A Conversation with Jim Belushi

A CONVERSATION WITH

Jim Belushi

By Brennen Matthews Opening image by Tyler Maddox

It is funny, as audience members, how we connect with actors at times. They may exude an arrogance in every role that they play, and we don’t really like them, or come off as overly serious but intractable, and we respect them. Others, though, strike us as being warm and friendly, the nice-guy type. These are the people that we would love to sit and have a beer with after a long day. They’re like you and me, a regular person, but who has a really unique job. They create a sense of familiarity, and we generally find ourselves rooting for them, regardless of the role that they are portraying. Jim Belushi is one of these guys. Born in the Windy City in 1954, and the younger brother of iconic comedian, John Belushi, he has been in the entertainment business since the 1970s and has appeared in over 150 projects. And whether representing a “good” guy or a more unsavory character, with each and every role, audiences have connected more to him. It’s been said that art imitates life. Perhaps it is true that what we see on the screen is in fact a true depiction of who people really are, their natural tendencies automatically coming out in film, which I tend to believe is the case. Now, in true Jim Belushi form, the actor has taken on a new challenge that while unexpected (as an actor), fits perfectly in line with who he is as a person — a gregarious, good guy from Chicago, Illinois.

Your brother John developed a passion for comedy and entertaining people from an early age, but you also had the vision. What was your household like growing up, with you as the younger brother watching John make his way into the spotlight?

I gotta be honest with you, I mean, he was five years older than me, so he was a senior when I was in eighth grade. So, it wasn’t like, hey John, can I go with you? We didn’t really hang out.

And we had a philosophy in our house: eat and sleep there. That’s it. So, we went out for football, wrestling, theater, you name it. We were never at the house. I was a fan. I saw him do his first performance when he was in the eighth grade. There was an album called The First Family, a comedy album, where they’re making fun of the Kennedy administration. And there was a little clip in there of [Nikita] Khrushchev giving a speech and banging his shoe, and John memorized that and mimicked it perfectly, in the eighthgrade variety show. And I remember seeing that show at Edison Junior High and seeing John, and that moment you knew, this guy was special.

When he left high school, I came into high school. When he left, the theater director also left. The new theater director was also the speech teacher and didn’t know anything about John. Nothing. I had to give a speech on a Monday morning, and I didn’t prepare my speech. So, I got called up, and as I’m walking up, I come up with this idea of playing a hippie. There was a Vietnam moratorium the day before, October 15th, in downtown Chicago, so I just got up and I turned, and I pretended to be a hippie. I was like, “Hey man, where were you? Why weren’t you at the moratorium, man? You know, this Vietnam thing, man?” and I raptured the class with my performance. I got an F on the speech, but that night that teacher, who was the theater director, asked me to audition for his play and he cast me in the lead. And that was the start. I was a freshman in 1968. Yeah. 15, even. 15, 16. That was the best show ever done at Second City. John was brilliant.

Was that the aha moment for you, when you knew that you wanted to be a performer?

That’s where I came up with the phrase, “hey man, how do I get in on that?” I’ll tell you what it was; and it’s a phrase I’ve been using of late. It was magic. It was magic. When I first went on stage and heard the first laugh, my body went into this kind of adrenal, dream state. It was magic. I’ve been chasing magic ever since. When I saw that magic in Second City, I said, “John, I’ve never seen anything like this. How do I get in on this?” I went and watched every show at Second City six, seven times. I had those scenes memorized. So, when I came to Second City, I knew all the scenes in the touring company. Just chasing magic. Saturday Night Live, magic. It’s magic on my farm. Magic in acting, magic on The Blue Brothers. I just chase the magic.

Your parents immigrated to America from Albania. How did they respond to all of the fame that John discovered?

Well, first of all, my dad had no idea. He just didn’t get it. I mean, he would just stare. He really had no idea. My mom, on the other hand, it was a status jump for my mom.

My mom grew up during the war. She was an honors student in high school and then got sucked right into Rosie the Riveter and sent the money to her parents. Women took a beating back then. [It was] hard to get an education. My mom was smart. She always regretted not going to college, and then when the women’s movement came, she embraced it. She goes, “I’m not gonna just sit at home. I’m smart. I am somebody.” It was very meaningful to my mom. Very meaningful. It made her not feel so low in the world.

