Episode 921 - David Harbour
Marc:Hey people, you might have heard me talk about a documentary I did the narration for a little while ago.
Marc:It's called Side Men, Long Road to Glory, about the incredible lives and legacies of three legendary bluesmen, Pine Top Perkins, Willie Big Eye Smith, and Hubert Sumlin.
Marc:Starting today, you can pre-order it exclusively on iTunes.
Marc:It features Bonnie Raitt, the late Greg Allman, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Tim Reynolds, Joe Perry, and more.
Marc:It's a great look at popular music history, so get it on iTunes starting today.
Marc:That's Sidemen, Long Road to Glory.
Marc:All right, let's do the show.
Lock the gates!
Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.
Marc:Welcome to it.
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to actor David Harbour from Stranger Things.
Marc:Maybe you've seen him in other movies.
Marc:Black Mass.
Marc:The Equalizer with Denzel.
Marc:He was in that.
Marc:He was in Brokeback Mountain.
Marc:But I guess most people know him now because of Stranger Things.
Marc:I just whenever I see David Harbour on screen in one form or another, even Revolutionary Road he was in.
Marc:But whether it's on TV or movies, I'm like, there's something about I know that guy.
Marc:There's something about that guy.
Marc:What's up with that guy?
Marc:He's memorable to me.
Marc:And then we met at one of the award shows.
Marc:And then we kind of got to talking in a crazy way, like two crazy people.
Marc:And then we made this happen.
Marc:I recorded it a little bit ago.
Marc:Back in the old garage, part of the transition.
Marc:But it was one of these it was one of these WTF interviews that there was definitely some emotional connective tissue between Mr. Harbour and myself.
Marc:I feel like I knew the guy.
Marc:I feel like there was a... I've known him for centuries.
Marc:One of those kind of things.
Marc:Like, yes, yes, we've both been here before.
Marc:You know?
Marc:So, that was enjoyable.
Marc:Enjoy that.
Marc:That's coming your way.
Marc:You know, folks, I don't... I really do not understand the stupidity of humanity at times.
Marc:This isn't even in a political sense.
Marc:Look, if it's pouring rain and it doesn't look like it's going to let up, I think you can be optimistic that it'll let up, hopefully, before the flooding starts.
Marc:And it's reasonable to think from experience that rain will let up or that it won't get as bad as it could get.
Marc:But, you know, lava, I mean, lava, I mean, there's no precedent for lava.
Marc:There's just people hanging out, not letting it ruin their vacations in Hawaii.
Marc:Lava, it's hot, molten rock from the center of the earth.
Marc:And people are just sort of like, I think it's OK.
Marc:How's the lava today?
Marc:It's all right.
Marc:They're not predicting it's going to get too bad.
Marc:How the fuck does anybody know what lava is going to do?
Marc:People are just playing golf.
Marc:They're riding bikes.
Marc:They're not leaving their land.
Marc:The lava, it seems slow moving, but I don't know, man.
Marc:And I'm not, look, I'm sorry if anyone who's listening to this is going through it, but like get some distance, man.
Marc:It's,
Marc:The island you're standing on was made out of lava.
Marc:I don't know how long it took, but probably slowly.
Marc:But who the fuck knows how much is going to blow out of that hole?
Marc:People just, you know, playing volleyball, having a time.
Marc:Newscasters, lava bubbling out of a hole in the earth from the core of the fucking earth.
Marc:Maybe it doesn't go down that deep.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Hot fucking lava just bubbling and spraying out of holes.
Marc:And people are just sort of, it's right over there.
Marc:We don't know how bad it's going to get.
Marc:What if it gets really bad?
Marc:It'll just, you know, the monument to the great volcano in Hawaii of 2018 and when they start excavating in 100, 200 years, not unlike Pompeii, the new excavated bodies, stone bodies taken from this particular natural disaster will just be in mid-golf swing or perhaps he'll catch a kid on a skateboard as he tries to jump a fissure.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:But and I and I got I just it just is sort of baffling.
Marc:And I don't know that I wouldn't do the same thing.
Marc:God knows there's been fires close by and you just hope it doesn't get get too close.
Marc:But you can track that seems a little unpredictable when the earth is going to gurgle and cough its core out at a.
Marc:out into the open and make a new part of the island i don't know i'm not there so i i can't i don't know for sure what's happening i started watching the new season of glow which i am involved with i am an actor on it and i've put it off long enough i've had access to the new season for months
Marc:Not sure why I put it off, but I don't know.
Marc:They're just something it's it's something I don't watch myself that often unless I have to.
Marc:I don't listen to myself that often unless I have to.
Marc:But I wanted to see how everyone else was doing.
Marc:I wanted to see how the show looked.
Marc:I wanted to see how it all came together.
Marc:So I've watched, I think, seven or eight episodes, and it's pretty fucking good.
Marc:Everybody's good.
Marc:And I don't know.
Marc:It is still difficult to watch myself on the show.
Marc:But I'm happy with my work.
Marc:There's definitely room for improvement.
Marc:Anyway, the new season of GLOW is excellent, and you're all going to get to see it on the 29th of this month.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:We'll see if tyranny is the way of the future.
Marc:We'll see if American authoritarianism occurs.
Marc:We'll see how the Mueller team reacts to this new letter from Trump's lawyer saying, hey, man, the press can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Marc:Ain't no rules, just some assumptions.
Marc:No rules, just assumptions.
Marc:Constitution's not specifically clear about the gray area in this, but looks to us, if you chip it away, that the press can do whatever the fuck he wants.
Marc:So you're just lucky he's letting you do what you're doing.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So shut the fuck up.
Marc:Back off, everybody.
Marc:No rules.
Marc:No rules.
Marc:Just assumptions and tradition.
Marc:Write them down, man.
Marc:Somebody better write them the fuck down.
Marc:What else has been happening?
Marc:What's going on with you?
Marc:Anything?
Marc:I've been doing a little comedy again.
Marc:I'm enjoying my house.
Marc:I'm starting to enjoy life.
Marc:And I'm not good at it.
Marc:In these in these horrible times, in these dark times, the ironic thing is I'm starting to enjoy my life a little bit, my house.
Marc:I've been buying some things for the house and I walk around this house all the time, even the garage.
Marc:I love it.
Marc:I love the sound in here now.
Marc:This kid Julian's built up these things, these panels, and I'm kind of closing in on some stuff.
Marc:I'm going to get new windows, but I just, there's something about the focus of this room that I'm really getting off on.
Marc:And I don't know who you are or what your life looks like.
Marc:Maybe it's difficult.
Marc:Maybe it's okay, but things are okay right now for me.
Marc:So I walk around my new house just thinking like, is this going to happen?
Marc:Am I really going to pull this off?
Marc:Is this, am I really going to get to live a nice life?
Marc:Do I deserve it?
Marc:Do I get this?
Marc:Doesn't seem like I get it or I should get it.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:It's just like there's just this dumb wall of whatever the fuck it is in my goddamn brain that's like, this isn't yours.
Marc:So that's my fight.
Marc:So David Harbour
Marc:David Harbour is a great actor, an engaging guy, and I thought he was a little intense when I met him, and now I'm sure of it.
Marc:You can see Seasons 1 and 2 of Stranger Things, both on Netflix.
Marc:He's also in the new Hellboy.
Marc:He is the new Hellboy.
Marc:That comes out next year.
Marc:And we talk about that and other things.
Marc:And also, at the time I recorded this, I was like halfway through Stranger Things season two.
Marc:I was almost done, but I'm done.
Marc:I finished it.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:And it was great to talk to David.
Marc:This is him and I doing that.
Marc:So, here's the deal.
Marc:When I first met you, right, at the SAG Awards, I don't know, it was giddy.
Marc:I think we were out front, and I said, I made a joke, and I don't even know why I felt like I could.
Marc:You were all excited and manic, and I said...
Marc:So I think I said to you, I said, I was hoping you would finish, you know, whatever you started at the Critics' Choice.
Guest:You said that my Critics' Choice thing was described half the season of Stranger Things.
Guest:It was just, it was surely a description of Stranger Things, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you wanted to know what happened kind of at the end of the second season.
Marc:Right, but you were very earnest about the whole thing.
Guest:And your first reaction to me busting your... I love the, yeah, I love the color on the word earnest.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Marc:No, no, no, you were.
Marc:You were excited about what you had written, and I was just making a joke, and your response to me was, fuck you.
Guest:Fuck you.
Guest:I don't know why I felt that I could say that to you.
Marc:No, but then you were like, people said we should talk, and I said you were smoking a cigar.
Guest:I was just sucking on it.
Guest:Yeah, I just chew on them.
Marc:But then I said, all right, well, I'll have the bookers getting charged.
Marc:The bookers.
Marc:And you went, the bookers.
Marc:The bookers.
Marc:Oh, the bookers.
Marc:Yeah, the bookers.
Marc:Okay, the bookers.
Marc:And I'm like, fine, fuck it.
Marc:Give me your phone number.
Guest:It just felt like, you know, have my people call.
Guest:It felt like the biggest slight, the biggest Hollywood slight.
Guest:I mean, I live in New York.
Guest:You know, we like talk to people.
Guest:We come out here and people want the bookers to help you out.
Guest:The bookers.
Marc:and then i said give me your phone number you gave me your phone number then i texted you once about the bookers and you said i don't think i should have given you my phone number and then i said no no we're gonna handle it and you're like okay good and then i texted you again and you don't get him anymore and i said did i cause him to change his phone number yeah that was no that was funny did you text me again yeah you did wow yeah no no i have a different number my um
Guest:I had an Instagram thing that happened where my phone number got released on Instagram.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:And I didn't know it.
Guest:And I looked at my phone and I suddenly got like a hundred missed calls from like Topeka, Kansas.
Guest:But was it just fans?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I checked a couple of the messages and they were like,
Guest:Hello.
Guest:Hundreds of messages of that.
Guest:And I was like, what do you do in these situations?
Guest:I guess you change your number.
Guest:I've never changed my number though.
Guest:That's a kind of horrific experience because you're sort of known.
Guest:And then you have a list of contacts, mainly people that I don't speak to.
Guest:But occasionally you get people who like you don't really know who texting you.
Guest:And they're like, they don't have your number anymore.
Guest:But I feel presumptuous to actually send my new number out to someone like you.
Guest:Like it feels a little bit like aggressive to be like, hey, you know, if you need to contact me.
Marc:No, it's better that I just think you're a big shot.
Marc:Like my two texts, you're like, that's it.
Marc:I think I texted you a picture of a cigar I was smoking and I texted you the other day, uh, just cause I knew you were coming on and they, you know, they show up green.
Marc:Is that a blue?
Marc:Like they're just texting into nowhere.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:And, uh, I've never met someone who changed their number.
Guest:Thank you for that.
Marc:Well, no, I mean, that number, probably they'll redistribute it eventually.
Guest:Yeah, you know, because I actually have some guy's number now.
Guest:I shouldn't have changed my number because I have Earl's number.
Guest:Earl.
Guest:And Earl gets calls from all kinds of people.
Guest:I get normal personal calls where I'm like, Earl doesn't live here anymore.
Guest:And then he gets a lot of like, he's got some credit or something.
Guest:Like they're always offering him deals.
Marc:Well, you know, that goes with the name Earl.
Marc:You know, you can't.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you don't meet a lot of Earls that are in good shape.
Marc:It's true.
Guest:Earl is like one of those names where you have to be around 60 or 70.
Guest:The kids aren't being called... The children aren't being called Earl anymore, right?
Guest:I don't know why not.
Guest:I think it's maybe... I feel like it's a throwback to like... It's way back.
Guest:...medieval times.
Guest:The Earl of... Maybe.
Marc:It's the...
Marc:I thought it was more of a small townie name, like Earl.
Marc:That's Earl the Farmer.
Marc:Like, there he is.
Guest:Earl out of his tractor.
Marc:But it is not one of those ones that was resurrected by the hipsters, like with the Jacobs and the Phoenixes and the mountains and the whatever they are, Parkers, and I don't know.
Marc:What are those fucking names?
Marc:Truths.
Marc:Oh, is there some truths?
