Hour 3: TNF’s Tony Gonzalez Talks Rams & Chiefs, plus Horror Directing Legend Eli Roth In-Studio

24:31Rich Eisen:a rabbi involved with a cut is a bris, but that's... Right. Oh, man. A different audience. See what you did there? So Alien... Feeling that. Is Alien you call a horror movie? It's not science fiction? It was science fiction, but when you're a kid, and you're like sitting there terrified and petrified, there was sort of this line where if something was killed, you know, the chestburster in my mind made it a horror movie. That's John Hurt, right? It was John Hurt with the chest bursting, and Veronica Cartwright's reaction, and what Ridley Scott did, that feeling of the alien bursting out of the chest.

25:01Oh my God. And I say, that's why people love going to horror movies. You can pirate a movie, but that adrenaline rush, that heart pounding adrenaline rush, you have to see it in a theater. It's like a sports event. You can watch it on TV or you can go live. There's nothing like being there live at the game. And that's what a great horror movie can do in a theater. It's like being at the game. But that feeling when I saw the chest burst was like, in the last 10 minutes of that movie, I remember I was in the aisle, like in a sprinting pose, just looking back over my shoulder. that's how i watched the last 10 minutes because you were just afraid but i was terrified it was a mix of jaws and star wars i had missed jaws so you just heard stories about jaws but i'd seen star wars and people were saying this is like jaws and star wars combined and i i just was like i had to know what happened i think i ran outside the theater and i threw up that's what i used to do i used to barf in movies that to me is like so if anyone has a running barf during uh ice cream man put it on social media tick tock it like a running barf is the highest compliment you can get when it sprays over a wall or something.

25:57Okay. Like, they couldn't even hold it. They just had to bolt out of the thing. Dude, man.

26:01Rich Eisen:I just remember, I think I saw Alien on VHS, like, rented it. Yes. Like, I don't believe I saw it in a movie theater. I don't have a recollection of that. But the alien gestating in a human and then popping out in the middle of dinner. Yafit Koto was in that scene as well. Oh, that's incredible. Tom Skerritt, Yafit Koto. I mean, my gosh, right? Right. What a cast it was as well. but and then seeing that pop up and then run off oh nothing it's just see you later and then and now you're wondering where where it's coming from the rest of the film and every time they find it there's new clues i mean just harry dean stanton also it was like kind of like a workplace drama right where you see they're like well we'll go but what about our bonuses we got to get more shares like okay these guys are the machinists and this is the captain like the classes and the stuff that that script did and there's a great movie called dark star that john carpenter directed that dan O 'Bannon, who wrote Alien, wrote.

26:51It was John Carpenter's student film about an alien on a ship, and there's a lot of the elements from the script of Alien from DarksGuard that made it into Alien.

26:59Rich Eisen:What would you say, again, for some folks from out here, Alien, they don't consider it a horror movie, it's more of a science fiction, like a quintessential horror film? The Exorcist. For me, the trinity, it's The Exorcist, The Evil Dead, The Shining. Those are foundational. The Shining is a horror film. The Shining is a horror film. I mean, it's a very, I mean, you could say it's a drama. You can make all kinds of arguments about it, but that it's a ghost story and it's about demons and personal ghosts. But it is a terrifying, disturbing movie. Not a success upon release. It took many years. I mean, got Razzie Award nominations, took many years for that movie to become revered the way it is.

27:34The Exorcist became the highest grossing film of all time. And I asked William Friedkin, I said, when he was alive, I said, you know, this is my favorite horror film. He said, I didn't make a horror film. I made a drama. The subject matter was horrific. And I think that's what made it so terrifying is it played so real that you felt like you were watching a girl who was possessed. And then The Evil Dead, to me, that was Sam Raimi was 20 or 21 years old when he made it for$350 ,000 in the woods. That's what made me want to make my first film, Cabin Fever. I thought, oh, my gosh, you don't have to be from Hollywood.

28:00You don't need$100 million. You could actually get, if you can cobble together, you know,$350 ,000 in a camera, you can go in the woods and make a movie.

28:07Rich Eisen:That's your movie, right, Cabin Fever? I love Cabin Fever. Well, thank you. I have a fever is one of my favorite. I remember the first time I watched it, and I was like, okay, where's it going? And then I'm like, oh, this is like. Rich Eisen here for gusto. After all these years talking to athletes, coaches, entertainers, and people at the top of what they do, one thing is pretty clear. Success usually depends on getting the details right. For small business owners, that includes payroll, hiring, onboarding, benefits, you know, the work that keeps everything moving, even if it's not the reason you started the business in the first place.

