Hour 3: Billy Bob Thornton on Robert Duvall’s Passing, plus Stuart Scott ’30-for-30’ Director Andre Gaines

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1:13Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. Ladies and gentlemen This is the Rich Eisen Show Here they are The Rich Eisen Show What are the Dolphins up to? I mean, I think everyone knew Tyreek Hill would be released A bigger question for Tyreek is just like, when does he play again? Earlier on the show Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee Luke Keekly ESPN NFL Draft Analyst Mel Kuyper Jr. Coming up Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton Director Andre Gaines And now Our number three of the Rich Eisen show is on the air.

2:03Everybody thrilled to be here with you after two hours on ESPN. We've moved to ESPN 2 for our third hour, but we're still on Disney Plus, the ESPN app. We're still on ESPN Radio, Sirius XM Channel 80, all live at once. As you know, this is more than just a sports show here. It's a pop culture show. The director of the Stuart Scott 30 for 30 documentary, Andre Gaines, is in our green room. He's going to come out. And, you know, we always love talking movies. We always love talking TV and the passing of Robert Duvall the other day at age 95, a life in full to say the least. But it gutted me. I have been a fan of this man's work for decades.

2:39And in case many of you may not know, the first time we saw Robert Duvall on the screen was in 1962. He played Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Look at him right there back in 1962. And then, of course, after quite a turn there, appeared in many films. He was the original Frank Burns in the movie MASH. By the way, he created that character. He played the lead in George Lucas's first film ever, THX 1138. That was back in 1971. He was Tom Hagen, the consigliere for Marlon Brando's Don Corleone and Godfather 1, Godfather Part 2 as well in 1974. There he's with Frank Pantangeli there telling Frank what he needed to do back in the day.

3:32Network, which is a movie that speaks so near and dear to my heart. This movie, he played the Hatchet Man, Frank Hackett, for CCA, the network for Patty Chayefsky's brilliant film that presaged everything that's happened with network news these days. Apocalypse Now, 1979, it was his second time being nominated. He was Colonel Kilgore talking about the smell of napalm in the morning. His first nomination was for The Godfather. His third nomination came in 1979 as well for The Great Santini. He played Bull Meacham, an abusive marine pilot who had some family issues, you could see right there. 1983, a broken-down country singer who put his life back together, Max Sledge in Tender Mercies.

4:20That earned him his first Academy Award win, Robert Duvall, back in 1983. 83, another film they'll also talk about, of course, for you sports fans out there, the naturally played Max Mercy. Right. Wound up letting everyone know about Roy Hobbs' story. Look at him right there. 1996, he played Billy Bob Thornton's dad in Sling Blade. And there he is in that role, Billy Bob Thornton on the left right there. The Apostle in 1998, he earned his final Best Actor nomination. He was nominated for Best Supporting Actor two more times, passed away at the age of 95. And The Apostle and also Sling Blade, two of, to my count, five films in which Billy Bob Thornton and Robert Duvall collaborated.

5:12And joining us now to talk about the passing of his mentor is the Academy Award winner, Billy Bob Thornton, here on the program. Great to see you, Billy Bob Thornton. And I hope I did a little bit of justice before you came on here about your mentor. Oh, it was awesome. No, you were terrific. I think you covered all the main points there, you know. And, yeah, I did do five movies with Bobby as an actor. And then I directed him. He directed me. I directed him twice. And then I wrote a movie. Tom Epperson and I wrote a movie called A Family Thing. that Duvall starred in with James Earl Jones that was shot at the same time we were shooting a sling blade.

5:57So when's the first time you ever crossed paths with Robert Duvall? We had the same agent over at William Morris in the late 80s. And he said, you and Duvall really need to know each other. And Bobby had seen this movie that Tom and I wrote called One False Move, which was the thing that kind of put us on the map as writers and Hollywood, not with the public as much, but, you know, within the business. And I guess that was 90, 91, somewhere in there. But Bobby liked that movie a lot. And we just, you know, started hanging out. What was that like, man? What's it like hanging out with Robert Duvall, Billy?

