Episode 582 - Rob McElhenney
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what-the-fuckers?
Marc:What-the-fuck buddies?
Marc:What-the-fuckineers?
Marc:What-the-fuck sticks?
Marc:What-the-fuckaholics?
Marc:What-the-fuckinavians?
Marc:And what-the-fuckadelics?
Marc:That's enough.
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Welcome to my show.
Marc:Where are we at?
Marc:What day is it?
Marc:It's Thursday.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:The 5th?
Marc:March 5th?
Marc:Hey, look.
Marc:Let's stick with some practical stuff.
Marc:I can tell you this.
Marc:A second show has been added.
Marc:In Seattle for the Marination Tour, I know a second show has been added in Toronto.
Marc:I know a second show has been added in Boston as well.
Marc:Friday, May 8th, there's a late show at the Neptune in Seattle now.
Marc:And at the Bluma Appel in Toronto on April 19th, there is now a second show added there.
Marc:And at the Wilbur on April 11th.
Marc:So I just wanted to let those people know, because clearly in those areas, tickets are selling good.
Marc:But I'm excited.
Marc:I think I'll be funny.
Marc:I'm staying in shape.
Marc:You know, I'm going out on weekends.
Marc:I'm doing the stand up.
Marc:But boy, I am fried today, man.
Marc:I am fried.
Marc:I did pieces of three different episodes today.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A friend of mine told me that's how they shoot porn.
Marc:And she's actually in the porn industry.
Marc:So I think I have a right to tell you that my pussy is a little exhausted.
Marc:Yeah, it was a long day, you guys.
Marc:But I was thinking about what I was talking about on Monday.
Marc:Because I think I'm understanding something.
Marc:I talked about not really giving a fuck anymore, and I don't know that that's necessarily the way to phrase it.
Marc:Because I started to realize something, that there is an outside chance...
Marc:that i may be just growing the fuck up i know it's surprising but i might just be growing the fuck up maybe things aren't going to work out exactly how i want them to maybe things don't always feel as good as you want them to and sometimes even when you reward yourself or expect a reward that may not come all those things and i know i've paid lip service to about to this before but
Marc:If you're looking for the world or everybody in your life to parent you or even your job to take care of you in a way that you wanted your parents to, it's just not going to happen.
Marc:And I think what's finally happening naturally is I truly realize this.
Marc:There's a sort of deadening inside.
Marc:There's a part of your heart that just withers because it realizes that...
Marc:It is not going to get what it wants, but that's okay.
Marc:You should add closure on that thing a long time ago, so eventually it just has to wither.
Marc:You have to kind of beat it up a bit.
Guest:There's just a little part of your heart that's sort of like, come on, just give me everything I want.
Guest:I want it, and if I can't have it, I'm going to be angry.
Guest:And that part eventually goes, I'm not angry anymore because it's just not going to work out the way I want it to.
Guest:And then eventually it's like,
Guest:I don't really, it doesn't matter.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:No, I understand.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:That is being a grownup.
Guest:I understand.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:Yeah, it's a little disappointing.
Marc:I'm okay.
Marc:yeah no i'll be okay that's horrible uh but i'm okay i can handle it just that that that instinct that that little that little switch oh my god this is whatever it is but i'm okay as opposed to oh my god this is shitty and i'm gonna make it shittier by reacting in this tone
Marc:I feel like I've graduated to adulthood and it only took me 15, 51 years and two marriages and no children on earth to, uh,
Marc:to get there.
Marc:And it's a little bit, it's a little painful.
Marc:It's a little cruel, to be honest with you.
Marc:Did I mention that Rob McElhaney is on the show today, the creator of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is currently in its 10th season.
Marc:It's on FXX Wednesday nights, and the season finale is on March 18th.
Marc:It's been a while since we tried to talk a while back and finally got it to happen.
Marc:So that's exciting.
Marc:I just feel so grown up.
Marc:Can you feel the grown upness?
Marc:I guess what I've been talking about is the heartbreak of being a grown up.
Marc:I think I knew it intellectually, but I think the biggest lesson you can learn after a certain point is you're going to have to suck it up a little bit.
Marc:I'm not talking a tough love thing.
Marc:I just mean if you don't want to walk around feeling depressed and injured and wounded and like an open wound for your entire life, which I believe is possible, you're going to have to just deaden that part of your heart that's infantile.
Marc:Just anesthetize it with...
Marc:with the rationalization or something.
Marc:Quiet that fucker down.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I do hope you're having a good day, and let's talk to Rob McElhaney.
Marc:Does anyone ever track you down?
Guest:And that's the guy.
Guest:No, but very recently I had an incident right outside of our house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was like five or six cars parked out there with young dudes with cameras.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they're all just kind of staking out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got my kids out there.
Guest:And so I put my kids inside and I walk out and I say, hey, can I help you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And the guy goes, yeah, you live next to some famous people.
Guest:And I was like, oh, man, all right.
Guest:So they were just general paparazzi?
Guest:Yeah, not there for me, not there for us, but we have a couple of famous neighbors.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And so they were there to shoot them.
Guest:So you were ready for battle?
Guest:I flew right under their radar, which we're happy about.
Marc:And even when you were right to their face, nothing?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:Isn't that great?
Guest:It's great.
Marc:That you have that type of fame where it's just the people that know you know you and everybody else, fuck them.
Marc:It's kind of perfect.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's kind of perfect.
Marc:So now, all right, well, you want to talk about this possible move and this concern?
Guest:Well, yes, we're building a house in Brentwood, California.
Guest:You want to talk about how big?
Guest:I'd rather not.
Guest:A good size house.
Guest:Yeah, it's a good size house.
Guest:I mean, it's like, you know, when you're building your own house, you get to choose, you know, you get to build everything you would ever want in a house.
Marc:But are you crazy or are you reasonable?
No.
Marc:A little bit of both.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, yeah.
Guest:Is there going to be a baseball field?
Guest:No baseball field.
Guest:There will be a gym with mats.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For grappling.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Things like that.
Guest:Wrestling, hands-on stuff.
Guest:Wrestling, jiu-jitsu.
Guest:Yeah, why not?
Guest:Why not?
Guest:You're going to start teaching classes?
Guest:Yeah, because we haven't.
Guest:I'm about 15 years off from that.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But maybe I'll bring teachers in and we'll invite kids from the neighborhood.
Guest:That'd be good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, I always wanted a movie theater in my house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I wanted to build that.
Guest:That's probably our biggest excess.
Marc:You can do that now.
Marc:Who does?
Marc:I mean, like, you do that with... You can do it right through your computer, really.
Marc:I mean, you don't need to... Are you going to put a film theater in?
Guest:Not a film, but, you know, with a projector.
Marc:Right, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I was at Louie's house, and he's got, like, a setup where it's, like, hanging from the ceiling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you can do it right off the... Apple TV.
Guest:Apple TV, yeah.
Marc:Or whatever, through the computer.
Guest:Yeah, and the studios have this system, too, that you have to pay some exorbitant amount of money.
Guest:But you can get onto this circuit where you can watch the first-run movies the weekends that they come out.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You can do that through like a, is it like all the studios movies through one area?
Guest:Yeah, you have to sign up with each individual studio and then you pay them some obscene amount of money.
Guest:That's like a secret service.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where'd you learn about that one?
Guest:I have connections.
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Guest:I have connections.
Guest:So that's what I'm looking forward to probably most.
Guest:But yeah, it's a little scary for me to move into that environment.
Marc:Well, you have two kids.
Marc:Two kids, two boys.
Marc:And you grew up like in a scrappy neighborhood?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it was pretty scrappy.
Marc:Well, I mean, I've been to Philly a few times.
Marc:You ever go to John's Roast Pork?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Guest:I mean, roast pork is the, so cheesesteaks are what the city, unfortunately, is most famous for.
Guest:Right, I never, I go to the roast pork.
Guest:I go to the roast pork, too.
Guest:I mean, I can barely muscle down one of those cheesesteaks anymore.
Marc:I think it's just my... Do you have an allegiance to one or the other?
Marc:You don't give a shit.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, the neighborhood that I grew up in was very close to Gino's and Pat's, which is like the big... Right.
Guest:Those are the two ones.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was always partial to Jim's, which is on South Street.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Though I find it so sad that whenever I talk about Philadelphia, the first thing that comes up is my allegiance to some cheese steaks to a sandwich as opposed to it being, you know, the birthplace of our nation.
Guest:What's the birthplace of a sandwich, too?
Marc:I mean, it's hard to...
Marc:You know, it's hard to figure out what's more important sometimes, isn't it?
Marc:I mean, thank God for one, and now we have the other to talk about.
Marc:One allowed the other to exist.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, to sort of... Well, it's weird, because you go see the Liberty Bell.
Marc:I mean, you do that.
Marc:I go, and I went, and I'm like, yeah, there it is.
Marc:I don't know if I... Do you feel more... An allegiance?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, not necessarily.
Guest:I mean, as an adult now, when I go back, I do.
Guest:But no, not necessarily.
Guest:I don't think I feel any more or less patriotic than the average man.
Guest:I wish I knew more.
Marc:I mean, could you walk your kid around and kind of lay out the birth of our nation?
Guest:I could, but that's only because I got really into American history long after I left school and just started reading up as much as I could on it.
Guest:And now every time I go back, I like to take those historical walks, much to the chagrin of my spouse.
Marc:She doesn't like it?
Marc:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:She'd rather have a sandwich?
Guest:No, she's from Oregon.
Guest:To me, Oregon growing up didn't really exist.
Guest:No, that's where everyone ran away to, to avoid everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And California too.
Guest:I mean, I never really thought of California as a real place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:There's something about the East Coast where it's so densely populated and it feels like all the history is there and there's a type of person that's there that isn't anywhere else.
Marc:There's something about Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Long Island, Rhode Island.
Marc:There's just a type of towny or sort of city mentality.
Marc:It's nowhere else.
Guest:And I can't help it.
Guest:I feel most home when I go back even though I never- You lock right in.
Guest:Your accent probably changes.
Guest:Oh, without a doubt.
Guest:Like immediately?
Guest:Yeah, almost immediately.
Guest:I mean, it depends on how much I'm drinking or how much I'm arguing.
Marc:But like Philadelphia is one of those places I didn't really know.
Marc:I never was there when it was rough or bad.
Marc:But it seems like it's one of those cities where they did a little bit of that renewal business in the downtown area.
Marc:And it sort of worked.
Marc:It's kind of fun to walk around and shit.
Guest:And it's like, it's a great city.
Guest:It's a great city.
Guest:I love going back.
Guest:The neighborhood I grew up in is still a great neighborhood.
Guest:It was just, I think in the 80s, it was kind of rough.
Guest:I mean, rough in what way?
Guest:You know, it was just lower middle class.
Guest:I mean, great people, but I think- White, Irish, black, white.
Guest:A little bit of mixture of everything.
Guest:There were still enclaves of- Italian too, right?
Guest:Yeah, Italian and Irish.
Guest:Even some of my great aunts and grandmothers and things, they were prejudiced in a way, but not in the most obvious ways.
Guest:They were nervous about Italians.
Marc:The Irish.
Guest:Which you don't really see, you know, a lot now because they were Irish.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, you know, it was like the blacks, they didn't really think about too much.
Guest:It was the Italians they didn't trust.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And because of it, I didn't really learn how to ride a bike until I was like 13 or 14.
Guest:Out of fear of Italians?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I was just told you are not riding your bike three, three, you know.
Marc:Yeah, not getting off a block.
Guest:Yeah, not getting off the – I think we were allowed to migrate maybe three blocks in any direction.
Guest:So how big of a family did you come from, Irish?
Guest:My immediate family.
Guest:My father came from 10, and my mother came from 9.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Massive, massive family.
Marc:And you've got brothers and sisters?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I have an older stepsister, a younger sister, a younger brother, and a youngest half-brother.
Guest:So that's four or so?
Guest:That was, yeah, or so.
Guest:It depends on what year.
Guest:Different years I had different siblings.
Guest:Because you have a half-brother on your dad's side?
Guest:Yeah, my father's child from his second marriage.
Guest:How many times has he been married?
Guest:He's working on three.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:This one's happy.
Guest:Oh, yeah, this one.
Guest:This one's happy.
Guest:He leveled off?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:So who did you grow up mainly with?
Guest:My dad.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but we saw my mom on weekends.
Guest:It started every other weekend.
Guest:Usually it's the other way.
Guest:It was.
Guest:My mom had defined herself.
Guest:Defined herself?
Guest:Had to find herself.
Guest:And how'd that pan out?
Guest:It paned out really well.
Guest:But it was rough there for a little while.
Guest:Not drugs?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:She's gay.
Guest:But she didn't...
Guest:I guess she always knew that, but it was really difficult in South Philadelphia to be gay.
Guest:And I think on top of that, she wanted a family, and she went to Catholic school, and it was probably whipped into her that that was bad.
Guest:So she tried to stuff it down, get rid of it?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And so she did that by getting married, having three kids, and then actually was pregnant with a fourth, and they had a late-term miscarriage.
Guest:And so, you know, she was...
Guest:I think up until that point, in her mind, living the dream, living in Philly and raising kids, and then it just kind of came crashing down.
Guest:Just within her?
Guest:Yeah, I think she was just unhappy.
Guest:I think she realized that she was living something that was a lie, even though she loved us and she loved our family.
Guest:She certainly loved my dad, but it just wasn't working.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:That's a big change.
Guest:Big change, yeah.
Guest:I remember them sitting us down.
Guest:I think I was seven or eight, and it was not fully explained to us.
Marc:That she was gay?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was just that mom's mom needs to leave for a while.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I've heard that once or twice before.
Marc:The vague sort of like she's got some things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, we were eight.
Marc:I think we were eight, six and five.
Guest:How do you even wrap your brain around that?
Guest:We couldn't.
Guest:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:You know, you just go, oh, I guess that's the way it's going to be.
Guest:And of course it was, you know, you adapt.
Guest:I mean, children, you adapt.
Guest:But it was a bummer.
Guest:I mean, I can look back on it now and I have such compassion and respect for her to make that decision in probably the most difficult time of her life.
Guest:But as a kid, I didn't get it at all.
Marc:But did she just move across town?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I remember there was a period in the beginning where we didn't see her for a little while.
Guest:And in my mind, I project that to be years.
Guest:But I think it was only a few weeks or maybe a few months.
Guest:But relative to my life experience at that point, it was a really long time.
Guest:And I think she was just sort of figuring out who she was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she found a partner very quickly.
Guest:And they've been together now for over 30 years.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that's like your second mom.
Guest:This is my second mother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm lousy with moms.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I got tons of moms.
Guest:I got so many mothers.
Yeah.
Guest:That's kind of a beautiful story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad, I mean, my dad was really, he's just an amazing guy.
Guest:He recognized, you know, when my mom came back and said, you know, let's figure this out.
Guest:He said, I get it.
Guest:Let's figure it out.
Guest:You know, she said, I want to have a relationship with my children.
Guest:He said, you absolutely should.
Guest:And they figured it out.
Guest:They figured it out.
Guest:And we're so close and continue to be so close that when my father went through, he got remarried after this, he went through a second divorce.
Guest:There was some financial issues and he was going to lose the house.
Guest:And he moved in with my mother and Mary for an extended period of time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And they lived together.
Guest:In New Jersey.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's touching.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they all still get along?
Marc:They do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:New Jersey?
Marc:Yeah, South Jersey.
Marc:That's right by Philly, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Jersey's the other place.
Marc:That's where my family's from, Jersey.
Marc:There's nothing like that area.
Marc:No, it's the best.
Marc:I know.
Marc:It really is.
Marc:Well, that's a great story and everybody's good.
Marc:Everybody's pretty good.
Marc:And your brothers and sisters took to it and everything.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It wasn't as difficult looking back on it, even at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never felt like it was that difficult.
Guest:And I think that was an extension of how my friends reacted to it.
Marc:um but also your dad too i mean like it's yeah i imagine those things can be difficult if your dad would have been like fuck her i can't you know what i mean but yeah no that's not my in my father's nature yeah but like i think that's what causes the weirdness is if somebody if a parent freaks out but how'd you yeah none of that happened my my friends were always super supportive i mean i remember i remember really coming to terms with it when i was probably
Guest:maybe in eighth grade, you know, or 13 or 14.
Guest:You know, I probably always knew but didn't want to admit it to myself.
Guest:That your mom was gay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I remember, you know, maybe pulling aside one of my friends at one point and saying, hey, you know, I think my mom's gay.
Guest:And he's like, yeah, no shit.
Guest:And it turned out that all of my friends kind of already knew because she was living with a woman for as long as they had known her, almost for as long as I had known her.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And nobody cared.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, nobody, nobody on it.
Guest:I don't ever remember having any altercation or issue with it amongst my peers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, it's weird.
Marc:That Catholic thing really zaps your head.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And it also seems like when things go weird within a Catholic community, that eventually if they just stay kind of like if people are committed to the whatever they might consider weird within Catholicism, eventually it just levels off.
Marc:And that's just the way that is.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How Catholic were you brought up?
Guest:uh super catholic i mean i went to catholic school all through my uh i mean through grade school kindergarten like you had to wear an outfit oh yeah yeah the whole deal tie suit and tie and your dad your dad was your church my dad's pretty yeah he still he still is he still is
Guest:My mother, it was really fascinating because we were with my mother on weekends and, you know, she would, she lived across the street from a church.
Guest:And so we had to go, you know, every Sunday.
Guest:Meanwhile, we're like, what the fuck?
Guest:No one, she's sending us across and she's saying you have to go, but she's not gone, of course.
Guest:And my dad.
Guest:Was she not going because she didn't believe her?
Guest:She was ashamed or what?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think it was probably a little bit of both.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I think it was a little bit of both.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I actually really loved Catholic school.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I went to a single-sex Catholic school.
Guest:All boys.
Guest:All boys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All dudes.
Marc:So you liked it because it gave you a good competitive spirit, discipline?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit of that.
Guest:Yeah, I think there was a tremendous amount of discipline, but also compassion.
Guest:You know, this was the 90s.
Guest:It wasn't the 50s.
Guest:So I went to a Jesuit school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And their whole thing is just, you know, continually question authority, which is, you know, a really empowering thing to teach a 14 year old boy, you know, and dangerous.
Guest:I would think from a scholastic perspective, you know, they're trying to corral these hormones filled.
Marc:Well, that was part of the, that's the idea of the Jesuits?
Marc:It's a huge part of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're constantly challenging you to question everything.
Marc:Well, that sort of defines the way you've approached your whole life in a way, huh?
Guest:My life?
Marc:Yeah, after a certain point.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, I credit my high school as having a major, major impact on my life and the way that I see the world.
Marc:Was there a teacher in particular?
Guest:There was a few.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:There was a few.
Guest:Yeah, I had this one, this nun, Sister Kate Woody, and she was tough, but I remember one time, I had some discipline problems when I was a freshman.
Marc:How did those manifest?
Guest:I was super obnoxious and I was really small.
Guest:I didn't hit puberty till like way late in life, like 16 or something like that.
Guest:So I was a wrestler my freshman year and I remember my exact weight class, my exact weight because I was a wrestler.
Guest:So the lowest weight class was 103.
Guest:But as a freshman, I wrestled the 103 in the 103 pound category, but I was 87 pounds.
Guest:So 87 pounds is a 13-year-old boy.
Guest:Tiny?
Guest:Tiny, tiny.
Guest:And all my friends were developing body hair and- Oh, you were laid on that?
Guest:Oh, laid on everything.
Guest:The worst.
Guest:In the locker room?
Guest:The worst.
Guest:Brutal.
Guest:What's going on, man?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you learn, you know, you learn how to deal with, you learn how to deal with, you know, various ways.
Guest:Keep your towel on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One of them was just to get like as obnoxious as possible and belligerent and ready to fight and, you know, those kinds of things.
Guest:And so it would manifest in that way.
Guest:My grades were always really good, but I was always, I was always getting detention, you know, suspended.
Marc:So what does, what does sister teach lay on you?
Guest:Well, one day I was in a big fight with one of the teachers and he called me a pain in the ass and I probably was, but then I kind of continued that fight and then a kid got involved and then it got physical and I got pulled away and the disciplinarian came and pulled me and pulled me into his office and he gave me a lecture and another teacher came in, they gave me a lecture and they're like, you're fucked up, what are you doing?
Guest:You know, what is this behavior?
Guest:We're going to suspend you.
Guest:We're going to expel you.
Guest:And then Sister Kate comes in and she's like, McElhenney, come with me.
Guest:So she pulls me into her office.
Guest:I'm like, oh, man, your sister Kate.
Guest:She slams the door and she goes, you know, most people just remember this.
Guest:Most people in your life don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Guest:Get out.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:And I laughed and my head exploded.
Guest:What did that mean?
Guest:Because she, I think what she, subsequently we had many conversations about it, but I think she was basically like laying a level of compassion on me that I couldn't quite comprehend, but it was like, look,
Guest:You're going to be surrounded by people who are telling you what to do, how to do it, when to do it all the time.
Guest:But they don't really know.
Guest:They're just as lost as you are.
Guest:And so some of your behavior, and again, I don't think she was excusing my behavior, but I think she was, you know, sometimes when you're a 14-year-old boy, you don't need to be told what to do all the time.
Guest:You just want somebody to tell you that you're not bad.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think that's kind of what she was saying.
Guest:And I took that and wow.
Guest:So I had a teacher telling me that I was surrounded by people who oftentimes are just as lost as I am and don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
Guest:And that's true at every age.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I took that and it could have been really destructive, but they also had a community that sort of fostered discipline with that.
Guest:So it wasn't just empowering insofar as, hey, do whatever you want.
Guest:It was, okay, now take that attitude, but refine it with a certain level of scholastic enterprise or just discipline.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and empathy too i mean oh absolutely in order to to not take that the way of like well fuck everything you just got to sort of like well that just means we're all human yeah and there's room for discussion and and and and respect and yeah yeah and so that that kind of molded my entire experience through through that high school and then um and then after that i i think there's still aspects of that conversation that i remember yeah did you go to college
Guest:No.
Guest:No, in fact, it was a prep school, and I was the only person that didn't go to college, but that was never my intention.
Guest:I just wanted to take a little time off after I graduated, and I did, and then I just started visiting my friends at various schools to see which one I liked and was just going to apply a little bit later that year, next semester.
Guest:And I noticed that all my friends were just getting fucked up, which was great.
Guest:It was a lot of fun, but they weren't
Guest:They were kind of going to class, but kind of not.
Guest:They were racking up insane amounts of debt.
Guest:So you were just hanging out at colleges.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, I did like the full college tour.
Marc:Because I know a guy knew you at Fordham.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I lived at Fordham.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I lived in the dorms at Fordham.
Marc:You know, he said that, you know, you were sort of around this group of people that you hung out with, and they're all sort of rooting for you.
Marc:You were just a guy that, you know, wasn't enrolled, but would kind of hang out and go to class sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, well, once I decided that I didn't want to go to college because I just felt like...
Guest:In a lot of respects, I was too immature.
Guest:I wasn't really ready for it.
Guest:I think there was a certain level of social conditioning that's important in college.
Guest:But also, I just didn't have the yearning to sit in the classroom again for a while.
Guest:But I thought eventually that would come back.
Guest:So I thought, well, let me just take a year off.
Guest:And then in that year, I just saw, I don't know, it just seemed like a big waste of time to me.
Guest:It didn't seem like anybody was learning anything.
Guest:In my mind, they were just preparing themselves for a lifetime of debt and maybe, I don't know, secondary schooling after that.
Guest:Or if they had very specific goals, which I didn't find that anybody did, whether it was med school or law school or anything like that.
Guest:With my particular crew, yeah.
Guest:And so I just thought, well, I don't know.
Guest:Maybe I won't go.
Guest:So I moved to New York, and that's when I lived at Fordham in the dorm.
Guest:I got an ID and everything.
Marc:You did?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How'd you do that?
Guest:I wound up talking... I got a meal plan.
Guest:I wound up talking to...
Guest:One of the guys there, and he hated the food, but his parents had bought him this meal plan.
Guest:So I made this deal with him where I would give him whatever the meal plan was, a couple grand or something.
Guest:I would just give him like 100 bucks cash, which didn't cost him anything because his parents were paying for it.
Guest:I would take all of his information.
Guest:I would go to the, you know, to the registrar and they would write me up like a new ID application.
Guest:I would go to the ID, the security office.
Guest:They would just, no questions asked, take the picture.
Guest:So I had this ID that not only got me everywhere on campus, including the dorms and the security gates, but got me on meal plan.
Guest:So I was, for all intents and purposes, a student at Fordham.
Guest:And I would go to class sometimes.
Guest:I would audit classes.
Guest:I was a non-matriculating student, but I would go and I would sit in some of the classes that interested me.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, that's when I kind of got into American history.
Guest:So I started going to some of the history classes.
Marc:Is it just like you were going to college without paying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you got free food and free room and board?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you were sweeping on people's floors, right?
Guest:I was, yeah.
Guest:Actually, they lived in eight men's suites.
Guest:So one of my buddies from high school, they had seven men in one suite and he had an extra bed in his room.
Guest:So for eight months, I mean an entire school year, their entire sophomore school year, I lived at Fordham as a non-student resident.
Guest:And they didn't know.
Guest:I lived in the Bronx.
Guest:No.
Guest:You know how they found out?
Guest:They found out because there was a play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I had the... Looking back on it, it was a really dumb move, but I was making lots of dumb moves at that point because I had a good thing going.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it was Angels in America.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I auditioned for the play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because everybody thought that I was a student.
Guest:Right.
Guest:so i auditioned for the play i get the part right and uh which part like the husband yeah the the husband yeah and uh joe yeah yeah and uh so i get the part and i'm i'm super excited and i get to the first day of rehearsals and the and the uh the director is like he's a student you know he's he's fun he's cool but then there's like this older woman and she's like clearly like an administrative role or something like that she comes hey can i talk to you for a second i was like fuck
Guest:I knew right away.
Guest:So it turned out that the kid who was also up for the role but didn't get the role, rightfully, rightfully, because the truth is it was a student production.
Guest:It should be all students.
Guest:I think he ratted me out.
Guest:And so they were like, who are you?
Guest:What are you doing here?
Guest:And I said, I'm just a friend, and I was interested in the play.
Guest:And luckily, they started to sniff around, and by that point, the school year had ended, and I moved out.
Marc:Got out.
Marc:I got out.
Marc:They couldn't charge you with anything.
Marc:Maybe falsifying something?
Guest:They definitely take security very seriously up there because it's in kind of a rough section of the Bronx.
Guest:So the fact that a person was able to just- They probably wanted you just to go away.
Guest:Yeah, they wanted to just kind of forget about it.
Guest:That's hilarious.
Guest:And that's kind of what happened.
Marc:Was that where you first started doing the acting?
Guest:No, no, I started in school.
Guest:In high school?
Guest:Actually, in grade school, I started doing musicals and plays, mostly because I just saw that I was not a good athlete, and I wanted to be.
Guest:I tried to play every sport, and nothing really took, and I think my size had a lot to do with that.
Guest:Is that heartbreaking?
Guest:Yeah, devastating.
Guest:I mean, it was all my friends, you know, were able to compete in some athletic endeavor, and I wasn't.
Guest:But then I found this, and this was a great way to meet girls.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:To do musicals?
Guest:Well...
Guest:Not as a grown up, but when you're in eighth and ninth grade.
Guest:And so then because I went to an all boys school, we had sister schools, all girls schools, and they would do these plays and they would need guys to do the plays.
Guest:So I would just go and do those plays and that was it.
Marc:So you had to go to the girls school every day to rehearse.
Guest:Yeah, and I had so much fun and it was just a great way.
Guest:It was just something that I was kind of good at and it was a great way to meet girls and a great way to have something to do.
Guest:Do you remember your first play?
Guest:Sound of Music.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I did the Sound of Music twice and played both like once and I played the younger kid and then years later I played the older kid.
Guest:And did you do drama and everything?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:All the way through high school?
Guest:Not all the way through.
Guest:I sort of tapered off my senior year just because I wanted to get drunk and hang out with my friends.
Guest:But then, and it never occurred to me that it could be a profession.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, I mean, California was a...
Guest:until that first year uh when i was um at fordham and when i was yeah well before that when i was just kind of coming back and forth and then i realized like oh wow like people i i met a professional actor and i was like oh yeah that's an actual who profession it was just a guy who was auditioning commercials and stuff yeah and so he introduced me to an agent i wind up because i looked so so now one of like my one of my like
Guest:greatest sources of stress in my life was that I always looked so young and small.
Guest:Now, it was something great because I would get hired to play really young.
Guest:So as actors, you only get, I think, six hours with a kid under 18 or whatever it is.
Guest:So they were always looking for kids who were 18 to play younger.
Guest:We just used one in my show.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:A girl, 18, she looked 15.
Guest:Yeah, so when I was 18, 19, I looked 12, 13.
Guest:I'm serious.
Guest:I would get roles as like a 13-year-old.
Guest:And it was somewhat humiliating, but at the same time, I was like, fuck it, I'm working.
Guest:I don't care.
Marc:So you got this agent from this guy who referred you, and they were like, oh, my God, we got one.
Marc:We got like a man-child.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that was kind of it.
Guest:And then I was, so I was living in the, in the Bronx.
Guest:I moved to New York, you know, with like a couple hundred bucks, but I was lucky because I had the meal plan and the room and board all taken care of.
Guest:And I was working, I wound up getting a job working at a bar on the Upper West Side, but then I was just taking the subway down for auditions and I started doing commercials.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Like a lot of them?
Guest:I did a bunch.
Guest:And as a kid?
Guest:I did a bunch.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, as a, as a 19 year old, I did a, I did a ton of commercials.
Marc:So you're making a living.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, at one point I made enough that I could quit the bar.
Guest:I got my own apartment and I thought, oh, this is great.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:I had my first acting job, my first like professional acting job outside of commercials was for a movie called The Devil's Own.
Guest:And it was Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, I remember that.
Marc:It was like the Westies or something?
Guest:Sort of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He plays like an IRA hitman.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, um, so I, I, I mean, I had only lived in New York city for two months and I'd already gotten this job and I was, uh, Julia Stiles was the actress.
Guest:I played her boyfriend and I had a scene with Brad Pitt and a scene with Harrison Ford and a scene with Julia Stiles and I made some money and I was like, oh wow, this is, this is never going to end.
