Carney Saves the World
Welcome to “Carney Saves the World”. I’m your host, Scott Carney. I’m a former stand-up comedian & actor, with a degree in Political Science. Oh, and I’m an almost 50yr old only-child/ man-child. So, you can probably see where I’m going with all of this.
Each episode, I’ll pick the brains of some of the best & brightest entrepreneurs, artists, and creative minds that I know. We’ll dive into what got them started down their chosen paths, how they actually got their start and what their motivation is to keep going in their massively competitive industries.
The name for the podcast comes from a dig my wife hits me with all the time when I think I’m right about all subjects. “Oh, Carney’s going to save the world again!”
Well, maybe it’s time we did just that. Come on, let's go save the world.
Carney Saves the World
EP17 Peter Berkrot: Captivating Audiences from "Caddyshack" to Audiobook Narration
From college indecision to landing a role in the iconic "Caddyshack," Peter's story is a testament to the power of unexpected opportunities. Get behind-the-scenes insights into the casting process and the serendipitous moments that catapulted him into the limelight. We also reminisce about our collaboration on the short film "Mini Balls," revealing the camaraderie and joy that come with unexpected roles in the entertainment industry. Peter's vivid anecdotes paint a picture of an industry filled with determination, laughter, and unforgettable experiences.
Ever curious about the intricacies of audiobook narration? Peter takes us through the evolution from physical copies to digital downloads, and the transition from studio recordings to home studios. Learn about the meticulous preparation required to bring stories to life, from understanding material and character nuances to tackling pronunciation challenges. Plus, hear some hilarious behind-the-scenes stories from the making of "Caddyshack," including the beloved addition of the famous gopher. This episode is a feast for anyone interested in the magic behind the mic and the screen.
To learn more about Peter Berkrot or Audiobook narration or take one of Peter's classes, please visit:
www.peterberkrotaudiobooks.com
To listen to Peter's many sensational works:
https://www.audible.com/search?searchNarrator=Peter+Berkrot&page=20&source_code=GO1PP30DTRIAL54703142491H0&ds_rl=1261256&gclid=CjwKCAjwjeuyBhBuEiwAJ3vuoTPkfoopcBHFEIq1tZddS30sIT4OYW5ag4UFP4muj6fgXpbNwOmOrhoCAqwQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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My next guest is Peter Berkrot. He's an accomplished stage, screen and voice actor, as well as writer and director. Odds are, if you've ever listened to more than one audiobook in your life, you've heard his voice, as Peter has narrated over 600 audiobooks and has won numerous awards for his work as one of America's most accomplished voice actors On screen. He's been featured in countless TV shows and can even trace his acting roots back to the movie Caddyshack, where he played Caddy Angie D'Annunzio. Peter Berkrot, welcome to Carney Saves the World.
Peter:Thank you. Thank you very much. I do want to throw in a little humility, even though I did tell you to go ahead and read it. I am not one of the most accomplished voice actors in America, really, although, what is America? I would imagine that one of the best in Newburyport, massachusetts.
Scott:There we go, that's all that matters.
Peter:I'd be willing to put out a 50, 60, 70 mile radius, say. But you know I don't like to brag about being the best audiobook narrator, you know.
Scott:You've got 600 audiobooks Like. That's got to be pretty good, pretty up there, right.
Peter:Thank you, it's my fault I said go ahead and say whatever you want. Yes, they don't hire you. There are no mercy callbacks. One of my teachers once said you know, if I was really bad, we would be chatting about my plumbing job, probably. Yeah, I mean I'm okay. But yeah, voice acting is a big category and in fact I'm lucky in a lot of ways. At least knock on whatever this is. It's might be wood, with AI and all of that. Audiobooks may be the last bastion of safety. They are already putting out hundreds of virtual audiobooks. Most people with any heart, soul or inner life is going to want to listen to a human being read an entire book. If I hear an AI voice on the computer, I can't stand it. As long as they can keep hiring me.
Scott:You've done it at least 599 more times. At least I want to go over how you get started in theater and acting, but I also want to talk to you about how you got into audiobooks, because that's such a special segment of acting. Was it an easy transition? How did you get into acting first?
Peter:How much time you got. You got 50 years. We can squeeze it in Hours, hours. Well, I started acting. There are home movies of me dancing so hard you'd think I invented amphetamines most artistic of places. I didn't hear Shakespeare in my head telling me go, son, and trod the boards. I just wanted my mother to laugh at my jokes more than my brother's jokes. I was always very oh gosh. You know, we didn't have prescription drugs for children yet, so being precocious was just something that was a natural outgrowth of being a human child and that just.
Peter:I was actually reading at four. But it's a funny thing to think about the mind of a child. At four years old I was reading, you know, I was Sally Dick and Jane and all that. I had a neighbor who taught me how to read, but I was in kindergarten and I told my teacher I could read and she invited me to read a book to the class. Wow, it's a funny thing, the things you remember. This is 60 years ago. I'm sitting on Mrs Schoenberger's lap reading a book about going to the zoo and I looked down at the first page and I can see the words. I know exactly what it says. I can see the sign.
Peter:I can still see it, the sign that says to the zoo, and I can see the words on the bottom. And I absolutely panicked because I was afraid that if I started reading a book to my class they would hate me really it's so weird.
Peter:I mean the things we think that they'd be jealous, or they'd be jealous or they'd think I was a teacher's pet or a freak, or like look at this guy sitting on the teacher's lap reading a book and I pretended I couldn't read it. Really, I mean, it's funny because you know, I have only one other earlier memory and that was waking up in my crib from a nightmare about a frog and a flower and getting spanked, and it was terrible.
Scott:Yeah, that'll do it.
Peter:So maybe ever since then I was like I really want to be out in front of people but I don't want, you know, people to hate me. I started taking acting classes. Here's the real story 10 years old, maybe 11. My dad had his own business. This was in the 70s, you know. These guys were all smoking pot and snorting coke all day, but they sold a lot of stuff and my dad was doing real well. Oh, yeah.
Peter:These adults, these guys I thought were grownups, who were probably like 27, 28, took me to City Center in New York to see a show and at intermission all the kids in the audience were invited up to tell the rest of the story and it became a big improv event. And for some reason these are the things again. I recall these weird moments. My little group was at an airport in England and I was a panhandler and I used a Cockney accent and I don't know if I had two lines or three lines. It was all improv. It was something terrible. You know, it was probably from Martin Oliver. You know, can you spare a sixpence for a cup of tea? I'm sure it was something like that. Really bad, perfect. And at the end of it, all these adults were coming up to me that day. Everyone was coming up to me and saying are you English? That was really good, you really stood out, and I thought well, that's it.
Peter:I was terrible at sports. I was humiliated throughout my entire life. I was terrified of getting hit with a ball, so I ducked. No matter what sport it was, I ducked and that did not win me many accolades with the other nine-year-olds. It's like the story of Superman, the youngest male Jewish child who gets beat up and can't protect anybody. The whole planet blows up, and so they have. So that was me. I overcompensated and I started taking acting classes when I was 12 at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and that was 1972. And I never stopped, I never turned back.
Scott:Wow so that was the start. You did a bunch of theater and you moved on to some screen stuff.
Peter:Well, it was more than that, because I was so into the American Academy. I mean, I was in high school when I was taking these classes in Manhattan.
Scott:Yeah.
Peter:And in high school, just like when I was five, I was afraid people would hate me because I could read. In high school I had these two strange drama teachers who were ultimately, I imagine, as bitter or more than I would be if I spent the rest of my life teaching high school theater. But they also did not stroke the egos of their less favorite students. But I was in high school doing you know guys, dolls and whatever, and they were not very encouraging. I started taking acting class when I was 12. I was going into the city, from Queens into Manhattan by myself on the Long Island Railroad and I'd walk from 32nd and 7th to 32nd in Madison, which was pretty crappy in the 70s. But what did I know? I was like 12 and I looked 8. You know, no one's going to hurt me. Yeah right, I'm singing a song.
Scott:What's a peep show?
Peter:Show biz, yeah. So I started taking those classes, you know, when I was 12, 13, 14. Every Saturday I'd go in and do you know voice and I was doing acting scenes. This is when it really started to kick in, even though the scenes were ridiculous and I can't believe that this is one of the best acting schools in New York at the time. But I was 13 and I was doing who's afraid of a junior wolf, and you know they didn't pick out, like when I was teaching acting, which I did for 30 years. I mean, I had all these great scenes for students that were age appropriate, age appropriate yes but I was like george, you know, and who's afraid of a junior wolf?
Peter:shut up, martha, I'm bitter, you know. 12, 13, 14. I was doing mark, anthony and felix and the odd couple, I mean, you know it was yeah.
Peter:I feel like I learned stuff. Most of what we were doing was very instinctive, you know. I mean, I learned, you know, all of the jaw and drop the jaw, but doing those scenes it seemed like we were just acting by ourselves with big capital A's and getting some direction, but there wasn't anything like I never felt like I was honestly connecting. But those were my Saturdayurday acting classes. I was still went in every saturday and um, and at that time I was doing stuff in high school, but they were very they could be very, uh, snarky, yeah like they didn't build up the kind of acting teacher I like to think I was, you know, very um, nurturing, you know, make a safe space so that people can be creative and feel spontaneous. It was just playing actors off each other and doing that kind of stuff.
Peter:So high school was, like, you know, peyton Place, but by that time I was taking these classes in New York, where it was a larger world. I was very impressed because you know, robert Redford and all these famous people went there. It was a major acting school and the posters were all in the lobby anyway. I did that for three years and I also started doing. I got a manager and started auditioning for little things in new york little voiceovers, and so so by the time I was like 14, 15, I was already doing it like I knew what I wanted to be. I was done with worrying about what I was going to be. It was just a matter of how long until everybody knew me. And then, you know, I was a theater major and, you know, went from there I just kept doing theater and then uh yeah, well, I was at new pulse, um, great school.
Peter:John tituro was two years ahead of me, okay, um, he was a uh, I guess a sophomore or a junior when I got there and he got all the best parts and I used to think it was because he was a senior, but it's because he was john detour and he was already better than most of the teachers there. He was fucking brilliant. And new pulse was a great school. We did, you know, I mean I wasn't just doing, you know, kiss me kate, I mean we were doing, you know, brecht and it was a good theater school, um, but at that time I was so motivated that instead of staying at school, new pulse isaltz is gorgeous.
