This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. You may not know the name of my guest today, but you certainly know his work. In fact, you've probably watched hours upon hours of it. He's been called the Steven Spielberg of sitcom's, the Willie Mays of directing, the sitcom Sorcerer. It's the legendary James Burrows. Burrows is the director of some of the most popular and acclaimed television shows in history, including Taxi, Cheers, Will and Grace, Friends, and Frasier. In his five decades of work, the eleven time Emmy winner has directed seventy five pilots that went to series, including The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, spanning over one thousand hours of television. He's also the author of a memoir entitled Directed by James Burrows, which we counts his incredible career. Burrows also has an amazing pedigree. He's the son of famed radio and theater director Abe Burrows, but Tony and Politzer Prize winner whose credits include Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I wanted to know what it was like growing up with such an accomplished and influential father. My parents were divorced, so we live with our mom five blocks away from our dad. So we'd see our dad probably twice a week, once, you know, on a school day for dinner, and then on a Sunday for maybe football or something like that. So he was around in that way. But I al would like to say that, you know, I was in the family business. I didn't know anything else. The only thing I knew is I didn't want to be in that business. I didn't want to. I didn't want to try to compete with a legend because he was a legend in New York City, brought by music. Yeah, Broadway musicals and Broadway plays. And my sister and I used to go when we were thirteen and fourteen and meet you know, Truman, Capodi and John Steinbeck and Comdon and Green and called porter Una. I mean, all these they were just older people. They I didn't know. I had no idea what boring boring. I like to say my dad taught me when I didn't know I was learning, because he would trundle my sister and I off to rehearsals occasionally, and we would sit in the audience because we're gonna have dinner with him. We would come like four o'clock and we sit in the house and see him working on stage or a rehearsal hall, and we didn't I didn't understand what he did at all. But again, it was a lot of osmosis at work, latent learning, the latent learning, Yeah, it's in there, and then he winning the back seat with your sister going no, Dad, I got a horse right here. His name is It's a little dough. Put them in there. No, I never did that. I never remember time did I did. When I after college and graduate school, I worked with him as a stage manager, so I would inject a couple of what I thought were funny things, and he was incredibly tolerant of me. I think one of them made it in one of his plays. But that was it. But isn't it funny how in your life it all loops around in a way. Because I wanted to ask you a question about the nature of casts who have roots in the theater and those that don't. A lot of theater roots with Kelsey and Hyde Pierce and with the Will and grace cast. Isn't it funny? In the life of Jimmy Burrows? Did we come back to this, which is Megan mollal mean, Megan does how to succeed with Matthew A long long time ago? Your dad, I went to see it, of course, I said, they playhouse. I thought to where I saw it. I was with dad, my wife and then my sister's late husband. We're in a motor home and a driver and drove it down and drove drove down Illahoya and it was it was one. Yeah, it was wonderful. But then that leads me to I want to get back to your schooling. Why go from it was political science? And what were you studying at government? Studying government? And then you go and you get a master's degree in theater. You know, you're in the Yale drama program. Why are you trying to run away from the family business. I was trying to run away from the draft. You know it was it was Vietnam wartime, and uh, you're probably too young. A lot of us didn't believe in the war and that particular one. And after Oberlin I got my draft notice, I decided to try and postpone it. As long as I could. So I went to the Yale School of Drama, where I was exposed to all these you know, because if you're in there, you have to take a course in directing, acting, playwrighting, scenic design, stage manager, all these courses. And I went and had a class in directing with Nico Sakaropolis, who who went on to run The Williams. And he kind of in my eyes to exactly what a director does. Because I knew I was an actor, I knew I couldn't write plays, so I, you know, I got to direct a couple of small scenes. I think I did. I got the horse right here with a couple of students. I staged that and and then when I got out, I still had to take a physical for the Army, and fortunately I was. They didn't want me, I was. I guess I was too funny, you know, So I can't have that, I know, God, No, we need discipline. And then I started stage managing because as a stage manager you direct the understudies. So I got more and more practice in doing that, and then I would do summer stock productions of The Odd Couple with Stubby k and Arnold Stangby k who was in the original original Guys and Dolls, and you know productions of Never Too Late with Bob Cummings. But let me let me just say that street Car on Broadway. I considered that one of the great years on Broadway because Kate Burton's doing Jex Women with Alan Alda and Guys and Telsa's I'm Broadly with Nathan and I'll never forget the Banner. Although we did run for a very long time, it was in a huge success. This the banner all wrapped around the canopy said this show will run forever. But I went to see that show twice and Faith Prince. They all made me cry. Walter Bobby playing that role and singing rock in the boat and I love that show. I cried. And Peter Gallaghter Galina Gallagher was sky Masters, Yeah, it was a dear friend of mine. Yeah, and then all of them, I mean, I love that show. That was the most funny I've ever had watching a show without the producers. I mean, I love Nathan, but then Stubby k and you're and you're directing the understudies And what did you think directing was back then? And how has that changed over the years. Well for you, Directing for me was back then you had a script that never changed. So I was doing plays. You know, I had a couple of plausas week marriage go around, so there was a lot of nuance involved in it, a lot of you know, I could put in physical bits when I thought it would help. So I knew I had that creative sense. I did in uh ninety eight, after you know I had in my career had taken off, I did a theater production to the man who came to Dinner with Mahoney because Mahony, Yeah, Mahoney was on Frasier and he arranged for me to direct it at Steppenwolf, and uh, I put in like four jokes, you know, and George Calfman's daughter came to the show, and I was, you know, I was concerned. I knew George. I knew George through my dad and George Calsan's daughter. And at the end she said, I liked your auditions. It was so sweet. Usually they hated, but they were they were big laughs. So but anyway, so when I was, you know, doing summerstock and dinner thing, I was just trying. You had to get a play up on its feet in a week. So there was a lot of rapid stuff. So I found myself people who could think, Yeah, I found myself more dinner theaters wanted me and or regional theorist Coast, East Coast. You know, television is a writer's medium too, as in Broadway. Broadway, the playwright is paramount in in what I do, the writers are paramount. But I have my time along with the actors. As you know, I've directed you a few times, and that's the time when my creative juices come out, and I don't want a guy behind me judging, you know what I do. What I say, I'll move, you know, say the line this way before I can see it and say, well, maybe that doesn't work. I don't want a guy behind me saying no, don't prompt, preempting me. That's totally debilitating for a director who would preempt you. Well, I mean the writers, No, I know, but when the writers come down, they see our work, you know, they see what we've passed. Yes, I get a pass, and you know I'll never forget. In a taxi episode I was directing, I had him move. I had this move that I thought it was funny, and I don't remember who did it, but the actor executed it. And then all of a sudden the writer turned around to me and said, what the funk was that? And so we went on with rehearsal, and after I took him aside and I said, if I'm not allowed to fail, I'll give you nine good things, but one may be bad. But you know, God forbid, he's over my shoulder when I'm when I'm trying to do it for myself. So you know, everything you think of, you think is funny, it's not