Episode 1397 - Ben Foster

Episode 1397 • Released January 2, 2023 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening happy new year happy new year day two of 2023 how's it going for you is it all working out exactly as you had expected and

00:00:26Marc:Come on, what did you already screw up?

00:00:29Marc:It's day two.

00:00:31Marc:You've already made mistakes.

00:00:32Marc:What did you do?

00:00:33Marc:You made promises.

00:00:34Marc:What did you do wrong?

00:00:36Marc:How did it go wrong already?

00:00:38Marc:What went wrong in your head to change that amazing disposition you had at 1201 on January 1st?

00:00:46Marc:Is it all an illusion?

00:00:48Marc:Is it just something we make up this calendar year, this time-passing business?

00:00:54Marc:I don't know.

00:00:55Marc:I didn't head into New Year's with too much expectation.

00:00:59Marc:It didn't really sneak up, but this last week has been relatively uneventful.

00:01:04Marc:There's that strange time in between Christmas and New Year's that it's just weird.

00:01:11Marc:There's a quiet to it, and there's some kind of weird pause in

00:01:19Marc:And it can be kind of melancholy and a little dark, I think, if you let it.

00:01:24Marc:I mean, I'm not surrounded by family.

00:01:26Marc:As you know, I was out there with my dad over Christmas, but I'm back and I'm hanging out and I'm getting stuff done around the house.

00:01:33Marc:And I'm wondering what the next year has in store or what the rest of my life has in store, more likely.

00:01:40Marc:And, you know, and just trying to sort of move into it.

00:01:45Marc:It's weird to not have a plan.

00:01:48Marc:heading into the new year.

00:01:50Marc:It's been a long time since I haven't had a deadline, whether it be a special or a series of shows or what have you, but now I'm just doing this, talking to you, talking to people, and I believe I'm kind of thinking about the new stuff.

00:02:07Marc:The new stuff is happening.

00:02:08Marc:I'm just going to throw myself up on stage as often as possible here in town to see what unfolds because I guess that's what I do, people.

00:02:19Marc:What do you do?

00:02:21Marc:You know what I mean?

00:02:22Marc:I mean, did you have that moment where it's like, all right, well, there's some things I want to change about me for the new year or whenever you choose to do that.

00:02:31Marc:Say that thing to you.

00:02:32Marc:Obviously, you're usually talking about things you think are negative, but there are some things that in terms of work or creativity or

00:02:41Marc:where you're sort of like, well, I'm going to do it this year.

00:02:45Marc:I'm going to do it.

00:02:45Marc:I'm going to write the screenplay.

00:02:48Marc:I'm going to make the music.

00:02:50Marc:I'm going to write down these goals, and I'm going to achieve them.

00:02:56Marc:This is how I'm going to do it.

00:02:58Marc:And then as a few days go by, maybe a week or so, you're like, wow, I'm not really doing anything any differently.

00:03:04Marc:But I think that's always been the way I work.

00:03:08Marc:If there's something in my mind that I really want to get done, a goal, it's usually weird and impulsive and a little bit small, like whether it's to learn a song or to fix a joke or to kind of manifest some sort of acting role, hopefully.

00:03:28Marc:Or if it's a passion-based goal,

00:03:34Marc:kind of creative endeavor.

00:03:35Marc:I'll put it in my head, but I don't change anything.

00:03:38Marc:And if it's real and if it's something that, you know, is in my heart, eventually it kind of happens.

00:03:46Marc:Without it being a stressful thing, without me doing a diary about it or putting it on my vision board or whatever.

00:03:54Marc:It usually just if it's if it's if it's in the subtext of my brain as something I want to manifest or I want to do, it usually comes to pass.

00:04:04Marc:It may not be as satisfying as I would have wanted it to be or or as as sort of life changing, but it'll usually happen.

00:04:13Marc:And I don't do it a lot.

00:04:14Marc:I'm not talking about big dreams here.

00:04:16Marc:I'm not curing cancer.

00:04:18Marc:I'm not selling out arenas.

00:04:20Marc:But these are just little things that I get in my head that I want to do.

00:04:24Marc:I'm barbecuing a chicken right now.

00:04:27Marc:That's a good example.

00:04:28Marc:I've never smoked a chicken.

00:04:31Marc:And I thought to myself a week or so ago, maybe I should smoke a chicken.

00:04:35Marc:I had a relatively...

00:04:37Marc:mediocre smoked chicken in Albuquerque.

00:04:40Marc:And I thought, well, you know, the flavor of the meat's good, but there's just something rubbery about the skin.

00:04:45Marc:And, you know, I have a smoker.

00:04:46Marc:Why not try to smoke one as opposed to just cook it?

00:04:49Marc:Slow smoke a chicken.

00:04:51Marc:So this is a great example of, you know, I put it in my head that smoking a chicken

00:04:58Marc:But really smoking and not just cooking it is a goal that I wanted to do.

00:05:02Marc:I wanted to make that happen.

00:05:04Marc:And I just put it in the back of my mind.

00:05:06Marc:And sure enough, folks, as we speak right now, I'm recording this on January 1st and my dreams of smoking a chicken are happening.

00:05:16Marc:They're happening right now.

00:05:18Marc:I've actually got to go take it off of the grill and come back in here and restart.

00:05:24Marc:Not the whole thing, but this will be interesting.

00:05:27Marc:I'll pause it, though you won't hear it, unless Brendan chooses to put a musical interlude in here or something.

00:05:34Marc:And I'm going to go get that chicken off the grill.

00:05:37Marc:It's been on it.

00:05:38Marc:It's been on there for three hours or so.

00:05:40Guest:Okay, I pulled it off.

00:05:52Marc:It looks pretty good.

00:05:53Marc:I'm going to let it sit for a while.

00:05:55Marc:I'll let you know.

00:05:55Marc:But this is a good example.

00:05:57Marc:I put it in my brain, put it on the back burner, and then it happened.

00:06:01Marc:I guess that's the key to it.

00:06:03Marc:is that if you don't pressure yourself too much about getting something you want to get done done, and you just kind of put it in your head and then leave it there, don't talk about it, don't work it through in your brain, just kind of realize that your heart's into it,

00:06:23Marc:And eventually when the time is right, you will manifest it.

00:06:28Marc:This isn't some notebook shit.

00:06:29Marc:This isn't mystical.

00:06:31Marc:It's just about not putting too much pressure on yourself because then you'll talk yourself out of it one way or the other, or you'll talk it over so much that it'll just dissipate.

00:06:40Marc:Sometimes it can sit in the back of your head for years.

00:06:42Marc:And look, I'm no creativity coach or anything, but there's a few things that I look back on over the last year, over the last 10 years that I kind of set goals for myself.

00:06:53Marc:But didn't work towards them in a step by step way.

00:06:57Marc:I just kind of like, man, I really want to do that.

00:07:00Marc:And I'll just stick it in the back of my head.

00:07:02Marc:And then one day you're like, I'm doing it.

00:07:05Marc:Oh, my God, I'm doing it.

00:07:06Marc:So the chicken is a small example of that.

00:07:10Marc:But I did it.

00:07:11Marc:I smoked a chicken.

00:07:13Marc:It's sitting in the kitchen.

00:07:14Marc:I guess I didn't say this, but Ben Foster is on the show today.

00:07:19Marc:Look, he's a great actor, a great actor.

00:07:22Marc:And I've been trying to get him on the show for years, not even for any real reason other than like I'm like, this guy's a fucking he's the real deal, man.

00:07:31Marc:He is a great actor, and I'm interested in what makes that guy tick.

00:07:37Marc:I mean, I think the first time I saw him was in Alpha Dog.

00:07:41Marc:He was in Hell or High Water.

00:07:42Marc:He was in 310 to Yuma.

00:07:43Marc:Kill Your Darlings.

00:07:44Marc:He played William Burroughs.

00:07:46Marc:Lone Survivor.

00:07:47Marc:He was in Hostiles.

00:07:49Marc:And this past year, he was an Emmy nominee for his role in The Survivor on HBO, where he plays, I think the guy's name is Harry Haft, a boxer.

00:08:01Marc:Well, he was forced to box in Auschwitz.

00:08:05Marc:And it was kind of mind blowing and I didn't know anyone who had seen it.

00:08:09Marc:And I was like, this guy put this work in like real work.

00:08:14Marc:Sorry, does a mild Robert Duvall impression.

00:08:17Marc:And right now he's in the movie Emancipation on Apple TV Plus, which I just watched.

00:08:22Marc:And he's horrendous.

00:08:25Marc:He plays a horrendous man, but he's brilliant at it.

00:08:30Marc:So we finally got him in here, and it was great.

00:08:32Marc:It was great to meet him.

00:08:35Marc:It's my pleasure right now to share with you this conversation I had with Ben Foster, who I respect tremendously as an actor.

00:08:43Marc:You can watch Emancipation.

00:08:45Marc:You can stream it on Apple TV+.

00:08:47Marc:The Survivor is on HBO Max.

00:08:50Marc:And I was a little nervous again heading into this because I was like, where am I going to go with this guy?

00:08:59Marc:Are we going to do it?

00:09:01Marc:Is it going to happen?

00:09:02Marc:This is me and Ben Foster.

00:09:05Marc:But your grandfather did it?

00:09:14Guest:Yeah, my grandfather smoked 20 cigars a day.

00:09:17Guest:Do you remember him?

00:09:18Guest:I do, yeah.

00:09:20Guest:Oh, you knew him?

00:09:20Guest:Yeah, I did.

00:09:21Guest:Really?

00:09:22Guest:Where'd you grow up?

00:09:23Guest:I was born in Boston.

00:09:25Guest:Yeah?

00:09:25Guest:I was raised in Iowa.

00:09:27Guest:Really?

00:09:27Guest:All Iowa?

00:09:28Guest:No Boston time?

00:09:29Guest:Left when we were four, but would go visit them, my grandparents.

00:09:32Guest:Oh, they were there?

00:09:33Guest:Uh-huh.

00:09:33Guest:What part?

00:09:35Guest:Well, they moved out to the Cape.

00:09:37Guest:What town?

00:09:39Guest:Hyannis.

00:09:39Guest:Oh, right in Hyannis.

00:09:41Guest:Yeah.

00:09:42Guest:Irish?

00:09:43Guest:I'm a split.

00:09:46Guest:Eastern European Jew and kind of Irish English mutt.

00:09:50Marc:On your mom's side, Eastern European Jew?

00:09:53Marc:Father.

00:09:53Marc:Really?

00:09:54Marc:And he was from Dorchester?

00:09:55Marc:I wonder how they ended up there.

00:09:57Marc:That's heavy Irish business out there.

00:09:59Guest:It didn't sound easy, but a boy named Sue, you know?

00:10:05Guest:Yeah, I do know.

00:10:07Marc:And you?

00:10:08Marc:Where are you from?

00:10:09Marc:My people are from Jersey.

00:10:11Marc:My Jews are from Jersey.

00:10:12Marc:Yeah.

00:10:12Marc:My wife's from Jersey.

00:10:13Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:10:14Marc:What part?

00:10:14Marc:What town?

00:10:16Marc:Wachung.

00:10:17Marc:Wachung.

00:10:17Marc:Not sure where that is.

00:10:18Marc:My dad was from Jersey City.

00:10:19Marc:My mom was from Pompton Lakes.

00:10:21Marc:I think it's Bergen County.

00:10:23Marc:I can never get it right.

00:10:25Marc:But all the people come from Jersey.

00:10:26Marc:I grew up in New Mexico.

00:10:27Marc:I love New Mexico.

00:10:28Guest:You do?

00:10:29Marc:I do.

00:10:29Guest:What did you shoot there?

00:10:31Guest:Everything?

00:10:31Guest:Street and Yuma, Heller High Water, Lone Survivor.

00:10:34Marc:You shot Heller High Water in New Mexico?

00:10:36Guest:Yeah.

00:10:36Yeah.

00:10:36Guest:outside albuquerque uh-huh yeah that's where i grew up yeah yeah you stay at los poblanos no we stayed at this spot that apparently was a mental hospital for children that would have been converted into a hotel holy shit nothing but good vibes in that place oh not not a ghost around where the is that in albuquerque it's right there in albuquerque abq really you don't remember the name of it you know i

00:11:02Guest:I've gotten to this point that I just, I don't like to call it forgetfulness.

00:11:08Guest:I'm just choosing what to remember.

00:11:09Guest:And that's a data wipe.

00:11:11Guest:Yeah.

00:11:12Guest:The name of that place.

00:11:13Guest:Yeah.

00:11:13Guest:The children's mental hospital that I slept in for months.

00:11:16Marc:For months.

00:11:17Marc:So it was a residential hotel.

00:11:19Marc:You had a kitchen and whatnot?

00:11:20Marc:Yep.

00:11:20Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:11:21Marc:It's that kind of thing.

00:11:21Marc:I don't think the kids did.

00:11:22Marc:No, I'm sure not.

00:11:24Marc:I'm sure they weren't allowed to have that stuff.

00:11:26Marc:No flames.

00:11:28Yeah.

00:11:28Marc:But that was... So that was shot there.

00:11:30Marc:They shoot so much shit there.

00:11:31Marc:I was almost going to buy a place there, but then... I don't know.

00:11:34Marc:There's no water there either.

00:11:35Marc:And it's pretty, but I don't know.

00:11:36Marc:What am I looking for?

00:11:37Marc:You can't go home.

00:11:38Marc:What are we looking for?

00:11:39Marc:Do you know?

00:11:40Marc:I'm asking you.

00:11:42Marc:Well...

00:11:43Marc:I thought it would be nice to live there because you grow up someplace, it's sort of this part of your psyche, I think.

00:11:49Marc:Sure.

00:11:50Marc:Do you find that with Iowa?

00:11:53Guest:I moved around so much.

00:11:55Guest:When you were a kid?

00:11:56Guest:Well, Boston originally, as we said, then Iowa for sure, small town.

00:12:01Guest:Where in Iowa?

00:12:02Guest:Fairfield, southeast corner, 10,000 people, TM community, Transcendental Meditation.

00:12:08Marc:Oh, so is that one of the original ones?

00:12:11Marc:It is the original one.

00:12:13Marc:Oh, I thought that was in Idaho.

00:12:14Marc:It's Iowa TM.

00:12:16Marc:The Nazis are in Idaho.

00:12:17Marc:TM's in Iowa.

00:12:18Marc:Different group.

00:12:23Marc:So your folks ran away from Boston.

00:12:27Guest:What I'd say is they... Well, our family, as lore goes, the house got broken into.

00:12:36Guest:My brother and I were in the house.

00:12:38Guest:My father was a TM teacher for years, and my mom was a receptionist in New York.

00:12:49Guest:At the TM place?

00:12:50Guest:At the TM place.

00:12:51Guest:They were...

00:12:52Guest:in their early part of that um early adapters so they must have been like in the first wave like with the beetles uh they were post beetles uh but um they were early they were very much early he was actually a teacher huh uh and a lecturer on on transcendental meditation what's his name stephen foster uh-huh he's still around he is still doing that

00:13:16Marc:yeah we're like lecturing though oh not lecturing no but we all you know i i'm not necessarily a group guy yeah but i dig the technique yeah my my uh my old girlfriend who passed away was uh like she did it i mean she was in man like twice a day 20 minutes no matter what no matter what where she is like i gotta go carve it out of the schedule she's a film director and like she'd go do it amazing

00:13:40Marc:And this woman I'm with now, she started it because she's a David Lynch fan.

00:13:44Marc:Sure.

00:13:44Marc:But she didn't stick.

00:13:45Marc:I don't think she sticks.

00:13:46Marc:She's doing some meditation now, but not the TM.

00:13:49Marc:But she went and paid for her secret sentence.

00:13:55Marc:Yeah.

00:13:57Marc:Buy the ticket, take the ride, man.

00:13:59Marc:Yeah.

00:13:59Marc:Got to get your secret sentence.

00:14:03Marc:But I find it, I'm attracted to it.

00:14:06Marc:I didn't stick with it.

00:14:07Marc:Why can't it be as addicting as cigars?

00:14:10Marc:Oh, wouldn't that be something?

00:14:12Marc:Right.

00:14:12Guest:But you grew up with it, so it's just what you do.

00:14:15Guest:Yeah, I grew up only doing that, only knowing that.

00:14:19Guest:And then I left it behind and returned to it.

00:14:21Guest:Oh, really?

00:14:22Guest:Twice a day, guys?

00:14:24Guest:Used to be.

00:14:25Guest:I mean, when I was growing up, twice, we did it in class.

00:14:28Guest:It was amazing as a kid, as a student.

00:14:30Guest:So you went to a school?

00:14:32Guest:We were deep in...

00:14:35Marc:But it's one of those things where you can't... I think it gets misunderstood as a cult.

00:14:40Guest:Well, what I'd say is any group of people doing a thing that involves certain rituals that is not an established...

00:14:53Guest:religion could be considered a cult.

00:14:57Guest:Okay.

00:14:58Guest:For myself, I'll just say not a group... I hope to... I try to avoid groupthink when intense.

00:15:08Guest:But the technique itself of Transcendental Meditation, be it through the David Lynch Foundation or through TM Center, it's been invaluable to me.

00:15:18Guest:And one that I've returned to and found...

00:15:21Guest:It quiets the racket.

00:15:23Marc:Yeah, I could use that.

00:15:25Marc:But I guess meditation is holding that moment.

00:15:29Guest:I was talking to my wife about this today.

00:15:32Guest:If you have a technique, whatever that is.

00:15:35Guest:Meditation.

00:15:36Guest:We'll call it meditation.

00:15:37Guest:Fine.

00:15:37Guest:Give me anything.

00:15:38Guest:But it's not like, oh, I'm meditating so good right now.

00:15:42Guest:It's the return is the muscle.

00:15:44Guest:Right.

00:15:45Guest:Your mind drifts.

00:15:45Guest:You go somewhere else.

00:15:46Guest:And you're like, oh, return to center.

00:15:48Marc:yeah i get it yeah and that's a good groove just to keep reinforcing right just to you know to stop it you know let it happen let it pass come back i was doing that i was doing pretty good how great yeah i know but i didn't stick with it well but you can anytime i know i know you know i'm not gonna you know you know you know you know you know did you now do you uh have you talked to david lynch about it

00:16:10Marc:Yeah, I have.

00:16:13Guest:I have.

00:16:14Guest:It must be fun talking to him about anything.

00:16:16Guest:Just being in his presence is just a thrill.

00:16:20Guest:Just a delight.

00:16:21Marc:Dude, he, you know, it was a long wait, but he made the Fablemans worth watching.

00:16:29Guest:I've heard, I haven't seen yet.

00:16:34Guest:But I can't wait.

00:16:35Guest:Ford, he's doing Ford, right?

00:16:36Guest:He's doing Ford.

00:16:37Guest:Amazing.

00:16:38Guest:Old Ford.

00:16:39Guest:Eyepatch Ford.

00:16:40Guest:I mean, the one question, when I heard that he did that, my question was, was he chewing on a bandana?

00:16:46Guest:Because that's part of the lore of Ford, is not only the eyepatch, but when he would get anxious, he would gnaw on these handkerchiefs constantly.

00:16:54Guest:Really?

00:16:54Guest:And I was like, oh, he didn't make that choice.

00:16:56Marc:No, he...

00:16:59Marc:He was lighting a cigar.

00:17:01Marc:Lynch was in, and he lit the fuck out of it.

00:17:05Marc:And it was great.

00:17:08Marc:He's a smoking TM-er.

00:17:10Marc:The two performances that make the movie is fucking Judd Hirsch.

00:17:16Marc:Yeah.

00:17:17Marc:Yeah, man.

00:17:18Marc:And fucking Lynch.

00:17:20Marc:Judd Hirsch shows up as the wild uncle who gives him some life advice, a young Spielberg.

00:17:25Marc:Just this crazy ex-carny uncle, this Russian Jew.

00:17:29Marc:Need more of this in life.

00:17:30Marc:Yeah, man.

00:17:31Guest:Give me David Lynch with an eyepatch and Judd Hirsch as a carny.

00:17:36Guest:Sold.

00:17:37Guest:I have two kids, so I'm slow to the punch on films right now.

00:17:41Guest:Your brother's an actor, too?

00:17:43Guest:He does a lot of things.

00:17:44Guest:He is an actor.

00:17:45Guest:Younger brother?

00:17:46Marc:Yeah.

00:17:46Marc:How much younger?

00:17:47Marc:Four years.

00:17:48Marc:I got two and a half between me and my brother.

00:17:50Marc:Yeah.

00:17:50Marc:Where does he live?

00:17:51Marc:Florida right now.

00:17:52Marc:Okay.

00:17:52Marc:Not happy about it.

00:17:54Marc:I'm sorry.

00:17:54Marc:He's all right.

00:17:55Marc:So how does this happen, that two of you end up in the arts?

00:17:58Marc:I mean, obviously, you have supportive parents.

00:18:00Marc:They seem like open-minded folks.

00:18:02Marc:Certainly open-minded.

00:18:03Guest:It was pretty quick to fall in love with the dream.

00:18:07Guest:And the dream being in the dream.

00:18:12Marc:Right.

00:18:12Marc:The collective dream that's provided for people.

00:18:15Guest:That's provided.

00:18:16Guest:And seeing a school play and just saying, wow, I want to...

00:18:20Guest:I'm transported.

00:18:21Guest:I want to feel more of that.

00:18:23Guest:Do you remember the play?

00:18:24Guest:I do.

00:18:25Guest:What?

00:18:25Guest:Midsommers.

00:18:26Guest:Oh, really?

00:18:27Guest:Night's Dream, yeah.

00:18:28Guest:Shakespeare, even.

00:18:29Guest:Yeah, it was an adaptation.

00:18:32Marc:What grade are we talking about?

00:18:34Marc:Eight years old.

00:18:35Marc:Oh, so Iowa, eight years old.

00:18:37Marc:Oh, but it was a grown-up production.

00:18:38Marc:No, it was a high school production.

00:18:39Marc:Oh, kids.

00:18:40Marc:Yeah, kids.

00:18:41Marc:And you were like, fuck yeah.

00:18:42Guest:I was like, that's it right there.

00:18:44Guest:Fuck, holy smokes.

00:18:45Guest:Yeah.

00:18:46Guest:And I went back.

00:18:48Guest:I had a bit of the what you call lowish grade OCD.

00:18:53Marc:Yeah, me too.

00:18:55Guest:Yeah.

00:18:55Guest:Wasn't a terrific student.

00:18:57Guest:They tried to hold me back in kindergarten.

00:18:59Guest:I just really wanted to make leave.

00:19:01Guest:Real disappointment.

00:19:02Guest:Oh, my God.

00:19:03Guest:Crushing.

00:19:04Guest:Crushing.

00:19:05Guest:Like, finally, the kid's into something else.

00:19:08Guest:Yeah, right.

00:19:09Yeah.

00:19:09Marc:And that's so it started in first grade.

00:19:12Marc:You're on your way.

00:19:13Guest:Just let me out of this room and these kids and the cruelty of it and the weirdness of it.

00:19:21Guest:Even though we're in a TM school, I want to be a part of that feeling that I felt as an audience member.

00:19:28Marc:You were in a TM school and there were still problems?

00:19:30Marc:Of course, there were problems everywhere.

00:19:32Marc:They're just kids.

00:19:33Marc:Kids are kids.

00:19:34Marc:But tell me about this TM school.

00:19:37Marc:Now, did the rest of the town think you were weirdos, like you were Amish?

00:19:43Marc:There were Amish nearby.

00:19:44Marc:Oh, well, so everybody was in the same state.

00:19:47Guest:Everybody was just looking at each other and being like, you're a weirdo too.

00:19:51Guest:We didn't share it.

00:19:52Guest:And also, you didn't have to dress up for yours.

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:56Guest:No, we did, actually.

00:19:56Guest:That's where it leans a little.

00:19:58Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:19:59Guest:You'd call it privates, or you'd call it culty.

00:20:05Guest:What was the outfit?

00:20:08Guest:It's not wild wild country.

00:20:10Guest:We weren't going that far.

00:20:12Guest:Like gray pants, button-up shirt.

00:20:15Guest:Oh, really?

00:20:15Marc:But everyone wore them?

00:20:17Guest:Yeah, everyone wore them.

00:20:18Marc:Wow, I had no idea that TM ran that deep in places.

00:20:21Guest:Oh, yeah, I mean, this is, yeah, it's wild.

00:20:26Guest:They're golden domes.

00:20:28Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:20:28Guest:Yeah, golden domes.

00:20:30Guest:Where are those?

00:20:31Guest:Right next to the school where the men would go and the women would go to their golden dome at meditation time.

00:20:38Guest:Oh, so it is a cult?

00:20:39Guest:I'm just saying there are qualities in all.

00:20:44Guest:Who's the main guy?

00:20:47Guest:Well, Maharishi.

00:20:49Guest:The Beatles guy.

00:20:50Guest:The Beatles guy.

00:20:51Guest:He was a good guy.

00:20:52Guest:Did they find anything shitty about him?

00:20:54Guest:I never heard anything shitty about him.

00:20:58Guest:That's good.

00:20:58Guest:Um, but the moment you start putting profit involved, uh, is always a question.

00:21:06Guest:Right.

00:21:07Guest:However, you have to pay for people to teach the thing.

00:21:10Guest:Yeah.

00:21:10Guest:And a farmer is not giving away his food.

00:21:13Guest:Right.

00:21:13Guest:So if you're giving some kind of nutrition to the world, uh, once he passed, uh, some of the organizational issues came up, we no longer kind of associated so much with that.

00:21:26Guest:Um,

00:21:27Guest:And then David Lynch came in and was trying to make it more affordable and finding ways to give it away or at least share it.

00:21:35Guest:That's what I thought.

00:21:36Guest:With vets, with people who've been dealing with trauma.

00:21:40Guest:It is highly effective in treating anxiety, trauma.

00:21:44Guest:All right, so you start doing theater in high school?

00:21:48Guest:Probably when I was nine.

00:21:50Guest:It was just a box mover would help.

00:21:51Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:21:52Guest:Just waiting for a line.

00:21:54Guest:Yeah.

00:21:55Guest:And just excited to be around it.

00:21:57Guest:Yeah.

00:21:58Guest:And was doing pretty poorly in school.

00:22:03Guest:I'm sure there was some learning issues there.

00:22:08Guest:You never looked into it?

00:22:10Guest:My parents did.

00:22:13Guest:Yeah.

00:22:15Guest:But burned the results.

00:22:17Guest:Oh, really?

00:22:17Guest:Yeah.

00:22:18Guest:They didn't even tell you about it?

00:22:19Guest:Yeah.

00:22:19Guest:We're not giving you a label.

00:22:21Guest:Oh, good.

00:22:22Guest:Well, that was nice.

00:22:23Guest:They're amazing.

00:22:24Guest:Yeah.

00:22:24Guest:Truly.

00:22:25Guest:I mean, my parents are- That's a good truth.

00:22:27Marc:That's a good thing to hide from you, I guess.

00:22:31Yeah.

00:22:31Guest:It's like, why?

00:22:32Guest:Why?

00:22:32Guest:Yeah.

00:22:33Guest:And what do they know?

00:22:34Guest:Not your parents, but whoever gave you the label.

00:22:36Guest:And by the way, that label may change once the new DSM comes out.

00:22:40Guest:Sure.

00:22:41Guest:But you have no idea.

00:22:42Guest:No.

00:22:43Guest:But you still can't do math.

00:22:44Guest:Is that the issue?

00:22:46Guest:Math.

00:22:47Guest:I'm a spatial thinker.

00:22:49Marc:What does that mean?

00:22:50Guest:I just see things.

00:22:51Guest:I see.

00:22:52Guest:But once it gets into the...

00:22:54Marc:Oh, numbers?

00:22:56Marc:Yeah.

00:22:57Marc:Yeah, I'm no good at it.

00:22:57Marc:No?

00:22:58Marc:I did okay with geometry because that is your pictures.

00:23:00Marc:Yeah, I could dig on that.

00:23:01Marc:Yeah, you did?

00:23:02Marc:Yeah.

00:23:03Marc:That was my big math year.

00:23:05Marc:That was a good year for you.

00:23:06Marc:Yeah, geometry was it.

00:23:07Marc:Algebra, no can do.

00:23:08Marc:Forget it.

00:23:09Marc:And none of it.

00:23:10Marc:Just I had no idea.

00:23:12Marc:But geometry, I'm like, oh, we draw pictures and we prove things from the picture.

00:23:18Marc:Perfect.

00:23:19Marc:Got it.

00:23:19Marc:Nailed it.

00:23:21Yeah.

00:23:21Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:23:23Marc:So no Jewishness in the house?

00:23:25Marc:Jewishness, yeah, I was bar mitzvahed.

00:23:27Marc:Oh, so you can mix.

00:23:31Marc:You can mix the TM with the Jew.

00:23:33Guest:You can definitely mix the TM with anything, unlike certain other communities.

00:23:40Marc:Right, so that takes it a little out of cult world.

00:23:44Yeah.

00:23:44Guest:Yes.

00:23:48Guest:I went with fellow classmates who were Jewish to a little temple in Fairfield, Iowa, but we'd also practice the high holidays.

00:23:59Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:00Guest:And you had the interesting Jewish grandparents.

00:24:02Guest:Who came to our town.

00:24:06Guest:Uh-huh.

00:24:06Guest:My grandmother's from Romania.

00:24:09Marc:Yeah.

00:24:10Guest:And my grandfather's family comes from the Ukraine.

00:24:14Guest:Yeah.

00:24:15Marc:That's where my people are from.

00:24:16Guest:Ukraine?

00:24:17Marc:Yeah.

00:24:18Marc:My mother's side.

00:24:19Marc:Yeah.

00:24:19Guest:Yeah.

00:24:20Guest:We located Communist Bidolsk, a small village, which ultimately, long story short, the reason why I moved to New York after LA was I worked with a guy, a wonderful writer, director, Oren Moverman.

00:24:33Guest:Who I met and talked about you for like an hour.

00:24:35Guest:Is that right?

00:24:36Guest:Uh-huh.

00:24:37Guest:Israeli.

00:24:38Guest:Israeli.

00:24:38Guest:I met him.

00:24:40Guest:We make a film called The Messenger.

00:24:42Guest:We finish the film.

00:24:43Guest:I'm supposed to head back to L.A.

00:24:44Guest:I've been there for 12 years.

00:24:46Guest:We're going to have to backload all this information.

00:24:48Guest:Yeah.

00:24:49Guest:Spatial thinker.

00:24:50Guest:Yeah.

00:24:51Guest:Okay.

00:24:51Guest:Yeah.

00:24:51Guest:It conicles.

00:24:52Guest:Yeah.

00:24:54Guest:And we were just having a chat.

00:24:56Guest:And he was like, yeah, my family's from this little village, communist Bedulsk.

00:25:02Guest:Wow.

00:25:03Guest:I was like, you are family.

00:25:05Guest:I'm going to move to New York.

00:25:07Guest:Yeah.

00:25:08Guest:Truly.

00:25:08Guest:That was it?

00:25:09Guest:That was it.

00:25:09Guest:I moved because of Warren.

00:25:11Guest:And you guys are best friends, right?

00:25:12Guest:He's my brother.

00:25:13Marc:Yeah.

00:25:15Marc:I met him.

00:25:16Marc:I was a general meeting, I think.

00:25:17Marc:I can't remember why, but I was running around meeting people.

00:25:21Marc:As one does.

00:25:23Marc:Yeah, and we talked for a long time.

00:25:25Marc:I can't remember, but I know I had shared an idea with him because he said you guys were trying to do something similar or along the lines.

00:25:32Marc:I had this idea for a TV show about social workers.

00:25:37Marc:That's right.

00:25:38Marc:Yes.

00:25:41Marc:And he said, you guys were doing something.

00:25:43Marc:And of course, I left going like, fuck.

00:25:44Marc:So they're doing it?

00:25:46Marc:But, you know.

00:25:47Marc:Didn't happen.

00:25:48Marc:It didn't mind.

00:25:49Marc:We sold it, but they didn't make it.

00:25:50Marc:I see.

00:25:51Marc:What was your angle on the social work?

00:25:53Marc:Why were you interested?

00:25:54Guest:Well, just being deeply moved by a word that Oren and I talk often about is service.

00:26:01Guest:What does that mean?

00:26:02Guest:Yeah.

00:26:03Guest:And feeling lost when you don't know what you're in service of.

00:26:08Guest:Right, sure.

00:26:09Guest:And...

00:26:10Marc:Well, that's what gave meaning to Christianity originally, I believe, was the service part.

00:26:16Guest:One would hope we can return to these ideas no matter who.

00:26:19Guest:We can if you go to AA.

00:26:21Guest:Okay.

00:26:22Marc:It's all service-oriented.

00:26:23Marc:Service is... It's a mixed bag in AA, but that's the whole premise of it.

00:26:29Marc:Show it for somebody else.

00:26:29Marc:Listen to their story.

00:26:30Marc:You get out of your own garbage for a while.

00:26:32Guest:Love it.

00:26:32Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Marc:So that was what was appealing.

00:26:34Marc:Did you have any experience with a social worker?

00:26:37Guest:My father's sister, Auntie Susan, amazing woman, was a social worker.

00:26:43Guest:And she's just an extraordinary human being and now has started a wonderful foundation for cancer research and family healing called Conquer Cancer in Boston, Mass.

00:26:57Guest:And she and my Nana, we lost a lot of family members.

00:27:02Guest:to the disease.

00:27:04Guest:Yeah.

00:27:04Guest:And just decided family members needed more care.

00:27:09Guest:Support.

00:27:10Guest:And so, yeah, conquer cancer.

00:27:12Marc:And she started in social work and now has built this thing.

00:27:16Marc:Yeah.

00:27:17Marc:And the foundation reaches out to people for counseling and process.

00:27:21Marc:Yeah.

00:27:21Guest:Process or financial aid or activities being like painting.

00:27:27Guest:If you're struggling or even the family members who are struggling with it.

00:27:33Guest:And there's a wonderful, it's called the Hope Garden.

00:27:37Guest:They started and that's in Boston.

00:27:39Guest:You can buy a brick and mention a loved one, someone who survived it, someone who didn't.

00:27:46Guest:And a place where you can meditate in your own way.

00:27:49Guest:Yeah.

00:27:50Marc:It's nice, yeah.

00:27:51Marc:It is nice.

00:27:52Marc:Yeah, grief and death and the process of it, terrible.

00:27:55Marc:Not a lot of support around it.

00:27:58Marc:Not a lot of cultural conversation around it.

00:28:00Marc:I think the entire capitalist model is built on avoiding it entirely.

00:28:07Marc:The reality of death.

00:28:09Guest:In our culture, it is mind-blowing how we don't confront it and integrate it into our daily life as acceptance, as exploration.

00:28:23Marc:Right.

00:28:24Marc:It's rough.

00:28:24Marc:How do you feel about it?

00:28:26Guest:Which part?

00:28:27Guest:The inevitability.

00:28:29Guest:I think about it every day.

00:28:30Guest:In a good way?

00:28:32Guest:In a way of contemplation.

00:28:34Guest:I mean, anybody who doesn't...

00:28:38Guest:think about it i i mean yeah i think every night i'm like is this it am i gonna well yeah i'm 59 you know people what was it what was it oh there was there was that there there's a there's a spiritual uh uh belief of of meditating on your own fatality and and by doing that four times a day

00:29:00Guest:Actually practicing that, considering one's mortality is actually a healing process and enlivens life rather than it being a morbidity.

00:29:13Guest:It's a way of releasing your fear.

00:29:16Guest:Right.

00:29:17Marc:I mean, I do think about it every day.

00:29:20Marc:And my parents are still alive, and they're both aging.

00:29:24Marc:My dad's drifting.

00:29:27Marc:And they're in their 80s.

00:29:30Marc:But you start to think of a life and what it means.

00:29:32Marc:The thought I have almost always after I'm laying in bed going like, is this it?

00:29:37Marc:Am I going to die in my sleep?

00:29:39Marc:Tonight?

00:29:39Marc:Right.

00:29:40Marc:My second thought is always like, I've got to get rid of some shit.

00:29:42Marc:I've got too much shit.

00:29:44Guest:You mean just stuff in the house?

00:29:46Guest:Yeah.

00:29:46Marc:They can't find me with all this shit.

00:29:51Marc:That's the saddest thing.

00:29:52Marc:I don't know how many people you've lost, but when you lose somebody, you're there with their shit.

00:29:59Marc:And somebody has to make decisions about the shit.

00:30:02Marc:And a lot of the shit is just sort of like, I don't know, just give it away?

00:30:06Marc:Do we throw it away?

00:30:07Marc:What do we do?

00:30:08Yeah.

00:30:08Marc:Because you hold on to shit.

00:30:10Marc:It's like another phase of the same type of meditation.

00:30:13Guest:The talismans, the memories of it, the smells of it.

00:30:17Guest:Sure, man.

00:30:18Guest:Or even just maintaining that space keeps some kind of lifeline.

00:30:24Marc:Well, you choose a couple of pieces of prime shit and you keep it.

00:30:27Guest:Yeah.

00:30:28Marc:But do you have talismans?

00:30:29Marc:Do you have things that you need?

00:30:31Marc:Oh, for sure.

00:30:31Marc:Yeah.

00:30:32Guest:Yeah, and they cycle in and out.

00:30:34Guest:Yeah.

00:30:34Guest:Oh, right.

00:30:35Guest:Like, why did I give a shit about this thing?

00:30:38Guest:Or that has used up its purpose, and I need to get rid of this, because it's actually a vacuum rather than I can feel energized by it or activated by it.

00:30:50Guest:It's taking now.

00:30:52Marc:Yeah, it's a bad relationship.

00:30:54Marc:It's worn out.

00:30:55Marc:I've worn out that stone.

00:30:58Marc:But you never got it to script or the social work?

00:31:04Guest:No, I didn't.

00:31:06Guest:I know Oren and I were pitching the concept, but we didn't do the... It's such an unsung world.

00:31:17Marc:To us, it was a portal into the entire structure of society here.

00:31:24Marc:Because through social work, you get into state funding, you get into politics, you get into drug problems, you get into criminality, you get into the injustices of the legal system, you get into everything.

00:31:36Marc:Family.

00:31:37Marc:Family, yeah, of course.

00:31:39Marc:So when do you move to LA?

00:31:40Marc:You're in Iowa?

00:31:43Guest:The short version is...

00:31:47Guest:Not a great student.

00:31:49Guest:Right.

00:31:49Guest:Started writing short plays.

00:31:53Guest:Sketches or plays?

00:31:54Guest:Serious?

00:31:55Guest:Oh, comedic all the way.

00:31:57Guest:Yeah.

00:31:57Guest:All the way.

00:31:58Guest:I was obsessed.

00:31:59Guest:My dream was to be on SNL.

00:32:02Guest:Really?

00:32:02Guest:I wasn't allowed to watch violent movies, being in this TM community, but my parents showed me comedy.

00:32:08Guest:Yeah.

00:32:09Guest:Yeah.

00:32:09Guest:And when I got a little bit older, they showed me, we'd get a VCR copy of like the best of SNL.

00:32:16Guest:Right.

00:32:17Guest:So sketch comedy was the goal.

00:32:19Guest:So were you funny?

00:32:24Guest:Enough so where people started watching the plays.

00:32:26Guest:Yeah.

00:32:26Guest:And they would laugh.

00:32:27Guest:Yeah.

00:32:27Guest:So that felt good.

00:32:28Marc:Because like, you know, I'd like to see you in a comedy.

00:32:31Marc:I don't know that I have.

00:32:33Marc:They haven't really come my way.

00:32:35Marc:Yeah, well, I mean, would you like to do that?

00:32:37Marc:Of course.

00:32:38Marc:I'd much rather laugh.

00:32:39Marc:But if you were offered a comedy, it seems like you could be the good cop or the bad cop and the good cop, bad cop funny thing.

00:32:50Marc:Write it.

00:32:51Marc:Call me.

00:32:53Guest:nobody's i'm waiting for that cop comedy you need a comedy man come on i love it yeah so i got loaded with uh we just just started working on accents i had no and dialects and for the comedy yeah and impressions yeah but it was all rich little based sure i was really protected it was not my parents just kept me kind of out of time

00:33:16Guest:Uh-huh.

00:33:17Guest:There's Martin and Lewis.

00:33:18Guest:Really?

00:33:19Guest:The Marx Brothers.

00:33:20Guest:Yeah.

00:33:21Guest:Looney Tunes all the way.

00:33:22Guest:Yeah.

00:33:23Guest:That was the world.

00:33:24Guest:Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin.

00:33:25Guest:That's what I was allowed to watch.

00:33:27Guest:So I put a tape out of me just doing silly stuff.

00:33:31Guest:I think my dad filmed it.

00:33:33Guest:Yeah.

00:33:34Guest:Disney got a hold of it.

00:33:36Guest:And they said, would you audition?

00:33:37Guest:And I was like, what's that?

00:33:39Guest:Yeah.

00:33:40Guest:Because I'm a kid.

00:33:41Guest:Who sent it in?

00:33:43Guest:Family favor was like, hey, two kids.

00:33:45Guest:Someone in L.A.?

00:33:46Guest:Someone in L.A.

00:33:47Guest:Friend of the family from Boston.

00:33:49Guest:Right.

00:33:49Guest:Knows an agent.

00:33:50Guest:Yeah.

00:33:51Guest:Would just meet these kids.

00:33:52Guest:Yeah.

00:33:53Guest:You and your brother.

00:33:54Guest:Yeah, they did.

00:33:55Marc:So you were doing the sketches with your brother.

00:33:57Guest:Not with my brother.

00:33:58Guest:We did a couple school plays together.

00:34:01Guest:But mostly it was writing and then ended up winning an international award for this play that I did with a classmate.

00:34:08Guest:That you wrote?

00:34:09Guest:Uh-huh.

00:34:09Guest:Wrote and acted in.

00:34:10Guest:What was the award?

00:34:11Guest:It was for...

00:34:13Guest:Best short play.

00:34:16Guest:For a kid?

00:34:18Guest:It was a program called Odyssey of the Mind.

00:34:20Guest:Okay, there you go.

00:34:21Guest:And yeah, you have all year.

00:34:24Guest:You got to work on it just with your classmates.

00:34:26Guest:Is that still around, that organization?

00:34:27Guest:I think it's changed names.

00:34:29Guest:Odyssey of the Mind.

00:34:31Guest:yeah great it was really wonderful it was something that you could creatively uh i could at least find um some kind of confidence in yeah yeah because it's immediate you know when you when you like we're going up it's time it's time yeah paint the sets yeah yeah make the thing try that line do the yeah if we do great it's so much fun

00:34:51Guest:Yeah.

00:34:52Guest:So Disney sees you.

00:34:54Guest:Disney.

00:34:54Guest:Do your bits.

00:34:55Guest:And they say, would you read these words?

00:34:58Guest:So I read the words.

00:34:59Guest:Did you read the words again on tape?

00:35:00Guest:So I did.

00:35:02Guest:And you were doing this on tape in Iowa or you went to L.A.?

00:35:04Guest:Went to L.A.

00:35:04Guest:and then they said, okay, you got a show.

00:35:08Marc:Wow.

00:35:08Marc:So you're on a Disney show.

00:35:09Marc:At 14.

00:35:11Marc:Wow.

00:35:12Marc:So that's how it starts.

00:35:13Marc:And after that.

00:35:15Marc:Woo, 25 episodes.

00:35:17Guest:Yeah.

00:35:17Guest:You did a bunch.

00:35:18Guest:Yeah.

00:35:20Guest:That was flash forward.

00:35:21Guest:It was flash forward.

00:35:22Guest:Disney show.

00:35:23Guest:Comedy.

00:35:24Guest:I mean, children's two best friends growing up next door to each other.

00:35:28Marc:So do you consider yourself like one of the Disney kids?

00:35:32Marc:I don't.

00:35:33Marc:I don't.

00:35:34Marc:That's not how I associate.

00:35:35Marc:You weren't a Mouseketeer, but you were on a kid show.

00:35:39Marc:Were there other actors that we know that came up through that?

00:35:45Marc:Because there's a Disney kid.

00:35:46Marc:I think Goswing's a Disney kid, isn't he?

00:35:48Marc:I think he was on our show.

00:35:50Guest:I think he might have guessed it on it.

00:35:54Guest:And that was it.

00:35:56Guest:I dropped out.

00:35:57Guest:I bought a proficiency test.

00:35:58Guest:I had kind of a mental breakdown at age 14.

00:36:01Guest:How did that manifest?

00:36:04Guest:Manifested where I did four episodes of this Disney show.

00:36:08Guest:Never been on a set before.

00:36:09Guest:Knew nothing about it.

00:36:11Guest:Family's not involved.

00:36:12Guest:Get on set.

00:36:12Guest:And I'm in love with the thing.

00:36:14Guest:Yeah.

00:36:15Guest:We shoot four pilots for four episodes.

00:36:18Guest:Yeah.

00:36:19Guest:I returned to Iowa for a year.

00:36:21Guest:Yeah.

00:36:22Guest:And the world just, you're 14.

00:36:29Guest:Yeah.

00:36:29Guest:I wouldn't put 14 on anybody.

00:36:32Guest:Yeah.

00:36:32Guest:It's a tough age.

00:36:33Guest:Yeah, a lot of things are changing.

00:36:35Guest:Everything's changing.

00:36:36Guest:Brain's going crazy.

00:36:38Guest:Everything's just... Hormones.

00:36:40Guest:Hormones, chemicals.

00:36:42Guest:Yeah.

00:36:42Guest:And it went really dark.

00:36:46Guest:Really?

00:36:47Guest:And back in this TM school...

00:36:50Guest:It was very dark.

00:36:52Marc:And you'd been to the other side.

00:36:55Marc:You'd been to Hollywood.

00:36:57Marc:Well, I'd been to Toronto.

00:37:02Guest:That's not nothing.

00:37:03Guest:I love Toronto.

00:37:04Guest:Toronto's a great music scene.

00:37:06Marc:I love Toronto.

00:37:06Marc:I love Vancouver.

00:37:07Marc:I love all of it.

00:37:09Marc:I've applied for permanent residency.

00:37:11Marc:You have?

00:37:11Marc:Yes.

00:37:12Marc:I wish you luck.

00:37:13Marc:Thank you.

00:37:14Marc:Do you have it?

00:37:15Marc:I don't.

00:37:16Marc:No.

00:37:17Marc:No.

00:37:17Marc:You're good?

00:37:17Marc:You're going to hang out?

00:37:19Marc:You're going to fight the fascists here?

00:37:21Marc:Oh, man.

00:37:21Marc:I don't know.

00:37:23Marc:I talk to my wife, like, what about Portugal?

00:37:26Marc:Yeah.

00:37:27Marc:Well, that's what a lot of people are doing, but I need it to be similar or I feel like an outsider.

00:37:32Marc:I don't want to just be hanging around with other expats in Portugal without knowing the language.

00:37:38Marc:That's fair.

00:37:38Marc:Asking people where they're eating.

00:37:41Marc:What are you having?

00:37:42Marc:Yeah.

00:37:43Marc:Gesture.

00:37:45Marc:Yeah.

00:37:46Marc:So after the mental breakdown, were you hospitalized?

00:37:52Guest:Not hospitalized, but enough to be... It was hairy, and now being a parent, just mental health is such a...

00:38:04Guest:And there's a lot more resources now than there were.

00:38:09Guest:And the conversation's a lot more open.

00:38:11Guest:Yeah.

00:38:12Guest:But through this, what we'll call a 14-year-old breakdown.

00:38:15Guest:Yeah.

00:38:18Guest:When I returned to the show and the show was picked up.

00:38:20Guest:Yeah.

00:38:22Guest:something had snapped in me and they wanted the disney ben they had before and the line as example would be like hey becca let's go get some pizza yeah i was like people don't talk like that oh she became a real actor

00:38:37Guest:Uh, as the people don't talk, it just, just no.

00:38:41Guest:Yeah.

00:38:41Guest:So they hired an acting coach and he was trying to get me to be more up or something.

00:38:46Guest:Perky.

00:38:47Guest:Perky.

00:38:47Guest:Yeah.

00:38:48Guest:And it didn't work.

00:38:49Guest:And we just talked about getting lost in a scene.

00:38:51Guest:And what does that mean?

00:38:52Guest:I had a taste of it doing a play.

00:38:54Guest:It was like, well, there was a moment where I got lost.

00:38:57Guest:And I blacked out and that became the drug.

00:39:01Guest:I was like, I want that back.

00:39:03Guest:I want that.

00:39:04Guest:How do I get there?

00:39:05Marc:Was it on the Disney show?

00:39:07Guest:It was on a play in between that I did, yeah.

00:39:11Marc:But that is always sort of like, I don't know if you're at that age, you know that's the goal or that is the achievement.

00:39:17Marc:Of acting.

00:39:19Marc:Maybe you know.

00:39:20Marc:Were you like, I want to get lost in a character?

00:39:22Marc:Or you knew that you liked acting, but did you know that to do it purely would be to get lost, or did it happen coincidentally?

00:39:31Marc:Coincidentally.

00:39:32Marc:Yeah, wow.

00:39:33Guest:Just doing a play in between.

00:39:35Guest:It was a very dark play.

00:39:37Guest:I think it was called Juvie.

00:39:39Guest:It was about kids dealing with social workers.

00:39:42Guest:Just a play play, not for anyone.

00:39:46Guest:And I checked out.

00:39:52Guest:But you were there.

00:39:53Guest:Something happened.

00:39:54Guest:I was there.

00:39:55Guest:Oh, wow.

00:39:56Guest:The scene took place and people responded very positively.

00:39:59Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:00Guest:And I was like, whatever that liminal space was, whatever that in-between space was...

00:40:07Guest:I got to find a way to get back.

00:40:09Guest:Yeah.

00:40:09Guest:So that was the first hit of Coke.

00:40:11Guest:Right.

00:40:11Guest:Or your first your first great sexual encounter.

00:40:17Guest:Right.

00:40:18Guest:That addiction was immediate.

00:40:21Guest:Yeah.

00:40:21Guest:And how do I get back?

00:40:22Marc:Yeah.

00:40:23Marc:Well, so that means you had to put you had to put in place some sort of process.

00:40:28Yeah.

00:40:28Guest:Like moving around in a dark house that isn't yours.

00:40:32Guest:You're just bumping into the furniture.

00:40:34Marc:So you go back to the Disney show, and were you able to live with that?

00:40:37Marc:I mean, it sounds like you had quite a few more episodes to do.

00:40:40Guest:It was, I think, it was great in terms of technically learning.

00:40:45Guest:To be on set?

00:40:46Guest:To be on a set.

00:40:47Guest:Yeah.

00:40:48Guest:But the values started adjusting.

00:40:50Marc:But that's not a bad thing to have.

00:40:52Marc:It's great.

00:40:53Marc:Ultimately.

00:40:54Marc:Yeah.

00:40:54Marc:So when do you start to shift in to more focus around being able to do that?

00:40:59Marc:You know, get your buzz.

00:41:01Guest:There are brief moments.

00:41:04Guest:I mean, these are flashes, right?

00:41:05Guest:You're chasing the zone.

00:41:07Guest:Yeah.

00:41:08Guest:Or as a musician yourself, when you're just, you're in a lick.

00:41:11Guest:Yeah.

00:41:12Guest:And it's just, it's moving through you.

00:41:13Guest:It's a current.

00:41:14Guest:It's bigger than you.

00:41:15Guest:Sure.

00:41:15Marc:You're just making room.

00:41:16Marc:Why do that?

00:41:16Marc:Like, as a stand-up, you know, things happen, they come, and you stay in it, and it's kind of amazing, because you don't know where it comes from, which is the exciting part about it.

00:41:24Marc:If you work improvisationally, or you leave yourself open, you know, something will be delivered.

00:41:30Marc:And you, you know, you can't force it, or make it happen, but when it happens, you're like, okay.

00:41:34Marc:Well, how do you set yourself up?

00:41:37Guest:Because everyone's waiting for the muse or the moment or the zone and you're chasing it.

00:41:42Guest:But your process, when you're doing stand-up, is there a way that you try to set yourself up for that?

00:41:49Marc:Well, yeah, because I don't write jokes.

00:41:53Marc:To me, that's like performing math.

00:41:55Yeah.

00:41:55Marc:So, you know what I mean?

00:41:58Marc:It's like A plus B equals this.

00:41:59Marc:I do polish over time, but the whole process begins improvisationally.

00:42:05Marc:So how I make myself available, whether I'm totally conscious of it or not, but I've been doing it this way for a million years, for as long as I've been doing it, is you sort of put yourself, you corner yourself, and you have to get out.

00:42:18Marc:And you're in that moment.

00:42:21Marc:And for me, it's like, what's the beat?

00:42:24Marc:I'm funny, so if I corner myself up there and I don't know where it's gonna go, then I gotta be funny and something will come.

00:42:32Marc:And then I hold on to those pieces and eventually they become a full piece.

00:42:37Marc:So I don't know where they're delivered from, but it's the best part of any show that I do are those moments of improvisation where I feel open enough to just let things happen.

00:42:47Marc:And that's when it happens.

00:42:50Marc:When you let go.

00:42:51Marc:Right.

00:42:52Marc:It doesn't happen for an hour.

00:42:53Marc:Sure.

00:42:54Marc:But sometimes it can be just a line.

00:42:57Marc:I just shot an HBO special last week in New York, Town Hall.

00:43:00Marc:Right on.

00:43:01Marc:Thanks.

00:43:02Marc:And there are moments in there, which there are in all my specials, that never happened before and won't happen again.

00:43:08Marc:So I know that.

00:43:10Marc:And it's great that it happened in that context.

00:43:14Marc:I don't know if anyone will notice it, but there was one moment that made a bit complete.

00:43:19Marc:It wasn't complete until the night of the special.

00:43:22Marc:I mean, it was strong enough.

00:43:24Marc:But I saw a beat happened, and I'm like, where did that come from?

00:43:28Marc:There it is.

00:43:29Guest:Yeah.

00:43:30Marc:Same with acting.

00:43:31Guest:Well, it's amazing.

00:43:34Guest:Back yourself up.

00:43:36Guest:Do as much homework and be open to whatever happens.

00:43:39Guest:Right.

00:43:40Guest:And listen to it.

00:43:41Marc:Right.

00:43:42Marc:So it's similar, except mine is a life of comedy.

00:43:44Marc:Yours is a research and immersion in a role.

00:43:47Guest:Right.

00:43:48Guest:Sure.

00:43:49Guest:You're immersed in your life, your perspective, your point of view.

00:43:54Guest:Right.

00:43:55Guest:You are.

00:43:56Guest:And you are.

00:43:56Guest:Yes, that's right.

00:43:58Guest:And you're giving yourself the opportunity to discover a new door, a left, a right, a beat, a moment.

00:44:07Guest:That's it.

00:44:08Guest:It's not an hour.

00:44:09Guest:I mean, we're chasing seconds, minutes at best.

00:44:12Guest:I know, I know.

00:44:13Guest:But that's the drug.

00:44:14Guest:Yeah.

00:44:15Guest:That's it.

00:44:16Guest:It's not nailing.

00:44:17Guest:It's never been nailing anything.

00:44:19Guest:Yeah.

00:44:19Guest:Anytime.

00:44:20Guest:And that was a great, it took time to learn was I'm going to nail this or never works.

00:44:26Guest:Yeah.

00:44:26Guest:No, I'm not a nailer.

00:44:28Guest:Me neither.

00:44:29Marc:I do not nail.

00:44:32Marc:But, you know, it's like with a performance, like, I don't know, I think it's minimizing to say somebody nailed something when you have an arc of a character or something transformative happens, you know?

00:44:42Marc:It would seem.

00:44:42Marc:I don't know.

00:44:43Marc:Like, I watched, like, I think the first time I saw you was in Alpha Dog, and I was like, who the fuck's that guy?

00:44:48Marc:That's crazy.

00:44:50Marc:You know?

00:44:50Marc:It's a colorful guy.

00:44:52Marc:Yeah.

00:44:53Marc:But then I saw you, I mean, I don't know when it happened, but I was at Sundance for some reason, I think, with Birbiglia's movie.

00:45:02Marc:And I saw Kill Your Darlings.

00:45:04Marc:Oh.

00:45:04Marc:Yeah.

00:45:05Marc:And I'm a big Burroughs guy.

00:45:07Marc:So anyone who's going to take on Burroughs, I'm like, no.

00:45:10Marc:And I was like, yeah, he did all right.

00:45:11Marc:He did his homework.

00:45:12Marc:Sounded good.

00:45:13Marc:Sounded like Bill.

00:45:14Marc:It was kind of dry and weird.

00:45:15Marc:Uncle Bill.

00:45:17Marc:Yeah.

00:45:17Marc:And so then I was sort of like on board with the Ben Foster experience.

00:45:23Marc:I always look forward to seeing you around.

00:45:26Guest:Well, that's so nice.

00:45:28Marc:How deep did you get into Bill?

00:45:31Marc:Oh, went deep.

00:45:32Guest:Went deep on Bill.

00:45:34Guest:Yeah.

00:45:35Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:45:37Guest:Yeah, I got in touch with James Grauerholtz, who runs the estate.

00:45:40Guest:Sure.

00:45:42Guest:And he shared a lot.

00:45:43Guest:Yeah.

00:45:43Guest:He was very generous with me to return to not trying to nail it, but being prepared to get lost.

00:45:52Guest:Yeah.

00:45:52Guest:That's the game.

00:45:53Guest:I mean, I've slept in his house.

00:45:55Guest:I've slept in Burroughs' bedroom.

00:45:56Guest:In St.

00:45:57Guest:Louis or whatever?

00:45:58Guest:Yeah, so we just... Yeah, he casts a long shadow and a complicated history, particularly today.

00:46:08Marc:I don't know if people talk about him that much.

00:46:10Marc:I talked to Patti Smith about him.

00:46:12Marc:It was kind of funny, because...

00:46:13Marc:Because he hit on Patti Smith in New York.

00:46:17Marc:Really?

00:46:17Marc:And thinking she was a guy.

00:46:20Marc:Oh.

00:46:21Marc:Well.

00:46:23Marc:But they became lifelong friends after that.

00:46:25Marc:That's a good story.

00:46:26Marc:It's a great story.

00:46:27Marc:Yeah.

00:46:28Marc:Yeah, I remember the first time I saw William Burroughs was when I was a freshman in college.

00:46:32Marc:And he appeared on Saturday Night Live.

00:46:34Marc:And I had no idea who he was.

00:46:36Marc:And he was just.

00:46:36Marc:Nike ad.

00:46:37Marc:No.

00:46:38Marc:He did a bit.

00:46:39Marc:He did a bit?

00:46:40Marc:Yeah.

00:46:40Marc:He sat there at a desk on SNL.

00:46:43Marc:It must have been 1982.

00:46:48Marc:And he did Dr. Benway, man.

00:46:52Marc:Get me a new scalpel nurse.

00:46:53Marc:This one's got no edge to it.

00:46:56Marc:And I'm like, who the fuck is this guy?

00:46:59Marc:Had no idea.

00:47:00Marc:And that kind of fucking blew my mind open.

00:47:02Marc:I got into the beats after that.

00:47:04Marc:It was the right time.

00:47:05Marc:It's a good, what a spiral.

00:47:07Marc:Yeah.

00:47:08Marc:But I'm curious about the new movie, because I have questions about- The survivor or emancipation?

00:47:16Marc:Survivor.

00:47:17Marc:I didn't know that story, and I guess it's a known story of Harry Haft, right?

00:47:22Marc:I mean- I didn't know the story.

00:47:24Marc:You didn't know either?

00:47:26No.

00:47:26Marc:But I watch a movie, you know, and it's like one of those movies as a Jewish guy and as a guy that, you know, watches movies.

00:47:31Marc:And I've talked to Levinson.

00:47:32Marc:I've interviewed Levinson.

00:47:33Marc:And I didn't know the movie existed.

00:47:35Marc:And I'm like, how do I not know that this movie's been out for a while?

00:47:38Marc:Right?

00:47:39Marc:It's great.

00:47:40Marc:You're great in it.

00:47:41Marc:And you do the whole thing.

00:47:43Marc:I'm not going to say nailed it, but you put your work in.

00:47:45Marc:It was not...

00:47:46Marc:And I think my question was when I realized that the movie had been out for a while and that it was this kind of an amazing film about a flawed but amazing guy who survived.

00:47:59Marc:It's a heartbreaking movie in so many fucking ways.

00:48:03Marc:Heavy story about this boxer in Auschwitz.

00:48:07Marc:Was it Auschwitz or one of the other ones?

00:48:08Marc:Was it Auschwitz?

00:48:09Marc:It started in Auschwitz.

00:48:11Marc:Yeah.

00:48:11Yeah.

00:48:12Marc:Like when you do that, like when you lose the weight, you learn the dialect.

00:48:19Marc:You learn the language.

00:48:21Marc:You learn a life.

00:48:23Marc:Is the work enough in the sense of like you want people to see it?

00:48:33Marc:For sure you want people to see it.

00:48:37Marc:But do you walk away from something like that?

00:48:39Marc:That must have been what, three or four years of your life?

00:48:43Guest:I mean, we shot it in 38 days.

00:48:47Guest:But you had to put the weight back on, right?

00:48:49Guest:Well, we were strategic in that when I took it on and Barry called up and said, do you want to do this film?

00:48:56Guest:Yeah.

00:48:57Guest:It covers three decades of a man's life and extreme weight loss is involved as well as weight gain.

00:49:04Guest:Yeah.

00:49:05Guest:They offer digital technology and I said, you got the wrong actor.

00:49:09Guest:I can't do that.

00:49:10Guest:my brain froze it was on a conference call and they said well we can digitally shrink you we can digitally make you big and I just said wrong actor can't do it I just said no give me the time if we can make time I don't know quite how it's going to work

00:49:29Guest:let's do it analog yeah it would be unfair to this material i wouldn't be able to face myself i don't know how to do this if i'm just walking around having lost 15 pounds yeah we have to go far yeah so we started in the camps yeah so i had five months to drop the weight yeah and lost 62 pounds got down to what 120 120 120

00:49:55Guest:Yeah.

00:49:57Guest:Something like that.

00:49:58Guest:And then we took five weeks off and that was for the ring.

00:50:04Guest:So I put on 50, just ate and worked out and slept and ate and worked.

00:50:09Marc:So this is for like in Auschwitz, in the camps, you're fighting at the behest of a Nazi who has sort of given you the ticket to live as to beat the shit out of other Jews in the ring.

00:50:20Guest:To the death.

00:50:21Marc:Yeah.

00:50:21Marc:Yes.

00:50:23Marc:And if they didn't die, they'd kill him.

00:50:25Marc:That's right.

00:50:26Marc:Yeah.

00:50:26Marc:And then you enter the world.

00:50:28Guest:Escape a death march.

00:50:31Guest:Yeah.

00:50:31Guest:Harry escaped a death march.

00:50:32Guest:Yeah.

00:50:32Guest:Found himself in New York.

00:50:35Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:50:35Guest:And his only trade was his hands.

00:50:38Mm-hmm.

00:50:38Guest:And was what they call a tomato can boxer, really.

00:50:44Guest:He had a little bit of fame because of his story, his narrative, being the survivor of Auschwitz, where 73 lives passed through his hands, his fellow Jews, gladiatorily.

00:50:56Guest:Yeah.

00:50:58Marc:When he kills his friend, it's horrendous.

00:51:02Marc:Did you meet his relative?

00:51:03Guest:I met his son who wrote the book.

00:51:06Guest:But we were deep into the chute.

00:51:07Guest:I didn't want to speak with him.

00:51:08Guest:I was intimidated.

00:51:11Guest:How do you say?

00:51:13Guest:I'm a player father.

00:51:15Guest:So I just listened to hours and hours of testimonies of survivors.

00:51:21Guest:And watched hours and hours.

00:51:23Guest:The Shoah Foundation worked closely with us, so I wanted all those voices in me.

00:51:29Guest:That was my... I needed to just saturate in the stories, and you start hearing these continuities in survivors' stories.

00:51:39Guest:Like what?

00:51:42Guest:hope that a loved one was still alive.

00:51:46Marc:And that's what you played in that.

00:51:48Guest:And we explored those ideas.

00:51:52Guest:Viktor Frankl talks about it in Man's Search for Meaning.

00:51:56Marc:But it was interesting in that movie that the thing that sticks with me is that you're holding onto this love, this girl who you met when you were a teenager.

00:52:06Marc:In Poland.

00:52:07Marc:Yeah, right.

00:52:08Marc:And then your whole life, but you realize that

00:52:12Marc:You know, when you do finally, you know, the story is a story.

00:52:16Marc:I hope I'm not spoiling anything.

00:52:18Marc:You know, find out that she's actually still alive.

00:52:20Marc:That the idea that what was important was the hope and that what was, you know, whether the love was whatever it was.

00:52:27Marc:It was so young and so short.

00:52:31Marc:But it was enough.

00:52:32Marc:It was enough.

00:52:33Marc:Dayenu.

00:52:33Marc:That was what's amazing.

00:52:39Marc:And also that he held onto it and the shame of not reconnecting for so long.

00:52:44Marc:The weight of the shame of that character.

00:52:46Marc:How did you live with that?

00:52:50Guest:Well, to return to the idea of service, my goal was to make sure that Harry felt lived in, and also progressively Americanized, as it goes from a young man in the camps, surviving the camps day in and day out in this most brutal way, in America as a boxer,

00:53:15Guest:And his whole point or his goal was trying to get his name in the paper.

00:53:19Guest:So maybe the girl from Poland might be still alive.

00:53:24Guest:The girl that kept his heart, his energy, his focus, his ability to survive.

00:53:28Guest:Yeah.

00:53:30Guest:might see it and they could reconnect and as much as he tried he didn't he couldn't find her he married someone else they had kids and once you've gone through a trauma or impossible trauma

00:53:46Marc:A prolonged, I can't even, it's even hard to contextualize with modern language.

00:53:55Marc:I would agree.

00:53:56Guest:The dehumanization that happened in the camps.

00:54:00Marc:But the nachos.

00:54:04Marc:There it is.

00:54:06Marc:Of a survivor.

00:54:07Marc:There are many.

00:54:09Guest:and they somehow were able to compartmentalize that shit over however long it took the mental fortitude or the spiritual fortitude the ruthlessness or the devotion to the hope of being reunited that was the continuity that i heard over and over again was the thing that kept me from

00:54:32Guest:That got me up when you wanted to drop, when you had no muscle left on your body.

00:54:39Guest:You're physically depleted and in a work camp.

00:54:43Guest:And if you can't work, you're thrown into the oven or the gas chamber or the fire pit.

00:54:51Marc:Getting that close to that material emotionally, I guess the question I was trying to ask and framing it in a clumsy way was that to me this is a movie that everybody should see and you should be sort of recognized for that journey you took.

00:55:11Marc:And I'm sure you are.

00:55:13Marc:But what I want to know as a guy who acts occasionally is

00:55:17Marc:Do you walk away from that work feeling satisfied, like I did the work and that's enough?

00:55:30Guest:Completing the film was one of the most profound experiences because I was allowed the opportunity to consider the horrors of mankind and also finding the glimmer of hope that can get you through that.

00:55:52Guest:So just on a personal level, my life has been enriched by

00:55:57Guest:And there's more gravity to this human experience.

00:56:02Guest:You hope people see the work.

00:56:05Guest:Of course you want people to say, hey, I really liked that.

00:56:10Guest:But personally, the words, when I speak to my wife about it, it's like, I'm clean.

00:56:17Guest:I just feel clean.

00:56:18Guest:yeah uh the work speaks for itself the story should be seen yeah it should be talked about yeah uh particularly now when when when my lord i mean they're burning books and banning books again yeah

00:56:34Guest:This fascist mentality is trying to erase not only the Holocaust, but what we've done to the enslaved people of our country.

00:56:44Guest:The way that genocide repeats itself time and time again throughout the world.

00:56:48Guest:Yeah.

00:56:50Guest:You hope that a story can not be just a Trojan horse as homework, but actually tenderize a heart.

00:56:58Yeah.

00:56:58Guest:Like you, you may think today's the worst day of your life.

00:57:03Guest:And we all have those moments.

00:57:05Guest:You may say, I can't get out of bed today.

00:57:07Guest:I don't know why I'm going to work.

00:57:10Guest:I don't know who I'm with.

00:57:11Guest:I don't know who I am.

00:57:12Guest:Yeah.

00:57:12Guest:Take a beat.

00:57:13Guest:Just take a beat.

00:57:15Guest:Take a breath.

00:57:17Guest:Reflect not on the horrors of life, but that endurance is available to you.

00:57:22Guest:It's in there.

00:57:23Guest:It's in your DNA.

00:57:25Guest:Yeah.

00:57:26Guest:And it's worth fighting for.

00:57:28Guest:Yeah.

00:57:28Guest:For those seconds.

00:57:30Guest:That's it, man.

00:57:31Guest:And if you can't get there, you eat something.

00:57:33Guest:Take a nap.

00:57:34Guest:Drink some water if you're lucky enough to have those at your disposal.

00:57:37Marc:Right.

00:57:38Yeah.

00:57:38Marc:Well, I guess, like, I thought it was great.

00:57:41Marc:I thought the performance was great, the story's great, and I loved the way that you managed a guy as he gets older, you know, carrying not only the trauma memories, but the memories of what he had to do to survive, and then ultimately not being able to live with that, I think, you know, in terms of stopping fighting.

00:58:03Guest:So many survivors of... And this can apply to soldiers.

00:58:08Guest:Sure.

00:58:08Guest:Don't want to talk about it.

00:58:10Guest:Right.

00:58:10Guest:Don't want to talk about it.

00:58:11Guest:It's too much.

00:58:13Guest:Try and compartmentalize.

00:58:14Guest:And you can.

00:58:15Guest:You can't put trauma away.

00:58:16Guest:You can stuff it, but it's going to pop out somewhere else.

00:58:19Guest:And this is him trying to fight by forgetting.

00:58:24Guest:Yeah.

00:58:25Guest:And he can't.

00:58:26Marc:Yeah.

00:58:27Marc:Well, I thought I was very honest about that, about how his family life starts to kind of erode and...

00:58:31Marc:We got to look at it.

00:58:33Marc:So now you turn around and do, well, I mean, there was some time between it, but this character in Emancipation is the opposite.

00:58:42Marc:Other side of the wire.

00:58:43Marc:Right.

00:58:44Marc:Now, going into that, or when he started to prepare for that, did you realize that?

00:58:48Marc:I mean, did you feel the weight of that?

00:58:50Guest:For sure.

00:58:52Guest:When I first read the script, I was like, wow, this is really, it's a fast, it moved well.

00:58:57Guest:Yeah.

00:58:58Guest:And I wanted nothing to do with that movie.

00:59:05Guest:We went to Auschwitz to prep The Survivor on HBO, as you can see.

00:59:10Guest:And Antoine Fuqua calls me up.

00:59:13Guest:He says, I want you to essentially play a manhunter of slaves, the enslaved people.

00:59:20Guest:and uh i just didn't want to look at those things anymore i didn't want to look at the atrocities of man yeah and antoine said i want to lift the veil and i was like good luck and i wish you all the best i think it's wonderful you're doing this we need this movie but right now i want nothing to do with it and i stayed up all night i'm like why don't i want to do this and you have yourself talk right yeah talk to yourself right you're like how do you lift the veil of white hate

00:59:48Guest:And the reason for not wanting to do it was because I was afraid of it.

00:59:54Guest:And that's the reason to do it.

00:59:55Guest:Yeah.

00:59:57Guest:So we were able to have really extreme, open, nervy conversations about...

01:00:03Guest:white racism and these groups that are popping up.

01:00:08Guest:With who?

01:00:08Guest:Will and Antoine?

01:00:10Guest:With Antoine.

01:00:10Guest:It happened very fast.

01:00:12Guest:It was, I don't want to do the movie.

01:00:13Guest:Oh, so that's what you started talking about.

01:00:14Guest:And then I was up all night and I just started spiraling as you do.

01:00:17Guest:Yeah.

01:00:20Guest:And as written the script, the character was a southerner, very flamboyant, Cajun, big mustache, a lot of hate, extra hate speech.

01:00:30Guest:Very colorful character on the page.

01:00:34Guest:And I called him up on the 4th of July.

01:00:36Guest:Yeah.

01:00:37Guest:I just said, you want to lift the veil?

01:00:41Guest:Let's put him in the Midwest.

01:00:44Guest:Let's take him out of the South.

01:00:46Guest:Yeah.

01:00:46Guest:And let's explore how a man learns to hate.

01:00:48Guest:He's like, I'm game.

01:00:50Guest:And let's go ask those questions.

01:00:51Guest:Yeah.

01:00:52Guest:So we just started sharing news articles.

01:00:55Guest:Look at George Floyd.

01:00:56Guest:Right.

01:00:57Guest:Look at the... And there was this line in a book that we shared called Without Sanctuary about the lynchings in America...

01:01:05Guest:And you take the hanging man out of the foreground, you see all these kids and white folks... Smiling people.

01:01:14Guest:Smiling people like they're at a county fair.

01:01:17Guest:Yeah.

01:01:17Guest:And there was a line, there was an essay in it, in this book.

01:01:21Guest:I forget who it was.

01:01:23Guest:It wasn't Frederick Douglass, it wasn't James Baldwin...

01:01:26Guest:But it was a line that stuck, which was relentless matter-of-factness of racial violence.

01:01:33Guest:Relentless matter-of-factness.

01:01:36Guest:So let's get into that.

01:01:39Guest:Why do we keep seeing this?

01:01:40Guest:Let's explore that.

01:01:42Guest:And we just wove those.

01:01:43Guest:So then I could be in service.

01:01:45Guest:That was how I could click in.

01:01:47Guest:It's not about doing this colorful thing.

01:01:49Marc:Well, it was interesting because it seems like you tapered the character a little bit from somebody, you know, he was a thoughtful person.

01:01:57Marc:He wasn't a caricature.

01:01:58Marc:He didn't strike me as, you know, flamboyant in the way of a sort of evil dandy character.

01:02:05Guest:Right.

01:02:06Guest:The trope.

01:02:08Guest:Right.

01:02:08Guest:So if we're going to lift the veil.

01:02:10Guest:Right.

01:02:11Guest:Take we've seen it.

01:02:12Guest:We've seen the racist southerner.

01:02:15Guest:Well, not all southerners are racist and not all northerners are civil rights activists.

01:02:19Guest:Right.

01:02:20Guest:Where my grandparents were.

01:02:22Guest:As Jews, when they came, they saw a lot.

01:02:26Guest:My grandfather, my father, my nana marched with Martin Luther King a month after Selma in Boston.

01:02:32Guest:Yeah.

01:02:35Guest:He would pick at Woolworths.

01:02:36Guest:Well, that's what progressives Jews did.

01:02:37Guest:That's what we did.

01:02:38Guest:Yeah.

01:02:39Guest:And that was another reason for not wanting to be a part of the film.

01:02:44Guest:And then I realized if we can invert it,

01:02:48Guest:put the words of James Baldwin, Frederick Douglass, and talk about white fear into the mouth of the man who's doing these things, we can get rid of the trope.

01:02:57Marc:Yeah, it was kind of an interesting tight wire act because you didn't overplay that guy.

01:03:04Marc:It wasn't a caricature.

01:03:06Marc:He was a sort of meditative, kind of thoughtful and quiet force.

01:03:16Marc:It's interesting the way that was scripted, that your backstory to how your heart was broken and the evil came in.

01:03:26Guest:We worked on that for months.

01:03:29Guest:That one monologue?

01:03:30Guest:Yeah.

01:03:31Guest:Before, it was a lot of sexual violence, and Bill, our writer, was game to collaborate.

01:03:38Guest:And the thesis was, collectively, we all got on the same page.

01:03:45Guest:We were saying, okay...

01:03:45Guest:When you're born, are you a racist?

01:03:48Guest:Are you an anti-Semite?

01:03:49Guest:Are you born that way?

01:03:51Guest:And if you believe that a baby is not born that way, if you come in pure and you're taught that... Yeah.

01:04:00Guest:How?

01:04:01Guest:Yeah.

01:04:02Guest:Let's look at that.

01:04:03Guest:And we just massaged that into the fabric of the character we see now, into a man who learned to hate from his father and carries on that...

01:04:14Marc:But in such a specific way, because like, you know, that story of a man learning to behave from his father, like, I mean, that was depicted pretty fucking well in America History X. Very well.

01:04:24Marc:You know, with the backstory of, you know, that scene with the kid and his father.

01:04:28Marc:You're right.

01:04:29Marc:And you could see that way.

01:04:31Marc:But this way was, in your character in A Man's Space was more insidious because there was a fundamental soul-crushing heartbreak.

01:04:41Mm-hmm.

01:04:41Marc:Yes.

01:04:43Marc:You know, the kid's goodwill, the kid's primary caretaker...

01:04:49Guest:His friend.

01:04:50Marc:Yeah.

01:04:50Marc:I mean, it was so concise in the way that you handled it as an actor that you told the story, but you didn't explain the story.

01:05:02Marc:You just shifted from telling the story to, and that's the way it is.

01:05:06Guest:If we can talk about and ask the question of where does violence come from?

01:05:12Guest:You say, okay, why do people act out in violence?

01:05:16Guest:They're afraid.

01:05:18Guest:But seeing, I think Fassel sees the writing on the wall.

01:05:20Guest:The great question is, what if they return the favor on us?

01:05:29Guest:Can you imagine?

01:05:29Marc:Yeah.

01:05:31Marc:What have we done?

01:05:32Marc:And by taking responsibility for this in that mindset is we have to keep them down.

01:05:38Guest:Have to keep them down.

01:05:40Guest:So if we can pose those questions within a film, a viewer might... It's cloaked, but it might provoke a conversation.

01:05:50Guest:That's the best thing you could hope for as an artist or a filmmaker or...

01:05:55Marc:Especially with this stuff, because like even myself in some of the interviews I've done lately and some of the reading I've done lately is that I am painfully, you know, ignorant of black history in this country, modern black history and, you know, in the arts.

01:06:11Marc:And it's just and it's exactly what, you know, the current.

01:06:17Marc:sort of entitled white culture is trying to censor.

01:06:22Marc:These books that they're banning are books about black history.

01:06:26Marc:These histories that they're trying to push aside are our responsibility as Americans to this.

01:06:35Marc:And then when I find myself saying things like, I have no idea, even if it's about movies.

01:06:40Marc:Yeah, I had Elvis Mitchell in here talking about movies, right?

01:06:44Marc:It's like, I didn't know about these movies.

01:06:46Marc:I always thought they were too campy, but they're not.

01:06:47Marc:They are expressions of a community that found a way to make them against all odds.

01:06:54Marc:So in terms of provoking conversation, I mean, when I watched Emancipation, I didn't know what to expect because-

01:07:02Marc:And sadly, as just a movie guy, it's like, is it going to be like 12 Years a Slave?

01:07:08Marc:Is it going to be like Django?

01:07:10Marc:Can I take it?

01:07:11Marc:Can I handle it?

01:07:13Marc:But, you know, Will Smith can act the fuck out of things.

01:07:17Marc:Yes, he can.

01:07:18Marc:And, you know, you guys both showed up in that thing, you know, with, you know, full hearts.

01:07:24Marc:And it was, you know, it was pretty incredible.

01:07:29Guest:I think Will's done his finest work in this.

01:07:31Marc:It's astounding.

01:07:33Guest:I didn't see Will Smith on set.

01:07:35Guest:I saw a man who was just deep in.

01:07:38Guest:It felt like, for lack of a better word, prayer.

01:07:41Guest:Everyone was in service of this.

01:07:43Guest:walking on those plantations we filmed on the plantations that's a hanging tree that's still up where they hung human beings for the color of their skin it it's in the ground you feel it when i went to auschwitz

01:08:01Guest:to study and research for the survivor, you feel it.

01:08:05Guest:You go through those gates, you touch the rails where six billion are brought in.

01:08:11Guest:You feel that.

01:08:12Guest:It felt very similar on the plantations in our own country.

01:08:16Marc:That scene is one of the finer moments of bullets hitting.

01:08:25Marc:You played it well, he played it well, and then where it came from, it was a satisfying moment.

01:08:30Guest:I'm glad it was satisfying.

01:08:33Guest:I was sitting next to my mom in the premiere.

01:08:35Guest:My mom and dad are there.

01:08:37Guest:And the crowd erupted in applause.

01:08:41Guest:I was like, Mom, I'm glad to share that with you.

01:08:45Marc:But, I mean, how did you guys, did you and Will meet in terms of process?

01:08:54Marc:I mean, what was, did you guys just show up and do it?

01:08:58Guest:I just showed up and did it.

01:09:00Marc:He came with his work, you came with your work, and that was that.

01:09:04Guest:We didn't say a word to each other until the last day, six months of shooting.

01:09:07Guest:Not a word.

01:09:09Guest:Not a word.

01:09:10Guest:And it wasn't planned, and it wasn't going in with some...

01:09:14Guest:actor-y idea like this is I'm only I'm not going to talk to Will Smith yeah that's going to be and you're allowed you're allowed to do anything you want sure yeah cut are you going to your trailer you want to eat yeah you're going to craft services you want a smoothie yeah yeah

01:09:30Guest:Yeah, just really try the quinoa.

01:09:34Guest:Yeah.

01:09:35Guest:No, I just walked in on set.

01:09:38Guest:You feel it.

01:09:38Guest:An incredible set.

01:09:40Guest:Once again, working in a work camp with enslaved people.

01:09:45Marc:I noticed that right away after watching The Survivor.

01:09:48Marc:I'm like, here he is.

01:09:49Marc:He's back in a camp, man.

01:09:50Marc:I mean, give me that cop buddy comedy.

01:09:53Marc:Yeah, let's go.

01:09:54Marc:It's time for the comedy, pal.

01:09:55Marc:Maybe we should do one.

01:09:56Guest:Yeah, I'm ready.

01:09:57Guest:Okay.

01:09:58Guest:Let's talk to Oren.

01:09:59Guest:Yeah.

01:10:00Guest:I mean- Let's go.

01:10:04Guest:Oren has got one of the greatest sense of humors.

01:10:07Guest:I mean, he's- Yeah.

01:10:09Guest:And one of the finest writers working today, Oren Moverman.

01:10:12Guest:I just, he's, yeah.

01:10:13Guest:I'm ready for a comedy.

01:10:14Guest:You definitely need a comedy.

01:10:16Guest:I use one.

01:10:17Guest:Yeah.

01:10:18Guest:You could use one?

01:10:19Marc:Yeah.

01:10:19Marc:Okay.

01:10:19Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, pal.

01:10:22Guest:Likewise.

01:10:22Guest:When's your show out?

01:10:24Marc:The special?

01:10:25Guest:The special.

01:10:26Marc:I think we're hoping for spring, maybe February.

01:10:28Marc:I just looked at a director's cut.

01:10:32Guest:Feel good?

01:10:32Marc:Yeah.

01:10:33Marc:I do, you know, I talk a lot about grief in it, and I talk about, like I did a joke, I do an Auschwitz joke in it, believe it or not.

01:10:41Marc:Yes.

01:10:42Marc:Well, no, I talk about the idea of humor coming from profound darkness.

01:10:48Marc:For me, it's necessary because it disarms it and it frames it in a way that I can handle.

01:10:53Marc:And I say, there must have been some hilarious people in Auschwitz.

01:10:58Marc:And people were like, what?

01:10:59Marc:They're shocked.

01:11:00Marc:I'm like, come on.

01:11:00Marc:They were all Jews.

01:11:02Marc:You're going to tell me there wasn't one guy that's sort of like, you're going to watch Murray tonight?

01:11:05Marc:He does all the Nazis.

01:11:06Marc:It's hilarious.

01:11:08Marc:He's the best.

01:11:10Marc:You got to.

01:11:11Marc:But there was.

01:11:12Marc:There was.

01:11:13Marc:Of course there was.

01:11:15Marc:You read that Primo Levi book.

01:11:17Marc:I mean, it's all just shy of like, you know, someone doing shtick.

01:11:20Marc:I mean, there was a million different ways that these guys tried to see.

01:11:25Marc:Did you read that in preparation?

01:11:26Marc:I did.

01:11:28Marc:It's kind of astounding.

01:11:30Marc:And it's in The Survivor.

01:11:31Marc:Yeah.

01:11:32Marc:There's the hat joke.

01:11:33Marc:Right.

01:11:34Marc:Well, I used to tell that joke.

01:11:36Marc:Not on stage.

01:11:37Marc:It's one of my favorite jokes.

01:11:39Marc:It's one of my favorite jokes.

01:11:41Marc:It's a great Jewish joke.

01:11:42Guest:It's the best.

01:11:44Guest:And we need to laugh.

01:11:46Guest:And we have to laugh in darkness.

01:11:48Marc:Yes.

01:11:49Marc:And the funniest thing is most jokes of a certain type and a certain era for probably five decades, all the jokes are Jewish jokes.

01:11:58Marc:They're all Jewish jokes.

01:12:00Marc:This is how we made it in this country.

01:12:02Marc:Writing fucking jokes.

01:12:04Marc:Gotta make it somehow.

01:12:05Marc:Let's go have a cigar or something.

01:12:06Marc:Let's go have a cigar.

01:12:07Marc:Good talking to you.

01:12:08Marc:Likewise.

01:12:14Marc:Ben Foster.

01:12:15Marc:Lovely guy.

01:12:17Marc:The Survivor is on HBO Max and Emancipation is on Apple TV+.

01:12:22Marc:I enjoyed that.

01:12:23Marc:Hang out for a minute, people.

01:12:27Marc:Three years ago tomorrow, January 3rd, 2020, I talked with Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio for an hour at the Arclight Theater in Los Angeles.

01:12:36Marc:That's not even open anymore.

01:12:38Marc:God, it's been three years?

01:12:40Marc:Jesus.

01:12:41Marc:Listen to this.

01:12:42Guest:We're with the great Marc Maron.

01:12:43Guest:How are we going to... You're so nice about me.

01:12:48Guest:Dude, I'm a fan.

01:12:49Guest:He really is.

01:12:50Guest:I remember him talking about you on...

01:12:53Marc:On the movie, you were going off about my show.

01:12:57Guest:I love this show.

01:12:58Guest:I've seen it three times, the entire series.

01:13:01Guest:It's my happy place.

01:13:03Guest:To see you miserable makes me not feel so bad.

01:13:08Guest:That's what it's all about.

01:13:09Guest:I'm carrying the burden for others.

01:13:11Guest:You really are.

01:13:13Guest:But I just love how you... I think I told you this when I bumped into you, how you'll like...

01:13:18Guest:Suffer some minor injustice in the world.

01:13:20Marc:Yeah.

01:13:21Guest:From another.

01:13:21Guest:Yeah.

01:13:22Guest:Have it out with them.

01:13:23Guest:Yeah.

01:13:23Guest:You suffer no fools.

01:13:24Guest:Yeah.

01:13:25Guest:And then you invite them back to listen to your to your new turntable or something like we're equal now.

01:13:30Guest:We're all humans.

01:13:30Guest:Yeah.

01:13:31Marc:Yeah.

01:13:31Marc:Well, I think that's an attempt.

01:13:33Marc:I don't know if you have that problem where I'll act like an asshole.

01:13:37Marc:And then and then you kind of claw your way back into someone's life and hopefully they'll forgive you for it.

01:13:42Guest:See, I thought you were justified.

01:13:44Guest:Yeah.

01:13:44Guest:Yes, yes, I did.

01:13:46Guest:I did.

01:13:46Guest:I thought you were speaking for all of us.

01:13:48Guest:And then everything's okay.

01:13:50Marc:Everything's okay, usually, until it comes back later.

01:13:53Marc:Point is, that's a fun episode.

01:13:55Marc:One of the last big ones we did before COVID hit.

01:13:57Marc:It was a different time, people.

01:13:59Marc:Go enjoy that for free in all podcast feeds if you've never heard it.

01:14:03Marc:It's episode 1086.

01:14:05Marc:And if you want all episodes of WTF ad free, go sign up for WTF Plus.

01:14:10Marc:Just click on the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.

01:14:17Marc:On Thursday's show, I talked to Colin Hanks.

01:14:20Marc:And in memory of the great Bo Diddley, whose birthday it was last week, I will play guitar for you now.

01:14:27Marc:Rest in peace, Bo Diddley.

01:14:30Marc:Rest in that groove you gave us.

01:15:14Thank you.

01:16:46Marc:Boomer lives.

01:16:59Marc:Monkey.

01:17:00Marc:La Fonda.

01:17:01Marc:Cat angels everywhere.

01:17:02Marc:Yeah.