Episode 1366 - Bradley Whitford
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck nicks what the fuck buddies what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast how are you
Marc:I should tell you that Bradley Whitford is on the show again, all right?
Marc:He was on back in 2018 on episode 909.
Marc:And ever since then, we'd always heard that he wanted to come back on the show anytime we would have him.
Marc:So, turns out, he's out there doing promotions for the new season of Handmaid's Tale on Hulu.
Marc:And it seemed like a good time to do it.
Marc:Like, what does he want?
Marc:What did we leave...
Marc:unsaid me and mr whitford as some of you can see and know from this show we are doing uh second interviews sometimes now we are having repeat guests more so now not for just shorties but for for for you know big talks if there's a conversation to continue having i'll have it
Marc:Also, there's a new batch of handmade WTF cap mugs.
Marc:They go on sale today, and it's the only time you can get them unless you're a guest on the show.
Marc:These are hand-thrown mugs made by Brian Jones with artwork by our friend Dima, and you can get them today starting at noon Eastern at brianrjones.com.
Marc:These, I believe, are the new Buster and Sammy mugs.
Marc:I believe we've moved beyond the original crew.
Marc:These ones do not have my face on them.
Marc:These are specifically Buster and Sammy mugs.
Marc:They don't have, the old ones had Boomer and Monkey and LaFonda and me.
Marc:And I think we've kind of these are a little more colorful.
Marc:And I believe they just have the two new guys.
Marc:But now there's another new guy.
Marc:I got another Charlie Beans Roscoe, as some of you have been following along, is is in the house.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you.
Marc:He's a little fucker.
Marc:This cat's about two months old, I'd say, and change.
Marc:and just out of his mind.
Marc:Sammy was a little... Always seemed a bit nervous when he was a kitten.
Marc:Sammy did.
Marc:He had a look of profound worry on his face almost all the time.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, he was a kitten, but he very easily...
Marc:Like Buster just turned that guy out.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know what Sammy could have been without Buster, but Buster definitely they now have a fairly, I think, consensual and inappropriate gay BDSM relationship.
Marc:I think that Sammy's definitely a submissive and Buster is dominant.
Marc:And, you know, they're they're adult cats.
Marc:And they do their thing.
Marc:But I don't know how Sammy would have been without Buster.
Marc:But Sammy pretty much locked into the submissive role pretty quickly.
Marc:But Buster beat the shit out of him.
Marc:I mean, not beat him up, but would get him down, like pin him with his mouth on his throat.
Marc:I mean, it was terrible to watch.
Marc:But eventually, you know, Sammy just kind of took it, you know, kind of like, well, this is my lot in life.
Marc:I'm going to be a submissive to this monster, Buster monster.
Marc:But, you know, Sammy's OK.
Marc:I mean, he didn't turn out to be the most affectionate cat.
Marc:It's a weird thing with cats.
Marc:I mean, he's a cat cat.
Marc:He's not a people cat.
Marc:He's nice.
Marc:But I don't know what the fuck he wants.
Marc:I don't know what Sammy wants.
Marc:I don't know how he doesn't want to be held.
Marc:He doesn't want to be picked up.
Marc:OK, I've had plenty of cats that don't like that.
Marc:That's fine.
Marc:He doesn't really like being pet that much.
Marc:I just don't know what he wants.
Marc:And it's you don't know what you're going to get with a cat.
Marc:And you hope for the best if you get a kitten.
Marc:You're like, this is an amazing kitten.
Marc:What an amazing cat.
Marc:This cat's a genius.
Marc:It might even be an alien.
Marc:And then they get to be a year old and they're like, ah, just a fat boar.
Marc:This cat doesn't do much.
Marc:And I guess I'm locked in for 15 to 20 years on this with this cat that just apparently is going to get kind of fat.
Marc:And I'm not going to know what he wants from me, if anything.
Marc:So that's where Sam landed.
Marc:I mean, look, I love the guy when in the morning he he'll sit on my chest and he'll purr a little bit and I'll pet him.
Marc:And then, you know, he'll he'll just sit there and look at me and I'll pet him and he'll get uncomfortable and leave.
Marc:But that is the most it only happens in the morning.
Marc:And that's when the affection happens.
Marc:Buster, on the other hand, has gotten more affectionate and they're both getting big because I'm home.
Marc:When I'm home all the time, I'll just let him eat all day.
Marc:So Sammy's getting fat and Buster's getting lean and just bulky, like tough.
Marc:And Buster is a very congenial, weird cat, kind of a genius, remained a genius, still quirky, interesting, engaged.
Marc:And, you know, not particularly, you know, sometimes he'll surprise you.
Marc:So these are my cats.
Marc:These are my guys.
Marc:And I've got the catio out there, which means I've got coyotes like literally sleeping in my yard because they think it's a coyote, the coyote version of a lobster tank.
Marc:They think that at some point they'll just be able to pick which one they want and I'll prepare it for them.
Marc:I'll just throw it out front.
Marc:Here you go.
Marc:Three cats again.
Marc:Three cats again.
Marc:So I'm heading to Tucson tomorrow and I'm heading to Phoenix on Saturday.
Marc:Looking forward to those shows.
Marc:I like Arizona.
Marc:I have history in Arizona.
Marc:A lot of history in Arizona.
Marc:My brother lived there for years.
Marc:My first ex-wife is from there.
Marc:And I guess my old man's coming out.
Marc:My dad's wife is driving my father out to see the show in Phoenix.
Marc:And we'll see how much of that he retains.
Marc:We'll see if he knows who I am.
Marc:We'll see where we're at with that process.
Marc:But that'll be it'll be good to see him be be good to see the old guy and watch me do material about him.
Marc:Used to enjoy that.
Marc:Hopefully that'll still be the case.
Marc:And yeah, and I've got a bunch of other dates coming up, but that's that's what's going on.
Marc:I don't know what's going on with Hertz.
Marc:What the fuck is going on with Hertz car rental?
Marc:How come I can never rent a car with Hertz anymore?
Marc:Not that I care.
Marc:I mean, I guess, but I was always a Hertz guy.
Marc:the problem with corporate loyalty i just every time i try to get a fucking hertz they don't have cars available for me and i thought it was because like i would usually pick them up one place bring them another place and i understand why that's not uh easy to do anymore because of supply chain issues and the inability to buy new cars but i don't know what happened to hertz and i take it personally i mean after a certain point here's the fucked up thing about dumb loyalty to corporate entities is that
Marc:You assume there's some sort of payoff, that that loyalty will be rewarded.
Marc:Sometimes it is.
Marc:Frequent flyer miles, that works out sometimes.
Marc:Fuck, I need to take a trip with those.
Marc:But this Hertz is not helping me at all.
Marc:And I've been with them for years and years, and I've used them consistently, and now I can barely get a car anywhere.
Marc:And I'm over a budget, which for some reason feels like not as good.
Marc:But I'm not even sure anymore.
Marc:I think they're all the fucking same.
Marc:All right, look.
Marc:Bradley Whitford is an actor.
Marc:He can do comedy.
Marc:He can do drama.
Marc:He's an oddball.
Marc:I like him.
Marc:The new season of The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on Hulu with two episodes up now and new episodes every Wednesday.
Marc:And this is me talking to Bradley again.
Marc:We get into the Quaker thing.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:you do need to talk into the mic so you want to move that in front of your face you know how to do it don't you have you done animated uh yeah yeah yeah i've done some of those like what god what are they i i forget the name i know you don't even register it because you're like where do i gotta go burbank where do i go three hours yeah yeah yeah what is it again it's a mouse okay you do a lot of silly stuff did you ever do voiceovers
Marc:For commercials?
Marc:No, I don't.
Marc:But I've done some big animated movies lately.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was in Bad Guys.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:I was The Snake.
Marc:Mr. Snake with Rockwell.
Marc:Me and Rockwell were the leads.
Marc:He's just doing Rockwell voice.
