Speedlemania

Dinner For Five - hosted by Jon Favreau. With special guests Vince Vaughn, Rory Cochrane, Cole Hauser, and Brian Cox. Filmed at Zucca restaurant in Los Angeles.

Vince Vaughn: (To Rory) What are you most proud of, you're performance in Dazed and Confused? It's a great performance.

Jon Favreau: That was good.

Vince: Great.

Rory Cochrane: I've had a couple of good runs, ya know.

Jon: (joking to Rory) That's the exception.

(laughter)

Jon: CSI, Dazed and Confused,  let's list the good ones(?), Love and a .45.

Vince: He's always good. He is always good.

Cole Hauser: (talking through Jon) Let's break it down.

Rory: Don't do it to me, babe.

(laughter) -shows Cole bending down to pick up a folder

Jon: He's getting out the bio.

Brian Cox: What is it? Oh, I see. That's you. (points to folder)

Rory: Well, I can get my bio out too, I got mine.  - Yours is  edited, your f*ckin' bio, I know it. (points to Cole)

Cole: (reading from bio) His first roles included a part in a docudrama about drugs on Saturday Night with Connie Chung in 1989 and an appearance in an episode of H.E.L.P. (looks at Rory) Let's talk about help. (laughs)

Rory: Can I get some help? Listen, yours is f*ckin' edited cause I know. I know that, that...

Cole: Mine's edited?

Rory: ..the movie you did with the tail, that's not on here. (turns to Jon) Where's his sheet?

Vince and Jon: What movie with the tail? (laughing)

Cole: The tail?

Rory: That little ducktail you had...

Jon: Tail on the back of his head.

Cole: Oh yeah, that's uhh, that's uhhh, that's uhhh...

Rory: (interrupts) Yeah, let's talk about that.

Cole: ...Do The Right Thing or some shit.  (laughs)  I don't know what the name of that one is.

Jon: (to Cole) So you worked with Singleton, and you're gonna work with Singleton again huh?

Cole: I'm working with him now actually, yeah.

Vince: That's why you're here and your eyebrows are such as they are.

Brian: (to Cole) Oh we've been in the same film!

(everyone laughs)

Cole: Is that right?

Brian: Yeah, I didn't even realize we were in the same film.

Rory: (in background) That's how the world works.

Brian:  This is really weird.

Vince: Which film? Jon: What movie? (said simultaneously)

Brian: A film called, well it was called The Cup, it's now called....

Cole: Oh yeah,yeah, yeah...

Brian: A shot at Glory.

Cole: ...you played the (?something?) manager.

Brian:  What did you play?

Cole:  I played Kelsey, the goalie.

Brian: You...Ohhhhh...you had that...Oh I remember that horrible day.

Cole: Which one?

Brian: When they knocked goals at you.

Cole: Oh yeah, in Hamden(?)

Brian: That was horrible. That was horrible, in Hamden Park.

Cole: Yeah, I had Rangers - real, professional....

Vince: This the Duvall film?

Brian: Oh my God, I remember it now, it was horrible. I felt so sorry for you.

Vince: (to Cole) So Duvall called you and asked you to come play a goalie?

Brian: It was terrible.

Cole: Yeah.

Vince: ...and you've never played soccer...?

Cole: No, no I played soccer all my life. But these guys are pro.  I'm talking about I played soccer from like 11 to 13.

Brian: Oh my God, I forgot that.

Vince: (playfully lays his head down) That horrible day!

(laughter)

Brian: This was a horrible day. And I felt so sorry for him (points to Cole) because the guy, the guy who's playing, who was kicking...

Cole: Ally McCoist

Brian: Ally McCoist, who's like one of the hero's of Scottish football.

Cole: He's the best Scottish football player ever lived.

Brian: Ever, ever.

Vince: And he was taking shots at you?

Brian: But he was supposed to, he was supposed to miss the penalty. But he couldn't resist putting it past.

Cole: It was like his little Scottish way of being a prick bastard. (laughter) You know what I mean, like aww f*ck you Americans.

Brian: (laughs) Nooo.

Cole: Let me tell you something (Brian tries to speak) No, let me tell you something...

Brian: It's muscular memory. When you've got muscular memory you've got to score.

Cole: (speaking at the same time as Brian) He's a prick c*cksucker for that, but the thing is that it is so easy to shoot a penalty kick by anybody. Number One, none of the professional goalkeepers can stop penalty kicks. Every once in a while they get their hands on the ball.

