S3E53: Standing Up For Standing In

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is a collaboration between Costard and Touchstone Productions and the Dads from The Crypt podcast 7 of 9 Tertiary. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Adjunct of Unimatrix 01. You have left the collective. It was a foolish decision. Now you are alone. You have lost the many. You are only one. You have become human, weak, pathetic. You will die alone. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the how not to Make a Movie podcast. I'm Alan Katz. In this episode, we're finally standing up for standing in. Well, our guest Ron Ostrow is standing up for standing in. And it's about bloody time that someone did. One of the appeals to me about the TV and movie business is how incredibly collaborative it is. It really takes a village of people to put on a show when you're first starting out in in the business as an actor, they pound into your head. There are no small parts, only small actors. It's true enough. There are countless examples of actors playing small parts that ran off with the show or the movie. I'll have what she's having as in the background as they seem. Even background actors can make a huge difference making a piece seem real and they are acting or being as we need them to be. Another group of actors working on a set. Stand ins, as the job description says, stand in for the actors in a shot while the director of photography or the cinematographer and their lighting crew like the shot. It can take a while. Hours, sometimes feels like days to a producer. The actors meanwhile, well, they're in the pretties, hair and makeup or wardrobe, or they're hanging out in their trip from a producer's pov. We want our actors and their energy primed when it's time to roll camera. Standing in, Though it seems simple, well, it has its own demands. Some people can do it most well. They really can't. A host of reasons. Good stand ins do way more than just look pretty or like the actor for whom they're standing in. Well, that is, they can do way more if they choose to. We talk a lot on this podcast about how to get into the movie and TV business, how to stay in the movie and TV business, how not to crash and burn out of the movie and TV business as I did. Our guest in this episode both got into and has stayed in the business, principally by working as stand in. Ron didn't plan or intend to have the career he's had, but he's had a career lots of people aspire to. What Ron has achieved. The stone cold truth is living life successfully means compromising your way through it successfully. Ron's compromises, got him through, paid his bills, and gave him a future with a little left over. You can measure success many different ways, and that's kind of what this conversation's ultimately about. In a lot of ways, Ron's story is what mine could have, should have been in the sense that he sustained his career by hook or by crook. Ron also had some pretty excellent relationships walking in the door with people like Aaron Sorkin, a friend from his youth. Ron had the very good sense to maintain and nurture those relationships throughout. That opened doors that wouldn't have been open otherwise. But friends can only open doors for you. If you want to keep those doors open and keep them viable as doors, you need to do all that hard work yourself. Ron walks in the door, an exceedingly nice person, but he knows how to read a room once he's inside it. And a situation and an environment over the course of his career. It's made Ron deeply pragmatic and an excellent voice to listen to for those seeking advice about this truly insane business. Ron's also a very good storyteller, and he's the perfect person to stand up for standing in, as you'll see and hear. First of all, you're from Scarsdale. [00:04:26] Speaker B: I'm from Scarsdale, New York, originally. [00:04:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to play a little Jewish geography. [00:04:31] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know if I can do that. Okay, we'll try. [00:04:34] Speaker A: I. I know one person from Scarsdale because I. I went out with her, and I think she would have been in your year because you graduated from Ithaca, 1982. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Right. [00:04:45] Speaker A: That means you graduated from high school. Let me do my math in 1978. [00:04:49] Speaker B: That's correct. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Did you go to public school in Scarsdale? [00:04:52] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:55] Speaker A: Debbie D'Angelo. [00:04:58] Speaker B: I know her very well. How do you know her? I mean, actually, when I say know her very well, I knew her very well. I've not spoken to her in a very long time. We're Facebook friends. How do you know her? I went out with her when. [00:05:14] Speaker A: When I would. I. I went to Vassar. [00:05:17] Speaker B: No kidding. She denies this story. The last time where she says she denies that she remembers it, when we were in elementary school, she had some kind of, like, dream where I was her boyfriend and her friends all would tell me about the story. I mean, mostly fourth or fifth grade. And I was so freaked out by it. It was not something that I could deal with. And then she grew up, and I greatly regretted it. Very sweet. Very, very sweet, lovely person. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. [00:06:03] Speaker B: We then we went to elementary school together, actually. Elementary through. Through high school. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Through high school. Yeah, I. I met her at Vassar. Yeah, I went out with her my senior year and a couple of years thereafter. It was intense. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Okay, well, good for. [00:06:25] Speaker A: Good. [00:06:26] Speaker B: Good for the two of you. [00:06:27] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know about. I don't know about that. I don't know about that, but. Oh, gosh, when I saw that you were from Scarsdale and I saw the year, I thought, oh, my God. So already, as far as I'm concerned, this is off to an amazing start. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Say. What did you say? [00:06:44] Speaker A: I said, this is already off to an amazing start. We. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Okay, then we should stop now when we're ahead. [00:06:52] Speaker A: You were. Well, you went to Ithaca and you studied drama, right? [00:06:56] Speaker B: I have a BFA in acting. Yeah, that. In the subway token got me uptown. [00:07:05] Speaker A: I. I was a drama major at Vassar, so, you know, we. We both traveled the same route. Were you always a drama rama? [00:07:16] Speaker B: I. I did the eighth grade play because that was the. The only way to. To be in the eighth grade play, which was the major event, was to join the choir, where I learned that I could sing. And I got a. I played Judd Fry in Oklahoma. So from 8th grade is where I learned that it was something I was interested in. And then it was pretty much not a decision until I was a. Applying to colleges, and it was either going to be drama school or law school, and I applied to five or six just for drama programs. [00:08:06] Speaker A: What did you think? [00:08:06] Speaker B: Four? Baby, I think I may have only applied to four schools. Yeah. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Well, okay. [00:08:12] Speaker B: And. Got it. [00:08:12] Speaker A: Let's go back one step. What did your dad do? [00:08:16] Speaker B: He was a lawyer. He was many, many things in. He started out, actually. He has. He. He'd be a subject for a podcast. He started out in Wall street in finance. He was actually Arthur Lehman's personal assistant and worked at Lehman Brothers. And actually, if you go to the museum of. Is it moma? I can't remember. One of the museums has a Lehman Room, which is a recreation of Lehman's apartment, and there's wallpaper on there, and my father probably picked out that wallpaper. But he used to have to travel. He would travel around town, he said. My brother told me. So this was well before I was born. He would travel around town in a taxi with pieces of fine art. Travel, you know, moving them from one place to other. But that was his interest. But. But that was. You know, he did a lot more than that. But I mean, so that was one of the things he did. But he then was. Also worked with the. The people who founded, you know, Lehman Brothers. Was, Was. Was. Was Shearson. And they. So he knew. He was. He was a. A. In finance. And he worked for. At one point, he also worked with. What's his name, the producer. Roger Bodicewood? No, no. There was a theatrical. He's a theatrical producer. He was a theater. Passed away recently. Very successful. But he was a finance person. My father worked with him as well. So he was. He had a career in Wall Street. Not just. He didn't. He did more than just, you know, tow stuff around, but he had a career in Wall Street. And after that. [00:10:11] Speaker A: He. [00:10:15] Speaker B: Actually, I think maybe while he was doing stuff like that, he also became involved in the civil rights movement. And he was a volunteer lawyer with Robert Kennedy's Justice Department when they went down south. And his job was to bail people out of jail during the Freedom Summer, he marched with King. He was very involved in stuff at home where Ian. And a man who was my godfather arranged for freight cars worth of donated goods to go down south. So he was in March on Selma, rather from Selma to Montgomery. [00:10:56] Speaker A: What was your dad's name? [00:10:58] Speaker B: Robert. Robert Ostro. And one story was, you know, he was. His job was, you know, he would go traveling around and he stayed with black families when he was there because it was not safe to stay anywhere else. And one day he was in a car with Stokely Carmichael, who is. Now, I'm going to mispronounce his name. Quasimafume, I think, is this new name. But he was in a car with Stokely Carmichael, and Stokely told him that he better not get out of the car because they're not safe for you to get out. And one night he forgot to call in and the FBI had to go find him. So it was a very dangerous time. And he flew home to New York on a plane with Mickey Schwerner's body, one of the three civil rights people who were killed in Mississippi. So he did. He was a founder of an organization called the Mississippi Found Mississippi Education Fund. He was also, I think, a founder with George Wiley of the National Welfare Rights Organization. And then after he left Wall street, he went into the art business. And he had a company called Collectors Guild, which was a mail order fine art limited edition lithographs and sculptures. And he did that for a very long time. And then after that, when I graduated from college, he moved to Vermont and he went to work in a company called Zone 6, which was a photography company that was run by a Man who was considered to be Ansel Adams successor, Fred Picker, he ran that, that was also a high quality photography company that my father was brought in because of the mail order expertise. He also, while he was in Vermont, became what we believe was the oldest man to pass the Vermont bar and he worked as a public defender. He then also, while he was in Vermont, left Zone 6 and was one of the people behind New Chapter. New Chapter is a vitamin company, very successful high end vitamin company. Now he's. So he worked there again and then they moved to Connecticut and we went to Connecticut again. He became what we believe was one of the oldest people to pass the bar in Connecticut and he worked as a public defender up until he became too sick to be able to work. So he had a very long, very interesting and varied career. [00:13:33] Speaker A: Now the reason I asked, the reason I asked the question was, all right, so first of all, wow, your dad, excuse me, a remarkable, remarkable person. What, what a, what a career. What a, what a. Yes, indeed, multiple podcasts in, in that story. But all right, so you were poised between law school is that way and drama school is the other way. Your dad was a very serious person. How was your choice perceived? He was. [00:14:07] Speaker B: He would have been happy, told me he would have been happy if I'd done anything else. But he supported me fully and, you know, paid my way through college, paid my way for a semester in London, helped support me in New York for the first couple of years. My brother also went into a different way. My brother was. My brother grad, My middle brother graduated from Penn with I think a degree in English, but he went to NYU for film school. He was in one of the first classes, I think when NYU had the film school, he ended up dropping out because he didn't think it was actually helpful. And he became a film producer. So by the time I went to graduate and he's five years older than I, so by the time I graduated from college, it wasn't like arts wasn't part of the discussion. [00:15:07] Speaker A: Just as well. Do you feel like your parents understood what you, you and your brother did for a living? [00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I think they were concerned. I mean, by the time I did, by the time I was on, on Sports Night and I was actually making my living doing it, I think they were probably relieved. But, you know, like I said, I asked him at one point in time because he never once, he never once told me not to do it. So I asked him once, I said, would you have preferred that I do anything else? Something else. He said anything else. So I mean, you know, he, they, I'm sure they were very concerned and I'm sure that it was not fun for him to have to support his adult college, his BFA wielding college graduate son. You know, like I said, I mean, you know, BFA is, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't open any doors. So I mean, basically I learned, you know, I went to Ithaca for four years and I