Episode 1359 - Andrew Garfield
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:WTF, welcome to it.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:Look, I just got back.
Marc:I'm punchy.
Marc:I flew in today, which would be yesterday if you're listening to this on the day it came out.
Marc:Flew in from Cedar Rapids, got up at 430 to drive the car from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids to drop it off.
Marc:I'm not even sure if it's been tallied.
Marc:I don't know if my car has been accounted for.
Marc:It's a sort of a long story about budget rental car and it's nothing negative about budget.
Marc:OK, it's just odd that the most chaotic experience I had renting a car happened at Lincoln, Nebraska Airport.
Marc:Lincoln, I don't even know if you call it international airport.
Marc:The most chaotic sort of mild drama situation unfolded around a rental car in Lincoln, more so than any other situation that I've had in my adult life.
Marc:Look.
Marc:Today is Andrew Garfield.
Marc:He's on the show today.
Marc:You might know him from many things.
Marc:The social network, Tick, Tick, Boom, The Eyes of Tammy Faye.
Marc:He's one of the Spider-Men.
Marc:He was on Broadway in Angels in America and Death of a Salesman.
Marc:And he's Emmy nominated for his performance in the miniseries Under the Banner of Heaven.
Marc:That is some heavy Mormon drama, folks.
Marc:Some murderous Mormon shit.
Marc:And he's great in it.
Marc:He'll be here.
Marc:I'll be talking to him.
Marc:He's a very nice guy.
Marc:Thoughtful guy.
Marc:We got into it.
Marc:Seems grief has been coming up a lot.
Marc:But it unfolded into quite a beautiful conversation.
Marc:So Lincoln, Nebraska.
Marc:Look, I was with Lara Bites...
Marc:We did three shows.
Marc:We had a show in Lincoln.
Marc:We did a show in Des Moines.
Marc:We did a show in Iowa City.
Marc:Flew into Lincoln.
Marc:Now here's the deal.
Marc:It's a little tricky now to rent a car from a car rental agency that you're not going to return to them.
Marc:They get a little weird about it, I think.
Marc:I couldn't even get one from Hertz.
Marc:So I had to reserve one in budget.
Marc:Because I needed to rent it in Lincoln, drop it off in Cedar Rapids.
Marc:But they're so low on inventory that get, I think, a little cranky about it.
Marc:They don't want you to take the cars.
Marc:And when you do get a car that you can take, it's usually not the car you want.
Marc:The last time I did this, I was in an F-150.
Marc:Is that what it's called?
Marc:A giant pickup?
Marc:Because it wasn't theirs.
Marc:And they're like, go ahead, reenter this into the ecosystem of rental cars.
Marc:Me wandering rental cars.
Marc:Maybe it'll find its way home.
Marc:It's always a plate that's nowhere near the place where you rented it.
Marc:So I made a reservation of budget.
Marc:We landed at 8.30 p.m.
Marc:at Lincoln Airport in Nebraska.
Marc:Budget closed at 6.
Marc:So I had to come back the next day to pick up the car.
Marc:Now, you could actually, you could miss Lincoln Airport.
Marc:You could drive right past it.
Marc:And I'm talking about on the plane.
Marc:Like we landed.
Marc:I'm like, is this it?
Marc:Are we in it?
Marc:So we got a car from the airport and this airport, one building really, and there's a parking structure across from it.
Marc:I swear to God, you could probably park your car overnight in front of the building if you needed to.
Marc:I'm not being condescending.
Marc:It wasn't like time travel.
Marc:It's not old-timey.
Marc:It's just an airport that services Lincoln, and it's quaint.
Marc:It's cute.
Marc:It's small.
Marc:I'm not being judgmental.
Marc:It was an odd experience to realize that this was the airport.
Marc:So the next day, we got in.
Marc:We ate some food.
Marc:Next day, I get up.
Marc:I get an Uber with Lara.
Marc:Lara with Lara and go back to the airport.
Marc:So we go to the budget counter.
Marc:There's a woman there, Bonnie, and she's giving us a lowdown.
Marc:I'm so we got a reservation.
Marc:She says, yep.
Marc:Marin, yep.
Marc:And she's like, I'm going to give you a Kia SUV.
Marc:And I'm like, is that all you got?
Marc:It's like, it's all I got that you can take to Iowa.
Marc:And I'm like, OK, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:I'll take what I can, man.
Marc:I understand you got low inventory.
Marc:You sold off a lot of cars during the pandemic to stay solvent.
Marc:And now it's hard to buy them because of supply chain issues.
Marc:And she's like, that's right.
Marc:And I'm like, well, let's do it then.
Marc:She goes, all right, I'm going to do your paperwork and I'm going to give you the key and you're going to listen to me how you get to where the car is.
Marc:I'm like, how?
Marc:In my mind, I'm like, how far could it be?
Marc:The garage is across the street.
Marc:I'm literally walking across the street.
Marc:But she made an odd point.
Marc:She says, look, here's the paperwork.
Marc:When you get this to Cedar Rapids, you're going to have to tell them to call me when they get the car in order to process the paperwork.
Marc:If they don't call me, the paperwork won't be processed.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't even understand what you're saying, but fine.
Marc:She goes, here's what you do.
Marc:Here's your key.
Marc:You walk across the street.
Marc:You go all the way down the sidewalk till you see the sign for rental returns.
Marc:And then you go left there.
Marc:You go over a little driveway and you go, you're going to go left at that sign and the car's right there.
Marc:So I'm like, fine.
Marc:I take the key, me and Lara walk across the street.
Marc:We're walking.
Marc:I don't see any sign for rentals.
Marc:I do see a parking structure.
Marc:I look into the bottom level of that parking structure and there's cars there.
Marc:There's rental cars there.
Marc:I see Avis signs.
Marc:on this on the spot so i'm like she must mean this so we walk in we walk around on the lower level of the parking structure there were budget cars there i've got my key fob i'm pushing it looking for the kia in front of me to light up it's not but the camry next to it is the nice new white camry is i'm like fuck it let's take this and lara says no because then you'd be stealing a car and i'm like fuck
Marc:All right.
Marc:So we go back into Bonnie, who I believe is actually managing all of the budgets in Nebraska from from that counter.
Marc:Now, she had just run down and missed us somehow to tell us that we had the wrong key.
Marc:But obviously we came back and she was sort of out of breath.
Marc:She goes, I just tried to find you.
Marc:I'm like, we were just over there at the car.
Marc:She goes, I was just at the car.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know how that happened.
Marc:But this is a key to a Camry.
Marc:Can I have that?
Marc:She goes, no, that's for a guy that's going to rent it and keep it in town.
Marc:She didn't say it in that tone.
Marc:She was perfectly helpful.
Marc:And I'm like, oh, OK, can I have the key to our car?
Marc:And she gives me the key to the Kia.
Marc:So I go back with Lara to the garage where the Kia was.
Marc:And it's not lighting up.
Marc:And now I'm going back to Bonnie.
Marc:I'm like, this key isn't working.
Marc:It's not lighting up.
Marc:And she goes, what?
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, I don't get it.
Marc:And now she's got to go into a canister of keys.
Marc:And it's getting a little aggravating.
Marc:She's like, I don't know what's happening.
Marc:Here, take this Datsun Rogue.
Marc:It's a gray Datsun Rogue.
Marc:I take the key for the Datsun Nissan.
Marc:What did I just, holy shit, did I just go back to 1979 when I had a Datsun B210?
Marc:Did I just go back there?
Marc:Was I wearing puka shells?
Marc:Did I have feathered hair?
Marc:Did I have family shoes on?
Marc:How about Britannia pants?
Marc:Hey, so back here and now we go out to the Nissan Rogue in the same place in the parking structure.
Marc:And I pointed at the Rogue, which isn't the color she said it would be.
Marc:Nothing lights up.
Marc:So now I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me.
Marc:I walked back into Bonnie.
Marc:This is the third trip in with a third set of keys.
Marc:And I go, nothing.
Marc:I don't know what's going on.
Marc:She goes, where are you looking?
Marc:I said, we're in the garage where the budget cars are.
Marc:She goes, no, that's not where I told you to go.
Marc:You got to walk all the way down to where the sign is.
Marc:It's outside.
Marc:It's a parking lot.
Marc:It's like a half a mile down.
Marc:I'm like, how would I know that?
Marc:I just saw, okay, my mistake, at least initially, though you did give me the wrong keys once.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:So now we got the keys to the Rogue still.
Marc:And we walk all the way down there and we get in the Rogue.
Marc:Okay, now the Rogue, when was the last time you saw one of those hanging pine tree air fresheners?
Marc:Long time, right?
Marc:Something's got to smell pretty bad for anyone to even consider putting one of those in a car.
Marc:It was in the car.
Marc:like a black ice one or whatever so there was the smell of that and then an underlying smell that was unidentifiable you just hope no one was hurt in the car and was in there too long i don't know what the smell was but we were like fuck this let's get out of here so we pull out and we're driving the rogue and we have a card to get us out and uh and the oil light comes on and we're like fuck it i'm not going back to bonnie we're going to take this car and
Marc:And Laura's like, we got to check the oil.
Marc:I'm like, that's fine.
Marc:She's like, I don't want to throw a rod.
Marc:I'm like, look at you, fancy talk.
Marc:I know what throwing a rod is.
Marc:I've been driving since I was 14.
Marc:We'll check the oil when we get to the hotel.
Marc:We check the oil.
Marc:It's a lot of oil in it.
Marc:And it's filthy oil.
Marc:And I'm like, I don't know what we should do.
Marc:And she's like, well, I think you can make it to Des Moines and probably Cedar Rapids.
Marc:I say, you're probably right.
Marc:And then we go eat breakfast and then we're back in the car and the stink is bad.
Marc:So now like I'm kind of thinking we could take this back because of the oil light and not have a car that stinks like this.
Marc:I would going back with just a stinky car.
Marc:I don't know if we're going to get what we want.
Marc:And she's like, you mean you want to go back to the airport?
Marc:I'm like, what else are we going to do?
Marc:We're in Lincoln.
Marc:It's not like, you know, we have a full day planned.
Marc:This is life happening.
Marc:Let's go back there.
Marc:I was nervous.
Marc:I was nervous because Bonnie was, you know, I think she'd had enough, though I do believe it was probably a pretty exciting day all around.
Marc:So we drive back to the airport.
Marc:We walk in and she was like, oh, my God.
Marc:And I'm like, yep.
Marc:She's like, what's happening?
Marc:And I forgot to tell you, we had almost the third set of keys.
Marc:When we went back, she had started a cigarette break.
Marc:So I just want to up the ante emotionally a little bit.
Marc:We interrupted a cigarette break earlier that day.
Marc:She was totally in break mode, was about to light it.
Marc:And we were like, we're having problems.
Marc:So that in and of itself would be enough, I would imagine, to annoy her.
Marc:But we walk back in, and she's like, okay, what's happening?
Marc:Not mad at all.
Marc:She wasn't un-mad, but she was like, what is happening?
