Pickleball, Hollywood, and Dream Co-Stars(Hour 1)

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay.

This is Night Light with Peach Waba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now, a guy who always reads between the lines until he sees a car coming.

Peach Waba.

Welcome to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen.

It's Wednesday night in the state of Wisconsin.

What could be better?

Life is good folks Hope you had a great day great to have you here tonight as we talk about the things that help us escape And we all need that sometimes even though even an optimist even someone who sees the glass as half full like myself We all need a chance to escape and that's what we do here every night between six and eight.

We talk movies and TV comedy music

Fun was constant stuff, what's happening in the hood, all kinds of good stuff.

So great to have you with me on Wednesday.

Great show tonight.

Conrad, are you excited about this show tonight?

I am very excited.

I can tell.

What excites you most about the show tonight?

Other than this basic chit chat that we have every day.

Learning more about Dumb and Dumber, I think.

But no, also just seeing some other roles that Mike has played, I think it's

gonna be

really fun to hear his experience.

doing these roles.

Very well said.

Mike is Mike Starr, that is who Conrad is referring to.

He is our guest at 6.35 tonight, an actor, very accomplished actor with a resume with about 300 film credits, and that's not even counting his TV credits.

Mike was in Miller's Crossing, Goodfellas, Hudsucker Proxy, Dumb and Dumber.

His credits go on and on.

He's worked with some of the best directors and fellow actors that there are.

So I'm excited to talk to Mike tonight.

He'll be here at 635.

And we will get to know him a little better.

You know, he, I don't know if you guys remember this, but during Goodfellas, he was the one who masterminded, or was the main connection to the Lufthansa heist.

You ever see Goodfellas?

Never seen.

Oh my God.

And they're

like, how do we get past the

guard?

How do we get past the guard?

De Niro says that, and Mike says, you're looking at him.

It's me.

He's great.

So I'm excited to have Mike on the show.

And then our pal Matt Miller stops by at 720 to talk about the Wisconsin, I'm sorry, not the Wisconsin Film Festival.

It is a film festival in Wisconsin.

the very well-regarded Milwaukee Film Festival, which I've had the pleasure of showing a movie there years and years ago, and I went as a guest a few years ago.

It is just a magical film festival with some great venues, the Oriental Theater.

I think they're using the Downer again this year.

Great film festival.

Matt is tied in.

He's gonna talk to us about that, and we'll discuss what we're watching when it comes to movies and color television.

That's with Matt at 720.

Matt's a regular you guys know Matt.

He's one of our pals and I think you know what we've been talking about Like on Monday, we talked about rom-coms.

No, it was chick flicks last night.

It was who's your favorite sitcom actress So I wanted to do something that didn't leave the guys out.

Let's try to do this But that leads us ladies and gentlemen to tonight's question of the night.

Let's talk about the question.

Okay question

Question.

Question.

Pregunta.

Question.

Question.

Okay, I have a question.

Questions.

This question.

Domanda.

Question.

Question.

Questions.

Oh yeah.

If you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

Men can choose a woman.

Women can choose a man.

Women can choose women.

Men can choose men.

However you want to do this, who would you want to play opposite you?

And this is a good question because I there's so many There are so many great actors and actresses and I'm I'm going back and forth as to whether or not I want to play someone who I think is pretty or if I want to play opposite someone I have kind of a crush on or Or who's a really great actor ideally both Initially I might say Scarlett Johansson Or like

Maybe Rebecca Ferguson.

She was in one of the most recent Mission Impossible films.

I'm gonna noodle this though.

I'm not gonna commit just yet.

Do you have someone in mind?

Yeah,

yeah, I got so the movie would be it would be it would be a you know a rom-com

yeah,

and My love interest would be Kate Upton

You know who I thought you're gonna say when you said Kate Kate McKinnon

Kate McKinnon actually though

I think if I did start any movie, it'd be a sports movie.

Okay.

Sports rom-com kind of like first pitch or fever pitch or whatever that was.

No, more like, um, have you ever seen?

No, you probably haven't because you don't like Adam Sandler.

So

I've seen some of this.

I don't dislike Adam Sandler.

I just don't go nuts over him like some people.

It would be kind of be like

more like a

documentary, but like a comedy, like kind of like sports movie.

Okay.

And I would.

love to have my co-star be Vince Vaughn.

I think I,

I think I'd laugh the whole time.

That's fair enough.

And the question is romantic comedy.

So he could be, you could be like his buddy in the movie.

Oh, it's all right.

Yeah.

Okay.

Maybe I,

I

missed the

question.

Okay.

All right.

If, if just to reiterate, if you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

So I, I am going to noodle this.

Let us know what you guys think.

Conrad's still struggling over there.

He wants his, he wants his co-star to be Vince Vaughn with good reason.

I'll go back to Kate Upton.

Kate Upton, yes.

With that,

there we go.

Not to get after you, dude, but like, she's not even really an actress.

She's active before.

She's active before, you know?

Yeah, she was in the Three Stooges.

We just talked about that.

She played a nun.

She did a great job in that.

She was good.

She was a good nun.

Unlike any of the nuns I remember at Catholic school, but yeah, okay, that's good.

So Conrad says, Kate Upton, what do you say?

