Episode 1249 - Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck adelics what the fuck nicks what the fuck tuplets how is everyone everybody okay is everybody locked in joseph gordon levitt is on the show today and we had a very nice chat i like his new show
Marc:I enjoy the new show, the Mr. Corman show.
Marc:I've been watching a lot of stuff for homework, but sometimes it's like, oh, good.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Thank God it's good.
Marc:But I've been pushing it with the stand-up, and I can feel an edge to it.
Marc:There is a point where my excitement... It's not that my excitement diminishes.
Marc:It's that I come up against a wall of like, all right, a lot of this stuff is working.
Marc:A lot of it is...
Marc:You know, is riding an edge.
Marc:A lot of it makes people uncomfortable, some of it.
Marc:And am I doing that on purpose?
Marc:Can I relieve that tension?
Marc:Like there's been a couple of incidents on stage lately where I feel the tension I've created.
Marc:And in my heart, I don't exactly know why I'm creating it.
Marc:And I almost have to laugh cry in order to move forward.
Marc:I mean, the other night I went on stage just stripped down.
Marc:And it was funny because I was talking and some woman, stage right, was sitting with her husband or boyfriend, a man, said something.
Marc:It didn't seem like a heckle, but I'm like, what was that?
Marc:Did you say something?
Marc:And the man she's with goes...
Marc:She said she feels sad for you.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, no, no.
Marc:I'm like, it's oozing.
Marc:It's seeping.
Marc:The cracks, the cracks.
Marc:And then I thought back to that night when I was a doorman in the main room in the 80s and Rodney Dangerfield had come into the main room and he never went to that club.
Marc:He never went to the comedy store, really.
Marc:But he was just running a few minutes for his Oscar set.
Marc:I've told this story before.
Marc:And he pops off a couple of bits.
Marc:And some guy in the room just goes, hey, Rodney.
Marc:What?
Marc:Why are you so sad?
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:What kind of room is this?
Marc:It kind of shook him up.
Marc:Like he didn't know, like it's an honest question.
Marc:It's a weird question.
Marc:The answer is difficult, but it was that moment of acknowledging that somebody had seen through.
Marc:That was what caught him off guard.
Marc:But for me, I was like, no, you're right.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:This isn't the I've got to stuff it down.
Marc:I've got to push down that sadness.
Marc:I mean, what the fuck am I thinking?
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:You're right, lady.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:Is this a better tone?
Marc:Are we going to go from here?
Marc:Let's go from here.
Marc:This is funnier.
Marc:So I went all the way out and I pulled it back in and I killed and they were having a great time.
Marc:But it was nice to sort of lay that foundation of honesty at the beginning just to see if I could, you know, run from it.
Marc:You know, build a funny wall around it.
Marc:You know, put on the clown's nose.
Marc:And then the other night, last night, the night before last night, I was in the main room.
Marc:And I just felt the tension I was creating because...
Marc:The audience was okay.
Marc:So they weren't great.
Marc:So I'm trying to meet them halfway.
Marc:And then I realized, all right, well, this is going to be how it's going to be.
Marc:This is the best that's going to happen in here.
Marc:Every joke was starting the set over in a way.
Marc:You had to earn it, every joke.
Marc:And I just began to create tension.
Marc:And at some point, I'm like, what am I doing?
Marc:I started laughing to myself.
Marc:I put my hands over my face.
Marc:One of my hands over my face and I'm like, I just I can feel the tension of creating.
Marc:I don't know why I'm doing it, but it's making me want to cry.
Marc:And then I said, is this even comedy?
Marc:Why am I doing this?
Marc:Why can't I just release this crowd?
Marc:Why do I what am I trying to find here?
Marc:And they were laughing hysterically at my fairly controlled meltdown.
Marc:But it was cathartic in a way, mildly cathartic.
Marc:It broke me down.
Marc:I let go.
Marc:And I realized I got to get back to that place where I got to let go.
Marc:I mean, I get it.
Marc:Some part of my heart has been broken.
Marc:And it's just the way I'm going to be until it goes away.
Marc:And what am I expecting audience to do?
Marc:Why do I need to, is there part of me, which I'm sure there is, that wants to drag them into my heartbreak?
Marc:Is that part of what I do?
Marc:Of course it is.
Marc:But I need to be more conscious of it right now because of the amount of anger and sort of free-floating sadness that is kind of moving through me, but in its purest state, not hilarious.
Marc:My friend Jerry texted me that he was feeling a little down.
Marc:He asked me how I was doing.
Marc:I said dealing day-to-day, pushing back the sad.
Marc:Now, is that a good name for a comedy tour?
Marc:Or would that not be one that people would buy tickets to?
Marc:Pushing back the sad, 2021, Marc Maron comedy tour.
Marc:Huh?
Marc:No?
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:No?
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:No?
Marc:Oh, I don't know how many of you listen to the Lindsay Buckingham show, but I was talking about my experiences at Brush Ranch Camp and about a particular gal, girl, woman, she, maybe they, who is out in the world still, who I kind of like sent a signal out to.
Marc:I wondered what happened out loud.
Marc:And Karen McKibben is alive and well and has emailed me.
Marc:I've not emailed her back yet.
Marc:Nervous.
Marc:Not nervous.
Marc:I mean, what have I got?
Marc:It's been like a million years.
Marc:But it's interesting about this podcast.
Marc:It's like obviously not everyone listens to this podcast, but there's a real good chance that somebody you know or somebody who you know who knows that you... I'm just saying there's only a few degrees away between you and someone who listens to this show.
Marc:But you're listening to this.
Marc:Who am I talking to?
Marc:But you know what I'm saying.
Marc:You get my point, right?
Marc:Same with this guy, Luke.
Marc:from the Matt Damon episode.
Marc:Someone sent me some info on Luke.
Marc:Apparently he's obviously no longer a street musician and he runs some... He's the head of a department at some college.
Marc:Like Vassar or something.
Marc:A computer or something.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And I don't know what Mike is up to.
Marc:But I got an email from somebody from the Tasty who told me that he was one of the Mikes out of the three.
Marc:But I think the Mike that I was referring to was a guy named Mike Smith.
Marc:But anyways... But anyways...
Marc:That's a thought coming back around, man.
Marc:People are checking in.
Marc:I'll reach out.
Marc:I'll see what happens.
Marc:I'll see what happens.
Marc:I left my house the other day without my phone and I didn't go back for it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Hero.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Brave.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The unknown folks to be in that car for what was going to be a, probably an hour errand, uh,
Marc:About 20 minutes to 20 minutes back, 20 in the middle doing the thing.
Marc:No phone.
Marc:And I felt a little vulnerable.
Marc:I felt a little naked.
Marc:I felt a little disconnected.
Marc:I felt a little like crazy.
Marc:Like, you know, like, what am I going to do?
Marc:Where's my friend?
Marc:Where's my friend?
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:And that led me to believe that maybe I need to break up with my phone.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know if that's possible.
Marc:I don't think it is possible.
Marc:But it did show me that I could leave it at home more.
Marc:And then the other night I left the house with my phone, but no wallet, a different type of like feeling like a little untethered.
Marc:But the wallet fear is really just about like if I get mangled and my car drives off a cliff or I get into a head on collision and I'm nothing but mush and I don't got my wallet with me.
Marc:That's not going to be easy to find me.
Marc:I guess they, well, that's not true.
Marc:They just find my license plate.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:I just found a way to comfort myself the next time I'm in my car and I forget my wallet.
Marc:Is that like, hey, if they need to ID your remains, they can just pull your info off the plate.
Marc:Whew.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:I don't need to beat myself up about that next time.
Marc:I just need to know.
Marc:I'll be okay when I'm dead if I don't have my wallet.
Marc:Because just pull it off the plate.
Marc:Get that info.
Marc:Yeah, but the phone thing was real.
Marc:And then I tried an experiment.
Marc:I took a walk on purpose the other day without my phone.
Marc:On purpose.
Marc:Because, dude, the reality is mundane.
Marc:The reality is slow.
Marc:You know, what pace is your true reality?
Marc:How much are you putting in your head that's making you crazy?
Marc:All this is all these.
Marc:So 85, 90 percent of the assumptions we're making are not they'll have nothing to do with our life.
Marc:They have nothing to do with how we are.
Marc:They have nothing to do with how we treat other people.