Marc:And I'm like, well, the oil light's on this car.
Marc:So we had parked the car right in front of the terminal, and we went into the counter.
Marc:No one's going to mind.
Marc:And she went on the computer.
Marc:She goes, yep, it needs an oil change.
Marc:And I'm like, okay, so what do you want us to do?
Marc:She goes, it would probably make it.
Marc:And I'm like, I get that.
Marc:But she's like, no.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Why don't you just give us the Kia that we were supposed to get to begin with that we never got to?
Marc:She's like, all right.
Marc:She writes up some new paperwork.
Marc:And I'm like, I'll just drive the Rogue over there to the lot and pick up the Kia, which is the only other car that she goes, I can't let you drive it.
Marc:You're not covered.
Marc:And I'm like, so what are we going to do?
Marc:She goes, I'll get my driver.
Marc:And we walk outside.
Marc:There's an old man sitting on the bench.
Marc:She goes, Rick, get up.
Marc:And he gets up.
Marc:He drives these two over to the lot so they can get in the car.
Marc:So we get in the car with this old guy.
Marc:He drives us over the lot.
Marc:And now I have forgotten the thing that's going to get us out of the gate.
Marc:And I'm like, I can't deal.
Marc:I can't go back.
Marc:I can't go back anymore.
Marc:And Rick's like, I'll let you out.
Marc:I'll just let you out.
Marc:So now we're in the Kia, which doesn't smell great either, to be honest with you.
Marc:But we get off of the lot.
Marc:And we've got a car.
Marc:And I just want to thank Bonnie for keeping her patience.
Marc:I imagine I'd like to think she's probably still talking about it because I asked her, you know, when we went back the fourth time, how many flights come in to Lincoln Airport?
Marc:And she goes eight.
Marc:And I'm like a day.
Marc:She's like eight a day.
Marc:And I'm like, OK, well, this was this is a big work day then.
Marc:And I'm not being condescending.
Marc:She was very helpful and I liked her.
Marc:There's a lot of keys.
Marc:She's carrying around a lot of keys.
Marc:It was a lot of stuff.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So the shows are great.
Marc:You know, Lincoln went great.
Marc:Then we drove to Des Moines.
Marc:I love driving through the Midwest.
Marc:It's a heavy weather out there.
Marc:There was some, we missed the hailstorm the size of golf balls.
Marc:It was breaking windshields.
Marc:Then we would have definitely had to take the car back to Bonnie.
Marc:But there was a rainstorm that just, it's like a waterfall.
Marc:It's not drops.
Marc:There's just nothing but heavy weather.
Marc:You barely drive in this rain.
Marc:But driving through the Midwest was beautiful.
Marc:in a farmland kind of way.
Marc:We get to Des Moines.
Marc:We do that show.
Marc:Great.
Marc:That was a great venue.
Marc:Had a nice time.
Marc:Then we drive the next day to Iowa City.
Marc:That was sweet.
Marc:So we get up at 4.30.
Marc:I get the car out.
Marc:At 5.25, we're heading from Iowa City to Cedar Rapids in the dark, and I'm dropping off this budget car, and I'm thinking, like, did I do everything right?
Marc:We filled it up.
Marc:But there's nobody going to be there.
Marc:It's Sunday.
Marc:It's going to be closed.
Marc:We're going to do a key drop.
Marc:But what about this thing?
Marc:Where they got to call Bonnie in order for the paperwork to get finished.
Marc:And I didn't know really.
Marc:I filled out a little bit of paperwork on the envelope and then I couldn't get it into the key drop.
Marc:So needless to say, it hasn't been processed yet.
Marc:I have not got an email from Budget saying a receipt or anything like that.
Marc:So...
Marc:I imagine I'll hear something.
Marc:Not great, but more chaos than I've ever experienced.
Marc:Seriously, renting a car.
Marc:I'm tired.
Marc:I guess eventually that car will be listed as stolen.
Marc:I'll get into it with them.
Marc:All right, listen.
Marc:Andrew Garfield is here.
Marc:He has an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Anthology Series or TV Movie for Under the Banner of Heaven.
Marc:And that's streaming now on Hulu.
Marc:And here we are talking.
Marc:Great, great talk.
Marc:I'm 58 and I don't know what the fuck has happened.
Marc:You know, half the time with the... 58.
Marc:With how show business works even.
Marc:I mean, you seem to be operating pretty well in sort of old style show business.
Marc:You're legit.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You're doing movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Television series.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're old enough to not... You're not doing TikTok videos.
Guest:Yeah, I'm a geriatric millennial.
Guest:I was on the cusp of... Are you doing TikTok videos?
Guest:No, no, I haven't.
Guest:Right?
Guest:I needed to.
Guest:Are you on Instagram?
Guest:No, I haven't.
Guest:It's a privilege that I... Twitter?
Guest:No.
Guest:All of these, I have creeper accounts on all of these things.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Not TikTok.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:A lurker.
Guest:That's more like it.
Marc:Yeah, but you're just a consumer of entertainment.
Guest:A consumer of entertainment and politics and news and yeah, other things like of that nature.
Marc:So like I watched, I've watched some of the new show.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:You got nominated for an anemone?
Marc:I got an ananema.
Marc:You got nominated for an ananema and an enemy?
Guest:I've never had an ananema.
Guest:I think I'm 38.
Guest:Have you had a colonic?
Guest:Never had a colonic.
Guest:I feel like it's around the corner.
Guest:There's still time.
Guest:An ananema nomination.
Guest:I feel like we're on the way.
Guest:Yeah, I got nominated for an ananemy.
Marc:An ananemone?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:it's interesting because uh i mean this has got this is like the third seriously religious character you've played third or maybe more i don't know is there more there's more really well religious yeah i suppose you're distinguishing because i would say like prior walter and angels in america is like a spiritual hero sure but i mean you played a monk yeah yeah jesuit priest and then you play the adventist yeah
Guest:And then Jim Baker, who is arguably religious.
Guest:A preacher.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But maybe the least spiritual person I've ever played.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:But did you feel like... His son's a big fan of mine.
Marc:I've had his son on this show.
Guest:I'm a big fan of his son as well.
Marc:Of Jay?
Guest:Yeah, I love Jay.
Marc:Was he involved in that?
Guest:Not particularly.
Guest:We had a really beautiful conversation and we've remained kind of in contact, basically.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I love him.
Guest:I love what he's about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a courageous guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and his relationship with his mother was very sort of beautiful.
Marc:Yeah, really interesting.
Marc:Is he still preaching?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know right now.
Guest:I haven't kept up with his activities in that way.
Marc:So what was the process of like with this guy?
Guest:Which guy?
Guest:The Mormon guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:Well, he's a fictional character.
Guest:His name is Jeb Pirey.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Fictional character.
Marc:But like I go to Salt Lake City.
Marc:I do stand up there.
Marc:I work there.
Marc:I don't mind Salt Lake City.
Marc:It's a ringing endorsement of Salt Lake.
Marc:That's the best endorsement they're going to get.
Guest:I don't mind.
Guest:Marc Maron does not mind Salt Lake City.
Marc:Well, as you enter, you realize that this is a functioning theocracy.
Marc:It has been for years.
Marc:And I was doing jokes when I was there about the idea that it's becoming a progressive city.
Marc:And in my mind, it's like, it's not really.
Marc:And if it is the illusion of that, it's only because the church is letting it happen because it generates money.
Guest:Interesting.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:I mean, yeah, you'd know better than I would.
Marc:I don't know anything.
Marc:It's just a speculation.
Marc:But, you know, there are a lot of people that aren't religious.
Marc:But my point, what I want to get to is that in the research,
Marc:And I haven't gotten through the whole series yet, but I imagine we're heading towards what that compound in Big Love must have looked like, right?
Marc:That element seems to be lurking.
Marc:What was the process of educating yourself about that religion?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it was fascinating for that very reason.
Guest:What I found really interesting, my entry point was three ex-Mormons.
Guest:Dustin, Lance Black, who was- Jack Mormons?
Guest:Jack, yeah, well, isn't a Jack Mormon practicing, but kind of crappy at it?
Guest:Oh, I thought Jack Mormon, they were out.
Guest:Lapsed.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:But either way, so there was these three people, one being Dustin Lance, Blackheart showrunner, who was a writer on Big Love, who adapted John Krakauer's book.
Guest:And then two of his friends, Lindsay Hansen Park, who's this very kind of radical...
Guest:feminist ex-Mormon and this other man called Troy Williams who runs Equality Utah.
Guest:He runs a LGBTQ organization in Utah that's like kind of for progressive legislation in the state.
Marc:So there's really a political push there.
Guest:Yeah, but these are three ex-Mormons who are kind of...
Guest:who had their own real spiritual crisis, spiritual awakening away from the narrow fundamentalist nature of organized religion generally, but specifically Mormonism.
Guest:So for me, they introduced me to people who are still practicing, people who are really, really deep in the religion.
Guest:I went to...
Guest:I went to church.
Guest:I visited with a lot of people.
Guest:And then it went from the extreme of that to a bishop who was kind of on the way out because he was starting to experiment with ayahuasca and plant medicine.
Guest:And like a lot of ex-Mormons in Utah, there's this very interesting subculture of ex-Mormons in Utah.
Marc:They were all afraid that he was going to find the plates again.
Yeah.
Guest:And then we're going to say very, very different things.
Guest:But what's kind of amazing is that there's this group of ex-Mormons in Utah who have kind of supplemented their spiritual kind of need and the abyss that leaving the faith kind of gave them with hallucinogens and specifically this, you know, ayahuasca or mushrooms or anything like that.
Marc:A sort of untethered spirituality as opposed to the rigid,
Guest:Or a connection with maybe a truer, more kind of visceral spirituality, which is a natural spirituality, a connection to nature.
Guest:So that was very, very cool.
Guest:That was kind of my introduction to Mormonism.
Guest:It was very, very unexpected.
Guest:It was through these people.
Guest:And that's the journey that my character goes on in the project.
Guest:He does have a huge crisis of faith because of having to pursue the truth of this case, which puts him at odds with the untruths that his religion are kind of perpetuating.
Marc:So when you put together a character like that and you're just kind of putting the drive shaft into your mind and being, you know, it's basically a guy that is struggling with faith.
Guest:Yeah, and what comes with that is...
Guest:are struggling with reality right sure your perception exactly right and and how and the courage that it takes to actually if you find yourself falling dive right like rather than resist yeah or oscillating between resistance and acceptance right and i think it's a psyche it's a psycho it's a psychological break that's happening it's it's like i i
Marc:But not based on chemical or mental illness, but based on literally information.
Marc:Yeah, knowledge.
Marc:Awareness.
Marc:It's interesting because that happens all the time, both for bad and good.
Marc:Always, yeah.
Guest:And I think if we're lucky, I think it happens...
Guest:over and over and over again and we expand our consciousness every day and we die every day and we get you know that's like so I I don't know I think maybe the metaphor of the Christ myth which was literalized by a group of people who wanted domination and control yeah is
Guest:The idea is, if we're lucky, we emulate the metaphor of Christ's death and resurrection every day in order to become anew.
Guest:And it's what you were saying before.
Guest:Again, it's like, the older you get, the less you know.
Guest:And that's true wisdom, right?
Guest:So we're breaking open over and over and over again.
Guest:Our psyches are expanding.
Guest:Our hearts are expanding.
Marc:That's the idea.
Marc:You would hope, but I mean, unless you're just holding true to whatever your perception is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you know less and less because you're not taking new things in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So you ultimately get abandoned by the pace of culture and information.
Guest:Right, and we feel that abandonment so acutely, and that's what creates rage, and that's what creates... Right.
Guest:And the era that we're in now where people are so desperately white-knuckling, holding on to tangible explanations for completely mysterious things.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Like the rise of conspiracy theories, all of these things.
Marc:That's because of a...
Marc:Spiritual vacuum and just fear.
Marc:I mean, but the nature of conspiracy theories, the reason they take hold is the same reason religions take hold.
Marc:There's this need for people.
Marc:It's almost compulsive.
Marc:It may not come from a good place, but they need to feel like there are answers and they're part of something bigger.
Guest:yeah yeah but the bigger i think the real bigger is the mystery and i think it's the thing that our egos can't handle yeah yeah yeah and that's the problem is that we've centered the ego maybe in in our culture sure rather than i don't know making us making our culture ecocentric which where all the wisdom really lives i don't i think about it all the time yeah like you know like how do we blow it
Marc:How do we miss the mark?
Marc:Not just miss the mark, but it's like, well, it was because I think the wedge is really ultimately kind of just free market capitalism, really.
Guest:I'd agree.
Marc:I mean, if you're just sitting around bartering things and you're bringing vegetables to the neighbor's house in exchange for a hat, it's like...
Guest:I was really hoping in the first maybe two or three months of the pandemic, I was like- Let's get back to that.
Guest:We're going back to me bringing you a hat and you giving me a carrot.
Guest:I was like, oh, it's happening.
Marc:This is the moment.
Marc:But it strikes me because of the impending and happening climate crisis.
Marc:It's just sort of like, this could have, we could all be living, I wouldn't have to be watching my lawn die right now if we had just traded the carrots for the hat.
Marc:If only you had that specific hat.
Marc:Yeah, it would have saved the world.
Guest:But were you brought up with religion?
Guest:Were you brought up with these questions?
Guest:No, it's weird, isn't it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Isn't that odd?
Guest:Isn't that strange?
Guest:Where does this come from in us?
Guest:How were you brought up?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, so father, secular Jew, mother, kind of Church of England, Christian, but non-practicing.
Guest:She was, I think I got some spiritual, she was a pantheist.
Guest:She died just before the pandemic.
Guest:She passed away two years ago and a few months ago now.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:And, you know, there's lots of grace with it in the sense that I got to be with her.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I got to be with her because if she had died during the pandemic, the jury's out if I would have gotten to be able to sit by her side, hold her hand and tell her I loved her.
Marc:I lost somebody during the pandemic and it was...
Marc:but she was here you know i mean no one but you there was no way to grieve really yeah so what uh how long had she been ill are you a year and a half two years with pancreatic cancer that's a bad one dude it's dude it's like it seems like she lived a long time with it
Guest:She was the person, she was the kind of person that would have stayed here for another 10 years if it meant that we were all happy.
Marc:No matter what her condition was.
Guest:Yeah, there's some beauty to that, but there's also some...
Guest:I was very angry with her for that a lot of the time.
Guest:I just wanted her to take care of herself better.
Guest:You were angry for her hanging on?
Guest:No, I mean just generally as a personality trait.
Guest:I think women of that generation.
Guest:But no, I'm not going to say a blanket statement like that.
Guest:I'll speak about her just specifically.
Guest:She, for whatever reason, was...
Guest:She loved living for others.
Guest:She just loved being, you know, giving love to others.
Guest:It's beautiful, but it cost her.
Guest:I could see that.
Guest:And I think she would have kind of like admit to that privately to me.
Guest:But yeah.
Marc:But you were able to be there.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:I mean, it was the most... I mean, I don't know how I would have handled it without... Like, it was hard enough with, you know, she was 69, she was so young, and, you know, we were such a tight-knit family, and she was... How many people in the family?
Guest:It was the kind of... The core group was the four of us.
Guest:My dad, her...
Guest:And me and my brother.
Guest:And, you know, and we still are tight, all four of us, in whatever kind of non-material way that she's still with us, that I feel.
Guest:When I talk about her, you know, it's like, this is the ritual of talking about her, any chance I get.
Marc:And it evolves, though, right?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like, grief, like, my experience with it, and it was not my mother dying at a young age, but it was somebody who I loved and I had spent time with, but...
Marc:It's a fascinating, uncontrollable, and not really talked about state.
Marc:And everybody's in it at some point.
Guest:It's the one place we're all going.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:And it's such a weird... And I think it ties in with what we were talking about earlier, about a lack of spirit in the culture right now, an epidemic of meaninglessness maybe in the culture.
Guest:And anger.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And denial and delusion.
Guest:And because if we keep exiling this, you know, the inevitability of the destination where we're all heading, I think, you know, I think about Rupert Murdoch and then I think about Mike Nichols.
Guest:And I think about- At the same time, is this like an exercise?
Guest:No, just right now.
Guest:They both just came up in my consciousness as like opposing poles of how to die.
Guest:And obviously, Rupert Murdoch is still with us as far as we know in material form, in corporeal form.
Guest:Maybe he was never here in spirit.
Marc:Or maybe he's been here since the beginning of time.
Guest:I really don't think he's the God of it.
Guest:He does fit the kind of description of whatever father God kind of like.
Marc:Yeah, the evil one, the fallen one.
Guest:But the desire to be the richest man in the graveyard versus Mike, who I got to do Death of a Salesman with in 2012.
Guest:Oh my God, was that like the last thing he did?
Guest:When did he pass away?
Guest:It was, I think, the third to last thing he did.
Guest:It was me and Phil Hoffman and Phil playing Willie Lohman.
Guest:You were Biff?
Guest:And me playing Biff and Mike Nichols directing.
Guest:Obviously, Mike was a terror growing up and he was feared by many.
Guest:But I think I met him in his 80s and all the edges had been softened.
Guest:And I think he was understanding that he couldn't take any of it with him.
Guest:He was just giving it all away.
Marc:What was the experience?
Marc:I mean, how was it different?
Marc:I mean, outside of what you were bringing to the table, which is a tremendous respect for him, but not knowing really how he worked.
Marc:How did he work that was somehow inspirational or different for you?
Guest:He told stories.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:That was his direction.
Guest:And it was, again, it was this very elegant kind of leaving a trail of breadcrumbs with a seemingly unrelated story from the scene we were doing.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And then he would say, okay, do it again.
Guest:He would tell a story about something completely unrelated.
Guest:It was like he was coming in the unconscious.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And he was just kind of, I don't know, tickling parts of your brain that you didn't know were available.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:yeah just kind of leading you towards like tricking you basically tricking you into a good performance um and uh yeah and and and outside of that you know phil phil was someone who i just kind of absorbed as much as i possibly could and linda emond who played um who played linda an amazing new york but that's like uh it's a hell of a play and what's what's really kind of
Marc:Baffling is that you did it in the middle of doing everything else Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean you just do death of a salesman and you what he'd shot I guess I guess the social network it was in the can that was done Yeah, and spider-man was what not happened yet.
Guest:Just done just finished I just finished spider-man I and I and I think I think I was so freaked out by the experience of having made that kind of movie that
Guest:as an actor yeah because i never imagined i would i would be in that position and and also i got a taste of what making what kind of that kind of movie is like and also it was that was a high pressure situation yeah big time because it was about to come out yeah because you know you were the new guy yeah it was a bit make or break and
Guest:And I think there was a kind of antidotal feeling of like, I need to get back to, I need to go home.
Guest:So it was a balance exercise.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think my psyche was like, I need to go, I need to go and do something incredibly soulful, challenging with members of my kind of theater tribe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also like things were, you know, each day is a beginning and an end.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're like total immersion for the whole arc of a story as opposed to like 10 minute pieces here and there.
Guest:And I think on a more kind of like vulnerable level, I was just fucking scared.
Guest:I was scared of this massive film coming out and a gajillion people saying, nah, we don't like you.
Guest:We don't like your soul.
Guest:We don't like your creative choices.
Guest:We don't like your face.
Marc:Which was guaranteed.
Guest:Absolutely baked into the experience.
Guest:There's going to be at least 50% of people that detest me.
Guest:Full hate.
Guest:And I was like, you know, 27, I think, 26.
Guest:And like, you know, that's like, that's older than Justin Bieber was when he had to put up with his more extreme version of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But even at that age, I was like, no, I'm not ready for that.
Guest:I need to protect.
Guest:I think I had wisdom enough to know I'm going to lose my goddamn mind if I don't.
Marc:Ground yourself in who you are as an artist.
Guest:Precisely.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:When you were growing up, your dad was Jewish, you said?
Marc:He was.
Marc:He still is, I suppose.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:And I feel it.
Guest:Culturally Jewish?
Guest:Culturally Jewish.
Guest:East Coast Jew?
Guest:West Coast Jew?
Guest:West Coast Jew.
Guest:LA Jew.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Emigres, Polish, Russian, pre-World War II, landed as Garfinkel, ended up as Garfield.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's why there was another fairly famous actor.
Marc:John Garfield?
Marc:John Garfield, who was a Garfinco, I think.
Guest:Oh, was he?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:Oh, interesting.
Guest:He was a great actor, too.
Marc:He was a great actor.
Marc:Blacklisted guy.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:His daughter was also an actress.
Marc:She was in Goodfellas.
Marc:She was one of the wives.
Marc:No way.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Definitely.
Marc:Yeah, I sat with her on a plane once.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:Back in the day, I got shit-faced with her on a plane.
Marc:I don't know if she was drinking, but I know I was.
Marc:But yeah, so he just, was he in show business?
Guest:No, not at all, no.
Guest:He was an accountant, and then a business person, and now he's a swimming coach.
Marc:But in England?
Guest:In the UK, yeah.
Guest:He was born in LA, and then his parents decided, he was just getting into the Beach Boys, and he was putting roller skate wheels onto a plank of wood, and he was like,
Guest:And then his family, he said, you know, we're going to go back to Europe.
Guest:We're going to raise you close to your extended Jewish people.
Guest:And he, you know, landed in England, Southampton at the age of 13 and kind of grim gray England from, you know.
