From Die Hard 2 to Shawshank Redemption: William Sadler’s Hollywood Journey – Episode 379

Jeff Dwoskin 0:00

Alright, everyone. I am so excited to introduce you to my next guest. Love to men die hard, two tales from the crypt, Shawshank Redemption, Roswell, Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. And so much more, literally, so much more. Welcome to the show, who I can only assume is Stephen King's biggest fan. Welcome to the show, the amazing William Sadler, hello, hello. How are you? Hello. How are you? I'm so good. Appreciate you hanging out with me. This

William Sadler 0:29

is my pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I have this

Jeff Dwoskin 0:33

picture right here. Is Karen Allen that from a stage of Twilight. I started watching it because I just kind of discovered it. And I watched the I watched the preview, like, Damn, that. You sucked me right in. I started watching it, and I didn't get to finish it in time for us to talk. But you're amazing. That was amazing.

William Sadler 0:54

Oh, thank you very much. I like that movie. It's it was unusual. I got to Well, first of all, Karen Allen is a delightful human being and a damn good actor. Holy, she's she is just wonderful. So when you're I'm okay, but when you're doing a scene and and the other actor is that good and listening that, well, it just the scene just lifts off the page, and you don't know where it's going. Neither one of you know where it's going, and that's and it's just exciting to work with. It's a it's a good flick. It was, it's a little indie by Sarah. Sarah Schwab direct wrote it and directed it, and it was done for $1.98 I think we shot it in 18 days. I think it's some of the best work I've ever done.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:46

Pretty is pretty amazing. Yeah, I

William Sadler 1:51

don't want to spoil it for people. Tell them what it's tell them what it's about. It's a fishing movie. No, it's a it's a wonderful it's a wonderful flick. I tell you what I felt like I'd gone to Oz when I was filming. Because all my career I've been playing, you know, I've played lots of bad guys and in in big movies and little movies and good movies and bad movies and but lots of, you know, lots of bad guys. This time, I sort of got to play a just, he's just a human being who loves this woman, and there's something wrong and and that was, and it was, was like, for the first time, I got to sit down at the piano and play all of the keys instead of just these 10 keys here. Anyway. Oh,

Jeff Dwoskin 2:41

it is amazing. Well, it's funny you say about, you know, just the keys and stuff like that. Because it's like, as I started to, one of the cool things about prepping for an interview like this is you start to look in and you start to remember the things that you forgot. There's obviously some key things like, stick in my brain when it comes to you, you know, like, Bogus Journey, and, you know, Shawshank Redemption and stuff. And I'd love, we'll dive into those. But, like, but then it was like, I was reading The Green Mile, and I'm like, oh, The Green Mile, what? And I'm like, oh the dad and the Green Mile. I'm like, almost like, fell over. I'm like, because, like, all of a sudden it just flooded back in my head. I was just like, Oh my God. Like, I felt everything that you felt. And it was like, I mean, to go from Die Hard to bad guy and like that. I mean, like, it's an amazing you put you handle those keys really well. I guess my point, no matter what, what which ones are in front of you.

William Sadler 3:34

Thank you. You're very kind. That's a that's, I'll tell you what, when you're when the writing is strong when the writing is good, like it was in those in the Green Mile, and then Shawshank, and then die hard when the writing is good, the acting is it's easy to get submerge yourself in that stuff and just revel in it. If the writing is less than good or a sketchy or hard to or untruthful, somehow it just gets harder and harder you you have to pretend that stuff is there, that's not there, and you find your way through it. But it's but with things like The Green Mile, where I couldn't I have I at the time that I shot it, I had a little dog. My daughter was, her daughter was just a little fuzzy blonde headed cherub. And to see those two little girls, it was, it was not at all hard to imagine the panic that would that would come over a father if they were, if one of them was lost. You know, it's funny too, because I think Stephen King is sort of, he's just a master at putting his finger on that's more frightening than monsters. Yeah, it's more that's you want to scare. The daylights out of people you know go shopping with your little kid and have them disappear in the in the mall for a minute. They're just behind that cart over there, and they're hiding from you because it's fun, yes, but your heart, your you know, but just that panic that they're gone, and he comes out on the porch and the screen the screen door has been sliced with a knife, and there's blood on the floor, and they're gone. The was that was, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life to go to places like that, glad you liked it three miles of climbing. It's kind of like a light hearted Sean Dan.

Jeff Dwoskin 5:47

So we've worked with Frank Darabont so many times. I mean, he's so good. It's like the the first thing that came to my head was like, How did Frank not get him to join the walking dead? I don't know. I

William Sadler 6:00

was waiting for him to call. I guess I should have, maybe I should have called him, but Frank was only attached to it for a little while. He for just,

Jeff Dwoskin 6:09

just in the beginning, yeah, briefly, yeah,

William Sadler 6:10

I think briefly. And then then it wasn't him. So

Jeff Dwoskin 6:14

some of your early stuff, because you were huge in the theater and when you were in Biloxi Blues with Matthew Broderick.

William Sadler 6:23

Remember that cast pretty well. We worked together for a year and a half. It's eight shows a week for a year and a

Jeff Dwoskin 6:30

half. Your roots in being in theater. I mean, like, right? Was it always the dream then to move into movies and TV and all that. I mean,

William Sadler 6:39

I guess I wanted to. I mean, all my heroes were on in films I had seen the Godfather while I was in college, and everybody wanted to be the actors that I well me anyway, I wanted to be Robert De Niro or Al Pacino or Robert Duvall or Johnny Cassell or George C Scott or Peter O'Toole. There were a bunch of actors out there that I've that I admired, and I thought, holy crap, these people, those people are they're doing it, and I'm digging it, and I want to do that one day. And I was doing, you know, and I'm in doing, you know, going from one play to another in in a State University College at Geneseo. So I guess it was in the back of my head all all the time that eventually I would get to the movies. But then I got a scholarship to go to Cornell, and I did that for two years and studied acting, and then I moved to New York City and did theater. I guess I did theater for like, 11 years before I got my first before Project X, with Helen Hunt and Steven Lang and Matthew Broderick. And, you know, I I've often thought, I mean, I waited a long time, that's a long time to put off trying to get into the movies, but I didn't know how to get there. I was busy. I was I was working. I was a working actor. And the truth is, when I finally did get to the movies, it took me a few movies to figure out how to work for the camera. It's a different world, but a lot of the techniques, a lot of the things that were in my toolkit from the theater were perfectly applicable. Taking script apart, figuring out the beats, figuring out your character, figuring out what you're doing from moment to moment to moment was, you know, all of that stuff. And there's a great deal of discipline required in the theater. You're not late, you're not late, you're fired if you're late, there are 20 other people waiting to go on stage, and 1300 people in the audience sitting there waiting for the curtain to go up, and you have to warm up, and you can't have a dinner before you show up at the theater, so that you're loggie and you can't have a headache. There are rituals and disciplines involved. All of these people are counting on you, and it just kind of became automatic that I would be ready. You know, when they three in the morning, when they finally get around to shooting your scene, you can pull it out of your ass. You know, as tired as you are, you can pull it up. You can pull it out. It's it was, it was good to have done all of that. So yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 9:37

is it after 11 years doing plays, I get the allure of going to be a movie star. I get that but is, but is? Is it a hard transition to go from something that so uniquely you every night, where you're getting that immediate feedback and that connection? Connection with the audience, to where you are filming something at three in the morning, and maybe months later, you end up seeing how it looks and and never,

William Sadler 10:07

oh, yeah, it's a tremendous, it's a that's a that's a huge transition to make. Actually, my wife, my wife, said to me back in New York, in 70, whatever, or 80 who went said, you know, people make money doing this acting thing. You don't have to do it for nothing. I would, I guess I happily would have continued to do it for nothing, for I was it was always something that I love doing. I always found it challenging. I always found it fun. But, yeah, you get to the movies and you do it and go home, that's it. There'll be a maybe, maybe there'll be a cast and crew screening or a premiere, and everybody will dress up and watch the movie, but then you go home, and by that time you're shooting the next film, you don't know. You never see how it lands. And that's that I found that was maybe the hardest thing to get used to, was it you're or you do do a TV show, you do a series especially, and you're in people's living rooms, you know once a week, or something, they know you, you right, you've you've had an impact. You're the performance is landing, and people are going, you know, oh, I hated him. Oh, I just wanted him. Kim up or whatever. But you never hear it, you unless, until you go to a, you know, a fan convention or something, or bump into someone on the street and they say, you know, I loved you in such and such. Or, you know, my dad and I watched Shawshank every month until, you know, until he passed. And you you start hearing stories and you realize people all over the country, you know, and all over the world have been enjoying this stuff. You just weren't there,

Jeff Dwoskin 12:06

right? You're not someone who maybe sneaks into the back of the Die Hard two movie like this is some random theater.

William Sadler 12:14

Oh, I can't, no, I can't do that. I just sit. I would sit there with my like this, my eyes closed now, it's, it's, that's just, I don't know it's it, it's, it's hard, it feel, it's hard to be objective about it. They can all be objective. I They can be objective. I can be objective about, of about all, all of the rest of my fellow actors. And they all, you know, they all look wonderful. They look great, and they're perfect, and they're acting is good, and blah, blah, blah. And I watch myself, and it's like listening to your voice on a tape recorder or something. You know, you don't, you don't you sit there and go, Oh, Jesus, I don't sound like that. Do I Oh, why am Why am I acting like that? Why don't I? Oh, that's not how Robert Duvall would do it. You know, for whatever,

Jeff Dwoskin 13:10

I bet Robert Duvall does the same thing i i do stamp comedy, and so I would videotape myself. And I've probably got hours of videos I've never watched because it's hard. It's hard

William Sadler 13:21

to hit fun. Is fun? Is it to watch yourself? I,

Jeff Dwoskin 13:25

in the beginning, I did because you want to make sure you're not, like, doing weird stuff. But like, you know, like, if I have a little quirks on stage, like, you know, touching your pants, weird or something like that. But like, you know, like, or leaning or rock, but it's hard, it's because you can hear like, I'll listen to audio of me, but I my feeling was, is that I always wanted to just walk away with the feeling of how I felt while it was happening.

William Sadler 13:49

I I think that's probably okay. You know, it's funny. Dennis Hopper, I did a movie with Dennis Hopper one early, early on in my career, and he wanted the actors to watch their the dailies. And the dailies back then meant you filmed it. They put it on a plane in Austin, sent it back to LA, developed it, printed it, put it on a plane, send it back to Austin, and he played it on a in an on a in a movie theater at midnight or something. And you'd watch, you'd watch the dailies with bad, really bad sound, and it's just warts and all. But that's the only time now these days, everybody well, lots of actors do anyway, I don't lots of actors run over to video village, the place on the set where all where the director sits with the producers and the script supervisor or whatever, and they sit and watch. They're watching television monitors, and they can see what the camera is seeing. They can see it. Uh, exactly the way it's going being filmed so they can judge is that it was take number two that I really liked when he did that thing with his nose or whatever. You know, it's a blessing and a curse, I guess, because now actors, actors gather around the video village, and watch the playback of their scene and direct themselves. You find yourself, you know, if you do go over there and watch it, you go, oh, ooh, why did I? Why did I do that? And and so you go back on the set. And you know, if you get to do it again, it's funny. I did a, what was it called the hunters,

Jeff Dwoskin 15:49

hunters on Amazon, the Nazis.

William Sadler 15:51

Oh, no, oh no. That was with Al Pacino. No, no. This was with Woody Harrelson and Kevin Costner, about Bonnie and Clyde. It was, it was a movie for television, and Kevin and Kevin Costner and I had this big, 15 minute long scene, we would do it, and then he would go outside. We would do a tape just one take, and then he would go outside and watch the video playback, and then come back in and do it again, and then go back out and watch it again. And my favorite way to work is, let's do it, and then right away, before anybody can jump in and adjust the lights or tinker with the makeup or any before any this place can fall apart. Just, let's just do three takes in a row without any interruptions at all. Just go back to one and start again. Bang. Because what I found by accident, but I found it, is that the first time through it, it's like you're here and you get to here. If you pause for 10 minutes and start again, you'll start again, back down here and get to there again. If you can start again from there, you'll get to there. The energy will be better. The the emotions are more raw. Your concentration is better. You're not, you know, usually the if you can do a series like that, like three, you know, it's usually like three in a row, quick and then, and then stop, you know, and then fix my fix my hair, if you need to, or whatever. But generally, that's enough of a run at it

Jeff Dwoskin 17:43

to that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. The highway man, by the

William Sadler 17:49

high women, thank you. I had the first letter, right?

Jeff Dwoskin 17:55

Hey, that's, you know, that's fine. You have a extremely large backlog. I it's completely understandable if you can't remember every single version. What do you what are you going to do? Yeah, what do you do? Burdened by your own success, can't

William Sadler 18:11

remember if I if I was ever on trial, and they said, Mister Sadler, do you remember back in 1989 you did a no? Do you remember? Do you remember this show? No, do you remember that? No, are you telling us that you spent six months on No, yeah, I don't remember. I'm I've been blessed with this, with an awful memory about those things. I keep moving like a shark through the water. I can't I don't dare stop or, or I'll stop.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:45

Do you wish you kept a journal or anything like that so you could look back at any given time?

William Sadler 18:52

I don't know. I guess I don't look I try to, I try to keep looking forward more. You know, other people can look at the look back at the body of work. And I mean, it's fun to do these, it's fun to do podcasts or talk to interviewers about this movie or that movie and and go back and remember what a dope I was. Or because there's a learning curve, you have to know there's a learn there is a learning curve to to acting, first of all, and then acting on stage, and then to make the leap to film. I

Jeff Dwoskin 19:31

kind of understand it. I mean, it's like you're in the moment. You are doing what you need to do. You've done it, and like you said, you're waking up at three in the morning. You're doing it's in pieces. So it's not necessarily right. From my point of view. I'm like, he's gotta remember everything from Die Hard, too. I just watched it yesterday, and you know, but

William Sadler 19:52

it's, it's all out of order, too. You're doing it in little three minute pieces, completely out of order. You're not It isn't like a it's not a play. It's not like, you know, a beginning and a middle and an end. And why wouldn't you remember it? You're telling a story. I rely on directors to help me with that. I really do. I need them. I don't need them so much to tell me who this guy is or what he's probably feeling now, or how he's how he's approaching this moment or that moment. But I really do rely on them to give me some idea where to remind me where he is in the arc of in the big arc of the movie, of the story. You know, I love it when they come up and say, in that last scene, the the guy pulled a gun on you. Thank you. Thank

Jeff Dwoskin 20:45

you. Stop hugging him. He tried to kill you. So, Jeff, yeah, exactly.

William Sadler 20:50

So don't be such a nice guy. Jack. Crank it up a little bit. And I try to remember, I try to keep the big picture in mind. But you're right. Your job is to live this stuff moment to moment to moment. Your character doesn't know how the scene ends. Your character doesn't know what the next line is, what this other guy's going to say you you have to as an actor, but you also have to forget what you you have to be just laser focused on the and living in the in the moment, in the moment, so that things can wash over you, and so that it feels like an improv,

Jeff Dwoskin 21:33

right? Like as you're like, you're doing it for the first time, even though you've

William Sadler 21:37

exactly that's the only time it's really good, is when it feels to everybody like this was the first time anybody said any of this stuff, and it and it just caught fire, and it exploded in his face and and then it's, boom, cut. We've got it. Let's move on. But you can't be thinking, oh, you know, I but at the end of this thing. I'm at the end of this thing. They're going to catch me, and I'll be really sorry, and you can't have that in your head when you're doing right,

Jeff Dwoskin 22:08

right? Well, let me ask you this. Maybe you remember this?

William Sadler 22:11

Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 22:14

what? This is more of a moment, not in this specifically. But do you remember? Do you remember what it what role you had where you were walking some random place and someone recognized you, either with a look you could just tell they recognize you, but maybe or they went Shawshank, you know. But like, do you remember what, what role it was that triggered that first like, where someone recognized you? Oh, the

William Sadler 22:40

very Oh, the first time that, yeah, what did, or any, any time,

Jeff Dwoskin 22:45

well, I would, if you can remember the first time, I'd be interested. But like, you know, I imagine, like, Oh, my God, Shawshank, yeah, or they,

William Sadler 22:56

or they, when I, well, when I did, Die Hard, two, that was, that was the first real blockbuster, that was a that was seen by a lot of people. By, I mean, that was a really big summer blockbuster, and I was naked in it, and which was terrifying, all by itself.

Jeff Dwoskin 23:18

I wrote that down. I wrote that down. I was going to ask you about it, because you were ripped in that scene. Thank

William Sadler 23:23

you. Yeah, well, I wasn't ripped when I got the job. I was and in fact, there was no nude scene in the script. When I got the script, it was, I didn't find out about it until the costume fitting, and there was no costume for that role, for that scene, and which is an awful I don't know why they didn't bother to tell me, but Renny Harlan, I said, Where's the costume for the hotel room scene? And he said he and he's finished, right? He's from Finland. And he said, Well, Bill, actually, I was thinking you would be nude. And I thought, I guess I must have paused for a minute or two. And then I said, Okay, I can do that, but push the scene off to the end of the movie. Let's not shoot it tomorrow. And get me in a get me a trainer and get me in a gym. And they did. And so I spent more time worrying about my ass and my my pecs and my and my trap trapezoids or whatever, you know, all of those things I spent more time pumping iron and doing sit ups and crunches and what have you, than I did worrying about the performance. And it was terrifying. It was that it was supposed to be a closed set that day. They did push it off, and I did spend, like, I don't know, six. Weeks or something in a gym, and I look pretty I look pretty decent. The day we shot, it was on, I think it was stage 24 at the Fox studio and in LA and I, I was in the gym at 530 you know, pumping my brains out to get to get all kind of pumped up, because I thought that was the job, you know, and then they put me in makeup. And makeup was everywhere, right? Cuz you're all sweat, you're supposed to be all sweaty. And they put scars and bullet wounds and knife scars and tattoos, and they put makeup thing things all over me. And then I got in a bathrobe, and I went to stage 24 and I walk in and this closed set, there's this line of chairs all the way across the entire set. Joel Silver, the head of the studio, is sitting in the center chair, and Randy's next to him, and the DPS next to him, and, and it was like I'd never seen so many people on a set and the secretaries bringing in pizzas and and popcorn and, and I, you know, I did it, but it was, it was more, It was much more public than I than I was thinking it would be. And there was an Oh, and there was also, there's a mirror on the back wall of the set. So the camera's here, I'm here, and there's a mirror there. So no matter which way I turn, they can't use it. They got, you know, they're seeing, they're seeing junk and the junk in the trunk. Anyway, I was glad it was over. It

Jeff Dwoskin 26:47

was definitely an intense introduction. I, I imagine had to work out just to for you and Bruce Willis to beat the out of each other on that plane wing.

William Sadler 26:58

Yeah. Well, that's I, yeah. Well, at the same time I was in the gym. I was working, I was working with Benny akitas, the kickboxing champion of the world. He was teaching me all of these, you know, roundhouse kicks and and so that it looked like I was awfully good at this stuff. I mean, really good, like a a total badass at it. In truth, I probably would have kicked my fellow actor in the head, and they knew that. So they hired a and I maybe they do this all the time. If the if you're if you're watching that scene on the wing of the plane where I'm fighting Bruce Willis, if you're looking, if you're looking over my shoulder and you're seeing Bruce's face, it's probably not me. It's there was an act. There was a this kickboxer named Randy Hall. It was another one named Monty Cox, and they did different things well, and he Monty was my stunt man, and and Randy Hall could swing his foot across Bruce's face and miss it. He could, he was, he was just really, really good at this stuff. And so when the camera's on me. If you're looking at my face, it's Bruce's stunt double. So if I screw up and kick him in the face, it's it doesn't matter, you know? Well, it doesn't hammer matters, but it matters to him. Matters to him. But yeah, yeah, they don't have to shut down for two weeks while is while his jaw gets wired or whatever, you know, and that's just the way. And through clever editing and fast cuts and so on, it just looks phenomenal. It looks great. And I was, I was very happy that to let Randy Hall make me look as bad as I as as I did, as it did. And you asked about getting recognized. That was, I think the first time I got recognized was going through airports after that movie came out, and the security guys at airports would would stop me, and I wasn't well known enough, you know, from enough different things, that they would say, oh, that's that oh, that's that actor. They I was just a face that they might have seen somewhere, and it wasn't good. And

Jeff Dwoskin 29:38

they associated with terrorism at an airport

William Sadler 29:41

associated with terrorism at an airport? Yeah, they were so they had reason to be worried.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:49

You know that Netflix movie carry on? Yeah, where they were like, it's the die it's Die Hard. I was like, No, it's Die Hard. Too. Die Hard to literally. Hands. It's like, everyone's like a bare hands and saying, This is the new Die Hard, like Die Hard Two. Was that movie? It took place in an airport. Was it crazy? Though, doing a sequel, knowing how big Die Hard was, I know this movie did even better than die hard, but that scared me

William Sadler 30:13

even more than being naked. Did? It was like, well, it's not doesn't scare you. It's those are big shoes to fill. The first movie was a huge, huge, successful blockbuster, and now they're making in the sequel. And everybody on the planet's going to take a look, and everybody on the planet's going to assume that it's not going to be as good as the first one. That's, you know, they won't. They're not really going to give you the benefit of the doubt. You're going to have to, you're going to have to show them that, you know, it's different. And there's a reason we did a sequel, and this one's good too. The thing that surprised me is that it became a Christmas movie

Jeff Dwoskin 30:58

that, yeah, those two, because it happens, like, a year later, right? Also on Christmas Eve. Those

William Sadler 31:04

two movies, yeah, happen at Christmas. They both happen at Christmas and and now it's not Christmas unless, but I understand that it is. It is a lot like It's a Wonderful Life. And Jimmy Jimmy, I can see Jimmy Stewart taking over in the airport and crashing planes too.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:32

You crash Cole Meany, future, Deep Space, nine coast,

William Sadler 31:37

that's right. That's right, bastard.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:43

That was, like, the cruelest thing. When you talk about, like, with the Green Mile earlier with, you know, the realism of something is scarier, but when they in Die Hard too, he's like, make sea level or whatever, like 200 feet into the ground, so that plane thinks it's doing fine, and then just boom, and they didn't hold back and like, it's like that to me, is just as petrifying. It's like, oh my God, because that's real. That's like, you know, that's a, that's a human error type thing. It's like,

William Sadler 32:13

yeah, yeah. And I guess if the best compliments that I got were you scared the crap out of me, or I this one guy, one guy came up to me after he saw the film, and said, you know, about halfway through the movie, I wanted to you up. I just wanted to you up. Like, okay, then I then, I think I did, you know, that was the that was the job, that was the that was the gig, so that Bruce John McClane would be when he finally succeeds over all odds, because he's so tenacious and so clever, you just like cheer, you know, rips you right out of your seat, cheering The bad guys go up in flames.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:01

John Amos, like, it's, it's a great cat. Dennis Franz, it's a fun cast, too. Oh yeah. What helped, I think, is that it was based on a book. So it had like for being like a structure, like, sometimes I think if like sequels, you can go off the rails a little bit. But since it was entire one was based kind of on a book too. I believe, right, right? I believe so and so this, you know, it gives it like structure, so it's like, it seems more real, like it's not like, you know, just adapting the die hard thing. And then everything became die hard at some point that, well, it became a trope, you know,

William Sadler 33:36

well, oh yeah, that was like, die die hard on a plane, Die Hard on a boat, die hard on it. There was a funny there was a funny moment when we were on the set. There's a moment where we're fired, we're we're all staying all the bad guys are around the nose of this plane, and Bruce is in the plane. We're emptying these automatic weapons at it, just 1000s and 1000s of rounds, and then we throw hand grenades into the plane, and Bruce is like, rut row, and he gets, he straps himself into the ejector seat and pulls the lever and Right,

Jeff Dwoskin 34:14

right, right, right, and gets away, right. That's the whole scene where he's like, he's he shoots out like 50

William Sadler 34:23

right when we were filming it, I had spent my whole childhood running around the barn with a BB gun with my friend John Messer diving out of the loft and rehearsing for die hard too. When we did that scene, you did one take. And when they're using full blanks, full load blanks, right? So it's absolutely deafening the noise that we're making, and there's brass flying everywhere. And we've all finished, and Tim Cooney, the sound man, came over to me, took me aside and said. Bill, you don't have to make that sound with your mouth anymore.

William Sadler 35:11

Is apparently Colonel Stewart was going.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:16

But don't you feel like if you really had a gun, you'd still make that noise. I still

William Sadler 35:20

do. I still do. Every time I shoot on, I fire automatic weapons at a at any plane. I'd make that. I

Jeff Dwoskin 35:27

think, I think it's just like, it's the same as it's no different than drinking something going, you know,

William Sadler 35:33

it's something you do, or you punch them. I would punch somebody. I was so used to making my own sound

Jeff Dwoskin 35:43

effects. Oh, you mentioned Joel Silver, so you did a lot with tales from the craft. I did the you're in the pilot, actually, and the movie, the first movie, and

William Sadler 35:56

he was kind enough to cast me. I did the very first episode of Tales from the Crypt, the man who was deaf and Joel. The next thing Joel did was die or two, and that's how, that's how I became the villain in that I'm sure he said, Oh no, I got, I know a guy. I think I know who we can get to do the to, you know, to be this evil prick, and that's how that happened. And then I know what. There may have been a couple of others in there too, but demon night Tales from the Crypt presents demon night happened, and he cast me in that Walter Hill was one of producers on Tales from the Crypt the show. He directed that episode that I did. The first episode, right? He went, Yeah. He went on to do trespass and cast me in that with iced tea and ice cube. And Bill Paxton, Frank Darabont, who wrote and directed Shawshank and The Green Mile and the mist. He was a writer on tales from the crypt, the series, and he came up to me on the set and said, I've written, I'm, I'm writing this script, and I want you to be in it. And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure, okay. And it was Shawshank, you know. So that's amazing. So I have a lot to I have a lot to thank Joel Silver for, in some ways. I mean, the career that I've had is he's largely responsible for putting me on the map. Thanks.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:37

It's amazing when you look back, isn't it, like, where the dominoes start, and then just kind of keep

William Sadler 37:43

going. Amazing, amazing, absolutely, yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 37:48

yeah. I mean, if you're going to get a start, if you're going to, like tales from the crypt, I mean, that was you mentioned, Walter Hill, Joe silver, Zemeckis, Dick donner. Dick donner, yeah. I mean, it's just like the amount of talent that went into because, I mean, that was, like the first big HBO show where it wasn't, that's where actually, it's not TV, it's HBO comes from. Is that show? I know,

William Sadler 38:15

when we, and my episode, was up for an ace award, I don't think it won it, but we were up for an ace award. Uh, early on, yeah, it was, I guess it helped HBO get off the ground. Yeah, no, I'm that that's a powerhouse little group of directors right there. That's, uh, holy crap. And they kept me working for years. I very happily went from one film to another, to another, to another. You know, around that group,

Jeff Dwoskin 38:43

what do you remember from Shawshank? My actual question from you, for you, on Shawshank, the first thing that went through my head was, Hm, I wonder if someone who actually works with Morgan Freeman, then is more has a higher propensity to always hear his voice every day.

William Sadler 38:57

Well, he hear his voice every day. You know, you

Jeff Dwoskin 39:01

know, like, Aaron to do Frank, you know, like, I just hear him like, yeah, we kind of narrates that movie. Like, you know, Morgan Freeman's got that, that voice, spectacular.

William Sadler 39:10

Voice, spectacular. Voice, no, I don't hear his voice every day. I like that ad. He doesn't add for, I don't, I don't even know what it's for. He does a couple of commercials now, and he uses that voice. He's, you know, he's, he's very aware of how terrific that sounds. And you do frame, yeah. I mean, without that voice over, boy, it just lent so much authority and so much humanity to explain for the audience, that's what you're watching. That was the longest night I ever spent in Shawshank. But at every turn, at every important turn, he spoke his voice over carried us, carried us along. Song. It was just wonderful. He was great to work with, too, by the way. He was so fun. He was great fun. We used to sing doo songs together. And he came to my house for dinner after we shot it. He came to my house in California. We had dinner, and then I had one of those CD players, music players that held five CDs in a little turntable, and you push a button, and they go, they go in on a servo like magic, right, right, right. One of those, yeah. And he, I said, Go ahead, pick out some pick out some music. And he picked out five CDs, and he put them in, and then he pushed it. He said he didn't push the button, he just pushed the drawer and went, and you could hear the little plastic parts breaking inside. So Thanks, Morgan, great working with you too. I had a toothache while I was doing the film, and I went to the dentist, and he gave me all of his he gave me drugs. Well, he numbed my mouth so I was, you know, and then he and he gave me something for the pain, and I sat, was it was one of the dining hall scenes, and I was sitting, I'm sitting right across from Morgan and and I sat down, and he's look he's looking at me and looking at me. He said, you're on drugs, aren't you? I said, I don't how could you tell? I guess, uh, I guess it was obvious, but we enjoyed it. We genuinely enjoyed working with one another. We made each other laugh a lot and and the looks back and forth when shit hits the fan and Andy's going to get thrown off the roof or whatever. You know, you gave a rope, you gave him a rope. And all of the all of the interplay, and what have was, it was genuine and easy and fun. And I learned. I just, I learned a lot. I learned a lot about acting, especially acting, acting on film anyway, from from him, he makes it he makes it look you can never see the gears turning, which is the whole game, that's right, he just makes it look effortless, and that's the stuff

Jeff Dwoskin 42:43

charging is interesting, because it's like, didn't crush it at the box office and, like, over time, from word of mouth, it being such a great film just became the classic that it is. I mean, it's just like, it

William Sadler 42:59

was a flop. I think it cost 25 million to make, and it and domestically, it made 16 million or something and closed, it opened into the theaters and closed. And that was that was it, as Walter Hill would say, down without a bubble.

Jeff Dwoskin 43:18

I said, What's your feeling when that happens? And now flash forward decades, and it's one of the most we're not, you know, it's one, it's one of the considered one of the best movies

William Sadler 43:29

ever. Well, first of all, I'm very proud that they found that they thought, think it's the best movie ever. You know, that's kind of above my pay grade. I i find myself looking at the stuff right in front of me on my plate. It's harder for me to see the big picture. I remember being disappointed that it they pulled it from the theaters and that, and I thought that was it. Then it was nominated for seven Academy Awards, and then it didn't win any, because Gump won them all, bastard. And then when it was nominated, they put it back in the theaters, and so a few more people saw it in the theaters, and then, and then it came out in video, and Ted Turner started putting it out on on Turner Classic Movies, and that's how America discovered it. That's when that's people. People took it home with them, and little by little, it became crept up on us. I thought it was over. I I thought I had been, you know, recognized in airports by security guys. And after I did Shawshank, I was recognized in a Starbucks. And I thought, well, I'm that's a step up. A different class of people have decided that I, you know, I'm on the map somewhere, but I don't think any of us expected it to become what it's become. You have to, I mean, Frank himself says, I think we caught lightning in a bottle. That's his phrase for. It. He says, I we caught lightning in a bottle that song you couldn't change. What would you change? What would you cut? What would you Who else would you cast and come up with the same chemistry, the same impact, the same likability of these people? Would you care about them at all? And I think we all knew it was a strong story, but I don't think, but I'm, I'm pretty sure none of us knew that it was headed for, you know, the rafters, where it lives. Now this it's still the, the last time I looked, it was the number one. It's still the number one movie of the top 250 films on the IMDB. Audience. Gosh, I like it list

Jeff Dwoskin 45:55

as it should be, as it should be, which is crazy. That is amazing.

William Sadler 45:59

I so I've been in the greats and the new greats, and I've been in some stinkers. You know,

Jeff Dwoskin 46:06

one of my favorite Bogus Journey Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey Bill and Ted, the original Bill and Ted, is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. Excellent Adventure. Excellent Adventure. Yeah, yeah. And then you as the Grim Reaper, death and the comeback. Then what? 30 years later? My goodness, alright,

William Sadler 46:28

complete a whole. 30 years later, we we gathered again to do it. That was great fun. It was the same casting person, Karen Ray, who put me in that tales from the crypt, you

Jeff Dwoskin 46:40

and salesman, the crap dude,

William Sadler 46:43

that's amazing. She was Karen Ray. She I will thank her forever and ever. She was wonderful. But I got a chance in some ways. I think, I think the Grim Reaper, whose voice I stole from a Czechoslovakian actor in New York that I had worked with named Jan triskin. He's gone now. So sorry, Jan, but he spoke that way. He had that shared with the rockian accent was he always was talking like this, everywhere he went and and putting the accent on the wrong syllables and and he was just funny. You know, he was funny to listen to, and the more serious or upset he got, the funnier he got. So I just stole it and used that accent for the for that character.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:35

It's a great accent. I think it, it helps, I mean, because it's like, oh no, of course, it's so hilarious.

William Sadler 47:46

Challenge me to a to a contest. But the great thing too is that I had played like bad guy, bad guy, bad guy, bad guy, and the Grim Reaper starts out as a bad guy, right, right? It's like, here he is again. Terrifying death. He's dead. He's like, You doesn't get much scarier than that until he starts losing games, and then you see him fall apart like a babbling idiot. He's like, this spoiled,

Jeff Dwoskin 48:18

petulant, right? Throwing Tantrums. Yeah, little, little

William Sadler 48:22

shit. He's like, you know, best to do out of three. Best three out of five. I said, glove, oh man. And then, you know, and then, and I got to be silly, which was I had wanted to for a long, long time I had wanted to do something funny. I wanted to play those notes on the on that piano. I had wanted to play the funny notes and be and be silly. And I finally got a chance to do that, which was, it's like they let me out of a cage, and I just ran with it. So

Jeff Dwoskin 49:02

hilarious, so memorable, like that. It's in between that die hard and Josh shank, that's, that's my trifecta. For you, my personal job,

William Sadler 49:12

that's the 90s. That's the 90s for you.

Jeff Dwoskin 49:15

Let's, let's talk about real quick. You're a singer, you're you sing, you have album out the kitchen, tapes. You're raising money for charity.

William Sadler 49:23

I am. I'm raising money for the Saint Jude's Children's Hospital. But I made a, I made a I made an album of the songs that I that I've written, and I've been playing and singing and writing songs for years and years and years, and during the pandemic, they stopped all production of films and things. So I you couldn't, I couldn't leave the house. So I thought I would work up these songs and and low and behold, you can send them. You can send it to your friend who can get them to Denny Bonet, who is a wonderful violinist. And she put her music on it, and then send it to John Colbert, who played with John Lennon. He'll do the piano underneath it, and it'll come back to me, and they'll mix it, and what comes out. Sounds, fa sounds great. You know, I've been, I've been doing coffee houses and things all around LA when we lived out there and around here as well, but to make a decent recording of these songs was always a goal of mine. And I know people actors have like three strikes against them already when they set out to sing and record music, and I can't get the picture of William Shatner out of my head smoking a cigarette and singing Rocket Man. That is the greatest clip. Elton John's Rocket Man, burning out my fuse out there alone, we should all just quit now. It's been done.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:01

Family Guy did a good parody of that, if you haven't seen

William Sadler 51:05

but lots of actors have done, lots of actors have, you know, stepped into the singing, the singing thing. I'm not alone, and I do realize that I'm, you know, my real bread and butter has always been in the in the film arena or Broadway, but I wanted, I didn't want these songs to just disappear. And I've been writing poetry and songs for ages and ages, and I thought, let, let me see if I can raise some money for a good cause, and then kind of takes the onus off it. I don't, I don't have any illusions about becoming a recording artist.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:48

It's a creative outlet. I don't

William Sadler 51:49

want to wear tight pants. And

Jeff Dwoskin 51:52

there's a creative outlet. Creative people need it, outlets. And, yeah, yeah, you have a voice. And, literally, and,

William Sadler 52:02

and you gotta do something.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:04

You gotta do something, right? It's,

William Sadler 52:06

I know I think it's great. I don't have a bad voice. I did have a I had a casting person. One time in New York, I auditioned for a musical called history of the American film. The casting person called my agent after the audition and said, William is a wonderful actor, but he should never sing in public again. So, so if for no other reason than to prove them wrong, I'm going to sing in public as much as I damn well please, and the people that like it will like it, and the people that don't. Can, you know, if you wait a few minutes, it'll be over before you know it exactly.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:51

I think you have a lovely voice. I listen to some of your songs, I think you have a lovely voice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When I was listening to your voice, I was like, I felt like your voice. It had like, an old soul quality to it, you know, I mean, like, you know, like, I enjoyed it. It was, it was unique. It's not like what you hear. It's not like a pop, you know, it's not a pop song. It's like, it's kind of a folksy, kind of, like, I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed Well, thank you. I hope that's

William Sadler 53:20

okay. Thank you. No, thank you very much. Yeah, I haven't heard, I don't I haven't heard any reviews of my album, but it's available on if you go to the real William sadler.com you can purchase the album in vinyl or CD, and the money goes all of it goes to to Saint Jude's, and you'll get a autographed album or an autographed CD, and you'll enjoy it. I think you'll enjoy

Jeff Dwoskin 53:51

it. Love it. I appreciate you hanging out with me. I appreciate you proving once again, that sometimes the most evil people on screen are the nicest people in real life. So thank you. I don't know why that is. It always

William Sadler 54:08

seems that way. What is it? I got to Hollywood and they said, Oh, no, no, he can be terrible. He could be Yeah, he could kill everybody in sight, you know, and then eat a sandwich sitting on their chests or something. I'm one of the nicest people I know, but there you go. I'm glad they I'm glad they like me for something

Jeff Dwoskin 54:33

you're rocking no matter what you do. So thank you so much. I appreciate you hanging out and sharing the stories. Was

William Sadler 54:39

my pleasure. Thank you. Applause.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai