Episode 1154 - J.K. Simmons
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast how are you are you okay are you doing all right man i've got to assume that everyone's tired of this shit and by shit i mean this fucking president
Marc:Anyway, today on the show, I talked to, well, I'm going to talk to J.K.
Marc:Simmons, the actor.
Marc:You know him.
Marc:He was in Whiplash, Juno, Oz, Law & Order.
Marc:He just did a movie called Palm Springs with Andy Samberg.
Marc:He's on the Apple TV Plus series defending Jacob right now.
Marc:He's an upfront dude, man.
Marc:Straight ahead, straightforward.
Marc:No bullshitting.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:That's going to happen.
Marc:You're going to hear that happen in your head.
Marc:Got to confess, I did something crazy.
Marc:I really, I did something crazy.
Marc:And I'm fucking going to have to get another test because I don't know if it was worth risking my life for, but I went and had my car washed.
Marc:Can you fucking believe that?
Marc:What is wrong with me, man?
Marc:I went and had my car washed.
Marc:I took it to the place.
Marc:It's not as good as it used to be, but that was before COVID even.
Marc:They sold it and no one goes there anymore, but whatever.
Marc:Watch it go through the machine just like old days, just like old times.
Marc:That weird, strange feeling of pride as if you're doing something, watching your car go through the machine, through the brushes, thinking like, look at that.
Marc:Look what I'm, this is great.
Marc:I'm doing something.
Marc:I'm out in the world.
Marc:Then it goes out and the guys dry it and then they open the door and they get in your car.
Marc:Other human beings that I don't know getting in my car to wash it, to clean it.
Marc:In my car.
Marc:But everyone's wearing masks, and when they got done, I walked over, I tipped them, I kept all the doors open, then I opened all the windows, and then I brought with me a spray bottle filled with alcohol, and I sprayed the inside of the car a bit, misted it with alcohol, drove away quickly with my mask on, with alcohol fumes kind of filling the car, and then air coming in from the outside.
Marc:I think I got away.
Marc:I think I got away with it.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Uh-oh.
Marc:Where's the thermometer?
Marc:Where's the fucking thermometer?
Marc:quick you guys look i i i i'm grieving the loss of a loved one and i know a lot of you people are are up to your fucking necks with your loved ones you've had it you're at the end of your goddamn rope with your loved ones because how could you not be
Marc:I mean, when is this shit going to stop?
Marc:How much can you take of your loved ones?
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:Cherish every moment.
Marc:That I can tell you right now from somebody who is dealing with loss.
Marc:And that's not an unusual thing to say, but it's hard.
Marc:You know, the cherishing every moment, the living every moment, the being grateful for every moment, the sort of like make sure you know how amazing it is to be alive.
Marc:Warren Zivon said, enjoy every sandwich.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:But five months of sandwiches.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:It would take a fucking saint.
Marc:Am I right?
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:What I meant to say is like, I know things are difficult for some of you in terms of, you know, the stress of proximity.
Marc:But I also think that probably some of you are going pretty deep.
Marc:You're going pretty deep, probably deeper than you ever imagined possible with your significant others, with your children, with yourself, with
Marc:But again, five months is a long time.
Marc:And maybe it's time to rappel out.
Marc:It's time to climb back out.
Marc:Gone deep enough.
Marc:Let's get back to some surface shit.
Marc:God, I got to assume that people are just craving passing attention from strangers even.
Marc:Just the feeling of walking by some people at the mall.
Marc:And you can see their faces.
Marc:Remember?
Marc:I imagine some of us are missing behavior that borders on inappropriate.
Marc:You looking at me?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Mild flirtations.
Marc:Office crushes.
Marc:You can hang in there.
Marc:We're okay.
Marc:We're okay.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Talking to Lipsight last night.
Marc:We have our nightly phone call.
Marc:Me and Lipsight.
Marc:Sam.
Marc:Got a new book out.
Marc:We're just riffing.
Marc:Talking about public bathrooms.
Marc:Because he went out into the world for the first time in months to his office.
Marc:And he owned up to using a public restroom.
Marc:And I was like, dude, I fucking used a bathroom bathroom.
Marc:On the way home from Albuquerque, you had a rest area in the Mojave Desert, man.
Marc:Just a bunch of trucks parked in the lot.
Marc:People coming and going.
Marc:Had to go.
Marc:Yeah, and I had to do that one.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Who knows?
Marc:But I think I'm okay with the COVID.
Marc:No one was in there.
Marc:Door was open.
Marc:Had my mask on.
Marc:Had those little things that you put on the toilet seat.
Marc:I don't know what that stops.
Marc:But COVID is not the issue there.
Marc:Gonna get some sort of like trucker butt.
Marc:And we started...
Marc:trucker eczema we just started riffing on what one could possibly get from a trucker's ass and uh i came up with the winning answer and that was rig chiggers gotta watch out for those rig chiggers that's you sit on the trucker toilet you can get some rig chiggers winner bing bing bing
Marc:I cried to Sam Rockwell.
Marc:I did that.
Marc:I went down into the bunker at DreamWorks to record some voiceover stuff for this movie that I'm doing, animated movie, Bad Guys.
Marc:It's me and Sam Rockwell and Awkwafina and I believe Craig Robinson now and
Marc:But you rarely read with the people, but they like when me and Sammy read together.
Marc:And I met Sammy a couple of times and I've interviewed him and he was in a Lynn Shelton movie and I hadn't seen or talked to him since then.
Marc:And it wasn't that he was there.
Marc:They fed him in on video.
Marc:It's very clean there.
Marc:No one was there.
Marc:I was the only one.
Marc:There's a sound engineer, the guy who walked me down into the bunker and me.
Marc:Very clean, very safe.
Marc:And they brought Sammy in on the video, and then you got the producers on, you got the director on, you got the sound guy on, you got the, like, five or six people on.
Marc:And I saw Sammy, and he said, you know, how you doing?
Marc:And he was talking about Lynn, and I just lost it.
Marc:I started crying.
Marc:I said, it's hard, Sammy, it's hard.
Marc:He said, I know, man, I can't imagine.
Marc:Had some time with Sammy in front of all those people, and...
Marc:Sadly, they're not going to be able to use it for the character.
Marc:The sort of criminal snake character I'm playing, there's no use for tears, so we don't have a blowout moment.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:But stay strong.
Marc:Be there for each other.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:I'm here by myself.
Marc:It's not great.
Marc:Don't love it.
Marc:Dealing with it.
Marc:Don't like it.
Marc:It's scary somehow.
Marc:Is it, though?
Marc:Is that what it is?
Marc:Loneliness?
Marc:Is loneliness scary?
Marc:No.
Marc:It's not so much that it's scary.
Marc:It's just sort of like, okay, I guess I'm just going to walk over here now and eat this.
Marc:All right, look at me.
Marc:I'm sitting on my couch.
Marc:It's my couch.
Marc:I like my couch.
Marc:This is a good couch.
Marc:I'm glad I got rid of that old couch.
Marc:I guess I'll just watch this movie that's on in the middle.
Marc:I guess I'll watch it.
Marc:I feel like I just watched Munich.
Marc:So Jewy.
Guest:Oh, God.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, listen, let's do this now.
Marc:J.K.
Marc:Simmons, the actor, is in this Apple TV Plus show defending Jacob.
Marc:It's on now.
Marc:Palm Springs, the film, is streaming on Hulu.
Marc:And this is me talking to J.K.
Marc:Simmons.
Marc:Coming up.
