Episode 1369 - Sigourney Weaver
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it let me say shana tova to those of you who are jews
Marc:it's it's the new year today happy 5783 yep this is our year jews let's make sure we understand and all know as one that they still hate us and that uh it's subtle it happens on a lot of levels sometimes it's outward you know who those people are but sometimes it might be your pal or it might be somebody you agree with politically it might be just somebody that you assume is a an okay person for the most part but you know what
Marc:There's a little bit of Jew hate in almost everybody.
Marc:So just stay vigilant, but stay out.
Marc:Stay out.
Marc:Don't hide.
Marc:Don't hide.
Marc:Jews be Jews.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Shana Tov out of you.
Marc:Yom Kippur is around the corner.
Marc:And maybe we'll get a clean slate.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But I just want to put it out there.
Marc:Jews.
Marc:So, look, today I have Sigourney Weaver on the show, and she's like actually all over the place right now.
Marc:She's in the film The Good House with Kevin Kline that opens this week.
Marc:She's also in the upcoming movie Call Jane with Elizabeth Banks about the movement of women providing abortion services for women when abortions were illegal.
Marc:She's in Paul Schrader's new movie, Master Gardener, which is another exploration of bizarre and troubling moral conflict and masculinity.
Marc:And that just premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
Marc:Also a great movie.
Marc:It's sort of of a recent trilogy, I think, of Schrader's movies.
Marc:Schrader, who I talked to Sam Rockwell about.
Marc:I would call them a trilogy.
Marc:I'm looking at his filmography.
Marc:But it seems that these three first were formed.
Marc:the card counter and master gardener of are of an ilk but they're always a lot of them are about men difficult morally uh dubious men i'll be in toronto this week friday and saturday you can go to wtfpod.com slash tour get tickets for that not many tickets left i want to say thank you to the people of boulder colorado
Marc:And to the people of Fort Collins, Colorado, both those shows sold out.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:I did the shows with Little Esther.
Marc:We had a great time.
Marc:Good shows.
Marc:Been doing a lot of reading.
Marc:I've been doing a lot of watching.
Marc:I've been doing a lot of thinking.
Marc:All right.
Marc:All those things happening.
Marc:I just read David Baddiel's book, Jews Don't Count.
Marc:And it was provocative.
Marc:It seems that I'm going to be doing a live WTF with Mr. Baddiel in London.
Marc:It's at the Bloomsbury Theater on Wednesday, October 19th.
Marc:I haven't done one of these in years.
Marc:It's a live WTF, so come out, even if you're coming to my stand-up shows later in the week.
Marc:And you can get the tickets to that at wtfpod.com slash tour.
Marc:The info is there.
Marc:But the book was interesting.
Marc:It was an argument...
Marc:About the basically the anti-Semitism, either latent or dismissive anti-Semitism of the left primarily.
Marc:And he really dealt with a lot of stuff in there and I'm still processing it.
Marc:So I read that.
Marc:And I've been watching Ken Burns' documentary about America's reaction to the Holocaust.
Marc:And a lot of times when people get political or celebrities get political or anybody gets political, people think it's some sort of posturing.
Marc:But the truth is, is that you will learn to understand and engage when you learn to understand and engage.
Marc:Who the fuck knows when that's going to happen?
Marc:It's not an organic thing.
Marc:You have to be concerned.
Marc:You have to want to be part of a change or elevation of ideas.
Marc:And then, you know, applying that idea of what do I wake up in service of?
Marc:I'm a fairly selfish guy, but I'm angry.
Marc:I'm concerned and I'm engaged.
Marc:What do I want to lock into and try to make a difference with or try to focus on?
Marc:Al Franken once talked to me about it.
Marc:It's like you have to pick your issue.
Marc:Like right now, you know, in...
Marc:Iran, it's a disaster.
Marc:It's a fucking nightmare.
Marc:It's a theocratic, religious, fascist nightmare.
Marc:Masa Amini, this woman who was detained by morality police, they call him that.
Marc:and killed has now unleashed massive protests around the world and in Iran.
Marc:Rightfully so.
Marc:That's what needs to happen.
Marc:That's what happens.
Marc:And who knows how it's going to play out.
Marc:That's a reaction to a very specific religious fascism.
Marc:That's what it looks like in an extreme sense.
Marc:Russia, now we're sitting around waiting for Russia to decide whether or not Putin's ego
Marc:will absorb failure and not unleash nuclear arms.
Marc:So now he's mobilized all these reservists who didn't even know they were had to fight again.
Marc:Hundreds of thousands of people, thousands and thousands of people are bailing.
Marc:They're jumping ship in protest, in fear against authoritarianism.
Marc:And in watching this documentary that Ken Burns made to see how it just starts in any country.
Marc:Donald Trump is doing rallies and QAnon fanatics are doing some sort of thing with their hands.
Marc:Anytime things with hands happen, you know what it reflects.
Marc:Whether or not Trump's actions at this point are desperate or he's a man in trouble, who the fuck knows?
Marc:But he is a guy consolidating what is essentially an American fascist base.
Marc:You know, I think a lot of regular or slightly craven or not completely out of their fucking mind.
Marc:Republicans are starting to be like, I don't know, but he's definitely appealing and focusing on a specifically fascist base, a brain fucked bunch of misinformed, aggrieved people.
Marc:Who he's hoping are willing to do whatever the fuck he needs them to do to do whatever the fuck he wants.
Marc:Now there's protest here, there's engagement, but this is all happening.
Marc:And what am I in service of?
Marc:I mean, all of us should support any sort of pushback or protest against fascism, which is either functioning in countries or almost functioning or taking hold when you see what's happening in these Republican governed states on school board levels.
Marc:in which books they're saying can and can't be read, how they're handling LGBTQ rights, how they're handling abortion rights.
Marc:This shit creeps in.
Marc:All of a sudden, you live in a state long enough and you realize a generation of kids wasn't allowed to know the history of America in its truth or was denied or forbidden to engage in educating themselves about different types of people.
Marc:Different preferences.
Marc:Two generations past that, history gets erased.
Marc:What's happening now is a pushback against decades of liberal democracy.
Marc:An attempt to create equality and balance.
Marc:That was very threatening to people like Samuel Alito coming up as he did.
Marc:This has been going on for decades.
Marc:Christian fascism, autocracy, authoritarianism, they're all related.
Marc:So women in my life, powerful women in my life,
Marc:I have books out this week, I believe.
Marc:I know that Betty Gilpin's book, All the Women in My Brain and Other Concerns, is out, and Betty's a genius.
Marc:Not only is she an amazing actress, but she's very smart, very funny, poetic, cutting, and satirically sound, and raw and truthful, all of it.
Marc:And these are sort of a collection of essays.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:You can get the audio book as well.
Marc:All the Women in My Brain is available.
Marc:And Betty Gilpin is one of the best people.
Marc:I'm excited about it.
Marc:And she didn't even ask me to promote it.
Marc:And the other woman who I see regularly, who I've always spoken highly of, who I watch a lot, who I've argued with at times.
Marc:There's only a couple of comics I've got into it with and remain friends with.
Marc:And that's Bill Burr and Eliza Schlesinger.
Marc:We've had words over ideas and we've come out the other side of those times with a certain mutual respect.
Marc:Eliza has worked her fucking ass off for a long time.
Marc:Years.
Marc:I remember she featured for me in La Jolla once.
Marc:And now she's a powerhouse.
Marc:She does a lot of specials.
Marc:I think she's got a new special coming out on Netflix.
Marc:But she has a book.
Marc:All things aside, absolutely correct opinions.
Marc:Eliza Schlesinger.
Marc:And she wrote a nice thing to me.
Marc:That's all it takes, I guess.
Marc:Eliza is a force to be reckoned with, as is Betty Gilpin.
Marc:Both have books out.
Marc:And I recommend them.
Marc:All right?
Marc:No paid promos there.
Marc:Just peers doing things.
Marc:You know, I had 23 years sober in August and, you know, I don't I'm not as regular meeting goers.
Marc:I used to.
Marc:I don't have a home group.
Marc:No one usually the last two years I've gotten a coin and it's not like I carry the coins around with me, but you want a coin and you want a heavy one, especially when the years get up there.
Marc:You want a nice, heavy coin.
Marc:Coins are what we get when we get a year, two years, three years, years, a nice brass or metal.
Marc:You want a metal coin with the number of years on there.
Marc:And a few years ago, I remember buying my own because I wanted to have one.
Marc:But the last couple of years, I've just gotten in my P.O.
Marc:box a letter with a coin from a woman named Terry.
Marc:I don't know Terry.
Marc:I don't know her.
Marc:It just says, hey, Marc Maron, congratulations on 23 years of continuous sobriety.
Marc:Please accept this coin from me to you with gratitude for everything you do through your work to help the still-suffering alcoholic.
Marc:You educate and inspire by allowing us to watch you walking the walk.
Marc:So sending love and light to you in service.
Marc:Always, Terry.
Marc:AA Central Office, Little Rock, Arkansas.
Marc:Thank you for the coin.
Marc:Again, Terry.
Marc:And that's the way it works.
Marc:But I don't know her.
Marc:And I didn't even know anybody liked me in Arkansas.
Marc:Also, in Denver, I saw my old junior high buddy, Eric Tittman.
Marc:from way back and he brought me a kind of great birthday present eric tippman was the guy he was uh seventh grade maybe i was in eighth grade we used to ride the bus together and i used to bring a cassette on he did he had a cassette that he made and had the stones i think it was the first time i heard sweet virginia first time i heard midnight rambler was from his dad's records through his cassette on my cassette player i think that's the way it worked
Marc:And we used to listen to that stuff.
Marc:But I didn't remember.
Marc:You know, like, we go way back, but we don't see each other hardly at all.
Marc:But he came to the show with his wife.
Marc:I think it's his wife.
Marc:I don't know if they're married.
Marc:But he brought me a birthday present, and that was David Bowie's Changes One.
Marc:But get this.
Marc:It was mine.
Marc:He's returning my record.
Marc:It's got my little name on it up in the right-hand corner, Marin.
Marc:My copy of Changes Won from junior high school is now back with me.
Marc:What a great present.
Marc:What a great present.
Marc:With my little writing.
Marc:That's my Changes Won.
Marc:And that was the record that introduced me to David Bowie.
Marc:I remember how I found out about that.
Marc:It was at camp.
Marc:OK, let's get on with it.
Marc:Sigourney Weaver is here on this episode talking to me.
Marc:You're going to hear it momentarily.
Marc:The Good House, her movie with Kevin Kline, opens this Friday, September 30th.
Marc:Here we are, me and Sigourney Weaver.
Marc:So do you go down to Hawaii a lot?
Guest:We do.
Guest:He has some family there.
Guest:And if you've only gone through Hawaii, like on your way to somewhere else or whatever, being with a native who can show you everything, the right food trucks and the right...
Guest:Waterfalls, and just the spirit of growing up in such a special place with such a remarkable history, culture, the music, the dance.
Marc:How did his family get there?
Guest:Interesting story.
Guest:His grandfather was Scottish, and he was in the Black Watch during World War I. Huh.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:So that's a Scottish brigade of soldiers.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so he was with his platoon and they were being shelled.
Guest:And so he was the only one that had a sweep hand on his watch.
Guest:So he timed his guys out to safety, like 12 of them.
Guest:And then for himself, he was the last one, he forgot to look at his watch.
Guest:So he was in an explosion and they had to put a steel plate in his head.
Guest:And they said, you really can't come home and live here because the extremes of temperature will be so uncomfortable for you.
Guest:You have to go to a warm climate.
Guest:hitched a ride on some steamer going out to Asia.
Guest:He had an uncle in the Philippines.
Guest:I think he might have known someone in Hawaii.
Guest:And he taught himself accounting, a whole way of dealing with numbers on his way out.
Guest:And when he got to Honolulu, he thought, well, this looks pretty good to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And next thing you know, he sent for this girl he knew a tiny bit from the next town over from Forfer, Scotland, who arrived and he had to marry her as soon as she got off the boat.
Guest:And I think she was terrified.
Guest:I think she honestly thought she was...
Guest:going to be eaten or something.
Guest:She was in some dangerous world.
Guest:Anyway, so they had two children, and Jim's dad was one of them.
Guest:Wild.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Jim's dad actually was 17 when they bombed Pearl Harbor.
Guest:He stood on the roof of their house in Kaimakee, watching the planes come, and he signed up.
Guest:And they took all these boys from Hawaii and maybe from California, too.
Guest:Anyone who'd grown up with anyone Asian, they sent to the European War Theater and...
Marc:As revenge?
Guest:No, because they thought that maybe they wouldn't be able to fight people who they grew up with.
Guest:So they sent these guys who'd grown up in Hawaii to the winters of Europe, which they knew nothing about.
Guest:They knew nothing about the terrain.
Marc:So his dad was like on the front?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:He was in the Navy, but he was in that theater.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:It's amazing how people, like where they land and how they kind of evolve and where their families are from.
Marc:I mean, to be a native Hawaiian is a very unique thing if you're not a native person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They call someone born in the islands a keikioka aina, a child of the islands.
Guest:And so for people, white people who've grown up in the islands who make that their home, I'm not sure they feel Hawaiian, but they definitely feel like their home is Hawaii.
Marc:Like, yeah, I would think, I mean, at some point, I think you'd have to feel Hawaiian.
Marc:I grew up in New Mexico, and I feel relatively New Mexican, but I wouldn't say I'm native to it.
Guest:It's probably more political than that in Hawaii.
Guest:I've never actually asked him.
Guest:That's probably right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, because there's still a sovereignty movement there, and there's a lot there still working out.
Marc:Yeah, I go down there.
Marc:I go to Kauai a lot.
Marc:Oh, do you?
Marc:Yeah, because I don't know.
Marc:I just started going there years ago, and I vacationed there a lot, and I love it.
Guest:Do you ever go to the Allerton Gardens?
Marc:In Kauai?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think I have been once.
Guest:Because they have a wonderful dinner tour.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They take you through these amazing garden rooms that this man, Mr. Allerton, he traveled with a young man that he said was his son.
Guest:They traveled all over the world.
Guest:This was in the 20s.
Guest:I think at a certain point, they decided enough already, and they went back to Hawaii, found this land, and then they brought people in.
Guest:So they would have these enormous parties, costume parties and things like that.
Guest:And so the whole...
Guest:place is like these beautiful garden rooms and then at the end of the tour yeah you you see where Jurassic Park shot here and there and then at the end of the tour there's you you sit and have dinner on the shore where their little house is this is in Kauai this is in Kauai it's like the greatest deal you know I don't know why I've never done that
Guest:Well, next time, because I think it's still going on.
Guest:It's really, you know, they keep the tours.
Guest:It's just enough for one van.
Guest:So it's only eight of us.
Marc:So you're like a garden person.
Guest:I am a garden person.
Marc:So doing that Schrader movie was sort of like, although the character is heavy, but the gardens seem familiar.
Marc:The new movie, The Master Gardener.
Guest:Oh, The Master Gardener.
Guest:Yes, and I've actually done a big mini-series in Australia where I play a woman who has a flower farm.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Everything is coming up flowers.
Guest:It's very interesting.
Guest:I came to gardening late because my mother is English, and so gardening was something she really did for herself.
Guest:She used to whisper to her roses and things like that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And I know that my nieces and I, we used to go, I wish Granny would talk to us instead of the flowers.
Guest:So I always was around gardens and I always found them so mysterious.
Guest:And now that I work with the New York Botanical Garden, I'm on the board.
Guest:You live in the city?
Guest:I live in the city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the garden is such an extraordinary resource for New York.
Guest:You know, I never went there.
Guest:I grew up in New York.
Guest:But now it's just filled with splendid things.
Guest:It's never looked more beautiful.
Guest:And you take your family up there.
Guest:It's free on Saturday and it's free Wednesday morning.
Guest:And you have 250 acres of, you know, I think it's like 40 acres of old growth forest.
Guest:For instance, you can wander around as well as the most beautiful, you know, state of the art, you know, all the trees and all the flowers, the conservatory.
Guest:And then, of course, at Christmas, they have the holiday train show, which is in the conservatory.
Guest:Have you done that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You've got to go.
Marc:There's a lot of things I have to do, apparently.
Guest:Yeah, no, I mean, the holiday train show, it's all built of natural, like, acorns.
Guest:It's a whole replica of all the famous things in New York.
Marc:Oh, that's cool.
Marc:And done in... In twigs.
Marc:Aviary, would you call it?
Guest:It's in the Edith Haupt Conservatory, which is this big, huge, beautiful glass building that was built, I don't know how many years ago.
Marc:Wild.
Marc:I'll have to go to that, too.
Marc:I go to the Huntington Gardens.
Marc:Have you been there?
Marc:Yes, I certainly have.
Guest:Yeah, I'd like to go there now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's before it all dries up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sad.
Marc:So, like, I watched all the new movies that you're in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I saved that Traitor movie for last.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Because I hear he's ill, and it might be his last movie, maybe, sadly.
Yeah.
Guest:You know, I think that now that the movie came out in Venice and he received, you know, certainly deserved the golden line.
Guest:I felt that the next day after all of that press, he had just bounced back.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:So I think it's a mistake to think that Schrader's down and out.
Marc:I'm a big fan.
Marc:And the last few movies have been very interesting.
Marc:The Priest movie and the card counter.
Marc:And this one, this one's very surprising.
Marc:Now, out of these three movies that you did, like the new ones, not Avatar, but Call Jane and The Good House.
Marc:But I have to assume that working with Paul would have been an exciting opportunity.
Guest:Well, I'll tell you, I worked on Good House with Kevin Kline.
Guest:We did that in Nova Scotia in 2019.
Guest:Had you worked with him since Dave?
Guest:I guess I hadn't, except that we're both actors in New York, and so we do stuff.
Guest:We'd given an award to Ang Lee after Ice Storm and all that stuff, so he got some tribute.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:So you were in Dave, but you were his wife in Ice Storm?
Marc:No, I was not.
Marc:You were the other one.
Guest:I was the, yeah.
Guest:So this is our first, I would say, happy, happier love affair.
Guest:It's more romantic.
Guest:It is the story of a very wry, funny, older woman who's kind of being pushed out.
Guest:of her position in the town and her husband's dumped her for a guy and all this stuff.
Guest:But anyway, it's a great story about this woman.
Guest:She addresses us.
Guest:She confides in us.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And she's very funny.
Guest:It was written by Maya Forbes and... She's a realtor.
Guest:She's a realtor and she's very realistic about life.
Guest:life yeah it's a it's a familiar job i think too for women of a certain age the realtor thing yeah well i think she's done it forever all her life right and um and you know her her kids sent her into rehab because she does like to party and um and you know so at the end of these days you see her come home after not having a drink you know being a total teetotaler and she sort of you know
Guest:Unhooks her bra, lies on the couch, and opens a bottle of Pinot Noir and relaxes.
Marc:Serious drinker, though.
Guest:I didn't think of her as a serious drinker.
Guest:I thought of her as a merry drinker.
Guest:And I sort of really wanted to show the joy and solace of drinking within certain boundaries.
Guest:And that...
Guest:and yeah it does finally get away from her yeah i thought yeah you must have done a little homework on that one i think i i think everyone has that in their family so i didn't need to do any homework it's in my cells but it was really a lovely uh a lovely job to do to to be able to explore that that has been a problem in my family from from a much more intimate point of view oh really you had the heavy drinking
Guest:Yeah, and I would say that, you know, adult children of alcoholics, when you see a bottle, you know, it always seems to have a skull and crossbones on it for you.
Guest:And so you can have a drink, but you're so aware.
Guest:It's like the way people look at the ocean.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You look at it and you know that it has a power that you might not be able to control.
Guest:So it was really interesting to sort of to investigate that.
Marc:It's interesting because like when you are an adult child of an alcoholic, it can go either way.
Marc:I mean, you either become an alcoholic or you become the hypervigilant kind of like, you know, you know, try to keep things in control and to manage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think you have to be lucky also, maybe genetically, that you don't get the thing that makes it more likely for you to have a drinking problem.
Guest:The bug, I call it.
Guest:Yeah, and I feel blessed that I was able to support my dad, who's the most wonderful man.
Guest:He loved radio, and so do I. Yeah.
Guest:And show what's so wonderful about those few drinks and how convivial it makes people.
Guest:Certainly after COVID, I think we all became more acquainted with the bottle.
Guest:And then continue to tell the story to where Hilde has to...
Guest:Hildy has to make some decisions.
Marc:She hit bottom.
Marc:I mean, she hit a real kind of like hallucinatory.
Marc:I like the whole sort of witchy element in the hallucination.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, like, you know, I'm a recovering guy.
Marc:And to sort of do that well, it's important to sort of get that right.
Marc:And I think it did a pretty good job at that.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:I'm so glad to hear it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, I thought the Call Jane movie, it was...
Marc:I just watched a documentary about those women on HBO.
Marc:Did you watch that?
Guest:Yes, I did.
Marc:And I thought that was a beautifully written movie.
Marc:What's her name?
Marc:Phyllis Nage.
Guest:Phyllis Nage.
Guest:She wrote Carol.
Marc:Yeah, what a great movie that was.
Guest:Yeah, and so she directed this and found the most amazing cast of women.
Marc:I thought it was great.
Guest:Elizabeth Banks.
Guest:Well, I think that it's coming out at a good time in October.
Guest:And, you know, to tell the story of these women who who came together to help other women find safe abortions before Roe versus Wade was passed.
Guest:And they took care of each other.
Guest:And they performed abortions.
Guest:They did.
Marc:I thought Elizabeth Banks was kind of it was I think it's the best I've seen her.
Guest:Well, it's a wonderful, wonderful role for her.
Guest:She's amazing.
Marc:You liked working with her?
Guest:Oh, I loved working with her.
Guest:I mean, but she's amazing anyway.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I always think that she completely, you know, elevates anything she's in.
Marc:I liked your character, too.
Marc:I thought everybody was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love my character.
Guest:My character is an old, you know...
Guest:rye activist.
Guest:He's been around for a long time.
Guest:And so I really related to Virginia.
Marc:Well, you were sort of coming of age at that time.
Marc:Do you remember that time?
Marc:Of course.
Guest:I mean, the late 60s?
Guest:Yeah, I was in high school and then I went off to college.
Guest:Where?
Guest:I ended up at Stanford, where I did a lot of sort of theater outside the school.
Guest:They had some
Marc:A radical scene there, didn't they, in the late 60s?
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:I mean, we never had a spring term when I was there because we had the Stanford Research Institute develop napalm, had a hand in it.
Guest:And so we were trying to get...
Guest:things like SRI off campus because we didn't feel they belonged in an institution like ours.
Guest:And so it was constant upheaval.
Guest:I don't think Stanford likes to look back.
Guest:And also the war, you know, constant war protests.
Guest:It was an amazing time to go to school there.
Guest:I would say that a number of my professors were communists.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was a very earnest, soul-searching time.
Guest:What kind of country are we?
Guest:It's happening again.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:But I think that no one could have anticipated that a decree would come down from the Supreme Court on high, ripping away these fundamental rights from women.
Guest:I still cannot believe what they did.
Marc:Well, I think it seemed like it was always on the table, which was a big fear.
Marc:And it was really a part of the motivation that I think the left and Democrats were trying to make people aware of with the Supreme Court when, you know, when Trump in 2016.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, despite whatever you may think, this is the important thing.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I expected there to be a national dialogue.
Guest:That's healthy.
Guest:Everyone's entitled to their point of view.
Guest:But pro-abortion, pro-choice people, they're not saying that people who don't believe in abortion should have abortions.
Guest:And yet...
Guest:They're saying that people who believe in choice should be made to carry these children to term.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:It is so cruel.
Marc:It's right back where that movie sort of takes off.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That you and the cast and the writing really created this sort of horrendous desperation and sort of, you know, what could be very unsafe situations and just what it would look like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also the demand for it.
Marc:I mean, I don't think people really contextualize that this isn't no one.
Marc:It's not a willy nilly kind of decision anyone makes.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It's the hardest decision in the world.
Guest:Nobody wants to have an abortion.
Guest:You make a decision like that for all kinds of very personal reasons that no one in their right mind would want the government to be interfering with.