necessarily funny. In the end, you have to, you know, try try it. Yeah, Well, describe for me the seam of whatever length and whatever different components takes you from directing Stubby k And we were seeing stand ins to your first four ways into Hollywood? When does Hollywood become your future? In nineteen sixty six, my first job on Broadway was as the assistant to the assistant stage manager on the Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a musical that my dad wrote based on Breakfast at Tiffany's. And so as the assistant to the assistant I was in charge of the actors from Hollywood who were going to be in the show. Mary Tyler, Moore, Richard Chamberlain, Laura Petrie and Dr Kildare, We're going to be in the production. And it was not my dad's best work at all. It was you know, he went into rehearsal with one act and we opened in Philadelphia and they had a huge advance sale because of Dr Kildare and Laura Petrie, and then it was Chamberlain, Dick Chamberlain. Yeah, and so David Merrick didn't like the show, so he replaced my dad with Edward Albe. Wow. Wow, an obvious choice. Let's have Dick chamber and Mary Tyler. We'll cool each other's eyes out. Well, they're swimming bobbles of vodka. Yeah, I'm sure you wanted George and Martha, you know. So then Mark didn't want to go back out of town with the show, so we played previews and Edward did stuff to help the production by putting in Holly's miscarriage. This is a Broadway musical. It was just horrible. And the audience when we opened in New York for previous food and every time Mary would come off stage, I would be there and she would wrap her arms around me and start crying. She was so devastated by the audience reaction. And once they night came, Mary closed the show. I sat with Mary at Sartie's. We had an awake at Sarti's till Grant Tinker, her husband arrived, and they went off, and then I went to Summer Stock and everything. And then in ninety three I was watching television on US Saturday night after directing Joan Fontaine in Forty Carrots, and I turned on the television. There was a Mary Tyler Moore show and I hadn't seen it before, I hadn't registered with me before, but I noticed they were doing a play. There's a multi camera sitcom, which you know, it's a it's a play that's filmed. It's proscenium, proscenium, everything like that. And I said, wow, they're doing twenty five minutes in a week and I'm doing two hours in a week. I think I can do that. So I wrote a letter to Mary Tyler Moore because I didn't know Grant that well. And about two weeks later I got a letter from Grant Inker saying, we have four multi camera sitcoms. We are very interested in theatrical directors. Would you come out and do one show that was February of I said, great, maybe I was going to do a New Heart or a Rhoda or a Bob Crane show or a Paul Sancho, but said, no, you're gonna do a Mary Tyler Moore show. You know. So I was thrust into this, into this endeavor I didn't know. I had to learn. I had to come and observe for three months to observe the technical aspectal you know, I knew how to talk to actors and stuff like that, which, even though it was much simpler back then, I'm sure, yeah, it's still something that was foreign too. Yeah, totally foreign. So I had to learn that. I learned that by watching J Sandrich, who was my mentor and to me, the king of Sitcom's describe that experience, meaning when you're doing it and you've been around successful people, all the cylinders are clicking on great shows, how to succeed your dad, or these legendary musicals, things you've done, And when you were there, did you sit there and go, yeah, I like this. Okay, you're going to get a courtesy van. Back to the telling your furnishing van for Mr. Your first shot in television and you're on like the number of top five show with the biggest people in television. I know, I was scared out of my witch and it was it was daunting. You know. You read the script around it able as you know, before you rehearse, and it was a C minus script and I said, the grand tinker in a sea of Danish, I get a bagel, you know. So I had the script and in those days, you went down and immediately rehearsed and while the writers were rewriting, so you were rehearsing stuff on your feet, on your feet that you knew it was going to change. So it was like rearranging chickchairs on the Titanic. And Mary, Mary hated the script and she would complain. I said, hopefully they'll make it better. And it was called The Neighbors something like that because it was Loue moves into Rhoda's apartment because Rhoda had spun off to do her own show. So lou moves into Rhoda's apartment, so that lou and Mary are living together and they're working together. So that was the thrust of the show. And uh, you know, I was just treading water. I was, you know, five six of the best actors on television, and I was a thirty four year old Pisha who they probably didn't think I knew what I was doing, and I didn't think I knew what I was doing. But what happened? You said that it was a C plus D script, But I invoked Chekhov, I invoked Shakespeare just to try to enhance the piece and make the piece better. How so, well, in the last scene, when Lou figures it's time to move out, I had his two suitcases there, and I said to Marry into ed, sit on those suitcases and reminisce like you're in the cherry orchard and you're leaving the cherry orchard. So they did. And you know, I tried to put in some funny stuff, but I never I played by the rules of that show. If you're going in as a guest director on a show, you gotta play by the rules of that show, you know, you just because everybody, yeah, you do. And so I I did that. And just before the show was shot, I was walking to back to my dressing room and Mary came out of her trailer and she stopped me and she said, Jim, we feel our investment and you has worked out. Oh my god, I wept. I went back. I wept, And the next day I had called from the New Heart Show, from the Paul Sanchow, from Bob Crane Show. They wanted me to direct. So that literally was the birth of my television career. Director James Burrows. If you enjoyed conversations with accomplished directors, check out my episode with Cameron Crowe. Generally, not every time, but generally a movie will have your spirit, your the movie will have your signature somewhere. Even even the movies where, like you know, Penny Marshall came in at the last minute and replaced so and so it's it's a Penny Marshall movie. The director's personality seeps in Hallelujah. And I love playing with that. I love playing with like the sensibility and the feeling that the movie is gonna give you. Music helps the relationship on the set, Like when we've been able to work together, it's really been wonderful to have like the environmental version of directing where we all are together kind of vibing, and there are relationships that are separate and the characters are part of it and we're doing this thing together. I think that feeling gets into the movie. Here the rest of my conversation with Cameron Crowe in our archives at Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, James Burrows tells us about the casting kismet on Friends. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The Emmy winning series Cheers ran for eleven seasons, for a total of two episodes, with James Burrows directing all but thirty five of them. I wanted to know how he chooses to stay with the show for the length of its run as he did with Cheers. Well, it was at a point where people felt confident enough for me to be the permanent director. Did other shows have them, Yeah, I think Paul Bogart did a lot of All in the Families, and John Richard a lot of Dick Van Dyke shows, and Jay did The Mary's but nobody did as many as I did. And I did it. I did it because I love the show. But the people who don't know the first show that you do that of the long runs which one taxi Taxi was created by the guys. Two of the guys who created The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Jim Brooks and Alan Burns created Mary Tyler Moore. Jim Brooks and Ed Weinberger. Ed was a writer on the show, Stan Daniels and Dave Davis Worthy four who created a taxi and they asked me to be the permanent director. So although once before I did Laverne and Shirley, I directed some of them. And after about three shows, Gary Marshall took me to do you remember ni Ovalas and Nicodell's, the two restaurants that were on the paramount, and he said, would you consider staying with the show? And I, and all due respect to you, I I can't. It was too it was too it was too crazy. My friend was a writer on that show, Dan Olson, Oh my god, Dana Wilson was my buddy and I hung out with him and he told me, I don't want to pin this on Olsen, but someone told me that they're corresponding managers. Their respective managers would sit there with stop watches in time, how long the tally light was on their client, who got more camera time. There was such a kind of a competitiveness between Penny and Penny, and so I was on the show and the ship hit her fan. He said it was really not. It was such a successful show, and they just it was not anyway. So I told Gary I didn't want to do do it, and then one tact she came along and I read that script and they asked me to commit to it. I said, sure, if I'm not mistaken Taxi. At that point, Danza went on to do Who's the Boss after Taxi? Correct? So you had a menagerie of actors, none of whom were that famous on their own, you know what I mean. De Vito, Lloyd, Judd Hirsch had a Broadway career, but not a big TV or film Danza, Mary Lou Kaufman, all of them, this is the show that made them really famous, that took them to that next level. And I was wondering, what's it like for you when you work with a bunch of people. Do you see them? I'm not asking you to disparage anybody, but would you say people become big stars in these television shows, do they change? Yeah? I mean without naming names, do you see the cast change? The cast jelled for me? That was again I talked about that as an interplanetary cast. There are there are people. You know, Andy was a comic and and the bravest comic I've ever seen in my life. And Tony was a boxer, croner and a croner. And so my job, as I talked about in the book, is to create a homogeneous group of people who are all in a lifeboat. Everybody has their own oars and pulls it intoandem. And so it was that was my first big show. And it was difficult on that show because there were so many eccentricities. Andy Kaufman had day night reversal and didn't come into one, but he had a photographic memory, so he didn't you know, he knew his part when he came in. You know, Jim Brooks, the writer was off doing starting over that movie. He was writing it, and so we had all these things that you had to juggle, and so it was very difficult for me. But I think there's some of my best work. Some of the funniest shows I've ever did are on war done on taxi. I think, what does the yellow light mean? The Reverend Gym show when he becomes a cabbyast goes down in history as maybe the biggest laugh I've ever directed. And so I don't know if they, Well, look who who would you think be the movie star at that show? Danny DeVito. I had a wonderful time on the show. I learned a lot and it's the moment that I cemented my relationship with the Charles brothers because the Charles brothers were producers on that show. So they had a difficult task in coordinating the writing because Jim wasn't around all the time and when he came, he would say he wanted it this way, and then Ed would see that and say, no, I want it this way. So it was it was difficult. It turned out to be a wonderful show. But Glenn a Less had as difficult a time as I did, and that's where we became really close because we had the same agent, and he said, we have to do our own show. I'm wondering, was there a difference for you? Again, without disparaging anybody by any means, was there just a difference for you with a theater based cast Kelsey, Hype, Pierce and so forth, and the cast of Will and Grace, all of them with theater. But I think Deb's de deb was just on stage here, Shan's superstage worthy. I wor ship him. I worship him. McCormick, Dost Theater and Megan Dost Theater, and then other shows you've done where there's nary a theater, Dennis and among the bunch. You know, there's not many theater credits in the Friends cast a Swimmer, Swimmer, he still one out of six looking Glass Theater. Yeah, did you find it? So? Do you? You You had a different language with those that had a theater background or no, the same, No, I you know I would tell them in the beginning, this is theater. It's it's an amalgam of theater and film, but it's basically theater because you have to tell the story to the fifty people watching you that night, and so you tell the story to them in theater, your reactions have to be bigger because to reach the person in the balcony, you can't be subtle. That's subtle in theater, you know, you have to have to be a little bit exaggerated. I told him, I will be on you if you're reactions are too big, because this is going out on a television screen, so it the irractions can't be as big as they are in the theater, but they have to be enough to get a laugh, not only with this audience but with the audience at home. So the kids were pretty good on On Friends. You know, Lisa was in the ground, links Jen was amazing, and they just embraced and inhabited those characters like it was it was a gold mine. Well, I don't think we ever read anybody together. So when I got up to six of them down on stage and they just fit like a glove, it was, oh my god. They were since they were sinked, and I said, this is crazy. When I did William Grace, you could see that they were so welcoming to your package is leaking. You've stole my life. I'm standing there and he says, and she says goodbye to me. We closed the drum and love with Megan. He says, your package is leaking. Said, what can I say? I like her because you brought her ice I brought the ice cream, which was your package is dripping. Whatever. You know better than I do. So when I do that show, they were so welcoming and they were so sweet when I did will and Grace because they were just so charming, and Megan was the one who I always say the same line Megan was the one who helped to at least in part, broke er my deal with thirty Rock because Megan said, you listen as she said, it's fun. I mean I never dreamed of doing a sitcom. And when I did thirty Rock, I said, I'll do six episodes recurring and that's it. And uh, they twisted my arm or whatever to do it and and SLRN I worship. But when I came to do the show, you see where when it comes to tape time much and it comes down Cohen behind him much because a lot to say. He has a lot of lines and jokes and things that his notes and so forth. Is every show the same that way or all the show is different in terms of the input of the top people. No, I on any show I do, anybody can say anything about anything. Check your ego at the door. So I mean, if you had a problem on Will and Grace, you you know you would come to me and say a problem. Max is Max. He's genius. You know you deal with him because he's so valuable to the show. And one of the one of your gifts is that you play in the same intensity as the four of them, and with it you know we had a lot. We had over two hundred and fifty guest stars on Will and Grace, and invariably they would come in like they were a star, and I would take them aside and say, when you rehearsing with this cast, in rehearsal, they do of what they can do, and then when you get to the showtime, it's a hundred to a hundred and fifty and if you don't keep up, you're gonna be on the editing room floor. So you you have your your on our show. You agreed to her show. You gotta play by the rules of the show, and I don't want you to disappear, and you have or to come in. You know you are happy to be there, happy to be there, also larger than life, which is important on that show because that show is a fair to keep up literally in figurative director James Burrows. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, James Burrows tells us why his new book is ultimately about kindness. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from my heart Radio. I was lucky enough to work with director James Burrows as a guest star on Will and Grace. We also work together on a pilot starring myself and Kelsey Grammar that did not get picked for Serious. With burrows incredible track record, I wanted to know if he has a sixth sense about which shows will succeed and which won't when I read them, I don't know. You know, When I read some of these pilots, I thought they were okay and I could maybe with a little smoke and mirrors, make it go. A few of them I made go, but they didn't last very long. But I try not to do pilots that I don't think you're going to go. But as to that pilot, I was shocked that the network didn't. I don't know what was going on in the ABC headquarters and watching the show, but you had two monumental stars who played you know, it was Nol Coward, it was it was Will and Grace. It was that kind of intensity to your relationship that was exhilarating to me and funny to the audience we had there, and I wish I was shocked I don't know if there were politics involved or what was involved, but they sure don't have a show on ABC that's commensurate with that show. Now, you have no doubt. And I'm not just saying this. I loved working with you. Everybody loves working with you. You say that J Sandrich, J Sanders never put two people on a suitcase and starting the cherry orchard. I doubt you