Have you ever been to Albania?

Yes. Five, six times. I went with my dad. He hadn’t been there for sixty years.

It must have changed quite a bit?

Well, it changed in the times that I went. I went in ‘95 and there still were not that many cars on the road. The infrastructure was terrible as far as electricity and water and — Albania didn’t even know they were free for two or three years when the wall went and [Enver] Hoxha died. It was a slow start up. Now [Edi] Rama’s doing a great job for Albania. But it’s changed. Now, there’s traffic jams, every Albanian has got three cell phones, it’s crazy. They’re in the modern world finally.

I took my dad up this winding mountain to this little village, it almost looked medieval. They were all there waiting for us, and they pulled up chairs and we sat on the mountain. I said, “Are you happy, Dad?” He said, “Yes, I’m happy.” I said, “Who was that woman you were talking to?” He said, “I used to like that girl.” I said, “Ooh, young sweetheart!” He loved her when he was 16. I said, “How was it?” He goes, “You know, she doesn’t look the same.” I said, “Dad! Of course, she

You grew up in Chicago but made the move west after some time?

I had done Thief and Trading Places and The Man with One Red Shoe and Salvador, I did it all out of Chicago. My wife-to-be at the time, turned to me at one point and asked, “What do you want to do, Jim?” I said, “I want to be in movies.” She said, “Where do they make movies?” I said, “LA, but I don’t have to go to LA. I can do it from Chicago.” She said, “Why don’t you give it a year, and if you don’t like it, come back.” And I went, “I could do that. I’ve been on the road with Pirates of Penzance for a year. I could do location.” I moved there in 1986. About Last Night came out, and I never left.

There is a great story behind how About Last Night came about for you.

I did this play called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. It was a big hit. I had done a series for Paramount, and they wanted me to do another series, and I said, “I want to do a movie. Can you get me into a movie?” So, they sent Don Simpson to see the show in Chicago. He flew in, saw me in the play, and we went out and had drinks after. He said, “Wow, this play is great. You should make a screenplay out of it.” And I go, “Oh, okay.” So, I go back and my two producers, young guys, this is like the second show they’d produced, asked, “What’d he say? What’d he say?” And I said, “He said we should make a screenplay out of it.” They went and hired Denise DeClue and Tim Kazurinsky, spent $110,000, wrote a script, and gave me the script. I go, “I’ll give it to Don.” Sent it to Don, he read it, he loved it, and then I didn’t hear from him, or the producers. They made a deal with the producers, and then we didn’t hear from them. [Then], I get a call from my brother John, “Hey Jimmy, how you doing?” He goes, “Uh, listen. Simpson and Paramount just gave me this script called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. They want me to do it.” I was like, “John, come on, man. What are you talking about?” “Yeah, they want us to do it.” I go, “John, this is my character. I developed this character on stage.” I said, “I can’t eat a cheeseburger, lift a samurai sword, I can’t do Marlon Brando, the Godfather, you ate all that stuff up on Saturday Night Live. This is mine. Leave it the f*ck alone.” He goes, “No, Jimmy, they’re not gonna give it to you. Hollywood, it’s heat-seeking missiles. And Danny [Ackroyd] and I are hot right now. We get every script. It’s a good script.” I said, “Yeah, it’s a good script!” “Danny and I are thinking about doing it.” I said, “Don’t you do it, man. Don’t you do it!” He goes, “Jim, you don’t understand Hollywood. They’re not gonna give it to you.” I said, “Don’t do it! John, come on, man. It’s mine. Leave it alone!” And he said, “Jimmy, if I pass on it, and Danny passes on it, you know they’re going to offer it to Billy Murray. Now, wouldn’t you rather have someone in your family do it?” I said, “You a**hole. Don’t do it!” He goes, “Ah! You don’t understand Hollywood!” and he hung up on me. I don’t hear from Paramount… I believe Billy Murray did get the script, and I believe John, I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe John said, “Let Jimmy have it.”

Six years later, I [finally] get cast in it, and that’s when I become a movie star.

It was the first big movie for you.

