Episode 1163 - John Cusack
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuck stirs what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it if you're new here just go ahead sit down you'll get used to it i just uh ramble on for a bit and then i'll talk to uh john cusack
Marc:Yeah, you know him.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:From Say Anything, Being John Malkovich, Gross Point Blank.
Marc:He's been in everything.
Marc:He's been around forever.
Marc:And he's in this new Amazon show called Utopia, which I watched all of.
Marc:It's a dark comic book oriented show.
Marc:Revolves around a relatively ragtag group of grown up nerds.
Marc:But it gets pretty violent.
Marc:pretty intense deals with global conspiracy deals a lot with a lot of relevant stuff oddly what's going on with you guys man is it like hey i don't want to be grim or dark or even yeah i don't want to over gloat on some level but i mean on the on the very basic level
Marc:I think what's happened here in the world of the United States of America, the great country of the United States of America, is that we've been given a few days off.
Marc:A dark few days.
Marc:It's a dark reprieve, but it's interesting that
Marc:To sort of continue along the lines of a joke I did on my comedy special in 2017, I think it was, Too Real.
Marc:Lynn Shelton directed comedy special.
Marc:That one and my last one, End Times Fun, which dropped right before the shutdown.
Marc:Lockdown.
Marc:But the idea I had in Too Real was that, you know, living in this country during this period with this administration, when you pick up your phone and open your news app, it's like having your abusive stepfather kick open your bedroom door just to say, I'm burning the house down, then turn around and slam the door behind him.
Marc:And you're sitting there thinking like, what?
Marc:Should I leave?
Marc:Do I have to leave?
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Is it serious?
Marc:Continuation of that idea.
Marc:Now that the bad stepdaddy is perhaps fighting for his life in the hospital, we get this strange, dark reprieve of a lack of daily chaos generated by that guy.
Marc:and his minions and you really have these we've had these couple of days to really realize just how assaulting it is and how completely mind-fucking it is look I know there are people out there that like this man I don't know how you can respect this man but I know that there are people out there that like him because he feeds something in their hearts something terrible but just the lack of daily insanity and chaos
Marc:Being reaped on our minds, on our country, on our institutions, on our hearts has been interesting, no?
Marc:Time to reflect.
Marc:Donald Trump is a fallible, corrupt, corpulent, selfish human who is sick with a disease that doesn't give a fuck who he is.
Marc:That he literally taunted Trump.
Marc:For months and months, he taunted this disease.
Marc:His hubris enabled him to believe his own bullshit.
Marc:He knew.
Marc:I think a lot of you knew.
Marc:I think a lot of people who wanted to follow the example or the anger of Trump and believe that it's nothing.
Marc:They knew.
Marc:You all knew.
Marc:But now I guess in this time of reflection, perhaps you're reflecting on maybe this is a problem.
Marc:Maybe this is something to be afraid of.
Marc:Maybe this is a horrendous failure in public safety policy.
Marc:Maybe I believe the wrong guy.
Marc:Maybe I believe the wrong thing.
Marc:Maybe I should have thought about not only myself, but other people and their health because I was sloppy and careless and didn't believe enough to even get tested out of respect for the people around me, the people I work with, the people in my family, the people I see at my place of worship or wherever the fuck you go.
Marc:The fact that this president probably knew before Thursday means that his narcissism and his hubris enabled him to continue to go out in the world knowing that he was probably positive, if not definitely.
Marc:Zero fucks.
Marc:It's one thing to be above the law or to think you're above the law or to bend the law.
Marc:To your rules.
Marc:But it's another thing.
Marc:To think you're above.
Marc:Death.
Marc:Disease.
Marc:Frailty.
Marc:Of the human vessel.
Marc:That can affect anybody.
Marc:To believe that.
Marc:You deserve in some ways to.
Marc:Come spiraling to the ground.
Marc:With the wax holding the feathers and your wings together melting.
Marc:Because you dared to get that close to the sun.
Marc:On some level, there's some weird biblical lesson in this.
Marc:Old style God.
Marc:Yahweh God.
Marc:I mean, if there's anything that should be clear is that the disease doesn't care.
Marc:And the only way we're going to get back to any sense of functionality is if everyone gets on board and takes the precautions necessary to move forward, to stop being belligerent children and to think that a mask is somehow an impingement on your freedom.
Marc:No one's telling you you can't do anything.
Marc:We're just telling you to give a shit about the other people in your life, the older people in this world, the frail people in this world, the people...
Marc:who have pre-existing conditions, the people that have to go to work every day and fucking behave properly so we can fucking get through this.
Marc:I mean, Jesus, man.
Marc:What are you fucking for?
Marc:Got my mail-in ballot.
Marc:I'm going to hold off on it.
Marc:Not because I don't know who I'm going to vote for, but I don't know what's going to happen in the next few days.
Marc:And it's not so much I believe in karma or anything else, but this man who may be fighting for his wife, who is the president of the United States, elected by a minority of the people in this country, is one of the great human monsters.
Marc:He's one of the preeminent, historically, one of the
Marc:spectacular monstrosities of individual humanness whose selfishness enabled him to allow 200,000 people to die of a disease he now has.
Marc:Millions of people to be infected.
Marc:Seeing no responsibility
Marc:in himself as the leader of this country to make it a priority to put healthcare policy front and foremost would have been easy.
Marc:But he doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:And now he's sick.
Marc:I bet he gives a fuck now.
Marc:Because he doesn't want to go out like Stan Chara, man.
Marc:Doesn't want to go out like Stan Chara.
Marc:My hand is doing better.
Marc:It's still a little sensitive.
Marc:I've been taking all my antibiotics.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And it's sensitive.
Marc:No swelling.
Marc:No skin cellulitis.
Marc:No panic anymore.
Marc:And I felt like I was getting through it.
Marc:I got two more pills to take.
Marc:And I thought I was getting through it and I am.
Marc:But then I get this email from this woman who said, you know, I was on antibiotics for two weeks and I killed all of my gut fauna and then had to be treated for, you know, uncontrollable diarrhea.
Marc:And I'm like, great.
Marc:I wonder if that's happening.
Marc:I'm a pretty conscientious gut gardener.
Marc:I've got a pretty good gut garden going on because I think about my gut garden and I take care of it.
Marc:I feed my gut garden sauerkrauts of different kinds.
Marc:I feed my gut garden coconut yogurt with probiotics in it of a couple different kinds.
Marc:And then I'll feed my gut garden some prebiotic yams to feed the gut bugs that will flourish in my gut garden.
Marc:So now I'm a little concerned about my gut garden.
Marc:And I'm a fucking damn good gut gardener.
Marc:So I'll just keep it up.
Marc:I'll just keep eating the probiotics.
Marc:I'm okay for now.
Marc:But I see, unfortunately, the prognosis in my mind is now like, hey, I'm not going to lose my thumb from a fucking cat bite and perhaps uncontrollable diarrhea is in my future because my gut garden has died.
Marc:So I was a little nervous talking to John Cusack because he had a bit of a reputation for being a little unpredictable, maybe a little tricky.
Marc:But he was very nice, and I enjoyed talking to him, and I watched all of his new show, Utopia, which is on Amazon Prime.
Marc:It's an exciting comic book nerd show, and it's kind of violent.
Marc:It's definitely not Stranger Things.
Marc:Anyways...
Marc:This is me talking to John.
Marc:He was in Chicago.
Marc:I was in L.A.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Strap in.
Marc:how are you i'm good i'm i'm happy to see you how are you i'm good man dude i'm watching that you're this fucking show utopia i watched all of it oh did you i did you watch um all eight episodes
Marc:I've got seven.
Marc:There's another one?
Marc:Or is there eight?
Guest:Yeah, I think there's like the final... How did they not give me that?
Guest:I think they're saving that piece for the end.
Guest:They don't want anyone to see that.
Marc:Here's the thing about this.
Marc:It's odd, because I interviewed Janelle Monae for Homecoming, and your sister plays a sort of morally dubious evil person in that.
Marc:LAUGHTER
Marc:And you, in this one, are a completely immoral, dubious, evil fuck in this.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:There's a parallel villain thing going on between the Cusack siblings.
Guest:We're just trying to portray one of the many great benevolent billionaires that are there for all of our common good.
Guest:They're looking to solve climate crisis.
Guest:They're going to solve the food, the water shortages.
Marc:Everything.
Guest:They're going to take the Celebrity Space Shuttle to Mars.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Everything's going to be fine.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:Just keep giving all of our public
Guest:loot the commonwealth and give it to the benevolent billionaires and their foundations all it will trickle down like gentle rain well all of us will be cleansed in the purifying gentle rain you have of q anon the tree of entitlement yeah the drops will come through the leaves and wash over us thank god when is this happening is this happening soon
Guest:I'm sorry to stop me from this gibberish.
Guest:So I have I hadn't really been a podcast person and everyone was saying, oh, my God, you're on your podcast.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:And so I said, well, I've got to listen to one.
Guest:And I listened to you and David Letterman.
Guest:I thought it was terrific.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Are you guys friends?
Guest:Well, I've been on a show.
Guest:I don't know if he'd consider me a friend.
Guest:I've been on a show.
Marc:Because he used to really speak highly of you.
Marc:There was a period there where he was just sort of – Oh, that's nice to hear.
Marc:Do you remember, though?
Marc:There was a period there where he just kept saying, you're the best actor.
Marc:There's no one better than you.
Marc:It was a while, though.
Marc:Did you see that?
Marc:Yeah, it was early on in your career.
Marc:He just was constantly flattering you.
Guest:I remember when I was a kid, I was there and I went with Rob Reiner and...
Guest:when I did the sure thing and I was in the audience and I think he had a cold that night.
Guest:And, um, I remember he said something, uh, the movie was great, especially the girl.
Guest:And I remember I was in the audience.
Guest:I was a kid.
Marc:I was like, was that the first movie?
Guest:First time I got a, uh, yeah.
Guest:Uh, Lee role in a movie.
Yeah.
Marc:That was a sweet movie.
Marc:Wasn't that a remake of a Clark Gable movie?
Marc:Yeah, it happened one night.
Marc:Yeah, I kind of remember.
Marc:But before we go into that, I just want to say, here's what happened to me when I was watching Utopia, was that because of the shit we're going through now, it kind of broke my brain a little.
Marc:Did you watch it?
Marc:Do you watch the final work?
Marc:Did you watch the series, Utopia?
Guest:I'd seen a few of the first couple episodes, but I haven't seen the last, I'd say, from...
Guest:I mean, I know what was shot, but I haven't seen four through nine.
Marc:Because of what's going on in the world right now, it's not that it was prescient as much as the nature of the conspiracy just kind of broke that part of my brain a little bit.
Marc:So after I sat through seven episodes of Utopia...
Marc:I was pretty sure that I understood the entire authoritarian momentum that's going on now and how it's all connected and intentional.
Marc:And I'm not sure I'm wrong, but thanks to your thing, now I'm all fucked up in the head, more so than I need to be.
Guest:That's kind of a Gillian Flynn... That's her specialty?
Guest:Yeah, that's her specialty.
Guest:What else has she done?
Guest:Oh, gosh, she's done...
Guest:Gone Girl and Sharp Objects.
Guest:Oh, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I thought the show was pretty good.
Marc:Like I thought initially getting into it that it was going to be like Stranger Things, but it's much more violent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's she's a terrific writer.
Guest:So, you know, the kind of architecture of it is, you know, when you watch a movie like I've been during the pandemic, I've been binge watching all these great old Graham Greene movies.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:john le carl movies and you're like all right the spy genre these are great writers and you know they've introduced a character here in the first act usually the third act they're going to become you know they're going to come back and and gillian her the architecture is so sort of sophisticated that you really can't see where the the trap doors are right right right it's a really really interesting writer so when you took the role how much had you read
Guest:Well, I was, um, it was one of those really nice phone calls you get where somebody says, um, um, Hey, we'd love for you to do this.
Guest:And you're like, Oh, wow.
Guest:And then can we send you the scripts?
Guest:And I read them and she sent me all eight and I read them and I started reading and, and, uh,
Guest:I don't know if you're this way, but if writing is really good, it's not hard to read.
Guest:You just keep going.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I literally read all of them until 3 in the morning.
Guest:And I was like, of course I'm going to do it.
Guest:It's great.
Marc:I think it was such an interesting casting choice because you're so capable of being kind of like –
Marc:seemingly benevolent and and those kind of villains you know who are just so sweet i mean the fucking the thing that that stands out my mind is where you pull that kid back to smell his head
Marc:And then what happens after?
Marc:It's just like it's those are the worst kind of evil guys.
Marc:The ones that are so sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When you play something like that, what do you do when you think about it?
Marc:Do you just play it straight?
Marc:Do you just I mean, you don't have to put any evil in place.
Marc:You just follow the words.
Guest:No, I contemplate it.
Guest:You know, I contemplate that stuff for a while because, you know, I just think it's very interesting.
Guest:People's perception of themselves.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The distance between that and who they actually are.
Guest:or what they actually do and so that's sort of a theme you know that i that i like to play around with probably so i mean i was always fascinated by um you know uh we're probably the same age-ish yeah right yeah do you remember like 1978 1980 like that was reagan era was like scary right it was like jerry reagan and
Marc:I don't remember being – I was not politically awake, so it didn't hit me the same way, say, W did.
Marc:But I knew that the people that I liked who were politically awake were upset.
Marc:But I don't know that I was feeling it in the same way.
Marc:But, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, I just thought a bit like –
Guest:You know, when they said the nuclear launch is ready and he would make a joke about nuclear war and stuff and the Berlin Wall was still up.
Guest:And you thought about these people who go into sort of these rooms and they would stage these mega death war games with weapons.
Guest:And I was always interested, like, all right, so those guys, like,
Marc:think they're good guys and then they go home to their wife and they play with their kids and then they like you know i don't know they go play cards right go to baseball games but yet they can they they can rationalize mass murder they can rationalize mass destruction that is there's no human engagement with the numbers
Guest:Yeah, they just, there's this kind of a schism between what they do, what their job is, and their perception of themselves, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And probably in the 80s, when I was growing up, you know, you'd read Noam Chomsky and you'd read all this stuff and then you'd
Guest:you'd listen to the clash and they'd do a double album on sandinista and then you'd start to look around and you so i was always interested in american exceptionalism arguments sure and what was behind all that um right and it's probably just because you know following great films and books and plays but how did you but you must because it's weird because i don't think i got really you know
Marc:around that stuff or my understanding of it didn't really come into full form until probably much later.
Marc:Did you grow up with activism in the house?
Marc:I mean, were you educated in that way?
Marc:What were your parents like politically?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was a really weird, interesting bit of freak luck on my part, which was that my father served in World War II and he served with Philip Berrigan, one of the Berrigan brothers.
Guest:He was part of the Cantonsville Nine.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:So he became great friends with the Berrigan brothers and they became like family.
Guest:So Dan and Phil Berrigan, and these were those, they were the underground radical priests who, you know, covered Time magazine.
Guest:They had that peace sign, you know, and they burnt the draft cards and all that.
Guest:So they were at all of our, you know, christenings, eulogies, wakes.
Guest:So they were around.
Guest:when I was a kid.
Guest:And of course, you know, anything your parents like you say, that's bullshit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I, but I remember recognizing something in,
Guest:my parents eyes that they, their eyes got like a bigger and wider and, uh, they became like these higher versions of themselves when the Barragans were going to come visit.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:The time when they were like, these guys were, uh, were on the lamb, you know, they were underground for a while and then they would go in and out of jail.
Guest:So, but I knew that as I, as I was a child and a teenager, I could see that my parents eyes like were, um, elevating, um,
Guest:to a place where you could see that there was some something higher than themselves that they were into engaging with when those guys came around yeah and so i think that kind of uh i didn't realize later but that
Guest:And then, of course, like all the great films and books and poetry and music that we all love.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But like those guys coming around and your parents being kind of hosting them.
Marc:I mean, were there conversations going on?
Marc:And how many kids in your family?
Marc:There was five of us.
Marc:And you're the middle?
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How about you, Marie?
Marc:Two.
Marc:Got one little brother, a couple of years younger.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I was fourth out of five.
Marc:Fourth out of five.
Marc:And this is, was it a Catholic thing?
Marc:Irish Catholic, yeah.
Marc:But that's interesting.
Marc:So, you know, but they were Irish Catholic progressives.
Marc:yeah you know that jesuit uh right this sort of you know like honor the real legacy of christ thing service and it was like more like the vatican ii thing you know where uh there was that kind of accidental pope who was into the
Guest:liberation theology thing where you couldn't just say you were a christian you actually had to help poor people and fight against injustice like you know it there was um there was a a movement that uh was very influential and um you know dorothy day the catholic worker and it's like these were influential people to your folks the yeah the barragans came out of that movement right folks movement it was like the civil rights oh wow
Guest:Social justice intellectual.
Guest:So I was sort of lucky enough to be born into a family where that shit was there.
Marc:Where service was important.
Marc:Good deeds.
Guest:Or, you know, or the, you know, the truth.
Marc:Faith without works is dead.
Marc:Yeah, friend of Bill.
Marc:Yes, definitely friend of Bill.
Marc:But that's what that is, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so what did your dad do for life?
Marc:What did you grow up looking up to in your father?
Marc:Was he in show business?
Guest:No, he was a...
Guest:The terrific guy, he passed away about 18 years ago.
Guest:He had pancreatic cancer.
Guest:Oh, that's the worst.
Guest:Yeah, that's a tough one.
Guest:But the only thing about it's good is that you just definitely get to say goodbye because I thought it would be a different thing if somebody just had a heart attack or got hit by a bus.
Guest:The only way with cancer is you definitely get to go through your grief stages and say goodbye.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But he went to World War II, came out on the GI Bill, went to Holy Cross, and then came out debt-free and could put money in the bank, and he would earn 7%.
Guest:What did he do for a job?
Guest:He worked in advertising, that Mad Men era.
Guest:Oh, yeah, right.
Guest:He hated it.
Guest:But that's what he did to sort of take care of his family.
Guest:And then later on in his life, he started a documentary film company and would make commercials like for Santa Fe Railroad and stuff and a bit of a filmmaker and then wrote plays and acted, moonlighted as an actor.
Guest:He did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He did a bunch of stuff, some plays and, and worked in films a little bit.
Guest:And, and I was lucky enough to, and he wrote a screenplay that I made for HBO called the Jack ball, which was with LQ Jones and John Goodman.
Guest:And,
Marc:bob dylan gave us the uh ring them bells for the final song so i gotta watch that lq jones is a trip man it's a cool western it's a good western lq jones is like that must have been wild hanging out with that guy yeah man i was just like yeah i just want to talk about peckinpah i know man him and struther martin
Guest:And LQ, of course, is, you know, made one of my favorite films ever.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Boy and His Dog.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Trippy movie.
Marc:Way ahead of his time.
Marc:Classic.
Marc:And did he direct more or was that it?
Marc:I think that was the one he directed, yeah.
Marc:It's so wild.
Marc:Yeah, there's that era of guys just who were able to do that.
Marc:Like, you wouldn't expect that guy would direct that movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But him and Shruther Martin and the Wild Bunch just running around pulling jewelry off of dead guys.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:Yeah, and also all of Peckinpah's films.
Guest:You can see them through.
Marc:I'm kind of a Peckinpah freak.
Marc:I kind of put myself through the paces of watching all of his movies at different points in my life.
Marc:I'll just do a little Peckinpah film festival.
Guest:Do you know what I just got into recently?
Guest:I kind of like
Guest:more with myself for denying myself the pleasure of it for years.
Guest:Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I know, but what was wrong with me?
Guest:I mean, for 15 years, I forgot how great a film that was.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think sometimes, you know, you're not sure where Chris Christopherson fits in in your head.
Marc:But he's great.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:And he's also great in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia as the biker, you know, guy like.
Marc:But yeah, right.
Marc:Yeah, but there's just sometimes you just, like, don't beat yourself up about it.
Marc:That's interesting that you should be excited that you've found it.
Guest:I was, but I sort of re-found it, and I thought, God, what was I doing all this time?
Guest:I mean, it's got... Well, there's a lot of movies.
Guest:As Alias.
Marc:As Alias.
Marc:Yeah, just sitting around.
Marc:It doesn't say much, but he's there.
Marc:He doesn't say much.
Marc:No, no, but the songs are great.
Marc:And the weird thing about that movie is, like,
Marc:i think pat you know billy the kid died when he was like 21 you know and by that point you know christopher's it doesn't matter because it's a myth but it's kind of weird that he's at the age he is but it's a good movie i like that i think it's a really really cool movie it has that great um that great scene with slim pickens when he finally gets shot and uh
Guest:knocking on heaven's door is playing and he just walks over by the river and it's well yeah it's kind of it's it's kind of the most emotional um peckinpah has ever been i think in that sure yeah i mean it's one of those ones where he's like you know he's emotional in a weird way the wild bunch is kind of emotional too you know when those guys know that they're done yeah and in a kind of in a rage and yeah kind of
Marc:We're going to go out like we all, you know.
