Larry Hankin is perhaps the most recognized “that guy” character actor in Hollywood; having appeared in over 200 films and TV shows, you definitely know his face. His filmography reads like a who’s who of Hollywood he has had roles in Laverne & Shirley, Friends, Escape from Alcatraz, Billy Madison, Home Alone, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad. He's also a writer and short film director (one of his films even earned him an Oscar nomination) and a painter. 

Larry shares that as a young child 70-odd years he had this huge creativity in him but it was knocked out of him by parents who wanted him to have a stable career as a doctor or lawyer. He shares the pressure of what it was like to try to shove down his own desire to be an artist to obey his parents wishes, 

Larry opens up about what having ADD, ADHD, OCD, & Dyslexia has been like for him and the gifts these things have given him along the way -  but my favourite moment comes towards the end of the show when he muses about what it was like to star alongside Clint Eastwood in Escape from Alcatraz. 

He muses about the importance of failure and how we have to come to accept it, because it is a part of learning. And at one point he gets esoteric about why we’re here and why the cosmos let us in. 

Larry’s life story comes across as a wild, lucky adventure - opening for Miles Davis, getting hired by Second City, Starring beside Clint Eastwood and even being nominated for an Oscar.  Through listening to Larry it becomes obvious very quickly that whether he wanted to or not Larry always placed Creativity in the Driver's seat of his life. I suspect it was because of this that he managed to manifest so many of these incredible experiences for himself. 

Larry and I talked about the importance of Acceptance (which happened to be the word I pulled for the show)  and acceptance is something that he embodies this so perfectly. He had these things inside him that he just had to follow. And he accepted that there was almost another person inside him running the show and that his job was just to do the things in the outside world to set that inside guy up. 

I was struck by Larry’s unabashed loyalty to his own quiet inner voice. From the time he was so small he saw that the people around him didn’t want him to live for himself and despite immense pressure to obey them, to make them happy, to fulfull his obligations as a SON, he never betrayed himself. He followed his heart and it led him on some incredible adventures. 

When he said, “I’m here to do what I’m here to do. That’s why I was born and that’s why the Cosmos let me in” I actually got the chills. That loyalty to his inner self, no matter what pressures were presenting themselves to him, is something I aspire to. 

He has some beautiful (and affordable!) artwork available from his website you’ll find all the links and a FULL Transcript of the show in the show notes on Kate ShepherdCreative.com  

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About Larry Hankin:

Larry Hankin is perhaps the most recognized “that guy” character actor in Hollywood; having appeared in over 200 films and TV shows, you definitely know his face. His filmography reads like a who’s who of Hollywood he has had roles in Laverne & Shirley, Friends, Escape from Alcatraz, Billy Madison, Home Alone, Seinfeld, Breaking Bad. He's also a writer and short film director (one of his films even earned him an Oscar nomination) and a painter. 

Exploring characters, rants, stories on stage, in his one-man show, and in his many film shorts, Larry has recently produced a compilation of it all in his book “The Loopholes Dossier”, which has just been published and distributed worldwide by Bookbaby Publishers and is available in all the places you’d expect to buy books.

Larry lives in Los Angeles.  

Larry Hankin: website | facebook | instagram

Resources used in this episode

• Alan Myerson
• The Committee
• Second City
• Clint Eastwood
• Escape from Alcatraz
• Penny Marshall
• Lavergne and Shirley
• Seinfeld
• Friends
• Home Alone