Episode 857 - Willem Dafoe
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I am Mark Marin.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:WTF?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Hey, here's a reminder to all of you in Los Angeles.
Marc:We are doing our only L.A.
Marc:book talk and signing this Sunday, October 29th at 7 p.m.
Marc:that's it one night only at the ann and jerry moss theater at the herb alpert educational village in santa monica and if you haven't seen me and brendan do our thing you will enjoy it we'll talk about waiting for the punch but we also talk about behind the scenes stuff from the podcast some secrets that you don't know about we take questions from the audience and we'll sign your stuff bring your copy of waiting for the punch if you already have one or you can get one with your ticket
Marc:Go to LiveTalksLA.org to get tickets or go to the tour page of WTFPod.com.
Marc:That's Sunday, October 29th.
Marc:LiveTalksLA.org or WTFPod.com.
Marc:Also, another thing, fans, friends, country people...
Marc:or global people, international friends.
Marc:Brian R. Jones has a new batch of cat mugs.
Marc:If you want to get a cat mug, just like the ones I give to my guests, go to brianrjones.com to get yours.
Marc:They go on sale today at noon Eastern, 9 Pacific, and they always go very fast.
Marc:So do that.
Marc:I'll tweet that shit too, right?
Marc:I'm a little embarrassed.
Marc:Willem Dafoe is here today.
Marc:Willem Dafoe.
Marc:I talked, you know, it's hard when you talk to a guy about acting and about a long career in acting.
Marc:But I think we did all right, me and Willem.
Marc:And he brought up a movie called Light Sleeper, which is a Schrader film, a Paul Schrader film, who I'm a bit obsessed with sometimes, Paul Schrader.
Marc:Sort of a dark mind, dark masculine mind.
Marc:That autofocus man, he wrote Taxi Driver, Raging Bull.
Marc:But we were talking about some other movie called Light Sleeper that I had not seen.
Marc:And by some weird freak coincidence, this has happened a couple of times.
Marc:Like I'm on a plane.
Marc:I usually fly American.
Marc:And I usually fly business because I don't have children.
Marc:I don't have a wife.
Marc:I have some money.
Marc:Can I spend it, please?
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:I'm giving to charity.
Marc:You don't mind if I fly business, do you?
Marc:So...
Marc:Yeah, so in their classic collection or for whatever reason, I don't know, Light Sleeper is there.
Marc:I mean, there's a Paul Schrader film made in like 1992.
Marc:And I talked to him about it and I'd never seen it before.
Marc:and i watched it and i just forget i just forget that there was a tone to certain films there's a tone to films that take their time you know some things are dated but you know people who are auteurs who have a very specific uh view point of view for their films and angle and you know they're meticulous about what the script points are and what the story points are and what it's about you know sometimes it's it's not as satisfying
Marc:as a movie that is fundamentally manipulative.
Marc:And I forget that there's a certain patience that you need to afford.
Marc:I don't know if I'd call it an art film, but an older independent film or any independent film that maybe you shouldn't judge too quickly.
Marc:Also, it's a 1992 film, so the fashions and the tone of what's happening are a little dated.
Marc:But I was surprised
Marc:and who's in the damn movie.
Marc:Willem Dafoe plays this guy, John Latour, who's a drug dealer.
Marc:Susan Sarandon is his main supplier.
Marc:Dana Delaney plays this woman who was fucked up on drugs and used to go out with Willem's character, but she got clean, and then he sort of is starting to run into her again.
Marc:David Clennon, great character actor, is this other drug dealer.
Marc:Mary Beth Hurt plays a psychic reader.
Marc:Victor Garber.
Marc:You know, the guy who designed the Titanic plays this German aristocrat, like wealthy drug dealer, weird sex guy.
Marc:Sam Rockwell is in it for like two minutes.
Marc:Jane Addams, a child, is in it as Dana Delaney's sister.
Marc:And David Spade.
Marc:His character's called Theological Cokehead.
Marc:This guy's just jacked on coke and rambling on about God and metaphysics.
Marc:It was just sort of odd to see it after.
Marc:And I also watched the Meyerowitz stories, and I thought that Dustin Hoffman was great, and Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler.
Marc:I'm just doing movie reviews, I guess.
Marc:Were tremendous.
Marc:Both tormented, troubled Jewish men with difficult fathers, I'm assuming, were able to really dig deep and make that fucking film, Noah Baumbach.
Marc:It's his best movie, no doubt.
Marc:It's on Netflix.
Marc:And if you want to see Dustin Hoffman.
Marc:And he makes everybody run.
Marc:Noah makes everybody run.
Marc:And it's interesting because I like when that happens.
Marc:Because in The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman is a cross country runner for college.
Marc:So, you know, there's a lot of him running in The Graduate and he's got a very specific run.
Marc:And I can only assume that Noah was like, I wonder if he's still got that run in him.
Marc:And he did it.
Marc:The same in like King of Comedy where, I don't know, Jerry Lewis must have been in his late 50s or 60s when Scorsese had him in that movie and he does a long scene where he's running from a fan.
Marc:And it's just this crazy Jerry Lewis run.
Marc:Sometimes running is funny and tragic.
Marc:Just the activity of it.
Marc:So I think I feel like I just avoided telling you my shameful story.
Marc:Okay, all right, I'll tell you about my shame because maybe it will help others.
Marc:But wait, but wait, before I do that, let's share a couple of emails of success stories.
Marc:Subject line, thanks to you and Nikki Glaser.
Marc:Mark and Nikki, with Mark's new book out, I thought I would share a moment that had a big impact on me.
Marc:I am in my mid-40s, was struggling with a marriage that was falling apart, feelings of guilt about my issues as a parent, looking to infidelity to provide a quick fix and make me feel better, but only feeling worse and finally secretly going to a therapist.
Marc:then struggling to really understand what was happening.
Marc:My wife started joining me in therapy in hopes that if we could get to the root of my problems, we could get to the root of our problems.
Marc:But I was not digging in, not trying to really understand why I was the way I was.
Marc:Then Nikki flipped my world upside down, quote, maybe your mom doesn't love you, unquote.
Marc:And the next 10 minutes of the interview on the WTF podcast, Nikki opened my eyes to what it meant to be truly
Marc:honest with yourself to be okay thinking those things about your parents who are supposed to love you and confront them head on and now those things affect everything and everyone around you i had heard mark talk about parents with others but nikki was so direct so brave it was the first time in my life my walls came down i was honest with myself i was honest with my wife and kids i accepted my parents for who they are and changed my approach to dealing with them
Marc:my marriage is so much better now we talk about difficult things we listen to each other and we are better parents and fixing some of the mistakes we made along the way this wouldn't have happened if I didn't fundamentally change what I was doing in that moment listening to Nikki was the jolt of reality I needed like she was talking directly to me I've probably listened to that part of the interview 10 times since the first time usually when I'm having doubts about myself or feeling guilty after talking with my parents it gives me the confidence to be true to myself to trust
Marc:my feelings.
Marc:I wanted to thank you and let you know there is a special place in my heart for both of you.
Marc:Sincerest thanks, Todd.
Marc:Hey, man.
Marc:Glad to help out, and I will tell Nikki.
Marc:I will give this to Nikki.
Marc:I will show Nikki.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:Subject line.
Marc:Hi, Doctor of Cocaine Studies, Marin.
Marc:Last time I sent you an email, I was around 10 days sober.
Marc:It's been about 90 days now without pulling up a bottle and having a chair, and damn it, I feel great.
Marc:I went from living with my parents, barely maintaining any semblance of life, to having my own bottom floor in an estate house, going back to school and working.
Marc:WTF.
Marc:Please, talking sobriety with your guests.
Marc:It always helps to know that everyone goes through shit and either maintains, burns out, or chooses sobriety.
Marc:Talking matters.
Marc:Simon.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:Those are happy stories.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:I'll tell you.
Marc:There were a few guys working on the house.
Marc:All right.
Marc:There were a few guys working on the house and I and I had to split.
Marc:So my you know, I got a guy who works for me occasionally, Frank.