Marc:If your only relationship is with your phone, how often do people factor in?
Marc:Are you saying thank you?
Marc:Are you opening the door?
Marc:Are you asking people how they are?
Marc:Are you having moments?
Marc:Do you sit with people?
Marc:Sit with people.
Marc:We're all right.
Marc:Stop the fire.
Marc:Stop the fire in your brain.
Marc:Take some time off.
Marc:Take a little time off from the machine.
Marc:Okay, so Joseph Gordon Levitt has been working in show business since he was six years old.
Marc:His grandfather was a director.
Marc:He was in popular movies as a kid, like Angels in the Outfield and the long-running sitcom Third Rock from the Sun.
Marc:He was in movies like 500 Days of Summer, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Brick, Looper, and a bunch of other movies.
Marc:But now he's created this amazing show.
Marc:He's written it, directed it, and stars in this new Apple TV Plus series,
Marc:called Mr. Corman.
Marc:I watched six episodes.
Marc:I thought I watched the whole thing, but I hadn't.
Marc:He sets me straight.
Marc:And it's just about a guy.
Marc:It's about a teacher.
Marc:I think he's a fifth grade teacher, but it's not what he wanted to do.
Marc:But there's not much.
Marc:He wanted to be a musician, but there's not much more to the pitch than that.
Marc:But there's something about the intensity of this guy's way of seeing things and being.
Marc:It's very familiar.
Marc:And I liked it.
Marc:He's an intense guy and it's a very human kind of show.
Marc:It's on Apple TV Plus and it premieres Friday, Friday, August 6th.
Marc:OK, this is me talking to Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Guest:Look at that mic.
Guest:That's a lot.
Guest:I'm on the Marc Maron podcast.
Guest:I'm not going to go through some fucking computer speaker microphone.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I want to sound good.
Marc:I appreciate the respect.
Guest:And are you guys recording video as well, or is this just audio?
Marc:No, we don't do the video thing.
Marc:Great.
Marc:I'm all for it.
Marc:Yeah, you don't have to.
Marc:What would you have done right now if I would have said, yes, we're doing video?
Marc:I'll tell you what I would have done is I would have held the microphone here so you could see my mouth instead of holding it here so you can't see my mouth.
Guest:Would you make a hat adjustment?
Guest:Would there be other things you'd have to?
Guest:I might be more prone to take off my hat knowing that we're not on video because I don't know what my hair is going to look like.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I'm just being really honest here.
Marc:That's why we never do video.
Marc:And I never wanted to, because when you put video, maybe not now because people have gotten so accustomed to it, but you deal with hair and makeup.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It is one of my favorite things about the medium of the podcast that it is audio only and it puts the attention on the substance of what you're saying as opposed to the audio experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Have you ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Neil Postman.
Guest:It's one of the most important.
Guest:Hey, I'm impressed.
Guest:You knew what I was talking about.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Yeah, it's one of the defining books of my brain.
Guest:Mine too, to be really honest.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, mine too.
Guest:I read it about five years ago or so, and I'm rereading it now.
Guest:I think about it constantly.
Marc:Yeah, I think I read it when it came out.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So there you go.
Guest:I mean, I'm older than you.
Guest:It's fascinating to read now because for those who haven't read it, it's analyzing television largely and kind of what the medium of television does to our culture and to public discourse.
Marc:And what it was becoming.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was before it tipped.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it's prophetic, I would imagine.
Guest:It's incredibly prophetic because when you read what he says about television, but you read it today, it's
Guest:And you see what new media technology is doing to our culture and to public discourse.
Guest:It seems like he's talking about Facebook when he's he's talking about television.
Guest:So it's just been this progression, this march towards the lowest common denominator and the inability of us to have productive conversations.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:He was kind of intellectually picturing the nightmare scenario, right?
Marc:It was a warning, that book.
Guest:The opening of it, speaking of a nightmare scenario, is so brilliant because he compares these two dystopian sci-fi novels, 1984 and Brave New World.
Guest:And in 1984, it's a picture of an authoritarian government that burns books, that prevents everybody from reading, that by force prevents you from doing it.
Guest:And in Brave New World, he says, you know, the government doesn't have to burn books because nobody's interested in reading.
Marc:People are going to be so apathetic by fulfilling their needs and desires in the empty hole.
Marc:And now we're sort of we're evolving into some sort of hybrid of both.
Marc:What how exciting?
Guest:Where's the hype?
Guest:Like, are we any 1984?
Guest:It seems like we're purely.
Guest:Are you kidding, dude?
Guest:What are you talking about, man?
Marc:All these Republican state legislatures who are trying to ban critical race theory and define exactly what education the kids can have and what books and what can be in those books.
Marc:I mean, you're right about that.
Marc:Yeah, man, there's a full on fascist thrust going on.
Guest:But it feels like the way that they get away with it is because everyone's so distracted and amused by all.
Marc:OK, sure, sure.
Marc:So so maybe maybe in that model of thinking the the Huxley version is just the antecedent.
Marc:Is that the right word?
Marc:It's it's it's what happens before.
Marc:It's the palate cleanser for a more classical authoritarianism to take.
Marc:I wonder, I wonder, I feel like I.
Guest:I feel like it's all kind of more sly than what you see in 1984.
Guest:They couldn't get away.
Marc:No, no, that's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because we are big brother that, you know, that in the sense that we've offered ourselves, we've allowed ourselves to be surveyed.
Marc:We signed up for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So, uh,
Marc:I watched the entire series.
Marc:Oh, Mr. Corman, you did?
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:Honestly, you're one of the first people I've actually spoken to who's watched the whole thing that wasn't involved in making it.
Guest:Wow, I'm delighted.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Oh, yeah, buddy.
Marc:But before I get into it, I liked it very much.
Marc:And I like it because, like, you know, it seems that that intellectually I'm with you in terms of how you're seeing what's happening currently and and just, I think, life in general.
Marc:I'm assuming that means a lot to me.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I'm assuming there's a lot of you in that character and in that show.
Guest:Yeah, that was sort of the goal from the outset was to make something really personal.
Guest:I really love playing characters as an actor that is very different from me.
Guest:It's one of the things I love about acting, putting myself in someone else's shoes.
Guest:And the first thing I wrote and directed is called Don John.
Guest:I wanted to play a character that was really different from myself, even though it's not to say he's 100% different.
Guest:I have overlap with that character, but he was quite different from me.
Guest:And then with Mr. Corman, I really wanted to try to do something more.
Guest:like myself.
Marc:But I think in both, when you talk about Don John, I mean, I think that, you know, I don't know, maybe we can talk about how how we were brought up a little bit, but both of them are fairly astute cultural criticism.
Marc:And and and and sort of like it's a little more subtle in Mr. Corman.
Marc:But I mean, in Don John, I mean, you're talking about the sort of in a comedic way that the debilitating reality of you have of chronic porn consumption.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which is.
Marc:you know, which sort of shifted, I think, a lot more than anybody's willing to admit culturally and with sexuality and just with, you know, causing the isolating power of the
Marc:of the internet and technology to really take hold.
Guest:I agree.
Guest:I think the proliferation of online porn is enormously impactful in ways that we barely talk about.
Guest:And I think it's actually going to go more and more and more in that direction as the technology gets more sophisticated.
Guest:And I'm scared of a generation that's just completely...
Marc:completely plugged in and blissed out on on hyper on addictive tech generated hyper stimulation well but also like you know in light of that i'd like to talk to you a little bit about your company but we can do that after oh yeah let's go but approaching all right so so this is more personal mr corman but but what i want to know because you know i've been pitching a show that looks like is going to go somewhere at least we're at least we're going to write a script
Marc:So I'm just like watching that show outside of like, you know, I'm I'm, you know, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and, you know, me, I'm a known quantity that that has a certain audience outside of that.
Marc:What's the pitch for that show?
Guest:I don't know if there was a ton of a pitch for that show because you're right.
Guest:It is pretty slice of life.
Guest:It's a picture of a human being.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you didn't have to pitch it.
Marc:You had a deal with Apple to do.
Guest:I had written a spec script and they read it and they liked it.
Guest:And I didn't have a deal with Apple before that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they liked it.
Marc:Did they say, where is this going to go?
Marc:What's this about?
Guest:They did.
