Episode 721 - Jeff Goldblum
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking East does?
Marc:What the fuck stirs?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Marin.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:WTF with me, Mark Marin.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:Happy 4th of July.
Marc:Keep it happy.
Marc:Don't lose any digits.
Marc:Don't get killed in some dumb way.
Marc:Don't drive all fucked up.
Marc:Keep alert for those others who are not heeding my advice or didn't necessarily hear it and they might not know not to drive all fucked up.
Marc:Try not to eat too much shit that you're going to feel horrible for for too long a time.
Marc:Don't set fire to anything.
Marc:Don't blow up any small animals.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Don't go down the slippery moral slope to like, do you think that thing will burn?
Marc:Can you catch it?
Marc:Don't do that.
Marc:Those days are behind you.
Marc:If you've got really fun fireworks, just be careful with the kids.
Marc:You're a grown-up.
Marc:Be a careless asshole if you want, but just not when kids are around.
Marc:If you want to shoot Roman candles at each other because you're all shit-faced, you're just getting excited because there's things blowing up and light and fire and sounds and it's so fun and you just want to just keep blowing shit up and it's awesome, do it.
Marc:But just do it as a grown-up.
Marc:Only be dangerous with grown-up friends.
Marc:If there are children around, limit the danger for them.
Marc:But, like, if you're just on your own and you don't have kids, knock yourself out.
Marc:But, again, don't die in some stupid way.
Marc:Years ago, I didn't realize that you could shoot Roman candles at each other.
Marc:It's not on the label.
Marc:It's not recommended.
Marc:I don't even think they're fucking legal in this country, to be honest with you.
Marc:But that doesn't stop anything from happening here.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Me and Nick Schwartzen at Zach Galvanakis' party about over a decade ago down in Venice just started fucking shooting Roman candles at each other, setting shit on fire, you know, in a controlled way.
Marc:I'm getting excited just thinking about it.
Marc:I haven't been to a party where there was massive amounts of fireworks.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I'm a 52-year-old man, and I'm not really prone to guns or explosions.
Marc:But, man, if you show up with a bag of shit that lights up and blows up and spins fire and sparks, I am fucking there with the lighter.
Marc:Happy Fourth of July.
Marc:Think about your freedoms today.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Meditate on that.
Marc:Think about what they really are.
Marc:Think about your life.
Marc:Really ponder the lie you're living out of necessity so you don't walk through the streets terrified and sad.
Marc:Oh, that's not... That got away from me.
Marc:So look...
Marc:Today, Jeff Goldblum is on the show.
Marc:It was a real thrill to talk to him because he's one of those guys, no matter how many movies he's been in or whether you really know all his movies, you know him.
Marc:He's just one of those people that's been familiar.
Marc:He's been there for all of us somehow for years.
Marc:You see him and you're like, there's Jeff Goldblum acting like Jeff Goldblum.
Marc:I wanted him to be Jeff Goldblum.
Marc:Like immediately.
Marc:And he delivered.
Marc:He showed up at my house.
Marc:He walked in.
Marc:He's like, oh, OK, this is it.
Marc:This is the house.
Marc:Where's the garage?
Marc:This is you'll hear it.
Marc:He Jeff Goldblum's the shit out of this episode.
Marc:So consistent, so beautiful, great guy, great actor and a creative person.
Marc:I enjoyed seeing him and having him around.
Marc:I wanted to be around him more.
Marc:I would have been fine if he moved in, but he's got a baby.
Marc:His baby turns one year old today on Independence Day and his movie Independence Day Resurgence is now in theaters.
Marc:It's out.
Marc:But today's a day.
Marc:And his kid, his kid is one year old today.
Marc:The Goldblum kid.
Marc:Happy birthday to him.
Marc:And we'll talk to Jeff in a little while.
Marc:My tour dates.
Marc:You know, I keep doing this because I think it's important that I do it because I'm not really, I'm not doing the Facebook thing, really.
Marc:I'm doing Twitter, but the Facebook thing, I don't, there's something suspect about the whole business.
Marc:Spokane.
Marc:Spokane.
Marc:This weekend, this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 7, 8, and 9.
Marc:Wise Guys in Salt Lake City, 14, 15, and 16 of July.
Marc:The Comedy Attic in Bloomington, the 28th, 29th, and 30th of July.
Marc:And then we take a little leap to August, August 18th and 19th and 20th at Stand Up Live in Phoenix.
Marc:I'll be in Albuquerque September 3rd for one night.
Marc:at the Albuquerque Journal Theater doing a benefit.
Marc:I'll be at the Comedy Club in Rochester September 9th and 10th.
Marc:And those are the dates that are up right now.
Marc:There will be more.
Marc:I'm doing club dates to get my shit straight.
Marc:to work it out and to engage with the people.
Marc:So I told you guys about that kitten.
Marc:Well, the kitten is being fed and sort of loved over at Sarah's house, and we're going to make the move over here, but we couldn't do it.
Marc:I couldn't take the kitten right in because I got two indoor cats.
Marc:I needed to prepare to integrate a kitten that it turns out is not feral, but very lovable, and I'm going to now tell you the new kitten's name.
Marc:I will be welcoming Buster into my home later today.
Marc:That's a Buster, the black cat.
Marc:All black cat.
Marc:Buster.
Marc:Buster, buddy.
Marc:Buster.
Marc:What's up, Buster?
Marc:It's good.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:He looks like a Buster.
Marc:Showed up on my stoop.
Marc:You know, vulnerable little cat out of nowhere.
Marc:No other kittens around.
Marc:This fucker just finds my goddamn porch.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So it was meant to be.
Marc:But I only got two rooms in my house.
Marc:The second bedroom.
Marc:There's a closet in there.
Marc:All my records in there.
Marc:And that means like all of that could be destroyed.
Marc:Kittens will destroy everything.
Marc:It's profound.
Marc:You don't know how it happens.
Marc:You've got this little cat, little tiny cat, not much bigger than your hand.
Marc:You close that door and you're like, okay, see you tomorrow, Buster.
Marc:See you tomorrow.
Marc:Maybe you hear some sounds and you're like, what's that?
Marc:What's going on?
Marc:The next morning you wake up, a thousand records are destroyed.
Marc:All of your shoes are fucked up.
Marc:The light fixture is dangling.
Marc:You know, there are things that you didn't know you had still that now you have to throw away.
Marc:Kittens will fuck shit up.
Marc:I know that from experience.
Marc:So I had to go down to Best Hardware.
Marc:Got to buy some plywood.
Marc:Got to get it cut.
Marc:So I made some makeshift protectors on my record shelves.
Marc:I had to create.
Marc:Dennis and I collaborated on the design of a door...
Marc:not stop, but blocker.
Marc:The bottom of my old door has a little too much space where the cat could get through.
Marc:So we created out of a two by four and a leftover piece of plywood, a little thing that you can block that hole with.
Marc:I measured it.
Marc:He cut the wood.
Marc:He fucking screwed it together and even threw a coat of spray paint on there.
Marc:So got that all set.
Marc:Now I got to get the doorknob fixed because it's missing a thing.
Marc:And then we're good to go.
Marc:Everything should be kitten proofed and Buster can move in.
Marc:So here we go.
Marc:Jeff Goldblum, Lake Bell had put me in touch with him.
Marc:I tried to get him on the show for a while.
Marc:We were sort of randomly texting each other here and there, and it finally happened, and I was very excited to talk to him.
Marc:I think I forgot to talk to him about music, though, but that's all right.
Marc:I saw him playing.
Marc:He's a very good piano player, but we had a beautiful conversation.
Marc:So why don't we just do that?
Marc:Why don't we just listen to me and Jeff Goldblum?
Marc:And again, be careful.
Marc:¶¶
Marc:You look great.
Marc:Do you think so?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:So do you.
Marc:You're one of those guys where I'm like, wow, he still looks great.
Marc:That's great that he looks so good.
Marc:Thank you, my friend.
Marc:Did I say that wrong?
Guest:Was that bad?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:That's only flattering.
Guest:No.
Guest:And that's still part.
Guest:I know what you're talking about.
Guest:That's just stating the facts.
Guest:I've just been... I could look a lot worse, yeah, given the chronology.
Guest:That's correct.
Guest:But you look at you.
Guest:You look like a 70s movie star.
Guest:You look like, you know, young Elliot Gould.
Guest:Oh, you know.
Guest:Elliot Gould.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Did you ever work with Elliot Gould?
Guest:You know, no and yes.
Guest:I mean, I appeared.
Guest:Our paths crossed, but we weren't in the same scenes together.
Guest:Oh, an Altman movie?
Guest:In a couple of Altman movies.
Guest:My first Altman movie, which was my, Jesus, second movie ever after Death Wish, was California Split.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Did you ever see that?
Guest:Yeah, that's kind of what he had kind of a, did he have a mustache?
Guest:A longer thing.
Guest:I think he had a longer thing.
Guest:thing and he didn't what did you do in that what did you oh you know i had two scenes where i'm george siegel's boss a kind of a wunderkind editor of this magazine yeah called california scene s-e-e-n right right right and he's you know screwing off and gambling that and i i have a scene where i'm kind of you were like king of the little scenes for a while there
Guest:yeah I was never king of anything but I was in a couple little scenes here so we were in that movie together and then he appeared as himself in Nashville right and I had a little scene or two in that you were the guy in the bike right on the tricycle big tricycle man on the big tricycle with the big goggles on
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Doing sleight of hand here and there.
Guest:Did you know how to do that?
Guest:I did not.
Guest:And Robert Altman in this script, you know, it had no magic for this character.
Guest:But he called me up and said I was living in New York then, West Village.
Guest:He said, you know, hey, do you know any sleight of hand?
Guest:I said, no.
Guest:He said, well, get together with a coach.
