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The Craig Kilborn Show November 25, 2003 |
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CK: An actor who delivered memorable performances in "Boomtown",
"Minority Report" and "Band of Brothers". His new film, "Timeline",
opens tomorrow. A film clip from "Timeline" - the scene where they are getting dressed in medieval costumes before their trip back to the past. CK: Please welcome back to the show - Neal McDonough. Neal walks out, wearing a blue shirt and a dark pin-striped suit without a tie. CK: I must... NM: I brought the whole posse there. (He points to Ruve, a woman who is probably her mother, and two younger women, who may be her sisters.) CK: I see your family there, your fiancee. NM: The whole South African contingency. CK: I must be cool (indicating his clothing). I'm going pin-striped suit and blue shirt. NM: Well, I got the phone call earlier. CK: Yeah, you set the trend here in Hollywood. I'm just following you. Former male model - Neal McDonough! Neal stands up and poses. CK: Do you still do some of that or not? NM: No. No, I leave that all to Ruve. She does all that stuff for me, now. CK: Explain who that is. NM: Ruve is my fiancee, who's sitting right over there. (Another shot of Ruve in the audience.) Fiancee for - ooooh - five more days. CK: Five more days? NM: Yeah. CK: So, the wedding is coming up? NM: The wedding is coming up in five days. The Bachelor Party... CK: The Bachelor Party. Yeah! NM to Ruve: I love you, honey. Did I tell you that? CK: Is there a Bachelor Party? NM: It's probably the most PG-rated Bachelor Party of all time. It's me and all my buddies and my family. We're getting on a bus - a Greyhound bus - and we're going down to Anaheim to Addison Field to play baseball all afternoon and have a great time. A little touch football - that kind of stuff. CK: That's a great story to tell her. That's a great one. But, seriously... NM: Oh, what we're really doing? Okay, so we're going to this club... CK: Because I've got The Palms in Vegas if you need that. NM: It's all set? That'll be perfect. No, it's going to be a great time. My Dad's coming out, my brother Keir's coming out and my brother Bob and everybody. It's really going to be a great time. CK: So, how long have been dating this young lady? NM: Three years and nine months... CK: So, why marriage now? NM: Well, Boomtown - the show got cancelled. Any Boomtown fans here? (Applause and cheers and CK raises his hand.) NM: Thank you very much. Thank you. It's tough because the show got cancelled, but it was 25 episodes of what may have been the greatest show on television in the last few years and that I was a part of it, was just amazing. But, as soon as they cancelled it, we said 'let's get married in a month'. So, within a month, we planned it and we're going to execute it. And I think Ruve's going to write a book after because she was so amazing what she did. CK: She's from England? No? NM: From South Africa. We met in England when I was doing "Band of Brothers". The very first night I got to town, on St. Paddy's Day, me and all my buddies went out and went to this club. Ruve was... CK: What a lovely name! NM: Ah, she's great. She's great. And she was the head of PR for this club and I bumped into her and I said 'Gee, you're tall'. CK: How tall is she, again? NM: What a goof. She's 6'3. Come on, give me a little love. CK: It's a good line. NM: And I just thought I made an absolute fool of myself and walked around and she says 'you're American'. And we've been together every day ever since. CK: What great dialogue. That should be in a movie. NM: Yeah, it should. It's too corny for a movie. CK: "You're tall." "You're an American." NM: Exactly. (He points at someone in the audience) There's a guy in the back there. (Neal copies the guy - he raises out of his seat and cranes his neck.) 'I want to see this girl'. CK: She'll stand up later. NM: Yeah. CK: She's a netball player? NM: She's a net ball player. Very good, in fact. CK: What is net ball? NM: In South Africa, they play net ball. It's kind of women's basketball. And she played a tournament - I'm going to embarrass you right now - she played a tournament a few weeks ago and her team scored 97 baskets. She scored 93 of them. (Neal gives Ruve a thumbs-up sign and the audience applauds.) CK: You know, they're clapping but, it seems to me like she's a ball hog. Give it up! Is it Ruve or is it Kobe? NM: Ohhhh...that's awesome. CK: What? You don't like the Lakers? NM: No, I don't like the Lakers. CK: Come on. NM: You see, I'm from Boston. Are there any non-Laker fans here? (Claps and cheers from the audience) CK: Hey, hey! NM: Any Celtic fans here? (Claps and cheers, especially from the rear of the audience) NM: Okay, there we go. I like it back there. CK: I just want to say - you're from Boston - congratulations on your Red Sox. NM: Thank you. (He grimaces) Good night, everybody. I got to go. (He stands up and starts to walk away before returning to his seat.) CK: So you worked with - in Timeline - you worked with the great - the Colin Farrell? NM: No, I worked with Colin in Minority Report. CK: Minority Report, that's what I meant to say. I did my homework. NM: Yeah, Colin's a great guy, though. CK: It was all about Kelly Preston today. (She was his first guest.) But, how is Colin Farrell? NM: Colin was great. He was a lot of fun. He was an interesting guy to hang out with for four months. CK: Does he swear for effect or is that just the way he talks? NM: Well, he's just an Irish kid from Dublin who just says what he feels. He's dynamite. We had a lot of fun, sometimes a little too much fun. CK: Yeah, he likes that. NM: Yeah, he does. CK: Who's in Timeline? NM: Timeline - Paul Walker, Gerry Butler who's dynamite, Frances O'Connor and Dick Donner directed it. He directed all the Lethal Weapon films. It's a great fun movie. It's two hours of just escapism. It's lots of great special effects. It goes back to 1357 France and there's castles and knights in shining armor and beheadings and the castle blows up in the end. CK: Are you in costume? NM: I am in costume, yeah. We try to, we go back in time - without giving the story away - to get this one guy to come back and we all dress up as 1357 peasants and try to find him. CK: Well, that's fun to be in those costumes. NM: It was great fun. CK: You look good. You can probably pull off just about any costume. NM: That was fun. I mean, I got to play another military guy. For the last few years in Band of Brothers and Minority Report, I've played lots of those. It's this big Irish head, that's all it's good for. It was a blast going back in time and living up there in Montreal and shooting it for four months last summer. It was really a wonderful time. CK: Was Ruve up there? NM: Of course, she was. CK: You guys are really in love. This is so classic. NM: And we just did Walking Tall, opposite The Rock. I played the bad guy and The Rock... CK: He plays Buford Pusser. NM: Yes, he does. And he was awesome. He was really fantastic and Ruve... CK: If I remember correctly, Walking Tall - that was one of those in the '70s. A big thing in the movies. NM: Yeah. CK: And didn't he carry this, like a 2 x 4? NM: A big stick. CK: Right? NM: Exactly. That's the one. It was a big cult classic in the '70s and they're remaking it now. And the great thing about this movie - you know, now, movies are so much about special effects and this one is really about a story - about a guy who goes back to his home town and finds out that what was this nice sleepy town 15 years ago, has turned into this place with strip clubs and drugs and that kind of thing. And I'm the bad guy. CK: That happens once in a while. NM: It does happen once in a while. CK: And speaking of strip clubs, Friday night! NM: Friday - I'll see you there. Absolutely. CK: We're out of time. Timeline opens tomorrow night. A big hand for Neal McDonough. That was great. |