Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Dustin Rowles | News | September 15, 2025
I haven’t listened to Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast in years because, at a certain point, you get tired of hosts recycling the same stories — CHIPs, sobriety, and that movie he made with Bradley Cooper. But this morning Timothy Olyphant was on, and I’d probably listen to Alex Jones’s podcast if Olyphant were the guest, partly because Olyphant is one of the all-time great podcast and late-night talk show guests, and partly because I’d love to see Alex Jones lose his mind trying to keep up.
As usual, Olyphant delivered plenty of stories, some of which even justified indulging Dax Shepard. One favorite, which I think he’s told before, involved going home after a day on the set and telling his wife how “amazing” his co-stars were and how they’d be friends forever. Eventually, he realized “amazing” really meant “crazy,” and that friendships with actors rarely last beyond the project. These days, he just shows up, delivers his lines, and gets the hell out.
“And now, this is what I say to people on the day we wrap — one of my favorite sayings in show business: ‘I will see you at the premiere, and when I do, remind me of your name.’”
Classic Olyphant. He admitted that earlier in his career, he was more closed off because he focused so much on raising his kids, but now that they’re older, he makes himself more available. He also revisited the rumor (which he accidentally started) that he’d appear in David Fincher’s sequel to Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He told the story of reintroducing himself to Brad Pitt two days after they’d already met, assuming Pitt wouldn’t remember him because he’s such a huge star, only for Pitt to awkwardly say, “Yeah. I know who you are. We met two days ago.” He also shared a story about his daughter and a guinea pig that you really need to hear firsthand.
But he closed with one of my favorites. His very first role in the business was in a pilot for a show based on 77 Sunset Strip that Clint Eastwood wrote and produced. It was at the WB and was set to star Olyphant, Maria Bello, Jim Caviezel, and Vince Vaughn. He was thrilled about working with Eastwood, until he showed up for the table reads and noticed Eastwood’s production company name had disappeared from the scripts.
When he asked why, he learned Eastwood had quit three days earlier. The story Olyphant heard was that Eastwood always insisted on writing and directing everything without studio interference, and that had long been the understanding with WB. The movie division respected that, but the TV side didn’t get that memo.
“So I was told there was a meeting, and [the TV executives] gave notes, and he reportedly said, ‘Sounds like you guys got it.’”
And then he just straight-up quit.
For the record, they still shot the pilot. It never aired, and Olyphant’s next role ended up being the pilot for a TV remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (again with Maria Bello), which was canceled after one season.
Source: Armchair Expert
