#284 Saul Rubinek and Five People from France

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Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

All right, Michelle, thank you so much for that amazing introduction. You get this show going each and every week and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 284 of classic conversations. As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be an extremely popular episode for five people in France. My guest today is the legendary the amazing actor Saul Rubinek we're diving into Unforgiven True Romance shuttle warehouse 13 Star Trek Next Generation hunters so many miracles on the talent. It's all coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds. Kiki Anderson was here last week. Don't miss that episode comedian Kiki Anderson and her amazing indecent with Kiki Anderson podcast check out our conversation check out our podcast lots of goodness awaits you there but right now all the goodness is with me and saw Reuben ik are touching on a lot of his amazing projects. So I was one of my favorite actors. As I turn this intro over to the actual conversation that we had kind of starts in the middle there is no real intro from me solid I just started talking and I just let it go. I didn't want to interrupt start over you know that is anyway so Sal Ruben Aggie loved him and unforgiven. True Romance warehouse 13 Frasier and so much more Sal. And I just dived into a conversation of his new play so many miracles and a play he's working on on the telling. And I am now going to turn it over to that conversation already in progress. Well,

Saul Rubinek 2:16

so many miracles. Yeah, so many miracles is I recently wrote my second play. My first play that I wrote that was produced anyway, was a play called terrible advice that was on in London, directed by Frank Oz. And, and that was translated into German and done in Berlin, as a four character, middle age comedy about sex, betrayal, friendship, that was really fun. And this new play that I wrote is, so in 1986, I took my mom and dad who are Holocaust survivors back to Poland to have a reunion with the Polish farmers those who had survived by 1986, with the Polish farmers who had hidden them for two and a half years during the Holocaust. And I made together in partnership with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, I made this documentary film. At the same time, as the documentary film came out, it was called so many miracles. This was also the title of a book that I had written, which is essentially a series of interviews over 10 years, from 19, say 77 to 85, or so that I had made with my parents interviews. And that book was published by Penguin and came out the same year 87 That the documentary film came out, it's only an hour long film, and that played all over the world. And about four or five years ago, a very close friend of mine, whose name is Rick Cleveland, who won an Emmy for CO writing a script of on West Wing and is a quite a well known television writer, six feet under Nurse Jackie, and a number of other things, who I've known since before he was a television writer when he was a playwright. So I've known him for 25 years, he knew my story. And he said, you know, you, you still have haven't told the full story. And I was quite upset with him because I had been so long, you know, working on this project, but my parents and interviewing them and reading a book going back to Poland making a documentary film, and if anything, I should be done with this goddamn subject. And but he said, No, you haven't told your story and their story about your daughter, that was interesting. And your sister and there were other things that he said you really need to write about. And I cursed him. But he was right. And I started to write a play called all in the talent, eventually called all the time, which is essentially a family history. I don't even change any names, which is about how making how writing that book and making that documentary profoundly affected three generations of my family that is my parents generation, me and my girlfriend, wife, and eventually my daughter, Hannah, who's now 31 and how it affected them and I knew that it would be an instinct piece because or at least I kept going, because I had a feeling that it had a Universal subject that it wasn't really about Jewish people in the Holocaust, it was really about family dynamics, and our history, about the subjectivity of history, that is the subjectivity of memory, and how that plays an essential role in our, each of our family histories. And it. And it was one of the most important things to me, that drove me to continue writing this even during the pandemic. And now I've done many workshops of it, and I'm, I've got a producer, and I'm, you know, getting it together to get a production somewhere of this play, because I'm hoping that it is a universal subject, that is power of family dynamics are common, no matter what nationality or culture that you're in. And with the feeling, also that I've had for a long time, that if you ask the right people the right questions in your own family history, you will find that within, certainly within a generation or two, that there are stories of murder, great courage, coincidence, extraordinary love affairs, cowardice, heroes, perpetrators bystanders, the elements that are in all of the great novels that had been written anywhere, are in your own personal family history, if you have the will, to ask the questions. And if you're lucky enough for those people who have the answers, if you're lucky enough that they're one alive still and too willing to talk. I haven't been proved wrong yet about that, you know, when I was first introducing the subject, because I had this documentary film about people saved my parents lives, it wasn't about a concentration camp. And when I first introduced this subject to my daughter is ninth grade class, in a Waldorf school system where they hadn't really heard the word genocide yet. And this innocent question came from one of the students that basically said, but if we all knew each other's personal history, if we all shared our own personal history, this way, wouldn't genocide be impossible, which is an innocent, naive thought, but a true one, you have to make people other in order to relegate them for extinction. Or you have to wonder you have to look at things differently. And you can only do that if you start to understand the common humanity that exists in your own history with other people's histories, other people's tragedies, other people's Holocaust, so to speak. And that isn't an exclusive club. Because if you believe that your Holocaust, so to speak, is more profound than another person's Holocaust, that will give you a reason to drive a plane into a building. So that with that in mind, and driving me, I wrote this play called on the telling, which is occupying me right now, quite a bit of pandemic, stop things. It's very difficult to do workshops with actors when you're doing it on Zoom and not live. But still, that's what I've been occupied. Doing. That's the project that I suppose matters to me the most. Right now.

