Episode 1203 - Melissa Leo
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What is happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:The 20th most listened to podcast in 2020, according to Edison tracking.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:What's real?
Marc:What isn't?
Marc:I'll take that number.
Marc:I'll take it after 12 years of this to still be in the saddle like a galloping Buddha.
Marc:getting mildly aggravated at many of the bumps and jostling, but trying to maintain an even keel.
Marc:Is that me?
Marc:Did I just describe some alien?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Melissa Leo, the greatest actress in the world.
Marc:One of them, for sure.
Marc:I don't like to give anyone the big titles because there's always many.
Marc:But Melissa Leo is one of them.
Marc:She won an Oscar, remember, for The Fighter, which is a movie I'll watch at least three or four times a year.
Marc:And when it's on a plane, I'll watch it there, too.
Marc:She did the movie Frozen River, which I just watched, and that got her an Oscar nomination.
Marc:I did not see it or know about it when it came out.
Marc:And it's a beautiful fucking movie and an amazing performance.
Marc:She did TV shows like Homicide and Treme.
Marc:And she's in this new movie, Body Brokers.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Body Brokers, which is great.
Marc:Directed by and written by this guy, John Schwab.
Marc:And we're doing something we actually don't usually do this week.
Marc:We're having two people on from the same movie.
Marc:Melissa today and Michael K. Williams on Thursday because this is an independent movie that definitely deserves attention because it's a dark story about a real thing.
Marc:And also Michael K. Williams.
Marc:Come on, man.
Marc:It's fucking Omar from The Wire.
Marc:What are you kidding me?
Marc:What are you kidding me?
Marc:There's a million reasons to have these people on.
Marc:But this movie, Body Brokers, it's an interesting little zone that I don't think a lot of people know about.
Marc:The racket of rehab and just how deep and dark that racket can get.
Marc:I've got a buddy who works in in the rehab industry and he had to quit a couple of rehabs because of the corruption on how they once it became part of the broader insurance umbrella.
Marc:I think it was a requirement maybe during Obamacare to provide money for rehabs.
Marc:There were dubious, devious, evil fucking people that just started running money through sick people.
Marc:They started running money through junkies.
Marc:They started paying junkies to relapse.
Marc:They started, you know, providing junkies with medical procedures they didn't need.
Marc:They started, you know, hijacking tests like piss tests and, you know, taking that money, overcharging, just running billions of dollars.
Marc:through these very sick individuals who are some of them hopeless.
Marc:That's the fucked up thing about addiction and about knowing about it and understanding it.
Marc:If you've got the bug, it's one thing.
Marc:But really knowing that most people don't recover from it and a good percentage of people die from it and a lot of people just live with it, that the percentage rate of people that actually get sober and stay sober is fucking painfully low.
Marc:And the education of people in this country around addiction and alcoholism is still fairly unenlightened.
Marc:But this movie is a window into the dark racket of exploitation and hustling insurance money through drug addicts and rehabs.
Marc:And it's a it's fucking it's it's a jar like I'm familiar with the world.
Marc:having been in it as a patient and as somebody who is sober.
Marc:So the language of the movie was sort of close to home for me in some ways, but the movie is dark as fuck and satisfying.
Marc:And this guy, this guy Swab, who directed Body Brokers, he doesn't pull any punches, man.
Marc:He lets that ending sit there.
Marc:There's a lot of fucking movies with third act problems right now.
Marc:Like, that's the biggest thing we've got to deal with.
Marc:A lot of people are without electricity.
Marc:There's winter storm warnings everywhere.
Marc:People are freezing to death in their chairs at home.
Marc:And people are broke.
Marc:The pandemic rages on.
Marc:We don't know how we're going to bounce back.
Marc:But let's just talk about the third act of some of these current motion pictures that are available now.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:What a fucking tragedy the third act of some of these movies are.
Marc:I didn't know if I would.
Marc:It's just like you get through, you lock into a movie, you get about two thirds of the way in and then they drop something.
Marc:You're like, come on.
Marc:How far do you want me to fucking suspend my disbelief to enjoy this movie?
Marc:Now I know this is bullshit.
Marc:You know, and you're not, I can't even get back to where I was.
Marc:And I just got to hope that the ending is satisfying enough for me to walk away thinking I didn't just waste half my life or a quarter of my life or maybe the last hour of my life watching this fucking thing, this shiny piece of garbage.
Marc:Aside from that, movies I can recommend are this movie, The Body Brokers, Nomadland, which is a beautiful sort of meditation on grief and the great American disappointment.
Marc:I liked The Father a lot with Anthony Hopkins, which was a unique twist in that you don't realize...
Marc:initially whose point of view the film is being shot from.
Marc:And when you do, it's sort of jarring, but then you have to piece it together in sort of a wonderful way.
Marc:It's a difficult movie, but it's beautifully handled.
Marc:And I liked Judas and the Black Messiah.
Marc:They do a great job, and it's a story that a lot of us don't know.
Marc:I don't know how true they were to the story or if it's as historically accurate as it plays out to be, but it's an education, and it's a painful one, and it's a fucking beautifully shot movie, to be honest with you.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Of course, the Adam Curtis six-part mindfuck that is... I can't get you out of my head...
Marc:And also, I wanted to kind of spread a little love to my friend, Cliff Nesteroff, who has been on this show a couple of times.
Marc:He wrote the book, The Comedians.
Marc:I'm a big fan of his writing.
Marc:Nobody writes about comedy like Cliff Nesteroff.
Marc:And he has a new book out.
Marc:It's called We Had a Little Real Estate Problem, The Unheralded Story of Native Americans and Comedy.
Marc:It's out now.
Marc:You can get it wherever you get books.
Marc:I have not read it.
Marc:I'm looking forward to reading it.
Marc:I've just been a little backed up on the books, man.
Marc:But apparently Steve Martin likes it.
Marc:Judd likes it.
Marc:I thought Cliff's other book, Comedians and all the stuff he used to write for the WFMU blog on comedy is stellar.
Marc:The best stuff, the darkest stuff, the truest stuff.
Marc:He gets in there.
Marc:He looks into the dark portals of show business and pulls out the gems.
Marc:I'm sorry that I didn't get to interview one of the original Native American stand-ups, Charlie Hill, before he passed away.
Marc:It's a missed opportunity.
Marc:I used to see him at the store.
Marc:He was a good guy.
Marc:But this book, Cliff's new book,
Marc:We had a little real estate problem.
Marc:The unheralded story of Native Americans and comedy is out now.
Marc:And I guarantee you it'll be something you know nothing about and you will come away from it educated and engaged.
Marc:And I'm saying that without reading it.
Marc:Also, this movie Body Broker is something to see.
Marc:I also want to say about Melissa Leo.
Marc:In the interview, she clearly harbors bad feelings toward the people who didn't believe in her early on.
Marc:And, you know, this is the interesting thing about people.
Marc:Why say people?
Marc:Why be general?
Marc:This is the interesting thing about me and maybe you.
Marc:Because this far along, you know, I have, you know, my success is fine.
Marc:I enjoy my success.
Marc:I'm happy I'm successful.
Marc:I'm, you know, not a household name.
Marc:I'm not a huge star, but I earn a nice living.
Marc:I have health coverage.
Marc:I like my house.
Marc:I have a certain amount of financial security because I've worked hard for a long time, but it didn't look like it was going to pan out.
Marc:And there are certainly people from my life, you know, without mentioning names who I, you know, even if it's little slights,
Marc:from back in the day, you remember them.
Marc:This isn't like a troll or it's not like a major trauma, but it was just like, you know, when you're either desperate or coming up or really trying your hardest to be a success at something and people either dismiss you or stand in your way,
Marc:uh you know just because they can or they don't see it i don't see it it sticks with you and it's like not an active grudge for me but if you if you bring it up it's sort of like you know bringing up a divorce to a to anybody to some dude hey you remember when you were divorced don't even why are you bringing that up like some of it's very close to the surface
Marc:But they're just people were sort of like, I don't want to talk to that guy.
Marc:Because it happened recently.
Marc:There was somebody that was reaching out to be on this show.
Marc:And at the beginning of what we were doing here, this guy slighted us.
Marc:And it was pretty quick.
Marc:But it was loaded because of the tone and the dismissive nature of it.
Marc:And it stuck.
Marc:And there's no fucking way.
Marc:that we're going to have that person on this show.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because, you know, why can't we just be bigger?
Marc:Isn't that something that you talk about?
Marc:I guess I've talked about a lot of that stuff with people, but there's certain ones, there's certain tones, there's certain people, there's a certain way in which people trigger you or hurt you when you're really trying and that just don't fucking go away.
Marc:I don't care if you're Jesus.
Marc:They just don't fucking go away.
Marc:Again, it's not active.
Marc:My brain's not on fire with it.
Marc:I don't need to have to pray to have it removed or meditated away.
Marc:It's not an active thought.
Marc:But, you know, once it's introduced into the soup, into the brain, into the juice, into the fucking gray matter, once that name or that moment is dropped in the slot, you just won a fucking fuck.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:Fuck that guy.
Marc:That's what you win.
Marc:You drop that coin in the slot.
Marc:Melissa Leo.
Marc:I'm going to talk to her now.
Marc:The new movie is The Body Brokers, and I highly recommend it.
Marc:This is me talking to the amazing actress, Melissa Leo.
Marc:Where are you?
Guest:I'm in New Orleans.
Marc:Really?
Marc:How's it down there?
Guest:Well, it's hard to know truly because I'm down here working, so I'm primarily keeping myself very safe.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a very interesting project, wonderful role for me, so...
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Can't tell?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Nobody told me I can tell or not tell.
Guest:It's just a pilot for Fox, so whether or not everybody will get to see it, time will tell.
Guest:But it's a very interesting character whose brother explains that she's so weird because she's twice exceptional, which is a newer kind of phrase for learning differences.
Guest:oh um and and she's a little bit of a social imbecile and a genius oh great who uh is interested in forensic genealogy and to find out more about that you'll have to watch the show oh i'm in so so when you get when you like embark on a role like that what like what do you study i mean what do you do
Guest:Oh, it's fascinating because actually this character I've been sitting on for 10 months, we were going to shoot the pilot in March and everybody knows what happened in the United States in March.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we all got sent home and, you know, with our fingers and toes crossed that we would be able to come back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Two and a half months ago, we got the call.
Guest:Indeed, we're going to come back and try and shoot it now.
Guest:So I've never sort of hibernated with a character for so long.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I really trust my writer, showrunner, the wonderful Chris Levinson.
Guest:I mostly allow the research to be done by them and not fill it up with other ideas of my own.
Guest:They've offered I meet.
Guest:A couple of women that the character is loosely based on, I have said no thank you.
Guest:I'm curious to meet them, but I don't want them or I to think I'm portraying them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I just mostly go by the writer and ask the questions as I need to to have an idea of what I'm saying.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But do you go through like when you like to make choices as an actor, somebody who has this in the real world or in the world of people, an awkwardness, but in a world of the mind, you know, a genius, you know, how do you sort of do you just manufacture that or just go by the script or?
Guest:It's a little bit of all of those things.
Guest:And playing Lou Kelly these last couple of weeks after waiting so long to be her has been fascinating.
Guest:And I am informed by my writer and her research.
Guest:I'm informed by the information she has on the subject, the information I've gathered along the way, my own learning differences that probably come into play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's an incredibly instinctual role in the end.
Guest:I did, you know, there's a sweet little show about love on the spectrum that Netflix has.
Guest:I watched that.
Guest:And what I really got from that was that there's...
Guest:all kinds of ways this shows up in people.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that we could both invent things and also be quite factual about the representations of
Guest:say, a panic attack.
Guest:I don't know that I've ever had a panic attack in my life.
Guest:I don't know that I've ever witnessed a panic attack.
Guest:Maybe I'm in constant panic attack for all I know.
Guest:But yeah, I ask questions and I see if they smile when we finish the take.
Guest:And if they're smiling, I figure I did good.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You can get to panic, though.
Marc:I mean, panic's never that far away, is it?
Guest:No, I don't think for many of us, so far away.
Guest:And I don't think for many of us, learning differences are so far away, you know, that's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So it's just sort of an amplification or a reduction of what's already inside of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the smarty pants side, well, that's all written for me.
Marc:But that must be fun.
Guest:It's very fun to play somebody with that kind of intellect because my intellect resides much lower in my body, somewhere around my gut.
Guest:And to have that kind of cerebral intellect, it's so much fun to play.
Marc:Well, that's interesting, a gut intellect, because I mean, I think it feels like to me because I watch I've watched you for years.
Marc:I mean, I've obviously not seen all of your movies.
Marc:Have you seen all of your movies?
Marc:You've made a lot of movies.
Guest:I've done a lot of movies and television.
Guest:I've seen most of it because I am not a egomaniac as many people.
Guest:consider actors to be uh most of us are kind of the opposite of that yeah but um i watch it to improve right what works what doesn't work like a game movie game films like you know exactly yeah yeah exactly yeah i wish i had a coach that'd be fun you never had a coach you could get a coach
Guest:Yeah, I could get a coach.
Guest:Actually, as soon as I said it, I realized I've never really understood that idea of an acting coach.
Guest:I don't really know what a coach would do.
Guest:I again, I'm using so much my gut on things.
Guest:And then my leader, be it like with the case with John Schwab and Body Brokers, he's just he knows his film inside out.
Guest:What more information could I bring to it?
Guest:That would, you know, sometimes that can detract from the film too much outside information.
Marc:I love that movie.
Marc:I really I like it.
Marc:I'm a sober guy.
Marc:So, like, you know, some of the landscape was familiar to me.
Marc:And I know people that work in that industry.
Marc:So what was what was it sort of a devastating, dark movie about a real thing and about the insurance scams around treatment centers?
Marc:And at first I didn't love the narrator because I was like, is this going to be glib?
Marc:You know, but there had to be a way to deliver the information to set up the thing.
Marc:And then once you got into it, what was interesting about your character, the therapist, is that once it's established, you know, what's going on, everybody in that industry becomes suspect.
Marc:You know, so like...
Marc:So I'm sitting there looking at you thinking like, is she in on it?
Marc:But ultimately that doesn't really matter because it doesn't seem like you are.
Marc:But I thought the performance was great and I thought the whole movie was kind of ballsy.
Guest:It's a very, John Swab is nothing if not a ballsy director and a smart ballsy director.
Marc:And he's an Oklahoma guy.
Marc:He seems like a young guy.
Guest:He is a younger guy.
Guest:I mean, to somebody like me, almost everybody's younger, but no, he's a younger fellow.
Guest:He's got a lot ahead of him.
Guest:And here's the funniest story about John Swab and I, he approached me for the film.
Guest:I believe he calls run with the hunted.
Guest:which was the previous film to Body Brokers.
Guest:And he had a role that I felt in many ways I'd played too often.
Guest:Which role is that?
Guest:In other ways.
Guest:The character's name is Birdie.
Guest:She was the character who, in the end, the weight of all...
Guest:This wrongdoing, and you can see in John's films, who's wrong, who's right, is a slippery slope of complicated realities.
Guest:It's not black and white and good and bad.
Guest:But in the final analysis, there was actually a line she needed to utter towards the end of the film.
Guest:Why do I do the terrible, bad things I do?
Guest:In Birdie's case, prostituting young women.
Guest:And that's like a scary thought to me, a woman prostituting others without the story of how she got there being told some other interesting story being told.
Guest:And in the end, just say, because I'm a bad bitch.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:That's no reason for behavior.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was very clear with John.
Guest:He worked very hard to alter the script in some way.
Guest:And finally, I said, John, you're ruining your movie.
Guest:You've got a good movie.
Guest:Go make that movie.
Guest:And maybe one day you'll come to me with something else.
Guest:And by God, he did.
Guest:He did it.
Guest:Not just not just once, but twice.
Marc:What was the other one?
Guest:This summer, I've shot his next film that will be coming out after a bit called Ida Red.
Guest:And I play for him in that Ida Red.
Guest:And I just adore John.
Guest:I adore the person that he is.
Guest:I adore the life's path he has traveled, his honest, open nature in sharing that.
Guest:in his work and his work trying to better the world in some kind of way by examining things that aren't often examined.
Marc:Yeah, I think that like I called a buddy of mine who works in the treatment world and he said that he had to quit two jobs because of the corruption.
Marc:and just all levels of exploitation of the drug addict, the victims.
Marc:But I was really happy.
Marc:Lately, I've watched a lot of independent movies, but he didn't sell out the ending.
Marc:He let it happen.
Marc:And it lands hard.
Marc:And then that's when I realized that the narrator, in order for that movie to survive...
Marc:the human spirit, that guy had to come back.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:There had to be that button or else we're just going to be like, whoa.
Guest:And but I watched a very smart movie watching on your part, because that is something that John himself struggled with.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:No filmmaker worth their salt wants to have a film work with a voiceover.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, that's sort of a but always in the script, that voiceover was there because John already understood what you understood at the end of the film.
Marc:Well, yeah, because at the beginning, it's sort of like it had struck a note like, you know, like the big short.
Marc:Really, there was, you know, this explaining and there was sort of a kind of like not sarcastic, but kind of a devilish narration to the darkness that's unfolding that gives it kind of a comedic tone initially.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then it kind of diminishes a bit.
Marc:And then at the end, you realize like, oh, this is a devil, you know, on some level.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So so I like that.
Guest:No, there is definitely people in the world who do wrong.
Guest:And John's not afraid to talk about that either.
Marc:Yeah, and he illustrates the lack of conscience on behalf of those people.
Marc:But I've watched a string of movies lately that were all indie movies that had this kind of strange, like, this wasn't one of them.
Marc:But I watched Frozen River for the first time last night because I knew I was going to talk to you.
Marc:And I've watched A Fighter.
Marc:I watched A Fighter, it seems like, once a month.
Marc:So I know that movie, and I know some of your other work.
Marc:But...
Marc:In Frozen River, I just watched Nomadland.
Marc:Did you watch Nomadland?
Guest:No, I haven't seen that.
Marc:I watched that, and I watched another movie called Minari, and then I watched Frozen River, and there are all these movies that have these bleak, tragic undercurrents, but somehow or another at the end, the human spirit is enough to lift the movie to a resolution where you don't want to shoot yourself.
Marc:And...
Marc:And that was true with Frozen River, too, which was really a breakout movie for you, right?
Guest:Frozen River was a huge breakout movie for me.
Guest:And I'm not often asked to play the lead.
Guest:And Courtney Hunt asked me to play the lead in that film.
Guest:And it's so much more interesting for an actor to really sink their teeth into the whole story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To have the character's whole story being told and not sort of...
Guest:used as a pawn in the telling of the rest of the story.
Guest:It's a tricky thing for a supporting actor to do is sort of literally support the rest of the film.
Guest:is very different than carrying the film.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Because you feel that, the weight of it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just there's a different intention in it.
Guest:It has to do with that the character who's leading, their story is more fully told.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the supporting characters you may or may not know about.
Guest:And the beautiful thing in Frozen River, although it wasn't sort of sold this way, but Frozen River is a highly unusual film in that it actually has two women who are leading the film.
Guest:Misty Upham, no less than I, a lead actor in that film film.
Marc:And also unpredictable.
Marc:Like it's one of those movies where you really you don't see anything coming.
Marc:And that's and that's really so amazing.
Marc:It's a really a great experience.
Guest:I am delighted that you had a reason to finally watch that film because and this might be completely the wrong thing to say, but I'll be the girl in the room doing that.
Guest:Frozen River is by far a finer film if you're just looking at filmmaking.
Guest:than Fighter will ever hope to be.
Guest:Fighter is a fascinating story.
Guest:It has fascinating elements to it.
Guest:Dick Eklund alone is enough to tell a story about, and Fighter is about so much more than that.
Guest:Bale nails the character so amazingly, even though he's so...
Guest:far from Dickie and reality.
Guest:Um, so, you know, uh, there's, there's wonderful things about fighter, but frozen river is an incredibly intentional film made by a female and
Guest:which not a lot of films you ever hear about are.
Guest:And Courtney set out to make a film that her rather straight, quite white father would sit his ass in a chair and watch from beginning to end.
Guest:It's a very intentional film.
Guest:What you saw last night is what Courtney Hunt wrote on the page.
Guest:It's not manufactured afterwards from the footage that's there and move this here, move that there.
Guest:It's an incredibly well-written film that was incredibly well-realized film.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Frozen River is miraculous.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know how I missed it or why I missed it, but there's so you miss things.
Marc:You know, what are you going to do?
Marc:And it's called advertising, advertising.
Marc:And also, like, you know, there's a lot of it.
Marc:But it came out at a time where I shouldn't have missed it.
Marc:But I mean, but it's interesting getting back to this this thing that that moves you that, you know, you said something about the reason for behavior.
Marc:That without a reason for behavior, you don't really know where to go with this gut that you have.
Marc:You need to know that for every character, right?
Marc:I mean, it doesn't matter how small it is.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:No, I'll have to answer a lot of questions.
Guest:Well, Alice Ward is a fine example of that.
Guest:I mean, I had to answer all kinds of questions that were in the fighter.
Guest:And a lot of those questions were answered because I met them all.
Guest:I met all nine of the children.
Guest:I met Alice Ward herself.
Guest:The guys who are hanging around the set constantly hoping to catch a sight of Alice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Had all been in love with her at one time or another in that tiny little town of Lowell.
Guest:And they loved me because they saw me as her.
Guest:And all of that reality of it added to the performance.
Guest:So there weren't things that as an actor I had to guess that.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I could just turn to Alice.
Guest:I could turn to Lowell, Massachusetts.
Guest:It's not a town I know well, but I know enough about New England to understand the long, cold winter, nine children, several different fathers, you know, a lot of information.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It also like, you know, in comparing those two movies, the weird thing about those David O. Russell movies, particularly like Silver Lining Playbook, Silver Lining Playbook, like those two, it seems to me, go together that they're fundamentally that it's an entertainment movie.
Marc:You know, it's going to end good.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's like there's a happy ending on that thing.
Marc:So like in terms of what's revealed in the story and comparing it to something like Frozen River, I mean, Russell enters that movie knowing that it's going to be glorious at the end.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, Frozen River.
Guest:He adores movies and moviegoers and people and all kinds of things that add to the strengths of those films.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And but like those two in particular and Hustle, too, is fun.
Marc:Joy, I got it got away from me a little bit, but because I didn't understand what what the movie was about.
Guest:But that's OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that's OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the Frozen River movie, it's like you don't feel like everything's going to be OK for anybody.
Marc:But you do feel like the human spirit transcended.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly right.
Guest:And you just gave me chills describing that way.
Guest:Very, very nice.
Marc:So like when you started, where did you where'd you grow up?
Guest:I was born in Manhattan.
Marc:In actual Manhattan.
Guest:In actual Manhattan.
Guest:New York, New York.
Guest:Your New York kid?
Guest:Brooklyn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was there until I was, my brother and I struggle over this, about eight or nine years old.
Guest:When, for...
Guest:several reasons we were evicted from our apartment on east 10th street the family yeah the family my mother my brother and i um your dad was already gone my dad had gone that was part of the eviction he had two rent control departments in his name a new yorker will understand that yes um and so probably to this day to this day you're mad that you lost that oh
Guest:Oh, that apartment when I was a kid was $40 a month.
Guest:It had a basement apartment with a garden.
Guest:On 10th Street, huh?
Marc:On 10th Street, yeah.
Marc:In the alphabets?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Between 2nd and 3rd, one of the prettiest blocks in the city.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's a remarkable block.
Guest:The building that I came home from St.
Guest:Vincent's Hospital and spent the first several years of my life in was actually, although they're brownstones that all match one another, on that side of 10th Street, the other side of 10th Street, not so.
Guest:The corner up by Third Avenue no longer either because NYU owns it.
Guest:But the majority of the block are brownstones built by a single architect.
Guest:In the middle of the block is 112.
Guest:And 112 has a different kind of wider, broader windows in it.
Guest:Um, because it was built originally as an artist's residence.
Marc:Oh, look at that.
Guest:I came home to live in an artist's residence.
Guest:I went to PS one 22, which is now known in New York as public space.
Guest:One 22.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I've done shows there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was my grade school.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Um, I also used to go with my mother to the covered market.
Guest:That is also now a theater.
Um,
Guest:So it was just meant to be that I do what I do.
Marc:And you have these memories are clear, huh?
Guest:Memories are clear of those places of my upbringing, my family, not so much.
Guest:The memories of going around the corner to the building that eventually became the public theater.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:And working with Peter Schumann and his Bread and Puppet Theater.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:Was that a child theater?
Guest:Not a child theater.
Guest:Peter Schumann is a German political avant-garde puppeteer.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And he, for...
Guest:Since 1963, has orchestrated the Bread and Puppet Theater.
Marc:Oh, that's his thing, huh?
Guest:That's Schumann's thing.
Guest:And he did that out of New York?
Guest:Originally, they were based, New York City owned that building that Joe Papp eventually got and called the Public Theater.
Guest:That's a huge building.
Guest:It's a huge building.
Guest:And for a dollar a month, Schumann and his troop had a floor available to them in that building.
Guest:That was real estate has changed in New York.
Guest:But yeah, and I would go over there and work with clay and paper mache to build these puppets.
Guest:Then we were asked, my brother and I, did we want to be in the show?
Guest:I had no idea what a show was.
Guest:Four.
Guest:I had no television in the house.
Guest:And we would go and me and a bunch of grownups would pretend a story.
Guest:It was the story of the nativity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we would pretend the story and do it.
Guest:And they all cared so much about the pretending.
Guest:It was so serious.
Guest:It was wonderful.
Guest:And then we went over there one time at night and these people sat down and watched the pretending.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And believed it.
Guest:You could hear them believing us pretending.
Guest:And that I was sold on.
Guest:I had no idea he was my first director.
Guest:I had no idea this was theater, that we were performers.
Guest:It just related to my favorite childhood game of pretending.
Guest:And many years later, realized, probably in my late 20s, early 30s, Schumann had been my first director.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, he obviously planted the seed in a way, right?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I gave it gave an outlet to something that was inside of me.
Guest:That was the one thing I seemed to understand.
Guest:I could understand a game of pretend better than anything real.
Marc:Did you find it was pretending a relief mechanism?
Marc:Did you did you like to pretend because it was just fun or because it got you out of whatever sadness?
Guest:The best that I can explain about it is that I understood it.
Guest:I understood pretending in a way that the world full of its complications and things that I didn't understand.
Marc:Like that moment where you're like, they're buying it.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I'd walk down the street and hold my mama's elbow and say, Mama, I'm blind.
Guest:And she would forever fail me.
Marc:taking her elbow away or saying look at that yeah mom I can't see yeah she wouldn't play along yeah not not not enough she didn't want she wasn't involved she didn't want to be part of the improv yeah maybe not maybe not so so you did that as a kid and then like did it evolve into did you did you act throughout high school did you did you continue
Guest:Well, I didn't.
Guest:I had very unconventional upbringing and very unconventional educational reality.
Guest:Why is that?
Guest:Well, I was thrown out of eighth grade because the art teacher didn't like me and she claimed I had not done my homework and I showed her the
Guest:painting i had done again and i said well i did my homework but she said it didn't fulfill the assignment and i didn't know what that meant and i told her she could shove it up her behind and um they sent me down to the headmaster and the headmaster was i just don't know what to do with you and i said well how about i just don't come to school anymore
Guest:And then I went a little bit to high school, but not really.
Guest:I don't really remember any classes.
Guest:I remember skipping classes much more than going to class.
Marc:That's weird.
Guest:And then my mom got a job in England and that brought us over there.
Guest:And I landed eventually in a small theater school there in London.
Marc:That was a fortuitous shift.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:I mean, and I had also as a freshman in that high school up in Bellas Falls, Vermont, I had
Guest:gone to them and said i see we have this big theater here do you do theater oh yes we do we put on a production every year yes it's quite serious and i said oh good well i'd like to be involved in that and they said yes well dear heart when you get to be a what is it a junior or a senior you can be in the theater program and
Guest:And I said, well, you know, I'm going to do this with my life.
Guest:And so I think it might be a really good idea to let me be in the theater program.
Guest:It might keep me interested in school.
Guest:And they didn't see it that way.
Marc:I like that you can still tap into what seems like a visceral resentment of these people.
Guest:They're bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I was sitting here listening to it, and I'm like, Jesus.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I mean, look, you got to hold on to that.
Marc:I mean, it's not far from the surface with me either, you know?
Guest:Well, the people who stop you in your life when you have a fairly clear idea of something, that's a dangerous thing.
Guest:I mean, it really could have stopped me.
Guest:And I don't know what I would have...
Guest:done with my life if I hadn't kept on finding the door that said acting right going through it right I very seriously do not know what I would have done with my life and there were enough influences that I probably wouldn't be here now right and those people are usually doing it out of some dumb personal issue of their own like just some dumb power you know stupid insensitivity
Marc:protocol yeah and business as usual I mean there's nothing more dangerous than business as usual in the United States of America exactly so but that's and I think it seems that you know you've you fought that fight before I mean like it seems like in terms of you establishing yourself to be the amazing actress that you are was was no easy ride well on the one hand that might be so and on the other hand
Guest:I knew and I say still to people of any age that think, oh, I want to be an actor.
Guest:My first response is, and I said it to myself for many years, if anything can stop you, let it.
Marc:I tell people that about comedy, too.
Marc:Figure out another thing that will make you happy.
Guest:Yeah, it's not it's it's not for the faint of heart or the ones who feel like they think that'd be really cool.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's not for people who actually think in terms of like it.
Marc:It's not a choice if you're going to do it.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that's what people don't understand.
Marc:It's not like I'm going to try it.
Marc:It's not like I do this other thing, but I want to try this.
Marc:It's like there's no other thing.
Marc:This is it.
Guest:And I bet, I bet when you were being funny as a kid, I bet you were really funny and I bet you got in trouble for it all the time.
Marc:All the time.
Marc:I got kicked out of schools.
Marc:You know, I, yeah, sure.
Marc:But like when it came down to it, there was, I just didn't see any other option there.
Marc:You know, there was just, there, there was never a plan B outside of, you know, like, you know, working at a restaurant and even that went away.
Guest:I was so bad at that.
Guest:You wouldn't want me as your waiter.
Guest:Get your own fucking coffee.
Marc:You tried, though, right?
Guest:I tried.
Guest:People tried to help me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then there was this idea that, like, you know, as things as you know, I get more bitter and less successful.
Marc:I'm like, well, I could always teach.
Marc:Teach what?
Marc:What am I going to teach?
Marc:Let me go back.
Marc:But, you know, it's just yeah, I think it's really a matter of like there's no other thing that you could do.
Guest:And, you know, that that that to me is what an artist is, whatever kind of artist they might be.
Marc:I think that's right.
Marc:And like there are some people like, you know, who I talk to.
Marc:Do you know Azza Jacobs director?
Marc:His parents were experimental film people in New York.
Marc:And they're still at it.
Marc:And it's a small world of like experimental film, like Kenneth Angers type of stuff.
Marc:But they've been doing it for 50 years and they have no desire to change anything.
Marc:This is what they do.
Marc:And, you know, and he's archiving some of it.
Marc:But but like when I just talked to him and I realized, oh, my God, there's there's there was never there's no other choice.
Marc:This is it.
Guest:And success has little to do with it.
Guest:Success might let us eat a little better and have a little nicer roof over our heads, perhaps.
Guest:But it doesn't change the instrument.
Guest:It doesn't change the...
Marc:No, it might make it a little better even, you know, in terms of like, you know, if the the the the baseline desperation of fear of destitution or or not getting any work is relieved a little bit.
Marc:You know, maybe you shouldn't complain about that.
Marc:Just use it.
Marc:Use the space wisely.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:That, yeah.
Guest:Use the space wisely.
Guest:Very, very, very fine advice.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And that it also, you know, who knows?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At any point, any one of the jobs could be the last job.
Guest:I mean, it's definitely that.
Guest:I'm not, I have dipped my toe into producing.
Uh-huh.
Guest:Dipped my toe into working with a writer to develop some.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I'm an actor for hire.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's what I am.
Marc:Oh, so you had to come in a way you were provide.
Marc:You were given opportunities to do these other things and you had to come back around to like, you know what?
Marc:I just want to act.
Marc:And, you know, that's what I mean.
Guest:I think I have very strong feelings about the way that actors are sort of kept out of a lot of the conversation about what we do.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:We're talked about an awfully lot.
Guest:We're talked to very little.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Like in what way?
Guest:Very true.
Marc:How do you mean?
Marc:Because my understanding before I started doing more acting of a director was that, you know, a director is going to tell you what to do.
Marc:But a lot of times directors hire you because they believe that you know what to do.
Marc:So in that context, in a broader context, what do you mean that actors are left out of the conversation?
Guest:Well, I mean, there simply is a phase of making a television show or a film that we call pre-production.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:In which daily meetings are taken, investigation throughout the process.
Guest:Area you'll be working in to find the locations.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Conversations about those locations.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which will eventually be my character's home.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do not include me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that kind of can then also continue again.
Guest:To the sense of, you know, well, on this, I eventually I had been asked several times, what did I think the character would wear?
Guest:What did I think the character?
Guest:Well, I think she might wear this and that and talk to the costume designer, tried on a bunch of clothing that turned out neither the showrunner nor the network were interested in seeing me in.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And they had another idea of how the character would look.
Guest:And then I said, well, you tell me because I'm happy to do as I'm told.
Guest:That's actually the job of the actor.
Guest:It's very difficult in today's world where half of the time or more than you're being told what to do by somebody who does not know what they're talking about.
Guest:That's when it gets hard.
Yeah.
Marc:Do you generally know that right away or does it take a minute?
Guest:Sometimes it's a slow burn to that.
Guest:You're hopeful, always hopeful.
Marc:That's a great, that horrible realization where you're weeks into it and you're like, oh my God, they don't know what they're talking about.
Guest:You should not be listening to a word they're saying.
Guest:And then there's little tricks you can do, which is something one should not talk about in interviews where you can sort of go, yes, of course, and do what you know is right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you agree to, you know, do do the one thing that they want and then do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Your way.
Guest:But the truth of that is even worse because the truth of that is that, you know, as an actor, just like seaman on a ship, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Captain says, all hands on deck, all hands show up on deck.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's just what we do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when the director says, do it more brightly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't unhear that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So even though you know it needs to be darker, you find yourself doing it more brightly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you have to watch that and go like, fuck.
Guest:And that's why we watch our work.
Marc:But also the other sacrifice you have to make when you have the sort of like, sure, I'll do it that way, and you do it your way, is that when your way works better, they're going to take responsibility for it.
Guest:Oh, I have no problem with that.
Guest:I don't need any of that.
Guest:I don't need people to know my name or know my work or know it was my idea.
Guest:That is of no importance to me.
Guest:Does it work?
Guest:That's all I want to know.
Guest:And you can you know that I just don't have I don't I'm not.
Guest:It's in my own nature to not take the ownership.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in fact, you want a director who very much wants to take the ownership.
Guest:It's a joy of working with John Swab.
Guest:John Swab is has no fear of being the leader of all of us.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that makes it that it makes you feel like you can, you know, even take more risks, I would imagine.
Marc:A hundred percent that, you know, you trust the guy, you know, and he's got a vision.
Marc:So if you're part of someone's vision and they know what it is, it's sort of like, OK, great.
Marc:And now I have space to work.
Marc:So did you did you train at all?
Marc:Did you go to acting school at all?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I did several different bouts of my training.
Guest:Of course, there was the very early days with Peter Schumann.
Guest:Who would have even known I was training?
Guest:And then I went to this small theater school in London where I don't know that I learned that much.
Guest:I think that I learned things about the discipline of theater and things like that.
Guest:I was a really good time.
Guest:I spent there having a year going to Mount Vuce Theater School.
Guest:And then I came back to the United States and I wasted some time, oddly enough, out in Oklahoma and nothing to do with swab.
Guest:Oh, working in a gas station, working in a bakery, trying to make a living.
Marc:Why Oklahoma?
Guest:Um, I had a notion that I could, in the middle of the country there, make a bankroll, like maybe $1,000 or something like a lot like that.
Guest:And then from the center of the country, I could work my way west to act or I could head
Guest:back east come on oklahoma you just you you decide you decided there was a fella there was a fella there you go there you go i was a little young for it but there was a fella involved and um no one goes to oklahoma just because yeah no all right that turned into what
Guest:And that turned into just nothing and all sorts of nonsense.
Guest:And my father worrying about me perhaps more than he ever had in his life to that point.
Guest:And he applied to college for me.
Marc:Now, where's your dad?
Marc:I mean, I know he split and there was a problem with the apartment.
Guest:Yeah, and he lives out on the east end of Long Island.
Guest:And there's a relationship there.
Guest:I won't say that it's as close as a father and daughter could hope to be.
Guest:It's probably my bad.
Guest:But I have a hard time with that disappearing when I most needed him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But there's a relationship there, and I'm glad my son developed a relationship with his grandfather.
Guest:That feels very, very important to me.
Marc:How old's your son?
Guest:He's a good man.
Guest:My son is 33.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:He's a grown man.
Guest:He's a grown man, yes.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Guest:He is making his own way in the world.
Marc:Is he outside of show business?
No.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It's a much more stable industry he's in.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:He's a fine artist.
Marc:What's his medium?
Guest:He primarily paints, but he trained for some time at CalArts.
Guest:He's also gone to a very known art school in Germany, and he's living now in Berlin and making his first steps as an actual artist.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Quite remarkable.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm not the only one who thinks what he does is not only very good, but quite interesting.
Marc:What's his name?
Guest:Which is important in art.
Guest:His name is John Matthew Mortimer Heschel Hurd.
Guest:We call him Jack.
Marc:Jack Hurd.
Marc:Oh, so his dad was John Hurd, right?
Marc:Correct.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I'm sorry for that guy's loss.
Marc:What a great actor.
Yeah.
Marc:yes yes very sad loss i have a psychic that tells me he's right here oh he's right there it's so fun it's so funny because i just watched uh cutter's way recently oh my god yeah that's some good acting right everybody was so damn good he was great so damn good i i love him in that and he sort of aged beautifully as an actor really were you guys together when he passed away
Guest:No, we had not been together for a long time.
Guest:By the time my son was nine months old, we had separated.
Guest:He was well known for being pretty hard on women, myself included, and a wonderful dad.
Guest:I have no complaints of John as a father.
Guest:He was a hard partner to have.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You've had quite a life there, Melissa.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, there's been one or two ups and downs and around the blocks and one thing and another.
Guest:So feel very lucky and blessed in the long run.
Marc:So what happened?
Marc:So you OK, so you did the London thing and then where do you train?
Guest:Oh, so then I had some training there in London and then I went to SUNY Purchase for sort of two and a half years.
Guest:And I really was not going to graduate within the four year program.
Guest:I excelled in theater voice.
Marc:They had a good program.
Guest:They had a very good, very interesting program.
Guest:My acting teacher, Joan Potter, is no longer with us.
Guest:She's much beloved by me and many of the students after being in her class.
Guest:She was a little difficult to be in the class with.
Marc:But like some actors that we know were in that class.
Marc:Didn't Chris Cooper go there?
Guest:I'm not sure about Chris Cooper.
Guest:Stan Tucci was in the year ahead of me.
Guest:Edie Falco came in behind me.
Marc:So you didn't finish it out, though?
Guest:No, I didn't, because there was a very small handful of academic classes that the theater arts majors were expected to pass, including theater history.
Guest:But let's go back in the conversation a little bit.
Guest:I didn't really go to school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I never really learned any of those things.
Guest:And we had a wonderful theater history teacher, Norris Houghton.
Guest:He had
Guest:designed the theater program there largely.
Guest:And the beginning of the semester with him, he had us all buy a book, a wonderful book called The Concise History of the Theater.
Guest:And every time he gave a lecture once a week, there'd be page numbers on the blackboard.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:I did not know I was supposed to have read those pages.
Marc:You just you didn't understand the how a classroom works.
Guest:I had no idea how a classroom works.
Guest:And the then dean of the theater arts program, the wonderful Doe Stockdale, saw in me something that made sense to him that I didn't.
Guest:Was not good at that side of things, but that my talent was elsewhere.
Guest:And that brings us back to this woman I'm playing now where there's an uneven.
Guest:She's twice exceptional.
Guest:Once in that she's got some failing socially on the character's part.
Guest:Academically, I would say for Melissa, I needed some kind of special help to get the basics.
Guest:And you don't get the basics, you can't ever really go forward.
Guest:And I never really got the basics.
Guest:I've learned how to read reading scripts.
Guest:I've learned everything I actually know through my work, not through being in school.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:So there's a lot of things in the world that still are surprising and interesting to me that people learned about in seventh and eighth grade.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like math.
Guest:Math is a is a quandary to me.
Guest:I have a fear of numbers.
Guest:I just don't understand.
Guest:But I can use my fingers.
Guest:They work good.
Marc:So your whole semblance of life and understanding of, I imagine some of the things that you missed learning, you've learned through characters.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Because you do like a million movies.
Marc:I mean, I brought that up before.
Marc:I mean, like in 2008, you were in nine movies that was released.
Guest:I wonder what they were.
Marc:Yeah, that's all right.
Marc:But like in the same 2009, seven movies.
Marc:So it seems to me that once you started going, like if the if the if it took if it was two to three weeks, four weeks, five weeks, you could line up maybe three or four or five, five movies a year.
Guest:Yeah, I never I haven't had the kind of career where I see the work.
Guest:well ahead of me right yes um it's it just it comes i do it and in the last eight nine years ten years there have been things that have sort of come in on top of each other right and because i don't know any better i say to my representatives well it's it'll work right we'll do both of them right and they work very very hard with scheduling and
Guest:And I still remain.
Guest:It's a rare necessity that I refuse work.
Guest:There is a role I consistently refuse.
Guest:And that is this person I've alluded to in the conversation earlier.
Guest:The woman who is not really explained.
Guest:Most recently, there was a film that came to me.
Guest:I didn't even open and read it.
Guest:All I read was the byline.
Guest:And I know I'm not interested.
Guest:It's about a young woman.
Guest:She's got some issues.
Guest:Apparently, her biggest issue is her mother and the stepfather in the house.
Guest:But we're not telling their story, which might be very interesting why somebody ends up being such a louse as a parent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I don't know that story.
Guest:I went through very hard parenthood, but both me and my son's father were the best parents we knew how to be to our son.
Guest:So to be a shitty parent, I just I can't relate to that because I played Alice Ward.
Guest:That's what people see.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:Yeah, but Alice Ward was far from a shitty parent.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's why I got an Academy Award for it, because I refused to simply play the shitty mom.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And if you and you're saying that if you're not given a script that at least involves some reason why this behavior is what it is.
Guest:Yeah, but even that sometimes that filmmaker will sort of try and write a great big long speech.
Marc:Yeah, but you know, right, right.
Marc:Well, you know, but the character study is not in the script.
Guest:No, exactly.
Guest:And that is a part that very consistently I have refused.
Guest:I don't think we need to see too many more.
Guest:wham, wham, wham, my parents were mean to me coming of age films.
Guest:I really think that we've really exhausted that genre in my lifetime.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But also in The Fighter, what's interesting to me is that like it's about what you said earlier about those people who have power or make choices and they're stupid because to box you in, to compartmentalize that performance as like, well, she played that crappy mother in that movie.
Marc:It's so shallow that
Marc:That, you know, that to typecast you as that based on that, you know, that that's not that's a dumb person.
Guest:I would have to agree with you.
Guest:And that then says very sadly that there's a lot of dumb out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there's no doubt that if there's one thing we've learned as of late that there there's no end to the parade is stupid.
Marc:So but but getting back to this idea of learning through like because it's interesting to me that if you're kind of a blank slate, you know, in terms of education outside of the things that interest you, that the process of playing even a character like you did in in the body brokers, you know, engages you in a way of thinking that that is unique.
Marc:It's proactive.
Marc:It's helpful.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:It has its own context.
Marc:And you learn to be a therapist in a way.
Guest:Exactly, exactly right.
Guest:And it's interesting what you were saying about the therapist and body brokers as well, because the questions that you were asking about her are exactly the questions I asked of John.
Guest:Is she in on it?
Guest:Is she in on it?
Guest:Is she a good therapist?
Guest:Is she a bad therapist?
Guest:And the most that John would give me on it, and it was a brilliant way to direct me,
Guest:was to say well i'm sure she thinks she's good at her job right you know that she's trying her best that's what people do right and in the context of that it's like right because how could you not know and whether or not she knows all that insurance shenanigan doesn't matter i don't need to venture a guess at right because what john is telling me by answering my questions the way that he did he's telling me that doesn't matter to the film
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's another great director gave me exactly the same direction.
Guest:Basically, when I asked Zemeckis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was going to face off with Denzel Washington in the final scenes of Flight.
Guest:And I said.
Guest:to Zemeckis, I said, what do you want me to do?
Guest:Do you want me to mother him, coddle him, be angry with him?
Guest:He was drunk flying a commercial airliner.
Guest:How does he want me to come at him?
Guest:And Zemeckis brilliantly said to me,
Guest:I want you to get Denzel to tell you the truth.
Guest:Any means necessary.
Guest:That's what he's saying to me.
Guest:He's saying any means necessary.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And giving the actor a very clear objective.
Marc:And Denzel's a, you know, he's a real acting animal.
Marc:That guy is like, that's like high octane shit.
Marc:So what was that like working with him on that scene?
Guest:Super exciting day and a half of my life.
Guest:Just thrilling day and a half of my life to have something so clearly set as my objective, costumed in exactly the right way.
Guest:Little did I know it.
Guest:Just everything about that was it was also if you remember in that film.
Guest:And Zemeckis has Denzel's face up on these screens the whole time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So whether or not the camera was facing where I was or facing where he was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was on screen the whole time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Very, very present and alive.
Guest:And it was, although I never got within, I think, 10 feet of him.
Guest:It was some of the most intimate playing I have ever experienced.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so that like so those kind of moments, like with this guy who directed Body Brokers and with Zemeckis, I mean, like who were some of the other directors that you found gave you stuff that you could take away forever?
Guest:You know, Alejandra Inuritu came up to me and whispered in my ear when I was trying to figure out how to deal with Jack, the husband in 21 Grams.
Guest:He said to me, it was such a good remark because it wasn't about the character.
Guest:It wasn't about the scene.
Guest:It wasn't about the way I was playing it.
Guest:It was about me in front of a movie camera, which was not what I was trained for.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he whispered in my ear, Melissa is much better than...
Guest:when you don't clench your jaw i thought that was making me strong right and he was saying to me it looked like shit on film right and i'm a mouth breather so you're going to cut to me i'm always going to have my mouth open so i have to really pay attention
Marc:So, like, I guess I want to ask you a little bit, you know, as we kind of land this thing.
Marc:Like, you know, I grew up... I was a doorman at the comedy store, and, you know, I've had a lifelong obsession.
Marc:You know, I've worked there, and I still work there, and, you know, I had an obsession with Mitzi, and you sort of played a character based on her in I'm Dying Up Here, which I guess sadly didn't last, but it was... It must have been interesting being in that world for a little while, but you didn't really...
Marc:You didn't really study Mitzi.
Marc:You did what you wanted with that thing, right?
Guest:When I went to shoot the pilot for I'm Dying Up Here, I had never heard of Mitzi.
Guest:I had never been to a comedy club.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I had been inside the improv in New York when Marty, back in 1984, invited me to take his improv workshop for free.
Marc:Marty, Marty.
Guest:Freeman.
Marc:No kidding?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and he had I'd met him through a friend and he said, come and take my class.
Guest:And I said, I can't afford a class.
Guest:And he said, no, no, no.
Guest:Just come.
Guest:I'm inviting you for free.
Guest:OK.
Guest:I did at one time the most terrifying experience ever.
Guest:ever in my life.
Marc:And what year was that?
Guest:Stand up there and be funny.
Guest:I'm guessing 84, 85, somewhere in there.
Guest:In thinking back, it was such a big, and it was the only time I was ever, so it wasn't a up and running comedy club.
Guest:It was a comedy club during the day when this class was going on there.
Guest:Right, sure, sure, yeah.
Guest:So I went out to do I'm Dying Up Here.
Guest:I had never heard of Mitzi.
Guest:Of course, I'd seen the store up on Sunset, but I never went in.
Guest:That seemed odd to me to go someplace to be made to laugh.
Guest:Anyway, whatever.
Guest:I get it better now.
Guest:i get it better now and i have such respect for the comics i mean not only the comics the comics that we were telling history about the comics that were on the show with us the actors plus their hearts that were being asked to play comics um it is actors know yeah funny is the hardest thing yeah drama is easy peasy next to funny sure it's such a
Guest:Yeah, it's such a on purpose thing.
Guest:I make somebody laugh.
Guest:That's like, wow, get your mind around that.
Guest:So I I knew that the character I was playing was Jewish because in the pilot episode, she has a long, long speech about a relative in Treblinka.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:So how does this Goy from New York be the Jewish lady out in California?
Marc:Well, you had New York, so that's a third of it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So I could do New York.
Guest:That would be easy reach.
Guest:I had to dye my hair that really brassy blonde.
Guest:Her name was Goldie, for God's sake.
Guest:And what else would a Jew from New York do when they got to California?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, uh, so those were all things that informed me in finding my Goldie.
Guest:So then we're in the midst of shooting the pilot and I find out that it's based on a book, but no, no, it's not necessary.
Guest:I read the book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I don't read the book.
Guest:We finished the pilot.
Guest:And somewhere after we went to series, I did open the book and read it.
Guest:I find it an extremely misogynistic book.
Guest:Um, um,
Guest:I both like what he's saying about Mitzi on the one hand, but despise it all in the end.
Guest:The hatred toward her, I think, is completely unwarranted.
Guest:And then I heard at one point that poor Pauly, just months before his mother passed, as a matter of fact, was like, but my mother never did cocaine and my mother never.
Guest:I was like, Jesus, somebody tell Pauly, sure, I'm not playing his mother.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:oh yeah so that was the biggest problem huh
Guest:That was, that was, yeah, it's complicated because I have at this point played real people, Lady Bird Johnson, Alice Ward.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That's a very different thing than inventing a character.
Guest:And I feel too, I'm always protective of the women I'm asked to play.
Guest:I was very protective of Mitzi.
Guest:There was a lot of thing of Mitzi, of Goldie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's very protective of things.
Guest:you know, that they were asking me to do within the show and that I felt were downright disrespectful of her, didn't offer a chance to understand her side of the story.
Guest:Melissa Leo understands very well why Mitzi Shore didn't pay those comics in the beginning.
Guest:The comics never once thought about what it costs to buy that booze and keep the place going.
Guest:And I mean, I get the whole dialogue, but they wouldn't.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:say that exactly in the show.
Guest:So that was hard.
Marc:Oh, so there was a lack of a lack of empathy with because like it's a weird subculture.
Marc:It's a very specific thing.
Marc:The Comedy Store and it had a profound effect on a lot of people that went on to become very big.
Marc:players in the world of entertainment and she sort of like represents something almost magical uh for both darkness and light uh i i'm i'm guilty of it myself i i did a a documentary you know with mike binder and i was in her office and like i was a doorman there and i worked for her and i was so it was like she was the dark queen of this world that was you know she was like the mother to all these wayward borderline criminals who
Marc:You know, it's crazy, man.
Guest:I think that is that is that documentary on Netflix?
Marc:It's a comedy store documentary.
Marc:It deals with her a bit.
Guest:Yeah, it's one segment that deals with her.
Guest:I loved that.
Guest:Yeah, I love that because that was much more gracious towards Mitzi than the I'm Dying Up Their book ever was.
Guest:There really there was a seeking of an understanding of it.
Guest:Oh, yeah, for sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Unique individual.
Guest:And I really enjoyed that.
Guest:It is my belief, and maybe I don't know enough, that she invented modern day comedy.
Guest:Mitzi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When the husband left and the store was there and she said, paint it black.
Guest:One spotlight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Only comics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that had never been done before.
Guest:And there's there's comedy shops all across the country.
Marc:It was one after the other showcase room like her and Bud probably created this sort of like, you know, you can see 20 comics in a night thing.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And comedy only.
Guest:No vaudeville, no singing and dancing.
Guest:Just stand up there and be funny.
Marc:The original improv was sort of a burlesque.
Marc:It had more variety.
Marc:So did Catch a Rising Star back in the day.
Marc:But you're right.
Marc:Straight up comedy.
Marc:Well, I love the movie.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:And it was great talking to you.
Marc:And I wish you all the luck with this film because I think it needs to be seen.
Guest:I thank you for talking about Body Brokers today and bringing John Schwab's name to the forefront.
Guest:You're going to hear a lot more about this young director, I know.
Marc:Okay, Melissa, take care.
Guest:Thank you so much for the time.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That was Melissa Leo.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:And the movie Body Brokers is in theaters and video on demand now.
Marc:We'll have Michael K. Williams from the movie on Thursday's show.
Marc:Hopefully, maybe one day I'll get to talk to that director.
Marc:I'd like to pick his brain.
Marc:But check that out.
Marc:Also, check out Cliff's book.
Marc:We had a little real estate problem.
Marc:The unheralded story of Native Americans and comedy out now.
Marc:Get it where you get books.
Marc:And now I'm going to fucking play with my wah-wah.
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Guest:.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Wow.
Wow.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey.
Guest:La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:you