6:42Well, you know, Bobby had a very quick wit and he had two kinds of senses of humor. He had this really dry irony, and then he had this sort of three stooges sense of humor. He had a dog named Gus, a little Jack Russell Terrier. And I remember being at the Four Seasons in Austin, Texas. I was meeting Bobby over there, and he had Gus with him, and he sicked Gus on me. He said, go get him, Gus, and Gus kind of bit me on the leg, and Bobby thought that was the funniest thing on earth. But anyway, so he was my mentor, you know, I mean, to be plain and simple about it. But he was the guy that I looked up to.

7:39And, you know, I grew up in music. I didn't know I was going to be an actor. But, you know, there are certain things, even before I ever thought anything about being in movies, that I'd seen him in that really struck me. And so, you know, the character in Sling Blade, I mean, has a little bit of boo-raddly, you know. Sure. but he just, he, he, he showed me that, yes, you can be real. You can be natural in this stuff. And Bobby didn't like to talk about acting and people, they're always asking. I did a long interview about Bobby yesterday and, and the writer wanted to know what tips I acting tips I got from him.

8:29Right. And he just didn't like to talk about acting. He would talk about the movies, the experience of making something, you know, he would he would tell you about stuff like, you know, that actor over there. I don't know. I don't know about him. I don't think I trust that guy, you know, and that kind of thing. So he would say stuff like that. But or he would tell you about a director he didn't like or, you know, somebody on the set that, you know, slept with all the grips or whatever, you know. Hollywood tea, I'm sure. So what did you pick up? What did you pick up from him? Like watching him as a fellow actor or a director or being directed by him?

9:13What did you glean being around him? that well um really uh that you can take all the methods in the world uh all the tricks and they don't mean anything if you're not real in the in the moment and in the situation you know for instance uh you know when it says in a script you know Terry breaks down in tears or whatever I've never I've probably never cried in a movie where it said I was supposed to but I have in places where it said I didn't say I was supposed to and Bobby and I talked about that once and he said yeah that's the thing he says whatever you're feeling right now just be in that situation you know um and uh i mean it was a style of you know naturalistic acting i mean he probably you know he did some other things where he did have to study up more than more than i did like he would play people with accents a lot of times like you know he played stalin and you know people like that so um you know sometimes he was very hardworking and studied in his characters when he had to play someone that far from himself.

10:43What do you think Billy Bob Thornton is his best work? What do you think? If you have to pull one. Outside of whatever he did with you, clearly. What do you think was seminal Robert Duvall? You want to tell somebody that wants to learn about what he was about, whether it was his physical acting, whether it was his spiritual acting, whether it was an accent, whether it was his Oscar winning role. Which one would you say is Robert Duvall's Tour de Force? I would have to say Tender Mercies. You know, at least that's the one that struck me the most. Tender Mercies and Lonesome Dove. Lonesome Dove was Bobby's favorite performance of his ever.

11:32and uh he he loved that i mean he loved a lot of them but uh that one i think is probably the closest thing to his heart was lots and dove yeah you're talking about the television miniseries that he did um what did he share with you if you don't mind sharing with us that that that he was proud of that one especially he just loved the way it was written and he loved the character and you know Bobby was kind of a cowboy at heart you know and I think you know he had some of the old west in him he always wanted to do those shows I mean around you know horses and outlaws and you know guys like he played like Gus and you know Lonesome Dove he just liked that stuff and you know like I said I mean I wish I had more to tell you about I spent you know thousands of hours with this guy and like i said he was my mentor i probably have uh acting information from him or things about his roles about as much as you could fit in a wall nutshell okay he talked about meat and tango and um see for about 25 years i haven't i haven't eaten red meat in at least 25 years, probably 27 or 8.

12:58Bobby was obsessed with steak and barbecue. And so I spent these last 27, 28 years pretending that I ate meat.

