to give it the
(49:58):
narrator a voice, and then you have to give every
single character a voice. And then sometimes I just did
a book where the I just did a book the
narrator is he's been brainwashed with drugs to think he's
three different people. So you have to have three different
voices for different sections of the book. And this one
(50:18):
is been throwing up all the time, so his voice
has to be hoarse, and this one on some different
kind of drug. And then you have to be all
the characters. And then one character is when when people
are around, she's in hiding, so she has a fake
Southern accent when there's people around. But then when people
aren't around she she's got her own accent and blah
blah blah blah blah. And so it is like, I'm
(50:41):
not a big fan of juggling, but when people are
really good at it, I'm like, And so it's like that.
It's like the kind where you're catching things you didn't
even throw. It's like you're juggling and then there's a
bird and then there's fire. And it's awfully good for
keeping the whole acting musculature super fit because you don't
(51:04):
have any time. I mean, I would say really, between
those multi character plays and the books, my prep time
nowadays is negative one minute. I because you you know,
you think when you're twenty five, well, I have to
have an hour in pitch dark with no sensory anything
(51:31):
so I can get into this one character. And then
you know, after you've done forty eight characters on stages
from London, Sacramento, and four hundred and fifty audiobooks with
ten characters each, you're like, character boom, It's like what
and so I it it has and I do them.
I do them all the time, and they keep me
(51:52):
from going nuts in between acting gigs. But it also
teaches you something we already all know. You know, if
if you and I are going to take a friend
out to dinner, and it's a very important thing, and
(52:13):
one of us dropped the ball and forgot to make
the reservation, we will look at each other and go
all right, the person doing the reservations that they look
like they like guys or girls. In fact, they like guys, Bronson,
So I will go up and be so flirtatious. I
will get us at table, because the stakes are life
(52:34):
and death. And if we decide that they like girls,
you'll go up and be like ah, and you will
just do it right. You do it all the time.
You you act all the time in life all the time.
My mother, you know, was in a she had an
operation once since she was she had to go to
a rehabilitation center. And I had bought a house, but
(52:55):
I knew my mom would disapprove, so I hadn't. I
bought it in my sisters name. And my mother looked
at me on the pillows and went, tell me the truth,
look into my eyes and tell me did you buy
that house? And I said no. And so when the
(53:18):
when the stakes are high, we all act all day
long with no prep at all, you know, or if
you're trying to get a toddler to eat their yogurt
or whatever, and just do it. And so if you
do doing the audiobooks reminds me like, dude, you don't need,
you know, to be like one guy dying on the
battlefield and his best friend holding him and crying. You
(53:40):
don't have time you like do a prep for each character.
You cry, and then you say it will be all right,
and then you cry and then you die and then
you say, oh my god, my friend died. Now I'm crying,
and then you just do it. Yeah, and and so
it's it's the it's the acting gym. It really is
the acting gym. And it makes me chuckle a little
(54:02):
bit when people say, Okay, I'm sorry, I've got to
stop this conversation out because in three days I'm doing
the scene. I'm like, there are three days you don't
need it, But that's what it does for you. Plus
there's you know, there's people that are bed ridden or
they're on a twenty hour trip or whatever. And I
always think, okay, so I'm just gonna do this in
(54:26):
such a way that you'll laugh or you'll cry or
you'll forget you know that you're on up a big
long and it's it's marvelous. It's really fun, and it's
so intimate because most acting, even if the camera is okay,
so this this phone here is like seventeen inches from
(54:47):
my face. But when you do an audio book, I'm
speaking into a mic, I like the mic really close.
So my mic is like there, I like it. I
like the you're too young to remember Tom Jones, you guys.
Speaker 4 (55:00):
Times of course had the mic like.
Speaker 7 (55:06):
Inside him.
Speaker 4 (55:07):
Yeah, but.