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29:14Rich Eisen:No hidden fees, no surprises. Try Gusto today at gusto.com slash rich and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months of free payroll at gusto.com slash rich. One more time, gusto.com slash rich. Right now, O 'Reilly Auto Parts gets you back to savings. Pick up select Royal Purple Fuel System additives. Buy one, get one free. Plus, receive four times O rewards points. Stop by your local O 'Reilly Auto Parts store or shop online at OReillyAuto.com. Wow. And then it just builds to the point. It's great. It was unbelievable. Thank you. I appreciate it. Hostile, too.

29:53Rich Eisen:Thank you. By the way, that's the highest praise you can get from Mike, who doesn't really speak in full sentences. that's usually that's the highest praise you can give the weird thing when you're making a horror movie is actually the highest compliment the best compliment is I couldn't watch it or I watched it on the inside if you really do your job with all the makeup effects and the music and the lighting and the cinematography and everything and people are watching it like this that's exactly what you want yeah I mean like that where you could not yeah people are like I left halfway through or like I threw up I couldn't watch it So you actually want this, you know, kind of shocked reaction.

30:29That's sort of the point of a horror film. And then you watch it again and again. And like the thing is the haunted house is only scary the first time. They always have these things at the end of the decade. They'll go back and look at movies like Hostel wasn't that scary. It's like no movie is scary when you watch it again. But that's when you start to see the photography, the things, the costumes, all those little things you notice. You can watch them over and over. But that initial scare, it's like, you know, it's like a cologne or perfume. Like you open the bottle, it's like, whoa. And then over years, it just gets less and less potent.

30:55and horror movies are like that, but then other things come to the surface. Yeah, Jay Hernandez in that. Incredible. It's amazing. It's insane.

31:01Rich Eisen:Yeah, Jay was great. What's your favorite acting performance in a horror film that you could recall? I mean, there are so many great ones. I mean, look, I feel like Linda Blair and The Exorcist should have gotten the Oscar. I mean, or Jason Miller should have gotten that. That is brilliant. There's Shelley Duvall in The Shining. In The Shining. Are just so incredible. Or Bruce Campbell in Evil Dead 2 is so unbelievable. Recently, we all saw Obsession, And we're like, oh, yeah, Indy Navarette should win Best Actress. I mean, I'm sure there'll be a lot of great performances. But to do what she did with that performance, where it's just on her face and her smile and the way she goes, no, no, no, no.

31:37And what's so great is you're watching a person do it. It's not a makeup effect. It's not a trick. It's just like a chilling performance of someone who looks like they're possessed. It was incredible.

31:45Rich Eisen:Eli Roth here on The Rich Eisen Show. Ice Cream Man in theaters nationwide Friday, August 7th. You and there's the movie poster there up on the screen. You mentioned moments ago, Tarantino, when you did Inglourious Bastards. What'd you pick up from him? Anything? I mean, there's so many things. I mean, Quentin was very much, you'd think that everything's kind of storyboarded and framed out. Quentin is performance first. And he's talked about this. I'm not like revealing anything. But what I noticed with Quentin was that he wants you to know your characters inside and out. Like, it's not about the script.

32:17You have to know, like, who this person was. Where were they yesterday? Where are they going now? Like, you really, he builds a universe and he wants you to know it that way. And when he's staging a scene, it's like nobody's there. It's you and him and the actors work it out. And then he brings in Bob Richardson, the cameraman. And then we're like, OK, let's put it there. And then it kind of builds from there. But really, the core of it is what if there was nobody here and we were here doing the scene, what would we do if we didn't know we were being filmed? And then you work it out from there and then you bring in the camera.

32:45So his whole thing about performance, performance. And that was something I never and he doesn't watch the monitor. He stands at next to the camera watching the actors. And the other thing he noticed was that often the camera's on you. You're nervous. Okay, I nailed it. I nailed it. Well, now the camera's around and they're on another actor and you just start kind of goofing off and throwing stuff away. And that's there's gold there. So Quentin, he's like always watching your off camera and he will turn around and relight if you come up with something like that. Antonio Margarita, like we were on me and I did a bunch of versions of it.

