Don Cheadle

Summary

Podcast Summary: Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson (Sometimes)

Episode: Don Cheadle

Release Date: March 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features acclaimed actor and activist Don Cheadle in a vibrant, multifaceted conversation with Ted Danson (Woody Harrelson is absent in this episode). They cover a wide range of topics—including Cheadle’s powerful experience filming Hotel Rwanda, his evolution as an artist and activist, family stories, music, Broadway debut, political anxieties, and the responsibility of public figures. The conversation is peppered with humor, reflection, and the kind of open warmth that defines the show.

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Table of Contents

1. The Art of Keeping Current (Slang, Makeup, and "Bro")
2. Hotel Rwanda, Activism, and Encounters with History
3. The Making of an Artist: Family, Upbringing, and Instrumentalism
4. Acting, Training, and Early Inspirations
5. Celebrities, Advocacy, and the Weight of Visibility
6. Roots and Reflection: Family Heritage & “Finding Your Roots”
7. Navigating Modern America: Political Climate & Personal Resolve
8. Broadway, Marvel, and What’s Next
9. Memorable Quotes and Timestamps

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1. The Art of Keeping Current (Slang, Makeup, and "Bro")

[01:22] – [04:44]

• Ted and Don open with playful banter on generational slang and the evolution of phrases like “bro” and “brah.”
  • Don: “The first time my kids said it to me, I was like, don’t call me bruh. They’re like, everybody, that’s what they say… But I’m not your bro. Don’t bruh me.” (02:51)
• Ted jokes about podcast makeup, and their casual encounter outside Don’s garage during Covid.
• They reminisce about possibly moving to Ojai and barley-legal barn living, with digressions about neighborhood bears and zoning.

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2. Hotel Rwanda, Activism, and Encounters with History

[04:44] – [13:59]

Filming and Legacy

• Hotel Rwanda was largely shot in South Africa, with only some exteriors in Rwanda. The emotional presence of survivors and the real-life subjects (Paul and Tatiana Rusesabagina) profoundly shaped the experience.
  • Don recalls: “We had other extras in the movie who had been through it as well. So it was very present for everybody on the set.” (07:41)
• Ted and Don discuss visiting Rwanda, post-genocide atmosphere, and meeting Paul Kagame.
• An extraordinary moment: a survivor recognizes a real genocidaire among the film’s extras, confirmed and quietly dismissed from set. (07:23–07:41)

Activism and Ongoing Involvement

• The film led Don into activism, notably with the organization The Sentry (with Clooney and Brad Pitt), aimed at tracking war money in Africa.
• Don recounts sneaking into Sudan with John Prendergast to document Janjaweed atrocities, experiences that deeply impacted him.

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3. The Making of an Artist: Family, Upbringing, and Instrumentalism

[12:02] – [19:14]

• Don’s parents were a clinical psychologist and an educator; both professional, focused on supporting the family.
• Siblings followed similar paths in education and HR.
• Don reflects warmly on his parents’ reactions to his fame:
  • “They were like, you ain’t—you’re just Don to us… My mom would always say… I have three children, and I love them all.” (13:00)
• Don’s early musical journey: started as a sax player; learned trumpet for Miles Ahead, now mostly plays bass and keyboards.
  • On learning instruments for roles: “I wanted to fool you guys… I was trying to get the fingering right and I wanted to get the breathing right.” (17:30)

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4. Acting, Training, and Early Inspirations

[19:14] – [37:58]

• Don’s early performances began in elementary school, notably as Templeton the Rat in Charlotte’s Web.

• He describes formative drama and jazz programs in high school, influenced deeply by teacher Kathy Davis.

• On conservatory training (CalArts vs. Carnegie Mellon):

  • Days filled with classes, theater, and cross-disciplinary work.
  • Ted: “From 8 o’clock in the morning till midnight, you’re just doing that theater of some kind… I fell madly in love.” (20:17)

• The conversation pivots to craft and research for complex roles (Sammy Davis Jr. in The Rat Pack, trumpet for Miles Ahead).

  • Don shares how he insisted on the script addressing Sammy’s experience with racism, delaying his acceptance of the role until this was honored.

• They discuss the dichotomy of sweetness and volatility on screen, referencing Don’s “Joe Pesci” switch:

  • Ted: “You’re so believable when it comes to violence.” (27:43)
  • Don: “Thanks, man. I work on that. I work hard on that. You just have to do it.” (27:51)

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5. Celebrities, Advocacy, and the Weight of Visibility

[39:25] – [42:39]

• Don and Ted reflect on the opportunities celebrity brings for advocacy—using the spotlight to amplify causes.
  • Don: “Understanding how your celebrity can supercharge that stuff and give oxygen to things… That’s the best use of this.” (40:12)
• Ted discusses his motivation for ocean advocacy, initially as a way to responsibly use his platform and resources.
• Humorous detour about littering and “faux Christ” family nicknames.
• Ted: “If you’re a celebrity… and you just walk around and soak that up, it’ll fuck you up completely… reflect, deflect that into something you care about.” (41:28–41:56)

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6. Roots and Reflection: Family Heritage & “Finding Your Roots”

[42:48] – [44:02]

• Discussion of Don's appearance on Finding Your Roots and the revelation that his ancestors were enslaved by the Chickasaw Nation:
  • Don: “That tribe [Chickasaw] had slaves and then kept them because the Emancipation Proclamation… didn’t apply.” (43:31)
• Shock and complexity in discovering histories erased or elided from public consciousness.

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7. Navigating Modern America: Political Climate & Personal Resolve

[44:02] – [52:50]

• Ted and Don candidly discuss the daily stress of balancing good fortune with ongoing social and political upheaval.
  • Ted: "How do you deal with… you look around and you go, oh, fuck…?" (44:02)
  • Don: “It is a daily navigation… The instinct is to just get out of here…” (44:12–45:21)
• They recount conversations with friends about emigration, the rise of authoritarianism, and the challenge of remaining present and helpful.
  • Don: “I think we’re in the age of bullies right now. We’re in the age of a lot of thuggery.” (46:09)
• They digress on the erosion of legal and political norms, with Ted lamenting lost ground in science advocacy and immigration.
• Don links awareness and activism to the hope that crises will eventually prompt unity, referencing “First they came for…” (51:04–51:45)
• The pair agree on the counter-power of art and inspiration in times of despair:
  • Don: “Inspiration is actually the thing that can be a countermeasure to this despair.” (52:11–52:50)

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8. Broadway, Marvel, and What’s Next

[55:27] – [62:22]

• Don’s about to make his Broadway debut in a revival of Proof.
  • The cast is now an all-Black family, with playwright David Auburn actively involved in adapting relevant scenes to be culturally authentic.
  • Don: “He’s willing to play… It’s a living (play).” (57:44–57:50)
• Reflects on juggling career commitments, including his years in Marvel films and balancing long theatre runs.
• Kids are grown and independent, having travelled the world due to their parents’ careers; family stability mattered a lot when possible.

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9. Memorable Quotes and Timestamps

Don on Sudden Violence in Characters

“You are so—your face gives off intelligence and kindness and not passive… and yet you can turn on a dime and be Joe Pesci and rip somebody’s face off in the most believable way.”
— Ted Danson (27:42)

On Art and Adapting for Culture

“There’s not a one to one in everything… The sister brings shampoo over to wash her hair… if a Black girl’s washing her hair, that’s the night… it’s not like, that’s that night, and we’re not then doing more things.”
— Don Cheadle (57:15)

On Using Celebrity

“Understanding how your celebrity can supercharge that stuff and help give oxygen to things… That’s the best use of this.”
— Don Cheadle (40:12)

On Social Upheaval

“I think we’re in the age of bullies right now… And it’s not like you can run away from all of this.”
— Don Cheadle (46:09)

On Moral Center

“When you have these deep, long relationships… you don’t get too big for your britches. You don’t think you’re all that… you know, you’re still a human being that’s on this planet, and you’re here to mostly be a good person…”
— Don Cheadle (63:51–66:40)

On the Power of Art

“Art has been one of the only things consistently right in history that has pushed back against that [despair]… it just hits you in your solar plexus and you’re like, oh, that’s true. That’s inspiring me to act.”
— Don Cheadle (52:11–52:50)

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Notable, Lighter Moments

• Running jokes about not inviting Ted into Don’s garage during Covid and their faux-formal relationship.
• Humorous self-awareness about pitfalls of fame, egos, and "celebrity traps"
• Final playful exchange about penises—a tongue-in-cheek challenge from Ted to make Don say the word within an hour. (63:01)
• Ted sleeping through an escape room with Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard due to their hyper-competitive “A-type” personalities. (60:16)

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Key Timestamps

• [01:22] – Conversation begins
• [04:44] – Hotel Rwanda discussion
• [07:26] – Real genocidaires on set story
• [09:53] – Don’s activism after the film
• [13:00] – Don’s parents’ reaction to his career
• [14:23] – Don’s musical background
• [27:43] – Ted on Don’s “Pesci switch” in acting
• [31:17] – Rwanda reconciliation and the human capacity for horror
• [37:33] – Sidney Poitier and Morgan Freeman as inspirations
• [40:12] – Using celebrity for advocacy
• [44:02] – Dealing with today’s troubling climate
• [46:09] – The “age of bullies” comment
• [52:11] – On art’s role in resistance
• [55:27] – Don’s Broadway debut in Proof

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Conclusion

This episode showcases an unusually deep and layered interview, balancing entertainment, humor, history, and personal truth. Cheadle’s career and activism are explored in equal measure, with thoughtful reflections on what it means to use your gifts—and your visibility—for meaningful acts. The episode is a rewarding listen for fans of acting, social engagement, and honest conversation.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Ted Danson]

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[Don Cheadle]

There we go. There he is.

[Ted Danson]

Welcome back to where everybody knows your name. If you've got a pulse. Don Cheadle has probably made you cry, laugh, roar, and everything in between. He's one of the finest actors of our time. From Hotel Rwanda to Boogie Nights, the Ocean's Trilogy to House of Lies, Devil in a Blue Dress, and so much more. Don is making his Broadway debut this year in the revival of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play, Proof. Truly an honor to welcome him today. Don Cheadle. I'm the guy who has just now fallen in love with the Snap. Oh, snap.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, so you're.

[Ted Danson]

I think I'm about 20 years.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Yeah, you're about 20 years. Yeah. Slap is also a good one if you want to do it.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, shoot.

[Don Cheadle]

Sounds like a plan.

[Ted Danson]

Sounds like a plan.

[Don Cheadle]

Slap.

[Ted Danson]

Slap. That's good. Yeah, I. I was. One of the things I was in recently, they used the. All the kids, teenage kids characters said bro and brah a lot. And I went, I said, that's a little overdone. Then I walked into a room and

[Don Cheadle]

adult humans were saying it.

[Ted Danson]

No, kids are kids. Do say it.

[Don Cheadle]

Of course.

[Ted Danson]

All the time.

[Don Cheadle]

All the time, bruh. It's just like, the first time my kids said it to me, I was like, don't call me bruh. They're like, everybody. That's what they say, Dad. I was like, yeah, but yeah, I'm not your bro. Yeah. Don't bruh me.

[Ted Danson]

Do women say brah, everybody? Yeah, bro.

[Don Cheadle]

Bro. It's bro.

[Ted Danson]

Bro. All right, bro. I think women should say bra. But anyway.

[Don Cheadle]

Bra. Sexist.

[Ted Danson]

Feminine bra. Are you wearing makeup, Don? Let's establish that.

[Don Cheadle]

Well, how about.

[Ted Danson]

Because this is a fucking podcast. I'm already pasty white. And now you're gloriously white.

[Don Cheadle]

You got fucking cameras here.

[Ted Danson]

I know. Why not? Next episode, I'm wearing makeup. Last time I saw you and your wife Bridget.

[Don Cheadle]

Yes. Yes.

[Ted Danson]

Was outside your garage. Mary and I were walking by.

[Don Cheadle]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

And I don't know why you didn't invite us in. Was it Covid?

[Don Cheadle]

It was definitely Covid. Covid.

[Ted Danson]

Okay, so that's. Thank God. Because you did not invite us in. No, but we had a long conversation about maybe you moving up to Ojai.

[Don Cheadle]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

But yes. You heard about bears?

[Don Cheadle]

Not even. Not even heard. Saw.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, yeah. And you were out.

[Don Cheadle]

Gang of bears. We actually still have the place up there.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, yeah. Oh, really?

[Don Cheadle]

We do, but it's not. It's. It's a barn. It's actually not a. It's not zoned to be livable. We could live in it. We could hang out in it, we could spend the night in it, but it's really not like a home.

[Ted Danson]

I thought Ojai was so casual. You zones didn't make any difference.

[Don Cheadle]

You'd think.

[Ted Danson]

But no.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, no. Oh, no, no.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, wow.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Why are you keeping it?

[Don Cheadle]

That's a very good question. Can we call Bridget real quick? Ted wants to know the same thing. Don wants to know.

[Ted Danson]

Well, we all got excited that you were going to move up there, but. Okay. Hotel Rwanda. Can we just start there? So many other things. But it felt to me that that also led to so many other things in your life that you've done. But can you talk about it for a minute? Were you. How I did you shoot it in Rwanda? We.

[Don Cheadle]

No. A couple of exteriors in Rwanda. We shot the bulk of the film in South Africa.

[Ted Danson]

Gotcha.

[Don Cheadle]

In Marfontein and all around South Africa. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Right. And you. When was the child. The genocide was 85, was it?

[Don Cheadle]

Four? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

And you shot it in.

[Don Cheadle]

In 2004, I believe.

[Ted Danson]

Four.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Such a powerful experience. Have you been to Rwanda? Oh, yeah, after.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, I have. Yeah. Several times.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

I went to a gorilla naming ceremony. And then just back when we were doing some stuff with the Night Soldiers Camp and unhcr, we were over there. We went to Uganda and Rwanda and Tanzania. We were just over there for a while, going to some different places around.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, I, I, it's kind of visceral for me because I went with Mary and I went with Bill Clinton when I don't think he was president then, but he had AIDS clinics all over Africa, and he was traveling to different countries, and we went with him. It was, you know, it was one night here, one night there, but we had two nights in Rwanda visiting farms and AIDS clinics, things that the Clinton foundation was working on. And we got to meet Paul Kagame. Kagame, yes.

[Don Cheadle]

And

[Ted Danson]

it was still. It had been 10 years or however many years since the genocide, but it was still underneath the surface, kind of.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, yeah. It didn't ever go away. I mean, when we were shooting the movie and we were, like, I said, we were in South Africa, we were shooting this scene where the enteterahamwe come the very first time when they come to grab Paul and his family and Tatiana Recessive Aguina, who's married to Paul, who Sofia Okenedo plays in the movie. We were watching the monitors and she said, that guy's in Tehamwe, and she's pointing to one of the extras. And we were like, how do you know? She goes, I know, just trust me. I know. That guy is, he was.

[Ted Danson]

Wait, was.

[Don Cheadle]

What is the word you said in Teterhamwe? They were the Tutsi. Yes, that were the Hutus. Rather not the Tutsi. The Hutus.

[Ted Danson]

The Hutus. Sorry, who were the people who were.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Doing the genociding.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And she said, he's one of them. And we were like, are you sure? She said, I'm sure. So I think the AD went up to him and said, hey, are you? And asked him directly and he said, yeah. And he was like, you gotta go. He's like, okay. And he just kind of looked at everybody and then kind of just drifted off. But he was. And we had other extras in the movie who had been through it as well. So it was very present for everybody on the set. And Paul and Tatiana were there the whole time.

[Ted Danson]

And you're Paul, the character you played. Not President Paul.

[Don Cheadle]

No, not Kagame. Yeah, but recessive ghini. He was there. Both he and Tatiana were there the whole time. Not the whole time, but a majority of the time.

[Ted Danson]

I didn't know this, but I read just recently that the character you played, Paul Recessive, was put in jail.

[Don Cheadle]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

For being a rebel or accused of or whatever.

[Don Cheadle]

Accused of?

[Ted Danson]

Yes.

[Don Cheadle]

He was inveigled. He was kidnapped, ostensibly set up to get on a plane. He thought he was going to Burundi to give a speech. And he's very. Been an open critic of Paul Kagame's for a while. And there was a credible attempt on his life when he was in Belgium and he was traveling and he thought he was getting on a plane to go to Burundi and kind of woke up in shackles and was taken to Kigali and spent, I think nearly 900 days, 800. 900 days in jail.

[Ted Danson]

How did he get out? What was.

[Don Cheadle]

He ultimately had to write a letter saying, you know, apologizing for his actions, although it was the right. The Rwandan witness said, I don't even know who this guy is. We didn't take any orders from him. You know, we don't. This is not how it works with us. They had no case, really. But he was a vocal critic of Kagame's administration and that. Don't fly over there.

[Ted Danson]

Did you get both good and bad, not as an actor and in this country, by playing that character, did you get kind of sucked into the politics in any way, in a real life way?

[Don Cheadle]

I mean, not as much. Until Paul was kidnapped, was I involved with the politics of Rwanda. But definitely a lot of activism started as a result of that. I was asked to go on a congressional delegation to DARCARFUR because the two senators, the two congressmen at that time, believed that there was kind of a resonance from what had happened to Hotel Rwanda. There was enough of a relationship to at least let people know that what you saw, the events happening in that movie are kind of happening now.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Don Cheadle]

In Darfur and in Sudan with the Janjaweed. And they asked me to go. They asked Paul to go and another friend of mine, John Prendergast, who I co wrote a book with, not on My Watch, to go and see for ourselves what was happening. So we spent some time in the area and stayed behind. After the congress people left and snuck in through Chad, snuck into Sudan and went to some of these villages and saw, you know, pretty fresh remnants of a raid that had just happened.

[Ted Danson]

Wow. And the. Is it the century that you. Is that the name of the organization?

[Don Cheadle]

I was involved in it. I'm not on the board anymore. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

And that was to highlight what was happening in different countries.

[Don Cheadle]

Yes.

[Ted Danson]

In Africa. All in Africa or all over the world?

[Don Cheadle]

Mostly in Africa.

[Ted Danson]

Mostly in Africa. When the governments were misusing funds, doing

[Don Cheadle]

warlord kind of things because it's hard to go after it politically. But they were trying to target people that they were doing business with and kind of go at the money because that's obviously where you get people to have the most response and sort of try to tie that in. And the century's still going and it's still, you know, doing the same work.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, that was you, Clooney, Pip.

[Don Cheadle]

When it started with us, it was not on our watch. And then it sort of morphed and changed and became different things. And now it's evolved into the century.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, gotcha. I went on it. It's really clear. What's really neat is it's not confusing the way it's set up. It's like, oh, wow. Yeah, got it. Did you start with parents that were socially, you know, involved? Involved? I know they were clinical psychologists. Right.

[Don Cheadle]

My dad was. My mom was an educator, teacher and worked in HR and, you know, kind of started her own business helping young kids learn how to move into the workplace and how to comport themselves and all that. So, yeah, both. Both professionals my whole life.

[Ted Danson]

Were they out into the world doing stuff like you are?

[Don Cheadle]

No, they were just raising the families and trying to, like, make ends meet and be mom and dad.

[Ted Danson]

Wow. Are they still alive?

[Don Cheadle]

No, I've lost both of my parents. Yes.

[Ted Danson]

Was that. Did they get to see you become Don Cheadle?

[Don Cheadle]

They were like, you ain't. You're just Don to us. But, yeah, they definitely were. You know, we have have seen a lot of. A lot of the work and have been a part of a lot of it and been around for a lot of it. You know, my mom would always say, like, people come up and say, like, oh, I love I saw your son and something. She Sundays, I have three children, like, and I love them all. So whatever you want to say about him. Yeah, I got two others. Let's talk about them.

[Ted Danson]

The good mothers do that.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

And it's true.

[Don Cheadle]

Absolutely.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are your siblings? Are they out in the world?

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, my brother is. They both kind of followed in our parents footsteps somewhat. You know, my sister's the teacher as well and is taught in Colorado and taught in Virginia, taught in D.C. and my brother's worked in HR departments and he's a consultant in that too. So.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, actually way more heroic than you

[Don Cheadle]

and I. I mean, sure. Yeah. I mean, really, let's give it up to them. Yes.

[Ted Danson]

To be teacher is like the hardest

[Don Cheadle]

job and Made much harder in the past few years. It's just insane.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, it is insane.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Another conversation.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't have. That's a whole other podcast.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. That's amazing. You played a very sexy instrument. You. You were a sax player.

[Don Cheadle]

I did play sax.

[Ted Danson]

Are you a sax player?

[Don Cheadle]

I have. I have not played sax in a minute. I bought one recently and, you know, threatened to start playing again. But I'm mostly playing bass now and mostly playing keyboards now and. And played trumpet when I did Miles, you know. But wait, wait, now it's bass?

[Ted Danson]

You learned how to play trumpet well enough that you could.

[Don Cheadle]

As I played in the movie. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Fuck. That was you.

[Don Cheadle]

I mean, no, we're not going to use my sound over Miles sound.

[Ted Danson]

But you knew.

[Don Cheadle]

I absolutely was. No, I was playing. I was actually playing. Wow. Yeah. But we're using his sound, and Keon Harold, who's a great trumpet player, was actually doing the stuff that was sort of the improv stuff and things that we were just doing on the spot. No, he was playing the sound, which he didn't. Which I tried to tell him, he didn't realize was impossible to do, which is to, you know, backfill what I'm doing. Fingering when I'm just improving and make those notes actually correspond to what I'm doing.

[Ted Danson]

What did you do? Improv. And then somebody had to.

[Don Cheadle]

And then he played over what I was doing to match the finger, which is impossible.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And I told him, you're actually a musician, you know, and he actually named his album Musician. So I was like, yeah, that's what you are. I'm glad I didn't tell you that this was impossible before you tried to do it.

[Ted Danson]

This is me, totally ignorant. Miles Davis, complicated. The little. I know.

[Don Cheadle]

Genius.

[Ted Danson]

Genius monster.

[Don Cheadle]

Obviously. Amazing.

[Ted Danson]

I had. I did not see the movie, so I'm flying blind. Please forgive me, but what is the monster part?

[Don Cheadle]

No, I just mean I'm saying that in a complimentary way. Not like an evil monster, but like

[Ted Danson]

a. I'm glad we cleared that non parallel.

[Don Cheadle]

You know, there's no one.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Non pareil. Not non parallel. That's. That's this.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Non parel.

[Ted Danson]

How long did you take before you started shooting to work on that?

[Don Cheadle]

Well, I actually. When I did another movie. The Rat Pack.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And Sammy. Another monster who did everything.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

You know, he played trumpet, and in the opening, you know, number in this movie, he tapped. He's playing. Starts off playing drums, and he grabs a trumpet and he plays a thing On a trumpet. And then he, like, taps. And I had to learn how to do all that stuff. And so that's when I really picked up the trumpet and started trying to figure out what to do. I didn't have enough time then to play, to learn how to play, but I wanted to get the fingering right and I wanted to get the breathing right and all that. And the first, you know, it's in a scene, there's a band, and the guy that's sitting first chair in the band after I did the solo, he's like, how long have you been playing? And I said, I don't play. He's like, oh, you could have fooled me. I was like, well, that was the goal. I want to fool you guys, you know. He goes, you know, you could have just done that and nobody would know. He said, but it seemed like you were actually fingering the notes. I said, no, I was. I'm trying to.

[Ted Danson]

How long did that take you for that one? Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Well, that's kind of an interesting story because I was offered the part and had kept turning it down because they had never really, in the script addressed any sort of the race stuff that Sammy was having to deal with within and without the Rat Pack, you know, even amongst his friends, the way they would make, you know, tease him and poke fun at him and talk about that stuff. And I said, we kind of have to. We have to talk about it. It doesn't have to be the subject matter, but there's no way that that stuff didn't affect him. And I just wanna. We need some moments where they talk about that, where we see how it affects him. And it just kept being delayed and delayed. And I said, well, as soon as we address that, then I can talk about taking the part. And, you know, how everything takes forever. So ultimately, by the time that we addressed that in the script, I had about two and a half weeks to get ready. So I had a gun twirling teacher and a drum teacher and a music, you know, and a trumpet teacher. And my tap teacher was Savion Glover, which was amazing. So Savion choreographed it, but he was also my personal, you know, tap instructor. And he was just great because he didn't care. You know, he'd come in with Timberlands on and the shoes unlaced and the tongue down and standing on the back of him, he'd just go, all right, let's go. And he'd show you, you know, eight bars and you do it. And he'd be like, nah, nah, that's not it. That's not it. I'm like, you know, I don't actually tap. Saban, he's like, you gotta tap. Let's go.

[Ted Danson]

Wow.

[Don Cheadle]

So it was really a trial by fire.

[Ted Danson]

We. Were you an athlete?

[Don Cheadle]

I'm athletic, but, you know, I didn't.

[Ted Danson]

Were you. You went to California into the arts.

[Don Cheadle]

I did. Did you have no sports there? No, no sports at Cal.

[Ted Danson]

Did you do dance?

[Don Cheadle]

It was a part of, you know, you had to kind of dabble in it because you. Whatever your. Your metier was, whatever your focus, you know, degree. Focus was, you had to. On Wednesdays, which were the critical studies days, take other classes and other other things.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Don Cheadle]

So you could pick whatever you wanted. Yeah, you could. But no, there was very little. Mostly a conservatory. Very conservatory. I think we had a physics class when I went there and that was it. Yeah, but it was like you could take a, you know, drumming class, you could take a dance class, you could take something in film or TV production. You could take an animation class. You know, you could take an art class. Art history, which I took, but. And I think one year I took some dance class just to see.

[Ted Danson]

I went to Carnegie Tech. Carnegie Mellon?

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. I almost went to Carnegie Mellon.

[Ted Danson]

Same same thing. Same thing where you just show up and from 8 o' clock in the morning till midnight, you're just doing that theater of some kind. Whether it's voice or speech or. I just, I fell madly in love.

[Don Cheadle]

Me too.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

It was between those. It was between that for acting for me, between Carnegie Mellon and CalArts.

[Ted Danson]

All right, but back up. How did you know, oh, I'm going to go to a conservatory. Oh, I want to be an actor. Had you tried? Not tried, but had you auditioned and done stuff before college?

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I started when I was in fifth grade, really kind of doing it and doing plays and, you know, famously in Charlotte's Web, you didn't see the reviews. You didn't. They didn't send that to you before?

[Ted Danson]

I never read.

[Don Cheadle]

Terrible research. Yeah, terrible. It was. It was all over the Denver. Denver Post. I only read 74. You didn't see these? No, it was. But that kind of started. I had a really good, you know, teacher at that time. Barbara Althouse was our, you know, I forget what, what would you even call it a thing? It was just like you did everything. She taught music, she taught choir. You know, I had, I had instrumental. You know, I had a different teacher for sax and when I started playing sax in sixth grade, but we did Charlotte's Web and I played Templeton the Rat and I had a great time. And I was like, oh, this is something I don't know of, but there's something here. And I understood that I was all right at it, that I was pretty good at it. And then when I went to junior high school, at that time it was junior high school, it wasn't middle school. Okay, guys. Yeah, I went to junior high school and middle school.

[Ted Danson]

Middle school. Sorry.

[Don Cheadle]

And there was no theater then. But I started getting really heavily into instrument, into, into jazz and into my, into playing sax. And then when I went to high school, they were both a lot. You know, there's a very good jazz program and there was a very good drama program and Kathy Davis was our drama teacher and we wrote plays and we, you know, there was never a

[Ted Danson]

chance you weren't going to become some kind of artist.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, I mean, yeah, if I wasn't going to be a musician, I had acting to fall back on. If I wasn't going to act, I had music to fall back on. Both, both very lucrative and secure paths.

[Ted Danson]

Yes.

[Don Cheadle]

To being self sufficient as a human.

[Ted Danson]

Do you write music?

[Don Cheadle]

I do.

[Ted Danson]

That's so cool. I, I, obviously we've met. You've never worked with Mary, my wife, have you? No. Who sends so much regards and respect your way.

[Don Cheadle]

Right back at you. Hello.

[Ted Danson]

But she started writing music later in life. But anyway, music is a huge part of her life now too. So you write songs or just songs?

[Don Cheadle]

I mean, you know, I have a little setup, I have a little logic set up and you know, I've had my bass and I have my keyboards and I have mics and just for me, you know, I just like to.

[Ted Danson]

Do you co write ever?

[Don Cheadle]

I have not co written, no. But I mean my daughter comes over and mess around with her guitar with me sometimes.

[Ted Danson]

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[Don Cheadle]

Thanks, man.

[Ted Danson]

I'm not sure where. I guess it's acting, but there's. You're so believable when it comes violence.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, thanks, man. I work on that. I work hard on that. Yeah. It's surprisingly. You don't have to. You just have to do it. It's really, you know, that's how you work on it.

[Ted Danson]

It is also amazing. Yeah. Amazing writing, too, because it's like, you're sweet, nice Don. Until somebody writes that you pick up a glass and smash it into somebody's face. Then from that moment on, you're like,

[Don Cheadle]

wait, wait a minute.

[Ted Danson]

People look at ton a little differently, you know, and so it's the doingness. It is the doingness and the wonderful writing that allows you to do that.

[Don Cheadle]

I mean, you're not totally dissimilar to that. I mean, I think about. Although you came to a bad end in it. I think about the onion field. What you had. There was an edge. That is not. Sam.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

You know.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And I think there's an edge in the Good Place. That's maniacal.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And dark. There it is. There it is.

[Ted Danson]

That was not purposeful.

[Don Cheadle]

I know. See, it's right there, you know?

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. I. My. My go to is nice guy. My go to is wanting to be nurturing and loving and kind and all that stuff. It really is. But I'm a dick. I can be a mean asshole. But I've only discovered that later in life because I was trained to be very sensitive.

[Don Cheadle]

I bet other people around you could have told you that.

[Ted Danson]

Really?

[Don Cheadle]

No, I didn't mean to go there.

[Ted Danson]

Not my mother. Sorry. Oh, my God. Mary. I was trying to say Mary. And I said, mother.

[Don Cheadle]

I was trying to say mother. And I said, my smother came out.

[Ted Danson]

I was raised to be my mom's confidant.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh.

[Ted Danson]

Which is not a great thing.

[Don Cheadle]

No, I don't want those secrets.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Later. Different. Different podcast.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Put that in your diary. Tell me. I don't want to know all that stuff. I'm your son. Why are you saying this to me?

[Ted Danson]

I love my Mary from the South. Can fight. She said, I. You are as mean as a junkyard dog. And it was the first time I'd heard that phrase. And I thought it was so silly to be said about me. And I luckily have grown and developed with my relationship with Mary to realize. Oh, I. Yeah. Yeah, I do have that. Which is a wonderful thing to know that you are both.

[Don Cheadle]

I think, in the right circumstances, we all have that. Right. In the right condition, some people can access it much more readily. But I think in the right conditions, anyone can. And that's, you know, to come all the way back to something, you know, that we were talking about earlier. You know, in, in Rwanda, the people that were doing this and that were the genociders were the day before, you know, inviting you over for breakfast. You know, you're giving borrowing sugar back and forth. It's not like these were. Oh, my God, these people were bred in this cauldron of evil. It's like, no, that's your neighbor, that's Phil. You know, it's just a person that lived next to you in these conditions. In the right conditions. In the right circumstance.

[Ted Danson]

Stoked. Kill you by radio.

[Don Cheadle]

That's right.

[Ted Danson]

Personalities.

[Don Cheadle]

That's right.

[Ted Danson]

Wasn't there one or two or whatever who just. That ramped up the rage?

[Don Cheadle]

Yes, there was a specific show.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

That not only was, you know, great, you know, primer for today, was whipping that up and getting people into that mood, but also gave the signal of when to go, you know, and they were also brought when it went to trial and when they had their, you know, the gacha cha, I think it's called, the truth and reconciliation trials and stuff. They were also noted as being the fomenters of that.

[Ted Danson]

I was there before. I think maybe the wheels came off a little bit of the Paul Kagame presidency and I don't know enough to really be speaking out like this, but to me, it was like the reconciliation was like a model, it was of how to bring a country together. You couldn't even say Hutu and Tutsi.

[Don Cheadle]

That's right.

[Ted Danson]

For a while you can say those words. And as long as somebody said, yes, I did that, they weren't killed. I'm sorry.

[Don Cheadle]

Yep.

[Ted Danson]

Then, okay, welcome back. Correct.

[Don Cheadle]

Well, you're going to work on the roads for the rest of your life or you're going to do. You're going to be in service for the rest of your life. It's not like you don't have to pay some sort of recompense. There is not. You weren't punishment free. You were going to do something.

[Ted Danson]

Missed that. Okay.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. No, you, you didn't. It's not like you're just right back in society. But, yes, if you said where the bodies were, if you said what you did, if you gave the family closure, then you wouldn't be summarily executed, but you were going to have to work.

[Ted Danson]

Gotcha.

[Don Cheadle]

You have to do stuff kind of Must have the guys on the roads and the jumpsuits. And then it's like, yeah, those are the guys that were.

[Ted Danson]

Wasn't there also a national. Every week there was a day that everybody cleaned, whether it was sweeping dirt roads or whatever.

[Don Cheadle]

I'm not aware of that. Perhaps that country became a model country, you know what I mean? And not just in that way, but also in environmental ways. They were the leaders in a lot of green stuff and a lot of clean air and clean water.

[Ted Danson]

Did you call Paul Farmer when you were in that part of the world? He was.

[Don Cheadle]

Mayhaps did a lot of the.

[Ted Danson]

Working with, getting farms up and running, regenerative farming in that area.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

What an interesting life you're having.

[Don Cheadle]

I agree. It's pretty wild.

[Ted Danson]

Who is some of the people going back to acting? Who you went. Oh, I. That's a teacher for me. That's an example of how. Cause to me, I've been doing sitcoms in half hours for so long, and it's really walking the door and hit the ground running and make the story work. Yes. Working off people. Yes. Sandy Meisner technique comes in. Yes. All of that stuff. But it's not research as much. It's doing the hard thing of trying to be in the moment and trying to learn the dance, because it is a dance.

[Don Cheadle]

And take. Oh, here's some pages that just came in five minutes ago. All of that.

[Ted Danson]

But it's not what you do when you play Miles Davis, you know, it's not. Where did you get the. Your acting ethic?

[Don Cheadle]

Yes, from definitely from high school, from my teacher in high school, Kathy Davis, who introduced us to Stanislavski and UTA Hagen and Meisner and, you know, all of these amazing teachers, Lee Strasberg and, you know, the, The. The work that you still do today and taught us about researching a character and building a character and act to prepare. It's just all this sort of, you know, groundwork. And then when I went to CalArts, you know, you're steeped in it.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

You have studio all the time and. And you're learning script analysis, which to me is like the godsend when you learn that how to actually analyze it. And, oh, this is an arc. And, oh, this is what an intention is. And this is. Yeah, these are the stakes, and this is what a character's wants are. And this is. All of that stuff, you know, is still what we do every day. And then after you've done it and done it and done it for so long, a lot of that just becomes you. You Tend to use it when you get stuck.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

When you can't figure something out why something's not quite working, then you go back to. You're like, okay, I gotta break this down.

[Ted Danson]

And usually for me, it's, oh, yeah, Work off your fellow actor.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, always.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm not, you know, over there as well, where I will figure out the scene.

[Don Cheadle]

I think that's the bedrock.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Don Cheadle]

That's really where you hopefully are in a dynamic where.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Don Cheadle]

You're shining their mirror, they're shining your mirror. You're shining their mirror. You know, you're both. It's really.

[Ted Danson]

And it's how life should be run. Anyway. No actors that were heroes of yours when you were starting out.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, for sure.

[Ted Danson]

Who?

[Don Cheadle]

Sidney Poitier.

[Ted Danson]

Oh.

[Don Cheadle]

I mean, did you get to meet him? I did.

[Ted Danson]

Me, too.

[Don Cheadle]

It was great. I met him at Bel Air Golf Course at the Bell Country Club.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And I finished, and they said, hey. Dude's like, hey, Sidney Poitier is in there. I was like, yeah, for real? He goes, yeah, he's in there. Come. Come meet him. And I went in and I, like, nervous. And he stood up and he saw me, said, I dig what you do, man. I was like, oh, my God, that's best ever. Thank you, Mr. Poitier. Like, would you, like, sit down, have some clam chowder? I was like, yeah, I'm having clam chowder. Having whatever you want. We're going to sit here and talk. Yeah. And so I got to hang out with him for a bit, and then I saw him a couple more times after that before he passed. But, yeah, it was great meeting him. And Morgan Freeman was a huge, you know, another. Went from easy reader to mean to street smart. And I was like, wait, this is the same dude?

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Talk about somebody who seems affable, scary,

[Ted Danson]

terrifying in that movie, because he was still affable.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, that's. Those are the best bad guys, right? The guys that are like, yeah, I don't. This isn't. I'll kill you while I'm smiling.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Because I kind of enjoy it.

[Don Cheadle]

Because that's kind of fun. Yeah. Yeah. The quiet ones that don't make a lot of noise, those are the scary ones.

[Ted Danson]

Gregory Peck was another one of those men that I was so grateful I got to hug.

[Don Cheadle]

You know, I share a Golden Globe with Gregory Peck for Rat Pack. Oh, we tied.

[Ted Danson]

Really? Oh, was he in Gringo then?

[Don Cheadle]

Or what was.

[Ted Danson]

I remember what it was. Yeah, that's pretty fucking cool.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. That's what my mom was excited about. She's like, it's great that she's tied with Gregory Peck. But I won. She's like, yeah, you won, but you tied with Gregory Peck.

[Ted Danson]

Mary tied. Mary got a Critics Choice Award for a song she wrote for a film, Wild Rose, and she. And her writing partners. And she tied with Elton John.

[Don Cheadle]

Look at that.

[Ted Danson]

Much better than just winning by yourself, because your name's tied to that person forever.

[Don Cheadle]

That's right. That's right. Yeah. He was a monster. There were so many. I mean, elegant, elegant men and terrifying. Gregory Peck was terrifying in.

[Ted Danson]

What's the movie where he played the Nazi ex.

[Don Cheadle]

No, no, that too. That's Boys From Brazil.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

He's been a lot of scary.

[Ted Danson]

No, he's. I got to know him because Mary knew him. All the good things come from my wife. I get introduced to so many amazing people. That's one of the best parts of whatever success we have, of course, is

[Don Cheadle]

who you get to meet 100%, and these experiences that we get to have and these connections that we get to make. And, you know, when you started the conversation talking about Hotel Rwanda and what that did after the film was out, you know, that was. And still to this day, I'm still a part of me. But the years that led to, you know, the advocacy and the activism, and again, I'm, you know, drafting people that have been. Were doing it years before me, for sure, and we're much more steeped in it. But understanding how your celebrity can help supercharge that stuff and help give oxygen to things that are having trouble finding their place, and it's like, oh, that's the benefit of this. That's the best use of this.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. It's also smart for yourself. When I started becoming an ocean advocate, which I've done for, like, 35 years or so or whatever, it started partially because I, all of a sudden, was making a lot of money because of Cheers. How do you be responsible about that? Oh, this is different. I also.

[Don Cheadle]

You were a huge litter bug, right? You were notoriously a huge.

[Ted Danson]

No, no, still am.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Oh.

[Don Cheadle]

Threw a lot of stuff. I know.

[Ted Danson]

Ocean.

[Don Cheadle]

The ocean, it gets its way. It makes its way there. I mean, let's be real.

[Ted Danson]

What do you mean? What. Hey, fuck you.

[Don Cheadle]

Hey. There we go. There he is. I mean, we'll cut that. Mask. Mask, Mask, Mask. Mask. I mean. No.

[Ted Danson]

Mary calls me her faux F, A, U, X. Christ.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, my God.

[Ted Danson]

Always.

[Don Cheadle]

I look, can we need to know a lot more about this Mother wife relationship.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Wait, what do you mean? Did I say that?

[Don Cheadle]

What do you mean?

[Ted Danson]

No, we cut that out. So don't even play back on it, because it'll be cut out.

[Don Cheadle]

Okay, that's fine.

[Ted Danson]

So disturbing. I forgot what I was about to say. Oh, shoot. Oh, that. When you. If you're a celebrity or you famous, whatever, and you just walk around and soak that up, it'll fuck you up completely. You'll either believe it or you'll hide from it or whatever. So you go, all right, wait a minute. That's a lot of literal energy. Focus. Energy coming my way. Reflect. Deflect that into something you care about.

[Don Cheadle]

That's it.

[Ted Danson]

Then all of a sudden, you're doing something.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. Yeah. Brad would always say, like, I can't get out of the light, and these guys can't get in the light. So I'm always trying to redirect and do exactly what you said. Be like, oh, you're looking at me. Fantastic. Now look over here.

[Ted Danson]

Okay. You just said Brad. Jesus. You mean Brad Pitt.

[Don Cheadle]

I don't know. I don't know Brad Pitt. Oh, Brad Greenberg. Who did you think I meant? Brad Greenberg. The famous Brad Greenberg who can't get out of the light.

[Ted Danson]

I just learned. I'm not going to banter with you. I said to myself, don't banter with him or rip you a new asshole.

[Don Cheadle]

Anyway, you've just insulted Brad Greenberg.

[Ted Danson]

What else do I want to talk to you about? Oh, Skip Gates.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Skip Gates.

[Don Cheadle]

Skip Gates.

[Ted Danson]

One of my favorite people. But I watched your. He. I. We did. Mary and I did. Following your. Finding your roots.

[Don Cheadle]

Finding your roots.

[Ted Danson]

Finding your roots. You did. What was it called? It was the same thing.

[Don Cheadle]

Same thing.

[Ted Danson]

Same thing. To discover that your great, great, great grandfather was a slave who was owned by the Choctaw. What is it?

[Don Cheadle]

The Choctaw.

[Ted Danson]

Choctaw.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

I watched your face when you.

[Don Cheadle]

Chickasaw. Chickasaw.

[Ted Danson]

Which part of the world is that?

[Don Cheadle]

Oklahoma.

[Ted Danson]

Oklahoma.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

It's so. It is. Wait, what?

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. And then that tribes head slaves and then kept them.

[Ted Danson]

Right.

[Don Cheadle]

Because the Emancipation Proclamation. Because they weren't. They weren't considered.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Humans and people.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

So it's like, well, then we don't have to obey your laws.

[Ted Danson]

Plus. Plus, I think they had separate nations by then, so. Fuck you.

[Don Cheadle]

They have their own rules. Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

So how are you? How are you doing nowadays?

[Don Cheadle]

Terribly.

[Ted Danson]

With what's going on the worst of times.

[Don Cheadle]

No, I'm doing great. I'm doing.

[Ted Danson]

How do you deal with, though? I Mean, your times are great, but you look around you and you go, oh, fuck, it's. And we don't have to talk about that, by the way.

[Don Cheadle]

No, no. It is a daily navigation. Right.

[Ted Danson]

Yes.

[Don Cheadle]

Of what we were talking about. How do I show up? What's my responsibility now in this space? How do I push back against this authoritarianism? How do I support people who are on the front lines of it? And it's getting more and more extreme every day, every moment. And what does it mean to have laws now? What does that actually mean when the person who's supposed to be leading the way in that says the law is whatever my morality is. It's like your morality is the barometer for laws now. Yeah, we're in a lot of fucking trouble if that's the truth. So I don't know. I think it's something that the instinct is to just get out of here. The instinct is to go.

[Ted Danson]

I know a lot of people who sincerely. Oh, think that.

[Don Cheadle]

No. I know people who've already bounced. I know a lot of people are like, I'm not just talking about it. I'm out. They've left.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And other people who are, you know, I think you're foolish if you're not thinking about how to do it, you know, or thinking about what are the, you know, it's like having a go bag, you know, that's kind of a part of it now. Like, well, shit, if it goes down, you know, Like, I had a friend say to me, he was like, is it too late? If it's crystal knocked, is it already too late? Yeah. And he's. He's married to a woman who was married to. Her husband was Iranian and she lived there right before the revolution. And he said, so you probably. When there were bodies on the street, that's when you probably left. Right. She said, no, that's not when we left. It's like, oh, wow. She goes, you know, we had extended family. There was a debate within our family to leave or not to leave. Some people were saying they weren't leaving, no matter what. Other people were saying, you have to leave. So within the nuclear family, there's sons and daughters that want to leave, want to stay. They said, we have our businesses here. What are we going to do? How are we going to convert our money? It's more than a notion, as my grandmother used to say, on what you're going to. Actually, how do you actualize that? Not just consider it? Like, what does it actually look like to pull up stakes and go and go where? And where are we going where this sort of ideology has not become kind of rampant? I mean, I think we're in the age of bullies right now. We're in the age of a lot of thuggery. And it's not like you can run away from all of this. That's also making a statement, running, you know what I mean? So I don't fault anyone for doing it. And people have to make their own decisions about how they want to live their lives and, you know, protect their families and their friends. So I think it's, we're at a moment where all of that is really present and really in the front of my mind all the time.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

As a father, as a husband, questioning

[Ted Danson]

myself too of what is appropriate for me. Am I so conflict avoidance that I'm not being real, you know, or is it okay to be doing what I'm doing? I'm not Jane Fonda who leaps up on the ramparts. Yeah. You know, and full steam ahead. I've never been that person. So to do it now feels. But I need to be. You know, it's like this constant conversation in that head.

[Don Cheadle]

I think if you're, listen, if you're awake and aware and paying attention, how could you not be having it? How could that not be on a, on a loop?

[Ted Danson]

I mean, my whole life has been about. My father was an archaeologist, scientist. And this, once again, I'm going, is this conflict avoidance or not? But he. Science. Science to me is if I'm, if I'm going, here's the science, I will. You can do what you want, but let's not lie about the science. And that's kind of what I've been doing with ocean advocacy. This is what happens to the world's fisheries if you keep doing this. Da, da, da, da, da. And I will talk to anyone and have in Congress and have people call me a whatever. I'm all right with that. Because I'm going, this is the science.

[Don Cheadle]

This is data. Yeah. These are data points. This is factual.

[Ted Danson]

Yes. And yet oceans, the environment, epa, everything has been gutted. And it's so many steps backward. Drill baby, drill time on steroids, all of that. But what just churns my heart is immigration.

[Don Cheadle]

I just, if we're at the point where you can really just kick somebody's door in, it doesn't. And you don't have to have a warrant. Miranda's gone. All these things that we actually perhaps with rose colored glasses on, believed were some sort of barrier to this kind of behavior, which I don't know why people would ever, you know, most black people are like, why y' all surprised? I know, but you know, like, we all worry about like tripping about this. Yeah. But if that's really where we're at, then it's not. And I'm not. And I'm trying to couch this in a way that it's not good news that everybody's getting it now or understanding it now, but as it slowly gets revealed that, yeah, everybody can be on the menu, maybe, maybe we will be able to lock arms around something.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

And really be like, oh, it's, it's us against this kind of lawlessness and authority that. And it's not hiding it. It's not, you know, I'm not like saying, they're saying we're not dealing with the law. They're saying we don't care what the law is, you know? Yes. Scott Jennings on CNN the other day going, yeah, and what are you all going to do about it?

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

That's the attitude. Yeah. And do something about it. So what, so when we're in that paradigm where people who can do are just gonna do whatever they want to do.

[Ted Danson]

Yep.

[Don Cheadle]

Then yeah. What are, what, what do, what do we have left? You know what? I have a friend. We're saying, like, the level of friendship that you're gonna rely on now is like, will you hide me? You know, that's, that's now the barrier for a friend. Like, do you have an attic? Do you have a shed that I can hide in? It's like that's, that's legit where we are. People are legitimately in the streets letting people hide in their houses while they're holding kids outside to bait people to come outside. I've got your six year old outside here. Come outside.

[Ted Danson]

I didn't hear that one.

[Don Cheadle]

No, that's the new shit. That's. Now what's up? They're like holding kids outside to try to bait the parents into coming outside. And the parents are inside saying, let my kid go. And they're going, come out here and get them. It's like, I know you're just gonna grab me. They just grabbed this six year old kid. Him and his father sent him to Texas. I mean, this isn't new shit, but it's accelerating at a rate that is frightening. And if anybody thinks that somehow being conflict avoidant or just keeping your mouth shut and hoping it doesn't happen to you, I mean, we have great sayings about all this. First they came for the these are not we're not in a this is not new shit. No, this is cyclical.

[Ted Danson]

I wish I had something wise. I still am.

[Don Cheadle]

Like I don't have it either. I'm profoundly every day. And you don't want to doom scroll. It's easy to do though.

[Ted Danson]

You don't. And there are amazing people doing amazing things and there are still love, creativity, all these amazing things to focus on.

[Don Cheadle]

And, and it's not. But it is. And, and I think those. Yes, you have to continue to do those things too. You have to continue to to try to have joy. You have to continue to create. And, and art has been one of the only things consistently right in history that has pushed back against that in a way that gets past this sort of politics gets passed, you know, logic. It just hits you in your solar plexus and you're like, oh, that's true. Oh, that's inspiring me to act. Inspiration is actually the thing that can be a countermeasure to this despair.

[Ted Danson]

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[Don Cheadle]

The play is about a family where the father. It's hard to like not spoil alert the play because something happens in the first scene where if you haven't seen it and don't know the play, you're

[Ted Danson]

like, oh, the three characters are four characters. Four.

[Don Cheadle]

A father, his two daughters and his four former student.

[Ted Danson]

And is that you are.

[Don Cheadle]

I'm the father.

[Ted Danson]

Father Robert. Yeah. Okay, can't spoil it. But it was made into a movie.

[Don Cheadle]

It was made into a movie.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

I think Mary Louise Parker played the

[Ted Danson]

lead in the movie.

[Don Cheadle]

She also did it on Broadway.

[Ted Danson]

And when do you start rehearsing?

[Don Cheadle]

March 31st.

[Ted Danson]

And what is your commitment? Will you be doing this for about a year? No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Don Cheadle]

I'll be going for. We open April 16, I believe. April 16 and closed July 19.

[Ted Danson]

So Marvel make your deal for you? Marvel, meaning you're not doing a play for a year?

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm actually a free agent, you know, so I can, yeah, I could travel now. That was literally 50. I mean that was 2008.

[Ted Danson]

Isn't that amazing?

[Don Cheadle]

17 years. Yeah, 18 years. I don't think it's over necessarily either, but it's been a grip of Marvel. But no, this was something that I didn't anticipate doing it. I was asked to do a reading and Ayoida Berry, I'm a big fan of and we did the reading and David was there, the playwright and very amenable to changes and to looking at different ways to approach these scenes. Cause it's an all black family. It's not just, you know, just putting an overlay on a black family when it's written as a white family. There's not a one to one in everything. Like there's a police situation that happens that we gotta kinda look at. You know, there's a situation where the sister brings shampoo over for her sister to wash her hair. And it's like if the black girl's washing her hair, that's the night we're not. It's not like, that's that night, and we're not then doing more things that night, you know, so we gotta, like, talk about. The difference is. And it's, you know, it's great that he isn't the playwright who's saying, no, this is the play. You know, it won the Pulitzer, so we're not doing anything else with it. He's like, well, let's talk about that.

[Ted Danson]

It's a living.

[Don Cheadle]

It's a living. Exactly. And it's great that we have the author right there and he's willing to play.

[Ted Danson]

When did you do a play last?

[Don Cheadle]

The last play I did, I think, was Top Dog, Underdog at the public.

[Ted Danson]

When?

[Don Cheadle]

2000. 2001. So this is September 2, 2001. It closed.

[Ted Danson]

That's a big deal.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. I'm very excited.

[Ted Danson]

What are you. How old are you? 51?

[Don Cheadle]

62.

[Ted Danson]

62.

[Don Cheadle]

Am I. No, 61.

[Ted Danson]

61. See, but that's what I was going to bring up. How's your brain doing, really, when you think about it? Don't ask me.

[Don Cheadle]

If I only had a brain. Wait, is that a. Is that copyright? You can't.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

You'll cut that out, I think.

[Ted Danson]

I think you can get about six notes in before it's a. Well, that's exciting, though. Are you gonna uproot? You don't uproot family anymore. Your kids are like.

[Don Cheadle]

No, my kids are 31 and 29. Like, we'll see you out there a couple times. You're moving to New York with me. No, we're not.

[Ted Danson]

I hear you're on the Marvel series.

[Don Cheadle]

Great.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, I gotta go. Click. And by the way, don't. Why are you calling me?

[Ted Danson]

You kids. The kids are. Come watch me work. Come, come. I think you'll love it. Yeah. And then you hear. If they hear you working with, you know, oh, I'm working with Johnny Depp.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, boom. You know.

[Ted Danson]

Or I guess that's too old. Down the line.

[Don Cheadle]

But, I mean, they were, you know, we were. I was very fortunate because Brigid would travel and, you know, when we were. Africa. They went to school in Africa. And that was fantastic.

[Ted Danson]

That was true with Mary, too.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. We would move around a lot, and then they need some consistency and friends. And friends and all that stuff, so. And I was very fortunate to be parked in LA during that time, too. I was doing a series here.

[Ted Danson]

That's true.

[Don Cheadle]

So I was here for, you know.

[Ted Danson]

Which one? The one.

[Don Cheadle]

House of Lies. Yeah. With Kristen.

[Ted Danson]

Kristen Bell.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah.

[Ted Danson]

With Kitty Hater.

[Don Cheadle]

Yeah. She's the worst.

[Ted Danson]

Talk about Brain.

[Don Cheadle]

Crazy Brain spent too much time on her already and it was only like 15 seconds.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Don Cheadle]

Let's move on.

[Ted Danson]

Well said. And Dax. Give me a fucking break.

[Don Cheadle]

Both of them together.

[Ted Danson]

Here's what you don't want to do.

[Don Cheadle]

Ivory and Ivory, right?

[Ted Danson]

They're both such. They're both such a types that, that I went. Made the mistake of going to my first escape room with them.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, oh, oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Mary was in with Kristen Bell, became I think boys against girls or something.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, I'm sure Kristen was like. And now we have to.

[Ted Danson]

Oh, no. They're both. I, I was so overwhelmed by a types in my little cell. It was get out of jail kind of escape room that I realized there was a cot in the corner to make it look like a cell. I literally took a nap. It was pitch black. What the fuck? They're not going to know.

[Don Cheadle]

See you guys when you solve it. I'll be over here when I hear the door open.

[Ted Danson]

So you never know career wise or I don't whether you're not Tom Cruise because you chose not to be Tom Cruise or there was never a chance you were going to go be movie star kind of thing. I had a life where I. For 18 years in a row, I went to Paramount Studio, 8 o', clock, 9 o' clock in the morning, was home in time for dinner, slept in my own bed. I had summer off.

[Don Cheadle]

18 years.

[Ted Danson]

11 cheers. 6 Becker and a couple of odd ones here and there. And it was. I love it. I think I'm such a homebody. I think I do. I try to diminish myself and find out what's wrong with me wanting to just be there. But I love ensemble. I wanted to be a basketball player. I love team. I love knowing the crew. I love everything about it. I love driving through studio gates. Just thrill still.

[Don Cheadle]

And I loved that show because of the ensemble. And I love, you know, and then I did Black Monday after that and I had a great time on that with that, that ensemble. I love being tucked into a group of people that all really want to be there and love passing the ball around and just having a great time and are thankful and generous. I've been very lucky and it sounds like you have too to work with people that are just like, yeah, these people I would hang out with and do anyway, you know, don't need to be getting a check to do it and just grab a play in the spirit of play. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

I don't think. I think I'm too Boring to be around. I think assholes don't like being around me because I'm boring. I'm not. I've never worked, I don't think, with an. I've always been around amazing actors and writers and directors, and I work with

[Don Cheadle]

a couple that I would never name check, but.

[Ted Danson]

Who was that?

[Don Cheadle]

Okay, let's get into it.

[Ted Danson]

Okay.

[Don Cheadle]

Let's do a little amsr.

[Ted Danson]

No, the most people.

[Don Cheadle]

The people I've hated the most on set and why. And why one was unhygienic.

[Ted Danson]

They all had very small penises.

[Don Cheadle]

Very small penises.

[Ted Danson]

I knew.

[Don Cheadle]

And one had a huge vagina.

[Ted Danson]

Guys, I can make you say the word penis within about an hour. Boom.

[Don Cheadle]

Good job. That was based.

[Ted Danson]

One last question.

[Don Cheadle]

That's a callback.

[Ted Danson]

Tell me. Tell me who. It doesn't have to be one last question, but tell me who you're. What's. Where. Where do you. Where's your moral center? Where's your, you know, what you look to for guidance or a thought that you have in your head always for guidance of Is this right or wrong?

[Don Cheadle]

Wow, that's a good question. I mean, I don't. To me, it's so your wife. It's probably dark right now. I mean, it's not. I. To me, it's very obvious. You know, I feel where right and wrongness is right.

[Ted Danson]

Okay. But

[Don Cheadle]

I don't feel like I stray too much from it and that if I do stray, I'm not unaware of it. Yeah, you're having a family. Having. You know, I've been with Bridget for 30 years, you know, having long. And I have friends that I've had for decades. And I think if you look up and you don't, no one who's around you has been there for the. If all you got is all new friends and all new people, it's pretty easy to not be tethered. But I think when you have these deep, long relationships, and I was very fortunate to have both my parents and loving parents, and they were together until, you know, my mother passed first and my father passed not long after. And how long ago My. My dad in 20, in 2000, and my mom three years before that. So not 2000, sorry, 20. 20, rather. And my mom 2017. But I have these deep pillars in the ground, you know, and it's. And it's hard to not know where you are in the world when you have that. Those reminders around you all the time. And I feel very blessed and very fortunate in every word that's in that family of Words to feel tethered to people and to relationships and. And to that centering that lets you know where you're at in the world. And it doesn't mean that you're always going to act in that way in observance of it. And I think it becomes harder and harder, and it's more challenging to every day to stand on that business of that stuff and deal with whatever comes as a result of it, because that's kind of the sport nowadays, it feels like, is to try to knock people over, really, and not be impressed by anything. And everything there's all. Everything's just sort of like, hey, whatever. It's a very. It's a very tough time, I think, to put on that armor and go out in the world and be strong. And it's definitely imagined hard if you're alone, your heart if you don't have these connections. But again, I think I'm very lucky to be tethered to people and attached to people and have long, deep relationships that help keep you centered and aware. You don't get too big for your britches. You don't think you're all that. No matter whoever you're hanging out with, you know that you're still a human being that's on this planet and you're here to mostly be a good person and if you're not, to correct it. And that's kind of your job here. And all this other stuff that we get to do is gravy, and it's fantastic. And we get these incredible experiences.

[Ted Danson]

It's full of pitfalls.

[Don Cheadle]

Absolutely.

[Ted Danson]

There's not an acting trap or ego trap or celebrity trap I don't fall into. Yeah, but you avoid it. I will get back up.

[Don Cheadle]

You look, you peek over there, but, you know, mean, your ego is going to go down there and especially, you know, award season. Come on.

[Ted Danson]

But I'm above it.

[Don Cheadle]

We keep it in perspective. Yeah, but you have to, you know, we keep that stuff in perspective.

[Ted Danson]

Brad.

[Don Cheadle]

Mr. Greenberg to you.

[Ted Danson]

Sorry, Mr. Greenberg, I can't tell you how much fun it is to sit here and talk to you. I don't. I. I probably wouldn't, you know, I'd probably go, hey, Don, you know, in a party or at this or that, but to be able to sit down and talk to you for an hour and whatever.

[Don Cheadle]

Oh, yeah.

[Ted Danson]

Has been real.

[Don Cheadle]

I won't invite you in, but if you happen to walk by the garage again, we'll have another conversation. Lawn chairs in the garage.

[Ted Danson]

Can I use the bathroom?

[Don Cheadle]

No, I'm Sorry, there are others. Oh snap. Oh snap. Oh, that's hilarious.

[Ted Danson]

Much love to you.

[Don Cheadle]

Right back at you.

[Ted Danson]

Yeah. Again, an honor to have Don Cheadle today. Just the fact that he was here, I feel like maybe our podcast just might make it. That's it for this week. Thank you to our friends at Team Coco. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts if you're feeling generous. If you like watching your podcasts, all our full length episodes are on YouTube. Visit YouTube.comteamcoco More good stuff for you next time. Where everybody knows your name.

[Don Cheadle]

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows yous Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson Sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Leow. Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer. Engineering remixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez Research by Alyssa Grohl Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Bautista. Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Antony Genn, Mary Steenbergen and John Osborne.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Ted Danson]

hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy Live and uncensored.

[Don Cheadle]

Catch me talking with my friends about

[Ted Danson]

my latest obsessions, relationship issues and bodily ailments.

[Don Cheadle]

With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

[Commercial Announcer]

You can listen to Jeff Lewis live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 shows, channels of ad, free music, sports, entertainment and more. Subscribe now and get 3 months free offer details Apply.