Episode 629 - John Ridley
Guest:Lock the gates!
Music Music
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:This is Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF, the podcast.
Marc:Thank you for joining me right out of the gate.
Marc:What's going on, man?
Marc:Women, people, children, animals.
Marc:How's everything going?
Marc:Filthy animals.
Marc:Today is John Ridley day here on WTF.
Marc:John Ridley is a screenwriter, won the Oscar for 12 Years a Slave.
Marc:And I knew he was writing movies a long time ago.
Marc:He's written a lot of movies.
Marc:But what a lot of people don't know is he was a stand-up comic.
Marc:And I remember him very clearly as a stand-up comic, Mr. John Ridley.
Marc:And I've always wanted to have him on because it's rare...
Marc:I mean, I don't know how many how many Oscar winning former stand up comics have I had on this show?
Marc:How many?
Marc:I should know the answer to that.
Marc:But his journey was a unique one in my mind from being a guy who I knew at the comic strip in New York.
Marc:I remember some of his jokes even.
Marc:to a guy that wrote several movies, a lot of television, and then won an Oscar, an Academy Award.
Marc:I've been trying to get him on for over a year.
Marc:And finally, we sat down and did it.
Marc:It was great to see him.
Marc:It was great to talk to him again.
Marc:So that's coming up here momentarily.
Marc:I was in New York for a few days.
Marc:All right, I don't want anyone to go crazy.
Marc:Some of you already know because I dropped some...
Marc:hints there were some hints yeah very clear hints there was a picture for fuck's sake i you know i interviewed keith richards in new york and this was a huge a huge day for me i'm not gonna say it was bigger than the president was different than the president but in my life in my heart in my mind it's a powerful bit of business i was excited like a child you will hear this we're gonna put it up in september to uh
Marc:to align with the release of Keith's new solo album.
Marc:But we sat for about an hour, for about an hour, me and Keith, one-on-one, something happened that hadn't happened in a long time for me, and something happened that I never thought would ever happen, which is I talked to Keith Richards, we had some laughs, we hugged, we sat there, and I was beside myself.
Marc:But that's something you can look forward to.
Marc:I also interviewed Annie Baker.
Marc:I went and saw a play.
Marc:Let me tell you something, man.
Marc:Annie Baker has written.
Marc:I've seen two of her plays.
Marc:I think she's written about five that have been put up and published.
Marc:I'm not sure.
Marc:I'm not good at reading plays, but I saw both of her shows are running in New York.
Marc:One is called The Flick, and one is called John, and I saw both of them.
Marc:And it is so fucking great to go see a piece of theater that is written uniquely and with a certain tone and point of view and sense of humor that is completely hers, and it's modern in the way that it applies to my life, to our lives, to lives of people of my generation and younger.
Marc:It's just fresh, man.
Marc:Is that the word the kids use?
Marc:Is that the word we use?
Marc:It's fresh.
Marc:It's deep.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:And I tell you, I don't go to a lot of theater because I'm afraid of it.
Marc:I'm afraid of, you know, I'd rather sit in my garage wondering what I should do for an hour or two than go to a bad play.
Marc:I'd rather sit and say, what am I going to do today for an hour looking in my refrigerator than go to a bad piece of theater?
Marc:So it's rare that I get out, but I got out and it was provocative and interesting.
Marc:And Brendan and I saw both of those shows and we talked for a long time after both seeing both of them.
Marc:I was excited to talk to her.
Marc:That's coming up.
Marc:These are deep teases.
Marc:I don't know exactly when these are going to be up, but but I felt enriched.
Marc:I felt elevated.
Marc:I felt like, you know, I was doing something that humans.
Marc:are supposed to do but somehow avoid because it feels far away, the theater.
Marc:It always feels like, ugh, I gotta go to a play.
Marc:I don't wanna go to a play.
Marc:Do we gotta wear a jacket?
Marc:But theater should be essential, and it just isn't.
Marc:But I think with shows like Annie's, there's a possibility that it could be again.
Marc:It was so elevated to be challenged and excited and full of humor and crying and stuff at a play.
Marc:I mean, I can do that.
Marc:I can do that just sitting at my dining room table on Twitter.
Marc:But to have the experience with other people and to be engaged in...
Marc:Drama and funny.
Marc:Everything is so disappointing sometimes because here's the death of what culture should be, of what expression should be, of what creativity and entertainment even should be.
Marc:If you ever find yourself going, hey, you know, it was good for what it is.
Marc:Well, maybe it shouldn't be.
Marc:Why do we have to make these exceptions?
Marc:Why is there so much fucking garbage?
Marc:Why are we hooked into, you know, massive brain numbing sort of desire mining advertising campaigns that just rope us into a necessity that we feel like we should be part of?
Marc:And then you go and you're like, well, how could that be anything but disappointing?
Marc:Why do we make such tremendous exceptions for mainstream entertainment?
Marc:It's just like it's a fucking nightmare.
Marc:We got to raise the bar for fuck's sake, man.
Marc:Just like sometimes I just I look at what's going on around me, you know, entertainment wise and culture wise.
Marc:And I'm like, I just I just don't know why things aren't just bringing people together and making people more vulnerable and open and connected as opposed to just sort of like being this weird passive engagement with just a few hours of garbage.
Marc:And then you walk out and you don't even remember it.
Marc:And nothing changes.
Marc:And the pace of life just goes on.
Marc:Need more mind-blowing shit.
Marc:I guess that's my point.
Marc:We need more mind-blowing shit.
Marc:Can people make some more mind-blowing shit, please?
Marc:So John Ridley here, his ABC show, American Crime, is nominated for 10 Primetime Emmy Awards.
Marc:He won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave Screenplay.
Marc:And he used to be a stand-up comic.
Marc:And he rarely talks about that.
Marc:I think personally that he just wants to shut the door on that part of his memory.
Marc:But I didn't let him.
Marc:So let's talk to John Ridley.
Guest:I live such an insular... I mean, honestly, I built this house that's like... It just says, you're not welcome to come in.
Guest:And I sit there with my wife and my kids.
Guest:Where is that?
Guest:It's in the valley in Sherman Oaks.
Guest:But it's kind of like... Remember that scene in Citizen Kane?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where Citizen Kane's talking to...
Guest:She's like, what time is it in New York?
Guest:I bet they're out and everybody's out in Broadway.
Guest:And he's like, we don't need to go out.
Guest:We have everything here.
Guest:I'll run a movie for you here.
Guest:Gee, I bet it's nice in Central Park right now.
Guest:Well, we don't need Central Park.
Guest:That doesn't end well, John.
Guest:It's not.
Guest:But he figured it out at the end.
Guest:So I figure at the very least.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, he figured it out.
Marc:You'll have that one last selfish moment that it was the sled?
Guest:It was.
Guest:You know, the funny thing, I remember seeing Citizen Kane in...
Guest:I was in college back when they still had, you know, the student union movies before, you know, you could download everything and there was, you know, so it was only, you know, maybe 19, but there was, you know, there's still that buildup to Citizen Kane.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And you see it the first time, at least for me, and you get to the end and you go, what the, you know, what the F?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you just think, well, I don't get it.
Guest:What is, what is this all about?
Guest:And then it sits with you a little bit and you go, oh, that's, that's all of life right there.
Guest:It's that one little thing.
Guest:Everybody has that one little thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that sent you in some direction.
Guest:It was the hug you got or didn't get.
Guest:It was the toy you got or didn't get.
Guest:Or just that one good memory.
Guest:That one memory.
Guest:I want to play in the snow.
Guest:And all the oil, millions and billions, that's all great.
Guest:But I just want it to be in the snow.
Guest:The pure joy.
Guest:Of childhood.
Guest:And so at some point it comes back to, yeah, you get these things and it's all nice and wonderful life.
Guest:But when you're staring up at the tiles on your way out, what is that one thing you're going to think of?
Marc:And what is that one feeling that you never could get back?
Guest:Never could get back for a lot of things.
Guest:And I think for me at least, I think I've gotten to the point now where I've started to... I was telling you that story about my son and my sons and my dad who's still with us, my mom's still with me.
Guest:So I've had that opportunity to at least kind of circle back around a little bit.
Guest:What's funny, because I...
Marc:Remember you.
Marc:Because I remember... Not only do I remember you and the sort of tone of your being at the time when we... Do you remember that much?
Guest:I do.
Guest:Because I remember you and I remember being around.
Guest:I remember other comics, but they're...
Guest:I wish, and not to interrupt your story, I wish I remembered that time in my life, I don't even say maybe our lives, better because there were so many people around, some known, some unknown, who were like, they were interesting, it was an interesting time.
Marc:Well, I think that my feeling about you, because it was primarily at the comic strip where I would encounter you.
Marc:And you were doing all right.
Marc:I remember you got Letterman.
Marc:And I, to this day, quote a joke that you wrote.
Marc:I remember a joke, which is that there's a new cigarette being marketed to black people.
Marc:It's called Uptown Cigarettes.
Marc:I would have liked to have been in this pitch meeting or whatever.
Marc:It's like, hey, you know, Bob, I couldn't help but notice there's still a lot of black people around.
Marc:right yes and i thought that was such a beautifully concise powerful joke not unlike john stewart yeah not unlike john stewart used to have a joke uh after we had sent a bunch of food resources to somalia you know we attacked them and he had a joke where he just said uh we're bombing somalia i guess they're done eating and
Marc:There was an economy to the power of that joke.
Marc:But what I remember about you was that you were intense and you did not seem happy.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:I look back and a lot of people would say that about me later in life.
Guest:They'd find out I was a comedian for a while.
Guest:I'm like, oh, you're a comedian?
Guest:You don't seem very happy.
Guest:And I think it was beyond, you know, that joke about comedians laughing on the outside, crying on the inside.
Guest:I really, rightly or wrongly, fortunately or unfortunately, I guess in the end, maybe fortunately, I had this image of where I thought I should be in life.
Guest:At that time.
Guest:At that time.
Guest:And even at that time, I thought there were a lot of people interrupting where I need to be and not understanding that, A, you tend to get where you're going to get it.
Guest:Wherever it is you're going to get, you're going to get there.
Guest:Life sort of figures it out.
Guest:And B, maybe it wasn't that other people were interrupting my process.
Guest:Maybe I actually didn't have that figured out.
Guest:And it certainly didn't end up being in stand-up.
Guest:And that was something I figured out one day.
Guest:I was like, oh, yeah, that's not actually for me.
Guest:So I was not...
Guest:a happy person.
Marc:I mean, that's what registered, is that there was like something wasn't happening quick enough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, absolutely.
Guest:And I still have that problem now, but I think I'm better at not shoving that on other people.
Guest:And I think at that time, when all of us were...
Guest:in our early 20s at most.
Guest:It's one thing to have that in yourself and go, okay, I need to be somewhere.
Guest:I think it's another thing where other people kind of read, we all wanted to achieve something, but I do remember I think other people really enjoying the moment.
Guest:And I think that's one of the regrets I have.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:I think that some comics, part of whatever that manufacturing of seemingly enjoying the moment was that you're not unlike me in that we were very serious people.
Marc:And, you know, we were not the kind of people that, you know, if someone walked into a group, a room, and it was full of people, you or I would not be the ones that would go like, that's a guy I want to hang out with.
Guest:Yes, there was just a general gregarious nature.
Guest:I think there was certainly a group of comics who, and by the way, I think a large group, very thoughtful, very intelligent, very dialed in.
Guest:You had to be because you're writing stuff that's...
Guest:very in the moment.
Guest:But it was just interesting because there was, to be in that group, again, a lot of people, the Jon Stewart's or the Adam Sandler's or the Chris Rock's or people that you look back on now, Ray Romano, people like that where you go, wow, we were in the frickin' clubs.
Guest:you know two o'clock in the morning yeah hanging out yeah everybody yeah was grabbing for a brass right and other people you know the Mike Sweeney's of the world who ended up becoming great show writers yeah writer show run he was a great comic great comic yeah really smart but they're not the people that a lot of other people know but they've changed truly changed the course of entertainment but not only that
Marc:Is that what you don't know when you get in?
Marc:And I think that you realized before I did, or I would never have realized it because it was not my trajectory, was that there were guys that realized, they got into comedy and they saw what that life looked like and what the odds were.
Marc:And they said, well, I've got this talent, but I ain't going to do it here.
Marc:That I can write jokes, I have a sense of how this shit works, but that life
Guest:To roll the dice on being one of the 10 guys that makes a living doing stand-up, it's a mature choice to say- It certainly, I think anytime you make a career-altering, life-altering choice, suddenly a little bit of maturity seeps in.
Guest:For me, there was a practical matter.
Guest:I did-
Guest:Letterman, as you said, at that time, he'd just moved to CBS.
Guest:That's how long ago this was.
Guest:And there was a sense of, okay, he's completely reinvigorated himself.
Guest:He's made CBS relevant in the late night space.
Guest:If I do that show then, I'm set and I'm made.
Guest:And I did the show, and the next spot I had was at the improv on Melrose at like,
Guest:11.30 on a Sunday, which in LA at 11.30 on a Sunday is like 3.30 in the morning in New York.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I was writing on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air at that time.
Guest:But how did that happen?
Guest:So let's go back.
Guest:So where did you grow up?
Guest:I'm from a small town in Wisconsin, just outside Milwaukee.
Guest:Born in Milwaukee.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Real small town.
Guest:And-
Guest:How did your folks end up in Milwaukee?
Guest:My father was in the Air Force.
Guest:He was a doctor.
Guest:He went into the Air Force.
Guest:When he came out, he was doing, I guess, his residency.
Guest:Interesting.
Marc:It's the same fucking story as me.
Marc:really yeah based on where your parents my dad ended up in alaska he was a doctor and they go into they signed up because they could enter as officers yeah and and yes exactly my dad vietnam era right was wise enough to know right did not want to be a ground troop and enlist in the air force as a doctor right captain that's right and my dad was a major yeah and we were stationed in alaska for two years how old are you
Marc:I'm 50.
Marc:So I'm 51.
Marc:So it's same generation.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm sorry to interrupt your story.
Marc:I'm just relating.
Marc:Basically, that's how it was.
Marc:What kind of doctor?
Marc:He was an ophthalmologist.
Marc:So let's make the distinction.
Marc:Optometrist is a skill.
Marc:Ophthalmologist is a medical practitioner.
Marc:Medical practitioner and surgeon.
Guest:They can do surgery on the eyes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So he ended up there.
Guest:My older sister was born on a military base.
Guest:I was born as a civilian.
Marc:Where was he?
Guest:stationed he was stationed in michigan somewhere so milwaukee so it's probably the same story it's like it's a it's a the city there's room for an ophthalmologist yeah i know a guy there yeah something like that he's got a practice yeah that kind of thing it was it was yes he would it was very interesting my parents a couple years ago a few years ago i asked them to do a family an oral history and they did this oral history
Guest:And it's really, I encourage anybody to press your parents to sit down and actually talk through their lives because particularly my parents, now I'll use the word, the shit that they did and the shit that they lived through just by being regular people is phenomenal.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:just you know choices that they made in terms of going to the military and being a black officer in the military at that time frame when people thought that he could not do things and the people who stood against him and other white people who said you know what fuck that shit you're in the military we're gonna help you out yeah um ending up as being a resident you know there was a time honestly in my dad's life where you talk about you know it was this or that and he was like well i ended up being the first black person that did this and the first black person that did
Guest:And he wasn't like aggrandizing, but little things, being on boards or being at a hospital.
Guest:And I at some point said, wow, that's really amazing that he did all this.
Guest:And he said, it wasn't amazing when you were black back then.
Guest:He did something.
Guest:You were the first.
Guest:But it was just interesting to hear my dad talking about making a choice like that, saying I knew I was going to get drafted.
Guest:And the smarter play was to enlist.
Guest:And if I listed, I could go in the Air Force.
Guest:If I went in the Air Force, I could go in as an officer.
Guest:And you just kind of go, wow, people had to make those kinds of choices back in the day.
Marc:Well, there's a confluence of choices in what you're talking about.
Marc:I think that what people forget, and obviously, I'm not saying everybody, is that the racial issues that existed that we're fighting against are current issues.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, your father's lifetime for that, you know, that it would be the first, and that's what, in the mid-60s or the early 70s.
Guest:The thing that is interesting to me is that there are many battles that we're still fighting, but they are different battles.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that there are things, the fact that we can talk about, the fact that people can pour out in the streets and demonstrate, and it's still not easy or safe or things don't always, people don't use...
Guest:their best nature when it comes to that.
Guest:But it is very different than Edmund Pettus Bridge now.
Guest:I remember my dad talking about when he was going somewhere to look at housing with my mom and he got surrounded by a gang of whites saying you're not gonna move in here and this and that.
Guest:And it's still, if you're a person of color, there's unfortunately still some place where you can't just show up.
Guest:But that's the exception now.
Guest:and it's not the rule so just in in listening to my dad story but even you know about Vietnam and and obviously we're not beyond what people did at that time Donald Trump is running people start asking me about his deferments in this and that but the reality is however he managed it or other people manage whatever choices they made there was a time when people had to make a choice and had to figure something out because you were gonna serve
Guest:Or you were going to find service that was not directly related to going over there.
Guest:But your life, quite literally.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And after a certain point, there were people that did not believe in the cause.
Guest:Did not believe.
Guest:But for people who, whatever, if you went to Canada, if you went and served.
Guest:But that's different.
Guest:It's better to find a woman.
Guest:But it impacted, I'm saying it impacted, people had to make a choice at that point, whereas now, you know, my kids, they want me to fill out their college application form.
Guest:That's, you know what I mean?
Guest:It's not, Dad, I need you to call so-and-so because I need to serve or serve somewhere or get out of the country.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Dad, how do I fill out an application?
Marc:Could you call the dean for me?
Marc:But what else did you find out?
Marc:Where did your grandparents go?
Marc:What was the history?
Marc:When you say oral history.
Guest:Their oral history goes back to when they met, they sat down together, which was also very nice to kind of get the...
Guest:back and forth.
Guest:And I think my dad went off the service and my mom wrecked his car, which was a trait that goes on to she wrecked my first car.
Guest:I love her dearly, but that was sort of mom's thing.
Guest:What'd she do?
Guest:My mother was and still is a teacher.
Guest:And now she, for a long time, was special ed.
Guest:Now she teaches teachers how to teach.
Guest:So she retired about 20 years ago and threw a retirement party, but she hasn't stopped working.
Guest:So we're all sort of like, I think we want our gifts back at this point.
Guest:But she loves what she does and they're in great shape and great spirits.
Guest:And I think it's because they remain active.
Guest:So that's something else I learned.
Guest:And you have siblings?
Guest:Two sisters, older and a younger.
Guest:Older sister works in finance on the East Coast.
Guest:My younger sister works in, is an executive at an insurance firm in Milwaukee and she's
Guest:actually one of the few female executives of color at the entire firm.
Guest:It's a pretty big firm, and she's one of the few.
Guest:So my sisters, they remain driven.
Guest:They're still happening.
Guest:Well, it's not.
Guest:I mean, look, again, just even, I mean, look, you're a woman.
Guest:You know, the doors don't fly open.
Guest:You're a woman of color.
Guest:They fly open even less.
Guest:But I give her credit in that, you know, my sisters never were not raised to care about
Guest:So each of them has been very successful in their fields, and I don't mean just successful in like rake it in dough, but not allowing whatever the glass ceiling, however that glass is tinted, they have not allowed that to impede their career choices.
