Let's Be Clear with Shannen DohertyIt's time to go back to the mall and this episode could be the key!Shannen and Kevin devise a plan to get the Mallrats sequel made almost 30 years later.Plus, a special impromptu COLD READ from the Mallrats 2 script that will leave you wanting more.And, together they look back at how Shannen started acting as a little girl and quickly found herself working with some of Hollywood's biggest legends.
This is let's be clear with Shannon Drny, when did you start termed what year, uh, nineteen ninety eight or something?
Maybe I don't know, so Jason like ship from ninety eight to even two thousand and one, which is when Shannon kind of comes back into our life. When we did Jane Soladbob Strike, then that's how bad a bomb Malrats was. She scattered for six fucking years. It wasn't until the dust settled six years later. I was a bona fide thing at this point. I had like chasing Amy dog Ben. Here we were making Jane Soundbob Strike back with Miramax, and She's like, I'll come back, and we did it. See what responsible for all your fucking feature film work? Is it? Mal Rats and Jane Solob?
I mean, Heathers are you?
That's right now? And then, oh my god, I got so arrogant for a second of all your movies.
And now the movies I do is with the it's you know, I have a friend named James who hires me on a ton of stuff. So like thank goodness, like Fortress, which was with Bruce Willis.
How was that you worked with Bruce?
Yeah? I mean lovely I.
Actually saw an interview we said something really nice.
Yeah, you know, we just we did one a year and a half or two years ago with Mon Gibson. He did a movie with Jean Claude ven Dam recently that I that I had like one scene in just He's like, can you do this one scene. I'm like, sure, I'll come in and do it.
So two thousand and one, Shannon comes out and we do Jane Sambab Stragbag and it's a very funny scene. Her in Wes Craven. Yes. A couple of years after that, we tried to get Shannon. We tried to get you in Reboot, but we were shooting in New Orleans and she would have played cock knocker. She would have been like, right now in that movie, somebody a fist punches through the wall, and it would have been Shannon. Because but if there was ever a cock knocker, fuck a ballbuster, if you will. But we did this thing the Fox Shortcoms. But the idea was again it was supposed to be a competitive show where you shoot these like little sitcoms that were like five to seven minutes long, and then it would compete over the course of the life of the show until one remained, and that was going to become like grow Up to be an actual Fox sitcom or something. It was a good idea. They shot a pilot and then they didn't go forward with it. But that was me, you Ralph, Ralph, Justin, Justin, and it was with Andy mckelfrish my buddy, and I was in it. I got to act, got to act with Shannon.
Well we because on Marats we didn't.
Really we have one scene where you like tell us to right before before Ethan's like Brenda, Yes we acted together in that. Yes, we didn't really act together in Malratz, but we actually did dialogue together.
I thought that that was like a really guy. Yeah, I thought it was good.
It's weird like the older you get, like the more you realize like, oh shit, I'm lucky anything went anywhere right, you know, sometimes you're like, fuck, man, why didn't that? And it's like it's not so much why didn't that work? As much as why did everything work? Ever, Like it's not because it's not talent necessarily, Like everybody who wants to be in this business to some degree has talent. Shit, a lot of it is like Tim Luck and timing. It's just being in the right place at the right right time.
Why do you why do you think mal Rats is such a huge sort of iconic now movie. I think it's but it wasn't then.
Because it wasn't tied into anyone's childhood at that point, right, like it was a brand new movie and stuff. So the same way, like I believe I put it on the same level as fucking Gone with the Wind, but or or Wizard well less com with the Wind. I'm put it on the same level with Wizzard of Oz. Oz comes out and it's not the Wizard of Oz. It takes a few years for it's become holy shit, what an amazing magical movie and the gold standard and whatnot. So it comes out and it's just a movie, you know, and to a lot of critics a dumb movie, like the guy who made Clerks made this, what the fuck? Over time, the movie is improved by people's association with the era of their life in which they watched movie. So it becomes a conduit to a happier time, to a better time, to a more innocent time. You know. As a species, we tend a lot of we tend to look back a lot, which is dangerous because you know, in the past that's where depression lies, and the future is where anxiety lies. In the presence where you have to be to be mindful, you got to stay in the present. Doesn't mean you can't reminisce, just can't get lost in it and stuff. And I think that movie is a nice way to reminisce without getting lost in the past. It's like when you hear a song or smells something cooking that takes you to a very particular moment in your life and your childhood and stuff. It's evocative for people. So aside from just being like, oh, like watching James Aundblov run around or fucking Brody's funny or whatever. Fuck, it's like it's like a Eliabeth Olson. I watched this with my brother like one summer. This is all we fucking did. So now it's built into the DNA. We had the benefit of being like not, you know, definitely not one of the first movies on home video. Home video been around for a while, but it was a movie that like didn't benefit from playing on Netflix and didn't benefit from playing on HBO repeatedly. It was a pass around, so you know, it depicted a world that and this is so funny, we're talking so high faluting about Malrats, but you get to do that because we survived, and so the movie with age, but it captured a world that hadn't been captured yet. And ironically that world is now overly captured. Like brody loving stan Lee in comic books, he's about ten fifteen years ahead of the culture, right, Like Malrats aged insanely well, because for whatever reason, Thank the Lord, the culture shifted toward all the things that Malrats was centered around. And so just even that love like of Marvel. And you know, the script originally was DC and Marvel equal, because I was definitely more of a DC guy, but DC didn't want to give us anything. Marvel was like, take anything you want, and so it became more Marvel centric, and having Stan in it made it even more so. And then years later, Marvel becomes so dominant in the culture, and stan cameos in movies that make a billion dollars become the gold standard. And every year when he was alive that they wrote about him doing a cameo, they're like, of course, his first cameo was in mal Rats and stuff, and so Stan goes on and does like, you know, I get to introduce Stan to a generation of kids maybe weren't that familiar with them with Malrats. Years later, he returns the favor in Captain Marvel when he's sitting on a train and reading Malrat script. So you know, things like that helped booy it over the years, and it just like got better, Like you know, in people's memory, the movie didn't improve. It is what it always was. But it's also simple. There's nothing complex about it. It's got enough laughs, enough naughty laughs and shit that it tracks in this modern day and age where it could make a modern person laugh as opposed to like release jokes or fucking tame or something like that. But I think it has more to do with everyone going like, oh I saw this when I was ex y or Z now I love when I'm in a con just like you and fucking like somebody comes up to you and they're fourteen, like I love mal Rats and you're like yes, because I'm gonna live just a little bit longer because of that shit this. Yeah, he's gonna live a little bit longer.
And it is finding a new younger audience, Like it just cheaps regurgitating itself really where people like their parents have now put them in front of it and had them watch it. So it's it's spanning generations.
And that honestly like that, like I said before, like you saying yes being in the movie is what got the movie made, but like you being in it also makes it like just one of the most nineties things ever me you Malrats, Jason Lee skateboarder, you know, moving out of a skateboarding career, Like it's just so evocative of that era without being aged, you don't watch it necessarily go like everything looks fucking old. All that fashion came back and people wear that shit. Yeah, as long as comic book culture is, you know, still part of the conversation, Malrats continues to age, Yeah, very well, but you being in it legitimizes it as well. Man, Like it's again I'm blowing smoke. But fuck dude, like you've had such an iconic career and Malrats is a big part of my mythology, and it seems like it's a big, pretty decent part of your mythology inasmuch as we both had the relationship with it where it was like, oh, fuck it it ruined me. And now it's a thing that who is you?
Yes, so I know that I asked you this, And it's what everybody is going to want to know is what do we have to do to get Marats two and done? Where are we at?
Here's the story of Marats two. And now there's been I think two versions of the Marats two script. You probably read both current versions called Twilight of the Marats. I love it a lot. It's really quite special every time I approach Universal because Universal owns the rights tomorrow Ats. As previously mentioned, they're the last person standing in that Grammarcy equation that I think they got all the grammar sy properties and stuff. So if you want to make a Marats movie, you got to make it with Universal. And years ago when I wrote Maratz sequel the first time around my agent, that agent was like, I said, hey, ma, I'm gonna write a Maratz sequel, Like can I just kind of do that? And he's like, yeah, there's three ways by which you can make a Marts movie. One, Universe wants to do it and they make it. Two so I was like, oh, get a copro and we'll do it. And three they just give it back to you and you just go make it. I was like, seriously, they'll give it to me and I can make them all Ron's equol if they don't want it, because that's what I prefer making up with a studio. I just go make my own version. And he was like yeah, and I was great, and so I set out and wrote it and that's where everybody remember I in my Instagram thread, everybody putting up two fingers and ship. And then I finished it and my agent was like, all right, so you guys submit it to Universal. I was like why and he's like, well, they have to read it. I was like, they're not gonna make it and I just didn't make it a Maronce movie and he goes, yeah, but they have to make sure there's no anti universal sentiment or something like that. It's like all right, So I sent the script and I waited, and a week later I was like, what they say? Can I go? And he goes, uh no. I said why, there's nothing in that script that's offensive to them, and he's like, well, you know, I said, there were three pass by which the movie gets made. But it turns out the historically and the entire fucking history of Universal as a studio, going back to the Limley's or whatever the fuck. They have never let go of a property that they own. They just do that. They would never let go of a library title, even if they don't give a fuck about it. It's just against policy. So I'm like, oh, so there's two ways by which this movie gets made, and he's like, yeah, Universe is gonna make kind of want to do it, or you co pro it. And then it turned out that they wouldn't copro either. So there was literally one way by which the movie got made, which is Universal go like, oh, well they don't care. Here I'll tell you, here's a great mallright story that tells you why they don't give a shit. Like when I brought in the script, I was like, I'm writing, man, I'm gonnake a mall rte sequel, and shit, it's gonna be fun. And we got an audience for it. Everybody loves it. Shit, and they read it and they were like, well, this is neither fast nor furious, Like how do we how do we make this? Why would we make this movie? It's not a just puzzlement because it wasn't a movie that was a hit for him. We don't have an American by billboard outside of Universal Studios, Theme Park and shit like that. We were a cult hit and one that I don't particularly care that much about. So during Jaye's Bob reboot and Clerks three, I got in bed with good folks at Lionsgate. And so for a minute there, Lionsgate was working with Universal because they're like, oh, we work with them on co productions and I'm like what, So they were trying to make some headway or we're making headway. But then the person who was our Lionsgate person left, So I right now, I have no idea where it stands. I know Universal really doesn't give a shit, like, but that could be me just thinking Universal doesn't give a shit. Maybe they're like ooh, And also since I went in there, thinks you know, there's peacock. Maybe there's a fucking path to do it via them or whatever exactly. But you know where our best chances are of like we do a scene from the script and people could hear what it sounds like and fucking lobby the public to like lobby them to be like, oh my god.
Fucking did you have a scene.
Yes, it's a long way of fucking getting right to the point. Yes, all right, So this is a scene from Twilight of the Marrats. So let me set it up for you. In this version of the movie, we find we are we are in the scene. Particularly, we are duplicating the scene that kicked off Mall Rats. So in Malrats, you remember the first time you've seen Renee. She's kneeling on the bend. She's knocking on Brodie's head and wakes him up, and he's like Jesus Christ would knock it off. And they have a whole conversation in the bedroom and ship, and it ends with her giving that beautiful monologue about fucking being an air traffic controller and ship, which I've met so many air traffic controllers in my life who were like, thank you, thank you for that moment alone and ship. So in in Twilight of the Mall Rats, our eciting incident happens before the movie, before we get to this part. This is where we're meeting Brody and Renee for the first time. Years later, Brody and Renee have a kid, Brody Bruce's kid. As we referenced in If You Saw Jane Sad Bob reboot. There's some cut scenes where we at the end during the credits where Brody Bruce talked about his daughter Banner. Bruce so like the reverse of Bruce Banner, Brody being a big comic book nerd and shit like that. So Banner is the daughter of Renee and Brody, and she is insanely unimpressed by her father, who lives in the glory moment of what happened in Malraitz. It is the biggest thing that ever happened to him. Then he went on to host the Tonight Show with Renee as his band leader, and then after that nothing. Then it was like, you know, fucking fell off the pop cultural cliff and stuff. But Brody relives that. Brody lives in that era. Brody is holding on steadfast to the nineties. I swear the character is not based on me. He's steadfastly holding on to then. And he's so much so that he is in He's moved his compic store into the mall. The mall has been dying. It is at less than fifty percent capacity and shit, and that figures prominently in the plot of the movie the mall itself. So Brody and Renee are split. They're going through a split. She threw him out of the house because Brody took their life savings to invest in a compic store in a dying fucking mall. You'll find out in this scene. So they're split when this begins. And of course they were split when Mall Rats began. So I wonder if in the third act been getting back together. Fucking Universal, let's find out together.
Yeah, Universal, So here we.
Are in this scene. This is what we've our opening scene deals with Banner and fucking what puts her in trouble and stuff and what incites the whole movie. So this is where we get to meet Brody and Renee, and it is to get it into your head what it looks like. Just imagine their first scene in mal Rats, but now they look like what they look like now, they're just fucking grown up up stage the same way. The delivery is the same fucking way, And it's just meant to show you that life doesn't fucking change, actually not at all. So here we go. Man, I'm gonna read from the script. I'll read the expository shit, and then I'll read the Brody part interior, Brody's Room Day match to a close up from the previous shot would be a banner to a current day Brody Bruce asleep sitting up. A woman's hand enters the frame and knocks on his head reveal current day Renee Bruce because I got married, dressed and kneeling on the bed beside Brody knocking on his head. Brody wakes pissed in a room that looks almost exactly like his bedroom in nineteen ninety five. So Brody's trying to keep shit the same those of us who have ever succeeded in life try to replicate that moment over and over, and that's Brody's late motif. So Brody begins he's getting knocked on the head, just like in Malred. He goes, sweet fucking Christ, would you knock it off? And they close his eyes. He reopens and he goes, wait, what are you doing here? We're not married anymore?
Thank God for that. Your daughter's outside.
Renee gets off the bed and looks at all the posters on the walls. Now kids sidebar Renee the actor. Shannon the actor made a choice for Renee. In the script, it says, Hallelujah. As previously mentioned, she was like ok, I have a hard time with that word. Instead, she made a choice. What did you choose?
Thank god?
Now, when we were in Ma Rats nineteen ninety five, I would have been like, well, do what's in the script, because I was very dictatory about the script. But now modern day keV knows how to go with the flow. I like your time like you know. Also we do both takes, but I like the change that you may. I like. I liked your choice, man, so I.
Mean I like the hallolulas.
You think she didn't go for it.
Here's the problem is, like any once I find a word that that I trip on, yes, I will never be able to say forever and ever.
