We love showing off the amazing content created on SquadCast by way of feed drops on our podcast. The SquadCast podcast is all about content creator tips, sharing SquadCast’s updates, and discussions about the future of content creation.
This week, we’re featuring the work of SquadPodder Genevieve Hassan, host of Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did.
Here’s What It’s About
Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did is a fun, unashamedly nostalgic show celebrating much-loved film, music and TV from the 1980s-2000s - and catching up with the stars that made them. Learn more.
Genevieve's been a member of the SquadPod since the early days. Thanks for being part of our community!
In This Episode
Actor Judd Nelson joins Genevieve to reminisce about making John Hughes' classic 1985 film The Breakfast Club.
Also In This Episode
Credits
We love showing off the amazing content created on SquadCast by way of feed drops on our podcast. The SquadCast podcast is all about content creator tips, sharing SquadCast’s updates, and discussions about the future of content creation.
This week, we’re featuring the work of SquadPodder Genevieve Hassan, host of Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did.
Here’s What It’s About
Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did is a fun, unashamedly nostalgic show celebrating much-loved film, music and TV from the 1980s-2000s - and catching up with the stars that made them. Learn more.
Genevieve's been a member of the SquadPod since the early days. Thanks for being part of our community!
In This Episode
Actor Judd Nelson joins Genevieve to reminisce about making John Hughes' classic 1985 film The Breakfast Club.
Also In This Episode
Credits
MARY GOLDBERG: We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of Between Two Mics. I’m here to tell you about another show recorded on SquadCast that I think you’re gonna love. I’m the host of ImpacTech, that’s impact and tech combined into one word. It’s a podcast about the stories of assistive technology researchers and entrepreneurs, and what it takes to get a technology to market. Hear more about some really neat technologies helping to improve people’s daily lives. You can find it on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
[music]
ZACHARIAH MORENO: Hey! Welcome to The SquadCast Podcast. I’m Zach Moreno, co-founder of Squadcast.fm. And on this show, we bring you tips on content creation, interviews with creators, and we share the latest and greatest from SquadCast. Today on the show, we’re continuing our tradition of feed dropping incredible content recorded on SquadCast onto our feed. If you haven’t noticed we’ve been pretty busy behind the scenes. We just launched the new SquadCast Studio and Backstage, which includes a whole redesign of the product and empowers you to collaborate with more team members. Check it out at SquadCast.fm, and try it free for 14 days. Okay. Onto this week’s episode. We love showing off the incredible interviews recorded on our platform. We think you’re gonna love this one.
GENEVIEVE HASSAN: Hello, and welcome to The SquadCast Podcast. I’m Genevieve, and yes, I’m British, but don’t hold that against me. And I’m so excited that my show Celebrity Catch Up: Life After That Thing I Did has been selected to be featured in this week’s feed drop. I’m a member of the squad pod. And it’s been amazing getting to know the other SquadCasters in our Slack channel over the past year, as well as getting the inside scoop on what’s been going on behind the scenes. So if you are having a serious case of FOMO right now, and want to join, head over to squadcast.fm/community. Okay. You are now about to hear an episode of my podcast. It’s an unashamedly nostalgic celebrity interview show celebrating much loved movies, TV, and music of the 1980s, nineties, and naughties with the stars that made them. This episode, I speak with the legend that is 1980 heartthrob Judd Nelson, who reminisces with me about making the 1985 iconic movie, The Breakfast Club. Hear how he went undercover at a high school with Emilio Estevez for his role, and the story behind how his now iconic fist pump made its way onto the screen after not originally being in the script. Plus he explains why he doesn’t like being labeled part of the brat pack and gives a searingly honest critique of his career and the acting industry. Thanks SquadCast for the opportunity to share my show with your listeners. Now let’s get to it.
[music]
GENEVIEVE: In 1985, John Hughes gave us the classic that is The Breakfast Club, whether you were a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, or a criminal, everyone can identify with one of those now iconic characters. It’s definitely one of my favorite films. I can’t even tell you how excited I am for today’s guest. So here to talk about his life after that thing he did, as well as his latest film Iceland Is Best, please welcome the amazing Judd Nelson. Judd, hello. So lovely to speak with you today. How are you?
