Whoopi Goldberg: Dream Big Baby (Re-Release)

24:17I don't think so. But, you know, it's what happens when you're done and they assemble everything and they get a great editor in and then they lock the picture. and you suddenly go, oh my God, that's what we were doing.

24:32Rob Lowe:Everything worked. Yeah, everything. The urban legend is that the script, the guy who wrote it was like from Iowa, like not really in Hollywood or something. And I mean, this is the urban legend I heard about the script and it's spectacular. And that was sort of, I don't think you really wrote much afterwards, but it was like you say, a moment in time where everything came together. He did Jacob's Ladder. Oh, well, that's more than something. But I think it was just one of those moments. You know, we have them in our careers where it's just like, oh, this actually worked. Cool. Oh, it worked really nicely.

25:15Rob Lowe:And no movie ever did more for the pottery industry. Yes. Yes. I mean, more people decided to go into potting. Yes. The pottery wheel. Yeah. Who would have thought you could make a pottery wheel sexy? It just goes to show you. People talk about the power of cinema. They want to talk about inspiring revolutions and this and that. I'm saying, hey, like, I made pottery sexy. Yeah. You know, because somebody's sitting behind you and your hands are all mushy and stuff. Oh, gooey and mushy and shit. See, I myself, I don't like gooey hands. No. I like clean hands. It didn't do it for me. I got to say.

25:57Rob Lowe:I was like, but it did it for everybody. For lots of folks. Yeah. Yeah. What's Swayze's great line? You take it with you. It comes back as the ghost and Demi does the famous. The love you had, you take it with you. You take it with you. Come on. Get the fuck out of here. Come on. Well, you know, it might be true. It might be true, but who doesn't want to think it's true if their greatest love has passed? I believe it. I'm just like, it's, to me, he's got that single glycerin tear coming down the face. By the way, it probably wasn't glycerin. I know she's, she's, she's a great actor. And I think that's her by far.

26:38That's her, that's her, that's her tear.

26:40Rob Lowe:One single tear. It's like she cued it. It's like, and tear. Yeah. But you know, she's, she's good for giving those kinds of performances. GI Jane is one of my favorites because you, you're, You're kind of expecting it, but you're not. But she's so terrific in it. You just want to go, you are a bad bitch. My God, go ahead, Jane. You know, I mean, it happens. That should have been the one sheet. That should have been the ad campaign. You're a bad bitch. Go ahead, Jane. Yeah. That would have been an extra 10 million on that box office. Yeah, but then, you know, they would have taken somebody away for profanity, you know.

27:22Rob Lowe:You can't win. No, not all the time.

27:31Rob Lowe:Most ice cream is good, but not Jenny's. Jenny's ice cream is more like an obsession. What you get from over two decades of tasting and tweaking and throwing it out and starting over, chasing flavors until they feel alive. That might sound crazy, and that's because it is. Jenny's. Often imitated, never duplicated, always splendid.

28:20Rob Lowe:Sign up and start delivering. Complete within 14 days of sign up ends 11-1. Terms apply. See out for details. Pandora makes it easy for you to find your favorite music. Discover new artists and genres by selecting any song or album, and we'll make you a personalized station for free. Download on the Apple App Store or Google Play and enjoy the soundtrack to your life. After living with type 1 diabetes for more than 20 years, Naomi wanted a better option for low blood sugar, something that worked quickly but actually tasted good too. So she created Glow Gummies, delicious glucose gummies made with fast-acting dextrose to raise blood sugar quickly.

28:55Rob Lowe:They're vegan, gluten-free, dye-free, and don't melt or stick to your teeth. Made by someone who gets it, because she lives it too. Head to GlowGummies.com, that's G-L-O-W, gummies.com, and use code PODCAST20 for 20 % off.

29:15Rob Lowe:I got to circle back to Hollywood Squares for a minute, because you were the center square and that's a big deal. Yeah. That's the square occupied by one of my favorite people who I kind of would like to do like a Ryan Murphy-esque life story of Paul Lind. I suspect that that may be coming. Don't you think I'd be a pretty good Paul Lind? You would be a brilliant Paul Lind. Right? Ryan Murphy, are you listening? Oh, it would be amazing. You would have, it would be so much fun to watch and to watch you do. Because, you know, he was a really interesting man. Yes, he was. Yes, he was. He was ahead of his time.