Guest:I came on for what they call a development deal where I wrote a second script and, you know, wrote a quote unquote Bible, like sort of outlining and telling them about what I thought the rest of the season was going to do before they greenlit it.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:And, you know, how far down the road does that Bible go?
Marc:How many seasons?
Guest:It went into some amount of detail in the first season and then broad strokes for following seasons.
Right.
Marc:You know, it's odd.
Marc:I just watched a movie by that woman, Zoe Lister Jones.
Marc:She's an actress, but she made this little film called How It Ends.
Marc:And it's really just a walk.
Marc:What's in the middle of COVID, she shot it.
Marc:And it's sort of a walk through what looks to be mostly Silver Lake and Los Feliz, these abandoned streets.
Marc:And it's supposed to be taking place on the last day of the planet Earth because there's an asteroid heading towards Earth.
Marc:that everyone knows about, and it's going to be over.
Marc:But it's also how you characterize your panic attacks in Mr. Corman.
Marc:There's just this burning ball in the sky that you don't mention, but you assume, because of one of the animated cutaways, that it is an asteroid heading towards Earth.
Marc:But I think as a means to sort of...
Guest:make people understand what panic is and what panic feels like it was it's a good device just a hanging flaming ball in the air well that that actually came from someone i'm close to who um you know the the anxiety and or panic that the protagonist of the show josh experiences
Guest:is sort of an amalgamation of feelings I've had, feelings of other people I'm close to that I've sort of experienced at second hand through being with them.
Guest:And also several of the other writers in our writers room had...
Guest:It seems like everyone has either firsthand or secondhand experience with these kinds of feelings.
Guest:It's extremely normal.
Guest:In general or currently?
Guest:Well, it's a good question, right?
Guest:They say that the numbers are up and I could see that, especially with given what we were talking about a second ago with social media.
Guest:I do think that it's an anxiety generator.
Guest:I think that's part of what drives the advertising business model.
Guest:And I could see that
Guest:the advent of social media could make anxiety rise.
Guest:But I also think probably, uh, people have always experienced these feelings.
Guest:They're just becoming a bit more willing to talk about it now than they used to in prior generations.
Marc:And I, and I think that also like, you know, you're able to sort of hit all these kind of these, uh, these marks, uh, you know, throughout the, the episodes.
Marc:I was, how many are the six?
Marc:They're 10, six.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:10 yeah 10. so the funeral is the last one right uh no that's the sixth episode oh so i only watched six uh-huh you got you got more to go i guess but that's all i got oh i'm sorry we didn't say well we just probably we just just finished uh the last couple so maybe uh they weren't available on your link yet okay well we'll send them to you if you want to see them or you can you can watch them later
Marc:But what's sort of interesting is that you touch on, like, it's not just social media.
Marc:I mean, I'm trying to figure out, like anybody else is, you know, where we're headed, you know, culturally, you know, environmentally and otherwise, in that we're all sort of, we're not even coming out of COVID.
Marc:It's still a reality here.
Marc:So there's going to be a bunch of entertainment...
Marc:an art product you know that is going to reflect on this time now somehow or another i don't know when you shot this uh there there is a sense of of dread and darkness and and overbearing anxiety that's out of our control that kind of runs through this i mean i just saw the movie pig there's a there's a lot of darkness in there and then this other thing i just saw but i don't know when you made this but it seems maybe
Marc:Social media and everything else contributes to anxiety.
Marc:But literally, what seems to be the end of the world as we know it on a few different levels is is a reality to many people.
Guest:Yeah, you're 100 percent right.
Guest:I mean, it's to your question of when we made this.
Guest:And it's funny that you only saw the first six episodes because we started shooting and three weeks in lockdown arrived and we had to shut down our show, of course, like everybody else in the first episode.
Yeah.
Guest:Uh, we were, we were almost done with shooting three episodes with having three episodes out of the 10 and we had to stop.
Guest:We, uh, we eventually cross shooting.
Marc:You were like, you were shooting three at once.
Guest:We were shooting a block of three different episodes and we were almost done with that block.
Guest:So we were almost done with three different episodes, but all three of them were slightly incomplete.
Guest:Um,
Guest:I was very lucky to be working with these incredibly smart producers at A24 who had the idea because we tried to get the show up in LA and do it safely, but we couldn't do it in a way that was both safe and feasible.
Guest:And so the folks at A24 had the idea for us to come to New Zealand.
Guest:And the it was just a godsend.
Guest:I feel like I won the lottery.
Guest:I feel so incredibly lucky and grateful that we got.
Guest:Are you still there?
Guest:I am.
Guest:I am still here right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you ever coming back?
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I mean, I am going to come back in a little bit to do another acting job.
Guest:And I'm frankly scared to come back into the.
Guest:pandemic but i mean you know i just dropped my uh my five-year-old off at school and you know no one wears masks here there's no cases here the cases are zero here and like i said i just feel incredibly lucky i i wonder what it would be like to spend as much time as you have away and what it's going to be like when you come back but so getting back to it how did covet influence then the next three or seven episodes
Guest:Yeah, so what we actually did was... Were they written already?
Guest:They were written, and we did some pretty substantial rewriting.
Guest:And we were faced with this challenge of, well, if we don't... The show was written not during a pandemic, but...
Guest:we don't feel like we can really just set the show not during the pandemic.
Guest:This isn't a fantasy.
Guest:If you're writing Game of Thrones or whatever, or you're writing even just something that's set in contemporary times but is more fantastical or spectacular, sure, just set it in some alternate reality where there is no pandemic.
Guest:But our show is very much about...
Guest:real life and so the solution we came up with was we we kept the first seven episodes exactly how they were oh see now i missed the pandemic hits in episode eight yeah it's just the last three episodes eight nine and ten where the pandemic hits um
Marc:So, yeah, we'll send you those.
Marc:What the fuck happens to Josh when the pandemic hits?
Marc:A guy can keep it together.
Marc:You know, he's like, this is my exact nightmare.
Guest:And it's it.
Guest:It felt cohesive with the rest of the story we were telling to have this happen.
Marc:But it seems like he wouldn't even be able to function.
Guest:He retreats to his mom's house when it arrives.
Guest:And that's the only episode we really focus on it.
Guest:We really just focus on it in one episode.
Guest:And then episode nine and ten, it's more in the background.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But yeah, he retreats to his mom's house and his mom says, yes, OK, this is a challenge.
Guest:But look, you find the worst version of everything and you feel like everything's a complete disaster.
Guest:You're not helping yourself.
Marc:How much is Deborah Winger's character like your real mother?
Guest:Yeah, good question.
Guest:Deborah Winger's character is definitely informed by my mother, but also my father.
Guest:That character, she's sort of an amalgamation of my mom and my dad.
Guest:Because, you know, zooming out a bit, like the whole character of Josh...
Marc:mr corman is a lot like me but with a few things changed and one of the biggest things i changed was josh has one great parent and one problematic parent i just like the whole balance of you know the fact you know the the idea of a character who had who was really pursuing music and then because of pressure from within himself or expectations or family you know he decided that it was irresponsible and then put it on the shelf and
Marc:And the fact that you chose that what he would do was teach is sort of the it's like the default for artists in general.
Guest:That's what I think I would do.
Guest:I mean, look, I think I feel very grateful that I've gotten to earn a living as an artist.
Guest:And I also feel very lucky.
Guest:And it's not to say that I don't feel like I've worked for it.
Guest:I do feel I have.
Guest:But I also know a lot of other people that work really hard and don't.
Guest:don't reap the same rewards that I have.
Guest:And so I really consider it very lucky that I get to do what I do for a living.
Guest:And I've certainly thought plenty about what would I do if I hadn't gotten so lucky?
Guest:And I just love the idea of teaching.
Guest:I admire teachers a great deal.
Guest:And it feels like it'd be really challenging, hard work, but also really rewarding in some of the same ways that being an artist is.
Marc:Well, I think that it's rewarding right up until or shortly after what you choose to teach as the character of Josh.
Marc:Like, I think once you get to junior high, it's probably a fucking shit show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like fifth grade.
Marc:So is show business.
Marc:No, no, I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But I think that that the challenges become exponentially more challenging once they get old enough to really I mean, they're just starting.
Marc:It seems to push back in the grades you're teaching.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I thought the sensitivity to the kids and the fact that, like, whether he didn't want whether he wanted to do that or not, because of the profound experience.
