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Behind the Shield podcast, and you will hear
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from Thorne. Welcome to the Behind the Shield
podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing,
and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome
on the show, Eric Stolhansky. Now, Eric is part
of the Broken Lizard Comedy Troupe, who are some
of the comedic geniuses behind Super Troopers,
Beer Fest and many other productions. So we discuss
a host of topics from his early life, growing
up with a prosthesis, his journey into comedy,
working with Michael Clarke Duncan, the speeding
ticket that inspired Super Troopers. fostering
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment, go to whichever app
you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback and leave a rating. Every five
-star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
making it easier for others to find. And this
is a free library of almost 700 episodes now.
So all I ask in return is that you help share
these incredible men and women stories so I can
get them to every single person on planet Earth
who needs to hear them. So with that being said,
I introduce to you Eric Stolhansky. Enjoy. Well,
Eric, I want to say firstly, thank you to Ben
Duff for connecting us. I always want to thank
the people that bring great people into my life.
And then secondly, for you, I know you've been
extremely busy. We've got all kinds of things
that we're going to discuss today, as well as
the world of foster parenting, which is another
kind of feather in your cap, as it were. So I
want to thank you so much for taking the time
and coming on the podcast today. Thanks, James.
Great to be here. Thanks for having me on. So
where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
I am in a town called Pensacola, Florida. Oh,
you're up just up the road from me then. Well,
the long road, but yeah. Floridians, man, it's
a hot week. Pensacola, Florida is known as the
aviation of naval, cradle of navigation. Let
me get this straight. Start over. In the movie
world, we'd say take two. It is the cradle of
naval aviation. That is a tongue twister though.
I don't think I could say it 10 times, let alone
two. Cradle of Naval Aviation. A lot of Navy
pilots come out here. So if you want to become
a top gun pilot, you got to start here and learn
how to fly. And then you'd go over to San Diego.
Yeah. And you got to learn how to play shirtless
volleyball as well. Yes. All right. Well, let's
start at the very beginning of your life's journey.
Because I think there's a lot of people out there
that don't understand, you know, the... the um
adaptive athlete element to your life story i
think there's many many people that you know
still don't understand that under those pants
you know are are two two of these legs legs don't
seem like the other as it were so let's start
at the very very beginning tell me where you
were born and then tell me a little bit about
your family dynamic what your parents did and
how many siblings yeah interesting uh i was born
in a suburb of minneapolis minnesota in a town
called Hopkins, Minnesota. Small community, just
first ring of Minneapolis. Really warm community.
I still talk about it today, man. I just run
around the neighborhood, you know, got home from
school and just cruise around, kids everywhere.
It was a good place to grow up. Nine months of
the year was winter, so a lot of winter sports.
And down the road was what I find unique about
where I grew up. They used to just take Zambonis
and go out to parks in communities and they would
just create outdoor skating rinks and then put
up a warming house. So my winters, which were
like nine months of the year, often meant walking
down the street, going to a skating rink, and
then a hockey rink was connected to it, and then
hanging out in the warming house. Actually, I
went to preschool in a warming house of a skating
rink, if that sort of sets the picture of early
life. So I grew up basically on skates, and I
loved to ski as well as a kid. And in the summers,
I loved to play baseball. My mother and dad,
when I was born, were both teachers. My mother's
an English teacher. My dad was a business teacher.
He since went on to go into business administration,
and he ended up becoming administrator of a large
clinic. And he since has retired. With your parents,
what has been their perception of the world of
education during the kind of length of their
careers? Because when... We talk about this particular
subject. There's a lot of chess beating about
being the greatest country in the world. And
as a lot of us know now, if you're going to choose
a kind of a league table for countries in certain
areas, education is not one that we are at the
top at compared to places like Finland, for example.
So have they seen an evolution, a devolution
of that particular profession in their careers?
You know, I've never had an in -depth conversation
with that. My father got out and went into business
administration when I was pretty young. But since
my sister became a teacher, so she got her master's
in education. She teaches inner city elementary
school, which is a challenge in its own. You
know, she's got a heart of gold and the tenacity
and determination to want to help. in a challenging
environment is very admirable but she has seen
it got to the point where a lot of teachers are
rotating out so we haven't necessarily had it's
always been challenging but now it's getting
the point where some teachers are having burnout
whereas before they just found it challenging
and now they just find it too much And so I don't
know the solution to any of that. It's not necessarily
my world as much. I sort of talked secondhand
about it on holidays. But I hope we can find
a solution. I don't know. We talked about foster
parenting and just being in a family of teachers.
I don't know. I have this conversation with parents
a lot. But how do you live in a world where you're
not allowed to discipline much anymore? Or if
you do discipline, you get in trouble. So I feel
like sort of that authoritarian mantle has been
taken away a bit. Would you agree with that in
this sense? Yeah, I think. I think yes, for a
start. I mean, you know, you have to be able
to draw the line in the sand. And I actually
was talking to someone the other day about this.
I started off, you know, being smacked a lot
as a kid that as a parent, okay, this is what
you do to discipline your child. But I had an
interesting transition from just simply smacking
on the thigh, not beating, but to when he got
to a certain age, realizing that teaching him
to understand that basically all his actions
were either kind or unkind. That really worked
well in forging him as a human, but that takes
a lot of time with that child. And I think one
of the things that's against a lot of people
is they're just so damn busy trying to stay afloat
with the financial element. I think our schools
are setting our teachers up for failure because
these poor children have just been taught to
pass standardized tests rather than the holistic
child. So I think it's like any... any conversation
there are so many different facets and it's not
complicated it's just we need to bring them all
into the conversation and then we i think we
we have a mental health element that's got multi
-generational trauma so people like well it starts
at home so yeah but maybe that home is a single
mother or a single father doing everything they
can just to feed and clothe their child you know
it's not that simple so i think we have to have
that whole the you know the community conversation
going back to it takes a village I have a complex
answer to that. I know in certain classrooms,
it's almost like they dump the kids in there
and they expect the teachers just to be the parents.
And there's not a lot of follow -up at home of
the parents being the parents because they are
busy or they have a lot going on if they work
two jobs. So it's not just putting a blame on
anybody, but classrooms are getting large. So
then the teachers are getting overwhelmed. The
kids aren't necessarily disciplined at home or
told that they have to listen to the teachers
so the kids will just get up and leave the classrooms.
And you can't discipline them or the teacher
gets in trouble. So I don't know. It's a challenge
that I hope somehow will be addressed. I don't
know how we find a solution to it, but there
are challenges out there. Yeah, absolutely. And
I think the other issue, especially probably
I'm assuming with her, the inner city, tends
to be that some of the schools that are struggling
get less funding because they didn't do well
on their testing. You know, I think Finland does
the opposite. If you're an area that's struggling,
they give you more resources to bring you up
to where everyone else is. And I think we've
got that backwards in this country, too. Yeah.
Yeah. I wish I had a better solution or an answer
to it. All right. Well, then let's talk about
you in school. So unbeknownst to a lot of people,
you had some physical challenges when you were
born. So talk to me about that and then walk
me through. How, if you were being treated differently,
affected you in your formative years? Sure. For
anybody who doesn't know, I was born without
a fibula. So my mother had to make a really tough
decision. She was 26 years old, if you can imagine.
And I was born without a fibula. And the doctor
sort of gave her the choice. Either amputate
my foot, and I would have to be raised on a prosthesis.
thesis or uh we could see what happens and i
would try to have sort of adaptive shoes and
things that might help me grow um surgeries different
type of orthotics so man i i i can't imagine
trying to make that decision at 26 years old
to have to amputate your son's foot Obviously,
without my consent, because what's that conversation
be at 18 months old when I had my foot amputated?
But I'm glad she did it. It's a really hard decision.
I'm sure she consulted with a lot of physicians.
And I have my first cast from when I'm 18 months
old. It's about this big. And for two years,
my mother, after my amputation, dragged me around
in a red flyer wagon because I couldn't really
walk and I wasn't fitted with the prosthesis
until I was a little bit older. And, uh, and
then I, just getting into preschool and then
going into kindergarten, I had a prosthesis and
I had a wooden leg because growing up prosthetic
technology has advanced quite a bit, but, uh,
not even that long ago when I was growing up,
I, I was just raised on a hunk of wood and it
was just like a chunk of firewood we had sitting
around on the side of the house and threw a foot
on it. Uh, so it was literally made of wood and
I had like this rubber foot. And when I would
grow, they would just add an inch of wood to
my ankle. They would just spin the foot off,
add an inch of wood, spin the foot back on. As
I grew, that was my leg. You could measure my
growth from the rings around my ankle. It's like
a tree. So, you know, as you know, kids can be
a little cruel. I think they are sort of naive
in their cruelty. necessarily something that
they singled me out and like picked on me by
choice but i was an oddity um i was a kid that
was walking around school with a fake leg you
know so there's a lot of curiosity uh my nickname
immediately was woody um i don't know it's interesting
kids are accepting and they pick on you at the
same time the picking on was uh you know semi
harmless I mean, what it was was on the playground,
they would yank my leg off and throw it over
my head, playing pickle in the middle with me
in the middle trying to catch my own leg. Or
one kid would yank my leg off and he would just
run on the playground and chase girls with it,
swinging it after them as he's running the playground.
I'm standing there on one leg waiting for him
to come back and get my leg back. But I don't
know if it was like super cruel in the sense
that they were trying to be mean to me. It was
just this weird oddity in my childhood. Childhood
is very strange. I will leave it at that. And
unique. So whereabouts is the amputation? You're
below the knee. How far down? Below the knee.
They amputated my foot. And I was born without
a fibula, which is the growing bone. Sort of
the growing plate of your lower leg is the fibula.
And so I was born without that. So I have about
six inches below my knee. I just have a tibia
bone. the front leg. And then when they amputated
my foot, they tried to bring the heel underneath
to give me some padding. So as you said, the
intent may not have been malicious, but I'm sure
the effect, the impact was still felt. So from
a mental health stance, when you look back now
at yourself as a young boy, what was the impact
regardless of the intent of the children around
you? Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I mean,
I was always it destroyed my confidence with
women. I will tell you that in the sense that
I always felt that it made me feel handicapped.
So I always felt like I was maybe perhaps less
than in a sense. It probably developed my comedy
chops a little bit in the sense that I wanted
people to like me. So I would learn how to roll
with it. I treated it as something that was always
funny, tried to use it as a way to create a joke.
And so I probably honed my skills on the playground
as I was trying to get kids to like me subconsciously.
Yeah, the thing that damaged my self -confidence
of women is the fact that they were clearly uninterested
in me for about 18 years. So I got that too.
But I was very skinny, dry skin. kind of well
english teeth so i probably blended to just find
them but um kind of awkward and so what i found
is that you know when people would make fun of
me i was developed kind of like you and i'm not
a comedian now by any means but um a sense a
way of making a better joke about myself than
anyone else could and it almost like um disarmed
them because i think subconsciously they were
like well shit if he can say that about himself
he can say that about me too did you find that
element within your own kind of journey into
comedy I think so. I mean, I always use my leg
as a method of creating a joke. So I can tell
you a story that I've told several times, but
the reason I actually got into the path with
my Broken Lizard comedy group that went on to
make Super Troopers and Beer Fest, if you have
a minute, I can share the story of how I... got
into comedy because of my leg. Yeah. So it started
back in those years, uh, on the playground, but,
um, I got to college and I, um, at Colgate university,
I always wanted to be a baseball player, but
Colgate was a division one school. And it turned
out that I was a captain of my high school baseball
team, but I just wasn't big enough and strong
enough to make a division one baseball team.
So, uh, I didn't make the team. And, uh, I, I
had an interest in. Comedy films growing up,
Animal House, Fletch, Caddyshack and that kind
of thing. So I don't know. Naively, I walked
by the theater one day and I thought, hey, maybe
I'll see if I can't try my my act, my attempted,
you know, my acting to my acting chops might
be. So I walked by the theater and I saw an audition
for a show and I auditioned and I didn't get
all back. And then I auditioned for like two
years and I never got one single call back. But
then a friend of mine. So, well, why don't you
sign up for acting class? So I figured if I sign
up for acting class, I can at least try to figure
out what I'm doing wrong. Kind of naive in the
fact that it would take me two years to figure
this out. But I signed up for acting class. And
first thing they make you do is build sets on
a Saturday morning. So college. So Saturday morning,
I was probably hungover. And I show up and I
have to. build some sets. So I'm hammering away
and I look over and there's this kid next to
me and he's hammering away. And we started having
a conversation and he said, Hey, where, you know,
where are you from? And I said, I'm from Minneapolis.
And he said, Oh, I'm from Chicago. Yeah. My football
team's way tougher than yours, but no big deal.
And I was like, Oh, here we go right off the
bat. So we started having a, this contest of
one upmanship and. He starts telling me the Bears
are much tougher than the Vikings. And so I said,
oh, Chicago, you're so tough. You think you can
do this? And I pick up the hammer that we're
building sets with and I go, whack! And I smack
myself on the ankle and I hand it to him. I'm
thinking, that's it, you know. It's not really
going to go any farther than this. But to my
surprise, he grabs the hammer and he goes, oh,
you want to play this game, do you? And so he
takes a hammer and he goes, whack! And he smacks
himself on the ankle. His eyes roll on the back
of a head. He drops down. He's like, oh, that
didn't hurt. What else have you got? I'm like,
oh, you know we're going here. So I see that
we're in this theater with the proscenium arch
that's made of cement. So I said, oh, maybe if
I go kick that cement wall as hard as I can,
there's no way he'll do it, right? So I run across
and I kick this cement wall with my foot as hard
as I can. thinking that, okay, that's it. He's
like, yeah, I thought he was just going to bow
down and be like, okay, okay, you're tougher
than I am. Instead, I hear, screw you, Minnesota.
And he comes flying across and he kicked the
cement wall straight on as hard as he could.
And he had Birkenstocks. Again, he drops down
to the ground, tears coming to his eyes. He's
rolling around. He's like, oh, it's not so bad.
It's not so bad. I'm like, oh my God, this guy's
crazy. Guys, they're way tougher than I am. We're
just plum crazy. So I'm like, OK, I got to find
something now that's just going to end this because
this guy's out of his mind. So I look around
and I see that there's a pneumatic staple gun
that we're using to build sets and I pick it
up and I'm like, there's no way he's going to
do this. Right. So I take the pneumatic staple
gun, I pick it up. He's like, you don't have
the guts. And I was like, oh, yeah. How about
this brown clown? And I go and I put this brown.
I say brown because I'll tell you the story.
But anyway, I put the. the staple into my leg
and he comes over he's like there's no way you
really did that did you and he comes over and
inspects and he goes to pull my pants and sure
enough that staple is in my leg and he starts
sweating and he's like oh my gosh did it hurt
i'm like yeah you're probably gonna have to take
me to the hospital afterwards man you don't want
to do this he goes i don't want to do it i have
to do it so we're in this now for city pride
right so he starts finding the area on his leg
where he thinks it's not going to hurt as much.
And he starts settling on the back of his leg.
He's like, oh, it's kind of fatty back here.
It's not going to hurt as much. So he puts a
staple gun up the back of his leg where he thinks
it's not going to hurt as much. And he's just
about to pull the trigger. And I'm thinking to
myself, oh my gosh, should I let him do this?
And then finally I'm like, nah, I got a conscious.
I got a conscious. I said, stop, stop, stop,
stop, man. Are you out of your mind? This leg's
made of wood. And I pulled my leg off and I show
him and I thought he was going to kill me, but
instead he... Breaks up laughing and and he reaches
out his hand. He's like, oh, man, that's ridiculous.
He's like, thank you for not letting me do that.
But hey, my name is Jay. Jay Chandrasekhar. So
Jay and I became best friends after that. We
became college roommates. And he's like, hey,
man, you got to come try out for this comedy
group I'm putting together at school. and uh
and so that was my intro my start into uh my
real like the reason i am now 30 years later
in a comedy group was all because of that day
but it was just using my leg um as a method of
i don't know i'm trying to be funny you know
i it turned out to be a longer like drawn out
funny little episode that he and i had uh that
day but it was my way of trying to use it as
a method of levity. That reminds me of a story.
I had a police officer who was hit by a car,
lost his leg, and actually went back to the service.
Amazing. But he said it comes in handy sometimes.
Like if someone tries to slam a door, I just
put my foot in their way. If there's a rabid
dog, I just stick my foot in their mouth. I was
like, huh, there you go. It's very true. If there's
a dog that's like crazy, you can stick your foot
in. There's so many things that you can use it
as a battering ram. a putter if you uh can't
find when you golf bag a cup holder you can take
it off and on the beach and use as a cup holder
there we go um but yeah it's been it's been a
method of coping i guess but it has its positives
and its drawbacks just as all of us um you know
i'm i've been working on a book and when i do
get my title it's uh everyone has a wooden leg
So even though I might have a prosthetic body
part, everybody, and you talk about your challenges
with women growing up, whatever, but we all have
our sort of wooden legs, whatever that may be.
It might be mental, emotional, physical. But
everybody has something, which I find interesting
when we get a chance to go around the world and
talk to people. It doesn't matter where you are.
Everyone's got something. Absolutely. I mean,
it's funny. You talk about acting, and we'll
get into your journey in a minute, but I went
to drama school following a girl. discovered
that I am probably the world's worst actor, apart
from people that were part of Backdraft 2. But
aside from that, I'm just so bad. But I found
stage combat and ended up becoming a stuntman.
So it was like, okay, when I'm moving and my
mouth is closed, I can act. The moment I have
to stand still and say words, then, yeah, I'm
as wooden as your leg, basically. Well, I want
to move forward on that. But before we do, I
think it's an interesting thing that needs to
be told. A lot of people that have been on the
show who had some sort of, you know, physical
challenge, you know, compared to most of the
people around them. More often than not, the
parents have an element of you need to learn
how to do this. We're not going to, you know,
wrap you in bubble wrap and, you know, consider
you special. so how did that factor in because
you talked about playing baseball in high excuse
me baseball in high school and skiing and skating
so walk me through the kind of philosophy that
you grew up in with your parents and how you
were able to adapt way before the kind of adaptive
athlete movement really took hold yeah it's um
i compare it do you ever heard the story of the
boy boy and the butterfly it sounds familiar
but i can't remember it specifically no book
um The boy, I think it's the boy, he opens up
the cocoon for the butterfly and it dies. But
the idea is that it needs that struggle to survive.
Right. So it's that we often try to shield people
from the struggle. But it's that struggle that
really creates the life. Right. So oftentimes.
We think we're being helpful by stopping people
from having to struggle. But it's that idea of
struggle that we need. So growing up, you know,
my parents were supportive and. I wanted to go
out and do these things that somebody with one
leg might be too challenging for them. Like I
started playing football and ultimately my parents
were like. football might not be the best sport
because if you really hurt your other leg, then
you can't walk. So baseball for me was a good
sport because it was sort of non -contact. It
was like trying to hit a pitch and then running
and you're not really getting tackled. And then
skiing to me was something I was really interested
in. And the thing I find interesting about skiing
was, to me, it's sort of what formed my life
lesson when I look back on it, was one day I
wanted to go on the mountain. My mom and dad
were very supportive, which I think is really
important. like i said to help with the struggle
he said sure let's go try it right so went out
to minnesota which the mountains aren't too big
they're sort of hills but um they got me outriggers
you know like you lean down on your hands and
you have two skis you have an outrigger on each
arm and on the end of that are little skis at
the end of a pole it's like crutches with skis
on yes they're like crutches with skis on it
right and i tried one run and i said you know
i was pretty young i said I don't want to ski
with these. I don't, I don't know. I felt, I
don't know. I respect anyone that uses them.
It's great because you get to go outside and
go to the mountain and feel the wind in your
face and all that kind of stuff. But I was like,
I want to try skiing on just two skis. I want
to be just like everyone else that's skiing out
there. And my mom and dad were like, but it's
really hard. I mean, you only have one leg and
one's wood. And I was like, I know, but I want
to try it. And they're like, let's try it. They're
like, you're going to fall down. I mean, you're
going to fall down a lot. And I was like, okay.
And I did, man. I remember just like spending
the whole day, just like wiping out, you know,
trying to find the balance. I couldn't turn.
I don't have an ankle, you know, it was a mess.
You know, I fell down a lot over and over and
over again. And then finally my runs got a little
longer and then a little longer. And by the time,
uh, I don't know, a couple of weeks, maybe a
month went by. I was able to go from the top
of the hill, the mountain, and ski all the way
down to the bottom. And then by the time I got
in college or even high school, I guess I'd go
on ski trips out to Colorado with my mom and
dad in high school. I was skiing double diamonds
in Colorado. But it's that struggle that we have
to put ourselves through some time that is always
hard. And sometimes we don't want to do it to
find the life that we have in each one of us.
So how did you do it as far as the skiing? Was
it a single ski and the other leg was balanced,
or did you have a prosthesis that allowed you
to use a second ski? I just put two skis on,
just like anyone. Two ski boots, two skis, and
I just figured it out. It's hard. I mean, to
this day, when I go skiing, it's hard. I don't,
you know, I don't, I can't. I don't have a right
ankle, so when I want to stop, it's the same
as skating. I had to figure it out. I can't stop
going to the right, but I can stop really easily
going to the left. So if I have to turn around
when I'm skating and I like playing hockey, I
had to go left and do a 180 and flip the other
way, but I did it so many times I could do it
as fast as anyone that would stop skating to
the right. Amazing. It's just adaptive. Yeah,
and as I was saying, this is an environment when,
and we're going to talk about disabled American
veterans in a while, but through CrossFit, which
we'll also talk about in a moment, you know,
I've watched the adaptive community just explode.
And obviously that lines up with, you know, the
two wars that we were in. But back then, before
that, I mean, there wasn't the prostheses that
were around. There weren't these inspirational,
you know, Instagram posts of all these other
adaptive athletes overcoming this. So this, I'm
assuming you were. probably somewhat alone in
this journey when i grew up i never i don't i'm
trying to remember the first time i ever met
another person with a prosthetic it wasn't in
minnesota that i remember anybody when i was
out there skiing or playing sports i was the
only kid out there with a prosthetic i mean for
sure it's amazing well i know in one of the interviews
i read um it's the only thing i i heard this
mentioned, there was a woman that came to speak,
a model named Ivy. So talk to me about her and
the impact that had on your own journey. Yeah,
I think that was one of the first times I really
even experienced someone else with a prosthetic.
I went to a Episcopalian high school in Minneapolis
called Breck, and we would have chapel. One day
a week, we had all school chapel, and they'd
bring in speakers. And one day, they brought
in this woman named Ivy, who was a speaker. I
think it was Cancer Awareness Month. So she got
up and she was talking about surviving cancer.
But she had a prosthetic and she was a model
out of New York. So she was a very successful
model. And when you saw the photographs of her
on stage, you didn't even notice that she had
a prosthetic. And that was the first time I feel
that I was sort of like kind of blown away. I
never really had anyone to talk to about it.
I never had any role models. And I never spoke
to Ivy or anything. But when she came and talked
that day at the school, I felt like I may be
able to do something larger than just be able
to play baseball in my community. It made me
realize that you can do things that are bigger
than yourself. I mean, she did something that
you're not supposed to be able to do. Like, you're
not supposed to be a model and only have one
leg. And to me, it's like, oh, wow, that just
opened up the world to me. And I love that idea
of dreaming big. And when I sort of talk about
mindset or go around and talk to people, the
idea that oftentimes there are things that we
can do that we don't think we can do. And for
me, that was the first person that sort of opened
the world to me in that way. I don't know if
there's any, there are people now, but are there
people out there? I know a buddy of mine that
does it. He's sort of an amputee actor as well,
but he's sort of newer in the last couple of
years. But there aren't many people out there
making movies or comedies that only have one
leg. No, no. Unless they need an extra for some
war movie or something and they're lying there,
you know, covered in moulage. And that's the
thing. We can talk about that if you want, but
I never wanted to tell anyone I had one leg because
I never wanted to get typecast as only... Being
able to play someone who came back who got their
leg blown off in a war. Yeah. Even Gary Sinise,
you know, did it digitally in Forrest Gump, you
know. They just, it was, I don't know, people
can always, they don't think you can act or they
think he only can typecast you in a certain way.
I got exposed to the Hollywood typecasting. I
was working as a firefighter in Anaheim. My ex
was doing extra work and she's like, hey, they're
looking for... real firefighters for this film
oliver stone's doing and so i you know obviously
had a acting background by that point stunts
and things so i gathered a whole bunch of people
and hey this is going on and sends it to the
casting director and she's like that's great
and i said well okay so do you know am i in this
group and she's like well the problem is you
look to california i'm like what the fuck are
you talking about i'm english but she in her
mind and you think casting people would be open
-minded and imaginative and artistic but no unless
you basically look like an italian or an irishman
that that was it and we're talking about way
back but basically silhouettes in this movie
and so i had to like persuade her no i'm you
know i brought you all these people i'm gonna
be going as well but yeah i i just imagined that
you know the same kind of artistic imagery that
would be involved in creating a film that someone
in casting would have that open -mindedness because
an actor can be a million things or a chameleon
but no it was it was the opposite they were caricaturing
so many people so i can see you know oh you're
an amputee beautiful we're doing a pirate movie
next year if you want to audition for that yeah
no i don't know if it's any different yet but
yeah all right well then you're in high school
before you get to the stapler war of college
At that point, what are your career aspirations?
Are you thinking the arts or is there something
else in your mind? Not really at that point.
No, I had sort of had dabbled at a couple. You
know, I took acting classes and stuff like that
in high school a little bit. I enjoyed some of
it, but it wasn't out of my mind, no, at all.
No, it wasn't until Jay did that. Jay put together
a sketch comedy group in college and we had a
good time. I mean, it was never a career aspiration.
And after we graduated college, we really had
a good time doing it. I had moved back to Minneapolis.
I got a call later that summer and Jay said,
I think we're putting together a comedy group.
We're thinking about putting back together the
comedy group that was at school. Would you have
any interest in coming out to New York City?
And really, it was only a way of postponing life.
I didn't have a job. I wasn't quite sure what
I was going to do. And I was like, that was fun.
And I went out and. I was like, I don't have
anywhere to stay. I don't have any money. Jay's
like, I crashed my floor. So he had a feather
bed. He would take the feather bed off his bed,
throw it on the floor. I'd sleep on the floor.
Soder came out from Colorado. He slept on a Naga
couch in the living room. We had like eight guys
in an apartment. I mean, I don't know. There
was no career aspirations. It was just kind of
putting off life and really enjoying it at the
time. Now, were you at just regular college or
were you at drama college before that drama school?
No, we were at a regular school. It was liberal
arts. None of us majored. They didn't even have
a major in theater or acting. History, English,
Lemmy, I think was art, political science, just
liberal arts stuff. So many people think that
success is overnight. I know you've been asked
this in other interviews as well, but I think
it's an important thing. When you really dive
into a lot of people's career, Most of the successful
ones, you're like, oh, okay, now I see them as
an eight -year -old in this movie. Maybe they
have been doing this for a long time. Walk me
through the grind and all the disappointments
or all the no's that you got before whatever
the first kind of turning point was for the group.
Man, how much time you got? A lot. I've been
listening to this Beatles podcast. And it reminds
me of them when they were just just hammering
it out at Hamburg, you know, just getting their
10 ,000 hours playing clubs every night for hours
and hours and hours and hours. We started out
performing in Greenwich Village in a cabaret,
cabaret bar where downstairs. I mean, it was
kind of, you know, as that let's see, it was
like early 90s and stand up comedy is very popular
in New York City. So any club basically just
had a really small stage and one microphone.
And we were trying to be a sketch comedy group,
which was a little bit rare. We loved Monty Python
and we loved Kids in the Hall. But there weren't
that many places to have like a bunch of people
put on a show. I mean, we were like eight people
at the time with costumes. We had to lug a television
to VHS and put on like a show at a comedy club.
And it was very unusual. So the only place that
we could. find to really do this was a place
called the duplex in greenwich village and downstairs
was the piano where people would be in drag and
singing and you'd have to go up these back stairs
into this room that sat maybe 30 40 people and
they had a stage but the back the changing stage
was like four four or five steps that was a fire
escape and that's where we would have to have
eight people and change costumes And they had
a piano on stage where we had a musician play.
And then we'd have to lug a television in there
and we'd have to shoot videos, lug a television,
hook up a VHS, shoot videos, edit them, put them
on a tape and then play them with a remote control.
I mean, obviously today everyone has like YouTube
where you can just shoot something and put it
out in the world, Instagram or social media.
But we'd have to bring an audience to a theater.
uh show them our videos and we made a short video
so we could change costumes in between sketches
um it was a tremendous amount of work to do this
and we would do a show for three months we'd
take off a couple months to write a new show
and then we'd do another show and we did this
for about five years in new york city uh the
night like let's say it was show friday night
we'd have to go get jay jay was the only one
in a car kept in a parking garage you'd have
to go get the car drive into crowded Grinch Village,
lug a gigantic television down three flights
of stairs, VHS, put it in his car, drive it to
the club, haul it through a cabaret bar up the
stairs, plug it in. And then afterwards, after
the show's over, you'd have to do the opposite,
pull a car into crowded Grinch Village. I mean,
it was so much work. And the reason I tell that
story is we slugged it out for, man, I don't
know. five six years everyone thinks when super
troopers came up like where these guys come from
but the reality where we were kind of doing what
the beatles did early on when they were in germany
was just getting our 10 000 hours um for years
and years and years i mean people thought that
we came out of nowhere but we worked really really
hard um trying to develop our comedy skills and
more importantly our writing skills And then
one day we were in New York City and we saw these
sort of independent films that were starting
to come around. It was Clerks, Richard Rodriguez,
El Mariachi, Reservoir Dogs. And a lot of these
movies were going to this thing called the Sundance
Film Festival. And they were getting in theaters
that we were going to watch and they were really
entertaining. great movies that were made for
low budgets so we said well maybe we can take
some of the skills that we learned doing sketch
comedy and we can adapt them into a feature because
we thought well after five years of uh actually
losing money putting on these shows in Grinch
Village, like, how could we ever try to make
a career of this? You know, we've been now dedicated
about five years of our lives after coming out
of college. And our parents were like, seriously,
what are you guys going to do with your life?
Like Kevin, who plays Farben Super Troopers,
went to law school during this time. I put myself
through acting school in New York. But it was
sort of this idea of like, what's next from our
parents, right? So we thought, well, wow, these
guys are... making films and they're getting
them up on the screen and we loved monty python
growing up what if we started writing and taking
some of these skills that we learned from doing
all this sketch comedy um wrote a script that
had a narrative but sort of had these sketch
elements to it with a narrative that tied it
all through and we shot a film and tried to go
to sundance film with film festival with it so
we made this movie called puddle cruiser uh wrote
it you know asked everyone that we knew as a
favor to come in like kevin's brother was a locations
manager his other brother was a grip um any favor
that we could get to shoot a feature film and
coincidentally lucky enough we got into the sundance
film festival with this movie called public cruiser
and it was our stepping stone we didn't get into
theaters but it showed people that we sort of
had the ability to put together a feature film
and sort of the tenacity, determination to grind
it out, make an independent film, that we were
able to raise funding to then make Super Troopers.
So Super Troopers was our second independent
film that we made. And then we sold it to Fox
Searchlight at the Sundance Film Festival. But
that was 10 years after we first started. So
kind of a long story, I apologize. It's funny
when you think someone's an overnight success,
how much work they had to put into it. Absolutely.
Super Troopers, funny enough, became, I would
say, hands down one of the top firehouse movies
as well. And, you know, you'll hear people quoting
it all the time. Again, I read just in a random
article that there was a speeding ticket that
was the genesis of that. So what's the backstory
of Super Troopers and that theme? Yeah, we. We
used to have to spend a lot of time together
in a car, the five of us, like we had the one
car. And sometimes we'd get a comedy show outside
of the city. We would all pile into one car together.
And while that's where a lot of just kind of
comedy and the sketches came all from that experience
of being in that one car. And then one day we're
cruising along and we get a, Jay is his car.
So he got pulled over for speeding. And he's
like, oh man, I'm going to tell this guy off,
right? We're like, yeah, let's see if you got
the guts, right? And that guy comes up and Jay's
like, oh, yes, sir. Of course, sir. Yeah, whatever
you need, sir, right? And we laugh as we leave.
And we're like, oh, these cops have so much power,
right? It's just that we just thought it was
so, I mean, they really do have just so much
power when they come up to that window and they're
like, but they're just normal guys, just like
anybody else, right? I mean, they're just like
brothers or uncles or we all have friends who
are cops, right? And then we thought, well, what
if they're like us, where we love to just joke
around and laugh and have a good time, that if
you realize and knew you kind of had that power
when you go up to a window and you know these
guys, you're like, these guys are smoking pot,
right? Let's go mess with them. And that was
kind of the idea for the kind of the genesis,
the original kernel of Super Troopers. But like
the bear incident, like the bear. I can swear
on here, right? Yeah, I just did. So the one
sketch I played the bear fucker in the movie
and we're cruising along in the same car and
we're on this long stretch of highway and you
have woods everywhere. I'm like, what would happen
if you looked over and you saw someone having
sex with a bear over there? uh they're like and
you call that end of the police station and they
got that call like would they come out and investigate
if they came out and investigate and they saw
someone's actually having sex with a bear in
the woods like what would they say to them right
so it's just these funny things that were happening
in the car at the time as we were cruising around
so you write that stuff down and then you can
turn it into a scene like i said you kind of
take these sketches and you put a little narrative
through it solving a crime And but a lot of a
lot of those ideas came out of that experience
of being five of us together in small spaces.
So there's so many troops out there. I mean,
like I said, through my stunt world journey,
I've met obviously a lot of people that are on
the comedy side as well. What was it about the
the synergy between you guys that. when maybe
some others don't? It's not being negative towards
them. What was that magic thing you think that
you guys had in the dynamic of your troupe? Yeah,
I mean, I don't know exactly. I know a lot of
people will come up and say, it just feels like
you guys are friends. And then it feels like
you guys, like I've had some people come up and
say, is that whole movie improvised? I'm like,
are you kidding me? No way, man. We spent years
writing that and crafting it and writing 25 drafts.
It's flattering when someone says that because
we spend so much time writing every single word.
And when we shot it, I don't know if anything
is improvised in Super Troopers, but the fact
that somebody might think that makes it feel
like we had a natural delivery. And that probably
comes from years and years and years of spending
hours together in closed spaces. Well, so you
talked about going to drama school. I got stuck
in that vicious circle when I came out where.
I did a showcase. This agent was actually William
Morris. Because I did something very physical
versus the usual monologue. Like we do, but that's
someone else's area. So call me when you have
a role. And I'm like, oh, okay, sweet. I'll call
you when I have a role. Unbeknownst to me, you
need an agent to get a role and you need a role
to get an agent. And so I literally was in this
revolving door until I just gave up. You're obviously
doing this on the side. Did you jump into the
whole... actor audition scene at the same time?
Not so much at that time. I was lucky. I started
working for a casting director in New York and
going to showcases and just trying to take in
as much as I could. I tried to see a lot of plays
in New York. But the comedy thing that we were
doing at the time was very time consuming because
I'd have to wait tables, you know, of course,
during the day. Well, you're an actor. Yeah,
of course. My job for 10 years was waiting tables
versus being an actor. We would do comedy on
weekends for no money. Also, we could work single
and double shifts and brunches during the week.
So, yeah, I wasn't like you said, you know, until
you get I wasn't I didn't get an agent until
we had made Puddle Cruiser and I went to Sundance
and we actually went to the Hampton Film Festival.
with Puddle Cruiser in one first place at that
film festival. And it was only then that we got
an agent. So we kind of had to create something.
It's that Catch -22 you're talking about. You
can't get a part until you have an agent, but
you can't get an agent until you get a part.
So we had to create that part by making independent
film and then highlighting what we could do.
I played this kind of out -there character named
Freaky Reaky in our first movie called Puddle
Cruiser. And it wasn't until sort of creating
that, selling the film, that I was able to get
an agent and then start auditioning after that.
Well, when you think of that, you think of Rocky
or Sling Blade, you know, where people create
their own. production and when you again reverse
engineer to your early life overcoming the adaptation
that you had to make physically here you are
now and I was in this revolving door and you'd
already figured out a way okay well if we create
this production then we kind of circumnavigate
that element and ultimately you'll probably have
people knocking on our door So, you know, after
you make Super Troopers, kind of walk me through
the next few years. I was talking to a friend
who was on Band of Brothers and I didn't realize
that took about 10 years to really take off.
Yeah, he was the medic in it. He was doing like
dinner theater before he got that gig. So again,
a lot of grinding. But was it an immediate upswing
or did it take some time to gain momentum, become
the cult that it became? Took a long time. I
mean, Super Troopers did OK in the box office,
but it wasn't really until people started passing
a DVD around. And so you can imagine how long
that was after the movie came out. Fortunately,
Fox Searchlight that distributed Super Troopers
was interested in trying to make a follow up
project after that. So we we had spent a lot
of time being in the police uniform promoting
and you know how long it takes to shoot something
and be. So we were in that cop uniform for so
long we. We wanted to try something different.
We were a sketch comedy group and we had done
a lot of different characters. So we did a movie
called Club Dread afterwards. Fortunately, the
studio was interested, but we spent a lot of
time working on them with that. So that was a
nice change of pace, having to make two independent
films and go sell yourself at Sundance. So it's
nice to finally have our first studio film, which
was Club Dread, which was our third film that
we did together as a comedy group. Enjoyable
shooting that Bill Paxton came on MC Ganey. We
had a really good time. Brittany Daniel. It opened
up against the passion of Christ, which was a
tough weekend. Another knee slapper. Two comedies
in the same weekend. So they, I mean, churches
just bought out theaters and they just bust people
in. It was a really interesting weekend to open
a movie. And that didn't do. I think people were
expecting more Super Troopers. They weren't trying.
They were really expecting like a comedy horror
film was really sort of against type for us.
So commercially, it didn't do very well. And
then after that, we ended up making. It's funny.
After that, Adam Sandler called us in one day
and said, hey, when I saw Super Troopers in the
movie theater, I'd like to meet you guys. You
guys kind of make films kind of like I do. I
like to surround myself with my friends and we
kind of work together as a group. and he called
us in his office, and he was a really nice guy,
and he said, maybe I could help. What are you
guys working on? We said, well, we wrote this
script called Beer Fest. And so we actually took
it out with Adam and his company around. He had
a deal at Sony at the time, and they were sort
of interested, but we got a call from Warner
Brothers saying that they were interested in
making it. So we ended up making Beer Fest after
Club Dread. So it became a little easier. Then
having to slog it out, raise your own money and
make movie independently. So we made the next
movie club dread with searchlight pictures. And
then we made a Warner brothers. We went to Warner
brothers and made beer fest. And then the writer's
strike happened. So we pulled, we weren't sure
how long that was going to go. So we grabbed
a script off the shelf since we weren't allowed
to write anymore or one that was finished. And
we went out and independently made a movie called
slamming salmon. Before then going back and making
super troopers too, which is a whole. possible
episode and tenacity and determination because
we crowdfunded that movie we went back to searchlight
pictures but they weren't sure if the audience
for super troopers was still there after 20 years
like i said we wanted to try different characters
and different roles and stuff like that so we
probably could have made a sequel right away
but we waited 18 years and they were like i don't
know if the audience is still here there after
18 years so we turned to crowdfunding and we
weren't quite sure how it would work if anybody
would want to um Try. I mean, we didn't know
if anybody was going to be interested in backing
us in Super Troopers 2. So the first day we were
very surprised. We ended up reaching our goal
in 24 hours, I think. Really? I think we got
our goal for it. And then we crowdfunded it.
And then we made Super Troopers 2. Now, how was
that received? Because, I mean, obviously, when
you make something so iconic. it's going to be
extremely hard to have the exact same impact,
especially if you're doing it 20 years later.
Not so much from the naysayers or critics, but
overall for you guys as far as satisfaction and
impact on the audience, the true audience that
you were trying to reach. Yeah, that's a good
question. I don't know. You hear both sides.
You hear positive and you hear negative. Paul
and I, We played Foster Weird at Comic -Con last
week up in Cincinnati. And we heard a lot of
people came up and said, yeah, you know, you
can never match the original. And then we heard
a lot of people that came up and said, we thought
you guys picked it up right where it left off.
So it's both. It's a complex world out there.
So thank you. Yeah, no, I enjoyed it. And I see
on IMDb. It says Super Troopers 3. Is that actually
a real potential now or is it just up in the
air? Yeah, no, it's real potential. The nice
thing about Super Troopers 2 is it was commercially
successful in the box office, at least enough
for the studio to be interested in realizing,
well, there really is an audience for this. Let's
develop a third. So we are currently writing
it. And actually tonight I have a Zoom meeting
with all five guys to try to get. We are three
or four drafts in. We've completed many drafts
and we just keep trying to plug away. Like Super
Troopers at the original, I think we did like
20 to 22 drafts. So we like to write and write
and write and write. So it's good right now.
I love it where it is right now, but we just
keep plugging away and making it better. Brilliant.
Now you talked about Adam Sandler and some of
the other actors that you've worked with so far.
One that struck me when I looked at, I think
it was IMDB or one of those ones, was that you
worked with Michael Clarke Duncan. Now, the reason
that's pertinent to me is when I talk about mental
health, especially in the first responder profession,
there to me is no better metaphor than his character
in The Green Mile taking on all that trauma and
all that pain from people. And by not offsetting
it, ultimately it sends him, you know, which
is a good thing, sends him to heaven. But, you
know, it can also be a metaphor for maybe not
being able to cope. So what was he like? I mean,
obviously he's passed away now. So talk to me
about working with him. Michael, yeah. I mean,
it was a real honor to be able to work with Academy
Award winner, nominee. I'm trying to remember
if he won. Great actor. You know, he loved to
improvise, which was a lot of fun. By the time
we got to sort of slamming Sam and we were improvising
a lot more than they originally had with Super
Troopers. And there were times when, and Kevin
was directing this one, where he would do what
was written and then he would just start going
off. And Kevin would be like, just let the camera
roll. And so a lot of stuff that ended up being
in the movie was stuff that he would make up.
So he was, he was a really fun guy. He was, it
was sad that we lost him. He had a congenital
heart condition and he passed away. But even
coming into shooting Slammin' Salmon, he had
lost a hundred pounds from the green mile and
he still was twice the size of all of us. A very
large, strong man. Great stories from growing
up. Talk about overcoming adversity. You know,
he came from a, challenging upbringing and went
on to become an academy award nominee did he
win for green mile or nominee i think it's irrelevant
i mean i've always talked about this about i'm
always kind of perturbed not perturbed but just
confused of the concept of being called the best
picture the best actor because it's art so i
was i think it's one of the best performances
you know the whole film one of the most powerful
dramas has ever been filmed so it doesn't to
me doesn't matter if he won or not yeah me neither
it doesn't matter to me whatsoever i was just
um semantics that, you know, you get critics
coming, Hey, he didn't win, but I'm like, it
doesn't, not that it matters at all. I mean,
he was great in it. Um, and so, I don't know.
It was an honor to be able to work with him.
And, um, he was fun. He was, he had a great,
he's great stories. He was a prankster. He was,
he kind of fit in with us. He was pranksters.
His pranksters were, he would, he was, we're
a little more serious. He would, um, I'm trying
to, uh, he used to love to play his game. Could
you defend yourself? Like he would go to meetings
and he'd lean across the table. If I would jump
across the table right now, could you defend
yourself? Like, well, Michael, no, I don't think
I could. You would have me by 200 pounds. I think
you'd. I don't know. He was, he had a lot of,
and we actually, you know, we, the original character
was sort of based on a Mike Tyson and it's supposed
to be a heavyweight champion. That's so unpredictable.
That when he comes into work where you're waiting
tables, if he owned the restaurant, you wouldn't
know if he was going to punch you that day or
make you laugh or adopt you as a kid. Like he
just didn't know what his behavior is going to
be kind of based on sort of a Mike Tyson character.
And we're like, you know, Michael Clark Duncan
had such dramatic chops. We were like, but, you
know, do you think he could handle this comedy
script? Because it was a lot of dialogue. So
we talked to Adam McKay and he's like, oh, yeah,
he's he's great. That scene when he's with Will
Ferrell and Will Ferrell's in the wheelchair
and in Talladega Nights and Will Ferrell stabbed
himself in the leg with a knife. And then he's
Michael Clarke Duncan starts yelling, don't you
put that on me, Ricky Bobby, don't you put that
on me. Adam was saying there's no real script.
They were just a lot of improvising that he said
Michael completely could hold his own. So we
felt confident after that, bringing him on and
he was terrific. Amazing. Yeah, it's funny with
the awards shows. I remember with the Oscars,
there was one year where it seemed to be like
everyone was African -American winning and Denzel
Washington won it for training day. And I'm like,
so this is the guy that Malcolm X and cry freedom
and he wins an award for training day. You know,
I think that that's to me why some of these awards
ceremonies are so bogus is some of these people.
They've done so much better roles and been part
of such incredible productions, but it wasn't
flavor of the day, so they didn't win it that
time. And in the stunt world, there are no...
oscars for stunt people which is which is mind
-blowing because these especially in these modern
you know uh action films usually they're doing
80 of the work so yeah it's a it's a weird thing
as someone that's disconnected from that that
world looking in going hmm can you really say
that was the best actor when all these other
phenomenal you know productions are going on
that's interesting yeah you have an interesting
perspective on it yeah just disconnected being
a horrible actor i can be objective It does take
a village to try to get a performance together,
though. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, shifting
away from the, I guess, performance world for
a moment, talk to me about how you came across
P90X and Tony Horton and then walk me through
your involvement and the unveiling of the leg
during that journey that you were on. Yeah, that
was an interesting chapter in my life. It's still
going 100%. I still work with Tony and have a
lot of respect for Tony Horton and still currently
work with him. One day, I was at a gym. I used
to go to the World Gym in Santa Monica. And I
was trying to stay in shape. I think it was Club
Dread because I knew we were going to be down
in Mexico and probably might require some scenes
without a shirt or something. So I was trying
to exercise and work hard. And right there's
a bulletin board there and it had a flyer that
said, come be part of the hardest thing that
you've ever done in your life, mentally, physically,
emotionally. And you have to understand back
in the, this was probably 15, somewhere between
15, 16, 17 years ago. As you know, the idea of
extreme fitness didn't really exist. There were.
Beachbody had Power90 or something like that,
but it was more Jane Fonda, Richard Simmons,
Cheryl Teagues. The idea of home fitness videos
were just for people to do aerobics, but this
company, Beachbody, wanted to create something
called P90X where somebody who was an athlete
could do it so they could be a really good soccer
player. basketball player, anything that was
like a weekend warrior, but somebody really wanted
to step up their game. And they thought it was
going to be kind of like a little niche video
that a small select group of people would do.
So I saw this in a flyer and it said, if you
come be part of the test group, you can work
out for 90 days, but you just have to commit
to it. You have to commit to be there for 90
days, follow the food plan, you know? And I said,
well, maybe this is a great way to get training.
I was a, as you know, a broke actor. barely squeaking
by and so i said hey free trainer you know here
we go get in shape for the film so i signed up
and i go and i was like damn this is hard you
know and i did it for a while and after a while
i was starting to get a little more confidence
because it was really hard plyometrics yoga all
this stuff i'd never done before and it was a
great workout and then one day and i'd always
go and tony will tell the story he's like i still
ask you still be in the same spot you know we
all kind of are in the same spot when we do things
we go to a class or something always in the same
spot he's like every day i'd look down the left
and there you were this kind of undescript kid
just sitting on there you always had sweatpants
on i don't know why i always had sweatpants on
and then one day you show up and you're wearing
shorts and like everyone in the class like look
over and like what the hell is that And I just
kind of had gained enough confidence after like
60 days of doing these really hard workouts and
balancing routines and yoga and all kinds of
things. I said, screw it, man. I'm going to wear
shorts one day. And I showed up and people were
kind of like, did a double take, but everybody
was cool. And I don't know, it gave me kind of
a new self -confidence of being able to do harder
workouts than I ever thought that I could, especially
with my prosthetic. And it was a great workout.
And I really thought it was very genuine and
authentic and really the real deal. And by the
time we finished that 90 days, Tony and I kind
of become pals. And he said, hey, Stolhansky,
I want you to be in the plyometrics routine.
Would you do it? I thought about for a second.
No, no way. I'm not going to do it. He's like,
you want me to like in shorts? No, no, no, thanks.
He's like, come on, come on. You got to do it.
I was like, I don't want to do it. Like, why
not? He's like, I'm kind of I don't I think I
mentioned before is I'm trying not I don't want
anyone to like pigeonhole me. Like, I don't really
want to go out into the world, especially in
a video in shorts, because then everyone's going
to just look at me as the guy with one leg. I'd
rather be the guy that can go do these broken
lizard rolls and nobody can tell the difference.
and pigeonhole me and say, oh, that guy can only
play certain parts. I just want someone to think
of me as just a normal actor and a comedian that
they don't even think of and talk about it. And
he's like, well, maybe you're running away from
something. Maybe you're hiding something that
you don't need to be hiding. If you were to do
this exercise, there are people that struggle
with diabetes, mental health, just lack of motivation,
certain things where they'll be like, That dude's
doing these exercises with one leg. I got to
get off the couch and get up, get up there and
do it too. So I was like, Oh, that's kind of
shifted my perspective on realizing that maybe
something that I've kind of been hiding from
my whole life was something that I could use
as something that's positive, which I never really
kind of had thought of it in that direct way
before. So I said, all right, all right, man,
I'll do your P90X Tony Horton. Damn you. So I
did another 10 days of workout and we did about
100 days and then we filmed the video and no
cuts or anything. It was just a whole 60 minutes,
I believe, of plyometrics, which is German skiing
technique, as you know, and bouncing and skipping
and jumping and hopping. And it's brutal, super
hard. But we got on video. And at first it didn't
really take off. And then people started posting
before and after pictures and seeing really how
great of a workout P90X was that it just took
off. And it became one of the top exercise videos
in America for a long time. And now it almost
seems like tame because there's like we can talk
about CrossFit and all sorts of extreme home
fitness videos. But that was sort of the first
one of its kind. Well, I remember distinctly
being in Orange County, so here in Florida, at
the fire department, one of the real kind of
outlying stations, it was a trailer, and then
there was like a butler building where the engine
was, and going to look for our engineer for something,
and he's out there doing P90X in the bay. And
I have to say, aside from CrossFit, which I think
has done so much for the fire service, if I was
going to name something else, it would be P90X.
So Tony absolutely, I think, found a way to bridge
that barrier to entry for a lot of people like
i'm intimidated by these machines i don't really
know how to use these barbells or whatever and
with him it's like all right find a space the
size of a yoga mat pretty much and put somewhere
to put your laptop or your tv and we'll just
go through this together so between you know
as you said plyometrics or the yoga part or obviously
the overall strength and conditioning part i
saw what was as you said initially a niche workout
video really permeate into the tactical professions
and benefit a lot of first responders that's
really cool to hear and i know that would mean
a lot to him he's really genuine i mean he's
the guy that walks to walk talks to talk i mean
he's he's become like a brother to me and like
that guy eats breathes and lives fitness it's
incredible what he can do at 64 i mean put him
up against a 22 year marine and give him a fight
for his money you know he guy's in shape so with
The kind of unveiling of your leg and now probably
a new level of acceptance. It kind of, to me,
reminds me of Jonah Hill. I'm sure Jonah Hill
in his mind was like, if I lose this weight,
I'm not going to be the funny fat guy anymore.
And now he's this jujitsu athlete and everything
and still working and still is funny. He didn't
need the extra adipose tissue to be humorous.
But you have that unveiling. Around that same
time, we go to war in the Middle East. We start
getting all these veterans coming home, missing
limbs. I watch the CrossFit arena especially
really start blossoming some incredible adaptive
athletes, whether it's amputees or cerebral palsy
or all these great humans that show other people
like themselves and then inspire people that
are nothing like them, that it's not you can't
do it. It's just, okay, how can I do it? And
you start seeing a genesis of prosthesis, for
example. What was your observation of all this
and what was your involvement in this as we started
progressing and then the adaptive community really
started becoming, had the exposure it deserves
and the understanding it deserves? It's funny.
I see some of these guys in CrossFit, you know,
nationally that compete in these tournaments
and some of the guys now they're coming out and
being on the screen. And I feel like a relic.
You know, I feel like these guys are unbelievable.
I mean, some of these athletes that are amputees,
I see in the Paralympics or I see in CrossFit.
I mean, they blow me away. I was doing a CrossFit
routine this morning. I know you and I talked
before we got on here, but I joined a local gym
down here and I joined because it was close to
my house and it turned out to be a CrossFit gym.
And so I've been recently starting to do some
CrossFit and I got humbled this morning. My gosh.
I have a couple of routines that are my Achilles
heel. And burpees are one of them. I had to do
double unders. It was double under burpees and
then pull -ups. And I was wiped out. Like I had
to sit down by around seven. I was just sucking
wind. But I've seen some of these guys and they're
just incredible. I mean, CrossFit's been great
for a lot of people who are adaptive athletes
and amputees. I feel like a relic, you know what
I mean? I feel like I may have been there early
on doing this P90X thing, but I've gotten passed
up. by some of these athletes that are just incredible
to watch. So I love it. I mean, like I mentioned
growing up, I didn't have these mentors or see
other people with prosthetics. And now you see
people out there just out in the world. Everyone's
just people. You know, that's what to me is the
most important takeaway is that we're all just
people. Like we don't have to be separated. We're
cast in a certain way. And why can't we just
all just accept the fact that everybody has a
wooden leg? And like, I don't know. I don't know
what else to say about it, except for to me,
we're all just, everybody struggles with something.
And I love seeing these people doing CrossFit
and just crushing it or P90X, Tony Horton's thing.
I mean, it's great. So I'll follow up with one
thing. What I'm currently doing with Tony is
he has his program. So Tony is with PowerNationFitness
.org, and he has the four pillars of health,
fitness, nutrition, mindset. I'm trying to think
of the fourth. Mental, emotional, physical, supplements.
Nutrition, yeah. Nutrition, right. So on there,
he has speakers. He has people that talk about
what food to eat, the right proper food to eat.
He obviously does the workouts, and then he has
speakers come in and talk about mindsets. There's
some Olympians. Some people talk about how do
you get over some of these hurdles to try to
become the best person we can be. And so I tell
my story. He has these Paragon events where people
go to his house for a weekend, and he filmed
my last talk about overcoming growing up with
a wooden leg and then going on to make Super
Troopers and the challenges, not only that I
had as a kid, but how that helped me adapt, as
we're kind of talking about today, when I had
to try to ski down that mountain, which was Hollywood,
getting from the top to the bottom. It should
be the opposite, right? So that will be out on
PowerNationFitness .org. And that's how I'm currently
working with Tony is working with him on that
aspect of mindset and how important it is in
having whole health. Like, sure, we can do push
-ups and pull -ups and all these kind of exercises
all day, but it's really important to meditate,
do the yoga, center ourselves, keep, you know,
clear our mind and the nutrition, eating the
right things. trying to be a better person in
many different ways than just exercise. So P90X,
like I said, is phenomenal. CrossFit is phenomenal.
But those two are very different to each other.
What were some of the things that after doing
P90X for so long that you found were different
and therefore beneficial as well? I mean, there's
no one way to eat. There's no one way to exercise.
So what did it bring that you hadn't had before?
Well, you know what? It was interesting about
P90X is I loved it, but I found it very hard
to maintain for myself. I know a lot of people
just took off and they did P90X 2 and then 3.
For me, I did it to get in shape for a movie,
but I found that doing really, really hard workout
100 days in a row, I found I couldn't maintain
it. But what I was able to do afterwards was
find things that I love to do, like I joined
a softball group afterwards. completely helped
with my softball game, which you'd think is not
something that would be adaptable, but it was
very helpful. I loved biking. I'd hop on my bike,
you know, in Southern California and just go
off from Los Angeles all the way down to like
Manhattan beach. It helped me stay in shape.
So I was able to sort of like, and then I started,
kept working out with Tony every Tuesday, Thursday
after that for years. And we would just do pushups
and pull -ups and stuff like that. And I don't
know, I was able to like, just help me be active.
in the real world after that, just staying active.
Now with the adaptive world, I know you started
working with DAV, Disabled Americans, Disabled
American Veterans. I don't know why I struggle
to say that. Talk to me about what you do with
that organization. Yeah, I love them. They're
great. One of the things that we do is they have
an adaptive sports clinic out in Colorado, Snowmass.
So I went out there a couple of times and I've
given my talk about overcoming adversity and
perseverance. We did a screening of Super Troopers
2. I get on the mountain, I ski with them and
we have a good time and laugh and I go down,
you know, just go down the runs with the guys
and we race. And it's great. I mean, the guys
have great spirit. I learn a ton from those guys
and just enjoy the weekend. There's a group called
Operation Enduring Warrior that I, you know,
have. been involved with and they take um wounded
warriors so it can be military it can be law
enforcement um through obstacle courses they
do diving and skydiving too but obstacle course
is the big one they're working with spartan and
i've seen it myself one of my friends was a law
enforcement officer that was shot multiple times
basically a murder attempted murder in a parking
lot of a grocery store where he went and got
supplies for a family they just flown over from
puerto rico um i think it was during the hurricanes
if i'm not mistaken and uh anyway so drew and
he watching him at the beginning and watching
him at the end there was a complete metamorphosis
from the the self -doubt post -injury to holy
shit i can do these things and i'm and as i'm
going through this that guy with the mask on
has only got one arm and that guy's only got
one leg because some of the masked athletes that
assist them are amputees themselves so what are
some of the the things that you've seen as you've
taken some of these, you know, wounded warriors
down these winter sports? Yeah, I mean, the ideas
of some of these people that are in wheelchairs
or quadriplegics, paraplegics, and you get them
on a mountain and the wind's in their face and
they're skiing down a mountain. You know what
I mean? It's not like a hill. It's like they're
in Colorado at snowmass, like going from the
top of the mountain to the bottom. I don't know.
It lifts my heart a lot, just seeing people outside
in nature and getting to experience that feeling
of flying down a mountain. I don't know. I like
seeing the community, the aspect of people that
volunteer to help. Some have the guides for some
of the sleds. I don't know. It just brings the
community together. We talk about a lot of things.
It kind of takes a village to raise kids sometimes.
I don't know. It's nice to see everybody kind
of come together in the spirit of community that
we can all be together to help each other. I
mean, I think it will be a better place if we
all just all got along. It'd be nice if we weren't
all divided and just work together together.
Yeah. Work together together. It's not a very
proper English, but. Yeah, no, it'd be nice to
have a leader that unifies rather than divides,
unlike the last two. All right, well, then you
talked about it takes a village. I just want
to make sure that we do cover this topic. So
I know that you became a foster parent. So talk
to me about what made you decide to do that specifically
and then educate us on the world of fostering.
Because I think there's a lot of kind of urban
myths about adoption and fostering. So what led
you in there? And then talk to me about that
world. My wife read an article in the paper that
there's a great need in the community. Like talk
about just trying to help out a little bit. There's
this great need. And I don't know, I just broke
our hearts to think there were children out there
that didn't have a place to live. Fostering the
main goal is to try to reunite children with
their families. They do the best they can. And
ultimately, if you can't reunite children with
their families, there's an option to adopt. the
main goal of fostering is trying to reunite children
with their families so we currently foster we
you know have this old house we are renovating
an old 1902 house it's kind of a big big house
that was destroyed by hurricane my wife and i
have been working out for a while we finally
got it back into shape and we're like yeah we
got this cool house you know and rooms you know
why don't we see if there are some children that
need a place to sleep and have a roof over their
head uh so we got certified it was a long process
took a long time to get certified you got to
take training and go through it but i don't know
it's just uh it's wonderful if you have the space
and the capacity in your life i know a lot of
people are busy they're their own kids or don't
have the time or energy we just happen to be
at a place in our life where we have the capability
to try to help out the world a little bit uh
so we currently um have been fostering some children
in our house that's amazing has you had kids
prize of that we had not no no okay Beautiful.
Yeah, I think that's such a great opportunity
for people as well. I mean, you hear of sogracy
and things, but, you know, the foster and adoption
world are, as you said, there's a big need from
what I hear over and over again. So what an incredible
opportunity for someone that hasn't experienced
parenting yet to be a part of that whole world.
Yeah, it's very rewarding. I love driving the
kids to school in the morning and, you know,
just the joy that they come back after learning
after a day of being in school and getting to.
socialize with their kids the other day they
had an open house the school we got to go see
their desk and their cubbies and stuff like that
so we were very proud parents proud foster parents
you know absolutely all right well i want to
hit on one more topic before we go some closing
questions tacoma fd is obviously my profession
now that you guys found your ways in so i know
i don't know how involved are you in that project
and then again what's the origin story of choosing
that profession next Oh, funny. Yeah, that is
I'm not involved with Tacoma FD. That's Kevin
and Steve side project. So, yeah, that's their
solo album. And I think Kevin's uncle was a firefighter.
And so he's been a technical consultant on it,
if I'm not mistaken. But, yeah, that's sort of
a solo project, a solo record of Kevin and Steve.
But I do love it. You know, I obviously have
great admiration for firefighters out there for
all you guys do. So I hope that the comedy can
be a nice piece of levity for everybody. Absolutely.
I'm sure. All right. Well, then the first of
the closing questions, is there a book or are
there books that you love to recommend? It can
be related to our discussion today or completely
unrelated. I just finished a cool book on Monty
Python. Huge Monty Python fan. It's a book where
it's all interviews. And so on the jacket cover,
it says it's the closest thing to an autobiography.
It's called Monty Python Speaks. And so it's
just these paragraphs, these chunks of words
from each of the five. Well, Graham's not in
there because he passed away, but big chunks
of paragraphs from all the other four. And it
was great. I mean, it talks about from the very
beginning, how they started all the way to the
very end where they currently are. But it was
like 500 pages, very thorough. But I really thoroughly
enjoyed it. That's called Monty Python Speaks.
Have you crossed paths with any of the original
cast? Oh, I wish. No. No, they're in a different
world. I mean, at the end of the book, it was
talking about they were asked to do a show at
the, is it the O? Yeah, the O2 Arena, probably.
o2 arena and they were going to do one night
that sold out in like 48 seconds and they ended
up selling out how many people are in that arena
i mean it's where um the fa cup was i believe
it's used to be the millennium stadium so it's
it's a massive sports arena basically i'm afraid
i'll throw the wrong number out but it's gigantic
they sold out 10 nights in a row i mean the legacy
that that group has is incredible Did you watch
them growing up or? Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, because
I just loved it. I mean, I've always loved the
ridiculous humor as intelligent, ridiculous humor,
you know, not just crazy slapstick. But yeah,
I mean, they they were phenomenal. Just so British.
Like if you're a young British boy, I think a
lot of, you know, young British person. I think
a lot of us were just exposed to certain things
because there were only three channels when I
was growing up. So it wasn't like you flicked
through 100 cable channels. You know, you watched
Indiana Jones and Star Wars at Christmas. You
watched Monty Python. You watched all these things.
So, yeah, Benny Hill. So you were exposed to,
I think a lot of us were really just kind of
fed the same things through the TV. But, yeah,
Monty Python was absolutely as British as it
comes. Yeah, it's a great book. How about you?
What are you reading? I am actually trying to
write at the moment, so I'm not reading. I normally
read a lot, but I'm trying to write my second
book, which will be a fiction, which I hope in
a pipe dream that I can get it written well enough
to become a TV show or a film. Because there's
a message, there's multiple messages in there
that if articulated properly would... have people
thinking about stuff when they left maybe maybe
looking at people in their community differently
than before they walked in the cinema so that's
pretty much it so between the podcast and everything
else this massive library behind me i haven't
picked up any of them because i'm trying to actually
funnel the other way now for a bit admirable
so but we shall see we shall see um all right
well then the next question what about a movie
and or documentary that you love oh hmm I love
I'm really into music documentaries with Paul
Soder, my comedy group. We do a nacho and nacho
and movie night and we pick a band and we watch
a documentary about them. We make different type
of nachos. We haven't done that in a while, but
we had done several documentaries. The police.
I really, you know, a documentary I loved recently
was the Bee Gees. Have you seen the Bee Gees
documentary? I haven't. No, most of my docs recently
are on mental health or war or psychedelics.
So it tends to be themed. So educate me. It was
great. I don't know. I just went all the way
back to them. When they were in England back
in the 60s, people didn't realize that they were
as big as the Beatles. They sort of started as
this young pop group in the 60s. And then it
wasn't until later that they kind of became,
you know, icons in the disco world. But they
had a much... much more you know complex career
than people might expect didn't well i think
someone was telling me about this recently actually
wasn't there quite a dark mental health element
to their story as well i don't remember that
part as much yeah i believe i want to say if
you look in the history of you know that family
i think there was you know some some mental health
challenges and some real struggles as they went
through as well because i mean what do you think
when you see them performing it's all teeth and
smiles and high voices you know but i think actually
if you look the backstory a lot of them you know
had some pretty challenging childhoods from what
i understand yeah i i could see that i don't
know andy gibb obviously i think right something
happened to andy gibb which might have been involved
with that yeah yeah quite possibly okay well
then um But then also I was watching the Beatles.
The other great one I was watching was called
Get Back to the Beatles. It's like a marathon.
Who was it? Didn't someone, was it Oliver Stone
or someone just did a Beatles one not too long
ago? Peter Jackson. Oh, Peter, that's right.
Yeah. Was that the one you're talking about?
Yeah. Okay. It's eight hours. I think it's eight
hours. Okay. It's eight or 10, but I've been
on a Beatles kick recently. It's eight hours
of footage of them in a studio. It's fantastic.
Brilliant. Yeah, he did one, They Shall Never
Grow Old, They Shall Not Grow Old, where they
colorized the World War II, excuse me, World
War I footage and put background noises and got
actors to match the lip reading. You know, it
was incredible. But I mean, this is this grainy
old footage that they brought to life. And that
was Peter Jackson as well. I heard that was terrific.
It was amazing. I actually took my son to the
movie theater to watch that. That was a moment.
Yeah. All right. Well, the next question, is
there a person that you recommend to come on
this podcast as a guest to speak to the first
responders, military and associated professions
of the world? Like somebody I know or like? Yeah,
I mean, if you know them even better, if you
don't, then. I don't know. I wasn't expecting
that question, James. I'll have to think about
it. Somebody that would come on. Let me think
about it. Can I get back to you on that? Yeah,
absolutely. Just while you're thinking as well,
if Steve or Kevin would ever want to come, I
know Steve was on one of my friend's firefighter
magazines, Crackle. He did an interview for them.
To hear the Tacoma FD story and maybe some more
of the Broken Lizard story would be amazing.
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, those guys have
been just with that show. They write, showrun,
act, and edit. So trying to squeeze Broken Lizard
into their schedule, it's been a challenge. But
tonight we have a meeting, so we find ways to
make it work. And we shot a movie called Quasi
last fall that will be out at the beginning of
next year on Hulu. Fantastic. I'm looking forward
to that. All right. Well, then the last question
before we make sure everyone knows where to find
you and, you know, obviously the upcoming projects.
What do you do to decompress? Oh, I love exercise
in the morning. My routine is I get up and I
cook breakfast for the kids, drop them off at
school, and I love hitting the gym. 8 .30 and
9 .30, that's my sort of decompression. Then
I get to work after that, do a lot of landscaping,
try to get to the beach, have some of the most
beautiful beaches in the world here in Pensacola,
Florida. I'm trying to get there tomorrow. It's
going to be 94, as you know. Florida is probably
hot right now. Can I ask you a question? Yeah,
please. It's so freaking hot right now. It's
94 out there. I don't know what the heat index
is. But July, August, September in Florida, I
try barely to even go outside. And one of the
things I think about all the time is how in the
world is someone a firefighter in Florida? Honestly,
my entire career, I've been, I would like to
say, in very good physical shape. But it is the
heat that cripples me on fires and things because
our gear doesn't let us offset heat as well.
But I think it goes back to you on the ski slope
is it's not comfortable. And we're in this environment
now where, you know, I've got my AC on here at
75 and there's a roof. There's no sun in my eyes,
you know, but. You just have to be a firefighter
in Florida. It's just that simple. The same way
as you see those crazy pictures of the northeast
where they're flowing water and the hydrants
are all frozen and there's ice down on this burning
building, which makes no sense whatsoever. So,
yeah, I mean, I think that's the thing with the
fire services. It is uncomfortable. It's really,
really uncomfortable. And, you know, that's the
hard thing is like getting comfortable being
uncomfortable, as they say, like constantly putting
yourself in a bad place, having recovery days
and rest like you were saying with, you know,
100 days of P90X. You've got to have that downtime,
that deregulation. But if you're not going to
a horrible place, you know, ideally in gear,
but now this whole thing with the gear and the
cancer and everything. Finding some other way
to be brutally miserable in something similar
to gear. It's going to be a real rude awakening
if you have a prolonged structure fire or extrication
or something in the Florida heat because it's
horrible. And I worked either here or in California,
Southern California. So hot as hell, but just
dry heat. And I'm from England. I'm from a cold,
wet little island in the middle of the Atlantic.
So it's just one of those things you just have
to suck it up and constantly. maintain that level
of discomfort because as i am now once you retire
you know i've put the gear on a few times a fundraiser
and stuff but i'm always so glad that i don't
have to wear it anymore because i've gone away
from that discomfort now you have to be comfortable
being uncomfortable that's a great i love that
i'm gonna love that that might be something to
leave on it's it's something i've had to live
with my whole life Exactly. Maybe that's how
we all survive is we're comfortable being uncomfortable.
Well, and I think that discomfort, as you said
earlier in the interview, is... part of being
human i was talking to a retired police officer
yesterday um he was going through some food poisoning
stuff but he's a big holistic you know wellness
coach now and you know i was saying but that's
the problem is that people think that medications
whatever are going to stop you suffering like
suffering is part of the human experience and
it's okay to suffer and it builds some resilience
you don't want to suffer all the time and if
you can into that intelligently healthily minimize
some of the suffering great but when life is
so comfortable normally you have to you know
allow it go mow the grass in the middle of the
day in florida yeah it's going to be brutal and
you're going to be drenched in sweat but you're
going to be a little bit stronger from it versus
you just stay in your home and pay someone to
mow your grass for you yep yep it's that struggle
that uh allows us to grow our wings absolutely
well for people listening I'm sure they're looking
forward to the book when it comes out, obviously
learning about Quasi and Super Troopers 3 and
Tony's project. So where are the best places
online for people to find you on the web and
then on social media? Great. Yeah, I mostly probably,
well, I have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
So Eric Stolhansky, hard to spell, but if you
put it into Google, it mostly comes up. E -R
-I -K. Most people spell it C. E -R -I -K. Last
name is S -T -O -L -H -A -N -S -K -E. Swedish.
So, yeah. I'll post updates on Instagram, Facebook,
Twitter about all upcoming projects. Fantastic.
Well, and then your website is erikstorhanski
.com. Have I got that right? Dot net, I think.
Somebody had dot com. I think it's erikstorhanski
.net. And it kind of has my information on there,
but probably social media is where I update things
the most. It's probably the same a -hole that's
got BehindTheShield .com. Fuck that guy. It's
unbelievable they do that. Well, Eric, I want
to say thank you so much. It's been an amazing
conversation. It's such a diverse... area of
topics here from fostering to you know disabled
veterans and everything in between but as with
everyone that comes on here each of these stories
you know there's so much to pull from someone's
journey through life so i want to thank you for
being so generous and coming on the podcast today
thanks james great talking to you appreciate
it great interview