Marc:Yeah, Starlight, Truth, Ernest.
Marc:That's not even names.
Marc:They're like, you know, we're done.
Marc:We're tapped out on names.
Marc:They're just naming things.
Guest:Dog.
Marc:But so, okay.
Marc:So that makes me happy because it wasn't adding up that you would still be coming over if I had caused you to change your number.
Marc:So we got that.
Guest:I'm glad that you took that on though.
Guest:I appreciate you.
Guest:Oh no, I'll take anything.
Guest:Yeah, I love it.
Guest:I love that neurosis.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:Self-hatred.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Oh, it's so good.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Well, I find people with a lot of... I actually do find people with a lot of self-hatred or an unhealthy amount of self-hatred, like sort of beautiful people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that we do have a certain... Like, you'd rather take it out on yourself than on someone else, right?
Marc:Well, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's sort of like, you know, if someone says, I'm going to kick your ass, you're like, nah, I'm on it.
Marc:Don't...
Guest:no need i got it covered yeah yeah you just you just look at it like even when you're angry at someone else you know that that person is just sad inside and they're the angriest at themselves sure and that sort of makes you feel like oh it's okay yeah yeah no yeah maybe that's kind of an excuse that i have when i get forgetting angry at people is that they know that that might be some sort of justification oh sure like if you were bad behavior
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, have you worked that into your apologies with the crying lady?
Marc:Hey, look, I'm so sad.
Marc:I'm sorry that I said those things.
Guest:You know, not in that direct a language, but yes, some form of that.
Guest:Yes, I'm sure I have.
Guest:Be it in a look or an eyebrow raise or something like that.
Marc:Yeah, no, it's hard to have... Well, I think I'm older than you, and believe me, the unresolved... I think you're older than me, too.
Marc:I am.
Marc:The unresolved self-hatred eventually becomes exhausting, and you realize, like, do I really need to have this be part of my process anymore?
Marc:Because for some reason, most of your life, you think it's not a choice, and it kind of isn't, but you can temper it, you know what I mean?
Marc:Eventually...
Marc:It becomes exhausting to other people.
Marc:It's self-involved.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:That's true.
Guest:Doesn't it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it does.
Guest:I mean, it's a funny thing even in terms of stress in general.
Guest:I've always had a feeling as an artist that you have to be more in touch with all kinds of things, even the idea of your personal truth.
Guest:yeah which can be very annoying to people do you know what i mean and at a certain point you're kind of like whether or not i have to say my truth at this point or whether or not i have to be even true to that right like maybe i can just be happy and maybe i can just like shut my mouth yeah just gotta chill out and a little uncomfortable but like in the long run that'll be a better way to live right certainly yeah but it depends where all that other stuff's being stored
Guest:Yeah, because it can be sublimated and then come out in really creepy ways.
Marc:Yeah, I'm happy.
Marc:And then one day you just lose it.
Guest:I'm the coffee maker.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's broken.
Marc:Now I got to clean this up.
Marc:That could go for that's a metaphor for anything.
Marc:Look, I broke it.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I like the idea of you just stomping around your house after five years of sublimating stuff, just breaking.
Marc:Just breaking everything.
Guest:I broke it.
Guest:Everything's broken.
Marc:I broke it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then someone comes over and you're just sitting there smiling.
Marc:I feel better.
Marc:I feel better now.
Marc:It doesn't look good.
Marc:But I wonder ultimately...
Marc:That, you know, clearly we have something in common, which is our expectations that we set for ourselves are unreachable.
Marc:And, you know, which, you know, becomes, you know, like that's what self-hatred is.
Marc:Like what is self-hatred really?
Marc:I'm not good enough.
Marc:Who are you comparing yourself to?
Marc:Everyone.
Marc:Do you have a personal goal in mind?
Marc:No.
Guest:It's just a constant comparison coming up short.
Guest:Constantly coming up short.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a hard place to keep yourself.
Guest:I've done pretty well.
Guest:It's natural.
Marc:And I think that it has informed your roles.
Guest:Oh, absolutely.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Thank you for noticing.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:No, the work that you are drawn to is also drawn to you.
Marc:Oh, dude, that moment in Black Mass where you're like, we're fucked.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's how I wake up in the morning.
Guest:That's exactly how I wake up.
Marc:What's that other actor's name, Egerton?
Guest:Yeah, Egerton.
Marc:Egerton, he's good, but he's sitting there like, nah, it's going to work.
Marc:And you're like, what are you talking about?
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah, that's close to home.
Marc:Oh, but like with Stranger Things, which I, you know, it was funny because it was one of those things where I'm like, I don't know, there's fantasy stuff.
Marc:Wait, was it the fantasy stuff or was it the hype stuff?
Guest:Because I feel like I wouldn't have watched it as a result of the hype stuff.
Marc:I don't pay that much attention to hype.
Marc:I mean, eventually I get to things, but I just thought it was for kids.
Marc:What do I know?
Marc:But then again, I watched The Shape of Water, and I didn't think I was going to watch that, but I was going to watch the Oscar movies.
Marc:And even if it was fantasy and the guy was a fish guy, I was going to be pretty upset if he didn't live.
Marc:I was going to turn it off.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:i'm like if this goes that way if the fish guy if the fish guy dies i'm not gonna be able to really deal with life for like two or three days that movie really affected you everything you have like aquatic empathy like true aquatic empathy well i i'm finding as i get older and as the world ends that you know i'm very you know raw and sort of open so yeah but i'm also as you get older do you think that's sentimentality or do you think that's like do you just get wistfully sentimental about all sorts of things
Marc:I think what's happening is, you know, because I've had an incredible lack of ability to function, you know, in my real life comfortably with intimacy, that all the emotions are coming out in weird places.
Yeah.
Guest:When you're watching fish movies.
Marc:Sure, by myself.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:On the couch.
Marc:I do a lot of that too.
Marc:Sobbing, eating something.
Guest:Three in the morning, just weeping.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Slowly, quietly weeping.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:It's a beautiful image.
Marc:I would take that with me.
Marc:And then you stop yourself.
Marc:And you're like, why am I stopping?
Guest:She has gills.
Guest:They are meant to be together.
Guest:They're going to be all right.
Guest:They're going to be all right.
Marc:And then the sad part about crying by yourself is when you stop yourself.
Marc:You're sort of like, that's it.
Marc:Who are you doing that for?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:I'm glad you vocalize it too, talking to yourself about it.
Marc:So like with Stranger Things though,
Marc:I have a propensity from back in the day when I was, I think, a little more borderline personality disorder and a little more hopped up on cocaine.
Marc:I was pretty conspiracy-minded a couple decades ago.
Marc:So anything that triggers my shadow government node.
Marc:I swear to God, for about the first six episodes, I'm like, this kind of makes sense.
Marc:This is not so far-fetched.
Marc:Sure, we don't know what the hole is or why the fuck they opened it.
Marc:But they did.
Marc:The jump from MKUltra acid to that hole.
Marc:It's not that big of a leap.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I wish they'd go into it a little more.
Guest:So you thought it was a documentary.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, a little bit.
Marc:At the beginning, I'm like, you know, I think they... I know the kids are cute, but where's the explanation for the whole... It doesn't matter, really, because I like... I know the kid, you know, has these gifts, and, you know, there's other universes, and it was from the hallucinogenics and the experiments where, you know, they were able to tap into these other universes through...
Marc:what aren't hallucinations, somehow they've manifested the whole to the parallel universe that anyone who's done acid or mushrooms knows.
Guest:Even if you weren't part of it.
Marc:It's just Maya or whatever.
Marc:It's always like when you're tripping, you're sort of like, did I just see an elf?
Marc:There's a moment, there's something on the periphery.
Guest:Where you're like... It's all illusion anyway.
Marc:This is all the... Right.
Marc:Well, there's that.
Marc:But then there's actually like... What's that fucking guy's name?
Marc:I always forget.
Marc:Guy wrote a book.
Marc:He was sort of positioning himself to be the modern sort of Timothy Leary hallucinogenic.
Marc:He was at the cutting edge of the new interest in... What's that new hallucinogen that people are doing now?
Marc:Like little hipsters are going down to...
Marc:oh ayahuasca yeah yeah he was like at the beginning of that and but he sort of he the point is he sort of you know in his book sort of states that through his hallucinatory experiences he believes there's a parallel universe that's sort of got beings in it so that's that's my only point and now and now what's happened in stranger things is somehow or another you know they they open the door to it hopefully to me this will be something that we explore further i mean they have to sort of
Guest:they have to sort of explain what it is eventually.
Guest:Like, is it the future?
Guest:Is it a parallel universe?
Guest:Pinchbeck.
Guest:Daniel Pinchbeck.
Guest:No idea.
Guest:It's all right.
Guest:Daniel Pinchbeck wrote Elves on the Edges?
Guest:No.
Marc:no no it's all a clown show that's what that's what i took from it elves on the edges it really does sound like the title of my autobiography i mean i'm like really excited about that title no he wrote uh elves on the edges it should be called that hold on no the book that i oh come on
Marc:Breaking open the head, a psychedelic journey into the heart of contemporary shamanism.
Guest:Shamanism.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:2012, the return of Kitsikotl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like shamanism.
Guest:That's cool.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Well, I went through a huge phase.
Guest:Who's that guy?
Guest:Ecclid or something?
Guest:I wrote a book about shamanism that I tried to read like 800 pages of and then got pretty bored.
Marc:How long?
Marc:Tell me the truth.
Marc:As a self-hating, self-centered guy.
Guest:Or how about this?
Guest:How about this?
Guest:You ever read Julian Jaynes?
Guest:No.
Guest:The breakdown of the bicameral mind?
Marc:I've seen that book.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The origin of consciousness and the breakdown of the bicameral mind.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The bicameral mind is basically this idea, which I find kind of interesting, right?
Guest:Which is like in Greek times, like you know you had Athena going and inspiring Telemachus in the Odyssey or something?
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:So the idea of God- Guy can't just do something because he feels like it.
Guest:Well, yeah, but he actually doesn't have consciousness.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Like, they're saying that it doesn't, like, like, at that time, people didn't have consciousness.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They just, the consciousness was broken down by this idea of gods and people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, like, even the idea of genius, like, living in the walls, like, all these ideas were that actually the people back then weren't conscious.
Guest:And the consciousness sort of incorporates these two sides of the brain.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:The gods and, like.
Guest:Oh, well, that's good.
Guest:It's kind of interesting, yeah.
Marc:So, like, how many pages in did you stop?
Marc:I did.
Guest:I think it was page 54.
Guest:By the way, shut up.
Guest:In terms of stopping on pages, I would like to say that the bookshelf over here is... Oh, have you talked about the bookshelf?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:I have to say, like Gravity's Rainbow stuck out at me as like... 12 pages.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:i was like gravity's right but you gotta have it no it looks so smart no no i leave it up there because i'm gonna try it i'm gonna try it again eventually you're gonna try it like you're gonna be like 90 but no but like i've talked about like underlining you know a lot but like all it all stops in page 13 to 45.
Guest:Also, can I talk to you about the underlining book thing?
Guest:Because, like, you sit there with a pen and underline a book, right?
Guest:I do, yeah.
Guest:Do you ever go back and look at what you've underlined?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You do?
Marc:Well, no, and I'm always like, really?
Marc:Like, that's what, like, I'm sure... Yeah, I know it's so stupid, right?
Guest:You read the paragraph and you're like, I underlined that line?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, no.
Guest:Why that line?
Guest:Like, that book, I don't think I underlined in that book.
Guest:What's this, Brothers Karamazov or Happiness for Dummies?
Guest:A lot of times I underlined...
Guest:Oh, here we go.
Guest:It's a dramatic reading.
Guest:We're eventually getting to mustache grooming, aren't we?
Guest:That's really what I came here for.
Guest:It's about the same, isn't it?
Marc:I love this book.
Marc:It's called Securing the City, Inside America's Best Counter-Terror Force, the NYPD.
Marc:It's a book about how the NYPD became its own security entity after 9-11 because they didn't really have this financial support from the FBI, U.S.
Marc:government, or the CIA who was battling with the FBI.
Marc:So New York had it sort of taken on itself.
Marc:to put together the best security force in the world through the NYPD.
Marc:It's a great book.
Marc:Well, the thing is, is like when I was going through it, I saw like one, there was one underline in that, like that's always the good ones where it's just like, like it looked like I just, I underlined one bit of dialogue in here and I think I remember what it is.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:I love this because I've sort of paraphrased this before.
Marc:He's talking to a cop.
Marc:The sergeant liked to use cop speak to simplify big issues.
Marc:He told me an old homicide detective once told him, as they stood looking at a body in the street, that the motives for all murders, quote, come down to three things, pussy, fear, and money, unquote.
Marc:And he paused.
Marc:And I've thought about that since, you know.
Marc:Then the older I get, the more I think, yeah, that's about right, unquote.
Guest:No, that's like right out of a film noir.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Marc:That's ridiculous.
Marc:Well, why wouldn't I underline that?
Guest:That's supposed to be real.
Guest:Yeah, that's a brilliant underline.
Guest:Mine are much stupider than that.
Guest:Congratulations.
Marc:Big concepts.
Marc:No, we can find some stupid ones.
Guest:No, that's good, though.
Guest:That's a good one.
Marc:I guess the point of this, like what I was getting to when you bring up...
Marc:uh because i what i hear when you say you know you you've you've gone on some of these spiritual journeys or you're open to this or that shamanism or whatever yeah it's not unlike me you know like i'm fascinated with it but i'm not i'm not hanging any hope on it do you know you don't mean like i'll look into it
Marc:But I don't see myself as a guy on a spiritual quest.
Marc:I know what that looks like.
Guest:I don't see you as that guy either.
Marc:My brother's kind of that guy.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And it doesn't always work out.
Guest:No, no, no, no, no.
Guest:I've actually, I mean, I'm 42 now, right?
Guest:So I've had 20 years of doing this stuff.
Guest:Doing what stuff?
Guest:Well, like getting fascinated by religious journeys.
Guest:I mean, for a while, like when I was, I mean, it's funny that you sort of lucked into this.
Guest:I don't know if you have some weird kind of like shaman intuition, but it had been a big part of my life until recently where I actually gave it up entirely.
Guest:You lost your faith.
Guest:i lost my idea that like i mean for me i was always looking for the answer and i guess that like now i don't care about the answer and i don't i i don't even want to ask the question and i'm like totally fine with dying it's enough you know you're dying yeah like and i'm cool with that like i don't need an afterlife i don't even need a reincarnation like i'm oh it sounds exhausting the afterlife this has to keep going
Guest:I mean, what if forever?
Guest:Yeah, that's the funny thing.
Guest:I mean, like, it does.
Guest:Like, I'm good with consciousness being like 60 or 70 years, and then we're like, good.
Marc:Like, I've kind of done what I... Even if our consciousness goes back into the big pool.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:We're not going to know about it.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:We're not going to be like, oh, spread out.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Well, that's the funny thing about, because here's the thing, like I have a friend who, this is funny, a college fraternity brother.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We went to Dartmouth together.
Guest:Oh, you were one of those guys.
Guest:Frack guys.
Guest:No, it was just because like everybody at Dartmouth was like, no, I know, I know.
Guest:Don't worry about it.
Guest:Yeah, okay, thanks.
Guest:But anyway, he became a Buddhist monk with a guy called Thich Nhat Hanh.
Guest:Oh, yeah, the anger guy.
Guest:Sure, he's a lot of things.
Guest:I mean, like, but sure, the anger guy.
Marc:Didn't he write a book about anger?
Guest:Yeah, he wrote a book.
Guest:He's written like 80 books, though.
Guest:That was the one that was gifted to me.
Guest:Well, I'm not surprised.
Guest:The one you were drawn to, like a bug light.
Guest:It was given to me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Here, I hope this.
Maybe this will...
Guest:But anyway, there's a monastery down in Escondido that he's at.
Guest:I would go visit him down there.
Guest:And I'd go hang with the monks.
Guest:And I got really into Buddhism for a while.
Guest:And it is funny.
Guest:But this idea even about reincarnation is that you don't get to take.
Guest:The one thing you don't get to take with you is your ego.
Guest:So any of your own knowledge of yourself.
Guest:Self-awareness.
Guest:Yeah, you don't get to take.
Guest:What a ripoff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, or how great.
Guest:As to our point, after 60 or 70, I'm going to be done with my own ego.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:I'm ready to put that to bed.
Guest:It's done its job.
Marc:I don't know how your dad's doing, but it hangs on.
Guest:Late 70s, not giving up that easy ego.
Guest:Hanging pretty tight.
Guest:um but i did no i did go on like it was funny even when i was 20 i think when i was 25 i uh i got into a catholicism and i uh what were you born as converted to catholicism i was born as like a christmas eve protestant which is like you just go to light the candles on christmas eve and you know sing songs so where'd you grow up
Guest:In Westchester County.
Marc:Which town?
Guest:White Plains.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so nice New York.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's nice.
Marc:It snows.
Marc:There are seasons.
Marc:There are trees.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah, and then you can just drive to the city maybe.
Guest:Well, yeah, or take that Metro North train, the ice storm train or whatever.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Don't get electrocuted.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:So, all right.
Marc:So, so your parents, what would they do?
Marc:The real estate.
Guest:My dad was real estate, commercial real estate in White Plains.
Guest:Oh, in White Plains.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Small timer.
Guest:Yeah, sort of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They had a good business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A couple of office parks, a shopping mall.
Guest:yeah exactly exactly i remember you know actually one of the fondest memories i have of my dad was like driving around i think when i was like eight or nine and i remember him like he never talked about business with me yeah like he would never at dinner it would always be about me yeah he would never talk about anything and then we drove around white plains and at one point he had a sign yeah on like a big building yeah big old sears or something right and it was like the sign of like and he was like
Guest:I'm leasing out that building and I was like it was like the most exciting thing and it was the first time that my dad ever like was proud of business in front of me and I was like this is cool dad I was like that's amazing yeah it said like it said like his company like HCR and it was like
Guest:his small business because it was his business yeah he he ran him and like i think he hired another guy at one point yeah but it was a very small white plains uh real estate business what about your mom and my mom was a homemaker until we left for uh college she real she was a housewife yeah um what'd she end up doing she and she wound up doing real estate right she wound up doing uh residential got her residential yeah yeah
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Got her license.
Marc:Got her picture on the sign.
Marc:It's a common theme.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:And business cards and park benches.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:My mom sends me her real estate calendar with her picture on it every year.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Tell me they're an agent.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:It's a calendar.
Guest:She's still in it.
Marc:Yeah, but she doesn't have the disposition for it.
Marc:She's not a killer.
Marc:She's down in Florida.
Marc:In her development, if she knows the person, it seems...
Marc:they let her sell the house for them.
Marc:But she's never been a snake.
Marc:Yeah, my mom too.
Guest:My mom too.
Guest:I mean, my mom was always a creative.
Guest:I got all of my creativity from my mom.
Guest:She just never sort of had the opportunity to sort of be creative.
Marc:oh yeah so how do you know my mom my mom paints and she started painting again really yeah yeah yeah she painted when i was a kid and she kind of gave up on it like she got crushed i think she went to get her masters when i was like you know in my 20s and i think it was just too much for her to be the older lady in the yeah yeah my mom would do these things she would do like crochet and needlepoint and stuff oh yeah she was a kid and then she also made these things which i would love to find them but she would make like
Guest:like because they all grew up in texas and houston oh really yeah so like uh real southern weird like irish irish by way of houston by way of like stainless steel for oil uh-huh so like big sort of uh matriarch oil company from her side of the family from her side of the family and very much like you ever watch dallas yeah you know like a little bit like dallas sure not as much money but like this is texas
Guest:I could see how you could fit into that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure, I would go down there.
Guest:They were my favorite family because they were Irish.
Guest:They were charming.
Guest:And you're tall and you can handle a hat.
Guest:Yeah, and I had a little hat when I was a little cowboy from five years old.
Guest:I used to have that little cowboy hat with the armadillo pin.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, it was like a tie pin that I found that was an armadillo.
Guest:I put it right in the front.
Guest:Had your boots.
Guest:I remember we used to, yeah, and I remember we used to play poker in the back room of the corporation.
Guest:It was called the Riley Corporation.
Guest:It was like one, because they didn't do any business basically.
Guest:So me and the guys would play.
Marc:This is the oil business?
Guest:Yeah, it was a stainless steel for oil, but like they weren't doing any business.
Marc:I mean, it was all done.
Guest:These are cousins, second cousins?
Guest:Well, so these were like dudes who worked in the office who I loved because I would just go sit with them.
Guest:They were fascinating, like older guys.
Guest:I was like six and like these guys would just make jokes and we would buy like, they got me into like blow guns.
Guest:Do you know what blow guns are?
Guest:Like darts?
Guest:Yeah, like darts.
Guest:They'd buy me things like that and like bows.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:and then um at one point we played like poker you know i was so excited these guys seem like really uh good with kids yeah so here's the thing so one of them won he said he i didn't have enough money or enough chips and i he was like well let's bet your hat and i was like uh okay okay and i lost and all day long he wore this like teeny cowboy hat around taunted me and i was like
Guest:I mean, crying.
Guest:I couldn't believe it.
Guest:I lost my head.
Guest:You're crying?
Guest:Yeah, like the whole day and him just sitting at his desk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Of course, man.
Guest:This was a different time.
Guest:First of all, a time that I kind of miss.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like, these guys were hard guys, you know?
Guest:I mean, and even in terms of the show, like Stranger Things, like that guy is modeled on all these guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Guys who were like, you don't cry as a guy.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:But like, I was so miserable and he just wore it around all day.
Guest:Like, you know?
Guest:Walked around the office all day with this teeny tiny cowboy hat.
Guest:When did he give it back?
Guest:And then he gave it back to me at the end of the day.
Guest:So hours.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, like a full day.
Guest:Like a full business day.
Guest:Hey, what did you learn from that, David?
Guest:What did that man teach you?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:There was nothing.
Guest:There was no lesson.
Guest:It was just funny.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:I mean, looking back, it's a great, I recall it with fondness.
Guest:At the time, it was painful, sure.
Guest:Sure, it was an adult hurting you on purpose.
Guest:Yeah, actively for no reason.
Guest:I mean, I guess don't play poker.
Guest:There you go.
Marc:And it's sort of like you got to pay your debt.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:If you make choices, there are consequences.
Guest:that's what you learned that day exactly yeah exactly so you know hold on to your hat but uh but my mom did used to make with her sister she made these like trash cans and they would cut out like from magazines from like old magazines like even National Geographic or Time or Life or whatever and like all these scenes yeah and they would make these scenes with like some kind of thick resiny yellowy rubber cement type thing and cover the whole thing yeah and they were beautiful but I uh
Guest:They're gone?
Guest:Yeah, they're gone.
Guest:I don't know where they are.
Guest:Are your parents around?
Guest:They are.
Guest:They're in Westchester.
Marc:You can ask her.
Guest:I could, yeah.
Guest:I mean, the thing is, we sort of fell out with that family in Texas, so we kind of don't talk to them much anymore.
Marc:Oh, I thought it was your mom's trash cans.
Guest:They were, but I think that they were sort of in a closet in my grandma's place, right?
Guest:Oh, so you fell out with the grandma?
Guest:Well, it all sort of, after she died, it all sort of fell apart.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Money.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Is that what happens just to everybody?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Just reading that book, Money, Pussy, and Fear.
Marc:That's why people die.
Marc:I imagine it trickles down.
Guest:And it's why relationships die.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:It's because of... Yeah, it was one of the three.
Marc:That's the triangle.
Guest:I think there was some fear as well.
Guest:That's the trinity.
Guest:But yeah, it's a funny thing though.
Guest:It actually really soured me on money with my family.
Guest:I can't... I don't want...
Marc:i mean i do fine but i don't want any sort of inheritance like i want to give that all to my sister like it freaks me out that people get like yeah i'm not hung up on that either you know but i i guess i understand it if the stakes are big enough but it always like i realize as i read the paper and i see people's behavior uh you know sort of in their shameless lack of uh of a moral compass when it comes to weird like i don't understand the evil like greed like i really don't understand like i don't get either like because me and
Guest:You both.
Guest:It sounds like you, like, I live in a 450 square foot, like, alcove studio in the East Village.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, like, I don't have a, like, if I have a family, I'll probably need another bedroom or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, like, the idea that you need so much stuff.
Guest:I didn't think that way.
Guest:Like, why do we need so much stuff?
Marc:I just bought a bigger house and I don't have enough stuff to fill it and I feel a little weird about it, but I just felt like maybe it would be interesting to experience more space because it doesn't look like I'm gonna have a family.
Marc:But my point is here is that for me, outside of giving money to charity, maybe I could use a little to expand my quality of life.
Marc:But I never grew up, and I've thought about this a lot recently, is that people who set out to make money figure out a way to make money in the same way that you talk about the work.
Guest:Yeah, the achievement.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Guest:And it's a thing.
Guest:It's a thing they want.
Marc:It's all they want.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that is, but it's just numbers.
Marc:What are you going to do with your life?
Marc:I'm going to make money.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I got to figure out a way.
Marc:What's my hustle?
Marc:What's my racket?
Marc:How do I, you know, how, what, what angle am I going to work to make the money to have that life?
Marc:And, but with the suing and the, and all that stuff, it's sort of like, you know, like I just, I don't, I can't deal with what it turns people into.
Marc:You know, and I and it's not all the individual.
Marc:I mean, I've gone through one divorce that was not so bad and another divorce that was fucking awful.
Marc:You know, and it was just it was about, you know, money.
Marc:It wasn't an entitlement.
Marc:And, you know, in retrospect, I understand it.
Guest:You know, it's also a way to hurt someone.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like in those negotiations.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's just a way to like.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But a lot of times they're turned out by evil fucking lawyers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everybody likes to hurt people.
Guest:I mean, come on.
Guest:Like, let's, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Look at that guy with your hat.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It goes way back.
Guest:That was the lawyers, though, Mark.
Marc:And also, like, as a kid, I gravitated towards charismatic older guys because my dad was relatively emotionally unattentive.
Marc:And I liked, you know, the stories and they seemed to have a defined sense of selves.
Marc:In spiritual senses?
Marc:No, just like when you talk about hanging around with the old guys.
Marc:When you're younger, you're just sort of like, they're just whole people.
Marc:And they're like, look, that guy seems to have a shit.
Marc:He's a whole thing.
Marc:I went through most of my life being like, I'm ill-defined.
Marc:And I don't have any boundaries.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Am I a person?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Do I have a personality?
Marc:It was always reactive.
Marc:Most of my personality is built on reacting badly, generally.
Marc:And eventually I got funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't know if that's something you had to deal with.
Guest:No, I mean, that makes a lot of sense.
Guest:I mean, I identify tremendously with that idea that this ill-defined thing.
Guest:I mean, I remember even in high school writing an essay about how I felt like an alien, like watching human beings from afar.
Guest:I was very much kind of a quiet person who would kind of watch and study.
Guest:And that even bled into my fascination with religion or spirituality.
Guest:It was just this idea that other people had an answer that I didn't have.
Guest:And I sort of walked around with this like fleshy thing that felt porous and like was weird and awkward and like I felt awkward in my skin.
Marc:Where's my instruction manual?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And you guys are all walking around like doing things in the world.
Marc:Yeah, like you have the answers.
Marc:I get that when I see a guy with a leaf blower sometimes.
Marc:I'm like, that guy's got it figured out.
Marc:Probably, you know, he's got a solid guy in place.
Marc:I think that's good.
Guest:Keeps you humble, you know?
Marc:Simple life.
Marc:But every time I have that fantasy of like, you know, I'm just going to go off the grid.
Marc:I can't, not unlike with drugs and alcohol and stuff, which I haven't done in years.
Marc:It's sort of like, I know like if I do that, then like, you know, by day three, I'm going to be like, oh, what'd I do?
Marc:You know, I'm in that fucking cabin.
Guest:enough cell coverage yeah but no i did the same thing i i i don't do that stuff anymore either for years and years what oh really yeah you're off the all the shit yeah yeah off the shit for 15 years yeah yeah although i did have a little dalliance when i was out here um like five years ago i had a little a dip into what they know uh you guys have medicine out here yeah medicinal
Marc:Oh, you rationalized?
Guest:I tried some of that.
Marc:You're like, I'm not great.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Oh, this medicine?
Guest:It wasn't my, it never was my thing.
Guest:It's like, yeah, you guys are all doing this for about three months and then like severe depression.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:I mean, it was a good thing to go back.
Guest:You went, oh, wow.
Guest:I mean, I can't do otherwise.
Guest:Like, I can't do otherwise.
Guest:I got a card and, you know, and it was funny because I was working.
Marc:You're the asshole who believed the doctor, right?
Marc:Oh, he's right.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Guest:No, but no, I went to Dr. Feelgood on Venice Boulevard who looked like the sickest person I've ever met.
Marc:Isn't he on the boardwalk?
Marc:Yeah, it was on the Venice boardwalk.
Guest:You pay 200 bucks or something.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:But he, yeah, I remember I was working on a TV show where I was like a regular, but I would only work like once every two weeks.
Marc:Too much time to hang around California.
Guest:And all I would do is sit in my house in Venice and just like eat gummies and, you know, just, and it was, it was so sad.
Guest:This sounds like a short film I'd like to see.
Guest:or you would avoid like the plague like either one you'd either really rush out to see it or no i think it should be called gummies but like were you were you uh were you a program guy yeah yeah so did you have to start over yeah oh yeah it's humiliating i had like 13 years and also like it was i gotta say like i'm sorry i'm laughing but you know i i can because we if you have i don't know it's not no it's it's humiliating it's absolutely humiliating my biggest
Guest:fear it's like i swear to god no and i got well so you know what's funny is god i wish you were at the meeting when i came back because i have to say like i i said that adam so i was like 10 days or something right right and i and i they were like it was a pitch it's a it's a super intense pitch meeting yeah like where the it's like a bunch of your 10 days your 10 days back yeah he's back in the old time i'm like
Guest:what do you got to say?
Guest:And you're like, hi, I'm Damon.
Guest:And then I was like, listen, I'm just, you know, I'm just feeling really bad about myself.
Guest:Like I had, you know, I had 13, 10 days.
Guest:Like I feel like just a jerk.
Guest:And then like the next guy cross-talked me.
Guest:Oh man.
Guest:And was like,
Guest:that's your ego talking you are a selfish like and i was like oh my god i i just want to die and like you're like you're selfish because you want to die i was like oh thanks welcome back you're the most important person in the room yeah yeah right thanks a lot for the support and the malignant tough love i mean yeah exactly
Guest:But I will say in defense of the program that there were many people that came up to me and was like, you know, that's not the way we do it here.
Marc:Yeah, that's the great thing about it.
Marc:And I supported 100 percent.
Marc:Like, it's not so much.
Marc:I mean, I obviously, you know, and I always say I don't represent it, but I don't know another way.
Marc:This is the way I know.
Marc:So I know that, you know, when people ask me about that, if I get emails and stuff, I'm like, go to a fucking meeting.
Marc:I mean, it'll work or it won't work, but it's a way and it's a context and it doesn't cost nothing.
Marc:And you just go.
Marc:And, you know, if it doesn't stick, you know, whatever.
Marc:But that's all that's really like anywhere you go, you can go to that thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:like anywhere yeah i mean i've been in texas where for some reason if i'm on the road and i look up a meeting i will go to the worst one yeah i would all the time i will be like where am i is this do people live in this neighborhood i went to english speaking meetings in um bulgaria yeah mexico yeah like paris expats yeah it's great it's great but okay so so what what do you end up how do you end up moving towards acting
Guest:Okay, so that was, so basically what happens is like when I was, I mean, I've always been a hand bone.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, my younger sister, seven years younger.
Guest:But she, you know, the first seven years developmentally are like sort of the most important.
Guest:So I was an only child sort of for the first seven years.
Guest:Yeah, and look what happened.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So I have a lot of the components of, like a lot of the traits of an only child.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, sort of, yeah.
Marc:So do you know your sister's name?
Guest:It's foggy, but I...
Guest:i can think if i go through my phone yeah lucky her no no i love her very much i love her very much we're close but it's it was you know it was hard for a while but um yeah so i it was funny like when i i think that it came out of that feeling so like at first it was kind of a hand bone quality like you're entertaining your parent you're entertaining for some messed up reason trying to get love somehow exactly or trying to solve problems golden child
Marc:sort of situation like I can fix problems that aren't beyond my control and the horrible thing about being the special golden child thing or the first I was the first kid and the first grandkid both sides oh yeah yeah okay is that like they eventually if you manage to you know sort of you know entertain them sufficiently they'll always think you have your shit together over anybody else and you and inside you're like no no no yeah
Guest:Well, you don't really show them that you don't, right?
Marc:No, because you're putting on a show.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:How could they know?
Guest:Well, they should.
Guest:They're your fucking parents, and you should have some intuition.
Guest:This kid's acting out.
Guest:Everybody wants to just steal your hat.
Guest:No, so I...
Guest:So yeah, so basically what happened was when I got to be like in high school and stuff, I sort of was drawn to that feeling of feeling uncomfortable in my skin and being confused by human beings.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like just constantly confused.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Led me to a couple different outlets, one of which was drinking.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then there was also this other outlet where I would see people behave in certain ways and I wouldn't believe them.
Guest:Like they would say certain things and I felt like they would mean something different.
Guest:I just started to see subtext where people were like, we're friends.
Guest:We're friends.
Guest:I love you.
Guest:And you just feel like you hate that person.
Marc:Why would you like me?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or why are you saying something that's completely counter?
Guest:Why are you lying?
Guest:And then the question becomes, why are you lying?
Guest:Why do you have to lie?
Guest:And so I guess my brain just started firing on all these levels of human beings, they're confusing and I hate them.
Guest:And also they're fascinating.
Guest:They're the only thing I want to think about besides spiders.
Guest:I do really love to watch a spider.
Guest:But I was so fascinated by why they make the choices that they do, why they lock themselves into situations that they seem to not like.
Guest:Why don't people live the way they want to?
Guest:Or what is it that they're doing?
Guest:And so that led me to acting.
Guest:And I was like, because I would...
Guest:you're already doing the work well but i was also like an embarrassing person to have around yeah because i would i i mean i would like kind of people would try to be at a party and like talk and i'd be like that guy who was too intense yeah like i think you're sad inside yeah yeah people be like why are you such a creep like what's wrong with you and so you're the guy that sucked the energy out of the room exactly like just completely deflated
Guest:Deflated everything.
Guest:Why is he here?
Guest:There's 20 people in a room.
Guest:Oh, you're so truthful.
Guest:Thanks for ruining everything.
Guest:And so I found that I definitely had this stubborn pride in my ability to deceive people.
Guest:This stubborn, stubborn pride.
Guest:I know something.
Guest:And then I would do it at parties or at friends, and they would be like, you're a horrible human being.
Guest:Stop it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I would go on stage and, like, sort of reveal it, and people would, like, applaud me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so it was very attractive.
Guest:I was like, oh, so this sort of truth or this ability that I think I have to see people, I can do it through art or I can do it through expression of acting.
Guest:But I just, you know.
Guest:And so that made me hungry to do more of that and, like, to read plays and, like, to get into, like –
Guest:you know so instead of like right so instead of like projecting or maybe seeing people for who they yeah and maybe not like but just but you could at least see a character for what i felt the character and inhabit it exactly and reveal what i wanted to reveal through yeah my particular version or whatever like it was i had ownership i don't have ownership of human beings like i can't but i thought i did they don't bend to your will exactly
Guest:I mean, I try my hardest, but I did have ownership of that character and I could do something.
Guest:And so it was a way of having relationships with imaginary or fictitious people that allowed me to bowl them over and use them for my own expression.
Marc:Yeah, in a context-
Guest:a safe space exactly and also where i knew the end of the story sure that was the other thing too was like emotionally i have real problems with conflict and real problems with um uh just like vulnerability emotion in general and so i like to
Guest:I like to know the ends of stories.
Guest:I like to know how things turn out.
Guest:You can behave in a certain way.
Guest:And even in a way, that sculpts what I'm drawn to in story because I do think that you have somewhat of a responsibility as a storyteller to craft for the world, to reveal to the world, if you do this in your life, you'll end up here.
Guest:Or if you do this in your life, you might end up here.
Marc:so how did you lose ultimately you know over time you lost that weird needy intensity no no can't you feel it can't you feel it across the table i feel something but no a lot of what this podcast was is like i don't know you but like i i had an exchange with you that was two minutes but i i decided some things about you okay yeah it
Marc:you know but like i do that with everybody because i talk to people with public personalities here and like you know i'm pretty sure i got a sense of somebody and i'm always it's always a lot of my interviews are are people basically arguing against my idea of who they are yeah yeah yeah that's great though yeah that you get a chance to do that well yeah but i don't project it i'm like no no i i know who you are i know i don't do that that's what i do that's not a good interview
Guest:that's why i don't have a podcast yeah stop talking i got it that's my go-to that's my go-to no i um that's it no but i i mean i guess i do have a brash uh i i do have kind of a brash confidence that is that what you're like what were you saying in reference to losing that needy whatever
Marc:Oh, no, I mean... The interaction at the... No, no, no, no, no.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, because when you're that guy where, like, I feel that my version of that guy or people... You know, I got a friend, you know, who was always pretty intense, but he's sort of a dick about it.
Marc:You know, like when we were younger, you know, he was quiet and difficult and, you know, he was intimidating, but he never let on.
Marc:And, you know, he was just sort of like... He liked being that... Occupying that space.
Marc:But for me, I find that...
Marc:all of that stuff they sort of like no you're sad inside or you know like why are you guys going through this charade there's no point to this game you know like is that there's a need to it like you know i need attention or i'm sad or okay so now we're all on my level which is unhappy and uh how do we fix you're welcome yeah yeah
Marc:Like, you know, it had something to do with that lack of boundaries and not feeling whole.
Marc:But like the gift of sucking the wind out of a room, you know, is, you know, this is not a small, that's a large talent that you have to.
Marc:No, I mean, you got to figure out how to wrangle it, you know, and then turn it in on itself.
Guest:And it seems like you did.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Marc:But so you start pursuing it in high school, the acting?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know, I did as much as I could sort of in middle school.
Guest:There was like little things, but it was mainly hammy.
Guest:But then once I got into high school, I start to, yeah, be really confused about people.
Guest:And I do like school plays.
Guest:Like I just did high school plays and I auditioned for a community theater.
Guest:like all that stuff and i loved it so much yeah like i just yeah it was the only thing besides drinking yeah uh and like girls that like made any sense to me yeah uh so i so yeah i loved it and i actually wanted to drop out of high school sort of like move to new york city at like 17 and just like try do it
Guest:But I was in a community that was very, you know, there was no examples of artists.
Guest:It was all lawyers and doctors and business people and real estate brokers and stuff.
Guest:So I was very much like... And your parents, they get scared when you... Yeah, everybody, you know.
Marc:That's not a good idea.
Guest:Finish high school first.
Guest:Yeah, you're going to go to Dartmouth and you're going to... How'd you get into Dartmouth?
Marc:You must have been smart.
Marc:That was a legacy.
Marc:We take them.
Okay.
Guest:He gave a couple bucks.
Guest:Yeah, no, no, I guess I was smart in a certain way.
Guest:I mean, I was very able to do school.
Guest:Where is that school again?
Guest:It's up in New Hampshire.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:It was hard, though, to go to that type of environment.
Guest:First of all, I think kids going out of high school, it's like, I don't know why people go direct into college.
Guest:I didn't want to go to college.
Marc:Did you go to college?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Marc:I didn't want to go either.
Marc:And then I freaked out my senior year.
Marc:Like I was sort of mediocre grades for all the way through junior year.
Marc:And then like something just lit up in me.
Marc:I'm like, like I had this idea, like I'm just going to hang out, you know, do art here.
Marc:Because I was like, you know, I knew all the groovy people by the university and stuff.
Marc:And then like, I don't know, I just realized like I can't get the fuck out of here.
Marc:And like I did, my senior year, I finally turned all my grades around, but I still couldn't really get into a good school.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Marc:I ended up going to a small college for a year, and then I ended up going to Boston University for four years.
Marc:Five years undergrad.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Took your time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I did a lot of stuff.
Marc:I acted.
Marc:I wrote for the paper.
Marc:I edited.
Marc:I wrote poetry.
Marc:I did all this stuff and cobbled together some sort of major at the end in English and film studies.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that's the thing about college.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:It was like I did read books that I never would read in real life.
Marc:I wish I could go now.
Guest:Me too.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:And I feel like as... I wish that there was a cultural thing.
Guest:I don't feel like... This will be a horrible thing for me to say, but after you graduate high school, don't go to college.
Guest:Go to college when you're...
Marc:25 or something like you're sick of school right right there's that but also like i just knew that like again i wasn't going to be a business guy i didn't really know what i wanted to do but i knew i wanted to be intelligent and intellectual i wanted like what i wanted to know about theater art plays movies you know i that was my goal was to be able to you know have conversations about that because of somebody you know in my life that i was very impressed with
Marc:That guy in that picture on the top of the bulletin board, Gus Blaisdell, like he was this intellectual powerhouse owned a bookstore.
Marc:And, you know, like he was like, you know, I decided that's the model.
Marc:That's that's where it's at.
Marc:You know, know a little bit about everything.
Marc:Engage your creativity.
Marc:It had nothing to do with money, had nothing to do but like explore shit.
Guest:So for me, I mean, as a kid, you have so much energy and so much sort of, but I'm mad that I couldn't understand philosophy.
Marc:I couldn't wrap my brain around shit.
Marc:I'm no good at math.
Marc:So those kinds of courses didn't do anything for me.
Marc:I'm not great at contextualizing, uh, you know, history.
Marc:So a lot of the things that require discipline and, and, and putting things into context.
Marc:not great but you know like i could write and and and you know act and uh you know talk shit about movies that was all good like i still like i i don't know i i couldn't fucking handle writing papers so you didn't really get anything out of college i mean couldn't you have got that by just coming going to new york and like hanging out with a bunch of cool people i guess so but there's also the problem that eventually led to my you know bottoming out on drugs you know so like i'm not sure without the context you know which cradled me in my drug use and at least gave me some
Marc:that's true you know that i because you still had to get up for class yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and you still could you know act like a big shot and do some writing and do some that's true that's true it offers you an opportunity to like yeah be a part of the paper or like whatever yeah right do some yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah but you know my heroes were all the you know wrong ones
Marc:They were good.
Guest:Yeah, mine too, all the ones that wound up in the mental asylums and wound up being on the hogs.
Guest:Yeah, these guys are challenging.
Guest:They're the greatest.
Guest:Sure, right?
Guest:Who are we talking about?
Guest:I mean, for me, it was F. Scott Fitzgerald and all those writers from the 20s.
Guest:Even a guy, do you know a guy called Hart Crane?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so Hart Crane or Tennessee Williams and all these.
Guest:Then even Ezra Pound.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I remember we'd read a lot of that stuff.
Guest:That's accessible stuff.
Guest:Let's get high on it.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Read the cantos of found.
Guest:Yeah, let's read the cantos.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They'll all come together.
Guest:But yeah, all those writers sort of from the turn of the century, like all those millennials of like the 1900s.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:They were all my idols.
Marc:Byron, Shelley, those guys.
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Like big romantic poets, like big bipolar people.
Guest:Whitman, like all those guys.
Marc:So you go to Dartmouth and there's acting there or no?
Guest:uh some yeah i mean that's not where you did the acting well yeah i mean basically it's not through the department though like me and my friends got together we wrote plays oh yeah we would put on our own plays oh yeah i started writing and i started getting into like you know avant-garde directors um like you know at the time like steven burkhoff and like you know physical theaterish contour and like
Guest:you know we read like a lot of kutowski and things like that so we were really into like kind of avant-garde the richard foreman and like these guys that we robert wilson so we came to new york together even people like i remember loving like mary zimmerman like we all took a road trip and uh went to go see like journey of the west like which is a based on like a
Guest:an ancient fable like oh yeah and um so yeah you started king and stuff and so it was sort of like mythic but foreman it was like we had this whole aesthetic but your interest was like right out of the gate really kind of provocative envelope pushing theater
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was very heady stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I look back on it as being not the most effective or provocative stuff I could have done, but at the time, I felt that it was.
Marc:Well, it was arty, and you were young.
Guest:Yeah, and you're young, and that's what you do, right?
Marc:And it was very hard to understand.
Guest:But I remember even saying, I'd rather be Brecht than Brad Pitt.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:that sort of feeling of like and i would write like manifestos that's why you go to college yeah that's for lines like that you can't just go to new york and do that you're you're right you're right you can't but i think it's also like the chicken and the egg it's like when you're at college and not in new york you have to develop that line because you're at college you don't just go to it's like you're at you're like stuck at dartmouth and people like ed norton are doing movies and you're looking at them ragefully yeah going like yeah i'd rather be in practice
Guest:Let's do our show in the basement of the cafe.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, but yeah, but also it's confounding and it, you know, it is part of like, you know, having a certain ego and then you get out into the real world and eventually that gets pounded out of you.
Marc:But like, what are you talking about?
Marc:You know, and then, but like, as you say, you know, once you get the fortitude, you accept and integrate, you know, that shameful part of your development and you can laugh at it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And you can use it and all sorts of things.
Guest:They are great stories.
Marc:So when you leave Dartmouth, do you go right to New York then?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I go to New York with a group of friends.
Guest:So we had a non-profit theater company for like two years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:What was that called?
Guest:I got to know the name.
Guest:You got to do it.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Talk about vulnerability.
Guest:No, this is the most embarrassing thing I could ever.
Guest:Is it called?
Guest:Isis Ensemble.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So Isis.
Guest:I'm about to cry.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm about to cry too for different reasons though.
Guest:The fact that I admitted that Isis were like in Hamlet there's a line where he says when the players are coming he says there is certain eerie of children little Isis who like cry on the top of questions.
Guest:He's talking about players in the city that people really like.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That are like little children.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so like it was born out of that.
Guest:Isis Ensemble.
Guest:It's like young hawks in Greek or something.
Guest:yeah yeah it's not it was it's so embarrassing i look back there might be someone listening going like i used to love that place all right i think maybe three people saw our plays but we wrote you know we we would like sort of co-write these like plays together these like weird plays and we'd like put them up but it was basically like the thing about having a non-profit theater company in new york that's so sad is like you come out of college and
Guest:And all you're doing is begging your parents' friends for money to support the theater.
Guest:And all their kids are like hedge fund guys.
Guest:And you're just humiliated.
Guest:Just constantly humiliated.
Guest:By like, what are you doing with your life?
Guest:So you drink.
Marc:And you talk about the theater.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:And you sit around the bars, like, smoking jetons and a beret.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Talking about the theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:People don't understand.
Guest:We must create a new theater.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And when did the people start peeling off?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:That's exactly what happened.
Guest:Pretty early on.
Guest:Pretty early on.
Guest:And then basically, like, I was with my girlfriend at the time.
Guest:Like, we were sort of the co-heads.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then that broke up.
Guest:And that was like...
Guest:It just destroyed a lesson in the whole community around.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It was so, so, so that went, yeah, that went by the way, but also it was in a combination with my bottoming out.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Oh really?
Guest:Oh God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it was all wrapped up in, first of all, just this anger at the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And righteousness and self-centeredness of like, when am I going to get mine?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:When are they going to recognize my genius with my theater company?
Marc:Doing nothing and having no idea how to get any sort of attention whatsoever.
Marc:No, just arriving.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like arriving in New York.
Marc:That weird expectation.
Guest:Right?
Guest:I'm here.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Did you have that as well when you like,
Marc:I used to say, you know, you have to realize that Hollywood is not your parents.
Marc:You know, when you get somewhere, you're like, you don't even think about how does it happen.
Marc:It's sort of like, I'm here, I'll wait for them to come get me.
Marc:And then two weeks go by and you're like, this isn't working out.
I know, I know.
Guest:Well, that's the funny thing is like people ask me too.
Guest:I get like Twitter messages from people who are like, hey, like I want to be an actor.
Guest:How can I be on Stranger Things?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm like, this was a lifetime of humiliation, rejection, and work that landed me on a show that got past the first season.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you think that you haven't even acted before.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But like we're just going to invite you.
Guest:Is that what you tweeted back?
Guest:No, I say, I don't.
Marc:You tweeted back like, this is actually the way.
Marc:Good luck.
Marc:I hope someone sees this.
Guest:That's like taking the cowboy hat, right?
Guest:Isn't it?
Guest:It's like wearing it around for a day.
Guest:Yeah, it's kind of like wearing it around for a day.
Guest:That's exactly it.
Guest:but yeah so it all fell apart at like 24 and that's good that's good and young though man yeah and that's but that's actually when i got you know when i stopped drinking and stuff yeah no but like you've got you got that in early and it's yeah yeah oh yeah oh until the weed yeah yeah yeah no it's stuck because basically what happened was it was funny like i so i got sober and and it all fell apart and i
Guest:And I had gotten an agent before then, like a really crappy agent.
Guest:But I did get like a week into sobriety.
Guest:I got my first paid, I was on a soap opera.
Guest:I was a day player on As The World Turns.
Guest:And it was like suddenly like I could make money, I could pay my rent.
Guest:So it was very clear.
Marc:It was a regular gig?
Guest:Well, it started out just as a day, and then I guess they liked me or whatever, so they just kept putting me in.
Guest:It was like a recurring kind of thing for like three years.
Marc:And that was a gift of sobriety.
Marc:You're like a week in.
Guest:You're like, look at that.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's like that thing they talk about, cash and prizes or whatever, right?
Guest:It's like you actually clean up.
Guest:I did actually get them early.
Guest:I was like really, yeah.
Marc:But like, so when does the abrupt journey into Catholicism happen?
Yeah.
Guest:like like year year and a half into sobriety into sobriety yeah wow that was what you chose well here's the thing so uh i i i got sober in the east village yeah and uh i would go and here's the thing about like being sober at 24 is like you feel like such hell and then you get sober and all these uh like adorable east village like
Guest:girls and guys, like everyone, and they're not drinking anymore, so like their skin looks great, like everybody looks healthy, and they're all like the cool kids that I always wanted to drink with, but like was weird and awkward.
Marc:And they're all going out of their mind and fucking each other.
Guest:Kind of, yes.
Guest:But also like being so kind of loving, so like even if they won't fuck you, they're still like,
Guest:keep coming back and you're like oh yeah um but i yeah i got sober with these people but one of the guys in there was this really fascinating guy yeah who was uh he was like a gay guy from the east village artist painter but was like a strict like huge catholic used to go to latin masses and like loved catholicism and he was trained he was going to become a monk with the franciscans in pennsylvania
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And so eventually, like, he was my sponsor.
Guest:I thought he was the most brilliant guy I'd ever met.
Guest:Like, super smart and super into principles.
Guest:Like, wanted to do as little as possible with the capitalist system.
Guest:Lived in, like, an SRO for, like, 50 bucks a month.
Guest:Bathroom down the hall, like, mat on the floor.
Guest:Would paint oil paintings and just was...
Guest:totally, you know, kind of counterculture.
Guest:Living a aesthetic life?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like completely, I mean, capitalism makes whores of us all, right?
Guest:Like didn't want to be involved as little as possible.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Would actually make money doing focus groups.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which was hilarious.
Guest:He would get paid to do focus groups.
Guest:To go watch bad movies.
Guest:For ad agencies.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But he became my sponsor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like he was a brilliant guy.
Guest:And we would talk about...
Guest:We basically talk about philosophy all the time.
Guest:And he introduced me to De Profundis, which is like Oscar Wilde's letter to Bosie that he wrote when he was in Reading Jail.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Which is like a 200-page, basically, letter of Oscar Wilde just saying to Bosie, like...
Guest:you're horrible but also like going through his life and going through how nothing works yeah and basically i've tried everything right as an east the art yeah and like there's no salvation and then he does say in the in the letter he says the only thing that may work is christianity but there's only one guy who's ever done it saint francis of assisi like um and and and i was like fascinated that guy like oscar wilde would think that that was like the answer
Guest:right right yeah because i was very interested in the answer like i didn't really understand what the point of this meat market of death yeah i would describe it like we're just born into this world it's just blood tooth claw things eating each other yeah constantly like shitting and eating like like what the fuck is this this is crazy those are great great sober thoughts
Guest:Well, I got to say, that's when I realized my problems was when I got sober.
Guest:It wasn't when I was drinking.
Guest:When I was drinking, I was like, fine, I was numbed out.
Guest:But then I got sober, my brain started like, and then he went off to become a monk, and he sort of got me into Catholicism.
Guest:I started reading the catechism, and I started doing catechism's instruction with this Catholic priest, and I started getting into mystic saints, which are like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross, like Augustine and Aquinas and stuff like that.
Marc:And it was like... It's all in there.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:You go to Europe, you go to Italy and these places.
Marc:And I was sort of amazed at... You go to these different cathedrals and little towns, these huge cathedrals that were just sort of overwhelming.
Marc:They just were designed to make the peasants just humble themselves and...
Marc:And just the sheer amount of dead wizards that, you know, they have in these places.
Marc:Like, you realize, like, this has really been going on a long time.
Marc:Every one of these joints has at least nine dead popes in it.
Marc:And, you know, like, and it's, there's so, and you just feel like, it's just like, there's something, you know, I always say witchy about it, but there is a real mind fuck to the mystical history of the Catholics.
Marc:There's no doubt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I find it beautiful and fascinating.
Guest:I mean, like, I remember reading Teresa of Avila and, and like sexy, like, you know, like reading Teresa of Avila, like this interior castles book and just all it all being about this ecstatic, this ecstatic connection to God that just made you feel so much.
Marc:Yeah, and who doesn't want to have mania when you're a depressive boundary with sad words?
Guest:So here's the interesting thing, which I've actually... I've never truly spoken about publicly.
Guest:It's interesting to... Because we want to talk about the speech and stuff, too, later on.
Guest:But I...
Guest:I actually was in this Catholicism thing and he had left and I was sober for like a year and a half and I was 25 and I actually did have a manic episode where, uh, and I was diagnosed as bipolar.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I, what'd you, what'd you get done during the manic episode?
Guest:I, uh, I, I, I really had like a bit of a break where I, yeah, where I, um, you know, I thought I was in connection to some sort of,
Guest:god yeah that i wasn't really in connection to and so getting the signals yeah sort of talking yeah yeah yeah and it was uh and writing a lot oh yeah the whole thing and it was like you know i had all the answers suddenly yeah and so i no drugs uh no but the interesting thing about it is like i realized that i don't really need them that i have a capacity to see the elves in the corners of the room if i really allow myself to go there
Guest:Yeah, so I actually was by my parents sort of taken into a mental asylum.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So you're living like your heroes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I have to say one thing about the mental asylum.
Guest:I've romanticized two things in my life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And both have fallen short.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:One is being in a mental asylum.
Guest:Really, really not as fun as you think it is.
Guest:No, but you do.
Guest:You have a romantic idea of like you're a genius.
Guest:And then it just winds up being, you know, sad and smells like shit and smells like, you know, people walking slowly.
Guest:And the other thing was boating.
Guest:Like I just recently went on a ship in open water and I thought I'd read Moby Dick like a million times.
Guest:And I was like, this is good.
Guest:And it's really not as...
Guest:No, it's terrifying.
Guest:It's not sexy.
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:It's horrible.
Guest:It's very similar to the mental asylum experience.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, yeah, and then I was diagnosed bipolar, and then that's when actually the drugs came in was I started to be, I've been medicated for bipolar for a long time.
Guest:Oh, it's great.
Guest:And I've had problems sort of going on and off.
Guest:I've had a struggle going on and off the medications.
Marc:Because you missed the mania.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or you think that you're not the artist that you could be.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:You think you're not digging as deeply as you could be.
Guest:So you take the plug off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's open this baby up.
Guest:Like, you know, take the governor off.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but it's funny also my, the funny thing about my particular brain or like mental illness is that every time that I've had an episode like that, it's always coupled with spirituality.
Guest:So the weird thing about me is everybody think, everybody for generally people are like,
Guest:I need to meditate more.
Guest:I need to like get into yoga.
Guest:And it's like, I need to like eat a cheeseburger and just like smoke cigarettes and hang out.
Guest:Cause like the minute I get close to that, what I consider a flame of like the answers and the mysticism and the like, I'm completely present.
Guest:And I mean, like, it's like, I'm out of my mind.
Guest:So it's like, I live, I, if I write the self-help book, it's going to be about like, you know what?
Guest:Sit on the couch, like play some video games.
Guest:Like don't,
Marc:you know don't don't let your brain run away with you yeah yeah yeah like quit yeah because like if you if you let your brain run away you're you're just uh you're like uh you know maybe a few days shy of walking down the street with a robe no joke yeah like telling people like i know exactly like come join me yeah yeah in my walk it's an amazing thing and tell me does the rationalization start with like maybe i'm not crazy
Guest:Are you kidding?
Guest:First of all, have you ever been to a mental asylum?
Guest:No.
Guest:The only thing that defines a crazy person and a normal person, the only thing, because you can seem very normal as a crazy person, the only thing is they're convinced they're same.
Guest:Like crazy people are convinced they're same.
Guest:You don't understand.
Guest:No, they don't.
Guest:I'm the only one who gets it.
Yeah.
Guest:it's incredible it's a funny conversation that's happening in this country right now with uh you know the shooters and everything in terms of gun control and people want to make it about mental illness right but the thing is my experiences with mentally ill people and all this stuff is that in general i've met tons of like gentle like wonderful people yeah like i think there really is still a stigma that's like this strange thing oh yeah that's always psychotics and you know people yeah
Marc:So once you got leveled off, your acting started to pick up?
Marc:Or when did you start doing Broadway and stuff?
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:Once I kind of got that problem under control.
Guest:And then I was doing kind of smaller plays.
Guest:And then I wound up doing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf on Broadway.
Marc:You got Tony or something, right?
Guest:Nomination, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Lost.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:It's good, yeah.
Guest:No, it was great.
Guest:It was a great show.
Guest:It was a really great show.
Guest:Kathleen Turner.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So you were the younger couple?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We were Nick and Honey.
Guest:Me and this actress, Mireille Enos.
Guest:Do you know her?
Guest:No.
Guest:You ever watch The Killing?
Guest:I know, I didn't see it.
Guest:She's a great actress, really great actress.
Guest:And Bill Irwin, do you know Bill Irwin?
Guest:I do know, yeah.
Guest:He's a clown.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:He was Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street.
Guest:Did he play the older guy?
Guest:He played George, yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And he was great, because the thing about the movie is, the movie you have Richard Burton in that role, and he's such a powerhouse.
Guest:Oh, I know that guy, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Bill is like a skinny, weird kind of dude.
Guest:And you have Kathleen Turner, who's like...
Guest:you know, Kathleen Turner.
Guest:So it was kind of a great combination.
Guest:Very different production.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:But it was like a rock concert, man.
Guest:People really loved it.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:It was like, oh, yeah.
Guest:Like every night we'd come out and people would like scream and cheer.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It's a very funny play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's a humiliating play.
Guest:I did it for a year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like...
Guest:He, Nick in particular, gets so humiliated at the end of the play.
Guest:Like he can't get it up with her.
Guest:And he, and I remember being made fun of.
Guest:And I remember like around eight months in, just like, and the audience would howl with laughter when she would like make these jokes about him like not being able.
Guest:And I just remember like about eight months in having these like little dizzy spells where I'd just be so...
Guest:mad at the audience for laughing at me because I had so deeply like I realized I spent more time in that house like I would spend three hours a day eight shows a week so I spent like so much time actually in that house experiencing that it was almost like oh yeah you crossed over yeah it's almost like you're actually living that life more than you are your own
Marc:So the upside down was a prophecy.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:The upside down was actually theater for you.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:There was funny stuff that happened too, though.
Guest:Like we would, like about like eight or nine months in too, this was crazy.
Guest:Like you do a play.
Guest:It's the same play, you know, for eight shows a week.
Guest:And I remember about eight or nine months in, being ready to make my entrance at the door.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, like, having this, like, heart-stopping fear and going, like, somebody get me a script.
Guest:I don't know any of my lines.
Guest:Someone get me a script.
Guest:I don't know any of my... And they would open the door and it would just come out of your mouth.
Guest:And you would just be like, for some reason, this fear would just wash over me that I didn't know you'd been doing it for so long.
Guest:Somebody get me a script.
Guest:But also, like...
Guest:also you'd be uh because it gets surreal like you're doing the same thing and then you'd be on the couch like talking to someone and you'd say a line yeah and then you go like did i just say or was that the matinee yeah or was that like three weeks ago yeah yeah i guess completely surreal experience yeah man
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Talking about like, you know, between the manias and like doing a play for a year.
Guest:No real action.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just too complete.
Guest:But it's so funny.
Guest:Even when things are going well, you're just, your brain just sort of like, no, no, no.
Guest:It's not going to be okay.
Guest:It's not going to, you've done this for eight months.
Guest:It's not going to be okay.
Guest:Get me a script.
Guest:Get me a script.
Guest:just let me look at that just yeah god that's great so was that and that was your big theater break yeah yeah that was that was a big that was a big break yeah so we did that for like eight months on bro and then like five months in london yeah oh wow yeah that was kind of cool
Marc:And the medicine's working and everything's good.
Guest:The medicine's working all good, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I've had a couple episodes since then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's been when I've tampered with this idea.
Guest:That you're okay?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And the shame sort of that I've dealt with throughout the years about it.
Marc:Oh, about being on it?
Guest:Yeah, and just being, yeah.
Marc:Isn't that weird when the sickness talks to you?
Marc:It's like, you're not being your full self.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You're not being your full self.
Guest:But there's even more insidious ones, which is like, and it's not that I completely disagree with this, but pharmaceutical companies are conspiring against this.
Guest:They're trying to get you addicted to lifelong medications, and you're better.
Guest:But also, I got to say, even in representation in movies, they're very irresponsible.
Guest:I remember being really pissed off at that movie, A Beautiful Mind, because he basically, at the end of the movie, decides that he doesn't need mitigation, and he can just control the voices, and he can just kind of put them off to the side.
Marc:Decorate his house with things on the wall.
Yeah.
Guest:But it's like, you know, there are these or there are also are these images in movies of like people going off their medications and finally being like liberated.
Guest:And I think that like the best representation I've ever seen of it is like Homeland.
Guest:Like I think that's really sophisticated interpretation of it where you can be sort of brilliant and highly functional and all this stuff.
Guest:And then also you can have these things where if you're not being responsible in that way.
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Marc:It's like, yeah, the pharmaceuticals are a big business, but there have been advances in Western medicine that have made life better for people who have problems and are sick.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:But my East Village conspiracy theory, shadow government idea, you know, like talks to me in those weak moments and says, like, they're just trying to control you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know.
Marc:Yeah, well, it's like somebody once said about, like, you know, there's a story, a story where some guy says that he had a sponsor where he said, like, at the beginning of sobriety, he's like, hey, man, they're brainwashing me.
Marc:And the sponsor goes, like, well, maybe your brain needed water.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:No, that's exactly right.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Guest:It's like, so what?
Guest:It's like, you feel better.
Guest:Everyone likes you more.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But I get, I get the struggle with that, you know, because, you know, I've been like, even with like fucking statins, you know, like, you know, I had to go in and like, I have high cholesterol and then there's this whole camp of people are like, no, you don't need to stay and just do diet.
Marc:So like I do diet and I can't get it down because it's a genetic component to it.
Marc:And then they're like, well, how they're not really sure how important cholesterol is.
Marc:I'm like, I went to a cardiologist who said that if you take these, no more plaque might come.
Marc:You might not, you know, it might not ever get worse.
Marc:The plaque.
Marc:A cardiologist said that to me.
Marc:So you want me not to believe him?
Marc:Where's your degree?
Marc:And you've been looking around the internet?
Guest:Everybody's got an opinion.
Guest:Yeah, everybody's got an opinion in the tribe.
Marc:But no one wants to be on medicine.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So I mean, I'm good.
Marc:I can fix it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But at some point, you have to realize, sometimes medicine's good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's no polio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, but there's this weird thing with like holistic.
Marc:Yes, come on.
Marc:What are you going to drink?
Marc:How much St.
Marc:John's wor can you take?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:This tea will do it.
Guest:No, it won't.
Guest:No, you can do it.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And the funny thing is like all that stuff connected to me because for a while, like this is a funny thing was I after, like when I got these conspiracy theories, I was like, look, I'm going to be super responsible.
Guest:I'm going to do yoga.
Guest:I feel like there's a component.
Guest:There's a component of this that is psychophysical.
Guest:And like, if I can have a steady blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And I did that.
Guest:And of course, like, you know, I had another, like, I was like, because it's linked to this idea.
Guest:Like, I mean, part of the idea of madness in general is that consciousness, it's all our collective idea of sanity, right?
Guest:Like, so...
Guest:if we if i was on a mountaintop with a bunch of like you know other crazy we were behaving in this way it might be okay yeah but in terms of sanctioned american society sure like there are things in our society that are crazy yeah like we all agree on them yeah that we don't we eat no i get it we eat cows but we don't eat dogs yeah but you know it's crazy but like you can hold it's cool right but yeah i mean if you wanted to hold the space of the guy that you know can't function in a workspace yeah occasionally hospitalized you can do that exactly
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I was like, I'd rather have an acting career and be able to sit down and do a podcast.
Guest:This podcast would be funny if I wasn't.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I should come back for that.
Guest:Let me know.
Guest:I'll get your new number.
Guest:We'll talk about elves on the side of the... When you decide it's a good week not to be on medicine, you...
Guest:We'll talk about the shadow government then.
Guest:Yeah, we'll get into it.
Guest:I'll bring you some cocaine as well.
Marc:We'll both get into it.
Marc:That's going to be a big day.
Marc:We'll just end our careers live on the air.
Guest:That would be amazing.
Marc:It would be crazy.
Marc:It would be my favorite day ever.
Marc:And then we just disappear.
Marc:Did you hear that thing that David and Mark did?
Marc:I don't know where they are.
Guest:They just beat each other to death in that studio, apparently.
Marc:Did you have another episode as bad as the original one?
Guest:Not as bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Not as bad.
Marc:So, Stranger Things...
Marc:I have to assume that you did not anticipate to be a rock star at Comic-Con.
Marc:No, no.
Guest:Like as a 40-year-old man.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:When I was 22, I maybe had fantasies.
Guest:But yeah, when you hit 40, you're kind of like... I think when I hit 35, I was kind of like, that idea is over.
Marc:But to be part of something is sort of interesting.
Marc:And you had no idea, right?
Marc:But you liked the role.
Guest:when you well yeah i mean i read the script the pilot script was like i love that pilot script yeah it was amazing yeah and i actually didn't think i'd get cast and then i wound up getting cast yeah it's a big netflix show sure like yeah and then and i i didn't think they want to take a chance on me like but did they really know that it was going to be big before you know i mean how does anyone know anything i don't think
Guest:They knew, but still the thing at the time.
Marc:It wasn't based on a comic or anything, right?
Marc:It's an original.
Guest:No, no, no, no, original.
Guest:But I didn't know that Netflix was doing that many series.
Guest:Like now it seems like they're doing everything.
Guest:But at the time it felt kind of like a big deal.
Guest:But when we were shooting it about four episodes in, I thought, yeah, no one's going to watch this either.
Guest:I thought like, yeah, this is not, I'm not good and it's not good.
Guest:And it didn't help by like, you know, like we were all just like, you know, we were working really hard, but we were in a bubble and like nobody cared.
Guest:Where'd you shoot it?
Guest:Atlanta.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:I like the kids.
Marc:It's weird.
Marc:The balance between the kids and then, you know, like, all the other shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, they chose the kids, you know, because you got to have that, you know, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But they got some good kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so four episodes in, you're shooting it, and you're like, oh, my God.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I just thought it was like, I mean, in a long line of failures.
Guest:It was like sort of a, not tremendous.
Guest:I mean, I'm being a little bit hyperbolic, but there were like, I don't know if you've had these projects, but like you have a project where everybody's like patting themselves on the back.
Guest:And also they come up to you and they're like,
Guest:your life's gonna change.
Guest:And you're like, I've had that happen to me.
Guest:I'm ready.
Guest:Yeah, for about like 10 years.
Guest:I shot this movie, Revolutionary Road, and I remember all of us- I like that movie.
Guest:Yeah, it's good.
Guest:But I remember that being like us, everyone sitting around and being like, oh.
Marc:Is that after Brokeback?
Guest:Yeah, it was after Brokeback, yeah.
Marc:Well, you had a little smaller part of Brokeback.
Guest:Yeah, smaller part of Brokeback.
Guest:But it was a bit of a bigger... But it just had no... I was still living in my studio bar and auditioning for shit.
Guest:People being like, yeah, we don't really like him.
Guest:And I was like, wow, it'll never change.
Guest:I'm going to be kind of that guy who can occasionally get by and make money.
Guest:Like, do theater.
Guest:I do feel like I had a home in theater.
Guest:But we...
Guest:But then I got to... So when I was shooting that, like, my expectations are extremely low.
Guest:But what about with Black Mass?
Guest:Well, like, even that, it's like... It's a supporting role.
Guest:Yeah, like, you're in Denzel's movie.
Guest:Like, nobody really cares.
Marc:Or you're in Johnny Depp's movie.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, nobody really cares.
Guest:People within the industry, people are like, hey, did a great job.
Guest:Or occasionally some guy came up to Denzel Street.
Guest:But it wasn't... Like, great character actor.
Guest:You're going to be a great character actor.
Guest:Yeah, but even less than that.
Guest:Because it wasn't like, I don't live in Hollywood.
Guest:So I live in New York.
Guest:So it was kind of like you dip in and out okay.
Guest:But it wasn't like casting directors were throwing me offers and people were really wanting me in their movies.
Guest:It was kind of like when we haven't cast a part, we'll call him in and we'll see if he does a good job and maybe.
Marc:So you were ready for the Stranger Things.
Guest:Well, I mean, I didn't think it would ever happen, but I was fine with that.
Guest:Like I was living in New York and I was doing plays.
Guest:But also I was doing, and my thoughts had always been plays.
Guest:And so there was even a moment when like I had auditioned for Black Mass and I got offered another play in New York.
Guest:There was a big deal sort of thing.
Guest:And I thought to myself like,
Guest:I thought to myself, I was like, you know, New York will, I think that New York theater, there's more of a community.
Guest:Whereas like Hollywood, you're just a commodity, right?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Like if you do well, if people like you, if your movies make money.
Marc:A commodity and a heightened community.
Guest:Yeah, but if your movies make money, we'll hire you.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:But if they don't, like who cares?
Guest:Whereas like in New York theater, there's more of a sense of like, we want to see you develop as an artist.
Guest:We want to see what you can do.
Guest:We want to support you, even if everything you do is not great.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I remember like even in Black Mass having this moment where I was like, you know, Hollywood's not going to care about me.
Guest:So I'm kind of thinking about giving that up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Ultimately, I kind of took it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah, it was some drama around that.
Guest:But yeah, I ultimately did it.
Guest:But I've always had this relationship with Hollywood.
Guest:It's been like I can go there and make some money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like I'll never really put my heart in it.
Guest:And I'd grown really cynical.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like even doing those movies which i felt like i was doing like good okay work but it wasn't like when i'd go to work i was just very cynical and i was just very like yeah what do you want me to do like carry a gun like run around like okay you know i mean i i had grown well for better for worse i had grown somewhat cynical sure because i was like a lot of shots
Guest:Yeah, I had some shots, and I was like, I just don't have it.
Guest:And also, the film business is weird for me, because I don't think I'm that bad of an actor, but I do look at my face sometimes on film, and I'm like, oh, God.
Guest:I mean, you know what I mean?
Guest:What do you see?
Guest:That's ugly.
Guest:I mean, you just see double chins, and you see...
Guest:You know, weird width of the face.
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:The old weird width of the face problem.
Guest:Don't you have idiosyncratic things about yourself that you see in pictures and you're just like.
Marc:There are times, dude, where I go to the bathroom and I can't look in the mirror.
Marc:Dude's the same thing.
Guest:I do the exact same thing.
Marc:I go pee.
Marc:I avoid myself.
Guest:I do the exact same thing.
Guest:And I was working with, yeah.
Guest:And there was somebody who's helping me design my apartment.
Guest:And they were like, we could put a big mirror here.
Guest:And I was like, I don't want mirrors.
Guest:I don't want any mirrors.
Guest:They're like, well, in the bathroom.
Guest:I was like, debatable.
Guest:We'll talk about it.
Guest:We'll talk about it.
Guest:Not today, though.
Guest:I'm hiding from myself.
Guest:Hiding from myself as I walk by the shower.
Guest:You know there's that play No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre?
Guest:And one of the things, they're in hell, and one of the things is there's no mirrors.
Guest:And I was like, how's that hell?
Guest:It's great.
Guest:No body image issues.
Guest:Hell sounds like heaven.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was great.
Guest:But anyway, yeah, so I'd grown very single.
Guest:So this was another one of these opportunities where like my expectations were extremely low.
Guest:And then we're in there shooting it.
Guest:And I do think like I look like hell and I think like, and I'm scared.
Guest:And so when it, before it came out, I was scared.
Guest:And then I was actually doing a play with a guy who was on a very successful TV show.
Guest:And before it came out, like a week, three weeks before it came out, there was no ads in New York.
Guest:No ads on buses.
Marc:They'd lost hope already.
Guest:And then a week before it came out, no ads anywhere.
Guest:No ads anywhere.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, I talked to him and I was like, yeah, there's no ads.
Guest:He was like, they're burying it.
Guest:They're trying to bury it.
Guest:And I was like, oh my God, my one fucking shot.
Guest:And like, they're burying my show.
Guest:And then it came out and it was like a zeitgeist.
Marc:Well, you never know what Netflix is going to get behind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also, I don't know what they did for Glow, but they claim now in hindsight.
Guest:That they did it on purpose?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It was a brilliant marketing campaign where people have ownership of this show because they discover it and they tell their friends.
Guest:And it is kind of brilliant when you think about it, if that is the case, because that is what happened.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I think it might just be looking at that.
Marc:That would be a fine sort of like thing to believe if they didn't actually bury other shows.
Marc:Like if they did actually leave many shows hanging that they actually produce, that would be a great genius thing.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:If there wasn't tons of evidence to the contrary.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like a detective.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:What's going on here?
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:No, but either way, they do produce so much shit.
Marc:So some shit is going to have to find its audience.
Marc:And this is the kind of thing, you know, it is in the realm of things that have this, if the thing activates that audience, if it appeals to that community, then, you know, it lives there forever.
Marc:There are people that are, you know, I'm sure creating, you know, backstories to things.
Marc:They have, you know, mystery.
Marc:They have questions.
Guest:Fan fiction.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All that stuff.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's also the Comic Con.
Guest:Like, for some reason, the genre shows are those shows that, like, stick around and have huge followings and stuff like that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, you know, and it's sort of like in fantasy in and of itself, though, it's never been my thing, though it seems to be becoming my thing a little more.
Marc:And ultimately, what is in fantasy?
Marc:But, you know, people get very loyal to them.
Marc:And if the show stays good, you know, they're there for it.
Guest:yeah so you're surprised by it so you okay no here we're still at you freaking out that they're burying it and then what happened yeah i'm backstage and he's like you know and then can i get a script the guy he's the one yeah no he was the worst who's like like reviews came out too and he was like it would probably be like a you know respected show in some way but people aren't gonna watch it
Guest:There are tons of those shows on Netflix going on like Hulu and all the shows where everybody's like, oh, it's so good.
Guest:Yeah, I don't watch it.
Guest:How can you watch everything?
Guest:Well, that's the thing.
Guest:There's just too many.
Guest:And look, I think, and again, you might not be the target audience for this conversation, but I so believe the show is brilliant, not only on a sci-fi level, but it has so much heart and soul.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's why I can't stop watching it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It really is watchable.
Guest:And the other funny thing was we had some reviews come out for second season that were kind of negative, but the reviews are so funny because they're like, yeah, it wasn't so good.
Guest:I watched the shit out of it from beginning to end immediately, but eh.
Guest:And I'm like, what show do you do?
Guest:That's hard to do.
Marc:And also the strange...
Marc:human component that not only the kids bring to a certain degree, but that you and Ryder bring, you know, having had lives and having had, you know, like she brings something, you know, just by virtue of who she is, but she's acting the fuck out of this.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And, you know, you guys have, you know, both have had your problems that are very upfront in the first season and devastating.
Marc:So, you know, between you, your very grown-up sort of dispositions and character shortcomings as the characters, you know, I'm not, you know, you're doing a good job with it, but you're flawed people.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And the weird sort of, you know...
Marc:uh excitement of these overly bright kids that you know you you transcend you know when you fall into the hole you know like you yeah that transcends genre in that way well no it's just sort of still a human that human element is so strong yeah that you you know you're gonna you're not gonna be like you know what what are all those snakes exactly and why can he just step on them you know so like right the little yeah you know like what
Marc:that's a great question though now that i think about it oh jesus get me a new script but the last time i saw those snakes there was something laying eggs in the kid and he said what are they doing to him like so like but because you're you're hooked into hop and you're like he's gonna get out of there you're not like where's the egg laying snake how many more of these fucking why is right where's the rest you're just willing to
Marc:go with it because you just get on the ride you have to be but that you're right that's an example of character because you care about the characters you're paying much more attention to their reaction to something right than to the actual something sure yeah sure like i'm like you know i'm right at the like the last thing i watched last night was will in a seizure because oh yeah he's now feeling the evil of the thing there you go yeah yeah there you go and i'm like you know now like you know are we ever gonna save this kid you know
Guest:Is Will just going to be this punching bag?
Guest:We put this kid through so much.
Guest:We put this kid through so much.
Guest:You know what there actually was?
Guest:This is so funny because I speak of punching bags.
Guest:So they had at one point, you know, because I talked to them a little bit as they develop.
Guest:Like I go in the room sometimes and I'll talk to them about ideas.
Guest:And at one point I had said to them, because in season one, I punch a lot of people in the face.
Guest:And it was like one of my favorite things about that character is that he has a Harrison Ford type quality where when he gets confused, he just like punches somebody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in season two, I had no punches in the, like I don't punch anybody the whole season.
Guest:And they were like, we're going to give you a really good punch.
Guest:And I was like, what is the, they're like, no, it's going to be great.
Guest:I was like, what is it?
Guest:What is it?
Guest:And they were like, will, when he goes into a seizure on the football field, like nobody can get him out of the seizure and you punch him in the face.
Yeah.
Guest:He comes out with a seizure.
Guest:And then finally they were like, that's a terrible idea.
Guest:I was like, yeah, it's a terrible idea.
Guest:I loved it, but it was so crazy.
Guest:It was like, yeah, you can't have him punch.
Guest:The kid is a literal punching bag at that point.
Guest:What else can we do to Will Byers?
Guest:Let's get Hopper to punch him in the face because that's what he needs.
Guest:Yeah, he's been beat up in two dimensions.
No problem.
Guest:it's true that poor kid that poor kid that poor kid oh yeah i know but like i'm gonna finish it up and uh so you're in season two now and when does hellboy start uh we shot it you did yeah yeah we shot it in uh this fall how long did that take like four months really yeah in sofia bulgaria so you had it in bulgaria yeah so you had it you were in the makeup yeah
Marc:But see, it's all happening.
Marc:It's all happening now.
Guest:How cynical are you now about the movie business?
Guest:I'm still grumpy.
Guest:Can I still be grumpy about problems?
Marc:Did you call Perlman up?
Guest:We did.
Guest:We had dinner.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:We had dinner, yeah.
Marc:So Pearlman passed the reins on to you?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:I mean, it was not a great situation.
Marc:How many he'd done, two or one?
Guest:Well, here's the thing.
Guest:They did two, him and Guillermo del Toro.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And they, I think, wanted to make their third trilogy, but I think a lot of issues came up.
Guest:I think budgets were too big.
Guest:I think that they took a lot of time.
Guest:They waited too long and stuff.
Guest:And so I think that they wanted to do something else.
Guest:They wanted to do something different with it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then they came to me.
Guest:It was a very different concept, very different idea.
Guest:And there was initially some bluster around it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think everybody was like kind of got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Ron got it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And came.
Guest:And so, yeah, we had dinner and he was like, he was just really cool.
Guest:You know, I think that the one thing that's a little weird is like, you know, everybody now asks him about it.
Guest:And I think he's annoyed at that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so he said some things on Twitter and stuff where he's like, just don't ask me anymore.
Guest:And I think it's like, don't ask him anymore.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he likes me.
Guest:He was very kind to me.
Guest:And he was like, good luck.
Guest:He'd do it.
Guest:He's a nice guy.
Guest:And he knows the business.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:And you like that?
Marc:You think it's going to be a good movie?
Marc:I do, yeah.
Marc:And were you able to bring some of your flaws and heart to Hellboy?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Underneath pounds and pounds of prosthetics.
Marc:There's just a self-hating guy that doesn't like mirrors.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's right up my alley.
Guest:Who are you going to call?
Guest:Yeah, the guy hasn't looked at a mirror in a long time.
Marc:And are you done?
Marc:You're shooting Stranger Things now?
Marc:No, we start in like a month.
Marc:The third season?
Guest:Yeah, season three.
Marc:Now, how many scripts do you see up front?
Marc:We usually see four to six.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Yeah, of the eight.
Marc:So that's good for you because you like to know how at least something's going to end.
Marc:I want to know the whole arc, yeah.
Marc:Will they tell you or are they done writing?
Guest:I do know the general arc.
Guest:But to me, it's even important in terms of how that stuff plays out because I do like to structure stuff up front.
Guest:Like if I know that the guy's going to talk a lot in the end.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you know what I mean?
Guest:Like, there's a lot of things about an actual script that are different than a pitch.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I do know what's kind of going to happen.
Guest:I'm excited about it.
Guest:It's really good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the ideas are amazing.
Marc:Was poor Will going to be dragged to the center of the earth this season?
Guest:We're going to try to completely rip him apart.
Guest:You know what the character that I have the most sympathy for, though?
Guest:The one that gets beat up the most?
Guest:The buyer's wall phone.
Guest:Wall-mounted phone.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Gets every season at some point.
Guest:You'll see you haven't gotten there yet.
Guest:Just gets like people just ripping it off, throwing it and stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Makes Will Byers look like nothing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, the poor phone.
Guest:The poor phone.
Marc:Well, look, man, I think we covered it.
Marc:I think we did good.
Marc:Yeah, that was great.
Marc:I feel a little buzzed.
Marc:Yeah, good.
Guest:No, I had a good time.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I had a good time.
Guest:Thanks for coming.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:That was exciting?
Marc:No?
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Sure it was.
Marc:Absolutely it was.
Marc:Absolutely it was.
Marc:Oh, did I mention, I should mention that my friend Lynn Shelton's movie Outside In is now available on Netflix.
Marc:You should watch that with the Duplass.
Marc:The Jay Duplass and Edie Falco.
Marc:Great movie.
Marc:You should watch that on the Netflix.
Marc:And also, I guess I'll play guitar.
Marc:I've gotten two compliments about how the guitar sounds in here.
Marc:Not my playing necessarily, but the sound quality.
.
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Guest:Boomer lives.