Marc:jk mark is that what you is that what people call you that what's that's what they say to you they go hey jk uh yes generally speaking there are a variety of nicknames that people who've known me you know more than 40 years might use but uh we haven't we haven't known each other that long so you know we've known each other literally 30 seconds i think roughly but no one calls you by your name name
Guest:No, I don't get a lot of Jonathan or, uh, except actually that's, it's a good thing too, because when I get, you know, a random phone call and it says, or email or whatever it says, Jonathan, then I know it's going to be BS.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That guy doesn't know me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Not reading that shit.
Yeah.
Marc:But when did you become JK?
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:I've never gotten abbreviated, or I kind of wish I had a nickname.
Marc:How does that happen?
Guest:It happened, actually.
Guest:Every time I joined an actor's union, they would take away part of my name because somebody else already had it.
Guest:So by the time I finally got around to joining SAG for a job that I ended up not doing,
Guest:um, and, and paying money that I could not afford on my regional theater actor salary to join SAG and have my name taken away.
Guest:I just, JK actually kind of made sense.
Guest:Uh, uh, my, my father had occasionally called me JK or Jake when I was a kid, Jake.
Guest:And, uh, yeah, I still, yeah, that's one of the nicknames that some of the, some of the old pals call me actually.
Marc:I like that.
Marc:Jake's a good name.
Guest:I gave it away.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So literally when he signed up for the union, they're like, no, we got a Jonathan Simmons.
Marc:We got a John Simmons.
Marc:We got a Jonathan K. Simmons.
Guest:Jay Kimball Simmons.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:All taken.
Marc:None of them popular actors.
Marc:That's the thing is all your names are taken, but you don't know who the fuck those guys are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, but you know, maybe they're making a living somewhere.
Guest:That's true.
Marc:That's I mean, yeah.
Guest:Doing what I was doing for 20 years before anybody heard of me.
Marc:I know it's like it's sort of astounding that you you hung in and seemingly didn't get miserable and bitter and resentful.
Marc:But I don't know you that well.
Guest:And and perhaps I try to keep that only in private, only for those near and dear to me.
Guest:So I so I only really annoy the close people.
Marc:Yeah, that's how you test your family.
Marc:That's what absolutely.
Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, where did you come from?
Guest:Born in Detroit.
Guest:Well, I have to say Grosse Pointe, but then people see mansion.
Guest:So I was born in the slums of Grosse Pointe, Detroit adjacent, and then spent several years in central Ohio growing up, and then a few years in Montana, went to college there.
Marc:So you don't remember Detroit.
Marc:You would think like Detroit would have been something.
Guest:No, I do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was 10 years old when we left.
Guest:There are still a big Tigers fan and all that.
Guest:So but but it's really it's mostly a baseball team to me at this point.
Guest:We don't really have any family or friends back there anymore.
Marc:So, yeah, I like to.
Marc:I'm always curious to talk to people from Detroit in its heyday because it sounded like, you know, industrial, the industrial period of Detroit must have been amazing.
Marc:But then just the rock and roll period must have been amazing.
Guest:Yeah, I was 10.
Guest:So my rock and roll period was in the suburbs of Columbus when my dad was teaching at Ohio State.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I did have a couple of bands.
Guest:You were in bands?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Well, a duo and a trio.
Guest:I was very acoustic and very mediocre.
Guest:We wrote some original cry and die and going away love songs and stuff.
Marc:What year was this?
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:Was this the 60s?
Guest:yeah 68 69 70 yeah you know early mid-teens um long hair do you have the long hair i had the hair i had the had the beard as soon as i could grow it you know the ugly beard coming in yeah sure oh yeah i went from went from jock to hippie freak uh at about that age just yeah just just had to happen blew out my knees which was which was a blessing in disguise and you know i was like okay football wasn't you know
Guest:quite as fun as i was pretending it was anyway so i'm just gonna turn on tune in drop out and play play rock and roll so you started as a like a jockey guy i started as a lousy guitarist singer songwriter and uh and then yeah when i got out of high school i i ended up uh i
Guest:thought i was super cool and uh and i and i got a gig on my at ohio university as a uh disc jockey on a not even the campus radio station it was each green had its own tiny little radio station that basically broadcast to three different dorms so i was doing the graveyard shift doing my progressive rock you know playing like entire album sides of yeah for palmer's first album and
Marc:For 12 people who might have been awake.
Guest:12 was optimistic, yeah.
Marc:But that was great.
Marc:Well, it's so funny because when I said jockey, I thought, like, I was talking about football.
Marc:So you blew out your knees in high school.
Marc:So that was behind you.
Marc:And then we ended up, you know, turns out, you know, you're a long-haired, but you're not even going to the college.
Marc:You just got a gig being the DJ?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I was going to the college.
Guest:I snaggled away to get out of high school a year early, actually, and started at OU when I was just such a child, you know, now looking back.
Guest:Were you playing coffee houses?
Guest:My friend and I had played coffee houses.
Guest:My friend Randy and I had played coffee houses in high school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we were at OU together, but didn't really continue that.
Guest:At least we didn't get any gigs.
Guest:I don't remember if we kind of still strummed around a little bit.
Guest:Do you remember when Kent State happened?
Guest:Oh, all too vividly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My, uh, uh, we were, uh, I would have been a freshman in high school, I guess, 1970, um, in Columbus, you know, at Ohio state.
Guest:And we had, I mean, and there were things going on there, uh, uh, not, uh, you know, with the same awful consequences, but, uh, you know, a lot of student protests and stuff going on there and, uh, and, uh, you know, the cops shooting beanbags at people and, uh, quelling the crowd.
Marc:And your dad was, uh, he taught there?
Guest:My dad taught at Ohio State for several years before he went out and became the head honcho at the University of Montana.
Guest:Not like president of the university.
Guest:I mean, he was head of the music department.
Marc:Well, I mean, let's not diminish that.
Marc:That's very important.
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:It was a great gig for him.
Guest:And Montana was a beautiful thing for our whole family of five.
Guest:And then six, ultimately, with my mom's mom, ended up joining us when our grandpa passed away.
Guest:And we had a whole Walton's thing going on there for a while.
Guest:How many siblings do you have?
Guest:Uh, older sister, younger brother.
Guest:So my little brother was in high school.
Guest:My sister and I both transferred to university of Montana and we all ended up graduating from there.
Guest:And yeah, we lived under one roof again after my sister and I had both been away from home, uh, for another two or three years.
Marc:So you got lucky with the, it seems with the parental draw in that it seems like that they were encouraging of the arts and that there wasn't, there couldn't have been much resistance given that that was your dad's job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had met in college actually in a musical theater production, Kismet, as it turns out, literally.
Guest:And so, yeah, yeah, they were, they definitely encouraged us and we all, you know,
Guest:at least dabbled in the arts and performing arts.
Guest:And did your mom stay in the arts?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, she stayed in the arts as an administrator for a while at, uh, at Ohio state.
Guest:And then with the, uh, the arts council in Montana and then, uh, and then more in the business sector after that.
Guest:Um, but yeah, they were always big supporters and, uh,
Guest:And continued to leave a real legacy in that way in Missoula, Montana.
Marc:Missoula.
Marc:I just talked to somebody else from Missoula.
Marc:Who the hell was that?
Marc:Dana Carvey.
Marc:Is he from there?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the one guy you know?
Guest:Well, we haven't even met, but he grew up there.
Guest:I didn't move there until I was in college.
Marc:I always picture Montana to be beautiful.
Guest:It is indeed.
Guest:Don't tell anybody else, though, because they don't want more people there.
Marc:Do you have a place there still or anything?
Guest:No, we, yeah, we've thought off and on over the years about getting the place, but we just, you know, we go there almost every summer and visit and, uh, either Missoula or up on the lake and, uh, started doing my summer theater there.
Guest:So I have a lot of friends I've had for, you know, 40 years or more now that, uh,
Guest:That we go back and have little mini reunions oftentimes in the summer up there.
Guest:It is it is beautiful.
Marc:Yeah, I got to get up there before.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Someday when we can when we can all move freely, if that day ever comes.
Marc:I noticed on the credits, I was looking at some of your credits that you've already you've already done a voiceover for a covid informational video.
Guest:Yeah, that was weird because it's a Netflix show called Explained where they explain different scientific things, rocket science.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I did – and this was –
Guest:Over a year and a half ago now, like more than a year before COVID hit the United States.
Guest:The topic was pandemics in general.
Guest:And the thrust of the show that I narrated was kind of like, hey, we're not ready.
Guest:We could be, maybe we should be, but not just the U.S., nowhere.
Guest:I mean, the world is not ready.
Guest:For what the scientists kept saying was, you know, an inevitability of not if, but when kind of scenario.
Guest:And then shortly, shortly after it happened here, we, uh, we did a little, uh,
Guest:home recording uh update and made it a little more uh you know coronavirus specific so it was uh not a happy recording session but uh hopefully a helpful one where are you holed up uh we're holed up in la now we were all our kids are in college in new york yeah so uh my wife and i uh stalking them as all good parents do at that age right uh
Guest:Well, we had met in New York and done Broadway and loved New York.
Guest:So we got a place in New York a little over a year ago.
Guest:And the four of us were there just at the time when New York became the epicenter.
Guest:So I rode my bike on the last day before everything just shut down.
Guest:Every non-essential thing shut down.
Guest:I rode a bike to Queens and got a minivan.
Guest:threw my bike in the back of it, went back to our apartment and threw a bunch of junk in there.
Guest:Our son, we were pretty sure had been exposed.
Guest:Well, he had been exposed.
Guest:Turns out he didn't have the virus, but we thought he did.
Guest:So my wife went full on MacGyver and manufactured this like boy in a bubble kind of thing for him with a bunch of old plastic recycling and duct tape that we had.
Guest:Really stuck him in the third row of the minivan.
Guest:And, uh, and the four of us, you know, pedal to the metal, uh, from, uh, from New York to LA and about, uh, two days, uh, with the kid in a bubble with, with the boy in the bubble and, and the, and the girl up as far away as she could be from the bubble in the passenger seat and me doing most of the driving and, and, uh, my wife, uh, my wife partly documenting some of it.
Guest:And then, uh, and then, you know, uh, when, uh,
Guest:when we stopped for gas once she commandeered the driver's seat and made me take a break but yeah i mean we just we just got out and uh of course now we're in the new epicenter in southern california so yay well the i guess there's really no benefit other than it's easier to isolate here in southern california yeah that's definitely the having a backyard and uh
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, New York, there's no way you can avoid anybody ever there.
Marc:You know, that was just built for, you know, spread.
Marc:But how that how did your son feel when he found out he didn't have it and spent, you know, 42 hours on the road in a bubble?
Yeah.
Guest:And of course we couldn't, you know, testing was not available.
Guest:So we didn't find out until maybe two months later, you know, he and I both finally got tested and got tested for the antibodies.
Guest:And we were like, wait, what?
Guest:He didn't have it.
Guest:His roommate had it.
Guest:And, and, and, you know,
Marc:Do you get sick?
Marc:Is he all right?
Guest:No, the roommate still cannot smell or taste anything, which a lot of people, especially back then, didn't know that was one of the symptoms.
Marc:It's just so fucking terrifying every day to be alive right now.
Guest:That's it's, it's just daunting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Daunting.
Marc:That's a good word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The good word.
Guest:The good news is Ben did not get really sick.
Guest:The bad news is he can't smell or taste, but again, the good news is, you know, then why not eat nothing but broccoli and spinach if you can't taste it anyway?
Guest:So he's been super healthy since then.
Marc:Get in shape.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's no pleasure in eating.
Marc:So, so might as well get in shape.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, when did you shift from a bad singer songwriter into acting?
Marc:Hey, not just mediocre.
Marc:Not bad.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Mediocre.
Marc:I apologize.
Guest:I transitioned from, you know, acoustic coffee house.
Guest:James Taylor want to be into.
Guest:classical leonard bernstein pavarotti wannabe and oh singing studying studying classical music in in college uh which is singing though like opera yeah singing composing conducting oh wow really uh how are you how are you at the site reading music good uh used to be adequate uh you know it's one of those muscles i haven't used in a long time although when when whiplash came around whatever that was five years ago or so uh
Guest:And Damien and I first met to talk about me doing that.
Guest:And I had read the script and was not an idiot.
Guest:So I was in love with it, but wanted to do it.
Guest:And the first thing he wanted to assure me was that I shouldn't worry too much about the technical aspects of being a conductor and a musician.
Guest:And we could fake a lot of that.
Guest:And we'd have a body double and a technical advisor and all that.
Guest:And I was like, dude, I have a college degree in conducting.
Guest:composing and singing he was like what so so that was i mean that was one of the coolest aspects of that gig especially as we were doing it that's crazy you were the guy yeah i was actually reading those charts and and you know we were and all the guys all the musicians and i say guys because you know it was 99 guys right um those were all actors slash musicians they weren't you know
Guest:The music we were making isn't as great as the final mix sounds.
Guest:But but during all those band scenes, we were we were really cranking out the tunes and I wasn't just waving my arms around.
Guest:I actually kind of knew what I was doing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you it's why it's interesting because it's probably not something it would take the effort it would take to fake.
Marc:Well, would have been extraordinary.
Guest:Yeah, that's always been one of my growing list of pet peeves that you see in films is, you know, somebody, you know, playing a baseball player who, you know, clearly, you know, has never swung a bat until he picked it up to do that.
Guest:Or musicians, I mean, conductors and musicians.
Guest:I mean, it's such a hard thing to fake, you know.
Marc:It really is.
Guest:Because you're usually playing, obviously, a character who performs at a high level.
Marc:so i just did a film i was in uh i played jerry wexler in this upcoming aretha franklin film and with jennifer hudson so there's all the muscle shoals scenes and they hired to play spooner and and dave and all those guys they hired real musicians so like all the dudes could play that's a beautiful thing that's that's the way to do it
Marc:it really is it's it's not like they and they you know they had a few lines there is you are kind of there's a balance to it it's like they're going to look like they're playing but you don't want them to talk too much yeah yeah yeah they're the musician actor crossover rarely successful yeah yeah so so you study music and you're you're studying singing composing and is this like a and your dad must be thrilled
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think, I think, you know, it took me a while to wrap my brain around that.
Guest:That's what I really wanted to do because it just seemed so, Oh, I want to be like daddy, you know?
Guest:So, which is why I didn't gravitate towards immediately, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18, but, uh,
Guest:But yeah, yeah, ultimately.
Guest:And my brother, my younger brother got a degree in music, too.
Guest:And he's a real renaissance man, you know, singer, performer, writer, conductor, teacher, all around world saver.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:In Phoenix, Arizona.
Guest:TheUBUProject.org.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And our sister, yeah, also dabbled in a lot and ended up having a career as a college professor.
Guest:She just retired from University of Washington.
Marc:How's your brother doing?
Marc:That place is a COVID shit show right now.
Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, like everybody else, he's doing a lot of Zoom and a lot of this and that.
Guest:And, you know, just hunkered down and trying to get through it.
Guest:It's feeling more and more to me like...
Guest:Hibernation here and just, you know, waiting for spring, which which will come, I guess, with the with the vaccine, I guess.
Marc:Hopefully.
Marc:I mean, people people are definitely getting a little squirrely.
Marc:I can tell you that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So when do you start?
Marc:Where do you start training as an actor?
Guest:Well, I did a musical theater, community theater production of Oliver when I was a music student, playing the pivotal role of the knife grinder.
Guest:And like, you know, eight bar solo.
Guest:Very exciting.
Guest:And then the guy that directed that, an old pal, Jim Caron, was directing at this summer theater in Big Fork, Montana, looking for a music director.
Guest:So.
Guest:I got the gig as the music director, and then they asked if I'd also auditioned for the shows, and I was unwisely cast as the lead in Brigadoon because I could sing, and that was the beginning of me
Guest:Being a terrible, but passionate and willing to learn young actor.
Marc:So we so not mediocre, but truly bad.
Guest:Oh, absolutely awful.
Guest:And such a blessing that there's no video from those days.
Marc:But you could sing, right?
Guest:I could sing and and I had hair.
Guest:Uh, and so I was, I, you know, I did a lot of sort of musical leading man things.
Guest:I was there for four, four years, uh, during college and after college, going back to the big fork summer playoffs, uh, doing my thing and learning and having some great mentors, Jim, Karen, and Todd Peters, and, uh, got to work with some, uh,
Guest:some really wonderful directors who were sort of age appropriate and, uh, and, uh, you know, taught me how to be less terrible.
Guest:So you mean as an actor, as, as an actor and a human being.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so like, did you, so like, cause I, like I, when I watch a lot of your roles, uh,
Marc:And I've watched your work.
Marc:You seem to be like a sort of like, you know, like almost like a practical actor.
Marc:Like it seems like you've got a set of tools that you apply and you transform your emotional spectrum appropriately and your intensity appropriately.
Marc:It seems like that it seems like you you you you lock in a certain way.
Guest:Well, and I've learned certainly from a lot of people since then, too, you know, I mean, up to and including Damien Chazelle and, you know, some of the great directors that I've had an opportunity to work with, Jason Reitman and the Cohn brothers and Sam Raimi.
Marc:So you earned something from all the directors.
Marc:They actually...
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:Certainly, certainly back in my theater days, you know, working with Jerry Zaks on Broadway.
Guest:And I mean, one of the things I preach and try to practice is, you know, I mean, to be open to learning something new every day at work or every day, whatever in life.
Marc:So what is the sort of trajectory?
Marc:After Montana, where do you go to pursue acting?
Guest:Really, a lot of people from Montana did what I did and went to Seattle, which was kind of the nearest big city, especially at that time, late 70s, a real burgeoning performing arts community there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stumbled into my union card, actor's equity card at Seattle Rep.
Guest:And I was in Seattle for almost five years before I finally got up the nerve to go try New York City.
Marc:So Seattle Rep.
Marc:And that was like you were just doing, you know, a rotation of plays.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, uh, it wasn't actually a repertory company by the time, uh, I, I got my card there.
Guest:It was, it was, you know, one show at a time.
Guest:So, uh, and I got my equity card as an understudy in a production that I, you know, was never on stage in.
Guest:And, uh, and then worked at a, at a few different, I worked at Seattle rep, you know, uh, a few other times in small roles and at ACT, there was a dinner theater there at the time and equity dinner theater.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:Free food eight times a week.
Guest:It was a great beginning and really equipped me well for another, even after I moved to New York, I was basically doing regional theater for another seven or eight years before I got my first Broadway show.
Marc:And when, like, regional theater, generally, those are, you know, what characterizes it?
Marc:Is it just accessible productions for older people in other, that you bring it to them?
Guest:You're really selling it, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's not just the blue hairs.
Guest:I mean, look, every decent-sized city in the country has professional theater going on with usually a combination of local actors and sometimes imported talent from New York, L.A., whatever.
Guest:I mean, I went back to Seattle and did a show there.
Guest:I worked in whatever, Atlanta, Atlanta.
Guest:Boston Buffalo, but what would they hire you?
Marc:How did that work though?
Marc:You would just get cast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They would, they would have casting sessions in, uh, in New York and LA.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, and, uh, and I, I got to know, uh,
Guest:enough different casting directors in New York got to know me that saw me in different ways.
Guest:One guy would see me as the musical leading guy.
Guest:One guy saw me as a Shakespeare guy.
Guest:Another person saw me as a... So I actually was able to have a pretty well-rounded...
Guest:career as a theater actor um and not get pigeonholed too much and and yeah i mean you'd go back to new york you'd wait tables or 10 bar or whatever and you know uh play softball in central park during the day and and wait you know for another audition and get a gig go to buffalo for you know four weeks of rehearsal and a four-week run and then go back and do it all over again
Marc:Yeah, I didn't like I didn't mean to come off as condescending.
Marc:I guess what I'm confusing certain things with like regional theater is really it's real theater.
Marc:Every city's got its its its theater.
Marc:And it's usually nine times out of 10.
Marc:It's a well operated.
Marc:Well, you know, sound structure, you know, that some some of them have been around forever.
Marc:And they're just doing real shows.
Marc:I think I'm confusing it with, like, in my mind, it was dinner theater where you're doing some sort of shtick with.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, which I certainly did.
Guest:There was, you know, some dinner theater, as I already have confessed to.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Mixed in there where I did.
Guest:I played the third night from the left in Camelot and also did a play, an old chestnut called Bell Book and Candle.
Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, no, most of it was regional theaters doing really good work.
Guest:And believe me, well, not right now.
Guest:I mean, right now, good Lord, stage actors are among...
Guest:the most devastated group in this because there ain't no work for them.
Guest:And you can't even go pick up a gig, you know, attending bar or waiting tables.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But, you know, in a non-COVID world, you know, there's thousands of actors that most people haven't seen, you know, making a living out there doing good work in regional theater.
Marc:And would you have considered yourself one of those actors for a good chunk of your life?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Yeah, for five years in Seattle and then another 13 years or so.
Guest:And then I was a Broadway guy for five years.
Marc:What were some of the big shows?
Guest:Well, the first one, not a big one.
Guest:It was a little musical called A Change in the Air, H-E-I-R.
Guest:subtitled A Musical Tale of Good and Medieval.
Guest:And that was the funniest part of the show.
Guest:The title.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It did not do well.
Guest:In fact, the contract in those days, the production contract, the Broadway contract, you had a four-week...
Guest:You could give four weeks notice, at least on the contract that we had.
Guest:And I ended up giving my four weeks notice two weeks before we opened because the writing was on the wall.
Guest:That was terrible.
Guest:Among other notable things about it, though, was it was the first time my wife saw me.
Guest:because the show was so terrible that they were, uh, papering the house, they call it, you know, giving away free tickets to all the other Broadway shows to come on their night off.
Guest:So my wife was doing cats at the time, an actual Broadway show.
Guest:And, uh, she, she was among the people who subjected themselves to, uh, an evening at a change in the air.
Guest:And she saw this magnetic, incredibly good looking, charismatic, sexy guy up there.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And lo and behold, a couple of years later, then I did a big revival of Guys and Dolls with Jerry Zaks and Nathan Lane and Faith Prince and Peter Gallagher.
Marc:Oh, that was a big show.
Marc:That was fun, right?
Guest:Oh, it was huge.
Guest:Still some of the most fun I've ever had in the business or in life was rehearsals, really, and previews for that show and sitting around with that group of hilarious people listening to Jerry give notes.
Guest:And that was really, really, really fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I did A Few Good Men.
Guest:I did the Peter Pan revival, which is where I finally met my wife and Michelle Schumacher, by the way.
Guest:I was Captain Hook and she was Tiger Lily.
Marc:Oh, there you go.
Guest:So we had a kind of an illicit romance going on there.
