Episode 1270 - Alan Ruck
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:I'm kind of one-earing it today.
Marc:My left ear is fucked up.
Marc:How's your head?
Marc:How's your head holding it together?
Marc:I mean, I'm not talking just about the thoughts.
Marc:I'm talking about the actual structure, the machinery, the piece itself.
Marc:How's your headpiece working out in terms of the rest of your body?
Marc:I think I told you about my ear.
Marc:I mean, I'm getting old, I guess, but I don't know what the fuck is going on with it.
Marc:Maybe it's maybe it's allergies.
Marc:I mean, maybe there's pressure on my face from the inside of my face.
Marc:Maybe there's something going on with my jaw.
Marc:All I know is I got a rattle in my ear and I went to the ENT guy, freaked out, went and paid out of pocket to see an ENT guy because I needed answers.
Marc:And you know what usually happens when you do that?
Marc:When you freak out, pay out of pocket to go get answers.
Marc:They don't have any.
Marc:It's the beginning of a long relationship.
Marc:It's weird, isn't it?
Marc:When you go to the doctor and it's inconclusive or everything looks fine, yet something's fucked up.
Marc:I mean, you don't want to hope for something, but sometimes you would like a little not even closure.
Marc:It's not even closure.
Marc:It's sort of like, oh, this is what this is.
Marc:Let's just do this.
Marc:And that should do it as opposed to I don't know what the fuck this is.
Marc:Let's try this and see what happens.
Marc:And call me after it doesn't work.
Marc:And then we'll try another thing.
Marc:Then you'll come in for the other test.
Marc:And then if that doesn't work, we'll have to take your head off and send it out to the lab, the whole head.
Marc:And then they'll have to see what's up.
Marc:They'll put it through all the machines.
Marc:And then, yeah, it's going to be a little uncomfortable.
Marc:And you're not going to be able to work for a few days.
Marc:But when the head gets done, you come back in.
Marc:We put it back on.
Marc:And it should be working good.
Marc:But that's pricey.
Marc:All right, this is a new thing that they're doing with the taking off the head.
Marc:But it's relaxing because you don't know what's going on.
Marc:The whole time you're not even going to be with it.
Marc:You're just going to be laying there headless in a suspended state on machines while we clean out your head.
Marc:OK, how much is that going to cost?
Marc:How much you got today on the show?
Marc:I talked to Alan Ruck.
Marc:Now, most, you know, Alan Ruck.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You've seen him in dozens of things for the past, like 35 years.
Marc:He's always going to be known as Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Marc:OK, that's who he is.
Marc:But you remember throughout most of your life, you'd see him in a movie and you'd be like, oh, there's that guy.
Marc:And well, he's Connor Roy on Succession, which I've watched the first three episodes of because that's what I get the privilege.
Marc:And man, it goes, man.
Marc:I'm in.
Marc:But now I got to wait.
Marc:So I've been playing the guitars and I'm doing a live show on next week.
Marc:I'm doing a show at Largo.
Marc:With me and Vivino and Ned and Schwarzel, Brandon.
Marc:And we're going to...
Marc:Lay out the jams again and have some comedy.
Marc:Maggie Mae is going to be on the show.
Marc:And I'm getting Bobby Lee out.
Marc:I'm getting Bobby Lee out to Largo.
Marc:He's never done Largo before.
Marc:So Bobby Lee will be at Largo with me.
Marc:He's only doing like 15 minutes, but I talked him into it.
Marc:That's on the 19th, Tuesday.
Marc:I can give you the song rundown if you want.
Marc:We've been working on songs.
Marc:Rehearsed with Jimmy the other night.
Marc:Me and Vivino.
Marc:Ned Brower on drums.
Marc:Brandon Schwartzel on bass.
Marc:Vivino on guitar.
Marc:Me on guitar.
Marc:And I'm singing...
Marc:Bobby's getting nervous when Vivino comes because he's the real deal.
Marc:What am I?
Marc:And I swear to God, no matter what amp I bring to rehearsal and no matter what amp I bring to the gig, it always cuts out.
Marc:It feels like it always cuts out when Jimmy's playing.
Marc:And then I was thinking about it.
Marc:Is it possible that my amplifier is resonating my insecurity?
Marc:That it's literally like, you know, we'll just... Maybe we won't... Let's just be quiet.
Marc:Let's just...
Marc:Let's not make a spectacle of ourselves.
Marc:Is that happening?
Marc:Is that an electrical possibility to where my amp gets insecure?
Marc:Jimmy knows what he's doing.
Marc:I don't know fucking anything.
Marc:I don't know about the guitars I own.
Marc:I don't know about the amps I own.
Marc:I've just accumulated stuff, most of it free for one reason or another.
Marc:And I enjoy playing.
Marc:But I'm finally like I'm a little more relaxed.
Marc:We didn't need to rehearse as much this time.
Marc:And we're going to jam before the show.
Marc:But Jimmy Vivino, he said something to me the last time he played.
Marc:It's like we were communicating.
Marc:We were interacting.
Marc:We were talking.
Marc:Like this interactive relationship between guitars.
Marc:And I felt it yesterday at rehearsal.
Marc:I'm like, oh, man, just relax.
Marc:Listen to where he's going.
Marc:And you can fucking step out a little bit and fill in some holes and go back and forth.
Marc:He knows how to do this.
Marc:And it was amazing.
Marc:So that's at Largo on Tuesday, the 19th.
Marc:I have no idea if there's tickets left, but the song list is we're going to do Will Blues Jam at the beginning, Come Out 2.
Marc:Then we're going to do Slippin' and Slidin', Buddy Holly's version, because it was one of my dad's favorites, and he can't remember too much, so I thought I'd remember it for him.
Marc:And then we're going to do Mystery Man, Tom Petty B-side, I would say, from the first album, I believe.
Marc:One of my favorites.
Marc:We're doing No Fun,
Marc:The Stooges.
Marc:We're going to do the Jimmy Reed song, Little Rain, which the Stones covered on their last record.
Marc:But we're going to do our own version, I believe.
Marc:Jimmy corrected it.
Marc:He pointed out to me that sometimes when guys play blues, if they make a mistake, they commit to the mistake.
Marc:And Jimmy Reed sort of made a mistake on his version of Little Rain.
Marc:And then the Stones laid into that mistake.
Marc:But I guess the deal, what we're going to do is we're going to fix it.
Marc:We're going to play a fixed version of Jimmy Reed's Little Rain.
Marc:And we're going to do the Run and Shoes by Fabulous Thunderbirds, which is a riff on a Howlin' Wolf song, Meet Me at the Bottom, I think.
Marc:And we're doing Oh Sweet Nothing, Velvet Underground, Close It Out.
Marc:So that's a pretty good song list, right?
Marc:Swimming and sliding.
Marc:No fun.
Marc:Mystery man.
Marc:Running shoes.
Marc:And sweet nothing.
Marc:I think there's still some tickets left.
Marc:Los Angeles for Largo.
Marc:So that's that.
Marc:I'm enjoying the playing.
Marc:Is there something more that has to be said?
Marc:Did I mention I'm on Sudafed?
Marc:I'm on Sudafed.
Marc:I fucking hiked today.
Marc:I hiked it.
Marc:Up the mountains, the weather's been fucking beautiful here.
Marc:Just fucking beautiful.
Marc:And I trot down, listening to Bill Evans.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I'm all right.
Marc:I just feel like something's pushing my face out from inside of my head.
Marc:We'll have your head back in a couple of days.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Three days max.
Marc:Lab's a little backed up.
Marc:A lot of heads.
Marc:A lot of heads.
Marc:So Alan Ruck is here.
Marc:Season three of Succession premieres this Sunday, October 17th on HBO.
Marc:If you're not caught up, get caught up now on seasons one and two on HBO Max.
Marc:I've seen the first three of the new season.
Marc:Yeah, that's who I am.
Marc:And I'm going to flaunt it.
Marc:I'm going to flaunt it in your face.
Marc:I've seen three already.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got screeners.
Marc:I'm press, man.
Marc:I impress.
Marc:And Alan Ruck plays Connor Roy.
Marc:But you know him.
Marc:You know Alan.
Marc:I'm going to talk to him right now.
Marc:you have a lot of guitars i mean obviously you play i play i'm okay and it's like i'm not a collector i do amass them but i gotta be honest with you like tellies huh well i've got a few tellies i've i've come more to be a uh i like gibson i like that that gibson at the end that gold top it's a reissue with the p90s on do you play not for public consumption but you know yeah yeah oh yeah i fiddle
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Marc:But I mean, I've been trying to play out a little bit.
Guest:I have a very funny thing.
Guest:I have a pig nose travel guitar.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:But it has the- Amp built in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the body of it is perfect.
Guest:It's just small and lovely.
Guest:And then the neck, it's like a Gibson.
Guest:Oh, full neck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's lovely.
Guest:It just feels great.
Guest:So I went to this guy, I went to Luthier, and I'm like, I want you to drill this out.
Guest:I want you to put extra pickups in.
Guest:He's like, no, no, not going to do it.
Guest:Not going to do it.
Guest:I'm like, why not?
Guest:He's like, you're trying to reinvent the wheel, man.
Guest:He said, just appreciate this for what it is.
Guest:Oh, so you wanted to use it as a regular guitar?
Guest:I wanted to, yeah.
Guest:I wanted to put in like two new, two extra- Like Humbuckers?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then put in switches and everything.
Guest:And he's like, no.
Guest:He's like, you're talking like $1,500, $2,000.
Guest:Just go get a regular guitar.
Guest:He said, just go buy another.
Guest:Do you have an electric?
Guest:No, I had like 20 years ago, I took lessons and I was starting to play.
Guest:My older son lives in New York.
Guest:And then I just like gave him everything.
Guest:I gave him a Tele and a Strat.
Guest:And I have a beautiful old, he has it.
Guest:A 1937 Regal Dobro.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Is he playing it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I don't think he messes around too much anymore.
Guest:He's getting his master's in education, so I just, I don't think he's messing around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But what's that kind of, I actually don't like it.
Guest:He's got that guitar that has the round.
Guest:Ovation?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't like them.
Marc:I never liked them either.
Guest:Because they slide.
Marc:They slide.
Marc:I just never thought it was a gimmick from the beginning.
Marc:And oddly, I don't like their electrics.
Marc:I don't like their basses.
Marc:I don't like anything about ovation.
Guest:My little girl, my 11-year-old, just started to take lessons, and I bought her a baby tailor with a pickup in it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It has a slightly rounded back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's something about that rounded back, the sweet sound.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Out of that little guitar.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's not plastic, though.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's all a lovely wooden guitar.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:She's going to be musical.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, she's doing musicals.
Guest:She's with this little group called Yada, Youth Academy Dramatic Arts, Yada, Yada, Yada.
Marc:11 years old?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and she's like singing and dancing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:So you have two new kids?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I have a 33-year-old daughter, Emma.
Guest:I've got a 27-year-old boy, Sam.
Guest:I've got an 11-year-old girl, Vesper, and I've got a 7-year-old boy, Larkin.
Guest:And I'm done.
Guest:And I got clipped, man.
Marc:About time.
Marc:About time.
Guest:how's that uh how's your energy holding up for all that i'm tired yeah i mean there's there's just no getting around it it's just like that alarm goes off in the morning i'm like what what did i do yeah i i when um i actually met mirey while i was in the middle of getting divorced from your new your new wife yeah yeah we were uh
Guest:You met her in the middle of the divorce?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Grabbed hold.
Guest:I'm getting divorced from my first wife, Claudia, and I'm like, I'm never doing this again.
Guest:I'm never doing this again.
Guest:And I meet this beautiful younger woman who's flirting me up.
Guest:And all of a sudden, I'm doing it again.
Guest:I'm doing it again.
Guest:And I told a friend of mine, a friend from back east, I said, I'm gonna get married and she wants to have kids, so we're gonna have some kids.
Guest:And he said, you are a glutton for punishment.
Guest:Because he has kids as old as my big kids.
Guest:And he was like, why are you doing this?
Marc:You're through the tunnel, man.
Guest:Yeah, you made it.
Guest:And you're in one piece.
Guest:What's wrong with you?
Guest:But anyway, I'm having a really good time.
Marc:You are.
Marc:So is there a difference between your approach?
Marc:I mean, is it a different experience?
Guest:Yeah, I believe that I am at least a little more present.
Guest:I mean, in the old days, I was worried about, you know, making money or, you know, who I thought I was or, you know, don't you know who I think I am and all that horse shit.
Guest:Self-involved.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then everything took care of itself.
Guest:Those kids turned out okay?
Marc:They turned out well.
Guest:Yeah, they're great.
Marc:So this show, I remember the first season, people were kind of talking about it, and then I started watching it, and I was like, what the fuck is this?
Marc:Who's writing this thing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just love it.
Marc:It's very satisfying.
Marc:Yeah, good.
Marc:I think there's something elevated about the language.
Marc:I think there's something almost Shakespearean about it.
Marc:Like, I don't know that these people, because you're all such good fucking actors, I don't know that people in this world necessarily talk like this.
Guest:Well, I just appreciate it when people have a large vocabulary but say fuck off all the time.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I just think it's a nice counterpoint.
Marc:Well, I just think there's a beautifully elevated sort of language of power going on in title.
Marc:I think the whole thing is very smart.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was the process of you getting this role?
Marc:Because I don't see you that often.
Marc:I know you're around.
Marc:Yeah, I'm around.
Yeah.
Guest:I'm like cockroaches, man.
Marc:You're never going to get rid of me.
Marc:I mean, you're definitely a lifer.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I'm a survivor, dude.
Marc:I am.
Marc:But how does this happen?
Marc:Because in the last few years, you've been doing mostly episodic stuff, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I actually coattailed on my wife, on Mireille.
Guest:We were doing a play together in New York.
Guest:Is she an actress, obviously?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Good one.
Guest:Mireille Enos.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:You know that show The Killing?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, she played Lyndon.
Guest:She was the lead in that.
Marc:Oh, okay, all right.
Guest:Okay, all right.
Guest:So she's really, really good.
Marc:So you're doing theater.
Guest:Yeah, so I was in the middle of getting divorced and I was losing my mind and I was like, I got to do something.
Guest:I got to get out of the house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was living outside New York and I auditioned for a couple of plays and I got this one and I didn't really have any feeling for it at all, but I'm like, I'm going to do it because I got to do something.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It was called Absurd Person Singular by Alan Akeborn.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it was a remount of something they did in the early 70s.
Guest:And I really, honestly, I just didn't get it.
Guest:But I didn't care because I was like, I'm going to go to work.
Guest:Well, I'm going to work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Mireille almost didn't do it because she was doing another Broadway show at night.
Guest:So she was like, do I really want to, you know, work all day and all night?
Guest:But anyway, so she did.
Guest:And the best thing was that I met her.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:There we go.
Guest:So then she's younger than me and she pretty much right after we met, she's like, I'm going out to California because my manager says I really need to do that now.
Guest:And so I came out here just chasing her.
Guest:And then- Before you got married.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then people are like, oh, do you know who she's with?
Guest:Because they thought I was like New York guy and people forgot that the casting directors out here kind of forgot about me.
Guest:And they're like, do you know-
Guest:She's with him?
Guest:Oh, bring him.
Guest:Hey, you know what he'd be good for?
Guest:Bring him in for that thing, you know?
Guest:And so then all of a sudden I was starting to get more action because I was coattailing off my wife, who was like, she was like smoking hot, new girl in town, really cute, great actress, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then, so I started doing episodic and so forth.
Guest:And I wound up doing The Exorcist with Geena Davis, the TV show.
Guest:Yeah, what network was that on?
Guest:Fox.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And we were- Who'd you play, The Father?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Priest?
Guest:No.
Guest:Did you see it at all?
Guest:Okay, spoiler alert.
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:She was Reagan grown up.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:But she like reinvented herself after all that trauma.
Guest:And you're the husband?
Guest:I was the husband.
Guest:But the devil came back.
Guest:Oh, for her.
Guest:The devil didn't quit.
Guest:Right, of course.
Guest:Pazuzu said, fuck you.
Guest:I'm going in round two.
Guest:And...
Guest:So anyway, I played the brain damaged husband.
Guest:Like I was supposed to be like pretty smart guy, corporate guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then the devil came and like dropped something on my head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So anyway, I was doing that and I was flying home every weekend.
Guest:To New York?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Chicago.
Guest:We shot it in Chicago.
Guest:So I was flying home every weekend.
Guest:It wasn't so bad.
Guest:You're flying back and forth from Chicago to LA.
Guest:Chicago to LA.
Guest:My wife is doing a show.
Guest:But you know Chicago.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I felt like Rumpelstiltskin because like everything was the same except everybody was really old.
Guest:And it's like, what happened?
Guest:I've been asleep for 30 years.
Guest:I know.
Guest:So anyway, I'm flying back and forth.
Guest:My wife was like really maxed out because she was working on the show that they were doing like 15 hour days, 16 hour days.
Guest:Plus she was being single mom at night and she was played out.
Guest:So I come home this one weekend.
Guest:She said, our little boy at the time was two.
Guest:And she said, Larkin's got mommy and me music class and I want you to go with us on Monday before you go back to Chicago.
Guest:I said, you bet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then Monday morning, my manager calls up.
Guest:He's like, Alan, I got you this audition today for this HBO show.
Guest:And I'm like, wow, honey, Mark's got me an audition for an HBO show.
Guest:And she bursts into tears.
Guest:She just like erupts in tears.
Guest:And I'm like, dude, I'm sorry.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:I made a promise.
Guest:I made a promise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I promised my wife I'd go to mommy and me.
Guest:So we go and you have to take your shoes off and leave your phone outside.
Guest:So we do that.
Guest:You know, we're like banging drums for an hour and so forth.
Guest:I come out.
Guest:There's like seven text messages.
Guest:There's five emails.
Guest:There's voicemails.
Guest:And he says, just go to Adam McKay's house before you leave town, before you go to LAX.
Guest:Just drop by his house.
Guest:They really want to see you.
Guest:And I said, I really don't know the material.
Guest:He said, don't worry about it.
Guest:Just go.
Guest:And so I go, and this woman named Francine Maisler was the casting director.
Guest:She'd put me in something before, so I guess she thought of me for this.
Guest:I said, Adam, I'm sorry, but I'm really, I don't know the material.
Guest:He says, you know the situation, you know the, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:He said, make it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whatever comes out of your mouth, just make it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did that, you know, except for one...
Guest:page that i had what was the situation what scene was it oh i can't remember now but it was just like like uh back and forth stuff between me and my father or me and my my siblings but your sense of the character was that this is the son that i knew i knew that he was the old he was the only child by the first marriage he was not really involved in the business and that's really all i knew and then they said this part will grow over time so i was like oh yeah
Guest:And then the only the thing I keyed into and actually in the sides that they gave me is I saw this thing that said, Dad, there's this job I really I really like.
Guest:It's called President of the United States.
Guest:And I thought, well, he's he's putting his old man on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Adam McKay said, oh, no, he's deadly serious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I knew, I like, oh, this guy is damaged.
Guest:This guy is delusional.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I had a key in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so then I, you know, we ran through a couple of things and he said, that's great, Alan.
Guest:Thanks a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, okay.
Guest:And then I fly back to Chicago and by the time I land, they said, they want you to do it.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:So, I mean, it fell out of the sky.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, it just fell into my lap.
Guest:And now it's a big thing.
Guest:It's a big thing.
Guest:Like every 10 years or so with me, somebody from the top shelf says, hey, Al, come up here.
Guest:Hang out with us for a little while, you know?
Marc:Just hang out.
Marc:Well, I mean, when I looked at the resume or the filmography, it is sort of interesting that if you think about it, if it wasn't for Spin City,
Marc:Right.
Marc:Do you think you would have stayed in it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, the thing was, I had a real low point, like 91, 92.
Guest:They were bad.
Guest:There was like, I mean, I became a bartender for a little while.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's after Bueller.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Because why?
Guest:Nothing was going on?
Guest:Nothing was happening.
Guest:Listen, I came out here in 1989.
Guest:I had gone from Chicago to New York.
Guest:I was doing okay in New York.
Marc:So you started in Chicago?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So how does it go?
Guest:Where are you from originally?
Guest:Cleveland, Ohio.
Guest:Oh, do you still have family there?
Guest:Well, I actually have my stepmom.
Guest:My dad's-
Guest:She was never really my stepmom, but my dad's wife.
Marc:But you're in touch with her?
Guest:You go back there?
Guest:She's in an assisted living place for what do they call it?
Guest:Memory care.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Is that what it's called?
Guest:Yeah, when people have Alzheimer's and so forth.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, they call it memory care.
Marc:It's a specific place?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, it's just it's like lockdown.
Guest:It's like going to San Quentin because of COVID.
Marc:Nobody in, nobody out.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So but Cleveland, when you were growing up, great city.
Guest:It was the reason.
Guest:I lived in this suburb called Parma, which was later voted one of the most bigoted cities in the United States.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when I was growing up, there was so much money being made in Cleveland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Steel mills, auto plants.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:So people paying all these taxes.
Guest:So the politicians were like, they felt compelled to give the money back to the people in some way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was education.
Guest:So we had a dynamite school system.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:We had everything.
Guest:We had every music program.
Guest:We had drama, full drama program.
Guest:We had every like vocational program.
Marc:Corporate responsibility at its height.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and then as soon as like.
Guest:Or no, I guess I graduated.
Guest:I graduated in 74, you know, and then as soon as high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so it's like hippie time.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then like as soon as the industry died out, you know, all the money went away and all the school systems just crumbled.
Guest:So you got in under the wire.
Guest:I did.
Marc:I like because I go back.
Marc:I've been there a few times and I know that there's this attempt to rejuvenate downtown.
Marc:I don't get much out of downtown.
Marc:But because I've done comedy at Nick's Hilarities right there.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And on what's that one street that's all redone?
Marc:Sixth Street?
Marc:Euclid?
Marc:No, it's all been re-kind of- Is that where like Theater Row is?
Marc:Close.
Marc:It's by the stadium.
Marc:But I do a lot of these cities that were once great cities and then they've just taken a beating.
Marc:And they try to rebuild and sometimes it takes and sometimes it doesn't.
Guest:Sometimes it doesn't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The thing when I was growing up, I had relatives in Columbus and Columbus was a cow town.
Guest:It was a state capital, but it was really like Hicksville.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then and Cleveland was, you know, big, bustling, industrious town.
Guest:A million people plus.
Marc:Closer Chicago, kind of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, all those that whole Rust Belt, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, all that.
Guest:And then, you know, they all just except for Chicago, just, you know, faded.
Guest:What was your old man's business?
Guest:He actually worked, when I was young, for the most part, he worked for a pharmaceutical job house.
Guest:So he was a skilled laborer.
Guest:He was like the cook mixing up big batches of drugs.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He wasn't a chemist, but they'd give him the recipe and he'd be like, right, 400 pounds of sugar and then this stuff.
Guest:So they made everything.
Guest:They made like kids vitamins.
Guest:Where's my mixer?
Guest:They made barbiturates.
Guest:They made everything.
Guest:And so I couldn't get away with shit when I was a kid because he knew every substance, what it did to you, what it did to your eyes.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I didn't start doing this until I went away to college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But anyway, he did that.
Guest:My mom was a school teacher.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:And you have a brother and a sister?
Guest:I had an older sister.
Guest:She passed a long time ago.
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Guest:A long time ago, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when does the acting start in high school?
Guest:My sister was doing plays before me, and I was watching her, and I just kind of thought I could do it, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just kind of put that in my hip pocket.
Guest:And then, you know, like for most people, junior high, middle school was hell.
Guest:And then by the time I got to high school, I wasn't an athlete.
Guest:We weren't fancy people.
Guest:We didn't have any money.
Guest:I wasn't one of the cool kids.
Guest:I was kind of musical, but I didn't really play an instrument.
Guest:I just sang in the choir.
Guest:I didn't have a thing that was me.
Guest:So were you just adrift?
Guest:Yeah, so they say.
Guest:Did you have some friends?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But really, once I found theater, I auditioned for a play because I was like, well, my sister did this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's tryouts.
Guest:I signed up for an acting class as soon as I got to high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was like, you know, I don't really want to take English.
Guest:And they had them.
Guest:They had them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did that.
Guest:And then I found out I could do it.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, this is it.
Guest:This is it right here.
Guest:You know, and I never really let go of it.
Guest:You know, and it never really occurred to me to do anything else.
Marc:Did you learn anything?
Marc:Like, were you just totally winging it?
Marc:Or you did take some classes that you were able to apply some kind of- We learned some stuff in high school.
Guest:Our drama coach is pretty good.
Guest:I mean, just like basic stage craft of like, you're going to have to learn to project your voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to have to learn like how to not upstage yourself.
Guest:You're going to have to learn how to play out.
Guest:I mean, just like basic mechanics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so I learned all that stuff.
Guest:And then I was actually probably a better actor earlier in college.
Guest:And then they started to teach me all this stuff.
Guest:And then you become really self-conscious.
Guest:You know, you're thinking about your voice and how you're moving.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you think you know how to break down a text.
Guest:You don't know.
Guest:You don't know anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I actually in Chicago.
Guest:But you had a natural sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'm yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:In Chicago, you what?
Guest:I took acting class with a really, really terrific teacher who taught inner technique, and that's where I started to get the bullshit out of my work.
Guest:You went to college?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I went to Chicago.
Guest:I went to college downstate in Champaign-Urbana, and then right after college, I went right to Chicago because I knew people doing plays there.
Guest:I didn't know anybody in L.A.
Guest:Did you do theater in college?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I mean, play after play after play after play.
Guest:So you were working hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that was the best thing is I was constantly on stage.
Guest:But still just with the mechanics of the high school.
Guest:Well, just, you know, I mean, just some bad habits and just like not rooting it down in me, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then I went to Chicago and this guy named, he's no longer with us, named Edward K. Martin was teaching acting classes at this...
Guest:Theater that my friend Bob Falls used to have.
Guest:He's now run the Goodman for like 30 years, but, geez, longer than that, 35 years.
Guest:But at the time, he had this small theater called the Wisdom Bridge Theater, and this guy Ed was teaching sort of in conjunction with that theater, and I took classes with him, and I started to...
Guest:I started to feel it.
Guest:I started to get into my zone.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How old were you then?
Marc:25, 26.
Marc:So like Chicago now, it's always been a good comedy improv scene.
Marc:Great theater time.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I know guys from there.
Marc:I'm friends with Letts.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And he's a Steppenwolf guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So, where did you work out there?
Guest:Mostly, I did a couple plays at the Wisdom Bridge.
Guest:I worked at this place called the Apollo, which was a small commercial house.
Guest:I don't know that it exists anymore.
Guest:I worked at the Goodman.
Guest:I worked at the Drury Lane Water Tower Theater.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I did a play-
Guest:I did a musical, one of the two musicals I've done called One Shining Moment, which was a musical.
Guest:Basically, it was like a bunch of high school kids putting on a tribute to JFK.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we were like pretending to be high school kids pretending to put on a play.
Guest:Oh, I get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's kind of like our gang.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it's a multi-leveled performance.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you work at Steppenwolf?
Marc:No, no, no.
Guest:Or wasn't it around?
Guest:No, I just worked around town, and then I knew those guys.
Guest:The angry guys at Steppenwolf?
Guest:They were pretty funny, you know?
Guest:Got an intensity to that place.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I don't know how it is now, really.
Guest:Who'd you know?
Guest:Well, I worked with Malkovich in a production of Streetcar, but I played... We didn't have any scenes together, but I played the paper boy, and he played Mitch.
Guest:And our warm-up was we would smoke cigarettes, and we would play...
Guest:vegas style solitaire like i would buy the deck from him for 52 cents yeah and then for every uh card that i got up he'd have to give me a nickel okay you know so yeah that was to warm up that was how we warmed up yeah and lots of cigarettes uh-huh and who else were your peers in that area i knew um i knew all the guys that remained so i knew billy peterson i knew gary cole i knew ted levine i knew amy morton
Guest:That was what theater?
Guest:Remains?
Guest:They called it Remains.
Guest:It was something that Bill Peterson started.
Marc:Bill Peterson from Manhunter and procedural shows.
Marc:I just watched Manhunter again.
Marc:He is good.
Marc:He is good, yeah.
Guest:And I did a TV pilot with Dennis Farina.
Guest:It might have been one of the first things he did was a pilot that Robert Conrad shot called Hard Knocks.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it didn't get picked up, but we had a really fun time that summer.
Guest:We went out to this little town on the Mississippi River called Mount Carroll, Illinois, and we shot at this defunct college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like a military academy.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Farino, like, was he a cop?
Guest:Oh, a serious cop.
Guest:He was like...
Guest:What do they call that?
Guest:Bunko?
Guest:I think that's that's like the the division that like busts flim flam con men and stuff like that that breaks down cons.
Guest:Yeah, that's what he was.
Guest:He was something.
Guest:But like Billy Peterson used to say, how come we never read your name in a paper when all these people are getting busted?
Guest:So we think that he was like kind of a sub Rosa kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Undercover trying to bust you guys.
Marc:i don't think he gave a shit about like what we were he's gonna bust us for smoking weed they're all flim flam men yeah well basically the whole thing's a con yeah it is um because i saw him i watched thief again recently the james con movie that might have been his first thing yeah he's got like a little piece in that one of the bad guys under a prosky was that robert prosky robert prosky he and and i think uh farina might have been an advisor on that oh yeah for michael mann
Guest:oh okay yeah well then later he cast he cast farina in this uh crime story or whatever it was it was a tv show in vegas oh okay yeah so when do you uh when's the break happen how's that how do you get out of chicago so i was doing plays and like little pieces in movies because chicago was a hot movie town oh right you know it was a location town it shoots well it's a beautiful city yeah
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I've grown to really love it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The weather sucks, but it's gorgeous to look at.
Marc:It's a real place.
Marc:And it has personality.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's what I mean.
Marc:As far as cities go, there's only a few in America that have its own- Like New Orleans, Chicago.
Guest:New York.
Marc:New York, for sure.
Marc:Like Los Angeles, not so much, but Chicago's dug in, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, Los Angeles has a thing, but it's not like Chicago where you got your neighborhoods.
Marc:Like Chicago, it's like the people grow out of the city there.
Guest:Right out of the ground.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know Chicago people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, what happened was people came through town about 1984, casting directors, Meg Simon and Fran Kuman from New York, came through town looking for young guys for Neil Simon's show, Biloxi Blues.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I remember that show.
Guest:So they came through and I auditioned.
Guest:Fisher Stevens?
Guest:He was in some iteration of it, yeah.
Guest:He was in the Neil Simon machine at that time.
Guest:I'm working with him now.
Guest:Oh, yeah, he's in it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Isn't that wild?
Guest:That's great.
Guest:It's like they say, if you live long enough, you work with everybody three times.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:I'm just hoping I don't run out of chances.
Marc:I'm trying to remember what I saw him in.
Marc:I think it was the other one.
Marc:What's the other one?
Guest:Brighton Beach Memoirs?
Guest:Yeah, that was it.
Guest:Yeah, he did a lot of that.
Guest:Anyway, so they came through town, and like a month or two later, they said, look, we'd like to have Alan come to New York for a callback for Neil Simon and for Manny Eisenberg and for Gene Sacks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, I'm not going to go to my Chicago agent.
Guest:She said, what are you talking about?
Guest:And I said, look, it's been like three times now I've flown myself to New York for auditions.
Guest:And every time they say, thanks a lot.
Guest:And I say, I'm out 300 bucks.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I know that feeling.
Marc:I used to do it from New York to LA.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, so I don't want to do that.
Guest:Why don't they fly me?
Guest:If they want to see me, why don't they fly me?
Guest:And so then she called up Manny Eisenberg and she said, look, this is how Alan feels about it.
Guest:And Manny said, look, tell him to fly himself in.
Guest:If he doesn't get the part,
Guest:I'll reimburse him for his flight.
Guest:And I was like, okay, all right.
Guest:And it was the only time I got offered a role on the spot because I auditioned for him once.
Guest:And then they said, come back after lunch.
Guest:Look at this other scene.
Guest:Come back again.
Guest:Came back again.
Guest:And I had to sing in that play.
Guest:I was so nervous.
Guest:I was like, do you mind if I sit down?
Guest:Because literally my knees were knocking.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, can I sit down?
Guest:They said, yeah, sure, sit down.
Guest:So I sing and then, you know, Gene Sacks comes up to the stage and he says, so just to tell you what, start singing every day.
Guest:You're going to get more comfortable with it.
Guest:Everything's going to be fine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, okay, okay, okay.
Guest:And I walk out to the wings and Meg Simon says, wait for me, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then she came out and she said, did you know he was offering you the part?
Guest:And I said, I thought he might have been, but I didn't want to make an ass out of myself if it wasn't true.
Guest:He might have just been telling me to keep up the singing.
Guest:Yeah, just sing, kid.
Guest:Life is short.
Guest:But my joke is, to this day, I don't know if they really wanted me or Manny didn't want to pay that $300.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:So that was Biloxi Blues?
Guest:That moved me to New York, and then it got me, you know.
Guest:Was that the first run of it?
Guest:Yeah, it was an original cast.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And then I got, you know, a bigger agent.
Guest:I was with William Morris for a while.
Guest:And then Bueller happened right after that because I had met John Hughes a couple of years earlier in Chicago.
Guest:He was going to do Breakfast Club is like an indie.
Guest:and i met and auditioned for him yeah and then during that process he met molly ringwald and then just like he'd found his muse right he wrote 16 candles over a weekend for her in chicago yeah he met her she was chicago no i think i think maybe she came into town she was either new york or la i'm not sure but i think it was like uh there's this there's
Guest:movie that this guy's doing in Chicago.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:These young kids, you know, so I think she showed up.
Guest:So you got, how was that audition?
Guest:What was that?
Guest:For, oh.
Guest:For Buer.
Guest:Yeah, well then, the casting directors, Jane Jenkins and Janet Hershenson,
Guest:didn't want to see me, because they said, look, we know how old he is.
Guest:We know.
Guest:These are high school kids.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was 28.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They said, we know how old he is.
Guest:And my agent at the time, Myrna Jacoby, said, look, he plays opposite Broderick every night.
Guest:They look like they're the same age.
Guest:Broderick's going to be playing a teenager.
Guest:In what?
Guest:In Biloxi?
Guest:In Biloxi.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said, oh, okay, all right, we'll see him.
Guest:So I went in, auditioned for them, and they were like, oh, no, that was good, that was good.
Guest:And so then they had me come to a callback where I was reading with Matthew for John.
Guest:And it was, you know, I mean, Matthew and I had spent
Guest:that was probably late June or early July.
Guest:So we'd been together for six months.
Guest:And so we shared a sense of humor.
Guest:We had some history together because so many times you show up like first day of work and it's like, this is your wife and you have to, or this is your best friend in the world and you have to like create instant relationship.
Guest:We didn't have to do that.
Guest:We just were, we were just us.
Guest:You were friends.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it went well and that was it.
Guest:And that's history.
Guest:But that wasn't your first movie.
Guest:No, I did a movie called Bad Boys with Sean Penn.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I've got to rewatch that.
Guest:Is that good?
Guest:I think it's pretty good.
Marc:That was his first movie?
Guest:And your first movie?
Guest:No, it was my first movie, but Sean had been in at least- Ridgemont High?
Guest:Yeah, he did Fast Times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, and Taps.
Guest:He did Taps.
Marc:Oh, yeah, Taps with Cruz and- Tim Hutton.
Marc:Tim Hutton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And George C. Scott.
Guest:Did you ever work with George C. Scott?
Guest:No, I never got to meet him.
Oh.
Guest:I met, um, during Biloxi though, I met Rod Steiger.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:You know, and he, uh, and Ginger Rogers came too.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And I was just like, I was dumbstruck, you know, she's like, hi, Ginger Rogers.
Guest:And I was like, hi, you're just stupid, you know, but, uh, Rod Steiger came up and, um,
Guest:He said, hi, Rod Steiger.
Guest:He was like, so he was very quiet.
Guest:He was a little bit sad.
Guest:He was like, hi, Rod Steiger.
Guest:And I said, hi, how are you?
Guest:And he said, and then he gave me the whole thing.
Guest:He's like, oh, I got a heart condition and I got a, you know.
Guest:He said, they're not letting me eat anything anymore.
Guest:And I said, really?
Guest:And he opened up this thing and it was like oatmeal.
Guest:And he had the saddest look on his face.
Guest:He was like, he showed me this.
Guest:He was like.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm so sorry.
Marc:He's like, yeah, me too.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, but I met him.
Guest:He was carrying around his oatmeal?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But my friend Richard Kind has this thing.
Guest:I talked to him.
Guest:Yeah, I love him.
Guest:He's an American original.
Guest:He will go up to anybody.
Guest:It doesn't matter how famous they are.
Guest:It doesn't matter how powerful they are.
Guest:And he'll stick out his hand and say, hi, rich kind.
Guest:Big fan.
Guest:My joke is like if Jesus came back, he'd say, Mr. Christ, I'm rich kind, big fan.
Guest:But I really admire that because a couple of times in my life, I've been around really cool people and I've just been like a dork and been shy and haven't introduced myself.
Guest:I had a chance to meet Tennessee Williams.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were in a bar, that production of Streetcar.
Marc:Oh, right, right.
Marc:That I played the paperboy in Chicago.
Marc:In Chicago, yeah.
Guest:And there was this bar underneath the theater called Frank's Place, A Way of Life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're all crowded around him, you know, and the wardrobe girl said to him, Mr. Williams, may I buy you a drink?
Guest:And he said, oh, no, darling, 13 is my limit.
Guest:You know, and it was like, I just should have said hi.
Guest:I just, you know.
Guest:Yeah, but you didn't.
Guest:No, I chickened out.
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:So I met Alan Rickman in London and I told him that story about Tennessee Williams.
Guest:And he said, well, I wouldn't put myself on the same shelf as Tennessee Williams.
Guest:I said, yeah, but I would.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So hello.
Marc:I talked to Ron Prohmann once.
Marc:I think one of his biggest regrets is not spending time with Marlon Brando.
Marc:Oh, come on.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I think it's plagued his whole life because he did the Island of Dr. Moreau with him, and Brando had made a joke about him because he had that horrible goat's head.
Marc:But he had sent some stuff over to the trailer, and Brando invited him over to hang out, and he didn't do it, and I think it just sticks with him.
Marc:Oh, yeah, he should have gone.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you should have talked to Tennessee Williams.
Guest:I should have.
Guest:And I missed my chance.
Guest:Years ago, Rob Lowe told me that he was like, there used to be like a market on La Brea, I think, called Mayfair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just like some, because he lived up on Mulholland.
Guest:He lived up there and he used to go to that little ice cream, Mashti Malone's.
Guest:He used to go to that ice cream place.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't know anyone goes there.
Guest:You know, Brando apparently was in there all the time, like eating triple scoops.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he was, Rob was in some, it was some grocery store.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe it was Ralph's.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But anyways, he's in a grocery store right there in Hollywood, West Hollywood.
Guest:And he comes around a corner and there's Marlon Brando reading a box of Rice-a-roni.
Guest:And this is like after he'd done Superman and it's like, I'm retired.
Guest:And Rob's like, he was like probably 17.
Guest:And he was like, hi, Mr. Brando.
Guest:I'm Rob Lowe.
Guest:I just want to introduce myself.
Guest:I'm an actor too.
Guest:And then he's like, uh-huh.
Guest:And he's like reading the ingredients on the rice-a-roni.
Guest:And then Rob says, so do you think you're ever going to act again?
Guest:He goes...
Guest:Probably not.
Guest:And that was it, you know?
Guest:I think that ice cream place is still there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it is.
Guest:Yeah, they have weird flavors like orange blossom and- Rose water.
Guest:Rose water.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, they do have that, yeah.
Marc:So with Bueller, I mean, that's one of those roles where, you know, you're that guy for life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And was that a problem for you?
No.
Guest:For a while, yeah, because, I mean, like, in those years where I couldn't seem to scare up any work, I was like, oh, well, you know, I guess that was my shot.
Marc:This was the 90s?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, that movie came out in 86, and then I kind of just, like, stumbled around New York, and I did, like...
Guest:Years ago, like a long time ago, it's like 1988, I did a pilot in Thailand about photojournalists in Vietnam, and I really wanted it to go, because in a way, it was kind of like, in a network, like NBC kind of way, it was kind of like succession.
Guest:It was dark.
Guest:It was a drama, but it was like really darkly funny.
Guest:I just things weren't going great, you know, and so the Bueller thing got to be a pain in my ass when people would bring it up during that period because I was like, well, that's it.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:So how did you respond to him?
Guest:And if people go Cameron, thank you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:That's me.
Guest:Listen, I came out here in 1989 and like instead of renting an apartment, I rented a little house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I was doing this pilot with Nell Carter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was old enough to know better, but I like listened to the, I bought the bullshit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like these guys at NBC were like, hey, but before we ever shot, before we rehearsed, before anything, they're like, hey pal, what's it feel like to have a steady job?
Guest:Hey, because she had a deal.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like a pay or play deal.
Yeah.
Guest:You didn't.
Guest:No.
Guest:And so we made this pilot and it just like, it stunk on ice.
Guest:It was just, it was just bad.
Guest:It was just bad.
Guest:So it didn't get picked up and I was broke.
Guest:I was flat ass broke.
Guest:And so I went to an employment agency because I was like, I'm not going to sit around the house.
Guest:I couldn't see it.
Guest:It was like pilot season was over.
Guest:It was like nothing was happening.
Guest:So I was like, I'll be, I'll be damned.
Guest:I'm going to make my car pay anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went to this place called Extra Help.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they found me a position at Sears Warehouse in East LA.
Guest:And it's like a series of like little like cars that come chugging down from the warehouse into the sorting room where you put things like in bins to go on certain trucks.
Guest:And like number three, that's Portland.
Guest:Number four, that's Seattle.
Guest:You know, and it'll have a tag on it.
Guest:And sometimes it'll be like a bud vase that will weigh like an ounce.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And sometimes it'll be a 12 foot long swing set in a box that'll weigh like 130 pounds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, I was skinnier then than I am now.
Guest:And I, you know, wore big glasses and, um,
Guest:All the black guys that worked there were Crips.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For real.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all the Hispanic dudes that worked there were Latin kings.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and like they would walk by me and say, King love.
Guest:And I didn't know what to do, so I would say, King love.
Guest:And they're like, no, no, Holmes, you can't say that.
Guest:You can't say that.
Guest:No, you're going to get hurt.
Guest:They were like trying to take care of me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all the black guys called me Superman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I had on these big glasses and they were like Superman.
Guest:Superman, take off that Clark Kent disguise and pick that shit up.
Guest:They had some fun with me.
Guest:I did that for three or four months.
Marc:That was the day job?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That was the period where you were- I was showing up.
Marc:Right, but did people recognize you from the movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just, I was like, if I, if they know, if they know that like I, I actually was working in movies and then I somehow let it slip.
Guest:I said, maybe they'll just kill me for being stupid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So like, uh, this one guy was talking to this other kid and he's like, you ever see that movie fair at Buford stay off?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was like, what?
Guest:He's like, so this motherfucker looks like the dude with the dad car.
Guest:you know and i was like oh no i just like trying to crawl you could smoke then i'm like sitting there smoking indoors and i was like trying to like make myself invisible the dad car yeah yeah but anyway um then then you know i did that i just got humble and i did that for like three months three and a half months or something and i got a call it's like do you want to go do uh a sitcom pilot and i was like yes yeah and uh and then i so i did that pilot and then i did uh
Guest:Young Guns 2, like right back to back, bam, bam.
Guest:I got two jobs, like bam, bam, back to back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I kind of rose up again for a little while, and then nothing happened for like 18 months.
Guest:Really?
Guest:After that, did you go back to Sears?
Marc:No, that's when I became a bartender.
Marc:So you're a bartender after Young Guns 2?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Bloodhounds of Broadway?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:This is well after Bloodhounds of Broadway.
Guest:I did a sitcom called...
Guest:going places yeah which was it was a nice job because the guys that i worked for which they couldn't have been nicer guys but um it was not a good show and uh uh you know it was it was bad and uh the critics just had a field day it was just like lobbing them like big soggy meatballs that they could just smack out of the park because like going places going nowhere fast
Guest:You know, I mean, just, we were brutalized.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we did 19 episodes of that.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So that's, why'd you have to bartend?
Marc:Because then I couldn't get any work.
Marc:Were you married with kids yet?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I had- Oh, my God.
Marc:So you're working at the Sears warehouse and you got two kids?
Guest:No, at that point, it was just my girl, my eldest girl.
Guest:Oh, one.
Guest:Okay.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, the shame.
Marc:Did you feel it?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:You know, and then the thing with the I don't I don't I don't drink.
Guest:I don't do dope anymore.
Guest:I don't smoke cigarettes.
Guest:I don't do anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But back then I was still pounding liquor.
Guest:And I decided I was going to become a bartender.
Guest:But I got a job.
Guest:I got a job at the Red Onion down in the marina.
Guest:You know, and but the truth was like I was drinking up all my tip money.
Marc:You know, I was just like you park it at the bar after work.
Marc:Pretty much.
Marc:Yeah, I know that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so then I just stopped.
Guest:I just stopped doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Somebody said, I think this is a real bad idea for you.
Guest:And it's actually my manager at the time.
Guest:She's like, I think there's got to be a reason that you're not working.
Guest:And I think this might be it.
Guest:So I said, OK, I'll try it.
Guest:I stopped and then I started working.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's when speed happened?
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly when speed happened.
Marc:Well, because I remember seeing you in speed, I'm like, holy shit, what's that guy been doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's been sitting at the bar at the Red Onion, pounding tequila.
Marc:After his shift as a bartender.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah wow yeah yeah and you were great in speed i remember really liking that character yeah did you like it yeah it was fun when i went in for the audition he was supposed to be um a lawyer originally he was supposed to be like this butthole lawyer man whose bmw broke down on him and he had to get to a meeting so he had to take the bus yeah and uh that's a whole backstory an abusive asshole yeah
Guest:And then I just showed up and I guess Jan de Bont didn't buy me as that.
Guest:And so they decided to swap it around and have me be like this yokel, you know, from Chicago, just like this guy, you know, a tourist.
Marc:So that started the ball rolling again.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Things got good.
Marc:And then Spin City shortly after or what?
Marc:No, about a year later.
Marc:About a year later, and you did a few more movies?
Marc:I did Speed, and then I did a Star Trek movie.
Marc:Kit's like a Star Trek fan.
Marc:She's like, oh yeah, Star Trek Generations.
Marc:Yeah, I did Generations.
Guest:I did Generations in there.
Marc:Do you like being part of that mythology?
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:I mean, you know, those conventions, they're very, what's the word, egalitarian?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's like there's people that are like really wealthy professionals who dress up like whomever their favorite character is.
Guest:And there's people that are basically, they're almost like street people.
Guest:They don't have, you know, a pot to piss in.
Marc:It's like Comic-Con is your term?
Guest:Any of those.
Guest:They're all over the place.
Guest:I mean, there's basically something.
Guest:When you go?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have gone.
Guest:Yeah, I have gone to some of them.
Guest:And what do you do there?
Guest:You just hang out and you are a whore and you sell pictures of yourself for money.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:And you can just do it on your own or you do it with a sponsor?
Guest:No, there's a guy I met years ago, a guy named Bob Catalano.
Guest:He's a rep for these things?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He takes a cut, he gets you to your booth?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you know, he takes his honorarium and then, you know, he sorts through the pictures and, you know, him or his wife, Linda, or someone, one of their friends, slides the shit over to me.
Marc:So they just find, like, you know, anybody within the universe.
Marc:It's sort of like, you want to just show up at this thing, you sign some pictures, well, here's the split.
Guest:I first met him, do you know who Ethan Phillips is?
Guest:He played Neelix in, what was the one with Kate Mulgrew?
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:Well, it was the Star Trek with Kate Mulgroom, I'm pretty sure.
Guest:And he played Neelix.
Guest:He played an alien dude.
Guest:He was like real popular character.
Guest:He had shit coming out of his forehead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's a wonderful guy.
Guest:I've known him for years.
Guest:He was in Bloodhounds and Broadway.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I've known him for years.
Guest:And so we were doing this thing called Ennsville, a little, like 1999, we were doing an indie, upstate New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, my friend Bob is coming and he's wondering if you'd sign a few pictures.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, yeah, sure.
Guest:He's a friend of yours?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so then, so they put out this stuff, like a couple of posters and some pictures.
Guest:And I signed it for him.
Guest:And Bob says, what do you want for that?
Guest:I said, nothing.
Guest:I mean, Ethan's real name is John Ethan Phillips.
Guest:So everybody calls him Johnny, but his professional name is Ethan.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I said, you're Johnny's friend.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And they're like, wow, thanks, wow, thanks.
Guest:And then it was the weekend before 9-11 and I'm out here working on Spin City because it moved from New York to LA, excuse me, when Michael left and Charlie Sheen took over and moved out here.
Guest:And I'm out here and Johnny Phillips calls and he says, what are you doing this weekend?
Guest:You want to come to Vegas?
Guest:You want to do this Star Trek convention?
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, all right.
Guest:And so...
Guest:I went and I made cash, you know, and I came home and I made it out just in time because some people stayed till Monday, but I flew home Sunday night.
Guest:And then people were stuck in Vegas because there were no flights anywhere.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But I made it back.
Marc:But that became a thing you could do.
Marc:Yeah, I did it for a while, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I might do it again.
Marc:Yeah, why not?
Yeah.
Marc:So Spin City, that must be just the fucking winning ticket to get on a show that never ends.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:You were working with both of them, with Charlie and with Michael.
Marc:With Michael.
Marc:It's like good and evil.
Guest:I love Charlie.
Guest:I love Charlie.
Guest:The thing about him is we all have demons, but he wrestles his demons in the town square for everybody to see.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:I don't mean he's evil.
Marc:It's like Michael's such a mensch in a lot of ways.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So anyway, it was all good.
Guest:Charlie was in a real good space then.
Guest:He was a lot of fun to hang around with.
Guest:My best thing about that show was I made friends for life.
Guest:I made friends for life on that deal.
Guest:Well, Michael Boatman and I had actually done a show together
Guest:before that called muscle yeah and it was on the old wb and we were dead last in the ratings every single week you know so it only went 13 episodes right but uh boltman and i became pals they paired us up on that show and then when uh i auditioned for spin city i went to new york
Guest:and i didn't i didn't think i looked that much like this guy but anyway i'm flying to new york to audition for michael j fox and people are snapping my photo yeah at lax yeah i'm like what's going on i don't get paparazzi what the hell is it and uh like i got big glasses on and like my toque you know my winter hat on and and um
Guest:This guy's like, I can't wait for the movie to come out, man.
Guest:And I'm like, and the only thing I had in the can was Twister.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, it's mostly CGI, you know?
Guest:It's like flying cows and whatever.
Guest:He's like, well, how about one without the glasses?
Guest:And I take my glasses off.
Guest:He takes my picture and he looks at me funny, you know?
Guest:So then I'm in New York and I'm still smoking then.
Guest:So I'm down in the street smoking a cigarette because I'm a little nervous to meet Michael J. Fox.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this guy comes up and he says, God damn it, I saw you in the movie.
Guest:You were great.
Guest:And I'm like, what movie did you see?
Guest:He said, the movie, the movie with Richard Gere.
Guest:And I said, I've never been in a movie with Richard Gere.
Guest:And he goes, but you're an actor, right?
Guest:I said, yeah.
Guest:Well, he thought I was Edward Norton.
Guest:They thought I was Edward Norton.
Guest:Oh, yeah, right.
Guest:And-
Guest:So anyway, so I meet Michael J. Fox and then, you know.
Guest:I can see that.
Guest:After, maybe more when I was younger.
Guest:And anyway, so then after I get the part, I call home and my manager says, they want you to do it.
Guest:And she said, and I can tell you now that Boatman's already been cast.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we got teamed up again.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So it must be at least a pleasure to go to work for so long.
Guest:I mean, you know, we all had see Michael handpicked his playmates.
Guest:So we all had the same twisted sense of humor.
Guest:So it's just like he's a great guy.
Guest:He's a great guy.
Marc:So am I making it up in my head or did you almost die?
Guest:Yeah, it was actually that same year of 9-11.
Guest:I was out in Los Angeles.
Guest:I was here in Los Angeles.
Guest:I was still living in New York and I was commuting back and forth.
Guest:I'd like work for three weeks, go home for a week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Work for three weeks, go home.
Guest:And I was out here and they still don't know how it happened, but I got blood poisoning.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:I got a streptococcal type G infection in my blood.
Guest:And all I knew is that we were filming the last show before Christmas.
Guest:And I felt like...
Guest:I was gonna die.
Guest:I just had the worst headache of my life.
Guest:My whole body hurt.
Guest:I didn't know what was going on.
Guest:I fly the next morning with Bostwick to New York, cause he was living in New York.
Guest:And he's like my nurse mate on the plane.
Guest:He's like trying to keep me warm and he's trying to get- You got fever?
Guest:I had fever, had chills.
Guest:I was a mess.
Guest:And my house was being renovated at the time.
Guest:We were staying in an apartment building.
Guest:And my driver didn't speak English.
Guest:He was a Russian dude.
Guest:He didn't speak English.
Guest:And I became delirious.
Guest:And he dropped me off one building away from my building.
Guest:And I just felt like hell.
Guest:So I just laid down in the lobby.
Guest:And people were walking over me just like...
Guest:You know, almost guy drunk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some I mean, I think it's just like, you know, an angel or something.
Guest:Something woke me up a little bit and said, get outside, get outside.
Guest:So I stumbled outside and I saw my building, made it into my building.
Guest:And my ex-wife, she thought I like went off on a toot.
Guest:She thought that like maybe I fell off the wagon and was loaded.
Guest:And I just collapsed and she called 911.
Guest:The next thing I know, I hear, that was like three days before Christmas.
Guest:The next thing I know, people are going, five, four, three, two, one, happy new year.
Guest:I was out for like nine days.
Guest:I had lost 35 pounds.
Guest:My kidneys had stopped working.
Guest:And I got this ferocious infection in my bloodstream.
Guest:And my poor ex-wife, they were asking questions like...
Guest:does uh does alan have sex with barnyard animals and she's like she's like you know no no he you know al's a little strange sometimes but no and they're like does he keep birds does he hunt does he hunt yeah all these things and they to this day they don't know how i got it but anyway i got this horrible infection in my bloodstream shut down my kidneys and
Guest:Like shot like little pieces of crap up into my brain.
Guest:My liver for like a minute was like, is the liver going to go?
Guest:Because then it would have been curtains.
Guest:So for two days, they were like, he's not going to make it.
Guest:And then after two days, I was like hanging in there and they're like,
Guest:Okay, it looks like he's going to pull through, but he's not going to be right upstairs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I started to, you know, regain some clarity and I wasn't any dumber than I was before I got sick.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And they're like, oh, well, okay, he seems to have his faculties, his wits about him, but he's going to be on dialysis for the rest of his life.
Guest:And then all of a sudden my kidneys started to get better.
Guest:So I'm lucky.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:This is funny though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went from 170 pounds to 135 pounds.
Guest:You know, it's like somebody let all the air out of my ass.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's not a good look.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody's saying, it comes back.
Guest:It's like last thing to go, first thing to come back.
Guest:You'll be all right.
Guest:But they put me on steroids to help my kidneys get healthier.
Guest:And I went from 135 pounds to just over 200 pounds in about six weeks.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And I had like the big fat Jerry Lewis face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got fat like an Irishman does.
Guest:I had skinny arms, skinny legs, big Ed McMahon belly.
Guest:I had to buy special pants.
Guest:It was embarrassing.
Guest:And you just did it because it was helping.
Guest:That was for my kidneys, but it was just like I would stand in front of the refrigerator and shovel like whole...
Guest:bunches of grapes into my mouth.
Guest:I would sit down and eat a whole pizza.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The steroids, the prednisone, man, it just makes you eat.
Guest:I couldn't stop.
Guest:Oh, that must have been fun.
Guest:Well, that was good, but then, you know, boy, it didn't look too good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't have a lot of bone structure.
Guest:I don't have a big frame to hang a lot of meat on, you know?
Guest:Yeah, so if I watched...
Guest:that season of spin city are you huge no i i got fat after that season i did an episode of scrubs scrubs for billy lawrence because he had done spin city and then he did scrub yeah where i have the big giant face and then i did an episode of um queen supreme which was an oliver platt annabella shiora show might have gone a couple seasons i don't know i'm sure he's fine
Marc:He's a big, powerful presence, that guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It's funny.
Guest:I worked with him on this thing about 15 years ago called The Bronx is Burning.
Guest:And he played Steinbrenner.
Marc:It's amazing that you're one of these actors.
Marc:Even though between Spin City and wherever you're at now, you kept working.
Yeah.
Guest:I've I've been really fortunate, you know, even even I mean, not everything I've done has been like succession.
Guest:I mean, really, truly, I've been waiting for a show like this for 30 years.
Guest:I really have something that's like really smart that everybody just raves about that.
Guest:I love the material.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's not it's not just that it's popular.
Guest:It's that it's excellent.
Guest:You know, for sure, man.
Guest:And it's like the writing is like the best writers I've ever worked with.
Guest:Tremendous.
Guest:How many are there?
Guest:Oh my God, I don't know.
Guest:I mean, okay, Jesse Armstrong, Tony Roach, Georgia Pritchard.
Marc:British guys?
Guest:Mostly, mostly Brits.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's got to be, there's got to be like, there's got to be like eight, there's got to be like eight writers.
Guest:And then there's people, there's other people that have the, what are the designations?
Guest:There's like,
Guest:executive producer, there's like associate producer, script supervisor, there's the different levels, you know, so I think there's guys underneath these guys that are, you know, making their bones.
Marc:Like, I mean, I imagine that like with, you know, I've done some TV work and I imagine with like just every new script, you're like, oh, wow.
Marc:It's just phenomenal.
Guest:How's this season?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:We're just as nasty and self-involved as we've ever been.
Guest:So I think if that's what the audience is looking for, they will not be disappointed.
Marc:But the arc is good?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's just the great thing about these guys.
Guest:I mean, I know I don't follow it, but I hear that there's this whole subculture of people like, I think this is what's going to happen.
Marc:People trying to guess.
Marc:Well, that turn at the end was pretty great.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:No one saw that coming.
Marc:No.
Guest:And that's the thing about these writers.
Guest:You're not going to pin them down.
Marc:Crack it.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:It just seems like the cast is so top-notch.
Marc:I've talked to Sarah.
Marc:I've talked to Kieran.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've talked to Brian.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I talked to all those guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love them.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fucking monster actors, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody brings their A game, which is another reason, like, you show up to work and people are just, like, bringing it.
Guest:So, I mean, even if you even thought about phoning it in, even if you're just like, I'm just not, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't because there's these people that are just going, they're putting it in fourth gear and going, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you better hang on.
Marc:Well, Cox is just great.
Marc:They're all really great.
Marc:And then Jeremy seems like he's really in the work.
Guest:Everybody's got a different way of working, and he's got a very specific way of working that he attempts to keep himself in his zone.
Guest:So if that means isolating himself and not mingling with the rest of the cast, he does it.
Guest:If that means doing tons of research,
Guest:then he does it.
Guest:He's like an old-school method guy.
Guest:Kind of like that, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, my wife is a really brilliant... She's funny as hell.
Guest:She's actually a banana, but she's a brilliant, dramatic actor, and she's been asked to go to some really dark places, right?
Guest:But, like, she did this thing, The Killing.
Guest:There was a real dark season of The Killing, and, like, between takes, she and Joel Kinnaman, you know, it was like they're like...
Guest:you know because they got themselves it's like don't stay in hell too long yeah right you know get out of it right you know so everybody's different and everybody how are you with that stuff it depends what i need to do if like if i have some big like emotional breakdown scene or something like that then i've got to go figure some stuff out i'll probably be by myself
Guest:But I mean, with some of this stuff, I mean, I swear, I'd just be in the parking lot with the Teamsters trading jokes.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:It's just what you need to- Yeah, yeah, I get it.
Marc:But to make choices for this guy, the relationship between you and the prostitute- Yeah, not my girlfriend.
Marc:She doesn't do that anymore.
Guest:I'm the only guy, dude.
Marc:And you might be, but it doesn't mean you're not a John.
Marc:Well, you know what?
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:I'm not.
Marc:No spoilers.
Marc:No spoilers.
Marc:But I mean, when you like when do you have to make certain decisions around how this character like I guess I'm just asking you like your original impulse when you realize he's a bit delusional, which would would play into that relationship.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But on some level, you know, this guy kind of believes it, right?
Marc:Well, you know, I think it's just one of those things.
Guest:It's like, you're great.
Guest:You're great.
Guest:You need money.
Guest:I need a girlfriend.
Guest:I have a lot of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why don't we do this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:This is great.
Guest:You know?
Guest:I mean, it's just... Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's on a little bit of a different wavelength, you know?
Guest:And it's not that he doesn't get his feelings hurt, but, you know, I mean...
Guest:And at some point, probably early on, probably when he was like in his early, well, probably when he was 18 and he tried to go to business school and was just like, this is bullshit.
Guest:I can't do this.
Guest:But he always knew he was going to be rich for the rest of his life.
Guest:Well, it's like, I don't need to work.
Guest:So he just has spent his life.
Guest:He's spent all these years.
Guest:collecting things traveling reading he's not a dummy yeah you know he i'm sure that he reads more than roman does right you know but he reads like stuff that was written 150 years ago sure you know sure he reads you know yeah he reads google right you know yeah yeah yeah uh
Guest:He might read Faulkner.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think at this point in his life, I mean, I think one of the reasons he wants to be president is that's the one thing that would make his father sit down and say, wow, that's impressive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I would get my old man's attention.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also the other thing about Connor is I think this life of leisure is starting to bite him in the ass because there is no group of people that need him.
Guest:He's not needed anywhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:There's nobody that's like, when Connor gets here, we can start.
Guest:He doesn't have that.
Marc:Right.
Guest:His family kind of treats him like the... Well, like the dingbat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So... The guy who got out of the game.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, you know, I mean, up until...
Guest:Well, I mean, all through the first season and I think into the second season, I mean, there would be some decision to be made by us kids.
Guest:And I'd say whatever you guys, whatever you think.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I'm excited, man.
Marc:I'm excited about it.
Marc:So now that's been in the can for how long?
Marc:We finished the middle of July.
Marc:Oh, so not that long.
Marc:And now you're just kind of hanging out?
Guest:Or what are you doing?
Guest:I did a little job here in town because I was sleeping in my own bed.
Guest:A thing for Hulu called The Dropout about Elizabeth Holmes.
Guest:So I played...
Guest:Played this guy who was the in-house doctor for Walgreens, the consulting physician for Walgreens, and was convinced that she was just going to like take them into like mountains, endless mountains of money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so he bought her con, hook, line, and seeker.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He went for it.
Marc:Oh, that must have been a good role for you.
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:I'm just, you know, a fool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, maybe you're noticing a pattern here with the way that people are casting me.
Marc:Well, you went from like, you know, sort of tightly wound, you know, self-involved.
Marc:To just stupid.
Guest:As soon as you take all the rapping away, then you're just left with dumb.
Guest:Good talking to you, man.
Guest:Good talking to you.
Marc:Thanks for coming.
Marc:My pleasure.
Marc:So that's it.
Marc:That is it.
Marc:Alan Ruck, folks.
Marc:Succession season three starts Sunday, October 17th on HBO.
Marc:You can get caught up there on seasons one and two on HBO Max.
Marc:Also, I think there might be a few tickets for Largo on Tuesday, the 19th.
Marc:Mark Maron plays music with his friends and has some comics come over.
Marc:It's going to be me and the band.
Marc:Vivino and Brower and Schwarzel.
Marc:And Maggie Mae is going to do comedy as is Bobby Lee.
Marc:Bobby Lee at Largo, you guys.
Marc:He's nervous.
Marc:He's nervous.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's play it out.
.
.
guitar solo
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.
Guest:Music
Bye.