JUDD NELSON: I am fine. Thank you for having me.
GENEVIEVE: You’re very welcome. It’s nice to see you. Well, I say see you. I can’t actually see you, but it’s nice to speak with you.
JUDD: Um, it’s nice to hear you.
GENEVIEVE: We’ve been having a bit of a heat wave here in England, um, and since we’re not used to it, and no one has air conditioning in their homes, we’re all melting a bit. Although this weather is probably normal for you in LA.
JUDD: Well, I tell ya, you know, we’re down now to, we can water plants two days a week, and that’s it. Two specific days. If you have an even number home, you can water on Thursdays and Sundays. If you have an odd numbered home, you can water on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and that’s it.
GENEVIEVE: Wow. That’s very specific.
JUDD: Yes, very specific. And it’s like, it’s been very hot here, but you know, in America, anyway, this has nothing to do. You know, our climate has nothing to do with humans.
GENEVIEVE: I can imagine in America, they do think that yeah. I’ve been sleeping in a tent in my back garden to get away from the heat of the house.
JUDD: Is that true? Really?
GENEVIEVE: Yeah. It’s the best 40 pounds I’ve ever spent.
JUDD: Wow.
GENEVIEVE: My husband won’t sleep outside with me though, because he’s had one too many bad experiences on boys’ trips. So it is great. I get the tent to myself. I’m nice and cool. He’s sweltering away in the bedroom.
JUDD: You have a fan? Like a ceiling fan?
GENEVIEVE: Nope. We just don’t do that in England. It’s just this…
JUDD: Really? A ceiling fan will help cuz I haven’t had air conditioning for probably 15 years, and I, I always go like, cuz it, you know, it broke a long time ago, and I’m like, okay, this year I’ll do it. And then I just turn the fan on and sit in front of it for an hour and I’m okay.
GENEVIEVE: So time is of the essence. So let’s get straight down to business and into the nostalgia zone.
[music]
GENEVIEVE: I’m afraid there’s no getting away from it. If we’re talking nostalgia and the eighties, The Breakfast Club is usually one of the first things that people think of. And of course, the role you made famous, John Bender. And I heard that you went quite method with your audition, turning up late, dressed in character, slight attitude.
JUDD: Well, actually the audition in New York, where I was living. That one, I got into the room just before they were gonna escort me outta the building. So that was very lucky for me, cuz I was a bit, um, rambunctious in the waiting area. And so the secretary had called security to have me removed, but then they called my name and so I could go in. Then they, uh, wanted me to come out and audition again in LA. I was there early, and they wanted me to stop throwing the tennis ball against the brick wall underneath the window where there were the auditions in the room. So, I don’t know whether that was method or not in either case, but it was uh, that was a great script. Just knew that it was going to be an interesting film.
GENEVIEVE: And you really went all in too with your research in preparing for the role didn’t you, because you went undercover to a high school and posed as a student to see what it was like cause you went to boarding school. So it wasn’t an experience you were familiar with.
JUDD: Right? Right. Public high school was not my own experience, but it was really wonderful that uh, John Hughes had set up for Ally, Emilio, and I, the opportunity to go to a nearby high school, you know, and just kind of blend in, get the experience, uh, Ally passed on that. She said that she remembered high school quite clearly, and didn’t wanna repeat it. And the high school that, uh, John had chosen had an incredible feature. It had a jock hall and a freak hall.
GENEVIEVE: Wow.
JUDD: How perfect. So Emilio and I went, and Emilio lasted about five minutes because, uh, The Outsiders had already come out. So his cover’s blown, you know, once someone recognized him, then, then it’s done. But no one knew me from Adam. So I had a great time. I met these two guys, and they would get me stoned in their Volkswagen Bug after school. And I would buy beer cuz I told ’em I had a fake ID. In fact, it was my real ID, and I was old enough to get beer. It’s crazy. It was really a wonderful experience that, you know, I really thought all movies were gonna be like that. And, uh, you know, where the director likes you and the material’s good and you know, everyone’s prepared and really, you know, getting along with everyone, half the projects I’ve worked on, the directors really haven’t liked actors very much.