Peter:It's in upstate New York, not very far upstate, but in the Monarch Mountains. It would have been a very easy place to stay and do summer theater. They did regional theater all summer there, but I wanted to mix and mingle with the big stars. I wanted to do what I always thought. I basically wrote to every summer stock company in the country, I think, and this was 1978, 79. So I was, you know, you weren't just copying and pasting shit, you were writing by hand letters, hand writing letters. Apprentice program at the Berkshire Theatre Festival. Okay, which my arrangement was that I would work for free but I wouldn't pay to work some standards going in. I did go in and work for free, but I was. You know, that was the summer that I met Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman. They're a great story but I don't know if we have time.
Scott:We have plenty of time, let's go.
Peter:Sure you want to hear the Paul Newman Joanne Woodward started best thing I ever did. I always took risks when I was a kid things I don't do now but what happened was Joanne Woodward was the loveliest person I ever met. She was so kind to all of us. I mean, I was at that point 18, but I look 12. And most of the apprentices were high school or first year college and she was so accessible. She was doing the Children's Hour with Shirley Knight and David Selby, first show in 25 years. She hadn't been on stage in 25 years, which is interesting because I did my first show in 25 years last summer and I was like, wow, so that's what that feels like. Anyway, we were talking one afternoon and she said you know, I know how tough it is, how hard it is, that they had three kids. They're all right, I think. And she said you know, I got an Oscar in 1953, and people still refer to me as Paul Newman's wife. She said so you know, you can work your butt off and you have to keep reinventing yourself and I remember that story.
Peter:And on closing night it was a great show because there were a lot of kids in it and there was a girl. She kind of had a crush on me and I kind of had a crush on her. Her crush on me and I kind of had a crush on her. And her name was Max and it turns out she was Roy Scheider's daughter. So I wound up meeting Roy Scheider later on. I was like, oh wow, here I am, I'm so famous. Better than being in college in the summer. So, anyway, it was the last night and you know summer stock, you work intensely for two weeks and then the show closes. It's Sunday night and everybody's packing up to drive back to New York or wherever and the apprentices were tearing down the set because we have three days to put up a new one and we don't sleep in between. There's all that kind of energy going on and I'm running downstairs to say goodbye to Max and to say goodbye to the other girls and I poked my head in to Joanne Woodward's dressing room because she was lovely and wanted to say goodbye and she's standing there, gave me a hug and I said goodbye and thank you for everything really paul newman is standing right next to her really
Peter:I mean he looked like paul newman this was 1978. The hair he was wearing, his windbreaker, you know, like he just got out of the car, the blue eyes, the smile, and she introduces me and I stick my hand out, we shake hands and I said it's nice to meet you, mr woodward, and my heart was pounding because I knew, as I shook his hand, that I was going to say it. And I saw his. It was almost his mouth open, like his jaw just dropped, like he had never heard that before in his life. He looked at his wife. She got hysterical and I took off down the hallway. She came out. Thank you, she mouthed thank. She's still laughing. It was fantastic, tony Roberts. So I was a huge Woody Allen fan.
Peter:Tony Roberts was there and I wound up being his dresser and his daughter's babysitter, and we played tennis every couple of days. So that's the kind of life I was having. You know, it was a little weird, even. You know, after the first year of all of that, going back to college and it's like you may want to go to the academy and be an officer. But if you can get into space, you know, and just work in the engineering room, you might just do that. You knew, wanting to leave school but not wanting to.
Peter:And then what happened was I literally talked my way back to the Berkshire Theatre Festival the following summer. There were no positions. I wasn't going to be an apprentice. You know, I was too old to be an apprentice. At that point I was, I just turned 20. And so I just kept calling. That was a new. It was a new artistic director. Josephine Abadie had taken over. So I finally called her like two weeks before the summer started. I said, listen, I'll do anything and I'll do it for free. And finally I said fine, you can come up, work as a carpenter. We won't pay you, but we'll put you up. And I was so driven to go back there that summer.
Peter:Among other people, I met Tom Hulse, who hadn't done Amadeus yet. We became very good friends that summer and the last time I actually hung out with him was after he came back from doing Amadeus, but he had just finished Animal House. It was the summer of 1979. He was at Animal House in 1978. They said to him you know, we know what you're doing in Summerstock and we need kids. We need the kind of people who hung out at Animal House and we specifically need like three Italian kids, and if you think of anybody, let us know. So he pulled me aside and asked me if I was interested in auditioning for a movie. He set up the audition. I drove into New York and spent the night, had a great couple of scenes with it was just me and George Ann Walken, who was a casting director in New York, who was married to Chris Walken. So I read for her and you know it was fine. But it was like every other audition I ever had, except I'm sitting with her just the two of us.
Peter:So, it was a little bit different than showing up with a bunch of people. And then I went back to the Berkshire Theatre Festival and you know, two weeks went by and I heard nothing. And I was having a particularly awful day. It was really hot For some reason. I kept bashing my fucking thumb in the same place.
