Episode 904 - Jason Alexander
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 fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:It's Mark Maron, me.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:Broadcasting from the new space, the new garage.
Marc:I did have a spin out.
Marc:I will tell you about it.
Marc:I feel okay right now, but I definitely went into a vortex the other day.
Marc:A lot of things going on.
Marc:Having a hard time talking today.
Marc:I just did two hours doing a book on tape reading for Amber Tamblyn's new book.
Marc:She asked me to do a part, basically, and it took a lot out of me.
Marc:It took a lot out of my mouth, out of my tongue, out of my heart, out of my mind.
Marc:It's a beautifully written thing, and I don't know when it's coming out.
Marc:I put a lot into it, and it wore my mouth out.
Marc:But anyway, Jason Alexander is on the show today.
Marc:We're going to talk about...
Marc:I don't know that we're... I think he just wanted to come by.
Marc:I think that was really the idea.
Marc:I think he's going to be doing a live concert with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra on April 14th and 15th at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center in Newark and State Theater in New Brunswick.
Marc:But aside from that, I think he just wanted to come by and hang out in the old garage.
Marc:I'm still moving through many interviews that were done in the old space.
Marc:But you want to hear about my spin out?
Marc:I don't know if you know this about me.
Marc:I don't know how much you know about me.
Marc:But if I decide there's something horribly wrong, I'll generally do everything in a flurry of obsessive compulsion to correct it, even if I'm making it up in my mind.
Marc:That's the way I get things done sometimes, and that's the way I overdo things sometimes.
Marc:I was incredibly nervous, as you know, from the first broadcast from the new space here about how it would sound, how it would feel, what's happening.
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:I got to get books set up.
Marc:I got to get the space buffered.
Marc:What if it doesn't work out?
Marc:What if the buffering doesn't work?
Marc:What if it doesn't sound good?
Marc:A lot of things were going through my mind because I did...
Marc:have my first guest interview in here the other day.
Marc:You're not going to hear it today, but you'll hear it in the future.
Marc:And it went great.
Marc:It went better than anticipated.
Marc:So here's what happens leading up to the first interview I had here in the new space.
Marc:A few days ago, before I had set up and I was in between the old garage and the new garage and not knowing whether or not this would be up and running, I scheduled to do an interview at another space, at a studio.
Marc:It's not going to be on for a long time, so I don't know that I need to tell you who it is because you'll get excited.
Marc:You'll be beside yourself.
Marc:You'll be chomping at your bit, chomping at the bit or whatever it is.
Marc:You'll get anxiety over.
Marc:You'll be impatiently waiting.
Marc:John Cleese.
Marc:It was John Cleese.
Marc:so and that was a classic setup for a dumb dump of a punchline not that john cleese is a dumb dump of a punchline just the i can't do it i won't do it i'm doing it classic classic joke garbage 101 but while i'm there i noticed a kid who's working the board you know he's a kid who works the board he's uh he's there he's obviously paid by the company that owns the studio he's a trusted guy and
Marc:And, you know, we were talking sound.
Marc:We were talking, you know, the soundless spaces, the dead spaces, the studio, what you do to have it completely insulated for sound.
Marc:So, you know, you can clap and it just, you can't even, it just gets sucked away.
Marc:You hear no bounce.
Marc:But we were talking about sound.
Marc:I told him what was up and...
Marc:He gave me his number out of nowhere.
Marc:He said, yeah, I'm a consultant and I can come over and I'm like, all right, I might need this.
Marc:And then I got home and then I immediately started obsessing.
Marc:I recorded what you heard was the first intro and I just started freaking out about, wow, is it good?
Marc:Is it bad?
Marc:Is it sound right?
Marc:So then I call this kid in a panic and I'm like, when can you come over?
Marc:He's like, I can come over in a couple hours.
Marc:He comes over in a couple hours and he brings these things that he made for himself.
Marc:He's...
Marc:Basically, he tells me he just got out of college.
Marc:He's building this audio consulting and studio guy business.
Marc:And he comes in to give me a consultation.
Marc:And he says, well, I got my panels out in the car.
Marc:And he brings in these four foam panels.
Marc:They're just straight up foam.
Marc:There's no covering on them.
Marc:And they're...
Marc:They're sort of sitting on bases with dowels that are running halfway up the foam, and then they're taped on with black electrical tape.
Marc:So they're just freestanding, but they definitely don't look like you bought them at a store.
Marc:They definitely look...
Marc:hand rigged so he brings those in and we talk about the ceiling we talk about the side of the over here we talk about the back here and you know what he can do and this and that he gives me some recommendations i go all right and then i just freak out and i'm like well i don't know man it sounds pretty good right now can can i can you just leave your panels your homemade um
Marc:doweled, supported with splints, giant pieces of foam here.
Marc:I'll pay you.
Marc:I'll pay you for the consultation, and I'll pay you to rent these from you until I get a permanent solution.
Marc:So that's what's going on in here.
Marc:So I've got these panels in here, and I kind of moved them around.
Marc:And hold on.
Marc:I think I'm going to move one now.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:I'm going to move this one over here a little.
Marc:Because that's what I'm feeling, mystically.
Marc:See?
Marc:See, now in my mind, that's a lot better.
Marc:Because I moved them over there.
Marc:I moved one about half a foot in.
Marc:That's the world I'm living in.
Marc:I am obsessively moving these panels around, not knowing if they're doing anything.
Marc:And it sounds fine to me in my head.
Marc:It actually sounds pretty good.
Marc:So I've got my first guest coming over.
Marc:And I don't need to tell you who it is, because it's not going to be on for a while.
Marc:And there's no point in me...
Marc:Getting you anxious and excited and full of anticipation.
Marc:There's no reason for me to even tip to you who the first guest I interviewed in the garage was.
Marc:It was Josh Brolin.
Marc:And he strikes me as sort of an intimidating person to begin with, but I've been wanting to talk to him for a while.
Marc:I think he's a tremendous actor.
Marc:So I'm waiting for Josh Brolin.
Marc:It's an hour or two before he comes over.
Marc:I'm sitting out here in the garage.
Marc:I'm putting books out.
Marc:I'm trying to clean things up so it at least looks a little, not settled per se, but at least it looks like there are things in the right place, books up.
Marc:I just wanted to be able to explain everything as something temporary and not feel like an asshole.
Marc:So about an hour and a half before Brolin comes over, I'm sitting in this chair.
Marc:And out the window over here, which is not great for sound either out the window as if it were just outside the window, I hear somebody using a tool that I've never heard before.
Marc:And this is day one first guest in here.
Marc:I'm scheduled to talk to Josh at 1230 at 11 o'clock.
Marc:I hear a tool that sounds like several hammerheads attached to a jackhammer being used on the outside of a wall for a of a box that has nothing inside of it.
Marc:It's just this ricocheting sound of a rapid fire hammering tool.
Marc:And of course, my response was like, are you fucking kidding me?
Marc:Is this God's ironic sense of humor that he's going to put me through this shit?
Marc:So I leave my space here and I walk out into the street of my new neighborhood and directly across the street caddy corner, there's some guy sawing on a front porch for something they're gutting over there.
Marc:And I'm trying to figure out where the fuck the machine gun style jackhammer hammering instrument is coming from.
Marc:And that's
Marc:Way across your street, a couple of three houses down, I see these guys, and I'm wandering around.
Marc:I think I have my headphones still on outside.
Marc:I unplugged them, and I'm just wandering around with my hands outspread in the middle of the street looking for the sound.
Marc:These two guys who are working on a porch down the street there see me, and I'm just standing there with a baffled and aggravated look on my face with my hands outspread, and one of them comes up to me and goes, oh,
Marc:was uh it's okay it's okay and i'm like what are you talking about and that's not a mexican accent that's a vague might be armenian not sure uh might be italian i don't know that wasn't from here there's no reason for me to do it i just want you to know that whatever i'm attempting to do is a broad-based foreigner accent that could apply to many different types of ethnicities and i said so how long is it going to go on for the noise he goes maybe 10 minutes
Marc:And I'm like 10 minutes.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:He goes, oh, then we go around back and again for an hour.
Marc:And I'm like, what an hour?
Marc:And he goes, maybe we use smaller, you know, how do you say?
Marc:I'm like, OK, so an hour max.
Marc:And he's like, yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, all right, because I figured Josh is not going to be here till 1230.
Marc:Then I come back in here sweating.
Marc:I'm sweating and panicking.
Marc:Because I don't know if the foam's going to do it.
Marc:I don't know what's going to fucking do it.
Marc:I don't know if I'm going to have to move the show to another goddamn place.
Marc:And I hear the hammering and then I just move this one foam panel that's about five inches thick that's being held up by stilts on a small platform of wood and taped.
Marc:I move this just slightly, angle it in front of the window, and it's a miracle.
Marc:I can barely hear the weird machine.
Marc:And I'm like, wow, maybe this is going to work out.
Marc:And then I go out and wait for Josh and he walks in.
Marc:And I was concerned that like with these weird stilted pieces of foam that it would look too professional.
Marc:That was my fucking concern that someone would walk in here and go like, oh, this isn't this is a professional operation.
Marc:Yeah, you can tell by the wood that was bought at the Michael's Crafts that wherever the fuck.
Marc:anyway that's not how it went my point is that i was sweating and spun out for nothing because i tried to solve problems that may or may not be there but i tried to solve them preemptively to them even happening and made myself completely crazy as if i had bought the wrong house and here i am talking to you
Marc:Just I just want you to remember who I am and how some things apparently will never fucking change.
Marc:So I guess the moral of this story is outside of me.
Marc:being consistent in this strange behavior of spiraling and anxiety and things I made up in my head is that I told the kid, Julian, the kid who's lent me, who leased me his foam panels propped up by dowels, who's starting a business, he's a young kid, he's starting a business, he's starting an audio consulting business, and he offered to make me professional panels.
Marc:And I thought not unlike when I started the old garage and Laughing Andy from an old radio show that I used to do brought over his phone to help me get started.
Marc:This guy is starting a business.
Marc:He's a young guy and he made me a price.
Marc:He offered me a price on making nice panels that I can move around on the sides and maybe put some up on the wall and the ceiling.
Marc:And he said he'd give me a consultation and install them and everything.
Marc:And I thought, well, that's the way to do it.
Marc:I could have ordered from a catalog, but this kid is making a go at it.
Marc:So I'm going to give him a go.
Marc:So he's going to make that for me and I'll get those in a month or so.
Marc:But I'm going away for a few weeks.
Marc:So I gave him that time to do that.
Marc:He said he could get it all done by next week.
Marc:I said, take it easy, pal.
Marc:If you just leave the ones here that are propped up, you know, the ones with the tape, you know, up until you get the good ones in, I'm good.
Marc:So that's our agreement.
Marc:So I'll let you know how that comes out and how that goes.
Marc:Jason Alexander is a great guy.
Marc:I'm glad we talked.
Marc:He's exactly who you think he is.
Marc:And that's comforting.
Marc:As I said earlier, he's going to be doing a live concert with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra on April 14th and 15th.
Marc:That's at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center in Newark and State Theater in New Brunswick.
Marc:So this is me and Jason actually talking in the old garage.
Guest:You know, that's the weird thing.
Marc:You drove up in your whatever that was.
Marc:That's a Prius Prime.
Marc:Prius Prime?
Marc:Part of the solution.
Marc:It's relatively new.
Guest:I've only had about a month.
Marc:But that's a budget-conscious solution doer.
Guest:I, yeah.
Marc:Could have bought electric.
Marc:You don't want electric?
Guest:No, you know why?
Guest:I, like most Jews... Yeah.
Guest:know that at some point i'm gonna have to flee right and the electric doesn't give you enough distance 60 miles not enough one tank of gas and a full charge that that puppy should go 650 miles which will get me at least in nevada oh yeah much better there yeah you'll meet the other jews that are fleeing and eventually you get to the middle it's gonna target vegas i mean sure you'll get to the middle of the country it's gonna be nothing between jews from both coasts going like what do we do now and you're right where they want them i
Guest:How did all these Jews get to Wisconsin?
Marc:Yeah, and now they're just going to build a fence around the Jews that ran from both coasts.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Oh, no, you're going to need a plane, buddy.
Marc:You betcha.
Marc:You're going to need a plane.
Marc:Do you know when the timing?
Marc:Are you up on the timing?
Marc:Do you know when we go?
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:That's the problem.
Guest:I'm not in the loop.
Marc:Yeah, who's in the loop?
Guest:Well, I am such a peripheral Jew that I'm not even going to get the memo.
Guest:I'm not on the email chain.
Marc:I know you're a fairly public Jew.
Marc:I imagine that people, when they think Jew, you're probably an example that anti-Semites use.
Marc:You don't know what a Jew is?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Look at this bald bastard.
Guest:He screams Jew.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I hope it doesn't come to that.
Marc:You know, I was panicking.
Marc:I was panicking at the beginning.
Marc:I'm like, I got to get a new passport.
Marc:Bannon's probably got my name on the list.
Marc:I was going nuts at the very beginning.
Marc:And then my girlfriend said, like, I don't think they're after you.
Marc:And that's a cold comfort.
Marc:You're like, yeah, you're right.
Marc:You know, not yet.
Guest:I haven't made the list.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:It's probably, you know, there's a couple other.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:ethnicities before jews at this particular juncture in history he's looking for a jew he wants his roy cone i'm going into law school oh yeah you're gonna flip sides like hey fuck you know what i mean i can keep living here really but uh aside from that jews from new jersey i'm genetically jersey yeah uh you are you know full-on jersey like i i only spent the first six years my life in jersey oh really my but i always went back because the family was always there you're never gonna get away
Marc:no but i i've gotten it's true but i you know i think it's in me deeper than i thought both of the parents are from jersey sure but i i feel like i'm from i'm feel i'm jersey do i feel jersey to you yeah i would have i would have said oh this guy feels comfortable yeah yeah he feels like he's been through elizabeth and smelled that i have fabulous the secaucus the aroma secaucus has it so what what town did you grow up in
Guest:I started... You started?
Marc:Is that you talk about when you're born?
Guest:I started out.
Guest:I began.
Guest:I played.
Guest:I lived two years in Irvington, New Jersey.
Guest:Then we moved upscale to Maplewood, New Jersey.
Guest:And then we moved further upscale to Livingston, New Jersey.
Marc:Now, Livingston, I know because that seemed like there was... I remember the signs.
Marc:Because my grandmother...
Marc:Like you go to Livingston.
Marc:I feel like the signs for Livingston.
Guest:Well, we had a mall.
Guest:It wasn't Short Hills-esque, but we had a mall.
Guest:And the reason we were there is my mother was a big muckety-muck.
Guest:She sort of founded and ran the school of nursing at St.
Guest:Barnabas Medical Center.
Guest:So that's hence Livingston.
Guest:That's why you were there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How many siblings?
Guest:A half of each.
Guest:One of them is deceased.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:A half of each?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My father was a widower.
Guest:So I'm my mother's only child.
Marc:Oh, that's a lot of pressure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is, actually.
Guest:Being the Messiah is not an easy thing.
Marc:She relied on you a lot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a lot weighing on you.
Guest:Actually, it was great because my mother was a career woman at a time when most women were not.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My mother was the major breadwinner in our house.
Guest:My father always worked, but my mother was the major breadwinner.
Marc:At the nursing school.
Guest:yeah teaching she ran it she created the curriculum she ran that she was the executive director she was on uh there was i don't know if it's still around but there was a national organization of nurses that she was on that board as well she was a big honcho in the oh yeah yeah and did so she was a nurse her whole life whole life
Marc:Wow.
Marc:And what did your dad do?
Guest:He did a variety of things.
Guest:One of those guys.
Guest:With my dad, I'm never sure how much of the history is dead on accurate and how much of it is urban legend.
Guest:Is he around?
Guest:My dad died in 2001.
Guest:He was 91 years old when he died.
Guest:My mom is about to turn 98 this month.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My dad...
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Congratulations on the genes.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Guest:My dad, as a young man, supposedly did some work for the Jewish mob on the Lower East Side of New York.
Guest:Then became a Pinkerton detective.
Guest:I don't know how you make that transition.
Marc:He was a mole.
Marc:He's a rat.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:He was on the inside.
Guest:He worked for Bell Laboratories during World War II as a project manager, although he never had a college education, so I'm not quite sure.
Marc:Bell Laboratories for the military?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then during my lifetime, he was a transit bus driver from Bayonne, New Jersey into New York, back and forth that route.
Guest:He was an account manager for a brush manufacturing company.
Guest:I mean, he did all kinds.
Guest:He sold life insurance for New York Life for a while.
Guest:He was all over the map.
Marc:It's quite a mythic resume.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was an interesting guy.
Marc:Well, you know, you got to assume that it's sort of like...
Marc:It sounds pretty real, because no one's going to throw in the bus driver from Bayona, New York.
Guest:No, that I know for a fact.
Marc:Right, so that part of it, that validates a lot.
Guest:The working for the mob one, maybe?
Guest:Well, the only reason I tend to buy that is if you look at my bar mitzvah photo album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, the table shots.
Guest:So you see table Jews, table Jews, table Jews, table Jews.
Guest:And you get to one table, you go, holy shit, what am I looking at?
Guest:And it's a couple of guys I know for a fact, you know, were killed in jail because they... Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My father says he wasn't really... He certainly wasn't a violence guy, but I guess he had some relations.
Guest:Hence the Pinkerton detective.
Marc:He drove the truck.
Guest:He had some relationships with the police precinct down in the Lower East Side of New York.
Guest:And he used to go in, when the guys got arrested, he used to go in and kind of get them out.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:So he was friends with those guys, and he would say, you know, I was affiliated.
Guest:And I think he just kind of knew them.
Guest:So he'd go schmooze the cops to let the guys out?
Guest:And when I graduated high school, my dad, God bless him, he gave me a piece of paper.
Guest:Not high school, college.
Guest:He gave me a piece of paper, and he said, look, I can't give you very much, but there's a phone number here.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:If you ever need anything, anything.
Guest:you call this number you tell them you're my kid yeah and be taken care of and i went are you out of your goddamn mind you handed me a loaded gun what are you doing what are you doing look you're gonna have to pay for it for the rest of your life right and the big's pretty heavy but he was he was deadly serious he said you know you need anything this is the this is the phone number did you call no i threw it away you threw it away you bet right then right then after you walked away
Guest:No, actually, I said, Dad, I can't.
Guest:Please, don't do this to me.
Guest:What would you think it was?
Guest:It was a number for a guy that would do whatever you need.
Guest:But, you know, you'd go, I'm Al's kid.
Guest:And he would go, what do you need?
Guest:I need this guy killed.
Guest:I need whatever.
Marc:I think your father was assuming that wouldn't be the request.
Guest:Make no assumptions with my dad.
Guest:Was he a hard guy?
Guest:No, he was.
Guest:By the time I came along, he was 50 years old when I was born.
Guest:So by the time I came around, he was a pug from the Lower East Side of New York.
Guest:And as a young man, he was always an ethical guy.
Guest:He was a good man.
Guest:But he was a pug.
Guest:He had a bad temper.
Guest:But by the time I came around, he had mellowed.
Guest:And I said to my half-brother at my dad's funeral, I said, you know, the reason you and I are so different is not that we had different mothers.
Guest:We had different fathers.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And, you know, my dad was just a very sweet man and so clearly adored me from the minute I was born that I had all that stuff.
Marc:Yeah, you got the good stuff because, you know, you're how most people treat the first grandkid.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:Right, right, like, you know, these other two.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I did what I could, but this one's going to get all the good stuff.
Marc:By the time I came around, he was a pussycat.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:It happens in your 50s.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:58.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When did that happen?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And you know, so I'm a September baby like you.
Guest:So to me, I just started saying 58 and I feel like it's half gone.
Guest:By the time I get used to the number, it changes again.
Guest:It's going very fast.
Guest:September 1, did you research on me?
Guest:No, but I know you're a September guy.
Guest:I think you're a little after.
Guest:I'm the 23rd.
Guest:I'm the 27th.
Marc:There you go.
Guest:So you're a Libra too?
Guest:I'm right on the cusp.
Guest:But I am a Libra.
Guest:If you go by the descriptions, I'm a Libra than Virgo.
Marc:Yeah, but when people ask you, do you say Libra?
Guest:No, I say I'm right on the cusp.
Guest:I just said it, Mark.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:But what does that mean?
Guest:You can't be two?
Guest:Yeah, some charts have me as a Virgo and some have me as a Libra.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Depends who's doing the chart.
Marc:Do you put any credence in that?
Guest:Not as far as predicting anything.
Guest:It is interesting, and I don't know if you could do this with any other of these pseudo-sciences, but the generalized descriptions of people that fall into the signs...
Guest:I find there is a general accuracy to that.
Guest:And I'm not sure why that is.
Marc:What makes us Libras?
Marc:I'm never quite clear.
Guest:A sense of looking for balance, a preoccupation with justice and injustice.
Marc:See, it's now starting to sound like borderline personality disorders.
Guest:The same?
Guest:For me, it's the fact that the symbol is a scale.
Guest:So my fat ass is constantly reminded that I should drop a few.
Marc:That's how you take it?
Guest:That's how I take it.
Guest:It's God's little thumb.
Marc:Your other siblings, which one passed?
Marc:Your brother?
Marc:My sister.
Guest:My sister passed away about three years ago.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:And what did they do?
Marc:What were they like?
Guest:My brother was career military.
Guest:My brother is 20 years older than me.
Guest:20 years older than you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So he was career Air Force for almost 30 years.
Guest:He left the service as a lieutenant colonel.
Marc:Was your dad's first wife full Jew, too?
Yeah.
Guest:yeah yeah okay uh and uh and then my brother worked uh as a uh field investigator for the irs for several years and then he's something else i'm not sure what and then it's been retired for a while and my sister uh my sister had been ill for most of her life she had a a disease that she and i went to work for called scleroderma it's in the uh
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Autoimmune lupus family.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But she had done a lot of things.
Guest:She had worked as an accountant.
Guest:She had taught Latin at high school level when that was a thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, for a woman that should have been on disability all her life, she had a pretty active life.
Marc:Plugged along.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you're in Jersey.
Marc:You're the young kid amongst the... I mean, your brother's out of the house already.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I never grew up with my brother.
Guest:My sister was there for five years.
Marc:So you're almost the only child.
Guest:I was more or less raised as an only child.
Marc:And what compels you to entertain?
Marc:Were you a child entertainer?
Guest:Not knowingly.
Guest:And people, unless they really know me, they go, come on.
Guest:I was a very shy, very somber, very frightened, cowed little kid.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I believe that.
Guest:I didn't have a lot of friends and I was kind of a loner.
Guest:I mean, I had my friend Bruce Davison who lived down the block.
Guest:So I'd come home, and like all little kids that feel lost and lonely and scared, I discovered magic.
Guest:And I started trying to do magic.
Guest:I had the magic kit, and I got the books, and I was pretty serious about it.
Guest:And I thought that it was going to be what I did, never thinking it was performing.
Guest:I just thought, oh, it's fun to feel powerful.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:um and know know that there's a trick behind everything correct and around when i was 12 or 13 we moved from maplewood to livingston yeah and i didn't know a damn soul in livingston and the first kids i met were the theater kids and they pulled me at livingston high yeah uh actually heritage middle school and then livingston high did you use the magic to sort of open conversation with girls no girls girls oh sorry sorry please you know um
Guest:But it was a girl.
Guest:My parents, we moved there in the summer before I was going to start seventh grade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my parents, because they both work, said, we signed you up for the community pool, which is beautiful, because I weigh about 500 pounds, and I'm pasty and white.
Marc:You were always a little heavy?
Guest:I was at least 30 pounds overweight.
Guest:But you're not.
Guest:You look good.
Guest:I'm okay.
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:You know, I can get sick and survive.
Guest:So that's what my mother asked me.
Guest:And I'm in the pool and I don't know a damn soul.
Guest:And this gorgeous young girl comes up and goes, hi, you're new.
Guest:Do you sing?
Guest:And I went, yeah, kind of.
Guest:And she pulled me into this production of Sound of Music that the local teen theater was doing.
Marc:You're 14 or so?
Guest:I was 12 or 13.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I met all these kids and I suddenly had friends and community.
Guest:And I went, hey, this stage thing is pretty good.
Guest:I could hide in plain sight.
Guest:I didn't feel like it was me when I was performing.
Guest:I was whoever the person was.
Guest:So that was kind of cool.
Guest:And I just liked hanging with these kids.
Guest:So I started going to the theater in New York a lot and doing all the plays at school.
Marc:So it's cool because they were misfits.
Marc:Not misfits, but theater kids are different.
Marc:They weren't the coolest kids.
Marc:no of course not but but they would turn out you know they they were sort of uh they i think a lot of the theater kids in my memory is is that like they had this capacity to just sort of like live through the parts and sing out loud like they weren't oh sure it was a lot like glee right they weren't effective right no they had no guile really right you know some of them um
Guest:Some of them were manufacturing some attitudes and persona in order to cope.
Guest:But what was nice about the theater kids is they were generally nice guys.
Guest:They were nice people.
Guest:They weren't out to hurt feeling.
Guest:There were no bullies in the theater community.
Marc:Manufacturing attitudes and personas to cope.
Marc:I think I'm still doing that.
Marc:I think we all are.
Guest:I think people are seeing through mine at this point.
Guest:But I believe you were a shy kid.
Guest:Why wouldn't you be?
Guest:I mean, you know.
Guest:Well, you know, it was funny.
Guest:And I always thought it was very obvious.
Guest:But I remember when I was in college, I went to Boston University as a theater major.
Guest:And I started dating this girl who I hadn't really known.
Guest:And we had been together about six weeks, seven weeks.
Guest:And she goes, you know, everybody at this school thinks you are the cockiest son of a bitch in the world.
Guest:And I went, you've got to be kidding me.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:It was a shock to me.
Guest:She like laid that on you six weeks in?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, I'm scared to death.
Guest:I don't think I measure up.
Guest:I don't think.
Guest:And she goes, oh, I know that now.
Guest:But your cover for your insecurity is kind of this, I got this attitude.
Guest:I had no idea that was what I was going to do.
Guest:Well, that's like a sense of humor.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But that's why I say when most people.
Guest:So apparently the thing I. Was she breaking up with you?
Marc:No, no.
Guest:She was a lovely woman.
Guest:The thing I seem to project when I am my most uncomfortable or just is this kind of, oh man, he's comfortable in his skin and he knows what he can do.
Guest:Nothing could be further from the truth.
Guest:So when I tell people that I was...
Guest:A very shy kid in that, in fact, if we were close personal friends, people come to my house, yeah, we'll play games and stuff, but I'm like, let's have a conversation.
Guest:I think I've lost some of my funnier friends because they go, he's not a lot of fun to hang out with.
Marc:Not anymore?
Marc:No.
Marc:Well, that's the weird thing because we're serious.
Marc:I'm kind of serious.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And there's that, you know, like the one thing I have to, I've learned over time that I protect the people in my life from, if I can, is dragging them down into whatever sad, shitty, neurotic hole that I'm in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because my brain wants to do it instinctively.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:So I got to know when it's happening and know like I'm about to say something that's got absolutely no floor to it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And we're both going to fall down.
Marc:Right.
Guest:if i continue absolutely you know that feeling yeah you bet like the we're all gonna die it's not i don't go i don't go to dark places but i do go to serious places you know uh and uh oh yeah you don't you don't have dread i don't i don't live in dread because you know my life has been so friggin blessed i just it's not attractive to live in that's right you yeah you're like people are like come on shut up yeah it's just not uh
Guest:That's true.
Marc:I haven't earned a dread at this point.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess you're not entitled to it.
Marc:No.
Marc:Though, you know, it's... It's unseemly.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:It's still scary, though.
Marc:So when did you... Did you do magic for money?
Guest:I used to do kids' parties and stuff, and then I totally dropped it because I realized as a teenager, I wanted to be a close-up magician.
Guest:I wanted to do cards and coins and that stuff.
Marc:Do you enjoy it now?
Guest:I love magic.
Guest:And I am a member of the Magic Castle, and I actually won an award for... I was asked to perform there in the early 2000s because they were having big financial trouble.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I did a week in the parlor room, which is the midsize performance room.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I was actually very proud of that act, and...
Guest:the magicians awarded me parlor magician of the year that year so i i was very pleased um but i kind of i gave magic up because i realized when i was a teenager i was never going to be good enough and i knew the difference between good enough and not yeah and i loved magic and i loved magicians and i went uh you know i've got this theater thing that's an illusion that i can do right um so i kind of i was always a hobbyist but i never all my aspirations about it went away
Guest:when you see that stuff is your brain automatically going okay so now i see so i know i know the principles for almost all the stuff that i see yeah what i love is with knowing the principles i don't see the moment and i go that's great right because i love that i love being full yes i love it i love it it makes me so happy to go i know what you did and i don't know how you did it you know some people
Guest:It's great.
Marc:It is great.
Marc:It's hard to be cynical about it, but I know people are.
Marc:Oh, my wife hates it.
Marc:My wife hates magic.
Guest:Really hates it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My wife's whole attitude about magic, she sums it up to this.
Guest:There's a secret.
Guest:You know it.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:You won't tell me.
Guest:Go fuck yourself.
Guest:That's her.
Guest:She feels it's all a power trick.
Guest:But you just told me you don't know most of it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I don't see it.
Guest:I understand it.
Guest:Most of it I understand.
Guest:And then there's some things where I go, I don't even know what principle they're using.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that makes me really happy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because you're actually, you're confounded.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, you know, you do a card trick on your wife and she goes, yeah, it's my card.
Marc:Fuck off.
Guest:As long as, if I do a trick for her, she immediately goes, all right, tell me.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And do you?
Guest:For her, I have to, because otherwise it's an argument.
Marc:So that's the one condition that the oath can be broken.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But Dana doesn't like surprises.
Guest:Like, you would never throw my wife a surprise party.
Guest:No.
Guest:She'd be so pissed.
Guest:Angry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It'd be like, surprise, get the fuck out of my... She slammed the door on a friend of mine who came cross-country to celebrate her birthday and didn't tell her.
Guest:Just appeared at the door with a bag of New York bagels, and she went...
Guest:go fuck yourself and slam the door really what is that she got over it no sure it makes her feel unsafe it's it's you know she's a very organized um she's not a control freak but she is an organization freak and she likes to know what's going to happen and be able to plan for it sounds like a fine line and um and she feels like her the people close to her should know that and she forgot for a moment that it came from a good place and you know she reopened the door and got over it right right
Guest:But the initial reaction was, oh, I hate you for doing this.
Guest:It wasn't on the schedule.
Guest:No, it was not on the schedule.
Marc:Yeah, right, right, right.
Guest:What does she do?
Guest:She's a painter.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I'm dating a painter.
Guest:Ah.
Marc:It's interesting, isn't it?
Marc:Abstract painter.
Guest:Mine is not abstract.
Guest:She's figurative and impressionistic and feminist and very, very good.
Guest:She's been doing it.
Guest:She was not doing that when I met her.
Guest:She was an actress.
Guest:We've been together forever.
Guest:We've been together 38 years.
Guest:What's her painting name?
Marc:it's her name it's dana and spelled d-a-e-n-a and her last name is title like the title of a book dana title yeah yeah painter like i i it's interesting they they definitely live in their own world they you know it's a it's a very uniquely solitary thing but they you know they do it they go to a different place yeah and being what we are you know which is you know people primarily driven by charm right
Marc:All you can do is sit there baffled when they produce something.
Guest:It's also a magic to me because I have no artistic ability whatsoever.
Guest:And so she shows me the stuff she does and things look like things.
Guest:And I go, I don't know how you took three dimensions and made it two and it looks like it's three.
Marc:I just...
Guest:yeah so she's got you you can't figure out that trick no and also you know that one of the big um um challenges for us is that art visual art doesn't often speak to me it feeds her soul she can look at a painting the way i look at music right and it changes who she is as a person and i don't get it almost never have that reaction to anything visually and uh and and so i'm i'm less of a man in her eyes
Marc:Well, I mean, have you learned that maybe you just keep that to yourself?
Marc:It's too late.
Marc:You blew that one a long time ago.
Guest:38 years, that cat is out of the bag.
Marc:Can't pretend?
Marc:No.
Marc:You're an actor.
Marc:Can't you have the one moment?
Marc:Just next time you go to a museum, you're like, it's happening.
Marc:Yeah, I've learned to speak artistically.
Guest:a little better and i've learned to speak to her art a little bit better but it's oh i see that you did the thing with yeah yeah yeah and you know and i can talk some of the terms but i just felt like there was a lot of fighting around this at some point i felt it no not fighting disappointment oh geez which is worse than that's worse that's like the jewish curse yeah
Guest:But I always say, you know, you didn't do this when we met.
Guest:You changed the rules.
Guest:You were an actress when I met you or trying to be an actress when I met you.
Guest:And we had everything going together.
Guest:And now you decided this thing.
Guest:I never said I was that thing.
Marc:Interesting.
Guest:But so you guys were together before anything happened.
Guest:Yeah, we met.
Guest:We met in 1980.
Guest:We were married in 82.
Guest:yeah so when do you okay so you go to high school and you do the the theater kid thing and then you get into bu the theater program what year uh 77 so you graduated i didn't graduate i i finished three years and i uh i had been working professionally from the time i was 14 i felt i sort of fell into a professional career what do you mean
Guest:I was doing a children's theater in Livingston, New Jersey.
Guest:And they were doing little original children's musicals.
Marc:And you did that?
Guest:I was part of that company.
Guest:And then some dad in the audience one day was a TV producer.
Guest:He said, this could be a cute little children's series.
Guest:And he ponied up the money.
Guest:We all joined AFTRA.
Guest:and we shot a pilot.
Guest:And he couldn't sell it as a series, but he got the pilot on on local New York television on like a Sunday morning at 7.30 or something.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And these managers for young people saw it and hunted me down and said, we'd love to rep you.
Guest:And I went, okay.
Marc:At 14?
Guest:At 14.
Guest:So I started doing commercials and that kind of stuff.
Marc:At 14, you're doing the commercials.
Marc:Were you making money, saving up for college?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So you paid your own college?
Marc:Half of it.
Marc:Because of the commercials?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Doing all kinds of commercials.
Guest:did a lot of commercials in the 80s commercials were amazing i remember in the 1984 olympics i was doing a play on broadway a musical on broadway and the olympics was that summer and they went to a commercial break and there was like you know i don't know eight to ten commercials back to back i was in four of them oh you were like that guy oh they're on to me now
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm overexposed.
Marc:But that happens with commercials.
Marc:You see, like, well, that guy's in all of them right now.
Guest:Yeah, it was not good.
Guest:And actually, then it tamped down for a while.
Guest:But commercials were great.
Marc:I watched the McDLT commercial.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I have the only McDonald's product that didn't go.
Guest:Even the McRib comes back.
Guest:I think you were too excited about it.
Guest:I was excited as they told me to be.
Guest:because i said that my producers he said you should watch it and i watch it and i'm like that didn't really hang around that long no it was it was amy um the product was not a bad idea so what the mcdlt was is that you know they had a two container container yeah and the idea was that the the the vegetable material would be on one bun on one side and the hamburger on the other and it would it wouldn't all right
Guest:That worked as long as you built it level on the horizontal plane and put it in the bag that way and carried it out that way.
Guest:But the minute you put the thing in the bag on the vertical, everything in the top fell to the bottom.
Guest:They weren't sealed separate compartments.
Guest:And it was a mess.
Guest:So people would open the box and they'd have just this salad of hamburger.
Marc:I also think that nobody wants to see the meat of a McDonald's hamburger.
Marc:It's my belief.
Marc:You may be right.
Marc:That like, you know, just keep it covered.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:You know, it's like, I know that that can't be good meat.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:It's McDonald's.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:You're just hoping it's meat.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, it was a, it was a product that just would not catch at all.
Guest:And you, God, you danced, you danced the hell out of that product.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The crazy thing is that behind me in that mob are some of Broadway's best dancers at the time, and I have never been accused of being a dancer, but somehow they put me in the foreground.
Guest:I was an actor who moves, and I've done, in my Broadway career, I did more than my fair share of dancing.
Marc:I liked it.
Marc:I'm not mocking it.
Marc:I just thought it was interesting that, you know, you are obviously directed to really be excited about that.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that all of that just couldn't do it.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And those outfits.
Guest:I also, if you look at it, I have a Trump at the airplane moment at the very end because my hair was already quite thin.
Guest:And at the very end, there's a gust of wind and what looks like a full head of hair on the top suddenly is revealed to me.
Guest:Oh, flips back.
Guest:He's becoming a monk very quickly.
Guest:They left it in.
Marc:That was the best take.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:All right, so you go to BU, which is a good theater school.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was it then?
Marc:Because when I was there- Yeah, it was considered.
Guest:There was a league of theater schools.
Guest:At 82, I got there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's still considered one of the better college programs.
Marc:But was like Julianne Moore there when you were there?
Guest:Julianne was one or two years behind me.
Guest:Mike Chiklis was there.
Guest:Gina Davis was there.
Guest:Nina Tassler was there.
Guest:Jerry Levine was there.
Marc:And you didn't see Julianne when you were there?
Marc:I did.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah, she was Julie Smith then.
Guest:And the person she is now is exactly the person she was then.
Guest:She was as sweet and kind and lovely... Did you see her early stuff there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think she was two years behind me.
Guest:And the freshmen were not allowed to do the big shows.
Guest:So I may have seen her in a scene here and a scene there.
Guest:And then I didn't do my senior year, which is when she would have started to be cast.
Marc:But what did you earn there?
Marc:You just bailed on your senior year?
Marc:I didn't bail.
Guest:I did a movie.
Guest:What movie?
Guest:It's one of these horrible movies.
Guest:It was a movie.
Guest:It was Harvey Weinstein's first movie.
Guest:It was a little horror film a la Friday the 13th called The Burning.
Guest:Summer camp terrorized.
Marc:Weinstein's first movie.
Marc:So you knew him at the beginning.
Guest:i was aware of him yeah i wouldn't say i knew him we didn't hang excuse me and he was just a producer he was a producer i think harvey and his brother were concert promoters in buffalo new york right time and they wanted to get into this and i and as far as i know it was their first film and it ran late it went late so i didn't get back to school in time to start the last year and i was going to take one semester off uh and i uh
Guest:I got a very good gig in New York and I decided to stay and do that.
Guest:And then gig led to gig and I never got back.
Marc:What were you learning there?
Marc:Walking and talking.
Guest:Were you prepared?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, did you feel like, you know, like, all right, you got the movies.
Marc:Who's the guy that I took a class with up there?
Marc:Was his name Bill Young?
Marc:Oh, Bill Young.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because I went to be, but I was not, I did stage troupe, but I took class up there as an elective.
Guest:You did it the right way.
Marc:Yeah, because I thought it was a whole – I thought they were really trying to be like a complete program like Yale.
Marc:They are.
Guest:You know, I do a lot of teaching these days and I teach a lot of – I go around, do master classes at universities.
Marc:In acting?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I honestly don't believe that the best training for anyone in the arts is at a college.
Guest:And not because they don't have good teachers and not because they don't have good curriculum.
Guest:But by the very nature of a college program, they're on a schedule.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And artists learn a craft in the time it takes them to learn it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But the college needs you to go on to the next thing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you find that you are burning through ideas before you really grok them.
Marc:But this is with anything in college.
Marc:That's correct.
Marc:Anything in the arts.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Unless you're doing something, even English.
Marc:Unless you're doing something like engineering or something.
Marc:Right.
Guest:If it's math and science, you kind of have a barometer for you need to know this before you can do that.
Marc:Yeah, because that's why everybody says, I wish I'd go to college now.
Marc:Right.
Guest:if i were to go again so my my older son who's in the is in this business he went to yale and he went as a theater major but that's not a conservatory program so he actually got an education he got a great education what does that mean it's not a conservatory so all i studied at bu because it's conservatory style program is i was doing movement vocal production acting technique history of the theater and stagecraft and i had like one or two electives that's right you guys had to take like in a
Guest:active in liberal arts all my i had no math or science requirements i had no language requirements i did not need to get a a you know um a real education of any kind i was solely focused on the craft that i was studying yeah yeah i don't think doing that at a college i wouldn't recommend it for my kids well yeah because like what if you get out and the odds are against you
Guest:Well, that's true no matter where you study.
Marc:No, but that's what I mean is that at least with a few other things, you're a little bit well-rounded.
Marc:So when you get out and you can't get a job in the theater, you don't go apply to restaurants showing them your swordsmanship.
Guest:And even in the theater programs, the whole notion right now, and I'm on the dean's advisory board for BU for this college, and the thing we keep talking about is even the name –
Guest:College of theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No actor is making their living solely in the theater.
Guest:So this is a misnomer.
Guest:It should be the college of performing art because you need to understand film.
Guest:You need to understand television.
Guest:Not yet.
Right.
Guest:Not yet.
Guest:It is still a hyper-focused... And it's not just Boston University.
Guest:It's all of these guys.
Marc:So wait, they don't teach... You're saying that they teach the great... There is no business of the theater.
Guest:There is no other medium.
Guest:There's not a real immersion into other medium.
Guest:There's no idea.
Guest:I came out of college.
Guest:I didn't know...
Guest:If I wanted to put up a play, if I wanted to take a space and put up a play, I didn't know how to budget it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I didn't know what a stage manager does.
Guest:So there should be that option.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:It should be an immersion.
Guest:If you're going to teach a performing art, yes, you have to teach the technical of the trade.
Guest:But you also, you got to teach people to go out and be entrepreneurs.
Guest:They got to be able to do the business of this craft.
Marc:Well, don't you know how that happens?
Marc:The old school way is you go out, you fail as an actor, and you're like, I kind of like this world, though.
Marc:And then you go talk to the guy, the director.
Marc:You go talk to the producer.
Guest:But much like you're doing here, I mean, when Howard Stern graduated BU, there was no such thing as a podcast.
Guest:He had to get a job in somebody's radio station or he was out of work.
Guest:Now, there's no reason an actor can't work every day, but they've got to know how to make their own stuff.
Guest:They have to know how to develop material and put things together.
Guest:I think so, yeah.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:It's a whole new world.
Marc:It is, but in some ways, you can get diluted in the sense that there's something about taking your hits.
Marc:And I think that self-producing at a certain level, you think you're doing something.
Guest:Well, you are doing something.
Guest:Even if you fail, you're doing something.
Marc:Yeah, but how do you know if you succeed or fail?
Marc:I'm saying anyone can put something out into the world.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But how does it get traction?
Marc:What does it mean?
Marc:What the hell difference does it make?
Guest:That's the big challenge.
Guest:How do you make money?
Guest:Brave New World is that how do you monetize what we do?
Guest:What barometer is success?
Guest:But I know more actors that are gone now.
Guest:They don't work.
Guest:They're out of our business.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because they had nothing in their quiver other than to sit around with their talent and hope to Christ that somebody threw a job or an opportunity at them.
Guest:Because they couldn't.
Marc:Were they talented?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I went to school with some people that you've never heard of that I thought were some of the most talented people I've ever seen in my life.
Marc:Yeah, I've known guys like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but what about the... Isn't there a natural sort of thinning...
Marc:of the herd that you know they i think one of the things that we see now is that there are more opportunities if you can find them yes but some people are just not cut out for this that's absolutely right that's true but but i'd love to see what i think is exciting about these times is that
Guest:is that if you are willing to try and create your own opportunity, you can.
Guest:When I was a kid, you really couldn't.
Guest:The means of doing it were too tough.
Marc:But all that stuff is still there.
Marc:It is true.
Marc:It's determining what is success.
Marc:You're making a living.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:is important.
Marc:And it's hard to say that even something like, in the media landscape we live in now, would a Seinfeld ever even happen again?
Marc:Never.
Marc:It just won't.
Guest:Well, we wouldn't have survived.
Guest:We were so not a hit.
Guest:I mean, from my understanding, we weren't producing enough of an audience.
Guest:The only reason...
Guest:we kind of kept going is that the audience we were getting was the demographic that it was very hard to get it was guys you know 18 to 35 so advertisers would throw some coins at us but right we had no we we did not have an audience that would have sustained a tv show in that day and age or this day and age right yeah and now because there's so many different this like there's so many great shows on you like where is it i don't even know where that is what is it called what's it on and
Marc:But what do you teach?
Marc:So what's the structure when you say you go out and teach?
Guest:So when I left college, I mean, every school does a very fine job of introducing theater students to the tools of the craft, which I didn't even know existed when I went in.
Guest:I thought you just memorize the lines and pretend to be the actor you thought would be good in the role.
Marc:That was my idea of acting.
Marc:Did you learn the tools?
Marc:I did.
Guest:So they introduced me to the tools.
Guest:But what they didn't do, and might have gone further had I done my final year,
Guest:But they... So if you teach me... You think you might have had a better career?
Guest:I might have done a little bit better.
Guest:I always say, I use this analogy.
Guest:So if you know nothing about construction, I show you how to use a hammer.
Guest:I show you how to use a drill.
Guest:I show you how to use a saw.
Guest:I show you how to use the tools.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The tools.
Guest:This is how a saw works.
Guest:Don't hurt yourself.
Guest:And now I say, okay, go build a house.
Guest:You don't know how to build a house.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You don't have a methodology to use those tools to create something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when I left school and I started finding different teachers, looking for that clarity, it took me a couple of years.
Guest:And then I met Larry Moss and I studied with Larry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Actually, I met Larry in New York.
Guest:And then I studied with him several years there.
Guest:And then he moved here.
Guest:And when I got here, I resumed study with Larry.
Guest:And I did about 12 years with Larry on and off.
Guest:one-on-one class no no no class uh larry among having his own students used to teach at circle and square in new york and that's where my wife met him uh-huh sang his praises to the sun and the stars and i did a a little workshop in new york when i you know like i was two years out of school yeah and he had two students in it who i thought were spectacular and he came to a performance and he said came right up to me afterwards and went you're very good but i can make you much better
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And so I joined with him.
Guest:But Larry introduced me to a methodology that I could understand to plug those tools in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's basically what I teach.
Guest:I've built on what he gave me and some things that I've discovered along the way.
Guest:And I go to actors that go.
Guest:But if I say to an actor, okay, I give you a piece of material.
Guest:How do you do what you do?
Guest:And they go, well, I kind of... And most actors, that's the answer.
Guest:I kind of this, I kind of that.
Guest:It's a little bit instinctual.
Guest:I never do the same thing twice.
Marc:Ask me, because I'm acting now.
Marc:Okay, so what do you do?
Marc:Well, I read the script.
Marc:I read the material.
Marc:I start to... I say the lines out loud.
Marc:I read them out loud a little bit.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I'll decide.
Marc:I'll make some choices in the reading.
Guest:How do you do that?
Marc:Well, how do I read the lines or how do I make the choices?
Marc:How do you make the choices?
Marc:Well, from reading out loud, I can try to understand how it's being said and what I can do to make it my own.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Right?
Marc:And then I'll start memorizing.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:And then I got to wait until the other guy comes to move around in it.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's what most actors do.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And part of that actually is unavoidable.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I don't have much training.
Guest:So take me to the next level.
Guest:So what actors have to make choices about is you're carefully and selectively building the illusion that somehow you are this person inhabiting these circumstances in this world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the first thing I talk about, I have actors come in and they start with monologues.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in a monologue, they're talking to somebody.
Guest:I go, who are you talking to?
Guest:They go, what?
Guest:I go, who are you talking to?
Guest:I mean, it's one thing to feel the words and feel the material, which is part of what you're talking about.
Guest:You get into a space, either here or somewhere, and you start to say the words out loud and you see how they affect you and you affect them.
Guest:okay but i know who i'm talking to i'm on a show so like i know the other people you know the idea of who you're talking yeah but you don't know what they're gonna do you don't know who they are you haven't so for instance if i do because i'm doing i'm on a show but like you're saying in the monologue yeah yeah but even even so what i love are like when you read a seinfeld script yeah and it says jerry on there yeah you know what's gonna happen but who is jerry to george
Guest:A friend.
Guest:What does that mean?
Guest:Why are friends friends?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:What makes a friend a friend?
Guest:What do you get from a friend that makes them a friend?
Guest:And on Seinfeld, it's going to be the exact opposite of anything you answer.
Guest:Because mostly we're friends with people who we have a natural simpatico with.
Guest:Our ethics, our ideas, our creativity, they line up.
Guest:I feel somehow appreciated by that person.
Guest:There are all kinds of reasons friends are friends.
Guest:So for an actor, specifics are your best friend.
Guest:Specifics.
Guest:The more you can go, I specifically...
Guest:have this i specifically have this the deeper and richer your work goes i see so when you have an actor that comes in he's doing hamlet he's doing a scene between hamlet and gertrude his mother right and i go who are you talking to he goes well the character's talking to his mother i go uh-huh but the character doesn't exist this is somebody's idea on a piece of paper you're a real person pretending to be this person yeah so are you talking to hamlet's mother because she doesn't exist either so who are you talking to uh-huh
Guest:And what's the right answer?
Guest:The answer is, what is the relationship between Hamlet and his mother?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Is it, in some productions, it's an incestuous relationship in his mind.
Guest:In some productions, it's a hateful relationship.
Guest:In some productions, it's a lost relationship.
Guest:So you have to decide who Hamlet's mother is to Hamlet.
Guest:And in order to explore that, in order to say those words out loud in a way that is guaranteed to affect you, you have to create a mother.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It has to be.
Guest:And when people say, well, I used my mother, I go, well, what does that mean?
Guest:How many roles does your mother play in your life?
Guest:Which mother are you talking to?
Guest:And so everybody goes- And then they say, I have a very complicated relationship with my mother.
Guest:Everybody believes it is simple.
Guest:And ultimately, all this complexity is to get back to something very, very simple and organic and instinctual.
Guest:But most actors- That's the groundwork.
Guest:And most actors, and by the way, good actors, great actors, better actors than me, a lot of them are just instinctual.
Guest:They don't know how they do what they're doing.
Guest:They just feel it.
Marc:They get there.
Marc:You're okay with that.
Guest:But I do theater.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I got to tell you, at six months in on a Thursday night, I ain't feeling shit.
Guest:So I better have some technique behind me in order to create this illusion for the audience that something's happening there.
Marc:That's what it's for.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this is something that really affects theater actors more than film actors, because film actors have to get there once.
Guest:Theater actors have to get there over and over and over and over.
Guest:And I was trained for, and all my fantasies of a career were about being a theater actor.
Guest:And all this other stuff was just gravy and icing on the cake.
Guest:That's what you wanted.
Guest:That's all I imagined.
Guest:I thought if God was good to me, I would somehow wind up working in the New York theater.
Guest:That was my fantasy of success.
Guest:But movies were not part of it.
Guest:I didn't think about them.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I didn't think I would be a movie or television fan.
Guest:Well, why do you love theater so much?
Guest:Because I was always excited.
Guest:Whenever I went to... Well, first of all, that's how I became an actor.
Guest:I got pulled into this theater company.
Marc:I know, but then you'd go see theater and you'd be just astounded.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:I love... The greatest nights of my life have been nights spent either on the stage or in the audience of a stage.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I love it because, again, my thing is magic.
Guest:Magic gets me off.
Guest:That is the most exciting illusion in the world.
Guest:Nothing on that stage is real.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:And yet you suspend all.
Guest:People sit in a magic show and go, yeah, he didn't saw a woman.
Guest:Nobody goes, oh, come on.
Guest:He wasn't her father.
Marc:They don't do that.
Marc:That's not a real apartment.
Guest:So it's a very exciting illusion that you can really get people to invest in, but you have to do it well.
Guest:And everybody has to do it well at the same time.
Marc:But, you know, as you became more professional, the thrill was not losing yourself.
Marc:It was doing the job, right?
Guest:I mean, or do you still... The thrill was the detective, you know, case of who is this person?
Guest:What is this event?
Guest:How do I get there?
Marc:Building the character.
Guest:I went from I hate rehearsing.
Guest:I can't wait to perform because I so desperately needed the affirmation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To I could...
Guest:Which is why I try now to do more directing than acting because I don't really, I don't crave or need the applause.
Guest:I love the discovery process.
Marc:And to be part of the ensemble and working with an ensemble.
Marc:What were some of the mind-blowing kind of things that really kept you excited about theater?
Marc:If you're going to so much theater at that time when you're younger, you must have seen a lot of great stuff in New York.
Marc:I saw a lot of great, I saw a lot of terrible.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But were there performances where you're like, holy shit.
Guest:The performance that made me go, I have to do this, was Ben Vereen and Pippin.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:And I'm not alone in that.
Guest:I've known Ben.
Guest:We're not friends, but I've been at things with him and gotten to chat with him.
Yeah.
Guest:And a lot of people had that experience.
Guest:He was so extraordinary in that piece.
Guest:And it was so theatrical and so magical and so charismatic that it made a lot of people go, I have to try and do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it stayed with me.
Guest:I know his readings.
Guest:I know his, I mean, you know, that performance is raised in my mind.
Guest:uh but i saw i mean i saw amazing things i saw anthony hopkins do equus on broadway oh yeah uh i saw malkovich and burn this burn absolutely with that with that three-page rant that he comes on with that wig and he couldn't find a parking space yeah i mean it's those it's those things that just go oh my god i was here when that happened
Guest:And it's living and breathing right in front of me.
Guest:And even the, I love musicals, and I know there are people that genetically just hate musicals.
Marc:I genetically, like, I'm a repressed musical lover.
Marc:Like, I don't seek them out, but when I go, I'm always like, oh, I love them.
Guest:I get crazier.
Guest:I love them.
Guest:When they're good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's something, right?
Marc:It's like magic.
Marc:As soon as people start singing, I get all teared up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know what it is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I do not know what it is about many people singing on a stage.
Guest:Because there is something about... We as a creature raise our voice in song at the heightened moments of our lives.
Guest:They're either celebratory or they are at our deepest despair.
Guest:That's when we sing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And so I think the act of lifting in the music just...
Guest:Whether you are aware of it or not, you tap into that.
Marc:Where'd you earn that?
Guest:Life.
Guest:Observation.
Guest:That sounded like a study.
Guest:Certainly not in college.
Guest:They didn't teach me that in mine.
Marc:So now why you did, it looks like you, before Seinfeld, I don't know what your timeline is, but you were on stage constantly in New York.
Marc:You were like a Broadway guy.
Guest:Yeah, so Seinfeld happened around 1990.
Guest:And I came out of college in 1980, and I spent the 80s primarily doing Broadway and Off-Broadway and commercials.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:With a little bit of a tiny film or a tiny TV thing here and there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you were content.
Marc:Extremely.
Guest:I never thought I'd... I didn't think life could get better.
Guest:Because you were on stage all the time.
Guest:I was a working theater actor in New York City making a fine living.
Guest:I was putting money in the bank every year.
Guest:My wife and I lived great.
Guest:And I didn't think anything beyond that.
Marc:And you had the craft in place that would enable you six months in.
Guest:I was getting it.
Guest:I mean, I was still learning, but I...
Guest:But in the 80s, I was really putting pieces together.
Marc:I think that's important what you said, because I just talked to somebody else about that, about that specific thing, about, maybe it was Tracy Letts, about, you know, like six months in, where you, you know, when you got nothing, but you got to do it, that's the job.
Marc:You know, that's a hell of a thing to know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I know it as a comic, too, that like, you know, I've dragged some audiences down the garbage hole with me.
Marc:yeah after a certain point when people are coming to see you right that you've gone to save that for your own head yeah you bet you earn it but but so you're doing that and then and then you do this other thing this like world changing thing there were a decade there were three things that happened back to back and it changed my life one was winning the tony award in 1989 and
Guest:For a show that I had no idea would even put me in the running for such a thing, because I didn't really, it was a dance review, and I was an actor in a dance review, but it was flashy enough, and it got me Tony.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:It was called Jerome Robbins Broadway.
Guest:It was a big celebration of Jerome Robbins.
Guest:And you were singing and dancing?
Guest:Singing and dancing and playing a bunch of characters.
Guest:Won the Tony.
Guest:And then somehow that put me in Gary Marshall's purview.
Guest:And I got Pretty Woman.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And the Gary Marshall to Rob Reiner to Jerry Seinfeld connection began to get me.
Marc:Because Reiner was a partner at Castle Rock.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Rob was married to Penny at that point.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:And then Glenn, what's his name at Castle Rock?
Marc:What was Glenn's name?
Marc:Padnick.
Marc:Padnick.
Marc:Glenn Padnick.
Marc:I had a weird meeting with Glenn Padnick after Seinfeld.
Marc:I was coming in pitching something, and he just couldn't be more thrilled about how it went with Seinfeld.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I'm sure.
Marc:They were all still in shock.
Yeah.
Marc:Like whatever I was pitching.
Guest:What is this, 2018?
Guest:They're still going, I can't believe we did that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So whatever I was pitching was like, let me tell you, with Seinfeld, okay.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But okay, so all those things happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then everything changes, right?
Marc:So then you're Costanza for a decade.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you love it?
Guest:Yeah, for the most part, the time I was there, I got a little cranky with it in the last two years.
Guest:When Larry David left after season seven, I felt like the best of George went with him because, you know, Larry, that was the alter ego he was writing.
Guest:And the writing staff at that point, all unbelievably talented guys who have gone on to huge careers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I felt like they didn't quite understand George to the depths that Larry did.
Guest:So it wasn't, the stories were a little less interesting to me.
Guest:But that may have just been the fatigue of you doing this gig for, it's been nine years.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And that's where I guess that theater craft had to come in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the doing of the show was always a joy.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Live audience.
Guest:Well, not even that, but just being there for the week and playing with everybody and figuring out what the show was going to be.
Guest:The great thing about doing that show...
Guest:was it was just we would go and laugh.
Guest:We would just go down and laugh and try and put this thing together.
Guest:Then other people would laugh and we'd go home and get a check.
Guest:It made no sense as a job.
Marc:There's a lot of work, though.
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Once you're shooting, some of those shows were big.
Guest:I swear to you, I wish I could say to you, oh, what a grind.
Guest:It was not.
Guest:It wasn't for Julia and Michael and I. I'm sure it was for Jerry because he wore 50 hats on that show.
Guest:But we went from a five-day week to a four-day week.
Guest:two of those days were less than eight hours, and sometimes by a long shot, less than eight hours, and then two longer days, but we were having fun.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
Guest:Nothing about it was hard.
Guest:We weren't out in a hot sun laying tar.
Guest:And you're on a set, too, which is a big difference.
Guest:We were mostly on a soundstage or on our back lot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was a very...
Guest:It was just a gift, that job.
Guest:And you moved out here?
Guest:I moved out.
Guest:We started in 90.
Guest:And in 92, my wife and I got pregnant.
Guest:We had been going back and forth.
Guest:And I went, I don't think we're going to.
Guest:I mean, with the kid.
Guest:And so we were not a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination yet.
Guest:But I went, let's roll the dice.
Guest:And we let our New York apartment go.
Guest:And we bought it.
Guest:Wow, you didn't even save it, huh?
Guest:Well, we didn't own it.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:But even if it was a rent control?
Right.
Guest:you know what it was we we had the upper two floors of a three-story townhouse yeah and so it was just the the people that owned it and us so we couldn't sublet it yeah and we couldn't put a placement it was it was not expensive if you live there but when you're carrying two rents yeah it was it was more than we could bear so sure sure so so you come out here and you do it you do it for a decade basically yeah were you ready but no but were you ready for it to end
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm sure Jerry tells the story the same way.
Guest:I mean, ultimately, everything was his decision.
Guest:But starting around season six at the Christmas break, he'd, you know, we'd all sit down, the four of us would sit down and he goes, what do you think?
Guest:We got more in us?
Guest:And we go, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And season nine, season eight, we kind of went...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And season nine, you know, we didn't go into nine knowing it was going to be the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was an inkling.
Guest:But around Christmas, he went, I'm thinking we're done, guys.
Guest:And none of us went, oh, no, no, no.
Guest:We all went, yeah, I think so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not because it wasn't funny.
Guest:I mean, the writers were glorious.
Guest:They could have been funny forever.
Guest:Why do Larry go?
Guest:You couldn't surprise anybody anymore.
Guest:You know what these characters are going to do.
Guest:What are we doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You'd have to ask Larry ultimately why he left.
Guest:I think it was always, you know, we laugh at how Larry couldn't handle the success of it.
Guest:But he always, from my understanding, he always saw the doing of Seinfeld as a very stressful thing.
Guest:I mean, if it broke, it was going to be him and Jerry that broke it.
Guest:But I think he took more of that responsibility.
Guest:And we would finish every taping.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he's got a whole season arc laid out on a whiteboard somewhere.
Guest:But we'd finish every tap and he'd go, it can't be done again.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:It can't be done.
Guest:And he would, you know, like they had no idea for next week.
Guest:And not only do you have an idea, you got a draft.
Guest:But he would feel that pressure very acutely.
Guest:And I think after seven years and the money he'd made, he went, I can't do this anymore.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And Jerry felt like he had a little more left.
Marc:And so it's interesting to me that after you do this, you go on, you do movies, you do animated movies, you do a series of your own briefly, and you just kept working.
Guest:Yeah, by that point, I had started to believe... Because I always believed when Seinfeld started to hit, I went, oh, I'm done.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:Because at that point, historically, if you were on a hit TV show and you played an iconic character...
Marc:Forever.
Guest:Yeah, what are you going to do?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:You weren't invited to the party anymore.
Guest:So I said, I better start diversifying and maybe trying to start a few things.
Guest:So I started doing a lot of solo.
Guest:I started doing... Because I was a singer, I could do symphony shows with pop orchestras.
Guest:I started doing that.
Guest:That's right, yeah.
Guest:I started doing a lot of corporate hosting gigs where it was light stand-up because I was never a stand-up.
Guest:My writing partner, I could come up with just enough of that.
Marc:But what was that?
Marc:So that was...
Marc:So this was just, it wasn't to earn a living, you were just trying... It was more to do stuff.
Guest:I was 40 when Seinfeld ended.
Guest:I wasn't quite ready to buy a boat and go sail.
Guest:And I had fell into a production company deal from a movie.
Guest:so i had a production company for 10 years we were always developing tv and film and i just never had a lot of clout and i wasn't i think ultimately i wasn't very good at it i was good at part of the job but not all the job um and my tv series you know so the first one out after seinfeld was this thing bob patterson which is a show that i will go to my grave going good show yeah yeah show right um
Guest:There were a couple things on it that I think if we had done a second season, we would have figured it out.
Guest:But if I go back and look at them, they're funny.
Guest:It was a really unique idea.
Guest:We went on the air days after 9-11.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Nobody was laughing.
Marc:No.
Guest:We were up against Frazier.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had a lot of things structurally going against us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:One of the things that I've never been fortunate to have since Seinfeld was a bulletproof part of the team.
Guest:A guy who was much higher up the food chain than me.
Guest:I was always hovering near the top of the food chain on the product.
Guest:And I was not strong enough to have that role.
Guest:So when the going got tough, I didn't have the experience to know how to fix it or play the politics or whatever was needed.
Guest:And so they would ultimately crash.
Marc:Oh, to get a series over the top.
Guest:To keep it going.
Guest:Part of it is just creative.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And part of it is kind of knowing how to play the game.
Guest:Who's repping you?
Guest:How do you pull things together?
Marc:How do you get your agent to muscle the producer?
Guest:I'm still a dummy about that stuff.
Marc:I'm a dummy, too.
Marc:But that doesn't seem to be a foolproof thing.
Guest:No, it's just helpful.
Guest:It can get you over a hump.
Guest:And I felt like with Bob Patterson, we hit a hump.
Guest:And if we could have gotten over it, I think we would have been okay, but we could not get there.
Marc:Didn't have enough people at bat for you.
Guest:No.
Guest:And we had a tough situation.
Guest:Nobody's fault.
Guest:But we had two competing studios co-producing that show.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And you go, who am I?
Guest:I'm getting notes from everybody.
Guest:Who do I listen to?
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:yeah yeah and we were on ABC and at the time ABC had two presidents yeah and one of them kind of liked us and I think the other one really really didn't kind of like us and so there was an internal conflict there and it just everything about it was not set up for success that's well that's the one thing that people don't always realize is that you know you have your thing but then no one knows like what the fuck is going on in a corporate level who just left who's coming in you know who do they like who they not like absolutely
Guest:You know, it's not just as easy as like... Yeah, it's not all... It's not just, oh, it's a really funny show and I like these guys.
Guest:There's a lot more going on.
Marc:Yeah, or even ratings.
Guest:And that was the part that I did not know or did not understand.
Marc:Yeah, it's a heartbreaking part, which is sort of the sense that what you're talking about, teaching younger people today about taking more control over their stuff, is that you usually don't have it.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:And no matter how big you were or how big an actor you are or whatever, if you can't sell a million tickets...
Marc:Then you still got to be like, I got to do that.
Marc:I got to wear that.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You want us to do what?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that didn't work.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now when you do all these other parts where you do like two episodes here, a little episode arcs, guest characters, do you do it because you love it?
Guest:Yeah, it's a combination.
Guest:I try not to do something where I'm not attracted to the piece or the people doing it.
Guest:But sometimes, I mean, there's nothing you do for the money anymore.
Guest:Thank you, Jerry and God.
Guest:Or could be the same person for all I know.
Guest:Don't tell him that.
Guest:But you do like to go, I want to make sure I still know how to do this.
Guest:So I'd rather work than not work, given the choice.
Guest:I don't want to do something that I don't believe has any merit.
Guest:If you have a little reputation and you do something, you're kind of saying to the audience, I think you're going to like this.
Guest:I never want to not be thinking that when I go in.
Guest:So I get a little picky with that.
Guest:But generally, I like to work.
Guest:I like to work with younger folks and see what's on their mind and what's going on.
Guest:But generally, if somebody who I respect is doing something and it's being done with integrity and they invite me on board, I generally will go.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And do you seek movies?
Guest:I don't think anybody in our business doesn't seek movies.
Guest:I don't think they're looking for me.
Guest:I mean, if the recent Oscars, I haven't had nothing in contention for about 10 years.
Guest:Yeah, I guess it gets hard.
Guest:I never thought I was a movie guy.
Guest:I find that people in movies, my stock and trade is I'm kind of an everyman.
Guest:I remind everybody of somebody.
Guest:I find that movies are populated by people that really have a very distinctive...
Guest:they walk on the screen you go got it yeah got it and i'm not that yeah yeah yeah but you know it may be a combination of uh they don't want george yeah and that is a thing for some of them they don't want an iconic recognizable thing um or they may not think you know yeah but it's weird you know i can separate you from george now sitting here talking to you i imagine that that's a relief isn't it
Guest:It is.
Guest:You know, I also say, you know, the audience doesn't watch Tom Hanks as Sully Stolenberger and go, oh, Forrest Gump.
Guest:You know, really, it's not a thing.
Marc:It is odd that some people can completely transcend iconic roles on television.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But it's not many.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's just really, it's wild.
Guest:You know, I have nothing on it.
Guest:The truth is, I have loved...
Guest:doing movies on a couple of occasions where i've been the director yeah i find every minute of it exciting yeah as an actor i find many of the minutes not so exciting um you know oh guys a lot of minutes it's a lot of minutes and you're always hot or cold or tired or trailer's not great yeah or you're sorry you're not home and you oh yeah it's a lot of time i tip my hat to the movie people because it's
Guest:you're out of your life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's hard.
Guest:It's a hard existence.
Marc:Now what about stage?
Guest:Yeah, love it.
Guest:I just finished a piece in New York I was doing from August to Christmas.
Marc:What was that?
Guest:It was a new John Patrick Shanley play at Manhattan Theater Club.
Marc:So you're still doing a lot of that?
Guest:I do now.
Guest:I kept theater outside of L.A.
Guest:at an arm's distance when my kids were young.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Oh, but now you can do it.
Guest:But now they're grownups.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So now I'm going to do it again.
Marc:Like, what are you hoping to play?
Marc:I mean, the producers was great, right?
Marc:And you did Larry's play, right?
Guest:I did Larry's play, yeah.
Marc:But what would you, like, if they'd bring back something, what would you want to?
Guest:There's only one part in the theater that I pine for, and I'm probably a little old to play it at this point.
Guest:Peter Pan?
Guest:It's not something that people would think of me for, but I always wanted to do Sweeney Todd.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because if you're going to do a role that somebody's done, I always think, well, what can I bring to it that makes it worth doing for an audience?
Guest:And I think there are things about Sweeney Todd that I haven't seen an actor incorporate or deal with.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And that I think could be really exciting.
Marc:What about non-musical traditional drama?
Guest:There is nothing I pine for.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, there's no... You don't want to play Willie Loman?
Yeah.
Guest:I would, you know, if it was the right production, I would be excited to do it.
Guest:I don't know that I am going to reinvent the wheel on Willie Loman.
Guest:I don't think, you know, I mean, I didn't get to see Philip Seymour Hoffman do it.
Guest:And the response critically to him was that he reinvented the role.
Guest:I would have loved to have seen that because that's such a rare thing to be able to take a role like that and not step into echoes of what has been done before.
Guest:If he was able to do that, I really would have loved to have witnessed that.
Marc:Sorry, I missed it.
Marc:They didn't tape it, huh?
Marc:No.
Guest:well it seems like you're good uh life is uh baseball has been very good to me how old are your kids uh my younger one is about to turn 22 and my older one will be 26 in may wow yeah he's doing good he's uh he's a good actor and a very funny guy he's got a two-man sketch comedy team here in town does a lot of improv and
Marc:Where are they working at, UCB?
Guest:He does mostly, they work out of the I.O.
Guest:space.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:But he's done UCB, he's done Groundlings, he's done all that stuff.
Guest:And he's with like seven improv teams in town.
Marc:That's a new thing.
Guest:Well, it's great.
Guest:It's the 10,000 hour thing.
Guest:It's get up and do something.
Marc:But like improv in particular, I think that's one of those things, like what you're talking about.
Marc:Like I've noticed just from, like even from Seinfeld days, that the model for what makes a show.
Marc:Like it used to be, we got a comic, he's got a point of view, we build a show around it.
Marc:But these people that come up through sketch and improv, they learn right at the beginning how to work with other people, how to direct, how to put things together.
Marc:I mean, that's really where it's at.
Guest:And that's the new world.
Guest:That's kind of what I'm talking about.
Guest:So my son Gabe has this whole network
Guest:of young writers filmmakers directors you know that yeah so he's constantly doing stuff right eventually one of those things is going to make a difference that is that that is where it happens it's that it's the improv community yeah improv and sketch community it's very exciting and they're all you know normally i go they are good kids and normally i go to these things and i go yeah i'm not hip to what they're doing but
Guest:his stuff i go wow that's really smart that's really funny and really smart you get it and it works yeah do you ever do improv i've done it i've never studied it you know i've looked at it and i've jumped into it oh yeah and uh and i can hold my own you know i don't know the rules i don't know right right you know always say yes and and i go see the difference between improv and acting and you'll you'll know um
Guest:acting scenes become interesting the minute there's conflict yeah the minute there's a conflict something starts to happen yeah in improv they go yes yeah and and i go so my instinct in improv is for a guy to go the ship is sinking yes but it doesn't have to yeah you know yeah if you do this i can't do that but you must do this and then i go now i'm in a scene right my son will go yeah that you fucked it up and
Guest:You can't improv.
Marc:So do you ever go back to Jersey?
Marc:I don't have family in Jersey.
Marc:What happened to Bruce Davidson?
Guest:Bruce Davidson, when last I understand, is a doctor in Illinois.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:doing quite well i saw actually i saw him i think the last time i saw him he had he brought his kids to la and we we all went down to the farmer's market and had lunch down there and caught up a little bit yeah yeah because he's the one guy you mentioned yeah and he had three sisters and his and his three sisters came to see me do a play in new york i can't remember it was larry's player this last one but yeah and you talked to uh everybody from the show still no nobody well not nobody but um i
Guest:I hardly ever communicate with Jerry.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, Michael, I don't even know where Michael is.
Guest:Um, and Julia, well, Julia has been going through a thing.
Guest:So, um, I adored Julia.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, I just haven't heard from her, so I don't know how she's done.
Guest:I've sent her some emails.
Guest:I hope she's doing getting through it.
Guest:God, I hope so.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um,
Guest:uh larry occasionally yeah yeah yeah but you know my my closer relationships from that show are people like patrick warburton uh brian cranston um some of the bench right jerry stiller yeah um for whatever reason the four of us and i hope it doesn't make people sad or think we're we're odd but jerry julia michael and i were never really social friends so we didn't like shoot the show on friday and go hey what's up dinner
Marc:tomorrow yeah so when the show ended we had no history of that that's what happens it's a very odd thing that you know you create this illusion for people of this unity yeah but like you know when you're done you're done i was on the radio for a couple years with a guy we never did nothing right and i talked to i just saw pen and teller in vegas and you know i'm always amazed at that relationship because they're really just professional colleagues
Guest:They don't really socialize.
Guest:They don't hang out with each other.
Marc:How could you on some level?
Guest:But it's kind of brilliant because what I found with our show is that I had such limited expectations of anything outside of the set that I was never disappointed.
Guest:I didn't expect them to come to my openings.
Guest:I didn't expect them to send me birthday cards.
Guest:It just wasn't that thing.
Guest:It's work.
Guest:It was a great place to go to work.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:And at the sound of the jackhammer, that's when we got to wrap it up.
Guest:Oh, is that what it is?
Marc:it was a pleasure Mark great talking to you I'm glad we did it thank you
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's our show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:Jason, again, at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center in Newark and State Theater in New Brunswick, April 14th and 15th with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra.
Marc:I will be, go to wtfpod.com slash tour for my Europe dates.
Marc:I'm coming to London, Oslo, Amsterdam.
Marc:stockholm and dublin in a couple weeks and uh i i have yet to set up the guitars so bear with me we're in the new space i'm surrounded by foam being held in place by dowels by tape on a stand and uh and i i'll get the guitars going soon and i'll get that mic up soon i'm just trying to get settled in all right boomer lives
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