Episode 1231 - William Zabka
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's it going how are you doing what's happening it is memorial day
Marc:I do want to put my heart out there for people who have lost people in all fights.
Marc:And I do again want to stress my gratitude to the people that had the courage to get vaccinated like fucking adults.
Marc:That the idea right now, the people that had courage to take a hit for the herd and move forward believing in science...
Marc:And with the belief that we could somehow push this virus back, we did it.
Marc:Those are the people that fought for our freedom this year.
Marc:The people that got vaccinated, not the belligerent babies who didn't get vaccinated for whatever reason.
Marc:I mean, I do have some empathy and understanding for people who have health issues that didn't want to get vaccinated.
Marc:But all those people that fought against the fight to stop the spread of the virus.
Marc:because of what they saw as the fight for their personal freedom, can go fuck themselves on this Memorial Day.
Marc:And again, I'm grateful for the people that just stepped up and did what was necessary to push back the virus so we could try to get back
Marc:to some semblance of freedom and choice and an active way of life for everybody.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Thank you again.
Marc:Today on the show, William Zabka.
Marc:It happened.
Marc:He plays Johnny Lawrence in The Karate Kid.
Marc:And I don't know that I ever saw The Karate Kid.
Marc:I really don't have recollection of seeing that whole movie.
Marc:But I was flipping around during the plague.
Marc:and uh came upon cobra kai and of course i recognized him from back to school and other things he's he holds a place in my mind but the way he was playing the old kind of washed up kind of broken johnny lawrence was astounding to me like he got it so right so quickly that i assumed that had to be his life
Marc:I was just so impressed with the performance because it's very hard to do a broken, bitter man that you have empathy for.
Marc:Angry.
Marc:It's a hell of a character.
Marc:And maybe it's because I relate on some level or that I understand it on some level, though I don't think that I was the most empathetic character for a long time.
Marc:But I just was so impressed with his acting that I really wanted to talk to him.
Marc:And we tried to get him on the show earlier this year, but he got called back to set.
Marc:So we waited until he was done shooting for the season.
Marc:And we got him.
Marc:We got him.
Marc:It is a Zoom interview.
Marc:Hopefully those will start passing.
Marc:It's wild to be out in the world, man.
Marc:I'll tell you.
Marc:But he's here.
Marc:Zabka is here.
Marc:It's wild to be out doing the shows.
Marc:You know, at the comedy store with the vaxxed crowds or the tested crowds with the mask was, you know, just like randomly like there's a habit to putting on the mask.
Marc:Do we put it on after?
Marc:Do we do when we're talking?
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I'm vaxxed.
Marc:All vaxxed up.
Marc:I'll get all the vaccines.
Marc:I will do it.
Marc:I'm trying to make things right.
Marc:Is that the journey?
Marc:Doing the right thing, making things right?
Marc:Fighting for justice, making things right?
Marc:We have no control over anything, really.
Marc:Very little.
Marc:How do you make things right?
Marc:Is there a way to do it on a big scale?
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:Small scale?
Marc:Yes, sometimes.
Marc:Through action.
Marc:Through humility.
Marc:Through anger?
Marc:Yeah, sometimes.
Marc:Sometimes we'll have to look at it as a metaphor, don't we?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Sometimes it's not about people.
Marc:Sometimes it's just about making things right for you.
Marc:For you.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Sometimes you can see things that happen to you as bad luck.
Marc:Or why me?
Marc:Or fuck?
Marc:You know, if you're stuck in that zone, how do you make things right?
Marc:Well, you can't live in that.
Marc:You don't want to live in victim mode.
Marc:You don't want to kind of manifest it because you're stuck in it.
Marc:You got to make things right sometimes.
Marc:How about three fucking watermelons the other day?
Marc:Three watermelons.
Marc:What's that got to do with it?
Marc:I'll tell you what's got to do with it.
Marc:If any of you have been following me for a while, you know that I was pretty confident about my watermelon selection ability.
Marc:I was pretty confident that I had it down.
Marc:I was pretty confident that if I stuck my ear to the melon and knocked on it, that if it sounded hollow, if it sounded like I'm knocking on the door of an empty closet, that was the melon for me.
Marc:If it had the nice, yellowy, creamy yellow...
Marc:spot where it sat on the soil that was the melon for me I was almost cocky in my ability to choose watermelons so watermelons are back
Marc:I went out and bought one, cut it open.
Marc:It sounded right.
Marc:It knocked correctly.
Marc:No good.
Marc:Really thick rind, sweet flesh, but the flesh was very kind of chewy.
Marc:You don't want chewy watermelon that stinks.
Marc:And I didn't want to take the hit.
Marc:It wasn't that expensive.
Marc:I didn't want to sit there and have an unpleasurable experience eating crappy watermelon, though the sweetness was correct.
Marc:I don't want chewy watermelon.
Marc:Garbage.
Marc:mad how how was i deceived who deceived me is this a trick has god forsaken me
Marc:I go out, I buy another melon.
Marc:I buy another fucking melon.
Marc:A big melon.
Marc:25, 26 pounder.
Marc:Knock it.
Marc:Sounds good.
Marc:Nice, creamy yellow.
Marc:Spot.
Marc:Get it home, cut it open.
Marc:Too good.
Marc:Too close.
Marc:I got like a fucking 50 pound watermelon that needs to be eaten that day.
Marc:Too much.
Marc:Little mealy.
Marc:Not perfect.
Marc:Went out and bought a third melon.
Marc:I'm confident.
Marc:I'm confident.
Marc:I'm holding off on it, but I feel good about it.
Marc:So I'm just going to believe right now.
Marc:I'm going to have a few days of reprieve where I believe that made things right.
Marc:That sitting on my counter is the answer, is the closure I'm looking for.
Marc:That's hope.
Marc:That third melon is hope.
Marc:You hear me?
Marc:I'll let you know how it goes.
Marc:William Zabka is doing a great job in Cobra Kai.
Marc:He's done some interesting... He did an interesting short film a while ago.
Marc:You all know him if you're of a certain age from his childhood roles as the bully kid.
Marc:Cobra Kai is now streaming seasons one through three on Netflix.
Marc:Season four will come out later this year.
Marc:And since Emmy voting starts soon, make sure you check it out because Billy's performance is definitely...
Marc:worthy of a nomination.
Marc:This is me and William Zabka talking.
Marc:Very nice guy.
Marc:Nothing like the character.
Guest:God damn it.
Marc:Is that your basement?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, they give you a tour.
Guest:Oh, look at that.
Marc:That's nice.
Guest:Yeah, it's a hangout spot.
Guest:We got the happy hour in here.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So this is for when you have an argument with your wife, you can move into the basement.
Guest:Or not have an argument.
Guest:This is just my... I'm going to go downstairs and...
Guest:I do sleep down here sometimes, but that's just to give her peace because I stir a lot.
Guest:You sleep down there sometimes?
Guest:That's what it is.
Guest:It looks like a studio, but it's just... I hate this new lighting thing, this new Zoom stuff.
Guest:I like the old days.
Guest:I would rather be there in person.
Marc:You sleep down there sometimes?
Guest:Yeah, there's a bedroom there.
Guest:It's nice.
Guest:I watch a movie.
Guest:I don't want to wake her up.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:How long have you lived out of L.A.?
Guest:I just moved out.
Guest:We moved out in November...
Guest:Um, the show we shoot in Atlanta.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have two little ones.
Guest:I got 11 and a seven year old.
Guest:And, uh, you know, LA was just two, two, two tens, you know, for us, my brother's out here.
Guest:My in-laws are close by, uh,
Guest:So we decided to pull the trigger and come to a nice, peaceful setting.
Marc:And, and LA, like, like all of a sudden it got too tense after what decades?
Guest:Well, you know, the last year was nutty, man.
Guest:I had, I was more for my kids.
Guest:Everything baseball was starting and, you know, we had to kill that.
Guest:We had to kill gymnastics, you know, all of a sudden they're just like my six year old was, she, you know, she has two cognitive years of life and, and one of them is with a mask on.
Guest:So coming here was a little more relaxed and it's closer to family.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:yeah i really you know i was the last one i reluctantly pulled the trigger my wife was on board with it and i said okay i miss la i was just there i just was there last weekend it was good to be home you know that'll always be home to do press yeah i did um we did we presented at the mtv awards and then um a lot of photo shoot stuff uh for the show
Guest:And then the day after that, I surprised my mom for her 80th birthday.
Guest:Me and my brother flew in.
Guest:She had no idea we were coming.
Guest:And, you know, she was in the house and we just walked in with balloons.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah, it was good stuff.
Guest:And then I flew home.
Guest:So I'm like, you know, it's been.
Guest:Every day has been jam-packed and then came home and now here.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:You know, that's the ride.
Marc:It's just your mom lives here?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:They live near Lake Tahoe.
Guest:So they're up Grass Valley.
Guest:Are you familiar with that area?
Marc:Your folks are?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They're both around?
Guest:My dad's 96.
Guest:My mom just turned 80.
Guest:My dad's a World War vet.
Guest:Eight brothers.
Guest:Two left.
Guest:And he's 96 years old and rocking, man.
Guest:I mean, you know, he's got...
Guest:His age is showing, but he's, he's as sharp as a tack.
Guest:His memory and his recall is, is insane.
Guest:He wrote a book of his life, like a couple of 96 years old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll send you a picture of him.
Guest:I mean, it's unbelievable.
Marc:He's really, uh, he's inspiring, you know, that's some genetic, uh, blessing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's hope.
Guest:Let's yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I, I'll tell you, honestly, it was a weird thing.
Um,
Marc:And I don't know when it happened.
Marc:I don't know how I got to Cobra Kai.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Because I don't remember seeing the Karate Kid.
Marc:I don't remember seeing it in my life.
Marc:I know it happened.
Marc:I know there's elements of it.
Marc:I know what the story is.
Marc:I recognize you from other things.
Marc:But for some reason, I just clicked on that thing without knowing anything about it before it got any real attention.
Marc:And I was like, holy shit.
Marc:this guy is really doing this thing.
Marc:Like you.
Marc:Like, I mean, you know, everyone else is fine.
Marc:And I'm glad that they found the guy who, you know, the evil guy, you know, your old teacher.
Marc:I'm glad he was still around to do it.
Marc:But I thought you were really doing this role.
Marc:And to the point where I'm like, he's got, he's probably like this.
Marc:He's probably, things didn't work out for this guy.
Marc:And this is like, he's finally getting a chance to just be himself.
Marc:But it's not true, is it?
Guest:No, he's still polar opposite of me.
Guest:I mean, doing that, coming into this was, you know,
Guest:They gave him nothing.
Guest:They took away.
Guest:He had nothing.
Guest:He's got a beer can.
Guest:He doesn't even have a fish.
Guest:I know, but you're really acting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I'll tell you what.
Guest:How does it happen?
Guest:I mean, it's I remember a couple of scenes I did at the beginning.
Guest:My first scene in the show is with Ed Asner.
Marc:If you who took me to school, just I've worked with him and it's it's it's yeah, he's going to give it to you.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He plays my estranged dad.
Guest:I met him two minutes ago and he goes, we do a rehearsal.
Guest:And he calls me over and he says, hey, how am I?
Guest:You know, is there anything else I can give you?
Guest:I said, no, you're doing great.
Guest:I said, you know, how about you?
Guest:You do anything?
Guest:He goes, oh, go fuck yourself.
Guest:And I was like, he did it in character and he rattled me and he got me in this place.
Guest:And I'm like, shit, is that as I really said that?
Guest:I'm like, no, he's doing this device, which he does all the time off camera, off screen, man.
Guest:He's just constantly when you're when it's not on you.
Guest:But yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I just sat.
Guest:I just sat in it.
Guest:I know this guy.
Guest:he's he's you know there's elements of me in there for sure i mean it's how you do it and it's about sitting in your belly and letting it happen and trust you know this guy because yeah they're around us they're around us yes they're definitely around us they're all around us yeah oh he's a prototype i mean
Guest:You know, and the guys, it's, you know, he's also he's also a working man.
Guest:He's trying to make it.
Marc:But I think like what got me was like, you know, somehow or another.
Marc:And I don't know if it's having, you know, historically, wherever I've got you in my brain from when I was younger.
Marc:that guy that you were known for playing, that this seemed like the reasonable evolution of this guy, just from going to high school reunions.
Marc:There's an element of that guy on his best behavior can't hide that he's fucking pissed off and he's beaten.
Marc:But you still feel bad.
Marc:The thing wouldn't work if you weren't empathetic.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:I think that just happens.
Marc:It's a testament to your acting.
Marc:But I guess if you play that guy for real, you're going to feel sorry for him.
Marc:But you got to write a line because it's funny because that character was an asshole and he's still an asshole, but he's sad.
Guest:Well, you know, yeah, you know, there's something about there's a comfort of watching a guy that's struggling.
Guest:You know, if he was on top of the world, if he was the guy that owned the dealership and he was in the suit, you know, he'd be a complete prick.
Guest:So, you know, you give him a beer and give him a little old TV and some remotes that don't work.
Guest:And, you know, and he's suddenly empathetic and endearing, you know, with his old muscle car.
Guest:Yeah, his old muscle car, all that stuff.
Marc:But when this happened, man, when they said to you, we're going to do these again, I mean, you seem to keep working at one thing or another, but were you like, are you kidding me?
Marc:For real?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That was my instant thing.
Guest:The creators, Josh Heald, who wrote Hot Tub Time Machine, he gave me a role in that in 2010.
Guest:And then John Horowitz and Hayden Schlossberg, the other two creators, did Harold and Kumar.
Guest:I knew those guys.
Guest:Always in the back of my mind, wanted to work with them.
Guest:The three of them email me out of the blue, say, hey, we have an idea for a movie or a show.
Guest:We'd love to sit down and talk with you.
Guest:My mind's going forward.
Guest:Hot Tub Time Machine Part 5.
Guest:I go to a little Mexican restaurant and they throw Cobra Kai at me with the fact that they had Sony signed off on it.
Guest:They had Overbrook.
Guest:Weintraub's estate.
Guest:So they came with all the, I said, you can't just go and play with, you know, IP from Sony.
Guest:Like, you know, and they said, well, everybody signed off.
Guest:I said, wow, what's next?
Guest:They said, well, you, and then, then we have to go get Ralph.
Guest:So, but I was, I was in shock.
Guest:I, you know, it was like a girlfriend.
Guest:coming back and saying I want to get back together it's like how close do I let this get to me because if it doesn't work out you know I've entertained that and that would be a real big disappointment so I held it very very very loosely and all the way up to the point where we pitched it and it got made I mean
Guest:And then we did the end of season one.
Guest:I remember the end of season one sitting in a car doing a little drive around with the with the camera car and and making a video saying, well, you know, this may be it.
Guest:This could be the end of the ride.
Guest:So, you know, hope you enjoyed the show.
Guest:And then it took it kind of took off.
Marc:So you consciously just from experience, you're like, I'm not going to get too excited about this.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which we do as actors.
Guest:You know, how many times you go on an audition, you pour your heart, you have to leave it on the mat.
Guest:You can't take it home.
Guest:You have to do your best, leave it in the room.
Guest:And you somehow have to play a trick on your brain that that didn't just happen.
Guest:And then it has to come back.
Guest:And then it keeps kind of having to tap you on the shoulder, surprising you.
Guest:And then you go, oh, really?
Guest:You're interested?
Guest:OK, what's going to happen?
Guest:You know, it's like, yeah, you have to do that.
Guest:Otherwise, you know, you get your hopes up and you go there.
Guest:I don't go there until the cameras are rolling.
Marc:You know, was that a lesson hard learned?
Marc:I mean, yeah.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, many times.
Guest:I mean, all the times I've left my heart in a room for a movie or a part.
Guest:It felt like, oh, man, I just rocked the world and I'm going to get that.
Guest:And then, you know, did you hear anything?
Guest:No week goes by two weeks ago.
Guest:All those those are like mini heartbreaks constantly.
Guest:It's like over and over again.
Guest:You're just constantly being rejected.
Guest:And then the ones that the ones that I get, which are funny to me.
Guest:are the ones where i just stunk up the room where i just felt like oh that sucked yeah and then i walked out and i'm like should i walk back in and do it again and again no i lost it's not happening then they call back and say they loved you i don't know what you did they said you stumbled on your lines but they love you for the part yeah there's no rhyme or reason so you could do as an artist you just got to go in lay it on the table and uh and then move on in your real life and your reality because otherwise it takes over at least it did for me and uh i didn't like that so
Guest:And especially with this character, with Johnny and Karate Kid, this that this thing has been 35 years of my I've been in the wake of this for this long.
Guest:And for this to come on me and not work out would have been probably, you know, super disappointing, you know, to entertain that.
Marc:Did you feel like I mean, have the has there been a time in this racket where did you feel like you were done or do you always feel like you're still in?
Guest:Wow, that's a great question.
Guest:No, I never felt like I was done.
Guest:I never felt like I was done, even when I was probably done.
Guest:You can't allow yourself to feel that way.
Guest:But I don't ride on when it's working or when it's not working.
Guest:You kind of have to just know it and you kind of incubate it and it's not here yet.
Guest:It's more like that was the thing for me.
Guest:It's coming, it's coming, it's coming.
Guest:I tell my wife, it's coming, it's coming.
Guest:Yeah, I just had an instinct in that.
Guest:It's all I have, man.
Guest:It's like, you know, they asked me, what would you do if you weren't doing this?
Guest:Well, I'd be writing, producing or doing something because I was just it's in my my blood and my DNA to do this.
Marc:But did you you grew up in show business?
Guest:yeah i grew up i was five years old the first time i went to nbc studios my dad was the associate director of the tonight show at johnny carson here in l.a new york oh the old one and the old one yeah so i was born in this city i lived in long island and my dad would take me to work when i was five years old he was an emmy award-winning director of the doctor's soap opera and he met my mom my mom was johnny carson's brother's assistant on the tonight show which is where they met fell in love got married and
Guest:And so I would go to NBC with my dad and walk around the sets and be in control rooms.
Guest:Was he buddies with Johnny?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He was on the Tonight Show, my dad.
Guest:He was also a composer.
Guest:My dad wrote a lot of theme songs for television.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like which ones?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, gosh, Searching Wind, I don't know, Midnight 4, I don't know, old stuff, you know, back in the 60s.
Guest:In those days, I don't even know what they are, but he wrote a theme song.
Guest:He wrote a whole themes album and Johnny gave him a spot to come on and he got to, you know, play his piano and conduct the whole orchestra there.
Guest:And
Guest:So, yeah, so I grew up in that and then we moved, we transported from New York when I was 10.
Guest:He went to NBC LA.
Marc:With The Tonight Show?
Guest:Not with The Tonight Show.
Guest:He was a staff director at New York and NBC and he got transferred to California.
Guest:So we pulled the roots up when I was 10 years old and then ended up in LA.
Guest:And then he soon after, for whatever reason, left NBC and became a UPM first AD for tons of things, a love boat and worked with Clint Eastwood and all that.
Guest:So I was Chuck Norris when I was a kid.
Guest:So I grew up around it.
Guest:And my dad, well, and he's going to be listening.
Guest:So I'm going to say, hey, Pop.
Guest:But the first thing I ever acted in was a documentary that he directed.
Guest:And he wrote this song for it called And They Were Five.
Guest:And we shot at my backyard in New York with all my little neighbor buddies.
Guest:And it's about five best friends that grew up and ended up going to war inevitably to Vietnam and didn't come home.
Guest:And so I played one of the five kids.
Guest:And it's this really kind of dramatic thing in the backyard with us going down slides and pulling a little helicopter that goes in the air.
Guest:And then that helicopter transports into a documentary of Vietnam.
Guest:And it was a beautiful thing.
Guest:But that was my first time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So my dad directed me in my first thing.
Guest:And I remember being five years old.
Guest:And looking at my dad in the corner of my eye up on the roof with the camera, DP just shooting down at me.
Guest:And it just, I know it sounds crazy, but I was that little and I'm thinking, I'm going to do that someday.
Guest:That looks fun.
Guest:Maybe that's all I know.
Guest:Maybe he's a truck driver.
Guest:I'd be like, I'd be driving this way.
Guest:No, I mean, it's exciting.
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:And then I got into commercials when I was 10.
Marc:So you were like a bonafide kind of child actor.
Marc:You were going out for all these things, no?
Guest:It was a hobby, though.
Guest:It was like, you know, I played baseball, football.
Marc:So it was a hobby initially, but until I guess the Karate Kid was the break?
Marc:Or you did TV?
Yes.
Guest:Yeah, no, I didn't.
Guest:I didn't do anything.
Guest:I did one episode of the greatest American hero in high school.
Guest:And that was like one line.
Guest:But I think my attitude to it, my dad always told me like when I when we first got into telecommercials when I was 10, I asked him if we had enough money to be on TV.
Guest:And he goes, what do you mean?
Guest:They pay you to be on TV.
Guest:I'm like, wait, they pay you to be on television.
Guest:So let's do it.
Guest:You know, so I went out on a bunch of commercials and then come home bummed if I didn't get one.
Guest:And he said, listen, if you're going to take it seriously and you're going to get sad, if you don't get it, I'm going to pull you out and go play football.
Guest:And I said, okay, so my attitude always was to, to do it as a hobby, to hold it loosely.
Guest:That's been my attitude since day one.
Guest:And it's still in a sense, my attitude towards it.
Guest:I hold it loose.
Marc:Did you, you have siblings?
Guest:I do have a sister and a brother.
Guest:Are they in the game?
Guest:No, we all started together in commercials, but they moved in different directions, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, my brother became a musician and a songwriter, and my sister married a great guy and became a teacher and a family man, family woman.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My dad was music and film.
Guest:My brother went in the music way.
Guest:I went in the film way.
Guest:I was in film school after high school.
Guest:I graduated high school, went to film school.
Marc:Well, when you were a kid, did you go to acting classes?
Yeah.
Guest:No, I didn't go to acting classes.
Guest:I went to a few in my life.
Guest:Not that I don't need them or couldn't have used them.
Marc:I've talked to guys who like women and men who like it's weird when they're successful at acting and they didn't train.
Marc:I can't remember who the last guy was.
Marc:I just talked to somebody that was like that.
Marc:He's like, no, you know what?
Marc:I never went.
Marc:Never went.
Guest:Yeah, but that's right.
Guest:I never did go.
Guest:But my training was working.
Guest:I was thrown into it.
Guest:Like Karate Kid was a great example.
Guest:It was my first movie out of nowhere.
Guest:I get this part and a big part in a film.
Guest:I remember auditioning and doing one scene in the movie, but then they gave me the part and I said, wow, now I have to do this whole character movie.
Guest:And I was really green.
Guest:And I remember walking with Pat Morita in the back lot of Columbia and saying, hey, it's my first movie.
Guest:If you have any
Guest:insights or if you see anything i could do different please let me know and he did and he would and then uh then i got more 80 kind of teen comedy type things and then i worked on the equalizer with edward woodward and that to me was like acting school because i worked with robert mitchum and shirley knight really how old were you i was like 19 20 21 and those are just fantastic like classic shirley knight thespians shirley knight was my mom on the show yeah and robert mitchum
Guest:Robert Mitchum, yeah, because, yeah, he came in.
Guest:Robert Mitchum, Robert Lansing.
Guest:It was a great cast, and the guest cast on that was incredible.
Guest:It was all New York.
Guest:Keith Sarabayka was a great actor.
Guest:Dennis Spockieris, who's on a lot of stuff.
Marc:So you're just able to sort of, like, watch these people?
Guest:Well, and working with them.
Guest:I mean, that really turned into acting class, was just to work with them.
Guest:And you've got to rise to this level, and you kind of watch and see how they're handling the material and the causes that they take and the time they take.
Guest:Like Asner just let so much dead air.
Guest:He'll just, he'll just let air.
Marc:I know he played, he played my dad in a pilot and it's like, you know, and he's scary.
Guest:And what a sweet man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's scary, but what a sweet man.
Guest:And he, he's such, I mean, he really is.
Guest:I mean, not genius in a way.
Guest:I mean, he, he would, when it's my turn and he's, he's off camera.
Guest:He'll, he'll screw his own lines up to throw me, to get something on my face.
Guest:Then he'll say the line to me once.
Guest:And now I'm supposed to be in some rhythm.
Guest:Like we're doing this back and forth, but he'll stop and he'll throw me five curve balls of the same line to get different reactions out of me.
Guest:Cause he knows they're going to put it together and editing.
Guest:And when it's on him, he's doing the, he's even doing more of that.
Guest:He just, he'll go all over the map.
Guest:He'll hit his, he hits his, uh,
Marc:his lines but he'll go over the map and give all kinds of color yeah and so you learn from that you learn how to be giving to to the to the actors that you're acting with off camera how important that is that you're feeding them and serving them so when you when you when you did the the karate kid the original one like i i mean i and you did in back to school you played an asshole too right yeah yeah the diver he's a diving guy right
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I had to do anything again today, any project, it would be back to school again.
Guest:It was the best time.
Guest:The movie was exactly what it was like off camera.
Guest:We had a ball.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Chaz.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was a party.
Guest:We all walked around in the frat houses in town.
Guest:went to the comedy store and watched uh you know rodney and sam kinnison in the day and yeah it was a lot of fun it was a good fun set um but yeah i played a i played a douche in that he was the third one that was the one where i did back to karate kid then i did a movie called just one of the guys where i played another prick who was kind of unredeemable and then they offered me back to school what about national lampoon i'm trying to remember national yeah yeah that's right that's right i did i did european vacation were you a dick in that
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're a total prick.
Guest:Hey man, if the shoe fits.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you did, but back to school was, that was fun.
Guest:That was fun.
Guest:And that was one where I was on the set of the equalizer when that came in.
Guest:And I remember asking Edward Woodward, his opinion, because I'm like, this is going to be the third, third Dick I'm playing, you know, didn't say that word, but I'm like, you know, third villain in a movie.
Guest:What do you think?
Guest:And he said, well, there's three reasons you take a movie.
Guest:He says, one,
Guest:it's the money two it's the people you're working with or three the part so great that you do it for free and you want to do it so if it's one of those three you can pick it and at that point it was one or two and i said okay so it's not so much the role but then i approached that role going i don't want to be the dick i want to be the hard johnny or the dick table presser in the other movie so i made him the cowardly lion so he grew my hair long and he was this he's all bark and no bite at the end of the movie he gets a cramp and pushes out
Guest:And I tried to make a more comedic.
Guest:I knew it was the comedy, which worked for about half of the movie until Alan Metter, who was directing it, literally pulled me into his trailer and said, Hey man, you're reading too funny.
Guest:And where's the Johnny from karate kid.
Guest:I'm like, yeah, he's in the karate kid, dude.
Guest:I'm going to do something different.
Guest:So, you know, I tried to have fun with him.
Guest:I love, I love Chaz Osborne, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it was fun to play.
Guest:I didn't know I was going to be.
Guest:That's where it was.
Guest:You know, that's what I'd be mostly known for when you're doing them.
Guest:You just you're happy to be working.
Guest:It's a lot of fun.
Guest:You know, you don't see 10, 10, 20 years down the line and what that's going to be.
Marc:And it's still hanging over you.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But in a good way.
Guest:And now you're back.
Guest:Now I'm back.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:And it's really sweet.
Guest:You know, it's really sweet to be able to be.
Guest:A three dimensional character is an antihero who's got some mud sling on him and fighting his way out.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's kind of it's kind of funny that, you know, you were seen as this guy for all this time.
Marc:And then because it's so appropriately aged and, you know, and it's it's almost like you finally get a chance to redeem yourself.
Guest:That's very much that it's, that's right.
Guest:That's very much true.
Guest:And, you know, listen, I always said to myself, you know, cause Johnny and karate kid is just constantly growing.
Guest:It's just, it's always in my peripheral.
Guest:It's like the only way that I'm ever really going to get out of the shadow of this guy is if I can somehow go through the eye of the needle and play him again.
Guest:Like I always felt like I'm going to need to go through him and turn him inside out and, and, and to have the opportunity to get to do that and show all the dimensions and all that stuff with 35 years of life and experience behind me.
Guest:It's a blessing, man.
Guest:It just came out of the clouds.
Guest:But wait a minute.
Guest:You always were thinking about it?
Guest:No, well, no, it was in the back of my mind, though.
Guest:Really?
Marc:I mean, it really was like, you know, that like that was stuck in your craw.
Marc:Like, man, that guy, I had to be that guy.
Marc:You know, I walk around the world and people still see me as that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was subconscious.
Guest:It was a deep voice way back there.
Guest:You know, like, meanwhile, I wasn't like focusing on this has to happen to make my my life right.
Guest:But it was you weren't doing YouTube videos as Johnny aging.
Guest:No, but I actually did actually.
Guest:Funny enough, what opened this up is this music video I did called Sweep the Leg in 2008.
Guest:This band wrote a song called Sweep the Leg.
Guest:You should check it out.
Guest:It's pretty funny.
Guest:And they came to me and want me to be in this video.
Guest:I said, the only way is if you let me write it, direct it and I can bring the cast in.
Guest:And I kind of was the first time I stepped into the Karate Kid world again and threw it out there and had a big did a big spoof on myself.
Guest:And the feedback came in and it was like, wow, there's all these bands and Cobra Kai's out there.
Guest:And that was a seed for me of like, there's more.
Guest:That was when I was thinking, okay, how do we do this?
Marc:Well, there's a whole generation of kids that like, it was a defining movie.
Marc:I mean, that whole wax on, wax off thing was like everywhere.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Sweep the leg, get him a body bag.
Guest:All that starts becoming the...
Guest:part of the American lexicon you know it's like everybody yeah and you were suspended you were like suspended in the amber of pop culture as this asshole that's right yeah yeah that's right that's right I was the guy that took the crane kick to the face so yeah
Guest:Yeah, I'm that guy, you know.
Marc:Oh, man, I tell you, it's such a it's such a good it's such a sweet redemption, you know, because you just because it's funny because this character from the very get go is just taking hits in the face.
Guest:from from life you know he doesn't even know what a computer is barely it's just every turn at every turn he's getting like he humbled that's fun to play and it's painful to play that too you know there's this you know it is painful you know you because you're you're embodying this thing i have to shave out like 98 of who i really am to play this character i get to get into this really tight suit to play him and to shrink my head and to think this way and all that's uncomfortable
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, you know, I like to live it as much as I can.
Guest:I mean, I really do go through a process of living the emotion of this thing, uh, when we're shooting the seasons and, and then I have to decompress and, and, uh, and come back to life.
Marc:I didn't realize that, you know, you, you actually did sort of one way or the other where there were three of these things, I guess in the third karate kid, you were, it wasn't, you were just, it says archive footage, whatever that means.
Guest:Yeah, I wasn't in three.
Guest:In two, I was only in the first five minutes so they can choke me out of the franchise.
Marc:Why did that happen?
Guest:Well, that was the ending of the original Karate Kid is after the crane kick, we go to the parking lot and Kreese chokes me out and Miyagi saves me.
Guest:And that was the original ending as scripted for Karate Kid.
Guest:But we never shot it because they knew they didn't need it in the film.
Guest:And they said they'll open up Karate Kid 2 with that.
Guest:So the ending of Karate Kid 1 became the first five minutes of Karate Kid 2.
Guest:And I got literally choked out in a parking lot and dropped out of frame and out of the franchise.
Marc:And that was that, but you did, did you not want to be in the franchise anymore or was that someone else's decision?
Guest:I would have been happy to be, I was, you know, I was just, yeah, I would have to be credit kid three, John Appleson called me and he wanted to see me.
Guest:He was doing, he was doing some post-production on one of his films and I went in and saw him and,
Guest:kind of looked at me.
Guest:He's like, we're trying to figure out Karate Kid 3, and that almost happened.
Guest:But hey, it was fine.
Guest:I'm happy with one, and it could have just been that, and that's all.
Marc:So for the rest of it, though, it seems like there were some shows that kind of used you to parody yourself, but then there was a lot of different little roles here and there in all these different kind of movies.
Marc:Do you feel like
Marc:After like back to school that, you know, were you happy with what you were doing the whole time?
Guest:yeah i was happy and equalizer equalizer was going to go another season but then our edward got sick and we had to cancel it was kind of a premature cancellation and yeah they were grooming my character to possibly do more and that could have been something yeah after back to school and i did a movie no one ever saw called the tiger's tale which is one of my favorite movies but it just didn't get good release with ann margaret tommy howell and kelly preston and wow and wedgworth charles derning great
Guest:Great, great cast.
Guest:And I played, it was the first movie after that sequence of bad guys where I played a different type of role, country football player.
Guest:I had high hopes for that to present myself in a new way and be, oh, he's, you know, I gained 50 pounds of muscle or whatever.
Guest:I was 205 pounds after being 185 for Karate Kid.
Guest:Yeah, I thought that would be something.
Guest:But yeah, I didn't really look at it.
Guest:I got to a point where
Guest:My thing is, if you're not loving it, don't do it.
Guest:My dad always said, find something you love to do and never work a day in your life.
Guest:There was a moment, and I don't remember where exactly, but I remember being on set saying, this is becoming work and I'm not having fun.
Guest:I don't know when that was because up to that point, it was just a novelty.
Guest:It was just a great ride.
Guest:There was one point where I'm thinking, I'm doing this now because I have to because it's happened to me.
Guest:I sort of, I went to music school and I studied the guitar.
Marc:You don't remember the, you don't remember when that happened.
Marc:You don't remember what role you were, what you were looking at.
Guest:I was sitting on a, I don't know where it was, man.
Guest:I wish I did.
Guest:I think it was, it might've been the equalizer in the last season somewhere where I just remember sitting in my chair waiting for things to happen.
Guest:And I was, and I was,
Guest:antsy and i was like uh i want to do something else i just for some reason it was like and then um you went to music school i did yeah i played guitar and went to dick grove school of music and got a degree in guitar music and how long do you study guitar how long how do you do that it was a just specifically a guitar school yeah it was a music school all music two years playing guitarist uh yeah two years
Guest:And I did.
Guest:I played guitar since I was 10.
Guest:That was my my instrument.
Guest:My brother played piano.
Guest:I played guitar.
Guest:I played a lot of bands stuff, but it was all never for a career.
Guest:I never wanted to be like, yeah, me too.
Marc:I'm the same way.
Marc:I played guitar since I was a kid.
Marc:So when you went to music school, what like what did you learn how to finger pick and stuff?
Guest:finger pick with your right with your right hand yeah yeah yeah like finger pick yeah yeah yeah i do i do my own thing i start i pick with two fingers i don't pick with all my fingers two somehow i learned with my two yeah almost like my three fingers are cut off yeah that's the thing two fingers is okay
Guest:Two fingers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm good on that.
Guest:I play, you know, all the, all that stuff.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And Lance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I do that.
Guest:I love, that's my, that's, that's like my, my passion.
Guest:I just did that for fun, played in a couple of fun bands.
Guest:It's one band called the acoustic outlaws.
Guest:It was just four of us.
Guest:We were acoustic harmony, four guitars and,
Guest:four of us and we'd go do these pumpkin festivals and stuff and sit on these big haystacks and big speakers and play like old black water and listen to the music oh yeah yeah yeah i played a lot of little bars and things like that just for fun never was never like i want to do this for real it's just like i just love it so i still do yeah probably it probably would have ruined it if they you had to do it for real
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:I think you would have had it.
Marc:It would have been a quicker journey to that moment you had on set when you're on a hay bale doing a Doobie Brothers song.
Marc:You're like, I don't know.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:But that moment, by the way, that that moment of like, hey, this isn't fun anymore.
Guest:I'm not feeling it.
Guest:Well, you know, it wasn't sustained.
Guest:It was just like it was kind of informed me that there's more to me right now.
Guest:I want to go explore.
Guest:And I did.
Marc:When did you get married and stuff?
Marc:When did you get all that done?
Guest:Well, that's 12 years ago, but I dated her for nine years before that.
Guest:So we've been together for a minute.
Marc:21 years.
Marc:Couple kids?
Guest:Yeah, it's the best.
Guest:It's the best, man.
Marc:Well, it's nice that her family's nearby, and so you've got grandparents nearby.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:I mean, it's, it's, it's the best thing.
Guest:I mean, when I'm not doing this, you know, professionally stuff, people say, what are you working on?
Guest:I say I'm producing two kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm writing, directing, editing these two, two lives and trying to get them on track and find their place in their voice.
Guest:And that's actually something that has been recent as the show has blown up a little bit and they're getting more aware that what if what I do and, uh, there's a little bit of, um,
Guest:you know uh them being my kid and in circles and being introduced as this is his dad is this guy oh yeah yeah and and i you know my whole thing is to direct them to their autonomy and like this i want them to meet you guys and this is how we handle it this is daddy's job but
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We get to pop those bubbles and those illusions of what that is.
Guest:And like I did, I was, I saw behind the curtain when I was a kid, I was never impressed.
Guest:I was never, I never came at Hollywood going, wow.
Guest:I was like, I saw the, I saw the facades and the props and all that.
Guest:And so I take my kids with me now and they get to see how it works, the inner workings of it.
Guest:And it's not such a big deal.
Guest:It's show business.
Guest:It's all an illusion, man.
Guest:It's a magic trick.
Guest:So I get to see that and they get to process it that way.
Guest:And then I'm
Marc:really diving into their you know who what makes them special and feed them you know their gifts you know that's what it's about it's interesting though that when you do see show business in in in a well-rounded person when you see all of it the behind the thing the illusion the actual scene behind the scenes makes it even more trippy right because then you can really see that it's the magic it's it's sort of like ready here we go and action right
Marc:And bam, you know, like I can't imagine seeing Carson back in the 70s smoking those cigarettes.
Marc:Everyone's smoking cigarettes everywhere.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:You know, and him and those lights come up.
Marc:It's really exciting.
Marc:When I do stand up like that moment where where you get to the venue just to check it out or you check out a set and you're like, all right, this is where that's the magical moment where this is where it's going to happen.
Marc:We're going to do the thing here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's always, it's always, for me, it's always, it's always not as intimidating when you're there.
Guest:Like when you're watching, you see the Oscars on TV or you see the Golden Globe, whatever you see these big, even a set.
Guest:And then on TV, it's this bigger than life thing.
Guest:And then you get there and it actually gets into proportion and perspective.
Guest:And
Guest:And it feels totally different.
Marc:Oh, yeah, because you're sitting there next to bored people, you know, waiting through commercial breaks.
Marc:You know, should I go say hi to what's his name?
Marc:Nah, I better not go over there yet.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But that's what's awesome about it, too, man.
Guest:It's like, you know, you...
Guest:It's fun to be on the inside of all that.
Marc:And it's also a business, though.
Marc:It's interesting to really see it that way.
Marc:I get mad when people don't see it that way.
Marc:I get mad when people are condescending or attack Hollywood types.
Marc:It's like, it's a fucking industry, man.
Marc:There's a lot of people on a lot of levels doing a lot of hard work here, and you guys are just going to be dicks about celebrity culture?
Marc:Shut up.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Showbiz, man.
Guest:The business part of that is you got to embrace that.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:You have to get that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Has you have you shown have your kids seen the first karate kid?
Marc:They haven't.
Guest:And they're welcome to.
Guest:It's just I never, you know, for a minute there.
Guest:Listen, when they were little, when Mike, my boy was was five or six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He found a picture of me kicking Daniel LaRusso and the Karate Kid on my office floor and said, you know, what's this picture from?
Guest:Did you fight that boy?
Guest:And I'm like, well, yeah, it was fake.
Guest:It was pretend it was a movie.
Guest:He goes, did you win?
Guest:And I'm like, well, no, I didn't win.
Guest:But I won all the ones.
Guest:So I wasn't really too ready to show my kids me being mean, kicking a guy's ass against a fence and then getting a crane kick at the end.
Guest:But now they get it.
Guest:They've been on set of Cobra Kai.
Guest:They know Ralph.
Guest:They know the cast.
Guest:They're ready to see Karate Kid.
Guest:But it's just when we have movie night, for whatever reason, you know, we can't find a movie, but they never suggest Karate Kid.
Guest:Not yet anyway.
Guest:But they will.
Guest:They kind of know it through osmosis.
Guest:I think it's in their blood.
Guest:They intuitively know what happens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:at the end of that and they don't really want to see that train wreck so they're kind of more that's so funny that you gotta like you have to get your kid to understand that you're not a loser when he can't really when he's not really quite developed enough to quite understand believe me man oh yeah i mean in the language and the words that i get to say you know i'm telling not to say poop and you know this and that i mean the stuff they're they're learning from me on the show but it's great it's great you know so they've watched this show
Guest:They haven't watched the show.
Guest:No, they've been on set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They've been on set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, I just did a, the last season we just shot and I had a, you know, they're, they're both there listening and the headphones and I had some nice colorful words to say, and I had to come off and say, Hey, you know, just cause Johnny says that doesn't mean we get to say that at our dinner table.
Marc:You know, what's the, what's the guy's name who plays, uh, the, the, the big villain, your old teacher.
Marc:Martin Cove, Sensei Kreese.
Marc:Now, did they have to find that guy somewhere?
Marc:What have those guys been doing?
Marc:You haven't been in touch with Ralph, have you, over the years?
Guest:I was.
Guest:Well, only in the last maybe since 2008, Pat Morita passed away.
Guest:We reconnected at his service and then we kind of became friendly again and we would do a bunch of Comic-Cons.
Guest:So over the last 10 years or so, we've been doing a lot of stuff traveling together.
Marc:Comic-Cons because of the original Karate Kid following?
Yeah.
Guest:what would you do yeah yeah sure or back to school you know they just bring you into these places yeah and you get to meet the fans and it's cool then you do these panels i'm sure you've done these panels right no i don't i don't have a nerd following oh yeah you do yeah but i haven't done i've never done a con of any kind okay yeah you should be doing cons really surprised about that yeah i'm totally surprised that i'm
Marc:I mean, I might be able to do one because of Glow, but I don't know that anything else I've done previous I would.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You'd be surprised.
Marc:You're just telling me, like, you know, all you got to do is tell your manager.
Marc:They'll get you set up.
Marc:You just have a booth.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's really strange.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They kind of shut down this last year.
Guest:It took me a minute to get comfortable with the idea of sitting there and, you know, it's a little.
Marc:It's a nostalgia trip, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's a trip.
Guest:You know, I love it now because, you know, up to that point, I was the table that the dads would walk by with their kids and go.
Guest:They'd walk up and go, I just want my kid to meet you.
Guest:You know, this guy was the biggest asshole.
Guest:Nice to meet you.
Guest:They walk away.
Guest:You know, that was the thing.
Guest:Now I got people coming up going, hey, I love you on the show.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Johnny's cool now.
Guest:And, you know, somehow he's cool or something.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's so funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Don't be this guy.
Marc:You don't want to become this guy.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:You don't want to be this guy.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So but yeah, so we did that.
Guest:We were friends.
Guest:But Martin Cove.
Guest:Yeah, he was within earshot.
Guest:In fact, you know, I was with him and Ralph at a Comic Con in Florida when when they YouTube and Sony called and said, we got a season.
Guest:It's for sure it's happening.
Guest:And only Ralph and I knew at that moment, Marty didn't know about it.
Guest:He was in the pitch meetings and I had to break to him outside this bar.
Guest:It was raining at night.
Guest:And he's about to go to his room.
Guest:I'm like, hey, I got to tell you about something that's going on right now.
Guest:And it's been called Cobra Kai.
Guest:And he's like, well, when do I come on?
Guest:When's my part?
Guest:I go, well, they're going to call you.
Guest:But I think it's like the end of episode 10.
Guest:He's like, why the end?
Guest:Why can't I come in in the middle?
Guest:Why can't I come in episode two?
Guest:Have them call me.
Guest:Have them call me.
Guest:So anyway, they had his number.
Guest:They met.
Guest:And the writers were smart on when to bring him in.
Guest:And then they gave him that whole second season.
Guest:Then he came in and stole the rug out from under Johnny and took the dojo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a blast, man.
Guest:I love working with him.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:He's a teddy bear.
Marc:You know, I watched the short film that you produced and co-wrote.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Where was that?
Marc:In Czechoslovakia you did that?
Guest:We shot that.
Guest:Yeah, we shot that in Prague and in Poland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah i mean like 2001 so when you say you went to film school so you were still working in film and you went to film school yeah i started it the nutshell is i went to cal state northridge to be a film major and got cast in karate kid and from that point i jumped out of school because i was working and i was getting film school on this show and movies and all that um went back to ucla did some writing classes and went to music school um so um but my my film studies you know i studied um
Guest:It's like Vilmos Zygmunt, the great cinematographer.
Guest:I would go to these concentrated classes and learn about cameras and film stocks and lenses and things like that.
Guest:So I went to make this short film in Eastern Europe in 2001.
Guest:It's like three weeks after 9-11.
Guest:My partner and I got on a plane and flew to London.
Guest:And we traveled eight countries looking for the elements of this movie, which centers around a drawbridge.
Guest:And we ended Belgium, Bulgaria, Hungary.
Marc:But let me ask you, though, because it's interesting.
Marc:It's specific.
Marc:It's it's it's sad.
Marc:It's heavy.
Marc:And it's a short film.
Marc:And it's like, how did you land on that project?
Marc:Why that?
Marc:I mean, you're you know, you're who you are.
Marc:You're doing show business.
Marc:You're doing whatever you're doing.
Marc:And then this strange, almost a short film with a film.
Marc:foreign sensibility you know in terms of how it looks and how it's written and how it's shot and why that one why that story yeah you know that story i heard as a kid i remember hearing that story and it's actually a true story too by the way
Guest:Incidentally, a father at a drawbridge and his son falls into gears and he sacrificed his son for a train for a train of passengers.
Guest:So it's like an old tale or it's like it's an old tale.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I haven't been able to find that like the newspaper article that says where and when this happened.
Guest:But it's maybe a fable may have been true, but it was something that I heard.
Guest:And.
Guest:at that moment in time in 2001 uh with the shock of all that uh you know my partner called up he said i just heard this story and i said hey i remember that story because i think it'd be a good time to tell something like you remember that story is that like some sort of weird like was it something your dad told you is it is it an old check story like what is that no i i i heard it at a camp an old check story no i heard it at camp years ago and
Guest:uh stuck with me over the years a sad camp did you go to sad yeah it was like it was a sad camp but it was about you know it was about redemption yeah hope was about you know there was a something sacrificial about it and sure and helping people laying something making a sacrifice for the bigger making a sacrifice for the bigger picture yeah and at that moment it was something that you know i don't know it wasn't even anything like on purpose it was just like hey you want to go make this movie and i thought
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And also I just kind of uprooted and moved out of LA.
Guest:I was living in, bouncing from Bulgaria to Hamburg and to Prague anyway.
Guest:And I said, well, I'm in Eastern Europe.
Guest:Why don't we try to look for it out here?
Marc:What do you mean anyway?
Marc:What were you doing?
Marc:You went to Bulgaria?
Guest:I was doing a bunch of, I did a bunch of, before I got married, I did a bunch of indie films over in Bulgaria and
Guest:And, you know, I met many friends and I was traveling.
Guest:I lived in Sofia, Bulgaria for a while.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'd stay in Berlin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For a long time.
Guest:A couple of years, almost three.
Marc:So you were like in that weird indie film, Mark.
Marc:I think.
Marc:Who was I talking to?
Marc:Like Charlie Sheen did a bunch of those kind of weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was doing those.
Guest:You know, I would get they get me over there and I with the bait of one movie.
Guest:And then they're like, hey, we got four more if you want to stick around.
Guest:I'm like, sure.
Guest:So I had a blast, man.
Guest:I enjoyed that.
Guest:That was some good acting school.
Guest:It's a good film school with that doing that.
Guest:And then I got, you know, then I was bored of those.
Guest:I would read those scripts and I would see the potential in these indie films.
Guest:I'm like, these have potential to be actually good films.
Guest:Why are they cutting corners?
Guest:Why is the CGI look like this?
Guest:And then I got that other kind of thing in me going, I'm,
Guest:this is I'm bored.
Guest:I want to do something that has integrity and I want to do something on film.
Guest:And I want to do something that tells a story that means something.
Guest:And I want it to be colored, right.
Guest:And I want it to have great acting.
Guest:And, and then I was, I was going to even be in the short film, but it became such a passion of mine that I,
Guest:I said, I can't put myself on this canvas.
Guest:I can't, I can't cross the line.
Guest:I just want to be behind it.
Guest:And we shot this on film in the old, we got the Aeroflex cameras and we had the film stock from Lord of the Rings shipped to us.
Guest:Like the Lord of the Rings was filming.
Guest:We get their recans and we're filmed at negative 11 degrees weather in Poland, freezing cold.
Guest:We dealt with the Polish mafia.
Guest:It's a story, the biggest flood in a hundred years, knocked out all the bridges in Prague on our last day of shooting.
Guest:It's a great, it was a great adventure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we had to go back and do some reshoots.
Marc:How long is that film?
Marc:It's like a 20 minute movie.
Marc:How long is the movie?
Guest:Dude, it was 33 minutes.
Guest:And it took us, it was like the longest, the most epic short film of all time.
Guest:You know, we shot that thing.
Guest:Yeah, it took a while.
Guest:What happened with the Polish mafia?
Guest:Well, we didn't realize who we were dealing with.
Guest:We had to get a 1930s, 40s steam train from Warsaw, Poland to this place called Chechen, Poland.
Guest:And that's all through the country.
Marc:You're like shooting Fitzgerald though.
Guest:You're like, you know, it's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had, we had a, we had a crew coming in from Prague meeting them.
Guest:So we had, we had a train coming from Warsaw, us coming from Prague, us going in through Berlin and the back door and they came down to meet us.
Guest:And so we went to go, we had to rent this steam train, like 10 train cars and a conductor.
Guest:And they quoted us 1500 bucks for the day with the train car and everything.
Guest:We thought it was great.
Guest:Then we go to pick up the train and I sent a guy up to go pick the train up and he's like, Hey, these guys are shaking me down.
Guest:They didn't say 1500 a day.
Guest:They said $15,000 a day.
Guest:So I'm like, what, 15 grand a day for this train?
Guest:Well, we got to pay it.
Guest:I mean, our whole movie, we're going to have to figure something out in post.
Guest:Pay them.
Guest:And then so they did.
Guest:And we ended up having, whether it was the actual mafia or not, but we had to tip off every bridge operator all the way from there to our bridge.
Guest:And then they, the train shows up and now we're at this bridge at this 19 World War II bridge was the only one that wasn't destroyed in Poland during the war.
Guest:And it was like manual.
Guest:They had to crank it to go up, up and down.
Guest:It was negative, negative 11 freezing cold.
Guest:And the bridge snaps and breaks and won't open and close anymore.
Guest:So we have our train parked off to the side and we had to wait two days, 15 grand, 15 grand, 50 grand for this train to get back on track.
Guest:And then we controlled this bridge for 10 minutes on the hour.
Guest:So the rest of the 50 minutes, real train cars are flying by.
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:And then we didn't get our whole movie because we lost days and we had to go back.
Guest:The bridge broke.
Guest:We had to have an insurance battle with this big insurance company.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:And you always, the, the plan was always to make a half hour movie.
Guest:It was just to be a little short, fun film.
Guest:It took us that we went back in the summer.
Guest:It was all green and,
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Instead of winter.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:And you got an Oscar for it.
Marc:Nomination.
Marc:A nomination.
Marc:Because they probably heard the story.
Marc:They're like, these kids, they really.
Guest:Hey, man, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, they felt sorry for it.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:They went all in, man.
Marc:I mean, this is like four years in the making.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, we did the tour of the festival tours.
Guest:We opened at Sundance and, you know, we didn't get even get a mention, an honorable mention at Sundance.
Guest:The one that won that, you know, we thought, well, we put a lot of heart in this movie.
Guest:Nothing's going to happen with it.
Guest:And then then we started kicking up and all the rest of the festivals and somehow we ended up walking.
Marc:You should have made a feature about the making of your of your short film.
Guest:Oh, that would have been great.
Guest:That would have been seen.
Guest:You would have had to look it up then.
Marc:That sounds like the movie.
Marc:$15,000 a day.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:No, I thought it was great.
Marc:I thought it looked great.
Marc:I thought it was a good story.
Marc:It wasn't uplifting to me.
Guest:No, but the ending is sort of right a little bit.
Guest:I mean, it's not uplifting.
Marc:No, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you get it.
Marc:You get the sacrifice.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:It's not uplifting.
Guest:It's not uplifting.
Guest:But it is thought provoking.
Guest:It does stir you.
Marc:Did you feel a connection?
Marc:I mean, do you have family from that region?
Guest:Yes, because I'm Czech.
Guest:So my dad, I come from Czech.
Guest:Yeah, my grandparents are from Moravia, which is between Prague and
Guest:bruno which is uh old czechosovakia and you knew them i didn't know them i never met them uh my dad who my dad and mom came out on their anniversary my dad who's had retired at that point when we were doing our reshoots and i told him invited him to watch the trains uh go on the bridge he ended up running the whole thing got a walkie-talkie he was making the trains go across but we ended up taking a trip it was funny man he was i was like my dad coming around the corner with the microphone he knows what he's doing
Guest:He took over the whole thing.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:But yeah, we went to Moravia, which is where my grandparents are from, this small little village.
Guest:And yeah, learned a little bit of Czech.
Guest:And so there was some, you know, enough to start a conversation I couldn't finish.
Marc:And did you find any family history there?
Marc:Or is there in family graves or whatnot?
Guest:No, but ironically that a lot of the Zabkas were involved in helping build some of their first early steam trains.
Guest:So how interesting is that?
Guest:So here I am doing a movie about a steam train, the steam train operator.
Guest:And there's pictures in these like museums of a lot of Zabkas who are helping build these steam trains.
Marc:So there was a big name in that area, huh?
Marc:Zabka?
Guest:Yeah, it was like the Joneses, you know, here.
Guest:But the Zabkas are very popular in Eastern Europe.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And where did your folks, both of your parents are Czech?
Guest:My mom is German-French, so she's from here.
Guest:And yeah, and she was a dancer.
Guest:She was a showgirl, actually.
Guest:Not in Broadway, but off-Broadway.
Guest:She did a lot of stuff.
Guest:So when I was a kid, I'd go and watch her in these musicals and Pirates of Penzance and all that.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:When I was a kid.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:She's a very talented, good singer.
Guest:Both my parents were actually good singers, and they made a little album together way back when.
Guest:Ah.
Guest:The Sonny and Cher you never heard of.
Marc:But your dad didn't grow up in Czechoslovakia, though.
Marc:He grew up where?
Guest:He was born in Des Moines, I believe.
Guest:Oh, in Iowa?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he moved.
Guest:They lived on the south side of the tracks in Chicago way back in the Depression days.
Guest:My dad was born 24.
Marc:Like Chicago's like kind of like, I don't know.
Marc:For some reason, I associate Czechs with like, you know, being stocky and tough.
Marc:Is that a generalization?
Guest:Yeah, they are.
Guest:They're tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah, they would build things with their hands, you know, you know, catch their own food.
Guest:You know, yeah, they're tough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're build all build their own motorcycles and cars.
Guest:They're fixers, you know, really good handyman.
Marc:But when you did that movie was like, was the plan?
Marc:Were you trying to sort of move into directing?
Marc:Were you trying to get on that side of it?
Guest:the funny thing was we if i really wanted to look at it that way as a career move i would have shot it here to cast people that you knew and sure to play that game i really want so yeah i mean i think it was a artistic itch to go and to do that but it wasn't to play to uh you know as a ticket here it was more of like i really want to make this movie and we're going to do it outside of the box with no support and no no no names you don't know anybody in that movie
Guest:you know, we could have gone that route.
Guest:So, yeah, but that's, that's something I would definitely wanted to, it was, it felt amazing to, to be a, to be a filmmaker.
Marc:So when you got the nomination, were you like, let's, I'm going to do this now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was thinking that I was, I was doing that and wrote some things.
Guest:We had a little, me and my partner had some things set up, didn't go through.
Guest:And then I got into other stuff, you know, as they haven't just didn't,
Guest:I didn't stay at it, I guess, in a way, for a minute.
Guest:I got pulled into other things, music videos, commercials, directing those types of things.
Marc:Oh, you did some commercial directing?
Guest:Yeah, I did some commercial stuff.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:Big music videos for us.
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:I don't like doing the commercials so much, but I do like music videos.
Guest:I like that.
Marc:Do they still do those?
Guest:Not the scale, unless they're super, super star.
Guest:But the ones I was doing were pretty decent budgets.
Marc:they don't make them like that anymore yeah and i also like shooting on actual film now i'm a digital guy but um i just shot a movie on film guy shot a movie on film on film film yeah he was shooting film and it's it's different as an actor you know and i'm not i don't have that long i don't have that many chops as an actor and i haven't been on that many sets but you know you kind of got to make shit count you can't just be like can we just do another one right away oh yeah no no no
Marc:Four takes.
Marc:No.
Marc:That's it, maybe.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he shot a feature in 19 days, dude, on film.
Marc:I have no idea what he got.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:But I want to see it.
Marc:He said I did a good job, but it's crazy.
Guest:Good.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:19 days.
Guest:Yeah, you can do it.
Guest:Film's great.
Guest:Why did he choose film, I wonder?
Guest:Was he just old school?
Marc:Same reason anyone does.
Marc:It was his first feature, and he's like, I wanted to have that feeling, that 70s.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:I guess it does.
Guest:Yeah, it does.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I have no idea.
Marc:I have no idea.
Marc:Like, I don't know how you guys do it really over and over again where.
Marc:But I've talked to cats who, you know, go through periods.
Marc:Oh, you know who was it might have been Stephen Dorff, you know, where, you know, he knows who he is and he knows what he does.
Marc:And sometimes like you're you're as an actor, you're sort of like, all right, well, how much money is it and for how long and where?
Marc:And you don't, you can't worry about what the fuck the movie is going to look like.
Marc:I mean, it seemed like half the time it was sort of like, I don't know if this thing's even going to make it out of the camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As an actor though, that you're saying he did that as an actor.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's something about that.
Guest:You know, you want to know where you got to show up where, you know, what, what's the day look like and when am I done?
Guest:And,
Guest:Then there's a then there's behind the camera, which is takes everything.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like but what I'm saying is that there is a level of acting sometimes that if you're given the opportunity, you know, you can still engage in the acting, engage in the process, but sort of know in your heart of hearts that like this, this is not going to this movie is not going anywhere.
Right.
Guest:yeah there's that feeling you kind of have a feeling you kind of do you do yeah you do you have a feeling like all right this is uh if it's happening on the set there's an energy that's happening it's like if this is true it's going to translate there's there's moments where you know you're on a turd there's moments where you think you know hey maybe maybe it's a turd but i did good or it's a good movie right you know one of those things and sometimes you must walk away going like i'm kind of happy that's not going to be seen by anybody yeah oh yeah for sure for sure that was great that's right that's right you know you get
Guest:All the things you can do.
Guest:You just keep bettering your own craft.
Guest:Just keep doing it, doing it and seeing what works.
Guest:I love that I did a bunch of stuff that was obscure and nobody saw.
Guest:I was on sci-fi, all these indie films, you know, because I got to really try stuff in there and it was kind of a safe place because, you know, the world wasn't watching, you know.
Guest:You learn those things and take them to the next thing.
Guest:But those things also get you frustrated because you're watching compromises made.
Guest:You're seeing rush things, terribly composed shots.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, they're just shopping scenes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Forget shopping.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I tell you what, man, post-production, you know, this editing, it's all in the cut to it.
Guest:It is really.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:Final thing is it gets into their hands.
Guest:So.
Guest:And I'm an editor, too.
Guest:I did a couple of docs and I cut these two big docs in Africa.
Guest:And I'll sit there and I'm a very good editor, actually.
Guest:What were the docs about?
Guest:One was on Uganda.
Guest:It was these three kids that traveled to Uganda to go and change the world and it kicked their ass and they came home completely devastated by what they witnessed there.
Guest:But then they set up an NGO and go back and now they have wells and cab services and all that.
Guest:And it was fascinating.
Guest:We had the king and then another one called Never a Neverland.
Guest:about swaziland which is in the aids epidemic in swaziland and that was something i was brought into late where they had already shot a bunch of the stuff and they came in and put that together and produced that and i enjoy that equally as as much as i do uh doing a great scene acting or saying that cut you know i love telling the story and the real power at the end of the day comes in the editor's hands the mix the timing the cuts the choices the selects all those things man
Guest:And if you're in good hands.
Guest:So that's what also drew.
Guest:I kind of drove into like, I have to do this because I'm frustrated.
Guest:I'm not getting spoiled like I was with Karate Kid with, you know, with John Abelson and the visionary and Jimmy Crave, the DP and all that and other people I've worked with.
Guest:And so you start to get anxious to do it yourself.
Guest:And that fulfills you.
Guest:But that takes all of you.
Guest:Yeah, it takes every it's all your capacity, which I love.
Guest:I also love showing up, not giving a crap what I look like and not have, you know, just not having to be aware, not having to be on, you know, grow my face out, whatever, the hair sticking up and, you know, it's sitting behind a monitor and, you know, composing.
Marc:But that's interesting.
Marc:Like, that's the truth about it, because like I like these guys who make movies who I talk to.
Marc:Because I like fairly immediate results, and I'm starting to enjoy seeing what I can do as an actor and starting to figure out what is compelling about it because there's so much fucking waiting.
Marc:There's part of me that's sort of like, how is this a job?
Marc:And I'm waiting all day to do this two-minute thing.
Marc:But I've started to appreciate it more.
Marc:But when I talk to filmmakers, I mean, you better believe in what you're doing because it's going to eat up your life.
Marc:from anywhere from a year to five years to 10 years.
Marc:Who the fuck knows?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's a big it's you are having a baby for three years.
Guest:I mean, it is not that you are.
Guest:It is every part.
Guest:And even when you think you're resting, you're not resting because the back of your mind is putting something together.
Guest:You're you're troubleshooting, putting out a fire.
Guest:Creatively thinking of something when you're in charge of it, it's it's all consuming, which is great to have partners if you can have some good creative partners to help you to curb that.
Guest:But, yeah.
Marc:So did this reenergize you to start?
Marc:I mean, are you thinking back in terms of of maybe investing in directing or writing something?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I'm really pleasantly surprised with how much I'm enjoying acting.
Guest:right now it's a sweet spot i've got great writers a great team great co-stars great kids i mean i'm i'm i couldn't ask for anything more than this moment right now to completely soak and you get to redeem this guy and i get i get to slow it's a slow burn man but yeah it's like
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:He's on a journey.
Guest:It's like, so I couldn't enjoy acting anymore right now.
Guest:And I would love if these moments can keep coming.
Guest:I'll, I'll, I'll be caring.
Guest:I'll be doing this, but sure.
Guest:There's their wheels back there going, you know, Hey, you know,
Guest:But I want it to be something I believe in.
Guest:I want it to be work just to throw on top of work and busy to stand on top of business.
Marc:Well, you like the heavy stuff, man.
Guest:I mean, you know, it seems like... No, no, I like comedy better.
Guest:That one was just one I had to get out of my system.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I like light things.
Guest:I like it's more uplifting fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I like drama, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:I mean, I just...
Guest:I go kind of by my gut, and when something hits me, like this story or this thing, I'll go that direction.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah, so that's it, man.
Marc:Well, yeah, man.
Marc:I'm happy for you.
Marc:I mean, I really was sort of like – I really was floored by your performance, and it was like right away.
Marc:I was very invested, and I thought it was –
Marc:had amazing depth and it was really engaging to me and i don't i don't i didn't really care about the karate kid i was just sort of like what is this guy doing with this character so yeah i'm happy for you man and it was thank you so much good talking to you great talking to you mark all right man take care of yourself all right man you got it
Marc:That's it.
Marc:As I said, Cobra Kai is now streaming seasons one through three on Netflix.
Marc:Season four will come out later this year.
Marc:And that was great.
Marc:I enjoyed talking to him.
Marc:I thought he's got a good mindset about what he's been through in life in terms of expectations.
Marc:I'm projecting, but you know what I'm saying.
Marc:Let's hit this guitar hard.
Yeah.
guitar solo
.
.
.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey.
Marc:La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.