Episode 1181 - Zach Braff
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is the podcast this is my podcast this is wtf the podcast with the name and the uh profile pic
Marc:That that pick, the WTF, what do you call that avatar or a thumbnail or whatever the hell it is on iTunes has been the same since day one.
Marc:We haven't changed it with half of my face and my long hair and the glasses I haven't worn in a decade.
Marc:We've left it like that.
Marc:There was something about it.
Marc:We got so committed to it.
Marc:A lot of people change up, change their picture, change the branding.
Marc:But we just couldn't let it go.
Marc:We didn't let it go.
Marc:There was something about that turquoise, man.
Marc:There was something about that color and the weird half a head that was taken from a painting that a guy named Nathan Smith did a long time ago.
Marc:But it just stayed in.
Marc:It stayed on.
Marc:Wow, look out.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:Just coffee dot co-op.
Marc:There's an old timey plug.
Marc:I guess I'm going back.
Marc:I guess I'm stuck in a nostalgia mode.
Marc:I have been actually.
Marc:I have been stuck in.
Marc:I don't know if it's a nostalgia mode.
Marc:I don't know if it's a melancholy.
Marc:How about we just call it reflection?
Marc:God knows we've got time to reflect.
Marc:And I've been a little surprised lately at my feelings about my past me.
Marc:It's upsetting in a way.
Marc:But today, a couple things I want to tell you.
Marc:First, today I will tell you that we have Zach Braff on the show.
Marc:You know him from Scrubs and Garden State.
Marc:He also hosts a podcast, Fake Doctors, Real Friends, with his Scrubs co-star, Donald Faison.
Marc:He's also in the upcoming movie, The Comeback Trail, with Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I think they pushed that, so that'll be out when it's out.
Marc:Other thing I need to tell you is that if you're looking for those WTF mugs, it's holiday time and the hand thrown ceramic mugs that are generally only given to guests who come to my house and appear on the show.
Marc:There's a new batch coming up.
Marc:They're made by Brian Jones, and they're going to be available.
Marc:These are the handmade mugs that I give my guests.
Marc:So right now, getting these mugs from Brian Jones is the only way that you can get them.
Marc:These are unique items.
Marc:And a portion of the sales of these mugs go to the Connecticut Food Bank.
Marc:Just go to brianrjones.com slash shop while they're still in stock.
Marc:They go very quickly, and they're beautiful.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So there's that.
Marc:I guess what I'm finding, and this is like, and I'm meditating, folks.
Marc:I'm in, I've been doing it now for a couple of weeks.
Marc:But I'm finding that the gnawing thing that happens to me, and I don't know if this happens to you, is that when I think back on things, even when I think back
Marc:at the beginnings of this show or things I did when I was younger, just getting to where I am, just shows or trying things or doing things is I'm amazed how fucking angry I can be at myself for not knowing how to do something or for doing something in a way that I didn't think was great or I didn't think was good or I thought was embarrassing.
Marc:I think my entire life
Marc:has been a personal war against embarrassment.
Marc:And nobody wins that.
Marc:Nobody wins that war.
Marc:But I think that there, for some reason, in my dumb head, I've always, and this is what I'm really thinking about when I'm taking apart my psychology, when I'm just breaking myself down.
Marc:It's just this idea of being embarrassed, of being laughed at, of being too weird, right?
Marc:And ultimately, it comes down to being vulnerable.
Marc:It comes down to being exposed.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:When I really think about some of the risks I've taken and some of the things I've done creatively and personally, I'm very hard on myself looking back.
Marc:Like, you idiot.
Marc:Well, that was fucking sad.
Marc:That was ridiculous.
Marc:Why'd you do that?
Marc:I mean, like, you know better now or you know more now.
Marc:You wouldn't do that today.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:That is fucking pathetic.
Marc:That was embarrassing.
Marc:That was, like, terrible.
Marc:And I'm just surprised I do that.
Marc:Why can't I give myself a goddamn break?
Marc:Why can't I give myself a retroactive break?
Marc:Why can't I give myself a fucking pardon?
Marc:You didn't commit no crime, dude.
Marc:You were just bad at something.
Marc:You just did something that was silly or you did something that made you feel too vulnerable or too exposed or you got laughed at for the wrong reason.
Marc:This goes all the way back, man.
Marc:There are memories I have that are ridiculous.
Marc:Just, you know, ridiculous.
Marc:And like, I have a memory.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:This is the dumbest memory.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I don't even know how old I was.
Marc:But, like, I was in some sort of summer art class that my mother had signed us up for at the university.
Marc:Like, a few hours a day.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I must have been, I don't know, 10.
Marc:And I show up at this class maybe a little late.
Marc:And, you know, they're making tortillas.
Marc:That was the project.
Marc:And all I could think was like, you know, I just wanted to eat a tortilla.
Marc:Like I got there and they're making these hot tortillas and
Marc:You know, so I just grabbed one and ate it.
Marc:But I didn't know that they were kind of making shapes with them or making things out of the tortillas.
Marc:So I just fucking wolfed down this tortilla of this group of kids I didn't know and a dumb art teacher or craft teacher.
Marc:And, you know, they finished making them and I already ate one.
Marc:And the teacher just goes, hey, who ate the elephant?
Marc:Who ate the elephant?
Marc:And I didn't know that we were making art with the tortillas.
Marc:I just wanted to eat a tortilla.
Marc:And I fucking ate the elephant.
Marc:I ate it.
Marc:Did I say that I ate it?
Marc:I don't think I did.
Marc:I just sat there like an idiot, knowing I ate the elephant.
Marc:And listen to how I talk about that kid.
Marc:Fucking guy, I didn't know.
Marc:I walked into it.
Marc:I was hungry.
Marc:I was chubby.
Marc:I just want to eat a fucking tortilla.
Marc:Who ate the elephant?
Marc:I guess I did.
Marc:I guess I didn't know.
Marc:I didn't know we were making art.
Marc:I just was hungry.
Marc:I don't like the way my mom makes food.
Marc:I ate the elephant.
Marc:It was me.
Marc:What are you going to do to me?
Marc:Are you going to shame me for being an elephant eater?
Marc:Don't bother.
Marc:I'm on it.
Marc:I'm on it.
Marc:I have to assume that the reason I'm being so hard on myself retroactively, it's because I'm going to start shooting today on this movie.
Marc:And it's been a while since I've been on a set.
Marc:It's been a while since I've acted.
Marc:I don't always feel like I can, but I went out there on Friday to their location to get a COVID test and to also do this still photo for this set.
Marc:And I met my daughter and my granddaughter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was great.
Marc:It was kind of interesting, like that feeling of driving onto a set of getting ready to do the work.
Marc:That's why I fucking I cannot stand people that condescend to the business of filmmaking or TV making or just sort of like you Hollywood types, you actor.
Marc:It's like you get to a set, you drive up, you see the sign, the little coded sign.
Marc:pointing to where you go to base camp and there's a security guy there tells you where to go and you just see that you see it all happening man you see the trucks you see people scrambling with lights you see people you know you see extras sitting six feet apart uh over by catering you just see the trailers you just see like this whole little universe
Marc:of work on all levels, you know, coming down from the director to the actor, the gaffer to the lights, the electricians to, you know, PAs, hair, makeup.
Marc:It's a little city of employment and of creativity.
Marc:And it was kind of great driving onto one and realizing like this, I understand this.
Marc:I haven't been on one of these in a while, but like somehow or another, I've done a lot of this in the last decade.
Marc:And you just feel your body or my body.
Marc:I felt my body just switching into like, all right, we're going to do the work.
Marc:We're going to tell a story.
Marc:We're going to make a movie.
Marc:I'm going to make a guy up that's probably kind of like me.
Marc:And I don't know how that guy's going to interact with these other made-up people, but that might be fun.
Marc:So I'm trying to get it in my brain that it's going to be exciting and fun.
Marc:Maybe it will be.
Marc:But goddamn, I beat myself up.
Marc:And I'm trying to figure out how to stop that.
Marc:I think that's been the journey.
Marc:The one man's war against embarrassment.
Marc:I mean, when you think about it, what is the one thing you can do to try to fight embarrassment is get on stage and try to make people laugh.
Marc:You're going to beat it out of you.
Marc:After a certain point, you know, you don't it doesn't matter if they're laughing with you or at you.
Marc:You can probably control either of those after a certain point with a certain skill set with a little craft.
Marc:My mother was one of the most embarrassing people I knew.
Marc:She embarrassed me constantly and she made me feel like I was embarrassing.
Marc:I'm not mad at her for it.
Marc:I guess it was a gift.
Marc:If my mother didn't make me feel like a mediocre, chubby piece of shit through most of my life, and if she didn't do things in front of other people that made me embarrassed, I might not have the amazing career I have today in my war against embarrassment.
Marc:But I don't care anymore.
Marc:See, I think that's also what's happening, is that...
Marc:I've been doing a lot of the Instagram lives, which are kind of interesting because I speak freely and I also do things that I wouldn't do on a stand up stage or in front of people live necessarily, even on television.
Marc:I sing.
Marc:I speak in a tone that's a little more candid.
Marc:There's just something about engaging in that process that's kind of helped me accept more of who I am.
Marc:And who I was.
Marc:And after coming out of those, that makes me feel a little exposed.
Marc:But I think it's going to help ultimately.
Marc:I think it's all about dragging that fucking chubby kid into the present and just making him sit uncomfortably with himself within me while we meditate.
Marc:So listen, Zach Braff, he's in a new movie.
Marc:It's called The Comeback Trail with Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman.
Marc:It's set to come out sometime next year, so look for that.
Marc:He hosts the podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends with his scrub co-star, Donald Faison.
Marc:You can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Marc:And I didn't know what to expect.
Marc:I knew he was probably a good guy, but...
Marc:But I was like, I want to meet him, though.
Marc:And he wants to meet me.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:We had a great talk.
Marc:Great guy.
Marc:New Jersey.
Marc:He actually talks like a New Jerseyan.
Marc:A New Jersey native with the real New Jersey accent.
Marc:Real New Jersey accent.
Marc:And he reminded me of some of my relatives.
Marc:So this is me talking to Zach Braff.
Zach Braff.
Guest:I pictured you in your garage.
Guest:It looks like you got a fancy setup.
Marc:This is a garage that's a fancy setup.
Marc:I moved, and the garage was sort of built into a room, and then I had to make it into a house, kind of.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:So it's not really a studio.
Marc:It's more of a house, and I've got sound panels up so the noise doesn't bounce around.
Guest:Hold on.
Guest:Let me get the squeaky toy away from my puppy.
Guest:Stand by.
Guest:No.
Marc:How old is that puppy?
Guest:I got a 10-month-old puppy that's just been spayed two days ago, so she's got a big foam thing around her neck, and she's pissed off, and I have to constantly be apologizing to her.
Marc:You just got the puppy.
Marc:Did you have a dog, another dog?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I just lost a dog I had for 17 years, a little guy named Roscoe.
Guest:I had to put him down, which is the first time I've ever had to do anything like that.
Guest:But it was clear that it was time.
Guest:He was blind and deaf and starting to have seizures.
Marc:I do that with a couple of cats in the last year to 16 year old cats.
Marc:It's the worst.
Guest:It's really horrible.
Guest:I mean, I'd seen the movies, but I'd never done the hold the thing you love most in the world while they inject death medicine into it.
Marc:It's terrible, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was clear it had to be done.
Guest:It wasn't one of those things.
Guest:I was shocked it was the day, because I brought him in to be like, why is he having so many seizures?
Guest:And the vet, beautiful sweetheart of a guy, said, you know, he said exactly what he needed to say.
Guest:It was like, what...
Guest:what's your plan for this animal?
Guest:This animal is, is, is, is, it's not really fair anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and, and that kind of really hit, I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was that day, you know?
Guest:And, uh, and so, um, we just did it.
Guest:We, we, we, we, uh, we, we, you know, we went in and said our goodbyes and then did it.
Marc:Yeah, I had the same experience.
Marc:The first, like, I've been through a few cats, but these last two, like, I just wanted to be there, you know, for it.
Marc:And, like, in both times, I went to the vet thinking, like, well, we'll see, but there's probably a good chance this is it, like, knowing in my guts.
Marc:Like, even with the last guy, Monkey, you know, the vet was like, look, we could give him this and that, and, you know, he'd probably live a little longer, but what are we doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you come sometimes need in all aspects of your life.
Guest:The person who goes, what are you doing?
Marc:And if a vet says it, it's like it's not in their best interest financially to tell you to.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:So that's a good vet that says you sometimes need someone to push you over the edge and sort of see the thing you're not seeing.
Guest:I mean, here's this 17 year old animal who's blind and deaf and having seizures, you know, but you're, you know, I'm holding on for me, not for the animal.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And it's weird because I was sitting there going, what am I holding out for?
Marc:I mean, what do I think is going to happen?
Marc:After a certain point, it's like, they're not going to get better.
Marc:They're old.
Guest:He's going to wake up and be like, wait a minute.
Guest:I'm fine.
Guest:But that's what you're really... But you know what he did?
Guest:When they brought him in, so they say he was really just on death's door, and they said, okay, say your goodbye, and we'll come in and give the medicine when you're ready.
Guest:So we were hugging him, and we're kissing him, and we go, okay, it's time.
Guest:They come in.
Guest:The doctor comes in.
Guest:He stands up and starts wagging his tail.
Guest:And we're like, what are you doing, dude?
Guest:You're not helping us at all.
Marc:Oh, exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But that but it gets to that point where it's like, well, they had a good day.
Marc:They had a good hour.
Marc:Look, he's walking like he used to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what you're holding on to.
Marc:And it's crazy.
Marc:It's a crazy lesson.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, but, you know, it's like I think you and I have had a lot of loss in this last year.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's like brutal.
Yeah.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It is.
Guest:I've lost... In the last couple of years, I lost my father, who was 84 and at least of old age.
Guest:I lost my sister to an aneurysm.
Guest:And I just lost my friend to COVID.
Guest:So I've had a lot of death in my life.
Guest:And during this insane pandemic time, it's been a real challenge for mental health.
Yeah.
Marc:I know.
Marc:You know, like, obviously, I was following the stories about your friend Nick because it became sort of a...
Marc:You know, just the focus of what the disease was, what could possibly happen was sort of hanging on, you know, the public case of his, you know, hospitalization and you showing up for him.
Marc:And and it's just, you know, my my girlfriend died of something else.
Guest:I know I had met I had met Lynn.
Guest:I was lucky enough.
Guest:I was lucky enough to have met her.
Marc:And it's just like, you know, I don't want to, you know, I don't want us to both end up crying too much.
Marc:But but yeah, but it's very hard to sort of find your way through it.
Marc:And you had his wife and kid there, too, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we don't have to go down the whole rabbit hole, but just the cliff notes are that they had they were falling in love with L.A.
Guest:They wanted to live in Laurel Canyon.
Guest:You know, he loved rock and roll and the history of Laurel Canyon and rock and roll.
Guest:And that was their dream.
Marc:How did you know him?
Guest:We did a Broadway show together.
Guest:We did Woody Allen Turn Bullets Over Broadway, the movie, into a big musical.
Guest:And everybody thought it was going to be an enormous hit.
Guest:And he was the Chaz Palminteri character, and I was the John Cusack character.
Guest:And it was the most fun I ever had in my life.
Guest:It wasn't a huge critical success, so it didn't last that long.
Guest:But the friendships that I made there, one with him and then with the...
Guest:he fell in love with on the show, a dancer named Amanda.
Guest:They became my best friends.
Guest:And they decided to move out to LA, and I have a guest house in my yard.
Guest:So I said, guys, you know, don't pay me a dime.
Guest:Live here while you search.
Guest:Live here for six, seven months while you figure out LA.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it's win-win.
Guest:You guys get to live for free and look around, and I get to have two of my best friends and their baby in my yard.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they were just, you know...
Guest:adorable and happy and new baby and looking for houses and just on cloud nine and they found a house um yeah and uh and that he went home to pack into they both went home to pack and he must have contracted it while in new york um jesus and he came back and had a very quick um very quickly needed to be hospitalized and
Guest:So right after it all went down, I had them in my home.
Guest:So my girlfriend and I and friends in the neighborhood became the—she didn't have her family here.
Guest:Her family couldn't travel.
Guest:We became the support group, the community for her.
Guest:And everyone in the neighborhood and all of our friends just became her family until her family could actually come and help as well.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:That's so heavy.
Marc:And where is she now?
Marc:She go home or—
Guest:She, no, she's staying in the house.
Guest:You know, she was, of course, debating, as anyone would, do I want to live in this house that we just bought?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But she's decided to stay and she loves it here and she knows that Nick would want her to be here.
Guest:So she's staying.
Guest:She's, you know, running her business to try and keep everything afloat.
Guest:And of course, you know, I'm here to help them if they need anything.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's like this time is so brutal and to be saddled with grief and the reflection that the time you have to sit in it is it's profound on one level.
Marc:And I think it's probably.
Guest:uh a very pure form of grief but on another level it's just you know with the world weighing down on you on top of the grief it's like holy shit and then and then i don't know about you but i'm i i it's almost like cutting how much i read the the news and the politics and and watch everything and
Guest:It's, you know, one could choose I'm not that person to not engage so much in the political discourse.
Guest:But that almost is harder.
Guest:I can't turn my eye to it.
Guest:So I feel like I'm torturing myself.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's just like crushing.
Marc:It's like I can't breathe some days, dude.
Marc:I can't breathe.
Marc:It's like it's taking the wind out of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm exhausted.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And it's fucked up.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:I don't know what to do.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:What can you do?
Guest:Does my fucking retweet on Twitter mean anything?
Guest:No, I don't think it does.
Guest:I'm just preaching to the choir and the people who fucking are MAGA and already hate me are just going to unfollow me or say something shitty.
Guest:So I don't know.
Guest:I think you're just screaming.
Guest:And I once got to sit with David Seamus, who runs Obama's foundation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just one of the smartest men.
Guest:I wish he'd run for president one day, but he said absolutely no fucking way.
Guest:But he's just a genius.
Guest:And he said, you know, this whole social media thing, it's, you know, a lot of it, he said, is just screaming into your own echo chamber.
Guest:It's sort of pointless.
Guest:It might rally a few people that may not have been rallied, but you're not changing anybody's minds.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And most of the time you're just making it worse.
Marc:You're just giving yourself a reason to get more angry because I don't know how sensitive you are, but trolls are trolls and you learn how to deal with it and shut it off and not engage.
Marc:But it's like every time you put one of those things out in the world, you're like, oh, here it comes.
Marc:Here comes something that's going to punch me.
Marc:But I'll just like I'll try to I'll try to be above it.
Guest:Right, but that's impossible because they know how to hit you and they know how to get you engaged and they know how to get you upset.
Marc:How do they get you upset?
Marc:What's your button?
Guest:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:They just, they'll say, you know, oh, this is why I don't watch your shitty movies or this is why, you know, this is why that movie you made is a piece of shit.
Guest:I mean, not that that riles me up because I know that's just an easy grab, but I...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I definitely can get riled by them.
Guest:And the thing I don't do anymore really is engage.
Guest:I don't I'll say what I say.
Guest:People write what they write.
Guest:If someone's horrible, I block them.
Guest:But I don't but I don't engage in a in a Twitter war anymore.
Guest:I've grown out of that.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Yeah, that's I think that's the first step to getting off it altogether.
Marc:I wish I had the fortitude.
Guest:Oh, dude, I've done breaks.
Guest:Just like alcohol.
Guest:I mean, I don't know if you drink or not.
Guest:I'm sober a long time.
Guest:Oh, you're sober.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:I knew that.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:I go through alcohol breaks when I'm like, hey, you're drinking a little too much.
Guest:And I want to prove to myself that I can, obviously.
Guest:Take a break.
Guest:I'll take a break.
Guest:Two, three months, whatever.
Guest:And I've done the same thing with Twitter because it's just as much of a fucking addiction as anything.
Marc:So you can shut your page down for what, you got two months before, or you never shut it down?
Guest:No, I don't shut it down, I just log out.
Guest:I don't turn the page off.
Guest:I'll just, I'll go through periods where, like I went to do a movie with Christopher Walken up in the middle of nowhere in Canada.
Guest:When was this?
Guest:Um, this was a year ago.
Guest:And, um, is it out?
Guest:Uh, it's coming out.
Guest:It's out in Canada and it's, it's a tiny little indie.
Guest:I'm sure it'll come out on, on streaming.
Guest:It's called Percy.
Guest:It's a, it's a true story about the, this tiny bumble fuck, uh, farmer who took on Monsanto.
Guest:Um,
Marc:And did you direct it or just act in it?
Guest:I just act in it.
Guest:I play his lawyer.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you're up there and you got off Twitter?
Guest:I went up there and I went, you know what?
Guest:If I'm on this bumblefuck, like, meth farm town and I'm drinking and I'm on Twitter and it's cold, I'm going to get depressed.
Guest:I just knew the ingredients.
Okay.
Marc:That's the cocktail for depression.
Marc:Neftown, drinking, cold and dark.
Guest:I'm very affected by the weather.
Guest:So if it's like cold and rainy and I'm drinking too much and I'm reading too much Twitter, it sounds like a horrible recipe.
Guest:So I committed to myself.
Guest:I was there for two weeks, three weeks.
Guest:No booze, no Twitter.
Guest:And I'm going to work out.
Guest:And it made a big difference.
Guest:I didn't get melancholic.
Marc:Did you do the working out?
Marc:yeah working out is key for me in mental health i i i in order to stay keep my serotonin level above a above the right in in the right green zone i need to work out i've been doing it too i mean i've been doing it more more diligently now like and i'm old i mean how i'm i'm 57 and i'm working out like circuit training three days a week and hiking two days a week and i'm always fucking sore yeah but i don't know what it would be like if i didn't do that
Guest:But dude, you know you feel much better when you're doing it.
Guest:Yeah, it's a self-esteem thing.
Guest:It's a serotonin thing.
Guest:It's a dopamine thing.
Marc:Do you have serotonin problems?
Guest:Yeah, I have had throughout times in my life.
Marc:Like real depression?
Guest:Not like bedridden, but definitely I've been on antidepressants at times in my life for just feeling like... But I have...
Guest:Lots of psychologists in my family.
Guest:So none of that was ever frowned upon or looked down upon.
Guest:So, yeah, there's been times in my life I've had some periods of feeling really, really, really low.
Guest:And then sort of used SSRIs, antidepressants, to sort of get myself above water, almost like a crutch.
Marc:Put a little floor down.
Guest:Yeah, just get out of a hole.
Guest:And, you know, sometimes it's triggered by a death or sometimes it's triggered by, you know, sometimes the scary ones are triggered by nothing.
Guest:Or, you know, you can work on what is the source of this.
Guest:But, you know, probably the scariest one time I've been down is like, my life is pretty amazing right now.
Guest:What is going on?
Guest:You know?
Marc:Yeah, it's fucked up.
Marc:Brains are fucked up.
Guest:That's the scary one.
Marc:It's so funny.
Marc:I talked to you and like, you know, my family's from Jersey.
Marc:I can hear Jersey.
Marc:I can hear it.
Marc:You have a real Jersey accent.
Marc:People say I have a little one, but I don't have I don't think I have one.
Guest:It's certain words are stronger.
Guest:And of course, when I talk to my family, it gets stronger.
Guest:But, you know, words like coffee, dog, talk.
Guest:My sister used to be like, oh, my God, you guys, we got to get chocolate because I took the dog on a walk.
Guest:It's so specific.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's very North Jersey.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's really not New York.
Marc:It's really its own thing.
Guest:Which Jersey did you grow up in?
Guest:South Orange.
Guest:It's right next to Newark, about 45 minutes from Manhattan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:right i grew up i i'm from my family's was in jersey city my father's family mother's family's in morris county i think yeah uh you know wayne we're wayne or that's all around me i you know we we grew up um you know the commuter train was 30 minutes to manhattan so right we we uh you know we were we thought of ourselves as a suburb of manhattan because we weren't really going to newark for anything um
Marc:Well, when you were growing up, Newark was not, there was nothing there to go there for.
Guest:There was nothing there to go to, and it was scary to us.
Guest:It was like, it was a tough city that we'd heard about, but there was no reason to ever go there.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was the opposite of, it was the polar opposite of Manhattan.
Guest:Manhattan was like, oh my God, we get to go to the big city.
Guest:Holy shit.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're going to go see plays.
Guest:We're going to go, we're going to go to exciting things.
Guest:We're going to, you know, we're going to go to an adventure.
Guest:No one was ever like, we're going to Newark on an adventure.
Marc:So how did you grow up?
Marc:Because I met – I didn't realize that Jessica Curzon was your half-sister, stepsister.
Guest:She's my stepsister, yeah.
Guest:So my parents – my father married her mother when I was 13.
Guest:And, you know, she was always –
Guest:Class clown of the family class clown, hilarious.
Guest:And she wasn't, she went to college and didn't, she was going to be a social worker.
Guest:And then, but everyone, she was so funny.
Guest:Everyone kept saying, you got it.
Guest:You should do standup.
Guest:And I've watched her career go from those things that we, where you had to bring people and we had to buy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Four drinks and all that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:With like two people in the audience to a billboard of her with her with her time, with her in Times Square with her special that Bill Burr produced.
Guest:I've watched that whole evolution happen for her.
Guest:And there's nobody I know that works harder.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I love her.
Marc:She's she's hilarious.
Marc:She's a real character.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So.
Marc:So how many kids?
Marc:So.
Marc:OK.
Marc:So your parents got divorced when you were like 11 or 12.
Guest:My parents got divorced when I was eight or so.
Guest:And then my father started dating.
Guest:And it was very bizarre.
Guest:We did joint custody.
Guest:So my mom moved in with a man she was seeing.
Guest:And she had a house.
Guest:And then my father moved in with no one.
Guest:But he got an apartment.
Guest:But he had fought hard for joint custody.
Guest:And he won it.
Guest:So we did a week and a week.
Guest:Every Sunday night, there were four kids.
Guest:Oldest went off to college.
Guest:Second oldest was like, I'm 16.
Guest:I'm not doing this bullshit.
Guest:But me and my sister would go every Sunday.
Guest:We'd switch homes.
Guest:They were both in the same school district.
Guest:And we'd pack up all our shit and move every Sunday.
Guest:It was horrible.
Marc:So your dad had the sad divorce department and your mom had the house?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:My dad had this sad divorce apartment.
Guest:And even more bizarre, and I got to put this in a movie one day.
Guest:So my dad was dating and was back out on the market and was a trial attorney, very busy.
Guest:So we needed a full-time nanny, this Haitian woman named Jocelyn, who also had a young daughter.
Guest:She must have been six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so in the apartment, we would, they would sleep on the, she and her daughter would sleep on the fold-out couch in the living room.
Guest:My sister and I would share a bedroom and my father would be in the other bedroom, sometimes with whatever, uh,
Guest:woman he was hanging out with.
Marc:It's a real party.
Guest:It was a packed apartment and it was kind of insane.
Marc:But that's so funny because he had the nanny because he didn't want to let you guys stay at your mother's more than you.
Marc:that she deserved in his mind.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And then so he's out working and then dating and we're packed into this house.
Guest:It was a very surreal time.
Guest:I hated it really because every Sunday we would pretty much cry because we'd gotten attached to that parent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you'd move and then you'd be grumpy and melancholic.
Guest:And then about Wednesday, you'd be settled.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I mean, I really think it's a source of anxiety for me as an adult still, because it was, you know, without like clockwork on Sunday, something traumatic was going to happen.
Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You knew it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Separation anxiety.
Guest:Yeah, because you do bond with that parent.
Guest:And they had very different lifestyles.
Guest:My mom was living with this man who she's still married to, who was a psychologist.
Guest:And they were homebodies, and they were sort of hippies a bit.
Guest:And my dad was like, you know, we're going out.
Guest:We're going to a restaurant with this new flight attendant I met.
Guest:And this is Cheryl.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Guest:your dad was the traditional midlife crisis guy oh yeah I mean he was a master at seducing flight attendants Wow I remember there were always like uniforms hung on the on the back of his bedroom door of like the woman he'd met on on the plane that trip and just the sort of like fucked up boundaries of that do you know what I mean like now
Marc:Like I've in my life, I've dated a woman with a kid and it's sort of like, you know, I don't want to meet the kid for six months.
Marc:I, you know, like, you know what I mean?
Marc:It's like, it's not fair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, if you're going to build a relationship with somebody, because then like, God, what if he had gotten attached to one of them?
Guest:We did.
Guest:There was plenty of time we did get attached to them.
Marc:And then they go away.
Marc:And then he decided it was over.
Marc:And then you'd be, you know, that's more anxiety.
Guest:We, there were definitely ones we liked more than others.
Guest:And then eventually the good news is eventually he found the woman who my dad needed therapy and goes without saying at this point, he eventually started dating a therapist who was incredible.
Guest:And we kids loved her because not only was she so fun and, and beautiful and amazing, but she was also saying, listen,
Guest:If you want this to be real, you got to start doing some work on yourself because, you know, I'm not going to I'm not going to commit to to you being the way you are now.
Guest:So she started and he was he was starting to fall in love.
Guest:And this was the one.
Guest:And he was with her.
Guest:He was with her till the day he died.
Guest:Jessica's mother.
Guest:Sorry, putting it all together.
Guest:Jessica's mother.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So she kind of like was like we it's like the six million dollar man.
Guest:Like we have the technology.
Guest:We will rebuild him.
Guest:And she turned him into a much more mentally healthy man.
Marc:They both ended up with therapists.
Guest:Oh, you understand.
Guest:My mom is a psychologist.
Guest:My stepfather is a psychologist.
Guest:My stepmother is a therapist.
Guest:My father was a lawyer who thought he was like a marriage counselor.
Guest:We were surrounded by all four of them analyzing and weighing in on everything.
Marc:And there was like four kids.
Marc:You have three brothers and sisters.
Marc:And then there was how many stepbrothers and sisters?
Guest:So I had in the original plan, there were two brothers and an adopted sister.
Guest:She has since passed.
Guest:When they got remarried, on my dad's side, I gained two stepsisters, including Jessica Kirsten.
Guest:And then on my mom's side, I gained a stepmother.
Guest:So there were seven of us total.
Marc:And was this a Jewish undertaking?
Guest:Yes, very Jewy.
Guest:The Jew was strong.
Marc:Really?
Marc:How strong?
Guest:Well, when we grew up, before I got divorced, I grew up kosher, conservative.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Here's an interesting thing.
Guest:My dad was religious and felt my mom was not Jewish.
Guest:And he said, look, I'm in love with you, but I can't marry a non-Jew.
Guest:Will you have an orthodox conversion?
Guest:That means like a no fucking around, like real conversion.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not like, here's sign here, now you're Jewish.
Guest:Like she had to go do the work and study with rabbis.
Guest:Once a week classes.
Guest:All this stuff.
Guest:But my mom was in love and she didn't have any connection to Protestantism.
Guest:And so she did it.
Guest:And then I think this happens with a lot of people who find a religion later in life.
Guest:She was like...
Guest:I'm all in.
Guest:And then she ended up making him more Jewish.
Guest:He wasn't kosher originally.
Guest:That happens a lot.
Guest:Yeah, she was like, this is amazing.
Guest:But if we're going to do it, let's do it.
Guest:And so they became kosher.
Guest:He became president of the temple.
Guest:They got very, very into it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And their whole community was the temple.
Marc:That happens a lot, though, with converts.
Marc:They become more Jew-y.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because usually Jews, like middle-class American Jews, are like, I'm a Jew.
Marc:Could you be a Jew?
Marc:But they're not really... They just grew up Jewish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's funny.
Guest:I think a lot of people...
Guest:I had a bar mitzvah.
Guest:We were kosher for a time, but we weren't going to temple regularly once I was... My father would get very religious around the high holy days.
Guest:That's when he really wanted to flex his Jewishness.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you didn't stick with it, really?
Marc:I didn't.
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I mean, I relate to the, I love the food.
Guest:I love the comedy.
Guest:I love the traditions, the culture of it all.
Guest:The inside jokes.
Guest:Woody Allen, even though, you know, I know we're not allowed to talk about Woody Allen anymore, but I was raised on Woody Allen.
Guest:I was raised on Mel Brooks.
Guest:I was raised on Jewish humor.
Guest:That I love.
Marc:But the spiritual element, like, you know, for me,
Marc:Like, it comes down to, you know, what about that God, you know, and what about the context of the Jewish God?
Marc:Like, I don't, to be honest with you, I don't know enough about it.
Marc:And I never followed any of the rules.
Marc:I never understood the prayers.
Marc:You know, even on my, you know, Haftorah and all the, I don't know any of it in English.
Marc:So, like, I don't, I never was, I never had that relationship.
Marc:It seems like people who grow up with Jesus, it's pretty simple to understand.
Marc:The Jewish God, on the other hand.
Guest:They have their bullet points down better.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's true.
Guest:And the iconography is clear.
Marc:Very clear and very practical to them.
Marc:Ours, I'm not sure what our relationship is or who we are.
Guest:We need better branding.
Guest:We need better branding and marketing.
Marc:Yeah, that's for sure.
Marc:It's a little vague.
Guest:I mean, I act like we, like I'm trying to recruit.
Guest:I mean, it is a little vague.
Guest:But I didn't know – I grew up in North Jersey –
Guest:where there were a lot of Jews.
Guest:I went to, then spent time in Manhattan, then went to school outside Chicago, then moved to LA.
Guest:I've always been in communities that had a lot of Jews.
Guest:I was shocked when I learned we were like 2% of the population and shrinking because I was always in communities with lots of Jews.
Marc:Yeah, our generation's fucking it up.
Marc:Your generation, my generation, the one after, they want nothing to do with it.
Marc:It's not that important to them.
Marc:They don't even know what the food is anymore.
Marc:They don't have that grandparent that's first generation anymore.
Guest:Right, that's true.
Guest:I believe that.
Marc:So now...
Marc:With all this chaos outside of anxiety, did you find that you had other psychological problems with all these psychologists in your family?
Guest:I think I was depressed.
Guest:I had some OCD.
Guest:I was definitely doing some of the tapping stuff that OCD kids do.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So it's a control thing.
Marc:It's a little chaotic.
Guest:This is what I remember as a child.
Guest:And I'm sure there's people listening who either are still doing this or did this.
Guest:But I remember thinking...
Guest:i need to kiss that teddy bear goodbye six times if i don't do it i'm not positive something bad will happen but it might so just to cover my bases and be safe i'm gonna kiss the teddy bear six times the weird thing about that type of thinking is like that you decided that the teddy bear kissing was the thing
Guest:that well that's an example it could be there was a myriad of things but i'm saying that was what i remember no i get it i get it but i it's curious what those choices are to to guarantee your safety for the rest of the day right but i convinced myself as a child that i even as a child i knew this is ridiculous zach but just to be safe why not it's just kind of it's actually kind of like praying for people it's like i don't know if i necessarily believe in this but just to cover my bases i'm gonna pray to god
Marc:No, I did a joke about that, about OCD requires its ritual.
Marc:And there's ritual to it that you find comfort in.
Marc:So it's not, you know, I think that some religions, especially the more complicated ones, are organized OCD around, you know, the ritual element is.
Guest:Comfort, comfort.
Guest:I've covered my bases.
Guest:It's funny, though, that I guess in the OCD realm, you yourself and your own soul are making up what the tenets of the religion are.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Right.
Marc:I used to do a bit about the positive side of OCD is that every time you go back to check to see if you turn the gas off—
Marc:You know, every time that it's off, you get that same bit of relief that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like, yeah, that's not nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a dopamine hit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, yeah, I did some of that stuff and I grew out of that.
Guest:And I but it's funny.
Guest:I remember a psychiatrist when I was a child telling my parents, you know, this he'll grow out of some of this, but some of this he'll be will he'll be dealing with his whole life.
Marc:And what was it?
Guest:I'm just thinking it is a form of anxiety.
Guest:And I mean, every human being has anxiety.
Guest:I don't say that I'm normal anxiety.
Guest:I just mean, I think the OCD, I'm not tapping teddy bears anymore, tapping anything anymore.
Guest:But I think that the roots of it, which are some, you know, anxiety based are still aspects of my life.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I think I have and I've talked about a million times like I realized that I'm not really a depressive as much as I am as anxiety person.
Marc:Yeah, I give a lot of dread, you know, do you?
Guest:I'm sorry if you've spoken about this, but do you meditate?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:And I've been told to Lynn used to.
Marc:She was TM person twice a day or if not more.
Marc:And I, you know, I'm a sober guy and I know meditation is all part of it.
Marc:I just don't.
Marc:I don't know what it is, Zach, about my brain where it's like, I know that would probably be good.
Marc:Why not just try that?
Marc:You're exercising.
Marc:You're doing all this other stuff.
Marc:Why are you holding out?
Guest:You know what the thing is about when you reach our age, I'm 45.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think you know the things that are going to help or hurt you, right?
Guest:Sobriety has really helped you.
Guest:Exercise has really helped you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I have my things.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:I could lay out, in fact, I've done this.
Guest:I had a friend who was having like a breakdown and I said, all right, I'm going to write you a menu of what you need to do.
Guest:If you do this, I guarantee you, I'm not a psychologist, but I've been to plenty of therapy.
Guest:If you do this menu, you're going to take some leaps forward.
Guest:Obviously, go see someone professional, but here's a start.
Marc:What were they?
Marc:Exercise, diet?
Guest:I mean, in broad strokes, stop drinking, stop smoking weed, exercise every single day, meditate twice a day, journaling, writing everything down that you're stressed about, being in conversation with loved ones.
Guest:There were a few others, eating right.
Guest:He did every single one.
Guest:And then, of course, started seeing someone professional.
Guest:And now he's found true love and he's married and never been happier.
Guest:I'm not saying I saved his life.
Guest:I'm just saying I was a crisis counselor for a second.
Guest:That's all I'm saying.
Guest:That's a big list.
Guest:That's a lot to do.
Guest:No, but what my point is to you is that I was thinking that, you know, you and I have reached a point where we know what works for us.
Guest:And then, of course, there are things on top of that.
Guest:They're like the bonus things.
Guest:For me, it's meditate.
Guest:I know if I – I haven't done TM yet, but I just use one of the apps.
Guest:I know if I do that 20 minutes every morning –
Guest:five days a week, my anxiety is going to be noticeably less.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Can I always do that?
Guest:Do I sometimes go, oh, fuck it?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:But then if I'm anxious, I have to call myself out and go, dude, did you fucking exercise?
Guest:Did you drink too much?
Guest:Did you meditate?
Guest:Did you do the things on the checklist?
Guest:Because then you have to take 100% responsibility for your own mental health.
Marc:Yeah, and I've been jacking myself on coffee again.
Marc:I didn't drink coffee for a year.
Guest:That's another one.
Marc:that was another one on the list no cough no caffeine as i as i sit here drinking a red bull by the way i got an addictive brain so it's like i just do it all day until i'm exhausted can you sleep yeah i sleep all right yeah well i think if you've given up booze um in my humble opinion you should allow yourself some caffeine no i'm good so when did you start the uh performing business
Guest:My dad did community theater.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Jewish community theater?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Very Jewy community theater.
Guest:And he was good because he was a trial attorney, so he knew how to entertain a room full of people.
Marc:Did he play Tevye?
Guest:Pretty close.
Guest:He did...
Guest:He did Prisoner of Second Avenue, the Neil Simon play.
Guest:And then he did Hello, Dolly.
Guest:He was Horace Vandegilder.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And he was good.
Guest:He would get the leads because he was charming.
Guest:And so I was a little kid, and I'd go watch him do the plays.
Guest:And I'd be like, this is a job?
Guest:So you're saying some people don't just do this as their hobby.
Guest:This is a job you can have?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I just thought it was the most... I was watching my dad make 500 people laugh.
Guest:And I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Guest:How do I get into this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had no interest in sports at all.
Guest:Couldn't be less interested.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so when it came to camp, which is very big on the East Coast, especially for Jews...
Guest:They were like, you know, there are camps that aren't sports related, Zach.
Guest:There are theater camps where you go and like you perform and you take classes.
Guest:And I was into the tech theater too, like lighting and stage set building.
Guest:And he was like, you do all that.
Guest:You build sets and you do anything, stage combat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is right when video cameras were starting to become popular.
Guest:They even have video courses.
Guest:So I went there to a place called Stage Door Manor in upstate New York.
Guest:And it was utopia.
Guest:I had never been so happy in my whole life.
Marc:It was a summer camp.
Guest:It was a summer camp where you'd go for three-week intervals.
Guest:I went for six weeks.
Guest:Every three weeks, you'd be put in a show.
Guest:Every kid was put in a show.
Guest:And you'd rehearse the show and also take classes and also fall in love for the first time and also be up in the woods.
Guest:And then you'd start again the next three-week session, and your parents would come up at the end of each of the three weeks and see the plays.
Marc:Yeah, I went to camp every year.
Marc:I always wondered whether it was...
Marc:My parents wanting me to have new experiences or just wanting me out of the house.
Guest:It was never quite both.
Guest:Why can't it be both?
Marc:It can be both.
Marc:I went to an arts and music camp in Pennsylvania.
Marc:That was the best one.
Guest:What was it called?
Marc:Lighthouse.
Guest:OK, because there was another one called French Woods that was very popular, too.
Marc:This was in like Pottsville, it was in Pennsylvania, and it was mostly music.
Marc:And it was not, there wasn't theater.
Marc:It was all music and painting and photography and ceramics, but no theater that I can remember.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, mine was very musical theater,
Guest:Broadway kind of show based.
Guest:I mean, they did have non-musicals as well.
Marc:How many years did you go?
Guest:I went to two different camps.
Guest:I went for a total of four summers, but the one that I'm mentioning is because it was the most impactful I went to for two years.
Guest:And while I was there, and it was just, it was utopia because in public school, not playing sports, I had friends because I was a class clown and funny, I think.
Guest:Um, but I, but, but I couldn't get the girls cause they weren't that interested in me.
Guest:And, and just as right when puberty is really kind of kicking in and there I go to camp and I'm like, good.
Guest:So I'm getting the leads and I, and the, and keep in mind half the boys there are already realizing they're gay.
Guest:So it was like you, it was, I was like, oh, all the girls, like I, you know, I was dating like the, the popular girl and I'm the lead in the play.
Guest:I was like, I was the quarterback of the football team there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I never want to leave.
Guest:I would sob when it was time to leave.
Guest:So one because it was so close to Manhattan, two hours away, scouts would come up and and look at the kids and see.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Were there were there were there like a lot of like good actors there?
Guest:Well, yeah, plenty of other known actors besides me have gone there.
Guest:Robert Downey Jr.
Guest:went there, Nellie Portman, Josh Charles, Mandy Moore, John Cryer, a lot of a lot of.
Marc:So this was a high level.
Marc:This was a known place.
Guest:It's still to this day the most known if you're if you're going to send your kid to a to a program in the summer.
Marc:Oh, OK.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So the scouts come.
Guest:The scouts come up and they see like, hey, is there any talent for me to recruit to send on auditions in Manhattan?
Guest:And I got scouted and a manager started submitting me for auditions in the city.
Guest:My parents would bring me 13.
Marc:Do you remember your first girlfriend's name?
Guest:The first girl at camp was Lacey Tucker.
Guest:I was just smitten.
Guest:She was my first French kiss.
Guest:And I didn't really know what was happening.
Guest:I knew that there was going to be tongue involved, but I didn't really know what to do.
Guest:And she kind of took the lead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there it was.
Guest:And it was glorious.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The innocence of that first French kiss.
Guest:Oh, and I remember the bench, you know, because I've gone up since to see my nieces and nephews go to the camp now, and I've gone up and seen the bench.
Guest:It's just like, oh.
Marc:Where you had the French kiss?
Guest:Yeah, where the French kiss went down.
Guest:Oh.
Marc:Does it do anything?
Marc:Does nostalgia kick in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Guest:I'm very emotional when I'm there because it was such a... It was heaven to me, that place.
Guest:It was an escape from the family drama I've told you about.
Guest:It was an escape from anxiety.
Guest:It was an escape from feeling... I just didn't feel like I fit in at all at public school.
Guest:And then when I was there, it was magical.
Guest:And then, of course, like you said, I'm leaving out, I'm burying the lead.
Guest:I was performing and getting laughs and going, this is just so intoxicating.
Guest:I'm in.
Marc:And when the manager took you on, what were you going out for?
Marc:Did you get anything?
Guest:Oh, I mean, went out for like a lot of famous movies.
Guest:They got callbacks on like Big and Parenthood.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:I remember meeting Ron Howard for Parenthood because I got a number of callbacks.
Guest:I met Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July.
Guest:Lots of things like this.
Guest:I actually got a film called The Good Son, which was going to change my life because it was a lead in a movie, and then the movie got shelved.
Guest:They later made it with Elijah Miller.
Guest:Wood and Macaulay Culkin, I believe.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So a lot of things were happening.
Guest:And then I got a pilot for CBS.
Guest:Bruce Paltrow, who had created St.
Guest:Elsewhere, made a pilot called High, which was supposed to be his big new show about a high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was going to be gritty.
Guest:It was the same year 90210 came out, and Bruce Paltrow's answer to that was, no, we're going to do the opposite of the glossy soap opera version.
Guest:We're going to do a gritty, like, Hill Street Blues, but a high school in Jersey version.
Guest:And it was Gwyneth Paltrow's first job.
Guest:She was his daughter, and she was the beautiful cheerleader, and I was the sort of nerdy freshman.
Guest:And...
Guest:And we shot it in Jersey and I couldn't believe it.
Guest:I thought my life was going to change.
Guest:And then they didn't pick it up.
Guest:And I was like, what do you mean you're not picking it up?
Guest:I have a gift bag.
Guest:I have a gift basket.
Guest:It says I have a card that says welcome to the CBS family.
Guest:I didn't know that pilots didn't get picked up.
Guest:I thought I thought.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:So that's like you had to learn like that's like you had to learn that.
Guest:I learned that at 14.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:because like they they almost always never get picked up yeah i didn't i didn't i remember not understanding how would you how would you know i didn't understand and i was so high profile it was like a big budget thing and this was a famous showrunner and i was like what do you mean i don't get it yeah how is this possible but i think it was such a blessing in disguise because i i i would not have have accomplished the things i've accomplished i don't think had i been a like a full-fledged successful child actor
Marc:No, probably not.
Marc:I mean, so what happened after that?
Guest:I kept auditioning for a bunch of things, and then I didn't really get much, kind of checked out a little bit.
Guest:You know, it was tough because I was a teenager, and then it would take me an hour to get in.
Guest:I'd go sit in a waiting room.
Guest:Sometimes I'd go in and be like, thank you.
Guest:And then it'd take an hour to get home while all my friends are hanging out and swimming in pools and pulling bong hits and hooking up with each other.
Guest:I was on a New Jersey transit train going in for a 30-second audition.
Guest:So I started to get a little demoralized by it.
Guest:Then when I was 18, Woody Allen cast me in Manhattan Murder Mystery.
Guest:I am in one scene in the film, but I play his and Diane Keaton's son.
Guest:Um, and, uh, and that was like, oh shit, maybe I should be paying attention to this because I just got a, I got, it's a small part, but I just got a part in a very high profile thing, but I had gotten into Northwestern film school.
Guest:So I had to choose, okay, fork in the road.
Guest:Are you going to stay in Manhattan and ride this?
Guest:You just got a part in a Woody Allen movie, or are you going to say, fuck it and go off and study?
Guest:What I really wanted to do was study filmmaking and acting at Northwestern.
Guest:And so that's what I did.
Marc:So you went there all four years?
Guest:I went there four years, yeah.
Guest:Studied filmmaking, made short films, just did anything.
Guest:Anything pretty much that wasn't filmmaking or acting related, I was mildly interested in.
Guest:I mean, it was a liberal arts education, so I studied lots of things.
Guest:I had to.
Guest:And of course...
Guest:made amazing friendships and and had had my first true love and all those wonderful college things um but but really um you know focused on filmmaking and making movies that's what you wanted to do yeah i think i kind of got clear like i had seen because i'd had this experience i'd seen so many actors that were good that were barely surviving sure um
Guest:I had an education because of my exposure that showed me this is such a fucking lottery.
Guest:I mean, I'm sitting next to these actors who are chain smoking.
Guest:They need this pilot because they got to pay their mortgage.
Guest:And it scared me.
Guest:At a very young age, it scared me.
Guest:And I said, I love to act and I want to act, but that's such a fucking lottery.
Guest:I'm not investing in that.
Guest:I'm going to invest in making my own stuff.
Marc:You had that realization at what age?
Guest:In my teens.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You were able to see that?
Guest:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:Because I would go do play readings.
Guest:You do play readings for anyone listening who doesn't know.
Guest:They're trying to see if they're going to do this play.
Guest:They don't pay you anything.
Guest:You just go and you read the play.
Guest:I would go do that.
Guest:And let's say I was 15 years old.
Guest:And I'd sit across from an actor who was giving the performance in this play like I had never fucking seen another actor give in my life.
Guest:And you'd never seen them.
Guest:And you never knew who they were.
Guest:And they had no money.
Guest:And that scared the shit out of me.
Guest:I was like, this isn't a meritocracy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I always say, obviously, if you're genius, you've bought a lot of lottery tickets.
Guest:And if you happen to be also good looking, you've bought even more lottery tickets.
Guest:But it's still a fucking lottery.
Guest:And I didn't want to be reliant on that.
Guest:No, it makes sense.
Guest:But it's good that you had that realization young.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I knew if I got the education in filmmaking and producing and making stuff, if my number doesn't come up as an actor, I'll produce movies.
Guest:I'll make movies.
Guest:I'll be a cinematographer.
Guest:I'll be a first AD.
Guest:My backup won't be being an orthodontist.
Guest:I knew that I was going to somehow be in production.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But how does Scrubs happen?
Marc:That changes fucking everything, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's a bit of a jump.
Guest:I went back to Manhattan after school and started PA-ing on a route video.
Marc:So you made the movie before that, huh?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:First, I went to Manhattan and started...
Guest:doing what a lot of kids do out of film school i was paying and this is the height of video music videos right so it's like this is like 97 people are making like seven million dollar music videos right and a lot of them are shooting in manhattan and i worked on a lot of those and that kind of was a continuing education i got to see production firsthand and be a grunt
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kept auditioning, not much happening.
Guest:And then my very first job I get as an actor is in the public theater in Manhattan's production of Macbeth with Angela Bassett, Alec Baldwin, Liev Schreiber, Michael C. Hall-
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, George C. Wolfe directing, huge theater director.
Guest:I've interviewed him.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:He's a legend.
Guest:And so that was my first job.
Guest:And I had really gotten a lot out of Shakespeare in college.
Guest:I had a professor that really opened my eyes to Shakespeare.
Guest:So I had a great audition for George.
Guest:And my first job was playing the two young characters in Macbeth.
Guest:And I had a giant broadsword duel with Alec Baldwin and...
Guest:It was thrilling.
Marc:What was your experience at that?
Marc:How old were you, 20?
Guest:I must have been right out of college, 21.
Marc:21, and you're dealing with Alec and you're dealing with these huge actors.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was it overwhelming?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Alec was scary.
Guest:Alec's a scary fucking dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was always nice to me, but he was very intimidating.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But to be operating at that level at that age, you're really in it.
Guest:at that point you must have thought like well acting's pretty good i i yeah first of all i'd never been paid i mean i've been paid a little bit for the kid things i'd done but this was like i was fresh out of college and doing pa rate which was like 100 bucks a day yeah so all of a sudden even though it was theater it was equity it was like a weekly check i was my self-esteem shot up because i was like not only am i in a play but i'm getting a regular check for acting this is cool yeah and um
Guest:You know, Liev Schreiber is inarguably, I think, the best Shakespearean, American Shakespearean actor.
Guest:Alec was great, don't get me wrong, but I think even he would say watching Liev play Banquo in the show was like grad school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because he's just a phenomenal, phenomenal Shakespearean actor.
Guest:That was one of the coolest things I took from it, just getting to watch.
Guest:I learned so much from watching him and Michael C. Hall, obviously.
Guest:Then I started to get a little traction.
Guest:I did a little indie.
Guest:called Getting to Know You.
Guest:Then I did a film called The Broken Hearts Club, Greg Berlany's first feature film.
Guest:It was about a bunch of gay friends living in West Hollywood.
Guest:And by this point, I'd followed a girl out to L.A.,
Guest:which was a debacle, and I was waiting tables at a French-Vietnamese restaurant called Le Colonial.
Guest:I remember that place.
Guest:Yes, it's now, if you know where the Leica store is.
Marc:It's over at Beverly Hills, right?
Guest:It's over on- Yeah, do you know where the, there's a giant Leica store that's Beverly and Robertson.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That used to be it.
Marc:Yeah, I remember it, yeah.
Guest:And I wear a beige tunic and I was waiting tables there.
Guest:And I was in Broken Hearts Club, which was out at the Sunset Five.
Guest:So you had moved out here?
Guest:I had moved out here.
Guest:I followed the girl out here.
Guest:But in my mind, it was kind of like, even if it doesn't work out with the girl, I'm starting to get momentum.
Guest:I got two Indies under my belt.
Guest:Like, I got to start making some moves.
Guest:But I got out here and was broke.
Guest:So waiting tables like all broke actors do.
Guest:And...
Guest:But my film, the indie Broken Hearts Club, was at the Sunset Five.
Guest:And people would come from the movie theater, having seen the film, to the restaurant for drinks or dessert.
Guest:And they'd do a double take.
Guest:And they'd say, we just saw your movie.
Guest:And I'd say, oh, thank you.
Guest:And they'd say, you were great.
Guest:And I'd say, well, thank you.
Guest:Let me tell you about our specials.
Guest:And it was so incredibly humbling.
Guest:And I always say that, you know, only in Hollywood can you go see a film and then have the star of the film wait on you for dessert.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And it was in this time where I first auditioned for Scrubs.
Guest:And that, of course, changed my life.
Guest:I didn't make Garden State my first feature until...
Marc:until uh i think the second hiatus from from scrubs oh yeah you were in it's so funny that the uh that whole waiter story there's a guy a comic named mark cohen used to do a joke about living in uh hollywood and his parents came out to visit him they'd be out to dinner and his mom would say like i think that i think that waiter is potsy from happy days and mark cohen goes no that can't be pot oh my god it is potsy
Guest:that's true i mean i i uh i would have the most humiliating things mark where i would like go on a meeting and i'm a general meeting where i'm just talking to a producer and i'm blowing myself up because i'm talking about all the great things that are going on and yeah i can't believe it it's so exciting you're just doing a dog and pony show and then i'd go to work and i'd look and they'd be like i just sat table 25 and it would be him and his friends
Guest:And then it's awkward.
Guest:He doesn't want to address it.
Guest:So he gives a little smile.
Guest:But I'm like pouring wine for him and his friends after two hours earlier doing a general about how great my life is.
Marc:That's the worst.
Marc:And it's like, but you got, you know, you made it.
Guest:The story has a happy ending.
Marc:I remember I had a fucking meeting with somebody.
Marc:I don't know if it wasn't the Four Seasons.
Marc:It was another hotel.
Marc:And this is like, you know, like maybe 10 years ago or less.
Marc:And fucking Sebastian Maniscalco is waiting tables over there.
Marc:And then I knew he was a comic, but I didn't know he had that day gig.
Marc:And now he's like one of the biggest comics in the world.
Marc:So sometimes it ends okay.
Guest:Yeah, there's plenty of happy endings.
Marc:But I remember that moment of seeing him and knowing that, you know, this is just fucking hell.
Guest:I know so many, you know, listen, there's plenty of people...
Guest:who don't have a happy ending to that tale.
Guest:I'm very aware of how lucky I am that I... Yeah, it's not for the faint of heart, this town.
Marc:Fucking heart business, yeah.
Marc:All right, but Scrubs turns everything around.
Marc:It's a hit show, and you do it forever.
Marc:But mostly, if what you're saying is true, and I'm not doubting you, that it gave you the wherewithal and the momentum to make a movie, which is what you wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah, so the first thing, because of my...
Guest:hustler I'm gonna fucking make it or or die trying mentality I went oh my god this show is going to be my ticket to having people take my my screenplay seriously yeah so I I had I had I had the screenplay in pieces
Guest:But I put it all together.
Guest:I really sat down once I got Scrubs and took it seriously and said, you're a fucking idiot if you don't have a screenplay because this is, come on, this is momentum.
Guest:I didn't know how long Scrubs was going to go.
Marc:Went on forever, didn't it?
Guest:Well, I did nine years, yeah.
Guest:But I mean, I don't, but who the hell ever thinks that's going to happen?
Guest:I mean, it was unrealistic.
Guest:I thought it could go two.
Guest:I got to ride the wave.
Guest:So then my first hiatus, I did Shakespeare in the Park in New York, a production of Twelfth Night.
Guest:And then whilst I was there, I wrote Natalie Portman a letter because I knew that she had done the Delacorte Theater.
Guest:She had done a production of The Seagull.
Guest:And I thought, God, Natalie is my perfect person for this film.
Guest:I'm going to use this angle of we've both worked in this theater.
Guest:I wrote her this very personal note, sent her the script.
Guest:She loved it.
Guest:We met for coffee.
Guest:And then...
Guest:she said yes which meant my second hiatus we were off to the races making making the movie that's and you and there's some other people that went on to pretty big careers in the movie too yeah peter sarsgaard and um and ian home who just passed away i know ian was the best wonderful man oh my god i bet i just watched i just watched the sweet hereafter again oh that's how i discovered him yeah i mean that's how he that's how i he became known to me
Marc:That movie is insane.
Guest:So dark.
Guest:Do you like tragedy like that?
Guest:I really love a good tragedy.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's like I don't know how I saw it.
Marc:I just saw it.
Marc:How did they get that?
Marc:They must have one take on that school bus shot.
Marc:How many times could they?
Guest:Sometimes you just got to roll five cameras on it and hope something good happens.
Marc:I mean, they couldn't rebuild.
Marc:They couldn't get the ice back out of that lake.
Marc:There's no fucking way, man.
Marc:It's like Buster Keaton in the general.
Marc:They're only blowing that bridge once.
Guest:I love, I'm really, you know, it's funny.
Guest:People think of me, I think, a lot of for comedy because of Scrubs or romantic comedy because of Garden State.
Guest:But I'm very often drawn to writing and appreciating darker fare.
Guest:The thing I'm writing now is a pretty dark tragedy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Maybe it's because of all the... I mean, not maybe.
Guest:It's what's coming out of me, you know?
Guest:I...
Guest:I think that it's what's – I once had an amazing singer write a song for my film and it wasn't exactly right and I tried to give him some notes and he said, Zach, I've got to be honest with you.
Guest:It's just in this day and age, in this moment, after watching your film, that's what came out of me.
Guest:And I've been feeling that with this thing I've been writing is that it's kind of what came out of me during this period.
Marc:Well, it's good that you're being you're able to generate at all.
Guest:I'm trying.
Guest:I'm trying.
Guest:It takes it takes ass.
Guest:It takes work getting my ass in.
Guest:It takes ass.
Guest:It takes work and ass getting my ass in the chair.
Marc:I mean, I've talked to, you know, other writers who, you know, I have one friend who's a big shot and it's like it's he's having a hard time.
Marc:I mean, it's hard to it's hard to reflect because we're almost we're still in the trauma.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But for me, for me, I feel like I gotta, I have, I gotta do it because I don't, there's, I can't allow myself the distraction of not working on it because there's just so much time for me to be sitting here and staring at the cursor.
Guest:So you beat yourself up?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I'm very hard on myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I want to, I don't want to, for this to, I am a writer, but it's hard for me to write.
Guest:I find it to be the hardest of the, of the things I hate it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's very hard.
Guest:Lawrence Kasdan apparently once said, being a writer is signing up to have homework for the rest of your life.
Guest:And that's how I feel about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like I always have homework.
Marc:But you brought Garden State together.
Marc:You found your backers.
Marc:And the movie did well.
Marc:It was a personal movie.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:I mean, I remember the soundtrack was huge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I won a Grammy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:And then you just kept going with that TV show.
Marc:Did that get to a point where you'd had enough of that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, in fact, I loved it.
Guest:And Donald Faison, who was my co-star, and we actually are doing a podcast now called Fake Doctors, Real Friends, because it's been- I just saw him in a movie.
Guest:Remember the Titans or Clueless?
Marc:No, a new movie with, I don't think it's out yet, with Dorff.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's got a new film with Stephen Dorff coming out.
Marc:I just watched it.
Marc:Dorff sent it to me.
Marc:It's called Embattled, I think.
Guest:Is it good?
Marc:Yeah, I liked it.
Marc:He plays a vet.
Guest:Yeah, he's amazing.
Guest:He's my best friend in the world.
Guest:And so we kind of like during quarantine and everything said, well, we have a lot of free time on our hands.
Guest:Let's go back and watch the episodes and talk about them and joke about them and kind of tell old stories.
Guest:So...
Guest:We've been doing that.
Guest:It's reminding me of how much fun it was and all the nostalgia.
Guest:But of course, after nine years, I was definitely over it because I just felt like I started to see us all recycling jokes and leaning into jokes.
Guest:And it's hard because the money is ridiculously intoxicating.
Guest:But I felt like I want to do other things.
Marc:But you did do another movie and you did other things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've directed three features.
Marc:Two of them were yours?
Guest:Two of them I'd written.
Guest:One called Wish I Was Here I wrote with my brother Adam.
Marc:And how did you finance that?
Guest:Oh, you could vote.
Guest:That one I got in a bit of a pickle because someone presented me the idea of trying to crowdfund like half of it.
Guest:And this was right at the beginning of Kickstarter being on everyone's radar.
Guest:And, um, and I, and I said, okay, that's kind of cool.
Guest:Like, what if we, what if we did that?
Guest:What if we didn't have a studio and I put in my own money and, and we get a financier to put in a little bit of money, but then like half the money is comes from promising these incentives, set visits and t-shirts and merch and posters and signed everything.
Guest:And, and, um,
Guest:It became very controversial.
Guest:I think I was the first known actor-director to do it, and it was so successful.
Guest:It funded beyond what we asked for in 24 hours that there was instant backlash saying, you as a known entity shouldn't be using this.
Guest:This should be for people who have no other means.
Guest:And it became, I unfortunately, or fortunately, I guess, became the face of the debate.
Guest:Should people who have fan bases be allowed to participate in crowdfunding campaigns?
Marc:And where did that land?
Guest:Well, I think after people weighed in enough, nobody really does it.
Guest:I was on the cover of Variety being like, is this the new wave of financing?
Guest:And not many people, I think, have ever done it since because of the amount of antagonism there was for the very idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um which then hurt the film i think because i think that people judge the film as like oh that's that half crowdfunded movie um wow and it was it was a bit of a bummer because i i really am proud of the film but not a lot of people saw it well i'm sorry buddy and i it's okay it was years ago
Marc:So and then the one you directed after that going inside.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then I got hired.
Guest:Then I had my first big studio come to me and be like, hey, we love that movie and we loved Garden State.
Guest:Do you ever think about directing like a big ass studio movie?
Guest:And I was like, go on, go on.
Guest:And it was a remake of of a George Burns movie called Going in Style.
Guest:And it was Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Alan Arkin starring as three seniors who rob a bank.
Marc:Well, I remember the original.
Marc:You know what I remember the most out of that movie?
Marc:What?
Marc:Is that medium shot of Schroesberg having a heart attack on the bench.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's almost like a long shot, right?
Marc:Am I remembering it right?
Marc:Yeah, I remember that.
Guest:You know, Ted Melfi wrote the script, great screenwriter, and he didn't... There's not a ton that's still from the original.
Guest:I mean, other than the concept of three seniors who were sort of fucked over by society and by the system, go rob a bank.
Guest:And ours was able to fold in all this, you know...
Guest:current day conversation about um you know corporations you know canceling pensions and and and the bank has their money and they don't want any they don't want to steal a dime more than the pension that's owed to them and uh right it was great man i got to i got to make a big ass action heist movie in in manhattan and brooklyn and um and i think it's i think it's really funny
Marc:But was the experience, I mean, it's a lot to manage, I guess, but the experience of shooting your own movies, I guess you just sort of like, you know, keep your cool and you've got your DP and you focus on what needs to be done.
Marc:It's all about the sort of community that you build around the production, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And taking one day at a time, because you got to you can't if you think about making a big action movie with three seniors in the height of summer in Manhattan, it is impossible if you look at the whole thing.
Guest:We have, you know, everywhere Morgan Freeman walks, there's paparazzi following him and fans.
Guest:And so it's not it's advanced filmmaking, making an action movie in Manhattan in the summer with celebrities.
Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So you just got to go, OK, what is today?
Guest:And you put blinders on.
Guest:OK, fuck.
Guest:And then now what is this morning?
Marc:Right.
Guest:And if you just keep making it smaller, smaller, smaller.
Guest:And if you ignore the fact that you have a huge crew and ignore the fact that you have celebrities and you just go, OK.
Guest:This morning, we're going to make a short film, and the short film is called This Scene.
Guest:And that's how I approach it.
Marc:It's like applied OCD.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, it's ritual to make it handleable.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:I did watch the new movie, The Comeback Trail.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And is that based on another movie?
No.
Guest:Very loosely, George Gallo, who made Midnight Run and has sold more screenplays than anybody in Hollywood, is sort of an action comedy writing legend, saw a...
Guest:Years and years ago at a festival, he saw like a super low budge version of the concept of this.
Guest:And said to himself, man, this is not well executed, but what a concept.
Guest:And it always stuck with him.
Guest:And he went on and had years and years of his career.
Guest:And then...
Guest:ran into the widow of the man who'd made the film randomly and said, oh my God, I never stopped thinking of that film.
Guest:Would you honor me with the rights so I could write a sort of big budget action comedy version of it?
Guest:And she said, I'd be honored.
Guest:So he did just that.
Guest:And then he cast Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Tommy Lee Jones, and
Guest:And me, shockingly.
Guest:So that's what this is.
Guest:This is something I've never really done, which was to be cast.
Guest:You know, I did the TV show forever.
Guest:I've done my own films.
Guest:I've done some smaller films.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've never been like in a big movie where I'm one of the lead.
Guest:I mean, it's basically me and De Niro through most of the movie, as you saw.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And now, is that something you didn't go out for?
Marc:It was offered to you?
Marc:No.
Guest:George really liked me as an actor and liked my stuff.
Guest:And I got a call one day saying, George Gallo wants to meet you at his house and talk about this script.
Guest:And I was like, go on.
Guest:They're like, yeah, De Niro's attached and just read it.
Guest:And I would have gone, I would have ran over there if it was two scenes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's one scene.
Guest:But I'm flipping through the script and I'm on fucking every other page.
Guest:I'm like, is this, are you sure this is the character?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they said, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I said, do I have to read?
Guest:I'll read.
Guest:You know, as an actor, you're like, this is a big part with De Niro.
Guest:I'll audition for this if they want me.
Guest:No, no, he just wants to talk to you.
Guest:Went over his house, cracked up, made him laugh, started talking about movies, started talking about Hollywood.
Guest:And he goes, look, I want you to do it.
Guest:The only thing you got to do is, look, Bob happens to be in town.
Guest:And, you know, I know you met, I met Bob like socially once or twice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, Bob just kind of wants to talk to you.
Guest:yeah and i'm like oh okay so i go and meet bob for coffee and uh i'm so fucking nervous my palms are sweating thinking about it and i don't i don't know what's gonna happen and he just got he's like you know we met before actually he knew jessica because uh jessica cursen all circles back to jessica was his uh advisor coach for the for the comedian comedian yeah and
Guest:and um so we talked about jessica we talked about did he know that going into it though or did you tell him that yeah he knew yeah he knew i well that was my ace in the hole i was gonna i was gonna be like hey you know we've met before but you know jessica who's you know jessica has become like his his good buddy um they've stayed friendly so anyway couldn't have gone better we we laugh we shoot the shit and then as we're walking out he goes all right well i'll see you on set and i was like holy shit i think i just got this big ass movie yeah
Guest:So we go down to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Guest:That's where I grew up.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's quite a place.
Marc:I don't know that people always get the best impression of it.
Guest:I didn't necessarily have the best impression of it.
Guest:I think it felt like it was on hard times.
Marc:It's a little beat up, yeah.
Marc:So you shot the whole movie in New Mexico?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whole film shot in New Mexico.
Guest:And it was a blast and I got to know him and work with him and really had to give myself pep talk after pep talk like, dude, you cannot be intimidated by this being De Niro.
Guest:Like you have to, I don't know if that's ever happened to you when you're working with someone you really admire and you kind of like pretend this is somebody that's not a living legend.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:I did one scene with him in The Joker, but I was on set for like a week watching him.
Marc:But I had one walk and talk in a scene with him.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Marc:He became very human to me very quickly.
Marc:Maybe it's just because I interviewed so many people.
Marc:But I definitely, within half an hour, I'm like, oh, this is this guy, Robert De Niro.
Marc:He's the greatest actor ever, but this is who he is now, and this is his process.
Marc:What's very sort of humanizing,
Marc:in my very brief experience with him anyways, was to just sort of watch his process at this point.
Marc:Like, because you make all these assumptions about somebody's process when you watch your movies growing up, you know, but, you know, as an older actor, you know, what it takes for him to get the stuff in his head and the kind of the process of that, you're like, you know, you really, you start to see him, or I did anyways, as a guy who does the job and he's just, he's the guy, you know, didn't that happen?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I think he was way... I think people can't imagine how... I found him very shy.
Marc:Very.
Guest:And I was with him for a whole movie.
Guest:So every day on a graph, I could feel him warming up to me.
Guest:By the end, we were texting each other and sending each other funny shit on the internet.
Guest:And I've been to dinner at his house since.
Guest:And now we've become friendly.
Guest:But I was taken aback by how...
Guest:he would be sitting in off in his chair um not really talking to anyone reading a book or on his phone and then he'd come to set and he'd call action and there was de niro and he'd come to life and he was intense and he was amazing and brilliant and going forward and and saying keep the camera rolling i want to go again and then they go cut and he'd kind of just quietly go back to his chair and pick up his book and
Guest:I was surprised by that, that he wasn't like, he didn't, he wasn't, he was quiet and shy.
Marc:But it is true the way those guys can turn it on and the control they have over, you know, I've become very aware of people's faces.
Marc:Guys that are great at it have this amazing consciousness of their face.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:I think what a lot of film actors who aren't,
Guest:great at it, don't know, is that so many times we as directors just need a shot of you looking out the window.
Marc:Reacting.
Guest:I just need, yeah, you're trying to do too much.
Guest:My girlfriend and I watched lots of films and TV and we're saying to each other like, oh, I wish someone had told him or her to just do less.
Guest:Because you can tell the person has talent, but they haven't been directed to trust the
Guest:that the camera's going to take them 75% of the way there.
Marc:They overdo her.
Marc:She's the actress, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Florence Pugh, she's a phenomenal actress.
Marc:What did I just see her in?
Guest:She just did Little Women.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:She's great, yeah.
Guest:And she's the co-star with Scarlett Johansson in the new Black Widow movie.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's exciting.
Guest:She's doing well.
Marc:Good, man.
Marc:Well, that was great seeing you in the movie.
Marc:Fun movie.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You know what's amazing?
Marc:You know who's really kind of surprising in that movie in a way?
Marc:He's always good, but Tommy Lee Jones.
Marc:I mean, that part was like...
Marc:He's one of those guys where you put the camera on him and he knows exactly how to play it with the face.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He has such a face.
Guest:He's one of those guys where you look at Tommy Lee Jones in person and you go, okay, that's Tommy Lee Jones.
Guest:I know that's what he looks like.
Guest:And then you look at the monitor.
Guest:When he's on screen and you're just like, holy shit, that's a movie star.
Guest:He's got movie star face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Talk about facial expressions.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But De Niro, too.
Marc:But De Niro's playing this kind of schleppy guy, which I like to see him do.
Marc:But there's a couple of monologues in there.
Marc:That scene between the three of you, when he opens up on Tommy Lee and tells him what he's going to do, like, you're not going to kill yourself.
Marc:You're going to go to bed, that whole thing.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, watching, I'm there, I'm blessed enough to be sitting there watching.
Guest:Literally in the middle of it.
Guest:I'm literally in the middle watching Tommy Lee Jones and De Niro scream at each other.
Guest:I mean, it's my dream come true.
Guest:I can't believe it.
Guest:And how about that scene in the hospital where I have to berate and slap De Niro?
Guest:I mean, that was one of the coolest things I ever did in my career.
Guest:I mean, I was just... That was one of the big ones I gave myself a peck talk to.
Guest:Like, I know this is De Niro, and I know that you're going to slap him across the face and scream at him, but you just got to pretend this is John Smith actor and do not be in your head about... Because then De Niro...
Guest:then De Niro is going to react to me and he's going to, I'm going to, it's like playing tennis.
Guest:He's going to be rise to the occasion.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And how many times did you have to do it?
Guest:Oh, I did.
Guest:We did that scene for all, you know, all day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I, but you know, it's the first scene in the movie where he's watching me.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I'm driving that scene.
Guest:And I was just like, I wanted, I wanted, I wanted Bob to be proud of me.
Guest:I was not going to fucking leave anything on the floor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Was he?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, he's in his own little way, a little pat on the back.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Because, you know, it's interesting, too, I guess, working with those guys.
Marc:It's like they've worked with, you know, dozens of young actors in all different types of parts.
Marc:You know, they've seen them come and go and they're like the they're like the mountain.
Marc:And then they see these guys come up the mountain.
Marc:So it must have been really exciting.
Guest:I wanted his approval so badly.
Guest:I wanted him to think I was good.
Marc:It sounds like he did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Sounds like you guys are friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he did.
Marc:I mean, I think if he didn't like your work, he wouldn't have you to the house for dinner.
Guest:No, you don't have a bad actor over for dinner.
Guest:Come on.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:It was great talking to you, man.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:It's an honor, man.
Guest:I really love your work, and I love your podcast, and I just think you're a really special human being, and I appreciate you having me on.
Marc:Oh, I appreciate you doing it.
Marc:What's your podcast called again?
Guest:My podcast is called Fake Doctors, Real Friends, and it's me and Donald re-watching Scrubs and telling old stories.
Marc:Oh, that's the new racket to get the, you know, you guys can't have the rights to scrubs, but you can tell the stories.
Guest:You can tell all the stories and you can, more importantly, we use the episodes as a guide.
Guest:It's kind of perfect for us because neither one of us were stand-ups or anything.
Guest:But if we have the material to reference a half hour of comedy, we can reference those jokes, but then go off on these long-ass tangents about other shit.
Guest:And it's perfect for us.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, great.
Marc:Well, best of luck with it, man.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:It was great seeing you.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Guest:Take it easy.
Guest:All right.
Bye.
Marc:That was fun, right, Zach?
Marc:Touching, nice, good talk, good guy.
Marc:Decent fella.
Marc:All right, he's in the comeback trail with Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman.
Marc:Sometime next year you'll see that movie.
Marc:He hosts the podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's play a little.
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guitar solo
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and LaFonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.