13:15I mean, he was completely obsessed. Every other week, he had a new best barbecue in the world. He goes, it's like, well, I thought this place over in Fort Worth was the best. No, no, no. This place in Virginia is the best barbecue in the world. So Bobby's wife, Luciana, who we call the saint, you know, she was with him for, you know, over half her life, you know, up till now. And she and I had a sort of running joke about it because if Bobby had known that I eat quinoa and stuff like that, he would have hit the roof.

14:01Anyway, but he would go out. He loved to he loved to order for the table. So he would order these giant steaks that were for, you know, three or four or five people. and he liked his just where they would just touch it to the grill on each side it was essentially raw and uh so i would just i mean when i was around him when he had one of his dogs with him i'd just feed it to the dog under the table when it wasn't i was going to ask how did you dispose of the meat how did you make it seem like you were consuming it if you get him in a conversation about something he's passionate about, you know, like it could be anything.

14:42It could be soccer. It could be anything in the world.

14:49He wouldn't think about it, you know. So I'd always kind of set him, tee him up, you know, to start talking to people about something. And then when he did that, I would give it to somebody or I would, you know, not ever order anything, you know. I remember we were in Boston when we were shooting the judge and we went out to a restaurant one night because Bobby said I had to try the steak. And Luciano was behind him kind of laughing and, you know, because we've been keeping up this ruse for years, you know. And so I literally had a quinoa salad in front of me. Bobby looked at it and he goes, what the hell is that?

15:31I said, oh, that's just the salad. but my steak's coming later, you know. Well, they brought their food and everything, and mine just never came because when he would get going on a subject, he didn't pay much attention to, you know, anything else. So I usually got by with it that way by just kind of getting him on something and, you know, never order a steak. And there were a couple of places we went that had a vegan kind of deal that kind of looked like steak, you know? I pretended that was steak a couple of times, you know, like a portobello mushroom or something. Who knew this is maybe your finest acting jobs ever was letting Robert Duvall think that you were a steak eater, Billy Bob.

16:17Absolutely. Hey, man. Listen, I appreciate you sharing time. And if you don't mind me taking this moment to, you know, potentially embarrass you, but Landman is outstanding. You know how I feel about your current work with this show. Simply outstanding. I love every frame of it. You are spectacular in it. You know, your scenes, you know, this year in particular with your family members, they're just, it's great. It gets better every week. And I just wanted to get that off my chest with you right here. Thank you very much. I love doing the show. I really do. And I feel blessed every day. I mean, you know, it's I mean, my mentor is Robert Duvall.

17:06We just talked about I grew up around a lot of those guys. And now I get to do a show like Landman, which Taylor actually wrote for me, which you don't get very often. You know, something where somebody just gives you a pair of pants that fit instantly. You know, exactly. And for you, you show off your your your humble man, Billy Bob Thornton, that you get, you know, I guess if you will. shown up in a scene by Jerry Jones and, you know, happy to talk about it. You know what I'm saying? Right. Well, you know, it was amazing because, I mean, maybe if that had been scripted in a way that Jerry had to know it all line by line and wouldn't go on that way, maybe, you know, but he was telling his own story.

17:49Right. I mean, he told his life story right there for me and Jon Hamm. And I got to say, I was mesmerized. I got caught up in the story. And so there was no acting in that scene from anybody, from me, John, and Jerry. It was just three guys, and they're listening to Jerry Jones' story. So if he had been playing some guy named Clyde, who was a bag man for the mob, it might not have been the same thing.

18:23That's funny. But, yeah, he was awesome. Yeah, you know, Jerry was on the, because I'm a Razorback fan, you know, and we're up as one in Jerry and Jimmy, right? Jimmy Johnson, Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer were all on that 64 Razorback National Championship team. Unbelievable. Isn't that crazy? It is crazy. It is. Well, listen, Billy Bob Thornton, I really appreciate your time. You know, you know how I feel about you and your show. And honestly, I thought maybe we'll hear some, you know, on the set stories from back in the day that he shared with you. But I find it fascinating that that he didn't talk about that sort of stuff.

