Jennifer Grey: Funner is Funner (Re-Release)

0:28Hi, how are you? to the lowdown line and let me know which it is. Anyway, I'm here. And today we have one of my oldest pals, Jennifer Gray. Baby. She has seen and done it all. Red Dawn, Ferris Bueller's Day Off. She has a great book out about her life, Out of the Corner. She's, I mean, from growing up with Joel Gray winning the Academy Award for Cabaret to finding your way through Hollywood, through so many different things. Really, really interesting life. Really, really interesting person and super funny and a warning. She and I are very silly together. So I'm just apologizing in advance for the silliness that will ensue.

1:17We'll try to behave ourselves. Jennifer Gray.

1:26Funner is a word, right? It is for me. Is it for you? My English teacher mom, God bless her soul, would say, no, it's more fun. It's not funner. Right. But I think funner is funner, literally. You know what? It's funner when you say it. You feel it because it's wrong. I have to compliment you on your glasses that you're wearing. um dear listener she's wearing like kind of robert redford 1970s ron gallella paparazzi photo google that yes thank you it's basically what i'm saying it's handsome powerful entertainment figure circa 1971 yeah just around the time that i was like you know getting into trouble at the dalton school no no dalton school was 74 71 was malibu still So where were you living in Malibu?

2:19I was living on Old Malibu Road. And in the colony, we had rentals. And so we would move to some little furnished rentals. It was funky. Were you there then? I got to Malibu in 76. Oh, so we just missed each other. You went to Webster? No, I went to Malibu Park Junior High. Me too, but Webster was six. I went to Malibu Park Junior High in seventh. That's so crazy. Well, did you really read the book or did you skim it? Because it's all written about. Well, how many. Come on, dude. Come on. I looked. You just looked for yourself. You looked for yourself. I mostly looked for myself. Yeah. And you didn't find yourself.

2:58And you know what? You got off light. I got off light. I owe you big time. Of course I read the book. Well, there's a whole thing about Malibu Park Junior High and the spin the bottle and my first kiss and all the kids. Okay. Who was your first kiss? Maybe I know him. Mark Buck. Mark Buck. Oh, because I'm older than you. But we both had Mr. Vincent at Malibu Park, right? Who was the legendary history teacher. He was the best. It was social studies, I think we called it, right? Social studies in those days. He was incredible. Everybody loved him. He was one of those amazing teachers that changed people's lives and made you feel seen and smart and at least made me feel seen and smart and just felt so lucky to have him in a public school in Malibu in the 70s, which was really the Wild West, wasn't it?

3:46It was the Wild West. So in Malibu Park Junior High, it was 7th, 8th, 9th grade. If we include you, who was a couple years different time frame. I was in Sean's class. So it would have been you, Sean Penn, Charlie Sheen. Was Charlie in your class? He was a year younger, two years younger than me. Emilio Estevez. He was your age, right? He was a year older. Okay. So you were the cream in the sandwich, the Oreo cookie. was um uh who else holly robinson pete um there was a young actress named daniel spencer who was on a big sitcom was it what's happening she was on something like that and i think robert i know robert downey jr was went to my high school i don't know if he was actually at malibu did you guys go to pali or samu santa monica high school samu yeah it's it's malibu in the set in that i'm in fact i'm i'm i it's my great obsession trying to figure out how to tell the story of what malibu was in why don't you read that chapter more carefully you might feel like you don't have to because i really described the straw hat pizza okay okay okay the swansons dude you were you know what you were looking for you were looking for some clickbait names in there that's what you were doing and you found them but what you didn't do is you didn't really just luxuriate in straw hat pizza parlor market basket oh the market and swenson's uh-huh and malibu cinema those things popped up while i was there and how about the malibu coffee shop oh yeah colony the colony coffee shop where you'd go to get like the cheeseburger and shake like for the special treat oh i worked at the uh my very first paying job was at the malibu cinema stop it for that mean mean owner tell me tell me what happened i know nothing i didn't work there so the malibu cinema in those days what was amazing about it and this is people think malibu fancy movie star hollywood was so not fancy so not and so not hollywood we wouldn't get a movie at the Malibu cinema until it had been out for months.