855-752-4842, 855-75 civic.

Let us know who you would want to play opposite yourself in a romantic comedy.

Who do you want to be your co-star?

I think my wife would pick Brad Pitt, but I don't want to speak for her.

Maybe she'll text me during the show and I'll share that as well.

I would say Scarlett Johansson is a safe bet because she's such a good actor But yeah, I don't know there's a lot of good You can really chew you have so much to choose from that's a tough question I'll say right now my working list is Scarlett Johansson or Rebecca Ferguson

Okay

McKinnon

as the lead opposite me.

I like Kate McKinnon.

She could be in the movie.

She could be in it.

She could, yeah.

And I'll tell you what, I wouldn't even use a prosthetic if I was kidding.

I know I'm not watching that movie now.

Yeah, keep the kids away from that one.

Hey, this is some exciting news here at Civic Media, folks.

We have a new news talk line up here that started yesterday.

We shuffled things around a little bit, and here's a quick rundown of what you can hear on Civic Media on a daily basis.

From 5 to 6 a.m., the Midwest Farm Report with Pam Yankee, 6 to 9, you got mornings with Pat Krightlow.

powered by Up North News, which we love.

We had Christina Lorion, and that was really fun.

Pat does a great job, and he's a great guy.

He's been on the show.

We should get Pat on the show.

He'll be on the network, but I think in Madison, John and Gordy will continue to host the Madison show from WMDX, the morning show, and then here on WGBW and WISS, you can still get Mino in the mayor.

That doesn't change.

And then Matt Nara-Nara takes over.

Greg and Jane will be on from 9 to 11, from 11 to 2.

It'll be the Tom Hartman program.

Tom is coming back to Daylight Hours at Civic Media, which is exciting.

2 to 4, you got Todd Alba, our pal Todd.

From 4 to 6, the Maggie Dawn show.

Everybody just bumping up an hour or two.

And 6 to 8, no changes here at Nightlight with Peach Wabba.

So it'll be, I'm glad we get to, they can't really put us any earlier.

Or we can't use nightlight.

Yeah, exactly.

It'll just be light.

Daylight.

Daylight with Peach Wawa, yeah.

Noon light.

That will be the lineup, I should say, effective Wednesday the 23rd.

So you'll still have kind of the same shows leading up to that, but that takes effect one week from today.

All right, so at the, in Marinette last weekend, there was a big pickleball tournament, and our pal Emerson Layman, who will be on the show this Friday,

took part.

He loves to go up to Marinette and play pickleball.

I had a chance to talk to some of the pickleball players and a chance to talk to Emerson.

And here is my interview now with our buddy Emerson from last week in Marinette, Wisconsin at the Community Rec Center.

Emerson Layman, WBAY Morning Show anchor.

Pickleball player extraordinaire.

We're in Marinette, Wisconsin.

You're hometown.

My hometown.

You just dominated from what I saw.

I hope so.

We're

warming up right now.

We're getting ready for our bracket, and there's some really good teams here.

So hopefully we can dominate like we did, and it's doubled.

So where are things at?

What are your chances for bringing home all the marbles?

I'm playing with my partner that we won a big tournament in Green Bay a couple weeks ago.

So excited about that, got some momentum.

Zach Gonring's here.

He's a pro.

He's very hard to beat.

A lot of really strong players are here.

Now, what makes him... I mean, he's a young athletic guy.

It looks like.

But why is he such a good pickball player?

He's

just so consistent.

He does not make stupid mistakes.

Like a lot of us amateur wannabes do every day.

And he gets to every ball.

You think you hit a winner, points over, ball comes back, and then you put the next one in the net or something.

So it's kind of making up a... He's agile.

He's very agile, and

he

just keeps points

alive.

He's a handsome guy too, that's gotta, that's gotta, I mean, you're a handsome guy too, but it's, it's distracting.

He's got some great facial hair.

He's actually not even that good, it's just he's distracting.

He lures you into a, yeah.

Is this a good place to meet girls?

I mean, it hasn't worked for me yet, but I'm trying, so yeah, we're working on it.

But I mean, there's, it's a good place to meet anybody.

You meet so many

cool people,

young and old, I mean, the age range in this tournament is like,

I think the youngest kid was eight years old, and the oldest people are probably in their 70s.

That just shows the range of pickleball and how many people are playing in different divisions and whatnot.

It's a lot of fun.

But they break you down based on ages.

You're not playing 90-year-olds.

Not ages, it's a skill level.

So obviously the older people are playing probably a little bit of a lower skill level.

I'm playing in the highest skill level, so we've got some younger competitors.

But yeah, they break you down by the skill.

You kind of self-rate yourself.

you go from there nice so

this is

your what third time in Marinette oh I've been to Marinette quite a few times work aside I mean

like

yeah I come I come they have two tournaments every year they have one

of all one of

the spring and I try and play in all of them

so they

do a really good job of Brian and Kim Swenson they run the tournament they do a fantastic job this is their seventh year doing it I've been coming since I was working in Milwaukee so I think it's probably my fifth time

four fourth or fifth time up here

it's okay

I come every chance I get to do a great job what is your impression of our fair city I love Marinette it's so

much

fun to come up here it's cool you guys got the the lake right there yeah so much

industry going on

and I

just, to have this type of facility, this rec center in such a small town,

I

think is, you guys are just spoiled beyond

belief.

