Take 92 - Actor, producer, showrunner Jim Piddock, Tooth Fairy, Mascots

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

For every success, there is months, sometimes even years, of painful failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_03 0:31

That's the norm. You have to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business, your hands get out, and it all bounces off you.

SPEAKER_04 0:40

That process takes that doesn't happen overnight. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose, and I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation. The Emmy Emmy Award.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

It sounds awful when you say it. Let somebody with a more charming accent do this bit. Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app for anyone that reads scripts, makes notes, organise them into layers, and save hours of time by automatically transferring those notes into new script revisions. Sitha listeners can get a free month of Scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sither. Now that's how you do it, Noah. And he is on set on his show, NTIS Hawaii, but they had a rainstorm and production has been delayed, so he is unable to join us. So it is just two English people tonight. So the standard of discussion will be much higher than usual with better grammar and more politeness. So I am delighted to have on the show an old friend of mine, um, actor, writer, producer, showrunner, the incredible Jim Piddock, whose credits are far too numerous to list all of them, but he's well known for his acting in Best in Show, but he's obviously popped up in Lost and Friends and Independence Day, the first one. He wrote, and we're going to talk about this, and produced The Tooth Fairy. And my favourite is writing, producing, directing, being in a costume in the fantastic Netflix show Mascots. Welcome to the show, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Thank you. Unlike your uh partner, I am expectedly available.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So you have oh, when I was looking at IMDB, as one should do before they interview somebody in your business, your cr your number of credits is is remarkable. You're very prodigious. I think you've got about 150 credits. Yeah. When you look at that body of work, to be in 150 things, and obviously some of it is uh you know one or two lines, and some of it's computer games, and then obviously some of it is you know showrunning, but to have been in that many, presumably you must have been rejected by three or four hundred.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

Oh, I'd say three or four thousand. I mean, I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Over the course of my four plus decades career, uh, you know, most actors go through more rejections in a in a week than most people do in a lifetime. Um and certainly in my younger days when I was auditioning a lot, um, yeah, God, I would I would be rejected. Uh it was, you know, like having lunch. It would just be, I was just so used to it. Um, it never gets it. Well, it doesn't really get that much easier.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So obviously now, I mean we were out the other day and you were discussing that I think somebody offered you something and you said you didn't want to do it because you were going on holiday that week, which obviously is something you can do nowadays, but you couldn't have done at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

No, no, it wasn't that long ago that I would cancel the holiday, cancel my family, cancel uh life uh itself, and then um and then do the job. No, nowadays it's it's yeah, uh I mean if I could have worked it out, I would have, but um uh it was it was too complicated, so I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

But when you were starting out, when you were getting rejected, especially when you were trying to break in, what did you did you take it British stiff up a little? Did you take it well or you get would you get angry?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

When I first started out in weekly rep in England, which is extraordinary, um an old actor said to me, just you know, if you want to last in this profession, just you've got to learn one thing. I said, What's that? And he said, You cannot take rejection personally. He's right, 100% right. And I would give the same advice to a young actor today. That said, I still to this day take rejection personally. Um, you know, I I'm used to it now, and so I don't take it, it doesn't destroy my life, but um, you know, I'll go on a sweary rant if I feel and and actually there are times now when I go, I wouldn't have had me for that, so well done. And um, there are times when I come out of uh I've done a self-tape or an audition um where I felt I really did myself credit, and I doesn't matter whether I get the job or not. And I and I think that that's um I think that's really important to have that. I think Michael Keaton did say this on a on an interview that when he was regularly auditioning, um it he looked at it as the job. He said, I've got the job, I'm just going in to do the job, and I come away and it so I've done it once I've completed and I if I've done a good audition that that I've done the job well. And he said, of course, that doesn't always soften the blow if you don't get it and don't hear anymore, but it helps you get into a mindset where it's the means, not the end, that's important.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