Speaker 7 (55:10):
I like the mic pretty close. I could, so I
could be super intimate. And then I think to myself,
this is so amazing because when somebody listens to the book,
they're going to have earphones on, and the earphones are
how how close are your earphones to your actual brain?
Maybe an inch? Yeah? Maybe right? Yeah, I've got the
(55:35):
mic maybe an inch from my mouth. And then the
the the people that are going to experience this storytelling,
it's an like that is the closest you are ever
going to get, even if you're lovers. Even if your
lovers you have to back up a little. It's like
you're it's the most intimate.
Speaker 5 (55:53):
You're literally well you're the voice in our head, you're
the voice in their head when we're reading ahead.
Speaker 7 (55:58):
And what happens sometimes that's a marvelous something that the
book that's latent in the book becomes much more pronounced
in the audio version. And one version I can give
is there was a somebody that wrote a book about
the race of the North Pole. It was a Norwegian
explorer who actually got there first, and then it was
(56:21):
a British explorer who actually froze to death before he
got there. The book was written by a brit and
he was kind of hard on the British explorer. He
kept saying all the way through the book, if he
had been less stuffy and less British, he would have
understood this, this, and this. So he was kind of
hard on the British explorer, and it just as it happened.
(56:43):
The very last page of the book was the piece
of paper they found in his frozen hand when they
found his dead body, his frozen body, he was writing
with a pen in his tent and he froze to death.
So the very last page of it was this entry
from his diary saying, I know people have found fault
(57:07):
with me, and I know I haven't been the best.
But for the love of God, whoever finds this way,
you please please take care of my wife and children.
And so my voice I broke down reading it and
I said to the engineer, do not you don't you
dare ask me to do another take of that that
because that is what he was feeling. And so the
(57:31):
audiobook version of this book, where the British author was
kind of ragging on him, he gets the last word,
please please think of me with humanity. I mean, I
choked up thinking about it. And that's like I didn't
really change it. It's just the last word is by
this man who died as he wrote these words. No
(57:53):
matter what you say about him, he actually is having
the last word because it's an audiobook and you can't
it's wonderful. That happens quite a lot in audiobooks. Is
a quality that may or may not have. Either it's
in the book, but it becomes much more luminous, or
(58:14):
it's kind of not in the book but there's no
way around it, and that's it's kind of neat, that's
wonderful special, or or sometimes there's like in a mystery,
you know, there's there's a there's a character with an
identifiable accent, and he's actually the murderer, and at a
crucial point of the book, he comes up behind the
(58:35):
main character and says, now, I've got you. Well, on
the page, it doesn't say who it is, but if
you're doing the same voice you've already created, then the
listener does know who it is. And that's fun. It's
like whoa, it's it's suddenly in three D. This isn't
(58:55):
this is what you isn't what it would look like
on the page. My favorite example ever was there was
there's a book that ended with this guy. He's getting
stabbed and he's he makes his way into a building
and he knows he's dying. So he's crawling across the floor,
dying of blood loss, and he's trying to stay aware
(59:19):
and alive until he reaches the phone and he's talking
to himself and talking to himself, and finally, right in
the middle of a sentence, it stops and the rest
of the page is blank, so that you understand reading
it that he has died of blood loss. That's it
doesn't say he died of blood loss. He just stops thinking.
And so it's very, very meaningful on the page. You
(59:43):
see this blank page. So I did it like that.
I just stopped right like that, and the note came
back from the proofreader. The thought seems unfinished.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 7 (01:00:01):
Yeah he's dead.
Speaker 4 (01:00:02):
Yeah he's gone.
Speaker 7 (01:00:03):
And that's the way it's got to be.
Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah, it's going to stay that way.
Speaker 7 (01:00:09):
That's what the You know, if you don't have the
book in front of you, this is I'm not even
sure it's the next best thing. It's it's just as
good as it's like this. The existence of this brain
has ceased. But it's so funny the notes you get unfinished.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
I have one last question for you, and forgive me
if you do not know this, but we are one
year away from Perfect Stranger's fortieth anniversary. Yeah, I wanted
to know if you could go back and tell young
Bronzon something on the set of his massive, huge hit
TV show, what would be the one message you would
give young Bronson.