Marc:I'm going, I'm going like this.
Marc:And he's just doing- You're doing a thing.
Marc:Yeah, and he's just doing Sam.
Marc:But it was good.
Marc:I love those people who could just be themselves.
Marc:Well, that seems to be one way to do it.
Marc:It seems that a lot of people get hired for that.
Marc:Or do one-
Marc:sort of thing you ever work with those real those real animated guys oh yeah they're amazing yeah and they're just odd and they go right into it but it's a weird like like uh my wife amy landecker she did nothing but voiceovers uh in chicago uh before she did from a transparent i just saw her in something else did i just see her in a movie what did you see her in power serious man
Marc:i know she was great in serious man but i thought i just saw her in something new but maybe it wasn't i hadn't seen serious man until recently and i was she's a neighbor oh my god she's the neighbor on the i am every jewish dude's dream yeah i'm married to him yeah well that she was great in that but that's a great movie oh it's great it's a great jew movie if you're a jew but you're not a jew what are you
Marc:I'm Jew adjacent.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:You're an actor?
Guest:No.
Guest:I played Jews on TV.
Guest:But what did you grow up with?
Guest:What did I grow up with?
Marc:Yeah, like religion-wise.
Guest:Oh, Quaker.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'll love you till you change, man.
Marc:Quaker?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you make the furniture?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, those are shakers.
Marc:Oh, sorry.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we're not the Pennsylvania Dutch.
Guest:You're not Mennonites?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's a different thing.
Guest:It's basically... Amish?
Guest:It's not Amish?
Guest:No, it's not Amish.
Guest:It's not Amish.
Guest:I spent my life saying that.
Marc:It's not Amish.
Marc:You know why I make the association weirdly?
Marc:It's because of the Quaker Oats box.
Marc:I'm like, that must be it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:That guy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Is that guy?
Marc:Is it a Quaker Oats guy?
Marc:Is he the guy that started it?
Guest:God, that makes me think of Wilford Brimley.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Did you work with that guy?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And what?
Guest:My fellow Americans...
Guest:Was he good?
Guest:He was one of the... I don't think I'm... He passed away.
Guest:He was tough.
Guest:He was one of those guys, and he was like the Quaker Oats guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're expecting, you know... Very earnest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He made you feel like... He made me eat Quaker Oats.
Marc:The idea that this is good for your heart, which is bullshit.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oats aren't good for your heart?
No.
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I mean, it's as good as any fiber, and there's better fiber.
Marc:I mean, you know, oats is a carbohydrate.
Marc:In the big picture, whatever causes inflammation, not great for the heart.
Guest:Well, he was so sweet and kind of cuddly in those ads.
Guest:And then, man, don't try and direct him.
Marc:Doesn't take any shit, huh?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:What am I thinking of?
Marc:He was in The Firm.
Guest:Yeah, he was in The Firm.
Guest:He was a great actor.
Marc:He was great in The Firm.
Marc:Great actor.
Marc:When was the last time you watched that movie?
Marc:It's a pretty good movie.
Guest:Long time ago.
Marc:The Firm.
Guest:Yeah, what year was that?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It was Tom Cruise.
Marc:Everyone was in it, dude.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Gene Triplehorn.
Guest:Gene Triplehorn.
Marc:The other guy from the Chicago crew, Terry Kenny.
Marc:Terry Kenny.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:From Steppenwolf.
Marc:From Steppenwolf.
Marc:Yeah, Brimley's in it.
Marc:I always make the joke.
Marc:Hackman.
Guest:Hackman.
Marc:Hackman.
Guest:Nobody's better.
Marc:Nobody's better.
Guest:nobody's better the greatest moment of uh my one of the greatest moments this is a name drop yeah but we've already dropped it but i was doing a play in new york yeah and i took a shower and there's a knock on the door and it's gene hackman yeah he wanted to get in the shower yeah he wanted to get in the shower with me i said it's i think you're great this is totally awkward
Guest:But Wilford Brimley, I always use as a joke, because I don't know if you feel this way, but I feel like there's no segue between being... I feel like I was a young actor starting out, and now I'm Wilford fucking Brimley.
Guest:Not quite.
Guest:Getting there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Could play him.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Older than he was in Cocoon.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:By the way, you're always talking about it like it's hard because I walk a lot and I listen to your show.
Guest:So you're in my ear.
Marc:Is this a boomer problem?
Guest:No, but you're always talking, like you're worried about aging and everything.
Guest:And I just want to say on behalf of everyone who's older than you, it's depressing to hear someone younger than me bemoaning the aging process.
Marc:Am I bemoaning it?
Marc:I think I'm trying to accept it preemptively.
Marc:Because I find that there's not a lot of grace in most people aging, especially in this town.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I grow up with a very vain mother who is now being just trampled by age and has nothing in place to deal with it with any humility.
Marc:And it humiliates her and freaks her out.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I think I'm just trying to get ahead of it in the sense that- Preemptively accept it, deal with it up front.
Marc:I'm not afraid of it and I'm not bemoaning it and I don't feel old, but I don't
Marc:My big problem right now is I thought we were trying to work towards not working.
Marc:So there's part of me that thinks like, well, I got enough money saved and stuff.
Marc:Maybe I should start thinking about what I would do with some peace of mind in another country to enjoy what's left of this world.
Marc:I think you'd go nuts.
Marc:Yeah, that's what people say, but I don't know if that's true.
Marc:I know a lot of people say that, but I don't know many people who have tried it.
Marc:And I know some people who retired that the story is like he retired and then he died.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But like we both live and have worked in professions where we have more free time than most people, sometimes for months.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I don't not enjoy it.
Marc:During COVID, I was like, hey, I'm okay not working as long as everyone else is not working.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:That's what reassured.
Guest:That's what finally calmed everyone down.
Guest:It's like, actually, this is not bad if nobody else is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:As long as the race has been called off for...
Guest:It's really pathetic.
Guest:It really is pathetic.
Guest:Now, I think about this.
Guest:First of all, the reassuring thing about aging is, you know, it always ends well.
Marc:It always ends.
Guest:No, but it's weird because I had a mom who the happiest time in her life, truly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you wouldn't have thought this would be the case with her if you met her when she was in her 40s.
Guest:But the happiest time of her life was 65 on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was incredible until the last two years.
Guest:Where was your dad?
Guest:He was around for a big chunk of it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was there relief when my dad passed?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because his health had been failing and it was difficult.
Guest:It was really funny because she was in her mid-80s and my mom was born in 1914.
Guest:She would be like 108.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So she was in her 80s and all these guys, like some guy who lived in like in the building.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like stuck his tongue down her throat.
Guest:All these old widowers.
Guest:Where was this, Florida?
Guest:No, in Philadelphia.
Guest:You left her in Philly?
Guest:Yeah.
Okay.
Guest:You monster.
Guest:It was cruel.
Guest:Sorry, my phone's ringing.
Marc:But all these- They're crazy.
Marc:The old people, they're fucking and they're going nuts.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But the men of that generation, they wanted a wife.
Guest:And she's like, I'm done.
Marc:Why would you sign up for that?
Marc:I barely understand why you signed up for it.
Marc:I've been married twice.
Marc:I got no kids.
Marc:And I don't understand the marriage thing.
Marc:I understand it, but I don't feel like I need to do it.
Marc:Well, then you shouldn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You shouldn't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You shouldn't.
Marc:So wait, the Quaker thing.
Marc:Yes.
Yes.
Marc:How do they handle death, Quakers?
Guest:Well, my parents, like all my mom wanted in her obituary was proud atheist.
Guest:Being a Quaker, she didn't want some, as she put it, goddamn man in a costume telling me what to believe.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:The Quaker Oats guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's no minister, there's no priest, there's no rabbi.
Guest:In Quakerism?
Guest:In Quaker meeting.
Guest:It's basically a meditation.
Marc:I kind of knew this.
Guest:It's like a group meditation.
Guest:A quaking is standing up and talking, and it was a place for progressives who didn't want a traditional organized religion.
Guest:So is it Jesus-based?
Guest:It's Jesus-based, but the Jesus stuff was not pushed on me.
Guest:The sort of non-denominational fundamental values of Jesus was the point.
Marc:So they put a premium on the wisdom and not the mythology.
Guest:You know, was Jesus a great guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Could we all aspire to that moral development?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Son of God?
Guest:No more than a bush.
Yeah.
Guest:Coming back?
Guest:Coming back?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:In fact, my mom would say what pissed her off about organized religion were these, she called them like spiritual party tricks.
Guest:Like if you need like someone to do a magic trick, if you can't look at a flower or look into your cat's eyes and know there's a God that you'll never understand, there's no hope for you.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:She worshipped the Reformed Jews.
Guest:And we were in the Midwest at that point.
Guest:I've heard you talk on the show about... There was one guy in my high school who was Jewish.
Guest:4,000 people in the high school.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:What town?
Guest:In Madison.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I didn't encounter hearing someone say something anti-Semitic until I went to college in the East.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:So wait, so no anti-Semites with the one Jew.
Marc:I guess they didn't feel threatened.
Guest:Yeah, we had him cornered.
Marc:There was an understanding.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He understood that Friday's is the Jew bathing.
Marc:But your mom worshipped Reform Judaism?
Guest:She, like in a way that would make your skin crawl, the Jewish people were, you know, their families were strong and they were great storytellers.
Marc:Funny people, but a little stingy with money.
Marc:No, that never came up.
Marc:It was right at the edge of stereotype.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:It got right up there.
Guest:Oh, I always scare people.
Guest:Can I tell a Jewish joke?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I like jokes.
Guest:You may know this.
Guest:Guy in the Jewish resistance, World War II, do you know this?
Guest:He gets the information that Hitler's going to cross the bridge at 8 o'clock.
Guest:So these two guys wire up the bridge.
Guest:They get down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the bushes, 8 o'clock, no Hitler.
Guest:8.15, no Hitler.
Guest:8.30, no Hitler.
Guest:8.45, one throws the other and goes, oh my God, I hope he's all right.
Guest:It's a sweet joke.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:It is.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:I like those Jewish jokes.
Marc:The best one, the one I tell a lot, just because of my father, is the one about the guy goes to see the doctor.
Marc:He has some good news and bad news.
Marc:You want the bad news and the good news first.
Marc:He's like, well, give me the bad news.
Marc:You have cancer.
Marc:What's the good news?
Marc:Did you see that receptionist up front?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It's a solid joke.
Guest:It's solid.
Marc:So, well, then Quakerism is a good one.
Marc:That's a good one to be brought up.
Guest:They're absolutely great people.
Guest:There's a wonderful All Saints Church, which is a place that does a lot of progressive political stuff.
Guest:Here?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're involved with it?
Guest:In Pasadena.
Guest:Pasadena.
Guest:Yeah, I have been over the years.
Guest:And you have kids, right?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I have.
Guest:In fact, this morning, I took...
Guest:My sweet, my baby had, she had her wisdom teeth out.
Guest:How old?
Guest:She's 19.
Guest:All of them?
Marc:Four?
Guest:All four.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:All four.
Guest:No, she's all fucked up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:She's on the couch.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Bloody, puffy.
Marc:Blood.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's the worst, all four.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, but she's good.
Guest:And then I have a son who's 22 and my daughter's 24.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They're in school and out of school?
Marc:Out of school.
Guest:In life?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doing okay?
Guest:Relationships?
Guest:Yeah, they're good.
Marc:How's that feel, the relationships?
Guest:Well, first of all, they make me very, very happy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're in these...
Guest:They're in these kind of long relationships.
Guest:And I love all the people they're with.
Guest:As a parent, you can't win because you're worried if they're alone and you're worried if they're with someone because horrible things happen.
Guest:But they're with really good people.
Marc:But they made it through the grown-ups now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I imagine the real fear is when they're like 16 and they're going out with the 19-year-old who, you know, that kind of shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they, you know, kind of wobble on the skates and, you know, they go through stupid shit.
Marc:You went through all that?
Marc:Did I?
Marc:With them.
Marc:With them.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:As a father?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, a little bit.
Marc:Regular stuff?
Marc:Yeah, it was pretty... I guess it's something... I just don't have them, so I don't know, but I imagine everybody goes through it.
Guest:It was pretty regular.
Guest:I was scared because a lot of weird... I went through a lot of weird shit.
Marc:When you were high school?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, what kind?
Guest:Wow, this is weird.
Marc:In retrospect, dude, I went through some weird shit that I don't know that I talk about.
Marc:But I didn't frame it that way.
Marc:With women that were way too old.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:In high school.
Marc:I was consenting, but I was still young.
Marc:Were they teaching?
Marc:They weren't teachers at the school, no.
Marc:But they were teaching.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I was trying to learn something.
Marc:You were trying to learn.
Marc:That's why I was there.
Marc:I was trying to learn.
Guest:So I'm literally a teacher's pet.
Marc:Yeah, but in retrospect, I don't know.
Marc:Maybe, yeah, I wasn't 18, but I don't mind it.
Marc:I'm not critical of it.
Marc:I thought it was fine for me.
Marc:It didn't go well.
Marc:It wasn't like, wow, thank you for changing my life.
Marc:It didn't add anything good to my life, but I don't resent that.
Marc:Was it dangerous?
Marc:No.
Marc:Were they married?
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Hard to know.
Marc:In between things.
Marc:Almost not married.
Guest:This is weird.
Guest:This is a weird thing to talk about.
Guest:That happened to me.
Guest:I've never talked about this.
Guest:To anybody?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:No, anybody who knows me knows this.
Guest:The shrink knows it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But I had a really funny thought about this the other day.
Guest:Can you block something out if I say... Yeah.
Guest:That's the phone number of my sixth grade teacher who...
Guest:Molested you?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Fucked you.
Guest:No, I wouldn't call it that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did something?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Man, woman?
Marc:Woman.
Guest:And it was always this kind of... Sixth grade.
Marc:That's young.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And this may sound weird, but I...
Guest:I've always, like you've talked to Mel, I was reading Mel Brooks thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The book?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was talking about how, you know, how lucky he feels that, you know, everybody in show business is like kind of neurotic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Comes from some dark fucked up place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that he came from this like really loving family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that he just wanted to sort of continue the love.
Guest:That's, you know, that's like what propelled him into show business.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I always felt that way because I felt,
Guest:feel very lucky in my family, which was very secure.
Guest:I was the last kid.
Guest:It was a very happy time.
Guest:But I realized that I had a moment in seventh grade, which was after sixth grade, after I left this place where this very weird, dark thing happened.
Guest:and I had gotten weirdly depressed in a way.
Guest:I was not that kid, but I became severely depressed.
Guest:From the event.
Guest:From the event.
Guest:It was one thing, one time.
Guest:No, it was an ongoing... That's how you know the number.
Guest:What do you mean?
Guest:You knew her phone number.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So it was ongoing enough for you to.
Guest:Oh, yeah, it was ongoing, and there were letters, and it was very confusing.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Very, very, very, very confusing.
Guest:Anyway, I had a moment that was sort of an epiphany where I sort of fell in love with acting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which I always thought was kind of unsullied.
Guest:And it was right after that.
Guest:And I've been thinking about this lately because I feel like, oh, fuck.
Guest:somebody pointed that out that it was like right after this thing and maybe it was this sort of just kind of shallow joy of of escape i always articulated it like i had a moment with acting where it felt like it was the only integrated activity like when i played sports i have to turn off my head and my heart when i uh when i'm reading a book i have to turn off my body and there's something i love about acting because it's like
Guest:When it's working, which is rare, it feels completely sort of integrated.
Guest:And just recently, I've been thinking about this and I'm like, am I doing this for the right reason?
Marc:Well, I like how you framed it, that acting.
Marc:You said that the reason could be because it was shallow, but the first thing I thought was like, it could be PTSD.
Right.
Marc:Well, that pisses me off.
Marc:Trauma-based, not sort of like, well, did I just get into it because my teacher molested me?
Marc:You're like, that's shallow.
Marc:No, but it could be like the escape of the feelings or trying to be somebody else.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:It's a good use of whatever.
Marc:I think what's more interesting is that as your personal narrative grew, your seventh grade epiphany was some sort of cathartic, kind of like, this is what's going to integrate all my creativity.
Guest:Yeah, and I was just like a fucked up kid who's teacher grabbed his dick.
Guest:Yeah, it's just not as good a story.
Marc:It's not as inspiring.
Marc:I think it's pretty good.
Marc:You got to change your public narrative.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:When you do your master class.
Guest:How to be an actor.
Guest:You really want to be an actor?
Guest:No, but it really upsets me because I was telling this to somebody a long time ago, this story, and they're like,
Guest:Oh, well, that's like kind of exactly... They said, how did it make you feel?
Guest:And I said...
Guest:It gave me like a weird awareness of connections people make that cross boundaries.
Guest:It gave me... Inappropriately.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It gave me a kind of confidence because an adult was responding to me, but there was this really fucked up mess underneath it.
Guest:And this guy said, well, that's exactly what your acting is.
Guest:It's kind of confident with all this fucked up shit happening.
Marc:It's reaffirming the new narrative.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like, well, fuck.
Guest:I thought I was good at this.
Marc:Well, you were.
Marc:You went to Juilliard to manage it.
Marc:To polish it.
Marc:To polish it up.
Guest:To polish my turd.
Marc:Your trauma gem.
Marc:My trauma turd.
Marc:Your trauma gem.
Marc:You're a trauma turd.
Marc:Professional trauma turd.
Marc:It's not a dramaturge.
Marc:No, it's not.
Marc:It's a dramaturge.
Marc:No, but we're making light of something that is serious, and I don't want to be insensitive.
Marc:You were sexually assaulted by an adult in sixth grade, and it doesn't matter what sex one is or what they are.
Marc:It's inappropriate, and it fucks your head up.
Guest:Yeah, it strikes you, you know, it kind of strikes you dumb.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:Was there was there reprisals there?
Guest:It turned out this person had a problem and had a history of it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I ended up going away.
Guest:But it was very, very weird.
Guest:You know, for a... You know, it was very confusing for my parents.
Marc:You told them, or how did that work?
Marc:No, they could tell something was really weird, but it seems like... So you were, like, showing the signs and symptoms of somebody who had been molested...
Marc:And felt shame.
Guest:Yeah, and I remember I was in sixth grade, and it was like spring break or something.
Guest:I wasn't going to see this person.
Guest:And I remember turning to my brother and going,
Guest:aren't aren't you depressed like it was like depression was weather right all right it was like don't you don't you feel that you know and i was lovesick for this for this oh so you you were aching for this person i didn't know what it was you were in it emotionally too oh yeah yeah so it was like a real thing
Marc:yeah yeah yeah oh wow yeah and apparently it's something that um you know apparently sixth grade boys you know if that's the time yeah i guess that's when it happens how old are you in sixth grade 12 13 i don't know 12 yeah 12 right when it's all happening freaky yeah wow dude so but but thank god
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because now you have a great career.
Guest:You work a lot.
Guest:Yeah, now I wear makeup for a living.
Guest:So it's great.
Guest:It's great.
Marc:Well, what happened to that lady?
Marc:I have no idea.
Marc:You don't ever try to call the number you remembered?
Marc:I feel like I'm still making jokes.
Marc:I apologize.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, it's okay.
Guest:She's probably gone.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Dead, do you think?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But she did get in trouble.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, people don't know how to... You know what is a big problem with this shit?
Guest:What?
Guest:You're aware as a kid.
Guest:You can't articulate it, but you're aware that you live in a world controlled by adults.
Guest:And any discussion of this will explode that world.
Guest:And that's why... Interesting.
Guest:It's such a kind of sick... You do know that.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And you don't even have the words to talk about.
Guest:It doesn't matter if your parents are going, are you okay?
Guest:What's going on?
Guest:I understand why.
Guest:And this was not, I don't want to say, this was not ongoing rape or anything like that.
Marc:It kind of was.
Guest:It was fucked up.
Guest:I totally understand how people go through much worse versions of this.
Guest:And are unable to talk about it.
Guest:Because then, you know.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:I never thought about that.
Guest:You have to define.
Guest:Now on top of getting fucked with, you have to clean up the fucking mess.
Guest:Or start the fucking mess.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:So it's not just shame.
Marc:It's shattering your entire reality in a way.
Marc:And also being seen completely differently as a victim.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can't talk.
Guest:You cannot talk.
Guest:You can't talk about it.
Guest:You don't know how to talk.
Guest:It was funny because that particular thing I never really thought about.
Guest:I was going to Juilliard, and I thought I was going into this.
Guest:It was the first time I ever talked to a shrink, and I thought I was going to talk about how my relationships were crazy, and I really wanted to be a writer.
Guest:And instead, this fucking thing came out of my mouth, this thing that happened, and I realized that it was just sort of living under there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do you feel in general that you've processed it now?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, I'm just like hacking through the jungle with a dull machete like everybody else.
Guest:Still?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, no, I'm fine.
Guest:No, I get it.
Marc:I'm fine.
Guest:But it takes a while to sort it out.
Marc:And I also think as you get older, the one thing I've noticed about it,
Marc:you know having dealt with with some loss and also dealing with you know just this getting older thing is that these random sort of like moments or or even longer than moments of of emotion just happen yes and and you're just sitting in it it doesn't feel like erratic or out of nowhere
Marc:But there's a heavy, there's almost like a well of sadness that has had enough.
Marc:It's like you're all filled up.
Marc:Now some of this is gonna come squirting out occasionally.
Marc:And in those moments, you have to be like, what is this connected to?
Marc:And you find those things.
Guest:You find these weird, heartbreaking things or these traumatic things.
Guest:And you can put a name.
Guest:It helps to put a name on it.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's just part of it.
Marc:That's just part of the unloading.
Marc:And by the way, everyone's dinged up.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Everyone's.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Everyone's.
Marc:So what happened with Gene Hackman?
Yeah.
Guest:He said, I thought you were really good in the play.
Guest:And I was like, well, you just made my life.
Guest:Ah, good.
Guest:Now you can get out of the shower.
Guest:And by the way, when I was in sixth grade... Yeah, by the way, are you recording, Gene?
Guest:Because I wanted to broadcast something really intimate.
Guest:What made you want to start acting, Gene?
Guest:Because when I was in sixth grade... Hey, Gene, you're really good at acting.
Guest:Is it because...
Guest:Somebody fucked with you in the closet because I think it's helping me.
Marc:What do you think Gene Hackman, what is it about that guy?
Marc:Because there's a rare guy with the actors.
Guest:I'm going through a little bit of a, I don't know.
Guest:I'm going through, I don't know.
Guest:I'm just really realizing how sort of crazy acting is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know if I'm just more aware of how crazy it is or if I'm getting neurotic about it.
Guest:I don't think I'm getting neurotic about it.
Guest:I think I'm just realizing what a fucking insane thing it is.
Guest:There are some insane actors.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But I was going through this thing where, like...
Guest:Like there's something about when acting is just off.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like you want to fucking die.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because you can't answer why or you can't.
Guest:When you're watching acting that doesn't work.
Guest:When you're at a play that doesn't work.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's it's beyond just wrong.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Like it's like a sour note and you want to die.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When you're doing it or you're in front of someone else's?
Marc:Well, it's worse when you're doing it.
Marc:Right, but like if you're working with somebody.
Guest:No, or you're in the audience and just watching a shitty thing.
Guest:There's nothing worse.
Guest:Why is it so bad?
Guest:It's because when you're rehearsing a play or even just trying to be truthful on film...
Guest:It can feel so elusive to get to that sort of truthful thing.
Guest:And then you go outside.
Guest:It's like you're trying to be an opera singer or you're trying to be a comedian.
Guest:And you walk out on the street and everyone passing you and the guy at the deli is Richard fucking Pryor.
Guest:They're totally truthful.
Guest:There's not a fake moment there.
Guest:And then you try and do your stupid little thing and you're just frotty McFuck fuck.
Marc:Oh, so you finally realize what a fraudulent endeavor you're involved in?
Guest:It just hit me.
Guest:Not only that, I appear to be doing it for the wrong reasons.
Marc:I imagine that's not an unusual thing for actors to experience.
Marc:And I noticed when I watch lately, I've gotten a little more in tune to, especially older actors, where you just start to see like, oh, he's just doing that thing he does.
Guest:Well, we have to acknowledge the fact that arguably the greatest actor on the planet, Marlon Brando,
Guest:Did not give a flying fuck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, there's no great opera singer who doesn't give a flying fuck.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:There's no dancer who doesn't.
Marc:You can get away with acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You can get away with acting.
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:And I think the more I talk to, there are some dudes that get into acting for the thing, for the craft, and then there are just other dudes that just don't want to work.
Yeah.
Guest:And hope they get lucky.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:They're just sort of like, you know, it's like, because me, it's sort of like, what are you, fucking, you're in the trailer for 10 hours?
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:I know, we talked about that last time.
Marc:Fucking trailer.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Marc:But no, but there are some dudes that it's like, look, I've got this thing I can do.
Marc:I've got this con job I can run.
Marc:I got this hustle.
Marc:And if I do the hustle right, I can do whatever the fuck I want in my life.
Marc:I can live in a trailer on Melbourne Beach.
Marc:I can fucking get a horse.
Marc:When you see these actors like William Holden, there's a generation like Steve McQueen.
Marc:We're going to go drive race cars.
Marc:That's why they act.
Marc:It's because they're like, you know, I never wanted a real job and I've got this thing I can do and that people pay me to do it and I can go drive race cars.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:Although like Hackman clearly gave a fuck.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:But he also had this kind of and I heard he was I heard it could be rough.
Guest:I heard he could be difficult on set, which I fucking hate.
Guest:I hate those people who are difficult.
Marc:Well, I would define difficult.
Marc:I hate people that will make an entire set of people wait because they're not done eating or they're cutting their toenails in their trailer.
Marc:That diva shit, I can't deal with.
Marc:If someone's a nut job and is at it with the director, I imagine I could handle that for a little while, but...
Guest:But it's the people that are- I just think like everybody's scared.
Guest:This is hard.
Guest:Nobody knows what they're doing.
Guest:And I find, in my experience, the people who are most precious about their own process are the most oblivious to everybody else's.
Guest:And it becomes like a family where all the attention goes to the nut.
Marc:The first name on the call sheet.
Yeah.
Guest:Not always, no.
Marc:But I think Kaplan said something to somebody, I don't remember who it was, but I always think about it, about acting.
Marc:He said, in terms of preparation, he goes, I know how to fill myself up.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:It's a weird thing, though, because I do, I really love that.
Guest:It still scares me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love it, but it's weird for me to love something I'm not sure that I respect.
Marc:Oh, is that what it is?
Marc:Is that what's going on?
Marc:You're having a crisis of respect?
Yeah.
Marc:No, I'm not, no.
Marc:There's no crisis.
Marc:And you're not feeling like you're a fraud?
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:You just think it's a ridiculous profession?
Guest:I think it's pretty crazy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:It's pretty crazy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like it's, I mean, I feel so lucky.
Guest:I have like survivor's guilt given the opportunities.
Marc:Well, you're good at it, and you look good, and you got an intensity to you.
Marc:You got a thing, you got that Whitford thing.
Guest:Yeah, that the teacher gave me.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:Trauma charm.
Guest:No, but this is something that troubles me about acting.
Guest:It's much more interesting to watch a fucking nut say pass the salt than it is to see somebody who is aware of their gas bill say pass the salt.
Guest:Insane is very interesting to watch.
Marc:That troubles me.
Marc:Well, yeah, but that's always the case.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You just can't capture that lightning in a bottle.
Marc:If somebody's truly nuts...
Marc:You're just going along for the ride, really.
Guest:To go back, Hackman, I think part of the reason Hackman's good is he's got a little edge.
Guest:He's got a little content that kind of gives him confidence.
Guest:I don't know where it comes from.
Marc:Duvall is of that ilk.
Marc:There's a couple of those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And also, Hackman's just sort of like, I'm done.
Marc:I'm going to Santa Fe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to ride my bike and paint pictures.
Marc:Write books.
Marc:Go fuck yourself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Write some books.
Marc:Uncle.
Marc:I'm good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's doing what you're dreaming of.
Guest:You're not going to do that, though.
Marc:You like doing what you do.
Marc:I do understand.
Marc:What comes down to me, dude, is, and I've enjoyed trying to do the acting.
Marc:A day on a set just bores you shitless.
Marc:Well, I just sit around trying not to eat everything.
Marc:It's sort of like, what's over there?
Marc:I'm going to go to craft services.
Marc:I could bring a book, I guess, and you're sitting there in someone else's clothes.
Marc:You can't be productive.
Marc:Yeah, and I'm uncomfortable.
Marc:Are you scared?
Guest:Do you think you might suck?
Marc:Whose robe is this?
Marc:Is there a better trailer than this one?
Marc:How come it's always a vinyl couch?
Marc:Can't they just make a real couch?
Marc:I mean, but also it's like, I don't know if we talked about this specifically before, the excitement of it is 10 minutes.
Marc:You wait 12 hours.
Marc:to shoot your thing a few times.
Marc:I want to enjoy the process, but a lot of times, I don't think I'm gonna suck, but I think I need to be doing more than I'm doing.
Marc:The last couple of times I've acted, I've done some preparation, I've thought about the character, and then by the time I get on set, they're like, no, you just do, you're good, you're good.
Marc:And I'm like, but I didn't really do, no, you're good.
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:One thing, I have spent a lot of my life in ongoing
Guest:you know luckily sort of high-end dramas right yeah right on ongoing series i think it's really interesting we all know that our attention spans are shattered by our fucking phones right yeah but there is this weird cultural compensation this appetite for these dickensian sprawling stories yeah
Guest:And when you see Tony Soprano come in and bark at Carmela's season five, you've been through the whole marriage with them.
Guest:And you've been in bed with them.
Guest:It's very, very intimate.
Guest:And I don't know about you, but any time I've ever done a movie, I have no fucking idea if it's going to work.
Guest:No matter what movie it is.
Guest:And, you know, I envy fucking comedians and songwriters and poets because you can work on something for a week and go, oh, wow, that doesn't work at all.
Guest:Like like if you're making a movie, it's like three years and then you go to the screening and it's like it's a fucking turd.
Guest:Like you can just chuck shit.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:Like like we have to go through the whole process and promote it.
Guest:And then we go and we're like, oh, Jesus.
Guest:This just sucks.
Guest:Like you really don't know if it works at all.
Marc:And it's not all up to you.
Marc:That's what you're saying.
Marc:Is that like you have no control over it.
Marc:No.
Marc:Once you do your little thing.
Marc:Like I'm the only guy doing my little thing.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I just got an answer to me.
Marc:But you put your heart into something.
Marc:Then you're like, okay, I hope you don't make me look bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like imagine if somebody could magically, somebody who owned you could magically come in and fuck up your timing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah it's it's it's awful but i know if you're doing like uh west winger oh yeah a long time the show comes on and not everybody likes it you got your audience sure and then yeah acting becomes really interesting because you have this long relationship with the character long you know if you have you know yeah good writing if the show sucks it's a fucking
Marc:Well, I think, like, ultimately, the big lesson for me, ultimately, with acting was to make choices.
Marc:Like, you know, I can be present, but, like, you know, I need to know how to say these words in this way and run it in my head a couple times and then lose it, you know?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:See, I always, the longer I get to do this, I get, I bristle at the word, because everyone says, make a choice, make a choice, make a choice, right?
Guest:Got to make choices.
Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They also say storytelling.
Marc:You got to drop that a lot.
Marc:We're storytellers.
Marc:Are you a storyteller?
Guest:That sounds kind of... Oh, well, this is a whole thing.
Guest:I was thinking about this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:Choices.
Guest:Finish your choices.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'll finish the choices thing.
Guest:Like, it's like, you got to make a choice.
Guest:Like, every acting school, it's, you know, it's part of learning how to act.
Guest:I actually, the older I get, I got to do a thing with...
Guest:Where I was just briefly in a scene with Meryl Streep.
Guest:And I'm like as far away as the mic from her while she's doing this thing.
Guest:And I'm like, oh, she's playing five pianos.
Guest:Five pianos.
Guest:She is not making a choice.
Guest:She is getting played.
Guest:It's the difference between performing a scene and getting played.
Guest:Like, it's the difference between good acting and great acting.
Guest:Like, Allison Janney is someone who's... The sensation is... She was in the movie with me.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I love her.
Marc:Yeah, great.
Guest:Love her.
Guest:But that distinction, and there's another distinction that I feel between good acting and great acting, is good acting is like really well done, but it's like you're in school.
Guest:Great acting is like fucking recess.
Guest:And there's often conflicting things going on.
Guest:There were 20 different things going on with Meryl Streep.
Guest:I just had an interesting thing because Elizabeth Moss, who I absolutely adore, I've never seen anybody as an actor take more initiative in the overall storytelling.
Guest:Just extraordinary.
Guest:And she's doing basically...
Guest:sophie's choice of the series so i was direct you know it's very difficult emotionally i what the uh was merle in that no no no no no no but this is what you're in the fifth season of this thing yeah yeah so and i gotta talk about margaret atwood but uh but i'm directing her and uh
Guest:As an actor, I have a really weird relationship with directors.
Marc:We talked about it.
Marc:Fuck you, I suck.
Guest:Fuck you, I suck.
Guest:Okay, what?
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's all these things that I hate that directors do.
Guest:The worst thing is they'll go, cut.
Guest:And then they just kind of come up close to you.
Guest:It's just like inarticulate disappointment.
Guest:It's like, I'm not sure, God, what is it?
Guest:But man, it just does not work.
Guest:And I found myself doing that.
Guest:You did?
Marc:Yeah, and it's just because you're trying to be clear.
Marc:I know, but shouldn't that be something you keep to yourself and just say, I haven't done that much acting, but the one that always gets me but I think is the best is just sort of like, you want to do it again?
Marc:I think we should, you want to do it again?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You want to do it again?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's just do it again.
Guest:But we had this really exciting take when I got to direct, and I think what I had said to Lizzie, like I was joking, but I just sort of screamed on the set.
Guest:I said, pretend I just said something brilliant and do whatever the fuck you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now, I was joking, and she...
Guest:It was an extraordinary take with a lot of conflicting things going on.
Marc:How many episodes did you direct?
Guest:Just one.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Just one.
Guest:But what was interesting to me is, and actors generally need direction, but if I had told her anything, she would have been playing my direction, and it would have erased...
Guest:all the contradictory humanity that was in that.
Marc:That was happening?
Marc:Well, this is a character she's been doing for years now, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So she knows that woman.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, man, yes.
Guest:And it's a very tough thing for directors that come in from the outside.
Guest:I remember these guys would, like, you know, come in and try and direct Alice and Janney in, like, year four of... I took one director behind a flat.
Guest:I was like, shh, shh, shh, shh.
Guest:She knows.
Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:Pumpkin, just let her go.
Marc:What was the vibe on the set now?
Marc:What's the vibe on the set?
Marc:Well, I guess you guys were already done by the time Roe v. Wade got fucked.
Guest:no no no we were no we were doing it no it's fucking like it's it's it's um you know it's god it's such a fucking nightmare it's it's such a dark time what one thing i was gonna say about margaret atwood yeah
Guest:misogyny is at the reptilian brainstem of white nationalism.
Guest:You know, it always has been.
Guest:So the show is unfortunately more and more relevant.
Guest:I think the basic sort of, if you want to get academic about it, the sort of theme of the show is how do you remain a human being in an inhumane world?
Guest:Or, you know, can you?
Guest:Margaret Atwood was doing interviews and I heard her say this thing that just fucking...
Guest:shook me.
Guest:She was talking about, A, you and I have grown up in a world where democracy is inevitable and inclusion, the expansion of inclusion is inevitable.
Guest:She's like, it's an aberration.
Guest:It rarely happens.
Marc:It doesn't stay long.
Guest:It is the exception, and you have to fight for it and protect it.
Guest:But she said, and she said, you know, I know this may offend some people.
Guest:I'm not saying it to offend them, but I think it's something about human nature that we have to acknowledge.
Guest:She said, and it's part of the reason that progressives are at a disadvantage when facing fascists.
Guest:And the fact is this.
Guest:It was fun to be a Nazi.
Guest:I mean, you know, it's fun to go, fuck your pronouns.
Marc:To be given the license to hate.
Marc:To be a monster.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To hate and hurt and control and kill.
Guest:While progressives are going, we really need to be more just and we really need to take care of the- Look, someone's crying.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's very alive.
Marc:Or someone's dead or whatever.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But getting back to what we're talking about in terms of stopping or me retiring, all I think about, dude, is that in terms of working, in terms of being a stand-up, it's like right now I know that my job,
Marc:for a certain type of person is to provide some sort of relief.
Marc:I can't offer anybody hope.
Marc:I can't share the way I think of the world.
Marc:I can create some sort of dark relief.
Marc:I had an executive.
Marc:It was very funny.
Marc:where I wrote a show for FX that we're trying to get them to make a series.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And me and my partner, my co-writer, Sam Lipsight, who's a novelist, he's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we're in notes with... His dad was a sportsman.
Marc:Robert Lipsight, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:We're doing notes.
Marc:And Nick Radd says, you know, we just give him the story for a second script.
Marc:And he's on Zoom.
Marc:He's like, you know, I don't have any specific notes, but if we could just get it from bleak to dark.
Marc:And I'm like, that's what I do.
Marc:From hopeless to heartbreaking.
Marc:But in a way, first of all,
Marc:Most people are dumb.
Marc:They're not dumb.
Marc:They're ignorant and they're not paying attention.
Marc:You can't call this the GOP anymore.
Marc:And until somebody starts talking about fascism for what it is in a real way in this country, in a real way, because they're acting that way.
Marc:It's a shameless combination of just flat out.
Marc:minority rule fuckers and a bunch of Christian weirdos who are now grouped together for the same cause.
Marc:And it's a real problem and we might, we'll probably might lose.
Marc:So in my mind, do I want to spend my life as an adult artist or whatever the fuck I am doing what I do in dealing with that question that you just said Margaret Atwood posed, which is can we be a human
Marc:Can we still exist with the humanity within this system?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it's like it's going to be different how it manifests here.
Marc:But so when I talk about retirement or whatever, I'm just trying to figure out, like, look, I've earned I've I've earned my spot in the world.
Marc:I've contributed what I contribute.
Marc:You know, I don't know if I can facilitate change.
Marc:I know I can make a certain type of overly sensitive, progressive, reactive person, you know, feel less alone.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I don't have a platform big enough to... I'm not leading people against the fascist.
Marc:I'm raising awareness.
Guest:Well, this brings up an interesting thing that I think about all the time.
