Episode 1198 - Stanley Tucci
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuckaholics what is happening how's it going where are we at round and round we go groundhog day came and went and you know what it was no surprise
Marc:I mean, if we're thinking about the movie, fucking living it, right?
Marc:I just saw that on the calendar.
Marc:It's Groundhog Day, and you're like, oh, yeah, no kidding.
Marc:So is yesterday.
Marc:So is last week.
Marc:So is the day before yesterday that lasted a week.
Marc:So is the two weeks ago that lasted a year.
Marc:I don't have any sense of time.
Marc:How's it going, people?
Marc:You all right?
Marc:Stanley Tucci is on the show today.
Marc:Stanley Tucci.
Marc:You know Stanley Tucci from Big Night, Devil Wears Prada, The Lovely Bones.
Marc:He was in Spotlight.
Marc:He's in a new film called Supernova with Colin Firth that I watched.
Marc:And Stanley Tucci.
Marc:I was happy to talk to him.
Marc:That being said, part of the weirdness, there's a few things that are going on for me.
Marc:I mean, again, I'm fortunate and grateful that I'm living in a certain amount of comfort that many people cannot have or don't have.
Marc:And there's a lot of anxiety, pain, fear, destitution, desperation, discomfort, sickness, anxiety.
Marc:Just the entire spectrum of horrible humanity and things that can happen to people are happening.
Marc:And I am grateful and lucky to have a certain amount of comfort in this time.
Marc:But the repetition of everything and the lack of relief from the cycle is a little tricky.
Marc:And I was talking about it with my friend Megan today about...
Marc:you know, it's because what do you have to look forward to?
Marc:I mean, before, even in your life, even if your life was going slow, at least you could think like, well, in three weeks, I'm going to go take that trip to visit my mom or I'm going to, you know, we're going out of town for my birthday.
Marc:We're going to spend the weekend here.
Marc:We, you know, we've got that meeting in a week and stuff.
Marc:Now everything is confined to your desktop, to your computer, to Zoom.
Marc:And no one's really traveling that much.
Marc:Some people are, but it's not without a tremendous amount of,
Marc:anxiety and protocols and there's nothing casual about anything.
Marc:And there's just none of those things, those markers.
Marc:You know, birthdays come and go.
Marc:People come and go.
Marc:Everything is happening that happens in life, but now it's in this vacuum of isolation and pandemic and plague.
Marc:And it's tricky because the repetition becomes tricky.
Marc:The patterns become tricky in the sense that you do and can feel like you're losing your fucking mind.
Marc:And it's uncomfortable.
Marc:And look, I'm in show business, and it's fucking bizarre.
Marc:Because there are times when I'm like, what are we doing?
Marc:What are we doing?
Marc:Is anybody watching any of this?
Marc:I mean...
Marc:I did the Tonight Show a while back from my backyard.
Marc:And yesterday I did the Tamron Hall show from my dining room.
Marc:And my production values on my IG Live are the same as major network television shows.
Marc:And everyone's adapting.
Marc:Granted, there's some part of entertainment that fortifies denial that there's it's it's a relief.
Marc:You know, it's like, please entertain me.
Marc:Get me out of this.
Marc:Get me out of what I'm feeling.
Marc:Get me out of every day being the same.
Marc:Get me out of this panic and fear of getting covid.
Marc:Get me out of my financial crisis, out of the possibility, my hopelessness.
Marc:Please entertain me out of this fucking darkness.
Marc:That's a tall order.
Marc:But there is this weird consistency to things like I have conversations with management about, you know, movies and about TV ideas and about taking meetings with network executives.
Marc:And there's part of me that's like, why?
Marc:What the fuck is happening?
Marc:There's nothing happening.
Marc:Granted, a few things are shooting their protocols in place.
Marc:But it's like, why?
Marc:What?
Marc:It almost feels like we're lying to ourselves.
Yeah.
Marc:Hopefully we can come out of this and reckon with it, that we'll remember it, that we'll shift our priorities, that we'll change our perception of how we live life and what we have to do in the future on so many levels.
Marc:A great deal of what we're going through now are just vestiges of an old way of life that seem sad and empty.
Marc:The Golden Globe seems sad and empty.
Marc:I'm nominated for Critics' Choice, which is very exciting, but the award shows, it's almost like we're just acting as if we're going through the motions, going through the motions of what sort of defined our sense of information and entertainment before COVID.
Marc:And it's sad.
Marc:A lot of it.
Marc:And it's hard for me not to see a lot of what's going on, the machinations of show business, of sort of getting back to work stuff that just feels kind of, you know, like...
Marc:Out of touch and sad and desperate, but I'm in it.
Marc:I'm in it.
Marc:I enjoyed getting up early to do the Tamron Hall show, to do a live segment as a performer about podcasting on television.
Marc:It's what I used to do.
Marc:I mean, if it had been the...
Marc:real life, the real world that we used to know.
Marc:I would fly to New York.
Marc:I would get to the studio.
Marc:I'd get hair and makeup.
Marc:The place would be buzzing.
Marc:There'd be snacks.
Marc:I'd have a producer come up to me and a guy with a mic come up to me and everything would be lit and on fire.
Marc:Not literally on fire, but just jacked up.
Marc:An audience would be excited.
Marc:It would be just all the fixtures of show business.
Marc:All the bells and whistles are going and
Marc:And then you set up and you get out there and you entertain.
Marc:You give people a jolt in the morning.
Marc:It's like morning radio or anything else.
Marc:In morning entertainment.
Marc:But now this sort of vacuum of it.
Marc:The faces on the screens.
Marc:The host in an empty studio.
Marc:You can hear the fucking...
Marc:footsteps leading of her walking to the podium and then turning on the juice and getting it going and then cutting to me in my living room, hoping my cat doesn't interrupt the thing, hoping that my signal stays live, hoping that I look into the right camera.
Marc:I'm very bad at that.
Marc:But that's the adaptation I got to make.
Marc:Before, I would have been there an hour and a half early, getting hair and makeup, getting miked, looking at the other guests, meeting the other guests, seeing my management team, everybody, a buzz, food, donuts, swag bag.
Marc:Now I was literally in bed 20 minutes before and I put some clothes on.
Marc:I checked my hair and I said, well, that's good enough.
Marc:Not like I look good.
Marc:I'll put a jacket on.
Marc:This is good enough.
Marc:That's show business.
Marc:That's entertainment followed by crying.
Marc:But maybe I'm being too dark.
Marc:Maybe I'm being too negative.
Marc:Maybe we need it.
Marc:Because that repetition of patterns, the landing back where you started every day, the strange drift of time, the not knowing how much time has passed, it does concern me.
Marc:The human nature right now because of how jacked we are and how symbiotic we are with the pace of technology that we hold in our hands with the pace of images flying by with the pace of how we get information is that we don't hold on to things long enough and that we're willing to let things disappear quickly.
Marc:Things just get churned under, just into the undertow of a tidal wave of garbage information.
Marc:There's no way to prioritize things.
Marc:And it gets sucked into the past so far, gets dragged out so far.
Marc:Something important, something you should hang on to, all of a sudden gets sucked into the undertow and it's miles out, miles out.
Marc:unable to to wade unable to paddle unable to stay afloat and it just disappears it disappears behind a wall of information garbage we got to figure out what to hold on to and how to hold on to it again what's important what is vital
Marc:What is connected now?
Marc:And I think we all miss just being around people casually without, you know, just seeing eyes above a mask, you know, in different sort of frequencies of panic and anger and fear and discomfort and sadness, desperation, just eyes above masks and
Marc:peering out for connection.
Marc:It's rough, man.
Marc:Hang on.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Hang on.
Marc:So Stanley Tucci, everybody loves him.
Marc:Great actor.
Marc:Great character actor.
Marc:He's great at being Stanley Tucci as well.
Marc:He's in the new movie Supernova, which is in select theaters right now and will be on digital platforms starting February 16th.
Marc:And we talked.
Marc:This is me talking to Stanley Tucci.
Marc:where are you i'm in london in my uh studio so that's where you live all the time yeah basically yeah that's because your wife is british yes and that was the that was the way it landed you're like i'm leaving i'll live there yeah kinda i mean
Guest:You know, she came and lived with me and my kids, because my first wife passed away 11 years ago.
Guest:So we had three kids, and then I met Felicity, and she came and lived with us for two years, and then we came...
Guest:We decided to move here when the kids were, well, they're twins.
Guest:They're 21 now, so they were 13, and the other one was 11.
Marc:But you were living where, upstate?
Marc:Where were you, New York?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, we were in Westchester, yeah.
Marc:Now, you owned a restaurant there, right?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:I owned it, but I didn't really have... I was a small owner in it, but unfortunately it had my name on it.
Guest:Ish.
Marc:But weren't you advised that that was not a great thing to do?
Guest:No, I sought no advisement.
Guest:And that was dumb.
Marc:It's like, I don't know why we all have dreams of owning restaurants.
Marc:Was your dream that you would, you know, stop in and be like, hey, there's Stanley.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that I would, you know, be able to throw a sandwich together there, have parties.
Guest:It was a friend of mine.
Guest:It was a chef who set it up.
Guest:And then another fellow who was a dear friend who.
Guest:You know, it was his money really and right and it was ended up being Didn't work now.
Guest:I wasn't around a lot either because I had to go I was away working and it was it was just a disaster did the mob get involved certainly not good I wish they had Might have been successful
Marc:You grew up in that area, though, right?
Marc:I mean, I did some research on you.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Well, that's nice of you.
Marc:In Westchester, right?
Guest:Yeah, I grew up in Katona.
Guest:It was a great place to grow up.
Guest:You don't know that when you were a kid, but now you know it.
Marc:And your folks, they were just, what did they do for a living?
Guest:My dad was an art teacher.
Guest:Where?
Guest:At a high school in a couple towns just south, Chappaqua High School.
Guest:It was a very wealthy area.
Marc:Horace Greeley?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You know who went there?
Marc:My first girlfriend went to Horace Greeley.
Marc:What?
Marc:And you know who else went there?
Marc:Pete Berg, the director.
Marc:Did he really?
Marc:I didn't know that.
Marc:My girlfriend grew up in Chappaqua, and she went to Horace Greeley.
Marc:So that's part of my past by her, through her.
Guest:So what year are we talking about?
Marc:She probably graduated high school in 82, 83.
Marc:82, 83.
Marc:Would your dad have been there?
Guest:Yeah, actually, he would have, yes, have been close to retiring.
Guest:What's her name?
Guest:My father remembers, at the age of 90, he remembers everyone.
Marc:Her name at that time was Sarah Rubin.
Guest:Oh, yeah, he never liked her.
Marc:Yeah, it came up, didn't it?
Guest:That was tough.
Marc:He's got a short list of students that were terrible.
Marc:I don't know if Pete Berg was in his class, but he taught art.
Guest:Yeah, he taught art.
Guest:He was the head of the art department.
Guest:Brilliant guy, my dad.
Marc:Was he a painter?
Guest:Painter, sculptor, calligrapher, jewelry maker, pottery, everything.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Everything.
Guest:Taught mechanical drawing, everything.
Marc:And your mom was what?
Guest:My mom worked in the office as an assistant to the principal.
Marc:Oh, at the school as well.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But could have easily been a professional chef.
Guest:I mean, not arguably.
Guest:I mean, one of the greatest cooks I've ever, ever, ever.
Guest:And not because she's my mother.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But the more you travel and then you come back and you taste her food, you go...
Guest:I don't know how she did that.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Where did she learn?
Marc:Are they like first generation, the two of them?
Guest:Yeah, she learned from her mother.
Guest:So they were born.
Guest:My parents were born in America.
Guest:But her parents were born in Italy and my dad's parents.
Guest:And she learned from...
Guest:From her mom.
Marc:So that's where you got your love of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she really became then an autodidact.
Guest:I mean, she really just all she read was, you know, were cookbooks and she taught herself.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I fucking love cooking when I'm especially lately.
Marc:My mother was a terrible cook.
Guest:Just awful.
Marc:So was incapable, really, and still does a manageable eating disorder.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Well, don't get too concerned.
Marc:She's okay.
Marc:She's healthy.
Marc:But she resented food.
Marc:But as I got older, I had a professor who taught me, it wasn't the class, but we became friendly, that you could just learn how to cook.
Marc:You can do that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I love to do it.
Marc:And it's weird what I'm cooking now.
Marc:Like, I've got this smoker, like a suburban smoker.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:And I smoked, like I'm doing Jew food because I'm a Jew.
Marc:And I smoked, I've been smoking my own fish.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What kind of fish?
Marc:I smoked some sturgeon yesterday.
Marc:I dry brined it in salt, garlic powder, and sugar.
Marc:Then I let it sit overnight.
Marc:Then I smoked it for like four or five hours, basted it with honey, put some paprika on it, chilled it, and ate it this morning for breakfast with some beets and horseradish like a Jew.
Guest:Man, that's pretty Jewish.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, and I pickled some onions.
Marc:I made kasha varnish giz the other night.
Marc:What?
Guest:I mean, what the fuck?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Where do you live in?
Guest:Kiev?
Guest:Or somewhere like what?
Guest:What?
Guest:Maybe my heart does.
Guest:Minsk?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I made it with schmaltz, Stanley.
Guest:You did?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's so good.
Marc:I rendered the schmaltz from a bone broth I was making, and I made the fucking kasha with schmaltz.
Marc:And now I gain nine pounds in four days.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Good.
Marc:What do you what do you go to?
Marc:You're a cook.
Marc:What do you you write cookbooks.
Marc:So if you're feeling bad and you want to eat your feelings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you what do you do?
Guest:I cook comfort food.
Guest:You know, I cook.
Guest:Which ones?
Guest:A lot of pasta.
Guest:I love pasta in varying, varying forms.
Guest:I like pasta with really simple pasta marinara, pasta with tuna and tomato.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Delicious with lots of onions.
Guest:Super sweet.
Guest:Delicious pasta with peas and tomato.
Guest:Carbonara.
Guest:I love which I learned how to make properly when I was doing this television show.
Guest:This year and last year and and pasta today I made pasta with connellini beans kale kale.
Guest:Yeah, and a little bit of tomato and some chicken broth.
Guest:And it's like a pasta fagiola, sort of.
Guest:But I eat it literally practically every day.
Marc:Do you make the homemade pasta or you buy the... No, we occasionally make homemade pasta, but normally I buy it.
Marc:It's a bit of a chore, right?
Guest:Well, yeah, with two little kids and the thing.
Marc:No, you can't.
Marc:Yeah, they want to make shapes and animals.
Marc:Do you ever do la matriciana?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, I love it.
Marc:Do you use the guanciale?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:It's different, right?
Marc:You could use the other one.
Marc:Pancetta.
Marc:Pancetta.
Marc:No good.
Marc:No, you can't.
Marc:It's good.
Guest:It's fine.
Guest:But once you have guanciale, it's completely elevated.
Marc:It's like, how is that so different tasting?
Marc:It's fucking, I don't know.
Guest:Well, I do know it's the jowl and it's also the way it's cured and that extra sort of thickness of the skin and the pepper that's put on top, which is the way you should make carbonara with that.
Marc:With the guanciale.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But it seems like it's not as easy to find as pancetta.
Guest:No, no, it's not easy to find.
Guest:I mean, now on the internet, it's actually easier than it used to be.
Marc:Although, you got, like, before the internet, you had to have a guanciale guy.
Guest:Yeah, the guanciale guy, or you had to...
Guest:You know, make your own guanciale.
Marc:That's the time consuming.
Marc:It's better to have the guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that's the thing about cooking, especially in L.A.
Marc:You never lived here, though, did you?
Marc:No.
Marc:When I decided, when I get obsessed with a dish, I was dating a woman who, years ago, who liked Bucatini Lama Trichana.
Marc:So I got to figure out how to do it correctly, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't even know if she ever had it with Guanciale, but I had to go find Guanciale in Los Angeles, which turned out was not easy, was not easy.
Guest:No, because it's not there's not.
Guest:I found this every time I've spent time in Los Angeles.
Guest:There's not a huge number of Italian.
Guest:No, I mean, up north, there are more.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:Because of the climate and the, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Quite different in all the wine country and the, you know, it's very different.
Guest:But LA, it was like, when I first started going there 400 years ago, I was like, you know,
Marc:where are the italian delis nothing there's not no there's what and the ones that are here aren't even that good you know what's amazing for italian food and italian delis new jersey oh yes yes yes see i haven't spent a lot of time in new jersey but yes it's a huge huge italian american population back in the day used to be like just driving down the highway it's like you think that italian place is any good of course it is it's new jersey
Marc:But wait, where are you from?
Marc:I'm genetically New Jersey.
Marc:I grew up in New Mexico mostly, but my parents are both from Jersey.
Marc:My family, they're all Jersey Jews.
Guest:Jersey Jews, but you grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:Yeah, for like third grade through high school.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Albuquerque.
Marc:You ever shoot in Albuquerque?
Marc:I have.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Which one?
Guest:I almost shot myself in Albuquerque, too.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:No, I'm kidding.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, it was tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What show?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I spent a week there one night.
Guest:You know, it's that joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was.
Guest:But there were some nice places.
Guest:But yeah, no, it was a movie I did with Kevin Costner and Nathan Lane.
Guest:swing vote you were all stuck in albuquerque you and yes yes but then we ended up moving outside to this nice little um hotel uh that kind of desert and you had beautiful view of the mountains and it was quite pretty yeah
Marc:It's pretty.
Marc:It's pretty.
Marc:It gets a bad reputation.
Marc:Got a little beat up over time.
Marc:Wait, so the big movie, like the first time I remember hearing about you in a big way was the Big Night movie, which is food-based.
Marc:And you did that with Campbell Scott, right?
Marc:And you guys, you talked to him?
Guest:I haven't talked to Campbell for a long time, no.
Guest:But we went to high school together.
Guest:In Katona?
Guest:No, so we went to John Jay in South Salem.
Marc:So you guys, you hang out at his house, he hangs out at your house.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was George C. Scott there?
Guest:No, he was not there.
Marc:Colleen Dewhurst was around.
Marc:Colleen, yes.
Marc:Did you act in high school?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Campbell and I acted in high school together, and I loved it.
Guest:I mean, I really loved it.
Guest:We had this really cool guy who was... Right from the get-go.
Guest:Yeah, this wonderful teacher who was, he was the music teacher.
Guest:He was, you know, he ran the chorus.
Guest:He did the plays.
Guest:He was this really wonderful guy who lived in Manhattan and commuted.
Guest:to Westchester every day.
Guest:He did the opposite of what everybody else did.
Guest:And he was a very sophisticated, really, really lovely guy.
Guest:You know, we did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in our high school.
Guest:In high school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he was cool.
Marc:He was an inspiration?
Guest:He was just...
Guest:Really cool.
Guest:And at that time, you know, it's the 1970s, you could go... It was an open-plan school, like most of them were in Westchester.
Guest:A lot of them were in Westchester.
Guest:And so, you know, you walked outside all the time from class to class, building to building, and you had this beautiful theater in the school.
Guest:But then there was an annex, which was his domain.
Guest:And the annex was just this separate...
Guest:cool building where just one room where you did choir practice or you auditioned for plays or you practiced plays or you he did acting classes and he'd bring people in from the community who had been in
Marc:uh show business and have talks and yeah this guy was like you know amazing isn't great isn't it amazing like when you think back on that that that guy just one teacher in your life in your high school could probably change the entire course of your life he did completely and i'll tell you the thing that makes me sort of sad now is that
Guest:If we just look at the architecture of the school, there was an openness to it.
Guest:But there was also an openness to the curriculum and to teaching.
Guest:And my father will attest to this, having been an art teacher, that...
Guest:So much of that has disappeared.
Guest:And it's really unfortunate.
Guest:I visited the school a number of times.
Guest:And it was heartbreaking because they basically enclosed...
Marc:the school so there was a physical manifestation of what was happening educationally and i found that depressing well it's sad you know it's sad what's happening education in general but i imagine you know in the 70s you know everything that was coming in not only was it more a liberal culture but i mean there was a lot of things changing in approaches to education to theater to film to everything so
Marc:If that guy's down in New York and he's coming up and he's bringing all these new ideas, it must have been exciting.
Marc:And to be in high school at that time where your brain is just opening up in the early 70s, it must have been just mind-blowing.
Marc:It was fantastic.
Guest:I mean, like where my dad taught.
Guest:It was just really...
Guest:grade school, and, you know, they had a kiln where they would, you know, make potter, the fire thing, they had a jewelry station, this and that, but they had a smoking area.
Guest:This is the weird part.
Guest:They had a smoking area for students.
Guest:Right outside the art room.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a little dubious.
Guest:That was like, that was questionable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Since the research had come out in the 1950s, 60s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think what it was is a, I think that schools, cause you could smoke at my high school outside.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think they were just like, we're not going to stop them.
Marc:You know, how are we going to stop?
Guest:Well, everybody, everybody fucking smoked.
Guest:I mean, everybody.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:I'm so happy.
Marc:I don't I don't miss cigarettes, but I was on nicotine until just a year or so ago.
Marc:I was I was I would stay on the I do the gum and the lozenges.
Marc:I just loved it.
Marc:Did you do the patch thing?
Marc:No, because I wanted to feel the high I did.
Marc:I've been on off the patch, but I like the lozenges.
Marc:They're like nicotine candies.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Did you smoke?
Guest:I smoked, but I was never a devoted smoker.
Guest:I mean, it was something I could take or leave.
Marc:Is there anything that you can't take or leave that was like a problem?
Guest:Exercise.
Guest:I'm not kidding.
Guest:That sounds funny.
Guest:Exercise and...
Guest:Martinis.
Marc:Oh, you like the martini.
Guest:I like martinis.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And pasta.
Marc:So did you move to New York City to start the career?
Marc:I mean, did you went to school, you went to college and did the acting?
Guest:Yeah, I went to, well, I mean, I didn't really go far.
Guest:I went to SUNY at Purchase, which is, excuse me, the State University of New York, because, you know, it was affordable and it was a conservatory and one of the best programs in the
Guest:in the country because, like I said, it was a conservatory.
Guest:You had to audition to get in.
Guest:They took 30 students per year and you were in what was called a company.
Guest:You stayed in that company for four years with the same teacher, which I'm not so sure it was a great idea.
Guest:But luckily, I had a brilliant teacher.
Guest:So that was that fine.
Guest:A guy named George Morrison used to he was one of the original Second City people.
Guest:And he ended up having a school with Paul Sills and Mike Nichols in New York after he left Purchase.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Mike Nichols?
Guest:Did you ever work with Mike Nichols?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:But I knew Mike Nichols, and he had asked me to do a few things, and I couldn't do them.
Guest:And I was heartbroken, because if there was one director I wanted to work with, it was Mike Nichols.
Guest:Was that guy?
Guest:It was the timing of things, or it wasn't quite right.
Guest:But I got to know him, and I was even more enamored of him once I met him.
Marc:What was your first real gig?
Guest:Well, I guess...
Guest:I was cast in a, I don't remember, I did like some commercial things or a little thing off Broadway or something.
Guest:But then I did like a Miami Vice, I think was the first thing I ever did on television.
Guest:Like just playing
Guest:it was just like two scenes i hadn't really experienced america uh so i went to florida and i shot there for a few days it was really weird and then i ended up going back and played another role as a mafioso and then i started to do a lot of tv stuff and little roles and movies and you know you know how it goes all that yeah sure it says here that you were like you did a a little bit in pritzy's honor
Guest:Yeah, but that's not actually true.
Guest:Because I was supposed to have one line, but it ended up going to a friend of Jack Nicholson's.
Guest:So I was a glorified extra.
Marc:But you were on the set.
Guest:I was on the set.
Marc:With John Houston.
Guest:With John Houston, who...
Guest:I think at that point was so old that, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so, it's sort of amazing the career you've had and how many, you know, how recognizable you are and how much, like, I feel like I've known you since I was a kid.
Marc:I feel like we grew up together somehow.
Marc:Like, there he is again, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:haunting me but it's but it's interesting the kind of career that you have is a career of a guy that works yeah you know what i mean yeah and like when you got into the racket i mean what was your plan what did you think you were going to be doing primarily theater or what were you thinking as an actor or that you just wanted to do stuff i just wanted to work and i i really just wanted to work doing it all you know at the time when i started so 1982 i got out of college
Guest:You know, there was that very clear division between you're a theater actor, you're a television actor, you're a film actor.
Guest:And it was an unfortunate division.
Marc:It was a snobbiness to it, right?
Guest:Yeah, it was weird.
Guest:It was weird and wrong.
Guest:Now, that has all disappeared, thank God.
Guest:But, you know, the British never...
Guest:did that.
Guest:The British always went back and forth.
Guest:You did TV, you know, you did a play, you did a movie, then you went back and did the thing, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And you did a radio play.
Guest:You just did it.
Marc:It's a smaller business there.
Guest:It's a smaller business, but it's a healthier business.
Guest:And now, I think America is finally, and it was HBO that really changed everything.
Guest:HBO, to me, once they started doing their original
Guest:there became this crossover.
Guest:You know, it's not TV, it's HBO, but it actually is TV, but it's really cool.
Guest:And they were putting money into projects and casting people who weren't huge movie stars in movies of significance, and they were taking scripts that studios wouldn't buy, and they would make them into movies, and they were really fucking good.
Guest:And I think that changed the landscape.
Guest:And and that's why we have what we have now, which I think is a much, much healthier landscape.
Marc:But it seems like you were always sort of like moving back and forth between all of them.
Guest:Yeah, because I had to work.
Guest:You know, I had to make money.
Guest:And also, you know, I wasn't a leading man.
Guest:I was.
Guest:An actor.
Marc:Were you ever disappointed about that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'd give anything to look like Marcello Mastriani, but, you know, that's never going to happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a structure that we know now very well, but what Stephen did at the time, people were like, we love the show, but nobody watched it.
Guest:But it coincided with me doing Big Night.
Guest:And...
Guest:And the two of them sort of came out at the same time.
Guest:And, you know, it did shift things significantly for me.
Guest:But then, like show business is, it goes like this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's good that you take that in.
Marc:You know, you've worked with a lot of great directors.
Guest:I have.
Guest:I've been very lucky.
Guest:I mean, you know, when you look at...
Guest:Like even working with Alan Pakula.
Guest:Oh, in The Pelican Brief?
Guest:The Pelican Brief.
Guest:I was so excited to work with him because he made some of these iconic films that I grew up with.
Guest:All the President's Men?
Guest:Well, it's still arguably one of the greatest American movies ever made.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's great.
Marc:And Parallax View, I think he did, too.
Marc:Yeah, he did.
Guest:Extraordinary.
Guest:And I talked to, I got to know Redford through Sundance.
Guest:And I used to go and advise at the lab and everything.
Guest:And I told him, like, that is, it's just one.
Guest:And he, you know, he produced the movie, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's one of the greatest movies ever made.
Guest:And it still holds up.
Guest:And I watch it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I watch it all the time.
Marc:I watched it recently, too.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's extraordinary.
Guest:Those shots.
Guest:I mean, he has that shot with Redford where he's talking on the phone and the camera pushes in.
Guest:I timed it once.
Guest:It's a five and a half to six minute shot.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you don't even the brilliance of Alan Pakula was you had no idea that the camera was even moving.
Guest:And it was Gordon Willis, I think, who shot it.
Guest:So the camera's just pushed in before you know it.
Guest:All the guy's doing is talking on the fucking telephone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it is so compelling.
Guest:And then it's over and you realize that's a solid six minutes that you've watched.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you end up here from, you know, way back here.
Guest:So cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I thought that the movie that you were in and you were great in that spotlight movie, which I watched.
Marc:Oh, I love that movie.
Marc:Well, that's a similar type of movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, because it's one of these things where you're unfolding, you know, an insidious conspiracy.
Marc:And the action is really about the characters, the learning of, you know, the unfolding, the unfolding.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, it's not an action movie.
Marc:But your character was so great.
Marc:That was such a great role for you.
Guest:I was so honored to be asked to do it.
Guest:I love Tom McCarthy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he's so talented, and I knew him a little bit.
Guest:And when he asked me and I read it, I thought, oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, that's one of those movies where you're like, you know.
Guest:You'll do whatever you can to do it.
Guest:They don't even have to pay you.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:Just do it.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:Just do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that part was so great.
Marc:The kind of aggravation and the sort of acceptance of the plodding work of a guy who is up against all odds but continues on.
Guest:And he's still at it.
Guest:He's still doing it.
Marc:What's his name, the real guy?
Guest:Mitchell Garabedian.
Guest:And I did not meet him before because it was suggested that I not meet him.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because he's quite contentious.
Guest:And at one point, they were like, we think he might sue us.
Guest:We don't know what's happening.
Guest:And I was like, well, why would he do that?
Guest:He's basically like the hero of the film, in a way.
Guest:And...
Guest:Then he saw the movie and he loved it.
Guest:And I met him briefly at the premiere and he was so nice.
Guest:And then we talked on the phone a couple of times.
Guest:And, you know, he's he's really.
Guest:But that's an extraordinary person who does stuff.
Marc:So that's so interesting that he was he didn't trust.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No.
Guest:And that's why would he?
Guest:But that's why would he?
Guest:Why would you why would you trust Hollywood?
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:So you weren't concerned in that part, like your version of him was your version.
Guest:Yeah, I did what I could to, yeah, what I did was I was able to find some stuff on YouTube of him talking and, you know, news reports and things like that.
Guest:So I was able to use that and then, but not, you know, it's always hard too if you're doing an accent.
Guest:any kind of accent but a boston accent you know there's that's tricky yeah it's tricky and you don't want to go too far so i tried to just pull it back a little bit because sometimes if you do it even people who have boston accents you go come on pull it back yeah take it easy don't do that you know mac damon stop it yeah yeah stop it yeah yeah when you do you work with a dialect coach generally
Guest:Yeah, if I feel that I need it, yes.
Guest:I tried to do one thing.
Guest:I did a thing here like a year after I moved here called Fortitude, which was this series for Sky Atlantic.
Guest:And it was really interesting.
Guest:And I did it because it was a wonderful role.
Guest:But also there was Sophie Grable, who's that great Danish actress, and Michael Gambon, arguably one of my favorite actors ever.
Guest:So I was like, yes, yes, yes.
Guest:And the character was written as Scottish.
Guest:So I said, okay, yeah, I'll give it a shot.
Guest:So I asked this dialect coach to come in, whom I think I had met briefly, but she's brilliant.
Guest:And we had friends in common, and my sister-in-law had worked with her.
Guest:So she comes over to my house.
Guest:We start to read through it.
Guest:We work for 20 minutes, and I go...
Guest:This is a terrible idea, isn't it?
Guest:She goes, oh, yeah.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:So then I have to call the producers and go, I think, look, I tried this.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I don't want to compromise the show or my career.
Guest:So I think maybe let's just do British.
Guest:And then I couldn't figure out.
Guest:what kind of british to do so i was like you know what i think he's american and they went yes i think that's fine thank god they're celebrating celebrating at the producers actually why did we come to this guy in the first place you know
Marc:Yeah, dialects are scary, man.
Guest:Yeah, scary.
Guest:And some of them, it's fine.
Guest:Some of them, it's easy.
Guest:And others, you know, I remember Matt Damon saying that the, you know, when he did Invictus, that it was one of the hardest dialects.
Guest:He said he worked for six months or more.
Marc:Was that with South African?
Guest:Yes, which is incredibly, I find stuff like that incredibly difficult.
Guest:Australian.
Guest:Someone suggested in a movie that they were like, could you be Australian?
Guest:I was like, no.
Guest:Why?
Guest:No.
Guest:If I were born Australian, yeah.
Marc:What's the most challenging one you think you pulled off?
Guest:Oddly enough, a lot of times an Italian accent is hard because there's a lot of variations within it because Italian has so many different dialects and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pronunciations of words and things like that.
Guest:So there are times even when I hear my own Italian accent, I go, I go, oh, no.
Guest:It's a bed.
Guest:It's a bed.
Guest:It's a bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How do you feel about doing stage work?
Marc:It doesn't seem like you do a ton of it, but you enjoy it.
Guest:Yeah, I haven't done it since.
Guest:I directed a play about ten years ago, nine years ago on Broadway.
Guest:I loved that experience.
Guest:Prior to that, I had done a lot of theater, but the last play I did was Frankie and Johnny and the Clair de Lune.
Guest:And it just about killed me in every way.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And after that, I didn't have a great... I was, you know, there were too many reasons why it almost killed me.
Guest:But...
Guest:I no longer longed to go on stage like I once did after that.
Guest:And it's strange because I've been very lucky enough to be offered a lot of, you know, great roles here in England and in America.
Guest:But I don't have that yearning as much as I used to.
Marc:What makes it challenging?
Guest:Well, I think if I can do a short run, that's fine.
Guest:But I feel like after you've...
Guest:done a play you've rehearsed the play you open up you do like five weeks after five weeks i i think you want to leave a play on an inhale yeah and i always see actors leave plays on an exhausted exhale and
Guest:And I can see that in performances often.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, I can't imagine doing it every day, matinee on Sunday.
Guest:No, you're talking about eight shows a week.
Guest:And it's brutal.
Guest:It's brutal.
Guest:And people think, oh, you only work three hours a night or whatever, two hours a night.
Guest:You start by three o'clock in the afternoon.
Guest:Your mind is going to your performance.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you go by the time you go to sleep, it's one o'clock in the morning.
Guest:You have to sleep until 10.
Guest:Otherwise, you don't.
Guest:You got to work out or whatever and then do your business and see your kids and do whatever.
Guest:But the thing is, you never see your kids.
Guest:You don't have dinner with them.
Guest:You can't pick them up at school.
Guest:You can't, you know, put them to bed and you cannot wake up with them in the morning.
Marc:So it just eats your entire life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people think, oh, it's the most sort of regular lifestyle.
Guest:It's like it's the opposite of of of a normal lifestyle.
Guest:More almost more more than film.
Guest:Oh, no.
Marc:Much more than film.
Marc:But with film, most of the time you're sitting around waiting for lighting.
Marc:Ah, please.
Marc:You know, and then, you know, you don't have... Once you get the hang of it, I don't know what your process is, but, you know, you kind of memorize...
Marc:You know, scene for scene or day by day.
Marc:I mean, with a play, you got to cram all that shit in your head.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And then it's there and it's there.
Guest:Once it's there, it's there.
Guest:But I always believe that after five weeks, people start inventing things simply to invent things.
Guest:Either to entertain themselves, the people they're playing opposite, or they just start going, you know what?
Guest:I think I can get a laugh on this if I do this, which then throws off the whole balance of the thing.
Marc:I think if you don't like the thrill of it every night, do you know what I mean?
Marc:If you can't, like, who did I talk to?
Marc:David Harbour.
Marc:David Harbour.
Marc:I talked to him.
Marc:He said one of the funniest things about like, you know, that, that panic, you know, right before you go on stage where you don't think you know your lines.
Marc:He says, he's like five seconds before he goes on stage.
Marc:He's like, someone give me a fucking script.
Yeah.
Guest:I still have dreams.
Guest:I have dreams.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had one the other night about going on stage and not knowing my lines and not, you know, or like I'm not dressed properly or, you know, it's just pathetic.
Marc:Still, still.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:It's haunting.
Guest:It is.
Guest:But I know I'll do it again.
Guest:I want to do it again.
Guest:It just has to be the right circumstance, you know.
Marc:Now, I watched the new movie, Supernova.
Marc:Oh, oh.
Marc:And I enjoyed it.
Marc:It was heavy to me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How well do you know Colin?
Guest:Well, I know him really well.
Guest:We've known each other for 20 years.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So you guys were friends going into this a long time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I asked him to do it.
Guest:The director sent me the script.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I thought, well, the only...
Guest:person I can think of, of the appropriate age, uh,
Guest:who's a brilliant actor, and one of my closest is Colin.
Guest:So I asked him, I slipped it to him, and he read it, he goes, my God, it's beautiful.
Guest:I said, I know.
Guest:And then we did it.
Guest:And then we switched roles.
Guest:Because I was supposed to play the other role.
Guest:He was supposed to play my role.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then at one point, Colin said, Stan, I think we should...
Guest:we should switch, and I said, you know, I've been thinking the same thing.
Guest:Because every time I read it, I was like, it doesn't, something doesn't feel right.
Guest:The rhythm, I don't know, I feel like I'm more comfortable saying, and Colin's the one who brought it up.
Guest:Anyway, we told Harry, this poor director, who looked at us like,
Guest:oh god have i made a huge mistake um you know if these two old these two alter cockers coming we want to switch roles and yeah you know by the way uh but he had both yeah what did he say yeah no he said he said um
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, let's read it both ways.
Guest:So we did just a few scenes.
Guest:And it was very evident.
Guest:We basically auditioned for Harry for the opposite roles.
Marc:So you play a couple and you are in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little even.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:More, even more so.
Guest:Early onset Alzheimer's.
Marc:Early onset Alzheimer's.
Marc:So what did you do to prepare for that as an actor?
Marc:How did you define?
Marc:Because I think what was most interesting about your characterization of that was the fight against it.
Marc:That, you know, the pride, you know, that that occurs, you know, when somebody is, you know, because you are much further along than even you.
Marc:You led on to the audience of me watching it.
Marc:You know, you don't really know how far along you are until he looks at your writing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's the beauty of Harry's script.
Guest:I mean, it was all there in the writing, really.
Guest:And then Harry gave me his research.
Guest:And I watched documentaries and read stuff about it.
Guest:We met with a doctor who worked with people.
Guest:And that was all I needed.
Marc:So what did you focus on to sort of drive the way your brain would work in the role?
Marc:I mean, how did you do that for yourself?
Guest:It was really about, yeah, it's about absence, really.
Guest:As we all get older, you walk into the pantry or you walk into the
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever room.
Guest:And you go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why did I walk into this room?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Now, just take that and expound it.
Marc:What a terrible feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Suddenly you're looking at someone or you're looking at this is a particular kind of early onset where it affects the way you see.
Guest:So if you look at a piece of paper with writing on it, you cannot discern.
Guest:what that writing is.
Guest:So you have to figure it out.
Marc:Yeah, it's so sad and brutal.
Marc:It's brutal.
Marc:Yeah, they give away the sort of turn in the film.
Marc:But I guess for you guys to play a couple, I mean, with all those years of friendship, I mean, it must have been interesting in terms of getting closer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, it was.
Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't what we expected.
Marc:In what sense?
Marc:I mean, you guys are both straight guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, it's sort of like, hey, pal, we're going to kiss a little bit.
Guest:But, you know, you feel safe with that person, right?
Guest:Because you know them.
Guest:Because they're like, they're your...
Guest:best friend of one of your best friends and you know you're willing yeah i mean he was he was more here suit than i expected but yeah yeah yeah yeah and and uh did it bring you closer or were you definitely need a break break did you need a break from each other no no no it definitely brought us closer we were close already and then it just brought us closer
Marc:It is sort of a beautiful movie.
Marc:I've seen a couple of films lately that kind of move at a pace that, you know, doesn't over explain everything, you know, and I thought that the way the script revealed the elements of the relationship and of the disease was was was very, you know, moving.
Marc:And it's.
Marc:It's heavy, you know, you wonder, like, I like the movie, but like, you know, when you make a film like that, as beautiful as it is, it's so painfully sad.
Marc:And you wonder, like, you know, like, what is an audience supposed to do with that?
Marc:And it's really just to appreciate the poetry of love, I guess, you know?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:And also that what, you know, I think part of the reason film or theater or any art form exists is
Guest:to hold the mirror up to life.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But also, which means if you do that, an audience feels like they're not alone.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And that there is an understanding, a universal understanding of love and loss.
Guest:And I think particularly in this film, because it's not just...
Guest:a guy and a girl, you know, a handsome guy and a pretty girl.
Guest:It's like two older guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The whole thing isn't what we would expect.
Guest:And yet, and yet what the, the,
Guest:What those people are experiencing is what everyone experiences, no matter what your gender, no matter what your sexual preference or orientation.
Guest:Doesn't matter.
Guest:Political orientation doesn't matter.
Guest:Love is love and loss is loss.
Marc:And one of those is guaranteed in life.
Guest:There you go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I understand that.
Marc:And also it does not it does not culturally.
Marc:We don't really acknowledge it as probably as much as we should that there there there's it's so common, you know, losing people, losing your mind.
Marc:I mean, it's like when it happens to you, as it happened to you with your wife.
Marc:I lost somebody recently.
Marc:Yes, I know.
Marc:I'm sorry, yes.
Marc:But that was the first time somebody that I loved died tragically.
Marc:But almost everyone experiences that.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And you don't really know what to do with it.
Marc:And people don't necessarily know what to do with it either.
Guest:No.
Guest:And I think, listen...
Guest:And depending upon your situation, your socioeconomic situation, the country you're living in, you can experience that.
Guest:Profound loss again and again and again or rarely.
Guest:I mean, if we look at Syria.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you look at, you know, I mean, I mean, that's happening every minute of every time.
Marc:day and the the extreme loss i can't imagine yeah we can't we can't imagine we lose our climate of yeah of a climate of loss and but like it's interesting though that you bring up absence because that's what like that's what becomes really hard to understand
Marc:Is that, you know, somebody was here and now you live with their absence for the rest of your life.
Marc:And it's almost active and it's always there, you know, that absence.
Marc:Like you grieve, you move through things, your heart heals, you know, your mind heals, maybe you move on.
Marc:But like that absence is so profound because all possibilities are gone, you know.
Guest:Yeah, which means that your heart doesn't heal, your mind doesn't heal and that you don't move on.
Guest:you never do well then what happens you mean you just you'd compartmentalize it yeah yeah yeah and you have to in order to heal and move on right but
Marc:Yeah, you integrate it, you accept it, that old Jewish thing, you know, the idea of may her memory be a blessing is really a great thing.
Guest:Yeah, that's beautifully put, yeah.
Marc:It's like, ultimately, it's the only way you can look at it.
Marc:You know, you have to get past regrets or self-pity or any of that and just sort of like what a gift it was.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, how do people who went through the Holocaust, who were sent to Auschwitz, who lost children in Auschwitz, and then survived themselves, then went on to live their lives, have another family.
Guest:How?
Guest:And function fully.
Guest:How?
Guest:How do you lose a child?
Guest:In not just lose a child, but lose a child in that way.
Guest:And continue your life.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I guess what choice do you have?
Marc:You have a choice.
Marc:But who does that serve?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:It's interesting that, like, you know, in your life as an actor, you know, you've played some pretty...
Marc:real monsters you know when you do you are you able when you approach those roles like even playing you know eichmann or the the the murderer in the uh what was that the lovely bones lovely bones do you have to detach your empathy entirely i mean how does how do you look at life through the eyes of those characters the only way you can look at it is that they were human beings they're monsters they're
Guest:We think of them as monsters, but they were human beings.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So there's, I talked about this recently with someone that the, playing Eichmann, Eichmann was, you know, they found him in Argentina, right?
Guest:Mossad got him in Argentina, the Mossad agent.
Guest:you know, had him in a room for a couple of days.
Guest:And though he wasn't supposed to, he started talking to him and asked him a whole bunch of questions.
Guest:He said, well, how could you
Guest:I'd kill all those people.
Guest:How could you facilitate that?
Guest:How could you?
Guest:And he said, you know, well, you know, that was my job.
Guest:That's what I was supposed to do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I said, well, what about the children?
Guest:He said, no, I love children.
Guest:And when they found him, he was playing with his children.
Guest:in his house in Argentina.
Marc:So he was able to detach because of ideology.
Guest:Yeah, and what he said was, he said, but yeah, you love children.
Guest:He said, but what about all the children you sent to their deaths?
Guest:He said, well, they were Jewish.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So what kind of mind is that?
Marc:Horrendous.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he cries talking about children, and then he justifies killing children by saying they're Jewish.
Guest:Talk about a disconnect.
Marc:Well, that's the brain fuckery of, you see it here.
Marc:It turns out it's a lot easier to make people think of other people as nothing.
Guest:As others.
Marc:Fucking horrendous.
Yeah.
Marc:But I did want to say this before we go, is that I've watched... I have a guilty... The Devil Wears Prada is a strange guilty pleasure of mine that I've somehow watched... Mine too, yeah.
Marc:So many times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just love that movie.
Marc:I love those women.
Marc:I loved you in it.
Marc:That must have been the greatest time.
Guest:It was...
Guest:You know, sometimes you do a movie and you're like... Yeah.
Guest:You know, you want to just... You're like, when's my last day?
Guest:And with that movie, I didn't want it to end.
Guest:When it ended, when my work ended, I was just sort of hanging around and we were having wine and stuff on the set with...
Guest:David and everybody, and then I just didn't want to leave.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:So is that how you met your wife, your current wife?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was married.
Guest:Kate was alive.
Guest:Actually, we found out just before I did that movie that she had breast cancer.
Guest:So I did the movie, and she started treatments, and then
Guest:uh, you know, we had the premiere and then, you know, she was alive for four more years after that.
Guest:Uh, and, um, it was, yeah, but that's where I, I met Emily.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh, and we became friends and actually Felicity, Emily's sister, my wife, uh, she and Kate talked at the premiere that night.
Guest:Um, um,
Guest:And I have a photo of them together, which is so odd.
Guest:And then many years later, I ended up marrying Felicity.
Marc:And you have children with both?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Kate and I had three kids, and Felicity and I had two.
Marc:Five kids?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, so you've got young kids now.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I have a two-and-a-half-year-old and a six-year-old.
Guest:And then I have 21-year-old twins and a 19-year-old.
Guest:everybody get along so far so good from time to time yeah there's always you know but yeah yeah it's okay and how are you uh how are you holding up with the uh with the plague you all right yeah it's fine i mean this is the second lockdown i experienced symptoms last march you did uh yeah
Guest:But they were minor.
Marc:So you got it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then I had the antibodies at one point, and then they don't show up again.
Guest:But I lost my sense of taste and smell for five days, as did all of my older children.
Guest:Felicity never had any symptoms.
Marc:Did she get it too, though?
Guest:No.
Guest:We don't know.
Guest:She always shows up negative.
Guest:So I think that...
Guest:I hope I'm not being naive, but I feel like, according to the science, that there are antibodies that exist in you, even if they don't show up in the tests.
Guest:So, so far, so good.
Guest:And this lockdown, this time, we're just...
Guest:more acclimated to it.
Guest:We're just more used to it.
Guest:Have you worked during the... I have been so busy, that's the weird part of it.
Guest:On set?
Guest:Yeah, I worked in Italy shooting two more episodes of this documentary series for CNN.
Guest:I then went to Spain and did a six-episode thing for television.
Guest:So I was gone for two and a half months in the fall.
Guest:During the first lockdown, I wrote
Guest:the first draft of a memoir um like a my life through food food memoir uh for with recipes first yes with some recipes was uh for simon and schuster and now during the second lockdown i finished the second draft uh and
Guest:You know, we've been working on the edit for the so and I'm going to go do something here in in London starting in March.
Marc:So what do they got?
Marc:The zone system masks?
Guest:It's masks.
Guest:You'll be tested in Spain.
Guest:I was tested once a week here.
Guest:I'll be tested every I'll be tested five times a week.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And it's all very careful.
Guest:You're in these bubbles.
Guest:And so production is moving ahead, which is great.
Guest:And they're incredibly cautious.
Guest:And so far, so good.
Marc:Great.
Marc:So the cookbook thing, you did a cookbook before.
Marc:It sold pretty well?
Guest:Yeah, I did one a long time ago.
Guest:I put it together for my parents.
Guest:Then we re-released it years later because it went out of print.
Guest:And then Felicity and I did a cookbook together about six years ago.
Marc:So your dad's still alive?
Marc:Both your folks alive?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My mother tested positive for COVID.
Guest:I said, how are you all right?
Guest:She goes, yeah, I'm fine.
Guest:I mean, I can't.
Guest:And my father tested negative.
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:He's 90.
Guest:You can't kill them.
Guest:I swear, you can't kill them.
Guest:When did you live in Italy?
Guest:I lived in Italy when I was 12 and 13.
Marc:Was it like a sabbatical?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Changed your life?
Guest:Changed my life.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:It was so cool.
Marc:What part?
Guest:Everybody spoke Italian.
Guest:Florence.
Marc:Do you speak Italian?
Guest:I speak Italian, but corruptly.
Guest:I started taking lessons again.
Guest:when I was going to do the series.
Guest:And it's been very helpful.
Marc:Florence is the best.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Guest:And it's so beautiful.
Guest:You know, I mean, you can still, you can walk a lot of those streets have been around for just hundreds and hundreds of years.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:Stunning.
Guest:And it's tiny, you know, it's tiny.
Guest:And I really like that.
Marc:And the cars are tiny.
Marc:The roads are tiny.
Marc:Everything's tiny.
Guest:Everything's tiny.
Marc:Except for the cathedrals.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The cathedrals are massive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Massive.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The power of God.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I love talking to you.
Guest:Likewise.
Guest:This is a real pleasure.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:No, I feel like I'm not even doing like a podcast or something.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm just talking.
Guest:You're so easy to talk to.
Guest:How come I haven't known you before?
Thanks.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm around when you come, you know, hang out.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It was it was a pleasure.
Marc:And I'm a big fan of the work.
Marc:Well, take care of yourself.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:You too.
Marc:Stanley Tucci.
Marc:We had a nice talk.
Marc:He was loose.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:Yeah, the movie is called Supernova.
Marc:It's in select theaters right now.
Marc:We'll be on digital platforms starting February 16th.
Marc:All right, I'm getting sloppier with the guitar.
Marc:Clearly.
Marc:Clearly sloppier.
Marc:But that's not going to stop me.
Marc:Not going to stop me.
guitar solo
Thank you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.