Marc:He was going to come over and hang out while the dudes finished up the the hammering and sawing and the dude stuff outside.
Marc:Yeah, I could do.
Marc:Of course, I could do it.
Marc:But I, you know, I didn't have time.
Marc:And, you know, they're pros.
Marc:They're pros doing some repair work on the home.
Marc:so what happens is you know they're out there working and um frank comes over now i look the way i do frank looks the way he does frank's got a mustache as well and he's wearing shorts he's got glasses and you know i got my mustache and i got glasses and i'm not wearing shorts but i got my boots on and you know and i'm like i don't know when they're gonna be here till and i already talked to him you know to see you know to tell them they were doing a good job and find out what they were doing and
Marc:And then Frank goes, all right, I'll just go ask him.
Marc:So he goes out and asks him.
Marc:And then we're both sort of standing outside.
Marc:And then I take off and I tell Frank, you know, I'll talk to you later.
Marc:And then, you know, I say goodbye to the guys working there.
Marc:And I don't know if you know where this is going, but I wasn't happy about it.
Marc:But, you know, I drove away thinking like, man, those guys, all those guys, those guys out front, they think I'm gay.
Marc:They think me and Frank live in that house together and we're lovers and we're just gay as gay can be.
Marc:And I don't know why it affected me, but my next thought, and this was, there was a couple of things that happened in my brain and I don't know what it indicates about me.
Marc:But I thought, well, if they think I'm gay, they're gonna fuck my house up somehow.
Marc:Okay, so then I'm in this zone of like, well, this is probably how gay people feel a lot in terms of being judged.
Marc:Now, I don't know if these guys thought anything.
Marc:I'm making all this up in my head.
Marc:I don't believe I'm homophobic unless it's me who's gay.
Marc:And I'm not gay, but I was homophobic because I was scared of people thinking I was gay and what they would do.
Marc:And I imagine that is some sort of twisted empathy.
Marc:But the sad part is I sort of had to struggle with, you know, it wasn't going to happen.
Marc:But like with, you know, driving back and somehow declaring to these three guys who were working on my house who might not be thinking anything that I wasn't gay for some reason.
Marc:uh just so they wouldn't fuck up from my house and they would think that you know maybe um you know uh it just that see that's the tricky part that's the shameful part i did not you know drive back to my house and stand out in front where the guys were working going hey you know i have a girlfriend all right so it's not what you're thinking
Marc:I just sort of sat with the reality that's like, yeah, I'm okay being gay.
Marc:I'm okay if me and Frank are gay to those guys.
Marc:I accepted it.
Marc:I came out to myself in that moment in terms of what those other people were thinking.
Marc:I went through a lot.
Marc:I went through a lot in that few minutes driving away from the work being done on my house.
Marc:All right, so Willem Dafoe...
Marc:is in this beautiful new movie called The Florida Project.
Marc:It's now playing.
Marc:There's a lot of Oscar buzz for his performance.
Marc:I saw it, and I thought it was spectacular.
Marc:The director, Sean Baker, did another film that I did not see.
Marc:I think it was called Tangerine, and I sort of poo-pooed it because I was like, it was too much buzz about it.
Marc:It was shot on an iPhone, and I was like, I'm not buying in.
Marc:Everyone said it was good.
Marc:People I respected said it was good, but I'm a dick.
Marc:So I got to see that now because this was sort of,
Marc:a pretty astounding movie uh defoe plays a a hotel manager and this is a not even an extended stay hotel just a shitty hotel near uh the orlando theme parks and people are living there you know low income poor people are are are living at this shitty hotel and there's a sort of a whole little community and ecosystem to it it didn't it felt like um
Marc:It was weird because the tone of it, this guy, Baker, shoots very sort of from the hip and handheld and it's gritty.
Marc:But it had this tone because there's a lot of focus on the kids in this film.
Marc:And I'm like, well, now we've got our own third world right here in this country.
Marc:of uh of street children and of people that live in a compromised situation obviously they've always been here but this really shines into the the tragedy of having to parent and exist in these conditions but also this sort of relentless joy and and sort of detachment that children have despite the circumstances there's a tremendous balance in the film uh me and willem talk about that among other things this is me and willem defoe
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Marc:You were the last of eight?
Guest:I have a younger sister, seventh of eight.
Marc:So you're the seventh of eight?
Guest:Yeah, seventh son.
Guest:Five sisters, two brothers, no.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Do you know them all?
Guest:Do I know them all?
Guest:You mean like, well, I know their names.
Guest:I know their names.
Marc:But no, I guess it's weird.
Guest:My parents used to call me, call anyone.
Guest:They were like, it was like,
Guest:They'd do the whole run.
Guest:They had to, I guess.
Guest:And everybody's ears perked up, and they had to kind of intuit which one they really were wanting.
Marc:My mother did that with animals.
Marc:There were several dogs and a couple cats.
Marc:So you know the thing.
Marc:It's a little insulting, though, with the animals.
Marc:I mean, you should know the difference.
Marc:It's not insulting for people?
Marc:Well, you should know the basic difference between a pet and a child.
Marc:I don't know that difference.
Guest:I haven't had enough pets.
Guest:No.
Marc:So, oh my God.
Marc:So, like, you really probably didn't really know your older siblings that well, right?
Guest:I didn't.
Guest:But they raised me.
Guest:They did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I remember I was... Some of my early memories are, you know, my sister, my oldest, eldest sister going off to college.
Guest:I was probably... I was probably six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's sad, man.
Marc:It must be... No, but also... You saw them all go.
Yeah.
Guest:That's okay, because they also, a lot of them, for undergrad anyway, went to the University of Wisconsin, and that was in the 1960s.
Guest:So when I became a teenager, I used to hitchhike down there.
Guest:And I had some of my best experience, most formative experiences on that University of Wisconsin-Madison campus as an adolescent.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Hanging out with my, you know, couch surfing.
Guest:With your sisters?
Guest:With my brothers and sisters, yeah.
Marc:Because they all went there?
Guest:Seven out of eight, yeah.
Guest:I'm the only one that did, actually.
Marc:And that's in Madison?
Guest:And that was a lively campus, you know, up with Berkeley and some other places.
Guest:There was a lot of activity.
Guest:And you were like 16, 17?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you know, no, no.
Guest:I first started going there when I was like, you know, 14, 15.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Because it was only 100 miles away.
Guest:And it's a great town.
Guest:I've been to that town.
Guest:Yeah, it's a hip town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, you know, and it was interesting, too, because, you know, kind of growing up in Wisconsin with kind of...
Guest:good well-educated eisenhower era you know republican parents right and then through my see my brothers and sisters get radicalized through their going out in the world and i think that had a big effect on me
Marc:Well, I mean, I've talked to a lot of people about that.
Marc:It's necessary, I mean, to have... If you don't have older siblings to guide you one way or the other into the light of what is interesting and cool, you might be hobbled.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or you may see there's another world out there a little too late.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You missed it.
Guest:But then again, sometimes you see people that grow up in a little town and they can develop in a very full way, you know, just because...
Marc:sure yeah they'll develop but like at that time right you know you're i mean everything's blowing up the whole social fabric is coming unglued music art you know the power of uh of creativity yep so you were just you were able to sort of like go see that yeah as a 15 year old that's true and what do you remember most about what was inspiring
Guest:Well, just a kind of questioning and protest.
Guest:And also, I remember, this is a kind of funny connection, but I think one of the things that made me start, I started making, you know, working with a small avant-garde theater company.
Guest:That was really what, you know, started me as an actor.
Guest:In Wisconsin?
Guest:And continued for many years.
Guest:Started in Wisconsin, but then more notably in New York with the Wooster Group
Guest:Right, but like that stuff in Wisconsin, was it like... That was, well, it was avant-garde in the respect that we were doing different forms.
Guest:It was still, we were basically working with a playwright, and we were still working with, you know, the literature of making plays, but they were, the subject matter was radical, and the stagings were radical, and...