6:04I mean, months, months, months. I love it. I love it. And to the guy's credit who ran it, he hired local Malibu teens. So Holly Robinson ran the concession stand. Come on. Oh yeah, 100%. And Piper, her friend Piper, who is another great fun girl that we all went to school with, they ran sort of the tickets and concessions and I threaded the projector. Wait, is that a euphemism?

6:37It was a platter system. I thought it would be like threading a projector at school, whereas it's not. It's a platter. It's on a big plate. It's very, very complicated. And you know me. I am the least handy human. You have a lot of crazy skills. I wouldn't be calling you for handy. No. Would you trust me to thread a fucking projector for a packed house? The pressure was on, right? Oh, the pressure was on. And one night, I'll never forget, the movie was Agatha starring Dustin Hoffman. The very well-known Dustin Hoffman movie, Agatha. Google that one. Why do I love you so much? I love you. I love you too.

7:26This is going to be so this will be the longest podcast I've ever done because we've got we have so much to talk about. Anyway, I threaded the reels of the movie in the wrong order. So you did not. I did. It's a thriller because it's Agatha. It's a thriller. And that's crazy. So the last reel of the movie played somewhere in the middle of the movie. Oh, stop it. And, you know, complete with ending credits. That's insane. And then, you know, and then the curtains closed because the movie's over and then the curtains opened and it went back to the middle of the movie. I got fired immediately. Stop it.

8:02That's the craziest shit I've ever heard. Yeah, I was not good at that. I also got fired from being a busboy at the Nantucket Light. Oh, man, I remember that place. I can picture the logo right now on PCH. It's now which one is Nobu. It's now Nobu. And what and and Chart House was and Moon Shadows. Is Moonshadows what Noble is now? No, Moonshadows still exists in the same place. Do you remember there was Chart House and Moonshadows was kind of like the only game in town? And then I guess Nantucket Light, which I didn't know about. Which, of course, is the only place that hired me. I applied to all places.

8:38And the fancy pants were like, no. You weren't afraid to work. No. I wasn't afraid. Never been afraid to work. Your mom was a teacher. Yeah. I've worked since I was 15. I just got fired from everything other than anything show business related. everything. Yeah, I got fired sometimes too. I dropped this record producer, Hamhocks, at this soul food restaurant that I was working at in the theater district in New York. They rinsed them off and put them back on a plate and fired me and told me I had to pay for the plates. Ooh! You weren't cut out for that kind of shit. You know what? I waitressed so many years, so many years and never improved.

9:20No. I was working at the saloon. Everyone was on skates, and I can't add. I just couldn't handle the pressure of the Lincoln Center rush. Yeah, waiting tables is no joke. It is really hard. No, it is super hard. Did you ever do it? I never got that far. You were like the host? I was a busboy. I was a busboy. Oh, yeah. I was a busboy at the Cottonwood Cafe. I couldn't get the real gig. I had to pay my dues in the kitchen expediting. Oh. Bussing. Never made it, never graduated to waiter. And there was a great, and there was a, um, Holly Robinson's, uh, mother, Dolores Robinson was a huge, um, manager of actors.

10:05And I would, I would slip her notes when she would come in, get me out of here. Seriously. Mm-hmm. Like with an exclamation point, like scroll, like, like, like somebody like who'd been like, like a kidnap, like Jonestown. Oh, no. That's so funny. When they slip the notes to the... All right. There's so much to talk about. Where do we begin? First of all, I believe I saw your father in a Kenley Players production. Is that possible? You 100 % did. I remember John Kenley from my childhood. I think he was a little scary. He was frightening. I write about him in my book. I guess you need to be sending me your Kenley Players chapter.

