Episode 1590 - Jessica Lange

Episode 1590 • Released November 11, 2024 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what's happening what is happening the jig is up

00:00:20Marc:Whatever you're thinking, whatever you're saying about who did what and why and why it happened or whatever, it's done.

00:00:26Marc:And now that we sit here in this trauma-infused reprieve between now and the inauguration, I don't know what you're thinking.

00:00:38Marc:But it's not going to be good.

00:00:40Marc:It's going to be worse than last time.

00:00:42Marc:It's going to be much more organized.

00:00:44Marc:And we are going to be living in an entirely different system.

00:00:50Marc:of government and cultural dominance.

00:00:52Marc:And that is what it is.

00:00:56Marc:So personal perseverance and mental hygiene and caring for yourself and others, protecting yourself and others is going to be probably the way it's going to be.

00:01:10Marc:I mean, I can only address this generally speaking from my point of view.

00:01:16Marc:And, you know, I'll go on sharing my life and my thoughts and having these conversations that we have on this show and

00:01:24Marc:With creative people talking about expression and life stuff and transcending difficulty through creativity and art and comedy.

00:01:40Marc:You know, that will continue.

00:01:42Marc:And I think it's going to be essential.

00:01:44Marc:To help people maintain their sanity.

00:01:47Marc:So before I get into all of this, let me just do some business.

00:01:51Marc:Jessica Lange is here today.

00:01:53Marc:I talked to her.

00:01:54Marc:She's amazing.

00:01:55Marc:We recorded this before the election.

00:01:56Marc:She's won, you know, really just about all the top prizes you can get for acting.

00:02:01Marc:In the United States, two Oscars, three Emmys, five Golden Globes and a Tony.

00:02:07Marc:She was recently in an HBO film, which we talked about, which was really quite amazing.

00:02:12Marc:I mean, she's an amazing actor.

00:02:14Marc:This sort of creative quest for truth on behalf of any legit artist is something amazing to watch.

00:02:23Marc:The HBO movie, I think, yeah, it's called The Great Lillian Hall.

00:02:27Marc:But we'll talk about that and her life.

00:02:29Marc:I'll be touring in January.

00:02:31Marc:I'll be in Sacramento, California at the Crest Theater on Friday, January 10th.

00:02:35Marc:I'll be in Napa, California at the Uptown Theater on January 11th.

00:02:39Marc:I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado at the Lincoln Center Performance Hall on Friday, January 17th.

00:02:44Marc:Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th.

00:02:47Marc:Santa Barbara, California at the Lobero Theater on Thursday, January 30th.

00:02:51Marc:San Luis Obispo.

00:02:52Marc:California at the Fremont Center on Friday, January 31st, and Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1st.

00:03:01Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets.

00:03:06Marc:We need your questions.

00:03:07Marc:Also, for an upcoming Ask Mark Anything bonus episode, just go to the link in the episode description and send me a question.

00:03:13Marc:Then subscribe to the full Marin so you can get every Ask Mark Anything bonus episode.

00:03:19Marc:So, look...

00:03:21Marc:I don't know how to speak in the way of like, you know, fight the good fight or do this or do that.

00:03:27Marc:It all seems to have been an illusion what we believed in and what we thought possible, even with all the faults and nefariousness of any political system or party.

00:03:43Marc:But so I just I'm not going to I'm not going to sit here for the next however long.

00:03:50Marc:And say, like, you know, we got to you know, we got to fight the good fight.

00:03:54Marc:It just seems like that fight is lost.

00:03:56Marc:I mean, we can certainly do our bit and do service, you know, help other people do whatever you can.

00:04:02Marc:I mean, I guess that is fighting the good fight.

00:04:04Marc:But politically, it's fucking over.

00:04:08Marc:And, you know, but that doesn't mean one can't behave like a decent, good person in the service of other people and themselves in a world that is going to be hostile to that.

00:04:23Marc:And it's just tricky for me.

00:04:26Marc:You know, it's some sort of turning point.

00:04:28Marc:I have to figure out how to make it funny.

00:04:30Marc:I have to figure out how to sort of, you know, be there for my audience.

00:04:36Marc:And look, if you're here to troll or, you know, if you...

00:04:40Marc:You know, you're you don't agree with me politically and now you're out or you don't agree with me politically, but you still like the way I talk to people.

00:04:47Marc:I don't I don't give a fuck.

00:04:49Marc:Be here if you want.

00:04:49Marc:Be here for the wrong reasons.

00:04:50Marc:But, you know, I'm going to speak to the people that are here and have always been here.

00:04:54Marc:And look, you know, you guys know me, you know, by now I'm you know, I'll try to move through this.

00:05:02Marc:And talk about something specific that kind of has been sitting with me.

00:05:06Marc:I'm an insecure guy.

00:05:07Marc:I don't hide that.

00:05:08Marc:I'm a defensive guy.

00:05:09Marc:I can be reactive and cranky.

00:05:11Marc:But it all comes from a place of very painful sensitivity that for most of my life has been almost self-erasing.

00:05:21Marc:And that sensitivity has evolved over the years and an empathy has grown over the years as well.

00:05:28Marc:I mean, when I was younger, look, I was a selfish, toxic fuck of a person at times.

00:05:33Marc:You know, I've comedically I've done all the bad jokes.

00:05:36Marc:I've done all the wrong jokes.

00:05:38Marc:I've pushed the envelope in every way.

00:05:39Marc:I've been shocking.

00:05:41Marc:I've been wrong minded.

00:05:42Marc:I've done that.

00:05:43Marc:You know, as a comic, it was always important to me to express myself as I was in a time and

00:05:50Marc:And because that's how I felt or that's what I wanted to do and continue to grow.

00:05:54Marc:I've done hours and hours and hours of material arcing over many years.

00:05:59Marc:And I've landed at a place where I have been humbled by age and experience, grief, disappointment, just life.

00:06:10Marc:And all that has enabled me as an older person to open my heart a bit and behave in a conscientious way.

00:06:18Marc:And to get back to, you know, whatever fear, whatever sensitivity I was experiencing that at the core of myself, I believed was just a fractured self or partial self.

00:06:31Marc:You know, it is filled out.

00:06:33Marc:And I'm OK.

00:06:34Marc:I think I'm an OK human being at this point.

00:06:38Marc:And for me, politics has always been cultural in a way.

00:06:43Marc:Look, I'm not a dummy.

00:06:44Marc:I know that the system has been sold out and is mostly just a money laundering front for corporate interests and greed.

00:06:51Marc:I know that just the way it's always been.

00:06:54Marc:I've spoken to that in comedy over the years.

00:06:57Marc:But for me, if if if the middle management, the president and whoever was under him was at least fostering some empathy and some sense of tolerance and some concept or whether it was deep or not of embracing the cultural ideas of democracy, I was OK with it.

00:07:18Marc:Maybe that was short sighted.

00:07:20Marc:Obviously, it was.

00:07:23Marc:And when it comes down to like this idea of free speech, you know, which, you know, I sent out a missive a week or so ago that I stand by 100 percent.

00:07:31Marc:I have never said anything other than you can say whatever the fuck you want.

00:07:37Marc:We've always been able to say whatever the fuck we want.

00:07:41Marc:Now, look, sometimes there were consequences culturally that were damning.

00:07:45Marc:Sometimes there were consequences from business interests that align themselves with sensitivity and empathy with a perceived marginalized group.

00:07:53Marc:Any consequences for saying anything is seen by the right as censorship and an indicator of wokeness.

00:08:01Marc:Now, don't misunderstand me.

00:08:04Marc:Corporations aren't generally woke.

00:08:06Marc:They aren't acting out of the goodness of their corporate hearts, but instead to protect their bottom lines, which most have realized they don't have to do anymore because it's like recalling the pinto.

00:08:19Right.

00:08:20Marc:You know, when Netflix decided that they didn't give a shit about LGBT people in the face of any sort of grassroots outcry about comedic material, eventually they just said, you know, fuck it.

00:08:33Marc:You know, we can cut them loose.

00:08:36Marc:What are the parameters of this outcry about, you know, the freedom of speech, this platform that is so important to the new majority to the point that they don't care how much blood they get on their hands, how many vulnerable lives they destroy, how much terror they put in the hearts of vulnerable Americans.

00:08:53Marc:I mean, to them, it seems like a small price to pay for this idea of freedom of speech, which in their actions is utterly conditional.

00:09:03Marc:I mean, what is woke?

00:09:05Marc:What is this enemy?

00:09:07Marc:It seems to me, and I've thought about it, it seems to me that if you speak from a place of sensitivity, of empathy, from a place of vulnerability or on behalf of the vulnerable, if you speak from a place of fear, whether it be personal or for the world, if you speak from a place of anger at being targeted or suppressed, if you speak anger,

00:09:27Marc:in the service of defending a freedom to live the way you want to live in what is supposed to be a free country, if you speak from a place of concern for others less fortunate or unable to defend themselves.

00:09:39Marc:Those are the woke things.

00:09:40Marc:It seems that in the face of this new majority, the response to these expressions of speech is shut the fuck up.

00:09:49Marc:And that's a directive.

00:09:51Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:09:53Marc:And that can logically be followed by or I'll shut you up.

00:09:58Marc:And that's a threat.

00:10:00Marc:They are now the censors.

00:10:02Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:10:03Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:10:05Marc:You woke fuck.

00:10:06Marc:Shut up.

00:10:08Marc:It's not corporate censorship.

00:10:10Marc:It's ideological.

00:10:11Marc:And it has nothing to do with the Constitution.

00:10:14Marc:It is the censorship of terrorizing with speech and likely with acts of terror, but hopefully not.

00:10:21Marc:Who the fuck knows?

00:10:23Marc:But don't underestimate the power of shut the fuck up.

00:10:27Marc:And it's on us to stand up to that.

00:10:30Marc:So shut the fuck up.

00:10:32Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:10:33Marc:That's the way it works.

00:10:34Marc:That's the way it's going to work.

00:10:36Marc:Hopefully it doesn't come down to blood in the streets, killing people as an example, imprisoning people as an example to terrorize people into either towing the line or just shutting the fuck up.

00:10:52Marc:And it's already happening.

00:10:53Marc:I mean, look, I every day I'm like, I don't want to I don't want to put myself out there.

00:10:58Marc:I don't want to go out there and, you know, do stand up.

00:11:01Marc:You know, I don't you know, like, you know, I have to muster up.

00:11:06Marc:The strength to to speak my mind in the way that I believe is right.

00:11:12Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:11:15Marc:Keep your head down and shut the fuck up, which is honestly pretty easy to do now that we all have these phones.

00:11:24Marc:I mean, 90% of the people are already doing that.

00:11:27Marc:Shut the fuck up.

00:11:27Marc:Keep your head down.

00:11:29Marc:I am.

00:11:29Marc:I'm looking at a thing on TikTok.

00:11:33Marc:Should be a new slogan, new ad slogan for the iPhone.

00:11:37Marc:Keep your head down and shut the fuck up.

00:11:40Marc:The iPhone 20 is...

00:11:43Marc:Or whatever fucking number we're on.

00:11:45Marc:Look, so on another note, I don't have a beard and mustache anymore because I had to shave to look like I was dying.

00:11:57Marc:But we wrapped the movie.

00:11:58Marc:We have one more bit to do in a few weeks.

00:12:02Marc:That's just a days of work.

00:12:04Marc:And we wrapped the movie a full, like, you know, 20 days of just 12-hour, 13-hour day shooting.

00:12:12Marc:And, you know, I never went home once during that time and thought I didn't do everything I could.

00:12:18Marc:I never went home...

00:12:19Marc:From a day of shooting, think like I could have done it differently.

00:12:22Marc:You know, I kind of stepped up to this thing.

00:12:24Marc:And I'm not tooting my own horn.

00:12:25Marc:I'm just saying that, like, it couldn't have happened at any other time in my life.

00:12:29Marc:But I was ready for this.

00:12:30Marc:I was ready to take the chances and the risks that were, you know, implicit in the character and challenge myself and try to get to another place with...

00:12:42Marc:portraying this person who was, you know, a complex person.

00:12:47Marc:But we did it.

00:12:48Marc:And, you know, I was a decent guy on set and I was, you know, professional.

00:12:54Marc:And, you know, I guess I should say it out loud because in light of some of the other stuff we're talking about, you know, I feel proud of myself.

00:13:04Marc:And, you know, it's not that's not a common feeling for me.

00:13:10Marc:And I really hope that, you know, by the time this comes out next year or is available, that we have the ability to watch it.

00:13:19Marc:And people see it.

00:13:21Marc:Because I think it's a hell of a story.

00:13:24Marc:And it's a very kind of complex and deep, touching story, this movie that I just did.

00:13:32Marc:And I really hope it cuts together well.

00:13:35Marc:Oh, man.

00:13:36Marc:Oh, my God.

00:13:39Marc:Oh.

00:13:42Marc:The trauma-infused reprieve of not knowing.

00:13:47Marc:Yeah.

00:13:49Marc:All right.

00:13:50Marc:Welcome to the new world.

00:13:52Marc:So look, Jessica Lange and I had a conversation before the election, and it was very exciting for me.

00:13:58Marc:I think she's one of the greats, without a doubt.

00:14:01Marc:She's in this HBO movie, The Great Lillian Hall, which is streaming on Max.

00:14:07Marc:And...

00:14:09Marc:I don't know.

00:14:09Marc:It was just it's one of those it's one of those talks where I was honored to be talking to her and I was excited that she was so willing to talk.

00:14:19Marc:And so I'm going to share it with you now.

00:14:22Marc:This is me talking to the the the great Jessica Lange.

00:14:38Marc:We're doing it!

00:15:02Guest:Yeah.

00:15:03Guest:And I think, you know, for some reason, there's a lot of tourism there.

00:15:07Guest:Now, why anybody would?

00:15:09Guest:Yeah.

00:15:09Guest:I don't know.

00:15:10Guest:Yeah.

00:15:11Guest:But so you've got like throngs of people moving down the streets.

00:15:15Guest:Yeah.

00:15:16Guest:All day long.

00:15:17Guest:Yeah.

00:15:17Guest:All evening.

00:15:18Guest:Yeah.

00:15:19Guest:You know, and you just wonder, what are you doing?

00:15:21Guest:What are you doing?

00:15:22Guest:They're seeing the sights.

00:15:23Guest:What?

00:15:24Marc:You've gotten used to it.

00:15:26Marc:I guess.

00:15:27Marc:They're going to the museum.

00:15:29Marc:Yeah.

00:15:29Marc:They're going to go in the Empire State Building.

00:15:31Marc:They're going to eat some deli food.

00:15:32Guest:I don't know.

00:15:33Guest:Right.

00:15:33Guest:I don't know either.

00:15:34Marc:But culturally, do you feel like it's not the same as it used to be?

00:15:38Marc:You've been there forever.

00:15:39Guest:Well, I mean, I first went there in like 1969.

00:15:42Guest:That dates me.

00:15:43Guest:Yeah.

00:15:44Guest:The first time I moved to New York.

00:15:45Marc:How great was it then?

00:15:46Guest:It was so great.

00:15:48Guest:Yeah.

00:15:48Guest:It was so great because it was filled with, like, you know, underground artists and, like, theater.

00:15:55Guest:Yeah.

00:15:55Guest:Things were just, like, crackling.

00:15:58Guest:I mean, I used to remember getting to New York and there was a physical, I don't know, visceral sensation on the streets.

00:16:11Guest:You could feel it.

00:16:12Guest:It was this energy that would just flood your body and you—

00:16:15Guest:Didn't know where it was coming from or where, you know, and there was that particular smell of New York, which was, I think.

00:16:21Marc:A multi-layered smell.

00:16:24Guest:Yes.

00:16:25Guest:You didn't want to, like, investigate too closely.

00:16:29Marc:My friend at Comic used to do a joke about giving someone directions to your house in New York.

00:16:33Marc:You go, you know, take a right at the smell and then take another right at the very bad smell.

00:16:38Yes.

00:16:39Guest:Yeah.

00:16:41Guest:But it was thrilling back in those days and filled with young people coming to the city and artists.

00:16:49Marc:I just talked to Pacino, you know, for like an hour and a half.

00:16:54Guest:Yeah.

00:16:54Marc:And I had no idea that like when he was a kid, you know, like 18 or 19, you know, he was hanging out at the – what was that?

00:17:01Marc:At Julian Beck's Theater.

00:17:03Marc:What was that called?

00:17:04Marc:The Living Theater?

00:17:06Marc:Yes.

00:17:06Marc:Yeah.

00:17:07Marc:Him and Martin Sheen were like kids and they were cleaning the toilets.

00:17:10Marc:Yeah.

00:17:11Marc:At the Living Theater.

00:17:12Marc:He would never have thought that that would be the background of that guy.

00:17:15Guest:Yeah.

00:17:16Marc:Were you like involved in that kind of stuff?

00:17:18Guest:Yeah.

00:17:18Guest:Well, not with that group, but, you know, other kind of experimental like theater groups downtown where, you know, everybody was living in illegal lofts.

00:17:28Guest:Yeah.

00:17:28Guest:You know, you'd have to hide your garbage because they weren't zoned for residents.

00:17:33Marc:And the bathroom situation wasn't great.

00:17:35Marc:Never.

00:17:36Marc:You had like a makeshift shower in a kitchen that wasn't even a real kitchen.

00:17:40Guest:Yeah.

00:17:41Marc:Did you live in one of those?

00:17:42Guest:Yeah, I lived, the first place we had in New York was a converted, like, flop house on the Bowery.

00:17:51Marc:Oh, in 69?

00:17:52Marc:Yeah.

00:17:53Marc:Or 70?

00:17:53Guest:69.

00:17:54Marc:So that was before, like, it was before, like, punk rock and stuff.

00:17:58Guest:Oh, yeah, it was before that.

00:17:59Marc:And it was before New York economically totally tanked.

00:18:03Guest:Yeah, that was what?

00:18:04Guest:That was the 70s, right?

00:18:06Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:06Marc:Yeah.

00:18:07Marc:So when you were down there, was it like... Like, down in that area, you still had a few cobblestone streets.

00:18:13Marc:You had... But there was... So the Bowery was still the Bowery.

00:18:16Guest:The Bowery was the Bowery.

00:18:18Guest:Yeah.

00:18:18Guest:I mean, we'd have, like... You know, you'd step over people in your doorway.

00:18:24Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:24Guest:And you got to know them because that's where they always slept off.

00:18:28Guest:Right.

00:18:28Guest:There are, you know, binges.

00:18:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:31Guest:Yeah, I mean, it was...

00:18:33Guest:Yeah.

00:18:34Marc:Where'd you come in from?

00:18:36Guest:I'd come back from Paris.

00:18:38Marc:So you were in Paris for how long?

00:18:40Guest:Well, do you really want to know this?

00:18:43Marc:Yeah, because here's why I want to know it is because I don't think people like remember how amazing it was.

00:18:52Marc:To be an artist without a net in a way.

00:18:55Marc:Yeah.

00:18:56Marc:And I think that there and I and I notice it with with some people, but some people don't have the history.

00:19:01Marc:But even when I talked to Al because I had read his book and he you know, he he doesn't talk.

00:19:06Marc:He's not out talking that much.

00:19:08Marc:So with this book, he was out.

00:19:09Guest:Yeah.

00:19:10Marc:And I didn't even know if he could talk, but he loves to talk.

00:19:13Yeah.

00:19:13Marc:But when I read the book, it was one of these things where we all have our relationship with public people, like you as an actress.

00:19:21Marc:People know Jessica Lange.

00:19:23Marc:But then all of a sudden you read something, you hear something, you're like, I didn't know that.

00:19:27Marc:Yeah.

00:19:28Marc:That's part of this process.

00:19:29Marc:And it also has a context historically.

00:19:32Marc:Yeah.

00:19:32Marc:So it's like sharing these stories, not unlike, you know, doing a play in some ways, a personal truth about it.

00:19:39Marc:It just – it kind of – it sheds light on what it used to be like.

00:19:44Guest:Yeah.

00:19:45Marc:Like for an artist.

00:19:46Guest:Yeah.

00:19:46Marc:Because that's all going away.

00:19:48Guest:Well, it was wide open.

00:19:49Guest:Right.

00:19:50Guest:It was just complete – I mean, you could invent yourself.

00:19:52Guest:Right.

00:19:52Guest:That's what I loved about that time.

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:55Guest:Is you could just roll into town and like –

00:19:58Guest:Make something up.

00:19:59Guest:And that's what you did.

00:20:00Guest:So how did you get to Paris?

00:20:03Guest:How long was that?

00:20:03Guest:Well, okay.

00:20:04Guest:So the first time I went to Paris, I had met a group of young photographers, filmmakers.

00:20:14Marc:Yeah.

00:20:15Marc:Were they French?

00:20:17Guest:No, at the University of Minnesota, actually.

00:20:19Marc:Oh, so that's where you grew up?

00:20:21Guest:Yeah, I grew up in Minnesota and went for one quarter to the University of Minnesota, then met these really fascinating people and ended up just leaving that life behind.

00:20:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:20:35Guest:But what do you do?

00:20:36Guest:They wanted to make a documentary about the flamenco gypsies when they would do the fair.

00:20:45Marc:So you're a kid.

00:20:47Marc:I'm 18.

00:20:48Marc:And it's 1968?

00:20:49Marc:Yeah.

00:20:50Marc:So everything's breaking open.

00:20:52Marc:Yeah.

00:20:53Marc:And you can feel it.

00:20:54Guest:It's thrilling.

00:20:55Marc:Yeah.

00:20:56Marc:Like on campus and everything else.

00:20:57Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:20:58Guest:You know, SDS and everything.

00:21:00Guest:I mean, yeah.

00:21:01Marc:Okay.

00:21:01Marc:So you're like, well, fuck it.

00:21:03Marc:Let's do it.

00:21:03Guest:Yeah, so then we went to Spain.

00:21:06Guest:We were working.

00:21:08Guest:I mean, they were working.

00:21:09Guest:I was observing.

00:21:10Guest:I was just like kind of, wow, this is southern Spain.

00:21:14Guest:These are the gypsies.

00:21:16Guest:This is flamenco.

00:21:18Marc:Have you ever been out of the country before?

00:21:21Guest:No.

00:21:21Guest:Always Minnesota?

00:21:22Guest:Yeah.

00:21:23Guest:I mean, I had been, you know, yeah, basically always Minnesota.

00:21:26Guest:I grew up there.

00:21:28Guest:All sorts of tiny little towns throughout northern Minnesota.

00:21:31Marc:Snow, hardened farmers.

00:21:33Marc:Swedes.

00:21:35Guest:Yeah.

00:21:36Marc:Yeah.

00:21:36Marc:Finns.

00:21:37Marc:Yeah.

00:21:40Marc:Did you have, like, grandparents that were actually first generation?

00:21:44Guest:All of mine.

00:21:45Guest:They had all immigrated.

00:21:47Guest:Finnish.

00:21:49Guest:On my mother's side, both my grandparents had immigrated from Finland.

00:21:53Guest:Wow.

00:21:53Guest:On my father's side from Germany and Holland.

00:21:57Marc:That's the people they brought in to do something with that land up there or something.

00:22:01Marc:Yeah.

00:22:01Guest:Well, I think, yeah, there was, I think a lot of the Finns, for instance, up in that area came for the mining.

00:22:09Marc:Uh-huh.

00:22:09Guest:Yeah.

00:22:10Marc:So they gave them a good deal to go into the hole?

00:22:13Marc:I don't think it was a good deal.

00:22:16Marc:So you're growing up in like with people speaking Finnish?

00:22:19Marc:Yeah.

00:22:20Marc:And eating Finnish food?

00:22:21Marc:Yeah.

00:22:21Guest:Yeah, a little bit.

00:22:22Guest:Yeah.

00:22:23Guest:But, you know, I mean, that generation that immigrated, I mean, there was a strong Finnish community in these small towns that I was living in.

00:22:31Guest:But, yeah, I never learned a word of Finnish.

00:22:35Guest:Right.

00:22:35Guest:Because that was the private language.

00:22:37Marc:Right.

00:22:38Marc:That's when they wanted to talk about things.

00:22:40Marc:Yeah.

00:22:40Marc:With Jews, it was Yiddish.

00:22:41Marc:You know, my grandparents would all of a sudden break into Yiddish to not let us know what they were planning.

00:22:48Yeah.

00:22:48Marc:For us.

00:22:50Guest:Right.

00:22:51Marc:Yeah.

00:22:52Marc:So you're in Spain and you're like living it?

00:22:54Guest:I'm in Spain.

00:22:55Guest:Eighteen.

00:22:56Guest:Eighteen.

00:22:56Guest:And it's, yeah, I mean, it's just, I mean, the world just kind of broke open.

00:23:03Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:05Guest:And then we decided they wanted to do, they had this idea of doing another documentary film in Amsterdam.

00:23:14Guest:Oh, wow.

00:23:15Guest:Wow.

00:23:15Guest:Threw the motorcycles on top of the old Land Rover and drove from southern Spain, from Andalusia, all the way up to Paris.

00:23:27Guest:Wow.

00:23:28Guest:And we rolled into Paris in May of 1968.

00:23:31Guest:Oh, my God.

00:23:33Guest:When the city was just on fire.

00:23:35Guest:Oh.

00:23:36Guest:I mean, the students and the workers, everybody was like, you know, they were overthrowing de Gaulle's army.

00:23:42Marc:And did you get involved?

00:23:44Guest:Oh, you bet.

00:23:45Guest:Yeah.

00:23:46Guest:Every time there was a march, I would be right there.

00:23:49Guest:I didn't even, you know, I mean, I didn't speak French or anything.

00:23:53Guest:But you knew what was going on.

00:23:54Guest:Yeah.

00:23:54Guest:And I always came back smelling of tear gas.

00:23:56Guest:Really?

00:23:57Guest:Because there was, you know, they had the riot police out in full riot gear.

00:24:03Guest:Right.

00:24:03Guest:You know.

00:24:04Guest:Yeah.

00:24:04Guest:But the students were building fires like on the Boulevard Saint-Germain and, you know, pulling up the cobblestones.

00:24:11Marc:So it's funny you have that history of Paris and then like, you know, I imagine over the years you've been there many times and you're just like, you know, having a nice food in a nice place.

00:24:20Guest:Well, I did move back to Paris because when I was there, I thought, ah, this is where I want to live.

00:24:26Marc:Yeah.

00:24:27Marc:Even not speaking French.

00:24:28Guest:Even not speaking French.

00:24:29Guest:Yeah.

00:24:30Guest:But I knew immediately that Paris was the place.

00:24:34Guest:And I ended up moving back there several different times to live.

00:24:39Marc:For different reasons?

00:24:40Marc:Yeah.

00:24:40Yeah.

00:24:40Marc:Yeah.

00:24:41Marc:Yeah.

00:24:44Guest:But so that was, yeah.

00:24:45Guest:And then we went up from there.

00:24:46Guest:We went up to Amsterdam and lived there for a while.

00:24:49Marc:Oh, my God.

00:24:50Marc:In the late 60s?

00:24:51Guest:Yeah.

00:24:51Marc:That must have been crazy.

00:24:52Guest:Yeah.

00:24:53Guest:And then I went back to.

00:24:54Marc:What was Amsterdam like?

00:24:55Marc:Just full of like, you know, weed and hippies?

00:24:57Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:59Guest:I mean, there was, yeah, there was some good hash.

00:25:04Guest:Yeah.

00:25:04Guest:And, you know.

00:25:05Guest:Hash.

00:25:06Guest:That was a European thing.

00:25:07Guest:Yeah.

00:25:08Guest:I mean, it was, it was a, I have no idea.

00:25:11Guest:Do you know, I've never been back to Amsterdam since, since 1968.

00:25:15Guest:So I have a feeling it's not what it was.

00:25:18Marc:It wasn't traumatizing.

00:25:21Marc:You're not avoiding it because you don't.

00:25:23Guest:No, no, no.

00:25:24Guest:I just never had the opportunity to go back.

00:25:26Marc:I went there not too long ago.

00:25:28Marc:It's become very, like, these places, they get on to what their tourism is.

00:25:33Marc:So it's okay.

00:25:35Marc:It still kind of has a certain amount of charm, but it's a lot of tourist weed stuff and very, yeah, I don't know.

00:25:42Marc:It's okay.

00:25:43Marc:Out of all those places I went when I was touring, I didn't love it.

00:25:49Guest:Yeah, but every place has changed, hasn't it?

00:25:51Guest:I know, I know.

00:25:52Guest:And not for the better.

00:25:53Marc:It's gotten more, it's just gotten a little boring.

00:25:56Marc:Yeah.

00:25:57Marc:In some way.

00:25:58Marc:I mean, like you're talking about energy in New York.

00:26:00Marc:I still feel energized when I go there for a few days, but after three days, I'm like, I'm good.

00:26:05Marc:I was going to move there.

00:26:09Marc:Yeah.

00:26:10Marc:I was going to get an apartment.

00:26:11Marc:And then like I had this realization the last time I went, I was like on day two of like a five day run.

00:26:15Marc:And I got angry about something like somebody wouldn't give me a cup at a coffee shop for something.

00:26:21Marc:And I just felt, I realized, like, if I move here, I'm going to be one of these angry old men with a Strand book bag and two plastic bags just walking down the street shouting at nothing.

00:26:29Guest:Well, you do feel a lot of rage on the streets there.

00:26:34Marc:Yeah.

00:26:34Marc:I mean, but, you know, that's because it's a lot of people.

00:26:37Guest:Too many people.

00:26:38Marc:So where does it start in terms of, like, where do you start doing you?

00:26:44Yeah.

00:26:44Guest:Well, let's see.

00:26:45Guest:Then coming back to live in New York after Amsterdam, and that's what we were talking about earlier, living on the Bowery.

00:26:52Marc:Were you chasing a guy?

00:26:53Guest:Well, I was with a guy.

00:26:55Marc:Oh, from Minnesota.

00:26:57Guest:Well, he was Spanish.

00:26:58Marc:Okay.

00:26:59Marc:Yeah.

00:26:59Marc:So you got a Spanish guy.

00:27:01Guest:Yeah, but I picked him up in Minnesota.

00:27:05Okay.

00:27:05Guest:But anyhow, yeah, so the whole group of photographers kind of went back to New York.

00:27:16Guest:And I got involved with what we were just talking about, like an underground theater company, a dance company.

00:27:22Marc:You were dancing?

00:27:23Marc:Yeah.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah.

00:27:24Guest:And I mean, that's really a loose description of what we were doing.

00:27:30Guest:You were expressing yourself physically.

00:27:32Guest:Yes.

00:27:33Marc:That would be a good way to put it.

00:27:35Marc:Yeah.

00:27:35Marc:But it felt important.

00:27:37Guest:Some kind of physical expression.

00:27:38Guest:Well, like I said, you know, it was like we just were making things up.

00:27:42Guest:What the hell?

00:27:43Guest:We were young and trying things out and being crazy.

00:27:47Marc:Yeah.

00:27:48Guest:I mean, it was.

00:27:48Marc:So how long did dancing last?

00:27:50Guest:Well, then through the dancing, we got interested in mime.

00:27:55Guest:And there were some great old students who were still in New York who had studied with the original company of Etienne Ducroux.

00:28:10Marc:Yeah.

00:28:11Marc:Who's the big mime guy, the French guy that's really famous?

00:28:14Yeah.

00:28:14Guest:Well, you're probably thinking of Marcel Marceau.

00:28:17Guest:Yeah, right.

00:28:17Guest:But this was very different.

00:28:20Marc:Deeper.

00:28:20Marc:This is a real deal.

00:28:22Guest:This was Etienne de Creux who developed this technique with Jean-Louis Barreau back in the 40s.

00:28:28Marc:And what was the foundation of that technique?

00:28:30Guest:Well, he referred to it as mime concret.

00:28:33Marc:Yeah.

00:28:33Guest:So it was like, but it was a physical movement that was connected to, I mean, I don't even know how I would describe it.

00:28:43Guest:Right.

00:28:44Guest:People wouldn't understand what I was saying.

00:28:46Marc:But the art of it.

00:28:47Guest:The art of it was very particular and very precise.

00:28:53Marc:Yeah.

00:28:54Marc:Is it kind of like clowning?

00:28:56Guest:No.

00:28:57Marc:Okay.

00:28:57Marc:It's something deeper.

00:28:59Guest:It's more abstract.

00:29:01Marc:Okay.

00:29:01Marc:Yeah.

00:29:02Marc:So the idea, so when you start, so you like locked in with this group?

00:29:06Guest:I mean, what Ducru would do would be to break down movement.

00:29:11Guest:Okay.

00:29:11Guest:You know, like a turn of the head.

00:29:13Marc:Right.

00:29:14Guest:Would suddenly become a triple design.

00:29:16Guest:Oh, I see.

00:29:17Guest:I see.

00:29:17Guest:So it was like.

00:29:18Marc:So that's interesting.

00:29:19Marc:That's kind of informing a choice in terms of.

00:29:22Guest:Yes, and emotional.

00:29:23Marc:Okay.

00:29:24Marc:Okay.

00:29:24Marc:Well, that's an interesting foundation, isn't it?

00:29:26Marc:Up the street, everyone's doing Meisner technique and crying in front of Lee Straussberg, and you're doing mine.

00:29:32Guest:I did that later.

00:29:37Guest:But yeah, so then I decided at that point, because Etienne Ducroux was an old man.

00:29:46Guest:He was in his 80s then, but he was still teaching.

00:29:49Guest:So I moved back to Paris to study with him.

00:29:52Marc:Wow, you were serious about the mine.

00:29:53Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:29:54Marc:Now, like in your mind at that time, where did you think mime would take you?

00:29:57Marc:Nowhere.

00:30:01Marc:At some point, you're like, there's no future in this mime.

00:30:03Guest:No, absolutely zero.

00:30:06Guest:But it was a great discipline.

00:30:08Guest:I loved to crew and, you know, to be in his presence and study with him every day.

00:30:15Guest:That's great.

00:30:16Guest:And to be 19 years old and living in Paris on my own.

00:30:19Marc:So when do you get discovered?

00:30:21Marc:Because you were modeling, right?

00:30:23Yeah.

00:30:23Guest:Well, that's a bit of a – yeah.

00:30:28Marc:A sidetrack?

00:30:29Guest:I mean it was – I never made a dime modeling.

00:30:35Guest:So if that qualifies as being a model, I'm not sure.

00:30:40Guest:But no, I had no success as a model and I wasn't pursuing it with any kind of –

00:30:48Marc:No, you were doing serious mime.

00:30:50Guest:Well, but that was even... Mime was before the... Oh, yeah.

00:30:56Guest:But anyhow, so the modeling thing came the third time I moved back to Paris and met a whole group of...

00:31:06Guest:Another group of really fascinating people.

00:31:08Guest:This was kind of in the early 70s.

00:31:11Guest:And somebody said to me, why don't you try modeling?

00:31:17Guest:So when I moved back to New York the next time, I was working at the Lion's Head.

00:31:24Guest:Tavern.

00:31:25Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:31:25Marc:I know where that is.

00:31:26Marc:Was that the one where... That one on Christopher Street.

00:31:28Marc:Was that the one where Dylan Thomas used to hang out or something?

00:31:31Guest:Well, that was the White Horse.

00:31:32Marc:Oh, the White Horse.

00:31:33Marc:Okay, different animal.

00:31:34Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:31:34Marc:So the lion's head.

00:31:35Guest:No, but the lion's head, I mean, there was, yeah, we had a lot of writers.

00:31:42Marc:Yeah.

00:31:42Guest:A lot of, yeah.

00:31:44Marc:So you'd gone back to New York to kind of get back into the art scene.

00:31:48Marc:Yeah.

00:31:48Guest:Well, I went back to New York because the modeling really, I mean, not the modeling, the mime was, you know, I mean, so I thought, well, what's the next step from here?

00:32:00Guest:And I thought, well, maybe acting classes.

00:32:02Marc:Right.

00:32:03Marc:So, okay, so you're at the Lion's Head.

00:32:04Marc:And which acting class do you do?

00:32:08Guest:Well, when I first got back...

00:32:11Guest:I went to HB Studios.

00:32:13Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:32:14Guest:Studied with Herbert Berghoff.

00:32:15Marc:That's a big one.

00:32:16Guest:And then from there with Warren Robertson and from there with like offshoots of the Actors Studio.

00:32:23Guest:Yeah.

00:32:25Guest:So, you know, just covering.

00:32:26Marc:Yeah, all the bases.

00:32:27Guest:All the bases there in New York at that time.

00:32:29Marc:But so after the mime thing, you knew you wanted to act.

00:32:33Yeah.

00:32:33Guest:I didn't know I wanted to act, but, you know, again, it was one of those things where, well, what do I do now?

00:32:39Marc:And what are your parents thinking back in Minnesota?

00:32:42Guest:You know, I mean, they raised us so that we would just, yeah, explore.

00:32:48Guest:Oh, really?

00:32:49Guest:Yeah, be brave, do whatever you want.

00:32:51Guest:And I had one sister who was a sailor living on a sailboat somewhere out in the Pacific.

00:32:56Guest:Where'd she end up?

00:32:57Guest:Well...

00:32:59Guest:You mean now?

00:33:00Guest:Yeah.

00:33:00Guest:Well, she sailed for decades.

00:33:03Guest:Really?

00:33:04Guest:Yeah.

00:33:04Marc:Did you go?

00:33:05Guest:Once I did, yeah.

00:33:07Marc:How was that?

00:33:07Guest:I'm not a great sailor.

00:33:11Guest:Yeah.

00:33:11Guest:I don't, you know, I didn't, no.

00:33:13Marc:I get nauseous immediately.

00:33:14Marc:Yeah.

00:33:16Yeah.

00:33:16Marc:So when does it start to kind of gel that you can do the acting thing?

00:33:22Guest:In class, you know.

00:33:23Marc:Yeah.

00:33:25Guest:I remember one of the first scenes, because I was doing scene study classes.

00:33:30Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:33:31Guest:And one of the first scenes I worked on was from that play by Leroy Jones, Dutchman.

00:33:37Guest:Yeah.

00:33:38Guest:And it's the scene where she accuses this black man on, you know.

00:33:43Guest:Yeah.

00:33:44Guest:And we're rehearsing, I'm in this illegal sublet on Barrow Street, right on the street there.

00:33:51Marc:Like a storefront?

00:33:53Guest:Well, close, yeah.

00:33:55Guest:And, you know, we're rehearsing this scene and pretty soon...

00:34:01Guest:I hear sirens in cop cars, and they're pounding on the door because they think I'm in distress, that I'm being like, you know.

00:34:10Marc:Someone reported it.

00:34:10Marc:There's someone in trouble.

00:34:11Guest:Yeah, somebody heard it.

00:34:12Guest:Yeah.

00:34:13Guest:So I thought, oh, it works this way.

00:34:16Marc:I must be good at this.

00:34:20Guest:It was horrifying, but yeah.

00:34:22Guest:But anyhow, so that was...

00:34:24Guest:I mean, when I started the acting classes, it felt to me like everything just came together.

00:34:32Guest:Yeah.

00:34:32Guest:It fulfilled all sorts of things that I had been in the process of discovering.

00:34:39Marc:Sure.

00:34:40Marc:And were you somebody who wanted to get out of yourself?

00:34:47No.

00:34:47Guest:Well, I'd lived my life, I think, from the time I was a little girl in my imagination.

00:34:53Guest:I could actually – it felt like time travel or space travel.

00:34:59Guest:I could go so deep into –

00:35:02Guest:make make believe yeah yeah that i could escape whatever was around me oh yeah and i you know i think about that now because i mean you you had to rely on your imagination yeah then right as a child right because what else were you going to do you didn't have a phone you didn't have an ipad

00:35:24Guest:You had none of that stuff.

00:35:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:35:26Guest:So you entertained yourself.

00:35:27Guest:Sure.

00:35:28Guest:You made up games.

00:35:29Guest:Yeah.

00:35:29Guest:You made up fantasies.

00:35:30Guest:Yeah.

00:35:31Guest:You fulfilled these.

00:35:32Guest:I mean, I remember one time writing a letter to myself from Clark Gable, a love letter, you know?

00:35:43Yeah.

00:35:43Guest:I was like seven years old.

00:35:46Guest:But you liked Clark Gable.

00:35:47Guest:Well, I'd seen pictures of him and I probably watched some old movie of his on TV, you know, black and white TV.

00:35:55Marc:Were your folks involved in the arts?

00:35:58Marc:No.

00:35:59Marc:And like how many sisters, how many siblings?

00:36:01Guest:I've got three, two sisters and a younger brother.

00:36:04Marc:Wow.

00:36:05Marc:So there's four of you in the house and you're just in your room imagining things.

00:36:10Guest:Yeah, or in the yard, making up, you know, make-believe stuff, whatever.

00:36:14Marc:But the household was good?

00:36:17Marc:You weren't avoiding chaos?

00:36:19Guest:I was avoiding chaos a lot of the time.

00:36:23Yeah.

00:36:23Marc:I find that's where the imagination comes in handy.

00:36:26Guest:It really works, I'm telling you.

00:36:29Guest:Like I said, it's like time travel.

00:36:31Guest:Yeah.

00:36:34Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:36:35Marc:Like sometimes, you know, wherever the creativity comes from, if it's raw and real, it's generally not a great place.

00:36:43Guest:Yeah.

00:36:47Guest:Yeah, not from a place of calm and peace.

00:36:51Guest:No, never that.

00:36:52Marc:Oh, my God.

00:36:53Marc:Because like this morning, I'm trying to make decisions for myself around, you know, acting and comedy and just life.

00:36:59Marc:And somehow or another yesterday, I'm like, I'm just going to try to do things I don't dread.

00:37:03Yeah.

00:37:04Guest:There you go.

00:37:06Guest:Right there.

00:37:07Guest:That's huge.

00:37:07Marc:I think that's a solid.

00:37:10Marc:Yeah.

00:37:11Marc:But, you know, I find that, like, even things I want to do, there's a certain amount of dread involved.

00:37:14Marc:But what are you going to do?

00:37:15Marc:I know it.

00:37:16Marc:Yeah.

00:37:17Marc:So when do you start to get noticed?

00:37:21Guest:Well, okay.

00:37:23Guest:So then, yeah, I was working at the Lion's Head.

00:37:28Guest:And taking acting classes, living in the West Village.

00:37:32Guest:Yeah.

00:37:33Guest:And somebody said to me, again, why don't you try modeling?

00:37:40Guest:And I thought, well, okay.

00:37:41Guest:Yeah, I mean.

00:37:42Guest:So I met with this agency.

00:37:45Guest:Yeah.

00:37:46Guest:And, you know, they didn't take me on as like a client or whatever you call them as a model.

00:37:55Guest:But she knew that I was studying acting.

00:37:59Guest:And at some point...

00:38:04Guest:I would imagine a lot of the agencies or whatever got a call from Dino De Laurentiis.

00:38:10Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:38:12Guest:About casting for the new King Kong.

00:38:15Marc:I don't have any sense of Dino De Laurentiis other than John Belushi's impression of him.

00:38:20Marc:I've never seen it.

00:38:21Marc:That's great.

00:38:22Marc:My Kong will be the best Kong.

00:38:27It's very funny.

00:38:27Guest:But anyhow, so that's when she got that call.

00:38:32Guest:She called me.

00:38:34Guest:I don't even know how she called me.

00:38:36Guest:I didn't have a phone, but asked if I wanted to go audition.

00:38:41Guest:For Dino De Laurentiis?

00:38:43Guest:Yeah.

00:38:43Guest:What was that guy like?

00:38:45Guest:Well, he was kind of what you would imagine.

00:38:48Guest:You know, he was a showman and, yeah.

00:38:51Marc:Yeah?

00:38:52Marc:Yeah.

00:38:52Marc:And that was, like, I remember that movie.

00:38:55Guest:Yeah.

00:38:56Marc:I remember you in that hand.

00:38:58Guest:Right.

00:38:58Guest:Spent a lot of time in that hand, yeah.

00:39:01Guest:There were all sorts of problems with it.

00:39:04Guest:With the hand?

00:39:05Guest:Well, it was mechanical, you know.

00:39:06Guest:I mean, it was kind of a genius thing.

00:39:08Guest:I mean, this was before CGI and digital and AI and all this other bullshit.

00:39:14Guest:This was just...

00:39:15Guest:A practical, working, hydraulic hand.

00:39:19Guest:Right, right.

00:39:19Guest:It could have probably killed me at any moment.

00:39:22Marc:It's a snapshot.

00:39:23Marc:Yeah.

00:39:24Marc:But a lot of actresses are up for this part, I think.

00:39:27Marc:Like, I read that.

00:39:28Marc:I don't know.

00:39:29Marc:It was sort of a big part, you know?

00:39:31Guest:Yeah, it was big.

00:39:33Guest:But I knew nothing about it.

00:39:35Guest:I mean, I knew nothing about anything.

00:39:37Marc:The process, right.

00:39:38Guest:And they offered you the role, and you're like— Well, you know, they flew me out—

00:39:42Guest:I was living in, like I said, an illegal sublet on Barrow Street.

00:39:49Guest:Often didn't have money for, like, you know, the subway.

00:39:53Guest:My only income was waitressing at the Lion's Head.

00:39:58Guest:And suddenly they're saying to me, we'd like to fly you to Los Angeles, you know, to audition for this part.

00:40:05Guest:And I thought, what the fuck, man?

00:40:07Guest:I'm going.

00:40:08Guest:Plus, I can see my sister who's on a sailboat down in San Diego.

00:40:15Guest:So, I thought, yeah, I'll do this.

00:40:17Guest:Who cares what happens with it?

00:40:19Guest:Sure.

00:40:20Guest:And, you know, they flew me out, put me up at the Beverly Wilshire.

00:40:25Guest:Wow.

00:40:26Guest:And, yeah, drove me to MGM.

00:40:30Guest:Yeah.

00:40:30Guest:I mean, my favorite studio as a little girl growing up.

00:40:34Yeah.

00:40:34Guest:Came into the lot of MGM.

00:40:38Guest:It was like a fantasy come true.

00:40:41Guest:And yeah, I did this audition and they took one look at me.

00:40:45Guest:I'd just come back from Paris, you know.

00:40:47Guest:I was like 114 pounds.

00:40:50Guest:I had like kind of this blonde, you know, blonde Venus look.

00:40:56Guest:And they looked at me and they, no.

00:40:59Guest:No.

00:41:00Guest:So the agent in New York said, come on, you flew her all the way out there.

00:41:06Guest:Just roll some film on her.

00:41:09Guest:Just do it.

00:41:09Guest:Yeah.

00:41:11Guest:So I went in.

00:41:13Guest:Now, that was unbeknownst to me.

00:41:14Guest:That was the modeling agent?

00:41:16Guest:Yeah.

00:41:16Guest:Wow.

00:41:17Guest:Yeah, she actually kind of, you know, just do it.

00:41:20Guest:And I walked onto this soundstage and...

00:41:27Guest:Nobody was there.

00:41:28Guest:I mean, you know, skeleton crew.

00:41:31Guest:Right.

00:41:32Guest:And they gave me the scenes to play.

00:41:34Guest:I think I was just reading with some second AD or something.

00:41:41Guest:There wasn't the director.

00:41:42Guest:Nobody was interested in just watching me.

00:41:47Guest:Yeah.

00:41:48Guest:And I did it.

00:41:49Guest:And then they said, well, just, you know, wait a while.

00:41:54Guest:Yeah.

00:41:55Guest:We'll do it again.

00:41:56Guest:Yeah.

00:41:56Guest:Then somebody else came, and then they asked me, would I do it again?

00:42:00Guest:And then I noticed that the director finally showed up.

00:42:03Guest:Yeah, who was that?

00:42:04Guest:I can't remember.

00:42:04Guest:John Gillerman.

00:42:05Guest:Yeah.

00:42:05Guest:English.

00:42:07Guest:Uh-huh.

00:42:07Guest:And then I did it for him a couple times, and then, you know, the next thing I know, Dino De Laurentiis shows up.

00:42:14Guest:Yeah.

00:42:15Guest:So, you know, and I'm just doing this.

00:42:18Guest:The scenes are kind of, I don't know.

00:42:21Guest:Silly.

00:42:21Guest:Silly, I think.

00:42:23Guest:Yeah.

00:42:25Guest:Yeah.

00:42:25Guest:And, yeah, I finished and I left.

00:42:30Guest:And by the time I got back home, they called and offered me the part.

00:42:37Marc:Yeah.

00:42:38Guest:So.

00:42:39Marc:That's it.

00:42:40Guest:Yeah.

00:42:40Marc:And then you got to go.

00:42:41Guest:And then I had to do it.

00:42:43Marc:Yeah.

00:42:45Marc:Damn.

00:42:46Guest:This was not, this was not the break I had ever anticipated as, you know, I thought, oh, I'm a New York actor.

00:42:54Guest:Yeah.

00:42:55Guest:I'll do like, you know, we'll do showcase, you know, try to find an agent or, you know, manager or something.

00:43:02Guest:Then off, off Broadway, maybe some underground theater.

00:43:05Guest:Yeah.

00:43:06Guest:Maybe, you know, someday do an off Broadway play, maybe at the public or, you know.

00:43:11Guest:Right.

00:43:11Guest:That's how I imagined the trajectory.

00:43:14Marc:Yeah.

00:43:14Marc:But no, you're going to be.

00:43:15Guest:But no, I'm going to be in the most expensive film made up until that point with like a big mechanical hand.

00:43:23Guest:Yeah.

00:43:24Guest:Uh-huh.

00:43:24Guest:Yeah.

00:43:24Marc:But it, I don't, was the movie a success?

00:43:28Marc:No.

00:43:28Marc:Yeah.

00:43:29Marc:And it brought you attention.

00:43:31Marc:But I guess from what I the bit I read that despite the trappings of that particular movie and whatever anybody thought acting was, Pauline Kael championed you.

00:43:41Guest:She did.

00:43:42Guest:God bless her.

00:43:43Guest:I mean, it was like, yeah, she she went out there.

00:43:46Marc:Yeah.

00:43:47Marc:And like and like throughout your career, it seems that she was a big supporter.

00:43:51Guest:Yeah.

00:43:51Marc:And that meant something then.

00:43:53Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:43:54Guest:Kind of kind of got you in, I bet.

00:43:56Guest:I don't know.

00:43:57Guest:I mean, I'm sure it made a difference.

00:43:58Guest:But, you know, after Kong, then I didn't work for three years.

00:44:02Guest:Nobody took me seriously.

00:44:04Guest:Oh, really?

00:44:05Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:44:05Guest:What were you doing for three years?

00:44:07Guest:I went back to live in New York.

00:44:08Guest:Back to the lion's head?

00:44:10Guest:No, I didn't do that.

00:44:11Guest:But I did go back to New York and, you know, take more acting classes.

00:44:17Marc:Okay.

00:44:18Marc:Yeah.

00:44:19Marc:And is that when you met Fosse?

00:44:20Guest:Yeah.

00:44:21Marc:Yeah?

00:44:22Guest:Yeah.

00:44:22Guest:How was that guy?

00:44:24Yeah.

00:44:24Guest:He was great.

00:44:26Guest:He was great.

00:44:27Guest:He just had that boundless kind of energy and love of what he was doing.

00:44:41Guest:I mean, bordering on, I guess, insanity.

00:44:45Marc:Did you see Rockwell play him in that movie?

00:44:49Guest:Yeah.

00:44:49Guest:You know, I didn't watch it.

00:44:50Marc:You didn't want to.

00:44:51Marc:You want to hold your memory to yourself?

00:44:55Guest:Yeah.

00:44:56Guest:I mean, I... What?

00:44:59Guest:I don't know.

00:45:01Guest:Well, yeah.

00:45:02Guest:I mean, I guess, you know, these stories are interesting and should be told, but leave them alone.

00:45:09Marc:Right, right, right.

00:45:10Marc:Why dig them up?

00:45:11Marc:Why, yeah.

00:45:12Marc:Just look at what they did.

00:45:13Marc:Yeah.

00:45:13Marc:But I think with somebody like him, because so much of it was...

00:45:17Marc:was ephemeral in that, you know, once the dance was done, the dance was done.

00:45:20Guest:Yeah.

00:45:21Marc:So I think for somebody like him to give him a good, you know, going over as an artist was, you know, I think it's okay.

00:45:29Guest:Yeah, no, I'm sure it was.

00:45:30Guest:I just never.

00:45:32Marc:Because I don't know, like, for me, like, you know, I've seen dances done that he had originally choreographed, you know, and those sort of live on in style.

00:45:41Marc:But, like, it wasn't until – and I saw all that jazz when I was a kid.

00:45:45Marc:Yeah.

00:45:45Marc:And you just sort of, like –

00:45:47Marc:Once you start to realize, like, this is based on a real guy, and the real guy's directing this movie.

00:45:51Marc:Yeah, about himself.

00:45:52Marc:About himself.

00:45:53Marc:It was like, this guy, like, because I remember, like, just because I remember, I don't remember what time, when did it come out?

00:45:59Marc:79, so I'm still in high school, and I'm kind of a creative kid.

00:46:03Marc:And I just watch those scenes of him, you know, in the shower with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

00:46:09Marc:Yeah.

00:46:09Marc:Or taking his Dexedrine or whatever it was.

00:46:12Marc:And I'm like, that's what I want to do.

00:46:14Marc:I don't even know what the art is, but I'd like to take a shower with a cigarette.

00:46:20Guest:Yeah.

00:46:22Guest:It's showtime.

00:46:22Marc:Yeah.

00:46:24Marc:Did he do that?

00:46:25Guest:You know, I mean, I knew Fosse pretty well.

00:46:27Guest:Yeah.

00:46:28Guest:I mean, it was, yeah, he was a wild man.

00:46:33Marc:Yeah.

00:46:33Guest:Yeah.

00:46:34Guest:And Shrider did a good job?

00:46:36Guest:I thought Shrider did a great job.

00:46:38Marc:Underrated actor.

00:46:39Marc:Yeah.

00:46:39Marc:So good.

00:46:40Marc:Yeah.

00:46:40Marc:He's always so good.

00:46:41Guest:Yeah.

00:46:41Marc:And you were like, you were this like the most beautiful death apparition.

00:46:45Marc:Yeah.

00:46:46Marc:That ever existed.

00:46:47Guest:Even to Fosse that his idea of death would be a beautiful woman waiting for him, right?

00:46:52Guest:Right.

00:46:53Guest:Like this kind of angelic, well, that's her name in it.

00:46:56Marc:Yeah.

00:46:56Guest:Yeah.

00:46:57Marc:It's kind of an amazing scene.

00:46:58Marc:That whole, like when Ben Vereen shows up, it's like, oh, it's the best.

00:47:02Guest:Yeah.

00:47:03Marc:And, you know.

00:47:03Guest:No, it's a great film.

00:47:04Marc:I love it.

00:47:05Marc:Yeah.

00:47:05Marc:I like his movies.

00:47:06Guest:Yeah.

00:47:07Guest:Everybody's good in it.

00:47:09Marc:Oh, my God.

00:47:09Guest:Cross the board.

00:47:10Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:47:11Marc:It was good.

00:47:12Marc:And what you could glean from his personal life was also, who was that woman who played the girlfriend, the tall woman?

00:47:17Marc:She was great.

00:47:18Guest:Anne Reinking.

00:47:18Marc:Oh, my God.

00:47:19Marc:She was great.

00:47:20Guest:Yeah, she was.

00:47:21Guest:She was his, you know, his main muse at the time.

00:47:24Marc:Oh, yeah, at the time?

00:47:25Marc:Yeah.

00:47:25Marc:Now, did you ever do any more serious dancing after, like, spending time with that guy?

00:47:32Marc:Or did you bail on the dance?

00:47:33Marc:No.

00:47:34Guest:No more dancing.

00:47:35Guest:No.

00:47:36Guest:Disco dancing.

00:47:37Guest:That was the extent of it.

00:47:39Marc:But then you just sort of go.

00:47:41Marc:That's when you start working, right?

00:47:43Marc:I mean—

00:47:43Guest:Well, I did that film for Bobby, All That Jazz.

00:47:48Guest:And, I mean, I thank him for that because, you know, we were good friends.

00:47:54Guest:I mean, he really fought to get that done because they were over schedule, over budget, and we hadn't started shooting that section yet.

00:48:05Guest:He just was a bulldog about it.

00:48:08Guest:He was going to shoot that.

00:48:09Guest:They wanted to shut him down.

00:48:11Guest:Yeah.

00:48:11Marc:I love hearing those stories because those are another reason why I like talking about the history is because there were times, you know, where directors made stands against studios for their vision.

00:48:22Guest:Yeah.

00:48:22Marc:That wasn't driven by economics.

00:48:25Marc:Yeah.

00:48:25Marc:It was driven by creativity.

00:48:27Marc:Yeah.

00:48:27Marc:And they'd hold the line.

00:48:29Guest:Yeah.

00:48:29Marc:And they'd do it.

00:48:30Marc:Like Coppola was like that.

00:48:31Marc:Yeah.

00:48:32Marc:And like talking to Pacino, he was like, he didn't like the way a scene went.

00:48:35Marc:He would just be like, well, I'm not doing it anymore.

00:48:38Guest:Yeah.

00:48:39Guest:Yeah, right.

00:48:39Guest:Yeah.

00:48:40Guest:And they do it.

00:48:41Guest:Yeah.

00:48:42Marc:It's a different time, right?

00:48:43Guest:It's a different time.

00:48:44Guest:It's too bad.

00:48:45Guest:I mean, because I think something that made film extremely thrilling and fascinating to observe, I mean, that all seems to me to have been lost.

00:48:59Marc:Yeah, I don't know.

00:48:59Marc:Some indies are kind of interesting.

00:49:01Marc:You know, they can still do it.

00:49:02Guest:Some European films are still interesting.

00:49:05Guest:Yeah.

00:49:05Marc:Yeah.

00:49:05Marc:Yeah, I'm doing a movie right now, which is like I watched the HBO movie.

00:49:10Guest:Oh, The Great Lillian Hall.

00:49:12Marc:Yeah, I watched that because I'm playing a guy who's playing an actor, and I don't have the confidence, obviously, that you have.

00:49:18Marc:Like I don't think I'm that great an actor, and I've got to play a guy who's a good actor.

00:49:21Marc:So this is like very daunting to me.

00:49:25Marc:All I care about is like it's a comedy.

00:49:27Marc:It's a dark comedy.

00:49:28Marc:I think the premise of it is kind of hilarious.

00:49:31Marc:What is the premise?

00:49:33Marc:Or can't you talk about it?

00:49:34Marc:I can talk about it.

00:49:35Marc:It's a it's about a guy, you know, who was he started as a serious actor, you know, back in the day, you know, did Shakespeare and everything was discovered in his early 20s, got a movie career, did a few movies with this movie star who he ends up marrying, takes her from another guy and their fourth movie bombs.

00:49:52Marc:And she leaves him.

00:49:53Marc:And this is all backstory.

00:49:54Marc:And then he kind of like he's still in the game a bit.

00:49:57Marc:And but he ends up taking a sitcom.

00:49:59Marc:For five years, and that's what he's known for.

00:50:01Marc:Now he's 60-something my age.

00:50:03Marc:And at the beginning of the movie, he gets diagnosed with stage four colon cancer or bowel cancer.

00:50:09Guest:Wow.

00:50:10Marc:And he becomes obsessed with the need.

00:50:12Guest:This is a comedy.

00:50:13Marc:Well, wait.

00:50:13Marc:Here comes the funny part.

00:50:14Marc:He becomes obsessed with the need to be in the In Memoriam montage at the Oscars.

00:50:19Guest:Oh, oh, no.

00:50:20Marc:So he's not going to do chemo.

00:50:23Marc:And he doesn't know if he can get in because his film works so far behind him.

00:50:26Marc:And everyone knows him as this ridiculous TV actor.

00:50:29Marc:So now he's got to figure out an angle.

00:50:31Guest:Right.

00:50:31Marc:To get in the immemorial.

00:50:33Guest:While he's dying.

00:50:37Marc:So that's the comedy.

00:50:39Guest:Yeah.

00:50:40Marc:And it's very it's been very interesting and it's a very challenging thing for me.

00:50:44Marc:And I figure like, well, if I'm going to do this, I better figure it out.

00:50:46Guest:Yeah.

00:50:47Marc:But but watching that film that you just did.

00:50:50Marc:I mean, those are the layers of it.

00:50:52Marc:You're an actor playing a great when you are a great actress.

00:50:56Marc:But so but the two different worlds of the artist and the work is kind of it's an interesting place.

00:51:04Guest:Yeah.

00:51:05Marc:To do it.

00:51:06Guest:Yeah.

00:51:06Marc:Yeah.

00:51:06Marc:Now, here's another question.

00:51:07Marc:Kathy Bates and you are great together, and she's great.

00:51:10Marc:And as I recall, I think both of you at some point were going to quit, right?

00:51:15Guest:Oh, I've been quitting for about 25 years, I think.

00:51:19Guest:It's imminent, but there's always something that will come up.

00:51:25Guest:Yeah.

00:51:26Marc:Well, you did all that American Horror Story, too.

00:51:28Guest:Yeah.

00:51:29Guest:I did four seasons, the first four seasons of that.

00:51:32Guest:People loved that show.

00:51:34Guest:You know, I haven't seen it.

00:51:36Guest:You don't watch your stuff?

00:51:37Guest:No.

00:51:39Guest:Ever?

00:51:41Guest:I think I've watched Tootsie because that's an easy one to watch, you know?

00:51:51Marc:Well, what is the aversion?

00:51:52Marc:Because I know other actors like that too.

00:51:55Marc:A lot of the people I work with, like I worked with Owen Wilson on the thing, and it's like they don't watch anything.

00:51:59Marc:So is it that satisfying to do the job that you don't want to see how it's put together or the work you did?

00:52:07Yeah.

00:52:07Guest:Well, now, sometimes there are different things.

00:52:10Guest:Sometimes you do a film for the wrong reason.

00:52:14Marc:Yeah.

00:52:15Guest:What reasons are those?

00:52:17Marc:Money?

00:52:17Guest:Well, I've never been paid for anything.

00:52:20Guest:So it's kind of like I can't say I've ever done anything.

00:52:24Guest:Yeah, basically.

00:52:25Guest:I've ever done anything for like big bucks or the paycheck.

00:52:29Guest:That's never materialized.

00:52:32Guest:But, you know, you say yes to something because you haven't worked for two years.

00:52:37Guest:And you think, man, I've got to, you know.

00:52:39Marc:Get out there.

00:52:41Guest:Yeah.

00:52:41Guest:I mean, I'm an actor.

00:52:42Guest:I should do this.

00:52:43Marc:Yeah.

00:52:44Guest:Or then there's the other reason where you look at a script and you say, but I think I can do something with it.

00:52:53Guest:Okay, yeah.

00:52:54Guest:That's always a big mistake if it's not on the page and, you know.

00:52:58Guest:It's like, I think I can make something of this.

00:53:01Guest:No, you can't.

00:53:02Guest:It's like, no, it's not going to, it's not going to stand out.

00:53:06Marc:But looking back on it, like, I mean, it's not like you, you did a lot of movies and you won a couple of Oscars.

00:53:11Marc:So it's hard for me to know which of those movies you'd be referring to where you like thought you could do something and, you know, it wasn't on the page.

00:53:21Marc:But like, I would imagine some of these were a pretty good experience.

00:53:24Marc:I don't know what Rafelson was like at that time.

00:53:27Marc:Oh, it was great.

00:53:27Marc:Yeah.

00:53:27Marc:With Postman and Jack Nicholson.

00:53:29Marc:What a great remake.

00:53:30Guest:Yeah.

00:53:31Guest:Yeah.

00:53:33Guest:I mean, that came right after all that jazz.

00:53:38Guest:Yeah.

00:53:38Guest:That was like my third movie.

00:53:40Marc:Yeah.

00:53:41Marc:And was it because of all that jazz?

00:53:43Marc:I know Rafelson is friends with Nicholson at the time.

00:53:46Marc:So how did they come and find you?

00:53:48Guest:I don't know, but they did.

00:53:49Marc:Yeah.

00:53:49Guest:Yeah.

00:53:50Marc:Was that pretty exciting?

00:53:51Guest:It was thrilling.

00:53:52Guest:Yeah.

00:53:52Marc:He's got to be something to work with.

00:53:54Marc:Yeah.

00:53:54Guest:Rafelson or Nicholson?

00:53:56Guest:Both of them.

00:53:57Guest:They were crazy.

00:54:00Guest:It was great.

00:54:01Guest:It was great.

00:54:02Guest:It was fun.

00:54:03Guest:It was exciting.

00:54:06Guest:It was, yeah, it was a total kind of experience.

00:54:11Guest:I mean, I loved it.

00:54:12Guest:I loved both of them.

00:54:13Marc:Do you think that when you took Francis that that was the first, like, you know, profoundly challenging experience?

00:54:19Guest:yeah role yeah and the way francis came to me was graham clifford who was the editor on postman yeah when he saw like you know i mean he's watching hundreds of hours of footage of you yeah yeah he uh he immediately thought of me for francis

00:54:42Marc:Yeah.

00:54:43Marc:And that's heavy business.

00:54:48Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:54:48Marc:Yeah.

00:54:48Marc:I mean, you've done a few movies that are pretty heavy business.

00:54:52Guest:Yeah, I like those.

00:54:52Guest:Yeah.

00:54:53Marc:I like those.

00:54:54Marc:It gives you something to do.

00:54:56Marc:Right.

00:54:57Marc:But, like, were you confident, like, in your ability, like, heading into that movie—

00:55:02Marc:And I only know this from my limited experience of acting.

00:55:06Marc:You know, you read a script like that, you're like, well, I'm going to have to go deep and get into this place.

00:55:10Marc:Yeah.

00:55:11Marc:That's going to be, you know, disturbing.

00:55:14Marc:Yeah.

00:55:15Marc:But that's part of the challenge, right?

00:55:17Guest:Yeah.

00:55:17Guest:That's what makes it thrilling.

00:55:19Marc:Yeah.

00:55:19Marc:And was it?

00:55:21Marc:Yes.

00:55:22Marc:Oh, my God.

00:55:22Guest:Yeah, everything about that.

00:55:25Guest:I mean, I loved her.

00:55:26Guest:I loved Frances.

00:55:30Guest:I loved her spirit and, you know, and the, I mean, the tragedy of what happened to her.

00:55:38Marc:Well, just even the idea, I imagine when you read that, that this was a practical form of treatment for people with a certain psychological disposition that you would just lobotomize them.

00:55:46Marc:Yeah.

00:55:46Marc:I mean, when you really think about it, it's crazy.

00:55:49Marc:I mean, like shock therapy is one thing.

00:55:51Guest:Yeah.

00:55:51Marc:Somehow or another, they're doing that again, but not in as painful a way.

00:55:55Marc:But like lobotomy.

00:55:57Guest:That's pretty like, yeah, that's pretty absolute.

00:55:59Guest:Yeah.

00:56:00Marc:There's no coming back from that.

00:56:02Marc:And they treated, I don't know if it was predominantly women.

00:56:06Marc:Probably.

00:56:07Marc:Right.

00:56:08Marc:The hysterical or whatever.

00:56:10Guest:Right.

00:56:10Marc:So just the idea of that part of history in terms of time travel, that must have been like disturbing.

00:56:19Guest:Yeah.

00:56:19Guest:And the doctor who performed it on Francis was actually the foremost proponent of – Lobotomizing?

00:56:27Marc:Yeah.

00:56:28Marc:Oh, my God.

00:56:29Guest:Yeah.

00:56:29Guest:I mean, in the scene that we played, it was based on what really happened.

00:56:33Guest:He's, you know, he's actually like giving a demonstration.

00:56:39Marc:Yeah.

00:56:41Marc:To a medical class.

00:56:42Guest:Right.

00:56:42Marc:This is how you stop the woman from feeling.

00:56:45Guest:Yeah.

00:56:46Guest:Yeah.

00:56:46Marc:Yeah.

00:56:47Marc:And once you got to those places...

00:56:50Marc:Like in terms of being an actor where you're like, well, there's a resource that I can draw from now forever until it exhausts me.

00:56:58Guest:Yeah.

00:56:59Guest:No, I mean, I hate to admit it, but I'm always drawn to like the darkest part of a character.

00:57:06Guest:Yeah.

00:57:07Guest:Because it...

00:57:10Guest:Or the madness in a character.

00:57:12Guest:Yeah.

00:57:13Guest:Because it allows you so much room to just experience and experiment and, like, I mean, places to go.

00:57:23Guest:Well, you got to be willing.

00:57:24Marc:I mean, that was an interesting thing, like, because you had done enough, I think, work and your spirit was of a certain sort.

00:57:32Marc:But the vulnerability of madness is still vulnerability.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah.

00:57:36Marc:Right?

00:57:36Guest:Yeah.

00:57:36Marc:Yeah.

00:57:36Marc:And, you know, you've got to put yourself out there in a very kind of raw and disturbing way.

00:57:41Marc:Yeah.

00:57:41Marc:And you've just got to be willing.

00:57:43Guest:Yeah.

00:57:43Guest:And go to really dark places.

00:57:46Marc:Yeah.

00:57:46Marc:Well, do you feel like that perhaps you were or still are?

00:57:50Marc:I would think you probably got most of them out.

00:57:52Marc:I mean, how many demons did you have to exercise?

00:57:55I don't know.

00:57:55Guest:Well, there were quite a few, yeah.

00:57:58Guest:I mean, certainly enough that, you know, carried me through several different characters.

00:58:05Marc:Blue Sky is another one.

00:58:06Guest:Yeah, Blue Sky is another one.

00:58:08Guest:Blanche Dubois is a classic one.

00:58:10Guest:And you did that a lot, right?

00:58:12Guest:Yeah, I did that three different times.

00:58:14Marc:And so when you get, like, okay, so after you do Blanche Dubois once.

00:58:20Guest:Yeah.

00:58:21Marc:And then you're like, you want to do it again?

00:58:23Marc:Yeah.

00:58:23Marc:Do you think like, well, I think I can get something deeper or more?

00:58:28Guest:Yeah.

00:58:29Guest:I mean, I just want, you know, also because, I mean, with like Williams, you know, he's giving you this template.

00:58:40Guest:Yeah.

00:58:41Guest:This kind of map, this road map.

00:58:44Guest:Right.

00:58:44Guest:And it's so rich.

00:58:47Guest:Yeah.

00:58:47Guest:I mean, it's the same thing with now I've done –

00:58:50Guest:Mary Tyrone from Long Day's Journey Into Night.

00:58:53Guest:Oh, my God.

00:58:54Marc:Three times.

00:58:55Marc:When's that coming out?

00:58:56Guest:Didn't you guys record it?

00:58:57Guest:Yeah, we did.

00:58:58Guest:We filmed it.

00:58:59Guest:But, you know, that's like post-production hell.

00:59:02Guest:I have no idea how soon that'll come out.

00:59:05Guest:But you, as an actor, you feel like, okay, I've done this once.

00:59:10Guest:I've done this another time.

00:59:11Guest:I've done this another time.

00:59:13Guest:And yet it's a bottomless well, that character, that part.

00:59:17Guest:There's no way you could ever exhaust it.

00:59:21Guest:So that in itself is fascinating.

00:59:23Marc:Because once you get into that zone, it's almost – it's unpredictable.

00:59:26Guest:Yeah.

00:59:27Guest:And it's endless, the possibilities.

00:59:30Guest:You know, just like one little sidetrack here and it takes you down a whole different place you've never been before.

00:59:37Marc:And it's like – I mean it's – It's an amazing thing about chaos and darkness.

00:59:41Guest:Yeah.

00:59:42Guest:But also about brilliant writing.

00:59:44Marc:Right.

00:59:45Marc:So those are the guardrails.

00:59:46Guest:Yeah.

00:59:46Marc:In a way.

00:59:47Guest:Yeah.

00:59:47Guest:Because you have somebody like, you know, O'Neill.

00:59:50Marc:Yeah.

00:59:51Guest:Who's writing about his mother.

00:59:53Guest:Yeah.

00:59:54Guest:Or you have Williams who's writing about his sister.

00:59:57Guest:I mean, so you're grounded in this, like, the most personal kind of truth is...

01:00:04Guest:And what they've gone through to write this, you know, is... And therefore, it's like... It is endless.

01:00:12Marc:Right.

01:00:13Guest:It's like a bottomless well.

01:00:14Marc:And it's a... Like, it's a human constant.

01:00:18Marc:Like, it's like... Almost like a truth.

01:00:20Guest:Yeah.

01:00:21Marc:So, well, that's...

01:00:24Marc:Interesting, because it really has to do with the writing, ultimately.

01:00:27Marc:And those are trustable people, Tennessee Williams.

01:00:30Guest:Those are two good ones.

01:00:33Guest:You can usually rely on them.

01:00:36Marc:You're not going to be like, no, no, no, about this line.

01:00:38Guest:Yeah, I don't know.

01:00:40Marc:What was O'Neill thinking?

01:00:41Guest:It just doesn't really work, I don't think.

01:00:44Marc:Well, I guess that's the journey, and I think I learned that more specifically with Pacino, that you talk to that guy.

01:00:52Marc:There's this idea that he didn't get into it for money or celebrity.

01:00:57Marc:It becomes a pursuit of truth.

01:01:00Guest:Yeah.

01:01:00Marc:Which is really kind of amazing.

01:01:02Guest:Yeah.

01:01:02Marc:That any little, like, and then I talked to another guy.

01:01:05Marc:I'm always gleaning stuff from actors.

01:01:08Marc:What was his name?

01:01:09Marc:Robert Patrick, you know, who was in the Terminator movies.

01:01:12Marc:And he was like, look, you just have to look at each scene as a one-act play.

01:01:17Marc:That was very helpful.

01:01:18Guest:Yeah.

01:01:18Marc:Like, each scene has got an arc in there.

01:01:20Guest:Yeah.

01:01:20Marc:So, like, you know, if you're breaking them down, you're doing film work, it's kind of helpful.

01:01:23Guest:Yeah.

01:01:23Marc:But ultimately, you're servicing what is the truth of the scene, what is the truth of the story, right?

01:01:28Marc:Yeah.

01:01:28Guest:Well, I know when I was working with Kim Stanley.

01:01:31Guest:Oh, my God.

01:01:32Guest:She's the best.

01:01:33Guest:The brilliant Kim Stanley.

01:01:35Guest:She's the best.

01:01:35Guest:No one knows enough about her.

01:01:37Guest:No, I know it.

01:01:38Guest:Why is that?

01:01:39Guest:I don't know.

01:01:40Guest:People should be studying.

01:01:41Guest:I mean, I did this many, many times before I would start a film.

01:01:46Guest:I would watch The Goddess.

01:01:48Guest:Yeah.

01:01:48Guest:Oh, my God.

01:01:49Guest:And I would like just, okay, because it would inspire me.

01:01:52Guest:This was what great acting was.

01:01:56Guest:And, but I had the opportunity to work with her twice, actually.

01:02:00Guest:But the first time was on Frances, where she played my mother, who was also, I mean.

01:02:06Guest:Oh, I got to watch it again.

01:02:07Guest:Responsible for.

01:02:08Guest:The insanity.

01:02:10Guest:And putting Frances away.

01:02:12Guest:Right, right, right.

01:02:13Guest:Yeah.

01:02:15Yeah.

01:02:15Guest:But yeah, working with her, it was just, I mean, and we were coming from the same place and we had spent weeks doing just improv work together with like a moderator, somebody from the actor's studio, this great coach, Sandra Seacat.

01:02:33Guest:Yeah.

01:02:34Guest:And she would just set these things in motion and Kim and I would do improvs for hours and hours and days and days.

01:02:43Guest:Really?

01:02:43Guest:Yeah.

01:02:43Marc:You had that kind of time then?

01:02:44Guest:Yeah.

01:02:45Guest:Yeah, we had rehearsal time.

01:02:47Marc:Yeah, that doesn't exist anymore.

01:02:49Guest:No, I guess it doesn't, no.

01:02:51Marc:Oh.

01:02:51Guest:So, but, you know, watching somebody like, yeah, people should study her.

01:02:56Marc:Well, yeah, there was a moment there, I think, where she was considered the female Brando.

01:03:00Marc:And then she, the goddess, which is like, it's pre those kind of movies.

01:03:05Marc:It's a little before, it's got to be, what was that, the 50s?

01:03:07Marc:Yeah.

01:03:08Marc:Yeah.

01:03:08Marc:That's an insane performance.

01:03:11Marc:Yeah, it is.

01:03:13Marc:It's, like, breathtaking.

01:03:14Marc:Yeah.

01:03:15Marc:Like, the depth.

01:03:15Marc:Because you're watching.

01:03:16Marc:I think that was, like, a Chayefsky script or something.

01:03:18Guest:Yeah, it was Paddy Chayefsky.

01:03:19Marc:And you're watching it.

01:03:20Marc:And, like, I'd never seen it before.

01:03:21Marc:I was around Criterion.

01:03:22Marc:This is, like, in the last couple years.

01:03:24Marc:And I'm like, oh, this sounds like an interesting story.

01:03:26Marc:And, like, within a half hour, I'm like, what the fuck is this?

01:03:30Marc:Who is this person?

01:03:31Marc:I know.

01:03:31Marc:How is this?

01:03:32Marc:Does not everybody know about it?

01:03:33Marc:I know it.

01:03:34Marc:And we all know about Shelley Winters.

01:03:35Marc:Yeah.

01:03:36Marc:But what about this woman?

01:03:37Marc:Yeah.

01:03:38Marc:But I think she had a difficult life.

01:03:41Marc:She had a very difficult time.

01:03:42Marc:Right.

01:03:43Marc:Yeah.

01:03:43Marc:And I think that sometimes gets in the way.

01:03:46Marc:Yeah.

01:03:48Marc:So you must have been relieved to do Tootsie.

01:03:51Guest:Well, this is interesting because, you know, we were shooting Francis.

01:03:56Guest:Yeah.

01:03:57Guest:And Dustin and Sidney Pollack kept approaching me about this part in Tootsie.

01:04:05Guest:And I thought, oh, my God, I'm not going to go from playing Francis Farmer to this, you know.

01:04:10Marc:This cute actress person?

01:04:11Guest:Yeah, this cute little, you know.

01:04:14Yeah.

01:04:14Guest:Daytime soap opera actress.

01:04:20Guest:But Kim was the one who said to me, do a comedy next.

01:04:25Marc:Yeah.

01:04:26Marc:Yeah.

01:04:26Marc:So you got it.

01:04:27Marc:So it was fortuitous.

01:04:28Guest:Yeah.

01:04:29Guest:They talked me into it and I just did it.

01:04:31Guest:That's great.

01:04:32Guest:And it was great.

01:04:32Guest:I was glad to do it.

01:04:33Marc:Lighten up a little bit.

01:04:34Guest:Yeah.

01:04:35Yeah.

01:04:35Guest:Yeah, have some fun.

01:04:38Guest:Was Dustin fun?

01:04:39Guest:Yeah, he was great to work with.

01:04:41Guest:I loved him.

01:04:42Guest:I loved Sidney, too.

01:04:43Guest:Sidney was one of the best directors I've ever been around.

01:04:47Marc:He's another one that doesn't get his due.

01:04:50Marc:Maybe I'm just deciding that as a director, but as an actor.

01:04:53Guest:Yeah.

01:04:53Guest:Oh, my God.

01:04:54Guest:Oh, no.

01:04:54Guest:As an actor, I know it.

01:04:55Marc:I love him.

01:04:56Marc:Yeah.

01:04:56Marc:Anytime he's on screen, I'm like, that's the guy.

01:04:59Guest:Yeah, that scene in the Russian tea room.

01:05:01Guest:It's great.

01:05:02Marc:Oh, it's great.

01:05:02Marc:It's great.

01:05:03Marc:Or in Michael Clayton.

01:05:04Marc:Even that weird movie he did with Ben Affleck, that Changing Lanes movie, he's great.

01:05:08Marc:He's always good at a guy who's got a compromised moral code.

01:05:12Guest:Yeah.

01:05:13Yeah.

01:05:13Guest:You know?

01:05:16Marc:So, but obviously you can't go through every movie, but Blue Sky, I just watched that again.

01:05:22Marc:You know, I'm actually about halfway through it.

01:05:24Marc:And like right out of the gate, it's just, it's like that, that's a relatable person.

01:05:29Guest:Yeah.

01:05:30Marc:And then Tommy Lee Jones, like, what a guy.

01:05:33Marc:I mean, just the guy, he's like, you know, just kind of, all right, this is what it is.

01:05:38Marc:Yeah.

01:05:38Marc:And I love her and we're going to do this.

01:05:40Guest:Yeah.

01:05:41Guest:Yeah, Tommy Lee was—he's one of my favorite actors I've worked with.

01:05:49Marc:Why, because of how grounded he is?

01:05:52Guest:You know, just because he's—yeah, I mean, he's so present and so, I mean, complete.

01:06:00Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:06:01Guest:And everything—every choice he makes is—I mean, it's fascinating.

01:06:06Marc:Yeah, it is.

01:06:06Guest:And he's great to work with.

01:06:08Guest:Work with.

01:06:10Guest:Across from.

01:06:10Marc:Yeah.

01:06:11Marc:Engage with.

01:06:11Guest:Yeah.

01:06:12Marc:Yeah.

01:06:13Marc:Yeah.

01:06:13Marc:Because he's like solid.

01:06:14Guest:Yeah.

01:06:15Marc:In terms of all his roles.

01:06:16Marc:A lot of them.

01:06:17Marc:There's not there's not one where he doesn't know what he's doing.

01:06:20Guest:No.

01:06:21Guest:No.

01:06:21Guest:He's brilliant.

01:06:23Marc:You always get the sense that he's in control there.

01:06:26Marc:It's funny.

01:06:26Marc:I saw Vim Bender's talk because I like I rewatched Paris, Texas.

01:06:32Marc:And.

01:06:33Marc:And I'd seen it when I was a kid, you know, when it came out and I thought I knew everything.

01:06:37Marc:And then I watched a movie recently and I'm like, I had no idea what this was about.

01:06:42Marc:But I remember him talking about like him working with Shepard.

01:06:46Guest:Yeah.

01:06:46Marc:And there was this sort of this issue.

01:06:48Marc:It's like, well, we didn't know where he was.

01:06:49Marc:He was running around with Jessica Lange somewhere and we're trying to make this movie.

01:06:53Yeah.

01:06:53Guest:Yeah, we had just, I think, yeah, that film was being made about the time we ran off together.

01:07:02Guest:And yeah, we weren't really reachable for a long time.

01:07:08Marc:You were somewhere with horses.

01:07:09Guest:Yeah.

01:07:13Marc:Well, that guy was like a genius.

01:07:14Guest:He was.

01:07:15Marc:Yeah, you were the long time.

01:07:17Guest:30 years.

01:07:19Marc:Yeah.

01:07:20Marc:Yeah.

01:07:21Marc:And what was the – did you – when he was workshopping stuff, did you do his stuff?

01:07:27Marc:We did – Or did you keep it separate?

01:07:28Guest:Yeah.

01:07:28Guest:I mean, the couple times that we talked about, you know, or me doing like, you know, a play of his or something or an adaptation, I was pregnant.

01:07:40Guest:So, you know, that didn't turn out.

01:07:43Guest:Right.

01:07:44Guest:We did –

01:07:47Guest:We did a film together.

01:07:49Marc:Was that country?

01:07:50Marc:That was, well, acting together.

01:07:53Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:53Guest:Yeah.

01:07:54Guest:No, we met on Francis.

01:07:55Marc:Oh, right.

01:07:56Marc:Okay.

01:07:57Marc:Wow.

01:07:57Guest:Yeah.

01:07:58Guest:Yeah.

01:07:59Guest:Yeah, Francis was huge in my life.

01:08:01Marc:Yeah.

01:08:02Guest:Yeah.

01:08:03Marc:For everything.

01:08:03Guest:For everything.

01:08:04Guest:Yeah.

01:08:06Guest:No, we did a film that he wrote and directed called Far North.

01:08:11Yeah.

01:08:11Marc:Oh, right.

01:08:12Marc:Is it about a farmer?

01:08:13Guest:No, that was Country.

01:08:15Guest:Oh, okay.

01:08:15Guest:Sorry.

01:08:15Guest:And that was something that I had developed as a film.

01:08:21Guest:Yeah.

01:08:22Guest:And so we did – well, we worked together on Country.

01:08:27Guest:Yeah.

01:08:28Guest:And then we did this film that Sam wrote and directed called Far North.

01:08:33Guest:Okay.

01:08:33Guest:Yeah.

01:08:34Guest:And, yeah, the other times things didn't pan out because –

01:08:39Marc:Yeah.

01:08:41Guest:I was having babies and stuff like that.

01:08:43Guest:A couple babies.

01:08:43Guest:Yeah.

01:08:44Marc:Well, it's interesting, like, in terms of really thinking about the parts for women in Sam Shepard's oeuvre, he seemed to be pretty much obsessed with exercising whatever demon his father was in every play.

01:08:57Guest:Yes, in every single play.

01:08:58Guest:Yeah.

01:08:59Marc:There's always some dark character with like a spectrum of issues.

01:09:05Guest:Yeah.

01:09:06Marc:That would show up.

01:09:07Marc:Yeah.

01:09:08Guest:Yeah.

01:09:09Marc:How did you feel about him as an actor?

01:09:11Guest:I thought Sam was great.

01:09:13Guest:Yeah, me too.

01:09:13Guest:I think he was underrated.

01:09:14Marc:Totally.

01:09:15Marc:Totally.

01:09:16Marc:Like in The Right Stuff, and I think Kim Stanley's in that.

01:09:18Guest:Yeah.

01:09:19Marc:She plays the barkeep.

01:09:20Yeah.

01:09:20Guest:Yeah.

01:09:21Guest:And she was not happy on that film.

01:09:24Marc:Yeah.

01:09:24Guest:She was very unhappy on that film.

01:09:26Guest:And they would always send Sam to try to get her out of the trailer and come to the set.

01:09:34Guest:She used to call Sam old horse eyes.

01:09:41Guest:Because he always looked like he was ready to.

01:09:43Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:09:44Marc:Well, he must have been a pretty sweet present in terms of navigating getting her out of the trailer.

01:09:50Marc:Yeah.

01:09:50Guest:Well, yeah, she actually liked Sam a lot.

01:09:54Guest:Yeah.

01:09:55Marc:What was her problem on that movie?

01:09:57Guest:I don't think she liked... It's kind of a one-dimensional character.

01:10:02Guest:Yeah, and I don't think she was happy with... Kaufman?

01:10:07Guest:Yeah, I'm not sure.

01:10:08Guest:I really shouldn't speak for it.

01:10:12Guest:But I just know I think she was troubled on that film.

01:10:14Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:10:17Marc:The arc of an acting career is pretty crazy.

01:10:19Marc:But her and Jenna Rollins are the ones that—

01:10:23Marc:Did you ever work with her?

01:10:24Guest:No, I never did.

01:10:25Marc:Because it seems like you're in that spectrum of work.

01:10:28Marc:Well, that's a great compliment.

01:10:30Marc:All of those.

01:10:30Guest:Yeah.

01:10:31Guest:Yeah.

01:10:31Marc:I mean, you just get to these places.

01:10:33Marc:Yeah.

01:10:34Marc:And in this new one, you did it again.

01:10:36Marc:When was the last time you had to dig deep for that stuff?

01:10:40Yeah.

01:10:42Guest:Oh, you mean in the Great Lillian Hall?

01:10:45Marc:Yeah.

01:10:46Marc:I mean.

01:10:47Marc:Dementia and also just, you know, aging as an actor.

01:10:50Guest:Yeah.

01:10:51Marc:And just because you've lived a life on stage and on screen.

01:10:55Marc:Yeah.

01:10:55Marc:So I have to assume in this film, this was all fairly familiar territory for you outside of the reality of dementia.

01:11:03Guest:Yeah.

01:11:04Guest:Or not.

01:11:06Marc:I can say with confidence that you don't have that.

01:11:09Guest:Okay, thank you.

01:11:11Guest:I wonder sometimes.

01:11:14Guest:No, but, you know, part of the thing that attracted me so much about that story and that script that Michael co-wrote and directed, Michael Christopher, was...

01:11:28Guest:Yeah, where we were going with it.

01:11:32Guest:Yeah.

01:11:32Guest:You know, this thing of grief, of loss.

01:11:37Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:11:37Guest:Of loneliness.

01:11:38Guest:Yeah.

01:11:39Guest:I mean, those are all the emotional areas at this point in my life.

01:11:47Guest:Yeah.

01:11:47Guest:That are ever present.

01:11:49Guest:Yeah.

01:11:49Guest:You know, you're always grieving the loss of someone or a time.

01:11:55Guest:Yeah.

01:11:56Guest:You know?

01:11:57Guest:Yeah.

01:11:58Guest:A time that's been lost or – I mean, and then the thing of, yeah, of loneliness, you know?

01:12:06Marc:I mean – And also that – the idea – I guess it's based on a real person, right?

01:12:11Guest:Well, it started – it was originally conceived –

01:12:17Guest:And written by the niece of Marion Seldes.

01:12:25Guest:Okay.

01:12:25Guest:The actress.

01:12:26Guest:Yeah.

01:12:28Guest:Mostly a stage actress.

01:12:29Guest:Right.

01:12:30Guest:A great stage actress.

01:12:32Marc:Right.

01:12:33Guest:Who, yes.

01:12:34Guest:Well, like... Suffers dementia and... And doesn't want to give up performing.

01:12:40Guest:Yeah.

01:12:41Marc:Well, I mean, there's something about aging in the theater, you know, that it's a...

01:12:46Marc:When you're considered a great stage actress, you get to a certain point where the loneliness seems inherent in it.

01:12:53Guest:Yeah.

01:12:54Marc:That, you know, you're kind of isolated.

01:12:55Marc:And, you know, you've lived this public life.

01:12:59Marc:And then your private life, I don't know that it gets small.

01:13:01Marc:But, you know, it always, if I think of characters like that, they always seem a little lonely.

01:13:06Guest:Yeah.

01:13:06Marc:Yeah.

01:13:08Marc:And then, like, I don't know what the process was.

01:13:12Marc:Had you done that Chekhov play?

01:13:14Guest:No, and that was one of the other things that really attracted me to doing that part was I actually got to play Lubia from The Cherry Orchard.

01:13:24Marc:Yeah, you knew the play well.

01:13:26Guest:Well, I knew it.

01:13:27Guest:I had never done it.

01:13:28Marc:Yeah.

01:13:29Guest:And this gave me, you know, the opportunity because we rehearsed for several weeks.

01:13:34Guest:So we were rehearsing it like a play.

01:13:36Guest:Yeah.

01:13:37Guest:And we had a great ensemble of actors.

01:13:39Guest:Yeah.

01:13:40Guest:And, you know, yeah.

01:13:44Guest:And what I loved about the story was how...

01:13:47Guest:Lubia's life at that point in The Cherry Orchard mirrors Lillian Hall's life in the film, in the story.

01:13:58Guest:Because it's all about loss.

01:14:01Guest:It's all about what's being stripped away.

01:14:03Guest:Right.

01:14:04Guest:In the case of Lillian Hall, it's her memory.

01:14:09Guest:It's her ability to do what she's always done.

01:14:13Guest:It's like the knowledge, all of that that's being taken away with the dementia.

01:14:20Guest:And in the cherry orchard, it's the land.

01:14:24Guest:It's the orchard.

01:14:26Guest:It's the house.

01:14:27Guest:It's family.

01:14:28Guest:Everything is being – these women are losing everything.

01:14:31Guest:Yeah.

01:14:32Guest:And you're like, I'm in.

01:14:34Guest:I'm in.

01:14:35Guest:I like that.

01:14:36Guest:Okay.

01:14:36Guest:Loss, sorrow, grief, loneliness.

01:14:41Guest:I can do it.

01:14:43Guest:This is the time.

01:14:44Marc:You can bring it all together.

01:14:46Guest:Yeah.

01:14:46Guest:And, you know, I did a play on Broadway this spring.

01:14:48Guest:Yeah.

01:14:49Guest:Mother play.

01:14:50Hmm.

01:14:50Guest:Where, again, it's a character who loses everything.

01:14:56Guest:Yeah.

01:14:57Guest:And there's a – it's about a 12, 15-minute section of the play.

01:15:03Guest:Yeah.

01:15:04Guest:Where I'm at a certain point in the – you know, my son, my daughter – my son has died.

01:15:13Guest:My daughter is – you know, we've been separate and –

01:15:19Guest:And I'm living alone in a little apartment.

01:15:23Guest:And I come home from work.

01:15:27Guest:And it's a silent section of the play.

01:15:30Guest:And for about 15 minutes, I'm on stage by myself.

01:15:35Guest:Just what does a woman do when she walks into her home at the end of the day?

01:15:41Guest:She's confronted with twilight.

01:15:46Guest:And how does she feel...

01:15:49Guest:Those empty, empty hours before she can like take her first drink, before she can go to bed, before she can, you know.

01:15:59Guest:And it was really a fascinating, it was my favorite part of the play, one of my favorite parts of the play.

01:16:05Guest:Just you on stage.

01:16:06Guest:Just me on stage.

01:16:07Guest:15 minutes.

01:16:08Guest:15 minutes.

01:16:10Marc:Doing life.

01:16:11Guest:Yeah.

01:16:11Yeah.

01:16:11Guest:The life of a lonely woman coming home and how does she fill that time in the evening?

01:16:18Guest:How does she survive it?

01:16:20Marc:And there's direction.

01:16:24Guest:Yeah, there are milestones.

01:16:27Guest:There's kind of signposts.

01:16:29Marc:You just have to get there.

01:16:31Guest:But you have to fill that up.

01:16:32Marc:Yeah.

01:16:33Guest:You know.

01:16:33Guest:With inner life.

01:16:35Guest:It's, yeah, you come in, you turn the lights on.

01:16:39Guest:Yeah.

01:16:39Guest:You turn the radio on right away so you're not in silence.

01:16:43Guest:Right.

01:16:44Guest:You turn the radio off, you turn the TV on.

01:16:48Marc:Yeah.

01:16:48Guest:Nothing there, you know.

01:16:49Guest:So, I mean, there are different things.

01:16:51Marc:But you can't get out of yourself.

01:16:52Guest:But you can't escape yourself.

01:16:55Guest:Yeah.

01:16:55Guest:And just this pervasive loneliness.

01:16:57Guest:Yeah.

01:16:58Marc:And then so that leading into this movie where yourself is leaving.

01:17:04Guest:Yeah.

01:17:05Guest:Yeah.

01:17:09Guest:How about a good comedy?

01:17:10Guest:It's time.

01:17:13Marc:I'm going to step in here and say you better do a comedy day.

01:17:17Marc:But, I mean, I thought it was so... I really enjoyed the movie.

01:17:22Marc:And I liked the fact that they cast Lily Rabe.

01:17:26Guest:I know.

01:17:26Guest:Isn't that great?

01:17:27Guest:She grew up in it.

01:17:28Guest:I know it.

01:17:29Guest:I know.

01:17:29Guest:It's like she knows exactly what's happening.

01:17:33Guest:I know.

01:17:34Guest:When she came into... I mean, it's that thing where you work with an actor where you know...

01:17:43Guest:That they're bringing something that's so personal.

01:17:49Guest:And whatever it is, it's like grounded in something that's so true.

01:17:54Guest:Yeah.

01:17:55Guest:I mean, you can always sense that about another actor.

01:17:58Guest:Is it coming from a place of absolute truth?

01:18:00Guest:Yeah.

01:18:03Guest:It was.

01:18:04Guest:Yeah.

01:18:04Guest:And, I mean, working with Lily on some of those scenes was just like, whoa.

01:18:09Marc:Yeah.

01:18:10Marc:Incredible.

01:18:11Marc:She's so good.

01:18:12Guest:Yep.

01:18:12Guest:She's great.

01:18:13Marc:And Pierce Brosnan was like.

01:18:15Guest:I know.

01:18:15Guest:How about that?

01:18:16Marc:He's like the relief.

01:18:19Guest:I know.

01:18:20Guest:I know.

01:18:21Guest:I mean, I loved our scenes together.

01:18:24Guest:They're great.

01:18:24Guest:The little balcony scenes.

01:18:25Guest:They were fabulous.

01:18:26Guest:Yeah.

01:18:27Marc:He's so good.

01:18:28Marc:He's so good.

01:18:29Marc:And he was he was real present.

01:18:31Marc:Yeah.

01:18:31Marc:And like there were real moments between you where there was something, you know, some longing and some history and some, you know, sadness like that.

01:18:40Marc:That beat where he tells you to step away from the leg.

01:18:42Marc:I mean, it's like really, you know, it's real stuff.

01:18:45Guest:Yeah.

01:18:46Marc:A real caring.

01:18:47Guest:Yeah.

01:18:47Marc:Like you don't know exactly how long they've been living together, but it seems like a long time.

01:18:51Guest:Yeah.

01:18:51Guest:Yeah, they've known each other a long time.

01:18:54Guest:No, I loved those scenes with him.

01:18:56Guest:I mean, that one where... Because in the script it was written that I come out on the balcony and, you know, we have an exchange.

01:19:06Guest:And then I'm standing there and I drop my robe and stand there in the kind of, you know, the evening light.

01:19:15Guest:And I said early on, I said, you know, I'm not going to do this.

01:19:19Guest:I mean...

01:19:19Guest:I'm not going to stand here naked.

01:19:22Guest:Those days are behind you.

01:19:25Guest:Yeah, those days are long gone.

01:19:28Guest:And besides, he doesn't want to see it.

01:19:32Guest:So I said, let me ask him to kiss me.

01:19:37Marc:Yeah.

01:19:37Marc:Oh, that's what that decision was.

01:19:39Guest:Yeah.

01:19:39Guest:And, you know, I love that moment because it's a woman who probably hasn't been kissed for a long time.

01:19:47Guest:Her husband's been dead quite a while.

01:19:50Guest:And there's no possibility that she will again.

01:19:53Guest:Yeah.

01:19:54Guest:But there's something about being kissed that she still wants to experience and remember it so she can maybe take it with her.

01:20:07Guest:Yeah.

01:20:08Guest:And it was such a great— Yeah, it was good.

01:20:10Guest:It was such a wonderful scene to play with him.

01:20:13Guest:It was so good.

01:20:13Marc:And I haven't seen like Bates really do the business in a long time.

01:20:19Marc:And she like dug in.

01:20:20Marc:Yeah, she did.

01:20:20Guest:And it was pretty great.

01:20:22Guest:Yeah, she was wonderful, too.

01:20:23Marc:Yeah, I thought it was great.

01:20:25Marc:So in the process, what was the hardest thing for you in doing that person?

01:20:31Guest:Well, when Michael came in, he moved a lot of the scenes.

01:20:38Guest:I think in the script that was sent to Michael Christopher originally, the opening night of Cherry Orchard came in the middle of the story.

01:20:49Yeah.

01:20:49Guest:And then after that, you just kind of track this woman disappearing.

01:20:54Guest:But what became interesting for him and what ultimately was the most interesting for me was to see somebody –

01:21:06Guest:desperately trying to stave that off.

01:21:10Marc:So to start with the, to have the play, The Cherry Orchard, ever present all the way through.

01:21:16Guest:Yeah, and also not to get to the end of The Cherry Orchard until the end of the film.

01:21:23Guest:Right, yeah.

01:21:23Guest:And then, you know, you know what the outcome will be a couple years down the road.

01:21:30Guest:But what was more interesting than playing that was the, you know, how she fights against it.

01:21:39Guest:Yeah.

01:21:40Guest:And, you know, her singular bravery and tenacity.

01:21:45Guest:Right.

01:21:46Guest:Yeah.

01:21:46Guest:To get through this play.

01:21:49Guest:Yeah.

01:21:49Guest:One last play.

01:21:50Guest:Yeah.

01:21:50Guest:Because the theater has meant the world to her.

01:21:53Marc:Right.

01:21:53Marc:And you get the sense at the end that that was it.

01:21:56Guest:Yeah.

01:21:57Marc:And she did it.

01:21:58Guest:She did it.

01:21:58Marc:With the help of Kathy Bates.

01:22:00Guest:Yeah.

01:22:01Guest:And a cast.

01:22:03Marc:Yeah.

01:22:03Guest:Who was ever present and supporting her.

01:22:05Marc:Pretty great.

01:22:06Guest:Yeah.

01:22:06Marc:And in that, like, I don't know the play well enough.

01:22:08Marc:In that moment where you speak directly to your daughter, is that in the play?

01:22:11Guest:No.

01:22:12Marc:Okay.

01:22:12Marc:So that was just sort of this.

01:22:15Guest:Yeah.

01:22:15Guest:She kind of takes the language and moves it around a little bit.

01:22:18Marc:That was great, that moment.

01:22:20Marc:I'm getting choked up now.

01:22:21Marc:Yeah.

01:22:22Marc:So when you do these things, in terms of speaking of your own life, how often are you navigating darkness?

01:22:37Guest:Yeah, I mean, more than I should be.

01:22:41Marc:Yeah.

01:22:42Guest:More than I wish I were.

01:22:43Marc:Always or is it more now?

01:22:46Guest:No, I mean, I think I've always, but maybe it's more now because I'm much more alone now.

01:22:55Guest:Yeah.

01:22:55Guest:You know, my children are grown.

01:22:56Guest:Yeah.

01:22:57Guest:They're out of the house.

01:22:58Guest:Yeah.

01:22:58Guest:Sam is gone.

01:23:00Guest:My – you know, the generations before me, they're long gone.

01:23:07Guest:So it's – yeah, you know, it's narrowing down, narrowing down.

01:23:14Marc:And I guess that's what – that's where – because I always wonder –

01:23:18Marc:With certain types of performers, not necessarily you, but, like, you know, that there comes a point where you don't want to stop because it gets you out of that.

01:23:30Guest:Yeah.

01:23:31Guest:Yeah, and, I mean, I still love doing it, and there's still a lot to discover and to experience.

01:23:39Guest:So, you know, it's just...

01:23:44Guest:And I guess, yeah, in a way it is.

01:23:45Guest:It takes you out of yourself.

01:23:47Guest:Yeah.

01:23:48Guest:You, you know, which is always a good thing.

01:23:50Marc:And you don't get, yeah.

01:23:52Marc:And you don't get exhausted.

01:23:53Marc:I heard a story about Brando sending Jack Nicholson some sort of letter after he saw The Crossing Guard saying, like, it was an amazing performance.

01:24:01Marc:And that's why I can't do it anymore.

01:24:03Marc:I just, I don't have, it's exhausting.

01:24:04Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:24:06Marc:If you're really doing it, it's exhausting.

01:24:07Guest:Well, I did notice this time doing the play, and we had like a 12-week, 15-week run, whatever, with previews.

01:24:18Marc:With the mother play?

01:24:19Guest:The mother play.

01:24:20Guest:I've never been so tired.

01:24:23Guest:Yeah.

01:24:24Guest:But, you know, the play itself was structured and that's what made it work is that we were never off stage.

01:24:32Guest:So it was like, what, you know, an hour, 45 minutes just straight through.

01:24:38Guest:Yeah.

01:24:39Guest:Never a break.

01:24:40Guest:Yeah.

01:24:40Guest:You never even sat down and like tried to catch your breath.

01:24:43Guest:Right.

01:24:44Guest:And you were moving at this tremendous velocity through 40 years in the lives of these three characters.

01:24:51Guest:Yeah.

01:24:52Guest:You know, the mother, the daughter, and the son.

01:24:54Guest:Yeah.

01:24:55Guest:And through all sorts of tragedy.

01:24:57Guest:Yeah.

01:24:59Guest:So it was like, but yeah, I thought, holy shit, this is really exhausting.

01:25:04Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:05Guest:But it was worth it.

01:25:06Guest:But it was also like I took, you know, three months just to sit up in my cabin in the woods doing nothing.

01:25:14Marc:And that felt good?

01:25:15Marc:Yeah, that felt good.

01:25:16Marc:Oh, good.

01:25:17Marc:But you still have a lot of people around you here and there, right?

01:25:20Marc:Well, that's good.

01:25:21Marc:Well, it was an honor talking to you.

01:25:24Marc:It was great.

01:25:25Guest:Thank you.

01:25:26Guest:It was lovely.

01:25:26Guest:Yeah.

01:25:27Marc:And I'm glad you're well.

01:25:29Guest:Yes.

01:25:29Guest:Knock on wood.

01:25:30Marc:Yeah.

01:25:30Marc:And I thought the film was great.

01:25:32Marc:And so where do you go now?

01:25:34Marc:Back to New York?

01:25:35Guest:Yeah, I'll go back to New York tomorrow, and there are a couple projects that are in the works.

01:25:40Guest:Oh, good.

01:25:40Guest:So hopefully, you know, those will come through.

01:25:42Guest:Oh, great.

01:25:43Guest:One is a story of Marlene Dietrich at, you know, her post Las Vegas, yeah, her relationship with Burt Bacharach and that whole time of her life, which is really fascinating.

01:25:56Guest:Oh, that's interesting.

01:25:57Marc:Well, that's because you did Joan Crawford, too, right?

01:26:00Guest:Yeah.

01:26:00Guest:And Frances Farmish, so, yeah.

01:26:02Marc:You're doing it.

01:26:03Marc:And you did Grey Gardens.

01:26:05Marc:You did Big Edie.

01:26:07Guest:Yeah, that was great fun.

01:26:08Guest:Yeah, and did Patsy Cline.

01:26:11Marc:Oh, Patsy.

01:26:13Guest:Yeah.

01:26:13Guest:I like playing real characters.

01:26:16Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:26:16Marc:Well, I'm glad you're working.

01:26:18Marc:You seem pretty happy.

01:26:20Guest:Yeah, I'm doing okay.

01:26:21Guest:All right.

01:26:22Guest:Thanks, Mark.

01:26:26Yeah.

01:26:26Marc:There you go.

01:26:29Marc:The great Lillian Hall is streaming on Max, and it's a good watch.

01:26:34Marc:It's a deep performance.

01:26:35Marc:Hang out for a minute.

01:26:39Marc:Hey, people, if you're looking to dive into some old WTF episodes, you can check out Jessica Lange's King Kong co-star Jeff Bridges on episode 853.

01:26:47Marc:That's available for free on whatever platform you're using to listen to this episode right now.

01:26:53Marc:You like playing these Western type of dudes?

01:26:55Guest:I remember, you know, Westerns, you know, my dad, who's in a lot of great Westerns, you know, High Noon, whenever he'd come home from work dressed up like a cowboy, I'd put on his boots and his hat and, you know, cowboys.

01:27:10Guest:Sure, man.

01:27:11Guest:What a time.

01:27:12Marc:And you did that thing that Bad Company was sort of a Western, right?

01:27:15Guest:Bad Company, yeah, Bob Benton's first movie, yeah.

01:27:18Marc:Is that a deep movie?

01:27:19Yeah.

01:27:19Guest:Yeah, I think so.

01:27:21Guest:It's a good movie, yeah.

01:27:22Guest:You know who's in that movie?

01:27:24Guest:Who?

01:27:24Guest:Who plays Big Joe?

01:27:25Guest:David Huddleston.

01:27:28Guest:David Huddleston.

01:27:29Guest:You know who David Huddleston is?

01:27:30Guest:I gotta look.

01:27:31Guest:David Huddleston is the Big Lebowski.

01:27:33Guest:Oh, yeah!

01:27:34Guest:Yeah, man.

01:27:35Guest:So David Huddleston was in Bad Company, and he was the Big Lebowski, man.

01:27:39Guest:He was the Big Lebowski.

01:27:40Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:27:42Guest:It's a small world and...

01:27:45Marc:That's Jeff Bridges on episode 853, which also features a separate interview with his brother, Bo Bridges.

01:27:51Marc:To get all episodes ad-free, sign up for WTF+.

01:27:54Marc:Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFpod.com and click on WTF+.

01:28:01Marc:Don't forget, you can also go to the episode description to submit an Ask Mark Anything question for a future Full Marin episode.

01:28:08Marc:Just click on the link and ask me whatever is on your mind.

01:28:11Marc:And remember, before we go, this podcast is hosted by Acast.

01:28:15Marc:I think I got the looper thing right, but I still can't fade out properly.

01:28:21Marc:I will learn how to fade out properly.

01:28:25Marc:I promise you.

01:28:55guitar solo

01:29:22Guest:guitar solo

01:29:54Thank you.

01:30:19Marc:Boomer lives.

01:30:26Marc:Monkey and La Fonda cat angels everywhere.