Guest:We'll find you, coach.
Guest:You're in New York and learn some.
Guest:Bring a bag full of them down to Nashville when you come down.
Guest:And maybe we'll put them in some scenes.
Guest:And I did.
Guest:When I got there, I showed him my tricks.
Guest:I worked with this guy, Cohen Norton.
Guest:And he said, okay, good.
Guest:I'm not sure where we'll put him, but bring him to the set every time you work and we'll figure it out.
Guest:And I put him in a bunch of scenes and a couple of them made it in.
Guest:And then I discarded all of them, but I kept practicing and I can still do my rope tricks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A series of, you know, here's the knot, there's the knot.
Guest:That does itself.
Guest:And that does itself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:Which I've snuck in a couple of other movies.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yes, I have.
Marc:But isn't it interesting because like somehow or another, he like in the context of that huge movie, hours long.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dozens of characters.
Marc:Your character, in my memory, reappears quite a bit.
Marc:I do.
Marc:You're just sort of this presence that sort of moves through different points in the movie.
Marc:But he was sitting up at night, and you were very specific.
Marc:You were on this giant tricycle.
Marc:You were this clown, almost, in a way.
Marc:Interesting.
Marc:With the big goggles.
Marc:No, not in a bad way.
Marc:There was a comedic presence to it.
Marc:And he just wakes up one night and goes, that guy needs to be doing tricks.
Guest:like it was a decision well you're you're right his interesting creative i mean i love the creative yeah you know inspiration anyway and he was a an exemplar of a guy who was mysteriously talented and imaginative and unique and self-trustful and uh went with his own ideas well
Guest:was it like being on one of those sets because you did a couple of his movies like was it like uh was everybody what did you did you know where the movie stopped and where real life sort of began or was everybody hanging out with each other and hanging out exactly that's what he like uh you know recently Wes Anderson who I think is a fan of his they they are they like to and Robert Altman like to make the shooting and
Guest:an art piece in itself and he called his production company sand castle uh films or something like that because he had a the the metaphor of what we're doing is really like we were making sandcastles right and and uh you do the moat this time and you do the bridge this time and you do the tower this time and just for the fun of it and of course the water will come in and take it all away but we had a reason to get together just to be together
Guest:And make something together just for the fun of it.
Guest:That was a looseness then, in a way.
Guest:Yes, there sure was a looseness.
Guest:But there was an intended communality and spirit.
Guest:And he would, for instance, show the dailies every night and invite everybody.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And it was a great, great, yeah.
Guest:Because he said, you know, that's the movie.
Guest:Once we pretty it up and cut it up, that's something else.
Guest:But this is our work.
Guest:We all did it equally.
Guest:Let's all look at our work.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It was delightful.
Guest:It was like almost a party.
Guest:It was a real party.
Guest:He was a kind of party guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But very creative.
Guest:And in Nashville, we all lived in the same complex.
Guest:So it was a real summer, you know, hoop-de-doo.
Marc:And Wes does that, too, because Wes, like stylistically, I would say, is almost the polar opposite.
Marc:Very meticulous.
Marc:It's like every frame is like a jewelry box.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's been said.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You ever read that?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Someone said that.
Guest:right yeah well you know michael chabon oh is he the one who said it the jewelry box well he makes a very yes he equates him with who's that guy now who does those boxes oh yeah an artist art boxes yeah i'm forgetting now but west but how controlled is that well it's controlled so we were taught so what got us into this yeah was that they both have the same spirit but some of their other elements are very different yes uh um altman was like
Guest:you know, a painter that just kind of made it up as he went along and the painting process produced the, the painting.
Guest:And what does it feel like?
Guest:What do I feel like doing now?
Guest:And then just kind of organic, very organically kind of reveals itself.
Guest:Uh, Wes has a, has drawings and he's written everything and he's drawn out and described the costumes.
Guest:I was exactly what, and, um,
Guest:And it's all that.
Guest:I could tell you, for instance, on Grand Budapest Hotel, I had a couple of big speeches.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm nothing if not conscientious.
Guest:And I practiced them.
Guest:And in one, I knew he was meticulous.
Guest:I'd done that, you know, life aquatic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, you know, I like a little this, the phrasing of this one sentence.
Guest:I'm going to change this.
Guest:I think it was an and to a but or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And and I practiced it and I did.
Guest:And I thought, oh, here's the way.
Guest:And then I got to the set and and we did it.
Guest:I didn't I didn't tell him.
Guest:Yeah, we did.
Guest:He said, yeah, very good.
Guest:OK, let's do it again.
Guest:Say, Jeff, did you?
Guest:I think you changed one thing.
Guest:Yes, I did.
Guest:Can I tell you why?
Guest:Because I've got it's not just Higgledy Piggledy.
Guest:Here's my reason.
Guest:Because I thought he said, uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Very interesting.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Okay, I think do it my way.
Guest:Do it my way, if you will.
Guest:Okay, I got you.
Guest:I will.
Guest:Like that.
Guest:So he's very, very meticulous.
Guest:But within that, he's somehow Altman-esque in his freedom.
Guest:Somehow an enjoyment of you and somehow collaborative encouragement.
Marc:But what's the experience as an actor when you're walking into a scene that is so meticulously...
Marc:Because you bring a certain amount, you're uniquely yourself.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:When you see you, or even if you hear your voice, you're like, that's just Jeff Goldblum.
Guest:Always, you're one of those guys.
Guest:I like to think that I'm able to catch.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And drop some of these.
Guest:But your intensity.
Marc:Stupid affectations.
Marc:The life frequency that is Goldblum-esque.
Marc:Well, okay.
Marc:Stay steady.
Marc:I accept it.
Marc:And so when you're working with, what is the thrill then?
Marc:Like there must be some excitement.
Marc:Like working with someone like Altman where they're just sort of like, all right, hang out, man.
Marc:Let's just hang out, which was a part of the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that was culture at that time.
Marc:But I imagine the excitement of working with someone like Wes is like, this is so organized that it's going to be spectacular.
Marc:Like, it's not all hinging on me.
Marc:It's part of it's hinging on that light.
Marc:Like, you know, like you're like in like.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You feel very well taken care of and you trust.
Guest:But of course Altman in another way so that you can kind of do anything and then he'll cut it up into something nice.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But Wes in another way you go wow everything is I'm given every help that I can be given what with my glasses and my very thought about hair and goatee and the light and the great cinematographer Bob Yeoman you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And where did you guys
Guest:We shot that kind of not unlike the experience in Nashville in 1973.
Guest:We shot it in Gurlitz, Germany.
Guest:He likes to go on these exotic adventures on Life Aquatic.
Guest:We were in Rome.
Guest:We shot at Cinecitta and then in Gore Vidal's villa in the south of Italy.
Guest:How did that happen?
Guest:Oh, you know, he knows many sophisticates, you know, in many different layers of.
Guest:No, I'd met him on another occasion because he's a relative of Burr's steers.
Guest:And I think they're all related to Aaron Burr.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Goes back.
Guest:Goes back.
Guest:I just saw that Hamilton musical.
Guest:I did, too.
Guest:Do you like it?
Guest:Yes, I did.
Guest:Did you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Very exciting.
Guest:Very exciting.
Guest:Did you talk to?
Guest:I went backstage.
Guest:He couldn't have been nicer to me.
Guest:Sweet guy.
Guest:Very, very sweet and wildly talented.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Are you a hip-hop person in general?
Marc:No, not really.
Marc:But no, we're a little older and it's not a matter of age, but you do have to listen.
Marc:That was the interesting thing about Hamilton.
Marc:If you don't grow up with hip hop or rap, where it's second nature to just take in the narrative, I really was like, all right, I got to lock in.
Guest:Listen, I know what you mean.
Guest:I like to, even in a movie, any kind of movie, no matter how slowly they're talking, I like to see the words.
Guest:I like to read along with it.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:It's not that I'm going deep for anything like that.
Guest:But I like to, well, I'm an actor, so I like to say, hey, I like to see it on the page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I like to see it.
Guest:I like to read it, God damn it.
Guest:Even if it's a new question.
Guest:Yeah, and at Hamilton, you really needed to.
Guest:You got to lock in.
Guest:Yeah, you got to lock in.
Guest:I could see it again now, and I could study the CD so I could really know exactly what they're talking about, not miss a word.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's like Shakespeare.
Guest:And then, and of course, learn a little bit more about history, too, to which they're referring.
Guest:How are you with Shakespeare?
Guest:Well, in what sense?
Guest:I did a little here and there.
Guest:My very first job was Two Gents, a musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona written by Galt McDermott, who did Hair.
Guest:When was this?
Guest:And John Guare, who adapted Shakespeare.
Marc:John Guare, who did the Atlantic City.
Guest:House of Blue Leaves.
Guest:Oh, Atlantic City with Susan Sarandon.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:Who was in that movie that I was just about to refer to with Burr Steers because he...
Guest:wrote and directed this movie called igby goes down yes so susan sarandon or sarandon yeah sarandon i think whichever she prefers well i've heard both i guess it's sarandon it's come on she was in here for a minute what yeah that was good i'll bet it was she's delightful i love her what did she say and what did you say she's very um like she's uh the very uh i guess it's the term that you would use and i think you can still use is free spirited
Marc:in a very true sense that you know you get the sense that like no she'll talk about anything i wish i had more time you know it was one of those things where she had to be somewhere and they came a little late and i just realized talking to her i'm like i could she would just she'd tell she'd talk about anything but yeah even publicly so you got the sense she's just not ashamed of anything and and she she owns her past proudly all of it
Guest:Isn't that interesting?
Guest:I don't know all about her past.
Guest:Chris Sarandon was in Two Gents.
Guest:Listen to this and how this doubles back on itself.
