Episode 291 - Mark Duplass
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucktologists?
Marc:What the fuck tuckians?
Marc:Whatever the fuck you want to call yourselves.
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:My show, my podcast.
Marc:A lot of people enjoy it.
Marc:I assume that if you're listening to it, you're one of those people and I appreciate you being here.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Let's try to figure out a way to do this right now.
Marc:I'm on vacation.
Marc:I will speculate on what I'm doing on vacation in a moment.
Marc:But what is happening right now is I'm panicking because, quite frankly, I'm not on vacation yet.
Marc:Here's what's going on right now.
Marc:I'm going on vacation this weekend.
Marc:But as you listen to this, I'm on vacation.
Marc:That's that's fucked up.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And this is like mind bending stuff right now.
Marc:So what's going on now is Jessica is, of course, in the house engaged in what seems to be a lifelong laundry part project.
Marc:I don't know if this is a common thing with people or with women.
Marc:It just seems to be a never-ending laundry project going on.
Marc:Maybe I'm missing a lot of outfits that she wears.
Marc:Maybe I'm not paying enough attention to...
Marc:Because it would seem to me that the amount of laundry she does would imply that she wears at least in my mind, six or seven outfits a day, which I I'm just not seeing any evidence that I'm not too critical of it.
Marc:Look, everyone has to have their hobbies.
Marc:If that's her hobby, so be it.
Marc:And I love her.
Marc:But that's going on in the house and that'll continue for the next couple of days as we prepare, ending in probably a panic about one load that needed to be done, which, of course, has to be hung dry outside, which we will probably be doing right up until we drive to the airport.
Marc:I, on the other hand, have experience with panic around vacations in that.
Marc:Usually a day before vacation or two days before vacation, something happens that never happens.
Marc:Like for me right now, the fear is that maybe a sinkhole will just occur under my house at my house.
Marc:We'll start sinking into the ground and I'll have to deal with that.
Marc:I'll have to buy some wood and cover some things just so it holds until I'm back.
Marc:There's also the fear of sewage or perhaps a cat going wrong somehow.
Marc:cats can break down don't know have no idea what's going to happen mark duplass is on the show today did i mention that i probably didn't nice guy but this is what's happening in the present i'm going through a pre-vacation panic there's laundry happening in the house i have to buy cat food i have to get into the mindset to get rid of some of my vices like
Marc:Twitter for a week or so like coffee, like like the computer, like email.
Marc:I'm going to try to go off the grid completely and probably see exactly who I am and then run back to the grid in a fury.
Marc:Get me back to the grid.
Marc:I will be screaming from a mountain on an island.
Marc:But now let's speculate what's really happening with me.
Marc:I'm a couple of days into my vacation.
Marc:I feel great.
Marc:I'm happy to be here.
Marc:It's amazing how much freer my mind is without all the panic and clutter of staying on top of things.
Marc:I'm just letting stuff go.
Marc:Things are just falling off my shoulders.
Marc:I'm relaxed.
Marc:I'm light.
Marc:I'm meditating for the first time in my life.
Marc:I'm gaining some vague spirituality about my place in the world.
Marc:I understand life and all its questions.
Marc:And the darkness is slowly, slowly dissipating.
Marc:That's my speculation for what's going on on vacation.
Marc:You'll have to wait until I get back.
Marc:I'll keep a diary of what's going on on vacation.
Marc:Mark Duplass, by the way, if you don't know him, he's a regular on The League, on FX, but he's also a movie actor and movie maker.
Marc:Him and his brother make movies.
Marc:And he's a good guy.
Marc:But he's in four movies that are currently in theaters.
Marc:Four movies.
Marc:Your Sister's Sister, Safety Not Guaranteed with Aubrey Plaza.
Marc:People Like Us with Chris Pine and Elizabeth Banks.
Marc:And Darling Companion with Diane Keaton and Kevin Kline.
Marc:And also the movie he directed, Jeff Who Lives at Home with Jason Segel.
Marc:And Ed Helms is now on DVD and Blu-ray and On Demand.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:I actually experienced no resentment or jealousy towards this man.
Marc:I'm not saying a lot when you're me.
Marc:Hey, you know what?
Marc:Let's do a quick handwritten mail segment into the very popular stamps.com plug.
Marc:How would that be?
Marc:I got this very nice card on very nice stationery with an anchor on it.
Marc:And on the envelope, it says, P.S.
Marc:Sorry if stationery is not your thing, but it is mine.
Marc:Making a stand for the stationery before I even open it.
Marc:Dear Mark, I really love your podcast.
Marc:In fact, it has made me realize I have daddy issues.
Marc:That's enticing.
Marc:But that's not why I'm writing.
Marc:I'm writing to discuss my cat issues.
Marc:Growing up, I had two cats, Rocky and Bullwinkle.
Marc:Within the past couple of years, a stray cat started showing up, so we, of course, named him Boris.
Marc:Boris didn't get along with the other two.
Marc:They were old and grumpy, so we didn't take him in, but we fed him and loved him.
Marc:Now Rocky and Bullwinkle have both passed, but Boris is nowhere to be found.
Marc:So my question is, what is...
Marc:the longest you've gone without seeing one of your strays, only to have them come back.
Marc:It's been a month.
Marc:Do I have hope?
Marc:Please do not make any allusions to his death.
Marc:Will not believe he's ever dead.
Marc:Thanks, Allison.
Marc:I will not believe he's ever dead.
Marc:I think you're slowly making this cat a deity, which is fine.
Marc:If he provides hope for you that he's out there.
Marc:I've been through this many times before, sometimes up to three, four weeks.
Marc:Not unusual.
Marc:So I say hang on to hope.
Marc:And I think Boris is out there.
Marc:And Boris, as you said, will always be out there for all of us.
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:I don't think I would have bought a house if I didn't have a girl at the time that told me I could buy a house.
Marc:I had no understanding of it.
Marc:Did you buy it?
Marc:You haven't bought one yet?
Guest:We have.
Guest:We bought in Los Feliz.
Guest:Do you live down the street?
Guest:Yeah, I'm right here, dude.
Guest:This is so easy for me.
Guest:And I'm looking at a duplex as a potential rental income property.
Guest:Are you going to become a building manager?
Guest:No, I'm going to become... Here's my goal.
Guest:I want to own these things and rent them out until I feel like I've made a decent amount of money, and then I want to turn them into artist commune places.
Guest:I know this guy who's a musician, and he's just really successful.
Guest:He has this house.
Guest:It's a four-bedroom house.
Guest:And he lets musicians who are coming to L.A., composers who don't know people yet, live there for like $250 a month for a few months to get their feet wet.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And meet people.
Guest:I just love that.
Marc:So you have a grand scheme.
Marc:I got a grand scheme, dude.
Marc:A grand scheme to support the arts.
Marc:I want to be Roger Corman.
Marc:No, that's not the direction that you were just discussing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:How come I thought of something so much more altruistic and more sort of like post hippie kind of like we're all creating here.
Marc:Who's cooking tonight?
Guest:Well, that happened with Roger Corman.
Guest:It was an accident for him, but he like fostered all these great filmmakers.
Guest:But, you know.
Marc:But did they have a group house?
Marc:I don't think so.
Marc:Like Coppola was in the kitchen.
Marc:Making some spagettes.
Marc:Some unknown named Jack Nicholson.
Guest:Just farting it up in the living room.
Marc:And shopping garlic, maybe.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So I, Mark Duplass is in the garage here.
Marc:Look, I didn't get to see Jeff who lives at home.
Marc:Don't be mad.
Marc:I'm not mad.
Marc:You've been on the road like crazy.
Marc:You've had a long enough career.
Marc:There's other things to discuss.
Marc:I did sit two days ago and watch the puffy chair.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I watched that.
Marc:I saw Cyrus.
Marc:Man.
Marc:I watched that.
Marc:You've done some research.
Marc:I saw Hump Day because I interviewed you for Hump Day.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You just acted in Hump Day.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, no, I was putting it off.
Marc:I like Cyrus.
Marc:I'm a fan of yours.
Marc:But I didn't really realize how much I would like the puffy chair.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:And that was your first movie.
Marc:That was our first feature, yeah.
Marc:And your brother's name is Jay.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:It is true.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:Now, okay, so let's, like, when I was watching that and when I watched, I've watched a couple things.
Marc:and I sense a percolating darkness in you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where was that born?
Guest:It came, it's very steeped in my dad, and it's a little bit in my mom, too.
Guest:Where were you brought up?
Guest:I was brought up in New Orleans.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like what part?
Guest:In Metairie, the suburb right outside, do you know it?
Guest:Do you have family there still?
Guest:They're all, well, I have some extended family, but my parents live here now because...
Guest:I gave them grandkids and my brother did as well.
Guest:So we're all juiced up on the east side of LA in the little family commune.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, did they retire well or are you taking care of them?
Guest:Man, they retired really well.
Guest:My dad's a lawyer.
Guest:He did great.
Guest:He actually supported me and Jay a lot in our early 20s when we were trying to figure out what we were doing and not good at it.
Guest:And he was...
Guest:immensely supportive so you come from a pretty good upper middle class family totally upper middle class normal family my dad gave us the fifteen thousand dollars that it cost to make the puffy chair was he excited about it because i know he's in the puffy chair he seems like a pretty good guy he was psyched man and and and it's weird it was like opposite sketches at our parents house i went to like a very intense catholic prep school why why'd they do that to you
Guest:Well, when you grow up in New Orleans, you got two options.
Guest:You can't go to the public schools if you're a white kid because you really do get beat up.
Guest:And the schools are just... I think you'd be making such different movies.
Guest:Not good.
Guest:I would be.
Marc:Totally different movies.
Marc:I mean, boy, it wouldn't be these sort of like guys struggling with their selfishness.
Marc:It'd be, you know.
Marc:It would be less.
Marc:You'd be out in the streets.
Marc:You would have been like alive and in the world.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And I'd look different, too.
Marc:And I'd dress differently.
Guest:The whole thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Maybe that could be an idea for a movie.
Marc:I'm pitching a movie to you.
Marc:It could be.
Marc:The alternate Mark Duplass life.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:All right, so you go to Catholic school primarily because it was like a private school.
Marc:But it's cheaper.
Guest:It's like only two grand a year, and that's what you can afford, so you do that.
Guest:And then all my friends were really rich by the time we were 23.
Guest:And Jay and I were just...
Guest:broke and it was kind of depressing there for a little bit how were they really rich they just all went off and they got you know business degrees and they moved to new york and they were working at goldman sachs right out of college that was the trajectory of that class of people that was it man you were like you know fuck that i'm an artist i'm an artist and then and that was really fun but then you're you know you're like 24 25 26 27 you're still not making money it starts getting real sad real dark real scary and
Guest:And I got to give it to my parents for hanging in there with us.
Guest:You know, I mean, my dad was really cool.
Guest:He's like, I'm going to give you like a thousand bucks a month to like live.
Guest:So you don't have to waste all your time, tendon bar, but you got to work on your shit and, and, and do your thing.
Marc:What, where, where did this belief in you come from?
Marc:I mean, was this after the puffy chair or this was leading up to it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:What happened to the music thing?
Guest:You know, it was fine.
Guest:I played in indie rock bands.
Guest:We toured around and, and, you know, we made our,
Guest:whatever, $100 a night.
Guest:But I kind of, I don't know if you felt this ever, but I just had this feeling that I was not going to be building sustainable relationships at home by being on the road 220 days out of the year.
Marc:So you were already thinking ahead at having a family?
Marc:Fuck yeah.
Marc:I don't even think about that now.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But you got such a nice backyard.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Yeah, one that would be very dangerous for a child.
Marc:For children to tumble.
Marc:Yeah, this is not a child-friendly house.
Marc:So I am with a woman now.
Marc:I've been through two wives, no kids.
Marc:But this one, I don't think she's going to let me get away with it.
Marc:Come on, Maren.
Marc:What?
Marc:The baby's- Come on, listen.
Marc:See, that's the attitude.
Marc:Step up.
Marc:They rub out the darkness.
Guest:Be a man.
Guest:Can I tell you something?
Marc:That's a good reason to have a kid.
Guest:Could you please erase my darkness?
Guest:25 to 30% less dark than I was before I had my daughter.
Guest:Now, when you did The Puffy Chair, were you married?
Guest:I was not married, but Katie, who's in The Puffy Chair with me, is my wife.
Marc:As your girlfriend?
Marc:That's my wife, yeah.
Marc:That's your wife now?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you always had family on your mind, so you were brought up with a certain idea that... So you weren't this type of... You weren't a completely self-consumed artist.
Marc:You actually thought about career.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I was thinking career.
Guest:I was thinking long-term.
Guest:I was thinking, like, I want kids in the backyard.
Guest:Kramer vs. Kramer fucked me up at an early age, and I was... You thought that?
Marc:That was going to happen to your parents?
Guest:I was just worried that would happen to me.
Guest:Your parents are still together, right?
Marc:They're still together, yeah.
Guest:And I don't know why.
Guest:I just wanted the stable life thing.
Guest:I saw it.
Guest:I felt it.
Marc:So let me just ask you something.
Marc:Because I saw, like, you know, after watching the movie, after watching Puffy Chair, I knew that guy couldn't be that different than you.
Marc:He's a little different.
Guest:Here's where he's the same.
Guest:Well, he's certainly not thinking about a family.
Guest:He's not thinking about a family.
Guest:He's basically a less emotionally aware version of me.
Guest:I have all those feelings.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I can sit here with you and talk about them.
Guest:The character in that movie can't really elucidate them.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:That doesn't erase my problems that I can talk about them.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I just know what they are and can talk about them.
Marc:But were you a guy that was like, you know, I'm going to be a fucking rock star somehow?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, okay, so the music thing didn't work out, then fuck it, I'm going to be an actor, I'm going to make fucking movies.
Guest:People will recognize me.
Guest:Somehow, these people will see my genius.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We were always doing both at the same time.
Guest:Like, my brother and I were still making movies while we were making music.
Guest:And then something weird happened when we were like, when I was like 25 and Jay was like 28, we accidentally stumbled into making what we thought was a decent movie, which was like...
Guest:we had just spent i think almost fifty thousand dollars making a feature film that no one has seen that we've never really talked about that we just buried um it's still in the vault it's in the vault and it is it's god awful and it's embarrassing and we were so fucking depressed and we were just like this is dangerous how much did you spend we spent like fifty thousand dollars i mean
Guest:in in in the scope of things but where you sit now it's like we used to work as editors and we saved up all this money when did that happen i ran a jay and i ran an editing business in austin when we were like in our like basically early 20s all right so you you went to catholic high school moved to austin right after high school yeah no college went to college where in austin ut oh yeah
Marc:And that was a time when it was Linklater and Rodriguez.
Marc:We definitely see Linklater in the puffy chair.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that is just because... I mean, that's the only thing you can really compare it to on some level.
Marc:But it wasn't about the same thing.
Marc:That there's the difference between...
Marc:how you shot it what i related to was that it seems that this was in cyrus 2 that you seem to be able to sit with uh you know fairly you know difficult emotions for long periods of time in the movie that's why i'm here man because you're able to laugh at really dark uncomfortable things and i just want to sit with you here well the thing is like like like a couple of points in the movie that i thought the the the because it's right in my mind i know you probably haven't talked about it in a while
Marc:But when you said that you were going to get the chair reupholstered, I thought you were lying.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Did you know that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because then you wanted the people to say, like, well, this guy's really fucked up.
Marc:And then it turns out, no, you really did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the other part that I liked was the character of your brother.
Marc:See, this is only familiar to a certain bunch of people.
Marc:I mean, I know those guys.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I mean, if you have that lifestyle, if you were kind of a postmodern bohemian growing up, I mean, I'm 48.
Marc:There was always one of those guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I think they're around more than you think they are, at least like Austin, Portland, certain Seattle.
Marc:Right, because they were in, you know, Josh Leonard had one in his movie too.
Marc:Did you have anything to do with the lie?
Marc:No, I just helped, just consulted with him as a bud.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:Yeah, the sort of weird kind of like completely irresponsible but Buddha-like person that's not really a Buddha.
Marc:They just don't have the panic and worry that the other people have.
Guest:Totally, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I just like the idea of putting a type A guy and that Buddha guy in a van together for a week, you know, and it's cheap, fun conflict.
Marc:And that whole thing about the wedding and then you saying like, yeah, it's going to pass in a week and then the next day, he's like, yeah, it didn't work out.
Guest:I was right.
Guest:I mean, that movie was like...
Guest:To try to describe how it was made, it was chaos.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It seems so laid back.
Guest:It was like an open mic night where we were just like, let's try and cobble together something that makes sense and works.
Guest:We only had 15 grand, so I was like, oh, I got my touring van, and Katie's from this small town.
Guest:We can shoot there for free a bunch.
Guest:So that was a band touring van?
Guest:Yeah, that was my band's van.
Guest:So that's really a documentary about the death of a dream?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:in more ways than one um and it was you know we were just like we were trying to basically make something that felt uh as real as possible uh in terms of like a documentary aesthetic we love documentaries yeah i do too and i was like i i don't want to make documentaries because your life is fucking miserable when you make documentaries you work on something for 10 years and maybe seven people see it
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also that you've got to sort of balance it in a certain way to where it's provocative and you're not partisan about.
Guest:100%.
Guest:Whereas in the narrative film, you can be unabashedly partisan.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And structure it.
Guest:And so I'm basically trying to make all the documentary principles of filmmaking and put them in the narrative.
Marc:I think that's a noble undertaking.
Marc:So in terms of like being hung with that, well, did you know Linklater?
Marc:Because I met him when I was, where the hell was I?
Marc:I met him out here.
Marc:Did you hang out with him?
Guest:No, I was like, he didn't know who the hell I was.
Guest:I couldn't hang out with him.
Guest:I wanted to.
Marc:But he was in town.
Marc:I worshipped him.
Guest:He was fairly accessible.
Guest:Yeah, but I was too nervous and scared because he made Slacker and I worshipped him.
Guest:You loved Slacker.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:Changed your life.
Guest:I mean, that movie was playing in Austin at the Midnight Runs when I showed up in 1995 and I was like, this is what I want to do.
Marc:Because you saw that, what is it that you saw?
Marc:That anyone could do this, that real people can act and that there were no rules.
Guest:And most importantly, this guy in this t-shirt who's like an ex-high school athlete
Guest:is a filmmaker and it's not that guy that I read about in the books who doesn't feel anything like me.
Guest:Like Linklater felt like me.
Guest:He's not a guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, there's no beret here.
Guest:Like he's got a, he's got a post high school football athlete gut and he's got holes in his shirt and jeans and he actually is not that erudite when he talks.
Guest:He just, this dude feels like me.
Guest:Did you, were you an athlete?
Guest:I mean, I was a runner in high school and, you know, I wasn't like a college athlete or anything.
Marc:But a runner, but that's like, you know, I can live with that.
Marc:You know, football players are different.
Marc:Runners are sort of like, I'm doing this.
Guest:Yeah, it's a solo sport.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's the same thing we're doing now, competing against ourselves.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:But there's other people doing it in the same town, probably down the street.
Marc:And you have to, not unlike other sports, you have to pretend like you like them.
Marc:totally but uh so when when you realize that the technology was very well that was the other thing about link letter is like you know fuck we can do this i mean you can make a movie for 15 000 but you got labeled with this mumblecore thing which i have to assume on some level outside of spinning it to uh represent something must have been a little annoying it was it was you know what i gotta be honest it was fucking awesome in 2005 where
Guest:When I made a $15,000 movie and the New York Times was saying that I was part of a movement.
Guest:Because anytime the New York Times writes about a $15,000 movie is great.
Guest:I don't care what you call it.
Marc:But I saw some of the other movies that they call that and they were irritating.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because I didn't find yours particularly layered with garbage.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's my second point to it.
Guest:The name is reductive and limiting because it implies that there's no plot.
Guest:People are babbling.
Guest:And it's just basically...
Marc:I hate fucking navel gazing.
Marc:I hate the word navel gazing.
Marc:I hate when people use it.
Marc:Yeah, I almost used it.
Marc:Is shoegazing the same thing?
Marc:No, it's different.
Marc:That's sort of droopy?
Marc:It's a little lower.
Marc:Right, so navel gazing implies you're just sitting there noodling in your head, where shoegazing somehow seems to represent a surrender of some kind.
Guest:Yeah, you've gone further down.
Marc:You're hopeless.
Marc:It's all over.
Marc:You're not entertaining thoughts.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:You've given up.
Guest:But yeah, so I don't think the movies I'm making are mumblecore by any means, and I don't know what that means anymore.
Guest:It was fine for a time.
Guest:It brought some attention, but it wasn't like the Dogma 95 movement where we curated it and we decided we were doing it.
Guest:It was just some name that the press came up with.
Marc:I like those movies.
Guest:I love those movies.
Marc:Jesus.
Marc:Celebration.
Guest:That's fucking crazy.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:That is so great.
Guest:We talk about it constantly because me and my core filmmaker friends, because what's happening right now with the technology is that, as you can see, everybody's got a podcast in their garage.
Guest:Everybody's trying to make a puffy chair.
Guest:And they're starting to look the same.
Guest:And there's a lot of garbage out there.
Guest:Is that because of the limits of the technology?
Guest:It's not the limits of the technology.
Guest:It's because when you think of making a cheap movie, the first thing that comes to you is four people go to a house for the weekend.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And all those movies are being made.
Guest:And it's annoying the shit out of me.
Guest:Well, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's time to, like, break the form.
Guest:But somehow the celebration, which has the basic form of, like, ah, it's a family reunion gone awry.
Guest:Awry?
Guest:That's a mild word.
Guest:That's a mild term, yeah.
Guest:It somehow just, you know, transcends the form.
Marc:That was layered with a darkness that I couldn't even imagine.
Marc:I mean, you know, you watch that movie, and as it unfolds, and you realize, like, oh, shit, this is happening.
Marc:That might be why we like that so much, is it makes us seem like we're okay.
Marc:That and also, I think it also makes you just consider how much is hidden.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Do you have any of that weird shit in your family?
Guest:Incest?
Guest:No.
Guest:Not incest, but like the things you're scared to go home about because they might come up.
Guest:Or is it just like, ah, it's a little awkward.
Marc:What I have found, because I grew up with some emotional and mental, not instability, but very few boundaries and very self-involved parents.
Marc:But what I'm finding as I get older, both of my folks are still alive, there doesn't seem to be a statute of limitations on things that there should be.
Marc:It's like, my dad tells me things now.
Marc:It's like, I would have rather just bumbled around in the darkness than know that that's where you were coming from.
Marc:So they're not completely disruptive.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But there was definitely a lot of lies, and I think that happens in families.
Marc:Is he bringing that up?
Marc:Is he just looking for clearance from you or looking for some sort of- Well, I think that's sort of what, not unlike in the puffy chair, that when people don't have the personal courage to honor their feelings, that everything becomes a manipulation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:that you're gonna manipulate somebody else into speaking for you, into making the decision for you.
Marc:And eventually, either because you see the light of your life fading out and it has to be a confession, just to put it out there.
Marc:I don't know if he thinks about it in those terms.
Marc:Probably not.
Marc:It's probably an impulse.
Marc:I should say this I write but I think it's also strangely competitive yeah I think that that fathers and sons you know no matter how healthy it was you know they want to win that do you have brothers yeah yeah do you have that with brother any brother stuff there well
Marc:My brother's the jock.
Marc:He was.
Marc:He was a tennis guy.
Marc:But then as he got older, he became even more like me.
Marc:He surprised me in how similar we were.
Marc:So no, but I find that I have not seen a movie.
Marc:I've seen some movies that deal with that dynamic, like The Great Santini and the one with Jackie Gleason and Tom Hanks, where you have a father.
Marc:Nothing in common.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I like that little movie.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's great.
Marc:Dealing with selfish dads is rich, man.
Guest:It's a cool thing.
Guest:Was yours like that?
Guest:No, man.
Guest:I got to say, my dad, he's the hero for us, which is weird because we write a lot of stuff with dads that are fucked up or dead.
Guest:I don't know why that is.
Guest:Maybe it's just fun to imagine that.
Guest:We had the best of all worlds.
Guest:We had the dad who was just like, I totally believe in you and I'm going to back it up emotionally and fiscally.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's sweet.
Marc:And I kind of felt that.
Marc:I feel like you're well-adjusted guy and you seem hungry to keep going.
Guest:I have a crazy fire in my system.
Guest:I don't know why I have this.
Guest:It's truly desperate in every sense of the word.
Guest:Because I have no peace in my life whatsoever.
Guest:I'm not a relaxed person by any means.
Guest:But I'll wake up at 1 in the morning and there are four movie ideas in my head and there's nothing I can do about it.
Marc:But that's creativity.
Marc:That's creativity.
Marc:You're not waking up going like, I'm a fraud and I need to... No, it's not that kind of thing.
Guest:But I just feel so compelled...
Guest:to do those things and to make those things.
Guest:I don't know how you feel.
Guest:I mean, because I feel like I'm watching you get more successful and this has probably been one of the better phases of your career, I think.
Guest:The best.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:You're here.
Marc:But the thing is- So you climbed a mountain.
Marc:Yeah, but I didn't know I was climbing.
Marc:I was just, you know, I was clinging to something.
Marc:This actually happened when I gave up.
Marc:That's the weirdest thing is that, you know, I climbed a fucking mountain for 20 years and it was really like, you know, it's over.
Marc:I'm done.
Marc:And we started doing this, but...
Marc:But to speak to what's happened, which I had no plan.
Marc:I never had a plan.
Marc:I'm the very immediate needs.
Marc:Everything's just feeding something right now.
Marc:And anything that's in the future, it looks horrible.
Marc:You're a coyote.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But yeah, Wile E. Coyote.
Marc:But one thing I noticed when I ran into you at Sundance, even for a second, and I think this is something you probably know about yourself, is that you seem to handle it very well.
Marc:That even when I interviewed you for Hump Day with Josh, that given your success, it seems that you were completely ready and you were like, yes, I should be recognized.
Marc:I feel that way.
Guest:It sounds terrible to say that, but I'm like, I absolutely belong where I belong to a certain extent.
Marc:Right, and that's why it continues.
Marc:Whatever's happening for me now, if it had happened for me 10 years ago, like if I had just gotten a TV show 10 years ago and they were actually going to go to a series, like they're doing with IFC, I would have been like, I can't do it.
Marc:Spazzed and failed through it.
Marc:All my career was driven by spite.
Marc:Why the fuck is that guy?
Marc:How come I'm not?
Marc:That's how I talk to my manager.
Marc:And he just happened to be powerful enough to get me opportunities.
Marc:But I'm sort of grateful now that I can handle it.
Marc:But you seem like one of those guys that was ready to handle it, and now you're just fucking gonna generate.
Guest:I tracked it by birthdays.
Guest:I remember at some point when I turned like 31,
Guest:Somebody was like, whoa, 31, getting up there.
Guest:And I remember every birthday I'd had before that was like, God, I'm getting older.
Guest:Fuck, where's my success?
Guest:I should be so much further along by this point.
Guest:So this is a big, it's a money thing?
Guest:A success, a fame, a- What does that mean to you?
Guest:To me, it was like making movies that people loved and- Remembered.
Marc:remembered and you know even other things like getting the writing deals i wanted to get and box office things but yeah but that's business in in terms of that's it has to do with politics but like in your mind what what you know because slacker is like that's remembered remembered film but it's an esoteric film yes and it's respected that was my puffy chair
Guest:That was the first mountain I climbed.
Guest:You want to have cult cred.
Guest:Could I get a movie into Sundance that's sold out of Sundance and that critics and a small group of people loved?
Marc:Did you go to film school?
Guest:I went to film school, but I dropped out halfway through.
Guest:At UT?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you didn't finish college?
Guest:I finished with an English degree because I could get out quickly.
Marc:Yeah, that's what I did.
Guest:You know.
Marc:But, all right, so, but you knew, but see, because clearly you're speaking in business terms.
Marc:Like, you know, that never existed for me and I don't know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, and then there was that crew that, you know, the crew that everybody respects.
Marc:Like you brought up Porman and, you know, all those guys in the 70s that, you know, just happened to be at, you know, a paradigm shift.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where, you know, Hollywood, the old boys tapped out.
Guest:I'm in that right now.
Guest:I swear to God I'm in that.
Guest:I went into a meeting to a studio the other day with this,
Guest:you know, one of the producers that's made all the movies we watched growing up.
Guest:And I watched him looking at me like with not fear in his eyes, but confusion as I was talking about how we make these movies at this budget level with these cameras and this stuff.
Guest:And I got out of the meeting and his, you know, junior exec called me and was just like, you just...
Guest:like blew this guy's mind and he he he's severely depressed and feels like he's officially aged out you know and there is a certain degree of like i'm so lucky that i was like 26 when the technology shifted yeah because i'm right here in the sweet spot
Guest:And I get to do all these things.
Guest:You know how you always think about it?
Guest:You're like, man, if I could have been a comic in the 50s when this was happening, I'm like in the sweet spot as a filmmaker.
Marc:Yeah, but even then, the weird thing that you also have to remember is that there was another 10,000 comics in the 50s that weren't Lenny Bruce.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And even now, like you brought up before, everybody thinks they can do this.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:So the good fortune that you had to create a piece of work that did have a life of its own, that's a game changer.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And I guess my question then, in your mind now, what is the perfect movie?
Marc:Slacker aside, I feel you seem to talk about that as a training ground.
Marc:But for you personally, what are the movies where you're like, well, that fucking thing?
Guest:yeah i mean honestly it's mostly documentaries to me really it's harder for me to be blown away in the narrative form and it could just be because i live it and i'm in it and i i don't have that childlike sense of watching a movie anymore but wait but you've got it like the like i i i maintain a child like sense uh-huh because i keep that child you know locked up yeah and and you know and uh and and i let him respond uh i'm glad you have control over him i don't know if i i don't have control over mine anymore i don't think
Marc:Really, you seem to like, in the puffy chair anyways, there seemed to be part of you that was very aware that that character was infantile.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I would say just in terms of being a non-cynical, non-sarcastic viewer and acceptor of art, I can't put that guy in a movie theater and watch a movie like I did when I was
Marc:Can you put it in front of a painting?
Marc:Could you put it in front of a piece of writing?
Guest:Probably for different art forms, yeah.
Guest:But I'll say the last narrative movie that I watched that really inspired me because of its newness and its sense of just not being cynical was when I saw once in the movie theater.
Guest:And it was like, oh, this could be a corny movie.
Guest:So it was a musical, so it touched you.
Guest:And it's an odd, low-budget musical.
Guest:But you're moved by musicals.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I can't say that empirically, but this musical did touch me because it's a totally original form.
Marc:I don't want to admit that, but you get a bunch of people singing in front of me.
Marc:I find it very touching.
Marc:I find singing to be very vulnerable.
Marc:I can't help myself.
Marc:Do you still go out to see shows like music shows?
Marc:No.
Marc:I never really did because it's always an aggravating thing.
Marc:And it doesn't seem like, okay, so let's say you have a little cachet, which I don't.
Marc:You probably have more than me.
Marc:So you get to go backstage, so you don't get to watch it from there.
Marc:And then if you go to the movie as a regular person, you don't get to watch it from the front of the stage.
Marc:It's just a big fucking pain in the ass unless you can sit down.
Marc:Is that because I'm old?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's partly because you're old, but I'm not as old as you are, and I feel the exact same way.
Guest:I want music in my headphones.
Guest:That's where I love it.
Marc:But look, I mean, in my mind, though, there's been a few great movies lately, and I'm not watching the same movies as you.
Marc:But I mean, like somebody who kind of followed the same trajectory, like David O. Russell.
Marc:Nothing?
Guest:I mean, look, he's got some great movies.
Guest:Flirting with Disaster blew me away.
Marc:Great movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Spanking the Monkey?
Guest:Spanking the Monkey.
Guest:Loved it.
Marc:Great movie.
Marc:Three Kings.
Marc:Good movie.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:But he sort of went the independent way, and you seem to be... From getting to... From Puffy Chair... You did some acting, and then you did Cyrus, and was there one other movie?
Guest:We did this movie, Baghead, after Puffy Chair, and then did Cyrus, and that was a big jump.
Guest:That was like a $7 million movie at...
Guest:you know, Searchlight.
Guest:And then Jeff, who lives at home, is about that size.
Guest:I have to be careful when we put these movies into the world.
Guest:Like, this movie has Jason Segel and Ed Helms in it, and it looks like a comedy.
Guest:And I'll find out... Your fucking Puffy Chair was billed as a comedy on Netflix.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so find that out with Cyrus that basically like people come into that.
Guest:And when they see Jonah Hill on the poster and they hear comedy, they're expecting super bad.
Guest:So I discovered that with Jeff lives at home, like we need to treat this film like the art house movie that it is and let people know.
Guest:You're not gonna get the hangover when you come into the theater.
Guest:You're not gonna get Sarah Marshall You're gonna get a dramatic comedy, which is kind of what we do, right?
Marc:Oh, so that's like it's you know that form is Interesting because that's sort of like a 70s thing.
Marc:That's what I love man.
Guest:Yeah, but I don't know why they have it's so hard to sell that shit I don't know why it's hard to sell it either man.
Guest:I got to be honest with you I
Guest:It's what I love.
Guest:It's what a lot of people I talk to love to see.
Marc:But do you think, sadly, it's because the idea of the Hollywood ending is really deeply ingrained more than we ever assumed?
Guest:I don't think it's about the ending.
Guest:I think it's about what people are going to the movie theater specifically for.
Guest:Because my movies kill on DVD and TV.
Guest:I mean, they just take off.
Guest:Whether they'll pay the 12 to go into the theater for that experience, I think they just want something a little easier and to laugh their balls off.
Marc:And also, I think they want something that's worth $12.
Marc:Unfortunately, it seems that movies are becoming just theme parks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And look, I've got to be perfectly honest with you.
Guest:It's more important to see 21 Jump Street in the movie theater than it is to see Cyrus or Jeff in the movie theater versus DVD.
Guest:Because my movies are on faces.
Guest:They're also much cheaper.
Guest:They're personally.
Guest:I'm not offended by someone who says, I don't want to go to the movie theater and watch it.
Guest:I want to watch it on DVD.
Guest:I don't care as long as you come.
Guest:But that being said, for my taste level, any day of the week, I would prefer the comedy that has a little something else in it.
Marc:I just think that a lot of times, if I'm just going to go by my parents, would you like the movie?
Marc:It's a downer.
Marc:It's a little bit of a downer.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:There's your review.
Marc:There it is.
Marc:It's a downer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't enjoy it.
Marc:You know, I think that people, there's a generation of people, and I think it might be deeper than we think, that want to go to escape.
Marc:100%.
Marc:And you're making movies that it's almost the opposite of that.
Marc:I'm going to tell you something right here.
Marc:Is it a secret?
Guest:Don't get freaked out.
Marc:I won't.
Marc:Something on fire?
Guest:No, Jeff Who Lives at Home is a little bit different.
Guest:And it is not as much of a downer as the other films, which I'm curious to see how it will play out over the course of its life.
Marc:And also, I think that the way you choose talent, in talking about someone like Jason Segel or Ed Helms or even Jonah, that if you've got a guy that knows how to be funny but is also a good actor, they're going to be darker and more serious than anybody.
Marc:Oh, inherently.
Marc:Yeah, because it's natural.
Marc:Because whatever makes them naturally funny, if you can get that thing to come out,
Marc:It's golden.
Guest:That's it for me.
Guest:I love mining these incredibly talented comedians who have done a lot of improvisation for the comedy world and put them right into the dramatic format and say that same improv skill that you use to mine jokes, we're going to go for really dark, golden, emotional nuggets.
Marc:So you do a lot of improv on the set?
Guest:Every scene is improvised.
Guest:See, that's something that is inherently possible because of the technology.
Guest:100%.
Guest:We run like 20 minute takes sometimes.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:We work from a traditional script.
Guest:There's a script there, but they are improvising the lines and how that they're said.
Guest:So everything's just a little bit dynamic and surprising and different.
Guest:And then I am, Jay's on the camera and I'm in there with them.
Guest:And we're throwing out lines of dialogue at them at the same time while they're acting.
Guest:And they spit them right back out.
Guest:And you get this instinctual thing.
Guest:And the scenes come together right there in the moment.
Guest:So not only is it – I think it gives it a spontaneity in that documentary feel.
Guest:But for me, I call them soul points.
Guest:It takes less soul points for me to make that kind of movie because I feel like a kid and I'm having fun.
Guest:And it makes me feel like I can make movies for a long time if I make them this way while I'm having fun.
Guest:I was so psyched to hear that you're having fun on tour because I'm like, you're going to last out there if you're having fun.
Marc:Well, I'm the same way in that I don't like to get atrophied in an act.
Marc:My best moments on stage are moments that I know will never happen again.
Marc:And I know that.
Marc:And certain ones of those I can make note of and recapture or try to find the funny back in them.
Marc:But to me, if I depart from anything structured and then move through something organically right there in the moment, I'm like, that's it.
Marc:Nothing beats that.
Marc:Right, but I should record it.
Marc:I'm a fucking retard.
Marc:I mean, I can record everything.
Marc:I don't.
Guest:Well, here's the great thing about movies and the way that we make movies is like, all I have to do is get it once and then it's there forever for me.
Marc:But what do you do?
Marc:Do you ever just dump the outtakes?
Marc:I mean, they're really not even outtakes.
Marc:They're not complete.
Marc:They're not done.
Marc:So the way you're shooting movies is exciting because they're genuine moments.
Marc:that aren't happening because an actor has such a deep craft that there's a repetition available.
Guest:And in fact, we make them get off the script because I know they've prepared those lines in the mirror and they have something they want to do on set.
Marc:Or they've read it with an underlined script.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And then you take that away and then because everybody there knows that anything can happen at any time,
Guest:They're on their toes.
Guest:They're listening really well.
Guest:So you get a different look from people.
Guest:It's I think a lot of it is felt more than you can actually like consciously see.
Guest:But I think it's important.
Marc:But what happens to concerns about because I mean, going back to Swacker and going back to this type of filmmaking that do you do you have any genuine respect?
Marc:For the idea of mise-en-scene or stage deck or, you know, composition of frames?
Marc:Are you like, fuck that.
Marc:What's important is the organic nature of the interaction between people.
Guest:90% of it is about the interaction between people.
Guest:But I will say this.
Guest:What I love about documentary filmmaking is that the great moments that happen often happen with bad sound and bad light at a disadvantageous camera angle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because they don't know it's coming.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And everything in narrative film that's the big moment is perfectly poised with the right glint of light.
Guest:And that means something to me.
Guest:That means the world to me.
Guest:So I like to present things purposefully at disadvantageous angles and places that seem chaotic and make you feel like you're a fly on the wall.
Guest:controlled i will actively put that disadvantage in it sometimes so that it gels with the rest of the film whether it's uh like uh an emotional non-narrative menace is created yeah you got it i mean it's just look it's the same shit when you you fix up your hair in the mirror and you're like this is too fixed up and then you mess it up before you leave you know that's what we're doing with our stuff we're getting it up on its feet okay
Guest:Where's the chaos?
Guest:Where's that fun?
Marc:By denying the actors the protection of lines and by regenerating the moment and creating sort of like, no, do this.
Marc:No, try that.
Marc:They're off kilter.
Marc:100%.
Marc:And you're just trusting that they're grounded enough as performers to not fuck it up.
Guest:And most people love it and some people hate it.
Guest:Who hates it?
Guest:You just got to talk to people ahead of time and tell them this is what it is.
Guest:Who's been very nervous about it?
Guest:I mean, I don't think it's saying anything negative about somebody.
Guest:No, you know, I honestly haven't had it.
Guest:And this is really true.
Guest:I haven't had a sit down with anyone who has said, I love your movies.
Guest:I've explained it to him.
Guest:They said, oh, I don't want to do that.
Guest:Everybody I've sat with has gotten it.
Guest:But like, for instance, I love Laura Laney to death.
Guest:I think she's incredible.
Guest:I saw her.
Guest:do a Q&A once where she's talked so much about how script is God and you have to find the meaning in the word and the word is empirical truth and you dig within it.
Guest:And I was like, I don't know if we're going to be able to work together because I'm looking for people to just fucking trash it.
Guest:And another thing, Jay and I can't direct anybody else's scripts.
Guest:We have to write the scripts because...
Guest:We're brutal to the scripts.
Guest:I mean, we just like tear them to pieces and improvise and throw them away.
Guest:So, you know, I need people who don't have too much reverence for the word.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Yeah, no Shakespeareans.
Marc:Be interesting to get one, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And shake them down.
Marc:But when you say you're festering with ideas now, like the Puffy Chair, I got that.
Marc:It's kind of a road self-revelation movie.
Marc:But Cyrus was kind of left field.
Guest:I mean, Cyrus, the way that came out was like...
Guest:You know, I am 50% businessman and 50% creative person.
Guest:And I used to feel weird and guilty about that, but I totally embrace it now.
Guest:You don't want to be the ambitious guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that weird?
Guest:Does that make me less of an artist?
Guest:Because I'm like thinking.
Marc:Are you really thinking that in solitary mode?
Marc:Are you thinking like, what are other people going to think about me?
Marc:It was all about what people will think about.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I was comfortable with it in myself.
Guest:It's just like, will they perceive me as less cool or less like a fully creative being when they know that like, as I'm thinking about something creatively, I'm also simultaneously thinking about how cheaply can I make it?
Guest:Which market is it going to?
Guest:It's all one in the same.
Marc:i think that those people you know obviously do better in the business and that if their work transcends their ambition uh you know they they get rewarded but i gotta have 51 creativity well yeah or just you know you gotta generate because there's something about um ambitious people that is irritating to those of us who are insecure and panicky right and are you insecure and panicky
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, I don't, you know, I've only begun to think about business because there was no business to be hacked.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it's one thing, you know, all I do is be me.
Guest:I mean, that's my business.
Guest:But I mean, you are doing, this garage is a startup and you have a brand and all this shit.
Marc:Well, now I know that.
Marc:Well, that's the weird, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's the weird thing.
Marc:It's still not a, it's not a million dollar business.
Marc:There's nothing really at risk here.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:But earning your money for what you do, it's a different thing than when someone says, here's a half million dollars.
Marc:We just want you to hang out because we think we're going to make a show with you.
Marc:There's a seed money.
Marc:We can't guarantee, but we don't want to lose you.
Marc:It feels gross.
Guest:It's very gross.
Guest:Unless you're doing something great with that money.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But a lot of times in TV deals, it was like, you know, then we're going to hook you up with this guy and we're going to see if we can get this to go.
Marc:And then the whole thing gets away from you and you made a little money.
Marc:But, you know, you just you stash it and you're like, I don't know when that's going to happen again.
Marc:But the interesting thing about, I guess, doing what you're doing and certainly what I'm doing here is that I feel like I'm earning my money.
Marc:Yeah, 100%.
Marc:And that's different than working for somebody else.
Marc:And it's different with films because you're in relationship with a studio and you've got to do that dance.
Marc:But I'm just saying that blind ambition, like a lot of people who are not that talented can definitely get by.
Marc:Yeah, I agree.
Marc:If they're focused enough and political enough.
Guest:And I find those people irritating.
Guest:They are irritating.
Guest:I find myself irritating at times with my own ambition.
Guest:But to me, I can't turn that button off in me.
Marc:Well, why would you want to?
Marc:I mean, the thing is, you're generating... It's not like someone's going to say, God, that movie Cyrus was hacky.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But when I thought about Cyrus, I was like, okay, here we go.
Guest:This is what I'm going to do.
Guest:I'm going to make a movie that has a poster and a trailer that Fox Searchlight feels comfortable that they can sell to the world.
Guest:I'm not going to try and make those weird.
Guest:But they sold it as a comedy, though.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And I knew they were going to do that.
Guest:And I delivered them a love triangle concept, but I made them a very weird love triangle.
Guest:And that's what I'm kind of trying to do to a certain extent.
Guest:It's like make something in forms that are understandable, but once that form is set and they can make their trailer and their poster the way they want to, I want to get super weird inside of that form.
Guest:But how much of a fight was that?
Guest:It's not a fight at all.
Guest:And the reason is because...
Guest:These actors and we're lucky enough because of the puffy chair and bag head and Cyrus and Jeff Actors see the stuff and they know we're obsessed with performance and they know we're gonna make them look good So no, but I mean but I struggle with the studio.
Guest:That's this is the currency because the actors want to work with me and Jay They come and work for cheap and the studio just says that guy's a goldmine and then I go right around to the studio and I say I
Guest:They're working at 1 50th of their quote, not for you.
Guest:They're doing that for us.
Guest:And so I'm delivering you this movie that would normally cost you 25 million for 5 million.
Guest:So for that, I want to be able to do what I can do and know that even if the movie sucks, you're going to make your money back on DVD the first week it releases.
Guest:So look at us as a lottery ticket.
Guest:Maybe we blow up, maybe we don't, but you can't lose money on us.
Guest:And that's how...
Guest:We're developing tenure in this business now because our currency is that actors want to work for us.
Guest:They'll do it for cheap and the studios can't turn us down.
Marc:It's like the Woody Allen model.
Guest:It's basically like that except for we don't have glasses.
Marc:You don't have glasses and you need to keep hitting good movies.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're not at a point where it's like, yeah, he has a stinker.
Marc:He's making one movie a year.
Guest:I haven't made a huge financial success yet.
Guest:None of my movies have lost money, but Cyrus made a couple of million dollars by the end of the profit.
Guest:I could use a little Juno or something.
Marc:But how about offers where they're saying, like, maybe we get some of that Duplass energy in here.
Marc:Well, you know, you're making money on the league, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a good nut.
Marc:But in terms of movies, are you going to sell yourself out to either write or direct?
Guest:Outside of the work you do with your brother or for some other director or the only thing that we sort of do to, I would say, you know, make money, pay mortgage and stuff like that is we'll occasionally do novel adaptations or rewrite jobs or things like that.
Marc:You do?
Guest:You're available for that?
Guest:Yeah, I am.
Guest:And honestly, that's really hard work to get.
Guest:But it's the most coveted work.
Guest:It pays really well.
Guest:And you get to know a studio by doing it and figure out, do I want to work there later on?
Marc:So they're saying, look, we got this script.
Marc:So-and-so wrote it.
Marc:This guy's attached to it, but we think it needs a little something.
Guest:We think it needs some duplex magic.
Guest:We need some of that Barton Fink feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:So that's what we get.
Guest:Like, we get, it's really funny, but it's not emotionally rooted.
Guest:Can you guys make these characters look good?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or we get, you know.
Marc:It's usually a character thing.
Marc:It's not like a joke, but, you know, there's punch-up guys.
Marc:We don't punch-up guys.
Guest:We're not a punch-up guy.
Guest:Like, listen to this podcast, and you'll see, like, I'm not that funny.
Guest:I'm about, like, getting the emotional stuff in there, you know?
Marc:So they're saying this character lacks depth.
Marc:Is there some, so what do you look for in something like that?
Marc:When you're writing your own thing, like, when you do something like, let's get away from the puffy chair, but Cyrus, because that was tricky.
Marc:um in terms of you know keeping the relationship between uh the the mother and son just creepy enough yeah and not uh beyond creepy i try to get it to 80 on the page once i get to 80 i stop and then i know i'm going to nuance the rest of it in the room because there's no way i can predict no but i mean but you know the triangle was set up is that you've got this
Marc:you know, inappropriate, bordering, emotionally inappropriate relationship between a mother and her adult son.
Marc:And then you have John C. Reilly, who's kind of like, you know, a heartbroken doofus who's finally kind of, you know, fallen into something.
Guest:Can we make a movie together called Heartbroken Doofus where you play the lead?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I'm available for that.
Guest:I would literally, I just want to get Jay and come over to your house at like six in the morning, okay?
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:We're just gonna walk out your front door.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're going to walk around Highland Park.
Guest:Talk.
Guest:And we're going to talk to people and try and meet them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we're going to look for love and food.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Maybe you need a new car and it's going to be called Heartbroken Doofus.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:It's a documentary.
Guest:I would watch that movie in a second.
Marc:Documentary?
Guest:It's a... It's a Duplass project.
Guest:It's a new form.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:We don't know what it is.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whenever you got time.
Marc:Let's just set it up.
Marc:I got plenty.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Like we'll do it in a week.
Marc:Perfect.
Marc:All right.
Marc:But so the whole tension of it is the John C. Reilly's character's sort of growing bewilderment but emotional commitment to the situation.
Marc:And then the competition between him and the kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you were creating that, when you got it on paper, did you say, all right, this is how the triangle works.
Marc:This kid doesn't want to lose his mother to this guy because they're married, basically.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's what he said.
Guest:I try to go for the biggest basic form of conflict.
Guest:In my opinion, that's the stuff that plays, and it doesn't do you any justice to try and come up with original plot points.
Guest:I know it sounds crazy, but I think you need to use standard Shakespearean classic plotting, you know?
Guest:Son cannot give up.
Guest:Mom, new guy in picture.
Guest:Conflict arises.
Guest:That's Greek.
Guest:That's Greek shit.
Guest:Let's just go all the way back.
Guest:And then what you do is once you get inside of it, then you try and make it peculiar and interesting and specific inside of the form.
Guest:But I think that the mold should be.
Marc:stock basically it should be just pat stock traditional storytelling but what's interesting about that is then you can deconstruct it because the amazing thing about the last shot of the puffy chair was that you know you did have the the embrace was there but it was an embrace of sadness yeah
Marc:that you know that it didn't end up together it wasn't a comedy of remarriage it was not you know it didn't start out uh in in in a place that that ended up like you know okay but they are together yeah there's an understanding there so they end up together in this embrace but it's it's uh they're done yeah that's a good that's a good assessment i like that
Guest:I like that a lot.
Guest:The script was completely different the way it was supposed to end.
Guest:How was it supposed to end?
Guest:In the script, we envisioned that he would break up with her and he would finally get the courage to do it.
Guest:And Katie, in the moment, I left a bunch of silence there.
Guest:She just went ahead and grabbed it.
Guest:and she said you know just how tragic what after the takes and how tragic is it that you know she's saying she wants to break up with him but really what she's kind of saying there is hoping that he will say no um but but he didn't but he didn't because that's what you mean when she started that was her last that was her last test she's been testing in the whole movie right she gave him the last one you know right
Guest:And that's why you hire fucking smart actors who are also writers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because they give you gold, you know, in the moment.
Marc:Well, do you like that kind of like, okay, let's talk about the 70s movies.
Marc:I mean, the kind of existential endings of, you know, Five Easy Pieces.
Marc:Oh, that's it.
Marc:Or So Long Goodbye or whatever.
Guest:Like Hal Ashby and Altman and what those guys were doing, you know.
Marc:Well, Altman, certainly.
Marc:I mean, it's like McCabe and Mrs. Miller and the layers of conversation.
Marc:That had an eternal effect on me.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:I would say The Long Goodbye was a really big influence.
Guest:That's the one that took me a long time to like.
Guest:I don't know what it is about that.
Guest:I think it was the fact that I was conscious early on.
Guest:I was like, I'm in a detective movie, and this is the weirdest fucking detective movie I have ever seen.
Guest:so loose it's so loose it's so about right emotions yeah it's like oh and that to to a degree when you see jeff who lives at home you're gonna see jeff who lives at home is a quest movie hands down it's lancelot it's sword in the stone but it's a stoner looking for wood glue in the suburbs um of america and we just literally replace that with the form and that that comes directly out of my understanding of movies like the long goodbye you know
Marc:Yeah, it took me, like, out of all the movies, like, I'm a McCabe and Mrs. Miller freak.
Marc:And that movie, you can't get that movie made today.
Marc:I mean, it's incredible.
Guest:I've watched it so many times.
Guest:But here's the cool part about, like, this is not to, again, this is my business brand again, but, like, you can now make a movie because of these cameras that we have that look so fucking good for under $200,000 with...
Guest:huge movie stars in them because they want to come play and as long as you don't have crazy crazy set pieces like you can deliver that movie and you can get creative satisfaction because you made it the way you want to make it you can get financial satisfaction you'll sell it big because you have movie stars in it and we've never been able to do that before so my version of like
Guest:The early 70s renegade filmmaking is happening to a certain degree with movies like Cyrus and Jeff who lives at home because I'm keeping my budgets modest.
Guest:But where it's really happening is in the micro budget stuff that I'm making, which is like I made this movie called Your Sister's Sister with my friend Lynn Shelton who made Hump Day.
Guest:It was me and Emily Blunt and Rose DeWitt.
Guest:And we made that movie really cheaply.
Marc:and you know that's a movie where it was like we had our cake and we ate it too but is there any part of you that like if you look at mccabe mrs miller yeah all right and you look at you know the construction and the cinematography is that you know there there is a looseness to to altman's movies but there's a layered genius to you know to all of it that he's with uh you know the birth of the uh of of industry the end of the wild west
Marc:You're dealing with the relationship between religion, corporations, and mythology.
Marc:You're dealing with, you know, why was Warren Beatty wearing a fucking derby?
Marc:I mean, what is the only point of reference for a derby in the history of film?
Marc:Charlie Chaplin, was he a fucking buffoon?
Marc:You know, there's that scene where he's sitting there.
Guest:There's a bigness to all that.
Marc:But there's a layer of intellect that either, you never know with that shit.
Marc:Are we reading it into it?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Does Altman answer those questions?
Marc:I mean, you know, when somebody was talking about, but what it is, it's an organic relationship between a director, a cinematographer, and a set designer.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that if you're all operating at an elevated point, like, you know, someone pointed out to me, I don't remember who it was, it might have been a semiotics professor at some point in college, that the scene in The Godfather, where the meeting with Sollozzo, where, you know, Sonny, you know, speaks out of turn.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And Sollozzo is wearing that suit and it's all cut and dapper and he's slick.
Marc:And the Godfather, his collar is loose and he's wearing a brown suit.
Marc:And behind Sollozzo, there's a plant, a green plant.
Marc:And behind Brando is like old fucked up pictures.
Marc:Is that something that somebody read into it or is that some fucking genius?
Marc:Do you have any of those answers?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Does any of that stuff interest you as a filmmaker?
Guest:I don't have those answers.
Guest:I, at this point in my career, am all about chaos and stopping my brain and going with my gut instincts.
Guest:So I don't think I will ever walk into a scene and say, I need to make sure that the American flag, but a tattered American flag, is tucked into the corner so I can see that.
Marc:Do you feel that that's pretentious or it's just not within your creativity?
Guest:It's not within my interest level at this point.
Guest:I might grow to it.
Guest:And I kind of feel like...
Guest:Jay and I have a microcosmic approach to filmmaking.
Guest:Our first success was because we got our story right and our performance right.
Guest:Our movie looked like shit.
Guest:It sounded like shit.
Guest:We didn't care.
Guest:We just wanted to get those two things right.
Guest:And now with Cyrus, I was like, oh, okay.
Guest:I'll do story, performance, and a little better camera.
Guest:And then with Jeff, who lives at home, was like, I'll do those three things, and I'm going to add a car chase and a couple of big set pieces.
Guest:So I'm kind of like slowly adding layers onto the cheeseburger of my success level.
Guest:And your creativity, though.
Guest:Yeah, and maybe I'll be able to control all that stuff.
Guest:I can't do that right now.
Marc:But are you afraid of it in any way?
Marc:I mean, what was it like to direct a car chase?
Marc:Were you like, fuck, we've never done a car chase.
Guest:Yeah, I was scared going into it.
Guest:And who walks you through that?
Guest:Your cinematographer?
Guest:Did you have a guy that did car chases?
Guest:We did have a guy that did car chases.
Guest:And we have to sit down with him and say, we're not going to be doing it your way.
Guest:We're going to have to do this our way.
Guest:How can we use your tools to honor our vision?
Guest:To facilitate what we're doing, which is like, I want this thing to look and feel like...
Guest:Um, what's, uh, you know, Popeye Doyle.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Gene Hackman under the, under the, under the subway.
Guest:We got to look like we caught this on a DV camera, you know, that's what this is about.
Guest:So, so in many ways it was just as much about retraining the stunt guys to come to our level as it was learning from them.
Guest:Um,
Guest:So that's all part of the education.
Guest:It's all part of the education.
Guest:And it was really fun, and we got it right.
Guest:And it feels shaggy and loose, and it feels like a part of our movie.
Guest:But to your other question, I am a little bit scared of introducing things like overly production-designed aesthetics and intellectual concepts into the film, because I'm constantly afraid of losing sight of the most important thing on set.
Guest:And that's probably because...
Guest:i've made some bad movies in the past that really hurt my feelings you know and like what no are they did we see them no i buried them all you know but those are movies where i was not focused on the important how did they get away from you what what were you looking at what the important things being uh honest immediate emotional uh tension yeah and and and and performance and the core of the story and interpersonal relations and all that stuff and
Guest:and I got too obsessed with moving the plant over in the right place and making sure the lighting was good.
Guest:And so what I did was I would shoot one side of the scene.
Guest:It looked beautiful.
Guest:The acting was pretty good.
Guest:Broke for 45 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Iced all the actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lit the other side beautifully, brought them back, and got a piece of shit performance because everybody was out of the moment.
Guest:So you have an incredibly well-polished turd.
Guest:Yeah, but on some level, is that not on the actor?
Guest:It is a little bit, but not for the stuff that I'm looking for.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I want more than that.
Guest:Now, what do you got in the can?
Guest:I got this movie, Safety Not Guaranteed, which was at Sundance this year.
Guest:It's me and Jake Johnson and Aubrey Plaza.
Guest:That's what you were there when I saw you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um that's coming out that's you and your brother no that's just something that i uh produced and acted in well let's talk about this acting thing yeah i mean wait what's what's more important you just see it as you know just what you're doing i mean you just uh do you enjoy that or do you want to do it i intensely enjoy it um it is total creative freedom no responsibility basically just listen to the guy i'll try that show up do some stuff let everybody else curate it when you're gone you know you don't argue with directors
Guest:It's basically like being a studio guitar player in a jazz session where you just sit in and you're like, we're in the key of A?
Guest:Great, let's do this.
Guest:Riff a bunch of shit, riff a bunch of shit.
Guest:Okay, you'll probably piece that together.
Guest:All right, I'm out of here.
Guest:Incredible.
Marc:Where'd you get your chops?
Marc:Just from doing your own movies?
Guest:They developed organically, yeah, me and Jay.
Guest:Like, Jay's four years older, so he knew how to work the camera when we were nine, and I was five, and then he put me in front of the camera.
Guest:I've never seen him.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:He's got a beard.
Guest:He looks a little bit like you.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And you guys always got along?
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:I mean, I put most of that on Jay just because it's easier for the younger brother to want to hang out with the older brother, but not as easy the other way around.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, I remember going into his room when I was like eight and listening to the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and being like, no one my age is getting this.
Marc:No, yeah, the older brother thing music-wise, that's the best.
Marc:Ooh, it was huge.
Guest:And four years, just enough.
Guest:And everything.
Guest:I learned how to play drums at nine.
Guest:Was he in a band?
Guest:He and I played in bands together, and then I got more serious as a musician.
Guest:And he didn't do as much touring with me because he was running our editing business.
Guest:Do you miss music?
Guest:No.
Guest:you know what i miss i miss like and i'm i guess it's a you know you could relate it to stand up i miss that those two or three minutes on every show you do that like feel like a high when everything's working and gelling you know but that's the only two to three minutes i miss out of playing music out of the whole 24 hours of a touring day
Marc:You don't miss just banging around on an instrument by yourself?
Marc:Do you still do that?
Guest:I still do that.
Guest:And my daughter and I fart around together, which is really fun.
Guest:But the touring life, it just wore me down.
Guest:It was too hard.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And with your brother, how much fight is there in the generation of these scripts?
Marc:There is zero fight.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:We are so careful and respectful of the relationship, almost scared.
Guest:to do anything that would damage it because it seems so special.
Guest:And we're as creatively aligned as we are, we're extremely different people.
Guest:Like I'm the bull and Jay's the brakes.
Guest:If it were up to me, I would make eight kind of bad movies a year and Jay would make like one masterpiece over the course of 80 years.
Guest:And together somehow we can like combine those two energies and make it work.
Guest:And so I don't know how to explain it.
Guest:It's just like, if there's a problem that comes up, there's an immediate awareness of like, we have a lifetime of making great movies together.
Guest:Even if you're getting hotheaded, don't say anything stupid here.
Guest:And, and I don't have that perspective in other relationships.
Marc:It's also your brother.
Marc:I mean, it's going to take a lot to fuck that up.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:You know, but I'm more like even Katie, my wife and I are more reckless with each other than Jay and I are.
Guest:You can fuck that up.
Guest:You can fuck that up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:How do you know?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Don't only take so much as girls.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But yeah, we're just really, really respectful and careful.
Guest:And usually if there's ever a conflict, we just, within five minutes, one of us figures out who the more passionate one is.
Guest:And we just let the passionate one win.
Marc:Now, what about this producing thing?
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Like when you produce a movie, like you're producing a movie.
Guest:So when I produced Safety Not Guaranteed, it was like I helped them get the money because I was in the movie and they knew that Jay and I consulting on the movie, it would have a better chance of getting into Sundance and doing well.
Guest:So it's a credit.
Guest:Yeah, and it's a way for me to curate a cool movie for me to be in, honestly, which I like doing.
Guest:And then the other producing things.
Marc:So you use your cachet.
Marc:You want me in the movie?
Marc:And I think I can help you get the support for this if I'm in the movie.
Marc:That's a big part of it, honestly.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And then another part of it is like where we just fund the whole project out of money that we either make directing or writing movies for younger filmmakers that we love and want to support.
Guest:The equivalent of you taking somebody on the road with you because you just believe in them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or I like to hang out with them more.
Marc:Or you want to hang out with them.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:It's not so much about like you're going to be it kid.
Marc:It's more like I can tolerate you and we can eat together.
Marc:And at two in the morning when I call you, you will pick up and listen to me.
Marc:I'm not that needy.
Marc:I don't make those calls anymore.
Marc:I sweep very well for some reason.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:I don't know when that happened.
Guest:And I've had anxiety issues and real depression issues and all kinds of dark shit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But what do you do?
Marc:I mean, what kind of depression?
Marc:Did you find that it was chemically based or was it just a side effect of your ambition?
Guest:I think that those two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although I'm not sure.
Guest:I think I was able to manage it for a while and then I think there are moments in my life where it has flipped into the chemical zone where I was like, oh, I need help now.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But mostly I can manage it if I'm like exercising, eating okay, getting my eight hours of sleep.
Guest:But to the point of what you're talking about, even in my most anxiety-ridden and depressive states, I can always sleep eight hours.
Guest:It must be a constitution or a DNA thing.
Marc:Well, if you don't have panic mixed in there.
Marc:If anxiety and panic aren't your issue.
Guest:I've had anxiety and panic mixed in there.
Marc:But depression, sometimes it'll enable you to sleep more than that.
Guest:Even more than that, yeah.
Guest:Those come together for me.
Guest:You always hear people say that anxiety is just depression in a type A person, is one of those theories.
Marc:That must be the pharmaceutical company.
Yeah.
Guest:You can treat it with both.
Marc:It's perfect.
Marc:It's a great drug.
Marc:But wait, what periods are these depression periods?
Marc:I had a real hard one after the puffy chair.
Marc:Why?
Marc:It was my first big one.
Marc:All right, so you had a depression after your first major success.
Guest:Yeah, because I climbed the mountain, the mountain I've been always looking up, and I got to the top, and I wasn't happy.
Guest:And it just fucking freaked me out.
Guest:I didn't know this was happening at the time.
Guest:I didn't have that consciousness, but I can see it now.
Guest:I've been trudging up that hill my whole life.
Guest:I'm going to get a movie in a Sunday.
Guest:It's going to sell.
Guest:And then I'm going to be happy.
Guest:You thought you were going to be happy.
Guest:Subconsciously.
Guest:And then I got to the top and I was like...
Guest:Uh-oh.
Guest:What, like the day after Sundance?
Guest:What the fuck do I do?
Guest:No, it was about six to eight months after, and I was in Hollywood and taking all the meetings and doing the whole thing, and I was like, this is what I've been dreaming of, and it hasn't changed anything.
Marc:Well, it's because you didn't realize that it was just a means to an end, but you seemed to intellectually realize that.
Guest:Yeah, but as you well know, intellectually realizing something and reconciling that with your spirit is a whole other issue.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And so... So you're taking all these meetings and you're like, this is going to be great, kid.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is just the beginning.
Guest:Everything's going to be incredible.
Marc:It's going to be amazing.
Guest:And then you realize you're on the top of your mountain and... And then all of a sudden, six months later, I'm having a panic attack and I'm on the floor and I'm just like, what...
Marc:what's going on but none of that was realizing that uh you know you just because of the clouds couldn't see the higher mountains yeah exactly you're like i gotta climb that too i just got here fuck um yeah so there was a little bit of that i think that's normal that's sort of like it's like uh what do they call that in theater you know after after you shoot after you do play that kind of like that time when it's over that postpartum depression thing or whatever it is that was part of it and
Guest:and then you know i mean i was 27 too i was just like not that emotionally aware of what was going on in my life and and i think i've always been as just kind of as you said you sense the darkness in me that's like it's like it's just been this driven dark persona in me for whatever reason so i think that was brewing but that's better now it's better now because you're fucking compulsively working you've got a family
Marc:I'm basically feeding the beast is what I'm doing now.
Guest:I'm not going to therapy and trying to fix my nature.
Guest:I am giving into my nature and trying to be somewhat responsible with it.
Marc:Well, there's that fine line too, not unlike ambition.
Marc:Self-pity in a successful person is not attractive at all.
Guest:Not at all.
Guest:Don't feel sorry for me.
Guest:My life is fucking awesome.
Guest:I'm just kind of a dark person and it's always going to be there and that's nothing I can do.
Guest:and that comes out in the in the movies yeah I mean my sense of humor I guess is a little bit there and I guess that's the way the way I experience the world is what I'm trying to put in my movies which is like Jay and I will have this you know whether it's a fight or Katie and I will have a fight and it seems like the world is over and it's so dark and so sad and the next morning I wake up and I'm just laughing my ass off at myself and I don't know why that is or why I have that perspective do you cry too
Marc:Yeah, I cry a lot.
Marc:Hell yeah, I don't cry as much because I'm not arguing as much with the woman I'm with, or with any of them.
Guest:This is a good sign, by the way.
Marc:Well, I think that, I recently was working on this bit that when you have these weird territorial arguments with a woman, in our case,
Marc:And you make this fucking point that's fueled by pride and a certain amount of rage.
Marc:And then when it's played out and you sit there and you're just brooding, you should be crying.
Marc:You should just be crying and saying like, seven.
Marc:that's so great you know that there's that humility of of there's nothing but the pride is such a an ass-kicking disaster god nothing good it but it's so weird that you know as somebody i don't know how much catholicism grew up with tons
Marc:Well, you know, the seven deadly sins is a pretty good list.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's a pretty fucking brilliant list that, you know, you never, you know, all these things are sort of like the root of all of them.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are healthy human endeavors.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:But to manage, right.
Marc:But to manage them.
Marc:You know, the idea of sin as not being, you know, you can't correct sin.
Marc:But, you know, sin was really designed as a sort of a context to judge your behavior against.
Marc:To me, that's sort of genius.
Marc:But, you know, you don't really understand pride until you fucking, your ass has been handed to you somehow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And pride is that one that it's always going to come up.
Marc:And I imagine that has to be one of the things you fight with that.
Marc:I'm sure that when you got to the top of the mountain, you enjoyed being on top of the mountain for at least a few months.
Guest:Oh, definitely.
Guest:It was more like weeks, honestly.
Guest:I don't have the Constitution to go months because I was...
Marc:I was looking for the next mountain, you know?
Marc:Because I think a lot of your movies speak to that in that this must be percolating inside whatever ambitious or workaholic.
Marc:Your creativity seems to be kind of driven towards the natural humiliation of life.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I mean, that's how I experience it.
Guest:I'm constantly doing buffoonish things.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:And making mistakes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:really i mean have you made any mistakes that you know really put your life in that really was like how like not life mistakes that humiliated yourself or that you had to grovel for um not life mistakes that would result in like you know divorce or or losing a good relationship with my brother you know but i move very very quickly and on instinct you know um and that gets me in trouble sometimes
Marc:Because you're selfish.
Marc:I don't know that I'm selfish.
Marc:Or you're self-involved to the point where you don't take other people's feelings.
Guest:With my creativity, I become blinded and self-oriented at times.
Guest:And I'm just like, let's set up this movie and let's go here and let's do this.
Guest:And then a couple of people around me are like, dude, I thought you were going to be working on my movie at this time.
Guest:Things like that.
Guest:I can get buffoonish.
Marc:Well, do you enjoy... I mean, is there some part of you that creates these characters?
Marc:Because you don't seem paralyzingly dark.
Marc:So do you create these characters to kind of play out those feelings?
Marc:Are you entertained by the... 100%.
Guest:I love... By how far you can push a character?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And they're all extensions of me and Jay to a certain degree.
Guest:mean the the reductive word would be the calling them lovable losers to a certain extent you know right but for for us that I'm not interested at least at this point in my career creating a hero protagonist who is perfect and watching them overcome external obstacles I love the internal obstacles because it's what I face I have zero problems I have an awesome house great wife
Guest:beautiful kid good working relationship with my brother great career yeah i got my health all this stuff you know yeah yet somehow i can fill my day with worry and stress and concerns over things how the hell how the hell do i do that and i don't know i'm constantly amazed by that like what um like like am i gonna die
Guest:No, I'll have 12 great projects going on, but the 13th one might be losing its money, and all I can do is worry about that one.
Marc:So you fester on the negative shit.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes I do.
Guest:But that's just to talk about the characters in my movies, which is like...
Guest:I never thought that these white middle classy kind of problems would be film worthy right now and then one day Jay and I went on our instinct and we he was like depressed because our movies were shitty and I was like we're making a movie today it was like 2002 yeah and and I was like what's something interesting that happened to you you know and I was like like the real conversations that we have and he's like
Guest:A week ago, I almost had an emotional breakdown trying to record the outgoing greeting of my answering machine because I could not get it right.
Guest:And I was like, okay, something went off in my head with that.
Guest:I was like, okay, that's a stupid little problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it also has an existential quality to it.
Guest:And it's a real problem for someone who is not facing famine or cancer.
Guest:So I was like, okay, I'm going out the door.
Guest:You get the camera.
Guest:I'm going to come in and try to recreate that.
Guest:And we shot one 20-minute improvised take of that.
Guest:And it's the worst-looking and sounding film in history.
Guest:We shot it on our parents' DV camera.
Guest:And that was our first movie that got into Sundance.
Guest:And I have stayed true to that ethic to this day, which is basically...
Guest:Those things that I never thought would be film worthy, but that are personal to me and that feel interesting and funny and dark.
Guest:I just trust those things.
Marc:Well, I think that like in my understanding of something like that, you're dealing with somebody like what that reveals about a person is an obsessive nature, you know, a lack of self-acceptance, you know, probably a self-loathing that escalates.
Guest:And you can extrapolate all those things from the tiniest things.
Marc:Well, and I think that's true.
Marc:I think that's the poetry of day-to-day life.
Marc:If you can focus in on those moments and those behaviors, because I don't like that, I guess you're using the word reductive, that what problems could you have?
Marc:I lost my arm.
Marc:And I'm like, well, I don't have that one, but I'm pretty fucked up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How is this a competition?
Marc:I mean, the best you can do is find empathy and say, well, I'm really... It's horrible that you lost your arm, and I definitely feel bad for you, but I'm trying to record this message.
Marc:And it's also hard for me, man.
Marc:This is hard.
Guest:I mean, maybe if I lost my arm, I'd have something real to focus on.
Guest:Although I will say this, that really tough...
Guest:bout of depression i had after the puffy chair i did have a great couple of years and every now and then i can remember it where where i was like you can't touch me now like get me a broken leg whatever like i thought i was never gonna get off the floor sure and and i do still retain a little bit of that perspective every now and then like i you know when i get the flu yeah it's not quite as bad because i'm like
Guest:I thought for a second that I was never going to be normal again.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But also, like, you know, sometimes with, like, for me, because the one thing that I know, and you seem to have been for years now, is that, like, I'm fucking busy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, every once in a while, I have a moment where I'm like, when does this shit stop?
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm in it right now.
Marc:And it's like you don't know if you can continue doing it because it's like there's some part of me that's exhausted.
Marc:I'm not physically exhausted.
Marc:But, you know, I got Mark Duplass coming over here and I got to fucking talk to him for an hour.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And I'm fucking exhausted.
Marc:And I know he's going to talk about himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:no no but i mean like i mean my my jobs are not as big but you know i can only do what i can do yeah and i and i never know when to stop working and i never know you know when to to slow down i don't know how to take a break but i think that what you're talking about is that you know i mean when you got kids and stuff and we we started with this that they they humble they humble you and you you know the if you kick into that what you're supposed to be which is you know selfless and in service of
Guest:that that child's welfare and and and being able to you know express love and take care of that that you know something inside you has to relax there's a bit of I mean like today there was a bunch of stuff I could be doing I was like no I'm going to see Maren I'm going to do this other thing and I'm going to pick my daughter up at five o'clock like that's what I have to do where is she um she's at school and uh you know in Los Feliz okay you got time so super easy you know
Guest:So The League, let's do that.
Guest:League.
Guest:You're having a good time.
Guest:I love The League.
Guest:And it's... Look, there's zero emotional content on The League.
Marc:Yeah, but I honestly have not... I think I watched the first episode, but I love those guys.
Marc:I love the guys.
Marc:I know Ren is easy well.
Marc:We work together at the Comedy Store.
Marc:Nick Kroll, I love.
Marc:And there's a couple other people on there that I know.
Marc:Paul Scheer, I think you probably know.
Marc:Oh, he's great.
Marc:Yeah, he was in here.
Guest:And then my wife's on the show with me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it's doing well, right?
Guest:And it does really, really well.
Guest:We're in this really cool spot where...
Guest:We're kind of uncancellable.
Guest:We get a few million viewers a week.
Guest:We've got great sponsors.
Guest:We're kind of cheap to make.
Guest:So I think we're going into season four now.
Guest:And it's the best TV job in history.
Guest:We shoot three months out of the year.
Guest:It's all improvised.
Guest:So we just show up and...
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Get the outline and, okay, here we go.
Guest:And everybody's nice.
Guest:What's your favorite documentary?
Guest:American movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah, okay.
Guest:I mean, Mark Borchardt is the definition of the American hero for me.
Marc:What's he up to?
Guest:Everything I'm doing is a pale comparison to him.
Marc:What's he done?
Guest:I don't know what he's doing.
Guest:You know, he rode that movie for a little bit and got some appearances and made some money and sold some of his movies off of it, which was great.
Guest:Do you know him?
Guest:I met him on the tour, the doc tour when the movie came out, but I don't know him personally.
Guest:Why wouldn't you reach out to him and maybe produce something for him?
Guest:uh i don't think mark's a good filmmaker you know i think mark is a beautiful character and his dream of trying to make that movie without the skills uh and what he had is is like it's the most beautiful thing in the world to me and funny as shit and you know amazing so heartbreaking heartbreaking man but funny i mean it's all rolled up into one but there's such a fucking fine line between like you know sort of like and i think you understand it is that you know
Marc:So creating characters that are, or being a character that just tries and tries, but it's just not going to get there.
Marc:That's a real person.
Marc:And there's more of them than there are people who do get it.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:And I also just happen to be in love with those people.
Marc:right well right but you know there's such a fine line in capturing those people and not making fun of them yeah like you know i have no tolerance for people that generate losers to to spit at them yeah yeah i i am so with you on that and i try to explain that over and over again to people
Guest:Is like, you know, you'll see it with Jason Segel as Jeff who lives at home.
Guest:You know, he looks like a stoner living in his mom's basement.
Guest:But like that guy's my hero, that character and the way he lives.
Guest:And and I think that it is a fine line.
Guest:And but I don't want to oversimplify it.
Guest:But honestly, if you as a filmmaker are in love with those people and you just infuse everything you do with that love, you can throw all kinds of shit at them.
Guest:You can make fun of them all you want.
Guest:As long as you love them, it's going to come through.
Marc:And as long as everybody understands that.
Marc:Because I'm not even sure what I'm judging it on, but there is a sensibility of... Sometimes in docs, you're not sure whether the subject understands that he's a comedic...
Marc:100% antihero.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And, and, and, but I think that it speaks more to the, the fact that, you know, there's that whole idea that it's not, you know, it's, it's the process that any process that anyone's in creatively, you know, that's it.
Marc:Life is not that long and we're all judging ourselves against, you know, tremendous success, but, but at some point there, there is a brutal acceptance of one's limitations and, and one's a, you know, journey.
Guest:but but i just have such a hard time with with uh there's almost a like a a condescending ironic bullying of of the underdogs of the world 100 i mean i i actually i like christopher guest movies but i think they border on that right sometimes for me you know i think that's true um and so like i want to i i always want to be on the other side of that
Marc:Yeah, it's weird.
Marc:It's almost an intellectual bullying.
Marc:There's the whole irony movement, which I think that you are reacting against.
Marc:And I think that the sort of paradigm shift you're talking about is hopefully in that direction to where someone's creativity or someone's presence is ironic in relation to
Marc:to reality or the work they're doing.
Marc:Like their ironic disposition is like, you know, I'm here, but my presence here is ironic because these people are fucking losers, but they're cool because a bunch of me and my ironically detached friends, you know, are here.
Marc:They're observing.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It's really, I mean, it's weird.
Marc:Do you know what I'm talking about?
Guest:I really can't wait for you to see Jeff now because when we set out to make Jeff, I said, I want to make a character who has not an ounce of cynicism in his body.
Guest:And and we're like, how are we the right guy?
Guest:How are we going to define this?
Guest:Well, yeah, we picked Siegel, which was helpful.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then and the way we decided to set him up was basically like he is obsessed with the movie signs.
Guest:He thinks it's incredible and all and that the universe is speaking to him and giving him, you know, and to me, I was just like.
Guest:I love that guy.
Guest:How easy is it to make fun of signs?
Guest:This guy, he fucking loves it.
Guest:He just thinks it's like rip roaring, fist pumping, beautiful, you know, and he thinks his destiny is out there for him.
Marc:And that's such an amazing thing because that is what, you know, postmodern ironic culture killed is the ability to have feelings about things that the herd.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:You know, the herd of hipsters has diminished.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:With Jeff and with the stuff I'm making now, I want to raise fists in air and pump and look like somebody at a 1980s Neil Diamond concert.
Guest:That's what we need right now.
Marc:Yeah, the humility of liking something that other people have deemed uncool.
Marc:Well, I'm sorry I didn't see it, and I will see it.
Marc:Yes, you will.
Marc:Are you mad at me?
Marc:No, not at all.
Marc:Good talking to you.
Marc:Oh, that was the lovely Mark Duplass.
Marc:What a mensch.
Marc:Nice guy.
Marc:Talented guy.
Marc:Happy for him.
Marc:Did you hear that?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:The new Mark.
Marc:Because I'm on the beach thinking about things.
Marc:That's my speculation.
Marc:Going to come back a new man.
Marc:Peace.
Marc:A lot of peace inside.
Marc:Oh, fuck.
Marc:That's ridiculous.
Marc:Hey, look.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all the WTFPod things.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Get the Mark and Tom show.
Marc:Me and Sharpling.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:I'll mail you some shit.
Marc:Get some merch.
Marc:Kick in a few shekels.
Marc:Check my schedule.
Marc:See who's been on the show.
Marc:Get a little just...
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:I just shit my pants.
Marc:Coffee, just coffee.coop.
Marc:Also, I want to tell you about this because I fucked up.
Marc:If you're still listening, I fucked up.
Marc:I did.
Marc:I fucked up a little bit.
Marc:I was supposed to be on this show, and now I'm not on this show.
Marc:But I want to plug this show because I want to help my buddy out.
Marc:All right?
Marc:My buddy, and your buddy as well, Eddie Pepitone.
Marc:is doing a Bitter Buddha fundraiser.
Marc:It's a documentary about Eddie called The Bitter Buddha, and it's going to be at Just for Laughs up in Montreal.
Marc:A lot of things are going on, but they need some funding to...
Marc:to push it out there into the world.
Marc:So he's having an evening with the Bitter Buddha, a night of live comedy to celebrate the upcoming documentary, The Bitter Buddha.
Marc:That's Tuesday, June 26th at 8 p.m.
Marc:at the Echoplex in Los Angeles.
Marc:And it's featuring...
Marc:Some fucking hilarious people.
Marc:Maria Bamford, Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Rob Delaney, Jen Kirkman, Ron Lynch, Andy Kindler, Sean Conroy, Greg Fitzsimmons, and the Pep.
Marc:Mr. Pepitone himself will be there, of course.
Marc:A surprise guest.
Marc:There's live music and food trucks and everything else.
Marc:It's an event to raise funds for The Bitter Buddha, which will be hitting theaters and video on demand later this year.
Marc:So do that for Eddie.
Marc:And I'm sorry I couldn't be there.
Marc:All right?
Marc:That's that.
Marc:Now I'm going to get back to relaxing because that's what I'm doing.
Marc:It's a speculation because while you're listening to this, I'm not here, but I'm never here.
Marc:It's not live, but now I'm not even doing what I'm actually talking about doing.
Marc:Is it?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:All right.