Loading summary
Transcript349 lines
- [00:00]
A
Sixth and seventh grade. And they bring in their Uncle Allen, who is a, A well known actor, a professional actor who has had a plethora of experience. So it's kind of like show and tell. It's. It did it. Does that, does that increase their street cred in school?
- [00:17]
B
I think so. And I have to say, I was like going in there like, hey, man, I'm.
- [00:21]
A
Hey, hey.
- [00:22]
B
I am King Candy. I'm like, I'm all these things. I'm a. I'm from Disney. I'm the Duke of Wrestleton. I was in Frozen. Come on, all you kids, you were singing that your whole young lives and you're still young. But like when you were little girls and probably the boys didn't as much, but you know what a lot of them said? And when it turned, they were all like, okay, oh, they said, the one girl who said, what were you in? Where we could see you in it, your face. I was like, oh, old movies, you know, things that. There's a. There's one a long time ago called A Knight's Tale, before you were born. And I've seen that. And I said, yeah, I was, I had really red hair in that movie. And she goes, I can see it. How dare you? How dare you. Once we were space men. Spacemen. I tend to play weird people, usually aliens and robots and things that don't have romance.
- [01:27]
A
I once didn't get a job where they were looking for a Nathan Fillion type. Once we were spacemen.
- [01:35]
B
Once we were spacemen. Hello, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Once We Were Spacemen. Because one time, ways from now, before in the behind times, where time is a straight line and this is not the forward bit of it, but before we were once then spacemen. And now fast forward up to the place in the line and the time now. Still spaceman with a spaceman.
- [02:12]
A
Alan Tudy.
- [02:13]
B
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Nathan Fillion.
- [02:16]
A
What are you looking at when you were doing that? You're looking off into the corner of the room.
- [02:20]
B
Yeah, there's a. Just a house over there.
- [02:23]
A
You finding inspiration up in that little house?
- [02:26]
B
Finding inspiration. My neighbor's house over there. Yeah.
- [02:32]
A
Alan, we had an experience together, you and I, very recently where we went and did a podcast with none other than Brent Spiner and Jonathan Frakes. Name dropped. Their podcast is called Dropping Names. And it was the four of us that's like, it was like a crowd for our experience. I've never had a podcast with that many people. First of all.
- [03:01]
B
Yeah, it was great.
- [03:02]
A
And it was great.
- [03:02]
B
Second, more like a morning zoom show. Zoo show.
- [03:05]
A
Yeah.
- [03:06]
B
Yes.
- [03:06]
A
And second, we were all spacemen at one point.
- [03:10]
B
Yeah, a couple of us were robots and.
- [03:12]
A
Yeah, half of us.
- [03:13]
B
Yeah, half of us were robots, but he was a robot in space. Oh, I've been a robot in space. All right, never mind. Yeah, right.
- [03:22]
A
That was quite an experience for me, Alan. I'm not gonna lie. Jonathan Frakes, I've run into them both before, so I've had a relationship with both these gentlemen. They've always been extremely kind to me. Brent Spiner, I've met through the convention circuits and whatnot, and I've had dinner with the vast majority of the cast of Star Next Generation. And Jonathan Frakes is also a director. He came and directed a number of Castle episodes. But down deep inside, in the 80s and 90s, I was watching Star Trek the Next Generation with all my buddies saying, every season, this show gets better. Every season they pour more money into the effects. It looks like a film. It looks like a movie. This. Everything was so new and so fun, and so they were pushing the boundaries, and that was a cool show, and we loved it.
- [04:09]
B
Yeah, man.
- [04:10]
A
And back to dropping names with Jonathan and Brent, that was a lovely little adventure, just being able to sit and chat with those two guys. I mean, 40 years they've been doing Star Trek.
- [04:25]
B
Wild.
- [04:25]
A
Incredible.
- [04:26]
B
Wow.
- [04:27]
A
Incredible.
- [04:27]
B
Yeah. That's insane. That's.
- [04:29]
A
Wow. Yeah. And again, I'm such a fan. I'm such a fan. And the fact that we get to go and just sit down and shoot the breeze with those guys on it
- [04:41]
B
makes us look better.
- [04:42]
A
It does.
- [04:42]
B
It does.
- [04:42]
A
Does. It looks like it's like, hey, we all belong here. I'm like, oh, secretly, I don't think I deserve this, but okay.
- [04:49]
B
When you're in the room, it's real casual, and they're really inviting, and it's really cool. You're just there.
- [04:53]
A
It's great.
- [04:54]
B
But when I saw it, I was like, wow, look at how it all just looks like we belong together. It really shines us. It shines us up.
- [05:02]
A
Well, what's interesting is that we have. We all have a great deal of shared experiences, right?
- [05:08]
B
Yes. And mutual respect. And. Yeah, I loved. I love their. I love their show. I remember we used to talk about it. We used to. It was like one of those shows that you'd be like, remember what? You think Deanna's gonna be wearing that same thing she always wears? God, I hope so. I had crushes on her.
- [05:27]
A
I remember the Episode where Data lied. He lied, and it was a big deal.
- [05:34]
B
Whoa, that's good.
- [05:36]
A
Yeah. It was incredible. It was incredible.
- [05:39]
B
That's. Wow, that's so crazy, because now AI, we have AI, and it can't seem
- [05:42]
A
to tell the truth.
- [05:46]
B
If you want me to lie. A lie. Yeah, well, I wanted you to tell the truth.
- [05:50]
A
Truth.
- [05:51]
B
Well, I'm telling a version of a truth, I'm sure.
- [05:54]
A
Alan. Yes? What happens after you die?
- [06:01]
B
Decomposition, my friend.
- [06:04]
A
Does everything just snap off and go black? Game over?
- [06:08]
B
I mean, specifically for me, when I die, I'm going to be digested into the innards of a great white shark.
- [06:14]
A
Is that how you're going to go? You're going to be shark attack?
- [06:16]
B
Yeah, shark attack. Eaten by a shark. Mostly eaten. Please. I don't want one of those, like, one, two, like, test bites and then leave me to bleed out. And then I just saw salt water bleed out and die. I want. Maybe a tiger shark could do it. Tiger shark. They'll. Because they come up with. They. They hunt in pairs, and you're like, there's a tiger shark. I better be.
- [06:39]
A
Oh, geez.
- [06:40]
B
And then they hunt in pairs. I didn't know that they can. Yeah, that's what I was told when I was diving in the Red Sea. They said, if you see a tiger shark, look around you, because they hunt in pairs and they will eat you because they eat anything. Whenever you see the, like, those things where they're like, oh, look, there's a license plate in the shark's belly that we are dissecting. That's a tiger shark. Because they just eat whatever's in front of them. So if you're in front of them, you could be.
- [07:03]
A
So you. You plan on spending some time in. In the ocean?
- [07:06]
B
Yeah, I'm gonna keep doing that. I haven't been scuba diving in about over a year now. I had to. I had a planned trip, and I got Covid, so I had to skip it.
- [07:15]
A
It's been a while for me, too. You know, my brother took up golf, so that's.
- [07:19]
B
So he doesn't scuba dive with you. Because I was trying to put those things together.
- [07:23]
A
That's not. He's not chasing the scuba thing right now. He just chases golf right now. So it's. Listen, scuba is great, and I love it. I do love it.
- [07:31]
B
Well, then we'll have to plan one without you.
- [07:33]
A
It's work.
- [07:35]
B
Work.
- [07:35]
A
Yeah. There's a place getting on a boat, traveling out to a site, and we're
- [07:42]
B
going to do a live aboard. Oh, My God, the place. There's a place, this magical place, and I'm not going to tell you everybody. Enough people know about it who are in scuba, but too many people already know about it. Like when there's a scuba. And we're going to get back to what happens after you die. Don't worry for those people, like what happens after you die. We will tell you. We know the answers. But when it comes to live aboards, there's a place in the ocean where the currents are just perfect and the coral is still alive, which is rare these days. I got the hookup, and it's paradise.
- [08:13]
A
So, Alan, there's a short list of people I would willingly trap myself on a boat with, but you're on the list. Oh, good. You and. You and Karissa. You and Karissa. You guys are a company not only I can stand, but I. I seek out an endeavor to continue it.
- [08:33]
B
Nice. Well, thank you, man. Well, we can go risk our lives together. I mean, it would make it a special trip, but it would probably be scarring. I hope I don't get eaten by the shark on that trip.
- [08:42]
A
Me too. I really don't want to be around for that one.
- [08:45]
B
Yeah, yeah, that would be just to ruin the rest of vacation. So that'll be a different one.
- [08:49]
A
I'll be able to say it's how he wanted to go.
- [08:52]
B
Yep, yep, yep, yep. Yeah, no, totally.
- [08:55]
A
I want to go in my sleep after a long, fruitful life and just be like, all right, I'm done with being old. I'm just going to take a snooze and not wake up from this one.
- [09:06]
B
Wow.
- [09:06]
A
Yeah.
- [09:07]
B
I like the idea of just getting it from just like, what happened? You're on the other side of it. Like, what just happened? Oh, I died from a shark attack. That's crazy.
- [09:15]
A
What happens when you die, Ellen? What do you think?
- [09:18]
B
I think it's awesome. You know, there's people who die who have an experience of it being just the greatest thing ever, and they're like, you don't want to come back. That. That. It. That it's your happiest. And you're. You're just. It's light and all goodness and happiness. It's that. And it isn't. It's.
- [09:38]
A
It.
- [09:38]
B
It's some kind of cosmic thing we can't understand. But there's definitely no hell, and there's no heaven per se. There's definitely no dude in a. There's no pearly gate like that. Like, we've. We've made these things up as a way to understand them. But I. I hope it's just glorious. And that's it. It's over, man. Gone. You don't give a damn about the people that you left behind because you're. You have a better awareness of what life is. It's just all this is such a short amount of time we're on the planet that I think you get a better sense of that.
- [10:11]
A
Somebody told me death is like being stupid. It doesn't hurt you, it just hurts the people around you.
- [10:20]
B
Yeah, I think it's. I think that's it. You just get real stupid. Have you ever passed out?
- [10:27]
A
I have passed out.
- [10:28]
B
And you're just like, suddenly, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa, wa. And then when you wake up, you're like, what was that? That. I think it's just like that level of just, oh, no more. But then you go on. I think there is a. Because I watch all these videos, man. Man, you gotta check out these videos. What to watch on YouTube by Alan Tudyk. Turn it on. I would watch, if I were you. Some of these. If you don't believe in these past life things of these kids, like these past life kids videos and past life videos. Sometimes there's one. There was one. There was a guy that. He put you under hypnosis and he would then look things up for you and be like, yeah, I think you died. This is you and this day. And like, he could take what he got you in past lives. He would regress you and then he'd be like, all these things line up with who you said they would speak in foreign tongues that they don't speak in and things like that. Anyway, there's past lives. That's some option. So check it out on whatever streaming thing you look at. It's probably YouTube.
- [11:26]
A
Alan, how do you want to be processed, your body after death? What do you want to happen?
- [11:31]
B
Right. I think a lot of people like that idea of a. Those plant like a tree, and they stick the roots through your guts and you just fertilize a tree. There's like pods that. But I feel like that's been around now for a while where people are like, that's exactly how I'd like to be buried as a tree, as just fertilizer. And I don't know that it's legal. Carissa and I went and looked at gravestones. We went to go buy graves in Joshua Tree. We're like, oh, that might be a good thing. Like, maybe we should just buy these now and get this out of the way. So we can just. Nobody has to be.
- [12:05]
A
They just have to fill in the date when you passed.
- [12:09]
B
Yeah. So we went to this place. It was a non. You know, if you're buried. But not any of the embalming. None of the preservation. Right. It puts you in the thing. In the end, we went out to Joshua Tree. Now, it was Joshua Tree adjacent, or it was within the limits of Josh. I don't know. It was maybe Josh's tree. It wasn't quite what I was imagining as like a. A great expanse in nature. It was like off the side of a highway. It was pretty jank. And then we went and looked, and I walked around and we looked at some of the plots. So Chris and I are, like, looking around, like, maybe we'll live here for the rest of the. Maybe this will be our final resting place. It's kind of just like dirt. And we're like, what about here? What about here? We could be side by side. And we were with this kind of dude that you're like. If you met him anywhere in the world, you're like, I bet you work in a graveyard, don't you? Because he had the look, you know, he's just total. Very kind of tall, lanky, a little hunched, a little yellow in the eyes. Anyway, and he was showing us around, and I said, so they just put you in this hole, huh? He's like, yeah, we put some rocks on you just in case there's a flood. We don't want you floating away. And Chris and I were like, check, please. We're out. And we did. So that was the last time we looked for graves.
- [13:31]
A
I don't.
- [13:31]
B
Thank you, Ichabod Crane.
- [13:32]
A
I don't know how jazzed I am on the idea of. I look at a cemetery and I see a place where people can go if they care to connect with a lost relative or whatnot. But I think, what a waste of space and land. And why not have something that. If you're gonna go like, why not be like a place in a park that's really nice or like a right something commemorative. Yes. But I just feel like a body buried in the ground and taking up that space is weird. I thought about, you know, they can convert you now into a diamond. Now, that's pretty permanent. Diamonds are pretty hard. Right. So if they could maybe etch onto the side of the diamond to say, you know, contained within this diamond is the last remnants of Nathan Fillion. Someone might find that in a million years and go, hey, what's this?
- [14:25]
B
Talk about a blood diamond. Hey, Haven. Puneet. I'm so. That is crazy. They can press you in. They can burn you down and press your ashes into an album. They do that too.
- [14:39]
A
Like a. Like a recording you have.
- [14:41]
B
You like saying, thank you, everybody, for being here. I don't know. Yeah, they do a recording. I guess you could do your favorite song on it. A diamond is nice. But who's, I guess, wearing you around? My plan right now, like, if I was to die today, I would be burnt up and my ashes would be sprinkled in Stanley park in Canada.
- [15:00]
A
Would you donate your organs?
- [15:03]
B
I don't know. I forget whatever I said to them
- [15:05]
A
when they asked me.
- [15:06]
B
The people, the organ people, maybe. Sure. There was a Stephen King short story about people who. About a guy who's like, in a hospital bed, and the person's just like, their loved one is there, and they're like, I wish they would just let you die. And having this conversation. And they. Oh, they're putting glass in their eyes and trying to ruin the body more and more because the hospital was keeping them alive just for organs. And it freaked me out about organ transplant, that I'd be kept alive on machines. But it isn't. That was a Stephen King. That would have been the clue.
- [15:41]
A
Pretty dark.
- [15:42]
B
Yeah, it was. Well, Stephen King, you know, he's dark. Yeah, he puts pets in cemeteries.
- [15:48]
A
My grandmother was. We. We kind of refer to her as the ultimate recycler. She didn't waste anything, she didn't overuse anything. And when it came to, you know, her wishes, when she passed, she said, well, no one's going to want my organs because they're so old. But I don't want anybody having to bother with my body, like, having to. I don't want it to be a burden on anybody. So just donate it to the university. Have those medical students cut me up and see why, how I lasted so long. That was her deal. Have. Have them chop me up for. For study so they can learn something, so I can benefit somebody in some way.
- [16:25]
B
You know, I hadn't thought about that. Sounds incredible. Maybe a. Bodies, bodies, bodies future, you know, that bodies exhibit where they use the wax,
- [16:33]
A
where you can become an art. A piece of art.
- [16:35]
B
Yeah. You know, you can just tour the world being ogled. Look at my nervous system. Look at my. I. I feel like we've passed over your. What happens after you die? I didn't get an answer on that from you. Because I want to know, is it heaven? Is it hell? Is it.
- [16:54]
A
I. I'M not big on religion. I don't really, there's just, no. How many religions are there? About a thousand. And I, I don't think anybody probably. Oh, we got it right though. You know, I don't think there's the one religion out there that says, yeah, but we nailed it. I mean, there's a thousand out there, but this one's, this one's the right one. The odds of that, I think are odd. And then I, you know, I took a world religion course at one point that.
- [17:19]
B
Oh, really?
- [17:19]
A
Yeah. That goes way, way back and tells all the exact same stories all these different faiths and different religions tell. They all have a Noah's ark, they all have a Moses, they all have a, you know, immaculate conception.
- [17:33]
B
When they repeat the Noah's ark and the, whatever, the Adam and Eve stories, all these original stories, does it make it seem truer to you that all these other religions have them or does
- [17:43]
A
it seem, I think there might be some stories that are based in some kind of fact. I think there was the white. I mean there's, there's archaeological evidence of a massive flood. You know, overnight oceans rose by, I want to say, 300ft or something crazy. Because it was some kind of meteoric strike. Anyway, I think I, I, I'm not like, like a faith as far as a, a religious faith. Like, like you have to go to this house to worship God and that way, you know, here's the rules. And I'm not big on those things. Do I believe in God? So I think I, I think I do. I think I sort of do believe that there's like a force governing things in, in, in a sense. But I, I don't think we, we have our, our finger on the pulse of exactly what that is by any means.
- [18:29]
B
Yeah, I don't think we can, yeah, that's impossible. I mean, it's so, I like, I
- [18:33]
A
like the idea of something, it all will be revealed upon death. I think, I think, oh, but I don't think, I think it's more like what you say as far as those near death experiences where people just, it's love and light and happiness and feeling pretty good about everything and you don't want to come back. I like that. I like that idea. And then I want to become a diamond and then have it etched and then someone's going to find it in like many, many years and say, we need, you know, more super conducting diamonds for our content computers. And what does this one say? Nathan Fillion. Who's that guy?
- [19:06]
B
Let's clone him. Because it's the future.
- [19:08]
A
They bring back all my shows.
- [19:11]
B
Wait, so where did this diamond. Where was it found? Why was it not being worn around the neck of.
- [19:16]
A
Well, I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. But, I mean, if you. What exists right now that will still exist in 5,000 years? It's. I don't know, massive stone monuments, probably. That's about it.
- [19:31]
B
The Hollywood sign.
- [19:32]
A
Everything else is going to probably just. Yeah, everything else will oxidize and rot.
- [19:38]
C
Wow.
- [19:39]
A
Except the diamond, my friend. Except the diamond.
- [19:42]
B
Right, Except. Except. Except the blood diamond. That is Nathan Fillion. Wow. Great. Yeah. We have no perspective of time. 5,000 years. I mean, that's. And that's nothing in, like, the Earth's timeline. It's.
- [19:56]
A
Alan.
- [19:56]
B
We're here for a moment. Yes.
- [19:58]
A
Do you share a name with anyone in your family? Is there another Allen somewhere down the line that you were named for? No. Do you know how you got your name?
- [20:06]
B
I think I was supposed to be Alice.
- [20:07]
A
I thought you were gonna be a girl. Like crap.
- [20:09]
B
It's a boy. Alana. And then Alan. No, I don't remember. I don't know that they just went with Alan. I guess it's just kind of that thing where you're like, this is the name for this one. How about you, Nathaniel? Are you Nathan?
- [20:21]
A
No, my. My name. My dad didn't go for Nathaniel. He was never into that. They were toying with the idea of Matthew, but my brother's name is Jeff. And they thought. They were afraid from Matt and Jeff they would get Mutt and Jeff, who are a little cartoon duo, but nobody knows who they are anymore. You have to be of a certain age to even know who Mutton Jeff are. For Matthew and Jeff to be.
- [20:45]
B
But when you were young, they would know.
- [20:47]
A
Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. But no one in my circles would ever know that. But no, I. My. I don't know. I think my mom came up with Nathan. Here's the thing. In my family, I don't know if I told you this. There's a. There's a tradition where the firstborn son takes the father's name as a middle name. So my grandfather was Omer. My father is Robert. Omer. My brother is Jeffrey. Omer.
- [21:10]
B
Robert.
- [21:12]
A
And when it came time for Omer. Yeah.
- [21:15]
B
What is that name? Where does that come from?
- [21:17]
A
Omer.
- [21:18]
B
Omer.
- [21:19]
A
He was French. Omer.
- [21:21]
B
Never. Oh, it's.
- [21:22]
A
It's French. I don't know if it's a French
- [21:23]
B
name, but he was Om. That's Very French.
- [21:35]
A
It was.
- [21:35]
B
I think I better in French.
- [21:37]
A
Here we go.
- [21:37]
B
It's Homer.
- [21:39]
A
It's Homer without the H. Like without the H. Omega.
- [21:43]
B
Oh, that's great.
- [21:46]
A
But I would have really loved. My dad wound up naming me for like. My middle name is after a TV star he liked. Which kind of worked out for me. I mean in my. In my industry. But there were some pretty cool names on my mom's side that I thought would have been dandy for a middle name.
- [22:05]
B
What are you missing? What do you need? What do you.
- [22:07]
A
Tuko.
- [22:08]
B
Tuko.
- [22:09]
A
Tuko.
- [22:10]
B
You could have been a drug dealer.
- [22:12]
A
Or Tuco. T, Y, C, H, O. Scandinavian, Norwegian, something. It's a northern Viking name. Tuco. And then there was Quinter, which I always thought having the middle initial Q would have been.
- [22:27]
B
That's pretty good.
- [22:27]
A
Amazing. Yeah. Nathan Q. Fillion.
- [22:30]
B
Quinter.
- [22:31]
A
Quinter. Wow. I like that name.
- [22:33]
B
What is your middle name as it is?
- [22:35]
A
Well, that's the thing on online. If you were to look it up. It's Christopher. That's a. That's incorrect. I don't want anyone to know my middle name. It's out there. It's out there. The Ethernet as being Christopher. I'll let everybody believe it, but in reality that's not what it is. I'm trying to keep it a secret as long as I can.
- [22:54]
B
Wow. Well, mine is Ray Alan.
- [22:57]
A
Someone out there is going to go endeavor to find it and go, I know what it is, and blow it. Guess what? Don't do that.
- [23:02]
B
That.
- [23:02]
A
Don't do that. This is something. I don't want you to do that. So don't do that. Don't dox me. Don't go. Don't go. I found out what it is. I don't know what you get out of that, but it's not worth it because mind your business.
- [23:16]
B
Let's see how that works. I don't know.
- [23:18]
A
I don't know who's going to be the dill hole. He's not talking about me. I'm gonna do it anyway.
- [23:25]
B
Mine is Ray and it's out there. W, R, A, Y. Oh, I like that.
- [23:28]
A
Yeah. Well, you use that as Rainier used and I. Your character from Con.
- [23:33]
B
I was going to be Alan Ray when I was became an actor. Because back when we became actors, you didn't change your name a lot. Like people change their names all the time. I mean that I want to say like Marilyn Monroe, all those people, like from way back in those days, people changed their names. But for me I was like, tudyk, I don't think that's gonna work.
- [23:51]
A
No one did.
- [23:56]
B
I asked two people if I should change my name, and it was like I was starting to get work and I'm like, I gotta make up my mind now. I gotta hur up. And because I gotta, I'm gonna have to join a union. And once you decide. And I asked Earl Hyman.
- [24:12]
A
Name drop. And Steve Vagina.
- [24:23]
B
Exactly. I think you asked the wrong guys. Yeah, Earl Hyman said, no, keep your name.
- [24:30]
A
What? Why would you change it?
- [24:33]
B
I don't understand. God bless Earl Hyman. And the other one was a playwright named Nikki Silver.
- [24:44]
A
Name drop. That's a great name.
- [24:48]
B
Which is a. He has a great name. And I was just starting out, he helped me get my first agent. And I told him I ran into him years after and said, you know, I'm Alan Tudyk instead of Alan Ray because of you. Because I asked you and you said, ow. Ray. No. Everybody's thinking to be Martha Ray, then they're going to think of you as Martha Ray from the Beverly Hillbillies. Keep your name, too. Dick. That's it.
- [25:15]
A
Yeah.
- [25:15]
B
I asked the wrong guys. Alan Ray would have be much, much more well known.
- [25:21]
A
It's a. It's a. That sounds cool. It sounds like a very cool name.
- [25:26]
B
Well, that guy exists somewhere in a different quantum timeline.
- [25:30]
A
Growing up with the last name Tudyk. That must have been fodder for a lot of. Well, for two jokes.
- [25:39]
B
Yes, it was 2D. Too D. Frutti is what they called me until I think, second grade, fourth grade, something like that. And somebody went, whoa, whoa, whoa, Right?
- [25:49]
A
You're missing the guy's guy.
- [25:53]
B
His name's Too Dick. What? Listen to me, focus up. Get the crayon out of your nose. It's too Dick. And then after that, it was like, oh. And my dad actually sat me down and he's like, all right, well, you can say it's one the size of two. Double your pleasure.
- [26:18]
A
You're about to embark on a. What is the family curse?
- [26:23]
B
Yeah.
- [26:23]
A
Let me tell you how I dealt with it. Same way as Grandpa before you, and his grandpa before you.
- [26:29]
B
Double your pleasure, double your fun. That's what they always say. You can use that one. Use that one. I forget what they all were. Those are the two that I remembered. But I had. You know, people call me Tudyck.
- [26:39]
A
Well, tudycs are better than one ticks.
- [26:42]
B
Yeah, it is the name. But you know what? Aunt Helen, great Aunt Helen, used to really enjoy seeing that name. And I think that there are still some people. There aren't a lot of tudyks around. The tudyks. They had daughters mainly. And so they have different. They have different names. My father. Yeah, my. And I didn't have kids and my sister didn't have any kids, although she would have changed her name. My brother has had one child. There's not too many tunics. Not too many tunics. So, you know, in the future, who knows? It doesn't.
- [27:13]
A
You know.
- [27:14]
B
What are you going to do? I think it'll be okay. According to scientists, we don't have much time, so. Really? Hey, Nathan. Nathan. Let's do a. Get to know you about the thing you don't know about me and I don't know about you.
- [27:28]
A
Alan. Let's get to know you better. Let's play the song.
- [27:30]
B
Okay. I know you and you know me. Let's get to know you better.
- [27:38]
A
Okay, go. What is it?
- [27:40]
B
I. I want to say though, because if this is coming after. This one's being put out after the one that we did prior to this, I said I was going to read from my journal. Oh, yeah. I said I couldn't find it.
- [27:50]
A
Oh, okay.
- [27:51]
B
So it's because I'm packe. Packing. Everything's packed in different weird places.
- [27:55]
A
We have time. We have more episodes to go, so we'll take one off the top.
- [27:59]
B
Okay. So maybe in the future I can do selections from Alan's journal and I'll read just a small section of curious writing that. I'm just saying maybe. Okay, so now something you don't know about me, buddy, I almost died in a quicksand situation in 1993. 94. I was on another killing spree. You know, I. I talked about the deer hunting, how that was such a
- [28:28]
A
bad experience, so you repeated it.
- [28:31]
B
So I decided I could kill ducks. Because everybody. When you think ducks, what do you think? Rape. What? Yeah, they're rapists. They're the worst ducks. They so rape, man.
- [28:45]
A
I didn't.
- [28:46]
B
And I know people don't know this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At my high school, there was a duck pond. And so we were everyone who went, and it was just 11th and 12th grade that we were treated in those years during mating season to violent duck sex. And it was never the woman's idea. And they would rip out feathers and they would abuse one. It is so much a part of what they do that the female ducks have, through natural selection, developed false vaginas. They have different tracks or different cervical canals or canals. Vaginal sheaths I don't know what to call them anyway. The duck thing. When they go to have the sex, they grow in like a corkscrew, like so you can't get in here too easy. But then the male ducks grew reverse corkscrew dicks. This is how it happened. This is the. This is my biology today inside of getting to know you. Can we just get some biology sound effects?
- [29:58]
A
I don't know what those sound like.
- [30:00]
B
Biology sounds.
- [30:05]
A
Okay, wait, what. How did we get. How did we get here? What are we getting to know about you?
- [30:10]
B
Listen to me, I. This is my quicksand story.
- [30:12]
A
Oh, right, right.
- [30:13]
B
So there are many false vaginas on a. On a duck so that they can like, go, oh, no, I'm being. I'm. This is against my will. I don't want your sperm. I'm gonna wait for that one over there. Put it on the bill. That guy. That duck is the one for me. And they'll let them have their regular vagina. Look it up. Look it up, people. So look it up.
- [30:39]
A
The quicksand.
- [30:40]
B
They're rapists. So I'm just giving you the reason why I felt like I could kill them. They're not good duck. They're not good birds. I mean, a wood duck is. You're not going to find a more beautiful bird, but. And they're fun to feed bread too, I guess. So I would go with my friend Davey. We would go poaching, which is, I guess, what you do when you are hunting on land that isn't yours. We would go poaching in the swamps of East Texas for ducks. And we were not great at it, but at one time we were like, there's ducks over there just above this berm. There was a. There's water up there. I was like, let's just cross this little shallow creek and we'll go there. Well, I took two steps into the shallow creek and I sunk almost all the way up to the top of my waders. It was like a quick mud. And if it got into my waders, I was. That's it. You're stuck. The suction of being of the water in your waiters. You either. You cut it out, but we were in the middle of nowhere.
- [31:46]
A
Were you by yourself at this point?
- [31:48]
B
I was with Davey and a friend of his who was a swamp fellow. He was very well trained in swamp and was good at duck calls. Really good at duck calls. He was kind of just taking the city friend along. You know, he like had full camo on and also ducks have very good sight. So they. They're really hard to kill, as do most grapists.
- [32:14]
A
Anyway,
- [32:17]
B
I'm now stuck. And how I got out was by. We had our shotguns and I'm holding a shotgun and guaranteed it was loaded because we were idiots. I was holding Davey's shotgun and he was holding the stock. And then he had to get closer to me with just one foot in the sink. And then our swamp fellow friend was helping us out and I got pulled out slowly. It was like.
- [32:45]
A
Right, because it's like a vacuum holding you in there. It's a suction. Did you. Did your life flash before your eyes? Did you think, oh, this could be the end?
- [32:55]
B
I did panic. There was a little bit of a realization, but of this might be it. But, you know, what are you gonna do? I. I didn't. It. We were. We. We sprung into action fairly quickly. We were young, we were stoned. So, you know, as far as, like, accepting the seriousness of. Was a little, you know. Nah, it didn't really hit me until probably later.
- [33:22]
A
Alan, I am so glad we did not lose you that day.
- [33:26]
B
I really was. I was. Yeah, I hadn't done much with my life. I was pretty stupid.
- [33:32]
A
So what would the headline have been? The next day would be unknown poachers. Jesus.
- [33:38]
B
Because we were breaking the law.
- [33:40]
A
Oh, you were literally poaching.
- [33:42]
B
Yeah, yeah, we were breaking the law. We would have to get quiet whenever you would hear airboats because you're in the swamp and it'd be like, maybe that's the game warden.
- [33:50]
A
How badly did you need these ducks?
- [33:53]
B
It was just nothing to do. I don't know, man. Hell, it was. It's ducks.
- [33:57]
A
You were Texas. You were in Texas?
- [33:58]
B
I'm from Texas. It was down out in the swamp where there's nutria, man. Oh, yeah. These big rats, yellow teeth and they'll bark at you. Nasty, nasty things. Yeah, they swim fast. This is an inhospitable part of Texas. Down near Bridge City, down near Anahuac Weenie. These are those places.
- [34:24]
A
Alan. I'm glad you didn't die.
- [34:27]
B
Thank you, man.
- [34:28]
A
All right, I have a let's get to know you better option for you. I have a similar near death story. Or I can tell you an incredibly embarrassing moment. I want you to decide you had
- [34:41]
B
the twizzle Twizzle stick or the straw.
- [34:44]
A
This is either going to be my near death, that's the embarrassment, I almost drowned story, or this can be the cocktail straw embarrassing moment story. I want this.
- [34:53]
B
I think we could. I think if the audience allows themselves to imagine an embarrassing cocktail. Straw. Straw with you. It's pretty great. And let's hear the Near Death. Since mine was near death. Okay, stay on the good bookend.
- [35:06]
A
Yeah, this was probably circa 1999 and a friend of mine got married in Costa Rica. We were all having a lovely trip. Last group of us, we were in Manuel Antonio in a beautiful little national park. You had to keep your bags secured from the monkeys. Some of the monkeys would come out of the trees and go through your bags for stuff. And I was out there.
- [35:32]
B
Did they have weird nipples? Did the monkeys have strange.
- [35:35]
A
No, these were more lengthy nipples, kind of more Disney. You didn't see anything, the bits. But we're out there swimming and it was a long day and we were exhausted and we said, oh, let's all go in. And I was like the last to come in and I got caught in that. The undertow, the backwash, all the water comes and hits the beach and it has to pick a channel to leave. And I got stuck in that channel and now I can't swim back into shore. And at the same time, waves are crashing down on me, pushing me down, and it's so frothy, I can't kind of have enough purchase in the water to swim it. And I'm being pulled back from shore and I am exhausted already. And I, at one point, I am waving my hands in the air to my friends on the beach. They looked at me, they waved back and turned their backs and walked away. So. And I said, I am going to live long enough to kill them. Like, when is the two handed over the head wave? When is that high? Like, hey, where's Nathan? I don't know. Last time I saw him, he was out there waving like this.
- [36:48]
B
Yeah, I think you could say my dickhead friends on the beach. My stupid friends on the beach, they need a modifier there. My God.
- [36:58]
A
So in my mind, I remember I had been reading a book about Costa Rica while I was flying over towards Costa Rica. And one of the things it talked about was, you're never going to outswim this current, so you have to go sideways. I was having trouble, as I said, swimming. So my plan was I just simply let the waves hitting me crash me down to the bottom. It would toss me and turn me, but I would find the sand, rewrite myself, push up as hard as I could, get a breath, and then let the waves hit me and knock me down again. Oh, my God.
- [37:32]
B
That's the best plan.
- [37:33]
A
That was the only plan. Alan I was exhausted, but every time I grabbed purchase on the sand, I would kind of jump sideways, because you want to go sideways until you're out of the current. And I finally got to a place where I was out of the current, and I started jumping towards it, and just the waves continuously crashed me down, crashing me down. I crawled onto the beach. I crawled.
- [37:56]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [37:56]
A
Onto the beach. I nearly died that day, buddy.
- [38:03]
B
That's scary. That's closer than mine. That's.
- [38:05]
A
You look at the ocean very differently after that. Yeah, you're very. Whenever I go to a beach, I kind of take a look at it and I say, where's the water going out? All the water's coming at this beach. If it's a lot of water coming at the beach, where's it going out? Where's it going out?
- [38:19]
B
And wait, this is also Costa Rica. What is the place you were thinking about retiring?
- [38:24]
A
Also to Costa Rica. But I wasn't going to. My plan is not to retire in the ocean.
- [38:31]
B
In the water? You're gonna mock the ocean from the shore?
- [38:36]
A
I'll just.
- [38:36]
B
You know what?
- [38:37]
A
I. You have to have respect for water. You have to have respect for water, period.
- [38:42]
B
Yeah.
- [38:43]
A
Panic is your enemy.
- [38:44]
B
It's a shallow creek with. Yeah.
- [38:46]
A
And.
- [38:47]
B
Yeah. Yeah, buddy. I'm so glad you didn't die, too.
- [38:50]
A
Try not to look delicious. That's my other plan when I'm in the water. Don't look too delicious, man. Yeah. So we've both had a little brush with death. Yes.
- [39:01]
B
Near water. In water, I would have been a muddy water quicksand.
- [39:05]
A
We had. We had Molly Quinn as a guest for one of our podcasts. Yes. I don't know if I can't remember if we told this story, but Molly Quinn and I were standing under one of the buildings on New York Street. We were filming at the New York street on. On Paramount lot at night, and just the two of us standing next to each other. She was standing closer to the building than I was. And I don't know why, but I looked up and I saw one of the windows on the third floor tip out and fall. And I grabbed her and spun her around to the other side of me. And the window crashed right where she was standing. This big thing kind of smashed. Everybody froze. She looked at me, she goes, you just saved my life. Yeah. Yeah. That was very close. I don't know what possessed me to look up at that moment, but I looked up just as I, hey, that's tipping out. And I had time to just grab her and shift her over to the other side. I didn't move. I was in the clear. But put her from one side to the other and Chr smash.
- [40:12]
B
Buddy. Yeah, that's great.
- [40:15]
A
Yeah. We didn't tell that story, I guess.
- [40:18]
B
No, we didn't. That's a man of action, right?
- [40:19]
A
That's, that's.
- [40:20]
B
Yes.
- [40:20]
A
That's a few rare times I was in the right place at the right time to the right thing.
- [40:25]
B
Some people in that same situation would freeze. I'm not saying it's me, but somebody might also would go ah and make that noise instead of act. And the same amount of time it took you to move her out of danger would have made a type of sound.
- [40:41]
A
Yeah.
- [40:41]
B
And then nothing. And then watched her parish in front of you.
- [40:44]
A
I have a question, Alan.
- [40:45]
B
Yes.
- [40:46]
A
You're married.
- [40:47]
B
I totally got married.
- [40:48]
A
You have in laws.
- [40:50]
B
Yes.
- [40:50]
A
How do you get on with your in laws? That's, that's a. That's like it could be slippery slope. It could be great. It could be difficult.
- [40:57]
B
How.
- [40:58]
A
What's your experience like with in laws?
- [41:00]
B
I like my in laws.
- [41:01]
A
That's great.
- [41:02]
B
I like my in laws. Yeah, I do. It is interesting. I actually have, I have nieces then too. So I have these two young nieces who are my in that they look at me and say that's Uncle Allen. And I. And I know that I had uncles that were like my mother's brother's kids or. No, my mother's brother's wife was aunt was my.
- [41:25]
A
The married in the uncles that married into the family.
- [41:28]
B
And you don't think of, you don't think of them as oh, but they're not quite my family. When you're a kid, their aunt, you know, you don't discern who's which from. From outside. So I've got nieces who see me as Uncle, Uncle Allen. And we're. They're just getting to an age. It's pretty great. I went and spoke to their school not too long ago. Yeah, I got to go speak to their school about being voiceover because it was career day.
- [41:52]
A
What grade are we talking? What grades?
- [41:55]
B
Sixth.
- [41:55]
A
And so these, so these girls are in sixth and seventh grade and they bring in their uncle Alan who is a, a well known actor, a professional who has had a plethora of experience. So it's kind of like show and tell. It's. It did it. Does that, does that increase their street cred in school?
- [42:14]
B
I think so. And I have to say I was like going in there like, hey man, I'm Hei.
- [42:19]
A
Hey.
- [42:19]
B
I am King Candy. I'm like, I'm all these things. I'm a. I'm from Disney. I'm the Duke of Weselton. I was in Frozen. Come on, all you kids, you were singing that your whole young lives and you're still young but like when you were little girls and probably the boys didn't as much but you know what a lot of them said and when it turned they were all like okay. Oh. They said, the one girl who said what were you in? Where we could see you in it. Your face. I was like oh, old movies, you know things that. There's a, there's one a long time ago called A Knight's Tale before you were born. And she's like I've seen that. And I said, yeah, I was, I had really red hair in that movie. And she goes, I can see it. How dare you. How dare you. But it was when somebody goes were you in the Rookie? And then it was over.
- [43:10]
A
Oh really?
- [43:11]
B
Oh my God. Yeah, man, that's. The rookie is the big one for the 12 year olds, man.
- [43:16]
A
But it's, it's, it's incredible how young, like about 11 years old. The kids start watching the rookie. They see it on the Tick tocks Wild and they flock to it on the streamers and then they're. The whole class is watching and then the whole. All their families are watching and yeah, it's become quite a, an inclusive viewing experience. My parents were teachers. My brother was a principal. Retired now and my.
- [43:40]
B
When you say was. He's retired.
- [43:42]
A
My brother's retired, my friend.
- [43:43]
B
How old is he?
- [43:44]
A
What the. He'd be.
- [43:46]
B
Can we retire?
- [43:46]
A
He's been, he's 56.
- [43:49]
B
I feel like I can retire but I don't have a severance. Okay, go on.
- [43:53]
A
But when I would go back home to visit Edmonton they would all have me come down to their respective schools and talk to a class or two about my experience and about what things are like in the professional world and how school affected me and my schoolostic career. How it's effect on the rest of your life that you can't imagine right now, but it does and those kinds of things. And it always upped their street credit in their respective circles and to this day I think my, my youngest niece, we were chatting the other day and you know they don't go around advertising. It doesn't just come up in conversation. But most of their friends already know but one, one set of friends that they've known for a Great. Long time said, you know, they were all hanging out and they said something about the rookie and they said, oh, yeah, that's Jordan's uncle. What?
- [44:45]
B
How? What?
- [44:47]
A
That's what. Yeah, they do that kind of thing. And then. Yeah, and up goes their street cred.
- [44:52]
B
You gotta figure if you were a kid and somebody was like, oh, yeah, Tom Selleck is his. His uncle. That's a. I mean, you know.
- [44:59]
A
Agreed.
- [45:00]
B
It's a weird thing, like, once you're on this side of it or, you know, you're an adult and you see how the sausage is made, or you are the sausage. I don't know where this metaphor, really, but when you're on a TV show and it's a job and it's what you do, you don't see it the same way as you did as a kid. Like the TV is. At least back then and even now, I guess on TikTok, it's, you know,
- [45:24]
A
the TV has always been, for me, a magic window peek at this other world, this other life, this other thing that's going on that is somehow unreachable and unattainable. And now, like you said, I'm on the other side of the sausage factory. I'm on that inside part of it, but I can still see the joy that it brings. You know, we get a lot of visitors to the set of the Rookie. People want to come by and say, hi. Dwayne Johnson dropped by Name Drop because his daughter was turning 12. And this was what the guy.
- [45:59]
B
The guy who plays the Rock, Dwayne
- [46:01]
A
Johnson is the rock. He called a friend who had a friend who was connected to a friend who.
- [46:07]
B
I hope we dropped that name. And it was a big rock, because that's a big guy.
- [46:16]
A
Name drop. It was a wonderful experience. And he brought his daughter in, too, because it was her 12th birthday and it was her favorite show. So he called in some favors, and I said, I don't think you're gonna have to worry about calling in a favor. I think you're gonna be a welcome guest wherever you go. But it's really nice to be able to see this job we have through outside eyes sometimes just to have that reminder of just how magical this opportunity is. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We get a lot of make a wish kids, too, which always makes me happy.
- [46:50]
B
Oh, cool.
- [46:51]
A
That makes me so happy. We pull out all the stops, try to make them feel as welcome as possible and make a big deal out of them, and we make them work the slate.
- [47:00]
B
Oh, cool. That's a good. That's a fun thing. That's a. That's classic.
- [47:03]
A
We'll also sing Happy Birthday to them, even if it's not their birthday, just in case we missed them. You know what I mean? We just. We just try to make a fuss, Alan.
- [47:11]
B
Yeah, that's good. Yeah.
- [47:12]
A
When did you find out you were adopted? What? Oh, I didn't.
- [47:17]
B
Don't mind.
- [47:17]
A
Am I talking out of.
- [47:18]
B
This is now. This is Now. You knew that. Jesus Christ. When did you find out? How did you.
- [47:26]
A
First time I met your folks. They told me, by the way,
- [47:33]
B
Not responsible for this.
- [47:40]
A
That reminds me, I'm going to tell you a story. My brother and I, we don't look a lot alike, but we. We don't. Not a ton. We don't really look alike.
- [47:48]
B
You have. You have similar.
- [47:49]
A
My brother is a dead ringer for my grandfather, who died when my father was 5, so none of us ever met him. But I remember being at my grandmother's 80th birthday. My dad had put together this spectacular slideshow of her life since she was a baby. He had restored these old broken photos. He painstakingly restored them on Compute and then made this beautiful slideshow with wonderful music behind it. And then it came to the part of her life when she got a little older and she got married to Omer, who we mentioned earlier. And everybody in the room, their mouths dropped open when they saw a photo of Omer and then turned to my brother, for whom he's a doppelganger. He looks exactly like our grandfather. Wow. I look a lot like my dad. My brother looks like the grandfather. We don't look a lot alike, but we have very similar mannerisms. We sound nearly identical. Especially when we start hanging out together and we start and we spend some time together. We sound a lot alike. I remember we went to a sushi restaurant in Notting Hill. We were doing a little European vacation, my brother and I, just the two of us. I think we went to a con and just made a vacation out of it.
- [49:00]
B
Very cool.
- [49:01]
A
And we went to a little sushi restaurant. My brother said, oh, I'll have this and I'll have that and maybe a bowl of miso soup. And I said, and I'll have the such and such and such, and I'll also have some miso soup. And the waiter looked at my brother, he looked at me and he goes, are you having me on? I'm sorry. What is that A sick thing?
- [49:20]
B
Sounds.
- [49:20]
A
You sound exactly the same. He was just. It left an impression on him. I remember that. But to that end, my brother will sometimes pretend to be me. We'll be on a vacation. We will. Like we were. This particular time. We were scuba diving in Bora Bora. It was a Christmas, New Year's trip. Bora Bora is. It's French Polynesia. So there's a lot of very strong French accents there. When I'm on vacation, I like. I shut down. I try to shut down as much as possible. So if there's any kind of arrangements to be made and, you know, appointments and changing of times, and my brother takes care of it. Jeff handles that stuff. So we get a phone call.
- [50:03]
B
You're useless. You're trying to say you're useless on vacation.
- [50:05]
A
Thank you very much.
- [50:06]
B
Yes.
- [50:06]
A
My. So that we get a phone call on this little phone that we have while we're on vacation. My brother answers it on speakerphone. It's one of the fellas from the dive company that has a video for us that he wants to be able to drop off at the hotel. And he's just making sure he has all the arrangements. And so he says, hello, Nathan. And my brother looks at me, and he just kind of shrugs and he goes, hi. And because nobody knows the difference on the phone, no one can tell the difference. So now he believes he's talking to Nathan and he's making the arrangements to drop off this DV that he so kindly made for us. And so wonderful. And he goes, okay. And they're wrapping it up, and he goes, okay, have a wonderful time. Happy New Year. And my brother goes, happy New Year. And there's this silence where he.
- [50:51]
B
Okay.
- [50:51]
A
And I look at my brother, and he just hangs up the phone and looks at me, and I'm going, what did. What did you just do? He goes, what? I said, you just mimicked his French accent to his face.
- [51:08]
B
But as me, it's nothing. As me. You did it. As me, he thinks I did it.
- [51:16]
A
And to this day, that is how my family says, happy New Year. Is Happy New Year, My brother.
- [51:29]
B
Excellent. Oh, boy.
- [51:30]
A
What?
- [51:30]
B
What happened?
- [51:31]
A
What?
- [51:32]
B
All right, man. Do we do it again?
- [51:34]
A
Do we do what?
- [51:35]
B
Another episode. I feel like we did one.
- [51:38]
A
Okay, well, do we need to sign it off and say goodbye? Is that all we need to do?
- [51:42]
B
I have to go to the bathroom is why. Isn't that exciting? I'm glad I could share that with everybody.
- [51:46]
A
That's a fantastic way, I think, to wrap up this episode, Alan. Well, thank you very much for another wonderful afternoon spent with my good buddy Alan.
- [51:55]
B
Happy New Year to you.
- [51:56]
A
Happy New Year, my friend. Happy New Year.
- [52:05]
C
Hello and thank you for listening. This is Nathan Fillion. Now is the part where I read aloud the credits for our show in my best telephone voice. So put on some headphones, lay back and relax because this is our time.
- [52:20]
A
If you haven't yet, you can always
- [52:22]
C
head over to our Patreon to get bonus content. Content, longer episodes, and a chance to get your hands on some incredible crap. If you love the show, please leave us a review and feel free to tell all your friends. If you didn't love the show, now is the time for quiet contemplation. Once We Were Spacemen is a collision 33 production. Some of the names I will mention are my favorite people in the world, and some of them have room for improvement. You know who you are. If you hear your name being read, please stand up. This show is produced by Siobhan Homan, Michelle Chapman and Josh Lebbey of Collision 33. We are edited, mixed and produced by Resonate Recordings, with special thanks to Courtney Blomquist and Adam Townsell. Our theme music is done by Carlos Sosa and Joshua Moore. Artwork by the incredible and incomparable Louis Jensen. But I'm going to tell you right now, I think he fakes his accent. Until next time,
- [53:20]
A
don't look too delicious.