So it's, I love coming

up.

I donated, this is the wall of all the donors right here.

You're on here somewhere?

No, I gave them three bucks and they said that wasn't enough.

So I said, you know what you can do, you can go to hell, give me my three bucks back.

I think

we should put her like a little sticker.

I don't want to get you in trouble for vandalism or

something.

Listen, I think that's a great idea.

You're coming on the show Friday, right?

Friday, I can't wait.

It's gonna be fun.

We cap this whole thing.

I hope I have good news to share.

I hope you do too.

It would be great to have a little celebration on the air for your good luck.

Don't pull a hammy.

Don't get a concussion.

And no more fights on the court.

I'm going to

try my best.

Sometimes the old folks, they get a little mouthy.

So I got to keep them in their place.

You get them in a headlock.

That'll get the message across.

Thanks for coming.

Thank you, buddy.

That's Emerson Layman.

He'll be on the show this Friday night in studio.

And when we come back, I'll have more highlights from Pickleball in Marinette.

It's Pete Schwabba and Nightlight on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Mike Star coming up at 6.35.

Welcome back This is nightlight I am peach wabba great to have you with me on this Wednesday night on a beautiful It's beautiful in northeast, Wisconsin.

It's a little cold, but I think it's pretty sunny around the state for the most part So I hope hope you're having a great night.

Whatever you're doing great to have you with me Conrad is riding shotgun ready to roll always always we've got our question of the night is if you were the lead

If you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

So I said Scarlett Johansson or Rebecca Ferguson, Conrad said Kate Upton.

Fine actress.

Yeah.

And Chris from Janesville says, that's in the 608 he says, the lumberjack from hundreds of beavers.

And then he said another text he said, strictly platonic, LOL.

Yeah, there's no judgment here anyway.

You can play opposite anyone you want.

I was thinking love interest.

But it doesn't have to be.

So, huh?

I believe Chris is a she.

Oh, she, I'm sorry.

That's one of those names.

I get in trouble like that.

Terry, Chris.

Conrad.

Conrad.

But wait, but Chris is saying the lumberjack.

So I thought that meant when she said strictly platonic, I assume that meant Chris was a guy.

Well, now we're both confused.

Yeah.

Well, it doesn't matter anyway.

Chris wants to be in a movie with Rylan bricks and twos, who's a very talented guy.

No, I'm a he, I thought so.

Otherwise the platonic

thing.

I think there's another texture that had Chris and got me all confuzzled

over.

We do our best,

folks.

It's just great to hear from you.

All right.

So we've got some more highlights here from my weekend in Marinette, which is my weekend every weekend because I live there.

I went over to the community rec center.

and talk to some pickleball players.

And we've got that.

It's kind of a long clip.

It's a little over three minutes, but got a sense of some boots on the ground at this pickleball tournament and a sense that they were all having a lot of fun.

Here are those conversations.

Gidish, how are you doing so far at the tournament?

We won all the games.

You won all the games?

You're undefeated?

Yeah.

So far, three games left.

Three games left and then you're the champ?

Not yet.

If we win all three.

If you win all three, okay.

Have you ever gotten in a fight playing pickleball?

Actually this morning, other than that, never.

Like punches?

Not

punches, no.

I got scolded.

You got

scolded?

For

what?

My wife was playing and she, I think they took her out and then she called out, she looked at me.

By accident, I said...

But outside of people, they started saying, you should not suppose to make.

OK.

But they made a call already.

But I was just, it's a natural instinct, I will say.

Of

course, it's your wife.

Yeah.

And I have to go home.

Can I suggest a nickname for you?

Mad Dog.

No, you should.

I can't go with that one.

My last name is Madhipatla.

People used to remember me as a mad.

So it's a lie.

Well,

I wish you luck.

Good luck in the tournament today.

Bring up Mad Dog, bring it home.

Thank

you.

Now the word in the street is Zach, you're kind of the guy to beat here and I would never say that in front of Emerson though.

Yeah, I guess.

That was begrudgingly you admitted you're a very good pickleball player.

Do you have a nickname for yourself?

ZG, just my initials.

You need like a kind of a badass nickname though, right?

Yeah, some people, some people have gave me the nickname Sauce.

That's kind of cool.

I wouldn't say it strikes fear in people, though.

What about Cobra?

Oh, I like Cobra.

Yeah,

Cobra sounds good.

It

seems it works for you.

OK, OK.

Is pickleball harder to learn than ping pong?

I would say no.

I think if you really want to, you can go pick up a paddle and just start hitting around and playing pickleball, and you're going to have a great time.

Do chicks dig pickleball players?

Yeah, I'd say so.

Wait, do they like pickleball players?

Or are they just like you, because you're a good looking guy?

I don't know.

I want to do some research on that.

Lori Keller, is that a good pickleball name?

It sure is.

Is it one of those names where when you were born, your parents are like, she's going to rock it on the pickleball court one of these days?

Oh, sure.

Are concussions an issue?

Never, never.

We're nice on the court.

Oh,

that's great.