19:01And, you know, I got stories. I've got stories I can share with you, but they're, you know, I'll just put it this way. Bobby didn't suffer fools, you know. And so he told me one time, he said, on every movie, at least once, you got to let the director know who he's talking to. I'll leave it at that. OK, for the next time, dot, dot, dot ellipses to end this conversation. thank you bud you be well and i do hope to see you here in studio if not uh us personally crossing paths appreciate absolutely i'll see you soon and my condolences to you my condolences to you he was a great man i loved him i appreciate you sharing your time about your mentor robert duvall the academy reward winner landman himself billy bob thornton here on the rich eisen show that's uh awesome yeah that was incredible that's great who knew one of his greatest acting jobs is to let Robert Duvall think he's a meat eater.

19:58Portobello mushroom. That's great. What the hell is Keen Fawke? What are you eating? You're going to hit the roof. Do you think he let Coppola know who was Keen Fawke? I was going to say, on that movie, that is one of my favorite movies. Which one? That's one of his movies. He's got Hocalypse Now with it. And that scene on the beach. Charlie Don't Surf? with him, Sheen, and Timothy Bottoms. That is one of the... And the bombs going off everywhere? And he doesn't flinch? He just doesn't even give a... Like, he's a man. It's just that scene. I have goosebumps, because I saw that movie in the theater with my brother.

20:33And I remember the first time seeing it and going, that scene was like... It was like that just... And he's only in the movie for this long. Just like maybe less than like 15, 20 minutes. But he embodied that time, because it's like he's just there as a general... And he's just like running the troops. and he only cares about surfing he just really cares about surfing i mean the war is like a backdrop right the surfing it's amazing yeah 1979 for me that movie but for me duval's uh obviously the godfather the godfather hit you um but the great santini he was spectacular in that and it was disturbing very very disturbing to watch him you know with his family and his son look look at that that's danny noonan if you will that's uh michael o 'keefe playing his son there um trying to get the love of his father it was it was heartbreaking it was crushing but again i certainly since we're on television here the movie network yeah in um 1976 this is when rocky was out star wars was out and everything um he plays a television network executive who puts howard beale on the air okay the actor peter finch who died and won an oscar posthumously for his role the you know the famous scene where he tells everybody to get up out of your seats open the window and scream out the window i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore And he comes in, you know, wet from the rain and in overcoat.

22:13And he's the nightly news anchor who's clearly off the rails, but speaks so plainly and channels the rage of the viewer and channels the rage of the people who are watching in society about the inequities in society and how you're mad about it. and you're mad as hell and you're not going to take it anymore. And this guy who's clearly not mentally right put on television and it's a ratings hit. And due to a heart attack of the boss of Robert Duvall's character, Robert Duvall takes over, fires the network news division chief, puts the network news program into programming, entertainment programming, and keeps putting a clearly not sane man on television.

23:02and the rest of the nightly news also becomes reality television they have they they plant cameras into um what what would you say what would be sort of the similar to um the the black panthers or something like that you're following them around and suddenly news is becoming entertainment real life stuff is now viewed as entertainment and it presaged everything that we're seeing right now on television everything that we're seeing patty chayefsky wrote the script and his scene where he fires that i posted it the other day where he fires william holden and the executive played by faye dunaway um is in the scene as well she won an oscar for it his scene in that moment physic the way he handles his body and the way that he handles his language the way that he handles the scene i think it's his greatest work in a very important movie.

23:58All right, let's take a break here because we have a guest in our green room right now. I didn't think I'd go down a network wormhole. Andre Gaines, what a beautiful 30 for 30 on my friend Stuart Scott. He's the director. He's coming up next. The Rich Eisen Show podcast.

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26:15dot com here on the rich eisen show with our radio audience just rejoined us we're already off and running on our tv side of things espn 2 disney plus and the espn app with andre gains the director of the stewart scott 30 for 30 booyah um where everybody could still see it it's um i still get texts out of the blue from people saying um how gutted they are likewise by by this documentary and you know when you and i were talking about it last december we were out there in new york when it first came out and you asked me you know hey have i seen it what i think and i said i i couldn't bring myself to watch it yet um and that i was going to sit down with my kids because they they're 17 and at the time 14 and 12 they didn't know stewart they didn't remember steward yeah they had a chance to get introduced to him and the fact that steward was at our wedding and you know so and he's been so integral in in the life of me and and my wife susie who i met in the espn newsroom right there a great story that i wish i could had more time and i do want to get into that um in a second but i did i did show it to all three kids at once yeah what what what was the and they they were they were blown away you know first of all that that i you know that their parents knew him, number one.

27:42And we're like, we didn't just know him. Like, this is the real thing. But also his story, his story, and knowing what a crucial story it is to tell. And I'm wondering, like, how did you decide which stories to tell and what weight to give them in the documentary? I mean, that's always the hard part, right? You know, when you're making a movie, you only have a certain amount of real estate, And I remember sitting and talking to the team, to the ESPN executives and even my own team at the beginning saying, like, we're going to need a bigger boat here. You know, this is this is just too much. and uh they were really meaning the the team at at espn was uh you know very precious about it obviously but also forced me to really focus on the the the high highs and lows of stewart's story that would would make for a really great film and and i you know i'm thankful for them you know for that they were very supportive of me through the whole process it was not an easy process way harder than probably anything I've ever made.

28:51I mean, I would say more emotional, more of an emotional journey than any film that I've ever made, for sure. Well, the thing that I was taken aback by, even though I shouldn't have been, because I knew Stuart, and I knew that Stuart, as much as, you know, he loved his daughters, he loved his family, he loved, you know, he had pride in so much of what he did. But Stuart also loved him some him a little bit. Yeah, for sure. I was taken aback by how much he recorded of himself. Yeah, isn't that amazing? All the time. Yeah, that was the gift. That was manna from heaven, you know. When did you find out that there was so much source material that he was essentially unwittingly providing you from jump of his world?

29:38From beyond the grave. Yeah, it was the gift that just kept giving. I swear we could have made a four-part documentary out of this thing. It just, there's so much of it. I mean, just selfies before it was a thing, right? I mean, and these are with clunky cameras. Yeah. You know, it's not like a sleek phone. This is a big old. Where you hit that, you know, reverse. You hit the reverse thing and he's turning it around on his face. And. It was footage. I had no idea there was footage of him and Kim getting engaged. Getting engaged. Yeah. Like from afar. From afar. Well shot, too, by the way. Like through leaves and all this sort of stuff.

30:18And so we just had this treasure trove of it. And a lot of it was Kim, Stuart's ex-wife. She had a lot of this material, a lot of this footage, a lot of these photos that she kept. There was a lot from the ESPN archives themselves. There was a lot from his siblings. Just piles and piles of it. I mean, it was just so much. And so it was very difficult, very difficult. There's that one shot of him where he's got the camera and he puts the microphone down and he walks off into the sunset. Yes. And you as a filmmaker see that, you're like, that's the last shot? I didn't believe it when I saw it. When my team, my editorial team showed this to me, I was just like, what is this AI or something?

31:03You know, I was like, there's no way that this is actually happening. Because endings are like the hardest things. endings and beginnings of movies are like the hardest things to like figure out. Like you can figure out the meat of a story somewhat fairly early, but how to start it, how to bring people into it and how to take them out of it. And the fact that we had this, which was our ending, you know, this was the ending of the movie, which we started with. We started that, the process of making this movie, knowing that this was the, the end. So you, you had that source material. We had that pretty early.

31:39Okay. Yeah. So you work backwards? And so you just work backwards. No kidding. Yeah. So it said everything that we're doing needs to serve, needs to serve two things. It needed to serve this ending of him walking literally off into the sunset and it needed to serve his ESPY speech. So it was those two pieces where it was like everything that we're doing here, where we're telling this story, need to service what he's going to say in this farewell speech that a lot of people didn't realize. And also the fact that he, as a young man, you know, had set up this camera, recorded himself and said, I'm going to walk off into the sunset.