437: Neal McDonough—Clear the Mechanism

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe
Episode 437: Neal McDonough—Clear the Mechanism
Release Date: May 20, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 437 of "The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe," host Mike Rowe sits down with acclaimed actor Neal McDonough to discuss his latest film, "The Last Rodeo," and delve into McDonough's journey from a prolific character actor to a passionate filmmaker. The conversation navigates through McDonough's personal experiences, professional milestones, and his dedication to storytelling that celebrates American values and family.

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Neal McDonough: From Actor to Filmmaker

Background and Career Evolution

Neal McDonough, a seasoned actor with over 150 films and numerous TV appearances, shares his transition from playing diverse characters—often villains—to writing and producing his own content. McDonough emphasizes the influence of his family and faith in shaping his career choices and creative direction.

Neal McDonough [01:38]: "He's a family man. Yeah. He's an open book."

Collaborative Relationship with Mike Rowe and Angel Studios

McDonough recounts his collaborative relationship with Mike Rowe and Angel Studios, highlighting their mutual respect and shared vision for creating meaningful content.

Neal McDonough [01:34]: "We'll see. I don't want to get into it because it's not about me, but. Well, it is about me and Neal McDonough."

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"The Last Rodeo": A Deep Dive

Concept and Production

"The Last Rodeo" marks McDonough's first foray into writing and producing, a venture inspired by his desire to create stories that resonate with American heartland values. The film, directed by John Avett, portrays the life of a retired rodeo star grappling with personal and familial challenges.

Neal McDonough [07:20]: "My kids bust my nuggets about that. I've gotten to this point in my life where I finally get to play me and Mike."

Authenticity and Preparation

To authentically portray a rodeo star, McDonough underwent rigorous physical training under coach Scott St. John, involving intense workouts and specialized training on mechanical bulls. His commitment to realism is evident in his detailed preparation process.

Neal McDonough [17:37]: "I lost a bunch of weight. I just, you know, I was. I was a character actor guy."

Personal Connection and Faith

McDonough discusses how personal struggles and faith influenced the film's narrative, aiming to inspire audiences with themes of resilience, family, and faith.

Neal McDonough [15:38]: "It's called the Last Rodeo...we all need SkillsUSA to succeed in their attempt to get to a million members."

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Method Acting and Personal Experiences

Approach to Acting

McDonough shares his method acting techniques, particularly how he distinguishes between his personal self and the characters he portrays. This distinction allows him to fully immerse in complex roles without personal repercussions.

Neal McDonough [30:26]: "I'm a method actor without having Reve taught me this. You gotta figure out how to be your method actor, but you gotta be able to get out of it, or else you're gonna be trapped in it."

Emotional Challenges

Portraying emotionally charged characters, especially in films like "Band of Brothers" and "Tin Man," has had profound effects on McDonough, leading to intense personal reflections and emotional experiences.

Neal McDonough [35:05]: "If you're gonna do anything great in life, you can't really. And I tell all my kids, I said, you can't care what somebody else thinks of you."

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Building an Empire with Angel Studios

Strategic Partnerships and Growth

McDonough and his wife, Reve McDonough, have established the McDonough Company in partnership with Angel Studios, aiming to produce high-quality, faith-driven content. Their collaboration focuses on creating films that uphold and celebrate core American values.

Neal McDonough [55:59]: "We have a distribution company that believes wholeheartedly that we're going to give them good stuff."

Future Projects and Vision

Looking ahead, McDonough expresses optimism about the future, envisioning continued growth and the production of content that is both entertaining and meaningful.

Neal McDonough [57:59]: "If we do this correctly, we'll never have to work for anyone else ever again."

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Influence of Mentors and Personal Philosophy

Clint Eastwood and Taylor Sheridan

McDonough attributes much of his creative inspiration to mentors like Clint Eastwood and Taylor Sheridan. Eastwood's advice to transition from being a "gun for hire" to a creator has been pivotal in McDonough's shift towards producing his own narratives.

Neal McDonough [42:07]: "Clint Eastwood was like, 'You got to stop being a gun for hire. You got to start creating your own stuff.'"

Fred King’s Philosophy

Inspired by his high school music teacher, Fred King, McDonough emphasizes mastering one's craft while maintaining humility and focusing on the "what" rather than the "how."

Neal McDonough [65:05]: "Stealing that one. Because, look, I just took yours for the title of this episode."

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Personal Reflections and Synesthesia

Synesthetic Experiences

McDonough shares his unique synesthetic experiences, where he perceives colors when engaging with emotions and significant life moments. These experiences reinforce his connection to his faith and personal relationships.

Neal McDonough [68:01]: "I just saw purple. And every once in a while, when something really amazing happens to me, I have this really warm feeling of purpleness."

Faith and Community

Faith plays a central role in McDonough's life, guiding his actions and providing a foundation for his creative and personal decisions. His experiences in diverse religious settings underscore his belief in universal brotherhood and understanding.

Neal McDonough [81:52]: "We're all in it together. We are related. Every single person on this planet is related."

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Balancing Personal Life and Public Persona

Family First

Throughout the conversation, McDonough emphasizes the importance of his family, revealing how his roles and creative endeavors are deeply intertwined with his responsibilities as a husband and father.

Neal McDonough [73:34]: "I love my brother Bob. And they're, you know, there's."

Humility and Self-Awareness

Despite his extensive career, McDonough maintains a humble outlook, focusing on his work rather than his fame. He discusses his reluctance to engage with social media and reviews to preserve his personal connection to his characters.

Neal McDonough [37:05]: "I don't want to have any kind of budgetary restraints to get in the way of his storytelling."

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Conclusion

Episode 437 of "The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe" offers an intimate glimpse into Neal McDonough's evolution as an actor and filmmaker. Through candid discussions about his latest project, personal philosophies, and the impact of mentors, McDonough illustrates a journey fueled by passion, faith, and a commitment to authentic storytelling. His dedication to creating content that honors American values and family resonates deeply, positioning him as a thoughtful and influential figure in the entertainment industry.

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Notable Quotes

• Neal McDonough [07:20]: "My kids bust my nuggets about that. I've gotten to this point in my life where I finally get to play me and Mike."

• Neal McDonough [17:37]: "I lost a bunch of weight. I just, you know, I was. I was a character actor guy."

• Neal McDonough [30:26]: "I'm a method actor without having Reve taught me this. You gotta figure out how to be your method actor, but you gotta be able to get out of it, or else you're gonna be trapped in it."

• Neal McDonough [68:01]: "I just saw purple. And every once in a while, when something really amazing happens to me, I have this really warm feeling of purpleness."

• Neal McDonough [81:52]: "We're all in it together. We are related. Every single person on this planet is related."

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Reflective Insights

Neal McDonough's journey underscores the importance of authenticity and personal integrity in creative endeavors. His commitment to portraying genuine stories that reflect his values demonstrates how personal experiences and beliefs can shape impactful storytelling. Moreover, his emphasis on mastering one's craft while remaining grounded highlights a balanced approach to navigating the complexities of the entertainment industry.

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Final Thoughts

For listeners seeking inspiration from a dedicated actor-turned-filmmaker, this episode provides valuable insights into balancing professional aspirations with personal values. Neal McDonough's reflections offer a roadmap for aspiring creators to pursue their passions authentically, emphasizing that true success lies in creating work that resonates with one's core beliefs and experiences.

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This summary captures the essence of Episode 437, focusing on Neal McDonough's discussions about his career, personal experiences, and the making of "The Last Rodeo." Notable quotes with timestamps provide authenticity and depth, ensuring a comprehensive understanding for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

[Mike Rowe]

Foreign. It's Mike Rowe. It's the way I heard it. This is going to be a quick preamble because I'm so excited to share the conversation you're about to hear with you that I don't want to take up any unnecessary time with a bunch of needless blather. Chuck, and I don't mean any of this personally, but you and me at the top of these things, blathering needlessly is the very definition of needless blather.

[Neal McDonough]

So, in other words, you want to get to it right away.

[Mike Rowe]

I do. I think the conversation was that good.

[Neal McDonough]

It was excellent.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

And very little blather to be had in it.

[Mike Rowe]

My guest is Neal McDonough, who I'm now going to describe to you as my friend Neil McDonough. We got along great the first time he came in here about a year ago, and he's back. If his publicist were here, he would say, well, he's back because he has a new film, and it's great, by the way. It's called the Last Rodeo. But I like to think he was here, Chuck, just because he enjoys spending time.

[Neal McDonough]

He likes to hang out and chat. Mike. He's a very chatty guy. He gives good conversation, and he's a. An interesting guy. Very interesting.

[Mike Rowe]

He's a deep. Well, you know him, of course, if you don't, well, you're about to meet him, but you know him. It's impossible not to have seen this guy. So many films. Over 150 films, movies, TV shows. He's carved out a really interesting relationship with Angel Studios, whom I also know. I've got a show over there and maybe another one coming soon. We'll see. I don't want to get into it because it's not about me, but. Well, it is about me and Neal McDonough.

[Neal McDonough]

All right, take it easy. And he makes it about his wife a lot, too. He does mention his wife.

[Mike Rowe]

Man, he loves that guy.

[Neal McDonough]

He loves his wife. I love that.

[Mike Rowe]

I love it, too.

[Neal McDonough]

He's a family man.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. He's an open book. I mean, a lot of people watched our first conversation.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And I think the reason people love this guy so much is because, yes, he is an open book. He's having a great time. He knows what matters to him. He's intense, and he's present, and it's just fun. Yep. Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

He hits the ball back over the net every single time.

[Mike Rowe]

You're gonna love this movie and you're gonna love this conversation. I hope I can demonstrate the former on Memorial Day when you go see it. And I know I can prove the latter right after this. Dumb. There's a new tool for tradespeople and it doesn't live in a toolbox. It lives on your phone. It's called CompanyCam and it's a photo based communication tool that is changing the way contractors and pros get the job done. But Please don't call CompanyCam a photo app. That's like calling your laptop a typewriter. With CompanyCam, you can take unlimited time stamped photos and videos of your work and then you can add those photos and videos to your checklists, reports and more. From the office to the field, there is no better way to track your work, manage your teams, and move your projects forward. Whether it's general contracting or restoration, H Vac, roofing, electrical, plumbing, landscaping, solar, you name it. Company Cam is serving pros in over 50 trades as we speak. And I strongly encourage anyone working in the skilled trades to go to companycam.com right now and see firsthand how this tool can change the way you get the job done. The AI powered daily logs alone will save you hours of documentation and paperwork and totally transform the way you and your teams communicate. Get started [e-mail] that's companycam.com if anyone, anyone can. It's Company Cam. It's Company Cam. Look at that.

[Neal McDonough]

Man. Get the.

[Mike Rowe]

We've had some cutbacks. First of all.

[Neal McDonough]

Are you drinking out of the mic?

[Mike Rowe]

Are you sure you're comfortable drinking out of my enormous head?

[Neal McDonough]

Doesn't look good, folks. We share that. We Both have size 8 heads. Who else has size 8 heads? Bogart. I heard Bogey had a big head.

[Mike Rowe]

Which is why he looks so great in that fedora.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. With a good in hats. Reve always says you look great in World War II helmets or cowboy hats.