Guest:Chris Sarandon was in Two Gents.
Guest:Yeah, once we went to Broadway out of the Joe Pabst Delacorte Theater.
Guest:Then we went to Broadway.
Guest:And he was in it for a time, so it was Stockard Channing.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She turned out to be a real stage actress.
Marc:She certainly did.
Marc:And she can belt out a tune, right?
Guest:I think she's got a good set of pipes.
Guest:I went and I played piano, you know, so I played piano.
Marc:I saw you at the memorial.
Marc:It was very touching when we walked in at Gary's memorial.
Guest:You were there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Thank you very much.
Guest:Is it me or is somebody knocking on our door?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Hello?
Hello?
Guest:Maybe there's a wildfire out blazing out about to consume us.
Guest:Oh, he's paying the pizza delivery?
Guest:Oh, this must be the housekeeper.
Guest:She seemed delightful.
Guest:What's her name?
Marc:Lupe.
Guest:Lupe seems delightful.
Guest:I've never talked about her on the microphones.
Guest:Really?
Marc:She's very delightful.
Marc:She seems delightful.
Marc:She's very wonderful.
Marc:And she comes once a week.
Marc:And I'm not even that much of a pig, but it's a pleasure.
Marc:For years, I never thought, like, I remember when I was married, and this might be part of the reason I'm not, that the wife at that time would say, you know, maybe we should have someone come in and clean.
Marc:I'm like, we're not those people.
Marc:We're not people who need cleaning people.
Marc:You know, this is a small house.
Marc:And I didn't do that.
Marc:She was also the woman who said, we should get central air.
Marc:I'm like, that sounds like a hassle.
Marc:It's a small house.
Marc:It's not hot for that many months.
Marc:In retrospect, had I done both of those things, which I eventually did, perhaps I would still be married.
Marc:Really?
Marc:If I'd stopped yelling.
Marc:There's other issues.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:I want to hear everything.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yes, I do.
Guest:So wait, two gents.
Guest:Two gents.
Guest:Shakespeare, we started Shakespeare.
Guest:In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Guest:Who else is from there?
Marc:Michael Keaton.
Marc:My friend Jerry Stahl.
Marc:Jerry Stahl.
Marc:Who's Jerry Stahl?
Marc:The writer of Permanent Midnight.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Permanent Midnight.
Guest:Ben Stiller.
Marc:Yes, he played Jerry Stahl.
Marc:in permanent midnight he grew up in pittsburgh i've met a few people from pittsburgh i don't have a sense of it as uh what it might have been like when it was a working class perhaps city on the decline it's a little uh it's gotten a little influx of money it seems a little better now i guess so i wonder why i was just talking last night to somebody i should go there uh they should give you a street or something oh i don't think so
Guest:Goldblum Lane.
Marc:It's over there by the old mill.
Guest:By the old steel processing place.
Guest:It was, you know, when I grew up, it was smoky and evocative.
Marc:How'd you end up there?
Marc:What was the family doing?
Marc:How'd they lay in there?
Guest:you know uh you know my dad's dad named pavartsik from russia pavartsik yep see this is why i'm not goldblum i'm pavartsik that's your last name that's well that's not was never my last name but it was that's the family name that was my dad's dad's name i knew that we like i knew that i would get i i got along with you before you got here yeah me too you
Marc:It's because we're Russian Jews.
Marc:Is that it?
Marc:I think so.
Guest:You're all Russians because my mom's dad was Austrian.
Marc:My mom's dad from his roots are in Austria.
Guest:So we're, you know, we're cousins.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Same genetics.
Marc:Did you ever get that genetic thing done?
Marc:I'm getting it done.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You got it done?
Guest:Well,
Guest:Yes, very elaborately, because we just had a child.
Guest:I just had my first child.
Guest:We wanted to get pregnant, and we got pregnant with my now beautiful wife, Emily Goldblum.
Guest:And so we got everything that one can do, you know, testing whether we were compatible genetically and all that.
Guest:But you did the whole DNA history thing?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:that i didn't do just for the sake of uh you go back you can find the town oh that i didn't do nor have i looked up you know roots anything like tree right roots so i don't know anything besides the one dad and the other dad i don't even know whether they're from minsk or pinsk or anything about that right so that would be interesting i should do that but then yeah i just saw that you can do the whole a whole dna thing so okay so what name give me the name again
Guest:the dna so povart sick povart sick yeah and then we just i was saying we just had this child who was born independence day by the way charlie ocean is he a year he's a he'll be a year and july 4th of july and your movie comes out the events of the movie happen on the second third that's right july it's all coming together it's somehow if we can tie the two gents into this it's going to be amazing it's going to be one of those serendipitous interviews we're the
Guest:two gents yes we are oh that's right that's right and we're speaking not regular non-shakespearean english yeah that's right you know who they but we're kind of hip-hoppy you know you know which is the new shakespeare you know who the two gents were i wonder which one you'd be one is called valentine and one is called proteus is that yeah yeah
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:Is it a good cop, bad cop?
Marc:Is it a comedy team situation where there's a doofus and a straight man?
Guest:How does it work?
Guest:Oh, I like that.
Guest:Doofus.
Guest:Oh, you mean just doofus.
Guest:You don't mean goofus and gallant.
Guest:You know who goofus and gallant is?
Guest:That's who we should play.
Guest:Comic strip, wasn't it?
Guest:No, it was kind of those children's kind of magazines that you'd see in offices.
Guest:And one would goof, gallant would do all the right things.
Guest:Goofus would do all the wrong things.
Guest:So goofus was the doofus.
Guest:Yeah, that's exactly right.
Guest:You are a poet, and you don't know it, but your feet show it.
Guest:Can you finish that?
Guest:No.
Guest:They're Longfellows.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Now, you're, of course, wearing sandals.
Guest:Yeah, it's hot.
Guest:It's hot, Jeff.
Guest:No, you don't have to be shamed of anything, just like Susan Sarandon.
Marc:These aren't Birkenstocks, and I've committed to them.
Guest:Yeah, they're very, very beautiful.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:There's nothing wrong with... A lot of people think that an adult man... You're getting a lot out of me.
Marc:The cleaning lady in the sandals.
Marc:This interview is moving more in your direction than mine.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:You're getting it out of me.
Guest:All the secrets.
Guest:I'll tell you everything.
Guest:I'm an open-faced sandwich.
Marc:An open-faced Reuben.
Marc:Yeah, I'd love a Reuben sandwich.
Guest:I haven't had that in a million years.
Guest:You're scared of it?
Guest:Well, it's not exactly on my bullseye regime.
Guest:Do you ever treat yourself?
Marc:You seem to be fairly healthy to the point where it looks like you spend a little time doing it.
Guest:Yeah, a little time.
Guest:I do it.
Guest:I'm conscientious.
Guest:I kind of put in my time, but I sure.
Guest:And I, yeah, I cheat here and there.
Guest:I would, if I thought that Reuben sitting in front of us, if there was one, was the best one, you know, it shouldn't be missed.
Guest:I'd have a bite or two of it.
Guest:But can you imagine hot?
Guest:I remember when I first, I think my mom and I went out for a date.
Guest:In Pittsburgh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had a deli?
Guest:Yeah, someplace.
Guest:I said, what's a Reuben sandwich?
Guest:I remember when I first discovered it.
Guest:She said, oh, it's a thing.
Guest:It's got sauerkraut.
Guest:It's hot, I think, melted cheese.
Guest:I know, Swiss cheese.
Guest:Try it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it came.
Wow.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I love food.
Guest:I loved it then, and I love it now.
Marc:I had a similar experience with a Reuben, where it was like, this is amazing.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You know, with the other deli item that sort of changed my life, my grandmother would take me, was diner rice pudding.
Marc:Oh!
Guest:Not in talking my language.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Oh, Jesus.
Marc:That might be my... If I was going to be executed, that might be on the... With a little bit of cinnamon and some of the top that gets a little tough.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:Right?
Guest:That's delicious.
Marc:You can't get it.
Marc:It's hard to find.
Marc:The Mexicans have a version of it, of that very specific rice pudding.
Marc:I've made it at home.
Marc:It's not baked.
Marc:It's done on the stovetop where it thickens with the sugar and the actual rice.
Marc:Oh.
Marc:But in the diner, you'd go in and you could look in the window in the trays.
Marc:I remember.
Marc:And you'd see at the bottom, like, they got it.
Marc:It'd be like rice pudding, tapioca pudding, and maybe some bread pudding.
Guest:I love tapioca pudding.
Guest:I love bread pudding.
Guest:How about at Musso and Frank's, they have diplomat pudding, which is, I think, only there, which is bread pudding with some extra, like, raspberry sauce on it.
Guest:you're the diplomat then yeah if you have you're important you're important i think if i had a show business title yeah i wouldn't i couldn't i be the diplomat sure yes that's not taken is it you're very i'm not the chairman of the board i'm not the king you can be the diplomat the diplomat they should do it in your intro when you play music
Marc:Please welcome the diplomat, Jeff Goldberg.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're in Pittsburgh eating Rubens with your mother in an unknown deli.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And your father's father was from Russia and had a beautiful name, which was... Pavarczyk.
Marc:Pavarczyk.
Marc:And your grandfather did what?
Marc:Was he in dry goods?
Marc:Oh, my.
Guest:You know, he came over here.
Guest:My dad was sort of...
Guest:Well, let's not get into that.
Guest:Let's do just a little.
Guest:Give me a sense of what we're not getting into.
Guest:I think in that generation of American Jews, they wanted to assimilate.
Marc:Right, pass.
Marc:How do you pass?
Marc:Get rid of that name.
Guest:Yeah, well, he had Goldblum.
Guest:Luckily, he didn't.
Guest:I'm glad he didn't.
Guest:bastardize it anymore um but uh but i think his dad who was selling who had a little candy store yeah and sold some luggage didn't really want to drive learned to drive and that kind of stuff um so he had a store with bags and
Guest:Yeah, bags and candy.
Guest:I never saw it.
Guest:I met Tut, we called him.
Guest:You know, Tut, Tut, Tut, Killer.
Guest:Joe, Joe Goldblum.
Guest:But we didn't go over and visit them much.
Guest:He and Bubby, you know, Lillian.
Guest:Because your dad didn't want to.
Guest:Well, didn't want to.
Guest:And then he had a younger brother, Chucky, who died, who he loved, who looked like me, was my height, and was a basketball star in Westminster College, where there's many clippings one could see.
Guest:In Pennsylvania?
Guest:I don't know where it was.
Guest:and would have been in the nba really they said yep and then he volunteered for world war ii and he went his plane went down and never found oh uh chucky and that's why we named our boy charlie your son his name yes after chucky believe it or not yeah but so his family he would always be a little his mom we'd go over to their house your grandparents my grandparents he didn't like the smell so much and oh right right right you know my family my parents
Marc:were sort of the same you'd go back you know and you'd see have this window into their past but it was like and that was really that was really the the birth of of what we know as american jews of that thing that's why we know what kishka is that's why we know what kasha is that's why we know you know that these delhi things that allowed arguments there's great scenes and you like in any hall which you were in for for an amazing second thank you
Guest:uh you know the the family so you're going back to coney island that you know that that narrative has been sort of really kind of explored his father woody allen's father as a kid in that movie is played by mordecai loner yeah who taught the who's taught who stayed with sandy meisner
Guest:Taught that method and wound up in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University.
Guest:And I took a six-week summer course between 9th and 10th and 10th and 11th grades.
Guest:And that was the first exposure I had to something like the Sandy Meisner improvisational method.
Guest:With that actor, Mordecai.
Guest:With Mordecai Launer, who was teaching.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:She's poor.
Marc:She can steal from us.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's right that's the wonderful mordecai launer but we were wait wait let's back try to get out of this cul-de-sac so we'd go back and the they had pictures of chucky goldblum and uh and they said oh he's he was never found but he's he's gonna come back oh they believe that and my dad was always like
Guest:Kind of mad and ashamed.
Marc:Well, maybe that was another reason why he didn't like to go over there.
Marc:Was that, you know, this sort of like the grief mixed with the expectation.
Marc:There was plenty of subterranean.
Guest:Judging him against the dead one.
Guest:Yes, unexcavated, all the lots of things I'm sure that were hidden in the Jewish David Lynchian way, you know, just under the...
Guest:surface and then when i started to play looked like his brother started to play basketball myself i was kind of athletic yeah and then went into acting he wanted to be they said he he said he wanted to either be to get himself out of this condition and to rise up and to be an american um uh he was going to either be a doctor your father one did or an actor he got into his head stuck his head in the back of those are the options
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Stuck his head in the back of a class of Carnegie Tech, which was then called Carnegie Mellon University, and said, he then reported to us, that it was out of my league, he said, whatever that meant.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But so, you know, fast forward and me being titillated by it, very inspired.
Guest:Did he go into show business?
Guest:He did not.
Guest:No.
Guest:What did he do?
Guest:He was a doctor.
Guest:Your dad was a doctor.
Guest:He was a doctor.
Marc:So he took a little look at the class.
Marc:That's so funny because the doctor one is strongly condoned by the Jewish elders.
Marc:The other is like, what are you doing?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Except.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Except if you make it as Philip Roth says, you know, important.
Guest:I was complaining.
Guest:I think it's even better than a doctor if you're on the Johnny Carson podcast.
Guest:You know, hey, look, he was on the Johnny.
Guest:That's him.
Guest:That was the only way they knew you were a popular.
Guest:Yeah, something like that.
Marc:It's very funny now with so many different TV outlets, like to the point where like I finally I've got four seasons of a TV show and I still got a father.
Marc:It's like, I don't get it.
Marc:I don't know where to watch it.
Guest:Do I get it?
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Your dad does that?
Guest:Where is he?
Guest:In New Jersey?
Guest:No, he's in New Mexico.
Guest:No one's in New Jersey anymore.
Guest:What's he doing in New Mexico now?
Guest:That's where we shot Independence Day, in Albuquerque.
Guest:Yeah, I grew up in Albuquerque.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my gosh.
Guest:That's where I spent this last year ago, this summer.
Guest:Well, they got that great facility there now, the studio.
Guest:That's where we were in those big sound stages.
Guest:We had five or six of those enormous sound stages.
Guest:But no kidding, you grew up there.
Guest:Didn't Gary Shandling grow?
Guest:He was in Phoenix, Arizona.
Guest:Southwestern Jews.
Guest:Southwestern Jews.
Guest:You got brothers and sisters?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, there were four of us originally.
Guest:Not unlike my dad, my brother, whom I adored four years older than me, Rick, died when he was 23.
Guest:Unfortunately, in 1970.
Guest:He was a kind of a truth seeker and adventurer and Hemingway-esque wannabe writer.
Marc:But that was a 60s thing.
Guest:Yes, that's right.
Guest:You get the idea.
Guest:And he was traveling around.
Guest:He was in North Africa, like Casablanca, Agandir, Morocco.
Guest:Doing the beatnik thing.
Guest:Yes, kind of hippie, early hippie beatnik, kind of bumming around on a beach kind of thing.
Guest:Got a quick something or other and died very quickly.
Guest:Of a disease.
Guest:Shockingly, yep.
Guest:A virus, a bacteria.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:Yeah, kidney failure finally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:Horrible.
Guest:And you were like 20?
Guest:I was 19.
Guest:He was 23.
Guest:And he was the guy that was guiding you through the life.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:The music.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:He first, he moved out of the house, you know, and got a kind of a pad in Pittsburgh, was in college, and was starting to talk funny and talked about in 1960.
Guest:What was this?
Guest:Seven or something like that.
Guest:counterculture what what's that counter gun and then uh i went over to his place and he put on i think one of the beatles albums had just come out like the uh you know not the white album i'll bet this was magical mystery oh yeah yeah and put that on and we just smoked hash yeah which was probably powerful and i'd never done anything so it was like tripping were you sort of a nerdy athletic kid i
Guest:I played ball.
Guest:I was athletic.
Guest:I was good, but I was never on a team.
Guest:But I played all day, all along with my neighborhood friends, every sport.
Guest:I liked that.
Guest:But I was already playing piano and kind of interested in acting maybe.
Guest:But he turned me on to all that.
Guest:Girl, you know, he was already kind of a handsome guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know, with the girls.
Guest:So yes, he was kind of guiding me.
Guest:I looked up to him terrifically.
Guest:So then he died.
Guest:I went to New York and I was in this Broadway show.
Guest:I was in Two Gents on Broadway when I got this horrible news.
Guest:And then there's my other brother, Lee, who was around until a couple of years ago, died finally at 60.
Guest:Yeah, he was five years older than me.
Guest:He kind of was back in Pittsburgh, very close to my mom and
Guest:We could talk about him, but a very sweet, sweet guy.
Guest:And then there's my sister who's still around.
Guest:Two years younger, Pam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A wonderful girl, a painter.
Guest:Very wonderful artist who paints with her husband, Jeffrey Kaisershot, another painter.
Guest:And they both teach at this point.
Guest:Very wonderful.
Guest:I'm dating a painter.
Marc:Painters are interesting people.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You are.
Guest:I think so, too.
Guest:How long have you been going with this girl?
Guest:A couple years almost.
Guest:What's her name?
Marc:Sarah Kane.
Marc:Sarah Kane.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, she's preparing for a show in New York in September.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, at La Long, Gallery La Long.
Marc:And what kind of stuff does she paint?
Marc:Abstract, big.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Like things that are just like, where does that come from?
Marc:Like very impressive.
Marc:Beautiful.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Does she show you to live here?
Marc:Yeah, she does.
Marc:Oh, she does.
Marc:She lives down the street.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't that wonderful?
Marc:Yeah, sometimes.
Guest:Yeah, and sometimes not, but you've only been going together for two years.
Guest:What could be going wrong so far?
Guest:I'm crazy.
Guest:I'm crazy.
Guest:What always goes wrong?
Guest:So crazy after all these years.
Guest:I love that song.
Guest:That's kind of a touching song, isn't it?
Marc:Very.
Marc:Well, Neil, he's a good artist at Paul Simon.
Marc:He does all right for himself.
Guest:He sure does.
Guest:And we had a chance to shoot the breeze a little bit at one of these things we did.
Guest:Yeah, a little charity event that I did where I played the piano.
Guest:And yeah, he's very open and available.
Guest:We got talking about every little thing in the time we had him.
Guest:Also in Annie Hall.
Guest:yes exactly not far from where you were you must have had our scene enters i'm in the same scene the same house little you that's right it's his house this is the shot your tracking shot goes by him and he's showing woody allen around and his girlfriend and then it stops on me at the end of this scene i forgot my mantra i forgot my mantra on the phone that's right
Guest:that's right but how do we get delivered it so jeff goldblum like oh thank you yeah how do we get into there wait a minute paul so your mom's still around oh so you're crazy after all these years that's right your mom my mom knew my dad died in 83 at the age of 63 oh my god that's right big heart attack like many uh males in our family my mom's dad died in his 40s or 50s i never met him sam tamelis and then uh
Guest:Joe Goldblum-Povarczyk.
Guest:Goldblum died, you know.
Guest:Heart attack was a thing.
Guest:Big heart attack, yeah.
Guest:So I'm taking care of that kind of thing.
Guest:How's the cholesterol?
Guest:You know, I do everything I can, and I think it's good.
Guest:You got to do something.
Guest:Genetic thing, though?
Guest:Like a little high?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It needs to be.
Guest:I need to do everything I can to make sure I'm doing good.
Guest:I was at his funeral, of course.
Guest:I remember his funeral.
Guest:Your father's.
Guest:My grandfather's.
Guest:Oh, Joe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Joe, when I was very young, 11, 12, you know.
Guest:And my grandmother, of whom I spoke, who thought Chucky was always going to come back, it was in a little, you know, wherever it was, funeral home thing, and somebody spoke.
Guest:My dad didn't speak.
Guest:It wasn't like Gary Shandling's Hollywood big, beautiful production.
Guest:It was a little thing, and there was a screen, and behind the screen was the casket.
Guest:And then did we go back and see it?
Guest:And then I think they said, all right, Lillian's wife can come back and see it.
Guest:And she went around.
Guest:My dad was sitting sort of next to me maybe.
Guest:And we hear from behind the screen a whale.
Guest:My best friend.
Guest:My best friend.
Guest:You know, like that.
Guest:My dad looked sort of ashamed, sort of ashamed, but moved and disturbed and a little ashamed.
Guest:It was more of a scene, I think, than he wanted at that point.
Guest:Heartbreaking.
Guest:we went on to the the grave site yeah and as the casket was being lowered down yeah lillian um started to wail again i think my best friend and started to try to climb into the hole and needed to be restrained so sad it was sad shocking alarming and i think to my dad also disturbing and
Marc:Yeah, emotions.
Marc:So he was not a yeller or an emotional guy?
Guest:My dad was not, no, he was kind of a very authentic guy.
Guest:Real sort of guy with a big work ethic.
Guest:Lovely.
Guest:We'd go to the Steelers games all the time.
Guest:What kind of doctor?
Guest:Internist, internal medicine, general practitioner.
Guest:He had the bag?
Guest:He had a bag.
Guest:He'd go to people's houses, still made house calls, that kind of thing.
Guest:Patients loved him, I think.
Guest:My mom was kind of a...
Guest:bombastic vivacious uh and had a mom had a temper yes and would be dramatical and histrionic here what'd she do oh she raised us four kids and um uh and then took off after we left was a sex therapist so the legend has it and uh for a time and went back to college and had a radio show and or something like that they separated
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:They stayed together.
Guest:And she wanted to be in show business early on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So she was a kind of an actress-y type, showy type.
Guest:Funny?
Guest:Um...
Guest:Well, I didn't know.
Guest:Hard to know.
Guest:Hard to know.
Guest:Too close.
Guest:Too close.
Guest:Too close.
Guest:Complicated and dark and.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And stores.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Very, very big weather.
Guest:Lots of weather there.
Guest:Big weather patterns.
Guest:So my dad was less was less like that.
Guest:As you have to be.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Sometimes that's the way it goes.
Marc:It's like there's there's one that sits while the other one spins.
Guest:Yiggs that was more like that, although sometimes he'd blow.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He'd blow.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And you'd hear him blow, and when, you know, you could see when he was... And then, you know, he'd whip off his belt sometimes.
Guest:He wouldn't, you know, exactly beat us.
Guest:Yeah, but the threat was always there.
Guest:The belt.
Guest:I mean, I can't imagine.
Guest:We have an 11-month-old, you know, the hysterical chaos with four kids.
Guest:I don't know how you do it, but, you know, it's not that he beat us.
Guest:I'm not saying that.
Guest:But anyway, he was wonderful, but...
Guest:after rick died if i'm not being too personal after rick died uh now he was you know rick was 23 and he was you know whatever he's younger than me now he was in his 50s or something like that he would take to bursting into tears unexpectedly yeah bursting into tears and
Guest:I also saw him burst into tears when he saw me act on stage.
Guest:He burst into tears?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I did a play early on in my 20s at the Phoenix Theater.
Guest:Where's that?
Guest:New York City.
Guest:It was a kind of...
Guest:He came up.
Guest:Pedigreed, yeah.
Guest:They came down to see that pedigreed kind of New York off-Broadway theater, and it was a premiere of a Stephen Polyakov play.
Guest:I had the lead part.
Guest:I was on the radio.
Guest:I played a disc jockey from Liverpool or something, and so I had a dialect, and it was a showy part, and I worked hard on it, and afterwards...
Guest:And this is already after he'd seen Nashville, the Robert Altman movie.
Guest:And he said something like, you're dead.
Guest:He said, what were you doing in that movie?
Guest:I don't get your part, et cetera, et cetera.
Guest:So I was like, oh.
Marc:I was the guy on the bike.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was like, oh, boy, you don't get it.
Guest:I was mad in a lot of ways.
Guest:But he came back after that show, burst into tears and threw his arms around me.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:you did it well something like i don't know i hit a chord in him he wanted to be an actor and all that stuff he's proud of you that's what yeah he was very proud of me yeah hey do you like that play death of a salesman yeah i think oh geez arthur i wish well i almost met arthur miller once but that family i love that play and i think that dustin hoffman john malkovich one oh my god
Guest:I loved that.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:I've seen many.
Guest:I've seen Lee J. Cobb on stage, but he was the original.
Guest:You saw him on stage?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:You saw him in the movie?
Guest:But one can get it.
Guest:You can get that.
Guest:Lee J. Cobb was such a fucking monumental character.
Guest:Kind of presence.
Guest:He sure was.
Guest:I wish I'd see.
Guest:Well, you could see him in that.
Guest:My dad saw him in King Lear.
Guest:They used to go to New York to see theater and they'd come back with an angry Jewish.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He went and then he said, listen to this.
Guest:He said he met him on the street.
Guest:He ran into him.
Guest:He had a celebrity.
Guest:My dad did.
Guest:Went up to him.
Guest:and said, Mr. Cobb, I just wanted to tell you, I saw your King Lear the other day, and it was just wonderful.
Guest:And he said, and when he told this story, and he told it several times, he said, Lee J. Cobb, at that compliment,
Guest:burst into a kind of smile that was full of joy, he thought.
Guest:So he was remarking on, the point of the story was how much he loved doing it and how proud he was and how much he appreciated hearing this.
Guest:You know, like that.
Guest:And he's the one my dad said, you know, if you find something you really love to do, that's your vocational guidepost.
Guest:And that's why I'm doing this.
Guest:That's really when I figured out when I had an experience or two, when I thought, hey, I really love this.
Guest:That's what I'll do.
Guest:That's why I put two and two together.
Guest:He's a very sensitive guy, despite himself, your father.
Guest:He was a very sensitive guy.
Guest:Yes, he had of that era and of that generation a kind of restraint and some difficulties and challenges, but he was, of course, very, he had an art in him in a way, and very, very sensitive.
Marc:All right, so you decide your vocation is, you know, you're there in Pittsburgh, you're playing basketball, you've got a brother that kind of opens your mind, you've got a mother who's kooky but compelling, a dad who's reluctantly supportive.
Guest:Yeah, well, they were both finally, you know, okay, I mean, he thought, you know, academics, you know, go to college and all that, but I got into this school at 17, neighborhood playhouse, Sandy Meisner, he didn't know him, but... That's where you went, you auditioned for that?
Guest:You didn't audition, you just met Sandy Meisner.
Guest:And you went and met him, you went and met him?
Guest:You took a trip.
Guest:I took a trip.
Guest:My mom helped me.
Guest:Well, she drove.
Guest:What did we do?
Guest:We must have flown.
Guest:Because we'd driven.
Guest:We'd taken many road trips to Miami Beach.
Guest:We went to the Fountain Blue Hotel once.
Guest:Mostly went to Atlantic City, of course, you New Jerseyan.
Guest:So you don't know if you drove or you flew, but you go to New York and you're meeting with Sanford Meister.
Guest:Why'd you find him?
Guest:What drove you to that school?
Guest:Well, the interesting that you should ask, Mordecai Launer.
Guest:Oh, the guy who you went to the summer school.
Guest:Summer school.
Guest:I auditioned for Carnegie Mellon University.
Guest:It was the only- Good acting school.
Guest:A good acting school.
Guest:I fell in love with it, fell in love with acting.
Guest:Every morning on the shower door, I would write, please God, let me be an actor.
Guest:And there was a secret, so I'd wipe it off.
Guest:But I was obsessed with it, so I auditioned for that school, and I failed.
Guest:I didn't get in.
Guest:They rejected me.
Guest:So I scrambled around and Mordecai Lawner, I did a probably horrible audition.
Guest:In fact, I did a scene from Death of a Salesman.
Guest:I did Biff, who's having a midlife grad 35.
Guest:I couldn't have understood that at all.
Guest:I'm sure I was horrible.
Guest:Anyway, Mordecai Lawner said, well, you might want to check out this school where I taught.
Guest:And Sandy Meisner, he's the best.
Guest:Anyway, that's how I found myself recommended there.
Guest:And I had a meeting with him.
Guest:me what was that like i mean sanford meisner was part of the was he part of the group theater was he part right yeah with uh with uh clifford odetson and stella and stella a real purpose a populist theater movement oh if you haven't read about that for years yeah that was a big part of that that yes that and i think sandy meisner
Guest:came out of that and formed this teaching method.
Guest:What was your impression of Meisner as a 17-year-old?
Guest:Oh, he was an impressive, wonderful figure of serious substance and imbued you with how worthwhile and serious and beautiful this life endeavor could be.
Guest:It was...
Guest:something and he was so deep and authentic and already kind of realized in a way but you know what he was what he was also had his own uh problems i studied him over the years i taught that technique for years so i have my own convictions about many aspects of that but listen to this because i know a little bit about your our shared connection in this way you know who was in my class in 1970 um jonathan katz
Guest:Because we both did.
Guest:I didn't know that about him.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Now, listen to this.
Guest:Jonathan Katz was in that class.
Guest:He could also be what I was going to say is Meisner could be fierce and kind of cruel.
Guest:He was always frightening.
Guest:You either had to get on the high wire and do this thing.
Guest:It wasn't fooling around.
Guest:It wasn't Hollywood class type stuff where you came in from surfing and was like, hey, I'll toss this off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You were either, you know.
Guest:In it or not.
Guest:That's correct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a serious endeavor.
Guest:Jonathan Katz was in the class.
Guest:After a couple of months, he said, all right, Katz, you know, let's see your thing.
Guest:Jonathan did this thing where he started his improvisation with this so-called independent activity.
Guest:He was not doing really what Meisner wanted at that point, obviously.
Guest:He stopped it.
Guest:I think he slammed his hand on the desk or something.
Guest:He was quick triggered.
Guest:Even all his demeanor was always a kind of a lesson in...
Guest:how hot and available one could be, you know, and kind of thing.
Guest:But so he said, stop right there.
Guest:He said, you've been, Jonathan Katz, you've been hiding for three months now or something like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And now you do, tell me what you're doing.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:Explain this activity.
Guest:He says, I'm trying to think of all the, remember all the dead people I've ever touched.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:which did not fulfill the assignment really for what we were getting at.
Guest:Meisner started to steam like Brando in One-Eyed Jacks or something, and he said, you listen to me.
Guest:You've been hiding now for three months, and now you come up with this.
Guest:Take your things.
Guest:Get out of here.
Guest:You're out.
Guest:You're out.
Guest:At that point, you could feel your blood chill, everyone sitting there as Jonathan pathetically gathered up his things and walked to the door and got out.
Guest:And that was the last we saw of him.
Guest:And you can bet we all redoubled our efforts to do whatever we were doing.
Guest:Well, what was it was cruel?
Guest:And it was I believe it was a little misguided.
Guest:I mean, it worked on us if that's what he intended.
Guest:And Jonathan Katz, because I ran into him later and I did the show.
Guest:I say he said, you know, I quit after that.
Guest:I never did anything for two decades or something.
Guest:And then I'm doing that.
Guest:You know, Mr. Meisner missed that he was an interesting and resourceful.
Guest:And he had something to offer that might have needed a little nurturing.
Guest:I do believe currently.
Marc:But I don't think Meisner saw that as his job and it infuriated him because I think that, you know, that standard that was set by Meisner and Strausberg for acting classes where you defer to this guru, this emotional wizard to sort of reveal yourself and trust the environment that, you know, they can tell if you're fucking around and you're not willing to take the risks.
Marc:And for whatever reason that you can't, it's not their goddamn responsibility.
Yeah.
Marc:I hear what you're saying.
Guest:That's also correct.
Guest:You're both right.
Guest:I'm the diplomat.
Marc:The truth of the matter is, is that if you access the emotions necessary, that doesn't in and of itself guarantee that you're going to be a good actor.
Guest:No.
Marc:And there's some other combination of things, but in order to get to that place to do the work, if you've got what it takes, is sort of necessary within this structure.
Marc:And you believe in this structure.
Marc:Well, what is the Meisner?
Marc:What is the method?
Marc:I've talked to some people about it, and I joke about it, that when I knew people that were just taking classes and not necessarily in the school, that I think was when Meisner had already passed, it became available for sort of weekend warriors and whatnot.
Marc:To just take a class but not be immersed in the method that the Meisner method was the repetition thing.
Marc:It's sometimes misunderstood as only that.
Guest:Well, it gets hacked like that.
Guest:That's my experience of it.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Green.
Guest:Green, green, green, green.
Guest:Yeah, but that's not it.
Guest:I think it's misunderstood as that.
Guest:Here's, in a nutshell, I can't possibly give it any justice, but let me see if I can be clear in a second, in a very pithy second.
Guest:First of all, acting, I think he's, well...
Guest:It's instinctive.
Guest:He called it living truthfully under imaginary circumstances.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Like Harold Klerman's book, Lies Like Truth.
Guest:It really only means just pretend, but pretend good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's really what you're doing.
Guest:So how do you do that?
Guest:He had a foundational program that lasted a couple of years, the first part of which was set up so that his signature distinguishing feature that he really contributed, this improvisation,
Guest:came at the beginning.
Guest:And so it was the beginning of this pretending good business, living truthfully under imaginary circumstances whereby- I like that.
Guest:Yeah, whereby you had to start to, the improvisation became finally an improvised exercise where you're under imaginary circumstances and you have an authentic living experience where you're present and open.
Guest:And you live out this made-up situation.
Guest:This business of working off the other person and your connection with the other person that is part of this and part of this technology of this is like skating as to hockey.
Guest:You can't play the hockey game until you know how to skate.
Guest:So until you know how to go moment to moment, so to speak, where you can be, where you really train yourself to be,
Guest:Attentive, available, and to the other guy, mostly, but everything that's going on around you.
Guest:That's the tricky part.
Guest:Well, that's what you're training.
Guest:There's a technology for that, and he kind of developed this, this thing that begins with this repetition.
Guest:So that's the first part of it, this communication.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:imaginary circumstances the second part that's the incoming yeah where you listen you can listen so attentively that you can repeat exactly what the other guy said as a matter of fact you can communicate to him what you got besides what he said yeah here's the way you said it yeah and all the nuances thereof right and then before you go on you're part of the tennis uh when the ball is on your your side of the court you say here's how you put the ball to me here's what i just got from you and uh
Guest:And here's how I send it back because this is how I feel about I'm going to now communicate to you in word or deed how I feel about what you've just said or how you've just said it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which demands that you open yourself up.
Guest:So it causes you to be at once present and train yourself to be present and open and connect to your unique channel of communicativeness.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So that's pretty good.
Guest:That's a pretty good start.
Guest:You're listening and you're answering.
Guest:And that starts to solve the problem of when you got a script.
Guest:Hey, let's pretend that I've never heard this before and I'm going to take it in and I'm going to let your pinch produce an ouch in me that now generates what I have to do back to you.
Guest:That's kind of how life goes.
Guest:And so it sort of simulates that under the imaginary circumstances.
Guest:So it's very good in our world.
Guest:It teaches you how to improvise, which is very useful in all kind of jobs that you may get.
Guest:But it also gives you technology that supplies the underpinnings of Wes Anderson's script or Shakespeare or Chekhov or David Mamet, where you've got to say the words, but...
Guest:uh have an alive experience and play the game of acting which is this is like real life i'm going to listen to you uh and be available to you and uh even if nothing different happens okay well and give it back to you pitching and ouching yeah and then play the whole game and make make a make a pretend uh a scene out of it you get the idea i do
Marc:And it makes sense to me.
Marc:And I appreciate all of that.
Marc:And I you know, and I've always felt that those things were important to be emotionally present and open and listening and engaged with the other person.
Marc:Now, I'm no trained actor, but I've done some acting lately and I've gotten better at it.
Marc:And the trick is, is that you can do all those things, but eventually you have to be comfortable.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So like, you know, being present, you know, is good.
Marc:But, you know, to order to appreciate the space that you're in.
Marc:And then, you know, because like the thing that always drops off for me when you tell me that is like, all right, you're pretending.
Marc:But OK, so you're in a house and it's 1920.
Marc:And, you know, how much do you take in?
Marc:How do you register?
Marc:What technology do you use?
Marc:You know, outside of being present for the the pinching and ouching to place yourself in an environment or say where when you're on a film to to return back after a three day.
Marc:uh whatever uh a scene on an airplane to the emotions that are necessary uh to to play the rest of the scene before you get on the airplane like how what are the tools that you use for for being in the actual environment that you're pretending to be in other than the emotional connection and the pinching and ouching and also returning back to the emotional state necessary to to pick up where you left off in film or television work
Guest:Well, you're talking about many different things.
Guest:First of all, the second year, so-called, of the Meisner technique, that first, the improvisation and some improvisatory ways of handling early scene work is part of the first year.
Guest:The second work is basically, in my view, kind of what Stella Adler was doing, which is understand the material.
Guest:Now, let's understand the play and do the play.
Guest:Do the show and make it interesting and make it good.
Guest:Well,
Guest:which involves, you know, fully realizing the situation.
Guest:This is the desert.
Guest:Where if this is 1920, really, you know, she would talk about, you know, understanding the music that you might be listening to then, you know, really all of that, doing whatever you have to do.
Guest:Suggestions, right, right, right.
Marc:If you're in another time.
Marc:But I guess only you know whether you really did that or not.
Marc:And sometimes it doesn't matter if you're pretending well enough.
Marc:Yeah, there's no formula to it.
Guest:There's no formula to it.
Guest:And the other thing you referred to this requires what some people call emotional preparation, where you've got to pick up from a scene where you just found out some horrible news or some wonderful news, and you've just got to start right there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You have to possibly generate in yourself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Take the second.
Guest:Pick it up there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've, you know, one, it's a very individual thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And after experimenting for several decades with that, one can overemphasize preparation and trying to generate things.
Guest:The more I do it, I'm still conscientious and prepare in many ways.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the given circumstances, like Stanislavski said, are kind of all you need, at least for me at this point.
Guest:I don't like to go astray too much and bring music in with me and read a book and go astray and spend all morning trying to get myself in a condition.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I'm more self-trustful at this point.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That can be overemphasized as that improvisation can be overemphasized, whereby some first year Meisner students can go, that's it.
Guest:This feels so good.
Guest:This is all I want to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they'll never figure out how to learn lines and make them sound like improvisation or do the show good and understand the author's intent.
Guest:A lot of it, let's be honest, is either you got it or you don't.
Guest:Well, there's that, too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it means, yeah, you might either have a flair for it or not.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And part of that flair is, do you have an appetite?
Guest:Do you really want to do it?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Are you crazy about doing it?
Guest:That's part of it.
Marc:So it seems to me in looking at the bulk of work, which is a lot.
Marc:You've done a lot of work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you certainly paid your fucking dues in terms of like, you're in New York, you're doing Meisner, you get the play, you get the Nashville movie, obviously got an agent, but you're doing whatever you can to get on camera.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, it kind of happened luckily.
Guest:I mean, I got the first thing and the second thing and one thing led to another.
Guest:But like Death Wish was small.
Guest:It was very small, but it was the first audition I ever went on.
Guest:And that led to something else and that led to something else.
Guest:And I was lucky because I didn't know what I was doing.
Guest:It takes Meisner says it takes 20 years to be real work to even call yourself an actor and then a lifelong experience.
Guest:I'm a late bloomer and I'm a humble student and I kind of follow that credo and I'm still learning.
Guest:And I got lucky that I got chances to learn on the job and lucky that it was just little.
Guest:I didn't know what I was doing, and it wasn't – I'm still learning now.
Guest:I'll tell you, on the set last year, I found out a lot of things that have transformed my work.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Well, this business about overemphasizing preparation.
Guest:I was still a little addicted to, a year ago –
Guest:over emphasizing for myself working too hard on getting myself into a condition and or distract myself or free myself so that when I had the moment of the scene I was a little surprised or a little bit fresh or a little bit something that I thought or a little bit alive more alive than I thought I should be and I would drink a little bit of coffee too which is not the worst thing in the world but I've given that all up in the last year no coffee this is me no coffee
Guest:And I don't drink it now.
Guest:I was not drinking too much of it, but it's like even the smallest kind of extra stimulation or performance enhancement.
Guest:I kind of don't want to do now.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It's just better for me.
Guest:I kind of trust more than ever my own bones and blood and somehow and the scene.
Guest:And my ability to solve the scene in the moment.
Guest:I still prepare from the day I get the part and try to figure out what to do to make it good on the day.
Guest:But when I get there, I don't want any books in my pocket or other conversation that I'm going to try to free myself or unnecessary, et cetera, et cetera.
Marc:What do you think of that?
Marc:Well, I think it's great.
Marc:I think it seems that maybe Meisner was right.
Marc:It takes at least 20 years.
Guest:For me, you know, if he set me up like that, I dig it.
Guest:I'm glad.
Guest:Hey, if I'd figured all this out in the first couple of years, I'd be bored.
Guest:I think I'd be bored or doing something else.
Guest:I'm still excited because I want another opportunity now to try out my new better self.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That comfort in your own skin, you know, is beautiful for you as an artist.
Marc:But also, you always had your own time zone.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're one of those guys that just by your nature, you have a way of phrasing.
Marc:You have a way of being.
Marc:You have a way of taking information.
Marc:And even when you walked into my house, you took things in.
Marc:And I'm like, he's being so Jeff Goldblum.
Marc:It's purely you.
Marc:And I think as an artist of any kind, you want to arrive there.
Marc:You want to be comfortable enough to go, I know who I am.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, Meisner said, don't copy anybody.
Guest:Just figure out how you can do it uniquely.
Guest:He said that.
Guest:So I think I took that to heart.
Guest:I've tried to pursue that.
Guest:And yeah, I just got, I think I was lucky somehow.
Guest:And I got a toehold in something that was nourishing and kind of followed it.
Marc:That's the other thing you hear a lot about choices, making choices.
Marc:It seems like that Meisner was not too hung up on that.
Guest:Well, that's right.
Guest:I think his, like I say, distinguishing contribution was that first year that sort of opens you up.
Guest:It was a very good method.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then you do what you're going to do.
Guest:And then he get kind of his second year.
Guest:It's less distinctive, I think.
Guest:It's more like what everybody else is trying to do.
Guest:Make it good.
Guest:Still Adler.
Guest:Make good choices and figure out how to do it.
Guest:Make it interesting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, you know, he would kind of like, hey, you figure it out, you know, do it and do it a lot and you'll figure out how to make it good.
Guest:I like the other part.
Guest:If you try to get through, you know, a play, really your whole adult career without doing that second part.
Guest:It's like, as somebody said, trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a mix master strapped to your patoot, you know.
Marc:But I think that second part is also it's on the actor to integrate how they're going to bolster their personal craft.
Marc:That a system is only going to be a system to a certain degree, whereas what you're basically saying to me is as you move through it and do as much work as you have, you're going to figure out your own means to get to these things.
Marc:And also, for me, the idea of making a choice.
Marc:Once you get the emotions in place, and even in the small amount of acting I've done...
Marc:that you want to keep the emotions in place, but you might want to do a different line read.
Marc:You might want to take a different action.
Marc:You might want to surprise yourself in that moment to get the comedy out of it or the emotions out of it.
Marc:And those are conscious things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:But I imagine that everyone, like The Fly was the big movie.
Marc:You're carrying the movie.
Marc:You're the lead.
Marc:You're the guy.
Marc:You're the fly.
Marc:And you're working with Cronenberg, and it's insane.
Marc:And the makeup is insane.
Marc:And your performance is intense.
Marc:There's like the, the, the moment where, where you're defending your decision.
Marc:Like there's a moment there where you're, you're, you're angry.
Marc:Cause you know, you feel so good that you can't, how can this be wrong?
Marc:That it was so drug addict.
Guest:You know, it says, what's the matter with you?
Guest:I say, you're jealous.
Guest:That's what you are.
Guest:You're jealous.
Guest:Don't put me, don't clip my wings.
Guest:I'm free, I'm free.
Guest:Something like that or whatever I say.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:They had high moments that could have been good and I tried to make them good.
Guest:They were great.
Guest:It's a great movie.
Guest:Yeah, thanks.
Guest:Cronenberg, he's good.
Guest:He's got balls.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:Visionary.
Guest:Visionary, individual, unique.
Guest:Takes chances.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And then we were on the jury together at Cannes some years after that, seeing a bunch of interesting movies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cannes, is that fun?
Guest:Yeah, that was fun.
Guest:It was fun.
Guest:I took the assignment seriously.
Guest:We saw 22 movies in a couple of weeks and talking with interesting people.
Marc:In Jurassic Park, you were great.
Marc:I was very excited about what you did with that character for some reason.
Marc:Yeah, because I was very aware of the leather jacket.
Marc:I don't know whose choices those were, but I liked it.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Were you pointing at yourself?
Guest:I was, but then I thought better of it.
Guest:I'm sure Mr. Spielberg, it was all his design.
Guest:But he was actually very trustful and very collaborative.
Guest:And so I remember when I went in for the costume, saw the costumiere, you know, I had my own ideas and had already done a bunch of shopping.
Guest:And said, how about this and this?
Guest:And I think they took everything I got.
Guest:No, I thought it was good.
Guest:It was good.
Marc:He sort of had almost an Elvis element, like a rock star element to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:A rebel thing, right?
Guest:Well, I knew it was potentially what could be described as a science-y kind of geeky guy, but I wanted to make it as...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cool as I could.
Guest:Sex it up.
Guest:Sex it up.
Guest:Handsome man.
Guest:Scientists are cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're important and cool.
Guest:The real future rests in their hands.
Marc:I love them.
Guest:also like you you also did like a lot of the 70s television stuff and things but that was fun right yeah it was when did you move out here i moved out and so i so i graduated high school in the 70s i went to new york did that and then did start new plays and in in 70 74 i was in new york and then in 74 came out here after nashville some agent saw me said oh we'll come out here we'll show you around and then i never left those good times then
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I wish I'd kind of just like me, you know, as you know, on a movie location, I don't really unwrap the whole city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But besides my assignment, similarly in New York, can you imagine in New York?
Guest:And I could have I could have gone places that I didn't.
Guest:And in L.A.
Guest:in 75 to, you know, I could have gone places I did.
Guest:And I had my, you know, feel of the tail of the elephant or the trunk or whatever piece I was feeling.
Guest:But that's about all.
Guest:It was kind of, it was interesting.
Marc:But I become sort of fascinated with, like I talked to Begley, of all people, who was phenomenal.
Marc:I enjoyed talking to him.
Marc:But I'm sort of fascinated with this town at that time.
Marc:Like, he was around longer.
Guest:Yeah, that's when we met.
Guest:He and I have been, you know.
Marc:Yeah, in the mid-70s where, you know.
Guest:He was plenty, you know, different.
Guest:No, absolutely.
Guest:He was drinking up a storm.
Marc:Sure, no, he definitely talks about it.
Marc:But, like, also, like, there was something about, because when I see you in Altman movies and I see, like, you know, Columbo on your credit sheet, you know, that.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That I feel like I'm fascinated at the time when the business was smaller, the community was smaller.
Marc:You know, people are out and around.
Marc:There wasn't this fear of paparazzi everywhere that you could go out for dinner and you'd see Nicholson.
Marc:You go to Dan Tana's.
Marc:You go, you know, to the rock club that there was a real sort of a community to it that I romanticize.
Guest:But it was real.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, I think it was.
Guest:Like I said, I mean, I had my, you know, little corner of it that I experienced and it was delightful, you know, running into Ed being in his circle and Cindy Williams, you know, at the time and Fred Roos and Bruno Kirby.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, with whom I became very palsy, you know, what a delightful, wonderful guy he was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was very, very...
Guest:It's special.
Guest:It was a special time.
Guest:We studied with Peggy Fury, if you knew her, this acting teacher back then.
Guest:I don't know her.
Guest:Wonderful.
Guest:Oh, she was just great.
Guest:Is she still around?
Guest:No, no, she's not.
Marc:So now that you've been married, what, three times?
Marc:Yes, I have.
Marc:One first kid.
Marc:This is the first kid right now?
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:11 months old.
Marc:You're 10 years older than me or so.
Marc:63, yeah.
Guest:You're 52.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I'm 63.
Marc:October?
Guest:October 22nd.
Marc:I'm September 27th.
Marc:Ooh.
Guest:Libra.
Guest:you're a libra yeah well you brought it up you hold you it's there's you there's no credence in astrology no i know that okay everyone within the sound of our voice do they do they know that too we can tell them but i just i'm trying to figure out like i'm looking for all the similarities judd hirsch played my father as well on the tv show yeah on what show
Marc:On Marin, on IFC.
Guest:Really?
Guest:He's delightful.
Guest:I just saw him last night.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a model of youthfulness and longevity.
Guest:Yes, I would say so.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, it's like he's very interesting because he can work with all degrees of Jewishness.
Guest:He can turn it up to 11 or be hardly...
Guest:Hardly Jewish at all.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We had to turn down the Jew a little.
Guest:That was actually a note.
Guest:That's the name of my book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Turn down the Jew a little crazy.
Guest:How Jewish were you brought up?
Guest:Well, like, you know, the Coen brothers, you know, The Serious Man, 1967.
Guest:I love that movie.
Guest:You know, it's barely... We went to this... We were the only Jews in this...
Guest:uh in west homestead where my dad was the doctor to these steel workers kids really right families and that's who i went to school with there was one little orthodox so they sent us there not really having any interest in it and we went to hebrew school and misbehaved there right it was our chance to misbehave sure and then i had to make teachers cry that's what you do at hebrew
Guest:school trying to make teachers cry you made your your hebrew teachers two of them yeah really horrible why what did you do that made them cry just a smart ass i know it's one of the places i felt freer yeah and i felt kind of humorous too this old jewish business made me feel a little bit funny and uh but then i had this bar mitzvah there was a little performancey and that was kind of fun but then we never did anything after that right uh and then i developed this sort of yogic kind of interest in the miraculous and all that
Guest:Really?
Guest:Do you have that still?
Guest:Well, a little, a vestige of it.
Guest:But it's balanced now with a kind of interest in science.
Guest:If I'm going to expose Charlie to anything, it'll be to Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Guest:And, you know, you know.
Guest:Yes, I love poetry, and I love the creative life, which is the unseen and the imaginative and the spirits around us, of course, and all that.
Guest:But read Carl Sagan's last book, The Demon-Haunted World, that not only says it's foolish to believe in fun, untrue things, but dangerous.
Guest:So I have been reading Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens and a lot of people like that.
Guest:Because you were too much of a romantic?
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:I love my romance, but I'm full of some half-cocked ideas.
Guest:Oh, and you wanted clarity.
Guest:Yes, sir.
Guest:I believe so.
Guest:And it feels like it's right for our moment.
Marc:And also it seems like it's informing whatever experience you had about yourself on the set of Independence Day that the more clarity you get around what's real and what isn't and whether or not you're full of shit or not can only help you be more true to yourself.
Guest:Well, that sounds right to me.
Guest:Whatever you're talking about, either the circumstances within the movie or me as the actor.
Marc:No, by just saying in general as a person that if you're calling yourself out on your...
Marc:You know, bullshit.
Guest:Well, there's that, yes.
Guest:And then some of these baloney ideas, which are a little airy-fairy, you know, are fine if they feed your gizzard, you know.
Guest:But not fine for making, you know, global decisions necessarily.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:We don't want to elect our officials if they're involved in any way.
Guest:Based on their yogic practice?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Or astrology.
Guest:Or, you know.
Guest:Conspiracy theories.
Guest:Conspiracy theories.
Guest:God.
Guest:Damn the ignoramuses, you know, who find themselves in these positions.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Who hear from this source and that source.
Guest:Can you imagine?
Guest:You can pick whatever source you want.
Guest:There's thousands of them now.
Guest:Outrageous.
Guest:You know, learn the facts.
Marc:You got to search for those sometimes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It takes a little effort.
Guest:Put a little effort into it.
Guest:Find the facts.
Guest:Find the facts.
Guest:Find the facts.
Guest:So you know what I'm talking about.
Guest:Not as sexy as the bullshit sometimes.
Guest:Sexier.
Guest:Finally, if you put in the effort, it's much sexier.
Guest:Neil deGrasse Tyson will tell you, you know, the real configuration of the universe and the stardust from which we're made, you know, commonly is plenty poetical and inspiring.
Guest:Well, okay.
Marc:Well, let's talk about real things.
Marc:Do you save the world again?
Marc:No.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Spoiler alert.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's we we we snatch victory from the jaws of imminent defeat.
Guest:So it's touch and go.
Guest:But it comes down to the last buzzer.
Guest:But, you know.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I was hoping for the dark ending.
Guest:I like those dark endings myself.
Guest:Did you see Melancholia?
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:Another, ooh, Lars Van Trier?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Well, that's Charlotte Gainsbourg is in this movie, and she's my cohort in several scenes.
Guest:She was wonderful.
Guest:You know who she is?
Guest:Yeah, Serge's daughter.
Guest:Yeah, Serge's daughter.
Guest:And she's in those Lars Van Trier movies, Melancholia.
Guest:I saw, what was the one I saw?
Guest:Nymphomaniac and Antichrist.
Marc:Those are still on the list.
Marc:I saw the one about the family, which was like... Yeah, Celebration, you're probably talking about.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Good stuff.
Guest:He's really interesting.
Guest:The Idiots, you know, Breaking the Waves.
Guest:Breaking the Waves.
Guest:He's really good.
Guest:But those three movies, and she's wonderful in them.
Guest:I got to watch them.
Marc:I've made a point, like, I've got to watch these, but I haven't done it yet.
Guest:Yeah, well, Melancholia is an end-of-the-world movie, but the world ends.
Guest:I hope I'm not spoiling anything.
Guest:And it's Kirsten Dunn's character who kind of accepts it, who's really smart and finally prescient about our place in the whole universe.
Guest:And she says, you know, we're just evil.
Guest:We're just kind of an evil planet.
Guest:Nobody's going to miss us, in fact.
Guest:And then the world ends, something like that.
Guest:Well, look, it was great talking to you.
Guest:I guess we've got to wrap it up.
Marc:You're just a wonderful, wonderful individual.
Marc:It was fun.
Marc:I was very excited.
Marc:I knew we'd get along.
Marc:How big is your head?
Guest:I'd say seven and a quarter.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:This hat was made for me.
Guest:I just have a couple of hats, but I like this.
Guest:Why?
Guest:You want to try this on?
Marc:No, no, I'm not a hat guy, but I have a hat that a guy sent me.
Marc:That one's there, but that one fits me.
Marc:But I don't think you could wear the hat that was sent me.
Guest:I shouldn't take anything more into my home.
Guest:I like to, I'm a de-accumulator.
Guest:And so I'm very careful.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I sort of de-accumulate into this space.
Guest:Well, this is a beautiful artifact.
Guest:This is an installation.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:This isn't a hoarding, a hoarder's.
Marc:Well, I got to keep it dusted.
Marc:Like that was the weird thing is that like I realized that like everything's here, but like I wasn't really dusting.
Marc:So it started to have a sad museum vibe, you know, like a roadside museum vibe.
Marc:Where they don't dust and there's cobwebs.
Guest:I know.
Marc:I don't want people walking in going, it's a little grimy.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Well, you got to get your lady to do all her dusting in here.
Guest:Hey, I just read that article about Louis C.K.
Guest:in New York Magazine.
Guest:Did you read that?
Guest:No.
Guest:I thought that was a very inspirational and interesting article.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Right now in New York Magazine.
Guest:Brand new.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know you did that number one.
Guest:But I haven't heard it.
Marc:The first interview was years ago.
Marc:Then I just did one.
Marc:I got to hear it.
Marc:That's still up there where we only talked about the creation of Horace and Pete.
Marc:The other one, I'd have to send it to you, the two-parter.
Marc:I'd love to.
Marc:I'm so interested in it.
Marc:Do I have your contact?
Marc:I think I do.
Marc:Lake Bell.
Marc:I'll give you everything.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Lake Bell.
Marc:She's the one who made me come after you.
Guest:I'm only remembering now.
Marc:I didn't remember that.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I love her.
Marc:So I got to talk to Jeff.
Marc:And then I texted you and we kind of went back and forth.
Marc:Now it's all coming back to me.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My uncle Ben, he went to Alaska.
Guest:My brother Ben went to Alaska.
Guest:That's the death of a salesman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He went to Alaska.
Guest:I should have followed him up there.
Guest:Why didn't I follow him up there?
Guest:Oh, you would have froze up there.
Guest:Oh, what do you know?
Guest:What are you talking about?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:We ought to do that play.
Guest:Or the two gents.
Guest:Two gents is what we should do?
Guest:Yeah, it's singing though, right?
Guest:That's all singing.
Guest:Well, you're a good singer.
Guest:I could do it.
Guest:Sure you could.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, where's North?
Guest:I have to decompose.
Guest:That'd be funny.
Guest:Let's do it.
Guest:All right.
Marc:Oh, that was fun, man.
Marc:He's exactly how you want him to be and exactly who he is.
Marc:And happy birthday to his kid today.
Marc:And, you know, obviously you can see Independence Day resurgence.
Marc:It's now in theaters.
Marc:WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get some posters.
Marc:There's cups and things.
Marc:And all my tour dates are there.
Marc:The episodes are there.
Marc:You can get Howl, the app there.
Marc:Howl.fm for all the archives.
Marc:You know, do the thing.
Marc:and uh yeah yeah i'm a little i'm a little nauseous am i playing guitar today what do we got going what do we have going this is a less paul custom straight into a old fender champ with a little bit of reverb
Guest:Boomer lives!