Speaker 7 (01:00:46):
I wouldn't say a thing he for for acting wise, No.
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
Just any message now, knowing what you know now, having
lived the life you've lived, now, if you could go
back and tell him.
Speaker 7 (01:00:57):
Anything, because he did it as he did it to
the best of his abilities. What he did was conserve
one hundred percent of himself for that performance, and at
the time that led to people saying, you don't socialize
(01:01:19):
very much, and you know, but the performance stands and
now I'm still here, So I wouldn't change I wouldn't
change anything. Not that he would have listened, but his
feeling was one hundred percent of it belongs on screen
and I'm going to pour my heart into it and
it's still there. Yeah, So I mean nothing.
Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Wonderful Bronson, Thank you so much for spending some time
with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
We so appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (01:01:48):
Thank you for your patience.
Speaker 1 (01:01:50):
Oh my gosh, so wonderful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Have a great day. Enjoy the rest of your weekend
as well.
Speaker 7 (01:01:58):
Big love, Thank you so much, Thank you bye.
Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Oh my gosh. He's got so many interesting stories he
is in.
Speaker 5 (01:02:06):
Like I mean, if you listed twenty of my favorite movies,
he's probably in eight or nine of them.
Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Seriously, he has one of those.
Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Get to ask about after hours after our.
Speaker 5 (01:02:15):
And I didn't want to, you know, I didn't want
to jump in and interrupt any of his stories. But
he's there for like the start of the careers of
Tom cruise Matt Dillon.
Speaker 4 (01:02:23):
I mean, you know, it's what Eddie Murphy you need.
Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
It's one after another of these people that became went
on to define Hollywood, and he was right there for
for just star after star after star.
Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
It's amazing when you love.
Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
You know, his laugh with his co star, like the
idea that they have, that mind meld, and I'm like, oh,
I get it, we get it.
Speaker 6 (01:02:45):
That's that's that's still in us.
Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
I know, I know he described it so well, but
also just watching him do it, like they kept happening
to him and we brought him up.
Speaker 6 (01:02:54):
He's like, well, let me tell you about this, and
then he doesn't.
Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Even really have much of a story because it's just
their connection. It's like it's even probably not that funny,
but he's a perfect Yes, it's so cool speaking a
witch rider.
Speaker 5 (01:03:07):
Right now you have the perfect Superman Clark curl.
Speaker 6 (01:03:10):
Look at that right Wow? Wow?
Speaker 4 (01:03:13):
Yeah, there you go, straight up Clark Kent. I love it, Yeah, yeah,
I love it.
Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Time to take some heads shots.
Speaker 4 (01:03:22):
But if you put on a haired glasses, I would
know who you were. Who are crazy?
Speaker 6 (01:03:25):
Who are you crazy? But the Curl's never there when
he's Clark right.
Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
The curl is yeah, it's part of Superman mostly Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:03:31):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Pod Meets World. As always, you can follow us on
Instagram pod Meets World Show. You can send us your
emails pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com and
we've got merch.
Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Merch well, merch well for me.
Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
If you know, you know, Pod meets Worldshow dot com
will send us out.
Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
We love you all, pod dismissed.
Speaker 5 (01:03:54):
Podmeats World is nheart podcast produced and hosted by Danielle Fischel,
Wilfredell and Ryder Strong executive producers, Jensen Karp and Amy
Sugarman Executive in charge of production, Danielle Romo, producer and editor,
Tara sudbachsch producer, Maddy Moore, engineer and Boy Meets World
superfan Easton Allen. Our theme song is by Kyle Morton
of Typhoon and you can follow us on Instagram at
(01:04:15):
Podmeets World Show or email us at Podmets Worldshow at
gmail dot com
Hosts And Creators
Will Friedle
Danielle Fishel
Rider Strong
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.