Interview with Jeff Nimoy // Nerd On! The Podcast - Episode 7

0:00 turtlemom digivolve to trump mud okay the best I'm on the river nobody moms like me okay [Music] nerd on what's up guys welcome to nerd on the podcast you didn't need but you deserve we have a very special episode today it's our first guest yes it is yeah very excited we have with us Jeff Nimoy hello hello I might be your

0:46 first guest but you know you this is my first time like being in a room with four guys all with microphones like surrounding me so I'm Josh I'm one of the hosts producer I do the audio for the show we're gonna keep it short this episode because we really have a lot to talk about this we do have fun to my left just hiding my raging nerd on right now and the resident Combofiend anime freak terminally asian

1:34 dude one Anna Jillian and I you know and apparently make short films with Corey ah yes that's me I'm Corey musician and I got the dynamic mic now because I'm too loud and blow out the other ones song the special needs kids I laid yeah yeah Ali resident youtuber broadcaster etc etc and you want to know what these etceteras are someday someday we'll find out they'll get uncovered okay is the audience wanting more and of course we have Jeff Nimoy welcome sir so thank you before anybody asks and I know that it's going to get asks get out of the way let's get it out of the way yes I'm juice yeah

2:26 so Nimoy yes so most people would say any relation well I wrote a whole article about that okay funny you should ask and people ask me that constantly I'm banker tellers and you know everyone I've run into you know anyone who looks at my ID you know answers every time and II so I wrote an article about it Leonard Nimoy was my cousin mm-hmm he was my second cousin once removed and I wrote an article a year after he passed away called the other Nimoy these are the adventures of a second cousin these are the voyages sorry the voyages of a second cousin once removed and you could just google me and

3:11 you have to say the oh yeah boy and check no it'll come up okay I'm gonna leave before that and it was all thanks it was all about my relationship with Leonard yeah in my relationship with just having the name Nimoy hearing up yeah oh yeah everything that entails yeah did that um did that push you at all that he influenced I mean we'll read the article but just everybody blame the home game in terms of you me me going into show business yeah yeah well that's a whole nother we could do a podcast just on okay I mean if you're offering yeah I met Leonard when I was 16 I came out here to visit an uncle that was very close with Leonard and then I don't know how many

4:00 years later probably four years later I'm guessing yes it was four years later I read in the newspaper in New York I'm from Brooklyn New York and I read in the newspaper that three men and a baby directed by Leonard Nimoy was coming out to New York yeah I was just so I was at NYU at the time studying to be an actor and I was just so naive about how anything worked and I just called up like Walt Disney Pictures I like guys you know do they even still have information anymore for one one and I think I was a pain so I just said you know Walt Disney Studios Burbank California and they you know I called up and I said Leonard Nimoy's office and they like Wow the phone at Leonard's

4:50 assistant at the time or ISA Ron she just answered the phone let her name was office I'm like shoutouts how I was wrong I said hi I'm Leonard Nimoy's cousin I read that he's a year in New York where I live and I'm looking for a job that's all I said a job I didn't know anything about anything and she said oh I've Leonard on the other line hold on I'm like oh no no she oh my god I'm gonna be the fraud that I am but I'm not really discuss so she comes back and he goes Leonard wants to know how you're related and I went into the whole spiel about like his grandfather and Micra his father and my grandfather were first cousins makes him and my father's second cousin go through the whole lineage of every she's like oh okay hold on she gets back on the phone

5:38 with him she gets back on me she goes all right 6:00 a.m. Central Park West and 93rd Street show up Wow [Applause] he made me a production assistant I don't know if anybody here knows we're all kind of film okay right yeah I have a series called pas yeah there you go so I was a PA for two weeks on location in New York City then I got to meet everybody and you know when your last name is Nimoy you're treated like gold even though it was only the second time I was meeting him like Ted Danson became friends with me and it was grace you know yeah so and this is only a lot of it's in the article yeah yeah I'll definitely link it on the post I'll be checking it out when I get home

6:23 roll on you could listen to this podcast while you read it but eventually yes Orissa Ron the assistant that I mentioned earlier she's the one who actually convinced me to come to California where she thought my name would go a lot further oh very cool and so I mean it hasn't gone far at all in this room I'm Paul McCartney out on the streets on well that's awesome that's a really cool little bit tidbit yeah it's a lot of origin story right place right time that's right the or about getting into anime is a whole nother story as well yeah it's just I I was doing a show called the mutant

7:09 league based on a video game it was yeah two seasons of a cartoon and and actually I got cast out of this show I was doing with Bonnie is which is how I know Josh shout out to Bonnie chanting um so uh so I was doing this cartoon and someone in the cast said hey you know you're struggling to make ends meet as an actor a great way to you know just supplement your income is to do these little anime jobs and they don't pay much and you just play like a month bunch of little different roles until maybe you can get an audition and get a bigger role and that's what I did I met a lot of people at Saban entertainment and and I was just doing little little roles here and there a show called bit the Cupid a show called honey bee hutch

7:56 and things like that real classic and eventually I wound up pitching a an original idea to Fox kids uh-huh and all those people that hired me to do voices on anime we're now working for me as an executive producer Oh crazy right so so that's when I really got into writing and executive producing stuff and producing stuff excuse me so what happened after that was a show came around that they were like hey you know you did all this other stuff for us we have a show this really crappy you know jab we hope to make into you know funnier and more Americanized it's very Japanese

8:42 right now and you know we curtain we passed on Pokemon and we're really looking you know we're beating ourselves up over that everybody else yeah right so so uh it was this show and they gave me a DVD DVD video cassette daddy what's a VCR they gave me a video cassette of this show called Digimon yeah yeah and my partner at the time Bob Buchholz who Bonney also knows a shout out to Bob we uh we watched this half-hour and we looked at each other we're like who's gonna watch this and we passed we said no we

9:32 don't want to be you know mm and I auditioned for it as an actor separately and I was I know the the producer Terry wanted me to play Matt but I lost out to Michael Reese and I I went up with no roles actually and then like they called me into like play Izzy's dad something like that and while I was there for his dad they said you know Joshua's Seth who plays ty he also plays like 15 other roles and the whole show starting to sound like Josh so we're only gonna have Josh play ty i'ma gonna take everything away one of those roles was a character named tent Amon yes oh and Josh get him like this it was very sort of Johnny

10:19 Carson doing Jackie Gleason hello and so I started like it I had to imitate I had a voice match Josh you're in my first episode so the first episode you hear me on I don't know what episode 4 episode 8 whatever Wow you'll hear it sounds very different then you know what I started to do later on it became mine mine and my more and more and before you know it I was come on well actually mochi ma evolving so you

11:07 just opened this whole new apartment well later on about episode 16 ish fourteen ish Bob and I we were out of work we just finished a project and we had nothing and you're like hmm we don't have too many prospects maybe that did you mom deal is gone and we went back and eventually we became showrunners of digimon that's cool yes that's fantastic so you've kind of done a little bit of all you did some writing as well right we did all the writing out once we once we joined aw yeah writing yeah and all the directing before that there were like four or five directors Wendy Lee being the main director but there were a lot of other directors Mike Norwich Richard F car David Walsh even a couple others that were guest starring and they wanted more consistency and poor Wendy she went on her honeymoon and one day

11:55 Michael was supposed to fill in for her Michael cirrage and he he forgot he was booked for something else and they called me up knowing that you know I'd worked with him before because I was an executive producer they called me up in like can you come over I lived like two minutes from the stage and can you come over and direct this week and I did and at the end of that week they were like will you be the showrunner it's funny how that the how show business has changed it's like I'm I'm in my early 30s and like Bonnie's always telling me about the salad days yeah the salad days a showbiz and she's like you know Josh I used to be able to go into a studio that

12:40 I'm working at as a producer and just go hey hire my husband yeah maybe like alright cool right now it's like like I got hired by a studio recently and I had to go through this extreme background check that was just like stressful and I was like hey I didn't do anything wrong recycle I grow some of my own food what is happened was going it was like oh no I tried weed when I was like living in Seattle how can they know they're gonna call David the dealer they know him I have private browsing Karma yeah I mean that's kind of cool really have a snowball kind of thing yeah and then I

13:26 know we started riding around episode I don't know if it was 14 or 16 but we I I directed parts of that script I know it was almost finished when I started directing that week but I recognized it because I I wrote it and I was like oh that was the first one we wrote and there were still like a few lines to be recorded in that one so somewhere in the late teens early 20s I took over but I couldn't tell you which is the first one I completely direction yeah because you direct one actor at a time when in anime and you know so so it could take a while to direct one script right to fill one out so I'm I'm fascinated at the sort of writing portion of it because it's you know is it's I'm assuming they're coming like from Japan local is there some kind of localization this is part of the

14:12 reason Bob and I got this job was we when we were doing improv comedy with Bonnie Bonnie did some of these we would do these movie dubbings and we would take away all the sound and we'd sit in the front row of a movie theater and with microphones and dub the movie live not like history theater where they're just commenting on the movie running you're making the movie up as we that's called and we're you know I'm playing this like we did the Batman 1966 movie every time Robin talked I talked like him hey Batman you know and then I played burgess Meredith as you know the penguin as burgess Meredith but in Rocky so we would do things like that and and

14:58 because of that sort of dubbing experience making something that wasn't there looked like it's there now that's when they came to us and said we've got all these Japanese cartoons that we need to you know redub you know and they were doing it before without us but we had one Emmy Award for doing it with NFL Films so we had a pedigree right going so where's other 80-yard your writers might just follow the translation and just try to make the best American adaptation of it right we kind of threw away the translation almost recreate a wheel correct yeah we threw away the trap half like if you wanted someone to if you wanted a writer to follow the translation they wouldn't hire us we were more of like you don't know what to

15:44 do with this show we'll make it into something we have to follow this the basic storyline pretty close right because we can't rewrite the story in Episode one we'll run into a lot of problems in episode 52 if we do that exact so but other than that but lines were free will so it's like they have their story but the scene is just you get handed a piece of paper act right and they go go right we have to accomplish in the scene right everything else is up for grabs that's pretty cool yeah we have to get the names right because this there was a lot of moving parts there's the toy company Bandai and there was the animation company and then the American District distributor so it we couldn't fudge on the names we couldn't change the name right so you've had a lot of freedom that a lot of people don't have

16:29 for exaction a lot of freedom so and and almost always the note on Digimon would be make it funnier make it funny punch it up rush it out on the internet so many bad puns and or you could not have seen it you know those are your two choices like a like a different reception once you started taking over the show and like did you did you feel like not a backlash board or just like an adjustment and hello the internet was not popular yet right you know so a few word not so right it was it was at a time where you'd see a lot of commercials about coms and people would go what is that commercial for what is what calm go daddy was Wade we didn't know

17:20 any of that stuff yet so all I know is when I took over the ratings really jumped yeah there you go could have been a coincidence though I can't really take credit for it sorry keV but but in fairness to the people that came before me I can't really I don't know yeah that's really the case yeah just taking them a while to get their their legs up and they would have been that popular whether I took over or not you don't know you know I only kind of hid but because it was such a massive hit that's it I might career was an anime you I can't get out of it today I've tried I mean did you want to try you know like John Coleman right yeah they're just announced today actually

18:06 that they're releasing it the confession the third installment on December 5th awesome is marketing on resume for theatrical release DVD ok there you go another first one has limited this is they just announced the DVD we did a premiere at Anime Expo mmm and Joshua Seth and Colleen O'Shaughnessy and myself did a panel after this alcohol it was great did a lot of fun yeah like you are doing the conventions I do I cursed a lot a lot more than I forget sometimes or teenagers in the audience but I don't give a [ __ ] so I mean like they all grew up and they're all becoming like you know adults now who's still loving it I mean I when I was a kid I wasn't I wasn't into Pokemon we didn't talk about

18:52 wheat we talked a little bit we can't mention Pokemon here is actually fine actors who said the P word a dollar we threw a little party at the enemy but I was waiting to Digimon like I we made we made fun of the theme song in our first episode because we were talking about old theme song yeah but I watched Digimon I never got into the the P word that's like I had a digivice I had like all those different things and I would watch it every day you're the crest of courage yeah I sign that stuff is very small you know before every

19:37 episode before we wrote every episode Bob and I I forced him to listen to the theme song let's start working like nope we got I can't stand that I don't want to hear it again I'm like sit down listen and we play it and every time he'd sit there grumbling or like you know like Tom before today he'd sit there all angry you know listening to it but every time way you know what's the part where champions on the digital and world yeah so he would he would just sit there grumbling in there and he'd go world and he's ready to write he's gone so I got asked out of the out of the writing directing acting what was your

20:24 favorite position or role in national directing yeah you can shape the performances and I loved working with 99% of the actors and we were all friends we're still friends to this day and it it's just that you have the most sort of like control over the situation writing you do too but you know they're gonna give you notes on all that Seraphin and you don't know what the actor is going to do with the material anyway you know so you you can hear it in your head a million times when you write it but until they actually perform it you don't know and it says it's a collaboration yeah I'm give-and-take all of showbusiness the best of show business is a collaboration right now even a notar like you know myself Woody Allen

21:10 you know Albert Brooks you know people that you know write direct produce everything they you still need the collaboration oh yeah it's nothing without it yeah angry it's it's yes entertainment like this this is a collaboration we we have to work together we all have different skills I run a whole thing what are you talking about there's time to answer your question from earlier yeah I do love doing conventions I love the travel part and oh yeah and I love media you know when we do this show these shows we're in recording rooms there's no windows they're dark we don't you don't think about that people are watching this one yeah yeah and then you go out there you realize what an impact you made on people's lives yeah people are you know cry to me and

21:56 what freaks me out though mostly as a grown adults come to me thank you for my childhood oh my child makes me realize oh my god I'm 20 years old here your voice right look at that you know people like they literally cry like me like you know my my mother had you know cancer and we'd watch wolf we watch trigun together you know while she was recovering and like it brought us together and we really and you were our fame I'm gonna start crying now talking about it we you know you were a favorite character and when wolf would died week was my favorite character for

22:43 sure thanks you know I'm just talking about this at my last convention that I did I don't think wolf would be that popular if he didn't die people are always coming up to me and saying I was so upset when he died I'm like yeah but if he did he had a pretty hat - yeah such a great heart he didn't just perfect I wouldn't be here yeah right no he's I totally agree with that I think it's it's the perfect bookend to his arc I mean it's that whole you know I'm gonna like nerd out a little bit you know this is your chance I mean that's why we have him here I mean that was a cool thing I liked about Digimon comparatively to the p-word was because that things could die and that things were finite and then you're like if things die they become part of the digital world all right like we had they come back an egg we you know there's a

23:28 thing called broadcast standards and practices you can't actually kill a digit so I came up with the line of did you mind never die they just read digital they're their digital energy gets put someone like you know reincarnation yeah and the cool things like there's stakes at voley involving and put in Pokemon there was no the world was at stake at all time someone was gonna like you know be seriously injured or become digital right and then try again like Vash the Stampede is like the main character so it's like cool he's not gonna die like wolfwood yeah you always words like yeah that's gonna happen with him you know yeah I mean

24:13 Milly like what's what is the essence of cool well I think I'm blanking a game of thrones mm-hmm like when you first started watching that they killed the lead character in the first season talking spoiler right all done being the walking spoilers so at that point like everyone was like oh my god anything can happen in this show and it changed everything a lot a lot of main characters died now moving forward but yeah when if you can kill wolfwood what else could happen yeah you never know you know an interesting story oh you'll be the judge of that if it's interesting but I auditioned for Vash the Stampede interesting okay and it was the scene where he tells wolf would his full name

25:01 my name is Sims you know yeah name and it was a really big tongue twister we had to do in sync at the audition it was really a bad choice for them to pick four seriously right front of me no the Funimation only did the movie which is another story this was a company called enemies I believe this is they're no longer in business hmm this is years ago way before cable TV was like even around it was cable but there wasn't Cartoon Network right adult tsunami nothing like none of that this was a straight-to-dvd project I remember getting my first Vash the Stampede rental from the library yeah yeah and that was like where can i watch more of

25:47 these so what happened was I auditioned and then while I was still there in the room you know I'll just came by the microphone they said do you smoke I was like no could you sound like you smoke you have this sort of smoky quality so I said no but but I'm willing to smoke for this part no and they said huh they said well because we have this character wolfwood who smokes he's a chain-smoker and I think he'd be perfect for wolf would I go great they were right and they go okay we'll see you in a couple

26:32 months that was it they never auditioned wolf would they cast me right then and there oh wow so no one ever auditioned for wolf would I was the only one and that even I didn't audition yeah big deal here we got a badass in the studio and so that makes me feel good you know that's a great yeah that's a huge compliment yeah thanks okay we like your voice now we'll just see yeah so we did all that stuff like in this like weird studio up in like Sun Valley it was crazy but there was a lot of work and we all all the actors the usual suspects all the big names went there and and then 20 years later I met my first convention a send in Chicago and it's opening ceremonies and I get up there and I go hi everybody it's great to be at my

27:18 first convention you guys probably know me as the writer director of Digimon and probably the voice of 10 Jomon and somebody else out like wolf wad I'm like what nuts people start you know pockets of people are like chanting wolf when I'm like oh did I did I play a guy named that's real and they're like like like I'm practically getting a standing ovation from 10,000 people and they're chanting out wolf wouldn't rygan and I'm like realizing it on the stage oh yeah I played this guy wolf wood in this straight-to-video thing called Trigon and over the course of that weekend I found out it was on Adult Swim yeah just

28:06 became a huge hit and I had no I that's surreal I don't know how they knew I did it it was like non-union at the time I didn't even use my own name but they knew it was me and as a powerful friend what happened i black out that show was my first introduction to me like we were really like yeah because I had watched a little bit of the p-word all over the Digimon but like that was the first show I remember watching being like holy [ __ ] this is cool this is awesome and wolf was my favorite character that was when I was hooked yeah thanks needle noggin man do you have like a favorite role in all the years that you've been doing this oh

28:51 yeah wolf wood by far yeah my favorite because it's really the only time I got to use my own voice nice right I played young Jen I for a little bit I'm playing them in in the Tri series as well and that's close to my voice but even then I'm putting on like a I I had in my head did you like a Harrison Ford Indiana Jones type of that period so I'm playing them a little like this you know but wolf woods really strictly me I don't have to do anything so I can literally do wolf wood for hours at a time whereas tent Amman after about three hours I'm dead but I can do it you know

29:37 all he's so long but wolf wood was the best and as chance had it I had to do it for like 11 hours at the end because I was directing season 2 writing and directing season 2 of Digimon and writing and directing Digimon the movie simultaneously Wow and I was working like 20 hours a day for months at a time and just then trigun calls and says we need you for 11 hours and I'm like I don't have 11 hours I have no time but this will all be over in three months you can add me then oh we can't wait three months well you have to there's no auctioneer they were like so you're you're reneging on your you know agreement to play this role to the

30:23 end I'm like I'm not reneging on anything I'm just telling you I don't have the time if I was an actor on camera and I booked a movie in Australia for three months you'd be in the same graduate I don't have the time and they're like they had people calling me one of the directors of Trigon calling me saying my father is a big-time director and he wouldn't he would you know wouldn't act this way I'm like you're telling me your father would turn down a major motion picture by 20th Century Fox right my first directing roll you know movement major motion right 800 screens I'm like you're telling me he would give that up to do a non-union you know wall or the street to video thing and she's like yes wow father's full of [ __ ] and finally they

31:12 harassed me so much that one of the directors just called Johri mersa and said how you know how do we solve this Jeff please let's just get it done I said you know what Joe fright Saturday I'm gonna only work a half day because Bob had something to do in the morning I said Friday night I'm done at work at Digimon I am going to get in my car drive from Westwood where Fox Kids was at the time Saban entertainment and we I drove up to Sun Valley and I said and we're gonna do everything that night we're gonna get it all done all 11 hours my god I'm gonna pull an all-nighter I just died a little inside and then when it's over it's over and I'm done

31:59 and I never want to hear from you people again and and so I showed up and where was the director that gave me such a hard time Joe was there not the director that gave me our time oh she had something else to do I was like there's afraid you're gonna digivolve yeah and we recorded my last 11 hours of work on that show the last you know whatever volume and when I was dying at 5:00 in the morning playing the death scene I felt like that's why weird you wanted

32:48 so that's why it sounds about that start making sense sounds really nice actually more time I have a favorite question or like what's your favorite um so Digimon season one did you want season two yeah other than is the intent of mine because I'm assuming you have like a close relationship with him what other did you destined or digimon would be your favorite well I loved working with Josh said you know to me it's not so much the character as the actor behind it but in terms of character God writer Joe is my favorite to write for okay Joe was just there's just so much fun you know this hypochondriac genius this is

33:35 the crest of reliability so much funny stuff to write for that guy he goes camping any packs extra toilet paper you know his neurotic yeah yeah I love I love all that so and Michael Wednesday was great as Joe as well it's great to direct as well mmm had directed a lot of things other than that and he was also Greymon crazy right Joe angry Oh played metal Greymon the difference to me between seasons 1 & 2 from my experience again this is not a fan experience right my experience is I started to get more control because did you mom was it and I started doing different things my way like I didn't want eight actors playing one set of digivolution like you know

34:21 like Tom Fong played Agumon before that someone else played the smaller rookie version it was like quorum on there okay right so grants at all played quorum on right and then Tom Fong played aw c'mon and then Michael is a play Greymon there's a musical chair Lang plays metal Greymon and so forth and it's like let's just have one actor one role one digivolution you know because you did all of the for the stages of tent Amman and right well originally Josh did heavenly then I came along and I was directing at that point so I was just like I'm doing everything and keep existing - for you consistency but also it's easy to book you know so there's a lot of logistics

35:07 involved in booking actors and you know there's a budget ya know and a lot of the directors time is spent on time management now and budget not just performance right now I have to get that performance but I have to get it in two hours mmm otherwise I'm gonna run behind and cost money and if you ever cost to product you are production money in time you'll never work again you know and so you know that was my experience so I started doing that also like I had the idea when they started doing the the dual DNA to digivolution you know it's great to be in a room of their II got you and their voices were both correct yeah so a old Ramon right instead they want to hire a new actor to play that

35:54 new role and I'm like no let's just get Paul st. Peter and Lex like to do it at the same time you know it's long steep yeah which is really cool I'm German and and and who out ever actor came in first had the you know the harder job they had to establish the second guy just play it once and they repeat exact same phrasing always hope in your second like yes second right so which is pretty funny cuz I mean I don't know what happened first cuz you know going to Dragon Ball Z like when they did Goku and Vegeta you know because of Agito they do the same thing yeah I don't know if well I don't I know for for a fact I never saw Dragon Ball Z to this day so so I know I didn't steal it from this the D word just different again there was no there was no Cartoon Network there yeah you know

36:40 sure Dragon Ball Z either came later when there was cable or whatever but there was also a Texas Funimation thing so what happened was I did it and I don't know if they had the same idea or if they copied it from me I don't know but it's okay everybody copies no I mean well I put that idea of great ideas right yeah if one person is doing it someone else is doing it at the same time which is I think it's stuck really well and it's fine and I I actually hopefully did take it from me because then I can get a little credit [Laughter] the would you say that the of course these we are the the saplings the voice-over industry really the industry

37:26 hasn't changed a lot right I mean there's been there's been two strikes in the past like several years a game straight yeah it's still going on yeah yeah I mean when I mean it's like you're explaining this 11:00 hour session I mean way that probably wouldn't happen nowadays again it was a non-union show yeah more and more things are going on yes yeah a lot of actors won't say it and I've got my own complaints about the Union where I get into arguments all the time I have very close friends who are actually on the sack board and you know they have offices at sag you know that there are officers of sag I should say and and we get into debates all the time and I'm not a fan of the Union because I I think

38:12 they're a union only for the elite members shout out to the elite and they don't care enough about the average working actor as much as they should and they they there's that whole nother episode I I did Quentin Tarantino's voice in the dubbing in the for broadcast TVs Pulp Fiction right so they had to take out all the curses alright so do it themselves but turn Tino's like I'm not gonna do that okay because I made the movie I want to make okay and I'm not going to fast you guys it by

38:57 doing voice perfect right so right so I got to do Quentin Tarantino's voice and that's one of my favorite movies so I was thrilled you know it's not about my coffee in my kitchen okay it's about the dead brother in my garage so so for instance it's awesome sag like I I never saw a residual from that one day 10 years later and seeing it on like broadcast TV so I call ups and I'm like where's my residuals you're supposed to track my residuals and three years of roundabouts you know they're gonna talk to them and sorry it's gonna represent me they're like Disney wants to give you 50 bucks and I'm like what but I guarantee you if I was to Quentin Tarantino they'd be all over me and be like oh yeah we're gonna work for you and you know all this

39:43 stuff right I know they once said to me because I'm one said well if I was Clint Eastwood you wouldn't say that and they went well that's Clint Eastwood so a lot of things like their bonnie has some checks up there that are not even worth seven years ago after after our improv shows we used to go to a bar called residuals oh yeah she's tell me about that yeah and if you brought in a residual check for under a dollar you get a free drink and then hang it on the wall they had to stop because the walls are I say we transition away from

40:30 Digimon yeah and focus a little bit on you like you just outside of about me yeah let's talk about you well I'd a voiceover like you you have you have the caveman diet like what it is oh yes you do so so I have this blog called the cooking caveman with Jeff Nimoy cooking caveman check it out home shout out to Jeff Nimoy deca cooking caveman calm and it's all about the Paleo day but I have about fifty seven thousand readers but that's not a lot in the blogosphere you know yeah it's just oh you're about to have four more it's just something I I I

41:19 do you know I just cooked very healthy and I try to eat healthy but especially when I cook and just people were interested in it so I started a blog in its semi popular but every now and then an anime fan make a comment like why is Tek doum on making mayonnaise coming back but my day-to-day I wake up in the morning first thing I do is audition also going back to how the business has changed everyone has a home studio now yeah whereas back in my day we'd have to go somewhere for now yeah you'd have to have a Thomas guy tell you how to get to our audio and the other side of town oh man so I auditioned I do my auditions I'm with William Morris Endeavor is my voice topper agent yeah they're great

42:06 me and so I do all my auditions and that's in the morning sometimes I have a group audition and I do go to their offices and I you know do a group session the audition with other actors which is always fun and then I you know I I make most of my living though not as a voice actor mostly as a writer producer and a director so you know I've just got a lot of things going on there and I'm always applying for jobs I just finished a job where I was the showrunner on a little clip show that had nothing to do with voiceover and then I you know I prepped for a lot of anime conventions I do a lot of those like Toros just on the phone today with anime Los Angeles which is end of

42:51 January and Ontario I don't know if I'm gonna be a guest but I'm definitely going to show up and you can do they show up ya know they might have me on a panel or something they might have me as a guest I don't know yet but I'm I'm doing this movie in Madison Wisconsin a geek on the last weekend a full weekend of August so I'm gonna be shooting some b-roll footage at Anime Los Angeles at the least oh gods ah see there yeah for something so do those kind of things like give you homework like hey come prepared to talk about this or like well if you're good you will yeah yeah good but you don't have to you can literally

43:38 wing at all yeah I have you know wings my share well there's that improv background but like like for instance I've went at geekycon for the first time I had an idea for not a panel but I would show the death episode of wolfwood and trigun mmm back to eating what's it called yeah return eternity eternity yeah and and I did a live running commentary oh cool that men's at a Q&A afterwards that's awesome yeah so Joe and Oh jealous and it really it really worked well and I'm going to be doing that any convention I got you from now on and they said they're going to do that with all their guess you know they'll run whoever you know whoever's their guest

44:25 at the time their famous episode that's a great concept yeah yeah thanks that's so what's your favorite movie yeah we gotta get into our little this yes we talked about on the show well it's it's hard to pick just one now see but but seemingly I'll just give you I'll give you a couple and then my the most influential there we go so I like that the Godfather one in Jews my favorite I would have to say okay it's a Wonderful Life is my favorite I have to say every Christmas yeah - I want Casablanca is great I'm actually gonna see it on the big screen for the first time oh my god yeah I'm acting on that yeah and pulp fiction I mentioned earlier but I would have to

45:13 say the most influential with Star Wars Star Wars I saw I was 12 years old I was so blown away on by every sense in my body was so new I mean now you guys are much younger you've seen so much but at that time Star Wars was so different so like 2001 Space Odyssey looked a little bit like it but it was an adult movie this is for me they made this for me and at that time at that time you can actually see a movie you could stay in the theater and stay all day in a movie theater you didn't get kicked out you could jump a watch all day so I saw the I saw it and this is actually going back the weekend before my friend saw it and told me all about it

46:00 and we were in Brooklyn and I told my father and I'm like we have to go into Manhattan and see it it's only playing in Manhattan and he was like I don't want to go to then they charged six bucks for a movie oh my god so but I made him do it he took me and it was it lived up to the hype that my friends talked about and when it was over I looked at him he looked at me and said that was a good movie I said can we can we stay and watch it again he said yeah okay two hour and 20 minute movie or sighs don't call so we swatches the whole time I then go home and I tell my much older sister who's nine years older than me she's 21 at the time I tell her all about it frame by frame line by line she's like oh my god sounds

46:47 good I think I'm gonna go tonight with my friend I'm like can you take me and I saw it three times the first day so it was six hours of your life yeah yeah it was more than that it was just it was what I saw 13 times in the theater oh and endless times once went HBO like when it came to HBO I threw a party in my house I'm like and I made sure like I was doing nothing that day I wanted to see the first time it aired it's real even though it's a million I wanted to be the first you know it was so influential on me and it's really the reason myself and not just myself I've talked about this with so many of my peers it's the reason we all wanted to go into moviemaking yeah like it's magic

47:32 it's magic it was magic yeah space wizards are you kidding yeah that was your first nerd on was the Star Wars yes you know harrowing up with the name Nimoy you're bombarded by it yeah so I was definitely into the original Star Trek but yeah I would say Star Wars was my first nerd so you're more Star Wars and Star Trek I think I am yeah yeah like I never got into anything past the first well I mean life savers man lightsaber I never eat Wizards I never really got into second gen next generation or anything after that yeah but Wrath of Khan was also a movie I saw a million times oh yeah but but I was already properly

48:18 in college at that time already or high school probably high school I loved it but it wasn't Star Wars I was yeah I mean my dad even remembers his first time singing he snuck in a trunk to a drive-through drive-in theater to see it everybody's in the trunk just crunched in so favorite character Star Wars uh favorite character in Star was Han Solo yeah I know I mean it's like that's just MP Luke the only one who could pull off that I know yeah I know so here's an interesting story about that okay you'll be the judge of that so my favourite digimon season 2 direct

49:06 I write and direct I wrote and we're interesting parts of one most of one all of two and then we just I it was burnt down we've parted ways it was mutual parting the boys it was a very different show - after that wandering through so I left her three and four and then years later they came back with a show called Digimon savers at the time which we made in two days lon Data Squad and I was directing Naruto at the time the first season and he fainted somebody get a cold compress behind that raging nerd on top it's pretty small terminally agent and you know I just didn't want to uh I wanted to return to Digimon I just loved

49:53 it and I left Naruto did youdid use my data squad and it wasn't a smart businessman because Digimon Data Squad lasted fifty episodes and Naruto is still going on today and then borrowed toes going on down to so yeah there you go that's six yeah so twelve where the Jedi are no emotion there eleven twelve years of work I gave up and they would have fired me doing what you love but still I want to do Digimon anyway I couldn't turn that down because did you Monday squad they gave me complete control all right a cast anyone I wanted I needed approvals but they approved everyone I wanted in fact they didn't want quickly

50:39 Flynn as Marcus Damon who I cast they wanted michael lenz a and as much as I love Michael Lindsey I just thought Quentin who was just perfect for the role he was a fiery redheaded you know guy Quentin's a fiery redheaded guy played axel and right in all these other redheaded angry guys ever Axl King heart yes yeah I'm riding from nerds come on help me game that game so full metal alchemist gears I play it so anyway they

51:26 gave me complete autonomy I got to cast anyone I wanted I even reached out to the fans and said hey if I was maybe casting this who would you like to see and they gave me some great suggestions like Jameson price for commander Sampson and things like that so anyway Mike's couldn't turn it down at all in complete control and and to play opposite Marcus Damon and that fiery redhead was the stoic Thomas he even looked like Thomas I cast Crispin Freeman who was just amazing in this you know I got my Dreamcast yes and I look and I'm gonna prove everything gotta prove awesome so so Crispin is just one of the best actors to work with he's always got something interesting you know an idea to try and whatever and

52:12 because I had the time and autonomy I tried everything you know and he had the idea to when they're saying goodbye in episode 50 when his Digimon gal Mon yeah played by skip still reckon tastic he he says to him you know he wasn't an emotional guy he was long it was like a sergeant Calvary I hadn't played like Richard Widmark yellow ribbon or whatever those movies are the and you sir yes sir you know and he Adam I had him say you know choking back tears finally saying emotionally I love you sir then Crispin said wouldn't it be

52:58 great if Thomas said I know great let's try it and instead he was supposed to say I love you too I love you too for lip flaps I know to lip flap and we just couldn't make it work ah and sometimes what everything about that yeah when I wanted to do something sometimes I can go into the Edit Bay and just remove two lip flaps but something was going on in that shot I couldn't do it or maybe there was a time frame I don't remember it's over ten years ago now but we couldn't do it but we wanted to say I know I respect that I respect [Laughter]

53:43 we put Easter eggs all through that thing you know Axl had this thing called got it memorized in kingdom arts and quitting at one point his character points to his forehead saying I got a scar right here and we quit it was like we gotta say got it memorized or changed it to write yeah I did this thing when I was a kid I got it all memorized and we put that foster eggs throughout that thing my favorite season well dang it we have to watch Draft Jharna and then if you do watch it when Hulk when you do a win I'll come back and I'll tell you my idea for the whole thing the whole things are really in East Dragon it's a homage to digimon in general and found Who I am we'll talk about it afterwards perfect

54:30 and I like that I don't want to give away everything last time we're gonna ask you here anyone any bit of advice what's your like solid go-to one-liner a little bit advice you give anyone who's trying to like do what you do make it in what you do well you got to move to where the work is there you go I like yeah you started right moved to California moving to California yeah you know you can now that everyone has a home studio you can audition from anywhere but not everyone wants you to work from home you have to have a real professional set up sometimes they'll let you you'll pay a little extra to go to a local studio and do like a phone patch or ISDN line but still I find they want you in their studio where they can look at you and direct you you know the

55:17 it hasn't changed that much there's something about right looking at someone when you want to direct them then you can make eye contact with them and like oh now you're human yeah goes back to that collaboration that give-and-take right exactly so so I always say move to where the work is especially any anime you have to be in a studio to lip flap you know junk you have to lip sync soon would be such a challenge it's hard it's not easy you know that's why the same actors work over and over again they're not only good at it they're they're good at it and fast so they don't kind of accustomed to that right all right they don't cost the production any money friend Crispin Freeman is one Steve Blum is another Dave Wittenberg is almost psychic about

56:04 how good you know just in the preview I like to record all the rehearsal he gets it without ever seeing it like how did you know it was a rehearsal but we're good yeah next time I take a lot of first takes because it's you know your first instinct works most of the time who else is really good and there's so many good you know Colleen o Shaughnessy is fantastic and Melissa Phan is fantastic and Dorothy fawn and you know they're all you know those people work all the time for a reason you know yeah all those shoutouts another thing is take a class you have to take a class you have to be an actor you could have the greatest voice in the world would you to be an actor on the other side of that

56:50 you can be the greatest actor but if you're the Mike doesn't love your voice yeah you're not gonna work you know just like an on-camera actor if the might if the camera doesn't move you afraid yes you could be Olivier you've got a voice for Carberry I have a very unique voice but also it keeps me from doing a lot of things like I can't play a lot of roles because I'm stuck with this voice even though I can do a lot of impersonations believe me I'm the best in prison I probably do the bass a before we started a 10th among Digimon to trump mine okay nobody minds like me okay I'm mantastic this is my ringtone

57:40 we're gonna do clean recording for that even though I can do impersonations you know I could smooth out my voice but I'm not going to get cast too often for that they want that smoky voice and because of that I don't play that many leads it's like typecasting but you could blow the ones I guess the cool guy right I get the cool second guy who dies Jeff Nimoy is the last billing and Jeff Nimoy as I know we said the last question but I've got nowhere to go cool please a two hour long episode keep asking me um so you've worked in a lot of like nerdy things and obviously has impacted a lot of life but a lot of people's lives but has it impacted yours and that you're now venturing into other

58:26 nerdy things in your own thing like that you're not working on oh yeah that's a good point because if you're not nerdy then get out no I'm a total nerd my sister used to completely call me a nerd you know literally Star Wars was my first thing back then that was the only nerdy thing you know unless you were a Doctor Who fan on PBS but that was you now there's a teen doctor who's yeah back then there was just one looking really crappy on PBS it wasn't you know even a TV guy back then so uh so i-i've definitely nerded out over a lot of things you know the original Star Trek Star Wars just a name to but I was also like a baseball geek you know like I was a nerd with I like

59:13 knew all these statistics and to this day I could tell you every World Series winner and how many games and who they played the Balaam's since nineteen I can go back to nineteen forty 49 Wow 48 that's cool well then what's your favorite baseball team I'm a New York Mets fan on a huge New York Mets fan and you'll you'll see me at every convention wearing it some kind of Mets paraphernalia I'm a huge New York Giants football team as well you know fan not a good year for either those but but more to your question you know I

59:59 have your you're unemployed almost all the time when you're in this business you know you could be very lucky and get something that runs for years and years and years but yeah Mary Elizabeth McGlynn who took over she said I have put on an extra wing of my house for all the jobs you've turned down she took over for me after wolf Digimon and trying Naruto happy to she's why is Jeff beetle in the corner but I'm also very ambitious and I wanted you other things I want him I came here to make movies you know I wanted to want the starring movies first and then I figured I'd be such a fantastic actor they can't help

1:00:45 but let me write and direct my own stuff and that quickly went away when I realized you know I'm just one of a trillion guys out here and I got very lucky to have a voice career at all you know but um I soon realized I really want to write and direct more than I want to that's where the fire is for that for me that's where it burns yes and it's just very hard to break into I've done some stuff I directed Billy Crystal in a commercial and I've done some stuff but no big deal I definitely don't have the career there that I wanted you know then again people would kill to be me from you know career I did have but it's just yet yeah they're yeah well well this is where I'm leading to so I when you're

1:01:33 going through these months sometimes or years sometimes of unemployment you get down on everything you get very depressed you get down on your life that my career choices my life choices all these things and then you go to a convention and the Nerds remind you how important you are to them you know and I sort of wrote this movie I mentioned that I'm gonna be shooting in Madison Wisconsin from geekcon with a que con just like con you bloodsucker just like just like con or cone from Bleach that I directed that they spelled the same way Kon so uh but it's conky Khan so I sort of wrote this

1:02:19 movie about a guy like me who is going through these you know doubts about his life and how he threw it all away for this shitty thing called anime because it paid the bills and and then he goes to these conventions and he realizes how much of an impact he had on other people's lives and it makes it gives an impact to his life and I am that person you know you go to these places like I mentioned before and you meet the fans and you realize like just there you guys the fact that you even know my work I took my sister to an anime club that a friend of mine I went back to Brooklyn Brooklyn to visit a

1:03:05 friend who taught at a high school and there was an anime club and she wanted me to speak to them and there's a long line for my autograph and I said you know to my sister she couldn't believe that these kids knew I was and all this stuff and I said you know usually I get 20 bucks for my autograph at a convention she's like who would pay 20 bucks for you look I'm gonna go see if you gave me any birthday cards I'm gonna put it on eBay so so the without knowing it the same thing that I inspired in people inspired me back but it took me 50 years to figure it out you know what I mean so there you go I like that that's cool that's cool and yeah take

1:03:52 that right wait you know right yeah I'm looking forward to that for sure go where the logos Thanks well that's give us our good one more quick story I just mentioned I mentioned bleach and I directed a lot of bleach I was offered it first and I turned it down Digimon Data Squad I just didn't want to double up and so other people directed but then they had these filler episodes and I happen to be free so I I directed and wrote the fillers anyway so Johnny Yong Bosch who played Vash the Stampede we never met he was Wow well he was always doing Vash

1:04:38 want and then I would come in and you wolf would we never even pass away and right sometimes he would record first and I'd have someone to play off our I'd record first and he'd have someone to play off and so we never met and the day I show up the bleach he shows up and I go Vash the Stampede meet Nicholas D wolfwood and we be called friends I directed him a lot in Bleach and then I went on to direct him and some other stuff as well and we did a convention together and it's fascinating I love that story that's the ratio between between voice actors oh yeah yeah a lot of people don't think about that like a lot of times you see these animated movies stuff like that none of those actors they never met together yeah The Simpsons used to all do it together now

1:05:25 they have done it together for years yeah yeah it's it's pretty amazing audio engineer I've gotten to sit and pretty awesome vo sessions but it is interesting they don't even sometimes they don't even have the lines for the other person and so they're like just doing their stuff right yeah and you're like it takes a little bit more acting I think I saw where the director comes in to play with ya that's not I'm waiting they're going to react to this way to that you've got to react different right yeah it's kind of but it goes back to what you said too is like a lot of people don't think being a voice over that it's an it's acting you are acting you gotta remember that part it's not just having a cool voice thank you yeah okay I love that story so grandpa Tom a proof I approve

1:06:17 everybody thank you so much for listening we really you to jail come back after you've watched and you will be one of the Nerds and we'll just nerd on ya Ford is you're always welcome back here sir so as always you guys can follow us on Instagram nerd on the podcast Twitter nerd on the pod Facebook searches nerd on the podcast on YouTube again we're not big boys yet so just search nerd on the podcast all of our episodes go to youtube so you can watch them there elitism beautifully no god they're so good

1:07:04 you can see me on instagram joshua's manly and my twitter just Joshin ya so yeah what about you Tom my name is Tom at tall dark not ugly on everything and everything that means Instagram snapchat Facebook Twitter PSN but its underscore not with the zero and you can find me on IMDB as Thomas but Boris dude if I'm on YouTube is Thomas beware sooth see all the stuff I work on and some things I work with koron that is that we are storyboard Bo re d we are storyboard calm or you can find me at quarry 89 only I understood like

1:07:52 20% of all Ally I'm at future foe on Twitter you can find me on youtube search fuchsia foe I'm I'm right there yeah because he videogames a big well yeah and Jeff I try to keep it Jeff Nimoy and most things so you it's easy to find twitter is at Jeff Nimoy and Instagram is Jeff Nimoy and I have the Jeff Nimoy anime page on tumblr and the Jeff Nimoy fan page on Facebook Austin I think it's also called the anime page and that's where I say where all my convention appearances no cool going anything I'm awesome have going on and then cooking caveman calm yeah if you're so inclined I'm gonna check that out I've also got a free dating site it's

1:08:38 completely free called same plate calm that matches people buy the food you eat so even if it's just junk food or you know if it's a peanut allergy whatever you have you can find I dig that works yeah it's just a safe a size point yeah yes yeah there's a mobile version though and it's just you know just start a conversation back makes so much sense and it's right and it's completely free so there's no I'm not making money so it go go go find love because you're Isaac person yeah it runs itself for $1 a month so it doesn't cost me thank you so much Jeff for being my pleasure I'm glad

1:09:25 to I'm honored to be your first guest that's awesome but I've been the guest cherry everybody at home as always and Ariana [Music] ending broadcast you