Yeah, see, kids, acting comes down to choices. Shannon made the right choices, like I'm gonna trip over that fucking word. Yeah, absolutely not back into the scene. I'm gonna take us back to the weight so you can hear it again. She'll make a different probably, watch her make a different choice here we go. Wait, what are you doing here? We're not married anymore?
Sweet fucking Christ for that your daughter's outside.
But she made a second fucking choice because usable so me as the director, I'm more of an editor, right, I'm on set quote unquote directing, and she'll test in my directing. It's very mental. But I'm more of an editor, right. So in that moment, the editor keV is like, oh nice, I got choices, and I like the second one too. Her delivery gets more and more comfortable. She goes on, man, so you can get a first take out of Shannon. That's usable in the movie. But let her go here. You get some gold. That's mine. That's my acting list, my directing lesson acting lesson for those listening. Okay, Regge gets off the bed, looks at all the posters on the wall. Brody goes, uh, why he's referring to his daughter being outside? Why isn't this a school day? Oh shit, there's not another quarantine, is it. I don't have any toilet paper.
I see him managed to rescue some of your ship from my garbage.
I can't believe you had the nerve to throw my life out of our house.
You don't live there anymore. So yes, Brody Bruce me, how did you wrote this?
I did left the Brody Bruce Museum. So you're referring to this place as.
As a museum.
I get it. Me zoom museum. Me zoom museum instead a museum. It's me.
You guys like, this is what I deal with with Kevin Smith, where he's like this is easy for me.
I'm like, what's made up? Words? And naturally I have a question. Museum like ins museum, it's amazium, meaning it's all dedicated to you.
Don't live there anymore. So the Brody Bruce Museum is out of business. I mean, look at all of this shit.
You know what I'm proud of, all my professional accomplishments. Amused, Rene sees a particular frame on the wall. She says, you framed our divorce papers and my personal accomplishments.
Well you'll find no pride and our daughter's accomplishments. Today. Banner got caught with Gavin Hamilton at the Edentown Hotel last night doing what what do people do at hotels?
Brody go to comic book shows?
Why did we go to the Edentown Hotel on prom night when you asked me to sleep under the bed in case your mom burst in?
She went there for sex and burned down the hotel? Is that s flying for sex? Now?
No, Brody, she literally burned the hotel down there was a fire.
Holy shit, really is banner.
Okay, nobody got hurt, but the hotel is gone. It's just a big pile of ash.
Wow, I mean fireside. That's kind of metal. Our kid rocks.
Oh so glad that you feel that way, because we may be liable for all of her damages.
Oh I'm gonna kill that kid.
I could barely keep my store open as it is, and I just got a second notice about the second mortgage.
Shit already, you fucked.
Us when you refinanced our house to move your stupid comic book store to a dying mall.
Well, the stash is making a big comeback tomorrow. Renee Brody finally gets out of bed to show Renee a poster for the Brody Bruce Comic Con featuring Brody centric artwork. The Brody Bruce Comic coom will resuscitate my store.
Your store is as good as dead because nobody goes to the mall anymore. Bro maybe not since Amazon, since the world wide pandemic. You're literally the last person alive who even gives a fat rat's ass about a mall anymore. I mean, christ, I wish you showed half as much interest in your daughter.
Hey, I love my daughter jack good good because she's spending the day with you. Away, man, I got to be at the mall to do press for the con at noon. And doesn't Banner have like a prom tonight or something.
There's no place to have a prom, so there's not going to be a prompt tonight. So just this one time, can you put our daughter ahead of your mall and yourself? Please, Brody, never.
Say no to you when you say please, because you'll always be the only one for me. Renee. We hear a toilet flush and a lady emerges. She sees Renee. Ooh you ordered us postmates. Brody says to Renee, saving face, this was just sex, okay, but you still have my heart, Brodie.
Your heart is the second smallest organ you ever gave me.
Renee exits after it beat. The girl, says Brodie. I thought it was a good size.
Come.
I don't want to see that movie, right. It's good you crush bro That was so fucking good. I need some rehearsals.
We got to get our pace going, I mean, Jason Lee, we got to get that keep playing a cougar.
Fuckable mom. You know what I'm saying, and then the relationship, you know, I mean, I don't want to spoil it, but it's a comedy of remarriage. So will they get together? Come and see, But yeah, they will get together. And it's very sweet. It's very romantic, and it's also like something that you know, people who grew up with malrats now have malrats of their own right. So you know, it's fun because it plays with all the toys of marats, but it also has the perspective of being a grown up and letting go in the right time to like let go and stuff. So if you haven't figured it out, as you heard in the dialogue, like the hotel where they're going to hold the prom burns down or his daughter accidentally burned it in and so they wind up having an emergency prom at the mall, which is the big vacant building and shit, and that's when the comic CON's going on, and so Brody Bruce turns it into a prom con and invites the world like anybody who's ever been left at anything, this is your fucking problem of people's prom And it becomes this like cause to celebrite and stuff like that, and it's it's a very it's antic like mal Rads, but it's also like like, oh they got kids now. I call it the degrassy formula, like de Grassy. When they did the Next Generation, their big twist was these kids belong to the kids that used to be on the show. Now they're starting to have kids, so these are those kids. And I was like, you have me, like it's continuity, keeps going like fucking it's not like Brandon, like you know, I didn't watch it, but the New charm did have much connection to the old Charmed or were they just like it's three new chicks and the you know, I like stuff where it's like, hey man, it's a very least a nod back or something, so uh ma, Twilight of the Mall Rats is much more than a nod back.
It is a return and it's good and it's great.
Yeah, it's it's especially like if you got kids. It's it's really like.
Does Universal have an Instagram?
Hit them? Hit them? Bro? You you fucking get press since you started your progress you wear in Good Morning America promoting your podcast, and then like the Holly episode got pressed. So I'm telling you I brought it here because I'm like this will disseminate that information. Listen, fucking read for Renee, how incredible she is.
We have a pizza party.
You're gonna have to. I'm gonna get a man to Pete come back and compete against him and ship.
Oh god, she's really good.
She worked out for a man Pete. Man. I wonder if she ever thinks about do you think she's ever like you dragged me out to fucking California for a Mallrats edition of I think did just fine. I think about no doubt she's like Shannon caught that mall Rat's bullet dodge Universal Pictures. Probably yeah, all right, follow you gotta be specific, man, you got to go after like Donna. What's her name? Donna? Who runs Universal? I don't know?
All right, you guys, you're gonna do this for us.
You know, we go after here's the approach Blumhouse. We go after Jason Blum because we can make a like a cheap version of it and like for you know, he started doing his division, which is a genre division and it's not a horror movie and stuff, but like he's done some stuff ain't necessarily horror movies. That's who I should reach out to. I'm literally thinking this out in real time because as you're going, like we should hit up Universal, I was like, they.
Don't give a fulling him. So it's uh, Jason his Instagram, it's Jason Blum b l u M start hitting him up.
Back in the day, and then he created Blumhouse Pictures, which has become the Blumhouse fucking enterprise. I almost made Tusk with them years ago, but I knew him back in the day from from the previous life as well. Anyway, he turned his ship into a fucking growing concerns. But he's based at Universal and he might be the way in where he's like, look, I'll shepherd this fucking thing that nobody cares about, but I feel people care about it. I do too. How about this, hey, Netflix, Let's make a Mallrat sequel. Because Netflix, like they're making a fucking Beverly Hills cop sequel and Netflix is going to put it out, so like, why not, Like I'm telling you, we would not be an expensive movie. You can make this movie for like, wait, less than ten million, you make it five. You make it for the same budget we made Mallrats for back in the day. And I guarantee you it would be insanely fucking watched because people know that name.
And I gave the movie. Could you imagine what would be super cool is if like a Netflix did it, for instance, that right before a premieres, they do a running of Malrats so that people can watch them back to back and see, like what the original, so they can have their kids watch the original and then you go right into Malrats And that's our best case scenario.
Then is Peacock because Peacock makes original productions their NBC Universal, so they are the ones that air Mallrats on their streaming search.
So why can't we just go and get a meeting at Peacock?
Do it? Let's do it. If I walk in with you, they probably take me a lot more seriously. Where are you at?
I'm nowhere.
You don't have an agency right now? Nothing? Because what you took time off agency wasn't what I was thinking of when I was fucking find No.
You want to know what's really interesting is every sort of agent that I've had in the last you know, a couple of years. They they always come in very excited and they're like, oh, representing Shannon Jordy and this is so cool, and they're like, I know, I'm sure there's going to be some doors that are gonna be hard to get through, but but it's okay, like we will get through them eventually. And then after, you know, like eight months or a year, they're like, yeah, we just nobody's interested.
They don't know, they don't know what to do with you.
And I'm like, what do you mean no one's interested and they're like, yeah, no one's no one's like you know, people are too scared of you, your your reputation or your cancer or your this, And I'm like, first off, they will still be talking about a reputation is like stop right, Like every eighteen nineteen twenty year old had ship.
There are folks that you laid the track, and the folks that followed on that track did were far more, yes, misbehaved than you ever were. But yeah, I would not imagine that's crazy. I would not imagine most people even remember that you were a bad So I just stopped.
I was just like, I'm I don't you know, and I've got and I've got James, who is you know a friend who hire me? And Autumn, I've got you, you know, like I have enough people who keep hiring me for jobs that it's fine.
Why, Like I would imagine you would be the kind of person that fucking Hallmark would be, like, we'll pay you so much money to do like four movies in a row because we make nineteen a week.
Right, I made one a long time ago, growing the big.
One, which is very double entendre.
It is, but it was all about like a pumpkin contest.
Oh that's adorable, isn't it? Sweet? Fucking why but why aren't you go back? I don't know.
I mean, I don't have an agent. I'm just I'm fine. I'm you know, I'm a podcaster.
Now you could do that and other things. I've been podcasting since two thousand and seven. It's always been a wonderful side hustle. But yeah, I mean it's people's main listen.
I obviously love acting like it's thrilling to me. My head is still focused on that scene and like all the things that I need to improve, all the like the timing, the rhythm, like I'm I'm that's my head stayed there cold read.
You are so lyrical, so beautiful, and wrote that ship like and I wrote that years ago. At this point. You know that is in my That's how I heard it in my head. So the way you delivered it, I was like, perfect, Thanks that that there you go. Man. Kids, if you're like, if you're out there and you're like, hey, I got free time, fucking turn all your internet attentions on Jason Blum and Peacock and Demand are Marat sequels. We'll work on it from our side. Yes, yeah, let's just set up a meeting and go. I'm telling you, and I walk in, what are they going to say? Look, they can say no to me, they can say no to you. I can say no to us. I know that sounds very privileged. Maybe I should. Maybe I should fucking check myself and stuff like, like I could walk in there and be like, we can make this movie for like five million bucks, bro, five million is nothing to you, folks. Give us five million. We will give you more than that. An audience, and even people that hate this thing will hate watch it to be like fuck e he look how fucking woke he's become or whatever the fuck like. But it won't be that. It'll just be this like funny. It's a funny, sweet movie that I think people who love the original would be like, oh my god, that's what happened when they grew up. It's good times. Twilight of the Mall Rats is so it's sweet, fun, nostalgic, nostalgic, but like in a really, really, really good way. Yeah. I agree. I start to work kids.
Fuck yeah, I mean if we walk in also with Jason Lee, like saying no to three of us is Jerry Hart.
And Jason Lee wants to do it too. He was like he's loved every version. I mean, he's got it. Mike. You know, there's no one else for Brodie Jason Lee. Yeah, they don't even go forward with I.
Mean, you're still friends with a fleck, Like, believe.
Me, Ei, there's a bar for him and he and Ben's. Ben told me once that he's like, he's like, bro my kids, of all the movies I've done, the one they like the best is Mall Rats. And I was like, the number one. They have great taste? Why And he was like, it's because of everything I wear. It's the outfit I wear. They think it's hysterical. They love the fashion of mal Rats. He's like, my daughter is fascinated by Marats And I was like, good to know, I said, because we're doing as Like, oh my god. He's like, if it's going to happen, he's going I know people in my world who will support it, So he'll come out, he said he would come.
Out, right, I mean like that right, there is five million dollars I know.
But if I was like, hey, Ben's going to come out for a scene, They're like, well, can you make in the villain comedian in the whole movie? Can you make it more than a scene? It's like, I mean maybe that's you know who Renee hooks back up with good, good, good fun stuff kids. Yeah, yeah, Malrat's legend can continue. Uh, the audience is familiar with your current life and stuff like that more or less. Yeah. So not currently in a relationship, but one day I'm very close to the dog, but one day not not adverse to ever getting in a relationship again.
No, not adverse at all.
You must know what you want going forward, what you're looking for. Give some fuckers hope out there. You know what you talk about, like your battle, that's one people hope. Give some single motherfuckers out there hope that they're like, you mean, fucking there's a chance there's a chance to shannandor I definitely have.
A list of things, and you know what's the most important, most important for me is probably going to be someone who has the personality is going to be number one. And that includes humor, It includes humility, It includes intelligence and a sense of strong moral values. And I love, I love a sense of humor because I'd like to eat and they have to be into my kind of sense of humor because it's I'm a much more dark, dry sense of humor that I'm not everybody's cup of tea, right.
You know. My theory is everyone's just looking for somebody to watch TV. Yeah, and that's predominantly like what me and Jennifer did, Like you know, we do other things and we talk during it, but like that predominantly is how we spend most of the relationships. Like somebody who wants to cook with me? Is that right?
Yeah?
All right? So there you go. The audience right now, some fucking like amateur and pro chefs, you know, the beast, the bare level chefs are hearing this and going like I got a fucking shot with them, and I hear her house is amazing, amazing, amazing, and the kitchen is astounding, so he's got to be able to cook. Yeah, I mean either way or just guys, guys, you guys.
I like cooking, so I would was one who enjoys it and they don't have to be a great cook, but just somebody who wants to get in there, help me chop the onion, so you cry instead of me.
So all that sounded so sexual. Just get in there and che motherfucker.
As to do, like watching movies with someone?
Of course, what do you do because you can only you can't cook twenty four to seven? Right, what do you Historically?
I'm a big reader's all right?
Yeah, so you sit in a room with that person read while they're doing something else. Yeah, can you read if they're doing other things? Like you can have the TV on?
You can, they can have they can have the TV on. It doesn't Once I start reading something that I'm into, I'm focused. I'm focused.
How are you with memorization?
Still amazing?
I mean that's something that you have to develop early on. Is it truly photographic?
Yeah, it's it's one of those photographic memories where it's almost like you have to click it on. Right, I'm not going to just you know, read something and instantly know it. It's you have to sort of go, okay, now I really need to know this, and then it just and then you pull up the page in your like it comes in front of your eyes and.
You see it.
I just I don't like, I don't love using it as an act journeymore because what I found I've needed it on occasion.
But what I found is.
That it's when you use the photographic memory, there's a little bit of a disconnect from yourself and the material, if that makes any sense.
Whereas if I actually really.
Take the time and study this, if I like study your bio, if I really really look this over and connect with it and understand every single word and why it's like why it's done like that right right, it pulls me much closer to the character than.
It helps me form that character instead.
Of just a page in front of you know, invisibly in front of my eyes.
So can I can? I of course it's me. So I'm going to try to put it into sexual terms. It is all the difference between like fucking Megan love passionately and just wrote fucking yeah yeah, where it's just like I can do this and I can go through the motions and I can fucking and it'll it'll be good and and will feel good and stuff. But if you take the time and it becomes you become the character. It's coming through the character. That's so fucking interesting, man. But think about that. What a great like side hustle you got out of your main job. Your main job is like be an actor. Your side hustle is like I can fucking memorize the ship. I have a photographic memory. Yeah? Or did that exist and that helped with acting?
I mean I think it helped with acting initially because it didn't exist. Hold readings were always pretty easy for me, is that right?
Yeah?
You know they'd give you you walk in for an audition, that give you a page and I'd be like, okay, I got it, and then sit down and not really have to look at Besides, how.
Long did you were you in the auditioning world before you didn't have.
To like I've always been in the auditioning right.
Yeah, So with Charmed, you get offered Charmed, right, They're not like you got to read and I know what you want to did you audition?
I had to audition and it was by the way the exact same thing. Like I auditioned and I went to Network, and Network flew out a girl from the East Coast and traditionally, but traditionally, as you know, when when they spend that money to fly somebody, you're like, that person is getting the job for sure, that's true. So yeah, I've I've I feel like I've always been in the auditioning world. Maybe now later in life I'm not as open to doing.
It and everything.
I'm like, is there really a character I can't play? But obviously there are, you know, people I would audition for in a heartbeat, like I don't have, and they make it easier now because usually you can just self tape and send it in. It's the meeting of people. I remember I went on an audition and it was, you know, after nine, like after Charmed.
It was.
You're very successful, right, And it was supposed to just be no other actors were going to be there. It's supposed to be very quiet. They were being very respectful towards me, blah blah blah. There wouldn't be a lot of people in the room. And I went in and there was like friggin ten or eleven people in the room and one of the actresses who had been in Uh the original was in the room at zero scenes with her, and I was like, are you staying? Are you reading? Like like she goes, oh, no, I heard you were coming in and I just wanted to come in and watch your audition.
I was flattered it.
I literally couldn't stop shaking.
Tell me explained.
It made me extremely nervous because I got very self conscious, what are you? And I got very self conscious serious. I felt like the judgment was going to be, you know, twenty times harder because it was me versus somebody else, and all that kept going through my head was I'm going to disappoint. It didn't help that it was a movie I didn't even want to audition for, and my manager at the time, John was like, no, you need to go. This is good for you. It's a studio movie. And ever since you know, mal Ratz killed your film career.
Fuck, we forgot about that. I was feel good for a second there. Wait, did you when you went in the person who said that, did you get the What was the tone with which they were saying, well, I know.
She didn't mean it in a It wasn't a negative like, oh my god, I want to watch she was a fan.
I think she honestly just wanted to audition. She was like, I'm literally here because fucking like you. I watched you on TV, Like I'm a huge fan. And that made you.
Nervous as opposed to like firston, I was also a fan of hers, and and it made me. Yes, I was just nervous. And again I didn't want to disappoint, and I did. I in fact disappointed them all. You didn't think you I don't think I know. I was terrible. My entire body shaking, I started sweating. I was so bad that they actually said to my manager, is she okay?
No? Like, yeah, that person, it was that bad. If that person hadn't said that, do you think you would have?
I think I still would have been nervous because I had an auditioned in so long. It was kind of my first audition.
Back, take me back to the beginning, like what was the first Like did you book commercials before you booked like a gig? Like was night shift the first gig that you booked? Because you're young?
In that shot, I booked a Pacific bellmmercial, which was a telephone company.
And how old were you? I think I was nine or ten.
I was excited. I guess I didn't. All I had to do was sleep in a bad and then the grandma comes over and it was it was a it was a Spanish commercial, so I didn't even know like she everything was in Spanish, and so she kisses me good night, and my eyes stay closed and she goes on something about the telephone company. That was my first job. And then I did a couple of commercials, like I did McDonald's commercial. I did a shout you know that.
The spray to get games out and oh my god, and fucking you must have been like the most famous person in your world at that point, like certainly the most famous people for person that your family met.
Yeah, but nobody really paid it that close attention to they were. And then I did. I think. I think my next thing might have been the Secret of Nim, which was an animated.
You did the voice of cigarette Nime.
Yeah, Teresa the mouse get.
Out of here, all right? So then what do you do that?
What's your And then I think came Father Murphy, which Michael Lannon was producing and writing.
So that was before you even nightshift and.
Oh no, night Shift was probably right at the same time as the first commercial.
And so Father Murphy was a Michael Landon thing and the wild thing that was our house and that came after Father Murphy. Yes, how long?
That came after a little house?
You were a fucking little house, bro Oh my god, I.
Forgot yeah little house in the beginning.
Wow.
Yeah, it was awesome that experience.
And did you work with Landon? Did you meet him and talk to him? All?
He directed, he directed, and he wrote a lot of episodes specifically for me, where he would write very specific episodes for me and end up directing this How old are you at this point? That carried me probably from you know, ten and a half to maybe thirteen.
And you don't have you got wonderful parents. You don't have those terrible parents that took your money and fucking ran and stuff.
No, but I mean, you know how much money you're making your especially back then, what is making scale?
Really?
Yeah? What was scale back then?
No? No, whole fucking a lot. So all right, so that eventually stops.
And then and then our House comes around and.
Oh I did, girl? I did? I think I did?
Girls just want to have fun? Which was a movie with Sarah as well. Yeah, and then and then I think.
God, I did kill your movie career.
You did, God damn it. Then I did Our House and and.
That was Will for Brimley? And who else was in that? Didra Hal from well? From Days of Our Lives? And who else was in it?
Chad Allen?
Look at you? Oh my god? Who else? Carrie? What was Brimley like? Wonderful? He was a good guy for me.
He was fantastic. Yeah, I mean, listen, he was a wonderful horseman.
Yeah.
I went to his ranch often. His first wife Lynn, I was very close with. He was wonderful to me. I don't know if some of our writers or producers felt the same way.
He was one of those cats, like a figure of controversy or something. You know.
He was a he was like he was an ex wrangler. He was literally a wrangler, and he just was no nonsense. And if he didn't like a script, you knew it. He was For me, he was fantastic. He was a cowboy.
How many years was that show?
God, I have no idea. I mean, I don't think it lasted a very long time. Maybe two seasons or so, Maybe.
Was that girls just want to have fun. After that, it was either before or after.
But I know that that might have carried me until he was sixteen or so, and then I think I did some movie the weeks and then I did Heathers at right around seventeen.
Bro, you could have never done anything else for the rest of your life, and for a while, Heathers would have been enough. Like you know, maybe cats don't really I mean they maybe cats do realize that because they did do a revamp show. But this fucking movie was everything. It wasn't like a successful box office hit. It was a sleeper that like everyone discovered on home video, not unlike Waul Rats later on that got bigger and bigger. But every critic in the world loved this movie. Every fucking teenager in the world loved this movie. And shit, it was huge. That was a massive film in my childhood. What was it like?
I didn't understand it, Like in terms of the yeah, to be honest, I didn't really understand the movie. I understood that the dialogue was super cool, Like I got that right, that was dialogue is my things, as you know. But I don't think when I watched the movie at the At the screening, I was I didn't know it was a comedy, baffled by Heathers all of a sudden it's a comedy, and I was completely confused.
So when you read the script, you were like, this is a fucking this is some sinister ship.
I thought it was sinister, but I thought it was an actual sort of take on what was transpiring in the world and in high schools at that point in time, and.
That rampant suicides.
Yeah, and so I just I think I took it more as a drama anything else.
Yeah, it's meant to be funny. Yeah, what is that? I would So that's pre nine oh two. AZ does that lead directly?
Apparently that led to them calling me for an audition. So the story goes is that Toy was a huge fan of Heathers. So when they were looking for a Brenda, Toys to her dad me the fuck seriously, they called me to audition.
And then the rest of course, as we know television history.
Thank you everyone for listening into Let's be clear with the amazing Kevin Smith.
Oh stop, this is an absolute fucking pleasure. You've always been one of my favorite people that I've ever worked in this business, and I do so closely, closely associate you with the beginning of my career. Like I know I have some place in your mythology, but like you feature very prominently in mine, because you were what was at the other side of the bridge, right like making clerks like and bought. I crossed a bridge into another world and you were waiting on the other side. It was a comforting face to see because I'd known that face, like from other media, my whole life. So I have such a big space in my heart for you, always have, always will thank you.
We are going to get Maurets too done.
Bye, Yes, God, damn it.
I want to be back on a set with you.
Be fun. Yeah, totally fun, I'm telling you. The reboot thing bugs me not because, like, as I was driving over here, I was like, why didn't we just shoot her in Los Angeles? And then I could have had what I wanted? Fuck, And then I started thinking about like re release chains. I'm all rebooting, this is the rabbit holes I fall down. Sure, but yes, but yeah, it would be fun to fucking play man. And that was what a great way to play that would be because it would be one of those things where you know there's an audience waiting. Oftentimes you make a thing and you're like, fuck, I hope somebody is gonna watch this. Especially in this they're they're waiting. It's something that would pop you know what I'm saying, like in terms of people going oh oh, I'm familiar with that term and I love that movie and stuff. So yes, let's make it happen people, Let's make it happen.