So obviously you are not just an actor, you're you know, obviously you write and you produce things as well. Which type of rejection does it hurt more when they reject your ideas and your words as opposed to your look and your voice?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I think that's a good question, actually. I think it does. And I I I um it it's it's because it's more you, you know. Uh it's easy to go, you know, I've been on the other side of the casting table, so I know when someone's not right. And and it, by the way, oftentimes you can get the best actor doesn't get the role. It's not about being the best actor, it's being the most right for that role. And so that often is is is is in a discord with who's the best actor, if you can compare actors as good, bad, and indifferent. So I I can understand that, you know, there's loads of things I get. I I turned down a ton of stuff now in terms of I don't do much self-taping or auditioning, but if I'm asked to, I'll often just look at it and go, I would never cast me in this. I do one today, someone said. They wanted me to play uh this ABC reporter from the 1950s, who I look absolutely nothing like. I'm 16 years older, and and they wanted to look alike and and to play it. So it's based on real story. And and I just went to them, I listen, I I know I'm globally recognized them as the most versatile actor of my generation, of any generation, but I do have my limits. Um, so I uh so I'm gonna pass on this, but thank you. Um so so I think writing, yeah, because that's more I've almost inevitably come up with the idea myself and the whole thing and spent a lot of time. That's usually three months, two or three months work at least. Whereas an audition, it's maybe you know a day's work at the most that you put into it, if that. So, yeah, I definitely, and I mean, the worst rejection of all, I would say, was when I um had which you read my memoir, but that was like really a rejection of you if they didn't want that, you know. That's like, oh, okay, that's really me, because that's my life story, sort of. So um, I think it is, it's worse as a as a writer.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

So when we started this, obviously we're on video, although we only use the audio for the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Such a shame because I look great.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

You do look great. I mean, you could play an ABC reporter from the from the 1950s. Um I noticed that behind your head there was a you know a frame document with a crest, so I assumed it was some kind of British university document. Um, and expect I expected it just to be your, you know, I'm very proud of yourself. Here's your certificate of passing. But you and I love this, and it's perfect for this podcast. Um, you don't have to read the whole thing out, but one of the framed ones is them basically threatening to throw you out of university.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Yeah, yeah. So I got two of those letters each summer, because in England, in England, it's a three-year course, so you have two summers between each of the first and second year, and then the third year you're finished. So yeah, and and this one just said, you know, we're we're alarmed by your lack of uh productivity. I did nothing basically, that's why they said that. And uh your casual attitude, so we're not gonna let you in next year unless you take some past something. I don't know. I think I had to write an essay or something over the summer. Um, and and it was just basically saying you're a useless piece of crap, which I was. I did nothing at university except act and play uh play football. So they were quite right to send it. But um it it uh I did have the last laugh because beside it is is my degree, which they confidently predicted I wouldn't get because I I'd actually not prepared enough papers by the time it came to the degree, and I had to do a crash course in the last few weeks uh in American literature to to qualify. But I ended up getting a very decent degree, so I I sort of feel like yeah, it was motivating and it because it makes you go, I'm just gonna prove you wrong. Although, to be perfectly honest with you, I thought that they were right, but I didn't expect to pass that. I didn't expect to pass that exam. So uh I don't know what happened. I think I got my papers mixed up with somebody else's.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Fantastic. So let's talk about uh the rock and the tooth fairy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Dwayne Johnson, please. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Oh, sorry, sorry, Dwayne Johnson, which apparently I think in the bloopers in the film, a couple of people when he is when he is the tooth fairy, apparently I've seen I don't know if you know this, I was it was on IMDb, so it must be true. Must be true, yeah. But apparently a couple of the kids who were at some point shouting at him shouted out Dwayne Johnson instead of whatever his character's name was, or tooth fairy, and that's scene in the blueprint. But anyway, um so it's obviously uh it's a great it's a great credit, particularly because he's he's done pretty well since he worked with you. But um, like all these things, there's a story to this, uh, which is how Hollywood is a bit non-linear in terms of how people are treated when they've created something. Can tell us the story of the tooth fairy, what you did and what happened.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Well, there's an idea I came up with over dinner with my daughter when she was nine. I was trying to come up with an idea for a Christmas movie, Santa Claus movie, because I love Christmas and I couldn't come up with any of the original. So I said, What about the tooth fairy? No one's done a movie about that. She said, Oh, it's weird. And we talked a bit. And the next day I just scribbled down some notes and I had a pitch meeting with Jason Blum, who's now the biggest producer of horror movies in this country and the world, and and um he liked the idea very much and said, Can you you know write it up a bit and and um we'll go out and pitch this? So I wrote up a really full detailed story for you know the treatment. Um, it's like 15 pages, I think, which was the entire movie. And um we we we then pitched it to uh his studio, Paramount, who passed on it. I knew right away they weren't gonna, and we attached, uh, I did say to Jason after I'd written this um treatment, I said, the good news is uh we've got a great story here. The bad news is I don't want to write it because I I'd already written a family movie like that, and I was interested in writing at that point something a little more off-center and darker, and uh I didn't want to write a kind of mainstream family movie. And I also, I'll be perfectly honest, there are people that do it better than me. And uh I thought this is a home run idea. I could see the poster before I wrote a word of it, and so that's very unusual. I could see the commercial uh prospects without having thought of anything else. So we got Gans and Mandel, Lel Gans and Babbly Mandel, who are two of the kind of old deans of Hollywood comedy writing attached. And we went out pitched, and then we we we, as I said, Paramount Parsons, then we went to 20th Century Fox and they bought it. And um, they made a deal with Jason, they made a deal with Gans and Mandel, and then they uh went to approach my manager and said, Okay, we've got these deals in place. Um, we'd like to offer Jim a um uh uh a finder's fee. And they said, A finder's fee. He wrote the entire story and is gonna be a producer on it. They said, Oh no, no, we just want to pay him off as a finder's fee. And um this went on for a few days, and I said, Well, fine, they they don't have it, I'll take it somewhere else. And suddenly it got all very serious, and my manager was being sworn at by various CA agents and other people, and I was being called every name under the sun. Um but I said, No, I want this amount for the story, and I want this amount for as a producer, and um and it went on for about a week and and I won. So that that was that was interesting. Uh but but it was I got twenty about I think it was twenty times the amount they originally offered.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