went, I spent a summer at act and the way that I talk about it is Ithaca taught me that I could be an actor. Actually, my summer at ACT is where I really learned how to act. So it was very, you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, I got into NYU and I chose not to go to NYU because it was too close to home. And if I had been smart, I would have gone to NYU because everybody that around those couple of years, you know, you get a very big leg up professionally if you were in New York and all. I have a lot of friends who went to NYU in like the, probably the year after I would have been there who, who became very, very successful. And that's, you know, so, you know, the, the degree is not the thing. It's the proximity and the, you know, block. [00:17:00] Speaker A: You see. Now I look at my, what I learned in Vassar, I, I, I, I think of my experience there as being seminal in. We had to take a lot of dramatic literature classes as well. I'm sure you, you did too. My dramatic literature professor, a guy named Everett Springshorn, was one of the world authorities on, in Strindberg and Ibsen. And his lecture on ghosts was a seminal moment in my education in my, I think that's the first moment when I understood how to tell a story as a dramatist. I didn't think I was going to be a writer at that point, but I gotta say that everything I know about storytelling as a writer flows from that moment. [00:18:00] Speaker B: Well, I mean, everything that helps, you know, I made great friends over there and we had actually an exceptional Shakespeare as literature professor. And you know, Ithaca was a, it was not a liberal arts program. Ithaca was a bfa. So I mean, it was really, you know, it's funny, in the first couple of years that I was in New York, I took one accounting class when I was at Ithaca and I made more money in the first couple of years in New York based on that one class of, of accounting than I did. [00:18:30] Speaker A: Sure, sure, sure. Oh, well, sure, sure, sure. [00:18:32] Speaker B: Oh, you know, but I mean, so, I mean, there were great things that I learned at Ithaca. But like I said, in terms of Ithaca for the four years was more about, to tell you the truth, was just more about for me, may have been for different for other people, but for me it was more about preparing me. It didn't, I didn't really feel, I felt that the breakthroughs that I made as an actor, where I really felt that I was doing it happened after I left school. [00:18:55] Speaker A: I would say that, that in my mind, yes, Vassar did not prepare me for the job market, but it taught me how to think. Yeah, it taught me how to think analytically. And so therefore, whatever I took, when I took that into the outside world, eventually when I, when I, when I grew up and I learned how to actually use that knowledge to, to, to the fullest extent, that turned out to be really useful stuff. I'm, I, yeah, I, I, I think. [00:19:31] Speaker B: Experience and being away from home is a life experience. [00:19:33] Speaker A: So, yeah, I guess the question is, you know, the, what is the value of a college education to, in this business? [00:19:43] Speaker B: I think in this business, I think the value of, of, of a college education is as much about what you're going to learn as where you get it from and, and where you are. You know, there are certainly places where people are coming out of where, you know, there's trends. Right. When I was actually, had I gone into Carnegie Mellon, I would have gone there because at the time Carnegie Mellon was the school to go to for undergrad, you know, and again, like I said, if I'd been thinking clearly, I would have gone to nyu. [00:20:17] Speaker A: What did you want to do at that point? What was all right, you're, I wasn't. [00:20:23] Speaker B: Able to be critically, critically away. What was going on? I, I applied to, I, I went to, I applied to Ithaca because a friend of mine from high school was there and studying drama, and that's how I heard about it. And I made the decision because Ithaca, I'd be living away from home. So I mean, I wasn't making my decision based on any kind of analytical recognition that, you know, being in New York where the business was, I probably lost a couple of years because of, you know, you come out of, you come out of that school actually experience of what you need to do, you know, to, to learn and to, you know, they have showcases and a lot of people graduate with agents and, you know, you're, you're in, you're leaving with something, whereas not having to go to, you know, I went to New York right after San Francisco and, you know, this, the fall of you know, 1982. And so you're starting all over. [00:21:29] Speaker A: When did your, you know, when did it finally kick in? [00:21:34] Speaker B: You. [00:21:34] Speaker A: You mentioned you. [00:21:36] Speaker B: Well, I. So. So I went to also junior high school with Aaron Sorkin. So. And Aaron was a year behind me in. He went to Syracuse, so he moved to New York in 83. I was there already. We worked some of the same jobs. I was a bartender in the Broadway Houses and I worked at the TKTS booth in Times Square and You work. [00:22:09] Speaker A: At the TKTS booth? [00:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Wow. What's that like on the other side of that? [00:22:16] Speaker B: Well, I was on the glass, I was on the outside. I was one of the people that move people along. So the digression there is I worked, I would work on, you know, you'd say, you know, read the board. Next, next, next you would get people that would come up there that had no idea what they were doing there. We had tour buses would drop off there. One day somebody got in line and got to the window and ordered a hot dog because they had no idea where they were. But. And I worked on Sundays and one year. And my job on Sundays would be to. Before we opened, I had to sweep up, you know, Duffy Square. Duffy Square is really a triangle. I'd have to sweep around the booth. And one year, the Sunday was New Year's Day. It was day after New Year's Eve. And so it's 9 o'clock in the morning and I'm sweeping up the floor and the news crew comes by and because the New Year's Eve thing is a machine, as soon as it's cleared out, the cleaning crews are in there and it's gone. So the place is pretty much clean. And so there's little bits left up. And I'm sweeping up and they're looking for a story because they want to do a story about cleaning up Times Square and the only person they can find with a broom is me. So I was interviewed on WCBS News, sweeping up Times Square and talking about my father. I was sure he was. I joked with him that he was very proud that, you know, Ithaca College was one of the most expensive private colleges at the time. $7,000 a year. And I said, I'm sure he was very proud that he had spent all that money to have his son be a street sweeper in Times Square. So anyway, he got me a job. Aaron got me a job, I think, working at. For a company called Theater Refreshments. I got