our culture is awash in lives dominated by streams of never ending electronic hallucinations that lurk fiction until they are indistinguishable we have become the most deluded society on politics as a species of endless and needless political politicians and celebrities are two ruling parties are in reality one party corporate and those who attempt to puncture the. breathless universe of fake news to sign the push through the cool t.v.

and exploitation of the little boy who are forced so far to the margins of society including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche of squeak we must move. all the worlds. and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are in t. american play. off much more. personal. in many ways the news landscape is just like the future real news big news good actors bad actors and in the end you could never you're on. some. part.

of the world all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. on larry king now and thirty michael hall years ago i was offered full metal jacket and unfortunately didn't work out after a long ago i was actually working on the project so it wasn't able to work out if i think close to a regret of it my it would be that if they gave you the nickname the polarizer they did you know saw early into the production and that they saw what i was bringing a kind of chose to play him more like a george head kind of more like a marine even though these gentlemen were army generals of course in that they change the character name from i think it was berger took over and started call me the pulverizer which i want to appreciate it i have to just acknowledge john hughes he was such an incredible man i think his real talent also larry was to see something in people he really empowered people he really gave them shots and he really understood how to get the best out of people without ever confronting on his writing plus in the business or the life of his sort of forty one years what's the

biggest change you've seen tentpole films that there's such a huge industry for what marvel does brilliantly in d.c. and i think that's a real surprise i think i read somewhere that spielberg referred to it as like the new westerns since all next on larry king now. larry king now our guest today is actor producer musician director and eighty's anthony michael hall known for pirates of silicon valley of the dog catcher edward scissorhands the dead zone and of course sixteen candles on the breakfast club the now stars obvious that brad pitt in war machine the film an afghanistan war satire which anthony plays a version of michael flynn is available on netflix it's been described this movie as an afghanistan war satire it is is today. it was got to be based on factual

things it is larry you know in part what happened was plan b. it optioned the book it was originally called the operators and it stemmed from an article in rolling stone magazine written by a gentleman in michael hastings who then went on to write the book by the line of the plays yes or and so plan b. option the book and they developed it for a period of years and david michaud does a very brilliant talented writer director from australia they test him with with directing the film adapting the book the book was serious the book was serious yeah and i think close to the beginning of production i think the decision was made between t.d. garden or jeremy and bred. to fictionalize it to give us a little bit more latitude in terms of telling the story but it is in fact based on a book but they decided to make it a set correct yeah and it gave you the nickname the pulverizer he did you know saw early into the production i think that they saw what i was bringing a kind of chose to play him more like a jarhead kind of more like a marine even though these gentlemen were army generals of course general

mcchrystal and general flynn. so that just kind of became a nickname in that they changed the character name from i think it was berger to paul over so the new head started call me the pulverizer which i did which i appreciated you play general paul and it's based on flynn and i understand that you adapted method acting for this is that right is that not your normal course and questions or will sometimes i do it just depends on the material the last time i i can recall doing this when i played bill gates this is going back about fifteen years but i think it's when i make that decision it's in support of the work it somehow to protect the level of concentration for myself that i just kind of want to. beware of the gap between what we're doing and and the down time so that's a few studies. i did and did i read a bunch about him but knowing that we had that latitude i chose to kind of take it another direction you never met him or when you play a character you have to like him might well believe in him you don't play a top one hundred you play or it's

a good question do you have to like the character yeah i mean i think for me the impetus was i had a lot of inspiration my grandfather served in world war two at a local mccree and war and won and vietnam to me my personal spiration was to sort of honor our great men and women to serve our nation all around the world so knowing that the film would be seen by the military that was important. to respectfully represent mr flynn even though what was being fictionalized was important to me so absolutely and i did as much reading as i could about this and i kept the book with me throughout the making of the film because michelle had actually taken excerpts from it and created scenes and called it the greatest role of your career why i felt very long and distinguished career thank you sir from you thank you i feel very motivated i was very inspired to be working for and with bret and his company i think that they have just the best taste and they're excellent what they do obviously they want oscars for the last three years so i was very motivated to deliver as an actor and to really. to really step up my game i was

really thrilled to be working with brad and he's a great guy he is with people he's a great guy and a great actor he is he really is is that he's so good looking that it's played down how good an actor is i agree with you on that so i do agree with you about that and he's got great facility at the same time i saw him wearing different hats you know i saw a guy who was a stand up guy he was a family guy he was a great producer without being meddlesome or micro-managing and since he was incredible you know on the whole team so i think all the ins and all those reasons inspired me to there's you know going through a lot of personal problems then. the national weather service sterling virginia has issued a special memory warning for chesapeake bay from pools island to sandy point

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i just wanted to have full respect for him i don't want to lean on him you know he stayed in character i did yeah it meant actually just kind of putting my lip with a shoe we shot all over the world we shot in london we shot nobly dobby we shot in dubai and then we finished the picture in berlin and interesting enough there was unfortunately that the paris attacks happened that time we were supposed to finish the film in paris but they made the choice to you know curtail that because what was going on at the time unfortunately it was god makes reviews washington post called it funny and sad and weary and why is the atlantic called it a failure perhaps it could have been a great films that tried a little harder to picked up tone do you know what that meant or do you care about reviews. good questions or i would say i would say this to that i think would david we showed i can't speak for him obviously but my my sense is that in making the decision to fictionalize this he wanted to create

a little more latitude so they could sort of so he's a filmmaker i believe could aspire to sort of a dr strangelove you know a black comedy and it's a very difficult one can touch kubrick in london it is a thin monster but what i found is after looking at the film three or four times i saw the structure of it differently i thought he i thought he structured brilliantly i thought that was a bit of a lure to kind of bring the audience and to use the humor and brad performance is very kind of funny initially and also believe a ball and then the film sort of digresses into a classic war picture so i have a different take on it i think he achieved both you played some indelible roles in your career most of the population will forever know you as part of the brat pack. is that good or bad you know what i recall at that time i think it was a bit of advice by a magazine at the time who have got all those a lot of those actors of my generation to sit down and then i became the coin phrase i mean it certainly can't touch the rat pack but. i've never made much of it

i didn't think it was the nicest term but ultimately it just became a way of referencing i guess people my generation in the acting you know. can be generalised into the reinvent themselves you think that's the case with you. you have a layered career yes or i do i think it's. you always have to be ready to you know present yourself and put your best foot forward and i've certainly would be lying if i said i had reinvented myself over the years i've tried to you know you don't always have the luxury of picking the work but you know you probably try to bring your best you know and always the like to play bill gates that was very inspiring you know i felt the duty to read as much as i could a bomber but all the barber fees and books that i could on him and i really got into it you know i really. i felt responsible to deliver on that role and. you know there's a lot of ways people can look at him i mean it's incredible i personally feel the work he's done since leaving microsoft is even more impressive but. it was an

amazing opportunity so i really wanted to stick close to the facts and i was. you know really caught up in again another kind of method performance where i just wanted to kind of put myself away and really immersed myself in interesting. fascinating and his wife as well i mean they're brilliant people yet you've remained a household name. you stick around i mean you you know they're coming from you that's a great compliment thank you i try to just be i think it's my irish italian heritage i just have a hard head larry just keep on always going to is the breakfast club and sixteen candles ever going to be rebooted. for a new generation you know what i have to just acknowledge john he was he was such an incredible incredible man and that would that would really be up to his wife i think at this point i would be against it i think the work is so incredible what he had such a gift as a writer but. i think his real talent also larry was to see something and people he really empowered people he really gave them shots and he really understood how to

get the best out of people without everett infringing on his writing you know i interviewed all those that wanted to work for. him is a wonderful guy he was right there with you to laugh you know he would kind of talk you through takes he was as close as you and i are in the camera would be there almost like that stores here before leaving you know it end. and i was just honored to know my work for me was like a big older brother that had the greatest sense of humor and we'd always be conspiring between takes you know and you know he put me here i wouldn't want to be sitting in the scenes with a such it's i thought a long time to think about that i think that he just has such a great year as a writer larry and at the same time i think there is a structure insurance and is film so i think that everybody one's up a little bit better off than they started in those comedies and they're very enduring you know so i think that's a lot of it all the legs anthony michael hall told about his fan encounters his longtime friend and collaborator robert downey jr and we'll be right back.

i'm tom hartman and i'll give you what the mainstream media can't help big picture . and when you question more find what you're looking for this. dog. will go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture. in case you're new to the game this is how it works mark the economy is built around core. corporations run washington washington controls the media the media and. the voters elected to run this country business

equals power. must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories that our critics can't tell and you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american public what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and

you know what they're working on. all the feeling. every the world should experience. and you get it on the old the old. the old according to gesture. welcome. come along for the iraq. war machine is available on netflix anthony michael hall is our guest you and robert downey jr how did that friendship begin minute believe in one thousand nine

hundred four universal on the set of weird science which was the first of the third of the three films i did with mr hughes and we just hit it off his buddies and we've been friends. all these years on saturday night live together right yeah now the youngest ever i was i was i had the great pleasure working for lorne as we know the genius who helped invent that i mean not since the show shows was there a live comedy show and so i was able to introduce robert to lorne at that time and we worked on the show together and we just remained friends over the years and he and his wife susan are really great friends does he do and now robert he's doing fantastic numbers all the big time you know it's amazing that he really really is i mean that's got to be the singular one of the greatest comebacks in the history of hollywood and his wife has a large part in that i mean they're a great couple and they were that very good saw understand you're developing a show together we are we were wrote a comedy together called singularity comedy which would be t.v. shows the intent it's a comedy about the singer family dysfunctional family like who isn't. and i feel really good about it we worked on the script for about a year and

a half we did about ten drafts together and when you play well this you know it's going to be about a family with three brothers and i'll be sort of the black sheep middle brother who's trying to bring it all back together as as the patriarch of the family is reaching his senior years and it's a comedy it's really funny you see when downey and i well downey is committed to direct the pilot in a second episode and we wrote it together and we're just put in a deal with the now so hopefully by next year we'll shoot the parsing singularities of ok we play a little game of if you only knew i just throw some questions ok who anthony michael hall was your childhood celebrity crush. i had to be fair in the seventies secret talent i play a little guitar the person you trade places with for a day mr king good choice. you need a lot of people we're job you've ever had i've had the good fortune of only working in this industry since i was a kid so they were really high where jobs they've all been fun and different and it's been quite a journey pleasure kind of

a news junkie what never fails to make you laugh richard pryor george carlin what superpower would you like to have the ability to see the future in hollywood maybe . best problem of the ever got well this is one of them to be your table i grew up watching you know mountain really is an honor to be with you this is one of them something you wish you were better at business favorite john hughes film probably sixteen can start it all for me you know biggest perk to being a celebrity being acknowledged by people and it's a nice it's a nice thing and i think urgent is strangest fan encounter i'll lot of my do some a lot of signings if he's comic-con and stuff and sometimes i meet people that have some funny experiences you get usually people dressed up in cars play outfits or whatever or people just coming up to me just you know acknowledging the work that they grew up with me it's really it's very humbling and also encouraging it is home and you say that to me about me thank you this was something people don't know about it i'm

a writer yeah i write first for me to i'm working on my own company which is manhattan film some developing projects and one particular is a cop story that i want to direct but i also have other things that i'm writing you know work on a novel or i think most of screenwriting but it up straight yeah yeah. and i'm writing what i actually wrote with and y.p. detective. and it's set in the city then it goes to new orleans the hope to make that film paul again to social media questions you and mike tyson will once told friends you know there was a fellow actor the gentleman who played the dean in the breakfast club paul gleason he's he's passed on now but he actually was a good friend of mine after making that film became buddies and he took me to of one of tyson's. fights at the garden here in the mid eighty's and tyson knocked this guy out early on and and i was introduced to him after that would became buddies like mike me to various assertions that he is he is not what people think he's sensitive he's funny yeah he's tough guy was such a great fighter two eyes of social media questions for you mads game sixty seven

asked which of your john hughes movies was your favorite to work god you know we got be build a really nice reports about a time we did weird science that was the third and that was probably the most fun of all three go because well because we had a shorthand at the time john and i and as i said it was the third film in a role that to my amazement as general kept casting me so we had a real blast on that john tyler two one two one two one stanley kubrick was a huge fan of yours why do you think that was and what do you think of him. any regrets on missing two big roles and well you know i think what the gentleman's referring to is years ago i was offered full metal jacket and unfortunately didn't work out after a long ago she asian i was actually working on another project so it wasn't able to work out but out of the movie yeah i had a great opportunity to speak to my few times and it was fascinating larry he was speaking to me about chaplin eisenstein some his great film you know directors and all tours that he loved i think to this day no one comes close to kubrick i think

he was operating on many levels and he was such intellectual interesting guy and i think the proof is in the putting his films are so. jampacked is so much there they can kind of go back to them we're going to play. at the time it was the joker all the modine role you know really yeah yeah and. he gave me the greatest compliment of my of my entire career sir he said you know he just watched sixteen candles and i was just a puppet is the kid you know. and he told me i was his favorite actor it seems and he saw jack and he's a writer and that was so amazing that i almost dropped the phone i think i was just eight years so the movie was sorry. if i think close to regret it my it would be that i think you know unfortunately didn't work out but the movie is you know again like all of his films that stands on its own you know really filled john tyler also as is long going to rumor that all of the characters played by you and john hughes films are actually based on use themselves is that true i can't say that that i

don't know that that's true you know i think that he just had such a good ear i think he was always drawing from everyone and in his own family had he was the middle child he had two sisters and i remember him talking about that dynamic he kind of felt like an outsider amongst his sisters within his own family but to say that i was you know that i was his muse i think all of us were his muses in a way and i think that he drew from everywhere in the show me how was it working with bill paxton in weird science that. he was a great guy he really was he leaves a lovely guy man he really loved the process larry he was so encouraging of others he was really he had he always brought great energy to the says he'll i don't know you know i have mutual friend and we all had dinner about five years ago now the last time i'd seen bill and i didn't i don't know if he was i can't speak to that but his wife louise and his son i just arkell's out so he was such a great guy he really was daniel of course of the thomas what did you do for your saturday night live edition you know was that it was

a unique thing at that time most people had to audition and it came from stand up and i think because of the three john hughes films i was actually just offered you know to be part of the cat. which blew me away you know because i was a kid who grew up in the seventies watching all the all those classic people you know chevy and bill maher and all those all those greats and then actually even i school i was watching at murphy and a couple years later you know lorne came back to the show and decide to take up the helm again and it's a scary crazy hybrid of everything it's the a rock n roll it's a long as you do incredible one season one season but such a great experience you know. it really was ron scabby only what was it like to work with tim burton in the edwards scissorhands my personal view of mr byrne i think he's like a genius i think he's like a walt disney you know quite honestly i think that his background in animation his storytelling his films get better and better and richer and richer and i just think that he has his own he puts his stamp on his films he's such

a fine artist. so i was honored to be a part of that i mean i look back at scissorhands and it's johnny depp were basically great. i think like like downey's of virtue also actor he did so many great roles for so long you know it was interesting i got to the set i saw that i had to sort of simpatico because i saw the relationship that i had with with hughes that johnny and tim had you know they already. i think it was actually the first fell together but obviously they went on to make five or six other films but. burl brilliant artist and very nice guy very low key guy actually alex flora's. you see in molly ringwald new wallace archie's mom on riverdale i have not i'm not a. nice lady though you played michael slim build days whitey ford and a young edgar allan pole and anyone else you want to play aga somebody great i have to say that in those opportune when i had those opportunities that really inspired me to bring the work to another level so i mean i don't know what can't i can't put

a finger on who i might want to play but i certainly like. playing real people already for losing sixty one right that right those who tell you first of all sure what's next what's coming up i did a film with the great bruce dern called the leaders. bruce is doing great he's working all the time and it's a sort of modern out adaptation of king lear and instead of him having daughters his three sons and it's a great filmmaker from canada i'm carl beside directed the film so that was the only one that i have in the canon will be forthcoming be in the business oil life right is sort of forty one years what's the biggest change you've seen on the rise of netflix and i would say or also temple films the fact that there's such a huge industry for what marvel does brilliantly in d.c. i mean i think that's a real surprise that that's i think i read somewhere that spielberg referred to it as like the new western in the sense you know the new trend is amazing. you know and i marvel at it not to be punny but i marvel at what down he's done it's

incredible comeback you know incredible work that he's done. that definitely and i also think the internet shifted everything all the different platforms now in its new century i think people have to adapt are you doing theater i've done some over the years i'm a big fan i want going you know. and i would be interested do more of you goals changed yeah they have they have i want to develop and build a company i want to get behind the camera and direct now have been some living working. and also with that it's my writing writing and directing is ahead of me and and then also to have a company help others you know it's bigger than my own ambition it's a director's medium isn't it really is and yet a story is business you know it's interesting but television as we know is in a new golden age as me it's incredible so many people migrating effortlessly between these mediums and great pleasure to me to serve as my own thank you man really great to me just a thanks to my guests and let me mugs all war machine is available on netflix it

was always you can find me on twitter with kings things i'll see you next time. not. by the. just. little. redacted tonight is where you can go to. think about. the stuff that's going on in the world as opposed to just regular crying we're going to find out what the

corporate mainstream media is not telling you about how we're going to filter it through some satirical comedic lenses to make it more digestible that's what we do every week hard hitting radical comedy news like redacted tonight is where attack. on larry king you are watching our t.v. america question and more. for decades the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money corporate interests that's drowned out a lot of voices that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. i meant still on r t america i'll make sure you don't get railroaded that you'll get the straight talk in the straight news. questionable.

pretty. cool. oh i'm sorry but it washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture good one condo building in the soho neighborhood of new york city bring down the entire trump family alaska investigative reporter greg.