Episode 441 - Illeana Douglas
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Okay, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?
Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?
Marc:What-the-fuckineers?
Marc:What-the-fuck nicks?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for tuning into my show.
Marc:Eliana Douglas is on the show today.
Marc:And what a definitive person she is.
Marc:And actress.
Marc:But she's one of those people where you know, like, right when you hear her talk, you're like, oh, that's that person.
Marc:That's that person.
Marc:Very exciting conversation.
Marc:So get ready for that.
Marc:We're also doing three episodes this week.
Marc:Again, get ready for that.
Marc:If you hear clicking in the background, I'm being photographed.
Marc:So I'm not alone right now.
Marc:So be cool.
Marc:lee wrighton from canada is in my garage photographing me she photographed me at the vancouver uh comedy festival and by the way will davis um some comics want their money all right so i don't know where you're hiding if it's in the mountains or what but that was some bad business all right we want to know what happened i'm cool because i knew good enough well enough to get paid up front on that on that thing
Marc:Hey, all it takes is me waiting for checks for six months once.
Marc:And that's not going to happen again.
Marc:But we'd like to know the real story, Will.
Marc:But Lee's down here from Canada, and she had taken some pictures of me and Brendan Walsh up there.
Marc:And she's doing, I think, a documentary on some comics, me being one of them.
Marc:Perhaps, who knows how it's going to go.
Marc:It could be the arc of tragic failure.
Marc:All right, I'm going to stop trying to make Lee laugh in my garage and focus on you people because that's the primary relationship right now.
Marc:What have I got to tell you, man?
Marc:Well, I saw gravity.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I saw it.
Marc:It was compelling.
Marc:About two-thirds of the way through, I said, well, this is just going to keep happening.
Marc:It's going to be a number of situations in space where I'm going to be going, oh, fuck, come on.
Marc:Can you just, oh, fuck.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:oh okay good good good so there's a lot of that you know there's a lot of that in space oh come on sandra come on you oh shit are you fucking kidding me okay all right good good all right we're in now we're in the thing okay there's some buttons oh oh buttons oh my god i hope she figures out those buttons okay good good oh no is she gonna die oh no oh
Marc:I'm not going to do any spoilers, but I'll tell you, I had no idea what flying space shrapnel could do to a guy's face.
Marc:That was one of the highlights is just exactly what a hurling piece of satellite fragment can do to a guy's head.
Marc:I'll leave it at that.
Marc:And if you haven't seen the movie and that's not enough to sell it.
Marc:And that's really a minor detail.
Marc:George Clooney, good.
Marc:Always good.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I love George Clooney.
Marc:Does that make me a bad person or does that make me just a person?
Marc:How can you not love George Clooney?
Marc:All right?
Marc:You got to be wrong-minded to not love that movie star.
Marc:What else is going on?
Marc:I'm fantasizing, actually, about about getting down to ground zero, not ground zero, you know, 9-11 ground zero, but ground zero, Marc Maron ground zero.
Marc:I'm thinking about taking away all the stuff.
Marc:I'm talking like, let's get rid of the coffee.
Marc:Let's get rid of the nicotine.
Marc:Let's ride that out for a few days.
Marc:Let's sweat it out.
Marc:I mean, this is a good time to do it.
Marc:I'm alone.
Marc:I can't take it out on a person.
Marc:My cats will probably get a little bit of the edge.
Marc:So I get rid of the caffeine, get rid of the nicotine, get rid of the sugar, just go full out.
Marc:Maybe go on a cleanse of some kind.
Marc:Is there such a thing as a cereal cleanse?
Marc:Maybe I'll go on a cleanse that's just puffins for three days.
Marc:Barbara's puffins or perhaps some bran flakes and raisins.
Marc:Is there a raisin bran cleanse, just three days of that?
Marc:All right, so I cleanse, I get rid of the caffeine, I get rid of the nicotine, I get rid of the sugar, and we see what we get.
Marc:We'll see what I am.
Marc:Is anyone curious?
Marc:I am swimming in a sea of reasonable stimulants.
Marc:And maybe it's time to fucking just well, as you remember, some of you have been with me a long time.
Marc:The last time I tried that, I almost I came very I almost yelled at Dane Cook in my garage.
Marc:People from the that was like a couple of days after I think I'd gotten off the nicotine lozenges.
Marc:I interviewed Dane Cook and people that didn't even like Dane Cook were emailing me saying that I was a dick.
Marc:So I really achieved something there.
Marc:I get a lot of nice mail from you people, a lot of vinyl coming in, a lot of presents.
Marc:Thank you for the mixtape.
Marc:There's a woman out there that sends me mixtapes, and I don't have anything to play them on anymore, but I appreciate the effort, and they're beautifully packaged, and they're always exciting.
Marc:And someday I will buy a cassette player and listen to them again.
Marc:I don't even think I have one hiding somewhere.
Marc:You think in your life, like, there's got to be a cassette player around somewhere in here.
Marc:Don't think so.
Marc:All right, let's talk to Ileana Douglas.
Marc:Ileana Douglas.
Marc:Is that how you say your first name?
Guest:Ileana?
Marc:Ileana.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did you grow up in LA?
Guest:No, I grew up in Massachusetts and Connecticut and New York.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I went kind of back and forth.
Guest:My Italian relatives lived in Queens and Astoria.
Guest:Queens.
Guest:Astoria.
Guest:That's where I lived.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I lived in Astoria.
Marc:You're kidding.
Marc:No.
Guest:Did you go to the bakery there?
Marc:Lagula?
Marc:Lagula?
Marc:Lagula?
Marc:I don't know where that one is.
Marc:I lived on 30th Avenue and 37th Street.
Guest:Well, we lived... Well, we didn't live.
Guest:My relatives lived near Ditmaz Boulevard.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And my grandmother worked at Gertz.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember that?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I didn't live there.
Marc:I mean, I was there... I'm imagining that it was probably a different time because I was there in the 90s.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, this was the 70s.
Marc:When you were a kid?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so I would go there.
Guest:My grandfather was Melvin Douglas, and he lived in Manhattan.
Guest:And so I would go.
Guest:Literally, I didn't know if it was something I did wrong, but literally the day school ended, they'd ship me off to Queens.
Guest:It was so disorienting because I'd spend half of the time with my Italian relatives, you know,
Marc:learning about like how to you know things fall off a truck and uh and and how to drink scotch and stuff like that and you know and go you get to in dip mars you get to walk around you get to look at fish markets and bakeries and there's all kinds of real people sweating around you
Guest:It was great.
Guest:Like bread and fresh bread.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:And like I said, my grandmother worked in a department store.
Guest:And so there was that whole vibe of going to the department store.
Marc:There's your grandma.
Marc:Hi.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was actually there the summer of Sam.
Guest:really yeah as a little kid it was terrifying oh my god so i would do that and then the second half of the summer i would go live with uh melvin douglas melvin douglas on like an apartment and we'd go to the theater and i'd have to sit at the table and converse did he live in one of those big beautiful uh new york the greatest really
Guest:To this day, it was like people look back on the saddest times of your life and all of my saddest times are so shallow.
Guest:It's like, why did they sell that apartment?
Guest:I could have lived there.
Marc:I didn't realize about him is that he was huge.
Guest:he was a huge like he's been in every movie i mean you two-time oscar winner tony award winner what he won the oscar for being there what did he win the oscar for earlier hud yeah uh hud was his first yeah uh and then being there and uh those were his two he was nominated for i never sang for my father but he he didn't he didn't win that year and then that was the year that actually george c scott won and he didn't he didn't pick up his oscar for patton
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wonder where that is.
Marc:Where's the Patton Oscar?
Marc:Who's got it?
Marc:Someone's got it.
Marc:Someone's got it out here.
Marc:You'll see it at a party somewhere.
Marc:There, you want to see something?
Marc:This is George C. Scott's Patton Oscar.
Marc:How'd you get it?
Marc:Patton Oswalt would probably have George C. Scott's Patton Oscar somehow.
Marc:Melvin Douglas, though, so you grew up sort of under his Hollywood royalty in a way, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was amazing.
Guest:So I got to, you know, as I said, like half of it.
Guest:That's why I always thought like with my career, I'm both an insider and an outsider because with my Italian relatives, we'd go to the movies and we were like poor people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We'd be like poor people go to the movies.
Marc:So your father's father is Melvin Douglas.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And your mother's an Italian lady.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She comes from Queens.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, from Queens, from Astoria.
Marc:So, did your father grow up in Hollywood?
Marc:I mean, did Melvin Douglas at one time- Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He didn't have the- Yeah, on Sonalda Drive, a beautiful mansion there.
Guest:In fact, one time, when I first came to Hollywood, I was so naive, I tried to go visit the house and get in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A person sent guard dogs- Oh, just to look at the place?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm Melvin Douglas' granddaughter.
Guest:The guy's like, I don't give a fuck who you are.
Guest:Get the hell off my property.
Guest:I was like, geez.
Guest:Was it like a mansion?
Guest:Oh, was it like a mansion?
Marc:Yeah, it was.
Marc:I don't know where that drive is.
Marc:I don't know where that is.
Marc:It's off of Outpost.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's off of Outpost.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:Is that what inspired you to be an actor?
Marc:Was he encouraging this?
Marc:Well, he's an old man already, right?
Marc:By the time, well, I don't know.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:He was probably in his 60s or 70s.
Guest:And, you know, I would tell funny stories.
Guest:I mean, both of my grandparents really sort of encouraged me.
Guest:My Italian relatives, I'd...
Guest:I'd pick up little stories of funny things, you know, because all the Italian relatives are crazy.
Guest:And I think that's where I developed my sense of timing and storytelling from.
Guest:Because every Italian ends every story with like, what?
Guest:Hey, what?
Guest:They know.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Hey, oh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hey, come on, your father's got some good faults.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:You know, like they mangle the language.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:They just know how to get out of a jam.
Guest:Charm their way out.
Guest:That's why to this day, like people always, like they say to me, why are you yelling?
Guest:I'm like, that's how you grew up.
Guest:Just Italian.
Guest:It's like, that's not yelling.
Guest:Do you feel like you're more Italian than you are the other side?
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Guest:I think that I spend so much time with them that I develop their rhythms and ways of thinking.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm suspicious of the police.
Guest:I've got all the... I mean, it doesn't... I mean, I have the Connecticut thing, too.
Guest:I think that's why I'm so idiosyncratic.
Guest:I can't really figure out... What part of Connecticut?
Guest:This was, like, all over Old Saybrook.
Marc:Really?
Guest:On the shoreline.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:The shoreline of... You just kept moving?
Guest:Of Connecticut.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:Once they found out about it.
Guest:What was with all the moving?
Guest:It'll all be in the book.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:The book's coming out?
Marc:Yeah?
Yeah.
Guest:That'll be, yeah.
Guest:I'll write about it.
Guest:No, it was all good.
Guest:Very interesting upbringing.
Marc:Yeah, well, that sounds like just something we should avoid entirely for a conversation.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:No, come on.
Marc:What happened?
Guest:What?
Guest:It was all going so well.
Guest:No, that's where I grew up.
Marc:That's where I grew up.
Guest:That's it?
Marc:That's it.
Marc:All right.
Marc:What about Massachusetts?
Guest:Massachusetts is great.
Yeah.
Marc:Lovely.
Marc:How did we just take a left turn at the most interesting part of the story?
Guest:Well, now you know what it's like to date me.
Guest:That's exactly what we're... That chunk of time.
Guest:She just shut down.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:It was all going so well.
Marc:Can't talk about her career forever.
Marc:Brought up one thing.
Marc:She moved a couple times and now I'm standing outside in the cold here.
Marc:What the fuck happened with this girl?
Marc:Where'd you live in Massachusetts?
Marc:Oh, different parts.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Different cities.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On the run.
Marc:On the run.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Secrets.
Marc:We're only as sick as our secrets.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:I like that.
Guest:It's good to have a little mystery.
Guest:It's good to have.
Marc:So when did you end up going to school and stuff?
Marc:When did you start doing the acting thing?
Guest:Well, I was in New York.
Guest:I mean, listen, my whole goal growing up was, like, I was going to go to New York.
Marc:No matter what.
Guest:Yeah, that was, like, as soon as I was old enough.
Guest:I mean, if we had a field trip, I used to actually seriously contemplate, like, how I could... Not getting back on the bus.
Guest:Yeah, I, like, lived in a fantasy world of, like, I would actually think that.
Marc:But because your grandfather was there, you knew about the city?
Guest:Yeah, because I knew... I was like, this is only a matter of time.
Marc:Yeah, you got to go there, right?
Guest:Like, why wouldn't I not want to live...
Guest:with really wealthy people on Riverside Drive, where there was a doorman.
Guest:It was like the world, I don't know, there's this movie called The World of Henry Orient, but that was sort of the growing up period.
Guest:There was famous people around all the time.
Guest:I had my own room.
Guest:It was like all things I did not have in my own house.
Marc:Who were some of the famous people?
Marc:I mean... Cary Grant and stuff like that, or older generation, like where their old Hollywood people... Myrna Loy.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, lots of writers.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:People, you know... Just socializing?
Marc:Gore Vidal.
Marc:Gore Vidal hanging out talking at your grandpa's house?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Over dinner?
Guest:Gloria Steinem.
Marc:That's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, Gloria Steinem.
Marc:So this was the New York intelligentsia coming to the old actor's house.
Guest:A lot of politicians, you know, people in the newspaper business, people that had worked in politics...
Marc:So it was almost like a sort of intellectual salon of some kind.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And people were always hanging out.
Guest:Always.
Guest:And then I would, you know, I'd try to get up one of my like little funny stories about like the cans or something.
Marc:Come do the can bit.
Marc:Ileana, do the can thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was always like this, you know, going from again, like the immigrants thing that we'd always had to perform there too.
Guest:But then with my grandfather was like, you'd have to, after dinner, it was like being in the Seagull or something.
Marc:It was more of the curtains opened.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so there was sort of like everyone's sort of resting after dinner.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Who's going to talk or entertain us now?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:You were kind of like, if you didn't have something interesting to say, you just better shut up.
Marc:And that was very compelling to you?
Marc:I mean, that world?
Marc:Totally.
Guest:I mean, they were talking about the movies and the movie business.
Guest:And they all, there was a lot.
Guest:I mean, for me also, anything with like food and servants.
Guest:And I was like, who wouldn't want to live this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:who wouldn't want to live this life but come on your heart was in the trenches with the shovel right i mean well that's that was the that was the dichotomy like where the loyalty like who am i that's why it took it took me a long time to kind of uh figure out like put both halves together really yeah they were fighting each other for a long time absolutely yeah
Marc:How did that manifest itself, though?
Marc:I mean, did you have friends in the working class world?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Who were like, who the fuck are you?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:I realized it was like a real pattern of diversity.
Guest:I mean, my Italian grandfather was a welder.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And went to work every day and had a lunch bucket.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's a completely different style of living to see someone come home covered with grime and oil and working on a bridge or something like that.
Marc:Doing real work.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then turn on the ball game and open a beer and have meatloaf.
Guest:And I felt really comfortable in that environment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then I also felt really uncomfortable in an environment where there was like a bell and a servant and...
Guest:That's crazy.
Marc:You had your own room.
Marc:I guess who wouldn't feel comfortable in that environment because it feels like you're at a palace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember the day my grandfather said to me, they've invented this thing.
Guest:It's going to change everything.
Guest:It's called the Walkman.
Guest:And it was gigantic.
Guest:It was the first.
Guest:And I still have it to this day.
Marc:It's going to change everything.
Guest:And they'd given it to him as a present on being there.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And also he was telling stories about, you know, Roman Polanski and these are all like, you know, I wanted to be in the movies.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So who was giving you flack, you know, on the other side?
Marc:You know, like, I mean, did your grandfather, the welder say like, that's no job for, you know, that kind of stuff?
Guest:Well, I do remember my brother wanted to be a painter, and my cousins would always go, house painter, that's a good... He's like, no, an artist, like a painter.
Marc:And they'd go, what are you fucking... What is that?
Marc:Dead silence.
Marc:Well, that's the interesting thing is that the working class, they're very practical, and it's not even that they're ignorant necessarily.
Marc:It's just this is their life.
Marc:This is what we do.
Marc:This is how we work.
Marc:The other stuff, it's not...
Marc:It's not so much it's I don't feel it never feels like ignorance to me.
Marc:It just seems like this is what we do.
Marc:This is right.
Marc:This is what we are.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:There's an identity thing to it.
Marc:There might be a little ignorance, but it's not it's not aggressive.
Marc:I don't think all the time.
Guest:No, it's a well, I think that, again, the immigrant mentality is to be suspicious of your neighbors and to hang together.
Marc:And to try to get by and to pass and to work and make a living for your family and the community.
Guest:That's why, like, you know, you have 10 brothers and sisters, and one of them's a welder, one of them, you know.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Things fall off a truck.
Guest:Like, you try to spread out.
Marc:You have this one memory of something falling off a truck.
Guest:What fell off a truck?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:Well, they used to say, in those days, you'd say, like, somebody was out college or something.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That was always, like, you know.
Guest:What?
Guest:Well, I mean, I remember I'd grow up, you know, when I grew up, I was like, I would say to my grandmother, like, didn't you say that, you know, Uncle so-and-so, like, he worked at a prison?
Guest:She was like, no, he was at a prison.
Guest:We just told you that when you were young.
Marc:I was like, oh, okay.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Marc:So when you did Goodfellas, you could actually identify these people.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I knew.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I immediately recognized like, you know, all of them.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:My grandmother, in fact, like, you know, when I. You became one for the part.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, well, you know, I mean, yeah, Marty recognized that.
Guest:And, you know, my grandmother would make.
Guest:you know she used to make lasagnas and stuff for me and we'd still i'd still have to go to you know like if i remember one time i made a lasagna yeah for for marty and i used all the stuff from yeah his story oh you followed oh yeah really you did you went shopping there and got the real shit yeah i had to get all the what do you say did you like it
Guest:Well, the first one apparently someone stole.
Guest:There was like a big controversy.
Guest:On the set?
Guest:Yeah, somebody took it.
Marc:Took your lasagna?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The whole tray?
Guest:Yeah, so I had to make another one.
Guest:And then the second one I didn't actually make because I was like...
Guest:It was so hard to do the first one.
Guest:My grandmother actually, like, it was sort of, I cheated.
Guest:My grandmother made the second one because I was like, I'm going to whip up.
Guest:It took everything I had to make the first one.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it was like the pain.
Guest:So she covered the second one.
Marc:And did he like it?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yes, he did.
Marc:Was that what changed your relationship?
Marc:The turning point?
Guest:Well, I was pretty good.
Guest:That and my knowledge of obscure Mel Brooks records.
Guest:That's what did it.
Marc:Yeah, pretty much.
Marc:The lasagna and Mel Brooks records.
Guest:It was like, how do you know all these comedy routines?
Marc:Let's get to there, though.
Marc:So you went to high school in a lot of different places?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of different places.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So it's almost like you're a military kid because of this weird thing that you're not talking about.
Guest:And so then I went to New York when I was 17.
Guest:So, like, boom.
Guest:As soon as I could get to New York.
Marc:You got an apartment or you lived with your grandfather?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:I was going to be living with my grandfather.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I was living with my grandfather.
Guest:And then, unfortunately, he passed away.
Guest:And at one of his memorial services, I negotiated with... See, this is the Italian part then.
Guest:I negotiated with several different relatives.
Guest:A place to live.
Guest:A place to live.
Guest:And where'd you end up?
Guest:I ended up at an uncle's house on the Upper East Side.
Guest:Right near there's a comedy, I think it's, is it Catch a Rising Star or something?
Marc:Yeah, that was up on 2nd in the 80s.
Marc:That's right, yeah.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Guest:That was my first New York apartment.
Guest:And I remember the first thing I did was- 78th, I think it was, 76th.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because there's another one up there, too.
Marc:There's the comic strip.
Marc:That's in the 80s, and Catch was a little lower.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think it was Catch Your Eyes and Star because I remember looking out and seeing like, oh, that's a good sign.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:There's comedians on the street.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yeah, it seemed like exciting.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sort of like being in show business.
Marc:It was exciting.
Marc:What year was that?
Marc:So that was like what?
Marc:Late 70s?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:That was 81.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So it was still going.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was still hot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so I was with this relative, and my technique was always to be invisible.
Guest:Because if I was invisible, they couldn't kick me out.
Guest:So I was always trying to.
Guest:So I would see her, and she'd say, have you been looking for a place?
Guest:And I would say, oh, yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Oh, it was a temporary thing.
Marc:You were just supposed to be there like three weeks.
Marc:Was it a big apartment?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, huge apartment.
Guest:Again, I had this total resentment of like, why can't I stay here?
Marc:Like one of those big sort of classic sixes or sevens?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I don't think I've ever even been in one of those.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:I mean, like the first thing I did the first night, I unpacked my little stuff and a day of looking around and trying to get used to where I'm going to go to school and everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember she had everything in the bathroom was yellow and yellow tiles.
Guest:And, you know, of course, like Peter Sellers, literally the first thing I do is like wipe my face and my hands and the towel is like black, like pitch black.
Guest:So I know from that point on, like, don't touch the towel.
Marc:Not for using.
Guest:Dry yourself with toilet paper.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How can people put those towels out?
Guest:See, I always... I was horrified.
Guest:With a little satin on the bottom.
Guest:What are those for?
Guest:I mean, do you have... Do you humiliate your guests, clearly?
Marc:Do you have hand towels in your bathroom?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:See, I don't know.
Marc:I got to do that.
Marc:But they're dark.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But they should be... I always forget.
Marc:I got the one bathroom here, and I always wonder, if you went to the bathroom, you're going to go in there.
Marc:It's like, what towel do... And I'm an idiot.
Guest:No, go to Ikea, and they have these great towels that have little loops on them, which are great.
Guest:And so you just put a hook up, and you put a couple towels that have a loop on them, and people absolutely know, like, oh, okay.
Marc:Oh, that's for my hands.
Guest:That's for my hands.
Marc:What did I see you on in Ikea?
Guest:Well, that's my show, my easy to assemble show.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:For four and a half years or whatever.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I watched a couple of those.
Guest:Yeah, it was great.
Guest:It was amazing.
Guest:It was called easy to assemble.
Guest:It's supposed to be the metaphor of like putting myself together.
Marc:Have you done that?
Guest:uh yes it's taken me a really long time but yes that's that was like the fun part of doing the show you seem good it was it was this metaphor for like uh putting you know disassembling myself yeah and then putting myself back together and then realizing that the best role i never played was myself and although that's a catchphrase it's actually true wow it's like i've fused finally these different elements of myself
Marc:So when you were in New York, just moving there, were you out of your mind?
Guest:Yes, totally.
Guest:Because first of all, the first year I spent on different people's couches, I have a horrible memory of finally the woman came home and said, you've got to leave.
Guest:Were you doing bad things?
Guest:No, she just was like, this was a limited thing.
Guest:And she was a relative or no?
Guest:She was a wife of a relative.
Guest:And so then I called another relative.
Guest:And I remember being, it was a terrible memory, but I was in the payphone at the Hilton Hotel, the rain pouring down.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I asked this person, can I come stay with you?
Guest:And they really didn't want me to.
Marc:And you're like 17, 18?
Yeah.
Guest:I was 17.
Marc:And I was in school.
Guest:I was going to school every day.
Marc:Where?
Guest:This was at a place called the American Academy.
Marc:Downtown or where was that?
Guest:It was in Madison in the 30s.
Marc:It was an acting school?
Guest:It was an acting school, yes.
Marc:I kind of remember seeing it.
Marc:Is that possible?
Guest:It could be.
Guest:I think it's still around.
Guest:It wasn't like the world's, sorry, academy.
Marc:So you graduated high school and you just went to New York.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And you're taking acting classes and you're working?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I mean, I'm just in school.
Guest:I took the train down.
Guest:I was like, I got to get out of here.
Guest:I took the train down.
Guest:I got in the academy.
Guest:Is that hard to get into?
Guest:No.
Whew.
Guest:I think they made it hard, but in retrospect, I think they took everybody.
Guest:The funny thing about that experience is like, okay, not only, so then I get my living situation sorted, which was insane.
Marc:Okay, so you're in the rain at the Hilton, and who takes you in?
Guest:I'm living with a therapist.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:who who did not want me so badly that i had to live i had to sleep in his therapist office and that's again that is a family friend yes and i slept on the cat the couch which was so saturated with everyone's problems just soaked it like that and cat urine yes those are my like was he he's an old new york therapist guy
Guest:Yes, and I stayed on the couch.
Guest:And I remember literally the first night looking, and it was pre-Columbian, which developed my crazy fear of psychiatrists, pre-Columbian statues, gigantic penis looking right at me.
Marc:Right there in the office.
Guest:I had to turn.
Marc:He had those in the office to provoke discussion?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What kind of therapist was he?
Marc:Like a Freudian analysis or whatever?
Marc:Just a guy?
Guest:I don't know what kind of a therapist he was.
Marc:But he wanted you out?
Guest:Yeah, he wanted me out.
Guest:And it was really, but I, again, I managed to like turn, I just managed to just literally again be invisible.
Guest:And so he can, if he never saw me, he'd never have to kick me out.
Guest:And I think I managed to get through a year that way.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On the therapist's couch?
Guest:Like a whole, a whole year.
Marc:So you go into acting class and you're working hard at it or what?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you had friends.
Marc:What'd you do?
Marc:Like I'm picturing, you know, you just sort of.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I never came home.
Guest:I mean, I found friends and I would literally like, you know, I mean, to this day, I still have some of the same friends.
Guest:Like they'd be like, I'd say, no, I can't go home yet.
Guest:I'd like have to wait till midnight when he would absolutely.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:be asleep so this is 81 so what are you partying are you going crazy are you running around new york is it like i mean no no i was really it was very very sheltered very like behind and uh but i did find friends you know so that you still have yes that i still have what do they do uh the actors
Guest:One became, yeah, some of them are writers.
Guest:Some of them became writers.
Guest:One of them is a pretty successful actor, Elias Kataeus.
Guest:I don't know if you know him.
Marc:I do think.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Is he a Canadian guy?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:He's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And when we were in school together, he looked exactly like Robert De Niro.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what's funny is that when I started doing movies like Goodfellas and working with Robert De Niro, he was like, how do you have my life?
Guest:I was like the clown.
Guest:My only goal was to go to Hollywood and be on a sitcom.
Guest:That's all I wanted to do.
Guest:This guy's great.
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:And he's your buddy?
Guest:Yeah, I used to do his laundry for him.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would not let me do his underwear.
Guest:I always remember that.
Marc:Guys, you know, it's like you got to be married, you know, to have somebody, you know, to be that comfortable.
Guest:We were all just like living on like how to live on a dollar a day.
Guest:It was like our whole.
Guest:Oh, another one.
Guest:He was in class with you, though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Another wonderful actor, Lou Mastillo, who's on a show, the Mike and Molly show.
Guest:Took him kind of a long time to get accepted.
Guest:He and I, the first year,
Guest:we're not asked back that was like after at the american academy yes we uh my the the you you went through all these you know you did your final right scenes or whatever which i always thought was so funny that they called it your final yeah your final this is it after this it's over
Guest:And again, crazy story.
Guest:But on my way to work, I saw on my way to class, I saw Lee Marvin walking down the street.
Guest:And I couldn't believe it because Lee Marvin was in the first movie I ever saw as a child.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It was Paint Your Wagon.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I, and it was, so I developed like a Lee Marvin kind of obsession.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That and the fact that like growing up in Connecticut, we only got one channel.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the only movie that seemed to be on was The Dirty Dozen.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So it's one of those things that was like, okay,
Guest:I guess I have to watch it and get into it because it's like it's the only thing you have so you watch it again and again and there is Lee Marvin so I figured it's some sign and I stopped him and I talked to him and he was very nice to me he said if you have half as much energy on stage as you do in real life you ought to do fine kiss my cheek I was like oh my god I'm dreaming he was like a heavy man he was great and he was into ESP and I was like you're into ESP what is ESP
Guest:Extrasensory perception.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:I haven't heard that in a while.
Marc:It's like some weird dated.
Guest:That's why I get along with people who are elderly, I guess.
Guest:All my references are.
Marc:How do you get into talking to Lee Marvin about ESP within minutes on the street?
Guest:Because I knew everything about him.
Guest:I was like, that's, I read People Magazine.
Guest:And, you know, like you wanted to be.
Marc:And you saw it as a sign.
Guest:I saw it as a sign.
Guest:I did my scene, which I thought was, you know, amazing.
Guest:My final scene.
Guest:From what?
Guest:It was called One Sunday Afternoon.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:and um and then uh the they had like a little presentation like a little afternoon celebration and i was pretty convinced i was like you were it i was in and the president of the american academy took my hand and said goodbye iliana and i just was like
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Boy, that does not sound like good.
Guest:And within three weeks, I got the envelope that said, we are sorry to inform you.
Guest:You have not been asked back.
Guest:Why the fuck wouldn't they ask you back?
Guest:They didn't think I was any good.
Guest:I was not asked back.
Guest:Lou Mastillo was not asked back.
Guest:Elias was.
Guest:Brian Markinson was.
Guest:And so I was like a failure at 18.
Guest:I was like at 18, total failure and went to work for Steve Rebell, which was at his hotel.
Marc:Which was probably new at that time, right?
Guest:Yeah, he had just gotten out of prison.
Guest:He and Ian Schrager were now going in the hotel business.
Guest:What was that, the Paramount?
Guest:No, the Paramount, this was Morgan's.
Guest:This was originally called, so 60s, the Hotel Executive.
Guest:At the time, this was like people would go there to have what they called short stays with their secretary.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:So it was like the apartment.
Marc:It was awesome.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was really great.
Guest:There was actually a bar downstairs.
Guest:So sad.
Guest:I wish we had iPhones and everything.
Guest:There was a bar downstairs.
Guest:It was actually called The Quiet Little Table in the Corner.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:It's like...
Marc:Or where to take your secretary.
Marc:Primarily made for like daytime trysts?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:So that's all it was made for.
Guest:And it was popular?
Guest:Very popular.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And when I went there, I was like, I just decided I would reinvent myself and go to a new acting school and start all over again.
Guest:What school?
Guest:Then I went to the neighborhood playhouse and it was like 180 degrees different than going to the academy.
Guest:That's where I really found myself.
Marc:In the way they structured the workshops or how they work?
Guest:Yeah, everything at the academy, I was not, I just couldn't fit in.
Guest:Everything I did was wrong.
Guest:I was always berated.
Marc:They didn't like- Too much personality or what?
Guest:Yeah, that was always, you know- Because you're sort of you.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it was always like, you know, they would pick me to be in plays and everything, but then they would, you know, like, for instance, a criticism I got, I was doing a play with Elias Kataeus called The Runner Stumbles about a priest who gets involved with a parishioner.
Guest:And you weren't supposed to applaud in class.
Guest:And we did this thing and everybody burst into applause.
Guest:I knew it was really good.
Guest:And the teacher was like quiet.
Guest:And then she said, Ileana, you walk through your imaginary wall at the beginning of that.
Guest:So after that, I just didn't believe anything.
Guest:Why don't you take a seat?
Guest:So he was that kind of stuff.
Marc:But that's such fucking acting teacher ego bullshit.
Marc:It's like, you know, they've got this system.
Marc:They want to pound people down.
Marc:And if people can put up with the pounding and still transcend with their own craft or personality, then they win.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But they pick on vulnerable people, you know, to sort of like, you know, exert their dumb ego power over you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that was like what I got a lot of like, you know, I got a lot of criticism.
Guest:And so then when I decided to go to the playhouse, it just was like a completely different experience.
Guest:And I still had issues there, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, my acting teacher gave me his name is Richard Pinter.
Guest:And he said, you're he said, you're I don't know if you're aware of this.
Guest:He goes, but you're a pervert.
Guest:He goes, you're a true pervert because you pervert your feelings.
Guest:You put a joke over your feelings because you're so afraid.
Guest:Like just, what are your feelings?
Guest:Like, you know, just do them.
Guest:And that was like a crushing kind of a humiliation for me where I almost had an inability to –
Guest:I couldn't do it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:So, like, they sort of trained me to not put a spin on the repetition.
Marc:So, they conditioned you to say, like, no, no, joke, no, it's a joke, stop.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Yeah, because I would think I was afraid that if I couldn't do the joke, I'd never get it back somehow.
Marc:What, the feeling?
Guest:Like the ability to be the joker.
Guest:I was like, well, underneath it is all sadness and pain.
Guest:What if it all goes away?
Guest:I was like, nobody wants to see sadness and pain, but they do.
Marc:Of course they do, because it's real.
Guest:So once it's like I got to the real truth, like the essence, I was like, okay, now you can build a kind of upon that.
Guest:And then the other thing was he would always say to me, you know, dare to be dull because you're not dull.
Guest:Like my worst fear was that I would not be entertaining somehow.
Guest:So I had to learn that me walking in a room was already entertaining.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I didn't need to put.
Marc:You're compelling no matter what.
Marc:Just standing there.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It's hard to realize that.
Marc:If you're not joking, you're not talking, that you're not invisible.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you were somebody that tried to be invisible.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so one of the things he used to do to me, which was, again, like really intense.
Guest:Boy, it was another thing with me he didn't do with other people.
Guest:I could not.
Guest:He used to put me against the wall and I would not.
Guest:I'd have to put my hands behind my back.
Guest:It's one of the most vulnerable things for somebody who wants to be funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's your back against the wall and you have an inability to move your arms because suddenly you're just totally open and vulnerable.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You should be shocked.
Guest:Did you cry?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:I was like, the problem with the playhouse is I just never stopped crying after the playhouse.
Guest:Part of my fears were accurate.
Guest:I never stopped crying after that.
Guest:It was like it opened a well.
Marc:Yeah, but a lot of people, there's different approaches to things.
Marc:This is sort of old school to do Meister, to connect your feelings to the authenticity of the scene and all that.
Marc:Because then David Mamet set up a school years later, which is antithetical to that.
Marc:That, you know, that there's like there's very different approaches to acting.
Marc:I mean, I've always romanticized the approach that you took.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I know people that took like Mammoth School, where it's just all very pragmatic and, you know, just, you know, show up for the line.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and be authentic in the line.
Marc:But it's not about, you know, ripping out your heart.
Guest:Yeah, I disagree.
Guest:And, you know, David Mamet went to the neighborhood playhouse.
Marc:So I and obviously he was so guarded.
Guest:It's my opinion that he he took repetition and turned it into a screenwriting career.
Guest:I mean, his whole thing is repetition because it is interesting what happens.
Guest:after repetition.
Guest:But I know for some reason, for whatever his rhythm is, he wants it, which is cool.
Guest:That's his thing as an artist.
Guest:He wants it to be very flat and that you just hear the words.
Guest:I just don't like that kind of acting.
Guest:I admire it.
Guest:It's technical.
Marc:I guess, but I've always noticed the guys that come out of that, some of them are great actors, but I guess the argument is
Marc:like for somebody like Mamet, and I'm projecting onto him, you know, somebody who's a fan but also has a problem with him as a personality, is that he figured out a way to justify his own sort of, you know, emotional insulation, you know, through this aggression that was, you know, like he was, it seemed to me that he was literally fighting the idea of, we don't have to tear ourselves apart, you know, to find this art.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:We don't have to be that vulnerable.
Guest:Well, again, that's the classic, that's the Laurence Olivier story.
Marc:Dustin Hoffman's story.
Marc:Yeah, I get that.
Marc:But he was gifted, though.
Marc:But that whole story, though, Olivier, was obviously gifted beyond classical method.
Marc:The people that pay lip service are sort of like these two different schools of thought.
Marc:It's like actors are innately gifted.
Guest:you know emotional people yeah I don't buy that shit that you just you know that it's just a technique no I know he probably wants to you know make it seem like it he wakes up and right has this thing but I'm sure he worked I'm sure he worked on it very hard and again that's somebody who like in that marathon man you know who spoke very quietly and it was one of the most terrifying things ever so he had something obviously going on he made some serious choices exactly so then the once you learn repetition which you do for a year yeah
Guest:Once you do that, then you put on it what they call preparation, which is something has occurred to you that you bring into the scene.
Guest:For instance, your preparation today, like we met.
Marc:I put my clothes on.
Guest:You thought I was an hour late.
Guest:An hour early.
Guest:An hour early.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:so that's your right that's okay that's good so that's called preparation right and then you just work with that so the scene began truly when the door opened right and now you don't know what's happened to me furthermore like what if i was like in the car over what if i just found out i want a million dollars right it's my preparation right what if i just were lost or or exactly right
Guest:Any of the things that happened to me right before that door opened, that's my preparation.
Guest:But without living truthfully under the given circumstances, which is number one, number two is the preparation.
Guest:You layer on that.
Guest:And then the third thing you layer is your opinion and what you want out of this.
Guest:Like today, universally, we probably want the same thing.
Guest:Yeah, to talk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or it could be that like you wanted to go quickly because you want somebody else there.
Guest:Usually all scenes at the playhouse ended with...
Guest:It always would end up in either like, because once you get, I mean, to me, that's my theory of like why so many actors sleep together.
Guest:Because you achieve this intimacy so quickly that you want to have with someone that you're dating that it takes six months to achieve.
Marc:Well, I think that's also why a lot of actors don't last, because then you have that intimacy, and then over a certain amount of time, you disassemble it, because it's authentic in the moment, but it's not authentic in the life.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:And the playhouse, see, I crave that sense of, like, I do everything...
Guest:from a place of love and truthfulness, which is like a big Meisner thing.
Guest:You gotta look at your partner with total love and no- Trust?
Guest:Total trust and no judgment.
Guest:And when do we do that?
Marc:And how the fuck can you go through life like that without being a mess?
Guest:That's what I'm saying, you go really, so I have found myself blindsided many, many times by approaching situations, being totally open,
Guest:Like, I love everybody.
Guest:It's all going to be great.
Marc:Well, were you able to, like, just as somebody who is a comic and who addresses this, you know, the current of sadness.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You know, that runs through.
Marc:I mean, through acting, I mean, were you able to identify what that was?
Marc:I mean, were you able, at that time, I mean, I imagine it's sort of a life's work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, I mean, like, was anyone calling you out on that?
Marc:That, you know, why are you so sad?
Marc:Why, you know, why do you feel...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When we were in acting school, you'd open the door and people were crying on the steps and everything was getting all opened up.
Guest:And I love that.
Guest:See, I thrived under that because it's something to work from.
Guest:I'd rather have a person that's messed up.
Guest:than someone who's holding it all together well there's an honesty to it because they can't control themselves yeah like they've they're they're broken down right vulnerability to it yes and one of the things like our teacher used to make everybody quit smoking like he wanted everybody to be nuts he wanted everybody to be nuts and like let me tell you there were like fights broke out there was you know there was like a lot of
Marc:But it's interesting, though, because a lot of people don't recover from that shit.
Marc:And a lot of people can't hack it.
Marc:And they won't.
Marc:You know, they probably I'd imagine the numbers of people that left acting after a couple of years of that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like, OK, I got problems.
Marc:And, you know, acting is not going to solve it.
Marc:But now I know how raw and deep those problems are.
Guest:Well, there were people that did not like the experience of having these emotions opened up.
Marc:David Mamet.
Marc:Quite a good example.
Guest:And decided he was going to... See, I went the other way.
Guest:Like, I crave that, and if I don't have that, well, then you get into the fourth part of acting, which I always talk about, which is making an adjustment.
Guest:You may go to work with an actor...
Guest:And you were like, you have your approach and they have a completely different approach.
Guest:Like when you're working, you know, with Christopher Walken, it's like, yeah, try.
Guest:He's got his own approach.
Marc:So what do you do in that?
Marc:In that you just have to stick by your thing and pretend, right?
Guest:No, you can't pretend.
Guest:You usually got to make an adjustment of some sort.
Marc:What does that look like?
Marc:Say for Christopher Walken.
Guest:Well, like, I did a movie with him, and Griffin Dunn and I were in it, and we worked very similar.
Guest:And Dennis Hopper was in it, and I worked very similar to Dennis.
Guest:Which movie?
Guest:It was called Search and Destroy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Chris just works in his own way.
Guest:Like, he does his lines different each time.
Guest:He just has his own thing.
Guest:And so, you try to just get a handle...
Guest:on him and who he is.
Guest:And I know in the, in the movie plays, you know, he's a guy that seemingly is going to help us.
Guest:And he turns out to be a killer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, you know, you make this adjustment that he could kill me at any moment.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So I have to play along or something like that would be.
Marc:That was your adjustment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In order to sort of engage with this type.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So that I would be focused on, because we don't, you know, sometimes we, we work with people and we don't, we don't like them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or they turn around and they go, is she going to do it that way?
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You have all sorts of different experiences.
Guest:It's not always idyllic on a film set.
Guest:So you also need a bag of tricks in order to cope with working with people.
Guest:For me, it's actually not always so easy.
Guest:I like to...
Guest:really engage with the person that's my most fun thing i like to prepare with them i like to do that in life yeah i like to immediately connect with somebody in an unhealthy way that's it that's it well that's how i mean that's how the set in goodfellas was like you could not differentiate off set and on set it was like a party the whole time it was like you know marty would quietly roll the cameras and be like okay we're going you know
Guest:Then you go to another film set and it's not that way.
Guest:It's like dead silence, total deadening of everything and action.
Guest:So those are always the hardest things for me because I like to have fun and engage.
Guest:When we were working together, I thought that Bobcat had a great- You and I?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I thought he had a great, to me, that great sense of fun.
Guest:There should not be any difference off camera, on camera, in my opinion.
Marc:That's a very organic way of doing it.
Marc:And I guess it's all relative to the director's vision or what he's thinking about.
Marc:Because I guess a lot of directors, you know, actors are just part of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, like, you know, depending on where that part plays and his vision of things, I mean, you might just be scenery.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To a director.
Marc:And he's thinking about a frame.
Marc:And it's like, you know, you just need to, you know, just...
Guest:I find so much of it is a time element that I start to get tense.
Guest:Because if they're tense, then I'm tense and it translates over.
Marc:So what was the first movie where you felt this shit paid off?
Marc:Like, what were your first roles?
Marc:I mean, I can see your film, you've been in a lot of movies, but I mean, I imagine there must have been a moment.
Guest:Was it Goodfellas where you really realized like, you know, this is... No, I mean, I didn't even know, you know, like again, doing movies like Cape Fear.
Guest:I didn't really know what I was doing.
Guest:I just was like approaching it head on and, you know, just trying to use everything I'd done in acting school.
Guest:But I think that when I was doing To Die For with Gus Van Zandt, he started to teach me about the camera and lenses.
Guest:And something had occurred where I had a scene where I'm talking about, like, you know, that's when I knew she killed my brother and I had to start crying.
Guest:And we did it and it was perfect.
Guest:And then he came up to me and he said...
Guest:I had the wrong lens on the camera.
Guest:Do you think you could do that again?
Guest:And there's no way I could do it again.
Guest:That was the beautiful, organic.
Guest:But I was like, you don't go, no, I don't think so.
Guest:Let's just wait until the moment hits me.
Guest:And then that's when you have to have technique to replicate exactly what I had done.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But like when you work with Scorsese, I mean, you know, you were obviously, I mean, the character in K-Fear was so vulnerable and so fucking, it was such a horrendous turn in that movie that, you know, her sort of need and her sort of almost kind of charming desperation.
Marc:And it was just brutal.
Guest:Classic Meisner technique.
Guest:De Niro and I in the bar.
Guest:Classic.
Guest:Almost moment to moment, like to the point that the audience is insane.
Guest:Like cringing, going like, does this girl not know?
Guest:But again, you give yourself given circumstances.
Yeah.
Guest:And we've all been in that, you know, I mean, again, I think my contribution to that was my Meisner technique and saying to Marty and Bob, like, I wanted to achieve, like, literally this girl didn't know she was in trouble until the second it was happening.
Guest:Like, even when he's putting handcuffs on her, she's like, whoa.
Guest:Because I think we've all been in situations like that where we do not...
Guest:see the signs around us what you want over overrides what's happening yeah yeah and to me that is like true terror where you're all of a sudden like wow okay this car is hitting the guardrails right now we were all drinking and having fun and now laughing now it's like I'm like you know and I that was the thing that I wanted to achieve in that scene is like horrendously powerful and
Guest:Yeah, it was upsetting.
Guest:In fact, I was just in Sweden and it was like very controversial in Sweden.
Guest:They cut that scene from, so I had ties early on to Sweden.
Guest:They had cut that scene.
Marc:The Swedes couldn't handle it?
Guest:They abhorred the violence.
Guest:And I remember, you know, Marty had sent off a fax, which they still have.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:at the Swedish Film Institute.
Guest:They received a personal fax from Martin Scorsese complaining about it.
Guest:How dare you?
Guest:How dare you cut my film?
Guest:And eventually it led to the removal of the censorship board in Sweden.
Marc:Really?
Marc:That scene?
Marc:That scene, yep.
Marc:So when you say De Niro was, you know, he locked in, so he comes from somewhere training and you guys were able to sort of, he knew what was going on, you jived with him?
Guest:Yeah, like he had, I think his teacher was Stella Adler, who had also, I mean, he also did Actor's Studio.
Marc:Right, but that was, that whole clique in New York, those old Jews from that time all seemed to be barking up the same tree.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Meisner, Adler, Strasburg.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But when I see De Niro, to me, like he is that, that's, he's doing, you know, are you talking to me?
Guest:That's repetition.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, like, I was, when they were doing Goodfellas, and he's doing the scene with the guy Johnny Roastbeef about the pink Cadillac, and the girl's like, I love that car.
Marc:And he's like, what are you doing?
Marc:And he's like, what are you doing?
Guest:And I mean, I remember watching that scene, and they were doing the scene, and they were doing it, but, you know, the guy, like, who came in, who wasn't really an actor...
Guest:It was kind of like his approach was like, I'm in Goodfell.
Guest:Hey, it was fun.
Guest:And suddenly it turned into a hundred people on the set watching Robert De Niro humiliate this guy.
Guest:And it became, you can see in the movie, it is like real beyond belief, like where the guy is actually flushed.
Guest:And that's, you know, like, again, that is classic Meisner technique.
Guest:What starts at the top, which is the guy like, hey, coming in, ends with like total,
Guest:You know, humiliation.
Guest:And to me, you know, Bob is one of those people that he locks in.
Guest:You have to give him something because the trick with him is that he's so intimidating because he's Robert De Niro and sometimes like that happens.
Guest:So you have to fight against.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Who he is Robert De Niro and who he is playing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And in the in the bar scene, that was probably, you know, that was my big challenge is to forget that he's Robert De Niro.
Guest:He's just he's a guy that I've met.
Guest:I'm going to get, you know, the other guy back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For jilting me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I had to work really hard on doing it.
Guest:And that's why, like, I did the laughing thing.
Guest:And people, I mean, when I started in, you know, with the laughing, I mean, people on the crew and the set were like, what are you doing?
Guest:Like, what the hell?
Marc:In Scorsese, what was he doing?
Guest:No.
Guest:Everybody was very quiet.
Guest:Because it was like my first big thing.
Guest:But I just was like a fighter.
Guest:And I was like, I know what I'm doing.
Guest:And I had my preparation.
Guest:That's what I say.
Guest:It was total technique.
Guest:I knew what I was going to do.
Guest:I knew why I was there.
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:I was not.
Guest:People thought it was very weird.
Guest:Like before we were rolling, I was doing my laughing.
Guest:And so that by the time
Guest:it was action you know we were all in sync like they kind of knew marty knew what i what i was doing you know well that seemed like a more controlled set than uh than goodfellas i mean it's um it's like right i mean yeah goodfellas was like a free-for-all but in a totally amazing fun way because it was like 20 30 people on set and you dated him uh yes yes for uh quite a number of years
Marc:Right, I knew that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I had to say it like that, like I didn't know it.
Marc:I mean, I don't know that, I didn't know how many years.
Marc:I think about nine years.
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:Yeah, a long time.
Marc:Did you almost get married?
Guest:Almost, almost, very close to it.
Guest:They'll all be in the book.
Guest:Did you write a book?
Guest:No, I'm in the process of not writing a memoir book, but I'm in the process of writing a book of movie essays and things that are all true.
Guest:About your career?
Guest:About my career, based on something once somebody said to me.
Guest:I was telling a story to a psychiatrist, and he stopped me and said, at this point, I have to ask you, are you making these things up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and it was such a big thing for me like i'm not there i'm not therapy i'm like italian yeah go out and have some beers and yeah so like for my one experience to go to a therapist and have them say that i was like okay this is not for me yeah like no that was it with you in therapy yeah that was it that was what was the story
Guest:It's too crazy.
Guest:I can't even get into it.
Guest:It's pretty crazy.
Guest:It was my life post-Marty moving to Los Angeles.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, you know, Marty had always said to me about L.A.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He'd get like a tone in his voice and he'd go, yeah, I almost died there.
Guest:And I was like, I never knew what that meant.
Guest:Like, I was always like, you know, like my whole life was like, I'm watching my life.
Guest:Like, wow, this is crazy.
Guest:what's happening now?
Marc:You know, like this is so cool.
Marc:No planning.
Marc:You just found yourself places.
Guest:No, you know, like I always tell this story, but you know, like I was, you know, seeing Marty and it was on the set of Goodfellas.
Guest:He told me I was, he told somebody that I was his girlfriend and I was like, Oh, great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Good.
Guest:I'll go along with that.
Marc:That sounds good.
Guest:You know?
Guest:So then when it ended, he told me it ended.
Guest:I was like, Oh, okay.
Guest:I guess I'm,
Guest:no longer i think i'm being fired uh i don't know what's happening so i went to california because again i was like well this is the part of the movie where the girl like goes on her own were you that detached from yourself were you sort of like seeing it unfold that way totally like i still do what are you talking about what's what's i mean i tell everyone like when i when you have a problem in life pretend your life is a movie i'm serious put background music yeah i'm
Guest:Just go, what would Ruth Gordon do?
Guest:I survived my entire 20s by saying to myself, what would Ruth Gordon do right now?
Marc:Well, she'd have some moxie.
Marc:That's what I'm saying.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:She'd say, don't cry over spilt milk.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But so I went to California, and I was like, I did not deal with the breakup at all.
Guest:I just went to LA.
Guest:Stuffed it.
Guest:I was like, a problem?
Guest:Me?
Guest:Problem?
Guest:Nine year relationship blows up.
Guest:Like, come on.
Guest:Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.
Guest:Yeah, go to LA, get on a sitcom, get a fancy house and a pool.
Guest:And it just, of course, the audience would know that that's where your life becomes a lifetime really bad.
Guest:This is where the spin out.
Guest:yes the spin out it's like you know what try to find maybe the worst possible person in the universe and then marry him and then you know like see where that takes you is that what you did yes unequivocally who was that guy do i know that guy you know please out of the business we're not gonna discuss that yeah i've got uh like i i don't even think i'm supposed to legally discuss oh no yeah i'm serious i believe you serious
Marc:But Marty almost died out here because he had a massive asthma attack or what?
Guest:No, I don't know.
Guest:It's like, listen, everything Marty said to me and I have no bad feelings towards him.
Guest:He's a wonderful person.
Guest:He's the greatest.
Guest:And I, you know, listen, people do things.
Guest:And as you get older, he was 20 years older than me.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's a lot of things that you do that you don't understand when you're younger.
Guest:I mean, do I agree with how he handled the breakup?
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:But that's my personal opinion.
Guest:It was 20, 15 years ago, whatever, and so many other great things have occurred.
Guest:I have total respect for him as a person, as an artist, and what he gave me.
Guest:But he...
Guest:He said things to me that almost like cursed me because it was like, I almost died out there.
Guest:And then I was like, I'm in LA.
Guest:And it was like, yeah, I know what you mean now.
Guest:It's just, you can die here.
Marc:Yeah, on a lot of levels.
Marc:Not physically, but every other way.
Guest:I think physically too.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Guest:If you read about Los Angeles history, a lot of actresses end up slumped over dead.
Guest:Phil Hartman is dead.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Weird things happen out here.
Guest:You get into weird...
Guest:Charles Manson.
Marc:Sure, I get it.
Marc:Yeah, there's a dark side to show business that I think it becomes amplified because it is show business.
Marc:And there's a type of person that gravitates towards show business that wants to feed off of show business and celebrity.
Marc:And a lot of times when you're trying to achieve celebrity or status in this, you fall victim to some very nasty predatory shit.
Guest:Yes, and I didn't, like, up until that point, I'd had nothing negative really happen to me.
Guest:I mean, sure, I'd had scrapes in New York and stuff, but I didn't have, you know, I had nothing to prepare myself for coming to L.A.
Guest:Scary, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it was like a three-year period that was pretty scary for me.
Guest:And as I said, at one point, somebody suggested I talk to somebody about it.
Guest:Their response was, are you making these things up?
Guest:So I was like, okay, that doesn't seem helpful.
Guest:But you kept working.
Marc:I mean, you did a lot of stuff.
Guest:Oh, no, I kept working, like, again, throughout, like, some of these things that were happening to me.
Guest:I'd go to work and I would do things and I worked with really, really famous people at the time and I would, like, you know, and you – I would never wish –
Guest:that craziness on on kind of anybody i mean like since then i i went the opposite way to just like avoid anyone but i i didn't have such a good radar for people that were that were crazy but it was uh so the the character in cape fear was something that you could tap into in a way that you had a vulnerability that you wanted to connect so badly or that you what was it
Guest:I was very naive.
Guest:I did not believe that bad people existed.
Guest:It was not part of my makeup.
Guest:It just isn't.
Marc:That somewhere they were good somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is my genuine philosophy.
Guest:I have a spirit of cooperation.
Guest:That is what I was brought up with.
Marc:And you got taken advantage of somehow.
Guest:Yeah, eight times over.
Guest:And then the sad thing is, like, as everybody knows in Hollywood, it's not even fun or interesting.
Guest:It's like how many times you're like, oh, it's Judy Garland.
Guest:It's Al Pacino.
Guest:It's Kevin Bacon.
Guest:I have no money in my account.
Guest:How did this all happen?
Guest:You know, like, it's like you can't even...
Guest:say that it's interesting yeah you know like you can't even cry about it because you're like it's happened to it's it is something that happens to artists you know we don't want to think about money or finances or life it's hard enough to fucking make it
Marc:yeah right right and we're not in in our energy goes into to being creative and not having like i i i have a tremendous lack of foresight everything's very immediate to us yeah yeah and and you know who's going to take care of that i don't know the guy who's going to rip you off the guy who's going to hurt you the guy yeah
Guest:You never think about that.
Guest:All I think about is, like, I think about the years of struggle and Elias Kataeus, like, lining up his quarters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:How do we eat?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And so it is never part of our thinking as an artist to think that somebody would take advantage of you.
Guest:Maybe other people do, but I did not.
Guest:I was like, well, aren't we all here to make beautiful pictures?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Listen to music and run in the woods.
Guest:Poetry and make love.
Marc:So after the arc we're talking about, yeah, that's what we're all here for.
Marc:It's all beautiful out here.
Marc:It's California, baby.
Marc:That's what I like.
Marc:What do you mean?
Marc:Yeah, come out to the pool.
Marc:What do you mean when you're taking my credit card?
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:So you hit bottom then.
Marc:Totally hit bottom.
Marc:But not with drugs, just emotionally.
Guest:Just emotionally and financially.
Marc:Because of some bad relationships and bad choices.
Guest:Yes, bad choices, bad.
Guest:And then at that point, I went back to my roots and...
Guest:And I moved back to New York.
Guest:And that's when I started like writing and kind of sort of trying to figure out who I was.
Guest:And it was like painful, very painful.
Guest:But like, again, now I'm in a great place.
Guest:But it took me about 10 years of sort of...
Guest:re-examining what was it I wanted to do for the second half of my career and the writing and where did the writing go where did the comedy go you know I'd started out doing stand-up like that was one of my and then I met Marty and I always like I said was not really where'd you start doing stand-up
Guest:Oh, I only did it like one place because I refused to move.
Marc:Where?
Guest:I worked out of stand-up New York.
Guest:And then like a couple times, there'd be people that I remember distinctly.
Guest:One of them was Dave Chappelle.
Guest:But they would go down.
Guest:You'd have to go downtown.
Marc:To the Boston Comedy Club and the Village.
Marc:Comedy Cellar or something.
Guest:And I was like, that seems very tawdry to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i mean it was like i was a girl that to me like being a girl and being a stand-up uh i found very very difficult that you know like you follow somebody like judy gold and i'm like i don't know what yeah like it was and i yeah i love judy i mean she's awesome and every time i see her to me it was like one of those or you know rosie o'donnell right dude i was like i can't
Guest:Plus, like, I wasn't, you know, I was not thrilled about, at the time, some of the comedy that the women were doing.
Guest:I was like, where do I fit in in all of this?
Guest:It wasn't, I thought it was very graphic.
Guest:Again, that's never really been my thing.
Marc:Yeah, it seemed like there were women in the 80s, the early 80s, late 70s, who were not that.
Marc:You know, Rita Rudner.
Marc:Well, you know, Elaine Boosler, but I mean, it was not, yeah, it sort of took a shift to sort of competing with men.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:To sort of be like, you know, we got balls too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Our vagina is as powerful as a cock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I'd be like, you know, growing up.
Marc:Yeah, but there's- Tell like a funny story.
Marc:There's always room for that.
Marc:But so it worked out though.
Marc:You didn't end up, you know, schlepping to-
Guest:Well, the funny thing is one of my little routines, I did this raging bullwinkle was like one of my little cute routines.
Guest:I got to do that for De Niro, so it was fun.
Guest:Did you laugh?
Guest:Yeah, Marty would like make me.
Guest:Everything I did was stupid.
Guest:I used to do my routines for my roommates.
Guest:It was still my friend.
Guest:He's like, okay, this is always the part of your comedy that it's like, it's not funny, but somehow you think it's funny and then you...
Marc:coerce the audience that's what that's all comedy is you got to commit yeah into it's a it's a laughing but it's so weird though because comedy is antithetical almost to you know what were you learning at the playhouse in a way i mean you know it requires you to to be in a very contrived moment most of the time yeah in a scripted moment with a very specific you know agenda to make those people laugh
Guest:Yeah, that's what I didn't like about it.
Guest:And the whole like talking to the mic and like, where are you guys from?
Guest:And it seemed fake to me.
Guest:I wasn't that was the part of it.
Guest:I didn't like.
Guest:So I used to memorize my jokes and come out and I would act as if they were coming off the top of my head.
Marc:That's what you got to do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also like for me, like, you know, when moments happen that don't happen that, you know, you couldn't anticipate those are always the best.
Marc:like crowd work or any sort of like weirdness that happens in the room or just like breaking down on stage.
Marc:I don't know if you were in it long enough to fucking lose your mind on stage.
Marc:No.
Marc:So when you, okay, so let's sort of wrap it up a bit.
Marc:So when you,
Marc:When you hit the wall, you went back to New York and you went through some sort of thorough, you know, realization or humbling.
Marc:You know, what was it?
Marc:What did you get at that enabled you to move forward with an open heart again?
Guest:Well, I mean, again, I seriously was like, I am going to do a rewind.
Guest:I'm going to go all the way back to Neighborhood Playhouse.
Guest:I'm going to go back to simplifying everything and just taking acting class, taking dance class.
Guest:I'm going to go back to... Because I had sort of...
Guest:It sounds cliche, but like when you get, you know, we work so hard to become successful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But there is no class about staying successful.
Guest:And like to me, that is always that weird.
Guest:You're there and you think, OK, well, this is now great.
Guest:I've achieved.
Guest:I'm like riding in limos.
Guest:I'm doing movies.
Guest:And you don't know how quickly like that disappears.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And because everything you work on is like becoming successful.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like, so I just decided in my own way to do a rewind of like, I'm going to go back to when I was happiest and I knew myself because I sort of felt like I didn't really know who I was anymore.
Guest:So I went back to like, I'm going to take acting class.
Guest:I'm going to start, I'm going to do, I'm going to do everything I haven't done for 10 years because I knew who I was.
Guest:I knew that I had left the playhouse, that I knew who I was, that I did these movies.
Guest:Then I got involved with,
Guest:Martin Scorsese and then I was like, I don't know what's happening anymore.
Guest:I just worked and then I went to LA and then I married.
Guest:That didn't work out and I was like, but I don't know what my goals are anymore.
Guest:I don't know
Guest:My goals up to that point were like, be successful, get a house, with a pool, get married.
Guest:But none of those worked out.
Guest:So I was like, okay, we'll go back to the beginning and start from scratch.
Guest:And so when I went back, which was like a difficult process, I went back to like...
Guest:I sort of reconnected with what had happened to me right before I had been in Goodfellas and some of those movies.
Guest:I did theater, which was really tough.
Guest:Again, people were really tough on me.
Marc:And there's a lot of pride too invested, you know, like in order to sort of say, you know, I have to not necessarily start over, but like it's very hard for people, especially in troll culture, tabloid culture where, you know, they're just going to like, ah, look at her, you know, she fucking failed.
Marc:She's like, you know, desperate now, right?
Marc:Did you get that shit?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I mean, to this day, I mean, we all we all do.
Guest:But I feel like, again, you transcend that just by longevity.
Guest:Everything to me in show business is longevity.
Guest:My grandfather won an Oscar.
Guest:He was 81 years old.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But also like the pride, you know, the taking, you know, that realization, like when I started the podcast, too, is that, you know, you've got to assess who you are in real terms.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's heartbreaking.
Guest:initially initially it is because you i think you wonder is is you know but it goes back to what i was saying like dare to be dull right is what i have enough you know what i mean um and and then but starting over again to me i mean i don't recommend it necessarily but i'm a much better person now than i ever was you know 20 years ago
Marc:You were able to sort of bring it back down to what was important in terms of being in connection with other people in your life and all that.
Guest:Yeah, I have to be a person that is without cynicism.
Guest:I have to be.
Guest:I can't have grudges.
Guest:I have to approach.
Guest:That is the person who I am.
Guest:I can't be angry at anybody.
Guest:I've got to approach movies and art and people with complete sincerity that that's who I am.
Guest:um and i and i also had to like figure out because i knew i wanted to be writing and directing and doing comedy again so i had to find my you know my voice yeah of like what what was my lick what was going to be my wheelhouse stuff that i was going to talk about and which i would never run out yeah um of talking about that and i think that again i found that it's like that person who's like trying to fit in or
Guest:you know i i relate to people like that and i think it is maybe more like a lower you know i don't even know if we use that phrase anymore lower middle class like a kind of blue collar uh i identify with that yeah i identify with like you know i identify with people that that take their lunch pail and yeah and go to work right you know what i mean i i'm not cynical about that yeah at all yeah and i don't what i don't like in
Guest:our society is the is the cynical nature of of people and sometimes like i come across to people like okay for real yeah knock off the crap you know but it's like that is who that's who who i who i am that's that's i have to kind of be that and you feel you feel grounded that we see there's a difference between you know being grounded and being guarded
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And it seems to me that you've sort of arrived at like a level of self-acceptance that, you know, you're not your vulnerability or your openness is something that's it's grounded.
Marc:And you're not so you're not going to be prone.
Marc:You have self-acceptance.
Marc:So you're not going to be taken advantage of or hurt.
Guest:Yeah, because I think that anyone who's funny is like funny, but then they've got something underneath that they're too afraid of to really.
Guest:And then after a while, like, again, you just finally get.
Guest:And I know, like, for instance, when I was doing this, I just did this show for TCM called Second Looks.
Guest:And it's about taking a second look at movies that we saw when we were kids.
Guest:And it really, it took off more than almost anything I've ever, usually everything I do is like, well, that was a brilliant failure.
Guest:And I've kind of accepted that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was really big in France.
Yeah.
Marc:But that doesn't always or hardly ever speak to your work in it necessarily.
Marc:It's just whatever the project was.
Guest:Well, I think we would all like mainstream acceptance.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Not so much for mainstream acceptance, but because it gives me the ability to have the power to- To work.
Guest:To do what I really want to do.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Which is becoming harder and harder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I feel like we're in vaudeville these days.
Marc:In the garage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is it.
Marc:This is a vaudeville stop.
Guest:I mean, I just worked in Sweden.
Guest:I'm like, okay, I guess I'm going to go have to work in Sweden.
Guest:That's kind of cool, though.
Guest:No, it's amazing.
Guest:What did you do in Sweden?
Guest:I did this show called Welcome to Sweden.
Guest:It's something that Amy Poehler is producing and Will Ferrell is in it.
Guest:It's a co-Lena Olin.
Guest:It's a co-Swedish-American production that will be aired in Swedish television, but then they'll also sell to Netflix and Netflix.
Guest:It's exciting.
Guest:It's amazing.
Marc:Instead of vaudeville, let's just look at it as diversified and fragmented.
Marc:That you have to go find opportunities in the weirdest places just because they're opportunities.
Marc:I don't think there's a tier of them.
Marc:They all seem sort of unique.
Marc:I mean, that's a very unique experience to go work with those people in Sweden.
Marc:It's one way to look at it.
Marc:Back when there was three channels on television and there was big movies and then movies nobody saw...
Guest:right it's a different world you know now it's sort of like well people will find that you know they will yeah but what's interesting is that they wouldn't be able to do that it'll be bought by america but that america wouldn't finance it in the first place like they had to go get the money i like how you talk about america as a corporation that will not finance certain things well america it kind of you know it is it's a cultural corporation
Guest:Yeah, of like what is acceptable, what is not acceptable, who you are.
Guest:They're just going to define.
Guest:We're in all these little narrow boxes.
Guest:If you were going up for casting in something, who you are versus what you would be cast at is like a freak show.
Guest:I mean, sometimes the things that I audition for that, is that what they think?
Guest:That's funny.
Marc:That whole part of the business where it's sort of like, you know, how agents and managers function in it.
Marc:And, you know, we're just looking for love and you assume these people like you and that they're working for you.
Marc:And then you have that moment where you're like, oh, my God, they're trying to fit me into things.
Guest:You know, this is their last attempt at... Well, they don't... To me, it's like they don't... You need to find the thing that people are going to identify you at.
Guest:And that's very...
Guest:difficult these days and so again like when i was doing um the turner show i got to write it i got to talk about movies that i loved uh some of them obscure you know i get to talk about you know mickey one from 1965 and warren beatty plays a comic and so i was able to take um my vast movie knowledge and everything and put it into this show and also make it funny and entertaining and informative and i didn't have to dumb it down and
Guest:And weirdly, what ended up happening was it was like, first time in my career, it was the actual representation of me.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's never happened before.
Marc:And you knew that.
Guest:I knew that.
Marc:Yeah, it's a good feeling.
Guest:It only took 20 years.
Marc:Well, look, that's what happened to me in the garage.
Marc:I mean, who the hell knows?
Marc:Thank God it happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you could have lost yourself more.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, right, because then once you have that, once people actually understand who you are, then you can go, oh, okay, I see that guy as a cop.
Guest:I see him as a teacher.
Guest:But up until then, you're in this, like, she's that weird...
Guest:quirky girl i don't know you know like i don't know what it's okay to grow up it's so funny because like when i did your show and i was playing me but the but whenever i'm asked to be me i'm always it's not me it's always like the me that the tv thinks i am right is is much like dirtier and it's so funny to me yeah yeah yeah i try i mean i don't say anything negative about people that's always right right you just be honest even in private yeah
Guest:For the first time ever, I actually said something in private negative about someone.
Guest:And the next day, people were like, I can't believe that so-and-so is like that.
Guest:And I was like, now I feel bad.
Guest:Now I know.
Guest:I don't like saying negative.
Marc:There's a whole culture of people that are just waiting for people to misstep, for them to say something that they can take out of context and use as sort of to feed a fire that may or may not exist.
Marc:There's just a bunch of fucking fire starters out there.
Marc:And everyone has easy access to sort of make trouble.
Marc:It's a tricky world to navigate.
Marc:And there's definitely an argument for just sort of like, I'm turning that shit off.
Marc:I just want to live my fucking life.
Marc:You know, when I think about the amount of time I spend on Twitter for no fucking reason other than to be like, what's happening?
Marc:How come that, is that guy saying that?
Marc:Why is he saying that to me?
Marc:Yeah, it's just like, oh my God.
Guest:I know, you could really end up saying something, you know.
Guest:I mean, imagine like, you know, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.
Guest:I bet none of these people would have been on Twitter.
Guest:They couldn't do anything, but they couldn't do anything.
Guest:You can't do anything in your life.
Guest:They just punch someone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then somebody covers it up.
Guest:I like that.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:That world is gone.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Sad.
Marc:I miss that world.
Guest:I want like the world of like.
Marc:Where people can live weird, you know, lives and you don't hear about it for 20 years.
Guest:I mean, in my opinion, I prefer that.
Guest:Like, I don't want to know about people's backstory.
Guest:I just want to see them in the movies.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, I feel that way, too.
Marc:Like, something changed.
Marc:Once the entertainment news started, it was over.
Marc:I mean, tabloids were one thing.
Marc:But once sort of like behind the scenes became as if not more compelling than what was on the screen, the fucking party was over.
Guest:Well, it ruins narrative stories because it makes it really hard then to tell a story.
Guest:But I have faith in audiences because my whole writing is about that.
Guest:I have faith that people are not as cynical and as snarky as they want to be.
Guest:But somehow we're in a society right now where people are so embarrassed to have feelings.
Guest:They're so – it's like their worst fear is to be humiliated.
Guest:And it's like if you can write stuff about people that are humiliated, that's sort of my thing of like wearing your heart on your sleeve.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Own it.
Marc:I like that.
Guest:And that's how movies used to be.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Again, everything now is like sort of goal-driven.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or you have to be really dirty, which again, I don't know, I'm old fashioned, but when I grew up, you always heard from comedians that that was a crutch.
Guest:And now it's like, if you're not, you know, when I read TV stuff, I go, how would I write for that?
Guest:Because I don't want to write graphic stuff.
Guest:sexual stuff because I just don't think it's funny.
Marc:It's a little cheap and it also comes back around to that idea that you said that Pinter said to you that the idea of perversion a true pervert is somebody that perverts in order to avoid feeling.
Marc:And you said that in a broad way.
Marc:It wasn't a sexual thing.
Marc:But the idea of perversion is to avoid what's under it.
Marc:And I think that's sort of the culture we live in.
Guest:But I don't know why.
Guest:I mean, again, somebody out there can tell me why we can't have the story without the graphic sexual content.
Marc:You can.
Marc:People do it.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, Noah Birnbach just made that movie, Francis Ha.
Marc:And there are people that make movies that are Anderson, Wes, and Paul Thomas.
Marc:I mean, there's a lot of people doing smart shit.
Marc:It's just like there's alternative mainstream.
Marc:But you can do whatever you want.
Marc:And the great thing about what we're talking about now, in the same way that...
Marc:things have become so fragmented is that you can find an audience for things so in in instead of comparing yourself to that this thing you're talking about you just do what you do and put it out in the world you know and do you know use the tools that we have technologically to put it out in the world and go there right let it find its audience right this is what i you know this is my thing you know it's not that thing just stop comparing yourself to that thing
Guest:Yeah, that's a tough one.
Guest:Especially when there's shows where you have to sign.
Guest:There was a show, I think it still is on, like HBO or Showtime.
Guest:Anyway, but as an actress, you'd have to sign, even before you went into audition, that you would do full frontal nudity.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, it was like...
Guest:like i wouldn't do that on a date like that's not happening for two months i got this i really liked him and then i suddenly i got this piece of paper it says you will agree to full frontal nudity like before the audition that's ridiculous yeah and and um
Guest:So that's like a dangerous, to me, that is past the slippery slope.
Guest:Well, you just got to do your own thing and you're doing it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I'm doing it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm doing it right now.
Guest:Well, it was good talking to you.
Guest:It was good talking to you.
Marc:Thanks for coming over.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:That's our show, folks.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:It was a pleasure doing it for you.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:I thought it was fun.
Marc:She's a character, and I appreciate her coming down.
Marc:As I said, we've got three shows this week.
Marc:On Wednesday, we're going to have The Figs, one of my favorite bands.
Marc:They're going to play some pop music and talk to me.
Marc:It was kind of a clusterfuck.
Marc:There were three of them.
Marc:There were instruments, but we had a good time.
Marc:On Friday, the inimitable Barry Crimmins, one of the great political satirists who is off the grid up in upstate New York.
Marc:I was able to sit down with him for a bit in a hotel room when I was up there.
Marc:And as always, go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:We've got new posters.
Marc:More ceramic mugs are on the way.
Marc:If you're wondering why I don't have many gigs scheduled out in the world, it's because I'm in production.
Marc:I'm going to be shooting Marin for the next couple months.
Marc:I'll try to get out.
Marc:I'm out and around in L.A.
Marc:I'm sorry if I don't post those because they're sort of week to week.
Marc:I usually tweet them.
Marc:If you're not following me on Twitter, you probably should.
Marc:At Mark Marin.
Marc:One word.
Marc:You know how it goes.
Marc:If you're not on Twitter, try it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:First time's always free.
Marc:Dig?
Marc:Dig what I'm saying, man?
Marc:Only you will know whether or not you will go down the rabbit hole of Twitter.
Marc:Boomer lives!