Dennis Quaid: Reagan, Trump & JFK Assassinations, Fauci Relationship & Tupac | PBD Podcast | Ep. 453
Patrick Bet-David sits down one-on-one for an exclusive screening and interview with "Reagan" star Dennis Quaid!
00:00 - Podcast intro
00:37 - Patrick welcomes the audience to the podcast with Dennis Quaid.
01:30 - Dennis Quaid takes the stage.
02:35 - Dennis discusses the similarities between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan.
12:45 - The evolution of Hollywood from rebel to liberal.
18:35 - What does an Independent look like today?
20:01 - Who is the modern day Reagan in the United States?
24:55 - Woke Hollywood and the future of DEI Disney.
30:46 - What causes Hollywood to be woke?
39:58 - Was Hollywood more LGBTQ in 1975 or now?
44:20 - Reagan movie premiere invites.
45:17 - The threat of an EMP attack on the U.S. electric grid.
52:47 - Dennis' reaction to Trump's handling of COVID-19 & relationship with Anthony Fauci.
57:45 - Dennis on the death of John F Kennedy.
59:59 - Dennis on the assassination attempt of Donald Trump.
1:03:26 - Dennis Quaid opens about his struggles with cocaine, rehab stints and finding Jesus.
1:11:43 - Dennis' upbringing, success, and relationship with his brother Randy Quaid.
1:16:44 - Dennis Quaid takes questions from the audience.
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Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
For the people that are watching it right now, live podcasts all over the world, what you don't know that we just did.
Folks, what did we just watch the last two hours?
We just had a premiere to watch the movie Reagan by the great Dennis Quaid.
And right after the movie was done, they took the set down.
Now, Dennis is going to come up.
We're going to do a podcast together.
For those of you who've been following Dennis's career for a while, what movies can we say?
Foot Loose, The Rookie, Any Given Sunday.
What's your favorite movie by him?
I mean, there's so many movies.
For me, it was, you guys know this guy did a movie with Tupac.
Did anybody know he did a movie with Tupac?
It was gang related.
So I got a lot of questions for him.
There's a lot, a lot of, and by the way, he's probably not even known that I was going to ask him that question.
Well, with that being said, please stand up and give it up to the one and only Dennis Quaid.
Please.
What a movie, by the way.
Oh, thank you.
What a movie.
Thank you.
I had my wife come out, the kids.
I had the two sons, my daughter, the 12-year-old, 10-year-old, eight-year-old.
I said, we got to watch this movie.
Yeah, the whole family can watch it.
How about that?
That's a good thing about it, yes.
Anybody see it?
Yeah.
Did you like it?
Thank you.
By the way, the only thing that, you know, some people are not going to be happy about the movie is I think I didn't see a lot of DEI in it, and it was disappointing.
I didn't see people from the underrepresented community.
I was thinking maybe you're going to play Hispanic Reagan.
I thought it was going to be like something to, but you missed the mark there.
That's the only thing I want to say.
I think it's very important we talk about it.
We tried as best we could.
We were in Oklahoma.
Yeah.
So a couple things while I'm watching it.
I mean, I got a list of questions.
There's some of the questions I want to talk about that has to do with the movie.
Some of it has to do with your career.
You've been in this world for such a long time.
Your brother's here with us, you know, in the back.
He was performing for us in the back, singing.
And he's a brother buddy.
His little brother.
Yeah, which is fantastic.
But some of it has to do with Hollywood.
Some of it has to do with Reagan.
Some of it has to do with you.
Some of it has to do with politics.
But for me, while you were doing this movie and you're making this movie, and you're seeing the similarities of some of the stuff that happened in the movie, assassination attempt makes it.
Assassination attempt, right?
He comes from the entertainment space.
Trump comes from the entertainment space.
President he went up against was Jimmy Carter.
President he went up against was, you know, Joe Biden.
While you're going through this, are you in the moment saying this is a bigger movie that everybody today has to see to go back and say the case study of Trump is possibly Ronald Reagan?
Well, the times are very similar to what they were back in 78, in the late 70s, 79.
We had hostages over in Iran, you know, that and today nobody talks about it.
But what about the hostages that are over In the Middle East, right now, that Hamas is holding.
Nobody ever talks about it.
You know, Reagan came into office, the hostages were released 20 minutes after he got into office.
And because they didn't want to deal with him, because he was, you know, they believed 80% that he might do something, I think.
And then, you know, also you had oil was a big thing, you know, the gas prices were high.
The interest rates back then were 20%.
I know, because I actually bought a house.
So what was I thinking?
How much was the house?
I'm still paying for it.
How much was the house?
How much was the house you bought back then?
Oh, I was building a house in Montana.
And, well, I had to actually, you know, I didn't declare bankruptcy, but I, you know, paid the loan off.
But it just got sky high.
And, you know, there was some very similar times.
And Jimmy Carter had given that speech about that we were going through a period of malaise, if you'll remember.
And, you know, America was a nation in decline.
Its time was done.
And Reagan came along and said, no, we're not.
He told us that we were a shiny city on a hill and that the best times for America were they were in the future and we were going to create everything that was going to take us there.
And he did.
Now, when you go back there, Dennis, were you somebody who voted for him?
Because in the past, you said you didn't.
So you voted for Reagan in.
Yeah, I also voted for Jimmy Carter.
I voted for Jimmy Carter.
I'm an independent, by the way.
I've always been, voted both ways according to what I thought the pendulum swings this way and what we need.
But I voted for Jimmy Carter, you know, it was after Watergate.
It was he was an outsider.
But, you know, he didn't work out too well when it came to that.
And Reagan, I'd been a fan of Reagan, I mean, since I was a kid.
It was in 1964.
Reagan was giving the speech.
He was stumping for Goldwater.
And my dad and I were in the car on the way down to Galveston from Houston.
That's where I'm from.
My dad was like hitting the dashboard.
He loved Reagan.
And that's the first time I had noticed Reagan as a political figure.
He was the guy that sold Baraxo soap on Death Valley Days on TV, you know.
And this is when you went for cheese.
I did, but then I did vote for Reagan in 1980.
And I came home.
I was in LA and I came home.
I had a roommate.
He said, who'd you vote for?
I said, Reagan.
He said, you are kicked out of the hippies.
So I turned in my card and that was that.
So how long would you say you've been in the entertainment business?
If you were to say, you know, I started in 19, what would you say was I moved to LA in 75.
Okay, 1975.
So 75, who is the biggest star in Hollywood in 75?
Jack Nicholson.
So Jack, you named your son after Jack Nicholson.
Brian O'Neill, I think, was the biggest.
Actually, the biggest box office at that time was Chris Christopherson.
Everybody forgets that about him.
He was the biggest box office star three years in a row.
But it was Jack Nicholson.
It was, you know, it was that time in the 70s.
We had anti-heroes, rebel heroes going on.
It was a very kind of really golden age in movies back then.
Because the studios had really kind of lost touch with their audience and this French New Wave thing, like starting with Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather.
And there's a lot of great movies back then.
How different?
Great time to come out to LA.
What's been the evolution from 75 to 2024 today in Hollywood?
In Hollywood?
Well, the 70s was like the decade of the director.
And then I think the 80s really became the decade and a half or whatever of the movie stars again.
And then it became the agencies who really kind of ran things and packaged deals.
And now I tell you the truth, then along came streaming.
I don't know what it is anymore.
And I don't think they, I think we're right back again that fits the times back then that Hollywood has lost touch with its audience.
They used to make each studio, there'd be like five major studios, they would make at least 40 films a year.
And that would be from the spectrum from the blockbusters down to smaller movies.
And now, I think eight to ten each, you know, they got to be blockbusters.
They've got to be big temp pole movies.
And so film is kind of up in the air.
Maybe this is a weird question to ask you on Film 75 versus Today in Hollywood because so I went a little bit deeper when they came out saying if you want an Oscar, want to win an Oscar right now, you need to have a third of the people working on the set being part of the underrepresented community.
A third of actors need to be this.
A third of directors need to be this.
One of the key roles needs to be this, whether it's black, Hispanic, disability, all this stuff that they've done.
If you don't do this, you will not be nominated for a movie.
So some of the biggest Oscar award-winning movies of all time, that won't happen.