Marc:Or to stop it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you remember when Roe was instituted?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:It was 73.
Guest:And, you know, so much was happening for women back then.
Guest:And it made perfect sense that this would enable women to have, you know, to be able to make the choices they needed to make.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:have families when they chose to and also work.
Guest:And when you look at all the progress women have made in the last 50 years, it's so amazing.
Guest:And no matter what the Supreme Court does, they can't take away those 50 years that we've had where now we're running businesses and we're doing all these things.
Guest:So we have to remember how far we've come.
Guest:And this is just...
Marc:A horrendous setback.
Guest:It's a horrendous setback, and we're going to change it.
Marc:Fight.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you grew up in New York?
Marc:I grew up in New York.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because I know that you mentioned your father liking radio, but I didn't realize he was like a major... He shifted the entire medium from radio to television, right?
Marc:I mean, that was his thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he started off in San Francisco in radio.
Guest:He did all the ads and he also produced the shows and everything.
Marc:So he was a broadcaster?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he was like right out of college.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And then he ended up coming to New York.
Guest:He really believed until the day he died at 94 that television was our rocket ship.
Guest:around the world and yeah all kinds of different experiences and yeah you wanted to watch the opening of the Bolshoi Ballet yeah that should that's your right yeah as an earthling yeah and um so he believed it is a great liberator totally and the the thing that would bring us all together bring us all up together uh-huh uh-huh it kind of did right yeah until it kind of didn't I guess
Guest:I don't know what you think of some of the shows.
Guest:And, you know, that's why it's so funny.
Guest:You have a podcast, but in the old days, we'd say that you had a radio show.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, that used to be the, you know, the heart of America were all these amazing radio shows.
Guest:And they were live.
Guest:They were live.
Marc:And he, now, he was, so what, he came up through the ranks as a producer, and then he got a, he worked for NBC, or which one did you?
Guest:I'm not sure he came up through the ranks.
Guest:He kind of hopscotched around.
Guest:He had such a clear vision, and I think he, because television was just being developed, he got in NBC when they were just starting out, and he...
Guest:You know, he created the Today Show because he said people need to wake up, find out what's happened in the last 12 hours.
Guest:He created that.
Guest:He created the Today Show.
Guest:It's still on, isn't it?
Guest:It sure is.
Guest:Created the Tonight Show.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:He produced Show of Shows.
Marc:Really?
Guest:He created the magazine format.
Guest:He was the first person to put ballet and opera on television.
Guest:You know, had Milton Berle come out and introduce Dame Margot Fontaine, and she did a big...
Guest:a bit of Sleeping Beauty.
Marc:That's amazing history.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you go over there?
Marc:Did you spend childhood at the NBC building?
Guest:I did go over there.
Guest:J. Fred Muggs kind of mugged me.
Guest:He took my hat and I never got it back.
Guest:I think it was in shreds.
Guest:But I must say, I think it certainly influenced me because I knew that whatever it was my father did, which I don't think I understood,
Guest:made him very happy.
Guest:He loved what he did.
Guest:He came home smiling, no matter what huge crises there were.
Marc:If you're hanging around Sid Caesar and Milton Berle and that whole crew, you're gonna kind of be chipper.
Guest:Amazing people.
Guest:So I think that that's
Guest:probably why even though i was really shy etc yeah i i sort of gravitated toward the business because i thought the greatest people are in it and they seem to have so much fun wasn't your uncle in it too he was in it uncle doodle um doodles weaver he had his own his own show yeah um he's like a huge comic actor yeah ever
Guest:yeah right and he also you know he he was a one-man band literally he played all the instruments at once and uh he was his spike jones band forever oh my god yeah so i mean you know there's a lot of strange show business in my in my family i'm proud to say weaver yep did you was do you remember him being entertaining when you were a kid
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:But I also kind of remember the feeling that he was on, which my father used to talk about.
Guest:And my father used to be a little fascinated by it because he was surrounded by people who were on.
Guest:And my uncle was usually on when we were with him.
Guest:So I never had a peaceful moment with Doodle.
Guest:We never had a quiet philosophical talk because he was always...
Guest:doing things that he could then talk about, doing crazy things.
Marc:But you were able to talk to your dad, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dad and I were very, very close.
Marc:What about your mom?
Guest:My mother had been a very successful actress in England.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And once the war broke out, I think various things happened.
Guest:She ended up giving up her career more because his career was so all involving.
Guest:And I think that was a decision she regretted.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, also as she grew older, you know, women's lib, you know, sort of seemed to bring all these opportunities out.
Guest:And I think she felt, you know, that she had missed that, these opportunities.
Guest:And she would have, whatever my mother took on, she would have been amazing in.
Guest:So I think she felt it was a bit of a waste for her to be a mom and wife.
Guest:Although, you know, she adored my father, so.
Marc:Do you think she was bitter?
Guest:Probably.
Guest:Probably.
Guest:She didn't sit around and mutter about it, but they had an amazing life, but I think she would have loved to do more work, and I think she was quite astonished that her daughter, who was...
Guest:kind of a dweeb, shy and awkward and clumsy and everything else, managed to somehow become a butterfly in this business and survive.
Marc:How did that start?
Marc:I mean, how did you start?
Marc:Because it looks like you did a lot of theater.
Marc:I mean, you definitely didn't cut any corners.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I mean, I always really loved theater.
Guest:I always did what I would call sort of illegitimate theater.
Guest:So I was never part of the Stanford Theater Department, which did very boring old productions.
Guest:And so we had our own company.
Guest:We toured the Bay Area in a covered wagon.
Marc:So it was like a kind of a hippie time thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Except, you know, I think we were pretty good.
Guest:We did, you know, we did King Lear.
Guest:We did Hamlet.
Guest:On the street?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wherever we could set up.
Marc:What was it called?
Guest:It was called Kingly.
Guest:Oh, it was called The Company.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:And we did new plays.
Marc:And this was in San Francisco?
Guest:This was Palo Alto.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:And so when it came time to graduate, I thought, oh, jeez.
Guest:Ugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to go down and get some nerdy job through my father on a television station.
Guest:What can I do that I really love?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I ran around and auditioned for drama schools and I got in.
Guest:So I took that step.
Marc:Where to?
Marc:Where'd you go?
Guest:I ended up going to Yale, which- That's a good one.
Guest:It is a good one.
Guest:Wasn't Klein there too?
Guest:No.
Guest:He wasn't?
Guest:I can't wait to tell him you said that.
Guest:He went to Juilliard and he's very Juilliard proud.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:And I always think that Yale was better because we had our own playwriting department.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Juilliard was doing the classics.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had our own mad playwrights like Chris Drang and Wendy Wasserstein.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:funny stuff we did the yale cabaret and we were out of our minds and so they gave you a little more uh freedom and yeah and work on and you could work on new playwrights works yes and i love that more than anything and in the end i ended up coming to new york and just doing off off broadway doing a lot of the work uh from these guys and just um uh like durang
Guest:Yeah, never got paid, but somehow managed to eke out a living in New York.
Marc:It's such a different time.
Marc:Everything seemed more, in terms of my perception of it, more vital.
Marc:There seemed to be a kind of creative inventiveness that was going on at all levels in the 70s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I do think New York still has all of that.
Guest:It's just that money's kind of ruined it.
Guest:Because, you know, to have an off-off Broadway theater takes, you know, the fundraisers and the board and all these things that, you know, in the old days you didn't need that.
Marc:Well, that's what I think is happening.
Marc:It's like rock music.
Marc:It's like you were at the source.
Marc:So what happens is generations want to recapture that.
Marc:And eventually it becomes either a mimicking or it becomes something that gets sold out a bit.
Marc:But in the 70s, it was actually this is new.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're setting the standard.
Guest:Well, I'm not sure we were setting the standard, but we sure as hell had a great time and I think put on a great show.
Guest:I was always very proud of the work we did in Off-Broadway.
Guest:I think it's super important.
Marc:Like when you got out of Yale, so you did the whole program?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I'm not sure I should have, but I did.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, they weren't very enthusiastic about my work.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, they were like, they actually said you should leave the school.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, they did.
Marc:What was the criticism?
Marc:Because my Juilliard was terrible with that.
Marc:They would throw people right out.