10:46The Kenley Players was summer stock in Ohio. It was the only place you could see professional actors do anything. He was scary looking, but he was apparently the nicest man because I'm obsessed with John Kenley. In fact, Chad Lowe, my brother, was doing a documentary on John. Really? And then John would not consent to be interviewed on camera and it died. But I'm obsessed with the John Kenley story. That's all I want to know everything you have to send me out. Oh, it's an amazing, I mean, he's a revolutionary. He gave so many actors their starts. He created the Modern Touring Company. He created it.

11:19but he was kind real super kind loved actors gave everybody but you know so is this true that you once once sang show tunes at hal prince's holiday party with stephen saundheim playing the piano i didn't myself i was part of a throng i was it was every single it was every single christmas when you know we were i grew up in new york mostly except for the few years we were in malibu i it was in melibu three years yeah sixth grade seventh grade eighth grade yeah and then i went back to new york and my whole childhood because my dad was directed by hal prince in when i was six how prince direct the original production of cabaret he did if you read the book you would have seen that he directed it's gonna be a long interview honey if i can't give you shit you can okay it's very true and guess what you know what we all you're as you said your life is not your own you're very you're doing two series simultaneously it is true and two podcasts you know what you're just you're you know you're a miracle that is a miracle i do feel like a miracle i mean it's a miracle that i'm even here i so i did my dad had been directed by hal prince um in the original cabaret on broadway and that was when i would go and sit backstage when he would be applying his makeup as the emcee and that was from age six to eight and then we moved to you know malibu and then he won the oscar for the movie and then we came back to new york and so it was just my family's uh community my parents my dad's community were the the princes and they would have this party that was the most epic party with every every Broadway legend that's that ever existed.

13:08And it was just everyone said by the end of the night, everyone was standing around the grand piano singing show tunes. And it was sometimes Larry Grossman was playing the piano and, but it was like, you know, everybody. Oh, everybody. Everybody. Patti LuPone. Yeah. Bernadette Peters, Jerry Orbach, Carol Channing was just, you know, that it was like that. And, you know, it's pretty interesting to grow up around that kind of virtuosity because it makes you feel like, oh, this is a possible thing. These are real people that I know. It's not like some – it doesn't feel that distant. And then at the same time, you're like, I better be good.

13:54Yeah. I better be really good to be able to hang. so it's like it's like a hot an interesting pressure and also inspiration and also it felt like oh these are my people already all i need to do is just be the best in the world and then i couldn't really sing or dance well enough to do them so i'm going to like musical auditions with tommy tune and just make a fool of myself tommy tune huge kenley players person i think oh really john kenley gave tommy the first opportunity to direct i'm pretty sure really God, I never thought of you as musical comedy. Oh. I mean, I was on the Oscar. I think we were around for the Oscars together.

14:37You saw me do the Oscars and went, well, there is a guy who is not musical comedy. You know what? I didn't judge you. I just thought you were amazing and cute and brave and cool. So I don't think of it that way. That was the spirit of it. I didn't know that you came from Kenley Players stock. That's really interesting. Well, I never actually got a show. I auditioned a bunch. You knew all of this and you didn't get a show? That was what I did. I would audition for Evita. I auditioned for Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I auditioned for Merrily We Roll Along. I auditioned for really big people, and I really had no business being there.

15:20I don't believe that for a minute. Jennifer, wait a minute. You have to, okay, look, here are the categories in musical theater. There are singers and then there are actors who can sing, right? Well, I sang in one thing. I sang in Bloodhounds of Broadway with Madonna. I did a duet with her. But that's a pretty, that's not bad for one thing. But that's a movie, which is different. It's a movie, but I did record it and it was my voice and it was my singing. But for some reason, singing on the, you know, just the boards. I only did one play. Did you do plays on Broadway? I did one play on Broadway and I did a really long running play on the West End.