Guest:We were a, you know, collective of people that ran a little factory space and did everything ourselves.
Guest:So that was a new form.
Guest:In what town?
Guest:Milwaukee.
Guest:Briefly, briefly.
Guest:That was for like a couple years, but it was important.
Guest:Now, your parents, like what did your old man do?
Guest:He was a surgeon.
Guest:Oh, my dad was a surgeon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So never home.
Guest:Never home, and my mother worked with him, and she was a nurse.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And she'd do, you know, he had a clinic and he'd do the lab work because they were in the center of a kind of agricultural community.
Guest:It was a town of 50,000.
Guest:That was kind of the hub.
Guest:So people would come from far away to have their visits with him.
Marc:What type of surgeon?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a gastrointestinal surgeon.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Very well trained, Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, you know.
Guest:But he was a, you know, he's a country boy, so he really wanted to practice in Wisconsin, you know.
Guest:So these people would come from far away.
Guest:He'd get called out for surgery.
Guest:And my mother would be working the desk sometimes having to calm these people down because they'd travel from far away and they didn't want to leave.
Guest:So they'd have to wait when it was called out on emergencies.
Guest:And I'd be there sometimes doing...
Guest:well I worked as a janitor there but also I used to do school work there sometimes and I'd hear these people cuss out my mother and she'd take abuse all day and then my father would come in like he was Jesus Christ and they were like oh doctor and they'd give my mother a dirty look and then they'd have their
Guest:Visit and everything was nice again.
Guest:And I always felt bad for my mother because she really took a huge bullet for this guy to play the hero.
Guest:And that was very much the era where doctors were the word.
Guest:Bigger than life, yeah.
Guest:And he was a good guy.
Guest:He wasn't a jerk.
Guest:And I think he was very moral and probably a good doctor, too.
Guest:But still, to see that growing up really blew my mind.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The reverence and the sort of dismissal of your mom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, kind of...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The service, the sexism.
Guest:There were lots of stuff in that.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:But you got along with him and her?
Guest:Yeah, both.
Guest:Probably better him than her because it was one of those stories that we were probably too much alike.
Guest:So she...
Guest:She would bust my balls a little bit where he was probably more distant.
Guest:It was more symbolic relationship, but he was very, he was actually, he was disciplinarian and rigid, but we respected each other.
Guest:So there was a distance, but I, there's something, I love both of them and had no problems.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:And then are you the only, I'd fight with her a lot though.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you gotta fight with one of them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because she tried to be, I think she tried to be a super mom before those things were happening.
Guest:She was a working woman.
Guest:Sometimes she was going to school even.
Guest:And she was and she had all these kids.
Guest:But, you know, I just want to say, man, forget it.
Guest:Just give up on the mother thing.
Guest:Do one thing or the other because you're spreading yourself too thin and just face it.
Guest:So don't pretend like you're everywhere at the same time.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Let us go.
Guest:Oh, I see.
Guest:So a lot of the fights were like, you're not around.
Guest:Well, it was like you'd go someplace and I'd say, I'll get a ride home with someone.
Guest:And in order to be sweet and to try to be a good mother, she'd say, no, I'll pick you up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then she'd forget.
Guest:And I'd say, then I'd walk home and she'd say, I'd say, where were you?
Guest:And she'd say, oh, oh man, oh man.
Guest:And then next time it would happen, I'd say, hey, it's okay, I'll take a ride.
Guest:No, no, I'll pick you up.
Guest:And it happened again.
Guest:That was when you unloaded.
Guest:Abandoned munitions.
Guest:Perfect for an actor, right?
Guest:Yeah, is it?
Guest:I guess it is.
Guest:I don't know, I don't know.
Guest:Boy, we're up and close and personal.
Guest:I must have woke up on the... On the open side of the bed?
Guest:On the professional side of the bed.
Marc:Well, were you the only one that went into like a creative pursuit?
Marc:No, they're all... Like, I mean, strictly an artist?
Guest:I would... No, well, hmm.
Guest:They're all professional people, but they're all more talented than I am.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:No, they are.
Guest:When we get together, they all sing better, they all dance better, they all laugh better.
Guest:But I've got a tenacity they don't have.
Marc:You stuck with it.
Marc:You made a life out of it.
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:They're hobbyists.
Guest:I'm kind of joking, but it's really funny that...
Guest:No, I mean, I guess I tip my hand that way because I don't want to make it sound like I come from this family of striving professional people and I'm the artist.
Guest:It's not true.
Guest:And they are all creative people.
Guest:My brother, the surgeon, plays music.
Guest:My brother, the lawyer, is a very clever storyteller.
Guest:One of my sisters, the nurse, she draws beautifully and writes beautifully.
Marc:It's like that.
Marc:No, I do.
Marc:I do know what you mean.
Marc:It's just that they were smart enough not to make it a living.
Marc:Maybe, yeah.
Guest:Maybe, yeah.
Guest:But I... What'd you get?
Guest:Was willing to roll the dice.
Guest:Yeah, roll the dice.
Guest:And I made... What did I get?
Guest:Lucky seven.
Marc:Seven, you got it!
Marc:Goddamn.
Marc:So, all right, so, okay, so this is fascinating to me.
Marc:So, you know, when you started acting in high school...
Guest:Even before that, there was a community theater in my, there was a university called Lawrence University where I was and it was a private good school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had a very good drama department, a very good physical space.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in the summertime, some community people got together because it was a place of means because there were these paper mill factories and paper mills and
Guest:There was some wealth there.
Guest:Some money around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they made a summer theater.
Guest:And they'd hire a director from New York to come for the season and direct plays.
Guest:And you were how old?
Guest:The first one I did probably was I was probably 11.
Marc:So you were basically trained as a kid by just being in the play.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, it changes, but...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And school plays.
Guest:And, you know, like a lot of kids when I was little, I used to write plays.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:They were always historic things.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Titles like Cortez or the Alaska Gold Rush.
Guest:They were very short.
Guest:I always wanted to do the action stuff, but I couldn't ever quite beef up the dialogue, you know, because I wasn't really interested in the psychology.
Guest:I was interested in the...
Marc:the doing yeah sure being the doing not the showing yeah yeah which came a cropper later yeah but do you didn't have you done a lot of writing in your life or not really no not really i mean no no not really so after so after the experimental theater in milwaukee like you know after doing like you know i would imagine that once you finish high school you kind of committed to it
Guest:Not really.
Guest:What happened is I left high school early.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was kind of in between things.
Guest:Didn't know quite what to do.
Guest:We didn't consider joining the army, as weird as that sounds.
Marc:And this is in the mid-60s or late 60s?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I'm not 80, guys.
Guest:This is 72.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:73.
Guest:You know...
Guest:I just knew there was another world out there and I wanted to find it.
Guest:So I started taking classes at university.
Guest:Where, in Madison?
Guest:No, in Milwaukee because I had a brother-in-law or a future brother-in-law-to-be that was there.
Guest:And I stayed at his place and started taking courses and being in plays.
Guest:And then these people from this Theater X saw me in that and said, forget school, come work with us.
Guest:And I did for a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:Then I did that for a little while.
Guest:We got picked up by a European producer, so it was exciting because I was like 18 years old.
Guest:and traveling in Europe with these shows and things, and I was seeing all these shows from around the world, particularly at a place called The Mickery in Amsterdam, which was very well-funded with a real visionary producer,
Guest:who would go all around the world and select things and just bring them to his theater.
Marc:What type of stuff?
Guest:Oh, everything from spectacle to African dance to opera.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was a flexible space, a modest space.
Guest:His taste was more toward the avant-garde, not traditional theater.
Guest:But you never knew with this guy.
Guest:And you're just taking it in.
Guest:And I'm just taking it in and turned on and seeing really kind of great performers and really interesting people.
Guest:And I think that's when you're at that age, you want to be with...
Guest:inspiring people cool people yeah people that are kind of supporting this new education you're having sure so you know i go from middle class secure guy from a big family with you know kind of a track laid ahead of me that i should be yeah follow the tradition yeah and then i i
Guest:enjoy probably because somewhere I have that security in my head you know falling about two social classes and being you know living in poor neighborhood and knowing people with drug problems and criminal records and you know poverty and
Guest:You know, I always think of the Bob Dylan line, you know, a little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously, he brags of his misery, loves to live dangerously.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Well, that was me.
Guest:You know, it's you want to get dirty.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Marc:You want to get dirty because dirty feels real.
Marc:Yeah, I can relate to that.
Marc:That's absolutely right.
Guest:You didn't come upon it authentically, but you could visit it.
Guest:You were reaching.
Guest:You knew there was something there.
Guest:And you wanted to know the other narrative because you were up to here with the narrative that was fed to you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:by all the culture that you were living in.
Guest:Sure, and you could see where that was going, what it expected of you.
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:So that's where we are.
Guest:And then I just felt I loved the people at Theater X, but I had an ambition.
Guest:And I really then moved to New York, I think, to be a traditional theater actor also.
Guest:I thought...
Guest:You know, this acting thing, I like it.
Guest:And if I'm going to have, do something, I better, you know, get serious.
Guest:And go to Mecca.
Guest:But at the same time,
Guest:I was reading about Bob Wilson.
Guest:I was reading about Richard Foreman.
Guest:Oh, Foreman.
Marc:I forgot about those plays.
Marc:I worked with him.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:He used to do a play like every month.
Guest:Oh, he's a great artist.
Marc:A lot of things going on.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:Beautiful.
Guest:He is pure theater to me.
Guest:So is Bob Wilson in a very different way.
Marc:Bob Wilson with the ladders and the sparse and the minimalism and the operas.
Marc:He does lots of things.
Guest:I like him.
Guest:I've worked with both of them.
Marc:I didn't mean to trivialize him.
Guest:No, good.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:I just remember ladders.
Marc:I've always seen it a few productions.
Marc:He's got a language.
Guest:Okay, seriously, I like him.
Guest:And he uses that language.
Guest:Yeah, I get it.
Guest:And that's part of the pleasure.
Marc:Yeah, I think I saw recently, he did an opera, didn't he, at Lincoln Center?
Marc:He does many things.
Guest:I worked with him recently.
Guest:I did two shows, Life and Death of Marina Abramovich, which was about Marina Abramovich.
Guest:She was in it, and also Anthony Hegarty.
Guest:Now, Anoni did the music.
Guest:It was a beautiful show.
Guest:And another show, just a two-hander with Mikhail Baryshnikov and myself, called The Old Woman, based on a Russian writer.
Guest:And you did that recently?
Guest:Yeah, recently.
Guest:We even did it at Royce Hall, which wasn't the perfect...
Guest:venue for it but we were happy to bring it to LA we toured a lot but very little in America which always frustrates me because there's not the money or really the interest I think no it is avant-garde stuff or stuff that's provocative and hard to understand seems to do better elsewhere well as far as theater yes yeah yeah
Marc:So what are we talking, like 73, 74 you go to New York?
Guest:No, we're talking, I do my little stint in university in 73, 74.
Guest:Then I'm with Theater X till I try to move to New York.
Guest:Theater X calls me back to the Midwest and then I go to Europe with them.
Guest:With one production?
Guest:No, several.
Guest:77, I'm in New York for good.
Guest:And I'm intending to be a traditional theater actor.
Guest:But I'm looking around and I keep on finding myself going downtown.
Guest:And I keep on finding myself seeking out those people I'm reading about.
Guest:77, so it's all still there.
Guest:It's all still there.
Guest:It's kind of on the wane a little bit.
Guest:And also other things like punk industry.
Guest:Has happened.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's starting to happen, but it's still going on.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You can still see the Ramones at CBGB.
Guest:In 77.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're saying you can see television.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You might go to a party and, you know.
Guest:Warhol's still around.
Guest:David Byrne may get up and do something.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So there was a lot going on.
Guest:And that felt like what was happening rather than going around and getting a waiter job.
Guest:Auditioning for Broadway.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, that was kind of a throwback for me.
Guest:That's the only thing I could imagine until I knew the other world.
Guest:So then I get introduced to that world, and I'm a square kid from Wisconsin.
Guest:But you have a little avant-garde bona fides.
Guest:Sure, sure, sure, sure.
Guest:But that nickel won't get you on the subway.
Guest:So I'm there, and then I run into... Basically, I just find myself being attracted to downtown, and I see the work of the Wooster Group, and I basically...
Guest:say, I want to work with you guys.
Guest:How many are there?
Marc:Who's in that?
Marc:I thought you were one of the guys who started it.
Guest:Yeah, well, it was born out of another group called the Performance Group.
Guest:That was Richard Schechner.
Guest:And then people that worked with him, that was started in like 67.
Guest:Old school.
Guest:Old school, no, but no, old school avant-garde.
Guest:Nudity, confronting the audience kind of.
Guest:a little bit more in the living theater tradition.
Guest:By Julian Beck?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's not the same thing, I shouldn't say that, but just for your audience, maybe that broads... Right.
Guest:Okay, it's not regular plays.
Guest:Right, it's in the world of the avant-garde.
Guest:Yeah, and it's political.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, so I start with Richard, and then there's a group within the group that becomes the Wooster group.
Guest:Ah, the mutiny.
Guest:And that's led by Elizabeth LeCompte,
Guest:And the principal other person is Spalding Gray, also Ron Vauder, Libby Howes, Jim Clayberg.
Guest:It's a group of people.
Guest:And they start to make work as a sidebar to Richard.
Guest:And soon all the energy, all the resources, and all the interest kind of shifted to them.
Guest:And also I fell in love with Liz LeCompte, the director.
Guest:So my interest and resources and everything shifted to her.
Guest:So like the dirty turncoat rat I am, I started hanging out with them.
Guest:And then Spaulding...
Guest:invited me to be in the next piece and then I started working with them in a run that lasted 27 years.
Guest:What was that piece?
Guest:That piece was probably the first one I did was
Guest:Nayette School, but the first substantial one where I was really a principal performer and maker was Point Judith.
Marc:What was his signature?
Marc:Because I've seen Spalding Gray several times before he died, and I've seen you work.
Marc:I don't think I've seen you on stage.
Marc:I feel like I've been to the Worcester Group once, but what was emblematic of the Worcester Group's work?
Guest:Well...
Guest:You know, people use kind of a misnomer.
Guest:They talk a lot about deconstruction because sometimes we would use a text like a classic American play or some text.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And we would use it as a thing, play with it to kind of deal with it in our own terms.
Guest:Improvise with it?
Guest:No.
Guest:Sometimes we'd change things.
Guest:Sometimes we'd cut things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was that.
Guest:It was also a very physical approach.
Guest:It was very architectural approach because the first thing the director started out with, Liz, was always the space.
Guest:She thought very spatially, very visually, very architecturally.
Guest:And then she would bring in a text or someone would bring in a text and we'd play with it.
Guest:We'd find a way to put it on its feet.
Guest:And sometimes we'd cut it radically, sometimes we'd change it, sometimes we'd lay something over it.
Guest:And then also another thing that I think people knew sort of that we were doing is we were incorporating a lot of sound and video stuff in kind of non...
Guest:Traditional, non-traditional ways?
Guest:We weren't hiding it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, one easy example comes to mind.
Guest:In one show, we had a 93-year-old woman in the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She couldn't make it all the time.
Guest:So we put her on tape and we'd wheel out a TV and we'd play the scene with her on tape.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's the crudest thing possible.
Guest:But we were using this technology in a practical way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:then with time it became more sophisticated and aestheticized and then even further developed now because they continue to work they do a lot with ghosting and playing with a mix of tracks outside that are guiding them and they're performing
Guest:riffing off the track that's either in their ears or they have a visual reference for it.
Guest:Oh, that's trippy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's a very dense performance style.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was beautiful work.
Guest:I haven't seen it lately because I haven't been around.
Marc:But you worked with them for like 26 years.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:On and off.
Marc:And I think I remember when... Is it possible?
Marc:Did they get a new space in the late 80s or...
Guest:Well, we had this small space called the Performing Garage that still exists.
Guest:But I think as the technology grew, the playing space got smaller and smaller and smaller.
Guest:And the other thing that I forgot to mention is it was a real company.
Guest:The people were working there every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that gave us the ability to show things in progress.
Guest:And it also gave us the ability to bring back old shows and put them next to new shows.
Guest:So it was about a whole fabric of work.
Guest:It wasn't just knocking off doing shows.
Guest:It was about a whole body of work.
Guest:And they kind of had conversations with each other.
Guest:And that was beautiful for anyone that really followed the company for a long time.
Guest:It was its own world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we had a space called Performing Garage, and it got kind of small, and economically, it became very difficult, because we wanted to keep our ticket prices reasonable,
Guest:We made our bread and butter through international touring.
Guest:But even now, I think it's a struggle.
Guest:And through corporate giving.
Guest:But it was a struggle.
Guest:But there's a new space now.
Guest:It's not just a garage.
Guest:No, they have the garage, but they do perform at Baryshnikov Space.
Guest:They have.
Guest:And they have also performed at St.
Guest:Anne's.
Guest:Oh, they do a residency-like?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:I stopped working with them like in 2003, which is quite a long time ago.
Marc:But they really formed me.
Marc:And you did a lot of that international touring with productions with the Worcester Group?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And we were probably, sometimes we were three, four months...
Guest:Out.
Guest:With a show that you put together or built in New York and you take it out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it got to the point where Europeans would commission work.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And we'd make a piece and then we'd owe them, you know, dates.
Guest:And it was a good arrangement because that would keep us going and would also give us deadlines.
Guest:What kind of entities would commission pieces?
Guest:Theaters?
Guest:Theaters, you know, public funds.
Guest:Because...
Guest:particularly in places like Germany, Belgium, some Scandinavian countries, also in Asia.
Guest:There's either theater festivals or there's theaters that get a lot of public money just to bring stuff from outside as a pleasure.
Guest:because they believe in culture.
Guest:They believe culture is like education.
Marc:That's like what turned you on from that guy in what you saw in Milwaukee who brought that stuff there.
Marc:Like world theater, world things, things from outside.
Marc:It's a beautiful thing.
Marc:Well, when did you start doing the movies?
Guest:79, I think.
Guest:I mean, I had kind of a false start that through a series of real complicated things, I was like a glorified extra in Heaven's Gate.
Guest:So I was on that movie for about three months.
Marc:Where did that shoot up?
Guest:In the Midwest somewhere?
Guest:Mostly around Kalispell, Montana.
Guest:Also in Idaho and some other places.
Guest:But the main...
Guest:First thing happened to be Catherine Bigelow's first film.
Guest:She co-directed it with a guy named Monty Montgomery.
Guest:It was a little film called The Loveless.
Guest:With Robert Gordon.
Guest:You know it.
Guest:The rockabilly guy.
Guest:You know it.
Guest:I've got his records in the house.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:yeah with robert yeah yeah and uh that was a motorcycle movie uh-huh very stylized uh was it sort of campy was it sort of tongue-in-cheek or was it she's playing it straight pretty straight oh yeah pretty straight you know it was it was more you know it was more kenneth anger than uh than wild one right got it yeah it wasn't melodrama you'll go back to wild one everyone remembers it being pretty cool but it's it's pretty funny it's silly yeah sure um
Guest:Kenneth Anger, if you looked at him, you know, Scorpio Rising.
Guest:It's probably not funny.
Guest:No, still not funny.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's, you know, it's... But the approach is very much about the surface of things and what we see.
Guest:So it's very stylized.
Guest:It's very, you know...
Guest:I remember it ran for a long time as a midnight movie in London, and its audience was really into the kind of fetishism of the leather and these guys hanging out.
Marc:Was it a period piece?
Marc:It was.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So that was your first full starring role?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought, this is fun.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You go someplace with a bunch of strangers.
Guest:You become...
Guest:close really fast you figure this thing out you have to deal with where you are yeah you've got a basic idea and that changes yeah you make it as you're making it you're changed yeah and you do that and then it's and then you have evidence and you've made everything yeah you've made something yeah and then that informs the next thing
Guest:And is that what informed like- One step closer to the grave.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the next thing.
Marc:With a flourish.
Marc:That's the ultimate next thing.
Marc:But is that what got you- Hooked.
Marc:Well, not hooked, but I mean like when- Because like Streets of Fire is another kind of leather adventure in a way.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And the funny thing is because- I had Walter Hill in here.
Guest:Ah, Walt's very cool.
Guest:That was a great, that movie was so much fun and he's great.
Guest:I loved him.
Guest:And that was a very special movie for me.
Guest:Walter Hill was friendly with Catherine.
Guest:I think Catherine showed him a little piece of Loveless.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he got the idea to cast me in Streets of Fire, which was my first studio film.
Guest:And then really out of that, then I started...
Guest:saying more i got a manager a woman called me up i was in the phone book still then yeah in new york in new york and she called me up after seeing the loveless at a film festival uh-huh and she said uh do you want to do some more of this i think i can help you yeah so a combination between her her name was phyllis carlisle uh-huh and uh catherine showing uh
Marc:walter hill this this little piece from the loveless um that was like the beginning of my yeah the journey professional yeah yeah professional film acting career yeah yeah i love that well i mean i i'm trying to remember the first time i saw you i guess it might have been platoon but i i remember being extremely excited about because friedkin hadn't made a movie in a while when to live and die in la came out right and it was like me and my friend were kind of film heads right freaking's doing a
Marc:movie yeah yeah yeah wilm defoe's and like in we went to live and die in la happened before platoon so that was it yeah that was the first one yeah that i can't like i was in high school and uh and we were thrilled about it and we're really thinking about it man you know what i mean that's fair it was a good movie
Marc:It's a good movie to think about.
Marc:I watched it again recently, and it holds up, and I talked to Friedkin in here.
Marc:He's great.
Marc:That was a hell of a three-hour thing.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that movie was challenging, I think, in some ways, because it had a lot of provocative stuff about morality and about... You know, it's funny, because one thing that I remember, and maybe... Yeah.
Guest:This may or may not be important, but it was sort of a critical failure initially.
Guest:And one of the things that was fairly consistent in the criticism, and I read criticism in those days, was this movie is basically misconceived because there's nobody to relate to because everybody is just awful.
Guest:Morally.
Guest:The implication was, if you don't have a good guy to root for, you can't tell the story.
Guest:Yeah, well, because it's a movie.
Guest:Yeah, which is funny, you know, pre-Tarantino and pre-many things.
Marc:But also, like, post-70s, there were plenty of antiheroes around.
Marc:I mean, I don't know what they were.
Marc:It must have been the 80s.
Marc:Yeah, but they kind of...
Guest:the sense was they kind of flipped.
Guest:Because an anti-hero in a certain milieu reads like a hero.
Guest:This was just flat out criminal people.
Guest:I mean, they had their reasons.
Guest:I had this beautiful role of a
Guest:Artist criminal.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good combination.
Marc:You were the most honest character in some ways.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In a funny way.
Marc:In a funny way.
Marc:Well, I mean, you weren't hiding what you were doing in the sense that you- Probably more fun to have dinner with.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:But Fareedkin, was that- Because I was looking at all the different movies, and you've worked with some amazing directors, and you've worked with some directors many times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I imagine they all have a different approach, and you're a pretty willing-
Marc:you know, creator, you know, like what is some, what was your relationship with someone like Friedkin?
Guest:You know, he was, you know, he was the maestro.
Guest:I think he was a little, you know, he was doing it his own way then because he was sort of out of the studio system and he thought, well, I'm going to make this film.
Guest:He found a guy to, you know, put up the money, finance it.
Guest:And they were going to basically, I think they call it, fourth wallet.
Guest:They were going to put in theaters.
Guest:And it was a very direct... He wanted to keep it simple, direct.
Guest:He wanted actors that nobody had associations with.
Guest:He didn't want stars because he wanted a grittiness.
Guest:He wanted for people to have no associations outside of the movie.
Guest:So he's the maestro.
Guest:We're a bunch of...
Guest:Wet behind the air kids, you know, playing these worldly heavy guys.
Guest:So, you know, that's where the acting comes in.
Marc:Was he a hands-on kind of director?
Guest:Very much.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Very much, yeah.
Guest:No, he... No, I...
Guest:never knew what to expect sometimes you know you'd come to the set and he'd say you know we're not doing that because i was driving home last night i saw a really low cool location and we rewrote this and i found this really interesting guy so here's the new scene we're going to shoot this today uh-huh he's very fluid uh you know very open to inspiration very exciting
Marc:Yeah, because I imagine working with the type of actor that you were in theater, it must be exciting to me.
Guest:Normal.
Guest:It's normal.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:Now, outside of working with the Worcester Group and being all hands-on and engaged, did you train at all in any formal way outside of college?
Guest:Not really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, mostly by doing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Even at college, I was... Yeah.
Guest:I went to university at a time that it was really interesting because University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was like a street.
Guest:It was a blue collar campus.
Guest:It was about immigrant kids going to school for the first time.
Guest:It was about mothers after having kids returning to school and about Vietnam veterans coming back.
Guest:So it didn't have, it wasn't like, it wasn't Yale drama school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:but you had lots of different kinds of people and also the faculty was very eclectic and i think that really had a stamp on me sure because you know there's no one way it keeps the flexibility and an appreciation that there's many ways to skin a cat you know sure and sorry you love cats oh no you can skin a cat okay metaphorically i can handle it okay
Guest:That just occurred to me.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm a big boy.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'm a big person.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So, that's worth mentioning.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Like, I need you to explain a couple of things to me.
Marc:Uh-oh.
Marc:No, I mean, like, well, you did two movies with Oliver Stone.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And Platoon was a huge break for you.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That was a life change.
Marc:Very important.
Yeah.
Marc:like i just turned that movie on the other night and it was in the middle i was flipping through cable and it's right at the scene where you get shot and it's like one of the most brutal moments in in film and in some weird way just completely you know that sums up some part of the vietnam experience yeah um and then you did uh you had a a nice part and born on the fourth of july now working with him it would seem to me that him and freaking in intensity are similar
Marc:uh yes yeah and and and when you did very different but similar in intensity right and how how did uh when you were doing platoon uh entering that world and seeing that script and knowing what was going on what were your feelings you know about doing it um i was really excited uh you know uh
Guest:You had this guy telling a personal story.
Guest:You had all these Vietnam vets, including Oliver, advising you and training you.
Guest:You were playing soldier.
Guest:You grow up... I was born in 55, so I grew up with World War II movies, Korean movies.
Guest:And then...
Guest:Real Vietnam.
Guest:And then you live through Vietnam, and I'm just old enough, I think my year was the last year of the draft.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this thing of being a soldier is part of our culture.
Guest:Look at our military spending.
Guest:You can't escape it.
Guest:And I think as far as also stories and fantasies, it's all wrapped up in there.
Guest:So the opportunity to play in this story that's personal and lets us kind of tell the story...
Guest:of these people it was thrilling yeah yeah and it was a great story and there was you know you hear these things but it's such camaraderie and it was a young cast you know that once you got there Hollywood it was a million miles away we were just a bunch of
Guest:Kids playing war and trying to figure stuff out, but guided with this story.
Guest:And was that Berenger?
Guest:He hadn't done a lot either, had he?
Guest:No, he was the old man of the group, as far as he was.
Guest:Yeah, he was a well-known actor, and he had done many things.
Marc:Big Chill, maybe?
Marc:I can't remember.
Guest:I don't know, but he was the most well-known actor.
Guest:And it was Sheen.
Guest:And Charlie Sheen, who was still fairly new.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:And then a lot of first-time people.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then he did Born on the Fourth of July, which is an after-Vietnam movie.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But I guess the guy I want you to help me out with, because I'm sort of fascinated with him, and because you've done four movies with him, you must have an understanding of what's compelling and what's... Abel?
Guest:Not Abel, Paul Schrader.
Guest:Ah, Paul Schrader.
Guest:I've probably done more than four movies.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he...
Guest:He wrote Taxi Driver.
Guest:And he's done many beautiful movies.
Guest:And everybody always describes him as the writer of Taxi Driver, which is like.
Marc:Well, no, I know that.
Marc:But I've watched his movies.
Marc:But like, you know, that Taxi Driver, I think the reason that that's important is that he's able to excavate a certain darkness.
Guest:Yes, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like when I saw Affliction, you know, I was like, what is going on?
Guest:Where am I?
Guest:You've got to remember Affliction comes from a very strong novel too by Russell Banks.
Guest:Right, okay.
Guest:So that's a very particular one.
Guest:It doesn't make it any less anything but I want to point that out.
Guest:I mean the ones you know the first time
Guest:i did something substantial with him was light sleep yeah which was you know he was talking about something he knew and it was kind of a white collar you know drug world of new york yeah and it was thrilling uh to play that part because it was the kind of part that
Guest:You know, that guy could have been me if my life was different.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And also, I shot very little in New York, and it was a very naturalistic in its style for the most part.
Guest:And it was really fun to play genteel drug dealer for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:A guy that was searching.
Guest:And it was a role that hit me at the right time, and it meant a lot to me.
Guest:But his style is very, a little distant.
Guest:You know, I think he... Schrader?
Guest:Yeah, he deals with very hot...
Guest:things in a very cool way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it makes them burn all the hotter.
Guest:Well, I think autofocus is like a masterpiece.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Autofocus is fun.
Guest:Oh, that was really fun.
Guest:And, you know, that's not a widely seen film.
Guest:But Paul has a good nose.
Guest:He really is good at smelling what's in the air, you know?
Marc:I thought his sort of- Did you see Dog Eat Dog recently?
Marc:I didn't know.
Marc:I got to see it.
Marc:I didn't know about it.
Marc:yeah and when was that a little wacky yeah two years ago with nick cage yeah yeah i haven't seen him do something you know i just haven't seen him lately nicholas cage yeah oh he works all the time yeah but he does big weird kind of franchise movies sometimes he does and i don't see a lot of the little ones i didn't see the second bad lieutenant were you in that as well no no but yeah how is he doing he seems good yeah he seems good you know i think he wants to find
Guest:you know he appreciates the tent ball movies and and uh you know he's still very bankable but um i think he still wants to do weird movies that's one way of saying it sure yeah but uh but like with the autofocus that you know i saw it a couple times when it came out and his sort of like uh that preoccupation with equipment yeah yeah i thought it was pretty fascinating
Guest:yeah and also it was i love movies and like this movie that you know i'm kind of talking about a lot now florida yeah i love that movie um the cool thing about autofocus is the making of the film had such parallels to the film itself you know the way we made it informed things so much because we were making this in the shadow of hollywood on a shoestring budget yeah about some guys with this you know it
Guest:And we're hiring these girls, you know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was something.
Guest:It was a reflection.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was really fun.
Guest:A dark reflection.
Guest:We're able to inhabit this world because we were living it in a parallel way.
Marc:Yeah, in that scene, there's a moment in that movie where everything is just broken down to a degree where you're just consumed by this compulsion, the sex addiction.
Marc:But it's just you and Kinnear on that couch, just both of you jerking off on opposite ends of the couch, just sharing a memory.
Marc:You know that moment with the casualness of it where you're in something that is that bizarre and that it's become commonplace.
Marc:It's normal.
Marc:Yeah, I just think that's a fun scene for some reason.
Guest:No, that was a fun movie.
Guest:I enjoy working with Paul.
Marc:Is he a dark guy on set?
Guest:No, he's a happy guy on set because he likes to work, but he's the dark guy in general.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because he's serious.
Marc:And Abel Ferrari, how many movies do you do with him?
Guest:Five, I think, and I'm going to make some more.
Marc:How's he doing?
Guest:He's doing great.
Guest:He has a nice, clean lifestyle, a new baby.
Guest:I'm the godfather to his child.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Guest:He's my neighbor in Rome.
Marc:What is it about his vision that you like so much?
Guest:I don't know about his vision.
Guest:I like him.
Guest:And he also encourages the way we work.
Guest:I really feel like a collaborator.
Guest:And the sad thing is he's not widely distributed here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So people are really ignorant of a movie like Pasolini that isn't even present here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A few of your movies I wanted to watch, I can't find.
Marc:It's very different.
Marc:The Lars Van Trier stuff is not on iTunes.
Marc:That's ridiculous.
Marc:I couldn't find Antichrist.
Guest:That's ridiculous.
Guest:Right?
Guest:We're living in a very puritanical country.
Marc:That might be a corporate issue, but maybe you're right.
Guest:It is, but the same thing.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because they're the hand of the, they're the instrument of keeping the machine going.
Marc:Well, with Pasolini, that shouldn't be the issue.
Marc:That's just bad distribution, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I don't know what it is.
Guest:I mean, you hate to complain.
Guest:Right, sure.
Guest:But the truth is, it's really a mystery to me.
Guest:Because even from a pure, grubby commerce standpoint, if you put that on some platform, one of these video on-demand platforms, any gay kid that's in Iowa someplace and feels like he can't connect with icons of...
Guest:of a certain kind of culture or that express certain things, you know, should be able to see that movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's enough out there.
Guest:And besides that, Pasolini was such a brilliant thinker.
Guest:And whether you like the movie or not, there is enough expression of what he did in the movie that it's going to be worth it.
Marc:And then you can go see his work.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:And it inspire you to see his work.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Well, hopefully maybe people listening will get out there.
Marc:I mean, I want to see it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm also a big fan of Mississippi Burning.
Marc:Obviously, I could go through all your movies.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You're a little top heavy on the front.
Guest:So obviously, you can always tell where people watch movies and where they stop watching them less.
Marc:Well, let's see.
Marc:I just didn't get down the list.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Guest:i've seen cry baby wild at heart i saw no no i'm sorry i shouldn't bust the balls but you get it yeah sure i do but i and i guess what happens is when people are young yeah they have more time sure they're going out and film was placed in our culture a little differently that's right and now when it's harder to find sometimes certain kinds of movies yeah you got to be a cinephile
Marc:And also, you've got to go.
Marc:You can't watch them easily.
Marc:I didn't see the Von Trier films, either of them, and I'm upset about it because I missed the window.
Marc:You've got to see Antichrist.
Marc:I do got to see it.
Marc:Was that a challenging, amazing thing for you?
Guest:I just think it's a beautiful movie.
Guest:It's not what people think it is.
Guest:I think it's not for everyone, but I think he has such a nose for...
Guest:Exploring the unspeakable, really taboos in a constructive way.
Guest:And he always gets labeled as just being transgressive and kind of a trickster.
Guest:But I think there's something in his character.
Guest:That he really knows how to, you know, look under the rocks.
Guest:And he's a great filmmaker.
Guest:I mean, there's some images and some sequences in that that, for me, are like incredibly beautiful.
Guest:But it's rough, too.
Guest:So I get it when someone says, oh, I can't take it.
Marc:I think I can handle it.
Guest:Yeah, I'm sure you can.
Guest:I'm sure you can.
Marc:He's part of the dogma filmmakers, right?
Guest:Yeah, he was one of the main guys, but I think that was a period of time.
Marc:Well, yeah, because I saw another one, The Celebration, I saw, and I don't think he directed that one.
Guest:No, no.
Marc:That was a hell of a movie that dealt with some of the same taboo.
Marc:It's pretty wild.
Marc:shadow vampire very good okay and i you know i i think you're pretty good in everything personally i'm a fan good yeah you work with cronenberg too which must have been interesting i saw that movie that's not an easy movie to find right existence right i don't even know if it's a if it's a favorite of cronenberg's i don't know he's very controlled dude man like he knows no and his sets are beautiful yeah it's really fun to work with him
Marc:Because he feels like not unlike, I imagine, I don't know, Wes Anderson.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:He sees it.
Marc:He sees it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Not a lot of wiggle room.
Guest:Yeah, but you'd be surprised.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:You know, the irony is when you have a good structure and it's seen, the wiggle room is inside.
Marc:You.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you're free and you don't lose a certain kind of energy or have a certain kind of anxiety.
Guest:It's like you can focus better and you can go deeper because you're not...
Guest:there's a security but at the same time the security you got to punch out you know i get it so like you know they know what their work is like kind of you left you only so many choices around their work your work well it's it's like if yeah it's it's it is about choices and about where to direct your energy yeah and if it's articulated then you have to work in a more
Guest:focused way in a clearer field rather than having an old whole field and kind of have this gun to your head to be clever or invent or interpret.
Guest:You don't worry about that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When you've got a strong language and a strong structure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:then you're just trying to survive and live and keep it alive.
Guest:And somehow in that, that's where you become engaged.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because you aren't... It becomes practical.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, you lose yourself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You lose yourself and deeply...
Guest:You connect with yourself more because you throw away a lot of the surface things of identity and thought and you get to a more intuitive state, a state that you didn't even know you had because you're kind of putting a corner and you got to figure it out.
Guest:Yeah, in the moment.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, how did that apply to the Florida Project?
Marc:It looked like that was a little looser than obviously a Cronenberg or an Anderson film, but it was one place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Florida Project was beautiful because Sean Baker is really great at using concrete, real elements and mixing fictional elements or designed elements in them.
Guest:with them.
Guest:And they started out with a really strong screenplay.
Guest:From Sean and his writing partner, Christopher Gauch.
Guest:And that's what you got first?
Guest:Yeah, and it was beautiful.
Guest:And you could shoot that.
Guest:And we did shoot that.
Guest:But we also shot other stuff.
Guest:And sometimes also there would be alternate takes.
Guest:Or with the children, there's a lot of kids in this movie and they're children.
Guest:not actors well they're children first let's say and they were great and they were great um particularly the central girl she's six years old and she's a natural yeah you know she's a little uh firecracker yeah um
Guest:What I'm saying is that you can have both.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And when you have a structure, that can make you a little looser.
Guest:That's the irony.
Guest:If you're spending too much time looking for that structure...
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:No, but it was interesting because watching you, your presence was there all the time.
Guest:Well, I had a very clear job.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You were the manager of the hotel.
Guest:Yeah, and that's what I did.
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:I managed this motel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were shooting a movie there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was like, I love it when the line between...
Guest:real life agreed on life you know yeah uh communally accepted reality yeah gets thrown out for our special reality like the manager would be sitting there and we'd have to shoot a scene in the office and they'd like okay can you guys step out we'll go in you know oh so that was like that a little bit like that so there were people living at that hotel oh yeah it was a functioning motel yeah and and um sometimes
Guest:we'd be in the middle of the scene and people would come to check in.
Guest:And we weren't a big crew.
Guest:It was a very small crew.
Guest:So it's like, don't go in there.
Guest:Don't go in there.
Guest:We're shooting.
Guest:It's not like we had lots of equipment trucks.
Marc:But everybody's hands on deck with that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And then you've got kids running around.
Guest:And then you've got...
Guest:You know, people with real challenging lives, you know, coming out to see the circuses.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:It was really good.
Marc:How did that affect your performance being in the presence of, you know, what was real destitution and real desperation?
Guest:It keeps you honest.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You don't make a bullshit movie.
Guest:You got to honor those people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you aren't, they don't become, they stop being those people and they become your people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you're one of them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just by sheer proximity.
Guest:You're talking to them.
Guest:They're telling you stories.
Guest:That informs everything.
Guest:You know, you're down with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it may be temporary and you have no illusion, you know,
Guest:it's a tough world.
Guest:This world that we're talking about for people that haven't seen the movie is a world of people living in low cost motels in an area in central Florida near the amusement parks that don't have permanent residences.
Guest:So they're long term temporary residences in these motels and it's the kind of
Guest:Kmart thing that you know they pay as they go you know the old you know when someone doesn't have a lot of money they go to Kmart they say wow I can get a grill for 20 bucks well they end up buying 20 grills over their lifetime and
Guest:that grill lasts about two months it goes in the landfill yeah and next year they have to buy it again if they bought a nice grill in the first place right then they'd have some stability they'd pay a fraction as much and you wouldn't have many grills in the landfill right so we're really you know we're we're we're a dog chasing its own tail sure sure and this expresses that cycle yeah a little bit yeah um
Guest:Because it's a very precarious position because they have trouble after a little bit of the crash and the housing crisis.
Guest:A lot of people can't find a place to live because they can't afford the first down payment or they can't do the security checks or they can't do that.
Marc:uh yeah yeah they can't they they've fallen out yeah they've fallen out they slipped through and and yeah and i thought it was fascinating because you know the the kids the energy of the kids is is what buoys you know the the the emotional tone of that movie oh yeah it's you know the kids are very present and you see kind of a joyful right chaos of the kids yeah
Guest:But then you have this shadow of the difficulty of the adults and you kind of see a life.
Guest:And that's what appeals to me about it without wagging fingers or even necessarily giving a solution.
Guest:It just shows the world.
Guest:that's kind of trapped in a loop.
Marc:And it's interesting at the end, because your character, about midway through, you start to realize, well, this guy's, I don't know what it is, but he's been compromised somehow.
Marc:Who hasn't?
Marc:No, no, I'm not.
Guest:That's the point.
Guest:It's not a joke.
Guest:No, I'm joking.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:That's sort of the point.
Marc:But it's like it's not overplayed.
Marc:You don't even know what it is.
Marc:I imagine that guy helping you move was your son, right?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it's sort of like, I don't know what happened here.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:But this is where he ended up.
Marc:Yep, yep.
Marc:And he's only one tier above the people, only in the sense that he's got a job.
Guest:It's the only difference between him and the people living there.
Guest:That's absolutely right.
Guest:And I think that's why this isn't.
Guest:it's a small movie but it's not a depressing movie and it's not a limited movie because it points to this impulse that we have to try to make good of a limited situation.
Guest:And it's that balance that we try to do between acceptance but also forging ahead trying to make it better.
Guest:And Bobby...
Guest:My character is, you know, without telling people before they see the movie too much, but he's a simple guy.
Guest:There's nothing on the surface extraordinary about him.
Guest:But he makes stuff work somehow because he's good-hearted.
Guest:And the big thing, the big takeaway for me is... And not judgmental.
Guest:No, he recognizes that your happiness...
Guest:My happiness is dependent on your happiness, which is a very important equation to learn that we all know, but we don't get a chance to practice very often because we're bred on competition, get ahead of the other guy.
Guest:If he falls behind, that gives you more room to go ahead.
Guest:And it's really about cooperation and compassion and helping each other.
Marc:I tell you, the movie, it felt to me a little like some of those movies made about kids in sort of Latin American movies.
Marc:I don't remember titles.
Guest:No, I like Pichote or something.
Marc:Pichote, right.
Marc:There's these kids living in poverty in these third world countries.
Guest:And they're doing great, but you know it's not going to last forever.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:And now there's an American version of that.
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:It felt that way to me, that the joy and relentless exuberance of these kids are the only thing that makes this not a depressing movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But also my guy.
Guest:You're a guy, too.
Guest:Can I identify with him?
Guest:Because he's an everyman.
Marc:And even the woman who plays the mother, you're rooting for her on some level.
Marc:It's all very compelling.
Marc:And it's sad, but it's not depressing.
Marc:But at the end of the movie, you're confronted with some interesting things in yourself.
Guest:And I don't want to give away much.
Guest:right right no it's sean has done a beautiful job no doubt um it's very balanced and and it's i didn't see the first one it's complete it's yeah it's complete and whole yes but it's not closed that's right it's got plenty room for the audience to participate yeah that always sounds like a lot of work when you say that to people but it's a pleasure i think
Marc:Well, I like those kind of movies where it is open enough for it to challenge a person's individual sensibility.
Marc:It's not a closed system.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what are you working on now?
Marc:You doing something?
Guest:I just got here.
Guest:I just wrapped on a film called Aquaman.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Is it a superhero movie?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:James Wan directing Jason Momoa.
Guest:yeah amber heard what are you doing uh patrick wilson i play a good character i play a character that's kind of the mentor to aquaman he's also a politician that is the kind of the lord chamberlain or the the guy to uh patrick wilson who is the the king uh-huh um interesting yeah there'll be plenty time to talk about that but that just finished that james one
Guest:A great director.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Big movie.
Guest:Big, muscular, fun movie.
Marc:And you did the Orient Express?
Marc:I did the Orient Express.
Guest:Is that a remake?
Guest:A third one?
Guest:I don't know what they call them.
Guest:Reboots, remakes, refiguring.
Guest:There's been a few of them.
Guest:Reimagining.
Guest:But Kenneth Branagh.
Guest:An incredible, a nutty lead.
Guest:He directed it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And he stars as Poirot.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:And it's a fantastic cast.
Guest:Very stylish, great script.
Guest:I haven't seen it yet, but it was really fun to do.
Guest:And then, now I'm off to France to do a film with Julian Schnabel.
Marc:Another one.
Marc:He did, which one did he?
Marc:Basquiat.
Guest:He did Basquiat.
Guest:He did...
Guest:Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Guest:I did a little cameo in Basquiat.
Guest:I was in Miral, which was his last one.
Marc:I like Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Guest:And he also did Before Night Falls, which is a beautiful film that Javier Bardem was so good in.
Marc:That's a good movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I liked his paintings too.
Guest:Yeah, he's a great artist.
Marc:Yeah, he is.
Guest:And he's fun to work with.
Guest:In film, I've only worked with him in very small ways because we know each other.
Marc:So this is a big way?
Marc:Is this going to be a big one?
Guest:This is a big way.
Guest:No, it's not a big movie.
Guest:It's a smaller movie, but it's beautiful.
Guest:It's Van Gogh at the end of his life.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:You know, at the period where he was really most productive but also most challenged, let's say.
Guest:Yeah, and you're Van Gogh.
Guest:I'm playing Van Gogh.
Marc:What do you do to prepare for that?
Guest:Right now, I'm growing my beard.
Guest:Learn how to paint.
Guest:Read the letters between him and his brother.
Guest:Read a life.
Guest:This very well-researched biography.
Guest:But also, Julian leads the way because one of the beautiful things about Julian is like all great directors,
Guest:You know, when you come down to it, it's like you got a room, you bring stuff into the room that means something to you or resonate with you or signify something for you.
Guest:And then you order it.
Guest:You make a relationship and that relationship and what happens kind of makes its own story.
Guest:Everybody's story, story, story.
Guest:You know, expressing your point of view or, you know, explaining.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The best things always happen when you're able to tap into this kind of process of making something.
Guest:And someone like Julian understands that so deeply.
Guest:That's why when he started making movies and everybody said, my God.
Guest:He's a filmmaker.
Guest:It's a little bit like, duh.
Guest:Of course he is.
Guest:Yeah, of course he is.
Guest:So anyway, I bring that up.
Guest:There's plenty of time to talk about that too, but I'm excited.
Guest:I leave in a couple of days.
Marc:And you live almost exclusively in Rome now?
Guest:No, well, I work a lot, so I live in Rome and New York, but lately a little bit more in Rome.
Guest:That must be nice.
Guest:It's a beautiful place.
Guest:I mean, you know, they've got their challenges, but I call me foolish.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:See, I'll understand some better.
Marc:Enough?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just have to study every day.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you look great, and you're doing great work, and it was a thrill to talk to you.
Guest:Okay, cool.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That was me and Mr. Defoe.
Marc:It was great talking to him.
Marc:It's nice out here.
Marc:I'll play some guitar.
Marc:I'll play some redundant guitar on my gold guitar and my old ass amp.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Boomer lives!