Guest:So a year goes by, the movie comes out, I get completely cut out of it as if I'm not even, like not even as an extra.
Guest:And of course, I told my family and my friends and everybody's there, we're all sitting there watching the movie and fucking I'm not in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I quit my job.
Guest:I mean, to me, it was all going to be roses.
Guest:Gravy.
Guest:From there.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, I started to look a little bit older.
Guest:Now I look 19 or 20 or 21.
Guest:And now I was competing against other 20, 21 year olds.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I didn't work for, you know, two years.
Guest:I had to go back to the restaurant or the bar and start, you know, bar backing and bartending again.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:You brought the family out.
Guest:Oh, everybody.
Guest:I mean, everybody.
Guest:You got no word on that.
Guest:No.
Guest:They don't give you the heads up.
Guest:That's happened to me twice, actually.
Guest:And the second time, I got a letter from the director, which was really nice.
Guest:What was the second one?
Guest:Wonder Boys, which was Michael Douglas.
Guest:With Mike Douglas?
Guest:Yeah, Michael Douglas and Katie Holmes.
Guest:And again, I played somebody's boyfriend.
Guest:I played the love interest of Katie Holmes.
Guest:With lines?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah it was a minor again it was minor role like four or five scenes or something like that but um this was after the devil zone yeah and i'd already learned my lesson so i was like all right well we'll see we'll see what happens but again it was a big it was a high profile movie curtis hansen was the director who i loved from la confidential and uh you know like a month out was that after la confidential it
Guest:This was after LA Confidential.
Guest:It was like right after.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And he was so cool to me.
Guest:We were staying in Pittsburgh, and I had dinner with him, just me and him, and he was talking about LA Confidential.
Guest:And then like a month before the movie comes out, I get a letter.
Guest:A letter.
Marc:You're lucky you talked to him.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, hey, look, man, it's got nothing to do with you.
Guest:And of course it has something to do with me.
Guest:But either way, it didn't make it into the movie.
Guest:And so I was just happy and glad that I got the heads up.
Marc:yeah yeah that's nice yeah sorry so now you're back after your big movie breaks you're you're bartending you're in bar backing and yeah and what were you living in brooklyn oh in brooklyn yeah i moved from the bronx to brooklyn were you were you getting discouraged how old were you 20 21 yeah what happens 21 22 uh then i was just like i was depressed and i wasn't working at all and so um then complaining but not discouraged no depressed
Guest:Well, I was discouraged, but I wasn't ready to pack it in.
Guest:That never entered my mind.
Guest:And then I was complaining, and so my manager was sick of me complaining about all the things I was reading.
Guest:Who was your manager?
Guest:Nick Frankel, who's one of the producers of my show.
Guest:Now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He said, look, if you want to read something that you like, why don't you write something?
Guest:And you're 20?
Guest:I think I was 20 or 21 by this point.
Guest:Maybe 20 or 21.
Guest:And so I wrote something.
Guest:It was super dark.
Guest:I mean, I never considered myself funny, and I was never going out for comedic roles.
Guest:That was the first script you wrote?
Guest:That was the first script I wrote, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I thought it was pretty good, but you need to get other opinions, and so I gave it to Nick, and he thought it was pretty good, and we wound up sending it out.
Guest:Not a comedy.
Guest:Not a comedy.
Guest:No, no, like a dark- People dying it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was kind of like a Scorsese ripoff.
Guest:And I wound up optioning it to a company.
Guest:And then Paul Schrader, the director, he signed on to direct it.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Must have been dark.
Guest:It was super dark.
Guest:And that was the place of my, that's where I was in my life at that point.
Guest:I mean, just the life I was living, I was working at the bar until four or five o'clock in the morning.
Guest:Sleeping all day.
Guest:Sleeping all day.
Guest:The worst.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was both the worst.
Guest:It would oscillate between the worst and, like, the greatest.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because I was still 20 years old living in New York City.
Guest:Right.
Marc:There's something about that sunrise that kind of, like, sometimes it's like, oh, it's the worst, and other times it's like, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, it depends.
Guest:Like, if I was on, you know, drugs, it would be the worst.
Guest:But if I was coming out of that club having worked an entire night, and I had a sock full of cash, I had to keep my money in my sock because I took the D train back to Bronx.
Marc:What club were you working at?
Guest:I worked at a bunch.
Guest:I worked at a bar called Bourbon Street on the Upper West Side, a club called Venue, and then a couple of restaurants up there.
Guest:But you would get out at 4.30.
Guest:They would close at 4, and then you wouldn't get out after cleaning up until 4.30 or 5.
Guest:So I love that when I would have a sock full of money, and I would see people up and going to do their day.
Guest:It felt like I accomplished something.
Marc:You just won that war that they didn't understand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So Schrader signs on.
Guest:So Schrader signs on.
Guest:And when I got that call that Paul Schrader was going to direct this movie that I wrote and it was the first script that I had written, I was so excited.
Guest:I mean, this is going to be such an amazing experience to learn from him and to...
Guest:And to figure out what my place is in the industry.
Guest:Because at that point, I was really confused.
Guest:Like, well, maybe this is what I want to do.
Guest:And then I proceeded to have the worst experience for a little over a year.
Marc:With him.
Guest:Yeah, but it wasn't necessarily because of him.
Guest:Although he's a strange guy, but he's also a really interesting guy and a brilliant guy.
Guest:And I learned quite a bit.
Guest:from him but you know he wasn't looking at it like hey let me take on this this young apprentice which i was kind of hoping for right right it was more like look do this and do that do this and then i'll just take it over i'll fix the script and yeah yeah i got it yeah and and meanwhile um the op i learned the difference between an option and a sale yeah which is when they option it means that they're just buying the rights to it and they're not going to give you very much money so
Guest:Really, I wound up optioning it for very little money, and the company was kind of shady, and it didn't... It was like they were supposed to pay me by a certain date.
Guest:It didn't come, and then weeks would go by.
Guest:And meanwhile, I'm working at a fucking bar.
Guest:I want to quit and be a professional something, writer, actor.
Guest:And so I wasn't able to do that for almost the entire run of that year.
Guest:And then Paul wanted to go in a different direction that...
Guest:you know i was doing it because it was paul and i was like yeah sure whatever yeah tell me what to write and i'll write it and i would write it and it wasn't good and it wasn't good and it wasn't good but he was seemed happy with it and um but it was taking it in a direction that i didn't like and by the end of it so the the options up and um paul had just signed on to do autofocus which was that great yeah that bizarre movie you like it i loved it fucking great yeah i loved it
Guest:I love pretty much everything that Paul does.
Marc:Oh my God, that scene where they're just both sitting there on the couch jerking off, not looking at you, just talking.
Guest:Yeah, I remember that one.
Guest:So that's kind of like, now you understand my experience for the better part of a year with him.
Guest:It's like, he wants me to write things like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is, you know, which was challenging, but fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wound up at the end of the year with this movie that was not mine anymore.
Guest:It didn't feel right to me, but I thought, oh, well, I did my job.
Guest:Paul, you'll go make this movie, and that'll be a great thing for me.
Guest:And they'll buy the movie.
Guest:And so I get this call, and they say, well, Paul just signed on to Autofocus, so it's going to be at least another two years.
Guest:And we don't know if we're going to buy this eventually, so maybe we'll just hold off.
Guest:So after a fucking year of this,
Guest:With really no money and not a great creative experience.
Guest:And he just had you butcher your script.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wound up with nothing except a great learning experience.
Marc:And no resentment towards Paul Schrader.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, because I didn't have that great of a person.
Guest:Also, I realized that I did it.
Guest:At every point, I had the decision.
Guest:I didn't have to do it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I could have said no.
Marc:But you also wanted to learn in a way that's sort of like, well, maybe he'll make me see something a different way.
Marc:And then after a certain point, you're like, no, it's just not any good.
Guest:And by the way, it's not doing it for him either or the studio who eventually passed on it.
Guest:So at the end of it, he was like, well, I don't know.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:And that was it.
Guest:So a year that did you ever have you met him since?
Guest:I have not seen him since.
Guest:No.
Guest:so okay so that's a year i doubt he would remember me at all right so okay so you do a year of that and then what happens yeah and then i was like well fuck that i don't want to do i'll just go back to being an actor and just auditioning because that just seemed like a miserable miserable experience when did you make the move then i moved in uh 2002 to la to la that was so this i'm really going to do it that's your just that's your decision like no that was me getting away from an ex-girlfriend
Guest:oh really yeah yeah i was like miserable and terrible i was just in a really bad place and i was just doing a ton of drugs and drinking in new york in new york yeah and staying up all night and i had a little bit of money so i was doing the blow talking a lot hanging out oh yeah yeah i was so interesting what conversations i was so interesting i bet oh man i mean you get a grandma cocaine in here and i'm the most interesting man man you got all the answers yeah
Guest:I figured it out.
Guest:We're going to make so many plans tonight.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, when that sun comes up, we'll be on that boat to Staten Island.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Because that's the plan.
Guest:Staten Island.
Guest:We're going to go see the Statue of Liberty.
Guest:You know, we're not going to let this...
Guest:We're not going to let that Coke hammer hit us over the head tomorrow.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We got a day.
Guest:We got a day plan.
Guest:We got it all figured out.
Guest:We got it all figured out.
Guest:And I remember having real problems when the dealer, because in Manhattan it was so great and easy, you just called the dealer and would come to you.
Guest:So the dealer would...
Guest:would the dealer would come to the house and one day he came to the house and we realized like oh he's late he's late what what's going on and we look at the time and it's 9 30 in the morning right and we fucking called in like an ecstasy dealer or something to come at 9 30 in the morning and that's when i realized like this is this is not this is not good
Marc:And you've been up all night and you're like, what the fuck, man?
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:Yeah, my third ecstasy pill is finally wearing off and I need him to get here.
Guest:I don't understand.
Guest:And I know it's light out, but I'm hoping it's like, you know, six.
Guest:You know, I could still justify putting that last.
Guest:You can't have.
Marc:The worst.
Marc:and the best yeah i know that's the worst that's that's that's the yeah well you do get to that point of exhaustion where you you become so removed from anything that looks like a life yeah and you're so insulated with the three people that you hang out with yeah and you know you you know enough and you've read enough and you see enough to recognize that it's all careening towards something inevitable doesn't end it doesn't end with like i got it yeah i figured it out i'm the guy that figured it out
Guest:that's not the way that story ends no so you ran away yeah I got I got I got I got out of there was it did you get out dramatically like this I've got to go tomorrow uh well there was one there was one almost there was one night where my but this but we were all hopped up on something and we decided well this is the night we're gonna move and me and my roommate packed I had a minivan and
Guest:I had a fucking minivan.
Guest:It was my first car I bought in Brooklyn.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we packed all of our shit into this minivan.
Guest:High.
Guest:Oh, yeah, in like a Coke-fueled haze.
Marc:Frenzy.
Guest:And we're ready to rock.
Guest:We're ready to go.
Guest:And he drove, and we got through the tunnel, and we're on our way.
Guest:To L.A.?
Guest:To L.A.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he just pulled over, and he's like, man, we want to... He's like, I got to go to sleep.
Guest:I'm like, that's fine.
Guest:When we wake up,
Guest:we're on we keep going west we don't go east right we keep going west we don't go east right yep okay great we wake up he's sitting on the edge of his bed i get up i'm like we're going east he goes yeah we gotta go east attempt right the fuck back around and go back east and it was so humiliating because we had like we had friends in the building and we had like written them letters you know like goodbye goodbye letters and right
Guest:You know, like fashioning ourselves like Hunter Todd.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:Yeah, you know what I'm like?
Guest:Yeah, Venus.
Guest:You're going to go.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we're writing these fucking, you know, Gimsburg-esque poems, you know, like we're going to go west, young men.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we came back and they're like, they wake up, they see us there.
Guest:Of course, we're sleeping, you know, because it's four o'clock in the afternoon.
Guest:What else will we be doing?
Guest:And they look at these letters and they're like, what is this?
Ha!
Guest:like all of our belongings are in garbage bags in our apartment that we had packed up packed up ready ready to go uh just pathetic oh yeah did you have to explain it to him yeah she had an idea yeah and and luckily they were all you know they they were at the same point in their lives so like oh we get it yeah yeah yeah they got it so okay so how long after that did you finally go
Guest:uh then it was uh another year i think that was like around 2001 i wound up coming out 2002 and you were just you had no real plan other than to audition and but yeah yeah yeah and i got a job um waiting tables were you going on auditions and i was working a little bit here and there you know bit parts tv shows things like that but uh
Guest:Nothing really major.
Guest:And then that's when I just had this idea that I wanted to write something else, but I didn't want to go through the same process that I went through before.
Guest:I want to make it.
Marc:So what was the whole beat it out for me?
Marc:You're like, I'm going to write this thing.
Guest:Yeah, I was living in this garage in West Hollywood.
Guest:A garage?
Guest:I was living in a garage, yeah, much like this one.
Guest:Oh, behind someone's house.
Marc:Yeah, behind someone's house.
Marc:And it had a kitchen and everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just had this idea for a short film about two incredibly self-centered, almost like sociopaths.
Guest:And I wrote this scene.
Guest:where one of them comes over to the other one's house for sugar for this coffee that he had made.
Guest:And when he gets there, it's a guy he kind of knows, but doesn't really know that well, and the guy's, like, upset.
Guest:And while he's there, he says, you know, I just found out I have cancer.
Guest:and the other guys, all he's trying to do is just get the sugar and get out of the room.
Guest:The last thing he wants to hear is that this guy's got cancer, and I thought, that's really fucking dark, and that's a really dramatic scene, but I wonder if I told it from the guy's point of view who's just trying to get out of the room, could we make it really funny?
Guest:And so I just wrote it, and then I thought it was kind of funny, so I wrote a script for it that night, and I just worked all night until I wrote the script,
Guest:and I thought it would be funny if there was a third character when this guy comes out of that scene with the sugar when he gets home to his roommate he says hey by the way did you know that Charlie has cancer and the third roommate the guy's roommate realized that Charlie didn't tell him and why wouldn't he confide in him when he confided in you and he becomes obsessed with the fact that
Guest:that you must be better friends with Charlie.
Guest:And I thought, well, that's an interesting dynamic, something I hadn't seen before.
Marc:Nothing about the cancer.
Marc:Just that, like, why would he tell you?
Guest:Why would he tell you and not me?
Guest:I thought we were friends.
Guest:I didn't even know you knew him that well.
Guest:Sort of becoming obsessed with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought that level of neuroses I hadn't seen in a comedy before executed quite like that.
Guest:Where the characters were just total assholes.
Guest:Like completely the antithesis of what a network note would be, which is to try to make them more likable.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I wanted to make something where you were, as writers, almost actively trying to get people to root against them.
Guest:yeah and so i brought it to glenn and charlie and they thought it was they were my friends and they thought it was really funny so how'd you know them uh i met charlie doing a really bad um movie yeah uh like a horror movie in new york yeah and so i've known charlie about
Guest:Because he was like the real actor guy.
Guest:Well, both of them.
Guest:Actually, both of them.
Guest:Glenn went to Juilliard.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he's sort of the higher end guy.
Guest:And Charlie did like a Williamstown theater festival.
Guest:Yeah, they were real actors.
Guest:And I was just sort of like a scumbag waiter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So how did you meet Glenn then?
Guest:I met Glenn through our manager, Nick Frankel.
Guest:When I was first moving out, I didn't know anybody.
Guest:And I came out with a buddy and it was just me and him.
Guest:Who was that guy?
Guest:His name's Chris Backus, who's also an actor.
Guest:Although within, I think, six months of us moving out here together, we lived in this apartment in the valley and we had a fucking blast.
Guest:He's like this really tall, handsome, charismatic guy, fucking great guy.
Guest:so one one night we go to a a party like a hollywood party he meets uh mirror sorvino yeah at the party yeah they hit it off within two weeks he's moving out moves in with mirror yeah within the year they're married and they still they're still married oh that's four kids oh wow yeah that's a good story it's a great story and does he work but he was my he was my roommate yeah and my only friend that was two weeks yeah and he moved up to malibu without me yeah
Guest:and so now i was all alone and so so so glenn came around and yeah and uh and we uh and we hit it off so so that when when i brought the the script to them yeah um they they got it and we just started making i i'd sent the script to a couple of people just to see what they thought nobody really understood why it was funny right but i knew glenn and charlie would and so that's what we did and then we got a couple of cameras together and learned final cut and figured it out from there
Marc:And you shot a half hour piece?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like a short film.
Guest:We never thought of it as a TV show.
Guest:It was just a short film.
Guest:And it was mostly because I didn't want to... I wanted to see it all the way through to the end.
Guest:Right.
Guest:One episode.
Guest:I didn't want somebody to fuck it up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One short film.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just wanted to be done.
Guest:Have it be a DVD in my hand at the end.
Guest:And I fully realized it.
Guest:And where was it set?
Guest:L.A.
Guest:because that's where we lived but was set in a bar or was it just no no no it was just um it was actually uh actors the the characters were actors that makes sense yeah because it was yeah it was the easiest we were just looking for the for the easiest way to shoot it so to have us be actors living in los angeles it was just really easy to sorry so now you have this and this is the cancer piece yeah charlie has cancer was right of it
Marc:And you did an episode with that too, didn't you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So anyway, we shot that.
Guest:We made that.
Guest:And then we thought, this is pretty funny, but let's do another one.
Guest:Because we think this could maybe be a TV series.
Guest:And we know the first thing that people are going to ask is, well, okay, this is episode one.
Guest:What's episode two?
Guest:And more importantly, we see that you executed this, but we could prove not only to everybody else, but also to ourselves that we could execute this again.
Guest:So we did a second episode.
Guest:And what was that one about?
Yeah.
Guest:That was about me falling in love with a beautiful transgender woman.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what was the problem?
Guest:Well, the problem was that I couldn't get over the fact that she was pre-op transgender.
Guest:So she was this beautiful woman, but she still had a penis.
Guest:And I considered myself straight, but I was falling in love with a pre-op man.
Guest:Oh, that was in episode two.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that one's up being in episode two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so anyway, we had both of them, and that's what we went out with.
Guest:I showed it to Nick, our manager, and he said, well, this could be a TV show.
Marc:And then what happens?
Guest:Then we shopped it.
Guest:We had an agent set up two days of pitching.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we went to all the networks, and we had...
Guest:We didn't go to places like CBS or ABC where we knew it wouldn't quite work.
Guest:What's the point?
Guest:But we went to Fox.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We went to FX, Comedy Central, HBO, Showtime.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:VH1 was doing original content then, MTV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we had offers from almost all of them.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:They loved it.
Guest:Yeah, everybody except for Fox.
Guest:I think the Fox just sat there stone-faced, and I think they were just run by morons at the time.
Guest:Not that this was so funny.
Guest:It was just that they were looking for this exact kind of show.
Guest:They told me this is the kind of show we're looking for, and then they just didn't get it at all.
Guest:But it ends up on FX?
Guest:Yeah, so we had offers from a couple of different places, but FX was the place that, you know, because most of the places said, well, we have conditions.
Guest:We said we want to buy it, but we have some conditions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were like, well, what are the conditions?
Guest:And they're like, well, we want to bring in a director, and we want to bring in a showrunner, and we bring in this.
Guest:And our feeling was, well, do you like it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, then why do you want to change it?
Guest:Well, it's not that we want to change it.
Guest:We want to make sure that you can continue it.
Guest:I'm like, but we just did two of them.
Guest:So if you liked it and we did two of them, why would you not believe that we could do a third and a fourth?
Guest:And, you know, the FX was the only one that said, you know, you do whatever you want.
Guest:Yeah, because we had our own conditions, which is we're not going to do it unless, you know, I'm the showrunner and Charlie and Glenn are executive producers and we write the show and we act in the show.
Guest:And then FX commissioned a pilot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we shot that pilot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I had learned my lesson.
Guest:I didn't quit my job at the restaurant.
Guest:So I was waiting tables.
Guest:After you shot it?
Guest:During, while I was shooting.
Marc:Well, when did you conceive of the bar and everything else?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:said, hey, we really love this.
Guest:The only thing that we would suggest is Entourage was coming.
Guest:It had just come out.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And the show Joey, which was the spinoff of Friends, there was a Lisa Kudrow show that were all taking, Kirby Enthusiasm, they were all taking place in LA.
Guest:They were all revolving around the entertainment industry.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they just said, look,
Guest:to us the core of this the tone of this has nothing to do with the entertainment industry and I was like that's yeah that's right it's just it's about abhorrent people who have time on their hands so actors yeah could fall into that category and so could people who just run a particular business maybe at night so they have their days free so they said okay could you come up with another another place to put them and so I thought what I know Philadelphia maybe I'll go with that and a bar
Guest:And a bar because it was a job that you didn't have to account for.
Guest:They could all kind of own it.
Guest:It's so funny because- It's a great meeting place.
Marc:Right, and it's just funny because it is sort of, like the characters float above the business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It doesn't, you know, you're never worried about how the bar is doing.
Guest:Yeah, the business is irrelevant until it's not.
Guest:Until we figure, well, let's do an episode about it because we need to, we've done 114 of these.
Marc:Let's figure, we got to figure something out.
Marc:Yeah, we got a story in the bar.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:But okay, so you do the pilot like that.
Marc:You don't quit your job.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:Because I had just seen so many things had fallen apart.
Marc:So when did you quit your job?
Guest:After we got picked up for the first season.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Once we got picked up for the first season, I felt more comfortable there.
Marc:Did you hire a staff?
Guest:Yeah, so not in the first season, but in the second season, we hired a few writers, and now we've got a pretty good staff.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, we've got a pretty good staff.
Marc:Well, it's sort of like one of those ones where I imagine it's got such a specific and loyal following that the people that you would find as writers got to love the show, and they're like, I want to write for these guys.
Guest:Yeah, that's helpful.
Guest:Also, we went on a mission this year to find people, younger people just that grew up watching the show, which is kind of sad.
Marc:How many years has it been on?
Marc:10.
Marc:That's insane.
Guest:This is our 10th season, yeah.
Marc:How many have you made?
Guest:114.
Marc:So that was a real number, yeah.
Guest:That's a real number, yeah.
Guest:And that allows us to, you know, most shows, if they're in their 10th season, they've done 240 because they're doing 22 to 24 episodes a season.
Guest:So we're only doing 10, so that makes it a lot easier for us.
Marc:But also, does that mean that you were just able to sell it into syndication at 100?
Guest:No, I think we sold it three years ago.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Into syndication.
Guest:Yeah, because they had already commissioned two more years.
Guest:So we usually get picked up in blocks of two or three seasons.
Marc:Oh, so you were able to sell it under 100 because they knew you were going to do 100.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they could start running them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow, that's great.
Guest:So now it runs on Comedy Central and FX and on Network Late Night.
Guest:That's great, man.
Guest:Yeah, it's the best.
Guest:It's the greatest job.
Guest:It's my dream.
Marc:So what what was the issue, though?
Marc:Like, what was the story with was the show in trouble after the first season?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, nobody watched it.
Guest:So that's trouble.
Guest:I would put in trouble.
Guest:Nobody.
Guest:Very few.
Guest:And and and what was going to happen?
Guest:One person watched it that we know of, which was very important.
Guest:That was Danny.
Guest:Danny DeVito so he okay so but so after the first season John Landgraf you know called me and said look we love the show at FX at FX yeah he runs it we love the show nobody's watching it we don't have a ton of money for marketing right but we feel like if we bring in somebody of stature yeah that we could generate a certain level of
Guest:PR and and and and maybe people will find it yeah so uh we were like well we don't know who that is and who's that gonna be and he said well i know that danny devito watches the show would you be interested in and you know we thought we thought long and hard about it and we were like i don't i know i don't we don't want to do that it might fuck with the chemistry he might be a maniac right um were you a fan yeah
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah, or a taxi or whatever.
Guest:Of course, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But we had our own thing, and we didn't want, we didn't know, you just never know.
Guest:How, oh, like if he was going to swallow it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or it would, you know, mess with the chemistry.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or that, you know, one of the things that's really important to us is that we create a really fun working experience.
Guest:I had done enough in the past where, you know, you go to these sets, and people are yelling at each other, and everybody's fucking pissed off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just thought, well, if I ever get to run a show, we'll never do that.
Guest:We'll just, no yelling on the set.
Guest:Everybody's here to have fun.
Guest:We'll work hard.
Guest:But it's a comedy.
Guest:So let's figure out the best environment to laugh.
Guest:But if you, you know, you bring in some nut job and the next thing you know, it can crumble.
Guest:So they could just become a cancer in the set.
Guest:And then, you know, I know a lot of successful shows that people hate going to work every day because it's fucking miserable.
Marc:That's sad.
Marc:Sad.
Marc:No, I got it.
Marc:Like, yeah, I got to pay attention to that in my own life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you remember that it stinks from the head down.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So whatever mood you come in to work every day with, that's gonna permeate through the entire crew.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:So I think about that a lot.
Guest:I think about our grips and our caterers and our people who have been with us for 10 years and they're like our family.
Guest:And I know that if I come to work in a bad mood, it has an effect on their lives too.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so we try to keep that shit in check.
Marc:Good.
Marc:That's a good policy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We don't always achieve it, but we try.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, DeVito, you think long and hard about it.
Marc:And then what's that first meeting like?
Guest:Well, first we said to John, nothing against Danny.
Guest:We love Danny, but I don't think we want to do it.
Guest:And he said, all right, well, I don't think you have a show.
Guest:So, we were like, well, you know what?
Guest:I think we want to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I, I, I, Hey, let's make it work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go over to Danny's house and he was certainly the most famous person, you know, that, that I had ever, I had ever spent that much time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been to his house and it was a surreal experience cause he's exactly, he's the greatest guy.
Guest:Like he's exactly what you, you expect him to be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, the guy you see on screen is pretty much Danny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Um, and so we hung out for an hour and I kind of pitched him a character that I just made up.
Guest:We didn't really discuss too much about it.
Guest:And on the way home, he called and said, I want to do it.
Guest:So then we knew we had a show.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So then we made the second season and nobody watched it.
Marc:With Danny.
Guest:With Danny.
Marc:With Danny.
Marc:But was it fun working with him?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because he's so fucking... He's funny.
Guest:Yeah, he's the best.
Guest:And now he's, you know, a part of the family.
Guest:And...
Guest:you know i mean that's that that he's just been a great role model to have around he's got great kids yeah uh who were raised you know here in la and it's just it's great to ask him questions and talk to them about how he did it and you know certainly uh with such affluence and in terms of raising kids yeah it's a real concern of yours like it's hanging over you major because you don't want to have like uh shitty kids yeah what what how are you gonna solve that
Guest:Well, it seems to me like the common denominator... I mean, look, there are asshole fuck-ups that cross through all socioeconomic barriers.
Guest:I think the one common denominator amongst really good people is that their parents paid attention to them and loved them unconditionally and gave them boundaries.
Guest:And just gave a shit, showed up every day and made sure that their lives were important to them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And didn't let them get too far away.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Drift off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I'm going to, certainly my wife is, and I'm going to make a concerted effort to do my best in that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And I guess the other trick is not spoiling them too much.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:That's the tricky one, I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's where the discipline comes in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And drawing a line on the boundaries.
Guest:I always had the, I think my parents in some way, they would never look at it this way, but my dad had the luxury of saying, you can't have that because we can't afford it.
Guest:And so that puts you on the same team.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like we're in this together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:whereas now neither one of us can have it yeah exactly yeah you can't you don't get to do that but we don't get to do that therefore it brings us closer together right yeah and so and so now when if i you know my oldest son's axel it's like if he if he wants something and i say no what i'm saying to him is you can't have it because i said so and you'll learn later why it's important well he isn't hopefully hopefully but he doesn't understand that and it doesn't bring us any closer together right right right you know so that's the that's the
Guest:yeah because now you're just this withholding guy yeah i mean i could have yeah i'm holding the key to your you know in whatever you want your gratification yeah your instant gratification i'm not giving it to you and you'll maybe when you're 25 look back and understand why it happened but you can't right now and it's not drawing us closer together yeah i mean i grew up you know i always worked but my you know my dad he was a doctor he had money like i didn't you know it's weird i didn't turn out great so yeah i mean you don't think you turned out great
Marc:No, I honestly, and I've said this before, I don't think that I was ever taught.
Marc:Like, it seems like whatever happened in Catholic school for you was important.
Marc:I mean, to be taught, you know, to have a healthy sense of competition and that like, you know, winning and losing is not life threatening.
Marc:There's something about sports and about understanding, you know, your limitations in some ways around certain things when you're younger, which would be boundaries and also about healthy competition.
Marc:I think that just really helps you throughout your entire life.
Marc:Mm hmm.
Marc:Because, you know, if you're not careful, you can go through life emotionally like a child, you know, with entitlement and not really having a sense of winning and losing or taking the hit in a dignified way.
Marc:That's important shit.
Marc:Learning how to lose with a certain amount of dignity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's paramount.
Guest:I think that was paramount to my high school experience, which because I was constantly getting my ass whooped in physically, you know, in sport and also like, you know, emotionally like anybody is at 15 or 16 years old.
Guest:And what they were teaching you how to do was to get your ass whipped and then just keep getting up and learning from it and moving on.
Guest:But recognizing that like their job isn't to teach you how to win.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Their job is to teach you how to lose with dignity and grace and and to continue on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's really important.
Guest:That's the whole thing.
Guest:Because your whole life is going to be a series of defeats.
Marc:And struggles and victories.
Marc:But just the fact that if you're not emotionally fortified, how you're going to buckle under the first series of losses could really define your life.
Marc:You can make some big mistakes in those times.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah, and I think you see that a lot.
Guest:I mean, I know with, like, young people that we hire now, they come out being told that, you know, they're the greatest.
Guest:And I understand that from a parent's perspective.
Guest:You want to encourage your child and tell them that they're the greatest over and over and over again.
Guest:But once you, you know, when you're 23 years old and you're out looking for a job and you've been told you're the greatest all the way up until this point and someone says, hey, you know what?
Guest:You're not the greatest.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you watch people fucking crumble.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you say that to him in auditions?
Guest:No.
Marc:Auditions?
Marc:Oh, God.
Marc:That's the hardest.
Marc:It's horrifying.
Marc:I never... No, but I think you're right, and it's sort of interesting, too, certainly in certain fields.
Marc:Would you tell your kid to... I don't know what Danny's kids do, but I think he must have been a role model on a lot of levels, just in sort of surviving in show business, period.
Marc:I mean, he is like... There's nobody like him.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, I look to him all the time.
Guest:I mean, he's got a career that spanned 35 years.
Guest:He was in fucking Cuckoo's Nest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he survived it and he nurtured it and he handled it.
Marc:He kept getting opportunities.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There's really nobody like him.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:I mean, he certainly transcends generations, which I think dramatically is easier to do than comedically, you know, because comedy is a hard thing to... To stay relevant.
Guest:Yeah, to stay relevant.
Guest:And he's been able to do that.
Guest:And I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that he seeks out...
Guest:younger people i mean he says that to us all the time like what's funny what do you think is funny because i'll do that yeah because his his sense of humor while while it lines up with ours very often you know he still recognizes that he's a 70 year old man but he's also like he's an archetype almost like he's specifically daddy devito so you're like if you just fill him up with something he's going to give you that thing yeah like you know whether he's he knows what the comedy is or not he's naturally going to be hilarious yeah
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I've learned that over and over again when you see people like Charlie or Danny who are just naturally funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can't teach that and you can't learn how to do it.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It doesn't matter how hard you work.
Marc:Like some people can be clever, funny, but there are people that like just can't help but be... Like I just worked with Andy Dick on my show.
Marc:He can't... You can't stop it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it may be annoying sometimes, but you're not going to...
Guest:Yeah, that's why it was so fascinating to me to hear Danny McBride.
Guest:I heard the podcast for Danny McBride because to me, Danny McBride is maybe the funniest person on earth.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:And the fact that he didn't really know that for so long is confusing.
Guest:That he wasn't a performer.
Guest:He never thought of himself as a performer.
Guest:Unless you get in front of people.
Marc:But he's in front of people his entire life.
Marc:I know, but there's that jump between being the funny guy among people and then being the funny guy for a job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's just different.
Guest:But to be so funny, he's so fucking funny.
Guest:Have you worked with him?
Guest:No.
Marc:Well, you ought to.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:When you have money?
Guest:I'll do, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, when I would go home, sometimes I still go home to Philly and my uncle would be, you know, like, hey, Robert, come here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know who you should work with?
Guest:Tom Cruise.
Guest:That guy's good, man.
Guest:That guy's really good.
Guest:I'm like, thank you.
Guest:They think that there's some sort of like entertainment syndicate.
Guest:My dad's like that, too.
Marc:You should call Bill Maher.
Marc:He seems to be doing all right.
Marc:He says that to me.
Marc:Maybe you should give Bill Maher a call.
Marc:Like, no one ever recognized your success.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because this doesn't match up with the type of success in movie star land that they relate to.
Guest:Well, I get a lot of that.
Guest:Oh, it's a movie star.
Guest:Oh, here's a movie star.
Guest:Now, meanwhile, I'm on television.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:But that doesn't matter.
Marc:But they must think you're a rock star in Philly.
Guest:Yeah, it goes really well in Philly.
Guest:Philly's been fantastic.
Guest:They must fucking love you.
Marc:They love it.
Marc:Because it's one of those overlooked cities in terms of just recognition, period.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So just by virtue of the title alone, they must be like, yay.
Guest:Yeah, Philly's a city with a chip on its shoulder and one that they're proud of.
Guest:And I think the show has a bit of a chip on its shoulder.
Guest:I think they respect that.
Guest:They love it.
Marc:So you go back and you get free food everywhere?
Marc:Yeah, it's pretty great.
Guest:I mean, this way I got the key to the city one year.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's pretty great.
Guest:Yeah, it's been pretty great.
Marc:So I guess what I was going to ask you, though, would you stifle how old are your kids?
Marc:Four and two.
Marc:Oh, so you don't have to make this decision in a while.
Marc:But they're like, you know, I want to be an actor.
Marc:What would you say?
Guest:I would never allow them to be a professional actor until they're old enough to make, until they're 18.
Guest:But I wouldn't discourage that.
Guest:I would encourage them to, you know, to get involved in plays and to learn, you know, and to express themselves creatively, but not as a profession.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't think that there's necessarily anything inherently wrong with that either.
Guest:It's just not, it wouldn't be for us.
Marc:I never thought it was, I never knew.
Marc:I didn't know a comedian was really a job.
Marc:When was that moment?
Marc:Well, I knew that you got paid at comedy clubs and stuff, but I never saw it as this thing you had to focus on.
Marc:When I was younger, I never really understood show business.
Marc:Were you funny?
Marc:Yeah, I was funny.
Marc:I was quick.
Marc:I was clever.
Marc:But I think that with comedy, I really saw it as a way to say what I wanted to say.
Marc:Whether it was funny or not, I didn't give a shit.
Marc:I just wanted the space.
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:to do it, and I had a tremendous respect for comedy.
Marc:I spent a lot of years doing stuff that was aggravated and angry and not funny.
Marc:Arguably, I don't know how many people like me as a comic now, but there was definitely a lot of years where I realized I'm just trying to own myself up here.
Marc:I'm not an entertainer.
Marc:I'm just gonna put you through some shit.
Guest:Because I gotta go through it.
Guest:I'm gonna drag you guys through it.
Guest:I'm getting paid to, too.
Guest:When I was a kid, my father, we didn't have HBO, but my dad came home with like three VHSs full of George Carlin's HBO specials.
Guest:And that blew my mind.
Guest:That was the first time I'd ever, I was probably like 12 years old.
Guest:That was the first time I'd ever really seen a stand-up.
Guest:comic i think right right and here was this guy like oh yeah it i mean talk about authentic and and oh yeah you know and tight and tight yeah no fucking around man and yeah and what he was saying i was like what
Guest:why am I laughing at this?
Guest:Like this is mind blowing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And as a Catholic too, I mean, some of that stuff, like if you listen to class clown, Jesus.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a Catholic person, that must have been awesome.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, but you're working with Bill Burr now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just directed a pilot, uh, with, uh, with Bill Burr as a star that we, that we created.
Guest:Well, he's a great comic.
Guest:Were you a fan of his before?
Guest:I was.
Guest:Actually, these two brothers who work for me, Dave and John Chernin, they love Bill Burr and they write for Sonny.
Guest:And they were like, hey, there's this comedian you got to see.
Guest:And I'd always heard about him, but I didn't really know him very well.
Guest:And they took me out to a show of his.
Guest:And he's like one of the best in the business.
Guest:So funny.
Guest:And then we met him afterwards.
Guest:He's such a nice guy.
Guest:And we thought, well, this could be some interesting alchemy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We knocked around a couple of different ideas for the better part of a year until we finally landed on something we really liked.
Guest:And the guys went and executed a script, and it was really funny.
Guest:Bill thought it was funny, and we made it.
Guest:How'd it come out?
Guest:Really good.
Guest:And it's for FX?
Guest:It's for FX.
Guest:We just delivered on Friday.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:You never know.
Guest:But it's a great cast, and Bill's great.
Guest:What is this other thing you got going?
Guest:The movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'm doing a movie.
Guest:But that just happened, right?
Guest:It just happened, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I just sold it a few months ago.
Marc:It's very different.
Marc:The way you sold it is similar to, you just take things in your own hands.
Marc:How did that go?
Marc:How did that go from idea to?
Guest:Yeah, the movie is very different from Sonny.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's not a comedy.
Guest:It's a family action movie, sci-fi.
Guest:And I wrote it, and I knew it would be a difficult sell.
Guest:How long ago did you write it?
Guest:About a year ago.
Guest:Why would it be a difficult sell?
Guest:It wouldn't be a difficult sell.
Guest:It would be a difficult sell to have me direct it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just because it's just a big in scope, very expensive movie, and I'm known more for small in scope comedy.
Guest:Dark comedy.
Guest:Yeah, dark comedy.
Guest:What's the pitch?
Guest:What's the one-liner?
Guest:i don't think i'm really allowed to talk about it since i oh really since i sold it yeah i mean before i could talk about it a lot but now i'm like signing ndas and all sorts of shit okay but it's but it's a big family um it's just like a big scary family i should have called you a couple months ago i know i know well you know what i've been avoiding you for i know i know i understand
Marc:Yeah, it had to happen eventually.
Guest:So how did you sell it?
Guest:I took a scene from it and I went out and shot it and I called in a bunch of favors.
Guest:I mean, one of the great things about employing people for the better part of a decade is that they're, and also treating them well and fairly, they're willing to pitch in when you have a project that won't pay them in the present, but hopefully will become work down the road.
Guest:And so a lot of people jumped in and helped me out.
Guest:So over a weekend, I shot a scene from the movie.
Guest:I hired a kid actor and I had this company up in Northern California that did all the CG because they were big Sonny fans and they also liked the script.
Guest:And, you know, now we're going to use them to do all the CG in the movie.
Guest:So you did a big monster movie.
Marc:So a big CG trailer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like how much did that cost?
Guest:Not very much.
Marc:Because of the friends?
Guest:Yeah, because of the friends and because of the amount of work that was put in from everybody across the board.
Guest:It didn't really cost very much at all.
Marc:So that's exciting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now you're going to direct a big movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that where you see your career going?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Is that what you'd like to do?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think a lot of it is sort of what we were talking about earlier about how, you know, people just have this thing, like some people just have this thing.
Guest:And I think we even with dramatic actors, it's the same thing.
Guest:You know, Sean Penn is just a great actor.
Guest:He was born that way.
Guest:He just has that presence.
Guest:He has that charisma and that gift.
Guest:And Tom Hanks, Charlie Day, Danny, Glenn, Caitlin, all the people on my show, they just have this thing.
Guest:And I just don't think that I have that.
Guest:And that's not even being self-deprecating or even... Practical.
Guest:It's being practical.
Guest:It's knowing your limitations.
Guest:It's recognizing my limitations.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Which I think is a big thing as you grow up that you have to recognize that you can't do everything and that's okay.
Guest:I need to stop comparing myself to people that do this big thing because I can't do that thing.
Marc:Well, that's that thing we were talking about earlier.
Marc:That's a healthy thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Learning to be able to accept that stuff and really kind of sit yourself down and go like,
Guest:i can't this yeah it's the way it is yeah and you find i find myself doing it still doing it all the time where you compare yourself to certain people you know it's like yeah i mean tom you know you look you're looking at tom brady and you're like why the fuck this guy's so fucking handsome yeah and he's such a good like why can't i be that handsome or why can't i be a good football player like can i have one thing and then i'm looking at the tv and i'm like well can't i have one fucking thing
Guest:You know, and my wife's like, what?
Guest:Like, what more could you want?
Guest:Like, isn't this what you... This is what you wanted to do.
Guest:Yeah, but he's playing football.
Guest:And look at his chin.
Guest:Yeah, you're like a child.
Marc:Yeah, oh yeah, like a child.
Marc:Using someone else's success.
Marc:It's not even in your wheelhouse at all, just to beat yourself up with.
Guest:Yeah, and it's so... That doesn't mean that I can't have a really great career, but I'm never going to have the...
Guest:You know, I'm never going to be.
Guest:But you're a specific type.
Marc:I mean, you've defined this thing for yourself.
Marc:You are who you are.
Marc:People know like your your your sense of comedy is very specific.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As an actor and as you know, and as a writer and, you know, director, because I mean, you do other stuff.
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Marc:Why do you do Mindy show?
Marc:Why?
Marc:Just for fun?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we became friends just through those showrunner circuits.
Guest:And she said, hey, I have something for you.
Guest:And I said, oh, I don't really know.
Guest:I don't love to act or I don't like to do this kind of stuff and guest starring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she sent me the script, and it was so funny.
Guest:And I know some of those people over there, like Ike Barinholtz is so funny, and Andy's so funny, and they have some directors that are really great, and it's just fun.
Guest:Chris Messina's great, and they create a great, fun environment.
Guest:It's just fun.
Guest:And what about with Lost?
Guest:Oh, that came about because Damon Lindelof and a couple of the other writers, Eddie and Adam, were really good.
Guest:They were fans of Sonny, and then they became friends.
Guest:And one day they called me and said, hey, we wrote this thing for you.
Guest:Would you want to do it?
Guest:And that's a free first-class trip to Hawaii to be on the biggest show on television.
Guest:Why wouldn't you do that?
Guest:That's a no-brainer.
Guest:And so how long have you been married now?
Guest:uh five years and you met her on the show just i hired her you hired her and that yeah how i hired her when did you know you're falling in love with her season two yeah yeah we didn't we didn't really uh she had a boyfriend at the time and um yeah but but but i just thought of her as a friend and and and uh an employee yeah and then uh they broke up and then i don't know something just started to click i mean to me
Guest:You know, I got the great... I mean, I closed the circle.
Guest:It's like the greatest woman I could ever... To me, she's the funniest woman working in show business.
Guest:I mean, I... It's nice that you respect her.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I respect her.
Guest:I love her.
Guest:I mean, as a comedic actress, I think she's brilliant.
Guest:Maybe the funniest person on TV.
Guest:But as a mom, she's like the greatest mother I could ever imagine.
Guest:Everybody should have a mother like Caitlin.
Marc:Oh, that's so fucking sweet.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:You're living it.
Marc:I'm living it.
Marc:It really feels to me like early on you were kind of given a fairly good framework to kind of move through, and you didn't let yourself get too... You pulled yourself back from getting too fucking lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had a lot of help, but yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:A lot of help.
Guest:Well, I mean, my parents and my school and my friends and...
Marc:But I mean, it didn't seem like you ever got drifted too far into drugs to not be able to get yourself out.
Guest:No, I think my ambition would not allow that to happen, I think.
Marc:It becomes weird and hard.
Marc:I mean, it seems like directing is the right way to go.
Marc:And if you can get into that world, if you pull off this big one, it'd be great.
Marc:It seems like you'd be a made guy with that thing.
Marc:But acting's hard with movies.
Marc:Making the jump from TV with established characters into films.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you also find that you hit a certain point and you go, well, when does it start to just happen for me?
Guest:And you realize that it never does.
Guest:You just have to keep, I mean, very few people just get offers for things and sit around and read scripts and just get offers.
Guest:And even when they do, that lasts for three, four years and then it's over.
Guest:Everybody's struggling.
Guest:Everybody's struggling.
Guest:Everybody's got to be proactive.
Guest:The people you see that are working for 20 years, they're out there hustling.
Marc:Theoretically, you could probably retire right now if you weren't building a house in Brentwood, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you guys are comfortable, but you want to keep working.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, comfortable is great.
Guest:I like being comfortable, but it's just a very thin line to complacent, and that frightens me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So when I'm comfortable, that's a positive thing, but I feel like it's so close to being complacent, and I feel like that level of stasis is the end.
Guest:not only creatively but yeah yeah but but theoretically i mean you could just you know take a decade off and just hang out with your kids yeah of course of course um but i have more you want to do yeah and and i i just want to do different things so i did the tv show and that was great now you're gonna do a movie yeah i just keep doing something different do you ever think you're gonna get back to a movie like the one you wrote for schrader
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like to just do different things.
Guest:I mean, when you look at somebody like Paul Thomas Anderson, how do you define that guy?
Guest:You can't.
Guest:I talked to him for two hours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was really one of the most frustrating interviews I've ever heard, only because...
Guest:You want to believe that there's some insight that he's going to drop on you that's going to make it all click in your head or you're going to go, how does he do it?
Guest:And he seems such like a dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're like, no, no, no, no.
Guest:You need to be more.
Guest:The guy that makes those movies needs to be more aloof.
Guest:And he needs to have a certain thing.
Guest:He doesn't.
Guest:He's just like a guy making movies and you realize like it's so inherent.
Guest:Like his instincts are just, you can't teach that.
Guest:He's not like, it's not a level.
Marc:He commits to his vision.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he doesn't have an answer for it.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Coen Brothers is the same way.
Guest:You ever try to read anything about their opinions of the movies they make?
Guest:They're just like, no, no.
Guest:We just shot it this way because we like it.
Guest:And there's no meeting.
Guest:It just kind of is what it is.
Guest:And why did you choose this particular angle?
Guest:Because that's where we were with the camera and we just shot it that way.
Guest:So I don't know if they're purposely deflecting or if they really, their instincts are that specific and honed that they just do it.
Guest:It just happens.
Marc:It's like a part of the flow.
Marc:It's weird because that's their vision.
Marc:I mean, when you've got guys who work at that level and you've got people like me and you and film critics who are reading all this other stuff into it.
Guest:Yeah, projecting our own bullshit into it.
Marc:I am so hung up on... I went to some class about semiotics class or something.
Marc:I don't remember what it was, but it was years ago and it was in The Godfather, The First Godfather.
Marc:So in the scene where Sollozzo is meeting with the Don, you know, Sollozzo is right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they're shooting Sollozzo.
Marc:And in the frame, you see a green potted plant.
Marc:He's wearing new clothes.
Marc:He's clean.
Marc:He's fresh.
Marc:He's young.
Marc:And then he cut over here.
Marc:to uh to uh you know to Brando and he's like wearing a kind of drab suit he looks older there's old pictures behind him like who's responsible for loading up the frame like that did Coppola say like no I need more pictures was it a set director was it a group think like who the hell knows how that happens but it is a commitment to the vision yeah
Marc:Like they can't answer all those questions.
Marc:Would would you respect a guy that said the reason we did that is we thought that if we saw up angle that it would imply, you know, an entire history of bullshit that I'm about to lay on you?
Guest:Well, there's the there's the the the professional in me that that yearns for him to say that so I can kind of get some insight as to how he does it.
Guest:But then there's the person in me that's like, I fuck that guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's nothing worse than hearing an actor talk about his or her process.
Guest:It's just irritating and I think it's irritating to the general public and yet you love and respect those performances.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And yet you also want to feel like it's effortless.
Marc:Well, I think it is for some people.
Marc:I think that's the weird thing about acting after talking to so many actors.
Marc:It's like you can't, you explained it just really the best way.
Marc:It's like some people are just born, they're just good at that.
Guest:Yeah, and you can hone it.
Guest:You can get better at it.
Guest:It's like, it's not just about creating a believable moment because lots of people can do that.
Guest:It's how are you compelling on a moment to moment basis?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Denzel Washington is compelling on a moment to moment basis.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Gene Hackman.
Guest:Gene Hackman.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Gene Hackman.
Guest:I don't know why he always comes in.
Guest:Sterling Hayden.
Guest:I mean, you know, like you just take like, you just, you, you can go back for the last 150 years and for whatever reason, it doesn't necessarily need to be the best looking people.
Guest:It doesn't need to be even the greatest actor.
Guest:They're just compelling to, compelling to watch.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, and also getting back to the director thing, it's like, did you ever see that documentary about the Kubrick fanatics, the people that read into The Shining?
Marc:It's amazing.
Marc:These people that have all these basically conspiracy theories, in a way, about their interpretations of The Shining.
Marc:And they're also kind of well thought out and a little crazy.
Marc:But you start to realize, could Kubrick have managed to have all that in his head?
Marc:Yes, but the trick is, or I think what we have to accept, is that he might not have known it.
Marc:Everything just comes together because they're honoring their vision.
Marc:Whatever their whole life has brought to them to that moment, just like an actor.
Marc:And that's what they're loading it up with.
Marc:Doesn't mean they can't explain it.
Guest:yeah it's just it's it's it's intrinsically a part of them it's just their instinct and they're just doing it so you can be able to do that i don't fucking know i'm gonna try all right man it was good talking to you great talking to you thank you for having me
Marc:All right, that's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I thought that was a great conversation.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:Sharp guy.
Marc:Solid dude.
Marc:And again, it's always sunny in Philadelphia.
Marc:It's currently in its 10th season.
Marc:It's on FXX Wednesday nights, and the season finale is on March 18th.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod-related business.
Marc:The marination tour dates are there.
Marc:Merch is there.
Marc:There's going to be a lot more merch I got after the tour.
Marc:There's going to be a lot of posters in there.
Marc:I think I got to work on some new t-shirt designs.
Marc:I will do that.
Marc:JustCoffee.coop is available at WTFPod.com.
Marc:And you can check the calendar.
Marc:I already said that.
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Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I'm punchy.
Bye.
Guest:Boomer lives!