Guest:Then a Neil Simon play Laughter on the 23rd floor with a really fun cast.
Yeah.
Guest:That was about the writer's room, right?
Guest:It was loosely based on the old Sid Caesar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that was Nathan Lane.
Guest:So Nathan and I did sort of two shows in a space of three years because we did Guys and Dolls and then Laughter together.
Guest:It's a great cast.
Guest:John Slattery and...
Guest:Oh, that guy's good.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Nathan's a great guy.
Marc:I really like him.
Guest:Really, really great guy.
Guest:And so unusual, I mean, almost unique, that there's a guy who's got a really, really great career career.
Guest:as mostly a theater actor you know i mean obviously nathan's done a lot of really great uh you know tv and film stuff too but but you know to be you know an actual theater star you know yeah that's really his thing that's an unusual thing now yeah so now during all this broadway time you're going you're going to auditions right for tv well yeah no not really i mean i was really happy to be where i was and i'd never really even
Guest:thought about a career in television or film i i did once guys and dolls hit and we were i mean we were like the hit of the century it was crazy how long did that run like a year no i ran like four plus years i mean uh you know most of us end up leaving you know for greener pastures after a while and no matter how big a hit you're in
Guest:When you're doing your 414th performance, it's a little like punching the clock at the factory.
Guest:Is that how many you did?
Guest:Well, let's see.
Guest:From the first rehearsal to when I left the show to move on was a year and a half.
Guest:Yeah, I probably did over 400 performances.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:How are you not hearing that in your sleep?
Guest:Oh, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it, it, it gets into your head sometimes.
Guest:And even with laughter, which, which we did for like just under a year, 11 months.
Guest:And then, and then, uh, but still that's, you know, almost 400 cause you're doing eight a week.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:And then I did it on tour again with my wife, Michelle Schumacher.
Marc:Well, that must have made it better.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we're banking double per diem.
Guest:Are you kidding me?
Guest:We're shacked up.
Guest:I mean, it was great.
Guest:But it wasn't really until Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which was my last Broadway show in 94.
Guest:I'm already pushing 40.
Guest:Um, and, and most of the people in that show, Nathan, John Slattery, uh, Mark Lynn Baker, uh, you know, most of those, most of those actors had, you know, theater and screen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were, they were getting, you know, mailbox money as we call it, you know, a residual check once in a while.
Guest:And I was like, wow, that sounds pretty cool.
Um,
Guest:So when that show put up the closing notice, I told my agent I didn't want to audition for any more plays.
Guest:I wanted to see if we could get some film and TV going.
Guest:And a couple of lucky breaks came along with an episode of Homicide, Life on the Street, Tom Fontana show that then led to Oz and Law & Order and all that.
Marc:Well, I mean, what about like, yeah, it seems like if you live in New York and you've got any chops at all, you're going to end up on one of those procedurals at least a few times.
Guest:Oh, you read every playbill you go, you know, yeah, you see, you know, television includes law and order.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What about the films?
Marc:What was the first film?
Guest:First, the very first film was The Ref.
Guest:Dennis Leary's movie?
Guest:Dennis Leary film, and I had... Was that John Demme?
Marc:Did he direct that?
Guest:No, it was Ted Demme.
Marc:Ted, right, Ted, right, Ted, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, his nephew.
Marc:I remember that because, you know, that was a big break when, you know, I'm a comic, so when he got that, we were all like, oh, man, Leary, doing it all.
Guest:Yeah, no, it was his first big movie star.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was great in it, and it was, yeah, it was a really...
Guest:terrifying and great experience because i was this you know i mean i'm i'm this whatever 40 ish you know average bald white guy i don't look like it's my first rodeo but i was you know i was like i was shot out of a cannon of course ted i mean the directors you know i don't know how much younger than i was at the time but uh you know
Guest:Grew up in the business and, you know, even at that time felt like a seasoned pro.
Guest:My scenes, some of my scenes were with like a 14-year-old actor who had done, you know, 14 films.
Guest:So it was a little bass-ackwards in many ways.
Guest:But really fun experience.
Guest:And Leary was great.
Guest:He was really a great guy.
Marc:So the TV, though, it's interesting because I think my first memory of you, the one I can't get out of my head.
Marc:I don't know if it's the first memory, but when you were tattooing a swastika on that guy's ass in a jail cell.
Marc:Wasn't that sweet?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I'm never going to be able to shake that.
Marc:And, you know, I this was my mother.
Guest:My mother was so appalled because.
Guest:And this didn't make the final cut because of a rights issue I get.
Guest:But as I was tattooing poor Beecher's buttocks on that show, I was humming a little lullaby that my mother had sung to me when I was a little boy called Hush, little baby, don't you cry.
Guest:Hush, little baby.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because, you know, I didn't want him to.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That show was so heavy, man.
Marc:So twisted.
Marc:And what was the name of that actor?
Guest:Lee Turkison.
Guest:Good actor.
Guest:That guy beats a really good actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he's still working a lot and keeping busy.
Guest:And yeah, I mean, a lot of guys from that from that show have, you know.
Guest:stayed in touch with over the years.
Marc:That was a long run.
Marc:That was a, that was an intense show and that was an, an intense character.
Marc:I mean, that must've been an education in and of itself to stay in that groove for that long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was a huge, you know,
Guest:First of all, you know, put a lot of us on the map, really, for the first time.
Guest:And second of all, yeah, education in many ways.
Guest:And really, we got spoiled in a lot of ways, too, because the way that show was run, you know, largely because of budget limitations, you know.
Guest:Uh, yeah, the, the days where there was no over, I mean, well, it was overtime, but we didn't go over 12 hours.
Guest:It was like 7.00 AM.
Guest:The bell rings at 7.00 PM.
Guest:Everybody goes home.
Guest:Guys were still doing Broadway shows at the same time.
Guest:Uh, you know, no, no long waits in between shots.
Guest:It was like bang, bang, bang, set it up.
Guest:Cause we were shooting the, you know, 56, seven, eight minute show in a, in a,
Guest:seven day shoot i mean so so yeah we're shooting you know nine ten pages a day a lot of the time and it was uh oh my god that's a lot you'd get a take in and they'd go okay did anything fall on anybody's head i mean let's move on you know it's like
Guest:So then when you get onto a big film where they're actually taking two and a half hours to set up the lighting and doing nine takes of something, you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:It's tedious, right?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:So where did they shoot?
Marc:Did they shoot that at Silver Cup?
Marc:Where did they shoot Oz?
Guest:I don't know if Silver Cup even existed then.
Guest:Well, it probably did.
Guest:No, we shot the first.
Guest:We did six seasons.
Guest:The first four we shot at the Flower Warehouse in Chelsea.
Guest:oh ninth avenue so they just built sets in there and that was not even they just rented the whole top floor of that warehouse which was not anything like what it is today i mean it was just a few florists on the ground floor and a bunch of you know mostly unused offices um and uh and of course you know had a handshake deal with the landlord hey if the show's a hit don't worry i won't screw you you know
Guest:Right.
Guest:So four years later, he tries to screw Fontana.
Guest:And so the last two years, yeah, we're going to quadruple the ramp.
Guest:What do you say?
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the last two years we shot on a pier in lovely Bayonne, New Jersey.
Guest:Bayonne.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we went from like, I was riding my bike to work.
Guest:My wife and I were living, we got married to,
Guest:No, we got married like the year before Oz started.
Guest:I'm riding my bicycle to work.
Guest:We're having an hour walk away at lunch and you can actually walk away and go to one of the hundreds of restaurants in the neighborhood and run off and do a voiceover audition in between shots.
Guest:And then...
Guest:The last two years were marooned at an old military barracks in Bayonne.
