Episode 626 - Jason Bateman / Bob And Barry
Guest:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:Hi, I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I'm perspiring in my garage.
Marc:I think I fucked myself somehow.
Marc:I think I did myself in.
Marc:I almost died.
Marc:I almost died today.
Marc:I'm still trying to catch my I'm serious.
Marc:I almost died.
Marc:You know, stay tuned for that story.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Oh, can I mention right out of the gate?
Marc:Australia.
Marc:I don't know what time it is there ever.
Marc:I think it's like five, nine, 14 hours, 15 hours later than here.
Marc:It doesn't matter.
Marc:Doesn't that's not the point.
Marc:My date's in Australia.
Marc:I'm going to be coming to Australia.
Marc:I'll be in Sydney on Thursday, October 15th at the State Theater.
Marc:I'll be in Melbourne on Friday, October 16th at the Palace.
Marc:Is it Palace?
Marc:Palace?
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:I'll be in Brisbane on Saturday, October 17th at City Hall.
Marc:I'm sweating right now.
Marc:Tickets are on sale starting tomorrow, August 7th.
Marc:Go to ticketmaster.com.au.
Marc:Apparently all the tickets are on sale at the same place there.
Marc:Looking forward to coming back to Australia.
Marc:It's been a long time.
Marc:We got a pretty loaded show today.
Marc:I got Jason Bateman.
Marc:Had a blast with Jason Bateman.
Marc:And then got a little... Before Jason Bateman, I will talk to the wonderful Bobcat Goldthwait and Barry Crimmins about the documentary Call Me Lucky, which is about Barry Crimmins.
Marc:It's a heavy film, but it's handled with a delicate balance of funny and depth and pain.
Marc:It's a hell of a documentary, that thing.
Marc:So we'll talk to them about that.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:What did I do to myself?
Marc:You guys, look.
Marc:I couldn't even talk.
Marc:I had to do phoners in Australia and I couldn't even think properly or speak properly because I did.
Marc:I tend to be a little not self-loathing, but self-critical.
Marc:And I tend to, you know, judge myself harshly, especially around body issues.
Marc:And I've been on the road and eating freely, freely shoving shit into my mouth.
Marc:With no sort of control or responsibility.
Marc:Sure, I'll have a pretzel roll on the plane.
Marc:I'm flying first class.
Marc:I'm entitled to a pretzel roll and a cookie.
Marc:And if you have ice cream, we're in the air.
Marc:It's meaningless.
Marc:It's erased automatically.
Marc:Flying ice cream does not apply.
Marc:Anyway, so I'm feeling a little doughy and feeling a little shitty.
Marc:And there was a time in my life, people, I don't know if you know this, where I exercise pretty regularly.
Marc:I went to yoga.
Marc:I used to do that every Sunday.
Marc:I'd eat healthy.
Marc:There was a time where I do sit-ups and core exercises and work on the ball a little bit.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Resistance training.
Marc:I like to think I was in pretty fucking good shape on a core level, but that drifted over the last couple of years.
Marc:It drifts.
Marc:It gets away from you.
Marc:You're like, I got to get back to that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when I really think about it, I haven't fucking been on a regular exercise regimen in years now.
Marc:This is fading memory that I hold on to like it was fucking yesterday.
Marc:So I'm beating the shit out of myself since I got home a few days ago from touring extensively and not really being at home to plant my ass into my life.
Marc:And I'm like, I got to get running again.
Marc:I got to get it.
Marc:And I think I talked to you guys about this before I was running the hills around here.
Marc:I was able to run these two massive hills in this little circle that I do.
Marc:And I got to that point where I was able to do that.
Marc:But so now I've just been sitting around.
Marc:chipping away on the fucking lozenges again i had a guest interview today and then it was like around 12 30 one o'clock and i'm doing some other shit getting some shit done and then uh and then i'm like i gotta run i gotta run and when you're when you're on the fence about running when the spirit moves you you better get moving you better put that spirit into some sneakers and take it outdoors and hit it but i knew i should go to the gym because it's hot as fuck
Marc:I didn't know how hot.
Marc:I didn't know it was 95.
Marc:I didn't know it was close to 100 degrees out, but the spirit wanted to run, and I was going to run with that spirit.
Marc:This is not a complicated spirit.
Marc:This is a very basic jogging spirit.
Marc:So...
Marc:I'd get on my shoes.
Marc:I do my stretching.
Marc:I knew I should have gone to the gym, but I didn't have time.
Marc:I had to be back for a thing.
Marc:So I went out into the 95 degree heat to run my circle up the hills.
Marc:And I haven't done it really in months.
Marc:And it was a classic stubborn old guy bullshit thing to do.
Marc:Just that, you know, you know, when your dad says, no, fuck it, we're driving.
Marc:Or when the pilot says, I don't care.
Marc:I got my own plane.
Marc:This storm means nothing.
Marc:It was one of those dumb, prideful bullshit things to do as a guy that's 51 years old.
Marc:So I hit the hills, made the first one, ran it.
Marc:Then I felt a weird numbness in my chest that spread through my arms, a sort of excited numbness.
Marc:I imagine excited numbness is what is the first symptom before the lights go out indefinitely.
Marc:So I felt this weird, excited numbness in my arms.
Marc:And I'm like, I've kind of felt that before.
Marc:And I keep running and I'm like, whoa, I have a hard time catching my breath.
Marc:And then like, you know, I'm getting a little dizzy and I'm like, all right, all right, dude, it's, you're not, it's not, you're not failing if you walk a bit.
Marc:And I'm like, yeah, but I am.
Marc:So I keep running and then I got no choice to walk because my legs have the excited numbness.
Marc:So now I've got excited numbness in all my limbs that's coming and going.
Marc:And I'm like, this is fucked up.
Marc:but i stayed on it i didn't run but i walked the whole way i had to sit down twice and i was sweating and i thought the lights were going out man i texted my girl i said hey man i'm in trouble and she called right away she said i'm at whole foods is there anything i can get you that'll help you i'm like i just i don't know if i'm gonna make it home i just wanted to give you a heads up i might not make it till later and it's been fun so
Marc:I make it home, barely, sit on the couch, and I just start sweating.
Marc:I got a headache.
Marc:I can't move.
Marc:I start chugging water.
Marc:I'm like, I think I need potassium.
Marc:I start eating a banana, but it's no good.
Marc:It's not ripe yet.
Marc:It tastes bad.
Marc:I ate yogurt because I looked up potassium, and they said that has it in it.
Marc:I decided I needed potassium.
Marc:I ate yogurt.
Marc:I ate cantaloupe.
Marc:I just potassiumed out.
Marc:Then Sarah came over.
Marc:She's like, you need salt.
Marc:Here are some olives.
Marc:I'm like, there's no way I'm eating post-run olives.
Marc:But it took me like an hour to get my shit together.
Marc:Cold compresses.
Marc:I think I had a little heat stroke because I was stupid.
Marc:In my defense, I did do the entire circle.
Marc:Did not run it, but I think I laid some pretty good muscle memory groundwork for the future.
Marc:But the lesson I learned is, dude, you're old.
Marc:You're not that old, but you're too old to be running in 100-degree heat if you're not in the fucking Marines.
Marc:Jesus Christ, almost died.
Marc:Couldn't even talk to the guy on the phone in Australia.
Marc:He could barely put words together.
Marc:Let us now go to my conversation with Barry Crimmins and Bobcat Goldthwait about Bobby's documentary, Call Me Lucky, which is playing in New York, D.C., L.A., and elsewhere this weekend.
Marc:It opens in other locations throughout August.
Marc:You can go to callmeluckymovie.com for theaters.
Marc:And, you know, I love these guys, and I've known them a long time.
Marc:So listen to us talk.
Marc:I had some weird memory that I can't get out of my head of that back room at Stitches when you used to have your night at Stitches.
Marc:What was it?
Marc:What night was yours?
Marc:Sundays?
Guest:Well, I was Thursdays.
Guest:Half the Thursdays and half the Saturdays.
Guest:So I was there on Thursday nights and then every other Saturday.
Marc:And then you'd hold court in that little fucking ticket booth that was the backstage.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So I'm in there, and you're talking about racism and Hollywood.
Marc:I don't know what the hell it was.
Marc:And I was shit-faced, and I'd gotten it in my mind, but somehow or another, because Danny DeVito was so short that he was being used, and it was similar to what you were talking about with racism.
Marc:And I just remember at some point...
Marc:At some point, Barry just goes, I don't know what the hell's going on.
Marc:Maren says Danny DeVito is racism.
Marc:And then I don't know where the conversation, how that happened.
Marc:I just remember you like, it registered with you, but it made no sense.
Marc:I don't think it did make sense.
Marc:In my mind, it kind of makes a little sense.
Guest:He was being exploited.
Guest:Well, it's bigotry.
Guest:Right, it's bigotry because he's short.
Guest:We have to stop the exploitation of Danny DeVito.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I'm all for that.
Marc:Barry Crimmins, Bobcat, Goldthwait.
Marc:Both people I've had on this show, I think, Bobby, I've had you on several times.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:Many times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Barry I've had on once, but it was a monumental event.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:During that conversation, I remember we had a good talk.
Marc:It was very intense.
Marc:And then you came with me to the club and you did some comedy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then we hung out in the parking lot.
Guest:And I had no plan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had no plan to talk about what I talked about, but that's you.
Guest:You get...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you had been talking about it.
Guest:Yeah, no, I'm very comfortable talking about the fact that I raped Survivor because I didn't do anything wrong.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, part of me feeling that Barry would be comfortable in making a documentary was me listening to him on your show.
Guest:And I got to say, that was a game changer doing that interview with you.
Guest:And thanks, man.
Guest:Yeah, you're welcome.
Guest:And I mean, it did...
Guest:And I'll tell you, I heard from a lot of people, some of whom, you know, I was able to provide some assistance for.
Guest:And that helps them to continue healing.
Guest:Oh, is that true?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we go back and forth.
Guest:They would say, oh, nothing like that happened.
Guest:It's amazing how people really don't, you think everyone exaggerates.
Guest:Most of the time, I find that they start off sort of, well, you know, nothing like you went through.
Guest:And then they tell you this heartbreaking story.
Guest:And you go, look, man, we got a few things to chip away at here.
Marc:But the power it has to help people in terms of a thing that most people carry with them as a secret or they're ashamed of or they don't know how to speak about it is pretty profound.
Guest:And you shouldn't, and that's the whole thing.
Guest:That's why I'm really, you know, I mean, people can get too strident about language pretty easily, but when someone says, oh, you admitted you were raped, look, I disclose.
Guest:I didn't admit it.
Guest:That makes me complicit.
Guest:And then one of the big tricks, particularly with child sexual abuse, or, you know, she was asking for it mentality, is that you are somehow complicit in these crimes that are done against you.
Guest:And you wouldn't say you admitted getting hit by a hit-and-run driver or held up at gunpoint.
Guest:And it's the same thing.
Guest:You're a crime victim.
Guest:That's true.
Marc:Yeah, changing the language.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But when you made the movie, Bob, I mean, the awareness that you were going to have to balance...
Marc:You know, the story of his rape and also the humanity of his comedy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, what was the trickiest part of making a movie like that?
Guest:Yeah, I wanted to lay a bunch of pipe so people knew who Barry was and what he meant in the comedy world.
Guest:But I also wanted to kind of tonally put some things in there so it wouldn't be such a big jolt when we start discussing his rape.
Guest:So, it was very hard, you know?
Guest:I mean, but, you know, as soon as I say to him, I go, it was really hard making this movie.
Guest:Barry's like, really?
Guest:Really?
Guest:I don't have a word about it.
Guest:Yeah, I'm really, really, it's really killing me.
Guest:He's been through an absolute hack.
Guest:I think it was about as hard as, you know, Barry.
Guest:Unmitigated hack.
Guest:When Barry disclosed on stage in Boston, it was during a show, and Steve Sweeney was going on, and Steve's really a funny guy, a guy that influenced me a lot, but was kind of insisting on closing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Barry said, okay, go ahead.
Guest:He's about to disclose.
Guest:He knows he's going to do this, and Sweeney's going, I got to close.
Guest:And he's like, okay.
Guest:Yeah, and then Sweeney got up there and he's just going, Jesus Christ.
Guest:God, God.
Marc:Barry Crimmins.
Marc:Let's hear from Barry Crimmins again.
Marc:But that was the interesting thing about the film, too, is that these guys who I knew when I was a kid doing comedy in Boston, these are working class dudes that come from a regional sort of disposition around homosexuality, around whatever it is.
Marc:Right.
Marc:All these guys were supportive.
Marc:They were understanding that the community, you know, came around him.
Marc:They felt bad.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Yeah, I think that's basically it.
Guest:I think some people were skeptical earlier because they're scared of the story, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there was amazing.
Guest:So I have more than enough support.
Guest:Bob was...
Guest:You know, one of the first people I told, and he was amazing, and, you know, it was weird.
Guest:He almost went like, all right, because it's like, oh, the Crimin's mystery is a little bit solved here, you know?
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Finally, we know why.
Guest:Yeah, because we were trying to figure this out, you know, all this anger and, you know.
Guest:Well, when he disclosed to me, it was a sense of relief.
Guest:Here's a guy I've known and loved since I was 16 years old, and I was like, oh, okay, this all makes sense.
Guest:And then some of the tough shots in the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's 10 o'clock in the morning, and Bob's going, let's get you a couple beers.
Guest:I'm going, it's 10 o'clock.
Guest:I don't drink a chance.
Guest:I think you've got to have a couple of beers.
Guest:Well, I mean, do you want to know the real... So when Barry tells the stories of his rape... Yeah, rapes.
Guest:Rapes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He... The first time he did it, it was like 10, 10.30 in the morning.
Guest:And it's the only time I've ever done this.
Guest:It was... I said, listen, I think we're doing this movie for the same reason.
Guest:And I go, can we get Barry a beer?
Guest:I don't want a beer.
Guest:I go, can we get Barry a beer?
Guest:There's two beers there.
Guest:Then I gave him another beer.
Guest:And I said, I need you not to tell the story.
Guest:I need you to remember the story.
Guest:And that's the take that's in the movie.
Guest:When he goes into the basement.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, that was...
Guest:Yeah, not when you went into the basement, but when you told the story of it.
Guest:Because when he went into the basement, we had a huge argument.
Guest:I mean, a real fight.
Guest:Like, I didn't want him to go into the basement.
Guest:Every time there was something... And when you think, when you make a movie, an independent filmmaker... Yeah.
Guest:You're laying your whole career on the line every time you make a movie.
Guest:You might not ever get to make another movie if you fuck up.
Guest:But every time there was a chance that did harm to me, he would see potential danger or harm to me or something good for the movie, he was for me.
Guest:Protecting you.
Guest:Yeah, and I was for the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, I mean, I wasn't going to go into that.
Guest:I wasn't going to go back there.
Guest:And allow that place to have that kind of power.
Guest:I wasn't going to think about that place for so many years and have it in my head and then be afraid to walk in there.
Guest:I had to go in there as a child.
Guest:I had no choice.
Guest:As an adult, I can walk in there.
Guest:And I also wanted to sort of...
Guest:demonstrate that there isn't some sort of supernatural power that these criminals have right to imbue these stone walls right you know evil right it's like it's a place i hope a lot of kids play only the catholic church has the power yeah yeah yeah that's right that's right we can get there real soon they can imbue walls with evil quite easily just throw a stained glass window up there yeah that's absolutely that's right
Guest:Yeah, the production design.
Marc:It's a purpose, I think.
Marc:You know, what was great in the movie is that when you see the footage of you on TV doing those jokes, that, you know, what I didn't remember was they were so accessible.
Marc:And they were also so...
Marc:uh relevant now that there were you know great jokes and you were funny up there and you had a whole angle and it was all complete uh you know you were the whole package and then and then it shows you down there given uh you know uh you know performing for the sandinistas yeah and uh and that was very moving like the the thing that i think people should know about this movie coming into it is that it's not some movie where you're like oh my god how are we gonna
Marc:Here we're talking about you being raped as a child and how you moved through it.
Marc:But the balance that you were able to get, Bob, with just the part of Barry that enabled him to survive and function, which was his wit and his desire to help and perform, to use comedy as a way of expressing his anger,
Marc:really kind of is a great part of the movie.
Marc:It kind of moves along.
Marc:And then to see Barry at this age, you know, trudging through the winter in upstate New York is, you know, I don't think he, I don't think you realize how hilarious you are.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, that whole thing, let's just talk about that for a minute.
Guest:So Goldthwaite, I mean, everybody knows I cut wood, but the thing is, right before we shot, two months before that, I got T-boned and my knee was broken in two places.
Guest:So he's got me hauling a maple log up the hill.
Guest:How many beers did that take?
Guest:Yeah.
Wow.
Guest:A maple log up the hill.
Guest:And then I'm trying to split wood standing on one leg, and that knee's bad, too.
Guest:So I hadn't hit a piece of firewood and not split it for years.
Guest:Now all these people are contacting me to advise me on how to split firewood.
Guest:It's like, oh, fuck yourself.
Guest:I know how to split firewood.
Guest:But when I turn to Goldthwait and I say, this isn't fucking working in the movie, I was saying, okay, we're not going to see this.
Guest:And, of course, now it's at the top of the movie.
Yeah.
Marc:You just wanted to establish the character that is very criminal.
Guest:That is very criminal.
Marc:Quickly.
Marc:The fact that your life, the life that you had as a comic and the important stuff you did as an activist, but now also being an advocate and a resource that you have been all through this since you- Disclosed.
Marc:Disclosed.
Guest:um is now you know culturally you know identifiable and relevant and and you're more available right for yourself and for others now sure sure and that's a great thing at any time it's on it's unbelievable and and you know helping others is a way to really know and you know anybody who's in a 12-step program knows this and when you when you notice the progress you made when you're when you're helping somebody else
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You see where you were a while ago, and you feel fortunate for being that much further along.
Guest:And I get that all the time, dealing with abuse survivors.
Marc:And also you get the selflessness, the getting out of your own... Getting out of your own way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that, to me, is... And really, everyone was so worried about me when I did the child pornography investigation.
Guest:I didn't know about that.
Marc:That, to me, was the most devastating part of the movie, is that because you...
Guest:you know that you know you looked like emaciated and and like you'd been depleted uh that you know you went down this rabbit hole but you changed your legislation well yeah and i mean what i did was i changed the corporate culture at aol they had to get rid of that you know what was going on there they were making money back in those days it cost three or four bucks an hour to be online if you're online over 10 or 12 hours or whatever it was and and then
Guest:So all these guys are spending $1,000, $1,200 a month because they've never had a community.
Guest:Pedophiles and child pornographers.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:People who shared those things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I'm telling AOL and they're playing it dumb because it takes a half hour to upload one picture and they're getting paid.
Guest:So they're making a buck and a half every time a picture goes up.
Guest:But I'm one of the first people, witnesses, who saw in almost real time photographic evidence of a kid who was raped 10 minutes ago.
Guest:It's...
Guest:terrifying and i'm not getting and they're playing it dumb with me and there was i went back and forth with them forever and then finally i end up because of my friend lana lawrence hooked me she somehow they knew they were going to do this hearing in washington but the hearing was going to be about kids and pornography on the internet was like my 16 year old sons to playboy magazine right it's like you know oh no but
Guest:If I hadn't been at the hearing, you would have heard the word child and you would have heard the word pornography, but you wouldn't heard them in a row.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's – I cared about the children in the pornography.
Guest:And I saw – it's photographic evidence of rape and sexual assault and exploitation of kids.
Guest:And if you've seen it, you would never call it kiddie porn, which sounds like the bunny hill or something.
Guest:I mean, it's like – it's tough –
Guest:If you know what it really is, it's tough stuff.
Guest:And then I've talked to so many people who know they were photographed and whatever, and they talk to me about it.
Guest:It's really heartbreaking because there'll be a 50-year-old man crying, saying, well, it was kind of a pine cabin.
Guest:The priest used to take me there, and he was kind of bald.
Guest:And they think that I saw it, and they're embarrassed with me.
Guest:I go, look, man, if I saw a picture like that, and I saw a lot of pictures like that, if I saw a picture like that, all I saw were your eyes.
Guest:I was trying to see, how long does this kid have?
Guest:What's going to happen to this kid?
Guest:What's going to happen to him or her?
Guest:That's all you see if you're there, if you're witnessing it for the right reasons.
Guest:And if you're one of the monsters into that stuff, you would never recognize this person, particularly as an adult, that doesn't even register with them.
Guest:So, I mean, I was happy that I could at least convey that.
Guest:To a lot of people.
Guest:But anyway, we went in and they had a cocky lawyer from AOL who just figured he was going to as a nightclub comic.
Guest:Bring it on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and and.
Guest:But here's the thing, Mark.
Guest:And this is Washington for you.
Guest:I went into that hearing.
Guest:And I gave my testimony, and clearly the AOL guy had been given my testimony because his printed testimony was direct responses to my testimony they asked for in advance.
Guest:Nobody gave me, the kid defending the raped kids, the advance testimony of the other guy.
Guest:So someone tipped, leaked it.
Guest:Yeah, to him.
Guest:And I still, you know, false modesty aside, kicked his ass.
Guest:And by the end of that thing, like there's one thing Bob has in the movie where the guy's saying, well, Barry doesn't care, but he doesn't seem to believe parental control software works.
Guest:And I go, Link, it works great if the parents aren't the rapists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But once the parents are the rapists, it's kind of a useless thing now, isn't it?
Guest:So I and you can just sort of see by the end of this thing, this guy would come in pretty cocky.
Guest:when he snaps at the end and tells the truth by mistake what do you do he said well we had i just want to stop you right there we at america online have a strict three strikes and you're out policy concerning child pornography and i was like you know i love baseball as much as anybody but yeah that's not a three strike offense in any fucking league in any league so you know
Guest:And when that happened, that was the chaos.
Guest:He was done.
Guest:He was done.
Guest:It was like there was no backtricks.
Guest:He publicly said that they would allow people to stay there who had been caught.
Guest:We don't have any fourth-time offenders on childbirth.
Guest:Are you kidding me?
Guest:So it was over.
Guest:But when he said that, if you look at him, he's a beaten man at that point.
Guest:He had taken, you know, it was like the 14th round of a 15-round fight, and they should have stopped it.
Marc:I think the other thing that makes the movie so beautiful is that, you know, just in talking about this stuff and the weight of it and talking about comedy a little bit, though, is the love that you guys have for each other for so long that, like, there was an intimacy there, you know, around, you know, your trust of Bob.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And Bob's, you know, knowledge of you and his trust of you and also, you know, the line that which you could operate at, you know, not crossing each other's lines.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:also learning new territory in terms of you know what you could achieve together and it was a beautiful thing a couple things there bob was i mean he was so protective and thoughtful towards me i i trusted him with my life and then i stepped back it was hard not to say hey i mean you know your friends and these people are talking about you all day and i was never there because i didn't want to skew right anybody tell them the truth
Guest:And so I had to – I mean, it took some self-control to not ask a bunch of questions, but then I got used to it.
Guest:But I also – I trusted Bob.
Guest:And it was a very wise investment on my part, and he made a beautiful movie.
Guest:And what I love about the movie – and Bob said some stuff to me early on that just came – he said, look, I don't want it to be one of those documentaries where 38 people are sitting in front of the same bookcase.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they made this beautiful cinema.
Guest:Bradley Stonecipher, the cinematographer, did amazing work.
Guest:And Jeff Stryker, the editor, did amazing.
Guest:And Bob pulled the whole thing together.
Guest:And the whole crew was tremendous.
Guest:So, I mean, it was easy on one level.
Guest:But on other levels, it was sort of like, well, I wonder what's going on in there.
Guest:It's like being outside of the maternity room for a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know also you know robin was robin um you know was my best friend so so um the movie yeah he got hit with a meteor in the middle of the thing emotional yeah and it sounds corny but i honestly was like oh okay well you know what would he want you know and i and and
Guest:You know, I assumed, well, he'd want me to finish this movie.
Guest:But it was just insane.
Guest:The year was just, you know, divorce.
Guest:Loss.
Guest:Break up with a girlfriend, decorating a Christmas tree, and my best friend kills himself.
Guest:But at least I had a baby rape documentary to work on 10 to 12 hours a day to cheer me up.
Guest:And I will say this.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:I knew he was going to work his way through.
Guest:But, I mean, I knew because he's such a hard worker.
Guest:that I just had, I knew that even though this is a tough story to tell and so on, that I was glad he had it to tell because I knew when I heard he was getting back to work that that was the beginning of the path to, you know, getting through the grief, the incredible grief.
Guest:But the courage he showed...
Guest:and the professionalism.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To get off that deck and get it done so that we ended up at Sundance, it's fucking unbelievable.
Marc:And you know why you were both able to do this thing?
Marc:Because you're fucking comics.
Marc:Yeah, right, right, right.
Marc:Think about it.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:I mean, you know what I mean?
Marc:That's what we do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Watch me shut my emotions off.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It'll be the most entertaining emotional shutdown you'll ever see.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think it's my personal best.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think it really is.
Marc:It's an amazing, unique movie, and I'm happy you guys are seeing such success with it.
Guest:Thanks.
Guest:Can I say something really quick?
Guest:You know, and you can cut this out if you want, but, you know, you're kind enough to have me direct your new special, and I've seen you do stand-up over the years, but it was really great.
Guest:What I loved about the specials is that you really brought it.
Guest:I mean, I really, I hope you're happy with your performances because you were really on that night.
Guest:Like, you were really dialed in.
Guest:Well, it was one of those times where... And you can't say that, so I want to say that.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Guest:I can say he called me up and was enthused and San Marin just absolutely.
Guest:I think my favorite moment was when I was laughing and I forgot to call cameras.
Guest:I'm like, hey, hey, dumb, dumb.
Guest:You're directing.
Guest:Stop watching the show.
Guest:Well, thank you, man.
Guest:I think it came up great.
Guest:Thanks for coming by, fellas.
Guest:Well, it's an honor to.
Guest:to be on the show again so relatively soon.
Guest:And it's an honor to be on it with this guy and both you two.
Guest:And I know you guys have been working on stuff together.
Guest:It's all pretty cool.
Guest:We're okay.
Guest:It's all pretty great, man.
Guest:We're doing okay.
Guest:This seems like the time for an untimely death.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, gee, and I guess who that's going to be.
Marc:That's when the space debris landed on the garage.
Guest:The last truck on the sky landed.
Marc:All right, thanks, guys.
Marc:Fine balance between brutal, dark, emotionally devastating and funny.
Marc:Barry Crimmins lives in that.
Marc:And Bobcat Goldthwait understands that.
Marc:And it's a pretty amazing movie.
Marc:Again, Call Me Lucky is playing in New York and D.C.
Marc:and L.A.
Marc:and...
Marc:other places this weekend and it's uh opening in locations throughout august and you know all around the country hopefully you can go to call me lucky movie.com uh for theaters um it was great to talk to those guys heavy shit but funny shit surviving man surviving and learning moving through and helping
Marc:And also maybe driving yourself a little crazy.
Marc:Jason Bateman.
Marc:I've been very impressed with Jason's Bateman.
Marc:Both of them.
Marc:The two of them.
Marc:I've been very impressed with Jason's work in movies lately.
Marc:And he's very funny.
Marc:He's a great straight man.
Marc:But I always wondered what kind of dude he was.
Marc:And I actually reached out to him years ago.
Marc:I had a phone number.
Marc:I don't even know if I talked to him about it.
Marc:You know, I'm not going to spoil anything.
Marc:I had a great time talking to Jason Bateman.
Marc:So now, why don't you enjoy us?
Marc:Oh, and before you enjoy us, I'm sorry, before you enjoy us, although that was a great segue, Jason is in the new movie, The Gift, which is in theaters tomorrow, August 7th.
Marc:Now, please enjoy Jason Bateman and myself.
Marc:Was that grammatically correct?
Marc:All right, don't just do it.
Guest:Weasel and I were buddies for a while.
Guest:We all went to school together.
Guest:I don't know if I told you this.
Guest:No.
Guest:We went to school together in eighth grade, I think.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To a valley professional school, which was a school where if you are professional, you know,
Guest:if you're pulling down a lot of auditions, you're gonna wanna free up your afternoon, right?
Guest:So these guys take your, it's probably 30 grand a year, I don't even remember what it was, because I was a toy.
Guest:It was all actors and celebrity kids?
Guest:Yeah, Janet Jackson was there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I don't know what kind of audition she was doing.
Guest:So how old were you at that point?
Guest:This is eighth grade, so I'm 14.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so school is 9 to 12.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you can go home and bang out your sides, you know, and then, you know, get on a bus like I did with a skateboard.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And go down to Hollywood and do your audition.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So who else?
Guest:It was Janet Jackson and Dweezil?
Guest:Oh, a year.
Guest:One year.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:There were a couple of Olympic skaters there.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, because they need to, you know, they got to get out there on the ice.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and they can't be after four.
Guest:Well, how many kids in this school?
Guest:You know, 20.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So it was a racket.
Guest:It was in a mini mall on Sherman Way and like, you know, Vineland.
Guest:That was someone's big idea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a racket.
Guest:Definitely not an accredited institution.
Marc:Did you do any work?
Mm-mm.
Marc:No, I didn't.
Guest:But you basically grew up in show business.
Guest:Yeah, I started when I was 10, and I did a lot of television work.
Guest:Well, where'd you come from?
Guest:How'd that happen?
Guest:I was born in Ryan, New York.
Guest:Westchester, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dad was a writer, director, producer, and he... In New York?
Guest:In New York, yes, and then Boston.
Guest:We were there from when I was two till I was four.
Guest:What did he do?
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's a little mysterious.
Guest:Needless to say, we had to keep moving around.
Guest:We then went to Salt Lake City, which could throw you off the scent a little bit, right?
Guest:What kind of production's happening there?
Guest:There was some post-production.
Guest:In Salt Lake?
Guest:It was like running a film lab.
Guest:You weren't Mormons.
Guest:No.
Guest:Grandma and Grandpa were.
Guest:Oh, they were.
Guest:So there was actual connection.
Guest:On Dad's side, I think.
Guest:But I don't remember any of that.
Guest:How old?
Guest:This is from four to seven.
Guest:And how do you get out here?
Guest:How does that happen?
Guest:Again, another one of Dad's moves to another better opportunity.
Guest:I think again in post-production, perhaps.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:And my mom was a stewardess for Pan Am.
Guest:So...
Guest:her situation was a bit more fluid.
Guest:Her job was to travel, so she would, what would they call it, deadhead to wherever her base was and then fly all over the world.
Guest:Yeah, when Pan Am was an airline.
Guest:It's over.
Guest:It's over, but before it was over, we did a ton of traveling before I was old enough to really appreciate it.
Guest:Europe and everything?
Guest:not so much Europe but more Asia I think they were more Pan Am had Asia down so I did a lot of trips to you know Hong Kong and Japan and it just it was an inconvenience it was you know they don't have my buddies aren't here my skateboard's not sure you were like just imagine your kids going on that trip now and what your parents must have gone through yeah where's where's Nick Jr.
Guest:dad I'm not seeing Nick Jr.
Guest:anywhere on the dial here and Justine's older than you
Guest:Yeah, three years.
Guest:And there's just two of you?
Guest:There's just the two from this marriage.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:There are two boys from the last marriage that dad had.
Guest:Before you?
Guest:After me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And one boy from the marriage that preceded.
Marc:So he came in with a kid?
Guest:He came in with a kid and left with two.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:He's not around anymore?
Guest:Dad's still here.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's up north, though.
Guest:He's in Oregon.
Guest:What's he doing up there?
Guest:Or Washington.
Guest:Is it unclear?
Guest:It's unclear.
Guest:I have not been there yet, but he hasn't been here either.
Guest:Really?
Guest:How long has it been the friction?
Guest:There's no friction.
Guest:We kind of had a very atypical upbringing, my sister and I, in that since dad was kind of this somewhat of a bohemian contributor to the arts,
Guest:But unclear what that was.
Guest:You've not seen any of his work.
Guest:I smelt a lot of development fluid in the basement.
Guest:And mom was flying around the world for Pan Am.
Guest:We had Christmas on the 23rd often and Thanksgiving on the 15th.
Guest:And then Justine and I started acting.
Guest:So there wasn't anything very traditional about the way in which we were brought up.
Guest:And consequently, the dynamic between children and parents was not traditional.
Guest:Therefore, there isn't that obligatory draw to call every Sunday or visit where you live now or let's all get together for Christmas.
Guest:So you're saying
Guest:your parents were self-involved.
Guest:I don't know if it's so much that.
Guest:I mean, if I'm to look at it half full, I would say that they weren't hamstrung by the traditional familial obligations.
Marc:That's diplomatic.
Marc:I mean, I have the same experience, whereas I don't...
Marc:I feel like my parents are people I grew up with.
Marc:I don't feel like there was this sort of like this intrinsic kind of like nurturing going on.
Marc:I just feel like, yeah, they were these troubled or complicated people that were kids when they had me, and we all grew up together, and now we're kind of friends.
Guest:Do you remember that transition that every kid makes where your parents become human and you stop that sort of deferential...
Guest:where mom and dad are, that's where I'm going.
Guest:That's where I wanna go.
Guest:I wanna be just as good as dad or just as good as mom.
Guest:And you eventually get old enough or smart enough or enlightened or insightful enough to see that they're just as flawed as you are.
Guest:Oh yeah, and I don't wanna go there at all.
Guest:I'd rather not.
Guest:Or I'm gonna cherry pick.
Guest:The things that I want to emulate.
Guest:Trim that a little bit.
Guest:It's a heartbreaking and hilarious transition that I think every kid goes through.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:But I think that usually they go through it when they're 40, and they don't know what the fuck's wrong with them.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In that way, we're like- I don't know.
Guest:What is the ideal age and circumstance to go through that sort of curtain pulling process?
Marc:Well, I think that what happens if parents are good is that they allow you to sort of detach and have your own space in a way that's still kind of like, we still love you.
Marc:And you sort of kind of gradually go into that as you sort of find your own identity.
Marc:But I think if your parents are needy or they're actually emotionally detached, you're sort of on your own.
Marc:And then usually that realization comes with a good heaping of like, well, fuck them.
Marc:Fuck that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:yeah but i don't know what like i like the idea of cherry picking i mean it sounds it seems a little easier than uh than just that because you know you end up having those elements your parents were like oh god how to get that one right and and and by definition you have it in yourself right because you can see it well yeah because they wired you you know they put the board in do you have those things oh yeah i'm loaded with all the things that
Guest:I think we're all loaded with the things that we don't want from our parents.
Guest:And our ability to become a quality human being is our ability to kind of navigate and kind of neutralize those elements, right?
Guest:Because they're there.
Guest:They're in you.
Guest:They're literally in your DNA.
Guest:So what makes us good people is the ongoing struggle to destroy our parents' influence.
Guest:To tamp down the remnants of your parents, I suppose, and accentuate the parts that you do like.
Guest:but but do you but so you talk to your dad yeah yeah oh okay and your mom's still around yeah yeah so talk to them both but not not not in the traditional frequency like once a week we have a call we don't do that no yeah it's once a month sure um and it's uh and sometimes it's email yeah it's it's not forced and i will give them that it's a great thing that they don't they don't jam you yeah and but they have a relationship with your kids and stuff
Marc:No.
Marc:Not letting that happen.
Guest:They don't go that far.
Guest:Although my mom's a little bit better than my dad, but I'll attribute that to her being in the same state.
Marc:Oh, she's here?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I don't have kids, so I don't have that.
Marc:It's an odd thing, but it's not a choice.
Marc:You're like, no, they're staying away.
Guest:I'm not keeping them away and they're not making an effort to stay away.
Guest:It's just more like, hey, if we met going down the street, would we hang out?
Guest:Now, I don't know if that's if that's relationship to my parents.
Guest:I'd say that's more.
Guest:I think my sister and I have that really kind of healthy relationship where it's like.
Guest:hey man you know like we don't have to be every day every week every month every holiday just because we're brother sister it's like well let's earn the relationship that adults should or could have um that that is not that is not you're not handcuffed because of the blood but you do do you earn it you get along with her then yeah she has a relationship with her kids
Guest:ish yeah yeah yeah and my ish with theirs so they got cousins they got cousins i'm not sure they know their names but they officially do have cousins yes where is she though she's like she's about a mile from my house
Guest:I hope they don't listen to this.
Guest:Yeah, I could be a better uncle, brother, son.
Guest:Mark, you've got it.
Guest:You've done it.
Guest:You've pulled it out.
Guest:That was easy.
Marc:Very early in this interview.
Marc:Well, I mean, but it wasn't easy being you, right?
Guest:There have been some challenging moments, but I think I'm kind of weathering it pretty well.
Guest:I don't know if you ever really know whether you're really happy or not because you honestly cannot compare it to anybody else.
Guest:Wouldn't it be great to be able to get into just anybody's mind?
Guest:Doesn't matter whether they're sick or healthy or happy or sad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:just to get a little bit of perspective about well i might be like euphoric right compared to everyone else right everybody might just be just beat to you know yeah or i might be the most or the darkest cloud kind of i have no idea i think it's all about how you interpret your daily weather and your traffic
Marc:I think so.
Marc:No, but I think there is a way to sort of, like, you can assess peace of mind.
Marc:You can assess, like, you know, how much fear you're living in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How much anger you have.
Guest:Yeah, that I think I'm really honest with myself about.
Guest:I bet you I'm a real happy camper.
Marc:Yeah, you seem good.
Marc:I mean, I think the weird thing was, like, years ago when I first started this show...
Marc:I think Janine Garofalo.
Marc:Love her.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She said, you got to get Bateman on.
Marc:You got to call him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He said, you got to call him.
Marc:And she gave me some weird toll-free number.
Guest:Is it 1-800-BLOODJOB?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Was that the wrong number?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've discontinued that.
Guest:I was getting like really weird fucking calls.
Guest:I don't know why.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It doesn't make sense to me.
Guest:You know, JasonBateman.com was a gay porn hub.
Guest:It was?
Guest:Hub.
Guest:Really?
Guest:For a while.
Guest:Until I had to buy it.
Yeah.
Guest:And one of the gay writers on a show I was doing, he said, hey, man, can I talk to you for a second?
Guest:And he said, my partner and I were doing a little surfing the other day.
Guest:And so he told me about this.
Guest:And I said, are you lying?
Guest:He said, no.
Guest:He said, check it out.
Guest:So I went there.
Guest:And it is not a site.
Guest:It's a hub from which it's like going to, like, you know, the Tom Bradley terminal.
Guest:You can go anywhere in the gay world from Jason Bateman.
Guest:Are there pictures of you?
Guest:No, I think it was just like, well, what name would really resonate with our gay community?
Guest:Do you have a lot of gay following?
Guest:I think I might.
Guest:You must.
Guest:They must love you.
Guest:That's what this is telling me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, so we snatched that up.
Marc:How much did you have to pay to not be a gay hub?
Marc:I don't remember.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:I seem to remember it being pretty affordable.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But no, but Garofalo gave me this number and I called it because it was like at the beginning and I wanted to get guests.
Marc:And
Marc:and uh there was no i don't remember what it was but i left this message hey man uh jason it's mark maron and i think we i don't know if you're still with dave becky but at that time i was with dave becky yeah yeah and i like i couldn't get through to him and then at some point he was representing you you could not get a hold of very difficult
Marc:but i'm no longer with him but we're okay him and i are fine we'll get to a point i mean you must know you've been in the business a while where where if you're not really doing anything they don't know what to do right and uh it's a don't get me started yeah you've got to help them help you oh they have no idea and and and if they can't if they don't have any traction with you you're not you're not a bargaining chip you're you're like can you do me a favor
Marc:Well, you're that guy.
Marc:He'd have big clients, and I know what happened was like, hey, you got Louis for that thing.
Marc:You think Marin, you got anything for Marin?
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:I don't like knowing about it.
Guest:Yeah, but it's pretty common sense.
Guest:It's like the market dictates whether you're going to get hired.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:An agent can't get you hired.
Guest:I don't want to belittle what an agent does, but-
Guest:you could be the best agent in the world, but it's not about advocacy, you know?
Guest:Because if it was, our mothers would be our best agents, right?
Guest:It's not about picking up the phone and saying, hey, Marc Maron's fantastic, you gotta hire.
Guest:That doesn't mean shit.
Guest:So it doesn't matter really what agent you're with.
Guest:It's if a marketplace wants you, if you're hot, if you're relevant, or yada yada.
Marc:Yeah, if they have something to work with.
Marc:Right.
Marc:If they're like, oh, we can run money through this guy.
Guest:Yes, you have to give them the bullets to fire, which means you need a job before they can get you one.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And the problem is, if you don't have that,
Marc:and you've been with them a long time, it becomes like this weird marriage.
Marc:You're sort of like, I don't know what to do, but I don't want to be an asshole.
Guest:I can't stop representing him.
Guest:I can't kick him out of here.
Guest:So they just stop calling.
Guest:They just stop calling, and they wait.
Guest:Maybe something will pop for that guy.
Guest:They try to get you to fire yourself.
Guest:They try to get you to call them and say, hey, man, I've got to make a choice.
Guest:I've got to move on.
Guest:And then they kind of have to say, well,
Guest:whoa, whoa, really?
Guest:And then I got to spend 10 minutes trying to talk you out of it, but not too emphatically.
Guest:And then you leave and then they're like, ah.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Thank God.
Marc:Well, I was with him since the beginning.
Marc:I mean, I was with him like for 20 years.
Marc:So like I knew him.
Marc:That's the weird thing that you realize about Hollywood after a while is that they all come up together.
Marc:You know, you got your agents, you got your managers, you got your publicist, you got your talent.
Marc:And generationally,
Marc:They sort of like come up and they make it and they don't make it.
Marc:And if they make it with their guys, then they have a lot of, you know, whatever.
Guest:But there's a bit more of a natural ascension, sort of a perpetual, you know, an escalator almost in a lot of the other channels and lanes in acting.
Guest:Like, there isn't, if you put in 35 years, you don't get that sort of entitlement of a raise, a promotion, you know, job security.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:It actually works against you.
Guest:It's terrifying.
Guest:Oh, we know him.
Guest:No, we're tired of that.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:We want somebody with no experience whatsoever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Somebody fresh.
Marc:Yeah, somebody no one knows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You mean a rookie.
Yeah.
Guest:In any other profession, it's a negative.
Marc:But you've been in it since you were 10?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So how does that start?
Marc:Like, I've talked to a couple of actors who have been doing it that long.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, I know that it's tricky that once you sort of play out of the young roles, then you get that weird, like, what is it now?
Marc:I just talked to Jason Segel the other day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you were really young.
Marc:So how does that start?
Marc:Your parents?
Yeah.
Guest:You looking at your phone down there?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:No.
Guest:I'm playing with the cord.
Guest:I'm playing with my penis.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:That's never happened.
Marc:Do you want me to turn around?
Marc:I'll bet it has.
Guest:I'll bet it has.
Guest:You do night sessions in here?
Guest:Not since JasonBateman.com closed down.
Guest:So what happened?
Guest:So dad, as I said, was a writer, director, producer.
Guest:And so his passion was movies.
Guest:And so he would take- But you've never seen nothing.
Guest:You've seen none of your father's work.
Guest:He would-
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, he made one, but he knew about them.
Guest:He knew what it takes to make a good one, and so he turned that on in me.
Guest:He showed me what was a good film, what was a bad film, and why.
Guest:What was a good director, what a bad director was, actor, et cetera.
Guest:I love that you still call him a writer, producer, director, film guy, but you have no evidence of anything.
Guest:But it still stuck with you.
Guest:The myth still holds tight in your head.
Guest:He drilled it home for me.
Guest:He made one movie.
Guest:You don't know what that is.
Guest:It is true.
Guest:It is true.
Guest:You just kind of keep saying it.
Guest:You keep saying it.
Guest:It's like Fox News.
Guest:You just keep repeating it.
Guest:You just spit it out enough times.
Marc:So he made you watch like what?
Marc:He sat you down.
Guest:Anything that was playing at the New Art, which is an art house here in L.A.
Guest:You'd go see it.
Guest:We'd go see stuff that had, most of them had subtitles, which was just after I started to learn how to read.
Guest:So I'm surprised it didn't kill movies for me.
Guest:Do you remember anything from that time where you're like, holy shit?
Guest:I remember, what was the, Fitzcarraldo.
Guest:Do you remember that film?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, the Herzog movie.
Guest:Right, and what was the guy?
Guest:Klaus Kinski?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wasn't there a scene where he was...
Guest:he was burned into my head.
Guest:I think either he or one of the actors was having sex with a woman at the base of a tree and he was in a squatted position and she was in a seated position on his squatted body with his back against a tree.
Guest:That takes some balance.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, well, he's got the bag, he's got the tree for the support, right?
Guest:And then he just needs to move up and down, which I would imagine, now that's hurting your back, I would imagine.
Guest:I'm thinking that through.
Guest:But anyway...
Guest:That to me was like the most, I couldn't believe how terrible that was.
Guest:That just scarred me.
Guest:So I do remember Fitzgerald though.
Guest:My grandparents took me to see Deliverance by accident.
Guest:Oh yeah?
Guest:When it came out.
Guest:So I wasn't even 10.
Guest:Well, you know, I was surprised to see the release date on Jaws the other day was 75 and I was six.
Guest:And I remember seeing that in a movie theater.
Guest:You can't take a six year old to Jaws because I wonder where my fear of sharks comes from.
Guest:I can't swim in a pool at night.
Guest:Uh-oh.
Marc:I don't know what's under there.
Guest:We've got to talk afterwards.
Marc:Do explain what a pool.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I know it's not logical.
Marc:It's not rational.
Marc:But I think I had this conversation with my girlfriend the other day.
Marc:A lot of people forget that.
Marc:You know, Betamax, like, videotapes were introduced at a certain point.
Marc:So, like, the memory of Jaws.
Marc:Like, she thought it was her childhood, but it was 10 years before.
Marc:It was because videotapes.
Marc:Everyone saw it.
Marc:Like, remember when videotapes first came out?
Marc:You saw everything again.
Guest:You saw everything again.
Marc:But you saw it in the theater.
Marc:You're pretty sure.
Guest:I'm positive I remember the movie theater.
Guest:So, he got me into acting.
Guest:Got me excited about it.
Guest:And then a neighbor of ours was an actor.
Guest:He took me to an audition.
Guest:I ended up sneaking into that audition for the kid part.
Guest:And I got that part, so I thought I was good.
Guest:Then...
Guest:I had my dad take some pictures of me and send them into an agency so I could start doing commercials and selling burgers and stuff.
Guest:And that worked for about a year.
Guest:And then they send you out for TV shows after you do a few commercials.
Guest:So your agent was like, he's hot.
Guest:We got one.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:This guy can smile.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then I started doing TV comedies like Silver Spoons and It's Your Move.
Guest:Or actually, Little House on the Prairie was the first thing that I did, which was a very, very special drama.
Guest:It was a one hour drama.
Guest:Yeah, I remember that one, Michael Landon.
Guest:And you did a lot of those?
Guest:I did a year of that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The final year before they all went away.
Guest:So you were a kid?
Guest:Yeah, I was adopted into the Ingalls family.
Guest:You showed up, were you like an abandoned kid?
Guest:I was.
Guest:I was a kid.
Guest:The storyline of this very special two-parter that ended the one season and triggered the season that I was in with a little sister.
Guest:I was named Missy Francis, played my sister, Cassandra.
Guest:I was James.
Guest:And the story was we were in a stagecoach with my parents and they they had like a sick horse or something.
Guest:And so Charles Ingalls, you know, Michael Lennon's riding by his stagecoach and they say, hey, could we get a lift or a pole or a tug or whatever it is?
Guest:And he says, sure, but maybe the kids should ride with me.
Guest:So me and the girl get in the back of Landon's stagecoach.
Guest:We start going down the steep hill.
Guest:And of course, the brakes go out and our parents stagecoach.
Guest:And there's this terrible scene that's really viscerally shot of their stagecoach going over the edge of this mountain.
Guest:Yeah, just terrible barrel rolls down the side of this hill.
Guest:And my sister and I, you know, running, screaming, you know, walking up, you know, dramatically into cameras.
Guest:The camera's dolling towards us, and we kind of meet in this hard close-up of us just screaming, crying, "'Mama, no!
Guest:Papa, no!'
Guest:And then, you know, like turning to Michael Landon, you know, like, well, what now?
Guest:And like, you know, then a push in on him.
Guest:Like, I guess I'm going to have to adopt you two.
Guest:It was kind of the shot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then that's what happens.
Guest:We get adopted into the family.
Guest:So he fucked up on the toe.
Guest:He gave an improper tug.
Guest:Which will get you in trouble at JasonBateman.com.
Guest:So that was it.
Guest:So you cried?
Guest:I cried well.
Guest:I remember auditioning for Michael Landon in his dressing room while he was shooting an episode.
Guest:And we read a scene together.
Guest:He took me into his dressing room, just the two of us, shutting the door behind him like a trailer on a set.
Guest:He's a big dude too, right?
Guest:Big dude, and I'm a small little 10-year-old, and that was a little scary, and I just had to basically lay down on the bed because we're going to play a scene where I'm tucking you into bed, and these are the sides where you need to cry, and you say, I don't want to go to that adoption agency tomorrow.
Guest:And the crying and the drama of that needs to kind of trigger in him this desire, well, fuck it, I'll just adopt these kids.
Guest:And I cried.
Guest:You did it?
Guest:At 10.
Guest:Can you make yourself cry?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:It's a hard thing to do.
Guest:I don't know how actors do it so easily.
Guest:I've come up with this terrible method of...
Guest:You know, now with iPhones, which I didn't have back then, I don't know how I did it then, but I'll just look at pictures of my daughters and imagine terrible, terrible, like going over a mountain in a stagecoach.
Guest:And that'll make me start to cry a little bit.
Guest:And I have to time that out with, you know, guessing when they're going to call me ready for the scene.
Marc:You ready?
Marc:And then you're like, hold on.
Guest:No, that's what I do.
Guest:I walk onto the set and I'm looking at a... They think I'm checking my email.
Guest:Look at this dick actor walking onto this really important scene and he can't get off his fucking iPhone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just saw the trailer for The Gift, and it looks like you really broke down.
Guest:I did that a ton of times in that movie.
Guest:All those tears are because I have fresh in my mind my daughter going into a blender with some song in my head while I'm looking at it.
Guest:That's hilarious, but when you were 10, you just summoned it.
Guest:Yeah, I probably just pinched my leg hard or something.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You don't remember?
Marc:Because it is kind of hard.
Marc:It's hard.
Guest:And you didn't take any acting classes or anything?
Guest:My dad taught a little improv.
Guest:Hey, man.
Guest:Where did he teach you improv?
Guest:He's got to make some scratch.
Guest:Sure, buddy.
Guest:He taught improv on Adventure and Woodman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is way before the improv craze.
Guest:This is way before the improv craze.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was ahead of it.
Guest:But it was actually very beneficial.
Guest:Who took those classes?
Guest:Nobody of any sort of... Oh, my God.
Marc:So your dad's teaching improv?
Marc:Your dad, the filmmaker.
Marc:You got to add that to the list of things.
Guest:Acting coach.
Marc:Yeah, acting coach, improv teacher.
Marc:What was it?
Guest:Did he know what he was doing?
Guest:He did.
Guest:He actually did teach me everything I know, to be honest.
Guest:He started me with sort of this proper perspective on what this bullshit thing is of acting.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Because no one's ever really been able to tell me.
Guest:What do you remember?
Guest:i mean i'm sure that i've morphed this into my own kind of thing but basically the way i see it now is that it's really not to belittle what the real actors do right now the daniel day lewis's of the world um but it's the easiest thing to do in the world because we all do it like you're doing it right now i'm doing it right now i should be crying
Guest:But you know how you're different with your mom versus your best friend.
Guest:It's just behavioral manipulation in order to fit the person that you're talking to, in order to convince them that you are genuinely interested.
Guest:Or if you really are interested, you might goose it a little bit to get them to tell me more about that story.
Guest:It's just being engaged.
Guest:Yeah, and everybody has a keen sense of their, of the way in which they come across.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's all acting is.
Guest:Unless you're morphing into a character that's completely outside of your goalpost.
Guest:Have you tried to do that?
Guest:Yeah, when I was a kid and I look at that stuff and there's just a lot of acting going on.
Guest:And I'm a little cynical about that.
Guest:And I'm not saying that acting and playing these eccentric parts is a bad thing.
Guest:But for my own taste, for some reason, I've become a little cynical about that.
Guest:For yourself.
Guest:yeah and i don't or even as a as a as a moviegoer i don't like to see a lot of acting i really appreciate it when when actors or actresses are are somehow funneling whatever character is written on a page into their their their their abilities a part of themselves yeah yeah and of course you want to put that you know at one end or the other to make it interesting because you don't want to just kind of just
Guest:sleepwalk through it right it should still be inside your skill set so that you don't have to get outside of it and therefore start acting right so so knowing your limitations as an actor is important and knowing who you are and what you can do yeah and if you're if you're kind of fucked up and you've got multiple personalities it's it's helpful it's beneficial yeah do you i'm sure yeah well but you know because look if you start acting at a at an age
Guest:Before you really know who you are, which is like 10 until, what, 18?
Guest:You're developing as convincing as possible parts of yourself that have just as much right and square footage as the part that may one day actually become right.
Marc:who you are right so you're kind of developing schizophrenia these these racehorses are running at the same speed sure especially no one's taking the lead yet like what 20 episodes or something i mean how many how many of those little houses did you do that was a full season so that was uh 23 22 22 or 23 and that well 22 plus a very special two-parter mark so after that you you felt like i'm going this is it it's happening
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think so.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't that deliberate with, you know, here's my career plan, but... Was your dad?
Guest:Yeah, he became my manager.
Guest:Mom became our manager.
Guest:My sister started acting a few years after that.
Guest:And, you know, there's somewhat of a necessity to that in that you need a babysitter, literally.
Guest:You need a legal guardian on the set.
Guest:And so you can either hire one that's over 18, effectively a babysitter, or...
Guest:uh or if your parents have flexible hours like mom did where she's only flying two weeks every every four yeah um and dad who's pumping out you know citizen kane in the basement you know and he can do that on the set you know i guess as well as he could do it in the basement right so why not collect 15 while you're doing it he was down there working on that movie yeah the ethics of it in hindsight are a bit troubling but i'm still looking at it half full
Guest:Well, that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So all right.
Marc:So you do the Silver Spoons, which I don't I didn't watch it.
Guest:That was the Ricky Schroeder vehicle.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:And I was a little old for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I graduated high school in 81.
Marc:So I was on to other things.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was the big one for you.
Guest:That was.
Guest:Yeah, that was a that was a really good one.
Guest:And then that got me my own show, which didn't last a year.
Guest:Which one was that?
Guest:That was called It's Your Move.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then after that was the Hogan family, which lasted five years.
Guest:That was the Valerie Harper vehicle that became the Sandy Duncan vehicle.
Guest:Oh, you worked with Valerie Harper?
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You worked with both of them?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:They were great.
Guest:I loved them, but Valerie pissed off the brass, and then she got burned in a very special two-parter in a house fire.
Wow.
Guest:And for some reason, they went ahead and shot the episode where I ride my moped up to... The burning house.
Guest:Up to the burning house.
Guest:And she's your mom?
Guest:And the fireman or son, do we have an accident up here?
Guest:But that's my house, sir.
Guest:You know, and ripping through the police tape and running into the house and...
Guest:It's just so cheesy and bad where you go all the way upstairs and literally grab a photo of me and mom together and you pick up the photo and it crumbles into ashes into your hand.
Guest:I mean, it's like I checked all the boxes.
Marc:You went through a lot of shit as a young actor.
Marc:I mean, you had to watch your parents go over the cliff in a stagecoach.
Marc:faucet of tears with no crying talent whatsoever a fire god now they just sort of replace people and people are so stupid they're like we get it you're right that actor's gone we saw it on entertainment tonight let's jump six months yeah no reason for closure or explanation now none
Marc:No, they really had to hammer it in.
Marc:And so Sandy Duncan shows up as the new mom?
Guest:Sandy Duncan shows up as the sister to dad, and she's just like one of my favorite people in the world.
Guest:Is she still around?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:So after the Hogan family thing, what happens?
Guest:after the hogan family things got quiet because there was that that transition thing you're talking about where well if you're like a a teen actor or whatever what are you at 20 right and how'd you ride that out uh i i kind of i didn't i mean i took the opportunity i mean i tried to keep working but when things were quiet i took the opportunity to party and catch up for all the all the working i did as a kid hollywood party style
Guest:Yes and no.
Guest:I mean, I'd go to all the cheesy clubs and do all the drinking and the drugging and all that sort of that kind of living for about 10 years.
Guest:And then luckily for me, when I'd kind of caught up,
Guest:uh and wanted to have a career again um arrested development was the thing that that came kind of right around that time and and it well how many years was that dude which like that break like 10 years yeah it was a long time that was that was at the beginning of your question you know um when we first started talking that that was a tough period you know like is the rest of my life going to be anticlimactic like it
Guest:There was a time where I thought, well, should I just liquidate what little I do have left and start over somewhere else?
Guest:Literally go down to the airport and just look up on the ticker board.
Guest:And with like a duffel bag full of, you know, dollar bills.
Marc:So that was it.
Marc:So that in your mind, that was the choice is like, I'm washed up.
Marc:It's time to disappear.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or before I really kind of get sucked into this depression of the only thing on TV is Entertainment Tonight and I'm not on it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why don't I go and buy a coffee shop in...
Guest:fucking spain sure and like learn spanish and uh i'm 20 you know like i that's where people are getting out of college they're starting their lives right so like you can still do it right and i don't have a wife i don't have kids i you know got this you know distant relationship with my parents and my sister's like i've i'm untethered i'm out let me go
Marc:and i got a little like maybe yeah did you think like how many people are gonna know me over there like that was always like i always wondered about that that weird thing where you get to a certain point in show business and you really can't stop just out of pride because what are you gonna do you're gonna work at a stereo place and people are gonna walk in and go like hey yeah and pride gets gets in the way of a lot of really good decisions in general right that that being one of them like
Guest:How do you rebuild?
Guest:And I've got a lot of friends that did not make great decisions with that.
Guest:Well, screw it.
Guest:If I can't get this job, then I won't work at all.
Guest:And I'll just party all night and sleep all day because there's no reason to wake up.
Guest:And they're still at it?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I think a couple of them are.
Guest:And it's sad.
Guest:This is a tough town.
Guest:Tough business.
Guest:It's a tough business, and the town is a lot of the business.
Guest:And if you're on the fringes of relevance and access, it can be really challenging.
Guest:And you were, you felt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's uncomfortable sometimes just to socialize because you do feel that pressure of, you know, what are you doing?
Guest:Oh, not much, you know.
Guest:And it's a very, it's a benign sort of just question.
Guest:But it's so loaded to you.
Guest:It comes loaded.
Guest:And it's a, I feel for people because all of those people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:filled with talent they just don't have you know right they everyone's a job away for me it was Arrested Development like I didn't take a talent pill the morning I went in read for Arrested Development how much were partying I was partying a lot but I was still making it to the few auditions that I was getting and you were doing little parts here and there yeah
Guest:Yeah, I was still definitely a working actor.
Guest:I wasn't living on the streets.
Guest:I was still at a house and a car, and things were good.
Guest:I was a working actor for sure, but this was definitely on the backside of a bit of a fame peak that was around when I was, what...
Guest:19 or something and your sister was huge mm-hmm yeah justine was big big big big right that show is big yeah family ties was enormous and was there times where she was huge and you weren't oh yeah that was all the time yeah um but for some reason the jealousy or competitiveness never really flared up between us yeah probably mostly because we weren't reading for the same parts right um there was maybe just sort of this unsubstantiated blind confidence and ego that i had that like yeah don't worry about it i'll be back cocaine will do that yeah
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's why I kept doing it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Keep that confidence going.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The sweaty confidence.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It disappeared when the sun comes up.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And you talk yourself out with some dude who spent nine hours talking about his new car.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Had it all figured out.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Again.
Guest:From 2 to 6 in the morning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had all the answers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See you later, man.
Guest:We even wrote them down.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Have you ever wake up to those?
Guest:Quick, tear them up.
Guest:The screenplay idea?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dude, let's just workshop this a little bit more.
Guest:Let me get one more of those, and then we're going to get into act two.
Guest:That's if you're not playing scrap.
Marc:That's right, right.
Marc:Is there any more booze?
Marc:Do we have anything?
Marc:Call his pager again.
Guest:That's how long it's been.
Guest:I was saying to somebody the other day, last time I scored any cocaine, there were still pagers and pay phones.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a, yeah.
Marc:You see a paper now.
Marc:It's like some weird relic from the past.
Marc:Who uses those?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh yeah.
Marc:Try to buy that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Put it on their living room.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, pagers waiting for the guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, is the guy coming?
Yeah.
Marc:Worst.
Guest:I'm getting all gassy just talking about this.
Marc:I don't crave that one anymore.
Guest:No, me neither.
Marc:It's just like it's done.
Guest:Yeah, I don't really crave the booze or I don't crave any of it anymore because I did it.
Guest:And there was a little bit of the method to the madness there that like, let's make sure I get all these boxes checked because I know I want to be a dad.
Guest:I know I want to be a husband.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know I want to have a career.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you're aware of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew that at, you know, I'm 46 now.
Guest:Like if I were to, you know, start scratching itches now, it'd be a disaster.
Guest:It's not a good look.
Marc:Oh, it'd be a disaster.
Marc:So like you were practical enough to know what you do learn in the program.
Marc:Or it's like, dude, once you start, there's no ending.
Marc:There's no like, you know, if you're in it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, you know, it's never going to be satisfied.
Right.
Guest:For me, it was.
Guest:For me, I did get it out of my system, or at least the curiosity was answered so that I'm not susceptible to any sort of, well, you know, I never did that.
Guest:Let me try that.
Guest:And meanwhile, you know, I got to drop my kids off at school.
Guest:Like, it's not good.
Marc:And I imagine you saw friends go down.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, everyone in this business, you see people go down.
Marc:You're like, ugh.
Guest:Yeah, and people, I've said this before, but it's pretty apt.
Guest:The things that allow you to feel good about yourself are pretty, they're slippery.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:So it's got to be locked up inside.
Marc:And also, not unlike you were talking about limitations and knowing what your talent's limitations are when you have it and being responsible that way as a professional, you also have to realize those things, some things, you live with discomfort.
Yeah.
Marc:And that's grown up.
Guest:You don't get to be like a child, like, help me.
Guest:I need something to make me feel better.
Guest:It's like, no, sometimes it's just uncomfortable.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:I was trying to.
Guest:You said it very well.
Guest:I didn't say it half as well to my eight-year-old yesterday, but it was basically that thing like, just because you want it doesn't mean that you can have it.
Guest:That doesn't mean life's not fair.
Guest:That's just life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And your ability to navigate the things you don't get is kind of kind of defines the quality of the life that you're going to have.
Guest:Your character.
Guest:All petulant because you can't get everything.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You're just not being realistic.
Guest:That's a drug addict.
Guest:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:So my job as a parent is to let you know it ain't all going to work out and that that's normal.
Guest:That doesn't signify that you're a failure.
Guest:You're just normal.
Guest:Did you tell her like that?
Guest:No.
Guest:Can I get a copy of this?
Guest:I need to run that for her.
Marc:You know, it's just sort of like give up your dreams.
Marc:You're eight.
Marc:There's no reason to think things are going to work out for you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or just temper your expectations.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I want you to shoot for the stars, but know that the moon's okay.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:That's good, too.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Yeah, do you have a pen?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I'll send you the thing.
Marc:It's very tricky, you know, because especially when in this business where, you know, like, I can't, like, you know, when you go into auditions or something and you just, you know, in the casting office, usually a temporary one, when the temporary casting office,
Guest:and you just see stacks of hundreds of headshots.
Guest:And you're like, what?
Marc:It's like, because it's such a childish dream, I'm gonna be a movie star.
Marc:It's like, the whole drive of this business on that side of the camera, it's infantile.
Guest:Yeah, and they tell you to really follow your dreams and be passionate, yet that is counterproductive because if you go in there with a whole lot of passion, they can smell it, and then they're not giving it to you.
Marc:It's a fine line between passion and desperation, though.
Guest:Right, but it's a guy that walks in there with a sexy indifference that gets it.
Guest:I don't know how you genuinely get that indifference without not really caring.
Guest:And so how can you compete in something that takes full dedication if you kind of don't really care that much?
Guest:It's a mindfuck cocktail that's a challenge for a lot of people that have not been at it for a while.
Guest:And sometimes it's hard to stay at it long enough to kind of get that because you'll be broke by the time you kind of get that.
Guest:Broke in a lot of ways.
Guest:Broken and broke.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's why it's keep your day job.
Marc:Oh, God damn it.
Marc:This is great.
Marc:This is uplifting.
Marc:This is going to be helpful to young actors.
Guest:Get out is the message.
Marc:I can hear the gunshots going off now.
Marc:Get out.
Marc:So Arrested Development was like a lifesaver.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you didn't know that going in.
Marc:No.
Marc:How did that audition happen?
Marc:Because people love that fucking show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had an agent named Lee Brolstein.
Guest:She was at ICM.
Guest:And we had just parted ways.
Guest:And a couple of months later, to her credit, she called me.
Guest:And she said, you know, I'm seeing in this breakdown for this show.
Guest:This great pilot that I read that you haven't been in on it yet.
Guest:And I know we don't work together anymore, but I think it's really great for you.
Guest:You should go in on it.
Guest:You should tell those new agents of yours to send you in.
Guest:And so I asked my new agents about it and they said, oh, yeah, you know what?
Guest:The cover sheet on this thing says that if you're not interested in...
Guest:really kind of living in a bare-bones environment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, shitty... There's really no dressing rooms, no makeup, no lights, no marks on the floor.
Guest:It's kind of a documentary style kind of... They were downplaying it.
Guest:Yeah, and it was very sort of progressive and provocative, I suppose.
Guest:And so they just didn't think that it was going to get picked up.
Guest:It was very, very risky, and so why send it to you?
Guest:That was their spin on it.
Guest:And I said, you know what, send it to me anyway.
Guest:At this point, you'd done some movies, though.
Guest:You were still...
Guest:Yeah, a little bit here and there, but I had some baggage on me.
Guest:Dean Wolf baggage?
Guest:Yes, some of that hair was still on me.
Guest:And a lot of the sitcom kind of stink was on me.
Guest:And this was not that.
Guest:Not only had television comedy moved into single camera and away from that studio audience multi-camera stuff,
Guest:But this was even a step beyond that in that it was kind of this mockumentary style.
Guest:And it was, you know, it was it was Ron Howard was the executive producer and he was actually doing the voiceover on it.
Guest:So it kind of had this great pedigree.
Guest:And I thought, well, they don't want my baggage on this thing.
Marc:And you were just like they you thought they saw you as a hack.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:I mean, that was my, you know, this is this is my perception of myself after I'd wake up after, you know, the Coke nights.
Marc:I'm just a childhood sitcom star.
Guest:Teen Wolf killed me.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So I didn't think I was going to get an audition for it.
Guest:But luckily for me, the guy who created it, this guy, Mitch Hurwitz.
Guest:Good guy.
Guest:Great, great guy, right?
Guest:So he remembered me from some audition I had with him years and years earlier.
Guest:You didn't know for what?
Guest:It was for some multi-camera show for a pilot.
Guest:I don't know, five or six years earlier.
Marc:So he was doing that?
Guest:That he liked what I did.
Guest:And so he said, yeah, yeah, I'll read that guy.
Guest:I think he's good, which was lucky for me.
Guest:And then another luck was that I guessed right when I went in there as far as how they wanted the character to get played.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What do you mean you guessed right?
Guest:Well, you can read a script and...
Guest:There's no right or wrong way to play a character.
Guest:It's just words on a page.
Guest:So you got to go in there and have your take on it.
Guest:So you were sort of the one guy who had his shit together in the cast, in a way.
Guest:You were the anchor.
Guest:My character was, yes.
Guest:But the way in which I played that was a guy who was...
Guest:Not... Didn't hate his family, but was kind of frustrated by his family.
Guest:And there was a seething and a comedic boiling that was perhaps, I guess, is what they saw.
Guest:And so he followed me out of the audition room after I read...
Guest:And he said, hey, that was great.
Guest:So tomorrow you have an audition for the other show that I'm executive producing, right?
Guest:I forget what it's called.
Guest:And I said, yeah.
Guest:He said, right.
Guest:He said, but this, right?
Guest:This one.
Guest:I said, yeah, I love this.
Guest:He goes, yeah.
Guest:don't come in for that one tomorrow i said okay i said why he said i don't want the network to see you you know i don't want i want to i want the one i want you for this one because you love that one yeah and like this is just like you know an actor's just wet dream for you know to get good feedback in the room for the guy to actually follow you out and then say don't come in for the other one tomorrow because i want to protect you for so i like called my agent leaving there and i said i'm feeling very bullish about this this this this could be good and
Marc:Your old agent, the one that set you up?
Guest:No, it was a new one.
Guest:And then once I got the job, I called and thanked the old one.
Guest:When I won the Golden Globe, I thanked her on the stage, first and foremost.
Guest:So then the show got picked up, and we were waiting for us to get axed any day because it wasn't getting great ratings.
Guest:But the critics really saved it.
Guest:The critics put a lot of pressure on the network to keep it on because they were saying, this is great.
Guest:And you, Fox, would be dumb to cancel it.
Guest:So they hated us.
Guest:They hated the critics.
Guest:And they kept us on as long as... How many seasons?
Guest:Six?
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:Two and a half.
Guest:Oh, that was it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Guest:And then you did the new ones.
Guest:Yeah, the new ones were these episodes on Netflix that were meant to be the first act of a three-act story that Mitch had in his head.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the second two acts, act two and act three, are still yet to be told.
Guest:And he thought that it would be fun to do the first act in some episodes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's what that was, yet Netflix called it season four.
Guest:Of the original show.
Guest:Yeah, which was a little disingenuous because it implied that the show was coming back and we did it and these guys are...
Guest:And that's not what the show was because each episode was about an individual character.
Guest:And so I think it was a little confusing and underwhelming, ultimately, frankly, for the audience.
Guest:So that was unfortunate that it wasn't wasn't branded, I think, honestly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Correctly, I should say.
Marc:So was there a plan to do more?
Guest:There is no plan to do more.
Guest:There is there is those remaining two acts that I don't I don't know what format that they'll take.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or if it'll ever happen.
Marc:So Arrested Development pulled you out.
Marc:It gave you a whole new cultural relevance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, because the people who hand out jobs were watching it.
Guest:America wasn't watching it, but people here in L.A.
Guest:were.
Marc:And it erased your past in a way.
Guest:It did.
Guest:Yeah, it hit the reset button.
Guest:And I've been trying not to screw it up ever since.
Marc:Well, it's interesting in how you're cast in movies.
Marc:you know, a lot of the comedies, like, you're sort of... It's that guy.
Marc:You relied upon, give or take some asshole-ness.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know... Because I think the Arrested Development guy had a lot of heart, but sometimes you get cast as just a full-on dick.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But ultimately, he usually is us.
Guest:He is the audience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's the center.
Guest:He's the protagonist.
Guest:And...
Guest:And I really like that role because it's a vital part for the comedy that I like to have.
Guest:Because things need to be grounded.
Guest:It needs to be relatable and tangible.
Guest:You need a proxy as an audience.
Marc:And you got sort of in with that crew, the comedy crew, like Vince Vaughn and those guys.
Guest:Yeah, they invited me in for a couple of their parties.
Guest:That was nice of them.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:Because that helped validate me as well.
Marc:And also, I never really thought that there were these camps, but there's definitely movie comedy camps.
Marc:There was the Stiller, the Apatow, and then the Vaughn crew and those guys.
Marc:There's definitely the guys who make the big comedies.
Guest:Yeah, and it is a bit insular.
Guest:They do stick with one another, and you're lucky to be a part of any of them.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, you're steady, man.
Marc:You're a rock with the thing you do.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Thanks, man.
Marc:It's good, right?
Marc:I love it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now you're doing like this, the new movie seems crazy.
Marc:Like I watched, it's not a comedy.
Marc:This, yeah, the thriller, The Gift.
Marc:Like I watched the trailer and I'm like, holy fuck.
Guest:Yeah, Joel Edgerton, who's an actor I just really admire a lot, not only for his talent, but he's just cool as shit.
Marc:Oh, he's the guy who plays the bad guy, or the scary guy.
Guest:Oh, it's his thing, huh?
Guest:Yeah, so this is his first film as a director, and I had just finished doing my first film as a director.
Guest:Which one was that?
Guest:It's called Bad Words, and he asked me to be in this, and I thought, well, I...
Guest:I so appreciate how important it is to have a game actor trying to help make things work when you're trying to direct something and act in something.
Guest:Right, it's hard, right?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's just you're really appreciative of people that are there and there willingly and trying to be proactive.
Guest:So I said yes immediately, and I'm glad I did because he did a really, really good job with the movie.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:It doesn't need to be as good as it is because it's it plays a little bit in that genre world that as long as you scare somebody, you know, they're going to be satisfied.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But there's a lot of sort of, you know, sorry for the word, but, you know, some sophisticated execution here with with the way in which it's shot and scored and edited.
Guest:And he did a really, really tasteful job.
Marc:Well, it's nice that you guys are supportive of each other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As a director, you've done a lot of directing, though.
Guest:You've done some TV, right?
Guest:Yeah, I started doing TV when I was 18, and I just finished doing my second film as a director a couple of months ago.
Guest:I didn't see bad words.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Oh, that's fine.
Guest:Not many did.
Guest:It was a small movie.
Guest:Did you like it?
Guest:Yeah, loved it.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:I've got to watch it.
Guest:I think you'd like it.
Guest:It's about...
Guest:asshole that I play uh who crashes a kid's spelling bee finds a loophole in the rules and and um it's a hard r um and he's uh it's it's fun um and you wrote it no no no just directed yeah yeah is that something you is that how you want to go out yeah I mean look you know we were talking about before about you put x number of years in something you'd like to either have job security promotion or raise all three right or or or
Guest:maybe even a job that is more challenging than that which you started in.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because of your exposure to the apparatus and you kind of know how to do other people's jobs or are familiar with them or would like to challenge yourself to do those.
Guest:And for an actor, it's directing.
Guest:And...
Guest:It's a really complicated thing to do to shape an audience's experience, you know, beyond just kind of the acting part.
Guest:You know, as a director, you kind of have to play with multiple departments and kind of four wall it for people.
Marc:And you got to trust your DP.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you've got to have people like, you know, like it's a collaborative thing.
Guest:Yeah, you've got to delegate, but you also have to have to lead with a certain amount of specificity where that that when you delegate, it's a safe delegation.
Marc:You know, it's not like I'm not sure what the look is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, can you give me some options?
Guest:Yeah, you've got to you've got to inspire them in some sort of specific world.
Guest:And my first time doing this.
Guest:Can we all just.
Guest:Can you guys put some cool shit together and put it on my desk?
Guest:I mean, look, a lot of directors do it that way, and you can.
Guest:You can just basically say yes or no to the results of other people's work.
Guest:You can get it done that way, but you need a long schedule for that.
Marc:And what's the new one about?
Marc:Is it another small movie?
Guest:It's another small movie.
Guest:It's more of a drama.
Guest:Nicole Kidman and I play brother-sister, and we're looking for our parents that have gone missing, and we're not sure whether they're murdered or whether they're hiding.
Guest:as part of their latest performance art piece.
Guest:So these old hippie performance artists, and we think they might be faking their death.
Guest:Who wrote this?
Guest:It was a New York Times book that was then adapted by this Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, David Lindsay Hebert, that Nicole Kidman had it, and she...
Guest:She had him adapt the book, and it's a really, really cool, trippy script that I read and made a run at, and then she saw Bad Words and said, great, let's go.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:It sounds cool.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Chris Walken plays our dad.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And he's just perfect for a guy that would be an irresponsibly passionate performance artist.
Marc:It sounds like this might be kind of close to home in a way.
Marc:You've been listening.
Guest:Mark, those cans are working.
Guest:Yeah, there's a lot that I was passionate about in the movie.
Guest:I mean, my parents aren't nearly as bad as this, nor am I, and nor is Nicole.
Guest:But you've got to heighten things a little bit to entertain people.
Marc:It'd be great to see Walken in a non-ironic part.
Marc:It's been a long time since he wasn't hired because he's this character.
Guest:Right, and he said as much.
Guest:I don't think I'm talking out of school for me to say that he doesn't want to be the crazy uncle.
Guest:I think he recognized the fact that he is an eccentric guy that has a very unique style that lends itself to some very interesting and colorful characters, but he doesn't want...
Guest:He doesn't want to just be known or pursued for that and have scripts manipulated.
Guest:Oh, we got Chris Walken.
Guest:Well, let's do a rewrite.
Guest:Let's make it really fucking crazy.
Guest:He's sensitive to that.
Guest:And I think that's good of him.
Guest:And how'd he do?
Guest:He's amazing.
Guest:He doesn't do anything the way any other actor would do it.
Guest:And it's not just contrived.
Guest:He just has a different rhythm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it's genuine.
Guest:He really just hears things differently and will shape it in a way where it's like, well, yeah, that's the way you'd say that line if you're that guy.
Marc:It's amazing because if you watch him in, even in the bit part in Annie Hall, and then you watch him in Deer Hunter, that there was a sensitivity.
Marc:In Deer Hunter, the sensitivity of that character, I mean, it's mind-blowing.
Guest:It's authentic, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you were to take that through, in my theory of acting, then...
Guest:then that would shortly take you to, well, Chris has got a very interesting makeup.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like his goalposts are pretty wide.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There's a lot there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's a really interesting guy, really kind, thoughtful, professional, fair guy that is not simple.
Guest:Right.
Marc:yeah you know it's like the best way right it's like watching you ever when was the last time you watched like uh dog day afternoon sure yeah like these guys when they were young and they're wide open and all sweet and sensitive and like really putting it out there right insane yeah it's got to be a part of them like yeah it's all in there pretend that that's right and they're being kind of it's an overused word i apologize for but they're being very generous right right like to me joaquin phoenix does that now
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That guy just lets you see right through every part of him in an effort to be genuine.
Marc:Are you friends with him?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you come up with him, or are you a little older?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:I mean, I knew River a little bit.
Guest:River and I worked together a couple of times, and Joaquin's his younger brother.
Guest:I knew him a little bit via that, but I know him more now just through another mutual friend.
Marc:Oh, that's cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And who plays your mom in this film?
Guest:Her name's Marianne Plunkett.
Guest:She's a Tony Award winning actress and just really tasteful.
Marc:Did you feel intimidated to be working with... Sure, yeah.
Marc:Walking and... So you're directing too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you've got to act alongside Nicole who can kind of... She knows what she's doing too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, but, you know, my style of directing, if I have one, is just, you know, figure out what an actor's trying to do with their, you know, it's their prerogative to play the character any way they want.
Guest:I truly think.
Guest:I think an actor, if you're going to contribute, you kind of, you read the...
Guest:And then you kind of make him or her who you want her to be as long as you're in the same movie as everyone else.
Guest:You know, we have a mutually agreed upon finish line for the movie or for the scene or whatever.
Guest:And how you get there is up to you.
Guest:That's your artistic contribution.
Guest:So the directors I really like are those that recognize what it is you're going for and help you kind of stay there and not drop the ball.
Guest:as opposed to trying to give you notes that get you closer to doing it the way they've always imagined it in their head.
Guest:Micromanage?
Guest:Well, but control you into playing the character the way they've always seen it and heard it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because a director's been with the script a lot longer than you have.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They probably developed a portion of the script.
Guest:They then were in pre-production.
Guest:It's informed a lot of their decisions how that character would kind of behave.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:And then you show up on the first day and you're playing the character in a completely different way
Guest:That's frightening for a director.
Guest:And it's now they're like, now we got a problem.
Guest:Well, yeah, but it's a false negative because the audience, you know, we're watching the movie.
Guest:We haven't read the script.
Guest:We have no preconceived notion.
Guest:So I'll go wherever you're going to take me, actor.
Guest:as long as you don't drop me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a tough thing to ask a director to do because you're asking them to give up control and part of their job is to keep things on the rails.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it is somewhat of an actor's obligation to make a case for taking things a different way.
Guest:And I'm sensitive to that.
Guest:So I'm not just obstinate with it.
Guest:Like, fuck you.
Guest:I'm going to play it the way I want to play it.
Guest:If they're uncomfortable with it, you do kind of have to... Negotiate.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Collaborate.
Marc:So how far along is that film?
Marc:We're done.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, as a director, that means you oversee the soundtrack and everything.
Guest:It's so cool.
Guest:Editing it is a lot of fun, and you can kind of unfuck things if something's really kind of wobbly.
Guest:It's amazing what you can do in editing, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then you can augment things.
Guest:You can support things.
Guest:You can juxtapose things.
Guest:And then you put the music on it.
Guest:And now the music can really help support something that maybe wasn't delivered on the day.
Marc:I never knew that until I did the TV show.
Marc:I directed a couple episodes of my show.
Marc:And it's just weird.
Marc:And when you're acting in it, like when you've got a bunch of takes, I mean, you can be in editing and, you know, you see what you prioritize, but then the back of your head is like, didn't we do one?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And all of a sudden that one that was garbage in your mind is saves the fucking thing.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right, because now you've mixed a new cocktail.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Now I'm actually, oh, I don't really like what that actor's doing, so I'm going to have the camera on the guy that's listening.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So now when I come back into this guy's take, I might actually like that piece that he did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because it now works in this new recipe.
Guest:Ah, it's exciting.
Guest:Yeah, but it's very, it's a lot of work.
Guest:Well, I'm happy for you.
Guest:It's more work than the shooting, right?
Guest:But I'm happy for you.
Marc:It sounds like it's engaging.
Guest:I love it, yeah.
Marc:Now, do you, you don't do any writing?
Marc:Mm-mm.
Marc:You don't have any desire to do that?
Guest:I did a little bit when I was a lot younger and desperate, frankly.
Guest:I was trying to write my way back in.
Guest:Movies or TV?
Guest:Yeah, I wrote a script, and no one's ever going to see it because it's garbage, but it was good for me to go through the process.
Guest:I'd like to know what that script's about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The concept's not bad, but it's garbage.
Guest:But the process of trying to fill a blank page is... You've got to give me the story.
Guest:It's really daunting.
Marc:You've got to give me the story.
Marc:What's the movie about?
Guest:It's just another one of those kind of like, you know that Albert Brooks defending your life?
Guest:It's one along those sort of lines.
Guest:One of those existential sort of like... You die for a minute.
Guest:Yeah, if I could do it all over that garbage.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:How old were you when you wrote that?
Guest:21, maybe.
Guest:When you know zero.
Guest:Everything just sounds so good.
Guest:When was the last time you took a look at that script?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know if I ever... I will.
Guest:I will, but I'm super brave.
Guest:But there's so many precious... With a storyline like that, there's inevitably a half dozen, if not a dozen scenes where there's some really important shit said.
Guest:You know, it's just, I will, it'll just.
Guest:The arrogance of it, just as youthful.
Guest:It's so precious, yeah.
Guest:Oh, God, it's great.
Guest:But what it did for me was it really, I'll never forget how difficult that is.
Marc:Right, so what it did for you is like, I'm not doing this.
Guest:Or I just really respect what a writer goes through.
Guest:I mean, you literally need to stare at a wall.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:And get yourself really quiet.
Guest:And eat a lot of bad food.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just like pace around.
Marc:The discipline is insane.
Marc:So when you do a movie like, was it the Rotten Bosses movie?
Marc:Horrible Bosses.
Guest:Horrible Bosses.
Marc:So now, like how does that work?
Marc:Rotten Bosses didn't clear.
Marc:Oh, it didn't.
Marc:No.
Marc:Horrible Bosses, right?
Marc:Yes, sir.
Marc:The second one.
Guest:There was two.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the first one's funny.
Guest:First one's funny.
Guest:First one did some money.
Guest:Second one was garbage as far as box office goes.
Guest:Who knows whether it was on the merits or when they released it, but it did not do any money.
Marc:But when you get an offer like that, you know what the score is.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, that's a paycheck for everyone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone's getting paid.
Guest:It's a freebie.
Guest:And it's the audience's fault.
Guest:Don't go out and buy a bunch of tickets for the first one unless you want a second one.
Guest:Because we don't have any discipline in this town.
Guest:It's a path of least resistance.
Marc:But when you get offered something like that, there's no party that's sort of like, let me see the script.
Marc:You're like, how much?
Guest:Yeah, you don't want to be that guy.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Guest:In our defense, though, Charlie and Jason and I were pretty cynical about this.
Guest:We had this conversation like we're having right now.
Guest:We can't just make it suck.
Guest:Everyone's going to know it's a layup, but let's at least try to make it
Guest:let's let's let it hold up to to some cynical scrutiny you know let's make sure that it's plausible perhaps and that let's make sure we play our characters dumb enough to justify these shitty decisions and we we tried to make sure it wasn't full of holes and so we worked really hard on the story um and uh and and had a really good time shooting it you did oh god yeah
Marc:But when you watch it, it had a hell of a cast.
Marc:I mean, they were really banking on something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Listen, I love both of them.
Guest:I think they're both really, really good.
Guest:It's just a question of, did anybody really care?
Guest:Right.
Guest:About the movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, a lot of people saw the first one, but there are plenty of films that made a lot of money that no one is interested in seeing another one.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:When something like that tanks...
Marc:I mean, does it come back to you at all?
Guest:It come back to me in the sense like that's a ding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sure it does in some respects, but you're somewhat insulated in that it's an ensemble.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Hang it on Jamie.
Guest:Hang it on Kevin.
Guest:I have to think that, you know, well, hang on a second.
Guest:Jason Bateman's in it.
Guest:I'm not seeing that shit.
Guest:You know, I have to assume that I'm not the sole repellent.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I think it had to have been basically...
Guest:people just weren't interested in seeing another one right we saw the first one we had fun but i don't need to go see a second one and it's thanksgiving and i'm with my family and i'm not gonna take my mom and dad to go see you know right cock jokes yeah you know for two hours i guess there is a reason r-rated comedies don't get released during a big family vacation sure but you had a good time making it i did well i shot it here
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So it was easy to hang out with your family.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And the family's good.
Marc:You're happy.
Marc:I could not be happier.
Marc:I'm very, very lucky knocking on the wall.
Marc:I'm happy for you.
Marc:It's a hell of a story.
Marc:And then that movie you just directed sounds great.
Marc:What's it called?
Marc:Family Fang.
Marc:And it sounds like a dog movie, but it's that was when it was released.
Guest:We don't know.
Guest:We're going to sell it in the next couple of months.
Marc:Great.
Marc:And the gift looks compelling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a great movie.
Guest:I think people will really, really dig that.
Guest:I mean, no one bleeds in it, so don't go in thinking, oh, great, it's a horror film, slasher film.
Guest:It would underwhelm that sort of drive.
Guest:Well, but it's got that menace.
Guest:The trailer seems menacing.
Guest:Oh, it's very suspenseful, and it's a thriller, and you will be scared, but it's not a slasher film.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, it was great talking to you.
Guest:You too, man.
Guest:I'm really glad to be here.
Guest:Thank you for having me.
Guest:It was good.
Marc:It was a great talk.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Yeah.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:Was that fun?
Marc:It was fun.
Marc:Jason Bateman's fun.
Marc:I like him.
Marc:Good dude.
Marc:I appreciate him coming down.
Marc:I appreciate you listening.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:Get a little merch if you like the posters.
Marc:The books are gone, but the posters are there.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop while you're there.
Marc:You can see the episode guide.
Marc:It's helpful if you're new to the show.
Marc:WTFPod.com slash guide.
Marc:That's everyone who's been on.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Australia, I'm coming.
Marc:Sydney on Thursday, October 15th at the State Theater.
Marc:Melbourne on Friday, October 16th at the Palace.
Marc:Brisbane, Saturday, October 17th at City Hall.
Marc:Tickets are on sale starting tomorrow, August 7th.
Marc:Go to ticketmaster.com.au.
Marc:I didn't even prepare to play guitar.
Marc:I'm not even prepared.
Marc:Hold on.
Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives!