183: We Have Found The Wez

Hi, this is Verdon Wells, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. And I have one thing to say. I know where you live, you little fuckers. So listen, or I will come and get you, I will rip off your head, and I will piss down your neck. So, remember that.

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You can run, but you can't hide! What's up, and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian. I'm Fred. And we are coming to you live via digital recording from Fright Night Film Fest here in Louisville, Kentucky.

And, um. What a show it has been, Fred. What is your take on it so far? Oh, the humanity. That's pretty accurate.

That's pretty much my take. I feel godlike here because we're right in front of the escalators. And I have this thing about people who just freeze on escalators. It immobilizes them. And so I'm just sitting here and I'm judging people.

They don't realize, but I'm sorting them out. Categorizing. Yes. Yes, the wheat, the chaff. I don't even know what chaff is.

I think you're making that word up. Yeah, I think that's a Bible word or something. I don't know. But yeah, it's busy. There's all kinds of people wandering around here.

There are not words. I would use words, but there are not words. I agree. And it's amazing how many people I know. We've seen a lot of people we know in this past day or so.

Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at people I know right now just over recording other people that I don't know. There's somebody I just met just wandering around. Anybody you meet, there they are. It's like when you're in a grocery and you see somebody you know and then Like a minute later, you run into them again. An aisle later by the melons, you're like, oh, this is awkward now.

Yeah, because you talk to them a while, then you say goodbye, and then you turn a corner, there they are again. After a while, you're just like, how do I get out of this hellhole, man? That's why I just stop saying bye if I'm pretty sure I've still got a day and a half. I'm just like, see you later, because I'll see you about every 15 minutes more than likely. See you over by the freezer section.

Well, you know, I do have my crazy story I've been telling people. It's like a block over here. I don't want to tell the whole big story, but I went over there the other day. It was the 166th anniversary of the birth of the blockbuster motion picture, Louisville in 1846. June 29th, I went over there and just stared up into the air where this happened.

A guy painted a the world's biggest painting. It's a moving panorama of the Mississippi River. And he showed it at a place called the Apollo Rooms. It's like about a block away from here. And nobody came opening night.

You can go back in the old newspapers in Louisville and see the notices. Nobody showed up. It rained. It was a Monday night. But eventually, you know, people came and saw it, and it was huge, and he became, like, really rich.

It was like a primitive motion picture. It was, like, turned and cranked. But, you know, he became rich. He became hugely successful. Then he lost all his money and died poor again.

So it was almost on, like, I guess sort of a, Like a window shade kind of operation, only one that just sort of looped over and over? It was like upright spools, and they were cranked, and I found there was some music. He had a pianist who played during the show, and I found the music, but he didn't have it here. That came later after he'd made some money. He commissioned them, and I got a kid to play them for me, so I got to hear this.

It would have been nice if I could go there and listen to it and know that that happened there, but actually he didn't do that until Boston. So I do have the music. His name was John Banford. You can look him up on Wikipedia. And he's just a forerunner of motion pictures.

In a way, I want to give him credit because he was the one who found a big audience. You know, he didn't invent film. He didn't invent anything, really. He just made it into a big adventure. Finding a way to market it.

Finding a media outlet. Because, you know, he advertised it and nobody came. But then what he did the next day, on June 30th, was he went down to the docks and he got, like, the riverboat captains and people who had been on the Mississippi. He gave them free tickets. So they came and saw it.

And they could you know, they were in a position to say, yeah, that's what it looks like. You know, for all the audiences who were not going to go out on the frontier, on the Mississippi, and see it themselves, it was a big deal. Until, you know, later, people traveled more and saw photos. Ah. Oh, okay.

Well, I can say I saw the other one. The other boondock scene. Yeah. And probably, I don't know, have you seen Willem Dafoe walking around in a dress here anywhere? I saw three guys in dresses yesterday.

None of them really look like Willem Dafoe, but they were equally as beguiling, we'll say. Beguiling, yeah. So that's my story. I spring on people. I got to tell this director from London this story just recently.

On the day, on the anniversary. I think she thought I was crazy, and her boyfriend did a magic trick and mangled a fork. It was great. Well, he wasn't from here, but it just ended up he had a workshop here? Is that how it ended up?

Oh, Banford, he came here. He was kind of of here. He came here from New York when he was 15. His dad was. Uh architect in new york and he had a stroke and his partner left with all their money um and so they were they went from being pretty well off to having no money and he came here as a kid and he liked to say he was all alone in the world but actually he had a brother who was a grocer down by the river and uh and he did odd jobs and and worked on the first uh Chapman's riverboat.

