 I'm David Mickey Evans, I'm a screenwriter director. Talking to my friend Dante Luna, and I guess I'm best known for a movie called The Sandlock. Co-wrote it, directed it, and I narrated it. That's my voice on that picture. Seems like a lifetime ago, but it also seems like it was yesterday. It's based on an incident from my childhood when my little brother jumped over a fence on our block where we lived to get a baseball and a big dog, literally named Hercules, bit him. Bit him really bad. And a bunch of bullies on our street laughed at him because they thought that was real funny. And that incident just occurred to me one day as I was driving. And I said, man, that's a good movie, but who wants to see a movie about a bunch of bullies laughing at some poor little kid? And so, in a nutshell, I turned all the bullies into heroes. And sort of wrote itself after I figured that out. My name is Marshall Moore. I'm vice president of marketing and operations for Utah Film Studios. I'm also the co-chair for the 25th anniversary celebration of The Sandlock being filmed in Utah. And we're in the community of Glendale. It's an intimate neighborhood on the west side of Salt Lake. Sandlock was filmed here 26 years ago because they actually filmed the year before the movie was released. We're on a street called Navajo Street. And it's just a bunch of middle-class houses where these neighbors live. And this is kind of the area of the Sandlot. This is the only place you can really enter. So this is it, the Sandlot. You know what it is? It's a great place to do the movie for sure. It's kind of intimate, surrounded by homes, as you can see. But it's just a field. It's a field of weeds brought to life by the kids that played ball here in the movie. He's a little beast. He's a little beast. Yeah, he's a little beast. That's cool. Did you ever see the movie? Man, we just loved it. We just loved it. And I think a lot of people come by to take pictures of the Sandlot. Obviously, a lot. The original title of the script was The Boys of Summer. We thought it was a great title. But it turns out that a great sports writer by the name of Roger Kahn had a book called The Boys of Summer. So he ended up not being able to use that title. And then when we were editing it, me and Fox, the studio, went round and round with all sorts of different titles. And Simple was always better, most of the time. And so after we cut the picture together, the word and the name, The Sandlot, was mentioned a lot of times in the movie, The Boys of the Character, say it. So it just seemed like a no-brainer to call it The Sandlot. So for people who've never mentioned before, introduce yourself, what's your name? And where are we right now? Scott Evans. I am a 53-year-old grandfather of five, and we are standing on the original Sandlot set, the original Sandlot. This is where the movie was filmed. Baseball scenes. Can you tell me the story about when you went over to fence? You know, what exactly happened that day? So we were bullied as little kids because we were in a new neighborhood moving into a little area called Pacoima, California. About 15 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles. We just moved in and we were told to go out and make friends. So we walked out the door and there was a bunch of noise and kids sounded like they were having a great time way up the street to the left. So I went over there and my brother, Oddly, who's two and a half years older than me, so Oddly, he didn't go with me. He just went straight down the sidewalk. So the ball was pitched and I wasn't playing that particular game, but I was on the sidelines. So the ball was pitched, the ball was hit and the ball landed in the backyard, protected by a big dog. The actual dog was a German Shepherd, Dobermann, Pinscher mix. But at eight years old, everything looks big. So we all peeked over the wall and I said, I'll get it because that was the last ball we had. We were all poor and I was kind of being bullied. So I didn't, I said, I'll get it because I can save the day because once the ball is gone, the game is gone. So they laced their fingers together, boosted me up the wall. I landed in the backyard and the dog was chained up and the ball literally was about three inches from the dog's nose. But I said, well, the dog can't get it so the dog can't get me. Went over, I leaned with my right hand. I grabbed the ball, it was all slobbery, just like you saw in the movie. I turned around, all the guys were watching me and they saw what I didn't see. They saw the chain break and they screamed run and then they'd rocked out of sight. There was a tree, kind of like a Dr. Zeus, kind of weird crooked growing tree with a bottom branch cut off. So I ran for that tree. I planted my left foot in that tree. I reached up for the wall and the dog launched and grabbed me on the left leg. While I was stumbling home, somebody had gone and talked to my mom and told her what was happening. She drove up in the 1972 VW van, white on beige, sliding doors open and into the van and up to the hospital. What's up? My name's Patrick Renna. I play ham porter in the sandlot. Thank you, Vic. That's Victor Damadia. He plays Timmy Timmons. What do we got? We got Grant Gell. We got Shane O'Bizinski. We got Marty York. We got Will Hornef. We got Brandon Adams. We got the whole gang here. Did I miss someone? Oh, you're killing me small as I forgot you. I'm sorry. We got Tom Geiery. Only the star of the movie, the star of the sandlot. One of the most famous lines ever uttered in movie history, right? Yeah. By the great Hambeano to this guy right here 25 minutes ago. You know what it was? One, two, three. You're killing me small. How many times a day do you hear that? I like it when everyone says it. That's really cool, man. I hear it a lot now. 25 years celebrating here at the VW. I'm about to throw this heater out there, Simba heater. I'm like, I don't even go in front. I don't even go in front. It's going to be lukewarm. Long as I don't have 50 cent it, shut out to 50. It's important. You don't need one. No, just play. I don't know. This is for. We decided not to shoot at Los Angeles, which is sort of where it took place in the Northeastern San Fernando Valley because it was too expensive. Traffic, this, that, and the other thing. The only other place in the world that looks like the Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley, which has