him a job working at the Times Square booth at some Point in time, we were roommates. He was writing A Few Good Men at the time that he was living with me. And so I got to New York in 1982. In 1989, I was in Broadway and A Few Good Men. And so it took about, you know, I worked, I worked before then, but nothing, you know, nothing significant. A lot of extra work. And that he did that got the show and that's 1989 was really when I started to have a career. [00:24:54] Speaker A: You know, extra work is work. [00:24:58] Speaker B: Extra work is very good work and especially it depends on, you know, people look down on it. But I've had, but it's essential work. My career right now, my career has been a parabola, right? I mean, it's, it's gone like that. I make, I, I work as a stand in as well. I'll do that, I'll do that. I just did commercial extra work last week. I did some English language dubbing on a Netflix show last week. You know, so you do whatever you do and if it's union, it goes towards your pension, health. And you know, I've had insurance, I've earned insurance pretty consistently for, you know, I've been.it's it's 2024. I've been in doing this for 42 years. I have a lot of friends who came out of the box extraordinarily successful. I know friends who've won Oscars and Emmys, Golden Globes. And then there are other people that I went to school with who quit after, you know, a year, two years, they found it wasn't for them. You know, they were there. If I had been smarter, there were things that I could have transitioned to somewhere else where I could have made an awful lot more money. But I made certain choices to stay with what I'm doing. And, you know, the truth is, is that, you know, I have, yeah, I, I, I have had a career. [00:26:23] Speaker A: Is money everything? You know, money's a lot. [00:26:30] Speaker B: You know, listen, I'll tell you, here's the thing. I'll tell you honestly. When I was in college, I thought that my job was to be an artist. And when I got out of college, I realized that my job was to be a craftsman. And I told I, I was invited, when I was on Sports Night, I was invited to go back to talk to my college, the senior graduating, graduating seniors. And that's what I told them. I said, you know, I, my skill is that I know how to remember my lines and hit my marks. And if I'm given the opportunity to do more than that. That's great. But when you are in TV or film, unless you are one of the top 10 on the call sheet, the work that you get to do is not really about art. You're part of the making of art. Your craftsmanship goes into the making of art, but it's not what you're doing. I'm sorry. Is not artistry. When you're on stage, it's a totally different deal. But, you know, if you choose to move to Los Angeles, which is what we did, my wife and I did, because really, after having been on in A Few Good Men and having done several things, I really hit a wall where right then and right around that time was when the trend for really famous people to come to do Broadway, and Broadway is the only place where you're going to make. You have to be able to live. Right. Before I. Before I got the show, I worked three jobs. I worked three jobs to. To afford to. To pay for my apartment, you know, and so. And it's all. And it's worse now. So, you know, we had gone out to Los Angeles, see what it was like, and we saw that you can make a living out here. So we came out, we made this. That we wanted to make a living. So is money everything? Money is what allows you to do what you want to do. Monies allows you to, you know, have a home and a family. So, yeah, money's a lot. [00:28:41] Speaker A: No argument. It. I think you draw an important distinction between art and craft. And the majority of what we do in putting out a product out into the marketplace is craft. It's not art. The art is around the edges. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Well, it depends on who you are, though. It just depends on who you are and where you are in the chain. The truth of the matter is where I am in the process is rarely the. You know, it really depends. It depends on what the project is and when you come in on the project. But generally the things that I'm going to be hired for are things that were. I'm. The coloring and the shading. I'm not the. I'm not the story. So, you know, like I said, I. I'm part of the making of art. But the way that look, some people may just very well disagree with what I'm saying, but I don't look at what I do as artistry. I look at it as craft. [00:29:46] Speaker A: I. I think what we all do lies somewhere between the two. And yeah, there's more craft than there's art on a daily basis. When you get to Practice the art. [00:29:58] Speaker B: It's great. [00:29:59] Speaker A: But yeah, a lot of it, it's a factory and you got to pump it out on time, on schedule. But to me, that was a huge part of the appeal of TV especially. I really loved tv feature films, but tv, you really felt like you were really in, in a, in a grind and you were part of a, an ongoing war. God. I remember my executive producers doing Tales from the Crypt were Joel Silver, Dick Donner, Bob Zemeckis, Walter Hill, and their, their worlds were so much bigger than ours. And occasionally we'd have to go visit their sets to do a little bit of business. And gosh, I remember a conversation that my partner, Gil Adler had with Joel when we got hired. They, you know, we had come out of tv. Gil and I had done a show called Freddy's Nightmares where we did 10 to 12 pages a day. And when we got hired to take over Tales from the Crypt, Joel said, now look, gonna have to really get a lot of work done. We have to do like five pages a day. And coming from features, to him, that was an impossible task. It was like saying you're gonna have to move several mountains a day and then probably move them back to where they start. And to us, that was okay. What Gil said to Joel was, okay, what do we do after lunch? So, but I think, I think there's a certain art in putting, in putting out a product. [00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah, but also the art. So here, here's an example. I did, I did background work for Woody Allen and Cindy Lumet, and those days were never longer than eight hours. And those didn't do, they never did massive coverage. They knew exactly what they wanted when they showed up. And actually I, I acted in, in being the Ricardo's, Aaron Sorkin's movie that he did. And I've worked a lot with Aaron and he's, we did the. I'm watching him work and I said, you know, the only other people I've seen that work like you are Woody Allen and Cindy Lumet. I'm very surprised that you are not taking all this coverage and doing all this stuff. He said, well, I wrote it. I know what I want. I know what I want. And there are people who have a confidence in their ability to their storytelling and their ability to maybe trust their DPs or to know they know exactly how the edit's going to go through. They don't need to be David fincher and