Episode 1032 - Stephen Dorff
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking isms?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:It's Mark Marin.
Marc:This is my podcast WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:I'm back.
Marc:I'm back in my house.
Marc:I've been away for a couple of weeks in the lovely country of Canada, which I love.
Marc:I like being there.
Marc:It's relaxing.
Marc:Had a great couple of weeks there.
Marc:Worked really hard.
Marc:Didn't get out as much as I want.
Marc:Managed to offend an entire city a little bit with some poetically dark but not critical comments about a certain element of their town.
Marc:That made national clickbait news.
Marc:And just like that, just like a thousand flashpoints of light, you know, people's brains just set on fire for a minute over one sentence that was taken out of context.
Marc:Maybe some people listen to it, but I'm not going to make any more hay about it.
Marc:I had a lovely time in Canada.
Marc:Maybe I will talk about a little bit in a little while.
Marc:Don't know.
Marc:Before I get too far ahead of myself here, Stephen Dorff is on the show today.
Marc:I was so fucking blown away.
Marc:by his performance on True Detective that I had to talk to him, and we had a fucking great conversation.
Marc:Great.
Marc:I love the guy.
Marc:I'm happy to be at my house.
Marc:I'm happy to get back into some regular schedule.
Marc:The hours that I was shooting were just killing me, and I think they disrupted my entire system.
Marc:I thought I was getting some sort of horrendous stomach disorder, but I really think it had a lot to do with working
Marc:Till three or four in the morning every night and just flipping that schedule.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But hopefully I'll feel better.
Marc:I'll let you know.
Marc:I did hike up the mountain today.
Marc:I really felt compelled.
Marc:Had to get out there.
Marc:Had to get up to the top.
Marc:Had to breathe.
Marc:Had to listen to some music.
Marc:Had to re-engage with the lizards.
Marc:The abundance of lizards.
Marc:It's very pleasant here in Los Angeles.
Marc:We're having that nice brief two to three weeks of summer right before everything just is on fire.
Marc:So they're speculating pretty rough fire season this year.
Marc:I hope you're preparing however one prepares for that.
Marc:But all that lovely rain apparently just created a lot more brush.
Marc:We'll see what happens.
Marc:Suicide rates higher than it's ever been.
Marc:Fire season is getting stronger.
Marc:There's a it's raining, I think, lizards in the Midwest.
Marc:But it all seems to be connected.
Marc:A mild disruption in the history of the orb.
Marc:But look.
Marc:We're here.
Marc:We're here today.
Marc:We're going to talk to Stephen Dorff today.
Marc:Not going to freak out.
Marc:I don't know if you know that feeling when you're away for a few weeks and you come home.
Marc:It's amazing and overwhelming at the same time.
Marc:The transition from leaving your house to going wherever you're going and adapting to losing all your patterns and you have your few travel patterns and coming back.
Marc:And re-engaging with your life patterns.
Marc:Then you have to get all those supplied.
Marc:Get all the supply levels back up.
Marc:And re-engage with that.
Marc:But I'm happy.
Marc:I'm wearing shorts.
Marc:I will say this.
Marc:The experience I had in Canada shooting this film, Stardust, was really a great one for me as somebody who's working as an actor occasionally.
Marc:Just to lock in, shoot those hours, have to be real kind of economical and lean, have to show up for work and make sure you nail those takes.
Marc:We're shooting one, two takes, and that director, Gabriel Range, is moving on.
Marc:we had a lot to cover and a lot to do johnny flynn's doing an amazing bowie 1971 bowie vulnerable kind of uh insecure kind of uh uh not quite formed bowie and it was i think we got a really great dynamic going there was sort there was elements of sort of a buddy road movie happening and and there was sort of the two varying personalities really kind of started to gel and it was a great experience it was great talking to him and uh you know talking music and
Marc:You know, it was generally it was a tedious shoot, but it was very engaged, which is a lot better than sitting around a set doing nothing.
Marc:So I had I had a really good time and I and I do feel tremendously relaxed in Canada and the people are there.
Marc:There are very nice.
Marc:And it just I I just I just do right when I right when I fly across the border.
Marc:It's just like it just it's like it's not in the air here.
Marc:It's not in the air.
Marc:Whoo, man.
Marc:I literally slept for about an hour on the plane.
Marc:It's very interesting.
Marc:I'm sitting next to a guy, and he's into his own world, and I'm into my own world.
Marc:We're both listening to music.
Marc:He seems pretty intense.
Marc:He's listening to some music.
Marc:He's got a lot of thoughts going on.
Marc:We're both kind of napping.
Marc:Across the aisle, there's some guy reading Willie Nelson's autobiography.
Marc:And and the cover of that book is Willie with one of those.
Marc:It's a portrait of Willie.
Marc:And he's got he's just looking out.
Marc:But it's shot in a way that he's always looking at you.
Marc:You know, those paintings that are always looking at you.
Marc:Well, the face of Willie Nelson from across the aisle was always looking at me.
Marc:And I guess always looking at anybody who was walking by.
Marc:And I swear at some point, the guy sitting next to me looked over and actually acknowledged with a head nod and waved at Willie's face.
Marc:I'm pretty sure.
Marc:And I don't think that's a negative thing.
Marc:I thought it was an interesting thing.
Marc:You have moments.
Marc:Why wouldn't you?
Marc:Why wouldn't he?
Marc:He's listening to music.
Marc:And then about an hour before the flight lands, you know, he you know, he we we start talking and he realizes he knows who I am.
Marc:And then he tells me who he is.
Marc:And it's Scott Cooper.
Marc:And he's this amazing film director.
Marc:And we just started riffing about movies.
Marc:But, you know, he's thinking, man, he's, you know, he's out in his mind.
Marc:And, you know, Willie was looking at maybe at a moment where it's like, yeah, Willie, you know, that's, you know, thanks, man.
Marc:Maybe it's just a sort of like, thank you, Willie, in a general way, putting it out into the ether, which there's a real good chance that Willie will pick that up.
Marc:You know, knowing Willie, it's possible.
Marc:But it was this guy, Scott Cooper, who directed Black Mass.
Marc:He directed Hostiles.
Marc:He directed Crazy Heart.
Marc:But, you know, he's like a deep guy, shoots dark movies.
Marc:We had a nice chat.
Marc:You know, I got to get him on the show at some point, I told him.
Marc:But he didn't recognize me without my mustache and I wouldn't have recognized him.
Marc:And initially he was just a guy that seemed to nod and wave at the cover of a book from across the way.
Marc:But everything changed when we started talking.
Marc:But he's still that guy, I think.
Marc:I should have asked him.
Marc:I'll ask him.
Marc:I'll text him.
Marc:I'll ask him.
Marc:Right now I'm asking publicly, which could go either way.
Marc:I'm finding when you talk publicly can go either way.
Marc:And I guess I can address it a little bit, I guess, because I did not... I had a very interesting and, you know, thoughtful time in Hamilton, Ontario.
Marc:And I feel that the press, the Canadian press, misrepresented... Or maybe it was just a clickbait because they did put the click... They did put the bit up there that I said as negative.
Marc:And I don't... In retrospect...
Marc:I do not think it was.
Marc:I just don't.
Marc:And I thought it was embracing and honest.
Marc:I think that when an American says something abroad, that it tends to resonate in a way that, you know, is different.
Marc:It's just like, who the fuck is this outsider?
Marc:You motherfucker.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I get it, man.
Marc:There's certainly a lot of cities in America that are not unlike Hamilton in that they were once great industrial centers.
Marc:And they've since, you know, that industry has moved on.
Marc:And what it's left is usually, you know, generational poverty, you know, drug addiction, destitution, desolation, you know, you know, industrial garbage industry.
Marc:And I understand.
Marc:And a lot of those cities I love.
Marc:And I certainly didn't mean to be sort of insensitive to the struggles of a city that's in that position in any country.
Marc:And even here in L.A., we have always a constant escalating real estate market with an influx of new people coming in, pushing people out.
Marc:We have literal tent cities along the highways and a huge one downtown.
Marc:But the issue really was is that I didn't really know much about Hamilton and I was staying downtown and I saw what I saw.
Marc:And it was it was sad, but exciting.
Marc:And I knew there had to be some city problems.
Marc:But I didn't realize really, you know, coming into it that you sort of you're up against this sort of nostalgic civic pride that is is sort of, you know, reluctantly or not so reluctantly behind.
Marc:you know, aligned with an aggressive rebranding of the city, you know, meant as an invitation to new investment that might change the makeup of the city.
Marc:It does not necessarily solve endemic issues of poverty or waste.
Marc:But I guess if you just believe in the rebrand, you can romanticize the marginalization of a large chunk of your population.
Marc:But the city is a beautiful city.
Marc:I had a nice time there.
Marc:Nice people.
Marc:And, you know, there's not as not unlike other parts of Canada, there doesn't seem to be the menace that there is in America.
Marc:And that might be just because in general sense, Canada may treat their poor better or that's just not the way that goes there.
Marc:But I love Canada, and I do feel relaxed there, and I did have a nice time.
Marc:And if my dark poetry that was not critical but engaged bothered you, I hope you feel that I've balanced it out because I did have a nice bowl with quinoa, sweet potatoes, some kale, and with a nice tahini dressing at a place called Democracy down there on, I think, Lock Street, is it?
Marc:And I did have another nice sort of raw-based bowl at another place called Green Bar, the new one down on Lock Street.
Marc:So I see the movement.
Marc:And there's a lot of beautiful little homes there.
Marc:But, man, where I was staying and the few miles out of drive to go to base camp, it was wild.
Marc:Wild and sad.
Marc:But yeah, on the other side of town, the bowls were nice and the homes were nice.
Marc:Seemed to be nice greenery.
Marc:Next time, heading to the waterfalls.
Marc:Here, there's a lot of beautiful waterfalls.
Marc:I will do that.
Marc:In other news, swordoftrust.com is where you can find all of the dates and theaters for the movie Sword of Trust.
Marc:The movie's killing with audiences.
Marc:I do hope you get to see it.
Marc:All of my upcoming tour dates, including...
Marc:Toronto in September.
Marc:I'll be at the Montreal just for last festival.
Marc:I'm coming into a Raleigh soon and I've got Detroit on the docket.
Marc:Austin, Dallas, Houston, Portland, Oregon, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, D.C.
Marc:All and more dates.
Marc:If you go to WTF pod dot com slash tour, they're there.
Marc:And that's it.
Marc:Let's talk.
Marc:I want to I want you to hear me and Stephen Dorff.
Marc:I think it's I just I'm so glad I talked to him.
Marc:The True Detective, all episodes of the season three of True Detective are available on all HBO platforms.
Marc:And this is me talking to Stephen Dorff.
Marc:So you're a new-to-knife guy.
Guest:Kinda, yeah.
Guest:I've got like nine good ones now.
Guest:Like pocket knives?
Guest:Yeah, pocket knife, and I got a butterfly knife.
Marc:Do you know how to do the butterfly knife thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:You flip it around?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you got a little time on your hands?
Yeah.
Guest:I haven't actually.
Marc:No, you've been busy.
Marc:Do you throw knives?
Marc:Have you learned, have you taken knife fighting?
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:No, not yet.
Marc:I know you were in a movie called Blade, but that didn't require anything of a knife fight.
Guest:I had like a sword in that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We had sword play.
Marc:So you had to do that?
Marc:You had to learn how to do that?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Just part of the job?
Marc:The choreography, yeah.
Guest:Just get a sword out and dance around.
Marc:They brought the sword guy on to teach everyone how to do it?
Guest:Yeah, the sword guy comes in with the martial arts experts and then you- And you learn.
Guest:And then you learn.
Marc:But some guys are into knife fighting.
Marc:Like, there's a whole thing to it.
Marc:I'm sure, yeah.
Marc:I mean, I know a guy who's like, you know, Brian Callen.
Marc:Do you know Brian Callen?
Marc:He's a comic.
Marc:I know the name, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he's kind of a, you know, he's one of those dudes that does dude shit.
Marc:And, you know, he's got a friend who's a knife guy.
Marc:We're just talking about it.
Marc:You know, the guys who really know how to be knife guys, they can take you out in like a second.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:They know where to cut it so your tendons stop working.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It's like the shiv shit in jail that they make out of toothbrushes and stuff.
Marc:But he might not kill you, but he can make your arms stop working.
Marc:He knows where to cut it.
Guest:He just knows exactly the spot.
Guest:Scary shit.
Marc:So how's the smoking?
Marc:Still going.
Marc:I don't like it's weird because I know that you got some shit for that advertisement, but I've been on nicotine lozenges for a decade.
Marc:How are those?
Marc:They're great.
Guest:What do they look like?
Guest:They look like mints, dude.
Guest:So it's kind of like an electronic cigarette, but a mint.
Guest:It's like the gum instead of the gum.
Marc:Yeah, but you get a little more control over it than the gum because the gum you just end up chewing all fucking day whether it's got nicotine or not.
Marc:When these things are gone, you tuck them like a dip and just kind of suck on them.
Marc:There's four milligrams in there and you can just go all day with them.
Marc:How long have you been doing that?
Marc:A long time.
Marc:where can you buy those these are i get walgreens brand cinnamon four milligrams nicotine lozenges i'm gonna try yeah dude because like i think it's time i just have my chest x-ray at my annual my physical like not for movies yeah like my guy oh the real one yeah
Marc:Not the one where it's like, how you feeling?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, here you go.
Guest:Yeah, not that one.
Guest:Sign here.
Guest:Yeah, I could be dying and they just insured this huge production.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, but yeah, my doctor, which I do every year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How'd it look?
Guest:Looked all right.
Guest:You had problems though?
Guest:No, I've never had any.
Guest:No?
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:There was something that was written about me that said I had emphysema, but I don't.
Guest:But Cindy Adams in New York mentioned that in an article, and I was like, thanks, Cindy, because now I hear about it from...
Marc:How's the emphysema, man?
Guest:Yeah, no, Alec Baldwin, who I had never met, and he called me after True Detective, and he was really sweet to me.
Guest:Randomly called my agents.
Guest:My agents thought it was not Alec Baldwin.
Guest:It was like a fake, but then realized it was him, and we did the number game, and he called me, and then he's like, so you have emphysema?
Guest:And I'm like, no, I don't, man.
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:I mean, not that I know of, but I guess I would know, right?
Marc:And that's the first you heard about that?
Guest:Well, yeah, and I remembered after World Trade Center, this movie I worked on.
Guest:That's a good movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I played Scott Strauss, the guy that came into the rubble.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was at ESU, a great guy.
Guest:I got to know him and his family.
Guest:And I remember after the premiere the next morning, like, oh, you're in Cindy Adams' column.
Guest:I'm like, all right.
Guest:And I read it.
Guest:And it said I had emphysema.
Guest:I was like, what the?
Guest:No, I don't, Cindy.
Guest:Jesus.
Yeah.
Marc:They can just say whatever the fuck you want.
Marc:I saw it on your Wikipedia.
Guest:Is it?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:That I have emphysema?
Marc:You might have emphysema.
Guest:Yeah, emphysema.
Guest:Jesus Christ.
Guest:I guess I should get that changed.
Marc:I don't know how you do that.
Marc:Do you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Do you call up Wikipedia?
Marc:Yeah, just call them.
Marc:Say, hey, this is Stephen Dorff.
Marc:You're wrong about this.
Marc:No.
Marc:I think you can go edit it.
Marc:Oh, I can.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Get your guy to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Get someone to figure it out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Unless you got more time on your hands.
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to remember that.
Marc:So you're down in Malibu?
Guest:Yeah, I've lived out there for 14 years, and I grew up in Hollywood and lived in the hills, lived everywhere, lived in the valley.
Marc:Really?
Guest:You grew up here?
Guest:As a baby, yeah.
Guest:I was born in Georgia, in Atlanta, because my dad was going to college in Athens, University of Georgia, so my mom was visiting him.
Guest:They're from New York.
Guest:That's where it happened?
Guest:They had me.
Guest:They met in an elevator in New York, but then my mom was visiting my dad, living with him, finishing college.
Guest:While he was finishing college, they had me, and then I moved to the valley, Tohunga Avenue in Studio City in an apartment when I was three months old.
Marc:So they met in New York.
Marc:Where are they from?
Guest:They're from Queens, Forest Hills.
Marc:Both your parents are from Queens?
Guest:Yeah, and they met in an advertising agency elevator, Wells Rich Green, which was big in the 70s, I guess.
Marc:I would never think you're like a Queens guy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:That's where my family's from.
Marc:You're genetically Queens.
Marc:Queens.
Marc:So you grew up with people in Queens?
Guest:Not really, because I grew up in L.A.
Marc:No, I know, but you didn't have grandparents or anything?
Guest:Yeah, grandparents, yeah.
Guest:My grandpa on my mom's side was the head policeman at Shea Stadium, so I had this incredible baseball card collection from him left to me, like pictures of me as a kid, or him with Mickey Mantle, him with Hank Aaron.
Guest:You still got them?
Guest:I still got a bunch of stuff in storage, yeah.
Guest:Oh, you still got storage?
Guest:I still got a storage unit, yeah.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Marc:How long you had that?
Guest:Forever.
Guest:And it's getting bigger and bigger and costing more and more.
Marc:You mean you still put stuff in it?
Guest:I do, yeah.
Guest:When we were making True Detective, I was in Arkansas for seven months, and I got really into, I don't know, maybe because of my role, maybe because...
Guest:I don't know, but I got really into taxidermy.
Guest:So I bought a bear.
Guest:I bought an Arkansas bear, which is like six... A standing bear?
Guest:A standing bear that I had.
Guest:Is that a black bear?
Guest:It's a black bear.
Guest:Not a grizzly bear.
Guest:No, a black Arkansas bear.
Guest:And awesome.
Guest:I mean, it's scary, but cool looking.
Guest:And then I got this incredible buffalo head that I've always wanted a buffalo head.
Marc:Like the wall, you hang on the wall?
Guest:Yeah, but it's big.
Guest:I mean, it's like as big as it's... Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Their buffaloes are huge.
Guest:So my storage, basically, since that job has gotten pretty... Did you buy any other animals?
Guest:No, that was it.
Guest:I'm not a big hunter either.
Guest:I don't believe in kind of killing animals, but I got into taxidermy being, I think, in the middle of...
Guest:i've never read state america i don't know really it just but and also because i bought this barn recently i bought a farm outside nashville which i plan to make my my little kind of retreat outside of la new york where i could just kind of go and chill when did you get that i bought it uh right after true detective oh so i haven't moved in yet yeah it's new it's kind of a new project so all those animals i think are going to go out there
Marc:On the wall and in the barn.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:So the only structure on the land is a barn?
Guest:Is a barn and a main house, which is kind of cool.
Guest:There's a main house.
Guest:The house is cool.
Guest:It needs a little work.
Guest:The barn is the project.
Guest:That's what I want to make into a real awesome studio and music and pool.
Marc:There's going to be a pool in the barn?
Guest:A bar, yeah.
Guest:No, not a pool.
Guest:Like a pool table.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I need to put a pool in.
Marc:So you're going to do a giant musical man cave barn.
Guest:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that's the plan.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:And I think spending the last year and a half in the South probably added to this.
Guest:Yeah, to this fantasy?
Guest:Well, and also just, I also had real reasons to buy it and I kind of bought it for my brother who passed away a couple years ago.
Guest:My little brother who lived in Nashville and was an amazing songwriter.
Marc:Wow, what happened to him?
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:Tragic accident.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:You know, worst phone call of my life.
Guest:Sorry, man.
Guest:Yeah, I was on a vacation.
Guest:Yeah, so I was pretty much going to... Two years ago, I was... You were going to move out there to be closer to him?
Guest:No, I was just... No, I was going to... When this happened, I was just kind of going to pack it up.
Guest:I wanted to get out of Malibu.
Guest:I wanted to kind of... When he passed, you mean?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't really want to act anymore.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't want to do anything.
Guest:I just kind of was... Heartbreaking.
Guest:I was in a pretty...
Guest:bummed out spot and and then a year to his passing which was very weird my brother kind of two really amazing things happened to me and my father who obviously had a very rough time with losing Andrew and you know I think as a parent you don't ever want to
Guest:have to bury your son right that's not what you want yeah anyways um yeah two amazing things happened you know i was given this incredible part of roland and true detective my dad got into the songwriting hall of fame in new york which was always his dream so my brother kind of touched us both on his year anniversary to the day it was pretty gnarly
Marc:That's good and bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was able to induct my dad into the Songwriter Hall of Fame, and that was a beautiful night where I got to write a speech.
Guest:And I was shooting True Detective at the time, but I was able to get out.
Guest:They let me out for a couple of days.
Guest:I went to New York and gave this speech for my dad and talked about my brother.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:It was pretty awesome.
Marc:Is it the only sibling?
No.
Guest:Yeah, he was my... I have two half-sisters that my dad had later, but yeah, it was just me and my brother.
Marc:Oh, it's heartbreaking, dude.
Marc:I'm sorry, man.
Guest:Yeah, we'd already kind of... Thank you.
Guest:We'd already lost my mom like 12 years ago, so it was kind of... Were they married still?
Guest:No, no, but we were all real tight as a family.
Guest:Yeah, I came from this really tight-knit family for a kid that grew up in L.A.
Guest:as a son of a songwriter, which was kind of in the background, but at the same time went to school with all these movie stars' kids and rich kids.
Guest:Oh, you did?
Guest:Yeah, so it was a very weird...
Marc:Was he a hit songwriter?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, when I was a baby, when we were living in this little apartment on Tujunga Avenue, and I was born in 73, my dad wrote Every Which Way But Loose from the Clint Eastwood movie.
Guest:Eddie Rabbit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then my dad kind of made some money.
Guest:Then he wrote Through the Years by Kenny Rogers.
Guest:He wrote some big old standards.
Guest:Yeah, big standards.
Guest:He's had like, I think, 30-something number ones.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My little brother was... All country?
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:I mean, Merle Haggard, you know... Which one?
Guest:Coca-Cola Cowboy.
Guest:Was he a country guy?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:He was just a real... He just got in with those artists.
Guest:And once he got in with Clint, a lot of those movies were very country friendly.
Guest:And he did kind of all those.
Guest:So he got in with Glen Campbell and started writing.
Guest:He did a lot for George Strait, wrote all his hits.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, big... This is a Queens guy.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, Queens guy on a little diopson piano upright.
Guest:He was like a little Jewish kid.
Guest:He was a Jewish guy writing the country hits.
Guest:Yeah, married a Catholic girl, my mom, who was just our mom.
Guest:Was she Italian or Irish?
Guest:Yeah, had Italian in her, Italian and Polish.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I like this story.
Marc:I like that the Jews that, because I'm a Jew, but when you find out stuff, most of the Marvel universe was created by Jewish writers.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That I could see.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's sort of like, keep them entertained so they don't kill us.
Yeah.
Marc:So when you grew up in the valley initially, were you brought up Jewish at all?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:I mean, it was kind of a weird thing in my family because it was that real, my dad's side of the family, my grandparents on that side, there was a little of that weirdness.
Guest:The tension?
Guest:Like he didn't marry a Jew?
Guest:Oh yeah, there was some tension there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Were they really Jewish?
Guest:Yeah, they were really Jewish.
Guest:And I think there was that pressure, but then my mom would kind of want us to go to church and look cute, me and Andrew, you know, on Easter Sunday.
Guest:And so we kind of did the Catholic thing for my mom.
Guest:But I wouldn't say a very heavy religious home.
Guest:But there was no pressure for me to go to have a bar mitzvah or...
Guest:I ended up learning some Hebrew when I went to Israel.
Guest:I made a movie in Tel Aviv.
Guest:Which movie was that?
Guest:A little movie called Zaytun, which was good actually.
Guest:It won the runner-up prize in Toronto in like 2012.
Guest:What'd you play?
Guest:I played an Israeli jet pilot in the 80s.
Guest:And it was kind of almost like a foreign film, but it was done in English, but then some Hebrew produced by the people that did King's Speech.
Marc:Did you do the Israeli accent?
Guest:I did, yeah.
Guest:I'm terrible at it now, but I mean, I learned some shit.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I hung out in Jerusalem.
Guest:I floated in the Dead Sea.
Guest:I mean, I had a blast.
Guest:Floating in the Dead Sea.
Guest:It's a beautiful country.
Guest:it is it's intense country intense intense drinkers there oh yeah jesus they would always like offer me you know every time you hear the word chaser yeah expect a shot that's as big as this glass of iced tea i mean like they don't mess around i guess because they're living for every day you know that's for sure yeah i mean they've really made some sort of oasis out there outside of just the history just the farmland and every like you know oh it's insane flower
Marc:manufacturing they just really dug it out there some of the best restaurants i've ever eaten at really oh yeah people were amazing i'd love to go back i haven't been back though in like i guess we should get there before the end times because you know y'all gonna go down let's go there and do our next podcast over there let's do that from israel that'd be cool end of days podcast i want to be on that list all right yeah i'll do the final the final dispatches from the planet earth from israel it's all happening
Marc:So where'd you go to school with all these movie star kids?
Guest:At the time, I think my mom didn't want me in public schools and where we were living.
Guest:We were kind of living in the valley.
Guest:And I went to one public school, the country school in kindergarten.
Guest:And I went to a school that's very actor-friendly now, but wasn't when I went there, a school called Campbell Hall, which is in Studio City, North Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know that it's actor-friendly now just because I've had to go back there for other jobs, like when I did this film with Sofia Coppola somewhere.
Guest:That was a good movie.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I had to pick her up, Elle Fanning, at school one day.
Guest:That was my exercise.
Guest:I was trying to make my scar smell all right, make sure the seatbelts worked, make sure she... You really had to pick her up at school?
Guest:Yeah, that was Sofia's exercise for the day, and it was amazing.
Guest:I had three hours with her.
Guest:We went to Color Me Mine.
Guest:We made pottery.
Guest:It was like our bonding time, and it was perfect for me to have to
Guest:get into that zone without really doing anything just drive over there but going back to the school that I went to that I was kind of asked to leave from to pick up this young awesome actress to then take her to get yogurt and then color me mine and then we report back to our chief to Sophia and she's like how was the day and I tell her what we did and we give her the pottery the next day and
Marc:Is that an unusual request for a director to have exercises?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know, normally it's more straightforward.
Guest:Rehearsal, you meet in a room.
Guest:Every director's different, but Sofia was such a special, unique movie experience.
Guest:It never felt like a normal movie.
Guest:It felt like we were this intimate little...
Guest:team and she had me do really interesting exercises in the beginning like just pick l up from school and spend a couple hours and then you have to get her back to her parents house at this address and it was like okay that was my responsibility so in doing that when it's just the two of us there's no director studying us it's our memory it's our time right ask the questions we feel like asking you know and then you
Guest:She'd have me do something like go to a fake dinner, but really have dinner with Elle and Lala, who's playing your wife, and just pretend that it's 10 years before you're doing your first movie in Hollywood and you're having dinner at the Chateau Marmont.
Guest:Just have dinner and then I'll pay the bill and everything, but just have a normal dinner.
Guest:in your characters just talking and and and so like by doing that in a weird way you come back three days later you come to do a scene we've already had this long dinner as a family yeah we've already kind of experienced this weird so it's wired into our improv wow it's kind of cool i mean i loved working with her she's been on your show i think right sophia yeah yeah it was like yeah she has yeah i think she's great great lady yeah
Marc:And that movie I thought was really great.
Marc:She definitely is able to create a tone.
Guest:Yeah, with pictures and music.
Marc:What was that movie called again?
Guest:Somewhere.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And for some reason, when I saw it, there was part of me that was sort of...
Marc:I saw it as a documentary.
Marc:I'm like, I hope the dwarf's all right.
Marc:In my mind, I'm like, I haven't seen him in a while in anything, so this is probably just pretty close to his life.
Guest:but it wasn't it wasn't really i mean it was kind of johnny marco's kind of a i would ask sophia i said am i playing somebody or am i am i playing myself am i playing you know because i'm an actor i've been an actor most of my life and she said no i just i wrote it with a blend but you're really the embodiment of what i want it to be but don't play steven and don't live in malibu she said because i don't want you tan and
Guest:healthy and in the ocean.
Guest:I want you pasty and hungover and I want you living in the chateau the way you would if you were in a darker period of your life.
Guest:I said, so you're going to pay me to live at the chateau and get wasted every night and just do my thing?
Guest:And she's like, pretty much.
Guest:And I was like, awesome.
Guest:And what was funny was I was in a healthy place in my life and then I was like, now my job was to go the opposite.
Guest:It'd be one thing if I was down and dirty when she wanted me and I was like, oh, I could just walk into this.
Guest:But I was kind of in a healthy zone, eating healthy, up early, hiking.
Guest:Yeah, it was like, oh shit.
Guest:You go through waves?
Marc:yeah i got through i got through waves i mean i like i like training because uh you know and it's funny you mentioned the smoking because i'm really at the end of my rope i think i'm getting to that point it's the fucking worst dude i mean it's like as much as i loved it you know i mean i haven't smoked in like a long time like but i can't get off the fucking nicotine if i do shit just gets too boring because i i uh you know i've been sober a long time and like so that's gone and
Marc:And, like, I've gotten off of everything.
Marc:You just got to have something.
Marc:Yeah, and you don't want it to be food.
Marc:No.
Marc:Or fucking.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you get too old, and it's like, you know, you're going to leave a... It's not... Yeah, what else could it be besides food?
Marc:Well, I've never been a gambler, so I ain't going to do that.
Marc:That's just dumb.
Guest:Yeah, it is dumb, right?
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I mean, God, I love sitting at a blackjack table with, you know, but it is the dumbest thing in the universe.
Marc:There's just no winning and then you keep, I don't know.
Marc:I think that in order to really get that bug, you got to have, you know, bet a lot of money and won a lot of money at some point.
Guest:Yeah, just so you at least hit the high and left on the high.
Marc:You can't sit there playing fucking $10, $25 hands of blackjack all night.
Guest:You're just going to go crazy.
Guest:Plus, the whole night's gone, and then you've lost at the end of the night.
Guest:Even if you had your ups, you maybe won $20.
Guest:You're like, well, that was a waste of 12 hours.
Marc:Yeah, and you had three hours before you were up $400, and then you walk away with $20 and be like, well, I didn't live this.
Guest:I missed the Lionel Richie show over this, or whatever.
Guest:I missed the fucking Cirque du Soleil part 12.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I just, I don't like, I think the most I've lost is like eight or 900 bucks.
Marc:And I'm like, that's stupid.
Marc:I'm not doing that anymore.
Marc:But like, but yeah, but the nicotine, I don't know.
Marc:Maybe, you know, there's part of me.
Guest:I think I'm going to pick those up on my way home.
Guest:And if I do quit over those, I'm going to thank you forever.
Guest:Mark Maron.
Marc:Well, I think the thing about these, as opposed to doing the vapey stuff, is it gets you out of the habit of the thing.
Marc:Because I don't do that anymore.
Marc:I have to smoke when I'm on the show.
Marc:I'm on Glow.
Marc:I got to smoke those fake cigarettes.
Guest:It's a fucking nightmare.
Guest:Oh, and they're terrible, too.
Guest:Because when you kind of go to Ashton, they break.
Guest:So the whole behavior of smoking is terrible with those herbals.
Guest:There's great stories and funny shit with...
Guest:Me and Mahershala in that car, because so much of us is in that car talking.
Guest:Sure, in True Detective, right.
Guest:He's smoking, too, though.
Guest:He's smoking, but now it's legal.
Guest:I mean, you have to, on a stage, which we do a lot of those car scenes in True Detective, you have to smoke the herbals.
Guest:If I'm outside, I'll smoke real cigarettes, too.
Guest:But on the stage, I'm smoking the herbals.
Guest:So in the gag reel at the wrap party, they had a gag reel of literally every scene where the windows cracked, and it's like, ah, fuck.
Guest:fuck i had great great rhythm with this tough line and the cigarette there's no coming back from that because it's like broke fuck yeah then there was another one where maherstler doesn't smoke anyway so you know he's trying to he's acting the smoking thing and he's doing a good job but he drops the cigarettes and now the cherries under him on this burn yeah and i'm like oh i got it i got it and so they had all these moments in the gag reel it was genius i was just like fuck oh man
Guest:And smoke's getting in my eye all the time.
Guest:It's the worst smoke.
Guest:Because those herbals, it's not real smoke.
Guest:It's like oregano going in your eyeball.
Marc:I don't know what it is, and how is it not fucking bad for you?
Marc:We're all smoking those on set.
Marc:It smells like bad weed, too.
Guest:It does.
Marc:It smells like bad weed, but it's got to be burning your lungs.
Marc:Yeah, it can't be good.
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, that was the thing when I watched True Detective because I hadn't watched one since, I think I watched the first season.
Marc:Second one I didn't lock into.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then I turned the new one on and I'm watching, how do you say his name?
Marc:Mahershala?
Marc:Mahershala.
Marc:And I'm like, who the fuck is that other guy?
Yeah.
Marc:He's really good.
Marc:I don't think I've ever seen him before.
Marc:And I'm like, fucking Stephen Dorff, what the fuck?
Marc:And it's like, it's so good.
Marc:He's so fucking good.
Guest:Somebody sent me a text or a Twitter.
Guest:Oh, that I tweeted about you?
Guest:Because people pay attention to you, Mark.
Guest:And I was like, oh, that's a good thing?
Guest:And everybody was like, yeah, that's fucking good.
Guest:And all these people started calling.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Well, nice people.
Guest:Like I mentioned the Alec Baldwin thing, saying nice things.
Guest:I was just like, wow, that was...
Guest:Makes you feel good.
Guest:I mean, Nick Pizzolatto gave me just such an amazing role.
Guest:I mean, I've played a lot of things, but I just love that role of Roland.
Marc:Somebody said, it was a very funny tweet, someone said you were like a young, old Jack Nicholson.
Guest:When I'm old, I heard that a lot.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:I love Jack.
Guest:He's an old buddy of mine, too.
Guest:That's how I met Angelica, because I was a young kid.
Guest:I wasn't that young, but I was 22, and I did a terrible movie with Dennis Hopper.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:A movie called Space Truckers, where we played like teamsters in space driving around frozen pigs.
Guest:It was Stuart Gordon who did Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
Guest:It was just this weird $30 million sci-fi movie.
Guest:And they got Dennis to do it?
Guest:Independent movie.
Guest:And that's the reason I did it.
Guest:So me and Dennis, we go over to Ireland where we shot this space movie.
Guest:And Debbie Mazar was in it.
Guest:It was cool.
Guest:And there's some good people in there.
Guest:Anyway, Dennis and I hit it off great.
Guest:And I was, I guess, at the time, I was up for this...
Guest:Bob Rafelson movie with Jack called Blood and Wine, which was Jennifer Lopez's first movie.
Guest:It was Michael Caine coming back, doing really great stuff.
Guest:It was like a really cool, gritty movie.
Guest:I didn't see that movie.
Guest:You'd like it.
Guest:But yeah, so anyway, Dennis, I couldn't meet when you're up for a movie with Jack...
Guest:you have to kind of once you're the director's choice you have to kind of go meet the man himself you got to get through that you got to go out to his place yeah you got to go out you know so if you're Greg Kinnear on as good as it gets you got to go and do the dance with Jack kind of go have a coffee whatever you know yeah and uh I wasn't able to do it because I'm doing space truckers in Ireland so Dennis vouched for me and uh I got the part and I ended up going straight to Miami to a table reading and I met Jack and
Guest:and uh after the movie we became friends with during the movie and and he's still been such a loyal friend to me to this day and one of the smartest dudes i've ever met and i met angelica through him i met met really from dennis on i met all these interesting amazing actors that i then so i'm happy i did that space movie you know did you stay tight with dennis yeah big time i mean that guy was the best smelling man i've ever i'm not gay but jesus he smelled good i would always tell him i'd be like god
Guest:how do you smell so good and what he said he just it was just his mix of cologne or something i don't know i wanted to go in the bathroom and just watch him put it on like dude you just smell so good d you know and uh and and he was just he was an awesome person i loved his uh creativity and yeah he was photos and his yeah i met ed rushe through him i met such great interesting artists that are still my friends you know and so like
Guest:I even, I had an Easy Rider poster that I asked Dennis and Jack to sign for me, and I never really knew Peter Fonda, so I never asked him, but I asked those two, and they signed it, and yeah, and Dennis's signature's faded a little bit in the sun, but it says, Dorf, smart, dedicated, demanding, you did me proud, Hop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Jack wrote, Dorf, with one F, thank Hop for the recommendation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You did me proud or something.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's just like I still have.
Marc:You got to get Peter.
Marc:I've talked to Peter.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I need to get Peter on there.
Marc:You'll probably come over just to sign the poster.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm a fan.
Guest:I know the other two so well.
Guest:So you still talk to Jack?
Guest:Yeah, since I've been home, I actually owe a call up there to check in with him.
Guest:I hope so.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:I miss seeing him at the Oscars.
Marc:I can't watch the Oscars anymore.
Guest:I know, they're terrible.
Guest:Without his face.
Guest:Sitting up front, just sitting there.
Guest:There's no credibility anymore.
Guest:Something.
Guest:I guess a whole new generation.
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:The Oscars, to me, seem now like Dancing with the Stars.
Guest:It's a little flat.
Guest:It seems like an episode of The Voice.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There's weird stuff going on.
Marc:It's just the community's so... It's just lost its mojo.
Marc:Something.
Marc:It doesn't feel like everyone's...
Marc:everyone's over there's too many award shows too there's too many award shows and everybody's so control like there's so much it's all very transparent what everyone goes through to get an oscar to get prepared for the oscar it's just this big sellout thing you know what i mean it doesn't feel like uh like you know when i was a kid you'd watch him and it was like royalty you know you just like bob evans warren beaty jack
Guest:angelica you know like i got slapped in the face by this guy that did not look like who he was uh i went to a birthday at uh up at jack's and small little gathering but it was like you know warren and annette and you know all the all the royalty and uh i get slapped in the face really hard by this dude with white hair and and i look over and it was joe pesci and he's like dorf
Guest:You know, we always talk about you when we're golfing and stuff.
Guest:You know, they want me to do this movie.
Guest:I'm not doing it.
Guest:I'm not doing it.
Guest:I'm quitting.
Guest:Fuck this town.
Guest:You know, and all this shit.
Guest:And I'm like, Joe, that really hurt, man.
Guest:And he's like, ah, come on.
Guest:You could take it, kid.
Guest:We love you.
Guest:We love you, Dorf.
Guest:You know, and I was like, how do I get mad at Joe Pesci?
Guest:I love the guy.
Guest:But fuck it.
Guest:Hey, he like nailed me.
Marc:He did get out kind of, didn't he?
Guest:Well, no, but the movie he was talking about was, I think, this new Scorsese one that he ultimately is in.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:The Irishman or whatever?
Guest:Yeah, his Netflix thing.
Guest:So I guess he was either holding firm at that point, but he's funny.
Guest:He's like, yeah, Bob, Marty, they all want me, and I'm not doing it.
Guest:I'm not doing the fucking thing.
Guest:And I'm like, well, maybe you should, you know, you're pretty awesome in that threesome.
Guest:Maybe that's exactly what you should do.
Guest:Yeah, and he did it.
Guest:I'm not an agent, but, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Come on, Joe.
Marc:I just like it.
Marc:It's such a great thing that you got to know all this, that generation of those cats.
Guest:To me, honest, that's been my most fun, and I think the things that I take away the most out of purely, like, from the experience of sometimes it really working and clicking, like what me and Mahersh had to play with on that, going through three decades was amazing, made me love acting again.
Guest:But then...
Guest:The moments that really I take away aren't how much a hit movie made or this.
Guest:It's really those relationships.
Guest:It's like being able to count those guys and also as I get older, losing a lot of those guys.
Guest:For me, that was how I learned what I do for a living.
Guest:I learned from those guys.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I learned from...
Guest:Yeah, I always say the acting school I went to was the best because I worked with the real guys from Jack to Harvey Keitel to those directors from Rafelson, Michael Mann, Oliver Stone to Sophia to Willem Dafoe.
Guest:To those guys, that's the best acting school you can go to.
Marc:When did you start doing it?
Marc:When you were like 15 or something?
Guest:Acting?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Fuck.
Marc:Was your mom in the business?
Guest:No, my mom was just our mom.
Marc:And your dad was writing country songs.
Guest:My dad was writing all these fucking songs.
Guest:Pop, too.
Guest:He worked with Whitney Houston.
Guest:He worked with Celine Dion.
Guest:You know, all the divas.
Guest:Barbra Streisand.
Marc:So you were kind of on the... It was a different zone of show business, but it was in the house.
Yeah.
Guest:show business famous people would come through you know my dad's studio kind of similar to how you have a studio here at the house yeah my dad had his setup and so he'd have these people come over like what do you got yeah what do you got play me something steve you know you know i need a theme song for this tv show and then it'll he writes the theme song in 15 minutes and it becomes the theme song to growing pains which we all grew up with you know like goes on for 10 years so he did all right for himself yeah my dad did good yeah
Guest:Divorce, I think, hurt him twice, but he did well, and he's healthy.
Marc:How old were you when your parents divorced?
Guest:I was older.
Guest:I was 19.
Guest:I was doing a movie in England, yeah.
Guest:Got the call.
Guest:Beatles movie.
Marc:That was a big break for you.
Marc:That was a big movie, I remember.
Marc:I remember seeing it.
Marc:You were great, and it was an interesting angle on the Beatles.
Guest:Yeah, it was like cool story.
Guest:He played Stu.
Guest:Yeah, Stu Sutcliffe and Astrid and that whole kind of early Hamburg day.
Guest:That was an awesome part.
Guest:I mean, it was weird.
Guest:When I first got my first couple serious films, Power of One and Backbeat, they're both to play English guys, you know, like English South African or Liverpudlian and that and Backbeat and all those great English actors in my category were just coming up, the Jude Laws, Ewan McGregors and stuff, but they weren't getting the parts.
Guest:They were a little younger than you.
Guest:Yeah, a little, like I think a year or something.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But they were all up for all these roles.
Guest:But I kept getting these English parts.
Guest:I'm like, well, I'm American.
Guest:Am I ever going to play somebody with my own voice and not have to have a dialect coach?
Guest:And then finally, those guys started getting all those roles, and I started playing an American.
Marc:But how old were you then?
Guest:I was like 17 when I did Power of One.
Guest:I was 19, I think, when I did Backbeat.
Guest:I'm 45 now.
Guest:Had you studied acting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I was basically found in my school at a little... I went to this little... I was found by this little commercial agent lady who asked my mom if I could go out on commercials.
Guest:And my mom kind of said, is that something you want to do, Stephen?
Guest:And I said, yeah, it's something I want to do because I had been with my dad on some sets.
Guest:I saw kids on the set going to school on the set.
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:what the hell is this?
Guest:This is what I want.
Guest:I want to be with adults.
Guest:I didn't want to be in these private schools.
Guest:I didn't have a great schooling experience in Los Angeles.
Guest:I never had a teacher that really found that curve in me.
Marc:Why'd you get kicked out of that camp?
Guest:It wasn't that I was expelled.
Guest:It was more just like I was asked politely, my mom, to not have him come back.
Marc:That happened to me, too, for being a smartass.
Guest:Yeah, smart ass, class clown, leaving for three weeks if I got a gig and then coming back would set the wrong tone for the other kids.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Whereas now they'll let anybody who's on a series into their school.
Guest:They don't care.
Guest:Give them their books.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're so actor friendly.
Guest:Back then they weren't.
Guest:Then I went to a school, funny enough, called the Bel Air Prep, which was not in Bel Air.
Guest:It was like by Tower Records off Holloway.
Yeah.
Marc:On Sunset?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's West Hollywood, but they called it Bel Air Prep, which I never understood.
Guest:And Jason Bateman went there, and I went there with Drew Barrymore.
Guest:We were kind of in seventh, eighth grade together, and we were the Valley kids, so we took this van over the hill
Marc:From the school, they'd come pick you up?
Guest:Yeah, this little van would pick up the valley kids.
Guest:So we'd go over there, and I remember going to school there, and then I ultimately got my diploma on Power of One in Africa, where they sent it to me.
Guest:I got it in a FedEx or something, I don't know, some UPS thing, and I realized I graduated high school.
Guest:I got it from a school called Montclair Prep, which was a private school.
Guest:In New Jersey?
Guest:No, it was in the valley.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:But they were just like, the headmaster was just like, I don't care if you act, if you play football, come to us and we'll give you whatever you need.
Guest:So he was like, he was awesome.
Guest:So I had my teacher, my private tutor, and then I got my work from there and I blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So you got the diploma.
Guest:I got my diploma.
Guest:But I was about to go to college.
Guest:before I got that movie, because I couldn't get a movie, so I auditioned for all these theater schools.
Marc:So you just started doing commercials when you were a kid?
Guest:Yeah, commercials, and then I did this horror movie that a lot of sci-fi horror people love called The Gate, so I didn't know what acting was.
Guest:It's a cult movie?
Guest:Yeah, it did really well, and people like Tarantino, they worship this, and that's all they talk about.
Guest:And you were in that.
Guest:Yeah, I've done three decades of other movies, but they'll always mention The Gate.
Marc:That's the one for them.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And were you like 16 or something?
Guest:No, I was like 12.
Guest:12?
Guest:Fat and had a bowl haircut.
Guest:My grandma came with me, and I was up there for like six weeks in Canada, and I was like, this is cool.
Guest:I just have to scream and shoot rockets into demons.
Marc:Forever, you're that guy.
Marc:The Gate.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you really just learned on the job, huh?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:And then it was really like, once I got into some TV things, I got on Roseanne, I played The Boyfriend, I did a couple scenes with John Goodman, so I was starting to realize what theatrical acting was as opposed to just commercial.
Marc:By doing three camera stuff?
Guest:Yeah, just learning that, then learning film, getting a lot of attention on auditions, but not getting, just callbacks, but just not getting that role.
Guest:And then finally John Ableton, who's not with us anymore, but he had directed a lot of films I grew up watching, like Rocky and Karate Kids, and he was doing this boxing movie in Africa, a big book and big production, Warner Brothers, and I was this unknown guy, but I was in the ring learning, fighting, training for this guy who was...
Guest:A madman that really made me work and finally gave me the part.
Marc:And that was Power of One?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that was a big change?
Guest:That was the big... Well, that took me on a year journey to Africa, London, working with Sir John Gielgud, Morgan Freeman.
Guest:It was like, whoa, this is the shit.
Marc:And you're just like that.
Marc:And then you haven't really stopped working since.
Guest:I've hit some lows here and there.
Guest:I've had a weird career.
Guest:I've always said that directors are the ones that have kind of saved me because... There's a lot of movies here, but I don't know a lot of them.
Guest:Yeah, there was probably a string where I was getting paid doing movies that I probably shouldn't have done.
Marc:Well, who decides that?
Guest:I mean, you know, you get what you get, what you get offered.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I guess.
Marc:But isn't there somebody supposed to go like, maybe you shouldn't do this one.
Guest:Yeah, but I do.
Guest:I tend to like to spend money.
Guest:So I like to make money, too.
Guest:Not that it's the end all, but I do like to.
Guest:The worst thing about that is, is, you know, what you're making is never going to be great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is not a great feeling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's like you start an interview knowing this is going to suck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No matter what I do, if I'm fucking Marlon Brando, it don't matter because we're never going to have the right equipment because we took all the money.
Guest:They're going to have a sound man that has never recorded sound.
Guest:It's just never going to work.
Guest:But the great thing about it is when I would do those movies, those few or maybe I'd say five of them out of my whole resume.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I had great people with me that I got to work with.
Guest:So I'd be like Bob Hoskins was in one that I did in Budapest that you'd never heard of called Den of Lions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I got to work with Bob Hoskins.
Guest:It was fucking awesome.
Guest:We both knew it was a piece of shit, but it was at least I got to work with him before he passed.
Guest:I did another one called Fear.com or something, which was like...
Guest:Internet killing movie.
Guest:But I got to work with like Natasha McElhone and Stephen Ray and really cool actors.
Guest:You know, so like I never was like in the middle of the worst experience with nobody.
Guest:I always kind of went in with the team.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But we kind of knew we weren't going to be making Gone with the Wind or something.
Marc:So those movies, it's sort of like you're getting paid for an education because, you know, going in, that's sort of like, I don't know if anyone's going to see this movie.
Guest:Well, yeah, because usually those movies have directors that, you know, the key element that you should decide, I think, as an actor is your first thing is what's on the page.
Guest:Second is who's directing.
Guest:Third is who you can act with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And those are, for me, the most important things.
Guest:And, you know, you're basically going the opposite.
Guest:You're saying, that's what I'm making?
Guest:Great.
Guest:What about all these other things?
Guest:Oh, I don't care, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although I do care who I'm acting with.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But the director part is the one that kind of you miss.
Marc:And when you're on a set for those movies, you find that most of the other actors know what's up, too?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then you have the other flip side where you're doing a big movie that's a big studio movie that's probably going to make a shit ton of money.
Guest:It's going to be a big hit.
Guest:And I'm working with John Hurt, but I just didn't like the experience.
Guest:You know, a movie called Immortals.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm on a green screen for five months, and it's just boring.
Marc:So you're not really...
Guest:really doing anything it's all dudes naked with abs everywhere and it's just not sexy and it's boring and it's just i wanted to kill myself and working with hurt it didn't make i love working with hurt and we had a couple drinks together and god man what a fucking awesome dude he was and we had some mutual friends so yeah uh i never got to act with him really unfortunately when that movie hurt oh he was just around yeah he had a kind of a bookend part you know he's kind of in the
Guest:He's a great actor.
Guest:He was great.
Guest:Yeah, he's gone now too.
Guest:I know, man.
Guest:They're all fucking dropping, man.
Marc:But I guess when you did Blade, that seemed like a big break, right?
Guest:Yeah, I thought that was the... The ticket?
Guest:The end of my career.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because that was the first time I had said yes to a high concept commercial studio movie.
Guest:I had been kind of a renegade up until then, working with Nicholson.
Guest:I did a small movie with Mary Heron called I Shot Andy Warhol.
Guest:yeah you're good in that man that's a weird little movie that was great i started doing shit that people were like why won't he do a hit movie why won't he do why won't he play the hollywood did you like doing the but you like taking risks obviously you were willing to do whatever well yeah and and blade was just the first one that they came at me hard with i had a big salary and i was like all right i'll play the villain in this big vampire thing i've always liked vampires so i'm like i could do this
Guest:And then, you know, we did it.
Guest:And then I still thought it was going to be the end of my career.
Guest:And then it was like the biggest movie I'd ever done.
Guest:So I was like, this is weird.
Guest:Why did you think it would be the end?
Guest:Just felt like a sellout.
Guest:I felt like it was pre-Marvel.
Guest:It was pre that that's all there is today.
Marc:That was like the first Marvel movie ever.
Guest:I mean, you know, the whole world now is like, you know, to find a cool drama that, you know, me and you and some actors could go make as a feature is very rare these days.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, they don't, maybe a handful of them every year.
Guest:You know, there's, unless you're doing small indie things that they're going to fight to try to even get a release.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're basically in the comic universe now.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I mean, everything is that.
Marc:And all those indie movies, they make it to the screen maybe for a minute and then you just watch it on Netflix or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, you become a festival favorite and maybe you make it to the Dancing with the Stars ceremony in March or maybe next year it'll be in June because they keep postponing it.
Marc:It's like the whole year is- There's no more hosts anymore and they're just going to let people host it from their houses on Skype.
Marc:They're going to do a contest.
Guest:I mean, the Oscars would be better if you just gave each person the award and gave the announcement over your podcast.
Guest:And they just have to come to Glendale to get it.
Marc:Yeah, or just make a little video that they post on YouTube.
Marc:But it wasn't the, I mean, so you thought you were a sellout and that was going to be the end of you.
Guest:I did when I did that one.
Guest:But now, I mean, to this day, I still get the Blade thing everywhere.
Guest:I mean, it's just.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Blade and the Gate.
Guest:The Gate, no, that's just for the weird freaks.
Guest:The freaks, right.
Guest:Yeah, that's for the freaks.
Marc:But you're still the guy from Blade forever.
Guest:Yeah, big time, big time.
Marc:But you worked with like, you did weird, you did that John Waters movie.
Guest:Yeah, I love working with John.
Guest:They didn't want me to do a movie with John either.
Guest:Who, your agents?
Guest:My agents, yeah, they're like, no, no, no, you got to do this movie.
Guest:And it was like a movie you've never heard of, the one they wanted me to do.
Guest:The one I did with John was like his big budget action movie.
Guest:It was awesome.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like throwing oyster grenades at Melanie Griffith and it's about film terrorism and it's like.
Guest:shown in art colleges to this day like i love john he's like the coolest he's still around smartest uh friend of mine still he calls me on my birthday every year oh yeah i get this weird hi steven it's john how are you happy birthday you know whatever in his weird voice
Guest:I love the guy.
Guest:Yeah, he's great, man.
Guest:He's the kind of guy you could have like, he's the most polite, sweetest guy.
Guest:You would never know that the guy that comes up with the raunchiest shit.
Guest:No, he seems like it.
Guest:I've never interviewed him.
Guest:Oh, he's so smart.
Guest:You should.
Marc:I know.
Guest:You would kill it on this.
Marc:I should do it.
Marc:Oh, yeah, he'd be great.
Marc:I mean, I should do it before it gets too late.
Marc:And so like in terms of these directors though, like with Oliver Stone, that World Trade Center, that was like, I remember that came out and like, I thought it was a great movie, but it didn't seem to hang out that long.
Guest:Maybe it's too heavy.
Guest:It's a tough thing.
Guest:It was five years anniversary when it came out and it was a well-made movie and I thought Oliver did a great job and it touched me because I was in New York 10 blocks from that when it happened.
Guest:I was in Astoria on my roof.
Guest:I was in, uh,
Guest:near soho you know really and uh the wind when the wind moved you know i had to go uptown i couldn't get out at that point you know you just want to be with your family yeah you know because my mom i wanted to be with my mom my brother my dad i wanted to know yeah is la next what's going on yeah sure my generation had never seen something like this yeah so nobody had so that was uh it was important that i i thought did that film and and uh what was it like working with him
Guest:It was cool.
Guest:It was very quiet, very intense.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:But yeah, it made me work to get that part, and I needed the part because I wanted to show him I could play.
Guest:He's like, you can't do this.
Guest:You're too cute for this.
Guest:I said, well, Oliver, I'm an actor.
Guest:I can show me what he looks like, and I can meet Scott, talk on the phone.
Guest:I can get his voice.
Guest:I know he's from Massapequa and Long Island.
Guest:I said, I want to do something in this film, and this is the best part, I think, for me.
Guest:There's nothing else...
Guest:So sure enough, maybe wait a couple months, he shot a lot of the stuff in New York, and when it came time to get into the big rescue sequence, which is what Scott and Michael Shannon, those parts, his part, the Marine comes, calls the SU, they came down, went in the rubble, and cut these guys out of the rubble.
Guest:That was done in the studio?
Guest:We did it all at Howard Hughes' hangar.
Guest:Yeah, in Playa de Vista.
Guest:And they rebuilt 9-11 out there.
Guest:It was all outside.
Marc:The pile of steel?
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Choppers flying over.
Guest:I mean, I can understand why the movie wasn't a huge blockbuster.
Guest:They weren't trying to, I don't think, make money off it.
Guest:It was more like, I think they even donated...
Guest:A lot of the box office too.
Guest:But I think it did like 70, 80 mil in America.
Guest:It did a couple hundred mil worldwide.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like in terms of directors, everyone's different.
Marc:Every captain's different.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like Sophia's the most gentle, sweet, you know, have a tea and let's do a scene.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Kind of like unreal experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's fly to Milan and shoot a scene there.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, you're like with your friend and that great DP that gave me the knife, Harris Savides, had shot that movie and he was a genius and he passed away right after that.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, you know, Sophia to Michael Mann.
Marc:Michael Mann, what was that like?
Guest:Which movie was that?
Guest:That was Public Enemies.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Which was cool.
Guest:It was right after my mom passed, and I was in a pretty sad state.
Guest:But my mom, I was with her when he offered it to me, and I said, I really love Michael Mann, Mom.
Guest:But I don't know if I can go and do a movie right now.
Guest:Because I knew my mom was different than my brother.
Guest:Yeah, I knew she was going any day.
Guest:So when I met with Michael,
Guest:I just said, look, you're Michael Mann.
Guest:You can do whatever you want to do.
Guest:There's a million people in line for this part.
Guest:This is what's going on in my life.
Marc:Was it Dillinger?
Marc:What was the movie?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Public Enemies.
Guest:I played Homer Van Meter, who's kind of Depp's right hand in the gang.
Guest:And I told Michael what I was dealing with, and he said, look, I'll get you caught up on prep later.
Guest:You do what you have to do, but I want you in the movie to be good for you.
Guest:And I was like, what a mensch.
Guest:And so I was with my mom.
Guest:I was able to...
Guest:have that closure, do what I needed to do, and then I shipped out, and everybody from Johnny on was really supportive and sweet to me.
Guest:What'd she have?
Guest:She had a brain tumor, a small little fucking tumor the size of an M&M that was in just the wrong part of the brain.
Guest:We couldn't go and get it, so you have to try to shrink it and do all this other advanced medicine, and we did pretty good with it for about a year, and then it comes back.
Guest:That's how Harris died.
Guest:That's how Sidney Pollack died.
Guest:Harris.
Guest:Harris Havides, that DP I was talking about.
Guest:Oh, the same thing?
Guest:Same thing, went to my mom's doctor.
Guest:Pollock too, huh?
Guest:Same little thing.
Guest:Sidney Pollock, same thing.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And, you know, so it's, yeah, but at least, you know, we lost my mom way too young, 59, but she was such a special lady.
Guest:But, you know, it was my brother that really was something else because those surprise phone calls, that shit's just the worst, man.
Guest:She's like,
Marc:It's terrifying.
Marc:It's heartbreaking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, every morning I wake up.
Guest:Like, I'll wake up in the middle of the night to that reoccurring phone call.
Guest:It's like a bad dream, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all I can do is now with kind of the good stuff that's been happening, just try to do great work for my brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I bought Nashville kind of as an homage to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I'm going to host events for his nonprofit on the property.
Guest:I'm there to kind of...
Guest:be a face there as well more than I ever was before for my father to help him because we own this big catalog of songs with Universal, his publisher.
Guest:Just kind of keep getting these songs cut.
Guest:My brother's had three number ones since he's been gone.
Guest:Seriously?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's had Rascal Flatts number one, Yours If You Want It.
Guest:He had...
Guest:He's got a new Carrie Underwood single coming out that's awesome called Ghosts on the Stereo or Ghosts on the Radio.
Marc:And these were just ones he had around?
Guest:Yeah, we own a thousand of them.
Marc:That he wrote?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was an amazing lyricist.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wrote all Blake Shelton's hits, My Eyes.
Guest:He wrote...
Guest:Kenny Chesney's hits he was kind of the new breed he was he was on his way to lapping my dad for sure that's what's kind of even more painful about it is is for a long time he didn't have money and he was always my brother the son of my dad he was always trying to figure out his niche right and he was the only one that moved down there and just sat there
Guest:while they weren't cutting his songs, and I'd be like, what are you fucking doing out there?
Guest:Fuck these Southern... Does he play?
Guest:Did he play as well?
Guest:No, he was more of just a little beat poet.
Guest:He was like a... He just wrote it.
Guest:Just a lyricist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, awesome.
Marc:And he's just sitting down in Nashville writing them.
Guest:Writing, not getting anything cut.
Guest:Eight years go by, borrowing money from me, my dad, and I'm like, Andrew...
Guest:Come to LA or New York.
Guest:You know so many people.
Guest:You're a genius.
Guest:You can work, write songs for Beyonce, write songs for, I mean, we'll get you in with somebody else.
Guest:They're not cutting your songs.
Guest:He's like, Steve, it takes time.
Guest:I'm building something, building something.
Guest:Sure enough, when that shit rocked, he was making more money than me and my dad.
Guest:I was borrowing money from him.
Guest:And I was like, are you fucking kidding me?
Guest:And the kid was right.
Guest:He created his own niche.
Guest:And so when you go to Nashville, Andrew means something more than...
Guest:my dad or me right because we don't work there every day my dad's known as the hollywood guy right you know he'll dip hollywood country yeah he'll go in and dip in and do a george straight session but he's out my brother was there just writing every day with writers just sitting there writing smoking cigars yeah drinking champagne he was a special kid that's i'm sorry man
Guest:that's rough i can uh i'll actually send uh send you over a book of uh universal did of his lyrics it's beautiful because each song is almost like a movie you may get inspired to yeah write a movie or something i'll i'll i'll have one sent over oh that'd be great and they published it or it's just like they did it just they i think they made like a thousand yeah they passed them out yeah they passed them out at like the country music awards one year they've done really they've universal stepped up usually you die and they forget you
Guest:You know, that's just what I've realized about life.
Guest:They kind of usually, you know, you leave your legacy, but shit moves on.
Marc:Yeah, people don't, I don't know if they handle, or I don't know what you're supposed to do with it, but it does seem that when you pass, you move on.
Guest:It's the next day, what do I got?
Guest:Oh, I got a coffee with Marc Maron.
Guest:I'm doing a podcast.
Guest:I mean, you just, you kind of have to move on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But Universal has been really special, classy.
Guest:They have a room at Universal in Nashville that they dedicated to my brother.
Guest:So now when all their writers come in to do a writing session in one of these writers' rooms, it's the Andrew room.
Guest:So there's pictures of him, cigars.
Guest:Was he older or young?
Guest:He was younger.
Guest:He was 40 when he died.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah, he would have been 42.
Guest:Because I'm going to be 46 in July, end of July.
Wow.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Well, that's good that there is a legacy and that you're honoring it.
Guest:Yeah, and also that music stays alive, so it's nice when I hear them turn on the radio or something and I hear my brother's song.
Guest:It's pretty dope.
Marc:That's great, man.
Guest:That's what he would have wanted.
Marc:Yeah, well, that's great.
Marc:So now that I understand it, there was never a point where you're like, this isn't working out.
Marc:I got to do these things.
Marc:some of the movies.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:You always had a reason for working, but it wasn't because you were in trouble.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, there was times where I ran out of money, you know, and had some loans that I needed to pay off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Luckily, I'm kind of a late bloomer.
Guest:I've never been married, and I haven't had to support anybody but myself, really, and my brother when he needed money until he started killing it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was never a point where it's like it was a dark time for Dorf.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I never... The good news about me is...
Guest:I credit my family.
Guest:I credit my mom and dad.
Guest:I mean, I had a very tight-knit family, and I think somehow along the way, I've had that voice of reason from my mother, even in the darkest of times, where I could have ended up in a pile of fucking blow, and you would have been reading about me, or you would have seen me arrested many times.
Guest:And I never went that way, funny enough, because I'm frankly kind of square when it comes to
Guest:drugs because of my mother i think in a weird way i have that weird thing in my head too i come i come from a pretty gnarly life i've been partying i love to drink i love to smoke weed i mean i like to let go yeah but that's all i ever did and that's what you never got into the never got into all the other shit yeah never got into the the new wave of drugs what people are doing i just never i my friends have you know i mean i just for me
Guest:It's best when I'm too tipsy or too stoned to just go to sleep or have a driver take me home.
Marc:Not do blow to do more.
Guest:Yeah, and just have the party continue and continue and continue.
Guest:And I credit, I think, my family for that because once I never tried it,
Guest:I, why am I going to go and why go start it now?
Guest:It seems pretty stupid.
Guest:You know, I missed the best times.
Guest:The world is changing dramatically.
Marc:You had your window for blow.
Guest:I have my window.
Guest:It's gone.
Marc:Yeah, you missed it.
Marc:It's fucking gone.
Marc:You don't have to do it.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:Well, yeah, for me, I always had that part of me.
Marc:It's sort of like, I don't want to go too far.
Marc:Like, you know, I don't want to get lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like it was like I did blow, but like you almost can see the end.
Guest:So if you can visualize that, why am I going to go to it?
Marc:Well, yeah, you don't have that bug where it's just sort of like you lose your whole fucking life down the hole.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You must have seen a lot of dudes go down, though.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:From everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I just, you know, I'm really, really lucky and blessed that I'm still here and now getting a chance to hopefully do some of the best stuff I've ever done.
Guest:feel like that's gonna happen man I mean what but you did like much more humble too I mean I was kind of an asshole when I was young I was kind of confused I mean you know in what way just cocky I think so and just trying to maintain it all when you're young and you're kind of grow up in this dump and then you you fucking you know
Guest:I finally start seeing the world and working with artists.
Guest:I think acting helped me.
Guest:That was my education.
Guest:That was where I met adults that I was like, wow, they're really smart.
Guest:Wow, I got to listen and watch them.
Guest:Because in LA, you're in a bubble of a bunch of rich kids.
Guest:I mean, I was going to school with the...
Guest:you know, Prince of Kuwait's son and whatever.
Guest:I was going to birthday parties where their kids are getting Bentleys for their 16th birthday.
Guest:You know, just bullshit.
Guest:Just shit that's not real.
Guest:Shit that I can't stand about LA now.
Guest:I mean, I love nice things, but I'm not a flaunter.
Guest:I've never been a flaunter.
Guest:I've never been one to... Well, you're out in Malibu.
Guest:That's probably as flaunty as I get, but I'm also moving.
Marc:You've got to drive to flaunt when you live in Malibu.
Guest:Hey, let me show you where I live.
Guest:It's only going to take you two hours.
Guest:No, we're going to the club.
Guest:No, but no, I mean, I'm actually moving out of Malibu, it looks like.
Guest:Nashville.
Guest:Nashville.
Guest:Well, I got this place, and I'm in the process of selling my spot, so I just need a change, yeah.
Marc:Well, I think the thing that struck me when I saw True Detective, and I don't know nothing.
Marc:I'm really out of the loop with a lot of stuff until somebody tells me.
Marc:And it was almost like you were born again somehow.
Marc:It was like I'd never seen you before.
Marc:And I have, of course, and everybody has, but that role, it was like, what the fuck?
Marc:Where's this coming from?
Marc:I mean, you were always there, but I have to imagine that it's put you on the radar in some whole different way.
Marc:You're a different age and you can fucking carry a lead.
Marc:No problem.
Marc:But also, you know, to do that character with that accent in that, you know, through those generations with the amount of depth you were able to bring to it was kind of amazing.
Marc:Thank you, buddy.
Marc:Appreciate it.
Marc:I mean, did you feel that when you were doing it, or was it just another role?
Guest:No, I felt a natural... I mean, it's... You know, not to make the whole episode or podcast about my brother, but it was weird.
Guest:It was a weird time.
Guest:I was in Nashville...
Guest:It was a year, coming up on the year of his passing, and I was having a party for his community out there.
Guest:And Vicky Thomas, who's an amazing casting director, they were asking, I got a random call while I was in Nashville, that I was one of a few people that they were considering for the lead of the new true detective opposite Mahershala Ali.
Guest:And I was a fan of Mahershala's, I really liked him in Moonlight, but I really liked him in House of Cards.
Guest:And I thought, I didn't realize he had been acting so many years before, doing parts and everything, but just not having a lead or a supporting role until recently.
Guest:Until Moonlighting?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:Until House of Cards, until some of that, I guess.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So make a long story short, I said, I can't make that meeting, but I'll be happy to read on tape or something, but I'm going to Nashville for this.
Guest:This is what's going on.
Guest:And my instinct was maybe I should call Vicki Thomas.
Guest:I never get to call casting directors because I'm always usually either offered the part or I pass on the part.
Guest:And the casting process when you're going for the lead or the second lead is not usually, you don't usually have to meet the casting director.
Guest:So I never get to really meet a lot of these cool cast directors that I've known for years that I used to audition to.
Guest:So I said, you know what?
Guest:My instinct is I should call Vicky and she should hear it from me what's going on in my life.
Guest:So I was just very honest and I said, here's the deal.
Guest:This is what I'm doing and I have to do it.
Guest:And I've organized it for a month and a half and I got 200 of Andrew's closest friends coming.
Guest:She's like, you got to do that, Steven.
Guest:You come back, as soon as you're back, we'll lay it down on tape.
Guest:She was like a mensch, like Michael Mann.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, I came back.
Guest:I laid the tape down.
Guest:Next day, I was in HBO.
Guest:And the next day, they wouldn't give me scripts.
Guest:Up until my offer, I hadn't had a script.
Guest:And I'm like, I've never said yes.
Guest:What did you know about it?
Guest:Well, I've never said yes to a part without knowing what happened.
Guest:And Nick Pizzolatto wrote me an email and he said, you have no idea, Stephen.
Guest:This is...
Guest:You're gonna knock this out of the part you age to your mid 70s.
Guest:It's three decades Roland is so important to this project But I don't want you to read it until you know I know you're in yeah, and I said all right Well you have your process and Nick.
Guest:I'm a huge fan.
Guest:I love the first one I didn't connect to the second one like yeah like you had said I was also working and I just didn't get a flow with it right first one I thought was magic great.
Guest:Yeah, that was brilliant and
Marc:Harrelson is like... Oh, he's brilliant in it.
Guest:And Matthew McConaughey, I thought was the best I've ever seen him.
Guest:The whole thing was brilliantly shot, brilliantly the mood, the energy, the writing.
Guest:I was just like, this is the best thing on TV since The Sopranos for me.
Guest:I waited every week to watch it like a fan.
Guest:So cut to...
Guest:I got two scenes for my audition for Nick.
Guest:And I have no problem reading.
Guest:If I have to read and I know it's going to be good, I'll fucking read.
Guest:I love acting.
Guest:So give me something to read that I like.
Guest:I ain't going to audition for fear.com.
Guest:But I'll fucking, I'll go fight for a role if I have to.
Guest:Fuck it.
Guest:I don't have an ego with that.
Guest:This is what I do.
Guest:I'm an actor.
Guest:It's a crazy profession.
Guest:So I fucking go in.
Guest:I get these two scenes, and I felt very natural with this accent.
Guest:And they had said, don't do an accent.
Guest:A lot of people, I guess, are coming in, dumbing it up with this Southern accent.
Guest:I said, well, this guy's got to have an accent.
Guest:It's written that way.
Guest:I said, I'm just going to trust myself.
Guest:I was listening to a lot of my brother's country stuff on the way to the HBO in Santa Monica.
Guest:I go in there and I laid it down.
Guest:To the day of my brother's passing, they offered me the role.
Guest:A year after?
Guest:Then they started sending me the scripts.
Guest:It was a year to the day?
Guest:Yeah, a year to the day.
Guest:Two at a time.
Guest:And I'm reading these scripts just around my house going, this is the weirdest thing in 30 years.
Guest:I've never not known what the part is before taking it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But now I'm getting to know what the part is and the part is the best part in the show.
Guest:It's like he's got the best lines.
Guest:The sense of humor is on fire.
Guest:He's got heart.
Guest:This is the best role I've ever gotten.
Guest:And I get eight hours to play him.
Guest:I don't have to squeeze it into 90 minutes or two hours where you get your big scenes.
Guest:You know you got a nail and then you're out and you hope that it all works.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This is all you.
Guest:This is just me and Mahersh, and I'm going to work with that actor, and he's awesome, and God knows who else is going to be in this cast, and these scripts are this good.
Guest:I got seven of the eight.
Guest:Mahersh and me didn't get eight until halfway through shooting, because Nick hadn't actually, he knew how it was going to end, but he didn't pen it down.
Marc:So he was still writing when he was shooting.
Guest:He had outlined it.
Guest:But I got the first seven and I never remember me running around a house going, I can't believe how many amazing scenes there are.
Guest:I mean, this old age shit is insane.
Guest:How are we going to do this shit?
Guest:Is it going to be hokey?
Guest:Is the makeup going to be good?
Guest:All the questions.
Guest:And that team was just awesome.
Guest:A-plus production, A-plus just producing, just everybody that cares about what they're making and the crew from the lighting guys to the gaffers to the camera boys.
Guest:They're all my friends still, focus pullers.
Guest:I mean, you do something for seven months, 120-day shoot or something, and I think I worked probably 110.
Guest:Mahersh, I think, worked every day except for one.
Guest:You do something like that, you really create a family.
Guest:And I'd never experienced a series-type thing like that, the way the world's going.
Guest:And to be honest, to me, that's the money.
Guest:If you can find... My biggest problem now is how do you find something as good as that?
Guest:It's not...
Guest:show about dragons or a show about this or you know something that's a little more futuristic everything has an angle true detective what's great about it is just grounded it's just writing and acting yeah there's no real we're not we're no bullshit we're not flying yeah it's just it's it's shit in boots you know and it's awesome and and so i love that i mean i my only fear is you sitting with a dog am i gonna do now yeah yeah
Guest:but like uh so the accent just you didn't like it came really natural but it wasn't an arkansas accent or it was kind of more of like a texas arkansas draw okay yeah is what it was kind of uh i had done um texas in a small movie that i actually made with my buddy ryan downstairs who's a big fan of yours we made a pretty cool movie that you might like too maybe i'll send you that to uh called wheeler
Guest:Did he write it, your pal?
Guest:There was no script.
Guest:We just basically created an idea and then a ballsy idea of what if I went to pay homage to... My brother was still alive at this point.
Guest:I've written some music in the past, but I just never really went that way professionally because I was always busy.
Guest:Plus, that's my dad and my brother's thing and I don't really want to have an album at that point.
Guest:I was like, I'm just going to... I'll write these for me and one day maybe I'll use them in a movie or...
Guest:Because I love playing.
Guest:I play piano and guitar and I love music, but it's not what I do for a living.
Guest:So I had this idea in my living room.
Guest:I wasn't getting any movies.
Guest:I was kind of in a funk and me and Ryan are like, what if we dropped into Nashville as a singer songwriter and did more like a documentary with just a treatment, you know, without the ending or maybe a beginning, middle and end and fill it and just put them on its feet and film it.
Guest:the way Sacha Baron Cohen would do a comedy, get releases, get access through some friends in the biz, which we have, but really make this character live on his own.
Guest:And how can we do that when I'm the guy from Blade and I have that face that some people do know?
Guest:I'm not Tom Cruise, but I do have that thing.
Marc:Are you happy you're not Tom Cruise?
Guest:Yeah, I'm a sucker for Tom Cruise.
Guest:I think he's still pretty good.
Marc:No, but I mean, like, are you happy with your play?
Guest:Yeah, I have.
Guest:I mean, to be honest, True Detective's been gnarly because the power of a show that hits the zeitgeist like that show and when it's received well, you know, every day somebody comes up to me about that.
Guest:It's pretty... That's different.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:I usually get... I don't love it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do like the response.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because I...
Guest:You did good work, and they liked the work, but it's like you want to be able... Yeah, and I'm like, that fucking season sucked.
Guest:It's like, I'll take the fucking nice thing.
Guest:So anyway, I said, fuck, let's call Christian Tinsley.
Guest:He was a great makeup man, and I'd worked with him on a couple movies, and I said, what can you do to my face?
Guest:to change my chin or my nose, my face, we put a wig on.
Guest:How can I drop into Nashville for two weeks and shoot a movie as a singer-songwriter?
Guest:I'll get a fucking spot at the Bluebird.
Guest:I'll get a fucking in a writing round here and there and there.
Guest:It'll make my brother nervous, but I'll get some access and then I'll let it live.
Guest:And if it'll either fall on its ass or it'll live and we'll come up with a narrative and make a movie.
Guest:And he's like, this is Banana's idea.
Guest:I said, think Sacha Baron Cohen, how he would do Burratt or one of his, I'm doing a drama.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Wheeler Bryson.
Guest:He's from Kauffman, Texas.
Guest:He drives all the way into Nashville.
Guest:It's his first time.
Guest:His daddy's just died, and he just wants to see if his music means anything to this town the way it did back in his small town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:American dream story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I write the whole album.
Guest:I sing the whole fucking album and we went under prosthetics and I went into Nashville for 14 days and we shot this movie.
Guest:LA Times, New York Times loved it.
Guest:Bad release.
Guest:Not too many people have seen it but it's the kind of movie that I think over years and over time people really trip.
Guest:I gotta show it to you.
Guest:And I wanna watch Blood and Wine too.
Guest:But Wheeler was fun.
Guest:And so the point of that story was I had this cool accent and I kind of just used a little bit of Wheeler without the Texas thing so much into Roland and the naturalness of it came through and I just trusted it.
Guest:I didn't work with a dialect coach.
Guest:I just, I had a connection to this part in a weird way that I never had before.
Guest:I felt it.
Guest:I didn't have to do much.
Marc:I didn't know who you were for like an hour.
Guest:Well, yeah, well, that wig doesn't help in the 80s.
Marc:No, but I mean- My 80s look.
Marc:But still, it was so organic that I wasn't- You know what I mean?
Guest:And Mahersh is so great in it, too.
Guest:I mean, just the whole connection.
Marc:It's really a show about- His character was tricky, man.
Marc:I mean, like you really grounded that whole fucking that whole season, you know, because his character was like it was sort of he was hard to like, you know, for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, the acting was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it was a difficult character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a he's a stone cold, tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Quiet.
Guest:That last beat at the end.
Guest:I thought was genius.
Guest:I think they wanted they wanted Nick to cut that.
Guest:And he's like, I'm not cutting that.
Guest:I thought it was great because the poetry of it, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love, I mean, I just, I love Nick.
Guest:He really, I'll never forget that dude.
Guest:He gave me a gift there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So what now, like, how has it changed your life?
Guest:Well, I did a film, a really cool film right after that I think is coming more at the end of this year.
Guest:It's called Embattled.
Guest:I played this UFC, kind of like a Conor McGregor type guy, which was really hard to play after Roland because Roland was so,
Guest:rich and so soulful and had so much heart that I went right into this really ignorant...
Guest:obnoxious beast of a guy, but it was a really well-written part.
Marc:Did you have to get all ripped?
Guest:Yeah, I got pretty big for it.
Guest:I went right from True Detective into that.
Guest:I finished that in mid-November, had the holidays, and then January we went on the press thing for True Detective.
Guest:I went to Europe a few times.
Guest:I did some of that because Mahershala was busy with the Oscar.
Guest:I mean, the timing of the season was bananas.
Guest:It was very similar to the first one when Matthew had...
Guest:Dallas Buyers Club, but in a way, that Academy campaign was coinciding with the detective.
Guest:I mean, what a year for Mahersh.
Marc:Yeah, someone's got to go rep the show.
Guest:Yeah, so I was flying around.
Guest:I went to Lisbon, London a few times, Paris.
Guest:I did kind of the dance out there for the show.
Guest:And did well internationally?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they loved it.
Guest:They all loved it.
Guest:And then you came back?
Guest:Then I came back, and I've been reading scripts.
Guest:I found a couple cool things that I like and kind of in the process of figuring out...
Guest:what I'm gonna do I mean I've been trying to be picky you know I did take I did a show I did a show with David Ayer director who you know he did End of Watch and Fury and Suicide Squad intense intense dude but good movie maker and we made a
Guest:we made a new show called Deputy, which is a show I didn't want to make, but ultimately did.
Guest:How many episodes?
Guest:I had a really good experience.
Guest:I only made the first one, so I made a pilot of it.
Marc:Oh, so you don't know if it's going to go or not?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, they say it is, but...
Guest:I won't know till I know.
Guest:So right now I'm gonna focus on what, try to find a good movie to do.
Guest:And there's been a couple that I like.
Guest:There's a cool one that I, I don't know why the West keeps following me, whether it's country or I don't know.
Guest:You got that grit to you.
Guest:I don't know what it is, but they want me to play,
Guest:an old rodeo clown, kind of like a bull rider, kind of like the wrestler was for Mickey Rourke, but almost like a 46-year-old rodeo clown who used to ride, and it was a bit of a legend, but he's so broken, and he's kind of bone-on-bone, cartilage, just steroided out.
Marc:And that's why he had to become a clown?
Guest:Yeah, he becomes a rodeo clown, but he gets back on, and it's kind of this pretty awesome, it's called The Last Carnival, it's a pretty cool, cool movie.
Guest:Whose movie's that?
Guest:It's first-time director, a friend of mine, and...
Guest:It's the best script I've read.
Guest:I mean, everything else that I've read has been so bad that I don't know how to... That's the problem when you get something so special.
Guest:How do you follow it?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you would think that you'd be getting special scripts, but I guess they're just rare in general.
Guest:They're rare in general.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, they're just not around.
Guest:You can win the Oscar like Mahersh, and then what do you do next?
Guest:When he found a movie, I guess he's going to do some sci-fi movie, but...
Guest:We all know what the scripts are that are out there.
Guest:There's not many of them.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:That's why I think Mahershala was so smart to go after Nick.
Guest:He went after Nick for True Detective.
Guest:He did.
Guest:Yeah, and Nick changed the part for him.
Guest:Do you have good things to say about Arkansas?
Guest:yeah i had a great time in fayetteville yeah fayetteville and bentonville are kind of known for the waltons basically because they started walmart and they've infused so much money they made a big art museum down there huge yeah willows i mean um crystal bridges yeah unbelievable yeah i mean de kuning's you know edward hopper some of the most incredible paintings you've ever seen and that's just all alice walton just paying back to the community buying amazing paintings in auction and putting them in this free museum so they're not all bad
Guest:No, I mean, they seem pretty good to the community.
Guest:They bought a beautiful theater in Fayetteville.
Guest:Fayetteville, where we were based, is more of a liberal little bar town, college town.
Guest:It's really nice people.
Guest:I made some good friends there.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:I really liked it.
Guest:You go out 10 minutes out of these towns and you're in red state America, definitely, where shit hasn't changed in many years for these people.
Guest:They're holding the line.
Guest:Yeah, I kind of would stay in Fayetteville, and then basically the show took us on all these incredible journeys through the Ozarks, whether it was Devil's Den to Northwest Arkansas.
Guest:We shot everywhere.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:And doesn't Bateman shoot down there too?
Guest:He shoots in Atlanta.
Guest:They shoot that show in Atlanta.
Marc:Are you guys friends?
Guest:Yeah, he's a really nice guy.
Guest:I've known him since we went to school.
Guest:I know.
Guest:We've got kids.
Guest:Funny enough, I was in Atlanta, and he came up to me, and I hadn't seen him, but he congratulated me.
Guest:He told me how he tried to get our DP, but he got our editor.
Guest:He basically took the whole True Detective for this new show he's working on.
Guest:He's working on a new show that he's the producer of that he's, I think, got a cameo in, but it's like a murder mystery HBO.
Guest:Is Ozarks already over?
Guest:No, he's still doing that too.
Guest:The guy's on fire.
Guest:He's like doing two at once in Atlanta.
Marc:I guess when you get your window, you got to take it.
Guest:Yeah, he's always been a nice dude and his wife, Amanda, I've known for years since my first girlfriend.
Marc:He seems like a pretty genuine guy.
Marc:I've interviewed him and I've run into him and he's always real nice.
Guest:Yeah, you gotta be happy for people like that, you know, because he's just... He's good, too, and he knows what he's capable of.
Guest:He is, yeah, he is good.
Guest:Well, it was great talking to you, buddy.
Guest:Mark, that was awesome, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thanks for having me.
Marc:I wish I could tell you.
Marc:I feel like I should be like, just take that knife, but I'm not going to give it to you.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:You keep it.
Guest:I'm going to keep my knife.
Guest:You've got a few.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thanks, buddy.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:That was Dorf.
Marc:We're still in touch.
Marc:He sent me a beautiful book of his brother's work and words and pictures.
Marc:Just what a solid guy.
Marc:Now I'm going to play some airy, sad guitar for you.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!