Episode 1024 - John Turturro
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening how's it going i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it i imagine summer you are new to this show
Marc:After last week's David Letterman interview, welcome.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:This is the part where I talk a bit about myself and ask how you're doing.
Marc:Sometimes it gets you caught up on my life.
Marc:That can happen.
Marc:Sometimes I tell you what's going on in my mind.
Marc:Sometimes I get aggravated about the cultural and political situation in our country and world right now.
Marc:Yeah, so that's what's up.
Marc:I'm Mark.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Thanks for coming by.
Marc:I'm glad you liked that interview last week.
Marc:A lot of people did.
Marc:First off, John Turturro is on the show today, and I'd like to give you a little background on that because I had one of the rare near meltdowns during that interview.
Marc:I almost lost my shit in front of an amazing actor.
Marc:And I wasn't acting.
Marc:I sweat broke.
Marc:You know, things came unglued.
Marc:I'll tell you about it in a minute.
Marc:But let's let's stay with what I'm what I'm dealing with right now.
Marc:What's going on, which is a couple of things I need to address here at the outset.
Marc:Is this the outset?
Marc:It was a little misunderstood, but it was also on me.
Marc:In referring to AA Alcoholics Anonymous, which is the program that I got sober in, I kind of I don't think it was glibly, but I said it's the only thing, you know, it's the only I said to Dave in reference to his experience with his father that, you know, it's really the only option.
Marc:And it's just old school thinking.
Marc:You know, I know it's not the only option and I just want to.
Marc:And some people push back on this.
Marc:I got some emails and I think that, you know, it might be discouraging to people who are trying to get sober if they think that's it, if they didn't have a good experience in those rooms or it's not for them or whatever.
Marc:And I think they were right in telling me.
Marc:That by saying it's the only option, it doesn't help.
Marc:It might make people hopeless.
Marc:And here's what I got to say on that.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:There are other options.
Marc:You should investigate whatever option you want.
Marc:And whatever fucking works, fucking do it.
Marc:Whatever you got to do to save your life from addiction, from alcoholism, for whatever compulsion that is destroying it, you know, do it if it's if it's safe and it's not going to cause more trouble.
Marc:I don't judge anybody.
Marc:There's many people who've gotten sober with nothing.
Marc:who have gotten, you know, just white knuckled it or whatever.
Marc:However you, whatever your perception is of any process of recovery, great.
Marc:For me, it was just, it's just easy.
Marc:I go, they're all over the place.
Marc:You show up on any given day.
Marc:There's usually many, you know, no one asks you any questions.
Marc:You walk in, you sit down, no, nothing.
Marc:But that's, it's old school stuff.
Marc:And sometimes that, you know, whatever that has to offer, it may not be for you.
Marc:But I do want to make it clear
Marc:That there are other ways.
Marc:And honestly, whatever you have to fucking do, you know, just to get through a day.
Marc:There's no judgment here.
Marc:And, you know, I can only say what worked for me.
Marc:But again, there are other ways.
Marc:And investigate whatever you need to investigate.
Marc:Do whatever you got to do to get that day sober and hopefully a string of days.
Marc:That's my statement on that.
Marc:Thank you for the input people who were aggravated.
Marc:The other thing less pressing is that on the Letterman interview, I talked about my first appearance in my shiny suit.
Marc:Turns out that was the second appearance.
Marc:I went back and looked at him.
Marc:Some kid had posted some kid who I don't know who he is.
Marc:Someone had put up four of the appearances.
Marc:I believe there were.
Marc:Five in total.
Marc:There were four stand-ups and one panel.
Marc:But the shiny suit was definitely the second one because I watched the first one and I'm like, oh yeah, that horrible thing.
Marc:That terrible moment in the black suit.
Marc:I was a little shaky.
Marc:I remember that I'd gotten myself sick before because I was so nervous, which I used to do a lot.
Marc:Anything that I had to do that was a big deal, I would stress out to the point where I would make myself ill.
Marc:And I remember I was getting a cold and I was like worried about my voice and I was backstage and Biff was about to pull the curtain aside.
Marc:And I was like, I don't feel well.
Marc:Is there a Kleenex?
Marc:And and that was that was the first one.
Marc:And it was OK, but I had put it out of my mind.
Marc:It's interesting how the mind works.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I honestly I don't know how old you are or whether this is because of age, but I.
Marc:I don't know how I got through almost anything back in the day.
Marc:I really don't.
Marc:My memories as they get further away, like there's some parts of my life where I'm like, I don't even know who that guy was.
Marc:When I watch him, I'm like, oh, that's me.
Marc:But it's like I have to sort of engage in some sort of.
Marc:Attempted empathy for my younger self, because like I was like in constant anxiety and constant aggravation and anger and self-loathing and just volatile and self-involved.
Marc:OK, some of those things I still have.
Marc:They're just they're tempered.
Marc:But but I really I don't know, man.
Marc:I know how I got here, but I'm amazed.
Marc:I think that I'm here and I can't really believe it's happening.
Marc:And I try to engage in some gratitude and show up the best I can for for for other people.
Marc:I try to live a good life.
Marc:And it's not easy when your brain is a fucking ball of snakes.
Marc:Also, you know, I tried to have a private life and I know that the relationship I have with many of you is visceral and it's connected and it's emotional, which it is.
Marc:And I do share a lot of my life, but I do try to have a private life.
Marc:And, you know, I'm trying to to separate.
Marc:You know, there was a period, a long period of time where.
Marc:You know, anything that went on in my life and in my mind, I would dump onto these mics without really taking into consideration, you know, what it would mean to me or what it would mean to other people that may be involved in my life.
Marc:So, you know, I try to, you know, maintain a private life.
Marc:It's something I had to learn to do.
Marc:And and I hope you respect that.
Marc:That being said, I think I should tell you that Sarah and I split up a while ago, and I've been sort of going through that period and that process and that sadness, and it's sort of having a...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And again, I do want to have a private life and it is my business.
Marc:But a lot of you are part of my narrative in the way that I allow you into my life.
Marc:And I just I thought I would tell you that.
Marc:And it's been a it's been a difficult few months.
Marc:And it's made me it's gotten me into a state of like really thinking about my life, my relationships, you know, throughout my life with everybody.
Marc:And it's it's I don't think it's a midlife thing, but it's something.
Marc:And they're just something about me trying to land in my life and decide how I want to live the rest of it.
Marc:That's been sort of pressing on me.
Marc:And because of that, I've been doing a lot of reading.
Marc:I've been doing a lot of reflecting.
Marc:I've been doing a few meetings and I've been talking to people and just really trying to keep my heart above water and and and try to to sort of change some patterns in my life.
Marc:you know, around my ability to enjoy it.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right?
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:And, you know, we move on.
Marc:This is humans.
Marc:This is humans.
Marc:Humans do things.
Marc:It's an amazing thing, these conversations that I have with people.
Marc:And to be honest with you,
Marc:I don't always know how they're going to be received.
Marc:I know my experience of them and I get very immersed in them.
Marc:And while I'm doing it, I, you know, sadly, maybe not sadly, maybe for, I don't, I'm not thinking about you guys.
Marc:Uh, I'm, I'm thinking, I'm not thinking I'm, I'm in it.
Marc:I'm having a conversation and I'm following how that goes.
Marc:And, you know, I'm just kind of rolling with the conversation.
Marc:And that's the thing about, uh,
Marc:When I do these things on the road, the John Turturro talk, which you're about to hear, he's in a show, The Name of the Rose.
Marc:It's airing on Sundance, and you can watch episodes on their streaming service, Sundance Now, or at SundanceTV.com.
Marc:But he's a great actor.
Marc:I love the guy.
Marc:And, you know, sometimes people don't come out to L.A.
Marc:and I take it to them.
Marc:I have a rig that I work with.
Marc:I bring it on the road to do intros.
Marc:And sometimes when I'm in New York, I'll do interviews.
Marc:And sometimes if they're on location, Brendan, my producer, will meet me and we'll set up a mini studio.
Marc:But other times it's like, yeah, I'm all right.
Marc:Let's just we can just hang out in the room in the hotel room.
Marc:And it's fine.
Marc:And it's a little odd, you know, because I'm not staying usually at giant suites or anything.
Marc:So we're just sitting there in the hotel room.
Marc:But, you know, Turturro, John came over and we met in the lobby.
Marc:And, you know, he's an excitable guy and he's an intense guy and he likes to talk.
Marc:And it was just one of these like these situations.
Marc:And you're not going to hear this most likely, but I do want to share the experience with you, is that I was recording and I was getting obsessed with him moving the mic around because I take it for granted that people are used to using a mic, holding a mic.
Marc:And then I looked down at my recorder and I noticed that it was not recording.
Marc:It had stopped recording.
Marc:And I didn't know how long it had stopped for.
Marc:We'd been going for a while.
Marc:And it was just like that moment.
Marc:And I don't experience too many moments like this in my life anymore where you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:So, you know, it's like you could experience these moments all you want.
Marc:It's something, you know, seemingly in my control just did something.
Marc:And now I have no control over it.
Marc:What's happened?
Marc:And I don't know how much I've missed or what's going on.
Marc:So in that moment, I started to spin and John's sitting there and I'm like, fuck.
Marc:And then I got to take the card out and I got to stick the card in the in the computer to see what I have and pull that up.
Marc:And then I got to figure out it was my fault.
Marc:I had the fucking card filled up.
Marc:And I unfortunately had another card, but like I had to figure out, you know, what the gap was.
Marc:And he's watching me through all this.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, my God, this never happened.
Marc:This never happened before.
Marc:And it hasn't.
Marc:I've lost an episode or two by accident years ago, but this never happened.
Marc:And I'm kind of freaking out.
Marc:And I'm like, and there's that moment in life where you're like, ah, fuck it.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:Let's forget it.
Marc:Just I can't do it.
Marc:I can't just, you know, I'm sorry.
Marc:Just go home.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:And it's my fault.
Marc:And I'm an asshole and I fucked up and I don't know how we can do it again.
Marc:I don't know if we're going to get through it or whatever.
Marc:And it's an odd sort of.
Marc:situation to have a guest going like it's okay just take it easy I'm like no man it's like I can't and then I realized dude dude you've been doing this you know you know like a long time now just you know pull it together you know lock back in get started again don't you know you don't need to sit here in front of John Turturro and beat the shit out of yourself
Marc:And, you know, that's what happened.
Marc:I was like, okay, all right, we're good.
Marc:Let's just start from this place and, you know, kind of get back into it.
Marc:And we did, but it hadn't happened in a long time.
Marc:There's a couple of things that have happened in the last year that haven't happened in a long time.
Marc:That one and the flop sweat at the Comedy Cellar.
Marc:Flop sweat at the Comedy Cellar.
Marc:You never, when things get away from you and there's, and I was talking about this with a friend of mine where,
Marc:where you have those moments where your body and your brain, probably rightfully so, is like, just get out of here.
Marc:Just walk away from it.
Marc:When something has gotten, like you've made a horrible mistake,
Marc:that fucks your job up.
Marc:There's part of you that's just sort of like, I'm just going to go.
Marc:Okay, I'm an asshole.
Marc:I'm going to leave.
Marc:Okay, good luck with everything.
Marc:Or when you're on stage and you're not doing well, it's sort of like you feel that sweat on the back of your neck.
Marc:There's definitely part of you that wants to just be like, all right, I'm going to go ahead and leave now.
Marc:You don't like me.
Marc:I'm out.
Marc:Okay, I'm never going to do this again.
Marc:And, you know, as time goes on, you get older, you realize like, you know, ride it out, man.
Marc:Just got it right.
Marc:But I'm like that with brushing my teeth where really I've had to figure out.
Marc:I think there were years in my life where I'm just sort of like I can't I'm not going to brush my teeth.
Marc:I'm going to go to bed without brushing my teeth.
Marc:I'm not going to get up at a reasonable hour.
Marc:And I just had to train myself.
Marc:Just do it.
Marc:Just stay in it.
Marc:Just do the thing.
Marc:Because a lot of times you're just not doing things so you have something to beat yourself up about.
Marc:What's easier than brushing your fucking teeth when you go to bed?
Marc:Now I'm compulsive about it.
Marc:I'm like a floss freak.
Marc:The point is like...
Marc:Make yourself do things that you should be doing because you should and just make a habit of it so you can take that off the list out of reasons why you're an idiot.
Marc:That's my self-help tip today.
Marc:And also the Totoro thing worked out.
Marc:But yeah, it was like, you know, I freaked out a little, folks.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:I freaked out a little.
Marc:So now I will share with you the conversation I had that...
Marc:I freaked out in the middle of with the amazing actor John Turturro, who's a great guy.
Marc:Intense, smart, engaged man.
Marc:And his show, The Name of the Rose, you can stream now on Sundance Now.
Marc:It's on Sundance.
Marc:You can also see it at SundanceTV.com and it's airing on Sundance.
Marc:So this is me in a New York City hotel room with John Turturro.
Marc:You remember that place, Amato's Opera?
Guest:Friends of my parents performed there.
Marc:What was that place?
Guest:It was a little opera house, and a lot of really good singers came out of there, and then they went further on, and some people just didn't get paid to do the operas, but there was something...
Guest:uh kind of old world yeah intimate because yeah this this neighborhoods these neighborhoods around here had all these little ethnic theaters right you see the history of it like on grand street i don't know between where and the center no
Guest:I guess east of center, there was the Grand Street Theater.
Guest:That was the Broadway theater before there was any Broadway.
Guest:And so like in the- Was it Yiddish?
Guest:No, they would do, say would do King Lear like in Yiddish.
Guest:Then they'd leave the set and then they would do it in Italian.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The same actors?
Guest:No.
Guest:Different actors, same set.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So they had a lot of these.
Guest:They had like Sicilian theaters, Neapolitan theaters, Yiddish theaters, German theaters, poopy theaters, puppet theaters.
Marc:The movie theaters up there were all Yiddish theaters.
Guest:That was Yiddish.
Guest:The Yiddish theater.
Guest:Second Avenue.
Guest:That was the Yiddish theater over there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like 11th Street.
Guest:It's the Intermedia.
Guest:It was the Intermedia and now it's the movie theater.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That sounds like an amazing movie idea to have the two troops doing Lear in Yiddish and in Italian.
Guest:Because everyone, that was their entertainment in their language.
Guest:And this was the Lower East Side.
Guest:Yeah, I have a book because I used to have an office on Center Street.
Guest:And of all these little tiny theaters that they had.
Guest:And now they're stores or apartment buildings and stuff.
Guest:Right, or gone.
Guest:They're all gone.
Guest:But I mean, some of the buildings are still there, but they were transformed into tenement buildings.
Guest:So I was interested in that.
Guest:And I used to go to a lot of theater when it was cheap in the 70s, the ridiculous theater company, Circle Rep, where you could see things for a couple bucks.
Guest:And I would see all these great... Charles Ludlum, he was a fantastic...
Guest:brilliant he used to like you know do everything in drag you know like Irma Vep and his lover yeah but it was just you'd walk into the theater and you'd start laughing right before the show yeah but it was a
Guest:older Greenwich Village affordable experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you didn't like it, you only spent a couple bucks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was it.
Marc:And that was nothing to lose.
Marc:Nothing to lose.
Marc:And even if you didn't like it, it was probably going to be kind of mind-blowing anyways.
Guest:Yeah, I kind of think, you know, people have gotten priced out a little bit.
Guest:In theater.
Guest:Well, in theater especially because that was the thing of seeing something live, seeing somebody, you know, in the cafe or something.
Guest:And I, you know, had no money and I could afford to scrape up a couple bucks and see whatever I wanted to see.
Marc:So your fascination with this stuff comes from, you know, just growing up here.
Guest:Well, I love anything that has to do with the history of things in the past.
Guest:I think it's... I was a substitute teacher before I went to grad school, and I taught American history.
Guest:Not that I knew that much about it, but I think that people think they invented things, and there's all these instruments, like the banjo.
Guest:The banjo came from Africa, and then it was recreated here.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:There's all these instruments that are Mediterranean and Arabic.
Marc:There's instruments.
Marc:I don't even know what they are.
Guest:You don't know what they are.
Guest:There's a whole tradition of that.
Guest:Sometimes I hear certain kinds of music.
Guest:I'm going like, why does this music just pulsate within me?
Guest:I realize after I did all my DNA and everything, I have all these different things, strands of different cultures coursing through my bloodstream.
Marc:When did you do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did it a couple years ago.
Guest:And then Dr. Henry Louis Gates asked me to be on Discovering Your Roots.
Guest:And then I did that show.
Guest:So they really have an army of people.
Guest:I'm doing that.
Guest:I cannot recommend it more highly.
Guest:It wasn't what was left for the TV because you're in there for three hours.
Guest:And if there's three people, there's only 20 minutes of you.
Guest:But the experience of being with him and seeing everything.
Marc:You were surprised?
Guest:I was, yeah, I was surprised.
Guest:And then he gave me more stuff afterwards because I said, give me everything.
Guest:I don't care.
Guest:I don't care what it is.
Marc:They asked me to do it like four years ago and now it's like finally happening.
Guest:It's fascinating.
Guest:What'd you find out?
Guest:Well, I found out I was a lot of different things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I found out that one, I'm related at the end of they show you who you related to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's funny because I was on his show and interviewed.
Guest:I think he must know this because he was on the show.
Guest:I'm related to Brian Gumbel.
Guest:I am.
Guest:We're like, you know, cousins from a, I don't know if it's on the black side or the white side, but I am.
Guest:I'm related to him.
Guest:So he's like a cousin of mine.
Guest:Did you talk to him about it?
Guest:No, I want to.
Guest:We have to have a cousin meal.
Guest:And his brother, yeah.
Guest:But I wasn't surprised of all these things that I have, because I'm half Sicilian, so I could be Arabic, I could be Norman, I could be Jewish, I could be Greek, I could be Spanish, I could be French.
Guest:It's all those things.
Guest:I have a lot of Iberian in me.
Guest:Middle Eastern.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:Some Sub-Saharan, some Northern African.
Guest:And there's a lot predominantly of Italian, whatever the hell that means.
Marc:But when you grew up, you were just Italian.
Guest:I knew that wasn't true because my mother was Sicilian and my father was from Puglia.
Guest:And when they had arguments, that's in the South too, but it's on the Asriatic.
Guest:It's two different languages, first of all.
Guest:and my mother had red hair and was very fair and uh you know and she was good with knives so so uh but uh you know he my father would say these things to her like you you're really you're a dirty sicilian he would say these yeah the rock you know he had a foul mouth and uh sounds like they got along great they did they had a very hot relationship i mean no sometimes they didn't get along but sometimes but uh yeah
Guest:If you're from southern Italy, it's really the kingdom of the two Sicilies when Naples was the capital.
Guest:But Sicily is completely... I've worked there.
Guest:It's like you're in Africa and you're in Europe.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's its own language.
Guest:Is it beautiful?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's beautiful.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:I mean, it's very mountainous.
Guest:People can be very reserved and then very warm.
Guest:But you'll see people with like blonde hair and curly blonde hair and blue eyes, like with my nose.
Guest:And then you see people who look like, you know,
Guest:uh one of the cast of hamilton you know what i mean you're right well yeah and it's like this is all the sicilian thing and it you know you're you're very close to tunisia yeah i mean you're there's a small waterway you know so uh and the arabs ruled there for a long time when you went there did you feel connected
Guest:yes yeah and in some ways yes in some ways it was foreign and i mean i went there in the 1980s for the sicilian yeah and uh but i i learned to ride a horse there so there was a lot of things that i and then eventually i felt very comfortable just being in the mountains on a horse i was a kid who never rode a horse did you do you ride now do you find i still can ride yeah yeah and i'm gonna ride on this yeah i moved i kept it up for a while yeah
Guest:But these were great horses.
Guest:They were Spanish horses.
Guest:They were trained.
Guest:One of my horses, his name was Madruga.
Guest:And that was a fantastic horse.
Guest:But they were really brilliantly trained horses.
Marc:They scare me, man.
Guest:You're scared at first, and then you have to make friends with it, and you have to feed it and wash it.
Guest:Eventually, the horse will say, get your smell, and then you'll- You're in?
Guest:Well, I was in with my horse.
Guest:My horse didn't want anyone around him after a while.
Guest:But it was terrifying.
Guest:They're big animals.
Guest:I know, man.
Guest:But it's beautiful.
Guest:I got to experience things that I never-
Marc:Did.
Marc:And you rode recently?
Guest:I'm going to ride tomorrow because I have to ride in this other thing I'm doing right now.
Guest:What?
Guest:I'm doing The Plot Against America by Philip Roth.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That's a great book.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're making a whole movie or a series?
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Six parts.
Guest:David Simon is David Burns.
Guest:Really?
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's amazing.
Marc:So they're just going to play it real.
Marc:They're going to do the whole thing.
Guest:Well, they're using a lot of footage of Lindbergh and certain people.
Guest:That's very smart.
Marc:When did that project start to happen?
Guest:I guess there was a few...
Guest:he wasn't that interested in doing it when Obama was president.
Guest:He wrote it when Bush was president.
Guest:Philip or, yeah.
Marc:I know, I read it right when it came out.
Guest:Yeah, when it came out.
Guest:And it's, I mean, the whole American firsters, I mean, he took a lot of things that are very truthful and, you know,
Guest:Obviously history is really revisionist because everyone thinks everyone wanted to be patriotic and fight in the war but 80% of our country did not want to be involved in the Second World War after World War I and the level of
Guest:you know, there was a big Nazi party here, a level of anti-Semitism, you know, and the American firsters were really, that was Lindbergh's, you know, he was one of those people.
Guest:And a lot of famous people were American firsters.
Guest:George Vidal was an American firster.
Marc:Gore Vidal or his father?
Guest:His Gore Vidal.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It started at Yale, of course.
Guest:I mean, I went to Yale as a drama student.
Guest:I was a handicapped addition.
Guest:But a lot of things start at those Ivy League institutions of saying, let's keep it pure.
Marc:Yeah, it starts at the intellectual level and then it becomes real.
Guest:Let's keep it pure.
Guest:I mean, the drama school used to be right next to Skull and Bones.
Guest:So I had a few encounters with those people over the years.
Marc:But they were like a frat though, really, weren't they?
Marc:But you would never see them.
Guest:You could never see who was in Skull and Bones.
Guest:It was like a CIA blacked out site.
Guest:You couldn't see it.
Guest:They could throw things over the fence at you, but you would never see them.
Marc:But did you feel like it was threatening or were it just a bunch of kids?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's weird if you were like a dishwasher late at night and then guys are thrown debris over the fence.
Guest:Were you a dishwasher?
Guest:Yeah, I was a dishwasher with me and Charles Dutton.
Guest:We were both dishwashers at the cabaret and they bothered us one night, but we responded.
Guest:yeah what'd you do how'd you fight back the secret society we threw things back over the fence at them i was thinking you know you know uh but it was odd like someone wanted to throw debris on us yeah i mean there was a black guy and another dark skin battalion jew i could be a lot of things yeah and you have been a lot of yeah and these they like they dumped all this stuff over the fence on us as if it was funny yeah it wasn't very funny
Guest:no and uh you think we didn't think it was very funny we were working you know putting out the garbage yeah i remember that and that left a mark on that i was like wow so this is yeah this is the future of our country the world these are the world leaders things things don't change i mean things change and but that's what i'm saying going back you understand yeah what when you read certain things you know
Guest:if you read about 1924 they just wrote a big article about the immigration laws yeah my father came here in 25 but his father had established residency but they closed the doors to mass immigration especially italy i think had the most uh immigrants for one country there was a lot of jewish immigrants but they were in different countries
Guest:And my father took him six years to get here because they couldn't get in.
Guest:That was in 1925?
Guest:He was born in 1925, but he got here in 1931.
Guest:But his father had established a residency.
Guest:So his father was here?
Guest:He had been here a bunch of times.
Marc:What kind of business?
Guest:he was a naval officer, but then he went into, you know, he was like a builder.
Guest:Your father.
Guest:My grandfather.
Guest:But then they finally got here.
Guest:But when you read what they wrote about, you know, Italians and Jews, I mean, they were, you know, wow, you just read their description of it about, you know, the interbreeding and the lowering of the,
Guest:I mean, it was the junk science.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:It was called, what's the word for it?
Guest:Eugenics?
Guest:Eugenics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the junk science.
Guest:And they had all these guys, and, you know, some scientists who were behind it, too.
Guest:Then it was eugenics.
Marc:Yeah, I can't, you know, it's like every day, I can't, it's like getting harder and harder for me to function.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, but I go back.
Guest:The only reason I go back is I think, okay, this is what people thought.
Guest:And then you see people get accepted here and then forget that.
Guest:And you're thinking like, you know, you can't forget that, you know, because...
Guest:This is what America looks like.
Guest:This is what it was.
Guest:One of the books I really, not to go off on a tangent, but one of the books I really loved about was Nancy Eisenberg's book, White Trash.
Guest:It's not the most maybe fun book, but she delineates certain things about the whole group of
Guest:supposedly white people, waste people.
Guest:They were called waste people, the people who came here.
Guest:They were just supposed to work the land and then die.
Guest:They were discardable.
Guest:Where'd they come from?
Guest:You know, from England, you know, and places of whereabout.
Guest:But these people, they're eventually ones, they became squatters.
Guest:And they were not landowners.
Guest:They had no money.
Guest:And they were lower than slaves.
Guest:So, of course, they had to have someone to look down upon, too.
Guest:But she breaks it down about this.
Guest:And then this myth of whiteness that was kind of laid on.
Guest:I guess there's a book called When the Irish Became White.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't considered white until the 1950s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You mean on the census?
Guest:No, on the census.
Guest:You were, my father was other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't black.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Even though he looked, you know, he could have been black, but he was, you had to check other.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, miraculously, he became white.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So, I'm just, it just, you know, it fascinates me, the mixture that we all are.
Guest:And I think everyone, you know, they cling to these myths of things that have nothing to do with who you are.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's what this whole book's about.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A lot of it.
Marc:Have you always had this thing, this fascination with history?
Marc:No.
Guest:i've learned a lot more after i got out of school because i worked there yeah and people gave me where in sicily i worked and uh i did a primo levy film with francesco rosie a great director the the truce his second book so for five years he introduced me to primo levy and all these things and i started reading italian
Guest:Jewish literature and Italian literature and I was kind of shocked because a lot of it's not except for a few writers aren't really translated here.
Guest:Probably because a lot of the Italians who came here weren't that educated and they didn't have a big readership.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:There's so many great, great Jewish writers but you have a bigger readership.
Guest:People read.
Guest:Do you speak Italian?
Guest:I've learned to speak present tense Italian.
Guest:I can't read a book.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I can read an article, but I need a really good translation.
Guest:But I've devoured voraciously all these Italian.
Guest:I mean, all those Elena Ferrante books, I devoured all of them, you know, one, two, three, when they came out.
Guest:Because it's interesting, you know, for me, and I've discovered so many great writers.
Guest:I just did this miniseries on Umberto Eco, you know.
Guest:He's from the Pimontese area.
Guest:But there are a lot of great Cesare Pavese, Natalia Ginzburg, Calvino, Primo Levi.
Guest:But Primo Levi, I know every book he's ever written.
Marc:I've got to read some.
Marc:He's the greatest.
Guest:He's one of the, I've never given one of his books, people wouldn't say to me, oh my God, I never, because he's not, he doesn't, he writes as a guy who was a chemist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he writes everything down in a way that you, even when his worst, his famous book is Sequestro a Uomo, If This is a Man, not aptly retitled, or maybe not,
Guest:brilliantly retitled Survival in Auschwitz here.
Guest:But he writes it as- I read Survival in Auschwitz.
Guest:Yeah, well, that's Primo Levi.
Marc:Oh, that was great.
Marc:That changed my whole perception.
Guest:That's it, because he makes you imagine, like, well, what would I have done?
Marc:It's not about- Exactly, and also, he sort of re- I think he introduced the idea of transcending victimhood,
Marc:from within the camp that this idea we had, they obviously were victims, but there was things going on within the camp on different levels.
Guest:On all different levels.
Guest:On all different levels.
Guest:I don't know, I forgot that he wrote that.
Marc:It changed my whole brain, that book.
Guest:I mean, me too.
Guest:I think if you are a prejudiced person, I'm just saying, and you were able to read 10 pages of that slim book, like a day, you come out of that, it actually confronts your, in a very...
Guest:I don't understand how he does it, but subtle way, because it's not about him.
Guest:And you feel implicated somehow, or you could be implicated.
Marc:Yeah, because he humanizes everybody.
Marc:Everybody.
Marc:And there's a whole spectrum of emotions and things that people had to do out of necessity.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:That were fundamentally human just to survive in an almost unsurvivable situation.
Guest:He explains it as a laboratory of human behavior.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And he said that part of his life was really in color and everything else has been like it was in black and white after that.
Guest:But he's just, you know, once you have an experience with that, it opens something in your brain, and it confronts you saying, okay, we all have some prejudices, we have weaknesses, we have fears, and that guy, at times when I'm upset about things, whatever, you know, 9-11, election, I'll take one of his essays out, and I'll read it, and say, okay, what is...
Guest:what does Primo say about this?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:And it's like, uh, it's almost like the Talmud or something.
Marc:The Bible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For me, it's, it is because he's not really religious and, but he's a humanist.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So, so what, like with this brain that you have that keeps growing and, and your interests keep, what, what compelled you to act initially?
Uh,
Guest:I guess I was in a family with a lot of performers.
Guest:My mother's brothers were musicians.
Guest:My mother sang with them and then didn't want to, and she wanted to be a designer, but she had to quit school.
Guest:My father's brothers were all very,
Guest:like larger than, like, you know, people you would watch in the movies, you would see someone like Edward G. Robinson or Lee J. Cobb, for example, or George C. I would, like, say, well, that guy's like my father.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, he's just like my, and my father loved movies, and I mean, I never knew anybody.
Marc:That's a pretty powerful father, Lee J. Cobb, and were you going to say George C. Scott?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, my father was, yeah, he was right up.
Guest:That's a combination, yeah, that's exactly, he even looks like him, you know, like, and just in a ferocious temper.
Guest:But you were around it.
Guest:So it was like an acting class.
Guest:Even my parents, how they would go moment to moment, like not let anything pass.
Guest:Like what is that?
Guest:No, you're laughing.
Guest:Oh, you think that's funny, right?
Guest:You're dirty.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And you know, it was like, when I went to acting class, I was thinking, I've already been in this.
Guest:I mean, I have my parents.
Guest:You know, and so, I mean, a lot of people, I think I'm one of probably many, I don't wanna say millions, but when there was a show like The Honeymooners, that show had an honesty to it that you, if you were a little kid,
Guest:And your parents had that kind of dynamic and you were not well off.
Guest:You know, my older brother, Ralph, used to call the show Mommy and Daddy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, Mommy and Daddy's on.
Guest:And somehow, my father didn't really look like Jackie Gleason.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had the same kind of, you know, slow burns.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But that show really...
Guest:there was something about it that had that honesty, you know, above it and the dreams of, you know, doing something more.
Guest:So those things affect you.
Guest:And I think affected a lot of, I know comedians, but also a lot of actors, also a lot of actors.
Guest:And,
Guest:So there were things, you know, there are people that I love, like Edward G. Robinson, you know, I mean, or James Cagney or Bette Davis.
Guest:I'm just like.
Marc:But you were already like, I mean, those were.
Guest:I used to watch them with my parents on Channel 11 or whatever.
Guest:Channel 11, Channel 5, Channel 9.
Guest:So those movies I grew up with, Warner Brothers movies, then discovered, you know, Brando and all.
Guest:And then the movies came of the 70s.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So, you know, like I just showed my son shampoo the other day.
Marc:How old is your son?
Guest:My youngest son, Diego, is 18.
Guest:He liked it.
Guest:He liked it.
Marc:It's a pretty great movie.
Guest:It's a pretty great movie.
Guest:And I said that I saw that movie with my dad.
Guest:He was so turned on to Julie Christie.
Guest:You know, you could smoke in the movie theater.
Guest:But I remember I kept looking at him, thinking like smoke was coming out of his ears and stuff, you know.
Guest:So those were the inspirations.
Guest:Well, those things.
Guest:And then I started seeing theater and I thought, well, maybe I could do this.
Guest:And then I went to college.
Marc:So where'd you go to undergrad?
Guest:I went to SUNY New Paltz.
Marc:And that's where you started acting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a lot of great, great, great teachers there because it was close to New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had a couple of teachers, Richard Bell and this guy, Joe Papron, and this woman who went to Yale, Beverly Brum from Wisconsin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they really kind of civilized me or educated me because I was just so raw.
Marc:But passionate.
Guest:You come from the craziness.
Guest:I was shy.
Guest:But once you let me do it, only when I was comfortable.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, do you find that growing up in the volatile house that you grew up in, that you were always second banana or third banana?
Marc:I was watching it all.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was studying it all.
Marc:But could you speak up?
Guest:Sometimes I did, yeah.
Guest:Sometimes I spoke up for my mother.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, against my father.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Things got out of hand, yeah.
Marc:What, was he boozy?
Guest:He wasn't boozy, but he could be... Temper.
Guest:He had his rages.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And men in that...
Guest:It was a different world.
Guest:It was a much more, you know, women were, you felt the oppression of a household, you know what I mean?
Guest:Especially in the culture that I was in.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It was, you know.
Guest:Italian-American?
Guest:I used to go to my friend's house who were Jewish, and they were like, I said, well, your mother, you know, she's the one who's the force in here.
Guest:In our house, it was like dad's home, you know.
Guest:How many kids were there?
Guest:There were three of us.
Marc:You have an older brother?
Marc:I have an older brother, Ralph, and Nicholas is my younger brother.
Marc:I saw a Nick somewhere recently at the airport or something.
Guest:But everybody's house is not normal.
Guest:When we grew up in TV, the reflection of family, except for the honeymoon, was all my three sons.
Guest:So we all...
Guest:somehow got this thing of like, well, we want to be like American, normal people, and none of that existed, you know what I mean?
Guest:I remember my father saying that to me.
Guest:I said, why can't we be like those people on television?
Guest:He was like, well, that's not real.
Guest:It's not real.
Guest:I said, yeah, but people don't go flying out of windows and, you know what I mean, and all kinds of stuff.
Guest:He goes, ah, that's, you know.
Guest:I remember like a funny story.
Guest:I was telling someone that we moved.
Guest:We lived in Hollis, Queens.
Guest:And it was basically mostly black neighborhood.
Guest:So my friends were all black.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:But we moved.
Guest:I was around six.
Guest:But those years are really formative years.
Guest:And so...
Guest:you know, it was a very close, we lived in garden apartments, so everybody was outside, we all played on the street, it was, you know, everybody played with each other, it was, you know, the hula hoop, chubby checker, you know, the crystals, you know, and then when we moved, we moved to Rosedale, and that was mostly a Italian-Irish, little Jewish neighborhood,
Guest:and uh i was dark and all the kids thought i was puerto rican and obviously that there weren't many puerto ricans in that neighborhood yeah that was kind of a term like if you were puerto rican you got you got picked on by the italians and the irish yeah because it was like the irish were here and there was someone else to pick on and uh keep moving down yeah and uh you know i was
Guest:Lot of the kids would invite me over and then kind of beat me up gang up on me and I don't know I was around seven years old or something and my father was home Watching it would you Robinson?
Guest:Who's one of our favorite actors?
Guest:Yeah in the Seawolf, right?
Guest:Wolf Larson, we plays the terrible captain Who's a sadistic guy?
Guest:He throws Barry Fitzgerald to the sharks.
Guest:Yeah John Garfield is in it.
Guest:I will Pino and
Guest:Anyway, I came in and I was seven years old.
Guest:I was in tears.
Guest:These kids had thrown water balloons at me and were hitting me and saying my mother was all kinds of things.
Guest:And I didn't know exactly how to respond to them.
Guest:And my father, I came in and my father told me to be shh, be quiet.
Guest:He said he was watching the movie.
Guest:And I said, Dad, can I talk to you?
Guest:And he said, you know, I'm watching Edward G. Robinson.
Guest:And he was fighting the entire crew.
Guest:Anyway, I told my father, he said, listen, these guys beating me up, both of them.
Guest:And he said, well, how many are there?
Guest:And he said, well, there's two of them and they're older than me and they're beating me up and they invited me over and then he said, you know, look at it with your arms.
Guest:You know, he fights the entire crew.
Guest:Whatever he has.
Guest:I said, you know, bites and pulls hair, kicks, anything.
Guest:So he said, he said,
Guest:Well, he said, if there's more than one guy, then even it out.
Guest:Get a stick.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:You got a stick.
Guest:And I did, and I had a pretty brutal fight with both of them.
Guest:They were pretty tough kids.
Guest:And one kid I bit really badly.
Guest:On what?
Guest:Where'd you bite?
Guest:On his arm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had to get butterflies, I remember.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:They stitched him up?
Guest:I really, another kid, I smacked him with his stick really head...
Guest:And I just pounded both.
Guest:I mean, I don't know, because I was so emotional, because they were like torturing me.
Guest:And then, of course, the parents came.
Guest:My mother had to go out.
Guest:My father was still watching the movie.
Guest:It didn't bother him at all.
Guest:But it was so strange moving to this neighborhood where I was supposed to be with people who were supposed to be like me, and they're the ones who, you know,
Marc:But they didn't fuck with you again?
Guest:No.
Guest:After that, they knew, like, but, you know, leave me alone.
Guest:But was that out of character for you on some level?
Guest:I wasn't that kind of kid.
Guest:I was like, I wasn't a kid.
Marc:So did it hurt your heart?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I've been in some fights, you know, over the years when I was a kid, and I was always, took a lot out of me emotionally.
Marc:Were you able to make an amends?
Guest:uh not to them i do i wasn't because i saw how brutal they were so they had it coming they were they were just brutal they were bad kids they'll try to rip your hair out of your head yeah so i was like all right well no then if you're gonna it's not you're not giving me a fair chance right but no i was trying to make friends yeah and they were like just trying yeah when you're kids are very
Guest:Brutal harsh really cruel.
Guest:Yeah, they know how to You know, I was saying to someone the other day when I was a substitute teacher At two different schools rice high school and then this school our lady queen of martyr I was fifth and sixth graders and there was a girl who was a great student.
Guest:Yeah, her name was Maria and there was a boy who had problems I won't say his name and
Guest:But he liked Maria.
Guest:But this girl, she was in fifth grade.
Guest:She was really ironic.
Guest:She was a great student and so graceful.
Guest:And the last day of school, he liked her.
Guest:And he was emotional because, you know, he kind of had gotten to like me.
Guest:and he reached out to her and he grabbed her pigtails, like he yanked her on the ground, like pulling her hair as if to say like, you know, I like you, but like a caveman.
Guest:And she was in pain and I went and I had to break them up and she never let out a sound.
Guest:She just looked at him like,
Guest:she felt empathy for him.
Guest:And I couldn't believe that she was, she had tears in her eyes and stuff and she didn't discharge on him at all.
Guest:It was such a informative moment to see some kid who had problems and this girl who was so graceful and didn't make him even feel worse, even though he hurt her.
Guest:you know right uh i just thought wow that's something i have to remember you know and because sometimes you do these scenes and you go like it was such a psychological gesture and her response was so exceptional because she was empathetic she just i'll never forget how she looked at him i'll never forget it i was i i thought highly of her but after that i was like wow this person is really special
Marc:So that's got me upset, or in a good way.
Marc:But I mean, you had this, it seems like a very full life to enter the acting world in.
Marc:And when you were at New Paltz, you did some stuff in high school?
Guest:I did stuff at some plays in high school.
Guest:Did like Pippin and stuff like that in high school.
Guest:And you loved it?
Guest:Yeah, I really liked it.
Guest:But the first play I did in New Paltz was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Guest:I had little experience with being around people who were suffering from mental problems.
Guest:My own family, down the block.
Guest:Who in your family?
Guest:My older brother, Ralph.
Guest:He's still around?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm his guardian.
Guest:We're close.
Guest:And he's a very talented guy.
Guest:But he's had, I guess, diagnosed, he's been diagnosed with everything, basically.
Guest:From schizophrenia to obsessive-compulsive.
Guest:He's been in and out of institutions.
Guest:The mental health system is hard for anyone, even someone like myself who has some money to navigate or try to help him.
Guest:And after my parents died, it was quite, quite hard.
Guest:But I had to go to court and everything to be as, becomes a guardian.
Guest:And a lot of times the state becomes the guardian because the siblings just can't, you know, you get worn out.
Guest:And it's not like these movies when there's, someone overcomes it.
Guest:Most of this is a lifelong, endless baseball season that never ends.
Guest:never spoke about this until I did this speech Catherine Burns at the moth yeah and I'm very happy I have and I've been involved with this community access which has helped my brother a lot they they they supply housing and programs and it's a great organization and we're trying to raise money to build more buildings now and we're doing that so it feels good how often do you see him
Guest:Pretty often when I'm in town, yeah.
Guest:I take him out and we walk around and make sure he showers and stuff like that.
Guest:But he's, you know, I've come a long way.
Guest:He's in a more peaceful part of his life, which I'm very, very,
Guest:Happy about?
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I've been through, you know, the police.
Guest:Yeah, oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, I've been, oh, yeah, the whole, the whole.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I mean, people don't realize the families, you know, who, you have a family member, what you go through as a family.
Guest:It scars you.
Marc:And this is your whole life?
Guest:Since I'm...
Marc:12 years different phases of it all different phases it's so hard it's such a hard and that's why people run for the hills and so maybe it made me more empathetic or whatever you know uh must have been it like to see that much raw emotion and and that type of of human behavior it's got to be uh somewhat uh like a powerful study of something
Guest:i mean i think we learned the dynamics whether you're an actor a comedian writer you know within your between your parents yeah and your siblings and my parents i saw that they were yeah you know my father was like a very expressive unconscious like childlike man in some ways but he could be scary and my mother was very quick and
Marc:But he seemed to have it pretty well integrated.
Marc:I mean, you're not saying he was abusive or anything like that.
Guest:He had his moments.
Guest:He had his moments.
Guest:But he wasn't consistent.
Guest:I was forgiving of that.
Guest:I mean, you know, you have to kind of make a list or do a mathematical equation.
Guest:How much of it is it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, is it 50-50?
Guest:Is it 75?
Guest:You know, he was in World War II.
Guest:Suffered post, you know, suffered from his nerves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Post-traumatic stress.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was in D-Day, all that stuff.
Guest:But, you know, in my parents, in their interplay, I saw the, you know, it was like going to a Sandy Meisner repeat exercise class.
Guest:You know, they didn't let anything pass.
Guest:They were like, you know, and my mother knew how to try to diffuse things.
Guest:And, you know, she was just...
Guest:She had a hard life, but she had a really optimistic spirit, and I think that really affected me.
Guest:Full balance.
Guest:Yeah, because I really felt like she was so talented of a person, and I feel like I wish I was as talented.
Guest:as she was, but whatever opportunity I have, I really feel like my mother could have done so many things because she didn't get certain opportunities or whatever.
Guest:We had a very close friendship.
Guest:Very close friendship.
Guest:And I was really...
Guest:It took me, when she passed away, it was a huge, I had to really kind of recalibrate my- How old were you?
Guest:It was 2000, I don't know, maybe I was late 40s.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, but, I mean, but we were just, you know, we had a, you know, she went through a lot of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, she was a really fun person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like a person who, I'm glad I was able to get to share.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you are.
Marc:And she got to see some of your success.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and she was, you know, she was, and she would be honest with me too sometimes.
Guest:I'd say like, oh wow, you had no chemistry.
Guest:That was a fake kiss.
Guest:I saw that when you kissed.
Guest:And if I had chemistry with someone, she would say, oh, you know, don't let your wife see that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:She knew right away.
Guest:I was like, how do you know these things?
Guest:She goes, I know you.
Guest:You know, she was like, yeah.
Guest:One time I said, I mean, I used it in a movie that I did Romance and Cigarettes.
Guest:Like, I was like, well, you know, it's hard to be married and you look around, you know, and it's like, you know, you go through these, like, ups and downs.
Guest:And my mother was in the car with me and she goes,
Guest:So, all right, so you're going to go, you want to go do something else?
Guest:She goes, yeah, well, what do you think you're going to find there?
Guest:She says, it's not like a, you know, machine where you put in, like, you get M&Ms and chips.
Guest:She said, the peanuts are going to come out.
Guest:She said, it's the same peanut bag that comes out.
Guest:I was dying.
Guest:I said, I can't believe you said that.
Guest:I said, so, you know,
Guest:I said, yeah, but there's different color hair.
Guest:She was like, it's the same thing.
Guest:You're not going to find anything new.
Guest:What do you think you're going to find?
Guest:Something new?
Marc:And she was just like, she spoke from experience.
Marc:She saved your marriage.
Guest:Yeah, so I was like, you know.
Guest:That's a good lesson to learn.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, wow.
Marc:So in the training, like in undergrad, I mean, like you had good teachers.
Guest:I had great teachers.
Guest:I had Beverly Brum, Joe Paparone.
Guest:I had Richard Bell.
Guest:And Beverly Brum was very helpful.
Guest:She went to Yale.
Guest:And, you know, I was really, really close with her.
Guest:And, you know, it's funny.
Guest:People, when they talk about all these different, I was thinking about it because Paul's was so relaxed.
Guest:I mean, people used to go skinny dipping and then you'd meet people and you'd be naked.
Guest:But Beverly was from the Midwest.
Guest:She was gay.
Guest:And here I was this kind of big, muscular kind of Italian guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She really educated me and I would do anything for her.
Guest:She just gave me parts that were hard for me and helped me in my writing, helped me what to read.
Guest:I loved her so much.
Guest:And she always came to all my plays up until she passed.
Marc:What was the biggest challenge for you initially?
Guest:What had to be cracked?
Guest:I think being confident, not feeling that I was sophisticated, not being well-read enough.
Guest:I just felt I was sensitive, and I could feel when I was...
Guest:not up to snuff or being, you know, I would get nervous and stuff and not want to embarrass myself.
Guest:And then, but once I got in there, then I didn't feel the same.
Guest:I've always been better with one-on-one with teachers, not in a classroom.
Guest:Unless they gave me a text or something and then
Guest:And then I studied after college with a man, Robert Modica, who worked with Sandy Meisner.
Guest:And he made a huge impression on me.
Guest:So when I went back to Yale, I was pretty well trained.
Guest:I was better trained than most of the people in that class, I would say.
Marc:And you did a lot of theater here with the Westbeth and everything else.
Guest:Yeah, I did a lot of theater.
Guest:But I had good training.
Guest:So then I could take the vocal things and the movement things there.
Guest:And I got to work a lot at Yale with a lot of very talented people.
Guest:people.
Marc:And who was in your class again?
Guest:I said Charles Dutton, Angela Bassett, Sabrina LaBeouf.
Marc:And that's where you met Francis too?
Guest:Francis was a year ahead of me and I met Joel and Joel would see me in plays.
Marc:Had they made movies yet?
Guest:well, when she did Blood Simple, I went to see that, and that's how I met Joel and Ethan, and then I had done this play at the Eugene O'Neill Center, right after Yale, that Lloyd Richards, who was the dean of the drama school, was the head of that, and I met John Patrick Shanley, and I did Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, and did a bunch of things with John, including Five Corners, which a lot of people saw me in, this kind of explosive King Kong kind of character, and
Guest:And that's where Spike saw me.
Guest:He was like, man, I saw you throw your mother out the window.
Guest:Like I said, listen, Shanley wrote that.
Guest:I said, I just did it.
Guest:But Joel and Ethan knew my work through that and also through theater.
Marc:But Spike and those guys, I mean, you're their guy in a lot of movies.
Guest:Well, I've been in, you know.
Guest:A lot of Spike movies.
Guest:I consider them a lot of Spike movies.
Guest:I've worked with Joel and Ethan four times, but in the theater with Ethan, and they executive produced Romance and Cigarettes.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:With James Gandolfini and Kate Winslet.
Marc:Oh, God, it's so sad that he's gone.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I was saying to someone the other day, Steve Zellig, and I said, you know, James is one of those people that I still can't get my head around.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That he's not here.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He just had this, I don't know.
Marc:Did you know him a long time?
Guest:I knew him because I know him through Aida.
Guest:She's your cousin.
Guest:And they did Streetcar Named Desire when Alec Baldwin was Stanley.
Guest:And then, you know, from The Sopranos and stuff.
Marc:I got to be honest, like Barton Fink is one of my favorite movies ever.
Marc:I think it's one of the best movies ever.
Guest:Well, it's a good movie.
Guest:I can say that now.
Guest:You can say that now?
Guest:I mean, it took me a while to, you know, understand like what everyone really liked about it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I love doing it.
Guest:I love doing it.
Marc:I've never not had a good experience working with... But as a guy who loved those movies when you were a kid, I mean, there must have been some connection.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I love the script and everything.
Guest:You're not used to seeing yourself in those things.
Guest:But I remember lines from the other characters.
Guest:Like, you know, Ben Geisler.
Guest:You fucked him, Fink.
Guest:he had a heart as big as all of the out he had a heart as big as the all outdoors and you him think you know why did it take you a long time because you're just weird seeing yourself in in these things or whatever you like it just i recently saw some of it i was like well this is really i mean i knew it was brilliantly made and designed
Marc:What's it like working with them in terms of what's the relationship like?
Guest:We have a great relationship.
Guest:We have always had a good relationship.
Marc:Because a lot of these characters, they're all different.
Guest:They wrote Barton Fink for me, and they wrote Miller's Crossing for me.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:And they wrote... Well, that scene where you get killed in Miller's Crossing, right?
Marc:In the woods, right?
Guest:So they wrote those things with me.
Guest:But when they do that, then I try to do a lot more work and surprise them a little bit because they're doing something for you.
Guest:They're just...
Guest:great guys they're very meticulous right really meticulous yeah really i remember when i did miller's crossing i showed him a picture of leopold and lobe i think it was lobe and i said that's how i want to look just like that guy and they were like all right what about the character of no brother that was like that guy was yeah that was just you know based on curly you know i don't know
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know where I pulled that out.
Guest:I mean, I worked on the accents.
Guest:I don't know where I, but they, you know, they give you a lot.
Guest:They say, well, could you shave your head?
Guest:What about your teeth?
Guest:Can we get really bad teeth made?
Guest:Once I put the teeth in my mouth, they had the accent, and then I realized, like, I'm just gonna be, you know, he's like a guy who's always suspicious.
Guest:He's the suspicious guy.
Guest:Tim was the innocent guy.
Guest:George is the brains of the operation, so to speak.
Guest:So it was like a three-headed monster, and...
Guest:but uh you were thinking you actually were thinking about the stooges yeah i was you know i was like this way back you know like i would do these like outrageous things just to make ethan like you know yeah because they like that kind of stuff too yeah they like broad like not broad but like big big characters yeah but you got to kind of get that that's a little more stylized but still you got to get you know into the spirit of each individual thing it's different each one of their movies is a little different
Marc:And Lebowski was crazy.
Guest:That's a crazy character.
Guest:But that's the character I kind of had.
Guest:They saw me do something like that on stage.
Guest:Oh, they did?
Guest:Yeah, and they were fascinated by that.
Guest:So I thought it was going to be a much bigger character originally.
Guest:And then when I did it, I was like, well, I better make something out of it.
Guest:But listen, I don't know.
Guest:I didn't get that movie when it first came out.
Guest:But I have to say, it took me a while to really understand the humor of it.
Marc:yeah i'm still trying to get it yeah because people love it it's like got a cult following because i keep watching it and i keep like how come i can't i think it's like you want it you have to want to be a child like kids like it because if you never want to grow up right you want to stay in your pajamas right jeff is the the guy like he's like you know it's a whole it's a whole generation he represents
Guest:he represents the underachiever, you know, the classic underachiever.
Guest:When they wrote it, they said, well, it's like a Cheech and Chong film, they were telling me, you know, and I was like, but Jeff, I think, is just great in it, and he's just like, I always, you know, got him, but now I get the movie a lot.
Marc:And what about, like, what's the relationship with Spike?
Marc:How's that different?
Guest:My relationship is very, very good with Spike.
Guest:I mean, we grew up very, not that dissimilar.
Guest:He grew up in an Italian neighborhood.
Guest:I grew up in a black neighborhood, you know.
Guest:I got bussed out to an all-black school, you know.
Guest:So, by the time we met, it was weird.
Guest:It was almost as if we were, like...
Guest:You knew each other?
Guest:I have my own relationship with him, and I've played the racist guy, the anti-racist guy, the cop.
Guest:I've been accused of all kinds of things, and we didn't know better.
Guest:So I've seen the white establishment response to Spike from the beginning.
Guest:I know him as a friend, and I know what kind of person he is.
Guest:He knew my mom, he knew my brother.
Guest:And so...
Guest:You know, he had a big... He's feisty, but he had a big knapsack on his back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't think a lot of people knew that, what the kind of... He was trying to say, I can make a black film, and people will go see it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, at that time, you know, it was after the black police station films, and, you know, he opened up a big door.
Guest:And he opened up a lot of opportunities for a lot of people.
Guest:But he's someone I'm...
Guest:I consider a close friend yeah, you know, and I'm gonna maybe do another movie Hopefully he would be like the executive producer on it because I want to I've been working on a movie about basically Something I want to make but it's about like ignorance.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah and openness and
Guest:Because I think sometimes you see these movies and it's like too clear between the good and the bad.
Guest:There's not this gray area, the complexity of a guy.
Guest:Well, how can a guy in the same family vote for this person or be a complete
Guest:And the other person is not that way at all.
Guest:And you come from the same parents.
Guest:And I think therein lies the debate.
Guest:Not this hardening.
Guest:Divided, right, right.
Guest:There's nothing that's going to happen that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Only it's going to be people screaming at each other.
Marc:Is it a family thing you got in mind?
Guest:But it's, you have to do it through, yeah, it's through a family.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The most horrible deed, Arthur Miller, because he loved the Greeks, the tragic deed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:the most ridiculous deed is done within the family.
Guest:Always.
Guest:That's the world.
Guest:That's your world view when you come out of it.
Guest:So it's something hopefully I'll get a chance to make.
Guest:Are you writing it?
Guest:Yeah, it's all done.
Guest:It's all done and I hope to do it.
Guest:But I think this
Guest:This blindness that we see right now.
Guest:I think a lot of what's going on in the world has to do with our culture.
Guest:I really do.
Marc:With America.
Guest:Yeah, I think it has to do with our culture.
Marc:Yeah, that's what that book's about.
Marc:Fantasyland.
Marc:It's our culture.
Marc:Yeah, and now it's so weird because when you deal with the political climate we live in and this particular president, there's something sadly, painfully honest about that guy being the president.
Yeah.
Guest:yeah yeah it's shockingly i mean he represents all the worst of us yeah i mean he listen he reality television helped him hone his persona yeah which he always had did you know him
Guest:No, my father worked for his father.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, didn't know him that well.
Guest:Doing construction?
Guest:Yeah, because my father was a builder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My brother worked for Trump as a doorman.
Marc:Which one?
Marc:Nick?
Guest:Nick, as a St.
Guest:Moritz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he has his own, you know.
Guest:But, you know, his father basically enabled him.
Guest:Yeah, but I think when being on TV all those years people's idea of him not in New York City Yeah, because I don't think he could even win borough president, right?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe he could win his down on but he wouldn't win it in Queens Yeah, and he wouldn't win it in Brooklyn He wouldn't win it in the Bronx and he wouldn't win it in Manhattan.
Guest:Yeah, you know So that says a lot and he's from this is his hometown But people
Guest:bought it yeah for 12 years don't forget it was over 10 years he was the mastermind yeah so that just goes to show you now of course the guy who created that show is not from our country he's english yeah the guy who created that show so maybe the revolutionary war still i don't know but i was thinking like wow not an american didn't do that but i
Guest:Yeah, and Murdoch's not American either.
Guest:No, either.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:And I don't think... I think there's something in that also.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I watched a lot of those Republican debates with my son because we thought they were entertaining.
Guest:But he's a real... He's a bully.
Guest:He's always been a bully.
Guest:And that's what he is.
Guest:He's a bully.
Guest:That's why some people like...
Guest:you know i look at him i say like wow i just i can only think of like mud wrestling as an answer to everything like you know but like samurai wrestling but that's what happens when someone's been enabled sure to a certain point but what
Guest:what I fear about is like everything is anti, like anti-knowledge, anti-nuance.
Guest:It's anti-science, anti-rationality.
Guest:I mean, the thing, the book I just made, The Name of the Rose,
Guest:that's what the book is about yeah it's about you know the guy's a man of uh of faith but a man of science the guy's a philosopher but he's a man of action the guy understands the value of women even though he's with all these men all these monks who fear and demonize women
Guest:And he understands more than anything that the only power against absolutism, this is in 1327, and Roberto Eco is a pretty smart guy, is knowledge.
Guest:That's the only thing you have.
Guest:So if you burn those books, or if you suppress those books, and really it was the Arabs who saved all this Greek literature.
Guest:translated into Arabic and then was retranslated back into Latin.
Guest:That's the only thing you have against, they call it the Antichrist, but against any form of absolute power.
Marc:And now they don't have to burn the books.
Marc:You just offer a lot of alternative information that seems to make sense.
Guest:That seems to make sense.
Guest:So I think that is the big issue, that if you're against the power of knowledge, I mean, why do people, when you go to a doctor, you want the doctor to have gone to medical school.
Guest:So why would I ever listen to a politician when it comes to the atmosphere?
Guest:No, I'm going to listen to a scientist.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So, I mean, they're the biggest actors imaginable.
Guest:I mean, when I look at politicians, I go, wow.
Marc:Have you ever played one?
Guest:Well, I'm playing kind of a politician now in this.
Guest:In the plot against America?
Guest:Yeah, he's the rabbi who's the, you know, he collaborates with Lindbergh.
Guest:So he's like a politician.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like a lot of people, they believed America should be isolationist.
Guest:But when I watch politicians,
Guest:I think about what is the believability factor.
Guest:I can tell you anything.
Guest:I could do all these things, but can I do any of those things?
Guest:And you see how hard it is, even with the brightest people, when they reach out and other people say, well, no, we're not doing anything.
Guest:I mean, look what happened with Obama.
Guest:As soon as he reached out, they were like, no, you're not getting anything.
Marc:It's sort of amazing to see how desperately people want to believe and how easily they do believe if it matches up with their particular emotions.
Marc:And they just allow themselves.
Guest:They allow themselves to just be tenderized, I think.
Guest:And then you're going to be put right on the flame.
Guest:You're going to be cooked.
Guest:And he's going to eat you.
Guest:I just hope that it doesn't turn out that people start attacking each other, the people who are almost on the same side.
Guest:I fear for that, to say you've got to get united for the overall best possible outcome and good.
Marc:And that's like when you do...
Marc:Like it sounds like these are like even that the night of was a fairly provocative.
Guest:Well, I try to do stories when I can that have that has humanity and has complexity because all these issues are complex.
Guest:There's no, you know, black and white.
Guest:Good and evil.
Guest:No, it's it's so simplistic.
Guest:And I think.
Guest:once again our culture loves to you know they always say well the character has to change you know nobody changes nobody changes they can grow they can enlarge right but your basic nature is is kind of set
Guest:yeah you can make different choices that's right you know and i i feel like sometimes pop culture could help that in a way by just getting people to reflect a little bit here and there i mean you can do your little thing you know yeah i mean i don't like when people tell me who to vote for and stuff i i i try to study you know read about people and say who actually could get something done
Marc:Right.
Marc:Maybe they will.
Marc:Maybe they will.
Guest:Maybe they will.
Marc:What's it like being a father?
Guest:I have two boys.
Guest:One's 28 and one's 18.
Guest:I like to leave the world a better place.
Guest:How are they turning out?
Guest:They all right?
Guest:My older boy works for DC Comics and my younger son is going to go to college next year.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:What's he interested in?
Guest:He's really good in math.
Guest:He's really good in history.
Guest:He doesn't know yet.
Guest:My other son's the artist, so he doesn't know.
Guest:But he's a smart guy.
Marc:When you do all these characters, obviously they're coming from you, but you're such a thoughtful guy.
Marc:How much of an impact has getting into the heads of these characters evolved you?
Guest:Well, you make a list sometimes what you have in common, what you don't have in common.
Marc:Was that something you do to prepare?
Guest:Sometimes I do.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes I do.
Guest:I say, well, this is what I need to work on.
Guest:Oh, interesting, yeah.
Guest:These things I understand, this I don't.
Guest:And once in a while, you just connect with everybody.
Guest:Like if you're the director, like on the night of with Richard Price and Steve Zalian, we had no question about the sensibility of it.
Guest:and the world of it.
Guest:And I interviewed so many lawyers and some really successful lawyers.
Guest:Just as research?
Guest:Research.
Guest:One guy, Kenny Montgomery, he looks like Adiris Elba.
Guest:He's a star defense attorney.
Guest:He was a prosecutor.
Guest:He helped delineate what he goes through in a trial for me.
Guest:I saw him interview people.
Guest:So little by little, you Frankenstein it.
Guest:And then sometimes something occurs and you're like, wow.
Guest:The great thing about that character, he's like an everyman because he's a guy with all the potential in the world, but he doesn't have the stomach to be successful.
Guest:And that's a lot of very talented people.
Guest:They don't have the stomach.
Marc:What do you think that is?
Guest:in that sense they don't have the stomach some people just can't maybe hold someone's life in their hands or they can't take the punishment of rejection right it's a sensitivity yeah and i mean in my business you have to be really sensitive when you work and at the same time you you have to have a thick skin yeah people are going to say you know no i don't like you i don't like this i don't like and they're like and it's
Guest:It is kind of personal.
Guest:It is you.
Guest:You're like, wow.
Guest:I've had critics write about my face over the years.
Guest:I mean, not lately, but when I was younger, I was like, God, really?
Guest:I was like, I have a lot of girlfriends.
Guest:I said, girls like me, but these guys are writing about me.
Guest:Then I realized that's their freaking problem.
Guest:It is their problem.
Guest:It's not my problem.
Marc:Have you ever had problems with directors?
Guest:I mean, listen, there are a lot of directors I would work with anytime.
Guest:And I only got to work with maybe once.
Guest:But yeah, sure, I've had problems with, you know.
Guest:Now I know how to, you know.
Guest:I mean, I worked with Michael Cimino and Billy Freakin when I was a young actor.
Marc:So I was... I know him.
Guest:He's something.
Guest:He's pretty wild.
Guest:So those movies were a different kind of, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a lot of cocaine-driven general type of idea.
Guest:You know, I have an army, and I was shocked doing those movies.
Guest:I was like, wow.
Marc:That was To Live and Die in L.A.?
Guest:To Live and Die in L.A.
Guest:was The Sicilian.
Guest:Oh, The Sicilian.
Guest:I learned...
Guest:I'd much rather work with people who are passionate but who are gentle.
Marc:How's Redford?
Guest:Loved working with him.
Guest:Loved working with him.
Guest:We were in love with each other.
Guest:I loved working with him.
Guest:I mean, he was great.
Guest:I was on that movie.
Guest:I was the only actor for a long time.
Guest:And so I spent a lot of time with him.
Guest:So I never got to work with him again.
Guest:But we got along really well.
Marc:And you do like smaller movies too, like with people.
Marc:I saw that movie Landline.
Marc:I thought it was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like that movie.
Guest:I mean, you want to give different people.
Guest:I work with young filmmakers, you know, and you never know.
Guest:And do you like directing?
Guest:I do.
Guest:When I'm with, if I have enough time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when I'm with great, you know, but some of the movies I've made, they're very much, they're very dear to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:And I'm, you know, I'm proud of the films I made.
Marc:Well, I hope you get to make this new one.
Guest:Yeah, thank you.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Marc:So that worked out okay.
Marc:That was me and John Turturro.
Marc:The Name of the Rose is currently airing on Sundance, and you can watch episodes on their streaming service, Sundance Now, or at SundanceTV.com.
Marc:I will play a little guitar for you.
Marc:Oh, to answer a question for people asking...
Marc:The tone that I'm getting out of this thing is really just the amp.
Marc:It's an old, I think it's a 57 or 58 Thunder Deluxe with one big 10-inch speaker in there.
Marc:I'm using an Echoplex pedal and a Les Paul Deluxe, a gold top with P90s.
Marc:So, you know, you crank that amp and it breaks up pretty nicely.
Marc:There's no tone pedal involved here.
Marc:Just the Echoplex.
Marc:I'm talking like I'm a professional guitar player.
Marc:It's the only pedal.
Marc:I don't really know how to use a lot of them.
Marc:Anyways, enjoy this meditation.
Guest:Boomer lives.