Episode 1495 - Peter Sarsgaard
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark marin this is my podcast welcome to it how's it going what day are we on jews i've i've been lighting candles alone
Marc:Usually a little later than I should, but it's been OK.
Marc:It's been good.
Marc:It's been good connecting with that thread.
Marc:It turns out, as I told you a few days ago, that I did have a box of candles that I did not get through the last time I began lighting candles, maybe last year.
Marc:Or the year before.
Marc:It's sort of a random thing.
Marc:I usually do one or two.
Marc:I usually get a few candles done.
Marc:But yeah, I've been going at it.
Marc:Doing the prayer.
Marc:Thinking the thoughts.
Marc:Wearing the hat.
Marc:I think we need to do it.
Marc:I think it's time to do it.
Marc:I heard a horrible thing.
Marc:I was talking to a door person at the comedy store and there was a business down the street that wasn't going to put a menorah out to display this year because of fear of vandals.
Marc:Well, that's not great now, is it?
Marc:That the base of anti-Semitism has expanded to such a degree that the conflation of Israel with all Jews has had this impact to where a business here in Los Angeles cannot put a menorah out to celebrate Hanukkah or acknowledge it.
Marc:Scary times, man.
Marc:But I hope you're having a nice Hanukkah, if possible.
Marc:I got a present last night.
Marc:I rarely get presents.
Marc:Kit gave me a shirt.
Marc:Very nice.
Marc:So it feels like a Hanukkah, like a real one.
Marc:They adjusted.
Marc:I know I talked to you a few days ago about this, but they made an adjustment at the comedy store.
Marc:I think after I commented on the massive amount of giant Christmas presents on the main room stage stacks, it was just enveloped in giant Christmas presents and a tree with one menacing looking menorah off stage right.
Marc:Just this stealth black industrial looking menorah enveloped
Marc:by the festivities of Christmas.
Marc:And, you know, look, I can't account.
Marc:Well, you can account for it.
Marc:I mean, Hanukkah decorations are different.
Marc:You know, you got a dreidel, you got some geld, you got the menorah, you got the candles, but that's it, man.
Marc:You know, this is, you know, this is a celebration of freedom from oppression.
Marc:And on the other side of it, it's the birth of God, right?
Marc:It's hard to compete with.
Marc:In decoratively speaking, over the years, there hasn't been a lot of additions to the Hanukkah arsenal of decorations.
Marc:There seems to be very limited, whereas Christmas, there's just no end to it.
Marc:Trees, tinsels.
Marc:ornaments, Santa's presence, stars, Jesus's man, mangers.
Marc:We've just got the candelabrum baby and a top.
Marc:So today Peter Sarsgaard is on the show and
Marc:an actor who I always enjoy, always, and was always curious about.
Marc:You know him from things like Boys Don't Cry, Shattered Glass, Garden State, Black Mass, The Batman, and The Lost Daughter.
Marc:He's in a new movie called Memory, and his performance won Best Actor at this year's Venice Film Festival.
Marc:I watched the movie and I thought it was great.
Marc:We had a great conversation.
Marc:I actually had to... I did something I rarely do on this show.
Marc:I had to ask him to tell his wife...
Marc:Maggie Gyllenhaal that I was I apologize for something that I don't know if Maggie knew, but it would would have been hard for her not to know.
Marc:But I something I felt bad about when she was on the show.
Marc:And I hope that message gets to her.
Marc:And I carried it with me for a long time and I never repeated the mistake that I made.
Marc:You can you'll hear in the show gigs, Los Angeles.
Marc:I'm at Largo tomorrow, December 12th and again on January 9th.
Marc:Dynasty typewriter this Wednesday, December 13th, as well as the 28th and the Elysian on Friday, December 15th and Friday, the 22nd.
Marc:preparing for the theater shows which start in san diego at the observatory north park on saturday january 27th for two shows san francisco at the castro theater on saturday february 3rd i'll be introducing a screening of mccabe and mrs miller on february 4th at the roxy theater in san francisco get tickets at roxie.com portland maine i'm at the state theater on thursday march 7th oh man it's gonna be cold
Marc:Medford, Massachusetts, outside Boston at the Chevalier Theater on Friday, March 8th.
Marc:Providence, Rhode Island at the Strand Theater on Saturday, March 9th.
Marc:Tarrytown, New York at the Tarrytown Music Hall on Sunday, March 10th.
Marc:Atlanta, Georgia.
Marc:I'm at the Buckhead Theater on Friday, March 22nd.
Marc:I'll be in Austin, Texas at the Paramount Theater on Thursday, April 18th as part of the Moon Tower Comedy Festival.
Marc:You can go to wtfpod.com slash tour for tickets.
Marc:You know, it was interesting because I went and did some ADR, which is, you know, I don't even know what that stands for.
Marc:Is that ridiculous?
Marc:And I always think to look it up, but it's where you go do the voice.
Marc:Like after a movie's done and they need some lines, some wild lines, you need to do a sentence more clearly and you stand at a mic and sync up with the screen.
Marc:That's ADR.
Marc:And I did some ADR work for the movie The Order, which is the movie that Jude Law's company is making.
Marc:It's about The Order, the first real domestic terrorist, kind of Nazi domestic terrorist organization who robbed some banks but also killed the radio personality Alan Berg in Denver.
Marc:That's what talk radio was based on.
Marc:And I was asked to play Berg, and I could not play Berg.
Marc:I had no choice but to play Berg.
Marc:So I got in the booth over there, and the director, Justin Kerzel,
Marc:Was, you know, on being zoomed in and I saw some of the footage for the first time.
Marc:And, you know, I'm not in it for that long.
Marc:There's scenes of me on the mic and then there's a scene of me getting gunned down in my driveway and.
Marc:But the stuff on the mic, I was surprised because when I'm on a set, I can't see how it's all going to come together.
Marc:When I look at the clutter on a set or what set deck does, sometimes there's so much stuff around.
Marc:And I'm like, this wouldn't be here.
Marc:Why is this here?
Marc:This seems like it's cluttered.
Marc:But this happens on every set I've ever been on.
Marc:And then it just adds tone.
Marc:The thing looked great.
Marc:And I combed my hair like Berg and I had a beard and I studied Berg a bit and I tried to put in place a subtle, slight remnant of a Chicago accent, which I stayed in most of the time.
Marc:I was sort of surprised because I don't know if that works.
Marc:I'm not tooting my own horn here.
Marc:I'm just watching it.
Marc:And then he had me improvise so much stuff as Berg on the mic, you know, just talking and running through a lot of stuff and doing take after take to get the tone.
Marc:And it looks fucking awesome.
Marc:But it struck me watching it, some of the stuff that Alan Berg was saying, me as Berg, but Alan Berg.
Marc:And I can't remember, some of it was in the script, some of it I riffed.
Marc:But there was something about people, believing that people are fundamentally decent.
Marc:And sometimes it gets very difficult.
Marc:Because, well, here's the thing.
Marc:When you say somebody spends so much time in their head or people spend so much time alone, they are engaged to something much bigger than themselves, which unfortunately is not a spiritual force, but it's whatever they're involved with and surrendering their brain to on the Internet or on their phone.
Marc:So a lot of us don't feel alone.
Marc:But ultimately, we are in our head and we are letting our head make choices about where we let our head go.
Marc:And no matter how connected you feel through your phone or through the information you're taking in or watching, and even if you're there with other people interacting, it's still your head.
Marc:It's still your head.
Marc:You know, when you're having a mediated experience, it is still your head.
Marc:I mean, arguably, it's all still your head.
Marc:But but what you're filling your head with the extension of your brain being the information that you're engaging with and taking in is still your head.
Marc:And the reason I'm saying this is as I get older and not more cynical, but more frightened and certainly more filled with panic.
Marc:I'm fortunate in my work in that I see a bunch of different people all the time.
Marc:If I go do comedy and I hang out at the comedy store, there's audience members, there's other comics, there's the people that work there.
Marc:It's a communal experience.
Marc:And I'm constantly engaged with people.
Marc:And here in the studio, I'm talking to people that I don't know and locking in like that.
Marc:And like the other night, I went out to dinner with Tim Heidecker and Tom Sharpling.
Marc:And that doesn't happen very often because I have a social circle, but I don't spend enough time with people.
Marc:And we're all peers.
Marc:We're all co-workers in the comedy community and just spending time with people.
Marc:Because the thing that struck me about the Allenberg monologue was just that, you know, if you just spend a little time with with other people.
Marc:Granted, you don't know what they're thinking and granted that it might be in passing.
Marc:But I'm always sort of amazed that in moments, most of the time, people show up for people.
Marc:And the more separate we become through communities online or through ideas that become malignant and viral in our own heads, it's just there is no immediacy.
Marc:of interaction that's visceral.
Marc:And I get very affected lately by interspecies animal videos of animals helping other animals, other species of animals.
Marc:It kills me.
Marc:It just kills me to watch, you know, a shark, a giant shark,
Marc:deliver a sea turtle who's got netting around his neck and is having a hard time breathing, delivers the turtle to a fishing boat, and then the guy in the boat cuts the thing off the turtle's neck.
Marc:And it's just like, that's what we're built to do when you see a kitten with a monkey.
Marc:You know, we're just kittens and monkeys.
Marc:And, you know, life is life.
Marc:And the idea of nurturing or looking out for even other species is innate.
Marc:And I think some people have more capacity for that.
Marc:Take care of your doggy, your kitty, your parrot, your fish, whatever.
Yeah.
Marc:You know, you can put a lot of love into a fish.
Marc:You can put a lot of love into a doggy or a kitty or a rodent of some kind or a reptile if you're that guy.
Marc:But somehow there's a drop off when it comes to other people because there's a wariness.
Marc:You know, and I can't hang on to any sort of hope.
Marc:And I know there's incredible evil going on in the world.
Marc:on many fronts and the, the, the sheer scope of death and destruction is, it's almost overwhelming and, and you're self annihilating to engage your empathy with it, but it's, it's important, but just in the day to day, like the fear that fills me every day about tribalization and the, this or that nature of culture, us and them good and evil, um,
Marc:nature of the way culture is being divided by people with intent.
Marc:My, my big concern becomes that there's no way to engage, you know, with, with other people.
Marc:And I guess my Hanukkah wish or holiday wish or, or just spiritual wish for, for all of us is to somehow engage with,
Marc:with each other and to find some path towards bridging gaps, some path towards peace.
Marc:I don't even know what I'm really talking about.
Marc:Cause I, you know, I am too cynical to believe a lot of what I'm saying, but I don't know.
Marc:Am I really the guy that's going to put love into the world?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But I can open it up in such a way that I'll give you some sad laughter.
Marc:You want that laughter that's almost crying?
Marc:I'm your guy.
Marc:So now Peter Sarsgaard, man, I watched him like three times.
Marc:in Black Mass recently because it was on HBO and I was on the road.
Marc:And I just drop into that movie wherever possible.
Marc:And I was always excited to see Peter.
Marc:The movie that he's in that's getting a limited release in theaters December 22nd, opening nationwide on January 5th is Memory.
Marc:And it's a devastating and ballsy movie.
Marc:Beautiful stuff.
Marc:So this is me talking to Peter Sarsgaard.
Marc:First off, I just need you to do me a favor.
Marc:I got to get this off my chest because I carry it with me.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You need to tell your wife, I'm sorry.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:Well, when she was here, it was, I don't know, it was a few years ago.
Marc:I talked to her and it was about that.
Marc:It wasn't about the...
Marc:The Lost Daughter movie.
Marc:That was what it was called, right?
Marc:The one before that.
Marc:What was the one before that?
Marc:Sort of the teacher.
Guest:Oh, the kindergarten teacher.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So she was here for that.
Marc:And look, man, generally I'm on top of this shit.
Marc:And I know her.
Marc:I know her work and everything.
Marc:But I didn't get all the way through that movie.
Marc:So when I was talking to her about it, and I don't do this.
Marc:I kind of faked it a little bit because I felt bad.
Marc:And there was a moment where she realized that I hadn't seen the movie.
Marc:Oh, and I'm sure she told you.
Marc:Well, it was, yeah.
Marc:But I felt bad that I tried to fake it.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I would say that's the difference between she and I is I would just kind of like faked it with you.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, obviously I didn't see it, but that's cool.
Marc:But you would have just known that and taken that away with you.
Guest:Yeah, but I think it's a good quality in her.
Guest:I mean, you get someplace if you call people out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it was I just felt bad because I, you know, a lot of times I won't fake it.
Marc:Like if someone's talking about something that I don't really know, I'll just go like, oh, right.
Marc:You know, I won't say I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But if in the middle of a conversation, I'll just go and talk.
Guest:Well, it took me a while to get into the habit of, you know, people frequently will assume I know a lot of things that I don't know.
Guest:And they'll say, and you've seen that movie by, you know, whatever fancy director.
Guest:And because they really want me to have seen it, you know, you sort of sometimes will just be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Go ahead.
Go ahead.
Guest:Say whatever you want to say about it.
Guest:Obviously, I'm going to interrupt your train if I put the brakes on it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You can rationalize your small lie as being respectful to the person talking.
Guest:100%.
Guest:And the point is going to be the thing anyway, not the movie.
Guest:Usually, they're making a point that has to do with the movie.
Guest:Sometimes I forget movies.
Guest:How old are you?
Guest:I'm 52.
Marc:Sometimes it's getting to the point now where I've seen movies and I don't know what the fuck they're about anymore.
Guest:No, I find it difficult to actually sit through most movies unless I'm at the theater because I feel like our attention spans have just gone down the toilet.
Marc:I think that's true.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think that if you go to the movies, you probably have a better shot at remembering it.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And then you have the communal experience and, you know, you can't pull out your cell phone because somebody's going to whack you in the head, which is fantastic.
Marc:You know, here's another thing that's personal.
Marc:I think we were almost going to work together.
Marc:Oh, when?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Did you do that movie in Munich yet?
Guest:I did, September 5th.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did it.
Marc:Yeah, I was offered the Marv part.
Marc:Oh, you would have been great.
Marc:I know.
Marc:What happened?
Marc:I don't live an actor's life.
Marc:You know, like, the idea at that moment to be like, go to Munich for two months...
Marc:You know, in three weeks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, I felt like, you know, and I haven't seen the movie, and I respect the filmmaker because he was so diligent in the facts.
Marc:Yeah, Tim.
Marc:Yeah, Tim.
Marc:Like, that Marv was sort of a sideline character.
Marc:I mean, he came in and out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't feel like there wasn't a ton to work with in my mind.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:But that whole script is kind of being intercut with documentary footage.
Guest:Well, I didn't know that.
Guest:So...
Guest:Yeah, the actors are really a part of it.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:You know.
Marc:How did it feel?
Marc:How did it go?
Guest:It went well.
Guest:You know, I was doing this TV show with Jake at the same time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Called Presumed Innocent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I filmed that, and then I went to Munich and did that, and then I came back.
Guest:And so I didn't really see my family for a while.
Guest:So when I was in Munich— Yeah.
Guest:For me, if I'm away from my family for more than two weeks, and by that time it had been a month, I'm not enjoying much of anything.
Marc:I don't even have a family, but that stops me from committing to acting more.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, is that part of your decision making?
Marc:It's sort of like how long and where?
Guest:Oh, that is a large part of my decision making.
Guest:No, for sure.
Guest:Well, there are movies like this one, like, you know, Memory, which, you know, it was shot...
Guest:I had lunch at my house, and then I would go and shoot it.
Guest:It shot in Sunset Park, which is a bike ride from my house.
Guest:Where's that?
Guest:In New York?
Guest:In Brooklyn, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because I saw the movie, and I think it's great.
Marc:So that's a selling point.
Guest:Yeah, 100%.
Guest:But that one was like the best of all worlds.
Guest:It's a total actor piece, and then it's right next to my house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's pretty rare.
Guest:My wife is going to direct a film that I'm going to act in in March, and that shoots in New York.
Guest:So we've only got a couple more years to go of this sort of New York lockdown mode because I got a 17-year-old and an 11-year-old and, you know, a couple more years.
Guest:Well, you got, well, yeah.
Guest:I got a fair number.
Guest:Seven.
Marc:It's not like I'm counting them down.
Marc:We might have to leave the country in three.
Marc:We very well might.
Marc:But the new movie, like I watched it, and I didn't know what it was about.
Marc:I've seen you a lot lately for some reason.
Marc:I was on the road a bit doing stand-up, and I was watching HBO in hotel rooms.
Marc:And, you know, I watched Black Mask like three times in different pieces.
Marc:And when I first saw that movie, I had a hard time getting past, you know, Johnny Depp's Nosferatu version of Whitey.
Guest:I think he would like that issue.
Guest:I think you should tell him that.
Marc:But it was just a makeup issue.
Marc:But once I got past it...
Marc:It's a pretty great movie.
Marc:Yeah, he's a great director.
Guest:He is.
Guest:I've interviewed him.
Guest:Great.
Marc:Have you done other movies with him?
Guest:No, but my wife did Crazy Heart with him, so I've known him for a very long time, Scott.
Guest:I was doing another movie at the time.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You're doubling up all over the place.
Guest:Yeah, so that I did kind of in the middle of the other film, which was called Experimenter.
Guest:which is why I had to wear a fake beard in Experimenter, which turned out to be a big problem, and I'll never do that again.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Why the stickiness or people seeing it?
Guest:Well, a low-budget film doing a beard on you means, like, you're not really going to be able to open your mouth.
Guest:It's like wearing a strap around your jaw.
Guest:And then Scott asked me to come up and do that part, and it was super fun.
Guest:Was it like three days?
Guest:Yeah, I just swung for the bleachers.
Marc:No, I thought it was great.
Marc:There's a moment there where you're walking away with a bag...
Marc:You know that it's not a great thing, but you're like, thanks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's fun to play someone who is so strung out.
Guest:That character was.
Guest:And terrified.
Guest:Terrified.
Guest:Just right to the edge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, come do me a favor, be in my movie for three days and the stakes are an 11.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you get to get shot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you get to shoot people.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Quick scene.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I got to act with Johnny and Jesse Plemons at the same time.
Marc:And that other guy, what's his name, Bill?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, who's in all of his movies.
Guest:Well, Bill Camp.
Guest:Yeah, Bill Camp, that's right.
Guest:But then there's also, yeah, Bill Camp was in that scene, but then there's... Rory.
Guest:Rory, that's right.
Guest:That guy's deep, man.
Guest:He... I've talked to him.
Guest:He's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you don't want to... He's one of those guys, it's not even a boundary thing.
Marc:You're just sort of like, no, I'm going to leave him be.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really, Jesse Plemons was the one in that movie where I was like, he ate in every scene.
Guest:The amount of food he was eating on camera was astounding.
Marc:And that's like a pain in the ass to eat on camera.
Guest:I never do it.
Marc:You try to avoid it?
Marc:Are you like just hold the fork midway kind of guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's like also with smoking in movies, too, which I hate doing.
Guest:I don't smoke.
Guest:You know, you just have to hold the cigarette.
Guest:You don't actually have to put it in your mouth.
Marc:Yeah, because then all of a sudden it's on you for continuity.
Marc:Because the script person is only going to know so much.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:They can cut around everything.
Marc:And then when you start to watch yourself in movies, you realize, like, it doesn't fucking matter.
Guest:Oh, the continuity does not matter.
Guest:And then on memory, it's like he shoots everything in a one-er.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there's no coverage in the movie.
Guest:I don't know if you noticed this.
Guest:There's one piece of coverage, which he actually shot at the end.
Guest:He went back and said, I think we need one piece of coverage in this scene.
Guest:But for the rest of the time, every scene plays out, you know, the camera's on sticks, sitting in the corner.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Pointing at you, and you just do the whole scene.
Marc:And what's that guy's story?
Marc:He's a Mexican director?
Guest:Yeah, he's Mexican and Jewish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His dad is from Haifa, I believe, is ethnically Syrian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And his mother, or from Juarez, and his mother's from Haifa.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dad from Juarez, mother from Haifa.
Guest:And he's just such an interesting guy.
Guest:Did you watch his other movies?
Guest:I'd seen all of his other movies, yeah.
Guest:Because I don't know that I have.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So he worked with Tim Roth on several of them.
Guest:The last one was Sundown, which was great.
Guest:Tim Roth and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Guest:But, you know, After Lucia was, I think, his first movie that I ever saw.
Guest:His films typically have endings that make you throw something at the screen.
Marc:This one didn't?
Guest:No, it could have.
Marc:Of course it could have.
Marc:But like, oddly, it turns out to be a love story in the last beat in a way.
Guest:I had the ending for him that was the Michel Franco ending.
Guest:I kept saying, you sure you don't want to just do this ending?
Guest:Burn it down?
Marc:No.
Marc:What would that ending have been?
Guest:Maybe if I introduced myself.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:I'm Saul.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:I thought the ending was kind of sweet because it's a relentless movie.
Guest:It's a relentless movie.
Guest:I thought we kind of needed that ending in the end, and it made the most sense.
Guest:You know, the thing about this love story is these two people are together because no one else will have them.
Guest:I mean, on some level, right?
Guest:I mean, not many people want to get with a guy who's... And they don't have themselves either in some way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's a woman who's had this trauma in her past, right?
Guest:She's a traumatized person.
Guest:The thing about traumatized people is...
Guest:They suffer the trauma, and then they suffer the way other people treat them constantly.
Guest:People treat them like trauma victims.
Marc:Or if they don't know they're trauma victims, you know, if you're a traumatized person or broken in a certain way and your emotional needs are—
Marc:that you attract something.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Marc:So it's not even a matter of whether people know or not, that I think if you really go to the core of all this stuff, family trauma or childhood trauma, that because you're, I don't want to say broken, but hobbled in a certain way, you're a magnet for people who are hobbled in the symbiotic way that matches that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And so I am that perfect symbiotic match because I can't remember the trauma that she tells me.
Guest:You know, there's that scene where I say, can I write that down?
Guest:She says, yes.
Guest:The thing about a lot of these people with early onset dementia that I talk to, I said, do you just write things down?
Guest:They go, yeah, but then I don't look at what I wrote down.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So the decision—now, because—and I don't want to spoil the movie, but I think that people should see the movie because this is one of those kind of movies that's heavy and that people may or may not see because of their trauma.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, people don't like to feel bad or think about anything when they go to the movies.
Guest:But the thing about this one is I actually think most people come out of the movie—
Marc:emotional right yeah definitely the audiences are emotional but they're not like in despair there's something about the movie that just takes off right at the last moment as you say well i think all the way through it i think once you adjust to the idea that you're dealing with somebody with dementia too young or early onset which i don't know that a lot of people experience but certainly most people experience dementia now yeah
Marc:Most people have somebody in their family that has it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or have been through it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that because I was thinking about the other movies that really deal with it.
Marc:There was that still Alice movie.
Marc:And then that the father.
Marc:That was crazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they're all further along.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And same.
Marc:And the other one was away from her.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, still, Alice is not that further along.
Marc:I mean, Julianne Moore is not his early.
Guest:I saw that one.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's the moment, too, of like.
Guest:So my my uncle had CTE.
Guest:He played football and he boxed.
Guest:And so he had a version of dementia that obviously comes from plaque on the brain.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, there's that those years right before you're diagnosed with dementia.
Guest:When you have dementia, you just don't have the diagnosis where everyone's going like, what's your problem?
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:I worry about that.
Marc:My dad's got dementia now, but he's 85.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then I'm sort of like, is it coming?
Marc:What did I eat for breakfast?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What happened yesterday?
Guest:Many of us are in cognitive decline.
Guest:Period.
Guest:After a certain age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, chess players, there are no champions of the world that are in their 60s.
Marc:What about the ones that were champions?
Marc:Can they still nail it?
Guest:They can still play, but like, weirdly, it is like a young person's thing.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because I noticed, did you ever watch that Glen Campbell doc?
Marc:It's a weird doc.
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, he had dementia, Glen Campbell, the guitar player, country music guy.
Marc:No, I'm not.
Marc:Great guitar player.
Marc:And...
Marc:And, like, he was pretty deep into dementia, but his wife let him keep working because it connected him to it.
Marc:He could still do the thing.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Of course he could.
Guest:I'm sure he could do it for a very long time into having dementia.
Marc:But the most touching thing about it was –
Marc:When the audience reacted, like he couldn't identify the feeling of getting that kind of love.
Marc:And so he would scratch the back of his neck because it would tingle when they would like applaud.
Marc:But he didn't react.
Guest:He didn't know what the tingle was.
Right.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:It was so sad but beautiful.
Guest:That's amazing.
Guest:There's actually a piano in the movie that's in my character's apartment because he doesn't do any production design.
Guest:He just walks in and goes, okay, cool.
Guest:Let's move the water rower.
Guest:Yeah, there's no production design.
Marc:He just gets a location and says, this is okay?
Guest:We're moving in.
Guest:This is your place.
Guest:And a single guy lived there whose wife had passed away.
Guest:In Brooklyn.
Guest:And she was a redhead.
Guest:And she's actually in the photo album that she's going through.
Guest:And there's an implication that that was my wife.
Guest:We used his deceased wife.
Guest:Well, that was my wife.
Marc:That was the amazing thing about the movie in terms of, I don't know, like, because by the end, you know, I don't.
Marc:Well, it's about memory, right?
Marc:So how did you when you were thinking about did you were you guilty of what she accused you of?
Guest:Oh, I don't think so.
Guest:Yeah, me neither.
Guest:No.
Guest:But I think, you know, the beauty in the movie is that we have the actress Merit Weaver who comes in and says that thing.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's always great.
Guest:Always great.
Guest:And she does this thing where she says, no, phone calls, yearbooks, it's not him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she does that in such a way that I think it really slams the door on it.
Guest:I did, too.
Marc:I did, too, because there is a lot of...
Marc:Odd suspense to the movie.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But it's all driven by the emotions of these damaged people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he makes films in a way that you kind of couldn't, you know, just from the screenplay, imagine the movie.
Guest:Like when I got the screenplay, he calls it, he says in Spanish, the word means guide.
Guest:So we didn't really improvise.
Marc:The title of the film?
Guest:No, the word for script.
Guest:Oh, guide.
Guest:Oh, interesting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So he was always like, let's use it as a guide.
Guest:Jessica did a lot of protecting the writer from the director, she said.
Marc:Oh, so she wanted to stick by the words?
Guest:She was into the guide, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm somebody who's quite into mixing it up and seeing what three people come up with versus one guy writing in a room.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:So we did some of that.
Guest:But...
Guest:Yeah, I think there's only one truly improvised scene in the entire movie.
Marc:Which one?
Guest:The one where we're putting away dishes and I talk about my wife playing the Hammond organ or wanting a Hammond organ.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that one.
Marc:So you spent time with people with early onset?
Guest:Yeah, the way I did it was, you know, it's weird when you're playing an actor and you're going, oh, I have early onset dementia.
Guest:Let's go hang out with some people who have early onset dementia and I will sit and study your affliction.
Guest:You know, like that's... You don't usually do that?
Guest:No, I actually did that very early on.
Guest:I played a quadriplegic in this movie 30 years ago.
Guest:What movie?
Guest:It was called Freak City, me and Samantha Mathis.
Guest:And...
Guest:Natalie Cole and a bunch of people.
Guest:Anyway, and I hung out with this guy who was a full quadriplegic, and it was just like – it just felt strange.
Guest:It felt like a strange thing to do to me.
Guest:Uncomfortable?
Guest:Yeah, it just wasn't right.
Guest:I can't put my finger on it.
Guest:So I talked to this doctor, and I said –
Guest:Well, do you have any dementia patients that would just like to chat with me on the phone?
Guest:It felt a little more anonymous and nice.
Guest:I said, I think I can get everything I need over the phone.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I actually struck up a relationship with this one guy where I would call him every week and we would chat and he would remember that it was me.
Guest:He – things would have happened.
Guest:He drove.
Guest:He was still able to drive and stuff.
Guest:And you could barely detect that he had dementia a lot of the time.
Guest:And then suddenly he would say something or do something where just the whole bottom would drop out and be like, oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, but it wasn't like a constant thing.
Guest:And I didn't want the character to be Mr. Dementia just as like, you know, you get asked, what was the part you last played?
Guest:Oh, I played a schizophrenic.
Guest:No, you played Bob who had schizophrenia.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I didn't want the condition to be the person.
Guest:I wanted the condition to be the obstacle.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right?
Marc:Well, that's right because that's one thing I'm noticing with my father and now my mom's partner who's starting to slip is that –
Marc:You know, old memories kind of stick around and pride, it seems.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like the stubbornness of not wanting to acknowledge or being in denial about the condition.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I can—well, because—
Guest:You're preserving your autonomy, you know?
Guest:I mean, the way that other people act around you when you're diagnosed with dementia is going to determine your experience with it.
Guest:You know, some people would be like, well, that's it.
Guest:Let's look for homes to put you in.
Guest:Or other people could be like, let's figure out, like—
Guest:How are you driving?
Guest:Do I need to put the GPS thing for you so you can easily operate?
Guest:Should you not drive?
Guest:There's that question.
Marc:There is that question.
Marc:I just saw this Instagram reel.
Marc:Did you see that?
Marc:I don't know how much you get involved with your phone.
Marc:Every once in a while something comes up and it's all very moving to me.
Marc:You know, animal stuff.
Marc:You know, interspecies animal support kills me.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:It just kills me.
Marc:It's sort of like they know.
Marc:They've always known.
Marc:The animals know.
Marc:They're in crisis too.
Marc:And look, they're fucking helping each other.
Marc:I watched a shark deliver a sea turtle to a fucking fishing boat.
Marc:It's like, you know, they know what's going on.
Guest:Well, look, we have the Bonobo monkey in us, right?
Guest:The Bonobo monkey, they say, is one of the most empathetic critters out there.
Guest:And then we've also got the chimpanzee who enjoys killing things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:We're both.
Marc:But I just like when you see a chimp and a kitten, like there's just the frequency of life at different ages and in crisis.
Marc:Like if you don't generally eat that thing and it's in trouble and you've got a minute, maybe you'll help.
Marc:But this wasn't the video.
Marc:It was a guy with dementia on a plane who's losing his shit.
Marc:And it just seems like one of those random airplane – something happens to certain people on airplanes lately.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:But he's losing it and it's threatening and it's scary and it's in first class.
Marc:And his wife keeps saying, he has dementia.
Marc:And she starts singing, you are my sunshine.
Marc:And she's like, this will work.
Marc:Everyone.
Marc:And they did.
Marc:Everyone?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And he calmed down.
Guest:Is that the greatest thing?
Guest:That is beautiful.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:I love unison.
Guest:I love, you know, acts of unison.
Guest:That's like... I can't handle it.
Guest:That's why I like sports.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:When you would get, like, 11 people acting in unison toward one goal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, that's... You know, we have a habit in sports of, like, going, oh, it's all... It's Jordan.
Guest:No, it's the Bulls, baby.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's out on the corner.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like...
Guest:I've always been really into soccer in particular.
Guest:And for me, it's Ronaldinho videos online that I watch all the time, who was the sort of artist of soccer of the last, you know, years.
Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, the collaboration and the teamwork.
Marc:I never was I never gravitated towards sports.
Marc:But and I find that acts of unison, no matter what they are, just, you know, make me weep.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fucking ridiculous.
Marc:Like if I see a musical, I'm not even a musical guy, but like within three minutes, I'm like, oh my God, they're all singing.
Guest:I'm made to watch a lot of musicals.
Guest:You're made to?
Guest:Oh, you like them?
Guest:Well, no, my family, my kids and my wife are just all about musicals.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Like I'm actually listening to Barbra Streisand read from her book right now, which is a, I don't know anything about Barbra Streisand except what I'm hearing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they said, oh, you have to watch Funny Girl with us.
Guest:I go to watch Funny Girl.
Guest:I mean, she's the pipes are unbelievable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's funny.
Guest:And she's funny.
Guest:She's she's way off.
Guest:I didn't realize how what a goofball she is.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, it's generational.
Marc:I mean, she's you know, I barely I mean, by the time she's my parents for generation.
Marc:Everyone loved Barbara.
Guest:She went to the same high school as my mother-in-law, Erasmus, with Bobby Fischer.
Guest:And, you know, it was like a deep Brooklyn Jewish school at that point.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:A really big school.
Marc:Was that Barry Manilow as well?
Marc:Probably.
Marc:Like there's all those people.
Marc:I think that was a story when I was growing up that my grandmother's generation or my mother's day, everyone knew somebody who knew Barbra Streisand or went to school with her.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Well, Barbra Streisand got around town.
Guest:Even in her teens, she was everywhere.
Marc:Well, when did you start acting?
Marc:What were you, like 10?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I didn't really start acting until I was maybe 20 in college.
Guest:I actually had been in college for a while, and I'm a terrible student.
Guest:And I just wound up in an acting class because I'd injured myself playing sports.
Marc:And you were a soccer guy?
Marc:And you said your grandfather was a pro?
Guest:My uncle played center for LSU.
Guest:And then he had a career-ending special teams play.
Guest:Everything bad happens on special teams plays.
Marc:What is that, special teams play?
Guest:That's like kickoff returns, punt returns, where the entire team just runs at each other top speed with one guy as the ball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had a compound fracture on his leg that was just absolute.
Guest:And soccer.
Guest:No, that was football.
Guest:Oh, real football.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then soccer.
Marc:I just said no.
Marc:I didn't mean that.
Marc:I mean American football.
Guest:And then the boxing probably didn't help.
Guest:And then he was a fireman.
Guest:And, you know, he did all kinds of things.
Guest:Heavy stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I do have relatives that have played professionally for the 49ers, Tim Long.
Guest:And then I have other relatives that played for Georgia.
Guest:I mean, it's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like a bunch of sports people.
Guest:I'm the smallest person in my family.
Guest:Where'd you grow up?
Guest:I'm from St.
Guest:Louis, really.
Guest:St.
Guest:Louis?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was just there.
Guest:Were you really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where were you doing St.
Guest:Louis?
Guest:I did a comedy club.
Guest:In University City, I bet.
Marc:It was over, yeah, yeah, I think so.
Marc:It's sort of in a mall, kind of, by Whole Foods.
Guest:Oh, no.
Marc:There's a Chinese restaurant there.
Guest:That doesn't sound like my St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:I'm just trying to, no.
Guest:That sounds like every place USA.
Marc:Well, that happens on the outskirts of most places USA.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that was the thing that was always really cool about St.
Guest:Louis that I liked, you know, that I would come back and it was the same.
Marc:I like those small cities.
Marc:The more I travel around, like there is something about these cities that try to sort of adjust because they all get kind of abandoned, you know, with –
Marc:People leaving the downtown area, right?
Marc:So there's all these great American cities that are not really functioning as cities anymore.
Marc:And eventually, you know, some new generation of gentrifiers, you know, comes in and tries to make it vital again.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, in St.
Guest:Louis, there are all these houses from the 1904 World's Fair that are like...
Guest:A nickel.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:Like a nickel.
Marc:But like it's one of those places where it obviously had its own thing, its own charm, and it seems OK other than it's surrounded by Missouri.
Marc:The problem with it, because I talk a lot about certain types of politics, but the ideas of blue cities in these literally fascist states, I mean, all they're holding on to is that they're being allowed to exist because the economy requires...
Marc:The influx of money from these blue cities.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:Well, St.
Guest:Louis has the little problem or race issue that is still going on, obviously –
Guest:Horrible problem.
Guest:Horrible problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:East St.
Guest:Louis is still a place that people, you know, when I was growing up, people would be like, oh, don't go to East St.
Guest:Louis.
Guest:Don't, you know, accidentally get off the highway and pay for anything there that would give their community money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Buy, fill up your car with gas there or do anything there.
Guest:And of course, that perpetuates the whole fucking thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But growing up there, it was okay.
Yeah.
Guest:St.
Guest:Louis?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it was great.
Guest:I mean, I lived there until I was 10.
Guest:Then I lived in Oklahoma City.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And Oklahoma City was – I've been there.
Guest:Still in the boom.
Guest:So we had DeLoreans.
Guest:So you had like Native American people predominantly where it was –
Guest:The level of the disparity with what was going on in the reservation, the Osage reservation there and the DeLoreans that were happening.
Guest:DeLoreans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember DeLoreans everywhere.
Marc:Elon Musk just made a DeLorean.
Marc:He did?
Marc:Basically.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The truck?
Guest:Yeah.
Exactly.
Marc:I looked at him like, this didn't work once.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Sometimes I wonder if all those people are just stoned, you know.
Marc:He's on a spectrum of problems, and I believe on the spectrum.
Marc:So, you know, there's a lot of— A lot of very successful, wealthy people are on the spectrum.
Marc:Well, that's interesting because the character you played in memory is the opposite of that because he's sort of moving on.
Marc:All he has is emotions.
Yeah.
Guest:All I have are emotions and all I have is the current moment.
Guest:It is like a complete gift to an actor to play a part like this because, you know, this whole idea of like where I'm coming from and where I'm going and all that, that we all get caught up in.
Guest:Yeah, your choices.
Guest:Your choices.
Guest:There's no choices.
Guest:You're just like – In a moment.
Guest:Yeah, like the ball is getting hit to you and you fucking – you hit it back.
Marc:So what's – like I've talked to Chastain.
Marc:She's kind of amazing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:She's like fucking amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But she's very different than I am.
Guest:As an actor?
Guest:Yeah, just on a basic level.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, she's like somebody who gets freedom as an actor from order.
Guest:From control.
Guest:Right, like she creates a situation for her that works.
Guest:That's so funny, yeah.
Guest:And then that gives her freedom.
Guest:For me, I'm just Mr. 52 card pickup every time.
Marc:So every take's a little different.
Guest:Always.
Guest:Even when I played – I ended up playing Hamlet mostly because my acting teacher at the time, Penny Allen, a very famous acting teacher.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Her husband had just died.
Guest:She hadn't acted for a long time and she wanted to play the mother.
Guest:So she said, well, you play Hamlet.
Guest:And I ended up playing Hamlet kind of in a backwards way like that.
Guest:And –
Guest:The only way I could figure out how to do it was to explore it every night because by the time opening night happened, I was like just scratching the surface of the play.
Guest:So I thought – You got the language.
Guest:Yeah, the language.
Guest:I'm somebody who can do something like that.
Guest:But like the meaning – Right.
Marc:You were just scratching the surface.
Guest:I was just scratching the surface.
Guest:So every night I would like try different entrances, different exits.
Guest:I would try entirely different things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And because I thought at the very least we'll have spontaneity in life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't know any of the answers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, a lot of the meaning in Shakespeare comes from the rhythm, you know.
Guest:And I actually think that...
Guest:We communicate very little verbally, in my opinion.
Guest:I think that so much of what you and I are communicating right now, so much of what we're communicating with other people is a different thing.
Guest:And so I don't – I pretty much follow what Shakespeare is giving me because I think he wrote it.
Guest:It's complicated and it must help if I go da-da-da-da-da.
Guest:And does it?
Guest:Sometimes.
Guest:And sometimes you're still just lost.
Guest:But, you know, it was written a long time ago.
Marc:Well, Hamlet's a pretty tormented guy, so.
Guest:Yeah, that's the bummer.
Guest:I saw this guy do it recently.
Guest:Actor who's in White Noise.
Guest:He's phenomenal.
Guest:Adam Driver?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:German, I believe, actor who's in that movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I saw him do it at BAM.
Guest:I like that movie.
Guest:Yeah, I like that movie.
Yeah.
Guest:He blew the thing.
Guest:I was like, oh, that's what it is.
Marc:And this is after you did it?
Guest:Oh, it was years after I did it.
Guest:I went like, I see.
Guest:I see.
Guest:I didn't need to be like shuffling around.
Guest:It's not good that way.
Marc:He's a confident existentially tormented.
Guest:Oh, this guy was like boisterously.
Guest:He was boisterous.
Guest:He was like the kind of guy who's, you know.
Guest:The polite dinner does the thing that you're not supposed to, which is what Hamlet is.
Guest:That's why he's interesting.
Guest:We like those characters that flip the table and go, this isn't right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you were going inside.
Guest:I went the other way.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm an only child.
Marc:Are you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's funny what you say about the different types of actors because I dealt with that for three seasons on Glow with Betty Gilpin and Alison Brie.
Marc:Do you know Gilpin?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You don't know what the fuck she's going to be.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And it's kind of amazing.
Marc:But Allison was very controlled, made her choices.
Marc:Good, but like totally different schools.
Marc:You need both.
Guest:You need both.
Guest:It's like, you know, God, people sometimes ask me who I would like to have acted with in the past.
Guest:And I always say Ruth Gordon.
Guest:Wow, that's great.
Guest:Because I feel like she and I would have made a mess out of a scene together.
Guest:It would have been like – It would have been fun, right?
Guest:It would have been really fun.
Guest:Who knows what it would have become?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And maybe we would have needed a concrete sequential actor around to keep us –
Guest:You know, somewhat tethered to the project at hand.
Guest:But I mean, you watch her now even.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, and a great writer nominated for writing.
Guest:Adam's rib.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a late actor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Didn't act until she was older.
Marc:Yeah, I'm trying to think of that.
Marc:Well, I mean, everyone knows Harold and Maude.
Marc:I'm just trying to—because she was very present for a while.
Guest:I think the movie I saw her in yesterday was My Bodyguard.
Guest:Do you remember that movie?
Guest:Sure, sure, with Matt Dillon.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was the bully.
Guest:He was the bully.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That movie is really great.
Guest:That's one of my faves from growing up.
Marc:Why'd you watch it, you kid?
Marc:The 11-year-old?
Guest:Yeah, I was like—I kind of wait—
Guest:with my kids when i can watch like one of you know like breaking away is another one where i'm like when are we going to watch breaking away did you did they like it they hold they love it oh yeah those movies are built on it's it's because they're built on ideas that everybody knows you know underdogs underdog hires the bully that the tough guy to guard against the bully then he has to fight his own fight at the end yeah yeah yeah dylan matt dylan you ever work with him no no
Marc:That would be kind of interesting.
Guest:I worked out next to him once and said hello.
Marc:That's kind of like working out.
Guest:You know, I have that going on with Mike Shannon right now where there's a YMCA in Brooklyn.
Guest:And I've started being able to exercise again recently after two years of herniated disc.
Guest:And so I've been like really working out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I look over and I'll see Mike who's also just like totally focused on working out.
Guest:And we are doing it parallel play style.
Guest:Like there's no interaction.
Yeah.
Guest:We know each other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like, you know, working out is like using the toilet.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's a big guy.
Guest:He's a big guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he just worked with Jessica.
Marc:They did pretty good.
Marc:That was a pretty amazing bit of work.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And he's doing Waiting for Godot right now, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He's, I mean, I couldn't believe they were singing in the George and Tammy.
Guest:That's them.
Guest:I know.
Marc:But she's like, he's good in that, but she's like insanely good.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I mean, like, to do that, the changing ages and shit?
Guest:No.
Guest:And, like, it's crazy.
Guest:No, no, no, I know.
Guest:And I grew up with her on the radio.
Marc:Well, Oklahoma.
Marc:How did your family get to Oklahoma?
Guest:Well, no, that was IBM at that point.
Guest:My dad went Air Force, Monsanto.
Guest:IBM, and all of those places move you.
Guest:And my parents are—my dad's from Mississippi and my mother's from Memphis.
Marc:Wow, real southern stuff.
Guest:Yeah, and so a lot of my relatives were Memphis-focused when I was a kid.
Guest:And then it became Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the little Switzerland of the Ozarks.
Guest:You went there?
Guest:Yeah, my Aunt Mary lived there.
Guest:And I kind of went all around.
Guest:And then I wound up in Connecticut for high school where... Like a prep school?
Guest:All boys, not like a fancy one.
Guest:All boys Jesuit school.
Guest:And I was definitely countrified when I arrived.
Marc:Well, you don't have any accent.
Guest:I don't have any accent.
Guest:I think that I had one, yeah.
Guest:I think I had one at one point.
Guest:Now...
Guest:When I get asked to play Southern, I can hear that it's wrong.
Guest:I know it well enough to be like, nope, I'm not doing it.
Guest:And I've done it...
Guest:like maybe probably three or four times you know but uh i just did it in a comedy which felt all right which one it's this comedy called coup that also went to venice yeah um but uh again it's like if you if you grew up around something like that it's just like it's very difficult to do my parents have real southern accents you know and it's you know it's a it's a weird thing
Marc:Because in Black Mask, you were lucky.
Marc:You didn't have to be from Boston.
Marc:But all those guys did a pretty good job.
Guest:They did a pretty good job.
Marc:I mean, Depp's Boston was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It wasn't a joke.
Marc:And the other guys, they did good, too.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That one, I'm...
Guest:No, you're just like – I'm like, no, thanks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think that I have a pretty Midwestern accent.
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:You sound uniquely like yourself.
Marc:Maybe it's a phrasing thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know who I first played – I played Malkovich's son when I was –
Guest:Like, second movie.
Guest:What movie was that?
Guest:Man in the Iron Mask.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And L'homme Masque de Fer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said to me, you know why they cast you, right?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:I mean, I went through this audition process.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:It's because you sound like me.
Yeah.
Guest:I was like, oh, great.
Guest:I mean, I, for a while, in my own head even, I was like, oh, shit, am I just sounding like Malkovich?
Guest:He's from southern Illinois, which is actually where I was born, so maybe it's on the water.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:But he's so, he's wild.
Guest:Was he nice to you?
Guest:He was nice to me.
Guest:He's quite a sophisticated guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, like, I don't know...
Guest:I'm somebody who appreciates art, but I don't know the names of everything.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I saw him in Burn This.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:I did Burn This.
Guest:You did it?
Guest:I did Burn This.
Guest:That part?
Guest:The angry part?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That must be good.
Guest:Good fun.
Guest:Goddamn this fucking place.
Guest:How can anybody live in this shit city?
Guest:I'm not doing it.
Guest:It has the longest expletive-laden thing about trying to park in New York.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, he was good in that.
Marc:But lately, usually what I say about Malkovich is...
Marc:Anytime you see him in the movie, a movie, there's the movie that he's an actor, a hired actor, then the movie he's in.
Marc:Anytime there's a movie going on and Malkovich is involved, he's in the Malkovich movie.
Guest:He's got a very strong gravitational pull.
Guest:He does, man.
Guest:Right?
Guest:He really does.
Guest:He's like...
Guest:And it's not even about acting, right?
Guest:It's just like if he walked into this room right now, the temperature would change.
Guest:That's just what he does.
Guest:The intensity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We actually, this is a funny story.
Guest:I was filming in Paris.
Guest:It's like this, I'm young and getting to live there.
Guest:And my girlfriend comes and she's tiny.
Guest:And he said, you want to play basketball?
Guest:Me and Russ, his producing partner.
Guest:I said, oh, yeah, sure.
Guest:We go out.
Guest:You know, I don't really play basketball.
Guest:My girlfriend's tiny.
Guest:And they are just relentless.
Guest:They're playing like they're playing against people who know how to play.
Guest:They're boxing her out.
Guest:They're knocking her to the ground and stuff.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:You're not that kind of sportsman?
Guest:I actually, my problem with being a sportsman when I was really into soccer is I didn't really care about winning.
Guest:I mean, not in a way where I was like being nice.
Guest:It just was kind of meaningless to me.
Marc:Was it meaningless?
Marc:Is that a real feeling or is that like a... I think it's a real feeling.
Guest:I think I'm like into aesthetics.
Guest:And so I wanted it to look good.
Guest:So if we won two to nothing and the ball was like an own goal and a shot the goalie should have saved, I don't care.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I want it to, if it all looked really good.
Guest:That's good?
Guest:That's what I want.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because I don't think of myself as competitive, but I think it's a lie.
Yeah.
Guest:You think it's a lie?
Guest:Well, I'm like that maybe about awards.
Guest:When people ask me about winning these awards and stuff, it's like there is, of course, a large part of you that is just like, I want the thing.
Guest:It's like human nature.
Guest:It could be anything.
Guest:And many of these awards are not attractive objects.
Marc:No, it doesn't matter the thing.
Guest:My Volpe cup has started to fall apart.
Guest:What'd you get that for?
Guest:I won Best Actor of Venice.
Guest:And like the plaque.
Guest:For which movie?
Guest:For Memory.
Guest:Oh, just now?
Guest:Just now.
Guest:Won Best Actor for it.
Guest:The plaque that says my name on it slid off the front and fell to the floor.
Guest:Garbage.
Yeah.
Guest:Willem Dafoe told me it was going to gradually turn black and I should overspray it.
Marc:That's a nice detail about Dafoe, that he's polishing his fucking awards.
Guest:Sorry, Willem, I didn't mean to out you, but he did.
Marc:He's on top of that shit.
Guest:It's like, let me tell you something about the Volpe.
Guest:You're going to need to do some overspray.
Yes.
Marc:I think my competitiveness, like with awards, I've just surrendered now to believing or trying to believe that I'm just not going to win anything.
Guest:Right, which makes you special.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I'm the one that's bucking the system of appreciation.
Marc:You're cardamom in a world of salt.
Guest:Everyone else is just salt.
Marc:I got honored at some organization that does grief counseling.
Marc:And it was like just this general award for grieving publicly.
Marc:And I'm like, well, this is kind of a lifetime achievement award.
Marc:I think as a comic, that's what I've been doing.
Marc:Public sadness.
Marc:This is really my lifetime achievement award.
Guest:Well, that's the thing about humor, right?
Guest:It exists a lot of times in those places that are a little dangerous and uncomfortable.
Guest:And I really don't know how people do funny in the world the way it is right now.
Guest:You know?
Marc:Well...
Marc:There seems to be a few things going on in terms of, like, I don't know.
Marc:It seems in a polarized country, there are people that are operating in this world of, you know, pseudo grievance around speech that, you know, the risks that are being taken there aren't really worthy of much attention.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:But...
Marc:For me, just as a guy who's trying to create new stuff, it seems to be that the real risk is some type of common vulnerability.
Marc:I mean, it seems like that's what's getting lost.
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the risk, oddly, sadly, the real risk is to be open.
Right.
Marc:in a genuine way.
Marc:That's what it comes... I mean, funny is funny, but I mean, if you can go to a place or find a place that people are isolated in their own experience with, but it is a common thing, then that has a power to it.
Guest:Yeah, and I actually think in memory, when I saw... It's the same thing.
Guest:Yeah, there's the laughter of recognition throughout the film.
Guest:Oh, totally.
Marc:Yeah, I talk about my dad's dementia as being... Like I say, my dad was recently diagnosed...
Marc:with dementia, but you know, so it's still fun.
Marc:Because something happens.
Marc:A vulnerability happens to people in that condition.
Guest:Oh, it's beautiful.
Guest:That's actually what I gave this character more than anything, which is what I kept encountering was there's something really lovely about somebody who says, I need help.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and it's just immediately it's it's there's almost no one that won't just kind of step in and go, yeah, you asked for it.
Guest:It's the people that, like, need help but express it in other ways, right?
Guest:Like they actually treat you like shit because they need help.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's that pride thing.
Guest:That's that pride thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, no, I think that that's something that I really loved about playing this guy is he's just like – you know, I love the line where he just says, like, I remember I'm having a hard time.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Like, right, like in the 11th hour, the guy finally says, you know, I'm having a hard time.
Marc:Yeah, because it becomes undeniable.
Marc:It becomes undeniable.
Marc:Yeah, there are certain moments in that movie that are just, they just must have been crazy to play.
Marc:Like when she accuses you at the beginning and you had to just flatline it.
Marc:Like, no, I don't.
Guest:Yeah, but in the end, somebody's like, and no, and you did this.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:That's interesting.
Guest:There's no way out of it, I guess, other than to say yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And now, okay.
Marc:And then it goes away.
Marc:See, that's the weird thing about someone when you deal with a parent or somebody who has it and you have a history with them that may or may not be good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If you have issues with your parents at a certain age, it behooves you to process them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because if you come upon the time where they start to lose the capacity for taking responsibility, which they might not anyways because it's on you after a certain point.
Marc:You're not going to change them.
Marc:Then what do you do with a parent who's sort of like, yeah, I don't remember that.
Oh, my God.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So your big fight for justice.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:Yeah, it's totally over.
Guest:It's just over.
Guest:Well, you know.
Guest:Your folks still alive?
Guest:My folks are still alive.
Guest:I don't know if I'm still fighting for justice.
Guest:But, yeah, my folks are still alive.
Guest:But I changed my name slightly when I was 21.
Marc:So you wouldn't be confused with the large Sarsgaard acting family?
Guest:I didn't take out a K, but I changed my name.
Guest:And it's actually slightly different than my parents.
Guest:How many versions of Sarsgaard are there?
Guest:There's a lot of versions of Sarsgaard because, you know, it was changed when people came over here anyway.
Guest:Is it Swedish?
Guest:It's Danish.
Guest:Danish, yeah.
Guest:So they spell it a different way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's made it so that they're really not in my world of acting at all.
Guest:Like some people have their parents come to premieres and things like that.
Guest:My parents don't do that.
Guest:My parents are from... My dad is from a town that is called West Point, Mississippi.
Guest:It's on the border with Alabama.
Guest:Oh, the good part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:While he is always...
Guest:traveled all over the place.
Guest:My dad is a very cultured person.
Guest:He talks about the first time he ever tried German beer and stuff like that.
Guest:I mean, he woke up to the bigger world, this guy.
Marc:Well, it sounds like he was a corporate executive, right?
Guest:Yeah, of some kind.
Guest:I don't know exactly what he did, to be honest.
Guest:But then I do think that there's always the small town guy in him.
Guest:And actually, that's part of my dad that I really like.
Guest:And I don't think he wants to be a part of anything bigger or, you know?
Guest:And you're an only child?
Guest:I'm an only child, yeah.
Guest:So does that – I don't even – like I always get kind of – That just means you can't turn to someone and be like, are mom and dad as crazy as I think they are?
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's all – you're just tripping on your own perceptions because you have no one to back them up either way.
Marc:But they provided – they were grounded people?
Guest:No.
Guest:But –
Guest:We don't need to get into that.
Guest:They were definitely not grounded people.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:Because you seem kind of.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:Grounded?
Guest:I think because I'm somebody who's, I think of myself as somebody who's good in an emergency.
Guest:Let's put it that way.
Guest:But I'm also someone who creates.
Guest:Your whole life.
Guest:Yeah, but I'm also somebody who creates emergencies so I can be good in an emergency.
Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Like I took my kids cross-country skiing in Vermont.
Guest:We have a little place in the woods.
Guest:It's like a shack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we live in the National Forest.
Guest:So there's a gate, you know, that you can't drive through.
Guest:I parked near that gate.
Guest:It's in the middle of nowhere.
Guest:We're going to go cross-country skiing.
Guest:We go.
Guest:I time it so that when we get back, the sun is going down.
Guest:The temperature is about to drop 20 degrees and go well below zero.
Guest:Go to the truck.
Guest:Locked the keys in the car.
Guest:We're in the middle of nowhere.
Guest:We've been skiing for hours.
Guest:These are small children.
Guest:They're exhausted.
Guest:I'm a little bit like Captain Fantastic, the Miguel Mortensen character with my kids.
Guest:So I was like, all right, well, we're going to ski for another couple of hours until we get to Tom's house.
Guest:And no one's going to stop because we're not going to die of hypothermia.
Guest:And you can cry, but you're just going to keep moving.
Guest:I mean, like, why?
Guest:Why, Dad?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did they do it?
Guest:They did it.
Guest:They did it.
Guest:But we came up to this guy, Tom's Place, who's a lovely guy out there.
Guest:But a hermit.
Guest:Knock on the door.
Guest:He's like, you know, said, I need to borrow your car to drive back home to get my other set.
Guest:He's like, just take the car.
Guest:You know, I kept his car.
Marc:But isn't that moment weird where you realize, like, there's more at stake than inconvenience?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was actually, like... Terrified.
Guest:Yeah, but I...
Guest:I just click into a different mode.
Guest:My family knows that I'm, for some reason, frequently a first responder to bicycle accidents in Brooklyn, of which we have so many.
Guest:People texting and hitting people?
Guest:I saw a guy die in Brooklyn.
Guest:I was the first responder there.
Guest:I put my coat over somebody that died.
Guest:I saw a guy, a fireman, smoking a joint, riding his bike.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:That guy is smoking a joint while riding his bike down a very – boom.
Guest:No.
Guest:Goes off the bike, massive head injury.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I don't know why.
Marc:Are you listed as a first responder for specifically bike accidents or are you just there?
Guest:I only know what to do from a little bit of Boy Scouts.
Yeah.
Marc:But why does it happen with bike accidents?
Marc:And you just happen to be around?
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:I don't look at my phone very much when I'm walking around.
Guest:Everybody else is texting.
Guest:I don't think people are looking at each other.
Guest:So maybe my head is up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that might be it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:You know, I think a lot of people are like Mr. Magoo in the world these days.
Guest:And there's just like...
Guest:all sorts of crazy shit happening behind them that they're not even aware of.
Marc:It's a little odd that when you start to think about, you know, perception and, you know, how easily the brain is hijacked almost completely by these devices.
Guest:Oh, I think we're in real, I mean,
Guest:I living in New York and just looking at the subway.
Guest:It's so sad.
Guest:There's nobody looking at each other.
Guest:What are we doing?
Marc:But that's a type of isolation.
Marc:I think that it has to be kind of reframed like that.
Marc:That if you're sitting among people, you know, in that in the phone, you're isolated.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a very odd thing.
Marc:There's some sort of major transition happening in a lot of ways right now, I think.
Guest:Well, I think in terms of movies, also people go like, oh, you know, memory is kind of like a movie geared toward adult viewers, not teens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So why aren't you guys on streaming first?
Guest:And I'm like, partly because even an adult, if this were streaming in their home, would be multitasking on their phone and
Guest:Which you can't do with this.
Guest:And there's the group experience of all, like I said before, unison.
Guest:I've been going to a lot of movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lately.
Guest:It's beautiful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's so beautiful.
Guest:And I was really glad that they made the choice to do that with this film because this one certainly could have been...
Guest:I think people might have made more money had we just gone to streaming.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I think it seems like it's kind of a little bit vital again.
Marc:I don't know if it's, you know, bouncing back necessarily, but I think we're in sort of a situation in terms of people's need for escape that is –
Marc:It's big.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, like, I've been going to see a lot of films lately, and it's a good experience.
Marc:I like IMAX a lot.
Guest:I'm really, really into IMAX.
Guest:I mean, it's so intense.
Marc:But it's really—that's how big movies were when we were kids.
Guest:Yeah, it's an event.
Marc:But all movies were that big a screen.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:You know, it's not really – it's not some sort of amusement park ride other than the sound.
Marc:But the screens are actually the size it was when movie theaters were one theater.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, to me, it's sort of like this is the way you're supposed to see them.
Guest:Well, you talk about – there's a theater in St.
Guest:Louis in University City where I saw so many movies.
Guest:And it's like where I saw Bad Lieutenant.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:You want to see that big?
Marc:Just him sitting there jerking off outside the car.
Yeah.
Guest:I like it when he's in the church.
Guest:Actually, my acting teacher is holding his hand in the scene in the church where he's kind of making that crazy noise.
Guest:He's going like.
Guest:But I think of like.
Guest:all the films that i saw in that movie theater including including crazy ones like that and it was like a big old school yeah theater yeah you know great i love it saw nine to five there in the corner looking up at a crazy angle yeah big dolly parton yeah huge yeah i just went to see uh what did we see i saw that new nicholas cage movie dream scenario
Guest:Oh, I'm curious about that.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It speaks to some of what we're talking about in terms of losing control.
Marc:Like when something goes viral, it's really a satire about that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And the conceit is this schlubby college professor just for no reason that anyone can understand starts showing up in half the world's dreams.
Right.
Guest:That's kind of cool.
Marc:It's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's good.
Guest:I wish I were sent the scripts that he sent.
Guest:I look at some of the stuff he does.
Guest:I'm like, where did this pig one come from?
Guest:That pig one was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've always really, really liked him.
Guest:You have to.
Guest:For me, my kids actually said, oh, here's another one.
Guest:My kids the other day said, what movie should we watch tonight?
Guest:And I was like, Moonstruck.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They'd never seen Moonstruck.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Come on.
Marc:They took my hand.
Guest:Or Birdie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Birdie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He turns around.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:I love, you know, maybe it's nostalgia, but some of those types of movies from then that were like, I guess a lot of them were like kind of studio movies.
Guest:They weren't like indie films.
Guest:They weren't quite indie.
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they were...
Guest:A movie for young people that is not pandering.
Guest:It gave them a little bit more respect.
Guest:Or shallow.
Guest:There wasn't just like a hook song in some product placement.
Marc:So what do you think about this idea of...
Marc:Your view of competition, because it seems like your career is deliberate in terms of what you do and what you don't do.
Guest:Oh, yeah, fully.
Guest:And I have a wife that works and has her own thing, and we work together.
Marc:Yeah, I thought that was good, that Lost Daughter movie.
Guest:And I'm going to be in her next one, which starts in March.
Guest:How's the part?
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, it's better than the other one.
Guest:I was like, wait, which part, honey?
Guest:No, and it's nice to have somebody who's so productive and creative and inspiring around all the time.
Guest:Because, you know, the thing about being an actor is, you know, you're just sort of like looking at other people's stuff all the time.
Guest:It's hard, I think.
Guest:It's hard to find something that really resonates with you.
Guest:And I can take my time a little bit more now because, you know, somebody else is...
Marc:Well, you're both working, but it doesn't seem like you – because I talked to Crudup too.
Marc:And there are decisions made about risking the failure of leading madness.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, that's for young people.
Guest:That's for – the thing about leading men that I really miss, and it's not because I'm – well, maybe it's also because I'm like this.
Guest:But like if Elliot Gould showed up today, he would not be considered a leading man.
Guest:Because he doesn't have a six-pack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, or like a certain haircut.
Guest:Or, you know, and I...
Guest:My type of leading man was, I guess, a little bit smushed, a little bit different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not just like a guy who's walking down the street where you're like, whoa.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I remember someone once told me, like, leading men don't apologize.
Guest:What?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Because I was saying, what is a leading man?
Guest:Doesn't apologize.
Guest:Everything comes to them.
Marc:Well, who are they?
Marc:Because some of them, and also there's movie star-ness, which is sometimes different than regular acting.
Right.
Guest:Well, movie star acting, the relationship between the actor and the audience is stronger than between the actor and the other actor.
Guest:Right?
Guest:But you think consciously when they're working?
Guest:I almost think consciously when they're working.
Guest:Like the type of actor that acts over your shoulder when they hug you into camera.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:That's not for you, right?
Guest:Like if acting is doing to another actor to try to get what you want, like we're working like that.
Guest:And then I hug you and the camera's over your shoulder and I'm like, I don't like this hug.
Guest:That's for the audience, right?
Guest:And there are a lot of actors that do that constantly, but extremely well.
Guest:And I actually, you know, that's some old school acting, right?
Guest:That's like lots of...
Guest:Clark Gables and people like that did it before where the relationship is like they're not winking at the audience.
Guest:They're speaking directly to the audience.
Marc:They know their movie star.
Marc:But there's a couple of movie stars that can.
Marc:It's really good when you see them actually do the job.
Marc:Because they can't avoid themselves.
Marc:I mean, that's why they are what they are.
Marc:But like Pitt and Clooney, they can do the job.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Actually, most of the guys now can.
Marc:Tom Cruise and Magnolia.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, like he can, but not thunder, but yeah, but not Tom Cruise and mission impossible because he's doing the different thing.
Guest:He, he's actually able to go like, I'll do this one.
Guest:I'll do that one, which is nice.
Marc:I think Tom Cruise is like, I think his great gift is when he has to, uh, you know, you know, focus on doing a thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, whether it's, you know, Mission Impossible style.
Marc:The Firm.
Marc:The Firm.
Marc:That's a great movie.
Guest:That is a great movie.
Guest:And actually, when I worked with Tom Cruise.
Guest:On what?
Guest:The Night, Night, Night something.
Guest:The Night and Day.
Guest:Night and Day.
Guest:That's a tough one, yeah.
Guest:I mentioned to him at one point, I said, you know, people love watching you run in a movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Right?
Guest:I said, I don't know that you've done that in this movie yet.
Guest:It might have been already scheduled, but like two days later, he was running behind a pickup truck with the car.
Marc:And that's why born on the 4th of July was such a tremendous risk for him.
Guest:Because he wasn't running.
Marc:He could not run.
Guest:Well, it's because the running and the firm is so – the movie is so high-octane, that movie.
Guest:It's just like they took law and made it like an action movie.
Guest:I love it.
Marc:I love that movie.
Marc:It's one of those ones that's not even a guilty pleasure.
Marc:I think Sidney Pollack actually directed that.
Marc:He directed it.
Marc:And then there's the other one, the other Grisham book that's a Coppola movie, which is The Rainmaker with Matt Damon and Claire Danes, which is crazy good.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:I've never seen that one.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Danny DeVito, Mickey Rourke, Matt Damon, Claire Danes, Mary Kay Place.
Marc:I mean, it's a crazy movie.
Guest:I love Danny DeVito.
Marc:Oh, yeah, he's great.
Marc:And I'm a huge, like, I watch Michael Clayton like three or four times a year.
Guest:Well, that's a great film.
Guest:Yeah, these are grown-up movies.
Guest:I would love to be in a film like those.
Guest:You know, I've always wanted to be.
Guest:Have you been in so many movies, dude?
Guest:I've been in a lot of movies, but I've never been in a movie where I'm running down the street with the gun in my hand after the, you know what I mean, like trying to catch the perp, and it goes on for a long time.
Guest:You want one of those?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not for the whole movie, you know, because in the Grisham one, it's not like you're doing Bourne Identity where the whole thing is like that.
Guest:I just want one that is interspersed with some action.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It'd be a fun day at work, you know?
Marc:Well, I mean, I remember the movies, like the ones that made you famous.
Marc:Like, I think that still because of Boys Don't Cry, I still look at you apprehensively.
Yeah.
Guest:my wife has this story about boys don't cry where she was with her boyfriend at the time when she saw that and he was convinced that they had hired like a deliverance type actor like where they got the guy who was actually doing it and um my wife was like no that's that's an actor i'm sure that's an actor and she said it was like an actual argument and then uh
Guest:And then we got together not long after that, maybe two years after that.
Guest:And I think what's strange about that role is
Guest:I was telling this to another actor recently, as I said, you know, sometimes you do a role where you get a lot of, like, female attention from it.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's like the sexy guy that you played.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For some reason.
Guest:That guy?
Guest:That guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People were, you know, I got, like, a couple of calls from agents.
Guest:I mean, it was like a strange situation where I thought...
Guest:Why do people like this guy?
Marc:I mean, there's women who marry people in jail.
Guest:That's correct.
Guest:That's correct.
Guest:So I got those people.
Marc:And then like then it feels like he sort of turned around.
Marc:Like I think Shattered Glass, you played like a non-menacing kind of guy.
Guest:Yeah, no, somebody who was just sort of bending over backward to try to explain what was an apparent lie in front of him all the time.
Guest:I loved that about that character.
Guest:I mean, because every movie changes when it gets cast, right?
Guest:It's one movie on the page, one movie when it gets cast.
Guest:When that movie got cast, I was like...
Guest:So I know that this guy is lying on some level, you know, because Hayden's not like playing it like he's not lying.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just that the lie is this big.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just need to give him room to come out with it and we'll deal.
Guest:Oh, the lie is a little bigger.
Guest:Oh, the lie is a little bigger.
Marc:But your instinct is to protect the publication and protect him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's going to come out.
Guest:I'm going to have to walk him through it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in order for this lie to come out, it's going to be like some weird long process.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that said, that character did not get me any female attention.
Guest:That is not a character.
Marc:But also, you're always sort of like, you're one of those character actors.
Marc:Do you mind that heading?
Guest:I don't even really know what it means.
Guest:I think it just means I look different and talk different and act different.
Marc:Well, it means that it's a lot of supporting roles, right?
Guest:It's a lot of supporting roles.
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:So you're like the guy like, hey, there he is.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:There's a real... I take real pride in supporting other actors.
Guest:I think it's like... I think I hit the ball back pretty hard, you know?
Guest:What's tough is when you're the head of the company, you're the one that everybody cows to, and you're coming in for a week, and you have to not only show up and deal with your own anxiety, but carry that, you know?
Guest:That I don't love.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's always hard when you just in life, if you have a public facing personality to, you know, keep the frightened, anxious child who's there at bay, because there are moments where I do stand up.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know if I'm going to win.
Marc:I think I'm going to cry.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my wife always says that about me.
Guest:Whenever I get in front of people talking, I end up weeping a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, because it's an emotional experience to stand in front of people and try to say the truth, you know, and if you're really about the truth and following the truth all the time.
Guest:It can be kind of harrowing.
Guest:And I'm not actually somebody who's a natural performer, I would say.
Guest:I'm not like... I was never the first to raise my hand in class.
Guest:I didn't act growing up unless they made me.
Guest:They cast me as Linus in Charlie Brown play because I...
Guest:Because you didn't talk much?
Guest:Because I didn't talk much.
Guest:And I didn't talk much in school and I was not a guy who had a lot of friends.
Guest:And then as I became an actor, it's sort of, I guess it made me more gregarious, but I still am like...
Guest:Why do I have to receive the award just because I've been given it?
Guest:Could the honor be you get the award so you don't have to say anything?
Guest:The people who didn't get the awards, they have to explain why they didn't get it or something.
Marc:Well, no, I think it would be funny if you got the award and you were in the audience and you just went...
Guest:Have you ever seen Merritt Weaver win the Emmy?
Guest:She won the Emmy.
Guest:She gets up.
Guest:She stands behind the podium for a minute.
Guest:She's not saying anything.
Guest:And she just goes, thank you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But what's it like being like, you're an acting family, but you know,
Marc:Maggie's directing and everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you seem very – like she seems like a live wire dude.
Marc:My wife?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's like a very, very focused person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's like the type of person where, you know, listen, at her worst, you would be saying like –
Guest:And so I was thinking maybe we should get the car repainted.
Guest:And she'll go, but do you think when he goes into the store instead of, you know, and you're like, wait, what?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Oh, no, we're still on the.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We're doing the thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because when she gets into working on something, it is like living.
Guest:It is in her mind in some way all the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this is because she's now writing, directing the whole shebang.
Marc:How do you do your approaches to acting?
Marc:Are they similar?
Yeah.
Guest:They're very compatible.
Guest:We've acted together on stage quite a bit.
Guest:I always tell her, I sometimes have these moments when I'm on stage with her.
Guest:Have you seen the movie Opening Night?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there's this moment in Opening Night where Jenna Rollins turns to John there on stage and she goes, John, you're such a good actor.
Yeah.
Guest:And I used to tell her, I was like, someday I'm telling you that I'm going to do that.
Guest:Like when we're doing Chekhov or something, I'll just, in front of everyone, I'll just say it.
Guest:So now I am somebody who does things like that.
Guest:So she actually is nervous about it that I'm going to do it one day.
Marc:And is like Jake active part of the family?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's Uncle Jake.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:I've acted with more members of the family than anybody else.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I've even, my mother-in-law directed a movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did a day for her.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:Very Good Girls.
Guest:And with Elizabeth Olsen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Dakota Fanning.
Guest:But here's the thing.
Guest:So I do that for my mother-in-law.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I haven't read the script really.
Guest:She's asking me to do it for a day.
Guest:I go in and I realize I'm supposed to have sex with Dakota.
Yeah.
Guest:In front of my mother-in-law.
Guest:And this is like a young girl.
Guest:So what I do is... This is called acting experience.
Guest:An experienced actor.
Guest:So what I'm going to do is I'm going to get on top of you.
Guest:Don't be on mine.
Guest:I'll kiss you.
Guest:Then I'm going to drop out of frame.
Guest:I'm going to be doing something south...
Guest:But I'm not going to be.
Guest:I'm going to be over having a coffee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're going to make faces.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what we're doing.
Guest:So that's what we did.
Guest:You restructured it.
Guest:I restructured it so that she could have her experiences by herself and I wouldn't have to be there.
Guest:And so, yeah, I've worked for her.
Guest:I've worked with Jake three times maybe.
Guest:What was that one?
Guest:Rendition?
Guest:Rendition, Jarhead.
Guest:Jarhead.
Guest:This one that he did, I don't even know the name of it, the ambulance one that Antoine directed.
Guest:We did it all from our houses with microphones because he's the 911 guy.
Guest:The dispatch guy?
Guest:The dispatch guy.
Guest:And we're calling in.
Guest:And so we did the call.
Guest:Like, Ethan Hawke would be in his house on a microphone.
Guest:I'm in my house.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:What was that one called?
Guest:That one is Guilty.
Guest:Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Guilty.
Guest:It's a Netflix thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I just did this TV show with him, Presumed Innocent, this last spring.
Guest:It's coming out in June, probably.
Guest:He seems like a nice guy.
Guest:Jake is a nice guy.
Guest:Jake is a fantastic uncle.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, he's like, it makes me wish I could be an uncle.
Guest:I'm never going to be an uncle probably, but you know, well, he's got to get to work.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Don't count him out.
Marc:He'll eventually settle down.
Guest:I love the idea of being an uncle.
Guest:It's like you come in, you've been like in Africa or something, you know, you've got cool trinkets that you got everybody.
Marc:Then you go.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, man.
Guest:Oh, it was such a pleasure talking to you.
Marc:And I really liked the movie.
Marc:I found it – I didn't know what to expect at all.
Marc:I had no idea what I was watching.
Guest:That's the way to go into every movie.
Marc:You have to – like I tell people like –
Marc:You know, I didn't get to see it in a movie theater.
Marc:And maybe I'll bring my girlfriend and we can go see it again because I'd like to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like I was just, you know, on the road.
Marc:I'm like, I'm going to be talking to him.
Marc:I'm going to watch this.
Marc:And so I had no idea what it was about.
Marc:That's beautiful.
Marc:And it was crazy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And like after that scene in the park where she lays that on you, I'm like, what the fuck is this movie?
Guest:Yeah, I'm glad it wasn't that movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because if it had been that movie, I mean, I just didn't want to be in that movie.
Marc:But I just think that the balance of the idea of memory in general.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, where you have a chronic illness, a degenerative illness, you know, versus a traumatized illness.
Guest:heart and mind yeah it's kind of interesting about what it says about how people process memory and how absolutely and how they change yeah yeah and here's the thing that you know i've been um kind of surrounded by people who are victims of trauma yeah in my life as i'm sure many of us have and um a lot of times
Guest:For instance, one person I'm thinking of in particular, she experienced the worst trauma that you could imagine.
Guest:And things that happen to her in the present, she tends to recreate that experience.
Guest:And people will be like, I think she's full of shit actually about what happened because I was there and that's not actually what happened.
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, but that's normal because no one's listening to her about the thing that actually did happen.
Guest:Yeah, so everything opens the door.
Guest:So everything opens the door and she's like...
Guest:Listen to me.
Guest:And you're like, but that's not exactly what happened.
Guest:Yeah, but listen to me.
Guest:You know, that's what I said before.
Guest:Words are such a small part of the way we communicate with each other.
Guest:And if we could all just sort of like try to listen to what someone's actually putting out.
Guest:versus what they're saying.
Marc:Yeah, give them a shot at processing it.
Marc:That's why you have like EMDR and stuff now.
Guest:100%.
Marc:Because your brain, if you don't integrate the trauma, you know, will relive it at almost any given opportunity if it's triggered.
Marc:100%.
Marc:And that's the Chastain character.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Did you watch that Tim Blake Nelson movie, Old Henry?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I tell people to watch it, but like, don't read about it.
Marc:No.
Marc:Because the twist is the best.
Marc:It's the best.
Guest:I see everything that he's in.
Guest:Tim is someone I've known for a long time.
Guest:Did you know him in Oklahoma?
Guest:No, you two.
Guest:Didn't know him in Oklahoma, but we do connect over Oklahoma.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:And we also connect over music.
Guest:I'm very...
Guest:into a lot of the same we're both really into music I read his novel it was great wasn't that good it was good man yeah I read it too I got it when I was like looking at colleges with my daughter and I saw it at one of the bookstores I didn't know what to expect but I'm like this is some Hollywood shit I didn't even know he had written a novel until I was just like killing time as we're looking at some school and I went oh I love Hollywood books yeah me too good talking to you good talking to you I love that guy
Marc:I love talking to him.
Marc:I like meeting him.
Marc:Again, Memory opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 22nd nationwide on January 5th.
Marc:Hang out for a minute, will you people?
Marc:It was almost five years ago to the day we posted my interview with Peter's wife, Maggie Gyllenhaal.
Marc:This is episode 976 from December 12th, 2018.
Guest:I also had a little tiny little scene like that in another movie they made together where I came in and said one line actually on my birthday when I was like 16.
Marc:Which movie was that?
Guest:It was called A Dangerous Woman.
Marc:And they wrote that together?
Marc:Or they did it together?
Guest:My mom wrote it and my dad directed it.
Marc:Is that what led to the divorce?
Marc:I
Guest:I think actually, truly, it might have had something to do with it.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:They really didn't work well together, my parents.
Marc:Oh, that's sad.
Marc:I guess you learn something about people when you work with them, like when you're in it.
Guest:It's so interesting, actually, because I really work well with my husband.
Marc:That's Peter Sarsgaard?
Guest:Peter Sarsgaard, yeah.
Marc:You guys are great actors separately and together.
Marc:When did you act together?
Guest:We did two plays together in New York, two Chekhov plays.
Guest:And it was like, we fought sometimes for sure, but it was also like heaven.
Guest:It was really, he's an amazing actor.
Guest:Yeah, he is.
Guest:And just to be on stage with him, you're like, okay, this is going to be fun, whatever it is.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You can listen to that now wherever you're listening to this episode.
Marc:Maybe you can hear that I was...
Marc:Now that you know where my head was at and what I did, maybe you can hear the undercurrent of my faking and then realizing that I blew it on that episode.
Marc:To get all WTF episodes ad-free plus weekly bonus episodes, sign up for WTF Plus at the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus.
Marc:Guitar time.
Marc:You know, the chords I know.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Monkey and La Fonda, cat angels everywhere.