Once We Were Spacemen

Adam Baldwin has stories from a career that includes My Bodyguard, The Patriot, and a little show called Firefly. There’s also a Stanley Kubrick scene that vanished in a cloud of smoke, the lessons learned from working alongside Hollywood legends, and the art of stealing a scene… turns out, it helps to have a little clown in you. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Listen...

Need to command authority? Try changing your outfit. A tie can transform a classroom and a black uniform can turn a police officer into a soldier... Elsewhere, Alan has a hotel-room standoff with a very persistent sausage and Nathan recounts a scooter ride through Rome that could have ended very differently. The guys also revisit the making of 3:10 to Yuma, where a little movie magic turned a cons...

Josh Dean has spent decades making Nathan laugh, occasionally at his own expense. Their friendship goes back to Edmonton, long before Josh was directing Alan and Nathan in giant mascot costumes. Despite his comedic chops, Josh swears he can’t teach comedy. But when pressed, he boils his philosophy down to three principles. Nathan and Alan hold them up against the jokes he’s handed them over the ye...

         Alan once spotted a rock legend across a crowded bar and decided, with a little liquid courage, that he had to say hello. He had one shot at a first impression. He did not stick the landing. Nathan has his own brushes with greatness, including a surprise phone call with a childhood hero and a run-in with a comedy icon. Follow Once We Were Space...

Mekia Cox doesn’t do anything halfway. Eight months after having a baby, she joined The Rookie and spent her first week sprinting after a stunt double and (literally) getting thrown by Nathan. She’s been going all out since age seven, when she started performing professionally. During one audition, she gave so much that the only note she received was to calm down. That commitment extends to a spec...

In this episode, we learn just how close Alan came to spending time in a military prison. Spoiler, it was close. It was very close. Meanwhile, Nathan’s home seems to be conspiring against him. From critters (living and dead) to rogue appliances, it’s one battle after another. Sit back, relax, and get ready to learn absolutely nothing. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Li...

Bruce Campbell got his start hauling cable and holding cue cards in Detroit, back when the likes of Frank Sinatra were shooting car commercials as a favor to a friend. Decades later, he can tell you which lens is best suited for handsome actors, how voices get ruined in the mix, and why he no longer touches his watch on set. He's also one of the few actors who can talk back to Sam Raimi. His new f...

Alan Tudyk has been cemented as a Disney Legend, complete with a letter from a former Disney CEO… no, the other one. He wrote three acceptance speeches for the ceremony. The two that were cut for reasons of self-preservation get performed here instead. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to extended episodes a whole week early by joining our Patreon. Once We Were Sp...

Before Nathan and Alan ever set foot on a spaceship, Loni Peristere had to build the thing… that thing being Serenity. As Firefly's visual effects supervisor and co-founder of Zoic Studios, Loni has spent years chasing the gap between a shot that looked cool and a shot audiences would actually believe. That instinct carried him into an Emmy-winning career that now has him serving as a director and...

Once We Were Spacemen was only ever supposed to run sixteen episodes. Forty-something episodes later, Nathan and Alan finally cash in that long-threatened break with a highlight reel pulled from the archives. In this episode, they run back all the bits and segments that have gotten them to Episode 43. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to extended episodes a whole...

For twenty years, Nathan, Alan, and Colton Dunn have been gaming buddies. So much so that Nathan kept a sticky note handy during this recording so he wouldn't slip and call Colton by his gamer tag. Even after two decades of friendship, there's apparently more to learn, like why Colton once learned to juggle, or how he spent a full year of his childhood reigning as actual royalty. Follow Once We We...

Being interesting isn't enough – it's better to be interested, especially in things like overheard phone conversations and restaurant ordering systems. Nathan and Alan were once waiters who had to memorize the same brutal numeric code to input food orders. Recalling the digits for sour cream makes us want to say... all that for that? Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Lis...

Early in her run playing Officer Celina Juarez on The Rookie, Lisseth Chavez accidentally introduced herself as a famous pop star. Nobody has let her forget that. By then she'd already spent years working steadily across television, though none of it stopped her from taking meticulous notes on set. Long before that, an agent called to ask how she'd feel about a drastic change to her look. She said...

Once, Alan set off on a camping trip he called The Quest for Freedom, chasing wide-open spaces and total independence from anything resembling a girlfriend. What he found instead involved a borrowed truck and a night that took kaleidoscopic turns. Nathan spent seasons of his childhood wishing for freedom from the Canadian winters, an impulse that turns out to run in the family. Long before him, hi...

Artist and creative catalyst, Louis Jensen, has been part of this show since before the first episode aired, just never in front of a microphone. Nathan makes the introduction, and Alan meets the man behind the name in the credits. Some people tell good stories because they know how to tell a story. Louis tells good stories because he's lived an unreasonable number of them. By the end, Nathan and...

Nathan got a pet psychic reading for his cat. The psychic said something that he, a committed skeptic, immediately dismissed. But maybe he was wrong to do that… Meanwhile, Alan needed a haircut while at a convention and solved the problem by asking the audience for a volunteer, mid panel, while still taking questions. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to extended...

Allan Ungar is the filmmaker behind the Uncharted fan film that the internet went wild for… the one where Nathan played Nathan Drake. It all began with a soft float, which is apparently a Canadian thing, and a chain of events so unlikely it had to start with a con man. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. Listen to extended episodes a whole week early by joining our Patreon...

Nathan cannot seem to visit Paris without ending up underground. Last time it was the basement of the Eiffel Tower; this time, the catacombs, where one prisoner's story pulled his attention off the other six million skeletons. Back above ground, Nathan and Alan recount the laser eye surgery they both had years ago, and the small difference in results that one of them still refuses to forgive... Fo...

Jim Rash will insist the Groundlings is not a cult, and he is mostly right. The improv troupe turned him into a gifted actor, though he insists his deep well of characters is closer to a kiddie pool. He waves off his writing talents too, which is harder to pull off with an Oscar at home. The newest thing he is being modest about is Miss You, Love You, a film he wrote and directed, now on HBO Max....

Alan was once cast as Robot #4, but his trailer door now says Gary. The upgrade was not an accident. Checking in from the Atlanta set of the Superman sequel, Alan makes the case that a little conviction can turn a number into a name. Nathan knows a thing or two about conviction himself, having once taped a script page to his own forehead in service of a scene. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever...

Eric Winter spotted Nathan at a farmers market and assumed, with some certainty, that his career was over. Fortunately for fans of The Rookie, he was wrong. Despite being told he was too nice to play mean, Eric landed the role of Tim Bradford. After eight seasons of playing television's crankiest cop, somehow none of the cynicism has rubbed off. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your p...

Do you know how real cowboys earn their belt buckles? If you don't, Alan will tell you. And if you do, Alan will tell you anyway. The guys wander from Texas to Paris, where most people visit the top of the Eiffel Tower. Nathan, however, visited the basement… which is probably for the best, as the wind makes it rather nippy up there. Follow Once We Were Spacemen wherever you get your podcasts. List...

Edi Patterson is one of those performers who commits so fully you forget you're watching someone act. Righteous Gemstones and Vice Principals fans need no introduction. Alan witnessed her brilliance firsthand on Resident Alien, where she played the tallest, most beautiful, most unhinged avian alien in the universe. Their characters’ scenes had a way of going places no one planned, including one th...

Alan just moved into a new place that may already be occupied. He's fine with some light haunting, as long as the ghost mostly stays out of his way. Nathan, however, thinks Alan should go full Ghostbuster. Speaking of things hiding in plain sight… a soap opera veteran once gave Nathan a piece of advice that he's been slipping into his performances ever since. If you've watched The Rookie, you've s...

Bill Roe was eleven years old when he rode a trolley to Bavaria Studios, waved to the guard, and went to work scooping foam out of the chocolate river on the set of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Five decades later, he's the Supervising Director on The Rookie, and Nathan and Alan finally have a microphone in front of him. As it turns out, the man who was present for some of the most iconic...