Sibling Revelry with Kate Hudson and Oliver HudsonIt Runs in the Family with Shaun Cassidy
Singer Shaun Cassidy's talent goes well beyond his gene pool.
The 'Da Doo Ron Ron' hitmaker tells Oliver all about his 'nepo baby' experience, and shares what he'd be doing if his family wasn't famous.
Plus, how his connection to Goldie Hawn dates back to the days when Kate was a bun in the oven
Hi. I am Kate Hudson and my name is Oliver Hudson.
We wanted to do something that highlighted our.
Relationship and what it's like to be siblings. We are a sibling.
Railvalr No, no, sibling. You don't do that with your mouth, revelry.
That's good.
My man, Sean Cassidy, who I have known for a minute now, is in the waiting room.
He uh produced, created.
A show but I still think could have been a hit. And he danced with my mom. He's a superstar.
Uh bring him in. Let's see what the hell is this fucking guy's doing now, because it's been a minute since I've seen this. Dude, Look at you, Look at you. No, no, look at you, look at you. This is crazy, dude. I haven't seen you in so long.
It was a little unnerving.
Actually how long how long has it been?
I mean almost twenty years.
I think this fucking nuts. It's a quick trip. I just I don't know. It's scary sometimes.
You know, I got three kids now, and they're all older seventeen and fourteen.
And then it's just like before you even know it, we're just dead, you know what I mean.
Hopefully we have some fun along the way.
We do We do well. How are you? Number one?
I'm great. I have a few kids of my own. We have I guess four kids. Maybe since I've seen you, maybe that possible. Maybe. Yes, we have a nineteen year old, eighteen year old, sixteen year old, and a thirteen year old. And we live in the wine country of Santa Barbara, which is a beautiful place to live and raise kids.
Wow. You lucky, man, I love it.
How is Aaron?
She's great, man, she's great. We have three seventeen, fourteen, eleven, and yeah, things are pushing along very nicely, you know, not without his bumps and a few little bruises, but that's to be expected, you know what I mean.
But the fact that we've maintained for twenty plus years, Yeah, it's pretty good, dude, It's pretty good. You know. I'm still in this business, believe it or not. I'm still an.
Actor, but I'm producing. I have a deal at Fox, so it's been really fun doing that. Doing this has been a blast. And just hustle up money any way I can. You know, I'll sell my.
Soul just it just depends on the price. That's kind of where I'm at, you know, how long have you been doing this podcast? Well? Shit, four years now five.
Yeah, we were kind of when we started there was nine hundred thousand podcasts and we're like, holy fuck, you know, and this is when sort of Dax was blowing up, and of course you've got Rogan and all those guys now. But and we're like, oh, it's it's there's so many people now. Of course there's six plus million podcasts out there, so you know.
It's it's been fun though.
It's been fun to reconnect with my sister and do something together creatively. It's there's been iterations of it, you know what I mean, Like she's been busy as she is nice sort of take over. But I dig it, man, I dig it. I like talking, I like getting to.
Know I think I would enjoy it as well. You have one, don't you?
No, I don't. I've been asked to them. But I found the fact that there were six million already a little daunting, and I thought, well, podcast, but when I like the people who are hosting them, there's something interesting to talk about. I think it's fun and I don't listen to too many. I don't either, by the way, I've been doing this forever. I don't listen to podcasts.
I just don't.
There's a great one called the five Hundred Songs of Rock and Roll, History of Rock in five hundred songs, where this man goes so deep dive on the connective tissue of different songs and musicians play on records and the songs that inspired the song, and the song the songs that were ripped off. Sympathy for the Devil has like a six hour podcast just on it. Wow. But I'll listen to that because I just I tend to know some of the people. And it's great when you're on a hike you can just go for hours.
Yeah, now, I yeah, I know. It's great. It's great to put the to put the earbuds in and just sort of roll, you know, and you can lose yourself in them. For sure.
I just I feel like there's so much more I can do. And by the way, when I when I walk in and when I run, I don't like, I don't like to listen.
I I that's the time for my thoughts. Yeah, for sure, you know, that's the time to sort of plan my next strike.
It's so funny. I was just talking to Mom. I literally just got off the phone with Mom to come on with you, and she's like.
Oh, tell Shoan, I say, hi, Oh my god. We sang together. You know what was that? What did you guys sing?
Was it a variety show your mom hosted? Had a special only Han special And they asked if I'd come on, and we sat at a piano and she sang you below to somebody else, you below to me saying a little like, uh, valid version of the do run run against that? Uh. Mom was and is adorable and I had a crush on her, like everybody in the world, I think, And it was really sweet. It was really and you know what's interesting. I was thinking about this too, passage of time. I was in Hawaii with your mom when she was pregnant with Kate. Oh wow, she and your dad you were already here and you were a little kid, and you when you were born, you had some health challenges.
D yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I had maconium aspiration. Back in the day, they just let you cook in there until you came out. You know, I was in there for three weeks too long, and I basically, you know, ate ship and almost died. I mean Essentially, I took a dump in the boom and couldn't hold it and I inhaled it.
I think you were in Hawaii too, right, kid, But she was very pregnant, and I think this was after we'd already done that special. We had mutual friends when we went a little group, and you know, I knew your dad and your uncles.
We used to play cards together and actual, oh yeah, a lot.
And I think that I think they opened for me in a couple of shows here in the Anything.
Yeah, amazing, No, I know when so my dad, you know, we've talked about this. We had sort of a tumultuous relationship and talked about the early Time show. But we've reconnected again, which has been actually really nice.
Good.
But that dude likes to gamble. I mean he still goes and plays poker like five times a week in Ventura, you know. And it's funny because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, when I was I don't play cards much anymore, but I got hooked on poker.
I was addicted to I loved it so so much. I had a poker in my old house.
I play a commerce, I played hustler, I played in WBT events, I played in World series of Poker events where I I busted on the first hand on TV on ESPN. That's a whole other story. And then when I reconnected with my dad and it was just really interesting to apple, Yeah, look at a man who I didn't really know that well and reconnect with someone who is so similar to me in so many ways, not just poker, but kind of his philosophies of life, the way that he operates.
Just it also sound.
And look like yeah, I know, I know, and then just the tone of who he is. And when we drank a few, we drank a bunch of beers and like we're getting teary eyed because it was just really unreal, you know, to see someone in front of you who's your father, who you were, and who you emulate and didn't realize it. And for him to see his younger self essentially in me.
It was a really uh it was a moment. It was a moment, you know.
But anyway, all this to say that he still plays poker. We used to go to Seaside, Oregon and him and his brothers would play Liar's Poker. They'd have ones out everywhere and play Liar's.
Poker with the serial Numbers.
They grew up in Portland, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember them going to a story here and there too. We may have played Portland together.
Yeah.
I don't know how I met them. Again, I think all of my friends were older than me when I was like fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, Everyone was like in their twenties. Yeah, but we hung out a lot back then.
Yeah.
Bernie Topplin is a real good pal of mine, and Bernie produced an album for them. Yeah, And I'd know I met Bernie when I was ten because my parents went to see Elton John at the troupid Or and brought Elton and Bernie back to the house. And wow, miraculously we ended up being friends later on and stayed friends and are still very good friends. But I remember he produced the Hudson Brothers.
How old were you and Elton and Bernie came to your house?
Ten?
Do you remember that? Oh? Yeah, very well? Because I had bought your song the forty five. I thought it was weird.
Why are my parents a going to the Troupadour which seemed like a young people place and they worked, but they seemed one hundred to me?
Why are they going to see Elton John. How do they know Elton John?
Because Elton John was a brand new thing and the was a very big deal for Elton John. It kind of broke him in America.
Wow.
And he was like twenty three and Bernie was like twenty or twenty one. And apparently my father and my mother invited them back to the house, and I think Bernie wanted to meet my mom, and I'm pretty sure Elton wanted to meet my brother David, who wasn't They ended up playing around the piano, sitting around the piano playing tunes and Bernie talked to me, what are you doing? I'm music and maybe I'll play music someday. Well, good luck Son, it was and somehow we reconnected years later, and when I did the show The Hardy Boys, Bernie actually a guest star on it because they called and said, do you know any famous people? I said, well, I know Bernie Topping, Yeah, and they said, okay, he can come on the show. So wow, I don't know we got on that, but Hudson Brothers, Burnie, Yeah.
Connection then, well, I'm sure you know.
Growing up the way that you grew up in the spotlight and your family and all that I'm sure you have some amazing, you know stories as far as yeah, you're.
Actually anything about that, OLLI, it's a whole other world when you grew up in a show business fanily No.
But but here's the difference. You know, you you were in a time where where legends were being made. You know what I'm saying, Like nowadays.
Legends there's still like every decade, Nah, did.
You're with Elton John at ten years old? Him playing the piano in your house? I mean, you know what's the equivalent. It's like, it's like Kendrick Lamar at my house with my kids. Well, to put put this into some this for everyone listening. So I met a million years ago. I had I had an acting deal at the WB at the time, and there was a show called The Mountain which still to this day. And I said this in the intro. I don't know why this thing didn't keep going because it was so fucking great.
So great, the cash was great.
Ah, everything was great.
Really good. And Stephanie Salvat, who I worked on the who did the OC with Josh Schwartz.
And I still watch it. I'll still watch clips and stuff. I'm like, man, it was so good.
The music was a ten, you know, I remember I discovered ray La Montaigne essentially, it was it was amazing.
The music was amazing.