Marc:selfishness of the character and his own fear, selfishness in the way because he can't escape himself, that the balance of the kids, it somehow manages to humanize him and to sort of show that he's learning something despite himself about being human.
Guest:Yeah, I really like the idea of someone who is a really good teacher and is doing his best and sincerely wants to do right by his students who are 10, 11 year olds.
Guest:But behind his teacher self is...
Marc:Someone who's not necessarily all grown up yet himself and who's sort of heartbroken, lost, you know, creative person.
Marc:I mean, it really speaks to like those memories we all have of like, you know, what are our teachers?
Marc:Are they even people?
Marc:You know, so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't assume your teachers have lives or are humans or that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I remember this is ringing a bell.
Guest:I haven't thought of this in a long time.
Guest:I feel like I read a kid's book when I was young where a kid goes and sees their teacher's
Guest:house like right and and it's a and it's mind-blowing to the student like oh you don't just live at school like you have yeah right you have a house like i have a house or you see them at the supermarket or somewhere you're like oh my god they're out in the wild um but yeah so but how much of
Marc:Because I think, honestly, even looking at the sort of extensive resume of your acting career, that it seems like this is you being a fully realized artist.
Marc:Acting's one thing, but I mean, the way this thing moves and the way it's written and the sort of vision of it as a director visually, I mean, you really kind of like... You've created a very specific...
Marc:unique tone there's a there's a certain menace to the all the hand-holding camera you know and there's a certain you know the the sort of close-ups get a little claustrophobic and then you created this space to sort of depart into fantasy you know animation and even musical uh which i think you see a little more now and i you know in general but i i don't think i've ever noticed it like this that
Marc:Because the scene with you and Deborah Winger where you can't quite emotionally communicate with your mother and then all of a sudden we're in a musical, that was an original piece of music, correct?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nathan Johnson, our composer, and I collaborated to make that song.
Marc:But, like, you know, you're sort of using all these filmic devices, yet it still stays grounded in the humanity of the situation.
Marc:And the guy who plays your roommate's quite good.
Marc:Arturo, he's amazing.
Guest:Oh, man, what you're saying just means a lot to me.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And you're right.
Guest:This does, in many ways, this project work.
Guest:has felt like a culmination of kind of everything I've learned for the 30 years that I've been doing this and, and, and really my tastes.
Guest:And I've, I've, I've worked on so many things where I'm, I'm helping a filmmaker realize their vision.
Guest:That's what you do as an actor.
Guest:You're there for the filmmaker and you're providing the ingredients that they need to tell their story.
Guest:And of course you bring yourself to it, just like all the actors are bringing themselves to Mr. Corman and, you know,
Guest:Like you mentioned, Arturo or Deborah Winger and all the actors, they made it so much better than it was in my head.
Guest:And good actors do that.
Guest:And I feel like I've had the opportunity to do that and worked with great directors who were collaborative.
Guest:But still, it's always when you're acting, it's always...
Guest:The work of the filmmaker.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're helping to do.
Marc:But going back, I mean, when you think about it, I mean, how well did you know your grandfather, Michael Gordon?
Marc:Oh, good question.
Guest:Not very well.
Guest:He was the kind of guy that so that's my mom's dad.
Marc:he directed a lot of like big studio movies.
Marc:I mean, like, I mean, he did pillow talk like Doris Day, Rock Hudson.
Marc:You know, he did a lot.
Marc:He did a lot of movies.
Marc:He did.
Guest:He did.
Guest:He did.
Guest:He did Cyrano de Bergerac, which is a very different pillow talk.
Marc:Who was it?
Marc:And who was that?
Marc:Jose Ferrar?
Guest:Jose Ferrar, who won the Oscar and is, I think, even called out in Annie Hall or some Woody Allen movie for that.
Guest:Jose Ferrar won instead of Marlon Brando for all.
Guest:waterfront and that it was, uh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, uh, he was actually blacklisted after that.
Guest:Um, because he had been to some meetings, uh, grandfather, my grandfather was, yeah.
Guest:And, uh, some meetings, um,
Guest:that bore the name communism.
Guest:And at that time, the meetings he was going to were really just people getting together and trying to talk about what today you would call social justice, trying to- But also unionizing the film industry, correct?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Unions were a big part of social justice, of making sure that labor wasn't abused by the big companies and-
Guest:You know, trying to end poverty and things like that.
Guest:But yet the the U.S.
Guest:government felt very threatened by McCarthy.
Marc:This is the McCarthy here, the McCarthy era.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:He was blacklisted.
Guest:And it's one of the darker moments of the American government where it really went back on the principles that the founders of the country had.
Guest:imbued into the constitution the right to the freedom of speech the right to freedom of assembly the right to hold whatever opinion you want to hold um did you know him though i knew him a little bit he was the kind of guy that he died when i was 10 and i i wish he had stayed alive a little longer because i feel like by the time i was say 14 or 15 we would have connected much more because i would have you
Guest:read more things and been more ready to have the kind of conversations that I think he liked to have.
Guest:He wasn't the kind of guy that could get down on the level of a five-year-old or a 10-year-old.
Guest:It's just not the way he did it.
Guest:I remember I played him in chess once because I was learning chess and he just destroyed me and barely explained how.
Guest:He wasn't...
Guest:He wasn't warm and fuzzy in that way.
Marc:Wasn't a kid guy.
Guest:Yeah, he wasn't a kid guy.
Guest:He's old fashioned, I guess.
Marc:But your mother, that's as much of a lefty Jewish upbringing that you can have is to have a blacklisted father.
Marc:And she kind of stuck with that, right?
Guest:yeah she my both my parents is where they they met was working at a lefty public radio station called kpfk in los angeles pacifica both yeah pacifica radio exactly that's still around this is kpfk yeah yeah absolutely
Marc:Yeah, that's a very significant presence, that particular, you know, it's sort of like the as long as it's left, it goes.
Guest:It doesn't matter how far out you go, but as long as it's left, we could do it.
Guest:I will agree with you.
Guest:And I and I say this as a staunch leftist.
Guest:Yeah, I probably don't agree with 100 percent of the rhetoric on Pacifica Radio.
Guest:But we're either of them on air.
Guest:My dad was.
Guest:My dad was one of the main news readers and news editors at KPFK.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Is he still around?
Guest:And my mom worked there as well.
Guest:My dad, yep.
Guest:Yeah, he's no longer a journalist.
Guest:He had a few different careers.
Guest:He, for the last number of decades, has run a software company, actually.
Guest:He started one a long time before.
Guest:It became such a, you know, before Silicon Valley was Silicon Valley.
Guest:And your mom?
Guest:And my mom quit working when she had kids and was a full-time parent, which I admire greatly as well.
Guest:You know, not that anybody necessarily should or shouldn't do that.
Guest:Everybody's got to find their own life and make their own choices, of course.
Guest:And I respect any given.
Guest:I'm a parent who works, you know.
Guest:You took some time off, though.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I was able to.
Guest:I'm lucky.
Guest:I was able to take quite a bit of time off when I first had kids.
Guest:I wish that everybody was able to do that.
Marc:So they at least know who you were when you came home.
Marc:Did your mom run for office as well?
Guest:She did.
Guest:Yeah, she was she ran under the Peace and Freedom Party, which I think she was a founding member of that political party, which still exists, if I'm not mistaken, kind of a far left.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which at that time, the main their main platform was trying to end the war in Vietnam.
Marc:But how do you like you started acting when you were like, what, a month old?
Marc:I mean, like, how does that happen?
Marc:Like, how did six?
Guest:I was six when I started doing my first job.
Guest:And it was very much, you know, I give a ton of credit to both my parents, especially my mom helped me enormously.
Guest:But one of the ways she helped me was she never, ever pressured me to do what to stop or go.
Guest:Either way.
Guest:She always just said, hey, this is something you love doing.
Guest:And I loved doing a few different things.
Guest:I also went and did a lot of gymnastics when I was a little kid.
Guest:And I played sports and did piano lessons.
Guest:I never connected with the piano as much because I didn't like reading music.
Guest:But actually, my music teacher who taught piano, she also taught a choir, which I really liked.
Guest:I was in the choir.
Guest:And then she also started teaching this kind of like community theater we would put on musicals.
