- Oh, Chris.
- (chuckling) Look at you.
- I know, isn't this just so bizarre?
- You know what, you look right at home there.
This looks like it was made for you.
I love it.
- [Drew] really?
- Yeah.
- It was so amazing to run into you.
And I took a picture of us
and I was just staring at it at
'cause it doesn't feel like that much time has gone by
since we made "Mad Love" in Seattle 25 years ago.
- It's unbelievable.
I can't even believe it was 25 years, yeah.
I mean, those are, it's so funny.
It was such, look at you, oh my God.
Chopped hair.
Oh my God.
That's a great picture -- old international harvester.
That was so much fun.
That was such a fun shoot.
I mean, being up in Seattle at that time was just amazing.
- Well, because when we weren't working
I would meet up with friends and go to a coffee house
and there'd be like a guy coming out
to sing on his guitar named Beck and--
- Good memories for everybody.
- And I remember on "Mad Love",
I mean I was so wild at that point in my life,
I mean just, I would say straight up cray,
and just having the best time.
And I would just take scissors to my hair and I would--
- And photograph clouds for no reason with your Polaroid.
"Look at these amazing clouds!"
- (laughing) Oh my god. (audience laughing)
You have really got my number.
And what I love about you,
and then we did other movies together.
We did "Batman Forever" and we kept circling each other,
and I loved when you sort of settled in
and I felt like when I would watch you I felt like this,
you are someone who found such a good
real life/dream job balance.
- It's tough, it's tough.
I mean, that's always the goal
and you never know where life's gonna take you.
I do think about that a lot.
If I hadn't ended up marrying my wife Caroline,
where my life would have gone,
because I think that she was my last chance
at what I consider
a normal family life, you know what I mean?
She was somebody that I knew
from before I was ever a celebrity.
And we all know how people's impressions of you change
when you become a celebrity.
And you're always wondering in the back of your head,
is this genuine, is this authentic?
And so I'm grateful that I found the right person.
And I remember,
I was very young, I was 26.
And typically with a young 26 year old actor
that's not really the move to go out and get married.
But it was the right thing for me and,
and it's the choice I made.
I couldn't be happier.
But it's funny, Drew, I have to confess.
I had so much fun making "Mad Love".
I've actually never seen it.
I started to watch it with you one day,
and it was so funny because I don't know if you remember,
there was a screening on one of Warner Brothers lots
and I was seated between you
and Caroline who was my girlfriend at the time.
And we got into a couple of these scenes and I said
"I can't handle this.
"I can't sit between the two of you and watch this movie."
So truthfully, and people, I always have,
especially young girls would come up and be like,
"Oh, I love that movie, it was so amazing."
I'm thinking, "Thank you, and I can't comment,
"I don't know how it ended up turning out."
- But that speaks so true to, you are like,
you are a person with really good values.
And I knew that being around you in those years--
- Oh, it's not even that.
I just get embarrassed watching my self on screen.
It's an uncomfortable experience.
I mean even to this day I,
sometimes you go back to years later
and it feels a little more,
when you can distance yourself.
But when you're that close to it,
I don't know if you feel the same way,
but for me it's the experience of making it.
And that's what it was all about.
What happens later is out of my hands.
And I may not like some of the choices
the directors, the editors made.
So it can be frustrating or it can be incredibly satisfying
if they did a great job
and made you look better than you actually were.
- Yeah, I mean, we work with this incredible post team here
and I'm always,
when we first all sat down I was like "Listen,"
sat down over Zoom.
I was like "The power of editing,
"you guys know that you actually have the ability
"to make people look bad, good,
"mean, nice, silly, not funny,
"the power really is in your hands."
Editors have an incredible amount of control
and can truly carve and manipulate a situation and--
- Yeah, well, I think that's why actors as always gravitate
towards wanting to be do the theater and be on the stage
because that's the one time
where the actor has total control.
In television it's always about the writer,
in film it's always about the directors,
but when you're on stage it's your performance
and the audience is gonna see it
the way you want them to see it.
- You know, I've never thought of theater in that context.
I always think of theater and feel guilty,
'cause my family, the Barrymores, were such theater people
and I really haven't done theater in my life.
And I feel like, is that sacrilege that like--
- You'd be great, yeah.
- Do you feel like you've struck that
Hollywood job/grounded real life balance?
- I got to tell you
I wouldn't trade my position with anybody.
For right now I couldn't be happier doing what I'm doing.
And I think the same situation, what you're talking about,
LL and I were both in the same position.
We'd both been around the block many times.
We recognized what a great opportunity the show was,
and we went in with the attitude
we're gonna work as hard as humanly possible to
make this thing, to give it every chance to be successful.
Whether or not it works, who knows.
You don't know what kind of chemistry you're gonna have,
you don't know if people are gonna tune in,
you're gonna get the eyeballs.
Fortunately for us they did,
and we have tried to live up to that,
that standard that we set from day one
And it's been a wonderful experience.
- "NCIS: Los Angeles" airs Sunday nights on CBS
in its 12th season.
A solid show for a -- solid human being, Chris O'Donnell.
I just think the world of you.
I always have, I always will. - Thank you, Drew.
(upbeat music)