purple mountains all around it, is Salt Lake City, Utah. It's at a higher elevation. In the San Fernando, they have the Sangre Garnio Mountains that go all the way around and up to the Sierras. But in Salt Lake City, it's called the Wasatch Mountains. So we said, all right, let's go there. Plus, it was a right to work state. People have a great work ethic. It was less expensive to shoot it there. So we did a bunch of location scouting there. Looked at a bunch of elementary schools. Didn't feel right. Then we went and looked at a bunch of little league fields, which was, eh, it was better, but still not. And my production designer, Chester Kaczynski, goes, we just got to find some place and build this. And we'll look around the older sections of Salt Lake and see if we can find some land that has some older 50s or 60s looking homes. And he found that in no time. The reason that is still there, and it probably always will be, is because that little couple of acres of land is owned in concert with all the homeowners around there. For some reason, they all have a piece of that land. But nobody ever did anything with it. So we made a deal with them. There was no tree there. There was no houses, no Timmins house. So everything you see, we built. The Timmins house, the backyard, the fences, the foam poles that you see, the sand lot, Mr. Myrtle's house, all that stuff we built. I'm Jackie Nielsen, and this is my home. And this is where the sand lot was shot partially. And Benny, the jet lived in my house. And he was very enjoyable. We found that block, and all those houses had that, you know, 50s suburban three plus two ranch house vibe. So it was pretty easy to make that decision. Plus those houses are catty cornered each other. So filmically, it worked perfect. I think we shot there for about a week or something. The house that you see that Scotty is sitting outside of is not the house we shot the interiors in though. The interiors were shot in a house down the street because it had a better layout for us or whatnot. And I don't think we ever went into, there was actually a scene in the original script written for the boys to be at Benny's house watching a Dodger game or something like that. And they see Murray Will's steel base and all that. But we never got around to it. We had to cut it out. And Mike Vitar, Benny, look, there's a little something nobody really knows. When my little brother and I, we got beat up at home. We got bullied and beat up on the way to school. We got beat up at school. We got beat up on the way back from school. And then we went home and got beat up, okay? And that's the way it was. In the early 70s when we lived in the San Fernando Valley, Sandlot takes place in 62 for an entirely different reason, but 72 when we were growing up, we were two of the only little Caucasian kids in a three or four block area, okay? Most of the kids were Chicano and where we went to elementary school and junior high, same thing. When we wrote the script, when I re-imagined that idea and I said I turned all of those bullies from my childhood into heroes, he became a really important character and figure for me because he's the hero, you know? But he's sort of ethically, the guys that treated me very badly, that was a very cathartic thing for me. I got over a lot of hatred. I mean, those guys man up in my early adulthood, they were taking up a lot of space in my head, and that was a way for me to forgive them, I don't ever forget them. Forgive them, get on with it and turn my bullies into this one legendary hero. Not quite sure what Freud would say about that, but I really don't care, you know? But Mike, listen, Mike was, yes, he was as good looking in person as he is in the movie. He's really blessed. He's a beautiful human being and he did all his own stunts, all his own, except for jumping off the fence, that was a stuntman, but everything else he did and every baseball he hit in that movie, he actually hit that ball. He was really that good. I mean, if he had played baseball through college or whatever, I bet you he could have made the majors. And he, in real life, an off-camera was, and this was a blessing for a director as well, he really was kind of the boss, the general of all the guys. They all looked up to him, you know? And they all became fast friends. So yeah, and he was the very first kid of thousands and thousands that I ever interviewed in that movie. He was the very first kid I ever saw. There's been some movies over time that have been filmed in Utah, but not a lot of them where people were able to really identify with and say, wow, that was, you know, that's homegrown here and that's up to the Sandlot and it's become really kind of a cult classic film. And having that, you know, some of the quotes and things in the movie, Sandlot, obviously you still hear people saying today, you know, you're killing me smalls or whatever it may be from the film. And you know, it's something that really, we take a lot of pride in. You know, I also found out later after several years after the film came out that the, I guess the swimming pool in the film was filmed at Lauren Farr Park, which is my great-great-grandfather. It was Lauren Farr, and so it was named after him. And so they have a little bit of association with it that way, too. Ah, Wendy. Marley was, first of all, she was a total pro. I think she was 17 or 18 when we made the picture. And I never told the guys who was gonna play Wendy Pfefferkorn, and I never let them see a picture or introduce them. Told the day we shot, that stopped it. So when you see, when you see Chauncey, you know, you see her walking down the street, and that's pretty much the first time he saw her. And then she was a total trooper, totally professional, totally game to, you know, ham it up with the ocean and the oil and all that. Absolute pro, she's had a tremendous career. And I think, I think if memory serves, Chauncey was like really, really nervous for weeks about doing that scene. He constantly badgering, like, we're gonna do that scene now? You know, when I kiss a lot of the guards, so what do you think we're gonna do that scene today, Mr. Evans? So we're gonna do it tomorrow, we're gonna do that scene? He goes on and on and on, and finally the day arrives and I go, all right, listen, you know, we're gonna do that scene. So I took him aside and I said, and I can tell he was just, you know, crapping himself, he was so nervous, but he's really anxious to do it. I said, dude, I have one direction for you. I said, you keep your tongue in your mouth, pal. He's like, oh yeah, yeah, I know, I know, man. He's trying to pretend he's cool. So they do it, we got it in the first take, you know, and it just was pitch perfect. The timing was perfect. And that little dude goes, I don't know, Dave, can we do another one? You know, the way we shot it, it just felt very realistic as if we were, I was really a lifeguard at a local swimming pool and Chauncey and the rest of those guys are such good actors. And I remember we only got one shot to do the dive because then I would be stopping wet and we'd take forever to get dry. And when I watched the movie, I laughed because it's like the worst dive my legs are. It's not a very pretty dive, but you know, I did rescue the kid. It's incredible to see the legacy that it's left and how people just have really embraced this movie and it seems to just stand the test of time and it's just an honor to be a part of it. It was cold, really, really cold, extremely cold. That's why I'm shivering. I remember being excited and nervous and waiting for that kiss for all my life up to that point, right? You know, normally I don't wear glasses. I have perfect vision, but the effect of squints is missed without the glasses. I mean, it's like such an iconic thing. So I put them on for the fans, for the pictures because just seeing me with the glasses in the hat like makes it all different, you know? They get to smile and have that moment and that's what it's all about. Hey, what's up man? Dude, I love this board. Can you go above? I want this board. You go above your name. The nickname is kind of watch the other names on there because the paint's not dry. Oh, yeah. You should be good, yeah, you should be. Those ones were signed. It's the official DGK Dirty Ghetto Kids Sandlot deck. It's special to me because I have skateboarded pretty much my whole life and baseball is my favorite sport, so two and two. Goes hand in hand. We drove from Rochester, New York, so six hours away when up, down, up, down on the pattern in there to kind of keep it even. So just got to get Benny the jet at some point and it's gonna be complete. Start it off. Anywhere? Anywhere. What up, Marshall? How are you, man? Good to see you. What's your name, bud? Niko. Niko? I like that. That's a good name. You are, you look just like me. Yeah. Oh, he's got the PF Flyers on. I got mine on, too. That's right, yeah. The PF Flyers are like this, man. When we were kids, we were very poor. Poorer than most of the other kids we knew and in school and all that. I mean, you know, we just, we struggled. And we never had really nice shoes. I mean, we had like, there was like a store like White Front, which is sort of like the target of its day, but really down low, down rent, man. You know? And we would go, if we could afford it, if my own mom could afford it, to get school shoes for the, you know, you'll get a couple of shirts, a couple of jeans, whatever. And we always had to get those, you know, $2.99, plain wrap, tennis shoes, you know, which wore out like a month, but then we'd have to tape them up and wear them anyway and stuff. And I always remembered hearing and seeing on TV during cartoons and whatnot, PF Flyers, you know, shoes guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher. And dude, we believed that. We literally believed that if we ever got a pair of PF Flyers, we would run faster than anyone. We'd live with them like magic, like magic shoes. And I do not believe that we ever actually got a pair. Might have gotten a pair of Chuck Taylor's, but usually it was just the cheapest things we could find. So when it came time for Benny to jump that fence, this is the only piece of childhood he's taking with him. Because that fence and the sandlot is a metaphor, is the metaphorical dividing line between childhood and adulthood, right? So when he leaves the sandlot and jumps over that fence, he's taking on an obligation and responsibility and all that stuff that comes with having to grow up, right? But this is the only piece of childhood he takes with him. Are these shoes guaranteed to make a kid run faster and jump higher? So it was a no-brainer, you know? Because Chuck Taylor's were cool back in the day, but they weren't like these. These. These were the best ones. We've gotta get a cookie knife. Do you have a very rough- We've gotta get the program rolling. Oh God. How do you do this? It wasn't. What is there to do with this? It's ice. Related to the army, it's not the best thing we've ever done. he just found him It comes the sun, I'm sick. It's alright. It comes the sun, here comes the sun. I'm sick. It's alright. You know them as their characters? And maybe as their actor names, but I'll introduce them as they come up. First let's have Pat Renna. That's here for Pat Renna. Hamilton Porter, the great handbino. Okay, next in line there. Grant Gelt. Bertrand. Bertrand Grover Weeks. Big Chief, the best. We got him. Next in line we have Brandon Adams. Danunez. He can throw the heater. He still can't, he threw one last night at the bees game. If you guys were there. Alright, here's the dark horse in our favorite Sandlot character. Cast character is Marty York. Yeah, yeah. That's here for Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, he looks pretty crappy. He looks pretty good, but you know what I'm talking about. The guy with the glasses is next. Let's give it up for Chauncey Leopardi. He just came in today. Glad to have him. He was here five years ago as well. You guys have to come up together. They're brothers. You know them as Timmy and Tommy Timmons. Timmy and Tommy repeat Timmons. Victor Damadia and Shane Obidzinski. They travel everywhere together. And now I got to be honest. I'm pretty excited about this one. I said I did not want to do this event unless this guy came. Five years ago we wanted him to come. We didn't work it out. Probably our fault, not his. But he's here with us tonight. He was probably the most asked about where is so and so when he wasn't here. But I said, guys, at the top of our this this year to bring back along with the guys that came before is Tom Guyry. Smalls. Some call him the star of the movie. Let's give it up for Tom Guyry. Scottie Smalls. You're killing me, right? Shane Obidzinski. I play Tommy repeat Timmons. What do you remember about being casted for this film? It was actually kind of a, I don't want to say a nightmare, but I live in central Florida. So we, Miami is about a four hour drive. We drove to Miami to audition. When we got back, this is the day of fax machines and like, you know, voice machines. So we got back with a fax waiting for us on the machine that said we got a callback. So I don't even think we unpacked. We just turned around and drove back to Miami. I remember a 30 second audition, if not less. So I felt awful. Came back home, heard nothing for two weeks. Then I got a phone call that said, your ticket's in the mail, you're going to California. And the rest is history. Shane. Shane Obidzinski, he was the smallest littlest kid in the cast. And I think he was only 10 or 11. Might have turned 11 as we were shooting the movie. So the other guys were, you know, there's a big difference between 10 and 11 and 12 and 13, you know, hormones and all that sort of thing. I really never had to say much to Shane. It was so scary, dude. You know, Tommy's going to say something and you repeat it. And he just had a great sense of comic timing. He was a sweet, sweet kid. And he is to this day, he's sweet as pie. And I mean that in a really, really complimentary way. In the beginning, we were all trying out for different roles. They were trying to figure out who was going to play who. And there was an age difference originally. They wanted younger kids and they fired all these young kids. They got older kids. It was bizarre. Originally I was reading for Tommy. I'm sorry. Oh yeah, it's small, smalls. And we tried that for a little bit and it didn't work. And then repeat came along and that's what they thought it was best for. And honestly, that was the easiest for me because it was an easy script. But it was good because I was the youngest, the shortest. And that's the role I needed to fill to make the movie. So it was a pleasure. What do you remember about stepping on this field for the first time? Right back here where you can't... Yeah, you can't see. That was my house. That was the Timmins house right here. And right behind me directly was where Mr. Myrtle's house was. So when we stepped on the field, I believe we came up from behind the first home base. There was an alley over here and I can't see. I'm pointing. And we walked up and we're like, oh, this is pretty cool. And there's these houses and they looked real. We were like, this is where we're going to spend our summer. This is pretty cool. The crazy part is when you come back here 20 years later and then 25 years later and see what it's turned into. And that's when you get the goosebumps. And that's when you make sure your glasses are on so no one knows you're tearing up. Victor, he's another guy that hasn't changed much. That kid had the greatest smile. And he was always, he just like, I'm sure he's had a life like the rest of us, but man, he just seems to coast. You know, he's just got one of those like perennially, it's like in his jeans, he's always happy and smiling, you know? So he was always a pleasure to be around. He is to this day, he's like that. They interview kids from all over the country, man. So, I mean, it was intense. We did several rounds of callbacks and stuff. And then we, they had us out there playing baseball and everything. It was wild. Just the fact that 25 years later, I mean, it's what you hope for as an actor, you know, that you do something that's going to sustain this long resonate with people. It's really amazing. It's, you know, it's very humbling that we get so much love everywhere we go and, you know, fans just come out and line up and wait hours just to, you know, get an autograph or a picture. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's everything that you want to do as an actor. I remember the first time I'm going in the tree house and that was really cool and all the old toys from the period from the 60s and all that kind of stuff. I mean, that was cool. I remember that for sure. The tree is an interesting story because we had absolutely no idea where the hell we were going to get a tree. We need a really big old oak tree, you know, like 100 years old, 200 years old, something like that. And to buy something like that was many hundreds of thousands of dollars because, you know, it was a 200-year-old specimen tree, right? We had no money like that. And weirdly enough, this is one of these really amazing, you know, kismet moments that happened on that show is Chester was coming to work one day early in the morning and he's going by a big house that had been built 150, 200 years ago or something, this really old historic home by some Mormon pioneers in Salt Lake. And then there's this giant oak tree next to it, like really close to the house and a man was out there starting up a chainsaw. He's going to cut it down, right? This historic oak. And so Chester hit the brakes in the car, runs up and goes, excuse me, excuse me, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm cutting down his tree. You know, it's been here for, you know, however many 150 years and it's messing up the foundation of my house. And Chester goes, can I have it? He goes, what, the tree? And the guy goes, yeah, just get it out of here. He goes, well, I'll be back, you know, a few days. So we had to go get two and connect them together, put flatbed trailers and a big old, you know, truck, a semi rig called the phone company and the power company and they'd had to take the phone and power lines off the streets that we were going through to get to the sandlot with this gigantic crane. So they did all that for us. And we got a big crane. We dug a gigantic hole and put something like, oh my God, it must have been 15, 20 cubic yards of cement in the ground to hold this thing up. And then they took every leaf off that tree and put on millions and millions of silk leaves so that it would stay green for the entire time that we were shooting the movie. And then around that they built the tree house and stuff. A lot of stuff like that happened on that movie, man. Great vacuum cleaner explosion of 1993. I just remember they had like three different makeup artists putting dirt and, you know, it was powder, right? Makeup powder, all the different colors mixed together to look like a dirt kind of thing. And they were stuffing it in my pockets and just, you know, anywhere they could get it so that every time I took a step there would be that big cloud, you know, coming out and it worked, it came across and it looked really good but it was miserable getting all that stuff clean. Tommy Gehry. Tommy Gehry, look, first of all, I'm just saying this up front, every one of these guys is a solid young man and they're 30 something now. But I mean, when we worked together way back in the day they were all an absolute blast to work with. They were well-behaved when they needed to be well-behaved but they were all 12 and 13 so, you know, it was like hurting squirrels, you know, sometimes. But Tommy, the thing with Tommy is that when... he was not the goof or dork that Scotty Smalls is. When that kid was like a black belt in karate in 1992, okay? He was tough as nails, he was from Jay-Z, you know? You wouldn't want to mess with him. But he was such a good listener and a good actor that he played a dork really well. No way! Did you get that hat? That's the coolest, man. That's an awesome hat. That's insane, dude. Now you know where to get it. Can I put it on? Oh, no, no, no. Oh, my God. Welcome back. I'm back, baby. Trout. This looks more like a... Yeah, it's a trout. In the early 70s, my little brother and I was probably maybe 10 years old, he was probably 8, maybe 9 and 11, 10 and 8, right around in there. So it must have been about 1972, 73, something like that. We lived in the northeastern San Fernando Valley, but all of our cousins and aunts and uncles, our paternal grandparents, lived back in Pennsylvania and in New Jersey in Point Pleasant, which is a... Well, at the time, I haven't been there in many, many, many years, but it was this really cool right on the ocean and they had canals, you know, where you have houses with a boat dock and stuff like that, like here in Florida. And when we went there, our grandfather was pretty old at the time. He had a little boat, you know, maybe like a little 20-foot dayrunner boat. My brother and I were there and our cousin, Evan, and I think his little sister. But anyway, and my mom drove us back there all the way across country in a 1972 VW bus with a 200-pound Saint Bernard. Okay? It was hysterical. We camped at KOA campgrounds and all that. We had no time to get there because those old VWs don't go very fast. The point of the matter is when we got there, our grandfather got us, me and my brother and our cousin, all these super long-billed fishing caps and they had these like little trouts or snappers or whatever they were on there. And we just thought we were, you know, fricking Hemingway, man. We were going to go out and catch marlin and all that kind of crap. And we never took these off and we had them forever. And we caught some fish. We caught a lot of flounder, you know, just bottom feeders and stuff like that. Big ones. And that was one of the best memories my brother and I have of our childhood. And so it's not said in the sandlot, but Scotty's supposed to have moved to the valley from, you know, either Pennsylvania or New Jersey, whatever. So when the time came to talk about his costuming, Grania Preston, my costume designer, I told her that story and I said, you got to find me a long-billed fishing cap and I want you to put a trout on that thing. So that when he goes to the sandlot and everybody else has got like Boston, KC, LA, he's got a freaking trout, you know. And, you know, that became a big deal, man. A lot of people loved it. My name is Tommy Gehry. I played Scotty Smalls in the sandlot. It was a big process. I mean, they were going through a lot of different people. And I think I didn't make the first cut on the screen test, but they brought me back in. And then after my second screen test, I got the part. What do you remember about stepping foot on the field for the first time? I remember thinking it was so big. It was huge. And now coming back as an adult, it doesn't look as big as it was, but it brought back a lot of memories, you know. And it was kind of surreal coming back after 25 years. I don't think we ever thought that we, you know, we never thought that this movie was going to make the kind of impact that it made. I love the character of Smalls. He's a lot different than me. He's a little bit more timid, a little bit more shy, a little bit more scared. Always thinking about, he's the kind of person who thinks before he says things and thinks before he does things, well, I tend to not do that sometimes. Well, I stuck with acting. I've done a lot of films. From the age 18 to my mid-20s, I did a lot of films. But being an actor, there's never any peace of mind. You never know when you're going to get your next paycheck. So it's kind of like a roller coaster. It goes up and then it goes down. So you just kind of ride it out and hopefully get more work. I love doing it. So I'm in for the long haul. I'm in for the ride. I just like doing the work. But I still have to feed my kids and pay mortgage payments. So I always find something to do to feed my kids and pay the mortgage. Marty, you know, contrary to what Marty is now, because he's a big beast of a guy, he was this little skinny kid and he had a lot of quirky things, like a funny laugh. And that wasn't in the script, but I used everything I could that came natural for him. And he did great. And he loved being his own stunt. My name is Marty York. I play Yaya. I was casting a Sandlot back in 1992 after I moved here from Sacramento, California. And I was originally cast as Bertram. So I was cast as another character in the film, who was a tall skinny kid in the movie. He actually came to me during practice when we were practicing baseball. And they said, hey, you don't really fit the part of Bertram. We want you to reread for this other character called Yaya. So it was a bear character in the film. I read this whole script and I was like, all right, yeah. So they said, you need to bring energy to the table. So I remember I walked into the office, the producer, the director, David Mickey Evans was there. He said, they said, you need to bring energy to this. So my mom, I remember my mom gave me a Hershey's bar before I walked in to go in there, get some energy, get some sugar in your system. So I walked in the room. And by the time I was done with my audition, the director, actually the producer, everyone stood up, started clapping. And I was like, I knew I was Yaya at that point. What I remember as stepping on the field was just, I mean, when you're a kid, everything's huge. So like, I remember seeing this field as a huge field. I think the coolest thing about stepping on the field was the treehouse because that was already built. So that treehouse that you see in the movie, part of that was the soundstage when he's telling the story of the beast. But the actual treehouse in the movie that you see that explodes, that was actually filmed right here. And they built a two-story, no, it was about a three-story treehouse that had poles you could slide down. And so I spent all my time up there, you know, sliding down the poles and it had pulleys and it had all this cool stuff attached to it. So that was like one of the funnest parts of doing that. When you come back over the fence after trying to get the ball from the beast and you drop it, first of all, you blew it and you had it in your hand and you dropped it. But anyway, then you do the lips thing. Was that a bad lip? Yeah. What was the decision? Was that in the script or did you just do that? That wasn't in the script. Actually, I used to watch Bugs Bunny cartoons when I was a kid. And every time, you know, Bugs Bunny would run away, he'd go... So I threw that in there and David was like, what was that? That's not in the script. And I said, he said, but I like it. And they'd be in the movie. It was hilarious. Bertram, he was gung-ho the whole time. Grant was so good. And he was one of those kids that, the character didn't have too many lines, but we just found things for him to say. And I just throw it, as the camera's rolling, throw it at him and he just, he'd feed it back really great. He was a stand-up guy. They're all stand-up. What I really remember was not being cast in the movie. I auditioned for the role of Smalls and then didn't hear anything back for months and months and months. Then I got a call to come in and reread for Bertram and within three days I was cast on a plane to Salt Lake City. So I remember not getting it and then showing up here. And the movie's really special, man. It's a big part of American pop culture. What's your relationship with the character after 25 years? What's your relationship with Bertram? You know, I think my relationship with Bertram is the fact that without realizing it, I am Bertram. I think that was part of the magic of the movie is that we are these kids. And David, the director, had characters in mind but he picked the kids, not the characters, I think. So now going back and watching the film as an adult, I'm seeing a lot of my own traits in this, like re-looking at Bertram. So it's pretty interesting to go back and look at it now. What was your favorite part to shoot this movie? Well, the whole thing was incredible. It was really just like summer camp for all of us, running around on this field all summer long, playing baseball, giving each other a hard time. But I think a favorite scene to film was either the Fourth of July sequence being out here under the lights or the Carnival sequence celebrating the win against those terrible tigers. So my little brother, my little brother when he was about four, we watched the Sandlot so much that we went to church and the primary teacher in church pulled out a big pack of chewing gum and at four years old he said, Cha! In church! The guy was like, what is going on? But I closed my toys. Yeah, bad influence. I'm sorry about that. After I left acting, I'd always had a deep love for music but was never committed enough to be a musician. So being on the business side of music, being able to work with artists, represent artists, help them deliver their creative and bring their vision out into the world has been a really special thing. And I think growing up on the other side of the camera has really allowed me to connect with artists in a way that I probably wouldn't have been able to before. Brandon Adams. You know, of all the guys from how they were in their personalities when they were kids to they are now, I think Brandon is the one who's changed the least. He was super polite and very cool, very easy going man. And I've hung around with him in the last few years on these tours, the dude is still really cool and really easy going. He's got a great sense of humor. My name is Brandon Adams and I play Kenny De Nunes. I was one of the last ones cast. I don't think it was too many other guys up for my part. So I kind of had an easy way up in there. But then they took us all and put us together. They had different groups of guys just to see how they meshed together and turned out to be us. I didn't do too much pitching after the film man but it was cool just learning about that position, you know what I mean? And training to do that every day, the regiment that I had to do because I was no pitcher bro. But you know, they put me in there. I almost broke a couple cameras but you know, I came out of, we did a whole baseball training camp. Then we came up here man and we just took the field. I just took the mound man. It was all fun, no work, you know? I mean De Nunes, you know, it's the part that I play but I feel like every part that you do play is the little part of you too. And that's definitely something that I'm carrying with me even 25 years later. You know, people love the movie. I'm glad to see that it's transcended generations, you know, from one on down to the next. And man, I'm just, I feel blessed to be a part of it, you know? This particular shot, some of this I think is, this photo, well it wasn't photoshopped at the time but compiled, if you will. But it looks really good. It always did look good. I mean I really liked it. The marketing department at Fox is I've worked for every studio in Hollywood and they really do have, if not the best, one of the best marketing departments and they mocked this up for me and I loved it because, you know, he is the neighborhood legend, and these are all his buddies and they're all holding him up and even though these are the two heroes that are protagonists of the movie, I mean, this is the guy that becomes the legend, sort of, you know, like Babe Ruth was the legend. So I like this a lot. The original theatrical motion picture in the theater's poster was different. It was just a blue background that said the sandlot had a big baseball bat and all the kid's hands holding the baseball bat. Remember doing that when you were a kid, right? It was the Beast Paw. That is, in my mind, one of the best movie posters in the history of