29:56Rob Lowe:And just the fashion, the like, here's my pitch. It's a look at the culture and how the culture, particularly in Hollywood and television in particular, changed from in the 60s into the mid-70s as seen through the eyes of Paul Lind. Come on, people. You know you love this. Because you want to start it as he's trying to figure out why he would go and do Bye Bye Birdie. Why should I make this movie? Because the movie's no longer about the show. It's more now about Anne Margaret And why should I go do this when I'm Paul Lind and, you know, and have him go and do it because I want to see you do kids.

30:49What's the matter? What's the matter with kids today? What's the matter with them? What is you? You have to do it.

30:57Rob Lowe:I want to do the Bewitched era. Yes. Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arthur. Yes. Yes. And Paul, and I mean, listen, and then in the Oscar moment of the thing, the Paul Lind 1979 Halloween special. Come on. I mean, have you seen that recently? Not recently. Tell me you watched it recently. way i well um i did and and you know why i did because my tiktok knows me so well yeah that it shows me things like the paul lind 1979 it's halloween it's on i think he has like i think he has like the village people on it and the star i don't know what it's but it's meant everybody had to do i realize in the 70s in tv you had to do battle of the network stars which i'm surprised you never did.

31:47No, I did something. I did the circus, circus of the stars.

31:51Rob Lowe:Oh, the circus. Oh my God. What was your act? What did you do? I remember those. I feel like I was on a trip. I feel like you were on a trapeze too. I was going to say. Somebody will find it and send it, but I think that's what it was that or an elephant, but I was, yeah. Yeah. My favorite is in your memory, you can't figure out if it was an elephant or a trapey, like they could not be more different. Well, I might've been doing something with an elephant or I might've been flying through the air. This is my new world. It's like one or the other. I did something, but I'm not sure what, but I know I was there.

32:28You know? I mean, it's, it's amazing.

32:31Rob Lowe:You have, you have had more fun, done more stuff than almost anybody I know. And I, I just love that. And I love all the chapters of your life. I mean, you even lived in my neck of the woods for a minute. Didn't you live in Montecito for two seconds? Yeah. Yeah. I lived on the top of a mountain in the, oh my goodness, I'm trying, in the John Deere house. Oh, I know where that is. Yeah. Yeah. That was my house for a long time. And then I realized I was too far away. Like I liked living out in the middle of nowhere, but this was too, too nowary for me because I would be coming home late and it was just like, this is too far.

33:11This is too far.

33:12Rob Lowe:Yeah. I, I, at this point in my life can't get far away enough. I, I, I, I work so much now and I'm surrounded by so many people and I love it, but, and you know how collaborative and what a team effort it is, but it's, I'm around 150 people every, almost every single day. And I use one to like chill, chill, chill, chill. Yeah. You deserve it. And you, you know, you're always working. It's just part of your DNA. It's what you do. You know, I'm the same way. I'm always working and always trying to talk to somebody. And my brain has started to do something interesting because, you know, ever since I lost my mom and my brother, there are finite, things have become finite in my head.

33:57And so when you say, what did you, what did you do? It's like, I'm not sure because the person who actually knows is no longer with me. You know, everybody kept track so that I didn't have to. So I didn't have to. You know, so, you know, my mother, you know, had all the books and put stuff away. And I just...

34:22Rob Lowe:Did she keep scrapbooks? Did your mom keep scrapbooks of everything you did? Yeah. Yeah. You're in my scrapbooks. There's pictures of us. You know, they... I want to find some pictures of us, little kids running around. Oh, my God. telling the farmers that their water is going to be unhealthy if they don't vote for Proposition 65. That was always my favorite, is you just knew the farmers were thrilled to take agricultural, aggregarian water advice from Whoopi Goldberg and Michael J. Fox. You know, that was, those were the experts they were looking to have. They knew we were telling them the truth.

34:55Rob Lowe:That is true. They knew, you know, and that's the, to me, that's the thing. Listen, does it matter who's telling you if they're telling you the truth? No, the truth is instantly recognizable. Yeah. Bozo the Clown could have come out and said, listen, these people, they're peeing. They're going to mess up your water, peeing in your water. We need better water. They're like, you know what? You're right. Hey, Bozo. But you're right. Nice feet. The California Clean Water Caravan. Yeah. God, it was fun. And has it shifted? Has the water, have they done different things now with the water? Are you guys in like a crazy drought now?

35:34Rob Lowe:We're in a crazy drought, yeah. And there's a lot of water rationing in California. But it goes in cycle. I've lived there long enough to know that – I mean clearly we're dealing with climate change. But even within that, it's secular. We'll have – I mean listen. Unfortunately, 23 people were killed in my neighborhood with a flash flood two and a half years ago. So I mean you can talk about the drought all you want. But you know what I'm saying? Yeah. It is what it is. It's like just weather in and of itself is so nuts. It's crazy. Let me ask you this. When do you go back? You're on The View right now.

36:10Rob Lowe:You're right in the middle of it. Yeah. Have you ever had an outright brawl on The View? Wait a minute. Fisticuffs? No, like a brawl. Yeah, because I know it gets testy sometimes between the gals and sometimes between the guests. And that's part of the DNA of the show sometimes. No. You know, it's not supposed to be. You know, it's not supposed to be part of DNA. What's supposed to happen is you're supposed to be able to get riled up and not have to worry. Do I do I need to watch somebody coming up behind me? No. You know, and, you know, it's like being around friends because not everybody agrees.

36:54You know, I can be friends with people who I don't necessarily agree with 100%.

37:01Rob Lowe:It's healthy. It is healthy. It's super healthy to have friendships with people who have a completely different worldview. For sure. Because you have to know why people think the way they think and why they do the things they do. Just like they need to know why I do the things I do. And I hear so many people say, I could never be friends with them. They think X, Y, or Z. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I hear that a lot also. That's exactly who you should at least try. Well, no, but you can say to somebody, help me understand. Help me understand because I don't understand. And it's okay to do that.

37:36It's okay to ask people. But, you know, again, we're in tricky times. Tricky, tricky times.

37:44Rob Lowe:Well, as long as you're in your little seat, by the way, you have the best location. Did you choose where you sit at the table? Did you come in? I'm only going to do this show if I can sit at this corner of the table. It's the worst place to sit. What do you mean? Why? If you're concerned at all about how you look, it is the one place that makes you look the biggest. It's on the end. Yeah. That's so interesting. Because sometimes I'm like, you know, if I've eaten way too much for way too long, I think, ooh, ooh, looking a little bit like a butterball turkey here. Maybe I'll just turn a little bit, you know.

38:24But it doesn't enter my brain often, but when it does, that's what I'm thinking. Ooh, side shot. Not nice.

38:32Rob Lowe:See, this is the kind of technical knowledge that I need to know. I love that. Don't have that part of the table. Well, you will never have to worry about that. We will never see the Jagunda, Rob Lowe. It's not going to be the Jagunda, Rob Lowe. But there have been many facets of the Jagunda, Whoopi Goldberg. The Jagunda is everything. Well, it's of a piece. Now, you can pray for Jagunda separate body parts, but I didn't want to get that deep. I'm just saying. I understand. I understand. I understand. Rob, you have to go see my movie, by the way. Oh, Till. Yes. You got to go see Till. Yes. I want to talk about Till.

39:22Rob Lowe:It is, the billboards are everywhere right now. You should know. You should be very happy. I'm really happy. No, no. They're everywhere. Good. In LA. Good. Good, good. And, you know, I love movies like Tilka. I love history. And I feel like I know the story, but I'm sure I really also don't. Well, I think you'd be surprised. And it's told through the eyes of the mother, right? Yes, yes. You play Emmett Till's mom, right? No, I'm the grandma. When we first put this together, the idea was that I would try to do Emmett Till's mother. But I have to tell you, I could never have done what this young lady, Danielle Detweiler, has done.

40:01Her performance is spectacular. Spectacular. For me, on the scale of one to ten, she is – there are no numbers. She's magnificent. Yeah, she's magnificent. And the story is shot so beautifully. uh the the chocoya who is our uh director you know we wanted people to see the movie so they could understand what the story what happened to this boy and why we can never let this kind of systemic racism take over again so she did not want to make the movie frightening for people so they wouldn't go see it. Everything that she has put in there is so that you can participate in what's going on in the movie.

40:57And she's done, the director has done an absolutely superb job, superb job. And if you have 11-year-olds and up, take them to see it. Because they may not, you know, we may not be able to hear what happened from our books anymore, as I understand. there are more book bannings going on. It's a history book changing. And so this is not changeable. This is what happened. And there are many, many parts of this that people don't know.

41:32Rob Lowe:As there always are, right? Yeah. When did you complete this movie? I think we were still in COVID maybe two years ago. Mm-hmm. It took 11 years for us to finish it, took 20 some odd years for Keith Beauchamp, who has been really instrumental in keeping Till's story in the forefront. He's the reason that the anti-lynching bill finally got done after 67 years. It's extraordinary. It's an extraordinary story. I hope everybody goes and see. The minute I get a break to go to a theater, I'm going to do it. And I also love it's in a theater. That's so great. How great is that, right? Theaters are wonderful.

42:25Theaters are wonderful. I just saw Black Panther last night in the theater. You know, it's just, it's really exciting to see movies again this way. I like them on television, but I also like them in the theater. And this last spate, you know, of movies for me, you know, represents five black directors, two of them women, many of them helmed by women, you know, as leads. You know, you have several regenerations coming out. Also, you have woman cake. I mean, this is we've never seen this before where the possibility of five directors of color in the race. It's it's really rather wonderful, you know, so things are inching along.

43:24Rob Lowe:That's why you need to host the Oscars again this year, because you can you can be there and celebrate it in person. We shall see. We shall see. Two things need to happen from this podcast that need to come out of this into the ether. Whoopi hosting and me doing Paul Lind. You doing Paul Lind first. The Paul Lind biopic. That's the first thing that needs to come up. As my mother always said, Rob, dream big. Yes. Dream big. Baby, why not? Why not? Whoopi, I love you. Thank you for coming on. Everybody needs to go see Till. It's in theaters now. and send in your ballots for Whoopi as host of Oscars.

44:07I adore you.

44:08Rob Lowe:I adore you. I'm coming to see you and the girls a bunch, I think, right after the first of the year. Okay. So we'll be some smooching and hugging in your future. Yes, I think so. Thank God. For sure. All right, baby. Love you. Love you.

44:28Rob Lowe:I do love that woman so much. I do. That was great fun. And you know what? I do love you for listening, taking time out of your day. It's very cool and it's very appreciated. Don't forget to download the rest of the season and give us a review. That would really be great if you had a good time. Don't forget to see Whoopi's movie Till. And for the rest of the show, what I'm going to do is I'm going to empty the lowdown line. There's nothing worse than an old school 80s answering machine with a light blinking saying 75. You have 75 messages. So we are going to take care of that right now. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe.

45:15323-570-4551.

45:20Rob Lowe:So have at it. Here's the beep. Hey, Rob. This is Brett calling from the most beautiful place on the planet, Lake Rosso, Ontario. I wanted to ask you how the makeup artist created your startling face for the character Dr. Jack Starts in the film Behind the Candelabra. Love the podcast and look forward to hearing your response. Bye-bye. Oh, thanks for checking in from Lake Rosso. I have water-skied the lake there myself many a time. um dr jack starts in behind the candelabra um if you haven't seen it i please i recommend you do it is one of my favorite roles i've ever had uh directed by steven soderberg starring michael douglas and uh matt damon myself it's the story of liberace and um i knew going into it that matt and michael would be taking really big swings as an actor i mean really over the top and you know when I do ensemble parts or supporting parts or cameo parts, I only have one rule, and that is, can I score?

46:28Rob Lowe:Like, if I can't walk away with people talking about it, then there's really no point in doing it. And so to score when you know other guys are going to be really scoring, it's a thing. You got to figure it out. And one of the ways I thought of doing it in this part was the look and having the look be so outrageous because the character warranted that. It was described in the script as his face is tight and shiny and plastic. So that was all the direction that there really was. And I remember calling Soderbergh and saying, I kind of have an idea of how I want to go, but it's pretty big. Are you down?

47:09Rob Lowe:And he was like, am I down? Let's go. So I worked with an amazing makeup and hair team and we came up with this look. And basically what we did was before facelifts were common in Hollywood, women would tape their skin and wrap it around their heads and then crank it super tight to pull the skin. And then you'd have to wear a wig over it to hide the tape marks and, of course, to hide the wires behind your head. So that was how the leading ladies of a certain age did it for years in Hollywood. So we did that with me. And so my face is super pulled and really freaky. And then I looked in the mirror and realized that if I closed my eyes halfway with my eyebrows raised up like that, it was really unhinged.

47:56Rob Lowe:So it was the most fun, the most trial and error that I had. And it's one of my favorite moments that I've been able to do as an actor. So thank you for the shout out. Hey, Rob. It's Sherry from Blessing, Mississippi. Man, I love your podcast. You are killing it. I love the conversations you have. And to ask the question of the guy that was on every magazine that I checked out of at the grocery store, got to give you props. But my question to you would be, I know you've played somewhat of an antagonist in Bad Influence, but I think he'd be an awesome bad guy. I think he got the charisma, the charm.

48:40What's your dream antagonist role, like a Bond villain type character? Good to talk to you, man. Huge fan.

48:47Rob Lowe:Hey, thanks, brother. That's so sweet. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I'm actively looking for a great bad guy part, actually. Bad Influence, if you folks haven't seen it, the movie you're talking about, it's one of my favorites that I did way ahead of its time. There are two types of bad guys I would like to play. And you put your finger right on it, like a Bond villain, particularly the way they are now, like Javier Bardem as the Bond villain was like super intellectual. I feel like the Bond villains are slightly better than the Marvel villains as an actor. I mean, not to say that I wouldn't play a Marvel villain, but Bond villains feel like they have more to do as an actor.

49:27Rob Lowe:They're a little weirder, so I would like to do that. There's a novelist named Patricia Highsmith who's done a lot of novels, and the talented Mr. Ripley, that movie is based on her work. She always has these characters, much like my character in Bad Influence, who are kind of charismatic and kind of sexy, and you like them and you're compelled by them, but you also know you shouldn't be and you don't really know how bad they are or they aren't until it's way too late. Something like that would be cool to find. And say hello to my peeps in Mississippi. Thanks for your call. Hi, Rob. This is Emily from Alberta, Canada.

50:09I am a big fan of your podcast. You're such a good storyteller and also good with your guests. My question for you is what was it like to get the call for Jimmy Kimmel's Handsome Men's Club? And do you have any fun behind-the-scenes stories? Keep up the good work. Bye.

50:29Rob Lowe:Of all of the clubs that I am – thank you, by the way, for the call. Of all of the clubs that I am a member of – and there aren't that many – the Handsome Men's Club is my proudest for sure. Let's face it. Um, and I remember Jimmy, Jimmy's people calling and saying, we have this idea for a bit. It's after, it's going to be after the Oscars. So it's really going to be a big deal. Everybody's going to see it. Um, it's the handsome men's club. And I was like, you know, when I, when I know something's funny, I'm immediately in, I don't need to know anything else. Like, well, who's in it? I'm not doing it.

51:04Rob Lowe:That's it. Um, and then of course I did find out who was in it and it was super sick. and there was there was my behind the scenes of it really was just that um because there there are so many amazing people in it and everybody has such um busy schedules um it was shot over a very very very long time based on people's schedules the day i was there i think i was alone um and then they put the people in it and there was all this talk of who's gonna be in it who else is gonna be there and like are we gonna get brad pitt is he doing it or i don't know like Like, so there was a lot of talk about who was going to be in it and who wasn't.

51:42Rob Lowe:And then, of course, I saw it and there were some really cool surprises. I think Sting is in it, which made me laugh.

51:51Rob Lowe:And obviously Matt Damon. But it's a high honor that I take very seriously. So thank you. All right. Listen, if you didn't get your question answered, call back and start filling up this box for us and we will have more load on lines to come. See you next week on Literally.

52:47Rob Lowe:This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

53:00Rob Lowe:Most ice cream is good, but not Jenny's. Jenny's ice cream is more like an obsession. What you get from over two decades of tasting and tweaking and throwing it out and starting over, chasing flavors until they feel alive. That might sound crazy, and that's because it is. Jenny's. Often imitated, never duplicated, always splendid. Want more cash? You can get a$450 bonus after your first 45 deliveries with Uber Eats. That's a$450 bonus for Samantha, who delivers by bike. $450 for Omar, who only delivers on weekends and$450 for Joe, who's got other apps on her delivery roster don't worry Joe, we're not the jealous type no matter how you deliver, you can get a$450 bonus after your first 45 deliveries with Uber Eats sign up now, complete within 14 days of sign up ends 11-1, terms apply, see out for details