Guest:the wilds of california and and then met my mother like was brought up there and met my mother and then immediately just kind of whisked whisked her over to la had me and my brother and then she was raising two kids in marina del rey in the 80s and it was like i don't know it was pretty dangerous and then said i'm going back if you want to come with me
Guest:come with me and that was that yeah and then and now he comes out and visits me because i i live between here and there so i have both passports and it's funny like that thing of being the unmet dreams of our parents right so i've become like a i surf i you know i i have this little little spot near the beach and here in la yeah so now i get to give him the kind of the dream that he never got to live out himself it's kind of and also he had a he had a secret sadly the beach boys aren't in great shape but you know you can give them part of it
Guest:But it's also interesting.
Guest:When I first started acting, he was terrified and very kind of, you know, like any good Jewish father would be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, you're going to be destitute and you're going to have to, you know.
Marc:They don't want you to have a life of struggle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or like selling myself for sex on the street.
Marc:You should have had a little more faith in that.
Guest:I don't know if he literally got to that stage.
Marc:In his parenting, he should have had a little more.
Marc:That wasn't the ultimate way that this would go.
Guest:I don't know if he ever literally said, you're going to end up selling your ads in Soho.
Marc:There's a lot of other problems that have to happen before that becomes the only option you have.
Marc:And a lot of them are psychological.
Marc:And you seem like a pretty well adjusted guy.
Guest:Yeah, but not in my father's mind.
Guest:But then when I started making money in order to pay rent and put food on my own table, etc., he started to get very... He started to shift.
Marc:And that happened in the UK?
Guest:In the UK when I was doing theater.
Guest:When I made my first couple of movies, he started to...
Guest:come a bit closer and I was like what's going on here and it turned out that he had this very secret early desire he would drive he had a moving company here in LA and he would drive past the studios like the Fox lot for instance and he would he had a kind of unmentioned unowned a disowned dream of being a screenwriter
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Because he's a great storyteller.
Guest:He's a very charismatic, charming, storytelling dude.
Guest:And he's a great writer.
Guest:But he never did it.
Guest:So it was this very interesting thing of like, oh, my God, maybe that's where – maybe that's – I don't know.
Marc:It's also pretty glamorous whether he's got a dream or no dream.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:To have an actor in the family, you get to do that thing.
Marc:Everybody –
Marc:Most people like show business.
Marc:Yeah, I suppose so.
Marc:Everyone's just afraid of it, you know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But, I mean, what was the education process, though?
Marc:Did you go to the fancy place?
Marc:The rada place?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I didn't go to the rada place.
Guest:I didn't want to go to the rada place for some reason.
Guest:Maybe that's self-preservation, like a self-protective mechanism in me.
Marc:Did you go to the other place?
Guest:Which was the other place?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Arthur II?
Marc:This is the Royal Academy, and then there's the other one?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've talked to a lot of people who have gone to one or the other.
Marc:Where'd you go?
Guest:Yeah, I went to one of the other ones, yeah.
Guest:I did, I did.
Guest:I went to one of the other ones.
Guest:Which other one?
Guest:It was called, which other one?
Guest:Central, it's called Central.
Guest:Central School of Speech and Drama, yeah.
Guest:I don't know that one.
Guest:Judy Dench went there.
Marc:Laurence Olivier went there.
Marc:See, I'm telling you, there's two or three, right?
Guest:Gael Garcia Bernal went there.
Guest:And yeah, I had a really good time.
Guest:I had a really good time.
Guest:I was 17 and I didn't know that this was a job.
Guest:And, you know, I was really introduced to great... I was introduced to Arthur Miller...
Guest:Shakespeare.
Guest:When you were a kid, though, wasn't a thing?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I was an athlete, and then I stopped growing, and I got concussed three times playing rugby, and I kind of let it all... And I was a swimmer.
Guest:I was a gymnast, and my dad became a swimming coach, ultimately.
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was a really cool thing that I can see in retrospect that happened where I got super lost and I didn't know what the hell I wanted to do.
Marc:After you were done with athletics, you're like, this isn't a future.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I'm beat up.
Guest:I'm not going to be Muggsy Bogues.
Guest:I always dreamed about being Muggsy Bogues.
Guest:What is he?
Guest:He's a, you know who Muggsy Bogues is?
Marc:I'm American and I don't care about sports.
Guest:Dude, he's like a legendarily tiny NBA player.
Guest:He was like five foot one.
Marc:You seem tall to me.
Guest:Aren't you tall?
Guest:Like six foot.
Guest:But like at that time, my growth was done because of all the gymnastics and my Russian coaches sitting on my back while I'm in a box split.
Guest:You think that's true?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I think you probably, you just hit your limit.
Marc:Yeah, perhaps.
Marc:You can blame the Russians.
Guest:I think we can blame the Russians.
Guest:Sure, why not?
Guest:At this point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's safe.
Guest:It's the right time to blame the Russians.
Marc:You would have been 6'2 if it weren't for those damn Ruskies.
Guest:But no, I was like, so I let, so, and I could apply myself at school.
Guest:My brother, and the problem is, is my brother was golden boy.
Guest:My brother was, he's a doctor.
Guest:He's a lung doctor.
Guest:So he's been like keeping people alive the last two and a half years to the best of his ability.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he's a lung doctor in the UK?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Brompton Hospital in Chelsea.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:What a tough couple of years.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he's a pretty, but he's the guy you want taking care of you because he stays two hours.
Guest:He's like my mother in that way.
Guest:He stays three hours after, you know, he shifts over.
Marc:And does he keep abreast of the new shit?
Guest:he must yeah to a degree i think he's just kind of treading water as you know i think he's just trying to he's just like any great physician he just treats one face at a time yeah otherwise he gets overwhelmed and he does get overwhelmed like he's a person i'm trying to keep reminding him that he's a person i think like i became his kind of emotional support animal during the pandemic i was happy to have a job you know what i mean like that we were all sat on our asses i guess you could still talk to people but i was just kind of sat
Marc:I know I talk to people sitting on their asses in their own houses.
Guest:So anyway, so I had this golden boy brother, et cetera, et cetera.
Guest:And I was like, well, fuck this.
Guest:Who am I?
Guest:Who am I?
Guest:What's the point?
Guest:My father is obsessed with my brother.
Guest:I don't- Oh, you found that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Big time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you're just sort of like, we don't know what's going to happen with that one?
Guest:We'll see if he makes it.
Marc:We'll see if he survives.
Guest:But it was like this kind of amazing gift because it liberated me into going, well, you know, I was born, I was raised in a very kind of conservative suburban Truman Show feeling like, is this everything?
Guest:It can't be everything.
Guest:If it is everything, I don't particularly know if I want to be here, actually.
Guest:I was never like, I wasn't like a suicidal kid, but I was definitely like,
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I was enraged at the concept of this being everything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And, you know, and the arts weren't valued.
Guest:They weren't spoken about.
Marc:In your house?
Guest:In the house.
Guest:Like, my dad's at Cinefire.
Guest:My dad loves movies.
Guest:Well, there you go.
Guest:That was something, but it wasn't... What about music?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he had a great record collection.
Marc:And your mom, what'd you do?
Guest:Big deadhead.
Guest:My dad was a big deadhead.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And my mom was incredibly crafty, and she was an amazing, like, cake maker and, like...
Guest:cashmere sweater knitter, but it wasn't, I don't know, it was, if you're not a lawyer, a doctor, or in business, then you're nothing.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:So those were more of... It was that capitalist kind of... But these were hobbies, and it was, you know, things that they enjoyed.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But it was not like they weren't sitting around going around, do whatever you want, man.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:There was no value in it.
Guest:You weren't, you know, it was very capitalistic.
Guest:It was like, well, how many units did you produce today?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What did your mom?
Marc:Did your mom work?
Guest:She was a housewife.
Guest:She ended up having to work because the lampshade business she had with my dad started to go under and it ended up being her and her friend Barbara in our converted living room, which was converted into a lampshade.
Guest:Lampshade?
Guest:Whose idea was that?
Guest:It was my father's hair brain scheme.
Marc:What made them special?
Guest:They were handmade by my mother.
Guest:They were absolutely beautiful.
Marc:Well, that seems like a very crafty belief in the arts.
Guest:Oh, no, it was incredible.
Guest:Yeah, but it failed.
Guest:It massively failed.
Guest:This was the problem.
Marc:Do you have at least one of the lampshades?
Guest:I don't know where they are.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:I think at our house, definitely.
Marc:There's a couple.
Guest:She's everywhere still, all of her things.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:No, I'm not going to tell you that.
Guest:It's too private.
Guest:I, there was a, so anyway, so I was like, okay, well, fuck this.
Guest:I don't know how to particularly be here in this, whatever this person is doesn't fit here.
Guest:And I think there's something about letting there be a bunch of empty space where the right thing can then show itself.
Guest:You hope.
Guest:Well, yeah, but it takes a great deal of like staring into the abyss.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:But I mean, it's like the empty space was not something you wanted.
Guest:Hell no.
Guest:I wanted everything to be totally laid out and planned.
Guest:And I wish I had a gift of being a great business person or could stomach it at least.
Guest:But I just fucking couldn't.
Marc:I couldn't do it.
Marc:Either that's all you give a shit about or you're not that guy.
Guest:right yeah but i think the tragedy of most people in the british educational system is they end up doing they don't care about they end up living lives and having to you know put the the guitar in the in the attic well that but that's most people yeah but isn't that the tragedy of the is it though yeah i do think so wait so i well look come on what if you take it out of the attic yeah here's like here's the thing is like you know if if you like i've got a bunch of guitars i never played in a band
Marc:And I think if I played in a band and I had all these guitars and I was no longer in a band, I would hate them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I get that.
Marc:So if you can enjoy something and really just not see it as the life or death struggle of who you are.
Marc:Yeah, I agree with that.
Marc:Whether it's singing or acting or playing a guitar.
Guest:No, I agree with that.
Guest:When something is not monetized, when something doesn't have the pressure of your livelihood attached to it.
Marc:Or you realizing who you are through it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, like the artistic element.
Marc:Well, what was it that filled the emptiness first that made you realize like, okay, this is the space that I have and now I can occupy it with this.
Guest:Yeah, well, I tried everything.
Guest:I tried sculpture.
Marc:Sculpture?
Guest:I tried painting.
Guest:I tried music.
Guest:Are you any good at painting?
Guest:No, I'm fine at all of it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I enjoy all of it.
Guest:I'm fine at it.
Guest:Totally fine.
Marc:It's a tough road.
Guest:It is a tough road.
Guest:Sculpture and painting.
Guest:The sculptor's road.
Guest:Yeah, no, I'm glad I didn't have a talent in sculpture.
Guest:Literally the last thing I tried was a drama class outside of school when I was like 15, 16.
Guest:And it felt different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's all, just felt different.
Guest:And then a mentor arrived, like a teacher arrived at high school in a very critical moment, a new drama teacher.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And he saw me in a play and he said,
Guest:He said, well, he just basically said, I see you and I think you can do something with this.
Guest:And that was one of those special moments that we are lucky if we get those mentoring moments.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's a good time for it to happen.
Marc:It was perfect.
Marc:You're not quite formed, but you're hungry.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And a little nervous.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you're questioning everything.
Marc:If a responsible mentor steps into place into your life at that point in time, it's a big game changer.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:What was it about that guy?
Guest:That he said he thought I was good.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Finally.
Guest:I don't have to be anything.
Guest:No, literally.
Guest:No, literally.
Guest:It was really kind of that simple.
Guest:That hadn't happened yet in something that I actually enjoyed, something that I loved.
Guest:But what about your mom?
Guest:Yeah, but she didn't know.
Guest:She just thought if I had murdered someone, she would have showed up with chocolate chip cookies.
Guest:Sure, right.
Guest:Whatever you would have done.
Guest:She was like, I mean, I wish you hadn't have done it, but you really cut that guy up good.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I wouldn't make a life out of it.
Marc:Well, you can't because you're in jail now.
Guest:Well, maybe on the inside.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:See what you can do in there.
Guest:No, she was literally that way to her fault.
Guest:No matter what, she would have figured out a way of justifying it in her head.
Marc:So it was a high school thing that started it.
Guest:It was high school, and then this guy, Philip Tong, Mr. Phil Tong, and he just kind of, and then he introduced me to all these great writers and then encouraged me to apply to drama school, and then I got into drama, and we were just... And that was it.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:You're on the path then, and it kind of owns you, right?
Guest:I'm sure you love your own version of that.
Marc:It was comedy, and it still owns me.
Marc:But it's weird that given that my success is what it is, I do okay.
Marc:But I know I keep pushing it, and I know my age that I'm still...
Marc:completely engaged with it and doing new things with it you know without you know I've friends were much bigger stars than me but you know it still means something which is good if it can continue to mean something to you yeah yeah yeah which it seems like the battle you had you know at least in in light of spider-man was that you know what does it mean again to you know what am I doing with my talent
Marc:Yeah, what are we serving?
Marc:So what were the first opportunities?
Marc:Where were you headed from the beginning?
Marc:Oh, I just wanted to make money.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I just wanted to be able to pay rent and eat food.
Marc:So were you doing commercials?
Guest:Yeah, I did a Doritos commercial in Spain.
Guest:Why Spain?
Guest:You were like, no one will see it?
Guest:No, I would have much rather it be in some way people would have seen it.
Guest:No, at that point, I was honestly... You didn't see my Doritos commercial?
Guest:Was it in Spanish?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you speak Spanish?
Guest:No.
Guest:But I didn't have to speak in it.
Guest:It was all visual and physical.
Guest:But you know the directors who directed it went on to direct the It movies.
Guest:Oh, they did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So, you know, they made good.
Guest:And you did all right, too.
Guest:I did fine.
Marc:Do you see each other and go like, hey, you guys, thanks for the break.
Marc:We both landed on our feet here.
Guest:It was a major moment.
Guest:I was very, very excited because I got like...
Guest:three grand for two days of work yeah I thought well if I can sustain this I'm going to be a happy camper and if I can you know this can supplement me being able to do my my theater because I love the theater I just fell in love with theater but you knew that wasn't going to be a big payday no no especially in the UK because it's mostly subsidized government funded for the most part the great theaters in the UK and London are government funded
Marc:So, okay, so you understood that there was a business to it and you had to go out and hustle some chips.
Guest:Yeah, I just didn't want to keep working because I was working at Starbucks and I was working as a waiter and doing all these things.
Guest:I just didn't... Success for me would have been not having to do those jobs.
Guest:It was really that simple.
Marc:And then when do the films start happening?
Guest:When do you realize like... Yeah, that's the problem, isn't it?
Guest:You get spoiled.
Guest:You get given the finest sushi in all of...
Guest:Japan yeah you're selling you're suddenly like well I can't I can't go to the supermarket for my sushi anymore god damn like I'm I'm fucked yeah yeah yeah because you've you know yeah you've made some money not that I meant more more kind of symbolically oh working with certain people on certain material okay okay you know so the first movie so I'm doing plays in London yeah
Guest:And I'm working on great plays.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Great theaters with great people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, I'm not getting paid shit.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And that's totally fine.
Guest:I'm just about making ends meet.
Marc:Did you work with any of the old timers that you respected?
Marc:Were there any of those moments where you're like, I can't believe I'm working with this guy?
Guest:Who was that?
Guest:I did a reading with Pete Pothelswaite.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was a big moment.
Guest:I remember that being kind of incredibly exciting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there were a couple of other people.
Guest:Were you doing Shakespeare?
Guest:I did Romeo and Juliet in Manchester.
Guest:That was actually not good production.
Guest:That was a pretty shitty production.
Guest:But I did a play called Kess in Manchester, which is the Ken Loach movie.
Guest:And they made a play of that, which was really, really beautiful.
Guest:And then I was doing new writing in London.
Guest:I was doing a lot of new writing at the National Theatre in London, which is kind of my home theatre.
Marc:Which means new writing means new playwrights?
Guest:Yeah, younger playwrights.
Guest:I got an amazing Irish playwright called Ender Walsh who's done a lot of work with Cillian Murphy, a play called Disco Pigs, and I did a play called Chat Room with him, which is all set in an internet chat room when that was all happening.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:it was that online bully it was just like a great play by an american playwright called jt rogers called the overwhelming about the rwandan genocide oh yeah and i was getting radicalized by by theater yes i was getting my political kind of uh education education and and a value system shaped by you know modern playwrights by incredible you know i don't know heart-centered progressive
Guest:socially conscious writers oh that's great that was kind of was building you you built your person in the theater i think so i think i think arthur miller especially miller and shakespeare i mean yeah there's a two good bibles sure man yeah um and then so i was doing i was doing plays and then
Guest:An assistant of a famous director called Stephen Daldry came and saw one of the plays.
Guest:And again, it was one of these moments where you go, well, someone's looking out for me.
Guest:And she saw a play I was doing.
Guest:Daldry was putting together a screen test for a book called The Amazing Adventures of the Cavalier in Clay by Michael Chabon.
Marc:Yeah, I know that book, yeah.
Guest:Great book.
Guest:He was putting a screen test together for a movie version with Scott Rudin, who was producing at the time.
Guest:they asked me to come and screen test yeah in london and i had never done anything on camera yeah and then i'm in a studio with dauldry and then six other actors ryan gosling killian murphy jason schwartzman jamie bell toby mcguire and i am just shitting myself
Guest:Entirely.
Guest:And suddenly I'm working with- With excitement or nervousness?
Guest:But all of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I am suddenly thrust into working with and witnessing great screen actors work.
Guest:And I've always kind of had this romantic kind of idea.
Guest:It's always been like Brando and James Dean.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And Daniel Day-Lewis, how are you doing that?
Guest:Quietly.
Guest:Yeah, very, very well, I whispered.
Guest:Just everything was whispered.
Guest:I was like, oh, it's quite simple.
Guest:You just whisper everything.
Guest:No, it was really Ryan Gosling where I was overwhelmed.
Guest:I was like, this guy's figured something.
Guest:He's doing something on a deeper level here.
Guest:He had just done The Believer.
Guest:He had just done Half Nelson.
Guest:And he was in that period of his work.
Marc:What was he doing?
Marc:Could you put your finger on it?
Guest:He was alive.
Guest:He didn't care about doing it the same way over and over again.
Guest:He was listening.
Guest:He was very present.
Guest:He was spontaneous.
Guest:He was surprising.
Guest:He wasn't trying to be those things.
Guest:He was just being present.
Guest:There was a zen quality to it, but it was a kind of...
Guest:don't know it was like being in a scene with a wild animal where you didn't know whether he was gonna kiss you or kill you yeah and it was and then you you know and then you kind of hook into that right you go I want to follow whatever that is yeah and and it's funny how those things work out because I've managed to find my way to his teacher in LA and I found I found her and she found me and we became who's that a woman that doesn't like to be talked about
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Her name is Greta Seacat, and she's a very modest, humble person.
Guest:She likes just doing what she does.
Marc:Do you do her per project, or do you do a study with her?
Guest:I started studying with her.
Guest:I was introduced to her through a mutual friend just kind of fortuitously and I did some workshops with her and her and her mother who invented the technique that Greta kind of is keeping alive.
Marc:Her mother invented it?
Guest:Yeah, invented the technique.
Guest:Who's your mother?
Guest:Her mother is Sandra Seacat who plays my mother in Under the Banner of Heaven.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, she's a really, really fun.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's a fine actress.
Guest:She's a genius actress.
Guest:And she studied with Lee Strasberg back in the 80s in New York at the Actors Studio.
Guest:And Lee Strasberg, I believe, asked her or floated the idea of her taking over the studio.
Marc:So she's of that people see her method.
Guest:She's a method.
Guest:That whole era of actor is, yeah, I mean, that's the gold standard for film acting, I think, for sure.
Guest:There's been a lot of misconceptions around what method acting is, I think.
Marc:Yeah, it's a huge book that was just written that I didn't read.
Guest:Oh, yeah, no, I saw the cover of that as well.
Guest:I think I had it next to me alone at dinner sometimes.
Marc:Yeah, I think the angle is the mythologizing of the idea of it versus what it really was.
Guest:Yeah, and is because people are still acting in that way, and it's not about being an asshole to everyone on set.
Guest:It's actually just about living truthfully under imagined circumstances
Guest:and being really nice to the crew simultaneously.
Guest:And being a normal human being and being able to drop it when you need to.
Guest:And staying in it when you want to stay in it.
Guest:I'm kind of bothered by the misconception.
Guest:I'm kind of bothered by this idea of like, method acting is fucking bullshit.
Guest:It's like, no, I don't think you know what method acting is if you're calling it bullshit.
Guest:Or you just worked with someone who claims to be a method actor that actually isn't acting the method at all.
Guest:And it's also very private.
Guest:Like I think...
Guest:the the the process of creating i don't want people to see the fucking yeah the pipes of my toilet like i don't want to see how i'm making the sausage yeah like so anyway it's but but but it is really really profound work that um that the greta and her mother sandra do and
Guest:being in a scene with ryan gosling in that moment yeah i was like it feels like he's out of control and i think he wasn't but he was letting himself be driven by things you look at like pacino and dog day you could pacino in anything yeah but i'm thinking specifically now about like dog day afternoon sure that's it that's the one
Guest:And you see someone that's just following his impulses.
Guest:Like every single impulse is raw and it's real.
Guest:And it's great.
Guest:And it's vulnerable and it's grotesque and it's beautiful.
Marc:So many long shots too.
Marc:Yeah, dude.
Guest:Of him like pacing around.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's that, that.
Guest:And then you look at, you think about, I think about, oh man, you're getting me excited about acting again because I've been kind of tired.
Guest:It's nice thinking about, I'm thinking about De Niro in The Mission or De Niro in Deer Hunter.
Guest:There's two scenes of De Niro's that maybe solidify him as our greatest living actor.
Guest:Which scenes?
Guest:Well, the scene in The Mission where he's paying his penance
Guest:It makes me want to cry.
Guest:And he's tied all that armor and all the bags and the ropes as they're climbing up that mountain to reach that indigenous tribe.
Guest:And they get to the top, what seems like the top, and he won't drop this penance.
Guest:He feels so ashamed for killing his brother, I think, at the beginning of the film.
Guest:And one of the natives, one of the indigenous people,
Guest:they see him and they approach him and they pull out a knife and he thinks he's got he's about to get his throat slit for whatever reason yeah and one of the indigenous people cuts the tie of this penance and it fought and this this heavy armor these boulders that he's been carrying up this this mountain and they you see this is beautiful shot of them falling off this cliff side with a waterfall in the background yeah
Guest:And you see De Niro, every single moment is so pure.
Guest:You see him seeing it, feel it fall off, seeing it fall off.
Guest:A bunch of mysterious shit happens in his body, in his psyche.
Guest:And it's like you're witnessing someone forgive himself in real time for all of the sins that he's committed up until that point.
Guest:you see the human process of self-forgiveness or a feeling like you've been forgiven by god that you can live um peacefully again like you've done your time right and it it all happens in 30 seconds yeah and he manages to give us that universal i don't know the thing that we all know somehow even though we haven't maybe experienced it to that degree gives us it in 30 seconds and that's
Guest:What was the other scene?
Guest:The other scene is the first Russian roulette scene.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:In the deer hunter.
Guest:No, he's looking at deer hunter.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But the impulses, the wildness of his choices.
Guest:When they're hitting him, when the guy's smacking him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Seeing an actor...
Guest:seeing an artist so free any artist painter whatever it is comedian like without censorship with with with with a open raw kind of vulnerable heart and a trust of themselves and a longing to reach deeper yeah that's it and i that is it and and i think uh you know these are all
Guest:These are all our great method actors.
Marc:When was the last time you watched The Verdict with Paul Newman?
Guest:I don't think I've ever seen The Verdict.
Guest:Oh, man, that's exciting.
Guest:I get to watch The Verdict tonight.
Marc:Sidney Lumet.
Marc:I love Lumet.
Marc:He's my favorite.
Marc:And it's Newman in his 50s, late 50s, playing a loser.
Marc:And there's a couple moments in that.
Guest:Self-revelation.
Marc:Well, yeah, the battle between his ego and the realization that he's made a mistake.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It's pretty great.
Marc:Did you read Lumet's book, Making Movies?
Guest:No, I haven't, though.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:You have a bunch of books.
Guest:I noticed you have a bunch of very pristine looking books on a shelf.
Guest:You didn't go upstairs.
Guest:I got hundreds.
Guest:That's impressive.
Guest:You're a real book buyer, huh?
Marc:Yeah, I have them.
Marc:I got plans.
Marc:I've ventured into many.
Marc:But that one was... Dude, it's really easy.
Marc:It's a really easy book to read.
Marc:It's really cool.
Marc:Lynn Shelton, the woman who I was with, who passed away, she loves that book.
Marc:And I have her copy of it.
Marc:And I know it's an important book.
Marc:I'm so sorry about that.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:It's a wonderful book.
Marc:I didn't mean to bring it up and bum me out.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I'm just sorry.
Marc:But you should watch that movie.
Marc:I definitely will.
Marc:I've been watching some old movies, man.
Guest:What have you been watching?
Marc:I've been watching those boxing movies on Criterion.
Marc:Fat City with Stacey Keech.
Marc:It's a John Huston-directed movie.
Marc:And the woman's name is Susan Terrell.
Marc:And it is one of the amazing performances.
Marc:Jeff Bridges is in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Fat City.
Guest:I'm writing this down.
Marc:Yeah, it's kind of a sad boxing movie.
Marc:Oh, we definitely watched The Verdict, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If you've never seen it, because it's a real treat.
Guest:Well, Lumet, I love Lumet, because he would talk about, he says it, he talks about it in the book.
Guest:He's like, an actor needs to have moments of self-revelation, otherwise I send them home.
Guest:It has to be self-revelatory.
Oh.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:Remember that scene in Network?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where, what's his name?
Guest:The great older actor.
Marc:Finch?
Guest:No, the other one.
Guest:William Holden.
Guest:Holden.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where Holden has to confess to his wife about- Oh, the affair.
Guest:The affair.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think he came in on the day they were shooting and it was just kind of not happening.
Guest:And I think it's in the book, so I don't think I'm blowing anyone's spot up here 50 years ago at this point.
Marc:They're all dead.
Marc:I don't think they're listening to the podcast.
Marc:Or they might be listening to everything, but they're all dead.
Guest:But how wild that I'm suddenly feeling bad about gossiping.
Marc:About Sidney Lumet's take on William Holden.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's like, I got some hot goss for you, Mark.
Marc:About William Holden.
Marc:Keep it on the down low.
Guest:You'll never guess what Lumet said about Holden.
Guest:Lumet was like, hey, what's going on?
Guest:And Holden was like, what do you mean?
Guest:And Lumet was like, you know what I mean.
Guest:I'm paraphrasing.
Guest:Or maybe this is literally what was said.
Guest:And Holden was like, I know what you mean.
Guest:And Lumet said, okay, come back tomorrow and bring all of that.
Guest:Because Holden just had a big affair.
Guest:And I think he was going through a divorce.
Guest:And he was like, I need you to bring that stuff.
Guest:Because otherwise, there's no scene here.
Guest:And I've got you.
Guest:Just know that I've got you.
Guest:And know that it's going to serve a lot of people if you reveal this.
Guest:And he came back and gave that.
Marc:I remember that scene because the stunning part of that scene is the wife.
Guest:Who won the Academy Award for one scene.
Marc:That's a credible scene.
Guest:It's such a great film as well.
Guest:That's the thing about him as a director is that you never feel him in his movies.
Guest:It's always about the story.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:And he's different from movie to movie a little bit.
Marc:Prince of the City.
Guest:Prince of the City.
Guest:It's all... And then fucking the great Serpico.
Guest:The style is always... The style that supports the film.
Guest:Did he do Dog Day?
Guest:Who did Dog Day?
Guest:He did Dog Day, yeah.
Marc:That's crazy, man.
Marc:It's nuts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It takes his time.
Guest:He had a real streak.
Guest:He had a real incredible streak.
Guest:And he saw it in the theater as well.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Was he with the Method gang?
Guest:I think he was a little bit an offshoot.
Guest:He wasn't entirely, I think he was a bit more of a journeyman, a director at the beginning.
Marc:He'd been around a long time, 12 Angry Men, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was his first.
Marc:That was his first movie, yeah.
Marc:Because Jack Warden's in The Verdict.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Because he's an old man.
Guest:I have a night in tonight.
Guest:I'm going to watch The Verdict.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:That's so exciting.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:That's great, because it's an early Mammoth script, so it's tight.
Guest:I think the only Mammoth thing I ever really loved was the movie of Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.
Guest:That's pretty great.
Guest:I like other Mammoth.
Guest:I was bothered by the book he wrote about acting.
Guest:Terrible.
Guest:It was like, shut up, say your lines, and fucking get out of my face.
Guest:And also this idea that anyone can do it.
Guest:Don't worry about motivation.
Guest:Yeah, no, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was bothersome.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:And arrogant.
Guest:I struggled with it.
Guest:Sorry, I'm just playing with your things at this point.
Guest:When I say things, just for clarity, you listen to at home, it's a spinning top and an old school kind of... That's a hard thing.
Marc:Jean-Claude Van Damme hand... Exerciser.
Guest:Exerciser that I wonder why it's here.
Guest:Yeah, some people pick it up.
Marc:It's like a hard one.
Marc:I don't know where it came from.
Marc:I think it was in a swag box of some kind.
Marc:Is this stuff you just put out for people to... Well, in my old garage, I had a lot more clutter.
Marc:And, you know, there was shit all over the place in the original garage.
Marc:And this is sort of the stuff that was on the desk in the old garage.
Marc:But it sort of matched the rest of the environment.
Marc:Now it's just like a strange selection of things... I love it.
Marc:...to have out.
Guest:How cool to have been alive when this was the iPhone.
Marc:When that was the excitement?
Marc:A spinning top?
Marc:When the spinning top was the PS5.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if it was ever quite that, but yeah.
Guest:I don't know, man.
Guest:It was a fucking craze just before the hula hoop.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The spinning top.
Marc:What...
Marc:So what is the process now?
Marc:And talking about the method, essentially.
Marc:So when you played in that Scorsese movie to work with him, what were his expectations?
Marc:That's a pretty sparse movie.
Guest:You go in with everything you imagined you would go in with.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With total excitement, trepidation, pinching yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Awareness of how lucky you are that you're one of the handful of people that has gone to work with the American masters of cinema.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And historian of cinema as well.
Guest:You've hung with him?
Guest:No, I haven't.
Guest:You've spoken with him?
Guest:Nope.
Guest:You'd have a great time with him?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because he's just fun.
Guest:He's like a funny dude.
Guest:I've seen him talk, yeah.
Guest:He knows a lot about movies and knows a lot about history and knows a lot about culture and people and just loves being a person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's hilarious.
Guest:He's almost, he kind of, he's like the most Jewish Italian American that you've ever kind of come across.
Marc:Yeah, there's definitely a... A relationship.
Guest:Sure, yeah, yeah.
Guest:A similarity, yeah.
Guest:So I went in with all of that, and that was dispelled pretty quickly because of who he is, because he's just very disarming and very ordinary with all of his extraordinariness.
Guest:But then I gave myself a year.
Guest:I gave myself a year to study with him, study with an incredible Jesuit priest in New York called Father James Martin, who's a writer, fantastic Jesuit spiritual writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a great man.
Guest:And he became my kind of friend and spiritual director for a year.
Guest:And I just studied Catholicism.
Guest:I studied the thing called the spiritual exercises.
Guest:So this is really interesting for nerds like me and you, I think.
Guest:So there's a through line to all of this.
Guest:So the Ignatian spiritual exercises were a series of exercises that were created by St.
Guest:Ignatius of Loyola back in the 1400s, I believe, 1500s maybe.
Guest:I'm not good with dates, but I'm good with other things.
Guest:And it's basically a 31-day exercise.
Guest:retreat that you do, where you actively meditate on the life of Jesus Christ, and you place yourself, using your imagination, into every single stage and scene and moment of the life of Christ from his inception,
Guest:to his resurrection.
Guest:But it's more than just sitting and thinking.
Guest:You are actively, imaginatively creating a relationship with Christ through a series of prompts and questions, and you end up
Guest:you end up in a pretty deep space.
Guest:And I was guided through this by this amazing priest, Father James Martin.
Guest:And it's a transformational process.
Guest:Like I had a relationship with an imagined Christ in my head by the time I had finished this retreat.
Guest:And you didn't grow up with Christ?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I grew up with, you know, an awareness.
Guest:I mean, how do you avoid Christ?
Marc:No, I get it.
Guest:But no, I didn't have a relationship with him at all.
Marc:You weren't Jesus'd.
Guest:No, I wasn't Jesus'd.
Guest:And you know what I discovered?
Guest:I discovered that Stanislavski...
Guest:The inventor, the creator of method acting based and was inspired by St.
Guest:Ignatius' spiritual exercises to create his method of acting by imaginatively entering circumstances so fully that you feel like you've lived them cellularly.
Marc:But do you know that historically?
Marc:I do.
Guest:No, I know that historically.
Marc:It's documented.
Guest:It's documented.
Guest:No shit.
Guest:You know what else?
Guest:What?
Guest:Bill, who created the 12 steps.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:was he created the 12 steps with a Jesuit priest and it was based on Oxford group it was based on St.
Guest:Ignatius spiritual exercises yeah and also so that I think they came from originally from something called the Oxford group which was a Christian thing which may have based it on that I don't know about that but I know that Bill's buddy was a Jesuit and he was like check out these spiritual exercises and maybe this can be inspiring and they created the 12 steps out of them it's like yeah so I got to do the kind of
Guest:the brass tacks foundational spiritual work of of of what is and and ignatius was really interesting because he was a soldier he was a warrior and not religious or spiritual at all and he got wounded in battle and he was bedridden for i think maybe a year a year and a half and in that time the only books that he had were these catholic texts and he had this spiritual awakening from just being completely um i don't know waylaid and limited by by this this injury
Marc:So you went through this, the process of what Jesuit priests go through to kind of get in the zone of it and it worked.
Marc:And it coincided.
Guest:It worked.
Guest:And I acted as a Jesuit.
Guest:But it coincided with the method as well.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:The whole thing was revelatory.
Guest:I don't know if it worked, but it worked for me.
Guest:It worked in a very beautiful kind of...
Guest:And I had an incredibly spiritual experience.
Guest:And combined with that, I did a bunch of spiritual practices every day that I created new rituals for myself.
Guest:I was celibate for six months.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And fasting a lot because me and Adam had to lose a bunch of weight anyway, so it kind of added up.
Guest:So there was all these spiritual kind of...
Guest:practices that we got to do while we were praying meditating and you know having all the intentions that we had as those characters wild it was very cool man I had some pretty wild trippy experiences from starving myself of sex and food for that period of time of course yeah your brain's got to do something when you don't we're not when you're not satisfying into that dopamine it's gonna go somewhere else gives you some gifts for sure yeah
Marc:so what'd you do to prepare for uh uh jim baker boy yeah i thought you did a great job in all these movies i'm sorry i got hung up on the the more spiritual no it's good ones because they're deep yeah yeah no i jim baker was more about what it was to be deluded and and um
Guest:out of alignment with yourself actually it was the most painful both spiritually and sexually i guess yeah just just completely just entirely oh just just a it was it was a practice in in in non-alignment it was a practice in self-delusion and greed and
Guest:you know the stuff that doesn't shame for sure and the stuff that doesn't feed us that we think will feed us it doesn't it was like my opportunity to really get a taste of wow chasing the stuff chasing the murdoch stuff you know yeah and how about like working with her she's so jessica she's very talented yeah so good right yeah she's excellent she's a consumer actress for sure yeah crazy yeah and and uh in working with uh um lynn
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Love Lin.
Guest:Have you spoken to Lin?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love Lin.
Marc:Yeah, we have great talk.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:He's just delightful.
Marc:To make a movie about that guy, about Jonathan.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what Lin's relationship with him was.
Marc:Was it just with the work?
Guest:Yeah, they didn't know each other because Jonathan had died by the time Lin was thinking of becoming a playwright.
Marc:But he was inspirational to Lin.
Guest:Lin says that they wouldn't be a Lin, they wouldn't be a Hamilton without, they wouldn't be in the Heights without Rent.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And without Jonathan's work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And without Tick, Tick, Boom, actually.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it was a production of Tick, Tick, Boom that really galvanized Lin to quit his day job as a substitute teacher and really focus on finishing in Heights.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So In the Heights wouldn't exist maybe without Jonathan, Jonathan and Tick, Tick, and the one man, and Tick, Tick, Boom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, so yeah, I mean, that's, that's very, that's fucking cool.
Marc:In the Spider-Man movies, what was the most important thing about putting that together?
Marc:Was it the physicality?
Marc:Did you find the acting challenging to make that guy?
Guest:I find acting challenging in all regards.
Guest:For me, for that, it was more the kind of responsibility of my first ever Halloween costume was a felt Spider-Man costume that my mother had made by hand when I was three years old.
Guest:And combined with that, knowing that I'm about to make a movie that...
Guest:a gajillion young boys are gonna watch yeah and and then and at the same time i was i happened to be studying and old boys and old boys yeah and forever boys forever boys there you go yeah i um i i was studying joseph campbell at the time as well i was looking at at hero's journey and mythology and you know for that movie or just because
Guest:Just because it happened to coincide.
Guest:And I was like, oh, wait a minute.
Guest:And it was literally Campbell as if he was talking directly to my soul going, well, here's the thing.
Guest:What the people in the film industry don't realize anymore is that they are our myth makers now.
Guest:And it is their responsibility to tell us stories that give us meaning and that will provide structure.
Guest:And you're like Spider-Man.
Guest:No, but actually, yeah, dude.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:For real.
Guest:Because I'm like, okay, I know that, like, the, you know, people, you know, you want to sell tickets and you want it to be a spectacle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I suddenly was like, oh, fuck.
Guest:There's a bunch of teenage boys that are going to, that could get some medicine here, that could get some structure, that could get some inspiration, that could get a deeper understanding of themselves.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Their own ordinariness and how it intermingles with their own extraordinariness and maybe an idea of what their extraordinariness could be and...
Guest:and maybe get given some solace and maybe get given some inspiration.
Guest:And so that was the main thing for me.
Guest:And that was the joy of it for me.
Guest:It was like, oh, I get to have that opportunity of really trying to inject this with soul.
Marc:So, and the type of vulnerability that would be connect with voice.
Marc:With, like, adolescent kids going through change, yeah.
Guest:So, no, it was a big deal, for sure.
Marc:So, it seems like, you know, like, through the acting and through, you know, coming back to what we talked about before, about the emptiness and not knowing initially.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then finding this journey for yourself, which turns out, just by virtue of roles and your curiosity, there has been somewhat of a spiritual journey.
Marc:For sure, man, yeah.
Guest:And now, even now, like, in the wake of losing mom, like...
Guest:the emptiness is so vast you know the fact that my mother is no longer the the the space that that is left yeah and and uh not only the space that it's left physically but but also i'm sure you can relate in your own with your own experience and
Guest:everything's rearranged i was living under an illusion before that she was going to be here forever whether i knew it or not i think i knew intellectually that we're all we all die but when yeah you thought you had some more time anyways yeah but that visceral loss just totally is rearranging my understanding of what matters and what doesn't and and i think i
Guest:I'm trying my hardest to be with that empty night sky and just listen and try to pay attention rather than fill it with things that may distract me for a minute, but ultimately won't bring me to a deeper version of whatever it is to be in this life.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:I know exactly what you're saying.
Marc:A deeper, what it is, it's acceptance, ultimately.
Guest:Into reality, into more reality.
Marc:Well, yeah, because I was talking to somebody the other night, because the weird thing about grief, and obviously I'm not talking about a parent, but I'm talking certainly about somebody I loved and thought I would have more time with.
Marc:It was at the beginning of something.
Marc:But it comes and goes, and you feel visceral feelings of missing them.
Marc:But then like something new is happening around living with the absence.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So, which I think is what you're talking about when you say the space.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the absence is very full.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:It's the fullest.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's kind of interesting because it's eternal for you now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it's a natural course of things.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So that's the evolution of grief, right?
Marc:To build the relationship with the absence.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And almost have a sort of passive, if not welcome expectation.
Yeah.
Marc:Of the end of you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In a way.
Guest:How to die well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How do we die as well as possible?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or just or accept the reality of it, because that's really what it comes down to when you say someone's going to be there forever is that your brain doesn't.
Marc:And that's the curse of consciousness.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is that, you know, we don't know what's going to happen and it's fucking terrifying.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But when you start losing people, you're going to be like, well, it's definitely happening.
Guest:And it's actually the only thing that makes this worth the time is knowing that it's finite.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Weirdly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that some of the stuff we're talking about, too, about...
Marc:the humility or whatever you're saying about getting older or the wisdom of it is I think, however it's manifesting, if you have humility and you're not fighting it, it's an acceptance of it, of that.
Marc:That you know like, all right, this is gonna arc here and now's the time where I prepare as opposed to fight.
Marc:You got a lot of fighting old men that are making a real fucking mess of things.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:I'm curious about your relationship with the absence and what it's giving you and what, yeah, if I can ask that.
Marc:There's no explaining it.
Marc:In terms of, you know, why or what?
Marc:There's just no.
Marc:So that's confounding, right?
Marc:So, like, for me, like, you can't blame anybody.
Marc:It's just something that happens.
Marc:And so the whole premise of it is just fucking terrible.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you can't even rage.
Marc:And there's no answers, right?
Marc:I guess you could, but it serves nothing.
Marc:So my relationship is... And you seem to be doing it as well, is that like...
Marc:once you get past the trauma and and you know through that that tunnel of the extreme grief at the beginning you can sort of like you have a certain amount of control over you know how you want to experience those feelings like i just got flooded with them right but you can't live like that every day right
Marc:So, you know, you have that relationship with whatever that feeling is, whatever that frequency is that they were.
Marc:But also sort of the knowledge that they're, you know, that they're eternal.
Marc:They're with you all the time.
Marc:You feel that?
Marc:Yeah, I do.
Marc:And it's happening more.
Marc:And this is not even a woman who was my mother.
Marc:But, like, I feel the presence of what...
Marc:we had together, whatever that was, you know, still informing my life.
Marc:Not in a sort of like, oh, she told me this, she told me that, but it's active.
Guest:Yeah, alive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Did you feel that acutely in the first...
Guest:few weeks?
Marc:No, because it happened quickly and tragically.
Marc:I think that whatever you were able to go through to be present for somebody knowing that they were going.
Marc:Very different, yeah.
Marc:Right, all of a sudden out of nowhere, what the fuck is happening?
Marc:What?
Marc:uh so sorry yeah it was terrible and i and i couldn't no i couldn't i i i knew it happened yeah but i couldn't i couldn't process i couldn't integrate it no of course not because i have no preparation and nor should you yeah there's no way it's so it's shocking is yeah it's like um and everybody loved her and she had such a good will with everybody and i had it was one of those situations where you know she had a long history with a lot of people in this community i mean she made movies and actually
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And we were just really sort of starting our thing.
Marc:So, like, the compounding horror of it was, like, you know, I thought, like, finally, you know, we found each other, and now we can ride the rest of this out.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So the way I look at it now is that, like, people can grieve a history with somebody, but to grieve possibility.
Marc:Oh, buddy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So... And it's...
Marc:Right, so the relationship with the absence can be a little, you know, how do you go, what's the next relationship?
Marc:How do you trust and all that shit?
Marc:And I wasn't that good before.
Marc:I thought I had a shot.
Marc:So she's really got me.
Guest:She's stuck with me for a while.
Guest:It makes me think, thank you for sharing all that.
Guest:It's really beautiful to hear.
Guest:And I agree with you, we don't talk about it.
Guest:I don't know why we- It's hard.
Guest:It's hard, but I think it's hard because we don't have ritual around talking about it.
Guest:And we've been encouraged to not fucking talk about it.
Guest:We've been encouraged to avoid it.
Guest:Have we?
Guest:I do think so, dude.
Guest:Look at who we celebrate in our culture.
Guest:Sorry, not to get ragey.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But look at the, we celebrate ascension.
Guest:Always ascending, ascending, ascending.
Guest:Denial of death.
Guest:Denial of death.
Guest:We're going to live longer.
Guest:It doesn't matter how the quality of life.
Guest:We'll just live fucking longer.
Guest:And if we fuck this planet up, we'll go to fucking Mars.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Fuck you, man.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Fuck you.
Marc:Did you read that book, The Denial of Death?
Marc:no you should oh good one i will yeah but yeah but i agree with you and i think it is hard but it's i think it's only hard because we make we allow it to be hard well i think people are afraid of the vulnerability of it that's how i've been talking about it on stage is that you know it doesn't require anything of you this idea that people are like i don't know man yeah i don't i don't
Marc:Maybe I should wait a couple weeks to go over there.
Marc:His girlfriend just died.
Marc:His mother just died.
Marc:I don't know how to handle it.
Marc:When you make it about yourself, the real point is all you got to do is stand there.
Marc:Literally.
Marc:Or just send a text, actually.
Marc:Well, that's fine.
Marc:But I think we've all gotten too used to that.
Marc:And I was grateful for a lot of the text and everything.
Marc:But to handle someone's grief, it requires almost nothing.
Marc:Literally, just presence.
Marc:Just presence.
Marc:Bear witness.
Marc:Maybe touch a shoulder.
Marc:Right?
Guest:You all right, pal?
Guest:Mark just acted out someone touching a shoulder.
Guest:I wish you guys could have seen it because we all needed to see it.
Guest:Okay, I'm just doing it again and it's very good.
Guest:But it makes me think of a couple of things and it makes me, like what you said about
Guest:There's no use in being angry.
Guest:And who are you going to rage against?
Guest:And a sense of inevitability and acceptance.
Guest:And obviously, we're coming at this conversation with different specific details.
Guest:But for me, I'm sat with my mother looking at her as she dies.
Guest:And I think, how can this be?
Guest:How can this be?
Guest:How can this be?
Guest:But there was something that clicked, thankfully, in me.
Guest:pretty quickly.
Guest:I think because I had the time to prepare and I was willing to kind of look at it.
Guest:But I had to accept it as the greater opponent.
Guest:I had to accept death as this tsunami that if we try and fight and beat, we're just going to end up drowning ourselves in more unnecessary anguish.
Guest:there was something about the inevitability of it that was weirdly reassuring and deeply mysterious and confounding and i remember get diving into the water one day and i think it was in fire island yeah staying out there with a friend and i was you know i had that resistance thing in my chest like that anxiety like it was just before she was um she was about to die yeah it was just this pain that i couldn't move i couldn't shift
Guest:and whatever i instinctively went to the ocean i just kind of like submerged myself and i i suddenly just got this download from the water it was weird man it was like oh yeah yeah yeah it was like the expanse it was like it told me everything it was like i it basically just gave it to me in this in this one rush and i i understood that i wasn't special i understood that what i was it what i was going through was felt incredibly acutely unique and
Guest:And like no one else had been through this agony before, but for whatever that wave gave me the information that it had been healing people through grief for the last millennia and beyond.
Guest:Like reptiles lose their mother reptiles.
Guest:This is the way it's been since the beginning of time.
Guest:And welcome to the club of life.
Guest:Welcome to the living.
Guest:Welcome to the land of the actual living.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It's pretty wild.
Marc:Yes, because I have been saying that the three things that stuck with me fairly quickly was that I'm not the victim, she was.
Marc:One.
Marc:The second thing was there's nothing unusual.
Marc:about what's happening yeah zero i mean not just death but there's nothing it's like sometimes people die tragically some it's gonna happen there's nothing unusual about the experience i'm experiencing totally i'm not alone in it no in any way 100 and then the other thing was may her memory be a blessing that jewish thing the idea of that get to that yes yeah yeah that was it that's good man
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:That's good shit.
Guest:No, that's really good shit.
Guest:But you know, in a lot of indigenous cultures, they would give the grieving unlimited time off of tribal duties, and they would assign them a buddy to make sure that they were eating, drinking, and that no one interfered in their grief.
Guest:Because the idea is you let someone...
Guest:you let someone wail, act crazy, strip naked, sleep under a tree, eat the tree bark, slap themselves enough where you're not like doing long lasting damage.
Guest:So the buddy is there to make sure that they don't really hurt themselves or kill themselves and make sure that they're fed.
Guest:And if someone goes by and goes, what's that crazy person doing?
Guest:That the buddy's there to be like, no, no, no.
Guest:They're in grief.
Guest:Oh, okay, cool.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that, yeah.
Guest:I dig it.
Guest:Like, that was our original impulse as a species.
Guest:Well, the Jews do the Shiva thing.
Guest:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Slightly more formal, but... Formal, but it's supposed to serve the... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because it was COVID, you know, I didn't get any of that, but I don't know if I would have understood it anyways.
Marc:But I am sort of processing... I think we understand it innately.
Marc:Yeah, I am processing it.
Marc:Well, I didn't understand... Like, I'm not great...
Marc:with allowing myself to be loved or taken care of, really.
Marc:I resist it.
Marc:My grief, because I'm trying to keep it together, because I resist the emotion of it, throughout all of this time, and it's been over two years,
Marc:It would surprise me.
Marc:This emotion would come out of me and I'd be crying uncontrollably over a plate of enchiladas with a friend of mine.
Marc:Because I went to Taos and I grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:I visited my friend, Devin.
Marc:I didn't know what else to do.
Marc:I'd go spend time and try to do the grief.
Guest:He was your grief buddy.
Marc:He knew what was happening, but I didn't know what was going to happen.
Marc:I didn't know what was going to come, and it just comes.
Marc:So I often wonder, like, did I do the whaling that I should?
Marc:Because it still seems to be fairly active.
Marc:I mean, did you?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Do you feel like you had that, like, it's not even anger, just a feeling of sadness and loss that is exhausting?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To me, it trickles out.
Guest:I did a lot of it.
Guest:You know, yeah, I mean, but again, I think that's okay.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Yeah, no, of course, everything's okay.
Marc:Everything's okay.
Marc:But you leave it to me, I'm sort of like, I'm not sure I did the grief good.
Yeah.
Guest:Evan, how did I do that one week of grief I did with you?
Guest:Get it all out.
Guest:Listen, no, I'm with you.
Guest:No, I get hit.
Guest:I sat in my garden in London recently with my dad.
Guest:My dad just came over and we sat in silence for about 20 minutes.
Guest:I have this new garden in London.
Guest:And we both just started talking telekinetically.
Guest:We were just kind of silently sobbing together.
Guest:And it was literally an empty stool ahead of us.
Guest:And we were both just thinking exactly what we were thinking.
Guest:Where is she?
Guest:She should be here.
Guest:Not only that, but I wish she had seen this garden.
Guest:I wish she had seen a thing that I'd made for her to enjoy.
Guest:You know, all these, all these, so no, I mean like, but I don't want it to go actually.
Guest:Like I don't want it to leave.
Guest:And I think that wailing that you so eloquently kind of expressed is it's, I feel like it's actually, it's the love that we didn't get to give, which is eternal.
Guest:It's never going to be given.
Guest:Like the love that I, the love that we have for the people that we really love.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think another thing I learned in this process, I actually learned what unconditional love was.
Guest:I felt it.
Guest:I feel it.
Guest:I'm like, oh, no, I love this person's essence infinitely.
Guest:There's no end to it.
Marc:It's a source that will never, ever dry up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also the thing that you have to stay in, though, which it seems like you are and that I try to, is I do think I was at my best through her eyes.
Marc:So it's also about allowing yourself to continue to receive the love that was forthcoming.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A hundred percent, dude.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:All right.
Guest:But that is how we honor.
Guest:That's how we honor.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like to keep their eyes on us, actually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, that's where I'm at now.
Marc:That's the sort of proactive living with the absence.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:And that's what my dad's doing.
Guest:God bless him.
Guest:My God, man, 40-odd years of marriage, and he's having to contend with our childhood home, our family home, where she's in every single corner.
Oh, God.
Marc:that's the one thing that I learned from the experience is like I really got to get rid of some shit because I mean just for me you know I saw what happened to a lot of her stuff and it's going to happen to anybody's stuff it's like do we keep this does anyone want this
Marc:And at some point, someone's got to go like, nope.
Marc:But I guess there's no way to really sort that out.
Marc:You don't want to do a pre-death cleansing of your home.
Guest:No.
Guest:That feels more like a natural thing.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:It is.
Marc:And it happens every day, all over, all the time.
Marc:Right now?
Marc:Someone crying, saying, does anyone want this?
No.
Guest:I found an old LA Dodgers t-shirt at my dad's place.
Guest:It was hers and that one.
Guest:I've taken that one.
Marc:I got a hat and I got some boots and I got a jacket and I got about four shirts.
Marc:And the one I met her in, I kept it.
Marc:I have that.
Marc:Sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good talking to you, man.
Guest:Good talking to you.
Guest:Thanks, Mark.
Marc:That was a nice conversation.
Marc:Real shit.
Marc:Real deal.
Marc:Emotionally connected.
Marc:We were connected.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:So Under the Banner of Heaven is streaming now on Hulu.
Marc:Good luck to Andrew at the Emmys.
Marc:Can you hang out a second, please?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:We're posting the latest ask Mark anything tomorrow for the full Marin subscribers on WTF plus.
Marc:If you submitted a question last week, chances are I answered it.
Marc:I tried to get to most of them.
Marc:If you haven't subscribed to the full Marin yet, go to the link in the episode description or click on WTF plus at WTF pod.com.
Marc:Listen, here we go.
Marc:I'm in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater on September 16th.
Marc:Phoenix, Arizona at Stand Up Live on September 17th.
Marc:Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on September 22nd.
Marc:Fort Collins, Colorado at the Lincoln Center on September 23rd.
Marc:And Toronto, Ontario at the Queen Elizabeth Theater on September 30th and October 1st.
Marc:London, England, and Dublin, Ireland.
Marc:I'll be coming to you in October.
Marc:And my dates for November and December are now on sale for the public.
Marc:That's in Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Eugene, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info.
Marc:Here's some clunky guitar.
Marc:Here is some clunky guitar.
.
.
Thank you.
.
.
.
Thank you.
Yeah.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey in the Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.