take 120 takes of a shot. You know, they know how to get it. They know what they want. Now maybe there's, you could say, well, there's a different level of artistry between what they're doing and this doing, you know, what, whatever. You know, you can say how you experience the final product. But there are people who are, their, their, their craftsmanship allow is in, in great service to their art. There are other people who, it seems like they are, don't really know exactly what they're going to do till they get in the editing room. So they're just gonna shoot everything. And yes, you can't do that in television. You can do that if you're in a big budget movie. You can't do it in a low budget movie. I was in some low budget movie where one of my scenes had to get cut because we lost the light, you know, and, and they weren't going to come back the next day because. Because they didn't have the money for it. You know, it's too bad. I had a nice scene that I didn't get to do. I, I worked on Hannah and Her Sisters and I mean the, you know, the, the, she shot stuff in long shot, you know, across the street, you know, just other people would have pushed in and did this and the other. And just. It didn't, didn't need it. Same thing with Sidney Lumet. I did work on Q A and it's just we're in this, we were in a real location. We were wrapped before lunch. You know, it was the end of the, it really. [00:34:35] Speaker A: It's a very old school way of, of doing things. I, I don't know of many directors these days who, who, who would have that kind of discipline to have it shot in their heads. Really. [00:34:44] Speaker B: That's what I said to Aaron. I was really, I'm impressed and surprised by it. I said, how do you know what you're, how do you know what you're doing? And he said, because I wrote it. You know, I know. I knew. I know. I know what I, I know how it looks. [00:35:02] Speaker A: You, how would you describe life as a standard? [00:35:10] Speaker B: It's both great and frustrating. I mean, when I came out here, I got, when I first came out here. Oh. So first of all. So let's back up. In New York when you do extra work while people still look down on extra work. People, you know, as extras in New York, not so much. You know, the work is so far as people, actors would do extra work, you know. And so I did some standing work when I was in New York and I came out here. We, my wife and I signed up with extra companies. And quickly I got attached to an ad who liked me, who said, you want to be a stand in? And she took me to a show, a show called the Last Frontier, which did not survive more than a season. It was one of the first shows on, I think on. Was it on Fox? I can't remember. I can't remember. It was a very early. It was 1980, 1990, no, 1995, something like that. It was early, early show. And. And you know, it's. It's. You're a part of the crew basically and, and so you get to make good relationships with people. It's a little frustrating though if you're an actor. To be on a set every day is magnificent. But to be on a set every day watching everybody else act is hard. So you have to have a certain outlook to it. So I went with her that stand in. I mean that, that ad. Actually I went with that second AD to another show. I went to Just Shoot Me. And the first season of Just Shoot Me I stood in for, for George Siegel. And when I was there, I would play the guest cast. I worked five days a week on that show. And I would sometimes do the table read because they would not because of the budgets. And the way half hour works is half hour gets rewritten every day. And there might be parts in the show on Monday that are not going to be there on tape day on Friday. And so they're not going to hire the actor, they're not going to hire day player. They're going to hire them on Friday. They'll hire them on Thursday or Friday if the part survives. Sometimes it's a three day part. They'll hire him on Wednesday if the part survives. So I would play the part at the table read and through rehearsals. And so I actually got to act which was the most, which was wonderful. And actually that's how I learned how to do multi camera shows. I learned how to act on multi camera and I got a part on the show and I was doing the same year I did another show called Fired up and that was Jimmy Burrows was the director of that show and it was the Sharon Lawrence start on it. And we only did like seven or eight episodes the first season. The second season I didn't go back to just shoot me, but I went back to fire it up in the second season. I was basically a recurring character on the show. Not only was it standing in, but I had multiple, did multiple episodes acting on it. And then after Fired up, shortly after Fired up is when Sports Night happened. So then I did Sports Night. And after we got canceled after two seasons, the producer of the Norm Show, Norm MacDonald show, called me and said, listen, you probably don't want to do this, but we have to replace the Norm stand in, and we need somebody who really is good at this. Would you want to do it? And I said, sure, I'm not working. So I went there. Norm didn't rehearse, so I would be rehearsing for Norm because he would show. He would. It was not. He didn't rehearse. He would show up late. And by the way, I don't want to say anything bad about Norm. He was a very good man and very nice to me, but he would show up late, so I would have to rehearse. And after a while, I said to the upm, I said, listen, I'm sorry, I'm an actor and if you want me to do this, you're gonna have to actually pay me a day rate to do this. And if you don't want to do that, fine, you know, get somebody else to do the job. And they said, fine, that they paid me. So I would play Norm's part probably every day for several hours till he showed up, except on show day. And then, you know, so again, for me, standing in was a. Was a great opportunity to actually be acting. After that I went to the West Wing and I acted. I was recurred on the West Wing for several years. And then after that I went back just to standing in again. And then I did. But I would stand in on. I stood in for Norm again on another show where my deal was, it was. It didn't last us. It actually only. We only shot like 13 episodes and I think it only aired two and that. And Norm never actually. That show, Norm didn't rehearse. I played his part the entire day. He came in to do run throughs and. But after that, that was like the last multicam show that I did. After that I did standing in on single cab shows, which is a very different experience. You are much less of an actor there. However, frequently you'll do off camera dialogue. So I would do off camera dialogue and that actually they liked me on that show. I got that show because of my friend Joshua Molina was a star of that show. And I said I was looking for a job and he got me a job standing in for Tony Goldwyn on. On the show. And they knew I was an actor when they hired me and I ended up recurring on that show. I was. Was on that show