Jeff Dwoskin 8:09

I love your dedication to the story and the non inclusive way you kind of approach that where you're telling your story, but everyone's has a version of the story that you hope that they relate to in your own and own way, I went into kind of a little deep dive rabbit hole of you talking on YouTube and stuff about this and and the history with your parents being Holocaust survivors. And I have one relative that we call them an uncle that was a survivor never really talked about it at all. He actually he was liberated, and on April 6 1945, and died exactly seven years later to the day that he was liberated. And so I started to kind of dig into a little bit of his history, as I was learning about your family through the many videos and tellings you've done online. So I'm jealous that you have all this because I realized my mom died young my dad died unexpectedly. And it's like it's one of those things where it's like, oh, there's so much I don't know, there's so many stories that I never thought to ask because I just never thought when you're young, you just don't think people aren't going to be there. Well,

Saul Rubinek 9:12

I didn't do it for noble reasons, which is what my play is about. It's a very funny story. And in retrospect, it has to do with lying and bigotry and fear and all kinds of bullshit that involves me pretending I was writing a book, there was no book, there was no publisher, I lied to my parents about all of that stuff. Because my parents weren't accepting who I was with, who I wanted to be with because she wasn't Jewish. And all those things are the central comedic, universal part of the story about family dynamics, that it's what makes it I think, more accessible as a story that the humor in it and the Father, Mother Son, combat struggle, so that also, you know, you're I think you'll find No matter what culture you're in, especially in the Jewish culture, it is people who are in concentration camps and find it much more difficult to speak about their circumstances. Then my parents were never in a concentration camp, they were hidden. Everybody else died different ways were murdered. But my parents survived together. They consider themselves very fortunate. And I was fortunate that they were willing to talk and they were gregarious people anyway. So I was fortunate in that way, based

Jeff Dwoskin 10:28

on your family background, when something like hunters comes up, is there a hesitation? Or is there a certain reason like why you'll take on a role that kind of will touch on the Holocaust? And that's the hunting and hunters isn't the only time you've touched on that topic? No, it