GENEVIEVE: I read that John Hughes had five drafts of the script, and you read them all with Emilio at John’s house and picked bits out from the different ones and added them to the shooting draft. Do you remember what bits you added?
JUDD: Well, Emilio and I are at John Hughes’s house, and it’s during the rehearsal process, early on. And John tells us that he’d written, uh, the first draft of The Breakfast Club in a weekend. And at the same time, Emilio and I say out loud, we go, first draft! How many do you have? And here’s when he go, I have four other ones. Can we see them? Yeah. Here. And he goes into the closet and comes up with four scripts that he puts down on the like living room table, or dining room table, and Emilio and I read all of them over the next like three hours. And, uh, there were things from those drafts that were not in the shooting draft. And I found some things, uh, some exchanges between Molly’s character and my character about, like Calvin’s rolled up in a ball on the front seat, I think in that exchange, uh, from an other, from an earlier draft. And I asked John, John, this exchange here is it possible, could we shoot this, in addition? Or instead of, and he was like, let me check with Molly. If it’s fine with her, fine with me. And Molly said fine. So we did that. So it was like when I’m on crawling through the roof in the shooting draft, that was silent. I just, you know, crawl through and then fall. And I asked John, is it possible that I could be telling like a dirty joke and before I get to the punchline I fall through, and he goes, well, let’s shoot it without anything first. And then we’ll see. So we do that. And he goes, yeah, we can try one. Okay, go ahead. So, uh, I tell this joke that is absolutely X-rated. It is nasty, it is wrong. And as bad as Hughes is like, no, no, we can’t do that. We lose the rating on the whole movie. That’s insane. No. And I go and I laugh, and I go that one. I, I know, I know. I’m sorry. Can I do one more please? I just was doing that for me. He’s like, geez. Okay. So he lets me do that. Well, first we tried to find a joke. The punchline of which would be, I forgot my pencil, which was the line I say after I fall through the roof. So we tried for like half an hour to come up with a joke that would have that as a punchline. And Emilio, Michael, John, and I couldn’t come up with one. So I just made up a joke that was too nasty. And then I, he gave me a second chance, and we did the joke that’s in the movie. And then I fall through right before the punchline. And people have asked me over the years, what’s the punchline to that joke? And I go, like, there is no punchline. I just made up the joke to have these elements, and they go, we knew you were an asshole. Great. Okay. You know.
GENEVIEVE: On note about John being a great collaborator and taking ideas from you all and incorporating them into the finished film, um, I know that the, the David Bowie quote at the start was Ally Sheedy’s suggestion. Um, but you were also responsible for two of the biggest things in the film. One being that you were all originally meant to be sitting at the same table in the library, but you suggested otherwise. And the other being the iconic fist pump you do at the end. Can you tell me the genesis behind how those came about?
JUDD: Well, the, um, when we get to Chicago in the school where we’re shooting, Universal has taken over the big gymnasium and is building the library in there, that we shoot in. So they have another room, a big empty room where they have taped out the dimensions of the library. So we can see the space to get used to it. And there are there six tables or however many, 6, 8, 4 tables. And we’re all sitting at the same table. You know, when John first sits us all there. And I say to John, I go, do I have to sit with them? And John says, what do you mean? I go, I don’t wanna sit. I don’t wanna sit with them. I wouldn’t sit with them. I don’t like them. John was like, okay, where do you wanna sit? And I know from the script that I come in after Mike, Micheel Hall, Anthony Michael Hall. So I say that wherever he sits, that’s the seat I want. And John smiles, and he looks at Michael and he goes, what do you think about that? And Michael says, I’m fine with it. So the collaboration’s already begun. And as soon as John says, fine, Ally says, I don’t wanna sit with them. And John says, where do you wanna sit? She goes way in the back. John says, go ahead. And Ally goes way in the back. Then Emilio says, I’ll sit with Molly. It’s like, yeah, of course you will. It’s already begun. All because of, not me, because of Hughes, meaning, he’s, he’s already, um, doing what he claimed he was gonna do. You know what I mean? He’s walking the walk, of collaboration. It’s like wonderful. And to have a rehearsal process, meaning to have some, I mean, a lot of times a readthrough is considered a rehearsal, and that’s all you get. That is not a rehearsal, but it’s the way it is. So you gotta, you know, use what you can. And, uh, Paul Gleason, may he wrestled in peace who played, uh, Vernon, the, uh, teacher, was wonderful to work with. I mean, I tortured him, but you know, I enjoyed being tortured by him and torturing him, you know?
GENEVIEVE: Didn’t you think he was gonna punch you at one point in that scene, right?
JUDD: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Uh, when I’m in that room and, um, he’s saying, go, go on and hit me. Go on. Yeah, I know. Yeah, whatever he’s like threatening me. And he, he like makes a quick jerk move with his shoulders as if he’s like gonna hit me or something. And I shamelessly flinch, huge, no hiding it. And I thought he might hit me. I hope I don’t get knocked out. Cause that would be bad. And I knew I couldn’t hit him back, no matter what, you know, the scene and the characters, the situation is if he hits me, I gotta take it. That’s it.
GENEVIEVE: And where did the, uh, the fist pump come from?
JUDD: Don’t know, don’t know. I just, I really don’t know.
GENEVIEVE: Flash of inspiration.
JUDD: Or completion or, uh. The period at the end of a sentence, the exclamation mark at the end of a sentence, it’s kind of an interesting idea. This, what happens on Monday. I think that, that, you know, it’s a shame to lose John Hughes so young, and I always hoped that, like there would be a companion piece to the first one, and that could only be possible if it were helmed by John Hughes.
GENEVIEVE: The image of you all in the film’s iconic poster, um, was shot by Annie Leibovitz wasn’t it?
JUDD: Yes.
GENEVIEVE: Do you remember what happened that day?
JUDD: Well, there were a couple of shots that she took in front of a couple of different things. I know that we shot a series of pictures that same day against the red lockers, which was pretty cool. We even shot some in which John was included in them. You know? So there were, uh, the five of us, and John all sitting around, and it was really, I mean, she was a known commodity, the photographer then, right as she is now, but she was known then. So we knew that this was a, you know.
GENEVIEVE: Big deal.
JUDD: This was a real topnotch photographer. You know what I mean? It was like, I think we were very well behaved and very glad that, you know, it was like, wow, like, holy crap, you know.
GENEVIEVE: Alan Ruck told me when he guested on the podcast a little while ago that Emilio and Anthony Michael Hall were originally offered the lead roles in Ferris before Matthew Broderick and Alan were. So if fate had gone the other way, and John Hughes had kept his original title of The Lunch Bunch, do you think we might not be sitting here today talking about this film that became so iconic, or do you think the power of John Hughes would’ve made it so anyway?
JUDD: Well, I think that John, the gifted screenwriter. There’s no question about it. And that he was taken before he could really complete his overe, if that makes sense. He did not stop writing when he stopped living in Hollywood. It’s my understanding that there are a number of screenplays that John has written that his family has and that, you know, we’re probably gonna see some or many of them, I don’t know. But, uh, I think that Hughes was so, um, writing all the time that, you know, it would’ve come out. I mean, his gift is, I mean, under his great shadow, we all remained. He was the first writer to write characters that were young, without writing characters that were less. And that is, uh, a great thing. You can’t judge the substantive being by using an age counter, a year counter. Right? If you’re 15, oh, you can’t be deep. Well, you know, reference Columbine, you know, reference bullying, shaming, reference bad parenting, reference ignoring people. You know, these are things that Hughes talked about. I mean, it’s not like Hughes had to smash down a wall. These openings were there. No one was seeing that. We all, when we really think about high school, it wasn’t all fun. We had some bad times in high school, you know, we had puberty, fun for nobody, especially those that it happens late to. The worst part of, uh, the animal nature of human beings is seen in high school. Might makes right every day in high school, you know, is that any wonder that the world’s so messed up. And Hughes was really working us toward a general understanding of each other. And then it just stops, cuz he’s taken from us.
GENEVIEVE: You couldn’t have known at the time you were effectively capturing lightning in a bottle in terms of the movie’s success, impact, and legacy. But with hindsight 37 years later, is there anything you wish you had appreciated more at the time while making it?
JUDD: Well. Wow. Okay. A time machine question, right? I can go back in time. It’s such a big question. Would I change anything?
GENEVIEVE: Not would you change anything, but, maybe at the time you, you just kind of didn’t appreciate it for what it was.
JUDD: Well, I’ll tell you this, Hughes told us that he was inspired to write this because of the movie Breaker Morant, an Australian film, that I think, is about the Boer War, and it primarily, uh, takes place in a courtroom. And he was fascinated with this notion of a high school movie, in quotes, uh, that has this kind of a structure. And so we knew it was, not experimental. We knew it was risky. You know what I mean? It’s like, this is not what we normally think of for a high school movie. This is like real drama, real wonderful adult concept. It’s like, you’re riding a fast horse. You don’t have to use your crop. Just don’t fall off. Hold on. And just let that horse go. And that’s what that script was. I was like, hold on. You know, when the gate goes down, just hold on. Let the horse do what it does. Like riding on Secretariat. You know what I mean. Like that jockey on Secretariat. Does he ever use his crop? No. Why would he? Don’t try and get more out of it, like it’s dogging it. No, it’s not dogging in it. What an awful expression, dogs never dogging it.
GENEVIEVE: [laughs] Okay. It’s time to leave the nostalgia zone and enter what I like to call the LATTID zone. Otherwise known as life after that thing I did.
[music]
GENEVIEVE: So after The Breakfast Club, you start in another film released quickly after, St. Elmo’s Fire, which also starred Emilio and Ally and was also a massive hit. And then you were plunged into an intense media glare and scrutiny. What was that like? And how did you deal with it? Because I can imagine it’s not something you can ever really prepare yourself for.
JUDD: Well, I’ll tell you it was strange to be labeled as almost like a gang member. In a group that had meetings 3,000 miles away from where I lived. Made no sense to me that I should be considered part of this brat pack when I lived in New York City. I was only in California cuz I’m working on that movie. It’s like if you were to go to the set of The Big Chill while they were shooting that movie, you could easily draw the conclusion that all these actors were best friends and hang out all the time. Well, wow. What a narrow perspective. They’re not always shooting this movie their whole life. It’s just for that two month, three month period. So here we are, all, you know, portrayed in a derogatory way, as if we are entitled and as if we are better than other people. But in fact, my experience working with those people was everyone was on time, prepared, knew their lines, uh, supported each other, supported the project. So it’s a unimaginative slag that some people now think is an endearing term because we are still alive. You know, let’s look back on all those charming moments when we were encouraged not to work with each other anymore, not to be friends with each other anymore. Like there’s so many close relationships you have in a life these days, right? No. So if you can’t stand in the heat, get out of the kitchen. There are gonna be problems that are gonna be misinterpretations. There are gonna be prejudgments that are not correct. And, uh, if that’s too tough, then you gotta pick a different job.
GENEVIEVE: And of course the downside of doing something successful is that people expect you to do it over and over again, which is impossible to do. Um, and I read you say somewhere that you swim better in criticism than in praise. Can you elaborate on that?
JUDD: Yeah. It’s like, you know, they tell you, they tell you, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. It’s not getting knocked down. It’s what you do after you’ve knocked down, you have to get up. Right. So, you know, all these metaphors for, um, when it doesn’t work out. So what happens if it does work out? What do you do then? Are you held against your past success? Yes. Uh, it’s always that way. How much more terrible it must be if you’re a beautiful woman, and you’re 20, and now you’re that same beautiful woman at 40, you’re hell you’re judged against yourself when you were 20. Like that’s completely inappropriate. That’s insane. And we do it all the time. So that’s why it seems to me that what have I done since that one? It seems to me maybe really you could call it nothing. I’ve done nothing since then. The jockey that rode Secretariat to those three races to win the triple crown has won races since. It’s not like, it’s not, he didn’t disappear, but he’s really ridden no horses since Secretariat, really.
