Letting Them Talk with Will Harris - Ep. 23 - Dennis Quaid (I Can Only Imagine / The Right Stuff / Innerspace / Jaws 3-D)

This time, I’m letting Dennis Quaid talk.

Dennis has grinned his way through an acting career that started in the ‘70s and has continued unabated ever since. Sure, he’s had a few ups and downs over the decades, as he’ll freely admit (and, indeed, does so during the course of our interview), but he’s still going strong and acting up a storm.

The project that brought us together for this conversation is  “I Can Only Imagine 2,” the sequel to a biopic about Bart Millard, lead singer of the band MercyMe, and if you’ve seen the first film… Well, no spoilers, but suffice it to say that you’re probably a little surprised to see Quaid back in this film. Yeah, it’s not what you’d call a big role this time around, but it’s big enough that he was still up for doing some press for the film, so of course I put in a request. I’ve talked to him before, but it’s never been for long enough to work as a Random Roles, so you can imagine my surprise when I got the go-ahead to talk to him for this podcast. No, we don’t share the same politics, but his films have been a major part of my life, so I was psyched to have the opportunity to talk to him for such an extended period of time…and, better yet, as you’ll hear at the end of the conversation, he was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the time passed.

What did we talk about? A ridiculous amount of stuff, ranging from his earliest work – we’re talking an episode of Baretta and a role as a bellhop in an early Jonathan Demme movie – to things like The Right Stuff and Innerspace. We discussed how important the career of his brother Randy was to his own beginnings as an actor, and he offered up stories about working with Mickey Rooney to teaching mandolin to Marlon Brando. And, yes, we did talk about his work on Reagan, so of course I had to ask him what it feels like to be canceled…and, yes, he actually answered.

Well, that’s probably enough of an intro. It’s time to let Dennis Quaid talk.