Episode 1598 - Jesse Eisenberg
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Today, I talked to Jesse Eisenberg.
Marc:I'm sure you know him.
Marc:He's an actor.
Marc:He's a writer.
Marc:He's a director.
Marc:You know him from The Social Network, The Squid and the Whale, Zombieland.
Marc:He's a regular contributor to The New Yorker, and he is a published playwright.
Marc:He's the writer and director of the new movie, A Real Pain, which he stars in along with Kieran Culkin.
Marc:I thought it was enjoyable.
Marc:I thought it was good.
Marc:I thought it was well written.
Marc:I thought it was well acted.
Marc:I like that Kieran Culkin guy and I like him and Jesse together.
Marc:I will recommend the movie.
Marc:If that means anything to you, it's a good watch.
Marc:It's a tight movie.
Marc:I'll get this out of the way, too.
Marc:It's fine.
Marc:This week, I'm at Largo in Los Angeles on Friday, December 13th for a comedy and music show.
Marc:We're going to play some songs and have some comics, and I'll do some comedy and some singing.
Marc:Then I'm in Sacramento, California at the Crest Theater on Friday, January 10th.
Marc:I'll be in Napa.
Marc:At the Uptown Theater, Saturday, January 11th.
Marc:I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Marc:Lincoln Center Performance Hall on Friday, January 17th.
Marc:Then Boulder, Colorado at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, January 18th.
Marc:I'll be in Santa Barbara, California at the Lobero Theater on Thursday, January 30th.
Marc:Then San Luis Obispo, California at the Fremont Center on Friday, January 31st.
Marc:Monterey, California at the Golden State Theater on Saturday, February 1st.
Marc:There's a lot of other dates coming.
Marc:Oklahoma, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas.
Marc:Just go to WTFPod.com slash tour.
Marc:And you can see the whole list.
Marc:You can see it all.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So look.
Marc:A lot of things happened last week, some of them fairly monumental.
Marc:I can list them for you if you give a shit.
Marc:I know the world is a difficult place, and there's a foreboding, a horrendous black cloud of dread at the hearts of many reasonable people.
Marc:But I am trying to continue to live my life.
Marc:I got an email from a guy.
Marc:And...
Marc:I think it's kind of a life changer.
Marc:And this guy's not a pro therapist or assessor of psychological things.
Marc:I'll just read this to you.
Marc:But this guy, Cameron, he says, I want to comment on the ADHD narcissism thoughts that you've been openly sharing and your recent interview with Rosemary DeWitt, where you commented that listeners are suggesting ADHD.
Yeah.
Marc:It could be ADHD.
Marc:Your stories often support this.
Marc:I'm not about to suggest this, but speaking to a qualified evaluator is always an option.
Marc:But on the idea of self-centeredness and ADHD, this idea of how one can be so focused on self and have so much doubt, you are right.
Marc:Narcissists don't experience doubt.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So why are these people with ADHD accused of being self-centered?
Marc:Now, look, I know I'm reading this whole thing, but you got to understand something.
Marc:Personally, I don't even know what I would do with a diagnosis.
Marc:And I can't tell you that I'm going to go to a professional evaluator.
Marc:I don't know whether I care whether I have ADHD or not, because I'm probably not going to medicate.
Marc:It's just my nature.
Marc:I'm a guy who is very cognitively oriented therapeutically.
Marc:I believe in contrary action and acting as if.
Marc:And through repetition, I find that the new neural pathways are kind of opened up, plowed, carved out.
Marc:That's just my belief.
Marc:But let's get back to this because there's something about this may be helpful to you, but it was certainly an amazing breakthrough for me.
Marc:Just the information here.
Marc:He says, the main dilemma with ADHD is getting access to our task network, the place we make decisions and identify, prioritize, and execute tasks.
Marc:We then spend a lot of time in the meaning-making part of the brain, the default mode network.
Marc:I often say we are wired for context when we consider new information and
Marc:The first thing we do is ask, how does this relate to me?
Marc:So this in and of itself is kind of a mind blower for me because that is how I take in everything.
Marc:And I never thought I was narcissistic.
Marc:And I actually made a decision to shift my comedy through that lens entirely, no matter what I'm talking about.
Marc:And I think everyone kind of does this, but not with everything.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So he goes on.
Marc:That is like a key to the kingdom, man.
Marc:So when you perform music at Largo, the experience is always better than the thoughts that led up to it.
Marc:I teach and when I teach, I'm reminded of what matters to me.
Marc:Our experience informs our sense of self, providing important feedback loops.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:This is also why it is hard to get present with an opportunity.
Marc:We can play out all the different scenarios of how something could go wrong.
Marc:Like you were sharing about the New York gig.
Marc:Everyone's ADHD presents differently based on their lived experience.
Marc:Someone with depression will present differently than someone with anxiety.
Marc:I mean, the idea that we forget our sense of self that we misplace our sense of self is
Marc:That is so fucking fundamentally important to me.
Marc:Look, I don't know how anyone else can relate to this, but I'm just sharing this because it blew my fucking mind because I think about this stuff all the time.
Marc:Why am I not acting like the person I am?
Marc:Why am I feeling so, you know, fragile and like I don't know anything or what I'm doing or, you know, you can say it's fear, but
Marc:But misplacing sense of self when you're not engaged with what it is that you find meaning in.
Marc:How fucking good is that?
Marc:Doesn't matter if I have it.
Marc:Doubtfully, I will find out.
Marc:And I doubt that I would take medication for it because I have adapted in certain ways.
Marc:And it is kind of part of me.
Marc:And I'm not saying that's right for everybody.
Marc:Maybe it'd be nice to know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But this misplaced self business.
Marc:The misplaced self.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I always thought that I was just, you know, well guarded and defensive and scared and all that.
Marc:It may be that, but it is a very specific feeling this guy talked about.
Marc:And that kind of leads into my experience in New York.
Marc:Because heading into this gig, we did a rehearsal.
Marc:It was me and Vivino, Adam Menkoff on bass, Sean Felton on drums.
Marc:And we rehearsed.
Marc:And then it turns out Kevin Bacon was going to be at the gig.
Marc:So we asked him if he wanted to sing one.
Marc:He came down, did Run Run Rudolph, the Chuck Berry tune.
Marc:And then Kingfish.
Marc:Chris Stone, Kingfish Ingram, he was he came down, did a couple of songs.
Marc:He didn't he didn't rehearse with us.
Marc:But the next day we did a run through anyway.
Marc:So we did the rehearsal.
Marc:I felt pretty good about it.
Marc:All I was thinking about is don't choke.
Marc:Figure it out.
Marc:You know, these songs figure it out.
Marc:Don't choke.
Marc:Try to have a good time.
Marc:Get in the pocket, dude.
Marc:But more importantly, what happened the night after rehearsal is, look, I haven't gone to the Comedy Cellar much in the last five years.
Marc:I don't know what it was.
Marc:There's many reasons why I turned on it.
Marc:One, you know, it's a place where I started out and I never felt when I was younger that I was necessarily welcome there.
Marc:I always felt that it was a difficult room.
Marc:I always felt judged by Manny and Esty.
Marc:And I just it's a little traumatic.
Marc:And I also thought it got kind of bro-y and I thought maybe I had some enemies there.
Marc:You know, I've got an old friend that's there a lot and, you know, we don't speak.
Marc:And I was just like, fuck it, I'm not going there anymore.
Marc:But I used to just like to go to, you know, to, you know, to hang out with the people, with the comics.
Marc:And now they've got like four rooms.
Marc:But anyway, so I'm walking with Menkoff and I'm like, fuck it, I'm going over there.
Marc:You know, it's like I, you know, I'm going over there.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:I found myself.
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:I can go there.
Marc:I'm not like some like marginal.
Marc:Well, maybe a little.
Marc:But, you know, I paid my dues at that.
Marc:I'm just going to go.
Marc:Fuck it.
Marc:I'm going to go hang out.
Marc:And I get there and it's kind of crazy.
Marc:I'm just sitting there and I'm looking at all the four monitors.
Marc:And, you know, for some reason, Bobby Lee was there and that was great.
Marc:Santino was there.
Marc:Chris Rock is there.
Marc:Ari Shafir is there.
Marc:Darren Aronofsky is hanging out.
Marc:Attell comes in.
Marc:And they asked me if I wanted to do a spot.
Marc:And I haven't set foot on that stage, I swear to God, in 10 years.
Marc:And I just rose above all this dumb, weird shit from not being there for so long.
Marc:And I'm going to use this misplaced self thing because I had to kind of reconfigure who the fuck I am.
Marc:I've been doing this my whole fucking life.
Marc:I went on stage for like 10, 15.
Marc:I killed it.
Marc:You know, things I thought it was going to be tense as fuck.
Marc:And it just it was just normal.
Marc:It was just people talking.
Marc:It was just normal.
Marc:We're all old fucks now.
Marc:And I guess holding on to these resentments or fears and whatever or beefs.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It just it was all just it was like a fucking weight was lifted off of my goddamn back.
Marc:I did the set.
Marc:I saw old friends.
Marc:I can't say I repaired any friendships, but everything was normal in terms of communicating and hanging out.
Marc:And it was just sort of like, what a relief.
Marc:What a relief.
Marc:And then the gig the next day after that, the gig went great.
Marc:I never played better than I played on Going, Going Gone, the Dylan song that night.
Marc:And Maddie Wiener went on and killed it.
Marc:Nimesh Patel went on.
Marc:Kingfish went on.
Marc:Bacon was there.
Marc:Jimmy Vivino, all those.
Marc:It was just, it was great.
Marc:And I felt really good about it for about a day.
Marc:And then I saw the video and I'm like, ugh.
Marc:Screwed up that lyric.
Marc:Oh, man, I didn't I wasn't totally right on that song.
Marc:And then it just started picking at it.
Marc:But I did I did have a day or two of just feeling good about it.
Marc:So that's nice.
Marc:OK, so here we go.
Marc:Jesse Eisenberg, a real pain.
Marc:The film is now playing in theaters.
Marc:Jesse is the writer, director and co-star of the film.
Marc:And this is me talking to Jesse.
Bye.
Marc:You know, we're coming into this talking about animation, and he just texted me that we were both Lex Luthor.
Marc:And it's one of those things, dude, like, I don't know how connected you are to animation, but I'm doing that thing, and I literally didn't even know really what it was.
Marc:It was Super Pets or something.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:And I certainly had no idea what the reach of it could possibly be, you know, and I'm just sort of like, you just go to a place...
Marc:And you record the thing and you go home.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then all of a sudden people are like, oh, dude.
Marc:I'm like, what?
Guest:Oh, I know, I know.
Guest:It's such a disconnect because it's not you.
Guest:It's weird, right?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:So I still get asked to make happy birthday videos in the character.
Guest:I play a bird who can't fly.
Guest:And so I'm asked to make— In which one?
Guest:It's called Rio.
Guest:And I'm asked to make little videos.
Guest:And it's so interesting because I so don't associate myself— With that character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just so hard, especially when you're an actor like us who do regular things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you're also detached from that process.
Marc:The process isn't the same.
Marc:I mean, I think, like, when you're doing the voiceover, you can muster up the emotion.
Marc:And, you know, some people are more natural than others.
Marc:I'm having a hard time watching that, you know, because, like, I seem to be the only one that did a voice.
Marc:Like, Sam Rockwell's just talking like himself.
Marc:Craig's basically kind of like himself.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:And I'm like, hey, what's going on?
Guest:You know, the whole time.
Guest:And I'm like, why the fuck did I...
Guest:Did you just decide on that?
Marc:Well, I thought I had to do something.
Guest:Got it.
Guest:Yeah, that's nice.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:But it is straining.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But yeah, you don't feel connected to it because you're not even part of it.
Marc:They're like, I went over there today and they're like, everyone's excited.
Marc:We've been working a year and a half on this.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know.
Guest:You just called me every few months.
Guest:No, I know.
Guest:Especially after like being on sets of things where it feels like, oh my God, I'm like here for 14 hours a day.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's kind of crazy.
Guest:So where do you live generally?
Guest:I live in New York.
Guest:In the city?
Guest:Yeah, in Chelsea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's pretty nice.
Guest:How long have you lived there?
Guest:Oh, my wife and I, like, I've lived actually there, goodness, 20 years.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you've been through it all with New York.
Marc:I mean, would you get that place for a nickel?
Marc:I mean, 20 years ago when that's cheap.
Guest:Oh, it was a different place, and it was, our first thing was really great for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, and now we finally, you know, she won.
Guest:She won.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How long have you been married?
Guest:Eight years, but we've been together for a lot.
Guest:I met her when I was 17.
Guest:She was my first date.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I am coming on.
Guest:She didn't date me for a year because she was older than me.
Guest:She didn't date me for a year until I was of age.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Is she older than you?
Guest:She's older than me.
Guest:How much?
Guest:A bit?
Guest:She's going to kill me.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:Well, a bit older.
Guest:Yeah, she's a bit older.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And she waited because she didn't want to break the law.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And also, she found me to be, I think my most attractive quality was just unthreatening.
Guest:And then by the time I was 18, I had a little bit more of an adult physique.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Like what you're looking at now.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's impressive.
Marc:A strapping young man.
Marc:It's going to run opposite sides of the table.
Marc:Unthreatening.
Marc:Not threatening.
Marc:That's kind of interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because then like because the assumption is you make assumptions and I've been together a long time.
Marc:So I imagine you're still not threatening.
Marc:But, you know, she's got the whole package now.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Imagine that.
Marc:It's a walk in the park every day.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:But at least she has, you know, somebody who can take care of her in any kind of natural disaster.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:You can step up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've got the emergency kit.
Marc:You're ready to go.
Guest:I'm actually only good during an emergency.
Guest:I find that too.
Guest:I'm bad every other time of life.
Guest:In an emergency for some reason, I come alive.
Marc:Well, I don't think it's come alive.
Marc:I think like, you know, because I'm like an anxious person and my brain's always going.
Marc:And there's a certain amount of dread and panic and just a kind of like frenetic energy that happens kind of every day.
Marc:And then when all of a sudden the situation matches that, you're like, oh, I live here.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You're built for a war zone in a time of peace.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're just like kind of like, oh, yeah, I can step up with this.
Marc:I remember that with the, I think at the beginning of the pandemic where it was terrifying, but I'm like, all right, this is what we got to do.
Guest:Oh, no, I felt more at ease than I've ever felt.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Yeah, it was just like things had to be taken care of.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And also I wasn't focused on the fantasies in my head, which are all self-destructive nonsense.
Marc:Or just like, you know, foreboding doom of some kind.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But in such vague ways that they're probably never going to happen.
Guest:And when something actually does concretely happen, yes, I'm ready for it.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:We met, but I know you have no recollection of it because it was one of the funniest interactions I've had in my life.
Guest:Is it okay if I remind you or you hate this when people come on and say we met?
Guest:Okay, this is not an overstatement at all.
Guest:But your book, The Jerusalem Syndrome, genuinely changed my life.
Guest:I read it when I was 17 years old.
Guest:And I have to say it was like perfect timing for me and what I needed.
Guest:And I talk about it all the time.
Guest:I mean, for the past, God, I'm 41.
Guest:24 years, I've been telling the same story, which is a story you told.
Guest:I wanted to reread it before I came on, but I didn't.
Guest:So forgive me if I mangle the story.
Guest:But did you have a friend who worked for like the Pentagon?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jim.
Guest:Jim.
Guest:He worked for the president.
Guest:And the story you told in this book was so brilliant.
Guest:You said you said you had all these conspiracy theories.
Guest:And I was again, I was I was 17.
Guest:I was going through a period of like trying to figure out my own kind of like, let's say, intellectual grounding in the world.
Guest:And would I be the kind of fringy person that I definitely could have been or somebody who's like just kind of sees the world for what it is, is not kind of trying to make myself feel bigger by having an ego about fantasy nonsense.
Guest:So anyway.
Guest:You talked about this guy that you were so manic and you visited him in D.C.
Guest:and you had this kind of manic episode where you were telling him all this crazy stuff.
Guest:The conspiracy.
Guest:He said, Mark, we're not that coordinated.
Guest:Yeah, people here aren't that organized.
Guest:Not that organized.
Guest:I tell this story all the time because to me it sums up everything I feel about it.
Guest:people who are on the fringes of intellectual thought, which is that they suspect all these things are happening in establishment circles.
Guest:And I'm now in the establishment circle because I work for corporations now.
Guest:I'm still on the artist side.
Guest:And I just see, yeah, it's all still individuals kind of trying to make the day go by.
Marc:Oddly, that whole section of the book was important to me because I had evolved –
Marc:there was an arc to my, you know, and it's all in that book, you know, the drugs and whatever and however I broke my mind open and however I was brought up, that there is something about, and now we're living in the time of those fictions winning, you know, conspiracies and stuff because people want to believe things.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But I like that story too because that was a real moment.
Marc:And I, you know, I'm still friends with Jim.
Marc:I've known him for years.
Marc:He still works in and out of politics and stuff.
Marc:And he's sort of a...
Marc:A go-to person when there is a certain amount of panic.
Marc:But now, like, you know, the panic is real and we have no fucking idea what the fuck is going to happen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I guess, yeah, that's interesting.
Guest:It was a different time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I guess so.
Marc:So, like, you know, in all those conspiracies, some of those ones that I was locked into are still part of the ones that are popular now, you know, whether it be Freemasons and this and that.
Marc:But –
Guest:But it was helpful.
Guest:But then we met.
Guest:Okay, so this is what happened.
Guest:I was, again, I was like 17.
Guest:My friend Gabe and I went to see, I think we were seeing you at 78th Street.
Guest:What is the, is that the store?
Marc:Oh, comedy, the comedy, Stand Up New York.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:That's interesting.
Guest:Stand Up New York.
Guest:And you were at the bar.
Guest:You hadn't performed yet.
Guest:I had just finished your book and I was stoned.
Guest:And I had just finished my first screenplay.
Guest:And I went up to you and I said, I read your book.
Guest:I'm a huge fan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:do you want to read my screenplay?
Guest:And you looked up and you said, why?
Guest:And I just remember thinking like, oh, I don't have a reason.
Guest:I guess I just want you to think I'm funny.
Guest:And it just also was like so funny because I get asked to read scripts.
Guest:Well, actually, I do out of here.
Guest:But yeah, but it was just such a funny, real response from a famous person who –
Marc:But that was only famous to you because it wasn't that famous.
Marc:I imagine – I don't think I was trying to be an asshole.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's more just like what would I do with it is the thing.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Yeah, you're right.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:I guess I just wanted you to know that I'm funny.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:That's why for years I've just been trying to get on your – no, no, no.
Guest:I just – no, I think that's what it was, just a kid wanting an adult to know he's funny.
Marc:Well, I'm sorry.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:What were you going to do with it?
Guest:What were you going to –
Marc:Well, what generally happens is if you enter that agreement, then all of a sudden, you know, I'm going to have to give you feedback.
Marc:No, of course.
Marc:We have a lunch.
Guest:I know, I know.
Guest:It ruins a week of your life.
Marc:But I think at that time, I mean, Jesus, like, what was that, early 2000s?
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:Before 9-11.
Marc:Yeah, so like— It was the summer before.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So I wasn't—I was that on my mind.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, kind of.
Marc:I mean, I was, you know, I was scrambling.
Marc:I wasn't—you know, the Jerusalem Syndrome, that book—
Marc:I don't know if you would have read it, though, because I think that book was sort of... Was it after that?
Marc:Yeah, it was just a few months after 9-11 that that book came out.
Guest:So maybe my timeline's wrong.
Guest:Then maybe I met you after 9-11.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But still, I was just trying to make something of myself.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:Were you aware that people like me saw you as a god amongst us in New York?
Marc:No, no, no, not at all.
Marc:I mean, I think at that time, that was like...
Marc:I'm not always totally aware of that.
Marc:And I'm always still kind of shocked when people are like, oh, you know, you really helped me out and all this stuff.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because when you have a certain level of identification, you know, I know I have my people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, but it's – I used to do a joke about it that, you know, when you have this sort of mid-level celebrity, you know, you can walk down the street and then, like, three people will be approaching you.
Marc:And one of them will be like, oh, my God, Marc Maron.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And the other two will be like, no, I don't know.
Marc:Who is this?
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So –
Marc:So I know they're out there, but I don't think I would have known at that time.
Marc:But thank you.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, thank you.
Guest:Did you grow up in New York?
Guest:I grew up in Queens, so I was like four, so I didn't really grow up there.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:And then New Jersey in the suburbs.
Guest:New Jersey?
Guest:I was like 18.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And near Rutgers, do you know New York?
Marc:New Brunswick?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, my dad went to Rutgers.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I grew up, my whole family's from Jersey.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Jersey City, Pompton Lakes.
Marc:So in New Brunswick.
Marc:So you're in Jersey.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You didn't go to Rutgers, did you?
Guest:No, no, I didn't.
Guest:When I left New Jersey for my senior year of high school, I went to a performing arts high school in New York City.
Marc:Well, what's the whole background?
Marc:How are you so...
Marc:Do you have brothers and sisters?
Marc:Yeah, I have sisters.
Marc:How many?
Guest:Two.
Guest:I have two sisters.
Marc:Younger?
Guest:Older?
Guest:Both sides.
Guest:Both younger?
Guest:No, both sides of me.
Guest:Oh, you're a middle?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what did your old man do?
Guest:My old man, he's a teacher.
Guest:He's a college professor now.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like, what does he teach?
Guest:He teaches, well, his expertise was like social psychology, but now he teaches healthcare management.
Guest:So a lot of his students are people already working in healthcare that want to have an MBA in the field.
Marc:Oh, in, like, what does that encompass?
Guest:Healthcare management.
Guest:You know, I mean, it's the most complicated systems in this country.
Guest:So it would be, you know, navigating not just internal hospital systems, but also the healthcare industry.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:So he was an academic when you were very young.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And social psychology.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he had all those books around?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:He just moved, and we found all these dusty but great books that I was reading 30 years after him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Isn't that wild?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you didn't read them when you were a kid?
Guest:You weren't?
Guest:No, I mean, I read them in college because I studied a lot of similar stuff.
Guest:And so, yeah, it was the same stuff.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, like, it's interesting.
Guest:All like in social psychology, the experiments that were done were like, you know, the Zimbardo Stanford prison experiment, the shocking experiment.
Guest:These things that were done were the best of its kind because they were never redone because they were unethical.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So in terms of like- Like the Skinner box and that kind of stuff too.
Guest:That's for the back, right.
Guest:No one does this stuff anymore.
Guest:No, you don't put your kids in a box.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So like, yeah, so we had the same text essentially because no one did anything after that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know, did those things get discredited eventually, the Stanford group?
Guest:Yeah, actually, I think they were ultimately discredited.
Marc:I wonder, I can't remember why, but I kind of remember that story.
Marc:And what did your mom do?
Guest:My mom was a birthday party clown.
Guest:Isn't that crazy?
Guest:In Jersey, she was- A birthday clown.
Guest:Yeah, actually a tri-state area.
Guest:She was a birthday party clown.
Guest:But that was her gig?
Guest:That was her job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, not her job.
Guest:It was her.
Guest:It was her.
Guest:You know, it wasn't like employment.
Marc:Did she do anything else?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:She was busy.
Guest:Like, she was busy.
Guest:She did tri-state area.
Guest:She was really good.
Guest:She was kind of like a hippie-ish kind of clown and a Marxist kind of clown.
Guest:So I think her biggest game was like you have to lose to win, which at the time was kind of cute.
Guest:But in retrospect, I realized was just communist propaganda from her parents.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Guest:She's the reason that we're in trouble now.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:My mom, she used to do a number about Jill Stein.
Guest:And so –
Marc:I'm not sure Jill Stein isn't a birthday clown.
Marc:So you grew up in this environment.
Marc:Were they kind of post-hippie people?
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:They were real progressive.
Marc:How old are they?
Marc:Are they my age?
Guest:They're 70.
Marc:So they're real boomers and they're both from New York?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:My mom was like in a socialist Zionist organization with Bernie Sanders when she was younger.
Guest:I think he's a little, he was ahead of her.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, my dad grew up more kind of working class-ish in Queens, but my mom was really- Both Jewish?
Guest:Yeah, Jewish.
Guest:Full Jew.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:Yeah, thanks.
Guest:It's kind of-
Guest:I did my DNA.
Guest:I mean, it's like the most embarrassing.
Guest:Mine's like 99% Ashkenazi.
Guest:I'm 99.4 Ashkenazi.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, at some point, I mean, what is the number that's inbreeding?
Guest:I was hoping for a little Viking.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I was hoping for anything, just something I can, you know, brag about or something, but also something to think that I'm not going to die of some weird illness that is from inbreeding.
Marc:Well, no, I think we test out for that other than like the basic, you know, heart disease and various cancers.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:I mean, you got to be really special to get Tay-Sachs, I think.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:My wife and I did test for everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you're all right?
Guest:I have three really, really bad things that are unexpressed, which means like I'm not going to die for them.
Guest:But I have something called like Usher's syndrome.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:It's a thing where you just bleed out randomly.
Guest:You have it or you have it?
Guest:have a genetic predisposition.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, I have these, exactly.
Guest:No, the doctor told me, you're not going to, it's not going to happen to you.
Guest:But like if my wife miraculously had it, our kids would bleed out.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:You know, so that's the risk.
Guest:What are the other ones?
Guest:The other ones, I can't remember the name.
Guest:Ushers had such a cute little name, so I remembered it.
Guest:The others were probably more technical or Latin, but my wife didn't have anything.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Clean bill of health.
Guest:Clean bill of health.
Marc:Is she Ashkenaz too?
Guest:Yeah, same thing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Same thing.
Guest:Even closer.
Guest:Her dad was born, her dad's Polish, born in Russia because they were escaping the war.
Marc:Oh, did you find out, have you ever, I did that show, you know, Finding Your Roots.
Marc:Oh, did you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where'd you find?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:They, you know, that guy Gates, you know, the guy who, he was so thrilled because I think they got further back with my patriarch, my dad's
Marc:my dad's dad's line, they got further back into the Palo Settlement than they'd ever gotten before.
Marc:Are you serious?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wait, how?
Guest:Using what?
Marc:They have a team of researchers.
Marc:I don't know how they do it.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But they got back like six or seven generations, you know, into like, you know, I have the whole chart, like didn't do like, you know, just really Jewish names.
Marc:And he was a tailor, you know, and I used to do a bit about it, but like, it's pretty fascinating.
Marc:Do you know what the name was?
Marc:Like your last name?
Marc:Well,
Marc:Well, it was always Marin.
Guest:Not longer.
Marc:No.
Marc:And we did find that out.
Marc:And I don't know why that is.
Guest:Was yours different?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But mine is already the longest name you could.
Guest:Eisenberg.
Guest:I mean, it's the regulation Jewish name.
Guest:Yours, it seems like it's contracted.
Marc:Yeah, Berg.
Marc:That's the end of a Jewish name.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:We're finished.
Guest:If you're missing a Berg or a Witz, it would be Eisen, right?
Guest:My last name means Iron Mountain.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How are you holding up?
Guest:That's as far as it goes in terms of the, yeah.
Marc:So, but were you brought up, like, so it was progressive?
Marc:Were you brought up reform?
Guest:Yeah, I was brought up reform, like, to appease, I think, my dad's parents.
Guest:And then my family became less and less religious.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, just as the 90s went on and people became less religious in my area.
Marc:And what did your sisters end up doing?
Guest:My older sister changed her name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To seem, you know, she didn't want that.
Guest:And my little sister is.
Marc:But they're not in show business to do.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Well, my little sister was an actor when she was young.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now she's a therapist and my older sister now.
Marc:A therapist.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So when do you start, like when you're a kid, because you're kind of wired, you know, were you always wired?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was miserable when I was younger, so I wasn't, like, wired.
Guest:I was just panicked all the time.
Guest:What about?
Guest:Do you know?
Guest:Oh, about everything.
Guest:I mean, I was a terrified child.
Guest:But were you hypochondriac?
Guest:Well, when I was in kindergarten, I had to carry two tissues to school in different pockets, one for crying and one for bleeding.
Guest:And...
Guest:My sweet, sweet mom just perpetuated this horrible habit by saying like, wait, honey, do you have your tissue for bleeding?
Guest:And I said, yes.
Guest:And you have your tissue for crying?
Guest:Like the mom should have just said, oh, honey, you don't need those tissues.
Guest:You're not going to cry or bleed.
Guest:But my mom made sure I had both.
Guest:Did you bleed?
Guest:I don't think I bled.
Guest:Oh, you know what?
Guest:I used to have nosebleeds from anxiety.
Guest:So, yeah, maybe that was it.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It was sad.
Guest:And you were crying all the time?
Guest:I was crying all the time.
Guest:For no reason.
Guest:Yeah, I could—you know what?
Guest:I always—you know, it's funny.
Guest:The thing you said a few minutes ago about, like, being wired for an emergency.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I was.
Guest:I was, like, wired for something terrible to happen.
Guest:And now I'm also wired and in a similar way, but because of modern medication, it gets transferred into something a little more productive.
Marc:So you feel like this is all—
Guest:pre-existing mental issues you don't can you trace the the the foundation of your paralyzing anxiety oh yeah but i don't like to talk about it but oh yeah yeah i had a very weird set of circumstances when i was young and yeah i was uh uh yeah yeah oh so it's it's trauma based yeah oh yeah um and also wiring and that yeah lovely mix yeah but are your parents are they high strung
Guest:No, my parents are, like, normal.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I guess it may be... Sisters?
Guest:A little bit?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, like, I mean, and I was really just, like, basically terrified.
Guest:I mean, I have not really talked about this, but my movie that I made that's out now is, like, talking about how I used to, like, be sad as a kid.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I had real emotional...
Guest:I was in a mental institution when I was younger, and I was quite disturbed.
Guest:What brought that on?
Guest:Oh, trying to kill myself in multiple different ways.
Guest:How old?
Guest:I was 13.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you just couldn't take the anxiety.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:But it wasn't depression, right?
Guest:It was just relief?
Guest:You know, it's so funny.
Guest:I guess I would have said I'm depressed, but no, it's not like – I guess it wasn't – depression is kind of like immobilizing, right?
Marc:Yeah, because I differentiate.
Marc:Like I had this realization for myself –
Marc:That anxiety, when it runs away from you, when you get, like when you can't, when you're consumed with anxiety, you go into a paralysis, I think.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That could look like depression, but it's really just your brain going like, enough.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like it's not like bleak.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's just like it's a type of existential exhaustion.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That I think could appear like depression.
Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I have never had – like when I see depression like sometimes depicted in movies or something, it looks like a guy's on his couch and he's watching all these TV shows or something.
Guest:I've never had that experience ever.
Guest:I've been in like either a panic or the thing you just described.
Marc:Depression is like this profound hopelessness and despair.
Marc:But when you're anxious, eventually it's almost like your brain is just sort of like, fuck it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And you enter this other zone where you want relief.
Marc:I used to do a joke about that.
Marc:I used to do a joke about –
Marc:How, like, you know, I think about suicide all the time, but it's not because I want to kill myself.
Marc:I just find it relieving to know I can if I have to.
Marc:Yeah, that opportunity.
Marc:Yeah, just sort of like, you know, why does my life, hey, I could always kill myself.
Guest:Yeah, back to work.
Guest:Yeah, that's funny and sad and true.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For some people it is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think at the time I was just like desperate for something and just hated everything.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Do you think to be anxious requires like having bypassed depression?
Guest:Not bypassed, having already gone through depression and...
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Like that the worldview is bleak and therefore the anxiety.
Marc:Well, I think it's like the worldview – I don't know if I – I can identify bleakness now and I think that I have a propensity to look at things in a bleak way.
Marc:But I think it's more connected to dread.
Marc:That, you know, that, you know, if you have a core sort of dread drive or a shame drive, you know, everything's going to run through that.
Marc:So, you know, that informs your whole perception.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So that can get pretty bleak.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But I can dread, you know, just even talking to you.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I didn't.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I didn't.
Marc:But many have.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I was talking to, who was I talking to the other day?
Marc:Josh Brolin.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And oddly, we get along very well, you know, but I know the topic came up about how like, you know, he had some guy he kind of knew who invited him out to drink with him and his friend and Josh wasn't drinking at the time.
Marc:And he got to the bar and the guy's like, you have a drink?
Marc:And he's like, I don't feel like having a drink.
Marc:And the guy's like, what are you talking about?
Marc:I brought my friend.
Marc:And he realized this moment where it's like, oh, you want to see me?
Marc:I'm the clown.
Marc:You want to see me go crazy with the boot, right?
Marc:And I said to him, I said, well, that's, I mean, that's at least something.
Marc:I don't think I'm on the first, I'm on the list for anyone to invite to a party.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Guest:It's never like, let's get Marin over here.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You haven't even been the clown?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:I think like because of the, like you, I think there's an intensity that is contrary to a good time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:An intensity.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah, that's definitely true.
Guest:I mean, it's not that you're not engaged or you're interested in stuff.
Guest:No, no, no, you don't need to.
Guest:I'm not a good time.
Guest:That's been proven.
Guest:I remember I was just at a, yeah, I was, no, I was just at a wedding and on the very, very periphery of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just sitting there kind of waiting for the thing to end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you didn't engage with anybody?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, but they were all dancing, so it was okay.
Guest:I mean, I don't think anybody saw me.
Guest:I was in the shadows.
Marc:Well, I think it's just – it's also that thing where my brother has it worse than me.
Marc:And I've been aware of this stuff for a long time, so I've kind of let go of things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there is a component to, you know, people who are, you know, kind of keyed in to whatever it is themselves or, you know, they have a certain intensity when they enter the world that it's a –
Marc:It's just a little exhausting to people.
Marc:It's too much.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like my brother, just like, you know, he doesn't, you know, after a certain point, and I'm sure you've learned on some level, it's like, hey, maybe there's some things I don't have to talk about at this particular place.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that's a hell of a thing to learn for somebody who has a disposition like that.
Marc:Like, all right, do you have to bring up the thing?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Nice to see you.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Some kind of, yes, self-control or something.
Guest:Yeah, but I'm in a moment of great fun.
Guest:I'm manufacturing that kind of thing because I just have to not be there.
Marc:I don't know what fun is, I don't think, totally.
Marc:I mean, I can do it on my own sometimes.
Marc:I'll play a little guitar or whatever, but I'm not...
Marc:I'm not water skiing.
Marc:You know, I'm not like I don't like, you know, like I don't know who I was talking to, maybe Bobby Lee.
Marc:So sort of like, you know, these people that travel together as couples and stuff, you're like, we're all going to go to the thing.
Marc:I'm like, I don't know what that is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my, oh, couples that travel together.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:No, I couldn't even imagine what that is.
Guest:No, my wife and I travel, but we only visit.
Guest:I mean, you know, we only go to countries that are like not the touristy.
Guest:Not beaches?
Guest:No, I mean, our last trip was to Romania.
Guest:No, I mean, because I was curious about the.
Guest:Yeah, about what?
Guest:I mean, it's so nerdy.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I should say it.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Oh, just like the revolution in Romania.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Ceausescu.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I went to the town where it started.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's the kind of travel I like to do.
Guest:You want to see where it all went wrong?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And we do.
Guest:We get ice cream and everything, but that's where I feel comfortable traveling.
Guest:Well, I mean, you just made a whole movie about it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is the kind of travel.
Marc:And you, like, well, I mean, I watch that movie.
Marc:Oh, thank you so much.
Marc:Yeah, no, I enjoyed it.
Marc:But, like, it's one of those things because I'm not – I don't think we're –
Marc:essentially, you know, personality-wise they're not similar, but I know where you're coming from.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:And, you know, and I understand that sort of, and I understand Culkin's character too, you know, but there was a thing where I'm like, oh my God, are these guys going to ever feel better?
Marc:You know, like there's a thing there, but it was very touching.
Marc:And I think like in terms of now, like that you say you've traveled these places and there is sort of a, it was interesting because it wasn't,
Marc:You know, going to find where your grandmother lived when she was a kid and even given her particular set of circumstances, it did not.
Marc:It wasn't about reconnecting with Jewishness.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, really.
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Which is kind of interesting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, what you just said, connecting with Jewishness, I feel so...
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I wouldn't even know what that means.
Guest:I guess it means— But you wrote characters that were sort of seeking that, I mean, on some level.
Guest:Right, but I guess just like faith—I'm using my quotes—to me feels like just so far away from anything that I feel connected to.
Guest:You know, the idea of faith or reconnecting to faith or—
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't know.
Marc:It's always been vague with Jewishness.
Marc:I was brought up conservative, and I always— Oh, were you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, it wasn't reform, but it wasn't—you know, I did bar mitzvah thing.
Marc:And, you know, it was not—you know, reform was always sort of like, do they have a guitar and stained glass windows?
Marc:You know, like, so— Yeah, we were called the church by the conservative temple in town.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But nonetheless, I don't – the way I put it is like I was never taught how to use God.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, you know, sort of the faith of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fairly complex, you know, in terms of Judaism.
Marc:I mean, you know, and when I've investigated certain things, I still don't feel the drive –
Marc:to finding my faith, I'm certainly proud to be a Jew.
Marc:And I don't mind it because I am one.
Guest:I don't mind it is the most Jewish reaction to being a Jew you could have.
Guest:I don't mind it.
Guest:It's a little chilly.
Guest:But listen, if you get a blanket, it's fine.
Guest:But I always liked the cultural trappings of Jewishness.
Guest:Yeah, no, me too.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:No, no, I...
Guest:Yes.
Guest:For the most part, I love what the things I've been like given, like, you know, an interest in baseball and humor and philosophy and social justice and all the stuff I like.
Guest:I realized as an adult are basically things that we would consider Jewish virtues or interests.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you have a relationship with your grandparents?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And truth be told, they were also not... Not religious?
Guest:No, not religious.
Marc:Mine weren't either, but it was of a sort.
Marc:Culturally, they were.
Guest:Yes, yes, yes.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Sorry, yes.
Guest:To your point, yes, I had a relationship with them that I would call something particular to our culture, but I would probably also attribute to Italian culture.
Guest:Just like culture where it feels like you were probably part of an enclave at one point, and so the extended family was more familiar.
Guest:Sure, the food and everything else was all kind of...
Guest:Yeah, but that there was like a familiarity with like that generation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whereas if maybe I lived in more, I don't know, you know, mainstream American culture or something, you'd have a separation.
Marc:So how long did you work on this story?
Guest:What provoked you to do a real movie?
Guest:Oh, it came from a bunch of different things.
Guest:Like my background as a writer is playwriting.
Guest:And so when my wife and I went to Poland to visit the towns that all these characters visit in the movie, we came back and I had written my first play.
Guest:What was that about?
Guest:It was about this kind of self-centered version of me.
Guest:It was like a young writer going to visit his second cousin.
Guest:Vanessa Redgrave actually played my second cousin, my real second cousin, Maria.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Off-Broadway?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was at the Cherry Lane.
Guest:Oh, that's a nice little theater.
Guest:My first place at the Cherry Lane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it took place in Poland.
Guest:And I'd always kind of like setting something in Poland.
Guest:And it gave me kind of like an otherness that made me feel interested.
Guest:Why Poland?
Guest:Oh, so my family's from there.
Guest:In the movie, the characters actually visit this house.
Guest:And we use the actual house my family is from.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:My grandmother's line is from Poland.
Marc:But I think it was Ukraine then.
Marc:Galicia.
Galicia.
Guest:Oh, wait, I know Galicia, and I wish I had time to look at a map, because I know what that is.
Marc:Yeah, I think it was kind of one of those areas where sometimes it was Ukraine, sometimes it was Poland.
Guest:Right, so like the city Lvov, which is a big Ukrainian city, like one of my family survived there, and it was Poland at the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But anyway, so like then – so I had written that play and I always wanted to like adapt it as a movie and I could never figure out like what story would be good to adapt.
Guest:I always wanted to shoot something in Poland.
Guest:I had written a short story for Tablet Magazine about these two guys who go to Mongolia to meet a friend of theirs.
Guest:And again, it's actually very similar to Jerusalem syndrome.
Guest:It was it was one character is full of conspiracy theories.
Guest:And my character I was going to play was not.
Guest:And they go to see a guy who I think they think is the most, you know, conspiracy minded guy, the pure guy from high school.
Guest:And he's actually just explains to them the world.
Guest:He's he's grown up.
Guest:And it just destroys them in Mongolia.
Guest:And so I was like 30 pages into this Mongolia script and it was not going well.
Guest:I had these two great characters.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Fun rapport.
Guest:And an ad popped up on the Internet for Auschwitz tours.
Guest:And then in parentheses with lunch.
Guest:And I realized that's the story.
Guest:Like these have these guys have to go on a Holocaust tour.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's just.
Guest:fascinating and i'm fascinated with this idea of trauma tourism you know like what's the best way to take my buddy jerry stall wrote a book uh 999 yes i did you know somebody gave it to me i think while we were in production oh yeah i didn't finish it yes yeah yeah i started it no he's great and i love his work i should read it yeah it's good no i know but i didn't want to read anything that felt like oh this is kind of close to right sure sure sure sure but no i will i will yeah um and uh
Guest:Yeah, that kind of tourism is fascinating.
Guest:And I know his was also about Jewish tourism.
Guest:It was all the camps.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But what is it that's fascinating about trauma tourism?
Guest:Well, because there's no perfect way to do it.
Guest:You want to go there and you're going with the idea that you're trying to connect to that thing in a way to, I guess, grow as a person, to maybe build up your...
Marc:If it applies to you, because you could argue that, you know, any, you know, half of this country.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In terms of the Civil War, those are, you know, monuments to trauma tourism.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But somehow it's different.
Guest:Well, that was a war, not a genocide, you know.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But I'm not correcting you.
Guest:I just mean it's not exactly the same.
Marc:So you're speaking trauma tourism essentially revolving around the Holocaust.
Guest:Oh, I mean, yeah, but I also, I traveled to the killing fields in Cambodia and to Rwanda, to the Genocide Museum in Rwanda.
Guest:Like, there are these places that you go, and I, as an American, don't have a connection.
Marc:Well, you also, like, there's the slavery monument in Alabama, which was probably one of the most, you know, moving and horrendous things I'd ever seen.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:I haven't been there.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I don't know if they I don't know.
Marc:I always forget the full name of it, but it's basically it's about the lynching and all the lynching that took place over time.
Marc:And it's an art piece and it's part of the museum in.
Marc:I think in Montgomery or somewhere, that has to do with remembering the Suave experience.
Marc:But it was, you know, that was a similar kind of thing.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I guess my question for you is, like, you probably ate a nice breakfast before you went there, and you probably ate dinner at night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, like, we're trying to, like, connect to these places.
Guest:But we're also...
Guest:Especially if you go on, like, a tour overseas, you know, you're still, like, kind of maintaining the green.
Marc:Well, that's why the whole tour thing.
Marc:I mean, it was a smart movie in the sense that, like, you're very specific about the size of the tour.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because, you know, those tours can be much bigger than that.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:And for some reason, as a device, and it was smart to just be like, well, this is a very small group.
Guest:Oh, these are the tours I've been on, though.
Guest:Not Holocaust tours, but I've been on these eight-person tours a lot.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not to Poland, but to other places.
Marc:Yeah, because I went to Israel once, and it was a busload.
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's a different thing.
Guest:And it's hard to make a movie about something like that.
Marc:Yeah, especially now.
Marc:But it's not going to be a fun trip.
Marc:Permits alone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But so this was driven by a lot of your personal experience.
Marc:But the character that Kieran plays, your cousin.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:Was that, you know, is that something, is that another manifestation of your experience, do you think?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:Like, yeah, his character, like my character who I play, I think probably people who are watching it would think that's me, you know, because I'm, you know, maybe similar to that character.
Guest:But no, the Kieran character is also inside of me.
Guest:I was originally going to play that part, too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've done that.
Guest:Who is going to play your part?
Guest:I was going to cast another person.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, that's in me too.
Guest:This character is on edge.
Guest:He also can be funny in a group and like a raconteur, which I maybe occasionally can be if the group is very specifically tailored to my strengths.
Guest:A lot of requirements for you to be charming.
Guest:It has to be the exact right group of people and they all have to not be listening to me.
Guest:But, you know, but yeah, but that's like me too.
Guest:But he's also in some ways like the thing I admire in other men, you know, people who are like very comfortable saying what they want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And don't give a fuck.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's the thing I envy.
Guest:And then it's interesting because I envy it so much and adore those people so much and in a way kind of like just fall in love with people like that so much.
Guest:You know, I think about them all the time.
Guest:And I get to this point where in my thoughts about them that actually maybe there's something missing there, you know, this.
Guest:With them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, there is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think it's like the way those two characters play together explored it.
Marc:I mean, you know, that ultimately...
Marc:It was sort of a battle to challenge strangers' empathy.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And the way you kind of played that out with yourself and with that character is that you're both specifically –
Marc:have problems.
Marc:And because you're the more codependent one, half of his problems become your problems because of your own fear and attachment.
Marc:But through that monologue that you had,
Marc:You know, you kind of reveal your own sort of issues.
Marc:And then it just becomes, you know, both of these guys have problems, but the zero fucks guy somehow is more palatable.
Yeah.
Marc:Wait, palatable how?
Marc:Well, just like, you know, you feel for him, like right at the edge of him losing everybody.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, you reveal this thing.
Marc:I don't want to spoil it for anybody.
Marc:And all of a sudden, the entire lens of how people look at him change.
Marc:Oh, of course.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And they're willing to forgive almost everything.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Whereas your character is harder to forgive because there's a brittleness to it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, he's too kind of self-conscious to open up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, Benji, Kieran's character, for all of his flaws, is being honest in a way that is appealing, I think.
Marc:But it's also like in general, though, it's off-putting.
Marc:And there is a, you know, you're sort of...
Marc:defying people i mean yeah sure like you know you played it so you know the tour guide got something out of what he said and that might have been important but there's still like the level of of need for attention and need to disrupt right uh you know which is sort of interesting because you get the the feeling that he's kind of a solitary character right because you know he's not capable of relationship that's it there's no like long-term or sustainable relationship that he and he's going to
Guest:fuck everybody off eventually exactly that's exactly it so you know you meet him at the beginning and leave him at the end at the airport and there's a feeling of like this guy can only exist in these transient places where he can have quick relationships so he's really good like on a first meeting like when you first introduce him he's great and like and then he just slowly turns into the thing that he is which is just he can't get outside of himself he can't get over himself to kind of meet people on their level or manifest a life for himself
Guest:Yeah, certainly not.
Guest:No, it's moment to moment living.
Marc:Yeah, because like your character is a lot more transparent just by nature of the vulnerability of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Whereas him, you know, there's really no sort of way to understand why he did what he did.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And, you know, and then you kind of threw in the piano thing to be like, well, these gifted people are so troubled kind of.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Not really that.
Guest:It's more kind of thing like he just lives moment to moment, you know, and like he doesn't have a sense of other people's civility.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I understand why those people are attractive.
Marc:Exactly that.
Marc:No, that's really what it is.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, but not other people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, that is the shortcoming of it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So, but what's interesting, too, is that, like, you know, ultimately the journey or even the relationship with the grandmother...
Marc:Everything becomes sort of secondary to, you know, the character's, you know, concern – your character's concern for him.
Marc:And the idea that this – however it's going to help you, you know, you pulled him out of a hole and, you know, he doesn't travel much.
Marc:But ultimately the whole journey is really towards, you know, your character having some sort of –
Marc:ability to maybe let go of whatever this spell this guy has on you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:You are so astute.
Guest:That's exactly it.
Guest:But most people don't frame it like that.
Guest:But yeah, that's what it is for me is that like this thing from my childhood has so much power over me, even though my life seems like kind of fine.
Guest:And this trip and this kind of like, yeah, intense emotional experience with my cousin like allows me to kind of grow up, grow out of it a little bit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because, you know, you were jealous of him your whole life.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he's kind of a bully.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, that's the downside of that personality is they're going to expose you through their need for attention.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And kind of antagonize you in really specific ways.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like he knows I'm just like physically uncomfortable.
Guest:So he's constantly throwing his arm at me, pretending to stab me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even commenting on my feet, just this need to co-op my body.
Marc:Yeah, but then you get obsessed with your feet because you're like, I never noticed my feet.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But also he's like, it looks like grandma's feet and it reminds me of my... Oh, yeah.
Marc:And then all of a sudden he's showcasing his unique relationship with the grandmother that you didn't have.
Marc:Exactly, exactly.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Exactly, yeah.
Marc:So when you go into a process of writing something like this, so do you do read-throughs?
Marc:What is the process?
Marc:Because the cast of characters is specific and interesting to have a victim of real genocide with the Rwandan guy and then the sort of classic kind of middle –
Marc:middle to upper class jewish couple who are now retired and then the divorced jewish lady and uh so it was very specific and they all met certain you know ends as characters and and how they wove into the story and the guide himself as well who was not jewish that was an interesting thing but i mean this it feels like it took a lot of time to refine something like this
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I mean, so as I said, my background is playwriting.
Guest:So my comfort zone is writing big scenes, long scenes with lots of characters.
Guest:So that stuff was fine.
Guest:If anything, I had to kind of like trim down some of the scenes because, you know, in plays, the scenes can be 25 pages.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In a movie, that's boring.
Guest:So, no, that's stuff I like.
Guest:We didn't rehearse.
Guest:You didn't?
Guest:No, because Kieran came out.
Guest:the day before shooting yeah you know um and so we were gonna rehearse for like a few hours and then we did something for 15 minutes and realized it doesn't matter no and then but it was just like you know it was just the the the trick is in the casting you make sure you cast people who seemingly understand the tone and
Marc:But the script was tight from the, once you started, like you didn't.
Guest:I couldn't change a word because of, it was during the writer's strike.
Guest:So it was this actually great benefit because, you know, writers don't want to change.
Guest:So do you see yourself really in terms of your passions as like a writer?
Guest:Yeah, I've been doing everything kind of equally.
Guest:This is the first thing I've written that people really like love.
Guest:So I'm hoping that it will allow me to make my next things more easily.
Guest:I mean, I'm making my next movie in March.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I'd like to do that once a year.
Guest:Is it the same movie but with a woman?
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:On a tour?
Marc:Yeah, it's actually a couple.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It's a couple, and it's not Poland.
Guest:It's Romania.
Guest:No, I want to do this forever.
Guest:I mean, I'm like you.
Guest:I do as many things as possible because they're all unstable.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I do know what you mean.
Guest:I mean, I don't want to attribute that to you, but like for me, at least it feels like, oh, this is an industry that just does not give a shit if you do anything tomorrow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I just try to do everything and some of them happen and get made and some of them don't.
Guest:Well, it's also, you got to stay busy or else, you know, what are you left with?
Guest:You're crazy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I would go nuts.
Guest:I would go nuts if I wasn't busy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But when you started acting, like when you went to a theater high school?
Marc:Just my senior year, yeah.
Guest:And was writing always part of it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:When I was in high school, I was 16 that year, and I wrote a script about- The one you wanted to give me?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I just realized it was definitely after 9-11 because the script that I wanted to give you, I wrote right after.
Guest:Anyway, that doesn't matter.
Guest:But, no, while I was in my senior year of high school, everybody knew that I would spend lunches in the library because I was writing a movie script.
Guest:And it was about Woody Allen.
Guest:And it was called Woody.
Guest:And it was about him at 16 changing his name.
Guest:And I wanted to make this movie.
Guest:And the kids at school all knew about it and knew the jokes and everything.
Guest:And then he threatened to sue me once we finally got the script to him.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:He sent it to him hoping again, like me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm sure he doesn't know about it.
Guest:It was just his lawyer sent me a cease and desist letter.
Marc:So when do you start acting professionally?
Guest:I did my first movie right after high school or at the end of my senior year.
Guest:Before that, I was on a short-lived television series when I was 16.
Guest:So I was acting at that time.
Guest:Did you go to college?
Guest:I went to college.
Guest:I graduated during the pandemic, though.
Guest:It took me 18 years because basically what I was doing was I would act
Guest:Those incompletes will hang over you.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:No, I never got an incomplete.
Guest:I basically would go for a semester and I would take the next semester off and work for 18 years.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:What did you get your degree in?
Guest:Like anthropology.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Two years ago?
Guest:2020.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Four years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now I'm an official anthropologist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you need anything, if you want me to explain any kind of culture to you, I can't write prescriptions, but I can tell you why people do certain things.
Marc:So that's an undergraduate degree in anthropology.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:When you go back, like when you finished your last semester, were you locked in?
Marc:I mean, were you still interested?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:By the end, I was writing essays that they were counting for credit.
Guest:So by like the tail end, I was like writing about...
Guest:I'm writing this play and this is what it's about.
Guest:And it's taught me this thing that's tangentially related to anthropology.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think they were eager to get rid of me.
Marc:So the experience of acting, what you learned in terms of acting, you learned primarily in high school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And from just doing it, I mean, you know, it's I was doing plays and I was doing like I had just great stuff.
Guest:I still now I do these like Greek plays.
Guest:I'm always trying to get better as an actor.
Guest:And I do you do.
Guest:You are.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:OK, I am.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Do you do Shakespeare?
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:But Greek, you'll do Greek.
Guest:I'll do Greek and then my, you know.
Marc:It's a little easier.
Marc:The language is easier.
Marc:It's a translation.
Marc:It's old.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:It's not written in pentameter.
Guest:To be honest, I actually, I mean, I prefer Greek theater to Shakespeare.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because it's a little more stripped down?
Guest:It's stripped down.
Guest:It's not using language as, like, language isn't the star.
Guest:It's these kind of brute, very blunt emotions.
Guest:And it's visceral and base.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Shakespeare, I just find to be more performative because it's literary.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:So when you say you keep trying to get better as an actor, what challenges you the most?
Guest:Oh, like in terms of, you know, I finished a movie last week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now you see me three.
Guest:I know it sounds probably like, Oh, it's a Hollywood movie.
Guest:What can it be challenging?
Guest:What is that one about?
Guest:I mean,
Guest:It's about magicians who rob banks.
Guest:There's three of them.
Guest:You have your work cut out for you.
Guest:But basically, like the character in that movie is this incredibly confident magician who has the biggest ego and he's blunt and he's obnoxious.
Guest:And I mean, I know it sounds like, oh, I'm in a Hollywood movie.
Guest:What could there really be for me to get better as an actor?
Guest:But I mean, it's the most challenging role I play.
Guest:It's so...
Guest:It's so cocky and I just love it.
Guest:I love living in that space.
Guest:I'm so happy I got to do another another one.
Guest:And like so, yeah, that's what I'm that's what I like to do.
Marc:I mean, so you can really like the challenge for you is to to act as far from yourself as possible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the movie I did before that, I played a bodybuilder who is like harboring his sexuality.
Guest:Which movie was that?
Guest:It's called Manodrome.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:What happened to that movie?
Guest:It's good.
Guest:Well, I don't know about it.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:You probably don't know about a lot of movies.
Guest:I mean, you know, they make a thousand movies a year.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm in like two of them.
Marc:Well, no, you work constantly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're always working as an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, but a lot of things, most, I mean, probably most things I've been in people haven't seen.
Guest:Do you, um, do you, uh, do you watch the movies?
Guest:No, I never watch them because, you know, I don't want to like, I want to like be in the moment and not think like I'm going to have to look at myself.
Guest:I'm a self-conscious person, but I love performing.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:I just watched myself do a voice of a snake and I was like, I could have done a little better.
Guest:You know, it's interesting.
Guest:You were telling me that earlier.
Guest:I was going to ask you, do you, uh, did you ever consider just not going?
Marc:Well, after a certain point, you want to be a team player.
Marc:You know, it's animation.
Marc:These people have been working for two years.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Animation is a little different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I find – because I never watch the movies I'm in except, you know, this movie because I directed it.
Guest:But whatever.
Guest:I don't watch them.
Guest:And so – I find that interesting because I will watch.
Guest:Does it make you really uncomfortable?
Marc:Well, for me, in terms of, like, because it's not—it wasn't really my life acting.
Marc:You know, comedy was my life and, you know, doing this and whatever.
Marc:And I've always wanted to do acting, and I've done more of it lately.
Marc:But for me to feel like—
Marc:I think that after years of being a comic and watching myself do that, sometimes it's awful, sometimes it's not.
Marc:But I think I'm objective enough to go like, well, that's why that didn't work.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:So it's sort of helpful to me.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:No, if you're a comic, you have to because you're a solo show.
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:I mean, it's just seeing myself on TV and stuff.
Marc:Sometimes I'm happy with it and sometimes I'm not.
Marc:And I think with acting too, you can watch yourself and sort of go like, well, that was not the –
Marc:I remember that take.
Marc:That was not the choice.
Marc:Whatever, that kind of stuff.
Marc:But I don't think I'm doing it to beat the shit out of myself or to feel like I'm not doing a good job.
Marc:But it does make me uncomfortable, sure.
Guest:Do you ever experiment and, like, not watch something?
Guest:Like, I'm actually going to skip this thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I've missed things that I've done.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And I think it's gotten more lately.
Marc:But there are like the last that last movie I did or the one I did during the pandemic, that to Leslie movie, because I'm like, I'm like, well, if I'm going to act and, you know, somehow it's going to become worthwhile to do it as even with the waiting.
Marc:which drives me nuts, you know, I should try to do something.
Marc:Like, you know, and that guy had a little accent.
Marc:So I'm like, oh, who's going to see this?
Marc:I'll just try to, you know, make those choices and do that.
Marc:So I wanted to see how it came off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:That is healthy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:But you've like, you've never watched The Social Network?
Guest:Yeah, I had to watch that once.
Guest:It was excruciating.
Guest:It was like we were sitting there at a public screening and I was not allowed to leave.
Guest:And I've never sat in one since.
Guest:So I guess that's why theater is probably more compelling in some ways.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Because it's gone.
Guest:It's gone, but also like you're on stage never thinking I'm going to have to look at me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:If you're acting and that's even crossing your mind, you're out of it a little bit.
Guest:Like I like to feel like I'm just there and like not that I'm going to have to contend with it in a year from now.
Guest:And then I start thinking about my face and it just distracts me in a bad way.
Marc:But isn't that part of the job of film acting is to, you know, be aware of these things because you're on camera?
Guest:I would say that this movie I did that Kieran Culkin is in, Kieran was so unbelievably unaware of anything he was doing to the point where I would say to him, like, hey, let's do one more take.
Guest:Can you try this?
Guest:And maybe bring the rage in earlier or whatever, some general note.
Guest:And he would say, I have no idea what I did.
Guest:Don't tell me what to do.
Guest:But if you want to do another take, I'm more than happy.
Guest:And he was brilliant, and it was just an example of somebody who's, like, so living in the spirit of the character that they're not—they don't have that super ego thing watching them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just found it amazing.
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:I find that, like, I found, like, in this movie I just shot where, you know, if the guy would be, you know—like, I would know—
Marc:In a scene, you know, my tone.
Marc:And if he said, could you, like, you know, take that in a little bit?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:He said, I'm the first guy he's ever really met or worked with that was aggressive agreement.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, stop.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, that's fun.
Guest:Aggressive agreement.
Guest:You know, Kieran was like that a little bit, too.
Guest:Like the like the last shot of the movie is kind of like an emotional big shot on him.
Guest:And I asked him, like, do you want to talk about it?
Guest:He's like, no, no, no.
Guest:Go away.
Guest:I got it.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, basically like I know what I'm doing here.
Guest:I'm in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:I mean, I love that.
Guest:I find that so refreshing.
Guest:I mean, I like the actors, too, that are also like, you know, I was up all night with this scene, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I get it, too.
Guest:But like, you know, and that's fine, too.
Guest:But like the Kieran thing was just like kind of magical to watch.
Marc:But it's interesting that you bring up this idea of not watching it because I just shot this movie.
Marc:It was the first movie I've ever been a lead in.
Marc:And I can honestly say that I never once went home thinking I should have done it differently.
Marc:That's a great feeling.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So on some level, it kind of makes an argument for what you're saying.
Marc:It's like, why watch it?
Marc:Well, yeah, that's true.
Guest:Possibly think that it's less than.
Guest:Ruin that feeling.
Guest:May I ask why you had that feeling?
Guest:Because I've had that sometimes.
Guest:That I couldn't have done it like that?
Guest:I felt good about it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You've had it sometimes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, because, again, it was a situation where I'd never been offered the opportunity to be the lead in the movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I thought the movie was beautifully written, and it's very funny, and it's very dark.
Marc:And I just really felt that I gave it all I got.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:You know, so, like, if I fell short, I couldn't have done it any differently.
Marc:Okay, that's great.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:That's really great.
Guest:And so... Are you... Is there a part of you that thinks, actually, you know what?
Guest:I'm not going to watch this one.
Guest:I left it there.
Marc:Well, there's like... But no, because there's scenes in it where I'm like...
Marc:I really was like in it and I felt connected and I'm curious to how they play in relation to how I was feeling in them.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:I'm so scared of being disappointed that I don't even want to do the experiment though.
Guest:But I mean, it sounds like you don't do you generally have a good experience doing films?
Guest:I with rare exceptions, I walk away not feeling like it could have been better.
Guest:Really?
Marc:No.
Marc:With anything or just with movies?
Guest:Oh, oh, yeah.
Guest:With movie acting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except because it's just like, you know, like.
Guest:You know what's weird?
Guest:Now you see me movies that I was telling you, the magician movies that you said were your favorite.
Guest:The character I play is so confident and cocky, really, that actually I walk away from those movies every day going, that was great.
Guest:Because I'm in the spirit of somebody who enjoyed himself during the day.
Guest:But mostly I'm playing emotionally kind of fraught people.
Guest:And so I'm in that posture all day and I feel bad about myself.
Marc:Oh, so that might just be about, like, kind of bringing the work home with you.
Marc:Maybe that's what it is.
Guest:Yeah, maybe that's what it is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I watched you in that, like, I'm a huge Kelly Reichart fan.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And that movie was interesting.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, I really liked that.
Guest:Did you like it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I haven't seen it, but I, like, I love doing it, and I love her.
Guest:She's pretty amazing.
Guest:Night moves?
Guest:Night moves, yeah.
Guest:She's pretty great because, you know, she...
Guest:She just works in an entirely different, not only a different style, but even on a time horizon.
Guest:I don't know what the right word is.
Guest:She just has her own pacing and everything.
Guest:You know what's funny about Kelly is that she's genuinely one of the funniest people I know.
Guest:She's so funny.
Guest:And yet, I always ask her, could you put some jokes in your movies?
Guest:And she's like, no, it would undermine everything else.
Marc:But that last movie she did was pretty funny.
Marc:The last movie was pretty funny.
Marc:Like, even if it wasn't on purpose, but, like, I cannot un... No, it was good satire and artists and stuff like that.
Marc:Yeah, I cannot unsee that guy digging that hole.
Marc:That, to me, was the best fucking thing I ever saw.
Guest:She's uproariously funny and cutting and, like, explicitly funny.
Guest:And so, like, that's the thing I thought, you know, she should be doing something like that.
Marc:It definitely came through in that movie.
Guest:More so.
Guest:What was that one called?
Guest:It's called Showing Up.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But did you have fun?
Marc:Like, I mean, you do these kind of like you do some pretty big, fun movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do you have a good time?
Marc:Do you have directors that you liked a lot?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That you learn from?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, this new Now You See Me movie is directed by the guy who did these Zombieland movies that I've been in.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You did those.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And no, he's great.
Guest:And he has this like crazed big vision for these things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's fascinating to watch because it's so far afield from the thing I think I can do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, it's fascinating to watch.
Guest:I really will say like I've had like I think of myself like as like a writer kind of.
Guest:But I feel like I've had this the weird, weird luck of being on sets of movies I never would have thought to write.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I've been in like a superhero movies and like stuff I never would have thought I would place me on the set of.
Guest:Well, how do you think you get cast for that stuff?
Guest:Oh, I don't know how anybody would cast me in anything, but I just mean like, it's just so weird.
Guest:It feels like I'm, it feels like I got like internships on these sets.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, oh, you get to spend the next six months on the set of a superhero.
Guest:And I just watch how it's being made and I see the artistry, the prop people making like, you know, they have like a $10 million prop budget and you just see the artistry.
Guest:And it's just fascinating.
Guest:It's absolutely fascinating.
Marc:Well, I thought that you were very decisive in your directing of The Real Pain.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like I thought that like you knew the parameters of what your vision was and you honored it.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was a pretty clear – I had a pretty clear rubric.
Guest:I mean I know the movies.
Guest:I –
Guest:wanted it to look like.
Guest:And I gave them to work.
Marc:Like who were that?
Guest:Well, I mean, I gave my cinematographer is Polish and he's brilliant, you know, but he actually, um, he never saw any Woody Allen movies.
Guest:I'd given him crimes and misdemeanors, which is, Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:That's what it was.
Guest:The way you establish shots.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My favorite movie is crimes and misdemeanors.
Guest:I'd given it to him and he watched it.
Marc:It's one of my favorites too, dude.
Guest:I think it's the greatest thing ever.
Marc:It's like one of the best movies ever, despite the horrible fact that the reality of Woody Allen is much different than what we grew up with.
Marc:But that movie, and I always cite it too, the moral balance of that movie is baffling.
Marc:But also, I can see it the way when you're setting up
Marc:uh uh you know the way you establish location you're very sensitive to um architecture and to you know the kind of framing of shots like you know the shots of a city yeah which is something he did a lot yeah exactly i used well actually we kind of used the beginning of manhattan just because there was a montage of manhattan and this were in poland so it felt appropriate to do but um but it's very straightforward
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:To me, it's if you're making a character driven movie, that's like the thing I like to look at, at least.
Guest:I just love the kind of traditional approach that they were taking, which is which is like kind of unfussy, beautiful looking.
Guest:We have a beautiful looking movie and it shows the vistas and it's all pretty.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's like kind of not so fussy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, exactly.
Marc:And it serves a purpose.
Marc:It's not – it doesn't become a distraction.
Marc:It kind of weaves in.
Guest:And the main thing I really would learn from maybe like a movie like Crimes and Misdemeanors is there are so many great funny lines and they're thrown away, you know.
Guest:And I just –
Guest:They wanted as much as possible to have basically jokes that were like off camera, never like a close up on a joke and the reaction to the person so we can milk the joke.
Guest:Sure, sure, sure.
Guest:You know, so stuff like that just gives it an air of lack of obsequiousness that is trying to make the audience, you know.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Well, you want the audience to trust you and you have a tone that you're honoring that.
Marc:And even I imagine you've had this experience with stuff you're acting in where, you know, the written material diminishes the character and the service is something that is not character.
Guest:You put it exactly, exactly how I've been thinking about it for such a long time, which is like I've been in so many movies where I feel like the things I'm tasked with saying would never come out of my mouth.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I just.
Guest:Or the character's mouth.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:Oh, no, that's exclusively what I mean.
Guest:Yeah, no, I'm happy if something's not out of my mouth.
Guest:No, it's just like that it would never be the character.
Guest:It's like that it's the writer writing a joke that they thought of.
Guest:It looks good on the page.
Guest:Yeah, or it's the plot of the movie, and so they have to get the... And I hate that stuff so much.
Guest:So, yeah, that's partly why I was...
Guest:writing plays for years because basically it was like I didn't have to do any of that because you could just be in service of the character and require the plot or real fireworks or anything like that.
Marc:And I don't know how you managed to find the most intimate feeling concentration camp in Poland.
Guest:Because it's five minutes away from where I had family.
Guest:Where your grandmother was?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's crazy.
Guest:This camp is... So in 2008, my wife and I...
Guest:went to this camp, Maidanic, and it's... So Maidanic is on the eastern part of Poland, and so the Russians got there first.
Guest:And so when the Russians... Because the Russians got there first because they were coming from the east, the Germans didn't have time to burn it down.
Guest:So the thing kind of exists as it was, whereas the other camps were destroyed because the Germans were, you know...
Guest:trying to destroy the evidence.
Guest:So this camp is like, as you described, it just feels like this eerie, intimate thing.
Guest:It feels like it was liberated the day before.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also, like, it doesn't have the expanse that, you know, it just feels like...
Marc:you know, a small operation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Comparatively speaking.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:To like Auschwitz.
Guest:Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Guest:Where train tracks are running.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:No, this one is, it's big, but the feeling is really small.
Guest:Like the feeling is like, oh, there were these rooms and this is where people went.
Guest:And it didn't feel, it didn't feel industrialized in the same way as other places.
Guest:No, definitely not.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I thought you shot that real well too.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Guest:So what's this new one you're working on?
Guest:The new one takes place in the world of community musical theater, which is like my other love besides, you know, the stuff in this movie, which is grief and history.
Guest:Do you sing?
Guest:No, but I write music, so I've written musicals, and so they haven't been produced.
Guest:Well, some short musicals were produced.
Guest:Is this a comedy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, it takes place in the world of community theater, and it's about, yeah, it follows a, yeah.
Guest:Who's in it?
Guest:I think they're supposed to leak it next week, but I was told not to say it.
Guest:I don't think this will be up.
Guest:All right.
Guest:You don't have to.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Guest:I wish I could.
Guest:I feel so infuriated that I can't say the thing.
Guest:But I can't wait to start.
Guest:And it gives me the opportunity to write music because the musical that is in the movie is not great.
Guest:So I can write to the best of my abilities.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it doesn't have to be great.
Guest:You got like some wiggle room.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And so that's going to take up most of your time for the next year?
Marc:Yeah, that's next year.
Guest:And so no other acting for now?
Guest:Yeah, no, that'll be basically we shoot March.
Guest:I finish in November.
Guest:Yeah, it's a long post-production.
Marc:Well, you did a great job.
Marc:Thank you so much.
Marc:On that movie and a lot of your work.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:I can't say all of it.
Guest:I haven't seen all of it.
Guest:Sure, but you will tonight.
Guest:I'm so honored to be on this.
Guest:Your podcast is obviously amazing.
Guest:And I'm so honored to get to talk to you because I really do mean this.
Guest:You've had like such a very specific impact on my life.
Marc:I'm so glad.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I appreciate you telling me that because it is those things.
Marc:You know, you don't like the things you hold on to as you get older that really changed your perception of something are usually fairly small things.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:It's not like.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It's very interesting.
Guest:No, I remember that story.
Guest:I didn't remember it was Jim.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know why for some reason I thought of Paul.
Guest:But basically that story has just structured my adult thinking in such a specific way.
Guest:To minimize anxiety.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so, but also to see how adults think, because I think the anecdote really just showed you kind of growing into an adult.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it did the same thing for me.
Marc:Well, I am happy that you had that experience.
Marc:Oh, yeah, thanks.
Marc:And it was great talking to you.
Marc:You too.
Marc:Thanks a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Intense guy.
Marc:I enjoyed it.
Marc:A Real Pain is now playing in theaters.
Marc:Hang out for a minute, people.
Marc:Hey folks, you can check out my talk with Jesse's co-star in A Real Pain, Kieran Culkin.
Marc:He was on episode 1150 back when we were still doing talks over Zoom.
Marc:Have you been watching wrestling since your show?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:You know, I've talked to wrestlers over the years.
Marc:Like, you know, I've interviewed, you know, we used to have Mick Foley.
Marc:Mick Foley is amazing, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, because he used to, when I used to do political radio over at Air America, you know, he's a very active guy.
Marc:He does a lot of causes and a real sweet guy.
Marc:But, you know, he walks in.
Marc:He's huge.
Marc:He lumbers in.
Marc:He's just beaten.
Marc:He's almost disfigured most of the time.
Marc:He's hobbled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but he was a real deal missing an ear and a few teeth.
Marc:But in terms of the show, in terms of research, it was never my thing as a kid.
Marc:But I did learn from these guys.
Marc:And I also talked to Colt Cabana, who does that kind of old school kind of retro independent wrestling, which is like no frills.
Guest:Colt Cabana.
Guest:I'll be enough to change it after this podcast.
Guest:But Colt Cabana is actually mine and my wife's savior.
Yeah.
Marc:Is that true?
Guest:That's actually true.
Marc:That's episode 1150 with Kieran Culkin, and you can listen to it for free on whatever platform you're using right now to get every episode of WTF ad free.
Marc:Sign up for WTF plus.
Marc:Just go to the link in the episode description or go to WTF pod dot com and click on WTF plus.
Marc:And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by a cast.
Marc:Here we go.
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Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:Monkey in the Fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.