Episode 1247 - Matt Damon

Episode 1247 • Released July 26, 2021 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuckineers?

00:00:14Marc:What the fuckadelics?

00:00:16Marc:How's it going?

00:00:17Marc:I don't mind.

00:00:18Marc:Do what you have to do.

00:00:19Marc:Do your ayahuasca.

00:00:21Marc:Do your shrooming.

00:00:23Marc:Do your microdosing.

00:00:26Marc:I have no judgment of that.

00:00:28Marc:Other than dosing is dosing.

00:00:29Marc:I know you can't feel it.

00:00:31Marc:I know.

00:00:32Marc:You know, people have recommended it to me sometimes.

00:00:34Marc:Maybe you should microdose.

00:00:36Marc:I'm like, I don't know.

00:00:37Marc:Why?

00:00:38Marc:Why?

00:00:39Marc:If you're going to do it, do it.

00:00:40Marc:Right?

00:00:41Marc:Coming up on fucking 22 years sober here.

00:00:43Marc:And a little brittle.

00:00:46Marc:A little poppy.

00:00:48Marc:Could use some in-person Secret Society clubhouse get-togethers.

00:00:54Marc:How are you guys doing?

00:00:55Marc:I'm just rambling.

00:00:56Marc:This is the show.

00:00:58Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:59Marc:Some of you might be new to it because Matt Damon is the guest.

00:01:03Marc:He's got this new flick out.

00:01:05Marc:Did I just say flick like an old man?

00:01:06Marc:He's got this new flick on acetate out at the projector theaters.

00:01:12Marc:He's got this film out.

00:01:13Marc:It's called Stillwater.

00:01:15Marc:It's quite a movie.

00:01:16Marc:I enjoyed it.

00:01:17Marc:I've seen a couple of movies that are encouraging.

00:01:22Marc:Sometimes films...

00:01:24Marc:Don't do what you anticipate them doing.

00:01:27Marc:You know, the promo for this thing, the promotional campaign for Stillwater, makes it seem like a sort of... What's that movie with... What's those ones with Liam Neeson taken?

00:01:39Marc:You know, like a guy's going to save his daughter.

00:01:42Marc:But it's not...

00:01:43Marc:It's definitely not a franchise film.

00:01:48Marc:And it's kind of a morally challenging film.

00:01:51Marc:And the protagonist, the main guy that Matt plays, this guy Baker, he's not your average hero or maybe not a hero at all.

00:02:01Marc:It's a provocative movie and it's beautifully written because it unfolds.

00:02:05Marc:in a way where you can't settle in to what is happening exactly for a good 10 to 15 minutes, which I kind of like.

00:02:13Marc:You're kind of learning as it goes along.

00:02:16Marc:There's not a big information dump with some awkward monologue or stilted conversation between characters.

00:02:23Marc:It just unfolds sort of beautifully and naturally, and all of a sudden you're in this place.

00:02:28Marc:predicament that is uh complicated so i guess i'm saying i enjoyed the film i saw a couple movies i actually went to the real movies and i think it's one of the reasons why i fucking went into some guy goddamn uh grief zone again i saw the movie pig

00:02:43Marc:With Nicolas Cage, because I just wanted to see it.

00:02:46Marc:And I don't know why, because I wanted to, it felt like Nick Cage was going to do something.

00:02:50Marc:It felt like Nick Cage was going to do Nick Cage at his best.

00:02:53Marc:I just felt it.

00:02:54Marc:And I didn't know what the movie was about, but it seemed unusual to me about a guy whose truffle pig, a truffle hunter, his truffle pig gets kidnapped.

00:03:03Marc:I'm like, what is that?

00:03:04Marc:And it's about, all I get is that it's a guy who wants his pig back.

00:03:07Marc:It's like, this is an action movie.

00:03:09Marc:Again, like Stillwater.

00:03:10Marc:It's like, is this a hero?

00:03:11Marc:Is this a franchise?

00:03:13Marc:Is this guy, how many movies does he search for the pig?

00:03:17Marc:But it was not that kind of movie.

00:03:18Marc:It was a very sweet, poetic movie, sort of in the same world as First Cow, which was a movie that came out last year, which was a period piece.

00:03:27Marc:This is sort of a modern film, but it happens in sort of a, I think, a mythical landscape.

00:03:31Marc:It is based in Portland, Oregon, and the region up there around Portland in the woods.

00:03:37Marc:But and it does deal with sort of chef culture.

00:03:41Marc:It deals with food culture.

00:03:44Marc:But it's really not about that.

00:03:46Marc:It's about it's really about grief.

00:03:48Marc:The movie is a meditation, a poetic meditation about grief.

00:03:52Marc:A lot of the sort of elements of the story are clearly unreal in terms of their execution as reality.

00:04:00Marc:But it's more of a lyrical movie.

00:04:02Marc:And it's about authenticity.

00:04:05Marc:It's about grief.

00:04:06Marc:It's about passion.

00:04:07Marc:But the undercurrent is sort of the heaviness of humanity when it comes to processing loss and processing grief.

00:04:15Marc:And the ending just shattered me.

00:04:17Marc:I went with Jerry, Jerry Stahl, my buddy, and I'm fucking weeping in the car ride home.

00:04:21Marc:And it's a mile car ride.

00:04:23Marc:It had a lot to do.

00:04:23Marc:Maybe it was just the, it was what it was.

00:04:26Marc:It just reopened it.

00:04:27Marc:And it made me see it differently.

00:04:29Marc:It made me see grief differently.

00:04:32Marc:And I'm still not that far from it, but it made me see the, you know, the balance of it and what it does to you.

00:04:43Marc:I don't know.

00:04:45Marc:Powerful movie.

00:04:47Marc:And even though it shattered me, I'm probably going to go see it again.

00:04:52Marc:And that was not a paid advertisement.

00:04:55Yeah.

00:04:56Marc:I got to give myself a break sometimes.

00:04:57Marc:And it's part of this creative process.

00:04:59Marc:You guys, I did the last of the first run of Dynasty typewriter shows.

00:05:04Marc:And the last one was it was sort of astounding.

00:05:06Marc:And I don't want to toot my own horn or be proud.

00:05:10Marc:But, you know, I'm very grounded.

00:05:12Marc:And from and where I'm coming from is sort of a deeper place.

00:05:17Marc:uh with the improvisation but a lot of it sort of came together kind of beautifully and and a lot of it was you know a little not dark but you know honest and heavy but it wrote a line and i guess that's just where i'm at it was very rewarding to do the shows i'm in very sort of peak comedy shape after you know performing nightly at the comedy store

00:05:41Marc:And, you know, honing that edge and then kind of like locking in to the hour plus riff sessions to see where we land.

00:05:51Marc:It looks like I've definitely got, you know, probably an hour of solid shit that I could sort of craft.

00:05:58Marc:And I guess I should tell you that I am doing this.

00:06:01Marc:I am doing these dates.

00:06:02Marc:I don't know what's sold out and what isn't.

00:06:05Marc:I should, but I don't right now.

00:06:07Marc:I don't have it in front of me.

00:06:09Marc:So you will have to check it out for yourself.

00:06:14Marc:I am at the Comedy Works in Denver, August 5th, 6th, and 7th.

00:06:20Marc:I will be at the Comedy Works in Denver.

00:06:22Marc:That's five shows total.

00:06:24Marc:At Stand Up Live in Phoenix, Arizona, August 12th.

00:06:27Marc:That's the Thursday, and then they added one, August 13th.

00:06:30Marc:Another single show at Stand Up Live in Phoenix.

00:06:34Marc:August 19th and 20th and 21st, I will be at Wise Guys in Salt Lake City, Utah.

00:06:40Marc:That's five shows total.

00:06:43Marc:September 16, 17, and 18, I will be at Helium in St.

00:06:47Marc:Louis.

00:06:48Marc:If there is not a complete theocratic takeover and COVID fucking super spreader event of the new Omega strain, I'll be there in Missouri for you people who need me to come.

00:07:06Marc:September 30, October 1, and October 2, I'll be up in Indiana at the comedy attic, which I love to do, the Bloomington room.

00:07:14Marc:It's nice, comfortable, get some work done.

00:07:17Marc:So for fuck's sake, by the time November comes, I should be tight and sick.

00:07:23Marc:Tight and sick of that hour.

00:07:25Marc:Is that the name of my new tour?

00:07:27Marc:Titan Sick 2021.

00:07:29Marc:Maybe.

00:07:30Marc:Maybe.

00:07:32Marc:Matt Damon is in this new film, Stillwater, which is a surprising movie.

00:07:37Marc:Directed by Tom McCarthy.

00:07:38Marc:It opens in theaters this Friday, July 30th.

00:07:41Marc:And he came by the house.

00:07:43Marc:He came by the house.

00:07:44Marc:This is me and Matt Damon.

00:08:00Marc:Do you ever consider... Do you have some plan in your head where you're like, I'm going to leave.

00:08:07Guest:I'm going to go somewhere else.

00:08:09Guest:I get probably in the back of my head.

00:08:11Guest:I definitely... When we did the lockdown, we started the lockdown.

00:08:16Guest:We were in Ireland because we were shooting a movie.

00:08:17Guest:That's the best place.

00:08:18Guest:It was so fucking great.

00:08:22Guest:We loved it there so much.

00:08:23Guest:And I was kind of in the back of my head like...

00:08:25Guest:i could move here i could live here that's the place i always think of i don't even know why i don't like i'm a jew i don't have no attachment right to ireland but every time i go there i'm like oh my god yeah these yeah it's beautiful yeah where were you uh in dalky which is just just uh about 45 minutes outside of dublin um it's this beautiful seaside town and i mean it was just it's the best it was beautiful yeah you took the whole family

00:08:49Guest:Yeah, I got very lucky.

00:08:51Guest:We were shooting this movie that's going to come out later in the year called The Last Duel, and half of it we shot in France and half in Ireland, and we just eked out the French part of our schedule.

00:09:04Marc:So you finished that?

00:09:04Guest:We finished that, and then we did a crew travel to Ireland, landed in Ireland, and shut down.

00:09:11Marc:So you're there for months?

00:09:13Guest:We stayed for three months.

00:09:14Guest:Yeah.

00:09:15Guest:We had this, because we got there and we'd rented all of these houses in this town.

00:09:21Guest:Yeah.

00:09:22Guest:It was about a 15 minute drive to the studio.

00:09:25Guest:It was this beautiful little town.

00:09:26Guest:So the actors and Ridley Scott was directing it.

00:09:30Guest:Everybody rented a place.

00:09:32Guest:Well, everybody left.

00:09:33Guest:Yeah.

00:09:34Guest:And so I was there and-

00:09:36Guest:I kind of looked around and we had, you know, a few people in our little group and we were like, well, we got all these houses for three months.

00:09:45Guest:So we just moved into these houses and just kind of took it over and had just the best time.

00:09:53Marc:I love it there.

00:09:55Marc:But I don't know, like you don't have to tour or anything.

00:09:57Marc:You could theoretically live wherever you want.

00:09:59Marc:You just go and make movies.

00:10:01Marc:Like I sort of am tied to the States somehow because I got to entertain people.

00:10:05Guest:Absolutely.

00:10:05Guest:Yeah.

00:10:05Guest:Well, you got to jump on a plane every weekend and go.

00:10:08Guest:If I want.

00:10:08Marc:Yeah.

00:10:09Marc:Go perform for the weirdos, the strangers out in the world.

00:10:13Marc:But I don't know why people, I don't know.

00:10:16Marc:But do you think you'd get bored?

00:10:17Marc:Do you occupy yourself well?

00:10:18Guest:I mean, what do you do?

00:10:19Guest:No, no.

00:10:20Guest:I have no problem occupying myself.

00:10:22Guest:I mean, there are other places I could live.

00:10:24Guest:And I was in Australia for the first part of this year.

00:10:27Guest:And I love it down there.

00:10:28Guest:Where in Australia?

00:10:29Guest:In Byron Bay.

00:10:31Guest:Is that by where?

00:10:33Guest:Is that like by Brisbane, by Sydney?

00:10:35Guest:Yeah, it's about a two-hour drive from Brisbane, south of Brisbane, about an hour south of the Gold Coast.

00:10:39Guest:And you liked it?

00:10:40Guest:I love it there, yeah.

00:10:41Guest:You love Australia?

00:10:42Guest:Yeah, I love it there, yeah.

00:10:43Guest:Australia or Ireland, those are the places?

00:10:45Guest:Well, those are two of them.

00:10:46Guest:I think there are a lot of countries I could... Do you ever think of like Costa Rica?

00:10:50Guest:Yeah, I've spent a lot of time there.

00:10:52Guest:i haven't been in years but i love there's a beautiful you know there's a great you know if that's a totally different style of living yeah i love i just love traveling i love moving around and and yeah i've lived in all these different kind of european capitals because of work yeah and you know for born yeah for the born movies where else have you lived were you in uh hungary yeah budapest for the martian i lived there for a few months that's where that was shot

00:11:16Guest:Yeah, they have one of the biggest sound stages in the world.

00:11:20Guest:There's the famous Bond stage at Pinewood that they claim is the biggest in the world.

00:11:24Guest:But this one in Budapest, I think, claims that by square footage or square meters, it's bigger.

00:11:30Guest:And you're able to get out and do shit?

00:11:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:11:34Guest:I mean, the language is a problem for me in Hungary, but... Do you speak any other languages?

00:11:40Guest:I speak Spanish, some Spanish, enough to get around.

00:11:43Guest:Okay.

00:11:44Guest:But I haven't had a lot of jobs in Spanish-speaking countries, unfortunately.

00:11:47Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:11:48Marc:Australia, I think I could live there, but I always get a feeling when I'm there that I'm like, wow, we're really out here.

00:11:55Marc:It's far away.

00:11:56Marc:There's nobody around.

00:11:58Marc:There's a good side of that and a bad side of that.

00:11:59Marc:But I get that island tweak even when I'm on Hawaii.

00:12:03Marc:I'm like, fuck, we're just out here.

00:12:05Marc:We're out here in the Pacific.

00:12:07Yeah.

00:12:07Guest:Yeah, I just happen to have a bunch of friends down there too.

00:12:11Guest:In Australia?

00:12:11Guest:Yeah, so I feel really comfortable there because we have a nice community of friends.

00:12:14Marc:Oh, that's nice.

00:12:15Marc:So I watched the new movie, the Stillwater movie.

00:12:19Marc:Did you like it?

00:12:20Marc:Yeah, man.

00:12:21Marc:All right, good.

00:12:22Marc:Yeah, I mean, I've got questions about process.

00:12:26Marc:I thought the guy who directed it, he did Spotlight too.

00:12:29Marc:What's his name again?

00:12:30Marc:Tom McCarthy.

00:12:31Marc:Yeah.

00:12:31Marc:It's fucking great how that story unfolds because you don't like it for the first.

00:12:35Marc:And I don't want to spoil anything for anybody because you don't know what the hell is going on for about 20 minutes.

00:12:39Guest:Yeah.

00:12:40Marc:Which is great.

00:12:40Guest:Yeah.

00:12:41Marc:Like this guy's looking for a job.

00:12:42Marc:Now he's on a plane.

00:12:43Marc:It's like, what's happening?

00:12:45Guest:Yeah.

00:12:45Guest:And he's a he's a roughneck from from Oklahoma.

00:12:48Guest:It's a very specific thing.

00:12:49Guest:Yeah.

00:12:50Guest:What is this guy?

00:12:51Guest:Where's this guy traveling?

00:12:52Marc:It's so funny because when my producer told me about the movie and what it's about, it's about a guy who goes to save his daughter.

00:12:59Marc:I'm like, is this going to be a franchise thing?

00:13:02Guest:Yeah, well, that's the thing.

00:13:03Guest:The setup, it feels like it should be a Liam Neeson movie, right?

00:13:06Marc:But could you think of that guy, that character you play in this movie, Bill Baker, as a franchise?

00:13:10Guest:No, no, no.

00:13:12Marc:He's going to go somewhere else and fuck something up.

00:13:14Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:13:16Marc:To solve a problem, he's going to make it worse.

00:13:18Guest:A broken man.

00:13:19Marc:Yeah.

00:13:21Marc:Just doing damage to his primary relationship.

00:13:24Marc:Not really succeeding in all these attempts at fixing things.

00:13:30Marc:But I thought that character was... I don't know that I've ever really seen a character like that that was sort of unabashedly not particularly bright and not really heroic and damaged, but earnest somehow because he needed to be in order to transcend his past sins.

00:13:49Guest:Right.

00:13:49Guest:Yeah.

00:13:50Guest:And he's just trying to repair the damage that he's done.

00:13:52Guest:Yeah.

00:13:53Guest:You know, to this relationship with his daughter.

00:13:55Guest:And he wants to, you know, make amends and help her help her.

00:14:00Guest:Yeah.

00:14:00Guest:But he doesn't have any other kind of requisite skills to do that.

00:14:03Marc:He's not capable in any way.

00:14:05Guest:Right.

00:14:05Marc:Like, you know, when he's out there looking for that guy, I'm like, oh, my God.

00:14:09Guest:You're like, what are you doing?

00:14:10Guest:He's like an idiot.

00:14:11Guest:Yeah, yeah, literally.

00:14:11Guest:And he doesn't speak the language.

00:14:13Guest:He doesn't actually, he doesn't understand the culture, so he doesn't actually know what's happening around him.

00:14:19Guest:He literally might as well be on another planet.

00:14:21Guest:And he's...

00:14:21Marc:He's just doing it.

00:14:24Marc:Right.

00:14:26Marc:But there was just something so interesting about the nature of lying, the nature of shame, and all that shit.

00:14:32Guest:Well, that's the whole thing, is that the guy from the first frame, you have to understand.

00:14:38Guest:That's the challenge of the performance, is that...

00:14:41Guest:This guy's carrying this guilt and pain and grief and shame and regret for his failings.

00:14:50Guest:And it needs to be real, right?

00:14:56Guest:You got to believe that.

00:14:59Guest:You know, that's why I worry if they sell it too much like a thriller.

00:15:02Guest:Because to your point about expecting like...

00:15:05Guest:You know, those movies are fucking great.

00:15:07Guest:Like, I'm the first guy to be like, when Liam Neeson's like, I have a very particular set of skills.

00:15:11Guest:I'm like, fuck you, dude.

00:15:12Guest:Yeah, let's go.

00:15:13Guest:You know what I mean?

00:15:14Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:15Guest:Let's get them.

00:15:15Guest:Right.

00:15:16Guest:This guy's like, I have no particular skills.

00:15:19Guest:I have no particular skills.

00:15:20Guest:I don't have anything that's going to help me here.

00:15:22Guest:Yeah.

00:15:23Guest:So it's a thriller kind of setup, but it really is a drama.

00:15:27Guest:Yeah.

00:15:27Guest:Was there a discussion about that?

00:15:30Marc:Do you talk to the writer in the sense of how... Is he upset with how it's being marketed so far?

00:15:37Guest:No, no, no.

00:15:38Guest:This is me kind of lobbing a grenade from the sideline.

00:15:42Guest:I haven't looked... I'm not a producer on the movie.

00:15:44Guest:I'm just an actor on this one.

00:15:47Guest:But listen, there are always these debates about do you bait and switch?

00:15:53Guest:Do you try to get people in the theater and then they're so wowed by the movie?

00:15:57Guest:But I've never, ever, ever believed that.

00:16:01Guest:I think you've got to be completely honest with the audience.

00:16:04Guest:This is what this movie is.

00:16:05Marc:I'm looking at the poster right now.

00:16:06Marc:Matt Damon's still where secrets run deep.

00:16:08Marc:Right.

00:16:09Marc:And with his look in here, you're like, this guy's a badass.

00:16:12Marc:But when you're about 10 minutes into the movie, you're like, I don't know.

00:16:16Marc:He's not a badass at all.

00:16:17Marc:I hope he's okay, this guy.

00:16:20Marc:He seems like he's a little over his head.

00:16:22Marc:Yeah, he's completely overwhelmed.

00:16:24Marc:But the character, I loved it because at the end, and I'm not going to fuck anything up, but there is a sort of moral conundrum.

00:16:31Guest:Yeah, and the guy really goes on a journey.

00:16:34Guest:I mean, A Rough Night from Oklahoma is a very specific... You're from a very specific part of our country, and you do a very specific thing.

00:16:41Guest:I learned so much...

00:16:44Marc:getting ready for this thing like going down there and hanging with those guys like it's it's a fucking hard job is that how you do it because like i was trying to figure out like you know some of the choices you made and it seemed like you know there's like a a lot of stopping of emotion like and i imagine that's just become second nature once you decide that this guy is like you know a lot of it's strangling him from the inside

00:17:06Guest:Yeah, I mean, there's the physicalization of it, right?

00:17:08Guest:The external kind of what you see, right?

00:17:11Guest:Which is like, all of that we got from those guys, you know?

00:17:14Guest:The blue jeans with the fire retardant and the goatee and the wraparound shades and the hat and all of that.

00:17:22Guest:And the body type, which is like, that job demands kind of like

00:17:27Guest:beefy but not fit necessarily right and and power like you gotta be fucking strong to do that yeah and uh and and uh and all of that the carriage of the guy was all really dictated by those guys yeah and uh but the but the internal stuff that you're talking about that's that come you get that from the screenplay and through it's like it's like you push real emotion out through the filter of what you've right of the guy you're playing the guy's limitations or whatever they are whatever they are yeah and

00:17:57Marc:So that's how you work.

00:17:58Marc:You just see what's on the page and start making decisions around the lines and seeing where he's like sort of swallowing his ability to be honest or his ability to, you know, communicate emotions and all that shit.

00:18:11Guest:Yeah.

00:18:11Guest:I mean, like even before I understood the roughneck aspect of it, like reading the script, it was all those dynamics were very real to me.

00:18:20Guest:Like a guy, you know, in general terms, a father who has his sense of failure, right?

00:18:28Guest:Who blew it.

00:18:29Guest:Who blew it.

00:18:29Guest:And, you know, as a parent, it doesn't take a lot to do that thought exercise of imagine waking up and my kid's in her 20s and she's in prison in another country and I feel responsible for it.

00:18:43Guest:for how her life turned out because i wasn't around and i think you know the guy you they allude to the fact that he he was drinking and he was an addict and right that is the experience right of waking you wake up and you're like wait a minute what how the fuck did i get here and also you've got wreckage and you've got wreckage and his and his the situation with his wife his ex-wife right his i don't want to even tip that because because the the way this story unfolds because it's so smartly written and

00:19:08Marc:is that you're finding things out.

00:19:11Marc:There's nothing dumped at the beginning of the movie where you're like, this is the guy.

00:19:16Marc:He's going to do this thing, and this is what he's been through.

00:19:19Marc:It all happens.

00:19:21Marc:It unfolds as you're watching it.

00:19:23Guest:You pick them up kind of midlife.

00:19:26Guest:You kind of parachute into the middle of their life, and you catch up as the movie goes.

00:19:29Marc:And I kind of like that.

00:19:31Marc:I like watching a movie and not really knowing what the fuck is happening for 10 minutes.

00:19:36Marc:And then it all sort of comes together like, oh, man.

00:19:38Guest:Yeah.

00:19:39Guest:You just have to be careful as a screenwriter that you, I mean, Steven Soderbergh had a great line.

00:19:43Guest:He said to me the other day, we were just talking about this very thing and he goes, his one liner was confusing people does not make you an artist.

00:19:53Marc:Which is great.

00:19:53Marc:He's funny.

00:19:54Marc:I just talked to that guy.

00:19:55Marc:Yeah.

00:19:55Marc:And he's very matter of fact.

00:19:57Marc:He's very pragmatic about what is art, what isn't art, what he considers film versus what he considers movies, what the last film he made was, and also the idea of not being a particular brand.

00:20:13Marc:He doesn't ever want anyone to go like, this feels like a Steven Soderbergh movie.

00:20:17Guest:No, right.

00:20:17Guest:His interest is entirely in form.

00:20:19Guest:With form.

00:20:20Guest:I remember having that... When I did this movie, Invictus, it was a rugby movie.

00:20:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:25Guest:12 years ago.

00:20:26Guest:I remember that movie, yeah.

00:20:27Guest:But Clint Eastwood was directing it.

00:20:29Guest:At the time, Clint was 79.

00:20:30Guest:Yeah.

00:20:31Guest:And I remember I called Stephen...

00:20:34Guest:from the set the first day after work because he had been he had been hinting that he was going to retire clint or no steven yeah and i call him i said man i just got off set with a fucking 80 year old guy who's having the time of his life he's doing great work he's you know yeah like why would you ever i'm like this is so fun why would you ever stop yeah and he instantly just shot back he goes he goes because clint's he goes clint's a storyteller i'm only interested in form

00:21:00Marc:Yeah.

00:21:01Marc:But it doesn't sound celebratory, you know, when he says it.

00:21:06Marc:You know, it sounds like this is the burden that I'm dealing with.

00:21:11Guest:It's not... No, sir, I wouldn't... Yeah, I understand that it might feel... He's a serious guy.

00:21:17Guest:He's a very serious guy.

00:21:18Guest:And to me, it's the...

00:21:21Guest:It's what takes up his mental space.

00:21:23Guest:He's an intellectual guy.

00:21:25Guest:Yeah, and that's what's really interesting to him.

00:21:27Marc:And Clint, from what I understand about working with that guy, he just expects you to do your job.

00:21:33Marc:Yeah.

00:21:34Marc:And he doesn't want to get involved.

00:21:36Marc:It turns out, and I was sort of surprised to learn this early on, that no directors really want to be acting teachers.

00:21:42Guest:Yeah, no, I mean, Tom, who directed this movie, because he's a fantastic actor, actually.

00:21:49Guest:Is that what he set out to do?

00:21:50Guest:I think I'm going to interview him.

00:21:51Guest:Is that his plan?

00:21:52Guest:Well, I think he set out to do all three.

00:21:54Guest:I mean, he's a writer, director, and actor.

00:21:57Guest:But he's obviously, you know, he's won Academy Awards as a writer and a director.

00:22:01Guest:So he's, I think that's what everybody sees him as.

00:22:03Guest:But he's a wonderful actor.

00:22:04Guest:Yeah.

00:22:05Guest:So you get directors like him or Francis Ford Coppola was, you know.

00:22:10Guest:I love that fucking movie, man.

00:22:11Marc:That Rainmaker that you did with him.

00:22:13Marc:I, you know, it's like, I don't know why people don't talk about it enough.

00:22:16Marc:Like, it's a weird thing because like, you know, when you think of, uh, Coppola, you think of these, these seminal, these huge movies.

00:22:22Marc:Sure.

00:22:23Marc:But like that movie was a great movie.

00:22:25Marc:It's probably one of the best Grisham movies like that and The Firm.

00:22:28Marc:The best.

00:22:30Guest:Well, thanks.

00:22:31Guest:Thanks, man.

00:22:32Guest:Look, it was working with Francis.

00:22:36Guest:It was unbelievable.

00:22:37Guest:But he loves actors.

00:22:40Guest:I mean, I moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, because that's where my character was from, and I bartended for a month.

00:22:47Guest:for that movie um when i got the part yeah jumped in my truck and drove down there and and i bar backed i i got a i told this owner of this bar i i i walked in i explained that i was an actor i was like i'll work for free i'll give all my tips to the other he didn't know you no and uh because you weren't huge no not at all yeah and uh

00:23:07Guest:And so I did that.

00:23:09Guest:And then Francis did like, I want to say it was like three weeks of rehearsals up at his place in Northern California.

00:23:16Guest:At the vineyard?

00:23:17Guest:At the vineyard, yeah.

00:23:18Guest:But he's got a whole, you know, he has the old RKO library.

00:23:21Guest:He's got a whole rehearsal space.

00:23:22Guest:It's really like a...

00:23:24Guest:like a creative commune up there yeah and uh and i lived in his house um you know for three weeks and he would do these improvisations that would go on for days but who was there you and danny are you and claire uh claire who was like you know who was part of the crew every every actor in that movie like like the whole really yeah mary k place and john voight and everybody in the movie came it came up mickey work too uh mickey i don't remember coming up i don't know if he had been cast at that point oh yeah

00:23:51Guest:Bruiser.

00:23:52Guest:Bruiser.

00:23:53Guest:Yeah, man, you really remember.

00:23:54Guest:That's great.

00:23:55Guest:Those movies, it's like 25 years ago.

00:23:56Marc:I just watched it recently because there's something about that movie that I really like.

00:24:03Marc:It's hard to do those kind of stories that are written as books that are completely compelling.

00:24:08Marc:There's several different stories to sort of carry that off or to pull it off.

00:24:12Marc:And knowing it was Francis and then re-watching it again because it was him and trying to...

00:24:16Marc:Just kind of take it in again.

00:24:17Marc:I love it.

00:24:18Marc:I love that.

00:24:19Marc:I love the comedy in it.

00:24:21Marc:Because it's like you and Danny.

00:24:23Marc:I mean, there's no way DeVito's not going to be a comedic character.

00:24:26Marc:It's just not going to happen.

00:24:28Marc:Even if he's a serious character.

00:24:29Marc:Right.

00:24:29Marc:You got to deal with that guy.

00:24:31Guest:Yeah.

00:24:31Marc:And he's funny.

00:24:32Marc:And the two of you had it kind of.

00:24:33Marc:He's great in that movie.

00:24:34Guest:He's great.

00:24:35Guest:Fucking great.

00:24:36Guest:Yeah.

00:24:36Guest:And John Voight too.

00:24:38Guest:Like John.

00:24:38Guest:Oh my God.

00:24:39Guest:Yeah.

00:24:39Guest:He was great.

00:24:40Guest:And I remember him saying back then, he's like, I really got this guy.

00:24:43Guest:Like he knew.

00:24:44Guest:He was like, it was like he connected with the 95 mile an hour fastball.

00:24:49Guest:Yeah.

00:24:49Guest:He was like, yeah, I got into that one.

00:24:52Guest:It was all good.

00:24:52Marc:The courtroom stuff was great.

00:24:54Marc:All that courtroom stuff was great.

00:24:55Marc:Yeah.

00:24:56Marc:Yeah.

00:24:56Yeah.

00:24:56Marc:So you were saying you're all working up there with Francis, he just loves actors, is that the deal?

00:25:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, I mean, so I guess it was, to circle back, it just depends on the director.

00:25:06Guest:Some of them don't, some of them are like, just show up, and like Clint, Clint is an actor,

00:25:12Guest:But he moves on usually after the first take.

00:25:16Guest:Yeah.

00:25:17Guest:And the first day I shot with him, he said that.

00:25:20Guest:I asked him for a second take because I had been working on this South African accent for like six months because I knew I wasn't going to get a lot of takes.

00:25:27Guest:I really worked hard on it.

00:25:28Guest:It's a really...

00:25:29Guest:fucked up accent.

00:25:30Guest:I don't know if, like, everything your tongue does in that accent is the opposite of what it does when we speak English the way we do.

00:25:37Guest:Like, if you say, I'll be right back, and think about what your tongue does, they would say, and you're like, what the fuck just happened?

00:25:45Guest:What?

00:25:46Guest:So I was like nervous about it.

00:25:49Guest:And I said after the first take of the first scene, I was like, can we do another one?

00:25:55Guest:I was like, boss, can I have another one?

00:25:57Guest:Yeah.

00:25:57Guest:It's just like, why?

00:25:58Guest:You want to waste everybody's time?

00:26:01Guest:Jesus.

00:26:02Guest:It's like, okay, I guess we're moving on.

00:26:03Guest:I'm good if you're good.

00:26:05Marc:Oh, shit.

00:26:07Marc:And that was just the way it was.

00:26:08Guest:That was it, man.

00:26:10Marc:But Coppola, he'll burn a few?

00:26:12Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:26:13Guest:Absolutely.

00:26:13Guest:Most directors will.

00:26:15Guest:I talked to Ben Affleck about that.

00:26:19Guest:He's always... Because the Soderberghs of the world, or Spielberg for that matter, or Clint, they're cutting in camera, right?

00:26:28Guest:They're editing the movie while they're shooting it.

00:26:30Guest:In their head?

00:26:31Guest:Yeah, well, they're just...

00:26:35Guest:So the original directors kind of back in the old studio days, they didn't edit their own movies.

00:26:43Guest:So because the studio controlled the edit, what they learned to do was to only give them material that could be cut one way.

00:26:52Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:52Guest:And that is a very, very hard thing.

00:26:56Guest:That is a very high skill.

00:26:58Guest:I mean, to be able to do that, it's really incredible.

00:27:02Guest:Like John Huston, I think in his last movie, he shot on like 18,000 feet of film, the entire film.

00:27:07Guest:Like that is a degree of difficulty that it's just- Is that a lot or a little?

00:27:10Guest:Nothing.

00:27:11Marc:Nothing.

00:27:11Guest:Nothing.

00:27:12Guest:To put it in perspective, I did a screen test for Michael Mann and we shot 18,000 feet of film in a day.

00:27:18Marc:Yeah.

00:27:18Marc:Okay.

00:27:19Marc:What was that for?

00:27:20Guest:For Good Will Hunting.

00:27:21Guest:Oh, wow.

00:27:22Guest:Yeah, he was one of the directors who was considering doing it.

00:27:25Guest:Okay.

00:27:25Guest:And he wanted to put me and Ben on film and see.

00:27:29Marc:18,000 feet?

00:27:30Marc:In a day.

00:27:31Guest:Yeah, and that's the same amount that John Huston shot the dead in.

00:27:35Guest:So the dead.

00:27:36Marc:Yeah, that's an odd movie.

00:27:37Guest:But so these guys had to.

00:27:39Guest:So Clint Eastwood actually told me a great story about this.

00:27:41Guest:Great old filmmaker named De Sica, this Italian.

00:27:44Guest:Clint was doing like bicycle thief, right?

00:27:46Guest:Yes.

00:27:46Guest:And he was doing a short film with him when he was in his 20s.

00:27:49Guest:So this is 70 years ago.

00:27:51Guest:And he had a line and he was supposed to say the line as he was walking from one side of the room to the other.

00:27:56Guest:So as he's making this cross, he says the line and DeSica interrupts him.

00:28:00Guest:And Clint kind of jokingly says, don't you want me to finish the line?

00:28:05Guest:Yeah.

00:28:06Guest:And he said, the second half of the line, we're going to be on the other side of the room.

00:28:11Guest:Don't waste anything.

00:28:15Guest:No, no.

00:28:16Guest:But also, I don't want anybody to take this away from me.

00:28:19Guest:Now, it just takes so much experience to be able to do that.

00:28:26Guest:When we shot Saving Private Ryan, Stephen had 10 cameras up on some setups, and he would sit there at this bank of monitors and run it back and go, come here, come here, watch this.

00:28:36Guest:And he'd go, we're on this camera, we're on this camera, we're on this camera, and he would point.

00:28:40Guest:To the exact... He loves it, though.

00:28:41Guest:He's like a nerd guy, right?

00:28:43Guest:Well, like a prodigy.

00:28:44Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:28:44Marc:Like, he just loves it.

00:28:46Marc:He loves it.

00:28:46Marc:Well, they all love it.

00:28:47Marc:Yeah, I guess so.

00:28:48Marc:But not all of them have 10 cameras set up.

00:28:50Guest:No, not all of them have the... No, I mean, you know, Ridley Scott, you know, every setup has at least four cameras.

00:28:57Guest:Really?

00:28:57Guest:For the dual one?

00:28:59Guest:What's that about?

00:29:00Mm-hmm.

00:29:00Guest:That's about the last sanctioned duel in medieval France between these two knights, one of whom claimed the other raped his wife.

00:29:08Guest:And so we wrote it.

00:29:10Guest:We saw it as a story of these different perspectives.

00:29:12Guest:Yeah.

00:29:13Guest:So Ben and I wrote the male perspectives each night.

00:29:16Guest:Oh, wait.

00:29:16Marc:Was that the one Nicole Hoffs?

00:29:18Guest:Nicole Hoffs writes the female perspective.

00:29:20Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:29:21Guest:Yeah, she's amazing.

00:29:22Guest:Oh, good.

00:29:22Guest:She's just amazing.

00:29:23Marc:So it was a good time?

00:29:25Guest:Yeah, we had a blast writing it, and I think it's going to be really good.

00:29:28Marc:So it's you and Ben's movie?

00:29:30Guest:Ben and I, yeah, Adam Driver and I play the two knights.

00:29:33Guest:Right.

00:29:33Guest:And Jodie Comer plays the woman, the Lady Marguerite.

00:29:36Guest:But you guys wrote it?

00:29:37Guest:Amazing.

00:29:37Guest:Yeah, Ben and I and Nicole.

00:29:39Guest:Yeah.

00:29:40Marc:Yeah.

00:29:41Marc:Why'd you choose that?

00:29:42Marc:I mean, it's like you got to wear the outfit.

00:29:45Marc:You got a weird beard.

00:29:46Marc:What do you?

00:29:46Marc:Yeah.

00:29:47Marc:Well, I mean.

00:29:48Marc:Why that story?

00:29:49Marc:I just thought it was really.

00:29:50Marc:I read the book.

00:29:51Guest:Okay.

00:29:51Guest:So it's based on a book.

00:29:52Guest:Yeah.

00:29:52Guest:It's based on a book.

00:29:53Guest:Okay.

00:29:54Guest:And the guy who runs development for me, Drew, handed it to me a couple Christmases ago, a couple of Decembers.

00:30:03Guest:I was walking out the door to go on vacation.

00:30:05Guest:And he said, this is your one thing that you have to read.

00:30:07Guest:And I read it.

00:30:09Guest:And I immediately sent it to Ridley because his first movie is called The Duelist.

00:30:13Guest:Like, I saw the title in it.

00:30:15Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:30:15Guest:I just thought of Ridley.

00:30:16Guest:Yeah.

00:30:16Guest:And we had been looking for something to do together again because we did The Martian together and really had a good experience.

00:30:22Marc:That's like such a... Would you consider that movie a comedy?

00:30:26Marc:Well, no, like the Golden Globes, did you mean?

00:30:29Marc:No, no, no.

00:30:29Marc:But I mean, because there are definitely prolonged parts of that movie that are funny.

00:30:36Marc:And they seem sort of played for comedy a little bit.

00:30:39Guest:When you were shooting it, didn't you?

00:30:41Guest:There are certainly laughs in the movie.

00:30:43Guest:But I think any, like Good Will Hunting has a lot of laughs in it.

00:30:46Guest:You know what I mean?

00:30:47Guest:But I wouldn't call it a comedy.

00:30:48Guest:You know what I mean?

00:30:49Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:49Guest:Um, but, uh, but yeah, I mean, I think for any movie, like you can't go two hours without cracking a smile or my God.

00:30:56Marc:I guess cause I'm thinking cause the character does at some point become performative and becomes aware that he's doing a bit.

00:31:02Marc:That he's doing a bit for the cameras because if, if anybody ever finds these things, it's got, yeah, exactly.

00:31:07Marc:Yeah.

00:31:08Marc:So, all right.

00:31:08Marc:So you get Ridley in on the duel.

00:31:10Guest:Yeah, and we were looking for a writer, and Ben came over for dinner, and he was like, are you working on anything?

00:31:19Guest:I was like, I don't know, I've got this thing.

00:31:20Guest:And I had come up with this idea of the perspectives with Drew Goddard, who wrote The Martian,

00:31:27Guest:But he and I in this kind of email, this series of emails were kind of, I felt like we fleshed out what the movie should be.

00:31:34Guest:Yeah.

00:31:34Guest:And I was explaining it to Ben.

00:31:36Guest:I got, well, we have to find a writer, but here's what, here's what I think it is and what would be really interesting.

00:31:41Guest:Yeah.

00:31:43Guest:You know, the, the idea of people kind of looking at the same, looking at the same event and coming away with totally different ideas of what happened.

00:31:52Guest:Like Roushaman?

00:31:53Guest:Similar to Rashomon, yeah, exactly.

00:31:55Guest:Everyone's got a different story.

00:31:57Guest:Everyone's got a different story, but it's really based on what you're acculturated to believe.

00:32:02Marc:So is it built on flashbacks, kind of?

00:32:07Marc:Is it like a story told by people from a this happened in the past perspective?

00:32:12Guest:It's told from three different perspectives, and so you revisit some of things.

00:32:16Guest:Okay.

00:32:17Guest:But you're also getting new information from each.

00:32:19Guest:But...

00:32:21Guest:Hopefully you're leaving the movie understanding why everyone believes what they believe and what are these stories that we tell us and chivalry and all of these things.

00:32:30Guest:What's real, man?

00:32:32Guest:Well, as I was reading the book, the first 20 pages, I was like, how could you root for any of these people?

00:32:41Guest:This is an antecedent culture.

00:32:44Guest:It's like in the middle of the Hundred Years' War, these people are...

00:32:48Guest:these people are born into the Hundred Years' War, they fight their whole lives, rape, pillage, and die, and they're still in the Hundred Years' War, right?

00:33:00Guest:And what was really striking about the book was this woman, because under enormous pressure,

00:33:06Guest:and the risk of her own life.

00:33:09Guest:Again and again, she stood up to power and spoke truth to power.

00:33:15Marc:So that's the important part.

00:33:16Marc:And you guys realized early on that we can't write this woman.

00:33:20Marc:We have to get a woman to write this woman?

00:33:22Guest:yeah uh yeah there was someone else in our office we had internal conversations in our office yeah and uh uh a really great woman who works with us um um helped us see the light and she was right i mean so we and we sat there and we went like well who who can we get and we each put forward a name ben and i did of of like who all right who's the best right and i you know that you know right it's like well tamra jenkins for me and ben said when i call the center and and and i was like okay those are

00:33:52Guest:two good yeah fucking geniuses right that i would love to work with uh and why don't we call one of them and and and nicole was in nicole came well so the first thing so she was in ireland with you right yes yes yeah yeah because she she's a producer on the movie and one of the writers and everything

00:34:10Guest:But she showed up.

00:34:12Guest:She's like, I don't know how these people talk.

00:34:14Guest:And Ben sent her like, we'd written like 20 rough pages.

00:34:20Guest:Yeah.

00:34:20Guest:Like nothing really.

00:34:21Guest:Yeah.

00:34:22Guest:And Ben's like, yeah, we're going to meet with Nicole today.

00:34:24Guest:I sent her that 20 page.

00:34:26Guest:I'm like, you what?

00:34:27Yeah.

00:34:27Guest:No, you didn't.

00:34:28Guest:I'm like, how could you do that?

00:34:30Guest:This is so embarrassing.

00:34:31Guest:It was like, I felt like he just like- Betrayed you?

00:34:34Guest:Just stripped us down naked in front of one of the great writers.

00:34:38Guest:But it actually had, I think she saw, she was like, oh, you guys don't know what you're doing either.

00:34:42Guest:All right, I'll jump in with you guys.

00:34:44Guest:And she did, which was great because she's just so wonderful.

00:34:49Marc:And it came out, how long did it take you to get it all done?

00:34:52Marc:The script.

00:34:54Guest:It didn't take, I mean, it was only a few months.

00:34:57Guest:Really?

00:34:57Guest:It really, we really, you know, then when I was doing Stillwater, Ridley and Nicole came over and, you know, we'd have script meetings.

00:35:09Guest:In Spain?

00:35:09Guest:In Marseille, yeah, in France.

00:35:11Guest:In France, yeah, yeah.

00:35:12Guest:And then, you know, Nicole and I would do some work.

00:35:17Guest:Yeah.

00:35:17Marc:But no, it came together pretty quickly.

00:35:20Marc:Wow.

00:35:21Marc:And so how many does this make that you've written with Ben?

00:35:25Marc:This is the second one.

00:35:25Marc:It's only the second one.

00:35:26Marc:Yeah.

00:35:26Marc:So this is like, what, 30 years apart?

00:35:28Marc:Just about, yeah.

00:35:29Marc:And was the process the same as writing Good Will Hunter?

00:35:33Guest:No, that's what was really, really funny was that we hadn't written for so long because the assumption was we didn't have the time.

00:35:41Guest:Because Good Will Hunting took us so long because we didn't have any idea what we were doing.

00:35:45Marc:But you've both become movie stars and at least one of you has had some fairly public personal struggles.

00:35:52Marc:But you've remained friends the whole time.

00:35:54Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:35:56Guest:And we've spent our adult lives making movies.

00:35:59Guest:So we wrote really fast because we actually...

00:36:04Guest:just by osmosis over the last 25 or 30 years, understand structure now.

00:36:08Guest:Like with Good Will Hunting, we wrote thousands of pages.

00:36:10Guest:Like what we understood were the characters.

00:36:12Guest:And we'd go, all right, what if there's a scene where we take your character and my character and we put them on a construction site?

00:36:18Guest:Okay, let's write that scene.

00:36:19Guest:And we could write that scene.

00:36:21Guest:We could write forever.

00:36:22Guest:We just didn't... You didn't have anything to do.

00:36:24Guest:We didn't have anything, but we didn't know that it would fit into a movie and cohere into some kind of narrative.

00:36:30Marc:So now he's directed and written, you fucking have done your business.

00:36:33Guest:Right.

00:36:33Marc:Produced.

00:36:34Marc:Right.

00:36:34Guest:And so the process was actually really fun and we kind of left going like, oh man, let's do this again.

00:36:42Guest:Like this was really, we can actually do this and not... Freak out.

00:36:46Guest:Yeah.

00:36:46Guest:Have it consume your entire life.

00:36:47Guest:Have it consume our entire life, yeah.

00:36:49Yeah.

00:36:49Marc:No, you guys, you hang out, you've remained friends the whole time.

00:36:53Marc:You guys are tight.

00:36:54Marc:Oh yeah.

00:36:54Marc:Yeah.

00:36:55Marc:That's nice.

00:36:56Marc:I always wondered that about people.

00:36:57Marc:Cause a lot of times they don't hang out, you know, like people who, you know, it's sort of like, do you talk to that guy?

00:37:02Marc:I haven't seen him since that movie.

00:37:04Marc:I'm like, wow.

00:37:04Guest:Well, it is a business that like you come together and have these intense working relationships with people for like four months.

00:37:10Marc:And then you never want to see him again.

00:37:12Guest:No, it's not even that.

00:37:13Guest:I remember doing... I was doing this movie, The Good Shepherd, that Robert De Niro was directing.

00:37:19Guest:Yeah.

00:37:20Guest:And we were shooting... We shot a few days in London.

00:37:23Guest:And as we were in London, we were shooting a night, and...

00:37:29Guest:And Terry Gilliam came down, because I had worked with him a few years earlier.

00:37:34Guest:On what?

00:37:35Guest:On the Brothers Grimm.

00:37:36Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:37:38Guest:And when we broke for lunch, which was dinner, because we were shooting a night, we all went to Shae Jay, which is this little place in the West End, and sat down and...

00:37:48Guest:And Terry and Bob looked at each other and they realized it had been 20 years since they did Brazil.

00:37:53Guest:Yeah.

00:37:55Guest:And they both kind of nodded like, fuck, wow.

00:37:57Guest:Yeah.

00:37:57Marc:Wow.

00:37:58Marc:It's weird about sets and about the intensity of the time because it really is otherworldly.

00:38:05Marc:Because a lot of times you get done, and I imagine you've done it a lot more than me, you get offset and you go back to your life.

00:38:11Marc:Right.

00:38:12Guest:Right.

00:38:12Guest:Right, and you have a life that requires nurturing and care.

00:38:15Marc:And that was like a whole other life, but it's intensified.

00:38:18Marc:It's just a four-month life or a six-month life.

00:38:21Marc:And it's a community, and it's a little town, and it's a family.

00:38:25Marc:And then you just sort of like you all understand that like, all right.

00:38:28Guest:that's it yeah we're done i remember saying that to coppola at the end of the rainmaker i said i i just said i i sat down with him and i said i just i've had the best time it was like this unbelievable experience it was so great and i said i i i really hope we can do this again and he looked at me and completely earnestly said so do i yeah and i remember thinking wait but you're francis ford coppola can't you just make it happen and it kind of hit me like oh no it's like we're all reacting to the

00:38:55Guest:We got to go where the material takes us.

00:38:58Marc:It's so weird, isn't it?

00:39:00Guest:Yeah.

00:39:00Marc:But you do a lot of stuff.

00:39:02Marc:You seem to like to work no matter what.

00:39:04Marc:You seem to do little things for fun.

00:39:07Marc:Yeah.

00:39:08Guest:I just love to do it.

00:39:09Guest:So it's like when someone calls me and says- You like to act.

00:39:11Guest:Yes.

00:39:12Guest:Yeah.

00:39:13Guest:I love it.

00:39:14Guest:It's what I would like to do in my free time.

00:39:17Guest:Yeah.

00:39:17Guest:So when somebody calls me and says, hey, I have a cameo, I'm usually in.

00:39:21Yeah.

00:39:21Guest:you know just because i think it'll be fun it's so well even like in i just watched that that last uh soderbergh movie which you don't have a huge part but it's like a pretty powerful couple of scenes yeah it's a little cameo and i had read the script because i i'm usually i usually read what steven's doing yeah and uh so i knew this i knew the script and um and it's like he called me up i was doing the last duel i was in ireland and he said hey you know do you want to play this part and

00:39:48Guest:Um, and I was like, yeah, are you kidding me?

00:39:51Guest:I mean, it's a scene with, with two of my favorite actors.

00:39:54Guest:It's Cheadle and Benicio.

00:39:55Guest:I'm like, yeah, absolutely.

00:39:57Marc:So that was the thing.

00:39:58Marc:It's like, I want to work with those guys.

00:40:00Guest:Yeah.

00:40:00Guest:And it's, they're, they're my buddies and, and, uh, and Steven's my friend and it's like, he's, you know, I want to be.

00:40:06Marc:And you think like, well, how many days was it?

00:40:07Marc:Like three days?

00:40:08Guest:No, not even.

00:40:09Guest:It was like a day and a half.

00:40:10Marc:Oh, so you're like, fuck it.

00:40:11Guest:Yeah, they were in Detroit.

00:40:12Marc:Fly out to Detroit.

00:40:13Marc:Come on.

00:40:14Marc:Because I think a lot of people don't realize that, that a lot of the consideration around taking parts is like, how long am I going to have to be in Vancouver or the Arctic or wherever?

00:40:24Guest:Yeah, that's right.

00:40:25Guest:I mean, depending on what your home life is like and what your family's needs are and all that, you have to weigh all of that stuff.

00:40:32Marc:Yeah, but it's not as all immersive as people think.

00:40:35Marc:Even if it's like three weeks, you can shoot a movie in three weeks.

00:40:38Guest:Sure.

00:40:38Guest:Yeah.

00:40:39Guest:And it's not terrible.

00:40:40Guest:no i've done it um no you can get a lot done i mean it's also if it's a scene you know like robin williams part in goodwill hunting was three weeks that was it yeah and i mean those are big long chunky scenes they're like five page scenes like everything you know he's got paid he had pages of monologues in that movie so it was a it was a shitload of work for him yeah but they stacked it into three weeks and he just was

00:41:04Marc:And it lasts forever.

00:41:05Marc:You put the three weeks in, and then it's like eternal.

00:41:08Marc:You have this eternal piece of film that goes on forever.

00:41:11Guest:Yeah.

00:41:11Guest:And on the flip side, you can do Apocalypse Now and be there for a year, right?

00:41:16Guest:And still not be done.

00:41:17Guest:And still not be done.

00:41:19Marc:Have you ever had that situation?

00:41:20Guest:Where you're stuck on a set and you're like, when is this gonna... Yeah, I mean, I've had, without naming the movie, I've had, you know, I consider that, actually, I came to consider that to be the definition of a professional actor.

00:41:35Guest:Oh, right.

00:41:36Guest:Is knowing you're in a turkey.

00:41:38Yeah.

00:41:38Marc:Oh, really?

00:41:38Guest:Yeah.

00:41:39Guest:And going like, all right.

00:41:41Guest:All right.

00:41:42Guest:I got four more months of like 15 hours a day.

00:41:48Guest:It's like it's the up at dawn siege for four months on like on Hamburger Hill.

00:41:53Guest:Yeah.

00:41:54Guest:Like I'm definitely going to die here.

00:41:56Guest:But knowing it's not going to be great.

00:42:00Guest:yeah yeah it's that's that's as shitty as you can feel creatively i think and that's a long four months right yeah yeah i can't it's it's awful yeah i it's a feeling i really hope to avoid i hope to never have that feeling i think you maybe you're past it but you don't know i mean sometimes like the pedigree can be great and you get there and you're like that's the thing you're only i mean it's what i say to my daughter who gives me shit all the time i'm like we don't get to see the movie before we make it

00:42:26Marc:Why is she giving you shit?

00:42:27Guest:Oh, she's just fucking funny.

00:42:29Marc:She just likes giving me shit.

00:42:31Marc:Is she hard on you about your acting?

00:42:34Marc:Yeah.

00:42:34Guest:I mean, playfully hard.

00:42:35Guest:Yeah.

00:42:37Guest:She doesn't go to see my movies.

00:42:39Guest:On purpose.

00:42:40Guest:On the ones she thinks might be good.

00:42:41Guest:How old is she?

00:42:42Guest:15.

00:42:43Guest:But she's like, she crushes me on the ones that don't work.

00:42:47Guest:I mean, and she's just really funny.

00:42:49Guest:So I'm like- You let her do it?

00:42:51Guest:You just take it?

00:42:52Guest:Oh my God, yeah.

00:42:52Marc:I mean- Like what?

00:42:53Marc:Like, what does she say?

00:42:54Guest:Uh, like on which movies?

00:42:56Guest:So I did a movie called the great wall, which, um, all right.

00:42:59Marc:That was, you got a little flack for that for playing an Asian guy.

00:43:02Guest:No, no, I was playing a European guy.

00:43:04Guest:Okay.

00:43:05Marc:But what was the flack?

00:43:06Marc:I don't remember.

00:43:07Guest:Uh, the flack was when the poster came out, uh, there was a lot of kind of like, what is, what is he doing on the great wall?

00:43:14Guest:Right.

00:43:14Guest:Is this cultural appropriation?

00:43:16Huh?

00:43:16Guest:I, you know, look, I know I saw we saw the movie is it's it's the exact same plot as Lawrence of Arabia dances with wolves.

00:43:28Guest:Avatar.

00:43:28Guest:It's outsider comes into a culture, finds value in the culture, brings some skill from the outside that aids them in their fight against whatever.

00:43:37Guest:Yeah.

00:43:37Guest:And they're all changed forever.

00:43:39Guest:Right.

00:43:39Guest:Look, for me, it was like Zhang Yimou, who was one of my favorite directors in the world and whose movies I love, came to L.A.

00:43:49Guest:and said, do you want to be in my movie?

00:43:51Guest:And I'm like, are you kidding me?

00:43:53Guest:You're going to do your avatar.

00:43:55Guest:Yeah.

00:43:57Guest:Shit, yeah.

00:43:57Guest:I'd love to do that.

00:43:59Guest:Did it do well?

00:44:00Guest:No.

00:44:01Guest:Oh.

00:44:01Guest:No, it didn't.

00:44:02Guest:Yeah.

00:44:05Guest:There was a point a little ways into that movie where I had to speak through a translator with him, because I speak no Mandarin and he speaks no English.

00:44:18Guest:And we had this great translator named Frank, and I said, Frank, in this scene, I'm supposed to do this, but can you ask the director, this doesn't feel right, and can he help me understand whatever it was?

00:44:33Guest:And so Frank translates and Johnny Moe comes back and Frank says, yes, the director agrees with you, but says, since this is a Hollywood movie.

00:44:42Guest:And I was like, oh God, no, no, no.

00:44:45Guest:And it was this thing where- He was consciously making-

00:44:49Guest:What he perceived to be a Hollywood movie and what his Hollywood partners perceived that had convinced him that they wanted.

00:44:56Guest:And I was like, this is exactly how disasters happen.

00:45:01Guest:And I was like, Frank, please tell him.

00:45:03Guest:I came here to be in one of his movies.

00:45:05Guest:And how'd that go?

00:45:05Guest:No, it just was the train had left the station.

00:45:08Guest:And that movie, at any rate, whatever.

00:45:12Guest:It's one of those movies where you go, you look at the ingredients.

00:45:15Guest:the keys of every department are some of the best in the business.

00:45:19Guest:Right.

00:45:19Guest:So the production designer, they, you know, every like really, really like boss people with this, this world-class director at the, at the helm.

00:45:29Guest:And I go like, I'm, I'm in and it's an experience.

00:45:31Guest:It's like, I'm going to go to China and, and, and, you know, this is going to be amazing.

00:45:35Guest:Um, but it doesn't go here.

00:45:37Guest:It doesn't work as a movie.

00:45:38Guest:And, um, and your daughter knows that.

00:45:41Guest:And my daughter really knows it.

00:45:43Guest:And so she, she, she's talking about the movie.

00:45:45Guest:She calls it the wall.

00:45:46Guest:And when people are like, when we have people over for dinner, I'm like, I'm like, come on, it's called the great wall.

00:45:51Guest:And she's like, dad, there's nothing great about that movie.

00:45:56Guest:So she's really funny.

00:45:57Guest:And, uh, yeah, she's like one of the funniest people I know, which, which, you know, has turned me into that kid who gets, who gets bullied.

00:46:05Guest:Who's like, nice burn.

00:46:07Guest:Yeah.

00:46:07Guest:Two is bully.

00:46:09Marc:You've got three daughters.

00:46:10Guest:I've got, well, four.

00:46:12Guest:So when I met my wife, she'd been married before me, and she had a four-year-old.

00:46:16Guest:That's a lot of kids.

00:46:17Guest:That's a lot of kids.

00:46:17Guest:That four-year-old is now 23, so that went fast.

00:46:21Guest:Wow.

00:46:21Guest:And where do you spend most of your time?

00:46:23Guest:New York?

00:46:24Guest:We're moving to New York.

00:46:25Guest:Yeah, I'm back to New York.

00:46:25Guest:We'd lived there, and we'd lived in Florida for five years.

00:46:29Guest:Florida?

00:46:29Guest:That's where my wife lived when I met her.

00:46:31Guest:In Miami?

00:46:33Guest:In Miami, yeah.

00:46:34Guest:Wow.

00:46:35Guest:Yeah, and then we moved up to New York.

00:46:37Guest:That's crazy in Miami.

00:46:39Guest:Yeah, well, it's different now.

00:46:40Guest:I mean, I lived there from, I don't know, I want to say 04 to 08 or 09.

00:46:45Marc:It's always like, my mother lives down there, and it's just, there's no place like Florida.

00:46:49Marc:It's fucking weird.

00:46:51Guest:Miami's its own thing.

00:46:53Guest:Yeah, that's for sure.

00:46:54Guest:Yeah, but if you live there, it's kind of like living in Las Vegas.

00:46:59Guest:I've worked a lot in Las Vegas where I've had to post up there for two, two and a half months.

00:47:05Guest:You really get into the real rhythm.

00:47:07Guest:Right.

00:47:07Guest:You look at all the people who are like...

00:47:09Guest:And they come in and like, and South Beach is like that.

00:47:13Guest:You see people come in out of their minds.

00:47:14Guest:But there is a groove to it.

00:47:16Guest:Oh yeah, yeah.

00:47:16Guest:There's a really cool.

00:47:17Guest:It's nice.

00:47:19Guest:Food's good.

00:47:19Guest:Food's great.

00:47:20Guest:Like great culture.

00:47:21Guest:It's like, you know, it's all of these, all of these, it's like the capital city of South America, right?

00:47:26Guest:Like everybody comes up.

00:47:27Guest:Yeah.

00:47:28Guest:And so it's a very, like my, my wife's Argentinian and her family is.

00:47:32Guest:So it's like there are all these other, uh,

00:47:35Marc:things going on there that aren't that aren't south oh yeah it's like a full spectrum of the the latino experience totally yeah like all different kinds yeah yeah i i get that and then there's jews and rednecks up north and totally yeah it's crazy it's crazy it's like you know just driving there you're like holy shit it's so densely populated it's nuts yeah

00:47:55Marc:But how, like on all these movies, are you this, like for any major part you do, have you always been as immersive as that to where, because I remember, what movie was that where you played a junkie?

00:48:07Marc:Oh, Courage Under Fire.

00:48:08Marc:That was a great role.

00:48:10Marc:Yeah.

00:48:11Marc:And I remember it because you really kind of, like you lost a ton of weight.

00:48:15Marc:So this was always your approach that you were going to like take a month and work as a bar back.

00:48:20Marc:I mean, not everyone does that.

00:48:23Marc:Right.

00:48:24Marc:Is that because you were, what made you make those kind of decisions to be that kind of actor?

00:48:29Guest:Just an attempt to distinguish my, number one, to do the best work that I could do.

00:48:33Guest:I thought that was the best way forward.

00:48:35Guest:But number two, to kind of carve out a career.

00:48:38Marc:Right, but like, because some people are just good at pretending, right?

00:48:42Guest:Yeah.

00:48:43Marc:And some people take a more method approach, which I would imagine that's what you're doing.

00:48:47Guest:Yeah, but you can't pretend what you don't know.

00:48:50Guest:Right.

00:48:51Guest:So I mean, can you pretend you mean you can't pretend to be a roughneck if you've never been on an oil rig.

00:48:56Guest:I mean, you could in a sketch.

00:48:58Guest:But like if I unless you go down there and understand, like there's a certain way they talk and walk and everything came from me just being around them a little bit.

00:49:07Marc:But it just seems to me, I mean, I'm like that.

00:49:10Marc:It's a it's a choice of craft.

00:49:12Marc:Like, you know, I imagine that some people watch some tapes or make some assumptions or listen to the director and build a character out of their ass and do OK with it.

00:49:21Marc:Sure.

00:49:21Marc:Right.

00:49:22Marc:But you've decided to go in this method like immersive direction.

00:49:26Marc:Did you learn that early on or did it just a choice that how would you learn how to act initially?

00:49:33Guest:Well, I studied it all through kind of high school.

00:49:36Guest:We had this incredible high school drama teacher, Ben and I did, and it was all I ever really wanted to do.

00:49:48Marc:Do you find that when you think about how you do it, you learned everything you kind of know there that time?

00:49:54Marc:A lot of it.

00:49:55Marc:A lot of it.

00:49:56Marc:Did you know my cousin?

00:49:58Marc:Did you know Mr. Hutch?

00:49:59Marc:Mr. Hutch?

00:50:00Marc:Yeah.

00:50:01Marc:Where?

00:50:02Marc:He taught at one of their schools.

00:50:04Marc:I don't think he taught you, but he taught both Affleck brothers, Mr. Hutchison.

00:50:08Marc:At Ringe?

00:50:10Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:11Marc:Oh, my God.

00:50:11Marc:All right.

00:50:12Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:12Marc:It's my cousin's husband.

00:50:14Marc:Oh, wow.

00:50:14Marc:And I've interviewed Casey, and I didn't realize that.

00:50:18Marc:I didn't ask him.

00:50:19Marc:Oh, right, right.

00:50:20Marc:Yeah, I never had him.

00:50:22Guest:I never had him, but I remember him.

00:50:24Marc:So, but do you think back on that?

00:50:27Marc:It's like everything you learned was sort of there?

00:50:30Guest:Most of it?

00:50:30Guest:A lot of it.

00:50:31Guest:A lot of it, yeah.

00:50:32Guest:A lot of it.

00:50:33Guest:Certainly the work ethic.

00:50:35Guest:That teacher, Jerry Specka was his name.

00:50:37Guest:He was just incredible, and he was so serious and made us take our work so seriously and care.

00:50:43Guest:In high school.

00:50:44Guest:In high school, yeah.

00:50:45Guest:It was all about our, you know, really, really...

00:50:49Guest:kind of building a work ethic is that guy still around yeah yeah yeah I mean he doesn't teach at the high school anymore but do you guys stay in touch with him throughout the years I haven't talked to him since I haven't worked back in Boston since the departed and that was like I think the last time I saw Jerry which is again it's you know yeah that's somehow 15 16 years ago and like I don't I don't know how that time went past but there you have it I just like Martin Sheen just falling through frame right from that building right

00:51:17Guest:It's a great shot.

00:51:18Guest:It's like, why am I looking at the side of a building?

00:51:20Guest:And then it's like, oh, there goes Marty Sheen.

00:51:23Marc:Old Marty Sheen.

00:51:24Marc:Yep.

00:51:25Marc:Oh, you and Wahlberg were great in that.

00:51:27Marc:He's like, you know, when you work with people, like I talked to Ethan Hawke once about Training Day.

00:51:35Marc:He brought up Training Day.

00:51:37Marc:And he's like...

00:51:37Marc:preparing for that movie he literally watched denzel movies like they were training films like like game films like he really yeah it's funny yeah he's like i'm not gonna let him take it i'm not gonna i gotta you know i gotta figure out a way to you know to survive in a scene with that guy right and hold the frame do you ever think that way

00:52:00Guest:No, I always think of it as a cooperative proposition.

00:52:06Guest:You know what I mean?

00:52:06Guest:But some people think of it as a competition.

00:52:10Marc:I think he just wanted to survive because he knew that like that part that, you know, Denzel's part in that movie was going to eat the entire.

00:52:17Marc:I mean, that's an amazing role.

00:52:19Guest:It's an amazing role.

00:52:20Guest:It's a great role for a great actor, too.

00:52:22Guest:So it's like, how do you not just like be like, you know, why is there any oxygen left for me?

00:52:27Guest:Right.

00:52:27Guest:Yeah.

00:52:28Guest:No, I totally get it.

00:52:29Guest:I remember, and funny that you say that, because I remember on Courage Under Fire, Denzel bristling a little bit, like, as I came in, and I had lost all that weight, and the scene that we did, I mean, because Denzel's great in that movie, as he is in everything, but the scene that we did was, he's interviewing me, so it was really my scene.

00:52:52Guest:He's just asking these questions.

00:52:53Guest:Right.

00:52:53Guest:And at the end of the day, he goes, when do I see you again?

00:52:58Guest:And I was like, next Thursday, sir, we're going to do a scene by the lake.

00:53:03Guest:I mean, I got to act as gaining weight, losing weight.

00:53:06Guest:I was like, oh, the big man.

00:53:09Guest:Wait a minute.

00:53:10Guest:I'm like- You shook him up a little.

00:53:12Guest:Yeah, shook him up.

00:53:13Guest:But I mean, I'm like, you'll get yours, dude.

00:53:15Guest:You are the man.

00:53:16Marc:So that's funny because that was smart of Ethan because he's like, that's the way he thinks.

00:53:20Guest:Well, I mean, but it's like sometimes, you know, I remember talking to Edward Norton about that on Rounders.

00:53:25Guest:Yeah.

00:53:26Guest:Like there was this, like I just, it's as the lead of the movie.

00:53:29Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:Sometimes you're just carrying the water.

00:53:32Guest:You know, you have a certain job you got to do.

00:53:34Guest:And you got to make room.

00:53:35Guest:And you're making room and all these people are like going off around you and you're like-

00:53:41Guest:That's not my job on this one.

00:53:43Guest:Well, you just got to hold it.

00:53:45Marc:You got to hold it.

00:53:46Marc:Right.

00:53:46Marc:Yeah, I mean, I get it.

00:53:48Marc:And it's gracious, and it's appropriate, and it's the right thing to do to provide space.

00:53:52Marc:Right.

00:53:53Marc:Like when you said you like to act, it reminded me of a story that Rob Reiner told me.

00:53:56Marc:I think it was Reiner.

00:53:57Marc:It was probably Reiner, where in A Few Good Men, where Nicholson, when he's on the stand, and Tom Cruise is going at him.

00:54:06Marc:Yeah.

00:54:06Marc:He would stay there for their coverage and go all in.

00:54:13Marc:Yeah, sure.

00:54:15Marc:And Reiner, I think, said, you don't have to go all in.

00:54:20Marc:You can just do the lines for them.

00:54:22Marc:It's nice of you to stay there.

00:54:23Marc:He goes, I love to act.

00:54:26Guest:Well, that was a beautiful scene, too.

00:54:28Guest:So, I mean, you could imagine wanting to do that one.

00:54:31Guest:And what was it like working with him at the age he was at for The Departed?

00:54:35Guest:Oh, it was amazing.

00:54:36Guest:Yeah?

00:54:36Guest:It was just amazing.

00:54:38Guest:Do you pick stuff up from these guys?

00:54:41Guest:Yeah, a ton.

00:54:42Guest:I mean, I remember the very first time I rehearsed with him was at his hotel in New York, and I went up with Marty, and it was just the three of us, and Marty got up to...

00:54:55Guest:uh use the restroom i think so it was just uh the two of us and jack got up to grab a cup of coffee from the little thing and he turned around he goes you know i never would have made it this long if i wasn't a great writer and i remember thinking of course right like how would you how do you have a 45 year career yeah if you you know and that was my the my real takeaway from him was

00:55:19Guest:This was my favorite story of The Departed with Jack was... Because he would go home and he couldn't sleep because he was so... He was working.

00:55:31Guest:He was just working on this thing and coming up with stuff.

00:55:34Guest:So he had a scene which was...

00:55:38Guest:This was really instructive for me as an actor.

00:55:42Guest:The scene was one-eighth of a page, and it said, Costello, that's his character's name, executes a man kneeling in the marsh.

00:55:51Guest:That's all it said.

00:55:52Guest:And so, you know...

00:55:54Guest:You're on a long movie, you look at that, you're like, okay, I don't have any lines tomorrow, it's just one-eighth of a page, I shoot a guy in the back of the head.

00:56:01Guest:And Jack came, I didn't work that day, I came the next day and Jack was so excited, he was like, wait till you hear what I did.

00:56:09Guest:And I was like, tell me, tell me.

00:56:11Guest:Got my coffee and sat down like, what'd you do?

00:56:15Guest:And he goes, well, it was an eighth of a page.

00:56:18Guest:It said, Costello executes man kneeling in the marsh.

00:56:22Guest:And he goes, you know, I've seen that before.

00:56:25Guest:He goes, so what I did is I made it a woman.

00:56:29Guest:And I go, oh, okay.

00:56:31Guest:And he goes, and I put Ray in the scene with me.

00:56:35Guest:And Ray Winston, he was playing Jack's right hand man.

00:56:39Guest:Yeah, I know, he's great.

00:56:39Guest:And Jack's thing was he goes, I'm from the Harvey Korman School.

00:56:46Guest:Sorry, but I say Harvey Korman.

00:56:48Guest:Hilarious.

00:56:49Guest:Harvey Korman, hilarious.

00:56:50Guest:The Roger Korman School where I came up, low budget.

00:56:57Guest:Whatever writing you do, you can't add to the budget.

00:57:00Guest:It can't cost us money.

00:57:02Guest:So he goes, the Roger Korman School, he goes, we're going to keep it in this same shot

00:57:09Guest:Right.

00:57:10Guest:I'm not going to add any time or money to the schedule.

00:57:12Guest:He goes, but I shoot her in the back of the head and she falls over.

00:57:16Guest:Yeah.

00:57:17Guest:Now you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, I turned to Ray and I say, geez, she fell funny.

00:57:28Guest:Now, that's a very sinister line.

00:57:32Guest:It suggests that I've done this before and there's a way that people fall.

00:57:37Guest:Yeah.

00:57:37Guest:He goes, now you could end the scene there.

00:57:39Guest:But if you leave the camera rolling, Ray reveals an axe that he's holding behind his back.

00:57:46Guest:He's going to chop her up.

00:57:49Guest:So Ray starts to step forward.

00:57:51Guest:Now, you could end the scene there.

00:57:54Guest:But if you leave the camera rolling, I say, wait.

00:57:58Guest:I think I want to fuck her again.

00:58:03Guest:Now, that's a very sinister line.

00:58:05Guest:I'm like, Jesus.

00:58:07Guest:He goes, and now there's a pause.

00:58:10Guest:Now, you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, Ray gives me a look, and after a long pause, I go, like I got him, you know?

00:58:22Guest:Yeah, right, right, right.

00:58:23Guest:And you could end the scene there, but if you keep the camera rolling, Ray says to me, Francis, you really ought to see somebody.

00:58:32Guest:And so he tells me that.

00:58:35Guest:And so the scene, as I recall from the movie, is actually... Because there's so many options.

00:58:44Guest:All he did was take one more minute.

00:58:47Guest:He took a lot of time writing that and figuring that out on his own.

00:58:50Guest:Thinking out beat for beat.

00:58:52Guest:But all it added to production was one minute.

00:58:54Guest:They had two angles on it.

00:58:56Guest:So you add nothing but one minute to your production time.

00:59:00Guest:And what ended up being in the movie, I think, was he shoots her.

00:59:05Guest:He says, geez, she fell funny.

00:59:07Guest:Yep.

00:59:08Guest:And Ray says, Francis, you really ought to see someone.

00:59:10Guest:Right.

00:59:11Marc:So I can't remember why did he shoot a woman.

00:59:13Marc:I can't remember.

00:59:14Guest:Just because he was like, it's different from shooting a guy.

00:59:17Guest:No, I know, but I can't remember her character.

00:59:18Guest:I can't remember that happening.

00:59:19Guest:I think she was like nondescript.

00:59:21Guest:I can't remember if we'd established her somewhere or already established her somewhere else in the movie.

00:59:26Guest:I haven't seen the movie in 15 years, but just that...

00:59:29Guest:That's his creative process.

00:59:31Guest:That's his creative process.

00:59:33Guest:But you don't always have that freedom to do that.

00:59:35Guest:You don't.

00:59:36Guest:You don't.

00:59:36Guest:But that's why when he did, he wasn't letting any of those moments go by, even if they seemed like throwaway moments.

00:59:42Guest:And Scorsese was open to that stuff?

00:59:43Guest:Yes.

00:59:44Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:59:44Guest:Of course.

00:59:45Guest:Because you shoot all of it, right?

00:59:46Guest:You're never going to use all of it.

00:59:47Guest:Right.

00:59:48Guest:Right.

00:59:48Guest:but you're going to use some of it, and you don't quite know where.

00:59:50Guest:And as he and Thelma were his editor, great editor, they're figuring out the pace of the movie.

00:59:55Guest:You know, you go, oh, we can allow for that here.

00:59:56Guest:This is okay.

00:59:57Guest:Let's drop this in here.

00:59:58Guest:You know what I mean?

00:59:59Guest:The weird comedy beat.

01:00:00Guest:Right, right.

01:00:01Guest:Exactly, exactly.

01:00:03Guest:And DiCaprio, you guys...

01:00:05Marc:Have you guys worked together again?

01:00:06Guest:No, that was it.

01:00:07Guest:That's weird, right?

01:00:08Guest:Isn't it?

01:00:09Guest:I mean, yeah.

01:00:10Guest:I mean, I was, look, I was happy that one even fell into my lap.

01:00:13Guest:I was, you know, for Mark and for me, that's, you know, that's our home turf.

01:00:19Marc:Right, right.

01:00:20Marc:You know that zone.

01:00:22Marc:Yeah.

01:00:22Marc:The Boston.

01:00:23Marc:What's that line Wahlberg has?

01:00:25Marc:It's like, I'm the guy doing my job.

01:00:26Marc:You must be the other guy.

01:00:29Guest:Yeah.

01:00:29Guest:He had so many great lines in that movie.

01:00:32Marc:That was a really great character.

01:00:33Marc:It was crazy.

01:00:35Marc:And that look on your face when he comes in to shoot you, that's the best.

01:00:38Marc:You're just like, I can't breathe.

01:00:41Marc:All right, go ahead.

01:00:44Marc:So you didn't finish Harvard, right?

01:00:48Marc:No.

01:00:48Marc:Did you not like it?

01:00:50Marc:Oh, I loved it.

01:00:51Marc:No, I loved it.

01:00:53Marc:What did you get from that experience?

01:00:56Marc:Well, I mean.

01:00:57Marc:Because I weirdly judge Harvard people.

01:00:59Marc:Oh, really?

01:01:00Marc:I'm not really judging you.

01:01:01Marc:No, not in a bad way.

01:01:02Marc:It just seems like for the most of them that I've met, the one thing that they get is this sort of relentless confidence in their own ambition.

01:01:10Yeah.

01:01:11Guest:That's really funny.

01:01:12Guest:Yeah, I mean, look, I grew up in Cambridge, so I was a very different type of Harvard student because I had a very different- Where was your, what part of town?

01:01:22Guest:I lived there.

01:01:23Guest:Central Square.

01:01:23Marc:Oh, you were in Central Square.

01:01:24Marc:Do you remember that restaurant, Oak Calcutta?

01:01:26Marc:Of course, yeah.

01:01:27Marc:That was the first place I had Indian food.

01:01:28Marc:It's the best.

01:01:29Marc:No shit.

01:01:29Marc:Yeah, man.

01:01:30Marc:Look at it.

01:01:30Marc:Got a Newberry Comics shirt on.

01:01:31Marc:Oh my God, yeah.

01:01:33Marc:I mean, I was in Boston from like 81 to on and off through 90, 91.

01:01:38Marc:I was there.

01:01:40Guest:I was there the whole time.

01:01:42Guest:Yeah, Ben's dad was the bartender at the Cantab.

01:01:45Guest:Oh yeah, that's right.

01:01:46Guest:I think I talked to Casey about that a bit.

01:01:49Guest:So what about your folks?

01:01:50Guest:So my mom was a professor at Leslie College.

01:01:53Guest:She taught early childhood education.

01:01:55Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:01:56Guest:And my dad was in the 70s.

01:01:59Guest:He was a stockbroker.

01:02:00Guest:Then he taught school for a year.

01:02:01Guest:Then he ended up... He found a little niche in the tax laws whereby...

01:02:09Guest:big corporations could get tax credits for investing in low-income housing.

01:02:14Guest:And he figured that out and just facilitated a bunch of those deals, and he did really well.

01:02:19Guest:And he helped people.

01:02:21Guest:And he helped people.

01:02:21Guest:And he retired when he was 53 and went and coached baseball.

01:02:26Guest:Really?

01:02:26Guest:Yeah, high school baseball.

01:02:27Guest:Is he still around?

01:02:28Guest:No.

01:02:28Guest:Oh, he died at 17.

01:02:30Guest:Thank you.

01:02:30Guest:Yeah.

01:02:31Guest:Your mom?

01:02:32Guest:She's here.

01:02:32Guest:Yeah, she's here.

01:02:33Guest:I'll see her.

01:02:34Guest:I'm going to New York tomorrow, so I'll see her in New York.

01:02:37Guest:Oh, she's coming down or she's going to come down for the premiere in New York.

01:02:40Marc:Oh, that's exciting.

01:02:41Guest:Yeah.

01:02:42Guest:Especially after this fucking year, man.

01:02:43Guest:Cause you know, she, that, that her age, you know, that cohort, that's been the, they've been.

01:02:50Guest:Yeah.

01:02:51Guest:That's scary.

01:02:52Guest:Well, and, and just, and just kept away from their own grandkids and kids.

01:02:55Guest:It's just nightmare.

01:02:56Guest:It sucked for them.

01:02:57Guest:So, okay, so you grew up in Cambridge, so you know the Tasty?

01:03:01Guest:We shot the last thing in Good Will Hunting in the Tasty right before they fucking tore it down and put a, I forget, like Benetton or whatever.

01:03:08Marc:There's nothing there.

01:03:09Marc:They've gutted everything.

01:03:10Marc:Yeah, no, it looks like Anaheim.

01:03:11Marc:I used to work, you know, when I went back to Boston after I got all fucked up on drugs out here for a year, I went back to Boston.

01:03:20Marc:I was living in Somerville.

01:03:21Marc:Yeah, we lived there.

01:03:22Marc:Yeah, on Cottage Ave.

01:03:23Marc:My mom still lives there.

01:03:24Marc:Oh, really?

01:03:24Marc:Yeah.

01:03:25Marc:Before it was anything, right?

01:03:26Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:03:28Marc:And I just remember when they opened a Dunkin' Donuts downstairs or around the corner from where I lived.

01:03:35Marc:But Somerville was like nothing.

01:03:36Guest:The one in Davis Square?

01:03:37Guest:Yeah, Davis Square.

01:03:38Guest:Yeah, that's the one.

01:03:38Guest:Ben and I lived on, where was it?

01:03:40Guest:Orchard Street.

01:03:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:03:42Guest:And I used to walk to that Dunkin' Donuts every morning.

01:03:44Guest:Oh,

01:03:44Guest:God, when they came out with the big one, remember it was like a big thing.

01:03:47Marc:Now it's just a large coffee, but there was like this big one regular.

01:03:52Guest:Well, because they had to sell us the idea that we needed that much of any fluid.

01:03:57Marc:Now we just accept it.

01:03:58Marc:I know, but there's still something fucked up about Dunkin' Donuts.

01:04:02Marc:I'll buy the beans.

01:04:04Guest:So do I, dude.

01:04:05Guest:Yeah.

01:04:05Guest:Oh, my God.

01:04:06Guest:It jacks you up.

01:04:07Guest:We tried to, like, when they franchised it out here, Ben and I tried to get in on that.

01:04:11Guest:We were like- There's only, like, one.

01:04:13Guest:It's over in Atwater.

01:04:14Marc:There's maybe two.

01:04:14Marc:I think there's one in Santa Monica.

01:04:16Marc:Right, right, right.

01:04:16Marc:But that's it.

01:04:17Marc:I mean, on the East Coast, they're, like, fucking everywhere.

01:04:19Marc:Like, you panic.

01:04:20Marc:You're like, there's got to be a Dunkin' around, right?

01:04:22Marc:And then you go find one.

01:04:24Marc:I never buy a fucking donut there, though.

01:04:26Marc:It's always the coffee.

01:04:27Guest:Well, as I get older, I just can't eat the donuts.

01:04:31Marc:I love the donuts.

01:04:33Marc:So you grew up in Cambridge.

01:04:35Marc:The Tasty, I used to work at the Coffee Connection in the garage.

01:04:39Guest:Really?

01:04:39Guest:Yeah.

01:04:40Guest:I worked at the Dance Plus in the garage.

01:04:42Guest:I did.

01:04:43Guest:It was a summer job.

01:04:44Guest:My job was to stand outside and hand out flyers to people.

01:04:48Guest:Really?

01:04:49Guest:50% off for Capizios.

01:04:50Marc:Is the garage still even there?

01:04:52Marc:I think so.

01:04:53Marc:The Coffee Connection was pre-Starbucks, and if you got a coffee and sat down to drink it, you had to get it in a French press.

01:05:00Marc:That was the gimmick.

01:05:01Marc:And that guy, the guy who owned the place, was traveling all over the world getting beans.

01:05:05Marc:And I was just there living in Somerville, drinking way too much fucking coffee.

01:05:10Marc:And I go back to Somerville.

01:05:11Marc:I'm living in an attic room.

01:05:12Marc:And I couldn't sleep.

01:05:13Marc:So I'd end up at the Tasty talking to that dude, Mike.

01:05:16Marc:Yeah, Mike.

01:05:16Marc:Yeah.

01:05:17Guest:It's so funny.

01:05:17Guest:I was just talking about Mike the other day.

01:05:19Guest:I don't know what happened to Mike.

01:05:20Guest:With someone.

01:05:20Guest:Everyone's like, do you know Mike?

01:05:21Guest:And I was like, fuck yeah, I knew Mike.

01:05:23Guest:Yeah.

01:05:23Guest:Everybody who went in there after midnight knew Mike.

01:05:25Guest:Yeah.

01:05:26Guest:And Mike was like a regular guy.

01:05:28Guest:And there was that weird guy that played guitar named Luke.

01:05:31Guest:Yeah, Luke.

01:05:32Guest:Yeah.

01:05:32Guest:Jesus, man.

01:05:33Guest:Yeah, Luke.

01:05:33Guest:I mean, yeah, I dated a girl in high school who just was like obsessed with Luke and used to get the pamphlets.

01:05:40Guest:Yeah.

01:05:40Guest:Because he didn't have a permit.

01:05:42Guest:He wasn't allowed to say that he was performing.

01:05:45Guest:He had to kind of act like he just showed up, but he wanted to get the word out.

01:05:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:05:49Guest:You know, I mean, Albon Pan was like, was packed with people every time he played.

01:05:54Guest:Oh, out front when he was singing.

01:05:55Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:56Guest:You know, that was a great spot.

01:05:58Guest:It was.

01:05:58Guest:We're so sad that I'm really happy that we got it in the movie.

01:06:01Marc:It's so weird what happened to all of Boston.

01:06:03Marc:Like even like I went to BU, so Kemmoor Square, all that stuff is gone.

01:06:07Marc:Whatever personality both Harvard Square and Kenmore Square had, even Central Square to a degree.

01:06:13Marc:Central Square is totally different.

01:06:14Guest:It's gone.

01:06:14Guest:It was fucking dangerous.

01:06:15Guest:It was a nightmare, yeah.

01:06:17Guest:When you grew up there, right?

01:06:18Guest:Yeah, man.

01:06:19Guest:And it was scary.

01:06:21Guest:And then the Middle East came.

01:06:23Guest:The Middle East, Nabil and Joseph, who owned the Middle East.

01:06:26Guest:My brother, they're great.

01:06:29Guest:And they would put...

01:06:31Guest:local artists on the wall, and my brother was one of the artists that they put on the wall, and he met his wife like 27 years ago.

01:06:39Guest:Upstairs, I remember that, right?

01:06:41Guest:Because she was, yeah, she was a graphic designer for the MIT Tech Review and wanted one of his paintings for the cover, and that's how they met in 1990.

01:06:53Guest:Fuck, I want to...

01:06:54Guest:Actually, it might even be 1991.

01:06:55Guest:Wow.

01:06:55Guest:One or two, like a long, long time ago.

01:06:59Guest:Yeah.

01:07:00Guest:Maybe 30 years ago.

01:07:02Guest:Is your brother still an artist?

01:07:04Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:05Guest:What's his thing?

01:07:07Guest:Mixed medium.

01:07:07Guest:He's like painting, sculpture.

01:07:09Guest:And it's just the two of you?

01:07:10Guest:Yeah.

01:07:11Guest:Wow.

01:07:12Guest:So two Afweks, two Daemons.

01:07:14Guest:Yeah.

01:07:15Guest:Yeah, the Daemons are older, though.

01:07:17Guest:I'm two years older than Ben, five years older than Casey, and then my brother's three years older than me.

01:07:23Marc:So your experience at Harvard was different because, you know, you felt like you were you came up there.

01:07:29Guest:Yeah.

01:07:29Guest:I mean, I walked in with a chip on my shoulder, I think, a little bit as you know, because we all kind of resented the, you know, it's always that rocky marriage between the local kids and the, you know, the interlopers.

01:07:40Guest:Yeah.

01:07:41Guest:So you guys felt scrappy.

01:07:43Guest:A little bit, a little bit.

01:07:44Guest:And my freshman year, Ben's dad was the head of all the janitorial staff in Harvard Yard, and the freshmen all live in Harvard Yard.

01:07:54Guest:So Ben's dad's girlfriend at the time, Connie, was the janitor in my dorm.

01:07:58Guest:So these people you grew up with.

01:08:00Guest:Yeah, so it was kind of like when I would see freshman 18-year-old kids throwing shit around and be like, fuck you, someone's got to clean that up.

01:08:10Guest:Someone I know.

01:08:11Guest:Someone I know is actually going to clean it up.

01:08:13Guest:so yeah I was a little chippy and uh but I think you know somewhere out of that Good Will Hunting kind of you know and I should say like the my the last year I was there I took this great playwriting class and that's where I started this idea of Good Will Hunting yeah um and uh

01:08:30Guest:Who taught that?

01:08:31Guest:A guy named Anthony Kubiak was the name of the professor.

01:08:34Guest:He was really, really great.

01:08:36Guest:I took a bunch of classes of his.

01:08:37Guest:I really liked him, and he was incredibly helpful.

01:08:40Guest:And in fact, when I turned, I was supposed to write a one-act play for the final project, and I handed in 45 pages of- Of Good Will Hunting?

01:08:54Guest:Yeah, of a screenplay.

01:08:55Guest:Yeah.

01:08:55Guest:It was very different, obviously, Ben and I changed it.

01:08:58Guest:But I handed it in and was like, I think I failed your class.

01:09:02Guest:Like, this isn't what you asked for, but this is kind of what came out.

01:09:05Guest:And he could not have been more effusive and supportive and encouraging.

01:09:11Guest:He said, you know, please don't stop with this.

01:09:14Guest:Please keep going.

01:09:15Guest:There's something here.

01:09:16Guest:And then I went out to LA to audition for stuff during spring break, like a month later.

01:09:23Guest:And that's when I showed it to Ben.

01:09:25Guest:And Ben said the same thing.

01:09:26Guest:He said, I don't know where to go, but let's keep working on it.

01:09:30Guest:So we did.

01:09:30Marc:That's so nice when a teacher does the right thing.

01:09:33Guest:Yeah.

01:09:34Guest:No, I mean.

01:09:34Marc:As opposed to be competitive or condescending.

01:09:37Marc:He could have completely.

01:09:38Marc:Shut you down.

01:09:39Marc:Yeah.

01:09:40Marc:And I would have listened.

01:09:41Marc:Right.

01:09:42Marc:I mean.

01:09:42Marc:Right.

01:09:43Marc:I would have listened.

01:09:44Marc:Wild, man.

01:09:45Marc:The impact people have in our lives.

01:09:47Marc:Yeah.

01:09:47Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, pal.

01:09:49Marc:Yeah, man.

01:09:50Marc:Thanks.

01:09:50Marc:Great talking to you too.

01:09:51Marc:That was fast.

01:09:52Marc:Yeah, I think we covered a lot of stuff.

01:09:55Marc:Yeah.

01:09:55Marc:I like the movie, man.

01:09:56Marc:I always like your work.

01:09:57Marc:You're one of the best.

01:10:00Marc:It's nice of you to say, man.

01:10:02Marc:It's for real.

01:10:03Marc:Anytime you're in something, it's sort of like, well, that's going to be good.

01:10:06Marc:And you can do anything.

01:10:08Marc:Do you have a good time on those Oceans movies?

01:10:10Guest:Yeah, those are great.

01:10:10Marc:Isn't that the whole idea of those things?

01:10:12Guest:Yeah, to kind of capture the joy of making them.

01:10:15Marc:But you, I mean, it seems like you, it's like genuinely, like even like everybody, like you and Clooney and even like Scott Conn and Affleck.

01:10:25Marc:Casey and Scott, yeah, they're really great.

01:10:29Marc:It's like all these different comedy bits going on.

01:10:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:33Guest:Yeah.

01:10:33Guest:the heavy lifting on those movies is done by Steven.

01:10:36Guest:Yeah.

01:10:36Guest:Right.

01:10:37Guest:I mean, that's a hard job, right?

01:10:38Guest:Trying to balance, manage these guys.

01:10:40Guest:Yeah.

01:10:40Guest:It's like a truckload of movie stars, a truck.

01:10:42Guest:It's like wrangling cats, right?

01:10:44Guest:Like nobody's taking it seriously enough.

01:10:46Guest:And, and you're trying to balance all these different narratives and make a movie that works.

01:10:50Guest:And, um, and it's funny too.

01:10:53Marc:Now he, but that's all organic.

01:10:55Marc:Like, I mean, Soderbergh seems like a serious guy, but he obviously has a good sense of comedy.

01:10:59Marc:I mean, Oh my God.

01:11:00Guest:Yeah.

01:11:00Marc:The informant was great.

01:11:01Marc:Yeah.

01:11:01Marc:That's one of my favorites.

01:11:03Marc:Oh, it's,

01:11:03Guest:so funny to have been on yeah and also the uh behind the candelabra has like i mean i there's some hilarious shit in that sad ass movie yeah dude you know we've talked about we've talked there there i hope we can do like a sequel to that like is that possible with that guy that post post what happened to him after like oh interesting um was not great right

01:11:26Guest:I mean, I just remember reading articles at the time the movie came out.

01:11:29Guest:I mean, there would be, you know, we would have to get Richard Lagravanese interested to write it.

01:11:34Guest:But, you know, we could do it in 10 years or whatever.

01:11:37Marc:But that was another, you were great.

01:11:39Marc:Thanks.

01:11:39Marc:Again, great talking to you.

01:11:41Guest:Thanks, man.

01:11:41Marc:Thanks, Mark.

01:11:47Marc:Okay, the movie that Matt is in is called Stillwater, directed by Tom McCarthy, who did Spotlight.

01:11:53Marc:It's a great movie.

01:11:55Marc:It's a great movie.

01:11:56Marc:It's a surprising movie in a way that is surprising in how it depicts humanity.

01:12:07Marc:I'm not saying it's surprising in its humanity, but maybe it is.

01:12:10Marc:I don't want to spoil nothing.

01:12:12Marc:Also, tour dates, if you didn't hear me because you forwarded through it, are at wtfpod.com slash tour.

01:12:21Marc:There are dates in Denver, Phoenix, Arizona, Salt Lake City, Utah, St.

01:12:27Marc:Louis, Missouri, Bloomington, Indiana, and I will be adding more Dynasty typewriter dates at some point.

01:12:33Marc:It feels that way to me.

01:12:34Marc:Okay?

01:12:36Marc:Okay?

01:12:36Marc:Let's rumble a little.

01:12:39Marc:Let's do the swampy rumble.

01:12:43Thank you.

01:13:06Guest:guitar solo

01:13:33you

01:13:49guitar solo

01:14:07Guest:Boomer lives.

01:14:28Guest:Monkey.

01:14:29Guest:Lavanda.

01:14:31Guest:Cat angels everywhere, man.

01:14:35Guest:Cat Angel's fucking everywhere, man.