So when they when it went into production, were you barred from say it? Were you allowed to go to the premiere and any of that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 14:30

The day after the deal was made for 20 times the amount they'd offered me. The day after the deal was made, I was persona completely grata. It was completely forgotten. It was just lawyers and agents and uh executives bullshit. And then I was invited to the very first bit, you know, meeting and and I was involved from start to finish. And and in fact, you know, they were it was never even mentioned or brought up, and uh and it was just odd. I mean, as it when it when it came to the shooting, I I was actually on something else, and so I literally went to the set for two days, and that was it up in Vancouver. But um, it was bizarre because it was such a vindictive and nasty. I mean, the things that my manager was telling me that they were saying about me and that they were calling him, and um, but I said no, I for that kind of money, I'd rather not do it at all. I'd rather not have the movie made than do that. So I I think it was a great lesson for me in um in how to just know fuck you goes a long way in Hollywood. Fuck you and no goes a long way.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Um I I I I'm not gonna hopefully I'm not gonna offend you by saying this, but obviously I've known you for a few years now. I think I would describe you as partially cantankerous. Um I am now. I'm not now cantanus, yeah. Um I've earned it now, but in back in those days, I mean there's lots of people who get walked over because you know, you know, these lawyers and these agents are used to screwing people. What what sort of made you think that it was worth not worth the fight, but what made you think it was okay to fight? You know, were you not worried that it was going to ruin other bits of your career or any of that stuff? What why might why fight?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

No, listen, if it was a if it was a passion project that I thought was a tough sell, I wouldn't have taken that attitude. I knew that this was a home run studio movie idea, and I knew that the story was really solid, and I knew that having attached two A-list writers and an A-list producer, they were so pregnant with this project that I held all the cards. The stupid thing they did was to make the deals with the other people first because I had all the leverage and I knew that. And I and I and I didn't think it would I know you know how I was, I didn't think it would screw me up at all. I didn't think it would ruin my career. I thought uh I thought the very worst that would happen is that they would just say, okay, we're not gonna buy it. But I knew the num the figures that were being bandied around, I knew how much the others were being paid. So I I had all the cards in my favor. So it was a calculated piece of cantankerous behavior. And it wasn't even cantankerous, I just sat at home and let my manager be cantankerous. And I just said, no, no, no, no, no. And and and he said, Great, that gives me the power, and we got exactly what we wanted. Um, so I I I would say I'm actually to work with in person the opposite of cantankerous. I think I'm actually very easygoing and very low maintenance. But um but when it comes to business, yeah, I I I I'm too old and too tired to be bothered with people trying to screw you over. I mean, why who why would you do you just feel bad about yourself? Yeah, I hate nothing worse than being on a set and being resentful of anybody on it. You ought to be there and it'd be great and fun and and beautiful. And uh if that if cantankerousness gets you there, that's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