Guest:And we'd be a group of kids putting on Peter Pan and Grease and Guys and Dolls and things like that.
Guest:And I played...
Guest:the scarecrow and I played, you know, Nicky and whatever.
Guest:And, and, uh, and I love those old timey suits.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Little kids in old timey grownup suits.
Guest:What could be better than that?
Guest:The best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, and there, you know, then luck comes in.
Guest:I happen to be doing this in Los Angeles, you know, and I, I grew up in a suburb of LA.
Guest:Which part, where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in the Valley in, uh, Sherman Oaks.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Guest:I went to Van Nuys high.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A couple of the kids that were in my community theater classes went on auditions and their manager asked my mom if I wanted to go on auditions.
Guest:So you were recruited out of?
Guest:Out of playing Scarecrow, yeah.
Marc:Elementary school musicals.
Guest:It's just a privilege to have been born in a house where those auditions were a half hour drive away.
Guest:And your mom wasn't working?
Guest:My mom wasn't working.
Guest:My brother was already quite grown because he's six and a half years older than I am.
Guest:And so she would drive me to auditions.
Guest:And I would go on...
Guest:a number of auditions every week, sometimes two a day.
Guest:I went on hundreds.
Guest:I think I've probably, I think I've probably been on a thousand auditions.
Marc:Cause you wanted to, or was she sort of like, it was just, she was helping facilitate this.
Marc:Oh, you had a manager.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, there was a, there was a manager or an agent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Give the info.
Guest:And then I got an agent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, um, I absolutely wanted to.
Guest:And in fact, whenever, uh, whenever I would, uh,
Guest:say, I don't want to go.
Guest:Her thing was always, okay, look.
Guest:You committed to going into this today.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it wouldn't be right of me to teach you that you can just flake on a commitment.
Guest:So you should go today.
Guest:But after that, you don't have to do this.
Guest:We can stop.
Guest:I can call Susan.
Guest:Susan was the name of my agent.
Guest:I can call Susan and tell her that you don't want to do this.
Guest:It's perfectly fine.
Guest:It's 100% cool with me.
Guest:I love you no matter what.
Guest:I think you're great no matter what.
Guest:and you're doing great things no matter what, we don't have to do this.
Guest:But I just really loved it.
Guest:There's a story about the first job I ever did was this peanut butter commercial, and it was sort of a difficult shoot.
Guest:There was fake rain, and I had to sit there and kind of get rained on, and it was kind of long.
Guest:I was only six years old.
Guest:But I loved it so much that when we came out of the soundstage,
Guest:That evening and I saw that it was nighttime, I turned to my mom and said, whoa, it's nighttime already because the time had gone by.
Guest:So I just loved being part of that team, you know, part of a crew, part of a set where everyone's got their jobs due and everyone's working together to make this thing happen.
Guest:I loved it so much.
Guest:So you love the whole collaborative nature of it.
Guest:That's exactly it, man.
Guest:I think I always just really... I loved the acting, but I also just loved the whole process.
Guest:And even from a very young age, I was always fascinated with all the different jobs.
Guest:And what about training?
Guest:Did you do any?
Guest:Well, not formally so much, although I did have one acting teacher.
Guest:There was a...
Guest:A teacher named Kevin McDermott, who I still think about all the time.
Guest:It's been a few years since I've talked to him, but I really consider him one of the great influences of my life.
Guest:Kevin, as well as the music teacher I mentioned who taught choir and community theater, her name is Miss Karen.
Guest:And both of those are two teachers that I consider just hugely impactful.
Guest:And that was the same time of your life?
Marc:Roughly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Similar time in my life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're like a kid and Kevin was, you took a drama class or he was part of the guy who made the plays, produced them or directed them?
Guest:He was a totally separate operation than Miss Karen who did the plays.
Guest:He was an acting class and kids in LA who were doing acting like I was, took classes with him.
Guest:Oh, so it was outside of school.
Guest:It was outside of school.
Guest:Both of these were outside of school.
Guest:Oh, OK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and Kevin was just a brilliant, brilliant teacher that he didn't talk down to us.
Guest:And he he didn't teach the academic version of acting like he never told us, OK, this is what Stanislavski said or anything like that.
Guest:But he taught us about what it meant to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to create a character that was different from yourself and really be real, really be that character.
Guest:We used to do an exercise in Kevin's class where we would spend weeks creating a character and we would come up with all their backstory and who they were.
Guest:And every character had to end up for some reason in a juvenile detention camp.
Guest:psychology group uh because kevin actually he had a background in he used to work in in juvenile detention centers and things like that yeah and uh and so it's up to you to create this we had to create a character and he would help us and over the course of weeks we would do different exercises of how to create a character and how to embody that character and we would do improvisation like working on this is when i'm seven
Guest:working on being that character and refining who that character was.
Guest:And we would write down things about our character.
Guest:And then once we had our character all done, he would bring a friend of his who was an actual child psychologist who actually ran group therapy sessions with kids.
Guest:And I was seven, but most of the kids were older in this class.
Guest:And she would come, we would get into character
Guest:And then she would come, she would never meet us as actors and she would run a group therapy session and we would stay in character for 45 minutes straight.
Guest:Holy man.
Guest:Doing a real group therapy session as run by not an actress, but a group, a real therapist.
Guest:And then she, the group, the session would end.
Guest:She would leave.
Guest:And only then after she left, would we break character?
Guest:So she really treated us differently.
Guest:as those characters and i i think about that exercise all the damn time walsh mitt was her name dr walsh mitt was the name of the therapist and you think about that as a point of reference to building characters throughout your career exactly yes i've never heard anything like that
Marc:yeah kevin kevin mcdermott he's a real talk about teaching a real brilliant teacher i'll say i mean you know to deal with young people and that is the arc of like a four-week process yeah really interesting huh
Guest:Yeah, I highly recommend it for anybody, whether you're interested in being an actor or not.
Guest:Just go into extreme depth on what it would be like to be someone else, someone other than yourself.
Marc:I have a hard time holding on to who I am.
Marc:I get nervous about acting.
Marc:What if it sticks?
Marc:I think it took Pacino years to shake Scarface.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:You can see I actually I did a I got to do a segment of Sesame Street while I was shooting Don John.
Guest:And it's ridiculous because I sound a little bit like that Don John character.
Guest:Creepy guy.
Guest:Talking to Murray the Muppet.
Guest:It's really, really funny.
Marc:What would you think is the first role that you've had on either television or in a movie where, you know, you were really able to apply and feel successful in executing, you know, a character?
Marc:Like, when did you know, although you may have loved it and you were doing a lot of stuff, when did you really feel like, you know, you sunk into it and you had a nice meaty part and, you know, you really kind of showed up for work?
Guest:Yeah, that's a great question.
Guest:Because you're right.
Guest:When you're doing acting jobs, oftentimes you're doing stuff that doesn't really give you that opportunity to really be creative or express yourself or sink your teeth into it.
Guest:Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I did a movie of the week, they were called back then.
Guest:This is for television, broadcast television, but it's like a feature length movie that plays with commercials and they called it movie of the week.
Guest:And it was one of those ripped from the headlines TV movies at the time was called Gregory K, which was a boy who had who filed to divorce his parents.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:His parents were both right.
Guest:Kind of dysfunctional and abusive parents.
Guest:And he had been in foster care and he really liked this foster family and he wanted to stay with his foster family.
Guest:But his parents wanted them back.
Guest:and he filed to divorce his parents.
Guest:And so we made a TV movie about that, and I got to play him.
Guest:It's the first time I played a protagonist in a movie.
Guest:And it was a really heavy role because this is a kid who had suffered child abuse and who was really in a high-stakes situation.
Guest:I was 12.
Guest:Yeah, I was 12.
Guest:And that's the first time I...
Guest:That's the first thing that popped in my head when you asked your question.
Marc:And that seems like a completely perfect way to apply Kevin's method.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:I thought about his method all the time.
Guest:I think I talked to Kevin about it.
Guest:I've talked to Kevin about things much, much even later in life as well.
Guest:Do you do backstories all the time for characters?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes, is the answer.
Guest:It depends on the character and it depends on the material.
Guest:And sometimes I do it more than other times.
Guest:But but yeah, and certainly with Mr. Corman, this is where and in a way what you're saying about kind of the culmination of all these things.
Guest:This is where writing and acting sort of blend into each other.
Guest:The process of creating this character of Mr. Corman absolutely was drawn from what I've known how to do ever since learning it from Kevin of creating this character.
Guest:And you apply those same processes to writing as then to acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also, you know, you I imagine that are you writing these alone?
Guest:No, I well, I wrote the first two spec scripts alone, but then we brought on four other writers and we wrote the we wrote the rest together and they were awesome.
Guest:And it was a really, I think, really fruitful collaboration.
Guest:And I definitely don't think that the scripts would have been nearly as good if I had been alone versus working with Bruce and Rosa and Julia and Roja.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, it's sort of amazing that, you know, your entire process that, you know, you were one of these people, you never stopped working.
Marc:And as a child actor, you know, doing angels on the outfield.
Marc:And I remember, I remember the juror, but those were big, big movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, so you really kind of like, you know, you, you got a toehold in and you didn't really ever stop working all the way through adolescence into adulthood.
Marc:And it's sort of astounding, isn't it?
Marc:I stopped when I went to college.
Marc:So after, what, 12 years?
Marc:At 18 years old, you quit for a little while?
Guest:Yeah, and that was the longest.
Guest:My freshman year of college is the longest break I had ever taken.
Guest:And then I got back into it.
Guest:And then actually having kids was...
Guest:I took another break and then that was an even longer break because I took two years off.
Guest:Was that after Third Rock?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:It was at the end of Third Rock.
Guest:In fact, they let me out of Third Rock early because I wanted to go to college.
Guest:You did 131 episodes of Third Rock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wasn't in all of the episodes in the final season because they let me out early.
Guest:All right, so what, 115?
Marc:Yeah, something like that.
Marc:So with that, and that was still back in the day where syndication meant something.
Marc:So you were good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I made money as a kid.
Guest:Very, very lucky too.
Guest:And that allowed me then to kind of choose what I wanted to do after that.
Guest:Because the next bunch of parts I did, I didn't make money.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you were also fortunate you didn't have crazy parents.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Well, that's my biggest piece of good fortune.
Guest:Because it's true.
Guest:A lot of child actors, sadly.
Guest:And look, it's important to say...
Guest:I also... I didn't have crazy parents, but I also had parents who... My dad earned a strong living, so there wasn't that kind of pressure.
Guest:A lot of families end up in show business, and if they're...
Guest:If they don't have the kind of income that my family did, it's harder to blame them for getting sucked into spending the money that their child makes.
Guest:I wish we lived in a world where everyone had more money and a few of the super rich people had less.
Marc:Well, you know, and also, again, like what I was saying is that the way you handle kids in this thing.
Marc:Now, again, I don't watch a lot of television with kids now that I think about it or a lot of shows with kids.
Marc:But I think that the respect you give the kids in the classroom and also the sort of attention.
Marc:I thought that the episode where it's just all Arturo.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that his name?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's like what is that?
Marc:That's like episode five.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, four.
Marc:Episode four, you're just sort of like, all right, this is going to be the roommates episode, which I loved.
Marc:I love that TV is now so untethered from any, you know, kind of network model that it's respectful of the audience to realize like they can handle this.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:That's why I wanted to do a serial, a series was because of exactly what you're talking about.
Guest:I feel like when I was, last time I was on TV in the 90s on Third Rock from the Sun, TV shows were much more,
Guest:rigidly formulaic and now there's this appetite for for tv shows to do kind of what movies like i grew up loving the movies that came out of sundance in the 90s you know swingers or sling blade or big night or train spotting or you know these kinds of movies you've done a few of those kind of movies i was i i and it was like a huge huge
Guest:thing for me to get to finally be in movies that played at Sundance, because that's what I always wanted throughout my time working on Third Rock from the Sun.
Guest:I loved working on that show.
Guest:But I also what I really wanted to do was do weirder indie Sundance like movies.
Guest:And finally, then in my 20s, I got to do it.
Guest:What was the first one you did?
Guest:I did a movie called Manic that that was that went to Sundance.
Guest:That was the first movie I was in that went to Sundance.
Marc:So your whole thing was just like after Third Rock, you're like, I'm good.
Marc:You know, I've you know, I've done good work.
Marc:It was a funny show.
Marc:Everyone knows who I am.
Marc:The money is going to keep coming in as long as people they keep selling that show.
Marc:So why not, you know, take some risks and do what I want to do?
Guest:That was that was it.
Guest:Yes, that's exactly it.
Marc:And you did Manic.
Marc:Which one do you think was the most successful one of those experiments for you as an actor?
Guest:Well, I mean, that one, Manic was a really great.
Guest:And in fact, speaking of the group therapy sessions I was talking about that we did in Kevin's class, Manic was like that in real life.
Guest:We made a movie basically about it was kind of perfect for me having had that background.
Guest:And Manic's where I met Zooey Deschanel.
Guest:That was our first movie together.
Guest:And Don Cheadle is in that movie also.
Guest:It's really great.
Guest:I'm really proud of that one.
Guest:And that was the movie that then Rian Johnson saw when he cast me in Brick.
Guest:And then that Greg Araki also saw Manic when he cast me in Mysterious Skin.
Guest:And those two movies were kind of the ones that allowed me to...
Guest:To, you know, then go on from there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:To be an adult actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Mysterious skin.
Marc:People love brick.
Marc:You're like.
Marc:So that was sort of your baptism into grown up movies.
Marc:And then you had this.
Marc:You're still having a pretty amazing run with the grown up movies.
Guest:Well, thank you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I took some time away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what happened with college?
Guest:Well, it's a brick and mysterious skin is kind of what I did right after college.
Guest:Did you finish college, though?
Guest:No, I stopped.
Guest:I was enjoying college.
Guest:But actually, you want to know what changed it for me?
Guest:was I got my first copy of Final Cut Pro, the editing software.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I got that for myself for my 21st birthday.
Guest:And I got so hooked on editing.
Guest:Have you ever spent any time editing?
Guest:Not hands-on.
Guest:Sitting there next to somebody doing it, but not... Yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, sitting next to someone doing it, you'll get it.
Guest:It's just... It's so...
Guest:thrilling because you're finally making the thing like yeah shooting is great but when you're editing you're actually making a movie you know shooting you're still just like kind of you're getting raw footage and you're like well eventually i guess this will be a movie but when you're editing it really starts to feel like that just it was you getting final cut that you know made you realize like i'm going to be a filmmaker now
Marc:That's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was so in love with editing and I would just stay up all night doing it and I would be posed with this choice of like, well, okay, I could write this paper for the class I'm in or I could keep editing.
Guest:Finish my shorts.
Guest:Yeah, it was it was shortly thereafter that I dropped out of college and and said, I want to I got to get back into this.
Guest:I know what I want to do.
Guest:I always knew I wanted to do this.
Guest:And now I'm really going to I'm really going to go for it.
Guest:And my goal was to be a filmmaker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, all right, if I'm going to do that, the best way in is for me to get back into acting.
Marc:And like as you do it, you know, even heading into I know you made a couple of shorts, but the first feature you did was Don John.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And you wrote that, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like heading into that.
Marc:And now here we are with this series.
Marc:I mean, when you look back at.
Marc:You know, a life onset, you know, when do you really feel was it after you quit college where you really started paying attention to what was going on behind the camera?
Marc:Or were you always sort of on top?
Guest:I always was into that from the beginning.
Guest:Like I said, like that first peanut butter commercial, I was just fascinated with all different people and what they were doing, what what the camera crew was doing, what they were doing with the props, how they made it rain.
Guest:All of it.
Guest:All of it was always fascinating.
Guest:The lights is the thing, man.
Marc:The DP, you're like, how do they know this?
Guest:It still seems like magic.
Guest:They disappear for an hour somehow.
Guest:It's true.
Guest:I probably could do almost...
Guest:almost any job on a set yeah but a a gaffer or i don't know that i could actually do a good job as a gaffer what about a dp could you be a dp if i had a good gaffer i think you always gotta have the guide that you can tell to do the thing that gives you the options to make give you choices right right yeah yeah yeah
Marc:So, again, when you look at the evolution outside of Kevin's class, what were the directors like?
Marc:Because it seems like this series, Mr. Corman, is, you know, it's very stylized, but it's not stylized in a way where it seems like you're trying too hard or trying to get a lot in.
Marc:It seems to be appropriate to the way the character sees the world and the world you've created.
Marc:So, but it is, you know, there is a thing you're doing.
Marc:You know, with the camera.
Guest:I really wanted to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:Speaking of directors, they were influential and we just talked about Brick.
Guest:So Ryan Johnson, who wrote and directed Brick, that's his first movie.
Guest:His latest movie was Knives Out, The Last Jedi.
Guest:He and I did Looper together.
Guest:He's a really wonderful artist and just a fantastic human being and a good friend.
Guest:And he was one of the first people I showed the spec script of Mr. Corman to.
Guest:And when he read it at that point, it wasn't as fanciful.
Guest:It was more just pretty grounded and realistic.
Guest:And his feedback was, look, I think this is great.
Guest:It feels very real.
Guest:But I also, I know you.
Guest:And I know what you love doing.
Guest:You could give yourself the license to be more playful here.
Guest:What are the things that you would really want to do if you could do anything?
Guest:And that's where things like a musical number or a fantasy fight sequence or falling out the window and flying through space, these kinds of...
Guest:These kinds of magic or like the meteor you talked about, this looming meteor is about to destroy humanity.
Guest:All sort of stemmed from that great piece of feedback that Ryan gave me.
Guest:Like, give yourself the liberty to...
Guest:play do whatever the fuck you want and uh and i did and and that's that really kind of turned on this other side of the show like you're talking about where we kind of a lot of it is very grounded and realistic but you know in my experience real life doesn't always feel realistic real life sometimes really feels larger than life and and those those sequences are addressed in
Marc:I think that, you know, that juxtaposing the kind of claustrophobic filmmaking you do with the character when he's not in a fantasy sequence is a good a good counter to that.
Marc:It makes the other thing work.
Marc:Well, actually, can I ask you a question?
Guest:Because speaking like you brought up.
Guest:things feeling real.
Guest:So we both made shows largely about ourselves, but I would not want to
Guest:make a show with my name.
Guest:Josh Corman does sound sort of like Joseph Gordon, but to me, I can't talk about myself, my personal life like that.
Guest:I'm happy to talk about my work life and my creative self, but when it comes to my family or my love life for things like that, it would drive me insane to...
Guest:to be open about that.
Guest:And, and so when you make Marin, you put your name on it,
Guest:Is that not scary for you to to like open yourself up like that so much?
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:I mean, but, you know, that's always been the way I do it.
Marc:Yeah, I think there are there's definitely a liability to it.
Marc:And there's definitely something to be said about protecting your real life and and keeping the art and and, you know, your expression, you know, within your creative output as opposed to putting your life on the line for it.
Marc:There is elements of privacy boundaries, you know, vulnerability, all that stuff.
Guest:And also, that's the thing.
Guest:I always, I always imagine like, this is going to, this is going to haunt me.
Guest:Something's going to come back.
Guest:But like, have you had moments where, where's, I don't know where, where someone knows something about you and you're like, Oh God, I, I,
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe I'm inventing this as worse than it would really be.
Marc:No, dude.
Marc:I mean, I do this podcast all the time.
Marc:I talk about myself in my stand-up, in the show, and I can't tell you that it's a better way to do it because all of a sudden you have a very intimate, one-sided relationship with a lot of people.
Marc:Now, I'm no Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Marc:I would say that the people that actually watched Maren...
Marc:is far fewer than you would assume.
Marc:I was on IFC.
Marc:It wasn't like a hit show, dude.
Marc:And also, the life I was living at that time was sort of, it was an anomaly to be this guy who's making a podcast in his garage and have this stand-up career and ex-wives and whatever.
Marc:I thought that kind of making that a character...
Marc:You know, it wasn't exactly how things played out.
Marc:It was based on my life.
Marc:But I just thought I was doing it like any other comic would do a show.
Marc:But I'm more I'm more revealing on the podcast and just talking and or in on Instagram live and stuff.
Marc:But I do volunteer it because I seem to want to have that that that type of relationship with my audience.
Marc:But, you know.
Marc:You don't have anything to fall back on.
Marc:You know, you don't have the same type of private life.
Marc:And also, you know, you kind of are required to really show up for everything you're doing in a way that's much more personal than it would be if you were, you know, slightly different in terms than the character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But you're doing it the right way, dude.
Guest:I don't I don't know.
Guest:I wonder sometimes because I because I do feel like I mean, I
Guest:I feel like it's right for me, but I also do feel that if I were more forthcoming about the intimate details of my life, probably...
Marc:more people would connect with that i mean it's people can't help it they're they're drawn to that sort of transparency sometimes but they're also joined drawn to entertainment i mean some people are sort of like there's definitely a large contingent of people that are like yeah there's a little too much information buddy can't you just uh do the funny stuff you know
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, a lot of people enjoy the distance of of of entertainment, of knowing that it's a character.
Marc:They can actually invest more where you don't want them walking out, which I'm sure has happened to me many times of a show or a movie going like, God, I hope Joseph's OK.
Marc:I mean, that's.
Guest:that was pretty heavy man i'm a little worried about him i always try to like uh i always try to not know about the artists that i love especially musicians i mean it's also true about actors and comics etc believe me i i like like there was recently um there have been documentaries about some of my favorite musicians like nina simone or harry nilson yeah yeah
Guest:And I go out of my way to avoid those documentaries because I just don't want to know.
Marc:Well, those two are like fairly, you know, those two are tragic stories in a way that doesn't make you.
Marc:It makes you deeply empathetic and heartbroken for those people.
Marc:It's better that than seeing a documentary like that guy's a fucking asshole.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I've watched, I've seen, I'm not going to say who, but I recently was watching a documentary of like a famous musician.
Guest:It was like, oh God, I don't know if I can listen to this music anymore.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, that was so funny to me in Mr. Corman.
Marc:You chose to be Arrow for Halloween.
Guest:Oh yeah, you a fan of The Point?
Guest:Love The Point.
Marc:I'm a fan of his.
Marc:I don't know that I'm as deeply into that record as I am some of the other ones.
Marc:But conceptually, I just thought, how esoteric and how utterly irritating that this guy's going to put himself in a costume that he can't even really explain without looking at...
Guest:like he's he's an art snob that's what he is right but it makes it it makes him like he's not able to laugh at himself but you make it so we can kind of laugh at the character you know which is good it's good well i i did dress up as arrow one time for halloween a few years ago
Guest:That was true.
Guest:And no one knew what it was.
Guest:They thought I was Sonic the Hedgehog or they thought that I was, whatever, a Smurf.
Marc:But I sort of really liked also the way that you created that Dax, the Dax character, who is sort of like an aspiring influencer, I would imagine is what you would call him, is a tragic character.
Marc:Just in terms of
Marc:you know, how he's approaching life.
Marc:And he there's but he and he kind of sees it, but he kind of doesn't until he breaks down.
Marc:But like that, that is the future.
Marc:You know, that is the future concern.
Marc:You know, what is that life based on?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes, it's really true.
Guest:By the way, just tangentially, the guy who played that character, Dax, I don't know if you know logic.
Guest:You know, he's he's a very he's like a Grammy nominated actor.
Guest:musician and rapper that guy this is his first this is his first time acting he did an amazing job he's a great actor and i think he's gonna go on to do great things um i i love that you're picking up on that character and that it's something i think about all the time i gave a a ted talk actually about this i always feel self-conscious when i mention the fact that i god you are the character go ahead yeah i i told you i was
Guest:But about how craving attention can destroy your creativity and being an influencer, you're signing up for a product that will get you addicted.
Guest:And if you're trying to really embark on a creative process and express yourself and make art, it makes sense that you care about an audience and what an audience thinks.
Guest:But if you're overly swayed by that, if at the very beginning of your creative process, you're thinking about likes and follows because your brain has been trained into those dopamine hits and you're a fiend for the addiction to the attention that you get,
Guest:It's going to corrupt your creative process.
Guest:You're not going to be able to dig deep down into your unique self.
Marc:It's going to corrupt your your your your sense of humility entire.
Marc:It's going to corrupt more than just your creativity.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, that's just I mean, that's a good point.
Marc:I mean, like when you talk about, you know, wondering whether or not you should offer more of yourself, what are some elements of your life that you would like to be more transparent or explore in a in a more personal way?
Guest:I don't want to, but I wonder about it sometimes.