That part of it for us as the viewers, as the fans that want to go watch a movie, when did you see the tipping point about how that happened and how do you feel about it?
Well, it's as far as the Oscars, it's always been political.
It's always been skewed left, I would think.
But they did give John Wayne a best actor or a board back then.
But it's always been skewed to the left.
But recently, with all these things that you've got to have in films, otherwise you've got to have, there's a loss of freedom of expression, I think, has been lost in filmmaking with a voice because everybody's trying to be so politically correct.
Back in the 70s, it may have been skewed left, but everybody was trying to be politically incorrect back then.
That was the thing, and it was an exciting time, actually.
And that's the way you have a real dialogue with people instead of trying to fit into a mold.
So the skewed left, one time, one of my guys, his ex-wife, and I, he's sitting there, we're in Woodland Hills in my office, we're having this conversation, and she is a die-hard AOC fan.
And she's telling us how amazing AOC is.
And then I'm listening to her, and I asked her, I said, let me ask you, how good were you?
What was your favorite subject in high school?
She said, oh, English.
I said, what subject did you hate the most?
She says, I couldn't stand math.
I said, got it.
I said, how much do you think not liking math has to do with which way you vote politically?
So she said, you know, I never thought about it that way before.
I said, because if you like math and you understand the basics of math, you'll understand that capitalism works.
It's a great model to have.
And even later on, by the way, as weird as this sounds, so later on, we did research here to find out out of school teachers in America, different types of school teachers, what they vote for, left or right.
English teachers, 98 out of 100 English teachers vote for the left.
Art, vote for the left.
All of these things, you go 97, 98, 99.
There was only one of them where that 98 dropped to 83, and that was math.
So if somebody was a math teacher or a physics teacher, 13% of them would vote for conservatives.
Why do you think so much of Hollywood is on the left?
Is it just because they're more right-brain, creative, and not a lot of left-brain?
Well, it kind of feels like it's kind of always been like that.
You know, California itself has gone.
It used to be a lot more conservative than it is now, but really over the past, I'd say 30 years, it's really been.
You wouldn't consider Newsom a conservative?
I said, it used to be conservative.
You know, a Republican, Ronald Reagan himself was governor of California.
And it's really changed.
And it's, I don't know, it's that's just the way it is.
I don't know, but the red brain, left-brain thing about, you know, being liberal or whatever.
I don't know, I think there's a lot more conservatives that are actors.
They just are afraid to talk about it more than anything else.
Then my question would be, who's imposing the fear, though, Dennis?
So because a lot of actors, I'll do a podcast with Rogan or I'll do a podcast here myself.
One of the directors from movies that I absolutely love, I go to LA, he says, let's have dinner together, have dinner with them.
He says, you have to realize, pre-2020, I was a liberal.
He says, now I'm more of a libertarian.
I'm center-right.
This stuff doesn't make any sense to me right now.
I asked, I said, who is putting the fear in these guys where if you're a conservative, you have to say, I'm an independent.
You have to kind of keep it to yourself because God forbid you come out too much on the conservative side.
You may get fired.
Unless if your name is Clin Eastwood, they're worried he's going to shoot them or hurt them because it's a risk if you go to the city.
Clineswood, John Wayne, and Charles.
Get away with it.
Well, I actually have been an independent all my life.
I did, you know, recently, you know, I did Piers Morgan and he asked me who I was voting for.
And I said, I'm going to vote for Trump because he said, are you ready for that?
He said, get ready for the blowback.
But my thing is, is that it's really about our Constitution.
And once they, I wasn't going to vote for Trump this time, even though I voted for him in 2016 and voted for him in 2020.
I thought maybe we need to calm down and kind of get together.
But when they started using the justice system to go after him, that was kind of like the last straw because we have a constitution and that's precious.
And to start getting into that, I'm definitely voting for him.
Have you spent a lot of time with him?
Yeah, I've played golf with him.
How is he behind closed doors with your relationship with that?
He's actually a pretty good golfer.
He may fib a little bit like everybody else, you know.
You know, found my first one.
But then he'll put it like two feet from the cup, you know, from 160 yards away.
He's very funny, and he's, you know, I really believe his heart is for the American people.
He's authentic.
That's what I do know.
So you're saying Kamala's not authentic?
I mean, she's like, that's an insult right there when you say something like that.
I'm still trying to figure out those suits that she wears.
Zach Galifianakis had Hillary Clinton on, and I don't know if you've seen that exchange or not.
Have you ever seen Zach?
Between two ferns?
Between two ferns?
That was like a critical thing.
I kind of feel that way now, but I'll play Zach without the beard today.
I'll play Zach without the beard today.
But first interaction you ever had with Trump.
What year was it?
And what was the situation?
See, I went to an island in the Caribbean.
He had a golf tournament down there.
What island are we talking?
There's an island here you don't want to visit.
Which island are you talking about?
I don't think I'm allowed to say.
But we had a really good time.
We had a role at a really good time.
There wasn't no.
It doesn't begin with an E who owned the island, okay?
So it's good you verify that because next thing you know, story comes out, Dennis visited the E island.
So is there a relationship like you guys talk regularly or it's not?
We don't talk regularly about it.
We don't.
But, you know, seen him a few times and played golf with him, as I said.
And recently, he sent me a birthday message this year, which was really, I think, really, really nice.
And, you know, I think he has a really good heart.
He really does.
But, you know, at the bottom of it, I think he is really out there fighting for the American people.
I think a lot of people probably from his side would agree with you.
So you said you're an independent.
In your mind, for somebody, when you say you're an independent, what does an independent look like?
Well, an independent votes is not connected to, is not a member of either party.
I mean, for instance, like I told you, I voted for Jimmy Carter.
I voted for Reagan twice.
I voted for Ross Perot.
I voted for Clinton once.
I voted for Bush once.
I voted for Gore, too, actually, at the time, just because it was like, let's keep this party going.
The economy was sailing along.
And we had a surplus.
Then I voted for Bush the second term.
I voted for Obama once.
And then when the red line came that said don't cross and they crossed it and he did nothing.
That voted, I didn't vote that year.
It's the only time I had never voted.
So not a fan of Ryan.
But the last three times have been Trump, Trump, Trump.
I don't think it's ever happened before since Franklin Roosevelt, where you could vote for somebody three times.
Except in, you know.
Slightly different.
Well, where were you going with this?
Except, you know, you vote when you're, dead people vote.
That's right.
But let me go back to it because it's, you know, again, 1975, you know, 2024, you've been around a lot of these guys.
One of the scenes in a movie, which, by the way, I can't wait for those of you that are watching this podcast, there's this scene with Victor.
What's his last name?
Victor, is it Petrovich?
I think it's Victor Petrovich, right?
It is, which is played by John Voigt.
Yeah.
And in the scene, he is the spy, right?
And he's having this conversation.
He says, hey, why'd you do this?
Why did you allow us to go through what happened here?
And he said his job as a spy was to spread communism to every country in the world.
In the movie, Reagan, he says, try to break them down from within, even their movie industry.
My assignment was to attract and influence their key players.
History is always about not the why, not the what, not the how, but it's about the who, who you target.
His obsession became about the Crusader for 17 years, way before Reagan gave that speech about we're on a mission rendezvous with destiny.
That was 17 years.
This Russian spy's been following Ronald Reagan.
And then he says, at some point, you're going to have to pick your side when Reagan's in that scene.
So this is where I'm going with this part.
Reagan's at the party.
He's with Jane.
And the guy's like, so who are you going to pick?
Are you going to be with us or with them?
He says, right now, my only pick is Jane.
I want to go dance with her, right?
And she goes away and dances.
And then there's that fight with Union, where they take out the gun and they almost shoot Reagan.
That whole scene that's super intense.
Who is the modern day Reagan who's a conservative within Hollywood that has some say, that's got some brass, that's got some influence that could actually expose some of the insanity that's taking place in an influential industry like Hollywood.
Is there somebody who is today?
I think what actually is happening is that Hollywood is not necessarily, it's becoming not the center of filmmaking.
You've really the last two decades, I think it started happening.
It started moving away.
What's going on in Georgia, for instance?
I did a movie at Georgia, you know, they started this with tax incentives and stuff like that to get people to come there.