Marc:They're all still in Wisconsin?
Guest:My older sister is in New York and my younger sister is in Wisconsin.
Guest:And my folks are still in Wisconsin.
Guest:So you go to Wisconsin.
Guest:We go to Wisconsin.
Guest:We went there in July.
Guest:I took my son.
Guest:We're going to go back to the Packers season opener to see them get the justice they deserve against Seattle in that abomination of a game.
Guest:I don't know why Goodell didn't investigate that.
Guest:I don't know anything about it, but I like your passion.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:You didn't see that championship game?
Marc:Dude, I'm not a sports guy.
Marc:I'm not connected.
Guest:Well, even if someone is not a sports guy, if you saw it, you would call that it's a travesty.
Guest:Okay, it's a travesty.
Guest:It was a travesty, yes.
Guest:And now you're going to go back and support your team.
Guest:I mean, well, it's the greatest team in the history of organized sports.
Guest:Okay, fine.
Marc:You can take that argument up with other people.
Marc:You're not going down that road with me.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't have the information.
Marc:So growing up there, what were your options?
Marc:What were you thinking about as a kid?
Marc:Because you're an Academy Award-winning screenwriter.
Guest:Yeah, I got to carry that around.
Guest:Listen, that is awesome, and I don't mean it in a hipster way.
Guest:It is the kind of thing you dream about, but when you realize the people who've...
Guest:gotten the award the people that you admire who have not yeah um the people who may never have the opportunity people who were pretty talented and may never get in the game it's one of those things you just sort of that's the nature of show business it is it is and it's okay to be outside of it and you know you talked about when i was young and kind of railing and angry and then suddenly it happens and you go okay what what the fuck yeah you know how did that work out right so um but when i was uh
Guest:I always, I shouldn't say always.
Guest:At a very early age, I enjoyed film and the nature of storytelling.
Guest:And when I was about, I guess I was probably in about seventh grade, seventh or eighth grade, I decided I want to be a stand-up comedian.
Guest:Based on what?
Guest:Based on where comedy was going, Richard Pryor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I liked, here's the thing, I liked everybody.
Guest:My dad used to take me to, when comedians came through, different era, obviously, and no YouTube and very little cable access.
Guest:It was a big deal.
Guest:It was a big deal.
Guest:So, you know, Jerry Lewis would come through, Bob Hope would come through.
Guest:Oh, yeah, and he would go?
Guest:Oh, my dad would take me to see everybody.
Guest:You know, I remember, unfortunately, now, at the time, you know, Bill Cosby coming through.
Guest:The concept of seeing Cosby come through and what he knew would sit in the chair.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And I'm not even going to stand.
Guest:I'm going to sit here in the chair and do my voice and make people.
Guest:And I would sit there.
Guest:I remember when Bob Hope came through.
Guest:And Bob Hope, you know, was corny, but it was still funny back then.
Marc:He was a little darker than people give credit for.
Marc:I mean, you know, he... He was good.
Guest:He was a good comedian.
Guest:He was very good.
Guest:And to be a kid in Milwaukee and have the Milwaukee Arena filled up.
Guest:You know, this is not Madison Square Garden.
Guest:So to see Milwaukee Arena filled up is a big effing deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:I mean, down to where the Bucks played, and they'd put the seats right up to the stage, and they'd have the opening acts.
Guest:And I didn't understand the concept of opening and all that at the time.
Guest:So as a kid, you're like, get to Bob Hope.
Guest:Opening, opening, opening.
Guest:Finally, Bob Hope comes out.
Guest:Funny thing is, we probably know some of those opening acts.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, you get to a point and you realize, you know, I would have killed to be that opening act.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So Bob Hope comes out.
Guest:Bob Hope comes out and just has the entire, you know, all of Milwaukee basically dancing on a wire with his jokes.
Guest:And you look at that and go, I want to be that guy.
Guest:I want to be the guy.
Guest:It's not a band.
Guest:You know, he comes out and I think he had a band and a singer opening for him.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:This and that.
Guest:And you realize it's not the band.
Guest:It's not the singer.
Guest:I remember Jerry Lewis had some dancers and stuff.
Guest:It's one person, one dude on the stage.
Guest:and they're just saying stuff, and people are like, oh.
Marc:And they got a point of view, and they got a handle on things.
Guest:Point of view, philosophy, whatever it is, it's just they know how to ring it.
Guest:And then Steve Martin started coming along, and it turned into that.
Guest:I went to that tour, yeah.
Guest:I never saw him.
Guest:I don't think I saw him.
Guest:I would have remembered it, but you remember an album coming out that was in those days.
Marc:But you saw Cosby.
Guest:I saw Cosby, I saw Jerry Lewis, I saw... It was funny, when Richard Pryor's album came out, my dad made me take it back to the store.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:That nigger's crazy.
Guest:And then when his concert tour started coming, live on the Sunset Strip, he took our whole family to go.
Guest:So you saw Richard on that tour?
Guest:Well, I saw the film, the concert film, but as a family.
Guest:And I'm like, why is this now family viewing?
Guest:as a film but I couldn't listen to it as a record which all you know is like anything else when you ban it it becomes that much more intriguing also I guess because he thought that if we did it together he could disarm it more efficiently if you were sitting in your room alone learning how to talk like Richard Pryor it was going to be a problem yeah that was problematic he's like very emphatic he listened to the door for a moment he listened he goes well that you got to take that back and I was like well you mean I can't listen to it you know around the rest of the family no you got to take it back ended up taking it back
Guest:And it was really kind of furious.
Guest:That's what I wanted to do.
Guest:And also, even then, I sort of realized, I guess intuitively, that the comics hours must have been really good.
Guest:That I could not get up and put on a tie and work at a company.
Guest:But I could figure out the jokes I wanted to
Guest:And you wanted to express yourself.
Guest:Express myself and be the center of attention, but not in the dumbass way.
Marc:But that's interesting because I feel like we have something in common there.
Marc:The thing that appealed to me about comedy initially is it seems like you can pretty much say whatever the fuck you want.
Marc:And the only context is it should probably be funny as much as possible.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So in my mind, it was like I can just almost figure out who I am up there, that I can work this stuff through, my point of view.
Guest:It's interesting.
Guest:Well, as someone who's been around there your whole life, I've been around comedians.
Guest:Yeah, I look back on it.
Guest:It is that sort of, I mean, if you're one of the few black kids growing up in Wisconsin, and people actually, Wisconsin was pretty cool, and I think largely because there were not a lot of black people.
Guest:And you grow up.
Marc:There's a lot of Lutherans, right?
Guest:That Midwestern sort of like, oh, they're very nice people.
Guest:Yeah, I grew up sort of Methodist and another thing where there were Lutherans.
Guest:It was all that kind of like no must, no fuss religion.
Marc:Yeah, but there's notoriously tolerant and liberal-minded people in that part.
Guest:They're tolerant and liberal-minded because they don't have to ever be challenged.
Guest:They're not up against it.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that's all really, really cool and it was good.
Guest:But there's certainly moments when I look back on my life where things like,
Guest:oh, you know, I wonder if that was... What?
Guest:You know, little things about, like, the part you didn't get in a play because you had to kiss a white girl, and it was like, oh, you know, and it was like, well, I know I'm really super effing talented.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I know I'm more talented than these folks.
Guest:Why am I playing the orderly and not the lead role?
Guest:So there are things like that, and it really does become a question.
Guest:You can't say yes, you can't say no.
Guest:But I do think in that there was you are enough of an other in life where, yeah, you...
Guest:you gravitate towards, let me figure out some of this stuff on stage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And let me try to express myself.
Guest:You did some theater.
Guest:On stage.
Guest:I did theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I mean, there was all, there was just the plan of me having significance through art.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And so was it going to be theater?
Guest:No, I'm not really going to be an actor.
Guest:That doesn't quite work for me.
Guest:And comedy, you're a little bit more in control.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this and that.
Guest:And then one day it became writing.
Guest:It was no, I think writing.
Marc:When did you start doing comedy?
Guest:I went to New York in... After college?
Guest:No, I was in college.
Guest:Went to NYU.
Guest:Not Tisch, which is... Just regular NYU?
Guest:English major?
Guest:No, my major was East Asian Languages and Culture.
Marc:What?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:My fallback was going to go into Foreign Service.
Guest:And Japan was big at the time.
Guest:And everybody, you know, you go through these phases.
Marc:How's your Japanese now?
Guest:Can you understand it?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So you were in.
Guest:I was in.
Guest:I was going to move to Japan.
Guest:I actually went to Japan for a while after school.
Guest:But the idea was either going to be a comedian or going to foreign service in Japan.
Guest:And part of it was because Japan, everybody was so afraid that Japan was going to take over.
Guest:And I was like, you know... Get on the winning team?
Guest:Well, no, actually it was...
Guest:Let me actually learn something about this country because I have a feeling they're not going to take over.
Guest:Here's the big, I think the thing is about America is that we are, it's a very, obviously it's a very stable country and that stability over the long haul services us well.
Guest:right in other countries oh my god the arabs are going to take over arabs they come to go china you know right now china their market's tanking it's just people park their money in america because it's stability yeah and then everybody else goes to shit and then hey look at america we're just we're right there still yeah so whatever's next nigeria india they're going to park their money here people are going to freak out oh my god the nigerians are going to take over they got their oil money together they got all this and that nope they're all going to they fall off a cliff
Guest:we're still here so at the time it honestly wasn't let me get on the winning team it was why is everyone so afraid of Japan what is the truth about Japan but was there some sort of fascination with Japanese culture it is pretty interesting to me I don't know anything about it but it seems like it was what everybody was talking about but nobody understood and I really felt like
Guest:For a lot of reasons, coming to understand the culture, coming to understand, this was a language a lot of people didn't speak.
Guest:So if I learn this language, can I know more?
Guest:Can I know more about the country?
Guest:Can I know more about process and history?
Guest:and all of that and so in the middle of that and also I was really interested in Japanese cinema so at school it was like I went to Gallatin and you could just Gallatin at NYU is a sort of a create a course of study so it was sort of taking a little bit of art history and a little bit of film and you did you constructed your major constructed my major and thought about now that I know all this you know I could
Guest:it would be great to be an intermediary between the things that I think that I've come to know about the country and the things that I think I know as an American and really try to become, you know, go into service, ambassadorship.
Guest:Not that I would become an ambassador, but work with an ambassador.
Guest:And then all of that didn't happen because comedy was... At some point, you're like, this is a little easier.
Guest:I'm just going to go up to the comic strip and...
Guest:Well, you know, you can't, you may be getting into a fist fight in the morning, you know, at the comic strip, but you're not going to start a war.
Guest:You know, you're not going to say that casual phrase that you shouldn't have said or misinterpret a, you know, a missive between countries.
Guest:And yeah, I don't think I had the capacity to actually work.
Guest:in government service in any way, shape or form.
Guest:Yeah, because it's sort of selfless in a way.
Guest:It's, you know, you have to be on your game and you have to eventually some shit's going to happen.
Guest:You're going to have to know how to say the right thing or fall on your sword or, you know, you just got to be appropriate in public.
Marc:You really took it out that far.
Marc:It's sort of like eventually I'm going to be in the middle of an international event and I'm going to fuck it up.
Guest:Well, I mean, you pick the tiniest country, the most docile nation.
Guest:At some point, somebody gets really mad about some shit.
Marc:But I just like that you placed yourself in the middle of that, and that was the deterrent to following through with that particular dream.
Guest:Well, it comes to that point where you get called to an office,
Guest:and say, look, the heads have got to roll.
Guest:We've written up this statement.
Guest:We'd be appreciative if you signed this.
Guest:And you're like, what the fuck?
Guest:I wasn't even... Listen, it's just for the greater good, three years.
Guest:You know, you watch Veep.
Guest:And Veep, every week, the same person's getting fired.
Guest:And you go, that sounds pretty much... Take the hit.
Marc:In a couple of years, you come back.
Marc:You get a nice job at this.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:At some point, I'm going to be in the private sector.
Guest:Private sector, right, yeah.
Guest:And we'll have you.
Guest:We'll have your back.
Guest:so I just I felt like I didn't have the capacity I mean most of it is just at some point you realize you don't really have the capacity to do that yeah and you might not want to and it's like how you know how does it encourage creativity necessarily or how do you really yeah it was a box and it would have been maybe a bureaucratic box very much the bureaucratic box maybe I would have been decent at it but I wasn't going to you know I was going to rise to a certain mid-level right so when did you first do comedy
Guest:Man, I used to be able to remember the date.
Guest:I guess it was probably about 85 at the Comedy U Grand when it was still on Grand Street was where I first did comedy.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I don't remember that place.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Comedy U Grand was where...
Guest:A lot of us sort of very mid-level, you know, when you couldn't, you know, Catch a Rising Star was still around.
Guest:Those were the best of the best.
Guest:Comic strip.
Guest:You know, I never, what was the one?
Guest:I never, I don't think I ever worked improv.
Guest:On 44th Street?
Guest:Yeah, could never get in there.
Guest:Never.
Marc:Even when I was really- By that point, like I got to New York in-
Marc:89.
Marc:So you started in college.
Marc:You were in college.
Marc:Yeah, I was still in college.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:I started, I guess, 87, 86.
Marc:And I did a little in college.
Marc:But yeah, in 88, when I got to 89, when I got to New York, Ketch was still going.
Marc:And the improv was dying.
Marc:It was pretty beat up.
Marc:And the comic strip remains eternal somehow.
Guest:I haven't set foot in a comedy club in I don't know how many years.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:go into that space anymore.
Marc:Sorry, comedy on grand, you go, you're a student, you're freaking, you're sweating, you got your five minutes.
Guest:I had five minutes, and honestly, two decent of the five.
Guest:And they talked to me, and they were like, yeah, you're pretty good, work on this and that, and start coming in.
Guest:But all I could hear was, you can come in, you can start coming in.
Guest:And, you know,
Guest:I thought, okay, well, I'll do this for a little bit, then I'll get on Carson, and then maybe I'll have the sitcom.
Guest:Maybe I'll just go ahead and do the concert film.
Guest:You thought that?
Guest:Oh, I was so sure that my destiny.
Guest:You had that long-term thinking.
Guest:Look at that.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:I never had that.
Guest:But it wasn't good because it was...
Guest:so assured and so Arrogant and so You know what I mean?
Guest:I think the best thing in the world is that it didn't come easily because I had it I probably I couldn't I'm at 20 I was 85 I was
Guest:20?
Guest:Yeah, I was hitting 20.
Guest:And, you know, I had things too planned for myself.
Guest:So I think it, I don't think, I certainly don't think based on my material it was going to happen right away.
Guest:Things did start to happen, but there was a real, you know, you get in there and you realize, oh, you actually, you know, five minutes is nothing.
Guest:You need 10, 15 minutes, and you need a good 10, 15 minutes.
Guest:And these other guys and ladies, you know, they're,
Guest:they've been doing it for a while and they got some good stuff.
Guest:Some people were doing it for a while and they hadn't broken and you better figure it out.
Marc:But where'd you get this thing where you had to have this plan or that things had to happen?
Marc:Where'd you learn that?
Guest:I don't know that it was learned in particular.
Guest:I certainly, my parents were very focused on nobody's gonna give you anything.
Guest:And it wasn't like they sat me down and wagged the finger.
Guest:But it was just, again, you talk about that era, and it was just, I think they realized that us living in the suburbs was not reflective of the black experience.
Guest:And you better be aware that you've been given advantages, and you better take advantage of those advantages.
Guest:Now, they never said to me, you need to be...
Guest:rich or famous or be a doctor or whatever, but that one day you're going to end up in a space where we can't protect you or we can't take care of you.
Guest:And that was the other thing about the, um, my parents doing oral history and there was a lot of cleanup that they ended up doing that you're not aware of.
Guest:And I mean, when I say cleanup, I mean going back and checking people because
Guest:There was the lowered expectations for a lot of folks because they said, well, you're a black kid.
Guest:In one incident with my sister where she ended up being, she graduated with honors and she didn't, you give them one of those honor cords, which I didn't get.
Guest:I didn't get, but I didn't earn it.
Guest:And they didn't give her one at her graduation.
Guest:My parents went and they were furious at the school.
Guest:And they said, you better look at her grades.
Guest:You better look at the record.
Guest:And they did.
Guest:And she had honors.
Guest:And they were really apologetic.
Guest:And my mom was like, well, what are you going to do?
Guest:Are you going to hold graduation again?
Guest:Because you screwed it up.
Guest:So there were, I think my parents were always very clear about making sure that we were aware that if there were things that we wanted, we really had to go and
Guest:fight for them right that your experience growing up in the household that you you grew up in that once you left that that was going to be real state right that you know there was a reality awaiting you reality and i think you know it was interesting because it was never they never they didn't raise this like okay you're you're black and the man is going to be out right get you right and you're black so never trust white people right um
Guest:But maybe I interpreted or hyper interpreted is that you got to you got it.
Guest:Whatever it is you want to do, you got to do.
Guest:And it was interesting because I was really shitty at most things in life and really lazy.
Guest:I mean, very genuinely lazy about most things until except for things that I wanted to do.
Guest:And then I was hyper focused on doing those things.
Guest:And I think that's something I've carried.
Guest:I'm not really good at.
Guest:If I had my son's treasure hunt today, it was his birthday, I was telling you about that.
Guest:And it's a really haphazard, half-assed.
Guest:If my wife were doing it, the clues would be printed out on a nice piece of paper and they'd all be very lyrical and all this.
Guest:And I'd sort of print out my computer and half-ass cut them out and kind of stick them here and there.
Guest:Why was it your job this year?
Guest:It's just something my son and I have developed, and it's not that we're cutting my wife out, but it's just something we've developed over the years.
Guest:I'm just saying when my wife does arts and crafts, it's something you could sell at a mall.
Guest:And when I do it, it's something that looks like you picked out of a dumpster.
Marc:Do you think that had any effect on his decision today?
No.
Marc:which he told me he's done with it.
Guest:Yeah, he made the very mature decision.
Guest:He announced that.
Guest:He's like doing his Kobe Bryant retirement lap.
Guest:This is going to be it.
Guest:I just want everybody to know how much I love you, and this one's for the fans.
Guest:I think it's just he can read my... He's old enough to read a dad's body language that...
Guest:You know, it's like, you got to go to bed at 10 o'clock because I'm not staying up all night to- Right, to manage it.
Guest:To do all this stuff.
Guest:And he's like, okay, dad, I know you're hardworking.
Guest:And then you feel like extra crap because it's like- How old is he?
Guest:He turned 12.
Guest:All right.
Guest:And so they're kind of reading and you, you get to the point where you, you know, the-
Guest:kids are reading reality in you.
Guest:And you're like, fuck, that's not what I want.
Guest:And then when he's doing it, your heart is breaking because it's like, don't reach that last one.
Guest:So I think we're going to reach some kind of a...
Guest:We're going to renegotiate and see if we can get one more year out of it.
Guest:Maybe change it up a little.
Guest:Yeah, maybe it'll be shorter.
Guest:He wanted a lot of clues this year.
Guest:We may negotiate for half a season.
Guest:Play half the season.
Guest:Less clues, bigger presents.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's also, he's very sad because he's like, you know, there's no gifts to get.
Guest:Everything's a gift card now.
Guest:Everything is, you know, iTunes card or something like that.
Guest:So the pleasure is gone for kids.
Guest:It's just, you know, I just want you to PayPal me some kind of thing.
Guest:But your parents were preparing you in a way for something.
Marc:They certainly prepared me in a way I think is harder now to prepare kids.
Marc:I guess what we're saying is, though, like, you know, you were lazy and you did not, you know, you weren't focused.
Guest:Yeah, we were talking about the things that I obsess about, like my writing, like being involved in the shows or scripts.
Guest:Stand-up I kind of obsessed about.
Guest:I think there was the gap, and I don't say the self-effacing, but, you know, there's that gap between you can prepare and prepare and prepare and other people just have...
Guest:a point of view or perspective that there's a sharpness.
Guest:Not that they don't also prepare a lot, but they can take that joke or that line or whatever.
Marc:You were in it for a while.
Guest:I was in it for a while and I did well.
Guest:Six years, seven years?
Guest:I did it from probably 85 and I probably officially quit in probably about 90...
Guest:three, and then still did it a little bit, and then I remember the last gig I did, Andy Kindler invited me to do a show.
Guest:I was still kind of around, and Andy was doing shows, and he was like, I don't want to do a show, yeah, out here.
Marc:It was funny, because both you, there was another black comic that I thought was brilliant,
Marc:and and and thoughtful and and did yes you know very sophisticated stuff which wasn't easy instead of comedy clubs and you were one and Warren Hutcherson Warren who you also went on to become big writer yeah and Warren I actually Warren I knew really well out here and actually written on a couple of things in a couple of projects
Guest:And it was interesting because Warren and I were very similar in a lot of ways in perspectives and I think temperament.
Guest:And I think we both sort of saw that writing on the wall.
Guest:And we had something else to turn to, but it was just, yeah, there's not really that space for the quieter black guy.
Marc:Why the black olives in the can?
Marc:Right.
Yeah.
Guest:Those sort of subtle jabs at race.
Guest:And he certainly found space to explore those things.
Guest:And I was fortunate, I think, particularly over the last couple of years, finding those spaces where I could explore race or class or those kinds of things.
Marc:What was the day that you hit the wall?
Marc:Was it after Letterman?
Marc:When did you move to LA?
Guest:So I moved to LA in 90.
Guest:And it was one of those things, everybody was moving out here because they were getting holding deals.
Guest:Holding deals was the big phrase.
Guest:The development deal, yeah.
Guest:The magic $200,000 deal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody was saying, John, you can come out here and get a holding deal, a development deal.
Guest:And people say it enough, you actually believe it.
Guest:So I came out here and couldn't get nothing.
Guest:and came a manager brought me out here and it was one of those things i mean it was one of those which guy um i almost i know who it was and i regret i don't want to say it because i just don't even give them any more credit than they deserve but he had a he had some black comics he brought a few people out here and um moved out and he would stop answering my phone calls
Guest:I mean, it wasn't even he'd seen me on stage and decided to stop.
Guest:It was just, and it was one of those things where I was like, I just effed up.
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:I'm in LA, got nothing.
Guest:Biggest mistake of my entire life.
Guest:Calling your parents, I fucked it up.
Guest:I couldn't even call them because I didn't want to, you know, the doctor and a teacher, hi, I'm in LA.
Guest:And got nothing.
Guest:Got nothing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I started writing.
Guest:I mean, that's when I started, I started, you know, doing clubs, but there's not as much money or it's not as accessible.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also when you come out here, you realize like, oh my God, some of my heroes are just doing these 10, 30 spots.
Marc:Oh, I remember getting bumped for Leno once.
Guest:And you're just like,
Guest:And then, you know, and Leno was really apologetic and he's working on material.
Guest:You know, couldn't be a nicer guy, but you still got to then follow Jay Leno and you just realize this is the life.
Guest:These are the people who are now dropping in.
Guest:You know, it's not just the really good club comic who's really great in New Jersey.
Guest:It's these guys, you know.
Guest:The big shots.
Guest:Oh, the biggest of the big.
Guest:You know, Tim Allen is going to do a special and he's working on a couple.
Guest:He's like, okay.
Guest:And you're just sitting there.
Guest:Yeah, you're just sitting there watching the audience just... Walk out after they're done.
Guest:And you can't... You open with the, hey, how about that guy?
Guest:What's his name?
Guest:And you get the, hey, that's just really funny.
Guest:And then after that, yeah, it's the... Starting from nothing.
Guest:From beyond nothing.
Guest:And again, the guys who would bump you could not have been nicer, but...
Guest:It's that, hey, sorry, kid.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's the way it works.
Guest:I'm doing Caesars on Friday.
Guest:I got to work out this amazing 20 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So there was not a lot of work.
Guest:The work you could get was not a lot of money.
Guest:There weren't, you know, in New York.
Guest:So you never did the road, really.
Guest:I did some of the road, but in New York, you could supplement with the stuff in Jersey and all of that and make pretty good bread.
Guest:Didn't have a car, didn't have car payments, didn't have insurance.
Guest:Had a little teeny tiny place and you could eat in New York for cheap.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Out here.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:No.
Guest:You got to drive to McDonald's to get that deal that is not a, you know, you could do Papaya King.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Go walk across town.
Guest:Walk to Sixth Avenue.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Those were the best days.
Guest:I forget how good those days were.
Guest:Just out in the city.
Guest:It's all a lot.
Guest:Out in the city.
Guest:Dead broke.
Guest:But you, you know, if you had, I don't even think the subway was a buck 25 yet.
Guest:It was maybe a buck.
Guest:You could get anywhere in the city.
Guest:Papaya King, 99 cent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hot dog.
Guest:Hot dog and a drink.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think you could get a drink for the 99 cents.
Guest:At least the hot dog.
Guest:So you could live.
Guest:But that's what life was.
Guest:So you come out to LA, you're getting bumped by guys like Leno, you got other payments, your manager's not calling you, you're not getting this development deal that everybody else in the world could at least get it.
Guest:Maybe not the sitcom, they got the development deal.
Guest:I said, what's the only other thing I can do?
Guest:I can write.
Guest:And how'd you get in?
Guest:I wrote a couple of spec scripts.
Guest:And I did two things in very different directions.
Guest:I wrote a couple of spec scripts for TV shows.
Guest:And I had a friend who was an assistant at an agency who got me to an agent.
Guest:who got me, I ended up getting a training program at Fox, which saved my life, and it was paying 500 bucks, I think, a week.
Guest:But it was 500 bucks a week as a writer trainee.
Guest:And the other thing I did, I wrote, and this is sort of weird, I loved crime fiction.
Guest:And I loved reading it, and I just said, I'm gonna write some crime fiction.
Guest:And I wrote a little...
Guest:novella more than a novel it was a novella and it was called stray dogs and my agent got it to somebody a manuscript who got it to oliver stone who made it into this film called the u-turn i love that movie with sean penn sean penn jennifer lopez i remember when i saw you wrote that i'm like holy shit
Guest:It was the weirdest, you know, going from studying Japanese to wanting to be a comedian to kind of getting into TV to sort of your really big break is this weird, really weird nihilistic novella that ends up in Oliver Stone's hands and was not even like a big movie, but was just like a cult movie.
Guest:And then people are like, hey, do you want to write...
Guest:Movies and I'd end up then I'd end up moving over to Whit Thomas.
Guest:Yeah, which was Paul Witt and Tony Thomas's company and did you know like Golden Girls and was actually doing the John Larroquette show with Mitch Hurwitz who did Arrested Development.
Guest:But you said you worked on the Fresh Prince too?
Guest:I worked on Fresh Prince and I did half a season on Fresh Prince and then I went over to Larroquette and U-turn was I think either just coming out or just come out.
Guest:Were you in the rooms?
Guest:I was in the rooms.
Guest:I was in the writers' rooms.
Guest:I was doing all the fun stuff.
Guest:Again, like a time in my life I underappreciated at that time, but you're sitting around with some of the funniest people.
Guest:It was Larroquette, Mitch Hurwitz, Pam Brady, Will Gluck, Jonathan Schmack, Jim Vallely.
Marc:Yeah, the funny boys.
Guest:Yeah, really, really, really funny people.
Guest:And so Paul Witt was walking down the hallway.
Guest:We were at Sunset Gower.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think U-Turn was coming out or just came out and he was walking out and he's like, you know, we're in the film business too.
Guest:If you ever got a film idea.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I got a script I want to show you.
Guest:And I didn't have a script.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went away.
Guest:Literally, I went away for a week and I wrote this script that ended up, it changed, but it ended up being the film that was Three Kings.
Guest:Masterpiece.
Guest:I was involved.
Guest:There were many changes, but there were,
Guest:It was one of those things.
Guest:This is where, going back to where I said to you, there are a lot of things I was really lazy about.
Guest:And then there were things where I was like, Paul Witt, walking down the hallway saying, do you have a script?
Guest:And I said, yeah, I got a script.
Guest:And I didn't have a script.
Guest:And like I said, I went and I said, I'm writing a script because if this guy, who he and his partner legends,
Guest:not only legends in show business, but at that time before, you know, the Fin Sin rules changed and, you know, you had these big independent producers.
Guest:You know, they're huge in television.
Guest:I was like, okay, this is a rare opportunity.
Guest:I'm going to get a script of this gentleman.
Guest:And, you know, I was very fortunate and, you know, making movies ended up being, you know, it took a long time.
Guest:But that was one of those things that really changed.
Guest:What was your relationship with David O. Russell?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At the time, my relationship with David, David goes off, he does his thing.
Guest:Takes your script.
Guest:Takes the script, rewrites it, which to me also I will say was just an early education because being a comedian, you write your stuff and it's your stuff.
Guest:Being on a TV show, it's certainly very collaborative, but as a writer, you're very involved.
Guest:My first film was from a novel that I adapted.
Guest:So it's all my novel.
Guest:So everything is yours, yours, yours.
Guest:And that was the first time with David where you learned that there's a whole other different process.
Guest:And it was not good or comfortable or pleasant.
Guest:But I will say, which was also very, very nice, this past year at the Oscars, he was one of my biggest supporters and was very vocal in the support of me and the script that I wrote.
Guest:So it was nice.
Guest:It was very cyclical.
Guest:Was there issues early on?
Guest:It was just not comfortable being rewritten.
Guest:I don't think it was comfortable for him having somebody, again, a young black guy who was raised to not just go along to get along, go that, well, you know.
Guest:Right, so you fought him.
Guest:We never personally fought, but it was never comfortable as two very strong-willed people.
Guest:And how much of your stuff do you see in that film?
Guest:I would say the story, the setup, the circumstances, everything else, the direction, the dialogue, the sort of off-kilterness, that's all David and what he as a writer and as a writer-director brought to it.
Guest:And now, at the time, it's very uncomfortable.
Guest:People would say about Three Kings, you don't know your part in it, certainly 16 years later.
Guest:and I think both of us are doing okay, I think I can objectively look at it and go, this guy made not only an amazing film, but being part of that helped make a career for me.
Marc:Yeah, but you still did, during this time, I guess in the end, you still did television.
Guest:Still did television.
Guest:I mean, I love to write, so I was still doing television I was working on.
Guest:I segued in from...
Guest:Half hours into drama.
Guest:But you did the show though.
Guest:Was that Sam Seder?
Guest:I did the show with Sam Seder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's where I met Sam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I actually, I racked up a lot of TV.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I did the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did Larroquette.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did Martin.
Guest:You did Martin?
Guest:I did the Martin show.
Guest:I did Martin, then Fresh Prince, then- But this was just as a staff writer.
Guest:Yeah, I was still a staff writer.
Guest:I think as the... By Martin, I think I was story editor.
Guest:Larroquette, I may have been executive story editor.
Guest:Every year you get a little extra something tossed in your title.
Guest:By the time I got on to...
Guest:The show, I don't know, maybe executive story editor, maybe, I don't know that I was a producer on any of those.
Guest:By the time I got into, I did a show called Trinity with John Wells, very short-lived.
Guest:I think it was a producer, a consulting producer, third watcher producer.
Guest:Then I went and did a show with the Coppolas.
Guest:I'd worked with the Coppolas previously.
Guest:On what?
Guest:Two things.
Guest:Francis Ford Coppola was going to do a version of Pinocchio that never got made.
Guest:And I worked with him on that.
Guest:How was that working with him?
Guest:Unbelievably great.
Guest:Just phenomenal individual.
Guest:What did you learn?
Guest:Everything.
Guest:Um, everything's a hyperbole.
Guest:I learned this is that you can talk about success and failure in the same breath and not either be, you should not be ashamed of one or ashamed of one or overly aggrandizing of the other.
Guest:And Francis is the kind of guy he would talk about his, you know, he talked about, um,
Guest:he thought One from the Heart was going to be one of the greatest films ever and it didn't turn out to be.
Guest:He thought Dracula, he didn't feel like that was ever going to be his best work and it turned out to be one of his biggest hits.
Guest:You know, he just talked about
Guest:He talked about in Patton where, you know, now we look at that scene with George C. Scott in front of the flag as one of the great iconic scenes.
Guest:And he talked about he had to fight for it and fight for it.
Guest:And the studio didn't get it.
Guest:It's like, well, where's the audience?
Guest:And is this before?
Guest:Is it a flashback?
Guest:Is it whatever?
Guest:And he said to me, you know, the things and it is a fundamental statement.
Guest:But hearing it from Francis Ford Coppola makes it, you know, one of the life altering.
Marc:And also, he did a lot of movies that sort of fall through the cracks.
Marc:What was that one?
Marc:The Gardens of Stone?
Guest:Gardens of Stone.
Guest:But also, one of the films that he did that to this day, in terms of what informs me and the language of cinema that I try to use when I've directed things like Always By My Side or American Crime, there's a little film that he did that George Lucas was a producer on called Rain People.
Guest:and Duvall was in it, Jimmy Kahn was in it, James Kahn, Mr. Kahn, I should say.
Guest:What he does, and it's actually about a woman who is on an exploration of self, very existential film, and very feminist film.
Guest:How old?
Guest:70, maybe 70, maybe 1970.
Guest:So it's like it was one of his first movies.
Guest:So before Conversation, before The Godfathers, all of that, and...
Guest:how he approached editing or how he leading a team of individuals approach editing sound language of cinema space.
Guest:I mean, honest to God, if you watch that film, you will see you, you get teed up for this is going to be one of the great directors of all times.
Guest:And Mr. Coppola, I had worked on red tails with, which George Lucas produced and,
Guest:And my kids went to the premiere.
Guest:My kids were there.
Guest:My parents were there.
Guest:It was honestly probably the greatest moment of my life.
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:So anyway, Mr. Coppola's there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just the nicest guy.
Guest:Oh, John, I haven't seen you in years.
Guest:Oh, your wife, she's so lovely.
Guest:I look at my kids.
Guest:I go, I'm sorry.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:I said,
Guest:you don't know.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:So I said, you don't know who this guy is, but you've got to remember this moment because one day you're going to start seeing films and what this guy has done is,
Guest:And how he's informed the language of cinema.
Guest:How he's informed the language of cinema is just amazing.
Guest:And so even now I still say to my kids, I say, do you remember that day?
Guest:And they're like, oh, yeah.
Guest:But to be there, Spike Lee, who's been a big champion of mine in my career.
Guest:He was at the premiere.
Guest:George Lucas was there.
Guest:Francis Ford Coppola.
Guest:My parents, my kids.
Guest:My uncle was a Tuskegee Airman.
Guest:So that moment, you think that career-wise, it's not going to get any better.
Guest:And then over the last couple of years, that it has gotten even better.
Guest:There's still more rewards.
Guest:It's just been...
Guest:You know, it's been life altering.
Guest:So I get a little emotional.
Marc:Like it sounds to me that because of the intensity of that moment that this is, you know, you really put your heart into it.
Marc:And there was a lot in the balance of of how that was characterized both for you personally and to honor the legacy of those guys.
Guest:In all, it was a transitional moment in my career because there had been... I had a really nice before.
Guest:You mentioned a lot of the TV shows I'd worked on or things that I'd done or being able to work around other individuals like David O. Russell, very creative, but at a little bit of a distance.
Guest:And in that time and space, I was obviously getting older.
Guest:I had a family.
Guest:It was around 2008.
Guest:That came out actually in 2012.
Guest:So we as a people, you know, the economy had gone through crap.
Guest:The entertainment industry had changed.
Guest:You know, it was harder to make films at all.
Guest:It was harder to make any film.
Guest:And I really felt like this may be a singular opportunity.
Guest:And, you know, obviously working with somebody like George Lucas was a big deal.
Guest:Telling a story that's about...
Guest:all of us, but also very specifically about Black American history and trying to prove to people that it's American history, it's not just Black American history.
Guest:And then you sort of feel like, well, maybe this is it, because I actually didn't have a lot on the horizon at that point, because I was very dissatisfied with a lot of
Guest:The few opportunities that were out there, the business was constricting.
Guest:And I felt like, you know, the things that you could chase that were becoming, you know, the Marvel type stories or DC, you know, the best of the best are being offered that.
Guest:And I was not in that category.
Guest:But what category were you in?
Guest:I was in the guy who made some interesting films that people didn't really see, you know, Undercover Brother or U-Turn or Three Kings, which is not, you know, those are all sort of cult films.
Marc:But also like in television, it seemed that like over time, you know, you were involved with Wanda.
Guest:Yeah, I was doing Wanda.
Guest:So Wanda, who I didn't know, I got introduced to and became a really, really good friend, has a very particular point of view.
Guest:And we were doing a very particular show.
Guest:So there were people watching and loved it and other people were baffled.
Guest:But did you feel that you were in black entertainment?
Guest:No, it wasn't even that.
Guest:Because to me, part of my life's work, and I don't want to overstate that, like I'm trying to win a Nobel Prize, but is to show people black entertainment.
Guest:It's our entertainment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And one of the things that always breaks my heart is Richard Pryor becomes mainstream.
Guest:Well, he's not really black anymore.
Guest:Eddie's not really black.
Guest:Will Smith's not really black anymore.
Guest:And it's like, well, what the fuck?
Guest:It's like, once you succeed, it's like, well, now you're an outlier.
Guest:uh and it's crazy which is crazy because like well we can't do this movie over here because it's not will smith so it's a black movie that's like but that's the whole point he became mainstream because everybody loves him and his work so why isn't that all mainstream so i never felt like there's a problem with doing stuff that was quote-unquote black the problem was other people weren't looking at it and saying this is mainstream entertainment and again as an aside over the last couple years even now when like kevin hart
Guest:would have a film that opened really big, or when Best Man Holiday opened big, and the language was, well, you know, those films overperformed.
Guest:You know, that's what you would read in the trades.
Guest:And it's like, no, they didn't fucking overperform.
Guest:You didn't read the appetite for all audiences to go see those films.
Guest:So I've always felt like there's that battle between that sense of you're just doing genre entertainment versus, no, it's actually entertainment for everybody.
Guest:Don't consider it genre entertainment.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So I never had a problem.
Guest:Wanda was... She was really at the height of her game, and there was something she wanted to do, and I think the folks that we were working with had no concept of how best to work with her.
Guest:So I ended up working with a lot of really interesting people who...
Guest:Us, we were not mainstream talent.
Guest:Keith Robinson.
Guest:Keith Robinson is not mainstream talent.
Guest:He's funny as shit, but I don't think the people who wanted Wanda and Keith were like, okay, you understand that what you're getting is better served on HBO.
Guest:It's like, no, no, no, we're going to put this on broadcast.
Guest:And Wanda comes in saying, I'm just doing my thing.
Guest:And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we're gonna end you up, we're gonna put you at a desk and we're gonna, you know, have you, you know, talking to, you know, whoever's selling a show this week.
Guest:And what happened with Barbershop?
Guest:Barbershop was another thing where it was.
Guest:But you created that.
Guest:I didn't create, you know, we, they were doing it as a series.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they said to me, you can, I said, you know, Barbershop, it's a very particular brand.
Guest:They go, no, no, you can do whatever you want.
Guest:You can do whatever you want.
Guest:I said, okay, I'm gonna do whatever I want.
Guest:And, you know, especially having worked with Mitch, you know, kind of doing this sort of, Mitch Hurwitz doing this sort of odd stream of consciousness comedy.
Guest:You know, that with Barbershop, with the people that we were doing with, those three things did not align at all.
Guest:So I really enjoyed it.
Guest:I had a great cast, great group of writers.
Guest:I think Warren was on that as well.
Guest:Warren was writing on that.
Guest:And we were doing this really...
Guest:stream of consciousness, very subtle.
Guest:I mean, it ended up being that subtle jabs at race.
Guest:And I think Warren actually, no, you know, it was Lance Crowder.
Guest:Lance was on the show.
Guest:And Lance wrote, in and among great jokes, but he were talking about
Guest:One thing in particular is going, look, this is a black guy saying this.
Guest:The whole point of desegregation was so that we could go off and live by ourselves.
Guest:It was that kind of subtle humor.
Guest:You do 30 minutes of that, and people are just like, your corporate masters are like, what the fuck is this?
Guest:That was a great experience, but again, it was niche.
Guest:You're writing books all along the way.
Guest:Writing books all along the way, which is also very niche.
Guest:Procedural.
Guest:I did a show that was a procedural show.
Guest:Well, I did crime novels every step of the way and then did a show called Third Watch.
Guest:That was probably the biggest hit that I'd ever been anywhere around and probably is what saved my little bit of a career that I had.
Guest:There was a little bit of respectability on my resume.
Marc:But I'm just retrofitting this because this is all leading up to Red Tails.
Marc:And that cathartic moment you felt at the peak and the emotional resonance also came with this idea of everything changing and you not really being sure where to go from here.
Guest:Yeah, so there comes a moment where I absolutely felt like I got nowhere.
Guest:I don't know where I'm going to go.
Guest:I can't keep doing niche stuff.
Guest:You know, you can.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, at some point people are going to go, well, why are we giving this guy a check?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you can go find a nice little alternative space to work in, and that's great.
Guest:But I didn't, you know, I got a wife and a couple of kids and mortgage.
Guest:You know, that's not going to work.
Guest:I did not fit in, though, with any bigger thing.
Guest:I don't think I had the wherewithal to just do something small and curate that.
Guest:Roll the dice.
Guest:Well, not even so much roll the dice, but really curate it in a way that...
Guest:People take that and they go, oh, that is such a really interesting thing and your voice is so unique.
Guest:Now we understand why we're going to subsidize that.
Guest:Because we get it.
Guest:We're seeing you in all of that.
Guest:I don't think I'd done anything that, you know, I kept, here was the problem is I take something like Undercover Brother or what became Three Kings or even U-Turn and I was passing it off to other people who were very, very talented.
Guest:But whatever it was maybe I was trying to say in that was then being dissipated in other people's vision.
Guest:And certainly Oliver Stone and David Russell had a vision and were being lauded for their vision as they should.
Guest:But whatever I was bringing to it or even not bringing to it was then being dissipated.
Guest:obfuscated and what other folks were doing so at some point I never really that sometimes that's a writer's dilemma it is the writer's dilemma that you're creating something you do it well enough to get it off the ground but people lose that people lose you in that yeah and so I had not done that thing where even through red tails which emotionally was phenomenal I still looked at and go okay but that for right or wrong that wasn't me and I got to the point where I said I gotta start really
Guest:you said it, you know, I, I really need to roll the dice on me and it's either going to come up a winner.
Guest:It's going to come up craps.
Guest:And if it comes up craps, I know I need to maybe go back into foreign service or go into Japanese, see if I can work that out.
Guest:Or I'm going to show people, this is what I'm all about.
Guest:And maybe they will, maybe that is strong enough to carry me through the, my waning years.
Guest:So a couple of things happened.
Guest:And one of them was, um, um,
Guest:beginning the work on what was going to end up being 12 Years a Slave.
Guest:And the other thing was beginning work on what was gonna be this film, All This By My Side, that was about the year Jimi Hendrix spin in London.
Guest:That was a real crapshoot, because we didn't have rights to certain music and this and that.
Guest:And I was like, I don't care, it's not about the music, which may be heretical to say about Jimi Hendrix's life, but I said, I wanna talk about this person.
Guest:And- What was that?
Guest:Why Jimmy?
Guest:Because when I was a kid in Wisconsin and everybody was listening to rock music, I was like, okay, I want to fit in and rock music.
Guest:And rock's good.
Guest:I liked it.
Guest:I grew up on it.
Guest:But I didn't want the Stones or those guys.
Guest:Peter Frampton is those guys.
Guest:I need somebody who looks like me.
Guest:And Jimmy looked like me and rocked like them but was cooler than everybody.
Guest:And I was always fascinated by this guy.
Guest:And I ended up being more fascinated by his story
Guest:than his music i think over time i mean his music is amazingly mature you can certainly you know whip your head to it timeless yeah but at some point when you really get into the deepness of it um bold is love and little wing and the things beyond you know watchtower hey joe you know there's a whole other thing that's going on there
Guest:Um, and also him, you know, his ethnocentric nature that most people don't acknowledge and are not aware of, which is great, but to a degree, he transcended race.
Guest:But as a person of color, you still have to deal with that.
Guest:And in some ways differently than people would think, you know, the Black Panthers early on were kind of pissed because he wasn't doing enough quote unquote black stuff.
Guest:And his whole thing was, man, I'm for the people, you know, not...
Guest:Right.
Guest:Don't look at me one way.
Guest:So there were elements of his story that were really fascinating.
Guest:But both of those gigs, there was no money involved up front.
Guest:With either 12 Years a Slave or the Jimmy thing.
Guest:No.
Guest:And it was very liberating in the sense that now I've got to make it work or it doesn't work at all.
Guest:What happened to that movie?
Guest:All Is By My Side, Andre Benjamin played Jimmy.
Guest:We played at Toronto.
Guest:All Is By My Side and 12 Years both opened at Toronto.
Guest:This was a passion project for you that came out.
Guest:I wrote it and I wanted to write it and direct it.
Guest:I'd been pitching it around at some studios and everybody was like, they didn't quite get it because it was just a year in his life.
Guest:It's not...
Guest:It was when he went to London.
Guest:It was when he went to London.
Guest:He went to London under the name Jimmy James, doing Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, came back Jimi Hendrix, but also came back with the style, with the look, with obviously Nolan Mitch.
Guest:So that was his cathartic moment.
Guest:That was his transformation.
Guest:It was his origin, his transformation.
Guest:But at 23 years old, was actually kind of washed up.
Guest:It played with Isley Brothers, I can Tina Turner, Little Richard.
Guest:Didn't fit in, goes to London, comes back to Jimi Hendrix.
Guest:We know I wanted to tell that story.
Marc:And then he goes back to London and blows everything out of the water.
Guest:Well, he blew everything.
Guest:He played at the Savile Theater.
Guest:Well, he went back to London, unfortunately.
Guest:When he really went back, he died.
Guest:It was basically three more years.
Guest:But he played at the Savile Theater.
Guest:And I'll make it as concise as possible.
Guest:He had, you know, he'd clapped in and seen him, loved him.
Guest:Beck, Townsend, everybody.
Guest:And Paul McCartney- That was the time.
Guest:That was the time the first time.
Guest:Yes, at the Savile Theater, which is in our show.
Guest:We actually got-
Guest:the Beatles and their estates to allow us to use sergeant pepper in the film and Andre Benjamin does that performance and just I will use I think fucking only the third time Andre destroyed and and the film did not get a wide release but the reason I talk about that film is that
Guest:The way that I pitched it around to studios, everybody's like, we don't get it.
Guest:We don't get it.
Guest:You don't have the music.
Guest:Why is it just that year in London?
Guest:It's about him and his relationship with Linda Keith, who's one of the amazing unsung heroes of rock and roll.
Guest:And I said, because this is about this guy's life.
Guest:This is about him.
Guest:It is not meant to be just about the music.
Guest:There are other songs that we can get.
Guest:And we're also not chasing these performances that you cannot... I don't want to lip-sync them.
Guest:I want to take performances that no one has ever seen and create them when he played at Polytechnic and Clapton saw him and all this and that.
Guest:So anyway, people wouldn't bite on the film and I said, fuck it.
Guest:I'm making this film.
Guest:I'm tired of people telling me no.
Guest:So I was going to do that as a writer-director.
Guest:I was going to write 12 Years a Slave.
Guest:There was no money involved.
Marc:How'd you get that gig?
Marc:Was that your choice to write 12 Years of Sway?
Guest:That was Brad Pitt's company.
Guest:And there's a gentleman over at Brad Pitt's company who sat myself and the director down.
Guest:We were both very, very, very unknown.
Guest:And you said, whatever you guys come up with.
Guest:There's a guy, Jeremy Kleiner, at Brad Pitt's company who just, I'd written a movie about the LA riots that has not yet been made.
Guest:But he thought that the script was just phenomenal.
Guest:And spoke to perspectives and spoke to issues and spoke to things that have not even come close to going away in the 20 plus years.
Guest:So he sat us down.
Guest:He said, whatever you guys come up with, we want to make this movie.
Guest:So we sat down and we ended up coming up with, well, we found this memoir.