Saul Rubinek 10:45

was a it was a classy project being done properly, with really great people. And there was going to be controversy because David vile, the creator, writer of the show, was telling stories about certain aspects of concentration camp that weren't that he imagined that were not exactly truthful, and that he got into some trouble about that. I suspected that might be the case. But it was an interesting character who no longer believes in God because of what had happened to his family. And it was a it was a really well written and it was with great people. And there was no hesitation on my part really whatsoever about doing it. No, that was it was just a great, it was a great project. It was really well done. And I enjoyed doing it. I'm really proud of it. Because it was a great, it was a great opportunity and series to be a part of yeah, I'm really proud of that. And more recently, though, I was asked to do a role in a film called Stefan, which is the word, the Yiddish Word for small village. There were 1000s of them in Eastern Europe, and certainly Jewish ones all over Eastern Europe, not Western Europe. And they were part of the center of the cultural life of Jews in Eastern Europe. They were all destroyed. 100% of them were destroyed in those six years. And this one particular film was a period piece that takes place in June of 1941. In a shtetl, and I was asked to play the rabbi, the interesting thing about this film was that it was shot off about 50 miles north of here in Ukraine, about six months before the Russian invasion, they'd built the subtle number of buildings and made it very authentic. And the entire film was shot in the Yiddish language. So I had never performed in Yiddish before. I know your audience may not know this, but it is essentially German. It is German. It's a dialect of the German language. However, it's written phonetically with Hebrew script, right to left, but like English is a Germanic language. And anybody who speaks Yiddish can pretty much understand German and vice versa. I was a refugee kid, I was born in a refugee camp in Germany. But I don't remember any of that I was nine months old, when my parents came to Montreal. And in Montreal, I grew up in these working class immigrant streets, along with working class, French Canadians, and I grew up speaking the street, French, and Yiddish, before I spoke English. So it was, in a way it was my first not in a way, it was my first language, along with French. And that's what my parents spoke at home because they didn't know how to speak English yet. I've never really performed in Yiddish, I mean, I'd maybe have done a, a monologue or two for an event or something like that. But I had never performed in Yiddish. And what was interesting about me performing in Yiddish was that my father had been an actor in Yiddish Theatre in Poland, before Hitler invaded in 1939. So when he was very young, you know, late teens and early 20s, he was, he had been involved in Yiddish theater, and it really kind of broken away from his kind of conservative, religious background. To do that, he didn't get to do it much in the refugee camp. After the war was over, he started a theater along with his another man and, and he and he performed and directed and acted in plays in the refugee camp. So in a way, as we say, I come by, and honestly, of course, he came to Canada and speak English and he had to make a living and small baby and he, you know, there was no way to do theater anymore, although he did get the opportunity here and there throughout his life to do it. And in a way I, I was performing in Yiddish for the first time in Ukraine, which was certainly where my ancestors come from. And in this village, settled village, it's done as a single shot black and white film. It's just starting to make its way through festivals. Now it was at the Rome Film Festival, won the Audience Award there. After that, it was at the New York Jewish Film Festival and Lincoln Center I saw out there and it's, it's going to be in the Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Washington cetera. And I'm very proud of that film. It's a really interesting film. It really shows you what life was like before it was destroyed in that cell. And also, as I say, all in Yiddish, I'm Many of the actors had to perform it phonetically, they had to learn it phonetically. And some were you speakers like me, not many, just a couple more, were actually Yiddish speakers who had come from the Brooklyn Hasidic world had broken away from that. So they they grew up with the addition they were Munish was more fluent than mine. So that's a connection to that period that I was that unexpectedly came to me, that was a very profound experience really, kind of born to do it. Right. Yeah, part of my life has been being has been about my Jewish identity, my background, and the rest, much of it has not much of it has to do with being an actor doing new plays, and working with new playwrights and doing indie movies, as well as traditional Hollywood movies, which has nothing to do with my background, particularly. So I have had this odd think everybody's careers on when you're an artist, but anyway, there's my particularly eccentric career.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:58

That movie sounds amazing. I hopefully it'll get picked up by either in the theaters or Amazon or someone will get it so it gets a wider release. The interesting thing about hunters that I remember about hunters was learning about the reality of that Operation Paperclip, which I don't think I had been aware of prior which you talked about also in for all mankind, in your role. You call out one of the former SS people and mentioned that though, that was kind of a back to back. So that was that was kind of interesting. It's It's kind of scary to think what governments do.

Saul Rubinek 16:33

Well, your audience may not be aware of what that is. Operation Paperclip, was the American government's program to repatriate ex Nazis, who had whatever credentials they felt were necessary to fight a cold war against Russia, so Verner von Braun, for example, who was introduced to the American public by Disney, and was given a hero's funeral was in the ss, and did run a slave labor camp, where 1000s of people died to create his v2 rocket, which was aimed at London, and he ended up working for the Americans paperclip, it was called because the indentation of a paperclip in the paper was seen after they removed the Nazi background stuff. So they could be whitewashed, and they were many of them it just by coincidence, in the alternate reality that is for all mankind. I played the somebody who was interrogating Wernher von Braun, and outed him as the SATs person that he was something that never happened in real life. That outing and from mankind was wishful thinking. But it was it was really great to play just coincidence that I ended up that I had just finished doing hunters or was doing hunters around the same time, as we were hunting. Those people who had the SS background, we were vigilantes hunting the Nazis who had been brought to America to fight with the Americans against the Russians, even though they had been guilty of terrible atrocities. So we were judging jury and executioner as a vigilante group in that series.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:06

I was working with the Chino, well, he was we worked

Saul Rubinek 18:10

together for around six months. And he really is just a, he operates as humbly as a, as just a working actor. He's a very, he doesn't carry his fame with him on his shoulders. And he, he's a collaborative, generous person who was a bit shy, except that we all wanted stories that the cast and he accommodated once he realized that, you know, we'd love to hear his stories of his career, and he has really good ones. So that was really a cool thing. But really, he just became another one of the actors, you know, I mean, you have to, at a certain point, you have to remove whatever starstruck, Agnus, you have. And I've worked with iconic actors before. Pretty soon whether I was working with Pacino, or Clint Eastwood or Gene Hackman or, or Richard Harris, or any of the famous people that I did work with in my life, you get rid of all of that. And you're just you're playing a scene with another actor, and very rarely do you see any of that movie star bullshit? I can't even think of anybody who would pull that check. Jack Nicholson, Julia Roberts, any of the bigger stars that I worked with, they were just great. They were, I wouldn't even I wouldn't tell you. It's not the forum for me to tell you dark stories, but I don't really have them. I don't really have them. I mean, I worked with my career is, is filled with working with wonderful artists. I'm very fortunate person.