for. I worked on the show for six seasons and I did multiple episodes as an actor and that's because they liked what I did in, you know, the off camera. But, you know, it's very frustrating because it's. Again, you know, it's a very good job. Going to set every day is probably the best thing that you can do as a performer, but, you know, it makes it hard to audition. And it's also, you're standing there watching other people act. So you have to have a pretty, you have to have a pretty strong constitution for that. [00:41:37] Speaker A: There have been trade offs. [00:41:40] Speaker B: There have been what? [00:41:41] Speaker A: There have been trade offs. [00:41:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, the, the major thing is that, you know, I made money, the money that I needed to make my pension and health. I mean, that's the bottom line. I made the money that I had to, to be able to later buy a house. So, you know, it's, it's, it is a, it is a career path that is not necessarily for, for everybody. [00:42:08] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. One of the things that we talked. [00:42:10] Speaker B: About precluded me from doing some other things. Generally speaking, I never missed an audition and most of the shows were, in fact, all of the shows were extremely supportive. If I got a job, I took the day off or the couple days off and I shot the other show and came back. And, you know, there was no, you know, as long as they like you, as long as you do a good job and they like you, then it doesn't get in the way of anything. But there are other times now that it's like there are other times I've, you know, and then I was on, you know, the thing is, the way to be successful doing that kind of work is attaching yourself to ads or producers who like you, who take you places. The last several shows that I did that were multicam though, it was interesting because I was being brought along by the producer, not by the ad. And that's really the person who determines whether or not you do the off camera dialogue. And so I would go, I would get the jobs because the producer knew me and liked me. And actually I'd been on a show called Better with you where I stood in and the producer liked me. And again, I did multiple episodes of that on camera and then he would take me to do his pilots. But I never once did on the off camera dialogue. No, I think on one pilot I did it and actually ended up doing a voiceover on that show. But, you know, it's, you know, it's Hit and miss. [00:43:44] Speaker A: There are multiple ways to attempt to climb the mountain. And never mind climbing the mountain, to stay on the mountain is the hardest part of doing this. Lots of people have one success, maybe a second success, and then they fall off and they can never figure out how to get back onto the mountain again. And they spend the rest of their days lamenting the inability to get back on the mountain. One of the things that we talk about in this podcast is, yeah, how do you stay on this mountain? How? How, how do you do that? How? How? And one way or another, you, you, hey, you're still on the mountain. [00:44:26] Speaker B: Well, the, the truth of the matter is, is about building relationships, and it's also luck. Those are the two things. At a certain point in time, unless you are, unless you're with a certain kind of agency or have a certain kind of status, you know, most of the jobs I've got hired for because people knew me, it's new me from working with them or knew my work. I've gotten. I've had jobs that were straight offers from people I didn't know, and that's been surprising. And then there's other times when it's like you can't beat the door down to get seen for something. So, you know, but most of you know, the majority of my stand in work was because I went with people who know me because that's a job. You, you, you, you working. When you work five days a week with people, you want to work with people you like and you work people who are good, but, but people you like because you're going to be with them 10, 12 hours a day and so make jobs very difficult. And I got hired on back when you were able to go in the room and audition. You know, I got hired a lot because of, you know, you got a chance to talk to people and they got a chance to see you as a human being and get a sense of what it would be like to have you on the set, you know, or. And they find out you have friends in common or they look at your resume and know the thing. And that's how you get. That's, that's as again, at my level of being hired, that's as much as anything else because, you know, when you've got a choice between two people who are equally qualified and good for the job, you're going to go with the person who you want to spend the day with. [00:46:22] Speaker A: But nurturing relationships is absolutely essential. And taking fear, taking care of these relationships, feeding them. Yeah, you, you really, that is an important part of the work if you want to have any kind of career. [00:46:38] Speaker B: In this, I think. [00:46:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of people would love to have any kind of career anywhere near this thing, and they can't. It's, it is an absolute testament to a kind of ingenuity and just. [00:46:57] Speaker B: But it's also, but I'm telling you, it's also perseverance. I, the, the last job that I regular job I had was on Ted Danson's new show, and the way that I got that job was I got a phone call from central casting to stand in on the Seth MacFarlane show the Orville, because I look like Victor Garber. Victor Garber was. So they needed somebody to stand in for Victor, and while I was standing in for Victor, Ted was on the show. And so I stood in for Ted as well. So I did multiple episodes of that show. It was during, it was during the pandemic, which was amazing because they, they had carry days back then, so I would get paid for not even showing up. But. So we did that. And then I get a inquiry from central casting saying, do you stood in for Ted on the Orville, right? And I said, yes. And they said, are you comfortable, you know, reading lines with people and doing something like that? I said, of course. And they booked me on Ted's show, Mr. Mayor for the second season. And the reason why they booked me on that show is because Ted Standen of seven years decided he didn't want to be vaccinated. So because he didn't want to be vaccinated, they couldn't hire him. So I did the second season of Mr. Mayor, and then I just did the first season of A Man on the Inside for Ted. I've done commercials for Ted, and I'm fully expecting. We'll see. See, this could be a jinx saying it on something that doesn't happen. The show got picked up and I'm fully expecting to go back to the show. So, you know, that, that is, that whole thing was pure luck. I've, I've created a relationship there where they like me well enough that they'll, they, you know, liked what I did. And it's always because of luck. [00:49:04] Speaker A: You know, you undersell yourself, my friend. [00:49:08] Speaker B: You. [00:49:09] Speaker A: Well, I do understand yourself. Look, I, I, and I, I say this as a person who, who didn't appreciate the value of relationships until very, very recently. You, you, you don't appre. You, you're. [00:49:26] Speaker B: Look, we all put ourselves against whatever yardsticks we're to put ourselves against. I'm telling you, the reason that I did this, I came out of the shoot with a lot of friends who are extraordinarily successful. Extraordinarily successful. Okay? Now we're not just talking about money. We are talking about they are being able to be artists. Okay? So, you know, and if, and if you look at my IMDb, my numbers go. You know, it's like, it's, it's, it's like an echocardiogram. And so, you know, it's what. I don't think that I'm underselling myself at all. I am, I am a quintessential lower level working professional. That's, that's what I am. That's where I fit to the. That's where I find which is above. Which. No, don't get me wrong. There's 180,000 people in the union. I'm, I'm in the top, you know, I don't know, 25%. I don't know. So I understand that. But there is a huge gulf between, within that section. So I am a, I am, I am a worker. That's what I am. I'm a worker. Be. So I, that's. [00:50:48] Speaker A: But there's this. It's all relative. It's all. [00:50:53] Speaker B: It is. It is relative. I understand. And, and what's more, I, I recognize the fact I've been very, very lucky. I've been very lucky in this business. I have been able to make my living in this business for the majority of, you know, 40 years. And so that's not something that many people can say. And we have a life. But, you know, it's all relative. [00:51:16] Speaker A: So one of your fans suddenly says, ron, I like you so much. You know, I'm going to put it, I'm going to put some money onto the table here. What do you want to do? I'll fund whatever, Whatever you want to fund. What, what project do you want to make from your soul? Okay. What do you want to do? [00:51:34] Speaker B: If, if this was about 10 or 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I would have said musical. That's what I thought I was going to be doing when I got out of college. Musical thought I was going to. Actually, when I went to college, I went to college, I thought I was going to do musicals. When I got to college, I didn't do a single musical. It was all, well, I was actually in King and I and the non speaking part. I mean, non singing part. And then when I got out of College, I thought, all I'm going to do is play. So then when I went to New York, all I ever got seen, all I ever got callbacks for were musicals. So, you know, I was up for Les Mis 13 times. I literally had this call back for Broadway. The last time they said to me, I walk in, they said, we're going to get you a job this time. And it didn't happen. And so that my, you know, one of my things that I, you know, I'm sad about is I never got to do that. But, you know, it's not necessarily something that I think is really would be in the cards at this point in time. So I don't know if I, if there was a, probably, probably, if there was something there, I would probably rather produce something at this point in time. If somebody came up and, and said, you know, all the money you want, I'd probably look for something to produce as opposed to be in. That's what I would probably do. [00:52:57] Speaker A: You and your wife and your son, you guys get out a lot. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Yes, we do. [00:53:05] Speaker A: You, you have an incredible, an incredible social life. I sit here thinking. I sit in my house all the time. I don't, I don't. Do you, you, I, I, I, you, you see a lot of movies. You go to a lot of. [00:53:18] Speaker B: Well, we bought, we bought my son, My son is, you know, out of college and unemployed, and he goes to, he has the, we got, well, I got the A list. So he goes to movies three times a week. And we belong to a screening society. And we also, you know, when you're in the business, you got to go to FYCs, so we go to those. And so, yeah, we see, we, we, we go out and we go to the theater and we don't socialize much, though. We don't do a lot of that. But we go, we go out and my wife has been working. We bought our house about seven or eight years ago, and my wife has been working on it constantly. I don't do any of that. I say my contribution to it is, says, can we hire somebody to do that? And she says no. And right now she's downstairs stripping the linoleum off of the kitchen floor, getting ready to rehab the floor and lay new pieces of linoleum. [00:54:13] Speaker A: Mary is a sensational person. Yeah. I, I, I, I adore your wife. [00:54:17] Speaker B: I, I, she, she, the stuff that she, she has probably saved us, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on, on the renovations that she has done and I have watched. [00:54:33] Speaker A: And how is John doing? I will point it out that John and my daughter went to school together. Together. [00:54:42] Speaker B: Well, John, for. John has special needs and he is. Graduated from college. Graduated. [00:54:47] Speaker A: Where did he go? [00:54:48] Speaker B: He went to Northridge. He graduated with a degree in what's called emerging Media, which. That and his subway token gets you on the subway. It's. He's actually extremely good at it, but it's a very competitive field. And what we're really working on with him right now is his ability to actually not. It's not about him doing the work, being able to do the work. It's about him being able to be in a workplace. So we're working on his ability to actually hold a job as opposed to doing the job because he is. He is extremely adept at both video and sound editing. Knows how to. Has been doing that stuff on his computer for forever. The emerging media is about 3D graphics and video games and things like that. So we worked on that stuff and. But. But if you were to have a career in this business, I think it would be in editing. But it's a very. That's. That's an extraordinary competitive business. He could be an assistant editor. He would not be a main editor. Because this real. The first real. The editor needs to have a very strong narrative sense. That's not John's forte. The editor needs to know in, you know, their cut, which, by the way, AI is going to completely decimate them. But the. The editor needs to know it's better to do a two shot here, to do this. This is, you know, make those kind of editorial judgments. He would be able. He would be the person who would execute the. The, you know, saying do this, do that. He would be. He'd be able to do that brilliantly. [00:56:27] Speaker A: Of that is an essential person to have as part of a team until. [00:56:33] Speaker B: AI, Until AI kills it. It is absolutely. AI. One of the other things I did, by the way, that we can talk about. I'm on the board of. I'm on the board of sag aftra. [00:56:45] Speaker A: That was the next topic to talk about. You work in the union? [00:56:50] Speaker B: I've been on negotiating committees for our contracts. AI is. Right now, at this point in time is one of the biggest challenges that we have to deal with. And right now there are certain areas where it threatens actors, but it threatens other crafts much more right now than it does us. But it's. It's coming for everybody. [00:57:12] Speaker A: Who's under the most immediate threat in your mind? [00:57:15] Speaker B: Well, I said that. Well, well, from. From the acting standpoint, voice actors are at the front line of, of the endangered species. But on, in, in the tech, I'm telling you, anything that can be done with an automation, you could, you, you could, you know, you could write programs that literally tell, dictate what takes you want and what things you want to do, and the AI will do it. AI could probably do a first cut of the movie, because if you, if you are a director and you've marked what takes you want to take, AI could probably do a first cut. It won't be. I don't think it'd be very good, but it would give you the first cut that you need to be able to make this stuff. So there's certain things that I think that are gonna, you know, streamline certain processes and, and I think it's very scary. You know, I don't think that, I don't think that I have to worry, you know, I don't think that Teamsters really have to worry too much about self driving trucks right now. But not, not yet. Well, you know, but even so, but, you know, even so, you still got to have people that are gonna, you know, the, the grid. There's still gonna have to be. People are gonna have to on offload stuff. But I'll tell you. Have you been, have you worked in a volume yet? Have you worked in a volume? I worked on a movie, a day in a movie called Mercy, which was in the volume. The volume is, is an empty space with an array of LED or whatever kind of LED is probably wrong. You know, monitors, and it is. They create the environment. So we're in this cab, you know, this thing at Amazon, and it's a big space, and when they turn the lights on, it's now a courtroom. And as the camera moves, the image against the wall moves. And I asked the ad, I said, this is bizarre. This is. How does it look? And he said, when you look through the camera, it looks real. And I did, I looked through the, I looked through the monitor and the count, you would not know you were not it. As the camera tracks and the background tracks with it, adjusts with it, it looks like the real camera moves on there. And so that volume becomes the entirety. I mean, all the, you know, the Star wars shows, they're shot in a volume, you know, and they can see actually through the monitor all the things that you are interacting with that you can't see when you're acting. And so, you know, it's a whole different, different thing. [01:00:07] Speaker A: Indeed. It has over the course of, of of our careers, it has Gone from one thing to quite another. I, I, I, I cannot believe that you thought you, you wouldn't have much to talk about. [01:00:27] Speaker B: I could talk. It's whether anybody's going to care about what they hear. [01:00:31] Speaker A: That's, you know, you, you again, I'm going to use, I'm going to say you undersell yourself. I'm simply. Look, you, you, you cannot control. [01:00:42] Speaker B: We'll see what happens in, in any comic comment section you get in your, in your podcast. You'll see whether or not anybody cared. [01:00:51] Speaker A: You know, there's only one person I do this podcast to satisfy and it's me. [01:00:57] Speaker B: Good. [01:00:57] Speaker A: That's, but that's the beauty of podcasting. I, I, I, I have, there's an audience that's there for every, every episode. I, I, I, I don't do anything, I've never done anything to advertise this podcast or, or to monetize in any way. And yet there's an audience that listens to it every week. I love my audience, but someday I'll. [01:01:17] Speaker B: Say that I just heard you say that. And if you didn't say that, they'd be very mad at you. [01:01:23] Speaker A: I've never said it before and we've, we've gone this far. But you know, if I, when you want to take a TV show from your head out into the world, there are thousands of assholes standing in your way. And at any one point, any one of those assholes can kill your project dead just because they're an asshole. In podcasting, there's only one asshole standing between an idea in my head and the world, and it's me. And so long as I don't get in my ideas way, I could put it out into the world. Hey, I gotta find my audience or help my audience find it, but okay, I'm willing to do that. And hey, if I were to monetize and on my other podcast, you know, on the donor, we, yeah, we're selling advertising and all the other podcasts that are coming but you know when, when the advertisers pay their, their, their money that only it'll go to stripe because that who's handled handles all the transactions and it goes to me. There's no one else standing between the audience and me except the credit card guy. Okay, but that's why from I, I, I think you're way more interesting than you give yourself credit for. [01:02:49] Speaker B: Okay, good. [01:02:50] Speaker A: A wonderful storyteller and really and truly you have. I believe everyone has at least podcasts, at least one podcast in them because they have a story. We, I didn't even touch on a whole lot of the stuff I, I, I wanted to get to because there were so many other interesting stories that you, you, you talked about. [01:03:09] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad, Look, I'm glad you're happy. [01:03:11] Speaker A: You have multiple podcasts in you is all I'm saying. You have. If you wanted to have, could you have a, a really, a nice voice and if you wanted to have a career in podcasting, you could have a career in podcasting. That's all I'm saying. [01:03:23] Speaker B: Ron, I'm coming after you, Allan. I'm, I'm coming after you. [01:03:29] Speaker A: Come for me, baby. Come for me. I thank you so much for sitting in today. Really true. This was, this was, first of all, I don't think I've ever had a chance to hang with you for this length of time and just shoot the shit for that alone. It was, for me, it was worth the price of admission. [01:03:48] Speaker B: No, it was very nice. [01:03:49] Speaker A: Thank you for being here and I look forward to doing it again because like I said, there's more stuff I want to talk about and you actually brought a lot of insight to a whole lot of things. [01:04:04] Speaker B: Good. [01:04:04] Speaker A: Thank you again, Rod. Thank you everyone, as usual, for tuning in and we'll see you next. The how not to Make a Movie podcast is executive produced by me, Alan Katz, by Gil Adler, and by Jason Stein. Our artwork was done by the amazing Jody Webster and Jason. Jody, along with Mando, are all, all the hosts of the fun and informative Dads from the Crypt podcast. Follow them for what my old pal the Crypt Keeper would have called terrorific Crypt content.