15:59What did you do? On Broadway, I did... Broadway? I did... Tony Randall. Do you remember Tony Randall? He started the National Actors Theater. Of course. Tony Randall, you must come in. I did a Fado. It was a French farce called... Oh, fancy. A Little Hotel on the Side with Lynn Redgrave, Pax and Whitehead. These are legends. I am so impressed. And Tony. And yeah. And I did. How old were you when you did that? That was my Broadway debut. That's major. 20... Hang on. You're already a movie star. Oh, yeah. 27. It was the same weekend Wayne's World opened. Wow. And then I did A Few Good Men with Aaron Sorkin.

16:48That's what we did for a long time. And that was in the 2000s. Well, that was great, Rob. I never realized, I didn't realize, because you and I became friends, like another, it wasn't, it was not for a while, until a while later. And I just, I was so obsessed with you. I mean, I think we've worked together twice. And I can't tell you anything about the movies we did, except for the fact that it was some of the best laughs I've ever had in my entire life. Same. Same. Seriously, I've never, like, I would do anything just to hang out with you because I know that you and I go there. We go there and we do not, we do not play.

17:28And I don't know. I just find you to be one of the most hilarious. I mean, like, I just, all I think about you is just like you're the best raconteur and the greatest. I don't know. I don't know. It's just, you're my favorite comedy. Well, that's saying something. I mean, I like Gene Wilder. You know, I like young Frankenstein and I like you. So that's pretty good. And listen, you grew up around like the great of the greats, like Mike Nichols, the greatest rock contour. Okay. So you know what? He's the other one. Come on. Please just say this. No, you're not. You can't touch him. Okay. Fuck. I wanted you to say.

18:06You can't touch him. Hold on. Let me just tell you. You are the young Mike Nichols when it comes to rock contour. That's all I need to know. Here's the thing. you can aim for it. You're not there yet, but you're real. Actually, you know what? I take it back. The thing is when he would do it and he would have his eyebrows going crazy. He would say, my favorite two words are it's canceled. The only words I like better than it's canceled is it's canceled and you're still getting paid. Like I can quote him all day long, which I can't do you because all I can do is imitations of you doing imitations of Michael Black doing imitations of Betty Davis talking about Natalie Wood.

18:53That's all I can do is you, I imitate you doing imitations of three other people. Because you brought it up and it's such an obscure reference. And this is definitely the point where people are like, what am I listening to? Michael Black was one of my first agents and he represented me and Betty Davis towards the end. I'm talking the very end. Very nice. And they lived in the same apartment building, that beautiful, old, gorgeous building on Havenhurst and Sunset. The Colonial? The Colonial, yes. Yeah. And Betty Davis would complain because she could smell the McDonald's French fries from the McDonald's that went up on the next thing.

19:32And she would, she would, she would, we need to. I haven't done a Betty Davis in forever. This is going to be awful. You can warm up. You do a warm up. The stench. of the french fries

19:47and also and what about the joan crawford just do that and then we'll be back what was the joan crawford one okay so they had this horrible uh combative competitive thing joan crawford i believe and betty of course they did and when joan happened to baby jane the movie whatever happened when joan crawford died oh there was a there was a movie where there was a problem with the credit and Betty Davis and she, they were like, Joan Crawford got like, she wanted a box around her name and when she died she said, she finally got her box. Do you not remember that one? I do now. And then she said, they say you're supposed to say something good about the dead.

20:31She's dead. Good. Do you remember now? this is why i don't remember anything about the movies we did this is all i remember she finally got her box oh that might be the the meanest most amazing wait i'm laughing so hard we did yeah we the movies and see that's the other thing is like everybody goes into a project with all great intentions and you're lucky if you get anything out of it and to have like the memories that we have. Do you remember when we did that Cinderella thing in Paris? And, and wait, do you remember when I couldn't stop laughing? Cause you, you, you would try to make me laugh and then I would go, I would go off and then I couldn't stop.

21:22And do you remember when I was looking at you and you had this one line and you would get to the line and you'd look at me with that twinkle in your eye and I'd be like, no, no, it's coming. I could just feel myself and then i couldn't stop like they were so angry they were so angry because what happened was i was new this is how i know how long ago it was it was it's it will be 30 32 you ready for this exactly two years ago because i was brand new and as was i so we're both newly sober 32 years ago and I was at a point where because I was newly sober and so full of the pink cloud and had a new lease on life that I did not give one excuse me fuck about anything and I was told you just have to be self-supporting through your own contribution so you take the job you're given I'm like I don't want to do this job and like well they got Rob Lowe and they're giving me a lot of money I was like okay okay so I just go because I'm told this is what I'm supposed to do and that's what i did i was like great i'm gonna shoot in paris a move a beautiful a movie in paris you're doing it and we will get paid a fortune it was not a good people love there are certain people who are obsessed with that movie i thought no one would ever see it of course and it was hanging around a lot i thought it was just gonna be on french cable me too of course it it was something that when my parent when my friends were raising their kids they're like my daughter's upset we watched this i don't know was it on disney where was it was something it would not go away it's called if the shoe fits the fact that i'm comfortable talking about it you just said that so people can look at it that's just a terrible thing to do i'm i am either one of two things either fantastic in it or absolutely should never act again i mean I really think the two of us, I don't know what we were doing, but it was so painful because I felt like we were both trying to make it good.

23:29And I guess people loved it. I don't know if it's because we were good in it. I don't know what it is. Do you remember when we made the lobster dance at that dinner scene? Oh, not till you just said that. Were you doing the thing? Yes, I was making the lobster dance to make you laugh. Why were you doing that? To make me laugh? make me laugh because I didn't care. I was just being so nuts. You really did not care. And I was crying every day. I was like going to the American church, going to the meetings. And I was just like crying my eyes out and going, but I was the kind of thing like, okay, well, I guess that's why I got that job because he's sober and we could be together in Paris and not drink.

24:08It was, no, it was really, I mean, I had a, I had a sober companion. You did? What was his name? It was a guy. Joe. Yeah, and you also had your wife and your baby. You had your son. Your youngest. Your oldest. That's the second movie. Oh, that was in Canada. The first one was in Paris, right? Don't you remember? Cheryl came to visit. She came to visit because we were walking down. I remember walking along the Seine, and she was your makeup artist, right? Right, and I played a clothing designer in it, Salvatore. Like a Valentino. Salvatore. Oh, no. And I modeled my character after Bichon. No, Bichon.

24:48Bichon. We tell people who Bichon was just in case. Bichon, for people, anybody from LA who's grown up in LA knows who Bichon is. Bichon had billboards in LA. He was yelling even on the billboards. He was literally like, he was like. Like Mantan, but he was already dark. And always screaming. Screaming on the billboards, Bichon. And nobody knew why he was famous or where he was famous. screaming or why he was screaming and i modeled my character after bijan and and so there were models around right and cheryl came to the set and there was one model paying an inordinate amount of attention to me and cheryl literally flew in from the united states walked in i didn't see her arrive the model was adjusting the zipper on my jacket cheryl took one look at it and left for the airport to fly home and i was able to remember this i don't remember this drama was i privy to this you might not have been privy to this it was who was the model was she hot she was the so she plays the model in the movie i don't remember oh the one who bijan character salvatore was it was his muse or something that's right right oh it's all coming back she was tall and french

26:15Okay, so I need to ask you about the Cotton Club, because you were in the Cotton Club. Francis Ford Coppola did the Cotton Club after Rumblefish. It was my first job, yeah. So he did Outsiders. With you. Rumblefish. Cotton Club. And so we, a lot of us had all met on Outsiders, like Diane Lane, and she was the star of it. Matt, I think, was in it. And you were friends with Patrick Swayze from that. Yeah. And so we were all friends. And I just remember the Cotton Club. And Tommy Howell. Tommy Howell, all of us. Yeah. And who did Red Dawn with you. Right. But I remember the Cotton Club as being such an unmitigated disaster and reading your book, which I did read that chapter.

