Episode 1377 - Jeremy Strong
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 broadcasting from london england still long trip this has been a long trip don't love it i you know i love england love london don't love the long trip
Marc:I went to the Tate, as I told you on Monday, and I've eaten some good food.
Marc:And I've actually, I'm just amazed at how much of my social life and how much of my engagement revolves around conversations I have for the podcast.
Marc:Like today, I talked to Jeremy Strong.
Marc:You guys know Jeremy Strong.
Marc:He is Kendall Roy on Succession.
Marc:He's in the new film Armageddon Time with Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain.
Marc:And, you know, he's an intense cat, earnest cat, real actor guy into the process, likes talking about the process, has a process, is an artist.
Marc:And it was good to talk to him.
Marc:This is I didn't record that here in England, but he's been very much a friend to me.
Marc:As I travel to England, he has a lot of experience here in in London.
Marc:He's he's given me restaurants to go to.
Marc:He's given me suggestions.
Marc:He introduced me to a friend of his who I have lunch with.
Marc:And, you know, that was nice.
Marc:It's nice if I get out and do things with people.
Marc:I just find that the one thing that happens to me, especially if I'm alone in another land, is that I just I feel like I'm my own planet and I feel like it's not quite in orbit with the rest of it.
Marc:And it's a it's a strange, awkward, lonely feeling.
Marc:I'm not that social a person in the sense of like, I don't know how to make things.
Marc:fun for myself really i go do the things and i generally have a good time but i don't i'm not a fun generator i don't know if you guys knew that about me i just i'm definitely not someone someone would call it well that guy's up he's a fun guy that mark maron's a fun guy but i was trying to track it you know i was trying to track it you know because i remember like when i was a kid
Marc:Like a little kid, when my parents would go away on trips, I would completely lose it.
Marc:I would fall apart.
Marc:I wouldn't even know how to handle it.
Marc:I just assumed and I thought that they would die, usually in a plane crash.
Marc:And I would picture the plane crash over and over again.
Marc:And to the point where I would become physically ill.
Marc:This is like before I was 10 years old.
Marc:And maybe that panic for myself of being away from what I know or the patterns of life I'm used to just caused me to just kind of, there's a fundamental stress to it or not even a stress, just an untetheredness, being not grounded.
Marc:I guess I need routine, but I don't experience this in the States really.
Marc:I used to feel kind of estranged from reality when I travel on the road, but I don't really anymore.
Marc:I kind of welcome it.
Marc:It's like if I can go home in a few days, I feel pretty good and I'm okay and I can enjoy going to other States and enjoy the things that they have to offer and doing comedy there.
Marc:But when I'm away like this across an ocean, flying over water too.
Marc:It's just sort of like my brain just kind of... There's just a little bit of churning that goes on.
Marc:It's kind of hard to stop it.
Marc:And I miss Kit.
Marc:I miss the cats.
Marc:I miss the routine.
Marc:I miss my house.
Marc:It's long.
Marc:And I've got to get used to it because I might have to go away for longer amounts of time if I want to do a movie or if I want to...
Marc:You have to live in another country.
Marc:I have to figure out how not to latch on to worry.
Marc:I just assume something awful is going to happen to the people and animals in my life.
Marc:And I won't be around for it.
Marc:And my brain locks onto it.
Marc:My brain lately just spends a lot of time reacting to things it's generating against my will.
Marc:Not great things.
Marc:And, you know, I have to I have to kind of step in and stop it and get into the fucking present.
Marc:I guess it's just anxiety.
Marc:I guess that's what it is.
Marc:But it doesn't really quite explain my feeling of alienation when I'm away or in a different country.
Marc:This psychological, emotional and physical sense of alienation.
Marc:It doesn't I mean, it doesn't you know, I don't really know.
Marc:I don't really know what it is.
Marc:It's an odd loneliness.
Marc:And it's a bit debilitating in terms of enjoying myself or getting out and about.
Marc:But the work has been great.
Marc:I'm recording this Sunday.
Marc:And the show last night at the Bloomsbury was, what a great space.
Marc:500 seats, the perfect amount.
Marc:Beautiful sound in there.
Marc:The woman who opened for me was excellent.
Marc:Her name is Anya Magliano.
Marc:Very funny.
Marc:That worked out.
Marc:I'm going again tonight, which will be last night by the time you hear this.
Marc:And the things that I've done here in terms of work have been amazing.
Marc:I do love my gig.
Marc:You know, I've been loving doing the comedy and I like...
Marc:Love talking to people because I really never know what's going to happen.
Marc:I did that live podcast with David Baddiel, which went very well.
Marc:I did talks with Armando Iannucci, which was great fun.
Marc:I spoke to him the day the prime minister resigned.
Marc:I talked to Rob Delaney, which was heavy about his new book and the loss of his his child.
Marc:I had Courtney Love over and we talked.
Marc:It's all been pretty intense.
Marc:But they were all very exciting conversations, and I'm excited for you to hear them.
Marc:And now, like, you know, today I go to Ireland.
Marc:What I've noticed about being here in London is that I don't want to move here.
Marc:Generally, as those of you who listened to me over the years, recently anyways, everywhere I go, I seem to want to live, whether it's Tulsa or Pittsburgh or Ireland or Canada.
Marc:But I've checked quite a few off the list and I don't feel like I want to live in London, though it is an amazing city.
Marc:Just the layers of fucking history after being in New York and then here.
Marc:These are two of the great cities in the world.
Marc:But London, it's just layers and layers of history, like all the way back to ancient Rome, for fuck's sake.
Marc:And you can feel it, man.
Marc:I mean, you can feel it.
Marc:The way the city is sort of laid out is kind of a mess.
Marc:All the buildings are like, you know, some of them are like twice as old, if not more than the ones that, you know, this goes back to pre-Christ, I guess, underneath all this stuff.
Marc:I guess when they were...
Marc:building this new tube line, the Elizabeth line, that they found all these pieces of Roman wall, plague pits.
Marc:I've got to watch this documentary someone told me about yesterday.
Marc:But I do appreciate the depth of the history here.
Marc:I mean, New York's got it too, but not quite the same.
Marc:London is totally unique and pretty spectacular.
Marc:But I am going to Ireland.
Marc:I'll be in Dublin for a couple of days.
Marc:And I did want to live there for a long time until I realized that that loneliness I was telling you about, even in the most beautiful places, that sense of being an alien or of being different or being sort of uncomfortable would be maximized, even if I was in Ireland.
Marc:I mean, the landscape would be beautiful, but I'd be the weird guy.
Marc:I'd be the weird American guy who seems a little awkward out there in the house near the bog.
Marc:But I'm excited to go to Ireland and perhaps...
Marc:You know, buy a hat, maybe get a scarf.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Find something.
Marc:So look, as we head into my conversation with Jeremy Strong, who is a kind and sweet man, talented fella, and in one of the greatest shows ever, Succession.
Marc:And I just watched him on the plane in The Gentleman, which was not a great movie.
Marc:You know who was great in that movie?
Marc:Fucking Hugh Grant.
Marc:Anyway, Jeremy Strong plays one of the greatest characters on television, really.
Marc:And if you're not watching Succession, you should.
Marc:Kendall Roy, all of the Roys, the entire show is amazing.
Marc:But Kendall, he does a hell of a job with that.
Marc:And in this new film, the Armageddon Time movie, Armageddon Time with Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain, many people who I love, a real acting movie, actor's movie anyways.
Marc:James Gray directed it, and he's directed some very interesting movies, but this is the most personal movie that he's directed.
Marc:It's a very specific story about a family, a Jewish family.