Vince: Well, it's a guessing game, you either dive left or right, right?

Cole: You either go left or right.

Vince: What do I know about soccer?  I play the video games. (shows Jon laughing)

Cole: Yeah, but I mean the thing is is that to be fair, back me up (said to Brian), if you're a goalie, it's like maybe 1 out of 10 you might stop.

Vince: (in the background) Is that true?

Brian: Oh no, you're right. No, no it's absolutely right.

Cole: I mean it's literally,  it's from here to that light right there.

Brian: He's absolutely right. He's on the money on that one. You're absolutely right.

Cole: ...and it's like, you guess and you go. And you know it, it,

Vince: It's like a bad game of (Wo ? Bo <--I have no idea what he said!).

Jon: (in the background) Not 1 out of 10 though.

Cole and Brian: Yeah.

Jon: I watched the World Cup, it wasn't 1 out of 10.

Cole: Let me tell you something, the only guy I ever stopped was this guy who actually played for the Rangers.  And he, uh he...I just guessed the right way and I stopped it and they kept it in the movie.

Jon: Vince had an experience with Rudy, with the uh, with the football stuff.

Vince: Well, I didn't even have the experience. They wouldn't give me a shot.

Brian: Are you talking football?

Jon: American football.

Brian: Ahh yeah, exactly. (laughs)

Jon: Our first film together, ahh, was Rudy. We met. I didn't get to play a football player. I was all excited. He got to play a football player and run out of the tunnel. Notre Dame, alot of tradition.

Vince: But, it, it started off to be like a fun thing and then it turned sad for me.

Brian: You were a football player, you played football.

(everyone laughs at Vince's last statement)

Vince: American football, yeah.

Cole: That's the same way it started with me.

Brian: But you played before, you played...

Vince: I played in high school. I played 7th and 8th grade and my freshman and sophomore year of high school.

Jon: He missed the bus. (says to Vince) Wanna tell that story?

Vince: I wanted a starting position in high school and I missed the bus that day. And Favreau, i've told Favreau that story...

Jon: And I put in the movie, I put it in Made.

Vince: ...put it in Made. But, so we come out..so,  we get halftime at Notre Dame. Notre Dame is you know...

Brian: Yeah, I know. Famous Catholic University...

Vince: So, so at halftime we get to come out of this particular game. There's too much to fill the stands with extras, it's a large stadium. It's cold too. So they let us come out for halftime. We have a chance to run, I think, two plays or three plays. So there really can't be any mistakes because...

Jon: Plus the entrance, the big entrance. Don't play that down, cause that's a big deal. 

Vince: That was a big deal, but then it turned, that was like a good thing and it was like judo(?). All that momentum hurt me all the more. (Jon laughs) So what they say, we have like three chances, three plays they had and they couldn't afford any mistakes because they had this certain amount of time because obviously they had to stay with the program and let the real players come out and play. So, on the day i'm excited. I have an option pass that i'm going to throw. Which is, i'm playing a flankerback, get a pitch, pull up, throw the ball. And they pull me aside on the day, and they say look Vince we can only get a couple of cracks at this, run out of the tunnel, get in the huddle, get excited and then sneak off the field this way. (laughs and points left) And another guy- who was like an ex-college football player- is gonna come in and actually throw the pass for you. So like in front of all these people, I come running out, Go Irish!, i'm excited. haha, Ra Ra! and their all kinda, and then I have to run out of the huddle like this, quietly and hide and so the other guy comes in and throws the ball.  (laughs) And Favreau teased me, the first time me and Favreau hung out...

Jon: We hung out in L. A.

Vince: ...he was teasing me in front of friends of mine how I...he said, "You can't throw a football. Who are you kidding? That's why they had this guy do that." And I poured a drink on you.

Jon: He poured a beer on me. (laughter) That was our first night hanging out.

---Auditions---

Vince: You beat me out for uhhh (points to Cole)

Cole: Yeah, Dazed.

Vince: Dazed and Confused. (Cole laughs)

Jon:  I would say you were still in a funk when we worked on Swingers from that whole, that was part of the experience that...

Vince: F*ck, I think that for all actors you go, I was at a stage where, not just that movie but four or five films, I would come in second for. You know, it'd be me and another guy and I wouldn't get it. So it's like playing sports or anything else, if you're close - you strike out, you gotta forget that and go about your work - the process...

Jon: (in the background) It's like the Buffalo Bills.

