Episode 915 - Josh Brolin
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf thank you thank you for joining me how are you folks what's happening
Marc:Today on the show, back home, back in Los Angeles, I have Josh Brolin.
Marc:Josh Brolin is on today's show, and I was excited to talk to him.
Marc:He's not easy to get on a show, and I got a kick out of him and learned some stuff.
Marc:He was funny.
Marc:I think we went pretty deep.
Marc:I think it was good, but he's much funnier than I thought he would be, and he
Marc:Pretty disarming dude, that Josh Brolin, for a movie star guy.
Marc:But anyways, yeah, so I got Josh Brolin coming up later.
Marc:As you can tell, I'm not at home.
Marc:I am still in the American South.
Marc:I say that in a broad way, in an expansive way, because I think we all have the way we think of the American South.
Marc:But I've been in Birmingham.
Marc:for a few days now and i gotta say it's uh it's not bad man it's not bad there's good food down here the people are very nice um my experience has been limited because i'm working and i'm spending you know i wake up i go to work i come back i'm at the hotel but i've had some food i've been out there i'm working with a crew with some people from the area and uh good people
Marc:And I've told you over the years that my sense of the South or my judgment of the South or my stereotype that I've locked into in my head is not quite right.
Marc:There are good people here.
Marc:It is not just some...
Marc:Festering racist conglomeration of ex-Confederate states that secretly want that back.
Marc:I'm not saying everyone here is a mensch.
Marc:And there's some bad eggs around, I'm sure.
Marc:But in my direct experience right in the last few days, which is very limited, I've had a good experience.
Marc:And the city feels okay.
Marc:If we're going to go on a vibe thing, it seems like it's purged itself a bit.
Marc:But it does seem that...
Marc:There is some peace and good-hearted folks in this town.
Marc:That's what I have experienced.
Marc:And I did take the ride down to Montgomery to go to the Peace and Justice Memorial, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and to also go to the Legacy Museum.
Yeah.
Marc:And I blew my mind and it crushed my heart and it elevated my soul just by being open to it and admitting a profound level of ignorance.
Marc:so i'm down here and i i know i don't remember where i read about the museum i don't know uh you know how how the images of it were in my head i don't quite remember where i first saw it hasn't been open that long it's only been open a bit the museum and the national memorial for peace and justice some people are referring to it as the lynching
Marc:monument i i i don't know that's the way to refer to it i i think that the national memorial for peace and justice is is a nice way to do it and then if someone goes i don't i know i don't know if i've i ever know where that is and then you say it's a montgomery alabama and they're like i don't i haven't heard of that the lynching monument oh right right i think i yeah i saw pictures of that somewhere
Marc:So I would wait.
Marc:Don't just open with that because that is what it is memorializing in the same way that the Holocaust memorial memorializes the attempted genocide of the Jewish people.
Marc:This memorializes the legacy of enslaved black people, people terrorized by lynching,
Marc:African-Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence.
Marc:Now, obviously, I wasn't riffing that.
Marc:I read that.
Marc:I read that from the National Memorial for Peace and Justice website because I think you need to hear that.
Marc:I think I need to hear that.
Marc:So I didn't know what to expect.
Marc:I drove down there.
Marc:It's about an hour and a half.
Marc:I didn't know what to anticipate, but I'd seen images of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the lynching monument and the images.
Marc:kind of blew me away.
Marc:Just these large steel rectangles seemingly hanging from a large roof, but I didn't get a sense of what they were.
Marc:Obviously, the reference to lynching is there, but I didn't know the weight.
Marc:I didn't know the size.
Marc:And you go and it's got to be as big as a few city blocks.
Marc:It's a large space.
Marc:And you just see this monument.
Marc:You just see these hundreds of symmetrical steel rectangles suspended from cylindrical pipes.
Marc:But giving the illusion of hanging.
Marc:Because that's what they represent.
Marc:You know that's what it represents.
Marc:So just seeing the sheer numbers of steel rectangles, large steel rectangles.
Marc:They seem to be maybe 10 feet tall and maybe two feet wide.
Marc:Hundreds of them.
Marc:And you know what it's about.
Marc:You know what it's about from a distance.
Marc:And just the way it looks from a distance, you're like, God, holy shit.
Marc:It's fucking devastating.
Marc:Just the knowledge of what it represents from a distance.
Marc:And that's powerful public art.
Marc:You're not in it.
Marc:You're not at it.
Marc:It's 50, 60 yards away.
Marc:And you're like, I don't even know if I can handle it.
Marc:But you got to handle it.
Marc:You see, I think I know things.
Marc:I don't know a lot of things.
Marc:I don't know white history that well.
Marc:I know black history certainly not that well.
Marc:I'm ignorant.
Marc:You know that it was horrible.
Marc:You know that it happened.
Marc:But do you know the scope?
Marc:Do you know the states?
Marc:Do you know the numbers?
Marc:Do you know the reason?
Marc:I don't know that I fully did.
Marc:I don't know that I fully realized.
Marc:It's certainly possible for me to learn, understand,
Marc:wrap my brain around it as best I can, and respect the struggle.
Marc:You go to the monument, you walk through it, and you realize the numbers, and you realize the expanse of time.
Marc:Apparently it documents more than 4,400 lynchings of black people in the United States between 1877 and 1950, and they identified 800 more than had been previously recognized.
Marc:And, you know, you see these pictures.
Marc:We grew up seeing some of the pictures and understanding.
Marc:But to really look at the numbers and to really feel the weight of this, which this monument does, I mean, it's hard not to shudder and cry and just feel your heart crushed at the capacity for man's inhumanity to man.
Marc:And that so many of these were public lynchings where people were invited, you know, thousands of people.
Marc:Thousands of people.
Marc:You see those horrible pictures of, you know, just a hanging body surrounded by white people, men, women, children, some of them laughing.
Marc:And that's the biggest trip, you know, about, that's the weight of being here is that you walk around here and you wonder like whose grandparents were in those pictures?
Marc:You?
Marc:Was it you?
Marc:And then you walk around and you see African-American people and it's like, you know, whose grandparents are, whose names are on those columns?
Marc:And this is America and this is modern history.
Marc:And I've been to Holocaust memorials in Israel and D.C.
Marc:as a Jew, that's heavy, but nothing has affected me like this thing.
Marc:like this monument, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, because I needed to be kicked in my soul's head to understand and really take it in what black people have dealt with in this country.
Marc:And I don't consider myself racist in any way.
Marc:I don't consider myself judgmental in that way.
Marc:But I have to admit I was ignorant and that I can't look at culture the same way.
Marc:I can't look at...
Marc:Black people in the same way with the assumptions that I had any sense of, you know, other than a, just sort of like, yeah, I know it was hard.
Marc:And, you know, I know, yeah, the civil war, slavery.
Marc:But like, man, this puts it all into perspective.
Marc:And you go to this memorial and then you want to go to the museum.
Marc:They're connected.
Marc:You can get a combination ticket.
Marc:You got to drive downtown to go to the museum.
Marc:The museum is the legacy museum from enslavement to mass incarceration.
Marc:So you go see the monument and that rips you wide open and then you go fill yourself up with the history and the information so you are forever aware, you are forever woke to the struggle of black people in this country.
Marc:And this is history that everybody should know.
Marc:Everybody should be deeply aware.
Marc:because most of us are ignorant because it is not our experience and to to educate yourself and humble yourself and find a respect in your heart and mind is is is is a it should be a civic responsibility
Marc:And I think like, you know, you see this stuff and you just realize how that there's something that just clicks in human people's brains.
Marc:And there's something that just clicks in human animals brains that completely enables them to slaughter fellow humans.
Marc:to torture fellow humans, to kill with a smile fellow humans that are their neighbors.
Marc:In modern times, in this country, in other countries, there's something that just clicks, and if they're empowered, the shame goes away, the conscience goes away, and it just, it's on.
Marc:And we are not free of that possibility.
Marc:So obviously I was blown away.
Marc:And it's worth a special trip.
Marc:Montgomery's a little haunted.
Marc:I think it might be some time before it lifts.
Marc:And certainly this museum keeps it haunted in just the right way.
Marc:that these are voices, they're not ghosts, this is history, it's not mythology, and it should be known and felt.
Marc:Fucking deep stuff, man.
Marc:I'm never going to be the same, but it's worth the trip.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:It's important.
Marc:It's powerful public art and powerfully educational experience to go to the museum.
Marc:So that was my experience.
Marc:And, you know, you can look this stuff up online and you can come check it out.
Marc:It definitely blew my mind.
Marc:And I am a different person today because of it.
Marc:So I'm sorry if I got heavy.
Marc:Sometimes I got to get heavy.
Marc:It's a heavy time.
Marc:It's a scary time.
Marc:And it's hard not to crumble.
Marc:Don't crumble to the fear.
Marc:You know, stay in it.
Marc:Ride it out.
Marc:Speak your mind so we don't get crushed.
Marc:I think that's important.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So look, Josh Brolin was here.
Marc:I talked to Josh Brolin.
Marc:He wasn't here in my hotel room in Birmingham.
Marc:He was back at the new garage in Los Angeles.
Marc:And he is currently in the biggest movie in the world, Avengers Infinity War.
Marc:And starting this Friday, May 18th, you can see him in Deadpool 2.
Marc:Both of these are in theaters literally everywhere.
Marc:And we talked a little bit about this stuff, about the superheroes movies.
Marc:Or as William Friedkin said very succinctly in my interview with him, the spandex movies.
Marc:But it was nice talking to Josh.
Marc:And this is me and Josh Brolin back in the garage.
Music
Marc:the one thing I learned about the Hell's Angels is that you can romanticize them to a degree.
Marc:And I'm, this is one thing I'm afraid to talk about.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, like, you know, but the, you know, they were, they're heavy, man.
Guest:I mean, you know, they were not, they weren't fucking around.
Guest:No, they weren't fucking around.
Guest:And I don't want to mention any names and people that I'm friendly with.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Is that,
Guest:Yeah, I rode a lot.
Guest:I rode a lot.
Guest:I rode for 20, 25 years, Harleys and the whole thing.
Guest:And I grew up on a motorcycle.
Guest:My dad put me on a motorcycle before a bicycle at three and a half.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I had an Indian 20 when I was three and a half.
Guest:I asked him to take off the training wheels at four.
Guest:And it was actually a motorcycle with like flames on the fucking- Yeah, with the engine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But all these, especially actors, you know, a bunch of different professions.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That idea in the late 80s of hanging out with Hell's Angels and thinking that you were in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When in truth you were never in.
Guest:No.
Guest:Ever.
Guest:No.
Guest:So any idea that you were accepted was full of shit because they're the fucking Hell's Angels.
Guest:Don't make assumptions.
Guest:Don't make assumptions.
Guest:Don't get too comfortable.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:I talked to a rock photographer, Neil Preston, who had the same experience, but with a band.
Marc:Don't assume you're pals.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You're on the outside.
Marc:It's a shitty feeling to be that guy that has that realization.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:Have you had that before?
Guest:Were you like, I'm not there?
Guest:Yeah, I was in, I grew up in Templeton, California.
Guest:Where's that?
Guest:About four hours north of here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got on the bus.
Guest:I had come from L.A.
Guest:with my dad.
Guest:When I was growing up, my parents didn't have any money.
Guest:They didn't really come from money.
Guest:Your real dad?
Guest:My real dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not my fake dad.
Guest:My real dad.
Guest:Not the other people that pretended to be my dad, but my real dad.
Guest:But I didn't know if you had a stepdad.
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:I never had a stepdad.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Stepmoms.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:A few.
Guest:Oh, right, right.
Guest:But no stepdad.
Guest:But never a stepdad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, so when my dad got Marcus Welby, he started making money.
Guest:And then we moved up to Paso Robles because my mother was kind of a country lady from Texas.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She wanted to be out of L.A.,
Guest:And I got on the bus and I was six and I hate admitting this, but I love admitting this because I love what it does to me because it's so kind of shaming in a good way.
Guest:To yourself?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's growth.
Guest:Keep you humble?
Guest:It's fucking growth.
Guest:So I got on the bus and, you know, there's all these, you know, you go down the driveway and it's about...
Guest:you know mile mile driveway long and you get to the bottom and you hang out and you get picked up by the by the by the yellow bus take you to school to the public school and and somebody because i was new yeah somebody said hey you know they started requesting or ribbing me or whatever and i said hey i said uh they said uh what what do you do or what i don't remember what the situation was but i said i'm james brolin's son hey man
Guest:I was like back off or something.
Guest:I don't remember what I said, but it was like my father's an actor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they kicked the shit out of me.
Guest:And rightfully so.
Guest:That was the last time you identified that way, huh?
Guest:Can you imagine if I sat like on this?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like if you bother me at any time doing this thing and if I go, hey, my dad's James Brolin, by the way.
Marc:I'd rather you say my dad was on Marcus Welby.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:Because you have a better reference for that.
Guest:No, it's just like, I don't- Maybe that's what it was.
Guest:I said my dad was on Marcus Welby.
Guest:Marcus Welby.
Marc:no because it was weird he was one of those guys that had to transcend that like he like it felt like he disappeared for decades yeah and then was sort of like oh because of that right well it's okay he's in movies now and no one remembers marcus welby no but they do because you do well so there are those there's this small demographic out there well it was like it was a little before my time but yeah i remember it being on tv how old are you
Marc:54 right you're 50 we're making it we're okay we're alive we have good reference how's your health yeah my house is really good right now but where so is pastor is pastor robles on the uh is that that's not a that's not a beach no so i can it's like what is it pastor robles is central coast yeah central coast i grew up on a 230 acre ranch with you know a wildlife way station my mom ran a wildlife
Guest:Way station.
Guest:What is that?
Guest:She took animals.
Guest:She always was an animal person.
Guest:So she would take wild animals from people who had illegally taken them out of the wild and she would nurse them back to health and either re-release them or put them in a habitable zoo.
Guest:So we had bears, chimpanzees, wolves, mountain lions, one massive lion.
Guest:A lot of things.
Guest:A lot of things would come and go.
Marc:So she was that kind of like save the animals person.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And 65 horses.
Marc:65 horses?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you rode horses?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And was it just you?
Marc:Me and my brother.
Marc:Your brother?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Younger, older?
Guest:Younger.
Guest:Four.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Four years.
Guest:Are you guys close?
Guest:We are really close.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We were never close until now.
Guest:Until recently?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That must be exciting.
Guest:Really exciting, actually.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In all honesty, really exciting.
Marc:So he's four years younger.
Marc:I mean, I have a little brother, and it goes in and out.
Marc:People always assume you're close with your brother, but then you realize, I don't know, and then one day you are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are you close?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's weird with him and I because I can see me and him.
Marc:We're very similar, and sometimes that's not great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, that creates friction.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:He's come into some rough times and you feel like you got to be there for him.
Marc:And then you realize, of course, we were.
Marc:No, yeah.
Marc:My brother and I are the opposite.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Totally different.
Guest:Just very like there was a decision.
Guest:My mom was so hard, tough.
Guest:I remember my dad saying, you guys had five minutes to learn how to read.
Guest:That was it.
Guest:And if you didn't get it, you were fucked.
Guest:She was the tough one?
Guest:She was very tough.
Guest:My dad was not tough at all.
Guest:um my dad had mark as well be going on yeah um but he but no no no she was yeah and and he did he said that he said five minutes he had to learn and read and you know it was like what is this word you know it's i don't i don't know he's taught me letters yet right you know it's dog what is this word so you had to get it my brother was a little more rebellious i think in the fact that he didn't want to work so hard at getting it right so i was always the more um
Guest:active one for lack of a better word and he and he and he was not so um there was a lot of friction as kids and then we grew up and then my brother ended up i mean i think everybody knows this he ended up like having a really tough time yeah he was living in his car for a couple years
Guest:two years in the car yeah and uh by choice i don't know by choice yeah i mean that's a that's a whole psychological sure you know was it by choice is it did he fight help he did yeah he fought help that's well put yeah fought help yeah and and then there was the tough love thing about you know maybe he's victimizing himself and therefore if we just like
Guest:you know don't react or don't enable and that kind of stuff oh yeah and then there came a time where it was like kind of a life or death situation oh yeah so then so then i changed my whole perception on it and then now we're really close and you went and got him
Marc:I don't know if I got him, but I helped him get himself.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you showed up for him.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Enough with the detachment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not working.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:It's like, I hate treating you as if you're somebody that I met in Iceland, like in 87.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, let's be fucking brothers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, let's call a spade a spade and let's be brothers.
Guest:And he took it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's doing very well right now.
Guest:I'm very proud of him.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a good dude.
Marc:So when did you start, like it seems like you've put yourself through some shit, you know, at different times in your life.
Marc:You do too, by the way.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:You have it written all over you.
Guest:Am I crying?
Guest:Am I crying?
Guest:No, you're not crying.
Guest:You got a nice face.
Guest:I didn't expect such a nice face.
Marc:Really?
Marc:No.
Marc:So you grew up primarily with animals and a mom, you know, taking care of animals, you know, busting your balls, making you read fast.
Marc:Or read, period.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you weren't homeschooled.
Marc:You went to school.
Marc:I did go to school.
Marc:But when did you start?
Marc:When did you get more urbanized?
Marc:Did you move?
Marc:I did.
Guest:No, I moved to Santa Barbara when I was 11.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So you're out of the mountains with your mom still?
Guest:Not the mountains, but yeah.
Guest:At the ranch?
Guest:Yeah, at the ranch.
Guest:And then I was with my mother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was with my dad too, but my dad was working.
Guest:Was that Marcus Welby?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't think he was still working.
Guest:Maybe he was.
Guest:Still working on Marcus Welby.
Guest:No, you know what he was doing around that time he was doing?
Guest:Let's talk about my dad.
Guest:No, he was doing Amityville Horror.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:The movie.
Guest:Yeah, the movie.
Marc:He played the husband, the father at the house.
Marc:The crazy fucker.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The possessed guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Ryan Reynolds did it again later.
Marc:He's a funny guy.
Guest:He's a really funny guy.
Guest:Smart guy.
Marc:Yeah, he's like one of those guys that's hard to do, you know, he's good at the physical comedy.
Guest:He's good at comedy, period.
Marc:Yeah, it's kind of amazing.
Marc:Is he Canadian?
Marc:He is.
Marc:Yeah, those Canadians.
Marc:There's something about the broad comedy.
Marc:They're very good at it.
Guest:I don't see it.
Guest:I don't see it.
Guest:Not on the street.
Guest:No?
Guest:No, they all go to a place and they learn it.
Guest:They do?
Guest:Yeah, because on the street, they're not really funny people.
Guest:I just spent a lot of time up there.
Guest:I really liked them a lot.
Marc:It's very nice.
Marc:It's almost like when you're in a Canadian city, it's like an American city, but without the edge.
Marc:You know, you're sort of like, what's this missing?
Marc:Fear.
Marc:No, but seriously.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Fear.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:There's no anxiety.
Guest:There's an edge that I missed when I was up there, even though I think it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my wife and I went up to Whistler, and it was amazing.
Guest:Oh, that's pretty.
Guest:Oh, it was so beautiful.
Guest:You're in Vancouver?
Guest:In Vancouver.
Guest:Shooting?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And...
Guest:But, you know, once I got back to Venice, it was like an orgasm.
Guest:Yeah, the fear is bad.
Guest:Yeah, it was like blue balls for four months.
Guest:For anxiety.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, blue balls for anxiety.
Marc:I need a little, I need to wash my back.
Marc:I miss not.
Guest:That's what it is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I need to be around my misfit, homeless family.
Marc:Sure, so okay, so you moved to Santa Barbara one day when does he I have to assume given you are who you are that there was some at least active Rebellion that some troublemaking no there was yeah, but I don't think it was necessarily me I don't think it was a I think it was a it was the time it was the culture
Guest:It was the... When was this?
Marc:What time are we talking about?
Guest:Probably 80... No, 79.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So it was kind of the beginning of punk rock.
Marc:Oh, yeah, in L.A.
Guest:All of his company.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sid Vicious and all that, you know, a Darby crash and the germs and all that started happening.
Marc:Did you go see him?
Marc:I did.
Marc:When you were a kid?
Guest:Did you drive into the city?
Guest:I actually snuck out my window, got into a van.
Guest:I don't even remember whose van.
Guest:And a bunch of us would go down to Godzilla's in Los Angeles.
Yeah.
Guest:make it back by 5 in the morning, sleep an hour, wake up, and then go to school.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:So you saw the original punk guys.
Marc:You saw the germs.
Guest:I did.
Guest:I saw the germs.
Guest:I saw Black Flag.
Guest:I saw Circle Jerks.
Guest:I saw Dead Kennedys.
Guest:I saw TSOL.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, so that group that I grew up with was kind of like a surf culture.
Guest:It was kind of like Bra Boys in Australia.
Guest:It was a very similar thing.
Guest:Were you a gang?
Guest:No, we weren't a gang.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's a gang?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know what a gang is.
Guest:A gang murders people, don't they?
Marc:Did you murder people?
Marc:No.
Guest:You'd remember.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:We murdered egos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:We murdered egos.
Guest:And ourselves.
Marc:And ourselves.
Marc:Slowly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, we weren't a gang at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But those guys, there was something that I've never seen before or since that was that destructive.
Guest:It was very destructive.
Guest:and you guys were in high school we were in no we were in junior high really high school and you think it was something to do with the time not just the i do i remember in crane school in santa barbara when everybody started shaving their heads yeah we were the first guys to shave our heads or to color our hair right
Guest:And then it just kind of, and I remember Sheldon Edwards, the head of the school, taking me aside and saying, you know, this is it for you.
Guest:This is the crossroads.
Guest:You know, you're Robert Johnson right now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you use that reference?
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Because I want to make him smarter than he was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said, you know, you have a choice.
Guest:You're a talented guy.
Guest:And you're getting straight D minuses in school.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you have nothing positive to look forward to if you continue along these lines.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You're diminishing your future possibilities.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're closing them off.
Guest:And maybe coming from somebody else that I trusted a little more, maybe it would have had an effect.
Guest:None.
Guest:Zero.
Guest:It made me dive into the deep end.
Yeah.
Guest:i think all of us it made the fuck you bigger it did yeah it's funny how when you're at that age you're like oh i'll show you by destroying me yeah exactly that's exactly what it is that's exactly what it is but it was a fun group it was a really intelligent group it was a group that i would never i would never take away that time did you play music
Guest:Yeah, there was a band.
Guest:We started a band called CVS, which is so dumb, Cito Vice Squad.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Because we were the Cito Rats.
Guest:And then that band, once they replaced me, evolved into RKL, which was Rich Kids on LSD, which became a big punk band.
Marc:Oh, they did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The guys that stayed in, stayed in it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Jason Sears, who was my best friend, was the lead singer of RKL.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And yeah, they did very well.
Marc:Oh, that's good.
Guest:But all those guys are gone.
Marc:They're dead?
Marc:All of them.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Isn't that fucking amazing?
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:What killed them?
Marc:Variety of things?
Marc:Variety.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:But mostly heroin.
Marc:Well, that came in when?
Guest:I think... Was it that fucking black tar shit?
Guest:It was.
Guest:We did a lot of LSD at first.
Guest:Sheets of LSD.
Guest:Hence, rich kids on LSD.
Guest:And nobody was particularly rich.
Guest:It just sounded good.
Guest:But my dad did do Marcus Wolby.
Guest:He was a Marcus Wolby.
Guest:Yeah, but then the heroin kind of creeped in.
Guest:I guess it was the early...
Marc:Must have been that first wave.
Marc:Mid-80s.
Marc:It all came in at once from Mexico, that tar shit that you could smoke.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then shoot afterwards.
Guest:So was that your bag?
Guest:No, it was never my bag.
Guest:I did it, but I did everything.
Guest:But I could never, I always had my big toe kind of dipped somewhere else.
Guest:And I don't know why.
Guest:I literally don't know.
Marc:You mean like, well, I mean, for me, when I tried heroin, I was like, all right.
Marc:I snorted some white heroin because I had been sober for about a year and a half.
Marc:I was living in New York City, late 80s.
Marc:Yeah, I was there too.
Marc:In Alphabet City.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I had been sober about a year and I moved into that place sober.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I just watched these junkies go into this doorway.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:You know, next door.
Marc:It was like the whole street was like that.
Marc:Where were you?
Marc:Second between A and B. Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, just this parade of junkies.
Marc:And when I got there, because I was sober, I'm like, this is sad.
Marc:yeah look at these i would go down and cop between 11th and 12th between a and b yeah yeah yeah but i like the here's the was here's how you know you're sick is that like about inside about a year it went from like this is sad these guys to what's going on in the eyes it must be worth something for them to let their skin turn that color it's totally gray fucking white gray
Guest:I always wanted to know if I looked white gray.
Guest:Well, how much were you in it before?
Guest:But I loved the idea of it more than I liked the actuality of it.
Guest:I never was a good drunk, but I wasn't a good drug addict.
Guest:There was something about it that it just never...
Marc:sat well with me it's not attractive you're not doing much and that's what i don't like yeah too fucking productive intrinsically yeah to to do that it just didn't take that was what i was gonna say though like i did it a few times my face got itchy i vomited and then like i just fought to keep my head up there you go and it was like this is it yeah i didn't get it yeah i mean i never got maybe maybe i didn't do it right thank god but i never got that ecstasy of like a thousand orgasms no no no no that whole train spot
Marc:thing it's like yeah it's like the greatest orgasm times a thousand you're not even close did you get that no did you were you shooting it no no but you snorted it a few times no i smoked it oh you smoked it oh yeah see that's it when i was in new york i snorted it when i was in in the west coast i smoked
Marc:Because of the black tar you could smoke, and this stuff in New York was that China white shit.
Marc:It was very strong at that time.
Guest:Yeah, it's not like you could.
Guest:It's just what was available.
Guest:That's just what you did.
Guest:You couldn't snort black tar.
Guest:No, you could not.
Guest:You could try, but you couldn't.
Guest:I've never spoken about this, really.
Guest:I talked about it once, but it's one of those things that...
Guest:It's like stigmatized.
Guest:Are you sober?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Well, I noticed that you recognize that book right away.
Guest:I recognize the cover.
Guest:I can't even see the writing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a fucking old.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I know I got a whole stack of fucking sober books over there.
Guest:I didn't want to put all of them.
Marc:They're down there because I did.
Marc:Josh is coming.
Marc:Put the sober books high.
Marc:Let's get into it.
Marc:No, I mean, I had them down there, they were up there, and I don't want to look like a complete fucking... Like, over the years, I've accumulated many different books.
Marc:Because, you know, you find these problems run deeper.
Guest:They do run deeper, but what I love is you have this kind of potpourri of sober books, and then people who you appreciated who were obviously not sober.
Guest:You got Sam right there, you got Lenny, you got Hunter Thompson, you got...
Guest:I mean, somebody who blew his face off, somebody who OD'd, somebody who died recently, who I love and who was a good friend.
Marc:Which one's that?
Marc:Shepard.
Marc:Oh, Sam.
Guest:He was so good, huh?
Guest:So great, man.
Guest:Did you work with him?
Guest:i never worked with him i did true west on broadway yeah but i didn't work directly with him but i was friendly with him who'd you play with who played your brother um elias katayas uh-huh did you have a good experience with that no no no i loved it i knew it was i knew i knew we were doomed yeah from the beginning right at least and i didn't get along which i i would love to see him now because it's been 20 years or 15 years uh-huh but i uh no he was
Guest:No, it was a debacle, for sure.
Guest:But I'm glad I did it.
Marc:Sam didn't strike me.
Marc:I don't think of him as a fuck-up.
Marc:I mean, I think of him as a cowboy and a guy who did something new and took chances.
Guest:I think True West is a perfect depiction or definition of him as a person because you have the two brothers, which obviously are a split of himself.
Yeah.
Guest:which is the productive kind of pandering screenwriter and then the guy who sang fuck you to it all.
Guest:And that was him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What is it?
Marc:Lee and Austin, right?
Marc:Yeah, Lee and Austin.
Marc:We switched parts.
Marc:Oh, you did that thing?
Guest:Yeah, we did that thing.
Marc:So, okay, so we were both lucky we didn't like heroin.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But you like booze.
Marc:I like cocaine and booze.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't like cocaine.
Marc:Really?
Marc:No.
Guest:It just got me in trouble.
Guest:It was like the minute I did cocaine, I heard a siren.
Guest:Immediately.
Guest:Whether it existed or not.
Guest:you know what i mean when you're alone and unfortunately for me like paranoia where they you know yeah nine time or 99 times out of 100 it's not true it's in your head that's the word 99 out of 100 times for me yeah it was real it was real there's the siren like fuck what am i being arrested for now um yeah yeah that'll do it yeah the booze was my thing yeah how long you been sober
Guest:Almost five years.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I had five years and then I had three and a half.
Marc:That's what happens.
Guest:And then five.
Marc:Are you able to identify why you decide that moment?
Marc:To go back out?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:It was an absolutely fully conscious decision.
Marc:As you know.
Marc:You're like, I'm ready?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:seriously it wasn't like yeah yeah it was it wasn't like you know you hear these guys in the rooms they're like i don't even know what happened like before i knew it i was in the bar i was drinking i could oh fucking i don't know what happened and you're like how is that how's that possible i knew i made an absolute conscious decision to go fuck it up even more yeah
Guest:because i appreciated the destructivity of it all yeah yeah more than i liked sobriety at that point right now it's very different yeah it's very different what do you think changed i don't know and there was no major like the moment of clarity or anything i saw my grandma she was kind of she was on her apparent deathbed she didn't die until later yeah
Guest:And I went in there after Halloween and I had been kind of helming the whole taking care of grandma thing and the family was around and all that.
Guest:And my brother and I were going to go see her and this was like the 10th day or something.
Guest:And, and, and then I went out and to have a nice Halloween with my wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then that turned into all kinds of shit.
Guest:When you end up at Del Taco, you know something's wrong.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You know it's time to get sober.
Guest:If it's late at night, yeah.
Guest:Del Taco, not even paying attention to what's around you.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, you see the sign kind of through a brownout or a blackout, and you're like, what does that say?
Guest:Del No.
No.
Guest:Taco.
Guest:Fuck.
Guest:And you know you're doomed.
Marc:But yes, but you can't identify how your brain is different about sobriety.
Marc:Now, because I know that, well, one thing I know is it doesn't age well, dude.
Marc:You know, that there does come a point where people are just going to be like, oh, God.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:This guy's here.
Marc:Oh, you mean when you're sober?
Marc:Well, no, when you're, you know that like if I go out, like I'm 54, there's no way it's going to go well.
Marc:And there's no way.
Marc:Oh, you mean when you're not?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You get too old.
Marc:You really should get too old.
Marc:That should factor in that, like, maybe I'm too old for this shit.
Guest:I think that was absolutely a factor.
Guest:It was like 45 years old.
Guest:I've gotten away with murder.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was never the guy that was like, you know, they were like, if you continue.
Guest:you're gonna die yeah i was like i'm gonna be the last motherfucker to know that i'm dead so why should that matter again fuck you i'll show you yeah yeah i'll be dead i won't know like well you're in family and all bad argument but what i was convinced of this is going to sound really morbid and this is but what i was convinced that i was going to hit a little kid crossing the street in a blackout and drag him for a mile and not know it
Guest:not know that I did it wake up in jail like I have a few times too many times and go what happened yeah and them tell me that oh I was convinced so it was that on top of seeing my grandmother smile at 99 years old on her on her deathbed right and go that woman's never she's never done that she has never she was never apt to escape and all that she kind of took care of things as they came she was a badass on every level yeah always kept a smile on her face
Guest:always very sweet and i and i thought who the fuck am i right to to ruin this gift i've been given life yeah yeah that's simple that's that sounds like a fairly uh powerful white light experience it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't condensed oh you're putting it together in retrospect for you yeah thank you for your radio and for yourself and for yourself for your new house thank you for
Guest:That's my christening of the new house.
Marc:Thank you very much.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I'm glad that you had that moment.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Marc:So when did the acting start?
Marc:You've gotten very good at it.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Guest:You're great at it.
Guest:Well, you know what?
Guest:I know we're digressing a lot.
Guest:You do whatever you want.
Guest:It's your show.
Guest:I was listening to several, and I don't usually do this.
Guest:I don't usually do research because I don't want to.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Because then it puts something in my head.
Guest:Sure, and you produce your own show.
Guest:Yeah, basically.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically.
Guest:I got this.
Guest:Overwhelm.
Guest:Yeah, I got this.
Guest:Overwhelm until I win.
Guest:And I listened to a couple of your shows and I was listening.
Guest:It had nothing to do with you because I liked you, but I was listening to some of your people and then I turned it off and then I listened to somebody else and then I listened to it a while and I turned it off.
Guest:The person that I just listened to the whole thing and I love him so much, he defines manliness to me, is Lawrence O'Donnell Jr.,
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I literally just finished it outside.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was waiting.
Guest:He's a self-producer.
Guest:He is a self-producer.
Guest:You were very kind with him because there's a reaction.
Guest:There was two reactions with two different people that were the same reactions, but they were coming from two different places.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Once was Lawrence O'Donnell Jr.
Guest:One was Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., and it was a reaction of respect for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and then maybe other stuff right and then there was the same reaction with nulty yeah but it came from a very different place sure yeah yeah because it was like yeah it was bearing it was bearing it was bearing down and not that the stories aren't great because they're great i told somebody his brain is like a bingo cage of stories
Guest:It's rolling and you don't know which one he's going to pick and where it's going to start.
Guest:I just went out to dinner with him because I've known him for years.
Guest:He was very helpful to me in my mid-20s.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, very sweet.
Guest:How so?
Guest:When he was sober and I was kind of fucking around.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And he kind of took me under his wing.
Guest:He laid it down?
Guest:He didn't lay it down, but he took me under his wing and, you know, I mean, laid it down like he showed me his blood and shit.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Come over here.
Guest:See it swimming?
Guest:You know, and you're like, yeah, man.
Guest:See it swimming.
Guest:I have to go drink now.
Guest:But he was like, but it was great because it reminded me because I went out, I'd never been to Nobu.
Guest:I don't really, I don't frequent places that I guess I should.
Guest:So he's like, I said, well, let's go have dinner.
Guest:And I read his book.
Guest:And there was something about fame.
Guest:The first.
Guest:The new book.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The two or three first pages.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew that he had written it.
Guest:And that was the first thing that I asked him is how many ghost writers did you have?
Guest:Because I could tell what he had written and not written.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought he was the better writer.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of whoever he had.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But he wrote this thing about fame and I loved it and I asked him about it because it's just a question that's in my head right now.
Guest:And then when he responded, it was something like this.
Guest:It was like...
Guest:And I was like, all right, we're going to need to start over.
Guest:Like drink?
Guest:Sake?
Guest:You know, or whatever.
Guest:No, but he finally cleared up.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe it was a massive loogie that was stuck or something like that.
Guest:And then we had a great conversation.
Guest:But I do, I love him.
Guest:I love him very much.
Guest:He's a really good human being, man.
Marc:I thought that, yeah, the part of that book that blew me away because he come up in that, he was out here in that time and he wanted to be an actor, but he had no access.
Marc:He didn't know how to even get there, right?
Marc:So he's doing these jobs and then he just, he kind of drops this idea that like he realized that, you know, everything that defined him was bullshit, that he was a fraud, that his personality was a fraud and that his, you know...
Marc:And he went into a room and just put himself back together.
Marc:He got egoless and then started from scratch somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I believe him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I believe him too.
Guest:But the thing that got me the most, which I understood, I had never heard it put so clearly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it wasn't for anybody else, but just him telling his story, which only he can do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and that was when he was playing football and he was this kind of great football player a punter or whatever and and very valued on the team and then he'd be he'd be playing football and he'd start crying on the field right and they would all come up to him like eventually and put their hand on his shoulder and say like nick you don't have to do this like you don't have to play and he was like crying and he goes you don't understand he was like it's not
Guest:I don't dislike it.
Guest:It was the passion.
Guest:It was the camaraderie.
Guest:It was the planning things out and then having to improvise on that plan when the plan wasn't working.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the whole collective experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, that's why I became an actor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because why would I become an actor watching my dad like kind of, if you look at it like a stock trade or a casino, win, lose, win, lose, win, lose, and the house always wins.
Guest:You always end...
Guest:Either through your ego or financially, you always lose in the end.
Guest:So why would I do that?
Guest:Until that thing that I accidentally took a class, an improvisational class, and I got up on stage and they said, create this character.
Guest:We're going to ask you questions and then you answer them as that character.
Guest:And that was the switch.
Guest:It was like, oh, this is a whole community of people that just totally like immerse themselves in their imagination.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like life isn't enough.
Guest:Right.
I get it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is perfect.
Guest:No, this is perfect.
Guest:Where'd you do that class?
Guest:Santa Barbara.
Guest:In high school?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:No.
Guest:And you felt the power of it.
Guest:I did.
Guest:In that moment, I felt the power of humor.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:So that was... Because you wanted to get laughs.
Guest:That's why it's ironic.
Guest:You wanted to get laughs.
Guest:It's not that I wanted to get laughs.
Guest:I got laughs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I wasn't looking to get laughs.
Guest:You sure?
Guest:I think now I want to get laughs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think then it was... I had no idea what the whole thing was about because I wasn't paying attention at all.
Guest:I didn't hang out on set with my dad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:There was nothing that was interesting about it to me other than watching performances of like...
Guest:i don't know you know james dean or something right but you didn't you didn't have any you were you always got along with your dad i always got along with my dad but i was more into law right which i also did a lot of research on later becoming a lawyer no in jail yeah um i know yeah but yes there was yes i was very interested in criminal law that was fascinating to me which obviously has its acting connections also
Marc:So once you have that revelation there, but you weren't playing sports, it didn't sound like, were you?
Marc:No, I was surfing.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Do you still do that?
Marc:I do.
Marc:Are you good at it?
Guest:I am.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:I mean, I'm good enough.
Marc:Where do you go?
Guest:I go wherever.
Guest:We just went to Costa Rica, which was amazing, my wife and I. Yeah?
Guest:She serves.
Guest:I've never been there.
Guest:Oh, it's great, huh?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Pretty?
Guest:It's pretty, and it's primitive, and it's dusty, and it's fucked up, and your lungs will hurt when you leave.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:It's perfect.
Guest:So it's got everything.
Everything.
Everything.
Guest:Everything.
Guest:The good and the bad.
Guest:It does.
Guest:It's been westernized enough where it's not totally uncomfortable, but it's uncomfortable enough where you feel like... Like the idea of a spa to me drives me absolutely nuts.
Guest:I mean, it creates such tension in me.
Guest:Because you see the other people in their robes wandering around.
Guest:It's the robes part.
Guest:It's not seeing the other people.
Guest:It's the robes.
Guest:I remember somebody... I was doing a show called The Young Riders a long time ago.
Guest:and i had a western show yeah the western show i had a bookkeeper this guy and he was like you need to take a vacation and i was like what do you mean he goes you just work and work and work and you need to use some of that money and take a vacation relax a little bit and john noel he's a great guy yeah so i went to hawaii i stayed in a nice place which island which island
Guest:kawaii no kawaii is i love kawaii now but i think i was in maui yeah and then i stayed i checked into that hotel i got in my car i started driving there was a dude hitchhiking on the side of the road i picked him up and i didn't make it back to the hotel for four or five days until i picked up my shit and went to the yeah and i had the best time with him man and we stayed on the beach and we just like ate fucking mangoes and papayas and shit it was great
Guest:Just some stranger?
Guest:Yeah, it sounds like a weird story, but it's not.
Marc:It's not that weird.
Guest:No, it was a wonderful, wonderful time.
Marc:Did you learn any lessons?
Marc:Was he magic?
Marc:Did he bestow any wisdom upon you?
Marc:No, he wasn't like a sage.
Guest:No, he was young.
Guest:I was, what?
Guest:I was 22 and he was 20.
Marc:Oh, so it was just like, hey, that kid looks like, yeah, bros, yeah, gonna hang out.
Marc:Yeah, he wasn't like a bearded wizard.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:Or a pedophile.
Marc:Yeah, could have went either way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got a tent.
Yeah.
Guest:Where there's nobody around.
Guest:I'll show you some stuff.
Guest:I'll show you some shit.
Guest:You like to feel good, don't you?
Guest:Take this.
Guest:You like vegetables?
Guest:Here's a mushroom.
Guest:You know.
Guest:No thanks, bro.
Marc:I'm good.
Marc:I'm good.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Marc:I gotta go, Dad.
Marc:I gotta split.
Marc:So you graduate high school and then you decide to commit to acting?
Marc:Is that what happens?
Marc:No.
Marc:I kind of want to know because I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I've gotten more respect for actors over time.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:Because sometimes, like, you talk to, I would talk to actors, and some of them don't want to be, you know, open, or some of them may not have much in there, which is fine.
Marc:But there's this weird, like, lately, because I've been doing some acting myself, like, I start to appreciate just exactly what you realized about it when you first did it, was that, like, it's its own world.
Marc:And you have this freedom to do what you're going to do in this other body, almost, in this other character.
Marc:So I'm very interested how people get there.
Guest:So your interest in actors is purely self-based.
Guest:My interest in almost everything.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:Again, more honesty.
Guest:Yeah, I don't like actors so much either.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't.
Guest:I just, I don't, I don't.
Guest:I've never.
Guest:But the good ones you like.
Guest:Not particularly.
Guest:I like their work.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But no, I've always kind of, writers were always, like, I just got along with them better and I understood them better.
Guest:And everybody wants to be an actor, man, as is shown in social media now.
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:That's the other side of it is that it's sort of a hustle.
Marc:It's a total hustle.
Marc:And like, you know, there are dudes that you think are great that are sort of like, I'm just in it for the pussy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And I hang out on a trail.
Marc:I don't do shit.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:You know, it's like,
Marc:And I get that, but it's sort of like, no, what did you tell me that for?
Marc:You're going to fucking make something up?
Guest:Yeah, and actors, even now, people will be like, hey, man, what do I do?
Guest:And I'll go, you study, and you this, and then go find somebody.
Guest:And they don't want to do that.
Guest:They just want to be...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Known.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And back, that's why I appreciated Nolte Stanger.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Kind of like in that world of me and Benicio, who I adore.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, we studied with Stella Adler, and we were into the psychology of it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Acting was only a means...
Guest:to manifest an interest in writing and good writing, in psychology, in these fucked up people trying to figure out what made yourself tick, what made other people tick, why do I feel like I do?
Guest:And even though it's totally narcissistic, there's a psychological and sociological element to it that's fucking fascinating.
Marc:And also, the thing that I keep hearing is the servicing of the story.
Guest:Servicing of the story.
Guest:You're telling a story.
Guest:That's what I keep hearing.
Guest:You're telling a story as a social commentary in order to... Well, sometimes it's not.
Guest:Sometimes it's just entertainment.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But sometimes...
Guest:You're able to mirror society back to themselves so they can see where they're like a great writer or a great journalist so they can see kind of where they're at with one step back so they're not personally involved and blinded by their personal involvement.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That to me is cool.
Guest:So if you do something like something cultish like the Goonies or you do something what I consider.
Guest:But you wouldn't have known that was cultish at the time you did it.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:But then you do thrashing which I always kind of talk down about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I've learned not to do that now when somebody comes up and said, hey man, I loved you in Thrash.
Guest:And I go, oh, it was so shitty in that movie.
Guest:That was the whole reason why I moved to New York so I could study in New York and actually figure out how to do this thing.
Guest:But I don't realize or I didn't realize that, you know, like say their parents were junkies and they had nothing to live for and they were tortured and they found skateboarding because they saw that movie and it made their lives worthwhile.
Guest:You take that away from them if you... That's the power of storytelling.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Even if it's a shit movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But when you say, I wasn't any good, they're like, that robs them of their experience.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It robs them of their experience.
Marc:And how dare me?
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:But that's a sign of maturity.
Marc:That's something you can only learn.
Marc:When it's age.
Marc:It's right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Age where it's, you know, it's like it's an old joke, you know, where the comic is walking around the mall the next day, you know, after Friday night shows, did two shows and he's just hanging out with the other comic and a couple of chicks walk up to him and one chick goes, God, you were funny last night.
Marc:I really want to fuck you.
Marc:And the comic goes, really?
Marc:Which show were you at?
Yeah.
Guest:totally totally you know I just started watching my agent yeah told me he said very sweetly he said there's this Gary Shandling doc yeah did you watch it yeah it's good yeah I interviewed him once I didn't know him that well yeah I didn't either
Marc:But I'll tell you, there's something about his approach that was really something, you know, like the attempt at spirituality, the commitment to sort of trying to get that peace.
Guest:Trying to get that peace.
Guest:And also as a, what was he, an engineer?
Guest:Also the idea which I can identify with, which is working.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We can figure out how to do this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is a mathematical equation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That we just have to figure out.
Guest:And I think I'm along those.
Guest:Not that I figured it out.
Marc:In your particular, you mean with spirituality, with the craft of acting or with life?
Marc:With the craft of acting.
Marc:Well, that's the question.
Marc:So you do these early things, and so that's what happened.
Marc:You get into these, you got into a few TV shows and a couple movies to start, you know, just by virtue of who you are, or what happened?
Marc:How did that happen?
Marc:Oh, you mean because of my dad?
Guest:I don't know if it was because of your dad.
Guest:No, I think that actually worked against me.
Guest:I think, I mean, not because of anything that he did, but I think the idea of nepotism was so...
Guest:Was so bad tasting, for lack of a paraphrase, to people that they didn't want to be the ones that lent themselves to that.
Guest:But what I do think it did is open some doors and see people that I wouldn't normally have been able to see.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I went out and I got an agent.
Guest:I lied.
Guest:I created a whole resume that was fake.
Guest:And how old?
Guest:You were young.
Guest:16.
Guest:I had been kicked out of my house in Santa Barbara.
Guest:By your mother?
Guest:By my mom.
Guest:What happened?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It was just another fight or whatever.
Guest:And I was 15, man.
Guest:I was drinking and I was...
Guest:It was bad.
Guest:Surfing.
Guest:I don't blame her at all.
Guest:Doing acid.
Guest:Surfing's not bad.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:You just put something in there that was actually good.
Guest:You were drinking, you were surfing, and you did acid.
Guest:Yeah, the surfing part's kind of a good part.
Marc:And acid halfway, half of the time.
Marc:Half of the time, acid's okay.
Guest:Surfing on acid, though, that was something.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:I bet.
Guest:No, I never did that.
Guest:So, my mom, she just said, you know, go live with your dad, and I think they were going through a divorce at the time, and...
Guest:So I went down there and I tried to kind of get my shit together.
Guest:And then part of getting my shit together was I started doing martial arts a lot.
Guest:And then I started.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Taekwondo.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then I went out and I just, you know, it was like a desperate move to do something other than what I was doing.
Guest:And you'd already had the improv.
Guest:I had already had the improv thing.
Guest:Revelation?
Guest:Yeah, which I think prompted the whole thing.
Marc:But what was the moment where you decided to go to New York?
Marc:I mean, why did you decide?
Guest:So I did Goody's, which was like the greatest experience of my life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I mean, and again, we go back to the Nolte thing, which is just communal, amazing, you know, incredible people and Steven Spielberg and then Donner and.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all that.
Marc:Donner's great.
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And just the whole thing was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
Guest:And then I went from that to thrashing.
Guest:And the only reason I got thrashing was because there was this huge billboard up on Sunset of Goonies, because I know that when I read for it, I was so bad and there was no way I would have been hired had I not had a big billboard.
Guest:where i was the biggest person on the billboard right and then i saw thrashing and i went to the premiere and i saw thrashing and it was i was i didn't feel that i was is um where i didn't i wasn't doing what i wanted to do can you are you any good at watching yourself now
Guest:Yeah, I don't have that thing.
Guest:Or you can't.
Guest:Maybe I'm not narcissistic enough or maybe I'm so narcissistic that I can watch it.
Guest:But the thing, when I watch it, I say, does this work or does it not?
Guest:I think that I have some objectivity, like no country or milk or something like that.
Guest:I watch it and I go, does that work?
Guest:Or I'll call Gus and I'll say, what was that scene that we did?
Guest:I think it's more appropriate if we put that in and take maybe that out.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you look at it as a story.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I don't look at it as me anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I see the story.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I go, is it effective?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's way better to be okay in a great movie than be great in a shitty movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's great to be in a great movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's nothing better.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I bet.
Guest:In a great story.
Guest:If you're holding Caulfield in Catcher in the Lye.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:It'd be great.
Guest:Fucking hell.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I mean, but you also don't have a lot of control over that, do you sometimes?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:You don't.
Guest:All you have is your opinion and you do, you know, something like Sicario and, you know, you get your notes.
Guest:So good.
Guest:Yeah, but see, that's one of those things that like we did Sicario and Benny and I looked at each other and we went, well, that didn't work.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because you know, you don't know.
Guest:People go, do you have that feeling when you're doing a movie that's eventually appreciated?
Guest:Do you have a feeling that...
Guest:It's like what you just said.
Guest:I watched that movie twice.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:Maybe three times.
Guest:I like that movie.
Guest:You should stop watching that movie and go see Thrashing.
Guest:I'm telling you.
Guest:It'll change your life.
Marc:I'm thinking about getting a box set of Marcus Welby's.
Marc:I'm going all the way back.
Marc:I want to start there.
Guest:That's it.
Marc:No, I mean, but I thought your performance was great in Sicario, and I thought he was great.
Marc:But that's one of those movies where when he finally does his business, you're pretty satisfied.
Guest:Yeah, you're pretty satisfied in the way that Taylor kind of structured that whole thing.
Guest:You're on Emily for half the movie, and then you do what you absolutely don't do, and that's change narrative point of view into Benny.
Guest:And you don't really do that.
Guest:That's kind of like a great photographer knowing all the rules and then breaking the rules, whereas that's Taylor Sheraton too.
Guest:He's just one of those unique writers that's able to fuck with structure and have it work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you need a great director like Denis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's able to know how to.
Marc:So you think, so ultimately it wasn't that bad an experience, but you just didn't feel it worked.
Guest:Not that it wasn't a bad experience.
Guest:You just, you have a feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that feeling is usually wrong.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause that, yeah.
Guest:Now I'm mature enough.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To know that, to listen to my own feeling is meaningless.
Marc:So with the raw goods that you took to New York with the desire to pursue acting, you know, in, in earnest.
Guest:yeah who what did what did you start doing what you mean what did i do in new york yeah where did you i started there was a guy that that i that i met i was writing a lot in my early hitchhiker no yeah yeah we started doing theater in a tent yeah just for us though just for us that guy that famous trainer no i met a guy named anthony zerby and if you read yeah
Guest:Oh, he's trippy, man.
Guest:Yeah, he's my best bud.
Guest:And he married my wife and I recently.
Guest:And yeah, he's my closest friend.
Marc:He's like one of those character actors that was always kind of scary, even when he wasn't being scary.
Guest:And the nicest guy in the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The nicest guy in the world.
Guest:And then you see Omega Man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You go back and see those movies, and he's just fucking fantastic.
Guest:And one of the great Shakespearean actors of all time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And he and Roscoe Lee Brown, who's not around anymore,
Guest:Roscoe Lee Brown.
Guest:Yeah, like, you know, great baritone black actor.
Guest:And they did this thing called Behind the Broken Words, which was a compilation of poetry.
Guest:And remember in the 90s when everybody was speaking poetry?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like Cafe Lalo and Fairfax and all this kind of stuff.
Guest:And they'd get up and they'd go, my balls.
Guest:And everybody would go, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:spoken word it was so fucking bad it was all so bad yeah but when you saw zerby and roscoe do behind the broken words it was like it just took you to another it made it made me appreciate literature and poetry and words and structure and the music of poetry um and you just saw this by coincidence you know what had happened is i did young writers with him yeah and i heard him reading i heard him speaking excuse me anthony
Guest:poetry and and i kind of got together a few of my poems and went over on the honey wagon my little tiny you know trailer and walked over and i said would you mind reading a few of these aloud and he said yeah he was kind of a dick and he was like you know yeah sure and grabbed him and he started reading them and they sounded way better than they were because they were coming through his voice and then he looked at me and he said you're a writer and i was like yeah so we became very close and he gave me a lot of books to read and
Guest:oh yeah like what was the first book he gave me Blake he gave me he gave me Ginsburg he gave me Ferlinghetti he gave me Auden he gave me I mean a lot of wouldn't it be amazing if I had all those right here I know they're on another shelf no I have them too but if I put those up it would have just fucked with me it would have
Guest:No, I would have gone, let's read you a poem.
Guest:Then the whole thing would be a poetry reading and it'd be a bummer.
Marc:So the experience was, no, no, dude, I do that.
Marc:I mean, I read it.
Marc:I studied poetry.
Marc:I wrote poetry.
Marc:There's part of me that lives in that place.
Marc:Not daily.
Marc:You can't live there every day because we'd be different men.
Marc:You'd be driving a different car.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Guest:No, it's true.
Guest:I had a guy, I had a buddy who just wrote a book and he was like, you know, I'm thinking like this may sustain me throughout my, and I'm like, no man, I know fucking great writers and they all have another job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They all have another job.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:This guy, my friend, Sam Lipsight, the guy who wrote the ask, he's a teacher at Columbia.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Unless they sell out somehow.
Guest:Unless you're what?
Guest:Unless you're, you know, what is it?
Guest:J.K.
Marc:Rollins?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Writing the fantasy for the kids.
Marc:But the adults are like, it's not just for kids.
Marc:That's how you make money.
Guest:So we started doing theater.
Guest:I remember during hiatus, everybody wanted to do a movie.
Guest:And Zerby came up to me and he said, do you want to do this play during hiatus?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:from the writers and he had a connection with rochester new york jiva theater yeah and i did four or five seasons at jiva theater i did two plays every summer and rotating rep with him yeah so i did probably eight or ten plays and he and that was your training basically that was the experience doing stage work with anthony zerby that and i studied with people i studied with stella adler for a while and
Guest:New York yeah and I was involved in different theater groups but mostly that I would say that was the that was a just a that was one of those things that we're talking about it's like whatever fear that you have or whatever trepidation I you know I still I shake when I when I speak publicly and yeah so I have a great fear around all that and like acting and all that I probably could have been a much better actor had I not been so fearful when you were younger when I was younger yeah so I just went toward it
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did what I could to try and battle that fear.
Guest:Plays will do that.
Guest:That'll knock it out of you.
Guest:I remember my dad came up at one point.
Guest:He came up to see one play.
Guest:In Rochester?
Guest:In Rochester.
Guest:And I put him out on, obviously nobody was there, but I put him out on the thrust of the stage and I saw his knees start to shake.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I go, how does it feel?
Guest:And he goes, never.
Guest:Never.
Guest:And I was like, yeah.
Marc:Did he ever do that?
Guest:No, I never did that.
Marc:He was always a TV guy, movie guy.
Guest:He was always a TV and movie guy.
Guest:It's a much different racket, isn't it?
Guest:It is, man.
Guest:And I don't know if it's like, I don't prefer one over the other.
Guest:I just don't think there's better acting in theater and all that because I've seen theater actors go to film and they're not good.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I've seen film actors go to theater and they're not good.
Guest:It depends.
Guest:It's just another form of storytelling.
Marc:no definitely but but it's nice to have the chops isn't it it's nice to know that you did something that people appreciate it but it's also nice to know that like yeah i can do a play you know i i you know i know that world you know like i you know it's it's it's nervous but i i know how to do that but that's what i mean with this day and age people don't want to do that yeah they want to just be they want a lot of likes
Marc:Yeah, a lot of likes.
Guest:They want to fill that heart.
Marc:Yeah, but you know what?
Marc:A lot of them don't really last, and sometimes they last in a world that you or I don't know about or give a shit about necessarily.
Marc:There's all these different worlds.
Marc:There's all these different little niches.
Marc:Niches, exactly.
Marc:What are you going to do?
Marc:There's no stopping it.
Marc:The cat's out of the bag.
Marc:It's over.
Guest:But you're doing it.
Guest:I mean, look, you're in your garage right now.
Guest:Sure, I know.
Guest:I'm looking at the list of people you've been talking to.
Guest:I'm like, what the fuck?
Guest:Like, how did he pull this one off?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so let's, so, okay, so you do all this stuff.
Marc:Where'd you meet Benicio Del Toro?
Guest:I did an episode of that Private Eye series with him.
Marc:Oh, and you guys have been friends since?
Guest:I can't say we've been friends since, but we've appreciated each other's company since.
Okay.
Marc:Are there any guys in the game that you are friends with in any regular way?
Marc:Sean.
Marc:Probably Sean.
Guest:Benny.
Guest:Who else?
Guest:I mean, that's the thing with this business is you have a lot of people that come and go.
Guest:So there's Nick I was close with, Mickey Rourke I was close with, and I still talk to Mickey through Instagram now, which is fucking hilarious because you go back enough years and these people wouldn't even touch something like that.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Sure, yeah.
Guest:um but you know a lot of people that i i i appreciate a lot of people that i've worked with because i've done a lot of movies yeah um but no man i i don't i don't know i don't i don't hang out in the right places i don't hang out with people in general like i it's like it's what are you gonna do
Guest:yeah plus i had kids early how many you got you have four no i got two uh-huh yeah i got i got a almost 30 year old and a 25 year old so yeah i had kids very early on which and that's a responsibility that was great that's the greatest thing that ever happened i didn't have any it's over you didn't no i didn't do it no no you could still do it
Guest:That's what people tell me.
Guest:Well, they can.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I know people that have done it.
Guest:You know that stuff that comes out?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It still works at 54.
Guest:It does?
Guest:Really?
Guest:That's so gross.
Guest:It's lively.
Guest:I just grossed myself out because I was looking at you in the eye when I said that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a very intimate moment.
Guest:It was weird, but it was okay.
Guest:It does.
Guest:You can.
Guest:I mean, look, it's a different deal now.
Guest:How'd they turn out?
Guest:Women that... Amazing.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really amazing.
Guest:Despite you?
Guest:Despite me.
Guest:Despite me, seriously.
Guest:But I think that they appreciate me now more, being adults themselves.
Guest:I'm happy that it turned out good.
Guest:Yeah, thanks, man.
Marc:You worked with a lot of... I think flirting with disaster, that was a ballsy movie for you.
Marc:It was a good movie.
Marc:It was a good character.
Marc:Well, not for me.
Guest:I mean, I would have done it had it been any other movie.
Marc:No, no, I mean just being chipper and gay.
Marc:It was nice.
Marc:I liked it.
Guest:That's the kind of shit that I like doing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because I could tell, like, looking back at it, it was probably a stretch at that time.
Guest:It was not a stretch in my acting experience.
Guest:It was a stretch in film.
Guest:I had done a lot of that shit on stage.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I like that movie.
Guest:I really love that movie.
Guest:I love that director.
Marc:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:He and I became... David O. Russell?
Guest:Yeah, really good friends.
Guest:Did you do another movie with him?
Guest:No, we talked about doing... There was a series that I had written that he was going to do, and then the thing fell apart, and then I kind of redid it in a whole new different way, and then we may do it next year, but I don't think he's going to be involved, but we'll see.
Marc:And when you put together... Let's talk about Kraft a little bit.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:You ready?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because when you, like the difference between like No Country and W, but also, but like Milk, but then like Hail Caesar, which I fucking loved.
Guest:Oh, good.
Marc:I fucking loved that movie.
Marc:I'm glad.
Marc:And I got mad at people online who said it wasn't a great Coen's brother movie.
Marc:I've made the argument that it might be their best movie.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, but people, the Coen people, they're just sort of like, nah, and I'm like, you gotta watch it better.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:you gotta watch it better yeah i like that it's all in there yeah do you think it has anything to do with the fact that you're jewish uh because it had that kind of you know but they've been they've done more jewy movies oh way more i mean yeah i mean i didn't i didn't get that i i kind of got that feeling yeah but i thought it was more like a it's almost like a i mean i'm curious i don't know why it did well or didn't do well or whatever
Marc:What I loved about it is I like the old Hollywood stuff.
Marc:I like that they put so much effort into staging things from a different era that were really kind of popular entertainment.
Marc:And to see what went into that.
Marc:You know, behind the scenes, that musical number, even though it was tongue-in-cheek.
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:The Esther Williams bit.
Marc:Like, all that stuff.
Marc:You know, the Noel Coward bit.
Marc:Like, that to me was like history.
Marc:Yeah, I agree.
Marc:And then to have the subtext of the Jesus story and your sort of strange burden in life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then just the sort of points of departure from real Hollywood stuff.
Marc:I just, I liked the whole thing.
Marc:I thought it was a whole universe.
Marc:And I thought they handled the...
Marc:I thought they handled the communist thing better than that movie that Cranston was in.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was sort of a comedic approach to it, but it was like- I mean, it was a satirical approach.
Marc:Satirical.
Guest:Almost a parody.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But to me, it was more- Yeah, really smart.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that kid who played the cowboy, I mean, Jesus Christ.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, that kid was amazing.
Marc:What?
Guest:And that kid, it's so funny because that's like, I experienced that a little bit about like, it's right around the corner for you, man.
Guest:And that's kind of what he's gotten.
Guest:And you look at his acting and different things that he's done.
Guest:He did that thing with Warren Beatty and he was great in it.
Guest:He's just always great.
Guest:But the movie is, first of all, when they offered me the movie, I was really surprised.
Guest:when i read it um but they know you they they know me but i know that they were kind of asking around to see if i could if i was going to be good with the dialogue i mean that's very cohen's like there's no pretense with the cohen's at all yeah at all yeah you know and and there's no compliments there's no any of that yeah it's just work right and there's smart work yeah
Guest:wait maybe do i have my phone anyway there's there's funny text because like i'm doing this george and tammy movie and i and i asked uh joel i said are you interested in revisiting this as a director and he said yes i'm i'm interested in revisiting it when it's finished you know he can't just say no or say something right you know but those guys you're doing george jones and tammy winette movie is that what that is you're playing george who's directing that
Marc:A guy named Tate Taylor.
Marc:Are you shooting it already?
Guest:No, not yet.
Guest:How's the script?
Guest:Really good.
Guest:Abe Sylvia, really good.
Guest:Jessica Chastain is playing.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That's going to be great.
Marc:I hope so.
Marc:Do you think you can act drunk?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:i've done a lot of research i've done some right so tell me so okay so they're they're looking around yeah uh for other people to play the part is that what you're telling me no they're looking around to see to i don't know get some kind of uh affirmation that i can play that part huh um and then i heard i heard that they were and then i called them and i was like what the fuck are you asking other people for like you know me yeah like not only do you know me professionally you know me personally just ask
Guest:I did a big movie for you.
Guest:Remember the movie I did for you?
Guest:I did several movies.
Guest:I've done three and a half movies.
Guest:I've done No Country, True Gret, and Hail Caesar, and I did a short for them that was for the 60th anniversary of Cannes.
Guest:So I've worked with them a lot.
Guest:I'm very fortunate, and I don't really understand it, given my personality, why people would want to work with me more than once, but I've been very fortunate.
Guest:Like Oliver Stone, I've worked with twice.
Guest:I'm lucky in that way.
Marc:So what exactly did they say when you said, why are you asking around?
Marc:What do you need to know?
Guest:Nothing.
Marc:Nothing.
Guest:Nothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:No, that's what I'm saying.
Guest:There's no story there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's never a story with the Coens.
Guest:There's never a story.
Marc:Well, how do, well, so what, now I've talked to Walter Hill in here.
Marc:I've talked to a few directors, not many.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But like, what's their approach to you?
Marc:What do you just do all the work?
Marc:I mean, because that character, like for me, it was very like you had to make certain very distinct choices because it is a comic character.
Marc:It is not like, you know, you can't just blow out.
Marc:You know, it was a guy that sort of, you know, he had a burden.
Marc:He was very conscious of the burden.
Guest:With every movie, there's something there's what I call the hook.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you look for the hook.
Guest:So 90% of the research that you do is for nothing.
Guest:But 10% is your ability to be able to delve into, and for me, this all sounds pretentious, but to me, once you find that hook, then you start to saturate yourself, then the whole world opens up.
Guest:but it's the the 90 percent is you embarrassing the shit out of yourself and trying to find that thing yeah so i did a lot of stupid kind of meanderings with that character and i remember i was doing a voice and i was looking at abbott and costello and i was looking at like new jersey and i was you know i didn't know a you should talk like this or should we you know talk like this or you know when it's the same thing with true grit i was doing true grit and i came in there and i started rehearsing and i
Guest:That character I was kind of doing like this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he's badass.
Guest:He's going to kill this little kid.
Guest:And he said.
Guest:And we all looked at each other and we just went, it's not working.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You got to take a chance.
Guest:You got to take a chance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Basically, acting is, you know, feeling like an asshole 90 percent of the time.
Guest:And then 10 percent of the time you find that.
Guest:But you have to be willing to take the leap.
Guest:to be embarrassed and to feel totally off camber in order to find that thing so i was doing voices and then i'd send them a voice and then they'd send me back a comment like you know we love the we love this phrase but why don't you work on the eyes or why don't you work on the this these verbs and then i thought are they fucking with me
Guest:Are they just playing?
Guest:Which is very, very possible and still possible.
Guest:And they would never admit it to me even if they were doing that.
Guest:But I finally found this thing, this tone.
Guest:And then I sent it to them and they were like, that sounds pretty close.
Guest:And then we start talking about the dress and how he dress and does he change and how often does he change?
Guest:And does he have a tick?
Guest:Does he have a thing?
Guest:Like W, we did this eating thing with Oliver and we just decided on set.
Guest:He needs to be...
Marc:utilizing his hands all the time or have something in his mouth all the time why i don't know yeah so those are those are things that happen with the uh you know with the collaboration with the work yeah but like that it sounds like those two guys like you know they don't he cohen's don't expect you to show up a full package they need to work you a little bit no because the cohen's what the cohen's do really well is they cast really well
Guest:yeah they're just good at it yeah so they don't have to do what other directors i've felt do and that's they're going to mold you and meld you into this thing yeah they go you're the guy so that whatever whatever they do up to that point is the torture that they go through i know with no country they saw everybody
Guest:And I sent them a tape, and I was doing Grindhouse with Robert Rodriguez, and I said, I can't show up at the Coen's thing.
Guest:Can you make this tape for me?
Guest:And Robert said, why don't we just use the camera that we have, and we'll do it on set.
Guest:It was a million-dollar Genesis camera.
Guest:And then Tarantino came in and directed it, and Robert shot it.
Guest:And then we sent these scenes from No Country to the Coen's, and then they saw it, and their response was, who lit it?
Guest:And there was no comment about me or that.
Guest:So I was a no.
Guest:I was an immediate no.
Guest:And then they went through more of a process of not finding the guy who they felt for whatever aspects they were looking for of a guy, of a normal guy or somebody represented whatever they saw in their heads.
Guest:And then finally, when they were going to choose one dude...
Guest:And I got in there that morning that the day that they were going to choose somebody else.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I walked in there and I did six scenes.
Guest:I was very lucky.
Guest:Michael Cooper was my agent at the time.
Guest:And and he got me into that room and I did maybe four scenes with him with a full Texas accent.
Guest:and and then i sat down with him and i talked and joel just stared at me the whole time he never blinked he never was like he was dead he's the tall one he was the tall one yeah and then the little guy ethan whose books i had read i had read his book of poetry i'd read his short stories yeah we started talking about that and then he said well let me interrupt you for a second i said yeah and he goes can you do a texas accent i was like well i just i just did
Guest:And he was like, oh, good, good.
Guest:Okay, well, good.
Guest:So I left and I thought, fucking fantastic meeting those guys.
Guest:Big fan.
Guest:That's never going to happen.
Guest:And then I got a call at noon that day from Joel and Ethan saying, would you be interested in doing this part?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, let me think.
Guest:Get back to you.
Guest:It was a hell of a part, huh?
Guest:Amazing part.
Guest:Amazing part.
Guest:Amazing movie to be involved with.
Guest:And talk about something that wasn't precious at all.
Guest:I mean, Deakins, Mary Zofre's doing the costumes.
Guest:Everybody's at the top of their game.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And again, there's no pretense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's no bullshit.
Guest:There's no pretense.
Guest:There's no ego.
Guest:None of it.
Guest:What was that guy's hook?
Guest:um there was a guy there's a guy it's funny because i was just up at my ranch and the rains came and i got we got locked into the ranch because we have an arizona crossing so when the rains when the water comes you can't cross that crossing so you're stuck on the ranch yeah and we started to you know there was no food so i call my buddy rick who lives down the street who used to be on my ranch he used to live on a trailer in my on my ranch yeah where is this past robles yeah
Guest:And I said, you know, we might need some food.
Guest:He goes, hey, man, no problem.
Guest:You know, we'll get a backpack and a piece of rope and I'll throw some fiddles over to you.
Guest:And I was like, great.
Guest:So that was the hook, was Rick.
Guest:Rick, we were doing a scene, me and Carla Jean, and we were doing a scene in the trailer looking at the TV and we were looking at each other when we were rehearsing the scene.
Guest:And there was just something that wasn't working.
Guest:And I went to Joel and Ethan and who the fuck am I to say anything at this point?
Guest:But I was just like, something's wrong.
Guest:Something's off.
Guest:And they were like, they said, no, it's fine.
Guest:I said, yeah, it's fine.
Guest:Fine's not really enough.
Guest:And then we talked about it and this and that.
Guest:And then I thought of Rick and I thought Rick would never look at his wife.
Guest:You don't look at your partner all the time.
Guest:You look at everybody in acting.
Guest:When you're acting, you look at everybody in the eye.
Guest:In life, you don't really do that.
Guest:Like I'm talking to you, half the time I've been looking at my water bottle.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:It's just natural.
Guest:So then we just, if you look at the scene, we're both looking at the TV, talking to each other like that, but looking that way.
Guest:And to me, it made the scene.
Guest:That was very Rick.
Marc:But was that a personality thing that came through the whole thing?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Is the hook something that gives you a portal into somebody's
Guest:character yes right and it was rick and i don't remember it was rick yeah and then whatever came out of that yeah was based on that thing right and that may have nothing to do with him ultimately sure but you let the script in you let the story in and you start using that just give me some visceral visual
Guest:that i can click into that i can always resort to no matter what yeah knowing that that's a good that's the foundation that will always suffice yeah that anything beyond that is up to my imagination and up to my skill as an actor and what about the hail caesar what was the what was the hook was um the voice oh yeah it was the abbott and costello thing
Guest:Who's the bigger one?
Guest:Is that Costello?
Guest:Lou Costello.
Guest:Hey, Abbott.
Marc:Lou.
Marc:Lou.
Marc:The fat one.
Marc:The fat one.
Marc:No, no, no, no.
Marc:The bigger one.
Marc:The taller guy.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:The taller guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was him.
Guest:Because there was three other, and I'm trying to remember.
Guest:It was like my mother was one.
Guest:My mother and my aunt, because my mother had a really, really deep voice from Texas.
Guest:Talk like this.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So it was kind of like that tone.
Guest:And then there was the Abbott and Costello thing.
Guest:And then there was Michael Shannon.
Guest:I remember I thought of at one point.
Guest:but a bunch of different voices and then something.
Guest:So you start with a voice on that one.
Guest:With that one.
Guest:I mean, it could be a walk.
Guest:It could be, again, it's like, I don't, it sounds lame to me when I talk about it because literally I'm walking around and I'm talking to doorknobs.
Guest:I'm talking to, because I don't hang out with a lot of people.
Guest:So I'm just trying to be as open as possible.
Guest:And then with Hail Caesar, I rented a black box theater and I had all the actors come down and
Guest:and rehearse before we started the movie and it wasn't really directed by me but i just wanted to be able to have the banter the banter yeah and then because i was nervous i was nervous and everybody's willing to do that for you everybody everybody yeah except for george george cloney oh really he didn't come down no i didn't ask him oh it's too big of a movie star
Guest:Is he?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he's not.
Marc:He seems like a nice guy.
Guest:Really nice, man.
Marc:Really, really nice.
Marc:And with Milk, with Dan White, that guy's name, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's a real guy.
Guest:Real guy.
Guest:So did you look at him?
Guest:I was really fortunate because there was a cop that knew him really well that had a tape that not a lot of people had heard.
Guest:A confession.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Only a handful of people had heard that.
Guest:So I was doing all the research.
Guest:I was doing all my stuff that was meaningless.
Guest:And then I heard that and that was all I needed.
Guest:I remember him talking.
Guest:I mean, nobody really understands this and should they?
Yeah.
Guest:But on the confession, he was talking about how his fingertips were hot after he had shot Mayor Moscone and was walking over to shoot Harvey Milk and how he remembers his fingertips being hot.
Guest:I thought that was such a weird thing.
Guest:And I remember I asked Gus because we didn't have...
Guest:We had him shooting Moscone and then suddenly he's walking into Harvey's office.
Guest:And I said, you know, there was that great shot that you did in Elephant where you follow the kid through the whole school.
Guest:I said, I think that it kind of deserves to be here is to follow Dan White's face from one end of the city hall all the way to the other.
Guest:Because was there a moment that he thought about running?
Guest:Was there a moment that the consciousness of knowing what he had just done and
Guest:Was he sensitive to that?
Guest:Was he not sensitive?
Guest:Had he cut himself off?
Guest:Was he so resentful at that point that there's just a determination to do as much harm?
Guest:What I loved about that character was this, he was so weak that his only resort or his feeling was the only thing that he could do to create an impact was
Guest:was have a gun, load a gun, point the gun, shoot the gun, and kill somebody.
Guest:And therefore he had an impact.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like that's how... He was completely impotent other than that.
Guest:Totally, totally.
Guest:He felt so impotent at that point.
Guest:And not to justify what he did, but psychologically, that's so fucking interesting to me.
Marc:Right, because it's not even rage.
Guest:No.
Marc:He just wanted satisfaction.
Guest:Just let me have an impact on something.
Guest:I mean, that's gnarly.
Yeah.
Guest:So coming from a guy in high school who was interested in getting a laugh to shooting one of the greatest fucking people that created a movement in San Francisco.
Guest:And that was quite, Sean did quite a performance there.
Guest:He was so good, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was so good.
Guest:And what I love about Sean, working with Sean, we both pace a lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you think it's going to be precious and, you know, I'm going to work with Daniel Day-Lewis.
Guest:He's going to be in character the whole time.
Guest:And me, I find it much more freeing to do the opposite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not be in character?
Guest:To literally be as distracting as possible to everybody in my vicinity.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I can delve into something when we do the scene.
Guest:That's for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Sean was kind of the same way.
Guest:So it was fun working with him.
Marc:Yeah, I feel like I didn't make it clear how much respect I have for Sean Penn as an actor.
Marc:And, you know, and I was certainly willing to read the book and I and I did make it through most of it.
Marc:But like the thing that I wanted to have is a conversation like this.
Marc:And I feel like I just got him at a juncture in his life where he seems like, you know, I don't know how consistent he is with, you know, his his, you know, how he feels about himself.
Marc:But he just didn't he wasn't going to do it.
Marc:He wasn't going to talk about acting.
Marc:He didn't want to act anymore.
Marc:It didn't serve him anymore.
Marc:And I didn't believe a fucking word of it.
Marc:There you go.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:You didn't believe a fucking word of it.
Guest:You probably should have said that.
Guest:Because then there's an honesty and then there's a road you can go down that's more substantive.
Guest:He's tough, man.
Marc:Yeah, but he's tough.
Marc:I don't feel that he was willing.
Marc:Because there was a moment there where he was funny and he said something about Nolte, of all people, where I saw a moment where I'm like, fuck, why can't I talk to that guy, the guy who said that?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:No, I do.
Guest:I know what you mean.
Guest:I love talking to people like that.
Marc:Because I told him Nolte had been on the show, and all Sean says was, he found it?
Marc:Yeah, he found it.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, but you got to know, Sean and I did Gangster Squad together, and we all had a reading, and Jeff Robinoff, who was running Warner Brothers at the time, wanted to do a reading for the bigwigs for the suits.
Guest:And I was sitting next to Sean doing the reading, and Nick had come in, and they go, I don't know.
Guest:And like halfway through the reading when Nick was, he was mumbling all his shit to himself.
Guest:And Sean looked over at me or kind of leaned over to me and he goes, that's going to be you later.
Guest:I was like, fuck you, man.
Guest:See, he is funny, isn't he?
Guest:He's extremely funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's very, very smart.
Guest:Yeah, I can tell that.
Guest:He'll go down this fucking labyrinth that you go, where the fuck are you going, man?
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And then he'll come around and make a point that's an extremely intelligent point.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you just have to be willing to hop on the magic carpet ride in order to get there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what I look forward to is the future of...
Guest:if he hates acting so much or whatever that is then fucking keep writing yeah keep writing and see what happens yeah actually develop as a writer i'd like because i think he's yeah he's smart enough to be able to do it and i think that i think he enjoys it yeah if you don't enjoy acting then fuck it
Guest:Like, I don't enjoy acting particularly, but I do enjoy the result and I enjoy the people I work with.
Guest:I think acting is a pain in the ass.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Totally.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because of the repetition?
Guest:I remember people even in high school, you know, you do a scene and, you know, they'd go, fuck yeah.
Guest:Fucking nailed that.
Guest:I was like, I've never had that feeling ever, ever.
Guest:like what is that about anything no no no i've had that feeling about other things but i've never had that feeling about acting yeah and then you see the result and you go and i have the ability to be able to go wow that worked right or that's a good story i guess the question is like those guys that you saw say that and that did they nail it
Guest:No, what is nailing it?
Guest:I don't even know what that is.
Guest:Like you made somebody cry?
Marc:Or you made somebody laugh?
Marc:It just all worked.
Marc:It just worked.
Guest:I love the Gary Shandling thing when he finally, the whole, the pinnacle of his thing was to do the Tonight Show and the Tonight Show is whatever.
Guest:And then he did it and who was it?
Guest:Bob Saget was backstage in the wings waiting for him and he goes backstage and he goes, what am I going to do now?
Right.
Marc:fucking narcissistic sensitive and we're all like that we're all different versions of that i know you know so oh yeah and also i wanted to like i've watched american gangster many times i like that movie me too man i thought you're good in that i liked working with with uh russell and denzel
Guest:yeah those guys you know it's nice because when i'm in new york yeah you know if there's any like it's usually the the black people in new york yeah that you know that good americans know that that they appreciate me for whatever reason oh yeah like you went fucking head to head with denzel yo yeah yeah yo you know and i love that i love that i like my my contingency
Marc:Well, Ethan Hawke talked to me about Denzel, about working with him.
Marc:Right, but he said that he literally watched Denzel movies like football players watch game movies.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because he just knew that if he didn't show up ready, he was gonna just get trampled.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Denzel and I had a moment.
Guest:oh yeah oh yeah we had a moment where we were rehearsing and he didn't come to set right away yeah and then ridley was like trying to get him to set and he got to set he didn't know that he'd been asked to come to set and then we were rehearsing yeah and then i put my i forgot a line during rehearsal and i put my hand on his shoulder and he hit my hand off and he goes don't ever touch me and i was like i remember i had that moment where i go
Guest:Is this the character?
Guest:Or is this Denzel?
Guest:Or is Denzel mad at me?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I looked at him and I smiled.
Guest:And what I thought is, holy fuck, I'm going to scrap with Denzel Washington.
Guest:Like I'm a scrapper kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Totally willing to go to the pavement.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like I'm going to fight Denzel Washington.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:This is amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was actually really happy about it.
Guest:And then it didn't happen, and then we just kept going and all that.
Guest:And then we did another scene that was MOS, no sound, big wide shot.
Guest:And we had to come up and look at each other, and even though we had dialogue, there was no reason to say it because it was such a wide shot, so we just kind of stared at each other.
Guest:And we were looking at each other in the eye, and he wasn't smiling, and I wasn't smiling.
Guest:And I finally looked at him, and I said...
I think I'm falling in love with you.
Guest:And then they yelled cut and he burst out laughing and we've been buddies ever since.
Guest:But there's like a respect, and I get it, man, because I come from a culture of massive ribbing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you have to be able to take and give that before there's respect given.
Guest:And then once there is respect given, there's incredible loyalty.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That the friends that are left that I grew up with, there's an immense loyalty.
Guest:I mean, they'd all walk through fire for me and vice versa.
Marc:You've passed the tests.
Yeah.
Marc:It's so funny because when you tell me that moment where you touch him and he goes, don't you ever fucking touch me?
Guest:I immediately, my first reaction would have been like, oh God, I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm not worthy.
Guest:I'm not worthy.
Guest:But you didn't even think that.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, man.
Guest:It was like my whole childhood just like resurfaced.
Guest:I was like, fuck.
Guest:I want to fight with Denzel Washington.
Guest:This is amazing.
Marc:I can't wait.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:So let's talk briefly about the superhero movies.
Marc:Yeah, if you want.
Marc:Well, I mean, do you like doing them?
Guest:Well, here it is.
Guest:The whole perception of superhero movies is a sellout mentality.
Guest:Avengers.
Guest:What is it?
Guest:Infinity War?
Guest:Is that what it is?
Guest:I have Avengers.
Guest:Infinity War coming out.
Guest:Then I have Deadpool 2 coming out.
Guest:Then I have Sicario 2 coming out.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And then I have Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter that comes out on this.
Marc:Sicario 2?
Yeah.
Marc:What happens then?
Marc:The soldado.
Marc:Day of the soldado.
Marc:Day of the soldier.
Marc:So that must have done all right then, huh?
Marc:They're making another one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think if this one's good enough, then we'll make another one.
Guest:And it's you and Benicio again?
Guest:Yeah, it's just me and Benicio and Emily's not in this particular one.
Guest:She may be in one in the future, but yeah, we did it.
Guest:Wow, how did it feel this time?
Guest:Good, difficult.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was a guy named Stefano Salima, who did Gamora in Italy.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then Darius Wolski, who does a lot of Ridley Scott's movies, shot it.
Guest:And I think it's good.
Guest:Oh, great.
Guest:I mean, I saw it.
Guest:It is good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, objectively, I say, would I like that movie?
Guest:And yes, I would like that movie.
Marc:And when's that out?
Marc:That's out June 29.
Marc:Oh, man, that's exciting.
Marc:So I don't watch the superhero movies.
Marc:So you're saying, what were you saying?
Marc:The sellout?
Guest:You know, the mentality of... So I went into, you know, Avengers was offered to me probably four years ago when I was doing Everest in London.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, I had turned down a lot of those types of movies.
Guest:So they sent me a Bible.
Marc:Oh, yeah, your fingers got all fucked up in Everest.
Guest:My fingers got all fucked up in Everest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I remember now.
Marc:I saw it.
Marc:The character.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The character lost his finger.
Guest:It looks real.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Go ahead.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Guest:So Marcus Welby for me was... An inspiration.
Guest:It was an inspiration for Thanos.
Guest:So I opened up this Bible and I was like, so wait a second.
Guest:So it's the big purple dude.
Guest:against all the Avengers collectively.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Bitching.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Love that.
Marc:You're the big purple dude.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't want to be a superhero.
Guest:I don't want to be somebody who is just there.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And not to, you know.
Marc:So you found that an exciting opportunity to act.
Guest:I found that an exciting opportunity and then I said, so mocap and how long and this and that and we're going to do it.
Guest:So when I first did a little teaser, it was me in front of like 36 cameras with 36 blinding lights with a director I couldn't see and
Guest:and i was kind of bummed i had made the decision and and i thought well that's how it's going to be for the next you know when we finally do the movie forever for a decade decade of this guy and i had turned down other movies based on that kind of thing and i thought you know what it is what it is it's all good good paycheck good it was a good paycheck yeah and and and so so the point is
Guest:i had so much fucking fun and i'm not saying that to promote it because people are going to see this movie anyway yeah it's it was like new york lower east side black box theater fucking acid infested completely and utterly left to your imagination with the russo brothers who come from you know film yeah where every you know every direction was like look you see the godfather
Guest:so he's got he's so he's got the gun to his fucking head right yeah and he's just about to blow his fucking brains out so blow his fucking brain i'm like holy shit dude it's like a marvel movie right so i loved everything about it yeah i loved that it was so unsettling i loved that i had
Guest:dots all over me and you know a head cam and the this and sometimes i'd be by myself in a warehouse and there'd be 50 people on computers and i'd be talking to nobody yeah i didn't have to deal with actors half the time yeah it was awesome wow i would do it again and did you see the movie you would do it again in a second did you see the movie
Guest:I haven't seen the movie.
Guest:I've seen portions of it, which is absolutely cutting edge amazing.
Guest:And what about Deadpool?
Guest:Deadpool was very difficult to do.
Guest:A whole different kind of comedy that I've never done.
Guest:That's the one with Ryan, right?
Guest:That's the one with Ryan, which I think is going to be... I don't know what this means, but it tested in 98 recently.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And...
Guest:Are you bored talking about this?
Guest:No.
Guest:I saw Deadpool.
Guest:You saw the first one?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you like it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Totally irreverent.
Guest:I like him a lot.
Guest:I like him a lot too.
Guest:I don't think there's any better character, actor, marriage that I've ever seen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:At least contemporarily.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Between that guy and that character.
Guest:He just gets it, man.
Marc:Yeah, the first time I thought that he was a genius was in that weird movie.
Marc:Who was in it?
Marc:Drew Barrymore where he wore the fat suit?
Marc:Do you remember the movie where he played the fat kid and he grew up to be like a record executive and he wanted to go hook up with the girl?
Marc:I didn't see it.
Marc:He was so fucking funny.
Guest:You know what I liked was The Proposal.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, I don't like rom-coms, romantic comedies.
Marc:But he was good?
Guest:I thought he was great.
Guest:Yeah, I can't remember.
Guest:I saw it three times.
Guest:I can't remember the fucking... I told you, man.
Guest:I listened to Oprah and I watched The Proposal.
Marc:Oh, you worked with Paul, too, on the Heron Vice.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:I talked to him.
Marc:You did talk to him.
Marc:I have.
Guest:Yeah, he's a good buddy.
Guest:I mean, I love him.
Guest:That's one of those things.
Guest:He's a writer, first and foremost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just... Yeah, he's... Fascinating brain.
Marc:He's a fascinating brain, but when I first met him, when we got that interview, I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to meet the dark genius.
Marc:Not at all.
Marc:He doesn't talk.
Marc:He's a mystery man.
Marc:He shows over, and he's just like this goofy kid from the valley.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'm like, you're him?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:It's like a disappointment.
Guest:There's a guy that I met, Malcolm Lipke, who's a painter and I've bought several of his paintings and his paintings are great.
Guest:They look like turn of the century fucking figurative women and fucking risque and all this kind of shit.
Guest:And then I met him and then he goes, hey, I'm Skip.
Guest:And I was like, what the fuck?
Guest:Because I thought it was going to be like meeting Nolte.
Guest:Like, hey, how are you?
Guest:Would you like to smell my brush?
Guest:And I'm like, no, man.
Guest:I'm good.
Guest:I'm good.
Guest:I've been huffing my brush for 16 years, man.
Guest:Try it.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And it just didn't, you know, it didn't.
Guest:So you just don't meet your heroes, man.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:You just don't.
Guest:You don't.
Guest:But sometimes they deliver, right?
Marc:Sam Shepard delivered.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Guest:Sam Shepard's, you know.
Guest:But that's the thing.
Guest:Did you like talking to Paul or were you disappointed?
Marc:no no i like talking to him yeah yeah because i did that thing everybody's human ultimately doesn't it suck yeah no no it's it's it's sort of refreshing because before every every before every interview i'm like oh what the am i gonna do it you know and then like you know you walk up and you're like oh i know that guy you're i don't know why but like it happens sometimes and but some people you know they're they're having a rougher go at it you looked nervous when i saw you though did i just for a moment were you
Marc:Well, because you're the first guy in here.
Marc:I've spent the morning.
Marc:I walked across the street to get a guy to stop using a tool.
Guest:This is important, man.
Guest:In my new neighborhood.
Guest:Josh Brolin from no country.
Guest:What's it called?
Guest:His dad was on Marcus Welby.
Guest:His dad was on Marcus Welby, man.
Guest:His fucking son's coming right now, man.
Guest:Can you please stop?
Guest:So it was that kind of morning.
Guest:I don't know if I was nervous about you.
Guest:No, well, you just proved that you weren't.
Marc:It had nothing to do with me.
Marc:I was a little nervous, you know, but like I just didn't.
Marc:Here's my projection of you was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, how are you going to show up?
Marc:Because I've been wanting to talk to you for a while.
Marc:And that's something I don't know.
Marc:Because sometimes people show up and say, where am I?
Marc:What is this?
Marc:You know, that thing.
Marc:And I'm like, come on.
Marc:It's going to be okay.
Guest:Well, I called Liz Mahoney.
Guest:Uh-uh.
Guest:No, she's a publicist.
Guest:I called her this morning and I said, you're not coming, are you?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she said, no, because I'd wait outside and my battery would go dead and I'd have nothing to do, which I love her for saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I prefer doing this as if it was an accident.
Guest:yeah do you know what i mean sure i stopped at your house because i had to pee so bad and i'd get arrested if i peed outside on a tree can't get arrested again use the bathroom right go hey by the way i got some sound shit yeah garage yeah do you want to go just talk about some shit yeah i'm thinking about starting a podcast yeah that's kind of how i'm treating this yeah no disrespect no no no disrespect i mean you know you can use the bathroom thanks i've drank a full bottle all right well i think we're good you good you feel good whatever man
Guest:whatever it's all good i enjoy talking to you it was good you know i feel like you should read a poem now though in my craft to sell an art exercised in the still night when only the moon rages and the lovers lie bed with all their griefs in their arms i labor by singing light not for ambition nor bread or the strut and trade of charms in the ivory stages nor for the common wages of their most secret heart
Guest:Not for the proud man apart from the raging moon I write on these spindrift pages, nor for the towering dead with their nightingales and psalms, but for the lovers, their arms round the griefs of the ages who pay no praise or wages, nor heed my craft or art.
Guest:Dylan Thomas.
Guest:Nailed it.
Guest:Thanks, man.
Marc:Good talking to you.
Marc:Great meeting you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:His Nick Nolte impression was just killing me.
Marc:He cracked me up a couple times.
Marc:It was nice talking to him.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I hope I didn't weigh you down at the beginning, but I can't insist enough that people, American people, go see the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and then go to the Legacy Museum
Marc:And understand what this country was built on and where the problems persist.
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Boomer lives!