GENEVIEVE: Well, so you have more than 120 credits to your name, and I’m wondering cuz kind of on this theme and, and as your dad once said to you in an effort to put you off acting, that it’s a profession where merit isn’t always rewarded. Do you think he was right? And if so, what keeps you coming back for more?
JUDD: Uh, do I think he was right? Yes, absolutely. Um, that I was so blind to his, you know, incredible advice is not unusual, you know? My dad’s always right. And I always takes me a while to finally agree with him. Um, yeah. Uh, it’s odd. You can do really good work. And, um, if it’s not seen by a lot of people, unless you feel comfortable with your progress as a professional, it’s not gonna do anything to help your career. And you can do terrible work in a terrible movie that’s commercially successful, and you’re sitting pretty. So it is an odd profession that way. You know, what do they say, once a star, always a threat. But maybe that’s a bad thing. Maybe that keeps you returning to a spot that once maybe there was something growing there, but now it’s just barren. Maybe it’s that blind hope or that false belief in yourself that keeps you coming back for more beatings. I don’t know. It’s a strange job in which you are required to be represented. I can’t speak for myself, at the beginning. Only if my representatives have made an argument on my behalf, good enough, for me to be able to get in a room and just try to see if I can get to the next round of things. Wow. Not many jobs where you have a lot of fish sucking at your belly as you try and swim. You can even sense from my tone, there were things that aren’t fair, but no one said it was gonna be fair. We believe it’s gonna be fair. I don’t know why. Maybe when we’re little, our parents go, it’s gonna be okay. Well, it is gonna be okay because that’s what it’s gonna be. It is what it is. Whether you are okay with it or not, doesn’t matter. So maybe it’s better to make yourself okay with it. And since we’re actors, you gotta make ourselves be whatever anyway.
GENEVIEVE: It is a brutal business. So if we fast, if we fast forward a few years, so you, you, you signed up to voice Hot Rod in The Transformers: The Movie, and then you had From the Hip, Billionaire Boys Club, which earned your Golden Globe nomination, New Jack City and Airheads, which I rented on VHS so many times it was ridiculous.
JUDD: Really, that’s cool. That’s great. That’s great.
GENEVIEVE: You then turn to TV and start in Suddenly Susan for three seasons at a time when it was perhaps not really a fashionable move for film actors and was almost seen as demotion at the time, compared to now where you can’t remove for-film actors on the small screen. But I noticed you haven’t really done a huge amount of TV since certainly not as a series regular. Is TV just not for you?
JUDD: No, I wouldn’t say that at all. I say that. No, I mean, I like all forms of it. You know. TV, live theater, movies, all of it. So it’s not for, um, my lack of interest. A lot of times it’s again, it’s like, what projects am I aware of? How am I made aware of those projects? When in the process of the casting of a project, do I find out about it? I think that when SAG and AFTRA merged, a huge groundswell of change happened. That we warned of, it was not a surprise. If there’s an issue, involving professional acting, and you have Martin Sheen and Ed Asner on the same side of an issue, you should never be on the other side. Those two men always did their homework, you know, so there was this sense that new media was gonna create a problem in terms of whether we’re able to make a living acting. And what has happened as a result is that it’s very dangerous for the boutique agencies. So they need to have lots of clients, because the earnings are much less. So you gotta have a lot of people. So in my situation, I have, uh, I’m with an agency that has two agents, one assistant, and 70 clients.
GENEVIEVE: Wow.
JUDD: Now I’m not Einstein, but I can do math, and that’s not a good situation for those 70 people. And that’s not different for really anyone else. It’s not like, oh, poor me, poor me, pour me a drink, right? No, no, no. It’s like, this is the way it is now. So things are different in terms of then and now. In addition to the fact that then and now happens when you, you know, get older. You know, that notion when you read a script, and you’re not reading for the lead. You’re reading for the dad of the lead, well, that’s the way it goes. That’s not depressing. What’s depressing is finding out about projects after. There’s no chance. There’s a consistent problem.
GENEVIEVE: So let’s talk about now, then, and your latest film, Iceland Is Best, which is a coming of age story, about a 17-year-old girl who dreams of leaving her small Iceland town and going to California to pursue her dream of becoming a poet. And you play a poetry teacher. So given the amount of prep you usually do for a role, I assume you embraced yourself in poetry for months beforehand.
JUDD: Well, I’ve always loved poetry. And I’m from a family in which we, you know, more, um, poetry was encouraged. My dad would get, when we were little, give us each poems to memorize. It’s such a wonderful notion of a guy that, that there’s, that there are never too many poets, right? This notion that life is better understood in metaphor, or with, um, the love of language than, than not. And, uh, I love all the characters in this. It’s really a testament to the writer-director of Max Newsom, who’s really so intelligent. So well spoken. Have you, have you interviewed him?
GENEVIEVE: I haven’t. No.
JUDD: Yeah. If you ever get a chance, do it because you’ll be stunned at how smart he is and, uh, how his interests are so varied, right. It’s like, he’s really like a Renaissance man. Fascinating guy. So when I met him, I was like, I wanna work with this guy right away.
GENEVIEVE: There’s a line you say in the film, when it’s revealed your character also works in an airport at night, and somebody says to you look at you, from poetry to this. And you respond no, from this to poetry. So on that metaphor theme, if your day job as an actor was the airport, what would your poetry be?
JUDD: I think landscape.
GENEVIEVE: Gardening or painting?
JUDD: More like, uh, uh, um, big parks, big public parks. You know what I mean? How to, how to take nature and make it be with man. Not opposed to man, you know, fascinating. I think the, the idea that we think we’re the top of the food chain, and top of the brain chain, we don’t know. How do we know? We don’t know. We just have this great, you know, hubris that we are the best, and you know, we’re the best animal, the best, everything, no other life exists, except us it’s in our heads. We are the piece of crap the world revolves around. Sorry, really didn’t answer your question. How’s that one?
GENEVIEVE: That’s alright. Could be whatever you want. Your poetry-
JUDD: You know, sometimes I get, you know, hearing myself going, what am I still talking? Like?
GENEVIEVE: Okay, last question because we’re running out of time. You took up golf about 20 years ago, because you said you thought it would help you with your patience issues. Has it?
JUDD: Well, I don’t play golf anymore. I played for a very short period of time. The last time I played was maybe, I don’t know, 15 years ago. I, I actually won a golf tournament, a Michael Jordan golf tournament. It’s like, um, yes, it did help me with my patience, because it’s just so baffling to me, golf. The ball doesn’t move. Right. It doesn’t move. It’s just stationary. It’s like when you play T-ball or something as a six year old, right? Why is it so hard? You know.
GENEVIEVE: And why does it take so long?
JUDD: Yeah. It’s like, I don’t know. It’s like crazy. What’s sad is that my grandfather was a big golfer and my grandmother, and I never played with him and I never really watched golf with him in the more, you know, he would always watch golf on Sundays and stuff, and I just wouldn’t watch it. It seemed boring, and I wish I’d played then. So I could’ve experienced it with him. And also what’s amazing is when I played, I would go as a single to a golf course and just join any group that needed one extra or something, and you get to meet interesting people. And it’s great. You can play with old people, young people, male, female, there’s different places where you start the hole from. And it’s just, I just enjoyed it. Um, but you know, it just got, I do get a little rambunctious. I think. Not always welcome on certain golf courses.
GENEVIEVE: Judd, it’s been so lovely speaking with you today. Thanks so much.
JUDD: Thank you for having me. You are great. Thank you for being so well prepared and everything. It’s like wow.
[music]
GENEVIEVE: A massive, thanks again to Judd for joining me for such a great chat. Iceland Is Best, has already been out in cinemas, but it’s out now on DVD and available to download on Amazon Prime, Apple and Google Play. Do check it out. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Celebrity Catch Up. As I always say, I know there’s lots of podcasts to choose from. So thank you so much for choosing this one. If you’d like to support the show, please visit celebritycatchup.com where you can donate. But the biggest way you can help is by just not keeping the podcast to yourself. Please share it with a friend. Or on social media so that others can discover and enjoy it too. Hit that follow button on your podcast player, Twitter or Instagram, leave a nice review. All that stuff massively helps me out and keeps the podcast going. Until next time, sincerely yours. Thanks for listening.