Vince: ...But see auditioning is different because people that are strong auditioners, they can get to a certain level very quickly and be comfortable with something but for me, it takes me alot longer just to daydream and think about it, imagine -whatever to actually get to a set and feel prepared to actually commit to playing a character and understanding it. And I think that, so when you go into an auditio, it's sooo. You're not really working from the place you're used to working from, where you're just sort of, i'm playing this character, here's my backstory, this is what matters -whatever. You're going and trying to win a part and alot of it's just the b.s. in the room. Do I shake his hand? Do I (make?) this guy this? What are they looking for? Ya know, such a strange, ya know, mixed bag of what they're looking for.

Cole: Yeah, does he have blue eyes or have brown eyes, red hair or brown hair.

Rory: But, I think unfortunate luck for an actor builds character and I think it's a blessing in disguise. I really do.

Brian: Yeah, but it is - so much of it is about. I used to do audtions cause I taught, have taught alot. But what used to happen is you used to have kids come to the audition and they would never get further than the tube(?) station. Like for, there was a girl who came five years running and she couldn't get any further than the tube station cause she always threw up...

Vince: Wow.

Brian: And so she finally arrived and she was like (demonstrates severe shaking) that.

Vince: Bless her heart man.

Brian:  She was completely like that. And when I,  just calm her down, quietly take her outside and just say, "It's okay. It's fine. We're on your side, we want you to make your best." Come in. And finally she got in. She got in the school.  So...
 
Vince: What do you think that fear's base in?

Brian: Its based on because, it's based on the notion of failure. Which is a big problem for an actor.

Vince:  But, failure of giving a performance, or you think a failure of being accepted? Or...

Brian:  Failure of being accepted. I think it's failure of being accepted more than anything else.

Vince:  Or maybe, maybe it's a fear of actually being successful.

Brian:  Well, ayyy. That's a bit too sophisticated. (Vince tries to interrupt) I think it's really fear of being a failure, that you yourself have failed, that you yourself have let yourself down.

Rory:  Plus you're putting your neck out, your body. It's not like your not, hey this is my craft that I built, this is like your Hey, how ya doing. (gestures)

Brian:  Exactly.

Vince:  But I think there's something to the fact too, that when you grow up and you're not really growing up in a place where, uh, everyone in your family is an actor or an artist or a singer and it's not really your reality and you sort of put a lot, uh,  of importance on what that would be like as something that you'd love to do.

Brian: That's right.

Vince:  There's something very scary about them doing it. Because there's something in a way that's safe about it having be a dream that's not attainable.

Brian: Exactly. (Brian tries to talk more but Vince just keeps on talking.)

Vince:  So there's a fear I think of actually now i'm going to do this in my life, allowing yourself to have your life be better.

Brian:  And that's sick(?) making. Alec Guiness. Alec Guiness was notoriously the worst auditioner ever. I mean he used to be violently ill.

Vince:  (in background while Brian is talking) Good actor.

Rory:  Well it goes, the whole audition process goes against what you're taught as an actor. And if you're not taught it just still goes against it, your instincts. You're in a room with somebody who's answering the phone, who couldn't give a shit about you.  You're reading off some..
(inaudible as Brian cuts in)

Brian:  Well that's particularly bad over here.

Vince:  Do you love the move where they get a phone call, you're in the middle of a reading and they get a phone call and say, "Can you hang on a second?"

Rory:  (laughs) That's happened to me.

Vince:  And they get on the phone and their like, "I know, he was such a jerk at the party", and they would roll their eyes like they want to get off the phone.

---Bathtub Scene---

Jon: (to Rory) You fall in love on the set.

Rory:  Jesus Christ.

Jon:  You do. Don't you?

Rory:  With you.

Jon:  I never have. (Rory laughs) We fell in love on ummm...

Rory:  Talk about how we....

Jon:  ... perhaps the worst movie.

Rory: ...how we were doing the movie and not only did the SAG dog make more money than us (Jon laughs) right, per day, the f*cking SAG dog was there.

Vince:  What movie was this?

Jon:  This was Hickenlooper's thing.  (referring to Dogtown.)

Rory:  Then before the take he would go, "Do the Dazed and Confused shit. They responded to that, they like that. Do the Dazed and Confused shit."

(everyone laughs)

Vince:  Right before your take?

Rory:  Yeah, right before my take. And then I did a movie with this guy (points to Vince) where i'm supposed to be emotional, i'm on crutches, I have some kind of weird disease right.