mankind. This one really resonates with the people because that's all the guys that people love about this film. I mean, it was smart, simple, no brainer, put them all on the thing and they're all cheering and laughing and, you know, it just tells you, you're gonna watch this movie, you're gonna have a good time, come away feeling good. It has been great being back here but I gotta be honest, there's one thing that's kind of ruined in the moment for me. I don't know if you guys know but there's a certain someone that was here 25 years ago. He wasn't invited then and he's not invited now. He might go by the name of... Do you want to say it? He might go by the name of Phillips. Where are you, tough guy? I haven't seen you in 25 years. You look good, man. Thank you. Really? Have you been working out? A little bit. Maybe three days a week. What about you? God, it's so good. Let's fuck this out. I love you. Phillips, everybody! Will Hornef is Phillips, yeah, I remember Will. He came in and just killed it, you know. I didn't have to tell him much of anything. Will was a sweet kid and he really got into that cuss out. My name's Will Hornef and I played the bully, the leader of the rich team Phillips in the Sandline. One of the games I never auditioned for I actually got the part in another film called A Far Off Place that they went older in the rules and so kind of like as a consolation they said, hey, you want to do this film called The Sandlot and I was like, sure. Did I know it turned out to be a classic film? How long did it take you guys to make that scene? That one iconic scene that everyone knows every word to? About a week? Yeah, it was a week. We were cracking each other up. You know what's funny about that scene was originally it was written for Benny. He was supposed to face off with Will, with Phillips but I think because we had already filmed the movie we were already about probably halfway through or something. Benny sort of became this legend already and he was like, you know, the hero so I don't think the director wanted the hero to say butt sniffer, you know. So he said, you know who could say butt sniffer? Him. You know, at that point in my life I was a bit scrawny for my age when I was small and short and I had my share of bullies so I just kind of just drew from all the experiences that I had because and everybody had that kind of person in their life and I just kind of said, hey, let me just do the best job kind of imitating that and I just went out there and just did you know, I guess my I kind of drew from all my own experiences being a short scrawny kid and having like that bully guy come up to you and trash talk you and give you problems and it was just a blast coming out there I was 12 years old I think and I remember coming here and seeing this field that you just see nothing and you walked down this kind of alley and all of a sudden it opens up into this amazing sandlot field and seeing all the guys together, joking around and I remember getting there and shooting had already been going on for a while and just them kind of being extremely friendly to me, welcoming me and just kind of felt like part of the team even though I was on the other team and it was just so great because at that period it was a great community and a great sense of community on the set and a great part in history for all of us and it was just a real blast seeing the kind of camaraderie everybody had between the guys on the team and even us, the guys on the other team as well if you could have one prop from the movie or maybe you guys did take a prop to keep it but if you could keep one prop over to me easy, my KC Monarch hat that was a baller hat in KC Monarch I don't know what happened to that hat that's vintage, that's like $85 right now if you go and buy that thing I'm not kidding that the vintage look is back and that would have made that would have been good but I wish I could find that one the one you actually use what about you? I actually got to keep my LA hat did you really? and I've got that somewhere but I think if I could go back I would have to keep that bag a big cheap the best because it's the best, right? Patrick I probably want to find that s'more the half eaten s'more and frame it get Tom to sign it I think I ate it bro you ate the whole thing? because they're good aren't they when you finally figured it out they're really good I know I kept the harness that I went over the fence with, they lifted me I actually have that in my mom's house it's a fiberglass harness for real, that's terrific glasses I don't have them and I need to I have them yeah I stole them and I'm not giving them back they're not worth $85 they're worth like $85,000 I admit that you don't I kept one of the vacuum cleaners that blew up from the great vacuum cleaner explosion in 1993 I don't work here I wish I would have kept my glove it was cool, it was like a vintage 60's air glove how about you Shane? I wish I could have kept some of the clothes not because I could still wear them everyone asked me about the clothes the costumes we wore back then so having some of those would be really cool I actually do have some of the leaves from the tree that the tree house was in, they're in my kitchen so those are pretty cool Tom? I want my trout cap back it's in the Louisville Slugger Museum I want it back I think we're all going to dress in black and break into the Louisville Slugger Museum the Sandlot 4 we're going to steal back the trout cap I need it this is the product for that every year Will? I like the swims I want my bike, that would be great you know I met someone the other day that said they owned your bike they actually they bought it and they have it what a cool thing to own we messed up, we didn't steal enough stuff in the set Pat Renna Pat was my go-to guy like I said in the interview that scene when he's catching against the Little League players and he's razzing them all that's all ad-lib I would think that up as the cameras rolling and fire it at him and he'd fire it right back anytime I had an issue like oh man I don't know I got a piece of trouble I don't know what to do bring me Pat my name is Patrick Renna and I played Hamilton Porter in the Sandlot when I got cast in the movie everyone else had actually already been cast I was the last one or the second to last, one of the last but it was so fast they were ready to shoot so I just had one audition with the director and the next day I got a call saying he wants me to meet all the other guys so they kind of said don't think that you have it because you don't yet but as long as you get along with all the other guys then the job's yours I had to muscle him in to be nice to me I guess I feel like everyone's got a little ham in them right I think even myself I have a little of that ham character in the loud mouth show off or whatever the first scene that we shot was the pickle scene at school so I remember that scene very well but I don't really remember the first time coming on the Sandlot probably because we spent so much time on the Sandlot that it's all a bit of a blur there's not like one moment but I do remember coming back 25 years later and that's pretty awesome Can I take a picture of you? Yes you can buddy Come on up One super fan here that has a question we need Will Curtis Helmick to come up here This question is actually for my girlfriend Leslie I love you more than what this can say right now Leslie will you marry me I think that's a yes I've probably seen more Sandlot fan art than anybody in the world and I mean everything from people getting squints when he's grinning tattoos another guy had a Bambino one guy just sent me one the other day on Facebook where he got heroes get remembered but legends never die on his forearm it never ends man it's a phenomenon I could not be more grateful This one I'm just putting a name on I don't want to mess it up Sandlot's been called a lot of things and this is not me talking about it you name it the relate great Roger Ebert the greatest baseball movie ever made it's been called the best summer movie of all time and another one that I only recently found out about it was voted not sure where this was but it was a big deal the most American movie ever made not the best movie ever made in America the best American movie ever made is about the flex to have that somebody say that is kind of astounding because there's what America means and then there's what America means to everybody and everybody individually so what is that opportunity you know the Sandlot's from a simpler time there was good and bad and whatnot but that it's dude got into the theaters I couldn't believe it and everything after that was gravy you know it blew through the VHS days and then it just blew up even bigger the DVD days and now I'm streaming and all that and now I get to get to make a prequel to it it takes place in 1950 it's a it's certainly its own little franchise but there's never any way to know that when you're doing it you know I made this movie for me you know and it turns out for whatever reason and I don't question it if I like it seems like other people you know whatever I do whatever I write whatever I end up liking it seems like other people end up liking it so I'm blessed that way but that it's endured and that it means so much to so many people I've been told thousands and thousands of times there's one lady in Arkansas at a triple-a park when during the 20th anniversary she had her three boys with her they're probably like 12 9 and 7 something like that you know young young guys they all had the baseball Mets and their baseball Mets and stuff and she was almost in tears and she said I waited a long time to tell you this and sign all their stuff and she says it's not just a movie and I'm saying okay I get a lot of this Mr. Evans you don't understand okay what don't I understand right and she says it's not just a movie my kids grew up with them the characters and the characters are like their brothers that taught them all the good lessons they needed to know I don't know I don't know what other directors or writers get but I can't imagine anything better than that. Working with David was fantastic and he had a lot on his plate when we're making this film. I know even personally I never knew but his newborn was very sick and he had to fly back and forth from California to Utah and then he's trying to wrangle nine kids you know nine 11 year old kids it was just a lot you know directing the film and trying to druggle everything and he knocked it out of the park man I mean he did a great job he's a very talented writer a very patient guy and he worked so well I mean even as a kid even being my first movie he worked really well and it's if you get a director that can work well with actors it it's fantastic and he as a as a child actor it's you know it's hard sometimes it's can get hard as a director to get what you want out of the child actor but he he was able to do it and he was able to explain it and talk to you I just think he was probably one of the most talented guys around. He's a genius and you know we obviously the cast has a little bit to do with it and we did a good job but he really has the most he can you know share in the most accolades for it because this is his movie and he's the man and you know just even talking to him and he's a genius and he's brilliant and he he really captured he captured something special that means a lot to people so that's awesome. When Walt Disney built Disneyland everybody in the world wanted to go there okay and people think he was born and raised in Marceline Missouri and he wasn't he only lived there for a very short time during his childhood and it was this little main street you know town early 1900s all that lived on a farm and all that sort of thing when he built Disneyland he built Main Street USA and there's a lot of influences from that little town's Main Street and somebody was walking with them some big dignitary from another country I can't remember who it was and he says well Mr. Disney as he's looking you know the shops and you know the architecture from the early 1900s you got it this is just the way it was and Disney said no it's not it's the way it should have been and for me that's the Sandlot it'll always mean that to me is that's not the way my childhood was to my childhood was really really bad rough you know but I you know look as an artist I think you'll agree we have a time machine you know whether that's a piece of paper in a pencil or a computer or whatever I can change history and I did and I did it for the better you know I'm not saying I don't want to remember my childhood I remember every second of it I wish it had been different and I got the great blessing and the great opportunity to go actually remake it you know so it'll always mean that to me all truth