So not only did you get your fair share of a movie that did 112 million in the box office, you also launched the career of the rock.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

So well, no, he he would he'd already had a career. He he was already, I I think that's a little uh uh unjust. He's he had a career, it sort of really did go into the big, big time after Tooth Fairy. Um, and it made 130 million worldwide. Um actually more than that, but but that's the uh the box office. Um and it goes and it it cost, I think, 40, 40 something. So it was a it was a big moneymaker um for them. Uh of course you never see any of the net profits that are in your deal. Um but but yeah, I mean I think I think the rock's career kind of really he got to the top of the A-list pile, but but he was definitely an A-lister before that.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

So, you know, when he's negotiating sort of his contracts with DC for Black Adam and so on, does he call you up and say, Jim, you're good at this stuff. You know, can you help me with some management stuff here?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

It's more Jim Bowe, I think he says. No, I haven't spoken to him or seen him since the Tooth Theory. Uh well, I have to tell you, he's one of the nicest people I've met in in show business. Uh uh when I went up there, I hadn't met him actually when they started shooting. Um so I went up for the couple of days, and and the first thing that someone on the set asked me is, What are you doing? And I said, I'm just I'm on the set. They said, Well, what do you know? What do you do on the movie? And I said, I'm an executive producer. And they said, Well, what does that mean? And I said, Well, it means different things in different movies, but in this movie, it means I just answer the question when everyone says, What are you doing? I tell them I'm an executive producer. That's my entire job for two days. And then uh I went onto the set and and um I was introduced to to Dwayne, and uh he was very, very charming, and and he he stopped the shooting and called everybody, actors, crew, everybody involved, you're talking about two to three hundred people, onto the set and said, uh, I just want you all to meet the person who's responsible for you being here today. And I've that's never happened before or since. It was extraordinary. It was so above the call of duty, so far and above the call of duty, such a kind and and generous and a very rare thing to do. Uh, and I I've never forgotten that. I mean, he he really is one of the genuine good guys. Extraordinary.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Because I've you know, you see videos of that sort of stuff now on social media, but this presumably was before social media was really kicking in. So he did it genuinely, not for for life.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this would have been 2000 and I can't remember what year it was, actually. Uh it was probably before the social media explosion, absolutely. Yeah, it wasn't like there was nobody filming it, and there was no there was no gain for him to do that.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, no, fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Other than win my lifelong admiration. Which is important, which is worth absolutely knowing.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