Vince:  Prime Gig.

Jon:  Ed Harris.

Rory:  And he's singing. I'm in the bathtub and i'm supposed to, i'm crying...

Cole:  Is that how you went in to it? I have some kind of weird disease, just don't know what it is.

(Jon laughs)

Rory:   Nn, yeah. They didn't give me time. I wanted to do the method thing and go and prepare. Muscular Dys - whatever.

Cole:  Read up on it?

Rory:  Yeah. They didn't have the budg - It wasn't in the budget. So anyway, we're in the bathtub right? And he's singing...

Vince:  (didn't understand the first few words) ...that we were in the bathtub. You were in the bathtub.

(Jon laughs)

Rory:  I was in the bathtub and he's singing. He's supposed...

Cole:  You were in the bathtub with the (?) ?

Rory:  ... he's supposed to be caressing me, or whatever cause i'm hurt.

Jon:  Giving you a sponge bath.

Cole:  What movie is this?

Jon:  Prime Gig.

Rory:  And he starts singing - bath time brings me down, bath time brings me down, i'd rather slip under the water than have your liver spotted hands caress me down, Oh Daddy, Oh Daddy...

(laughter)

Vince:  Because it was so, (laughs) it was so...

Brian:  Is it a real song?

Vince:  No, me and Rory...

Brian:  Is it a real song?

Rory:  Is it a real song?

Vince:  No. The thing is like, there's supposed to be emotion to the scene and you don't want  to play that. So he's in the bathtub and there's and there's an odd ridiculousness to it so I would just joke around and make it like, hey look you're a guy who's in the bathtub, (laughter) i'm a guy who's cleaning you off here. But let's not make this like, ya know...

Rory:  Nahh, it was fine, it was...

Cole:  Why didn't I ever see this movie?

Jon:  Neither one of these got distribution.

Cole:  (to Jon) Did you ever see this flick?

Jon:  Sure. I saw it on IFC.

Cole:  Did you really?

Vince:  Yeah.

Cole:  That's terrific.

---Improv Olympic---

Jon:  I did four in Chicago cause I wanted to learn improv. I moved there. I'm from New York originally. Vince is from Chicago...

Vince:  The suburbs of Chicago, Lake Forest.

Jon:  Lake Forest. We missed each other. He moved out here before...

Vince:  I was actually involved in the same improv group prior, before you got to Improv Olympic.

Jon:  Before I was even there.

Vince:  With Del Close and Charna Halpern

Brian:  Which improv group was that? Was it the...

Vince:  It's called the Improv Olympic, which is now in Los Angeles as well.

Jon:  They have one here too.

Brian:  It was comedy?

Vince:  Comedy. Sometimes. Some nights it was comedy, sometimes it was tragedy.

Jon:  He was, yeah, he was a dark fellow this Del Close. He practiced witchcraft and was an ex- junky and...

Vince:  I remember my first class. I went in there and he's like, "There's nothing f*ckin' funny about comedy." I was like, "I signed up for the comedy class."

(laughter)

Jon:  But like, Belushi had trained with him and all the people we grew up watching.

Vince:  Bill Murray had trained with him. All of our heroes did.

Brian:  (asks Jon) And you went there deliberately from New York? I mean you went to work, cause you had obviously heard about these people.

Jon:  Yeah.

Vince:  Well he started Second City and then at Second City they started doing planned bits, planned skits. So it wasn't like it was improv anymore. They would just insert whatever names that the audience came up with. They'd say a celebrities name but they had already a pre-written skit that they would do that everyone would sort of think was improv but it wasn't. So Dale, I think frustrated with that, came up with this new format called the Harold - which was completely improvisation. So you'd learn these games and these different techniques and you'd get on stage and you'd take suggestions. And you know, you'd work with the group so hopefully you knew each other's skills and you'd kind of navigate your way through it and try to make sense of it.
 
Jon:  It was long form too. It was like half hour from one suggestion.

Vince:  Halftime at the Improv and...

Jon:  And it taught me, it really literally taught me how to write. I mean cause you had to write on your feet...

Brian:   (to Jon) Now how did you find out about it? I mean...

Jon:  I was passing through town. I had gone...

Vince:  On a motorcycle.

Jon:  That's right.  I was working on Wall Street for a year.

Rory:  What kind of motorcycle?

Jon:  A Harley. You ever owned one?

Rory:  No, I don't do that.

Jon:  You never did, you do Ducati's?

