Episode 719 - John C. Reilly / Brett Gelman
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck, buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What the fuckleberry thins?
Marc:What the fuckaholics?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:I hope your day's going okay.
Marc:If you're listening early, I hope it's not screwed up already.
Marc:Let's turn it around.
Marc:It's my little positive thinking pitch.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:You know what they say?
Marc:You can start your day over at any time.
Marc:Maybe it's been a rough eight minutes.
Marc:Maybe it was a difficult walk to the kitchen to make coffee in your head.
Marc:Let's turn it around.
Marc:If you're at the gym, keep going.
Marc:If you're on the train, all right, just don't sit next to someone who's coughing too much.
Marc:I don't know, folks.
Marc:Is everybody all right?
Marc:Got a little bit of a doubleheader today.
Marc:We're going to talk to Brett Gelman, the very funny.
Marc:And inspired and slightly disturbing at times, Brett Gelman, big fan of his.
Marc:He's going to be here for a minute to talk about his new thing.
Marc:He's got a thing.
Marc:He's got this thing on Adult Swim called Dinner in America that airs July 1st at midnight.
Marc:It's something, man.
Marc:It's a mind blower, no doubt.
Marc:Then after that, we're going to talk to John C. Reilly about stuff.
Marc:He's got his Check It Out with Dr. Steve Bruhl, which is currently in its fourth season, also on Adult Swim.
Marc:Reilly, you know, he don't talk much long form.
Marc:This was an exciting thing, and I didn't know where it was going to go, but it went.
Marc:So look forward to that shortly.
Marc:Before I do want to get some things out of the way.
Marc:Well, not out of the way.
Marc:I want to thank you guys.
Marc:You know, I want to thank everyone who donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation this month after hearing me talk about it on the show.
Marc:I mentioned that we would be matching any donations made by WTF listeners up to five thousand dollars.
Marc:And you guys hit that amount in a week, in a week.
Marc:They're still taking donations for the rest of June.
Marc:That's EFF.org slash WTF.
Marc:Thanks again to everyone who supported them and everyone who still plans on supporting them.
Marc:The EFF is a defender of podcasting against patent trolls, and your dollars help them do that alongside of all the other stuff they do to fight the good fight.
Marc:That's EFF.org slash WTF.
Marc:Go to wtfpod.com slash tour.
Marc:I got tour dates coming up.
Marc:I'd like you to come.
Marc:Spokane.
Marc:I'm doing, you know, full on five shows, man.
Marc:Seven, eight, and nine.
Marc:Spokane Comedy Club, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wise Guy, Salt Lake City, 14, 15, 16.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Real deal.
Marc:Five shows.
Marc:Comedy Attic, Bloomington, Indiana, July 28, 29.
Marc:30, five shows, man, doing the real work.
Marc:Stand Up Live, Phoenix, August 18, 19, 20.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'll be in Albuquerque for one night in September on the 3rd, doing a benefit at the Albuquerque Journal Theater.
Marc:Comedy Club in Rochester, New York, September 9th and 10th.
Marc:I guess that's a four-show run.
Marc:That's all that's up now.
Marc:There will be more coming.
Marc:I'm at the Ice House here in Pasadena on July 3rd, but I believe that is sold out.
Marc:Chris Garcia is going to join me for that one.
Marc:Got one more show at the Tripany tomorrow night.
Marc:Those things, I've covered a lot of ground.
Marc:Not quite all coming together, but I'm doing it.
Marc:Let me get you up to speed on a couple things, folks.
Marc:You know, the UK pulled out of the EU.
Marc:And, you know, I don't know the nuances of a lot of this, but my first feeling, being an American and watching that from afar,
Marc:in relation to what's going on here with this election.
Marc:My first feeling when I read the news, I didn't watch it, I read it on the computer sometimes.
Marc:When that happened, my gut feeling was, I think, the same feeling that Michael Corleone had when he was visiting Cuba, and he was in that car, and it stopped, and he watched a police...
Marc:altercation with some Cuban revolutionaries and one of the guys blew himself up with a grenade.
Marc:I believe took out a couple of cops.
Marc:That's how, as an American, facing the election we're facing, that was what came to mind when I heard about the vote in the UK in relation to the Trump candidacy was not unlike what Michael Corleone told Hyman Roth, played by the late Lee Strasberg,
Marc:about what he saw.
Marc:And Hyman Roth said, what does that mean to you?
Marc:I'm paraphrasing.
Marc:He goes, means they could win.
Marc:Means they could win.
Marc:Do you hear me, America?
Marc:Behave properly.
Marc:Do what's right.
Marc:Not right wing.
Marc:Do what's the best in this situation for America.
Marc:But heed the warning.
Marc:Heed the warning.
Marc:You remember what happened in Cuba back in the day.
Marc:Also, I'd like to give a little update on the AT&T versus Marin situation.
Marc:Look, it was never a fight.
Marc:It was just my passionate and slightly aggravated demand that they get their noise out of my shit.
Marc:And I got to be honest with you.
Marc:Look, I know some of you are like, well, you got a platform.
Marc:I can't get that done.
Marc:Yes, I do.
Marc:I worked a long time for this to work out.
Marc:And I'm happy that I don't have a boss and that I'm not owned by Verizon.
Marc:I'm not working under the auspices of anything.
Marc:I have no corporation on top of me dictating what I can and can't do.
Marc:I choose my own sponsors.
Marc:I can say whatever I want.
Marc:And I will, you know, obviously...
Marc:you know there could be repercussions depending on what i say and believe me i was scared i was scared when i started talking about renting my new office and picking up all these frequencies on my stereo equipment in that office being concerned about my health but more concerned about my ability to listen to records because i'm uh i guess these are very very much luxury problems but i wanted to have the space clean of the hum and the buzz and the
Marc:it's been going on for months you know there's been people that have come there's been people that have assessed there's been people that you know from at&t that have uh that have uh monitored and you know troubleshot and i thought we figured out what it was and then it just went dead for a while silence silence not the sound but my uh my cries for for justice and help
Marc:And then I guess, I don't know, they must have heard this or someone within the company, but, you know, heard something.
Marc:They sent these two dudes over, young guys, hipster dudes that, you know, seem like like minded folks that were kind of they were subcontractors.
Marc:They were excited by the problem.
Marc:This was something I was very thrilled about in a way that they they do this type of work.
Marc:I mean, the challenge was how do we get up on the roof and figure out a way to stop these waves from getting into this office right under the equipment?
Marc:And they told me, apparently I misspoke because I mentioned the heritage box.
Marc:And apparently they were like, what are you telling them what it is for?
Marc:What is a heritage box?
Marc:It's a heritage frequency.
Marc:So I want to make that clear.
Marc:That was causing the trouble, a heritage frequency, 700 something.
Marc:But anyways, these guys saw this.
Marc:They were excited about the job because it was problem solving.
Marc:And I guess they got up there and they laid down some copper mesh all around the shit, soldered it down.
Marc:And folks, the noise is gone.
Marc:The waves have been stopped.
Marc:My mind is protected by a fine copper screen above me.
Marc:Yes, that is my spirituality right now.
Marc:I'm protected by the copper mesh.
Marc:And believe me, the liability of talking about this stuff.
Marc:Look, I didn't know if I was going to be Michael Clayton by middle management at AT&T.
Marc:Obviously, you know, that's a dark and horrible scenario.
Marc:But I don't know what my life is worth when you become an annoyance to one of the world's biggest corporations.
Marc:Yeah, we'll fix that buzz.
Marc:Podcaster Mark Maron seems to have disappeared today.
Marc:Friends and family have no idea of his whereabouts.
Marc:There's been no communication and no podcasts.
Marc:We do know he was having a problem in his office with a slight buzz on his stereo equipment from AT&T.
Marc:That's the last we heard of him.
Marc:Obviously, I'm kidding.
Marc:But I want to thank AT&T for due diligence and fixing the problem.
Marc:OK, so Brett Gelman, Brett Gelman has created something that is very provocative.
Marc:It's very violent.
Marc:It's very funny.
Marc:It's very dark.
Marc:It's very pointed deals with the topic of racism.
Marc:And it's like nothing you've seen before.
Marc:I will tell you that right now.
Marc:And it is premiering on July 1st at midnight.
Marc:Brett Gelman's Dinner in America on Adult Swim.
Marc:And I talked to Mr. Gelman about this project.
Marc:This is two white liberal Jewish guys talking about racism.
Marc:Prepare yourself.
Marc:Because that doesn't always go well.
Music.
Marc:So, Brett.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you doing?
Marc:What are you trying to do?
Guest:What am I trying to do, man?
Guest:I'm making art.
Guest:I'm making art.
Marc:You know, I watched it.
Marc:I watched what you put me through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And...
Marc:I'm flattered that you watched it.
Marc:I watched it with my girlfriend who's very sensitive to blood.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Violence.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And she got through it because we knew it wasn't necessarily real.
Marc:Now, this is very, I would call it violent satire.
Right.
Guest:Yeah, I would.
Marc:It's hard for me to label sometimes.
Guest:It's hard for me to label it as well.
Marc:You type of fellas do you and the Tim and Eric's of the world and the Eric Andre's.
Marc:I don't know what you're doing to us.
Marc:You're fucking with our heads, Brett.
Guest:Well, I, you know, I guess it's like theater of the absurd, you know, in a way.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:No, I think so.
Guest:And I mean, I'm really influenced by a lot of hardcore artists.
Guest:playwright guys as well as filmmakers.
Guest:I mean, I love my Beckett and my Sam Shepard and my Harold Pinter.
Marc:How about some Ionesco?
Guest:Ionesco, of course, of course.
Guest:I love, I mean, Albie.
Guest:He definitely creeped into that realm.
Marc:There's a type of satire and a type of theater and type of movie where...
Marc:The violence is... It goes beyond gratuitous into hilarious.
Guest:Yeah, like... Yeah, I mean, like Lynch, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Lynch is a huge influence of mine.
Guest:Is he?
Guest:Yeah, and, like, I love people.
Guest:I mean, not that these guys necessarily go hilarious, but... Monty Python?
Guest:Oh, yeah, of course.
Guest:And then, you know...
Guest:And Mel Brooks, you know, Brooks is very fun theater of the absurd, you know, a lot of the time.
Guest:And and, you know, I mean, people like Michael Haneke and like Lars von Trier, you know, which are not which I will argue that there are points in their films that are funny.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But you take on you're like you're basically this one is about liberal guilt driven behavior.
Guest:Well, I'm married to a black woman.
Guest:Yeah, I have always.
Guest:So she's your check.
Marc:I've been interested to check it through with her.
Marc:Like, this is what we're going to do.
Guest:I definitely showed her the script.
Guest:Yeah, I was like, how does this all pan out?
Guest:You know, I mean, I'm writing for... Could you okay this on behalf of blacks everywhere?
Guest:I mean, I definitely, you know, I won't say who, but I sent the special... We were looking for a place to air the premiere, you know, and I sent it to this place, this certain place that is...
Guest:that is run by black people, and they said, no, we will not screen this here.
Guest:And I definitely think that they might think that I'm a racist.
Marc:Wait, wait, wait.
Marc:Why does the place have to be a mystery?
Marc:I'm just stretching my imagination where you had to seek out a place.
Guest:Oh, it's a museum, you know.
Guest:Oh, I thought it was maybe a... I mean, it's an incredible museum.
Marc:It's not Roscoe's?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's the Underground Museum, which is this place by West Adams and stuff like that.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And the whole concept of their museum is that people of color don't really get shown.
Guest:Their work doesn't really get shown in museums, for the most part.
Guest:It's mostly a white male endeavor.
Guest:So you showed them the...
Guest:i was like i'd like to screen this here yeah i showed them the cut and they were like we don't uh think that satire should enter race and then i wrote them back and i said you know i hope you don't think that i think that this is that this issue is funny uh and i think did they not see bamboozled um they i'm sure they did but that's made by a black filmmaker right it's not a white it's not two white guys did you tell me you're married to a black woman i did not i did not
Guest:No.
Guest:Let's think this through, fellas.
Guest:Yeah, I think that that would be worse if I said that, Mark.
Guest:Why is that, Brett?
Guest:Oh, because it's like...
Guest:You know, it's definitely what the special is about and what the whole problem is about really amongst us white liberals.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What is the problem?
Guest:The problem is, you know, I don't believe in white guilt.
Guest:I believe in white responsibility.
Guest:And I believe that white people in this country.
Guest:And we're Jews.
Guest:So we're like more like gray.
Guest:I like the way you say it.
Guest:We're Jews.
Guest:No, white people in this country.
Guest:I mean, we're conditioned into a racist system.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You look at our business.
Guest:You go into most writers rooms.
Guest:You go on to most sets.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it is white.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You go into most alternative comedy clubs.
Guest:It is white.
Guest:You go to most independent film festivals.
Guest:It is predominantly white.
Guest:And I think that that is because.
Guest:though we you know in our in our minds are saying i'm not a racist we don't think in a racist way we don't think that we are superior to uh people of color i do think that subconsciously we are uh we're not really thinking of them as much as uh as as we think that we are
Marc:Well, in an empathetic way, you know, we claim to understand intellectually the issue.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And we say like, holy shit, that's horrible.
Marc:But when when you talk to a black person about their experience on a fucking day to day basis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where you really to truly be empathetic with that awareness or that consciousness of the other all the time.
Marc:It's you know, it's daunting and it's horrendous.
Guest:Yeah, I, you know, I see what my wife goes through on day to day thing.
Guest:It brought it way more to home.
Guest:I mean, I was always, I always, I mean, that's not racial.
Guest:That's just personality based.
Guest:No, I mean, and then, you know, a lot of things surfaced over the last couple of years.
Guest:We've seen a lot of people getting killed by the cops.
Guest:They've always been killed by the cops.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:Uh, and, and there's always been police abuse in, in these neighborhoods.
Guest:Uh, the oppression that people have to go through in these neighborhoods is, you know, there is a systemic thing, you know, uh, and that was just coming to light more and more.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:Many issues to me have been really in my face lately.
Guest:More than the... I don't know if I'm getting older and more sensitive to it or what.
Guest:And, you know, just seeing... Just...
Guest:my wife walking into a beauty store and the person going, these are organic products, just like that, you know, a systemic problem.
Guest:It doesn't just happen in these bangs.
Guest:It happens in whispers, you know, it happens in these little things.
Guest:And so we're all contributing to that.
Guest:And I'll just use myself as an example.
Guest:I had the idea for this special.
Guest:I, you know, we cast Joe Morton, Sharika Epps, Mack Wilds, Loretta Devine, Lance Reddick.
Guest:These are all, you know, great, really just unbelievable actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, you know...
Guest:I reached out.
Guest:I talked to absolutely.
Guest:And I was just like, we have to make sure.
Guest:Absolutely is Tim and Eric's production company produced this.
Guest:And I was like, we have to get crew members of color here.
Guest:I can't have like this subject matter being done.
Guest:And then these actors on set and they're looking out and it's all white faces.
Guest:That is not okay.
Guest:And then I thought, holy shit.
Guest:I'm a fucking racist.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why did it take me having black actors and writing about this issue for me to realize that I should have an inclusive set, an inclusive crew, and be going out of my way to help people?
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And that's the thing.
Marc:And you hear it.
Marc:I think even the idea of... See, this is where it gets tricky.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is that, like, help people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like we should be at a point where people are people and inclusiveness is understood.
Marc:So, you know, there's still a frame of like, I'm a racist because I'm not helping black people.
Marc:Whereas like, you know, ultimately non-racism would be people are people and you don't even think about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when you start putting together this thing, which is which is provocative and assaulting in a way.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And profoundly disturbing.
Marc:And it is art in the sense that you can't stop watching it.
Marc:It is profoundly uncomfortable.
Marc:And even at the end, where there is some resolution, it's not that it's not a strong joke.
Marc:But it's a disturbing irony, and you don't really know what to do with that.
Marc:You sort of finish watching it, and you're like, holy shit, now where do I send money?
Marc:What are you supposed to do?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I don't know what...
Guest:what are you supposed to do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, well, the thing is, and this is what I think art is.
Guest:I think art is a question mark and that you live in, in the question, you know, and you present the question that is life.
Guest:You know, as soon as you give an answer and you're standing by the answer and the answer is unmovable, then you're, you're really fucked, you know?
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And so the special doesn't really present any answers.
Guest:It's only presenting a reality, which is very complicated.
Marc:It's a complicated special because you don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:Your character is demonic.
Guest:Yeah, and he's a coward.
Marc:He's a coward.
Marc:Well, he's like Satan.
Marc:I mean, it seems like he plays Satan over and over again.
Marc:But ultimately, what becomes very clear from the beginning, despite whatever kind of coward you are, you're responsible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's a guy who is, and thus trying to prove that he's not a racist, proves that he is a racist.
Guest:And it's a guy who really wants to get patted on the back for this amazing charitable, very conscious thing that he's doing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which, in a way, is what I'm doing.
Guest:Yeah, you're doing it by doing this thing.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So there's a lot of layers.
Marc:Well, I think that the voice that you gave to some of the black actors and the issues was very engaging and real.
Marc:Oh, thank you.
Marc:That was the thing that I set out to do.
Marc:Because, like, you know, you may be responsible for doing exactly what you're satirizing in real life, but the actual voice, like Morton's, you know, when he loses his shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, it's like, that was solid.
Marc:That was some real unheard stuff to be that clear about that type of anger.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Jason and I really wanted, uh, what we wanted to do with two, two things there.
Guest:I mean, we wanted to, the Morton's monologue, Loretta Devine's monologue, uh, Octavio Gomez's monologue, uh,
Guest:who plays the waiter, those aren't comedic at all.
Guest:That's not trying to make you laugh from discomfort.
Guest:That is actually dropping tragedy in the midst of this and putting it up against a comedic buffoon archetype.
Marc:It's so weird because for me, when I see this stuff and when I ask myself about racism or who I am and what I am, I'm always approaching...
Marc:Like, you know, I'm self-involved, you know, and a lot of times I'm dismissive because of that.
Marc:You know, I'm a little bit anxious, but I always, I'm always, I feel like I'm respectful and I don't really, you know, acknowledge, I don't see any difference, but I do acknowledge ethnic differences, but not in a negative way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:In almost a sort of, like, a respectful way.
Marc:Like, because I have found that, like, in my upbringing, you know, outside of just being a Jew and whatever that means,
Marc:I envy community.
Marc:I envy definition of personality.
Marc:I envy, you know, this sort of like, you know, ability to sort of know who you are and where you stand.
Marc:And I respect it.
Marc:And a lot of times, like there are moments that I have where it's sort of like when I watch like a black comedy show, I'm like, this is exactly what it is.
Marc:And it's great.
Marc:And it's understood immediately by a lot of people in this community.
Marc:There's a whole rhythm and there's a whole process and there's a whole context to how this community engages with this.
Marc:And I don't see it.
Marc:I see we're so self-conscious.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:white people, which is sort of what you're executing here, that there's this self-consciousness that we think is sort of respectful.
Guest:You know, like, I don't want to... Yeah, the self-consciousness is being placed in the wrong place.
Guest:A little bit, because it's more about us.
Guest:Yeah, because it should just be about... We should be self-conscious about not how we think and what we say, but we should be self-conscious about our actions.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm really talking about employment here.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm talking about legislation for protection here.
Guest:And us...
Guest:going out of our way to try and help with that, with the black community, with the Latino community, the LGBTQ community, the female community.
Guest:As opposed to just saying, this is awful.
Guest:If Trump wins, I'm leaving the country.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or how many white guys have you talked to?
Guest:I mean, it's less so now, but back in the day when we were like, oh my God, Trump's hilarious.
Guest:It's like, well, maybe you should talk to a Mexican or a Middle Eastern person because it's actually dangerous for them because most of the killings that happen in this country are done by white guys.
Guest:So you have uneducated white guys like...
Guest:hearing these things from him, it might justify them to go and fucking kill someone.
Guest:So that's what I'm talking about here.
Guest:I'm not talking about erasing culture and all of us, you know, just being one thing.
Marc:When you approach black actors with something like this, how do they respond to it?
Guest:um you know they they got it uh they got what i was which i i mean some of them asked why did you write this yeah and i was like because this you know i this issue means a lot to me it's one of the issues that mean a lot to me yeah uh and it upsets me and um was there any collaboration around like you know i don't think you got this right no no
Guest:No, we took a long time to write it and really scrutinized over it.
Guest:And we were just like, you know, some of this is not funny.
Guest:We don't think it's funny.
Guest:And we actually don't think... It really is like a bit of a prank.
Guest:It's a tragedy masquerading as a comedy.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so they really got... I mean, Joe...
Guest:And was, you know, said, yeah, this is like when the Richard Pryor special when he brought out a gun and was saying he was going to kill all the white people in the audience.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was like, whoa, that's exactly right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, that aggressive, violent, bloody.
Marc:Blood and gut satire.
Marc:I mean, there's a tradition to it.
Marc:That kind of menace has been engaged in brutal satire before, and it's good to see, actually.
Marc:Oh, thanks.
Marc:I would like to read some black criticism of it.
Marc:And by criticism, I mean intellectual assessment of it, not that sucks.
Marc:I'd like to hear a critical analysis.
Guest:I would like to see... You know, I've shown... I've shown...
Guest:I've shown friends of mine the special, and they've all liked it, but they know me, and they know what my intentions are.
Guest:So it's like, as you know, you're not putting your intention.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, when I called Lance Reddick to do it.
Marc:I don't think it can be misunderstood.
Marc:I don't think it can be misunderstood as exploitational or racist.
Marc:I don't think it can be misunderstood.
Yeah.
Guest:If somebody goes, I think I was offended, that's racist, I can't really argue with that because I'm not experiencing what they experience every day.
Marc:I think you should do some follow-up.
Marc:I would like to.
Marc:If you and Jason get any of that type of feedback, you should have a discussion.
Guest:I will engage with the discussion.
Guest:I mean, you know, I would love to engage.
Guest:What I hope, though, is that no one of color is offended or feels and sees that I'm saying that I'm really talking about the white liberal problem here.
Marc:We'll see, Brett.
Marc:We'll see.
Guest:We'll see.
Guest:Yeah, I mean...
Guest:And that's the thing, too.
Guest:It's not just with this special.
Guest:It's not just with this premiere screening.
Guest:I really do want to make the experience of my work and the collaboration of my work, whatever I do, as inclusive as possible.
Guest:And so that's really opened the door to that consciousness in my mind.
Marc:Well, good.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:I'm glad you're evolving.
Marc:And it took a lot of blood and guts and weirdness to do that.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:You know, you got to evolve, right?
Guest:I think consciousness is important.
Guest:And really, I think a big step is self-forgiveness.
Guest:Just moving on.
Guest:Like, if you say something racist and you don't mean to, and somebody goes, you're racist, or that was racist.
Marc:Yeah, take the hit and think about it.
Guest:Just be like, yeah, you know what?
Guest:I fucked up.
Guest:I mean, I fuck up.
Marc:No, I believe that's true.
Guest:I'm conditioned to, I fuck up every day.
Guest:I probably fucked up.
Guest:I'm sure you could point out like fucked up things I said in this.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Well, tolerance and sensitivity, there's a learning curve to it.
Marc:Cause like you said, not unlike the system, shit is ingrained and we, you know, we have to be afforded the, uh, the, the, the sort of room to evolve.
Guest:Yeah, it's not about guilt.
Marc:Guilt is a fucking waste of time.
Marc:Guilt or blame.
Marc:But if somebody says, look, yeah, you know what?
Marc:I didn't think about it that way.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:It's about empathy, and I will make that mistake again, and I'll do a little self-searching.
Guest:Right, you step on somebody's foot.
Guest:They go, you stepped on my foot.
Guest:You don't go, no, I didn't.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:You go, I'm sorry.
Guest:I'll try not to step on your foot next time.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's pretty simple.
Marc:Or depending on what kind of person you go, you say, like, yeah, well, I got these big, dumb feet, and, you know, it happens a lot, and there's really nothing I can do about it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Sorry.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's my bad, but, you know, I'm kind of... Just going to keep stepping on feet.
Marc:Yeah, because, you know, it's a system.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, guilt's a waste of time.
Guest:You know, it's a complete waste of time.
Marc:Not unless you enjoy it, you know.
Marc:Unless it's, you know, your home base.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Guest:That's a deeper problem.
Guest:Yeah, that's a very Jewish problem.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Keep trying to do the right thing, Brett.
Guest:I'll try.
Guest:You too, Mark.
Guest:I'm trying.
Marc:Brett Gellman, the lovely and talented and a true artist, Mr. Gellman is.
Marc:And he has done something with Jason Woliner that is pretty intense, pretty crazy.
Marc:You can watch it on July 1st at midnight, Brett Gellman's Dinner in America.
Marc:Also, speaking of television, as I've alerted you before, those of you who are in the Academy of Television and are voters for Emmys...
Marc:I have a show on IFC that either you know about or you don't.
Marc:I also have a special on Epix that you can also see on Hulu and you can see on Amazon Prime called More Later.
Marc:And I am telling you because today is the last day you can vote.
Marc:So if I'm reminding you to vote for Emmys, go do it.
Marc:Obviously, vote for whatever you're going to vote for.
Marc:But today is the last day.
Marc:But I'd like you to vote for my show and I'd like you to vote for my special.
Marc:So I'm doing my due diligence here to raise awareness.
Marc:because my network did not.
Marc:So there's that.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:Are we good?
Marc:John C. Reilly.
Marc:I was very excited to have Mr. Reilly here.
Marc:I'm a very big fan of John C. Reilly.
Marc:I think he's one of the great actors.
Marc:I always enjoy seeing him.
Marc:I have for what feels like most of my life.
Marc:So when I finally got him in here, I was thrilled.
Marc:As you'll find listening...
Marc:... ... ... ... ... ...
Marc:So I feel like I know you.
Marc:I apologize if I came at you with too much familiarity in my driveway.
Marc:No, that's okay.
Marc:There's just a moment where you seem familiar to me.
Guest:That's a story of my life, Mark.
Guest:Is it really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I have no idea, really.
Marc:That happens a lot to you?
Guest:Yeah, people feel like they know me because they've, whatever, spent time with me in their privacy of their homes.
Marc:Yeah, but I think it also speaks to a consistency.
Marc:Even in the varying characters, there's some core to you that seems like... Oh, no, every character I do is totally different and unique.
Marc:It's a genius creation each time.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:I do think that's true.
Marc:But the core, the core of you...
Marc:It's there, isn't it?
Marc:I wish I knew what the core of me was.
Marc:Maybe I don't wish I know it.
Marc:Maybe that's your genius.
Marc:Maybe that's it.
Marc:So we talked about in walking up here that I met you at that bowling party for Ron Lynch.
Marc:That would make sense.
Marc:Yeah, the great Ron Lynch.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:How do you know him?
Guest:Just from... Well, actually, I saw him first at this thing called the Uncabaret many years ago.
Guest:Right.
Guest:All kinds of famous stand-up comedians started.
Guest:Kathy Griffin, Taylor Negron...
Guest:Dana.
Guest:Dana Gould.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:All the usual suspects.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you used to go over there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I forgot how I know Beth, but yeah, Beth and Greg started that, and I just started to go just because it was fun.
Marc:And when I saw you at that bowling party, I can't remember how long ago it was, but I feel like it was around here.
Marc:No, maybe it wasn't around here because there's a bowling alley down there.
Marc:But that's where you met Tim and Eric at that thing?
Guest:Yeah, Ron invited me to his birthday party at this bowling alley.
Guest:It was on...
Guest:I feel like it was that one that was on Santa Monica that's closed now.
Guest:That's a high school there now, I think.
Guest:But I think I met them there and they asked me to be on Tom Goes to the Mayor.
Guest:And then we kind of hit it off from there.
Guest:And you just said you're about to start production for New Bruels.
Guest:Check it out.
Guest:No, I'm just an executive producer on the Check It Out show, but we're about to release the next season of Check It Out with Dr. Steve Brühl.
Guest:June 17th.
Guest:So it doesn't have any... You're just a producer.
Guest:I'm an executive producer, yes.
Guest:One of three.
Marc:Who are the other, Tim and Eric?
Marc:Tim and Eric, that's right.
Marc:But what about, so you don't associate yourself with Dr. Brule as a character?
Marc:He's a separate fella?
Guest:He is, I find it's best to let people have that man as their own.
Guest:yeah and if they choose to take his advice then so be it i i enjoy him he's uh disturbing and funny and uh and uh uh knowledgeable yeah this depends on the type of knowledge you're after but i guess so what you know the guy right
Guest:I've met him.
Guest:I have met him.
Guest:I get very disciplined about the things I'm talking about, or else every interview becomes some type of retrospective, which I find boring.
Guest:Do you really?
Guest:Yeah, I don't especially like talking about myself, and I definitely don't like talking about the past in terms of my own work or whatever.