Marc:That one had a real sense of kind of loss.
Marc:It's heavy boy shit, man.
Marc:You know, it's real kind of.
Marc:It's some serious exploration of dude stuff, but it's great.
Marc:No doubt.
Marc:Now, when did you start doing?
Marc:Did you start acting in Chicago in the improv scene or did it?
Marc:What happened?
Marc:How did that?
Guest:When you were like you were doing comedy.
Marc:New York.
Yeah.
Guest:in New York.
Guest:Did you ever do like the, uh, improv or in the second city or any of that stuff here?
Marc:I'd never, like, I was never improv driven.
Marc:I played early on.
Marc:I played zanies there.
Marc:And when I go back to, uh, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I, I, the last, I taped a special at the Vic a few years ago and I, and I've played at Thalia hall.
Marc:Uh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I, I, I love Chicago and I, you know, I was there not long ago, uh, doing some stuff with Swanberg.
Marc:I I've grown to really like that city.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I was, I didn't do it.
Guest:I sort of started, it was a very strange thing because I was 14 or 15 and I'd been doing some theater and stuff.
Guest:And then Hollywood wanted to make movies about teenagers and they decided to shoot.
Guest:a couple of them in Chicago and I had had some training.
Guest:And so it was just kind of like weird freak luck that I'd had some training and they decided to make movies about, cause there wasn't a thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Really a thing.
Marc:Oh, so in the eighties and the sort of John Hughes thing and the breakfast club and all that shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:there's a movie called class you know that was uh i think with andrew mccarthy and someone didn't he fuck someone's mom or something wasn't yeah but roblo's mom who was jacqueline bichette and cliff robertson was in this right and so uh lewis carlino who had done the great santini did in chicago and then
Guest:You know, like kind of in Vancouver, Toronto, they cast local actors and I'd been sort of training and doing some stuff.
Guest:So that's how it started.
Marc:And where were you training?
Marc:Were you just training in like kids theater or what?
Marc:Yeah, that kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, what about like, how are all your siblings actors?
Marc:How does that happen?
Marc:Like, you know, there are these dynasties, you know, and I have this theory about it, but how did that come to pass?
Marc:Were you all doing it at the same time or did it happen later for Anne and Joan?
Marc:How did it work?
Marc:Isn't your brother in it too sometimes?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We've all, we've all dabbled in it.
Guest:Um, um, three of us are still, that's what we do for a living in Joan and myself.
Guest:My sister Susie and Billy have done a bunch of theater plays and have done a lot of things, but, um, Joni got the first break.
Guest:Um,
Guest:when tony bill who was a producer who produced the sting directed a film called my bodyguard and he shot it in chicago okay and that um alec um no not not alec baldwin um a different baldwin adam baldwin and yeah chris peace and
Guest:So Jody got a small part in that, and then we were like, oh, you can be in a movie?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it happened the same way for both of you.
Marc:They just happened to be shooting in Chicago, and you guys had some kid chops.
Marc:They had little kid chops.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So it was kind of like that.
Marc:Vocal casting.
Marc:A lot of luck.
Marc:So did you do it?
Marc:You didn't have any training other than that as a kid.
Marc:Did you just kind of grow into it or did you study with people?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Yeah, no, I studied with, um, a group in Chicago and, um, you know, but then I was also, but by the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was doing, I, I was on, I was learning on movie sets.
Guest:So I, I, I really started, um, I had done stuff earlier as well.
Guest:Um,
Guest:you know, the kind of terrible stuff where you, your mom takes you to auditions as a kid and you try to, you know, cause I, I always loved the theater and movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I loved going to the old art house cinemas and the, you know, and seeing like, you know, you'd see the Kurosawa movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Seven of them for a week.
Guest:And then you'd see the French wave or you'd see the, you know, film noir.
Guest:Double features.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I really loved it.
Guest:If I wasn't going to a White Sox or a Cubs game, I loved going to those great old theaters and like watching these old movies.
Guest:Yeah, I did too.
Guest:And then, yeah, then they started making movies in Chicago and there was this audition thing.
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:You go in there and you try to, you know,
Marc:you know trying to get a part who are your guys who do you like watching the most in terms of um when i was when i was a kid or yeah i mean what was it like because it seems like as an actor people are sort of like that guy knows how to do it i want to who are you who are your faves
Marc:do you consider in terms of the acting guys yeah but as a comedian actor oh yeah no i have them i definitely have different heroes for different reasons you know i think uh you know you know richard prior brought a lot of heart to the game in a way that no one had so like you know there's a certain vulnerability and a sensitivity to the type of comedy i like that you don't see that often and i think him and his
Marc:more honest moments was really something.
Marc:In terms of acting, it seems to... It sort of shifts a lot because when I started acting myself a bit more, I started to try to see, you know, what people were doing more and how, you know, like, is there a craft to it?
Marc:Is it... How much of it is just a natural...
Marc:talent you know yeah it seems like a lot of it about 80 percent of it or more is is you either you have the talent for it or you don't and then if you do you you polish it up however you're going to polish it up and get something into place for yourself yeah i remember that richard prior yeah i remember that richard prior bit where
Guest:He was doing something on either a Johnny Carson show or one of his stand-up specials, but then he played a junkie, and then it ended with, I wish you the best.
Guest:I remember just being heartbroken.
Guest:At the end, he just sort of looked at whoever he was talking to in the audience and said, I wish you the best.
Guest:Right, the heart, right?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It was really something, man, when people really lock into it.
Marc:But like when you do the work, do you do like like what was I thinking about, man?
Marc:Like like you said, for this this most recent role, you think about how people see themselves and who they are in reality.
Marc:But like early on, I mean, you seem to like have.
Marc:do you have some sort of process that you do because i talk to people mostly to help myself you know in terms of how you approach a role on any given time do you read the thing over and over again do you know if it's not like you you know what is it how do you do it kind of depends you know if if you're doing something that um i don't know it doesn't have you know if it's kind of a straight genre but there's you you know you
Guest:You don't try to turn, I don't know, a postcard into on the waterfront, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But if you get something with some depth, then yeah.
Guest:Then I think you just sort of really immerse myself in the world of it to the point where I don't know the difference between my thoughts, my dreams, and...
Guest:the character you know yeah and you do that through like reading or through like you know just thinking about the guy or you know or yeah or even dreaming stuff like you know i'll you know you you know you sort of i'll write myself a letter and say tell me about tell me what i need to know and i'll date it yeah and it's weird the subconscious if you ask it a question it'll give you an answer really
Guest:i i found it for me yeah you know or maybe i'm just a weirdo no no but so you do that and then you sort of try to dream it and then like uh i got i was really fortunate enough to play brian wilson which was uh i saw that yeah and i thought i thought that was an interesting movie because there was there was a couple of brian wilson's right were there two or three it was you and paul dano
Guest:Yeah, me and Paul Dano.
Guest:Brian was still alive, but so for that one, I got to just, I would just immerse myself in his music.
Guest:Like, so literally, I would just live in his music.
Marc:How was that for you, man?
Marc:Because, like, I talked about that.
Marc:I was talking about that the other day.
Marc:I have a hard time listening to his music because I can hear...
Marc:the struggle and the sadness in his heart.
Marc:I said the other day, I said it was like listening to sadness filtered through cotton candy.
Marc:But it has a, you know, it has an effect on me that it's too heavy for me sometimes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he's, he's a strange constellation of attributes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but, you know, because he's really a tough guy, you know, in a lot of ways, you know, to survive what he survived.
Guest:But he's also like this just,
Guest:you know it's like he's like a heart with two legs and his antennas just right tend to just dive into the ether i mean the guy's he's kind of a he's a wizard yeah no yeah oh for sure but what was interesting for me and that one was the smile sessions box set oh okay 1966 which was
Guest:it's kind of you know you can listen to it it's four albums and the demos and the outtakes and you can hear him constructing the music yeah and this is you know pre-computer where if you needed four oboes you had to have four oboes and you can he can say let's have the third oboe yeah and he dropped the mic and he's doing it all with one ear and he's constructing like symphonies in pieces
Guest:And no one knows exactly what he's doing, but he has it in his head.
Guest:And also hear him interacting with all of the, uh, all of the people in his life.
Guest:So it was almost as if there was a tape on Brian's psyche.
Guest:And that was the kind of, um, he had done pet sounds and then he'd done smile to smile sessions.
Guest:And he was kind of, you know,
Guest:He was sort of a one-man Beatles, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was in an arms race with the Beatles to try to figure it out.
Guest:Out-genius each other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Paul McCartney came and heard Smile Sessions, and he actually chewed the carrots on the song Vegetables.
Marc:He did.
Guest:And then he went back to England and said, scrap everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:we've got to steal this guy's sound.
Guest:Well, you know, I don't know.
Guest:It's just, he had just, his mind was blown as well.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:And when he had done Smile, the Beach Boys were on the road and they were doing their thing and they came back and they listened to this remarkable, groundbreaking,
Guest:music and they were like dude where are the hits where's the fucking surf music right of course ryan was just like i'm going to bed right for three i'm going to bed for three years yeah and so so anyway that that was the the the peak of him and then and so i used that as the way into the abyss and then
Guest:also um coming out of it because then finally when he reclaimed his life he was able to play heroes and villains right and perform it so so you know there's different things but i i try to immerse myself in the world well it's nice when the world is still alive and you have access to them
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you're playing somebody who's alive or somebody who existed, then you can read about them.
Guest:Then I give you a dumb actor sounding.
Guest:What?
Guest:You know, was that like an actor studio?
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:No, I just like I'm just curious about how people about how people handle it, because like it seems to me that.
Marc:Like I can see you in your roles, you know, but like, you know, there's a varying degree of, you know, what you turn on and what you turn off and how you sort of, you know, the different switches you have in yourself is going to be how you're going to approach it.
Marc:And it just seems that people have a different there's no single method or everyone figures out their own fucking tools.
Marc:You know, I was just curious about it.
Marc:But like even like because it seems like as you got older, you evolved to sort of a harder edge.
Marc:I guess in gross point blank, there was there's in the grifters and stuff.
Marc:It was getting a little darker.
Marc:But like, you know, there was early on, it seemed like you were all all heart, all vulnerability, some struggle.
Marc:But then you started to challenge yourself.
Marc:with things that were you know these are characters were were complicated and sometimes slightly dubious characters and that seemed to happen as you got older like you challenged yourself it seems like you were pushing against the idea of being cute your whole life yeah well i think maybe that there's a piece of that too when you know if you're nobody should be really i don't know if you're an actor when you're a kid it's a weird thing it's not it's not right it's hard to survive right hard to survive yeah i mean i wasn't like a
Guest:totally a child actor.
Guest:I was more of a teenager, so I still sort of looked like a 16, 17 years old.
Guest:So then I think, yeah, then people want you to just sort of be kind of
Guest:witty or cute or whatever they want you to be.
Marc:But then you got, if you're not careful, then you just kind of do that.
Marc:You just witty and cute yourself out of the business because you hit a certain age where they only see you as one thing and, and that's over.
Guest:So I never, I never had that sort of worry because I never, I was always trying to, you know, it's like as a comedian, you're, you're thinking about like Richard Pryor, right?
Guest:Sure.
Yeah.
Marc:yeah so same here i was thinking about like well i don't i want to do something great like how do you do something great do something great yeah i know it's not like you know being real satisfied with yourself and you know that's for sure i talked to crude up but was there about this sort of thing was there a point where you're like the the real answer to that is to challenging yourself and possibly doing something great is to do these character driven parts and not try to be like you know some sort of um
Guest:you leading man all the time yeah um or you try to subvert that right yeah i sort of had a that that was a thing i tried to do which was be sort of like make a subversive commercial movie where you sort of it looks like right yeah and all the things there that look like this but there's you know then you're sneaking ideas into it like what which one was that would that be like the grifters or something
Guest:I don't like gross point blank, you know, you can see this guy comes back and he's going to his, you know, high school reunion and, you know, kind of funny, but it's like, you know, underneath it, there's some weird fucked up politics to it.
Marc:Some serious fucked up shit to it.
Marc:But like, you know, working with like somebody like, uh, like John Sayles, eight men out was, which is great.
Marc:And you're great in it.
Marc:And it was a great bunch of, uh, actors and stuff.
Marc:Um,
Marc:Like the difference in, I guess, in some of the directors you've worked with, I mean, you know, he brings a lot to it.
Marc:He's got a lot of conscience.
Marc:And what do you learn from a guy like that over the course of like kind of educating yourself around how this is done?
Marc:What would you get?
Marc:What do you bring out of that experience?
Guest:Man, you just soak up everything you can.
Guest:I mean, I'd seen Brother from Another Planet.
Guest:I mean, that was also amazing.
Guest:Like nowadays, they say there's independent films, but they're just basically like a branch of the same studio.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're going to do art films and do it for no money, and then everybody's going to try to kill each other to get a Golden Globe.
Guest:But back then, they were actually independent films.
Guest:So I'd seen Matewan, Brothers from Another Planet, and I thought Matewan was an extraordinary, extraordinary film.
Guest:But Sales said he...
Guest:He learned everything he needed to know about writing from watching Roberto Clemente play baseball.
Guest:It was power, efficiency, and grace.
Guest:Also, you know, with these great DPs that would be around, you know, like you could work with, you know, on...
Guest:John's uh on May 1 he was working with Haskell Wexler oh yeah right yeah yeah great guys he met out we it was Bob Richardson who turned out you know he's another great great cinematographer or we got it I had a chance to work with uh Laszlo Kovacs oh yeah those are really the guys right they make the difference that was a it was a whole different thing yeah you know what uh so are you're in Chicago now
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you never lived out here?
Guest:No, I have.
Guest:I lived in California and sort of New York and had a place in California, an office in Venice, California.
Guest:But four or five years ago, I got out of here.
Marc:And you lived in New York.
Marc:When did you live in New York?
Marc:Late 80s, early 90s, I had a place there.
Marc:You just keep going back to Chicago, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did shit get out of control in New York?
Marc:When did it happen, man?
Marc:Which era are we talking about?