Guest:One of the reasons, not only for the structural reasons, but one of the reasons...
Guest:Progressives are at a disadvantage is the right because they are basically pursuing business interests fueled by culture wars.
Guest:It's a business agenda.
Guest:The right understands what I think is actually the truth, which is that politics is the way you create your moral vision.
Guest:We think it's culture.
Guest:And culture is very, very important.
Guest:But Will and Grace won't help you if you have a pre-existing condition or you want to get married and you're gay.
Guest:And Handmaid's Tale won't help you if you want an abortion.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I tried to experiment with this idea on stage the other day where it's like we're having a lot of success in diversifying fiction.
Marc:There's a lot of good stuff in terms of representation and progressive ideas in fiction.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's exactly what I'm saying.
Marc:But that's just a business.
Marc:And whether or not that'll facilitate change in any way...
Marc:I don't know, but the mythological landscape of storytelling on our TVs is starting to look a little more colorful.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:While politically it's whipsawing the other way.
Guest:George Floyd dies.
Guest:We watch this horror.
Guest:We...
Guest:Justifiably, even though we have seen a number of innocent black men and women killed, this George Floyd thing gets us on the streets and we do the diagnosis, which is absolutely necessary.
Guest:You have to do the diagnosis.
Guest:But it took that.
Guest:But we're not there.
Guest:You got a Stacey Abrams, the treatment, which we are kind of too cool for school.
Guest:We don't want to run for the school board.
Guest:We don't.
Guest:And they're using the levers of government.
Guest:You know, Karl Rove in 2010 says to the Koch brothers, give me, I don't know what it was, 70 million, which is not a lot to them.
Guest:And I'll give you all the state houses.
Guest:It happened in Wisconsin.
Marc:That was a long-term agenda.
Marc:But now the state houses, local government.
Marc:We don't have a long-term agenda.
Guest:We need to fall in love.
Guest:We need Barack Obama to come along and we'll fall in love.
Marc:Well, we need more civil servants.
Marc:And like you said, no one wants to fucking do that.
Marc:But mostly craven idiots.
Marc:who want to facilitate power of some kind.
Marc:I don't know, or people that really, I mean, some of these, they really believe in this white nationalism thing.
Marc:This is a full on, like, you know, like, look, we get it.
Marc:Yeah, we're outnumbered, but we're not fucking...
Marc:giving up the ship well they also they also you know we're like amazed at their lack of shame they think this is a war yeah and you don't negotiate until the war is over right it and people forget that like it's like there's part of our brains it's sort of like i don't understand these people it's like you don't have to other than they believe it well and and they're going to do whatever is necessary
Guest:What's interesting to me, like one of the things we don't get is like, like Trump, like that fucker.
Guest:Like imagine if I if if I if I said, OK, you're recording.
Guest:Good.
Guest:This is what your audience needs to know about me.
Guest:I'm incredibly rich.
Guest:I'm phenomenally rich, and the reason I'm so rich is I'm the greatest actor who ever lived.
Guest:I don't know if you saw my work in Revenge of the Nerds 2, colon, Nerds in Paradise, but I'm a genius.
Guest:Like, if I said that, seriously, my stupid JV, whatever the fuck this is, show business career, would instantly, justifiably be over.
Guest:Like, how, and that shamelessness,
Guest:That capacity, it's hypnotic for not having any shame.
Guest:It's like encountering someone.
Guest:He's a totally confident dick.
Guest:It's like encountering someone who is not at the mercy of gravity.
Marc:Of empathy, conscience, laws.
Marc:He's just totally...
Marc:Doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:But anyway, what I was trying to explain is that... Now I want to retire.
Marc:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:It's not a matter of retiring.
Marc:It's like, look...
Marc:However my life is gone, I don't have children.
Marc:I've saved some money.
Marc:I have this gig, I like talking to people, and I think I add a lot to the world in what I do.
Marc:I like doing standup.
Marc:But a few years from now, I believe that living in California is gonna become somewhat untenable.
Marc:I, you know, it was already, you know, when when Trump first became president, I was afraid to travel as a comic on the road because of my point of view in certain places, because you go out into the world.
Marc:It's not like I travel with an entourage or anyone's protecting me.
Marc:I don't know who that guy at the front desk of the hotel is.
Guest:Everybody's got a fucking gun.
Marc:Wait, who's at the hotel?
Marc:Who's it?
Guest:Like a shit liberal.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But unfortunately, I'm not, you know, I'm not that on the radar.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I'm really not, which is fine.
Marc:I can.
Marc:And in my audiences, I'm not running, you know, rallies.
Marc:You know, I have some mostly middle aged people, many of them women who were, you know, who just, you know, enjoy what I do.
Marc:And I'm grateful.
Guest:Menopausal Democrats.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Same.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But my point is, like, I don't know as I get older, you know, what have I got?
Marc:What do I owe?
Marc:You know, so when I talk about retirement, it's not because I want a life of leisure.
Marc:I'm just I just fucking I applied for permanent residency in Canada.
Marc:I'm not fucking around.
Marc:I don't you know, how enjoyable is it to go out?
Marc:Like, I'm doing a whole bit about like, I don't give a fuck if the Midwest Balkanizes into some Christian fascist shit show.
Marc:You know, we have forced birth rape culture nightmare because I'm not going there.
Marc:I don't vacation in Arkansas.
Marc:But then here's the other side of that joke.
Marc:It's like, well, if it does become a country and all these liberal Jews have to leave California to move east, we're going to be stopped at the border in Utah.
Marc:They're going to be like, sorry, we've been turned away before.
Marc:But my point is,
Marc:Like, I'm just trying to figure out how, what does the rest of my life look like?
Marc:What is the fight for me?
Marc:Do I need to fight?
Marc:Am I fighting?
Marc:Is there a fight to be won?
Marc:You know, do we just be, are we all just going to buckle and take it?
Guest:No, I think there's, I think there's a fight to be won.
Guest:And I think that we have never been in this.
Guest:We have been, uh, I guess I'm going to use the word privilege to be in a position where we've never been challenged like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of very inspiring people, basically everyone in the civil rights movement, they were up against a lot fucking worse.
Marc:But they were actually in the streets doing something.
Marc:I don't know if it was, sure it was worse, but I don't think it's been framed properly right now.
Marc:It's pretty bad right now.
Guest:I didn't understand when the Roe v. Wade was overturned why I was in Canada and I was like, isn't everybody on the streets?
Guest:Like we were, you know, after the election.
Guest:I mean, by the way, I do –
Guest:I do have hope.
Marc:You do?
Guest:I do.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I know how fucking, you know, 70,000 votes, two stolen Supreme Court seats, but a third of our Supreme Court was now appointed by what clearly seems to be a fucking not only asshole.
Marc:But he didn't even make those decisions.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But they took advantage of, in a lot of ways, our cynicism.
Guest:I think people are waking up.
Guest:I also think of my mom, who lived through...
Guest:The first Spanish flu and her earliest memory where, you know, was funerals and then the depression.
Guest:And then it looked like Hitler was going to win.
Guest:And my dad's fighting, you know, over there.
Guest:And then the Red Scare.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like like the shit, the shit bubbles up and it needs to be put the fuck down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I understand, man, young people, you know, I'm in this Quaker house.
Yeah.
Guest:And my brother's a conscientious objector.
Guest:Everybody we idolized was getting killed on TV in the 60s.
Guest:But I, from my parents, internalized this unmistakable message that there was hope that the country was going to get better.
Guest:I feel terrible because I don't think my kids have that.
Guest:I think they worry about fascism, the planet's on fucking fire.
Marc:Can't do drugs safely anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like you can't, like you imagine if fentanyl was around when we were fucking hitting that shit?
Marc:I mean, I'm sober a long time, but like one line of like what you think is coke, it's over.
Marc:You fucking don't, you foam it at the mouth and it's over.