So they've got a real industry going there.
I did a film there a couple of months ago, and there was 196 different film productions going on at the same time.
They built studios for it.
And so it's moving out.
Faith films, which I think are really starting to really find their legs.
Movies that actually speak to audiences, you know, I think people don't go to movies because there's no movie to see that they really relate to in a sense that hits them.
And because people don't go to movies to see things.
They go to movies to feel things.
And they want to relate and identify with them.
I did as a kid, you know.
It was wonderful.
But it's moving out of LA.
And LA, like, let's take faith films.
Hollywood doesn't even know how to track them as far as how much money they're going to make.
Like two weeks before a film's a weekend and you have like six films coming out.
They start to do these tracking about how much it's going to make at the box office.
And I was in a film I Can Only Imagine, it was called.
And thank you.
And, You know, they tracked it, but it wasn't going to make even $2 million that weekend.
And it wound up making 17, you know, and they're scratching their heads.
And then all of a sudden, all the studios are getting these kind of representatives to go out and make faith movies, you know, to tell them, instruct them on how to do it because they want to break into the market.
But, you know, they're just after the money, not after really what's behind the film as far as what they're about.
So is it fair to, I mean, I can only imagine, that's the one with the song of Mercy Me, right?
I can only imagine.
Yeah, right.
It's a great song.
Yeah, Barbara.
Did you watch Jesus Revolution?
Yeah.
I thought it was amazing.
It's really Greg Lori.
At first, when I watched it, I didn't know what the movie was about.
I thought they were mocking Jesus, and that's what it was.
Then when my kids are putting it up, we sat there watching.
I'm like, what a great movie.
Phenomenal story.
It was about, and I don't know where I get a text from Greg Lori saying, hey, thanks for watching it.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
But going back to it, do you think eventually, like when you see right now what's going on with Disney, right?
Bob Iger.
I don't know if you've ever done business with Bob Iger or not.
Maybe, have you ever done business with Bob over the years?
Well, I may have, but I wasn't in the room with him.
Okay.
My agents did business.
I got it.
Have you ever had interaction with Bob?
Not really.
Okay.
So Bob, CEO Disney, he retires at the top.
Disney's worth $368 billion.
Comes back, you know, him and Bob Shapek are trying to make Disney work.
That whole Jacqueline Kennedy story behind closed doors and valuation drops, $200 billion.
You know, that's a lot of money to be lost for a company.
And then every time you go watch a Disney movie nowadays with the kids, my son, the first thing the 12-year-old will say says, here we go again.
Is this going to be one of those movies?
So my 12-year-old checks before we go and watch the movies because he doesn't want his eight-year-old sister to watch a Disney movie that's a little bit out of whack.
So he's now being proactive about it and he'll come to me.
We're in a movie.
My son will come to me and say, hey, you have to be the responsible father right now.
Take your kids out of this room.
This is not a, that's literally what my son will tell me.
Take your kids out of this place because this is not good for your kids.
So do you think, do you think they're sitting there?
I can only imagine, this thing's not going to do nothing but 2 million, 17 million.
We got to all become Christians in order to make money.
Like, do you think money and capitalism is going to force these guys to go back to being reasonable and logical, or are they going to stay delusional?
I think they'll try, you know, because there's a market there.
But that market is really out in the middle of the country.
I mean, the Irwin brothers, who are so good at this, they were directed and produced The Jesus Revolution, and I could only imagine.
And they, you know, because they're already in the community and they have a base there and they're making films that people want to see.
You know, there's a hunger out there, I think, for themes and stories that people can relate to that fit their lives and aspire to be.
And there's that whole faith community and aspirational within that with American values and the way we live our lives, who we are.
And instead of having being told what to feel, what to think, it's happening.
It's slow, but it's coming.
So Like to like read between the lines and see kind of where you're going with it to see if I'm improving in that area.
Are you kind of alluding to the fact that there could be a possibility that Bob Iger could be maybe becoming a Christian and becomes like a pastor Iger, like some kind of, you know, and he changes Disney and he starts saying we got to go back to what Disney was built for kids, or that's we don't believe in that level of miracles.
Well, I would welcome Bob Iger if he became a Christian in the community.
But it's but I think the center is going to move.
I think it just feels like if I was an actor starting out now, I wouldn't go to Hollywood.
I would go to Georgia because that's where they're going to be hiring the smaller parts that I could get as an actor starting out.
Right?
They're not going to pay to bring those smaller roles from LA.
So that's where I could get a start in the business.
Wow.
If you were an actor, you wouldn't go to LA.
You'd go to Georgia.
Tyler Perry's.
So the center is moving.
You don't necessarily have to be in LA in order to make a movie anymore.
The center is moving.
The center is moving.
So not the left, but the center is moving out of California.
Is that what?
Like Mark Wallace.
Just like everything else moving.
Well, I mean, listen, I honestly, I try to avoid making fun of California on my podcast because I don't like to do it.
It's a rule I follow.
I don't like to make fun of California because I have a lot of respect for them.
I'm not making fun of them, just stating facts.
I didn't want to go there, but if you want to call them out, you call them out.
I think Newsom's a sweetheart of a guy.
So, okay.
Let's go back to it.
Well, LA has been very, very good to me, but it's changed so much.
Where do you live?
You know, it's not the place that I was there.
I don't feel like an exchange of ideas.
It's being politically correct all the time.
And it's kind of like a lot of fear I kind of feel there.
And that's why I moved to Nashville because get back into the center of the country and just feel more at home there.
Nashville, yeah.
I used to live right outside of Nashville when I was in the Army, Clarksville, you know, the 101st Airborne Division.
And I used to go to Nashville and I used to go learn how to dance at Silverado's.
They've never met a 6'4 Middle Eastern trying to dance country.
It was a spectacle.
I'd go into that hard body contest, but I would learn how to do their thing and walk around it.
It was everyone was confused.
It was fantastic.
You know what's the good thing?
Were you wearing a flannel shirt?
I had no choice.
But many times I wasn't even wearing a shirt.
That's how great of a club Silverados was.
But you know what's the good news?
You don't know if I'm telling the truth or not because there was no Instagram back in the day.
It could be deep fake, right?
As what it could be.
But let me go back to it.
I asked the question.
I don't know if maybe for my own stubborn curiosity side, I want to know what causes Hollywood to be left.
You're around these guys.
You've been around them for 49 years.
After you do a movie, you don't have a choice but go have dinner or lunch or talk or play cards or whatever you guys do together, right?
What do you see as the common trend that makes all men be on the most of them be on the left?
I really kind of see it as everything is turned upside down.
You know, like forget about the left and right and conservative, Republican, and Democrat.
It used to be, you know, in Hollywood, it was to, you know, be a rebel, to be, you know, somebody on like an outsider, you know, not the establishment.
And that's what was going on.
It was why it was so exciting, like in the 70s and everything.
And that slowly turned now like the to the other side.
You know, now that to be left is to be basically the status quo and to be politically correct.
And, you know, I kind of feel like even the Republican Party has kind of become the party of like the common man.
You know, it used to be.
The Republican Party was the party of the rich fat cats or whatever.
And that's now it's, you know, the corporations are with the Democrats and the regular people are with the Republicans.
Would you say, I'm not looking for names.
I'm just wondering what you'd say.
Would you say there are more big players behind closed doors that talk to each other but never want to reveal their cards of where they're at politically to the public where you guys talk and you respect each other's privacy because as professionals you've been wrong?
Actually during COVID, it was like the first time I'd ever experienced that with people that were in agencies and publicists and studios.
They were even telling me, don't say anything about politics or the way you feel or because you could lose your job or whatever with that or you're going to lose half your audience.
At least that was the subliminal message on it.
But then I see so many actors go on a late night talk show or whatever.
As long as you were talking about Biden or whatever or endorsing a Democrat, you were fine.
But if you were endorsing a Republican or Trump, you were they don't even want you.
I remember Vince Board.
Look at that.
We got to be able to talk with each other.
But I'm wondering from you, why is that, though?
Who are they afraid of?
Who is at the top that scares the crap out of everybody?
Well, why did Republicans take it for so long?
You know, it's, you know, we kind of, you can't let people take that away from you.
It's our right as to be able to have a conversation.
What should Republicans do?
If you're saying that.
Speak up.
Don't be afraid to speak up just because it's awkward.
That's what I say.
You mean Republican actors?
Or conservative?
Even if you're a Democrat, don't be afraid to speak up if you're in a room full of Republicans.
We need to start talking and arguing with each other about the issues and what's important so that we can come to some sort of agreement eventually.
We pass each other on the street all the time.
But once we find out that somebody's on the other side, we put a label on them.
And we have to start remembering that we're Americans.
And it's okay to make fun of each other.
It's okay to talk.
It's the only way we're going to get back to what it used to be.
Yeah, you know, that reminds me of the scene, Tip O'Neill, when they're seeing each other.
I read a book by Chris Matthews about Tip and I or Tip and the Gipper or something like that where he talks about the relationship between Tip O'Neill and Reagan.
And he says, hey, you know, one thing you got to know about me, we can fight all we want until six, but after six o'clock, we're two Irishmen.
Let's go grab a beer, right?
Like, is that what you're talking about, Canada?
That's what we're talking about.
And they really had that.
They really had that relationship.
Tip O'Neill would come over to the White House sometimes several times a week and to talk about legislation or just to get to know each other as people at the same time.
And, you know, the truth is, Republicans and Democrats, they need each other.
And they really do.
They keep each other from going too far one way or the other.
Because, you know, in the end, that's what will happen.
And I know George Washington didn't want political parties, in fact.
But you got to be for this or for that.
And so that's what political parties function as.
But we do need each other.
We just, we need to have some real exchange, I think.
Back then, here's another big difference about back then: is you had liberal Republicans and you had conservative Democrats.
And now it's just black and white.
So it's.
Wow, it's interesting what you just said.
Can you say that one more time?
Yeah, you had liberal Republicans and you had conservative Democrats.
Can you tell us what that looked like for some of us that maybe didn't know?
Well, a lot of it was, you had a lot of the South, you know, they had a lot of Democrats down there, which are now like red states.
And it's because that's the way the American people are.
The American people as a whole are near the center.
And so there's some, and the parties, there was hardly really much difference between the two, I think.
And it made it work.
I think it worked a lot better than it's doing now.
Now you've got to just be on this side or that, and nothing gets done.
Could any part of the movie persuade you to get into office or get into politics?
Not in the least.
Zero.
No.
Not in the least.
At all.
Because, I mean, you just turned 70 this year.
That's very young today to go for office as a president.
Seven years old today?
You're like a 22-year-old.
No, thanks.
No part of the movie.
Like, you know how sometimes you play this movie, you're like, you know, I thought about I'm a this or I'm a dad, like Heath Legend, he really thought he's, you know, all these things.
You really get into the part.
Yeah.
You say, honey, I think, I'm thinking about, I want to do something.
I really love my leisure time too much.
And you know, I get them, but just as a citizen, that's all.
I feel it's all, we all have a responsibility to speak out.
You know, we have a responsibility to vote.
And I think we have a responsibility to get along with one another eventually and work this out.
That's how all these strange things start happening, you know, that held sway because we don't stand up and have our say about them.
Next thing you know, you got a man fighting a woman in the Olympics.
You know?
You really don't want to do movies anymore.
I'm really getting the trend.
You're definitely not getting a Disney job moving forward.
No more.
That's it for you with these Disney gigs.
Okay, since you brought that up, since you want to go there, 19 You said 75, right?
From 75 to 2024.
Rob, what was the U.S. population in 75?
Can you pull it up?
U.S. population, 1975, what is it, 250, 240?
What's the number?
Yeah, it sounds about right.
It sounds about right.
100.
Do you have it romp?
Okay, 216.
Wow, we had a lot of kids.
That's good.
Well, we definitely have stopped making babies, but that was 216.
So add another 130 million kids that we've had since 75.
When you got into movies, were there as many folks who were LGBTQ as there is today, or was it about the same?
I'm sure, you mean percentage-wise?
I'm sure.
Yeah, I'm sure it's the same as it was back then.
You think so?
Well, I'm just talking about you're born a certain way, and you just are that way.
Whether you speak up about it, I don't think, you know, they don't know.
But it's like now it seems like everybody is.
Well, that's what I'm saying.
Yeah.
So you are kind of getting to feel.
It seems like everybody is, but I think, you know, they say like one in 10 or whatever.
And, you know, it wasn't, you know, people are people.
You know, I think there was a lot more kind of interaction.
And I think there was in our culture, it was a lot easier back, like in the 70s to have kind of interaction between the different sexes and the different cultures of all that.
You know, we got along better because we could make fun of one another.
We could laugh with one another.
And now it's like a quota system or something.
I love how this topic makes you so comfortable.
You just got so comfortable.
It really does.
Could you guys tell how comfortable he got with the topic?
That's why I don't want to go into politics.
Well, I mean, I don't know what's happened since 75 till today, but apparently more people are being born that way today, according to maybe it's a scientific thing that you see that.
No, but you know, for me, when you're going out, seeing some of the stuff that's going, the other day I'm in the Hamptons, we're there for a couple weeks.
My kid, we found a local team for him to go play.
And 10-year-old Lee, the coach is from Britain, sick coach, phenomenal coach, where I practice two boys, 10 years old, are kissing each other.
And I'm like, what the?
I don't at all.
Maybe you went to school in Houston and there was a lot of boys kissing each other.
No, there really wasn't.
I went to school in Iran.
Honestly, I tell you, so if you kissed each other, you're dead.
It was different standards they had in Tehran, Iran.
Well, you know, I'm definitely not.
It seems to me like it's almost like encouraged now.
See, that's the process of school systems about it.
And then the parents can't know.
I'm definitely not for that stuff.
You're going back out in California?
I don't think you know.
I don't think you really know who you are sexually until, you know, at least 18.
Get to be an adult.
You know, and instead of suggesting that you might be, you know, from school or whatever.
And that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Yeah.
And then you can't take it back.
You know?
You can't be like, can you stick it back on?
Like, is that what you're saying?
Like, is that what you, because visually I just went there.
There is no can I get it?
I don't know what you've got going on, but no, it's like, it's not a snap on.
Let's go put some.
That's like, you know, I never thought about it that way.
There are no refunds when you cut it off.
That's a very good point.
See, this is why we have you here to kind of.
Well, I think what you're, you know, at the bottom of all this, what I think we really need to get back to is having a meritocracy in this country when it comes to jobs, when it comes to like, you know, getting into schools and forget quotas, we've got to have a meritocracy so that we have the best people that are in there and raise our standards about it.
You know, I'm sick of that.
You know, we're, what are we, 30th as far as education and you know, compared to the rest of the world.
And it's, you know, if we don't, we're going to lose a lot.
We already have.
So I read somewhere that said, I think on August 22nd, today is the second.
By the way, just so you guys know, you're having a premiere today.
On August 22nd, there's a premiere that you've invited Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, President Trump, and RFK, if I'm not mistaken.
Yes.
Right?
And, like, do you think President Biden will fully grasp the story if he watches?
And JD Vance, we invited Vibe.
We invited JD Vance as well.
So what is the likelihood all five show up?
wow that'd be better than the black journalist conference the other day so so you're saying there's a chance is what you're saying i mean I mean, Reagan was a Democrat back in the, you know, long ago.
Can you imagine all of them sitting in the room watching the Reagan movie together today?
The likelihood of that happening, and I'd be curious if that actually doesn't end up happening.
And okay, so let's go on a positive story.
I want to kind of take you to a positive angle.
You know, you said, I mean, this is the part when I think about someone who's super optimistic and the way you handle this, I just thought about it.
It would be a fantastic transition for us to make here.
So you said the electric grid could be the next 9-11.
Why are you so optimistic about that?
Because you're talking about EMTs.
Yes.
Yeah.
And because it's going to happen either by the sun or by a bad actor, a terrorist out there.
It's becoming very easy.
You could send up a very dirty nuclear missile that was like on a cargo ship off the coast of the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
If you explode that, in outer space, you don't even see the explosion because there's no oxygen there.
But it will knock out every electronic, the electrical grid blackout.
And we will, they don't just fix that in a couple of days.
That would be months and could go on even for years.
And, you know, there'd be starvation within a couple of months of that.
And it's, we could, we have the ability to protect our grid from that.
You know, these black, these rolling blackouts that they've seen that have come up.
But the last time from the sun, there was the solar flares that come off of them.
And they send out the wave comes out and hits the Earth.
We missed one by just a couple of days as we go through our orbit around the sun just recently.
But the last major one was in the 1870s, and it knocked out the entire telegraph system.
That was the only thing that was really electrical at the time and just melted it.
Had to rebuild the whole thing.
How long have you been worried about this?
Like, when did you start saying, yeah, I really think this is going to be happening?
I saw a thing on 60 Minutes about it a few years ago, and we really started researching it.
And then David Tice, who produced a movie that I, the Soul Surfer, he's really gotten involved and really trying to help out private industry as well as these companies, the electric companies.
There's three different grids, and a lot of these electric companies are local, too.
So nobody wants to just do it by themselves.
So we need to get government involved and private industry and the local companies to protect our grid.
It really wouldn't take much compared to what we're going to lose if we don't.
And the Russians and the Chinese are taking steps towards doing that.
But it could be a knockout blow, especially like with a dirty bomb.
Did you watch Leave the World Behind?
No, I did not.
You know which movie I'm talking about, with Julia Roberts and Obama?
Yes, I did, actually.
What did you think about it?
I didn't know the name of it.
It kind of resembled what it would look like in a way if an event like that happened.
You know, because immediately we would go back to pre-1920s, back to the 19th century, everybody had been living in the dark.
You wouldn't be able to refrigerate food.
You'd have no transportation because you couldn't have gas deliveries or anything like that.
Everything would shut down.
It would make COVID look like a cakewalk.
And everything would break down very quickly.
And it's really fun to talk about, but it's not really not a question of, it's only a question of when.
Did you say it's fun to talk about?
I'm glad you like this kind of stuff.
This is fun for you.
Well, everybody gets really silent when you talk about it.
So did you at all sit down and say, why would President Barack Obama do a video about a movie about a power grid and have his name being attached to it?
That's like, let's just say President Trump was the executive producer for a movie saying, you know, the next nuclear war, right?
And people say, why would you produce and fund a movie about the nuclear war?
So was Barack Obama doing it because he thought it was a great investment opportunity or was it predictive programming?
Well, I think recently, I mean, even Bush was concerned about it too.
If you're president, you know, you get given this stuff.
This is not political and not a political issue at all as far as any kind of partisanship.
You know, it's just something that we could all work together.
We almost need like a Manhattan project, really, for everybody to come together on it.
But the idea of doing a movie like that, do you think it's just, I think it's a cool movie, let's do it.
Yeah.
You think that's all it is, to do a movie like that?
Were you saying there was some sort of ulterior motive?
No, I think it's either I look at the noble side, Barack Obama is so deeply concerned about us that he wants to educate us, or he is so much wanting to get us to be afraid of it.
So when it happens, they're like, I told you what's going to happen, but you know what I'm saying?
No, I think that was a cautionary tale, you know, for all of us.
That goes beyond politics.
Right.
Really.
Got it.
Well, I'm glad you got this topic.
Something I'm concerned about.
How are you prepared for it?
So for some of us that are watching this, you know, nowadays we go shopping at the discount store.
Well, it used to be 99 cents stored.
There's no longer 99 cents.
Maybe we go to Dick's Sporting Goods.
How do you prepare if something happens to the power grid?
Well, I don't know.
You have to put like five years of food behind or something.
It's going to, you can't prepare for it, really.
Have you prepared for it at all?
No, I haven't.
I haven't literally.
Why bother?
Why bother?
Because it's when it happens.
I know there's a lot of people in this country who are throwing food away.
I just don't want to live that way day to day.
As if Armageddon is going to happen tomorrow.
I would rather work to do something about it today, but I don't want to live in fear.
I'd rather do something proactive rather than something to protect when it happens.
Well, maybe another question.
When's the last time you actually had canned food?
Like, do you like to eat corn or like tuna?
I can't Campbell's chicken noodle soup.
I figured it was something.
I've got to have it.
So, you know, in 2020, 2020, when they asked you a question, they said, so how do you think Trump is doing with COVID?
I think the word you used was, I like how involved he is.
Yeah, he was there every day.
We all didn't know what was going on.
At least he was there every day on television.
And I think it made me feel better.
But I did an interview because I was involved with the podcast company, Audio Up, at the time, and doing my own podcast.
And so I was doing an interview with a certain outlet, and they asked that question.
And then it turned into, they tried to cancel me.
They tried to cancel me actually a couple of times over that.
When I was doing Reagan, there was a story that came out that I was taking $400,000 from the Trump administration through the CDC to do a commercial on the vaccine.
Oh, that's the thing you do with the validity.
It had no validity at all.
It was like an attempt to cancel me.
Crazy.
I don't know whether it's because I was played Reagan or what.
So finally, I gave a speech after I did regulate.
I gave a speech down here to a conservative group.
And there happened to be a couple of people there that I think were January 6th or whatever.
And somehow that got out.
They tried to cancel me over that.
It's like it's, you know, that kind of fear, it kind of feels like the McCarthy era, really.
And that's kind of flipped.
You know, back then it was really kind of the Republicans that were kind of running that thing.
And that's no way to live.
So I finally am kind of like, well, you know, cancel me if you're going to cancel me.
But I'm going to be who I am.
I don't want to live in fear about all this stuff.
Did you at one point have Fauci on the podcast or were you on a podcast?
Yeah, I did.
I interviewed Fauci.
What was it?
Actually, I was giving a speech in Washington about my kids.
You know, my kids were, They were overdosed in a hospital with heparin, you know, because they were there for a staph infection when they were 12 days old.
And it was, it was like world news or whatever.
But so after that, I was giving a speech about medical safety, medical errors across around the country.
And I was in Washington and about to give a speech at some hotel or whatever, and my pants split all the way down to my, all the way open, man.
And there was there, there was somebody there to sew me up, and it was Fauci.
Yeah, sewed the back of my pants up.
This is what year?
Thank God I was wearing underwear.
But that was maybe 2008, nine.
Who knows that story?
That Fauci.
Have you told this story before about the pants?
Not so publicly.
Yeah.
So is there a relationship with Fauci?
He did a really good job sewing that up.
The pants.
Yeah, he did.
Maybe he could have gone in a different industry.
That's like, yeah.
Could have been better for the world.
Some would say it could have been like a better opportunity.
But I'm not such a fan now.
Tell you the truth.
Of Fauci?
No, I'm not.
Even after he helped you with your pants.
Well, I kind of put that over here to the side.
Got it.
Got it.
Yeah.
Got it.
So you have the ability to isolate and say, you're great at sewing my pants, but you suck with your policies type of thing.
It's a gift.
I just feel that I like a lot of people really kind of don't trust what the government says.
I mean, what would make you not believe the government?
Just something I can feel.
It's just a hunch.
Because something comes out of their mouth.
Something comes out of their mouth.
And you wait six months and it didn't turn out to be what they said.
But by then, they're on to something else that they want to tell you.
That's, or they try to blame it on the other side.
Yeah.
You're one that's very curious with JFK assassination, right?
I think you've done some stuff.
And I had Oliver Stone on before, and he's the reading a book right now that RFK Jr. endorsed Unspeakable, which basically gets probably very similar to the files, which I hope that they do release to the American people.
Because I was nine years old when that happened.
And it that, along with Martin Luther King and RFK getting shot with it two months each other, paralyzed our country really for decades.
Something died there and we weren't told the truth about it.
And I'd really like to find out why for sure.
And I myself, I feel like it was within our government that the reasons he the reasons he was killed.
So you think, are you saying it was the CIA or are you saying LBJ or you saying?
I think it was the CIA myself.
That was like, there was, I've never been a conspiracy theory type of person, you know, but it's just, it just makes too much sense of why that happened, what was going on.
Kind of shivers me to think that the president of the United States is not really in control of the government and that, you know, it makes me wonder what happened back then and what is it like now?
You know, and you know, the American people are supposed to be running things around here and I'd like to see the the will of the people being done and I'd really like to get to the bottom of it.
So that was that.