So you've never gotten in a fight over a line issue or anything?

Never.

Right.

Nope.

Have you ever wanted to, like, really tear into your opponent?

Once or twice.

What's the worst?

How heated has it gotten during a pickleball match?

I don't think it gets heated with women as much as it does men.

Why do you

guys do that?

It's pickleball.

Testosterone.

I know, but come on.

Look at these guys.

They're old.

They're on the verge of pulling every muscle in their body.

Stop with the headlocks and the leg wrestling, right?

Testosterone never goes away,

though.

Settle things with a thumb war.

Nobody

gets hurt.

Everybody wants away.

Rock, paper, scissors.

Yeah.

My name's Carolyn.

How is Emerson?

Is he a good player?

He is great.

He is my partner last night and yeah, we do pretty well together.

He's a great player.

He's very supportive and he'll kind of hype you up.

What do

you need him for?

Does he have

a nickname?

I call him Emerson, but

uh...

Yeah, I don't know.

He knows that.

Does he like

that?

He never told me not to call him that, so I'll say it's neutral.

Have you ever gotten in a fight on the court?

No.

Not a fight.

I'd say there are occasional line discrepancies, but I guess that's kind of any sport.

You just got to be honest.

Do you ever swear during the game?

Have you sworn in an opponent?

I would say I'm more so swear to myself.

I'll be like, oh.

You know, kind of to myself if I miss or make an error, but no, I don't think I've ever done it directly to an opponent.

Do you have a nickname?

A pickleball nickname?

Oh, gosh.

I go by my first name or the flick wizard.

I don't know.

I don't like the scorpion.

How

about the golden girl?

The golden girl, all right.

It doesn't really strike fear in opponents, though,

does it?

Yeah, I don't know.

It's not really scary, but... How

about the big softy?

The big softy.

I don't know.

I'm kind of quicker at the net, though.

I'm more of a... I'm not really a soft player, so... I don't know.

Great fun at the Community Rec Center in Marinette last weekend, and I cannot believe how crowded it was.

Like, I got there and I'm like, I might not find Emerson here.

And he's the one who told me about it.

And I go over there and I barely picked him out and I watched him play for a couple minutes, but...

Wow, it was packed our question tonight Ladies and gentlemen is if you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

Now we've been posting the question on social media earlier in the day, too So you're welcome to answer there Eric Rathsack from ask your mother our pal Eric says Kristen Wiig But I'd never get a scene done laughing the entire time.

Yeah, that's true She's great She had bridesmaids and like I thought that would catapult her to like serious movie star fame and she works but she's not

You know,

like Heather and I were talking about last night, the Palm Royale that she's on.

Yeah.

Great.

If you

have a chance to watch that on Apple TV, do

it.

Daniel Wheeler says, Julie Louis-Dreyfus, we'd have competing chili recipes in a small town cookoff and be surprised to learn our shared secret ingredient is love.

I love Daniel's texts.

Ezekiel drew his checks in on Facebook and says, Scarlett Johansson, that's my girl.

And he says, or my wife, whoever would be most available to film, probably your wife.

But we'll have an arm wrestler or something in Z-Kiel.

But do I want to arm wrestle with a guy who played Ed Gein?

I don't think so.

I

don't think so.

All right.

Actor, the legendary Mike Starr will be here after the news.

We're going to talk about his career and find out what he's got going on.

Matt Miller here at 720.

So great to have you with me here on this Wednesday night on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

I am Pete Schwabba.

Our question of the night, ladies and gentlemen, is if you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

We've had some great answers so far.

Dave checks in on the stream and says Phoebe Cates.

Phoebe Cates, of course.

I mean, she's been in other movies, but I know exactly how old Dave is now, just by his choice, because I'm assuming he watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High, like me.

thousands of times.

Not just for Phoebe Cates, who was great in the film, but that's a great answer.

And we've got Scarlett Johansson, I would say is number one so far.

Right, Con?

I don't know.

What is this

Pringles thing?

You sent me food and wine, Pringles Miller.

Summer, is this a joke though, like hot

dog water?

That's completely real.

This is real.

Pringles releases two new summer flavors.

beer can chicken You know that actually sounds kind of good.

What's this other one?

grilled beer brought I Want you to have a beer brought and they need a plain Pringle don't you get the same effect?

You know I sometimes just gotta just gotta go for I

knew you'd

take their side It's cool that

Miller Light has a prankle, I guess.

Conrad's mom checks in with the question of the night and says, Pierce Brosnan.

Yeah, Pierce Brosnan.

He was a heartthrob.

How old was your mom?

Like 40s, 50s?

Early 30s.

Yeah, of course.

I didn't ask how old your sister was.

Paula, that's a great choice.

And you can watch him in Mobland now.

He's in Mobland with Tom Hardy.

Helen Mirren, and they're great, it's good.

Guy Ritchie directs it, it's really a good, the pace is great, really good show.

Barb from Waukesha says, I've been a Brad Pitt fan ever since I saw him in Thelma and Louise.

I knew we had to hear Brad Pitt at some point tonight.

Great choice, Barb.

I mean, I like Brad Pitt too, as an actor.

Steve, Conrad's dad checks in.

and says, Kirstie Alley would have been a great female star.

Didn't your dad say something about Kirstie Alley last night?

Maybe.

Because, oh, the sitcom.

Are we calling Mike or is he doing StreamYard?

I think Mike, let's call him.

I'm gonna send you his number.

Okay.

So yeah.

I

think it was

in regard with Cheers maybe.

Something about Cheers with Kirstie Alley.

Oh, no problem.

All right, Mike is waiting.

I'm going to send you Mike's.

Let's call him because I think he's having an issue with the Stream Air link.

So I will send you his number.

That's right.

But he's obviously a fan of Kirstie Alley.

And then, you know, if during the break, if we want to try to get Mike back on Stream Air, we can do that.

But let's just get him on the show because I'm excited to talk to him.

All right Conrad is gonna give our 635 guest Mike a call and we will we'll be off to the races here I There was a funny story my wife.

I think I've told this actually before on the show.

My wife was such a fan of Brad Pitt She bought when he was in interview He did an interview with Vanity Fair and my wife he was on the cover when he did interview

with a vampire.

There's an interview in Vanity Fair.

So my wife picks one up on the way home.

I had just flown back from somewhere doing comedy stand-up.

And I'm at O'Hare and I grab the same copy for her.

So I get home.

Basically she has two copies of a Brad Pitt Vanity Fair.

So I was like, okay, so my sister comes over a few days later and I give her one of the copies.

She's like, oh, is this the Brad Pitt interview?

I go, yeah.

I said, take it.

We got two of them.

So my sister Molly takes one of the Vanity Fairs.

And my wife gets home and she's like, where's the other Vanity Fair?

She was mad that I gave it to my sister.

So I'm like, we had two copies of the magazine.

But Brad Pitt is on the cover.

My wife obviously was working towards wallpapering our bedroom with Brad Pitt on the cover of Vanity Fair.

So that is how Brad Pitt affects.

Well women in my family my wife and my sister she got mad at me.

We had an extra copy All right, we have we have Mike Conrad awesome.

All right is my pleasure ladies and gentlemen to Welcome my next guest.

He's got about 300 or so movie credits He's been on TV all this stuff some of the biggest movies of our time films like Miller's crossing good fellas and dumb and dumber the Extremely prolific Mike star joins us here on nightlight.

Hey Mike.

Hey buddy.

Sorry.

I'm

the old excuse, I feel like a progressive commercial here though, but I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get on camera here, but I think we'll fix that during the break.

So I apologize.

No, not at all.

Listen, it's just it's great to have you.

So I have to, I'm going to start not with a showbiz question, Mike, but just

ethnicity comparison I don't hear like I grew up in my neighborhood in Chicago everybody was Irish Italian Italian Polish on your Wikipedia page it says Irish Polish and I'm like oh my god finally another guy out there that has the same description as me so I'm thrilled to talk to you just for that alone

well I grew up in a wonderful city housing project in Queens and we had all sorts of people and

My grandparents on my dad's side were from Poland.

They came in and I didn't speak it only because my dad grew up in a small town in Massachusetts.

But I do have Italian relatives in Boston from my dad, my uncle Ray Panotti.

So that was an influence on me.

But I came from a very mixed neighborhood that was one of the best places, ideal places to grow up in Queens.

And my mom's side was the Irish Catholic side.

So I know you get a lot of people out in Chicago who are Polish background, but there were very few other people, except we had a great neighbor, my friend's mom, who was a survivor from, and she was from Poland.

And my dad used to speak Polish to her, but I didn't hear it spoken unless we went to Massachusetts.

And I regret that I didn't learn and I've tried to learn a few times, but I did study Italian and my I had My friends that was like a godfather to me and he was he would Give me all sorts of Sicilian culture.

I mean I had all sorts of different

ethnic

groups in my neighborhood

of

every kind and eventually even There was the United Nations area where I went to grammar school and then

a few years after we were married, friends of mine got me into that neighborhood.

So I've liked that kind of mix event of influence.

And then when we, we had 11 years after we were married and had three kids, we had to move to the Bronx.

My friend Jack McGee helped us get up there.

If you know him, be active, right?

There was an employment at that time.

And that was a, it was interesting.

It was an Irish and Italian neighborhood, but Irish, American, Italian, American, a lot of old school, but also Ireland.

Irish people from the other side from all over Ireland and a lot of people from southern Italy Some from Rome.

So as far as blood, yeah, I've been doing those ancestry The and and what is it

23 and yeah,

I even have a slight percentage of northern Russians Scandinavian.

Oh

my gosh.

Wow.

Look at you all over the place in Europe and Eastern Europe.

So

Yeah, I guess sometimes they cast we have a people remember things.

It's funny, like in good fellows, someone would say you played a mafia guy said, no, I didn't know some place said it's security.

I said, no, that was an ad lib.

That was an improv talking about the security in the area when Robert De Niro said that softball, which was so great.

He said, what's security?

And just came to me say security.

You're looking at it.

He was an air cargo supervisor and he was authority to the one.

security guard that was a wannabe military guy.

If you read the book, it's great.

Nick Poleggi's book, Wise Guy.

So he was a symbol of that, but Frenchy was half Irish American and half French American.

So

people, you know, a lot of times that you play, yeah, sometimes it'll be, hopefully I'm convincing in a few other ethnic groups.

You know, sometimes it would be really funny because I could not

I remember, uh, I've been fortunate to work in the theater in New York, but I remember first going out and the public theater, oh, this part for a post.

Oh, no, no, you can't play politics now.

Then someone will tell you totally ours and someone say, oh, you're, oh, you're so, you know, you

know, you

know, you know, you know, and then some, you know, people would say that's actually translated.

Yes, though, which means star in the sky.

If I'm pronouncing it correctly with my limited knowledge of it, but, uh,

I guess my dad added an R to the star.

And then, aside from that, yeah, I've had people, I remember I've had in an airport, Israeli, a fellow started speaking Hebrew to me thinking I was Israeli.

You know, we

were talking, he

was telling me about his toothache.

So I've seen a few different backgrounds.

And yeah, I guess it's the East European thing.

And I don't know.

Sometimes they allow me, I play Irish too.

Well,

it's funny because my sister Julie connected me with you and you used to see Julie at the Smokehouse in Burbank, one of my favorite places when I lived in LA.

And I thought one day I want to have a production company and I want to call it Smokehouse Films because I love that place.

It's so old school.

And it doesn't surprise me at all that you hang out there because you're like an old school guy.

I go to see one of my best friends and we're a lot of friends on Julie's great friend, Gary McMillan.

Yeah, one of the mighty costs and off play

that he's

that he's got that celebrity bartender.

He's got a following.

He's done so much TV, theater and film, but he's been, uh, he's been at the smokehouse quite a while behind the bar and it's a show, you know,

but

I think someone else beat you to the smokehouse films.

You know that during ER.

George Clooney, among other people, and George recently came back to, I think he and Matt Damon threw a party there.

I said, it's a real classic picture to Smokehouse.

I don't drink so.

I felt like I'm a bar hanger out.

I go see him, bring a bunch of friends, and then they have, it goes back to I believe 1946 and 1947.

And if you look at sometimes George Clooney, you'll see

you know, on credit, Smokehouse Productions, because George Clooney used to, uh, evituate the place quite a lot and bring a lot of people there.

And there's been, uh, I think recently Gary said some film wrapped and I think a hundred people can walk in at like 9 30 at night from

the show.

So it's right across the street from Warner Brothers,

but I,

I like to go see Gary there and it's a great place.

And it's, um,

a central meeting place.

A lot of times friends of mine in the business or just in the area, we all hook up saying, well, let's go to the smokehouse and you'd be surprised who's there.

A lot of times.

It's a great place.

You mentioned your time in Goodfellas, Mike.

And I love the enthusiasm with what you just said was an ad lib to DeNiro.

He's like security and you're like, you're looking at him.

It's me.

It's like, I tried to imitate you earlier and I don't think I did.

I didn't do it nearly as well as you would.

That whole scene was improvised.

And the wonderful actor and brilliant musician and singer, he said, make sure you don't call it ad-libbing.

And I said, I called it ad-libbing.

He said, it's improvisation.

And that was really worked out that scene.

And whatever research I had from Frank Silvero, play Frankie Carbone and on the character and reading Nick's book.

And there was a detective who helped me with things.

And it was quite a process that Martin Scorsese.

did put us through over a few days in the great process that it would come out like that.

It wasn't just like, Hey, how you doing?

Hey, you know, people walk in and saying, Hey, you go.

And I was actually fortunate enough to be on the set when Joe Pesci did funny like a clown.

Yeah, I happened, I think I came for wardrobe or something or maybe there were rehearsals or something I had to do and, uh, but

Yeah, it all just kind of came, certain things kind of came, and it was due to the, I mean, everyone put their, I guess their work and research, but it's also the preparation that it looks so off the cuff because at first, Martin Scorsese just had us work together, and even brought me in a day before, and he said, I want to get to talk to Bob.

You know, about the, I said, really?

And I went in and close to Nero, super gracious and cool.

And we discussed things, you know, and he would do an ask questions.

He was, he's not a very controlling person that way.

He, he lets people flower.

Hopefully they have the, uh, the goods at Scorsese, Montes, Scorsese does.

And I had a humor relationship, not only with Bob, but with the Montes, Scorsese, my best relationships in film or theater, whatever.

I've been based on, I don't know, off-set comedy.

Not like, hey, he is a one-liner, but a lot of- Hey, Mike,

can we

pick

up right there?

We gotta do a really quick break.

I would love to hear the rest of that, though.

Let's pick up with that.

We're

gonna try to get on camera now?

Yeah, let's try to do that, too.

Why not?

What are we doing here, right?

All right, Mike Starr is here, folks.

We're coming right back with Nightlight with Pete Schwabba on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Hey, this is John Legend and you're

listening to Night Light

with Pete Schwabba.

Welcome

back to Night Light.

Ladies and gentlemen, great to have you with me on this Wednesday night.

Here, I am Pete Schwab, your host.

Our question of the night is, if you were the lead in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

Jim from Appleton says, the person I would want as my co-star would have to be Jennifer Lawrence.

Excellent choice, Jim.

Great one.

Great one.

I didn't even think of her earlier.

All right.

This is exciting, folks.

Mike Starr is here.

Legendary Mike Starr with so many credits.

He's been part of such great movies.

I think we got him on the stream now.

So if you're watching on the stream, you can see Mike.

Wow.

A lean, mean fight machine, Mike, if I do

say so myself.

I'm working at it.

Wow.

That's impressive, dude.

Back trail here.

Yeah.

Reinventing myself.

I

love it.

It's great to have you here tonight.

And I'm glad we got the stream figured out, but stream phone, it doesn't matter.

It's just great to talk to you.

Um,

I just want to say quickly, hello, my family, my kids and great children out in Chicago and Naperville and my friends, your friends, family out in Minnesota, John Breen, my childhood friend of wealth.

We got Wisconsin Todd who trains the Bosa brothers and, uh, he may be out there, but his family's out there and, uh,

Who else who else so I got it?

I just wanted to make sure and coley from Galway in Chicago and all my friends I spent the greatest times of my life in Chicago some of the greatest times and and Have a whole world there.

So I just want to make sure I got that to my Brian from BNP Chicago Oh, that's a great place.

Well, thanks

for

getting the word

out.

That's fantastic.

No, I have to yeah got the world of

When the iconic place Stan Lee's, God rest his soul, Donnie Cruz and Chef Luigi from Francesca's, which my son still does a stint there every now and then.

We have so many people that is a couple of friends that are not around.

But Stan Lee's, that's how I met Chris Chellios and Ryan Dempster and all these people.

Yeah, it was a whole great world out in Chicago.

Dennis Farina and Joe Mantania who I'm so in touch Dennis Farina from Chicago and some of the best experiences all but I'm not leaving anyone out so many so many really Great times and great experiences, and I was fortunate enough to work there and my wife also UIC but also University of Chicago the children's house where she was a pediatric concert and so Wow, oh

my

gosh quite some interesting times and a history for me in a very special place So I wanted to say that

Fantastic.

You might get a kick out of this.

Dennis Farina was my little league coach.

Yeah.

His

son, Mike

and I were classmates and he and my dad were the coaches and I ran into him a few times out in LA.

It just had really nice talks with him.

A good guy.

One of the greatest guys of the year.

God bless, God bless.

So I wanted to.

I'm sorry.

So, but I was talking about the comedy.

Yeah.

That, uh, Martin Scorsese, uh, I guess I was lucky every time he, we did trip, he did a trivia thing or asked about, cause I spent time, you know,

old films, we would call old films, but the respect he has for it, but even TV and comedies, and every now and then he would just quiz me, and I'd be lucky to answer, but a lot of that improv came out of freedom.

You know, we would just work together, and then all of a sudden, you know, Ray would, oh, I have to get this line in, whatever you know, and...

on top of that, then we went with department heads, you know, the cinematography, et cetera.

And then finally the whole crew, and then we did it.

So it wasn't like we just walked on that.

That's why I want to give so much credit.

It was like you felt so free.

And then when you did it, hey, feel free.

So one take, I said the commandant, I called myself.

And Montes-Cosse said, he said, Mike, the commandant, I said, well, it's 1968.

How did it end up off?

Because the Air France heist was the one at Frenchy.

Right.

Was the main guy in before Lufthansa ten years later, which I snuck in a lot.

I have a thing about improvising correctly for the period of if I'm lucky and fortunate.

And I just said, well, you know, that that my generation grew up with World War Two films.

And and like, you know, the Great Escape and Stalak 17, there was always a commandant in charge of, you know, the prison.

So he says, I love it.

Keep it in.

But we would he

with that frame, so enough of that, I'm sorry I'm yapping too much about

myself.

No, this is great stuff, and we have about two minutes to a break, and I'm hoping we can keep you through the news, then we'll have a nice chunk

of time.

I think it'll be a one.

All right, fantastic.

I did want to ask you, though, and I'm kind of embarrassed, because I've seen good fellas about 20 times, and after the Lufthansa heist, all these guys, DeNiro or Jimmy Conway, starts bumping people off.

I don't remember.

Did you get whacked after the Lufthansa heist?

Yes, and it kind of insinuates that it was, was De Niro's character, Jimmy Conway, and then Jimmy Burke.

And, you know, I'm not quite sure if he left it open, like, well, was it them or was it the, was it the higher ups with Paul Sobino plays?

Was it Paul Vario?

Yeah.

So I'm not speaking history because I don't know.

But you kind of leave it there.

Is that what's happening?

Is that, it was it, was it that?

I mean,

But I was in the dumpster, remember the Layla?

Rolling over.

Yes, OK.

And the first three times I was blinking and everything.

We had a fun concerto and I. And we even had my great stunt double skeets, Don Picard and Nick Jean-Julio did a climb.

But we did most of our stuff.

But, you know, and then Don looked over me because it was quite a.

And interesting situations, gigantic dumpster.

The stunt coordinator was my crew.

And it was lifting into a hopper, which you don't see.

And the camera was in the hopper.

And he showed me that the blades weren't on.

Oh, man.

That's great.

First three days, I was blinking like, oh, yes.

And we were covered in all the blood.

And I believe the first week, we

We did all the death scenes.

You got them all out of the way.

Johnny Rosebeef and the Pink Cadillac.

That's like seven hours.

I mean, that's how explicit Mike Valhouse, the cinematographer, of course, Martin Scorsese, how explicit and detailed as Robert De Niro and everything he does is so detailed.

There's little points I could tell you sometimes that you knew that they just picked up things that were just so, you may not even notice.

And my big, my big ad live in the Lufthansa improv was when we're playing the bowling machine to open it up.

I said, uh, Louise get a lightning for Ron Gidry in 1970.

All

right, Mike, we got to do the news.

We're coming right back.

Mike

Starr is here.

He's

staying through the news.

It's Pete Schwabba and nightlight.

We're hanging out with Mike Starr on the Civic Media Radio Network.

Broadcasting live from the Civic Media Studios in Green Bay, this is Night Light with Pete Chwaba.

Your inside source on everything entertainment from Wisconsin to Hollywood.

And now a man barely six feet tall but a mountain of muscle, Pete Chwaba.

Welcome back to Night Light, ladies and gentlemen, as we kick off our number two.

So great to have you with me on this Wednesday night here at Night Light Conrad Riding Shotgun.

If you were the lead actor or actress in a romantic comedy, who would you want to play your co-star?

That is tonight's Night Light Question of the Night.

We've had some outstanding...

answer so far.

Matt Miller coming up a little later here in hour two.

Right now, this is really fun for me.

I've got the legendary actor Mike Starr here.

He's been over in over 300 films, TV credits too.

He's done theater.

He's an absolute treasure.

And you've seen him in so many movies that you've probably forgotten about because he's in so many of them.

The Bodyguard, Miller's Crossing, Dumb and Dumber.

And Mike, I'll ask you about this one.

kill the

Irish.

I first apologized.

I know I did a lot of Chicago things.

I do love Milwaukee and Wisconsin had great experiences there, including being out for weddings and and so many so many great times and stayed stayed out in Milwaukee and made made special trips, not only with my wife, but also I with friends out there and was lucky to work and I even have these friends that have a

a film show on the radio in Kenosha.

And so I try to, I try to, I'm not, not competitors at all.

We're all in this together.

That's right.

And was lucky enough to go to Lambeau Field.

Oh yeah.

Like that and spend great times in Wisconsin.

Listen, it's a great, I mean, I've lived in Chicago, LA and Wisconsin.

I love them all, but Wisconsin, where I live now in northeast Wisconsin is the easiest place to live.

You will ever, it's like, oh God, it's like heaven.

The people are nice.

It's just easy to get around.

There's enough culture.

It's fantastic.

So, but thank

you

for the nice words.

I was about to ask you about Kill the Irishman, this movie that you were in that not a lot of people saw it.

I just watched it like three years ago.

Was that a good

experience?

That was tremendous.

It was about Danny Green.

Yeah.

And Cleveland gangster, right?

Yeah, Irishman was a long shaman and originally from Ireland.

It's a really interesting story.

The book was written by who's now a police

I think in the suburbs of Ohio, at least he was at the time when he gave me the book and he had been a patrolman, I think, way back then.

There were, I think, 35 bombings in 1973 between these wars they were having.

And, you know, you look at the cares we had.

And of course, Ray Stevens, we lost, who was originally, I think, from Northern Ireland and England, he was a wonderful, wonderful actor.

And we lost him at a young age.

and he had played the lead and he was just spot on perfect, just great to be around.

And there's, you know, you see all the other characters and, oh man, Vince DeVonafrio and we had, geez, we just had a great cast, yeah.

Chris Walken and you see, yeah, so it's, geez, I'm just thinking of all the people that were on it and some who are not with us anymore, Tony.

I didn't know,

yeah, Ray Stevens was great.

You are, like, let's talk about that, Mike.

You, and I want to get to Dumb and Dumber and Miller's Crossing and maybe even the Bodyguard.

We'll see how we do here.

But, like, you, you've been described, everybody I've talked to about you, or if I said Mike Starr is coming on the show, whatever I said, he is such a nice guy.

He is one of the nicest guys you will meet in the entertainment business.

For you, and you've worked with tons of people, who do you say that about?

Oh, Lord.

Now you're going to get me in trouble if I stop.

Just because time's an issue.

Give me two people.

So OK, Gene Wilder.

I'll pick people that aren't alive.

I mean, I'm thinking of so many.

I mean, I mentioned how nice Robert DeNiro was to me, Dustin Hoffman, but John Lithko.

He got me work too.

That's all that always helps.

I've been periodically for the Sopranos.

Oh yeah.

Got me work a few times and so many people.

I was lucky enough to work with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick on Broadway and a few other nice people.

Wow.

And geez, now I get nervous that I'm not going to say it's that cliche of who am I leaving out.

But Gene Wilder was

One of the most special people you can't imagine.

You couldn't wait to get to the set.

We did these A&E mysteries.

He wrote Agatha Christie's style.

We did a couple of those and special TV movies.

He's in Milwaukee.

He was

born

in Milwaukee.

That's it.

That's it.

Oh, good.

I finally.

Great choice.

Oh, the stories you would tell.

I'd ask about young Frankenstein.

Hey, John Candy was.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

You