They did Shakespeare and shows. He was an actor and painted sets. And somewhere along the line, he made some money and got the idea to paint the Mississippi River on a quarter mile of canvas. God sakes. Why would you even have that undertaking?

What would ever possess you to want to do that? And that guy was a dreamer, wasn't he? And he had to stick to it, get up every day and paint on that thing. Basically the same scene over and over, just slightly different. Yeah, it's just the bank of the river.

And I know it was the East Bank, which is funny. Later he painted the West Bank. He just couldn't get enough of it. And he was rich, man. He was probably the first millionaire artist in the world in the 1850s. he was the most famous artist.

And now he's, you know, he's not in history books. He's forgotten. So I like to think of him as an early pioneer of film because that's what, you know, making movies is like. It's an adventure. It's crazy.

It's, you know, boom or bust, I guess. It really is interesting because it is that, like, crossing over point. Like, again, like you said, he didn't invent the camera. He didn't invent the, you know, the projector or any of that stuff. But, It's that point in the middle, that sort of gray area when these guys, you know, these nerdy guys building the machinery had to.

Cross over with somebody who knew them. How to find an audience and put together a show that would bring people out there. And it is an interesting thing that there is that sort of crossing over point where you get and mix all the arts together. His was actually a painting, but he found a way to make it moving and make a literal moving picture of And then you get that audience built in and then work in the projectors and the screens and stuff. So it is sort of that crossing over point.

Yeah, and it's like a dead media thing. All of them are gone. After he did it and made a lot of money, people started painting panoramas all over the place. And they all said theirs was bigger. But they all ran about the length of a movie.

It's like that time span is just in us. You have to get it to that 90-minute mark or you don't get in the, you know, you're not a feature film. Yeah, they were all about two hours, but he gets the credit for the biggest painting in the world because there's no evidence that anybody else did anything bigger. Everyone else had sense. Yeah, and he kept adding to his.

But then he founded a museum in New York and got into competition with P.T. Barnum, and he struggled along, I mean, you know, for years. Yeah. And then it went under and he hadn't registered the stock. And so it ruined his name.

All his investors lost all their money. And he wound up out in South Dakota living with his son. Didn't have any money. And he and his wife, who had played, she was the piano player that he hired in Boston. And they got married.

And he wound up living out there and still sometimes... put on shows like historical reenactments for you know the nobody who lived out there i mean still there's nobody there there's still nobody there but he he just kept at it you know i kind of admire him i i heard this story my sister sent me a book and i read the story and i'm like holy crap this happened in my yard or something he actually painted that and i never found out where you know he painted it here in louisville somewhere and i know where he showed it and there you know you can find his family and the old city records from the 1830s but there's i i'm getting on a psychic hotline or something i'm just gonna call him up and say where the hell was this thing because it could have been anywhere around here you know.

Definitely in that little area. I mean, both of us kind of live in that area that's been around for 100, 150 years when any of this could have been going on. So we actually do live in that little area where they were doing all this stuff. Yeah, it's crazy. The stuff, like anywhere you are, what might have happened there in the past.

Because I know, like around the corner, a few streets over, there's a marker where Thomas Merton had this revelation about how he loved everybody. And I know that because I was walking along. It's around 4th Street. And I was walking along thinking about how everybody gets on my last fucking nerve. And then I look up and see this marker just to make me feel bad, you know.

His mission is accomplished all these years later. What a dick, that guy, loving everybody. And then, like, further down on Broadway and 4th, like, is a spot on the corner where, oh, what's her name from E.T.? Drew Barrymore, her aunt Diana, was arrested and slapped a cop in the 1940s. There's not a marker for that, but it's pretty cool, too.

I know the parking lot that C.C. DeVille got arrested in when he was... If we're going a little more modern, I mean, I can... Yeah, it all counts. Then there's a parking lot for the song Happy Birthday...

I don't think it was written in a parking lot, but I don't really know. But it was written around here somewhere. I live down the street from Thomas Edison's house. Oh, yeah? Yeah, that's pretty cool.

A little, like, shoebox thing that they call his. Have you been to it? Yeah, I've been there. It's seriously, like, right down the street from where I live. And only now have I realized what a hack he was.

Then I realized, oh, well, Tesla actually did all of that stuff. So I really don't care where his house is. Yeah. When I first went to the Ali Museum, I asked around if anybody knew where the house he grew up. Because that seemed cool to me.

And a guy did. He called somebody and said, that's on Garland, wasn't it? They got me the address and we drove over there. There were a couple of kids sitting on the porch looking at us drive slowly by. And they're kind of laughing like, yeah, my uncle told somebody that story again.

But that's pretty cool, because I remember hearing Ali, like when he was a kid, he would race the school bus to school. He would wait for the school bus to come, then he wouldn't get on. And that was his training. He'd run there. Oh, Lord.

Well, I guess we can take a break from our history here. We do have an awesome interview that we did, so I guess we can get into that here when. We come back. We did talk to Vernon Wells, the... Star of many, many movies, some of which we'll get to in a minute here.

So just when we come back, we'll set the scene. Because Fred is here, and Greg is there as well. And he gets his hopes and dreams dashed by Vernon. Well, you'll get to it. He ruins his childhood.

Anyway, we'll get to that in a minute. So we will take a break and be back with our interview with Vernon Wells. Working for the man every night and day And I never lost one minute of sleeping Worrying about the way things might have been. Big wheel keep on turning, turning Round and keep on burning, burning Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river. If you leave the theater, folks, please be careful.

Don't let this happen to your car. Be sure to remove the. Speaker before you leave. If you should accidentally pull the speaker. Loose, please turn it in at our snack bar or box office.

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Then you'll get 33% off and free shipping. Tweaked Audio. Sounds better. In the future, cities will become deserts. Roads will become battlefields.

And the hope of mankind will appear as a stranger. He works alone against all odds. He may be the best chance we've got. You want to get out of here? You talk to me.

The Road Warrior. Pray that he's out there. Somewhere. And I'm trying to improve my health and my outlook because of my daughter. But that's like 80% of the reason.

The other 20% is because I sincerely believe in 20 years society is going to collapse and we're going to be living in this weird, irradiated wasteland like in The Road Warrior. So in my head, I'm like, well, I'm clearly going to be being chased by mutants on motorcycles. I'm way, I can't run very fast, so I need to slim down. And we all know that motorcycle mutants are cannibals, so I'm just too much of a treat, right? I'm like a luau to those guys.

I gotta focus on stringy or I'm dead. We'll be right back. So we are here with Vernon Wells. I guess go way back. Where were you born?

In a hospital beside my mother, who has often said to me, I was born coming out of a woman and spent the rest of my life trying to get back in. One of those situations. Oh, totally, yes. I've never met a man who didn't like sex, and I'm no different. But certainly outside the Hollywood system, as it were, so.

I was actually born in Australia, in a little country town called Rushworth, which was a gold mining town. Yeah. And probably had a population of 25,000 people. And then I grew up in a tiny little town called Winolta with my grandparents. And that had a population of 12.

And one store. And I used to go to school in a horse and gray. But the farm that was the furthest out, the kids would... get on the horse and ride down, and they'd. Pick up the other six kids as they went, and we'd all go to school that way and come home that way. I guess it was a little easier to get in trouble.

They couldn't blame it on many other people. No, that was a real bummer, yeah. Don't cut down your grandfather's prized trees because he's got to know it's you. So probably not a whole lot of movie theaters in the area? No.

No, not a lot. It was a bit of a problem. I grew up with radio and all the old serials were on like Biggles and Superman and all these kind of things. I don't know, I just grew up enjoying it. I never wanted to be an actor, which is a funny thing.

My mother was a very successful country and western songwriter in Australia. And out of all the kids, I was the one that got the talent towards music. And I was in a couple of big bands in Australia. I grew up with a kid called Gary Anderson who was in Rose Tattoo. And we were in bands together.

I had a couple of big show bands that I worked in that toured enormously successfully through Asia and Australia. And that's virtually where I thought I was going to stay. What did you play? I sang. I played the fool a lot, but I sang.

And I figured that was me. My life was going to be a rock and roll singer. Sex, drugs and rock and roll in that order. And it was really cool. But I was involved in a very bad accident in the band truck where I got severely hurt.

And while I was recuperating. I became a real pain in the ass to our manager because I wasn't allowed to work with the band because I couldn't stand up for very long because my back had been broken and I'd compressed, fractured it and all this kind of shit. And he just, you know, finally out of desperation he went to one of the biggest casting agents in Melbourne and said, you know, please take him on my fucking hands, please. And she kind of liked my look and said. You know, we've got to. we're casting for a commercial it'd probably be really cool and I actually got it and then I realized that I was getting all this money and I wasn't sharing it with six other dicks it was just me so I thought could be something in this but it was probably the most boring time of my life was being a model and from that it sort of became an actor without wanting to be I became an extra on television shows and the reason that you're an extra on a television show is You know, free booze, free food, and you get.

Laid if you're lucky. It was like the life of Riley. That's what's been luring. People to Hollywood for years. So, you know, I was like, oh, this is so cool.

And through no fault of my own or not because I wanted to try, I kept getting kind of, you know, the director would go, hey, you, the big shit in the back, come here. And I'd sort of drag my ass up to the front and say, say this line. And it just, you know, that it would say these two lines. Say these three lines. And I really didn't want to do it.

I hated it. I hated being in front of a camera. And I hated the. Whole thing of being an actor. It was like, ain't gonna happen, dude.

And I went off and decided I'd become a director. Because that's where I really liked being, was behind the camera. So I started directing commercials and. Documentaries and a couple of little films. And I thought that was.

Where I was going to stay. I was really happy doing that. And I got asked to do a stage play and I sort of said, no, I wasn't interested. They just persisted for about five months. And finally, I agreed to do it.

And it went on to become extremely successful. Extremely successful. And George Miller's girlfriend, Sandy Gore, saw a performance and contacted George and said, I have found the way. And George came from Sydney down to Melbourne. I lived in Melbourne.

And we chatted. And he explained the character to me, and I flatly refused to do it. I just said, it ain't happening. Nope, not me. I said, you want him to do what?

No. And it just seemed so ludicrous and so not who I was. I was like, no, no, don't want to do it. And about two months after that, they contacted my management and said, look, we need him to come to Sydney because we need him to try out all the costumes and the makeup and everything. And I said, I'm not doing the film.

Why in the fuck do I have to do, you know, costumes and makeup? And my manager said, well, George thought that you're about the right build and they just want to see what it looks like and all this bullshit. And I'm such a dumb shit that I went, oh, okay, fine. So I went up to Sydney and they dressed me in the costume and shaved my head, did the whole thing and paraded me around like a dumb fuck. And George said, so what do you think?

And I was like, you know, if I ever see you in a dark alley. So that was virtually how I got it. And I mean, the whole point was if I hadn't got it, I wouldn't be here. You wouldn't be interested in interviewing me. The whole nine yards.

It's one of those things that I guess sometimes... You're fated to do something or be something, and no matter what you do to avoid it, there's some little shit standing at the corner waiting until you get there, and he grabs you by the balls and drags you in and says, hey, this is what you're going to do. This is what you're going to do. Yeah, and it all came about, and it took me, after I did Road Warrior, it probably took me three years to accept the film because I hated it. it was just this big stone around my neck. Every time I went for an audition, people would look at me and they'd.

Go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, well, we really wanted you to be the husband, but you'd probably be screwing the kids and killing the wife and having sex with the dog or something. So it was like this whole thing, and I hated it. I was like, ah. And when they wanted me to come to America, they couldn't get me to come here.

Again, no. I'm such a dipshit. You're fighting all the important decisions. And finally, it was Joel Silver that wanted me to come for Weird Science. And I was like, you want me to do what?

You want me to do a comedy version of Wes? Oh, that'll be good. And I was just like, I don't want to do it. I don't want America. You know, where all those weird people live.

That's still true. You know, I was not going to America. And eventually, of course, I got drugged. kicking and screaming to the stage. And once again. There by the grace of God you know I wouldn't be here again I got sort of sucked in and then it all started you know Well.

That's what I was going to ask. I mean, you, within a few years, are already playing a variation of your own character. And then, like, if you look through 80s, even into the mid-90s, there's, like, all these villain characters in these sometimes normal movies, sometimes post-apocalyptic, but they're all basically this, like, version of your character from Road Warrior. Was that weird to see, you know, watching people do some sort of character that's stealing from you, basically? You know, it's actually interesting because I'll tell you a funny little story.

I went in for an interview for a film. Walked into a room, and there. Was probably 12 people around a table. And the guy, the casting director said to me, he said, would you like to know anything about the character? And I went, not really.

And he said, well, we're looking for a specific type of character. And I went, yeah, I've read the sides. I kind of get what you want. He said, yeah, but I want you to, you know, to do your best because he had all the producers there. And finally I sort of went, oh, what the fuck?

Just tell me what do you want? And he said, did you ever see Road Warrior? And I went. Um, yes. So I'm thinking I'm being punked, you know.

So I'm looking for the camera. There's got to be a camera here somewhere. And I said, yes. And he said, do you remember the guy with the red mohawk? Now I'm convinced I'm being punked.

And I said, uh-huh. Uh-huh. He said, what we're looking for is someone that can do that character. And I went, where are we going to find him? Where will we find him?

I think you can pull that off. That's hilarious. And then he says, you're definitely not right. No, actually, he didn't. I did the interview, and I did the audition, and everybody sits there.

They're all like. Wow. When I was finishing and he said, you know what? We're looking for the guy that played the role. If we can't find him, it's yours.

And I went. You said, good luck. I'm slowly realizing that they have no fucking idea who I am. So I'm like sitting there going, okay. And he said, you wouldn't happen to have a photo, would you?

And I said, yes, you know, like your resume. And at that stage, I used to have a little picture in the corner of it of Wes, you know, in the corner of my resume. I said, yeah, actually, I do. So I sort of flipped it across the table to him. And he said, oh, thank you.

And he picked it up and he went. And you could see his eye just sort of come up over the top of the phone. He looked at me and I went, I think I'm going to be busy that week. It's like, you've got to be fucking kidding me. They watch.

And my agent loves to ring me up. I have a voiceover agent. He'll ring me up and he'll go, they're looking for a Wes. And I go, oh, great, so I've got a job. He said, no, they want a younger one.

That's what you want to hear. Like, yeah, we want a Wes, but he's got to be younger. What the hell? So did that sort of paint you into that corner of being a villain? I mean, you said you were going in not getting the husband roles.

Oh, yeah. I became the go-to villain. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's funny because if you're an actor, the villain roles are the best. Yeah.

You know, all villains have no boundaries. You know, whereas if you're the good guy or the hero, you've got boundaries. You know, you have to work within a framework because you've got to be able to do this. You can't, you know, have sex with the leading lady. You know, whereas if you're the villain, you can have sex with dead bodies.

Nobody cares. And so it's really a cool thing. But the funny thing is that in probably the last five years, I have got nothing but good guys. There was a friend of mine cast me in a film, Jackal and Hyde. And I said, oh, goody, am I playing Jackal or Hyde?

And he said, neither, you're playing the good guy. And I went, what? He said, I want you to be the good guy. You're Jackal's best friend. And I went, you're kidding me.

And he said, no. And then I got really paranoid because I... Didn't know how to play a good guy. Do I remember how to do that? It was like, how the fuck do I play a good guy?

And it was probably the worst movie I've ever done because. It was like all really stilted, like looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Like every time I turned around and I was like, crap. But, you know, I got used to it because I think the thing. About being the villain is you never put yourself into it unless you're an asshole.

Yeah, of course you are then. You know, you're, it's, it's, apart from you, so it's much easier to portray. When you play a good guy, there's a certain amount of you has to be in that character. And that's scary, because you're showing vulnerability to people, and most people don't want to do that. So you sort of back off a little bit from it.

But after a while, you get used to it. And now, I love doing both. I enjoy it. I just finished a film in Australia called Nowhere Else, which is a horror movie. Yeah.

And the way they set it up, you think I am the beast, the thing that's killing people. But in actuality, I'm not. I'm the guy that's trying to kill it because I've been hunting it for 20 years. And all these. Kids come along that get killed.

And the way I react to them is not because I want to kill them. It's because I don't want them fucking around me because I'm trying to get this thing and kill it. So it's a lot of fun because, you know, it's kind of the character's got a little dark side to him and he's kind of very sort of laconic. Which is a little bit like me. And then I came back to the States and played one of the most terrific villains I've played for a while.

I have a scene in it where I shoot this woman's daughter through the head while I'm staring into her eye. Not the daughter's, the mother's eye talking to her. And I got the gun like that. Wow. And she's saying, please don't do it.

And I go. I think I might. No, please don't do it. Ah, fuck it. Just shoot her daughter in the head.

And yet, you also see him as a family man. He's got these sides to him which is really sick. And he gets so pissed off when his wife gets killed. You know, it's like the end of the world. How dare they do that to him?

He's just gone around killing people, but that's different, you see? Now it's his. So it's a really... dark, strange characters. So I'm getting to play a lot of off-the-wall characters now, more than the straight, you know, black and white, which I love. You've had some off-the-wall characters.

There were a few I think we wanted to get to, you know. Do we have the Commando questions? I'll tell you what. I loved Commando as a kid. Uh-huh.

You're a great villain in that. Mm-hmm. Um. Very typical villain, but you could tell that weren't quite right up in the head. I think that was a very good job.

My question was, the chainmail vest was awesome. Did you bring that to the character, or did they say, you need to wear this? Two things. Number one, I got cast into that film three weeks after it started shooting. Originally I went and saw the director when Joel Silver asked me to and the director didn't want me to do it because he said I'd do it too much like Wes.

So they cast somebody else and he was a method actor and apparently he started driving Arnold insane by banging on his trailer door, writing things on his mirror, messing up his clothes, all this. Kind of shit. And finally Arnold just, you know... blew the. Gasket and told Joel it was him or the other guy. And then Joel rang me in Australia and said, get your ass over here.

So I really walked into his costume. They didn't have time to really make a costume. The second thing was it wasn't a chain mail vest. It's called a stoker's vest. And don't ask me how I know this because I have no fucking idea.

No, there's a group in England called the Bennett Club. And there's all these guys that dress up like Bennett. And they have these conventions, Bennett conventions. Some people just have way too much time on their hands. And I was talking to them at one stage on the Internet.

And I said, where are you going to get your chain mail vests? And they wrote back to me and they said, it's not chain mail. It's actually called a Stoker's vest. And what a Stoker's vest was, was in the First and Second World War. the English stokers in the bowels of the ship that put all the coal into the furnace wore these vests that were made out of wool. And the reason they were made out of wool was that they breathed and they had the open weave, so the air went through, kept them cool.

When they were sweating, the wool absorbed all of the moisture, so that when things came out of the sparks and flames and shit came out of the furnace, they didn't get burned. They didn't burn, yeah. Cool. And they're usually brown. Or black, and they sprayed it silver to make it look like it was chain mail.

Somebody asked me today, they went, God, you must be pretty bloody strong to walk around that all day. Yeah, I weighed about, like, 12 ounces. I was really strong. Well, you know, I was a kid watching it. I just fucked up, you feel me?

Oh, he's ruined your whole childhood. I know. So they called you on that. They told you what the vest was. Yep.

Those are hardcore geeks. They'll argue with you. I mean, I went on to that commandofans.com site. and went into the Bennett page and just sat there and went, you have got to be fucking kidding. Oh, that's hilarious. Seriously.

I'm going to have to see that just to go laugh at it. Oh, man. It is like people have way too much time on their hands. Oh, yeah. When people can take movie posters from all kinds of movies and recreate them with me and Arnold.

You know, you've got way too much time on your hands. But, I mean, it's fun. Because I think it's really cool that people want to do it in the first place, that they like you enough as an actor to want to do. That kind of thing. But I always look at it and I go, seriously dude I'm a little bit like Captain Kirk in that respect you know get a day.

Job get a girlfriend yeah it's. Just a bloody movie but you know I think it's really cool that people like it that much and I mean Road Warrior with spawning so many movies that are based on what the characters are, I think is really cool. And Michael Jackson wearing his gloves that I wore in the movie. I started a lot of trends. That was scary.

What can I say? There were a few other off-the-wall ones. I recently watched Circuitry Man. Ah, my Circuitry Man. The plughead.

How do you. get into the character of plughead. Plughead was fun it really was i actually jim metzler the star of the film yeah he uh was a friend of mine and they had the lovey brothers had interviewed me for the role of um the circuitry dude and um they decided that was going to cost them way too much money so they didn't go forward with it and I was talking to Jim one day, and he said, it's a shame, we could have worked together. And I said, yeah, I guess I didn't do a good audition. He said, no, it had nothing to do with that. They didn't think they could afford you.

And I went, what? Did they fucking ask me? And he said, well, no. I said, yeah, I've got a copy of the script. And he said, yeah, so I read the script.

And then I rang him up and virtually went in and sat on their desk and gave them an ultimatum, you know. Put me in the movie or I'm going to kick your asses, so. They decided that having their asses kicked by Wes wasn't a real smart move, so I got the movie. But it was fun. I mean, I don't know.

If you enjoy it. It's just there. I can't be one of these actors that has to get into the character and live it. It just doesn't come for me. I just have to be there in the moment and do it in the moment.

When I'm not on set, I'm giving the crew such a hard time or I'm trying to bang the co-star or something. I don't give a shit about the character. It's when I get back in front of that camera and the director says, action, that's when I work. I can never kind of get into that thing of walking around in costume and being the character and nobody can talk to me, nobody can look at me. It's like, you've got to be kidding me.

That's not the way I work, but God bless those that do it. They can. And I worked with a guy in a beautiful movie that I did called Circleman, which was about a retarded boxer. And there was a scene in it where he's beaten to death and he's. Dying and I've got him in my arms and I'm rocking him and I'm crying while he's dying and talking to him.

And it was an emotional scene, so I'm getting a little, I'm holding him a little tighter. In the middle of the scene, I mean, this is a really heavy scene. This is a really heavy scene. He goes, cut, cut. And everybody, including the director, is like.

What the fuck? And the director said, what's wrong? What's wrong? And he said, he's holding me too tight. It's like, okay, I'm sorry.

Shit, I shouldn't act. Maybe I should have just dropped you on your fucking head. But it's that thing, you know, because you're not supposed to. And if you do a rehearsal a certain way and then Because to me, rehearsals are to figure out what I'm doing. They're not for me to rehearse anything.

I want to know where the camera is, where the other actors are going to be, where the props are, where I can walk, where I can do shit, what can I do to make the scene work better. Then when they say action, I do all of that. Can't do it when you work with one of those dipshits because if you go and do something you didn't do in the rehearsal, they freak out totally because they can't work like that. Like... So yeah...

I have my issues. Yeah. Actor-y actors. Yes, little scumbags. Well, I couldn't not mention, there are several people on the show that are really big fans of Space Truckers.

Ah, Space Truckers. I mean, that's Dennis Hopper alone. I mean, that role is, oh, man. I just didn't know what the shoot was working on that one. It was fun.

We were actually in Island. shooting it and i had a ball i had a real and the funny thing was that i went in for the audition and they really didn't have a role for me but i know stewart gordon pretty well i've done two or three films for stewart and the first time i ever auditioned for stewart i actually threw him through a wall and he wrote a character into his film because i think he was scared of me um And he wrote a character into the film. You know, it was five or six scenes and I had this great death scene and we did all these. I was shooting it in Australia and he said to me that the death was written to take three seconds and between the star and myself we managed to linger it for three and a half minutes.

And he was like, I don't fucking believe it. It's a three second scene and you two could make it last for three and a half minutes because we did all this shit and We just had fun with it. It was a cool little movie. It's very underrated. Space Truckers was fun.

I actually have one of the square pigs. See, that's one of the key moments. I got the square pig. Nice. I mean, the funniest thing that happened there was they were shooting another film two studios down and they had this huge big tank of water.

And.... Somebody dropped something in the tank. It wasn't very big, but they dropped something in the tank and the whole tank exploded. And something like 120,000 gallons of water came. Like a little mini tsunami.

And we were all like, why is there a foot of water on the floor? Sort of everything got wet. But it was fun. I mean, I had a ball doing it. I loved my character.

Stuart let me decide what I wanted to be. Great. Tattoo and all. Oh, yeah. Did you have new stuff coming out that you wanted to tell people about?

Yeah, well, that was the Nowhere Else, which is the horror movie, which is about things called cryptid bats. It's actually a really cool movie. That's coming out. I've got another film called, it's called The Pod, I believe. I thought it was going to be called Alien Hunger, You Are What You Eat. but it's a kind of sci-fi horror alien movie, which is coming out as well.

And 10,000 Zombie Heads. I think there's two others too that I've done. And I've got, oh, The Lackey, which there's like four films that I'm actually doing sequels to. I'm doing a sequel to The. Lackey, a sequel to another film I did about two years ago called Dead Undead.

It's a vampire movie about good vampires who chase down the bad vampires. We're doing a sequel to that and doing the sequel to Nowhere Else. So, yeah, I don't stop working, which I think is great because I have more fun now than I had. I think I've grown into myself. One of the directors I work with a lot said to me, he said he thinks I've just grown into myself.

I now inhabit my body. Whereas before, I was kind of a scattered little shit. I was everywhere, off the fucking ceiling. I was like, get him down. Now I'm a lot more happy with who I am.

You mentioned directing. Do you want to get back into directing? Yeah, I could be directing a film early next. Year if I'm lucky. A film that I wrote, which is with funding sources at the moment.

They've said nice things. So, you know, you never know. I love directing. It's fun. Because I get to play God.

And I get to say, hey, fucker, do it this way. Instead of having them saying that to me. It's like, hey, dipshit, over here. Is there somewhere online you want to send them to your website? Or where's the best place to keep up with?

Because you've got a lot of projects going. Keep up with me. Yeah, local police station. That's a pretty good place to keep up with me. Yeah.

Also, back of toilet doors in parks, there's always something written about me. Stay out of the park. You can always find out what I'm doing. Facebook, I get my fan page done because Facebook threw me off. Oh, really?

Everywhere you go. Too many people. They just shut it down. Nice. I had so many Facebook fans or whatever the fuck they're called.

Yeah. And so they shut it down. So now I've got to put up a fan page and it's like, then I've got to get every way to transfer to the fan page. It's like, Jesus, why don't, if they had something on their dumbass site where all you had. To do was click on your.

Transfer them over. And just transfer them over. It would be so cool, but no. And it's the same thing as when you want to do a blast, you know, if you've got a film or something like here. And you want to send it out to your fans and just say, hey, if you're in the area, come say hi.

You've got to go down and tick them one at a time. I've got 6,000 fucking people on my Facebook. You think I'm going to sit there and tick 6,000 names? It isn't going to happen. You'd think that they would have this little button that just click all and it goes out.

No, because that's too easy. We need to get a hold of Facebook. You can just shake them until they fix everything. Shake them. They'll sit on their desk.

In time to fix it. I think that was it. Unless you have anything else to get out there. I think that was it. All right.

Well, thank you for talking to me. Anybody that's 5'10, tall, female, large boobs, blonde hair, blue eyes, does not know the meaning of the word no, I can give you my phone number. We shall pass that along. Thank you for talking to me. My pleasure.

From Ohio to New Zealand Tomatoes, if I'm the kid They do the best, do what they can To get them ready for the end. First Root, ayy! Got lots of Germany Second Root, ayy! Be nice to my army Third Root, ayy! We'll be right back.

Yes, folks, it's intermission time. So how about taking a break? Get out and stretch a little and relax before the show begins again. Are you still looking for that special someone? Have other dating websites let you down?

Hi, I'm Craig Fritz-Rualdo. We've all got quirks. I've got them. You've got them, Dave. That's what makes this character so, so compelling.

Ah! Thumbs up from me, same here. This is Dean Cameron, also known as Chainsaw, and you're listening to Movie Meltdown. I'm Chainsaw. I'm Dave.

We'll see you at the movies. It's part of your problem, you know. You haven't seen enough movies. All of life's riddles are answered in the movies. And now, on with the show.

All right, so you were pleased with your time with Vernon, Fred? Yeah, I didn't have a lot to say. He seemed to, you know, like he would take something and run with it, and it always sort of went the same way. It was always like he didn't want to do something, he did it, and it was pretty crazy. Yeah, I had questions that I didn't really even get to because he kind of answered them his own way.

Sounds like he'd done some interviews before, maybe. I think so, probably. But yeah, still, he was really fun and has been really cool. I've actually run into him like two or three other times, as we mentioned earlier, this weekend. And he actually remembers me and is talking to me again and talking to me about people we know in common.

He kind of is sort of a badass, but he's like real friendly. Yeah, he was a nice guy. He was really cool to talk to and has been really great since then. So, yeah, he's a cool guy. If you run into him out in the world there, go say hello because he's very cool.

Otherwise, that may be enough for this week. We've still got a lot more stuff coming this weekend. I don't know. We've recorded many, many things. So since we know we've got something coming up, I think we'll throw that out there for you kids at home.

Okay, kids, get out your decoder pins. Wah, wah, wah. It's a special fanfare. For you members of the Secret Circle. It is time for the Movie Meltdown Secret Circle reveal of the next exciting feature.

And this one we will. It is going to be pretty cool. We've got a special guest co-host, and they brought somebody in, so we've got a couple extra people on board. But if nothing else, the movie itself is pretty damn interesting. We are going to be discussing the film Man Bites Dog, which is quite... an interesting movie and it had been a long time since I'd seen it.

So going back and reviewing it, it's as we always find is an entirely different experience. So yeah, we will see how that comes out when we all sit down and talk about man bites dog. So otherwise I think that about does it for this week. So we will return next week. Same geek time, same geek feed.

Thanks for listening. I met a strange lady, she made me nervous She took me in and gave me breakfast And she said, do you come from a land down. Under Where men go and men fall. In love. Can't you hear, can't.

You hear the thunder You. Better run, you better take cover. Flying back from a man in Brussels Six. Foot four and full of muscle I said, do you speak my language? He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich.

He said, I come from. A land of love. It has no one mentioned love. Can you hear, can you hear the thunder? You better run.

You better take cover. Yeah. Lionel, a gentleman by my side. With a slack jaw, not much to say. I said to the man, are you trying to tempt me?

Because I come from the land of love. And he said, oh, you come from a land of love. Yeah. Women love. You'd better run, you'd.

Better take cover You'd better run, you'd better take cover. Oh, yeah. Better run, better take cover. Oh, yeah. Better run, better take cover.

Mr. Wells. Yes. That's my father, by the way. I'm burning.

Thank you so much, everybody. It works there. Thank you. Yeah, I like it. And it works, by the way.

Oh, nice. Just so you know. You've now lost. Yes. You've now lost.

Now I am shamed before my woman. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, Email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!