Guest:Somebody my daughter knows, young kid, first year college in New York, line of cocaine laced with fentanyl.
Guest:Dead?
Guest:No, yeah, dead.
Guest:Dead, sweet.
Guest:Soul.
Guest:Gone.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But anyways, I didn't mean to distract.
Marc:So you were concerned about this generation not having hope.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, I want them to know that that is exactly what fascists, where fascists want you to be.
Guest:They want you to believe that your vote doesn't matter.
Guest:They want you to believe that the institutions can't hold up.
Guest:And I honestly do believe this is a winnable fight.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Well, I mean, just framing it like that, now that you've told me.
Marc:But I think you should retire.
Marc:Yeah, like I'm a child.
Marc:I'm like, oh, that's what they want me to think?
Marc:Well, fuck them.
Marc:I'm much more developed than you.
Marc:I'm Mr. Hope now.
Marc:Yeah, that's what the teacher saw in me.
Marc:It's called a callback.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Very familiar with them.
Marc:It's going to cause nothing but trouble.
Marc:How are these guys making light of child molestation for an hour and a half?
Guest:No, I'm not.
Marc:No, but I think I needed to hear that.
Marc:I mean, it's like I've had glimmers of it.
Marc:Just the fact that I applied for this sort of green card type of residency, it gave me peace of mind.
Marc:Even if I don't use it, even if I don't get it, there's something about like I just...
Marc:Maybe it's a Jew thing.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But because some of this stuff is not going to be that organized.
Marc:It's going to be random.
Marc:They're already shooting Jews.
Marc:They're already killing black people.
Guest:You know, these are just, you know, they're... These Christians, they may use right-wing Jews, but they... Yeah, it's just... Yeah, right.
Marc:Like, when does othering...
Marc:Become kill your neighbor that that's it.
Marc:It's happened before quick.
Marc:That's yeah.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:You know, I don't know.
Marc:We know who's gonna broadcast that or when the the general tone changes.
Marc:Yeah, that type of lack of conscience and shamelessness because a lot of these Christian fanatics really think that Democrats just by our satanic
Guest:Oh, I'm on some, somebody warned me, I'm on some QAnon, like, Jeffrey Epstein list.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Did you go to the island?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it was amazing.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:And you know who I ran into?
Guest:The teacher?
Guest:The teacher.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a good callback.
Marc:I like that one.
Marc:Yeah, so how does that feel to be on that list?
Marc:Special?
Special?
Guest:Well, I thought, like, it's, you know, I honestly have thought, like, I go back to, you know, I do political stuff.
Guest:And, you know, like, you feel a little different.
Guest:Like, you know, you go out and, you know, you're some, like, Hollywood guy standing on the back of a pickup truck.
Guest:And they think you're a pederast?
Marc:God.
Marc:Yeah, they think everyone's a pederast.
Guest:Except for the guy who hung out with Jeffrey Epstein.
Marc:They give that guy a pass, dude.
Marc:They all know.
Marc:They give him a pass because he's like the ramrod.
Marc:He's the guy that's pounding the path.
Guest:My daughter came home and said, I'm dating this guy.
Guest:Great guy.
Guest:Really rich.
Guest:He runs Miss Teen USA.
Marc:If she gave that, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah, it'd be, yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:But, all right, let's not get into a hopeless zone.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Guest:Great talking to you.
Marc:I'm glad we did it.
Guest:You seem good, by the way.
Marc:I'm all right, yeah.
Marc:You seem all right.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:No, I can tell that, like, you're having... I was worried about you, because, like, you're in my ear.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, I could relate...
Guest:that you were at a place at that moment of where you thought you found, even as cynical as you are, kind of a happy ending.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Guest:And then at that horrible moment, just because you're in my ear, like...
Guest:I really, I ached for you, but I can feel you as much as you want to retire.
Guest:I can feel the joy you have.
Marc:Work?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, you know, I think about it a lot.
Marc:You know, her birthday was the other day, and, you know, it's one of those things where
Marc:There's no explanation for any of that shit.
Marc:And it's not that unusual, but living with it, you make certain weird choices just out of the need to emotionally survive somehow, you know?
Marc:But I don't... It really... When I think about it in those terms where, like you said, whoever the hell I was for as long as I've been at that I'd landed in this situation that looked like, all right, this worked out.
Marc:And then that goes like that.
Marc:It's so fucking devastating and so unexplainable.
Marc:You don't even know what to do with that.
Marc:And it's not like I sit around thinking like...
Marc:well, I'm never gonna have that again, or why me, or any of that.
Marc:It's just part of my life.
Guest:My experience in that area is not as traumatic as that, but there is a miracle.
Guest:I was like,
Guest:miracle of birth, miracle of death.
Guest:You're not here?
Guest:Our brain can't... The saddest part about that is you just leave all your stuff.
Marc:That's the worst part.
Marc:I think about that all the time.
Marc:I gotta start unloading this shit.
Marc:My stuff.
Marc:Someone's gonna have to deal with all this shit.
Guest:There was a play that Kathy Bates was in a long time ago.
Guest:And there was this, I think Kathy was in it, and there was this moment where somebody, I think somebody had died and they realized that
Guest:the breath was in a balloon.
Marc:Wow, yeah.
Guest:And it was, I forget what play it was.
Marc:Is the end of the play they open the balloon?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You kind of see it coming, but it's good.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you just see it coming.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Anyway.
Marc:But I appreciate those feelings, and I'm glad you're doing good.
Guest:You too, man.
Marc:Well, that was interesting, right?
Marc:Bradley Whitford.
Marc:I enjoyed that conversation.
Marc:The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on Hulu with two episodes up now and new episodes every Wednesday.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now I need you to just hang out for a second, will you?
Marc:Okay, up now for full Marin subscribers, we've posted another batch of producer cuts.
Marc:This is stuff from recent episodes that got cut for time or other reasons.
Marc:But now you can hear them and hear Brendan's reasons for cutting them.
Marc:We've got stuff from the recent episodes with James Acaster, Brett Morgan, and Jerry Harrison.
Marc:Go to the link in the episode description to sign up for a WTF Plus subscription if you're not already a full Marin subscriber.
Marc:Or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:And speaking of Jerry Harrison, on Monday's show, I talked to Adrian Ballou.
Marc:Yeah, the guitar player, the amazing guitar player.
Marc:He and Jerry are out doing a live concert of Talking Heads Remain in Light.
Marc:But we talked about a lot, a lot of stuff.
Marc:I mean, Adrian goes back and no one plays guitar like that guy.
Marc:And he was defining.
Marc:And certain things defined him.
Marc:Zappa, Bowie.
Marc:He was crimson for years when Fripp pulled him in.
Marc:And the heads.
Marc:I mean, like, it was great.
Marc:It's a great conversation.
Marc:Something to look forward to.
Marc:Tomorrow night, I'm in Tucson, Arizona at the Rialto Theater.
Marc:That's Friday, September 16th.
Marc:And then on Saturday, I'll be in Phoenix, Arizona at Stand Up Live on the 17th.
Marc:Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on September 22nd.
Marc:Fort Collins, Colorado at the Lincoln Center on September 23rd.
Marc:In Toronto, Ontario at the Queen Elizabeth Theater on September 30th and October 1st.
Marc:Then I'm in Livermore, California at the Bankhead Theater on October 6th.
Marc:and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California at the Sunset Center on October 7th.
Marc:I will be in London, England at the Bloomsbury Theater Saturday and Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd.
Marc:And I'll be in Dublin, Ireland at Vicar Street Wednesday, October 26th.
Marc:I have dates in November and December in Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Eugene, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee.
Marc:And Long Beach.
Marc:Get that Long Beach in there.
Marc:And my HBO special taping at Town Hall in New York City is on Thursday, December 8th.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info.
Marc:Guitar now.
Marc:Yeah?
Bye.
Bye.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey.
Marc:La Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.
Marc:Alright, alright.