Jeff Dwoskin 19:37

Sorry to interrupt my amazing conversation with the incredible Saul Rubinek, but we have to take a quick break. You want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my conversation with Sal. We're gonna dive into unforgiven. Yeah, so you've worked with amazing Since you, you mentioned that three folks from Unforgiven, I was stalking your Twitter and there was an article that you retweeted where you had said five people in France are gonna see this. That

Saul Rubinek 20:10

was our joke on the set is that we all thought was a lot of Canadian actors on that set. I think all the deputies were Canadian actors. We shot in Alberta, right outside of Calgary. I remember Alberta, but we all used to joke about the fact that this movie was going to be seen by you know, five people in France, because, you know, it'd be some indie strange, you know, retro, Western, indie Western, because, you know, Clint Eastwood is playing a character who's shoots an unarmed 17 year old, right, like a sniper, and can't even get on his horse. And, and it was a great character, but took him I think, 10 years to make it not because he was trying to raise the money, but because he got the script when he was in his early 50s. And he knew he wasn't old enough. So he waited to do it.

Jeff Dwoskin 20:59

It's a great story. Yeah. And then also, in that same article talks about David peoples, the was the screenwriter, that Clint didn't change any of the script.

Saul Rubinek 21:09

Well, people who watch these podcasts are usually quite knowledgeable now about film. In the old days, when you actually got a script, and not stuff online. The script is your original script is white, every new version, or any new page, which has got asterisks on the side is a different color. And they they do they date the scripts, and then they color it, you end up with a rainbow script, because different colors represent different versions, different dates where these changes happen. I think that's true online too. You get different colors now. So what was odd about that script was that it was written as a, an original feature film by David peoples, somewhere in the 1970s. All I think it was called either horrors gold or the William money killings or something like that. And it was bought by zoetrope by Francis Ford Coppola, who was going to make it himself. But zoetrope went under, in the early 80s. And the script was not owned by David peoples. It was owned by Francis Ford Coppola. But David people's agent, the story goes, sent the script, even though they didn't own it anymore. To Clint Eastwood, its company called Malpaso. As an example, that happens, you know, agents, live agents send scripts to producers, as examples of their work and David peoples. Pat was a quite a well known screenwriter, but he hadn't written a Western. And so they sent this western script to Clint, probably around 1982 or so. And he says, What do you mean, as an example, I, what, what what about this? And they said, We don't own it. And so from what I understand, Clint called Francis Ford Coppola and said, Are you going to make it? And he said, I can't. And he said, Well, can I buy it and he bought it. So David peoples had nothing to do with there was a transaction between Venetians company, and Francis Ford Coppola is company. He bought the script, and then did waited almost a decade to make it. Now, when we shot this script, it was dated 1982, which was, I think, Francis had asked for a couple of changes, some changes from David pupils, and we had an all white page script. And when we finished shooting it, it was still all white page script. No changes were made in the script at all. But David peoples didn't know that. Because David peoples was not on the set ever. David told me the story. I was making a movie in San Francisco in 1993. And he lived at that time in his wife lived in Berkeley, and I wanted to meet him, I'd never met him. This was like, two years after or a year or two after we shot Unforgiven, and had already won the Oscar for Best Picture. And I wanted to meet him. And I got word to him. And he said, Yeah, come, this is where I live, come visit me. And I went and visited, he told me that he had gotten an invitation. At a certain point, before the movie was released. It was now called unforgiven. And he was given an invitation to come to a screening. So he flew down from San Francisco to LA and he expected to be at some screening, big screening. But it wasn't a big screening. It was just him and Clint, in a screening room, Clint was wanted to show him the movie. And I said, what happened? He said, Well, it was an experience that I never had had before. And it was an experience I don't expect ever to have again, because I sat there. And I watched a movie that I'd had nothing to do with for almost 20 years. And it was word for word. What I wrote when I first wrote it, nothing, it was my script. He said, you know, writers are like these fathers or mothers who have these children and they send them out to be raised by other people, and you they do what they want with these children. Every once in a while you have one child that you're refused to set out for adoption, and you hope for the best but this was one I You made some money on it, you kind of give it up, you have to as a writer, you have to kind of accept the fact that it's, it's going to be completely altered by a number of people. And it was an extraordinary experience to, to see what I'd written, not changed. The amazing

Jeff Dwoskin 25:16

story. It's an amazing story they is it normally doesn't

Saul Rubinek 25:18

happen. It only happens when a writer is the director and doing an indie movie, or when the writer is, you know, Spielberg is, you know, making the fatal moments and he's Co Co written. They're very, there are circumstances, of course, where it's a writer director who's very powerful, or it's been so inexpensive that nobody's interfering. Of course, it happens. It happens, I'm sure all the time when people are making movies for indie movies for very little money. And there isn't any financial pressure. Except, well, there's financial pressure, but there isn't any creative pressure, because the stakes are are lower. Yeah, that's, of course, people make scripts in arm control creatively. So you're either top triple A plus director, producer, writer who gets to do what they want until they have a failure, and then they don't, or you're making this for $1.98. Nobody bothers you. Or Or this.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:12

Is it normal for like the director like Clint did to hat. It'd be that respectful to the writer. Yeah, I mean, like nine not respectful to the writer, but to go so out of his way to do a full screening for the guy who wrote this. And this show.

Saul Rubinek 26:26

I can't answer for that. I can't answer that question. I mean, I don't know what Clint does. I

Jeff Dwoskin 26:30

don't mean Clinton period. I don't mean specifically clamp, but just in general.

Saul Rubinek 26:33

I never heard a story like this. And all the years that I nobody ever said, yeah, that's happened before. I remember. So and So director are doing a private screening for the screenwriter. No, screenwriters are unless they're also directing aren't that powerful, except in television, in television, the screenwriter is more powerful than the director in television, the executive producing the creators of, of television or writer writers have all the power, not all the power, but they are very powerful. On the pecking order of things into in television. in feature films. That's not the case, unless it's a combination writer, director, like the Coen brothers are, they're writing their own material, and they're writing, producing and directing.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:15

I don't want to not mention, I want to give a shout out to your amazing sideburns in that movie. Oh, unforgiven? Yeah, I'm forgiving. And then, you know, so I'll re watch movies, when I know I'm going to chat. And so you know, you focus in on the person that I know I'm going to be talking to. And it was, it's cool in the movie, you know, how you're kind of rewriting these tall tales of the other folks, which Bob and then Gene Hackman is character, and then just your face in the scene where clients killing everybody at the end, where it's like you're witnessing firsthand this event. I got the impression I was like, this is the first time you as that author, I've witnessed it firsthand. Usually it's a retelling and and like you can see on your face, like just like, wow, I'm like, I'm one degree. This is me hours zero degree. I'm like, right here. I just thought that was pretty cool.

Saul Rubinek 28:03

It was pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, it was. He had a particular way of working that was I've never seen before, and I've never seen since which was, I think that if I've said this before, in interviews, if he wasn't a famous face, like famous actor, you'd recognize them anywhere. But if you let's say he wasn't famous, like you wouldn't know Clint Eastwood from anybody. And you were very experienced as a film person, and you knew movie sets. If you walked onto that set, it would have taken you at least half an hour to figure out who the director was. Because he had a particularly the least for that movie. I've never worked with him. I didn't work with him before that movie or after that movie. But he had a particularly quiet dial about him. That was essentially collaborative. I mean, once he had chosen the crew and the cast, the cinematographer production designer, who is playing these roles, he didn't impose a vision on the proceedings. His vision was the people the fact that he chose the script back that he cast it the way he did, that he agreed to the budget, and the location that he did, and all the different people, the hundreds of people that are involved in making it, and he basically let people do their jobs. He and the designers wouldn't let me in a base camp, near where the base of the hill on top of the hill was where the river were forgot the name of the town. What was it called? It's called the river. I remember the name of the town. But the town, big lake was built was big whiskey was created. And we weren't allowed to go to this town. Unless it was on horseback or by foot or by wagon. So no, there were no tire tracks ever. I remember that was I think his idea. I remember sitting on the set and this older person came to sat beside me probably in their 70s is at least, and said, What do you think of this thing? I didn't know who I was talking to I just said, was a little odd because everything looks you. I mean all the wood in the in the buildings, it looks like I guess they haven't aged them yet. And I haven't weathered them yet. And he said, Well, why would they? And I said, What do you mean? He said, Well, why would they? They probably they put up recently, they would they be age. And I turned and looked at him. And I said, I know who you are. And this is Henry Bumstead. And Henry Bumstead is one of the most famous Production Designers who's ever lived in the 20th century. And I said, You tricked me. I could have said the wrong thing here. And he just laughed. And I realized that very cleverly. Unlike other westerns, this was authentic, Clint worked with a lot of the same crew that he had for other movies. So he developed a little family of people that he had to bring on certain Canadian crew because he couldn't bring everybody but it was it was a very unusual situation. He also had learned from the directors that he'd worked from, especially Don Segal to not do many takes he used he'd like to have one alternate for every angle that he shot. At least one alternate, but he didn't really want need more than that. But he's a very efficient director turned

Jeff Dwoskin 31:12

out amazing. That was such a great movie. Another great movie is True Romance.

Saul Rubinek 31:19

Well, that was that movie was a flop when it came out. That movie was a disaster, because it was sold pretty much like a Christian Slater date movie, and you have to remember it was before Reservoir Dogs came up later that summer. So it was the spring of 93 that True Romance came out. And it died in one weekend. And I mean, if you release True Romance now you'd get lineups, but it became a cult movie, but it took a while. At least my guess is it took almost 789 years before there was all of this around Tarantino but Tarantino was unknown. And it wasn't directed by him. It was directed by Tony Scott. Yeah, that was a terrific movie. Absolutely. But it was. It died really quickly. And now, you know, there's everywhere screenings and anniversary screenings and special editions. And if you would have asked me while I was shooting it, I would have said I like it. But it's combination of violence and humor that I haven't seen in movies before. I know that Tarantino wasn't particularly happy with it at the time, because he had a darker ending in mind. And I think that he would have directed it differently. But I think that Tony Scott did an amazing job on on that film.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:34

A darker ending than everyone dying and

Saul Rubinek 32:37

not everybody dies. No, they're

Jeff Dwoskin 32:39

alive. Or you're right. You're a Christian Slater

Saul Rubinek 32:42

and you wanted to kill her. You wanted to kill them off.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:45

That's right. They did. The the two he takes it in the eye. You're the first one to go in that scene. Am I yeah, you I guess your bodyguard I had on the show. Eric Allen Kramer was in there. So you were all swept up and Tom Sizemore shoots you actually, that's what starts the whole thing.

Saul Rubinek 33:03

Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:04

May he rest in peace? Yeah. Did you ever bump into your character is sort of based on or was meant to be like a Joel Silver character. Did you ever see Joel Silver after and did he say anything to you? No, no, no. I

Saul Rubinek 33:19

never talked to Joel Silber about being Joe sober. I think I'm there's three actors who played Joel Soler. I think there are other actors who played him. I forgot who they are. I think Steve Martin at one point played

Jeff Dwoskin 33:31

on SCTV Rick Maraniss did an impression called the Larry Segal show. And I was interviewing Chris Lewis. And he says Joseph ever calls them and just says what was it like to be in a skit with someone impersonating me? And they said, Thank you. Goodbye. So bizarre movie I watched recently because I was talking to Gale Anne Hurd and one movie that you guys have in common is Dick. You played Henry Kissinger?

Saul Rubinek 33:56

Yeah, I did. I played I played Henry Kissinger and I really wanted to play Kissinger in the movie Nixon too. I didn't end up doing that. But I really wanted to, and I tried really hard to get that role. Yeah, I really love doing that. Movies. Another movie that kind of fell between audiences. Wonderful. Look at the cast and that movie. Oh,

Jeff Dwoskin 34:17

it's Michelle Lewis. Like almost so young Michelle Lewis, you and Ragnar and Kristen dance, Will Ferrell Harry shear.