This is now obviously the government's improved dramatically.
So do you think the assassination attempt on President Trump could have any likelihood?
That maybe was an inside job as well, or zero chance?
Well, I'd like to go with some hard evidence and the way that the Secret Service responded and the FBI responded, and all they do is make you feel like well there, there must be something back there, because they don't want to say anything.
I mean the, I mean everybody else.
Everybody else just had to look at their cell phones while they were recording that event to have a timeline about what happened, and they couldn't even say that when they came into Congress.
They're like, too afraid to speak about this or that, and so I don't know.
There's no hard evidence about that.
But you know, I'd just like to have some accountability from our government.
They're accountable to us, not us to them.
You know we elected them and these people are not elected officials.
That's you know the people that we elected should be.
They're the.
They're the boss and we're the boss of the president.
Actually, we're the American people and we should have some accountability.
Respect, that's what this country is all about.
So it makes it great is that we can have all these different voices and forces and and and accountability to that, and yet we still survive as a country.
You know that things don't just spin off and into chaos, and at least that's what we used to be admired for.
Imagine if we didn't have a Supreme Court.
Yeah, if we didn't have a Supreme Court, and if Ilon doesn't buy X, imagine what happens to America today.
Yeah, it'd be a whole different place today.
Yeah, thank god for the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court is and and did you hear that?
They're saying they want to put it?
That's only three terms of 12 years and Biden's proposing that.
Now that he, you know whether it's Biden proposing it or his mentor, Obama somebody, somebody's proposing it there internally.
Yeah, that's the main reason that.
Uh, it really swayed me to vote for Trump was because they start messing with the, the court system.
You know, I mean the only before that.
The only thing I liked about Trump was everything he did was, you know, defeated Isis.
You know he made us energy independent.
Uh, you know he was, I think he was, he was really sincere about being a president to all, to all people, including the Lgbt community, by the way, you know and uh, you know, everybody is Americans.
So uh, but messing with the court system, that's the.
don't do that.
Or as Biden says, don't.
Very intimidating dog.
I mean, when he said it, you have to believe it.
We were intimidated when I said that, right?
Of course.
I felt that in my gut.
Kind of like, wow.
Have you ever met Biden?
Have you ever met Biden before or no?
I met him briefly back in the 80s.
He was at some event.
Impressed?
Back when I was on cocaine.
So a fired up season of your life.
Yeah.
Did you?
Back in the 80s?
Great balls of fire.
Getting too serious.
You're getting too serious.
By the way, did you see the story?
Getting way too serious.
Did you see the story that came out the other day?
You know, because you may have stopped at a wrong time with cocaine because, Rob, can you pull up the story with New York Times?
You'll appreciate it.
Does it really improve your heart health?
Is that what they're saying now?
So that Woody Allen movie was right.
Rob, pull up the story that just came out.
By the way, I don't know if you guys saw the story.
It's a New York Times story with Colombia and cocaine.
Did you see the story?
No, I did.
Rob, pull up the story.
Colombia faces a new problem.
Too much cocaine.
I mean, that's devastating that they're sitting on all this product that they can't move anymore.
Oh, wow.
So much inventory of it, right?
You don't have a government subsidy for that?
To pay them not to grow it?
How, what caused you to, everybody, you know, we all have a history of things that we had to at one point drop in.
And what was your method to stop doing it?
My children, there are three stages in addiction.
Somebody got pissed in about it.
I got introduced.
Get the cocaine.
I got introduced to cocaine back in the 70s.
And it was, there was a cover story in People magazine about that.
It was not addictive and that it was just a fun party People magazine.
You know, it gave you more energy and pep.
I was all for energy and pep and uh, I mean, it was in the movie, it was in movie budgets, you know, and it was serious.
Go people, go into meetings and studios that it'd be on the table.
You're joking yeah, you're not joking, I'm serious, it was, that's what.
But then John Bellucci died and that's where people started to wake up.
I think about it, you know, I kept going, but so but, but addiction is like three stages.
You get it's it's fun, and then it's fun with problems, and then it's problems.
You know, and then, when you're in the problem stage, what do you do?
You know, because you think you're still in the fun stage and you don't realize that you know you're.
It's affecting your work, it's affecting your relationships, it's affecting everything about your life, you know, becoming unmanageable.
There and I was, I had a band, uh called the Eclectics back then and we got a record deal.
Uh, we played at the Palace Theater.
We got a record deal that night and we broke up that very night in the dressing rooms, just like that movie, the commitments.
We broke up backstage after getting we had a record deal and we broke up.
It was because of me because, you know, I was just, I was a mess, to tell you the truth, but I went home that that very night.
I went home and I, I was lucky, I um, I had a white line experience, you know, from prayer really, and uh, I was praying on cocaine.
I'm just curious, like it was like help me, Jesus.
That Yeah, that's enough.
That's enough.
But anyway, I had one of those white light experiences where I saw myself, well, I'm going to either be dead or in jail or, you know, losing everything I have within five years if this goes on.
And I put myself into rehab like the next day.
And that was before rehab was cool.
Yeah.
Before they had like cold pools and massages and things like that.
It was in the hospital.
What year was it?
It was at the hospital basement.
What year was this?
That was 1990.
Is this when Betty Ford, is this the Palm Desert, the whole thing?
Betty Ford, no, no, this was like St. John's Hospital in the basement of St. John's.
And I was lucky I was there for 28 days and I got it.
But, you know, I ground, gnawed my teeth for like three years.
And of course, you know, it's no fun to, you know, after that because I had to kind of relearn everything, tell you the truth.
And, you know, it works on your nervous system and, you know, go through depression and this and that.
But, you know, gricked my teeth and I got through it, went to meetings.
But I started reading the Bible again.
Because I've always been very, I've always been very into God.
Let's put it that way.
But this time, I've read the Bible like about five times in my lifetime.
And each time is very different.
But I read at that time and I'm very struck by the red words of Jesus.
And that's really what started me to really having a real personal relationship with God instead of just, you know, out there, which has grown and nurtured and ebbed and flowed since then.
I won't say that, you know, nobody's perfect or anything like that.
But that relationship with God is what we're all looking for to fill up that hole with drugs or whatever your gambling or whatever that feeling is, that exhilaration that we're all kind of looking for, that only doesn't work after a while with drugs and the rest of it.
But that's the hole we're trying to fill.
Do you ever watch the movie Walk the Line?
Yeah.
You know, that scene where June has the guy coming in to try to give him the pills and the father-in-law comes out with the shotgun and says, hey, you better get out of here.
And he has to stay in bed and he's going through the rehab side and trying to get that.
Yeah.
You know, that's the part when you're going.
I had a close friend of mine that couldn't get off of it and we lost him May 2nd.
It's a very hard thing when you lose.
I've had a lot of close friends.
Well, I won't say a lot, but I mean, I've had close friends who've died from it, you know, and by accident or whatever it was.
But some were trying to commit suicide with it, I guess.
One drug or another or this or that and another.
And, you know, it's for me, that's where the answer really lies.
And I'm in a bad relationship.
Incredible story for you to share it with us and just be transparent about it.
I mean, a lot of people need to hear stories like that, that you can change.
But I'm in the back over there getting ready for the meeting with you.
They tell me you're here.
And one of the guys comes to the back, he says, Oh my God.
I said, What's that?
Dude, the guy looks amazing.
I'm like, he says, Pat, he does not look his age.
He looks incredible.
Then I'm like, okay, he's just trying to maybe kiss your ass or something.
Then I come to the back and I see you.
I'm like, dude, this guy looks amazing.
Like, seriously, I mean, unbelievable when you're seeing for you to have worked in the business for as long as you have, you look great.
And you know, let me ask you another question.
So, your mom is a realtor.
Your dad's an electrician.
By the way, VIPs, we're going to come to you guys for questions.
Anybody that's a VIP on the front two, three rows, we may have a couple questions being asked before we wrap up.
Mom's a realtor.
Dad's an electrician.
Buddy is a singer.
Your brother, who's back there?
He's in real estate, too.
So he followed mom's footsteps.
Yeah.
But he can sing as well.
But he create Austin, Texas Real Estate.
This is brought to you by Buddy from real estate in Austin, right?
Give him a call.
