[upbeat music] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to Side by Side.

My guest today is an actor, a television presenter, a film producer, and so much more.

But you may know him best as superhero.

We're talking the world of Hollywood with Superman, Dean Cain.

- [Narrator] Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine to friendly faces doing more than their part.

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[upbeat music] Dean Cain, welcome to Side by Side.

I've got to ask you a question.

I've been dying to ask this question.

You played Superman for many years, and you have jumped over stuff, and you ran through windows, and you did this unbelievable set of actions and activities, was all that real?

Did you do all this stuff?

- Absolutely.

- You did not.

[Dean laughs] - I did it all with the help of a big, special effects team.

I was an athlete.

Let's see, I was 26 years old when I started playing Superman, which was by far the youngest of anybody who had done that.

I was four years out of the NFL, a young athlete.

I wanted to do everything, but they decided that it was unsafe for me.

If I got hurt, then we would have to shut down production.

So when it was anything really dangerous, they would have the stunt performer do it.

I wrote one episode where I had Superman thrown through a window, and that definitely was not me.

And he got injured, actually.

His face got cut so, they taught me a lesson.

- You went to Princeton?

- Yes, sir.

- And what did you major in?

- I was a history major.

- You were a history major, and you became an actor, and a film producer.

- Yes, you know, when I said to my father, I was gonna be an actor, well, his first of all, he was a director.

So I grew up the son of a director.

He said, don't do it.

Number one, don't be an actor.

And he said, I sent you to Princeton so you could become an actor?

All your friends grew up and they're all actors.

And none of them went to college.

And I said, yeah, dad, but I'll be a smarter actor.

Greatest thing I ever did was to leave Malibu, California, where I grew up, go to school across the country, and find myself in a sense and grow up.

And it was a wonderful decision that I had.

There's no way I could've known how big an impact that would have on my life.

Best decision I ever made.

- And this was your stepfather?

- Yeah, well, he's technically my stepfather.

- Yes.

Because your father was part Japanese?

- Yes.

- And you actually never met your dad?

- Correct.

- So you had, your mom had a difficult time in that relationship and what happened?

- So she, my mom had my brother, who's two years older than myself with our biological father who was named Roger.

And my brother was named Roger.

And then when my mother was pregnant with me, near the end of her pregnancy with me, they split.

He was an unfaithful man and she had enough.

And so she took off and went to Detroit where her father was the commander of a base up there in Detroit and I was born on July 31st, 1966 at Selfridge Air Force base.

And my mom had two kids.

And it was frowned upon at the time.

It was frowned upon for her to marry a Japanese guy, at the time.

Big time, that was big taboo.

And then she took off to Hollywood with her two kids in tow, not a decision that I would think would be wise, and decided to be an actress.

And then she met my stepfather, who is my dad.

- And his name was Christopher?

- Christopher Cain.

And they fell in love and he married my mom.

I always say, "Dad, what were you thinking?"

What he says to me, "You know, you're doing this.

What do you think?"

And I'm like,"You married my mom "when you guys were dirt poor with two kids and no job.

And you ask me what I was thinking?"

Best thing that ever could have happened to me.

My father is the strongest influence on my life.

My mother's a wonderful mother, but my dad really, I couldn't be closer.

And so much so that I named my son, the same name as my adoptive father, who is my dad.

And that's the biggest, most wonderful honor that I could bestow upon him.

Now it's confusing with the mail, but we won't worry about that.

- And so you grew up in California.

Grew up in the LA area.

You went to a high school with Charlie Sheen, and Rob Lowe, among others.

You're still friends with them today?

- Oh, absolutely.

It's, my father also directed Young Guns, with a lot of these kids in it as well.

And it was funny because he coached us on all the sports and things, and here he is directing the.

I'm at Princeton, I'm in school.

These guys are on horseback.

I also knew they didn't know how to ride horses very well.

And my dad's a cowboy from South Dakota, and he's got these guys on horseback playing cowboy, and I was in school.

Knew them all growing up, still friends.

I mean, Sean Penn is another -- Our parents were best friends.

So, Sean Penn and I could not be more diametrically opposed when it comes to politics, but he's family.

And it's a strange, you know, dichotomy there.

But I think it's that, I think that's where people should be.

You can disagree on politics, but still be family.

- Absolutely.

So here's the question for you?

Does Brooke Shields remember that she dated you?

- [laughs] She does.

- [Nido] She does.

- She- - You're sure of that?

- [laughs] I can check with her on that.

But yeah, we're still great friends.

She was my college sweetheart.

- So you went together for awhile?

- Yeah, I think four years or so.

- Oh, you were dating for four years?

- [Dean] That was a very serious relationship, yeah.

- And you were both at Princeton at the time.

- And beyond.

So after she graduated a year.

Apparently, I like the older women because she was a year ahead of me.

And she graduated before I did.

But she lived, had a home in New Jersey and one in New York.

So, that was within an hour of Princeton.

So I, my whole senior year, we still managed to stay together.

And then, after.

So we, it lasted a long time.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Wonderful friend, wonderful person.

Always has a big soft spot in my heart.

- So what are you up to now?

What are you doing now?

- Well, I just finished a movie, that I produced, directed, starred in, everything.

And I'm in post-production now.

A little movie called Little Angels.

And it's my directorial debut.

I'm very excited about this movie.

It's kind of a, like a Mighty Ducks.

It's a college football coach, who says some politically incorrect things and ends up, part of his, punishment is he has to do community service and coaching a young 12 year old girl's soccer team.

And it's the last thing in the world he wants to do.

Of course, the story is a very sweet story, where he becomes a mentor to these girls, and starts to really care about them.

And there's some romance with one of the Moms.

And, but it's a really sweet, funny story that will come out in 2022.

I look forward to it.

- You played the role of the coach?

- The role of the coach.

Easy role for me to play, as a guy who's spent a lot of time in football.

Doesn't know much about soccer, but knows how to coach people.

Growing up, coaching my son and things like that.

So coaching is harder than playing in so many ways.

And it's really, it was really fun to play this role.

And I'm really enjoying what I'm seeing on screen in the editing process.

So I can't wait to get it out there.

- So tell us how a movie is made.

Someone comes up with an idea.

Someone writes a book.

Was this a book?

Cause there's.

- Nope, this is a story that I fabricated out of thin air, and wrote it.

So I wrote it as well.

- So you wrote a script?

- Mm hmm.

- Does it begin with a script, or does it begin with just a book?

- It can begin with anything.

It can begin with you having an idea right now about anything, and then you turned it into, just an idea.

Maybe if you, say you came up with an idea of a little girl who wants to be an astronaut.

And something happens to these strange confluence of events and she ends up getting on a Space X rocket.

That's the idea you have, maybe because of the people who just did go up, weren't astronauts, you know?

On the Space X, they went up there and so maybe she stows away or something like that.

That's your germ of an idea.

And you have an ending to it.

You can write that, just the idea.

And then a screenwriter can write the entire script, and you could write it into a book.

And then that can happen that way.

The way things work today, a kid could shoot a little thing on their iPhone, their own version of it.

And that can be the germ that starts the whole story.

So it can really be anything.

Even just an idea that that turns into a script.

For me, it was an idea.

- And what happens, is there's a producer who does what?

Raises the money for the production?

Tell us about the producer, the director, the other roles.

At what point do the actors come into play?

At what point do you identify them and so on?

And I'm also intrigued to know, for example, do you memorize the lines?

Do you read them off a teleprompter, take us behind the scenes and tell us some secrets.

- Well, getting a movie made is almost impossible.

[laughs] And the fact that ever gets done is crazy.

When you consider all the variables that have to come into play.

Number one, you can't get a movie made unless there's money.

And so if somebody has money and financing behind something, you have a movie, period.

If you can have the greatest script and ideas, and people, and friends attached and everything like that.

And if you don't have the money, it doesn't get made.

So once the money is there.

A producer, when you see 'produced by' on a credit or producer, it can mean any number of things.

It could mean they raised the money, they brought actors in.

They made a deal for this, that, the other thing.

There's a million different ways that you can be called a producer.

So you never really know what that means.

I helped, I raised the money with an independent gentlemen, and I have a team I put together, they're a bunch of producers and production folks.

And then, I wrote it as well.

And by writing it, someone agreed to put the money up, which is, there's a studio system.

There's a million ways you go about it.

Usually you have to submit it to a studio, and you have to have a pedigree.

It's a very difficult process.

But then when you have it real, then you start.

And some people do it backwards.

They try to get people attached.

If you have actors, oh Dean's gonna be in it.

And Emilio Estevez said he's gonna do this.

And then these things start happening.

And then people will say, okay, I'll invest.

And that's another way it happens.

- Yes.

- Get actors first, get a talent attached.

So for me, I got the money, the talent wasn't as important.

And then once you have the money, you start putting together the crew.

Put together the crew, the director on set, if it's done right in my opinion, has full 100% say.