Peter:I'm not a good carpenter. I failed woodshop in high school. So I was literally in the bathroom downstairs running my thumb under cold water when someone came running down and said you got a phone call from Hollywood. So that was when Wallace Nesita Wally Nesita, who was casting it from out there called and I remember that whole phone conversation was surrealistic. I remember saying, okay, so it's $8.65 plus. And I'm like I'm sorry what? It's $8.65 plus so-and-so? And I'm like so this is definite. You know she was talking to me like I had some notion of what the hell was happening and she said, yes, this is an offer. I said I accept. And then when she said $8.75 a week, I said I just wrote down $8.75. Is that wrong? Which was when she realized I didn't have an agent.
Scott:Yeah.
Peter:And it went down to $765 a week. Live and learn, anyway. So that was how I got into Caddyshack and I was there. I was supposed to be there for five weeks. It was supposed to be a very small role. There were three Italian brothers and the youngest brother was supposed to do basically everything I wound up doing. Brother was supposed to do basically everything I wound up doing, but they couldn't find a boy. For some reason they couldn't find an italian boy, you know, perfect for the role. So they wound up the day of the shooting casting minerva scalza, yeah, who was a 10 year old italian girl whose grandfather was the head of the teamsters on set. So you can't put a 10 yearyear-old girl in a bathing suit and pull it off, no. So I wound up getting all the scenes, you know, getting the Pittsburgh. That's awesome. All the stuff that was originally supposed to go to the youngest denuncio I got. So that's how all that great stuff happened. And then I came back to New York and I worked a lot. Jump cut 40 years later.
Scott:Well, that's such an awesome story. One of the interesting things is that, uh, espn I don't know if you know this said that caddyshack perhaps is the funniest sports movie ever made. Did you realize that? I?
Peter:suppose I don't know.
Scott:I mean, I never saw happy gilmore well, I would say that you and I met on the second funniest sports movie.
Peter:Well, Caddyshack funniest golf movie ever made, but we worked on the funniest miniature golf movie ever made.
Scott:Yes, we did, yes, we did Mini balls. It's a 10-minute short that only a few of us have seen, but it's a love.
Peter:I always knew someday I'd get my ass kicked by a nun, but I didn't think it would happen in a movie, yeah.
Scott:I got gotta talk to joe about see if we could get that out in the public, because I think it's only just on our like facebook group like it comes out every couple of years, you know for us, but the public really hasn't seen it. But it was. Yeah, that's how you and I met. We played buddies in a uh threesome for not a threesome, I shouldn't say it like that because yeah, not yeah.
Peter:Threesome is we all play golf together. Yes, yes, and as long as we're talking about golf.
Scott:I mean, I don't want to get plenty of balls on set. That was a, uh, really fun shoot. It was kind of crazy.
Peter:It was like a week tops maybe, but it was like four in the morning to like time for people who to go to work so fun, yeah, and here we thought we were getting our starts, you know, back in the movie business, and it was just joe getting ready to be a chef yeah, joe gatto, he was the first guest on carnegie's world.
Scott:He uh, he's a big, uh famous chef. He's got his own show, he's got a book, he's crazy. But yeah, he was our director and uh got us all together for shoots that were like four in the morning till like nine o'clock in the morning and then we all went to work and then so crazy.
Peter:I was trying to remember if I actually went to work or not. I did have some jobs. Yeah, the best thing about audiobooks is I haven't had to have one ever since. That's certainly worth, you know, shifting careers around for Now, when did you get started doing audiobook narration?
Peter:Well, I met Karen. I met my wife in an acting class at the Ensemble Studio Theater in New York and we wound up living together in New York. So we wound up in New Hampshire because when I did Caddyshack I quit school. When I came back to New York after Caddyshack I had a lot of close calls, but they don't count. I mean there were a lot of movies that I was almost in Jaws 3, I almost played Roy Scheider's son Wow, they cast Dennis Quaid as the other son and my hair was too black and too shiny. So you know and it's a good thing they had a black, shiny hair Tony DiNunzio and Caddy Chakra wouldn't have been doing that either, so you know. So I spent a lot of time training, doing a lot of training, a lot of theater. Eventually I met my wife in an acting class. She said I can't do this anymore. She hated New York. Things were changing, not terrible. Yet it was the 80s, not the 90s. We were getting chased around by people on crack, but we knew they'd stop after a block and a half. So I mean we kind of had it down. So we wound up moving to New Hampshire and I went back to school. That's why I wound up in New Hampshire. I went back to school to get my degree, started doing a lot of writing instead, because there was not a lot of theater or film or stuff going on in New Hampshire. So instead, because there was not a lot of theater or film or stuff going on in New Hampshire, so I got my degree, graduated summa cum laude, but in the meantime there was a lot of acting work in Boston and because of my incredible training in the last 10 years I had been in New York audition classes, voice and body and movement and advanced scene study, and you know everything moment to moment work. I kind of got every audition, everything I auditioned for. So I wound up doing stuff I'd never done in New York voiceovers and commercials and stuff that in New York you were compartmentalized into one little category. But in Boston the ironic expression was why work in Boston when you can audition in New York? So I wound up working a lot. Then my son was born and I graduated from UNH. I took a couple of years off from running into town to do theater and then, even when he was still an infant, I started teaching acting at home and then started getting hired. I did a couple of courses at Northeastern In 2006,.