26:56You know what, honey? It's okay. You're busy. Busy, man. I can't read everything. But it's funny to hear from your perspective that even somebody young and just starting out knew what a fiasco that movie was. No, but it wasn't that. It was like we had people like Bob Hoskins and, I mean, just incredible legends, which it was everybody. There was a giant cast of geniuses and they were all just kept in hair and makeup in like a holding area for six months, eight months, whatever it was. People were just like, what is going on? It was really exciting initially. And then it got to like, what is happening?

27:45What's happening here? And I had been, you know, just like a stand in basically for Diane Lane until she came. And then Jennifer Jason Leigh got the part opposite Nicolas Cage, who is Francis's nephew, who was 18. I think he had done Valley Girl. You guys sat in full makeup and hair every day waiting to see if they were going to use you, not use you. You had no idea. Yeah, we were just like, because he was, I mean, you have to understand that Coppola was one of the most thrilling auteur. I mean, he had done Godfathers and Apocalypse. And like he was, there was nobody who was as great a filmmaker.

28:30And just, he was just all I wanted was to be one of his people. And to be in his movie was such an incredible, my first job. And I was, you know, doing love scenes with Richard Gere while Diane Lane was finishing doing Streets of Fire. And I would like, you know, we would do like, we're just going to improvise the whole script. We'll have the script. It's kind of like, you know, a little bit like a sketch. And we're all going to just do this with the green screen. I'm going to have a rough cut of the movie by the time we film. And so then I can edit it and then know exactly what I'm doing. And so Diane was still on Streets of Fire, which had gone over.

29:13And so I had to play every woman's part. like that play a hooker they'd throw a bow around my neck and then i had to play diane doing scenes with richard gear who was like the you know just had done officer and gentleman was it officer and gentleman he just yeah he just came off officer and gentleman it was before he'd do an american gigolo or something around like he was the hottest oh yeah that symbol of all time and and there he was and there i was and it was just incredible cast and And the most incredible jazz musicians and dancers and tap dancers. It was crazy. Gregory Hines and Honey Coles and Larry Fishburne.

29:55Everybody was in this movie. And we were all just kind of waiting around. I've always pictured it. It was like a dollhouse. We were just set up waiting to when he's going to pick us up and put us in the set. You know what I mean? It was very wild. And there was a lot of money, a lot of gangster money. and there was a lot of, I think there was kidnapping or murder. It was just the behind the scenes, what was happening was more dramatic than even the gangsters from the Cotton Club. It was really wild where they were getting their money from and it was just a runaway train. Yeah, there were so many characters involved behind the scenes as well.

30:36I just remember I would come to New York to visit and see people and Diane. And we were all there at Astoria Studios, just stuck there, right? And the movie is terrible. I don't know. I heard there was a new cut that he... What happened was I think he got pressured to make it more of the white couple story. Oh, interesting. Instead of Lynette McKee and Gregory Hines, it was supposed to be the black and white love story. The black story with Gregory and Lynette and Richard and Diane. and it was this, you know, supposed to be more even handed. And I think the producers ultimately, when they cut, they had 17 films.

31:17So they had to like make one film out of this. And I guess they decided to make it. I'm not sure I'm speaking a little out of my ass, but I think he recut it last year or the year before. Wow. Maybe at the New York Film Festival. And I've been wanting to watch it to see because there was such extraordinary dance and acting from the black stories that should have been represented. And I think he felt that he had done them a disservice. But I, like I said, not sure, but I think it's something that I would love to see one of these days when, you know, I have a moment because I think it would be really interesting to see with the distance, what he wished he had been able to do if he'd had more agency, you know?

31:59And then how far after that for you is another movie I remember the making of, like I made it, like I was a part of it, but I wasn't. It was Red Dawn. Well, I was in the middle of doing Cotton Club when I got Red Dawn. Okay, makes sense. And then they let me leave and then come back and finish because they were still doing it after I'd finished a full length movie. I mean, they said, go away for two months, come back, we'll still be here, don't worry. So they let me go and I went off to do Red Dawn in New Mexico with Tommy Howell and Patrick Swayze and Leah Thompson and Darren Dalton and Harry Dean Stanton and Powers Booth.