33:15And then we turned around. We're filming Christoph Waltz and we just kind of come in and we were like sort of half dressed. We weren't really planning on being on camera again. and Quentin saw it like we figured it out and Quentin's like that's it and he turned around relight and we redid it but it took us shooting it doing it where the coverage is just on Christophe for us to find it and then he turned around and then like then it was like me and Brad and Omar and Diane like it took a few times so Quentin told me he's like he's also said like a lot of actors I mean if you have a budget you can do it they like to reshoot their first day like nobody's great their first day so don't be afraid to reshoot stuff I have so many follow-up questions

33:49Rich Eisen:Okay. First of all, the scene you're referring to in Christoph Waltz is where you guys are trying to pass yourself off. Yeah, we're passing ourselves off as Italian. As Italian. And he sees straight through. Yeah, he knows exactly what we're doing. He's 10 steps ahead of us. Well, again, his character is one of the most fascinating characters in any Tarantino film or any film at all. He won the Oscar for his performance. But just the fact that he's fluent in all these languages. There's no fooling him. He knows everything. But in real life, though, right? Like, what was that like to be playing across from him in that scene?

34:22People say, like, aren't you intimidated working with a great actor? It's actually much easier. When you're working with an actor that mumbles or doesn't give you anything, you have to, like, overdo it. When there's an actor like Kristoff, you just react because he's so good. And look, he's the nicest guy in the world. But he kind of kept to himself for the first part of the movie. Like, later, by the end, we're all, you know, hanging out. We met him at the beginning, and I was, like, very close to them. but when you're watching him up close you're like this is the greatest performance i've ever seen from anything that's happening in front of my face but you have to act and he's giving you so much to react to like what did he give to you like where he's just like i'll give you a look or like kind of slap you on the shoulder and you just have to stand there and you're just like and i i remember just kind of doing this slow burn to brag going like oh you know this look that wasn't that wasn't scripted that was just like me as the character really reacting like Like, oh, this guy's on to us.

35:14We're going to get killed. And, you know, it was so much fun. And also with, you know, Brad was great. He's like, everybody wants to be in it. You know, Quentin has no cell phones on set. So everyone's there. You're just like fully immersed in the moment. But when you're working with an actor who's great, it's actually much easier because you're not pretending. You can really just, you know, react to what they're doing, honestly.

35:31Rich Eisen:And obviously the scene in which you are somewhat introduced as the bear Jew, Donny Donowitz. And you're coming out of the tunnel. Yeah. with a bat getting ready to kill. He kept me in that tunnel for five days before we shot it. Are you serious? Yeah. I mean, he was like, he's like, we'll get to it today. And I'd be back there. We set up like a punching bag and weights and like a pull-up bar so I could just like, just like stay angry and sweaty. So I was like a caged animal. And finally at the end, I was just like, I was really, he'd get to the end and go up. We're not getting to it. I'm like, oh.

36:05So just like each day by the time I, we got to it, I was really, really ready. Okay. And then he let me, he let me rant because marty katrosser who's a script supervisor from springfield mass i was like can i like showboat a little for the guys and like all the you know he went yeah on that one all the way to lansdowne street like i could really let my my inner mass hole out i was going to ask you that question

36:23Rich Eisen:um because you're from massachusetts yeah and then once uh you connect with the bat yeah you start talking about fenway and ted williams yeah was that ad-libbed by you because yeah that was ad-libbed I mean, look, I love Quentin. I like he's the greatest writer in the world. And, you know, there are very few people that he would trust to do that. But it was just like in the script, I beat him. But I asked him, I was like, would it be OK if after I kill him, if I just do a little like I'm this is the close we get to go into the movies. I want to entertain the guys. I want to showboat a little bit.

36:57And then he's like, yeah, you can do it. And he let me like really, really rant like that full that full rant just, you know, came out of me.

37:04Rich Eisen:About Ted Williams. Yeah, Teddy Williams. He went out on that one all the way to Lansdowne Street. Like that's exactly where that guy would be. He'd be like in Boston in his head, you know, like thinking about all that stuff. And that's, that's part of Tarantino saying, know your character. Tarantino. Like I remember we, we, we had a script read through the first day and he's like, close your scripts. And he's like, when did you first join the bastards? And he's like, who are you? And I was like, well, you know, I'm Donnie Donowitz. I grew up in George. And I, and I had gone to Boston. I'd researched the street.

37:30I talked to world war two veterans. I talked to people that were alive in Dorchester at that time where I would have lived, what my apartment building would have been. Like I had a full book of who Donnie Donowitz was. So he won. And I knew Quentin. I know quite well enough to know that he would want that. And he really imparted that me in all of my characters that I write. When I write my characters now and the characters in Ice Cream Man, I don't like it to feel like written dialogue. I like to feel like you just kind of dropped in on that family having dinner. Like it feels real like you're sitting there the way the kids talk to each other.