Peter:I had been really wanting to explore audiobooks for a while. Strangely enough, I answered an ad on Craigslist. I was always looking for auditions on Craigslist, most of them weird. None of them, as far as I know, led to any kind of mass slaughter. It was before the well-known. You know, uh, what was the craigslist killer? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just make air quotes for your listeners. So, yes, um, anyway. So I um, I wound up getting a gig with guy in boston who, strangely enough, I'd actually contacted him a year earlier because I'm lucky to have some really wonderful friends in Newburyport Andre Debusse, who wrote House of Sand and Fog and a ton of stuff since.
Peter:Hello, it turned out that the guy that I auditioned for in Boston to do audiobooks was the same guy who produced House of Sand and Fog. And I came in and he was just doing a subcontract for the Library of Congress. He wasn't doing commercial books, he was doing stuff for the blind. So I wound up getting a gig for the blind. I was approved to do fiction and nonfiction, so pretty much the sky was suddenly the limit and I started doing work for him. It wasn't big money and it wasn't the main books that were going out. I was doing the same books that other narrators that I know and work with now were doing for Audible, and I was doing it for the Library of Congress for the blind. So what's the expression? I cut my teeth. Cut my teeth, that's right. Yeah, you don't talk about your teeth. They get soft like everything else. So basically, I wound up doing a lot of of stuff. I did like 18 books over the course of a year, which at that time was a lot, and then I became an audiobook listener because I was training myself and I did some great books. You know, while I mean I did a book about f scott fitzgerald and I did, um, a book about john wilkes booth and a a lot of nonfiction stuff, and I did some great novels. So I pretty much trained myself, and then I got myself to a convention in New York every year. This was in 2009.
Peter:At this point I've been working for a couple of years, part time. I was still working at a restaurant I mean, jesus, I was almost 50. And I was back to waiting tables, and so I was even more excited about doing audiobooks because, geez, I mean it was like come on, shitter, get off the pot. My son's favorite expression now is pick a lane. It's like you don't even drive. You can't say that Anyway. So I wound up going into New York meeting some people. I was very lucky, but also the fact that Canishack is the best C word you can say out loud anywhere and it interested people that might not have been interested, but on the other hand, you know I was 50 years old when I went to my first audiobook convention.
Peter:I had been acting since I was 12 and teaching since I was 32. I had acting chops and so the only things I had to learn about audiobook that's bullshit. I had to learn a lot, but I was still able to jump in and get work immediately. I learned as I went. You know I teach a lot.
Peter:Now I teach one on one audiobook coaching and there are two aspects that you teach. There's the technical aspects, which is the same thing as with anything don't fall off the stage, you know. Don't bang into the scenery. Memorize your lines right. There's the basic stuff and then there's the acting.
Peter:Then there's the specificity that you know when you're reading dialogue in a novel and you're playing all the parts without having to do what you do in an acting class and break it down into what do I want, what's the next beat? What's the next beat? Okay, is this character? What do I want? But it's coming into an imaginary world. Understanding the nature of what it takes to enter an imaginary world, I mostly had to slow down because the difference between talking to you now and if I were reading an audio book, I would speak. Not necessarily like William Shatner or Christopher Walken, necessarily like William Shatner or Christopher Walken, but you know it takes a lot for someone like me to slow down and say once in the village of Dumb Doral there was a young man named blah blah, blah. You know, it's just like doing improv and thinking you got to be funny or you got to keep talking.
Peter:Yeah yeah, the thing about being a narrator is, you think if you go too slow people will leave, but if they're in their car first of all, that would be dumb. You're where they go right Right into the left wing. Fuck you, let's move on. So there's a lot of technical things I had to learn, but I was able to apply what I knew about scene where the arc of it. You know all of that. So, as it happened, I started getting work right away. Archival you know all of that.
Peter:Um, yeah, so, as it happened, I started getting work right away. And in 2009 it was before everything changed again. Like in 2009, they were still sending actors to studios in new york and paying their way. I didn't need to have my way paid because I had plenty of friends and family in new york, but you know they're paying for studio time for actors and you know, yeah, within a couple of years, they were encouraging every narrator to get their own home studio. Really that early as it became a hundred million, two hundred million dollar business. For instance, right before I started narrating audiobooks, audiobooks were still physical copies.
Peter:it was before download yeah, yeah, still cd or tape yeah, to pay 75 bucks for an audiobook, you got to figure how much the director's getting paid, how, how much the actor's getting paid. There's thousands of dollars, at least twice as much as standard pay. Now, as soon as it went to a download. Now you're paying $15 a year for whatever. You're not buying anything. So that's kind of. When I got into the business, within a couple of years of getting into the business, they said get a studio. And that was great, because as soon as I got my booth, you know, one company went from sending me into New York every six weeks to giving me three, sometimes four, books a month.
Scott:That's how it all started, so from start to finish. How long does it take to complete one? It depends, yeah.
Peter:It depends on everything. It's like when you're doing a play. If all of a sudden you're playing a Russian cosmonaut, you want to, you know, infuse as much of the character into your body as you can. I know that's kind of a weird answer, but no, no, I mean I get it. Obviously it depends on length. Let's say, your standard book is 400 pages. Okay, depends on the font. It depends on how much space there is. I mean, those are all little things, they're technical things. I'd say about a week or two, depending on the length, because basically what you do is you read the book first. So let's say it's a 400-page book.
Peter:A 400-page book is going to be roughly 12 hours of audio. So while I'm recording book A at night, I'm generally prepping book B. I'm generally reading at night the next book I'm going to do, while at the same time reviewing book A right before I do it. Like reading at night the next book I'm going to do, while at the same time reviewing book A right before I do it, like just what are the next 10 chapters I'm recording tonight? I've already read it, but what's? Oh, okay, this is where this happens.
Peter:The thing about having an audio book in front of you is. It's more like a film in some ways, because the mic picks up nuance. You don't have to use your whole voice. You know your whole body and voice, as you would for theater. When you're in a show, the more you know about your character, the better you know your lines, the more spontaneous it feels, the more fun you have. Narrating an audio book is not reading, it's performing, it's storytelling. You're telling a story. So when I go back the night before and I say, oh yeah, this is where he and she have this thing yeah because you're playing all the parts.
Peter:That's the joy and this is what I realized as I was narrating audiobooks is it's like when you're doing fiction and you're narrating a novel. It's like being in a movie and playing all the parts. So when you know the scene well enough and you know what all four of those people are doing in that scene, even if one of them is just standing there holding a gun, looking around and guarding everyone, he has one line. He still has one thing going on and if he's playing that part, he's going to have his own thing. It's basically really fun to be in a movie and play all the parts. So the more you know before you record it, the more fun you have. So that's why, with a really good novel, I will review it the night before, even though I read the book a week or a week and a half ago.
Peter:So generally what you're doing is you're prepping a novel, but what you're doing is you're highlighting all the dialogue with different colors so you know who's talking at any given time. Also, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, you're making a list of questions. Sometimes there's a restaurant, for instance. There was a book I was doing with a restaurant had a French name, but the restaurant was in New Hampshire. So the question was do they pronounce it with a French name or do they pronounce it like they're from New Hampshire? So you learn how to do things like that. You don't take anything for granted, including the fact that you think you know what a word is Chassis. First time I ever saw the word chassis, I said chasis. That's how they spelled the stupid word. Who came up with that? Who do you talk to? It's too late, right? You're learning about your limited or misinformed vocabulary with every book you do and with nonfiction.
Peter:I may not read it as carefully as I would. Fiction I mean. That doesn't mean I change the words, but in terms of prep, when you're looking at nonfiction, nonfiction is essentially more like a commercial than a movie. You are selling something, but you're selling it with the passion and authenticity of the writer, because you're essentially channeling a writer. It's first person, it's their brainchild, whether it's about marketing Coca-Cola or inventing the heart-lung machine. So, basically, when I review nonfiction, I'm listening for the voice of the writer, because the only genuine voice in nonfiction is the writer's voice. It's going to be your voice because you're reading it. I'm going to be saying, when I discovered the Hart-Lund machine in a cavern in 1802, I didn't tell anybody because it was 1802, and I didn't have any friends yet.
Scott:At 600 books. You've probably said more than most people just in general.
Peter:Yeah, I had a lot of practice never shutting up. It was the one thing I could do. The only thing I ever won in Camp Toll Timber and that's where a lot of my humiliation took place in left field. Most of my humiliation took place in left field. I managed very often during the game to go so far back that I could hide in the laundry room and nobody knew I was gone.
Scott:So when you get a contract for a book, do they say you have X amount of time, or you just say, oh, I'll take care of it, and then you get paid per book and it's just up to you to be speedy about it.
Peter:A little of both, but most of the time people want to know when you're going to start it and when you're going to finish it. I tend to work for most of the established producers. There are a lot of people who produce their own stuff. I've done that with a handful of authors who didn't want to go through a publishing house. You know they have something on Audible called ACX and that's where an author and a narrator can come together and avoid the middleman. So I have an author friend in Tokyo. He's an American who teaches music and film in Tokyo and he writes a series of detective novels. He hired me originally to do his books, but that is essentially. I give him a price which is more than I get paid by a publisher, because I'm responsible for the post-production as well as just the narration.
Scott:All the editing and everything.
Peter:So in that case I'm going to say to him okay, michael, I can have this book on this day and for the most part I'll give him a date that I know I can finish it by. But if you're doing it on your own, you can play around a little bit. Right now I'm finishing a book that I actually originally was going to do two weeks earlier, but I switched it around because you get other stuff do two weeks earlier.
Peter:But I switched it around because you get other stuff like can you do this, can you squeeze this in? Yeah, you negotiate, because I am not one of the most um successful voice actors in america, well known, I mean I did do a pulitzer prize finalist. There you go. I mean, you do occasionally just get occasional brilliant novel. But you know, if I was doing like the major stephen king and the major books that are their own schedules, then there's a definite I need to have this by this date and you make sure you have it in your schedule. You just send the files as you go. Send the last files by that date, yeah, anyway.
Peter:So sometimes room to maneuver and sometimes, like, the book that's due now is due on the 31st, so I can't screw around. So do you have a director? No, when I used to go to New York at the beginning, they were still hiring directors. Yeah, once it got to a point where it became less cost effective, they just hired narrators who could do their own stuff. So that's one of the things I try to teach narrators is how to direct themselves.
Scott:Obviously be objective about it too. You know, sit back and listen to it.
Peter:No, I couldn't to be easy on themselves. When I started recording, it all came very naturally to me. It was not like I was 50 years old. You know I've been acting for 30 years or more. It wasn't like everything was new. It was like I have everything. Like if I knew how to use every single tool in the operating chamber I could probably remove a spleen. But you know, I'm still gonna want to read the textbook again first. Real quick, I didn't get in my own way a lot, yeah, and it was working out beautifully.
Peter:I talked to a lot of narrators who'll be like I did this one take like 30 times. It's like dude, basically what I do it. So let's say I have two weeks to do a book. I record I don't know seven, eight chapters a night, depending on the length. I send those chapters to them and then they can start working on them. When they get everything, they go through them, mark up any mistakes and then just send me back basically an Excel spreadsheet with the mistakes, with MP3s of what the mistakes were, so that you can hear it and match it, and then you just send them a file of corrections and then they plug them in and that's it. So that's 95%. When you're working for a publisher producer, you're just sending them the files and then doing the pickups. You know, when I produce the books myself, then my wife proves them, she gives me the corrections and I have to go back to the original files and squeeze in and edit those corrections and then you know otherwise, someone else is doing it.
Scott:So that's one of my biggest complaints about doing a podcast. The editing aspect is just really really tedious and intense and I can't imagine doing books.
Peter:Well, I don't do my own editing. I never did. I'm not good at technical stuff, but most people do a punch and roll, which is a lot easier than what you have to do, because essentially some audiobook companies still and I don't know why they just roll the whole time and then they go back and pick their favorite things and edit it all together when I'm recording at home. If I say once upon a time there was a girl named Goldilocks whose hair was brown and it wasn't brown, then my son, who is also an engineer right now, will go back to the previous sentence, punch me in before the mistake, and then I can say once upon a time the golden, golden, so that was gray. She was a very strange old woman and I don't know why they called her Goldilocks.
Scott:So you do nonfiction fiction. When I was doing my research and I was looking up all the books, you've done a smattering of children's books as well, and my daughter at seven years old was noticing some of your finer children's books and has a new favorite that we have to get she wants to listen to the fantastic, flatulent Fart Brothers big book of farty facts that you read.
Peter:Yes, I'm grateful for that because it's very funny when you live in a bubble and you think you're it. When I got this, this was actually a four-book series. There was a three-book trilogy about the Fart Brothers, save the Day, go to the Moon and something else. But the woman was like I can't believe we got you this book. This is such a great book, it's perfect for you. And I'm like, yeah, it's. You know, all the surprises are nice, sure, you know, but give me the book of hearts.
Peter:Yes, those are a lot of fun, but if you want an amazing, amazing book, I think the first couple of books I ever narrated are still the best books I've ever done Three kids. One of them is called Toby Alone and the sequel is called Toby and the Secrets of the Tree, and I did those books in 2010 was when I really my first year working and they are so gorgeous. The writer is a french writer named timothy de fombelle. It was translated into english by an italian writer and it is the most gorgeous, funny, heartbreaking thing I've ever read in my life, really. Um, there are 160 some odd characters between the two books. It all takes place in a gigantic tree. The characters are the size of ants, so to them, the tree is the universe yeah like the worst bad guy is.
Peter:Actually, I think he's a. I don't know if he's a maggot or a leech or something, but he's a character who is draining the natural resources of the tree, ripping huge tracts of branches and building you know, and all the dissidents, all the intellectuals who believe the tree is alive, are being locked up. You know, so it's really got a lot to say, but it's also gorgeous. It's gorgeous, so I think she'd love it. It's just a beautiful story.
Scott:All right, we'll check it out. Yeah, is that one of the ones you're most proud of?
Peter:Yeah, and in a way it's and it's not because I'm so good, it's because the book is so gorgeous and I actually had a director for that. That was one of the first books I did and somehow we did both books in five days. We worked like nine hours a day. Yeah, those are some of the ones I'm most proud of. The Last Policeman trilogy by Ben Winters is one of the ones I'm most proud of.
Peter:Unholy Night it's about three criminals, three wise guys essentially, who convince three priests to change places with them. I don't know if they convince them or if they kill them. They essentially no, they don't kill them. Basically, at the beginning of the book they switch places with them in jail. So the three holy men wind up getting beheaded and the three wise guys sneak off dressed as priests and they're the ones that find Jesus. And it's weird, Like they're all being chased, Jesus and Mary and Joseph and the camels, Everybody's running and he just keeps saying there's something about that baby. So even though it's completely irreverent, there's some kind of spiritual essence that keeps filtering in. It's also hilarious. So, anyway, those are some of the books I like.
Scott:Let's tackle some Caddyshack Ready Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Bill Murray who was the funniest on set. That's a good question.