Marc:It takes place, I guess, during the 80s, and it's a beautiful film, really.
Marc:And there is some undertones about where we are today.
Marc:It's very personal, but it deals with some of the issues that we deal with today.
Marc:And it actually has sort of a premonition.
Marc:Jessica Chastain plays Mary Ann Trump, who is Trump's sister.
Marc:And there is a Trump presence in this movie in the early 80s.
Marc:Not Donald, but the old man.
Marc:It's a very personal film, but it also deals with social issues in a very personal way.
Marc:It's a smart and well-acted and well-written and well-shot movie.
Marc:I liked it.
Marc:I liked the movie.
Marc:I think I'm going to talk to James Gray.
Marc:That'll be good.
Marc:But right now, I'm going to talk to Jeremy Strong.
Marc:The movie Armageddon Time opens in theaters this Friday, October 28th.
Marc:And this is me talking to Jeremy back in the back in the garage.
Guest:I was in Telluride for the film festival.
Marc:With this, with the Armageddon movie?
Guest:With James Gray's film Armageddon Time.
Guest:Did you see it?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did you think?
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:I'm a Jew.
Marc:I want so badly for you to be a Jew, but I can't make you a Jew.
Marc:He made you a Jew, which I liked.
Marc:My father's Jewish.
Guest:Oh, he is.
Guest:And my grandfather was Jewish.
Guest:Oh, so you have it, yeah.
Guest:And my grandfather was a plumber who lived in Flushing.
Marc:My grandfather owned a hardware store in New Jersey.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And you lived in Queens for a while.
Marc:I did as a grown up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So your grandfather was a plumber in Flushing.
Marc:He was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So did you see him often?
Marc:I mean, how close were you to that guy?
Marc:I...
Guest:Was very close to him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I was little.
Guest:And I spent some summers living in his basement on 73rd Avenue near Jewel Avenue and Main Street.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I lived in his basement and I would take the QM4 into the city.
Marc:How old were you?
12.
Marc:12 13 see that's a weird thing right if you have that experience because I you know I have family in Jersey that's where my people are from yeah and but I grew up in New Mexico but always had a relationship with Jersey and the whole the in your teens I'm older than you taking the bus from Jersey into Port Authority yeah just to walk around yeah like that way I like that scene in the movie where they just you know they're kind of free for the day that's right and there was a time when you were 13 if you knew the city you could do that
Marc:Just go walk around the city.
Marc:I think my buddy Sam Whipside, who's a novelist and teacher.
Marc:Yeah, a great novelist.
Marc:Great, up in Epic Columbia.
Marc:He's one of my best friends.
Marc:He's got kids, and city kids are city kids, and they just do that.
Marc:They live there, and they do it.
Marc:Whereas when you come into it, which I imagine you were, you go in, you're like, oh my God.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I think, you know, I remember I would take the Greyhound bus or the Peter Pan bus from Boston to Port Authority.
Guest:And, you know, I think it was a big act of trust on my parents' part to let me do that.
Guest:But so that world was a world.
Guest:So James...
Guest:entrusted me with this and and but but i had i had had a a pretty vivid time in my life yeah that that was a jewish oriented it was you you you had the experiences yeah we would have satyrs in his basement and why the basement was he was the house everything was covered in plastic you remember those houses sure yeah well there's one room there's the living room is covered in plastic and then there was the den
Marc:Where my grandfather would lay on the couch and watch sports.
Marc:And my grandmother would sit in a Lazy Boy and do crosswords.
Guest:My grandfather used to pick me up from the bus stop on Jewel Avenue and take me to Roy Rogers, which was like, you know, a fancy meal.
Guest:And he thought that the Fixin's bar was like a salad bar.
Guest:So he'd go load himself up with...
Guest:No, he was an important figure to me.
Marc:Yeah, as was my maternal grandfather, because I just felt that he had this hardware store, and there were always these old guys hanging around the hardware store, not doing anything, just talking.
Marc:And you just sit there and soak whatever the hell it was in.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, going at it, whatever it was.
Marc:And my grandfather was just working, selling refrigerators.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And washers.
Marc:And he had a guy that worked for him named Hooper, who used to fix stuff.
Marc:It was like a world.
Marc:It was a whole world.
Marc:And he owned the hardware store first, and then he owned an appliance store.
Marc:And they were like catty corner.
Marc:But he sold the hardware store to Dave Dover.
Marc:So they knew each other.
Marc:Everyone knew each other.
Marc:And there was a luncheonette across the street, Archie's Luncheonette, the kind of place that had the counter with the food.
Marc:But also it was a toy store.
Marc:They had model planes and candy.
Marc:It was one of those places.
Marc:It's sort of a lost world, really.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:I mean, it was familiar to me what was going on in that movie, those people.
Marc:It was still a little younger than me, but that generation of old Jew definitely is familiar to me.
Marc:You've played Jews before, though.
Guest:I did a play about Spinoza off-Broadway.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Great theater on East 13th Street called Classic Stage Company.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it was a wonderful play by David Ives about Spinoza's excommunication.
Guest:And the audience, the theater is this old sort of horse stable.
Guest:And the audience was the synagogue.
Guest:And the play is about Spinoza's sort of belief system being dismantled and his excommunication.
Marc:Well, so you do the research because I've tried to read Spinoza and I can't quite wrap my brain around.
Marc:I have a hard time with philosophy in general.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, what did you glean?
Guest:Painstaking.
Guest:What did I glean?
Guest:I guess it's been a minute.
Guest:You know, part of the thing about this work is that you go, you really do a deep dive, and you try and saturate yourself with so much understanding.
Guest:But then it's like a weather system, and you kind of rain it all out, and then it's gone.
Guest:Yeah, it goes away.
Guest:It goes away.
Guest:But I remember there was something that Spinoza wrote.
Guest:There were a couple things, but there was one thing that he wrote, which was that there can never be enough joy.
Guest:I kind of carried that with me because whenever I started to kind of go, you know, spiral into my own negativity or doubts or fear, which I often do.
Guest:Like today?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On the way here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With real trepidation, actually, because, you know, you feel exposed.
Guest:And I was at Telluride last weekend and Cate Blanchett was being given a medal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, you know, standing in the wings just now, I was full of fear and anxiety.
Guest:The hardest role to play is yourself.
Guest:You know, we as actors, we want to hide.
Guest:We want to disappear into a character.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I once had John C. Reilly on.
Marc:He goes, I don't usually do this, you know, interviews.
Marc:I'm like, why?
Marc:He's like, I don't want to ruin the mystique.
Guest:Not even that.
Guest:I think it's just.
Guest:But that was him.
Guest:That was him.
Guest:I feel like I'm not that interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The work is interesting, I hope.
Marc:So there's never enough joy.
Marc:That was something you think about.
Guest:It did when I was doing it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And it hung with you.
Guest:Well, and it was a sort of, it became an imperative throughout the process.
Guest:And I actually, acting is not something I usually tend to enjoy.
Guest:I find it quite difficult and torturous.
Guest:And some of that is probably the, you know, the pressures that I put on myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was just kind of this great leavener that I carried around.
Marc:So you integrated that into the character despite that it was a play that was a difficult time for him.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, his belief essentially that God was inherent in all things.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that this moment is necessarily this moment.
Guest:So that...
Guest:His belief is that there's no reason to ever not be joyful because this moment is in perfect alignment with the will of God.
Guest:It could not be.
Guest:Yeah, I get it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that you stop being in argument with this moment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like whatever is happening, that's the curriculum.
Guest:And sort of being in...
Guest:Normally, I think we have these headwinds or we have these crosswinds or we're somehow at variance with what's happening or I often find myself.
Marc:Or reacting to something that your brain is generating outside of the moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so Spinoza, I guess, you know, his belief in the exactitude and divinity of the moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said that desire is the essence of man.
Guest:And I thought that that desire kind of gets a bad rap sometimes.
Guest:Not carnal desire, physical desire, but just passion.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Being the engine and the essence of life.
Guest:That's better than winning.
Guest:I love this work.
Guest:I love it because you get to be a student really forever.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:But it's interesting that it does seem that some of that remained with you because even if you're just doing the work, you are studying a great thinker.
Marc:So as a person, a student of life, somebody who wants to evolve as an individual, those things obviously stuck with you.
Marc:You did get it and it did somehow change your mind about things.
Guest:It did, and it activated something.
Guest:I mean, listen, if I had known you were going to ask me about Spinoza, I would have done a refresher course.
Guest:Why?
Guest:There's no pressure.
Guest:But no, I think whether you retain things, I don't think I retain very much intellectually.
Guest:Ever?
Guest:Maybe not, honestly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I feel like a bit of a sieve.
Guest:But I do think things imprint themselves on you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think I retain sort of scattered pieces of all of these experiences somewhere in my unconscious or somewhere in that.
Marc:Well, I mean, it seems like, you know, in terms of like the self-exploitation, the idea that you are fundamentally boring because, you know, you make yourself that way.
Marc:I don't know if that's true, but in terms of doing the work, I understand this approach to it.
Marc:And I do think it's interesting how quickly things do leave after you do them.
Marc:You know, that once you walk away, it's kind of odd.
Guest:It is, because when you're doing it, it's the most important thing in the world.
Marc:Because you're in it, yeah.
Marc:I mean, and you've loaded up.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And when you walk away from it, it's like it was almost a different world.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it does feel that way.
Guest:It feels there's something about it that feels, it's like you enter some trance and you sort of go somewhere else and then you return from it and it vanishes.
Guest:It feels very real at the time.
Marc:Well, it kind of is.
Marc:It's almost like it's heightened and it's different.
Marc:Like, I mean, you've done enough theater to know that theater is theater and that, you know, the context of that is, you know, you got to stay in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so the electricity of theater, half of it is just sort of like, I got to get from beginning to end.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But being on set of a TV show or a movie is sort of a plotting process where the work becomes fragmented.
Marc:And so the appreciation of this work is going to happen in these two to three minute increments.
Marc:And, you know, being able to maintain that world and your, you know, work in that world is a tremendous challenge.
Marc:But it's all very heightened.
Marc:Even the waiting is heightened because being on a set, you know, it's like you know what's up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And as soon as you're in it, you're like, I mean, but it's like, I don't know where one gets that because there are some people that can't function at all in front of a camera or on a stage.
Marc:And I don't know that it's necessarily learned, you know, the ability to shift into that.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:I mean, I think everyone...
Guest:approaches it differently but part of it is in a way what you just said that you know what's up part of it is about forgetting what's up I find you know if I go visit someone on a set or I go sit in the audience of a play
Guest:I can't even imagine doing that myself.
Guest:I find it like... When you watch somebody?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm sort of astonished by it.
Guest:And then somehow you go through whatever chrysalis you go through in preparation.
Guest:And when you enter into something and when you're inside it enough...
Guest:then I find that you can forget what's up.
Guest:You can forget, and you sort of are just living inside of a sense of belief that is the... That this is happening now, that this is real.
Marc:But when you do it, do you lock in?
Marc:I find that the sooner I get in relationship with another actor, then it sort of gets real.
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:Do you do it with desks?
Marc:Are you one of those people that's like... Touches the wood.
Marc:Yeah, touches the wood.
Guest:You know, I've tried that.
Guest:I've tried everything, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is now.
Guest:This is now.
Guest:You know, I mean, listen, it's just...
Guest:trying to be present is something I think we all struggle with.
Guest:It is the whole thing.
Guest:It is.
Guest:It seems that if you can do that, you can get away with it.
Guest:There's a lot of work to be done
Guest:Before you walk onto a set in terms of, I mean, depending on the material, depending on the tone, the role characterization, there's a lot of work that you have to make unconscious and internalize and lay in and all of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then it's really, it's quite simple.
Guest:I mean, it's not, it's mysterious to me, but it's like, there's this great thing.
Guest:I remember being at drama school when I was 18 in England and the principal at the school gave everyone the four quartets, the T.S.
Guest:Eliot, and said, and read some passages from it.
Guest:One of them being about a condition of complete simplicity costing not less than everything.
Guest:And I think that's what... Yeah.
Guest:That's what it is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so funny that depending on what your nature is and who you are and what resonates with you, all these disciplines of understanding outside of math...
Marc:Right.
Marc:Are kind of like, go for it.
Marc:Whatever moves you, you know, take it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's how you sort of build your understanding of the world.
Marc:I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So wait, you grew up in Boston?
Marc:I grew up in Boston.
Marc:Like what part?
Marc:I lived there for years.
Guest:Because you went to BU.
Marc:I did go to BU, and then I came out here and crashed and burned for about a year, and then I went back.
Marc:To Boston?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where did you live?
Marc:At that time, when I went back?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, when I went to BU, I lived on Carlton Street, which was just over the Brookline-Boston area.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right off of Beacon there.
Marc:And I lived on Park Drive.
Marc:We were on the corner from there.
Marc:But when I went back, I was in Somerville.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I lived in an attic in Somerville, right in Davis Square, before it was, you know, hip.
Guest:I grew up in Jamaica Plain.
Guest:JP.
Guest:Before it was hip.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to school in Dorchester.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah and my father dorchester why that seems far away from jp no there was uh there was a i would i would get on the bus to go to elementary school there i used to work at a place in west roxbury yeah called gordon's deli yeah i would i was in west roxbury a lot my father um my father worked for the department of youth services and he ran these juvenile jails yeah in boston um
Guest:Really?
Guest:One of them was in West Roxbury, and I would go spend time there.
Marc:At the juvenile jail?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was he a social worker?
Guest:Yeah, essentially, but he was sort of an administrator of these facilities, and I think it was a really...
Guest:It was a really tough, heavy job that he sort of protected my brother and I from the heaviness of.
Guest:But I would spend time there.
Guest:I got to know a lot of the guys who were locked up.
Guest:How old were they, under 18?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And, and what was your, so did your dad ever like go into private practice?
Guest:No, but he was beloved.
Guest:I mean, as, as much as one could be, I mean, he, he.
Marc:What was his exact job title?
Guest:He was the sort of facility, facility administrator.
Guest:So he oversaw.
Guest:Was he a warden?
Guest:There, there wasn't a title for that, but essentially.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:But essentially he had a really big key ring that I, it was one of my earliest memories.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Um,
Guest:So he was sort of managing several facilities?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my mother was a hospice nurse and worked at Boston Children's Hospital.
Marc:That's a great hospital.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:I was born there.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:That's interesting.
Marc:So, you know, your mother's bringing these people into the world, and the hope is that they don't end up in the care of your father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my father...
Guest:And my father got really close to a lot of the kids who were there, but I definitely grew up with a very keen awareness.
Guest:I don't know that I could have articulated it as a kid, but of what I've come to understand as sort of vicious cycles and...
Guest:And, you know, my parents are both very empathic people who they both, I think, gave themselves completely over to some form of service.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that is, I mean, in theory, in spiritual theory,
Marc:And in, you know, kind of moral theory, the highest thing you can do is service.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, whatever we were talking about earlier in terms of Spinoza and the shortage of joy that I don't know, like...
Marc:For me, when I think of service, and even just hearing about what your parents do, there should be a certain amount of genuine joy in succeeding in both of those things if you're helping people.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And I do think there's something in our society that...
Guest:You know, people like my mother and father, while that work is valued and recognized, it's not the kind of thing that we valorize particularly.
Guest:You know, those aren't the people.
Marc:No, it's like the quiet heroes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think there was a lesson that I got from my parents that was about...
Guest:What can you give as opposed to what can you gain?
Guest:And I think when we're in a place of service, I mean, certainly that's something that is talked about in sobriety and service.
Guest:Are you sober gay?
Guest:I'm not, but I have a lot of close friends who are and Kendall has been.
Guest:But I guess I'm a bit of an idealist about creative work, and I think that actors are servants.
Marc:Well, I thought about that too with this particular movie, but before I get into that, so do you have siblings?
Guest:I have a younger brother.
Marc:How old's that guy?
Guest:He's two years younger than me, so I don't know.
Guest:I'm either 42 or 43 right now.
Guest:So he's two years younger.
Guest:Do you not believe when you were born?
Guest:I kind of just lost track.
Guest:Is there some question?
Guest:Is something still being worked out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, let me know when you- Lots of conspiracy theories about- Where and when you were born.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The exact time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At the actor's studio in 1977.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, you're a time traveler.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So, your brother's not in the show business racket?
Guest:No, my brother was working at a company that had something to do with video conferencing software that I could never remember the name of.
Guest:And then there was a global pandemic and it's called Zoom.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:So he works.
Marc:Yeah, did all right, I guess.
Marc:But the servicing, I guess what I was going to say, in thinking about this movie and thinking about storytelling and framing the work that you do in some ways as giving and being of service, I think that there can be a truth to that.
Marc:Although there is a certain amount of assumed ego in show business.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But this, you know, and I know that the phrase, the term storytelling gets thrown around a lot now.
Marc:Like, I'm a storyteller.
Marc:He's a storyteller.
Marc:It's very important, the storytelling.
Marc:But this particular movie is an important story.
Marc:And it's done with a certain amount of grace and subtlety.
Marc:And it's a relevant story that is set in the 80s.
Marc:And it kind of pre-shadows what we're in now.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Very intentionally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:With real ingenuity, I think on James's- Oh, for sure part.
Marc:For sure, yeah.
Guest:To me, he's one of the greatest living filmmakers, and I think his body of work goes toe-to-toe with any living filmmaker.
Marc:Well, I like this one, this story in Reckoning with His Father, as opposed to the one in outer space.
Guest:I enjoyed that.
Guest:I did too.
Guest:And it's one of my favorite performances of Pitts.
Guest:And there's a thread that goes through his work, through all of his work, about the relationship between fathers and sons.
Guest:And this is certainly his most personal film.
Guest:And it's about, you know, it's an autobiographical film.
Guest:And I think the thing that really kind of thunderstruck me when I read it is that it's both the origin story of an artist...
Guest:In the way that we've seen a lot of these films recently.
Guest:But it's also the origin story of our country where it is now.
Guest:You see in 1980 against the backdrop of Reagan's election and the sort of emergence of the kind of market is God idea.
Guest:And then the underpinnings of anti-Semitism and.
Guest:Anti-Semitism and the fault lines that have become the, you know, the widening racial and social and political divisions that are, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in this movie, Fred Trump.
Guest:Fred Trump, who was part of the school that Paul, in the film, ends up going to.
Marc:He's a benefactor, right?
Guest:Yeah, he's one of the benefactors.
Guest:And the family, you know, and that school, I think later, James remembers Donald sort of walking the halls like a wraith.
Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, the sister...
Marc:Who was a state attorney then, I think is a judge or was is now a retired judge.
Marc:And I think she's incapacitated with with mental problems.
Marc:But Jessica Chastain plays that character.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so but all of that sort of exists in this very offhanded perspective.
Guest:adjacent way to the story, but you feel that it's in the, the sort of substrate of everything that the soil of the film takes place on, but in a very glancing way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I love the film, you know, and I've been, I've been, I've been very lucky to work on some great films, but this, as far as a, uh, uh, this film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:as a whole the film is full of warmth and humor and love and loss but there's also something um incredibly piercing in its moral argument uh uh to me it's a movie without being didactic in any way yeah about
Guest:white privilege and this blindness of white privilege and the idea that complicity is something that we've all experienced.
Marc:It's done very subtly and very well and within the context, the framework of when you have somebody who
Marc:the grandfather character who has experienced the type of historic anti-Semitism.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that within the family there is, you know, a standing up to fascism in a way.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And then there's this sort of, you know, kind of Jewish premium put on helping the under, you know, like acknowledging your own
Marc:privilege and helping others and also standing up for what's right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And the failure to do that.
Guest:For the kid, it's hard.
Guest:And he's a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I think clearly it's an event that has in many ways shaped and haunted this filmmaker's life.
Marc:I'm sure.
Marc:I mean, all it takes is one thing.
Guest:What we think of as small events are really colossal events.
Marc:Because they take up space in your heart and in your mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they also, they're the kind of genome that become the map of the world.
Marc:Of your perception.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:As an artist or whatever you do.
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So like in going back to your experience, I mean, being that this is about, because your character, it's a difficult character because he can't control himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And, you know, I mean, if you have that in your life, it's a horrible, frightening thing for usually that individual who doesn't recognize it until he's done something terrible.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And feels guilty for it.
Marc:But that doesn't necessarily mean he'll stop doing that.
Marc:But to a kid, it's brutal and it's complete soul shattering shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's there.
Guest:There's real brutality.
Guest:in that relationship and there's real
Guest:tenderness and a sort of, you know, I'm drawn to people, but to characters as well, who are muddled.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:He finds himself, I think, ill-equipped and uncomprehending.
Guest:And in the middle of, you know, he's a steam boiler.
Guest:He repairs steam boilers in the film.
Guest:James' father was an engineer.
Guest:But, but I thought about that just as a, as a, as a, as a concept of the steam boiler of something that is, when it gets dysregulated, it will explode.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or just, or yeah, or just, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Blow off steam.
Guest:And, and, and so there's, and I,
Guest:my father was never violent, but he had a temper and, but he also is the most, um, he was under a lot of pressure.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:He was, you know, there were, there were just, the walls were pushing in on, you know, on all sides and the economic pressures and, and the desire to provide my brother and I with a chance at life.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:And, but I, you know, I remember the sea changes of moods.
Guest:How often?
Guest:I mean, my, my father is the most.
Guest:Still around?
Guest:Loving, benign, loving, affectionate man.
Guest:Now?
Guest:Now and, and, and, and always.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, uh, and, and, and, and so I don't, I'm, I'm not drawing a parallel between them.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:His father, my grandfather.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Was, was quite, had that brutality.
Guest:The plumber?
Guest:And cruelty, the plumber.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Um, and so I think my father experienced things that are, can, you know, that are, that are akin to, to, to what the character in the film experiences, but, but that sense of the accordioning of, of, of emotion.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's, there's this character is goofy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's affectionate.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he also, uh, is, is, can be, um,
Guest:can lose control.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:A lot of it's rooted in that fear, personal fear, but also the fear for the kid.
Marc:That there was a premium put on working towards something that will earn you a living, that will put you in a better place than your parents.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And it was incomprehensible.
Marc:You know, the idea that putting these kids in that school would, you know, on some, the one thing I really resonated with me for whatever reason was that there was a belief that it would help Jews pass.
Marc:That there was a belief that, you know, this is how we're going to integrate into the higher echelon of culture.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then, you know, counter to that, you know, Reagan's president, and they're all sitting there going, this is a disaster.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, I remember when we moved, you know, when I was in fourth grade, the public school I was going to was rough and there was an incident on the school bus one day that was...
Guest:Where'd you move to?
Guest:We moved to a town called Sudbury.
Guest:I know Sudbury.
Guest:Which is like a very affluent, you know, the zip code is 1776 and we rented a house and I went to good public schools.
Guest:But my parents never really assimilated into that.
Guest:They were not welcome in, you know, a lot of the... And when you moved, what was the incident?
Guest:There was a kid who pulled a knife on the bus, and I think my mother wanted to take us somewhere else.
Guest:But I remember there was a country club in the town we went to, and we weren't members of that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And the feeling of being an outsider and the feeling of part of my thing, I guess, because acting is a form of assimilation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, it's about chameleoning and it's about it's about.
Guest:probably at a young age, you know, I think all of our... Yeah.
Guest:We're all fairly malleable.
Guest:Dude, it's like, it's frightening how much.
Guest:I think it is, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you look at like Philip Zimbardo and the Stanford Prison Experiment, which I've always been fascinated by.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:The idea that role playing...
Guest:Which we all do when we're children, you know.
Guest:We may be doing it now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So anyway, so I think, you know, I think.
Guest:What about that experiment?
Guest:Just the plasticity of identity, you know.
Guest:And I think, you know, I've always thought about, there's a line in Hamlet where he says, for use can almost change the stamp of nature.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I think as an actor, what you're doing every time you take on a role.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Irving Graff, Kendall Roy, Jerry Rubin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're trying to change the stamp of your nature.
Guest:And you can do that through use, through habit and work.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And I find that somehow connected to probably early experiences of trying to fit in.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Trying to sort of pretzel yourself out.
Guest:rearrange yourself somehow molecularly to fit into an environment.
Marc:Is there a point?
Marc:I'm sort of stuck in this thing.
Marc:You watching that documentary about Paul Newman?
Marc:I haven't seen it.
Marc:Ethan Hawks?
Marc:I haven't seen it.
Marc:It's a very interesting thing.
Marc:Because Paul, at some point, as an actor, as a young actor, once he falls in love with the genius, this Joanne Woodward, he's in this zone of being a good-looking, capable guy that fits on film.
Marc:But he's up against Brando and James Dean and all these cats, and he's over there with Sandy Meisner doing the thing.
Marc:But he knows he doesn't have what they have.
Marc:And he has to reckon with that.
Marc:So there's this weird thing where Paul Newman has to realize to himself, at least as I've only watched one episode, that he may be average.
Marc:And that he has to acknowledge his self.
Marc:His limitations, but also who the fuck am I?
Marc:And you seem to be in the same legacy of work
Marc:As that.
Marc:So was there a point when you started?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That you had to reckon with what the self is.
Marc:I mean, we're kind of dancing around that.
Marc:And, you know, you were able to sort of, you know, you know, decide that you're boring or assume that you're you're blank suading yourself.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you also, you know, know enough about yourself to know what may have formed you.
Marc:Was there a reckoning?
Marc:You know, I mean, you have a life, you have a wife, you have children.
Guest:It's a great question.
Guest:You know...
Guest:You ever watch that TED Talk with Brene Brown?
Marc:Yeah, I've interviewed her.
Marc:I love it.
Guest:You know, that idea of, like, you've got to dance with the one that brung you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that is a really big part of the work to become an actor.
Guest:And I'm still becoming an actor.
Guest:That's how I understand that.
Marc:And what do you mean by that, essentially?
Guest:Well, my understanding of what she meant... Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:like when you're a kid and i fell in love with this and dreamt about this from when i was little five acting yeah yeah yeah i joined some local theater group yeah basement down the block and when you were how old in jamaica plain yeah maybe five or six yeah children's theater children's yeah
Guest:And I think it was just, you know, an escape.
Guest:And it was magical.
Guest:Was there an actor at that time that made it seem possible to you?
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I never had any access to this world at all.
Guest:But then I think I just...
Guest:felt free in a way that I didn't feel in my life.
Guest:And that's continued.
Guest:I mean, there's something that happens within the, within the structure and control of a piece of work.
Guest:Uh, it's, I have found at least moments and experiences of, of freedom that are, that are, uh, you know, um,
Guest:Fleeting.
Guest:That are fleeting and profound.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I feel it when I do stand-up, when I improvise.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you sort of lose yourself.
Guest:It happened last night.
Guest:And you shed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't know where it comes from.
Marc:No, you don't know where it comes from.
Marc:And that to me has become the sort of, I don't gun for it, but I respect it.
Guest:Yes, you have to.
Guest:Because you can't control it and you can't summon it and you can't command it.
Marc:But if you're going to step out there and you're going to be open to it, when it does happen, it's almost like when you walk off that stage, you're sort of like, I know.
Marc:I don't know if anyone else knows, but I know.
Marc:And I don't know if that's ever going to come back.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:But that's what it's all about.
Guest:No, and you don't know if it will ever come back.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:You know, and I think...
Guest:that it's quite humbling because it doesn't belong to you.
Guest:You know, it's an interesting thing about having, quote, success as an actor because, which I, you know, which I shouldn't put quotes around that because I'm very fortunate to be working on it.
Guest:You're doing good.
Guest:You know, things are great.
Guest:But...
Guest:I don't feel like whatever this ability is, whatever is something that belongs to me.
Marc:Yeah, but also, I think you're coming up against show business and against public personalityhood.
Marc:Yeah, those are different things, yeah.
Marc:No, kind of.
Marc:I mean, show business and public personalityhood are not that different.
Marc:But, you know, acting may be in terms of, you know, how one approaches in the art form of it is different.
Marc:You know, and everybody has their, you know, their journey with it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know.
Marc:I imagine you're probably not going to end up in something that you hate for a long period of time.
Marc:No.
Marc:But your question, you know.
Guest:About self.
Guest:Because, you know, I wish I could.
Guest:I don't really know if I can pin that down because it still feels elusive to me.
Guest:I don't know, you know, but... But you have values.
Guest:But I do think... Sure.
Guest:Responsibilities.
Guest:And more and more, and the older I've gotten, and I think I've evolved as a, you know, as an actor...
Guest:away from you know when you're younger yeah I think a lot of it is about putting on disguises and essentially performing things yeah and then you see certain people's work and you realize there's a whole other dimension to it who was that for you I mean really like the moment where you're like holy fuck
Guest:I don't know if there's a moment, but some of the, you know, there were some moments maybe when I first saw that scene in Five Easy Pieces, when I first saw... In that diner?
Guest:At the end with his father, when I first saw...
Guest:Coming Home.
Guest:Oh my God.
Marc:You know, when I saw... That scene where Bobby Carradine shoots air into his veins?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What the fuck was that?
Guest:Yeah, go ahead.
Guest:You know, Duval's work.
Guest:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But all, you know, and then it's also, you can't help but just start to draw from your own experiences.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I've said this before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's something I've thought about a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's something I read.
Guest:And since we're having a real conversation, I'll say it again.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At the risk of...
Guest:whatever.
Guest:The articles have already been written.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:But something that Jung said that only that which is really ourselves has the power to heal.
Guest:And if acting is a service, which I think it is, that service, you know, I don't use the word storyteller, but
Guest:But I do believe that actors, in a sense, are wounded healers.
Guest:And so if something is actually going to have the chance to connect with an audience or touch an audience, it has to come from...
Guest:A real place in you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that's that's that's all that I really mean by that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's interesting because, you know, you there is a spectrum of actor.
Marc:There's a spectrum of performer.
Marc:You know, I mean, you know, sadly, you and I are in similar businesses.
Marc:But we're also in a similar business as vaudevillians and jugglers.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there are people that get into acting for a lot of different reasons.
Marc:Some guys, it's easier than working.
Marc:Some guys, I mean, I've talked to a lot of them.
Marc:And it's difficult when you work in a profession that some guy could just sort of like, I don't do any work.
Marc:Hold on, the camera's on.
Guest:Watch this.
Guest:You know what's amazing is how some of those guys then, you know, they might start out that way and then some of them become...
Marc:They're great.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Their artistry is like... Yeah, but they don't look at it the same way you do.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:However, that's the one thing about this game is that everyone's got their approach.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And being a movie star and being a great actor at the same time, it's tricky.
Marc:Not all of them can do it, but we've got quite a few that can these days.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there are some people that stay profoundly themselves in every role.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, they don't disappear.
Marc:Then there's some people that disappear.
Marc:And then there's some people that, you know, are themselves.
Marc:But they're not movie stars.
Marc:But they're, you know, they're doing the work.
Marc:I mean, it's like there's so many ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're all and they're all valid.
Marc:And of course.
Marc:And yeah.
Marc:Some guys just like, you know, some people are just clowns.
Marc:What are you what are you going to do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, but they're they're all doing the same trip in a way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, it may not be satisfying to you.
Marc:But, like, for me, in talking to you, like, I mean, when I watched Succession and I saw you coming up against Cox, who I have interviewed, and there were scenes where it's sort of like, there was a point where I texted my producer.
Marc:I'm like, you know, I was like, Jeremy's beating him.
Marc:Jeremy's, you know, he's winning this thing.
Marc:And this guy's an animal.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:And I just see two methods going at each other, but the work was different.
Marc:And I could feel that.
Marc:And it doesn't happen all the time because everyone's doing their thing.
Marc:But it was one of those times where it's sort of like, you know, he risked it.
Marc:You know, these some of these old guys, they don't have to risk it anymore because they're all filled up all the time and they can turn something on that that has a point of reference to 50 years of fucking work.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And they can fool people.
Marc:But, you know, when you're putting your ass on the line, you know, sometimes that's going to win and you can see it.
Marc:Sometimes it'll balance out and sometimes, you know, the dance is great.
Guest:You know, he is he's like as primal.
Guest:Yeah, he's as primal and dangerous an actor as I'll probably ever encounter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so so it was really it has been.
Guest:really the the one of the central relationships of my life to get to do this with him yeah uh and and you know we don't talk very much and none of those scenes are were rehearsed yeah and it's great it's you know and and you know one of the first things james gray said to me
Guest:We had dinner.
Guest:I got this role, got on a plane.
Guest:I was in Copenhagen, went to hunt him down in New York to ask him about his family and his life and interrogate him.
Guest:And one of the first things he said was, don't nail it.
Guest:Whatever you do, don't nail it.
Guest:And it's like the greatest thing a director has ever said to me.
Guest:Because in a lot of films, in a lot of processes, you know, making film or television, there is that sense of that pressure.
Guest:And I find that to only result in a kind of tension.
Guest:And what we really want, or at least I think what I want, is not for people to be perfect and bulletproof.
Guest:But when I see films and you see work that is...
Guest:alive and messy and raw it's it's like the opposite of nailing it but so when you look at you know your process you look at your you know you went where'd you you were at Yale for a while I was at Yale as an undergraduate not the drama school I was an English major but I went there for college did you try to do the drama school
Guest:You know, the drama school is a graduate school.
Guest:Oh, right.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:That's the big one.
Guest:And I would have tried.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I thought I was going to be a theater studies major as an undergrad.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it just wasn't a good fit for me.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I wasn't, I showed up and it was a lot of sort of theory and it felt very academic and very, I'm a cerebral enough person.
Guest:And a lot of the work I have to do is about getting out of my own head.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So where did you start the work?
Guest:Like, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think I had an experience of doing John Osborne's play, Look Back in Anger, when I was a senior at Yale.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had done, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of plays at that point.
Yeah.
Guest:But I remember having an experience in the middle of a scene where I actually listened to what the person was saying to me.
Guest:You weren't concerned with yourself.
Guest:I stopped performing anything.
Guest:And it went from performing to being.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And that was a revelatory, that was a big moment.
Marc:And you didn't plan it.
Marc:You just realized it.
Guest:No, just something shifted attentionally.
Marc:Nice, nice.
Guest:But it sounds... I mean, it is quite simple, but it is... No, it's huge.
Guest:It's the whole thing.
Marc:If you're not waiting for your next line, or you're not waiting for your cue, it's the difference between whatever your process is of memorization.
Marc:You plant it in your head, and you're like, okay, my line comes after that line.
Marc:That's what you do to memorize.
Right.
Marc:So if you're going to do some version of that for as long as it takes you not to do that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's a difference between hearing what's being said and hearing the end of the line that cues you to talk.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But I think it just, you know, and then I studied here and there, but just did theater in New York off-Broadway, off, off, off, you know, all the way off-Broadway.
Marc:Who did you study with in New York?
Guest:I studied at HB Studio on Bank Street.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Herbert Bergdorf Studio.
Marc:Was that Bill Espers?
Guest:No, that was different, but I studied with Austin Pendleton.
Guest:Do you know Austin?
Guest:No.
Guest:Great actor, great teacher.
Guest:Austin talked a lot about figuring out what the need is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And once you understand the need, pursuing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So do you believe that?
Guest:Without knowing where you're going.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:You believe that?
Marc:You plant that thing?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you knew on your own breakthrough that listening was happening, and then sort of identifying the need was the next piece.
Marc:What'd you learn when you were at Steppenwolf for a period?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What did that let you do?
Marc:Get mad?
Guest:Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously those guys are legendary, right?
Guest:You know, True West and...
Marc:Were you there with Tracy?
Marc:They were all there.
Marc:They all taught.
Guest:I've come to know Tracy a bit.
Guest:I admire him tremendously.
Guest:Great guy.
Guest:But what did I learn at Steppenwolf?
Guest:I mean, again, it's hard to codify any of this stuff.
Marc:No, but I mean, you went there for a reason because of the history.
Guest:Well, because they were just kind of like a balls out, you know, theater company that we don't have in this country in terms of an ensemble that have grown together and done really audacious work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's really just about a practice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like any discipline is a practice.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just a practice.
Guest:Good.
Guest:And then thousands and thousands of hours on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the danger of stage, which I find...
Marc:okay um it's exciting exciting and you know yeah and yeah and you and you know you dig in like you know you do a thing with uh uh like i mean i know you spent time with daniel day lewis yeah and that was sort of your somehow or another what that experience must have made you realize a couple things i mean whatever that because i just read a little bit some pieces of like you must have seen how show business worked through that experience
Guest:Well, not even show business, but I guess I saw an actor following the line of their intuition.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:with utter commitment.
Guest:Um, and, and in a way I think, well, it was, it was revelatory to watch and, and I think what it did was it kind of gave me permission to be bold in my own way.
Guest:But you know, ultimately you, and I'm sure you've found this too,
Guest:there's not a whole lot you can learn from other people.
Guest:You know, I think there was a time in my life where I sought out teachers and I wanted to, you know, get the magic beans from these greats and find the master, you know, an apprentice to the masters.
Guest:But the masters, like all of us, are on the frontier of their own uncertainty and confusion, just like all of us.
Guest:And so there's really no, there is no kind of
Guest:axiom that you can impart that's going to unlock the mysteries.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, sometimes there's practical tricks.
Guest:There were great practical, you know, and not even tricks, but tools.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Things, because a lot of, especially film work, is practical.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there's the element of it that...
Guest:Remains and needs to remain a mystery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like you said, you know, you can only sort of, you know, you can't summon flame.
Guest:I know.
Marc:No.
Marc:So I think that the thing is that the only thing that increases your the possibility of summoning flame is is stepping out.
Marc:making yourself available for it, which is in overcoming fear.
Marc:And so that's inconsistent.
Marc:That is inconsistent?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Doing it.
Marc:I mean, you can aspire to it and maybe eventually get to fearlessness necessary, but sometimes it's sort of like...
Guest:No, that is the thing.
Guest:I think fearlessness is really the word.
Guest:You know, I am not a fearless person, but I think as an actor, you have to be fearless or you have to find a way, I think, to...
Guest:Well, to just like ramrod those fears.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And go right into them.
Guest:Because I'm never without fear.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Put yourself in the situation.
Guest:But in those scenes with Brian, somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in others, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I guess in general, when I go to work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although you die a thousand deaths, maybe in the van on the way to work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There is something about...
Guest:There's this thing that I read that has always stayed with me that Garcia Lorca said that only when you rob yourself of skill and security might the Duende appear.
Guest:The Duende being the spirit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I think that it is about that.
Guest:It's about a surrendering to some power that I don't understand.
Marc:I think what's interesting and what we keep coming back to is that however anybody looks at anything we talk about,
Marc:And I think you've had this experience recently.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You fuck them.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:And the truth is, is that like, you know, what what's happening is happening.
Marc:Is that like, you know, the depth of anyone's appreciation as an artist for what their work is and how they get to where they want to get is, you know, it's it's their fucking thing.
Marc:And it's our work.
Marc:It's your work.
Marc:So, you know, there's nothing but judgmental, you know, shallow people out there who are looking to start shit over things they don't understand.
Marc:You know, like it's like like I said before, it's like if it's not mathematics, then it's all fucking poetry.
Marc:And you've got to figure out which of those things is going to guide you to get you where you got to go.
Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, the liability is talking about it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:No, you know, I mean, there is a sense, I'm sure you know this, you know, driving here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's this feeling of like, am I going in front of a firing squad?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Of course, I'm not because it's so wonderful to talk to you.
Guest:But you're right about all of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, at the end of the day, you know, this film, Armageddon Time, it's serious stuff.
Guest:This is a person excavating his life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have to earn the right to walk onto that set and be this man's father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he needs to believe that I'm his father.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so the challenge of that and the responsibility of that, I take it as seriously as anything in life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You should.
Guest:You should, yeah.
Guest:No, we should.
Marc:I think that is... Yeah, even if people... I think one of the things you're up against, and I don't know where your ego's at with that, is that you've gotten a lot of attention.
Marc:And you won a prize, you know?
Marc:And...
Marc:And you know and is there sometimes like I think the feeling is Are you good with you know, do you remember doing off off off Broadway and feeling satisfied?
Marc:Was that enough?
Guest:interesting well
Guest:It both was and it wasn't, right?
Guest:Because... Okay, yeah.
Guest:Because the... Yes, it was in the sense that it was incredibly nourishing to get to... I worked on great plays, you know, in 60-seat theaters above a falafel stand that nobody saw.
Guest:And, you know, that they pay you with a MetroCard and, you know, you're living in a way that feels very precarious.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And creatively, a lot of that was enough.
Guest:And some of that work, to be honest, is more fulfilling than 95% of the film and television work that's available.
Guest:You know, the theater is, you know.
Marc:But in my mind, it's sort of like, this is where it matters.
Marc:And then you look at the audience, you're like, to these four people.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and I think like any actor, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want to be doing what I'm getting to do now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, those are my dreams.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's amazing to me that- Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, Denmark, so you're married to a Danish person?
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Guest:And I'm married to a psychiatrist who is also now a documentary filmmaker.
Guest:And she just made an amazing short film about these two immigration lawyers who are sort of fighting ICE and preventing deportations.
Guest:And she just showed it at Telluride.
Guest:So we both had a film there, which was really amazing.
Guest:And you have kids?
Guest:We have three little girls.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:How's that for you?
Guest:Four and two and one.
Guest:Good.
Guest:Yeah, it's the best.
Guest:It's a lot.
Guest:It's a lot right now.
Guest:It's like sort of everything converged, everything happened at once in my life in a lot of ways, you know.
Guest:Do you love Denmark?
Guest:I love Denmark.
Marc:I envy you.
Marc:Have you spent time there?
Marc:No, I really haven't, I don't think.
Marc:I just picture it being, you know, minimal, you know, furniture.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, that's... And not a lot of storage space.
Guest:I've spent a lot of time there in the last eight years.
Guest:We have Danish kids.
Guest:My kids speak Danish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They've got Danish passports.
Guest:I have a house there.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It's a very... Because it's over here.
Guest:It's a very sane, gentle...
Guest:practical place practical beautiful place that really looks after its people you know the median quality of life yeah for everyone uh that's so it's just relaxing well that's the thing it's like the stress yeah it goes right i go to canada and it's i'm it's gone i'm free so i go anywhere
Guest:I don't give a shit.
Marc:And it's like, oh, it's not here.
Marc:The psychic cancer is not.
Marc:When you go to those places, it's around, but you're not the patient.
Marc:You know it's happening, and it's going to spread something.
Guest:But it's not going to kill you.
Guest:No, and it's very... Yeah.
Guest:It's very restorative for me to be there, and it's become a real sanctuary.
Guest:Yeah, it's great.
Guest:You know, I ride my bike around, and... Good for you.
Guest:Nobody gives a shit about, you know... Yeah.
Guest:The New Yorker.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Guest:And it's a very, you know...
Guest:I remember I took my wife, the first time I went there, I took her and her mother and uncle to Noma, which is that famous restaurant that's in Denmark.
Guest:And we met the chef afterwards and went to the kitchen and they have this sort of dry erase board with all kinds of stuff on it.
Guest:And they had one, I think, number one restaurant in the world four years in a row at that point.
Guest:Or something like that.
Guest:And they said something about how every year they threw out the entire menu because they knew if they tried to protect their success, they wouldn't achieve it again.
Guest:And that mentality, that risk...
Guest:mentality is is really rife in that country you know there's a real sense of and you understand that and and so that's something that really appeals to me because I think unless you put yourself in danger somehow you know it's that thing Frank Stella said I'm only interested in what I can't do
Guest:So what can't you do?
Guest:Because then you're up against something where you're going to have to find some inner ledge to go on, and then you might grow.
Guest:You might fail spectacularly, but you might grow.
Marc:But I think what I'm hearing from you, which I don't know that we're, which I think deserves some defining, is that you're able to compartmentalize.
Marc:And that is the deal.
Marc:Is that when you're doing your family thing or you're out in the world, you're not an empty vessel.
Marc:You're not doing the work at that moment.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:No, that's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And that you function in the world.
Guest:I have a very normal life.
Marc:And I'm sure you're not boring.
Marc:And I'm sure that you have interests.
Marc:We've talked about some of them.
Marc:I wish...
Uh.
Guest:I'm trying to make you look good here.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Okay, I'll take it.
Guest:I'll take it.
Guest:I'll take it.
Guest:But no, I mean, when I'm with my family and when I'm in my life, I'm all in that.
Guest:Yeah, great.
Guest:But work is something that feeds me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it has been an obsession.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, and that is... I get very intensely obsessed with a piece of work and it becomes a real...
Guest:kind of you know it feels you make your wife work double duty it's you know finding that balance and and figuring you know but you're right about compartmentalization yeah um it's just be careful because like i despite what we said earlier yeah i i really took i think it took pacino years to shake scarface i think i i really believe i saw him in the american buffalo in boston
Guest:Yeah, you saw that?
Marc:The David Wheeler production.
Marc:Yeah, in the 80s.
Marc:And I don't remember what the distance was between that and Tony Montana, but there was a little in there.
Marc:I heard a little bit, a little bit.
Marc:So, you know, make sure.
Marc:He's kind of amazing as he gets older when he wants to do the work, when he really wants to do the work.
Marc:Oh, he's incredible.
Marc:Like, him playing Dr. Kevorkian, that was crazy good.
Guest:Yeah, he's incredible.
Guest:You know, he got lost in hoo-ha for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:You could say, you know, maybe.
Guest:I know people, some people feel that there's been affectations.
Guest:I mean, I just think that he has never stopped searching.
Marc:I think he's one of the only ones out.
Guest:He is.
Guest:No, he's... I mean, you know, when I say about always being, you know, what I said earlier about being a student, I feel like he has never stopped.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He can go there.
Marc:He still takes the risk, the vulnerability.
Marc:He does.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and it's funny because he came to...
Guest:my school when I was an undergrad.
Guest:I had been an intern on this documentary he made called Looking for Richard.
Marc:I remember that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was my introduction to Shakespeare.
Guest:And I was, I think I was, I don't know, 15 or 16 when I did that.
Guest:Um, and so later when I invited him to school, he said something, someone asked a question.
Guest:It was a very sort of intellectual question.
Guest:And he said a couple simple things that have stayed with me for the rest of my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One was just about finding a way to connect viscerally with a character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not in your thoughts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the other was about meaning what you say, that it's that simple.
Guest:You have to mean the words that you say.
Guest:You can't just say those words.
Guest:And I think that that's...
Guest:it's so loaded that concept yeah yeah it's like at the end of this last season of succession yeah i had to sit on the dirt yeah oh yeah with your siblings floor of a parking lot yeah and jesse had written a line that said i'm blown into a million pieces
Guest:And so your work really is to mean that.
Guest:Find a way to mean it.
Guest:What's going to happen?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:How much have you shot?
Guest:It's like, I don't know.
Guest:We're about halfway through.
Guest:Exciting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, the fear in a way we've made 30 hours of stories so far.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The fear is how do you continue to move the needle?
Guest:How do you sustain something like that?
Marc:Well, it feels to me that that.
Marc:But they have.
Marc:It feels to me that it's it's you.
Marc:We're at a ledge here that it feels that it's sustainable for this season for sure.
Marc:I don't know about one after this, but it doesn't matter.
Marc:I don't know either.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:I mean, and I'm sure they feel that way.
Marc:These guys seem smart.
Guest:I mean, Jesse Armstrong is just a brilliant, he's a brilliant writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he, again and again, you know, I think, I mean, in a way, that thing we're talking about, about where does this come from?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think Jesse also feels a sort of terrible weight of how am I going to clear this bar?
Guest:And at the same time, whatever that source is, I think is inexhaustible, really.
Guest:I don't think the material for this show is inexhaustible, but I think... That thing we're talking about, Duende.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, if you make yourself available to it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Got it.
Marc:Good talking to you.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Great talking to you.
Marc:that I had with Jeremy Strong.
Marc:So here's what happened.
Marc:About 10 days after I talked to him, he sent a text with a voice memo recording.
Marc:He said it was something that he's been thinking about and he wished he had said it during our talk.
Marc:So here it is.
Guest:Mark, hey, it's Jeremy.
Guest:I just wanted to send you this.
Guest:I've been thinking about our conversation and something I wish...
Guest:I had said, I don't know if it's too late, but here I am in a hotel room in Stockholm, jet lagged out of my mind.
Guest:But the thing I've been thinking a lot about is, you know, all this stuff about me and that article and
Guest:you know, quote controversy.
Guest:And, uh, I guess the thing I keep thinking is, is who cares, who cares, right?
Guest:Who cares what some actor says or does?
Guest:Uh, it's, it's, it's entirely unimportant and it's just noise and silliness and,
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like there's a war in Ukraine.
Guest:There's devastating flooding in Pakistan.
Guest:Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Guest:The fucking secretary general of the UN called the latest IPCC report on the climate crisis a code red for humanity.
Guest:And, you know, we open our news feeds and there's all this stuff about actors and what they're saying and what they're doing.
Guest:And it's just it's just silliness and it's harmful and it's a distraction from things that matter.
Guest:And I think the work that actors do
Guest:can be meaningful and can be healing and can even maybe matter.
Guest:But what we say and do and how any of us work or how any of us get there, uh, it's just entirely unimportant.
Guest:Um, okay.
Guest:It was really great to talk to you and, uh, yeah, that's it.
Marc:Okay, there you go.
Marc:Jeremy Strong, the movie Armageddon Time opens in theaters this Friday, October 28th.
Marc:And I would like you to hang out for a minute.
Marc:Could you do that?
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:So look, folks, on Thursday, I talked to Ron Carter, who is one of the architects of modern jazz, one of the great double bass players, one of the great musicians, has been on upwards of 2,300 recordings, is still active and lucid, and his fingers are still beautiful and working.
Marc:I saw him at Birdland in New York,
Marc:The night before I talked to him, I tried to get up to speed.
Marc:I'm not a deep jazz nerd, but I enjoy it.
Marc:And I was curious and we had a great conversation.
Marc:That's on Thursday at Vicar Street in Dublin on Wednesday, this Wednesday, October 26th.
Marc:Then I'm in Oklahoma City at the Tower Theater on Wednesday, November 2nd.
Marc:Dallas, Texas at the Majestic Theater on Thursday, November 3rd.
Marc:San Antonio at the Tobin Center for the Performing Arts for two shows on Friday, November 4th.
Marc:And Houston at the Cullen Theater at Wortham Center on Saturday, November 5th.
Marc:Then I'm in Long Beach, California at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on Saturday, November 12th.
Marc:Eugene, Oregon at the Holt Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, November 18th.
Marc:And Bend, Oregon at the Tower Theater on Saturday, November 19th.
Marc:In December, I'm in Asheville, North Carolina at the Orange Peel for two shows on Friday, December 2nd.
Marc:And then Nashville, Tennessee, I'm at the James K. Polk Center on Saturday, December 3rd.
Marc:And 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:And since I'm still overseas and have no guitar, here's more of me playing songs with guests who have been on the show.
Marc:This is me and Dan Zanes from the Del Fuego's playing Catch That Train.
Guest:Well, everybody's talking about a day about the lake.
Guest:Let's get our bands and guitars and all the food we can take.
Guest:I'll meet you on the corner when the sun decides to break.
Guest:Come on, catch that train.
Guest:Come on, catch it.
Guest:Catch that train.
Guest:Well, I don't mind the station I don't mind going underground Kinda like the symphony of a thousand different sounds In another twenty minutes We'll all be country bound So catch that train Come on, catch it Catch that train Alright, take it away
Guest:All right.
Guest:It's a topsy-turvy world we're all living in today Let's take a trip before the summer sun has gone astray When we ride, we ride together And so I say, catch that train Come on, catch it, catch that train
Guest:We'll look out of the window, watch the world go flying past Every river, town, and village as they come and go so fast We'll fill the day with memories and I know they're gonna last Come on, come on, catch it, catch that dream
Guest:And we'll all be country bound.
Guest:Come on, catch it.
Guest:Catch that dream.
Guest:All right, take us home.
Guest:Come on, catch that dream.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Nice.