Saul Rubinek 34:25

Michelle. Michelle Williams.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:26

Yes. Sorry. Michelle Williams. Yeah, I mean, incredible cast. I mean, like so many funny, funny, funny people on that movie. I remember seeing it watching it a lot. When I was younger. I'd be like on cable is making the rounds and stuff like that. You

Saul Rubinek 34:40

really good. I don't. There's a movie that isn't seen. For some reason. It has developed any kind of cult status. And it should. It's terrific. It's really look at the cast is extraordinary. And it's very funny and really interesting to have the Watergate point of view from these two teenagers who are like young Republicans. Right? Right,

Jeff Dwoskin 34:59

right. You're right Kirsten Don's Michelle Williams is like 15 they become the dog walkers for Richard Nixon. It's like it's it's really funny. And then it's kind of got a little Forrest Gump slant to it as they inadvertently keep changing the way of baits, things work out, you know, show that I started watching recently, as I knew I was going to talk to you, which was one that I missed, which I'm enjoying I started diving into was warehouse 13 Oh, it's a great series, terrific series railfans. I just just to put it, I watch a lot of TV, but also just put in perspective, I literally just finished watching Parks and Rec. So it's now Oh, so sometimes it's like, you know, there's sometimes there's just certain shows that were I

Saul Rubinek 35:38

was 13 was a very unusual show, and in the sense that it was a sci fi show that didn't, you know, deal with aliens, it just dealt with historical objects that been imbued with certain mystical powers that that we need to protect the public from. And it sets up the premise that there has been a warehouse since Alexandria, in Egypt, the Library of Alexandria, and that every major culture, throughout history has had a warehouse. So warehouse 12, for example, would have been the Victorian England. And whereas 13 is United States, and that this massive accumulation of objects, like the way the Ark of the Covenant is put into some massive warehouse at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and an anonymous wooden box, that there is these extraordinary objects and that they need to be first of all, they need to be identified. And then agents need to be found out to find them. And then they need to be secured. And then they need to be brought back to the warehouse. And that concept is extraordinary as a great, great concept. And we kept violence to a minimum. And it became what I was really proud of with that show, aside from the fact that rebranded rebranded the Sci Fi network, when it first came out in 2008, rebranded it to sy FY and, and it got great ratings, and they put a lot of money behind it, showing it so it had a big audience, great, great audience, big numbers. What I liked about it was that it was a family show that people could watch with their eight year olds. And if you and it worked on different humor levels, and it was funny, it had a great sense of humor, partly because not partly because I would say, one of the main reasons is the relationship between Jack Kenny, who was our showrunner for most of it, the head writer, and Mark Stern, who was the head of the Sci Fi network at the time, who happens to be a particularly creative force as an executive with really good taste. And he and Jack Kenny got along really well. And that isn't always the case. Right? Right. And also, the showrunner was in Toronto, they had written the enough scripts in advance that Jack didn't need to be in the writers room in LA, he could be in Toronto, when you have the showrunner on set, then you don't have to dot all the i's. And he can watch him prompts and say, I think that's better than what's in the script. And it was a part of a collaborative process. So it was one of the most fun times I've ever had. And the rd character that I played, you know, after doing whatever, over 50 episodes, really, I got an opportunity to really explore that character who's quite dark, funny, eccentric character, and it was probably I've never played a role that had as many hours as that character, or as many, right, because the most scenes I've ever played as a character in my life is in warehouse 13. So I only did eight episodes of hunters. I mean, this is 5060 episodes of a character you know you I've never had to do that before. I mean, did a couple of years as a recurring character on Frasier. But this was different. So I'm very proud of that series. And I hope it keeps hope that people keep watching it wherever it's streaming. I think it's on peacock. You can see the whole series on peacock now and I think it's getting a good viewership. I'm, I'm actually surprised that they haven't thought about, you know, rebooting that show or whatever the verb is of reviving it somehow because it's, it would do really, really well I think,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:08

even if it wasn't a full series revival, just yet. It would be probably great for movies.

Saul Rubinek 39:13

Yeah, it would be a great Christmas special. We used to do Christmas specials, and maybe it will start the trend right here on this podcast. Oh, it's gonna people will start to write NBC Universal and say we need to see warehouse 13 Again,

Jeff Dwoskin 39:25

are you friends with Brent Spiner? Yeah, yeah, Brent

Saul Rubinek 39:28

and I worked together. We had lunch together very recently. Uh, Brenton. I met in 1979. We were in a play together at the Public Theater. At tour we met and we stayed in touch with each other and then I did in the second season of Star Trek The Next Generation I played an iconic turned out to be an iconic character who didn't have sprint. And then Brendan, I did an entire season of where I was. 13 is as kind of a nemesis. He was a nemesis character to my character already, though. Yeah, we've stayed in touch with each other. There

Jeff Dwoskin 39:59

was a void Do that I found was like, you've just he was just talking about how much he loved you and YouTube and he was talking he was telling the story out David Rapoport Oh right. How

Saul Rubinek 40:08

I got the role. Yeah, it was very sad story, very sad story

Jeff Dwoskin 40:11

and that him and the director knew and they're like, Who can we get and I owe 1000s?

Saul Rubinek 40:18

Well, your audience isn't gonna know why it's a sad story for I got cast in this role. It was, it was a character in a Star Trek Next Generation episode, who had already filmed for two days and then attempted suicide, which he eventually succeeded in doing a year later, but at that point, they had to recast was sad in that sense. And I happened to be in town, I happened to be in LA, visiting a friend. And both the director who I'd known for years Tim bond, and Brent suggested me and I was approved. And I ended up having to go there in the middle of the night and to the Paramount lot and create a whole new costume and makeup for that character. Yeah. 1980 1989

Jeff Dwoskin 40:56

very sad story. I did. You mentioned Frasier, I did have a question for you. So in your first episode, as as Donna, you have a food orgasm over corned beef sandwich was spicy mustard, spicy, not yellow.

Saul Rubinek 41:09

I have no idea what you're talking about. So let that go. I love that guy from your own Detroit Jewish background. Yellow mustard must be de rigueur for a corned beef sandwich. I'll leave that to you or particular eccentricity. My

Jeff Dwoskin 41:24

wife's like he won't know what you're talking about. And like it's important. It's

Saul Rubinek 41:28

just an eccentric Jewish Detroit thing, where I'll just that says way more about you than about a corned beef.

Jeff Dwoskin 41:35

You've just show up everywhere. I mean, it's it's Greek Curb Your Enthusiasm of Ms. Maisel. You're just I mean, I thought, I mean, you have so blessed. I mean, you just, you're

Saul Rubinek 41:44

talking about the life of an actor. Yeah. I mean, most actors who are working have to show up everywhere, the bank will take their houses away. You work, you do different things. You do episodic television, you do scripted podcasts, you do TV movies, you play different roles in different small movies and big movies, and you do a play every now and then when you can afford to and and you keep working so that you can pay the bills and and do what you need to do. But that's only 10% of the actors who actually have are members of sag AFTRA, an equity 90% is the lowest paid union workforce in the world. 90% of the actors who have union cards, from the job of acting, make less than probably less than $10,000 a year from acting 90% make less 90%. What are their union you're going to talk about. So when you say you turn up everywhere, any working actor will turn up everywhere. You look at any actor who actually works for a living as an actor. And there are hundreds of us, who are pretty much in my position who aren't movie stars, and who can't get things made just because they they've agreed to be in them. They're not going to get financed, because our names, and we're not bankable, but we have reputation, whether it's for the last eight years, or the last 50 years. Because we're collaborative, we don't we're not we haven't gotten into rehab too often. Or whatever. We're easy to get along with. We're not junkies or and we're we're not we don't abuse fellow actors. We're just working artists, we all turn up everywhere is because it's the only way we can we can make a living. I

Jeff Dwoskin 43:31

love when you turn off that was my point. So the IQ, yeah, they make your magic and all these cool shows.

Saul Rubinek 43:38

It's very kind. Thank you. I'm glad I got to speak about data like that I got to talk to you about all the telling, I do have to go I have a meeting that I have to go to but it's a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for watching so many of my films out let's meet again and I can tell you stories about other movies I'm sure and maybe I'll get on the telling actually produced we're looking for investors for that. If anybody is interested in investing in this project they told you about they can get a hold of my manager and they can find out who that is online. I'm happy to put a plug in for trying to raise money to produce that play because it's really worthwhile and I appreciate the time that you spent with me thank you so much. Thank

Jeff Dwoskin 44:19

you I really appreciate it all right how amazing was Saul Rubinek it was so great to hang out with xao as gone bout Unforgiven and hunters and learn all about his background and all in the talling so many miracles shuttle so great everyone definitely take to x or Twitter, whatever you call it these days. Let's get that warehouse 13 revival going on. We can do it. We can do it. Also tweet at me. Let me email me. How do you eat your corned beef sandwich is yellow mustard really just a Detroit thing? If I'd been living a lie these years do I need to try something else? Oh, that may now. Anyway, so much Sal for you to dive into. Check out all the projects. Knock about, check out his IMDb, there's 1000 more we didn't even get into well with the interview over that can only mean one thing. I know the episode is over. I can't believe it either. Another huge thank you to my guests. I'll Reuben EC. And of course, a huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

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