[Mike Rowe]

I wore baseball caps for 10 years. Every day.

[Neal McDonough]

It works.

[Mike Rowe]

It does. Some are better than others. The baseball cap is a remarkable contrivance. There's so many ways it can go wrong that like weird angled front or the high profile front.

[Neal McDonough]

The thing up doesn't.

[Mike Rowe]

Doesn't fit. Now the adjustable thing, you know, doesn't fit our heads. It doesn't. You got to put it in the last hole. I take that as an up front.

[Neal McDonough]

You get that thing in the back which you know doesn't look so good, right? And if you're, if you're thinking too hard, it pops all these things.

[Mike Rowe]

But if you get the one with the Velcro thing, that will Always be so tight, it'll leave the mark on your forehead.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

So you look like you've been branded.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

Which is why cowboy hats are probably a better choice. And this is why you look so terrific. Amore.

[Neal McDonough]

Thank you. I enjoy wearing cowboy hats. It's funny. Everyone's like, well, you're so. In the western culture, you're from Massachusetts. But I always say I'm from Southern Massachusetts, Cape Cod. But growing up as a kid in Cape Cod, my dad always on the weekends would bring us out to Melpet Farms out in Dennis. I'm not even sure it's still there. And would take us on, you know, the five boys on horse rides. And my brothers would just be. And I was the youngest one. It was a mistake. Years later, but my brothers would always go, why the heck we hear that? Why, we. Oh, you'll thank me one day, boys. You'll thank me one day. Well, I'm thanking him now for all the westerns that we've been doing for the last several years.

[Mike Rowe]

Did he have that much of an accent?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, it was so thick. My parents are both from Ireland. You couldn't understand them. My friends literally couldn't understand my dad.

[Mike Rowe]

Like Lucky charms.

[Neal McDonough]

Get out of the thing. My boat. What was that? Oh, my dad just said, good morning. The boat's ready to think of a boat.

[Mike Rowe]

For those of you listening, not watching, well, it's your loss. Neil is here, and he looks terrific. He's bedecked in a classic Canadian tuxedo.

[Neal McDonough]

Thank you very much. Thank you for all our Canadian fans out there. Thank you.

[Mike Rowe]

Denim from top to bottom. I love it. We were just commiserating off the air, and I didn't know this about you, but it just makes me like you even more. You only have four or five shirts.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

All the garments that you own, you've basically. I'll just say it. You stole them from wardrobe departments.

[Neal McDonough]

Permanently borrowed from the wardrobe department.

[Mike Rowe]

Everything I own is on permanent loan. Yeah. At least in the textile world.

[Neal McDonough]

Well, in the whole wide scope of life. Isn't everything on loan?

[Mike Rowe]

Well, sure. I mean, if we're going to go to the.

[Neal McDonough]

If we're going that deep.

[Mike Rowe]

Stewards. We're just stewards of the land.

[Neal McDonough]

That's all it is. That's all it is.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I mean, since you evoked cowboys, we might as well bring in a Native American perspective for that as well. Right? We don't really ever own anything ever. But before we get too deep, too fast, that's pretty good, though. How much fun are you having on a scale of 1 to 10 right now?

[Neal McDonough]

13.

[Mike Rowe]

Congratulations. Your production company is just crushing it. Every time I turn around, you're like steppin and gum. You're everywhere. I see you everywhere. And what a delight. It's always a delight to see you be a mean son of a bitch. A great villain, but you're playing some really wonderful. This whole business in the last rodeo. What a nice guy you are, Grandpa.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah, exactly. My kids bust my nuggets about that. I've gotten to this point in my life where I finally get to play me and Mike. This is the first time I've ever starred in a movie as the good guy who gets to kiss the woman in the end.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

First time. I feel the weight right now of, oh, my gosh, I hope this works. I know it's going to work, but there's still a part of me. It's like, yeah, I'm so fortunate and so blessed to have gone through what I've gone through in my life to get to the point of this that I, you know, I think everyone should be crucified at some point in their life. Be called out as, okay, what kind of person are you? Kind of for me. What kind of artist are you? And then I just got to dig deeper into telling stories and telling stories that I've always kind of enjoyed, and now I get to tell them with my wife, Reve.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

You know, when I talk about it for too long, I just. I get stupidly emotional because it's for a company to have faith in us to write and produce. We're about to start our 11th production in four years.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, but you earned every single.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, I don't know if anybody earned any. I don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

All right, well, then I hope you'll forgive me for talking out of school, but we were just comparing notes, and your production company, your first production, you sold it for a little bit of money. A few hundred grand.

[Neal McDonough]

Yep.

[Mike Rowe]

And the next one a bit more, and then a bit more. That's what I mean by you earned it. There's a. You must be this tall to get on this ride. Reality in our business.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And there's nothing more annoying than people who. Who cut the line and don't pay their dues and wind up right. And that's not you.

[Neal McDonough]

You know, it's another fortunate thing that, you know, we started with, you know, Derek Presley, my writing partner, and I, we started with Redstone, then we, for $350,000, sold it. Boone Reveill raised the money 1.5. Then we went off to do the warrant part two. Then we did Black Spartans and we did a. Then we got involved with Angel Studios. And angel was just starting to grow. And we were just starting to grow. So the timing was kind of perfect that we, you know, we did the shift together and then we did Homestead together. And then, you know, the shift was a $4 or $5 million project. Homestead was right around the Are on the same.

[Mike Rowe]

By the way, I was on the set for Homestead.

[Neal McDonough]

Were you really?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. I came to where you filmed it one day because this thing with me and Angel, I've got a series over there.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. That's getting just so people understand they.

[Neal McDonough]

Love you at Angel.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I mean, there's no accounting for taste, but you're right, they sure do. They watch somebody's got to do it. And it comes back with like 95s and 96s, right?

[Neal McDonough]

Crazy.

[Mike Rowe]

So I was out there visiting the boys and they said, look, this is shooting right up the road. And we went to the main house and walked up and I watched them shoot one of the final scenes. Your big scene had already come and gone. I don't want to.

[Neal McDonough]

That little $5 million film made $23 million in the box office.

[Mike Rowe]

Unbelievable.

[Neal McDonough]

So now here we are with a 8 and a half million dollar budget on the last rodeo that we had John Avnett direct. They said, who do you want to direct it? I'm like my favorite director of all time. We did Boomtown together. We did justified together with 88 minutes together. We just been. He's always been kind of like my mentor and, you know, so close my whole life. I said, john, they said, what do you want to direct? And I said, you. And he said, well, of course I'll direct it. What's the story about? And that's our relationship.

[Mike Rowe]

Wow.

[Neal McDonough]

And then they said, okay, well, who do you want to play the two lead guys in the film? I said, well, my two closest friends in Hollywood actor wise are Michael T. Williamson and Christopher McDonald's. And they said, okay. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Well, then it was like, well, who do you want to play your wife? And I said, well, they're flashback scenes, but I have to kiss this woman. And we all know that I won't kiss another woman. So I said, it has to be Reve. And they said, fine, perfect. Reve killed it.

[Mike Rowe]

She was so terrific.

[Neal McDonough]

Good in it.

[Mike Rowe]

She's in the stands. You know what that's right. It's a very Glenn Close.

[Neal McDonough]

That's exactly it. From the Natural. Yeah, that's exactly what we're going for.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you did it.

[Neal McDonough]

That white hat, the white look and everything. And there she is. And I'm so proud of this film.

[Mike Rowe]

It's called the Last Rodeo. And so Neil doesn't have to brag about himself. I'll do it. He plays a grandfather. He's a very famous and accomplished rodeo star. But he's entering that point of his life where, you know, he can throw his back out. Brushing his teeth maybe, or taking a poop.

[Neal McDonough]

Is that me or is that Joe Wainwright? It's both.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know, I mean, like, you've always immersed yourself in your characters, so I'm gonna say they're interchangeable. Your grandson is stricken. Your wife was stricken with something similar. And now, through circumstances that you simply can't script, except for the fact that you did, you're back on the bull to earn the money that needs to be earned to save the boy that needs to be saved.

[Neal McDonough]

Very simple.

[Mike Rowe]

Watching it, I was reminded that there are really only six or seven stories in the world.

[Neal McDonough]

That's it.

[Mike Rowe]

Now, there are a million ways to tell them, sure. But the fact that you chose a bull at the center of this thing just tickle. Look at you. How much time did you.

[Neal McDonough]

Now here's the great cheat that we have in this film. If you're doing a film about Major League Baseball, about the Yankees, you would have to use Aaron Judge. You have to use John Carl Stanton. You have to use all these guys. Right. But you can't.

[Mike Rowe]

Right.

[Neal McDonough]

They don't allow that, too. So you have to use the New York Yonkers and use different guys. Right, right. For this. Dalen Swearengen, the real dude, all these guys are. The real guy using Dylan's the only one who doesn't use his real name. Every other writer in here is the actual writer using their actual name in the film. So it just validates everything I know. And here's the thing. I knew nothing about bull riding. I knew nothing about rodeo. I knew nothing about Amit. I was on set of the Warrant.

[Mike Rowe]

Wait, wait. You've ridden horses?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, I've ridden horses my whole life, but I didn't know anything about bull riding. So I was sitting there on the set and I was driving home and I pulled over to the side of the road and I was just so strict. I just missed Reveille and the kids so much. I was just like, oh. And there was a Beautiful sunset, and we're shooting out in Arizona. And all of a sudden I look at these horses out there and I'm.

[Mike Rowe]

Like.

[Neal McDonough]

What'S life really about? What would ever happen to me if something happened to Reve? Then I swear, because I've taken a bunch of punches to my head in my life. I'm not that bright anymore. I'm positive God planted the seed in my head. Right. Rocky on a bowl. What? Rocky on a bowl. And within 24 hours, I voice dictated into my phone because that's how I write my scripts. And then I'll send it to my writing partner and we'll then break it all down and just come up with.

[Mike Rowe]

You actually write your scripts by dictating into the phone?

[Neal McDonough]

I'm dyslexic, so it's really hard to read my writing because for most people it wouldn't make much sense. So within 24 hours, like, your dad talked. That's right. He could not get it. Sorry, what was that? Mr. McDonough? Yes. No, my brother's back home. Yeah, that's a good dad. That was pretty good. So, you know, within 24 hours, I kind of had the outline and I sent it to Derek. And then within a week, we had our first draft. The next week we had it sold. And two years almost to the date it's in the theaters, that doesn't happen. This was his divine intervention into Neil. I'm going to give you a beautiful gift, and let's see what you do with it. And we worked so hard. Kip Kahnweiser, our production partner and partner at the McDonough Company, is a genius. That we figured out the right investors. We knew it was going to be Angel. We knew if we worked really hard, something great might happen out of this. And like my dad said, if they give you a dollar, give them $2 worth of effort. And we gave $3 worth of effort on this one. I'm so proud of it. The scores, the test scores are through the roof. And again, if people out there who are watching love films, that you can bring the whole family to grandpas, to grandkids, to everyone to go to Chili's after, have dinner and talk about the movie type of night, which is what I love to do. This is that kind of film. And if you love that stuff, please, everyone go out there and support it, because it'll tell Hollywood we need more films about the heartland of America. Real stories about families and breaking down families and how you build it back up with faith. And that's what we Did. And I'm just so stinking proud of it.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you should be. Let me just pivot to the superficial. It looks great. And when you told me you had shot everything in Oklahoma, I was like, oh, this is so familiar.

[Neal McDonough]

Tulsa's the best.

[Mike Rowe]

We shot 78 episodes of the Way I heard it and the story behind the story in and around Tulsa. But we were also in Shawnee and we were Bartlesville.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. All over the place.

[Mike Rowe]

Everywhere.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

It's a amazing movie. I just threw a teabag on. Look at that.

[Neal McDonough]

That's Mary's fault. It's Mary's booby trap. That's right. We were all waiting for that.

[Mike Rowe]

Unbelievable.

[Neal McDonough]

And you put it back in the.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, I put it back in. I just teabagged myself. I don't even know if I can say that it happened.

[Neal McDonough]

I don't know if that's possible. Are we cutting that from the show?

[Mike Rowe]

I hope no.

[Neal McDonough]

Are you kidding?

[Mike Rowe]

Knowing Chuck, he'll cut it into the open and then we'll build a series of promos around it.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

And then people will be shocked and appalled. Oklahoma's beautiful. And this is a horrible transition. I wish. I wish I could walk all this back, but you look pretty good too, is what I'm trying to. What I'm trying to get at is you're a man of a certain age and you've clearly taken steps at least to create the illusion of fitness. I don't want to make it weird.

[Neal McDonough]

It's all painted. It's all fake. Is it? Oh, it's all fake. I worked so hard because, you know, I knew I was gonna have to show these young guys what it's like to be a tough old cowboy. And you can't fake it. So Scott St. John, who's a dear friend of mine who's a trainer for all kinds of people, I said, I need you to get me in shape. He goes, okay, I'm gonna whoop your butt. And he started just crushing me. 6:00am every morning.

[Mike Rowe]

What was the routine like?

[Neal McDonough]

It was non stop for an hour straight of dumbbells, push ups, planks, weights, squats, running, everything.

[Mike Rowe]

Did you lose weight or did you put any on?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, I lost a bunch of weight. I just, you know, I was. I was a character actor guy. You know, I could carry around 15, 20 pounds extra. No one would care because I wasn't, you know, I'm a character actor. I look at myself on, you know, on, you know, years back, I think, yeah, Years back when I was just. Just when I Captain America, I gained about 35 pounds, 40 pounds of weight to be Dumb. Dumb Dugan. And I. I couldn't get it off. It was so hard to get off. And then Scott started working me, and then about a week into. And goes, I need you to try this thing. This is a new product that, that we're starting to build, and I think you might like it. It's protein powder. Like, I. Greg and I start taking. And all of a sudden I just feel. Everything just starts. My. My hips feel better, my joints felt better. You know, I have, like, from all the fights in hockey and all the kind of.

[Mike Rowe]

My.

[Neal McDonough]

My fingers always hurt. My fingers felt better. And I started taking it every day, and it just started to change everything. And, you know, are you taking steroids? You're taking hgh? I'm like, no, I'm just taking this protein powder called Flip. Flip My Life.

[Mike Rowe]

Flip My Life. I'm going to write that down. My life needs to be flipped.

[Neal McDonough]

So then I said, I want to be part of this company because I believe in this so much. Let's go out and sell this to people. Because it has probiotics, prebiotics, all the antioxidants, super greens, proteins, multivitamin. I mean, it has everything we'd want in a protein powder. And so now we're selling, like, we're sold out. Every time we start a new order, it's gone within days. And I have people coming up to me, like, on the set of Tulsa, King Stallone's Stand In. Chad, who's just this yoked guy. I mean, just yoked.

[Mike Rowe]

You'd have to be my age.

[Neal McDonough]

He's, you know, he's. But he's just so huge. And I went to the set last week and he goes, neil. And he's just changed. He's like, rip shredded now. I'm like, what did you do? And he goes, I owe it all to Flip My Life. Like, what? Because I've been taking two shakes every day, replacement meals, and it just cut everything out. And now I'm so. I get letters and emails and texts from people all over the place about Flip My Life. This isn't supposed to be a Flip My Life ad. It is now, but I'm telling you, Mike, it works. And I had a. What did I have for breakfast today? Flip My Life shake. What will I have for late in the afternoon? Another Flip Shake. And it's collagen, powdered. It's all kinds of stuff like that. But it's Anyway, I love it.

[Mike Rowe]

Look, man, this is. It's not a commercial because it's a means to an end. And there's the whole health industry and everybody's got a version of something. But when you have to do this in service of something else, a character, a performance, a movie, it takes on a level of practicality. I think that's not. I mean, I guess everything is vanity in the end, but you've got to do this.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah, this isn't vanity. This is my job. I need to look like that Clint Eastwood guy. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to really take what Clint Eastwood did with Malpasso and Warner Brothers is what we're trying to do with the McDonough Company and Angel.

[Mike Rowe]

For the last 15 years, my friends over at American Giant have been competing for your business on an uneven playing field. That's the reality of making quality clothing in this country today. The deck is stacked against you. The rules and regulations and compliance issues are much more stringent in the United States than they are overseas. And that makes it really hard to compete with companies who source their products elsewhere. Nevertheless, for 15 years, American giant has delivered on their pledge to make high quality American clothing spun from American cotton, crafted by American workers who live in the American towns where American Giant decided to build their factories and invest their resources. Today, they're not just cranking out quality sweatshirts and tees and jeans and all the other essentials. They're creating jobs in this country, reinvigorating towns in this country, and proving that it's still possible to make quality goods at a fair price in these United States. Look, you're either impressed by that or you're not. If you are, and if you likewise believe we shouldn't depend on other countries to grow our food and mine our energy and provide our timber and manufacture our medicine or make our clothes. Go to american-giant.com mike and buy something awesome. Use code mike to get 20% off your order. That's american-giant.com Mike. American Giant. American Made. American Giant, American made. Wow. Because I'll tell you what it reminded me of a little bit, and I mean it as a compliment, but remember Silverado?

[Neal McDonough]

Of course.

[Mike Rowe]

It was Scott Glenn.

[Neal McDonough]

Yep.

[Mike Rowe]

Remember the scene in Silverado when he's down for the count and they took the boy, right? And you see him, you just. In his eyes and in his face, you. You see him simply take his body and whatever pain he's got. Cracked ribs. He's. He's not getting up again.

[Neal McDonough]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Except he does.

[Neal McDonough]

Except he does.

[Mike Rowe]

So you've got Scott Glenn. Yeah. Because he's Scott fricking Glenn.

[Neal McDonough]

One of the, one of the most underrated greatest actors in the history of Hollywood.

[Mike Rowe]

Isn't that the truth?

[Neal McDonough]

Urban cowboy, that, that mesh vesty thing that he has with just shredded through it.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

That takes work.

[Mike Rowe]

And absolutely. Though he. And the sweetest human being, he exuded cowboy ness.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

And I don't know what his background is, but. What'd you think of White Lotus?

[Neal McDonough]

I still haven't seen it.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, my God.

[Neal McDonough]

I don't watch anything. If we got five kids, it's, I'm coaching the kids in their sports or I'm going to their games or going to their plays or going to their ballet with Reve. So it's. So it's, it's driving all over the place. So the only thing that we get to see is, you know, the only thing I really watch is ESPN or golf stuff because our son's off at University of San Francisco as a D1 golfer. He just loves his golf.

[Mike Rowe]

So how about that Masters?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, gosh, was it the greatest? You couldn't write that.

[Mike Rowe]

Nope.

[Neal McDonough]

Down, he's up. Then he's down two strokes in the first hole. Gets up again, then he's down his stroke. 18th hole, plunks one in the sand, misses a six foot putt, goes to the sudden death and wins it on just a miraculous shot after Rose put on a perfect shot 12ft from the pin. This is, you know, this.

[Mike Rowe]

So you saw it?

[Neal McDonough]

It was. No, I didn't see it. But that's all I watch. I love, I love watching sports. To me is like, and now with rodeo, now we're part owners of the Austin Gamblers. And then we announced it this weekend up in Boise.

[Mike Rowe]

Which is going to be one of the gamblers. Exactly.

[Neal McDonough]

So team rodeo is the new big thing. I think it's 10 teams. Austin has a team. There's another Texas team, North Carolina, Kansas City, there's a bunch of teams and it's pretty awesome. And when we were doing we're in Madison Square Garden for the opening night of the season back a new year, basically, 20,000 New Yorkers with cowboy hats on. It was unbelievable. Then we played the trailer and I got on the microphone and started talking about the movie. And then this great guy, Egon Durbin, who's Silver Lake investments and TKO and endeavor and all these things, said we'd love for you and Reve to be part of the Austin Gamblers family. Oh, that's so. I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking about it because I'm going to announce it this weekend, but.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, don't worry. This will never air.

[Neal McDonough]

We have immersed ourselves in the world of rodeo, and we're just so blessed by it. And you know what other event starts.

[Mike Rowe]

With a prayer, followed by the national.

[Neal McDonough]

Anthem, followed by the national anthem and.

[Mike Rowe]

The color, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a brief recitation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

No, they're not subtle. And I think. I think people really need to understand when you say it's a world. That's what it is. Chuck, if you have a chance, can you find my misadventure, My great rodeo misadventure?

[Neal McDonough]

Yes.

[Mike Rowe]

I just want Neil to. To see this because I. I've been around it a bunch and there's really no way to. To describe it to people. It like. You're a hockey fan, right? I used to watch hockey, but it wasn't until I went to a game. Right. That does not translate on tv.

[Neal McDonough]

That's the one sport that doesn't translate on tv.

[Mike Rowe]

Chuck's a maniac. I mean, kings all over him and. Yeah. When you sit on the blue line, you experience it different. Rodeo's similar.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Like when you can smell the animals and you're packed in there with people and it's so real and it's so visceral, and the stakes, man, the consequences.

[Neal McDonough]

They'Re not guaranteed anything. No, they're guaranteed they're going to get busted up. They're guaranteed. There's a chance that they might get really maimed. And they keep coming back. Are you okay? You can write down? Yeah, I just got four broken rims. I'm good. My femur is just out of place. It's just a little cracked, but I'm good.

[Mike Rowe]

How much time did you spend on an actual bull?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, they wouldn't let me get on other than in a pen. They wouldn't let me out there, so they had me on the mechanical bulls.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

A ton. A ton.

[Mike Rowe]

Because I'm circling back to flip my life. Because you've got to get in shape. And you mentioned Rocky. And there's a fun montage in this thing, too, where in the course of, like, one day, you get amazingly fit.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

By punching the head.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. It was so much fun. That was fun. And I told Stallone, I was like, this is my homage to you, you know, And I had I showed it to him and he was, he was really tickled by it. But it was, you know, buddy Joe Hooker, who is one of the greatest stunt coordinators of all time, beat me up. He worked me hard between him and Scott St. John. And you know, right around the corner from our house is the Canyon Club and they have a mechanical bull in there. And we would go in there and just train on the mechanical bull and just let it rip, dude.

[Mike Rowe]

It's very humbling, isn't it?

[Neal McDonough]

It's so humbling. It is. Especially when you have someone on the controls who really wants to give it to you. It's just so. But imagine getting in the back of a 1500, 2000 pound beast that wants to kill you. Yeah, that's what it is.

[Mike Rowe]

Who wants you off his back so badly? Stat.

[Neal McDonough]

Stat. Exactly.

[Mike Rowe]

I watched people on mechanical bull. It's one of those things where you look at it and you go, you know what? I can do that.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah, well, you can't. You can't.

[Mike Rowe]

You might be able to get there, but it's going to take a whole different. Like you've got to get into an almost a gumby frame. Like you got to be loose and tight at the same time.

[Neal McDonough]

My trainer on the, when we were doing all the mechanical work, Kyle Sherwood, who was a three time world champion, really taught me all the things that you really, I mean, we just went through it over and over. The ropes, the knees, the hands, the bed where you. Everything for quite some time. And what I didn't want is I didn't want any bull rider to think, yeah, yeah. So I worked really hard to make sure I didn't. And it shows. And I got busted up. There's one shot in the film, I'm not sure if that was the other one, but I came off of the bull one time and I landed right on my shoulder. And I didn't tell John Avnet, the director, and my shoulder just popped right out and I said, excuse me, I just gotta go to the bathroom. And I walked around the corner of this old barn when no one was looking, I just slammed my shoulder back in. All right. Walked back out and said, let's do it again. And Kyle Sherwood knew exactly what happened. And he just grinned at me. All right, cowboy, let's do it again. And that was the greatest compliment I could have ever had.

[Mike Rowe]

So I did a segment with, with bullfighters and they put me out there. But I'm probably in the worst shape of my life. There's no flip. My life in this thing. Okay, this is probably six, seven years ago.

[Neal McDonough]

I can't seem to make it play. I don't know what I'm doing wrong here.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you know, there we go.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, there we go. Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

But if you scrub forward, I think it's the first break. There's just a moment. There was one rule, and the rule was don't run from it.

[Neal McDonough]

Don't run straight.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. And if you do. Yeah, definitely don't run straight. And it was so humbling because all you really want to do is get away from this thing. But these guys run up and they touch it. I think if you put their. Like, later when we examine their brains, they're not gonna look like other people's brains.

[Neal McDonough]

Bull riders are just a different breed of man. They're just. There it is right there. But the bullfighters are even. They're crazy. They're just. It's. And I think we really nailed it with Michael T. Williamson and his character Charlie being a bull rider, then going to become a bullfighter because of his hand.

[Mike Rowe]

He's terrific, by the way.

[Neal McDonough]

He's so good.

[Mike Rowe]

Wasn't he in Forrest Gump?

[Neal McDonough]

Yep. Bubba Gump.

[Mike Rowe]

He was Bubba Gump.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. T. And I have been buddies for such a long time that when Derek and I were writing it, you know, Derek had a picture of Michael T. Right on his computer and a picture of Chris Surfer McDonald right next to it. And he knew what I wanted, and we built it to so those guys could have great parts to play with. And. Oh, no, that's the shot right there.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, and that's. That's how we go to break. It actually even gets a little closer. The horn.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Very, very close.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, the horn missed my sphincter by.

[Neal McDonough]

That's inches.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. And so, yeah, you look back at those, you know, like, this is not the way I want to go out, but it's the longest eight seconds in the world.

[Neal McDonough]

It is.

[Mike Rowe]

And I just. Shame on me for not knowing his name, but a guy just died.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah. Dylan Grant. Dylan. You know, this is a kid who was. You know, I think, you know, he was on his team and was in. Was it. What school did he go to? Was it Wisconsin? He was in the Bloor, but He was at 24 years old. And it just. You know, and I left a message for his folks saying, you know, you know, I look back at some people in their lives, like, Reggie Lewis was the captain of the Celtics back when. Way back when he died on the basketball court.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

I hope that I die on stage. You know, that Dylan got to. When he died, he died doing something he absolutely loved doing. Everyone knows the consequences of it, but that's what he loved most. People go through life never finding something that they love to do. I was so blessed at a young age to find that I knew I was. It was a God given talent that I was a really good actor. Doesn't make me special. Doesn't. It's just I found out what one of my talents were.

[Mike Rowe]

Those were the cards you got.

[Neal McDonough]

That's it. And I played them and I've played them pretty well. And here I am now with 150 movies and 1000 hours of television and this and that, and all culminating into the moment that's about to happen. The last rodeo. I finally get to write and produce and alongside my best friend, my wife, Reve, and.

[Mike Rowe]

And play a character that actually espouses.

[Neal McDonough]

The virtues I play my dad that you care about. Yeah. You know, my dad, like we talked about before, my dad came over from Ireland with 12 bucks in his pocket, said, make me an American, and they shipped him overseas for five years. But he came back, you know, from the army as this guy who was so proud to be an American, so, so, so proud, and instilled those values into all of us in the family. And now it's my job that I get to write about it and instill those values into films so everyone can watch and realize, okay, America is the greatest country of all time. Do we have problems? Sure, everything has problems, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

[Mike Rowe]

Is there a sport more than rodeo that espouses that? I mean, NASCAR certainly is pretty patriotic.

[Neal McDonough]

Baseball, to me, has always been kind of the perfect game. It's generational. You go there with your dad when you're a little boy and you're getting your Cracker Jacks and your Coke and your hot dog, you're sitting there, you're watching Carl Yastremsky playing left field. Those are memories that I will never forget. You know, sitting in the worst seats at Fenway park because we didn't have much money, with me and my brothers watching the Red Sox play in the 70s. It was magic Costner captured that.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, he got it in the natural.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Rowe]

Didn't he? That weird combination of nostalgia schmaltz.

[Neal McDonough]

When I talk to young actors, I use a clip from the Perfect Game, where he's on the mound as his last game for the Tigers and he's playing in Yankee Stadium. Chapel, you're a bum. You stink. Chapel, you can't do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you hear all the. Everyone at Yankee Stadium and the crowd and the pressure of being on a mound and having to throw strikes. And then Costner says, clear the mechanism. And then everything's silent. Nothing exists. Crowds don't exist. The cameraman doesn't exist in my business. The gaffer doesn't. No one exists. The only thing exists are you and I in a scene. That's all that exists. But I have to clear the mechanism to get to that spot. And once I clear that mechanism, it just flows out naturally. And that's. It's something that I just absolutely adore doing. I love being in front of a camera. In creating once, it's just me playing a character with another great actor or actress, and I've got to do it with some of the greats.

[Mike Rowe]

And so you have to clear the mechanism as an actor in the same way a great bull rider. It's a level of hyper focus.

[Neal McDonough]

That's exactly it. If you're gonna do anything great in life, you can't really. And I tell all my kids, I said, you can't care what somebody else thinks of you. And when I first came out to Hollywood, I was like, okay, I gotta darken my hair. I gotta do this. I gotta. And then as soon as I did Band of Brothers, when I stopped darkening my hair and just let my whiteness be what it is, all of a sudden everyone's like, ooh, who's that guy?

[Mike Rowe]

His eyes are so blue.

[Neal McDonough]

He's so piercing. And then all of a sudden, my career just went on a whole different trajectory. And once you're your unique self in life, God gave you what you have. Use it to the best of your ability to give glory to him. And in my writing, in my being a dad, being a husband, you can't be perfect. We're all sinners. We all do stupid stuff every day. But if you're trying to be the best version of you for him, great things are there for you. Great things will happen to you. Here's a guy from Dorchester, Massachusetts, who didn't start with a whole lot, who's sitting here on the Mike Rowe show talking about my new film, the Last Rodeo, that I produced and wrote with my wife, Revee. What if you said that to me 50 years ago when I was a little kid, that this is where your life's going to be? I'd be like, dude, what are you talking about?

[Mike Rowe]

No, I'd say Who's Mike Rowe?

[Neal McDonough]

But that's why you are who you are. You know, that self deprecating guy that everyone loves to talk to or listen to because you're one of us. And when you're one of us, people like to listen to one of them.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, thank you. I feel like I'm adjacent to a bunch of stuff. Like I've been adjacent to those bull riders and I get a chance to pretend to and maybe be one. It's not acting, it's real. But I get close enough to know that I appreciate and understand what you're doing. It's not for me.

[Neal McDonough]

Right, right, exactly right.

[Mike Rowe]

But out of respect and maybe some genuine curiosity, I would like to have a go at it. Right, but somehow there's a difference between that and clearing the mechanism while you're on the back of a 2,000 pound animal who doesn't want you there. And then the stakes are mortal, right? I guess the stakes are always mortal. Sometimes there's always a horn an inch or two from your jewels and whatnot. But I want to understand better. There was a guy sitting right where you are now, a friend of ours, Matt Hagen. He drives funny cars faster than anybody. Chuck. 0 to 3, 20.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh. In less than four seconds.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, right now that's more G's than, you know, liftoff, space shuttle, any of it. 0 to 320 miles an hour in three and a half seconds. So Matt Hagan has to clear the mechanism.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, for sure. As a parent you have to clear the mechanism. You can't worry about what other people think. As a husband, you can't in anything. It's. If I play to my audience, it's why I don't have social media. That's why I don't read reviews. That's why I don't watch any of my stuff unless I have to. Revea and I will go to a premiere of one of our films. Do the red carpet. Hey everybody, how you doing? Walk into the theater, straight to the toilet, go out the exit, have a nice meal across the street, see you at the after party. What did you think of the film? Oh, it was wonderful. It was a great movie. It was great. It was great. I just don't like watching my stuff because I think it would just confuse me a little bit and I like to. Plus I don't want to take from one character. If I read, hey, McDonough was really great when he did this thing. Well then I'm gonna start doing that thing. Probably that's gonna be part of my next character. I don't want that. I want all my characters to be fresh. They all kind of look the same, but they have different intent in all the characters.

[Mike Rowe]

But no dailies? No. Like, you don't look at anything along the way?

[Neal McDonough]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Mike Rowe]

Why?

[Neal McDonough]

Why would I? I know that God gave me a talent, so I know that I'm gonna be good at what I do.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I mean, I guess maybe the corollary would be if you're, you know, you just got thrown off the bull and you're keen to not have that happen again, but you're going to get back on the bull. Is there something to learn? SkillsUSA is the number one workforce development organization for students in America and our best hope at reinvigorating the skilled trades. They were founded 60 years ago, and today SkillsUSA has 442,000. And now they're on a mission to double their membership. I want to help them get there. Look, I know I'm a broken record on this, but the skills gap in our country is real, and SkillsUSA is our best hope at closing it. They not only teach the trades, they teach soft skills as well. Work ethic, personal responsibility, delayed gratification. Most of all, leadership. All the qualities we desperately hope this generation will embrace. This year's national Competition is happening June 23rd through the 27th in Atlanta. 18,000 people are going to be there, including me. I'll be on stage doing what I can to whip these kids into a frenzy. 6,800 students will be competing in dozens of skilled vocations. This is the largest showcase of skilled talent in the world. 114 categories of skilled vocations. 3D animation, welding, plumbing, electric, robotics. All of it. Here's the point. We all need SkillsUSA to succeed in their attempt to get to a million members. You can help. Go to skillsusa.org Mike get acquainted with who they are and what they do. Then get involved, partner, volunteer. Start a chapter at your school. The infrastructure is already there, and you really can make a [e-mail] Mike that's skillsusa.com Mike I got thrown off the.

[Neal McDonough]

Bull 10, 12 years ago whenever it was with that show. Then I didn't work for two years and lost everything. I got thrown off that bull. That fricking hurt bad. Everything gone right. So what happened after that? I became hyper focused on my craft. Maybe I wasn't so hyper focused. Maybe God said, you know what? You're taking a little too cavalier approach to all this stuff. I need you to really dial it in for me. And I think that's what happened. And ever since then, all my characters, I don't care what it is. They're so. I'm so hyper focused on my performance because it's not so much I want to let the audience down. I don't want to let him down. I want to make sure that he's given me great things in my life. And some horrible things have happened to me in my life, but those are blessings.

[Mike Rowe]

Do you feel a greater responsibility as the writer and the producer than just playing a part? Like, I mean, Band of Brothers, you didn't write, you didn't produce, you played a part. But the impact of that thing and the impact of your performance on a lot of people, including your kids, as I recall, it's huge.

[Neal McDonough]

So Ben Brothers was huge. Yeah, it was massive. It's different. It's when you're Clint Eastwood, years ago, about 10 years ago, said, you got to stop being a gun for hire. You got to start creating your own stuff. I'm like, I got a great career. Why do I want to do this? And then that thing happened, and it made me think, okay, how do I dig deeper and stop being a gun for hire and actually create content that gives glory to him?

[Mike Rowe]

Explain the thing again, just so people understand.

[Neal McDonough]

I wouldn't kiss a woman on screen, and they fired me from the show, and everyone thought I was this kind of religious zealot nutbag. And I was like, guys, I just love my wife. And I just don't, you know, I don't mind killing people on screen. I don't mind doing certain things. That's all fake. I've killed millions of people on screen, when you think about it. But it's all fake. But if I'm, you know, kissing a woman, that's not fake. You're actually physically kissing. I just didn't. Reve didn't have any problem with it. It was really me that. I just didn't want to put her or the kids through it. It was just. I don't know. I'm just odd that way, I think. And finally I get. Finally I get to do it with Rivet, which is kind of amazing in itself. Sorry, I lost my thought. I'm just thinking about kissing Reve on screen.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, you know what? I kind of lost my thought, too.

[Neal McDonough]

But no, I know where. So it's. Now that I'm creating. We're creating. It's almost a sense of freedom that the pressure's off. I was invited to the Dance. And I can dance however I want to dance, as long as it's a dance that pleases him.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm curious about the circumstances whereby Clint Eastwood gave you this advice. What preceded that, what facilitated that experience?

[Neal McDonough]

We did a movie called Flags of Our Fathers. And there was one scene in Flags of Our Fathers, which is this two page monologue of how we have to do our job to take out Tinney and Saipei, Iwo Jima, all these things. And we were on this aircraft carrier out in San Pedro and they were gonna go out all day and then come back at the end of the day. And that was gonna be the scene. Cause they figured it would take at least a day, maybe two days ahead in the schedule for the scene. Reve would wake me up at 3 o' clock in the morning, go, and I would give the speech. She would plaster it on the refrigerator, she would plaster it on the toilet, she would plaster it on the car, she would plaster my monologues everywhere. So by the time we got there, there's 600 extras, 200 crew, you know, NBC, CBI, other people on the. There's a thousand people on the ship staring at me about to do my scene, which of course I cleared the mechanism and just.

[Mike Rowe]

You crushed it.

[Neal McDonough]

Crushed it. So I do the first take and he's like, all right, that was perfect. Move the sticks in. We move the sticks in cameras, four or five cameras at the time. Next one, crushed it again. Let's move the sticks. And now Eastwood, he's like giggling to himself. And we get close, then finally the close up. And within three hours we did the scene. He's like, turn the ship around. Let's go back to the shore and get steak and lobster tails. And that's when he took me aside and he goes, you're too good just to be a gun for hire. You got to figure out how to really kind of propel yourself. And since then, all I've wanted to do is be like Malpasso. I wanted to, and I never. Back then I was like, well, I'm not sure how I'm going to ever do that. Who's ever going to give me the opportunity to write a script? And I'd written scripts, but I wasn't sure I was going to. Because everyone wants you. If you're an actor, you're going to be an actor. If you're a writer, you're going to be a writer. You can't be. There's no hyphenates. You're not supposed to be a Hyphenate, Right. In Hollywood. And all of a sudden I'm a hyphenate. And I get to write stories that I want to watch and stories that give glory to him at the same time. Mike, I'm the luckiest SOB that I know.

[Mike Rowe]

You really are, man. It's kind of annoying if I'm being honest, you know, to have that, you know. Does it scare you? A little bit.

[Neal McDonough]

I feel a lot of weight right now.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

Because again, I see the trailers for the last rodeo playing in front of King of Kings, which did $20 million opening weekend. Holy smokes.

[Mike Rowe]

It was a biggie.

[Neal McDonough]

Go Angel. And that trailer played on every one of those screenings. And getting calls from everyone saying, movie looks so great. This is gonna be awesome. It's gonna be big. I'm like, oh my goodness. That's the, you know, the weight of that. At the same time, it's just awesome. I know it's gonna do great in the box office. I know America's gonna eat it up with a shovel. It's, it's that story. If you're a rodeo fan, you're gonna love this. If you have a father daughter relationship that is, has little problems with it. I think the people who are going to love this film more than anybody are going to be 30 year old girls who have a problem with their dad and kid. That's the one who's going to go to the theater and cry their faces off.

[Mike Rowe]

This movie. It's not about the rodeo any more than Rocky was about boxing.

[Neal McDonough]

No. It's about family.

[Mike Rowe]

That's right. Right. But it sure as heck helps to have a 2,000 pound bull reminding everybody around that there might be another star of the show.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

You know, and my name's Ring of Fire.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. Oh, good. Remember, he's like, I watch, he's good.

[Mike Rowe]

I watch.

[Neal McDonough]

He's good.

[Mike Rowe]

No, it's. I.

[Neal McDonough]

But that's life. It's when you make films that talk about real issues in life. And look, most of the films that I've been in are, you know, I'm the villain. It talks about crazy stuff and maniacal nutty things and I'm guilty of it. But I had to make a living. I got five kids and a fantastic wife and I want to enjoy our lives.

[Mike Rowe]

So.

[Neal McDonough]

So I had to do those things. But now I've been given the opportunity to write films for the heartland of America. How blessed am I to be able to say that. And people are going out to the theaters to watch These films. Schiff did crazy numbers. The Homestead crazy. I can't imagine what the Last Rodeo is going to do. But more importantly than the numbers that it's going to do, I'm so stinking proud of doing a movie like this, knowing that we worked so hard on it, that John Avnett directed maybe his best direction of all time. And it's a film that talks about American families. That's what I'm just so proud of.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, Angel's building a brand. You have a brand. But I would say that, you know, your brand isn't a composite or an amalgam of the characters that you've played. It's a composite of the films that you've been in. And there is no hero without a villain.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. And I was gonna be the best darn villain. That was my goal.

[Mike Rowe]

All you did was elevate everybody around you all of the time. That's all you did.

[Neal McDonough]

Thank you.

[Mike Rowe]

Right. So I guess, you know, the pressure I'm curious about is like, is there less pressure to be a great bad guy than a great good guy?

[Neal McDonough]

Being a great bad guy is a lot easier because you can basically do anything you want, as big as you want, as long as you believe it. You can really do anything as long as you believe you're the villain. And I loved finding situations where I would create villainy or create hysterical humor at the time that I wasn't supposed to like. I'll take the script and it says, he says he thinks this now, or he with. With a frown on his face or with a grimace. And I scratch all that stuff out. And then I'll go back and I'll write it all out longhand myself without any punctuation marks, and just kind of. Just kind of let it sit and seep into my psyche. And then all of a sudden, I get on set and I have that clear the mechanism mindset. I don't really talk to anybody. I'm very cordial to everyone. Hey, everybody, how you doing? But the character is. I'm a method actor without having Reve taught me this. You gotta figure out how to be your method actor, but you gotta be able to get out of it, or else you're gonna be trapped in it. And then you'll drive you and everyone else crazy around you. And I'm really good at flipping that switch where, you know, Derek, my writing partner, does his impersonation of me where I'll be sitting on the phone, rolling cameras. Yeah, hold on one second. Yeah, honey, I love you. Yeah, Great. How did he do? Did he make the shot?

[Mike Rowe]

He did. Oh, that's awesome.

[Neal McDonough]

And. Oh, no. What's that? What's it cut? So how was it? You know, it's so I can get in and out of my real world, which I adore, and my fantasy world with my characters, which I also adore. But it's just.

[Mike Rowe]

You can do it quick.

[Neal McDonough]

I can do it. So it's frighteningly fast. However, I can't do that with good guys. When I played Buck Compton and Band of Brothers, it took years. I can't watch. I can't listen to the Dan. And I start crying. I can't because it's so emotional. Or. If I look back at. One of my favorite projects I ever did was called Tin man, where I played Wyatt Kane, the tin man in wizard of Ozone for the Sci Fi Channel. But he carried his heart in his sleeve. This tough guy was hardness sleeve. Or when I want. You know, now that I have to watch the last rodeo, I can't watch it without bawling every 30 seconds. And Reve's like, stop. Yeah, because, you know, it's. When you play the good guy, you're really dredging up who you are in the reality of a situation. When you're a villain, this is all fantasy world. So you're not really dredging up your psyche. When I'm dredging up, okay, my daughter is having problems. Okay, what problems do my daughters have? Oh, gosh, that hurts. Roll cameras. It's psychotherapy without asking for it. And how you deal with it thereafter is really testing on actors. Because if you really go to that spot of pure pain and torture that you go through in life and then let that manifest into your body and bring it out into a different character in front of a camera, it's heartbreaking. And at the end of the day, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. And at the same time, it's such a gift from God that I get to jump into my soul, pimples and all, and put it all out for everyone to look at.

[Mike Rowe]

I've never heard pimples and all. I've heard warts and all.

[Neal McDonough]

That's a revet term.

[Mike Rowe]

You made it a pimple.

[Neal McDonough]

Pimples at all.

[Mike Rowe]

You had to make it a pus filled.

[Neal McDonough]

Maybe it's a South African thing, carbuncle.

[Mike Rowe]

Kind of a thing. It goes the other way, too. I've read a lot and had a little bit of experience about, you know, an actor assumes a character and maybe holds onto it Too tight for too long. You know, a method out of control is a psychosis. Sheridan, you know. Yeah. I want to hear more about him. I'm so interested in what he's built. It's an empire. But he seems to have taken so much of what he really lives and what he really knows. Tell me the story about that. You mentioned it earlier.

[Neal McDonough]

It was on first day on set. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's backtrack a little bit. Taylor Sheridan is.

[Mike Rowe]

Yellowstone, right?

[Neal McDonough]

Yellowstone, yeah. Taylor Sheridan is, at the heart of it, an actor. And the acting wasn't going the way he wanted it to go, so he dug deep and stopped being a gun for hire and started writing his own stuff. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it?

[Mike Rowe]

Cleared the mechanism.

[Neal McDonough]

I owe so much to Taylor Sheridan, and we've only been in front of each other once. And the first time I saw him was the first day on set. And there we were at the Yellowstone house. Magnificent. I mean, it's just breathtaking. And Kevin comes up to me, we start talking. We did the Guardian together before. And so during our lunch breaks, we would take batting practice at lsu. And just because we're both college ball players and just hitting balls and talking about life and we had just this great friendship that we started. And then here I am back in Yellowstone. We were just so tickled to be back together again and having a great conversation. All of a sudden, here comes this dude busting up on a horse. Breakneck speed, stops on a dime. Neil Taylor Sheridan, welcome to the show. We're so excited. And all of a sudden, this herd of elk a couple hundred yards away. Beautiful. He says, hold on one second. He turns and beelines it straight at the helk and herds them back off into the woods, hundreds of yards away. And we're just staring at this guy. It's like, who is this guy? Beelines it comes right back and goes, I'm so excited to have you on the show. And here's what we're gonna do with the character. Who is this guy? And, you know, it's. And he just takes.

[Mike Rowe]

He's the guy who wrote what he knew.

[Neal McDonough]

He understands it. You know, from Wind river to everything on to, you know, now I'm on Tulsa, King and the time I had in Yellowstone. And everything that he does works. And he knows that he doesn't do it for anybody else. He does it because he knows it's in him and it's unique and it's just him.

[Mike Rowe]

Wind river was a hell of a script.

[Neal McDonough]

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. And for him to Talk about the heartland of America, to talk about Native Americans, to talk about the problems that they've had and how the white guy hasn't been the greatest of all time. He talks about it where no one else has talked about it. It's awesome. And I love that about Taylor, that he really gives history lessons in his shows. This is what we've done wrong to America, but this is how we can build America up great. Again. Stick to the family, Stick to the core values of what America was built upon, and let's go write a show about it.

[Mike Rowe]

Do you see any kind of parallel at all between what he's been able to accomplish with Paramount as a studio? And obviously with an eye on the bottom line, in the mercenary position, they understand where their bread's getting buttered. But the idea of getting that kind of partnership forged around talent, around writing, around producing, around distribution, I mean, I can imagine you and angel carving out something similar.

[Neal McDonough]

Taylor, when Paramount said, okay, we love this pilot. This is testing higher than anything we could ever have possibly imagined. What's each episode going to cost? And he says, there is no number. I will spend as much as I want to spend.

[Mike Rowe]

What?

[Neal McDonough]

I'm sorry, what was that again? And he got away with it. And in all of his shows, he has carte blanche to do really what he wants because everyone knows it's gonna be great. He doesn't gaffe people. That's not what he does. But he doesn't want to have any kind of budgetary restraints to get in the way of his storytelling.

[Mike Rowe]

It's not gonna work backwards from a number.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. You know, Clint Eastwood was kind of the same thing. Clint Eastwood was like, okay, Warners, I've got this script. You're not gonna read it? I'm not gonna tell anything about it, but I need this much money. Mm. Okay. And I won't see you again until the premiere, right? Yes, Mr. Eastwood. This is what Taylor Sheridan's doing. So with Reve and I at angel, you know, again, we started out together, and here's the budget. Go make the best that you can. And they never breathed down our necks. They were hardly ever there when we did the last rodeo. They knew that we were going to work hard and make something great. So there's a trust that angel has with the McDonough company that we're going to deliver. And, you know, I've been saying to Reve, I don't think if we do this correctly, we'll never have to work for anyone else ever again. We'll just be able to keep creating our own content that we know is good. And we have a distribution company that believes wholeheartedly that we're going to give them good stuff. And the great thing about angel is, like you said, it goes on the Guild. You know, last year there was 200,000 members in the guild. We just passed a million members. And by this time next year, there'll be 2 million. So all those people vote, and if it gets 85, 90%, then it goes to the theaters. If it doesn't, it doesn't. So if we ever turn in something that doesn't get to that level, well, we know we have to work harder. But so far our numbers have been astronomical.

[Mike Rowe]

It's the mother of all focus groups.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah, it really is. And they're very smart about it.

[Mike Rowe]

Shameless Plug. So there's an organization I know in Colorado called tact, teaching the autism community trades. I've known about them for a few years. In fact, we featured them on an episode of Returning the Favor, and now we've visited them again on the current episode of People youe Should Know, which you can watch over on my YouTube channel. It's an incredible story. I don't know if you saw this study came out week or two ago. Autism rates apparently are up 175%. A lot of controversy around this claim. Some people think it has to do with the way it's being diagnosed. Other people think it's, you know, an environmental thing. This story over on my YouTube page doesn't get into that. It just focuses on the incredible impact that TACT has had getting men and women placed in jobs who are part of the whole neurodivergent community. The success rate's incredible. This episode is really fun. The people that we meet intact are just so cool. And telling their stories has really been a privilege. You can check it out. It's the second episode of People youe Should Know. It's on my YouTube channel, the Real Mike Rowe. Or just Google Mike Rowe. Tact YouTube. You'll find it and you'll love it, I promise. All right, thanks, Tulsa Kings. How much fun is that? You're coming back as. Is that a spoiler alert? No.

[Neal McDonough]

So at the end of last season, I wasn't sure if I was going to come back or not. I had the best time with Sylvester Stallone. I mean, I just had. We would talk about life, talk about Catholicism, talk about.

[Mike Rowe]

How weird is it to be in a scene with the guy.

[Neal McDonough]

Okay.

[Mike Rowe]

Who?

[Neal McDonough]

You? I'll tell you the first scene.

[Mike Rowe]

All right.

[Neal McDonough]

So the first scene, it's Stallone and myself going nose to nose. But the scene is written that he would have the advantage in the scene. My job is to be the best villain on the planet and to get under the other actor's skin. What I did to poor Tim Oliphant back in Justified was just.

[Mike Rowe]

We'll circle back.

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, my God.

[Mike Rowe]

Because I want to hear that, too.

[Neal McDonough]

But it was so good. Tim's on, but he's a beast. So the first scene we're doing, and Reveill's in Video Village with one of my best pals, Steve Mitchell and Greg Marsh, buddies I've known for 25 years.

[Mike Rowe]

This is a tent, by the way, that's set up maybe 25 yards from the action.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

And all the hotshots and the guests, they gather around and they stare at monitors and they have their headsets on so they can watch you being a villain.

[Neal McDonough]

So there's the first take, and the camera's on Sylvester to start with, which made me happy because I want his reaction for what I was about to do. So we're doing the scene and it's starting to groove, and it's starting to groove. Then all of a sudden, I get up in his grill and I start impersonating him in front of him in the scene. And I see the veins just every. I just look down, I see his hands ball up and he's got huge meat hooks. And I'm like, I got him, I got him, I got him. Oh, wait a second. That's Rocky. Isn't this cool? And then I have to snap back into it.

[Mike Rowe]

That's my.

[Neal McDonough]

You know. So it's like. It's so bizarre working with Sylvester Stallone because, you know, for me, he was my hero. He was the guy that, when I was a kid, you were banging out those push ups. You wanted to be like Rocky. And as I progressed in my career, I wanted to be like Sylvester Stallone. I wanted to be able to write my own stuff. I want to be able to produce my own stuff.

[Mike Rowe]

I wanted to be a bar brother. I mean, is there a more iconic figure in entertainment? No.

[Neal McDonough]

I mean, the guy is. He's so prepared. He is the professional's professional. If you just wrote Rocky, you are a massive hit. You did it. You did it. Congratulations, Rocky. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Creed. Then there is the Rambo franchise, then there's the Expendables franchise, And now it's 78 years old to write, basically. Most of Tulsa. King himself. I don't know anybody like that. I remember on that scene when I finally got in, I'm doing you, tough guy. And I go back to Video Village and there's Rave. She's like, you can't do that. You're gonna get fired. You can't do that. And Sly comes around the corner. He stands in the doorway and he just stares at me. I'm like, oh, no, I'm gonna get crushed here. And he walks over to me and gives it this big welcome to the show, Neil. You got balls. And from then on in, we became great friends. So at the end of the season, I wasn't sure if I was gonna come back or not, so I said I was with Reve. And she said, tell him it was with David Glasser. I'm like, yeah, just tell him I want to come back next year and I'll be the governor.

[Mike Rowe]

Okay, so David Glasser is the producer.

[Neal McDonough]

Taylor Sharon's partner in everything, right? Maybe the most prolific producer in the history of television. I mean, 10 or 11 shows he's got on, they bought the Triple Sixes or whatever, the big ranch, they've got restaurants. They're just killing it right now because he's so laser focused on. On excellence. And that's who David Glasser is. And we said. And he goes, it's a great idea. Didn't hear anything. Two months later, I get the call, you're back in Tulsa, King. Yes. Great, fantastic. Can't wait to get back there. Anything I need to know? And he goes, yeah, you're. You're the governor. I'm like, what?

[Mike Rowe]

So I, I just, I retrenched to my earlier question, how much fun are you having now?

[Neal McDonough]

So, you know, we did our first scene this last week and it was just great to see Sly again and hanging out and talking about me becoming the governor and how he's gonna, you know, it's because of him that. The power and how we're gonna build things together and how the corruption that's gonna unfold, it's just awesome. And I get to do it for Taylor Sheridan and Paramount and all these.

[Mike Rowe]

Great people, and you get to yank Sly Stallone's chain.

[Neal McDonough]

So good. So.

[Mike Rowe]

It's so annoying, dude, honestly, you know. Do you know Jack Carr?

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Have you worked with him?

[Neal McDonough]

No.

[Mike Rowe]

So I interviewed Jack a couple times. It's the same kind of thing. This guy had two basic wish fulfillments. To be a Navy SEAL and serve his country, and then to become a best selling author. Crushed it so 20 years in the seals. Okay.

[Neal McDonough]

Now I'm gonna write, was he over 20 years? Yeah, 20 years in the seals.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, he does it. He does it. And then he writes what he knows. And then Amazon starts making, and off he goes. So, you know, you run into a guy like that. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but you gotta be very careful. You say questions like, how's it going? He's like, they're liable to tell you.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

I'll tell you how it's going. Every takeover I wanted to do, I'm doing.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. Yep.

[Mike Rowe]

I'm genuinely happy for you. I'm even happier to hear about. I like to see the right relationships evolve. It doesn't happen a bunch. Especially you and me. Dude, this is. We're in a knife fight in a phone booth. This industry's just a hot mess.

[Neal McDonough]

But we like it.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, for whatever reason, we're keen to figure it out. I understand. Clear the mechanism. That will be the title of this episode, by the way, just so you know. And the closest I've got came from my mentor who we talk about a lot on this show. Chuck and I had a. Had a high school music teacher, guy called Fred King. And he was so much more than that. He was Mr. Holland. But again, it wasn't really about the music with him. It was about values and learning substance. Yeah. And his expression for that. He was all about. He was like, look, you don't want people to see your technique ever. You have to master your technique. I don't care if you're on the back of a bull or going toe to toe with Sly Stallone or singing Valkyrie from the Ring des Neibelungen. You must master it. And then you must hide it. And his shorthand for all that was what, not how. What? Not how. What are you doing? You can ask yourself that all day long and you'll be okay because the answer will be obvious. How you doing? Welcome to Crap in the Bed.

[Neal McDonough]

Right.

[Mike Rowe]

Mechanism's not clear.

[Neal McDonough]

That's pretty good.

[Mike Rowe]

I loved it. And there's so many times I thought about that.

[Neal McDonough]

Stealing that one.

[Mike Rowe]

Take it. Because, look, I just took yours for the title of this episode.

[Neal McDonough]

Thank you, Fred.

[Mike Rowe]

And there'll be no royalty or anything like that.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

There'll be no. There'll be no money.

[Neal McDonough]

There's a cup of coffee waiting.

[Mike Rowe]

There's a cup of tea, if you like. I'll throw a tea bag. I'm good at that. But I'LL never forget walking up the suspension cable on the Mackinaw Bridge, about 600ft up, you know, tying off on the stanchions, trying to figure out how to deal with the west cam, on the helicopter and host a show and not die. And in the back of my head, like a. Like a. Like a cone, like a Zen, just what, not how. What not how. What, not how.

[Neal McDonough]

Focus.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, it's hard. It's important.

[Neal McDonough]

It used to be harder in this business when I treated it like you were in a phone booth. And I fight. But once I gave over to the idea that I can't control, really, any of it. All I can control is my output. Like politics. I can't control politics. You know, I can vote for somebody, but I can't control politics. I can't control what they're going to do on Capitol Hill. I can't control all kinds of things.

[Mike Rowe]

Outcome. Can't control the outcome, but I can.

[Neal McDonough]

Control what I do. And when I'm at my best version of me, that's when I'm closest to him, and I get this feeling of. It's this purple feeling that I have, that knowing that I'm doing the right thing for him.

[Mike Rowe]

Purple.

[Neal McDonough]

Purple.

[Mike Rowe]

Walk me through that.

[Neal McDonough]

When I was a kid, I remember my mom tying my. She was about 3 years old, and I just couldn't get it right. And I miss that lady. And she. Man, I haven't thought of that in a while. And she tied my shoes, and all I could see was this purple aura. Everything was purple. And then when I met Reve years later, I hadn't seen purple. And then when I saw Reve, we went out on this date to get pizza. And while I was eating the pizza and I just looked at her, I just saw purple. And every once in a while, when something really amazing happens to me, I have this really warm feeling of purpleness. It's odd. I don't know what it is. I'm not sure if it's happened to anybody else out there in the world, but it happens. And I know when I'm doing something right, I get that feeling, that hunch, that, don't worry what everybody else thinks of you. You're unique. You're Neal McDonough. And there's never gonna be another one. There is never gonna be. There wasn't one in the past. There won't be one in the future. So what are you gonna do today with the present that he gave you? Hmm. I'm just gonna be the best I can be. And then all of a sudden you're swinging better. You don't put the pressure on yourself. You don't worry about the outcome. You just are in the moment. And when you're in that moment as a human being doing the right thing, searching for those purple moments, that's what life is supposed to be about. It isn't about movies. It isn't about tv. It isn't about box office. It isn't about anything. But it's really doing the right thing to make the world a better place. As corny as that sounds, it took me. Maybe it took me becoming sober 10 years ago to figure that out. Maybe it took me having so many kids and seeing the ups and downs of what it's like to be a kid. Maybe it took me being crucified when I didn't work for two years and they stole my house and cars and all those things. Maybe it took all those things to make me really appreciate that I'm the luckiest son of a bitch that I know.

[Mike Rowe]

Maybe.

[Neal McDonough]

Maybe.

[Mike Rowe]

I'd say somewhere between. Maybe indefinitely.

[Neal McDonough]

I don't like to think too much. If you went into our house, you would never know that I lived there. There isn't a movie poster. There isn't anything in there that would say, oh, an actor lives in this house. Oh, there's pictures of the kids everywhere. There's jerseys. You know, there's all kinds of stuff like that. But I don't think that I'm a movie star or a TV star or anything. I'm just a worker that does his job pretty darn well. That now I'm really grooving in it because I know that I'm giving glory to him in our work that we do. And not just as an actor, but as. As a dad, or giving back to our school, or giving back to sending messages to people who might need a little positive reinforcement or doing whatever I can do to make the world a better place while I'm here.

[Mike Rowe]

This is weird, but I heard my mom on a podcast the other day. She's a writer and she's about doing press because she's written another book. She's 87, out of control.

[Neal McDonough]

Awesome.

[Mike Rowe]

She told a story about how When I was 3 and 4, I used to greet my dad at the door when he came home with a purple shirt. He had one purple shirt, and I made him put it on whenever he came home. I have no idea why. There's a condition. I don't think I have it, but you might see if you can find it. Chuck it's the. It has to do with. With translating colors into not quite emotions. It's something more than that. It's a way to really experience a whole different level of feelings through color. It's an absolute condition and the people who have it tell the most extraordinary stories. I didn't know that about you at.

[Neal McDonough]

All, but that's the first time I've ever mentioned it in my life to anybody.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, it's. It's.

[Neal McDonough]

Other than reve.

[Mike Rowe]

It's the color of kings as well.

[Neal McDonough]

This is very true. This is very true.

[Mike Rowe]

What do you got, Chuck?

[Neal McDonough]

Color psychology explores how colors affect human emotions, moods and behaviors.

[Mike Rowe]

It's a universe. It's deeper than that. It's almost unpronounceable. It's like a long word.

[Neal McDonough]

I'll just google that.

[Mike Rowe]

That has.

[Neal McDonough]

I'll just Google unpronounceable.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, I mean, look, this is life trying to figure out how to pronounce a thing, trying to connect dots, trying to make sense out of a 2,000 pound animal that wants you dead and then hopping on it and then doing all that in the context of a movie. I just love how you've got your feet in different worlds. Well, you know. But are still a congruent, sane grown man. But the big head that looks good in a hat and wears a lot of denim that you don't really own.

[Neal McDonough]

Reve makes fun of me that, you know, I don't really have a whole lot of friends. You know, I'm. I love my wife so much. I love my kids so much. And there's.

[Mike Rowe]

Well, you've mentioned her 30 times.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

In this conversation. It's not lost on people who are listening.

[Neal McDonough]

I love my brother Bob. And they're, you know, there's.

[Mike Rowe]

But not as much.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

Not as.

[Neal McDonough]

Not Bob. Not as much.

[Mike Rowe]

Bob, you're not even in there.

[Neal McDonough]

He's okay. Yeah.

[Mike Rowe]

Plus he's a palindrome. Bob, forward, backwards. What do you say?

[Neal McDonough]

He says hello. By the way, I told him I was going on your show and goes, oh my gosh, that's awesome. Tell him I said hello. Sorry, Bob, I just butchered your accent. But it's. I think I got it because I can't pronounce it. Synesthesia. It's synesthia. Yeah, sounds like I'm lisping.

[Mike Rowe]

Read the definition.

[Neal McDonough]

Is a neurological phenomenon where stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in another sensory or cognitive pathway. For example, a person might see colors when listening to music or taste Words.

[Mike Rowe]

Yes. You taste words and you hear color. So it's a conflation of the senses. That's what it is.

[Neal McDonough]

Wow. So then here I just thought I was just this weird dude.

[Mike Rowe]

You, like, had to think for purple.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

No, it's not that at all.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right.

[Mike Rowe]

You. You have a serious mental illness.

[Neal McDonough]

I am an actor.

[Mike Rowe]

You are an actor. I can't get enough of the Irish thing, man. I mean, give me more of your.

[Neal McDonough]

I missed that part. It's funny, the two things. I've never really. I played Whitey Bulger on stage last year. Oh, yeah. In Boston, which was just. I've never really. I've never filmed in Boston. I've never played a guy with a Boston accent, nor have I played, you know, shot a film in Ireland, which I'm a citizen of that amazing country, thanks to my parents. But Whitey Bulger was. That was a deep dive. That was a. And we did it at the Wilbur Theater, which is one of, if not the oldest theater in America. Brando did his first Waterfront there. And, you know, so many people have been on stage. And to get on stage in front of a packed house, in front of all my buddies from Barnstable High School, I swear, half the kids from Barnstable were in there. You know, the Monahans, who are. Who are like family to us. You know, they really are family. Growing up, it was the Monahans and the McDonoughs. We were just like, intertwined and everything. And, you know, I would be doing Whitey, which, of course, I play all my villains as heroes. Everything that I do is, you know, it's the right thing, of course. So I'd be doing these monologues and I'd have people screaming out, we love you, Whitey. Next to someone person would say, you sob. You killed my F and F bomb. F bomb. F bomb. Which as an actor, as Whitey Bulger, because I was Whitey on stage. I wasn't Neil, it was Whitey. I was just. That was Whitey. Bald just turned me up an extra notch. We only did one night. It was a one night show only. And it was just remarkable. But it was the only time I've gotten to play with a Boston accent. And my brothers laughed at me because they all have thick Boston accents. But my mom wouldn't let me have one. So as a kid, I had more of an Irish accent because I was hanging around with my mom or my dad or the relatives are always by the house. My brothers were all gone because they were older than me.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

And when I went to Syracuse, they were like, where's your accent? Are you from Canada? I'm like, no, I'm from Cape Cod, Massachusetts. But I was born in Boston. Like, we can't figure it out. And then finally they figured out, do you have any Irish in you? I'm like, yeah, my parents. Oh, that makes sense. But I've never gotten the chance to play.

[Mike Rowe]

Oh, no.

[Neal McDonough]

And I can't wait to play that character one of these days. We'll get there.

[Mike Rowe]

We. You must have just done that about. Was it a year ago? Yeah, because we talked about the. I mean, to go back to your home, to stand on that stage, to play that character in front of that audience. Like, compare that, if you would, to the Clint Eastwood beat, where, I mean, no pressure, but there are a thousand people, and they're on a ship. And you're right. So what was more nerve wracking? Neither of them, because the mechanism was clear the whole damn time before I.

[Neal McDonough]

Was crapping my pants. I'm like, oh, my gosh. It's packed house sold out in 18 minutes. I hadn't rehearsed. I did one or two zoom rehearsals because I was doing something else at the time. Meanwhile, the rest of the cast had been rehearsing for months. And I got there, and the director's like, okay, do you want to run through it? I'm like, just tell me where are my spots? Where something goes. Were you supposed to be here? Then you're over here. Then you're over here. And you come out during this. Come over here. And this is the spot.

[Mike Rowe]

This.

[Neal McDonough]

And I'm like, okay, got it. And I went backstage. I'm like, oh, my gosh. What am I gonna do here? Holy smokes. And then Reve was there. And whenever I'm around Reve, I just. Just. I just get at ease. And 648th time, probably.

[Mike Rowe]

Unbelievable.

[Neal McDonough]

And as soon, you know, I'm backstage, my hands are clammy. I'm like, oh, my gosh. If I'm in my. You know, Bob's. My brother. Bob's out there. You know, relatives. I remember Bob, everybody. Bobby, how are you doing, kid? You know, so everyone's out there. I'm like, oh, my gosh. But as soon as I stepped on stage, Neal McDonough was gone. And I don't. It's this weird thing that when you become a character and you stick into that character, nothing else really exists except for what the character would think have you had. But then the hardest part was when at the end, you know, the show is over, and there's me sitting in my chair as I'm being beaten to death, and I die, and tears are running down my cheeks. It was running down. Half of it, though, was as Whitey Bulger, knowing that he's dying and this is the end of his life. But the other half of me was. I knew the show was over, and it just started to seep in that I got to give back to my hometown.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

And then I went backstage, and they were doing curtain calls, and I couldn't come out.

[Mike Rowe]

You didn't come out for the curtain call?

[Neal McDonough]

I couldn't come out there. Neil. Neil. Neil. And I'm sitting there. I was just in a puddle of tears backstage. Dad, how did this little kid who grew up in Boston get to play one of the most famous, infamous characters in the history of Boston in front of my hometown crowd? And I know that I crushed it. I just knew it because I was. I was Whitey at that time. And then when I went back, you know, when I went the curtain call, I was. I was Neil again.

[Mike Rowe]

It was like, well, you flipped the switch.

[Neal McDonough]

I flipped the one. It's. It's a.

[Mike Rowe]

It's.

[Neal McDonough]

It's. I. I just. I don't know.

[Mike Rowe]

Didn't they catch him here, like, around this Santa Monica?

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah. Eugenia Apartments. Wasn't it Right. Right down here?

[Mike Rowe]

I've been in those apartments.

[Neal McDonough]

Yeah. It's. You know, it's really incredible to be in the world that I'm in and get to do the stuff that I do. And, you know, that's why I go to church almost every day, whether it's a mosque, whether it's a temple, whether it's, you know, a Catholic church, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, it doesn't matter. I want to say thanks to our Creator every day because he's given me an incredible life that I'm so appreciative of.

[Mike Rowe]

Have you had these things? Maslow talks about peak experiences, whether it's praying in church or acting or. Because when the mechanism is clear, that's when these things happen. And Maslow talks about it. You leave your body. You don't leave the room, but there's typically an elevation, and you look down and you can watch yourself doing the thing, and it almost always happens. Fred King. What not how that guy taught us about. He had several of them. Once when he was directing a choir on Christmas Eve, which he said was as close to the perfect auditory experience, took him out of his body. And once when he was singing. But I'm just curious, has that ever happened to you or something like it?

[Neal McDonough]

A lot.

[Mike Rowe]

Because it's right now, for instance, it kind of.

[Neal McDonough]

Kind of. Because every once in a while I have to stop. Oh my gosh, I'm working with Sylvester Stallone. You know, it's one of those moments that those. But you know, two times in particular, I was in South Africa once with Revea and her mom. And there was this famous chapel that had what was supposed to be the most amazing stained glass windows in this chapel. But since that chapel was built in 1900, a township, just an all black township, was built all around it. And at the top of the hill was this church that no one's been to for years.

[Mike Rowe]

Years.

[Neal McDonough]

And I told Rava's mom, I said, I want to go there. And she's like, well, you can't just walk through a black township. You're a white guy. You can't do that. I'm like, well, why can't I? Says, okay. So she drives me to the edge of the township in the car and she's like, it's up that hill. You're on your own. And I started jogging up the hill and everyone just kind of stops and they're looking at this crazy white guy running up the hill.

[Mike Rowe]

Because you are white, dude.

[Neal McDonough]

I'm the whitest thing you've ever seen. I'm a Q tip. You try to light me on set, it's almost impossible. So I'm running up this hill and I'm saying hi to everyone, hi to everyone. And they're waving hi to me back. And I get up, finally get to this church, and it's this tiny little church and I have the picture, it's on my desk. Unbelievable. And then I had this outer body experience where I just imagined me going back down the hill. And what it's going to happen, Are they still there? Is it going to be hostile? Is it not? And I'm like, of course it won't be. God gave me this gift to come up here. Certainly nothing's going to happen. And I started jogging down the hill and they're all still standing there wondering if what they saw was real or not. And I went down the hill and I said hi to everyone. And I stopped and I shook some hands and we just kept going walking down. And they had no idea who I was. And I got back down to my mom and she's like, that's the craziest thing I've ever seen. And this other time was when I was in an airport, and I always like to stop in the chapel at an airport. It was in Manhattan, and this was probably 2004 or 5, this chapel that I used to go to at LaGuardia. I go in there and there's no crucifix there on the wall anymore, but there's a picture on the wall and I look down and there's probably 15 guys on the ground, all Muslim, bowing down towards Mecca like, hmm, well. And I'm a big proponent in that. God created all of us. We are all brothers and sisters. We're all related to God. If we all rooted for each other, we would stop all the stupid fighting with each other. And whose religion is better than whose, Whose color is better than whose, whose? This or that is better than anybody else's. We're all in it together. We are related. Every single person on this planet is related. So why are we fighting so much? And that's always my train of thought. I went in there and I supplicated and went down on the ground. I stayed down for about five minutes and I just prayed to God. And then all of a sudden, that out of body experience came up and out of my body, I could see myself above with all these other guys, and I couldn't tell if they were mad at me or if they're happy with me. And I opened my eyes and I looked up and they're all staring at me, me. And one of the guys said, what are you doing here? I said, well, I'm praying to our God. What did you say? He said, I'm praying to our God. This fellowship mic of this Catholic guy and these Muslim brothers all together in one room praying to the same God was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had in my life.

[Mike Rowe]

In a chapel.

[Neal McDonough]

In a Chapel at LaGuardia.

[Mike Rowe]

I thought it was at least JFK, but you were at LaGuardia.

[Neal McDonough]

LaGuardia. And it was, you know, it's just kind of. But all. Every time I have those kind of outer body experiences, it all has to do with having faith. And the more faith I have in myself because he gives me all these gifts, the greater my life is. And every time I stop and not have that faith and get tripped up by anything in life, whether it was drinking way back when, whether it was getting mad at someone at a traffic light or whether. Whatever the case is, when I get mad at things, then I'm so distant and I feel like I'm on, like an island all by myself. And I don't Feel his grace. And then I have to stop and just kind of pivot and come back to, okay, where am I? What's life about? Why am I here?

[Mike Rowe]

It's hard to be angry and charitable at the same time.

[Neal McDonough]

It's impossible. You can't, you know, it's. You know, you look, you know, not too long ago, I watched Gandhi again and it was just floored by Kingsley. How they gave this nobody this plum role is unbelievable. But when he's dying on his bed at the end and he won't give over, he won't eat until everything is, that's love. That's love that we should all aspire to. And we forget that sometimes when we're fighting about this or fighting about that or this. Which goes back to the rodeo. One of the things I love so much about rodeo is that it's filled with families. It's not like you're at an NFL game or another game where half of the people want the other team to get crushed. When you go to a rodeo, it's moms and wives and grandpas and grandkids and everyone's just sitting there rooting for each rider to get to eight seconds. So there's this positive influence that happens inside the arena for every bull ride that I've never seen before. And is there's this sense of decency in rodeo that it has made it my favorite sport that I could ever possibly go to and that I got to land in this with my wife, Reve. What a gift that is that I can never possibly replace.

[Mike Rowe]

I love the idea that because I know you're a baseball fan and you talked about it like, you can go see Carl Yastromsky with your dad and watch a three hour game. You can go to the rodeo with the same group of people and watch an 8 second event and have the same kind of galvanizing communal experience like that. Right.

[Neal McDonough]

So, yeah, there's no yahoos drunk and pushing all over. It's not that. It's not that it starts off with a prayer. It ends with just this great feeling when you leave the arena. It's like, wow, that was awesome, son. What did you think? I loved it, dad. Thanks for taking me. You know that kind of feeling with the rodeo that the pbr, Sean Gleason at the PBR is just, you know, he started, I think it was 98 when he first joined in. He built the PBR to be where it is today.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

You know, I call him P.T. barnum. What he has done is the shows are incredible. The pyrotechnics, the riding. Another ride comes in in two minutes. Another ride comes in two minutes. Another ride. There's two hours of pure fun. Everyone drive home safe. See at the next one.

[Mike Rowe]

Yep.

[Neal McDonough]

Man, it's awesome.

[Mike Rowe]

Monster truck with flesh and blood.

[Neal McDonough]

That's right. That's a great way of putting it.

[Mike Rowe]

I mean, it's. It's primal because it's. It's the Animal King.

[Neal McDonough]

Which we all love.

[Mike Rowe]

Which we love.

[Neal McDonough]

What do you love? Watching NFL? You love seeing guys get mashed? Because that's. That's hockey. Same thing. I love using. I used to love getting hit as much, giving hits, you know? It was that thing that rodeo does. PBR does so perfectly, you know?

[Mike Rowe]

Who's your team?

[Neal McDonough]

Bruins.

[Mike Rowe]

How'd they do this year?

[Neal McDonough]

Oh, geez. That's touchy, man. That's the name of the Father Marsh?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. So I don't begrudge an ounce of your great good fortune. And I say that not because I walk around as a ball of envy. I don't. But I'm really, truly, sincerely happy for you. I like what you're doing with Angel a lot. I love everything you said about the rodeo, aside from nearly getting impaled on my adventure there. They let me sing the national anthem.

[Neal McDonough]

Did they really?

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah.

[Neal McDonough]

That's cool.

[Mike Rowe]

And I don't get nervous a bunch either. But I'll tell you, I don't want to forget the words to the National Anthem at a rodeo. No. Because I'm pretty sure even the bulls would come together to express their displeasure.

[Neal McDonough]

I would want to see a teleprompter in front of me just so I don't make a mistake. Can we go back a little bit? No. Yeah, that's a different pressure.

[Mike Rowe]

So, Clint Eastwood. Thousand people, no problem. Steaming.

[Neal McDonough]

No problem. Stallone. No problem.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah. Stallone. National Anthem.

[Neal McDonough]

I'd freeze.

[Mike Rowe]

Yeah, You're a good man. Say hey to Bob for me. And your wife. What do you call her again? What is her name?

[Neal McDonough]

Heaven.

[Mike Rowe]

This is going to be your lucky night. Thank you again for coming by.

[Neal McDonough]

Thanks, Mike.

[Mike Rowe]

All right.

[Neal McDonough]

I really appreciate it.

[Mike Rowe]

Adios. It's the last rodeo. It's awesome. He's great. Everybody's great at it. Go see it. Take the whole family. This episode is over now. I hope it was worthwhile. Sorry it went on so long. But if it made you smile.

[Neal McDonough]

Then.

[Mike Rowe]

Share your satisfaction in the way that people do. Take some time to go online and leave us a review. I hate to ask, I hate to beg, I hate to be a nudge. But in this world, the advertisers really like to judge. You don't need to write a bunch, just a line or two. All you got to do is leave a quick five star review. Not four. All you got to do is leave a quick five star review.

[Neal McDonough]

And not three.

[Mike Rowe]

All you got to do is leave a quick five star review. Definitely not two. All you got to do is leave a quick five star review.

[Neal McDonough]

We need five. All you got to do is leave.

[Mike Rowe]

A quick Even if you hate it, five star.

[Neal McDonough]

Especially if you hate it. Thank you. From ancient Rome to where you'd like to roam, T Bubble's network is there because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualified unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required card is no cash access and expires in six. Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads, go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.