Well, one extraordinary thing happened because they we had a great music supervisor and Warner Brothers was feeding us new artists like Blink one new artists time. But there was this other artist, this band called Green Day, which had some success and then kind of faded and had this new record coming out called American Idiot, and they asked us if we would sort of break the record on the show to help give it some juice because they were, you know, been in a while for Green Day whatever. Anyway, so we're playing all these songs from American Idiot in the show and it becomes their biggest record ever. Yeah, and that was exciting, and you guys were great. It was really fun.
The whole thing was fun. I still haven't seen anything like it, you know.
I mean, it was that WB tone that had that soap element, but everyone was so grounded and real that it didn't feel.
Over the top. And it was such a great story sort of you know, semi based on some kind of reality with Dave, you know, who is.
The family that founded Mammoth Mountain.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I was just there two weekends ago in Mammoth and I hadn't been there since I was a kid, and it was really fun to sort of see all the history there, knowing.
That this is what was you know, you know, by the.
Way, David, my character Dave Carver, was named after the guy who founded Mammoth, you know who was.
And there's a there's.
Actually a a place on like Lift fourteen or whatever. It's called Boundary, which I think ours was called Boundary Mountain, but there was like a yeah, but there was a there was a you know, like a drink spot or a food spot called like.
The Boundary or something like that. You know. It was just really really cool to see.
But anyway, yeah, I mean it was ski slopes, it was sexy, it was fun.
It was sort of the haves and the have not. It was that battle. I mean, it all it's all you wanted. Yeah, you know, mc gee did produce directed at the Pilot. Let me ask you a question, what happened? Well, why didn't we get picked up? It would just not get good numbers. I mean, well it was the dying days of the WB.
I had something to do with it. They were having, I think a problem just generally getting people to watch the WB Yeah. I never know what these things. There's so many things nothing to do with the quality of a show. I mean, I've been really fortunate. I've gotten a lot of shows on the air. I haven't had too many shows that ran a long time. But you know, I sort of gauged success by the experience, not the result, and I considered them mounting a great success because I had a fantastic experience.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Why things run and why they don't. I just came off a show that ran five years called New Amsterdam, really a great show, And the irony is it was on NBC five years. I live in a relatively small town the central coast of California, and people through the years would say, hey, what are you working on. I'm working on the show New Amsterdam. They'd been good for you, clearly had not seen it. Show was canceled. Netflix picks it up. It becomes the number one show in the world. Suddenly, Hey, everybody, that New Amsterdam.
That's a heck give a show. Are you creating?
Are you constantly creating and writing and developing?
Are you where you at.
To make something every day, I don't know. I get up and make stuff. I have to deal at Universal, which I've had for a long time, and I have three different.
Pilots in various stages of development right.
Now, one of which writing, two of which I'm overseeing, and one or all or none may see the light of day. But that's business, and I've been I started performing again. I hadn't. I hadn't performed asconcert was in nineteen eighty at the Astrodome in Houston. I said good night and like mu zoom, and then didn't do another show until like twenty twenty. But I decided, weirdly terrible timing in the middle of the pandemic to go out and like tell stories and sing some songs that people of a certain name I know, and it kind of caught fire. It did really well. So I'm going to keep trying to do that as a little side hustle because it's fun, fun, fun.
Yeah. So where did you actually grow up? Where were you born and raised?
I was born in LA at Saint John's Hospital, Santa Monica.
Wow. I grew up.
In LA and New York. My mom was a movie actor and whenever she was in a movie, I'd be in LA or wherever the movie was shooting. And my father was primarily a Broadway actor musicals. If he was in a hit show in New York, we moved to New York. So back and forth, and I've lived.
In both places as an adult.
And about twelve, no more, fourteen years ago, with four kids under seven, we moved out of LA because I wanted to give them more time with a childhood.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I'm grateful we did.
Yeah, yeah, I did. I did you know similar I I had a similar experience. We were in Colorado for half the year when I was growing up.
You grew up too, right, Yeah, that where Golden and Kurt lived. Yeah, so we were there about half the year, you know, for a while. Then my grandmother got sick and we had to sort of spend the rest of the time in LA. My parents say that if Grandma never got sick, we might have even moved there. But I sort of followed suit. You know, when I had my kids, I took them out of school for two years. We're getting out of LA. We're going to put you in the public school system in Basalt, and we are going to live in the mountains and it was amazing. I'm really really amazing and so beneficial for them. You can see it now, you know, just the way they think, how they operate, how they love nature.
We have the same experience, and I you know, we lived in a pretty fast area when we left, and and the kids who grew up in the area we left, we see them now and they're like, I mean, wait, our kids are like rubes I love. I mean, they've been around the world a bit with us, but their home is here and they're grounded and they're they're amazingly neurosis free.
Yeah, yeah, so amazing. Nice work. Yeah, And how many siblings did you have? Total?