Guest:You and Stephen Queen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of Solomon's, which basically is, you know, one of the most powerful documents I've ever read.
Guest:So literally at the same time, and I mean literally, a lot of people use that incorrectly, but 12 years a slave and always by my side were shooting at the same time.
Guest:So 12 years were shooting Louisiana, always by my side.
Guest:We shot in Dublin.
Guest:And you're directing.
Guest:Did post in London.
Guest:I was directing.
Guest:So as in time difference, I was prepping one film during the day and writing, you know, doing rewrites on the other one at night.
Guest:Um, then even more ironically, both of them opened at Toronto film festival in 2013.
Guest:And then out of the festival and this, I have, you know, send it to my mom.
Guest:So entertainment weekly picks four films that they loved out of the festival and puts little pictures, two of them, uh,
Guest:Two of them were one was 12 years a slave.
Guest:One was always by my side.
Guest:So, you know, you go from nothing to, you know, finally, you know, honestly, in a good way, the arbiter of pop entertainment of crossing over saying two of the films that you were involved in.
Guest:And the third one was gravity.
Guest:And I don't remember what the other one was.
Guest:I think it might have been Rush.
Guest:So all of a sudden you're in and among that.
Guest:And then from there, the time that it opened in Toronto, 12 years, through obviously the Academy Awards the following year.
Guest:And then All Is By My Side did not get a wide release.
Guest:Andre did end up getting nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, which he deserved.
Guest:Um, I can't be objective, but I can just say, and then, but ABC ended up seeing the film, the executives at ABC and they saw that and they loved it.
Guest:And they said, you know, you're, you're writing this thing, American crime.
Guest:Do you want to direct it?
Guest:And I said, yeah, I'd love to direct it.
Guest:And that.
Guest:you know, had ended up making, you know, this next phase of my career, you know, American Crime and, you know, getting the Emmy nominations.
Guest:It's just been an amazing last couple of years.
Guest:As a director.
Guest:I actually didn't, I ended up not getting an Emmy nomination as a director.
Guest:But as a writer, the show got nominated.
Guest:Tim Hutton, Felicity Huffman, Richard Cabral, Regina King.
Guest:And that's your creation, America.
Guest:But that, writer, creator, executive producer.
Guest:And we're in what season now?
Guest:We're in season two.
Guest:We're shooting season two.
Guest:We start shooting that in about a month.
Guest:Are you appreciating this now?
Guest:Now I appreciate it.
Guest:Having gotten to a point where emotionally I was steady.
Guest:I didn't have a big flame out with booze or drugs or things like that.
Guest:But a moment where you go, okay, I think this may be it for me.
Guest:This may be the end for me.
Guest:If I can't make this work and I'm going to roll the dice, as you say, on two films where I'm not getting paid...
Guest:There's no big fee.
Guest:Um, they were both independent films and they're both these oddities on paper.
Guest:You're trying to make a film about Jimi Hendrix.
Guest:That's, you know, independent and it's not sanctioned and you don't have these music rights, but you want to tell the story that hopefully has an emotional velocity and emotional honesty.
Guest:And you're writing another movie about slavery that is not, you know, the let's run out and see that film this weekend subject matter.
Guest:You know, oh, it's Friday.
Guest:That slave movie is opening.
Guest:Let's get the kids.
Guest:But both of them worked in their space.
Guest:Both of them did what they needed to do in terms of representing the subject matter as well as representing...
Guest:finally, I think, what I was trying to say, whatever point of view, and not even just a political point of view, but in terms of a stylistic point of view, being very observant, being very fundamental, being very sparse, and letting the moments drive themselves rather than trying to create some kind of artifice necessarily around, or bombast around the subject matter.
Marc:Do you find that, like, obviously with the Jimmy movie, you were, your relationship with the director was very close.
Guest:Probably too close.
Guest:The thing that I learned is you're better off having a little distensation between yourself.
Guest:What was your relationship with McQueen?
Guest:I said at one time, and I meant this, it was out of all the people that I'd worked with, he was the most fun.
Guest:It was really a fun time because I think we were both so... It's interesting that you say that about that movie.
Guest:Great time.
Guest:Well, I think when you're dealing with that kind of stuff, you have to enjoy the process because when you get to the work...
Guest:It's, you know, people were really, it was really, really emotional.
Guest:Now, I was not around for the shooting.
Guest:I went down there for a little bit.
Guest:But because I was shooting this other film at the same time, I was in Dublin.
Guest:But for the moment, you know, I was down there, I think, in the scene where Chiwetel wakes up in the slave pen and is beaten.
Guest:And you're there for a couple of days.
Guest:And you go, okay, these folks have been with this 35 days.
Guest:The subject matter was with it for 12 years.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:our history as America was with it that peculiar institution for 150 years and you wonder why we still deal with it because because it is mass psychosis that's the only way it works so that was an education you know um
Guest:But yes, from the time that we sat down to the time the movie gets made, it was just interesting because you're also around someone who has a very interesting viewpoint and is just very interesting to me.
Guest:He makes me laugh.
Guest:You guys are all right?
Guest:Yeah, as much as I am with anybody.
Guest:I don't get out much and socialize.
Guest:It's not my thing.
Marc:You're awfully hard on yourself, buddy.
Guest:I think as I've gotten older, I think I try to be more honest with myself to save other people the hassle of having to be honest with me.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:But are you sure you have the proper perception?
Guest:No, I don't think any of us do, but I think that I'm more cognizant of that guy that you probably remember 20-some years ago who was just furious about...
Guest:getting to the next point and saying I've been fortunate enough to have another point and it's been probably in terms of the creative space and the recognition of not only what I'm doing but the people that I work with you know now you get to work with people you know like the people like Hank Corwin that most people don't know who's one of the great editors yeah in history
Guest:of cinema and you get to work with somebody like that and it's like well we're just going to enjoy this and when we did all this by my side we were just like we're going to enjoy this and people are going to be baffled by it but now we have the opportunity to take that that befuddlement and really drive it forward and that's worked so I think that I'm more I'm more aware of
Guest:a level of presentation, but I'm also more aware of 90% of the time I shouldn't be presenting myself to anybody.
Marc:So I sit at home and, you know.
Marc:Well, you know, you choose what you can handle and sometimes other people, you know, you can't handle it.
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:Well, I think that that is the big thing and I think that that is, I think I've always been good about not, and again, going back to my parents instilling me, I'm not worried about
Guest:you know, how other people think.
Guest:And I think that big chunks of my life, people have been like, oh my God, why would you say that in public?
Guest:Or why would you do that?
Guest:And go, because why would I care?
Guest:I'm not here to win a popularity contest.
Guest:I don't willfully want to hurt people's feelings.
Guest:And I do, like the majority of the time, I just sit in my house and just sit in a room and try to work on the things that I do.
Guest:But in those moments where I know that I'm going to go out and be around people
Guest:Peers or present things you go.
Guest:Okay, if you're going to engage You know engage in the sense that you love what you do be pleasant and pleasant and pleasant in the sense that I'm not I'm not here to actually cause strike you know somebody said you know treat your enemies like your friends because then if a Conflict comes you know that you've done everything that you've done you could to avoid conflict, but you can adjudicate that conflict without guilt and
Guest:So there's that sense of, yeah, I'm out here to really, you know, to love the creative process and love people who create.
Guest:But at the same time, that doesn't mean that I'm going to abdicate my own points of view or my opinion.
Marc:But it sounds to me like, you know, for my experience with you now is that, you know, you have achieved a type of success that you can own proudly and you enjoy it.
Guest:I enjoy it more than I ever could have thought.
Guest:I enjoy what it has afforded me.
Guest:What I really enjoy about the whole Oscar thing was being welcomed in the Academy as a member.
Guest:And that sense of fellowship, that object itself, it's not anywhere where I can readily see it.
Guest:And it's not around, nor any of the other objects, not because I'm not proud of them, but because it's sort of like...
Guest:I think if you're all human, there's that little bit of 99% of you is so sure of everything, and there's that 1% that is louder than any part where you go, I don't know if this should be in my house or if it should have gone to these guys or those guys or this lady as a writer.
Marc:But I don't know, in talking about your parents and these historic things, how many black people have won Oscars for writing screenplays?
Guest:There was one other.
Guest:One other guy.
Guest:Yeah, who wrote Precious.
Guest:So it is one of those things where, you know, I'm not the first.
Guest:I'm not breaking ground, but you go, you know, if we threw a party.
Guest:We could do it in, you know.
Marc:Well, you know what, Ben?
Marc:This is great talking to you.
Marc:And you know what I love?
Marc:You started a fucking comic.
Marc:You were a fucking comic.
Guest:I did and there's maybe one day, you know, just you go back and I don't know, sometimes I think about it.
Guest:You don't have to go back and I think it's interesting that you can't even go, like you can't even go to a club.
Guest:I was literally talking to some comedians yesterday and we're talking about clubs and I said I can't,
Marc:go in and not because it's a bad traumatic space but it's just one of those things where it's like it's not i don't i i feel weird in here it is but i enjoy it should i but it is a traumatic space because like you know it probably triggers like there's that sweat man when you're in it for you were in it for six seven years yeah waiting to get up there and you know i can't imagine it's a weird feeling but you did all right buddy you know and i'm proud of you thank you good to talk appreciate it thank you very much and thank you for having me
Marc:It was great to see John.
Marc:I enjoyed that conversation.
Marc:And I like him.
Marc:It was touching.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all you WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get a poster.
Marc:All the artist names are there.
Marc:All the art is there.
Marc:Check the calendar.
Marc:I'll be in Ireland and England and Australia coming up.
Marc:And get some JustCoffee.coop if you want.
Marc:Do whatever you got to do.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:Um...
Marc:Yeah, and look out for Howl, H-O-W-L, .fm.
Marc:That's where it's all going to be happening for WTF in the archive.
Mmm.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Yeah!