That was it. It made me, I made movie after movie after that one. Anyway, I thought that was a funny exchange with John. “Wouldn’t you rather have someone in your family do it?” No! No! Leave it for me! So, I think he protected me a little bit. I don’t know.

You’re quite close with Dan Aykroyd and were close with John Candy. Did you get to know them through your brother?

There’s an old saying: when you drink the water, remember the men or women who dug the well. I’m drinking a lot of water, and my brother John, he dug the well. When he dug, the water rose, and I drank. I went to Second City after him, went to Saturday Night Live after him, I met some of the greatest creative people and friends in my life through John. He was a trailblazer for many comedians and writers, but also for me.

Dan Aykroyd and John Candy were the two men who came up to me at John’s funeral and said, “Jimmy, I’m really sorry about you losing your brother. If there’s anything you need, you let us know.” And it was so crazy, I can’t believe those are the only two people that said that to me. But they put their arms around me and cared for me. And I developed the most beautiful relationships. And Danny literally forced me to join the Blues Brothers with him. And that was like, cracking open my chest, taking my heart out, and massaging it. It just gave me passion and inspiration again, and a beautiful friendship.

I really don’t remember, but I remember the memorial! It was great. Danny got up there on the pulpit at Candy’s memorial, right? And he did a reading — he didn’t sing it — of Oh, Canada, but he did it like a Shakespearean poem. It was so moving and beautiful. Then when we went to the cemetery, we got out on the 405, right, and there wasn’t a car on it. The police had blocked off the highway for Mr. Candy. We were in the limo going, “Johnny, are you seeing this? Are you seeing what you’re doing to the 405?”

Johnny. John. My poor joy boy John. He was joyous to the last moment. I gotta tell you, he was so giving and generous and kind. One time we went to a Teamster’s convention, and we had to get back into the city to film — we were doing Only the Lonely — and we were walking out, and people were crowding around us wanting autographs, and John was signing every autograph. I said, “John, we gotta go. Come on, come on, come on!” “Jimmy, one more, just one more.” We were late because he signed every autograph. I said, “John, you gotta be able to cut them off.” And he said, “Aww, no, Jimmy. You don’t want to hurt nobody’s feelings. They’re excited.” He was just so sweet.

You joined the cast of Saturday Night Live in 1983. That was a big opportunity, but I reckon, a scary one.

Nobody in my realm wanted me to do it! I went, “You’re nuts! Of course, I’m gonna do it! I’m a Second City actor! This venue, improvisational actors created this! I’m a fan of the show. Who wouldn’t want to be in the show? I’m gonna do it!” They said, “You’re gonna get killed for it because John was on it.” And I went, “Let them kill me.” [But] people were very warm and loving to me when I did that show. And by the way, the first show I did, John Candy was the host. And he came down on the Monday and he went, “Jimmy! Jimmy Belushi! So good to see you!” I said, “How are you doing, John?” and he said, “Oh Jimmy, I have a lifestyle change. I’m not eating pastas no more, no more, Jimmy.” A lifestyle change! He was so funny. (Laughs.)

Anyway, he said to me, “What do you want to do?” and I said, “Well John, you’re the host of the show. What do you want to do?” and he said, “No, Jimmy Belushi, no sir. This is your first episode on Saturday Night Live. What do YOU want to do?” I did six scenes with him that first episode. Danny, and him, they’re brothers to me. And again, going back to it, the water I drank, John dug the well and brought beautiful love into my life.

What was your experience like on Saturday Night Live, the first time in front of the live audience? By that point, some of the guys that started the show had already left. Who was still around that you took the most from?

I loved Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall; they were wonderful to work with. You know who was really kind to me? Eddie Murphy. He’s just a stand-up guy. He could see my nerves and he made time for me. He was a big, big star, and I was a little, little guy, and he just made time for me. He looked me in the eye and asked, “How are you doing?” You know, I’d pitch him ideas, I did Trading Places, and he was just a gentleman. A gentleman.

Your brother had a big impact on you. You seemed to have learned a lot from him and the other comedians around you.

There’s a guy in Chicago who owned a tavern that all the journalists used to go to. It’s right there by the Sun-Times and Tribune building. All these people used to drink like fish there. Now, when John was alive, this guy had a sign up that said: “Cheesebuga cheesebuga cheesebuga John Belushi Saturday Night Live.” And he was telling everyone that John got the idea for the cheeseburger sketch from him. Now, I know that John got it from my dad, right? He was actually playing my dad, and my dad’s place was called Olympia Lunch. So, I’m all pissed off that this guy’s stealing this. So, I go to John and said, “This guy, man, can you believe it? He’s saying that you came up with a bit from him. He’s making this up, man, he’s capitalizing on it. Let’s go bust the guy.” And John goes, “He wouldn’t have taken it if he didn’t need it.” He just turned and left it. I always remembered that.

Chicago is famous for many reasons, but it is actually the traditional starting point for Historic Route 66. Have you driven any section of the iconic highway?

twenty million people watching. Live. I mean, people I went to kindergarten with were watching. If you start thinking about that stuff, you just go into shock and your body just stops. You go into trauma. So, you gotta just focus on your lines, focus on the actor next to you, focus on the audience, just to stay present.

It is really an exercise in perseverance, endurance, and what I consider pure stupidity. Like, who in their mind would go and perform in front of all these people? Be judged and criticized. Plus, with the overriding pressure, the iron bar pressure of being John’s sibling on Saturday Night Live, you know? So that was an out of body experience. I always say that Saturday Night Live was the toughest thing I ever did, including divorce. Tougher than divorce. But it was also like, the MASH unit of comedy. I learned so much, it was like a graduate program for me.

I did! When I was 16.

My friend Art Smith and his parents, they were campers. And they had one of those campers that they hooked onto

the back of the car; it was square, and it would open up. And for two weeks we took 66, and many other highways, all the way to the Grand Canyon, and then we came back through Bryce, and you know, the Four Corners. That was the most memorable trip of my life. They were very, very nice people. Very religious. Evangelists.

The community I come from, Wheaton, they had as many churches as gas stations. I grew up in a community where I was surrounded by these very beautiful religious people. These Evangelists across the street from me, the Macys, were the nicest people I had ever met in my entire life. They got me into Pals and Pioneers, so I had a real sense of community, and that’s where any kind of spirituality began, and my sense of morality… my sense of storytelling comes from those experiences in Wheaton. The Smiths were that way, too. We did a little Bible study on that road trip. I was 16, so I wasn’t really into it, but I sat and listened, and I’m grateful for it now.

You lost your brother at a pretty young age. How would you define that time, especially for you as a young guy, trying to wrestle with the tragedy?

It’s like throwing a hand grenade into a family, the shrapnel hits everybody in the family differently. Everybody deals with that trauma differently. It blows up — the number one fear in life is death, the number two fear in life is the collapse of family.

That’s a really big question because as you know, I’ve had 40 years to think about it, so I have lots of answers. For me, the whole world knew. I couldn’t run and hide. Everywhere I went, people would say, “I’m sorry for your loss, sorry for your loss, we loved him, we loved him,” you know? So, I was constantly in a pathway of healing and a journey of experiencing this trauma. I also found that over the last 20 years, I’ve had a lot of people, the number’s really high, of people who approached me at shows and grocery stores, and it’s really always the same, they talk to me for about ten minutes, and then they feel safe, and then they reveal to me that they’ve lost their brother, or their sister, to an overdose, or a tragic accident. And they’d look to me for some guidance. And I went, “Okay, I have purpose here.” And I sit with them, and I talk with them, and I answer questions, and I say, “the journey never stops.”

It must have been difficult at least in the first ten years, having to continually live in that shadow, and people not letting it go.

Oh, the first ten years? Yeah, I struggled with that.

And then one day, I stopped, and I just embraced it. People said, “These are big shoes to fill,” and I went, “Yeah, but I like his shoes.” “What’s it like being in the shadow?” I go, “You know, when you’re in Arizona and it’s 115 degrees, you sure do want to stay in the shadow, don’t you?” I love the shadow. I love it. I let it embrace me. I celebrate it. It brought a different energy, a new understanding, new elevations of me as a man. I just roll with it, and I get taken to places that are really joyous, and very giving. I just let it come.

Where are you at now?

I have my own career, my own persona, and through the challenges, I’ve fought through them, I’ve earned my place in this industry. I’ve earned my place in Oregon here within the cannabis industry, but, come on… John’s my brother, but he’s like the Michael Jordan of comedy. He was beautiful. I’ve never been in competition with him. I’ve just been a fan. He was really, really special. He was my brother, and he was just huge. I mean, one year, he had the number one album, number one TV show, and number one movie. It was so cool.

You have three kids. How has the journey of being a father been for you?

It’s extremely emotional for me. Because of the traumas that I’ve experienced, it’s really hard to not let that get in the way of parenting. And I have to admit, it’s gotten in my way. I’ve done a lot of study on addiction, and I know it starts with sugar. It starts with the endorphins that sugar… I used to get into fights with my wife like, you can’t have all this Captain Crunch around. You can’t keep feeding them sugar. You don’t want them to make choices that you know from experience can lead them down the wrong way. So, it was tough, it was actually what broke the back of this marriage that I’m currently out of, the parenting point of view. We disagreed. I’m all about character, values, accountability, responsibility, and she’s all the other stuff, which is sweet, too. You know, social life, being nice…

Your youngest, Jared, just turned twenty years old!

He’s a damn good kid. My daughter, Jamie, too, I’m so proud of both of them. They’re in Growing Belushi!

You know how difficult and heartbreaking the entertainment business can be. Obviously, you want to protect them. How do you feel about each of them being in the industry?

I don’t understand why they chose it. I thought about it a lot. Maybe they chose it for the reason I chose it, too, because John dug the well and showed that there’s a possibility. The other thing I think about is that they see me having this grand life, I’m very wealthy from it, they’re seeing how easy it was — in their eyes — they don’t know the struggles I go through. “Hey man, I’m gonna be rich and famous! It’s so easy! Look, my dad did it!” But, trust me, my daughter called one time before a performance when she was at NYU, and she was just out of her mind. I went, “Baby, I told you, this is not an easy profession. You could be waiting tables right now, bartending, you could be in the fashion industry, you could be all these things, but you chose this. And I told you, I’m telling you, I’m a lot older, I’m 40 years past your point in your career. And I still get crazy before a show. It doesn’t get any better.” And I said, “I warned you, but if you can do it, the fear spirit is a thin veneer that’s right in front of your eyes. But right through that veneer is courage. And you gotta bust through that fear to the lion of courage.” And I said, “You’re giving your fear too much thickness. You’re making it like a redwood tree. You’ll never get through it.” She gets it a little bit, but they don’t talk to me about it. It’s like, “I’m the best coach you can get!” Nah, they don’t want anything to do with me. I said, “You don’t think that Kirk Douglas helped Michael Douglas?” Come on!

Has the whole empty nest syndrome hit you yet?

I’ve studied addiction; I’ve studied all kinds of things, but the empty nest thing was never really ever talked about. I’m going through heavy withdrawal, because I threw myself into parenting. I was lucky, I did eight years of According to Jim where I was home all the time. I was at every game, I went to every show, I took them to school, I picked them up, dinners, vacations. I love these kids. I was so involved in the parenting. And now I’m like… It’s like I’m lacking that sense of family, and I get a little depressed about it. I’ve got the show, and I’ve got the farm, I’m doing movies, I’ve got great friends, and I can travel, I got all that stuff, but there’s nothing that runs deeper in a man than his children.

I feel like the media, the court system, and the entertainment arena is leaning more towards discounting the significance of fatherhood, as an almost easily dismissible part of the family. I think that fathers are critically instrumental to the fabric of the family.

I am with you 100%. I’ve been pushed to the side all the time. (Laughs.) Yes, we are instrumental, damn it. And most men hide it, but there’s a lot of hurt that carries on. When you have children, they never tell you about all the hurt that comes with it, too.

Has the midlife crisis thing caught up to you as you’ve gotten older?

I never really had time to think about it in the 40s, 50s. I’m kind of an in-the-moment type of guy; I’m doing what’s in front of me all the time. But when I hit 60, I think a depression started. You start looking at how many years you have left. What are you going to do with those years? I’m a frugal guy, I’m not a spender, and I’ve saved up a lot of money. I’m going to give it to my kids, I guess. But my cousin is like, “Get a new car!” “But my car is nice, I like it.” “Get a new car! Spend it! What’re you gonna leave it all to them for? Come on, have a good time! You’ve earned it, have fun.” So, I buy nicer cigars. (Laughs.)

You can’t take stuff with you, but you can leave it to the people you love to make their lives fuller.

Yeah, as long as it gets fuller, and as long as they still have a good work ethic, which I think my children really do. Have a sense of value, a responsibility to the community. You know, you don’t want them to just live off of it.

Growing Belushi has been a great show for you. You’re successfully incorporating humor and interesting dialogue into each episode. What got you into farming and why Cannabis?

It was an accident. Just an accident. I own this beautiful, spiritual property. The farm next to me came up, and I bought it, now I have 93 acres and a river. I didn’t know what to grow and Danny Aykroyd, he was like, “Cannabis became legal, let’s do agriculture.” Danny introduced me to Captain Jack, and I just started growing. As the relationship developed with this plant, I’ve grown, it’s been a spiritual journey for me.

One day I was going to a dispensary with some cannabis to sell, and to do a personal appearance, and there was a line of people. I usually walk down the line, give them a little tap on the shoulder and say, “I’ll see you inside,” and there was one gentleman that I caught his eyes, and he had long hair, a beard, blue eyes, thin, very Jesus looking. He looked at me, and I just stopped, and I said, “Are you ok, man?” and he said, “You know, I’m a veteran, and I was a medic in Iraq. I saw things that happened to the human body that nobody should ever witness.” He said, “I have what they call triple PTSD. I don’t even know what that means. All I know is I can’t talk to my wife, I can’t talk to my children, and I can’t sleep. And they gave me a bottle of 600 Oxycontin at the veterans hospital, but I couldn’t do it, and I came to cannabis.” And he goes, “And your Black Diamond OG is the only strain that allows me to talk to my family and sleep.” And he teared up, and hugged me. And I said, “I didn’t make this.” And he said, “No, but you’re a steward.” And that was a paradigm shift for me. That’s when this moved from an entrepreneurial business thing to wait a minute, there’s something important going on with this plant.

There was this woman with 106 bones broken in her body from a car accident. She takes cannabis instead of pills. Hospice people that are on morphine, at the end of their life, that can’t even see or talk — putting them on an edible of 100 mg their pain subsides, their eyes are clear, and they can relate to their families.

Last week, in Oregon, universities discovered that there are components in the cannabinoids, the CBD elements of cannabis, that are preventing COVID. So, the medicine just keeps going on and on. Everybody knows somebody who’s struggling. Screaming inside. Everybody turns to medicine. What medicines are out there? So, all I’m saying is that cannabis is a medicine, a [potential] pathway to healing. So, it’s purposeful to me, this medicine. And this TV show is an entrepreneurial thing, of course, but it’s also about the education — I call it edutainment.

From your experience, are you finding that there’s a wider acceptance of cannabis now that it was made legal?

Well, listen, my generation counts for almost 50% of the sales. I’m at dinner at my mother-in-law’s house. My wife was out of town, my mother-in-law said, “Oh, Jim, maybe he’s lonely.” I wasn’t, but… so I’m having dinner with her. She’s 80, her boyfriend’s 84, there’s another couple there, one guy, Sam, who’s 84, his wife, who’s 80, the other couple was 79 and 81. And me. The most conservative people you’d ever want to meet. So, I’m a little nervous because I’m in the cannabis business. I thought these people would be… so it comes up that I’m in cannabis. These six people all leaned into me. “You know, I golf, and my hands hurt, and I can’t grip it.” And I go, “Well, there’s a good CBD salve.” “Can you get me some?” The other woman is like, “You know, I don’t sleep.” And I said, “Well, you can do some gummies.” Another one, “I was an Olympic athlete, my shoulder still hurts.” I was like a pharmacist. I literally went home, went through my closet, and brought them all these products. They are my best friends [now]. They sent me bottles of champagne.

Be sure to catch season one and two of Growing Belushi on Discovery.