Guest:I like telling stories from my childhood and stuff, but...
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't know about a retrospective, but I'm sort of curious about, because I've talked to people of, I guess we're about the same age of our generation recently, like actors like Rockwell and Ethan Hawke, and sometimes people can talk about acting, sometimes people can't.
Marc:You know, and it's it's sort of interesting to me that either you have, you know, something you do and it's built up, you know, it's grown over time or you just a natural at it.
Marc:I mean, where did you start doing it?
Guest:I started doing it when I was about eight years old at the park near my house.
Guest:There was a thing called drama class.
Guest:Where was this?
Guest:In Chicago, in the south side of Chicago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In a park called Marquette Park.
Guest:And I used to go over there.
Guest:I've had a crazy friend that I met in school, and he was like...
Guest:My aunt teaches drama class at the park.
Guest:You should come with.
Guest:We call it drama.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Literally had never heard the word before, I guess.
Guest:But... It's kind of a... Maybe that's with a Chicago accent.
Guest:Maybe.
Guest:And so he said, come by.
Guest:And I didn't know what the hell it was.
Guest:And so I went and...
Guest:Had a great time and then we started, I did lots and lots of musicals basically there and all different high schools and community theater.
Guest:When you were like 8 and 10, 8 to 10, 12 years old, how old?
Guest:I started going to drama class when I was 8 and then I just never stopped.
Guest:Yeah, and mostly musicals?
Guest:Well, on the south side of Chicago, that's all they want to do is musicals.
Guest:There's no Ibsen being done at the community theater.
Guest:Maybe it's changed, but when I was a kid, it was all... Maybe a little Arthur Miller, no Arthur Miller?
Guest:Nah.
Guest:Brigadoon, Hello Dolly, Jesus Christ Superstar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you're like a Chicago kid, working class kind of deal?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My father had an industrial linen supply company, and my mother was, for the most part, was a housewife, but then worked as a lunch lady for many years because she was just bored sitting at home.
Guest:So she wanted to go work at the school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could never understand it.
Guest:I tried for a long time to get her to stop doing it, and she was like, what the hell am I going to do with myself sitting here when you're all at school?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was a lunch lady at your school?
Guest:No, at another Chicago public school.
Guest:How many brothers and sisters you got?
Guest:I have five brothers and sisters.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's a lot.
Guest:You know them all pretty well?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:I know them all very well.
Guest:The Catholic family?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, we were Catholic.
Marc:I like Chicago.
Marc:Chicago, I didn't know it, and now I go there.
Marc:I was so New York-oriented, but once you really experience Chicago, it's its own deal.
Guest:Don't act so surprised like every condescending New Yorker that Chicago is its own deal.
Guest:Well, I grew up in New Mexico.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Chicago's actually really interesting.
Guest:Whoa, you got a real city here.
Marc:Well, it's just like you have to spend time there, though.
Marc:No, it's okay.
Guest:I can take it.
Guest:I'm acting like a typical Chicagoan, which is all defensive with a chip on their shoulder and competitive with New York.
Marc:Yeah, but I go there more than New York now.
Marc:I mean, I like going to Chicago to spend time there.
Marc:It's a great town.
Marc:Do you know Joe Swanberg?
Marc:Yeah, I do.
Marc:Yeah, he's a great guy.
Marc:I was there.
Marc:I did a thing with him, and he's a sweet guy, and he showed me around, took me some places.
Marc:You have to really have somebody take you around so you can really take it in.
Guest:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:But when I go back now, if I were to take you like, okay, Mark, I'm going to take you to my Chicago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel like I'm traveling like a ghost.
Guest:It's like a Christmas carol.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you realize that expression, you can't go home, you really can't go home.
Guest:It's not there anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those people that define the place are not there anymore and-
Guest:So there's sort of this, I don't know, I have this skeletal feeling when I go there.
Guest:It's still a fantastic city, but it's not the city that I grew up in.
Marc:Is it because of gentrification or just the shifting of the name?
Guest:Just time because of the sands of time.
Guest:Oh, like different stores and shit?
Guest:Yeah, things change.
Guest:And, you know, like when I was growing up, Mayor Daley, the first Mayor Daley was mayor for 30 years or something.
Guest:And everything, every public work in the city was painted Kelly green.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Either like a mint green or Kelly green.
Guest:And anything that was metal was painted Kelly green.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad used to say it was because, you know, Daly was Irish.
Guest:And my dad was part of that whole kind of Irish democratic machine situation on the south side there.
Guest:All his friends were all, you know, these sort of ex-football player crony guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jan Jan, get over here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I grew up very well protected by racists, basically.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You were in Hoffa, weren't you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Shot in Chicago.
Guest:Right, exactly.
Guest:That was like a Chicago story.
Guest:Not only shot in Chicago.
Guest:I was more of a Detroit.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Hoffa was a Michigan guy.
Guest:Michigan guy.
Guest:I don't know why I made the assumption.
Guest:Just a union in Chicago.
Guest:Yeah, a lot of stuff went down.
Guest:A lot of labor strikes and stuff happened in Chicago.
Guest:Did that feel like the guys your dad hung around with?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is he still around?
Guest:No, both my parents are dead.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Marc:Did your siblings stay in Chicago?
Guest:Kind of, although we all kind of drifted away from that original neighborhood where I grew up.
Guest:I had 35 first cousins within a 10-block area of where I live.
Guest:So I would go out.
Guest:I remember I would leave.
Guest:I wore the same thing every day for like, I don't know, most of my life, unless I had to wear something nice for school or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was Converse All-Star High Tops.
Guest:JCPenney, plain pocket jeans, and a white t-shirt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's what I wore until the shoes wore out, until the pants wore out.
Guest:Just get the same thing over and over.
Marc:Your choice or your mom's choice?
Marc:That was my choice, yeah.
Marc:It's consistent.
Marc:It's like Einstein.
Guest:And then I'd leave the house about 8 o'clock in the morning, go wake up my cousin, and we'd just bum around all day and stop at different relatives' houses throughout the day if you got hungry or thirsty or whatever.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:In some ways, it was like a really idyllic kind of life.
Marc:When did your interest in... Like, did you do... Because I know Second City was there.
Marc:Did you go to theater while you were doing it?
Marc:Was there an active interest that started where you were like, I think I want to do this?
Marc:Not until very late.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Again, because I didn't... I had no idea what it was really to be an actor as a job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, if I went to the movies, I never thought of the actors in movies...
Guest:as actors i just thought like that's gene hackman that's what he's like he's like popeye doyle i know they changed his name for the movie but that's what he's like that's what i did to you earlier yeah it's kind of like i do the same thing to actors i see people coming out of an elevator while i'm going in for a meeting right hey man how's it going oh fuck it's just i don't know that person never met him even now you do that yeah yeah totally you just get familiar with people and
Guest:Yeah, but so I did a lot of plays when I was a kid, and I went to drama school at this place called the Goodman School of Drama at DePaul University, which is now called the Theater School at DePaul University.
Guest:They changed the name.
Guest:Was that like a two-year or four-year thing?
Guest:four years yeah bachelor of fine arts and it was kind of a conservatory program where similar to like juilliard or one of those places where you just eat sleep and breathe theater but did you do like uh like uh swordsmanship and stuff and dance all of it all that stuff movement to music makeup i had a whole semester's makeup class i had to take yeah did you do any clown work
Guest:well it's interesting you mentioned clowns because I used to be a clown you did even before I went to acting school I was through my church group I was a clown and and I thought that might be what I went to do after I finished even after I went through acting school I thought I was really toying with the idea of going down to
Guest:florida there where they have barnum bailey yeah they have a clown college there and i almost did it and then at the last second someone said you know what they get in return right and i was like no like well you have to ride you have to be part of the circus for like three years for basically no pay you just they give you food and you get the shittiest compartment in the train and you have to travel for three years with the circus and i was like yeah
Guest:I don't think I'm going to go for that.
Guest:That's what paying your dues as a clown is.
Guest:But I now collect, and I think I might be saying this publicly for the first time, I collect clown paintings.
Guest:Oh, did you see?
Guest:I had one.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I saw.
Guest:I noticed.
Guest:How many you got?
Guest:I have about 75, 80, something like that.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Like amateur clown paintings?
Guest:Yeah, all amateur, although I have some that are more well done than others.
Marc:And you know what I'm going to ask you next?
Marc:What kind of clown was I?
Marc:No.
Marc:Do you have a John Wayne Gacy clown painting?
Guest:No.
Guest:Good.
Guest:See, I'm not into that.
Guest:I was, John Wayne Gacy was killing kids my age when he was killing kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I don't have much affection or kind of like, I don't have that.
Marc:No, morbid curiosity or horrible.
Guest:I know someone, a friend of mine or someone I haven't seen in a long time, but he was corresponding with him and he's all into it.
Guest:He ended up writing a book about serial killers, so I understood his interest, but.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To me, the whole thing that's happened with clowns is, yeah, exactly.
Guest:It's like cursed.
Guest:The thing that happened with clowns kind of in my lifetime is that some jerk decided clowns were scary.
Guest:I never understood that.
Guest:And turned it into this horror movie trope.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in fact, clowns are like priests.
Guest:People who are really committed to clowning who are good at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like a monastic kind of life where you really... It's like a vocation.
Guest:You're giving yourself over to this...
Guest:Higher calling where you're bringing joy to people and I don't know, it's a special kind of calling.
Marc:It's a very specific work too, really.
Marc:I mean, in a way, like the training for it.
Marc:I guess it could come natural, but it seems like the movement and the broad sort of nature of opening your heart in that way and choosing your face, that always fascinated me.
Guest:Well, if we're going to talk about clowns, I know a lot about it.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The whole thing about choosing your face is like it kind of comes to you in this, you know, through the process of training as a clown.
Guest:There's all these rules and stuff about – I won't get into the minutia of it, but there are specific rules about being a clown if you're going to really be a formal clown.
Guest:But when you discover your makeup, it's almost like this sort of inner journey that you make and you realize who you are and you design this makeup.
Guest:And then that's like sacred.
Guest:No one can do your makeup.
Guest:No one can take your look.
Guest:And what happens if someone does?
Guest:It's like- It's a clown crime.
Guest:It's a Shonda.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a Shonda and you have to live with that.
Guest:And there's some interesting famous instances of that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So if you become like a well-known clown and you make it into the Clown Museum or the Clown Hall of Fame, I think it's in St.
Guest:Louis, they put your makeup, your picture of your makeup on an egg, on a hollow egg, and then it's housed in the museum and then that's forever.
Guest:No one can do your makeup.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So, one of my favorite clowns is Emmett Kelly.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And Emmett Kelly is the famous tramp clown.
Guest:He's one of the only people in the whole history of clowning that invented a kind of clown.
Guest:The tramp.
Guest:Yeah, the tramp.
Guest:And the time he did it, he was actually a trapeze artist who got injured.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was kind of a sometime illustrator.
Guest:He'd do, like, drawing and stuff for money.
Guest:He's, like, the famous clown.
Guest:One of the big ones.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Emmett Kelly.
Guest:The one who looks all sad.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was silent.
Guest:He never spoke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Always depressed.
Guest:His character was called Weary Willie.
Guest:And so he was a trapeze artist in the circus and he got injured and he couldn't continue on the trapeze.
Guest:And they were like, well, kid, see you later.
Guest:And he's like, please, please don't send me home.
Guest:Please, I'll do anything.
Guest:I'm like, well, I think we need a clown.
Guest:You want to be a clown?
Guest:Like, do you have a character?
Guest:Oh, of course I do.
Guest:And he didn't have a character.
Guest:He had just been drawing this bum kind of character called Weary Willie.
Guest:And he was like, I'll just be Willie.
Guest:And so he started to do it.
Guest:And at the time, it was like the Great Depression was going on.
Guest:And when people saw this clown, it was an instant hit.
Guest:Because it made people feel like, well, I'm really struggling, but that guy's much worse off than me.
Guest:Or they could relate even.
Yeah.
Guest:That's how bad things were.
Guest:Someone, like, he had, like, a clothespin for a tie bar and, like, all these great little details of his costume.
Guest:Anyway, he became a world-famous clown and, like, the biggest star of the circus.
Guest:And then he sort of retired, and then his son, Emmett Kelly Jr., decided to continue doing the character.
Guest:Uh-oh.
Guest:But it's not legal.
Guest:It was a Shonda.
Ha, ha, ha.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Even his kid?
Guest:Yes, and they stopped speaking as a result of it.
Guest:Because of the face?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You can't take that guy's look.
Guest:So it was this big controversy.
Guest:Anyway, I hope they made peace in heaven.
Guest:I think they're both...
Guest:I know the dad is dead.
Guest:I think the younger son is dead now, too.
Marc:Have you ever done... Am I remembering right?
Marc:Did you do sort of a clownish character in Chicago?
Guest:Wasn't there sort of a broad kind of... I made it that.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah, because I wanted to... This whole thing of putting on the makeup beforehand, I was like, I want him to be kind of this tramp clown.
Guest:I kind of edged it that way.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then this woman was doing makeup for the movie...
Guest:people always think they can do clown makeup and then they put it on you and you look like terrifying.
Guest:So this woman started putting on these big black eyebrows on my, and I already have like a Cro-Magnon brow.
Guest:So like if you do anything to my eyebrows, it makes me look really scary.
Guest:So I saw what she was doing and I was like, hold off, hold off.
Guest:Let's just, let me go talk to the director for a second.
Guest:I think maybe I'm going to do this on camera.
Guest:And part of the reason it's the way it is is
Guest:In the movie?
Guest:In the movies because I didn't want the makeup artist to do it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I just did, and Rob's like, you know, the director's brilliant, brilliant.
Guest:I'll just watch you put the makeup on, and then it became part of the number.
Guest:Anyway, so yeah, I did do a clown character in that movie.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:And I still have...
Guest:The shoes that I wore, the oversized clown shoes that I wore.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you feel the effect?
Marc:It must be sort of powerful.
Marc:I mean, somebody who has as much respect for clowning and clowns as you do, to do that, to put makeup on, to look at yourself doing that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It must be kind of deep to the transformation.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's intense because you're wearing a mask, but everyone can still see your face.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that movie also was like going right back to my childhood.
Guest:It just took me right back to how it felt to be on stage doing a musical.
Marc:Yeah, so that was really the first musical you'd done since you were a kid.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, kind of, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's not that many opportunities to do musicals.
Guest:No, there should be more.
Guest:It's like one of the few things Americans have to call our own.
Guest:Well, how come you haven't done any Broadway musicals?
Guest:um haven't been busy you guys shoot movies it takes up a lot no there was a period of my life when i was really open to doing theater in new york yeah and then you know i have children and it became harder to move them right right i just figured you know what i'm gonna pull a dennehy and just hit it hard once my kids are in college you're gonna wait it out are they in college how old are they now
Guest:They're private citizens until they're old enough to tell you how old they are.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So you got a few years before you're going to hit it hard then?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A few years.
Guest:But I stayed involved in theater here.
Guest:But didn't you do True West?
Guest:Yeah, that was a long time ago.
Guest:Has it been a long time ago where you played both roles, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You switched them up.
Guest:I switched roles every three performances.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I miss that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You and me both, brother.
Marc:So did I, is this a true thing that you're doing?
Marc:Uh, you're playing all over Hardy.
Marc:Is that really happening?
Marc:I intend to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, so it's not at any stage where you're actually acting yet.
Guest:No, it's going to be, we're going to film.
Guest:It's a movie, you know, we're going to do and probably not till the fall.
Guest:Are you going to put on a little weight?
Guest:What are you going to do?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You'll have to see.
Guest:I don't let people behind the curtain, Mark.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:Ever?
Marc:Ever.
Guest:It's part of my clowning training.
Guest:You never let anyone see you talk as yourself when you're dressed as a clown.
Guest:But that's sort of a clown role, too.
Guest:That's going to be kind of fun.
Guest:Yeah, two of the greatest clowns ever.
Guest:In fact...
Guest:It's funny you should mention them, Mark, because look at my cufflinks.
Marc:Stan, is it Stan and Ollie?
Marc:Who's playing Stan?
Marc:Steve Coogan.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That'll be fun.
Guest:Jesus, that'll be a blast.
Guest:I wouldn't even be talking about this other than the fact that the producers have already announced it publicly.
Guest:So we're cool?
Guest:Yeah, we're cool.
Guest:Just between you and I and the 20 million people that listen to this podcast, I have to admit, I don't even understand the whole podcast thing.
Guest:I mean, good on you.
Guest:I'm happy for you.
Guest:But I honestly don't know where people get the time to listen to...
Marc:A podcast.
Marc:Well, I understand that.
Marc:I think most people do it when they exercise, when they drive.
Marc:Okay, I don't exercise.
Marc:Right, when they drive, when they commute.
Marc:I listen to either K-Day or news radio when I'm driving.
Marc:Right, yeah, I do NPR generally.
Marc:But I think people who have integrated into their life, it's like you used to listen to radio.
Marc:So they'll do it during their commute, during the exercise, on trips, on planes.
Marc:It's a little better than radio because you can download it like a song.
Guest:I like the Moth Radio Hour.
Guest:I like all those story kind of things.
Guest:Yeah, those are good.
Guest:Yeah, that's like a podcast.
Guest:They do that as a podcast.
Guest:You know, speaking of Laurel and Hardy, I'll tell you about Laurel and Hardy.
Guest:This is the way it worked with Laurel and Hardy.
Guest:Stan Laurel did almost all of the work.
Guest:He did all the writing.
Guest:He was like a workaholic.
Guest:He never stopped writing, never stopped coming up with bits.
Guest:He was very organized.
Guest:He was always the one sitting at a typewriter.
Guest:And Oliver Hardy might be sitting there giving opinions about stuff, but Stan was the one writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, writing.
Guest:And then...
Guest:And Stan's job was also on the set.
Guest:He would almost like direct stuff.
Guest:They had cameramen and directors, but it was all done very much in collaboration with Stan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oliver loved to eat, loved to drink, loved to gamble.
Guest:He was like an ace golfer.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He was like the best golfer in Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So all these guys like W.C.
Guest:Fields and John Wayne, all these famous people would always want to partner with Oliver Hardy because he would kick anyone's ass.
Guest:He was a savant at golf.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So he would go down to Tijuana.
Guest:He just loved traveling and spending money and just living large and enjoying life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he had this very important thing in their duo.
Guest:If Stan said, like, what about this?
Guest:What if I punch you in the nose?
Guest:Like...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:What else?
Guest:Oh, what if I just turned your ear and then I kicked you in the ass?
Guest:That'll go big.
Guest:That'll go big.
Guest:And it sounds like, well, Stan's doing all the work.
Guest:Oliver's just saying, yeah, that's a good idea.
Guest:But that is the secret to their success.
Guest:One guy who Stan trusted and they only trusted each other.
Guest:Everyone else almost didn't even exist in their lives.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I just find that whole idea of duos in general, even like singing duos, like I'm really into close harmony singers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is like, you know, the Everly brothers are classic close harmony act.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Leuven brothers before them, the Stanley brothers before them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And almost those, just those three duos, and I can name you four more, but those three duos, the Stanleys, the Leuvens, and the Everlys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One of them is...
Guest:touched by god right uh an angel on earth like seeing like the larger picture like this beautiful angelic spirit yeah the other one torn apart by the devil and drink and darkness and and just fighting and violence and breaking things and but when they get together on stage this incredibly beautiful thing happens
Guest:And that's all three of those.
Guest:I mean, how crazy is that?
Guest:They're all separated by many years and different musical styles.
Marc:What are the odds?
Marc:It must be that's what brings them together, that fight, that struggle, and then the beauty that happens in the moments of the song.
Guest:Must be that special chemistry that happens.
Guest:And it almost doesn't matter what their roles are as long as it comes together in that way when it needs to come together.
Guest:So when did you start acting professionally?
Guest:After I left college when I finished.
Guest:Did you go to New York?
Guest:Did you come here?
Guest:Uh, I stayed in Chicago and started working with the Steppenwolf Theater Company, which has its 40th anniversary this weekend.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You began there?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Who was in the crew then?
Guest:Um, well, I first, I did, I understudied things there.
Guest:And I did like a Shakespeare program for high schoolers just because I knew I just got to get in that building.
Guest:I got to start working there and they'll see.
Marc:Steppenwolf was the place.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, this is like Malkovich had just broken out of there.
Guest:Joan Allen.
Guest:Joan Allen, like all of them.
Guest:Sinise, yeah.
Guest:So I started working there.
Guest:I was lucky enough those guys took me under their wing and gave me jobs.
Guest:And then I got my first movie.
Guest:And then when I came back from my first movie, they cast me in a main stage production of The Grapes of Wrath with Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise.
Guest:So I owe a lot to Steppenwolf.
Guest:Yeah, he's good.
Guest:I haven't seen him lately in things, Terry Kinney.
Guest:I haven't seen him in anything lately either, but I'm sure he's doing stuff.
Marc:You know what he was really great in?
Marc:I saw him in Barry Child.
Marc:I saw Gary Sinise's Barry Child on Broadway.
Marc:That was great.
Guest:Yeah, I saw that in Chicago.
Marc:It's good, right?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:But he had this great weird part in The Firm, the Tom Cruise movie.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Remember?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he's just sitting outside with the sprinkler hitting him?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Oh, shit.
Marc:There's weird moments I remember about movies with certain actors.
Marc:When you were coming over...
Marc:I kept thinking there's one fucking line.
Marc:Like, because, like, we're almost, we're basically the same age.
Marc:So, like, you know, I saw your shit as it came out because you're a contemporary of mine in my head.
Marc:That one line in fucking Casualties of War where you go like, you want to be really good right now?
Marc:Beer.
Marc:I kind of want a beer.
Marc:Fucking that line.
Marc:That's the whole movie.
Marc:Do you know what I'm talking about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was my line.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was just sort of a beer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That guy was so dangerously dumb, that character.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:But it's just like that was so funny.
Guest:I thought you were going to say another one.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was thinking.
Guest:We're like Genghis Khan, man.
Guest:Or he starts to get these delusions of grandeur like, it doesn't matter what we do.
Guest:We're not bound by law.
Guest:We're like Genghis Khan.
Guest:We're just conquerors.
Marc:Yeah, but it all came to him after the intelligence already happened elsewhere.
Marc:He had to put it together.
Marc:But that beer line, it was so disturbingly American.
Guest:yeah in some fucked up way well that whole movie is really interesting it's like in some it's called casualties of war but it's really should be called the rape yeah yeah that's what it's really about yeah the central action of the movie is this abduction and the rape and murder of this of this girl and it was the a true story that's the that's the shot oh it was yeah so that was the first movie that was my first movie yes
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Only 69 to go, Mark.
Guest:Whoa.
Guest:No, I'm not going to do it to you.
Guest:I'm just going to pick randoms.
Marc:Are you all dressed up for, what did you do, Conan or something?
Guest:No, no, I just, I like to overdress as opposed to underdress.
Guest:We had a whole press junket thing for the lobster at the Four Seasons Hotel.
Marc:Oh, so one after the other?
Marc:Like just people on microphones?
Guest:Yeah, which is so funny, like...
Guest:Like, why did like eight track tapes become obsolete?
Guest:But this idea of coming into a room and talking for three minutes where you don't care what the question, you know, we don't, you don't care what my answer is.
Guest:I don't care what your questions are.
Guest:And no one's going to watch this.
Guest:Why is this?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Stupid thing of publicity junkets even exist.
Guest:Who watches that?
Guest:Who really watches this stuff?
Guest:That's what I want to know.
Marc:And they think this big net idea is the way to go.
Marc:So you do a million things for content providers that have 10,000 unique hits that you don't even know what the fuck it is.
Guest:Well, that I could understand.
Guest:The internet, the reach of the internet.
Guest:But it's the TV ones where they come in like, we're just going to... I don't know.
Guest:It's just the questions are so mundane and like...
Guest:nothing's ever said nothing's interesting there's i feel like i'm just totally boring like even people that are into my acting or interested in me would find this totally boring right right why isn't there a more interesting way to promote movies like i think we're doing it ah
Marc:Podcasts.
Marc:I knew it.
Marc:It's just like talking.
Marc:Because not everybody gets a sense of who you are.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:And that's the way I like it, Mark.
Marc:I'm sure it is.
Marc:I think that actors have a certain responsibility to protect their insides.
Guest:Well, it's not even that.
Guest:It's like I don't even know what's in there to tell you the truth.
Guest:I don't do a lot of self-analysis.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:I don't like to think about that stuff.
Guest:I like to just keep moving forward and try not to make mistakes or repeat mistakes, but keep moving.
Guest:But do you experience... The reason I like to protect my privacy is because my job is to trick you into thinking I'm someone that I'm not.
Guest:So if you know who I really am, and you know what my likes and dislikes are, and you know what my opinion is politically or this or that, then if I have to play something that's contrary to that, you're like, oh, well.
Guest:That's not really him.
Guest:It's bullshit.
Guest:And then your career is over.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really.
Guest:I think that's the secret to a long career as an actor is staying mysterious.
Guest:And in this day and age, when everything is about, I want it now.
Guest:It's not here fast enough.
Guest:I can get whatever I want instantly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The thing that you can't get becomes the thing people find attractive, I think.
Guest:I think that's true.
Marc:Within reason.
Marc:Yeah, I think that's true.
Marc:But if you're not into self-examination, do you experience some sort of catharsis with certain roles?
Marc:Like emotional lives that you're kind of like, oh, my God.
Guest:Well, that's not really self-analysis, though.
Guest:It's more just like putting yourself in someone else's shoes.
Guest:And then you realize like, oh, God, this is feeling really...
Guest:like oh my god this was about my relationship with my dad was like like but you just kind of you feel that though yeah you feel like things touch nerves like right well why did i just start crying right away when i said those words like and you realize like all the stuff buried in there but
Guest:And you just use it as opposed to poke around in there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't need to know it.
Guest:You don't need to know it.
Guest:Just enjoy the movie.
Marc:Yeah, but it's nice that you can tap into it, that you have this emotional life that remains relatively unexamined, but it'll surprise you when you start doing it well.
Guest:Well, that's why I'm an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not just convenient that I have that tool.
Guest:It's the reason I'm an actor is that I have this stuff.
Guest:I'm able to access things or access feelings, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when when you prepare for something, we can talk about acting in a broad way, because like I kind of find it fascinating when people can talk about it.
Marc:If it's something you can talk about.
Marc:I mean, what do you do to like prepare for for what would you consider the most challenging role you've had, really?
Marc:As an actor.
Guest:Well, the most challenging ones are the ones I feel like were failures.
Guest:Really?
Guest:So those are the ones that when you say challenging, that's the way I think back like, oh, I tried to do that and it didn't quite work.
Guest:What?
Guest:Like which one?
Guest:Who wants to talk about that?
Guest:Not me.
Guest:But in terms of preparation, the...
Guest:Yeah, you want to talk about your greatest failures?
Guest:Well, how about the one that you thought was a victory?
Guest:I mean, that you really... What I was going to say was about preparation was you asked me, what do you do to prepare?
Guest:And the truth is, like, every single one is totally different.
Guest:Every... Like, I think from the outside it looks like there's a way to make a movie and there's this... And even people, sometimes crew people, like...
Guest:assistant directors and stuff think there's this way that you do it yeah you you we'd say this and then you come here and you're you have to be here you know like the truth is the whole thing is a custom job every single time even if you work with the same director or the same actor like you got to find what where are we at today you know what how are we gonna convey this today in this world that it is the way it is like
Guest:So my preparation is specific to what I don't know for each job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So if I have to play like a school teacher who knows about geography and I actually don't know anything about geography, I learn as much as I have to in order to feel like I am...
Guest:like authorized to play that part right like i can i can do geography a bit like i can be convincing yeah or i can do a geography enough i can do as much geography as i would have to do in that scene right i would know what i'm right i get it so you look at this long line fishing or or being a policeman or you know like i'm not one of these people that
Guest:And I don't fault people because I know some great actors that work this way, people that completely submerge themselves into this world off camera and you can call them by their character's name and they're always in character or they just do so much research that it takes up months of their lives and they're just committed.
Guest:I think there's been some great performances by that technique.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:I'm just not that way.
Guest:I'm more lazy or something.
Guest:I'm more energy.
Guest:I conserve my energy more.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, also, like you said, you have a gift for accessing emotions, and if you can do that without exhausting yourself in that way.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I think...
Guest:Like I said, each one's a custom job.
Marc:Okay, well, let's just talk like one that everybody knows, like Boogie Nights.
Marc:You were younger, but it was a big movie, and you're playing a porn guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he's a pretty fun guy.
Marc:He's a fun and a nice guy in a way.
Marc:So how did you sort of set yourself up for that?
Guest:Well, that was like... The movies with Paul Anderson are kind of a breed apart because Paul and I, at the time that we made those movies, were very, very close and almost like collaborating in this way that I didn't really collaborate with anyone before and rarely since.
Guest:How was that?
Guest:Where...
Guest:He's almost like writing stuff for me or letting me improvise in a way that he knows is exactly right for the character.
Guest:And we visited some porn sets on that movie.
Guest:I didn't do any porn because I was married at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I felt like I met enough porn people and absorbed enough to know, like, okay, this is what it feels like to be on a porn set.
Guest:This is the psychology of a porn star at this time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It demystified it a bit.
Guest:Yeah, or it just makes you feel like empathy for the person you're going to play.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But, you know, a lot of times people, like,
Guest:Like, say it's a Civil War movie.
Guest:Someone goes through basic training and lives on a battlefield for six months in order to know what it's like to be a Civil War soldier.
Guest:Like, well, yes, but you're only doing this one scene where you're in a triage tent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just need to know about that part of the Civil War, not the entire Civil War experience.
Guest:But again, like I said, with a lot of actors, that's really good.
Guest:God love them.
Guest:Some great performances come out of that kind of acting.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:I'm just a little more instinctual in general about things.
Guest:I think of it as meditating about the character all the time when I'm working.
Guest:That's why I find it really hard not to...
Guest:to do more than one project.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm really a one-track mind where even if I'm doing something, I'm constantly thinking about it or kind of ruminating about it.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:So at the time you did Heart 8 and Boogie Nights and Magnolia, you guys were tight, so you had sort of a symbiotic, personal... He understood you emotionally.
Marc:He understood what your limits were, and you had that dynamic going.
Guest:Yeah, definitely.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then other directors, you know, like some people, you just don't know them at all, and they don't know you, and they just expect you to come in like special forces and get it done, you know?
Guest:But you can do that, right?
Guest:Yeah, so with character actors, that's what you often have to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's not that it's easy, but it's a lot easier to be a leading character in a movie than it is to be a supporting character.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, because when you're a leading character, you start work...
Guest:you start to chip away at that character you start to make decisions get used to the crew get used to the director you might have a crappy first day but you make it up the next day and you start to build this then all the decisions that you've made start to create the character for you and then by the end of the shooting schedule you're like all right well i just have to stay honest to what i've done all this time right and
Guest:You come in as a cameo or a supporting actor, a character actor, whatever you want to call it.
Guest:You have to be hitting the beach, running full speed, knowing what you're doing.
Guest:You only get those, you know, you might come in for three days and then seven days, two months later or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you've got to deliver.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all eyes are on it.
Guest:You don't know anybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you're just trying to make it work.
Guest:And that's a high pressure gig in a way.
Guest:And it's much harder than slowly building something over the course.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That makes sense.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just as much character development as it is for a leading part, except you only have this tiny window to get it done in.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You better be fully formed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like something like Cyrus or Good Girl or even, I guess, in Magnolia where you really got to dig in, you sort of let that thing grow.
Marc:Like Cyrus, you must have lived with that guy.
Marc:For a while.
Guest:Osiris was entirely improvised.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:There was a script, but we didn't do any of the dialogue of the script.
Guest:You liked that?
Guest:I didn't like it on that movie, to be honest, because I think the movie's very good, and I'm proud of my performance in it, but the day-to-day of it was very difficult, because...
Guest:you know if there was no script yeah there was nothing written and it was just every day you'd show up like all right we're gonna you guys go in the room just start talking to each other to me that's improv improv i'm not intimidated by that at all right like i that's my bread and butter you love that we got nothing
Guest:let's go yeah you know but when you go in and there's all these words already written and you know the directors are kind of like hoping things are going to head in that direction right okay wait how do i get it to head in this direction and but don't say these words yeah i don't know like i get what you mean like they they know what they want but they're not going to really tell you they're going to let you bungle through it and
Guest:They just kept saying, go with your instinct.
Guest:Go with your instinct.
Guest:My instinct is to tell the fucking story you want to tell.
Guest:You're the directors.
Guest:What do you want to do?
Guest:They were like, we're not saying.
Guest:We're not saying.
Guest:And it drove me really crazy.
Guest:And I'm sure I wasn't the most pleasant person to deal with as a result.
Guest:But Jonah and I got along really well.
Guest:He's a good guy.
Guest:And we did really well together on that movie.
Guest:And the movie ended up being great.
Guest:And what I didn't, like foolishly, what I didn't understand with the way the Duplass brothers work was the script writing is a third of the job.
Guest:The shooting of the movie is the third of the job.
Guest:And then the real storytelling is the final third in the editing room where they look at what they have and they make a story.
Guest:I didn't quite get that that's what was going to happen.
Guest:I just kept feeling like I'd come home from a day at work there and feel like, oh my gosh, we really...
Guest:didn't we caught lightning in a bottle that day like holy crap and then other days i'd be like that was a waste of 12 hours that was an embarrassing waste of 12 hours you know and then they would do like a day like that they would just take and cut it and and put music over it and make it this montage instead of the scene that was written which was brilliant you know it's like the movie ends up really hanging together for that reason but
Guest:And then there's times with the type of improv.
Guest:People say improv, and they think it's just one thing, like make-em-ups or whatever.
Guest:But there's all different ways to improvise in movies.
Guest:One way is the way Will Ferrell and I work together, where we improvise constantly when we're coming up with the ideas for the script or writing the dialogue for the script.
Marc:On Talladega and Step Brothers?
Guest:I wasn't involved in the writing of Talladega before.
Guest:but we improvised a ton on set.
Guest:On Step Brothers, we broke out the story together, and I told them tons and tons of stories from my life, and we just made each other laugh and wrote down kind of what we were improvising in the room.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then when we go to shoot, we do the scripted version, which is already very funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know, as many times until we start to get bored with it.
Guest:And then Adam will be like, just go, just say something totally different.
Guest:Just do whatever you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you end up coming up with these really crazy chaotic ideas that often make the final cut of the movie.
Guest:But so you have this writing that's already very inspiring to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But to come in and like,
Guest:have a script that you're not that excited about and then the director go like, yeah, you know, just don't worry about those words.
Guest:Just kind of, you know, improv it.
Guest:You're like, yeah, but I'm not really, there's nothing feeding me on the page.
Guest:Why don't I just try to make this work, you know, instead of...
Guest:So, I don't know.
Guest:It's the crazy life of an actor.
Guest:It's like the first day of school over and over and over again.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Where you don't know anybody.
Guest:You don't know how anyone likes to work.
Guest:You're kind of just not trying to compromise your ideals, but do what people want you to do.
Guest:It's tricky.
Guest:You started to ask me earlier about Second City.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went to this kind of serious acting conservatory program at DePaul.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there was the option of doing Second City.
Guest:I'm from Chicago.
Guest:I knew a lot about it.
Guest:But I felt like, and I'll probably piss off a lot of your listeners who are into improv comedy, but...
Guest:I felt like a lot, and I think this is still true, a lot of improv comedy, like ImprovOlympic or whatever, these kind of improv companies, I think there's this slavish devotion to the laugh, right?
Guest:And if the back of your mind, while you're improvising, you're thinking, we've got to make this funny.
Guest:It's got to be funny.
Guest:I've got to think of something good here.
Guest:I've got to think of something funny.
Guest:Then you're just, it limits it to, it's still interesting.
Marc:Limits the depth sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, it's like 10% of what you can do there.
Guest:But if you really say 100% of the world's possibilities are on the table, really cool stuff happens in improv workshops.
Guest:Moving stuff, people cry.
Guest:crying yeah people getting upset people getting angry people attacking each other like all this crazy stuff can happen and so i felt like i want i want the whole experience i don't want to just be typecast as someone who's just funny or just you know i i i felt like it was like uh
Guest:Yeah, it was limiting, unnecessarily limiting.
Guest:And there's a lot of very talented people that work in that improv world that could be challenging themselves a lot more if they would let it get dark and let the audience just sit there and not be worried about whether people are being entertained all the time.
Marc:I think that's some of the beauty of a lot of what...
Marc:To get back to it in a vague way, what Tim and Eric do is that like, you know, obviously that's funny stuff, but it's profoundly disturbing and dark and deep and vulnerable and weird.
Marc:And they rarely go for the laugh, but the laugh finds itself.
Marc:If it even is that type of comedy, it feels like comedy, but it's a lot deeper than laughing.
Marc:yeah it's disturbing it's aversive yeah yeah yeah so like when you do it when you do like a movie like like uh gangs in new york where there's like a bit and even chicago i guess where there's costumes and it's like a big period piece and everything else i mean does the still being asked to improvise often oh really yeah with uh scorsese too
Guest:Well, yes.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:I mean, he's someone who just, like Paul Anderson, just really loves actors.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I feel like both of those guys are somewhat mystified by actors.
Guest:Like, how are they doing this?
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:And as an actor, you love that.
Guest:You love someone who's mystified by what you do.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So it really encourages you to go for it and go, watch what I do now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was, you know, like any good directors, if a good idea presents itself or something happens accidentally or you're inspired to say something that's not written down, then they immediately adopt it, you know?
Marc:Yeah, and you got to work with Altman before he died?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That must have been wild.
Guest:Yeah, that was probably the first time, you know, ever since I was a little kid...
Guest:To this day, it's very hard to find photographs of me where I'm not aware of the camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Even if I'm not looking right at the camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All my childhood pictures, I'm like, if there's like a group of kids, no one's looking.
Guest:I'm the one kid looking at the camera.
Guest:I'm always aware of the camera.
Guest:I'm always aware of like, okay, what's the move here or whatever, you know?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But on that one, there were so many cameras flying around.
Guest:It was really the first time I had no idea where it was, and it didn't matter.
Guest:Bob's like, just – he used to say, giggle and give in.
Guest:Just giggle and give in.
Guest:I was like, where's the camera?
Guest:It doesn't matter where the camera is.
Guest:Just stay in it and –
Guest:it's really liberating and very scary feeling yeah yeah because you're like what if what if you know what if i blow it for a second you know like yeah i'm picking my nose or what i don't realize it's um the camera's on me i'm just standing there dead-eyed you know like yeah but it keeps you on your toes when you when you're not sure
Marc:Also, when you do play comedy, when you do something like, what was it?
Marc:Walk hard.
Marc:Walk hard, which is great, but you've got to play that straight too, right?
Marc:You're not thinking about the laugh at all, right?
Guest:Yeah, you've got to play it straighter than straight.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And the commitment to that narrative and to the referring to yourself in third person a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was hilarious, dude.
Guest:That's the first sign of mental illness, they say, is referring to yourself in the third person.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:That's what somebody told me.
Guest:Bruno Kirby said that.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Bruno Kirby passed away.
Guest:God bless him.
Guest:You knew him?
Guest:That's the first.
Guest:Yeah, we did We're No Angels together.
Guest:Oh, right, right, right.
Guest:Oh, my God, that's right.
Marc:We had some mutual friends, too.
Marc:We're No Angels.
Marc:Was that De Niro in that, too?
Guest:Yeah, De Niro.
Marc:Sean Penn that was the monks yeah I love that movie that was my second movie yeah what a fun fucking movie that was it was a remake too right yes yeah that was great yeah that was very funny good for you you've been around a while you have been man she worked out alright
Guest:It's worked out.
Guest:That's why I don't do a lot of these kind of things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think you may have asked me to do this before.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:And I've resisted because I knew coming in here, I would say more than I want to say.
Guest:I'm just a chatty person.
Guest:I'll just start talking.
Guest:And like you say, it's going well so far.
Guest:Part of the reason I feel like it's going well so far is because I have these little rules about...
Guest:Don't talk about that.
Guest:Don't let people see you like that.
Guest:Because it's just good for business.
Guest:Mystery is good for business.
Marc:I don't get a sense.
Marc:I'm not at this point in our conversation, I'm not thinking, I got a handle on this guy.
Marc:I know where he's coming from.
Marc:Good, because it's all lies anyway.
Marc:You're still pretty mysterious to me.
Marc:I know you're just a guy with a life, but I like what's happening nonetheless.
Marc:I forgot you were in this movie too, the Kevin movie.
Marc:Jesus Christ.
Guest:we need to talk about that was a fucking heavy movie it was wow do you like heavy movie to make too yeah did you like working with tilda swinton she's sort of a gifted person she's one of those bodhisattvas total touched by the light sort of person like her kind of she has this expansive view of things yeah really kind of amazing just in when you just talk to her
Guest:Yeah, she just... I don't know.
Guest:You ever meet people where you're like, that person knows some of the secrets or something.
Marc:They know.
Guest:They're seeing the bigger picture in a way that I'm just not seeing it.
Guest:And I'm looking at 20% of the frame.
Guest:They're seeing the whole thing.
Guest:And I feel like Tilda's one of those people.
Guest:Meryl Streep is one of those people.
Guest:They're just...
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They're just something.
Guest:I don't really believe in reincarnation or whatever, but there is something.
Guest:There's a wisdom that those people had from the get-go.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's different than... I've learned a lot of stuff over time, but those people know something inherently.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she's just so... I mean, Tilda is so...
Guest:down-to-earth and funny and sexy and intelligent.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It must have been amazing.
Marc:You must have had that experience a lot to work with people that you think are great.
Guest:I've been really lucky.
Guest:I got really lucky on my first movie, that first movie, Casualties of War, that we started talking about.
Guest:That was a great first job to get because then I had, okay, well, I'm not going to go do like Chucky 3 after that.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I got to aim a little higher because the truth is I would have done anything at that point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just got lucky that I got cast in a movie with Sean Penn, who is a very high integrity and someone who's like a great, great actor who, you know, who showed me like, this is the way you do it.
Guest:This is what's important.
Guest:He showed you all that stuff's not important.
Guest:He showed me by the way he lives under his wing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was like, what are you what are you going to do next?
Guest:I got this movie.
Guest:We're no angels.
Guest:You know, you should think about auditioning for it.
Guest:I was like, well, I'm being offered this movie Memphis Belle, which is also a good movie.
Guest:But, you know, I'm thinking about doing that.
Guest:My agent says I should do that one.
Guest:And he's like, who?
Guest:Memphis Belle.
Guest:And he's like, no, no, who said you should do it?
Guest:My agent said I shouldn't.
Guest:He's like, that's the last person you should be asking for advice about what to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And to a 22-year-old person, that was a real shocker because getting an agent was a big thing to me.
Guest:I thought, I'm set.
Guest:That's what you do.
Guest:You talk to your agent and they figure it out.
Guest:And he was right.
Guest:That is the last person you should be asking for advice about whether you should do something.
Guest:Now, that person can really help you get the money you should be getting.
Guest:They can help you be treated the way you want to be treated once you get the job.
Guest:But in terms of which job, one over the other,
Guest:they are the last person you should be asking.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You really have to ask yourself and you have to ask people who are also artists that you respect.
Marc:Yeah, and you learned that right then.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was a good lesson to learn early on.
Guest:Yeah, I got lucky.
Marc:Yeah, and you did a lot of great stuff.
Marc:So when you say, like you're aware of the title of character actor, you know, and I find that those actors are usually the most interesting and the most memorable.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, it's really, it's an outdated term.
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:It's a studio term from the old days of studio.
Guest:You know, it's like, you know, the way they would kind of categorize you.
Guest:The truth is, like, I think Leo DiCaprio is a character actor.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:You know?
Yeah.
Guest:A lot of these guys that play leads in movies are character actors.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They're transformational actors.
Guest:I don't think Michael Caine's a character actor.
Guest:Michael Caine is an exceptionally talented actor who kind of plays the same close to what I imagine his personality is.
Marc:I know, but I thought that about you too.
Guest:But I think you're wrong.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I think, yeah, whatever.
Guest:I have similarities to Michael Caine in that how much I work and the kind of workhorse actor that I am or whatever.
Guest:But I don't think you go into, well, I hope you don't go into a movie that I'm in thinking like, I know what I'm getting here.
Guest:Classic Riley performance.
Marc:Well, that would just mean good.
Guest:I think character actors are people.
Guest:Yeah, a good performance.
Yeah.
Guest:that submerge their own personalities in service of the character.
Guest:And then there's other great, great actors who play some version of their personality over and over, and the character comes to them.
Guest:The movie comes to the way they are.
Marc:Who's an example of that?
Marc:Like George Clooney, maybe?
Guest:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:Harrison Ford, I think, is like that.
Guest:These guys are super, super talented, but they're lucky enough to have made a career where the character comes to them, the story comes to them, as opposed to them fitting themselves into something.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I think of myself as someone who fits into what's there.
Guest:Yeah, you make your... As opposed to, like, look, folks, this is the way John Reilly works.
Guest:John Reilly does not wear that color.
Guest:John Reilly likes a breakfast burrito at 814.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:I'm sad you didn't bring a guitar.
Marc:I thought maybe we'd sing.
Guest:I'm sad you don't.
Guest:You have a guitar.
Marc:I got plenty of guitars.
Marc:What do you like to play?
Marc:Blues?
Guest:Country.
Guest:I have a bluegrass, not bluegrass, it's more like folk Americana, although I hate that term.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because there's lots of things that are American, but we play old classic melodies from the tree of song.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Bluegrass, folk music, and country music primarily.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Me and a couple other people.
Guest:It's sometimes as many as eight people, oftentimes just three or four.
Guest:Oh, that sounds great.
Guest:Do a lot of close harmony singing.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That must be a nice thing.
Marc:I love to play.
Marc:I don't play with people a lot.
Marc:Sometimes I do, but I play a lot.
Marc:But it's so nice to be sitting with a group of people playing music.
Guest:And having that for me, it gives me something to do that I really believe in in between jobs.
Guest:So I don't take things because I want to work that are not good jobs to take.
Guest:Music does that for you.
Guest:Yeah, music keeps you doing things that you love to do as opposed to, I don't know, acting can be a really high burnout job if you take things that you don't believe in.
Guest:It hurts you.
Guest:Yeah, it takes away, chips away at your soul.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just, I don't know, you get lost.
Guest:You lose yourself.
Guest:It's that old Native American thing of like, they didn't like their picture taking because they're taking some part of yourself.
Guest:I think there is something to that.
Marc:Right, if it's the wrong cameraman or director.
Guest:Or even if it's the right one.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're slowly giving parts of yourself away, you know?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Just like this stupid interview we just did.
Marc:That's a fine way to end.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:No.
Marc:It was great talking to you.
Marc:Thank you.
Guest:Did you have a good time at least?
Guest:Yeah, I had a great time.
Guest:I almost wish it wasn't recorded.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And it wasn't going to be shared with millions of people that you and I just had this conversation.
Guest:But maybe people listening to it will have a virtual experience like we've just had.
Marc:Yeah, I hope so.
Marc:That would be nice.
Marc:And eventually they'll have the technology.
Marc:Thanks, John.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:How fun was that?
Marc:I love that guy.
Marc:John C. Reilly.
Marc:Go see The Lobster.
Marc:Check it out with Dr. Steve Bruhl on Adult Swim.
Marc:Go see any of his movies.
Marc:Any of the old ones.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:As always, go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:You can order a poster, get a t-shirt.
Marc:You can check my tour dates.
Marc:You can see the episode guide if you're wondering if somebody that you're a fan of has been on the show.
Marc:Am I going to play guitar?
Marc:That's the question.
Marc:Where am I at time-wise?
Marc:Huh.
Marc:Maybe I can.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives!