Note: Dead Eyes transcripts have been generated with automated software and may contain errors. We advise you to listen to episode audio before quoting in print.
Dead Eyes, Episode 16 - “Castaways”
[Desert island beach sounds fade in]
Connor Ratliff I started this show in January, back when it was still safe to record face-to-face conversations in a studio. Then I went out on tour at the end of February, and I thought the biggest challenge I'd be facing was me having to record an episode or two on the road. Instead, I ended up quarantining at my parents' house in Missouri for seven months. And after that, I was alone in my apartment in Queens.
And now inexplicably, I find myself here on a desert Island with Federal Express boxes washing up at my feet. I opened the first one because I don't work for FedEx, so if a box washes up on shore, I'm going to open it, right? And inside was a cassette player. And now, more boxes are showing up and they have tapes in them. And it's, it's the damnedest thing. Here. I'll just play one. You're not gonna believe this.
[Garbled cassette tape starts playing]
Ira Glass It didn't have enough to pull you forward. You didn't have a question in the air or something.
[Cassette player stops]
Connor Ratliff Okay—that's me and Ira Glass talking about the David Simon HBO series Treme.
[Garbled cassette tape starts playing]
Ira Glass I enjoyed everything I saw. I have no complaints against it.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Ira Glass David Simon's a genius. But, uh, but like, uh, I liked the characters, I liked watching them, but like, yeah, I just kind of fell off.
[Cassette player stops, fiddling with tape]
Connor Ratliff Let me play another one.
[Garbled cassette tape starts playing]
Aimee Mann Have you been listening to the hearings?
Connor Ratliff Uh, I watched a little bit this morning and...I get so frustrated.
Aimee Mann It's pretty irritating.
Connor Ratliff And like, the guy—there was a Republican, he wanted the guy to acknowledge some video that he'd shown. It felt like I was watching somebody's grandpa like, scream about, "Did you read the thing I forwarded you?!"
Aimee Mann [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff It just was like...
Aimee Mann That's really irritating. I didn't see that. Oh my god...
[Cassette player stops]
Connor Ratliff That's me and Aimee Mann talking about the impeachment hearings last January. [Laughs] God, that feels like a million years ago.
Wilson Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So this is a...clip show?
Connor Ratliff Yes, Wilson, the volleyball. But it's all new clips. Stuff people haven't heard before.
Wilson Oh, so it's deleted scenes.
Connor Ratliff That's right. Wilson.
Wilson Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah, that, that makes sense to me. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Wilson, you've listened to the podcast, right? And you're familiar with it?
Wilson Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Very familiar, I, I love it.
Connor Ratliff Good. Good. So, um, basically, uh, for a lot of the conversations I've recorded for the podcast, I talked to people for a long time, and then when we're making the episodes, we try to keep them pretty tight, and we end up cutting out a lot of things because they just don't serve the specific story of the episode.
Wilson Yeah. It's felt tight. It's been, it's been very tight. It's, it's a, it's a tight podcast.
Connor Ratliff Oh, thank you. Thank you for saying that.
Wilson You're welcome.
Connor Ratliff You remember the Ryan Johnson episode?
Wilson Oh, the one where you spelled his name wrong in the title? That one?
Connor Ratliff I'm glad you brought that up. Remember, there were two Ryan Johnsons in that episode. There's the writer-director of Knives Out who spells his name R-I-A-N. And then the fictional character I created in the late '90s who had a website called "Ryan Johnson's Star Wars Prequel Rumors," and that character's name was spelled R-Y-A-N. So that's, that's the Ryan in the title.
Wilson Oh...got it. So the title, the title of the episode was more about what you did rather than what Rian Johnson has done.
Connor Ratliff Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Wilson Got it. Okay.
Connor Ratliff So we were being a little clever. Yeah. And it, and—
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —some people were confused by that.
Wilson No, no, I, yeah. I definitely a more...the podcast is more about you, which is what I enjoy about it.
Connor Ratliff Okay. So anyway, for that episode, I talked to the actor, Holmes Osborne, who's the guy I worked with who was also friends with Tom Hanks from way back. He was the dad in That Thing You Do.
Wilson Ah, yes. Yes. I remember that.
Connor Ratliff So I talked to Holmes for over two hours. And there was a part of me that just wanted to release the entire phone call, just unedited, as its own episode, because I loved hearing him talk about acting and his career. He had all these great little insights and stories about what it was like for him being a character actor. Lemme play this for you.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette starts playing and fades into normal sounding interview audio]
Holmes Osborne I did quite a few guest spots. Uh, when I was, when I was living there and you know, it was a big deal to me. Um, when I first got here there, uh, I got on ER, I though, Oh man, this is, yeah, this is pretty cool. And then I read for, uh, NYPD Blue, and I went, Oh, man, this is big.
And I went into NYPD Blue, the character had lost his son or his daughter or something. And according to the writer, he breaks down emotionally in the scene. And I worked [faux crying and sniffling] myself up, you know, before the...there were a whole bunch of people in the room, you know, director and producers. And they said, "Wow, that was...that was very moving, very moving Holmes. Nice, nice job."
Well, I didn't know at that time to keep your mouth shut. Let the audition speak for itself. Get up, walk out of the room, close the door, forget you ever auditioned and if you hear somebody, something great. And if you don't, great too. I'll move on to another one. I didn't know that then.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Holmes Osborne I said, "Well, yeah," I said, "I've got some—there've been some issues in the family and, uh, and I was still—"
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Holmes Osborne I was still kind of emotion, you know, and I was trying to come out of it. And I said, "I, you know, I was just, I was just drawing on that."
I get back and I get a call from the agent. I called him back and he said, "Well, Holmes, we had a report back from the casting director and NYPD Blue—wanted to know, if you're okay."
Connor Ratliff Oh...
Holmes Osborne I say, "Yeah, I'm...I'm fine?"
He said, "Well you—They were all pretty worried about you. Said you were talking about your family, and—[laughs]—that there had been some—"
I said, "Oh shit, I should have shut up."
[fades back to cassette sound, cassette player stops]
Connor Ratliff He also has a great West Wing story about Aaron Sorkin.
Wilson Ooh.
Connor Ratliff But I'm going to save that for later in the episode.
Wilson Aw, shit. You're just going to tease it?
Connor Ratliff Yeah, I'm teasing it. I'm teasing it.
Wilson Man.
Connor Ratliff Wilson, I don't remember you having any lines of dialogue in the movie Cast Away.
Wilson Oh, I, I actually had plenty. Um, multiple pages.
Connor Ratliff Really?
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Wow.
Wilson Yeah. And I'm not used to, you know, doing that kind of stuff. So it was, it was pretty hard for me and, and maybe that's what showed up on, you know, on film or whatever, and they had to cut it.
Connor Ratliff Whose decision was that?
Wilson I, I think the producers, um, you know, including...
[Theme song fades in]
Well, all of the producers just felt like if they gave me lines that it would add to a story that they didn't need to tell. That's what I was told. Um...
Connor Ratliff You know, Wilson. We actually don't have time to investigate that because we got to start the... the woman has to introduce the episode to, to get it started, so it's a real episode.
Wilson Oh, right, right, right.
Voice of God This is Dead Eyes, a podcast about one actor's quest to find out why Tom Hanks fired him from a small role in the 2001 HBO miniseries Band of Brothers.
Connor Ratliff My name is Connor Ratliff. I'm an actor and comedian. Twenty years ago, I was fired by Tom Hanks—
Wilson Hey Con—Connor. Sorry. I, I just want to know who was that lady in the intro? Who—who's that voice?
Connor Ratliff It's just a fun secret, Wilson.
Wilson Even though I'm the only one...here with you? You wouldn't be able to tell me?
Connor Ratliff I can mouth it for you, but I don't want it to—
Wilson [Sighs] I can't read lips. I'm...[sighs] Forget it.
Connor Ratliff I'm, I'm sorry.
[Theme music ends. Beach sounds]
Wilson, do you like Jon Hamm?
Wilson [Laughs] Of course.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, me too. Jon Hamm was very kind to do this podcast before anybody even knew what it was. Do you wanna hear Jon Hamm failure story?
Wilson Yes, please.
[Cassette plays, beach sounds fade into normal interview audio]
Connor Ratliff Have you ever been fired from a, uh, an acting job?
Jon Hamm Uh, yes, I have. The circumstances were kind of weird, but I did a pilot in 2000...maybe three, that was at the time called Sisters, but this was for like, the CW or the WB or—
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Jon Hamm Some, the, the like the, the Dawson's Creek network, you know, one of the, one of—the younger network.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm So I was playing the love interest to Laura San Giacomo, who was the eldest of three sisters. Um, the middle one was Jennifer Esposito, and the young one was, uh, Lizzy Caplan. So these three sisters had crazy stuff and...something was always going on in their lives. And, although we weren't married, I was very much ingratiated into the family as the oldest sister's, longtime boyfriend. And it's like, "Should we, or shouldn't we? Do you want to get married? I don't know, do we love each other that much? What's the deal? What's the next step?" It was that kind of stuff.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Jon Hamm We shoot the pilot over the course of like...ten, eleven days. Poor Laura San Giacomo is forced almost every day. It's like, uh, it's like she never gets her full turnaround and she's like exhausted and so good and such, such a great person, uh, in general, but also to, to act opposite.
And, um, we finished the pilot. "Hey, great!" You know, "See you at reshoots! Ha ha!" like, whatever. And I go off and go...I'm meant to go have like have a summer. Well, of course, they end up doing reshoots and they're doing this thing of like, "Well, we're not sure where we want your character to go. Like, there there's a lot of like, retooling."
And I'm like, "Oh, okay." Um, so now I'm like talking to her on the phone [laughing] a lot? And I'm like, "That ain't good..." [laughs]
Connor Ratliff Your character is on the phone?
Jon Hamm I'm, I'm on the phone with her who is not...she's not—There's, there's no other side of the conversation.
Connor Ratliff Oh, gotcha.
Jon Hamm I'm a little bit like, "I don't know what's happening here." So I come to find out, or if somebody figures out that they have fired Laura San Giacomo. And so I'm like, "Okay, well then...that means I'm fired. Right? Because then I have no, I'm not part of this family. I don't have a thing—"
"No, we're not sure if she's, if she died and you're like, her ex-husband, we don't, we're trying to figure it out. We're trying to figure it out."
And meanwhile, I'm supposed to go to my friend's wedding in Hawaii. And I'm kind of like, "But I have to go to this wedding."
They're like, "No, we need you to, we need you—A couple more days of reshoots. We have to do this stuff."
I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm not going to be in the—Guys. There's no part! Like, what are we reshooting?
Connor Ratliff They wouldn't let you go.
Jon Hamm They will not release me to go to this thing. So I end up missing, like it's a week in Hawaii. I end up missing half of it. By the time I come back, they're like, "Oh yeah, we couldn't figure it out. Sorry, but we, we can't, we can't use you. Like...thank you for your service." [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Oh, Wilson. This tape is labeled "D'Arcy Carden." It's from March of 2019. And I believe this is going to be a little bit of a flashback, uh, to life before the pandemic. It involves a pre-pandemic holiday party. And I just want to be clear that she is referencing something that happened in late 2018.
Wilson Okay. So this is not a clip talking about a super spreader event. That's good to know.
Connor Ratliff No. No.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Connor Ratliff Well, here's, here's a question, uh, leading into that. Have you, have you ever, at this point, you ever cross paths with Tom Hanks either personally or professionally?
D'Arcy Carden Yeah, I have. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff Can I ask in what way?
D'Arcy Carden Sure. Okay. It's gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna have to, you might, um, roll your eyes. You won't roll your eyes because you love me, but someone listening to this might roll their eyes a lot.
Connor Ratliff Okay.
D'Arcy Carden Okay, so I'm going to be cool. I'm going to try to be cool about this, but my husband, Jason, and I were recently invited to...[laughing] a Christmas party at Conan O'Brien's house.
Connor Ratliff That's a great sentence.
D'Arcy Carden Great sentence. I could stop there, but the Hankses...The Hanks-Wilsons were there.
Connor Ratliff Tom and Rita?
D'Arcy Carden Yeah. And guess what? They were wonderful.
Connor Ratliff I have no doubt. I have no doubt.
D'Arcy Carden They were wonderful.
Connor Ratliff It was a great party? It was a nice party?
D'Arcy Carden It was a great party, it was a party like, Jason and I walked in and we were gonna, we were kind of like, "We'll stay for 15 minutes and then we'll go, because we're not going to know anybody here and it's going to be awkward. And we're just going to be standing in a corner, not talking to people." But everybody was really friendly. Uh, the man in...in question? In conversation? The man we're talking about was really lovely and friendly and [laughing] we had a great conversation?! Um, you want me to tell you what Tom Hanks said at the end of our conversation?
Connor Ratliff Is this on the record or off the record?
D'Arcy Carden Sure. It can be on the record. We had a couple conversations. There was like, in a group of people, he asked how he met—me and Jason—asked how we met and, and, and was actually interested in our story and blah, blah, blah. And then later on, brought Rita over to like... explain it again. And then at the end of the conversation, he said, "Wow, you are an inspiration to us all. [laughs] Which I thought was really cute! And also almost like, like winky and cheeky, because it's like clearly him and Rita are the—like they're, you know, they've been together forever. They're like a real Hollywood couple that's like made it. And I thought it was, it was funny and cute.
[Beach sounds fade in, tape stops]
Connor Ratliff Since that recording was made, D'Arcy was nominated for an Emmy. Wilson, do you watch The Good Place?
Wilson Yes. Great show. Great cast.
Connor Ratliff A lot of great actors on that show.
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff You know, D'Arcy told me something, which was that at one point she saw my name on a list.
Wilson A list?
Connor Ratliff A list of names they were thinking about for a recurring role on The Good Place.
Wilson [Gasps]
Connor Ratliff Which made me very happy because even though to the best of my knowledge, that's as far as it got, somebody wrote my name down on a list of possible actors for a part of that show, and then they cast somebody else. But I appreciated knowing that one of my favorite TV shows. Even had a passing thought about me.
Wilson There's a lot of great actors reoccurring on that show. And one that is suspect.
Connor Ratliff Oh, which one? Oh, don't tell me. I bet I know. I bet I know.
Wilson Yeah. It's like how dumb can you be? Right?
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Right. There's a, there's a point where it's funny and then there's a point where he goes past it and you think—
Wilson Yeah, yeah.
Connor Ratliff Okay, well now I don't buy it.
Wilson I don't buy it. Too many tank tops.
Connor Ratliff I don't buy what this actor is selling.
Wilson Not even close.
Connor Ratliff Uh, but other than that, a perfect show.
Wilson Absolutely perfect.
Connor Ratliff Wilson, have you ever been in a commercial?
Wilson Wait, why would I be in a commercial?
Connor Ratliff I mean, I've seen people playing volleyball in commercials. I know, I know I have.
Wilson Well, uh, no, never. But maybe someday.
Connor Ratliff One of my favorite things about doing this podcast is hearing other people's Dead Eyes stories. Because the details are always so specific, uh, that the thing that for me was, "You have dead eyes," is always some other hurtful detail depending on the person. Now this tape is labeled Jackie Jennings.
Wilson This is Jackie Jennings from SyFy?
Connor Ratliff You watch SyFy, Wilson?
Wilson I love SyFy. S-Y-F-Y. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff [Gasp] I, I feel like I am always learning new things about you, Wilson.
Wilson Yeah, I'm, I'm complicated.
Connor Ratliff Okay. I know exactly what the story is because I hated having to cut it out of the episode.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Jackie Jennings I was once fired in front of—on set in front of much lower stakes. It was like a commercial that— It was not good, but because the director said I was morbid. He said it was too morbid. And he swapped me out with, uh, someone who had been an extra and gave them my lines. And I didn't get the full rate for the day because I was then in the background. So I got paid as an extra, even though I'd been hired as like a principal on an NFL commercial. I'm sure I signed an NDA for that. I don't care.
Connor Ratliff They said to your face, "You're too morbid."
Jackie Jennings "You're morbid." Yeah.
Connor Ratliff They didn't ask you, "Can you be less morbid?"
Jackie Jennings He gave me like once or twice to kind of retry the line. And I think it was because they wanted people who were very like, it was like me, it was two women and they wanted people who were like, "Wow! Like, my boyfriend's on fantasy football all the time!"
And I think I was reading it, like, [sarcastic] "My boyfriend..." You know, like a little, the way a human would talk? And they didn't like that.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, like a real person, they're like—
Jackie Jennings Yeah.
Connor Ratliff "This is fantasy football."
Jackie Jennings Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff "We want a fantasy version of how a woman would feel if her husband was doing fantasy football all the time.
Jackie Jennings And that, and then after two or three tries, he was like, "Ugh! This is morbid! You're morbid!!" And he fired me. And he replaced me with [bleep, laughter].
Connor Ratliff And you had to then stand in the background? You didn't just leave?
Jackie Jennings No. They were like go, literally switch with him, like switch places with him. He'll he'll do the lines. And you stand in the background."
Connor Ratliff How'd you feel?
Jackie Jennings I actually felt relieved because they had been so mean, and were like making me do these takes over and the hair and makeup lady kept yelling at me for touching my hair? Between takes? I didn't realize I was doing, but I kept doing it. So when they finally were like, "You can't do this," I was sort of like, "You're right. I don't know what you want. This is..." And it was a lot, we were filming in Giants Stadium, it was a huge set of people.
Connor Ratliff That's terrible.
Jackie Jennings So you're not the only one who's been fired for...
Connor Ratliff Who would have thought that the NFL would not care about what happens to people?
Jackie Jennings Wouldn't care. [Laughs] Wouldn't care! Yeah. I also got several concussions that day.
Connor Ratliff Right. From touching your hair.
Jackie Jennings Mhm!
Connor Ratliff That's why she—they were probably touchy about it. Because they're like—
Jackie Jennings "Stop."
Connor Ratliff "Stop touching your hair. What if you touch your head too hard—"
Jackie Jennings "Yes."
Connor Ratliff "—and you get a concussion."
Jackie Jennings Yes. This was also—yeah.
Connor Ratliff "And then we're going to get blamed for it."
Jackie Jennings Exactly.
Connor Ratliff That was my final question, was whether or not you had had a Dead Eyes experience and that's pretty close to it? Being told you're too morbid. Um...
Jackie Jennings Too morbid. I don't disagree, but you cast me.
Connor Ratliff Right. And I would argue that you just weren't the right fit for what sounds like terrible material.
Jackie Jennings Yeah.
[Beach sounds fade back in with cassette audio, tape stops]
Connor Ratliff Wilson, what's the most hurtful thing anyone has ever said about you?
Wilson Yeesh, uh...maybe, uh, that, um, I look like, murderous?...was one thing that I—
Connor Ratliff Murderous.
Wilson Murderous, yeah. Mainly because my, my face is blood.
Connor Ratliff [At same time] Your face is blood. Yeah.
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff You, you have—You, I have to say this. And I, I, it pains me to say this Wilson, you actually do have dead eyes. They don't move. And they're made of blood, just smeared on the surface of, of...you?
Wilson I mean, my face is smeared on me, just like your face is smeared on you, uh...
Connor Ratliff That's different.
Wilson That doesn't make—
Connor Ratliff Wilson, you know, it's different. It is. I'm sorry.
Wilson It—I don't it's different. What I know is what I am. And—
Connor Ratliff Okay.
Wilson You know, I, I can see you, and I can feel you, so I don't feel dead. Um,
Connor Ratliff I don't, well, I don't think you'd be that way either. I think of you as very, very lively.
Wilson I understand that—yeah. I might not—I, I—My eyes are blood, so, yes. I might have murderous eyes? But, uh, they're, they're far from dead. If anything, they're made of living organisms.
Connor Ratliff Right. Okay. Well, that's a beautiful way to look at it. Wilson, I'm going to fire three words at you. Brandon Scott Jones.
Wilson Wow. Yeah. I mean, those are three words that go only together. And never apart.
Connor Ratliff Right. He was recurring on The Good Place. Uh, I mean, he wasn't a regular, he wasn't a series regular, but he was in quite a few episodes. He played the role of John Wheaton, the blogger who ran a website called The Gossip Toilet.
Wilson Amazing. Yes. Yeah. He's...the best
Connor Ratliff BSJ, as we call him, he has a great story about his very first acting job. And it didn't fit in with the themes of any of the episodes we've done, but I think it's a fun story and it has two celebrity cameos.
Wilson [Gasps] Ooooh, who are they?
Connor Ratliff That's a surprise. You have to listen to the story to find out who the celebrities are.
Wilson Ah, okay. I get it. I get it. Great.
Connor Ratliff All right. So let's play that.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Brandon Scott Jones I do remember, actually my very first job, was on All My Children, the soap opera.
Connor Ratliff Wow.
Brandon Scott Jones Back in 2003, I got an under-five, and...it was a big deal. So I was still—I was out of high school at this point. I was out, I was in drama school, but I know that my, I think in high school they had like, rolled it in to watch it live.
Connor Ratliff Wow.
Brandon Scott Jones And that this guy who just graduated, I played like a teen on the beach. I remember I had like three lines and two of them were cut. And the only one that stayed was just like, me going, "Oh yeah!" And I was sort of like from afar. So it just looked like I was a background actor.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Brandon Scott Jones Which I would have been grateful for anyway.
Connor Ratliff Right.
Brandon Scott Jones But that was like, my first job and that happened. And I was like, "Oh god. My lines. They've been cut. My lines!"
Connor Ratliff Do you remember what the other two lines were?
Brandon Scott Jones "Hey!" Uh, "C'mon—" Wait. No, "Come on, let's go!" And, uh, okay, "Come on! Let's—" Oh my god, I'm going to go through these. Hold on.
Connor Ratliff You're on a beach.
Brandon Scott Jones I'm on a beach.
Connor Ratliff Now is this a set of a beach?
Brandon Scott Jones A set of the—Oh god, you want to hear something? I'll tell you this too. I was starving myself before this beach scene because I was afraid that I was going to have to be shirtless.
Connor Ratliff Right.
Brandon Scott Jones And I was not a thin person back then, nor am I now, but I'm not a, you know, I was a little—more unhealthy feeling. Yeah. And so I was just like, "Okay, I'm just going to like be anorexic for a week." And I was so hungry by the time we started to shoot that, I'll never forget, on the beach set there were these bugles that they had just laid around as props.
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Brandon Scott Jones But in between shooting, I would sneak them into my mouth. I would eat them in between scenes or in between shots or what have you. And when you shot, I did not know this at the time, but like the director talks over a loudspeaker. Like, it's not like they're right there on camera, on the set. They were like in a booth. And so like, you'd hear the director come over this loudspeaker and be like, "Okay, let's move on." You know, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And somebody said, "Boy in the purple shirt, stop eating the props." [Laughter]
Connor Ratliff [Laughing]
Brandon Scott Jones That was so, so sad. And, um—
Connor Ratliff It's also a great title—
Brandon Scott Jones Yes.
Connor Ratliff —for a memoir.
Brandon Scott Jones Yes. Also—
Connor Ratliff For an acting memoir—
Brandon Scott Jones Yeah. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff "Stop—"
Brandon Scott Jones "Stop—"
Connor Ratliff What was it? "Boy in the—"
Brandon Scott Jones "Boy in the purple shirt, stop eating the props."
Connor Ratliff That's a haiku or something, right?
Brandon Scott Jones "Boy in the purple shirt. Stop eating the props." Yeah. Also wait, you know, who was in that scene? Um, I think they were, they were on set that day. Amanda Seyfried and Michael B. Jordan.
Connor Ratliff But you say, "Oh yeah!"
Brandon Scott Jones I go, "Oh yeah!" Because I think I see somebody's underwear. "Oh yeah!" I think I was also—
Connor Ratliff So let's get back to these lines. The, the lines were—
Brandon Scott Jones "Come on, let's go."
Connor Ratliff What's the circumstance? You're just people on a beach?
Brandon Scott Jones They're people on a beach.
Connor Ratliff But main characters are doing someting else—
Brandon Scott Jones Party?
Connor Ratliff —and teenagers decide to leave.
Brandon Scott Jones Yeah. So like the main kids are there...[sighs] okay...
Connor Ratliff These are the "children" on—of All My Children. I didn't realize there were, there were—
Brandon Scott Jones [Laughing] There were actually children on All My Children. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I always thought that it was just a turn of phrase. Like, [dramatically] "We've had children."
Brandon Scott Jones [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff But there are actually—there's actually youth storylines on All My Children?
Brandon Scott Jones There were. There were youth storylines in All My Children.
Connor Ratliff So these—The younger characters are at the beach and there's some other kids there just to establish that it's a public—or that it's a beach that has other people on it.
Brandon Scott Jones Correct. And, well, I think that their kids were having a party. I was part of like, the friend group that was there having the party with the kids. I know that there was another guy...There was only like four friends. There was another guy named Brandon—an actor named Brandon.
Connor Ratliff Mhm. And you we're with a group that included Michael B. Jordan.
Brandon Scott Jones I was with a group that included Amanda Seyfried.
Connor Ratliff Okay. But Michael B. Jordan was also there.
Brandon Scott Jones I think he was, yes. I remember seeing him—
Connor Ratliff Playing like, a young child?
Brandon Scott Jones He's—no, this is like, 2003.
Connor Ratliff How old was he at that point?
Brandon Scott Jones This was like right before, I guess, The Wire. He had dread—
Connor Ratliff Oh! Yeah.
Brandon Scott Jones He—I remember he had—he just looked cool.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Brandon Scott Jones He was just like a—He looked like way cooler.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Brandon Scott Jones Um, but he was like, a cast member on that show for awhile.
Connor Ratliff Oh, wow.
Brandon Scott Jones But the kids I was with were not regular cast members. We were like, you know, again, under fives or whatever...And...
Connor Ratliff And so you said...
Brandon Scott Jones And so I said, "Come on, let's go!..Over here...?" Wait. Oh my god. I'm going to have to remember this. "Come on, let's go" was one.
Connor Ratliff Then someone else said maybe like, "Where should we go?"
Brandon Scott Jones Yeah. Or I think we were like—
Connor Ratliff "Over here!"
Brandon Scott Jones And I think—God, I think the direction was we see something over in the distance and we decide to start walking and I go, "Come on, let's go!" [Laughing] "Come on! Let's go." And...
Connor Ratliff [In deep voice] "Where do you suggest we go?"
Brandon Scott Jones Yes.
Connor Ratliff And then you go, "Over here."
Brandon Scott Jones And then I go, "Over here" Maybe!
Connor Ratliff And then you say, "Over there! There's a man taking off his clothes." You go, "Oh yeah!"
Brandon Scott Jones No, I played a straight boy. It was a woman.
Connor Ratliff It was a woman?!
Brandon Scott Jones Yeah. I think she just was in like a t-shirt and white...She was like a button-down Oxford. Maybe she, maybe the woman character like, was in a relationship with a man and they had just finished sleeping together on the beach and I saw them and she bent down to pick something up and I saw her underwear and I went, "Oh yeah!"
Connor Ratliff Like Kool-Aid man.
Brandon Scott Jones [Laughing] Like the Kool-Aid man. Which I...truly...just to give you an, again, like, just to paint this picture. I show up at all my children and like soap operas famously, only like, stunning people like, work on these shows and I walk into the dressing room and we're like, uh, wherever we're supposed to meet. And there's the other guy, Brandon—
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Brandon Scott Jones —who's—also has like a—He's like, I guess like, let's just say our call time was 10. This guy, he had got there, like at six [laughs]
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Brandon Scott Jones Like, he was pumped—
Connor Ratliff Right.
Brandon Scott Jones —to do this show and he was very good looking and very ripped.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Brandon Scott Jones And kind of like, introduced himself. And he said, "Hi, you're Brandon, too."
And I was like, "Yeah."
He's like, "Okay..." And then I still to this day, wonder if he was saying "Brandon, too—"
Connor Ratliff Right.
Brandon Scott Jones Or "Brandon Two." You know?
Connor Ratliff "The Brandon who gets here first is Brandon One."
Brandon Scott Jones [Laughing] Yeah, exactly.
Connor Ratliff "That's why I got here at 6:00 AM."
Brandon Scott Jones Um, but he was, uh, shirtless and he looked really good, and the other kids looked really good and I truly, uh, was put in like a large purple shirt and cargo shorts and sneakers. I wore sneakers on the beach. My character was not, um, was not scantily clad the way the others were.
Connor Ratliff So your first—that was your first professional acting job?
Brandon Scott Jones That—yes, that would be, that would be it. Like, that wasn't like, it was more than background.
Connor Ratliff So you starved yourself. Ate the props.
Brandon Scott Jones Uh-huh.
Connor Ratliff Reprimanded.
Brandon Scott Jones Uh-huh.
Connor Ratliff Then two-thirds of your role was cut.
Brandon Scott Jones [Laughs] Yes. That was my first acting—
Connor Ratliff Do you think if you hadn't eaten those Bugles—
Brandon Scott Jones Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —they would've kept the lines? Do you think there was anything that was like, punitive about the cut? Or do you think it was just, we don't need these lines?
Brandon Scott Jones I think that ultimately they didn't need the lines because—
Connor Ratliff They overwrote it.
Brandon Scott Jones They overwrote it. I think if you remember—I think it was sort of like, because if I remember correctly, they were lines they added on the day.
Connor Ratliff They might've even just been like, just to warm us up into the scene, kind of.
Brandon Scott Jones That's what I think, like, I guess like, from an adult's perspective now, I guess I was 18 when I shot that. And so now I'm...not that. And, uh, the, I feel like from a perspective now that that was just maybe like, like chafa.
Connor Ratliff Mhm.
Brandon Scott Jones You know?
[Beach sounds fade in with cassette audio,x tape stops]
Connor Ratliff What'd you think of that?
Wilson Ooh, I liked that the scene he was talking about was set on a beach.
Connor Ratliff Right? I feel like that makes it perfect for this episode, Wilson.
Wilson Yeah. Are there any other clips about beach scenes or volleyballs?
Connor Ratliff I don't know. I don't think so. No.
Wilson Bloody hands? None.
Connor Ratliff No, no.
Wilson Mmm. That's too bad.
Connor Ratliff Wilson, we have to take a quick break. Is that okay with you?
Wilson Um, yeah. Is this so you can sell socks or something?
Connor Ratliff [Laughing] Mattresses and things like that.
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, yeah.
Wilson Cool.
Connor Ratliff Oh god, would be so great if I had a mattress on this island.
Wilson Sand is pretty comfy, though.
Connor Ratliff I mean, it's not as comfortable as a mattress.
Wilson Oh. Okay...
Connor Ratliff Dead Eyes will be right back.
[Beach sounds fade]
[Beach sounds fade in]
Wilson Who's next? Who's, who's, who's next?
Connor Ratliff I think you'll like this one. This is me talking to Rian Johnson. R-I-A-N. Ooh. When I talked to Rian, if you remember that episode, there was a lot going on.
Wilson Right. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff And we were trying to make it a coherent episodes, so we had to lose at least half an hour of me just talking to him about making movies when we were kids and about Star Wars toys and—
Wilson Ooh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Play that tape.
Connor Ratliff Okay.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Connor Ratliff When you got Star Wars, when you became involved in this thing, that meant something to you as a kid, I don't know if it ever has become normal to you or if there's still a part of you that, that it's surreal to?
Rian Johnson Yeah. There's always still a part where it's completely surreal, you know? Um, even as you have to normalize it in order to actually do the job, you know, you can't do the job if you're constantly just freaked out that you're doing the job [laughing]. Uh, so you do have to normalize it and also it, it naturally becomes normalized because you're, you know, when you're on the outside of it, you're looking at you, you know, you're, it's, it's like, you're, uh, it's, it's really the, in the house versus backstage thing, you know, you're, you're looking at the scenery and the lighting. You're looking at the production of it.
Connor Ratliff That immediately makes sense to me where it's like, oh yeah, how, how quickly your view of a theater building changes once you spend five minutes backstage, as opposed to theaters that you go in just as an audience member.
Rian Johnson That's very much it. I mean, what's wonderful is it doesn't—it's not like it loses—it's not like it becomes demystified per se, or loses the magic of it. Um, it just becomes kind of recontextualized, because instead of like, with Kathy Kennedy, for instance, instead of her being a name in the credits of E.T. when I grew up or Raiders, suddenly she is a person that I know and I've become friends with and that, you know, um, and, and so in that way, it's impossible for it not to become, I guess, quote-unquote normalized, even if your relationship to the thing you're working on always will have that sense of mystery, and you'll always be a little bit in awe that you're working on it.
Connor Ratliff I just had my first experience that I didn't know quite how to put a name on it, but when I was watching the first episode of The Mandalorian, Horatio Sanz plays an alien in the first chunk of the pilot of that show. And I realized it's my first time watching a Star Wars thing where I know the person?
Rian Johnson Huh.
Connor Ratliff It blew my mind in a way I wasn't expecting, because it was the first thing that like, I've met you and talked to you, but that's different that—You're not in world. You don't exist in the star Wars universe.
Rian Johnson Right. Right right right right.
Connor Ratliff So it's still abstract. This was like, seeing... this was like seeing someone I know in like, a, a hieroglyphic or something from ancient Egypt, it was just like, "Wait, how are you? How...?" You know, it was the first break in—
Rian Johnson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff —a tightly woven childhood construct in my mind. Of like, "Wait, I've...hung out with that guy. And now he's an alien."
Rian Johnson [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff And it was, it just was like...Because even something as weird as like, the Star Wars Holiday Special, where you're seeing like Bea Arthur, or Art Carney, or someone—I don't know them. [Laughing] So it's not—it's weird that one of the Golden Girls is in the Star Wars universe, but I don't know the Golden Girls, so they're still in another reality.
Rian Johnson Do any of us really know the Golden Girls, Connor?
Connor Ratliff I mean, we feel like we do.
Rian Johnson I—you know—what the equivalent of that is for me, weirdly?
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Rian Johnson Is...the end credits of The Last Jedi that I'm seeing my friends names in blue.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Rian Johnson In that end credit, I mean, I can't even process my name in it, but just seeing like Ram's name or Steve, my DP, who I've been friends with since I was 17, seeing where Matt Wood, who's done all the Star Wars movies, but suddenly he's my friend, and I'm seeing—or he's the, like the sound supervisor for, um, for Star Wars and seeing his name in the credits. It's—That is my equivalent kind of, of that I suppose. Um, it's surreal, no, it's, it's a very strange...kick. I'm saying kick in the terms of the movie Inception, [laughing] it feels like something where it juts you out of your reality, at least for a moment, you know?
Connor Ratliff How did you play with the toys when you were a kid? I'm assuming you played with Star Wars toys when you were a kid.
Rian Johnson I trashed them. I mean, I played with my toys. I like, I put together my Millennium Falcon, uh, which I had begged for, and I put the whole thing together. And of course you put the stickers on slightly wrong and you know, you get the whole thing together. And then I threw it across the room to see it fly. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Rian Johnson I didn't think it was going to actually fly but I just wanted for a few seconds to see it in the air. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I have this box of Star Wars toys when I go back and visit my parents, it's in this room. And they're, they're junked. They're, there's no, there's no resale value to any of these. And I'm like, that's because I played with them correctly.
Rian Johnson The robes are torn off, the, the thin lightsaber and nubbins on the end are all bent and torn off and they're missing legs and—
Connor Ratliff No capes left.
Rian Johnson That means you've truly played with them. That's, that I can relate to. That's what we did with those things. Yeah. Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Being a Star Wars fan, sometimes people, because I do the George Lucas Talk Show people assume I am like, a Star Wars obsessive.
Rian Johnson Right.
Connor Ratliff And I am, but I've never read any of the books. I've never really played any of the games. They're all these like—
Rian Johnson Yeah, I'm, I'm exactly the same. It was, it was the original trilogy for me, that was just my lock into it.
Connor Ratliff My extended universe was me playing alone with my Star Wars characters. And...
Rian Johnson Exactly, yeah.
Connor Ratliff I had, you know, you'd play with Darth Vader and Luke and Han and Leia and all the main characters. But what I liked was any character that didn't do a lot in the movies because I felt like I had to honor the way the—I couldn't have Luke or Leia behave in a way that was uncharacteristic. They had to behave in a way that was on model.
Rian Johnson So you're talking about like, Hammerhead.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Rian Johnson Which we all had Hammerhead. I think they overproduced Hammerhead.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Rian Johnson [Laughs] Because that was always the one that you were left with is...[laughs]
Connor Ratliff Yeah. You can find a Hammerhead pretty easily, these days.
Rian Johnson So we all in our imaginations created the Hammerhead Chronicles.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Yeah. I—Walrus Man was a big go-to for me and I, I, I know that they renamed him Ponda Baba, but to me, one of the best details in the Star Wars universe, is that somebody at Kenner named that character Walrus Man.
Rian Johnson [Laughing]
Connor Ratliff And I'm like, "That's it, that's canon. The—no amount of special editioning will remove that name, that in this world of all these like intricately named characters, there's just a guy who's called Walrus Man.
Rian Johnson [Laughing] Walrus Man...
Connor Ratliff He always looked like—His mouth looks like a, a bottom. Like it just looks like he has a butt in his mouth?
Rian Johnson Yeah, no. The chimpanzee—Looks like a chimpanzee bottom.
Yeah. Yeah. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff He was a guy that I was just like, "This guy's funny and I could be funny with the Star Wars character." Like, he could do things that would be so undignified, if any other character did them because in my world he just had terrible luck, a terrible time all the time.
Rian Johnson [Laughing]
Connor Ratliff Everything bad would happen to him. I would just do—He was basically like the fall guy for every...Every Star Wars toy adventure I would have.
Rian Johnson Now I, I want you to make a Walrus Man show on Disney+. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I mean [laughs] that'll be, that'll be, uh, I'll have a hard time if they ever fully go into that and I'm not involved in it, I'll be like, "Well, I don't know about this."
Rian Johnson [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I'll be making YouTube videos where I'm like, "This is how walrus really is—actually."
Rian Johnson What Disney gets wrong about Walrus Man. [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I feel like we would have been good friends as kids.
Rian Johnson I think we would have, too. I feel like we would—either that, or we would have uh, or we never would have talked to each other because we were just playing with our own Star Wars toys in the corner, but...
Connor Ratliff Yeah, our, our visions might've been irreconcilable. Like, our—
Rian Johnson [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff I don't know if—do you have a hard opinion about Walrus Man?
Rian Johnson No, again, he was in the category of, um, you know, of Hammerhead. You're right, though. I like the characters who you don't have like, an—you don't know what their deal is. And so you can kind of do anything with them. That was the, I like that perspective on them.
Connor Ratliff I like the Death Star employee that have that sort of weird helmet that's almost like a, uh, like a bob that got like blown out.
Rian Johnson You know, I got to wear that helmet and in Rogue One, when they fire the Death Star cannon, it is me and my producer Ram who are the guys in the firing tunnel, shielding our faces from the beam.
Connor Ratliff Oh my god.
Rian Johnson That was my, that's my cameo in Rogue One. I—I'll send you a picture. I have a picture of me in that outfit
Connor Ratliff And you're covering—you said you're covering your eyes?
Rian Johnson Well, yeah, you, you know, when the beam things, you kind of lean over and raise your arm up to like, shield your face.
Connor Ratliff It's very exciting. Is it surreal to see yourself in that world?
Rian Johnson Are you kidding? It's the most surreal thing in the world, but it is so bizarre. It is—that's why onset people talk about like walking onto the set of the Falcon and it having such a profound, emotional effect. And I think it is because what I'm picturing is my Kenner toy. I'm picturing, you know, the interior of my Kenner toy with my action figures and then suddenly you're standing in the thing for real. Um, it's almost a harder emotional connection to the toys in that regard.
Connor Ratliff It's a tactile connection. You're holding them and you're...
Rian Johnson Exactly, yeah. Projecting your own stories into them. Yeah, that's true.
Connor Ratliff Did you have a backstory for your Rogue One character?
Rian Johnson Uh, yes. No—[laughs]
Connor Ratliff What's your process? This is important stuff.
Rian Johnson You know, I—it's a good thing I shielded my eyes because I bet I have dead eyes on camera. I bet I do. And then I, and then, and then the role, and then I would be calling you.
Connor Ratliff Did you think when you were filming it that your character was into it or not? Like, cause you're firing off a weapon of mass destruction.
Rian Johnson No, I—with all of those guys, I feel like what's cool about them is that they feel like they are just at a hotel switchboard at the, in the 3:00 AM shift. You know, nobody seems excited about what they're doing. They're all just kind of locked in and it, it's weird that they look like they've done it a thousand times when they're flipping the switch and like doing the thing and, "Here we go again, it's fine." Because that's the first time, like, that, you know, it's you're right. They should be like gazing with wonder as if they're at the, uh, Trinity test site, you know, but, but no, they're, they, they seriously look like they're stamping files at the office and that's, what's kind of charming about it.
[Beach sounds fades in with tape audio, tape stops]
Connor Ratliff Wilson, do you want to hear the West Wing Aaron Sorkin story?
Wilson Oh, of course. Yeah. Time to pay that off.
Connor Ratliff Okay. I really like this story.
[Fiddling with tape, tape audio fades into interview audio]
Connor Ratliff I remember you had a small part in an episode of The West Wing,
Holmes Osborne Very small.
Connor Ratliff And I was very excited because your character...They kept talking about your character.
Holmes Osborne Lillianfield.
Connor Ratliff Lillianfiend.
Holmes Osborne I remember his name.
Connor Ratliff They finally showed you. You were on a TV screen in one of the West Wing offices, and you were giving a speech outside, like on the Capitol steps or something.
And I kept thinking, Oh, it's going to, I can't wait till Lillienfield comes in and, you know, gets to have a scene with, you know, Josh Lyman or the President, or—You know, I kept waiting for the smackdown and we never saw Lilianfield again.
Holmes Osborne I'll tell you a little, little thing about that West Wing. It was a three page monologue. So, I learned the monologue. I was ready to go. It was the night before, I'm going to bed to be fresh. I had a 7:00 AM call and I get a call from the, uh, Second AD, said, "Holmes, I got a situation here...Your, uh, lines for tomorrow, they're going to be completely changed. Uh, Aaron—" uh, Aaron Sorkin—"We work this way all the time. He doesn't really, uh, deliver the lines very often until the day of."
I said, "Well, gee," I said, uh, uh, "I have been known as being fairly quick, but not, not with three pages." I said, "I—I'm not in that caliber."
He said, "Oh, it'll be fine. All the actors are, are the ones on the show are all accustomed to this."
And I went, "Well, that's great, but I'm not on the show."
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Holmes Osborne So I show up the next morning and I went over the production assistant and I said, "Look, I, I don't have a script!"
They said, "No, uh, we'll we'll get the script to you."
I said, "Well, when am I up today? Am I—"
They—"Well, you're first. You're first up."
I'm thinking, Well, gee whiz.
So finally, one of the producers of the show comes to you, "Holmes, I'm really sorry about this. Aaron does this to us. Um, we don't have the—your script."
And I said, "Well, when, when, when will I get them? At the, at the set?"
And he said, "Oh no, no, we'll get them to you." And about t minutes later, a PA brings me over my lines. They are completely different.
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Holmes Osborne It's some of them—which as, you know, as an actor makes it harder if they haven't quite completely changed.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. They're close enough that you don't know what's right and wrong anymore.
Holmes Osborne That's right. And so I, I, I owned at that time, what was called an ear prompting company. We sold a device for actors to be able to have an invisible hearing piece they stuck in their ear. They wore a neck loop around it, attached it to a microcassette recorder. And I had an engineer create what we called an invisible pause switch. You could operate it with—by pressing both toes, or you could wear it under your trousers. On on the side of your thigh, where your hand would naturally fall to rest, that's where I decided.
I went into my trailer, wardrobe was there. I'm rigging out the ear prompting system, got my neck loop on, concealed it under my shirt and tie and was recording my lines, Connor. The, uh second AD knocked on the door three times, "Holmes, we're running a little behind. Really need to get you out to the set."
I'm thinking, Well, gee whiz, great. They had a van drive up. We drove five minutes over to the set. Same producer whom I'd met earlier that morning up to "Holmes, really sorry, got to apologize again for this. I know it's late notice. What can we do to help? Would—could we have a PA run the lines with you?"
I said, [laughs] "It's, it's too late. You know, there's just no time."
He said, "There are cue cards."
I said, "Ah, gosh. You know, cue cards, even the people at Saturday Night Live, you can see them reading there, and they're far better at it than I would be."
"Uh, well, what do you want to do?"
I said, "Let's shoot one." [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff [Laughs]
Holmes Osborne We got up. Three takes later—"That's a wrap. We're done." [Laughs] They called the agent, they said, "Man, we have never seen anyone who could memorize that quickly." [Laughs]
It's a very easy thing to record your lines. Totally inappropriate for film and television, really, you should be coming from your heart.
Connor Ratliff Right, yeah. I think Brando did that on A Dry White Season. He had someone feeding him the lines through an ear piece, and it's still like, a known, like, notorious thing that, that he was acting with someone feeding him the lines.
Holmes Osborne I always wanted him to try our system because if he could have controlled it himself, he would have had more freedom to deliver the line when he wanted to, just by touching his toes.
[Beach sounds fade in with tape audio, tape stops]
Connor Ratliff Okay. Let me see what we have here. This tape is Zach Cherry.
Wilson Oh, from the last episode. The "Do the flip" guy from Spider-Man.
Connor Ratliff That's right.
Wilson Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Here's a fun fact about this podcast: anytime we have multiple guests in an episode, it means we had to cut a lot of material. It would have been so easy to do a whole episode with just Zach Cherry.
Wilson Oh, yeah. That'd be a great one.
Connor Ratliff Yeah. Yeah.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Connor Ratliff I'm looking at the names of your characters.
Zach Cherry Mhm.
Connor Ratliff Diabetic Man.
Zach Cherry Yeah, that was, that was an early one.
Connor Ratliff Uh, it was for High Maintenance.
Zach Cherry High Maintenance. Web series.
Connor Ratliff Bystander on Broad City.
Zach Cherry Yeah. Mhm.
Connor Ratliff Administrator on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Zach Cherry Yup, I remember it. I remember all of these.
Connor Ratliff Uh, and then you start getting into more first names. Duncan, Winston, Elijah.
Zach Cherry Duncan?
Connor Ratliff Duncan. Do you know what you played Duncan on?
Zach Cherry Oh, was that Search Party?
Connor Ratliff Yes.
Zach Cherry Yeah yeah yeah.
Connor Ratliff Partygoer Four.
Zach Cherry That's The Big Sick.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Zach Cherry That I mostly got cut out of.
Connor Ratliff Yeah?
Zach Cherry Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Hmm.
Zach Cherry It, I think, made sense to cut my part out of it. Cause it, I—
Connor Ratliff Who played the other three partygoers?
Zach Cherry Uh, I don't remember their names.
Connor Ratliff [Laughing] Right.
Zach Cherry And they actually even asked if they could take my name out of the credits. [Laughs] Um, because I originally had some lines, I was Partygoer Number Four. And it's a, it was a scene where, uh, the character Emily comes home from the hospital and it's like, there's like a party for her, and I played one of her grad school friends, and there was like, a little bit where all her friends were like trying to relate to her sickness. So it was like a bunch of people being like, "Oh, you know, my, you know, my aunt, my aunt had cancer. So like, if you ever want to talk about it," or like, "You know, I, you know, while you were sick, I, I had like, a shadow on my lung," or something, blah, blah, blah. And then my character says, "My dad swallowed some batteries once." [Laughs] um, and that's how I related.
So like, I totally understood why they were like—it tonally kind of doesn't really fit with the rest of the film.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Zach Cherry Funny joke, but so all my lines got cut off from that. So you can see me just sitting on the floor. But they did, they were like, "So can we like, not put you in the credits?"
And I was like, "No, I want to be in the credits." That was like, one of the first movies I had done, I think.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Zach Cherry So it was cool, but—
Connor Ratliff And they wanted just to cut a name?
Zach Cherry [Laughing] Yeah.
Connor Ratliff To save...what?
Zach Cherry Well I don't know!
Connor Ratliff Because that's not ink. It's not like—
Zach Cherry Yeah, I don't know.
Connor Ratliff "We'll save some white ink on these black boards that we write the credits on."
Zach Cherry I mean, I understand it in the sense that like, typically you don't list,uh...
Connor Ratliff People who don't do anything in the movie.
Zach Cherry Right. [Laughing] yeah, exactly. You don't, you don't have a specific line for the, you know, like Partygoer Number Four or whatever.
Connor Ratliff I like that you pushed back when they're like, "Can we cut your name?" And you're like, "No. Say my name."
Zach Cherry [Laughing] Well, I didn't really push back as much as my manager was like, "They said, uh, can they take your name out?"
And I was like, "What do you think? And we were like, well, just leave it in." It wasn't like an aggressive...
Connor Ratliff Oh, I, I mis—I misunderstood what you were just acting out that he was asking you what you think. I thought your manager's response to that was, "What do you think?!"
Zach Cherry [Laughing] No!
Connor Ratliff Like, "Can we take Zach's name out of the credits?" "What do you think?!"
Zach Cherry [Laughing] No, no, no!
Connor Ratliff "Ask me that again!!"
Zach Cherry No, no, that was me saying, "What do you think?" to my manager.
Connor Ratliff Right. And they were like, "I think you should keep your—"
Zach Cherry Yeah, yeah yeah.
Connor Ratliff I really liked that for a second there, I was like, "Zach's manager is tough."
Zach Cherry [Laughing]
Connor Ratliff It's like, "Can we take Zach's name out of the credits?"
Zach Cherry [Laughing]
Connor Ratliff "What do you think?! How about, how about you come down here and ask me that question to my face?!"
Zach Cherry [Laughing] No, not quite that, uh, yeah.
Connor Ratliff It's also just like, think of that—there was a movie that filmed you.
Zach Cherry Uh-huh.
Connor Ratliff And then they were like, "We need to cut it." And they were like, "Can we take your name off?" And you were like, "No."
Zach Cherry Yeah, I stood up.
Connor Ratliff "You have to keep my name."
Zach Cherry [Laughing] I stood up to the system.
Connor Ratliff [Laughs] "You have to keep my name in your movie." And they were like, "We got to keep the name of the guy who's not even—he just sits on the floor."
Zach Cherry Yeah.
Connor Ratliff I would have been really excited if you had made them recredit your name as "Man on—Sitting on Floor."
Zach Cherry [Laughs] I mean, I wish I had thought of that.
Connor Ratliff Let me ask you this, and I think the answer's no.
Zach Cherry Mhm?
Connor Ratliff Have you ever crossed paths with Tom Hanks?
Zach Cherry No. No.
Connor Ratliff In any way? Have you ever come—what's the closest you've come?
Zach Cherry Uh, the closest, the closest I've come is that, uh, I met Denzel Washington once.
Connor Ratliff All right. Where'd you meet him?
Zach Cherry They filmed the movie, The Hurricane on my [laughing] on my street as a child, and, um, his car, I remember his car was there. I didn't really meet him. I like walked by him.
Connor Ratliff All right. This story is...small. [Laughs]
Zach Cherry [Laughs] Yeah, but it's, but it's, that's the closest I've come.
Connor Ratliff I'm sure you've come—
Zach Cherry I feel like they're the same level of, uh...
Connor Ratliff I'm sure you've come closer than that.
Zach Cherry To meeting Tom Hanks?!
Connor Ratliff Yeah, I think so. That you've worked with somebody else who's closer than you as a child being on the street where Denzel's car was.
Zach Cherry [Laughs] Well I didn't even—Well, when I said Denzel, I wasn't even thinking that they were in Philadelphia together. So that makes it closer.
Connor Ratliff So you were just thinking of a big actor?
Zach Cherry Yeah, I was just thinking that's probably the, you know, the biggest mega star that I...crossed paths with.
Connor Ratliff You haven't met a bigger star than that, in your—
Zach Cherry Than Denzel Washington?!
Connor Ratliff No, I mean that—
Zach Cherry There isn't a bigger star than that!
Connor Ratliff I know, I know. No, I'm not saying—But, but, but then meeting him by meeting his car as a child. [Laughs]
Zach Cherry [Laughing] Well, it wasn't like I just met his car. They filmed on my street for like, a week.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, and his car was parked there.
Zach Cherry Yeah!
Connor Ratliff Did you—You waved at him, you said, right?
Zach Cherry [Laughing] Yeah.
Connor Ratliff So you waved at him, but you mostly just saw his car.
Zach Cherry [Laughing] Yeah.
Connor Ratliff Which is a low bar for meeting someone.
Zach Cherry Yeah. But that's what came to mind.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Zach Cherry Uh, I don't know. I'm trying to think if I kno—.
Connor Ratliff I mean, when you're, that is a sign that you are a huge star when people see your car parked and they're like, "I've met him."
Zach Cherry [Laughs] Yeah. Well, especially at the time that was before I had started working at all in...
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Zach Cherry This is when I was, I don't know. I want to say 10 or something?
Connor Ratliff I think it's a matter of time, the, the, the way that your trajectory is going, career-wise. I feel like it's, it's a matter of time, uh, presuming that he keeps working at the pace that he works before you overlap into something.
Zach Cherry Oh, um...here's a good one. I was, uh, in Forrest Gump.
Connor Ratliff That's a great connection.
Zach Cherry [Laughs]
Connor Ratliff So judging by...What was the film that, uh, Denzel was being there to shoot? The Hurricane?
Zach Cherry The Hurricane.
Connor Ratliff So that was late '90s?
Zach Cherry Yeah.
Connor Ratliff All right, so Forrest Gump was mid '90s.
Zach Cherry Uh-huh.
Connor Ratliff So you were younger than 10. What year were you born?
Zach Cherry Um, [laughing] I wasn't in Forrest Gump. [Laughing] I wasn't in Forrest Gump. I was trying to, uh, help out the conversation.
Connor Ratliff What kind of—What kind of podcast do you think this is, Zach.
Zach Cherry [Laughs] I was just trying to help out the conversation. I was going to make a joke that I played a young Forrest Gump.
Connor Ratliff I haven't seen pictures of what you look like as a child. So I can't confirm or deny that you're a good match for the, the little boy who runs and the—
Zach Cherry Bad match.
Connor Ratliff —the braces come off.
Zach Cherry Bad match.
Connor Ratliff You think?
Zach Cherry A very bad match. [Laughing] I had an...afro?
Connor Ratliff Yeah. There's—Isn't there a period in Forrest Gump where he grows an afro?
Zach Cherry I haven't seen it in awhile. I'm not entirely sure.
[Beach sounds and now a campfire fade in with tape audio, tape stops]
Wilson Oh, hey, what's that tape?
Connor Ratliff Which one?
Wilson There?
Connor Ratliff Let me see. Oh, Seth Rogen.
Wilson Ooh, wow. Yeah, yeah play that one!
Connor Ratliff Okay.
Rian Johnson I love Seth Rogen.
Connor Ratliff Yeah, me too.
[Fiddling with tape, cassette plays and transitions from beach sounds into interview audio]
Seth Rogen Like, my favorite actors are the type of actors who you like, you feel like if you got to know them, they would be the type of people who had no interest in being actors.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Seth Rogen Like, I think Tom Hardy is a super interesting actor for that reason.
Connor Ratliff Yeah.
Seth Rogen Like, he feels like the last guy—He feels like a guy that beats up actors—
[Tape slows down and stops]
Connor Ratliff [Sighs] I... I guess the batteries are dead.
Wilson What? Aw, well, why didn't we just play that one first?
Connor Ratliff I mean, I'm...I'm just playing them in the order they wash up on shore. Oof, sorry about that.
Wilson No, it's...it's fine. You know, this was nice.
Connor Ratliff It was, wasn't it.
[Beach sounds]
Wilson Uh...when are you going to get Tom Hanks on the podcast?
Connor Ratliff You know, that's the one thing I don't really have any control over, Wilson. You know, I mailed him a letter, recently.
Wilson To Playtone?
Connor Ratliff Yeah. And I feel like someone there has probably read it by now, and I don't want to push too hard, you know?
Wilson Yeah, yeah. Well, you have to get him.
Connor Ratliff I mean, that's the hope, Wilson. But I also have to be prepared for the possibility that it will never happen. And the root of this whole podcast was me not getting what I wanted. There's no reason to assume that things will turn out any differently this time around. Just like how not everybody who finds themselves stranded on a desert Island finds a way off. I mean, maybe you and I will just be stuck here forever.
Wilson [Laughs] No way. No, we're going to get off this island...soon.
Connor Ratliff I'm thinking we're probably going to be here for at least another year, Wilson.
Wilson 2022?
Connor Ratliff I mean, I'll be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong about this, but that's my gut feeling. You and I will be spending at least one more New Year's Eve together before things get back to normal.
Wilson Okay. Well, happy new year, Connor.
Connor Ratliff Happy new year. Wilson.
[Aimee Mann's "Backfire" begins]
Dead Eyes is a production of Headgum Studios. It was created by me, Connor Ratliff. It's written by me, and it's mostly me that you hear talking, including now. The show is produced and edited by Harry Nelson and Mike Comite. Additional engineering from Andrew Holman. Special thanks to my guests, Ira Glass, Aimee Mann, Holmes Osborne, Jon Hamm, D'Arcy Carden, Jackie Jennings, Brandon Scott Jones, Rian Johnson, Zach Cherry, Seth Rogen, and of course, to Eugene Cordero as the voice of Wilson the Volleyball.
Also thanks to Aimee Mann for letting us use this song that's playing in the background. It's called "Backfire," and this version was a bonus track on some editions of the album Bachelor No. 2.
If you like Dead Eyes, please do all the things that podcasts tell you to do. Subscribe, rate, review. Follow us on Twitter @deadeyespodcast, and talk about us nicely on social media. If you want to reach out, the email address is deadeyespodcast@gmail.com.
Please tell your friends about this show, especially if you are friends with Tom Hanks, who is, of course, great in the movie Cast Away, which was the movie he had just finished filming before directing episode five of Band of Brothers.
See you next time. Stay safe. Wear a mask. Happy New Year.