Peter:You know, Bill Murray was not the funniest on set. Bill Murray may have occasionally been the funniest on set, but he was also challenging. He really was weird and difficult, and when he was being funny it was also often at the expense of making something or someone uncomfortable.
Peter:Heard that Rodney was exactly who he was. Rodney Dainesfield was constantly trying out his jokes. He was very insecure and he was. There was no's. No, I mean, he's not an actor. He didn't transform into anything in any of his movies, that's just what he was, but he was always trying out his jokes. Um, chevy chase you know whoever people complain about because they have nothing else to do was extremely charming, very fun, constantly spontaneous. He drove some of the other actors crazy because he was ad-libbing a lot. But the only people who weren't really ad-libbing were, you know, like Ted Knight, who was the most professional, kindest, gentlest, nicest guy of all, the only one who took drugs, didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't take all kinds of vitamins, died before anybody else, which just goes to show you. But Chevy was great, was great. I played tennis with him a lot. He was always always very easygoing and charming and funny.
Peter:She didn't feel like he was on yeah whereas bill murray always felt like he was either on or impassable, like he wasn't. He wasn't good at like eye contact and normal friendships. So it was a little. Brian murray was a tough guy. He was hard to get along with but for the most part everybody was awesome. Doug canney, yeah, harold ramus, everybody was awesome. It was like animal house. It was just a huge nine week party. It was basically a year after animal house.
Scott:Animal house was shot in 78 and came out in 79 and yeah, I was gonna say it was right about a couple years after animal house, I think.
Peter:And um or shot in 77 came out in 78, caddyshack shot in 79 came out in 80. So yeah, it was right on the heels of it. So those parties were pretty crazy god, it was all apart.
Peter:I mean, we worked during the day, we absolutely worked during the day. You know, you got up at four o'clock every morning or stayed up. I mostly went to bed first. You get up at four, you make up by five and you're sitting in a golf cart. Yeah, by six, you know. And but then by five o'clock, you know, you're jumping in a car with like 20 people going out to dinner, coming back and going into a room to play poker and snort coke or whatever. I mean, there's always, always stuff going on. Oh the 80s, oh the 80s.
Scott:It was actually 1979, so for me it was yes, all the 79s. This is one that um, I've been dying to know, um, and if you can't answer it and or you don't feel comfortable answering it, I get it. Okay. Did you ever get to touch mr gopher?
Peter:no, no, there was no gopher. Until they went back they didn't even know how the how the movie was going to end. Yet there's a lot of confusion toward the end of the movie. That I knew really. Um, I actually narrated a book about the making of Caddyshack which you can listen to. It's all the questions you want answered. It's by a guy named Chris Nashawati. I'll put it in the show notes there. I was actually in the book. He interviewed me and then I wound up narrating it.
Peter:So the weirdest part was quoting myself as myself. My son kept saying you're speeding up. Every time I'd do my own voice I'd be like really fast. I was like because I talk fast, he's like, yeah, but I don't know what you're saying.
Peter:You know they shot a movie which was about the caddies. But there was so much press about the comic stars and the rivalry between Chevy, chase and Bill Murray that there was a lot of making sure that they got screen time. And by the time Ted, chevy, bill and Rodney got kind of equal screen time, there was no time to tell the story about the caddies. So like Michael O'Keefe's part was much smaller, anne Ryerson's part got much smaller. My brother Tony, the movie was about him and Michael O'Keefe and their rivalry and going after Maggie, who's the Irish girl, and so on. But that whole storyline got scrapped because there wasn't enough room for it and so they went back to la and shot all of the gopher stuff. So I never even saw the fucking gopher, which is fine, because when I saw it in the movie I thought it was funny yeah, that's awesome.
Scott:Um, when, when you heard that, uh, caddyshack 2 was coming out maybe pre-production for it were you interested in being in it, and then, once it came out, were you like, fuck, no, I didn't ever want to be in that movie exactly yes and no.
Peter:I wrote to them probably every other week because we didn't have computers right this was 1981. I wrote to the production office in la every like couple of weeks saying hey guys, did you get my letter? I can be in kind of check too, if you want yeah I'll be, I'm available.
Peter:I don't see, I think I'm going to be free when you shoot it. Nobody even wrote back and I thought, well, that's kind of sucky. I mean, at least say thanks anyway. But then when I saw how horrible it was, I was like, yeah, fuck you guys. Good, fuck you. It's so bad Because I'm such an enlightened soul.
Scott:Oh yeah, that could have crippled the rest of your career.
Peter:That's it. Yeah, exactly. At least I got in and out on a high point.
Scott:Yeah, well, you know, I mean, then you had mini balls, then we shot mini balls and you know that was fun. Well, peter, it has been awesome catching up with you. It's been too long, my friend. When did we shoot that movie? It had to be 15 years ago, 2006-ish, maybe. Yeah, so like 18 years, that's insane. I mean, you look fantastic, first of all for 65. But anyway, man, this has been awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time and keep us posted on how you're doing. And again, it was great catching up with you.
Peter:It was great talking nonstop.
Scott:Take care, my friend. Yeah, pleasure, look at me.
Peter:I look like Gandalf, but you don't have the wrinkles. You look like a young Gandalf. Young Gandalf would still be like 50.
Scott:I'm Botox, gandalf.
