The Flop House Movie Minute #14 - McShane-McCain

[0:00] And now the Flophouse movie minute

[0:10] So Elliot you

[0:13] You did a

[0:15] Hold on. No, that was perfect. Fuck it up. We gotta do it again. Stop fucking it up. Take two

[0:21] So Elliot you did the John McCain video for the Daily Show's convention cover

[0:27] It's called the John McCain biofilm. Yeah

[0:30] That was narrated by a big Hollywood star. Was it not it was a transatlantic Hollywood star. Mr. Ian McShane

[0:39] Let me tell you well for anyone who's not familiar with the name Ian McShane is best known in England for his character Lovejoy

[0:45] who he the

[0:47] Roguish antiques dealer who solves crimes but here in the United States

[0:51] He's best known as Al Swearengin on Deadwood the best character on that show

[0:55] One of the best characters on television in the past couple years. He was also in the death race. He's in death race

[1:01] He was in scoop

[1:02] He was the voice of the evil polar bear in golden compass, and he's a voice in something else coming up, too

[1:08] He was he was in hot rod the Andy Samberg film hot rod. He was yeah, I didn't know that's disappointing

[1:15] He's it while he's really good and I

[1:17] Regret completely that I missed the recent run of Harold Pinter's the homecoming that he was in on Broadway

[1:23] But I was doing this McCain biofilm and it was all about how McCain's a tough guy and a maverick and there was a lot

[1:28] Of cowboy imagery in it and I said the guy I'd really want to work with is Ian McShane

[1:33] So I went to our guest booker and I said I let me know if this is realistic

[1:37] I'd like to get Ian McShane and she said yeah, we can do that

[1:41] And then told me that it's a common request for her to get Leonardo DiCaprio to work on pieces and things like that

[1:47] So she said Ian McShane is a big name, but I think he is more doable than Leonardo DiCaprio

[1:52] So and then that's a little trick little look behind the scenes of how the Daily Show works

[1:56] We put off recording his voice track as long as possible so that we get the script in shape

[2:01] So it was about a month almost between when I suggested him and when we actually recorded and we had to reschedule with him a couple

[2:07] Times because it was just not ready for him, but he was very nice and very politely kept

[2:13] Rescheduling he recorded in Los Angeles and I was in st. Paul, Minnesota at the time

[2:18] So it was all over the phone and then here's another look behind the curtain the way they do this

[2:23] They record it in LA then they upload it to the internet on an FTP site and we download it very exciting

[2:28] We'd like satellites and stuff. No more like just the Internet

[2:34] Those might be involved it depends on their connection maybe there's DSL lines. I don't know

[2:39] Nope, not at all. Do we get it from the Egyptians? No, they didn't know about this. No

[2:45] Stargates were not from the Egyptians. They were from the ancient alien civilization that inspired the Egyptians

[2:52] One of the things that bugs me about Stargate is you'll read descriptions where it's like

[2:56] Aliens who imitated ancient Egypt and are now and it's like no that you're supposed to get that the Egyptians imitated the aliens

[3:04] They built the pyramids because they wanted to have things that looked like spaceships

[3:08] Like the Netflix sleeve

[3:10] That's what I don't know what says. Hey, they have a TV show based on Stargate now. That's really weird

[3:15] Anyway, I'll finish this story. It was it was one of the coolest experiences

[3:20] I've had working at the Daily Show aside from fist-pounding Barack Obama

[3:25] When my hands had Dorito crumbs all over them and I couldn't shake his hand, but that's another name-dropping story

[3:30] Unrelated to movies at all. He was very polite

[3:32] He was ready to go through the script any number of times as much as he needed to and it was

[3:37] And he has he's English

[3:38] So he has an English accent and then he like turns on the Al Swearengin

[3:43] American accent and it's really cool and I would do an impression of it, but I can't do it justice

[3:48] We had been working with of scratch track that I was recording

[3:51] So we had my voice reading this stuff in my approximation of what it would sound like

[3:56] So the first line was he was a Mavericks would be like he was a Maverick

[4:00] My exactly sounding like that and then we would replace it with Ian McShane's voice and suddenly the whole thing would come alive and not

[4:06] Sound shitty because I was completely wrong for that part. You're not wrong for any part

[4:12] Thank you for that

[4:15] This is awkward, we're being recorded right now

[4:18] Ian McShane what it was just amazing and exciting to work with him someone I'd seen on TV a lot and

[4:23] Was a huge fan of and he was very it was the kind of thing where you are involved with someone

[4:27] you're a fan of and you find out that they're very nice and

[4:31] are a pleasure to work with and so it's

[4:33] Exciting and you know

[4:34] The only time that I was ever happy to learn that someone I was a fan of was not the nicest guy was when I met

[4:40] Kurt Vonnegut and

[4:41] We had been told ahead of time we could go down and talk to Kurt Vonnegut and he would sign a book for us

[4:46] And we go down and he sees us walk in the room. He goes ah

[4:49] Do we have to and it was like Oh Kurt Vonnegut that was perfect

[4:54] That's exactly what I would imagine you were like a crusty old man

[4:58] so but this was the exact opposite that he was really nice to work with and

[5:02] Did it I think just as a favor for us very exciting. So that has been the first episode of

[5:09] Name-dropping with the flop house

[5:11] Next time I'll tell you the exciting story of how I went to high school with a famous movie star. Who was it and

[5:19] You won't watch her topless

The Flop House Movie Minute #14 - McShane-McCain

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