My older brother David, half brother, my father, my mom's and I'm the oldest from Shirley Jones. And two younger brothers, Patrick, who was also an actor and runs a theater now and outside of Nashville, and youngest brother, Ryan, is a set decorator.
Does everyone was everyone in the business? Every single one?
Yeah? Pretty much? Not my kids, No, not yet. I had three older ones. I mean they're behind the scenes a bit, but no, we'll see.
But you didn't know anything else, right, I mean I'm relating this to myself, like, you know, we didn't know anything else, and now that Kate has kids, I have kids. Why it has kids? Like, there's a lot of grandkids in slash cousins. They all want to be in the business because it's all that they know. I mean, essentially, was that kind of how it worked for you growing up?
Yeah? I thought about this a lot on reflection. I mean, it's funny, you know people the nepo baby thing, people talking about it. I have no issue with that because I know a lot of nepo babies and other business. You know, Dad owned the hardware store. You learned about hardware, and you took over the hardware store. Mom owned the vet clinic, and now you're the veterinarian running. I think it's great schooling if that's what you are passionate about. And like you, in our case, we grew up that's all we saw. Well, we kind of knew how to do it by osmosis. But I don't really think if had I grown up in a family that wasn't in the business, I ever would have become an actor. And I just sort of like I was kind of eighteen years old. Cute kid could walk and talk at the same time. So I ended up on a television show. But I'm doing the television show. I'm like the writer's room. That's where the magic hap. I was like on to that. It was like, Oh, that's what I need to be doing. And I don't really love the life of being a public figure. I liked sitting alone in a room thinking and making the stuff up. I was the most reluctant famous person, and some of the choices I made reflect that, because I was offered all kinds of things that probably would have been great if you wanted a big I didn't. I just want the minute I became famous, it was like, Okay, I'm not going to be known as his son or her son or his brother or whatever. I'm going to be known as me now, and now I'm going to go hide in my room for like ten years about what I really.
Want to do.
That's what I did, and I love writing, I love producing, and only again in recent years I've been like, I guess I can go on the stage again and you know, jokes and sing and now I really enjoy it. But I don't have the burning, you know, the hole that so many performers have love me, But what was.
It like growing up in that kind of a spotlight because it wasn't dissimilar obviously to what I went through, your mom and your dad and all of that, you know.
I mean, it's always double edged.
It's a fun, you know, energetic, big lifestyle, but at the same time, you know, for me, you know, there is some desire to not have your parents be known and personally for me, I didn't like when when when people would come up to my mom when I was a kid, you know, we're having dinner and they'd come up, and it would like bother me, you know, because.
She's my mom and you know, this is when I was little, you know.
But your mom, who I watched have that experience more than once, was always very gracious. She's very really gracious and a lovely, lovely lady and very unshow busy. Like my mom is like one of the most grounded people you'll ever meet. And she taught me by example how you treat people in public. And she always talked about, you know what, really this was just our job. In fact, my parents used to say, we're just here in LA for the movie or the TV show. Don't worry we're going to be living on a farm in Pennsylvania, because they were both these coast people. My dad was from New York, she was in Pennsylvania, and they were like always talking about we're going to go back, We're going to live in the country.
Dad wants to be wrighter.
So that never happened, but somehow that message like went into me and I am basically living the life my parents talked about mattering but weren't able to actually get to themselves. And I've thought about that, but I've also thought about what you were saying. And in terms of like if people feel they own your parents, yeah, often at your expense. It can be hard. And I recently did this, oh actually sidebar about wine because somebody gave me a bottle of your oh gogy ye maybe. Well, there's one called Goldie. It's a chardonnay and the Kurt makes.
All the wine and Senrita Hills and it's a it's a pino and it's.
Really it's fucking good man. There's like ten vintages, twelve vintages of them.
We make one too here I'll tell you about in a second.
But yeah, uh.
Oh, in terms of like feeling that like ownership of your parent. I was. I was doing this event for Turner Classic Movies, and they were talking to me about my career and my mom and my dad, and I introduced a movie she'd made called The Courtship of Vetti's Father that she did with ron Howard, and she worked with Ronnie twice. I'm the music man and this, and I was on the set of both of these when I'm like four years old, and I remember being jealous of Ronnie Howard because he was playing her son, and everybody's thought was her son because of the movies, and I'd forgotten I actually felt that way. I only seen the movie there, I go, oh, because I've seen ron.
Over the years since.
Yeah, but it's an interesting, weird looked feeling pride parent. Isn't my mother beautiful? That people really love her? Isn't that awesome? But I wish we just had this time ourselves.
Yeah? Yeah, no, for real.
I mean I can completely relate to that, you know. And then as you get older, as I got older, there's so much pride in the icon that is my mother, you know, whereas before it was maybe a rejection because of an underdeveloped brain. Divorce and needing all of her attention, you know, maybe from an unhealthy place too, then growing up dealing with my own shit and understanding and being so prideful of how of what an icon she is and what she has done, you know, for her industry as a woman, you know, and even beyond that, you know, mental health and children. So you know, it's it's funny how you go from one place and then sort of end up, you know, end up.
We are where I am right now.
You know, my mom's a great example of it's not about the success you achieve, it's what you do with it. Yeah, and Kurt is a pretty inspiring guy too. I think only met him once. But I I worked at Disney for a long time. I had an office, actually I Walt Disney's office, believe it or not, for like four years. Wow, just dumb luck. Yeah, I ended up in there and I used to give tours. This is where Walt gave notes on Pinocchio and in the matter. Kurt Russell's picture was all over the place at Disney. And when I was a little kid, he was the Disney guy. And the fact that he you know, transformed himself and went way beyond that as an actor.
Pretty impressive. Oh yeah, oh god, yeah. And he's having a major resurgence right now. It's just right working his ass off. What was it dynamic? Like sibling dynamic growing up? You know, as you guys were getting older. I mean, was it fun? Did you have fun? Was there fighting?
I mean especially just you're on the road, you know, I mean your move and you're shaking, Like how did that all pan out?
It changed? I mean our father died when I was eighteen, Patrick was fourteen, Ryan was ten, and my brother who were my older brother David, were estranged, which was rough, but in a strange way, his loss bonded us. I literally remember the day he died, the four of us hugging and crying and sort of forging this like he will live in us. It wasn't said, but that was the feeling, and it's been an actual experience. We are now all well, David has passed, but Patrick, Bryan and I are all older than my dad was when he died. We see each other and see our father, you know, like the experience you had with your dad.
You may see it in your uncles too. I don't know, but it really validates this notion that life is continuous.
It just sort of travels through these cars we drive called our bodies, you know. But he's here, David here, and my brothers. Yes, we thought Patrick and I were the closest in age. I was the oldest brother in the house. And Patrick was an athlete and tall and very like hot headed. And I would torture him mentally, statistically often, which he reminds me of to this day. And Ryan was often on the sidelines trying to find a way in.
Was there a lot of competition between the kids, you know what I mean between the brothers.
Yeah, but we all kind of again had different lanes. Yeah, So, I mean I couldn't throw football like Patrick. Patrick was the quarterback at Beverly Hills High School. You know, I was in satin pants shaking my ass at some club. So and Ryan was very internal and thoughtful and artistic. And he's kind of the historian in our family now. He has every memento related to my father and my parents and their careers and our lives. And David, you know, he was an only child who my father had left, which was sort of the core wound for him. Always trying to get his approval. And my father was a tough guy, and my father never.
They never reconciled that huh, back.
And forth, you know. But my dad, as you know, inspiring in many ways as he was, he was not a good father. He was not conscious father. There was no going to the little league game or showing up at the open house.
It wasn't on Broadway, okay, right? That was his priority. His priority was his work, right.
Yeah, I mean he was. He was a narcissist his priority, right. But I got a lot of great stuff from him.
No doubt, no doubt about that, you know what I mean? And you know he was he was.
Physically around, it seems, but just not there, right, not even that physics, not even that right, Okay, No, he was like a guest star in the house. He'd show right. And is that just because he was working so much? I mean is that really what it was?
Often in New York?
Yeah?
But did he ever did your mom? Was it ever like, you know, hey, like your kids needs you? I mean, was there ever any chatter of that or was it just.
Like this is just what the fuck it is?
Yeah? Probably? But my mother, I mean, my mother was working a lot too. Yeah, you know, honestly, I was kind of running the house. You were, Yeah, there'd be like housekeeper around maybe and me yeah and uh and then David when David would show up, and David would come like on weekends when he was younger, and we looked together for a year when he was eighteen and I was ten in New York and David ended up in a Broadway show. It was his first job, and that was really fun. But as we got to know each other later, as we got, you know, closer in age, and I'm in my twenties season his late twenties, and I also now had this very similar experience because David was a big pop star and eaty star off the Partridge Family, and then I had a very similar experience to his, like seven eight years later.
There are very few people that have had that experience.
So to be able to talk to him about it, like, you know, yeah, it was helpful for both of us.
I think, how did that happen for you?
You know?
I mean, because the way you talk right now is like, yes, you didn't like the fame part your soul sort of wants to find a dark room and creates stories. But how did this all come about is did you want to be a performer or.
Was this just something like fuck everyone's I knew, I said earlier, I knew how to right. It was a way I wanted out of my house. Here's true story.
I'll I signed a record contract when I was sixteen while I'm in high school with Warner Brothers, and their idea to break records for me was to record like individual singles, put them out in various markets in Europe, Australia, see if you can get a hit record. If you get a hit record somewhere, then you can bring it back to America, put it in front of the DJ and it'll loop out of the pile of one hundred that he's been given that week, you know. And I ended up having like a number one record in Australia, at a number one record in Germany. And I'm then going back to high school in algebra, which was like and then I graduated from high school. I haven't seen any money, really, and do I go to college. Our family's manager, who was like my aunt, basically said why don't you go on some acting auditions, you know, see if you can walk and talk at the same time. Job. So I literally went into it like that, and my second audition was The Hardy Boys, and I got the part, and Warner Brothers then quickly hustled to put together the rest of these records. So the show comes on, my album comes out. It's the biggest selling solo debut in history until Whitney Houston.
A few years later.
Wow, a big record nominated for to Me. I opened the words, I'm like Beyonce and the show's a big hit and it's happened, and all I want to do is go back to my room.
Wait a minute, wait, So when this is all going down and you're doing.
This is going down while you're one years old running around on the beach in Honolulu with Kate, but are you.
Just like, oh my god, wait a minute, Like I don't really want to be doing this, but they're pushing me.
To do it. Me. It just scared me.
It was like too much.
But you had no choice, right, I mean you did have a boy.
Yeah, I could have joined the army.
You could have said like I don't want to do this, I don't want to do it, but but you did.
But I wasn't like I don't want to do this. I just didn't have a drive to do it. I just sort of okay, I'll try that seems like an interesting experience. I love to sing.
Yeah, I could sing. Yeah. I wasn't a very good actor when I started. I got better, but I.
Mean I wasn't like on some train to be an actor. And the concerts were amazing, I mean Madison Square Garden. Then yeah, Astrodome, fifty five thousand people. It was crazy. But like, by the time I was twenty one, I got married partially to escape, like I want a family, bought a house, did a whole thing, and kind of stayed home for the eighties and read books. And you know, all my friends had gone to college. I hadn't, so I felt like I better try and catch up. So I ended up reading way more than they did because they were at keg parties or whatever they were. And then at like twenty nine, I sold my first script and off I went, and I've been doing this consistently since then.
So wait a minute.
You probably had an opportunity, obviously, to continue their career that you that sort of fell on your lap, right, and to sort of parlay that into big, big things, and you made the choice to say, you know, what I did the touring, I played msg hardy boys, like Okay, I'm done with.
This, yes, But also I was really fortunate my first script I wrote it was a show called American Gothic, which I the last acting I did was a Broadway show called Blood Brothers with David We did it for like over a year and a half on Broadway, and in the day I'd already had it gotten a little office at Universal, where I still am, weirdly, and I wrote the script called American Gothic that became a series. Sam Raimi produced it with me, and Wow starred Gary Cole. Sarah Paulson's first job had a great cast and became like the darling of the nineteen ninety four TV season Beautiful in the New York Times. So suddenly I'm like a new kid, and people the show was very dark, and my image had been very light, you know, buenex Door, so that people couldn't quite get their head around how those two things went together. And I was off and running now and I've been doing the job happily and relatively successfully for thirty years since then. But had that not happened when they called me to play Vegas? When I'm thirty five, I would have been in Vegas playing yeah you got to old, Yeah, Yeah, yeah family. Yeah. But you know, I didn't want to be justin Timberlake. I didn't want to like take the teen idol thing and transition to be serious artists. Now. I just didn't want to.
Yeah. I loved what I was doing.
I still do. Yeah at this stage in my life, to be able to go out and tell stories, which is primarily I mean, I sing songs and there's music. But when people ask me, why would you go out at this stage in your life if you never did it all those other years, said because all those are the years I thought i'd have to, with all respect to Mick Jagger, putting on the same outfit and shaking the way. You know, I couldn't get my head around how do I do anything else? But I realized, oh, storyteller thirty years.
I can tell.
Stories that people might find interesting or funny or emotional or whatever, and sing songs, but present the songs in a context that is fresh, so you don't feel like I'm just doing some old these tour.
That's cool, that's cool. As it set up, like, are you already doing dates? I mean, is this something I did it for four years and stopped last year. I did it during the pandemic, which was yeah, yeah, yeah, just out of the blue, they called me in Mark and Philly in Boston to do shows around the holidays on.
Yeah.
So I'm thinking that maybe at the end of next.
Year I'll go out with a real tour again. How does that feel? Man? Because as a writer, you know that you.
Don't get that those performing nerves, know, even as an actor doing like shows that we do, right, I mean, it's like you know, your rolling camera and like like here we go. I mean, have you felt that? And you know, I know you've been doing it for the last four years, but what is it like to get on stage again and feel that sort of rush better?
It's way better.
Well again, when you're playing like a basketball arena, Yeah, everybody's screaming, you can't really engage. You're just feeling this energy, which is amazing. But now I can look people in the eye and actually have interaction, talk about things that kind are funny or meaningful or you know, hopefully interesting, and have a shared experience the other You know, I'm stupid because I'm I thought, well, I'm the only one who's changed. It's like, no, no, the whole audience has changed. They've a lot, we've gotten married with the wars or head kids. So they bring something to the party too, you know. And it's actually beautiful. It's really it's really fun.
You should call my dad because the Hudson Brothers are going back out on tour. They are Yeah that Oh my god, I'm fuck dude, Like I mean, a.
Billion years ago, I mean, they are always in some sort of tumultuous situation where they're not talking to each other. Now they're friends, and now this one's talking to this Now I'm not talking. It's the brother thing, you know, and then and then, but now you know, they're together. They got the band back together, and they're they got dates there going on the road.
You guys should reunite, you know, open, free, open for each other. That's awesome. That's fun, man, that's good for you too.
I've seen some videos.
Oh yeah, yeah, big voice, Oh it's big. Yes, this is It's been so great for her her.
You know, she's accomplished, you know, so much as an actor and a businesswoman, and singing is always something that she loved to do but was afraid to do. And Kate's not really afraid of much, but she faced those fears. She said, fuck it, let's go.
You know. I think she financed some of it herself. I could be wrong about that, I don't know, but she just put her money where her mouth was literally and just crushed it. I mean, she is. Her album is great, you know. Her voice is big and real and gritty, and we've seen her multiple times and it's just been really fun for her and for us to sort of watch her fulfill.
Do you have any musical anything. Do you play any instruments or.
Don't play any instruments? My biggest regret, honestly is I wish I played instruments. Yeah, I make the joke like I don't know. Dad left when I was a kid, but you know, really what I.
Hate him for is he just didn't teach me the guitar, you know, I mean, and that's the bummer.
I love music. I love to sing. I can sing, you.
Know, but no, I mean I don't. I don't have any sort of real aspirations, you know.
But kids.
Rio, my daughter is like a performer through and through and through. I mean, it's nuts.
She's just she's eleven and she loves to sing, and she takes you know, hours of dance class every week.
And she does plays. I mean, she's just I don't know, I don't know where she came from. Dude.
She's like sets her alarm at six twenty in the morning, she's dressed, she's ready, she makes her own lunch. You know, we're still in bed, and Rio's like ready to roll, ready to go. I mean, she's extremely self sufficient. Her executive functioning is better than mine. She's she's amazing.
All my kids are great. They all want to be actors.
Wilder, my oldest just finished his first acting class, which is an adult acting class, which was good.
I want him to be with adults. He loved it.
Body my middle kid, when he's now fourteen, When he was ten, he actually did a pilot that I did sitcom and he auditioned for it. I thought it was just going to be a guest spot, but apparently it was a regular. So he tested for the network, tested for the studio, and got the gig. And so everyone's sort of dabbling into it, you know what I mean, They're all they're all on that on the path.
Anyway, maybe I'll see them in my travels. Maybe I'll have a show they come in for. That'll be fun.
Oh my gosh, well we need to how about us, like, let's fucking do something to do? Are you in La now? I'm in La. I live in La.
I live in Brentwood, And yeah, you got your Universal deal? What is your deal at Universal? Is it like a first look or an exclusive deal?
No, it's an overall. I've got an overall a long time.
So you got to go there first though, before anything.
No, I mean NBC Universal you basically, Yeah, there are NBC's the mother Ships. So you pitched that, pitched a peacock. Yeah, they don't want it, and they don't want everything. Yeah, you go everywhere.
Yeah.
So yeah, I've had this deal at Fox now for a couple of years. We're in our second year and it's been so fun. It is like sort of reinvigorated my creativity, you know, as you know, as an actor, you're only as creative as the script that you're given and the material, and then you're waiting and auditioning for that gig.
Where this is you're controlling your own destiny.
And you know, we've sold a bunch of shows we're in development, and a bunch of comedies and dramas, and it's just so much fun.
I love it, really do. Well.
You just said it. One of the reasons I didn't love acting is you have to wait for somebody to call you. And yeah, it's like magician, I can make my own work.
I can work for other people.
Yeah.
How much does your experience growing up sort of factor into you as a parent?
And you this is your second time around, right, you have other kids? Third?
Okay, so how have you seen how have you at least upon reflection, if you ever have.
Evolved as a dad? I'm old. Did you do it differently when you were young? Yes?
It wasn't good. I mean you weren't good. No, I was twenty one.
You were twenty one when you and your first kid.
I was nineteen when I met my first wife. She had an eight year old. So there's a human being out there who's eleven years younger than me.
I called the dad who I raised.
And we had two kids by the time I was twenty five, and so I have like real grown up Yeah. And I got married from second time, like fifteen years later, and that marriage didn't last very long, but a beautiful daughter who's twenty five now. And then I met Tracy, my wife or life. I've been married to over twenty years and we have a great marriage. But we have four more kids. So I got a lot of kids and Thanksgiving lot of people and hey, they bring people. Yeah yeah, but how am I better? Uh? More patient, more understanding, less fearful. I've watched the arc of how they change. You know, when my my girls stopped talking to me at fourteen, that's normal. They come back to me at sixteen and then I'm wonderful again, and so I am lest I think by that stuff.
Yeah, but you're gonna take it as personally right, No, I dude, I know what you mean. I you know my seventeen year old, fourteen year old, you know, they go through these things.
I'm like, what the fuck happened to you?
Like you two years ago you were not getting out of my bed and you were saying, dad, can you please cuddle?
And now it's over. I'm non existent. But you can't take that personally. They'll be back. Yeah, yeah, you just can't.
I talk to my twenty five year old daughter almost every day. We're really close and our son, our oldest son, not my oldest son, but our oldest son, went to college last year as a baseball player. Six five is a big guy and a really really good athlete, and I'm just loving the experience of seeing him become a man, yeah, and sharing it with his mom, which in experience I never had. And I never had an adult relationship with my father because he passed.
Away so young.
So my son, my oldest son, is going to be forty this year, was one of my closest friends. And it's an amazing relationship because in his case, I'm a very young dad.
Most of us don't have a dad as young as I am.
In my thirteen year old daughter's case, I'm the old dad.
So yeah, wow, you you run a really I mean, there's probably not a lot like you out there.
As far as.
Your friend Euselli, I'm a romantic.
And no, no, no, I get it. I get it. I get it. Wow. That's really really cool. And your relationships have just sort of flourished with all your kids, like you've maintained that connection that love. It's pretty awesome.
Christmas and Thanksgiving it really fun.
You ever thought about writing something? I mean, it's so different.
Well I do.
I think I just disguised a great family story in there.
Writing a feature right now, a little side thing about a guy who's been married three times with kids from three different ones.
And yeah, most of them are adults.
All of them movie, I think are adults.
Yeah, yeah, I think that's it's such a great deep there's so much to explore in all those relationships. I mean, it's pretty cool.
It's so fast though, that's the thing. It's like, it's just I know people say when you're a little kid, you know, yeah, but.
It's just it's a rocket ship. Look at you.
No, I'm experiencing that right now, man, Like you know all the things that our parents told us, well, hey, you know, take advantage of this or don't forget this or remember this time. And I mean, now as you get older, that's that shit is true. I said it to my kids and they're like, oh, I'm like, don't I know what you're gonna do, But trust me because I can't even believe it. My kid's going to go to college and that was my little butter ball when he's out of his room. I'm an emotional human, like I'm going to be devastated.
Oh buddy, it's toy story four.
You'll walk around the house and you'll see his little stuff.
Can and it's it's like a death.
They don't tell you that either when you're to college. Yeah, just like it's really an adjustment. And we have another one about to go this year. Then they'll just be the two girls here years though, you know, empty nest.
Oh gosh, no, I no, no, you're right.
It is like a death because you know, when I put myself, you know, just project myself into that moment and you walk by his room and all the stuff is still there, but he's just not there anymore.
It's still like, oh, oh my god, Wilder. Even though it wasn't chatty Kathy all the time, I was like, he was just there and it felt good, you know, and now it's gone. It's crazy. It's crazy, dude.
But it does make you realize, you know, having kids, for me, really put into perspective how much my parents love me. And instead of taking that for granted, once I had kids, I'm able to sort of appreciate it more. You know, when they look at you, Mom looks at you, and it's look, I just love you so much. They get emotional watching you do something and.
You're like, what is going on? Like what? Yeah, now I understand that fully, you know. I'm sure mom's looking at me like I cannot believe you're forty eight years old. I mean, I'm sure she's also bursting with pride.
Yes, well, dude, this has been fun, Sean. Thank you for coming on, buddy, and it's been great to reconnect, honestly.
Like it's the reason I did it.
I see you. I was very excited to see you talk. Dude.
You look amazing by the way you look like. I think you've gotten younger. You look fucking great.
Maybe I'm less stressed than I was.
Yeah, No, it's true. You look great. You look great for you. Yeah, and then maybe we can I don't know, hopefully when you reconnect, maybe in the new year.
But we can take a little drive up to the wine country. I love it wine by the way. Oh my wife will kill me if I don't mention it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got my first crush.
Yeah, my crush dot com. We make a war. Two rows, Santa.
Rina Hills Grapes, Yep, Sam's cart backyard.
So come on up, we'll share some more.
My first crush. Let's do it. Buy it? Yeah, I want to drink that. Let's do it. I would love to all your family from you too. Brother. It's great talking to you man.
All right, Buddy shodcast man, it's been a minute.
He looks great.
That was really really fun, really really fun to talk to him. We had a blast doing that show. He is, you know, a very talented writer.
You know. It just seems, honestly right.
Now, just very content and I I'm happy for him and his family and what a guy.
All Right, I'm out of here. Piece