What's the phone number?
You have a phone number?
We can't give it out.
Then you have your brother, Randy, who played LBJ, if I'm not mistaken.
He played LBJ.
And he's an actor.
And he did a bunch of work.
I think he's in Canada now.
And then we have you who's done what did the create, who brought the because real estate electrician doesn't produce a bunch of creatives.
How did that happen?
My dad was a frustrated actor, actually.
And he introduced Randy and I to like the movies as well.
And then, you know, through my grandmother, she played piano and stuff.
That's his side, my dad's side of the family.
In fact, Gene Autry is my third cousin.
And he did pretty well in Hollywood.
He did pretty well.
Yeah.
I finally met him in the 90s.
He was a great guy.
Do you know Gene Autry is probably, in today's dollars, the richest entertainer of all time.
You know, he wrote Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.
And back in the saddle again, Frosty the Snowman.
But then, you know, and he had those movies, Gene Autry movies, that, you know, serials for kids, basically.
Holy shit.
But then from that.
You have a billion dollar net worth?
Yeah, from that, he, yeah, but you take those dollars earned then and put them today.
Boom.
From that, he bought Channel 5 in LA, KTLA.
And it was like, that was before the East Coast West Coast hookup, which is huge.
And from that, he and Walt Disney bought Anaheim.
And he bought the Angels, basically, built the stadium and all that.
Disney made Disneyland.
Did any of that pass down to you guys?
You had buddy?
A couple hundred million of it?
Because if yes, some of us need a loan right now.
If you guys got some of that money sitting around.
I never saw any of that.
I never saw any of that money.
Not a thing.
I was the third cousin.
I think I was probably about 113th down the line, something like that.
Do you guys ever do family gatherings where everybody, any reunions where all the family, all the siblings get together or no?
We used to when I was a kid.
Okay.
You know, I think it's really kind of the.
I've had like 57 cousins on one side.
First?
Yeah.
Yeah.
First cousins.
You guys Mormons or whatever?
I mean, my parents only had me and Randy, and then, you know, we had Buddy, but everybody else was busy.
Well, good for them.
So they definitely didn't watch any of your movies.
They're out there like getting stuff going.
They don't have time to watch movies.
We got to make babies.
There was a lot of that going on.
With the situation a few years ago with Randy saying the stuff that he said with Hollywood and all that stuff.
Is he still in that same state or he's no longer there?
Randy doesn't like me to talk about him and what's going on with him.
All I can say is that I really love my brother and I miss my brother.
And I will say this: you know, Randy could have like a great third act.
Randy could have a great third act.
He could have a great third act in the movies.
And I would love to see that.
He's one of the best actors I think we've produced in this country.
He's one of my five favorite actors.
Really?
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Who would be the other four?
Well, like Alec Guinness and Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, I guess.
But, you know, I'd love to see him have a third act.
Wouldn't you?
Yeah.
That's cool.
I have boys and everything.
I got four kids, two boys, two girls.
And as a father, you know, everything we're building is for these guys to stay as close to each other as possible.
That's your goal later on in life.
You want them to kind of have the memories.
What else are you doing as a parent, right?
That's the goal to do that.
And I'm glad that's your position right now with Randy.
So here's what I'd like to do before, let me see if I have anything else here.
No, here's what we could do.
Anybody on the VIP said, does anybody have any questions?
Is that you with a call?
Who has a question here?
Do you have a question?
All right, let's come right here first.
Right here.
Right here.
If you can say your name, where you're from, and then what your question is.
Hello.
My name is Laura Donaquioti.
I currently live in Deerfield Beach, but I grew up in New Jersey.
Thank you for being here.
It's great to see you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me, by the way.
Thank you.
My question is: considering you are a master at your craft, and I'm sure you researched all things, Ronald Reagan.
What did you maybe learn that you hadn't learned before that was most interesting to you about him?
The main thing, when I was offered the role, I didn't say yes and I didn't say no because he was my favorite president.
And also, everybody, he's like Muhammad Ali.
Everybody in the world has an opinion about him and knows what he looks like.
And there's a shiver of fear up my spine, which is usually an indication I should do that because it gets me on my comfort zone.
But Reagan, I didn't want to do an impersonation of him.
And it's about getting down to what makes him tick.
And I've played many real people before, alive and dead.
And like Jerry Lee Lewis was on this set every day, you know, behind my back going, you get it wrong, son.
And Jimmy Morris was on the set.
And I want to play those people from their point of view.
That's, I think, a responsibility I have.
And Reagan, there was a place in Reagan that everybody talked about who knew him that there was a kind of a private place in him that was almost unreachable that people felt.
This is a great communicator.
And it took me a kind of a long time to get there, but I feel that in one way that was a place where he kind of felt like himself because there was a lot coming from him from the world with people.
How to be in a crowd and yet still have a feeling of privacy and yourself.
And I think it may also come from having like an alcoholic father in the way that he grew up, where you kind of are you there's some things you just kind of really keep yourself at with this cloak of you hide you you hide it with by being uh convivial with people and stuff.
And it's, I think it was also the kind of the place where he had his relationship with God himself as well that he guarded.
And I think even Nancy, who knew him better than anybody, was aware of that too, that place.
Right there.
Go for it.
Hey.
Yes.
Let's get them out.
First time, long time.
Pleasure to meet you both, gentlemen.
Big fan, Mr. Quaid and Mr. Patrick Bat David.
I've been, I saw you from JAWS 3 to JAWS 3D.
JAWS 3D.
Done right here in the Great Plains, Florida.
One of my favorites, the day after tomorrow.
I just want to know, and everything you've done, how would you like to be remembered in the entertainment industry?
Oh, gee, I really don't know.
With that, you know, you know, I've enjoyed working.
My autobiography is going to be called My Lucky Life because of the movies that I've gotten to do.
It's like I tell my kids, find something that you would love to do and then figure out a way to get paid for it.
Man, I've gotten that even when I didn't deserve it, I really feel.
And I've just had so much joy doing what I do.
It's that I've really loved it.
And I love it now more than I loved it when I was in my 20s.
Because I'm not trying to get anywhere, you know, be something or win some award or trying to get ahead or whatever.
Lucky enough to be able to do those things that really interest me.
And that's like being a kid.
It's great to keep that.
And that's, you know, it's called a play.
That's the way I'd like to be remembered.
It's a great, it was really a lot of fun.
I got a question for you.
Gang-related.
Tupac.
Tupac.
What was it like doing a movie?
Oh, man.
That was so great.
That little movie.
And Tupac, I was kind of familiar with Tupac when we did that movie.
And we both love Chinese food, it turns out, you know?
And so he and I would be in the trailer like every day.
We had Chinese food five days in a row.
That would have joke like a sign for something else, or is it really Chinese food?
No, he didn't.
It is the 90s.
So I really, at the time, really didn't know much about who he was and stuff.
I knew who he was, but it's like we got it there.
We just, we talked about acting.
We talked about growing up.
We talked about our mothers.
We talked about, you know, he was such a, had such a great heart as a kid.
So he was such a talented actor, too.
And he had a thirst to learn.
And, you know, I did know he was a poet, really, you know, because that's what he was.
And then he told the story of how, you know, they tried to kill him before in New York.
It was hysterical, the way he told it, but it was like for real.
Then six months later, he would, you know, he got killed.
And that one really hit me hard.
It really did.
Why is that?
He had so much to give the world.
He really did.
He was about a, you know, he would have wanted being such a uniter of people.
He really was.
Because you could not put him in a hole or a box or part of that group or this group.
He was like, you know, he would have, what could have been?
What did he tell you?
Because I thought you were going in a completely different direction when you went to it.
Because what's interesting about what you just said is the movie came out October 8th of 97.
He died September of 95, I think, 95 or 96, because it's high school.
When I graduated high school, that's when he died.
So he never saw the final movie himself.
No, he never did.
But what did he tell you about the first time they tried to take him?
He was just a human being.
He was a kid and he was a vulnerable person.
He wasn't like this gangster, this and that and the other.
He was like, I had a poet's heart and was really, you know, it was his vulnerability and his willingness to, you know, and his curiosity about other people, including me, you know.
We were kind of like, yeah, you never put the two of us together eating Chinese food in the trailer.
But, you know, there we were.
It's a high DEI school, though.
I mean, if you look at the DEI, that was like way up to the first time.
Really, really, really deep feelings for him.
I want to say on this, we've talked about God knows how many different stories.
Out of all the stories, if I would have gone to Vegas and I would have said, here's 15 stories, let's put a wager on which one do you think is going to get him emotional?
They probably would have put Tupac last.
Why did Tupac get you?
I think I just told you, you know?
But what I want to know is, I know, I get it.
But what I want to tell you is, was it like any story like correlation on the upbringing?
Was it any similarities?
Was it anything else?
We had a lot of similarities.
The way he started as an actor, like in high school, and doing plays, he just got into it.
And he had that same feeling that I have about it.
He just wanted to do it.
He was a real artist and he was a real poet.
And he was just getting started.
Just getting started.
Do you listen to his music now?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, I do.
Especially that one about his mom.
Your mama?
Yeah.
Makes sense.
Next question.
Don't ask about Tupac.
He's already told us.
Okay, no more Tupac questions.
Right here.
I'm going to go right here.
Beautiful shirt.
That's right.
The future is right.
The future is right.
My name is C.O. Sandoval.
I'm from Los Angeles, and I'm a realtor, too.
You're in real estate?
I'm a realtor, too, in Los Angeles.
Well, maybe you and Buddy can get some referrals going here.
Thank you so much for your time.
It's so nice to be here.
And thank you to the PBD team.
Thank you for having me.
Thank you, Mr. Quaid.
You answered my question.
I'm going to read you my question.
What has been your go-to behind the scenes story that made an impact in your life that still moves you?
And I think we just heard it right now.
Yeah, that would definitely be one of them.
You know, I really got to just like I talk about my lucky life, like the people I got in my heroes that I've gotten to hang with.
One of those who be like the right stuff.
And, you know, meeting the astronaut who was my boyhood hero, turned out he lived three miles from me and I'm playing him.
And, you know, I really got to be in his life.
I really appreciated that.
And Jerry Lee, I really loved, you know, he was one of my piano teachers, which was who could say that?
Literally?
Yeah, literally.
You know, the left hand is what it's all about.
You know, I had three others, but he was one of them.
He was really such a generous person.
You know, he could be kind of a schoolyard bully every once in a while, you know, with bravado, but he was something else.
And just to be around him and, you know, and mentor away.
And that was working with Ringo.
That was another one.
You know, being in Caveman, you know, we were together like 16 hours a day, he and I, because it took so long to get the setting back.
And just, you know, the things that in my childhood I would have never dreamed of happen to me.
And, you know, I guess that, but Tupac, he really did it me emotionally.
We keep going back to it.
You know, I don't want to go back, but you keep taking us back, so I want to transition.
But Mel Gibson, okay, for me, I can watch some of his movies over and over and over and over and over.
It's like weird movies like Payback.
Yeah.
By the way, you know what movie you can't find anywhere to watch?
Try Finding Ransom.
Who remembers the movie Ransom?
By the way, go tonight, try to find ransom.
Where to buy it, send it to me.
You won't be able to find it.
Yeah, it's kind of strange.
Great Balls of Fire is another one of those.
Why is that, though?
I don't understand.
It got caught up with.
Well, Great Balls of Fire got caught up because of the music and the publishing.
Is that typically what happens?
I think that's what happened.
So it's hard to find.
You can only buy like a DVD of it or something.
I mean, I've been trying to get ransom all over the place.
It doesn't matter where I can't get it.
Oh, you can go find it on Amazon.
I'll go to Nel not available no matter where you go.
I think we ought to get to the bottom of that.
I think we should.
I want to hire private investigators.
Well, I'm sure Mel knows.
Are you in contact with Mel?
Not currently, no.
Okay.
But like that.
What do you think about Mel?
Like his story?
Mel was a great star, man.
Really a great star.
And, you know, I wish him well.
Oh, my God.
There weren't that many.
I was also got fortunate enough to come along in a really kind of a great generation of there was something new going on.
You know, my generation would be like Kevin and Mel and Bruce, you know, and It was, you know, it was really fun to make.
We were in each other's trailers, and we there was this camaraderie going on, and uh, it was great.
What was Mel like behind closed doors?
Like, forget up when I see his interviews, he's like, always, you know, he's always animated, moving energies, like, you know, yeah, is he always all that with an Australian accent mostly puts off, but uh, you know, we were uh we were kids once, we were lucky kids, Bruce Willis, yeah, Mel.
What was uh, how was it?
Did you ever do anything with uh, well, you did, De Niro?
Have you seen how De Niro has been campaigning?
I never worked with De Niro.
I never did Pacino on any given Sunday.
That's right.
So, how was when you're seeing De Niro doing what he's doing right now in New York?
What do you think about that?
It makes it kind of hard to watch Casino.
I can still watch it and isolate this.
But is it different?
It is, of course, it is.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, I watch Casino hoping Pesci kills him.
Like, it's like a different kind of, you know, what you deserve it.
Sharon Stone, go after him this time.
Story kind of changes.
You watch Casino, the angle could be a different story, but it is what's it's tough because it's probably going to be hard for people to watch my movies after this, too.
But yeah, I don't know about that.
Whatever.
Let's do one last one here before we wrap up.
Right there.
Let's do one last question.
Kelly, if we can go right then and we'll wrap up and we'll do some pics.
My name is George Robertor.
I'm from Naples, Florida.
And I want to say, one, thank you for this evening.
The movie, amazing.
My wife is uber jealous.
My wife, Sean, I want to give her a shout out.
She's actually watching right now, blowing up my text message during this.
And I wanted to basically say you're one of our top three favorite actors.
And frequency is a favorite of both of ours.
And when that movie came out, it touched my soul based on my relationship with my father and everything else, like tears, like bawling.
But what I want to actually say is, what are three movies, which you've done tons, that really hit your soul that you think you've transferred or transformed other people's lives?
Oh, wow.
I'm just, well, all I can speak for is me.
But, you know, I do like, I can only imagine.
I really had a lot of people come up to me, like in airports and things like that.
And the rookie was another one of those.
And frequency.
And do you see that there's a theme of father-sons things going on here?
And I think, you know, it's, I'm a sucker for those movies because they were kind of in my heart.
But with, you know, it's because we all, as sons, it's really kind of hard to express our relationship with our dads, no matter how great they were.
You know, they could be great too, but it's really kind of like just tough to get all balled up in there because it's about us, you know, and ourselves being a man.
And there's always a little bit of like with your dad, I think men feel like I'd love to be like him.
And at the same time, I never want to be like him about some other things, you know?
And I know because I see that with my sons going on now.
But I'm a sucker for it.
And we're really glad that movie came along.
It was a really good story, too.
You know, the great question, by the way, the one story my pastor once told me, Pastor Dudley Rutherford, who, if he's watching, we love you, Dudley.
Dudley's one of the reasons we did not want to leave California was because of Shepherd of the Hills and Dudley Rutherford.
We absolutely love him.
We changed our wedding date from Saturday to Friday because he was preaching Saturday just so he could do the sermon.
And one day we're at Claim Jumpers in Northridge.
I don't know if you've been to Claim Jumpers.
I don't even know if anybody knows what Claim Jumpers is.
And we're sitting there having lunch.
And, you know, I'm asking him family, father, son, relationship, all this stuff.
What's the best advice you can give me about being a good man?
He says the four Gs.
Be careful with the girls, gamble, greed, gluttony.
I said, okay, give me father-son relationship.
He said, every father and son goes through three different phases.
I said, what's that?
I've repeated this thousands of times since he told me.
He says, first we idolize them, then we demonize them, and eventually we humanize them.
Idolize, demonize, humanize.
He says, you hope that your sons will also one day do the same to you, because you're also going to make some mistakes.
It's just a fascinating thing to talk about.
So having said that, Dennis, I've enjoyed this so much.
I can't even tell you.
I've had a really great time.
Truly, this has been fantastic.
You're a great sport for doing this.
I've seen everybody here already.
But August 30th.
All right, give me a hug.
August night.
Let me come around.
August 30th.
Give me that.
Give me a hug.
Sit back.
For everybody watching out there, August 30th movie comes out.
