Episode 1586 - Robert Patrick
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fuck, Knicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:WTF, welcome to it.
Marc:One of the classics.
Marc:It's one of the classics.
Marc:That's where we are now, culturally.
Marc:WTF, oh, that one's a classic.
Marc:It's one of the originals.
Marc:Yeah, still audio, still doing it old school.
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:So, look, Robert Patrick is on the show.
Marc:You know Robert Patrick from his role in Terminator 2 as the bad Terminator.
Marc:But he's been in dozens of movies and TV shows, including his current roles on Reacher and The Peacemaker.
Marc:And an amazing turn.
Marc:in uh the sopranos i thought and look i you know we all know this guy there's a sort of uh you know uh heavy in the movies and the reason he's on the show is i ran into him at lax and we started talking and he knew me and i knew him and he was excited to meet me and i was excited to meet him he told me gave me a card for uh he's a he he's part owner of a harley dealership and you know i thought like well this guy would be interesting so he's on the show today
Marc:How you doing?
Marc:You holding up?
Marc:Man, it's going to be a rough week and then maybe a rough rest of time.
Marc:Right?
Marc:One outcome, horrendous.
Marc:The fucking worst.
Marc:How are we going to deal?
Marc:The other outcome, manageable.
Marc:And at least a little wiggle room to try to still maintain humanity at a level of tolerance and decency.
Marc:But only half of us.
Marc:The people I'm talking to here, I mean, I know who you are.
Marc:You know who you need to vote for.
Marc:Well, for Kamala, I mean, what the fuck is the question?
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Marc:What can I tell you to do?
Marc:I'm getting texts from people like, do you have any ideas on how to handle this?
Marc:Well, it's out of your hands.
Marc:It's out of your control.
Marc:I would say try to maintain your sanity and not fall into a fucking pit of anxiety and fear and terror and turn it in on yourself and decide that you don't know if you can handle it or manage it or just kind of like...
Marc:preemptively despair or do something dramatic, use it as an excuse to relapse or to, you know, suicide yourself because you've turned this in all on yourself because of your, you're afraid.
Marc:Look at, you know, we're all afraid at least half of us.
Marc:And some people are very at risk.
Marc:Marginalized people of one kind or another are at risk for their lives and
Marc:Because of the anger out there and the intolerance out there and the violence out there, there are many people, LGBTQ community, the immigrant population, with the amount of propaganda put out by the tech oligarchs and their minions in the new media platforms.
Marc:What is happening has never been so, in this country, so shameless and so apparent that
Marc:fascism is good for big business and the minions who have now you know kind of created their own show business industrial complex and are towing the line for these fucking fascists and humanizing them and normalizing them you know they're of it but there it's all part of the grift when there's an autocrat you want to suck up to him so you can be uh you know
Marc:Get in the money line.
Marc:You know, there are decent, tolerant, empathetic people out there.
Marc:There's more of them than the other if they haven't crumbled into themselves.
Marc:I'm hoping for the best or at least the better.
Marc:I guess the only thing you can do is try to convince the people that you know who are making a statement by not voting or voting for Jill Stein or whoever that it's just I don't know.
Marc:Is it time for those kind of personal statements?
Marc:I know I'm going to get flack from full on lefties who are like the two party system.
Marc:It's all corrupt.
Marc:What about Israel?
Marc:What about corporate rule?
Marc:What about I know?
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I understand all that.
Marc:And you can keep fighting the good fight.
Marc:But and I said this the last time, you know, if fascism takes hold, that fight becomes a very different fight.
Marc:And you're sort of, you know, ideological righteousness.
Marc:even has less of a voice, but maybe you can carve out a little place for yourself and live with yourself.
Marc:But look, I don't know what to tell the people that are panicking and panicking at me because I'm in the middle of my own panic.
Marc:I voted.
Marc:I sent it in.
Marc:I did my bit.
Marc:I've supported publicly who I support.
Marc:You know who it is.
Marc:I've said it before.
Marc:Vote for Kamala.
Marc:It's not a big...
Marc:It's not a big leap.
Marc:I don't know what undecided means, really.
Marc:You know, you vote for a blustering, full on, shameless, proud fascist.
Marc:Or you vote for somebody who has at least the cultural and hopefully the political interests of what the country really looks like in place.
Marc:Billions of people have had to adapt to this kind of political shift in their countries in this planet.
Marc:Billions.
Marc:The big issue becomes when you have a world run by a handful of autocratic fuckheads who are in cahoots with each other.
Marc:You know, what happens to Europe?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What happens to the Middle East?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But if the idea is not some sort of global alliance fighting against fascism and it becomes a global alliance of fascistic and autocratic leaders, I don't know whether everyone does and I don't know what culture looks like.
Marc:But we'll see what happens.
Marc:We'll see what happens.
Marc:Just don't hurt yourself for fuck's sake.
Marc:Yeah, you know, I'm back at it this week.
Marc:Got two more weeks on this movie.
Marc:Last week was kind of amazing.
Marc:I worked with Lily Gladstone last Thursday and Friday.
Marc:Just me and her, one-on-one.
Marc:She plays my therapist, and it was a high point.
Marc:It was a high point in the life.
Marc:of my creative life and my life in general.
Marc:I love Lily.
Marc:We had a nice time and I think we did a good work, but onward, onward we go.
Marc:It's not over yet.
Marc:Jesus.
Marc:I'm, I don't want to, you know, in the midst of all this chaos and fear, I don't want to say that like, I think I'm doing my best work and I might even be enjoying myself.
Marc:And I'm telling you,
Marc:That experience I had with Sharon Stone last week has changed my approach to creativity, to comedy, to how I enter into the moment of how I take the stage.
Marc:It's so rare.
Marc:That you have some sort of creative breakthrough, personal breakthrough when you're old.
Marc:And it was it's just mind blowing.
Marc:And I applied it the other night at Dynasty.
Marc:Just sort of.
Marc:How can I explain it?
Marc:Look, I know I'm a good comic.
Marc:I've been doing it a long time.
Marc:But there is part of the job of comic where, you know, it's sort of when you take the stage, it's sort of like, I got to get them.
Marc:I got to, you know, I got to, you know, go in strong.
Marc:I got to use this bit and that bit.
Marc:But if you work improvisationally like I do to sort of build your stuff,
Marc:You know, sometimes I'll start riffing only because I'm so tired of my other stuff and I got to get something new out.
Marc:And, you know, I just start to kind of go for it and see what happens.
Marc:But then something happened after kind of breaking myself open with Sharon Stone in that moment on that in that scene.
Marc:Like when I go on stage now, it's sort of like just trust yourself, stupid.
Marc:Don't worry about the fucking audience and getting them.
Marc:I mean, I'm operating at a different frequency.
Marc:than most comics.
Marc:I'm just, you know, I just have a different presence.
Marc:And it's sort of like you don't have to apologize for that or overcompensate for it.
Marc:Just trust yourself.
Marc:I mean, Jesus Christ, you must be funny.
Marc:Come on, Mark.
Marc:Just go up there and open yourself up and just let it happen.
Marc:Be funny.
Marc:And the freedom of mind will come if you don't worry about the audience judging you.
Marc:Yeah, you would think I would have nailed that already.
Marc:And I kind of do, but it's usually with a fury, not with a sort of openness.
Marc:So that's kind of happening.
Marc:And I have to thank Sharon Stone again for it.
Marc:Quick observation.
Marc:I had an interesting...
Marc:cat observation so look i you know i've got this cat who's an asshole charlie he's a good cat and you know i love him but he's like a classic asshole he's not a bad cat he just does everything that cats can do to you know annoy you and make them amazing it's that weird line it's like could you be just a little less cat in every way breaking shit yeah he's just one of these you know people come over he's like he's a great cat i'm like yeah you're here
Marc:When friends come, when people come over, he's like Mr. Charm.
Marc:You know, when they leave, you know, I got to pull him off the fucking ceiling or the drapes or, you know, from under something or stop him from eating plastic or knocking cans over and glasses over and not coming in from the catio because he thinks it's fun.
Marc:It's just, I love it.
Marc:I love watching Charlie play with the little scrunchie ball.
Marc:You know, those little scrunchies like...
Marc:and you throw it and he'll fetch it, man.
Marc:And I just, you know, you just love watching a cat go crazy with a crunchy ball.
Marc:I do.
Marc:I don't know what you like watching your cat do.
Marc:I like throwing it and fetching it and watching him play with the ball.
Marc:But within like eight minutes, the ball is always going to end up under the stove.
Marc:And it doesn't matter what part of the house it's in.
Marc:Somehow or another, it'll get it under the stove.
Marc:And so like I'm down there yesterday, you know, he got it under the stove and I got the broom out.
Marc:So I'm using the whole broom handle and the light on my phone to kind of kind of maneuver this ball out from under the stove.
Marc:And he's sitting there just watching the whole thing.
Marc:And, you know, I got it out from under the stove and I look at Charlie and I had this moment where I'm like, oh, my God, he likes watching me play with the ball as much as I like to watch him playing with the ball.
Marc:There's a reciprocity there.
Marc:This isn't a one sided thing.
Marc:I'm not getting the ball for Charlie.
Marc:Charlie likes watching me fucking get the ball out from under the stove.
Marc:See that same level shit, same level shit.
Marc:Robert Patrick is like, he's a real fucking deal dude, man.
Marc:He didn't really have anything to plug here.
Marc:So we just told him we'd let everyone know he's the co-owner of Harley Davidson of Santa Clarita.
Marc:If you're going to buy a motorcycle, go get one from Robert.
Marc:But this was kind of a great conversation.
Marc:This is me talking to Robert Patrick.
Guest:Let's talk about hair.
Guest:I've got to figure out what to do with my hair.
Guest:I want to grow it long again, but it just doesn't seem to be the thing anymore.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:How long do you want to grow it?
Guest:I used to have it down to here, you know.
Marc:I guess there's two styles of biker.
Marc:It depends which one you want to be.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:What do you want to look like, man?
Marc:Which type of menace are you trying to exude?
Guest:I'm a good guy on a motorcycle.
Guest:I'm in retail, baby.
Marc:I sell Harleys, man.
Marc:I had a buddy who sold Harleys.
Marc:You know Dean Del Rey?
Guest:I do know that name.
Marc:Yeah, years ago, he used to sell hardware.
Marc:He's a comic, but he knows bikes.
Marc:I don't know where he sold them, but it was a while back.
Marc:But he used to be a bike guy, and then he was actually on the way to my old house, and somebody hit him on the freeway, and he went down.
Marc:It fucked him up, man.
Marc:He didn't break anything.
Marc:He was lucky, but he got pretty ripped up, and that was it.
Marc:Turned it in.
Guest:That's sad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sad what?
Marc:That he's not riding anymore or that it happened?
Guest:Yeah, sad he's not riding anymore.
Guest:You got to get back on the horse, man.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I've gone down.
Guest:I went down on the 170, smashed my hand up pretty bad.
Guest:It's a funny story.
Guest:Yeah, what happened?
Guest:Well...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Do I want to save this?
Guest:Are we rolling?
Guest:Is this it?
Guest:Is this how it happens?
Guest:It's just like that.
Guest:It just eases in.
Guest:I need to know.
Guest:I need to, you know, I need to.
Guest:You got to switch up.
Guest:You got to get into character.
Guest:No, I just want to make sure I know what I say at all times.
Guest:I'm very cautious.
Guest:Always.
Guest:I want to think about it.
Guest:I don't know what, I don't know if it's a new thing anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm,
Guest:I'm at that point, you know, I'm 65.
Guest:I'll be 66 in about 20 days.
Guest:And, you know, everything you think and your philosophies and what you think you're doing and all that kind of shit changes up.
Marc:It does, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, I just turned 61.
Marc:You punk.
Marc:I know.
Marc:A few years behind you.
Marc:Yeah, but we're in the same zone.
Marc:You know, we know some of the same people.
Guest:Yeah, like who?
Guest:Alejandro Escovito.
Marc:Oh, yeah, man.
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:You know, I sang with him twice.
Marc:Oh, it's the best.
Marc:He let me play with him up in Vancouver.
Marc:No shit.
Marc:Yeah, we did.
Marc:Just recently?
Marc:Yeah, when I was up there shooting that show, he let me sit in with the guys, let me play his heavy old 73 Les Paul, and we did Beast of Burden and Like a Hurricane.
Marc:It was great.
Oh.
Marc:That's so cool.
Guest:How do you know him?
Guest:I envy you.
Guest:How do I know him?
Guest:Well, it's a great story.
Guest:Nancy Rankin, his wife, was my hair girl on Dust Till Dawn that I was doing in Austin, Texas.
Guest:And I came into the hair trailer and I said, hey, I just saw...
Guest:this fantastic performer at the Moody doing something with Rocky Erickson.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know him?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Rest his soul.
Guest:And I was just going off on, you know, Alejandro.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she goes, you like Alejandro?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, yeah, he's fucking great.
Guest:He's a great songwriter.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:And she says, that's my fiance.
Guest:This is before they got married.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And through that – through Nancy and getting to know Alejandro, he did a Leonard Cohen kind of – I don't want to say retrospective.
Guest:I don't know if that's correct.
Guest:But he did a night of like Leonard Cohen songs and some of his songs.
Guest:And he asked me to come –
Guest:Down and do like Leonard Cohen, three songs.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I was studying.
Guest:I immediately went and studied with a vocal coach.
Guest:I had like three months to find out if I could sing.
Guest:For a live gig?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Could you sing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a G. Yeah.
Guest:And I found a range.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I showed up.
Guest:I had the three songs.
Guest:Of course, he gave me a teleprompter.
Guest:And he said, we'll have the words.
Guest:He'll freak the fuck out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I took the stage with a chorus and did three Leonard Cohen songs.
Guest:And I showed up and I said, hey, man, I can sing these.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we did one sound check and I did the show.
Guest:A couple years later, maybe two or so, he said, hey, I want you to come back to the Moody and do you want to do that song you released with your brother?
Guest:I don't know if you know who my brother is.
Guest:From Filter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Richard Patrick had written a song on Needle Drop for a movie I produced.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:called Oh Lord.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so Alejandro invited me to come sing that with his band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had one soundtrack, one sound check, and then did it on stage at the Moody.
Guest:And I got to tell you, the whole experience from an actor's point of view, Mark, you're multi...
Guest:traditional entertainer yeah comedian guitarist actor uh you know i'm just an actor right so i mean i i had invited jewel she was there with the best i love her oh my god how do you know her i met her i met her on my way to austin texas we're getting espresso somewhere we kind of noticed that we both knew who each other was so we sat together and had some coffee oh god i interviewed her she's the best
Guest:She's a wonderful, wonderful lady.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:What a spirit.
Guest:I connected with her.
Guest:And I think she had a boyfriend that was a quarterback.
Guest:I want to say like Charlie Whitehorse or something like that.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I invited them to the show.
Guest:So she came to the show.
Guest:And so you nervous as fuck?
Guest:dude getting back to it yeah you go you know you you you approach i mean i rehearsed at home yeah it's kind of funny how i did that i set up a pa system in my living room played the song sang with the song yeah and that's how i rehearsed i remember my son was still living with us at the time and he would come out and watch me and kind of give me some tips because he's a singer yeah and uh
Guest:And then I just let it rip.
Guest:My brother went with me and my backup singer went with me.
Guest:We've got a very kind of a background vocalist where it's kind of like Gimme Shelter, you know, kind of.
Guest:Oh, yeah, the soul.
Guest:She just ripped it.
Guest:And we had to add all that kind of stuff because I can't get to certain, you know, I've got a range, but it's not a broad range.
Marc:I tell you, man, for me, there was nothing more frightening than singing in public.
Marc:Nothing like, you know, I do comedy, you know, for my whole life.
Marc:And I've been playing guitar my whole life.
Marc:And then I just started to say, fuck it.
Marc:I got to overcome whatever this fear is because I love doing it.
Marc:But boy, when he starts singing, it's just like it's somehow or another.
Marc:Nothing feels more vulnerable than that to me.
Marc:And I don't know if it's a risk of failure or because your voice, you have no control over it being such a pure representation to you.
Marc:But boy, the idea of singing badly in front of people, I'd rather fucking put a gun in my mouth.
Yeah.
Guest:That's a little extreme one.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I understand you.
Guest:It's just like acting.
Guest:Sooner or later, you've got to let your balls drop onto the stage, man.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:And I know you know because I know you do that.
Marc:I can't stop my balls from dropping almost anywhere.
Guest:Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You got to hold them up while you're taking a... Anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I did, and I loved it.
Guest:And I have to tell you, I mean, I'm a singer.
Guest:You are.
Guest:I'm fucking... I love doing it.
Guest:So I've disappointed myself that I haven't... There was a time when I was really trying to figure out if I was going to try to record more songs and do some more stuff.
Guest:But it's all about money.
Guest:And then that involves...
Guest:What I got to do for my career and the other things I've got, you know, other things that I've got to take care of, my business.
Guest:I got my Harley Davidson business.
Guest:I've got all these things that I'm focused on.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:I just haven't had time to focus on it.
Marc:Yeah, but I mean, like for me, like I used to do a bit about it.
Marc:Like I never wanted to do professional music.
Marc:So now my guitars, they're a hobby that I enjoy doing.
Marc:They're not broken dream vessels.
Marc:They don't represent some sort of failure or something that didn't happen.
Marc:So I keep it pretty pure.
Marc:Like I record things on here, but I would never, you know, I don't know.
Marc:Like it'd be fun.
Marc:I'd have been in the studio with dudes before and that's fun, but I would never think of it as a money-making venture.
Marc:It would just ruin it.
Guest:Well, I don't think I ever got to the point where I was thinking it was a money-making adventure.
Guest:I was worried it was going to cost me money.
Guest:Oh, you were going to.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was just going to be money I'm flushing down the toilet for absolutely no reason.
Guest:For studio time, paying the other guys.
Guest:That's where my head went.
Guest:Oh, I see.
Guest:But I did a couple other things.
Guest:Very small live performances with some other bands.
Guest:And I must say, I really got into it.
Guest:I really, really enjoyed it.
Marc:Yeah, that's where it really happens.
Marc:But you're confident enough.
Marc:You walk off stage and you think, I did it.
Marc:I fucking nailed it.
Guest:I approached it, Mark, like, I'm the greatest rock and roll star of all time.
Guest:I missed my college.
Guest:I told myself that before I took stage.
Guest:It's the same with acting.
Guest:You know, your mind is so powerful.
Guest:You can convince yourself of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can actually get in there and get into character and go out and do it.
Guest:That's how you prepare?
Guest:Well, that's a little more difficult than that, but that's one of the things you do, I think, in life, period.
Guest:You got to believe.
Guest:If you can't fucking believe it, who's going to believe it?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:I mean, you have to get up and address people, do public speaking, stuff like that.
Guest:You just have to kind of talk yourself into, I'm good at it.
Guest:And if you don't think you're good at it, then you're not going to be good at it.
Marc:Well, my thing is I like to bring the audience in on the fact that I don't think I'm very good at it.
Marc:Well, that's part of your... It's part of it, but it's honest.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:I get you.
Marc:Then we're starting at ground level.
Marc:Anything up from here is going to be good.
Marc:Look at the guy.
Marc:He's pulling it off.
Guest:It's more than I expected.
Guest:He's got more going on than I thought he had.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:He really set us up for disappointment at the beginning.
Guest:Well, a nice surprise.
Guest:Low expectations were set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He overcame them all.
Guest:A hero's journey.
Guest:I've seen you on stage.
Guest:You're very funny.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:I haven't been there in person.
Guest:I've seen you on TV.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, the acting thing, I still feel like it's relatively new for me.
Marc:I had Pacino in here the other night.
Marc:Name dropper.
Marc:Sure I am.
Marc:Let me get that for you.
Marc:Yeah, I'll take it.
Marc:There's a few other ones down there.
Marc:I'm very well aware of who have sat in this chair.
Marc:Well, I mean, for me, though, because I'm acting, you know, I want to glean something because I've always thought there was some, you know, this mystery to it, you know, in the sense that like there's a way to do it right.
Marc:And as I talk to actors over time, it's just like you're going to figure out whatever way you got to do.
Marc:You know, there's no one way and there's no, you know.
Marc:And also, I think a lot of it is just natural.
Marc:I think like 80 percent is you just have a natural ability to fucking, you know, focus in.
Marc:Turn off the rest and do it and listen and engage.
Marc:But there are tricks.
Marc:Like I'm very hard on myself.
Marc:You?
Guest:I'm surprised at how successful I am.
Guest:To be honest with you, I had those low expectations.
Guest:But it was something I wanted to do.
Guest:But I sit back and watch my work and I think –
Guest:You know, I'll watch something like once.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's movies I haven't seen.
Guest:That you've done?
Guest:Yeah, that I haven't seen, that I haven't looked at.
Guest:Not because I was, I just don't really have an interest.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I enjoy the moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I enjoy doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Have a lot of fun with it.
Guest:There's a lot of technique that I've learned over the years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I've been doing it 40 years.
Marc:I know, it's crazy, right?
Guest:And I just went out to Hollywood and got started with Roger Corman.
Guest:I started, it was trial by fire.
Guest:But what was it?
Guest:But where'd you grow up?
Guest:I grew up in Atlanta, Boston, Atlanta, Dayton, Ohio, Detroit, Michigan, Cleveland.
Guest:What the fuck is that about?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's my dad was 24 when he had me, started at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:He was a finance guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:He was finance.
Guest:He went to Virginia Tech, quit his job there.
Guest:No, wait.
Guest:We went to Boston.
Guest:He got his master's from MIT.
Guest:We went back to Atlanta.
Guest:You smart guy.
Yeah.
Guest:Rubbed off on me, too.
Guest:He went to Atlanta.
Guest:Then he quit.
Guest:He left Lockheed.
Guest:Went into the banking industry.
Guest:That was in Dayton, Ohio.
Guest:Winner's Bank.
Guest:Then he went to Detroit.
Guest:He was at Bank of the Commonwealth, which was the bank that was bought by King Foddy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I kind of remember that.
Guest:Remember that?
Guest:The first bank bought by the Saudis?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And my dad, I don't think he realized what he was getting involved with in Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there was a lot of... Yeah, sure.
Guest:And he kind of like went, oh, fuck, I made a mistake.
Guest:I got five kids.
Guest:We got to get out of here.
Guest:Five.
Guest:And he moved to Cleveland.
Guest:On the run?
Guest:On the run.
Guest:Moved to Cleveland.
Guest:Got a gig with Key Bank there.
Guest:And I stayed in Detroit and finished my senior year of high school there.
Guest:It's so funny.
Guest:The way you're setting that story up, I was waiting for the lost everything part.
Guest:No, he didn't.
Guest:He didn't lose everything.
Guest:He did okay.
Guest:He did okay.
Guest:He did retire early at an awkward age.
Guest:I think 58 years old.
Guest:That's not bad.
Guest:58 to take a golden parachute retirement.
Guest:Six-figure deal.
Guest:Did he have a good time?
Guest:He played a lot of golf.
Guest:Well, I mean, that's what they do, some of them.
Guest:You play golf?
Guest:No, I can't stand golf.
Guest:What a waste of fucking time.
Guest:I ride motorcycles, dude.
Guest:I know.
Marc:That's all I do.
Marc:I thought maybe you had this other side, the secret side, the golf-playing side.
Guest:You know, there's a lot of my friends do play golf.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I just did three months on a golf show.
Marc:I know nothing about it.
Marc:Are you a left-hander or a right-handed?
Marc:I'm right-handed.
Marc:But, I mean, I had to play like a retired caddy.
Marc:Oh, you did?
Marc:Yeah, but I didn't have to.
Guest:See, I could see you doing that.
Guest:I'm looking at you right now.
Guest:There's so many ways I could cast you.
Guest:And I don't know you that much.
Guest:I met you in the American Airlines lounge.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Where the fuck were you going?
Guest:You were going to do a comedy show.
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:I was going to go sign autographs and do a personal appearance.
Guest:At a con.
Guest:Doing a con, man.
Guest:A con.
Guest:You ever done a con?
Guest:No, I'm not popular with the nerds.
Guest:It's one of my saving graces.
Guest:I am popular with the nerds.
Guest:The nerds like you because you're the bad guy.
Guest:Well, you know, when you do one really substantial special effects science fiction movie, you're in for life.
Guest:You're in for life.
Guest:You're making a little cash on each signature.
Guest:hey it's to me it's like being on tour yeah of course it's like it's like hey i can't play songs for you but i can sit here and be a nice guy for you yeah so wait now let me put this together how many you're the oldest or in the middle where are you i'm the oldest really i'm you're trying to figure something out here on me no i'm just trying to relate yeah okay i'm just trying to relate where are you in the pecking order
Marc:Just me and my brother, my little brother, my poor little brother.
Marc:Okay, so what does he do?
Marc:It's always vague, but it's sales of some kind.
Marc:Nothing dubious, but he explains to me when he gets a job what he's doing, and I'm like, I lost you.
Marc:I mean, it's a tech thing, but what are you selling?
Marc:He was in Franchise Food for a while, and he's kind of kicked around big ideas, but he's all right.
Marc:Yeah, but I was a lot of...
Marc:So he kind of came up behind me, and I sucked a lot of the attention out of the air.
Marc:He was a tennis guy.
Marc:He was a tennis pro when he was a kid.
Guest:Were you an athlete?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I think I'm built for it.
Marc:I can do it.
Marc:I exercise now.
Marc:But I don't like competition that isn't mental or emotional.
Yeah.
Guest:I get it I wish I knew I wish I'd learned about team sports I think it teaches you how to lose with a little dignity yeah I did a lot of team sports growing up like what I was a football player baseball I wrestled for a while you wrestled I was undefeated wrestler all the way up to junior high and then I I moved into when I moved to when I moved to Detroit there was a wrestler there that had never lost his name was Mark Chiarelli went on to be one of the greatest wrestlers in the real wrestling world yeah
Guest:And Mark Charella.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was the end of my career there.
Guest:He beat you?
Guest:I didn't even attempt.
Guest:I just sized him up and went, oh, shit.
Guest:This guy hasn't lost ever?
Guest:No.
Guest:He's like, you know.
Guest:That was the end of your career?
Guest:He was a superstar.
Guest:Well, I still had baseball and football.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so during the winter months in Detroit, I worked as a maintenance guy for a little shopping center.
Guest:I changed light bulbs, shoveled snow.
Guest:Had a girlfriend very heavy all the way through high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that kind of thing.
Guest:But I love football and baseball.
Guest:You know, when I was growing up, look, I was born in 1958.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:You're 61, so you were 63.
Guest:63, yeah.
Guest:You know, you had your baseball and you had your football.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that was it.
Guest:And there was some basketball involved there, too.
Guest:Did your dad like it, too?
Guest:I think my father, yeah, he loved sports.
Guest:He was asthmatic.
Guest:My father's father was a lieutenant colonel in the United States Army.
Guest:He fought in World War I, World War II, and Korea, Bronze Star.
Guest:Yeah, wow.
Guest:And was still active duty at Fort Bragg in North Carolina when he passed away from cancer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At my age of 65.
Guest:And I think my dad asthmatic wasn't a big athlete growing up.
Guest:But he liked it.
Guest:He was a trumpet player.
Guest:He was a trumpet player.
Guest:He loved music.
Guest:And he was a really good trumpet player.
Guest:I think he did that to help him with the asthma.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he was a terrible golfer.
Guest:But he loved it.
Marc:Well, you know, here's what I realize about golf is that, like, not unlike fucking drugs.
Marc:It's like if you nail that ball once, if you hit it, if you connect and you do that thing and you watch it, that rush of that one time, you'll chase it for the rest of your fucking life.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you might get it kind of, but, you know, I don't think you hit it that much.
Marc:But if you get that one taste and you've got the personality, life.
Guest:Yeah, I can see that being addiction.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I was good when I lived in Georgia.
Guest:I played golf left-handed.
Guest:My childhood friend of mine, Kenny Andrews, went on to be a pro golf.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was a buddy I played baseball with.
Guest:His father was an All-American baseball player at the University of Georgia.
Guest:Anyway, he was a fantastic athlete.
Guest:He went on to be a tour pro, Ken Andrews.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I gave it up somewhere in junior high, and I think because it was baseball, football, and I was a maintenance guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, what did you learn?
Marc:I mean, what do you take with you?
Marc:Well, the life lessons of sports dreams of a kid and playing that much and being that dedicated to it.
Guest:Well, you know, I understand kids that are that dedicated to it.
Guest:There's a lot of team, you know, expectations put on you to perform in your career.
Guest:It relates to being in an ensemble in a movie.
Guest:You understand how an orchestra works, like that's your moment and you better be ready, that kind of thing.
Guest:So the willingness to be able to perform, the ability to perform on demand when it's expected of you, I think that all helps me.
Marc:But your insecurity never brought you down.
Yeah.
Marc:I guess you build confidence with the sports, huh?
Guest:I think you build confidence with the sports, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny, you know, wrestling being an individual thing and walking away undefeated.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But realizing, you know, that guy was too much for me.
Guest:That was the end of it.
Guest:You're like, I had a good run.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:I can't beat that guy.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, Dan Gable was, do you know anything about wrestling?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, Dan Gable's Olympic, the tragedy of Mark Turello.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's interesting I'm talking about the tragedy.
Guest:I mean, he was like, it was like when he wrestled, when we had wrestling meets in my high school, Farmington High School, Farmington, Michigan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was packed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And people were there just to see him toy with the opponent.
Guest:He was that good.
Guest:He was that good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the colleges were lined up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was all set to go to the Olympics.
Yeah.
Guest:And guess what?
Guest:He broke something.
Guest:Jimmy Carter boycotted the Olympics.
Guest:Oh, and he got cut out.
Guest:No Olympics.
Guest:He didn't get to make weight, to make it happen, to time it right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Never got a chance.
Guest:But went on to coach and had a big career.
Marc:Yeah, but he missed his moment because of global politics.
Marc:Because of global politics.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:So where do you take the turn to acting?
Yeah.
Guest:Failure.
Guest:I failed at other things.
Marc:But it sounds like you got out of wrestling at the right time.
Guest:Yeah, well, I determined I was going to lose.
Guest:I didn't even attempt to challenge.
Guest:I went the other way.
Guest:I went, ooh, the path of least resistance.
Guest:But baseball and football, you didn't have a shot with those?
Guest:I did not.
Guest:I'm figuring out how to deal with this, thinking about this whole situation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I wanted to play college football.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wanted to play college baseball.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got an opportunity to walk on at the...
Guest:Bowling Green State University and I just had a lot of stuff going on that was emotional and I was very immature and my family moving around and
Guest:I didn't do well.
Guest:You weren't getting in trouble.
Guest:I didn't get in trouble, but I wasn't doing well.
Guest:I wasn't emotionally.
Guest:I was just a very immature person.
Guest:So acting was perfect.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, I had done acting when I was a kid.
Guest:I mean, I played Peter Pan in third grade.
Guest:I was the star.
Guest:Oh, how'd that feel?
Guest:That felt fantastic.
Guest:Flying around?
Guest:Flying around.
Guest:Hey, I'm Peter Pan from Never Neverland.
Guest:That was my first one.
Guest:But, you know, growing up in Georgia in the woods and I heard your interview with Eric.
Guest:I thought it was interesting because while Eric was doing all that, Eric Roberts, I'll drop a name.
Guest:We have the same attorney.
Guest:Eric's a great guy.
Guest:We worked on Scorpion together, a show I did on CBS.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:While he was doing all that, I was down there.
Guest:I never got to run into him and his family.
Guest:But they had that— The playhouse.
Guest:The playhouse that they had going.
Guest:You know, I think when you lose dreams—
Guest:Like, I thought I was going to play college football.
Guest:And then I realized this is not going to work.
Guest:And I'm going to get killed out here.
Guest:And I'm just not fast enough.
Marc:I'm just not big enough.
Marc:When you realize the limitations of your talent in a particular thing.
Marc:It's a hard hit.
Marc:I didn't have a will.
Marc:It's a tough thing for kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:My brother had to do it with tennis.
Marc:It's brutal.
Marc:It's brutal.
Marc:It's not anything.
Marc:It's not your fault.
Marc:that you're physically not gifted in the way necessary to take you to the next level.
Marc:That realization is sort of like, look, I've worked hard, but I just don't got the genetics or the fucking physical gift to be a pro or whatever.
Guest:Whatever your dreams, wherever you think the dreams are going to take you and you put all that stock in football and baseball.
Guest:Football, you know, I ran like a 4'7", 40.
Guest:I was 215 pounds.
Guest:I'm just 6'0".
Guest:I took a couple of hits.
Guest:Here's what happened.
Guest:I took a couple of hits.
Guest:I was feeling very isolated there.
Guest:Summer football.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Invited me to walk on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And... Walk on means like sort of like, you know, we're looking at you.
Guest:We're not getting a scholarship, but we've seen film on you and we think you would be an asset to the...
Guest:So you go up there.
Guest:And I was going to be getting pulverized by the number one defense, bigger, faster guys.
Guest:I took a couple hits.
Guest:I started talking to some of the other guys that were around.
Guest:They had, you know, I'm on my third knee surgery.
Guest:I'm 28 years old and I'm a redshirt freshman, you know, and all that kind of shit.
Guest:And you're going like.
Marc:So you were just going to be a punching bag if you stayed.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:And I realized it.
Guest:And I said, fuck this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't have the heart.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I quit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why would anyone volunteer for that?
Guest:Well, a lot of people do because they want to hang on to those dreams.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's that Rudy moment of, you know, maybe I'll get a chance to play someday.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to hang in there and I'm going to play for Notre Dame.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of people, that really means something, too.
Guest:And God bless them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You got to have something to get through to believe it.
Guest:So in that moment, you're devastated and you're like, fuck.
Guest:And then what happened was like a domino effect.
Guest:It affected school.
Guest:I didn't give a shit about being there.
Guest:Lost.
Guest:I was completely lost.
Guest:And...
Guest:Even though I had moved around so much and I'd always had sports to fall back on where I would endear myself to other people like, hey, he's a good baseball player, he's a good football player, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:It was – I didn't have that ability.
Guest:No, no way.
Guest:I was just one of the faces in the crowd.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I – you know, charm's only going to get you so far, right?
Guest:You're pretty far.
Guest:You're pretty good.
Guest:I like you.
Guest:I knew I'd like this.
Guest:Don't underestimate charm.
Guest:But, you know, this is –
Guest:I got blackballed by the fraternity I was trying to join.
Guest:What happened there?
Guest:It was alcohol and drugs.
Guest:You're too much.
Guest:At least you were excelling in something.
Guest:I think I destroyed the bathroom at the fraternity house.
Guest:I literally had some violent thing and I broke a...
Guest:I was kind of, yeah, I was very fucked up.
Guest:I broke up with my girlfriend during that time.
Guest:I'd had this long relationship.
Guest:So the booze was hitting you early.
Guest:I was a teenage alcoholic.
Marc:I started drinking at 13.
Marc:So it sounds like it made you angry?
Marc:You became the Hulk?
Marc:Or what happened?
Marc:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What about you?
Marc:Well, I like to coke, you know, and I just like there was something about I think at my worst, I really think the attempt was to feel normal.
Marc:And, you know, what I would do is, you know, my first bottom was psychosis because of cocaine.
Marc:I didn't sleep.
Marc:I did a lot of blow.
Marc:I drank a lot.
Marc:But I'm not innately a violent guy.
Marc:But I just thought if I could just get a couple lines of me and just a couple beers and get that balance, there was a moment where I'm like, oh, look at me.
Marc:I'm ready to go.
Marc:It was like that golf shot.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm in.
Marc:I'm in the sweet spot.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then you just chase it and you're alone in the bar at two in the morning, jacked, just no one in the place.
Marc:And you're like, something's going to turn around.
Marc:This is going to get good in a minute.
Marc:I wasn't really violent, but I, you know, the blackouts, they, they kind of scare you and you know, and, but, uh, I was not, I was not the destroy everything kind of guy.
Marc:I was the destroy myself kind of guy.
Guest:I think ultimately I was so disappointed in myself that I was destroying myself.
Guest:You know, it's funny, Mark.
Guest:I never smoked weed in high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I was a real excessive beer drinker.
Marc:Well, yeah, that stuff, you know, you get to a, like, I was the kind of guy, like, here's a good example.
Marc:I didn't like beer, so I would, you know, chug, like, you know, half pints of Jack Daniels, and I'd be out with my friends, driving around like an idiot in high school, and they'd go to a party, and I'd be, and they'd throw me on the lawn next door, because I couldn't hold it.
Marc:So I wouldn't be, you know, running around breaking things.
Marc:I'd be the guy on the lawn next door, and someone would run into the party and go, there's some guy dead on the lawn next door.
Marc:I'd ruin the night for everybody.
Marc:Shit.
Marc:I wasn't a fun guy.
Guest:I remember I got some gal.
Guest:We went to somebody's party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Me and a couple other guys.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I turned on to alcohol.
Guest:And I had a car.
Guest:And I almost got my ass whooped by some girl's dad because I was a fucking asshole at a party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In Detroit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In Farmington when I was growing up.
Guest:And...
Guest:Yeah, I think it's a generational thing.
Guest:Our generation, we grew up in the 60s.
Marc:70s.
Guest:I was a 60s guy, so I graduated high school in 77.
Guest:But, I mean, I was 12 years old in 1970.
Marc:So you saw the whole culture changing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's drug time.
Guest:It was all, and I thought it was accepted behavior, and I got away with it, and my parents didn't know what the fuck I was doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was an innocent time.
Guest:We didn't fentanyl and all that kind of bullshit.
Guest:Well, that's the weird thing about that.
Guest:And I say innocent, but, I mean, it was like we were all smoking, you know, everybody was in high school.
Guest:But I didn't do that until I got to college.
Guest:And I think that really fucked me up when I went to college.
Guest:The weed?
Guest:Oh, fuck, yeah.
Guest:Totally robbed me of any micro ambition that I had was just stolen.
Guest:And I was like, oh, fuck, I'm a waking baker now.
Guest:Yeah, well, it's not stolen.
Marc:I'm going to go to college.
Marc:It lives in your head.
Marc:You get everything done.
Yeah.
Marc:You get everything.
Guest:That's a great line.
Guest:It's all going on.
Guest:It's going on.
Guest:It's not happening.
Guest:Yeah, I can't present it to anybody yet, but here it is.
Marc:Yeah, I'm ready to go.
Marc:I've got it all mapped out.
Guest:Oh, God, it's so good in here.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:shit oh my god oh that's the worst where you a lot of people I always say that it's a it's a will killer man weed because you know it's just and I see it with other people I see it now people are like oh yeah I'm gonna do the writing and I'm gonna like how's that going you know
Guest:But there's people.
Marc:Who can do it.
Guest:That are highly functional.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That I, for whatever reason, I perceive that they do a lot of.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I'll throw out, I feel bad, but I guess Snoop Dogg smokes a lot of weed.
Guest:He seems to be doing okay.
Marc:Well, I think if you if you figure out what your lane is, you know, and you can handle it.
Marc:But like if you're I think if you're, you know, insecure to begin with and you're not you don't have any real confidence in your creativity, the weed will just, you know, it'll just it just becomes this cycle of things that happens in your head that never get realized.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that's just, you know, it's everyone's different.
Marc:But that guy knew what he was going to do early on, you know, and the weed was just sort of stop the noise so he could make his thing.
Marc:Yeah, you're right.
Marc:Some guys with the drugs like that, it just, you know, like, you know, Hedberg, who, you know, died from heroin.
Marc:I mean, like, I completely understood Mitch Hedberg.
Marc:He's a great comic and I completely understand it because you watch his style and it's not unlike jazz musicians where it's like if you can shut out the noise and you know what you want to do and that drug will just kind of stop all the other distractions.
Marc:I mean, there's genius there.
Marc:I mean, I'm not suggesting it as a system.
Yeah.
Marc:I know, dude.
Marc:Are you doing that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Let me try one.
Marc:How are you with him?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:It's just nicotine, but it's like a pouch.
Marc:You can put like a dip.
Marc:What's going to happen?
Marc:My blood pressure is going to go up?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I'm not going to turn you on to drugs on the show.
Marc:I'm interested in that.
Marc:I'm a cigar guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, you are?
Marc:Like daily?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I smoke one of
Guest:But I don't want to call you out on that.
Guest:Oh, no, no.
Guest:I talk about it all the time.
Marc:A lot of people be doing that shit.
Marc:I'm a fucking, I'm a nicotine addict fucking through and through.
Guest:I'm a nicotine guy.
Marc:I can't fucking get off it.
Guest:Well, I have to, that's part of my process for acting.
Guest:My process for acting.
Guest:The only way I can study dialogue, and I'm good at dialogue, and I'm very good at expositional dialogue, but the only way I can do it to sit still long enough to study is to sit.
Guest:Cigar?
Guest:Hey, man, sometimes it's a four cigar a night kind of situation.
Marc:Oh, so you're used to getting sweaty.
Guest:Oh, you know, I mean, it's like if I got to be here for four hours, I mean, you know, I got to be here all day long.
Marc:You have a pretty good tolerance, I'm assuming.
Marc:I'm pretty good.
Marc:I mean, because like I do like these things.
Marc:I was off nicotine.
Marc:I haven't smoked a cigarette in like a long time.
Marc:You miss them, don't you?
Marc:Not cigarettes, but I'll get into cigars.
Marc:But the thing is, because I'm a fucking addict, like I know what's going to happen.
Marc:Yeah, I know that if I if I. Well, thanks, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You like these ones?
Guest:That's okay.
Guest:I prefer Cuban.
Guest:I can't tell you.
Guest:Which Cubans do you like?
Guest:Part of the Series D number four.
Guest:Oh, those are great.
Guest:Yeah, those are really good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know where I get them, but somebody's a friend of mine's grandmother.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or that place where they got them in the back room.
Marc:I don't know if I...
Marc:They're around.
Marc:I was just in Canada.
Marc:Up there, it's legal.
Marc:Yeah, it's legal, but they're not what they used to, man.
Marc:They're not what they used to be, the Cubans.
Marc:But the Partigas, those ones hold up pretty good.
Marc:Montecristos hold up pretty good.
Marc:But like Cohibas.
Guest:Lusitanias.
Guest:Huh?
Guest:Lusitanias.
Guest:Oh, what is that one?
Guest:Partigas, Partigas.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The huge ones.
Guest:Casa del Habanos.
Guest:You know, those all got bought by China, by the way.
Guest:What?
Guest:The Chinese bought all the Casa del Habanos, all the Cuban cigar places around the world.
Guest:Yeah, they bought them all.
Guest:Like the farms in Cuba?
Guest:They bought the stores.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So they're buying all the cigars.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's what I heard.
Marc:Rumor has it in the cigar world.
Marc:Well, as long as the sun is relatively the same in Cuba where they do what they do.
Marc:Yeah, that's what you're going for.
Marc:Like, the dealer is unimportant.
Marc:I'm getting it.
Marc:I'm getting it.
Guest:I'm getting it.
Marc:As long as the product is good.
Guest:Right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, how many times have you been in a situation where I'm, this guy's making me nervous, but I think he's got the good shit.
Marc:This guy's, don't worry about it.
Marc:He's good.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's not going to bother you.
Marc:Just don't look at it.
Marc:Just don't say anything about the scar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, all right.
Marc:So, yeah, you don't have to do this now.
Guest:I won't, but I'm curious about this.
Guest:My point was like – I think that will jack my blood pressure.
Guest:Are you on – are you okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you meditate?
Guest:No.
Guest:I've started meditation.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I'm enjoying it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you do?
Guest:I started – I'm only doing seven minutes.
Guest:But what I do is I literally make myself sit down, get in a –
Guest:You know, cross my legs, rest my hands on my knees and sit there and focus on my breathing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just try to keep all the thoughts out of my head as much as I can, keep focused on my breathing.
Marc:The funny thing is I was doing a little bit during the pandemic with sort of a recorded meditation thing.
Marc:And it was funny because my experience was, you know, after a couple of minutes, you know, turning the thoughts off, I'm like, I'm fucking nailing this.
Yeah.
Guest:This is no problem.
Guest:I got this.
Guest:Nothing about nothing.
Guest:I'm not nailing it yet.
Guest:I'm still new enough at it, but I really enjoy trying to do it.
Guest:Because my mind, you sound like we kind of, my mind, there's so many things that I've wanted to do in my life that I haven't been able to fucking focus on.
Guest:I'm so grateful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that the one thing that I did choose to do in my life has worked out.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:But there's all this other things that I think I might be good at that I want to try.
Guest:And come to find out, singing's what?
Marc:Well, that's a good thing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's the funny thing about meditation and how we're talking about it.
Marc:It's like that moment where I realized that, like, I think I got the hang of it.
Marc:I'm nailing this.
Marc:Yeah, that was the end of it.
Marc:Seven minutes.
Marc:That was the end of it.
Marc:Done.
Marc:What do I need to do this every day for?
Marc:I got this.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:I understand the benefits.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:I got it down.
Marc:I don't have to worry about this shit.
Marc:It's sort of like that moment with the rest where you knew you were good.
Marc:Why push it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was undefeated.
Guest:I wasn't going to let this guy take that from me.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:He was good, man.
Guest:Okay, so you're spinning around and you're lost.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was failing at a lot of things.
Guest:And...
Guest:I don't really know how I turned it all around.
Guest:I think it's interesting.
Guest:But you chose acting.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I kind of... I left college.
Guest:I went home.
Guest:I feel like I'm doing like a fucking therapy session.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:Well, that's one reason I don't do a lot of these podcasts.
Guest:Let's look at it as a small meeting.
Guest:Okay, we'll do it as a meeting.
Guest:Well, I'll make this positive for people.
Guest:I can do this this way.
Guest:Yeah, here's what I'll do.
Guest:It's about what happened, what it was like, and what it's like now.
Guest:What it's like now.
Guest:A message of hope.
Guest:A message of hope.
Guest:I'm giving it to you.
Guest:I went home.
Guest:I could see how I was the number one son.
Guest:I was a great athlete.
Guest:My father was hugely disappointed.
Guest:And hugely disappointed and hugely disappointed at my disastrous academic achievement at this school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he said, what the fuck?
Guest:And I went.
Guest:I know.
Yeah.
Guest:I got a problem.
Guest:I got a lot of problems.
Guest:I'm emotionally immature.
Guest:I don't know what I'm doing.
Guest:I have no direction.
Guest:I've lost everything.
Guest:I'll get it together somehow.
Guest:What do you say to that?
Guest:Good luck.
Guest:You better.
Guest:I think he was a nice guy about it.
Guest:He was like, well, son, you've got to try out.
Marc:They can only say what they can say, yeah.
Guest:I started working at a bank...
Guest:Immediately downtown.
Guest:Doing what?
Guest:I was a wire transfer specialist.
Guest:I started to realize I don't want to be in a cubicle my whole life.
Guest:Did your dad get you that gig?
Guest:I can't remember.
Guest:Seems like a weird turn for you.
Guest:It wasn't his bank, so it was a weird turn.
Guest:I started working out at a health spa, like a gold gym kind of thing.
Guest:And somebody asked me to do a commercial for that thing.
Guest:And then somebody else had asked me to do some photos, you know, like modeling, that kind of thing.
Guest:And I started thinking, like, maybe there's something to this.
Guest:I've always enjoyed acting.
Guest:And I really started, I had enough, I didn't know anybody in Cleveland, so I really had a lot of time to focus on me.
Guest:And I started reading books.
Guest:Stanislavski, and I really started thinking about it, and I really started thinking about it.
Guest:I really loved the movies.
Guest:It had always been a part of my life.
Guest:My parents had taken me to that, and I was like, I wonder what... I knew, I'll tell you what, Mark, I knew I wanted to do something
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't want to, I wanted to do something big for, I wanted to see if I could do something.
Guest:If these other things didn't work out, there's still something else out there that I want to do.
Guest:And I really started focusing on that.
Guest:Did you take classes?
Guest:No.
Guest:I read books.
Guest:I did a couple of local things in Cleveland.
Guest:And on that premise.
Marc:On the health club commercial.
Yeah.
Guest:You nailed it.
Guest:I remember my mother and father just like, you're kidding me.
Guest:You're going to do what?
Guest:There was no encouragement.
Guest:It was all discouragement.
Guest:You're going to fail.
Guest:You're going to get into drugs.
Guest:You're going to be doing pornos.
Guest:Come on, we can't help you with this.
Guest:They were petrified by the whole thing.
Guest:But it all just hit me as a negative thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So then you learn you can't really tell anybody about this shit because you got to keep this close to your vest.
Guest:You can't tell people what you got to do.
Guest:Because they'll shit on it.
Guest:They'll shit on it.
Guest:Your own family will steal your dreams.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They'll take them from you.
Guest:Yeah, it's like that.
Guest:They'll claim now that.
Guest:Oh, I was always behind you.
Marc:We are very proud of him.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I never forget what my father said.
Guest:My father said to Arnold Schwarzenegger at the night of the Terminator 2 premiere, my father says,
Guest:So you think my son will make it?
Guest:You just go like, and you're standing there going like, wow, Jesus Christ.
Guest:Thanks, Dad.
Guest:Arnold must have been encouraging.
Guest:He was sweet.
Guest:He said to my dad, he said, yes, Robert, that's a very good work ethic.
Guest:He's very good.
Guest:He's very strong, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:You know, he will do it.
Guest:What does make it, you know?
Guest:As far as I was concerned...
Guest:When I got to Hollywood, the guys that I looked to that I really admired, the guys that I fell in with when I came to Hollywood, they were probably making $30,000 a year.
Guest:Who's that?
Guest:You know, I don't really want to drop these guys' names.
Guest:Well, are they around still?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that's all right.
Marc:Well.
Guest:I mean, you know, you got a crew.
Guest:Well, that's no longer involved in my life, so I don't feel like that's fair.
Guest:Okay.
Yeah.
Guest:Guys that I knew that were professional actors that were making a living of it.
Guest:And the way they were doing it was like the gig and they go on unemployment.
Guest:And I thought, well, that'd be cool if you could just do that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That'd be great.
Marc:Work every once in a while and just kind of lay around.
Guest:Yeah, and play golf.
Marc:Because at the time I was playing golf.
Marc:I love this secret golf life that you had.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you turned on it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you get hooked up with Corman?
Marc:How's that happen?
Marc:A buddy of mine where I was waiting tables.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He said Roger's still at it?
Marc:Oh, this was 1984.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that's like, you know, 30 years into his thing.
Guest:Oh, fuck yeah.
Guest:But he was still making movies.
Guest:Oh, I know.
Guest:I interviewed him.
Marc:And they, you did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When he was in his 80s.
Guest:It was a much better interview than this one, I'm sure.
Guest:No, this is great.
Guest:No, it's not.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:I understand.
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm just saying that.
Marc:No, it's good.
Marc:I'm getting a lot out of it.
Guest:You're seeing how sane you are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is working for me.
Guest:This is working for you.
Guest:I kind of needed a meeting this today.
Guest:This will work.
Guest:Well, a buddy of mine, Christopher Monza, was working for Roger Corman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was waiting tables at La Strega on 4th and Western.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, hey, man, they're casting this biker movie and they need some extras.
Guest:Ah.
Guest:And I went, oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Were you riding at that time?
Guest:Well, I had a motorcycle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't have a Harley.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's hard to admit that, huh?
Guest:It is hard to admit that.
Guest:I was riding a Japanese bike.
Guest:Yeah, well.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:What, a Honda?
Guest:I'm not going to give any other brand other than Harley Davidson my endorsement.
Guest:The good thing about the Japanese influx of bikes that happened in the 60s and 70s is they got a lot of people on two wheels.
Guest:And then those people that got on two wheels discovered the Harleys.
Guest:Harley Davidson.
Guest:Some guys were always Harley guys.
Guest:Some guys were.
Guest:Is that me or you?
Guest:Probably you.
Guest:That's the president of the Booze Fighters Motorcycle Club chapter in Los Angeles.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got to go make a hit.
Okay.
Guest:It's not that kind of motorcycle club.
Guest:Is it a 12-step call?
Guest:It's not a sober club either.
Guest:Oh, it's not?
Guest:No.
Guest:All right.
Guest:It's a 1946, 78-year-old motorcycle club founded in Los Angeles, California.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:International motorcycle club.
Guest:Why is it called the Booze Fighters?
Guest:Well, you want to really know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So they were all sitting in a bar.
Guest:One of them had been kicked out of the 13 Rebels Motorcycle Club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:By the name of Wino, Willie Forkner, who was a veteran who came from World War II.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were looking for a name for their new club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one of the guys, Walt Porter, was in the bar, and he said, well, all you guys do is fight the bottle.
Hmm.
Guest:and each other.
Guest:You should call yourselves the booze fighters.
Marc:This has got nothing to do with sobriety.
Marc:Absolutely zilch.
Marc:Well, out here I thought, like, that's an interesting approach to helping people.
Marc:Nope.
Marc:Nope.
Guest:None whatsoever.
Guest:A lot of people ask me about it, and I say, well, yeah, I'm sober.
Guest:28 years, but the club is... Just a bunch of maniacs.
Guest:Full-functioning group of... There's a lot of sober guys within the club.
Guest:It's an interesting club.
Guest:It's been around before...
Guest:The Angels?
Guest:I'm not going to say any other club, but it's been around since 1946.
Guest:Did you see that movie?
Marc:The Bike Riders?
Marc:I did.
Marc:How did that land with you?
Guest:There were some interesting things with it.
Guest:Historically?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There were some interesting things.
Guest:I'm a big fan of that book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Danny Lyons is the photographer.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I have that book and had that book.
Guest:And it's one of those times where you're kind of going like, wait a minute, they're making a movie about that book?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you realize, I've had that book for 40 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why didn't I write the fucking movie?
Guest:That's where I go.
Guest:Why am I so, why didn't I think of that?
Yeah.
Guest:Why the fuck did I let that guy think of that?
Guest:I get so much resentment towards somebody like instead of like giving the guy, you know, a credit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like I could have fucking if I had just if I would have just what the fuck.
Guest:So anyway, once I get past that and go, well, good for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a long journey.
Guest:I applaud you for you.
Guest:You're going to you're going to write a screenplay to these black and white photographs and you're going to turn into something.
Marc:Isn't it funny, though, when you have that innately, instinctually, it's just resentment immediately?
Marc:So the journey to just being able to be gracious.
Marc:And then, like, when you do it, you kind of walk away from it going, like, I deserve a fucking, where's my medal?
Marc:Nailed it.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:Nailed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I got that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:I behaved like a human today.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So.
Guest:The movie was great.
Guest:The Harleys were great in it.
Guest:The bikes were great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Big fan of Tom Hardy and Jodie Comer, I thought, was phenomenal.
Guest:The actress.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Her accent was fantastic.
Guest:So you saw it, too.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you see it on the big screen?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Me, too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I thought it was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, the acting was sort of amazing.
Marc:She was amazing.
Marc:She was amazing.
Marc:Hardy, like, he's a great actor, but sometimes he makes choices that are almost too subtle.
Marc:And then Butler, he's a real attractive guy, but she was just locked the fuck in and just putting everybody to shame.
Guest:Yeah, I appreciate all your comments.
Marc:I do.
Guest:You're not going to chime in, though.
Guest:I really, you know, I hesitate to...
Guest:If you're—anybody that's being—anybody that's successful in this business, I give them a lot of credit, as I know you do, too.
Guest:Oh, no, definitely.
Guest:I hesitate.
Marc:I don't like— Yeah, you can't judge the performance.
Marc:Like, I'm about to do this movie, and I feel like I'm going to fuck the whole thing.
Marc:What's the movie?
Marc:It's a dark comedy.
Marc:You looking for a part?
Guest:I'm an actor.
Guest:I think I can do anything.
Marc:I'm very nervous about it because it's a lead.
Marc:I just do not think that... Do you have an acting coach?
Marc:No.
Guest:You ever had an acting coach?
Guest:No.
Guest:I have an acting coach.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my early years with Roger Corman, it was trial by fire.
Guest:That's how I learned.
Guest:So you were the extra, and then how'd that unfold, too?
Guest:I ended up going to Roger Corman Studios.
Guest:Ham and Lumber, which is my middle name, so I felt like, ooh, there's something.
Marc:Yeah, look at that.
Guest:Synchronicity.
Marc:Ham and Lumber.
Marc:No coincidence there.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And the director saw me and he said, hey, you, I want you to come read for this.
Guest:And literally, I read it on the spot, cold reading.
Guest:I went in and acted with the guy that had been casting the lead.
Guest:Fucking did this off-the-hook audition.
Guest:I literally grabbed the guy by the front of his shirt, threw him over my knee to the floor.
Guest:I mean, I acted out the scene for real.
Guest:I cleared the guy at the director's desk.
Guest:I just went violent.
Guest:And the guy goes, Clark Henderson was his name, director, and went,
Guest:You're hired.
Guest:I had my first supporting lead role, and we shot it out at Indian Dunes, which is real close to my new location of my dealership.
Guest:And it was right after Vic Morrow and the whole Jim Landis thing and all that kind of thing.
Guest:It was 1984.
Guest:And you did a few movies with Corman?
Guest:I did like six.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Six movies with Roger, I think.
Guest:And I asked for my SAG card and Hollywood Boulevard Part 2 was my SAG card.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was, you know, shipped off to the Philippines, did a bunch of movies there and really learned a lot.
Guest:How to be on a set, yeah.
Guest:I learned a lot and would, you know, was not...
Guest:Very forthcoming about anything because I was so insecure about the lack of training.
Guest:But I thought I sure will.
Guest:And, you know, I'm athletic enough to do the stunts.
Guest:And, you know, there's got to be a way I can break out.
Guest:And I did a play.
Guest:I had done one play and I was doing another play.
Guest:And I got, you know, that builds confidence.
Guest:Doing theater?
Guest:Doing theater.
Guest:And then, you know, a lot of good people around me that were telling me I had something and I believed them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just a kind word from people that I really believe.
Guest:I think you got to believe them.
Guest:What time is it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Fuck, I got to keep an eye on the time.
Guest:Why?
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:I got an air conditioning guy come over to my house at noon.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:So I got to kind of...
Guest:How long is this supposed to go?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You just go.
Guest:I know you're going to edit this and make it all good, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Probably cut it down to about 20.
Marc:20 minutes?
Guest:I'm kidding.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:This is a fascinating experience.
Guest:Well, what about the acting coach now?
Guest:Oh, I was going to tell you that after I had done Copland.
Marc:That was great, man.
Marc:You were great in that.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Yeah, you're always good.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Guest:James Mangold.
Guest:Great guy.
Marc:I thought that movie was like, it's an underrated movie, and I know it got a little chaotic, but you were great.
Marc:Everybody was great.
Marc:I loved making that movie.
Guest:That's one of my favorite experiences.
Guest:And then another James Mangold movie is one of my other favorite experiences, Walk the Line with Joaquin Phoenix.
Guest:You played Johnny's dad, right?
Guest:I was Johnny's dad.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So while I was doing a film, I met an acting coach named Stephen Bridgewater, who became a very good friend of mine.
Guest:And I think the greatest thing that Stephen did for me was he eliminated my insecurities.
Guest:And for that, I'm so grateful that I met him.
Guest:I wished I'd met him earlier in my career.
Guest:And they're gone?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm pretty bulletproof now.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:How did he do that?
Guest:He basically just told me I'm good.
Guest:I mean, it was really like having somebody...
Guest:Kind of acknowledging like.
Guest:But acknowledging so you could hear it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:As opposed to going like, eh, fuck it.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:He cut through all the bullshit.
Guest:I mean, it was like, there was a way in which he did.
Guest:It's not that he didn't give me some technique and things to work on like the Alexander technique.
Guest:You know, the secret with acting, I'm sure Mr. Pacino told you, is relaxation.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And you have to get to that point of relaxation where you quiet your brain.
Guest:You're not worried about it.
Guest:Am I good?
Guest:I don't even think about that.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:You've got to get to that point where you've prepped, you've studied, you've thought about it, you're prepared.
Guest:Now throw it all away and just be relaxed and in the fucking moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Then you can get into techniques where it's like, well, where's the camera and which eye do I want to look at?
Guest:My breathing's fine.
Guest:I've got my dialogue and the camera's over Mark's right eye.
Guest:So I'm camera right.
Guest:So I'm going to focus on Mark and I'm going to be able to play to that scene that way.
Guest:You know, this technique you can do, you know, relaxation of your face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you're always like mugging and doing shit, that doesn't work 35 times as big.
Guest:You need to kind of just, you want to have people look into your eyes.
Guest:And if you watch people, what are you riveted by when you're watching somebody?
Guest:What Stephen taught me was...
Guest:You've got to relax your face and you want to bring the audience in with your eyes.
Guest:And so you want to start looking at your environment and what's all there.
Guest:So if it's cameras and extras and people, you want to be in the moment and you want all that coming to you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You don't want to be looking to get it.
Guest:You're not like trying to force it in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You want to be receptive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So...
Guest:there's that aspect of it so how you can do that and and and the less eye blinking and and just fixing and just being able to deliver your lines without moving and hands and all that kind of shit yeah yeah yeah and just deliver yeah that has the biggest impact and then like you've already put in place where you're coming from yeah yeah so when did you so when did you learn that what movie was that
Guest:I think the first time that—the first performance I did having brought Mr. Bridgewater in to help me was Sopranos.
Marc:Jesus Christ, that guy was great.
Guest:And I will give you a little insight on that.
Guest:My career was going in a way that, you know, it's—
Guest:You get opportunities, and then you've got kids, you've got responsibilities, you've got things going on, and your artistic integrity is not as good as – it's based on your financial integrity.
Guest:And I was always a poor guy, so I was always looking for what's my next –
Guest:buck yeah and I've done a lot of movies that are shit that you know hey well you want to work you're still acting I'm still acting I want to work and I got to make money and this is how I make money and you know and I got to support my family yeah but you know you say that to yourself anyway but like after Terminator 2 were you typecast yeah
Marc:Yeah, I was.
Marc:So you had to get out from under that.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny that you said it the way you just said it because it really hit me.
Guest:I was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so you had to figure out.
Guest:I don't think I've ever admitted that to anybody.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Man, you're good.
Guest:But, you know, the first gigs were, you know, and you know the other thing was, Mark?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I walked in and I started to catch on, oh, I look like the guy from Terminator 2.
Guest:Oh, yeah, well, I am that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's all their perception is because I was an unknown when I got that role.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was the only way people perceived me.
Guest:Who is this guy?
Guest:They didn't go look at my Roger Corman bullshit.
Guest:No.
Guest:I've never seen the plays I've done.
Guest:They had no idea what I used to look like or whatever.
Guest:They just saw me as that.
Guest:Yeah.
Oh, fuck.
Guest:The guy.
Guest:The guy.
Guest:Yeah, so... The menace.
Guest:It was Robert Lieberman.
Guest:And I had grown... I realized after a year and a half of not getting cast in anything, after T2, you think I'd have all this momentum.
Guest:I was beginning to think it was a fluke, and I went like, fuck.
Guest:And I grew my hair long, I grew a beard, and I gained weight, and I went in and I auditioned for Fire in the Sky, and I got cast by Robert Lieberman.
Guest:And that kind of got things going.
Guest:But getting back to The Sopranos and working with Stephen, he knew about The Sopranos.
Guest:I had met David Chase a couple years earlier.
Guest:Actually, I think it was to do a movie with Jewel, too, to be honest with you.
Guest:We met at Lucy's L. Adobe.
Guest:I remember that.
Guest:And David remembered me from that meeting and thought about casting me and called me and said, you know, we want to cast you in this role.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was Steven Bridgewater who said, you've got to do it.
Guest:And I looked at it, and it was such a change.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I mean, you're vulnerable.
Guest:You're a little bitch.
Guest:They're going to slap you, throw you around.
Guest:You're not the menace.
Guest:You're pathetic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All that kind of shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Steven took me to Gamblers Anonymous.
Guest:And I started meeting all these guys that were little guys that in their heads, they were John Wayne when they were playing cards and shit.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it all started to make sense to me.
Guest:Anyway, long story short, I had a film that was at the Venice Film Festival.
Guest:I had prepped.
Guest:I had shot scenes with Stephen on video.
Guest:I had video of it, of scenes that I was going to be doing with James to reference.
Guest:I was so prepped and ready for those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That when I got to Silver Cup Studios in Queens.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was off book.
Guest:They had a read through.
Guest:I went.
Guest:I'm meeting all the guys and they're looking at it.
Guest:This is the start of the second season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's huge.
Guest:I don't even think they knew how big they were.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They knew.
Guest:Anyway, they hadn't gone to the Emmys yet.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're doing a read to it.
Guest:And I'm seeing, oh, shit.
Guest:They're reading the scripts, like, right away, like, looking to see if they're dead.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm off book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm so fucking ready.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I could, you know, you could see actors sizing you up, like, what the fuck is he here for?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I don't know if there was any of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you kind of.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:It comes from the same place as resentment.
Yeah.
Marc:Damn, you're good.
Marc:It's like this internal monologue.
Guest:This internal monologue is going on.
Guest:But the read-through was great.
Guest:And that whole experience, it changed my career because everybody in Hollywood was watching.
Guest:And all of a sudden they saw that and they went.
Guest:He can do anything.
Guest:Hey, he's a fucking actor.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Well, what was it about James?
Guest:Oh, I loved working with him.
Guest:I purposely pushed him to be able to have him throw me around.
Guest:I kind of went, you know, hey, I taunted him.
Guest:I said, you know, we're going to be shooting that scene pretty soon, and you better have your A game.
Yeah.
Guest:And he kind of did one of the, we were outside smoking a cigarette in front of us, so he looked at me and kind of went, oh, I'm my fucking A game.
Guest:He flicked his cigarette at me and walked off.
Guest:And came in the next day and he was, he was, he literally said to me, he said, how's your balls?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm kind of sitting at that chair where he comes in there where he finds me at the computer and he says, how's your balls?
Guest:And I said, they're good, James.
Guest:How are you?
Guest:Or I said, how's yours?
Guest:And he went, I'm hungover.
Guest:Let's fucking shoot this scene.
Guest:And I went, oh, my God.
Guest:And I'm already going, oh, fuck, what did I do?
Guest:Because he's fucking, and I can't fight back.
Guest:And you know what was funny, Mark?
Guest:I had lost weight purposely for Billy Bob Thornton.
Guest:I was doing a movie with him called All the Pretty Horses.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And Billy had asked me, you know, you play Matt Damon's father.
Guest:You're a World War II veteran.
Guest:And you got to lose weight and be really anemic and you're almost near death.
Guest:You're still smoking.
Guest:That's what he said to me.
Guest:You're still smoking?
Guest:I went, yeah, Billy, I'm still smoking.
Guest:He said, okay, well, keep smoking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's when that all happened.
Guest:At the same time, and they asked me to do Sopranos.
Guest:So you lean.
Guest:I'm so vulnerable, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because when you're not eating, you don't feel very.
Guest:You don't feel forceful.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You're not intimidating.
Guest:You're kind of, eh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It really worked for the worm character.
Guest:One fucking take, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He came in with such, get up.
Guest:We didn't rehearse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Get up.
Guest:You know, we're shooting the rehearsal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, that whole scene's for real.
Guest:I'm fucking like...
Guest:throwing me around.
Guest:I'm just being conscious of like, I'm being thrown around.
Guest:I'm throwing, he's throwing me up here on this wall.
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Hit me.
Guest:I didn't know if he was going to hit me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So it really, and I let my mind get into it and really went for it.
Guest:It was, it was, it was so much fun.
Guest:James ended up, we got along really well.
Guest:I ended up having lunch at one of the Sopranos things with him and his father and getting to meet his dad.
Guest:And,
Guest:And he was a really, really great guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Such a sweetheart.
Marc:I watched that doc about Chase and the Sopranos.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I did too.
Marc:And it was so heartbreaking.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How consumed Gandolfini got.
Marc:Just to see what he was before the Sopranos, the way he talked and the way he presented himself and what that role pulled out of him and that he had to live in.
Marc:year after year for what was it six seasons six or seven seasons but that sounds like an amazing experience and the fact that you were playing you know the the the bottom you know the the guy who's broken i mean when i saw you do that i'm like holy fuck where's this guy been yeah yeah well good and and and and and that's exactly what happened in hollywood it opened a bunch of doors for me yeah and um uh
Guest:And also, it opened my mind.
Guest:I realized, God, I've been doing all these shitty movies.
Guest:Why haven't I ever looked to TV?
Guest:And as soon as I did that, I said to my agents, can I – is any TV available?
Guest:I had a pilot on every network and –
Guest:And, you know, that I had to audition for and ended up the X-Files.
Guest:I walked away with the X-Files when David Duchovny.
Guest:And TV was changing.
Marc:It was like a lot of real actors were kind of doing it.
Guest:It was weird.
Guest:It was like George Clooney and a lot of actors were making the jump to movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then there was a lot of us that were kind of finding TV and going, yeah, it's better writing than I'm doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, not everything's cop land or walk the line.
Marc:I might be able to come back next season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Might do a few episodes.
Guest:That's where it.
Guest:The real money is in episodic TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For actors, my tier.
Guest:So what are you doing?
Guest:What are you working on now?
Guest:1923 with Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:The second season, Taylor Sheridan, prolific writer.
Guest:And I'm also working for another incredibly prolific writer,
Guest:director james gunn yeah and dc um in the dc studios world uh dc comics uh we're doing a second season of peacemaker okay so i'm john cena's father white supremacist racist xenophobe homophobe yeah he's just an awful character in the dc world it's called white dragon yeah smith i'm john cena's father yeah and then and uh
Guest:How's that?
Guest:I'm Harrison Ford's—I say I'm his best friend.
Guest:I am.
Guest:I'm the sheriff of the town, and he's sort of got me in his hip pocket.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he's Jacob Dutton, and Helen Mirren's his wife, Kara Dutton.
Marc:How much does the script inform what you do?
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Yeah, a lot.
Guest:I—
Guest:You know, everything's based on I have to really know the words.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I seem to have a real good ability of being able to.
Guest:Keep them in your head.
Guest:Yeah, but also finding the character through that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I find the character through, you know, wardrobe makeup.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And then I just believe it, you know, and find the truth as fast as I can to what I want, you know, and what the scene's about.
Guest:You know this.
Guest:Every scene's a one-act play.
Guest:You've got to really think about that.
Guest:It's a one-act play.
Guest:Every scene, and you string those together.
Guest:And in those scenes, you're going to try to find a moment, you know, and do your thing.
Guest:Some stuff you have to go, okay, this is exposition, so how am I going to deal with this?
Guest:Well, I'm going to get to it as fast as I fucking can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, sometimes the writers aren't too happy about that.
Guest:But see, the thing is, is you want to make everything conversational.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if it's exposition, I'm going to, well, this is the part where I tell you the story about what we're going to do.
Guest:But if you do it fast and quick and lay it all out there and make it seem like it's a fucking conversation, it just goes.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:People get it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is all helping me.
Guest:Can I mention a few other things?
Guest:Because I feel like we're winding down.
Guest:I'm going to just mention something.
Guest:If you don't mind.
Guest:Only if it's your Harley dealership.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Harley Davidson of Santa Clarita.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got my grand opening November 9th.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're invited.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:We'll have a lot of people there.
Guest:My partner, Oliver Shoku, Glendale Harley-Davidson, is responsible for the Love Ride.
Guest:He did 33, 34 years of Love Ride.
Guest:We've had David Grohl.
Guest:We've had Bruce Springsteen.
Guest:We've had ZZ Top.
Guest:What's the Love Ride?
Guest:Love Ride is the largest single...
Guest:Day motorcycle fundraising event in the world.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:We've raised over $25 million.
Guest:He's raised over 25.
Guest:We, $25 million doing it for like 33, 34 years.
Guest:Jay Leno is the honorary grand marshal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Great bands have been involved.
Guest:And so he's my business partner.
Guest:He and I bought Harley Davidson of Santa Clarita.
Guest:We've had the business for seven years.
Guest:How's it going?
Guest:It's going great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's my passion.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're moving it into this new location right on the five.
Guest:Can you take a part of bike and put it back together?
Guest:I can take a part of bike.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Putting it back together is a little difficult for me.
Guest:Are the newer bikes complicated?
Guest:They're very complicated.
Guest:They're very well engineered.
Guest:The best motorcycles we've ever produced is Harley-Davidson right now.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And I ride all over the country.
Guest:I do that all year round.
Guest:I do about...
Guest:You know, three or four.
Guest:Last year I did about four cross-country trips.
Guest:And that's what I do in between gigs.
Guest:Isn't that meditative?
Guest:It's very meditative.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?
Guest:You like it?
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Have you ever done a cross-country trip, anything like that?
Marc:Been out there in the wild?
Marc:I was a kid, and my dad was, you know, it's funny because my dad had bought a couple of Japanese bikes when I was a kid, a Suzuki 90, a little one, and a mini bike and shit.
Marc:And, you know, he was running around with these cops, you know, riding a bit.
Marc:But he's an orthopedic surgeon.
Marc:And at some point— Your father's an orthopedic surgeon.
Marc:He was.
Marc:He's not dead, but he's definitely not a surgeon anymore.
Marc:How old is he?
Marc:He's having a hard time remembering what he ate for breakfast.
Marc:He's 86.
Marc:That's my mom's age.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But he, one time, you know, when I was riding, he decided, like, I need to learn a lesson.
Marc:He took me to the hospital to show me one of his patients in traction who got into a motorcycle accident that wasn't his fault.
Marc:And I was like, well, why didn't you buy me the bike?
Wow.
Marc:And that was kind of the end of it.
Marc:How do you feel about that?
Marc:About him doing that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, he was kind of a worried guy and he was kind of a manic guy.
Marc:So he would go for these flights of sort of like he'd get all in on something and then it would just, you know, go away for whatever reason.
Marc:And I think, you know, the injuries and him having to deal with it, he just got scared and, you know, he put the fear in me and I get it.
Marc:I mean, it was concern.
Marc:It wasn't trying to kill a dream or anything.
Marc:I was always a little nervous on bikes because, you know, all you got to do.
Marc:We'd take it out on the bumpy dirt things, and I knew guys that could jump.
Marc:I think I always had a sort of lack of confidence, and you can't have a lack of confidence in midair.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Guest:Did I ask you this earlier?
Guest:Where are you from?
Marc:I grew up in Albuquerque.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But my family's from Jersey.
Marc:I'm genetically Jersey.
Marc:My wife's from Jersey.
Marc:Yeah, I'm definitely a Jersey person.
Marc:But second grade through high school, I was in Albuquerque.
Marc:My dad's still out there.
Guest:Well, I have friends that are from Albuquerque.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a funny thing about confidence in those things, you know?
Marc:Like I always used to think about like, you know, if I was hanging off a cliff.
Marc:Like Wile E. Coyote?
Marc:Yeah, what's my move?
Marc:Yeah, what's my move hanging off the cliff?
Marc:Sadly, it would be like.
Marc:You're going to go.
Marc:You're not going to pull up?
Guest:No.
Guest:Now you're going to try?
Guest:Yeah, I'll try.
Guest:But I don't know if I'll get up there.
Guest:Have you ever been in a life and death situation?
No.
Marc:maybe on drugs once or twice, but not in a way where I was like, wow, I could have died.
Marc:Usually it's timing and scary girlfriends.
Guest:Without getting into the story, but I was in a boating accident and that's what changed my life.
Guest:And I survived and saved four other guys' lives in Lake Erie.
Guest:And it was two months later that I moved to Hollywood.
Guest:That was my wake-up call from God basically saying, you're fucking up and you better...
Guest:you got one life and go for it and that's that was the impetus that sent me going no shit it was that and and and and uh you know i i've been out here ever since and uh it's it's worked out but it was literally a swift kick in the ass and i was praying for that i was looking for that yeah and and it happened in a dramatic way thank thankfully it did happen in a dramatic way and i really felt like uh
Marc:Well, what was the second turn?
Marc:I mean, there must have been another turn where you got sober.
Marc:That must have been a similar moment.
Guest:I got sober to do T2.
Guest:I realized early on physically I was not going to be able to do that movie with my recreational experience.
Guest:participation and drug sports and other things and it was expected of me to be able to physically handle this there was going to be all sorts of training involved with it and i didn't tell anybody that i but i was a you know i was a daily guy getting fucked up every day no one knew that and i went cold turkey did the film and like a dumbass and true alcoholic yeah
Guest:I told my wife, I said, as soon as this is over, I'm going to, you know, I want a case of beer.
Guest:And I just turned it on and benched for four years.
Guest:I was just having this conversation with James Gunn the other day.
Marc:And, uh, you want me to get that name you dropped or do you want me to just put it there with Pacino?
Guest:I'll put it there with Pacino.
Guest:By the way, I didn't want to say this, but I, Pacino's been to my house.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:He ate some fried fucking chicken and left it in a garbage can.
Guest:All right, there you go.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:So James Gunn, you told him the story four years.
Guest:Because he's sober, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's been sober since he was 19.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, you know, and it's weird.
Guest:I did T2 and I accomplished this great, you know, I really participated and accomplished this great thing.
Guest:And what did I do?
Guest:I immediately went back to my old ways, went on a bench, started drinking all the time, started doing weed again.
Guest:And wondered why the fuck aren't I worried?
Guest:I thought I had this momentum.
Guest:And I fucked myself for four years.
Marc:Also, that had something to do with the...
Guest:And then I, and then my wife, I wanted to have kids, and my wife, Barbara, God bless her, she said, there's no way I'm having kids with you unless you clean up your act.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And that's why I did it.
Guest:You did it?
Guest:I did it.
Marc:Still cold turkey?
Marc:You do the work?
Guest:I have a sponsor, and I go to the occasional meeting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I really feel like it's just a spiritual, the, the, the, the,
Guest:The program is really just a fast track to reconnect you with God and spirituality and however you perceive that.
Guest:You grew up with that?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I'm a cradle to grave Episcopalian.
Guest:And I believe that.
Guest:And I feel like that's what the program did.
Guest:It got me back and I reconnected and found my faith again.
Guest:And I've been...
Guest:Good ever since.
Guest:I'm happy for you.
Guest:That's great, man.
Marc:Yeah, we're doing it.
Marc:25 years.
Marc:You're 25?
Marc:25 and godless.
Marc:Good for you with the God, though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, it's very important.
Guest:Well, I think I have some sort of spirituality.
Guest:I'm sure you do.
Guest:And, you know, I think everybody has to have whatever they have.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:I mean, it's so easy for me because it's— You were brought up with it.
Guest:I was brought up in it.
Guest:It's wired in.
Guest:It's genetically pre-wired.
Guest:I have a, you know—
Guest:You can talk to some of my other family members about their stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What?
Marc:This isn't going to be a full series on you.
Marc:I don't want to disappoint you, but I'm not going to go interview your family to do five episodes.
Guest:I didn't mean that.
Marc:You should bring my brother in.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The singer.
Guest:Oh, multi-platinum recording artist.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He's fucking fantastic.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:What about your family?
Marc:What would they say about your faith?
Marc:They're all for it.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Except for... Yeah.
Marc:The one?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:All right.
Marc:You know.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:He's a good guy.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Nice talking to you.
Guest:Hey, Mark, let me tell you something.
Guest:We met at the American Airlines Lounge.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Locked in right away.
Guest:Everything I thought you were, you're a great guy.
Guest:I really enjoyed this.
Guest:I'm embarrassed.
Guest:I don't like talking like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I can make it sound good, buddy, do something, save my ass, would you?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:All right.
Guest:God bless you, bro.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:If you're in the market for a Harley, go to Robert's Place in Santa Clarita.
Marc:Hang out for a minute.
Marc:Hey, folks, on Thursday, I talked to documentary filmmaker Billy Corbin.
Marc:He directed the new film From Russia with Lev, which was produced by my old Air America co-worker, Rachel Maddow.
Marc:If you want to go back and listen to my talk with Rachel from 2019, it's episode 1062.
Marc:It's hard for me to see you as just like the person that I used to see hanging around Air America because now, because like when I met you, I think you had a crew cut and...
Marc:and you wore a baseball hat a lot yeah you're a little heavier yeah and uh you know and you were just always uh yeah like sort of uh leaning over a lot of papers yeah i have a backpack full of paper that i brought with me to talk to you today if that would make you more comfortable for me to get into that thing no it's never i think i might even have a hat oh good well no definitely it wouldn't make me more comfortable it would be give me that same feeling i got back then i'm like
Marc:Should I be working more?
Guest:I just read a few things.
Guest:Isn't that enough?
Guest:But did I seem like the same?
Guest:I mean, not did my workout seem the same, but do I seem like the same person, personality-wise?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, I think, well, you seem more confident, and you would hope that would happen.
Guest:Is it interesting?
Guest:No, I don't feel more confident.
Marc:You don't?
Guest:No.
Marc:That's episode 1062 with Rachel Maddow, and you can listen to it for free wherever you're listening to this episode right now.
Marc:To get all episodes of WTF ad-free, sign up for WTF+.
Marc:Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.
Marc:And a reminder, before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast.
Marc:I looped some basic blues.
Marc:Thank you.
guitar solo
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey and LaFonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.