37:58The kids are fully swearing in the movie and they feel like the kids were like, this is the first time we can actually talk like a 12 year old in a movie we're not because i hate kid acting like that i want to talk like the kids in stranger things or it where you're bad news bears where like they really talk like kids so quentin really taught me that like you really have to know these people the way you know your best friends if you're writing dialogue for anyone in this room you know exactly what they would say at any given moment or you have a really good approximation of it because you know them and you know what their background is and that's why i think quentin is you know the greatest writer he's like he's really like a novelist but he thinks of his characters as the most important thing everything comes from the characters and that's something he tried to impart with me i mean look i know ice cream man is like insanity and gore and it's looney tunes and it's more kills than all my movies combined but i actually try to write great characters or i don't think people are going to care about the movie i want people to watch the movie going man i love those kids in ice cream man their characters are great love this conversation man i can't get enough of process

38:52Rich Eisen:and how it works and how people get inspired sorry quentin made us tell our entire backstories and there were people that hadn't worked on it and they were like one guy got bounced he fired someone he's like because he thought he was just going to be like one of the people in the background with one line or something and Quentin's like you don't know who your character is you know how are you going to play these scenes even silent he wants everyone to know everything about their characters I talked for two hours about Donnie Brad did the same thing like we all went around the table just talking about and that was the first rehearsal so we all kind of knew who each other was he asked us about a million scenes that didn't happen in the story he's like what what did your character do when this happened, when that happened?

39:29I was like, well, I thought this, blah, blah, blah. But we had all prepared for it. And it was fun. That's exciting. As an actor, you never get to do that anymore. There's no rehearsals anymore. People don't rehearse like that. They just parachute in, they shoot, and they leave. I'd love to know what Christoph Waltz said about his character. He had a whole thing. He kept us separate. Quentin kept Christoph separate. Christoph doesn't read anything. He just focused on Londa. He wasn't ingesting pop culture or being on a cell phone. Christoph knew this was the role of a lifetime. and he just like went into learning the character, learning the lines.

39:59He, you know, he can think of, the reason it's so brilliant is like, he can think of every single moment, you know, it's a lifetime of preparation for that role for him. Damn.

40:09Rich Eisen:Eli Roth, Ice Cream Man in theaters nationwide tomorrow, Friday, August 7th. And Snoop Dogg did the music, huh? Snoop Dogg did, yeah. I worked with this composer, Brandon Roberts, who's amazing. He won the Emmy for Andor. and you know i was talking with snoop because we we have a horror movie we want to do together and there's a fake trail there's a trailer for it on ice cream man i don't know if you can bleep it out but the title of the movie is don't go in that house bitch that's actually the title of the movie so i want it to be like a ridiculous haunted house movie and i'm snoop dogg's going to be in it so we've been talking about don't go in the house bitch so i told him about ice cream man and he's like hey i got some music and he sent me this score like not rap music score it was incredible so i was working with uh brandon my composer and we listened to the students we're like this is so good we don't want to touch we like there's a sequence where the music shifts in the in the kind of the kidpocalypse playground it's half it's like stuff you never would have think it's snoop that's snoop dogs music and then i told him you know i scream you scream we scream ice cream and he sent me like this incredible song we use it in the end credits i mean the guy's the best i absolutely love him so yeah the next thing i just want to make and nas is an exec producer too so i just want to make you know horror movies with snoop and nas and just kind to doing our own thing.

41:21That's the fun thing of doing it outside the studios. You don't need anyone's permission.

41:24Rich Eisen:Well, this has been a blast chatting with you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming here. Really appreciate it. Thanks for the support. We need it. You know, that opening weekend, I think people are, there's nothing quite like it. Well, it's coming up this very weekend. Ice Cream Man, everybody check it out. Theaters nationwide. Eli Roth here on The Rich Eisen Show. Thanks, guys. Have a moment.

41:52The Mets.

41:53Rich Eisen:Oh, my goodness.

41:57Rich Eisen:Oh, my goodness. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back on The Rich Eisen Show on our live stream on Disney Plus, ESPN. I'm Susie Schuster. What are you looking for over there? I'm looking for a specific read. I've got 19 of them on the desk. So this is like your desk. I found it. I found it, Susie. It's like cards. When it comes to you and your home, Pella Windows and Doors are the experts at taking care of you in your home. At Pella, they find the products that meet your needs, and their experts install them. That means working with a company that builds and installs a quality product with real pricing, real simple, really beautiful.

42:31Rich Eisen:And when a trusted name like Pella chooses to partner with The Rich Eisen Show, well, that says a lot. 0 % financing options are available. Certain restrictions apply. Find your local Pella windows in your showroom today at Pella.com slash Eisen. For details, make life brighter with Pella windows and doors. Hey, great job on that read. Susie Schuster makes life brighter. Great job on that read. You used to, like, when I first started this job, you're like, you need to work on your reads. Yeah, great job. You are a little. Oh. Oh. Susie and I were a little simpatico. Yeah. In the beginning, I'm not going to lie.

43:03What do you mean? What do you mean? You weren't as good as now, right, Susie? You agree? Yeah. Yeah, Mike, whatever you say. You're saying he was Basura? No, it's not that.

43:13Rich Eisen:I used to get left back. That was the notes we got. We got reported. We get noted. We got a lot of notes. A lot of notes. A lot of notes. It's been a long time. I don't take notes no more. No more notes. When was the last time we got a note? I'm smart. Everyone else is gone. Have you met Susie Schuster? She's got notes. Oh, that's true. No, I'm really going so bore positive. I am channeling Ted Lasso. I am going to only say positive things. I'm putting positive energy in the world here. She's moving everything. See how she's working. Bro, I've got like four minutes from the show. Why would you mention Ted Lasso?

43:50Bro, why would you mention Ted Lasso? Well, Rich, that's because today on Women's Sports Now, we have a doozy. We have Jason Sudeikis joining us, which is very exciting. I give all the credit to Sarah Tiana because she's so like, let me just text him. There he is. and now he's on the show. Wow. So I think, Sarah Tiana, I go like this to you. I bow down to you. And we...

44:13Rich Eisen:There is no I in women's sports. But there's an I in Tiana. There is two in Tiana. Two in Tiana. Yeah, two. Wait, T... Plus, you know, listen, she crushed it. No, there's not. There's one I in Tiana. One I in Tiana. Oh, God. There's two A's in Tiana. God, you... Wow. Milk's over here. Really brushed it. I'm the dumb one? Crushed it at Big Slick. He did. She's awesome. was spectacular and then who's in studio suz oh not gonna lie somebody named kylie kelsey count the eyes in that kyle one one eye yeah how's that going hi how are you that is so cool no it's a why it's a why she'll be the third kelsey to ever walk into the studio yes that's true and jason jason is but by far the most beautiful i would have fully We leave that to you.

45:00Rich Eisen:Don't sell Jason Short. As you are, you know, you are, I only have eyes for you. Oh, sweetie, that's so nice. There's an eye and rich and eyes. Ladies and gentlemen. That's true. That's an awesome show. We have, this is exactly why we wanted to do a show. Right. This, today is so much fun. Just to be able to go into the world of entertainment, to have somebody like Kylie come on, to talk about the FIBA roster, and I can say, what the hell were you thinking now, putting Olivia Miles on it? So this is kind of like my idea of a perfect day. The whole squad is here. Renee's here. Colleen's here. Sarah's here.

45:32And I'm in that chair over there.

45:34Rich Eisen:The squad's back together.

45:39Rich Eisen:And Ted Lasso season four just dropped, as the kids say, on Apple TV. And he's coaching a women's team. And he is maybe the – is there a bigger – we were asking this before – a bigger New York Liberty celebrity fan than Jason Sudeikis. No. As much as he can. There isn't. And I'm not going to lie, Rich. You did ask me to wait to watch Ted Lasso with you. I know. But I snuck a little bit in. I know. You're a professional. You have to see episode one before Jason. It's so happy. It's great. We all need a little bit of Ted Lasso in our life. And we will talk about the Liberty. We're going to talk about why he's so invested in women's sports and what that means for sports everywhere.

46:21Rich Eisen:6 Eastern, as it is every single Thursday on ESPN, the app, as well as Disney+. Plus Hulu, the full digital family of networks. Suze is here. Jason Sudeikis will zoom in at 6 Eastern. And then Kylie Kelsey here in studio. And then I'm heading to, I'm in Canton. You're here. I'm there. You're here. I'm there. So I'll be in Canton, Ohio, doing the Jacket Dinner Friday night. And then with Kurt Warner and Louis Riddick on ESPN for the Saturday induction ceremony. We're back to wrap up this show on Disney Plus with Suze in a moment. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast