The Comeback Chronicles Podcast

When Wild Ideas Become Global Hits: Hollywood's Larry Kasanoff on Creative Risk-Taking

• Terry L. Fossum

Share episode

Send us a text

Larry Kasanoff, legendary Hollywood producer behind Mortal Kombat, True Lies, and Terminator 2, reveals why the best innovations require "a touch of madness" and how stepping outside conventional thinking leads to breakthrough success.

• Embracing "a touch of madness" as essential for innovation and success
• Fighting against the current that pulls everyone toward mediocrity and conventionality
• Taking a career-defining risk on Platoon despite it being completely different from typical studio fare
• Understanding the essence behind ideas rather than just their surface appearance
• The CAP approach: Create your idea, Ask anyone for help, and Play to boost creativity
• Calling people at the top and reaching higher than seems reasonable
• Maintaining belief in your ideas even when others dismiss them
• Going bigger instead of retreating when facing challenges
• Bringing fun and playfulness back to business and creative endeavors
• Doubling down on activities that make you happy, especially when feeling unhappy

When you're feeling stuck or facing challenges, remember to do more of what makes you happy, not less. Reach out boldly to people you think are unreachable, and whatever you do, put a little crazy back in your life.


Support the show

Speaker 1:

If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, Terry L Fossum.

Speaker 2:

Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back to the Comeback Chronicles, where we dive into moments that test us and the bold decisions that bring us back stronger. Today's guest knows all about chasing big dreams and daring to look crazy while doing it. Larry Kasanoff is a Hollywood legend. He's the producer or studio head who made Mortal Kombat, true Lies, dirty Dancing, lego, star Wars, terminator 2, judgment Day and many, many more. He's taken massive risks, backed wild ideas and turned them into global hits.

Speaker 2:

He's also the author of A Touch of Madness how to Be More Innovative in Work and Life by being a Little Crazy, a philosophy that feels tailor-made for comebacks, because sometimes, to rewrite your story, you have to be willing to act a little differently than you have in the past. Right and maybe well, maybe even a little crazy, and I got to tell you, though, this is one and I told Larry this this is one of the only books in history that I'm actually reading a second time. It's that good. So this episode is going to be a masterclass in creative risk, fearless reinvention and finding your edge even when the world thinks you've lost it. Welcome to the podcast, larry Kasanoff. Appreciate you being here, man, my pleasure.

Speaker 3:

Thank, you've lost it. Welcome to the podcast, Larry Kasanoff. Appreciate you being here man, my pleasure.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, and thanks for the kind words. Heck, yeah. Well, you said that being a little crazy is essential for innovation, and I think that's important for everybody to hear who's listening to this podcast. What if you narrow down what's one or one of the top decisions that you've made in Hollywood that everyone else thought was nuts, but you knew it had to be done?

Speaker 3:

So I'll give you one of the first ones. So I was wanting to be a movie producer since I was a little kid and I got very lucky. And out of school I got a great job instead of production acquisitions and co-production for an independent film studio called Vestron. Vestron in those days, the mid to late 80s, was riding the wave of home video, which was a big content gold rush. Like streaming is today. Video stores open. They needed movies. So my job was to deliver to the company 80, eight, zero movies a year. Now most studios today make 12 movies a year. They come, buy them, co-produce them. We don't care, don't lose money or you're fired. Kid, that was it.

Speaker 3:

And so we made, you know, low budget horror movies, action movies, rom-coms, all with kind of a good, maybe A level cast in them, very fun stuff. And then one day I got the script for a movie called Platoon. Now, platoon was a very different script than we usually did. It was about the Vietnam War and the effect it had on kids. The tagline was the first casualty of war is innocence. This was not the kind of movie we did, but we had done. A movie prior with Oliver Stone, who was a director, did. But we had done a movie prior with oliver stone, who was a director.

Speaker 3:

I thought it was great, I wanted to do it. My boss said you're nuts, this isn't what we do. You're crazy. See the theme, you're crazy. But I fought for it and he said look, you had a production. Now you're, you're. You're the one you can do whatever you want, but if you fail you're fired. What do you want? And he fired people all the time. He wasn't kidding around. So I thought, well, I didn't get into the movie business to play it safe. But you know how can I bet I did this incredible job I had no one else would give me a job like that after you know, I was fairly a year out of school and so, but long story, short touch of the madness, I decided to green light platoon. And when I saw platoon the first cut of it, it was actually in italy, in a film festival. They privately showed it to me. I'm the only person ever to giggle his way through a screening of Platoon, not because it wasn't so good, because it was so good. I was like oh, my God.

Speaker 3:

I'm not getting fired. I'm not getting fired. And it was so good that it won Best Picture at the Academy Awards that year. A few months later after that, I ran into the director in a bar in New York one night, just coincidentally, and and he said you know, kid, I always liked you. You have a touch of the madness. And I thought a touch of the madness, is he calling me a little crazy?

Speaker 1:

Am I a?

Speaker 3:

little crazy. And then it occurred to me my boss had a touch of the madness by betting an 80-picture film slate on a 25-year-old kid with no experience. Oliver had a touch of the madness by insisting on doing a Vietnam movie the way no one had ever done it before or not doing it. And I had a touch of the madness by betting my job on it. So that's when it occurred to me that innovation demands a touch of the madness and that became my touchstone. And the reason it does is because the current of the river of life will always pull all of us towards the middle.

Speaker 3:

It's always imperceptibly trying to pull us towards the middle, and the problem being in the middle, certainly for business, is that you'll be eclipsed. Maybe you'll do okay, but you'll never do great, because the audience, the customers, want the new and the different, and the way to swim away from that current is with a touch of the madness, and that gets you innovation. And so that became, from that day forward, my touchstone for everything I do. It's how I pick scripts, it's how I pick art, it's how I do everything a touch of the madness. And that helps innovation. And innovation is the key, certainly in my business and I think in a lot of them.

Speaker 2:

So you're telling me, if people feel that they are not normal, that might be a very, very good thing.

Speaker 3:

Embrace the madness. That's a great thing, absolutely a great thing. Everyone's doing it. I mean, you know, what do people in my world, what do people do when they, you know, skip through streamers and it's the same movie. It's the same movie. It's the same movie. Why is it? Well, that's why people are complaining. No, you have to have a touch of the madness now. That requires a bunch of things. You got to learn it and you got to be willing to sit with that. I mean, I'm at the point where people tell me I'm crazy. I feel comfortable if I don't tell me I'm crazy. But yeah, you have to embrace the madness I love it, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And then when you did, uh, mortal combat, I mean there there wasn't a video game movie playbook at all. That was completely off the charts right there. What in the world gave you the guts to believe in something that no one else has ever pulled off? And how could somebody listening to this right now apply that to their own life?

Speaker 3:

everyone, everyone told me I was really crazy for that one they had to so when we made a terminator 2, we had an arcade game and a video game. Arcade games and, for those who don't know or remember where places, you went and put a coin in a kind of big video game console and played in in in a public room and so, um, the arcade game was the number one arcade game ever. And I became very friendly with the company that made it and I heard through the grapevine that they were testing a game that was doing great. And I was on my way to chicago for something else and I stopped in to see them. I said, well, what's this game? You can't have. This we got, we can't break. We can't break our record on terminator 2. We're just kidding around.

Speaker 3:

And they had one version of a mortal combat console game in the chairman's office in Chicago and I played it and I turned to him and I said this is Star Wars meets Enter the Dragon. It's a Hong Kong martial arts movie and I will be able to Hollywood this up. You know, gorgeous people, great music, great visual effects, great locations. This has never been done. And I turned to him and I said, if you give me the rights, I guarantee you I won't just make a hit movie. I'll put it in every medium in the world. You know music, live theater, animation, tv. And you know what he said ah, piece of crap, video game. Even the chairman of the company didn't think it was right. But the secret is here's the big secret. I didn't think I was making a movie out of a video game. I thought I was making a movie out of the essence of what a video game is made out of.

Speaker 3:

And you have to. When you create your great idea you know it's easy to say in a fun podcast you're a fun guy, which is great, great ideas. One of the things you have to do is say well, why is your idea great? What's the essence? And the essence of Mortal Kombat to me was always empowerment. That's what martial arts is all about. So the top of the intellectual property pyramid in that one wasn't the video game, it was the story, the essence of the video game. And then, if you take that now, you can go down one rung and have a movie and go back up and go down one rung and have a and have a tv show and go down one rung and have a animation. So to me, moral comment was and always is. We're still making them always. What was about that? It wasn't about a video game. That's what everyone got wrong and that's that's what gave me the courage to do it.

Speaker 3:

So you have to kind of figure out the essence of why your idea is great is. Is starbucks about good coffee, I think. I would argue it's about a place to gather that no one really thought was needed. You have to, and if you believe in the essence of your idea, you won't change a thing. And then the next thing you have to do is exactly that. Everyone again the current of the river is going to try and get you to change. Once you come up with your idea and you believe in the essence of it, you got to do it. Can I give you an example?

Speaker 3:

So when we did Dirty Dancing it was a movie that it had been a turnaround from another studio, meaning another studio started and gave it up and we got it and it wasn't going all that great and we managed to lure this genius named Jimmy Einer, who was a musical and producing genius, to come and supervise Jerry Dancing. He hired another genius named Michael Lloyd as the music supervisor, and so now that these two guys were in charge you could read a little easier. And the song Time of my Life had already been recorded as a kind of high falsetto, almost disco-y song and jimmy said, well, no, this isn't right. And he redid it. They redid the song, jimmy and michael, with a guy named bill medley, and then they sent it to the, you know, to everybody, to the, to the record company and and to the directors and and to the managers, and everyone had a million comments, a million. We don't like it. We got to change it, we got to do this, we make these changes. And so Jimmy and Michael said yeah, listen, no problem, sure, give us a few weeks, we'll make the changes. And thank you very much.

Speaker 3:

A few weeks later they sent out version two and they said here's version two, hope you like it. And they said, by the way, we sent it to some radio stations. In those days, radio stations were very integral to writing an album and the radio stations seemed to like it, hope you like version two. Everyone came back we love version two. Version two is the greatest. Thank you so much for being so good. And you read the book so you know that the punchline here is what it? What genius thing did jimmy do between version one and version two? What did he change? And here's what he changed nothing, not a dang thing he changed the label.

Speaker 3:

He knew what he had. He doubled down because by sending to radio stations if they didn't like it they would have have been screwed. He changed the label. That song won the Grammy and the Academy Award that year for the best song. Why? Because Jimmy and Michael had a touch of the madness. It's not only to produce something great, but to double down and believe it. Believe it, believe it. That's what you got to do. Understand the essence of your idea and hang on and never let go.

Speaker 2:

Because 100,000 people are going to tell you you're wrong, yeah, yeah. I think that's so critical for everybody here because I think there's a lot of people that listen, that are listening right now, that have these ideas, but they're they're counter culture, they're counterintuitive, they're counter everything and therefore, like you said, with the status quo, everybody there seems to be a magnetic pull back to status quo. Yeah, there is Fight against it. Pull back to status quo. Yeah, there is Fight against it. Fight against it, man, go with your outlandish idea. It's the only ones that make a mark. Would that be?

Speaker 3:

right? Yeah, absolutely. You have to fight against that current which is always going to pull you towards the middle. That's how you do something great. Nothing great happens without taking a chance.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that. Now, that being said, there's been some times where you did that and the madness backfired. It didn't work. How did you bounce back? How did you pivot? Okay, you, you came to this point. Crap, that didn't work. How did? Because everybody listening had that point I have, we all have, we still do. How do you pull back from that?

Speaker 3:

well. So first of all, I mean you know it's okay to be, you know, not thrilled for a day or two, but that happens. But. And second of all, you got to realize you know if you're like an american baseball, if you bat 300, you're, you're like one of the best ever. So I mean, if you miss seven out of ten, you're you're doing amazing. So no one bats a thousand. But what I tend to do is, when things get like that, your, your, your instinct, your inclination is to. Well, I'll just, I'll repackage it now and I'll try a smaller version. No, no, no, no, no, no. When you're in trouble like that, go bigger.

Speaker 3:

I was having trouble once selling an animated movie. I just couldn't sell this animated movie and we had just recently been in the animation business. I've been in the live action business, my whole life in animation. We got into a bit further on and then I thought you know, if I can't sell one, maybe I could sell 12. And I did, and and I came up with a package of a host. It's got a slate. So not just by wanting to make a movie, but finance the whole slate. And I did, it worked. So when in doubt and when you think, oh my God, they're beating me up. They're beating me up, go bigger Attack when they tell you to retreat. That's what you do.

Speaker 2:

I absolutely love it and I've got to ask you. I've been wanting to ask you this for quite some time. One of the most brilliant things in the entire Lego movie world to me is when they're firing weapons and they go pew pew, pew, pew. It kills me, it slays me every time. That's a crazy idea. That's insane. It'll never work. Who came up with that? Whose brilliant idea was that I?

Speaker 3:

don't remember. You know, the Lego people when we got to them were, you know, Lego wasn't doing as good as it is now and so they were afraid of a big movie and it doesn't work, it would hurt them. So we came up with the idea of doing a smaller movie through Universal and putting it on DVD and if that worked, great. And if it didn't, no one would notice. And that's what we did. It was called Lego, the Adventures of Clutch Powers. It was the first ever feature-length Lego movie. But Lego knew the essence of Lego. They really knew their brand. I mean, they had the whole motto we build on each other, so they physically build and there's a theme. They really knew their stuff incredibly well. I mean, some brands don't even exist. As I said, mortal kombat didn't even exist as a brand before we. We got to it but and some other things didn't. But the lego people really know what they're talking about right on, right on, now and again brilliant movies.

Speaker 2:

I love them. I absolutely love them. They, they crack me up every time. You've worked with a lot of interesting people james cameron, arnold schwarzenegger, etc. Etc. Etc. What are some times where they broke the rules in a very good way.

Speaker 3:

It maybe this wasn't supposed to happen that way, but they did it and it worked out fantastic it was a time in terminator two when a helicopter was supposed to fly through a, a traffic tunnel, and we were going to do that shot digitally and and, um, we were shooting outside in long beach in southern california there's an oil refinery and a huge one, and and the tunnel we were shooting at was there. But you know it was a helicopter and and the chasing was there, but the helicopter part was going to be done digitally and we were a little behind schedule and the helicopter pilot I forget his name was a great guy. He'd been a former former Vietnam combat pilot and he said why aren't I flying that? I said well, you only have like two feet of clearance on each side. He goes I can do that all day long with my eyes closed while eating a sandwich. He goes I'm a Vietnam helicopter pilot. I've been zipping between people trying to kill me all day. This is nothing.

Speaker 3:

And we were all sitting around going really nothing and we were all sitting around going really nothing, and he goes no problem and, and you know, the studio wasn't there and, technically speaking, we weren't supposed to do that insurance wise, because you just think you want to in. You don't want the guy to get hurt, first and foremost, but second of all you don't want an explosion outside of an oil factory anyway we did it.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of reasons that's a really bad idea, Larry.

Speaker 3:

But the guy was so great about that I mean, the studio hit the roof the next day, but on the other hand they were thrilled that we got back on schedule. And you don't do it irresponsibly. You get to the point where the expert is telling you I can do this, no problem, and he just did. And sometimes these decisions this is my point get made very, very, very, very quickly. Sometimes you don't have the time to analyze it, you can't go back and forth. Everything can't be a committee. Sometimes you just got to take a shot and that's what we did.

Speaker 2:

Well, that's leadership, isn't it? That's part of leadership right there, Making the hard calls and going with them. Making hard calls and going with them. Making hard calls yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, you gave a lot of great stories in your book, of course. What's some of your favorite stories about? Again, people just doing a little bit of crazy and it worked out for them. There was a great one at a dinner. There's a bunch of them. Go for it.

Speaker 3:

Well, so I have three things. The first thing is you have to create your idea and know the essence of your brand um the second thing and hold it on tight. The second thing is I I believe you have to ask anyone anywhere in the world, anything you need to advance your goal, anything. And, and mostly like when I speak, I say to an audience if you could call anyone who's alive right now and ask them a relevant question, who would you call and what would you ask? And most people go it's just I don't know, I never thought about it. And the reason people don't know is because we're trained. We're not trained to think we can.

Speaker 3:

I had an incredible professor at college named rose goldson who, since I, was a freshman in college. So you can call anybody. So I've been doing this even before I was a movie producer and so there's a million examples of it. But we didn't animate a movie during the pandemic for universal called um bobbleheads. You know big bobbling heads, and we wanted share to play bobblehead, share and share.

Speaker 3:

Never done animated movie before. So people say, oh, there's no way and she's not gonna eat. We want her likeness. But we call, I called and you know, ask, ask, ask. And she did it and she was great in it. And when the movie came out, people magazine interviewed her and they said, share, you've never done an animated movie before, why did you say yes to this one? And she said I never did an animated movie before because no one ever asked me before that's something I did.

Speaker 3:

So you got to think if share, you know clearly one of the most famous, talented women on earth is sitting there, no one ever asked her. Who in your world are you not calling? Because you think, oh, everyone's got to call them, but maybe they're asking. Call, ask, take a shot. Look, I still get people who say no to me every day. Well, while my, my arrogant, megalomaniac ego is like, well, who'd say no to me? But it happens constantly. It doesn't go away, and and and. But then you, it's not fun, but you think well, so what? So? They said no, so the next guy, talk more about that, if you know. So what so?

Speaker 2:

what I'm sorry, and I'm getting a little bit of a delay, so keep going oh so, so anyway.

Speaker 3:

So you have to just ask anybody anything to advance your goal and if, share what was never asked to do something, who in your life isn't, and I would suggest you figure out your person. But maybe you're a little scared to call your share. So I you know, call Uncle Phil and ask him why he never comes to Thanksgiving. I mean, there's a million ways you can start that. But get in the habit of just calling people and going to the top and calling as high and as reaching as you can and ask yeah, and how do you because, again, you're a human being and you've got feelings too when you keep getting those no's?

Speaker 3:

that even you get. How do you keep moving forward? Because I 100%. Back to the dirty dancing example. I 100% believe in my ideas. That's the deal. I only sell what I would buy and I 100% believe. And if someone says no to me, my first instinct as arrogant as this sounds is oh, they're crazy, they're wrong, what's the matter with them? There you go. I prefer they say yes, but I? I think it's insane. This is the best idea in the world.

Speaker 2:

I've always convinced my ideas are the best, and you know they're not always, but I'm convinced they are well, and that that's one of the things I teach in public speaking is people get so wrapped up in themselves. Oh, I'm gonna screw up, I'm gonna. I'm going to say it's not about you, it's about your idea, it's about getting that across to people and that's what you're saying is the same exact concept here.

Speaker 3:

Right, and it's about the audience. I mean, you really you work, we all work for the audience. It's like what does the audience want? I mean, when people say, well, I don't like this, and especially if you're in a business like mine, you only care what the audience wants.

Speaker 2:

We're just, I'm just the custodian for the audience. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And along with that, people make these excuses why they can't call those people. They can't do whatever it is. What's one excuse you had let go of early on, if you had them at all? I mean, you started off pretty, pretty bold, pretty quick, but did you have anything that you had to get over early on yourself? In terms of calling people no, in terms of anything, anything I have to get over.

Speaker 3:

Well, you're, I'm always trying to get better, I'm always trying to learn. I'm still trying to learn. So I'm I always seek out people, not just to ask will you do this in my movies? I mean, I'm all, I'm constantly trying to read and learn and and I I call some people who, um, you know who, who are not, uh, what you might think, and I think you have to be very open that you might learn something from some of the people you're calling which is not what you intended. So in mortal kombat, I uh, when are we doing the first one to combat?

Speaker 3:

I read a book by a Zen Buddhist monk named Thich Nhat Hanh, who's a very passed away recently but is a very well-known Zen Buddhist monk, credited with bringing mindfulness to the West, and I love the book and I thought so, what did I want to do with this peaceful Zen Buddhist monk? I thought, hey, maybe he could be inspiration for my ultra action-packed Mortal Kombat franchise. So I called him up to go see him as inspiration for Mortal Kombat, for my ultra action-packed Mortal Kombat franchise. So I called him up to go see him as inspiration for Mortal Kombat. But, being open to you know, as I said, you might learn something. After two hours I felt like I'd been on vacation for a week and I said what's your secret? And he said no secret practice. And I said I could learn how to feel this way.

Speaker 3:

You know, I'm a kind of a high energy guy and we became friends and so I hung out with him all over the place. I got to know some of the other monks. I started practicing mindfulness. I had him to my house to give a talk to other studio heads. We became really close and then he asked me to do a documentary on mindfulness, which I did, called Mindfulness, be Happy Now, which is on Amazon and I. It was an amazing thing that I called tic-nac-haw, but not for the reason I thought. So I think what you have to be open to is sometimes the path takes you a little bit differently than you want to go, than you intended to go, but that might be great yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2:

I love it absolutely and and go with it. I mean, I'm in the middle of a lot of that right now. My paths are going 12 different directions. I never expected this being one of them, quite frankly.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's a great opportunity and you're looking at it the right way.

Speaker 2:

If you look at it as an opportunity, oh gosh, yes, and they keep opening and opening If you let them, if you're open to them and Be bold with them. So what are some more stories? That you've again a lot of great stories in your book, one of the many reasons I love it and am reading it again.

Speaker 3:

So here's another one. So you know I call it CAP Create, ask, play, create your great idea, believe in the essence, never let it go, Ask we just talked about. And the third one is play. Play and fun, I believe, are wildly underrated in today's world. Especially fun, I mean we, I mean my whole mission in my movies now is to bring fun back. We just want to have more fun. But also, if you manage to live your life and your work life in a bit of a state of play, like you know, you and I just talked about dogs before we started. Yeah, look at, the dog is just playing all day long, having a great time, you are, you are more open, you are more creative and you're more interesting.

Speaker 3:

So when one of the first um movies I was ever right when I started my job, the company had ordered a movie, the first movie prior to my getting there, and it was what you might call a low budget game of thrones type movie in those days and and the guy who ran the company was a great guy he said to me and my development staff okay, I want everything in the book, throwing it I want. I want ghosts, I want violence, I want sex, I want warfare, I want you know, and on and on and on. And we were like laughing, like he was trying to say just whatever it is that stuff sells, and, and, and someone in the group said and, and, snakes and wizards. And everyone said yes, snakes and wizards. And it became our, our touchstone. You know, let's, let's have snakes and wizards. And the I was the studio head and the executive producer, but the producer was already on the ground in italy. We were going to make it and when we'd have conference calls before I went over there, we would end the calls by saying I remember snakes and wizards, thanks. So I get there. I think it's going well. It's my first film set.

Speaker 3:

And then the crew says to me in Italy, we're in Rome. They said, listen, on Thursday we have a surprise for you. And they were very excited and I said, oh, and the more it got to a Thursday where you know Wednesday they're really excited. Make sure you're here at this time. So Thursday comes and they take me outside and they're all standing behind me and you see in the hills of Rome a little speck of dust and nothing. And it's getting bigger and you realize it's a truck and now they're in a semicircle behind me and there's a band playing. I don't know where. They got a band closer and they're all so proud and the truck backs up and you can see it's a circus truck and and it stops and the doors pour open and out run all these men and women dressed as wizards, with snakes like burmese type pythons and boa constrictors around their necks, and they all shared.

Speaker 3:

We got you the snakes and wizards, except it was a joke, we were just kidding. We forgot to tell them we were kidding. There's no snakes and wizards in the script, so not in a state of play as a first movie. I would have freaked out, I would have yelled at them what are you doing? You don't have the money for this. You're going to be behind now. This isn't the budget. Blah, blah, blah. In a state of play which you kind of are in a film studio where everyone is drinking wine for lunch, which is unheard of here, and they were being so nice to me and I remember my boss saying I want everything you can think of. I said what put him in the movie?

Speaker 2:

I love it. How did you put him in? How do you fit him in the movie?

Speaker 3:

we just they were party scenes or they were wild scenes. We just threw in snakes and wizards and you know what? The movie really is terrible, but it actually made a fortune and the snakes and wizards look great. So in a state of play you'll handle a situation much better than you want. And that doesn't mean don't take it seriously. I think if you ask Tom Brady when he was playing football if he took it seriously but you are playing a game and if you can think that way, that's a tough one. If you can think that way, do it. Look at your staff today, wherever you're doing, say you know what? How come we've never done this? How come we've never gone bowling?

Speaker 2:

How come we've never whatever. Take Friday off early and go have ice cream? I mean, whenever it is, it does work. I love it, and I think one of the best examples is Jamie Lee Curtis the dance in True Lies. She brought the crazy. Yes, tell us about how that happened.

Speaker 3:

Well, we're not sure that that's how this happened. It's a theory. So I had done a movie with Jamie called Blue Steel before, prior to True, true lies, and we were, we were in con film festival and we were looking for a female lead for true lies. We're this big event, this black tie event, at the hotel decaf, this beautiful hotel, and um and and and uh, and something comes whizzing by my face and I go what the hell is that? And a second later something else comes and then I see it's a pea and I turn around and like we're like black tie dinner for some charity. It is like you know, man. And then slowly more food happens and I look back and jamie is, he's. They really, it's just laughing.

Speaker 3:

Now I have no proof that that jamie heard we were casting, knew, knew us and was just trying to, in a funny way, say, hey, I'm fun, let's talk. But that's what happened. Now maybe she did it, maybe she didn't, maybe jim would have cast her anyway even if she didn't do that, but I hope she did. I never really asked her, but I hope she did, because what fun, playful way, you know, rather than and, of course, as you said, the role in the movie. I mean, one of the interesting things about that movie is that movie has so many effects and so much action and the first time a Harrier jet was ever used in a movie and the thing that people always say to me about it their favorite scene is when Jamie tries to be sexy in front of Arnold and can't quite do it and it's kind of a goofball. So the play trumped everything.

Speaker 2:

I would not, but the play was incredibly popular and successful in that movie Absolutely, and I would argue that it is indeed one of the most memorable scenes in that entire movie and, if everybody's playful, that's one of the most memorable scenes that people will have from your life too that they enjoyed being around you, that you enjoyed life, that good things are happening. And this is some coaching for the people listening in. Just keep that in mind, man, when you start getting too wrapped up in all the bad things going on, all the challenges, the things you're going through, play, have fun. People will remember that, wow, you came through that with that attitude, with flying colors, and helped lift people up instead of tearing them down. Does that make sense, larry?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you know what else too. It's very interesting if you know. I believe, that people are watching a movie and maybe the plot isn't, doesn't make perfect sense or maybe something's wrong, but if they're having fun, they will forgive you for anything. People will forgive us anything. We're having fun and I really think no kidding that we've gotten too far away from fun. Our society, and I think it's coming back and we certainly are trying. We've got some crazy movies planned coming up, but I think that's right. You have to if you can play and get that into your life. And again, look at a dog. He's just playing all day long. He's doing everything's a blast. It's a great way to live. We can learn a lot.

Speaker 2:

I love it. So we're getting near the end of our time. What? What are some things that you know and this is the Comeback Chronicles you know. So people are going through challenges, coming back. What are some pieces of advice you'd give for people to get through this and excel, whatever that means to them?

Speaker 3:

Well, you know, I wrote A Touch of the Madness because I came to realize that I'd never seen it so bad in terms of people being scared to go for it. I mean, people are always a little trepidatious, but I'd never seen it so bad in terms of people being scared to go for it. I mean, people are always a little trepidatious, but I've never seen it so bad. And I was sort of whining to my brother about it during the pandemic and he said we'll write a book. So I did. So I hope the book helps and I speak about this and I think the best thing to do is, you know, I mean I hope if you read the book it helps or listen to it. But what you have to do is just keep going. You just have to keep going and you have to try and do the things we said. You know, ask people, you'd be surprised. Everyone won't say yes, but you'd be surprised. Who does, you know, believe in your idea? Play, and if you do all those things, it will work.

Speaker 3:

You know, a psychiatrist friend of mine who runs a psychiatric hospital said he sometimes says to to people what are the three things you do that make you happy? And people say, oh well, I love riding my bike and playing my dog eating ice cream, this is great when you're not happy. Then someone went wrong. Do you do more of those things or less of those things? And they said, oh less. And they said, well, shouldn't you do more of those things when you're not happy? Because you know they make you happier? And people think for a minute. But intuitively we don't, and that's what you should do Double down on what makes you happy.

Speaker 2:

That is insane advice, fantastic advice. That is the culmination of this podcast, without question, because if people will just do that alone, that'll be amazingly helpful for them. So I'll wrap this up for everybody listening Play. Do the things that make you happy when you don't feel like doing them the most, because that's when they'll mean the most to you. Reach out boldly and ask the people. Talk to the people you don't think you can reach because they might be waiting to be reached, kind of like the prettiest girl at the prom you can reach because they might be waiting to be reached. Kind of like the prettiest girl at the prom. Yep. And whatever you do, put a little crazy back in your life and everything you do and have fun and you might have your own. You will have your own Comeback Chronicle.

Speaker 1:

So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen, and subscribe to the show. If you're ready to get over your fears, self-doubts and past failures and break through your comfort zone to reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, head over to terrielfawesomecom to pick up your free gifts and so much more. We'll see you next week on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.