So you know, that's a I I I like that story because compared to some of these other stories we've had on this podcast, it's ended a lot better than other stories of writers who wrote things and then weren't allowed to go to premiers and were shunned and thrown off sets and so on. So this is quite a nice ending. So I think to offset this sort of happiness and you know, nice people, I need I need a I need an opposite story, Jim. Tell me a story of something going wrong or somebody behaving terribly. You must have some of those.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Um yeah, yeah, uh I do. I mean, uh in my in my um book, which I'm very subtly bringing into the conversation here. Well, you've written a book, Jim. I've written a book, isn't that extraordinary? Um called Caught with My Pan. Town and other tales from a life in Hollywood. And it's actually chock full of uh appalling stories of embarrassment and rejection and all sorts of dreadful things. Um, I suppose there are only four people I completely eviscerate in that book, and they deserved it. Um, I've had some horrendous, and there's a couple there's one person I don't name because they had a drug problem, and I didn't think it was fair because they may be sober now and or they may be dead. Um, but that was a studio executive. I I had a dream job that was uh utterly destroyed by this executive. It was a book I'd always wanted to adapt called Good Times, Bad Times by James Kirkwood. Warner Brothers owned it. And I I had a general meeting with Arnold Copelson, who produced Platoon. And Arnold said, uh, oh, my deals at Warner's. Let me see if you know what's happening with that book. And he um he got on the phone and reached this executive right away, who shall remain nameless, although I do remember his name very well. And he said, Oh, yeah, yeah, someone came in and pitched an idea for that last week. He was actually quite a well-known director. But I didn't like it. So, you know, come in and tell me your idea. So he Arnold and I went in that next week and pitched it and and we we sold it in the room. And that was a lovely deal for me and Arnold. And um, I thought this is my dream job. I'm getting to write. It was early on in my writing career, a book I've always wanted to adapt. And how often will that happen? Uh actually, I didn't think that because I didn't know any better, but I do now know that that never happens. And so I I um wrote the book, wrote the screenplay. I was quite faithful to the book, um, based on you know conversations we had, and Arnold loved it, and we went in. And and this guy, um, he was manic. He the drug thing was so bad. He he gave me notes on that draft uh as he was eating an enormous bowl of popcorn and pacing around the room, and he was stuffing his face with popcorn, and I could barely understand what he was saying because it was just so manic. And he said, Well, the story is about a prep school in the Northeast in New England, and it's about these two boys who have this very special friendship, and the headmaster is jealous of them because he has an attraction to one of the boys, and so it there is the homosexual undertones, uh, and they aren't, in fact, lovers or anything like that, but he then you know is very cruel to them and tries to destroy their relationship, and it's about the this kind of coming of age story, and in the end, they they kind of they kind of get revenge on him or whatever, and it's all it's all okay. Um, but there is a tragic, tragic side to it, but it it's not anything like he thought. So, anyway, he he said, Well, you know, I've got this idea for the ending now. It's it's um, we said, okay, right. So, yeah, instead of uh him getting sick, the boy uh you know having his heart issues uh and having to leave the school. Uh I think what happens is this this principal of the school, the headmaster, has been killing boys secretly and burying them under the school. And um and they discover it and then they unearth, you know, they they reveal it, and they they uh there's a final confrontation where he gets discovered as this serial killer. And I I literally was speechless because this is so not the book. And I also realized I was like, why is he why are we going in this direction? And I realized that that week Silence of the Lambs was the number one movie. So this guy was just basically uh superimposing the kind of concept of Silence of the Lambs onto this coming-of-age friendship story, and he finished this incredibly uh uh effusive notes session with manic popcorn eating, um, and with a flourish, and said, Well, what do you think of that? And I I I stared at him just literally unable to speak, and Arnold sort of was coughing uh uncomfortably. Uh and I said, Well, um I I don't really know what to say. And he said, he said, Oh, are you um are you this kind of unforthcoming with everybody you you work with? And I said, No, not at all, it's just you. And that was where the project ended.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

It it was the my dream job came to an end at that point. I didn't get fired, but uh we walked out of there and we knew it was never gonna happen. First of all, if we if we'd done what he wanted, the movie was doomed anyway. Um, so that was that was one uh uh instance where you just go, wow, you can't fight that studio executives in that situation. Listen, you you can take bad notes and dumb notes, you know, up the wazoo for years, and I have done, but but that one was like uh, and then he was went into rehab about three, four months later, and I don't know whatever happened to him. Wow, as I said, I didn't name him in the book, so I don't know if he's alive or not, or he's sober. Um, so that was one one awful instance, and then I had a uh a problem with an actress on a movie, the lead of the movie that I wrote, um, who was a big star, and she took an instant dislike to me um because I didn't understand something she said, and uh it's a long convoluted story, but it was hell. I mean, I I was on the set with this person for three, four, three months, and uh, I was in the movie, I had scenes with her and I wrote it and I was producing it and it it was a nightmare. She was mentally ill for a start, and um I the stuff I witnessed was was appalling. I mean, I uh she was on the phone to her young child, screaming at the child who was three years old, saying, um sorry, uh she she was she was on the phone to her husband, and her child was there, three-year-old, and she was saying, screaming, speak to our daddy, speak to him, speak to him. And the kid was like uh could barely you know put a word, was only just speaking, and it was like I it was child abuse, it was flagrant child abuse, and I didn't know whether to say anything or do anything, it was awful to watch. And this poor kid was so traumatized by what she was doing, and uh then at another stage she forgot her lines during a scene, and this happened quite frequently, and it's okay, everyone understands that you go back and you do it again, and she forgot her lines and wouldn't cop to it. Most people just say, Sorry, sorry, let's go again. She turned on one of the extras in the scene and said, Don't ever look at me when I'm acting, don't ever look at me. And this poor person just dissolved. Of course, it had nothing to do with them. She was just finding uh someone to blame for her own shortcomings. And then on another occasion, uh it was a Canadian actress what needed some uh she had a speech. It was she's playing an English woman, and she came to me and said, How do you say this line? In English, just can you tell me how to say it so I can you know just hear the English version? So I said, Well, you you say it this way, and she said, Oh, thank you. And this actress who I do name in the book, um overheard this conversation and she bellowed out to the director, the writer is giving notes to the actors, get him off the set. And so the director who was a very sweet man came over and said, I she's a poring, I know she's she's just she's out of control, but you you gotta you gotta gotta leave the set right now. So I left the set, and the the weird thing about this this person, this woman, is that she she would it was Jekyll and Hyde. She she had multiple personality disorder, I'm told, by someone else. One day she would come in and it would be this dragon, and the next day she'd come in and every she was in love with everybody, and it was all over them. So it I'm sure it did pass, although I don't think she ever, ever liked me. She always hated me. Um for uh for not really justifiable reasons, but um, I do explain that in the book. But that was a horrendous, horrendous experience, and um, you know, it's your own project, and it was a project I cared about deeply, and not an untalented person, but someone who uh is the worst person I've ever worked with in showbiz.

SPEAKER_01 30:50

Did it did it ruin the project?

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Was the waste of yeah, she ruined the project. Um the the project was ruined for a number of reasons. Um the the the actor, the co-star, also wrote a book and claimed that um she was certifiably insane. Um I don't think she ruined it, that would be unfair. The budget was not big enough for the scope of the film. Um the casting was not great. It was the two leads were were both wonderful actors, but they didn't have any chemistry, and it was a love story. And um and and the the the actor in question who wrote his biography, and uh uh and I do name all these people in the book, so I'm not I'm just this is a tease, but uh uh he he wrote uh why the film failed, and and one of the reasons were the ones I mentioned, and he said the other thing was that some of the dialogue was very wooden, and um that when I read that, I went, Oh, ouch. And then I thought about it, I went, no, he's right, he's absolutely right. It was some of the right dialogue was quite wooden, and uh, and I I woke up to that. Um, it wasn't the reason the movie failed. I've seen a lot of movies that wouldn't dialogue, but um, it was one of the reasons why it it didn't. And uh, in order to find out the name of this actress, we have to buy the book, which you do from Amazon, your local Amazon, your local Amazon, your Amazon. Um, and and it's uh there's a whole chapter. It's it's 10 A-listers I've worked with, nine I loved, one was a four asterisks word, and you can fill in whatever the blacks are. And then I do name, I I explain why I liked the nine A-listers and why this one was so appalling. And it's caught with my pants. Why was it not caught my trousers down? Put with my pants down because pants has a double meaning. You see, in America, pants means trousers, and pants in England means underpants. So it's a slightly ruder version in England, it's a slightly ruder book. Um Caught with My Pants Down. Put with my trousers down, it's too English. Um, put with my pants down and other tales from a life in Holland. You know, someone I someone wanted me to do this as a one-man show, and I wrote the script, and um, and then I got kind of cold feet about doing it, but but they said, come and do a reading uh in at the theatre, and and we'll we'd like to do a production of it, you know, six months later. And I said, Oh, okay. And then they said, but we do want you to change the title. Oh, I said, really? What why is that? Uh, oh, it's um, you know, people will uh mistake this, you know, it's in a Me Too world, you can't say caught with my pants down and other Tales in Holland. People are going to just assume it's some sort of um, you know, uh Harvey Weinstein type thing, you know. And and I I said, Thank you very much. Um, we won't be doing the reading uh or anything. I mean, it's ridiculous. I that book's been out, you know, a year now, almost 10 months. I I it's to get through American publisher, who was, by the way, the publisher used to be a minister, uh, a religious minister, to get through that and get through network TV and whatever, and no one's even hinted at the fact that that title is offensive in a Me Too way was astonishing to me. I mean, I think the theatre it's very it's it's run by, I mean, I'm a Hollywood liberal, but this is overworked liberalism um at its worst.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

So we talked earlier on about being rejected as a writer is worse than being rejected as an actor. Yeah, because there's more of you in it. Um, we've had people on this podcast who've written books, but they were novels from people who normally write screenplays or comics by people who don't write screenplays. But writing uh an autobiography I mean, obviously, I during the pandemic you sent it to me in its early stage.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Yeah, and you were very helpful.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Thank you. Um you describe the sort of journey you went on to commit that to paper, given that you know you're a performer, but this is as you say, this is your story, and people don't like it, it's worse than saying you can't act or you know this isn't a good idea, it's saying I don't really care about your story, Jim.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

So but it's a it's a rejection of your life more than your your work. Um I mean, I have to qualify it by saying it's a quasi-doc uh memoir because it is quite outward looking, it's not just the Jim Piddock story, because I I'm not that interested in the Jim Piddock story per se. What I am more interested in is my observations of the people I've worked with and and the experiences I've gone through in life. And each chapter, as you know, has a sort of a button to it, either a comic button or uh the the what I learned from this was. And um and so I think it's as much about the observed as the observer, uh, more so than most memoirs. Um, and I wanted it to be funny and um irreverent. So I I I I I I don't I I'm always a a little bit, I wince a little bit when I hear people talk about it as an autobiography, because it it really is more of a sort of an observational um memoir. Um but that said, yeah, I I I definitely feel like I'm very sensitive about that. I don't like looking at the book sales, I don't like looking at, I mean, luckily there hasn't been, I don't think, any bad reviews, uh to my knowledge. Um but but but uh because that would be quite difficult um to I think to to to read or or hear. So yeah, it's like being a that's why I never was never a stand-up. I mean, I would I'd find that excruciating because that's such a rejection of you. You're not funny. Wait a minute, that's my job. I'm supposed to be funny. No, you're not funny. That's horrible. If someone doesn't like my performance, you know, they just go, well, you know, that he I didn't like him as that character. It's not me, it's they didn't like that thing. So I I think it is more sensitive. Writing is closer to me than acting in a way, because I've always been a disguise actor, I always hide behind a character and play things that are often not that close to me or whatever. So it's easier to sort of wriggle out of that and hide behind it. Whereas um, yeah, I think I think writing is more personal.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

So I'm actually gonna ask a question. It's actually not really to do with rejection, failure, or adversity. Um, it's probably quite a silly Hollywood question, but I'm not sure I've ever asked you this, and I'm interested. So obviously, we talked about the fact you've done 150-ish acting credits. Some of them were, you know, huge shows, very involved, but there's some things you've done which uh I think are iconic, and it was probably in your body of work, you know, it's in one case I think it's one line. Um, but having done things like being like in Independence Day, which is a weirdly iconic movie, um, and then sort of being in Friends and being in a flashback in Lost, those things that for me, like when I when if I talk to people about my friend Jim, like for me, they're more interesting than you know, the really big things you've achieved. For somebody who's in them, you know, are they things that uh you're particularly proud of, or that was just you know, small days' work and you don't really care about? I'm just interested in sort of what things that mean quite a lot to other people but aren't actually very probably professionally satisfying.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Um yeah, I I mean some of the my favorite things are you know the the really independent small things. There's a movie called See This Movie, which I did with um John Cho, Seth Myers, Jesselyn Gilsig, and Jessica Peret, the five of us were the main leads, and Patton Oswald's in it as well. Uh and I still, it's one of my favorite things that I've ever done. And and and and it's a lovely art house kind of movie that did very well on the on the on the sort of festival circuit. Um, and then yeah, I mean, I I suppose yeah, Independence Day, I can't remember how many days that was, but yeah, I like the movie very much. Um, but you know, what I did in it was for me it's forgettable. Lethal Weapon 2 is more memorable.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

And that was I forgot about Lethal Weapon.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

That was my first ever movie, and that one, because I had the line that became a catchphrase, uh, one of my lines, uh, but you're blick, because you're blick, um, became sort of Joe Pesci latched onto it, and so it became a bit of a catchphrase. So that that was that's more memorable to me. Um, you know, it's odd, you know, it's sometimes for me now it's the doing rather than the seeing. The doing, it's it's it's the zen part of doing it, the end product. I have no control over. So sometimes I see things and I go, oh, that turned out way better than it felt. And the reverse, sometimes I go, that was really fun to shoot, but it's not particularly good, you know. And um and sometimes you you you hated it when you were doing it, and you hated it when you see it. Um so it it's a double whammy. Um but yeah, I mean I I think it's it's always hard to to know, you know. I I I I I I think some of the big things were the least memorable in many ways, you know, for me. Um but but it but it's there's no hard and fast rule because there's also been big stuff I really enjoyed doing, and and I think it's good, very good.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

You know, so when when I invited you on the podcast the other day, I said uh you asked me how long we record for, yeah. I said, Well, how many rejection stories have you got? And you said, you know, we're gonna need 24 hours. But we um we've used our allotted time, uh, which is a shame, because I'm rather enjoying this. I'm tempted to do another 45 minutes and make it a two-parter, but that's not really what we do here. So we're gonna have to end with our standard final question, yes, which is if you could give a single piece of advice to somebody looking to enter the business, and you can do it as an actor, writer, director, showrunner, producer, whatever you bit you want to give the advice on, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Uh it would be as Nike would tell you, just do it. Just do it, write it and finish it. Um as a director, make it, shoot it, shoot something. And nowadays you can do it. You know, when I was starting, you can't act on your own in a you know and and and have something to sell. Writing you can. So write, direct, as an actor, make it, make a tape, make a whatever, voice tape or a video tape, or whatever. You can do that now. Get it out there, do it, just do it, just do it. There's no other, there's no substitute. You can train, good, it all helps, but just do it. You know, uh I think that's always been the case. I mean, for me, it was just work, work, work. Start, get into children's theatre, which I started, and then do weekly rep, fortnightly rep, week to, you know, do it, do it, do it, do it. Just get get. And then you get, you know, it's the 10,000 the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours rule. You only get good by doing 10,000 hours, and then you then you then you can start.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Super, brilliant. Jim Piddock, actor, writer, producer, director. Apparently he's got a book out as well, I think I heard somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Um, yes, yeah, but I'm glad you brought that up, actually. It's called Caught with My Pants Down and Other Tales from a Life in Hollywood. Um, and you know, it's it's it's rightfully a bestseller in its own right, and it will change your life. Um I believe. Anyway, um, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Um, and and I don't know if I got enough rejection stories in there, but there honestly, there's so many that I wouldn't know where to start. You know, I mean, I I've embarrassed myself in so many ways. I have a whole chapter in the book about auditioning and that the most embarrassing audition I've ever had, which was excruciating. Excruciating when I think about it now, and it was politically incorrect too. I played an Indian with a dot on my forehead. I mean, just shocking stuff. And and I was excruciating. It was an improvised audition, and I had nothing. I had no material whatsoever. It was deafening silence. So there's loads of those stories. The book is full of embarrassments, almost all my own, and sometimes other people's.

SPEAKER_01 43:51

Amazing. Brilliant, Jim. Thank you very much. You've now been on uh two-thirds of my podcasts. What's the third one? It's the whiskey one, but you don't drink whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

I don't drink whiskey, no. Although, although my uh great uncle was a great bootlegging whiskey man, he made whiskey for uh the candies. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:10

During during still doesn't get you on.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

No, I just just telling you, it's uh it was uh quite a quite a well-known. Yeah, my mother sat on JFK's knee when she was a little girl. Well, is that in the book? No, no, it's none of that's in the book. You see, I was waiting to come on the Duisky podcast to tell all those stories.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

It sounds like you should do volume two of the book. Um the JFK years.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

So yeah, the JFK years.

SPEAKER_01 44:37

Yeah, brilliant. Cheers, Jim. Thank you very much so much.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, this episode was brought to you by Scriptation, the screen, writing, and annotation software that at the very least has made my life easier and will make your life easier as well. Uh, we'd like to thank our wives who put up with us recording these episodes in offices and basements and closets and bathrooms and anywhere we can get a little space to record an interview, and of course, if you want to thank you for watching for providing us with a great intro and outro meeting.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

If you want to find us on social media, you can find Noah at NEBslin on Twitter, tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and uh some terrible puns and occasionally begging for sponsorship. Uh, if you want more refined tweets, mostly about football and whiskey, you can find me at Dan Rutstein. If you're interested in buying a copy of Scriptation, if you go to www.scriptation.com backslash sither, S-I-T-H-A, you will receive a special discount. Thank you very much for listening. As always, we appreciate you. Uh please give us any feedback, mostly positive stuff about me, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_03 46:05

And if you do say a negative thing about DM, there is a chance I might buy you a free copy of Scriptation.