Episode 432 - Natasha Lyonne
Marc:okay let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckstables what the fuck'll bury fins that's it i am mark maron this is wtf this is my show thank you for listening thank you for being here good morning good afternoon good evening
Marc:I hope you're having a good drive, walk, run, treadmill time, whatever it is.
Marc:I hope you're getting that painting done.
Marc:Whenever you listen to me, I hope everything is okay.
Marc:Things are not great.
Marc:And I won't bum anybody out, man, but it's weird.
Marc:It's weird being who I am and knowing that I'm going through things and I'm trying to figure out how to tell you guys.
Marc:I'm living my life and because of the relationship I have with you...
Marc:I got to figure out, well, how do I frame what I'm going through?
Marc:How do I talk about it with them?
Marc:And, you know, let them know what's up because that is what I do.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:It's fucking crazy.
Marc:Well, look, today on the show, Natasha Lyonne is on the show, and I just want to say that this was taped.
Marc:I believe she had already taped Orange is the New Black or some of it, and it had not been released yet, but she was excited about it.
Marc:And since then, it's sort of taken off, and I'm thrilled.
Marc:that uh you know this happened for her and that the show and everybody loves to show uh this is an intense story uh you know and we had a great conversation she's so fucking bright and funny and and her life took her to a pretty a pretty dark place and um and we get to it all right now look you know um
Marc:it's you know it's a rough time right now and and it because you know as some of you know and and as i've alluded to you know on this podcast that you you know i'm not an easy fella and you know i'm in you know i'm in a relationship that was difficult and it was difficult for a long time for a lot of reasons and uh
Marc:And it just became, for me, too much.
Marc:And I ended my relationship with Jess, and it's horrible.
Marc:It's just a horrible feeling because, well, let's see if I can just parse this out.
Marc:Because, you know, it's hard to break up with somebody that you love and care about, but you know you have to do it.
Marc:I don't think I've ever done it before.
Marc:I don't think I've ever done something this difficult in relationship before.
Marc:I care about her immensely and I love her, but we could not go on the way we were going on, at least from where I was sitting, at least from my side of it.
Marc:Look, I know I'm a pain in the ass.
Marc:I know I'm difficult.
Marc:I also know that the relationship had gotten rather toxic and it takes two to toxic.
Marc:And we did, well, I did, we did, you know, we were trying to make it work and it wasn't working.
Marc:And I'm fucking heartbroken about it.
Marc:It was not over anything simple.
Marc:I'm not going to talk about, you know, what happened.
Marc:I just wanted to let you guys know that's what's been going on.
Marc:And it's just heartbreaking.
Marc:I'm sad.
Marc:It's been a long time since I've been alone.
Marc:and uh and she's a great person but it was it it it just it just got too difficult and and i and i had to uh i had to end it and it's it's just awful
Marc:Because, you know, I, you know, I've been, you know, I have not, I just can't seem to do, you know, a healthy relationship.
Marc:And, you know, I want to.
Marc:And you think sometimes you think like, well, maybe I'm different.
Marc:You know, maybe things have changed.
Marc:Maybe I'm a new guy.
Marc:You try to do it differently.
Marc:And then, you know, you engage in a certain way over a certain amount of time and the same sort of things happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:you know the same negative things happen they come out of me and they engage with her negative things and and it's it just it's just horrible because we had plans you know we were going to get married and uh it's just you know just it couldn't i couldn't go further and i don't i don't like the fact that you know now i've hurt another person i never i didn't want to hurt her
Marc:And I have.
Marc:And she's angry and sad.
Marc:And I tried to handle it as decently as possible.
Marc:But I did break up with her.
Marc:And it feels horrible.
Marc:And I'm sad and I'm heartbroken.
Marc:Because it didn't work.
Marc:And it's disappointing and it's painful.
Marc:And I'm not usually the guy that does this in any sort of...
Marc:you know, responsible or structured way.
Marc:I mean, generally, I let things just blow up until somebody hates me so much they just tell me that they can't take it anymore.
Marc:But I have too much respect for her and I, you know, respect for what we were...
Marc:Trying to do the hardest thing about about being in a situation like this or having to do something that you fundamentally don't want to do because your heart is involved.
Marc:But, you know, it's the right thing to do is that, you know, I want her to be happy.
Marc:I want her to have the life that she wants to have.
Marc:And, you know, just in where we were headed and what was going on between us, that was not going to happen.
Marc:It was not going to happen with me.
Marc:And again, it's not a simple thing.
Marc:It's not just about a baby.
Marc:It's not just about marriage.
Marc:It's just it's deeper.
Marc:And it was it was just painful and difficult to know that.
Marc:But God damn it.
Marc:I want her to be happy.
Marc:I've never been more connected to someone in my life.
Marc:So this is very difficult and very sad.
Marc:And that's it.
Marc:That's what's going on.
Marc:And as I said, it's been a long time since I've been alone.
Marc:And I find that I'm wandering around my house, not knowing what to do with myself.
Marc:She took up a large part of my heart and my brain.
Marc:I get very OCD when I'm sad.
Marc:A lot of rearranging things and cleaning things out.
Marc:So that's what's been going on.
Marc:And...
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I don't know if I'm ever going to get it right.
Marc:But I did.
Marc:I do know that, you know, whatever I have to do, whatever I've got to do to, you know, get myself straight with this shit.
Marc:You know, I got it.
Marc:I got to do alone.
Marc:And I mean, that's just the fucking reality.
Marc:oh man but it was interesting you know after it all came to to sort of go down in the last couple weeks have been pretty horrible and she uh she moved out and that day i came back to uh to the house for the first time
Marc:you know, when she wasn't there and it's just, you just don't know what the hell you're going to feel, you know?
Marc:And it was, it's just, you know, there's just part of the brain that is so connected, you know, for, for better, for worse with, with somebody else that you love and that you're in a relationship with.
Marc:And, and now that's, that's not there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I had an empty house in my head and I had a half empty house in reality and I walked through it and then I went out onto the front porch and I swear to God this is true.
Marc:I went out onto the front porch and I was just standing there looking out and fucking deaf black cat came up onto the step on the front porch.
Marc:Now I, this cat is a cat that I almost exclusively see out back.
Marc:He just came up on the front porch and he just looked at me and I hadn't seen him in like four days.
Marc:I was like, you want to eat?
Marc:And I went in, got some food.
Marc:I usually feed him out back.
Marc:I feed him out back, but he's up front.
Marc:And I put the food out for him.
Marc:And I put the water out.
Marc:And he just came back and looked at me some more and then just took off.
Marc:Didn't eat the food.
Marc:It was almost like he was like, you all right?
Marc:I'm just checking up.
Marc:I know some shit's going down and I just want to check up.
Marc:I'm good.
Marc:Are you good?
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, I'll eat out back when I'm hungry.
Marc:I just want to make sure you are all right.
Marc:That's how I read it.
Marc:So now you know.
Marc:um you know we'll work through this together i'm not going to be a you know like a downer about it i'm not going to justify anything i'm not going to uh you know characterize what happened you know i'll take responsibility for you know for what i did in it pow just shit my pants um justcoffee.coop you can get it wtfpod.com
Marc:And, you know, that's where we're at.
Marc:So that's what's going on.
Marc:And thank you for listening.
Marc:So let's talk now to Natasha Lyonne.
Marc:This is heavy, but it's good.
Marc:She's great.
Marc:And I couldn't be happier for her success.
Marc:Natasha Leone, right?
Marc:Leone.
Guest:I think it's Leone.
Marc:Leone.
Marc:I knew that.
Marc:I put an A. But there is an E in the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But where does the name come from?
Marc:It's not your real name.
Guest:It's French.
Guest:It comes from France.
Marc:How'd you choose that one?
Guest:It's my middle name.
Marc:It is?
Guest:actually bianca is also my middle name so natasha bianca yeah but i'm not getting into the rest of it i just can't handle it too early if you want to go back to talking about eichmann in jerusalem i can handle that a lot easier than what's the rest of it listen you have the internet you own the internet i don't it's not like there's no secrets left in this society but i want to hear you say it i want to hear you i want to hear the i want to let you know that i've done a lot of work of myself
Guest:To get to a place where I can say, I am not mature enough to handle this conversation right now.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You know, I got a lot of family history it comes with.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:You can't handle saying your last name.
Guest:My mother's maiden name is Bookinger.
Guest:I'll give you that much.
Marc:I'm only going to get Bookinger.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I can't get the- If you want, you can even pronounce it Bookinger, if that makes you feel better.
Marc:You want to just pronounce it Jew?
Guest:Well, I mean, it really is.
Guest:That really is the point, right?
Marc:Do you want to light a cigarette?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Wait, did you used to smoke and those are lozenges?
Guest:Is that right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I haven't smoked in 10 years.
Guest:I do have to quit.
Marc:Do you?
Marc:It's hard, man.
Guest:It's a hard one.
Marc:How did you do it?
Marc:Well, I'm clearly still on nicotine.
Guest:Yeah, for 10 years you've been on nicotine.
Marc:Yeah, one way or the other.
Marc:I've gone without it for a few months here and there, but I stopped a lot of things.
Marc:I have to assume nicotine has some negative consequences, and now I find that these lozenges, there's mannitol in them, which is kind of laxative-ish, so there's that side.
Marc:It's like cigarettes.
Marc:Yeah, a little bit.
Marc:You stopped a lot of stuff, though, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You feel good about it?
Guest:What if I was like, no, and just started shooting heroin?
Guest:Like, actually, no.
Guest:That's never happened here.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:If you want to relapse on heroin on my show.
Guest:I do happen to have this rock of crack in a pipe, and I know you've got some history in the same subject, so I felt like this was the time and place.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I've had someone come out on the show.
Marc:I've never had someone relapse on crack on the show.
Marc:I think that would be good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How long has it been?
Guest:It was like seven and a half years.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:So you were through all the fucking...
Guest:Yeah, but that was brutal.
Guest:Horrendous.
Guest:Like really doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think that's why so many people struggle to stick with it.
Guest:I mean, it is not for the faint of heart.
Marc:What, getting clean, getting sober?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, if you're really going to do it, and, you know, I mean, if you're as low bottom of a case as I was, which was like a real sort of like a hope to die junkie, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Then I wish you good luck.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Godspeed with the...
Guest:I mean, like I had someone describe it to me as like not only do you have to like smash down the house, but you have to like then take out the Indian burial ground underneath the foundation of the house and then like begin to rebuild.
Guest:So, I mean, that process to me is certainly why I think a lot of people like 28 days later can't really hack it, you know, because it's not a 28 day scene.
Marc:No, no, it's not.
Marc:And with dope, it seems like there'd be a bigger struggle.
Marc:Because I know guys who were junkies, and a lot of them, a couple of the ones that I know, a couple of the junkies I know, they ended up drinking, but not doing dope anymore.
Marc:They ended up doing other stuff.
Marc:But it just seems like the relationship with heroin is so much deeper than just...
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think in a lot of ways it really speaks to, like, aesthetics or something.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:I think that we all get so hooked on this, like, in our, like, for me, in the existential angst of my teenage years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was, like, really getting hooked on the aesthetic appeal of just, like, so many of these.
Guest:The heroes.
Guest:Yeah, of these heroes.
Guest:Oh, me too, man.
Guest:That were these, you know, massive characters that just seem like I'm going to walk in line with, you know, my friends, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I do think that that's part of what's tricky.
Guest:Like, you know, it's hard to listen to music when you get clean because it just, you know, brings up all that stuff of like, I want to be the fucking cool guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Romanticizing it.
Guest:Like big time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Me too.
Guest:And it's not very like a series of, you know, platitudes certainly don't feel very romantic by comparison.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:If you have the sort of a makeup that would like leads you to want to like, you know, shoot up all listening to Lou Reed in the first place to just be like one day at a time.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:One day at a time feels a little bit like that's possibly the most absurd thing I've ever heard in my life as a solution to my fucking problem.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:I do.
Guest:So I don't even know how it's really happens.
Guest:It's pretty magical.
Marc:But it's weird because, I mean, you're younger than I am.
Marc:But, I mean, you grew up in Manhattan, right?
Marc:So you grew up in it.
Marc:I mean, that was the birthplace of all of it, of all that dirty, junky, rock and roll business.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So where, where, where did you?
Guest:Richard Hell is my father.
Guest:So it's true.
Guest:It was really hard for me.
Guest:It is.
Guest:My last name is Hell.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:Helen's theme.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:So he's a sweet guy.
Guest:He's sober.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know him, but I'd like to.
Guest:He's around.
Guest:I mean, he, right.
Guest:I like to know him.
Guest:I mean, sleep with him.
Marc:You can sleep with Richard Hell.
Marc:Maybe a lot of those guys I think are older.
Marc:They're married, but he wrote a book.
Marc:I interviewed him a few years ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When I was on another thing.
Marc:And he's okay.
Marc:He's one of the few that lived out of that whole thing.
Marc:You read Please Kill Me, right?
Marc:Well, of course.
Marc:That's the Bible, right?
Marc:Is that what you built your life on?
Guest:Like that and Hammer of the God.
Guest:And Cassavetes on Cassavetes.
Marc:Those were it?
Marc:What part of the city did you grow up in?
Guest:well i was not really in the birthplace of dirt i was in i was on the upper east side i was on the upper east side right i actually speak like this yeah and um and i was like but i was a scholarship kid on the upper east side right with like a single mother and so i was in an outcast and i was in yeshiva you know i was in yeshiva on the upper east side the rabbi joseph h lookstein upper school of ramaz and lower school
Guest:And, you know, I was a bad kid, a bad influence.
Guest:I was expelled for, like, selling weed to the children.
Guest:But simultaneously, I was in, like, Honors Talmud classes and, you know, reading Aramaic, you know.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with full-on Orthodox Jew?
Guest:Well, I'm, you know, my father's side, Flatbush, and my mother's side, Auschwitz.
Guest:So I'm sort of like...
Guest:Deep in the sweet spot, and they're both sort of like the black sheep wild ones of their otherwise sort of very conservative families, but even that was still very orthodox.
Marc:But your mother wasn't a survivor, your grandmother?
Guest:No, my grandparents, yeah.
Marc:So you grew up with that very real reality of hearing those stories.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:I mean, there was a lot of... I mean, that's one of the things I'm nervous about today is I don't want to, you know, make any jokes.
Guest:I think I hang... I know so many sort of Eastern European sort of, you know, many generation later Jews that I think that we can be sort of...
Guest:you know, light with our kind of like Hitler jokes.
Guest:And I think it's sort of a dangerous territory because obviously it's, you know, pretty heavy real stuff and like the heaviest.
Guest:But I will say that there was like a lot of, you know, Hitler this and Hitler that in my childhood.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was like a lot of, I think that Hitler panic was still.
Marc:How could it not be?
Marc:How did they get out?
Marc:I mean, do you know the story?
Guest:I mean, you know, so it's my mother's parents.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my grandmother, Ella, was there was a big family, but really the only people that made it past the gas chambers were these three sisters.
Guest:and a brother.
Guest:And the three sisters, to hear her tell it, she was like, for us, it was not so bad.
Guest:We have blonde hair and blue eyes.
Guest:And with the blondes and the blues, we were very slim.
Guest:And what it was, every day, we have apple.
Guest:And I'm not sure like what...
Guest:What I take from that is a really a horror story of what it must have been like to be sort of an attractive Aryan looking woman in Auschwitz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was I mean, I don't know.
Guest:I like Viktor Frankl has got to be one of like definitely in terms of like what's helped me over the years to kind of stay in it.
Guest:He was the existential therapy guy.
Guest:Well, yeah, but he was, he was the logo therapy guy who was, you know, the Holocaust survivor that kind of came out with it.
Guest:Like, you know, man's search for meaning and that kind of thing.
Marc:But did you find that your grandparents, was she telling you that she had to like service?
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:Like I gotta, I mean, it's a weird thing because I'm telling, this was her like notorious story.
Guest:I have heard that story so many times.
Marc:She was attractive in an Aryan way, and that's why she survived.
Guest:And that she had like, you know, they are giving us, I have a nice scarf on my head.
Guest:And it's like, I mean, just out of all the horror that this is her story to me to kind of pass on, you know, because I think it's also such a different story.
Guest:Uh, culture.
Guest:Uh, you know, meanwhile, I will say that in terms of like the drug addiction or whatever, I mean, it's super surreal that, you know, here they had sort of like a help to contribute to my treatment expenses.
Guest:And, um, when I got there, well, um, my grandfather is still alive.
Guest:My, my grandmother's passed away, but, uh,
Guest:like at the table when I came to you know visit them for like a weekend or something a day trip they you know put a glass of wine at the table like just assuming in other words I think that the when you're coming from and sort of you know the way survivor's guilt tracks in a way of like and minimizing my own difficulty of like when you come from that sort of lineage it's very tricky to like hold your own problems at not being like the you know what I mean like the dumbest guy in the universe like well hey I don't know what to tell you I'm
Guest:like cocaine, you know?
Guest:We were in Auschwitz!
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I do think that ultimately, I guess what I'm saying is that because they survived the war, they don't really see it.
Guest:You know, they survived the war, made themselves a really nice life in like Beverly Hills and Hancock Park and all this...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I've never really heard her get into the horror stories of the war because ultimately I think they made it out alive.
Guest:And it was like by comparison, such a, you know, that to speak about their parents that they lost or the younger siblings that got lost and just the whole horror.
Guest:I never heard anybody get into it.
Marc:Well, they did what they had to do, I think, on some level.
Guest:To survive is really the takeaway of my impression or whatever.
Guest:My poor Hungarian impression is to say, I think that they did what they had to do to survive.
Marc:And then whatever the truth of that is, it's their business.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:I mean, I think it's that way with a lot of people that fought in that war.
Marc:period they or any war that there are certain things that you know as a testament to to survivors and generally they're able to contextualize it and go on i mean there are some people how the hell do you think how would you be able to even fathom it i mean some testament to an amazing sort of disposition and fortitude to be able to go well you know it's horrible but we did it we're out what did they end up doing how they build their life here
Marc:Watches.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, you know, do you remember the Spiro Agnew watch that had, he was like a cartoon Spiro Agnew with the moving hands?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's my family's watch.
Guest:I mean, I don't want to make like a nepotistic claim late in my career, but...
Guest:That and on my father's side, I'm related to Al Jaffe, who does the back of Mad Magazine.
Guest:The best.
Guest:Al Jaffe was the best.
Guest:Listen, I'm just telling you, I didn't get into showbiz by coincidence.
Guest:I loved Al Jaffe when I was a kid.
Guest:Al Jaffe opened every door in this town.
Guest:Did you know that guy?
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:It's hilarious.
Marc:He did the fold-up one, and he did a lot of the art in Mad Magazine.
Marc:He was one of my favorites.
Guest:Meanwhile, my grandfather, Morris, Morris Buckinger, was a, he was like more of an underground war hero who I guess would do things like ride the train back and forth with a limp.
Guest:And his first wife was a, she was like with him in the underground kind of a thing.
Marc:Moving Jews around.
Guest:Sort of, I guess.
Guest:I mean, again.
Marc:You can't get it, huh?
Guest:Not only that, but I went to yeshiva for years.
Guest:In theory, I should know a lot about the Holocaust.
Marc:Do they teach that at yeshiva?
Guest:The Holocaust is like a six-year course.
Marc:It's a lifelong course if you're a Jew.
Marc:Eichmann in Jerusalem.
Marc:I think it's so ironic that I put that up there.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I don't know why you had it here for me.
Guest:I didn't mean to put it there.
Guest:I lie everywhere I go.
Guest:It's like Eichmann in Jerusalem following.
Guest:I grew up with it.
Marc:No, I took it out because I was looking for it, because I had a discussion with Jeffrey Tambor a while back, and he brought up the banality of evil.
Marc:And I'd wonder if I still had that book.
Marc:It was just because I cleaned the garage.
Marc:It was not meant to provoke anything.
Guest:No, I mean, it's fine.
Guest:It just seems a little bit like a sensitive subject.
Guest:That's sort of weird that you would go right for the Holocaust.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I was going to put the other one out.
Marc:Maybe I had another book.
Marc:I had survival in Auschwitz somewhere.
Marc:Wait, why is Mein Kampf underneath my seat?
Marc:I have that too somewhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I had survival in Auschwitz, that Primo Levi book, which is a great book.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's all about the barter system and what Jews sort of did to survive and have a life in that place.
Guest:I did this movie that this guy Tim Blake Nelson directed called The Grey Zone.
Marc:I love that guy.
Guest:Yeah, I love him too.
Guest:And that was a movie about the Holocaust.
Guest:And I remember calling my grandmother while preparing.
Guest:I have a great picture of me in a Lenny Bruce t-shirt.
Guest:Truth is a four-letter word.
Guest:But with a weird Mia Farrow crew cut.
Guest:And I'm whittled down to 90 pounds.
Guest:That's frickin' it.
Guest:Behind me.
Guest:Living the dream.
Guest:My grandmother was like, Natalim, why are you going back there?
Guest:Because I was asking her all these sort of historical research questions.
Guest:Which camp did you go to?
Marc:You went to a camp?
Guest:We shot it in Bulgaria, so it was recreated.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And she asked, why are you going back there?
Guest:Yeah, she was just sort of like, you know, again, I have a cousin who was a teacher, and she's ultra-Orthodox and Flemish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she was like, when they showed that, I'm going to stop with the impressions I was already now thinking.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:But it's just hard because I just think of them.
Guest:I can't even think of them without their weird Flemish and Hungarian accents.
Guest:It's just so surreal whenever I walk into that fucking house.
Guest:So I'm like, who are these people that I'm like hardly.
Guest:She told me about how she felt the need to.
Guest:Well, she didn't use the word censorship.
Guest:But when she showed Schindler's List to her class of students, you know, she cut out some of the really harsh parts, which is just the shower scene.
Marc:Listen, I don't know.
Marc:Why'd you cut him out?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:We're like a modern part of society that they're sort of not.
Guest:I mean, if it's so if it's still so close to home, like, why would you show?
Guest:Why would you, you know, bring back to light the horrors of the single most horrific period?
Marc:So you never forget.
Guest:Never forget.
Guest:We're talking about the Holocaust.
Marc:I mean, at Hebrew school, they used to show those movies with the plowing of the bodies.
Guest:Did anyone ever show you that movie, The Wave?
Guest:Is this a movie on the outside?
Guest:Which one's that?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I just remember it was a documentary.
Marc:We watched it.
Marc:Where did you go to school?
Marc:I grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:My parents are from Jersey, but Jews, but even in New Mexico, conservative Hebrew school, we saw the movie where they're literally plowing bodies into a pit and pictures of lampshades.
Marc:It was just like this kind of like, this is it.
Marc:How the hell are you going to wrap your brain around that?
Marc:That it's a human experience.
Marc:It's sort of amazing that you grew up with it because I don't know many people that grew up with survivors and their family at this generation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, what's really, it's really wild.
Guest:They see that piece in the news about the guy who named his kid Adolf Hitler.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And his other kid is like Heinrich Hans.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He shows up in an SS uniform.
Guest:That's not really going to buoy your case, pal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What happened to that guy?
Marc:Did they nail him for hate crime or something?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:On some level, I guess if you want to name your kid Hitler, what are you going to do?
Guest:I mean, I guess what's wild about it is to have to sort of coexist with, I granted it probably a small part of society, but the things, you know, hey, the Holocaust just didn't happen.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because just when it's so much a part of your history and like seeing these photos, like I've gone through family photos and you just see, there's like a gap between the time when they kind of built a life again and then these black and white sort of- When they were kids, before the thing.
Guest:And there's sort of nothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:between well I think there is a fear that way in there there are Holocaust deniers but there's also just people I don't and I think you're right in what you said at the beginning that we sort of take for granted that we can say Hitler we can say this Nazis are funny but the reality of it is beyond anything anyone can really fathom and you know you had these people that fathomed it and even they sort of want to put it in a box a bit just so they can go on with their life yeah because how otherwise what are you gonna do what are you gonna do you know
Marc:So, wait, so now your father was orthodox as well?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, you know, they did a lot of, I think it was like a garment district business.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Involved, and then he was, but he was sort of a rebel of his own orthodoxy.
Guest:I can't be sure that's a word.
Guest:Like how?
Guest:He was into like race car driving and boxing promoting stuff.
Marc:In a yarmulke?
Marc:So you wore a yarmulke in the race car underneath the helmet?
Marc:You know.
Guest:That's nice.
Marc:I never pictured that before.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I never saw him in a race car, but I would assume.
Guest:You heard things?
Marc:Yeah, but I heard things.
Marc:Well, you don't have a relationship with him or you didn't?
Guest:No, I mean, not now.
Guest:You know, for two years we lived in Israel.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:Eight to ten.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:And at the time, I mean, at the time, I wanted to be like Golda Meir when I grew up.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:That's better than Lou Reed, kind of.
Marc:It's a little more demanding.
Marc:Maybe not.
Marc:It's a hard path either way.
Marc:Golda Meir, Lou Reed, it's a hard path.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The bottom line is you've got to choose.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Guest:what's it gonna be there was a fork in the road and i chose lou and look at me now it's a nightmare um but uh yeah he uh so his big dream at the time was to be like the don king of israel and bring mike tyson to israel and so there's like you know photos of like me and the boxing ring and you know like walking around like an american flag and being the uh whatever that is the
Marc:The person who holds up the round scar?
Guest:Yeah, the round scar.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Not in a bikini, because I was eight.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Though I had a terrific figure.
Marc:Well, it's good that he was appropriate.
Marc:Yeah, I'm sure you did.
Marc:But so, okay, so you lived in Israel.
Marc:Was it a kibbutz situation, or were you just in Jerusalem, or what?
Guest:I'm pretty sure in retrospect, I mean, I think at the time it was explained to me as salvaging the marriage, but in my adult life- That's where they went?
Guest:I've realized that it was actually probably tax evasion.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
So-
Guest:You know, I think a spiritual journey.
Guest:I mean, I think they really made it seem like it was a Zionistic trip.
Guest:But in fact, I think they just needed to get out of Dodge.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:To a place where the law couldn't find them.
Marc:So when did they break up?
Guest:When I was 10.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So that's when, you know, I moved back to the city with my mother and we were suddenly in like,
Guest:You know, up to that point, it had been really I think probably I just wasn't aware of how sort of insane my family life was because it was still a unit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so you just sort of assume that, like, you know, these guys are the greatest.
Guest:You know, like my mother had like red hair and she'd been a red Alfa Romeo spider listening to Knights in White Satin again and again.
Guest:And like my father with a long black ponytail and like, you know, a black Porsche.
Guest:And like in Israel in the 80s, like heavy intifada time.
Guest:I mean, these cars were hot commodities.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I think I just assumed that everything was like copcetic.
Guest:And then all of a sudden I was like a scholarship kid on the Upper East Side living in like one room with my mother, you know, in a crate of wine, you know.
Guest:And I'm sort of like, wait a minute.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:shit's changed jokes on me yeah and you're supposed to have those feelings i guess it's always going to be a little disappointing yeah yeah so all right so you go do the scholarship business yeah you must have been sharp you seem pretty sharp to me
Guest:Thanks, sir.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So what did you learn from studying- Not as sharp as I used to be with the brain damage.
Guest:I mean, when you think about the whippets, when I think about the whippets, more than anything- You're sharp.
Guest:Let it seem to just be like, you know what?
Guest:I need less brain cells.
Marc:It's like now.
Marc:Yeah, but I did those too, but I mean, you've got plenty.
Marc:You've got plenty.
Marc:The ones that die, the other ones take over.
Marc:You've got a lot of unused brain cells up there.
Guest:You're trying to tell myself that about my lungs.
Okay.
Marc:But you lost one, didn't you?
Guest:A lung?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I had a lung collapse.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And I had some abscesses in there, but they're fine.
Marc:You cleaned them out, got them cleaned?
Guest:Let me tell you something.
Guest:Can I hike up a mountain easy, as easy as you have there, whatever?
Guest:No.
Guest:Some other 34-year-old actress?
Guest:No.
Guest:Maybe not.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You won't see me on Runyon Canyon, because it'll be unappealing.
Guest:You know...
Guest:It's terrifying.
Guest:That's what I'm trying to say.
Guest:I'm terrified.
Guest:We're all going to die, but why?
Guest:Why with the organs?
Guest:I mean, the internal organs are such a fucking nightmare.
Guest:I can't talk about them.
Guest:I mean, it's a nightmare.
Marc:I can't talk about kidneys.
Marc:If I go to an AA meeting or something, and someone's talking about their liver going and shit, I'm like, oh, I can't.
Guest:I can't.
Marc:I just can't.
Marc:Because you don't want to picture it.
Marc:There's a series of fucking things in there that are just pumping along, and one of them crap out on you.
Guest:Anytime.
Guest:Man, you're fucked.
Guest:Listen, I took a fucking x-ray the other day.
Guest:The lady was like, really?
Guest:You're only 34?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:I was like, thanks.
Marc:What was that based on?
Guest:I was like, I guess just like, you know, whatever, like staple scars, like whatever, just, you know.
Guest:You lived a life.
Guest:Basic road damage.
Guest:Where's the book?
Eh.
Guest:no and maybe in the end in the end but now not yet i mean i don't want to forget things but i might i i would like to uh you know i i have a fantasy of myself especially a teenage one where i'm a writer but i think the reality is like you know i'm just not so i'd really have to let it go together yeah but you know alan aldo wrote one uh late in life you can always write a book you know
Marc:Well, tell me about the Talmud, please.
Marc:I'm sorry, we'll get to your show business career in a minute.
Marc:Listen, I don't... You excelled at Talmud.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What does that look like?
Marc:Isn't yeshiva for a woman?
Guest:Woody Allen, what about Talmud?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Did I what?
No.
Marc:As a woman in yeshiva, I mean, you never get the sense that... Wait a minute, now I have a question.
Guest:I'm so sorry.
Guest:But wait, do you have any internal organ damage?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Not that I know of.
Marc:That's tremendous.
Marc:I'm a little nervous about my pancreas right now, but I have no reason for it.
Guest:All right, we have to talk about it.
Guest:As a woman in yeshiva, I'm just curious.
Marc:But you never... It always seems like a very male-dominated society.
Marc:I never think about women going to yeshiva.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But they do, obviously.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I guess it's a slightly more secular approach or maybe it's just something that happens on the Upper East Side.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But I guess it's just certainly, you know, a lot of Orthodox Jews would be in shock, you know, at the idea because like I had one Orthodox Jew recently say that makes no sense.
Guest:I mean, how are the men with the hormones supposed to focus at that age?
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:And to what I said, listen, you know, I think when you're surrounded by women all the time, it's probably less intense for you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:When they're in all your classes and you're... Yeah, as opposed to starving yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you're like, what are you in prison?
Guest:Eddie Bunker.
Guest:I'm sure Eddie Bunker in a mixed helmet class would be a complicated scene, especially if he was 14.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Post-prison, though.
Guest:But...
Guest:And so, yeah, we would just sit there half the day, start the day at 8 a.m.
Guest:and finish at 445 and half your classes would be in Hebrew and, you know, with a lot of Talmud classes.
Guest:And basically you would just do interpretations of interpretations.
Guest:So for me, early rebellion before I found the drugs was, you know, a lot of like arguing with rabbis, you know, a lot of sort of defiance in that area.
Guest:But really...
Guest:And, yeah, I used to really enjoy that.
Guest:And also, I enjoyed seeing The Passion of the Christ and being like, I don't need subtitles.
Guest:But that's not really true.
Guest:I don't speak it that well.
Guest:But, yeah, I think what's complicated about it is, like, if you consider, like, what is sort of, like, why the self-hating Jew, you know what I mean?
Guest:What is this thing, this loathing that I just can't manage, you know?
Guest:And I think really what it is is having a...
Guest:The way I grew up was such a hypercritical, hyperanalytical sort of a mind that you're supposed to really encourage.
Guest:So that what I admire in people often is an ability to just be present.
Guest:And for me, the neuroses involved in choosing to go right or left, let alone an actual life decision.
Guest:It's just like the Talmud.
Guest:It's like interpretations of interpretations of interpretations.
Guest:And I can just...
Guest:keep going there and like analyze a thing to death and i don't know that that's necessarily so useful i mean that's one of the aspects i think that i don't know if i mean i certainly doubt that that's uh exclusive to jews or anything but i'm saying that what i feel like that education did for me ultimately was uh in in my life now it kind of created this thing where i could just keep spinning yeah and even if it's like
Guest:I think I'm somewhat grounded around knowing that there's no wrong answer.
Guest:It's like an abortion.
Guest:Once you make a decision, it was the right decision.
Guest:You kept the baby, great.
Guest:You have a child.
Guest:You got rid of the kid, okay, it wasn't that time for you to have a child.
Guest:So I know that, but also I can really...
Marc:been both sides like yeah i can really talk it through i mean i can talk it to death and i can do it on my own um with yourself plus crack bad you know a lot more time it's a lot more awake time yeah this is like there's not enough sure things get mystical things get you know you start reading signs into things things get very biblical at that moment
Guest:Yeah, they do.
Marc:Hearing voices and whatnot.
Guest:I mean, it's really such a nightmare.
Guest:What's even weirder to think about is knowing the horrors of what one endures when deep in addiction.
Guest:The idea that it even still appeals at all is confusing, and yet sometimes the mind can just get so loud and unpleasant that it's like...
Marc:Well, when did you start acting precisely?
Marc:When I was six.
Marc:So you're already doing that.
Marc:You're at Yeshiva.
Marc:You've already done your first movie.
Guest:I'd already done Pee-wee's Playhouse.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like my big early scene.
Marc:And you were out here already?
Marc:No, I was in New York.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:They cast you out of New York for that?
Guest:Yeah, I think it was like the first season or the first two seasons of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
Guest:We were the Playhouse gang.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And did a picture in Israel that I've never seen.
Marc:Which one was that?
Guest:I think I did two.
Guest:I did one with like two big Israeli stars, Sippy Shavita and Safi Rivlin.
Guest:They're like the Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson in Israelis too.
Marc:And you played their daughter?
Marc:I don't remember.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:But you were in it.
Guest:But I was in it.
Guest:I mean, I remember a hot air balloon was involved.
Guest:You know, there are some upshots to acting as a kid because you're like, oh, it's Cherry.
Guest:I'm sitting on you, you know, and like, oh, I'm in a hot air balloon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the downsides of the damage later in your fucking life.
Marc:that's basically the downside but so when you started acting I mean like it just it didn't keep going I mean you never stopped I'm looking at your thing right now like every couple years anyways right yeah I mean the sort of significant event was probably like the Woody Allen movie at 16 was really what sort of propelled it into a different more grown up sort of a thing what was working with him like well I've talked to other people about it and they say he's a little detached what was your experience with him
Guest:I mean, my experiences was... Which movie was it?
Guest:Everyone Says I Love You.
Marc:Oh, yeah, okay.
Marc:That was the musical, right?
Marc:Yeah, I was 16.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:First of all, one of the problems was I was a real wake-and-bake stoner at the time, which, like, I mean, later in life, I mean, I can't even imagine doing that.
Guest:When did the drugs start?
Guest:pretty much then pretty much around 15 and so i think that but when i first went in you know there was a lot of when i first went in to meet him yeah i think there was a lot like he was like how was your day and i was in um a long skirt and like long sleeves and i was stoned i'd like just smoke some weed out the window of his bathroom over there on park avenue and um i just launched in like i didn't know the protocol of like you know when would he ask you a question you just say
Guest:I'm fine.
Guest:How are you?
Guest:So I was like, let me tell you about my day, all right?
Guest:I'm in this fucking yeshiva over here on 79th Street.
Guest:It's a fucking nightmare.
Guest:The kids are so mean to me.
Guest:It's like, no, I don't have enough time for the fucking Talmud homework.
Guest:I'll do it in the class.
Guest:And I think I launched into my parents and the Zionism and the Israel.
Guest:And I think that he was sort of really like, okay, and brought me back three more times where I continued to do that each time.
Guest:And he was like, all right, I guess she could play my daughter, you know?
Guest:And then I think when I got there, though, it was like I think I had such a fantasy.
Guest:I'm not a therapist, but I would think the most obvious thing was because of my lack of a relationship with my father.
Guest:I was probably so eager for kind of like a father figure that the fact that he was just a director who knew so much what he was doing and kind of is not the warmest guy on earth.
Guest:I think it was like increasingly confusing for me as the movie went on.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because I really wanted, you know, things I've gotten.
Guest:Like when I worked with Alan Arkin, he was very much like felt like that guy to me, you know, or even like Alan Aldo was in the Woody Allen movie playing.
Guest:He was my stepfather in it.
Guest:And he felt like very sort of, you know, much warmer to me.
Guest:But I think that.
Guest:um you know i i wanted that and i think that was really that was hard for me yeah yeah plus i would do things like i would memorize everything and then i'd come to set and he would just sort of jumble it up and i'm not you know improv guy it's like uh i mean it's the thing i'm probably most blown away by and you know like i just uh did a day working with uh horatio sands right who i know for many years and adore and and uh
Guest:And I'm just so in awe of him.
Guest:It's like watching an athlete or something.
Guest:Because I just like the ease.
Guest:The way he's not breaking a sweat.
Guest:And it's just like he can't help himself.
Guest:But certainly at 16, I had a lot of education in Talmud.
Guest:But I didn't have a lot of...
Guest:improvisational experience at like the UCB or something so I was just I was sort of lost when he would start jumping around the script and I was doing my best to keep up but also with things that like I didn't know about like Tintoretto's and I just also it's weird art terms and it was hard for me what is that
Marc:What's a Tintoretta?
Guest:It's a fucking art.
Guest:Go to Venice and see the art.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:But in other words, it was stuff that was just sort of, I was... But isn't it interesting, though, that Woody Allen probably defined somewhat of your sense of humor as a Jewish kid, as a Manhattan kid, as an intellectual, that your assumption to have these conversations with him and have those expectations out of him were not outlandish because you probably grew up with the guy in your mind.
Guest:Yeah, and...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I mean, I think that when push came to shove, I couldn't, you know, I mean, I wonder how different it would really be now.
Guest:But I do think that the lack of experience combined with the fact that I was so into, you know, I was doing a lot of stuff.
Guest:I was like smoking cigarettes and hiding, you know, and I was just in such a weird sort of vulnerable moment.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:And it was also just really intimidating in the sense of like, you know, I was suddenly like number one on a call sheet of like Julia Roberts and fucking Natalie Portman and Goldie Hawn and like all these people.
Guest:And I was the narrator and it was all really, you know, well broken up.
Guest:I mean, it's not like I'm, you know, it's a very like ensemble movie, but I just think that it was...
Guest:confusing for me because they were all so comfortable in the sort of stuff that I see that frankly sort of like revolted me later in life when I eventually was like walked away but all this kind of they were so good at being like you know charismatic movie stars all the time and like in the hair and makeup trailer and just giggling and like you know and I actually I mean I like all of them as individuals I mean they were
Guest:Like Julia Roberts, you've never met a more fucking charismatic person who deserves to be a movie star in your life other than maybe like Tom Hanks who has the same thing.
Guest:If you're just like, dude, you deserve to be – you're fucking – you're lovely.
Guest:You're nice.
Guest:You seem to – you remember my boyfriend's name.
Guest:You know what he does.
Guest:It's – you know, and they're just so warm.
Guest:And when you're working with them, so talented and so like, you know, right there and present.
Guest:It's just not like a personal – I just – I didn't –
Guest:I didn't know where I fit in in the world of kind of like a giggling Drew Barrymore and like a charismatic, you know, radiating, you know, white light sort of a Julia Roberts.
Guest:I just felt very kind of, I think, lost, you know.
Guest:In a way that I'm so full of shit now that I think I would be more capable of handling.
Guest:Really what I mean by that is I have enough experience, like whatever, now, like 40 movies later, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like fucking whatever, 20 years in showbiz or something, I think I could probably handle a little bit easier kind of, you know, finding my own space in that.
Marc:Well, you seem to have, like, you seem undeniably who you are, you know, in terms of, like, when I think of Tom Hanks or I think of Julia Roberts, okay, fine, they're movie stars, they're actors, but you seem singular in that you come with a full bag of personality.
Marc:That, you know, like, you are a personality.
Marc:I don't necessarily attribute that to them.
Marc:And I think that's a little tricky.
Marc:Do you know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:I mean, maybe.
Guest:I mean, you know, and I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I'm sure, you know, whatever.
Guest:But I think maybe also I just, I was so probably like unformed, you know, in a lot of ways.
Guest:I'm just like so...
Guest:Like wildly self self-conscious, you know, I just like the whole experience of being a person and not really knowing how to navigate, you know, like what I've realized in my adult life is kind of it's OK to sort of talk about how you feel in an honest way.
Guest:And that actually most people sort of have a similar experience, at least sometimes.
Guest:they just won't talk about it i thought you know what i mean i was much more sort of shame based i think about the fact that like you know i'm terrified or i want to do a good job yeah or uh you know i've never been in this situation before i think i just wanted to like launch into fitting in much like a teenager and sort of a lot of ways in the ways i got into trouble with drugs which was like you know oh i want to be like oh if you guys are fucking doing all those that cocaine i'll do a bunch too you know what i mean like so i think i just wanted to already be there without having any idea of how to
Guest:Sure.
Marc:When did that start?
Marc:I mean, like if you were 16 on that set, just smoking weed, when did it get ugly?
Marc:how many movies later like i'm trying to think what year that was i mean i got really oh okay so that's 96 yeah so that's like your fifth movie everybody says i love you and then you do slums at beverly hills which was genius and that's when he worked with arkin and he was a sweetheart yeah he's yeah i love that guy he's just the best i mean he's just such a it's like everything you want him to be yeah so after the slums at beverly hills is that where it started to get bad or what
Guest:i mean listen i was always a wild one yeah and um but i think that it was really you know there's a difference between like like sort of partying yeah and uh being like yeah janice joplin heart on my sleeve like i show up at this meeting with a fifth in my back pocket and let's just do it i don't know why i sound like i'm in hip-hop when i say that but i'm like yeah i'm janice joplin
Guest:But were those always your heroes though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that, so I think there was, I was still sort of already that way, but it hadn't, I think it was the hard drugs that really took it to another level and the full-blown addiction.
Guest:And sort of, I remember making like a very clear decision when I sort of threw in the towel on like life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was having a lot of, thematically it was a lot of like, remembering Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the big daddy with the mendacity speech, you know?
Guest:So it was a lot of like in my head were a lot of things about like mendacity.
Guest:You know, just for some reason.
Guest:Or have you ever seen the, you know, that Fellini short with Terrence Stamp called Toby Dammit?
Guest:I haven't seen it.
Guest:It's epic.
Guest:There's this thing based on three Edgar Allen Poe stories called Spirits of the Dead.
Guest:And one of them is Roger Vadim and the other one's Louis Moll and the third one is Fellini.
Guest:it's basically terence damp like right you know he's a like a broken drug addled movie star and he's like driving to the awards ceremony but everyone has like sort of demon faces and like tits everywhere and it's just like cackling and i think i was starting to have that experience and once that happened um i sort of made an active choice to kind of like walk away and be like listen this is the fucking truth is the belly of the beast and
Guest:You know, it's not about, like, dancing on tables.
Guest:This is about hanging out with one-legged Tony who has a colostomy bag in his fucking, you know, project apartment with the little tiny roaches crawling down the wall and, like... That's reality.
Guest:You know, passing the pipe and going in the bathroom to, you know, shoot heroin with the girls who are turning tricks.
Guest:And luckily, I have residuals.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I just, like, I don't know what... I think I was just sort of like, what is this about?
Guest:Like, this is...
Guest:Fame?
Guest:Why is that the big end in life?
Guest:It got empty.
Guest:To be like, you know, let me borrow a dress to go to your movie premieres.
Guest:You can take my picture and then maybe you'll give me a job if I'm skinny enough.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:I didn't want to do it.
Guest:And I was sort of like, there's no there there.
Guest:And so once that happened...
Guest:is when it really got bad.
Guest:Because then, like, periodically I would still try to show up to, like, you know, do a movie.
Guest:Like, the biggest debacle of which was probably the poor Rob Zombie who, you know, made the mistake of casting me in, I think it was House of a Thousand Corpses.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was his riff on the B-movie thing, right?
Marc:The horror movie?
Marc:It sounds like he would have fit right in.
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:That was his first one.
Guest:And that's where I met him and then we hit it off.
Guest:I hit it off with his wife, Sherry Moon, right?
Guest:Uh-huh, uh-huh.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And suddenly we were going to like Metallica concerts, like private Metallica concerts, talking on the phone about the character who's going to write me in Devil's Rejects.
Guest:And I became convinced at this time that I fired everybody.
Guest:And I was because I started getting increasingly paranoid.
Guest:They were going to show up and do interventions.
Marc:Which drug was the forefront now?
Guest:Well, this was when I'd made the decision that the best way to get rid of my heroin problem was through crack.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Because I didn't like cocaine and that it was just, like, causing me too much trouble.
Guest:I could never stay awake.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The heroin loss.
Guest:One boyfriend broke up with me because he was like, you just always want to be in bed, like, watching movies and sleeping, really.
Guest:I was like, so.
Guest:I was like, what are you so, like, wired for?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:He was like some, like, lanky skateboarder I'd picked up along the way.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, this is your problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So did you start with the heroin snorting it or just shooting it?
Guest:Just snorting and the smoking and then eventually the shooting.
Guest:But yeah, so that was a bad scene because then I was like, so I fired everyone.
Guest:I was like, I'm going to do this new thing called punk rock acting.
Guest:It's never been done.
Guest:I'm going to be the Johnny Thunders of acting.
Guest:And I was like on this mission and just like couldn't make it.
Guest:I was just like days late, like having the car pull over to the airport motels so I could get a room for an hour, missing the flight.
Guest:Finally showed up at his house with like a neck brace being like, listen, I got into a car accident.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You just stopped to buy a neck brace?
Yeah, I don't know why.
Guest:I mean, that's like one of the more insane things I've ever done.
Guest:Like actually like finding his house in Hancock Park and being like, listen, this wasn't on me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Like, and him being so warm, like talking to me through the night, like stay in the guest room.
Guest:I'll write you a new part.
Guest:And I still just couldn't fucking make it to set the next.
Guest:I just was so...
Guest:Deep in it at that time.
Guest:And I think that that was really kind of the end.
Guest:That's probably around like 2003 or four.
Guest:Like that trip just evolved into a real like, oh, let me see about, you know, like picking up tricks on fucking Santa Monica Boulevard because I was looking for drugs or like I would go.
Marc:Did you do that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would go to like Crazy Girls when I'd get like 86 from the Chateau bathroom for like smoking out the bathroom or whatever.
Guest:Then I would just walk across the street to Crazy Girls and like sit in the women's room where all the strippers have to come in because I'm a girl and wait for them to be like, yo, American Pie.
Guest:And then I'd be like, let's go back to your place.
Guest:Because strippers have the drugs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so that was really when there was kind of like this point of no return chapter that
Marc:But you were actually turning tricks.
Guest:Me?
Guest:No, I wasn't turning tricks.
Guest:I was picking up tricks.
Guest:Do you like how offended I got?
Guest:Like, what about my story?
Guest:Suggest that I would ever.
Guest:Suck dick for drug money.
Guest:I mean.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:My mistake.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why did you go into it?
Guest:Did I say?
Guest:I mean, I'm telling you a really nice guy.
Guest:I apologize.
Guest:I'm going to school at Vassar and you totally spun it into.
Guest:And no, I mean, I never I never had the opportunity to turn a trick.
Guest:But, you know, I probably wasn't very far from that.
Guest:And I certainly hung out with a lot of girls who did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the strippers.
Guest:Just like strippers.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:When you were in this, though, I've been in a certain drug haze.
Marc:I don't know that it went as deep as you, but there's some part of you that says, this is real life.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And we are in it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you don't realize that you've been doing something for three days with people you don't know, and you haven't talked about anything, and all you want is more.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're sitting there with strippers.
Marc:I'm sure it was fun to a certain degree, but I can't imagine at that point it was fun.
Guest:I mean, you know, it was mostly it was like a lot of it was, you know, it's dark and scary, like drug addiction at that level.
Guest:And I it's amazing.
Guest:But it was very much like this is real.
Guest:This is who I am now.
Guest:And this old person was kind of like.
Guest:This creation of my parents were putting me in acting as a kid.
Guest:And that's all full of shit.
Guest:And this is the truth.
Guest:And I think I was on such this life's mission of the truth, the truth, honesty, Cassavetes, the truth.
Guest:And injustice.
Guest:Injustice as a theme being so revolting that I couldn't manage it.
Guest:And hypersensitive and reacting.
Marc:You rationalize it as an artistic sort of quest.
Guest:Yeah, like sort of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just think, you know, part of the reason drugs are bad for you is, I mean, they're bad for your health and they're addictive.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But yeah, but the romance of it, the romanticization of it, I can definitely relate to.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:There's a whole underworld of behavior.
Marc:And it's weird when you read about it, like when you read Burroughs or you read about, like if you really read about Johnny Thunders, it was horrible.
Guest:Well, that's, I mean, I think that's kind of the thing.
Marc:Yeah, they all look great.
Marc:That's the problem.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And you continue.
Guest:The problem is drug addicts are skimmers.
Guest:They're book skimmers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They only read the back.
Guest:I just look at the pictures.
Marc:He looks really cool.
Marc:He looks great.
Marc:Those pants are great.
Guest:He's so thin.
Guest:But.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do think that.
Marc:You worked.
Marc:The amazing thing is how many fucking movies you did in the midst of all this shit.
Yeah.
Marc:Do you remember a specific moment where you thought that it was bullshit?
Marc:Were you at an award show where you're like, oh, God.
Marc:Or was it just a collection of events?
Guest:Yeah, I think it was probably a collection of events.
Guest:I mean, more than anything, just being like...
Guest:You know, still even, I mean, I don't know, maybe this is back to the Holocaust or whatever.
Guest:But just like sort of feeling like, so really, this is the contribution?
Guest:Like, I hadn't quite wrapped my head around the idea that this was like, so this is the topic?
Guest:It's like, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Trying out for a job and being in a magazine?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's going to be the rest of my life is talking about this.
Guest:Like, it's important, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:We should remember, what about Golda Meir?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Let's get back to that.
Guest:You know, so I was sort of like... Golda Meir, the strippers and crack.
Yeah.
Guest:But I don't think there was a defining.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:I think probably there were some bad breakups along the way that really contributed to being like life has no meaning.
Guest:I think there was definitely sort of a perfect storm of a lot of things.
Guest:And I think also maybe not being as challenged as I would have liked to be professionally maybe contributed to it.
Guest:That I wasn't going off to the jungle to make Apocalypse Now or something.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And also you were insulated in celebrity culture, which is horrifying.
Marc:I would imagine that there are certain expectations.
Marc:You're a public personality.
Marc:You kind of roll with the people that are also in that business.
Marc:And I have to assume that stops seeming like real life fairly quickly.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, you know, I definitely think what's so weird about now being kind of, you know, essentially not so dissimilar from what I walked away from, though I will tell you that it was very complicated to be like, so you're telling me that all that was just to, like, come back and try out for another fucking job?
Guest:Like, you know what I mean?
Guest:And have to sort of, like, rebuild this mess I created?
Guest:That's why I did all that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is great.
Guest:So I'm like now I'm like auditioning for a pilot.
Guest:Like that's what just happened.
Guest:That's what you fought for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was like, yes, I really won that war.
Guest:So that was pretty upsetting.
Guest:And like not getting the job.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So glad I walked away from that pretty fucking decent career.
Guest:But I don't even know.
Guest:I'm just saying that what's wild is how much kind of perception, like, internal perception changes things.
Guest:Like, you know, that you can basically exist in a very grounded way.
Guest:Maybe this is just also getting older.
Guest:I think maybe I was just, like, never born to be an ingenue.
Guest:Like, I just think maybe that wasn't my trip, like, being...
Marc:You think you were disappointed because of that for some reason?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just think I was much more like into, you know, like Warren Oates as a kid.
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:Or even like the good guys from me were like Julietta Messina or Susan Terrell in Fat City.
Guest:You know, it wasn't really... So I just think that...
Marc:that i um struggled with like not really being that there was i wasn't doing that kind of stuff but that tone doesn't really exist anymore maybe it's coming back a little now but i mean certainly when you were in the peak of your career even the independent films were not really doing that i mean movies weren't really doing what those movies did yeah i mean it was a different time the 70s represented something grittier something that seemed to be closer to what you were idealizing anyways but i don't know that the jobs were really there were they
Guest:No, I mean, I'm sure some people were making some really, you know, good ones.
Guest:But yeah, I think that probably irked me.
Guest:And anyway, I'm just saying that, yeah, it's weird how like now I can sort of do it from a much more, I don't know if it's because I'm older and maybe like because of.
Marc:You've been through some, you've been humbled, man.
Marc:You've been beaten up.
Guest:And so maybe that's what I needed to do.
Guest:I don't fucking know.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:You survived somehow.
Marc:What made you stop?
Guest:You got sick, right?
Guest:I think maybe, yeah, I think it was also probably just like working out childhood stuff had to happen.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like really working out.
Guest:I think I needed to make a decision to do this on purpose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, as opposed to just sort of finding myself there and not understanding why I wasn't going to college or sort of doing something with my life.
Guest:And now I've come to terms with that.
Guest:that's all right but no i i think that i really needed to like make and i like i did this like i did theater i did this mike lee play and that really that must have been amazing you know and how was it like working with mike lee mike lee he was he had done the play in in london so we did the first one in new york at the new group this guy scott elliott directed it and that was great i mean mike lee came by and sort of worked with us a little bit and that was amazing but i do think that like that was sort of the first job that really got me in enough
Guest:sort of um it was like enough meat for me to wrap myself in like how do I do an accent and all this stuff and I was so scared I'd never done a play before so I think doing that sort of really helped me to be like okay this is important again because back when I loved acting I mean it was only because I had built up
Guest:um sort of like music and books and movies to such a point that it was like this un you know unreachable uh like mountain of of uh this is what i think it's supposed to be all about right you know right that unreasonable expectations for yourself yeah and and like such a great love of that stuff is like the only things that make sense in life but what made you stop i mean we do it you got sick right
Guest:Yeah, I got – and I had warrants for my arrest helped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, yeah, my body just couldn't take it anymore.
Guest:Like, I just – I feel like I found – eventually I was in, like, in a hospital room somewhere.
Guest:Like, I don't know, I did a real tour of the, you know, East –
Guest:sort of um you know below 23rd street um first avenue hospitals so yeah it was either in bellevue or cabrini or beth israel and i was like um uh in a bed and i was just like my body was so weak i was like 75 pounds you know and i was like still kind of had the fight in me but there was a warrant for my arrest and they were like well if you leave the state you know and go to treatment you can uh you can evade that
Guest:Yeah, he can beat it.
Guest:And I was like... What was it for?
Guest:Criminal mischief.
Marc:What does that mean?
Guest:It's harassing my neighbor.
Guest:According to her, all right?
Guest:I listen.
Guest:I mean, I could hold off to my side of the street, but the bottom line, she was fucking asking for it.
Marc:It's New York.
Marc:It's New York.
Guest:And like, whatever.
Guest:Get out of my space.
Guest:Can't you tell them I?
Guest:What are you?
Guest:Why are you even fucking with me right now?
Guest:What are you looking for a fight?
Guest:You're going to get one.
Yeah.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:So you went to treatment.
Guest:And then, like, you know, I would try to leave.
Guest:And it was like.
Marc:You thought it, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't really interested in.
Guest:Like, once it was like I was like a year clean.
Guest:I was sort of like, all right, let me give this thing a shot.
Guest:But up until that point, I was just still.
Guest:I mean, I identified so strongly with this.
Guest:I mean, I think, like, the mentality that you have to be in to kind of go that far is really.
Guest:It's a whole different situation.
Marc:mind and oh yeah you're possessed yeah yeah and the weird thing is is that you know as much as you know even if you have moments where you romanticize it now you know what what in talking to you you're sort of like a you know classic almost active you know energized engaged jewish intellectual what's wrong with that you like i could see you teaching a class that you'd be like the professor that smokes yeah
Marc:on addiction 101 no but i mean but your interest and your your understanding of of things uh high-minded is very deep and very uh impressive thank you sir how did how did you stop how did i stop doing drugs yeah what was your what happened it was coke and booze and uh you know everything i yeah i never i i snorted heroin a bit but fortunately i like going up more than i like going down
Marc:But it just got, it just became dangerous.
Marc:I mean, not unlike what you're saying, like I was not able to live in the world you were living in because I had a very active feeling that someone was going to die and it was probably going to be me.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know.
Marc:I don't want to die like that.
Marc:Like, you know, when you do drugs, you increase your ability to be in a situation to either catch a bullet, catch a bat, you know, catch a bad dose, whatever it's going to be.
Marc:It just increased to that point.
Marc:And fortunately, I guess I was married at the time to a woman who wouldn't tolerate it.
Marc:And then some other woman reached out to me and I'd gotten sober once before I was, I left LA in, uh, 87.
Marc:I was at the comedy store and I was hearing voices.
Marc:I'd coked myself in this psychosis and I was in trouble and I went to rehab.
Marc:I just got about a year and a half clean.
Marc:I started slowly getting back up there.
Marc:And it was sort of like that for many years.
Marc:Like I got 14, but the first time I went to rehab was 88.
Marc:So it's taken me 25 years, you know, to get 14 in a row.
Marc:But it really just came down to fucking locking into the goddamn program in a way.
Marc:Like, you know, when I first, when this woman, I fell in love with her.
Marc:So that helped.
Marc:I would have followed her anywhere.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Marc:So I just went to meetings all the time.
Marc:I wasn't working.
Marc:I was a comic.
Marc:So I'd go to two or three a day.
Marc:And eventually just the competition factor of like, you know, once you get some time, you're like, I'm not giving this up.
Marc:Like it was almost, to me, like I think a lot of what got me through it was just sort of like, I'm going to win.
Marc:Yeah, I'm going to, I'm fucking going to do it.
Marc:And then somehow the obsession, it actually went away.
Marc:And it got easier after that.
Marc:It was not easy to deal with myself and I burned through that marriage and shit.
Marc:A lot of shit went down sober, but I don't have the obsession to use.
Marc:I mean, that is gone.
Marc:I know it can come back and it's scary.
Marc:That's the scariest thing.
Marc:I don't know if you go, but when you go to meetings and you hear the guy that's had 20 years and they go out, you're like, how the fuck?
Marc:And I found myself very moved by people's struggle, even by yours.
Marc:When people clean up, when I hear the story of what they went through, it's like I genuinely choke up at the reality that maybe people like your grandparents who put a glass of wine on the table, whoever, don't necessarily understand that it's a life or death thing.
Marc:They think like, well, can't you just stop?
Marc:No, I can't.
Marc:And you know, I'm fighting with a monster.
Marc:So when I hear the struggle that people have and they sort of, at least for the moment, are succeeding in beating that life-threatening monster, I find it very moving.
Marc:It's very powerful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What about you?
Guest:I mean, well, I think that people say whatever, like if the quality of your life clean isn't better, then...
Guest:the quality of her life using i mean it doesn't make sense that you wouldn't you know and i go go back out and i i just think that yeah i mean i think like life is i mean you're talking about people who already have like a high sensitivity to like sort of like the majesty and the brutality of life and they're already kind of experiencing life as this really you know like god it's so poetic and like oh my god you know yeah homeless people you know like it's just too much to kind of and
Guest:I mean, I think a lot of it that I think about now is that helps me sort of like I spent so many years like being like, I hate myself and I want to die.
Guest:That like, you know, I'm going to fucking die.
Guest:I might as well live a little.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Like I just did so much of that sort of looping.
Guest:thinking that i'm just but you felt that way before you use drugs the i hate myself yeah and then i think even like i mean i just think that the whole thing is really it's like hard like the first bunch of years are also just really brutal you know and now i just am like uh i feel very like i just feel really you know lucky that i have a sort of like precious uh thing yeah can you know do you hate yourself less
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, for sure.
Guest:Especially, I mean, listen, I hated myself a lot.
Guest:No, but I mean, really, I do think I hate myself.
Marc:But don't you think it had something to do with the fact that, like, the one thing I related to that you were saying was that, you know, when you come from, not necessarily Jewish, but a premium was put on education.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you were also, you know, sort of struggling through that.
Marc:Like, you know, you can never know enough.
Marc:You constantly got to...
Marc:learn more, and then you aspire to be something that wasn't working out.
Marc:But there's always this idea that you're never quite meeting the mark.
Marc:And it comes in parental language.
Marc:It's sort of like, oh, why didn't you, you couldn't get an A?
Marc:I guess it'd be, there's just this idea, and I'm not gonna say it's necessarily Jewish, that you're never quite fucking doing good enough, or you're never quite living up to your potential.
Marc:To me, that generated a lot of fucking self-hate.
Marc:Like, you know, just sort of like, I'm just not fucking good enough.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, especially when you couple that with sort of like the expectations of, you know, it's that thing of, you know, the gifted children of narcissistic parents, you know, so when you couple that with like sort of your parents, your unbalanced parents expectations of...
Guest:You know, this is that it's got to be extraordinary or it's essentially meaningless.
Guest:I think a really, you know, a complicated thing.
Guest:I mean, it's the exact opposite of like, go gentle and like, you know, just be yourself.
Guest:It's much more like if you're not exceptional, you're essentially a waste of.
Guest:space yeah and i i think that it's a very you know natural instinct to kind of self-preserve by rebelling against that and that's what you grew up with like yeah like saying like you know don't fucking tell me i gotta be you know it's like i'm gonna try and do things that should be on on my own terms yeah am i exceptional now fuck you yeah um but but yeah just like no like i had a mother who was basically like i remember after slums beverly hill she was like you know what
Guest:First of all, you really should have gotten a boob job.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Because like, you know, you've got an ass and like really want to get the whole thing going.
Guest:And so that was like a thing.
Guest:And then it was like, well, do you regret it now, Natasha?
Guest:Do you regret passing on Buffy now?
Guest:And it was like Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I sort of passed on right after Slums of Beverly Hills.
Guest:I was like, yeah, I'm not going to really do these kind of, I'm not going to really do a vampire thing.
Marc:The TV series?
Guest:Yeah, the TV series.
Guest:And I was saying, you know, it's not for me.
Guest:And I was like, I want to make pictures, you know.
Guest:And she would still ring it up.
Guest:Like, fucking passed on Buffy.
Marc:They're always disappointed.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I always do it.
Guest:I mean, it's just... It's horrible.
Guest:It's just weird.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, it's like... I don't know.
Guest:Listen, at the end of the day, I'm so... It's wild that I, you know, turned out okay.
Guest:So it's like now it's very hard to sort of be angry at any of it in a way because... Well, that's good for you.
Guest:I mean, it's...
Guest:So, you know, miraculous to be, you know, participating.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:I'm glad that you have that disposition.
Marc:Because, like, you know, to grow up with basically parents who are, you know, dismissive, really, and not accepting of their own child is fucking horrendous.
Marc:How are you supposed to be trained to be an emotionally even a little bit stable adult with that?
Marc:How the fuck can you do it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Like, you're role models.
Marc:The people that were supposed to love you, it was so fucking conditional
Marc:To the point where, you know, after you do a great movie, that they're still sort of like, wow, your boobs aren't good enough.
Marc:I mean, what the fuck?
Marc:I mean, how are you supposed to... You're not equipped at all.
Guest:Incidentally, the same thing my boyfriend says to me now.
Guest:Oh, no, I'm kidding.
Guest:But, yeah.
Guest:No, I mean, it really is.
Guest:It becomes this sort of thing.
Guest:And maybe that, I don't know, talking to you now, I mean...
Guest:In this sort of very Oprah way, maybe that was a part of it was basically like the conditional love and then sort of finding myself in an industry that was also so conditional.
Guest:You know, it was maybe just too many fucking conditions.
Guest:It was like, I don't want to exist in this playing field.
Guest:And then I guess essentially, unless you have a really strong sense of ground, I mean, oh.
Guest:You know, ultimately, if you're, like, I always think, like, somebody who doesn't get into trouble, like a Jessica Biel or something, you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Must have really good parenting, you know?
Guest:And I worked with her, and her mother was there, and, like, I mean, I was, like, 25 or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was nice, I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She really thought she was like, who the fuck is Undress Thompson?
Guest:She doesn't know who Undress Thompson.
Guest:Anyway, so, but, you know, I thought, oh, that must be why these people don't really fuck up is because they have this real, like a family life to kind of ground them.
Guest:That's a rough realization.
Guest:And I think when you have, you know, I think when you have like basically a school that, you know, they expelled me for selling weed, brought me back when I was on Letterman because they were like, this is good alumni, you know?
Guest:And I was like, so fuck these people.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like there goes also my whole sort of like resentment against organized religion.
Guest:Now that's kicked up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So now you've also taken sort of this idea of, you know, like, yeah, I'm being looked out after, you know, by like some monotheistic God idea that I grew up with.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And and then, yeah, that fucking parents and then this business or whatever.
Marc:Yeah, it's funny, though, what you said, though, is true.
Marc:It's a very hard realization to make, especially when you romanticize outsiders, which I did as well, that it took me years to realize that, look, if you had even one good parent, your odds of functioning well in life are significantly better than somebody who just had selfish parents.
Marc:I'm not even fucking physically abusive, just emotionally dismissive or without boundaries or self-involved.
Marc:I mean, you're fucking crippled from that.
Marc:And it's really true that the realization that it's not so much like you guys don't understand real life.
Marc:It's like, oh, they probably were properly parented and there was love in the house.
Guest:And I mean, what a bummer that goes on for the rest of your fucking life.
Guest:like when does that go away I mean it's really I I mean I do think there's a lot to be said for the whole you know whatever you get all these tools and the reparenting yeah yeah yeah you know right soothing self-talk but I remember like you know my first few years of sort of being like clean and functioning I was just so angry like what do you mean like it's like what the fuck do you mean I have to make my own bed
Guest:Because these basic things that nobody sort of taught me.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:What do you mean you got to get there on time?
Guest:No, when you travel, you overpack.
Guest:That's how you know that you're going somewhere.
Guest:You've taken everything you own.
Guest:You're now at the airport.
Guest:And you're missing the flight because of how much luggage you have.
Guest:That's how to travel.
Guest:So now you're with a fucking cool guy who's like, carry on.
Guest:What do I need?
Guest:Just a pair of jeans.
Guest:And you're like, oh, fuck yeah.
Marc:It's very angry.
Guest:Yeah, because you've got to constantly be sort of monitoring how to, all right, you're doing a good job.
Guest:Listen, kid, you're doing all right.
Guest:Listen, you brushed your teeth at night, too.
Guest:This is a fucking epic day.
Guest:Tomorrow, maybe a floss.
Guest:Maybe a floss.
Guest:Yeah, like when the dentist is like with the floss, I'm like, what are you insane?
Guest:I'm brushing my teeth.
Guest:I'm like, eventually, you just fucking change them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm surprised I still have all my teeth as it is.
Guest:So that's like, I'm living on borrowed time, dentist.
Guest:You know, you fix them.
Marc:Right, but that's also part of it too, is that when you have these parents that were this way and you have this rebellious attitude, there's something, you're almost like going through life defying people to parent you.
Marc:Like, you know, like the show business, whatever it is, it's like, here I am, you know, take care of it.
Marc:You know, that whole, it's, oh God.
Marc:Well, it seems like you're doing good.
Guest:And now I'm all right, yeah.
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:You got a thing going?
Guest:Yeah, I'm on a new show.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:That's coming out.
Guest:Jenji Cohen did Weeds.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She has a new show on Netflix called Orange is the New Black Women's Prison.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:So that's happening.
Marc:Is that challenging you?
Marc:Are you excited about the role and stuff?
Guest:Yeah, I'm very excited about that show.
Guest:I actually think it's really, it's good.
Marc:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I feel like they're really smart people and I feel like... Are you a joy to work with now?
Yeah.
Guest:It's a humble gag.
Guest:Yeah, okay.
Guest:No, I mean, I think it is, I'm guaranteed a lot easier than it once was.
Guest:What about your... I think probably it is.
Guest:I mean, I think also, like, you know, I think as well as looping, for example, is really where I can see progress of, you know, that I used to be like, so like...
Guest:But it's not going to match the performance.
Guest:And I would just like sit in there and like want to get into a ball and get into the state that she was in.
Guest:You know, this was a scene about like my fucking world breaking down.
Guest:I can't say it after three fucking beeps.
Yeah.
Guest:And now I'm a lot more like, all right, let me say the word.
Guest:That's why you guys have sound machines.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It works fine.
Guest:Do you remember that Albert Brooks in Modern Love?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's like such a looping scene.
Guest:That's all I can think of.
Guest:I saw it again recently.
Guest:Modern Romance.
Guest:That's like, yeah, that's all I can think about now is whenever I go to a looping session is like, I don't want to piss these poor guys off, you know?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, I mean.
Marc:Have you ever worked with him?
Marc:You guys would be great together.
Guest:Nah, there was a movie I remember in the 90s and I really wanted...
Guest:that Christine Lottie was directing.
Guest:I've since played poker with.
Guest:And I didn't get the job.
Marc:But at your approach to work now, though, are you humble?
Marc:Are you fucking focused?
Marc:You know who you are in terms of when you're being a diva and when you're not and that kind of shit?
Guest:Yeah, and I think I just, you know, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I just think it's a lot.
Guest:I think I have a real sense of essentially like, you know, I'm just another bozo on the bus.
Guest:Like, you know, and hopefully it'll be a real, I just like show up to try to do my best.
Guest:And it's like, I mean, something, it's like, I mean, I think it's, you know, maybe not to take the road I took.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:I'm going to make an understatement, but, like, certainly to, like, take a few years to get some, like, sort of life experience is not a bad idea as far as, you know, the chosen profession of essentially you're supposed to be, like, telling people stories and how you're going to know when your entire frame of reference is, like, you know, like, oh, I borrowed a dress from Chanel.
Guest:You know, it's going to be really... I just got out of acting school.
Guest:Yeah, if your life is so microcosmic, all you want to do is win at life, you're fucked.
Guest:I mean, it's really, you've got to have a little bit of...
Guest:So I think that I have a little bit of trust that I... You've done enough?
Guest:You've lived enough life?
Guest:You've taken it to the limit?
Guest:Yeah, well, I think it really helps because when I read things, my reading comprehension is better as a result because I can really know from a lot of highs and lows of the human experience and the human condition, which is essentially my job, right?
Marc:Right.
Guest:So that's why I did it.
Guest:I'm just kidding.
Marc:You always knew.
Marc:Yeah, just on you, De Niro.
Marc:You had a plan.
Guest:But, you know, and now I am.
Marc:Did you play a prisoner?
Guest:It's not so high stakes.
Guest:All right, action, here we go.
Guest:But still, it's very nerve-wracking.
Guest:Theater is terrifying.
Guest:because it's immediate right yeah i mean no take two you know he's still like that's what's i think weird also is uh that sort of response to adrenaline like in theory i should be able to have like a mind that i can calm myself down by being like like people always say me like after what you went through like come on you can do this right it's opening
Guest:night this is what i was avoiding yeah and it's kind of like what makes you think that i'm any less uh human and like you know terrified than um but that's and yes i play a prisoner okay theater is exciting though huh
Guest:yeah it's just wild it's so it's so crazy I mean just like I was doing this play on with I was playing Ethan Hawke's sister yeah and our last performance I mean we'd gone through like three months of this our last performance we're sitting on the sofa together he's like rubbing his pregnant sister's feet and I just I remember going out that night and I was like you know what I'm not gonna think I'm just gonna exist in the role you know and I'm like and I was out there I was acting and I was like ah
Guest:he's talking i'm responding he's got this is acting and then i was just like suddenly he was looking at me and i was like why is this guy looking at me and i was like ah ethan hawk is handsome you know what a handsome guy look at him rubbing my feet this is great you know so god we did a good job in this play and you still look at it i was like
Guest:I have no idea what the fuck comes next.
Guest:I mean, like, but a blank, like, I cannot tell you.
Guest:And he just started looking at me, and then I realized, then you become a mind reader, you know?
Guest:So then I'm like, wow.
Guest:And I'm like, no, Ethan, that's right.
Guest:I did just forget our fucking scene on the closing night.
Guest:I mean, there's very low stakes in theory, because it's not like critics or whatever.
Guest:But he was just looking at me like, really?
Guest:You waited until the last fucking night?
Guest:So every performance, you've known all your lines.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it felt like just the way time can bend, you know, and like the air can change and you're suddenly like, I mean, it felt like, and I somehow we did it, I guess.
Marc:Did he reprime you or what did he do?
Guest:I don't even remember what happened.
Guest:I mean, because it was probably if it had been during the run, I would have gotten some sort of speech because it was closing night.
Guest:It was more like, that was amazing.
Guest:Like, that was insane.
Guest:You know, I don't really even know exactly what happened.
Guest:And I was just sort of like, oh, cool.
Guest:But it happens.
Guest:It happens.
Guest:I mean, I guess it happens.
Guest:And so I have real admiration.
Guest:It's really, it's a very athletic sport, the theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you really got to know your fucking paces.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, look, you look great.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And you sound great.
Marc:And I'm glad you're doing better.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:And it was a thrill to talk to you.
Marc:Likewise.
Marc:You feel good about it?
Guest:I feel good.
All right.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:Thank you for being here.
Marc:Thank you for putting up with me.
Marc:That was a great talk with Natasha.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs, and bear with me, people.
Marc:I'm just a person.
Marc:Deaf Black Cat lives, and of course, Boomer lives!
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