And says, this is how it's gonna get done.

A producer will tell you, Hey, you don't have the money to do that.

You can't use a helicopter or use a drone.

And that's the part of movie making where, you know, you have to maybe make some changes as a director, but you have full say of how the actors are doing their job and things, but an actor can also go, you know, I don't think my character would do this.

I studied.

This is not, this is the wrong thing.

And there can be some- - [Nido] Collaboration.

- Collaboration, or they can be some pushback.

- [Nido] I see.

- But the idea is your director is your storyteller.

- But isn't it in the execution in terms of distribution and promotion?

- That's the next step.

- That's really what makes or breaks, quality of course, but makes or breaks a film in the marketplace.

- That's a whole nother, that's changing.

You know, when I was a young actor, when I first started acting, my dad said, you can be either a television actor or a film actor, you have to choose.

Then it changed, and you had to be a television actor.

And then that's how you move to film acting.

Johnny Depp, George Clooney.

So then it had to be, you know, you just become famous on social media and you get a shot to make a film.

And there's a million different ways.

The distribution has changed too, now because there's streaming.

And with the COVID.

- So it's not just in theater, for example.

- Yeah.

It's changed completely.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- I never thought that they'd ever have the bandwidth.

This was my shortsighted thinking.

How will you be able to have the bandwidth to stream full movies?

And I missed that one.

[laughs] But, now with COVID, there were a lot of people not going to theaters.

So they were doing a dual release, theaters and streaming.

So it's a game that's always changing.

And everyone wants to be on top of it.

I don't know where Little Angels will end up.

It depends on who decides to purchase the project, and push it out there.

And what distribution deals we can make.

And if they want sequels, there's a million variables in there.

But distribution is huge.

You've seen some terrible movies that have been pushed out there.

You're like, I have to see this movie.

Why, I saw the whole movie in the trailer, and the trailer was better than the film.

And then word of mouth gets out there.

So there's so much to it, I think, but the distribution, and the money they spend in distribution.

Of course, that goes back, that costs.

That's a cost that's on the product.

So it makes it more difficult to recoup your money.

There's really no particular perfect plan.

I'll tell you how Little Angels does next year.

And then we can discuss it, specifically how I did it.

[laughs] - Let's talk about Clark Kent for just a moment.

[Dean laughs] What was the best part of playing that part?

- You know, in our version of the show, Deborah Joy LeVine creator, it's called Lois and Clark.

So this was 1993.

And the idea was that Lois is a very strong, strong character, in which she is.

And Teri Hatcher was the best Lois Lane of all time, in my opinion.

And Clark was the character.

And then it was the New Adventures of Superman.

So Clark was the guy, but all of the things that he could do that was Superman.

And there's a line that he says in there to her is like, "Superman is what I can do, but Clark is who I am."

- [Nido] Mm hmm.

- And that was the most poignant line for me in the relationship.

Because it was about the relationship.

Mild-mannered, he was my favorite character to play.

And not, it's better than playing the Superman character, I sort of modeled after Christopher Reeve, who was my Superman, the way he played him.

But Superman for my Clark Kent was a disguise.

It wasn't him.

He is Clark.

And he could do all those great things, but he had to keep his anonymity, and to sort of keep the two separate, he had to pretend.

I loved playing Clark.

Clark Kent was a great, cause he was a fun loving guy, but he always knew that in this circumstance physically, anywhere, he was able, he had a secret.

The secret was that he could do anything.

Except of course, when it comes to the heart.

And we are all fallible when it comes to that.

- [Nido] Yes.

- And he fell for Lois, who.

- Even in Little Angels, you've got a little, romance going with one of the mothers of the players.

- She's actually, my boss in the show.

She's the athletic director who comes in above me.

And it turns out she has an adoptive daughter who's on the team.

[gasps] I just gave away the plot.

[laughs] Watch it anyway.

- We'll see, we'll still watch it.

Yes.

So Dean, is the show still playing now in markets around the world?

- Lois and Clark?

- Yeah.

- So that's another thing that's really interesting, because of streaming and the way things have gone, I guess HBO Max has recently put Lois and Clark on their streaming platform.

And I'm getting inundated with emails and social media stuff about people who are either seeing the show for the first time, or rediscovering it and showing it to their family.

And it's wonderful.

The show, you know, the effects are nineties.

It was 1993 to 1997, but it's still, the show has a lot of heart.

And it's a wonderful family show that you can sit with your kids, of any age, and they can watch it and enjoy it.

So.

- And you went from that show to what?

What was the next step?