Guest:They would say, look left, look right, none of you won't be here.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Yeah, I had a class of 18, and at the end of the first year, two left and eight were asked to leave.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And the rest of us were put on probation.
Guest:Who knows?
Marc:Who was in your class?
Marc:Anyone we know?
Guest:Kate McGregor Stewart.
Guest:She's had a wonderful career in...
Guest:It doesn't surprise me that my class is still working somewhat under wraps, but I would say any of us who've kept at it, if you can do it, I'm amazed to see some of my colleagues.
Guest:They're still working in the theater in New York and doing the most incredible work, like Reed Burney and people like that who I came up with.
Marc:Christine Nielsen.
Marc:If you're cut out for it, and it's the life you want, and you focus... I think with any of these things, like comedy, which is what I do, or acting, it gets to a point where there is no real plan B. I mean, what are you going to do?
Marc:Teach?
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:But I think some people can't hack it, and they get into production on some level, or writing.
Marc:There's a lot of actors that do other things.
Marc:Directing.
Guest:I thought, well, you know, they're probably right.
Guest:I probably don't have a future, but, you know, I can run a theater and my friends can work there.
Guest:I thought I'll get the degree.
Guest:I actually think it was one of the, looking back, it was actually a kind of gift because I came to New York with absolutely no expectations.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I'd already heard the worst.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:But those teachers were fired when I left.
Guest:They were?
Guest:Because apparently they didn't like actors.
Guest:Maybe don't hire faculty who don't like actors.
Marc:Because they're failed actors?
Guest:I don't know what they were.
Guest:One was a voice teacher and one was a director.
Marc:And they really got fired?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Well, that's sort of justice in a way, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when you did get down there to New York, so you just got into Off-Broadway, but then you did big plays, though, eventually, right?
Guest:I'm not sure I did big plays.
Marc:You were in the original cast of Hurley Burley, but that was years later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was much later.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you were just kicking around doing young playwright stuff and...
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, that kept me busy for a long time.
Guest:I worked at the public, too.
Guest:And, you know, we worked in a lot of places where, you know, the show would run about three weeks and then the building would be condemned, you know, or the audience would be afraid to come down to that neighborhood in Hell's Kitchen or whatever.
Guest:We certainly didn't have bathrooms.
Guest:We usually didn't have heat.
Marc:What did your old man think of this, of you doing it?
Guest:That's a good question.
Guest:I think that he thought how great that Sig went to drama school.
Guest:That's something.
Guest:I remember I think he said doodles wouldn't have had the patience for that.
Guest:So I think he liked that.
Guest:I think that he...
Guest:I think my parents, because they were in the business and knew that it could eat you alive, I think they probably thought I would make a meal for the business one of those days, but that I had to get it out of my system or something.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I certainly think there were never two more surprise people than my parents, who every year I'd come in and I'd have another successful movie, and I think they were just shaking their heads.
Guest:In shock and dismay.
Guest:But proud, I imagine.
Guest:I think they were proud, but I think it was mostly shock.
Guest:Because they know what a hard and sometimes rotten business it can be.
Marc:But was it that surprising?
Marc:Were you that much of a sort of quiet kid?
Marc:A nerdy kid?
Guest:I wasn't quiet.
Guest:I wasn't quiet, but I was this tall when I was 11.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So I was very insecure.
Guest:So it took me a long time to grow into myself.
Guest:And I think that whatever success I had in the business, which came quite late, I did Alien when I was 28.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:It took me a long time.
Guest:I mean, I felt like I was still in the oven for a long time.
Guest:Finally, I remember one birthday, I went, you know, I think I'm done.
Guest:I'll take myself out of the oven now.
Guest:I'm full.
Marc:I'll be toast.
Marc:I'm cooked.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did your dad, did you do little TV bits here and there?
Marc:Did he still have the power to help you out in that way?
Guest:I did not want his help, Mark.
Marc:Okay, all right.
Marc:Just for a little walk on.
Guest:No, I actually was offered a very good role in television when I was still at the public playing a maid who cleaned the glacier in a John Guare play.
Guest:John Guare, I know that guy, yeah.
Guest:Marco Polo sings a solo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was probably my first paying job, and I was offered a very nice, big role on a TV series that was very high profile.
Guest:And I turned it down.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because I thought...
Guest:I really don't want to do the same thing.
Guest:In case it's a hit, which it looked like it would be, I don't want to do the same thing for five years.
Guest:I'll go nuts.
Guest:I'd much rather be the maid cleaning this great glacier with Joel Grey and Madeline Kahn.
Guest:I really was, maybe because I hadn't
Guest:had as many opportunities coming up as you know training yeah i wanted to eat all the theater i could i was just ravenous and i certainly didn't want to have a job that had too much sameness and i thought i'm young you know i i don't need that kind of security i'm going to continue in my odd world doing my odd thing right and paid off well i mean all you can do is follow your heart at the time
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I was so confused.
Marc:I didn't know what my heart was.
Marc:I just knew what I didn't want to do.
Guest:Well, that's that's what it was.
Guest:I knew I didn't want to go to L.A.
Guest:and have the security of a show that would continue year after year.
Marc:Well, you had that foresight to know what the job is.
Marc:And I think that probably comes somewhat from your upbringing.
Marc:I think so, too.
Marc:You know, because a lot of people who don't have any understanding of the business would be like they take anything.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:And if I'd had parents who didn't know their business, I might have felt, I have to take this job so they stop worrying about me and they see that I'm a decent enough actor so I can get work.
Guest:But my parents weren't like that.
Guest:And so I was able, with their support for a while, to continue following my heart.
Marc:Yeah, because you would definitely have been familiar with the repetition of...
Marc:of television, you know?
Marc:I mean, you see a whole career, and I imagine even your uncle on some level represented a thing that stayed the same for decades.
Guest:Yes, I guess that's true.
Guest:Although I bet he had lots of different colors in there.
Marc:He's a comic actor.
Guest:Yes, he's in The Birds.
Guest:We watch it once a year ago.
Guest:There he is.
Guest:There's Uncle Doodle.
Guest:He's so good.
Guest:Driving that boat.
Marc:Well, I mean, so what was the first movie?
Guest:Well, the first movie was Annie Hall.
Guest:I was in a show with Chris Durang that he'd written.
Guest:I had written a curtain raiser with him called Das Lusitania Songspiel that made fun of everything on Broadway and used all of...
Guest:You know, claimed that Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht had done all the current songs.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So it's a comedy.
Marc:It's a satire.
Marc:It was a cabaret.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so I was offered a nice role in Annie Hall, a much bigger role.
Guest:And I turned that down because I could not... I was playing a multiple schizophrenic in Chris's play Titanic.
Guest:I played...
Guest:This little girl in a sailor suit who had a hedgehog and a vagina and she fed it at the table.
Guest:Then I morphed into this woman, Helena, who was a multiple schizophrenic.
Guest:And then I morphed again.
Guest:Anyway...
Guest:I was irreplaceable at this point because I had so many different personalities in the show.
Guest:And so I thought, well, you know, if Woody Allen would offer me a nice role now, maybe he'll offer me a nice role again someday.
Marc:So you turned down a bigger role to take which role, which I'm trying to remember.
Guest:I ended up getting a walk on at the end of Annie Hall.
Guest:I'm with Walter Bernstein and he's with Diane Keaton at the very end.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:The Sorrow and the Pity.
Guest:So that was my little consolation prize from Woody Allen.
Right.
Marc:So that was another, like, you chose theater.
Marc:I chose theater.
Marc:You didn't want to let your friend down.
Guest:Yeah, and I think I would have let myself down, too, because, as I said, I'd co-authored it, and we had such an amazing time.
Marc:Well, that's like, those are like, you know, I mean, it sort of makes sense in looking at the roles that you did choose and what you're known for that you would have this fortitude to just say no.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:To honor yourself.
Marc:Right.
Marc:and to honor your friends and your responsibility to things.
Guest:That's making me sound very honorable, but I think I just had to follow my nose where I found value.
Guest:And I think I also loved what I was doing.
Guest:I didn't really want to go into another dimension, which was like Woody Allen, that's a serious, that's a film, that's different from what I do.
Guest:I wanted to stay in my little,
Marc:Do you think any of it was fear?
Guest:Oh, I'm sure.
Guest:I'm sure it was fear.
Guest:I didn't even think about a film career except with great skepticism because to me, I think my father was in TV.
Guest:I thought film must be even crazier and more unpredictable.
Marc:So what shifted for you?
Marc:How did Alien come?
Guest:well and then i think i had it was pretty soon after that yeah i um i had gone out i think the next year maybe and met some casting people in la i finally got an agent okay which took me years because people would go oh she's really good in that she's so tall and i couldn't figure out what to do with her really the tall thing was really a problem oh yeah because i was like almost six feet and they were like oh you know she can never play and all the men are like five feet
Guest:Yeah, and they sit down as soon as you come in the room.
Guest:So anyway, I went out and met some good casting people.
Guest:And then I think when Ridley Scott was sent to New York to interview actors for this movie, I was on the short list for reasons I don't know.
Guest:And I wasn't very interested.
Guest:You know, science fiction, which I knew very well about.
Marc:Was it always written as a woman's part?
Guest:Actually, the original script was 10 men.
Guest:And Walter Hill and David Guiler, who ended up writing the script, thought, well, listen, it's 10 little Indians.
Guest:We'll just make the girl the survivor, because no one in their wildest dreams will think it's going to end up being the girl.
Guest:They thought it's going to end up being John Hurt's character, who's so brave, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so they really did it just for story reasons, even though they love strong women.
Guest:There was one other woman too, right, on the crew?
Guest:Yes, Lambert.
Guest:And that was a very funny part, actually, as originally written.
Guest:And, you know, it was a very small cast.
Guest:And I don't think Fox wanted me.
Guest:You know, I was unknown.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think there were people with names trying to get this part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just got really lucky that the producers and Ridley, you know, I met Ridley.
Guest:I was wearing these huge hooker boots that made me too tall to even be in this room with you, Mark.
Guest:And, you know, I...
Guest:I don't know what kind of thing I looked like when I walked in, but anyway, we had a great talk about the script that I was pretty critical of.
Guest:I said, yeah, it's pretty bleak.
Guest:I don't know about this love scene.
Guest:Would you really get it on while this thing was running?
Guest:Anyway, we had a good talk.
Marc:Like monsters eating people.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And I ended up doing a screen test with Ridley in London and got the part.
Guest:I mean I was so incredibly lucky and then once I got the part I thought well now I better do a good job.
Guest:here I am, I'm gonna be in this new medium, I remember thinking, oh, don't worry about it, just pretend you're doing Off-Broadway.
Marc:Right, did you think that?
Guest:Yeah, I did that all the time because I thought, look, it's not a really legitimate movie.
Guest:It's like a little dark movie over here.
Guest:So I'm still in my world.
Guest:So I get to still play in this playground.
Marc:And I guess nobody was... I mean, Ridley was not a huge director yet, right?
Guest:His second movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I guess there was no reason to think that it wasn't just a little dark, weird movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And what's wrong with a little dark, weird movie?
Marc:And what a cast, though.
Marc:I mean, to work with Harry Dean and Yafet Kodo.
Guest:I was so lucky.
Guest:All those people are great.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:Ian Holm.
Marc:Jeez.
Guest:Oh, I know.
Marc:But it seems to me that whatever anyone was judging your craft or how everyone was looking at your acting, that you sort of dug in and were very emotionally available and interesting and vulnerable in that part as Ripley.
Marc:I mean, it was a fully deep performance.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Well, I remember thinking, I'm not going to be able to play Henry V. Hmm.
Guest:But this is my breaches part.
Guest:So I can imbue this character with anything you might see in any leader anywhere.
Guest:And I had a very interesting discussion with Ian Holm, actually, because I remember he became my good friend, which I needed then because I was very lonely.
Guest:I was over in England by myself.
Guest:And I remember saying to him...
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Do you think that Ripley knows what she's doing?
Guest:Do you think that she thinks she's right all these times?
Guest:And he said, yes, I think she does know she's right.
Guest:And I said, I don't think she does.
Guest:I think it's a total crapshoot and she knows it.
Guest:And she's just got to fly by the seat of her pants, hoping.
Guest:Confidently.
Guest:Hoping.
Guest:No, not with confidence.
Guest:Because I think that that's the story.
Guest:It's a kind of everyman story.
Guest:It's about someone who thinks that the trip is going to go this way.
Guest:And she has a sort of manual of how things should go.
Guest:She's a young ensign.
Guest:And she has to give up all of that order and...
Guest:deal yeah and deal and uh and it's to me it's everyone's story yeah and and especially for a woman because she is she's not going to whimper in a corner and and and say i need help because she's got to do it herself which i think is what that's why i am an actor i think i think that's what women do yeah
Guest:We do the tough stuff all the time, and I love telling that story.
Marc:Well, and also, I mean, I guess you could, I mean, it seems that the way you engaged with it was contextualizing it as an every person's story, but it was a women's story, and you know the weight of that, but I guess you couldn't have had any idea the impact it would have on show business, on women in show business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm still amazed by it.
Marc:I mean, it was like a pivotal and game changing movie that a woman could carry a movie like that.
Guest:And I, you know, I think of Ridley Scott and how innovative his camera work was.
Guest:He and Derek Van Lint, who was our DP, they just huddled together every minute, you know, coming up with how to hold the camera and all these things that no one had ever tried before.
Guest:So it was an experience going to the theater.
Guest:And that monster.
Guest:That monster.
Guest:And that was all Ridley, too.
Guest:You know, he found this amazing art student.
Guest:He found Giger.
Guest:He found Giger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so we were using Giger's designs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he found an art student at a local pub who was seven feet tall from Africa.
Guest:He put him in the suit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the man was so gorgeous he already looked like he was from a different planet and then he put on the suit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think a lot of it has to do with how good the script was, how wonderful the cast was that Ridley assembled, and the camera work, the sound, all those things scare the shit out of people, and people have enjoyed that ever since.
Marc:I didn't realize that he had found...
Marc:Giger wasn't established at that point.
Guest:No, I don't think so.
Marc:Because he became sort of a thing.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Marc:And then that monster comes back for all the movies, like in some version, right?
Marc:So now looking at that, looking at Ripley...
Marc:Do you find that that character evolves?
Guest:Oh, completely.
Marc:Completely.
Marc:For you, too, in age?
Marc:Obviously, you're like, I know what's up.
Marc:With Paul Reiser, his weird villain turn.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That was great.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:And I think that, again, Jim Cameron, it was his idea to write the story based on Ripley's coming back into the world and trying to warn people.
Guest:So he gave...
Guest:the Ripley character in Aliens, the most incredible arc from this sort of anti-hero kind of thing.
Guest:And so I think that really solidified the kind of reputation of what this movie was.
Marc:How was that transition from Ridley Scott to Cameron?
Marc:I can't remember.
Marc:I know I was told.
Marc:I think Walter Hill must have told me something.
Marc:How did that happen?
Guest:I think that Walter and David were talking to Jim Cameron about something else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think Jim had just done like Piranha 2.
Guest:And I think he had the Terminator, you know, bubbling away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think they kind of, you know, in those days no one did a sequel.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:Yeah, no, it was considered very, you know, like not cool.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think somehow Jim mentioned that he'd love to write a sequel for Alien.
Guest:And they thought, hey, why not give that a try?
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't think anyone expected it to be this tour de force.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:It's a great movie.
Marc:It really is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, by that time, it was, I don't know, several years later, I've been really lucky to work with so many different, really strong directors.
Marc:The Year of Living Dangerously, that was a great movie.
Marc:I remember seeing that movie.
Guest:Yeah, Peter Weir.
Guest:I learned so much from him.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, like, I think that he said the first day, he said, gosh, I didn't realize how inexperienced you were.
Guest:I said, yeah, I guess that's true.
Guest:I think I'd made two movies.
Guest:He said, you know, see, you just, you know, just when you're talking to Mel Gibson, just talk to him.
Guest:Just be Sigourney talking to Mel.
Guest:You don't need to do anything else.
Guest:And on some level, I got it.
Marc:I got it because I trust his eye.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's also that weird, tricky transition from theater in a way.
Guest:Oh, completely.
Guest:That you do too much.
Marc:Or just to talk.
Marc:If I'm on a stage of any kind as an actor, I'm like, what's going on?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:It's like you're miked.
Marc:We have a boom.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you have to adjust.
Guest:Or do you?
Guest:I mean, that's the great question is that if you have it inside of you, does it change from theater to movies?
Guest:And I'm not sure I know the answer to that.
Marc:Well, I would think just the tenor is all I'm thinking of.
Marc:In theater, you do have to project a bit.
Guest:You have to project a bit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Definitely.
Marc:But not on a set.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, well, Weird was great.
Marc:And then Freakin', he did that Weird Freakin' movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that's that.
Marc:I talked to him.
Marc:He's an intense character.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So, well, moving into, like you did many movies with Cameron.
Marc:Like these relationships with Scott and Cameron were career long.
Marc:And Ivan Reitman as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that was really the, like you can do comedy.
Guest:Actually, that's what the school ended up saying.
Guest:Said, you know, you're great at comedy.
Marc:Don't do anything else.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and that's really what I am good at.
Guest:I've gotten away with the other stuff.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You think that's true?
Guest:Without a question.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:And Ghostbusters was a blast, right?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And these are movies that made people's childhoods.
Marc:Between Aliens and Ghostbusters, you must have people coming up to you of all ages just saying, like, oh, my God.
Guest:Well, it is fun.
Guest:I never quite know which movie they're going to mention.
Marc:Oh, right, right, right.
Marc:And Working Girl was a huge movie, too.
Guest:It was a huge movie.
Guest:And Gorillas in the Mist.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:An amazing adventure.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I mean, that's why, as you know, you're an actor.
Guest:The business is so incredible because you get to learn all these different things, go to all these places.
Marc:If you're willing to go for six months and do a thing.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:How many real gorillas did you work with?
Guest:I worked with Diane's study group five, so there were about 25 gorillas in that group.
Guest:And I went up every day or every other day with Simon Trevor, the great wildlife photographer, and one other guy who pulled focus.
Guest:And we just spent the entire time with them and tried to keep our heads down and be very respectful.
Guest:And we had a lot of great surprises and got some really good footage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So how many Avatar movies did you just shoot?
Marc:Nine?
Marc:Nine?
Guest:So we have shot, we had made one a long time ago.
Guest:That's being re-released, remastered this month.
Marc:So they're going to re-release the first one.
Guest:Yeah, they're re-releasing it sometime this month.
Guest:And then Avatar 2 is opening December 16th.
Guest:And then we've already shot three.
Guest:That will come out two years later.
Guest:Did you shoot them down in Long Beach?
Guest:Yeah, well, we shot them.
Guest:We shot the performance capture in Manhattan Beach.
Marc:Oh, that's where his... Yeah, his kingdom is.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Because I went down there.
Marc:I met with him.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:To audition for the part that the Flight of the Conchords guy got.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I had no idea I was really going to do an audition that day.
Guest:Well, there are more.
Guest:There's four and five.
Guest:Get ready.
Marc:I think I'm out of the possibility.
Guest:I wouldn't be too sure.
Marc:But, I mean, it was interesting meeting him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, to sit there with him, and he was very nice.
Marc:But, like, what did you have to learn how to do?
Marc:What did you, like, how much time?
Guest:For Avatar?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Avatar, we learned how to free dive.
Guest:So, we were trained for, we learned everything.
Marc:Free dive, that means with no tanks?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we had to do, I play a kid in Avatar 2 because my character died in Avatar 1.
Guest:So the kids, we did a lot of parkour.
Guest:We did all these things to try to figure out how we are going to move through the forest.
Guest:like uh navi children and um so we did a lot of physical training and then because a good bit like 70 percent of the movie is underwater or in water yeah um we were taught by kurt crack who teaches the navy seals how to free dive he taught all of us yeah for over a year how to breathe up and how to how to
Guest:So, by the time we were actually shooting in the tank underwater and we had long scenes underwater, we had the training to pull that off.
Marc:How long can you be underwater?
Guest:Well, I can do a static breath hold the most I ever did with six and a half minutes.
Guest:Come on!
Guest:I know, it's ridiculous.
Guest:I can't believe it either, but I'm not lying.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I had the training and I was using enhanced oxygen.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:So in other words, we're breathing 30% oxygen.
Guest:And so sometimes doing the show, we would have 50% oxygen and sometimes we would have 80% oxygen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I don't know what I was breathing that day.
Guest:I'm sure it was at least 50.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But a static breath hold, you're not moving and you just have to...
Guest:Keep your mind from making you panic and make you breathe because it's a reflex and you can talk yourself out of it for a while.
Marc:I'm starting to have a hard time breathing now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I can't believe I did it for that long.
Guest:And my husband, who was taking the training with me, being from Hawaii, he loved all this stuff.
Guest:He had the same breath hold.
Marc:Oh, you just brought him in because he wanted to learn?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I think that they knew I'd be more secure with him because he's such a water guy.
Guest:And I would have to say that all of us facing this and knowing what Jim would want us to do, it was intimidating.
Guest:So you wanted to train up in a situation where you felt as relaxed as possible.
Guest:And being in the water with Jim is a very relaxing experience because he's so knowledgeable.
Marc:But Cameron is intimidating.
Guest:Cameron is, intimidating is the wrong word.
Guest:You don't want to say, no boss, I don't think I want anything.
Guest:You're not going to say anything like that to Jim Cameron.
Guest:He will tease you so mercilessly until you say, forget it, forget it.
Guest:I'm going to do it.
Guest:Just show me where to go and what to do.
Guest:And so it was kind of, you know, once he sort of,
Guest:you know tagged you to come along and be in his band of yeah merry pranksters you you kind of feel like you're you know you're in for it whatever it is you're ready you're gonna make it work and um i have to say we watched 13 minutes of it at d23 this past weekend yeah the disney uh-huh whatever and i
Guest:The stuff underwater was so crazy good that my standing there watching it with the audience, I think my feet started to move as if I needed to tread water because we were underwater for so long.
Guest:It looked that real.
Guest:And it's one of the most breathtakingly beautiful things you'll ever see.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's totally cool.
Marc:So it's going to pay off.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now I know how to free dive.
Guest:Not that I do it all the time.
Guest:Go to Hawaii.
Guest:You could do it.
Guest:I'm much more confident in the ocean in Hawaii than I used to be.
Marc:So after all this, all these movies and everything else, I mean, are there like, do you like you talk a little bit about we're, you know, kind of like being on to you and showing you something.
Marc:Did you find that throughout that, throughout your career that you were able to pick up stuff from all these directors?
Yeah.
Guest:You know, what I found was that the directors are hoping you know what you're doing.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:That's what Walter Hill said.
Marc:Because the idea that a director directs is not about teaching an actor how to do anything.
Guest:No.
Marc:They want you.
Guest:They cast you because they think you've got it in you.
Guest:And then it's up to you to just come through.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Walter is still a very good friend of mine.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:So I think he's so eloquent about the business and everything else.
Guest:But no, I think that, you know, Mike Nichols used to say casting is 90 percent.
Guest:And I think that's that's really true.
Guest:I think if anything, as a director, you become as an actor, you become a bit director proof.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to arrive.
Guest:You're going to have done your work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You're going to have, you know, whatever they call you pack your suitcase filled with this and that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're ready for anything.
Guest:And I mean, to me, that's where the fun starts.
Guest:That's where I finally started to get confidence was when I kind of gave up trying to figure it out.
Guest:And I just fling myself out into the void and see what happens.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And you're there with other people.
Marc:Like Nichols, was he special to work with?
Guest:Incredibly special.
Guest:He could come up with the one physical move or something that would explain your entire character.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And he just was brilliant at that.
Guest:And, you know, because I had this relationship with Bill Hurt's character in Hurley Burley, and Bill's character would drone on and on and on about this and that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Finally, and I said to my, geez, I'm just sitting here kind of putting on makeup, not really listening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, just put your finger down your throat and gag.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I did that, and the whole audience was feeling that, of course, too.
Guest:We all wanted him to shut up.
Guest:And so he was always, he was really, first of all, he totally believed to do it.
Marc:I didn't realize he directed that.
Marc:He directed Hurley Burley on stage?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the first time I worked with Mike.
Marc:And then he directed the movie, directed Working Girl.
Marc:I didn't realize he did.
Marc:That's so funny, William Hurt droning on it.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That's what the play is, mostly.
Marc:Well, that's great memories.
Marc:Did you write a book yet?
Marc:No.
Marc:Maybe you're not going to.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I'm not sure I remember a lot of things.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:The things I remember are very, to me, interesting.
Guest:But it's fun to talk about it all.
Marc:Sure, yeah.
Marc:And I want to talk about Schrader for a second.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's sort of a fascinating character to me.
Marc:And there's the movies he's written and the movies he's directed.
Marc:But it seems like the last...
Marc:You know, several movies of his are very controlled and they're very specific.
Marc:And he seems to deal with, you know, men, you know, very specifically kind of like, you know, damaged or struggling or morally dubious, you know, men.
Marc:But but also the women characters that he seems to be generating are pretty tough and strong as well.
Marc:Yeah, especially in the last.
Marc:Well, the card, the card counter, too.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:So what's it like working with him with that language of his and him as a director?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what brought you to that movie?
Guest:Well, interestingly, we only finished that movie in March.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So for him to have edited it and show it at Venice, as we just did, was really an act of a Superman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I met him about a year ago.
Guest:He had this script, which I thought was...
Guest:impeccable you know i'm used to working with all kinds of scripts and there was something about this script that was it was so elegantly written it was so precise there was so much that wasn't said right there was no exposition yeah there are no transitions it's just this like vertically built you know this this thing with all these layers underneath that you can never get enough of yeah
Guest:And the part for me, the part of Norma was like a kind of part I've avoided all my life.
Guest:Because I think they were often written in a very cliched way.
Guest:The rich, haughty woman or something.
Guest:But I thought, you know what?
Guest:I think this is the one.
Guest:Because I also thought I've never been offered a part like this.
Guest:She's so out there.
Guest:And so I met him.
Guest:About a year ago, and he said, I want to shoot it in February.
Guest:We're going to shoot it in 20 days.
Guest:We're going to shoot it without any money.
Guest:Joel Edgerton is playing the part, and he was looking for, ended up being Quintessa Swindell, who's wonderful.
As Maya.
Guest:as maya yeah and um you know in february in uh louisiana there were not many flowers yeah uh so i um but it it is a wonderful story uh as you say it's the the lonely man in the room and um him coming to terms with uh his life a heinous past yeah a heinous past
Marc:and and you being the sort of savior but also uh somewhat exploitive you know but but that dynamic i never seen anything like it really good good good good i'm so glad to hear it but like when you approach a role like that like you know let's just go over the last few years so like when you see uh the good house do you think like this is not going to be a heavy lift
Guest:No, I never think that.
Marc:You never think of it?
Guest:Never think that.
Marc:You don't judge the world.
Guest:I think, oh my God, I've never done this before.
Guest:I can't wait to do this.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:I loved Hilde so much, and it was the best part I'd been offered in a long time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then- I'm just saying that in comparison to the darkness of-
Guest:Well, you know, we did Good House in 2019.
Guest:So you had COVID in between.
Guest:I did Call Jane.
Guest:So this I just did.
Guest:I mean, I feel like I just came home from that.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:So every role, it's just sort of like you're kind of like, okay, you're nervous or you're excited.
Guest:I'm terrified.
Guest:I think, ugh, this is the one.
Guest:This is the one where I'm going to fall flat on my face.
Guest:But I also can't think of anything I love more than getting out there, than pushing off into the unknown and letting the character out.
Guest:And Norma was especially like...
Guest:You know, she was Pandora's box when she opened her mouth, you know.
Marc:And I just, and that, you know, the turn at the end, you know, and then again, just sort of like the relationship shifting.
Marc:It's kind of an astounding thing.
Marc:I've never seen anything like it.
Guest:I'm so glad.
Guest:No, I mean, I haven't.
Guest:I mean, I think Paul's amazing.
Guest:I feel so fortunate to have been able to work with him and that he, you know, I once made the mistake of saying, why'd you think of me for Norma?
Guest:I don't know what I expected him to say.
Guest:But I remember that Pauline Kael had been a great champion of mine early on and he knew her quite well.
Guest:He said, no, I wanted Glenn Close, but she wasn't available.
So...
Marc:lesson is never ask those questions oh no you got that in your head how would glenn do it oh no i never thought you never think that no no no because she didn't get to do it oh that's good that's better you know i got to do it that's the fate rolled the dice and it's my part and i never look back like i don't do a lot of acting but i did a part in a movie that's coming out soon and the guy they told me who they were kind of wanted it to be and i'm like
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Why didn't you just use that guy?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm not that guy.
Guest:I wonder why they said that to you, because that's not very helpful.
Marc:It wasn't the director.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's just something that came back around from who the fuck knows where.
Guest:It's just there to screw you up.
Marc:Yeah, but eventually, I think what you realize, and again, I'm not much of an actor, but you can only do what you do.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:It's gonna be your version of whatever it is, you know.
Marc:So you're just full steam ahead, huh?
Guest:Full steam ahead, having the time of my life, you know.
Marc:You ever feel like doing theater again?
Guest:Well, not lately.
Guest:I have to say I've been kind of working nonstop.
Marc:Yeah, it seems like it.
Guest:And I have another couple of projects lined up and I'm working with people I really like.
Guest:And so there's something about the form of film that probably started with Peter Weir because that's when I got it.
Guest:I got that film had its own weird philosophy, that it was perfect, that it was out of chronology.
Guest:All these things that I've been resisting as a theater person, it all kind of made sense in this bizarre way.
Guest:And I've so embraced that.
Guest:To me, it's the more interesting medium.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:You can look at it from a lot of different vantage points and you can understand the collaboration of it is totally different than
Guest:Yeah, it's so much about collaboration.
Guest:And the crew and the cast, you know, we're almost all one.
Marc:I imagine on Avatar, you're practically living with these people.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, really true, because it takes forever.
Marc:Yeah, it's like years.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.
Guest:Great talking to you.
Guest:Thanks so much for having me.
Marc:Yeah, thanks for doing it.
Guest:My pleasure.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Cultural icon, Sigourney Weaver.
Marc:The Good House opens on Friday, and you can see her shortly in Call Jane, Master Gardener, and Avatar, The Way of Water.
Marc:All right, hang out for one second, people.
Marc:Hang out!
Marc:Listen, we've got some movie stuff for the next two weeks of full Marin bonus content.
Marc:This week, we'll be talking about documentaries in advance of my episode with Abigail Disney this Thursday.
Marc:And next week, we're going to do a full talk about one of my favorite movies, Michael Clayton.
Marc:I'll explain more of that on Thursday as well.
Marc:If you don't have a full Marin subscription, click on the link in the show description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:You dig?
Marc:This week, I'm in Toronto, Ontario at the Queen Elizabeth Theater on September 30th and October 1st.
Marc:Next week, I'm in Livermore, California at the Bankhead Theater on October 6th and Carmel by the Sea, California at the Sunset Center on October 7th.
Marc:That's going to be an intimate group in a large room.
Marc:What can I tell you, ma'am?
Marc:Small market, Carmel.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:People aren't coming out, but I'm going to do the fucking show.
Marc:Not really my choice, even, because it's not a great feeling to play for 100 people in a room for 700.
Marc:But so be it.
Marc:It'll get me get me strong.
Marc:And again, I want to mention I added a show in London to my London, England dates.
Marc:I'll be doing a live WTF at the Bloomsbury Theatre on Wednesday, October 19th.
Marc:My guest will be comedian David Baddiel.
Marc:Then I've got stand-up shows at the Bloomsbury on Saturday and Sunday, October 22nd and 23rd.
Marc:Those probably are close to selling out.
Marc:Dublin, Ireland, I'm at Vicar Street on Wednesday, October 26th.
Marc:Then in November and December, I'm in Oklahoma City, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Long Beach, California, Eugene, Oregon, Bend, Oregon, Asheville, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee.
Marc:And finally, my HBO special taping is at Town Hall in New York City on Thursday, December 8th.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all dates and ticket info.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Anyway, here's some guitar.
guitar plays softly
Thank you.
guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey and La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.