Phil Morris Gets Real + Spectacular
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Concept
pits
The pits are the race teams’ work area. That’s where mechanics go to fix the car, change tires, and get it ready during the event.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a super famous car race in France. It’s a long race—cars compete for about 24 hours—and it’s a big deal for racing fans.
Concept
automotive design
Automotive design is how a car gets planned and shaped. It’s not just the exterior looks—designers also think about how people fit inside and how the car is built.
Brand
Mercedes-Benz
Mercedes-Benz is a well-known luxury car brand from Germany. The host is talking about how the brand was promoted in the U.S. using famous voices. It’s part of why Mercedes became so recognizable.
Brand
Chrysler
Chrysler is a major American car brand. Here it’s mentioned because the host’s dad was associated with Chrysler in media. That leads into the host talking about their first Chrysler.
Concept
the one that got away
It means a car you really wanted, but you missed out on it. Later you think about it and wish you had bought it.
Car
Chevrolet Vega
The Chevrolet Vega is an older Chevy compact car. People bring it up because it’s known for being a bit of a headache compared to more reliable cars.
Car
Ford Pinto
The Ford Pinto is an older Ford compact car. It’s remembered for having a rough reputation, so mentioning it is basically a joke about having made questionable car choices early on.
Term
personalized license plate
A personalized license plate is a custom plate with chosen letters and numbers. The speaker is using it as a fun way to show off their personality.
Car
Porsche 911 Carrera S
This is a 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera S, which is the 993-generation 911. It’s the sportier version of the 911, and it’s considered one of the most desirable classic 911 eras.
Brand
Ferrari
They mention Ferrari as the other big supercar brand in the conversation. Phil is saying he loves Ferraris, but Porsche was easier for him to get into.
Concept
Gumball Rally
The “Gumball Rally” is a well-known road rally that became famous through a movie. The speaker is saying that seeing it in the film made them want that kind of car.
Brand
Rolls Royces
Rolls-Royce is a luxury car brand known for comfort and high-end build quality. It’s a different vibe than sports cars, but it’s still “exotic” in its own way.
Brand
Porsches
Porsche is a German sports-car brand strongly associated with track capability and engineering. The speaker’s mention of “Porsches” sets up the later question about what cars they dislike, indicating Porsche is a personal benchmark for them.
Concept
love it or hated proposition
That phrase means some people really like it, and other people really don’t. With cars, it usually comes down to personal taste—especially design and vibe.
Concept
enthusiast for every model
The idea here is that there’s someone who loves basically every car model. Even cars that don’t seem “cool” to you might be someone’s favorite.
Brand
BMWs
They mention BMWs, which are cars from BMW, a well-known German brand. BMW is often associated with sporty cars and car enthusiasts.
Concept
Car journalists
Car journalists are people who write about cars—like reviews, road tests, and news. They help other enthusiasts understand what a car is like and what’s worth paying attention to.
Brand
Alpina
Alpina is a German company that makes special, faster versions of BMWs. They usually feel smooth and powerful, not just “race-y.”
Term
smoke him
“Smoke him” is just a way of saying “beat him badly.” It’s not a technical term—more like race-day trash talk.
Concept
incremental
“Incremental” means making changes little by little. Instead of a total overhaul, a company keeps the basic idea and improves it step-by-step.
Concept
voiceover
Voiceover is when someone uses their voice to act, narrate, or do character lines for TV, movies, ads, or games. The speaker is saying that staying playful helps you do it well.
Concept
air-cooled Porsche
An air-cooled Porsche is an older style of Porsche engine that uses airflow to keep the engine cool. Some drivers love them because they feel and sound different from newer, liquid-cooled cars.
Term
seat of the pants
“Seat of the pants” is a way of saying “how it feels” when you drive. It’s the real-world sensation of power and response, not just specs.
Company
Hagerty
Hagerty is a car company that focuses on collector cars. They publish lists of cars they think will become more valuable over time.
Concept
EVs
EVs are cars that run on electricity from a battery. The conversation is about whether everyone switching to EVs will actually work out long-term.
Brand
Audi
Audi is a big car brand from Germany. They’re pushing electric cars, and the discussion here is about whether their EV plans will pay off.
Concept
cookie cutter
“Cookie cutter” means building lots of similar-looking houses instead of unique ones. It usually happens when developers want to build faster and cheaper.
Concept
left foot braking
Left foot braking means using your left foot to press the brake instead of your right. People do it to feel more in control and keep their right foot ready for the gas.
LIVE
You know, everything I do is just fun.
I just I just go and try to have the most fun I can.
And it seems to be working out today on that car show.
It's our pal Phil Morris fills an L.A.
based automotive enthusiast with both a 9 11 and a V 10
are right in the garage.
He's a familiar face each Friday morning at Newcombe's Ranch
for good vibes.
He's a familiar face to from film and television.
And he, of course, played the iconic Jackie trials on Seinfeld.
He shares what it was like growing up as the son of a famous
Hollywood actor and forging his own fame in TV and movies.
This one's real and it's spectacular.
It's Phil Morris and it's that car show.
Welcome to this week's episode of that car show.
I'm Lindsay and I'm here with Ryan and we have a guest that we are
so excited to share with everybody this week.
My good friend Phil Morris and he's a friend of the show.
We've all had the chance to hang out together in person, which is
not always the case with Instagram.
And we're all scattered around, you know, fills in Southern California.
I'm usually in Seattle, Ryan's in Colorado, but we have actually
all met in person at the Peterson at a Ferrari event a few years ago.
And now we're making it happen virtually, getting together on the podcast.
So Phil and I first connected on Instagram through Good Vibes.
Good Vibes Breakfast Club, which was founded by all of our friends,
Jay and Nicole Ryan up at Newcombe's Ranch in L.A.
And then there was one Friday morning, a little bit after that,
where we were both there up at Newcombe's for Good Vibes on Friday morning.
And my dog happened to jump on Phil's leg to say hello.
And we realized we were connected on Instagram, but then we actually got
to say hi in person.
And, you know, it's always fun to put a face to the Instagram handle.
And we've been friends ever since.
We know Phil for his ready smile, his sense of humor,
how genuine and present he is when you are with him.
But he has a prolific career as an actor and a voice actor.
And many of our listeners will probably know him for his portrayal of arguably
one of the most iconic characters on TV, Jackie Childs on Seinfeld,
who is such a favorite.
In addition to Seinfeld, Phil has been on The Young and the Restless.
And he actually acted in The New Mission Impossible, playing his father's
character's son.
His father, of course, was Greg Morris, who was on the original Mission
Impossible TV show in the 60s, and I think maybe early 70s.
And so suffice it to say, Phil has lived an incredibly unique life.
And he's a true car enthusiast and a pretty good driver, if he does say so himself.
So just ask me.
Just ask him, right?
So we are so excited to have you with us tonight and hear some of your stories.
Welcome to the show, Phil.
Well, thank you. What a humbling introduction.
I really appreciate that.
Gosh, I can't wait to hear what I have to say.
You sound like a great guy.
It's been a long, yeah, I can't wait to meet me.
This has been a long time in coming.
But, you know, we've met over a shared passion, which is really terrific.
And you mentioned something, Lindsay, that is really, very, very common in that
a lot of us in the car world know each other from our handles.
And it was great to put a face with that and Ryan as well.
And the Peterson was a great event.
I mean, I'm a huge, I'm a huge car fan, but I'm a real huge Ferrari fan.
And to meet you guys over that was was terrific.
So it was definitely, yeah, thank you for joining us.
I mean, that was that was such a great way to kick off like sort of your
relationship to our show.
And we got to meet, you know, your lovely wife, Karla, who's just so
effervescent and just really added to the whole morning.
I know we all had a great time together and just, you know, you're
you're a true family man and car enthusiast.
And we just were happy to have you with us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And so I know I've gotten to hang out with you at multiple car events.
One of them, my dad was with us and you were telling us some really
interesting stories because you grew up, obviously, as the son of a working actor.
And so we wanted to hear sort of how did you get into cars, but also
can you share, because you had said there were some unique experiences
that your family got to have growing up.
Yeah.
Who your dad.
I mean, just being in that celebrity world, you know, just get to it.
There's access that just to, I guess, regular folks don't have or people
who aren't in that world, they just don't have that access.
It's like full on VIP behind the curtain stuff.
And my dad became famous in 1966.
Mission Impossible started in 66.
I was seven.
So I was very young.
So a lot of the things that we did, which were amazing.
I, I'm not sure if they're real memories or if I kind of highlighted them
because you little kids, you know, they tend to embellish their memories.
So I actually went back and people would say to me, ask this question,
how are you selling the cars?
My dad used to be the grand marshal and VIP at many of the California races.
California 500, the Riverside 500, the Long Beach Grand Prix.
So we went to all of those races.
And of course I was enamored.
We're in the pits.
We made it like, like everybody.
So because those memories are so vivid and those people were so illustrious,
I went back and looked at who was at the 1972, 1971 Riverside Grand Prix,
California 500.
So at, they think it was the Riverside 500, I believe there were two races
that went on that day.
One was a Formula One race.
One was a Formula 3000 race, both won by Mario Andretti.
AJ Foyt was second in the Formula 3000 race.
The flag man was Paul Newman.
The special guests were, the special guests were Greg Morris, Steve McQueen,
Muhammad Ali, the Supreme's saying the national anthem.
I mean, you can't write that.
I'm just here to tell you, even I was was like taken aback by how deep that
dive was. And I remember being on the roof of the Long Beach Grand Prix
and talking with Paul Newman about the race.
I remember seeing Muhammad Ali and meeting him.
And, you know, he was a huge fan of my dad at the time.
They were just, you know, they were gargantuan figures in sports
and entertainment.
So to have that access, to be in the pits, to smell the smells, to do the thing.
It just, it, man, it hooked me.
It hooked me.
So I've been an exotic car lover primarily ever since.
Yeah, I can't imagine.
Not a bad story.
I mean, yeah, that sucks.
Did you know how special it was then?
Always.
I always did.
We were always very grateful.
It's important.
And when we got a little bit too big for our bridges, we thought we're too much.
Our parents were right there to go, hey, look, you know, I just come from Ohio.
Your mom's from West Virginia.
This is special stuff, you know, so.
Right, like this is a normal.
Yeah, I mean, you can see here in my house, I have Wheaties boxes
and there's Snoopy and their thing.
I mean, my whole life is like magical.
It's just I have Le Mans, Ferrari, Lefka cult.
I've got comic books everywhere.
I mean, it's this world, this life I've lived has been so full and fantastic.
And I just keep going.
I lean right into it.
I mean, you got to grab on with both hands, right?
If that's what people are including you in, you'd be crazy not to say yes.
I'm not going to lie.
I did not expect a Supreme's mention that early in the show.
I mean, I mean, it's almost unbelievable, Phil.
Yeah, like, yeah, how far we've fallen is.
So people, right?
Yeah, really, really, it's incredible.
So and it goes even even go ahead.
Sorry, go ahead.
Well, no, so how old were you when you were chatting with Paul Newman?
I mean, that just blows me away.
Eight, nine, you know, 10, you know, so the show was on for seven years from 66 to 73.
I went from seven to 14 in very formative years.
Every year, there was something amazing.
You know, there's a special golf tournament or a special, you know,
the Philip Morris Company sponsored the show the first two years.
And as a kid, I thought all the merch.
Well, well, I just thought I owned the show.
You know, you know, they mean you're a kid.
No, it's called Philip Morris.
And he's right.
Yeah, like this is my not kidding.
Yes, I just so it's going to me.
It's kind of me. Yeah.
I mean, I'll say that's yeah.
And so did your did your whole family go because you have two sisters?
All of us, all of us went all of it.
Yeah, we were we were a big kind of amoeba that would go from one event to another.
We go to the Emmy events, the Emmy award events.
We'd go our parents took us everywhere.
We were really well-behaved kids.
We really appreciated it.
We were enamored with the whole world as well.
So it was exciting.
Each one of us, my sisters and I, would have like a day a month
that we would be able to go and get out of school and go to the studio
and watch our dad film.
So we each had a day that we went with him.
And then we spent the whole day at the studio and, you know,
it was just like crazy because the Brady bunch was shooting then
the odd couple shooting them, you know, Bonanza was shoot.
I mean, it was it was pretty special.
So I guess that's, you know, some mystery why I do what I do.
Yeah. Well, that's I was going to say, you know, you've you've met my dad
and right before we were recording, I said, hey, do you have any questions for Phil?
And I think I told you after we met you and we had all gone home from the event,
all of a sudden it hit him and he went, oh, my gosh, Greg Morris.
Wait, hold on.
And he looked at my mom.
He said, you're not going to believe this.
I met Greg Morris, his son.
This is unbelievable.
So tonight I said, do you have any questions for Phil?
And he said, yeah, I would love to hear.
And you've talked about it a little bit now.
You grew up with your dad doing what he did.
And so can you talk about like how you were exposed to, you know, obviously
he got up and went to work.
What was that like being exposed to that?
And what made you want to follow in his footsteps career wise?
Well, I for a long time, I didn't, you know, I was the only boy and I was so young.
You know, you're trying to figure out who you are and find your own identity.
And every time somebody said, you know, little Greg to me, I'd love to know it's Phil.
You know, I would if I would definitely push back.
I am pretty strong personality, always have been.
And I wanted to find my way myself.
And so for a long time, I was just an actor, an athlete and a dude.
And then I got into automotive design early.
Really? Yeah.
And I went to Art Center for about six months studying automotive design.
Yeah, I wanted to from the inside out.
And I had kind of an idea to go to kind of the Fisher body plant and work there as a design.
Honestly, that's what I wanted to do.
And my grades weren't good enough.
My art was good, but my math sucked.
And, and, you know, you have the cars have to run.
I mean, you know, they have to be picking up, you know, unless you're
Swedish car manufacturer, I don't know, bad, bad.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, so woke up and chose violence today.
I know, exactly.
I'm so sorry, Phil.
Way to beat him while they're down.
They're losing him right left and center.
But yeah, I really wanted to be that that guy.
And then my dad took me on location one one summer.
And it was a movie that had some pretty amazing people.
And I'm going to tell you these stories.
You guys are like, really?
So my dad was doing this movie with Billy D.
Williams and Henry Fonda and Chad Everett and Earl Haggard and Buck Henry.
And I mean, just crazy.
And it was an army picture.
I'm 17 years old, playing army, running around acting like a fool.
And my dad had an accident on the movie and they came to me and they told me
they didn't know if he was going to be able to finish it.
And they wanted me to take over the role.
That was an an actor.
I mean, I had a pretty expanded PA role, wrangling up these extras from Bakersfield.
But they felt like my energy was leadership material.
And my dad was playing a leader and, you know, maybe I could swing it.
Long story short, he got better.
But that got me into acting for real, for real, for real, for real.
And I came back to LA and I started studying and I've been doing the
service since that's incredible.
I love it.
What was in your garage growing up?
I'm just curious.
My dad had a 280 SE 3.5.
He was really into that classic.
It was like his dream car.
He and Peter Graves, who was the white-haired guy on Mission Impossible,
were the first celebrity voices of cars in the States.
Like my dad and he were the Mercedes-Benz voices.
And then my dad was the Chrysler voice for years.
So there were a lot of Mercedes-Benzes, a lot of 450 SELs.
And my first real car, like my own car, was a Chrysler Cordova.
Oh, wow.
Horrible.
So I know horrible cars.
So I'm sorry, Sweden.
I know horrible.
I just know.
Don't be mad at me.
Because I love you because I'm one of them.
I love that reality.
I bleed for you at any rate.
It's going to be a running joke.
I'm telling you, that was my introduction to cars.
I've been around my whole life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, and you have had quite a collection over the years.
And I know we've talked about it.
You said, I'm not selling any anymore.
Like, if I get them, they're sticking with me because, I mean,
we've all felt the pain of like, oh, the one that you had to sell,
or the one that got away.
And so when you get to the point where you can alleviate that pain or start to.
We are addicts, yes.
Yeah.
But so can you share like some of the cars that you've had over the years?
Because, you know, it's cool.
And it's because, you know what, I was bad with cars.
I was a kid. I was terrible.
I didn't want to spend money on the cars.
I want to spend money on my girlfriend, other stuff.
I didn't see the benefit.
I just I was not good.
And so I got the cars that I deserved.
I literally had a Pinto, I had a Vega, I had like bad cars, which in hindsight,
it was perfect because now I am so responsible.
I am so grateful.
I'm so thankful to have the vehicles that I have.
And I'm so I'm prideful that I take such good care of them now
because I was such a irresponsible lout before.
If you say something like a Pinto, you do appreciate you can only go up, right?
Kind of kind of my my personalized license plate was I.
I. N. 10.
Two. And people would say, Phil,
are you going to get out of the car?
I go, look at my license plate.
I intend to. It's right there.
I intend to.
Yeah, it was I was manifesting even then.
My first real kind of car was a nineteen eighty two nine eleven SC.
Oh, wonderful.
Root beer brown, which I put got he wheels on three wheels.
Perfect. Such a baller.
Um, ten of the windows brown ten.
I mean, it was it was it was cool.
It was cool. That's like we are going full.
Yeah, I was there.
I was working around everything, everything.
It was a pretty cool looking car.
I really like that car.
And then I got an eighty eight Carrera, which is perfect.
Like that's just a perfect sports car.
And then I got a nineteen ninety five nine nine three Carrera S.
And then I got a two thousand four GT three.
And now I have a title of two thousand twelve nine nine one one Carrera S.
I have. And then an R eight Audi two thousand eighteen
rear wheel series. So those are that one is.
And I only have the R eight and the nine nine one one.
Now they are between.
That's all. Yeah, I know.
Well, I saw a black R eight the other day and I thought of you
because and this one it was black like yours.
But this one happened to have ski racks on the rear window.
You should. Did you send me that?
You sent it to you.
Like in case you ever want to take the R eight skiing, you can.
Yeah, it was insane.
I could see this thing coming from behind me
and I was like, what's sticking up over the top?
And then it passed us.
And I went, oh, of course, ski racks, obviously.
Yes, yes, what an option.
You know, Lindsay, you can do that in nine eleven as well, technically speaking.
I've seen it. You know, it's funny.
I think this one I've seen that a lot
and I think it looks great on nine eleven.
This was I mean, and maybe there's a reason they didn't put it on the roof
on this R eight, but it was on the back window.
And so it was an odd.
Yeah, it was just an odd proposition and it stuck up over.
Like if you were looking at the car from the front, you saw part of one of them.
It just right.
It was a conversation piece, clearly.
Yeah, well, they fell off exactly in mid flight.
They probably put it on the rear
because the top of an R eight is very fragile.
You know, they don't have sunroofs.
And so the construction on the roof is not very durable.
So maybe there is more support in that area would make sense.
Yeah, weird, though.
I wouldn't do it. No.
So, Phil, why Porsche?
I mean, it's it's I feel like it's it's something that we all kind of end up
going to. But but what was what was your story with Porsche?
Why Porsche?
It was easier than a Ferrari again to number one.
Ferraris are my first love.
And this is my real my real love, my great.
My my favorite car in the whole world is a three sixty five GTT four Daytona
in the whole world.
I used to work at a place called the Beverly Hills Car Company
and I was the wash delivery boy at least 16, 17 years old.
So I would drive.
You name it, we drove everything, the twelve Jags, everything to deliver
to the valley to this.
I mean, I drove everywhere and I washed all of them.
So whenever there was a Daytona that came in,
just the sound of it, the styling of it,
it was so sleek and sexy.
And then I saw a movie called Gumball Rally
and it was a big time star in that movie.
And I've been wanting one ever since.
So Ferraris have always been on my radar.
And I kind of love the mythos of Enzo Ferrari and the whole, you know,
Italian craziness and but they're hard to get into now,
especially they're very expensive.
And I found that Porsches were better engineered, quite honestly.
That's a sports car for what I wanted him for,
which was to drive them.
You know, I'm a driver of my cars.
They're not garage queens.
I put them on the highway.
So Porsches are more durable.
They're they're a little bit more fun to drive.
See to the pants wise and that you get a real feedback from them
that you just don't get from the Ferraris.
Not in my estimation anyway, not in the older ones.
The newer ones, maybe I haven't driven a lot of the real new ones.
I feel like we could fix that.
We probably know. Can we?
I would love that. Yeah.
And the design of Porsche is perfect.
It's a perfect car to me. Yeah. Yeah.
So is that you mentioned, you know, you wanted to be a designer, a car designer.
And that's something that you and I have talked about up at Newcombe's.
I think Byron showed up in a new Porsche at one point and I went, oh, I love it.
And you're like, well, no, but here's the design elements.
This is where they look and it was fascinating.
So do you find, you know, you obviously didn't do that as a career,
but is that something that's sort of a thread through your daily life?
Oh, yeah, I think I'm an aesthetic person.
And I like the visual of things and and how they're put together.
I think I like cars because of the man machine element, you know,
how man and machine come together and I mean, and that's why I love racing.
You know, it's another element of the man and the machine come together.
How do you channel these forces and and and and make them do your bidding?
I'm a race. I'm a race.
You know what I mean? As a race driver, I'm talking about on the street,
of course, I'm on a track and I'm a skip graduate.
So that I'm enamored with the philosophy and the ability of a driver
to put a car on the limit, the absolute limit.
And that takes a marriage of man and machine and engineering and sentient being.
And that's pretty interesting to me.
Well, when you think about it, like one can't do that without the other
on either side.
So how did you get into like high performance and track driving?
You know, I was first exposed to racing, you know, like I said, at a young age,
I was exposed to the highest levels of racing at a very young age.
And the people that I was, come on, man, my dad was friends with Gene Hackman
and Clint Eastwood, and they were both gentlemen, celebrity racers.
And yeah, he was a good friend of Mike Connors, who played Manix.
Oh, sure. Yeah, he was a big sports car guy.
So I mean, there were always exotics around.
There were always Ferraris and Rolls Royces and Mercedes Benzes
and some Aston's and and Jags around.
So I was always enamored with those stylings as well.
I mean, they were just they're exotics.
They're called exotics for a reason, not just because of how they drive.
It's because of how they look, how they make us feel.
You know, all right.
So we know you like Porsches and you like Ferraris.
Is there anything that you just can't stand like a car you see and just recoil?
You know, did we say, no, those are cool.
I actually love them.
But just it's just a joke.
Tesla trucks, number one, yeah, number one on the on the hate parade.
Yeah, number one, hate parade.
And that's yeah.
Wow. What was the other one?
I didn't like it was a Honda.
It's like a it's like a modular thing.
It's not great.
Hmm. The element.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's a love it or hated proposition.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. See, that's why I'm on the show.
Exactly. Yeah.
What else did I not like?
There's not, you know, I love.
Here's the here's the thing, like you go to Newcombe.
So you go any really good car show?
Yeah, I might not like that.
Like if I'm not into that car, unless the truck,
probably not going to talk to you about that.
But if you're into it, I'm into you.
I'm into you because you're so into what you like,
even though I may not buy it, it may not be something that would be in my garage.
I just love the energy that they come that we come with
when it comes to our favorite steed.
And and so I'm all ears.
I'm like, I'm your audience, baby.
Talk to me about the M3 or the yeah.
Before whatever it is you got that you're into.
I mean, vintage Corolla that you've brought up the mountain.
Yeah, the vintage. Yeah.
Oh, well, who did that?
It wasn't me. I wonder about this.
No, I didn't bring it.
I just know I think somebody did at one point.
It wasn't a day that I was there, but there was a picture of it.
And I was like, like you said, and I think we talk about that on the show, too.
It's like, I think that's one of the most interesting things about the car world
is that there's an enthusiast for every model, which is so fascinating
when it's not your thing.
And you're like, OK, so this is the car that has grabbed you and just taken hold.
And you're like, I'm all in.
So like you said, you're like, OK, tell me your story.
How is this the one that grabbed your heart when it's not something
that one of us has connected with individually?
I think that's what keeps it so fascinating.
And you mentioned the mix of cars that go to good vibes
is always interesting.
It's so eclectic.
Yeah, it's a Porsche centric world in California, admittedly.
It's it's a very adaptable car for our climate and and how we drive
and our roads and so forth.
So there's a lot of Porsches, a lot of 911s that show up there.
But there's a lot of everything, you know, vets and BMWs and Nastin's
and Clarence and what, Civics and yeah, it is.
And, you know, Fiat's and it's it's a it's a come on up, man.
Well, and there's what you got, I think there's an outback wagon
that's like it wasn't one that came to the US, maybe.
I mean, there's all these. Yeah, yeah.
And like my buddy Dom is a 300 S D.
You know, there's this bad ass 300 diesel he calls blue.
You know, it's just it's just it's that.
But that's it, right?
Listen, it's it's it's our love for these things.
We give them like, yeah.
Well, and you never know.
So how'd that all start for you?
You know, the whole good vibes thing.
And you know, that's right.
That's right.
You do good. It's a good story.
It's a good question.
I had bought this already, right?
And and I was looking for a community.
OK, I'm not a club guy.
I'm not a joiner of things.
And I just I just but I was looking for people
who were into exotic cars and I could drive somewhere.
And it was cool.
So I go online and on Instagram and a buddy of mine,
Bentley Kyle Evans, who's a producer I've worked with on Martin
and other shows, Jamie Foxx show.
He's a great producer.
I love the guy.
He is showing a picture of him and his drop top 9 11
leaving good vibes.
And he goes, you know, everybody knows on a good nice day,
I like to drop the top on my 9 11 and drive and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, where is that?
And he told me and I said, I will meet you Friday.
I went that Friday and they will go, well, yeah, where are you driving?
I said, I don't worry about it.
I'm bringing some all the way up there.
I got that I showed up.
I got that. Don't worry about it. Don't you worry about it?
And I showed up in the R8 and we drove up and I love that road.
So I mean, I ripped that road from day one, loved every inch of it,
got up to good vibes and you know, you know, you guys are going
you go around turning and you come on this like tree lined.
Yeah, it's like you're in idolizing like I'm doing the sound of music.
It's happening and I go and oh, and this entire phalanx of 150 cars.
Super cool. I'm like, I have found my people.
Yeah, right. Yeah, I've been going ever since.
Angels singing, birds flying, butterfly.
I'm the things were sweeter.
Snows were beautiful.
I mean, I mean, yeah, it's a little bit met Jan Nicole.
And, you know, kind of the beauty of of of my journey is that I forget
that I'm kind of the dude I am on TV.
So and that's great because then I can walk places and people.
Hey, and I think like, do I know you from high school?
Do we know somebody from college?
You know, I don't I don't put it together.
Yeah, I do. We need somewhere else.
Yeah. So there's so many people up there.
Car journalists that I really admire and they admire my work.
And so it's like all love, right?
It's really, really refreshing.
You know, we talk cars, we don't talk about the business.
It's just it's just nice, you know, it's become bigger than LA.
You know, I live out here.
It's international. Yeah, yeah.
Like you go to LA, you make a pilgrimage, you know, to good vibes.
It's right up there with the Peterson or, you know, anything else.
It's really something magical.
Depending on the weekend, it can be overwhelming.
Right. You know, yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
You just love to go out there in town.
Yeah. You know, or people a week before Monterey week or.
Yeah. Well, and like you said, it's become like a pilgrimage.
I know what is it?
Airwater, I think Hagerty has coordinated a cruise
from the garage and social in Van Nuys up to good vibes.
And then they go to, you know, airwater the next day.
And so it's and like how many times does Matt Ferris say people reach out to him
and they go, OK, where do I need to go in LA?
I'm obviously going to the Peterson.
I'm obviously going to good vibes.
What are the other places?
Like it's a standard hub if you're in the car community.
And I think you hit on a really important point.
And we talk about this a lot of like, I think one of the most
beautiful things about the car community is it's the great equalizer
because we're so focused on this, you know, hobby.
And some might even say sickness that we are so obsessed with these cars.
That it does like even when you and I first met, I didn't realize immediately
that you were Jackie Childs, who I obviously knew the character.
I put it together later.
But I think that's the best part is we all just we're all just people.
Right. Right. That's the best point.
Right. You want to say something about that?
I just had that same experience when I met you at the Peterson
and your lovely wife, Carla, we just we got along, you know, got on famously.
And then I had that moment where I said, damn, where do I know you from?
And, you know, and then, you know, I mean, I think this must be
a regular occurrence for you, but, you know, but, you know, car enthusiasts,
we just all kind of kind of get along.
Right. I mean, that's just so we speak the same language.
Yeah, the same language.
And I think we're looking for more community, honestly.
And this is an easy in, you know, whenever I'm up there and I do a post
from up there, I'm like, it doesn't drive.
You know, if you're cool, come people, they ask me all the time
because I see the sticker on my car.
And they're like, well, what time does it start?
I said, whenever you get there, you know, what do I drive?
Whatever you got, you know, you want, it's not really about that.
You know, because when you get there, it has its own charm.
It has its own energy and has its own vibe.
And as long as you bring a good vibe, I think you come away with one.
And that's that's been my experience 100% of the time.
I had it. I have I've had so many wonderful experiences.
There's so many people who do come up there and it's a destination spot.
I know NFL players. Yeah.
Who fly their cars in, drive them up the mountain for the day,
drive them back to the airport and fly them home.
I love another NFL players, multi millionaires, but that's their vibe.
That's their jam. Yeah.
I remember seeing the guy who owns he owns.
It's going to be Alpina Alpina, the owner of Alpina came up.
Oh, yeah, that's good.
Um, and he came over to me and he said, I've seen your posts and we came from New York.
We're in New York yesterday. We're in California today.
We're in California because we're here at Newcombe.
He says, because this is the quintessential California car culture culture.
And we want to talk to you.
We want to know what it's all about and what you guys are interested in.
And blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I said, you got to meet Jay immediately took the owner of Alpina
and his guy over to meet Jay and I was a Jay.
This is so and so from Alpina, this is Jay Ryan and Nicole, blah, blah, blah.
And then I let him talk, I let him talk, I let him talk and I come back and Jay's
like, why'd you stick me with those guys? I'm like, wait, wait, Jay.
Jay, no, no, that was the owner of Alpina.
Oh, oh, I just thought he was some German dude.
I didn't. But that's that as well.
Yes, that as well.
And but that's the thing, you know, you don't think it's nobody don't care.
Don't care who you are. You didn't care who he was.
Just are you a good person? Are you cool?
Yeah, yeah. Well, it's become such a thing.
Yeah.
So it's become such a thing that it's become parodied by
friends like Angela Steph Highway, who was on the show a couple of weeks ago.
Have you had the have you been lucky enough to have been featured in one of,
you know, in his body of work, Phil, or no, I have not.
I have been on other things like Oster King or something like that.
And he's like, let's see if we can catch up with the RA, you know,
and he's driving some M3 and his followers are all like, oh,
you're going to smoke him.
And I just, you know, I just just disappeared into the into the distance.
Yeah. And then he hits me up and he goes, it was it was very difficult.
You were very hard to keep up with.
I say, thank you. It's quite the honor.
But, you know, I only have good involvement with with people like that.
And the ones that I like, I watch and the ones that I don't just stay away from.
Yeah. Yeah. Easy as pie.
Change the channel. Exactly.
That's the beauty of it.
Well, so you mentioned Martin and yes, but you said, as you said,
you started acting when you were 17 and you've been like,
you've had the unique distinction to be a working actor all of that time,
which is pretty incredible.
But can you share like just some of the projects that you've worked on?
Sure. Yeah, absolutely.
You know, I kind of I started right like in the middle of all the good stuff,
you know, the TV was really cool back then.
I mean, I literally guessed it on a two-part Webster episode
with Ben Vereen. Yeah.
Cliff Hanger.
It was crazy. It was really it was crazy.
It was like you played Webster's uncle who's trying to get into the business.
I play a studio executive at Paramount and he comes to my office to to get a job.
You know, and I don't even know how old I was.
I might have been 27, 26, you know, 25.
And here I am playing opposite Ben Vereen and, you know,
just having a great time in a comedy.
And it just went on from there for me.
I did. I mean, I'm going to mention shows that nobody knows, except maybe you guys.
Heart to Heart was with.
I was a world viewer of Heart to Heart, right?
I mean, great car show, really, you know, really good car show.
And it was a show as an episode with Tippi Hedrin.
And they use her actual while you said it was a wildlife preserve.
Right. And yeah.
And so they use her actual animals on it.
And I played her assistant with David McCallum, who, you know,
who was Ilya Kuriyakin in a show called The Man from Uncle.
I'm going to go deep here for you people. Wow.
And and and yeah, and they killed me in the show.
And they kill you with animals.
No, it's awesome.
They stick a spear in me and they put me in a boat and I'm floating down the river
in the boat and that's how the heart see me is so good.
I did murder, she wrote with.
He did. I got some cool stories.
Yeah, David McCallum was going to be amazing.
Wasn't David David McCallum?
Wasn't he on NCIS with Mark?
Yeah. OK, he was he. OK.
He was the doctor.
The the the they called him Ducky. OK.
That's exactly right. That's David McCallum.
Yeah. And he and Bannon was in.
Please continue. It's just back back then in TV.
The stars were guest stars on television shows, you know, I mean,
they pulled them for the major shows and I did them.
My dad did a show called Vegas with Robert Eurek, it was a short loop show.
I went on that show and guested on that show as a basketball player who was
shaving points. I mean, really? Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I've had some pretty fun.
Interesting. I did diagnosis murder with Dick Van Dyke.
No kidding.
Yeah, two episodes of that, as a matter of fact, where I was the killer
and it was with Barbara Bain and
I mean, just so many fabulous experiences that I've had doing the new
Mission Impossible with Peter Graves, who was my uncle Peter.
You know, I grew up with him and his kids.
And then we're working together in Australia together on the show
that he and my father made famous. So that's what we'll talk about magical.
You played your father's characters
son, like your character was his character son.
What was that like mission impossible?
My version was born of a writer's strike at the time.
So no one could write anything.
And the studio executives who still needed to kind of create projects
felt that Mission Impossible could be done again, not change a word
and be just as modern.
So in fact, when I got the job, I got my father's character's job.
I was I was Barney Collier,
which was my father's character Mission Impossible.
I got cast as Barney Collier.
And then before we left for Australia, the Rijks, the writer,
the writer's strike ended.
And so then they made me Grant Collier, the son of.
And yeah, it was surreal.
So it was it was beyond surreal.
And we shot in Australia, which was was pretty crazy, because we I'd never been there.
So to go there like full stop for eight months at a time was was pretty well.
And my dad came down and guested on a few episodes.
So that again was so cool.
The series coming to my show to play his character.
Right.
So my heart starts pumping and just just thinking about it.
Well, yeah, I mean, so what was it like acting with you?
Because obviously you said you got to go to set.
It was tough.
Did it was tough?
I mean, it was tough.
You know, I mean, we could we could play it two ways.
I could play it the Hollywood way and go, oh, it was so terrific.
My dad was so great to do.
That was so amazing.
Or I can tell you the truth, which was my father was in a bad shape physically.
He just wasn't in good shape.
So I wasn't that excited to have him come down because I knew he was in good shape.
The producers did not.
You knew. So yeah, I knew the real story.
So I didn't know what version of him we were going to get.
And this is being, you know, I mean, I like let's talk real real stuff here.
Right. We're here for the truth.
It all worked out.
It was wonderful.
But it was daunting.
And and then we're playing a scene where at the end of the second episode,
he did two part or fours, he dies in my arms.
So we're playing a scene where he literally dies in my arms.
And that didn't necessarily happen in real life, but it was pretty close.
So so what I want to say about this,
this journey has been unbelievably fruitful and incredibly eye opening
as a life experience for me.
And it couldn't have happened any other way.
And I love every minute, minute of it.
And I look forward to every moment more.
Honestly, I mean, that's like, if we can say that, we're all way ahead of the game.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
It's the dream, right? Right.
That's what we're doing here.
How has the business changed in recent years?
You know, I hear from people and, you know, it seems to.
Is it tougher than ever to be a working actor?
I think so. I mean, it's both.
I mean, they're streaming a lot more content that's needed.
There's a lot more streaming services than there were networks.
Yeah. So so that's changed.
It's changed the pay scale quite a bit
because you kind of distill the pie a bit.
But because I've been around for so long, you know,
I've seen my father go through what he's gone through.
There's always change.
It's ever changing. It's never not.
It's fluid. It's fluid as all getouts.
What entertainment is when it doesn't change, it's no longer interesting.
And so it's no longer painting.
So it has to change.
And we've seen it. I've seen it go from, you know, straight TV,
where you had to be there every night.
You couldn't you couldn't tape it.
You know, you had to watch a rerun in the summertime when reruns went.
And then there was this incredible thing called videotape.
Blue everybody's monitor.
And now you could record things.
You can watch them later.
Then there was the VHS and then there was the DVD.
And then I mean, so right the way along,
this thing has changed and morphed.
And I have just been right there for it.
And I think I did.
I did a seminar called Phil Morris gives you the business,
meaning the good and the bad.
And the double entendre.
It was so good.
It was like, you look at a ditch digger, right?
And the dude's like sweating.
And you're like, hey, man, how are you doing?
He's like, living a dream.
You know, so yeah, the business.
And it was about this very thing.
How do you handle yourself on a set?
How do you deal with when you go to a set?
Like you're a young actor, you're a student of acting.
You've never had a professional job.
You get a job on a show, on a commercial.
What do you do the first day?
You don't have a clue.
You know, you show up to the set, you go CDAD,
you tell them your name, you check in.
So I would, it was like a seminar like that.
It wasn't an acting workshop.
It was how to be a professional actor.
How to conduct yourself.
What I wish somebody would have told me, have less ego.
You know, be more of a team player.
Hang up your wardrobe.
Always be on time.
Know your lines.
Which are things that you probably should know,
but as a professional, you can't get away with not knowing it.
So I'm doing this seminar,
and I tell one of my friends who's my age.
I'm like, I'm doing this seminar.
Oh, thank goodness.
He goes, you know, because this new business,
I can't stand it.
You know, it's a self-tape this and a self-tape that.
And I can't, I can't go in and I can't share my nuance
with the casting people.
It's always on the tape and at this and up.
And he get, I hear this,
like Charlie Brown's teacher.
And I say, as a Christopher, I love you.
I just love you.
And I hear you, but I'm going to ask you a question.
What if we started our careers today?
What would we know to do?
Only what we know to do today.
We wouldn't think about, oh, back in my day,
we're going at three o'clock,
we're eight by 10, and I'm out there by 3.30,
out in my hamburger job by seven.
No, we wouldn't be doing that.
We would just do what was required of us to do today.
And my point was, shut it.
If you want to be, if you want to be in the game,
you got to play the game.
If you don't want to play the game, get out of the game.
But the game's always going to be bigger than you.
I mean, don't care who you are.
I remember, and I'm going to ask you guys
to answer questions, I'll talk forever.
I remember Christian Bale saying,
all of us at this level of success
are just taking the jobs that Leo Nardo de Caprio turned down.
So no matter how high you fly,
there's always somebody who is a bigger gorilla,
a bigger something, you know,
in the studio and the game is always bigger than us.
I love that.
Well, it's, I mean, something I've heard
in different areas of life,
what it applies here is like, like you said,
if you started today, it would be what it is.
It's like, you can, like this is what it is,
and you are welcome to keep going,
or you can decide not to do it,
but it's not going to change the nature of the game.
You can change your careers,
but if you agree to be here, this is how it is now.
Right, you can change your approach,
so it works better for it,
but you got to know what it is to.
Anyway, Phil, I had to stop myself the other day,
I was talking to someone,
they asked, you know, how long you've been doing podcasts,
and I started going down this route of, you know,
when we started doing this,
there was a lot less competition.
And, you know, you couldn't just go into the guitar center
and buy the equipment.
You had to kind of know,
it was like, you got to stop, man.
You got to stop.
You became that guy?
See, it's all changed.
You become a has been, you know?
At some point, we all know.
It's applicable to anything, I guess.
Absolutely anything.
We just happen to be talking about this, you know?
We talk about cars.
You like Porsche, right?
Their growth, their change is incremental.
It's just incremental enough, just enough.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, you know?
Just enough, because the market changes,
the people change, they want to have more stuff
that's easier to drive the thing,
and whatever it is, right?
But they're also going to dial in the Porsche signature.
So you can walk and chew gum at the same time,
I guess, is my point.
Those guys know what they're doing, you know?
Yeah.
Very good.
Well, that's one thing that you saw.
Right before we started recording,
you were talking about kind of the dichotomy of being an actor
and what the nature of your job is as an actor
and playing a variety of characters,
but also what the industry would prefer to,
which is be consistent.
So can you talk a little bit more about that
and how you've handled that to have the career
that you've had?
Yeah, I think you have to make a choice,
are you a brand or are you an artist?
I mean, some artists can be brands
and that's an extension of their artistry,
and then they're branded, right?
And then there's people who work from,
this is who I am, this is what I do,
and I take this everywhere I go.
And a lot of people, it's good enough.
It's good enough, that's their choice, that's their process.
My process has been one of,
I look at the material, I look at this character,
can I love this human being?
How are they, what do they want, what do they love,
what do they hate, blah blah blah.
Now I can do this person.
As I continue to do that,
I am accepting them as opposed to putting myself in there.
I'm trying to, I already know myself,
I know what I am, I know who I am.
I gotta figure out who they are.
And the more I do that, like Jackie Childs isn't me,
you know, it's a very different energy than I am,
but I know a lot of preachers and a lot of hustlers,
I know a lot of street corner cats
and my dad is a very strong personality,
a lot of him in there.
So you steal from people that you know
and things that you're aware of.
That's my process and I think it's worked for me.
Other people, even though they may say
they are fine actors, you see them portraying
the same energy from role after role after role.
It's not easy, it's not easy to lose yourself
like at Daniel Day-Lewis or Christian Bale or,
you know, there's a lot of actors
that are amazing, Meryl Streep and,
you know, some of the younger actors are terrific.
Almost, I mean, some of them are.
Transformative stuff, yeah.
Almost unrecognizable.
They go there, they go there, man.
And it's unbelievable to consume, to see,
but I always like, as I think you just alluded to this,
I always am curious what that means for them
on the backend in their personal life
or even just as an individual
because that's an intense commitment.
Yeah, I read that Benicio Del Toro for years
took lesser money to play more interesting,
diverse characters in movies that didn't have
the financing, but he wanted to play those characters
because he needed to as an artist, you know?
And I don't use the word artist like, you know,
we're all artists.
No, we're not.
We're not all artists.
You know, some of us are just representational people
and we're not transformative.
And to me, art is transformative.
Can you, can you walk, can I walk?
I can walk, it's not to break my arm
on pat myself in the back,
but it took us a while to figure out who I was
because I'm not trying to be that person.
I'm me.
I try to transform the best that I can.
I'm not associate pass, so I know I'm always me
into this character that lives and breathes.
When I go home, I embody or I envision
that they are walking around and when I come into work,
I'm doing this show, I'm doing Fire Country right now
and I'm playing a rancher and he's very different than me.
And he has a very difficult relationship with his daughter.
I have a wonderful relationship with my daughter and my kids.
So it's very difficult for me to play.
It's counterintuitive.
So I really have got to find him and slip into him, right?
And so I feel like what I do is I see that these people
when I leave and I sign out, they're still at the ranch, man.
They're still trying to put out the fire.
They're still dealing with their daughter.
I go home, I go to the hotel and I have a nice dinner
and I come back and have a breakfast sandwich
and then I try my best to shake and fill off
and then put on this character.
And to the degree that I can do that,
then I'm satisfied and I have to be the one who's satisfied.
And it's taken a long time to get there, you know,
because you're trying to serve the industry.
You're trying to serve your agents.
You're trying to serve the producers.
You're trying to serve the piece.
You're trying to serve your fellow actors.
You're trying to serve the director.
You're trying to serve the lighting guy and the camera guy
and the prom guy.
I got a gun and I got a horse and I got a ring.
You know, it's taken a long time to collate all that information
and allow this person to live his life.
That's transformative.
Well, and I love the idea of,
like, I think that's such a healthy sort of approach and tool
to look at it as like, no, their timeline goes on
while I go do my stuff
and then I'm just gonna come back and we'll link back up.
I love that.
It's really kind of spiritual to me.
I love it a lot.
I have good friends who watch this character
the first time they saw him.
They're like, I don't like you.
I love you.
And then they wrote about it.
They were like, you know, it's really difficult
to see somebody that you love and not like them, you know.
But I would imagine that's a high compliment
because you're like, that means I did it well.
Yes.
Because these are people that are predisposed to love you.
They already have a fortune for you
and they're like, despite that, not a fan.
Yeah, that's exactly.
I'm not trying to do it to win you.
I'm trying to do it to be truthful.
Yeah.
I love that.
I know you do a lot of voiceover work
in addition to all the on-screen stuff.
I've long thought that voiceover work
must be like the sweetest gig there is
because you don't have to, you know,
burden yourself with a lot of that, I suppose.
Are you telling me, is it?
Yeah, you're right.
You're not wrong.
You know, it is much more difficult
to do the three-dimensional representation
of a performance, you know, admittedly in voice.
You're just using your voice,
but you have to be so well-versed
in your reference points as a human being
so that you bring the references
that then we all respond to, right?
You resonate based on my ground of being
and it has to be so nuanced
just because it's only a voice, you know,
and they're rendering the physical behavior.
So I have to have that nuance in my voice
to the degree that you as an audience,
there's no scene, you know what I mean?
You just dive right into it.
So some of the most talented people
I've ever worked with in my career are voiceover actors.
They're able to affect so many different dialects
or even animals, you know,
this guy named Frank Welker.
Frank Welker is known for animals.
He was Dino in The Flintstones.
And he's played Scooby-Doo.
He's played, I mean, he's amazing.
The guy's insanely wealthy
because he does so many different things
and he's done so many different episodes
and they rerun them all the time
and he gets paid like ridiculous.
But he's so sweet and he's a knightess guy.
He's like this little fratricity old man, grandfather-y guy.
And you'd be like, Frank?
And he just starts this day and does this thing
and turns his hat around and, you know,
comes in in a Pendleton shirt.
It's pretty amazing how these people
can just transform into these incredible characters.
Corey Burton is an incredible, I mean,
I'm only signaling these people out
because they're coming to mind.
Fritz Hattishore, incredible, incredible artists.
But we won't get them like this.
I don't have to dress like a Chinese bus driver,
but I could play one, you know?
I don't have to be from London to play a cockney mobster.
You know what I mean?
So it's for me, it's kid stuff.
It's like, that's what we did as kids, right?
We would do all kind of crazy voices and see things
and talk weird and we'd see the cartoons
and try to affect that, right?
It's just an extension of that.
The more you keep that alive,
the better you are at your job,
as far as I'm concerned, voiceover.
When you see someone that just works in an office, right?
Do you want to grab them and shake them and say, you know?
Although, I mean, not everyone has the gift
that you have granted, but.
I don't think anybody just does anything, do they?
Yeah.
I think that's how I look at it.
We just talked about,
it doesn't matter what car you drive, you know?
You have a, you have a Gordon Murray special,
you know, one of one, two of two, whatever the hell.
Sure, sure.
You know, you're Dario Franckini, you roll up.
Are you more interesting
than the dude who's got the fiat 129,
who's like restored it from the ground up?
No, you're not.
So it's that, it's who you are, right?
That person who's working in the office,
maybe they're doing it because man,
they got this is the thing I got to do.
So I don't ever look at it like that.
I appreciate the question and I know what you're getting at.
I know what you're getting at.
I mean, yeah, do I feel like you need to maximize your life?
And I think some of us are not processing it.
The best that we can.
Yes, I do.
And I do feel that we need to get out of our comfort zone
to appreciate other people, other cultures,
other endeavors, other interests.
And a great way to do that is it,
what we've been talking about for the last hour.
Cars are one of the places where, I mean, you know,
I'm an African-American dude, you know,
this is a white female, a white male.
But we're all talking the same language.
We all want to hear each other and be heard.
And I think the more places we find that,
if it's in the office and you find that camaraderie
and that village there, I just think that we're missing it.
I think, here's what I think.
I think that we think it has to be something.
And it just is right now.
If this is it, you know, this is it.
This is it, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a great point.
You know, I'm just so, how you gonna play it?
Yeah.
You're gonna wait for the moment.
So then you wait for those moments.
All these moments are going by,
which could be the moments they're freaking waiting for.
That's it.
Right, we keep going like, well, when X, Y, Z,
and you're like, but the moments are all the moments.
It's how you, what you do with them.
I'd never have one.
If it was like, oh, it has to be the right thing.
And I have to open up money.
And I, you know, I got to have the first kid
and I got to own my first house.
Right.
Well, it's like what they say about having kids, right?
Like, you can't, there's no perfect time to have kids.
We all can relate to that.
We're never ready.
I'm not ready now.
No, we're not ready.
I know.
I know.
Yeah.
It's funny.
I got into a Miata for the first time in years.
And within the first 500 feet, I was laughing out loud.
You know, it isn't that an analogy, right?
I mean, I remember laughing my Porsche, right?
You know, it's kind of all I need to do.
No, it's so good.
Our buddy Jay Ryan, he has, he would call it dumb down.
He's dumb down.
He's 997 because he wants the feel of an old air-cooled Porsche.
So he wants to feel the same thrill at 35 miles an hour
that I feel at, you know, whatever, in my RA.
We had this debate this week.
And we're going to see him Sunday at the Scots in Malibu.
So I will tell him that you guys did this show.
Very nice.
Yes, we talked about, he does that to feel exactly what you're
talking about, Ryan and the Miata in his Porsche.
And he's de-tuning it so that it's not so user-friendly
and it's more ergonomic and it's more seat of the pants.
And so, yeah, that, what brings the smile to your face
is really what you need to go for.
I mean, that brings a smile to his face.
And I told him, look, man, I get a smile on my face
at 55,000, 6,000, 7,000 RPMs in my 911.
That's just crazy fun.
And it's, I had a blast coming off the on-ramp
from the Marina Freeway under the 405.
I'm not going that fast, but I'm just feeling,
I'm hearing this V10 in my RA going, bomb, bomb, bomb.
That's all I need.
That's a great sound.
That's all I need.
I'm good?
I'm good.
Well, because it's the experience, right?
It's like, we've all had the experience of,
I'm going to turn the radio off so I can just experience my car.
And that's one of those moments where you're like, yes.
Like this is, that's the actualization.
You're like, everything lines up, it is.
It really is.
One of the things that we, just for fun,
we like to ask our guests,
because Hagerty does something called the Bull Market List,
where they talk about cars that are about
to start appreciating in value.
So here at that car show,
we have something called the BS Market List.
So, we would love to hear your two or three suggestions
for the BS Market List.
And it can be the same criteria as the Hagerty List,
if you like, cars that you think are underappreciated,
or it can be whatever criteria you like,
that you still fits the title of the BS Market List.
Oh, that's so wild.
And there goes that sponsorship.
That's exactly.
We love you, Hagerty.
I'm Hagerty.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, sorry.
There's, well, I don't know, the Hagerty List, well.
That's okay.
We are creating our own.
What do I think is the BS List?
Yeah, cars you think will go up this year,
or cars you think we should all be buying, you know?
Like I've said, we should all be buying, you know,
all the clean first gen boxers we can find, right?
Because they don't make cars like that anymore, right?
And they can be found for relative pennies, right?
So, I guess that's kind of the thought here.
Like, what are we missing the vote on?
Well, I'm an R8 guy,
so I think people need to get the first gen R8.
Get Gated Shift, V8.
They keep saying they're gonna stop the R8,
and then they start it again.
So, the R8 can be on both lists.
There you go.
That's a great answer.
They keep cutting the production.
So then everybody like me thinks my car is gonna go up,
because it's gonna stop.
And then they go, oh no,
but we're gonna make a hybrid R8,
or they're gonna, one more year for the twin turbo,
660 horsepower.
Right.
Ryan, we had that experience with the GT4.
What did we have like 24 hours?
Where they were like, no more GT4s.
And we all went, we're so like, we're so upset.
And then they were like, we're putting.
We're going for the EV film.
Yeah.
And then they're like, hi, brother.
I'm like, huh?
Yes.
Whatever they said, they canceled.
They retracted there.
Like, you guys have the only ones that we're making.
So, yeah.
Another retrofitting the gas engines, but yeah.
See, because they know that,
well, I don't know what they know,
but what I feel is that the EV is not ready.
Not ready yet.
We're not ready yet.
We don't even know the knock-on effect of it.
We don't know the knock-on effect of storage,
battery storage.
We just don't.
You know, we didn't know the knock-on effect
of leaded gasoline for you.
The generation.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
So we have to, you know, slow your roll.
I mean, all of a sudden, it's the placebo effect.
And so everybody's switching to EVs.
Audi's gonna turn around.
You know, Porsche's like, wait a minute.
Not sure.
So I think we've got to wait on that stuff.
I think cars like the RSGT, the Audi,
which I like a lot,
but I think they're gonna go down like the Taycan,
unfortunately.
I don't think people are gonna, you know,
they're gonna turn around on it.
I'm gonna tell you right now,
Audi's gonna wish they made that gas version of that.
Yeah.
The same way Porsche wishes they made a gas version
of the Taycan.
Yeah.
Because I'd buy one if there was a gas version of the Taycan.
Do you think it's gonna be like a bit of a valley
and they will eventually recover?
So they might be on...
They always do.
Future BS list.
They always do.
And they'll come out with some technology
that'll make it easier for us or more palatable
or hopefully it won't be just a marketing plan.
It really will be technology that moves us forward.
I just don't think the EV's moving us forward
like they want it to, in my opinion.
Hybrid, what else?
What's your perfect automotive day?
You get up, it's a Saturday morning,
weather's beautiful.
You live near the ocean, if I recall.
So, where do you head from there?
Do you go up the coast?
Yeah, well now it's kind of sad
because the coast is tough.
Going up the coast is a tough drive.
I've lived through my whole life, basically.
And most of my friends who did well,
they moved to the Palisades or they moved to Malibu.
So a lot of my friends were showing pictures
of their houses gone in front of properties and no longer.
So it's kind of, it's a little difficult on my spirit
going up the coast sometimes.
Now it's getting easier and easier,
but it's still a bit of a slog
because you can't really drive it.
They want you to go 25, so it's not as palatable.
When you get north of like Pepperdine University,
then it opens up and it's amazing.
I mean, the coast of California, the coast is so insane.
That section of it has not changed.
That's all the same, it has been affected.
Yeah, and you're right.
The shock of it is not as much as it was initially,
but it's still just sort of hurting
because it's such a change.
But what's gonna happen with all that?
It's gonna be incredible.
The development's gonna be weird.
It's never gonna be the same.
Your houses, you cannot rebuild the way they were built.
Developers will come in and they'll kind of cookie cutter
a lot of stuff because it'll be easier
to build that way cheaper.
Insurance companies will go for that.
So that's what'll happen.
It won't be as quaint as it was.
Malibu was quaint, believe it or not.
Palisades even more quaint.
Yeah, yeah.
Yes, exactly.
But my favorite car day is honestly going up to Newcombe's.
It's going up Angeles Crest Highway.
Jay and I say it all the time.
We kind of almost don't need to go to the track anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
Not because we're not racing.
We drive spiritedly.
We do not race.
We do not race, you know.
If somebody comes up behind me,
I have Johnny Lieberman's law, which is pullover.
Doesn't matter how fast you are,
you weren't going fast enough, just pullover.
Don't now start going faster because they're up on you
and you woke up or whatever, just pullover.
And don't hammer them if they're not getting out of the way.
That's not your business.
So I have a really nuanced etiquette about the mountain
and I love it.
And I can drive it just for flow.
I can drive it just to work on my left foot braking.
I can drive it for a lot of different disciplines
that I can't get anywhere else in the city.
Just can't.
It's an objectively great road.
Like it's got a little bit of every,
I mean, you know better than I, you know,
it's just a great road.
And nine mile, if you try.
Yeah.
If you go up Upper Tonga and you go up nine mile,
that, you know, that you really want to drive a road
that's like, that's it.
Yeah.
That's it.
That's one of that in 198, Highway 198,
two of my favorite roads in the world.
And I think one of the things that is hard to put into words
when people maybe aren't from Southern California
or haven't had the chance to come and visit
and go up there to truly understand,
you're not that far, like time and distance,
you're not that far from downtown LA or other areas of LA,
but you're so far, you know, environmental.
I mean, you're up in the mountains.
And that was one of the things that struck me
the first time I went up where it's like, you know,
if you squint really hard on a couple places,
you can find downtown on the way up,
but you get up there and it really is like birds singing,
it's quiet, you can smell the pine, it's mountain air,
and then you can drop right back down into the city.
And I think that's one of the things
that's been such a draw for so many people
because it is such a reset.
And that's an amazing road getting there.
Now, all of that is true.
It's so accessible and there really is, you know,
respect the crust is very important for all of us.
And you know, no matter who we are,
no matter what your skill level, no matter what you drive,
anything can happen at any time.
You just have to have your head on a swivel and eyes wide open.
And when you do that, then you'll have a great time.
And did I show you the video of the rattlesnake?
Yes.
So talk about wildlife.
So, you know, it's nature up there, no bathrooms up there.
So open-ended bathroom, you know, the bathroom's open-ended.
The VIP room's always open.
So I'm using the VIP bathroom and I hear this sound
and I look over and it looks like a squirrel
like is looking at me and I look up.
No, it's not a squirrel.
It's a rattlesnake and it's 10 feet from me.
And, you know, I kind of handle it
and I take out my phone and I film it.
And this rattlesnake is 10 feet long, huge.
And as it passes my camera, you see the rattle
just out of frame.
And that was like, that's nukems, man.
You're gonna see deer are gonna run across the road
at any time.
So be careful, you know, you can go up there.
It can be snowy up there.
It's it's nature.
So I love that your first thought was to take out your your phone.
And I couldn't believe it.
I was like, I knew I was safe because it had turned around.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I got it.
Yeah, that's intense.
I'd want to share, you know, I, you know, I posted it immediately.
I was like, what happened up there?
Like, this is what I do for you guys for the gram.
Like I put my life at risk to capture the rattlesnake.
Yes, you're welcome.
We appreciate the effort.
And cell phone doesn't work up there.
Can't call anybody.
Right. I think that adds to it.
Yeah, that's that's amazing.
Yeah, well, and I mean, there's been so many stories
where something has happened farther down the mountain.
I think there was one where the road was shut down
and a handful of people had come up
and they couldn't figure out why nobody else was arriving.
They were like, gosh, it's a really light morning
until they tried to get down the mountain
and realized people had tried but couldn't
because like you said, stuff happens.
Stuff happens.
Yeah, it's crazy.
Well, we have loved having you on.
We will not keep you longer tonight,
but we'd love to have you come back.
But I would love this is great.
What are what do you have coming up
where people can see you in action?
Yeah, I am on the upshaws, which is on Netflix
with Wanda Sykes, Mike Epps and Kim Fields.
So that's running right now.
We finished that last season,
but they had run it yet.
So it's brand new season.
And then I'm also doing Fire Country for CBS, which is great.
So I get comedy in the drama, which is wonderful.
I'm doing a couple of NDA things
that we'll talk about at a later date,
but they're very cool.
Oh gosh, I love them.
I do a, I do another show, which is not NDA
called Phineas and Ferb,
which is a cartoon that's been on forever.
And I do what's called a wheel of voices.
So I'll play any of a number of fun, crazy voices on there.
And I just love those creators.
You know, everything I do is just fun.
I just, I just go and try to have the most fun I can.
And it seems to be working out.
Well, we all want to grow up.
I think you've got to figure it out, yeah.
A little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
So tell us where people can find you on social media
in addition to obviously working on that.
The Phil Morris at The Phil Morris everywhere.
Facebook, MetaX, Instagram, all that.
I'm at The Phil Morris, so check me out.
I'm at conventions.
I've been doing a lot of conventions.
I was just in Washington state last weekend,
Rewind Washington.
And I like to talk to the fans and meet them.
A lot of what I do is over the air,
so I don't get a chance to really hear
or feel the resonance of the performances.
So conventions are a good way to do that
and to meet the people who literally pay my salary
because they turn on the TV or go to the movies
or buy the video games or buy the audiobooks.
And that's lovely.
I love it.
I love it.
I'm worn out every day because I just don't sit down,
I talk to whoever comes over.
I go walk around to see my friends and hang out
with other artists or celebrities or sports people.
So that's pretty prominent right now in my journey
is the convention circuit.
I love that.
Well, I think that illustrates kind of what it's like
to be friends with you is you are so enthusiastic
and you give everything.
And then, yeah, you're worn out at the end of the day.
Yeah.
Yeah, go to sleep.
Yeah.
Good tired.
Yeah, good tired.
Guys, I appreciate you so much.
Thanks so much, Phil.
Thanks so much.
Really fun.
And thank you to everyone for tuning in.
I hope you've enjoyed the conversation with Phil.
Obviously, he's got some amazing stories
and you can come back and share more.
And we'd love to hear about the new projects
as soon as you can talk about them.
For sure.
In the meantime, thank you everybody for joining us.
Please remember to like and subscribe
until you're enthusiast friends.
And until next week, wear that car show
and remember, always be driving.
About this episode
Phil Morris—Seinfeld’s Jackie Childs and a lifelong car enthusiast—talks about growing up in Hollywood VIP access through his father, Mission: Impossible star Greg Morris, and how that proximity to racing hooked him on exotics. He shares his garage evolution (from “bad” early cars to an 911 and R8 focus), why he prefers Porsche engineering for real driving, and his track/road philosophy. The conversation also dives into Good Vibes at Newcombe’s, community over celebrity, voiceover craft, and his “bs market list” picks like first-gen Audi R8s.
Original notes
Today, on That Car Show… It’s our pal Phil Morris. Phil’s an LA-based automotive enthusiast with both a 911 and a V10 R8 in his garage and he’s a familiar face each Friday morning at Newcomb’s Ranch for Good Vibes. He’s a familiar face too from film and television and he of course played the iconic Jackie Chiles on Seinfeld. He shares what it was like growing up as the son of a famous Hollywood actor and forging his own fame in TV and movies. This one’s real and it’s spectacular. It’s Phil Morris, And it’s That Car Show.
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