Marc:It's so odd that he chose to do it that way over a soundstage, I guess, for budgetary reasons.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was cheap rent.
Guest:And honestly, now that I think of it, it was probably just because Fontana could walk to work from there because he still lives in the neighborhood.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then what do you think was the like so that puts you on the map.
Marc:So what do you think was the big kind of film break for you?
Marc:Because I remember I think it was probably Juno for me in terms of remembering, you know, like, who's that guy?
Guest:Well, that was huge.
Guest:I mean, God bless Jason Reitman.
Guest:I was I was in his first movie, which is underseen and I think maybe underappreciated movie called Thank You for Smoking.
Marc:That's a good movie.
Marc:Who's that blonde guy?
Marc:What was the lead guy?
Marc:Aaron Eckhart.
Guest:Aaron Eckhart, yeah.
Guest:That put Jason on the map and justifiably so.
Guest:Obviously, he grew up in the business.
Guest:He'd made a bunch of short films.
Guest:That was another one of those experiences where I was kind of like...
Guest:You know, still felt like a kid, like a beginner as a film actor.
Guest:And this guy who's, you know, I mean, I basically could be his father, you know, is is like a mentor to me.
Marc:He's got a good pace on those movies.
Marc:There's like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's got it.
Marc:Definitely got a good feel for it.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And makes I mean.
Guest:you sort of you know can tell a jason reitman film but he also doesn't you know he doesn't he doesn't repeat himself though in sort of the obvious ways you know so uh you know each one is really uh its own unique self and before juno came along he had no intention of directing any script that he hadn't written himself but then uh
Guest:he read Diablo's brilliant script for Juno and actually handed it to me at a poker game, handed me the script back in the days when people handed people scripts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and, and just, just said, and I had, I had,
Guest:sort of welcomed him into an established poker game at that time because I asked him if he played poker and he said not really and I said perfect you're in bring a lot of money yeah of course like after you know the first four times he played with us he became one of the best players at the table because he's just a super smart annoying guy yeah but he handed me the script and said you got to read this it's great and
Guest:didn't say you know i'd like you to play the dad you know yeah so i read the script and i'm and i'm falling in love with the part of mac mcguff you know uh and uh but then thinking well let's be realistic you know he's gonna get you know some big movie star to play that part so maybe this one scene part or that one scene part and then i called him uh
Guest:the next day or a couple of days later.
Guest:And, you know, I was just trying to sort of chat.
Guest:So, Hey man, how's it going?
Guest:That's a, that's a pretty good script.
Guest:And he was like, dude, we want you to play Mac McGuff.
Guest:I was like, Oh yeah.
Guest:He and Dan do Becky were, uh,
Guest:putting that together at the time and and really they went out on a on a real limb uh casting both ellen page and me because jason jason knew when he read the script that he wanted me he wanted ellen uh he wanted alice and janney he wanted michael cera i mean he knew most of the cast in his head already and he also knew that it would be a hard sell because the producers wanted
Guest:you know, the young top star, you know, at the time who was becoming a film actor and they wanted, you know, they wanted somebody established, you know, to play my part.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, so Ellen and I, and Ellen was just coming off that movie
Guest:is it hard candy this that were this horrible i mean great film where she had played this this victim of this kidnapping who'd been starved and she was i mean she's already a tiny little you know 97 pound thing but she had starved herself and i mean she looked like hell yeah uh probably 87 pounds and uh and she and i uh did a full-on old school screen test together and you know jason went and you know sold us to uh
Guest:the powers that be the money people.
Guest:And, uh, you know, we got to make the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was obviously huge in my career because I had done, you know, some kind of high profile stuff like the Spider-Man movies where I was this over the top, you know, screaming guy and people, people knew me as the bad guy from Oz and stuff.
Guest:So it was a great opportunity.
Guest:Uh, and especially, you know, became what it became.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To see, uh,
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The kinder, gentler side of whoever that bald white guy is.
Marc:Yeah, I thought it was.
Marc:And also there there was something unique about the language of that movie.
Guest:There was a patter to it that brilliant, brilliant colloquialism that that Diablo created that was and that Ellen, you know, and the rest of the especially the young actors, you know, really ran with so brilliantly.
Marc:Yeah, it was it was it was great.
Marc:Everybody was great.
Marc:It did sort of it was I was happy to see you in that role.
Marc:Yeah, I was traumatized by Oz on some level.
Marc:I watched it every week and it was a relief to me that you weren't a monster.
Marc:But it took you about it took about a decade for you to erase whatever Oz did to me in terms of how I looked at you.
Guest:And that was one of the things that, you know, when they first asked me to do Oz and I realized what a huge opportunity it was, but I also realized, you know, if this takes off, it's going to be hard for me to, you know, get away from.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And hard for me to do anything other than the Nazi bastard of the week on every, you know, procedural.
Guest:And I actually expressed that to Fontana in a meeting.
Guest:And after he got done looking at me like...
Guest:are you kidding me?
Guest:You know, like this, this, this guy that's making, you know, $400 a week, you know, is, is thinking of turning down this career changing opportunity.
Guest:He, he said, he said, look, I understand that.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Guest:That's, you know, really smart and forward thinking of you.
Guest:And he said, I'll tell you what, sign the contract, sign the six year deal.
Guest:He said, shake my hand.
Guest:And if you ever want out, I will kill your character off the next day.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Just between you and me.
Guest:So it's a win-win.
Guest:I want you to do it, and I want you to feel comfortable doing it.
Guest:And then the other blessing was, you know, months after we finished the first eight episodes of Oz, it was only eight episodes per season, they asked me to play the shrink on Law & Order.
Guest:So...
Guest:I'm playing the psycho here and the psychiatrist there.
Guest:And right away, audiences that had never seen me before, at least some audiences, are seeing two very different characters that I'm doing.
Guest:So that helped me not get pigeonholed the rest of my life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you become a character actor, not just a lunatic.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Which is far preferable.
Yeah.
Marc:But what was the first Coen Brother movie you did?
Guest:I had auditioned for them a couple times.
Guest:Didn't get hired.
Guest:Although one time there was a film that they had offered me a part in.
Guest:But because of Oz...
Guest:the part was to play this, you know, Southern racist Nazi, you know, and I was like, ah, I just know I can't, I can't, I cannot do that.
Guest:Please.
Guest:Maybe this part, that part, the other part, even smaller parts, because I was dying to work with them, but, but they have such a specific vision, you know?
Guest:So that one didn't work out.
Guest:And then I auditioned for, um,
Guest:The Lady Killers.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And they put me through the ringer.
Guest:They put me through the ringer every time, those guys, because they always have such a specific vision in their minds of everything.
Guest:I mean, when they're writing the script, they're already in their minds.
Guest:They're in the editing room doing the final cut.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're so thorough and brilliant.
Guest:So I was very different physically from what they saw the character as in The Lady Killers.
Guest:But they kept coming back around to me, you know.
Guest:And finally, the last time I auditioned, it was the two of them, you know, sitting on a couch in a hotel suite somewhere.
Guest:I guess L.A.
Guest:probably.
Yeah.
Guest:And I read, you know, two or three of the main scenes for my character, Garth Pancake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I did the last scene and they sat there and, you know, looked at me for a beat.
Guest:They looked at each other for a beat.
Guest:And then Joel, he goes, well, damn it, JK, that's exactly right.
Yeah.
Guest:okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:And I was like, Oh gee, well, thanks.
Guest:That's, uh, and, uh, you know, I mean, that was one of the best times I ever had because Tom Hanks was such an awesome, you know, sort of movie star slash team leader, you know, to be doing that with.
Guest:And, and the four of us who were playing the, uh, the gang of, you know, misfit knuckleheads, uh, all had a great time together.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And as usual, as I found out, as usual, I did a little part in Burn After Reading.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:That was a funny part.
Guest:A really funny part that, like, considering that I did the whole thing in one day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really paid off brilliantly.
Guest:The scenes with David Rasche and myself were just, like,
Guest:just teed up everything in the entire movie for us to get to pay them off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a couple of great beats in there, you know, when you, when you have to troubleshoot the situation, that's very funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do, I mean, do you make a, how do you, do you make a big differentiation when you know that something's written to be funny?
Marc:You just got to play it straight, right?
Marc:Really?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I mean, certainly the vast majority of the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, if the intention isn't there, if it isn't, you know, grounded is the sort of actory word, you know, then it's just, you know.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Silly and unbelievable.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Teach me the grounded one.
Marc:The intention has to be grounded in reality or in the character.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, both.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, you know, you still have to have an objective.
Guest:You still have to have something that you're after in some place that you're coming from and some place that you hope you're going.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If that's not a part of the, not even necessarily the style, but the substance of what you're doing, then it's just, you know, you can laugh at stuff, but if you're going to be with these characters, you know, especially for, you know, an hour and a half or two hours in a feature film, if
Guest:If you don't believe them and care about them, it's going to get pretty old after a while.
Marc:It's so funny because so many comedies, like big comedies, just throw that whole conceit of character in the garbage in the third act.
Marc:And I find it annoying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, you're going with it.
Marc:You're like, all right, I'm going to suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this thing.
Marc:And then like, what's happening now?
Marc:This is stupid.
Yeah.
Guest:How are they now?
Guest:On the moon?
Marc:Yeah, that's not supposed to matter at that point.
Marc:But working with the Coens, though, the primary takeaway is they know exactly what they want.
Guest:And they're so low-key and obviously just genius and brilliant.
Guest:And that line of...
Guest:dark comedy that they, that they straddle so brilliantly.
Guest:And, and, and I mean, they can make a foot, a film like, uh, no country for old men, you know, uh, and then, and then, you know, and then something zany like the lady killers or, or burn after reading and, uh, and do what are really vastly different films.
Guest:But, but if you think about it, have a very similar sensibility and just like being, uh,
Guest:low key cool guys to be on the set with.
Guest:I think sometimes actors have a difficult time with them at first because they don't do that thing after a take where they come up and go, great.
Guest:That was, Oh, that was great.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Um,
Guest:Yeah, that was great.
Guest:They just come up and they kind of stand there and they go, okay, let's do the next.
Guest:And if you're one of those actors whose ego really needs that feedback, you're in the wrong place.
Marc:You're working with the wrong guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but there are a lot of actors that do that.
Marc:I mean, a lot of directors, I guess, like you said earlier, that you learned a lot from a lot of these directors.
Marc:I mean, most of the time directors, when they hire an actor, they're like they know exactly what they want that actor to do.
Marc:They're hiring you because of what you do.
Marc:You know, they're not there to teach you how to do it.
Marc:They want you to show up ready to do it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And whether it's whether you're, you know, like when I was beginning and they're looking at you on tape, you know, and going, yeah, that's it.
Guest:Or whether it's, you know, you're an established guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they're certainly not, you know, they're not in the business of they're not, you know, college professors.
Guest:They're not in the business of teaching.
Marc:But yeah, but there's this idea, I guess I had a naive idea that, you know, it's some sort of collaborative process where they're helping you make choices.
Marc:I mean, I guess some of them guide you if you're not hitting it right.
Marc:But most of the time it's like, do the thing.
Marc:And like, yeah, do it different.
Guest:Yeah, but where the brilliance lies in a guy like Jason Reitman or Sam Raimi, the Coen brothers, is those little adjustments where...
Guest:you know you're you're obviously you know you're in the ballpark or you wouldn't be there to begin with you know but but they're not getting exactly what they want and and the communication the way they're able to communicate and and get out of and that was one of the things i noticed about jason in the first film we did together was his ability to to deal with a vast range of actors you know some really established some young and nervous and you know this and that and
Guest:you know, some more open to direction than others and, you know, and, and really able to, to effectively communicate and get his point across with, with anybody.
Guest:And that to me, probably the, because I'm not all that visual a guy, I don't, I don't appreciate that.
Guest:the brilliant cinematography and the creative vision as much as some movie people do.
Guest:To me, that communication, that ability to communicate with a wide variety of actors is the main
Marc:attribute that i really respect and admire and appreciate it sure director right right so that they can you know you're all it is a collaborative work to honor the vision of the the director and the writer and you know or the or how they interpret the work so you know if they can sort of uh in a nuanced way and in a you know an encouraging way make that thing come together i mean that's the whole trick you know where they're not an asshole you know because you hear a lot
Guest:hero and not being not being that is a big part of it too yeah which is another another common thread between the directors that i that i first of all have really enjoyed working with and second of all have worked with multiple times and you've worked with some assholes no never not in show business i wasn't gonna ask names i was just gonna ask if of course yes
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And, you know, I mean, I mean, you know, yes.
Guest:Directors, actors.
Guest:I mean, you know, craft services guy.
Guest:I mean, you know, they're they're everywhere.
Marc:But yeah, you throw the craft services guy under the bus.
Guest:By and large, I've been I've been fortunate and, you know, mostly been surrounded by people that you don't mind being surrounded by when you're working for 12, 13, 14 hours a day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like I have to assume that.
Marc:Well, obviously, but like to get a fucking I don't know why I'm saying fuck so much with you, but it happens to get an Oscar, you know, for whiplash at, you know, at, you know, at that age, after that life you've led, that must have been like just the best thing in the fucking world.
Marc:Yeah, it was all right.
Marc:Oh, come on.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:No, it was, I mean, honestly, I've had this sort of stick in my rear for my whole life about the whole concept of awards, you know, and for, you know, for creative artistic things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:And, you know, and nobody I mean, you know, with a few small exceptions, you know, nobody had ever really been wanting to shower me with them anyway.
Marc:So I'm in the same boat, buddy.
Marc:And I got the same attitude about him.
Marc:They're bullshit, right?
Marc:They're bullshit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What do they know?
Guest:What do they know?
Guest:So, I mean, honestly, I was, you know, when that whole thing was just taking off and we were the, you know, the bell of the ball at Sundance and all that, which I didn't even go to.
Guest:But I was talking to, you know, the powers that be, the Sony Classics guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:uh, Tom and Michael about, you know, this is what's going to happen and there's going to be all this and it's going to get a lot of attention and there's probably going to be nominations and yada, yada, yada.
Guest:I was like, yeah, no, no, no, not interested.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:I'll be, you know, I'll be at home with my wife and kids or working on whatever's next, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, and I really kind of had to get talked into it.
Guest:And again, it was Jason Reitman.
Guest:who kind of talked me into like, look, you either need to do this, you know, or you can be that guy and you can be like, no, no, no, I'm an artiste and I'm not going to do all that.
Guest:Or he said, or you can do it.
Guest:And obviously everybody's telling you to do it.
Guest:And there are reasons you should do it for your career, for the good of the movie, for Damien, for Miles, for, you know, but he said, here's the reason that you really should do this.
Guest:He goes, everybody that you've known your whole life, from your best friend in second grade before you moved away from Detroit to all of your fourth cousins, he goes, all of those people are going to be so excited and so happy and so thrilled for you.
Guest:The people you were doing theater with in Buffalo in 1979, all these people, and obviously your close friends and your family, the real reasons to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that really sunk into me.
Guest:And my wife and I had a long heart to heart about, you know, because it's a whole thing, you know, the whole like awards season is, it's like a, you know, it's like a real gauntlet that you, that you have to sort of commit to.
Guest:And, and yeah, once, once we decided that it was something we could do,
Guest:as a team, uh, you know, uh, and, uh, and Michael and Tom at Sony classics, you know, said, uh, yeah, sure.
Guest:We'll bring your wife and your kids along if, you know, if you want them to come to whatever, you know, this festival or that, uh, you know, awards thingy.
Guest:And, uh, and then obviously, you know, I mean, ultimately it just became a snowball rolling downhill and the movie was so brilliant.
Guest:And, you know, Damien had written me the part of a lifetime and, uh, uh,
Guest:you know all the all the statues kept you know getting handed off to you won every award yeah it was crazy it was crazy so really by the time the the oscars came along it was it was i mean i had friends who were like dude do you know you're like a thousand to one in vegas i mean it's it's it's ridiculous you i mean there's no way they're not going to give you this trophy so
Guest:When they finally announced my name, it was almost more a sense of relief than, like, how big a schmuck would I have been if they just said somebody else's name?
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Yeah, right, right.
Guest:And then, by the way, this is one of my favorite little aspects of that whole thing.
Guest:Because, I mean, you know, I sort of expected it.
Guest:But obviously, you know, there's a billion people watching across the planet.
Guest:And, you know, you're in the Kodak Theater with every famous actor you grew up watching.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was a little nervous.
Guest:And as I walked, and I also didn't ever like totally write an acceptance speech.
Guest:Like I kind of always had a theme in mind, you know, for the SAG awards, I want to talk about actors and about supporting and, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And I knew that if I was fortunate enough to, you know,
Guest:have somebody hand me an Oscar that I wanted to talk about what's most important in life, which is family, right?
Guest:So I'm kind of formulating my thoughts and walking up on stage and Lupita Nyong'o is going to hand me the trophy.
Guest:And I reach out with one hand to take the trophy and I reach out with the other hand to shake her hand like we're two dudes making a business deal.
Guest:And then I realized, oh, no, it's Hollywood.
Guest:You're supposed to do the fake, you know, kiss on the cheek thing.
Guest:So I kind of awkwardly go in for the fake kiss on the cheek thing.
Guest:And I'm sure you can find this on YouTube.
Guest:Gave her a little headbutt.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Kind of headbutted there.
Guest:Just not enough to take her down.
Guest:And then, you know, and then went on with my speech about, you know, about my wife and my kids and call your mom and, you know.
Marc:In the moment that you did the headbutt, did you know you'd done it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I was just glad that there wasn't a house laugh because it was subtle enough that most people didn't know.
Marc:But it grounded you in the moment, huh?
Guest:It did bring me back to earth, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it looks like they actually made up new awards to give you an award for that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was it was crazy.
Guest:And and it was, you know, obviously a beautiful experience in every way.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:You know, certainly hasn't hasn't hurt the number of scripts that are coming my way since then.
Guest:And have I always made the best decisions?
Guest:No.
Marc:But how do you decide now?
Guest:Well, I'm telling you, I still feel like I'm learning.
Guest:I mean, I'm a senior citizen officially this year.
Guest:But I still feel like I'm learning how to make those decisions.
Guest:And 90% of it still for me is just, you know, what's on paper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is the script there?
Guest:Is it great writing?
Guest:Is it a character that I understand where he's coming from and somebody that I want to play?
Guest:Is it funny?
Guest:Right.
Guest:If it's a comedy, is it moving if it's something dramatic?
Guest:And that's 90% of do I...
Guest:want to be involved in this project and then the rest of it becomes logistics it's like yeah what's the time where's shooting is it shooting in katmandu i'm not interested because i got kids in school and i and i don't like to be away a lot you know um and uh you know and then you know who's in it who's you know is it a you know director this that the other thing but uh but i one of the things that i don't take into account still is
Guest:is, you know, do I see that it's, you know, going to be a big success or, you know, get a bunch of awards or, you know, does it have that kind of pedigree to it?
Guest:I still just try to gravitate towards stuff that I...
Guest:fall in love with because it's good.
Marc:And your wife is also in show business, yes?
Guest:Yeah, Michelle Schumacher.
Guest:I've done a couple of films that she's directed as well.
Guest:Well, some short films too.
Guest:We started out as theater actors together.
Guest:Uh, she's, uh, uh, I was basically robbing the cradle.
Guest:Uh, I was in my, I was in my mid thirties when we met and she was in her mid twenties.
Guest:Um, uh, on that Peter Pan tour with Kathy Rigby and, uh, uh, yeah.
Guest:And, and so we're doing our theater actor thing.
Guest:And then once we got married and, uh, the, uh, the baby started coming along was just about the time I was getting the film and television thing kind of rolling and off the ground.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:So she, you know, you can't be doing a play on Broadway and, you know, have your character go through, you know, nine months of pregnancy.
Guest:Not without a rewrite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So she became, you know, a brilliant and dedicated full-time mom for a long time.
Guest:And then, you know, once the kids were...
Guest:old enough to be in preschool and this and that, she and some friends started putting some little short films together.
Guest:And yeah, her last film was a beautiful little indie film called I'm Not Here that features...
Guest:Three actors playing the same character.
Guest:I play him as obviously an old fart.
Guest:It's available on Amazon Prime.
Guest:I'm not here.
Marc:I'm going to go.
Marc:Oh, Koechner's in it.
Marc:I know Koechner.
Marc:Yeah, I'll check that out.
Guest:Koechner is kind of a... I guess you've got to call it a cameo for Koechner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And believe me...
Guest:Going in Mandy Moore, love Mandy Moore.
Guest:If you're going to Mandy Moore, Max Greenfield.
Guest:I mean, it's great, great cast, Sebastian, you know, really, really wonderful cast because, you know, because again, it was a script that my wife, Michelle and her writing partner, Tony Cummings put together that, you know, once it got out there, there were tons of actors who wanted to get involved in this for, even though it was, you know, paying like super low budget scale, nothing, um,
Guest:and uh uh you know the good thing about those movies whether it's that or juno or whiplash or you know whatever is is you know everybody's there for the right reasons you know they're there because they love the story that you're going to collaborate and yeah yeah for sure for a for a for a money or a big career break or this or that or to you know um yeah anyway it's it's it's a beautiful movie but if but if you're a kechner fan
Guest:And you think it's going to be, you know, Anchorman 3?
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:It's not the usual Kecker.
Marc:It really, my reaction when I saw his name was like, I'm glad he's working.
Marc:You know, I'm not, it wasn't like.
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:No, that's always my, you know, and I love Kecker too.
Guest:I mean, we go back a ways too.
Guest:That's always my reaction when you see any of those guys, you know, that you've worked with over the years and you see their name on something.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:His nine kids, in Keckner's case, his 19 kids are going to have another meal.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Well, buddy, it's great talking to you, man.
Guest:You too.
Guest:This is really fun.
Marc:It worked out really well.
Marc:And, you know, congratulations on everything.
Marc:And it's, you know, you're a good dude and it's good to see you so busy.
Marc:Thanks, son.
Guest:You too.
Marc:I'll talk to you soon, man.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So that was good.
Marc:He's exactly like you thought he would be, right?
Marc:You can watch the limited series Defending Jacob on Apple TV Plus and the film Palm Springs on Hulu.
Marc:Go back and watch Oz.
Marc:Go watch Juno.
Marc:Whiplash.
Marc:Now I will play some fairly simple, but nonetheless heartfelt, dirty blues music.
Marc:Enjoy.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer.
Marc:Monkey.
Marc:Lavanda.
Marc:Live!