Episode 1394 - Scott Cooper

Episode 1394 • Released December 22, 2022 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it we're going at it a long time now over 12 years it seems is that possible yes

00:00:25Marc:It's Christmas week.

00:00:27Marc:I guess travel is going to be impossible for anybody going anywhere in the middle of the country and probably anywhere in general, because generally a storm that's supposed to happen like this will cripple the entire air travel ecosystem.

00:00:41Marc:I don't know what's going to happen.

00:00:43Marc:I'm supposed to go spend some time with my dad.

00:00:46Marc:This might be the last holiday season where he remembers me.

00:00:51Marc:That's heavy.

00:00:52Marc:Kit was supposed to fly back to Chicago to see her people.

00:00:56Marc:I don't know if that's going to happen because of this fucking storm.

00:00:59Marc:It's disappointing, but look, it's a harsh thing, climate change.

00:01:05Marc:Whenever they call something a bomb cyclone, all of a sudden you start hearing names for things you never heard for.

00:01:11Marc:This thing is the horrendous wind.

00:01:14Marc:What?

00:01:15Marc:Yeah, they upgraded it to horrendous.

00:01:18Marc:The bomb cyclone.

00:01:20Marc:Maybe that's a weather term that's been used before.

00:01:23Marc:I was wondering how long it would take for planes to start dropping out of the air because of climate related problems.

00:01:30Marc:This might be it.

00:01:31Marc:A bomb cyclone.

00:01:33Marc:Wait, have you ever heard one of those before?

00:01:34Marc:No, they had to create a new name.

00:01:37Marc:It's probably not true.

00:01:38Marc:I know there's probably some meteorologists out there or people who study weather as a pastime that are like, no, man, no.

00:01:45Marc:The bomb cyclone has been around.

00:01:47Marc:There's only been like two of them.

00:01:49Marc:And this is this is one.

00:01:50Marc:I don't know, man.

00:01:53Marc:But good luck with the traveling.

00:01:56Marc:If you get stuck, I hope you're OK.

00:01:58Marc:Maybe you should start building your brain around that, the possibility of disappointment in terms of travel.

00:02:04Marc:But maybe you're maybe you're one of those people that's relieved.

00:02:08Marc:It's like, oh, my God, we might not have to go.

00:02:10Marc:What a blessing.

00:02:12Marc:What a Christmas blessing this is.

00:02:14Marc:Hey, look.

00:02:15Marc:I have Scott Cooper on the show today.

00:02:17Marc:Scott Cooper is a writer, director, actor.

00:02:20Marc:He made the films Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges, Black Mass with Johnny Depp, Out of the Furnace and Hostiles, both with Christian Bale.

00:02:29Marc:He's got a new movie out also with Christian Bale.

00:02:31Marc:It's called The Pale Blue Eye.

00:02:34Marc:And it's kind of a great gothic whodunit that uses Edgar Allan Poe as a character.

00:02:41Marc:It's one of those historical kind of mystery horror things that uses a real guy.

00:02:46Marc:And the guy who plays Poe is great.

00:02:49Marc:And Christian Bale is the other guy.

00:02:51Marc:And he's Christian Bale.

00:02:52Marc:He's always going to be pretty fucking good.

00:02:54Marc:But I met this guy in an airplane.

00:02:56Marc:It was one of those situations.

00:02:57Marc:It was funny.

00:02:58Marc:So I'm sitting next to this guy and I don't recognize him, but he's reading Willie Nelson's autobiography.

00:03:04Marc:It's got a big picture of Willie on the front cover.

00:03:07Marc:It's a hardback.

00:03:08Marc:And all I know is every time I look over at that guy, maybe he was across the aisle from me.

00:03:12Marc:And I had an empty seat next to me for some odd reason.

00:03:15Marc:And I kept looking over there and Willie was looking right at me as one of those pictures and looking right at me from the book.

00:03:21Marc:And this guy's reading his book.

00:03:23Marc:He's pretty earnest.

00:03:24Marc:He's listening to music.

00:03:25Marc:Seems like a serious dude.

00:03:27Marc:And then not unlike many air travel experiences, I don't know why this happens, but I can sit next to somebody and not say a word to them for five hours of flying.

00:03:35Marc:And then as soon as we're descending into L.A., it's sort of like, so where are you from here?

00:03:40Marc:And then the conversation starts.

00:03:42Marc:It was one of those situations where, you know, he in my recollection, he came over to the seat next to me.

00:03:47Marc:We talked for a while.

00:03:49Marc:He said, you know, he knew who I was and he was a director.

00:03:51Marc:He told me he directed Black Mass.

00:03:52Marc:I was like, holy fuck, you're a real guy.

00:03:55Marc:You're a real director.

00:03:56Marc:You're the real thing, man.

00:03:57Marc:That's some serious shit.

00:03:58Marc:And then crazy hard.

00:03:59Marc:I'm like, damn.

00:04:01Marc:So I was happy to talk to him.

00:04:02Marc:And I knew he was working on a new movie.

00:04:04Marc:At that time, I think it was Hostiles, which is also a great movie.

00:04:07Marc:Guy's a good director.

00:04:08Marc:Great director.

00:04:10Marc:And I invited him on the show way back then.

00:04:12Marc:And we've been sort of in touch here and there through texting.

00:04:15Marc:And finally, it happened.

00:04:17Marc:And it was good.

00:04:18Marc:He's a serious guy, serious director, does the thing.

00:04:22Marc:It's a very interesting shift from that first movie, Crazy Heart, into all of these other darker movies.

00:04:27Marc:He did that movie Antlers, which is a horror movie, and he uses that guy Rory all the time, that guy I interviewed, Rory Cochran.

00:04:35Marc:The first time I saw that guy or noticed him was in Black Mask.

00:04:38Marc:He played one of...

00:04:39Marc:Whitey Bulger's hit guys, one of his henchmen.

00:04:43Marc:And it was so fucking deep and creepy.

00:04:47Marc:I just couldn't believe it.

00:04:47Marc:You know, Jesse Plemons was in that too.

00:04:50Marc:He gets great performances out of people.

00:04:51Marc:But anyways, he's here on the show.

00:04:55Marc:So look, I went back to the heart doctor because I don't know if I told you, but the last time I was there, I went, I went, I had all the tests, stress tests, but then I felt like I needed more.

00:05:05Marc:So I had another appointment with the guy.

00:05:07Marc:I said, I want an angiogram.

00:05:09Marc:He's like, why?

00:05:10Marc:You don't need one.

00:05:11Marc:I'm like, I just, I think I need one.

00:05:12Marc:I'm talking to many people my age who have these heart problems.

00:05:16Marc:He's like, yeah, but we checked you out.

00:05:17Marc:I'm like, can I just get one?

00:05:18Marc:I'll pay for it.

00:05:19Marc:Just give me an angiogram.

00:05:20Marc:I want to see, I want to know what's in my pipes.

00:05:25Marc:He's like, you don't need an angiogram.

00:05:26Marc:Let's do this nuclear stress test.

00:05:28Marc:I'm like, what does that do?

00:05:29Marc:And he's like, well, it's like a stress test except we shoot you up with a radioactive thing and we take images before and after you exercise and that'll determine your blood flow and whether or not it's restricted and we should be concerned.

00:05:41Marc:It's one step shy of an angiogram and a lot cheaper.

00:05:43Marc:I'm like, great, let's do that.

00:05:46Marc:So I went and did that.

00:05:47Marc:So I don't know how that turned out.

00:05:48Marc:That was exciting.

00:05:49Marc:So I'm just, my veins are lit up with radioactivity right now.

00:05:53Marc:I just look, man, I don't want to be surprised from the inside.

00:05:57Marc:That's all.

00:05:58Marc:There's not you don't have much control over being surprised from the outside.

00:06:02Marc:You know, a car accident, a tree falls on you, a random shooter.

00:06:07Marc:I mean, you don't who the hell knows, you know, once you're out in the world or even in your house, a beam could fall on you.

00:06:13Marc:You could get an infection from a tick, whatever.

00:06:18Marc:But I don't want to be surprised from the inside if I can avoid it.

00:06:22Marc:So there's a certain vigilance that has to go on in terms of making sure you're healthy and doing what you need to be to be healthy.

00:06:29Marc:So you get a heads up, heads up, cancer on the way, heads up, dementia on the way, heads up, your valves are all stuffed up.

00:06:36Marc:We got to unstuff them.

00:06:39Marc:Minimize anxiety.

00:06:42Marc:Being surprised from the inside.

00:06:45Marc:That's my new motto as I go.

00:06:47Marc:Minimize the possibility of being surprised from the inside.

00:06:51Marc:Again, outside, you just have to be vigilant.

00:06:54Marc:Be careful.

00:06:55Marc:Look both ways.

00:06:57Marc:Run if you have to.

00:06:59Marc:But the inside is tricky.

00:07:01Marc:It's tricky, I tell you.

00:07:03Marc:Listen, this guy's a heavy guy, this Scott Cooper.

00:07:07Marc:Makes heavy movies.

00:07:09Marc:He's the real deal.

00:07:10Marc:Gets out there into the West and does the thing like the old guys.

00:07:15Marc:And it was great talking to him.

00:07:17Marc:His movie, The Pale Blue Eye, premieres on Netflix tomorrow, December 23rd.

00:07:22Marc:And this is me talking to Scott Cooper.

00:07:27Guest:I've seen the Allman's a couple of times.

00:07:36Guest:You did?

00:07:36Guest:In fact... Before Greg died?

00:07:39Guest:In fact, Greg Allman came to the premiere of Crazy Heart.

00:07:43Guest:Did he?

00:07:43Guest:And I'll never forget it.

00:07:44Guest:He approached me after and he said...

00:07:47Guest:That hit me real good.

00:07:48Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:07:49Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:07:49Guest:A lot of musicians had seen themselves in Jeff Bridges.

00:07:52Marc:What surprised me about Greg Allman when I saw him shortly before he died is that he is tiny.

00:07:59Marc:Yes.

00:08:00Marc:Yeah.

00:08:02Marc:Like when I've seen Robert Plant, too, I saw them both oddly.

00:08:05Marc:Well, I don't know where I saw Plant, but I saw Greg Allman.

00:08:08Marc:I was at the counter at the Bowery Hotel.

00:08:10Marc:Yep.

00:08:10Marc:And he walked behind me, and I'm like a ghost.

00:08:12Marc:Who, Greg Allman?

00:08:13Marc:Yeah, shortly before he passed.

00:08:15Marc:But he was tiny.

00:08:17Guest:tiny guy big heart great hey man that last solo album those little country blues the one that t-bone produced well that's that that's that's why i was in the studio with them with t-bone yeah and when you were thinking about crazy heart no we were finishing crazy heart or or we hadn't yet we hadn't yet uh i think we hadn't yet um

00:08:39Guest:Recorded the soundtrack.

00:08:41Guest:He was finishing Greg Allman.

00:08:43Guest:That one?

00:08:44Guest:Yes, he knew that I was a big Allman Brothers fan.

00:08:47Marc:Did you know Greg was on his way out?

00:08:50Guest:No.

00:08:50Guest:And he invited me down.

00:08:51Guest:That's why Greg came.

00:08:52Guest:Actually, now that I think about it, no.

00:08:53Guest:So the movie was finished because Greg then came to the premiere of Crazy Heart, which is where I was so touched with what he said afterwards.

00:09:00Marc:What other musician came to Crazy Heart?

00:09:03Guest:Dwight Yoakam was there.

00:09:04Guest:That makes sense.

00:09:07Guest:I think Willie Nelson wrote a nice piece about the film.

00:09:10Guest:Really?

00:09:10Guest:I think Jackson Brown was there, I think.

00:09:13Guest:This was here?

00:09:14Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:09:15Guest:Yeah, that'll make sense.

00:09:16Guest:Maybe Don Henley.

00:09:18Guest:Don Henley.

00:09:19Guest:You guys pals?

00:09:20Guest:No, but... He seems difficult.

00:09:22Guest:Is that right?

00:09:23Guest:I don't know.

00:09:24Guest:He seemed lovely to me.

00:09:25Guest:Really loved the film.

00:09:26Guest:I think a lot of people saw themselves in Bad Blake and Jeff's character for someone who had either fallen on hard times or people who carry their own amps to shows in bowling alleys.

00:09:39Guest:I can't imagine Don Henley played in a bowling alley or Jackson Bridge.

00:09:43Marc:I think they have similar... You come up however you come up.

00:09:47Marc:There's an equivalent to it.

00:09:50Marc:But that was a guy on the other side of it.

00:09:52Marc:At the bowling alley.

00:09:54Marc:He wasn't coming up.

00:09:54Marc:He was going down.

00:09:55Guest:He was going down, and we opened the film with a man who's just driven, I don't know, 300, 400 miles, has taken a piss in an empty milk jug and pours that out at a bowling alley.

00:10:07Marc:It's like similar to, I think Duvall was in it too, wasn't he, for a minute?

00:10:11Guest:Duvall was in it.

00:10:13Guest:He produced it.

00:10:14Guest:Did he?

00:10:14Guest:I actually spoke to him on the way over here.

00:10:16Guest:You did?

00:10:16Guest:I speak to him almost every day.

00:10:18Marc:What do you talk about with Robert Dubois?

00:10:20Guest:Today we talked about World Cup.

00:10:22Guest:He loves soccer.

00:10:24Guest:His wife is Argentinian.

00:10:25Guest:We talked about- He's in Virginia?

00:10:27Guest:He's in Virginia.

00:10:28Guest:Where you come from?

00:10:29Guest:Yep, where I'm from.

00:10:30Guest:I was married on his farm.

00:10:32Guest:Yeah, his horse farm?

00:10:34Guest:Yep.

00:10:35Guest:Which dates back to, I think, 1743, surveyed by George Washington.

00:10:39Guest:It's everything you might imagine.

00:10:40Guest:It's stunning.

00:10:41Guest:And how do you know him?

00:10:43Guest:Uh, we did a film together.

00:10:45Guest:We've, we've made, as actors, we've made three films.

00:10:48Guest:The first film we made together was, uh, a Warner Brothers epic Civil War film called Gods and Generals in which he played Robert E. Lee and I played one of, uh, a young adjutant.

00:10:58Guest:And, uh, I had a big scene with him that, that I think was cut for the film.

00:11:02Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:11:03Guest:and i recall that of course i and every every other actor was nervous when you're in the company of who've maybe the greatest american screen actor who ever lived marlon brando thought that he was the greatest screen actor who ever lived yeah um he has a letter hand written letter at home from brando on his deathbed saying that very thing that he did not want to uh frame but his wife didn't put it up in a far corner of a library so i had this big scene with duval

00:11:29Guest:Of course, I was incredibly nervous.

00:11:32Marc:I had to how is he is a guy on set?

00:11:35Guest:Intimidating You're talking about a man who's made a hundred films and some of the greatest films ever made And then we had our scene didn't say anything to me Later his assistant came and knocked on my I think I was in a honey wagon and my trailer so small I could turn around the quarter the quarter trailer.

00:11:53Guest:Yeah, and

00:11:53Guest:Or an eighth of a trailer.

00:11:56Guest:And he said, Mr. Duvall would like to take you to dinner.

00:11:59Guest:And I thought, oh, shit.

00:12:00Guest:Okay, well, this very well could be the end of my acting career as it's starting to... Why would he take a whole dinner to do that?

00:12:09Guest:Well, who knows?

00:12:10Guest:He also knew that I was from Virginia.

00:12:12Guest:Oh, okay.

00:12:13Guest:And he said to me, he said, I really like the way you work.

00:12:16Guest:I...

00:12:16Guest:I think you're a very good actor, which is the best thing you could ever take from Robert Duvall.

00:12:22Guest:And we struck up a friendship that to this day has not ceased.

00:12:27Guest:And he's really, he's almost like a second father to me.

00:12:31Guest:Like I said, I speak to him three or four times a week.

00:12:33Guest:How often do you talk to your real dad?

00:12:35Guest:Much less, believe it or not.

00:12:37Guest:I believe it.

00:12:38Guest:Yeah.

00:12:39Guest:And Bobby, as he likes to be called, Duvall, he was the first person to read my screenplay for Crazy Heart because I was auditioning for a lot of films and becoming a bridesmaid or not getting them.

00:12:51Guest:And he said...

00:12:52Guest:you know what, you should do what I did before I wrote and directed The Apostle.

00:12:58Guest:He said, why don't you write something?

00:13:02Guest:He was the guy that said that?

00:13:03Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:13:04Guest:And I was in, I happened to be at that point really into Merle Haggard, who's the poet laureate of country music.

00:13:11Guest:Yeah, of course.

00:13:12Guest:Listening to a lot of Merle Haggard, a lot of Waylon Jennings, a lot of Townes Van Sant.

00:13:18Guest:Townes is sad.

00:13:19Guest:Yeah.

00:13:19Guest:Yeah, and I thought, well, why don't I make an amalgamation of all these characters, a little bit of Chris Christopherson as well.

00:13:27Guest:And out of that, based on Thomas Cobb's novel, came Crazy Heart, and I was writing it for Jeff Bridges, even though nobody knew, I mean, Jeff didn't know me.

00:13:38Guest:So that's based on a book.

00:13:40Guest:It is, yeah.

00:13:40Guest:I mean, generally, if I base something on a book, there's a seed of something that I like.

00:13:45Guest:Take some liberties.

00:13:46Guest:Yeah, you have to be very clear with the author that...

00:13:50Guest:There's a big difference between a film and a movie.

00:13:53Marc:Well, what's interesting with Duvall and that connection and everything else is that Tender Mercies is in the same area.

00:14:00Marc:Oh, boy.

00:14:01Marc:What a performance that is.

00:14:02Marc:Oh, dude, it's so good.

00:14:04Guest:And that opening where he's just on the floor.

00:14:06Guest:And how about the only time he sings in the movie, he turns his back to the camera.

00:14:11Guest:Yeah.

00:14:11Guest:I mean, that takes balls.

00:14:12Marc:But going back, you know, you come from Virginia, but was it always the, like, where'd you grow up exactly?

00:14:18Guest:Yeah, I grew up in this small town called Abingdon, Virginia, which is the southwestern part of the state that is really kind of the, if there is such a thing, artistic crown jewel of Virginia.

00:14:31Guest:In what way?

00:14:31Guest:State Theater of Virginia.

00:14:33Guest:A lot of great musicians.

00:14:35Marc:Is there pottery there?

00:14:36Marc:There seems to be a lot of pottery around the south.

00:14:38Marc:Everywhere I go.

00:14:39Marc:A lot of arts, crafts.

00:14:41Guest:Seagrove, pottery.

00:14:41Guest:Yeah, and then Asheville.

00:14:42Guest:Of course, it's very near Asheville.

00:14:44Guest:And a lot of great bluegrass musicians.

00:14:49Guest:I grew up really listening to a lot of bluegrass.

00:14:51Guest:Like who?

00:14:52Guest:Well, the first song I ever heard that I can remember is Little Maggie by Ralph Stanley.

00:14:59Guest:Ralph, whom my family knew a bit.

00:15:02Guest:Was your family in the arts?

00:15:04Guest:Well, my father taught English literature.

00:15:06Guest:My grandmother- Oh, he did?

00:15:07Guest:As well, yeah.

00:15:09Guest:Where at?

00:15:09Guest:Well, he taught at a boarding school in Charlottesville.

00:15:14Guest:He was taught himself by the great William Faulkner at the University of Virginia.

00:15:19Guest:At Oxford?

00:15:20Guest:No, at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

00:15:22Guest:Not in Mississippi?

00:15:23Guest:No, he taught, Faulkner taught for a couple of years at UVA.

00:15:26Marc:Before he became, or like at what point in his career?

00:15:28Guest:No, no, no, he was, he'd won the Nobel.

00:15:30Marc:Oh, so he was like a guy, a visiting professor.

00:15:32Marc:That's right.

00:15:33Marc:For a couple of years.

00:15:34Marc:Yeah, he taught my father.

00:15:36Marc:Did your father say like, all right, so let's go through the Sound and the Fury page by page.

00:15:40Marc:I want an explanation.

00:15:42Guest:Well, I don't know that he did that, but there are some recordings of Faulkner teaching these classes that the University of Virginia have put online, and my father claims that he can hear himself asking a question.

00:15:55Guest:Not that question, but something.

00:15:56Guest:Who knows if that's true?

00:15:57Marc:The Quentin section of The Sound and the Fury is a brain bender.

00:16:00Guest:Yes.

00:16:01Guest:So, yeah, that really, growing up at a place kind of rich in tradition, musical tradition, literature.

00:16:10Guest:Your Faulkner guy?

00:16:13Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:16:14Guest:And I've been asked actually to adapt a couple of Faulkner's novels.

00:16:21Guest:Which one?

00:16:22Guest:Light in August.

00:16:23Guest:Really?

00:16:24Guest:Sanctuary, which is great.

00:16:26Marc:Yeah.

00:16:26Marc:They did the reverse, I think, with Steve McQueen and- Yes, that's right.

00:16:30Marc:I can't remember the other guy.

00:16:31Guest:SLA dying.

00:16:32Guest:So eventually, look, we're at a time now, I guess one could do it for limited television.

00:16:41Guest:Yacht-Napatawfa County.

00:16:42Guest:Yeah, but we're in a tough place, I'm not sure.

00:16:45Guest:To do a Faulkner miniseries?

00:16:47Guest:Well, I'm not sure America wants to race out to the cinema.

00:16:53Guest:Sure.

00:16:53Marc:There's a whole mythology around Yachna-Patofa County.

00:16:55Marc:There was a scholar named, what was his name, Klanth Brooks, who his whole life was being a Faulkner scholar and kind of laid that shit out.

00:17:03Marc:Klanth Brooks.

00:17:04Marc:Jesus.

00:17:05Marc:So, okay, so you're coming up in a liberal, I'm assuming, or no?

00:17:10Marc:Yeah.

00:17:11Marc:Like education forward, creative thinking, good, all that stuff.

00:17:15Guest:Yeah.

00:17:16Guest:And I think when you- Your mom taught?

00:17:18Guest:She did not.

00:17:19Guest:No, no.

00:17:19Guest:She was a homemaker.

00:17:20Guest:Okay.

00:17:20Guest:And I think when you grow up in a small Southern town that's more arts-oriented, like Abingdon is, like I said, the State Theater of Virginia, it's a great, great tradition.

00:17:33Guest:the arts are kind of in your blood.

00:17:35Guest:But it's not something... Doing what I do as a film writer and film director is not something that kids aspire to from Southern Virginia, just because no one from Southern Virginia really does that.

00:17:45Marc:But did you?

00:17:46Guest:Or were you more... No, I thought more about being an actor, which is why I then went to New York City.

00:17:54Guest:How old were you?

00:17:54Guest:Studied there in my early 20s.

00:17:58Guest:Studied in Lee Strasberg...

00:18:02Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:18:03Marc:But when you were growing up and like, you know, learning about things, was that like a romantic idea that if you were going to study, it was going to be at Lee Strauss, I'm going to do method.

00:18:12Guest:Yes, because the actors that I most responded to, you know, had studied there.

00:18:19Guest:And who were they?

00:18:20Guest:Of course, Duvall studied at Stella Adler.

00:18:22Guest:Right.

00:18:23Guest:Of course, I wasn't thinking of Bobby in those terms.

00:18:26Guest:Who were you thinking about?

00:18:27Guest:Well, of course, in terms of utilizing some sort of method would, of course, been De Niro and Pacino.

00:18:36Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:18:38Guest:You know, whether he studied there or not, I was really taken by Gene Hackman.

00:18:42Guest:Oh, the greatest.

00:18:43Guest:Hackman and Duvall are the greatest.

00:18:45Guest:Man.

00:18:46Guest:Were they roommates?

00:18:46Guest:Who was it?

00:18:47Guest:They were roommates.

00:18:48Guest:Right.

00:18:48Guest:That's right.

00:18:49Guest:And good friends.

00:18:50Guest:And one day, quick story.

00:18:52Guest:Yeah.

00:18:52Guest:On the set of Crazy Heart, shooting Jeff Bridges in a close-up.

00:18:57Guest:Yeah.

00:18:59Guest:We were lighting.

00:19:00Guest:Jeff wasn't on set.

00:19:01Guest:I was just there with my cinematographer.

00:19:04Guest:I hear this voice behind me.

00:19:07Guest:Yeah.

00:19:07Guest:Duvall here?

00:19:08Guest:Yeah.

00:19:09Guest:I turn around and backlit, I swear to God, was Gene Hackman.

00:19:13Guest:Yeah.

00:19:13Marc:In Santa Fe?

00:19:14Guest:Because that's where he lives now.

00:19:15Guest:I know, I know, yeah.

00:19:16Guest:And I said, Mr. Hackman, no, he isn't here today, but I certainly will call him if you want to stick around.

00:19:23Guest:He's not far from here.

00:19:25Guest:Nah, just tell him Gene stopped by.

00:19:27Guest:And just turned and was gone.

00:19:29Guest:That was it.

00:19:29Guest:That was my one experience with Gene Hackman, and I thought, Jesus.

00:19:33Guest:Bobby's great, though.

00:19:34Guest:I mean, he still watches a lot of movies, and he'll call me after seeing movies that people are putting up for Oscar contention and just rips them apart.

00:19:43Guest:How old is he?

00:19:44Guest:92.

00:19:45Guest:Is he really?

00:19:46Guest:92, but still- Hackman's got to be up there, too.

00:19:48Guest:Yeah, I think he is, but still-

00:19:52Guest:really sharp and lucid and has very strong opinions.

00:19:56Guest:And I hope at 92, I'm living the life that Robert Duvall is.

00:20:00Marc:So you go to New York, Strasburg, doing the method, the repetition, getting in deep.

00:20:05Guest:Yep.

00:20:05Marc:Sense memory.

00:20:06Guest:Yeah.

00:20:06Guest:I have a lot of sense memory to draw from, which would come later in

00:20:12Guest:But do you have brothers, sisters?

00:20:14Guest:I have a brother who was not in the arts.

00:20:17Guest:I had a younger sister who unfortunately passed when I was young.

00:20:23Guest:And those things really inform you as an artist in your life.

00:20:29Guest:How old were you?

00:20:30Guest:I was four, and I distinctly remember... She was younger?

00:20:33Guest:She was seven.

00:20:34Guest:Oh, she was seven.

00:20:35Guest:Coming home and lying on the sofa, and my mom putting cold compress on her head, and I was holding her hand, and then four days later, she was dead.

00:20:45Guest:Oh, my God.

00:20:47Guest:Yeah.

00:20:47Guest:In the house?

00:20:48Guest:No, in the hospital.

00:20:50Guest:Died.

00:20:50Guest:She had, at school, contracted a rare form of meningitis.

00:20:54Guest:Meningitis, right.

00:20:56Marc:That's terrible.

00:20:57Guest:Well... And your brother's older?

00:20:59Guest:He is.

00:20:59Guest:Oh, but everyone was conscious.

00:21:02Guest:Oh, boy.

00:21:03Guest:More than ever.

00:21:04Guest:And, you know, that really informs your life.

00:21:08Guest:But, like, how?

00:21:09Guest:How do you see that, like, in the work now?

00:21:11Marc:How does it inform you as a person?

00:21:13Guest:You know, it's funny.

00:21:14Guest:I think it was Guillermo del Toro when I was telling him the story, and he produced a film of mine, and he's a really close pal and kind of mentor to me.

00:21:23Guest:And...

00:21:25Guest:When I told him the story about my parents losing my sister, he said, it all makes sense.

00:21:32Guest:I said, in what way?

00:21:32Guest:He said, well, in your films, in most all of your films, a child dies.

00:21:39Guest:In Crazy Heart, a child doesn't die, but he's lost.

00:21:41Guest:Yeah.

00:21:43Guest:A child does die in Out of the Furnace.

00:21:45Guest:Yeah.

00:21:46Guest:Whitey Bulger's child did die in... That's right, but dies in a similar way.

00:21:50Guest:Hostiles.

00:21:51Guest:Yeah, hostiles.

00:21:52Guest:Three children die in the opening moments of the film.

00:21:55Guest:Uh-huh.

00:21:56Guest:Antlers, a child dies.

00:21:58Guest:And then... Oh, that was... Yeah.

00:22:01Guest:So I didn't think of that mark, and I thought, Jesus, man.

00:22:04Guest:I mean, instead of going to therapy, which I probably should have been in, I...

00:22:08Guest:seem to explore all that through my movies but you're not consciously haunted by it it's it's kind of in there well i certainly think about it uh really every day oh yeah every day well i think because i'm uh as a parent to two two girls um you know that's really the only thing i fear i don't fear not making another film i don't fear my movies not performing

00:22:30Guest:It's the loss of a child.

00:22:31Guest:It's the only thing that you can't quite control.

00:22:34Guest:And I now have a daughter who's a freshman in college and she's away.

00:22:40Guest:So I'm probably more sensitive to viral transmission, COVID flu, all those sort of things, meningitis, than I otherwise would be because I generally live my life without fear.

00:22:55Guest:That's the only thing that...

00:22:57Marc:but the kids yeah yeah I I don't know how I don't have them and it's one of the reasons I don't I know no that makes that makes complete sense I'm prone to panic and I

00:23:07Guest:Well, that will incite panic, you know, every night that, you know.

00:23:11Guest:Yeah.

00:23:12Guest:You don't know where they are.

00:23:12Guest:You fall asleep.

00:23:13Guest:I don't know.

00:23:13Guest:You have no idea.

00:23:15Guest:No.

00:23:15Guest:Certainly one, my daughter's in college up north.

00:23:18Guest:Yeah.

00:23:18Guest:And yeah, you- How often do you talk to her?

00:23:22Guest:Oh, we're in constant contact.

00:23:24Guest:We're incredibly close.

00:23:26Guest:It's a close family.

00:23:27Guest:You're texting every day.

00:23:28Guest:Texting, calling.

00:23:29Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:30Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:23:30Marc:So that's good.

00:23:31Marc:You got to have-

00:23:31Guest:that uh yeah but i think about that in terms of parenting because my parents did not even having lost my sister they you know i think my wife and i are are like a lot of parents of this generation who uh speaking just for us who were kind of helicopter parents yeah or lawnmower parents kind of clearing the path for them yeah my parents were i guess kind of like submarine parents they were lurking but surface when needed

00:23:58Guest:Out past dark.

00:23:59Marc:But who's to say that?

00:24:00Marc:I mean, it's like, you did all right.

00:24:02Marc:You know what I mean?

00:24:04Marc:I think the biggest...

00:24:05Marc:And I don't have kids, but it seems like you've got to let them be who they are one way or the other.

00:24:10Marc:And I think that it's hard.

00:24:11Guest:It is.

00:24:12Guest:I hope that we haven't stifled them in any way by, you know, trying to maintain this kind of closeness with them.

00:24:19Guest:I hope we haven't.

00:24:20Guest:They're really lovely young women who are incredibly smart and passionate and understanding, you know, faced with the world that our generations have...

00:24:30Guest:I left them with a lot of issues they got.

00:24:32Marc:Sure.

00:24:33Marc:But when, but in, in the aftermath of, of your sister passing, I mean, like, did your parents, you know, recover from like, sometimes when I hear those stories, it's something that hangs heavy forever.

00:24:47Marc:Yeah.

00:24:47Guest:I think one of my uncles told me that my father didn't get out of bed for a month.

00:24:51Guest:A month, but that's all right.

00:24:53Guest:I'm not sure.

00:24:53Guest:That makes sense.

00:24:54Marc:Yeah.

00:24:56Marc:But it wasn't like something was permanently removed from the family.

00:25:01Guest:No, quite the opposite.

00:25:03Guest:It was a very tightly knit Virginia family.

00:25:06Guest:But look, then my parents, of course, were incredibly devoted to my brother and me and-

00:25:12Guest:But I do think that probably in growing up in Abingdon kind of really pushed me towards the humanities and the arts and how do you express whatever the grief that you're living through, the pain, because we're all living with pain and uncertainty.

00:25:27Marc:PTSD, grief.

00:25:29Marc:Sure.

00:25:29Marc:Yeah.

00:25:29Marc:No, I talk about it a lot in the stand-up now.

00:25:33Guest:But so you brought it- Look, you're very, very well aware of that.

00:25:37Guest:Yeah.

00:25:38Guest:What that's dealing with.

00:25:38Marc:Fragility of life and loss.

00:25:41Marc:Yes.

00:25:42Marc:Yes.

00:25:42Marc:But the thing that I keep coming around to with it is that it's completely common.

00:25:48Marc:Nothing unusual.

00:25:49Marc:There's nothing unusual about tragedy.

00:25:52Guest:No.

00:25:53Guest:No, and I explore tragedy in almost every film of mine in one way or another.

00:25:59Guest:Yeah, you're not making comedies.

00:26:01Guest:No.

00:26:03Marc:No, Mark, I'm not.

00:26:05Marc:But so, okay, so you do the Shroudsburg thing and then what?

00:26:08Marc:What's your break?

00:26:09Guest:How do you get traction?

00:26:10Guest:Well, then I realized that New York City is a hard place to live in if you have no money.

00:26:18Guest:And I thought, well, and the weather's tough.

00:26:21Guest:It was just a hard place in the mid-'90s.

00:26:23Guest:For you.

00:26:23Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Guest:I love New York City.

00:26:24Guest:It's one of my favorite places.

00:26:25Guest:It's great.

00:26:26Guest:And I had some friends who were doing quite well who were living out here.

00:26:31Guest:Adrian Brody, who's a good friend of mine, who's a really wonderful actor.

00:26:34Guest:Yeah.

00:26:35Guest:At the time, the young actor Skeet Ulrich was like... Skeet.

00:26:39Guest:Yep.

00:26:40Guest:So I moved out here.

00:26:41Guest:We all kind of powed around, lived together.

00:26:44Guest:And I think that change of scenery helped, even though I still was an actor who was struggling and ultimately an actor with an unremarkable career.

00:26:54Guest:Yeah.

00:26:55Guest:Then I meet Duvall.

00:26:56Marc:But what were you doing?

00:26:57Marc:You were getting parts here and there?

00:26:59Marc:Yeah.

00:26:59Guest:Yeah, not great parts, but parts just to survive.

00:27:03Guest:And the fact is, you're being offered things, and I've forgotten what they are, that I probably should have done, but I thought, no, no, De Niro wouldn't do that.

00:27:11Guest:Oh, you were doing that?

00:27:11Guest:Oh, yeah, like an asshole.

00:27:13Marc:But you came out here, you got management, you got agent, you had friends, you were running around with a group of guys.

00:27:19Guest:Had a very good agent who died far too young, a lady in J.J.

00:27:26Guest:Harris at UTA.

00:27:26Guest:She was great.

00:27:27Guest:But then working with Duvall, we did three films.

00:27:32Guest:We did a Western together with Walter Hill called Broken Trail, which was a great experience working with Bobby Duvall every day and learning a lot from Walter.

00:27:40Marc:Walter's like, he's the guy, man.

00:27:42Marc:I've talked to that guy.

00:27:43Marc:Love Walter.

00:27:44Guest:And I was kind of shadowing Walter because I knew at that point that I wanted to direct.

00:27:48Guest:And I learned a great deal of Walter about economy.

00:27:51Guest:Yes.

00:27:51Guest:About camera setup.

00:27:53Guest:And about actors doing their job.

00:27:55Marc:Exactly.

00:27:56Marc:I mean, Walter's one of our great filmmakers.

00:27:58Marc:I know why.

00:27:59Marc:He was the guy, when I talked to him, I'm like, how do you direct actors?

00:28:03Marc:He's like, I hired them to do it.

00:28:06Marc:Yes.

00:28:06Marc:It's not my job to...

00:28:08Guest:I approach directing actors differently, but he is great in terms of casting.

00:28:14Guest:I don't know that he ever gave Robert Duvall direction.

00:28:17Guest:Right.

00:28:17Guest:He knew why he hired people.

00:28:20Guest:Exactly.

00:28:21Guest:And then I did a nice little film with Bill Murray that Duvall asked me to do called Get Low.

00:28:28Guest:And then after that, I stopped working because I'd made Crazy Heart.

00:28:33Guest:And I got to tell you, Mark, when you're on this side of the camera...

00:28:38Guest:the camera facing the actor, and I'm behind the camera, and you're watching Jeff Bridges or Robert Duvall or Colin Farrell or Maggie Gyllenhaal.

00:28:49Guest:Christian Bale.

00:28:50Guest:Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Casey Affleck, Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard.

00:28:55Guest:You know very quickly that you should stay on this side of the camera.

00:28:59Marc:So that's interesting, though.

00:29:01Marc:But outside of Duvall suggesting it, because it took Duvall forever to direct and write it.

00:29:05Guest:I mean, the Apostle, he must have been in his 70s.

00:29:07Guest:He had directed some documentaries that are quite, quite good before that.

00:29:12Guest:He's a real filmmaker, Duvall.

00:29:13Guest:Oh, no, no, I know.

00:29:14Marc:But it's just interesting because, you know, you're young.

00:29:16Marc:Yes.

00:29:17Marc:And did he sense that you were not satisfied with acting?

00:29:20Marc:Were you not satisfied with acting?

00:29:22Guest:You know, it's because you get, if you, let's say, if you, you know, if you're

00:29:26Guest:Boyishly handsome or whatever.

00:29:28Guest:You get offered a certain kind of part.

00:29:30Guest:And I wanted to play the parts that De Niro was playing and the Pacino and Duvall and Hackman.

00:29:34Marc:But ultimately, like it's sort of things.

00:29:36Marc:Right.

00:29:36Marc:I get it.

00:29:36Marc:But ultimately, you know, if you're going to decide to direct.

00:29:39Marc:I mean, it seems like, look, there's something fundamentally unless you're a fucking genius.

00:29:45Marc:There's you know, for me, there's something fundamentally unsatisfying about acting.

00:29:49Marc:Yes.

00:29:50Marc:So, you know, how do you find the art?

00:29:51Marc:How do you find the satisfaction of doing bits and pieces three minutes at a time sitting in a trailer 12 hours?

00:29:57Marc:How do you feel rewarded?

00:30:00Marc:Right.

00:30:01Marc:It's not like you're doing Death of a Salesman under Mike Nichols.

00:30:04Marc:Well, being in a theater to me, that makes sense.

00:30:07Marc:I get that.

00:30:08Marc:Oh, absolutely.

00:30:09Marc:But, you know, film acting and TV acting when you're a creative person.

00:30:12Marc:A lot of sitting around.

00:30:13Marc:And also just sort of like you're just a piece.

00:30:16Guest:That's right.

00:30:17Guest:You know, what are you really doing?

00:30:19Guest:And Duvall said to me that very thing.

00:30:21Guest:He said, if you love cinema, because we talked about movies all the time, performances offset.

00:30:26Guest:And he said, if you love cinema, he said, then you should be a film writer and a film director.

00:30:31Guest:He said, because that's your medium.

00:30:33Guest:He said, acting is the mediums in the stage.

00:30:35Marc:But discovering while you're watching actors that you're in the right place, I get that.

00:30:40Marc:But it also takes a certain... Lynn, my partner who passed away, she had a great... Great filmmaker.

00:30:47Marc:She was.

00:30:48Marc:And she had a great sensibility about actors.

00:30:50Marc:And great with actors.

00:30:51Marc:Yes, that's what I mean.

00:30:53Marc:Yeah, I mean, she knew, like, you guys got to know, you know, when a take lands.

00:30:57Marc:Yeah, that's a very specific thing.

00:30:59Marc:And that's the whole gift of it.

00:31:03Guest:Yes, and you don't stop until you get that.

00:31:05Guest:That's right.

00:31:06Guest:That you're envisioning.

00:31:08Marc:So how do you, like, is it, how do you...

00:31:11Marc:Was it Duvall that gave you entree into relationships with these actors?

00:31:17Marc:Because it seems that either they took a shine to you or somebody said you're the guy.

00:31:22Guest:Well, I'll tell you, a lot of it, Mark, is luck.

00:31:25Guest:So I write this screenplay.

00:31:26Guest:For Crazy Heart.

00:31:27Guest:I send it to Robert Duvall and he says, wow, this is really good.

00:31:33Guest:He said, whom do you see as Bad Blake?

00:31:35Guest:I said, well, I wrote it for Jeff Bridges.

00:31:36Guest:Yeah.

00:31:37Guest:Do you know Jeff?

00:31:38Guest:I said, no.

00:31:39Guest:I said, do you know him?

00:31:40Guest:He said, well, you know, I've met him.

00:31:43Guest:They know of each other.

00:31:44Guest:Of course.

00:31:45Guest:He said, why don't you write Jeff an impassioned letter, which I did.

00:31:49Guest:I sent it off.

00:31:51Guest:I didn't hear a thing for a year.

00:31:52Guest:A year?

00:31:53Guest:A year.

00:31:53Guest:And in the interim, I was reading...

00:31:56Guest:just in terms of educating myself, lots of interviews with directors whom I love, and I was happy to read a series of interviews with the Coen brothers.

00:32:05Guest:And the Coen said that when they sent him The Big Lebowski, it took Jeff about a year to read it.

00:32:10Guest:So you were willing to wait, though?

00:32:11Guest:I was getting close.

00:32:13Guest:Were you doing other stuff?

00:32:15Guest:No, and I had a young baby, because I believed in screenplay, I believed in my ability to tell the story, because in the interim,

00:32:26Guest:I was touring around a little bit with Merle Haggard, spending time with him on The Chief, his bus, just getting a sense of how he moved, how he talked, how he sang, how he disturbs the molecules of a room.

00:32:40Guest:A year later, I hear from Duval that Jeff loved the script and wanted to meet.

00:32:47Guest:I also, I said to Bobby, I said, the two things I need to make this film.

00:32:51Guest:One is Jeff Bridges, and the other is T-Bone Burnett.

00:32:54Guest:Neither of whom I know.

00:32:56Guest:I sent T-Bone the script.

00:32:59Guest:T-Bone asked me to come in for a meeting.

00:33:01Guest:I walk into T-Bone's house, and there's a cutout.

00:33:04Guest:Yeah.

00:33:06Guest:of Ralph Stanley, the bluegrass musician.

00:33:09Guest:The bluegrass guy, yeah.

00:33:10Guest:From my neck of the woods.

00:33:12Guest:And T-Bone and I, from that point on, were and have maintained a great friendship.

00:33:16Guest:He's a great guy.

00:33:17Guest:He wanted to do this.

00:33:18Guest:Yeah.

00:33:19Guest:He was probably also instrumental in getting Jeff because they go way back.

00:33:24Guest:Uh-huh.

00:33:24Guest:So then I go up to Santa Barbara to meet Jeff, and we talk about the world, we talk about the screenplay, we talk about how I intend to shoot the film.

00:33:35Guest:I said, but Jeff, I gotta be honest, I've never directed not only a film, I've never directed a television show, a commercial, not even a high school play, brother.

00:33:44Guest:And he said, you know what?

00:33:45Guest:I love first-time directors because they don't have bad habits.

00:33:50Guest:Yeah.

00:33:50Guest:I'm in.

00:33:51Guest:Okay.

00:33:51Guest:Wow.

00:33:53Guest:And Mark, that is a life-changing moment.

00:33:56Guest:Yeah.

00:33:57Guest:Jeff Bridges changed my life.

00:33:58Guest:Yeah.

00:33:59Guest:And I certainly would not be at WTF, baby, if not for Jeff Bridges.

00:34:05Guest:Yeah.

00:34:05Marc:And also what a generous actor in a way.

00:34:07Marc:And just so good in everything and always has been.

00:34:11Marc:It's a national treasure.

00:34:12Marc:Just great.

00:34:13Guest:Yeah.

00:34:14Marc:He's one of the finest actors America has ever produced.

00:34:17Marc:Great.

00:34:17Marc:Great screen actor.

00:34:18Marc:So you build that out and you do that movie.

00:34:21Marc:But it's just such an interesting thing that that was your first movie.

00:34:26Marc:The seed of it was really what?

00:34:30Guest:Well, the seed of it was...

00:34:33Guest:And a man who had reached the heights was now in the trough.

00:34:40Guest:And why was that appealing to you?

00:34:42Guest:Well, because I think- As a film or- Yeah, just in terms of artistic expression, how life and also artistic life are nothing but peaks and valleys.

00:34:53Marc:It's interesting, though, because it was a small movie, and in the sense of, like, you know, it was intimate.

00:34:58Marc:Yeah, very quiet film.

00:34:59Marc:Yeah, and, you know, you did something that you could handle and control.

00:35:04Marc:Yeah, I wasn't directing, you know, a David Lean epic.

00:35:07Guest:Right.

00:35:08Guest:Or even any of your other movies.

00:35:10Guest:No, of course.

00:35:10Guest:Oh, no, I could never have directed these films that I've made since then.

00:35:14Marc:But it's just interesting to me that this movie, which was, you know, a kind of like a human story, very empathetic with some, you know, it's not a happy ending per se, but it's a it's a reasonable end.

00:35:26Marc:And it's an honest and honest.

00:35:27Marc:That's right.

00:35:28Marc:So then you go from there to this out of the furnishing, which then you sort of establish a tone.

00:35:33Marc:That's right.

00:35:34Marc:Of how you shoot for the rest of them.

00:35:36Guest:That's right.

00:35:37Marc:Yeah.

00:35:39Marc:And it's a human story, but it's a horrific human story.

00:35:44Guest:It is.

00:35:45Guest:And I will admit that after Crazy Heart, the success of Crazy Heart critically and artistically.

00:35:51Guest:He won the Academy Awards, right?

00:35:53Guest:And T-Bone and Ryan Bingham and Maggie was nominated.

00:35:55Guest:Yeah.

00:35:56Guest:So, you know, it's all downhill from there.

00:35:58Guest:No.

00:35:59Guest:Well, I mean, that's kind of what, you know, as a filmmaker, what you would like to do is kind of toil away in some semi-obscurity so that you can really hone your craft.

00:36:09Guest:Or do another one like that.

00:36:10Guest:Right.

00:36:10Guest:Which is, I mean, look, for someone who was never offered anything as an actor to suddenly be offered every script in town, it was almost paralyzing.

00:36:18Guest:Yeah.

00:36:19Guest:And I thought, well, then I need to go back and tell a story that feels like I'm telling a story of where America is at the time, telling a story of loss and grief and pain that I know well.

00:36:31Guest:And it's going to be almost diametrically opposed to Crazy Heart.

00:36:36Guest:And that was out of the furnace with Crazy Heart.

00:36:38Marc:But grief and pain in terms of the war of that and in terms of that relationship with the brothers.

00:36:44Guest:And loss of a parent, loss of a sibling, which I know well.

00:36:49Guest:And also living in a rough neck of the woods.

00:36:54Guest:Western Pennsylvania, the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, where the great John Fetterman, now US senator from Pennsylvania, was the mayor and who was very instrumental in my shooting there.

00:37:02Guest:Really?

00:37:03Guest:And has become quite a good pal.

00:37:04Guest:Yeah.

00:37:05Guest:I've been supporting him, Christian Bale and I. Go, John.

00:37:08Guest:Yeah.

00:37:09Guest:Yeah, so that was a film that... I also love Chimino's The Deer Hunter.

00:37:16Marc:Sure.

00:37:17Marc:Okay, so there's the tone.

00:37:18Guest:And I actually heard from Chimino after he saw the film.

00:37:21Guest:Come on.

00:37:21Guest:Yeah.

00:37:21Marc:He said, you ripped off my lighting.

00:37:23Guest:No.

00:37:23Guest:He actually said to me how much.

00:37:25Guest:He said, it's a more intimate version of what I was telling.

00:37:28Guest:He really loved the film.

00:37:29Marc:I guess that part of Pennsylvania is lit like that.

00:37:33Marc:It is.

00:37:34Guest:It's kind of gray.

00:37:36Guest:As I was touring with Crazy Hard doing all the press, I went to this town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, which had fallen on incredibly hard times.

00:37:46Guest:I took photos and I wrote in a pad all these locations that I then wrote the screenplay for.

00:37:53Guest:And I wrote it for Christian Bale.

00:37:56Guest:I didn't know Christian, but I thought this guy is the best screen actor of my generation.

00:38:01Guest:Yeah.

00:38:02Guest:Has so much range and facility.

00:38:04Guest:And then I was able to cast him and Casey Affleck.

00:38:07Marc:How does that happen?

00:38:08Marc:How do you cast Christian Bale?

00:38:11Marc:Because now you've done like four movies with him, three movies.

00:38:14Guest:Yeah.

00:38:14Guest:And he's my closest pal.

00:38:16Guest:Yeah.

00:38:16Guest:I would say the success of Crazy Heart certainly, and I'm guessing we haven't spoken about it.

00:38:22Guest:I assume his agents maybe liked Crazy Heart.

00:38:24Guest:But, oh, well, this is, and it was a hard hitting script out of the furnace.

00:38:28Guest:Maybe my facility with actors.

00:38:31Marc:Does he like to challenge himself?

00:38:32Guest:Christian?

00:38:33Guest:Yeah.

00:38:33Guest:Every time out.

00:38:34Guest:Yeah.

00:38:35Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:38:35Guest:That's his thing.

00:38:36Guest:I think Christian and I kind of see the world the same way, which is if you're making safe choices, you're making the wrong choices.

00:38:44Guest:And we like to be on uncertain, shaky ground when we're going into an endeavor.

00:38:50Guest:And that's a tough film.

00:38:51Guest:That's a tough film emotionally, psychologically.

00:38:54Marc:So what do you go like some... Okay, from your first gig as a director, you're working with Jeff, who's worked with everybody.

00:39:01Marc:Yes.

00:39:02Yes.

00:39:02Marc:Duvall, some real veterans.

00:39:05Marc:So when you say you do it differently than Walter in terms of how you approach an actor, so what is your approach now?

00:39:12Marc:So after you do Crazy Heart, which I imagine you learned on the job.

00:39:15Marc:No question.

00:39:16Marc:Because Bridges is such a sweetheart.

00:39:19Marc:Yes.

00:39:20Marc:He was open to my direction.

00:39:21Marc:Yeah.

00:39:22Guest:Yeah, no question.

00:39:22Guest:As was Colin Farrell and Maggie Jordan Hall.

00:39:25Guest:They were all incredibly supportive and generous of me as a first-timer, I have to say.

00:39:30Guest:And being able to give a director a very specific note, not something that's abstract.

00:39:39Guest:An actor.

00:39:40Guest:Yeah, give an actor a specific note.

00:39:41Guest:Yeah, giving an actor a very specific note and something that you think might unlock something.

00:39:47Guest:Because when you come to a set, as Duvall always said to me, he said, whatever you do...

00:39:51Guest:don't rehearse your actors.

00:39:54Guest:He said, it should be like a high wire.

00:39:56Guest:He says, because otherwise actors will be in their trailers or in their hotel rooms making choices of how the scene is going to play and you're going to get poor performance.

00:40:06Guest:And you're going to have to get them out of their choices.

00:40:09Guest:Right.

00:40:09Guest:And he said some of them are too entrenched.

00:40:11Guest:Right.

00:40:12Guest:So come to the set, be open to all possibilities, have no idea where the scene's going to go.

00:40:17Guest:Of course, it's... Yeah.

00:40:19Guest:And I spend a lot of time with actors before we shoot, which I call investigative text work, where we go through every beat, every line.

00:40:26Guest:And if a line is unnecessary, we lose it.

00:40:28Guest:Yeah.

00:40:29Guest:Because cinema, I think, is much better when it's unspoken.

00:40:31Guest:Sure.

00:40:32Guest:So...

00:40:33Guest:You have Christian Bale, you have the great writer and actor Sam Shepard and Willem Dafoe and Woody Harrelson in that film.

00:40:41Guest:And of course, Casey Affleck and Zoe Saldana and Forrest Whitaker.

00:40:46Marc:And it's sort of a big menacing environment too.

00:40:48Guest:Yeah.

00:40:48Guest:And these are people that have all made great films and also one of the great American writers.

00:40:54Guest:Sam Shepard, so that was intimidating.

00:40:56Guest:In fact, my wife came to visit the set one day in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and she said, oh no, I'm not coming back.

00:41:04Guest:She said, this is too intense for her.

00:41:06Marc:A lot of boy energy.

00:41:07Guest:Yeah, and she didn't quite want to be around that.

00:41:09Marc:But how'd you wrangle all those guys?

00:41:11Guest:You mean in terms of how did I get them cast or how did I direct them?

00:41:14Marc:I mean, it's your second movie.

00:41:15Marc:I guess you're coming into it with a good- A little bit of momentum from Crazy Heart.

00:41:22Marc:Right, but there's a lot of big actors there, a lot of heavy hitters, and they just were ready to work, huh?

00:41:27Guest:Yes, the best.

00:41:28Guest:And I think they probably respected, again, I'm supposing, because we never really talk about those sort of things, my relationship with Duvall.

00:41:36Yeah.

00:41:36Guest:the performance is crazy heart did duval wrangle some other guys for you no he didn't but but he read uh he read out of the furnace and he liked it would love it would look at at cuts yeah um that was produced by ridley and tony scott whom we lost while we were shooting that yeah oh really and leo dicaprio produced it so we had some really great producers so you were like they there was a lot of people that wanted to be in the uh scott cooper business

00:42:01Guest:Yes.

00:42:08Marc:Yeah.

00:42:08Marc:I suppose if they all backed the film.

00:42:10Marc:Hey, man, you came out of the gate strong.

00:42:13Marc:Why not bet on that horse?

00:42:14Guest:Yes.

00:42:15Guest:Yeah.

00:42:15Guest:I guess in a sense.

00:42:16Guest:And that, again, was a really tough film.

00:42:19Guest:But-

00:42:20Guest:God, Mark, I've been so lucky that when you make a film, and I've made a few of them now, that people will come to you and say, that film changed my life.

00:42:31Guest:People who dealt with addiction, like in Crazy Heart, alcoholism, overcame that.

00:42:37Guest:People who I heard from many soldiers who'd come back from Iraq and Afghanistan and say that you come home and there's no one there to help you, no one there to support you, the pain that you're dealing with.

00:42:48Guest:Thank you for putting that on screen.

00:42:50Guest:many Native Americans for a Western I made, Hostiles, who saw their life.

00:42:54Marc:Sure, of course.

00:42:55Marc:I mean, I met you on a plane, and I think it was after Black Mass.

00:42:59Marc:That was a nice flight.

00:43:00Marc:Yeah, I enjoyed that.

00:43:01Marc:We ended up talking like the last hour.

00:43:03Marc:You finally talked to me.

00:43:04Marc:I was watching you read your Willie Nelson book, and I'm like, who's that guy?

00:43:08Marc:That guy seems to be somebody.

00:43:10Marc:And then we just struck up a conversation, and it was after I'd seen Black Mass.

00:43:15Marc:I don't know that you'd made Hostiles, or maybe you were making it.

00:43:17Guest:I had just made it, I think.

00:43:19Marc:Right.

00:43:19Marc:Yeah.

00:43:19Marc:But I mean, I knew that Black Mask was a real movie, and whoever made that movie was a real guy.

00:43:25Marc:Oh, thanks.

00:43:25Marc:So I was like, oh, you're the real deal, man.

00:43:28Marc:All right, let's hang out and talk about this shit.

00:43:30Marc:That was a nice fight.

00:43:31Guest:That was a fun film to make in Boston, I have to say.

00:43:33Marc:But...

00:43:35Marc:But in terms of, yeah, obviously these movies are gonna have an effect on people, but it's sort of the choices become very interesting to me.

00:43:44Marc:Like Out of the Furnace, okay, so you see it as a story about America and about returning vets and about poverty and about drugs and about, you know.

00:43:54Guest:Everything we were dealing with and still all the time.

00:43:56Marc:In 2008, 2009 when I made it.

00:43:58Marc:But then like, because Black Mass is really Edgerton's movie in a way.

00:44:04Guest:Yeah.

00:44:04Guest:And Joel was wonderful in that song.

00:44:06Marc:He's great in it.

00:44:07Guest:Oh, my God.

00:44:07Marc:It's great.

00:44:08Marc:So was this like when you're working on that or deciding on that, were you like, well, this is a genre that I want to fuck with?

00:44:17Guest:Yeah.

00:44:17Guest:I mean, interestingly, in terms of never wanting to be on safe ground, I've...

00:44:24Guest:consciously, subconsciously, trying to make films in all different genres.

00:44:28Guest:Genres that have always inspired me.

00:44:30Guest:I made a music film.

00:44:31Guest:I made kind of a searing drama in Out of the Furnace.

00:44:34Guest:Then I made a gangster film.

00:44:36Guest:But I wanted it to be the type of gangster film that was unlike most gangster films, which are where we celebrate the gangsters.

00:44:44Guest:I mean, who doesn't love Scorsese?

00:44:46Guest:Who doesn't love Coppola?

00:44:48Guest:And the way that the gangsters are larger than life.

00:44:50Guest:And we almost...

00:44:52Guest:They live an aspirational lifestyle.

00:44:54Guest:I wanted Black Mass to be quite the opposite of that.

00:44:57Guest:Almost be the anti-departed, which is a wonderful film.

00:45:00Guest:Made on the same subject, Whitey Bulger.

00:45:05Marc:The Departed.

00:45:06Marc:That's right.

00:45:06Marc:Where Jackie plays the Whitey character.

00:45:11Marc:Right.

00:45:11Marc:But a lot of times, I think Scorsese over time did not glorify the mob.

00:45:17Marc:It's half and half.

00:45:18Guest:Well, he's also Italian.

00:45:19Guest:He knows those people who are larger than life and he knows them intimately.

00:45:22Marc:Well, that was the thing that struck me about Black Mass was that, you know, Rory's role.

00:45:27Marc:Rory Cochran?

00:45:27Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:45:28Marc:And Jesse's.

00:45:29Marc:Oh, man.

00:45:31Marc:Were so authentic, it was disturbing.

00:45:33Marc:You know, Johnny did a great job.

00:45:36Marc:Yes, he did.

00:45:38Marc:Tough part to play.

00:45:39Marc:Tough part to play, but Rory was transcendent.

00:45:42Marc:It was like, what the fuck?

00:45:43Marc:Because I had met a couple of dudes that were killers in New York around show business and around drugs, and they have a certain vibe to them, real killers.

00:45:53Marc:And after talking to Rory, I couldn't get a lot out of him, but I assume he's met a few killers.

00:45:58Guest:And he met a few that were very closely involved with Whitey Bulger, in fact.

00:46:02Marc:Oh, he went and talked to the guy that he played?

00:46:04Guest:Oh, I mean, he was hanging out with John Martirano, who is now walking the streets, who is, you know, one of- Was that the other guy?

00:46:11Guest:The guy who was eating the nuts?

00:46:13Guest:Yeah.

00:46:13Guest:Double Earl Brown played him.

00:46:15Marc:Beautiful.

00:46:15Marc:He's great.

00:46:15Marc:Another great role.

00:46:17Marc:But see, I'd never seen those guys played in such an authentic way.

00:46:21Guest:Like they were horrible.

00:46:22Guest:Yes.

00:46:23Guest:Rory and... Yeah.

00:46:24Guest:And that's really what I wanted to put forth as opposed to this kind of aspirational gangster life.

00:46:29Guest:It was quite the opposite.

00:46:30Guest:Yeah.

00:46:31Guest:And I think people probably prefer the former.

00:46:36Guest:I mean, look, anytime you make a film in the footsteps of Coppola and Scorsese, you know, Jean-Pierre Melville, the great gangster director from France, you know, it's like, man, you're really setting yourself up for failure.

00:46:49Guest:But I think that the interesting thing was- Same with making a Western.

00:46:52Guest:John Ford and Eastwood and Hawks.

00:46:54Marc:Yeah, but there's a way you're approaching it.

00:46:57Marc:I mean, this was about a couple of guys from the same neighborhood.

00:47:00Marc:Brotherhood.

00:47:01Marc:Yeah.

00:47:01Marc:Family.

00:47:02Marc:And it was about the corruption of someone with integrity or the soil corruption of someone.

00:47:08Marc:That's exactly right.

00:47:09Marc:Yeah.

00:47:10Marc:So that's a different take.

00:47:11Marc:Yes.

00:47:12Marc:You know, I mean, you know, Depp had done Donnie Brasco.

00:47:15Marc:Beautiful.

00:47:15Marc:Which, oh yeah.

00:47:17Marc:That movie doesn't get the love it deserves.

00:47:19Guest:Oh no, criminally underrated.

00:47:20Guest:Totally.

00:47:21Guest:For both of them.

00:47:22Guest:Yes.

00:47:23Marc:You know, as his sympathy grows, he's gotten in too deep.

00:47:26Marc:You know, how do you extract yourself from that?

00:47:28Marc:Where the opposite of that is Joel, who's, you know, slowly compromising his conscience and making exceptions.

00:47:35Marc:Oh, he gives a heartbreaking performance, Joel Edgerton.

00:47:37Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:47:38Marc:Yeah.

00:47:39Marc:You know, when the jig is up in Harbor, who's like the best, it's like, you know, when Harbor sits him down and all that insanity that Harbor brings to anything.

00:47:47Marc:I love David Harbor.

00:47:47Guest:Oh, he's the greatest.

00:47:48Guest:Great guy, great actor.

00:47:50Guest:I really want to work with him.

00:47:51Marc:Yeah, he'll light you up, man.

00:47:53Marc:That guy is so funny when I talk to him.

00:47:55Marc:I loved him.

00:47:56Marc:I should become friends with more people I talk to, but I don't.

00:47:59Marc:But anyway- Well, hold on.

00:48:00Marc:You and I are pals now.

00:48:01Marc:Yeah, we are.

00:48:02Marc:Yeah, we text.

00:48:03Marc:But I never know when to text people.

00:48:05Marc:I have a few people's numbers, but I'm like, I'm not going to bother.

00:48:08Marc:And why?

00:48:09Marc:People like to hear from you.

00:48:10Marc:I can't bother Guillermo.

00:48:11Marc:Guillermo would love it.

00:48:12Marc:He's such a generous man.

00:48:14Marc:We were going to be friends, but then I guess he got busy, and then I always personalize it.

00:48:18Marc:I'm like, I fucked up somehow.

00:48:19Marc:I just never want to be the guy that the bing on the phone happens, and they look at it and go like, oh, fuck.

00:48:26Marc:What does he want?

00:48:28Marc:That's funny.

00:48:30Guest:I hardly think they'll take it.

00:48:31Marc:Well, I have guys like that.

00:48:32Marc:Don't you?

00:48:34Marc:Yes.

00:48:39Marc:So it was conscious then, the process of deconstructing and reconstructing the gangster picture.

00:48:46Guest:100%.

00:48:47Guest:In fact, the film that most influenced that was Coppola's The Conversation, just in terms of how he approached the world, in terms of...

00:48:57Guest:composition, lighting, how he told the story.

00:49:02Guest:Of course, that's my favorite Coppola film.

00:49:05Guest:Really?

00:49:06Guest:Boy, I think it's awfully good.

00:49:07Guest:Watch that again.

00:49:08Guest:John Gazelle.

00:49:09Guest:God damn it.

00:49:09Guest:I got to watch.

00:49:10Guest:I know.

00:49:11Guest:I got to watch.

00:49:11Guest:Hackman.

00:49:12Guest:I know.

00:49:13Guest:I know.

00:49:14Marc:I got to watch it again.

00:49:15Marc:I just remember the obsessive Hackman.

00:49:19Marc:Sometimes when I see actors that I know can just kind of fucking light shit up and play a compressed guy.

00:49:25Marc:Yes.

00:49:26Marc:Yes.

00:49:26Marc:I appreciate it, but I don't find it satisfying.

00:49:29Marc:I see.

00:49:31Guest:But I got to watch it again.

00:49:32Guest:No, I understand that.

00:49:33Guest:I mean, look, I didn't go to film school, so my film school is watching Coppola, Kurosawa, Scorsese with a sound off.

00:49:43Guest:Watching how they tell stories, how they move the camera.

00:49:46Guest:More importantly, when they don't move the camera.

00:49:47Marc:I watched Rain People in preparation to talk to James Caan.

00:49:52Oh.

00:49:53Marc:Oh, Jimmy Conn.

00:49:53Marc:Well, let me ask you about Depp in Black Mask.

00:49:56Marc:Now, did you want him to, at times, look like a ghoul?

00:50:02Guest:You know, we pushed it a little bit.

00:50:05Guest:Right.

00:50:06Guest:But that was intentional.

00:50:07Guest:A bit more extreme.

00:50:08Guest:Yeah.

00:50:09Guest:Yes.

00:50:09Guest:Johnny is an actor who I think excels and prefers to look different than he does as Johnny Depp, if you look at all of his parts, apart from maybe Donnie Brasco.

00:50:22Guest:And maybe that's the curse of just being impossibly handsome when you're young and you want to, I mean, I don't know, psychoanalyzed him, but in terms of wanting to look like anything but yourself, and he looks very different than Whitey,

00:50:35Guest:But what was important was that we were able to get a type of almost cobra-like.

00:50:43Marc:Yeah, like a demon.

00:50:44Guest:From those eyes.

00:50:46Guest:Yes.

00:50:47Guest:And his ability to strike when people least expected it.

00:50:51Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:50:51Guest:Um, I recall showing the film to someone who was working on the movie and afterwards he came out of the screening room and he was, the blood had drained from his face.

00:51:03Guest:He was from Boston.

00:51:04Guest:He, uh, uh, was crying and I said, I said, are you okay?

00:51:10Guest:He said, well, when I was a kid, my father owned a convenience store in Boston.

00:51:16Guest:In Southie?

00:51:16Guest:In Southie.

00:51:16Guest:Yeah.

00:51:17Guest:And my, and, and Whitey would come by every month and want his

00:51:20Guest:tax.

00:51:22Guest:My father was a concert pianist and one year he couldn't pay Whitey because he was paying for our education and Whitey broke his finger so he could no longer play piano.

00:51:32Guest:That's the kind of guy he was and touched people in Boston.

00:51:38Guest:So that was really what I was trying to put on screen, but also then seeing a human version for someone who then loses a child, someone whose brother's the most powerful politician in the city played by Benedict Cumberbatch.

00:51:50Guest:And seeing their relationship, seeing this relationship with Joel Edgerton disintegrate.

00:51:57Guest:I love making that film.

00:51:58Marc:It's great, man.

00:51:59Marc:And then you just decide, like, all right, let's kind of pull the Western apart.

00:52:05Marc:Yes.

00:52:06Marc:That was an intentional thing, too.

00:52:07Marc:It was, indeed.

00:52:08Marc:How is Scott Cooper going to own these genres?

00:52:12Marc:Well, owning them is- Well, I mean, all right, so making them your own is what I mean.

00:52:18Guest:Yes, right.

00:52:18Guest:And look, when you grow up in Virginia, you are saddled with the history of the horrible, horrendous original sin of slavery and our incredibly awful- Manifest destiny.

00:52:33Guest:Incredibly awful treatment of Native Americans.

00:52:36Guest:Genocide.

00:52:36Guest:So as a, yes, that's what America is founded upon, slavery and genocide.

00:52:40Guest:Yeah.

00:52:40Guest:Right?

00:52:41Guest:And taking advantage of others.

00:52:42Guest:Right.

00:52:43Guest:So as a Virginian, how do you try?

00:52:46Guest:I mean, you can never expunge yourself from that.

00:52:49Guest:So through cinema, I thought, well, then...

00:52:51Guest:Let's tell a story about a very hardened U.S.

00:52:55Guest:Army captain who was indoctrinated by the United States government to view Native Americans a certain way.

00:53:02Guest:And then over the course of the journey, does he realize that he's been seeing them and the world all wrong?

00:53:08Guest:And he ends up avenging their deaths.

00:53:11Marc:Right.

00:53:12Marc:That's a turn that you wish to happen for more people, especially now.

00:53:17Marc:And it's possible.

00:53:18Marc:That is possible.

00:53:20Marc:Well, we need it now more than ever.

00:53:21Marc:Well, I mean, but it's very hard to get people to connect with their humanity if they're not engaging with humans.

00:53:26Marc:Yes.

00:53:27Marc:Or different types of humans.

00:53:28Marc:But so Bale, so what's the arc of the process in working with him from the beginning?

00:53:37Marc:Right.

00:53:37Guest:Well, because we've now made three films together, Christian has been making films for now 35 years.

00:53:43Guest:Since he was a kid.

00:53:44Guest:He was 12 years old.

00:53:45Guest:He's worked with every type of director, every type of actor.

00:53:48Guest:He's seen every script, every story.

00:53:50Guest:He's seen every process.

00:53:52Guest:But for him, it's broken down very simply.

00:53:55Guest:It's all about director and screenplay.

00:53:58Guest:And Christian will not only give you notes on his part, but he'll give you notes on Jesse's part and Rory's part and Robert Duvall's part.

00:54:06Guest:Right.

00:54:06Guest:All in just trying to serve the story.

00:54:09Guest:Whereas most actors like to think, okay, well, how big is my part?

00:54:13Guest:I mean, lines do I have?

00:54:13Guest:Christian doesn't approach that at all.

00:54:16Marc:He needs to know the world he's moving through and the people he's dealing with.

00:54:18Marc:That's exactly right.

00:54:19Guest:So we start with screenplay.

00:54:22Guest:Like I said, investigative text work.

00:54:24Guest:Every scene, every line.

00:54:26Guest:Is it necessary?

00:54:27Guest:Is it working?

00:54:28Guest:All the way through.

00:54:29Guest:This is him as him.

00:54:30Guest:Yeah.

00:54:30Marc:And you're sitting there at a table.

00:54:32Guest:Yes, over many, many sessions.

00:54:35Guest:And out of all this, I have benefited from a really deep and close friendship with him, almost like a brother to me.

00:54:44Guest:He is, in fact.

00:54:45Guest:So, through that, because our films are not easy to make.

00:54:48Guest:No film is easy, but mine are particularly difficult, psychologically, emotionally, physically.

00:54:53Guest:Difficult locations.

00:54:55Guest:In terms of... Well, difficult locations, difficult weather, difficult material every day that you have to mine as an actor.

00:55:01Marc:Right, but in terms of making movies in general, it's sort of a big mountain to climb, but is there something that you... Do you make them more difficult for yourself?

00:55:11Guest:My wife thinks so.

00:55:13Guest:She recently sent me the opening credits to the new season of The White Lotus, which takes place in Sicily, I guess.

00:55:21Guest:And she's like, why can't we fucking make a movie here?

00:55:24Guest:You're always at 8,000 feet above sea level or you're in Western Pennsylvania.

00:55:29Guest:Because you like it dark, man.

00:55:30Guest:Yes.

00:55:31Guest:This would be gray and cold.

00:55:34Guest:Yes.

00:55:35Guest:I mean, minus eight on pale blue eye or 8,000 feet above sea level on hostiles with torrential monsoonal rain.

00:55:45Guest:Where were we in Colorado?

00:55:47Guest:Montana?

00:55:47Guest:What?

00:55:47Guest:Yeah, New Mexico, Colorado.

00:55:49Guest:We never shot that one in sequence.

00:55:52Guest:We shot that for the first time in sequence from the beginning to the end and moved up north.

00:55:57Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque, and I've been thinking about going back, but I don't think I'm going to.

00:56:03Guest:Why?

00:56:03Guest:I love New Mexico.

00:56:04Marc:I love it.

00:56:04Guest:I love it too.

00:56:05Guest:Such a great state.

00:56:06Marc:People are so welcoming.

00:56:07Marc:Yeah, I was looking at properties up behind the mountain up between Santa Fe and Albuquerque and Surios.

00:56:16Guest:Oh, love it.

00:56:17Marc:Yeah, but I don't know.

00:56:19Marc:There's no water there.

00:56:20Guest:Well, there's no water here.

00:56:21Marc:I know, exactly.

00:56:22Guest:But there's no water there.

00:56:23Marc:Yeah, right.

00:56:23Marc:So I'm thinking if I'm going to go, I'm going to go somewhere where there's water.

00:56:26Guest:Yes.

00:56:27Guest:Farther north.

00:56:28Guest:Yeah.

00:56:28Guest:Montana.

00:56:29Marc:Maybe.

00:56:30Guest:Canada, baby.

00:56:31Guest:I love Canada.

00:56:33Marc:Yeah.

00:56:33Marc:All right, so anyway, so we're talking about working with Christian.

00:56:36Marc:So, okay, so you break it down and you go inside out with the thing.

00:56:44Guest:Always.

00:56:44Marc:And see where he's at.

00:56:45Guest:And out of that, I can assure you, becomes a better film.

00:56:48Guest:But he builds his own character.

00:56:49Guest:Because he cares.

00:56:50Guest:He does, and we talk about it at great length.

00:56:52Guest:And then on the day, because we've discussed it ad nauseum, we're completely locked in.

00:57:00Guest:And if I see that there needs to be any type of adjustment, he'll just give you so many options throughout.

00:57:07Guest:And in particular, the film we just finished, The Pale Blue Eye, which...

00:57:09Guest:I think requires careful and repeated viewings.

00:57:13Guest:You'll see that he gives a really remarkable performance that on a second viewing might even be better.

00:57:19Guest:But Christian gives you so many options as an actor.

00:57:22Marc:Well, knowing what you know from the first viewing and then watching it again has got to be like watching an entirely different movie.

00:57:28Guest:All the breadcrumbs are there.

00:57:30Marc:Right.

00:57:30Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:57:31Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:57:32Guest:By design.

00:57:32Guest:But yes, working with Christian, working with Rory, Jesse, kind of the Cooper rep company, has been one of the great blessings in my life.

00:57:42Marc:I would think they all work pretty differently.

00:57:44Guest:They do.

00:57:45Guest:And I've made three movies with all of them.

00:57:50Marc:Yeah, it seems like, you know, but they're all of the kind of like, well, Christian is, he's one of those guys where it's like, you're not, how's anyone doing it?

00:58:00Guest:gonna explain especially him however the fuck he does it he's just a magical guy correct and these other guys are the character actors are different so you deal with a pretty authentic crew you do yeah i do and and they go incredibly deep yeah uh back to black mass rory and jesse spent a lot of time dealing with people who've done a lot of cruel and deadly things and that takes its toll on you

00:58:25Guest:as an actor.

00:58:27Guest:I think Rory's performance in that film is one of the great performances.

00:58:31Guest:It's the best.

00:58:33Marc:You know, where they got to deal with the girl?

00:58:36Guest:I mean, he sees Johnny Depp strangle his young lover slash daughter, stepdaughter in front of him.

00:58:45Guest:And I slowly glide off of Johnny onto him and we just hear her off screen and it's devastating.

00:58:52Guest:I mean, Rory went to some incredibly deep places, and I'm grateful that he would put himself through that, whatever his process is.

00:58:59Guest:But he also did the same thing on Hostiles, which was a tough, tough film to make.

00:59:05Guest:And his character is living with post-traumatic stress disorder and there again took a deep toll on Rory.

00:59:13Guest:And once Bale is locked in, he's locked in.

00:59:16Guest:And once Christian's locked in, he's locked in.

00:59:18Guest:He's like a thoroughbred.

00:59:19Guest:All he needs is a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

00:59:23Guest:And off he goes.

00:59:24Guest:And I have to say, look, as a film director who's written these screenplays, to see these characters, these actors, bring them to life in this way is beyond satisfying.

00:59:36Guest:I would leave the set every day saying to myself, my God, I've just seen some of the great screen acting that- Ever.

00:59:42Marc:Ever.

00:59:42Guest:Yeah, I mean, truly.

00:59:44Marc:No, I agree with you.

00:59:45Marc:And are you a guy that knows when you have your take early?

00:59:49Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:59:50Guest:And I don't do a lot of takes because the actors and I are in such sync by the time we get to the floor.

00:59:58Guest:And then if we want to explore some things as well that neither of us considered, just to give me options in the cutting room, for sure.

01:00:07Guest:But...

01:00:09Guest:I think if you're incredibly well prepared and you are really focused on the most minute details, out of that comes great performance.

01:00:19Guest:And you give actors a lot of room.

01:00:21Guest:I do.

01:00:22Guest:I love actors, adore actors.

01:00:24Marc:I can tell.

01:00:24Marc:And yeah, and Hostel has had a bunch of great actors in it.

01:00:28Marc:Yes.

01:00:29Marc:Yeah, I've been blessed to work with some of the best.

01:00:33Marc:And then like Antlers, which I watched recently, I think there's a continuation of some sort of sympathetic, empathetic kind of embracing of the sort of spiritual nature of Native Americans.

01:00:50Guest:That's exactly right.

01:00:51Guest:But it's also an elegy for America.

01:00:54Guest:It's a horror movie.

01:00:55Guest:It's a horror movie, and we're dealing with the opioid crisis, and we're dealing with family trauma, methamphetamines.

01:01:04Marc:No, I get that's the core of it, but it's a horror movie.

01:01:07Guest:It's a monster film.

01:01:08Marc:It's a horror movie, but it is one of those horror movies where the ancient evil is a Native American one.

01:01:14Marc:That's right.

01:01:15Marc:And I hadn't seen Graham Greene in a while, and I just like the only guy to know is the old sheriff who's a Native American.

01:01:23Guest:Yeah, and there were a few scenes of his that didn't make the film, but probably should have, that would have ultimately made it, I think, a richer telling.

01:01:29Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:01:30Guest:Yeah, you go back and you look at a film later and you think, my God, I cut these scenes that I should never have cut.

01:01:34Marc:But really... But what would they have grounded?

01:01:38Guest:I think probably...

01:01:38Guest:Just giving us more insight into... Into the beast?

01:01:41Guest:Yeah, and Native American lore.

01:01:43Guest:Yeah.

01:01:45Guest:I'm always very sensitive to Native American stories and their plight and trying to, you know, as a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, trying to get them right.

01:01:53Guest:And I use Native American advisors and... Oh, yeah?

01:01:57Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:01:57Guest:Both hostiles and...

01:02:00Marc:And Antlers.

01:02:01Marc:But as a horror movie, it's a basic possession movie.

01:02:03Marc:It is.

01:02:04Guest:Yeah, when Guillermo del Toro approached me, he said, dude, your last three films have been horror films.

01:02:11Guest:He said, nobody knows it.

01:02:13Guest:Would you like to make a horror film?

01:02:14Guest:And I said, I love horror films.

01:02:16Guest:Oh, really?

01:02:17Marc:So he's the guy that got you into this?

01:02:19Guest:Yeah.

01:02:19Guest:I've had producer directors.

01:02:21Guest:Let's see.

01:02:21Guest:Well, Duvall's a director.

01:02:23Guest:He produced Crazy Heart.

01:02:24Guest:Ridley and Tony Scott produced Out of the Furnace.

01:02:26Guest:Guillermo del Toro produced this.

01:02:27Guest:So I've had a lot of directors produce.

01:02:28Guest:Who produced Hostiles?

01:02:30Guest:Just myself and my producer, John Lesher.

01:02:34Marc:But Guillermo, yeah.

01:02:34Marc:Well, I can see Guillermo's influence in this.

01:02:37Marc:Oh, no question.

01:02:38Guest:In terms of developing the character of the Wendigo.

01:02:42Guest:Yeah, but I got to work with the great Kerry Russell, who's amazing.

01:02:45Guest:She's great, yeah.

01:02:46Guest:And Jesse Plemons and Jeremy Thomas, this young boy who had never stepped foot on a set, never seen a film camera.

01:02:52Marc:And the guy who played the dad, that was gnarly.

01:02:54Marc:And I like how it starts as a meth story.

01:02:56Marc:That's right.

01:02:57Marc:And because it is sort of a meth hallucination.

01:03:00Marc:It is.

01:03:00Guest:The whole film is.

01:03:01Guest:I mean, look, it's not an entirely successful film, but I love it.

01:03:05Guest:Really?

01:03:05Marc:What's the matter with it?

01:03:06Guest:Well, actually, you know what?

01:03:09Guest:Maybe nothing.

01:03:09Marc:No, but you said you would have liked a few more scenes with Graham Greene.

01:03:12Guest:I think there were a couple of scenes that maybe would have lent more depth to the story because it's straddling family drama and also a monster film.

01:03:26Marc:It's a rough monster, just weird.

01:03:28Guest:And I think people either want more drama or they want more horror.

01:03:30Marc:More monster, yeah.

01:03:31Marc:Because you kind of got the angry thing, which is scary and noisy.

01:03:34Guest:The window, yeah.

01:03:35Marc:Yeah, and then it gets in you.

01:03:37Marc:And then it just, yeah.

01:03:38Guest:It possesses you.

01:03:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:03:39Guest:And we're all kind of possessed with this darkness.

01:03:42Guest:Ancient darkness.

01:03:43Guest:Yeah, when it's going to erupt.

01:03:45Marc:Right, and meth will bring out the ancient darkness quicker than others.

01:03:48Guest:It'll bring out the worst in us.

01:03:50Marc:All right, so now we get to this one that I just watched in the movie theater, this Pale Blue Eyes movie, which I didn't realize that come from a Poe story or a Poe poem.

01:03:58Marc:I just thought it was a Velvet Underground song.

01:04:00Guest:I was like, wow, Cooper's- I was wearing a Pale Blue Eye hat in New York City, and some guy's like, oh, is that the Velvet Underground?

01:04:06Guest:I said, no, but I love that song.

01:04:07Marc:Yeah, it's a great song.

01:04:09Marc:But I didn't know, like the guy-

01:04:12Marc:The kid who played Poe.

01:04:14Marc:Harry Melling?

01:04:15Marc:Yeah.

01:04:16Marc:I mean, you really got something out of that guy.

01:04:20Guest:He's remarkable.

01:04:21Marc:Oh, my God.

01:04:22Guest:I had only seen him one other time, which was in the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scrubs.

01:04:26Marc:Yeah, he's amazing.

01:04:27Marc:He played the armless legless guy.

01:04:28Guest:Yeah, the kind of limbless performer that Liam Neeson carries around the American West.

01:04:33Guest:And I said to Christian, I have found our Edgar Allan Poe.

01:04:36Guest:You've got to watch this.

01:04:37Guest:And Bale was like, Jesus Christ, this kid's remarkable.

01:04:40Guest:Yeah.

01:04:40Guest:He then put himself on tape for me so generously.

01:04:43Guest:I sent it to Christian.

01:04:44Guest:Christian said, why would we look at anybody else?

01:04:46Marc:Right.

01:04:47Marc:Was he producing it with you?

01:04:48Marc:Christian, he did, yes.

01:04:49Marc:So why this story?

01:04:52Guest:Where the hell did this come from?

01:04:54Guest:As a Virginian.

01:04:55Guest:Uh-huh.

01:04:55Guest:and with a father who had lots of literature lying around the house.

01:05:00Guest:I spent my formative years in Virginia, so did Edgar Allan Poe.

01:05:04Guest:He was kind of a constant presence.

01:05:06Guest:Really?

01:05:07Guest:He was.

01:05:07Guest:Faulkner, Poe, Cormac McCarthy, Catherine Importer, on and on and on.

01:05:13Guest:And after Crazy Art, my father said, I've just read the most clever novel in which

01:05:18Guest:a young Edgar Allan Poe, who is a cadet at West Point, is at the center of a detective story, which is detective fiction, which was bequeathed to us from Edgar Allan Poe.

01:05:28Guest:And I read it just on a lark, and I thought, my God, this could make an interesting film if I could do three things.

01:05:35Guest:One, I could make a film that's a whodunit.

01:05:37Guest:But I could make a film that's also kind of this father and son love story about two loners who live on the margins who come together, form this bond and this friendship.

01:05:50Marc:That being Poe and Bale's character?

01:05:52Guest:Yeah, Augustus Landreau, this detective.

01:05:53Guest:Uh-huh.

01:05:53Guest:And most importantly, it could be an Edgar Allan Poe origin story because as Americans, we think of Poe as when he's much older and he's the master of the macabre and the dark arts who's obsessed with the occult and the satanic and obsessed with death and tragedy and grief.

01:06:11Guest:But I wanted Poe before that.

01:06:13Marc:Yeah.

01:06:13Marc:A youngster, a romantic, a poet.

01:06:15Marc:Yes, he's romantic, he's poetic.

01:06:16Marc:And he's stuck in a military academy.

01:06:18Marc:Where he should never have been.

01:06:19Guest:Right.

01:06:20Guest:And he's warm and witty and humorous.

01:06:21Guest:Is that true, was he?

01:06:21Guest:Yeah, he was there for seven months and summarily booted.

01:06:26Guest:But already an alcoholic.

01:06:28Guest:Yes.

01:06:28Guest:1830, my research led me to believe that that was the time when America drank the most.

01:06:34Guest:And you'll see a lot of that in this story.

01:06:37Guest:But I wanted the events that take place in this two-hour narrative to motivate Poe to become the writer he became.

01:06:44Marc:Interesting.

01:06:47Marc:Right.

01:06:47Marc:So because what happens at the end, the twist at the end, there's a couple.

01:06:52Marc:Yes.

01:06:52Marc:But there's sort of a seeming emotional betrayal that really wasn't, that brought them closer together.

01:06:59Marc:That's right.

01:07:00Marc:And also made them accept the shortcomings of either.

01:07:05Guest:That's exactly right.

01:07:06Guest:And when Poe leaves the film for the last time, he's become a very different man from the man whom we first met.

01:07:14Marc:Yeah, it's almost like a rite of passage to be brokenhearted in a way he didn't anticipate.

01:07:21Guest:Exactly.

01:07:21Guest:And everything that happens in this film...

01:07:23Guest:then motivates him to become the writer of the Telltale Heart in a premature burial.

01:07:28Guest:Yeah.

01:07:29Guest:The Raven.

01:07:29Marc:But also to forego whatever innocence you were able to capture with that actor.

01:07:35Marc:This is a Poe that we don't know at all.

01:07:38Marc:A young man.

01:07:39Marc:Yes.

01:07:40Marc:Who is- Unformed still.

01:07:42Marc:Naive and romantic.

01:07:43Marc:Yes.

01:07:45Marc:Warm, witty.

01:07:46Marc:Warm and witty and also a sucker for love.

01:07:49Marc:Yes.

01:07:50Guest:He falls quickly and deeply.

01:07:51Marc:Right.

01:07:52Marc:And that whatever the process of his heart breaking over time to make him what it was, this was the first turn of the screw.

01:08:00Marc:That's exactly right.

01:08:01Marc:Well put.

01:08:02Marc:Julian Anderson was kind of astounding.

01:08:04Marc:And I have to assume that when you're directing her in this thing, it might have been one of those moments where you're like,

01:08:09Guest:what the fuck is happening?

01:08:11Guest:It was great.

01:08:12Guest:Well, we go back to the X-Files, though she didn't remember that I had a part in one of the episodes.

01:08:19Guest:She had forgotten that when I mentioned it.

01:08:20Guest:Was it a big part?

01:08:21Guest:I think so, yeah.

01:08:22Guest:Big enough?

01:08:22Guest:It was, yeah, for sure.

01:08:23Guest:She did a lot of them, dude.

01:08:24Guest:Yeah, she did tons.

01:08:26Guest:But she's so, has so much range.

01:08:29Guest:Almost unidentifiable.

01:08:30Guest:Yes, and the eccentricity that I asked from her, she gave me, and then some.

01:08:34Guest:It was crazy.

01:08:35Marc:That character is crazy.

01:08:37Guest:And then Toby Jones and the great Timothy Spall, Simon McBurney, Duvall, Harry Melling, young Lucy Boynton, who plays Leah.

01:08:48Guest:Poe's love interest is also really quite good and very committed in the film.

01:08:52Marc:I mean, I thought it was, it kept turning and it was all surprising.

01:08:57Marc:It was odd because I just watched two of Rian Johnson's movies.

01:09:01Guest:Oh, which are also whodunits.

01:09:03Marc:Exactly.

01:09:04Marc:But I didn't know yours was a whodunit.

01:09:05Marc:So I had to interview him.

01:09:06Marc:So I watched Knives on Glass, Honey.

01:09:09Marc:But I didn't know I was getting into a whodunit.

01:09:11Marc:And when I'm watching your movie, not until like a third of the way through, I'm like, oh, fuck, it's a whodunit movie.

01:09:15Marc:But structurally, it's a whodunit movie.

01:09:18Marc:But it's gothic.

01:09:19Marc:And it's using all the genre points of horror.

01:09:25Marc:Yes.

01:09:25Marc:And the elements of Poe.

01:09:27Marc:Poe.

01:09:27Marc:But also historical.

01:09:28Marc:story planted in America of a certain time.

01:09:32Guest:Yeah, for people who, and having not seen Glass Onion, for people who come to this wanting, because I've seen the first one, that type of tone in a whodunit might be disappointed.

01:09:45Guest:With your movie?

01:09:46Guest:Yeah, because they're very different...

01:09:48Marc:Oh, no, this is a historical movie.

01:09:51Marc:And also it's got like all that good.

01:09:52Marc:It's got some Satanism in it.

01:09:54Guest:Well, Poe was obsessed with the occult and the satanic.

01:09:57Guest:And you can't make a film that has Poe at its center if you don't explore those things.

01:10:02Marc:No, but I like all that stuff, man.

01:10:03Marc:You get the candles going, knives, blood.

01:10:05Marc:A lot of candles in this film.

01:10:07Guest:And it was cold, Mark.

01:10:09Guest:You used the same cinematographer?

01:10:10Guest:Yes.

01:10:11Guest:Masanobu Takenagi, who's Japanese.

01:10:15Guest:He's a remarkable filmmaker, great cinematographer, and really a true artist.

01:10:23Guest:This was an incredibly tough film to make in terms of...

01:10:29Guest:What, you shot out of state New York?

01:10:31Guest:Yeah, we shot a little bit there.

01:10:32Guest:We shot western Pennsylvania, close to Lake Erie, up in the Alleghenies, and it was really, really cold, brutally cold.

01:10:39Guest:All right, so now you've got Antlers, Pale Blue Eyes, Black Mask.

01:10:43Guest:Antlers was shot by Florian Hoffmeister, who shot the film recently, Tar.

01:10:47Guest:He's German.

01:10:48Guest:I like Tar.

01:10:49Guest:Wonderful filmmaker.

01:10:50Marc:I like Tar.

01:10:50Marc:I just talked to Todd.

01:10:52Guest:Yeah?

01:10:52Marc:You guys are kind of similar.

01:10:53Guest:Oh, yeah, I need to see that film.

01:10:54Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:10:56Marc:I liked it.

01:10:56Marc:I've been woefully behind.

01:10:58Marc:It's good.

01:10:58Marc:It's got a good turn.

01:10:59Marc:Do you know that guy?

01:11:01Marc:No, no, no.

01:11:01Marc:Todd Fields?

01:11:02Guest:Just know his work, yeah.

01:11:03Marc:You seem like you would know each other.

01:11:04Marc:You guys are both actors who- Yeah, that's right.

01:11:07Guest:Who ejected.

01:11:09Guest:Yes.

01:11:10Guest:Ejected and haven't yet come down.

01:11:13Marc:So when are you going to make a light movie?

01:11:16Marc:I mean, just even in terms of lighting.

01:11:22Guest:You mean, right, physically.

01:11:25Guest:Well, that's a good question.

01:11:26Guest:Christian and I are going to make another film that is really out of the trilogy, stands alone from the three films that we've made together.

01:11:36Guest:It's a remake of a French film.

01:11:39Guest:called L'Emploi du Ton by Laurent Conte, which is a film called Time Out, that's the American, which I saw in 2001, and I thought to myself, my God, this movie has stayed with me ever since.

01:11:53Guest:It's a remarkable film that no one that I know has ever seen it.

01:11:57Guest:And it's about an unemployed man who finds his life slipping more and more into danger as he keeps his story from his family and friends.

01:12:06Guest:Of what he's up to?

01:12:07Guest:Yes.

01:12:08Guest:And I have adapted that.

01:12:11Guest:And Christian is- Is he a gambler?

01:12:13Guest:He's going to star in it.

01:12:14Guest:No.

01:12:15Guest:Well, in a sense.

01:12:17Guest:But if you haven't seen that film, Time Out by Laurent Conte, 2001, it's a masterpiece.

01:12:21Guest:Yeah.

01:12:22Guest:Really remarkable.

01:12:23Yeah.

01:12:23Guest:And he was gracious enough to let me not remake it, but giving it a new screen edition.

01:12:30Marc:Is this a genre movie?

01:12:31Guest:No.

01:12:32Marc:Why don't you make a musical?

01:12:34Guest:Well... Why don't you lighten it up a little?

01:12:37Marc:I made a little music in Crazy Heart.

01:12:38Marc:I know.

01:12:39Marc:There's some music in that.

01:12:40Marc:Lighten it up.

01:12:40Marc:How about a comedy?

01:12:41Marc:Come on.

01:12:41Guest:You know, if I were ever going to make a film about Elvis Presley, I would want it to be about the last day in Elvis's life.

01:12:47Guest:Sure.

01:12:48Guest:As opposed to...

01:12:49Marc:I'll tell you, that kid who played Elvis in that Elvis movie?

01:12:51Marc:Yeah, how is he?

01:12:52Marc:Fucking great.

01:12:53Marc:Oh, man.

01:12:53Marc:They're going back and forth between that day.

01:12:56Marc:With the real Elvis and him, it's hard to tell.

01:13:00Guest:Wow.

01:13:00Guest:Mick Jagger once asked me to make a film about Sam Phillips, the great Sam Phillips.

01:13:04Guest:Sure, yeah.

01:13:07Guest:In Memphis, of course, Sun Records founder.

01:13:09Guest:I guess so.

01:13:10Guest:Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

01:13:11Guest:He's an interesting guy.

01:13:12Guest:Who, Sam Phillips?

01:13:13Marc:Yeah, he's a mystical dude.

01:13:15Guest:Yeah.

01:13:15Marc:I think he's a guy that bought his own bullshit eventually.

01:13:18Marc:I think so.

01:13:19Guest:Yeah, but I'm eager to see that, I think.

01:13:22Marc:What?

01:13:22Guest:The Elvis?

01:13:23Marc:Yeah, well, Baz is such a great.

01:13:24Marc:It's fun.

01:13:24Marc:A lot of people are hard on it, but it's sort of like, you know, why don't you lighten the fuck up?

01:13:27Marc:It's a Baz Luhrmann movie.

01:13:29Guest:I auditioned for Baz for Moulin Rouge.

01:13:32Marc:Yeah, and it's like, I found it entertaining.

01:13:37Marc:And I think that's what he's trying to do.

01:13:38Marc:But the guy was convincing.

01:13:41Marc:None of that shit works.

01:13:43Marc:Because if you know the guy you're making a biopic about and the actor just falls short, then there's no way you can totally lock in.

01:13:52Marc:No.

01:13:52Marc:It's just this weird homage to something.

01:13:54Marc:It's exactly right.

01:13:55Marc:But this guy is in it.

01:13:57Marc:And there's so many layers going on.

01:14:00Marc:I've got to see this.

01:14:00Marc:I love Baz's work.

01:14:01Marc:He's his own IP.

01:14:02Marc:Dude, he shoots it through.

01:14:03Marc:You know, some of this, you know, the nerds, not the nerds, but the music historians are like, you know, it wasn't really like that, this or that.

01:14:11Marc:But to do it from the point of view of a compulsive, degenerate gambler, you know, aging Tom Parker.

01:14:18Marc:Yeah.

01:14:18Marc:who had made decisions for Elvis' wives that hobbled him.

01:14:22Marc:Did they ever.

01:14:23Marc:Right, but that's, you know, Baz.

01:14:25Marc:That's great drama.

01:14:26Marc:But Baz decides to shoot from his point of view.

01:14:29Marc:That's great.

01:14:30Guest:Yeah, man.

01:14:31Guest:I mean, that's a big risk.

01:14:33Guest:Of course.

01:14:34Guest:Baz does nothing but takes big risks.

01:14:36Guest:Yeah.

01:14:36Guest:I mean, I found it enjoyable.

01:14:38Guest:Fuck it.

01:14:38Guest:Great, man.

01:14:39Guest:Yeah, no, no.

01:14:40Guest:Now that I've just finished, I literally just delivered this film a couple of weeks ago.

01:14:44Marc:This movie's great, too.

01:14:45Guest:I mean, I loved it.

01:14:46Marc:Oh, thank you, Mark.

01:14:47Marc:No, it was great.

01:14:48Marc:The thing that I keep thinking about is, like, the sort of... Now I've got to watch it again knowing how it ends and to see what you did there, really.

01:14:57Marc:It's weird that this is a movie as an assignment.

01:15:00Marc:You do have to watch it twice because... I think so.

01:15:02Marc:You know, okay, so there's no way to know where it's going the first time you watch it.

01:15:06Marc:And then you want to know, like, you know, is there any way to know?

01:15:09Guest:And there is.

01:15:10Guest:Come on!

01:15:10Guest:Of course, when you watch it the second time, you'll be like, oh, my God.

01:15:13Guest:That's, yeah.

01:15:14Guest:But is that the same way?

01:15:15Guest:But you aren't thinking that way when you're watching the film, because you're just hopefully giving yourself over to a certain era.

01:15:22Guest:But so you think there are... Characters that you find entertaining.

01:15:25Guest:I mean, this is a more accessible film than some of my others, right?

01:15:28Guest:Oh, no, sure.

01:15:29Guest:Yeah, definitely.

01:15:29Guest:Yeah, because, you know... This is my version of Downton Abbey.

01:15:32Guest:Yeah.

01:15:32Guest:Hopefully you were transported to what didn't feel like you were in a period picture but felt like you were in a certain location because I hate watching period movies where it just feels like people are in costumes.

01:15:41Marc:Yeah, no, no, no.

01:15:42Marc:You definitely felt it.

01:15:43Marc:And also what you realize is that the...

01:15:46Marc:The nature of toxic masculinity and rapey douchebags.

01:15:52Guest:They're out there.

01:15:53Guest:Forever.

01:15:54Guest:Forever.

01:15:55Guest:Even... I mean, every day, Mark.

01:16:00Guest:I know.

01:16:00Guest:Unfortunately.

01:16:01Guest:I don't know what's wrong with men.

01:16:03Guest:Fuck.

01:16:04Fuck.

01:16:04Guest:Yeah, they treat women with respect and dignity and kindness and love.

01:16:09Guest:And many of us do.

01:16:12Guest:But there are those who do not.

01:16:14Guest:And I don't know if it's a sense of privilege, entitlement.

01:16:19Guest:I think it's just pain.

01:16:21Marc:I think there's some sort of fundamental kind of strange misogyny at the core of the dynamic that it's a threatened thing, I think, that men are threatened somehow.

01:16:35Guest:Yeah, look, I grew up with a very strong mother, strong wife, two very strong, independent-minded young daughters, and for that I'm thankful.

01:16:46Guest:But I do worry about them.

01:16:49Marc:Yeah, how can you not, dude?

01:16:50Marc:Who do you want to work with now?

01:16:54Guest:Mark Maron.

01:16:55Marc:Come on.

01:16:56Guest:Come on, man.

01:16:57Guest:You're great.

01:16:57Marc:I'll do it.

01:16:57Marc:Give me a little something.

01:16:58Marc:Are you kidding?

01:16:58Marc:Give me one speech and something.

01:17:00Guest:I would love to work with John Reilly.

01:17:02Marc:Yeah.

01:17:03Marc:What about the big boys like Bob De Niro?

01:17:05Guest:Oh, I mean, come on.

01:17:07Guest:Al.

01:17:08Guest:Bob.

01:17:09Guest:I mean, if I could pull Gene Hackman out of retirement.

01:17:12Guest:Good luck.

01:17:12Guest:Never, it's not gonna happen.

01:17:14Guest:I mean, it's remarkable you can have such a facility, have such a career and just say, I no longer want to be a film actor, I'm just gonna write.

01:17:25Marc:Yeah, but it's like at some point you have to ask yourself, it's like, whatever I've been chasing, whatever successes I've had, what do I want out of my life at a certain point?

01:17:37Marc:Why not, if you can, pull yourself out?

01:17:41Guest:Exactly.

01:17:42Guest:You know- It's not like you didn't do enough.

01:17:45Guest:No.

01:17:46Guest:There's a young actor that I really want to work with.

01:17:48Guest:Yeah.

01:17:48Guest:I think she's remarkable.

01:17:50Guest:Her name's Florence Pugh.

01:17:51Guest:Do you know her?

01:17:51Guest:Yeah.

01:17:52Guest:Man, Lady Macbeth, have you seen that performance?

01:17:54Guest:Great.

01:17:55Guest:Oh, God.

01:17:56Guest:Towering.

01:17:57Guest:I don't know how old she is.

01:17:58Guest:What, mid-20s?

01:17:59Guest:She's remarkable.

01:18:00Guest:Never a false moment.

01:18:01Guest:I'd like to work with her.

01:18:02Marc:Yeah.

01:18:02Marc:Well, this movie's great.

01:18:03Marc:It was great talking to you.

01:18:05Marc:You too, Mark.

01:18:05Marc:Thanks, man.

01:18:06Marc:Thanks for doing it.

01:18:06Marc:Come on.

01:18:07Marc:Are you kidding me?

01:18:12Marc:There you go, right?

01:18:14Marc:Duvall.

01:18:15Marc:Duvall.

01:18:17Marc:We were out on the porch after the interview, and Duvall left a message for him.

01:18:23Marc:It was great.

01:18:24Marc:It was great.

01:18:25Marc:I don't think I'm talking out of school here.

01:18:28Marc:He played a little of it for me.

01:18:29Marc:It was just Duvall talking about a movie he'd watched.

01:18:31Marc:It was like just an old guy talking about a movie, but it was Duvall.

01:18:35Marc:It was beautiful.

01:18:36Marc:So you can stream The Pale Blue Eye on Netflix starting tomorrow, December 23rd.

01:18:40Marc:And I'd like you to hang out for a minute if you could.

01:18:41Marc:Thank you.

01:18:47Marc:So, folks, we've been looking back at my old radio show Morning Sedition on the full Marin feed.

01:18:51Marc:This week, we just posted a new episode with Chris Lopresto, my old board op.

01:18:56Marc:We have some fun reminiscing and listening to clips and having some laughs.

01:19:00Marc:And we'll be doing more of that in the future weeks because there are still a lot of great clips like this one, which is appropriate for the holidays.

01:19:07Guest:The darkness on the edge of town, heathens, and its name is Christmas!

01:19:12Guest:The most pagan of holidays not sanctioned by the Bible, for according to researchers at the University of California at San Diego, or UCS, demonic!

01:19:24Guest:More people die of heart attacks on Christmas Day than on any other day.

01:19:28Guest:This is not news gluttonous, for it was prophesized in a little-known poem in Revelation, 1 Adam 12, 1 Adam 12.

01:19:36Guest:We have a bear attacking a fat man.

01:19:38Guest:And I quote, "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house met a creature with stirring, not even a mouse, except Uncle Herbie, whose pathetic life at most is an omelet of darkness on top of bleak toast."

01:19:54Guest:Anyway, seems Uncle Herbie had been up all night, celebrating the loss of one more day in his life.

01:19:59Guest:He drank past his limit, cramming food down his throat until his kidneys did bleed and his liver did bloat.

01:20:06Guest:In his stomach sat a big ball of gluten, while the pores on his face looked like cheese they were asputin'.

01:20:13Guest:His colon did kink, did buckle and shudder, while it oozed a soft substance, much like fresh butter.

01:20:19Guest:Oh yeah, Herb's a sleazeball, but wait, there's much more.

01:20:22Guest:His son's a pusher, his mother a whore.

01:20:25Guest:And all through the night, as his stomach did gurgle, he dreamt of a neighbor's freezer to burgle.

01:20:30Guest:Just then, through the hallway, Santa did skulk, dragging behind him his big bag of bulk.

01:20:35Guest:He laid down the presents one by one, a pile of sawdust, a whole wheat bun, a bucket of bran, nitrate-free sugar plums.

01:20:42Guest:And when he was finished, Herbie was dead.

01:20:44Guest:A vessel broke or something, and Santa was taken downtown for questioning.

01:20:47Marc:If you want to hear more bonus material like that, sign up for the full Marin by going to the link in the episode description.

01:20:57Marc:And while you're there, you can also submit a question for a future Ask Mark Anything episode.

01:21:01Marc:When you hear this, I pulled out the 335 and I plugged it into the little 53 Deluxe and cranked it up.

01:21:07Marc:Got some nice mud.

01:21:09Marc:Here's some nice mud.

01:21:11Marc:Clean mud, though.

01:21:12Marc:Weirdly clean mud.

01:21:14Yeah.

01:21:20Yeah.

01:21:42Yeah.

01:22:03.

01:22:30.

01:22:32Thank you.

01:23:10so

01:23:39Marc:Homer lives.

01:24:04Marc:Monkey La Fonda.

01:24:07Marc:Cat angels everywhere.