Guest:I mean, and it's true, like, look, there is a lot of very personal things in this show.
Guest:It's just through a filter, through a process where, you know, that protects my privacy, I guess, and the privacy of the people around me.
Guest:But, you know, I...
Guest:I, my, my partner, my wife, Tasha is, she's a very private person and, um, she's, she just gets terrified at the thought of having people, strangers out there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Knowing about her, knowing things about her, knowing things about our kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that makes sense.
Guest:And, uh, I love that about her.
Guest:Actually, I, I feel some of the same thing.
Guest:Um, um,
Guest:Keeps you in check too, right?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:It helps to not go down the slippery slope of being addicted to the attention that comes with working as an entertainer.
Guest:I really think that's a dangerous, slippery slope that you see a lot of artists...
Guest:fall down is you get it's it's addictive it's like a drug there's there's a there's a song fame is a drug and i think it's incredibly true and the the scary part about social media as it exists today is that it's just a mass proliferation of that drug to everybody on earth including kids and
Guest:including young people just getting fed this highly addictive drug that's ultimately like a drug empty, that will never really satisfy you.
Guest:You'll never, you get a quick spike of euphoria and then you, you fall and then you want more.
Guest:And that's, that's what fame is.
Marc:And I'm so happy.
Marc:I've never had to experience that.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, dude.
Guest:You're interviewing presidents, man.
Guest:Come on.
Marc:I've carved out a little world for myself, but there's no risk of me getting my own sneaker line.
Guest:That doesn't mean that you're not subject to that kind of addiction.
Marc:Oh, no, no.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because that's the thing.
Guest:I think whether you're... Oh, yeah.
Marc:Look, I do Instagram lives, and I'm highly aware of how many people watch them.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:It's really addictive.
Guest:They make it addictive on purpose.
Guest:I get it, man.
Guest:And I think that so everybody's subject to that addiction, whether they're sure, you know, whether they have 500 followers or 50 followers or a million followers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But the trick is, like, you know, don't base your life on it.
Marc:Like, and I think that is the tragedy of that character, Dax.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But all in, all said, what now just try to explain to me quickly so I understand what hit record.
Marc:That's your production company.
Marc:What do they do?
Marc:Because I even looked at the I looked up the awards they won for innovative, interactive media.
Marc:And I don't know what that what is it?
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:So there's an online community.
Guest:We say hit record.
Guest:It's sort of a wordplay on hit record.
Guest:Oh, so hit record.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The idea of our community is people collaborating.
Guest:So a lot of online creativity is about look at me, look at what I made.
Guest:And on hit record, we really try to emphasize what can we make together.
Guest:OK, so we made all kinds of things.
Guest:We've like you said, we made TV.
Marc:I feel like you're talking to an investor right now.
Marc:I'm interested.
Marc:Keep going.
Guest:Yeah, well, I have spoken to investors, my fair share.
Guest:So it's your apps in your observation.
Guest:And how can I make, give me some notes.
Guest:How can I make this less investor-y?
Marc:No, you're explaining it.
Marc:I just want to know what it is.
Marc:So collaborative, you want to make it more collaborative.
Marc:And what is the product?
Marc:How does it, now, so how am I going to make a return on what I invest?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I'm not going to talk to an investor, but so if you come, if you come to hit record, you download our app or you come to our site, you'll see all these different projects that are going on and the projects are all open and collaborative.
Guest:And some of them are just little projects of people just having fun, being creative together.
Guest:They could be telling stories.
Guest:They could be drawing, writing, making music, all the above.
Guest:And then some of the projects are big projects.
Guest:high-profile projects that we've won Emmys for.
Guest:We've won two Emmys, one for a TV show we made a few years ago and one for a TV show we made last year.
Guest:The one we made last year was actually on YouTube, but YouTube originals.
Guest:Is it for kids?
Guest:Well, it was kind of family-friendly.
Guest:We definitely wanted it to be inspiring for families who are stuck at home during lockdown and wanting to do something creative together and be like, hey...
Guest:Here's something creative you could do together.
Guest:You could draw this.
Guest:You could take a picture like this, or you could sing along with this.
Guest:It's sort of like that.
Guest:It is very wholesome, I will say.
Guest:The whole vibe on Hit Record is extremely positive and wholesome and safe.
Guest:The point is that it's somewhere where it's kind of an antidote to...
Guest:instagram or youtube or these places that are more focused on fame and followers and um and sort of racing to the bottom and trying to get attention and more about like let's let's not focus on on you know becoming influencers let's focus on just the joy of being creative together with a community that's great and and your folks how how they uh feel how they evolved with your success oh that's interesting like my my uh
Guest:my mom was just reminding me anytime anybody asks her like how, Oh, you must date or says like, Oh, you must be very proud of, of your son.
Guest:She always says, I'm very proud of both my sons.
Guest:I've, you know, I have an older brother.
Guest:He's, he actually died, uh, 11 years ago.
Guest:Saddest thing in my life.
Guest:And that's terrible.
Guest:How, yeah.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:It was, uh, yeah, it was an, an accident.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, it shouldn't have happened.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Sorry, man.
Guest:But no, thank you.
Guest:And he, he was very dear to me and, and he actually, he and I started hit record together and it's part of why it's so important to me.
Guest:And, and,
Guest:one of the things he was always really big on was just encouraging people to kind of find themselves and be themselves and be the, the most, I don't know, adventurous version of themselves.
Guest:He, he, his story was, he was a pretty introverted person growing up and throughout like most of his twenties.
Guest:And, uh, he was a software developer and sort of shy and,
Guest:And he made a decision at a certain point in his life.
Guest:I don't want to be shy anymore.
Guest:I want to come out of my shell.
Guest:And he proactively and almost, I would say, systematically did that.
Guest:And it's funny because when you...
Guest:When I talked to people who knew him when he was in his thirties, they're like, wait, he was shy because he's like, he was the most outgoing, like swashbuckling crazy guy that you've ever met.
Guest:And, um, he became, uh,
Guest:really into photography and fire spinning uh and he eventually started teaching fire spinning what is fire spinning you know like you see people like holding like swinging around a ball and chain that's on fire kind of thing like a burning man kind of thing sure sure
Guest:Um, it's, it's a, it's sort of a, it's a way of dancing.
Guest:It actually goes back.
Guest:They call it poi, which is actually a, I learned here in New Zealand is a, is a Maori word because it's a lot of Polynesian Pacific Islander people fire did a lot of fire spinning.
Guest:Um, so that he really became this other person.
Guest:Yeah, he really came out of his shell.
Guest:And so for him, Hit Record was a lot about that, was a lot about people who had a thing inside them.
Guest:Like, I know I want to express myself, whether it's, you know, I want to write or I want to act or I want to make music, I want to draw, whatever it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know I want to do it, but Matt, I'm not that kind of person.
Guest:That's not me.
Guest:Other people are able to do that.
Guest:And his whole thing was like, that's exactly what I thought.
Guest:I didn't think I was that kind of person either, but anybody can be that.
Guest:I became that.
Guest:And so...
Guest:In the HitRecord community, this is years ago now, that was what he was always doing, was just finding people who felt like he felt, who felt hesitant and encouraging them.
Guest:And scared.
Guest:And that spirit is still very much...
Guest:a big, a big part of our community's culture.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Something I try to do and something everyone in our community does for each other.
Guest:It's really encouraging people to come out of their shells and, and find their creative voice.
Marc:Well, that's a beautiful way to honor his legacy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But back, back to your mom, she, she says, I'm proud of both my sons.
Guest:Yeah, that's her line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she's and she's she is.
Guest:And they both are great.
Guest:That goes back to they never my parents were always really determined to not, you know, not let the the trappings of being an actor.
Guest:corrupt me or corrupt our family or because it can it really can it's it's it's dangerous and seductive i feel bad for people who get seduced by because it's very seductive and i don't i don't blame someone for it well it sounds like you had a good unit going growing up and uh you're doing good things man and it was great to talk to you
Marc:likewise real pleasure to talk to you thank you for having me on your show yeah and i enjoy i enjoyed the uh the series a lot and i hope people like it thanks dude thank you all right buddy take it easy all right see you later joseph gordon levitt the new show is uh mr corman it's on apple tv plus uh enjoy it enjoy it okay here's some guitar familiar guitar
guitar solo
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Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.