Marc:What was the first wave of insanity?
Guest:Do you remember J.P.
Guest:'s on 88th Street?
Marc:No, that was too far uptown for me.
Guest:All right.
Marc:That was it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was it, booze?
Marc:Let's see.
Guest:Back in the 80s?
Marc:what wasn't there yeah and now you like uh you had you had to reel it in yeah you got some time yeah i know right yeah you feel better oh yeah how you feeling
Marc:It's weird, man.
Marc:I actually had a drinking dream the other night.
Marc:I'm 21 years in.
Marc:And I hadn't had one in a long time.
Marc:It was very subtle.
Marc:It was just sort of like, I just decided to do it.
Marc:And that's exactly how it fucking happens when it happens.
Marc:Right?
Marc:You wake up in a cold spot?
Marc:Yeah, you wake up like, oh, I fucked it up.
Marc:Oh, thank God.
Yeah.
Marc:I blew it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I started to reel it in around, you know, 28, 29, 30.
Guest:Cause I was like, all right, what am I going to do here?
Guest:Cause I was, am I going to be one of these like maintenance junkies and just sort of like, you know, yeah.
Guest:Live it on down or like, what road am I going to go down?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The crossroads.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the only, the only place that was really dangerous for me,
Guest:I was very lucky, but the only place that was dangerous to me was when I went back to Ireland.
Guest:I was like, ah, this would be a good place to get drunk for a month.
Marc:Yeah, to hide and drink and be completely supported in that decision.
Marc:Well, you can always find friends in those bars, right?
Marc:But you can always find it.
Marc:It's always struck me as weird about that, about enablers of any kind.
Marc:When you have somebody who's clearly dying and can't control themselves, there's always those dudes who are sort of like, need a little more?
Marc:I got some.
Marc:Who the fuck are those guys?
Marc:Where do they come from?
Marc:I want to go to Ireland.
Marc:You spent a lot of time in Ireland?
Marc:I went back.
Marc:What do you mean back?
Marc:Is your family from there?
Marc:Yeah, I'm Irish.
Guest:Yeah, both sides of my family are Irish.
Guest:So you can get citizenship?
Guest:Which I probably should.
Guest:Dude.
Guest:Depending on what happens in the next month.
Guest:No shit.
Marc:Aren't you thinking about that shit?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I can't take it, man.
Marc:I mean, I got now where we can barely go anywhere.
Marc:But you can't.
Marc:I love Ireland.
Marc:I'm a G. Are you L.A.?
Marc:Are you L.A.?
Marc:I'm in L.A.
Marc:But I'm like, I don't know what it is with Ireland, man.
Marc:I'm a Jew and I love Ireland.
Marc:I just I go there and I'm like, I want to be here.
Marc:It's all I think about right now, because I don't know how this shit's going to go down, but it's not going to be good no matter how you slice it.
Marc:And all I'm thinking about right now is like, I kind of want to be out of the country for the I want to vote and then get out for a month.
Marc:just because i don't know what the fuck is i don't know how this is going to unfold but then there's another part of me that's sort of like maybe you should just stay and watch it from here but i don't know yeah i don't have two minds you know that um you know the bastards are going to do what they're going to do and we got to do what we got to do and fuck them right and then you don't want to give them the satisfaction of running away
Marc:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:But isn't there part of you?
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:We're roughly the same age.
Marc:I mean, I've saved a little money.
Marc:Is there any crime in stopping someplace nice and just riding it out?
Marc:No.
Marc:Where's that justification?
Marc:I'm not running away.
Marc:I'm fucking retiring.
Marc:Go fuck yourself.
Marc:yeah yeah no but i'll but also like i i won't feel like i am like i shouldn't have said something like i've you know i've been a pain in the ass and separate i think all the time so oh oh and what and where are you where have you been talking lately yeah i never shut up that's right you've gotten into some trouble here and there so like how how afraid are you on a day-to-day basis around this shit
Guest:I mean, I'm not afraid for myself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:When I saw, you know, early on, I made a movie called, not that this matters, but I made a movie called Max a while ago, and it was about Hitler and modern art and aesthetics and, you know, about how modernism came from, like, World War I. Right.
Yeah.
Guest:how hitler sort of stole from the avant-garde left and used he hated the message of the avant-garde left because it was anti-war coming from world one yeah but he understood that that art was the new you know politics was the new art and art and politics were going to be fused right and you see trump doing this sort of same thing he's doing this kind of kitsch futurism he's saying
Guest:i'm going to make america great and we're going to the future is going to be a return to the past now it's a past that never existed i'm lying everything i say is a lie but you know sure and he's also really good at uh at fascist theater he's very good at the the signing ceremony the you know the you know the walking you know or you know or the rallies where he you know where he compares immigrants or
Guest:people of color or people who were protesting to, you know, vermin and cockroaches.
Guest:And that's like, that's very specific purposeful.
Guest:Of course.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Guest:You know, these human beings are pestilence.
Marc:They're subhuman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's terrifying.
Guest:So I, I was never, um, I guess maybe just loving,
Guest:Everybody from Brecht to all the writers and comedians and filmmakers and musicians that we all love, right?
Guest:You don't have to be a genius to know that this shit is real.
Guest:And the first time he tore a child away from their mother's arms and put them in a car.
Guest:Like this wasn't a reality TV show anymore.
Guest:This is like real fascism.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's on a creep.
Guest:It's, you know, it's a frozen explosion.
Guest:You know, it's happening slowly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, it's like the frog in the water.
Guest:You know, you just turn the water up and the frog doesn't know it's being boiled alive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what we are right now.
Marc:Yeah, it's terrifying.
Marc:And I don't know, like I want it's sad because of the covid that, you know, the arts have been sort of kind of neutralized because no one can really do anything.
Marc:You know, you would you know, it's hard to get things done and to express yourself.
Marc:And in a bigger sense, because we're all kind of frozen in this plague zone, like like Chicago, that like the theater scene, I've become friends with Tracy Letts.
Marc:who's a Chicago guy for the most part.
Marc:Great guy, great theater, a great actor, and a great playwright.
Marc:But did you ever spend any time down at Steppenwolf at all and hanging out with those guys?
Guest:Yeah, I used to... I worked with John Malkovich a lot, and so I used to go... When he would come back and direct a play or something, I would do that and hang out with him.
Guest:He's really one of my favorite guys to hang out with.
Marc:He's a trip, right?
Marc:Is he always that intense?
Marc:He's...
Guest:it's like he's just really really uh like a wonderful man and a you know great mixture of things you know he can be incredibly sensitive and compassionate and then he can be you know he he you know the character he played in true west yeah which was yeah you know lee he said he was lee right or austin which one's lee right but you know which he says
Guest:was a member of his family and, and, you know, so he, he has access to those kinds of these different parts of himself that are, that are very, uh, contradict the rage river.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he, he's such a thoughtful, intelligent man, you know, like he really reads and studies and,
Marc:is a very such a bright person okay so there's another good example so you read this script like for utopia and it's well written now you get this how did the uh being john malkovich how did that unfold for you i mean did you get that script and where you were like holy shit what is this this is gonna sound like um i hope i don't sound like an asshole on your podcast because um
Guest:I think even talking about yourself is a weird thing to do in this climate.
Guest:It just feels slightly obscene.
Marc:We've balanced it out with politics.
Marc:You're okay.
Marc:Go ahead.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But that...
Guest:script was i i had an agent in chicago till i was like 24 25 and then with um william morrissey and when i went there i said you know come on you guys have a vault somewhere right you guys have the vault of like the whatever your black book is like the most unproducible scripts right and they're like oh well no and then i but i said i know you guys have something like where you have like this little box that has the craziest ship you know whatever they call the
Guest:really i don't know well i i was i was fishing but i thought they must right well why were you doing why were you asking those questions because you wanted to do something new and weird and wild why were you yeah i wanted to find out where like you know because anything good right most things that are good don't really get can't be comprehended when they first come out okay only time something is good right maybe
Guest:I mean, it's different like with Richard Pryor.
Guest:He does a set that's filmed.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:But you were like, where are the things that you think are unproducible?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, I want the thing that cannot be made into a film, the most insane thing.
Guest:And I kept pressing.
Guest:He goes, well, I mean, you know, I mean, there's.
Guest:I mean, there's being done that.
Guest:What?
Guest:and i and so i found out and i found the script and i read it and i said here's the deal i just want to be first in the door if this ever gets made and if if that happens i'll stay with you guys forever and if not i'll leave because this is fantastic this is brilliant yeah because it was the most non-commercial right insane so at that time did you think it would ever get made
Guest:Well, I thought I was very proud of myself for having found it.
Guest:So did that start the ball rolling?
Guest:Other people might have known about it, but I took my own initiative to find something good.
Marc:So you just attached yourself to this script that wasn't even alive, really.
Guest:no charlie i didn't even charlie wanted me or knew who i was or anything so they call him and you're like not going to believe this but uh uh kuzak wants to do your movie and he was yeah he's been on it for four years he's been calling us about it for three years or whatever and uh luckily enough uh charlie and spike thought it was a good idea so so uh i came in and did it but it was pretty great because john malkovich called me up and he went
Guest:you know, Johnny, you know, there's this script and it's really good.
Guest:And, you know, like I was already doing the script, right?
Guest:Like I don't know why John was calling me.
Guest:He goes, and, you know, it's about me and, you know,
Guest:And, you know, it says I'm an asshole, but, you know, fuck it.
Guest:I am an asshole.
Guest:And, you know, I just think, I go, John, John, stop.
Guest:I'm doing this.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:So, and then we started and we started talking about the script.
Guest:The only things we thought of was in the script, his friend at the end was Kevin Bacon.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:You know, when he calls a celebrity friend.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so John and I were talking and we're thinking, you know what?
Guest:Like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon of it all, whatever, you know.
Guest:And we said, no, Charlie Sheen is Malkovich's best friend.
Guest:He had just given the most incendiary interview, and John just couldn't stop laughing at the thought that the Malkovich and being John Malkovich in his time of...
Guest:Buddy with Charlie.
Guest:Would call on Charlie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then so we we we pitched that idea to Charlie and Spike and they they they liked it.
Guest:I think Kevin Bacon wasn't available or didn't want to do it.
Guest:It worked out.
Guest:And then the only other, the script is so perfect.
Guest:The only other thing we added was I thought, I said, Charlie, you know, you don't have this puppeteer.
Guest:He doesn't talk about his work that much.
Guest:And why, you know, all artists have a justification for why we're failures, right?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I do.
Guest:So I said...
Guest:I want to have this thing where he talks about his work that, you know, it frightens people.
Guest:It's too much for them.
Guest:You know, it scares them.
Marc:And wasn't there another guy too?
Marc:Wasn't there another guy, another puppeteer?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I said, you know, his work is too provocative.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was sort of, you kind of came up with that.
Marc:You guys thought that through.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, just I ripped with Charlie a little bit.
Guest:I just thought it would be good for Craig to sort of give a justification for what his work means to him.
Marc:Did you ever feel like that, though, yourself?
Marc:Did you ever feel like a failure?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think that I don't know how you feel about it, but I'm not one to talk about my past much because when I do it, I probably don't sound particularly coherent.
Guest:But I always feel like
Guest:I almost did something once that was good.
Marc:You feel that now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like I kind of, I remember I almost did that one thing and it was, it had a pulse.
Guest:It was pretty good, but not quite.
Guest:I almost, I almost, yeah.
Marc:So that's, so you're driven by that kind of like, you know, you're never quite as good as you think you should be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I feel like I almost did a couple of things.
Marc:So you, you like to keep a bat around to beat yourself with occasionally.
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:It's just, you know, it's a strange thing.
Guest:What was the thing?
Marc:What was the thing that you almost did?
Marc:What was the closest, what was the closest you came, John?
Guest:Well, I think like, I look at it like, you know, if you like baseball, right.
Guest:You know, if you, if you're, if it's three out of 10, you,
Guest:a pulse sure you know yeah you're you're you that's you're hitting 300 you're good
Marc:yeah yeah and then the rest is just sort of like you you do you know you're working but if you're still good you may line out you may strike out sure right here's a question for you uh paul sheer was talking to uh danny trejo on his uh podcast about con air i guess what a great guy danny trail is no i know i i he i worked with him he's do you know that story when i worked with him was hilarious
Marc:He did an episode of my show of Marin on IFC, and he played a newcomer who had just gotten out of prison, and I was playing his sponsor.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:But he said this.
Marc:I guess Scheer was, I'm paraphrasing, and they were asking him about all the actors on Con Air and who was the real badasses were, who were the dudes, who were the real badasses.
Marc:And he said, man, you don't want to fuck with Cusack.
Marc:You're the guy.
Marc:You're the guy he identified as the badass.
Marc:Now, why would Danny Trejo think that about you?
Marc:Are you a brawler?
Marc:What is your trip?
Guest:No, the thing is, is Danny Trejo is very tight with Benny the Jet Urquidez.
Guest:And Benny the Jet Urquidez is a 1% of 1% athlete in the world.
Guest:And he's a kind of a martial arts grandmaster.
Guest:And he started a ketocon.
Yeah.
Guest:he was around, you know, the Gracie brothers.
Guest:He was around, um, he was training.
Guest:He, he did, uh, Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee era.
Guest:So he was, he was that guy, he was that guy in East LA.
Guest:He's, he's, uh, he's Bass and, um, Blackfoot, Native American, but grew up in East LA and he's a martial arts grandmaster.
Guest:And so when I did, uh,
Guest:say anything where i played a kickboxer i tricked we shot in his gym and then i i studied under him you know for 30 years in martial arts and and 30 in if you i don't know if you remember there's a scene in roast point blank where i i fight a guy in in the hallway you know and then mini driver comes by and sees me and i killed him with a pen that the guy had given me right oh yeah but there's a fight there's a fight with benny orquitos and that uh that's benny the jet and he was a
Guest:kickboxing champion, 68 and 0.
Guest:And he had fought all around the world.
Guest:He'd beaten every Chinese, every Thai, every Japanese people.
Guest:They started schools.
Guest:They built schools to just create a champion to beat Benny.
Guest:He also did a film, he did a bunch of early films with Jackie Chan.
Guest:One's called Meals on Wheels, another one where it was the first time that
Guest:the two actors would do the stunts and the fights were like Buster Keaton stuff, really inventive, really comical, but like really violent.
Guest:And the kicks were the kicks, the headshots were the headshots and they were fighting.
Guest:So,
Guest:um i sort of emulated that in the gross point blank with benny so um i think danny knew that i was uh training with benny and he he'd seen me train and he'd seen me spar and i used to go to smokers and do stuff like that um but the good just to show you that i'm not a complete asshole when we shot the scene in gross point blank right the
Guest:Our other producer said, well, we're going to need two or three days to shoot this.
Guest:I said, no, no, we'll do three cameras.
Guest:No stuntmen.
Guest:Don't worry.
Guest:I'll be fine.
Guest:Because I'd sparked thousands of rounds with Benny.
Guest:And I had to, they had my, I was in a suit, right?
Guest:The only reason we had to stop was because I was drenched with sweat.
Guest:And they had to like re-blow dry my hair and then put me in a new suit because I was drenched to the bone.
Guest:At the end of the day, Benny had one trickle of sweat coming down.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:you know i would train with him and um somewhere around con air time it was like that was as i was as good a weight as i could be at i was ready to fight all that stuff 195 pounds and i'd spar with benny and with the benny at first when you first start sparring with him he doesn't wear he's wearing gloves but you can't touch him
Guest:And then after a few years, if you get him to wear a mouth guard, that means you've gotten to another level.
Guest:And then a few years later, you know, I finally got him to wear headgear.
Guest:And I remember we'd sparred thousands of rounds and he kicked the shit out of me forever.
Guest:But at one point I slipped and I hit him with the best right hand I can hit him with, like Joe Frazier's left hook that dropped Ali.
Guest:That was the best I had.
Guest:It was the perfect punch.
Guest:And I remember hitting him and he just looked at me and he smiled and his eyes got wide.
Guest:It was like, that was great.
Guest:I felt that all the way down.
Guest:And I was like, oh my God, this guy's going to really love him.
Guest:I felt it all the way down.
Guest:He was so happy for me.
Guest:He's been a very special person in my life.
Guest:I've trained with him for 30 years.
Guest:Is he around still?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, he's in L.A.
Guest:I'm just not, I'm not in L.A., but I had an opportunity to take him, I did this, I got a phone call to go do this Jackie Chan movie where they say, do you want to go do a martial arts movie in China with Jackie Chan in the Gobi Desert?
Guest:I was like, what kind of like lunatic adventurer would pass that up?
Guest:Of course, yeah, I'm going to go do that.
Guest:And so...
Guest:i brought benny out and we choreographed the scenes with jackie so it was kind of full circle oh that's nice jackie had started out with benny yeah i did my fight in gross boy blank to honor jackie and benny and then we did another fight
Marc:you know five years ago that's great so so i think danny might have been referring to to that yeah yeah oh okay that makes sense we both dipped into do you still uh do you keep in shape yeah although i don't spar as much because it hurts right yeah we get old and like do you do how often do you take jobs that are just sort of like it i want to go to that place and hang out how often do you do is that a reason um
Guest:You know, sometimes you take whatever jobs you can get.
Guest:If you can get a great job, you take it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sometimes you take a job for money, and then you use that money to go do something else.
Guest:You keep working.
Guest:Keep working.
Guest:But also, there's not that many, but if there's some...
Guest:You know, if it's such a crazy adventure like that, you just have to do it.
Marc:Sure, man.
Marc:And, you know, you're working with, you know, guys you respect and guys you have a good time with.
Marc:And that's like, what's better than that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also over in China, Jackie Chan's kind of like, you know, he's crossed between like Elvis, Charlie Chaplin and, you know.
Marc:i don't know evil yeah or something yeah same same with trejo in my old neighborhood in highland park we were driving around shooting in highland park and there were people coming kids coming to the windows going machete machete it's crazy man danny's literally one of them
Marc:sweetest warmest human beings that has ever ever been around for sure solid guy too you know like a real recovery wizard you know decent human being shows up for people you know I liked working with him I wish I'd spent more time with him I should I've never really interviewed him because I think he's one of those guys where as much as I like him
Marc:Like he tells his story probably every week at the secret society.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So like, it's a polished kind of process and I, I wouldn't mind doing it.
Marc:Maybe I will.
Marc:Maybe I will.
Marc:But, uh, but it was good talking to you, man.
Marc:Yeah, you too, man.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Thanks for having me.
Marc:What have you been doing with your time during this fucking quarantine business?
Marc:Playing the guitar?
Marc:uh playing on guitar i've been reading a lot but also just like i've been watching a lot of uh old movies yeah like i was i wanted a deep dive on uh graham green yeah what what was that about like why why because it's like i'm doing the criterion collection and watch i just watched the heartbreak kid again with grodin the other day and you know but uh i i guess the graham green do graham green do did he do did he write the third man or he didn't no
Guest:was it yeah no no i think i think it was yeah uh i think he wrote that corrected and i think he was a story or for it but yeah i think it's just it was just interesting because it's like uh every character starts out already
Guest:totally exhausted they totally know the score and they totally know that both communism and capitalism have betrayed everything that they set out to do and that it's a complete disaster and they're just trying to survive and so you're preparing no no i just yeah i guess so i just thought it's interesting like even in the 70s and 80s uh
Guest:that that was there.
Guest:And now, you know, we, we live in a climate where the Democrats, um, and the Republicans that are basically a death cult at this point, um, literally are, they pretend like they haven't seen those Ken Burns documentaries.
Guest:I was like, well, you know, like, like all the mainstream guys are on that Doris Kearns, Goodwin and John Meacham, right.
Guest:The FDR, the new deal stuff.
Um,
Guest:That Ken Burns documentary, you can't pretend like you haven't seen that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I get people health care.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I get wage.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:You know, anyway, I just.
Marc:What was your favorite one so far?
Marc:The movie?
Guest:I watched this cool Richard Burton one called Coming in from the Cold.
Marc:That was good.
Marc:I thought so.
Marc:I've got to watch some of those.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't watch a lot of British stuff.
Marc:I just watched that Bob Hoskins movie, The Long Good Friday, that modern gangster pic.
Marc:Because I interviewed Helen Mirren, and I was just like, I'd watch that one.
Marc:I saw it at one of those theaters we were talking about when I was in high school.
Marc:It premiered in one of the art theaters.
Marc:like the waverly place or like yeah it was called don ponchos it was in albuquerque on right across from the university and we went to see long good friday and i remember it just blew my fucking mind it was one of those big halls and the ceiling had like little stars it was a little double feature revival theater across from the university it's a laundromat now but it was great it was great to re-watch it so i'm going to check out some of that graham green stuff
Marc:But I'm glad you're holding up, and I enjoyed the show, and it was great talking to you, man.
Marc:All right, brother.
Marc:All right, take it easy, pal.
Marc:Bye-bye.
Marc:That was me and John Cusack, and now I will play music for you.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Monkey lives!
Marc:The Fonda lives