Rory:  Ducati's. But go ahead.

Jon:  But I went cross country on a Harley after like being locked up for a year at a Wall Street job.  And I gave my notice and the market crashed on my birthday. One week into my two week notice I just bought a Harley, I left my job and I went to Sturgis(?) for the bike rally.

Rory:  Is there a helmet law in Chicago?

Jon:  No, no there is isn't. There wasn't in most of the country...

Cole:  Still to this day?

Rory:  Yeah, I think so.

Jon:  I don't know. There was none here either at the time. And I went all the way... I had a girlfriend at the time was staying out here in L.A.  And I went from New York to L. A.  and on my way back I stopped in Chicago and saw a friend of mine doin' improv. And saw a show with, Chris Farley was in it. Tim Meadows, Mike Myers - all the great.

Vince:  Pasquesi

Jon:  Pasquesi. A lot of guys who were great that...

Vince:  Andy Dick was in the Improv Olympic. 

Jon:  I think he was.

Vince:  I know he was.

Jon: Yeah, he might have left already by then to do work out here. But I said this is the best of everything. This was like, I always loved being in a school play and somebody goes up on their lines and you have to sort of tread water.

Brian:  Right.

Jon:  To me there was an energy to that.  And improv was all that.

---Looping---

Rory:  Do you like looping?

Brian:  Yeah, I love looping. I looped my whole part in uhh, Braveheart.

Jon:  Really? I'm so bad at it.

Vince:  I can't stand it.

Brian:  I love it. I love it. I love it. You see it's...

Jon:  I'm so marble-mouthed.

Brian:  ...it's like you can just edge a line in a way that you, cause I love language you see and I think language is so diminished sometimes in the cinema. How you say a line. How you make the point. How you hit it through. And I remember working with Mel, cause Mel Gibson who's consummate, he's an actor...

Vince:  He's a great actor, Mel Gibson.

Brian:  ...and he's a theater actor first and foremost...

Vince:  He's a great storyteller. He's great at understanding a story.

Brian:  ..yeah fantastic, fantastic. So when we did it he said, "It's an opportunity." And I said, "You're right."

Jon:  What, looping is?

Brian:  To do the whole thing.

Jon:  See I always feel the other way, I feel like you lose it.

Vince:  Well that's the way you have to look at it. But I don't agree with what you're saying.

Jon:  They drag you out of bed, they throw you in a car,  you go someplace.

Brian:  No,  it's an opportunity.

Rory:  Yeah, but Brando mumbles his lines on purpose so that he can go in and loop.

Cole:  You have an opportunity to make your performance actually better if you look at it.

Brian:  Exactly, exactly.

Cole:  If you look at it...

Brian:  Cole's point is right I think.

Cole:  ...I mean, you know...

Rory:  But getting back to the Shakespeare thing, he would...

Vince:  It's a chance to improve upon...

Cole:  Yeah, I mean sometimes you'll watch your performance in ADR and you'll go, "You know what, let me loop that line. You guys have me looping this line where I say you know, 'the baby's dead' but before when I said, when I say to this guy ya know 'shot in the head', it doesn't have the same meaning as when I say 'the baby's dead' so let me go back and loop this line.

Jon:  God bless you man.

Cole:  Cause you can change your performance, make it better.

Brian:  I think he's right. Cole is absolutely on the money.

Jon:  I think that is the way you should look at it. I just don't.  I'm so...

Brian:  That's because you've been doing to much improv.

---Higher Learning---

Jon:  Here's a question i've got for you about Singleton. Because the film obviously has a very strong point of view that you're the antithesis of...

Cole:  Right.

Jon:  But a good director, i've found no matter what your playing and how crazy you are or how bad you are will talk to you as though you're the lead of the movie. And here's what you want and you're right in believing what you want to believe.

Vince:  What you're going after, is to you, the right thing to go after.

Jon:  Right. I think that's always the thing cause you have to have an affection. If you're playing Hitler or playing ya know,  Capone - anybody, you gotta believe in the values of that character.

Vince:  Without a doubt.

Cole:  Of course.

Jon:  So when Singleton dealt with you, was he talking to you and pulling you aside, being like "Look this is...", you know what he able to see through that.

Cole:  As far as the character I was playing, he didn't know alot about it. He'd just come from doing, ya know Boys N The Hood and Poetic Justice. Ya know, his knowledge is really good with ya know, South Compton and what these young kinda black Americans are going through. He didn't know what was going on as far as the white supremacists. And the way it was written originally was white power this, white power that and ya know, in my opinion...

Vince:  Broad?

Cole:  Huh?

Vince:  Very broad?

Cole:  Very broad, and very like, false. And not that I know alot about white supremacy but I'm just saying that I knew that you don't have black gang members saying, "black power, black power". You know what i'm saying? So for me it was like, look let me go spend some time. I went up to Pelican Bay and spent four days in prison with the guy who murdered and raped, you know and just done everything imaginable to blacks, to even whites - Jews and so on. His name's Scott Moss and I sat there for four days and I sat there and talked to him and picked his brain. And he was actually a really educated guy. And the thing is, is that he had the ability to express something without being scary, just making it very simple. Like you know, he's talk about an incident where he raped, ya know a white girl in front of a black guy and "this is why I did it" - and just very simple. Ya know, "i'll always have the power of a white man and you don't have that." You know and then he would cut his fingers so that he would never be able to touch, you know what I mean. Just sick. So it's like I wanted to make sure that John understood, and he did - he gave me the freedom to actually play a guy who was an educated white supremacist. Not a, ya know, kind of a cardboard cut out...

Jon:  Sure, sure.

Cole:  ...bullshit you know, bad guy.

Brian:  Redneck.

Jon:  Which is the tendency because you want to separate yourself from the role.  It's a much braver choice to say, "Hey this is the logic behind it". And some of it might be right, even if you don't agree with the whole package.

Cole:  Exactly.

Vince:  But also the reality of it is, alot of the people that if they're playing a character like that, from that background who are joining the klan and stuff like that. They have, in their mind, logical obstacles and things that they think are distracted(?) and why they feel the need to group up with a group of people and feel like they need to protect themselves and protect their way of life. And so the end result is they seem evil and hateful, and they are, but the reason for where it started or why they felt so threatened or scared to have to be that way is human based.

Cole:  Yeah. I mean honestly he, I have a German last name, ya know. He didn't know that I was Jewish and Irish and whatever. But I have a German last name and this guy actually, and he didn't know I was an actor, he just thought I was like a reporter or whatever ya know. They didn't tell him I was doing a film or anything. And this guy actually thought that this is a guy I can draft.

Brian:  Right.

Cole:  ...This is a guy who's not in prison and somebody I can educate on what I believe. Ya know and when he used to write letters to me, he would sign his name with the SS symbols on the bottom, ya know which is the German Secret Service. And this guy, I mean honestly you could put him in a room, we could sit and eat dinner with him, and you know if he didn't show you his tattoos and invisible empire and all these things, you would think he was a really educated, kind, nice guy.

Brian:  That's right.

Cole:  Who was just into, ya know, a certain thing.

Jon:  Did anybody respond to the performance that was, that sorta gleaned the wrong things from it?

Cole:  I'm sorry?

Jon:  Like weird fanmail or people who were responding to it. People come up to you on the street?

Cole:  No, no. You know what, honestly you know what's amazing and i've told you this (p0ints to Vince) and I've told Rory, I don't know if I've told you but...

Brian:  (to waiter) I'll have some more of that.

Cole:  (to waiter) Yeah, thank you. I'll take one more as well. (to Jon) Uhh, black Americans will come up to me more so than white people and have actually said to me, "You know what, that was an amazing performance because I personally hated you."

Vince:  And it makes sense in a way, that they're responding to it.

Cole:  Yeah. Well, you affected them and as bizarre as it is, it's also a great compliment.

---Phone Booth---

Cole:  (to Rory) Talk about the Dazed and Confused audition.

Rory:  Uhh, I showed up there. Uhh, I was living in a hotel on Hollywood Boulevard with rats coming into my room. Not to play the violin for me, but it was a rough time. (Brian laughs) Uhh and I...

Vince:  Didn't you, when you first got here, move in with some family you met at a phone booth?

(Jon laughs)

Rory:  It might have been.

Vince:  Isn't it true, no it's true isn't it? That's what Johnny Sanchez says, that he introduced you to a family and you went and lived with them.

Rory:  Noo.

Vince:  A Mexican family. Didn't you live with a Mexican family?

Rory:  I did when I was seventeen, yeah but not for the acting thing.

Vince:  So what happened?

Rory:  I was building doghouses, delivering newspapers. (laughter) I'm not kidding.

Brian:  I want to get back to the rats. Can we get back to the rats?

Vince:  I want to know how you met the family, how'd you meet the family, how'd you meet this family?

Rory:  I met them on the internet. I was attracted to families with f*cking...

Jon:  They didn't have the internet...

Rory:  ...I dunno.

Vince:  What happened? How'd you meet the family?

Jon:  Come on babe, you know what happened. Is this too real for you?

Rory:  It was hard, put that down. (?)

Jon:  You want to talk about politics again?

Rory:  No, I don't. (laughter)

Cole:  Want to talk about Connie Chung in 1989?

Vince:  What happened? How did you meet this family? I'm serious.

Rory:  I was out here, and I was seventeen and I was with a friend of mine and he said I could stay at his house...

Brian:  (in background)  What about the rats? You were telling a story about the rats.

Vince:  Okay.

Rory:  Okay. And I couldn't stay at his house!

Vince:  That f*ckin asshole.

Rory:  I know it. So I was supposed to go home but I didn't want my dreams to be shattered in California...

Vince:  Right.

Rory:  ...cause I had nowhere to stay. So then this one guy who didn't speak any English, we get to talking, whatever...

Vince:  Where'd you meet him?

Cole:  You get to talkin', but he doesn't speak any English?

Vince:  Where'd you meet him?

Rory:  Nothing funny went on though, right. (laughter)

Cole:  You get to talkin', but he doesn't speak any English, now suddenly you can speak Spanish?

Vince:  Where'd you meet him, where did you meet him?

Rory:  At a phone booth!!

Vince:  That's right, at a phone booth. Why is it like pulling teeth? (Jon laughs)  So you met him at a phone booth?

Rory:  Cause this has nothing to do with independent film.

Vince:  Yes it does. It's independent of everything, this story.  So what happened.

(Jon, Cole and Brian laughing)

Rory:  It is, I know it is, it totally is.

Vince:  Where do you think it comes from, independent film? Now what happened, how did you meet him? Was he on the phone, were you on the phone?

Rory:  What was he wearing?

Jon:  You wanna talk about politics now, don't ya?

Vince:  Did he compliment your slacks? I don't understand how this happens. You don't the know the guy, he doesn't speak English and you end up living with him.

Rory:  My friend speaks Spanish, he talked to him.

Vince:  Johnny Sanchez.

Rory:  Uh hmmm.

Cole:  You wanna talk about politics now?

Vince:  Okay and he says, "My friends got nowhere to live, can he come live with you?"...

Cole:  Wise guy.

Vince:  ...Is that right?

Rory:  More or less.

Vince:  And the guys says yeah, si.

Rory:  No. The guy says I don't trust this kid, i'm gonna make him work the trucks for a little while before he comes and lives with me.

Vince:  So where'd you live while you were working the trucks?

Rory:  So, I'd sleep in his truck. And then I slept....

Vince:  Okay.

Brian:  Is that what working the trucks is, you have to sleep in them?

Rory:  (big sigh) Listen, I paid my dues!!

(laughter)

Vince:  So what happened? What happened, what happened?

Rory:  I built doghouses in the back yard. I delivered newspapers with these Mexican people. They were nice people.

Vince:  Of course.

Jon:  How many dogs did they have?

Vince:  That's great. But i'm saying, when did you move out? Did you ever see 'em again?

Jon:  They sent him a copy of the cover of High Times when he was posing with the bong.

Vince:  You were on the cover of High Times, did you send that to 'em? Thanks for letting me live here. See ya around campus. Signed, RC Cola.

(laughter)

Rory:  You're from Santa Barbara, you're from the suburbs. Yeah.

Vince:  Oh wow.

Rory:  You wanna talk about that? You wanna talk about how we played lacrosse and shit and how hard that was? (laughter) Oh f*ck it, I was devastated. Yeah.

Vince:  I never played lacrosse. I never played lacrosse. But i'm, look I didn't have, I didn't have this...

Cole:  All you gotta do is get him angry, i'm tellin ya.

Vince:  ...I didn't have the same extreme journey and that's why i'm fascinated by how you ended up living with a family that didn't speak English.

Rory:  I know. Let's talk about it again and again and again and again.

Vince:  Let's talk about it just once.

Rory:  We talked about it. You just told the f*ckin' story.

 (laughter)

Vince:  And what was nighttime like, what was nighttime like? Let's talk about that. Let's talk about your character. And what happened?

Rory:  It was hard.

Vince:  And what happened? And what happened?

Rory:  (makes his voice sound more effeminate) It was really hard Vince. It was hard.

(laughter)

Brian:  Vince, will you give the guy a break for God's sake?

Vince:  Brian, i'm trying to have a conversation here.

Brian:  I know you are trying to have a conversation but it sounds like the third degree here.

Vince:  I'm trying to have a conversation here.

Cole:  He wants to know how you got in there.

Brian:  How did you get in this?

Vince:  I'm sorry we're not talking about Scotland anymore...

Brian:  No, no, i'm asking him, I want to know how...

Vince:  ...i'm sorry and how America sucks. Ya know, i'm sorry we got off that topic...

Brian:  I never said America sucks, I said the opposite.

Vince:  ... No, I know you didn't. You said enough so the people in Scotland would think you're a great guy, (laughter) but the American studios wouldn't be scared of you. I gotcha.

Brian:  I'm trying to find out where he grew up...

Vince:  With the rats? He grew up dancing and dancing.  He used to dance his ass off. (everyone laughs, including Rory) You wanted the truth on Rory Cochrane? If he could make the money that he makes acting to dance, he'd be  a ballerina. That's the truth.

(laughter)

Brian:  Something happened between the main course and the entree. Something happened.

Vince:  Seriously, his first love is dancing. You said you look as everything as a great ballet.

Cole:  Oh my goodness.

Jon:  He woke up.

Waiter:  Gentlemen, did we save room for tiramisu?

(Ohhhh's all around)

Brian:  Umm, i'd like some cheese.

Waiter:  Cheese?

Brian:  I'm a diabetic. 

Waiter:  I'll see what I can do for ya.

Brian: ...some cheese and some fruit.

Cole:  We don't want you to pass out on us buddy.

Brian:  Yeah, exactly.

Cole:  Great conversation.

Jon:  (in background) Yeah, dig up some cheese and fruit.

Vince:  What do you have?

Waiter:  We have tiramisu...

Vince:  Do you have anything Spanish to remind Rory of his tender years in Hollywood? As a dessert?

Rory:  Those people were good people.

---Spencer Tracy---

Brian:  What do you think about somebody like Tracy? Tracy, who is my idol.

Vince:  Terrific actor, Spencer Tracy.

Brian:  Who is one of the - THE great screen actor, for my money. You know, this is my opinion.

Vince:  You're in popular company.

Brian:  But you know, he with such an ambivalent attitude towards acting that he would go on a drunk for four days and he would end up sitting in his own shit in a bathroom. (Cole laughs) Because he didn't know if it was a proper job. And I keep wanting to say let me go back in time and let me tell Spencer Tracy now, "It's not a bad job Spence. It's actually a good job because we do something not a lot of people do, we alleviate. We are, you know we kind of ritually, what people can't do, we do for them. Just think of that, think of what you do. Think of what you benifit people in that way."  But nobody was around to tell poor Spence in those days. Meanwhile, he was just knockin' it back and saying, "I'm a Catholic, and i'm living with Katherine Hepburn, I have a deaf son, What am I gonna do?" and I'm gonna have a drunk. You know, it's just terribly tragic.

Cole:  It's a different time, yeah, it's a different time.

Brian:  But he would have never appeared now, that wouldn't have happened, ya know.

Cole:  Yeah, and he would have never been on the cover of a magazine ya know.

Brian:  And I think, I think that's what affects and that's why, as Rory was saying, it's so important to take it from life. But it's harder to take it from life for their generation because there's so much media around you, the media all around...

Vince:  In fact they have more stimulation from media than they do from their own lives.

Brian:  Exactly, exactly.

Vince:  In fact their lives are supplied through media alot of times.

Brian:  That's right and that's the problem.

Vince:  And then you have like the whole movement with reality shows.

Brian:  And that's why America is so misconceived. America is conceived through it's media, it's not conceived through it's reality. It's conceived through what it's seen to be rather than actually what it is.

Vince:  Well look at how many shows are successful or viable products based completely on the music industry or the film industry. You have so many shows that just cover actors. Or cover what's going on in the film industry.

Jon:  This is one of 'em.

Brian:  Exactly.

---End Credits---

Vince:  And that's one of the things with acting is people watching. Just going and not being noticed and watching people interact, watch them talk to each other - not even participating sometimes ya know. And that's one thing you struggle with is as you get more recognizable is that's a harder thing to accomplish. I mean I still go and I do it wherever I go and I enjoy it.

thanks to Nezee for the transcript