- The next one I did, the next show I did was a Ripley's Believe It or Not.

And I produced that, and I hosted it, and it was the largest cable premier at the time ever.

So it set the record for the largest cable premier.

And I had so much fun doing that show because Robert Ripley was the purveyor of the strange and the unusual.

And he treated his guests with respect and dignity, and just wanted to tell their story.

And some people would call them freaks and things of that nature.

And he created, you know, Ripley's Believe It or Not.

And I really enjoyed doing that show.

And I would do six of those shows in two days, as opposed to one Lois and Clark in eight days.

So the schedule was better, too.

[laughs] - Yeah, yeah.

It was much more efficient.

- [Dean] Yes.

- Tell me this, why is it that well, first of all, you've always been in a very competitive field that demanded talent, and relational capital, and stamina, and all of that.

Why is it that certain actors have longevity and others don't?

I think of someone like Meryl Streep, for example, who has done movies over, what I believe, is a long period of time.

Well, what is that?

What are those characteristics?

Is it just about contacts?

Is it multiplicity of talents that someone can play so many different roles?

- It's D, all of the above.

In that sense, someone like Meryl Streep has such pedigree and such talent, and has done so much.

And started at a young age that she, just had tremendous ability and had that cache because she earned it with her talent.

Other people have connections and people, and because of that, they'll always work.

Other people, like me, for example, if someone hires me as an actor, I want to be on time, know my lines, cause no trouble, be there for the team, do the best job I can.

And I've never, I can't recall, well, there was a couple of times in my career, where I've only been hired once by a certain production company or group.

Sometimes it's because you don't fit roles or things like that.

But I like to think that I'm such a hard worker, that they go, "Yeah, have him, we want him because we know what he's gonna do."

Some people are very difficult on set.

And that word gets around as well.

But if they're a big enough draw, unfortunately in Hollywood, you get rewarded because your horrible behavior on set, can be rewarded and you can still work as a result.

And you've seen lots of examples of that.

And you hear all the stories of Hollywood people doing crazy stupid things.

And yet, still working.

And self destructive things.

And so it's hard because actors are coddled quite a bit on set, and their mistakes and things are swept under the rug because at the end of the day, producers and those types, just want the film to be, you know, the final product.

There's a saying, it's like, "whatever it goes on screen, that's what matters."

They don't care how it happened to get there, and so on and so forth.

But I do, because I like my sets to be friendly, and wonderful, and warm.

And like for example, Little Angels, that set was, I've had so many people come to me and say, "that was the most fun to work on that project.

Tell us when we're gonna start number two."

You know, so there's a really, there's a great deal of different reasons why someone might have longevity.

- Come back to the point of lines.

Are lines memorized still?

- Yes, lines are memorized.

But if a scene is well-written, and you're listening to your other actors, you should be able to get there.

You should be able to know it.

If it like, for example, I know what a scene's about.

And the scene is about, I'm talking to Dr. Qubein, and at the end of it, I have to make sure that I grab his jacket and put the tracer bug on him, you know?

And so the whole time is a little cat and mouse game.

So, you know what's going on in the scene, and you know what it's about.

So everything is sort of playing in that direction.

And if- - But you know to ad-libbing the lines?

- Some actors do, and some you're allowed to, to some degree.

Sometimes you have to stick to the script 100%.

It really varies.

- And when you do that, when you have to stick to the script, what does it take to memorize those lines?

- Sometimes if it's well-written, it's simple.

It's just so simple because the words just fly out of your mouth, but then there's other times.

- Because you're filming short segments, right?

- Well, no, you tend to shoot a whole scene.

Most of the time.

And then you have to pick up little bits and pieces.

So you should know the whole thing.

But there's times where you have actors.

I mean, I've seen some of the most ridiculous things.

You know, if you're here and I'm here, and we're talking, some people don't know their lines.

Or they're older, or they just can't remember them.

There'll be somebody behind you, with cue cards.

And I'll be like, well, listen, the idea is.

- Yes, I see.

- And you see that happen.

Or there's even little tricks, like finding your mark.

If I'm gonna walk up to you and we're gonna, the cameras have to be right, you'll see some actors go.

- They pick up a line down there?

- No, they're looking at their mark, or where they have to hit their mark to stand.

- Yes, yes.

- There's other people we've had, you know, if they put like, put lines on someone's forehead.

And whatever it takes to get it done on the day.

But generally your actors are supposed to memorize.

- When you have to memorize lines, what was your process for doing that?

- Repetition.

- I mean, but did you pace back and forth in your living room with a piece of paper, and you recite it and memorize, and recite it, and memorize?

- I like to work off another person.

So I would usually try to get someone else to read our lines.

- Actually go through the scene with another person.

- Yes, that's what I like to do.

But sometimes you don't have that luxury.

So some people will just record their side of a conversation or the other side of the conversation, with pauses in between, so they can get their side of the conversation in.

There's apps that do that now.

There's a lot of different ways to get that done.

But for me, it's always been best to have another person.

- So you're dad told you don't become an actor.

Don't get into this filmmaking stuff.

If you were speaking to a group of students today, who suggest that they have some interest in acting, or some interest in directing or producing, what is it you'd say to them and why.

- Don't do it.

- You would still?

- But here's why, but here's the why.

When my father told me not to do it, I have a different theory of why I would tell someone don't do it.

And that is because it's a really tough way to make a living.

But if you just can't stop yourself, and you just have to do it, that's the person who's gonna be able to make it.

- So Dean, isn't there a sort of an inconsistency here.

We tell people, especially young people, follow your passion, do what you feel so good about.

On the other hand, we want to be practical, and functional, and pragmatic, right?

That's that's the reason you tell them, don't do it.

It's hard, you might not make a living, might take you years, and years, and years before you get a, you know, a placement and so on.

- It's like some professors who bring in a class and make it really tough for the first two weeks.

And those who aren't gonna stick through it, weeds them out.

- [Nido] Mm hmm.

- And those who are gonna stick through it, those are the ones he's gonna focus on.

There's people who do that, their situation, the Navy seals, they bring everybody in, they're gonna burn some people out.

Those people are out, and let's go with those who really are hardcore.

And the industry sort of does that in its own way to people.

It's a very frustrating industry.

Because as an actor, as an athlete, I can practice real hard, work real hard, get stronger, get faster.

I'm gonna do better when I get back to practice, it's tangible results.

You can do that as an actor and still not get hired because you're reading for the role that the producer's son is gonna play.

- [Nido] I see.

- Regardless.

So it's a hard industry.

- Well, when you say don't do it, you don't mean that literally.

- [Dean] No.

- I mean, you value your profession, and you see the beauty in it, and all that.

You suggest it more in a more methodical way.

Think through it, ask yourself if you have the sense of determination, those things, right?

- Yes, but when I say don't do it, it certainly catches everyone's attention.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Then I can explain to them, you have to have the passion for it.

You have to want to do this.

But it's experience, too.

So you know, if you can make movies on your iPhone, if you can be around sets and things like that, you start to see what it takes.

And so the more time and experience you can have around it, I think is invaluable.

And I have some people who've been making movies, and they're wonderful and great as directors, and producers, and story, but then you put them in front of a camera and it's like, they're deer in the headlight.

You can have a conversation with them for an hour beforehand, and they're intelligent.

They can speak, the camera comes on and they just go.

Something happens to them.

- Yes, Dean, if you had to live your life over again, your professional life, I don't want to get into the Brooke Shields subject again, [Dean laughs] but your professional life, what would you change?

- Ooh, well, I'm very, very happy with where I am.

So there's no big things that I would change in that sense.

Professional life, I might've made some different decisions, but now I can't see where.

Because I've learned so much from those decisions.

Maybe I would've done a couple things differently with my money as an early, at an early age.

But the reality is the things that I learned, there's no other way to have been taught.

- Yeah, you've always extracted some value from whatever it is that happened.

- Even if it hurt.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Probably, especially if it hurt.

- If your son Christopher, were to say to you today, I want to be an actor, you would say - Don't do it.

- [Nido] Don't do it.

[men laugh] - Yes, and then you might explain a lot more if you so chose.

Look, Dean, you have done amazing things in your life.

You're well-respected in the field and beyond, you're traveling around the country speaking to groups about principles and values that we all cherish.

I'm delighted that you came to be with us Side by Side, and I thank you for all that you do and wish you the very, very best.

Thank you sir, for being here.

- It's a pleasure.

It's rare that you get interviewed by someone who has a resume that goes much further than your own.

So I thank you for having me.

- Thank you, sir.

[upbeat music] - [Narrator] Funding for Side by Side with Nido Qubein is made possible by: - [Announcer] Here's to those that rise and shine, to friendly faces doing more than their part.

And to those who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley HomeStore.

This is home.

- [Narrator] The Budd Group is a company of everyday leaders making a difference by providing facility solutions through customized janitorial, landscape, and maintenance services.

- [Announcer] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.