say J. Sandrids is the king. He's not the king. You're the king. And everybody who works with you loves you. They love you, and you do this show. And were you ever tempted to run out and do movies and write scripts and and go into those other cord or never? I was never a writer. I I ruled that out. I did a pilot for Stephen Botco in nine seventies seven called Every Stray Dog and Kid single camera pilot Our Jackie Earl Haley back then and uh, Bruce White's Uh. I didn't no movies. I did a movie called Partners. It was a movie. Aaron Russo came to me after taxi and he said, I have this movie that written by Francis vai Vert who wrote Lakaja Fall, and it was about. It was, it was present and the fact that it was about a straight cop and a gay cop. This Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, Ryan O'Neill and John heard. Can you believe I remember that. I can't believe that, Ryan O'Neill, and it was they go undercover to solve a murder and it tend to be a gay couple and the problem, you know a lot of the problems. You wanted Clan Eastwood in their part. You wanted a guy, the most macho man in the world, having to dress and change and leather, you know, that's what you want. You wanted Charlie Bronson, somebody like that, and we had at one point we had Peter Regert to play the gay cop and wed Sam Elliott, who would have been great, but we couldn't get it past the studio, so we ended up with Ryan and John. What's difficult for me in the movies is number one, it takes two years to hear the reaction, and two, it was tough for me in the comedy scenes. You shoot a master and everybody's kind of funny. Then you start to shoot the close up and the magic's gone. I did a documentary where, um, what is his name? Who's the famous actor that's married to Eva? On I miss you? I do, sorry were I would have been on your show. I would have stayed on that show because I had so much fun. You know something. Let me tell you. So, I'm sitting there and I was so excited. I thought, my god. Kelsey Grammar calls it. He goes, so, how's everything going. I mean, he's like such a force of nature. How's everything going? I go, it's going, okay, I said, I mean, we're gonna make the deal. I mean, I'm not. My whole thing is don't get too crazy. And um. He was from a different school of negotiating because he was king of TV. I His career in TV obviously eclipsed mine. He started big, big, big successful shows. But he calls hip and he goes, uh, what are you going in that? What are you asking for? What are you going in that? And I go, well, I thought I would kind of, like, you know, be the good partner. And I keep the numbers low seasons and one in seasons two, and if we get to see so like I did in thirty Rock season four, season five, we step it up. And then season five and season six, I want to hear them crying all the way from the studio. I want to we're gonna backload all the money into season five and six, and he goes, I'm coming in a blank and he named some number that I was like, I was going to fall off the chair. And I thought after that, I go, well, of course you are. Of course you are. That's probably what you got paid in the last season of your last show. I mean, he was like this comedy on the Mount Rushmore of TV comedy because I was always a poll that we didn't pull that off. Uh, you prompted me with here about you shoot the master, then you go back and you do the close ups and sold of gone. I did a film that was a documentary about can and um in the tone. Ryan Gosling has the most wonderful take on exactly what you said, the Arthur Murray esque progression of shooting stuff where it's like do it again, do it again. Now we're gonna come in closer and do it again, and do it again, but make it fresh and do the same thing you did again close up, you know, mid shot, cowboy tight e c U. And he said to me, it's just like it's a fucking nightmare. But in his language, we got a Gosling on film now. I'm assuming because you are a legend in television comedy that you know. Lord Michael said, networks the best. I said why. He said, why it goes because it demands more of you. You can't say funk on the network. You have to say funk without saying funk. You can't go blue. So you've got to be smarter, clever, better. And when I turn on TV now and I'm on streaming service, as somebody says, Susie was late for work today. Fuck, everybody laughs because they're saying, oh my god, they said, fuck, you've never gone to a streaming service. I did one show for Chuck Laurie that was on with Kathy Bates called Disjointed. She owned a pot shop and I think it lasted twelve episodes something like that. I had a great had a great time working with her. She's what a pro. And but I'm sure you've been asked to come and maybe they tried to seduce you to come and do. They don't do a lot of three camera, multi camera shows, but even single camera for them, I'm not good. I'm I like, I like to get home early, as you know that the multi camera schedule is the greatest in the world. And you're talking about what Lauren I I corroborate what he says because the euphemism is funnier than the actual work. On Will and Grace, I mean Karen leaking, Yeah, yeah, package is leaking or uh, you know, Karen had nine different euphemisms for vagina. You know, so euphemism harder to think of. It was it is funny your stuff? Why write a book? Meaning it's like, doesn't your work speak for itself when you wanted to write a book? Why? I have all these stories that are that are in the book and I tell them to you know, I look for new friends so I can tell him the stories because I have to held all my old friends the same stories. And it was COVID. It was the beginning of COVID, and my wife, Debbie came and said to me, you got to write a book, what she had been saying for the past ten years. And I said, I don't have a hook. I don't have an angle on a book. She said, please stop sitting around, write a book. So I called my agent, who hooked me up with Eddie Friedfeld, who's my co author, and I started telling him the stories. He had not heard any of the stories, and he helped shape the book. And it's a little bit of it's a lot of my stories, but it's a little bit of a tutorial in how to make a show or what's what's good for a show. I talk about a little. I talked about the cameras a little bit, not enough to bore Layman, but so that that's what I did it, and I had a great time doing it. The book is directed by James Burrows. I want to tell you, and I love the opportunity to say, is I'm glad you came in person. I'm happy to be here. And I want to tell you that the times I did that show with you, you were so kind to me, and you create an environment where it was fun. I was heartbroken when it was over, and you're so graceful and gracious and smart, and it really was just the joy of my life to do those shows with you. Even of our pilot was the Challenger, it blew up on the launch pad and we didn't make it. But my book is about kindness. I mean, you can see it. It flows through there because if if you have a set where everybody is nice to one another and everybody likes dare I say, loves one another, that's going to come across the screen. You know, the fish thinks from the head. So if you have a star who's counting lines, that's not a happy experience. So I don't work on shows like that. I work on shows where I have great actors that can only make me look better, and I treat them with the utmost kindness. I never see Hyde Pierce that much in uh in life, but I wanted to see him. I'm willing to bet that you did Frasier and you've never done anything remotely like that again, because why bother. It's never going to be better than that. You did that great show with a great cast, great writing, great directing. I mean anything anybody, the group you might work with, it would be a letdown, I would say a lot of times. You know, if people are on a hit sitcom, they think they can they think they can do it again. It's hard, you know, it's hard. There's so many there's so many forces out there that wants you to fail, and it's sad. But I've had a great run and so have you young man. Well, I'm gonna my last line is going to be what would you know about failure? That's my line for you. What would you know about failure? James Burrows, You've had the least amount of failure of anybody, know. I've had failure, maybe a tablespoonful in an ocean of success. So enough of my tired metaphors. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, Thank you, director James Burrows. This episode was recorded at c DM Studios in New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineers Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. Is brought to you by iHeart Radio.

This is Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's the Thing from My Heart Radio. You may not know the name of my guest today, but you certainly know his work. In fact, you've probably watched hours upon hours of it. He's been called the Steven Spielberg of sitcom's, the Willie Mays of directing, the sitcom Sorcerer. It's the legendary James Burrows. Burrows is the director of some of the most popular and acclaimed television shows in history, including Taxi, Cheers, Will and Grace, Friends, and Frasier. In his five decades of work, the eleven time Emmy winner has directed seventy five pilots that went to series, including The Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men, spanning over one thousand hours of television. He's also the author of a memoir entitled Directed by James Burrows, which we counts his incredible career. Burrows also has an amazing pedigree. He's the son of famed radio and theater director Abe Burrows, but Tony and Politzer Prize winner whose credits include Guys and Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. I wanted to know what it was like growing up with such an accomplished and influential father. My parents were divorced, so we live with our mom five blocks away from our dad. So we'd see our dad probably twice a week, once, you know, on a school day for dinner, and then on a Sunday for maybe football or something like that. So he was around in that way. But I al would like to say that, you know, I was in the family business. I didn't know anything else. The only thing I knew is I didn't want to be in that business. I didn't want to. I didn't want to try to compete with a legend because he was a legend in New York City, brought by music. Yeah, Broadway musicals and Broadway plays. And my sister and I used to go when we were thirteen and fourteen and meet you know, Truman, Capodi and John Steinbeck and Comdon and Green and called porter Una. I mean, all these they were just older people. They I didn't know. I had no idea what boring boring. I like to say my dad taught me when I didn't know I was learning, because he would trundle my sister and I off to rehearsals occasionally, and we would sit in the audience because we're gonna have dinner with him. We would come like four o'clock and we sit in the house and see him working on stage or a rehearsal hall, and we didn't I didn't understand what he did at all. But again, it was a lot of osmosis at work, latent learning, the latent learning, Yeah, it's in there, and then he winning the back seat with your sister going no, Dad, I got a horse right here. His name is It's a little dough. Put them in there. No, I never did that. I never remember time did I did. When I after college and graduate school, I worked with him as a stage manager, so I would inject a couple of what I thought were funny things, and he was incredibly tolerant of me. I think one of them made it in one of his plays. But that was it. But isn't it funny how in your life it all loops around in a way. Because I wanted to ask you a question about the nature of casts who have roots in the theater and those that don't. A lot of theater roots with Kelsey and Hyde Pierce and with the Will and grace cast. Isn't it funny? In the life of Jimmy Burrows? Did we come back to this, which is Megan mollal mean, Megan does how to succeed with Matthew A long long time ago? Your dad, I went to see it, of course, I said, they playhouse. I thought to where I saw it. I was with dad, my wife and then my sister's late husband. We're in a motor home and a driver and drove it down and drove drove down Illahoya and it was it was one. Yeah, it was wonderful. But then that leads me to I want to get back to your schooling. Why go from it was political science? And what were you studying at government? Studying government? And then you go and you get a master's degree in theater. You know, you're in the Yale drama program. Why are you trying to run away from the family business. I was trying to run away from the draft. You know it was it was Vietnam wartime, and uh, you're probably too young. A lot of us didn't believe in the war and that particular one. And after Oberlin I got my draft notice, I decided to try and postpone it. As long as I could. So I went to the Yale School of Drama, where I was exposed to all these you know, because if you're in there, you have to take a course in directing, acting, playwrighting, scenic design, stage manager, all these courses. And I went and had a class in directing with Nico Sakaropolis, who who went on to run The Williams. And he kind of in my eyes to exactly what a director does. Because I knew I was an actor, I knew I couldn't write plays, so I, you know, I got to direct a couple of small scenes. I think I did. I got the horse right here with a couple of students. I staged that and and then when I got out, I still had to take a physical for the Army, and fortunately I was. They didn't want me, I was. I guess I was too funny, you know, So I can't have that, I know, God, No, we need discipline. And then I started stage managing because as a stage manager you direct the understudies. So I got more and more practice in doing that, and then I would do summer stock productions of The Odd Couple with Stubby k and Arnold Stangby k who was in the original original Guys and Dolls, and you know productions of Never Too Late with Bob Cummings. But let me let me just say that street Car on Broadway. I considered that one of the great years on Broadway because Kate Burton's doing Jex Women with Alan Alda and Guys and Telsa's I'm Broadly with Nathan and I'll never forget the Banner. Although we did run for a very long time, it was in a huge success. This the banner all wrapped around the canopy said this show will run forever. But I went to see that show twice and Faith Prince. They all made me cry. Walter Bobby playing that role and singing rock in the boat and I love that show. I cried. And Peter Gallaghter Galina Gallagher was sky Masters, Yeah, it was a dear friend of mine. Yeah, and then all of them, I mean, I love that show. That was the most funny I've ever had watching a show without the producers. I mean, I love Nathan, but then Stubby k and you're and you're directing the understudies And what did you think directing was back then? And how has that changed over the years. Well for you, Directing for me was back then you had a script that never changed. So I was doing plays. You know, I had a couple of plausas week marriage go around, so there was a lot of nuance involved in it, a lot of you know, I could put in physical bits when I thought it would help. So I knew I had that creative sense. I did in uh ninety eight, after you know I had in my career had taken off, I did a theater production to the man who came to Dinner with Mahoney because Mahony, Yeah, Mahoney was on Frasier and he arranged for me to direct it at Steppenwolf, and uh, I put in like four jokes, you know, and George Calfman's daughter came to the show, and I was, you know, I was concerned. I knew George. I knew George through my dad and George Calsan's daughter. And at the end she said, I liked your auditions. It was so sweet. Usually they hated, but they were they were big laughs. So but anyway, so when I was, you know, doing summerstock and dinner thing, I was just trying. You had to get a play up on its feet in a week. So there was a lot of rapid stuff. So I found myself people who could think, Yeah, I found myself more dinner theaters wanted me and or regional theorist Coast, East Coast. You know, television is a writer's medium too, as in Broadway. Broadway, the playwright is paramount in in what I do, the writers are paramount. But I have my time along with the actors. As you know, I've directed you a few times, and that's the time when my creative juices come out, and I don't want a guy behind me judging, you know what I do. What I say, I'll move, you know, say the line this way before I can see it and say, well, maybe that doesn't work. I don't want a guy behind me saying no, don't prompt, preempting me. That's totally debilitating for a director who would preempt you. Well, I mean the writers, No, I know, but when the writers come down, they see our work, you know, they see what we've passed. Yes, I get a pass, and you know I'll never forget. In a taxi episode I was directing, I had him move. I had this move that I thought it was funny, and I don't remember who did it, but the actor executed it. And then all of a sudden the writer turned around to me and said, what the funk was that? And so we went on with rehearsal, and after I took him aside and I said, if I'm not allowed to fail, I'll give you nine good things, but one may be bad. But you know, God forbid, he's over my shoulder when I'm when I'm trying to do it for myself. So you know, everything you think of, you think is funny, it's not necessarily funny. In the end, you have to, you know, try try it. Yeah, Well, describe for me the seam of whatever length and whatever different components takes you from directing Stubby k And we were seeing stand ins to your first four ways into Hollywood? When does Hollywood become your future? In nineteen sixty six, my first job on Broadway was as the assistant to the assistant stage manager on the Broadway production of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a musical that my dad wrote based on Breakfast at Tiffany's. And so as the assistant to the assistant I was in charge of the actors from Hollywood who were going to be in the show. Mary Tyler, Moore, Richard Chamberlain, Laura Petrie and Dr Kildare, We're going to be in the production. And it was not my dad's best work at all. It was you know, he went into rehearsal with one act and we opened in Philadelphia and they had a huge advance sale because of Dr Kildare and Laura Petrie, and then it was Chamberlain, Dick Chamberlain. Yeah, and so David Merrick didn't like the show, so he replaced my dad with Edward Albe. Wow. Wow, an obvious choice. Let's have Dick chamber and Mary Tyler. We'll cool each other's eyes out. Well, they're swimming bobbles of vodka. Yeah, I'm sure you wanted George and Martha, you know. So then Mark didn't want to go back out of town with the show, so we played previews and Edward did stuff to help the production by putting in Holly's miscarriage. This is a Broadway musical. It was just horrible. And the audience when we opened in New York for previous food and every time Mary would come off stage, I would be there and she would wrap her arms around me and start crying. She was so devastated by the audience reaction. And once they night came, Mary closed the show. I sat with Mary at Sartie's. We had an awake at Sarti's till Grant Tinker, her husband arrived, and they went off, and then I went to Summer Stock and everything. And then in ninety three I was watching television on US Saturday night after directing Joan Fontaine in Forty Carrots, and I turned on the television. There was a Mary Tyler Moore show and I hadn't seen it before, I hadn't registered with me before, but I noticed they were doing a play. There's a multi camera sitcom, which you know, it's a it's a play that's filmed. It's proscenium, proscenium, everything like that. And I said, wow, they're doing twenty five minutes in a week and I'm doing two hours in a week. I think I can do that. So I wrote a letter to Mary Tyler Moore because I didn't know Grant that well. And about two weeks later I got a letter from Grant Inker saying, we have four multi camera sitcoms. We are very interested in theatrical directors. Would you come out and do one show that was February of I said, great, maybe I was going to do a New Heart or a Rhoda or a Bob Crane show or a Paul Sancho, but said, no, you're gonna do a Mary Tyler Moore show. You know. So I was thrust into this, into this endeavor I didn't know. I had to learn. I had to come and observe for three months to observe the technical aspectal you know, I knew how to talk to actors and stuff like that, which, even though it was much simpler back then, I'm sure, yeah, it's still something that was foreign too. Yeah, totally foreign. So I had to learn that. I learned that by watching J Sandrich, who was my mentor and to me, the king of Sitcom's describe that experience, meaning when you're doing it and you've been around successful people, all the cylinders are clicking on great shows, how to succeed your dad, or these legendary musicals, things you've done, And when you were there, did you sit there and go, yeah, I like this. Okay, you're going to get a courtesy van. Back to the telling your furnishing van for Mr. Your first shot in television and you're on like the number of top five show with the biggest people in television. I know, I was scared out of my witch and it was it was daunting. You know. You read the script around it able as you know, before you rehearse, and it was a C minus script and I said, the grand tinker in a sea of Danish, I get a bagel, you know. So I had the script and in those days, you went down and immediately rehearsed and while the writers were rewriting, so you were rehearsing stuff on your feet, on your feet that you knew it was going to change. So it was like rearranging chickchairs on the Titanic. And Mary, Mary hated the script and she would complain. I said, hopefully they'll make it better. And it was called The Neighbors something like that because it was Loue moves into Rhoda's apartment because Rhoda had spun off to do her own show. So lou moves into Rhoda's apartment, so that lou and Mary are living together and they're working together. So that was the thrust of the show. And uh, you know, I was just treading water. I was, you know, five six of the best actors on television, and I was a thirty four year old Pisha who they probably didn't think I knew what I was doing, and I didn't think I knew what I was doing. But what happened? You said that it was a C plus D script, But I invoked Chekhov, I invoked Shakespeare just to try to enhance the piece and make the piece better. How so, well, in the last scene, when Lou figures it's time to move out, I had his two suitcases there, and I said to Marry into ed, sit on those suitcases and reminisce like you're in the cherry orchard and you're leaving the cherry orchard. So they did. And you know, I tried to put in some funny stuff, but I never I played by the rules of that show. If you're going in as a guest director on a show, you gotta play by the rules of that show, you know, you just because everybody, yeah, you do. And so I I did that. And just before the show was shot, I was walking to back to my dressing room and Mary came out of her trailer and she stopped me and she said, Jim, we feel our investment and you has worked out. Oh my god, I wept. I went back. I wept, And the next day I had called from the New Heart Show, from the Paul Sanchow, from Bob Crane Show. They wanted me to direct. So that literally was the birth of my television career. Director James Burrows. If you enjoyed conversations with accomplished directors, check out my episode with Cameron Crowe. Generally, not every time, but generally a movie will have your spirit, your the movie will have your signature somewhere. Even even the movies where, like you know, Penny Marshall came in at the last minute and replaced so and so it's it's a Penny Marshall movie. The director's personality seeps in Hallelujah. And I love playing with that. I love playing with like the sensibility and the feeling that the movie is gonna give you. Music helps the relationship on the set, Like when we've been able to work together, it's really been wonderful to have like the environmental version of directing where we all are together kind of vibing, and there are relationships that are separate and the characters are part of it and we're doing this thing together. I think that feeling gets into the movie. Here the rest of my conversation with Cameron Crowe in our archives at Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, James Burrows tells us about the casting kismet on Friends. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. The Emmy winning series Cheers ran for eleven seasons, for a total of two episodes, with James Burrows directing all but thirty five of them. I wanted to know how he chooses to stay with the show for the length of its run as he did with Cheers. Well, it was at a point where people felt confident enough for me to be the permanent director. Did other shows have them, Yeah, I think Paul Bogart did a lot of All in the Families, and John Richard a lot of Dick Van Dyke shows, and Jay did The Mary's but nobody did as many as I did. And I did it. I did it because I love the show. But the people who don't know the first show that you do that of the long runs which one taxi Taxi was created by the guys. Two of the guys who created The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Jim Brooks and Alan Burns created Mary Tyler Moore. Jim Brooks and Ed Weinberger. Ed was a writer on the show, Stan Daniels and Dave Davis Worthy four who created a taxi and they asked me to be the permanent director. So although once before I did Laverne and Shirley, I directed some of them. And after about three shows, Gary Marshall took me to do you remember ni Ovalas and Nicodell's, the two restaurants that were on the paramount, and he said, would you consider staying with the show? And I, and all due respect to you, I I can't. It was too it was too it was too crazy. My friend was a writer on that show, Dan Olson, Oh my god, Dana Wilson was my buddy and I hung out with him and he told me, I don't want to pin this on Olsen, but someone told me that they're corresponding managers. Their respective managers would sit there with stop watches in time, how long the tally light was on their client, who got more camera time. There was such a kind of a competitiveness between Penny and Penny, and so I was on the show and the ship hit her fan. He said it was really not. It was such a successful show, and they just it was not anyway. So I told Gary I didn't want to do do it, and then one tact she came along and I read that script and they asked me to commit to it. I said, sure, if I'm not mistaken Taxi. At that point, Danza went on to do Who's the Boss after Taxi? Correct? So you had a menagerie of actors, none of whom were that famous on their own, you know what I mean. De Vito, Lloyd, Judd Hirsch had a Broadway career, but not a big TV or film Danza, Mary Lou Kaufman, all of them, this is the show that made them really famous, that took them to that next level. And I was wondering, what's it like for you when you work with a bunch of people. Do you see them? I'm not asking you to disparage anybody, but would you say people become big stars in these television shows, do they change? Yeah? I mean without naming names, do you see the cast change? The cast jelled for me? That was again I talked about that as an interplanetary cast. There are there are people. You know, Andy was a comic and and the bravest comic I've ever seen in my life. And Tony was a boxer, croner and a croner. And so my job, as I talked about in the book, is to create a homogeneous group of people who are all in a lifeboat. Everybody has their own oars and pulls it intoandem. And so it was that was my first big show. And it was difficult on that show because there were so many eccentricities. Andy Kaufman had day night reversal and didn't come into one, but he had a photographic memory, so he didn't you know, he knew his part when he came in. You know, Jim Brooks, the writer was off doing starting over that movie. He was writing it, and so we had all these things that you had to juggle, and so it was very difficult for me. But I think there's some of my best work. Some of the funniest shows I've ever did are on war done on taxi. I think, what does the yellow light mean? The Reverend Gym show when he becomes a cabbyast goes down in history as maybe the biggest laugh I've ever directed. And so I don't know if they, Well, look who who would you think be the movie star at that show? Danny DeVito. I had a wonderful time on the show. I learned a lot and it's the moment that I cemented my relationship with the Charles brothers because the Charles brothers were producers on that show. So they had a difficult task in coordinating the writing because Jim wasn't around all the time and when he came, he would say he wanted it this way, and then Ed would see that and say, no, I want it this way. So it was it was difficult. It turned out to be a wonderful show. But Glenn a Less had as difficult a time as I did, and that's where we became really close because we had the same agent, and he said, we have to do our own show. I'm wondering, was there a difference for you? Again, without disparaging anybody by any means, was there just a difference for you with a theater based cast Kelsey, Hype, Pierce and so forth, and the cast of Will and Grace, all of them with theater. But I think Deb's de deb was just on stage here, Shan's superstage worthy. I wor ship him. I worship him. McCormick, Dost Theater and Megan Dost Theater, and then other shows you've done where there's nary a theater, Dennis and among the bunch. You know, there's not many theater credits in the Friends cast a Swimmer, Swimmer, he still one out of six looking Glass Theater. Yeah, did you find it? So? Do you? You You had a different language with those that had a theater background or no, the same, No, I you know I would tell them in the beginning, this is theater. It's it's an amalgam of theater and film, but it's basically theater because you have to tell the story to the fifty people watching you that night, and so you tell the story to them in theater, your reactions have to be bigger because to reach the person in the balcony, you can't be subtle. That's subtle in theater, you know, you have to have to be a little bit exaggerated. I told him, I will be on you if you're reactions are too big, because this is going out on a television screen, so it the irractions can't be as big as they are in the theater, but they have to be enough to get a laugh, not only with this audience but with the audience at home. So the kids were pretty good on On Friends. You know, Lisa was in the ground, links Jen was amazing, and they just embraced and inhabited those characters like it was it was a gold mine. Well, I don't think we ever read anybody together. So when I got up to six of them down on stage and they just fit like a glove, it was, oh my god. They were since they were sinked, and I said, this is crazy. When I did William Grace, you could see that they were so welcoming to your package is leaking. You've stole my life. I'm standing there and he says, and she says goodbye to me. We closed the drum and love with Megan. He says, your package is leaking. Said, what can I say? I like her because you brought her ice I brought the ice cream, which was your package is dripping. Whatever. You know better than I do. So when I do that show, they were so welcoming and they were so sweet when I did will and Grace because they were just so charming, and Megan was the one who I always say the same line Megan was the one who helped to at least in part, broke er my deal with thirty Rock because Megan said, you listen as she said, it's fun. I mean I never dreamed of doing a sitcom. And when I did thirty Rock, I said, I'll do six episodes recurring and that's it. And uh, they twisted my arm or whatever to do it and and SLRN I worship. But when I came to do the show, you see where when it comes to tape time much and it comes down Cohen behind him much because a lot to say. He has a lot of lines and jokes and things that his notes and so forth. Is every show the same that way or all the show is different in terms of the input of the top people. No, I on any show I do, anybody can say anything about anything. Check your ego at the door. So I mean, if you had a problem on Will and Grace, you you know you would come to me and say a problem. Max is Max. He's genius. You know you deal with him because he's so valuable to the show. And one of the one of your gifts is that you play in the same intensity as the four of them, and with it you know we had a lot. We had over two hundred and fifty guest stars on Will and Grace, and invariably they would come in like they were a star, and I would take them aside and say, when you rehearsing with this cast, in rehearsal, they do of what they can do, and then when you get to the showtime, it's a hundred to a hundred and fifty and if you don't keep up, you're gonna be on the editing room floor. So you you have your your on our show. You agreed to her show. You gotta play by the rules of the show, and I don't want you to disappear, and you have or to come in. You know you are happy to be there, happy to be there, also larger than life, which is important on that show because that show is a fair to keep up literally in figurative director James Burrows. If you're enjoying this conversation, be sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we come back, James Burrows tells us why his new book is ultimately about kindness. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is Here's the thing from my heart Radio. I was lucky enough to work with director James Burrows as a guest star on Will and Grace. We also work together on a pilot starring myself and Kelsey Grammar that did not get picked for Serious. With burrows incredible track record, I wanted to know if he has a sixth sense about which shows will succeed and which won't when I read them, I don't know. You know, When I read some of these pilots, I thought they were okay and I could maybe with a little smoke and mirrors, make it go. A few of them I made go, but they didn't last very long. But I try not to do pilots that I don't think you're going to go. But as to that pilot, I was shocked that the network didn't. I don't know what was going on in the ABC headquarters and watching the show, but you had two monumental stars who played you know, it was Nol Coward, it was it was Will and Grace. It was that kind of intensity to your relationship that was exhilarating to me and funny to the audience we had there, and I wish I was shocked I don't know if there were politics involved or what was involved, but they sure don't have a show on ABC that's commensurate with that show. Now, you have no doubt. And I'm not just saying this. I loved working with you. Everybody loves working with you. You say that J Sandrich, J Sanders never put two people on a suitcase and starting the cherry orchard. I doubt you say J. Sandrids is the king. He's not the king. You're the king. And everybody who works with you loves you. They love you, and you do this show. And were you ever tempted to run out and do movies and write scripts and and go into those other cord or never? I was never a writer. I I ruled that out. I did a pilot for Stephen Botco in nine seventies seven called Every Stray Dog and Kid single camera pilot Our Jackie Earl Haley back then and uh, Bruce White's Uh. I didn't no movies. I did a movie called Partners. It was a movie. Aaron Russo came to me after taxi and he said, I have this movie that written by Francis vai Vert who wrote Lakaja Fall, and it was about. It was, it was present and the fact that it was about a straight cop and a gay cop. This Ryan O'Neill, Yeah, Ryan O'Neill and John heard. Can you believe I remember that. I can't believe that, Ryan O'Neill, and it was they go undercover to solve a murder and it tend to be a gay couple and the problem, you know a lot of the problems. You wanted Clan Eastwood in their part. You wanted a guy, the most macho man in the world, having to dress and change and leather, you know, that's what you want. You wanted Charlie Bronson, somebody like that, and we had at one point we had Peter Regert to play the gay cop and wed Sam Elliott, who would have been great, but we couldn't get it past the studio, so we ended up with Ryan and John. What's difficult for me in the movies is number one, it takes two years to hear the reaction, and two, it was tough for me in the comedy scenes. You shoot a master and everybody's kind of funny. Then you start to shoot the close up and the magic's gone. I did a documentary where, um, what is his name? Who's the famous actor that's married to Eva? On I miss you? I do, sorry were I would have been on your show. I would have stayed on that show because I had so much fun. You know something. Let me tell you. So, I'm sitting there and I was so excited. I thought, my god. Kelsey Grammar calls it. He goes, so, how's everything going. I mean, he's like such a force of nature. How's everything going? I go, it's going, okay, I said, I mean, we're gonna make the deal. I mean, I'm not. My whole thing is don't get too crazy. And um. He was from a different school of negotiating because he was king of TV. I His career in TV obviously eclipsed mine. He started big, big, big successful shows. But he calls hip and he goes, uh, what are you going in that? What are you asking for? What are you going in that? And I go, well, I thought I would kind of, like, you know, be the good partner. And I keep the numbers low seasons and one in seasons two, and if we get to see so like I did in thirty Rock season four, season five, we step it up. And then season five and season six, I want to hear them crying all the way from the studio. I want to we're gonna backload all the money into season five and six, and he goes, I'm coming in a blank and he named some number that I was like, I was going to fall off the chair. And I thought after that, I go, well, of course you are. Of course you are. That's probably what you got paid in the last season of your last show. I mean, he was like this comedy on the Mount Rushmore of TV comedy because I was always a poll that we didn't pull that off. Uh, you prompted me with here about you shoot the master, then you go back and you do the close ups and sold of gone. I did a film that was a documentary about can and um in the tone. Ryan Gosling has the most wonderful take on exactly what you said, the Arthur Murray esque progression of shooting stuff where it's like do it again, do it again. Now we're gonna come in closer and do it again, and do it again, but make it fresh and do the same thing you did again close up, you know, mid shot, cowboy tight e c U. And he said to me, it's just like it's a fucking nightmare. But in his language, we got a Gosling on film now. I'm assuming because you are a legend in television comedy that you know. Lord Michael said, networks the best. I said why. He said, why it goes because it demands more of you. You can't say funk on the network. You have to say funk without saying funk. You can't go blue. So you've got to be smarter, clever, better. And when I turn on TV now and I'm on streaming service, as somebody says, Susie was late for work today. Fuck, everybody laughs because they're saying, oh my god, they said, fuck, you've never gone to a streaming service. I did one show for Chuck Laurie that was on with Kathy Bates called Disjointed. She owned a pot shop and I think it lasted twelve episodes something like that. I had a great had a great time working with her. She's what a pro. And but I'm sure you've been asked to come and maybe they tried to seduce you to come and do. They don't do a lot of three camera, multi camera shows, but even single camera for them, I'm not good. I'm I like, I like to get home early, as you know that the multi camera schedule is the greatest in the world. And you're talking about what Lauren I I corroborate what he says because the euphemism is funnier than the actual work. On Will and Grace, I mean Karen leaking, Yeah, yeah, package is leaking or uh, you know, Karen had nine different euphemisms for vagina. You know, so euphemism harder to think of. It was it is funny your stuff? Why write a book? Meaning it's like, doesn't your work speak for itself when you wanted to write a book? Why? I have all these stories that are that are in the book and I tell them to you know, I look for new friends so I can tell him the stories because I have to held all my old friends the same stories. And it was COVID. It was the beginning of COVID, and my wife, Debbie came and said to me, you got to write a book, what she had been saying for the past ten years. And I said, I don't have a hook. I don't have an angle on a book. She said, please stop sitting around, write a book. So I called my agent, who hooked me up with Eddie Friedfeld, who's my co author, and I started telling him the stories. He had not heard any of the stories, and he helped shape the book. And it's a little bit of it's a lot of my stories, but it's a little bit of a tutorial in how to make a show or what's what's good for a show. I talk about a little. I talked about the cameras a little bit, not enough to bore Layman, but so that that's what I did it, and I had a great time doing it. The book is directed by James Burrows. I want to tell you, and I love the opportunity to say, is I'm glad you came in person. I'm happy to be here. And I want to tell you that the times I did that show with you, you were so kind to me, and you create an environment where it was fun. I was heartbroken when it was over, and you're so graceful and gracious and smart, and it really was just the joy of my life to do those shows with you. Even of our pilot was the Challenger, it blew up on the launch pad and we didn't make it. But my book is about kindness. I mean, you can see it. It flows through there because if if you have a set where everybody is nice to one another and everybody likes dare I say, loves one another, that's going to come across the screen. You know, the fish thinks from the head. So if you have a star who's counting lines, that's not a happy experience. So I don't work on shows like that. I work on shows where I have great actors that can only make me look better, and I treat them with the utmost kindness. I never see Hyde Pierce that much in uh in life, but I wanted to see him. I'm willing to bet that you did Frasier and you've never done anything remotely like that again, because why bother. It's never going to be better than that. You did that great show with a great cast, great writing, great directing. I mean anything anybody, the group you might work with, it would be a letdown, I would say a lot of times. You know, if people are on a hit sitcom, they think they can they think they can do it again. It's hard, you know, it's hard. There's so many there's so many forces out there that wants you to fail, and it's sad. But I've had a great run and so have you young man. Well, I'm gonna my last line is going to be what would you know about failure? That's my line for you. What would you know about failure? James Burrows, You've had the least amount of failure of anybody, know. I've had failure, maybe a tablespoonful in an ocean of success. So enough of my tired metaphors. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you, Thank you, director James Burrows. This episode was recorded at c DM Studios in New York City. Were produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice, and Maureen Hoban. Our engineers Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Daniel Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing. 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