Episode 846 - Kathy Bates / Graham Elwood

Episode 846 • Released September 13, 2017 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck nicks what's happening i am mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going i i don't know how long i can talk because i have uh stitches in my mouths i have stitches in my mouth

00:00:29Marc:I have like four or five stitches in my mouth right now.

00:00:33Marc:Got them this morning.

00:00:34Marc:I could tell you about what happened or what it is, but it might gross you out.

00:00:37Marc:So let's ease into it.

00:00:39Marc:Let's ease into it.

00:00:41Marc:I'd like to say hello to everybody down in Florida.

00:00:46Marc:If you can hear me, I've been getting emails from people who are listening to the show.

00:00:51Marc:It's kind of taking their mind off the waiting for power or whatever.

00:00:55Marc:I appreciate that.

00:00:56Marc:I hope you're okay.

00:00:56Marc:I hope everybody made it through down there and now the horrible repair and restoration and rebuilding and just getting back to some semblance of reality for a lot of people or reality normalcy.

00:01:10Marc:Just for a lot of people is going to be a long, a long stretch.

00:01:15Marc:It's going to be a long haul.

00:01:17Marc:I'm sorry you went through that.

00:01:19Marc:My mother's back online back.

00:01:22Marc:I heard from her.

00:01:22Marc:She's down there and in the Hollywood area.

00:01:27Marc:And it was intermittent hearing from her and wondering how she was doing.

00:01:32Marc:I never really texted.

00:01:34Marc:I don't text her that much on purpose.

00:01:36Marc:I don't initiate many textings with my mother.

00:01:39Marc:But I started during the hurricane.

00:01:43Marc:And there were times where she wouldn't get back to me.

00:01:45Marc:And I was concerned.

00:01:46Marc:But it worked out.

00:01:49Marc:And I'm glad she's okay and that her home is okay.

00:01:52Marc:It's a little...

00:01:52Marc:messy around where she lives but uh just saying i hope uh you're doing all right and uh and the struggle ahead is not too horrible and if it is that that you know you got a lot of support and help to get through it okay that's what i'm saying and i'm glad you're okay mom

00:02:11Marc:I have not heard from my father.

00:02:13Marc:He was nowhere near the hurricanes.

00:02:15Marc:He's in New Mexico, but I think he might be mad at me again.

00:02:20Marc:I don't know.

00:02:20Marc:I'm a little hard on the old man in the specials occasionally, but I thought it was endearing enough this time.

00:02:29Marc:I get along fine with them.

00:02:30Marc:But, you know, they're going to take the hit.

00:02:32Marc:Sometimes the folks take the hit in the comedy.

00:02:35Marc:And again, I'm astounded and grateful and happy that you're all enjoying the special, Too Real, on Netflix so much.

00:02:44Marc:I do...

00:02:45Marc:I'm excited.

00:02:46Marc:I'm excited about it.

00:02:47Marc:It makes me feel good.

00:02:49Marc:It's getting a very nice response.

00:02:51Marc:As I said before, I'll keep saying you can watch it on Netflix.

00:02:55Marc:Some people are complaining that after they watch my show, it suggests the Jeff Dunham special.

00:03:00Marc:I have nothing to do with that, certainly.

00:03:03Marc:I did not tell Netflix, look, if you're going to promote me and people watch me first, make sure Jeff and the puppets get, you know, shout out the end or, you know, at least people maybe maybe just have that special start right after mine for Jeff and the puppets.

00:03:18Marc:I did not say that.

00:03:19Marc:I'm not going to judge anybody, but I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it, with that being sort of piggybacked.

00:03:27Marc:I guess it does refer people back to thinkypain as well on Netflix, and you can get the epic special on Demanded Epics, or you can get that more later.

00:03:37Marc:That's the special in between thinky pain and too real.

00:03:40Marc:You can get that on iTunes.

00:03:42Marc:So enjoy all three Mark Maron specials and soon enjoy the WTF book.

00:03:47Marc:So what's wrong with my mouth?

00:03:49Marc:It hurts.

00:03:49Marc:My mouth hurts.

00:03:51Marc:It definitely hurts.

00:03:52Marc:Look, I, but before I get to my mouth,

00:03:55Marc:We have we have Kathy Bates on the show today and we have Graham Elwood is here to fellow podcaster to talk about his podcasting documentary.

00:04:07Marc:So my mouth.

00:04:07Marc:Yeah, I went to the oral surgeon today because I don't know.

00:04:10Marc:I don't think I ever had one of these things.

00:04:13Marc:since I've been on the show.

00:04:15Marc:And I don't know if anybody gets them.

00:04:16Marc:When I talk about them, it's like nobody gets them.

00:04:19Marc:A muco, muco seal.

00:04:21Marc:What they are is like, I think because of my bites fucked up and sometimes I bite my lip funny, it's basically a clogged or crushed salivary gland that can no longer salivate.

00:04:31Marc:So it just kind of fills up like a blister and pops and fills up again.

00:04:34Marc:Just a never-ending process.

00:04:36Marc:Heals, fills up again.

00:04:37Marc:Got to get them removed.

00:04:39Marc:Well, I went...

00:04:40Marc:And I just thought it'd be a quick and easy thing.

00:04:42Marc:But this grand, I guess, was huge.

00:04:47Marc:And I just thought I didn't know when it was going to stop.

00:04:50Marc:Like they took a lot of meat out of my face inside.

00:04:53Marc:Sorry if you're eating.

00:04:56Marc:They do a local anesthetic.

00:04:58Marc:Right.

00:04:59Marc:And and then they just start going at it.

00:05:02Marc:You know, there's an assistant.

00:05:03Marc:This woman is pulling up my on my lip by the doc.

00:05:06Marc:Dr. Gooey is his name out here in Pasadena.

00:05:10Marc:He's cutting away on my inner mouth and it's going on for a while.

00:05:14Marc:And you can see gauze.

00:05:16Marc:I can see bloody things being pulled up and out and, you know, in my periphery.

00:05:22Marc:But then there's small talk.

00:05:23Marc:You know, like, he keeps going, like, are you okay?

00:05:26Marc:And I'm like, yeah, okay, okay.

00:05:28Marc:And then he's like, so you went running today?

00:05:31Marc:And I'm like, what?

00:05:32Marc:And he's like, oh, no, no.

00:05:33Marc:She's been running.

00:05:34Marc:I'm just asking her.

00:05:35Marc:And I'm like, oh, OK.

00:05:36Marc:And then she's like, no, not today.

00:05:38Marc:Maybe I'll go after her.

00:05:39Marc:And then he's like, oh, this is a big one.

00:05:42Marc:And I'm like, me?

00:05:43Marc:Are you talking to me?

00:05:44Marc:Yeah, this is a big one we're taking.

00:05:45Marc:I'm like, OK.

00:05:47Marc:But I'm not talking very well.

00:05:48Marc:And then he's talking to her about, I like your new car.

00:05:52Marc:It looks like a good car.

00:05:54Marc:And she's like, yeah, it fits better in the parking lot here.

00:05:56Marc:And I'm like, I'm awake.

00:05:58Marc:I'm awake.

00:06:00Marc:It was like, I can understand the chit-chat when you're under full anesthetic, but I'm right there.

00:06:06Marc:I mean, it's nice that you guys are talking, but don't pretend you're not cutting my mouth up.

00:06:12Marc:It got to the point where I'm like, I literally, I was like, are they just going to start being like, this guy's an idiot, isn't he?

00:06:17Marc:I know, he looks like an idiot.

00:06:19Marc:He says he's on television.

00:06:20Marc:I don't know if he's really on television.

00:06:21Marc:Man, his mouth is a mess, right?

00:06:23Marc:Because it was that kind of like, I was one of those moments where I'm like, hey, I'm not invisible.

00:06:29Marc:I'd like to be part of the conversation.

00:06:31Marc:Thank you.

00:06:33Marc:So I don't know what's going to happen.

00:06:34Marc:I don't know.

00:06:35Marc:But I have five stitches in my mouth and hopefully everything's okay because they send them out for a biopsy and, you know, okay.

00:06:41Marc:So we'll see.

00:06:42Marc:I have good things going on in my life, but they're just right.

00:06:46Marc:Just, you know, like right when you get a bunch of good things going, it's like, don't get too happy.

00:06:51Marc:Be afraid of this.

00:06:53Marc:So look, Graham Elwood, he's been making this movie for a while.

00:06:58Marc:It's Earbuds, the podcasting documentary.

00:07:01Marc:It's now available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and many other on-demand platforms.

00:07:06Marc:I hadn't seen Graham in a while.

00:07:08Marc:And this was actually a lovely conversation.

00:07:11Marc:with graham elwood about the movie about other stuff and it continued into the house where it got even heavier and more intense but we left uh feeling uh elevated and and uh that we had bonded and that uh you know we understood each other maybe you can get a glean maybe you can glean some of that from this discussion i didn't tape the one in the house this is me and graham elwood

00:07:41Marc:Graham Elwood, this motion picture has been in the making for what seems like decades.

00:07:50Guest:It absolutely feels that way.

00:07:51Guest:It's been three and a half years, but every documentary is a... Hey, man, you know, they take time.

00:07:57Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, we... I guess this is better because the first documentary I did about telling jokes overseas to the troops in Afghanistan... What was that called?

00:08:07Marc:Laugh-ganistan.

00:08:08Marc:What happened to that?

00:08:09Marc:Because I know that... What's his name?

00:08:10Marc:Jordan just made a...

00:08:11Guest:Yeah, he made I Am Battle Comics.

00:08:13Guest:Are you in that?

00:08:14Marc:No.

00:08:15Guest:Huh.

00:08:15Guest:Way to go, Jordan.

00:08:16Guest:Wow.

00:08:17Guest:Nice guy.

00:08:18Guest:Yeah.

00:08:21Guest:But yeah, I did left Afghanistan, but that took me... God, that took me...

00:08:26Guest:Five years or something like that?

00:08:28Guest:Six years?

00:08:29Guest:So this being three years was a... Can you get Laugh-Ganistan?

00:08:34Guest:Yeah, actually Laugh-Ganistan.

00:08:35Guest:So Comedy Dynamics, who's distributing Earbuds, is also distributing Laugh-Ganistan.

00:08:41Guest:So Earbuds is available now on everything.

00:08:45Guest:And Laugh-Ganistan will be available on Amazon.

00:08:47Guest:Because we were just selling it at Comedy Film Nerds.

00:08:51Guest:For a while, just for several years.

00:08:53Guest:Oh, just hard copies.

00:08:54Guest:Yeah, and we sell downloads.

00:08:55Guest:But then Comedy Dynamics goes, Graham, you want us to sell your other film too?

00:08:59Guest:And I'm like, well, I don't know.

00:09:00Guest:I don't know if I give up those 12 downloads a year.

00:09:02Guest:We're selling a comedy film turds.

00:09:05Marc:We put infrastructure in on the site to make it a pay site for this.

00:09:11Guest:I don't know if I want to give that up.

00:09:13Guest:I still got a lot of envelopes.

00:09:15I can't.

00:09:16Guest:man see i got padded envelopes and you know yeah what are we gonna do with those now i know i got i got adhesive labels sure from uline i got thousands of them we have big plans those big goddamn catalogs from uline we're gonna go we're gonna make a bundle i know this is gonna be this everyone wants to see a comedian cry in a war zone i mean and so in other words you're gonna let comedy dynamics

00:09:42Guest:Yes, yes.

00:09:43Guest:Go ahead and take the load off your back.

00:09:45Guest:Yes, so that maybe we actually break even on the L'Afghanistan.

00:09:50Marc:Now, I remember when you started doing this, it was at the podcast festival.

00:09:56Guest:The second year of LA PodFest, we were like, let's make one.

00:10:00Guest:So we decided we were going to do a Kickstarter.

00:10:01Guest:So we're like, let's get some interviews for the reel or the promo thing.

00:10:06Guest:So we interviewed some people at that.

00:10:08Guest:I think you were one of them.

00:10:09Guest:And then...

00:10:10Guest:We funded it.

00:10:12Guest:The Kickstarter, we raised $140,000.

00:10:13Marc:Oh, you did a reel for the Kickstarter.

00:10:16Guest:Yeah, we did a reel for the Kickstarter.

00:10:17Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.

00:10:18Guest:A Kickstarter reel.

00:10:19Guest:And we raised $140,000.

00:10:20Guest:That was February of 2014.

00:10:23Guest:Right.

00:10:24Guest:And then, so then we shot that whole spring and summer.

00:10:27Guest:And then that third year of the festival...

00:10:30Guest:that's where we got some other interviews with you as well.

00:10:33Guest:But we got interviews with you at two festivals in a row.

00:10:36Marc:Sure.

00:10:37Marc:Well, it's weird at those festivals.

00:10:38Marc:Like, you know, you're running the festival and you got Mancini running around and then there's 900 other fucking people going like, hey man, can we just do an interview?

00:10:45Marc:I'm like, who are you?

00:10:46Marc:What are we doing?

00:10:49Marc:But it's nice.

00:10:49Marc:You know, it's like these guys, you set up the room, but like there was a period there where I'm like, I couldn't differentiate between.

00:10:56Marc:Yeah.

00:10:57Marc:Like Graham, is this any different than that guy over there?

00:11:00Yeah, I remember.

00:11:02Guest:Is this the guy who's just having me talking to his iPhone and four people are going to listen to it?

00:11:06Guest:Or is this like a real thing?

00:11:08Guest:It's a real thing?

00:11:09Guest:I remember that, yeah, because we have the, at the festival, we have the, we call it the lab.

00:11:15Guest:Yeah.

00:11:15Guest:So anyone, you can have a show that you do or whatever, and that's a cool thing.

00:11:20Guest:So comics come in there, but I remember.

00:11:22Guest:are you and you're like walking around walking around the room doing interviews and you're being very gracious so that there's always someone who's like you're like all right does it yeah who'd you end up talking to we talked to everybody you know it was a really i gotta tell you making making earbuds was such a cool journey we interviewed joe rogan we interviewed aisha tyler we talked to todd glass and we you know we wanted to show the connection between podcasters and fans as you know

00:11:48Marc:You know, that's how it evolved.

00:11:49Marc:It was originally supposed to be a podcaster or was it always supposed to be about the podcaster on the fans or was it just about podcasting?

00:11:56Guest:Well, it was initially going to be about podcasting.

00:11:58Guest:And then we were like, well, let's because, you know, you've gotten the letters from fans.

00:12:02Guest:I know you got me through a tough time.

00:12:04Guest:Yeah.

00:12:04Guest:So we tracked some of them down.

00:12:07Guest:Oh, you did?

00:12:08Guest:And then we also wanted to get the sort of big moments.

00:12:10Guest:Like we interviewed Todd Glass about coming out on the show.

00:12:13Guest:Sure.

00:12:14Guest:And why he picked this show instead of comedy film.

00:12:17Marc:What did he say?

00:12:17Guest:We could have used the goddamn downloads.

00:12:18Marc:What an asshole.

00:12:19Marc:You've known him longer than me.

00:12:21Guest:What the fuck?

00:12:21Guest:You guys are better friends.

00:12:22Guest:Come on.

00:12:25Guest:But no, he made some great... I got to say, I learned so much from the podcasters.

00:12:32Guest:It sounds weird because people would...

00:12:34Guest:you, Aisha, Joe Rogan would articulate things and I go, God damn, that's right.

00:12:39Guest:You know, like you said, you gotta show up for people, like pick a time and stick to it because you're like, people are starting to, they start to count on you.

00:12:48Guest:Right.

00:12:48Guest:And you're like, oh boy.

00:12:49Guest:And yeah, there is a like, oh God, we gotta release something today.

00:12:53Guest:So, and then, you know, when Todd talked about the coming out thing,

00:12:57Guest:I was like, why did you pick a podcast?

00:12:59Guest:I think I know why.

00:13:00Guest:What did he say?

00:13:02Guest:He said, if I'm doing a four minute, if I'm on panel on Jimmy Kimmel, there's no environment to do that.

00:13:09Guest:And I'm not big enough to get interviewed by Barbara Walters.

00:13:12Marc:Right.

00:13:12Marc:But I also think he wanted to get it one and done.

00:13:16Marc:Like he wanted the entire community to know.

00:13:19Marc:Like mostly the comics and everybody.

00:13:21Marc:So he wouldn't have to email everybody.

00:13:24Marc:He wanted him being out to be out there in our world.

00:13:28Marc:Right.

00:13:28Marc:So he wouldn't have to do any follow up.

00:13:31Marc:You know.

00:13:31Yeah.

00:13:32Marc:He's just done.

00:13:34Marc:One foul swoop.

00:13:35Guest:I think there's probably, yeah, I'm sure there's some truth to that.

00:13:38Guest:Yeah.

00:13:40Guest:And also too, I remember I was working with him in Vegas before he recorded it.

00:13:45Guest:And I remember we were like in the car and he was like, ah, I got something.

00:13:49Guest:And I go, you're gay.

00:13:50Guest:And he goes, well, huh?

00:13:52Guest:I go, yeah, come on.

00:13:54Guest:Oh, he was hedging?

00:13:55Guest:He was hedging.

00:13:56Guest:Like he didn't like, I've known him a long time, but you know, like a lot.

00:13:58Guest:But did you know?

00:14:00Guest:I, yeah.

00:14:01Guest:I mean, you go on the, I went on the road with him a fair amount.

00:14:04Marc:I guess that would, yeah.

00:14:05Guest:A guy's either complaining about his wife or girlfriend or trying to get laid.

00:14:08Marc:Right.

00:14:09Guest:Not Todd.

00:14:10Guest:No, I wasn't doing either one of those things.

00:14:13Guest:And there was never a, oh, I just met this girl.

00:14:16Guest:Oh, I got this crazy thing on the, there was none of that.

00:14:18Guest:So I was just like, oh, he's probably gay.

00:14:19Marc:Yeah.

00:14:19Guest:And I didn't give a shit.

00:14:20Marc:Yeah, right.

00:14:21Marc:Sure.

00:14:21Marc:You know.

00:14:22Marc:But you didn't bring it up either.

00:14:23Guest:But he didn't bring it up.

00:14:23Guest:You didn't bring it up.

00:14:24Guest:I didn't bring it up.

00:14:25Guest:But so then he was in the car and he goes, yeah, I've been talking to Mark.

00:14:28Guest:I think I'm going to, I go fucking,

00:14:30Guest:I said to him, I go, look, I'm a straight guy, so it's easy for me to go, just say it.

00:14:34Guest:Who's going to give a shit?

00:14:35Guest:What do I know?

00:14:36Guest:But I said, I think you'll just be happier once you say it.

00:14:40Guest:And he says in the film, he goes, I felt lighter.

00:14:44Guest:And he goes, I don't know what the fuck Mark does, but he just knows how to interview people and just make you feel.

00:14:50Guest:And then you guys were very cool.

00:14:53Guest:We used some clips from it.

00:14:55Guest:Yeah.

00:14:57Guest:Good.

00:14:58Guest:So you just...

00:14:59Guest:The way you went into it, it was awesome.

00:15:01Guest:So it was really- Oh, good, good, good.

00:15:03Marc:Who else?

00:15:03Marc:Did you talk to Dave Anthony?

00:15:04Guest:Yeah, we talked to Dave Anthony and Greg Barrett about when they were doing Walk in the Room and Greg broke his sobriety.

00:15:13Marc:Oh, that's in the movie?

00:15:14Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:15:15Marc:Did he tell the story about the dog pills?

00:15:17Marc:Yeah.

00:15:18Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:15:18Marc:Yeah.

00:15:19Guest:oh good so that's out there so yeah we got that done yeah no i got a lot of really heartfelt things i mean hardwick told the story about interviewing his dad and then like several months later his dad passed away oh yeah and the response from the podcast community uh-huh about that was really powerful um and then you know we had gill martin talking about mental illness sure

00:15:42Guest:And then got a lot of, we just set up some like fan interviews, we call them.

00:15:46Guest:We just like at the improv or we did it Zaney's in Chicago.

00:15:48Guest:We just said, you know, we're going to be at this theater for a couple hours.

00:15:51Guest:Come by.

00:15:52Marc:Of each of your show or of shows in general or how'd that work?

00:15:55Guest:We just took fans.

00:15:56Guest:We just told the fans, come by and we'll interview for 10, 15 minutes.

00:15:59Guest:And all of a sudden, this was the thing that changed while shooting that we weren't anticipating.

00:16:03Guest:We knew we were going to talk a little bit about mental illness with Gil Martin.

00:16:06Guest:Sure.

00:16:07Guest:But...

00:16:08Guest:fans started showing up and then telling us on camera you know i suffer from depression or bipolar or whatever and this is how podcasts have literally helped me or saved my life or whatever and it was like that i wasn't anticipating right and you know there's an interview in there with a woman in sydney australia because we went to australia and japan really yeah for the movie yeah ah you gotta watch it mark you're in it you gotta check it out

00:16:34Marc:i'm sorry i didn't do my research i think it makes for a good better interview yeah if i don't you explain it to me oh so wait let me let me reframe it this is great i'm in this uh which is so it must be good it must be good if i'm in it yes it's the glow of podcasting documentaries which by the way i loved oh thank you i love glow thanks i loved it are you a wrestling fan

00:16:59Guest:Never been.

00:17:00Guest:I was in that era of wrestling.

00:17:02Guest:Yeah.

00:17:03Guest:So, all right.

00:17:03Guest:So you go to Japan, you talk to people.

00:17:06Guest:Well, we connect, we talk to, so I was going to say, yeah, a woman in Australia came in off the streets, didn't know her.

00:17:12Guest:And she just talked about how she was in like an abusive relationship and she had to leave and podcasting helped with her PTSD.

00:17:20Guest:Yeah.

00:17:20Marc:And then we interviewed, you know, there was, what is it exactly that they point is like just the constant companionship, the, the talking about the people talking about themselves on podcasts, like, cause it's like, there's something about, you know, hearing conversations about real shit and about struggles and all that, that really, you know, makes you feel less alone.

00:17:41Marc:What'd you find after talking to so many people was the, was the thing, was there one thing?

00:17:46Guest:Well, it's that.

00:17:47Guest:It's a lot of things.

00:17:48Guest:It's what you just talked about.

00:17:50Guest:It's the real conversations that are had, but also the technology and how they're delivered.

00:17:55Marc:Yeah.

00:17:55Guest:Because most people are listening on like earbuds.

00:17:59Guest:Yeah.

00:17:59Guest:So we're literally talking in someone's- Oh, yeah.

00:18:03Marc:You're right in there.

00:18:04Guest:It's different than like-

00:18:05Guest:if you're in your car and you're listening to talk radio even if it's a profound conversation it's still there's other right you got you got other things are open yeah yeah so i think that was it in the the way i mean honestly again i learned so much and i'm not just i'm not just saying this but like when we when we were in post is when you interviewed obama right

00:18:29Guest:And that interview, I listened, you know, I don't listen to a million podcasts because I'm busy, whatever, but like that one.

00:18:36Marc:I don't listen to any.

00:18:38I know.

00:18:38Guest:People always go, what are you listening to?

00:18:40Guest:I'm like, eh, cherry pick, this one here and there.

00:18:41Marc:I listen to music and myself talk.

00:18:46Guest:I was like, all I do is talk.

00:18:48Guest:I got to listen to more of it.

00:18:50Yeah.

00:18:50Guest:But no, the Obama interview, and again, thank you for giving us a clip to put in the movie.

00:18:55Guest:I was listening to that.

00:18:57Guest:I was like, God, I feel like I'm just hanging out having coffee with the goddamn president.

00:19:02Marc:Yeah, it's crazy.

00:19:04Guest:And that was like,

00:19:06Guest:Not that I hadn't listened to a podcast before, but I think going back to your initial question of the thing that the fans resonated is you feel like you're just hanging out with humanizing.

00:19:18Guest:It's totally human because, you know, you you and I have done a million TV shows.

00:19:22Guest:TV is very slicked up and it's.

00:19:24Marc:oh yeah hey all right you never know you know like anytime i did tv for like 20 years five minute spots eight minute spots it's like that's not it's not a good representation of anything you get a few hits in but you're not gonna get it that's all you're caring about like i get it i gotta get a hit gotta get a laugh in there that's it and then like you get off it's like well if you really want to see me stretch out that's what you got to see yeah come see

00:19:48Marc:me to an hour and i'll you know right then you get and then you're not even doing so many favors with those fucking shows like because like sometimes you're so restricted that's like no one's gonna be like i gotta see that guy no they're like that guy that seems uncomfortable yeah that guy was in some clothing that he never normally wears he just bought that jacket that guy like he never wears a jacket i stopped doing that

00:20:09Marc:Yeah.

00:20:10Marc:Showing up on shows with new clothes.

00:20:12Marc:I just was like, fuck this.

00:20:14Marc:I know.

00:20:14Marc:It's because I look back on it.

00:20:15Marc:90% of the decisions, I'm like, why was I wearing that?

00:20:20Marc:What the fuck was I thinking?

00:20:23Guest:And I think, too, going back to the podcast thing, we get to be so authentic doing this.

00:20:28Guest:Yeah.

00:20:29Guest:That then when you go...

00:20:30Guest:Like I had some audition for something and I wore some dumb shirt.

00:20:34Marc:I was like, fuck, what am I doing?

00:20:36Marc:We get to talk about that.

00:20:38Marc:I knew a guy, some guy I just met, a neighbor was a clothing designer.

00:20:43Marc:And he said he would make me a pants and a shirt for Conan.

00:20:46Marc:And he made me pants and a shirt and I wore them and they were fucking ridiculous.

00:20:52Yeah.

00:20:52Marc:And I'm like, this guy made these for me.

00:20:54Marc:The material of the shirt was like, it was, it was almost like it's something you'd make a, like a, a window shade out.

00:21:01Marc:It was like this thick, it looks stupid.

00:21:03Marc:And these pants, they look like, like punk rock wham pants.

00:21:07Marc:And I'm like, this is great.

00:21:08Marc:This guy knows what's up.

00:21:09Marc:And I'm like,

00:21:09Marc:Your chubby neighbor.

00:21:12Marc:You don't even know what his credentials are.

00:21:14Marc:His girlfriend came over and painted your house red.

00:21:16Marc:Like his girlfriend was some sort of interior designer.

00:21:19Marc:She made my kitchen horrendous.

00:21:21Marc:And I don't know what the, but I did it.

00:21:24Marc:And now like, yeah, I can express that anger here on the podcast.

00:21:27Guest:Because you felt, and you felt physically uncomfortable.

00:21:31Guest:Like if you're wearing, it's just a human thing.

00:21:33Guest:If you're wearing clothes, you're not, what the fuck is wrong with me?

00:21:35Guest:And then comedy, we have to feel so comfortable.

00:21:39Guest:At least I do.

00:21:39Guest:I got to just t-shirt and jeans.

00:21:41Guest:And so then I'm in some collared shirt.

00:21:43Guest:I just feel like a fucking robot.

00:21:45Marc:It's weird, man.

00:21:46Guest:I don't like it.

00:21:47Marc:I feel like I don't even really own a suit, a new suit.

00:21:50Marc:Like I got one from a sponsor.

00:21:52Marc:Right.

00:21:53Marc:You know, whatever it's called, the Indochino or whatever.

00:21:57Mm-hmm.

00:21:57Marc:But I haven't really worn it yet.

00:21:58Marc:But I don't have a reason to wear them.

00:22:02Marc:Is this what we're talking about?

00:22:03Marc:I guess this is what we're talking about.

00:22:04Guest:Do you have a suit?

00:22:05Guest:I have a suit.

00:22:06Guest:Like a new one?

00:22:06Guest:No, it's 10 years old.

00:22:08Guest:It's like from Men's Warehouse.

00:22:09Guest:It would look like a kid on picture day.

00:22:11Guest:What am I going to wear a fucking suit?

00:22:13Marc:And then if you do a show where you got to wear a suit, like if you're on a regular show, they'll buy you suits.

00:22:18Marc:Yeah, they'll buy you suits.

00:22:19Marc:I swear to God, dude, five or six of the suits I have are from a game show I hosted in 19...

00:22:25Guest:like a vh1 game show never mind the buzzcocks which shot 13 no one saw it thank god i was in it was like 1999 i have them that's one of the game i hosted two different game shows back then late 90s and i i did 300 episodes of tv you get that did you steal any of the clothes yeah but it was all like you know the first show i did strip poker was so it was all these like bowling shirts with flaming dice on them and it was just like

00:22:51Guest:those are out those are way out and then i did this show cram and i was somebody posted a video of it on facebook and i was like oh my god like khaki pants yeah some awful haircut i was just like this is a this is a disaster i was so lucky that there's no one has video of that thing oh it doesn't even exist mark we gotta find it

00:23:12Marc:I try.

00:23:13Marc:Somebody find copies of Nevermind the Buzzcocks, which is a British show.

00:23:18Marc:I hosted the American show.

00:23:19Marc:It was during the brief reign of when Zach Galifianakis was the image guy for VH1.

00:23:26Marc:There was this brief period where he was like on buses and everywhere.

00:23:30Marc:He hosted this weird game talk show thing.

00:23:32Marc:Yeah, where he would like go to grade school.

00:23:34Marc:I remember him doing all this weird.

00:23:36Marc:Yeah, weird shit.

00:23:37Marc:And then the other show was my show.

00:23:39Marc:And I didn't even understand the show.

00:23:41Marc:I didn't understand the rules, I knew nothing about it.

00:23:43Marc:But I did get some good suits and I was violently ill during the entire time we shot.

00:23:49Marc:How many episodes did you do?

00:23:50Marc:Like we did like 13 episodes and they were game shows so we could do like two in a day, right?

00:23:55Marc:So it was like a week or so, week or two of the shooting.

00:23:58Marc:But I just had diarrhea.

00:24:00Marc:And I was, like, sweating.

00:24:02Marc:And I was, like, my weight was way down.

00:24:04Marc:It was, like, too thin.

00:24:05Marc:And, like, so the suits don't even fit.

00:24:07Marc:Of course not.

00:24:08Guest:So they're all baggy on you.

00:24:09Marc:One suit fits all right.

00:24:11Marc:Well, the suits don't fit me now because now I'm, like, regular weight.

00:24:14Marc:A Burberry suit, I think, still holds up.

00:24:16Marc:Oh, wow.

00:24:16Marc:That's the fucked up thing.

00:24:17Marc:It's, like, I wore that on maybe my last Letterman.

00:24:19Marc:Like, I kept wearing those fucking suits.

00:24:22Marc:You'd only do it on Letterman.

00:24:23Marc:That was the one you had to do it on.

00:24:25Guest:I never got any of those shows, so I just was like, I did, you know, everything I did was like Ferguson or whatever, where you could just, I think, and I think I wore, when I did do those shows, it was when I was doing the game show, so I would wear some ridiculous bowling shirt.

00:24:39Marc:Yeah, this is good.

00:24:40Marc:Someone bought it for me.

00:24:41Marc:Yeah, I didn't dress myself.

00:24:43Marc:The first, my first Letterman, I went out and bought a Calvin Klein suit that was shiny.

00:24:48Marc:The fuck was I thinking?

00:24:49Marc:A shiny... I'm wearing a fucking shiny... I'm like, this looks cool.

00:24:53Marc:No, it doesn't.

00:24:55Marc:It was too big on me.

00:24:57Marc:It's so stupid.

00:24:59Guest:Oh, God.

00:25:00Guest:Yeah, I had my hair was all sort of... Spiky?

00:25:03Guest:Yeah, Vince Vaughn-ish kind of slicked up, and it was a lot of makeup, too.

00:25:09Marc:Thank God for podcasts.

00:25:10Guest:Oh, God.

00:25:11Guest:I mean, it's just fantastic.

00:25:14Marc:So, okay.

00:25:15Marc:So the humanization thing, it helps people.

00:25:17Marc:Yeah.

00:25:17Marc:It connects people.

00:25:18Marc:So this is really like a kind of an homage to not only the medium, but the fans and what it does.

00:25:26Guest:Yeah.

00:25:26Guest:It's more emotional.

00:25:27Guest:You know, some people, they hear podcasting documentary and they start getting bored because they think I'm just going to talk about RSS feeds or something like that.

00:25:34Guest:I really wanted to show the human connection and I wanted to show how it, all of us like people who, especially in LA who were like comics for a long time that embraced it because of the empowerment of it.

00:25:44Guest:But then like the fans and the connection, like we had a fan at Comedy Film Nerds, this housewife from Japan and we would talk about her on the show.

00:25:51Guest:We'd call her Japan Japan.

00:25:53Guest:And then when the earthquake hit there,

00:25:55Guest:all these fans reached out to her on twitter like hey are you okay are you okay and you know she tells us the story of going through that and these fans listening to podcasts when you know they were like i just had some podcasts downloaded on my phone the power was out and i had to walk through tokyo for eight hours to get home because everything was down and your podcast got me through and just like all this stuff where you're like wow

00:26:19Guest:Really?

00:26:19Guest:Just me and Chris Mancini talking about getting mad at a Transformer movie is like matters to somebody?

00:26:25Guest:Getting you through?

00:26:25Guest:Yeah.

00:26:26Guest:The earthquake?

00:26:27Guest:Me yelling at Michael Bay for being a bad director?

00:26:29Guest:I find that does.

00:26:30Guest:It's like it just takes people's mind off of shit.

00:26:32Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Guest:Yeah.

00:26:33Guest:And it was... So literally, now we're like friends with these folks in Japan.

00:26:37Guest:It's been the coolest journey, not just podcasting and doing the LA Podfest and then the movie Earbuds is like... It's really...

00:26:46Guest:it's changed my whole sort of view of the world in a lot of ways.

00:26:51Guest:I think that the war zone, the first documentary did too, because being in war zones obviously changes your view, but this was like, I didn't think podcasting would matter as much.

00:27:02Guest:I remember doing a bunch of tours with Scott Kennedy in Iraq, and an officer said to us, whenever you guys come through the fire base and do shows, the suicide rate drops.

00:27:11Guest:And I was like, oh, wow.

00:27:12Guest:Really?

00:27:13Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:27:13Guest:So I just always sort of,

00:27:16Guest:you know, put the war zone shows as sort of up on their own, like nothing would attain to be that powerful.

00:27:22Guest:And then doing this documentary, I'm hearing people tell me very similar stuff of like your podcast helped me.

00:27:30Guest:I was gonna kill myself and I loaded up a bunch of comedy pod, you know, like, and you're just like, God.

00:27:38Marc:Yeah, I get some of those.

00:27:39Marc:You don't know whether, like, am I supposed to?

00:27:42Marc:I know.

00:27:42Marc:How do I?

00:27:43Marc:What do I do?

00:27:44Marc:I know.

00:27:45Marc:Like, if it's like, I was gonna, that's fine.

00:27:49Marc:If it's, I'm about to, you know, you're supposed to do something.

00:27:55Marc:You know, like one time we called the police, but there's no way to track where the person is.

00:27:59Marc:But, you know, a lot of times people just need to write shit down, you know?

00:28:03Marc:But it is nice.

00:28:04Marc:It is great.

00:28:05Marc:It is a community and it is like it does do something.

00:28:09Marc:You know what I mean?

00:28:09Marc:It does help a lot of people because everybody is so goddamn like, you know, separated now and isolated in a weird way.

00:28:17Marc:And well, I'm glad you did it.

00:28:19Marc:And, you know, by the time I put this up, I will have watched it.

00:28:22Marc:So I'll go ahead and say this is a really good movie.

00:28:24Marc:You did a good job with it.

00:28:26Marc:that's kind of meta it's like reverse meta yeah this is this was great i'm saying this as because i'm gonna watch it well that's good i hope you don't have to go back and edit and go oh boy elwood made a fucking real he made a real silver suit out of this one i'll drop this in and then afterwards i'm like man was i wrong

00:28:48Marc:That was me projecting the best.

00:28:52Marc:No, no.

00:28:52Guest:I'm glad you did it and I'm glad to be part of it.

00:28:54Guest:Yeah, man.

00:28:55Guest:Thanks a lot.

00:28:55Guest:It was a cool thing.

00:28:57Guest:Where is it available?

00:28:59Guest:iTunes, Amazon, everywhere.

00:29:03Guest:Video on demand, your cable.

00:29:06Marc:Earbuds, the podcasting documentary.

00:29:09Marc:Thanks, Graham.

00:29:10Guest:... ... ...

00:29:18Marc:That was Graham and me.

00:29:19Marc:I don't know, that conversation changed everything.

00:29:22Marc:I didn't think badly of Graham, but now I feel, you know, it was a nice talk, nice connection.

00:29:31Marc:The movie Earbuds, the podcasting documentary, as I said, available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and many other on-demand platforms.

00:29:40Marc:I'm sorry about my mouth.

00:29:41Marc:I got fucking five stitches in there, all right?

00:29:44Marc:Do I have a guitar pick out here?

00:29:46Marc:That's not for now.

00:29:48Marc:Think about that later.

00:29:50Marc:Talk about Kathy Bates now.

00:29:52Marc:Kathy Bates, I had opportunity to talk to Kathy Bates.

00:29:54Marc:I took it.

00:29:55Marc:Obviously, she's a great actress, and I've always loved her work.

00:30:00Marc:And I found her intimidating, both on film and when she came to my house.

00:30:05Marc:So you might hear a little of that.

00:30:09Marc:I was like, Kathy Bates, she's intense.

00:30:11Marc:I'm a little nervous.

00:30:12Marc:I'm a little intimidated by Kathy Bates.

00:30:14Marc:But we had a nice conversation.

00:30:16Marc:I should tell you about her new TV show.

00:30:18Marc:It's a comedy series called Disjointed.

00:30:20Marc:It's now streaming on Netflix.

00:30:22Marc:It's very interesting.

00:30:23Marc:It's like a traditional three-camera show that they shot in front of an audience.

00:30:29Marc:I found it jarring when I watched it, the audience.

00:30:31Marc:I'm gonna tell Kathy that.

00:30:33Marc:Okay, so this is me and Kathy Bates.

00:30:41Marc:Nice to see you.

00:30:44Marc:Nice to see you too.

00:30:46Marc:Is this a jarring situation to be interviewed in?

00:30:49Marc:No.

00:30:50Marc:Oh, good.

00:30:51Marc:No.

00:30:52Marc:It's happened before.

00:30:52Marc:You've acclimated to the new media environment.

00:30:55Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:30:56Guest:Way back.

00:30:58Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:30:58Marc:Yeah.

00:30:59Marc:Back in.

00:30:59Guest:Back in the day, I remember doing a radio thing before I was famous.

00:31:04Guest:I don't know why I was doing a radio thing in my hometown Memphis with Carol Burnett.

00:31:09Guest:And she was like, why am I doing an interview with this person?

00:31:12Guest:I think I was still in high school.

00:31:15Wow.

00:31:15Marc:That's the only memory of it you have?

00:31:17Marc:Yep.

00:31:18Marc:That was Carol Burnett.

00:31:19Marc:You were at a radio studio, and you don't know why.

00:31:21Guest:And I have no idea why.

00:31:23Guest:I can't remember.

00:31:25Marc:Were you acting in high school?

00:31:27Marc:Would there be a reason that... I don't know.

00:31:29Guest:Maybe it was after...

00:31:31Guest:I don't know.

00:31:32Guest:Everything back there is pretty foggy.

00:31:35Marc:Does it?

00:31:35Marc:Is it foggy?

00:31:36Marc:Yeah.

00:31:36Marc:It just starts to get hazy.

00:31:38Marc:It goes away.

00:31:39Guest:You know what?

00:31:39Marc:I live in the moment.

00:31:40Marc:Yeah.

00:31:41Marc:So some moments vanish.

00:31:43Marc:Do you ever try to find things back there?

00:31:47Marc:I find I do it more now.

00:31:49Guest:Like when I'm falling asleep, sometimes things will pop up and I'll think, oh, but yeah, you know, or you'll make connections between memories.

00:31:59Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:00Marc:Just rewrite them.

00:32:01Guest:Oh, that's what that meant.

00:32:02Guest:Oh, that's what that person meant when they said that.

00:32:04Marc:Right.

00:32:05Marc:Yeah.

00:32:05Marc:Years later.

00:32:06Guest:Mm hmm.

00:32:06Marc:Is it so you count you come from Memphis?

00:32:08Guest:Yeah, I come from Memphis, Tennessee.

00:32:10Guest:I was born there in 1948.

00:32:11Guest:1948.

00:32:13Marc:Do you have good memories about it?

00:32:15Guest:Some good, some very difficult.

00:32:20Guest:I mean, I think one of the main events in my life was that I was born very late in life.

00:32:30Guest:My father was born in 1900.

00:32:32Guest:My mother was born in 1907.

00:32:35Marc:41 and 48.

00:32:36Marc:Yeah.

00:32:37Guest:And especially in those days in the South, because the South was sort of like 20 years behind the rest of the United States, I think.

00:32:46Guest:And very, very conservative.

00:32:48Guest:And I remember my mother saying she was embarrassed to be pregnant at that age because they meant that she was having sex.

00:32:55Right.

00:32:55Marc:At that age.

00:32:57Guest:At that age.

00:32:58Marc:Oh, that's sad.

00:32:59Guest:I know.

00:33:00Guest:I mean, the whole idea about sex.

00:33:03Guest:And then, you know, then you fast forward to the 60s.

00:33:06Guest:Right.

00:33:06Guest:When it was the sexual revolution.

00:33:08Guest:And here they have a kid who's like all for it.

00:33:10Guest:And they're like, what?

00:33:12Guest:What is happening?

00:33:12Guest:Yeah, you went to a hotel and listened to guys play folk music.

00:33:15Guest:You sat on their bed and they were, you know, my friend Cherry...

00:33:19Guest:screwed the whole thing up for some reason she put her purse on top of the car when she was getting in yeah so it fell off in the middle of the street and that's how they found out we'd been there and these are guys we met at christian camp it was in memphis in memphis yeah so you know it wasn't it wasn't easy for either side i mean it was really like growing up with grandparents and my sisters had grown up by then and

00:33:41Marc:Oh, they were older than you?

00:33:42Guest:Oh, yeah, 15 and nine years older than I am.

00:33:45Marc:Oh, wow.

00:33:45Guest:So it was a whole, they were really the 50s generation, you know, and I was more the 60s.

00:33:51Guest:And so it was a real, well, it was an upheaval in the country.

00:33:54Guest:So you can imagine what kind of upheaval it was at my house.

00:33:57Marc:I can't, yeah, I can't imagine it.

00:33:58Marc:Like, so like when you're 15, it's like the Beatles and everything else.

00:34:01Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:34:02Guest:I mean, my mother was cool.

00:34:03Guest:She loved music, and she thought I should get a guitar.

00:34:09Guest:And so I remember we went to Sears and bought a $20 Silvertone guitar, which I hear they're still actually pretty good.

00:34:17Guest:And I didn't know anything about gauge strings or anything.

00:34:21Guest:They were really heavy, but I taught myself how to play.

00:34:25Marc:You did?

00:34:25Guest:Yeah.

00:34:26Guest:I loved it, and it was a great escape for me to get away from them.

00:34:29Marc:I can't imagine what the South, you know, because the South is still a little uncomfortable in a lot of ways.

00:34:36Guest:In a lot of ways, yeah.

00:34:37Guest:I mean, I know my mother, when she was dying, she was probably in, was it, probably it must have been in 97.

00:34:45Guest:I'm not sure.

00:34:46Guest:She was in a coma, we thought, and we were at home.

00:34:51Guest:Yeah.

00:34:51Guest:And so I was playing some of Ken Burns music from the Civil War and she was fine until they played the battle hymn of the Republic.

00:34:59Guest:And she started to shake and go.

00:35:02Guest:No.

00:35:02Guest:Yeah.

00:35:03Guest:So it was that's the kind of, you know, when I wanted to go to New York, it's like you can go up there with all those Yankees.

00:35:09Guest:So it's still very much.

00:35:11Guest:Yeah.

00:35:12Guest:And in some ways, look, a lot of people have been writing about that nowadays, that it's really the Civil War is still alive and well.

00:35:18Marc:Yeah, it's clearly there's a bit of that going on.

00:35:23Marc:It's a little frightening, but I imagine that, you know, these kind of riffs don't in countries.

00:35:29Marc:That's just going to be there.

00:35:32Marc:It was always there.

00:35:33Marc:So then every once in a while it gets more voice than usual.

00:35:36Guest:Well, I felt that naively that, you know, once education was, I mean, when I went to school, we were segregated.

00:35:45Guest:Yeah.

00:35:46Guest:And I had my first African-American friend when I went to college.

00:35:50Guest:Where did you go to college?

00:35:51Guest:Yeah.

00:35:51Guest:Southern Methodist University.

00:35:53Guest:Where's that?

00:35:54Guest:Dallas, Texas.

00:35:54Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:55Guest:And so I remember I always tell the story about Texas.

00:36:00Guest:When I went to open a bank account there, you could get either a set of dishes or a .22 rifle.

00:36:08Yeah.

00:36:08Guest:So I was like, hmm, what shall I get?

00:36:12Guest:I think I didn't get either one.

00:36:13Guest:You didn't get the right one.

00:36:15Guest:No, no, because the only thing I know how to make is reservations, so the dishes would have been wasted on me.

00:36:20Guest:I knew how to shoot a gun, but I figured I wouldn't use it on a campus.

00:36:24Marc:Little did I know.

00:36:25Marc:Did you grow up with guns?

00:36:27Guest:Yeah.

00:36:28Guest:My dad slept with a .45 Colt.

00:36:30Guest:I think he had it in the Army way back when.

00:36:33Guest:And he had that by his bed till the very end.

00:36:37Marc:Yeah?

00:36:37Marc:Yeah.

00:36:38Marc:In your family, was there generational history with the South?

00:36:44Guest:Oh, God, yeah.

00:36:44Guest:I had cousins that were in the Civil War.

00:36:46Marc:Right.

00:36:47Guest:Yeah.

00:36:47Guest:Yeah, we had a newspaper article about we had cousins that the Yankees were ensconced in the Gayosa Hotel in Memphis.

00:36:59Guest:Yeah.

00:37:00Guest:And apparently cousins of mine rode their horses up onto the porch of the Gayosa to route the Yankees out.

00:37:05Guest:Uh-huh.

00:37:05Guest:And then one of them fell off his horse.

00:37:08Guest:The other one ran back and pulled him up on his horse.

00:37:10Guest:And I mean, yeah, we go way back.

00:37:13Guest:And actually, I'm our families from I was a member of the Children of the American Revolution.

00:37:19Guest:So my mother was totally into genealogy.

00:37:22Marc:So, yeah, you know, all that stuff.

00:37:24Guest:Yeah, most of it.

00:37:25Guest:I mean, my oldest sister has really all the copies of everything, but it was a big deal.

00:37:29Guest:And I think that was a Southern thing.

00:37:31Marc:The Daughters of the Revolution thing?

00:37:33Guest:Yeah, it's like, you know, and now I'm realizing it was the whole ethnic thing.

00:37:36Guest:Sure.

00:37:37Guest:Which I didn't at the time.

00:37:38Marc:American aristocracy or the legacy of the original founders and that kind of stuff.

00:37:43Guest:Yeah, and since we weren't really the original ones, I didn't find that out till later.

00:37:48Guest:Bury my heart at Wounded Night.

00:37:50Marc:Right, you didn't quite frame it the way it might have.

00:37:52Guest:Yeah, I liked what Kamala Harris recently said.

00:37:55Guest:If you're not Native American, you're an immigrant.

00:37:58Marc:Right, yeah, exactly.

00:38:00Marc:So when you were growing up, did you feel constricted when you went to Southern Methodist?

00:38:06Marc:Were you like, I'm finally out?

00:38:07Marc:But that's Dallas, it's not.

00:38:08Guest:Yeah, well, it was the theater department, though.

00:38:12Marc:Oh, okay.

00:38:12Guest:So that was a whole other thing.

00:38:13Guest:Did you have to audition?

00:38:15Yeah.

00:38:15Guest:No, you know what it was?

00:38:16Guest:I didn't have a clue when I was in high school.

00:38:20Guest:I remember in my senior year, people were talking about, where are you going to college?

00:38:24Guest:I'm going to apply to Harvard.

00:38:25Guest:I'm going to apply to MIT.

00:38:26Guest:And I was like, what?

00:38:27Guest:I don't get it.

00:38:29Guest:And they said, you have to figure out where you want to go to college.

00:38:33Guest:And so...

00:38:34Guest:They had somebody from SMU coming to talk to people in the library, and I thought, well, that's convenient.

00:38:40Guest:So I went up there, and I said, that sounds good.

00:38:43Guest:My father nearly had a heart attack.

00:38:45Guest:Why?

00:38:45Marc:What did he want?

00:38:46Guest:It was so fucking expensive.

00:38:47Guest:I mean, we didn't come from a lot of money.

00:38:49Marc:He wanted you to go to state school?

00:38:50Guest:Yeah.

00:38:51Marc:Yeah.

00:38:51Guest:No, my mother wanted me to come back.

00:38:53Guest:I didn't get this, but my mother said, come back with an MRS. Which is what?

00:38:58Guest:Mrs. Oh, I get it.

00:38:59Guest:Yeah, I did the same thing.

00:39:01Guest:Because my father always said, we'll get you two years of college, and then... You get a husband and get on with it?

00:39:07Guest:Yeah, you decide if you want to keep going.

00:39:08Guest:But what happened was I went to the School of Humanities.

00:39:14Guest:I had done plays in high school, but it just didn't click that I could do that for a living.

00:39:18Guest:Did you love it, though?

00:39:20Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:39:20Guest:Yeah?

00:39:21Guest:Yeah.

00:39:21Guest:That's where I really felt at home.

00:39:23Guest:Really?

00:39:23Guest:Yeah.

00:39:24Guest:So what happened was I was there for orientation, and I think his name was Kermit Hunter.

00:39:29Guest:I think he was dean of the School of Humanities.

00:39:32Guest:And we were having orientation, and he was giving a speech about how this was going to be the beginning of what you love to do in life.

00:39:41Guest:And suddenly, the whole playing field shifted for me.

00:39:44Guest:And I got very excited, and I started asking him about the theater and acting.

00:39:48Guest:And

00:39:48Guest:He got so exasperated that I kept interrupting him.

00:39:52Guest:He gave me my folder.

00:39:54Guest:He said, you're in the wrong school.

00:39:57Guest:Go down the hall, last door on the left.

00:39:59Guest:Of course, it's the last door on the left.

00:40:02Guest:And that's where you belong.

00:40:04Guest:So I went down and I opened the door and I was horrified.

00:40:07Guest:I mean, I was so conservative.

00:40:08Guest:I had a little like...

00:40:11Guest:I had my penny loafers and my, I don't know, a little, you know, shirt waist flowered, a little circle pen, my hair and a bob, you know.

00:40:19Guest:And I look in and there's these guys that look like you.

00:40:21Guest:You know, and I was like, what?

00:40:25Guest:So I was so nervous about...

00:40:27Guest:I just felt so different.

00:40:29Guest:I changed my major back and forth like two or three times.

00:40:31Guest:And then I went to see a play and it was almost like they said later, like when gurus touch your solar plexus, I saw the play and I saw this wonderful actor and it was just like, and I said inside me, it was like, I'm going to do this.

00:40:45Guest:I don't care if I have to change my name, whatever it is I have to do, I'm going to do this.

00:40:49Guest:And from then on, I had just landed in Clover.

00:40:53Marc:You're all in.

00:40:54Guest:Yeah, and that's where Beth Henley studied, and she did Crimes of the Heart.

00:40:58Guest:We had a great group, and we went from having a little theater up at the Rotunda to having a huge theater, and Bob Hope gave a lot of money.

00:41:08Marc:Where's this?

00:41:09Guest:This was in Dallas, and they had all the rich ladies.

00:41:12Marc:So you stayed involved, or this was all when you were there?

00:41:14Guest:All when I was there, I studied.

00:41:16Marc:But you did undergraduate and graduate?

00:41:19Guest:No, I graduated a semester early because my dad did have a heart attack, actually.

00:41:25Guest:But I had gotten extra credit doing theater up the coast from here in Santa Maria at the John Hancock Center for Performing Arts.

00:41:33Guest:So we got eight hours credit each summer.

00:41:35Guest:So I had enough credit to graduate a semester early.

00:41:38Guest:And I went to New York and, you know, bunked with my friends.

00:41:41Guest:After college.

00:41:42Guest:After college.

00:41:44Marc:So do you remember what that first play was?

00:41:48No.

00:41:48Guest:Queen Esther and the Yellow Ganders.

00:41:50Guest:That was it.

00:41:50Guest:Yeah, and the actor I saw was Garland Wright, who was brilliant, brilliant.

00:41:56Guest:And he actually directed Jack Heffner's play Vanities off-Broadway in 1975, which really gave me my start.

00:42:05Guest:And then he went on to replace Liviu Chule at the Guthrie Theater and has since passed away, unfortunately.

00:42:14Marc:In Minnesota?

00:42:16Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:42:16Marc:They have a good theater scene up there.

00:42:18Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:42:19Guest:For many, many years.

00:42:20Marc:Yeah.

00:42:20Marc:It's a very kind of rooted thing.

00:42:22Guest:Yeah.

00:42:23Guest:It's serious theater.

00:42:24Marc:Yeah.

00:42:24Marc:Well, I mean, so you do all this work.

00:42:27Marc:So there's a lot of hippies around.

00:42:29Guest:Oh, God.

00:42:30Guest:Yeah.

00:42:31Guest:Beards, you know.

00:42:32Guest:The teachers, too?

00:42:35Yeah.

00:42:35Guest:No, no.

00:42:36Guest:The teachers were pretty conservative.

00:42:37Guest:Also, you know, Neiman Marcus wasn't far away.

00:42:40Guest:And, you know, you had Kappa Kappa Gammas there who were like dressed to the nines.

00:42:45Guest:I could afford one cheap outfit from Neiman Marcus.

00:42:48Guest:You know, my parents really tried hard to give me everything.

00:42:51Guest:You were in a sorority?

00:42:53Guest:For like a day.

00:42:54Guest:I literally, we went for dinner.

00:42:56Guest:Well, the sorority that wanted me to pledge was the only sorority that played touch football on the quad.

00:43:02Guest:So that wasn't so exciting.

00:43:04Yeah.

00:43:04Guest:But I remember walking in that first Monday for dinner and all I could hear was 50 girls just talking at the top of their lungs.

00:43:11Guest:And I I've never I grabbed the president and I'm like shy.

00:43:16Guest:Right.

00:43:16Guest:But I grabbed the president by hand.

00:43:18Guest:I yanked her in the back room and I said, I'm out.

00:43:20Guest:That's it.

00:43:22Guest:Well, we have a lot of girls that are in theater.

00:43:24Guest:I'm out.

00:43:26Guest:I can't be here anymore.

00:43:27Guest:I'm sorry.

00:43:28Guest:And I let because I knew I could not I could not be in a room of girls screaming at the top of their lungs.

00:43:33Guest:I just couldn't and pretend to sit down at dinner.

00:43:36Guest:I mean, I would just I just take the knife and slit my wrists.

00:43:40Marc:You know, do you have that thing where you are you sensitive to sound or is it just that sound?

00:43:44Guest:I think it was that sound.

00:43:46Guest:It must have been that sound.

00:43:47Guest:But it may be a knee jerk reaction because I was in girls school for a couple of years.

00:43:51Guest:And the fun thing that we got to do on weekends was put on our hose and our panty belts and whatever you call them and go for tea parties from one house to the next.

00:44:01Guest:So maybe I developed an allergy at that point.

00:44:05Guest:To a lot of women.

00:44:06Guest:Oh, my God.

00:44:07Guest:I just can't.

00:44:08Guest:I can't do it.

00:44:09Guest:I can't do it.

00:44:09Marc:It's just it's not even you can't even hear what they're saying, right?

00:44:12Marc:It's just a frequency.

00:44:13Guest:Yeah, it's like geese in a field.

00:44:16Guest:Yeah.

00:44:17Marc:So when you move to New York, it's like it must be what year is that?

00:44:19Marc:It's got to be like New York and it's like grimy heyday.

00:44:22Guest:That's right.

00:44:22Guest:1970 theater was dead.

00:44:25Marc:Was it?

00:44:25Marc:I think the city was almost dead.

00:44:27Guest:Oh, yeah, it was.

00:44:28Guest:There were so many derelict buildings.

00:44:30Guest:We lived on the Upper West Side.

00:44:32Guest:It wasn't very safe.

00:44:34Marc:You had done some, like, what was the theater you were doing up north here?

00:44:36Marc:Like when you'd go away from school during the school year when you were in college and you'd go get those other credits.

00:44:43Guest:Oh, I did things.

00:44:44Guest:They had a wonderful program.

00:44:45Guest:They had a wonderful state.

00:44:48Guest:The state gave them money to do this.

00:44:50Guest:They had a beautiful theater in the round.

00:44:52Guest:They had the best educational.

00:44:53Guest:Where was this?

00:44:53Guest:Up in Santa Maria at the John Hancock Center.

00:44:58Guest:And we went as apprentices and they had actors who were real professional actors who were coming in.

00:45:04Guest:So we got to do all the classics.

00:45:06Guest:We got to do Chekhov.

00:45:07Guest:We got to do the Greek theater.

00:45:09Guest:We got to do musicals.

00:45:10Guest:And it was just such a wonderful education.

00:45:13Marc:Wow.

00:45:14Marc:Do you remember the teachers that you had at that time as an actor, did they make an impact on you that lasted?

00:45:23Guest:Oh, definitely.

00:45:24Marc:Do you feel like you learned most of what you learned there?

00:45:26Guest:Yes.

00:45:27Guest:I mean, we had a teacher in college.

00:45:29Guest:He was the head of our department, Dr. Hobgood.

00:45:32Guest:We called him Hob.

00:45:33Guest:And they were very...

00:45:35Guest:What I neglected to tell you before is we went from just a regular college theater department, which was, oh, we'll go once every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, to a proper conservatory by the time that I left.

00:45:46Guest:So they had movement, voice, the whole nine yards, period styles.

00:45:51Marc:That all happened while you were there.

00:45:52Guest:All happened while I was there.

00:45:54Guest:And it was from these rich ladies and...

00:45:56Guest:You know, the oil ladies in Texas who were very involved in the arts and they were very supportive of the campus, the Meadows Art School.

00:46:04Guest:And it wasn't just theater.

00:46:05Guest:It was everything, you know.

00:46:07Guest:Oh, really?

00:46:07Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:46:07Guest:It was a huge complex.

00:46:09Guest:And now they have the I think it's called the Meadows Museum.

00:46:12Guest:It has the largest collection of Spanish art outside the Prado.

00:46:16Guest:And then the Bush Library is there.

00:46:18Guest:So you said, did they make an impression?

00:46:20Guest:So Hob would be the first one, I think, when he sat us down and said, this is going to take you 15 years.

00:46:28Guest:It'd be just like if you were going to be a doctor or a lawyer.

00:46:31Guest:You've got to learn your craft.

00:46:33Guest:He said, you've got to, you know, intern.

00:46:35Guest:You've got to go out and develop your, you know, your fan base.

00:46:40Marc:Was he right?

00:46:41Yeah.

00:46:41Marc:yeah yeah to the day so 15 years so at that time so you're a couple years in when they bring in movement and they bring in all that stuff the layered yeah sort of uh multi-tiered performing artist right training yes and you did all that yes you did we did even fencing i was just gonna say that yeah we did fencing we had a hungarian fencing master but we didn't have any places to do it except in the law quad so that was kind of funny but um

00:47:07Guest:I remember when I did one, I fought with Andy Traister and I cut his shirt.

00:47:14Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:47:15Guest:Yeah.

00:47:15Guest:On his arm.

00:47:16Guest:It was like, cool.

00:47:18Marc:This is real.

00:47:18Guest:Yeah, it's real.

00:47:21Marc:So you did dancing and movement and all that stuff?

00:47:24Marc:Yeah.

00:47:25Marc:So did you do mask work and all that kind of stuff?

00:47:28Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:47:29Guest:I remember when I was up here, we did Greek theater and I sculpted a mask for Tiresias.

00:47:33Guest:And you did all kinds of things.

00:47:35Guest:You did practicum.

00:47:35Guest:So you did sets and costumes and you learned everything.

00:47:39Marc:So it's a real theater.

00:47:40Guest:History, theater history, you know, all kind of stuff.

00:47:42Marc:And you loved it.

00:47:43Guest:I loved it.

00:47:44Marc:Yeah.

00:47:45Marc:So when you go to New York, what are your expectations?

00:47:47Guest:They were very high, and that was some kind of a mountain to fall off of, I'll tell you.

00:47:53Marc:What was it like when he got there?

00:47:55Guest:Well, it was terrifying.

00:47:56Guest:I'd never been on a subway, and seeing the subway come in was just horrifying.

00:48:01Guest:Yeah.

00:48:02Guest:It took me such a long time to adjust to being there.

00:48:07Marc:I can't imagine because it's really grimy at that time.

00:48:09Marc:I watched the first episode of David Simon's The Deuce, which is this James Franco thing about porn in 1971.

00:48:17Marc:And they're showing Times Square in 1971.

00:48:20Marc:And I have vague memories of it because I was a kid when we visited.

00:48:24Marc:But it was filthy and scary.

00:48:26Guest:Okay, well, I'll tell you what we did.

00:48:27Marc:Yeah.

00:48:27Guest:We took those burlesque houses and turned them into theaters.

00:48:31Marc:You did.

00:48:31Guest:We created Theater Row, the Lion Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, all these different groups now.

00:48:38Marc:On 42nd Street.

00:48:40Marc:Yeah.

00:48:40Marc:I've been to Playwrights Horizons.

00:48:42Guest:Huh?

00:48:42Marc:Yeah.

00:48:42Guest:I've been there.

00:48:43Guest:Yeah.

00:48:44Guest:That whole thing.

00:48:45Guest:In fact, we did a polite vanities that I mentioned.

00:48:47Guest:And at the beginning, we're getting dressed.

00:48:48Guest:And some old guy stuck his head in the door looking for the burlesque house.

00:48:53Guest:And we had to say, no, we're doing a play here, you know.

00:48:57Guest:But no, we would go to these cold rooms and rehearse.

00:49:00Guest:And we were so passionate.

00:49:01Marc:How did that evolve?

00:49:02Marc:Like, what was that?

00:49:03Marc:How did that come together?

00:49:04Marc:That the movement that did that?

00:49:06Guest:Just sort of organically.

00:49:08Guest:I mean, I think.

00:49:09Guest:You know, came from college for us because Garland, as I spoke about, we ran that department.

00:49:17Guest:He did.

00:49:17Guest:And Jack, they just let us run it because he was so innovative and he directed so many wonderful productions.

00:49:23Guest:In Texas.

00:49:24Guest:Yeah.

00:49:24Guest:They'd go to New York.

00:49:25Guest:They'd see the great plays and they'd come back and do them there.

00:49:27Guest:Yeah.

00:49:28Guest:And they were wonderful.

00:49:29Guest:And so the same thing happened.

00:49:31Guest:They continued that evolution.

00:49:33Guest:We did Music Hall Sidelights, which was a little known novel by Colette.

00:49:37Guest:Yeah.

00:49:37Guest:It was beautiful.

00:49:39Guest:He did Kafka, which was about Franz Kafka.

00:49:42Guest:And they did it in all these different spaces along 42nd Street.

00:49:45Marc:In New York.

00:49:46Marc:So he came back from, so you knew him from Texas and come back.

00:49:49Marc:We were all there.

00:49:50Marc:Right.

00:49:50Marc:So you were, so there was a crew of you.

00:49:52Guest:Yeah, there was a whole crew.

00:49:54Guest:We were called the Texas Mafia.

00:49:56Marc:Who were they?

00:49:57Guest:Jack Hefner, who wrote Vanities, Garland, Gail Forsyth, who worked for a milliner, a very famous costumer milliner there.

00:50:05Guest:Who else?

00:50:07Guest:Roseanne Gates.

00:50:08Guest:We all shared an apartment.

00:50:11Guest:Roseanne became an agent.

00:50:13Guest:And then we all were supported, too, by going down to the Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, which supported a lot of – that's where Beth's play opened.

00:50:21Marc:Yeah.

00:50:21Guest:And when I was in the original production of that.

00:50:24Marc:So you're all in New York.

00:50:25Marc:And so I would imagine that at that time, doing theater in those spaces was thought of as pretty experimental, right?

00:50:33Guest:Yeah.

00:50:34Guest:We really had free reign to do our own.

00:50:36Guest:Are you all right?

00:50:36Marc:You getting the cat allergy thing going?

00:50:38Marc:Yeah.

00:50:38Guest:no i'm just my nose is dripping anyway um excuse me i'm sticking my finger at my nose they were more the ones that were really engineering it and i was just lucky to be a part of it you know to get to be uh in the different shows and stuff and i mean we do crazy things like jack had that one of the first plays that jack wrote before vanities was called casserole yeah and it was about a kid who's been to new york and he comes back to his little town yeah and

00:51:04Guest:And it's the same thing.

00:51:05Guest:His family just doesn't get him.

00:51:08Guest:Well, we had no place to perform it.

00:51:09Guest:Yeah.

00:51:10Guest:Right?

00:51:10Guest:Yeah.

00:51:11Guest:So there was a performance going on at one of those little things there.

00:51:14Guest:And so John Arnone, who was also into set designing, he was one of our group, they made a quilt.

00:51:21Yeah.

00:51:21Guest:Yeah.

00:51:22Guest:That flew in right before the other the other stage, the other set.

00:51:27Guest:Right.

00:51:27Guest:So we could perform in front of it.

00:51:29Guest:Yeah.

00:51:29Guest:There were always ingenious ways that that they came up with to do things for a little or no money.

00:51:34Marc:It's sort of great.

00:51:35Marc:It's great because you've got that training doing like big theater and knowing that, you know, ins and outs of all elements of theater.

00:51:41Marc:And then you take those skills and just apply them to whatever space necessary.

00:51:45Guest:Yeah.

00:51:45Guest:And Hob and Jack Clay and Clayton Karkash and so many of the professors there were really responsible for taking us seriously, but also giving us the skills to do what we needed to do.

00:51:58Marc:So your first like when did you start doing film and television?

00:52:03Guest:Well, actually, the first film I did was with Milos Forman.

00:52:08Guest:He was in New York, and it was sort of an odd thing.

00:52:13Guest:I mean, Gail, who I mentioned, who was one of my roommates and the milliner, she was also a gourmet cook, and she was friends with John Guare, the playwright.

00:52:22Guest:I know that guy.

00:52:23Guest:Yep.

00:52:23Guest:And Milos was making his first American film, and apparently he'd gotten into a really shitty deal with one of the big companies and ended up with no money and had to do it with another company.

00:52:36Guest:And so he got John down there to help him rewrite the screenplay.

00:52:41Guest:And...

00:52:42Guest:And they had no money.

00:52:43Guest:So Beth used to go down there and cook for them.

00:52:45Guest:Yeah.

00:52:46Guest:So my nickname was Bobo.

00:52:48Guest:Don't ask me where that came from.

00:52:49Guest:But so they were looking for girls who had written their own songs, but had never had them published and stuff.

00:52:57Guest:And she said, you know, he said, do you know anybody?

00:52:59Guest:And she said, oh, Bobo does.

00:53:00Guest:So I went down, and I didn't know who Milos was, so I wasn't nervous, and I played him my song, which was about loss of innocence and everything.

00:53:09Guest:So he put me in the film, and Carly Simon's in the film.

00:53:12Guest:It's a wonderful film.

00:53:13Guest:It's called Taking Off, and it's about a girl who runs away from home to be in a rock band, and it's still so current.

00:53:20Guest:It's wonderful.

00:53:21Guest:It's hard to find it on CD, but it's worth it.

00:53:23Guest:It's around, though?

00:53:24Guest:Yeah.

00:53:24Guest:Yeah, I mean, we made it in 1970.

00:53:27Guest:I think we got made $5 a day or something.

00:53:30Guest:But I loved the way Buck Henry was in it, Lynn Carlin.

00:53:36Guest:I mean, it was such a wonderful, and it was such a smart take on American life.

00:53:43Guest:At that time.

00:53:45Guest:Yeah, but it was also, it's about, you know...

00:53:47Marc:Living the dream.

00:53:48Guest:Yeah, but it's also realizing these people were so worried about marijuana and rock and roll, and they invite the guy over and he's making millions and millions of dollars.

00:53:56Marc:Yeah.

00:53:56Guest:And then they suddenly get the perspective on, and it was how everything was changing then.

00:54:00Marc:Right, right.

00:54:00Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:01Marc:The business of being a hippie.

00:54:03Guest:Yeah.

00:54:04Guest:Celebrity versus, you know.

00:54:05Marc:Sure.

00:54:06Marc:That's what happened at that time, I guess, after the 60s, after the real social movement died, it all became mainstreamed.

00:54:13Marc:Yeah.

00:54:14Marc:But were you surrounded by troubled people and drugs and weirdos and freaks?

00:54:20Marc:Or were you pretty insulated with the working folks?

00:54:23Guest:Well, I finally got a job at the Museum of Modern Art.

00:54:26Guest:I got jobs as a temporary secretary thing.

00:54:30Guest:Yeah.

00:54:30Guest:And the Museum of Modern Art has their Christmas catalog comes out, of course, and you can order all these cards and stuff.

00:54:38Guest:So they always hire a lot of temps.

00:54:39Guest:And so I got in that way.

00:54:41Guest:And then they asked me to stay on.

00:54:43Guest:And I used to count the money that they took in.

00:54:45Guest:And I met this guy, Phil, Phil Bowditch, who worked in the mail department.

00:54:50Guest:And he was a wonderful guitar player.

00:54:52Guest:Yeah.

00:54:53Guest:We hung out together and, you know, that was fun.

00:54:58Guest:But we tried playing the guitar together and, yeah, we went around Fat Black Pussycat and a couple of other places, you know.

00:55:05Guest:But I was not nearly as proficient on the guitar as he was, so.

00:55:09Marc:But you used to sing?

00:55:11Guest:Yeah.

00:55:13Guest:Yes, I did.

00:55:14Guest:But I doubt I can do it very well now.

00:55:16Guest:Although, you know, with my show, I do sing a little bit on our show Disjointed.

00:55:21Guest:And actually, Chris Martin donated.

00:55:24Guest:They got a big D420 that they make now.

00:55:27Guest:And you can look it up online on their website.

00:55:30Guest:And the front is covered with all of these...

00:55:33Guest:marijuana things oh yeah it's such a beautiful guitar so he gave it to us to use for the show and uh it's so lovely to play that i started getting back into it so i see you play i do play yeah i've kind of played you know you know quietly all my life i don't i never i don't really play out that much or anything but i like to do it

00:55:52Guest:Yeah.

00:55:52Marc:It's great.

00:55:53Marc:It's a great thing to have.

00:55:54Marc:Yeah.

00:55:54Marc:For me, it's like meditation, really.

00:55:56Guest:Yeah.

00:55:56Guest:I'm starting to get back into that.

00:55:58Guest:Actually, I bought a Collings Acoustic, but then I also, I found this thing.

00:56:02Guest:I love to buy, I love to go to this shop in New York.

00:56:06Guest:Yeah.

00:56:07Guest:And I found this really cool guitar called the Moonstone Eagle, I think.

00:56:14Guest:Beautiful.

00:56:15Guest:It's shaped like an eagle.

00:56:16Guest:Yeah.

00:56:16Marc:Oh, really?

00:56:17Marc:It's really beautiful.

00:56:18Guest:Electric.

00:56:19Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:56:19Marc:Yeah.

00:56:19Marc:Are you going to get it?

00:56:20Guest:I got it.

00:56:21Marc:Oh, you did?

00:56:21Marc:Yeah.

00:56:21Guest:I got it with a Princeton reverb, you know.

00:56:24Marc:Yeah.

00:56:25Guest:So you're jamming.

00:56:26Guest:So I'm ready, man.

00:56:27Guest:I'm ready.

00:56:28Guest:You putting a group together?

00:56:29Guest:No.

00:56:31Guest:The group I'm putting to is the disparate groups that are in my head and my fingers.

00:56:35Marc:Pulling them all together?

00:56:36Marc:Yeah.

00:56:37Marc:Did you continue to study acting, or was that you were done when you got to New York?

00:56:42Guest:You know, that's interesting, too, because after Vanities was a success in 75, I came out here.

00:56:48Marc:That was your big break in theater.

00:56:49Guest:Yeah, and I came out here, and I just decided that I didn't know enough yet about what I was doing, and I thought that it was a little shallow out here, you know, that I felt...

00:57:02Marc:Was it to business?

00:57:04Guest:No, it was something I couldn't perceive, but that part of it I couldn't.

00:57:10Guest:But I remember testing for Three's Company, and it was just not my thing at the time.

00:57:15Guest:Now, here I am doing a sitcom, so I have to eat my words.

00:57:18Guest:But back then, I really felt it was the wrong step.

00:57:21Guest:So I went back, and that's when I started working in actor's theater, and I felt like I needed to continue to evolve as an actor.

00:57:28Guest:And by doing that, you practice.

00:57:29Marc:What's Actors Theater?

00:57:31Guest:Actors Theater of Louisville was John Jory's Company.

00:57:34Marc:Okay, so that's where you started.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah, and back in the 80s.

00:57:37Guest:And that was in New York as well?

00:57:39Guest:No, that was in the early 80s in Louisville, Kentucky.

00:57:42Marc:Oh, when did you do Straight Time?

00:57:44Guest:Oh, Straight Time was out here, actually.

00:57:47Guest:I did that in 76, I think.

00:57:49Guest:I kind of like that movie.

00:57:50Guest:I thought it was a great movie.

00:57:51Marc:It's great.

00:57:52Marc:It's great.

00:57:53Marc:I watched it not too long ago.

00:57:54Marc:It's a very kind of a tough story.

00:57:56Marc:I know.

00:57:57Guest:Well, and Eddie Bunker, I remember him coming to the set.

00:58:00Guest:It was his story.

00:58:02Guest:Oh, okay.

00:58:02Guest:And I remember it was the first day that he had never been wanted by any...

00:58:06Marc:Law enforcement?

00:58:08Guest:Yeah, in his life.

00:58:09Guest:But I remember him leaning up against the refrigerator and then he was just gone.

00:58:14Guest:And his cigarette ash got longer and longer.

00:58:16Guest:So I guess he was doing a little celebrating there.

00:58:21Marc:A little opiated celebrating.

00:58:24Marc:And how much did you talk to Dustin Hoffman at that time?

00:58:27Guest:We talked a lot.

00:58:28Guest:He was great.

00:58:31Guest:He loves what he does.

00:58:33Guest:And I remember him taking me by the hand and saying,

00:58:36Guest:There's the camera.

00:58:40Guest:But I also remember being on set with him and they turned around to do my part in this dinner table scene and I got really nervous.

00:58:48Guest:And I had the presence of mind to say to him, I'm really nervous.

00:58:52Guest:What do I do?

00:58:53Guest:And he said, can you hear Owen setting up the shot?

00:58:56Guest:as owen roisman one of the best guys in the world and i said no and he said well listen so i started focusing on what was going on yeah and now it reminds me of a very famous quote by konstantin stanislavski the secret to an actor's creativity is the object of his concentration uh-huh so

00:59:20Guest:i concentrate on the other actors i concentrate on a prop or whatever it is and that's my focus that's where i get my creativity like when i worked on fried green tomatoes jessica tandy gave me my performance you know that's it's a high wire act and when i was sitting there with dustin when i relaxed he knew and he said that's it yeah you know i mean he's just so supportive and i did a little movie with him a couple of years ago and

00:59:46Guest:We were talking about, we remember the audition that we had together.

00:59:50Guest:For a straight time?

00:59:52Marc:Yeah.

00:59:53Marc:Oh, wow.

00:59:54Guest:It was cool.

00:59:55Guest:It was so cool to see him.

00:59:56Guest:And we had done another tiny thing with Dick Tracy, and he had just won the Academy Award for, I think it was for Rain Man.

01:00:05Guest:Uh-huh.

01:00:05Guest:And he'd been up all night long and he had to do all this makeup.

01:00:08Guest:Sure.

01:00:09Guest:And he still and he had a he had in his hand the Shakespeare of Merchant of Venice.

01:00:13Guest:And I thought, Jesus Christ, man, this guy, he's all he wants to do is be in it.

01:00:19Marc:He's just in it.

01:00:20Guest:He loves it.

01:00:21Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:00:22Marc:And did you was that inspiring?

01:00:23Guest:Yeah.

01:00:24Guest:Yeah.

01:00:25Guest:When you work with somebody like that, that you've admired and you see what they're really like when they're dealing with the craft or with Jessica Tandy or people who have maintained their joy in the craft for years and years and years, it inspires you to keep your light bright and, you know, and keep going.

01:00:40Marc:Yeah.

01:00:41Marc:The craft.

01:00:41Marc:I guess because like I've done some acting recently and it's interesting because once the cameras go on, there's a lot of downtime in between cameras going on, cameras going off.

01:00:52Marc:So to maintain that focus and to really look forward to that moment.

01:00:56Marc:I mean, that's what it's all about, I guess.

01:00:57Guest:Yeah, you don't socialize.

01:00:59Marc:No socializing.

01:01:00Guest:No.

01:01:01Marc:No.

01:01:01Guest:I mean, I remember hearing, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but that when Daniel Day Lewis did Lincoln that he had everything closed off so that he could stay in that.

01:01:09Guest:Yeah.

01:01:10Guest:Because you can't just turn things off like that.

01:01:12Guest:You can experience it yourself and know that if you're screwing around with somebody and talking and everything, you can't get in it.

01:01:21Yeah.

01:01:21Guest:And Dustin used to always say, you need to be plugged in.

01:01:25Guest:And you need to stay plugged in.

01:01:27Guest:And you're working.

01:01:29Guest:You're not there to hang out with other people.

01:01:32Guest:And you've got to focus on what it is you want.

01:01:34Guest:It's not just your lines.

01:01:35Guest:It's how you play a scene.

01:01:38Guest:It's who you're working with.

01:01:39Guest:It's always you want to stay focused.

01:01:40Guest:It's the characters.

01:01:41Guest:All of that stuff.

01:01:42Marc:So what do you do when you're on a set and you're not on?

01:01:45Guest:Oh, I just talk to everybody and have a great time.

01:01:48Yeah.

01:01:50Guest:No, no, I try not to.

01:01:53Guest:I, yeah, I try to stay off in a corner if I have to.

01:01:57Marc:Do you?

01:01:58Guest:Yeah.

01:02:00Marc:But I mean, can't you do that like when you've got like 15, 20 minutes before you shoot or do you have to do that the whole time?

01:02:06Guest:What are you, a weenie or something?

01:02:07Marc:No, I'm asking you because I'm asking for my own advice.

01:02:11Marc:Really?

01:02:11Marc:Yeah.

01:02:12Marc:Because I got it.

01:02:13Marc:I mean, I got to shoot something in October, you know, the second season of a show.

01:02:17Marc:So when I talk to actors, I'm always curious as to because I come from comedy.

01:02:21Marc:I'm not really an actor, trained actor.

01:02:24Marc:So anytime.

01:02:24Guest:What is your focus when you do comedy?

01:02:27Marc:Well, I just try to be as present as possible and do the material and connect with the audience.

01:02:32Guest:There you go.

01:02:33Guest:Your audience is the secret to your creativity.

01:02:36Marc:Yeah, right.

01:02:36Guest:So you know how to do that.

01:02:37Marc:Yeah.

01:02:37Guest:So they just put substitute the person you're working with.

01:02:40Marc:Exactly.

01:02:41Marc:But I think like what I was talking about is just that like, you know, in between takes, you know, sometimes like you try, I think I innately try to stay in it.

01:02:48Marc:And I think that you probably do too.

01:02:50Marc:But like, I don't cloister myself away.

01:02:53Marc:I mean, I kind of do.

01:02:54Yeah.

01:02:54Guest:Well, it depends.

01:02:56Guest:I did a very difficult scene in Primary Colors.

01:02:59Guest:You're great in that.

01:03:00Guest:That's a great movie.

01:03:00Guest:Well, there was one scene that was really, really difficult, and I cloistered myself away for that.

01:03:06Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:03:07Guest:Which one?

01:03:07Guest:Which scene?

01:03:08Guest:Well, we did the scene in the truck where she's getting ready to commit suicide, but we don't know yet.

01:03:14Guest:And we had to break it up.

01:03:16Guest:We had to do the interior on the set and the exterior in New Orleans a month later.

01:03:20Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:03:21Guest:So that was kind of tricky, you know, and you have to do it from a bunch of different angles.

01:03:25Guest:That's right.

01:03:26Guest:So I really cloistered myself.

01:03:27Guest:And it was Mike Nichols who I love so much.

01:03:29Guest:And I'm just God rest him.

01:03:31Guest:I wanted to do super well.

01:03:34Guest:And it was an A-plus production.

01:03:36Guest:And I mean, not that you don't want to do everything great, but...

01:03:39Guest:It was especially important to me with that caliber of work and the script by Elaine May and Emma and everybody.

01:03:47Guest:It's just I wanted to rise to the occasion.

01:03:50Guest:It was a wonderful part and I wanted to do it right.

01:03:52Marc:Yeah, it was a great part.

01:03:53Marc:Yeah.

01:03:53Marc:I remember now it's a heavy scene.

01:03:55Guest:It's a very heavy scene.

01:03:57Marc:So that like you've worked with a lot of great directors.

01:03:59Guest:Yeah, I've been lucky.

01:04:00Guest:I've had some bizarre directors and bizarre projects.

01:04:03Guest:I mean, you look back and it's called making a living, you know.

01:04:07Marc:But you worked with Altman real early on.

01:04:10Marc:Yeah.

01:04:10Marc:Right.

01:04:11Marc:And and was that how was that?

01:04:14Guest:God rest him.

01:04:16Guest:He was a real character.

01:04:18Guest:Yeah.

01:04:18Guest:He was tough.

01:04:19Guest:He could be very tough.

01:04:20Guest:He could be very caustic.

01:04:22Guest:You know, he knew exactly what he wanted.

01:04:24Guest:Cher was in the play with us.

01:04:28Guest:Come back to the five and dime, yeah.

01:04:29Guest:And he thought we were going to do the play at night and shoot the movie during the day.

01:04:33Guest:And I just said, are you out of your fucking mind?

01:04:37Guest:I said, I just... And he was very upset that I was against it.

01:04:41Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:04:42Guest:We shot the movie in four weeks on the soundstage and just, you know, it was punishing.

01:04:48Guest:But that was after the play was over.

01:04:51Marc:Did he let you, people tell me he lets you watch the dailies and you can see stuff.

01:04:55Guest:Yeah, you have a big party.

01:04:56Guest:He shoots French hours, you know, and then no break for lunch.

01:05:00Marc:Right.

01:05:00Guest:But then he has quite a spread and you all go in and watch.

01:05:02Guest:It was kind of funny.

01:05:03Marc:That's nice, right?

01:05:04Marc:Yeah, it was very fun.

01:05:05Marc:Oh, good, good.

01:05:06Marc:Did you do soaps?

01:05:07Guest:Very, very early on I did.

01:05:10Marc:When you first started out in New York, right?

01:05:12Guest:Yeah.

01:05:12Guest:You know, it was okay.

01:05:14Guest:It wasn't my cup of tea.

01:05:15Guest:Good.

01:05:18Marc:That would have been a whole different career.

01:05:20Guest:Yeah, it would have.

01:05:21Guest:I wasn't pretty enough.

01:05:24Marc:But you just had like occasional episodes where you do this stuff?

01:05:27Guest:Yeah, we just did.

01:05:28Guest:You know, I played a dyke in prison with, God, is that on PC now to say dyke?

01:05:33Marc:You can say what you want.

01:05:34Guest:Okay.

01:05:36Okay.

01:05:36Guest:Well, she was.

01:05:37Guest:You say it with love.

01:05:38Guest:Yeah, she was a dyke.

01:05:39Guest:She was in prison, and she was the nemesis of Erica.

01:05:42Guest:I'm going to take my jacket off.

01:05:44Guest:It's fucking hot in here, man.

01:05:45Marc:All right, all right, man.

01:05:46Marc:Okay.

01:05:48Marc:Okay, so let's talk about, I just read something about, you won the Oscar for Misery.

01:05:53Marc:Big career changer, right?

01:05:55Guest:Yeah.

01:05:56Yeah.

01:05:56Guest:I mean, I remember going to a party.

01:05:58Guest:I live not far from Ned Beatty.

01:06:00Guest:Oh, Ned Beatty.

01:06:02Guest:And I remember going into his house.

01:06:03Guest:And the minute I came in the door, he put his hand on my head like a preacher and went, heal!

01:06:09Guest:Heal!

01:06:10Guest:Because, you know, after you win an Oscar, you never, you know, work again.

01:06:14Guest:I think that that has changed.

01:06:16Guest:But, yeah, it was hard to get a good part after that.

01:06:19Marc:Really?

01:06:19Marc:Yeah.

01:06:20Yeah.

01:06:21Marc:Well, that's crazy.

01:06:22Guest:Well, you know, when you think about it, though, it's very unusual for for a woman to have that kind of a lead in a movie unknown.

01:06:30Guest:Yeah.

01:06:30Guest:You know, unattractive, really fucking nuts.

01:06:33Guest:And, you know, it's very unusual to have that.

01:06:36Guest:So I was very lucky.

01:06:38Marc:I just read something that that Stephen King, that your character was a physical manifestation of his cocaine addiction.

01:06:46Guest:Are you serious?

01:06:47Marc:Yeah.

01:06:48Guest:I have to process that.

01:06:50Marc:Hold on.

01:06:51Marc:I'm going to read the quote.

01:06:52Marc:The question to Stephen King was, I'm trying to comprehend how you live this whole secret life of a drug addict for eight years, all the while churning out bestsellers and being a family man.

01:07:00Marc:And he said, well, I can't comprehend it now either, but you do what you have to do.

01:07:05Marc:And when you're an addict, you have to use.

01:07:06Marc:So you just try to balance things out as best you can.

01:07:08Marc:But little by little, the family life started to show cracks.

01:07:11Marc:I was usually pretty good about it.

01:07:13Marc:I was able to get up and make the kids breakfast and get them off to school, and I was strong, had a lot of energy.

01:07:17Marc:I would have killed myself otherwise, but the books start to show it after a while.

01:07:21Marc:Misery is a book about cocaine.

01:07:23Marc:Annie Wilkes is cocaine.

01:07:26Marc:She was my number one fan.

01:07:28Guest:Wow.

01:07:33Guest:Wow.

01:07:35Marc:What do you think of that?

01:07:35Guest:Liar, liar, pants on fire.

01:07:37Guest:Because there was just an article in The Guardian about him, and I remember he refers to Annie as Scheherazade.

01:07:46Guest:And then he realized he's Scheherazade having to come up with all these chapters every time for her.

01:07:52Guest:And that he also looked at her as being a bee, like a queen bee.

01:07:56Guest:So maybe all of that is really fucked up.

01:08:00Marc:Sure.

01:08:00Guest:Cocaine like images.

01:08:02Marc:Yeah.

01:08:04Marc:Does that change the way you see her in retrospect?

01:08:06Marc:I've got to wrap my head around it.

01:08:08Marc:It's kind of hard, right?

01:08:10Guest:Yeah, I've got to do some thinking about that.

01:08:12Marc:Wow.

01:08:13Marc:What was the process of that working with Jim Kahn, Jimmy Kahn, James Kahn?

01:08:17Guest:He's one of the funniest people I've ever met in my entire life.

01:08:20Marc:That's good to hear.

01:08:20Guest:Yeah.

01:08:21Guest:Funny, great guy.

01:08:23Guest:He's doing so well these days.

01:08:27Guest:He was, you know, it was the worst thing to ask Jimmy to do was to lie in that bed.

01:08:32Guest:Yeah.

01:08:33Marc:Yeah, because he wanted to be up and around.

01:08:35Guest:He's like the most, I think he can do every sport in the world.

01:08:39Guest:And so they actually hired a guy to play basketball with him so that it could keep him active and keep the blood going.

01:08:45Guest:Because he hated lying in that bed.

01:08:47Guest:But my mother loved him in the movie.

01:08:49Guest:She said, it looked like he was watching a snake.

01:08:52Yeah.

01:08:52Guest:Like he just was like, he wasn't sure where she was going to go next.

01:08:56Marc:Well, that was one of those great things to see him work like that.

01:08:59Marc:Yeah.

01:08:59Marc:Because like that was one of those career changing, you know, you never saw him like that.

01:09:04Guest:No.

01:09:04Marc:To be that vulnerable and that, you know, out of control and scared.

01:09:09Guest:He's a wonderful actor.

01:09:10Guest:Yeah.

01:09:10Marc:He is.

01:09:10Marc:I always loved him.

01:09:12Guest:Yeah.

01:09:12Marc:Especially as they get older, they seem to have less invested in the image.

01:09:16Guest:Yeah.

01:09:17Marc:And they can kind of work differently.

01:09:20Guest:Well, see, that's what I like about working as an older actress.

01:09:24Guest:And that's why I sort of more than one reason that I scoff at ageism, because let's face it, the more you do it, the better you are.

01:09:30Guest:What did Mel Gibson say?

01:09:31Guest:Just when you have it figured out, you're not good looking enough to do it.

01:09:36Yeah.

01:09:36Guest:You know, but thank goodness, you know, on shows like American Horror Story or whatever, Ryan's always, you know, loves movie star actresses, you know, but actresses, really wonderful actresses.

01:09:48Guest:I think one of the people that he interviewed first as a young man was Bette Davis.

01:09:53Guest:And, of course, he did that wonderful feud last year.

01:09:57Marc:You had a part in that, right?

01:09:58Marc:Yeah.

01:09:58Guest:Tiny, tiny part, yeah.

01:10:01Guest:But I just thought Jess and I thought Sarah, I mean, Susan were just wonderful.

01:10:05Marc:Yeah, it's great.

01:10:06Marc:Yeah.

01:10:07Marc:That was crazy.

01:10:08Guest:Yeah.

01:10:08Guest:But see, being older like that, I just think it's like good wine.

01:10:13Marc:Yeah.

01:10:13Marc:Or tequila.

01:10:14Marc:How are you not going to get better?

01:10:16Marc:When you get comfortable and you get deeper and your wisdom is different and whatever you go through in life kind of informs your craft.

01:10:24Guest:As long as you stay humble.

01:10:26Yeah.

01:10:26Marc:And don't become a monster?

01:10:29Guest:No, it's just if you get to the point where you think, I got this.

01:10:33Marc:Yeah.

01:10:35Marc:And walk through it, you can see it.

01:10:36Guest:Yeah, I remember shortly after Misery doing a little thing for Shelley Duvall for her children's program.

01:10:44Guest:And I asked her something about the character.

01:10:46Guest:She said, well, you just won an Academy Award.

01:10:50Guest:I said, yeah, but not for this part.

01:10:53Yeah.

01:10:53Guest:you know to me you got to start from scratch and yeah you can you know how to play your instrument you know your guitar your fingering's pretty good but you still got to learn the song and you've got to figure out how you're going to deliver it and right you know bring it into being and all of those things and you you start all over and it's a mystery otherwise if you don't look at it that way you're just skating on the surface you're just sitting in the plane with the blocks on the wheels yeah

01:11:17Marc:is every relationship with a director different?

01:11:19Guest:Yes.

01:11:20Guest:It's like veterinary medicine.

01:11:21Guest:Actually, I think directing is more like being a veterinarian.

01:11:26Guest:But for example, on Misery, Rob helped me with every bit, every bit of it.

01:11:31Marc:Reiner did, yeah.

01:11:31Guest:Yeah.

01:11:32Guest:Well, he's an actor and he's a wonderful, he's got a great ear and he's just, he's a great communicator.

01:11:40Guest:But then sometimes you're out there on your own and

01:11:42Guest:You know, I kind of in general look at it like you're in a space pod.

01:11:46Guest:You're out there in space and you need Houston.

01:11:48Guest:I mean, I need help.

01:11:50Guest:But other times, sometimes you got it and you say, directors, can I help you?

01:11:56Guest:And I say, no, I think I got this.

01:11:58Guest:So I guess it depends on the depth of the work that you're doing and the genre and what's expected of you.

01:12:05Marc:But like doing something like Titanic, which is like I imagine all mostly in a studio, right?

01:12:12Guest:No, it was actually they built a seven eighths replica of the ship along the coast in Baja.

01:12:20Marc:So you're out there in the water.

01:12:21Guest:No, no, no.

01:12:22Guest:We were up on the promenade.

01:12:26Guest:That was a trip the first time going up in the elevator and then opening the door.

01:12:30Guest:And it's 1912.

01:12:32Guest:everybody in their costumes walking up and down i couldn't see the cameras at that point and because i was just visiting the set and i was like holy crap you know this is real i mean everything that he did was amazing yeah and how'd you get that part uh i don't know i think they offered it oh yeah yeah great i can't remember yeah it's pretty amazing pretty amazing what he accomplished with that movie

01:12:56Marc:Yeah, and that was a great part for you.

01:12:59Guest:It was a good part.

01:12:59Guest:Although I was upset in that the real Molly did go back for swimmers, for people who were in the water.

01:13:06Guest:I mean, swimmers, victims.

01:13:08Guest:And ended up, they pulled a guy in and she gave him her fur coat.

01:13:11Guest:So it bothered me that the license was taken that she couldn't get the guy to go back.

01:13:18Guest:Because actually she was quite a hero.

01:13:21Marc:So he has revisionism in a negative way.

01:13:23Guest:Yeah, and that so often happens.

01:13:25Guest:And I don't like that.

01:13:26Marc:And where they just take a character and they fictionalize it.

01:13:28Guest:Yeah.

01:13:29Guest:But it's in it takes the character.

01:13:31Guest:And instead of respecting what they did, they it's in service of the greater good, which is the film, which is which they're making a film.

01:13:39Guest:They don't really care about, you know, who's going to look up Molly Brown and say, oh, wait, she gave somebody her fur coat.

01:13:45Marc:Yeah.

01:13:45Guest:Nobody's going to do that.

01:13:46Marc:Yeah.

01:13:46Marc:Well, but but it's sort of horrible.

01:13:48Marc:Like it's the family, you know, like because that's the biggest movie in the world.

01:13:51Guest:Because so much now, you know, reality has become movies.

01:13:56Marc:Yeah.

01:13:56Guest:And it's how a lot of young people especially get their history.

01:14:00Marc:Yeah.

01:14:01Guest:They think, oh, this really happened.

01:14:03Guest:And you go, no, this is a movie.

01:14:06Marc:Yeah.

01:14:07Marc:I know you direct, but do you want to do that more?

01:14:09Marc:It doesn't look like you've done as much.

01:14:10Guest:I'd like to.

01:14:11Guest:You know, I wanted to get back.

01:14:13Guest:Actually, I wanted to do an episode on American Horror Story this summer, but it conflicted with Disjointed.

01:14:19Yeah.

01:14:19Guest:So and Ryan has really made a pledge to hire more women directors and more women on the crew.

01:14:27Guest:He really feels that there's a discrepancy in which shows this American Horror Story.

01:14:33Guest:Yeah.

01:14:33Guest:And his others, you know, American crime and stuff like that.

01:14:36Marc:So he's going to do more.

01:14:37Marc:What have you directed?

01:14:38Marc:You've done a few.

01:14:39Marc:I did.

01:14:40Guest:I did a couple of movies.

01:14:42Guest:I did one called Dash and Lily, which was about Dashiell Hammett and Lily Nellman and Samuel Shepard, Sam Shepard, who just passed away and Judy Davis.

01:14:52Guest:And she's a trip.

01:14:54Guest:Oh, she's amazing.

01:14:55Guest:Have you interviewed her?

01:14:56Marc:No, I haven't seen her in a while.

01:14:58Guest:So I did that, but mainly my most fun directing was in Six Feet Under.

01:15:04Guest:I directed about five episodes of that.

01:15:06Guest:And so I learned a lot working on that.

01:15:09Marc:That was such a great looking show.

01:15:10Guest:Wasn't it?

01:15:11Marc:Yeah.

01:15:11Guest:A lot of theater actors.

01:15:12Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:15:14Marc:Who produced that?

01:15:14Marc:Who was the... Alan Ball.

01:15:16Marc:Oh, that's right.

01:15:16Guest:And also Alan Poole was our... Alan Ball.

01:15:19Guest:And Alan Poole was our producer on set.

01:15:23Guest:He's fabulous to work with.

01:15:24Guest:We're still friends.

01:15:25Marc:Oh, that's great.

01:15:27Marc:And theater, do you want to do it anymore?

01:15:29Guest:Well, I kind of feel like I'm getting my fix with doing Disjointed.

01:15:33Marc:I know.

01:15:34Marc:I was surprised to see that it was like a live audience show.

01:15:37Guest:In fact, you know, I know you have a big following.

01:15:39Guest:I would just like to put it out there that this is not a laugh track.

01:15:42Guest:It's a live audience.

01:15:43Marc:Yeah.

01:15:44Marc:It was surprising to go on Netflix.

01:15:46Marc:And like at first, I thought it was an effect.

01:15:48Marc:Like, what's the angle here with the live audience?

01:15:50Marc:And I'm like, holy shit, they're shooting in front of a live audience.

01:15:52Marc:Yeah.

01:15:52Guest:And for me, that's great.

01:15:53Guest:You know, I love...

01:15:55Guest:You know, I mentioned working up in Santa Maria way back when, and I have to say the first night I was sitting in my little chair off stage while they were shooting something else.

01:16:05Guest:And it just reminded me of the days when I was there lying in the vomitory watching shows, you know, and learning.

01:16:12Guest:And I just...

01:16:13Guest:Everything just relaxed.

01:16:15Guest:I don't know why.

01:16:15Guest:It just feels really like home for me.

01:16:17Guest:And so in both ways of working with young actors and seeing, because, you know, the craft itself evolves.

01:16:24Guest:Yeah.

01:16:24Guest:So when you see the young actors who are really much more minimalistic these days.

01:16:29Guest:Yeah.

01:16:30Guest:Yeah.

01:16:30Marc:And how's that play out?

01:16:32Marc:Like, what do you mean?

01:16:35Guest:They managed to...

01:16:39Guest:It used to bother me because they don't really speak up.

01:16:42Guest:Yeah.

01:16:43Guest:But everything is much, much more naturalistic, even more so than Brando or... I mean, it just gets more and more... Really?

01:16:51Guest:Yeah.

01:16:52Guest:They're just more... It's rare to see them really bust out unless they're given the opportunity.

01:17:00Guest:Like Johnny Depp can just crazy bust out and do all these great characters.

01:17:04Guest:And I'm sure I can think of other guys too, but...

01:17:07Marc:He can go soft, too.

01:17:08Marc:He can go really soft.

01:17:09Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:17:10Marc:He's a pretty good actor.

01:17:11Marc:Oh, he's fantastic.

01:17:12Marc:It's kind of wild, right?

01:17:13Marc:Yeah, it's great.

01:17:15Marc:But you're working with young people.

01:17:17Guest:I love working with them.

01:17:18Guest:It's a great cast.

01:17:19Guest:And also Nicole Sullivan, who I loved on Man TV.

01:17:22Guest:And she was trained to do Shakespeare.

01:17:25Guest:Uh-huh.

01:17:25Guest:And she's this brilliant comedian.

01:17:27Guest:Tone Bell, who's a wonderful stand-up.

01:17:29Guest:Chris Redd, who is also wonderful.

01:17:31Guest:He and Betsy Sedaro.

01:17:33Guest:These guys, especially Chris and Tone, they travel all over the country and do their act.

01:17:38Marc:Yeah, I don't know them.

01:17:39Guest:Oh, you will.

01:17:40Marc:Yeah.

01:17:41Marc:The show is like, it's a shtick show.

01:17:44Marc:I mean, it's jokes.

01:17:46Marc:I mean, you're doing jokes.

01:17:47Marc:It's joke to joke and the characters are very well defined and it's about we, but there's also these weird sketch elements like commercial parodies and animated like head trips and stuff.

01:17:58Marc:Yeah.

01:17:59Marc:It's kind of, it was a surprising show.

01:18:02Marc:It's whacked.

01:18:03Marc:Yeah, it's different.

01:18:04Guest:It's out there.

01:18:05Marc:Yeah.

01:18:05Guest:And I think also, you know, in the first 10, it takes a while to find our footing, you know, in a new show and bring the cast together and stuff.

01:18:14Guest:And by the last 10, I think we're really firing on all cylinders, you know.

01:18:18Guest:And the next 10 that are coming up, which we've already shot that are coming up in April, are just off the fucking charts.

01:18:25Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:18:25Guest:Oh, my God.

01:18:26Guest:Some of the casts that are coming in to be a part of the show are just, I mean, it's...

01:18:31Guest:It's so exciting.

01:18:32Guest:I can't wait for people to see it.

01:18:33Guest:We're waiting to hear if we get picked up for another season.

01:18:36Guest:So all fingers crossed.

01:18:37Marc:Well, they're going to run all the ones that you have and you can.

01:18:39Marc:Oh, sure.

01:18:40Marc:They will.

01:18:40Guest:They will.

01:18:41Marc:So how many seasons have you done?

01:18:43Marc:Two then?

01:18:43Marc:Just one.

01:18:44Marc:Oh, just one?

01:18:44Marc:But you shot a second one or you didn't?

01:18:46Guest:Well, they were calling it one season.

01:18:48Guest:So we're doing 10 now and we have, I mean, they're airing 10 now and they'll air 10 in April.

01:18:55Marc:So 20 is one season.

01:18:57Marc:Oh, it's like regular TV.

01:18:59Marc:It's a lot of shows.

01:19:00Yeah.

01:19:00Guest:yeah and you like so fun it is oh it's so fun and it's i mean it's just i've never worked on a set like this where it's all just it's just cooking and everybody's on level playing field there's no like backbiting or you know pressure or yeah it's just fun you know we had some great directors jimmy burrows did the pilot and and richie keen has been working with us he's great and

01:19:25Guest:You know, it's just been Jamie Widows.

01:19:27Guest:We've had some wonderful directors.

01:19:29Guest:And so I want more.

01:19:32Marc:So outside of the outside of the TV show, what are you doing?

01:19:35Marc:Movies, too?

01:19:36Guest:I'm getting ready to do a movie called On the Basis of Sex.

01:19:40Guest:And it's actually based on Ruth Bader Ginsburg's earliest days.

01:19:46Guest:and how she went to school, her husband, and her life up until when she begins trying her first case before the Supreme Court.

01:19:56Marc:Oh, wow.

01:19:57Marc:That's a great story.

01:19:58Guest:I don't know anything about it.

01:19:59Guest:I'm playing a person named Dorothy Kenyon, who was very big in the ACLU and a wonderful lawyer.

01:20:07Guest:I was studying last night that it's really the fight for women...

01:20:12Guest:about becoming recognized and as a as as equal to men right and the thing they used was the jury system were women obligated to serve on the jury or was it a privilege not to serve on the jury

01:20:29Guest:Interesting.

01:20:30Guest:You know, because women really and this goes back to my parents.

01:20:33Guest:Yeah.

01:20:34Guest:If my mother had wanted to leave my father, she wouldn't have been able to get her own bank account.

01:20:38Guest:She wouldn't have been able to do, you know, this, that and the other.

01:20:42Guest:I mean, they were really considered the heart of the home and they needed a man's protection and that patriarchal.

01:20:49Guest:Yeah.

01:20:49Guest:structure is something that we are really still fighting in terms of equal pay.

01:20:54Guest:But Felicity Jones is going to play Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Armie Hammer's playing her husband.

01:21:00Guest:Mimi Leder's directing it.

01:21:01Guest:We're going to shoot it up in Montreal.

01:21:02Guest:I'm really excited about it.

01:21:05Guest:My mother being born in 1907 and going through all of that.

01:21:08Guest:Doing the research has really helped me get a different perspective on her point of view being a woman going through those years.

01:21:18Marc:Right.

01:21:18Marc:And seeing what was going on in another part of the world during that time.

01:21:22Marc:Yeah.

01:21:23Marc:Huh.

01:21:24Marc:That's amazing.

01:21:25Marc:That sounds like a great story.

01:21:27Marc:It's a wonderful story.

01:21:28Marc:And how is your health?

01:21:31Guest:My health couldn't be better.

01:21:32Guest:That's great.

01:21:33Guest:I'm just so lucky.

01:21:34Guest:I recently went for a checkup and my doctor said, I haven't seen you this healthy in years.

01:21:41Marc:You look great.

01:21:41Guest:Thanks.

01:21:42Guest:I've dropped a lot of weight.

01:21:43Guest:Yeah.

01:21:44Guest:And I've got a lot of energy.

01:21:46Marc:So what were the battles?

01:21:48Marc:What did you kick?

01:21:50Guest:Well, it was gradual.

01:21:52Guest:It was over a period of a few years.

01:21:54Guest:I got really, really heavy when I was doing Harry's Law.

01:21:57Guest:I was miserable.

01:21:58Guest:And then after I got breast cancer a few years ago, I...

01:22:06Guest:I guess I just started slowing down in terms of what I was eating.

01:22:13Guest:And I stopped eating the junk, and I cut out the Coca-Colas and stuff.

01:22:17Guest:But then the thing that really helped me is I realized that, and my niece told me this, and it's actually on the Internet, that there's a biological thing that happens when you're eating.

01:22:28Guest:Uh-huh.

01:22:29Guest:You sigh.

01:22:32Guest:At a certain point after you've had a bit of food, there's this involuntary deep sigh.

01:22:37Guest:It happens to all of us.

01:22:39Guest:And it's our brain telling our stomach, okay, we've had enough.

01:22:43Guest:And that's what I do.

01:22:45Guest:And even if it's two bites, I say, okay, I push it away.

01:22:50Marc:So it's not time to plow ahead.

01:22:51Guest:No, it's not time to plow ahead, so to speak.

01:22:54Guest:And so and then I, you know, early on when I was doing that, I left the plate there thinking, OK, if I get hungry, I'll eat some more.

01:23:01Guest:But then I waited maybe five, 10 minutes and I didn't want anything.

01:23:05Guest:That's good.

01:23:05Guest:So that's what I've been doing.

01:23:07Guest:And now I realize it's called mindfulness and all this other stuff.

01:23:10Guest:But and so that's what I do.

01:23:12Guest:And the other part of it is consistency.

01:23:15Guest:Yeah.

01:23:15Guest:You know, and that's what's been different for me is like this last year doing the show because, you know, craft services is always there.

01:23:22Yeah.

01:23:22Guest:I'm the only person who didn't gain 10 pounds.

01:23:25Marc:Oh, so you held the line.

01:23:27Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:23:27Guest:It was the first time in my career.

01:23:29Guest:And I don't know why it's been so late for me to get to this, but better late than never.

01:23:34Marc:And cancer-free for a long time?

01:23:35Marc:Yeah.

01:23:36Marc:Oh, that's great.

01:23:37Marc:Congratulations.

01:23:38Marc:Knock wood.

01:23:39Marc:That's great.

01:23:39Marc:Well, I'm so happy we talked.

01:23:42Marc:Is this it?

01:23:43Marc:No, we don't.

01:23:44Marc:I'd like to talk more.

01:23:45Marc:Do you want to talk more?

01:23:46Guest:You know, I want to say something.

01:23:48Guest:And I prepared for you.

01:23:49Guest:What did I do?

01:23:49Guest:No, no, I prepared for you.

01:23:50Guest:Did I screw up somehow?

01:23:52Guest:I thought you might get into what's happening, you know, in terms of politics and stuff.

01:23:56Marc:I'm ready.

01:23:57Guest:So I've really stayed out of it.

01:24:00Marc:Yeah.

01:24:01Guest:Right?

01:24:02Guest:But after the last few days with the decision with DACA coming down...

01:24:08Guest:I would like to, I know you have a lot of listeners.

01:24:11Guest:Yes.

01:24:11Guest:And I would like to send a message to them.

01:24:13Guest:Okay.

01:24:15Guest:To send to their representatives.

01:24:17Guest:Sure.

01:24:18Guest:To Congress.

01:24:19Guest:I'm happy to do that.

01:24:19Guest:And to the President.

01:24:20Guest:Yeah.

01:24:20Guest:And this is from the Merchant of Venice.

01:24:23Guest:Okay.

01:24:24Guest:Acts 4, Scene 1, The Quality of Mercy.

01:24:29Guest:And I'm not going to try to do it like a British actor here.

01:24:32Guest:And I'm going to even tell you what it means because I bet a lot of people don't understand Shakespeare.

01:24:37Marc:I try to.

01:24:39Marc:I've had Ian McKellen sat right there and did Shakespeare for me.

01:24:43Marc:Oh, I love Ian.

01:24:44Guest:And I got it.

01:24:44Guest:All right.

01:24:45Guest:Of course you do because he gets it.

01:24:48No.

01:24:48Guest:So, I mean, I get it.

01:24:49Marc:I'm not judging you.

01:24:50Guest:And I can't do his accent.

01:24:51Guest:I love him.

01:24:51Guest:He's brilliant.

01:24:53Guest:Talk about developing your craft.

01:24:55Marc:Well, I'm just talking like I don't always register.

01:24:57Marc:Shakespeare is difficult for me.

01:24:59Guest:All right.

01:24:59Guest:Well, I can give credit to.

01:25:01Guest:I looked up also No Sweat Shakespeare, which is online.

01:25:06Guest:Okay.

01:25:06Guest:And it tells the translation in modern day.

01:25:10Guest:Okay.

01:25:10Guest:So, I'm just going to read part of it.

01:25:12Guest:This is what I'd like to say to Congress and the President.

01:25:16Guest:Okay.

01:25:16Okay.

01:25:16Guest:The quality of mercy is not strained.

01:25:20Guest:It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.

01:25:24Guest:It is twice blessed.

01:25:26Guest:It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

01:25:29Guest:Tis mightiest in the mightiest.

01:25:32Guest:It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown.

01:25:35Guest:His scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty.

01:25:41Guest:wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings.

01:25:45Guest:But mercy is above this sceptered sway.

01:25:48Guest:It is enthroned in the hearts of kings.

01:25:51Guest:It is an attribute to God himself.

01:25:55Guest:And earthly power doth then show likest gods when mercy seasons justice.

01:26:03Guest:Okay.

01:26:03Guest:What that means in everyday English, again from No Sweat Shakespeare, the quality of mercy is not strained.

01:26:12Guest:It drops onto the world as the gentle rain does from heaven.

01:26:17Guest:When you say it's not strained, it's not forced.

01:26:19Guest:Yeah.

01:26:19Guest:It's free.

01:26:22Yeah.

01:26:22Guest:It's doubly blessed because it blesses both the giver and the receiver.

01:26:27Guest:It's most powerful when granted by those who hold power over others.

01:26:33Guest:It's more important to a monarch than his crown.

01:26:37Guest:His scepter shows the level of his temporal power.

01:26:40Guest:the symbol of awe and majesty in which lies the source of the dread and fear that kings command.

01:26:48Guest:But mercy is above that sceptered power.

01:26:52Guest:It's enthroned in the hearts of kings.

01:26:55Guest:It is an attribute of God himself, and earthly power most closely resembles God's power when justice is guided by mercy.

01:27:08Marc:I'm just like sick every day of what's happening.

01:27:12Marc:And it's just heartbreaking and scary and awful.

01:27:16Marc:And I hope that something like that could get through to people.

01:27:22Guest:I've been finding a way, trying to find a way to not buckle under that fear that many of us are feeling now every day.

01:27:31Guest:I read the New York Times.

01:27:33Guest:I read all kinds of things.

01:27:35Guest:And it's almost like I don't want to read it, but I need to know what's happening.

01:27:40Guest:What's happening, sure.

01:27:41Guest:And I resisted talking about political views.

01:27:45Guest:And then I don't know when this came to me, but I thought...

01:27:51Guest:That's what we need is mercy.

01:27:54Guest:Look at the Mexicans, the Mexican army coming across the border to help people in Texas after the horrible rhetoric that's been slung at them in their country.

01:28:06Guest:Look at what they've done.

01:28:07Guest:Look what they did to help.

01:28:08Guest:Look what immigrants did to help rebuild New Orleans.

01:28:12Guest:We need to be merciful to one another and be compassionate because we're all in the same boat.

01:28:16Marc:We certainly are.

01:28:17Marc:The polarization and the intensity of the rhetoric is so brutal that when you just go out and you see what other people do and see who they are and what they're made of, that's where you see it.

01:28:33Marc:You can't be distanced from it.

01:28:35Guest:Well, I wonder, I once went back to SMU.

01:28:39Guest:I was given an honorary doctorate, and it was an honor to meet Gloria Steinem.

01:28:43Marc:I've talked to her.

01:28:44Marc:She's nice.

01:28:44Guest:She's amazing.

01:28:45Guest:And I remember I gave my speech, and I could only talk about it from my point of view.

01:28:51Guest:And it was at the time that Bush was going into the Middle East, and it was really scary, and

01:28:55Guest:But my mother used to always say, you know, you can't judge someone until you've walked in their shoes for a moon, you know.

01:29:06Guest:And so I talked about that.

01:29:09Guest:And afterwards, I asked Laura, I said, did I do okay?

01:29:12Guest:And she said, it was very subversive.

01:29:16Guest:And I said, why?

01:29:16Guest:And she said, because if you can empathize with someone, it makes that much harder to kill them.

01:29:22Marc:Yeah.

01:29:24Marc:Thank you so much for talking.

01:29:26Guest:You're welcome.

01:29:32Marc:All right.

01:29:32Marc:That went pretty well.

01:29:34Marc:It was an honor to meet Kathy Bates, to be honest with you.

01:29:37Marc:I want to play guitar, but I got to find a pick.

01:29:47Thank you.

01:30:44Boomer lives!