Episode 924 - Holly Hunter / Amber Tamblyn
Guest:Lock the gates!
Guest:Good morning, America.
Guest:To promote glow.
Marc:Glow.
Marc:Did a very short segment.
Marc:It's very odd when you get up and go into that machine early in the day.
Marc:It's the first time I've done GMA, but I've done the Today Show before.
Marc:But I wore my new sports jacket, my new shirt, and the shoes that I bought with the suit I bought for the award show.
Marc:Those of you who keep up should know these are the first times I'm wearing this.
Marc:I haven't bought a goddamn sports jacket in forever.
Marc:But I figure I'm a grown-up.
Marc:I should be able to have something to wear.
Marc:So I got suited up, got in the car, got up there, was put into some holding cell.
Marc:And then all of a sudden you just see, here we go.
Marc:I saw Jon Hamm and Ed Helms walking off this weird set of GMA where people are just seemingly haphazardly put around different stages.
Marc:And I'm let out and I sit down next to a blonde lady who was very fit and very focused and
Marc:I don't I'm not even sure I got her name.
Marc:I'm not even sure I was introduced.
Marc:I never met her before.
Marc:But there I was sitting across from her and like doing a five minute segment.
Marc:It's just like bing, bang, boom.
Marc:Here's a clip.
Marc:What's up?
Marc:They had me reflect on Anthony Bourdain for about 25 seconds.
Marc:They asked me about my jacket and me buying clothes because they read about it on the update that I send people every week.
Marc:for about 25 seconds, talked a little bit about glow, somehow got off track, talked about cocaine, which was caused a little bit of a, you know, when you're on ABC and you're doing a Disney outlet, they get very nervous about what's, I couldn't even say WTF to promote the podcast.
Marc:And then I talked about my character on glow doing Coke.
Marc:And apparently there was a bit of a moment or two of panic in the control room as to whether or not we would have to shut down the show.
Marc:I guess that's the world we live in.
Marc:But I made it my own.
Marc:I didn't say I was doing it.
Marc:I didn't promote it.
Marc:I said it was in the past and it was a character thing.
Marc:I guess I did all the right stuff to not have a we'll be right back card go up in the middle of...
Marc:Good morning, America.
Marc:No technical problem.
Marc:Color bars card had to be dropped.
Marc:No commercials had to be run abruptly.
Marc:It all went okay.
Marc:So now I'm back in the room.
Marc:I'm just tired, man.
Marc:I'm just fucking tired.
Marc:I feel like I'm always tired.
Marc:Just like doing the jobs.
Marc:Doing the jobs.
Marc:But thankfully, got a full show today.
Marc:Holly Hunter.
Marc:I talked to Holly Hunter back in the new garage a few days ago.
Marc:I think it was like three days ago I talked to Holly.
Marc:She is in The Incredibles 2.
Marc:She is the voice of Mrs. Incredible.
Marc:But before Holly, I'm going to spend a little time with Amber Tamblyn.
Marc:She has a new novel out.
Marc:Any man comes out June 26th.
Marc:You can preorder it now wherever you get books.
Marc:I was also I did a section of her audio book and and it was great to see her.
Marc:But before I get into that, I'd like to also say that I am in New York and I don't know if I covered this before.
Marc:It seems to be in the life of a Jewish person.
Marc:that there will be many days where you walk around smelling like onions and fish.
Marc:And for some reason lately when I get to New York, I compulsively go to Russ and Daughters.
Marc:And I didn't go to the cafe this time.
Marc:I went to the actual store because for some reason I've been on this no-carb diet with very little sugar.
Marc:So it seems like there's very few things I can eat.
Marc:But I don't know if it's really working that well.
Marc:I just inhaled.
Marc:An entire jar of cashews.
Marc:Could that be antithetical to what I'm trying to do on a weight loss level?
Marc:Perhaps.
Marc:But for some reason, I immediately went over to Russ and Daughters and got two fillets of magis herring and just a mound of pickled onions on top and put that in a plastic container.
Marc:And I got a few slices, four slices, about an inch of beautifully sliced smoked sturgeon, just to travel back to the old country of my genetics, just to take a little journey through my genes back to Poland and Russia.
Marc:So that happened.
Marc:And then, of course, there's a problem with having interactions with people for hours.
Marc:for hours, just fish and onions.
Marc:That's what's happening.
Marc:I even got a little bit of it still now.
Marc:All right, so Amber Tamblyn, it's been a little bit, but she's been on the show before.
Marc:We've talked for an hour plus about
Marc:about poetry and other things.
Marc:She's married to my dear friend, Dave Cross.
Marc:They have a child.
Marc:We talk about that a little bit.
Marc:We talk about her new book, Any Man, a bit.
Marc:We talk about cultural momentum around women's issues and stuff like that.
Marc:It's a good conversation.
Marc:I'm glad she stopped by.
Marc:It's always nice to see Amber.
Marc:This is me and Amber Tamlin back in the new garage.
Guest:And how's the baby?
Guest:She's pretty fucking cute.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:She's just started to walk.
Guest:She's making a lot of eye contact while holding objects and then dropping them as if to say, pick that up.
Guest:Fucking pick that up.
Guest:What are you going to do, Mom?
Marc:Pick it up.
Guest:And then you're like, I'm not going to tell her.
Guest:Oh, pick it up.
Marc:Yeah, you pick it up.
Marc:How's old Dave doing with the baby?
Guest:He's amazing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's quite an extraordinary dad.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's really, really a good dad.
Marc:Dave Cross, dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Dave Cross, dad.
Marc:Oh, you did it.
Marc:You did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's getting ready to go out on another tour.
Guest:We're doing two tours together, actually.
Guest:I know.
Marc:I saw that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's going to be wild.
Marc:Where's he been running the material?
Guest:He's been all over the place.
Guest:He was in Chicago.
Guest:He was at- Playing small places?
Guest:I think medium, small.
Guest:Yeah, but mostly working a lot of the material at the knitting factory and places in Brooklyn and New York.
Marc:Oh, good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So the book, I read my part of the book.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And it was heavy because I wanted to do it for you.
Marc:I'm glad I did it.
Marc:I think I put a lot of work into it.
Guest:I can imagine.
Guest:And when I said, you know, after Barry had passed away and I said- Barry Crimmins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I said, I don't know what I'm going to do.
Guest:Like, I framed this around him.
Guest:And then, like, of course, it struck me.
Guest:And David's like, I actually think as much as I love Barry, I think-
Guest:I think Mark is a better choice.
Guest:He can really do this guy, who this guy is.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:I think that's good.
Marc:It is a compliment.
Marc:I'm glad I got Dave's vote of confidence.
Marc:No, I was very engaged with the material, and I thought it was very intense.
Marc:But I get a sense of the book and the project of the audio book, because it's not poetry.
Marc:I think people are used to reading poetry, but it is prose poetry to a degree.
Guest:100%.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I actually, I find that more, to me, more interesting with novels, certainly as a writer of fiction now.
Guest:But I'm not really interested in the traditional models of how fiction is written.
Guest:And for me, there's really not anything that I can do that doesn't have some form of poetry in it.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:And so for me, it was about changing the structures.
Guest:Like a lot of the other characters are not written in the way that, you know, that yours is.
Guest:Some are told through, you know, just purely through their searches on the internet or through tweets.
Guest:Or then there's some that are just like really long sort of beautiful pieces of prose.
Guest:But they're all very separate and very unique.
Marc:So what was the, like the, because this is not long since your last book.
Marc:I mean, you know, I feel like, you know, the book of poems, which I imagine was done over a long period of time.
Guest:Yeah, that was, Dark Sparkler was, took, you know, seven or eight years to put together.
Guest:But that was really like an exorcism, like an existential metamorphosis.
Guest:And this book took about three and a half years.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and as a writer, I sit and I think for really long periods of time.
Guest:I don't write incrementally.
Guest:I sit and I think, I incubate, and then all of a sudden I write everything in like four months very quickly.
Guest:It's why I still have carpal tunnel in my left hand.
Guest:I've had it for two years.
Guest:It comes and goes.
Guest:I get it in my right hand sometimes too.
Guest:I have a lot of ailments with my arms sometimes.
Marc:Yeah, from writing the way you do, like intensely writing.
Guest:My acupuncturist would say I am too curled into myself, which I think is a pretty accurate representation.
Marc:Just an armadillo, kind of like armor, you know, stay away.
Guest:That's exactly right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Because I was under the impression that the book was a reaction.
Marc:to what's happening culturally i mean the timing of it and i know you i could have never foreseen this in a million years like like you're you've been very engaged with with me too stuff and with your own story of uh dealing with predators and weirdos and yeah men yeah so i i i thought that this was like in reaction to that but this was kind of going on before
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I thought about this over... I mean, the Me Too movement is still in its little baby infancy, and it's about as old as Marlo, my daughter.
Guest:And this was three and a half years ago.
Guest:But I will say that this is...
Guest:The book is about...
Guest:resensitize culture specifically rape culture but it is also its aim is to sort of show the stories of men who are also fall prey to sexual violence and harassment and and even forms of intimidation especially in the entertainment business it's rampant but it's not really talked about because women are at the forefront of it and it's predominantly happening to women
Guest:And it's also because you never really meet this horrible, horrible woman, Maude, who does these things.
Guest:You never meet her in the book, really.
Guest:I was able to – the writer in me was really able to let my imagination run away with –
Guest:How people described her and what the media thinks of her and how CNN turns her into, you know, part animal, which is what is based on some of the men who have described her in what they remember and what they don't remember.
Guest:So it's also commentary on how we sort of mythologize women.
Guest:And to me, I was really fascinated by...
Guest:murderers and murderers yeah all of it yeah i was fascinated by um the idea of making a female protagonist um who didn't have consequences in the way that i feel that men often don't have the similar the same consequences that we do and they don't have to speak for them necessarily and what would it be like to have someone who wasn't
Guest:It wasn't revenge-based.
Guest:It wasn't going after a John or a dad or an ex-boyfriend.
Guest:But it was just purely psychopathic.
Guest:It was purely for power and for the enjoyment of harming people.
Marc:Not unlike most male predatory rapists, killers.
Guest:Which is not about the act of the sexual harm.
Guest:It's about the act of the power.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when you say resensitize, what does that mean?
Guest:I think, you know, I for the most part, I think conversations surrounding sexual violence.
Guest:I think that they are.
Guest:Frankly, I think people are bored of talking about it.
Guest:They're bored of reading about it.
Guest:They get people get upset for a momentary amount of time.
Guest:And then before you know it, it's back to business as usual.
Guest:And things don't really change.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And for me, I wanted to de-gender the conversation, for lack of a better word.
Guest:I wanted to really take that away and say, listen, this is a problem for everyone.
Guest:This is a problem that affects all races, all genders, all peoples.
Guest:It is systemic.
Guest:It is endemic to our culture.
Guest:And if we're going to start having real...
Guest:facilitated conversations about how to drastically, revolutionarily change things, then we have to push buttons and we have to start creating art that changes the way we think about things.
Guest:It's not enough just to tell the story.
Guest:We have to open the mind of the country and of the world, frankly.
Guest:We have to change.
Marc:It's endemic in the culture, but it's also endemic in Western civilization.
Guest:Absolutely.
Marc:So like if you're going to track patriarchy, right, it's not just cultural.
Marc:It's the way shit is.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's also, you know, the other conversations happening in the book that I think is most prominent and your character who you voice in it is really sort of one of the people that starts rallying against it is, you know, the book is an indictment of...
Guest:It's an indictment of our culture of social media and the way in which we perform care, the care of survivors, the care of women's stories for short amounts of time.
Guest:And then it's on to the next one in this 24 hour cycle.
Guest:And we honestly do more harm than we do good.
Marc:Well, I mean, I don't know.
Guest:Myself included, by the way.
Guest:I'm on Twitter.
Guest:Like, I feel the same way when I am going, is this helping?
Guest:Am I helping?
Marc:Yeah, I kind of pulled out of the Twitter.
Marc:Like I do it promotionally.
Guest:Yeah, David just did that too.
Marc:And like occasionally I'll answer questions, but I don't engage with garbage and I don't, I just don't do it.
Marc:I never did Facebook.
Guest:So wait a minute, you practice self-care?
Marc:A little.
Marc:Yeah, believe me, I'm doing damage in other areas.
Marc:Fair enough.
Marc:Yeah, mix it up.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:No, but it's self-care in the sense, but I can't get off my phone in terms of news.
Marc:And in the same way, we do kind of nullify and numb ourselves to, you know, it's just like, boom, you're literally just punching yourself in the face with information.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's very hard to...
Marc:I've got a hard time dealing with not so much empathy, but the weight of others' pain in personal life.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So to deal with it every day with news and then to have your ideological sensibilities and your sense of justice and everything else.
Marc:You know, kind of attacked every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I don't know how we stand up to that shit.
Marc:But I think that taking the time to write a novel where, you know, you have to think about it in a completely different way, especially something that is as memorable as what this book represents.
Marc:I mean, you know, it could reconfigure some synapses.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think it'll probably upset some people, too.
Guest:You know, there's already been a couple things here and there of especially women saying, like, you know, you're not helping anything by taking our pain and suddenly like trying to give it to men.
Guest:And by flipping it, you're taking away from us.
Guest:And I just fundamentally do not believe that.
Guest:And I think if we're going to be talking about.
Guest:what this idea of equality means.
Guest:And really getting past the point of telling stories, which is what the Me Too movement did so profoundly and beautifully, and moving towards actionable change.
Guest:Like, what are we really gonna do to change things so this doesn't happen?
Guest:So when my daughter grows up, you know, I don't have to hear about her going into a meeting where some guy's gonna pull his dick out in front of her.
Marc:Well, I think scaring the shit out of men is working a little bit.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And it's also it's it's also I understand it's like it's drastic and it's scary.
Guest:And, you know, I have said and I feel like men only like war when it's their kind of revolution.
Guest:And when it belongs to to others, then maybe it's a little like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we should slow down here and maybe have a rational conversation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But every time I come up against this and every time I talk to a man, mostly liberal men too.
Marc:Those fuckers.
Guest:Those fuckers.
Guest:About what they think the answer is.
Guest:And I say, okay, fine.
Guest:It's a witch hunt.
Guest:We've gone too far.
Guest:We're in the backlash.
Guest:Blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Put your fucking coin word in here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's the answer?
Guest:And they don't ever have an answer.
Guest:They don't have one.
Marc:Well, I think the answer, just from a personal reaction and thinking about my past and my behavior, and I think that the simplest thing in terms of what it's provoked me to do is just to be mindful of where what I'm doing is coming from.
Guest:That's a lot.
Guest:No, that's all of it.
Guest:No, meaning you have no idea how unique that is.
Guest:And I think a lot of men are really, they push back against that.
Marc:They resist it.
Guest:Yeah, they resist it.
Marc:Well, it's just like, do I need to touch her shoulder?
Marc:Is this flirting?
Marc:Am I acting out?
Marc:Am I being inappropriate?
Marc:Is this space not, why am I saying that?
Guest:The whole thing.
Guest:The whole excuse, too, about how now no one's going to be able to flirt anymore.
Guest:No one's going to know what to do in the bedroom.
Guest:All of those things are performances.
Guest:And they're deeply disturbing to me because they're disguised as ways to stop the larger work that's being done.
Guest:Because they know that's not true.
Guest:If you have an ounce of understanding, you can still go fucking have some chick put heels on and step on your balls.
Guest:You can go do whatever kinky.
Guest:Do I have to do that?
Yeah.
Guest:Yes, you do.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Kinky, weird, amazing shit you want to do as long as there's one word involved and that's consensual.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like, it's not that hard.
Guest:And if it takes you having to maybe use a few words from your mouth to ask or to figure out a way to say that, then that's, that's what it is.
Marc:Okay.
Yeah.
Marc:OK, all good.
Marc:No.
Marc:And also the I think the conversation about, you know, the kind of the power struggle or the or the misuse, the abuse of power in work environments, no matter how small.
Marc:is really, I think, it seems to be the heart of the cancer.
Marc:Yeah, it is.
Marc:What people do at home and how things are misunderstood or not, I mean, those are conversations that have to be between people, right?
Marc:But what really resonated with me and what really made me think a lot was that even if you're in a workspace for a month or for a couple months or a week, that there's a dynamic there where it's not about the other thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So if you're if you're acting in a particularly inappropriate way in a workspace, what is that about?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, really ask yourself about that.
Marc:And then you go deeper with that.
Marc:And then it's sort of like, what is it all about?
Marc:You know, how do I really see women?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then also, if you're not that person, right?
Guest:Why are you also not, if you're seeing it happen to a woman speaking up?
Guest:Because that's the other problem, is that we've got a world in which men have more allegiance to men's careers and livelihood than they do to women's physical safety.
Guest:And that's
Guest:really a problem you know and so they feel like well it's not my thing I don't want to get in the middle of it or she could be exaggerating and they always go to the things first that would mean that she's a liar and that she's not telling the truth and that's one of the biggest problems that we face right I think the fact that we are even having this conversation you know
Guest:You and I sitting here in your garage, like having this conversation is in and of itself the manifestation of that change.
Guest:And as painful as the last six or seven months have been for a lot of people and many people that I know, you know,
Guest:I think that it's so important to realize that this is really where it begins, the questioning and the wondering.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you can't change things overnight, right?
Guest:You can't, just like you said, you can't suddenly say everyone has to be different immediately, stop, go.
Guest:This is a learning curve.
Guest:And for men, this is generations upon generations since the beginning of time of behavior.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so it's incremental and you just have to be diligent and persistent and not waver.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And also it requires men like me, like slightly, you know, recovering assholes.
Guest:Recovering assholes.
Guest:I love that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, look.
Guest:My husband's a little bit of a recovering asshole.
Guest:He's still an asshole, but he's a recovering asshole.
Marc:Different kind of asshole, me and Dave.
Marc:But yeah, yeah, he was sort of a cranky, self-righteous asshole.
Guest:Yes, that is correct.
Guest:Bing!
Guest:Accurate.
Marc:Yeah, you don't want to argue with Dave, do you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You should try to be in our household in the last six months.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:He's stubborn, man.
Guest:Yeah, he's really stubborn.
Marc:Has the kid softened him?
Guest:Oh, totally.
Marc:I'd love to see that.
Guest:Yeah, he sings to her and he says funny fucking things while he changes her diaper and makes her laugh and is really good at distracting her.
Guest:And I just get frustrated.
Marc:Oh, that's sweet to hear.
Guest:He's just an extraordinary dad.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Definitely.
Marc:How has having the kid changed you for the better?
Guest:I think having a kid has weaponized me in a lot of ways.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:In the sense of her future?
Yeah.
Guest:Her future, but also my past, you know, when I think about the shit that I tolerated before, when I think about what I was what I am worth and and and having known that as long as I've known that and that the ways in which I've let people stifle that.
Guest:And they really weren't, you know, I wasn't letting them.
Guest:I was I was letting myself be stifled.
Guest:You know, you can't you can't blame other people for what's going on with you.
Guest:You can only sort of look at your own actions with that.
Guest:And so for me, so much of it has been about just what I won't tolerate.
Guest:Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty straightforward.
Guest:And it's really nice to be able to go.
Guest:Oh, I get it now.
Guest:There's something for me in this experience that's so important that all this other bullshit, like you said, doesn't matter.
Guest:And I refuse to bend.
Guest:I refuse to waver on it.
Marc:I find that like so much of that looking back on stuff and not wanting to, you know, seeing who you were, understanding who you were and realizing that you were vulnerable, insecure, not aware that, you know, maybe, you know, you left yourself unintentionally or unconsciously vulnerable to whatever.
Marc:Those are hard lessons to learn.
Marc:But, you know, it's better than on some level, like just reacting early on and becoming a monster because of monsters.
Guest:I completely agree.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like some of it's just the natural evolution of sensitive people.
Guest:Yeah, I completely agree.
Guest:Still doesn't make it any easier.
Marc:No, of course not.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also to be aware for your kid to provide whatever, you know, missing self-esteem you had for whatever fucking reason.
Marc:I speak for myself as well.
Guest:Well, child actress, that's mine.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But like, you know, why were you, you know, right.
Marc:But but nonetheless, it's that like there is there seems to be a way, I think, to give children self-esteem and sense of self or at least provide the environment to do that.
Marc:I'm not sure that I was even though I was it was a finely funded environment was not a great environment emotionally.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That adds its own weight for sure.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, because you think everything's good.
Marc:Look, I get what I need.
Marc:I got clothes, and we have a nice life, and my parents, we have money and whatever, and I'm completely emotionally incapacitated.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:But that's what happens, right?
Guest:Were your parents together when you were little, or did they divorce?
Marc:No, they were there.
Guest:They were just self-involved.
Guest:Are they still married?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:They were just a little self-involved.
Marc:Got it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had to kind of figure some stuff out on my own.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So what what made you get public about James Woods?
Guest:Oh, that's like one of those ridiculous.
Marc:Well, I mean, that's a weird question.
Marc:I mean, no, I know you did.
Marc:But like it was just seemed to be like, was it just sitting there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I OK.
Guest:So Armie Hammer and I did a movie together.
Guest:He's a friend of mine.
Guest:We did a movie together in Spain years and years ago.
Marc:He's been around that long.
Guest:Yeah, it was like some small movie.
Guest:And somebody I know had retweeted this thing that he wrote.
Guest:And it was just one of those things, sitting on the couch, clicked it, saw him say something to James Woods, who I did not know, I knew very little about.
Guest:I certainly didn't know that he was such a conservative...
Guest:talking piece and also just an overall prick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't know any of that at all.
Guest:And so I saw him, you know, this argument that was going back and forth about him, you know, he didn't like Army's movie because it's about Army having, you know, a relationship with a younger man and then Army called him out and said...
Guest:what are you talking about?
Guest:You date 17-year-olds.
Guest:And I did not also know that that was like a James Woods thing, that that was a thing he was known for.
Guest:And then a memory popped into my head.
Guest:And I was like, oh, wait a minute.
Guest:I remember when he tried to pick me up at Mel's Diner when I was like 17.
Guest:Yeah, I was 17.
Guest:I remembered it because of many factors.
Guest:And I even like, I called my dad to double check.
Guest:And he's like, oh yeah, I remember when you came home and told me about that.
Marc:And you knew it was James Woods.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:100%.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:He's memorable.
Guest:He's memorable in that way.
Marc:You never forget that fucking face.
Guest:No.
Guest:You never forget a predator like that.
Guest:And so I just tweeted it.
Guest:I think that's so indicative of the time we live in, too.
Guest:You just tweet it, but you forget you're living in a world where people are watching.
Guest:And because I think, you know, because of the election of Donald Trump, because of so many factors...
Guest:Really, people were like ready to pop off.
Guest:They were ready.
Guest:You could feel it boiling under the surface for women and a lot of men.
Guest:You could feel this sense of like, this is not happening anymore.
Guest:And there's a riot is about to go on.
Guest:And so it just turned into this huge thing.
Guest:And I would have never gone further had he not like gone out of his way to give an interview to, you know, Variety or one of those things and call me an outright liar.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:And I was like, I will fucking throw a brick through your life, motherfucker.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I wrote a couple pieces and it is the reason I have my contributing writer for The New York Times was because I wrote a piece there, which was widely read called I'm Done With Not Being Believed.
Guest:And it really was this idea of like, you know, this this.
Guest:This idea that you have to go out of your way to prove yourself on so many insane levels.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's it's so unfair.
Guest:And oftentimes, you know, women have to come with like a stack of papers of evidence for a small thing like that happening.
Guest:And the first reaction is to always second guess the woman.
Marc:Well, that's but that's all part of the paradigm of, you know, the bitch is crazy.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's absolutely right.
Marc:That's like that's one of the it's it's on it's on the top five checklist of patriarchy.
Marc:Oh, that bitch is lying.
Marc:She's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, that's that's that's really true.
Guest:And yeah.
Guest:And that happened like three months before the Harvey Weinstein story came out.
Guest:So it was really in the air.
Guest:Oh, was that early?
Marc:I didn't realize the timing of it.
Guest:Yeah, it was like three months before.
Guest:It was the reason that the article was so read and distributed.
Marc:The one about not being believed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that Jody Cantor from the New York Times, who at that time nobody knew, was working on the Weinstein piece, asked to speak with me through a friend.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I didn't have anything to give her, but I didn't have any Harvey Weinstein stories.
Marc:But I knew about it.
Guest:I knew it was happening.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And it was starting to build.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you were one of the first things to pop off.
Guest:Yeah, it was sort of incremental.
Guest:There were many of us that were really doing it.
Guest:And then, you know, I think I'm also a founding member of Time's Up.
Guest:And one of the great things that we've been doing, you know, Time's Up was like a thing that was a bunch of really pissed off angry women who got in a room together and just...
Guest:we're like, what are we going to do?
Guest:We're, we're not going to just be angry anymore.
Guest:What are we going to actually functionally do?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How can we help?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and that was, and that to me is the catharsis.
Guest:That's, that to me is what makes me not feel like a crazy person is to go, okay, we started times up so that nobody ever has to say me too again.
Guest:So no one has to do it.
Guest:That's the point.
Marc:And how's the momentum?
Marc:How are you, are you guys still engaging and
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's a it's huge now.
Guest:And it's, you know, like all movements, it's like, it's had its criticism, it's had its criticisms.
Guest:And it's, it's like trying to fly a plane while you're building it.
Guest:It's hard, it's fucking hard.
Guest:And you get hundreds of people with big ideas who are geniuses in their own right.
Guest:And you're trying to like create a plan to shift
Guest:western culture as we know it it can't be done overnight so but I think the progress that we've made is absolutely extraordinary one of the very first things we did with the launch of it was at one point the women of the farm workers union had signed a petition or a letter to us saying that they stand with the women in the entertainment business so we wrote a response letter I think there was over 200 of us so
Guest:basically saying, we see you and we hear you and we stand with you in this effort to change the Farm Workers Union and even in the restaurant business and all these other businesses.
Guest:And we tied that with a legal defense fund, which has raised over $30 million so far, which goes towards basically helping both men and women who are victims of harassment and sexual assault in the workplace.
Yeah.
Marc:I went out with a woman years ago, I don't know if Dave knew her, but she once said to me, and I can never forget it because it seems to be encapsulated a lot of stuff.
Marc:She's a sculptor, very tough woman, interesting character, but she used to bartend at a strip bar, but she wasn't a stripper, but she used to bartend, I think it was in Boston, and she quit.
Marc:And I said, why'd you quit?
Marc:And she goes, I got tired of men looking at me like I was food.
Guest:I like her.
Guest:I like her.
Marc:But good luck with this book.
Marc:I'm very happy about it.
Marc:I'm happy to see you.
Marc:I'm happy to have been part of it.
Marc:Who are some of the other people in part of the audio book?
Marc:Because that seems like a whole other thing, the audio book.
Guest:Yeah, so it's Ben Foster.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I want to meet that guy.
Guest:Oh, he's... Okay, I cannot wait to text him and tell him you said that, because when I... I was at his house two nights ago, and I told him I was coming to do this, and he goes, Oh, God, I want to meet that guy.
Guest:I shit you not.
Guest:So he's a fan of yours, and sometime... I'm going to connect you guys.
Guest:You need to interview him.
Marc:Yeah, I do, and I talked to Oren.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, Oren.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, and...
Marc:You know, we had a long conversation, me and Oren, and he came up and I'm like sort of half obsessed with Foster.
Guest:You'll become more obsessed once you meet him.
Guest:Yeah, he's a dark knight of the soul.
Marc:How'd that happen?
Guest:In the best possible way.
Marc:Okay, I'll find that out.
Marc:Well, I'm glad we're on the same page with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So he's one, yeah?
Guest:He's one, and John Roberts, who's Linda and Bob's Burgers.
Marc:I haven't heard from him in a while.
Marc:I haven't seen him around.
Guest:He moved to Jersey.
Guest:He's in Jersey.
Guest:And my dad, Russ Tamblyn, a wonderful actor out of New York named Glenn Davis.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No Swappy?
Guest:Slappy did do a voice for it, and then I had John come over and do it instead.
Guest:Because the character is gay and, you know.
Marc:Oh, no.
Marc:Did David do his gay guy?
Guest:He was gay.
Guest:But then it was actually, you know, it was David who was like, I think this is a bad call, and I think you should get, like, one of your rad.
Guest:He did not say rad.
Guest:David Cross did not say rad.
Marc:He said one of your gay gay friends.
Guest:Yeah, he just said, get the real deal.
Guest:You have it, so go get it.
Marc:I think that's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:All right, well, when's it out?
Guest:The book is out June 26th.
Guest:It's called Any Man.
Marc:And you're going to send me one so I can read it on a plane?
Marc:No.
Marc:Thank you.
Thank you.
Marc:Again, Amber Tamblyn's new novel, Any Man, out June 26th.
Marc:You can pre-order it now wherever you get books.
Marc:Listen, folks, I was excited to meet Holly Hunter.
Marc:Wouldn't you be?
Marc:It was very, just this year, come over to the house, show up, say she liked my house.
Marc:We talked a little bit about patio furniture, front porch furniture, and then we went into the garage and knocked out the conversation.
Marc:So,
Marc:As I mentioned before, Holly is the voice of Mrs. Incredible in The Incredibles 2, which opens everywhere tomorrow, June 15th.
Marc:And this is her and I talking about a lot of stuff back in the new garage.
Marc:Me and Holly Hunter now.
Guest:Sound good?
Guest:Good.
Guest:I'm just going to put this down so I can actually see you.
Marc:I think that's a good idea.
Marc:I appreciate the impulse.
Marc:A lot of people, they don't know how to do a mic.
Marc:God knows you know how to do a mic.
Guest:Well, we're here talking about a movie where I was at a mic.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was so interesting.
Guest:This guy at Disney, the same room.
Guest:You would probably be really interested in this room.
Guest:It was the same room where they recorded Jungle Book.
Guest:Louis Prima came in and was playing, singing.
Guest:With his orchestra?
Guest:yeah and uh but the the guy there doc he's the sound engineer he's outfitted the recording booth yeah with all these kind of the the the microphone is on a um an automated he can automatically move the mic with
Guest:Right.
Guest:With remote control from his booth.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And normally, you know, the guys are doing it.
Guest:It's like analog.
Guest:I mean, you're coming and adjusting it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he can do it from the booth kind of soundlessly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So as you're recording, he can move it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:It was just the mic will just start moving?
Marc:I guess it's not as rude either as someone coming in going, could you just focus on them?
Guest:A cut.
Guest:Hold on, Holly.
Guest:No.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It just adjusts.
Guest:And they have these bars that fly down that you can hang from if you're doing really physical stuff.
Guest:Oh, so you can get the... You can kind of get the feeling.
Guest:It helps, right?
Guest:Or there's a bar also that you can push up against.
Guest:So you can act.
Guest:Or you can pull it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so it's kind of, Disney is obviously, animated-wise, they're set up for, they got the legacy.
Marc:Yeah, of course, it's the original place.
Marc:So you're at the old lot in this old room.
Guest:It's so beautiful.
Guest:It's so humble.
Guest:You would particularly, I think, love it.
Marc:You can feel the history of everything.
Guest:Yeah, it's very humble.
Guest:Very kind of, like, very low-key.
Marc:Where is it, Burbank?
Burbank.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's in Burbank.
Guest:And I don't know.
Guest:I just I particularly love recording there.
Marc:And how long did it take to do this movie?
Guest:about a year and a half maybe a year and a half wow really um but yeah i mean for me though it was nothing yeah i mean for me the animators were like breaking their asses right i guess that's what you're not i was like coming in once a month and hanging out with brad and having some laughs yeah those guys were like working you know yeah 24 7 doing the cells because i guess all that's done on computer now there's no reason there's no guys sitting around inking are there
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Those guys draw.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those guys all draw.
Guest:And then some of them do their stuff on the computer.
Guest:But it's still a phenomenal thing because, you know, they'll go, you know, so-and-so is like on fire.
Guest:She did three seconds yesterday.
Guest:It's like if they do a second a day of film time.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:A second.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:A day, then they're booking.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:So... So what is it like?
Marc:What's the storyline of this one?
Guest:Well, it's funny.
Marc:This movie... The Incredibles 2.
Guest:The Incredibles 2, Brad...
Guest:The feat of the movie is partly the complexity.
Guest:Because it does feel like there's about five movies in one.
Guest:And he's able to weave them narratively together in a way that it's like they're necessary.
Guest:It's inevitable.
Marc:Have you seen it?
Guest:It's inevitable.
Guest:yeah and it's i think it's look i i think the movie is is dazzling the movie takes place yeah for like 14 seconds after the last movie okay and it's 14 years but in animated it's 14 seconds okay so like basically the family is in the exact same position of jeopardy yeah that they were in when the right the last picking up right there
Guest:With the Underminer, the bad guy coming after us, coming, you know, coming after the city.
Guest:You know, the superheroes are still illegal.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And the parents still don't know that their youngest son, the infant, Jack-Jack, has crazy powers.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:So they don't know that.
Marc:That he's really a superhero.
Guest:That he's a superhero himself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They think that he's a normal baby.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So you have all of those.
Marc:It's a common problem with parents.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:In fact, probably most parents would agree that their baby is like super in some weird way.
Marc:A genius.
Guest:Like a genius in terms of like never sleeping.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But anyway, so that's where we start.
Marc:And like the first movie was incredibly popular.
Marc:It's got a huge following, right?
Guest:The Incredibles operates on... It's...
Guest:Not necessarily for children.
Guest:I mean, it certainly is a movie that children can enjoy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But Brad, this guy Brad Bird, he's a bit of a genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he is.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Because he's got, he can get all the balls in the air.
Marc:He knows how to like really, like he just, he's one of those guys that seems like it's expansive.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's kind of a high-low guy.
Guest:I mean, he's got real high-brow, real low-brow humor.
Guest:Right.
Guest:right right operates on a kind of uber sophisticated level and and visually it's really sophisticated right um well that's the trick he has great passions great visual loves yeah and he's got a great um the disney legacy and that you know he's he's a real historian oh really oh yeah animation so he's a disney nerd an animation nerd
Guest:Yeah, that's really where he comes from.
Guest:He's highly educated about the history of animation.
Guest:That's great.
Marc:Bring a lot to it.
Marc:What's the interaction as an actor when you work with an animation director?
Marc:Is he in the booth?
Marc:What happens?
Guest:No, he's not in the both.
Guest:I mean, you know, this is the only animated movie I've ever done, so these two.
Guest:So I don't know how these other guys do this.
Marc:Yeah, because I've done voiceovers before, and someone's usually there.
Marc:You assume one of them is a director.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You know, like you're just in a room, and someone says, okay.
Guest:Yeah, they're talking to a disembodied voice.
Guest:Or even they're on the phone.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And they're like, okay, we're good, I think.
Marc:That's it?
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah, you're good.
Guest:And they'll go, hold on just a second.
Guest:And then there's silence because they're conferring.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But none of that is what... No.
Guest:Brad is in the room.
Guest:Oh, he's there.
Guest:He's right there.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:So you are...
Guest:He's you and I'm me, except we're both standing.
Marc:Oh, so he is directing you.
Guest:There's a microphone between us.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's just really, and he is the director.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's just between him and me.
Guest:There is no conference.
Guest:He's going, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And he'll have a suggestion, and then he's like, great.
Guest:And then we move on to the next scene.
Marc:Isn't it easier to make adjustments when it's just your voice?
Marc:And if a director goes, can you just give that to me a little, maybe tired?
Marc:And you're like, yeah, no problem.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:As opposed to, I can't.
Guest:I can be tired.
Marc:Yeah, but when you're on a set with a bunch of moving parts and it's live action, to sort of get a note and then reconfigure it into the entire scene, it's a big deal.
Marc:But with the voice, it's just sort of like, yeah, sure, let's try it a couple times.
Guest:I don't know, but the live action thing, Mark, that's what I do.
Guest:I know that.
Guest:I would never call it live action.
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:It's just acting.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I meant it as opposed to animated.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But live action, where did that word come from?
Marc:That's a knife.
Guest:I see that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's got, like, places for your fingers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know where it came from.
Marc:I actually do, but it's not really.
Marc:I just found it.
Guest:No, it's a cool... It's an object.
Marc:I don't know where live action came from.
Marc:I guess live action came from, you know, a lot of... At some point, there were so many animated movies, you had to draw a line.
Marc:Yeah, a line must be drawn.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's a live action movie.
Marc:Real people.
Yeah.
Guest:I always feel kind of sad when I, I find myself occasionally accidentally saying it.
Marc:What, live action?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Have you read Tree of Smoke?
Marc:No, I haven't read that Dennis Johnson.
Guest:Dennis Johnson, he's great.
Marc:Great.
Guest:Oh man, I love him.
Marc:It's like really amazing books.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I watched you, like you worked with my friend.
Marc:Well, I guess we're friends.
Marc:I mean, we're certainly contemporaries.
Marc:Kumail and Emily, who, you know, I know well.
Marc:You love it, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I love Kumail.
Guest:You love doing that movie?
Guest:Yeah, no, I love those guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I miss those guys.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was just so funny.
Guest:I was thinking about them this morning going, you know, I miss them.
Marc:But you live in New York?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So when you come out here, do you have people you visit?
Marc:You could have maybe dropped over, said hi.
Guest:No, no, no, definitely.
Guest:I mean, you know, I've got so many great type friends in L.A.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In some ways, some of the greatest friends that I have live out here.
Marc:Yeah, from a life in show business perspective.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:L.A.
Guest:collects great people.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Why do you stay in New York?
Guest:You know, I just love New York.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:I can't get New York out of my head.
Marc:Are you in the city?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:And you still don't think it's changed a lot?
Guest:It's changed phenomenally.
Marc:In a good way?
Guest:You know, I mean, I think Giuliani just like, he just wrung a lot of the edge out of the city.
Marc:Back then.
Guest:Back then.
Guest:But now, like, I don't even know.
Marc:Back in the old days.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I was there.
Marc:I was there in the 80s.
Marc:And I don't even know.
Marc:Where were you?
Marc:Second between A and B. Yeah.
Marc:what 1989 to 1992 yeah that's edge yeah it was a war zone back then but now like you go there you were stepping over needles and stuff absolutely yeah and there were point guys there was a whole racket going there was a doorway next to my house where they line up to get the dope and now there's a nice cafe there it's a nice little cafe there in that exact place wow everything's changed
Guest:Yes, everything is... And some of the edge, maybe it was nice to not have to look over your shoulder constantly.
Guest:But I think it's a little too soft.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, when they did Times Square, there was... That's tough.
Marc:But it is pretty spectacular.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:I think I'm of two minds about it.
Marc:Do we really miss the porno theaters and live sex shows and Port Authority being a complete fucking shit show?
Marc:But it still is.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Port Authority is like, wow...
Guest:Do you remember that place?
Guest:What are you doing over there?
Guest:The Penn Station?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Did they tear Penn Station down?
Marc:Well, I mean, it was like- It's under Madison Square Garden, right?
Guest:No, it was the one that was just beyond magnificent.
Guest:You've got to see this documentary about it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:You've got to check.
Guest:Well, I mean, it's truly mind-blowing that they tore this- The old building down?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I just think that Times Square, it's touristy and it's weird, but the lights and everything.
Guest:It's like if they took a wrecking ball to Grand Central Station.
Guest:Oh, come on.
Guest:It would be exactly like taking a wrecking ball to Grand Central Station.
Guest:That sounds terrible.
Guest:The monumental.
Marc:Of Penn Station, the original Penn Station.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't remember it.
Guest:It was much bigger than Grand Central.
Guest:It was a massive building.
Marc:I love Grand Central.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Marc:I love going in there.
Guest:It's New York.
Marc:It's beautiful.
Marc:So where'd you grow up though?
Guest:In Georgia.
Marc:Georgia?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like rural Georgia?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Really?
Guest:You know, actually not that far from Atlanta, but it was, you know, I grew up on a farm.
Guest:And what'd they have on the farm?
Guest:Hay, cattle.
Marc:So it was a cattle farm?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And your dad, your family were cattle farmers?
Guest:No, my father was like a gentleman farmer, but the farm was a fully working operational gig.
Guest:I've got two brothers who live and work on the farm.
Marc:Still?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So the family farm is still intact?
Guest:The family farm is still happening.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like how many acres?
Marc:How many cows?
Guest:Like 150 acres.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Sorry, 250 acres.
Guest:It's huge.
Guest:I don't know how many cows they have.
Guest:But for a farm, it's small.
Guest:250 acres is small when you've got the farms out in Texas that are like 30,000.
Marc:I guess so, that's true.
Guest:You know, it's really, it's pretty, you know.
Marc:And is it a dairy farm?
Marc:Beef.
Marc:Oh, so they, yeah, they make meat.
Marc:They're meat cows.
Guest:Meat cows, often referred to as beef cows.
Marc:Yeah, beef cows, that's fine.
Marc:And you, did you work on the farm as a kid?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Not at all?
Guest:No, my father was a true, true blue sexist.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No working on things?
Guest:No, girls did not do that kind of thing.
Guest:Girls should wear dresses and help their mother set the table.
Marc:So that's what you did.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And what did your mother do?
Marc:Just the older version of that?
Guest:An older version of setting the table.
Marc:Making the food.
Guest:My mom, you know, she was a, what do you call it?
Guest:Like, she was a housewife.
Marc:Yeah, that's what you call it.
Guest:That's what my mom did.
Marc:A farmer's wife, it sounds like.
Guest:Yeah, she was really, no, not a farmer's wife.
Guest:She was a housewife.
Guest:She was a 50s housewife.
Guest:You know, very, very much in that tradition.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, and so your brothers are older or younger?
Guest:All older.
Marc:I'm the youngest.
Marc:There's three of you?
Guest:No, there's five brothers and one sister.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:You have five brothers and a sister?
Marc:So there's seven altogether?
Marc:Are they all still around?
Marc:They are.
Guest:They are.
Marc:Is everybody friends?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:We see each other.
Guest:Actually, we all got together for the big sick.
Marc:Did they love the movie?
Guest:Yeah, they loved it.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:it's it's nice to hear about families that kind of keep getting along and everybody's no one else is in show business no no no so they're all excited you know i think it's important too i mean for me personally it's really important to kind of to keep that um connection yeah i i think you have to make compromises there are things that you maybe you don't want to discuss
Guest:You know, there's stuff that you don't want to have come up.
Guest:Money and politics are generally two good things not to talk about.
Guest:And it's also but it's fairly easy to avoid those topics.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Even even in this day and age, I can absolutely avoid both of them with ease.
Marc:But no one's pushing your buttons.
Guest:My buttons are not really pushable.
Guest:It's just like I step aside.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're not going to do it.
Guest:No, because for me, the priorities are really firmly in place.
Guest:It's like I'm an adult and I can handle it.
Marc:I can handle it and I don't need to talk to you about that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You know, this conversation is over.
Marc:I love you.
Marc:Let's eat dessert.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, let's.
Marc:And they know everyone knows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and they get it.
Guest:They I think everybody's, you know, obviously, if you have still have a connection with your immediate family.
Guest:Right.
Guest:For the length of, you know, your entire adult life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's because people have a certain, you know, they've got priorities and they've got boundaries and everybody understands, you know, what the lineup is, which is you want to keep this intact.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And as long as you don't lose.
Guest:It's important.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And as long as you don't lose your shit and cause some drama that could last for three, four years, ten years.
Guest:Or 20.
Marc:20?
Guest:Yeah, you want to avoid the 20-year meltdown.
Marc:Yeah, the one meltdown that lasted 20 years.
Guest:Yeah, that turns into that weirdness.
Marc:That hasn't happened.
Guest:That most people, like, people have some at least six degrees of separation contact with that kind of fallout.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, you want to avoid it.
Marc:I've gone years without talking to my dad at some point.
Marc:I don't know that I lost those years.
Marc:He's still around, so it doesn't feel like I made a tremendous mistake.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Just had to be done at the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sometimes these things, they're inevitable.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, I mean, I imagine, well, I'm projecting.
Marc:I imagine that because you're from the South that there are some lines that are drawn politically that must be challenging.
Yeah.
Marc:You're speechless?
Guest:So what else can we talk about?
Marc:Not even gonna talk to me about it.
Marc:That's all right.
Guest:No, I mean, wow.
Guest:That's huge.
Guest:That's the tough one.
Guest:That's huge.
Guest:Yeah, it's tough.
Guest:And the lines that are drawn from one state to another now seem so massive.
Marc:Yeah, it's a trip, right?
Guest:But Georgia, it's very interesting.
Marc:Yeah, because Atlanta's like, I mean, I work in Atlanta.
Guest:But Georgia could, you know, because of the black vote, I mean, Georgia could turn blue again.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I was just trying to, I mean, because people are so, there's been a lot of activation.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Reaction.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Everyone's waking up.
Guest:People are woke.
Guest:And Georgia is experiencing that big time.
Guest:So it's kind of going from violently red to possibly blue.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's exciting.
Marc:It's exciting when Americans all of a sudden realize that maybe they have to engage in the political process.
Marc:I know, man.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:It's very hard.
Marc:Even for me, you're just sort of like, what have we been doing for 30 years?
Guest:I know, it takes a state of emergency.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:That's unfortunate.
Guest:For almost anything to happen.
Guest:I know, does it have to, do we have to go this far?
Marc:Yeah, we don't, but it's sort of like I think people just get disconnected, detached, bored with the political process.
Marc:They get the thing in the mail, they're like, I don't even know where I'm going.
Marc:Who's this guy?
Marc:What is that job?
Guest:I need a glass of wine.
Marc:Sure, yeah, yeah, I need some wine.
Marc:I'm not going to make it over to the voting place.
Marc:It's dirty.
Marc:Can't we just do it at home?
Marc:Yeah, you can if you send the thing in.
Marc:Oh, did that already come?
Marc:Yeah, it's fine.
Marc:So when you left Georgia, were you like, I got to get the fuck out of here?
Guest:Um...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Although, yeah, I would say that that's true.
Guest:I love living in New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I don't have any desire to live in the South again, except I will say I find New Orleans an incredibly seductive place.
Guest:um original city right you know hold it's like new orleans is it's is it's its own thing and and i find it really powerful when i go there it's just like the pull is yeah it's just so beautiful it's almost mystical mystical right um so and i hope new orleans never loses that it doesn't seem like it's going to yeah um i i was there not too long ago i didn't i didn't feel like it was like oh this isn't the same there's still that thing great man
Marc:Well, just the thing, like just looking at the buildings, it's like there's nothing like these buildings anywhere.
Marc:It's like down to the architecture.
Marc:There's nothing.
Marc:What were you doing down there?
Marc:I did a show.
Marc:I did a stand-up show a couple years ago, I guess, and walked around a bit.
Guest:Did you like doing stand-up?
Marc:I do it a lot.
Marc:Yeah, I do it.
Marc:Yeah, I like doing it.
Marc:Do you come to New York?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Guest:You go to Comedy Cellar?
Guest:I mean, where do you?
Marc:I do the cellar sometimes.
Marc:Yeah, I used to go there a lot when I lived in New York.
Guest:And do you like the intimacy of the cellar?
Guest:I mean, how?
Guest:I like making it.
Guest:Or do you like the bigness?
Guest:Do you like going to the beacon?
Marc:I like making a place the size of the beacon intimate.
Marc:That's the challenge that I've taken upon myself.
Marc:I was just at Royal Festival Hall in London.
Marc:It's about 2,600.
Marc:And I like bringing it in to where it feels intimate.
Marc:I mean, that's been the evolution of what I try to do.
Marc:As opposed to rising to the space, let's bring the space in.
Guest:And how do you do that?
Marc:I sit down.
Guest:I sit down.
Marc:You know, you sit down, you talk directly to people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, I mean, it's like how much energy do you want to exert?
Marc:And, you know, how what what's the quality of laugh that you want?
Marc:You know, how much of you know, how much you want to be engaged?
Marc:I think it's a matter of engagement and taking emotional risks that create an intimacy, not just, you know, going beat to beat.
Guest:That's like theater.
Guest:Well, that's interesting.
Guest:I mean, I just I immediately just kind of thought about Spalding Gray.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, that's a good movie.
Guest:Spalding would just kind of bring it.
Guest:He would just bring it into him.
Guest:We'd just be sitting at that desk.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, that's it.
Guest:Talking to people.
Guest:It was just like he controlled, you know, he controlled the closeness.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he made it.
Guest:He demanded that it be close.
Marc:Well, I think that's it.
Marc:If I could cite somebody that does something that I find that I would aspire to, it would certainly be that.
Marc:Yeah, that's cool.
Marc:Yeah, and I think you can do it with any space.
Marc:I really do.
Marc:I think theaters are built for that in a certain way.
Marc:They kind of crave intimacy.
Marc:That the idea of spectacle is a whole other thing, you know, if you're a rock concert or whatever.
Marc:But, you know, if you're in a theater, you know, you've done theater.
Marc:So when you get out there, it's visceral.
Marc:You can feel the presence of the audience.
Marc:You have a sense of their investment and their emotional attention.
Marc:And when you just talk, like to talk off a mic in a big space, people are like, what's happening?
Guest:Yeah, that's interesting.
Guest:I mean, just to sit down at the bacon is that's that's kind of a radical act.
Guest:I think that's cool.
Marc:I did it at Carnegie two years ago.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And it was a Carnegie that much.
Guest:It wasn't that wonderful.
Guest:I love the feeling.
Marc:Yeah, I think I should have had... I did love the feeling, but like I kind of... It took me a while to get grounded because I was nervous and emotional and I couldn't believe I was there.
Marc:And I was sort of, you know, winging in a little bit for about like a half hour.
Marc:I was just floundering around.
Marc:But once I...
Marc:But that was another situation where I'm like, I got to make this intimate.
Marc:And there was a point in the show where, you know, I wanted my dad had sent me a text that I thought was hilarious, but I'd left my phone backstage and I wanted to read it.
Marc:So I was in a very improvisational place, even at Carnegie Hall.
Marc:And I was asking someone to bring me my phone from backstage and no one heard me.
Marc:So it became this little mystery in the middle of the show.
Marc:Like, are they going to bring it?
Guest:Is this going to happen?
Guest:Am I talking?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And then someone appeared at the door.
Marc:Can you hear me?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It was that.
Marc:And when they finally showed up, it was a very exciting moment for everybody.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And did you feel the acoustic?
Guest:I mean, did you feel the wood of the liveness of that room?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Definitely.
Guest:As opposed to the beacon?
Marc:I've never done the beacon yet.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But definitely, you definitely feel Carnegie.
Marc:You feel the whole history of it.
Marc:You know, there's like... Totally.
Marc:I just...
Guest:I can imagine.
Guest:I can only imagine what that must be like to look out.
Guest:Because I love to go to Carnegie and watch.
Marc:It's like circular.
Marc:Yeah, I love places where you can hear, that are designed for instruments, where you can hear just anything.
Guest:So what about Disney?
Marc:Oh, yeah, I've only been there once.
Marc:I've not seen a show there.
Guest:I've not seen a symphony.
Marc:I would go, yeah.
Marc:I like Lincoln Center.
Marc:I've performed in opera houses.
Marc:You don't like Lincoln Center?
Guest:You don't like it?
Guest:Yeah, but not Disney here.
Guest:I know, it's pretty.
Guest:You got the creme de la creme.
Guest:I mean, Disney's unbelievable.
Marc:Is it the creme de la creme?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:Have you been there?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Tons.
Guest:I mean, I love to go to Disney.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Whenever I'm in L.A., I try to go to, I mean, Esapekka Salonen.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then you guys got Dudamel.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, two of the greatest conductors in the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got to get more into it.
Guest:You guys have.
Marc:I know.
Marc:But I don't know that world.
Marc:Like a lot of times if I'm in New York, I've started to go to to see the jazz, you know, over to see Marsalis and those guys at Lincoln Center.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then like, but I just do it.
Marc:I don't I don't plan it.
Marc:Like if I'm in the city and I'm like, you know, I got a little money, you know, what's over there?
Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Like, I did that at Lincoln Center.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:It's like, all right, so they're playing a little bit of Beethoven and some other shit.
Marc:I don't know these people.
Marc:But how bad could it be?
Marc:It's at Lincoln Center, right?
Guest:So you just pay the... But I would say, I mean, if you could see Dudamel here.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:Dudamel is just... He's such a visceral conductor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think he brings out like a... He's just... He's a world-class guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, he's like... He's very...
Guest:He's very visceral.
Guest:I mean, I think that the kind of music that he draws from musicians is really, he's got a really global influence.
Guest:He loves, you know, a real international sound from his musicians.
Guest:I think, you know, he would be a great guy.
Guest:I'll go.
Guest:To just go listen to and watch.
Marc:I appreciate you.
Guest:What he does.
Marc:Yeah, I appreciate you telling me to do that.
Guest:I mean, I'm really jealous that L.A.
Guest:has him and that New York doesn't.
Marc:Well, now I feel like it's an asshole, an unsophisticated idiot.
Guest:No, no, man.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It's a treat.
Guest:You're going to get to go to Disney Music Hall with one of the great conductors, you know, and who brings a, I don't know.
Marc:I'm excited.
Guest:Kind of an earthy feeling to classical music.
Marc:But do you know classical music well?
Guest:No, not really.
Marc:But you just like that dude.
Guest:But I like the L.A.
Guest:Phil.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Well, I'm going to go because like I've been wondering how to enjoy life and this seems like a step in the right direction.
Guest:Definitely go there and you can then you can also check out the space and go, hey, you know, you could perform there.
Marc:Oh, I don't know.
Guest:Because that would be incredible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that's you would probably adore that.
Marc:It might be.
Marc:Yeah, it might be exciting.
Marc:I performed at the Symphony Hall in San Francisco, which is another big, huge acoustic space.
Guest:I don't know that.
Marc:Well, here's the issue.
Marc:I learned a weird lesson.
Marc:It's about 1,900 seats, but it's a space where they do comedy sometimes.
Marc:For whatever reason, if you can get people in there, I sold okay, but there's a giant organ that's always there, and it takes up the entire back of the wall.
Right.
Marc:And I felt that subconsciously people were expecting something bigger.
Marc:So when I did this face, I did this Royal Festival Hall in England.
Marc:And again, I walk out.
Marc:The organ.
Marc:It's a fucking organ.
Guest:Well, and at Disney Music Hall, you would have the same thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But they said to me, they said, we can put a curtain in front of the organ.
Marc:I'm like, would you?
Marc:Because I've had experiences with organs this size.
Guest:Or could you just like go play a couple of notes and just like...
Marc:Maybe, but I don't even know where the keyboard was.
Marc:All you see are those pipes.
Marc:I know, it's true.
Marc:Where is it?
Marc:I don't know where the guy sits.
Guest:It's unbelievably mysterious.
Marc:So when you were in New York, did you work with Spalding?
Guest:Well, you know, it's so wild that one of my first experiences that I ever had was with Spaulding when he was with Richard Schechter and the original Worcester group.
Guest:But this was like 1977.
Guest:I was in Pittsburgh going to Carnegie Mellon University and the Worcester group and Spaulding came through town.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:They did a workshop with us.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I was, you know, I was at an acting conservatory.
Marc:Well, that's one of the big ones.
Guest:Yeah, so he came and the Worcester Group did a workshop with us.
Guest:And, you know, he was unforgettable.
Guest:And then they performed, you know, three plays over that weekend.
Guest:So we saw them perform and then we worked.
Guest:But it was unforgettable for me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What left the biggest impression?
Guest:His improvisatory freedom, his intuitions.
Guest:I mean, you know, things would come to him and it would just be impulse.
Guest:He would have an impulse and then he would act on the impulse.
Guest:And that's something that actors you want.
Guest:You know, you court that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That thoughtless kind of thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought that he mastered that.
Marc:as a monologist but I mean I wonder no but this was kind of as an actor as an improviser okay yeah right but like it's harder to do that in character I would think
Guest:Well, he really wasn't thinking about character.
Guest:He was thinking about circumstances.
Guest:He would pose these circumstances to us and then put some conflicts in for us, some obstacles, and then we would deal.
Guest:It wouldn't be like doing a part.
Guest:It would be like just dealing with this...
Guest:you know conflict yeah the improvisation of the immediate right right it's happening now i just thought he was kind of you know really a profound a profound artist yeah i was seeing really young yeah in my you know or very early on in my studies
Marc:And did you meet him again later to tell him that he had this amazing impact on you?
Guest:No.
Marc:Never?
Guest:I saw him several times, but I never went backstage.
Guest:I was too intimidated.
Marc:So Carnegie Mellon, how'd you end up there?
Marc:So did you do theater in Georgia early on when you were younger?
Marc:You did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes I forget.
Guest:I'm just like nodding my head.
Guest:And you're like, Molly, you've got to talk.
Marc:She's nodding her head now.
Marc:That's a yes.
Marc:That silence is a yes.
Guest:We need a translator, a verbal translator.
Marc:She's tired of talking.
Guest:Are you tired of talking?
Guest:No.
Guest:But, you know, so do people just play with all these kind of fun things that you have?
Marc:Certain people do.
Guest:I mean, this is a hammer.
Guest:It's a half a hammer.
Guest:With a split handle is very provocative.
Marc:It is provocative.
Marc:It's like... I found it.
Guest:Cropsey.
Guest:It's like this should be in a horror film.
Marc:Yeah, it might be.
Marc:Might be.
Marc:If you put a little blood.
Marc:Sure, you're all set.
Marc:Yeah, some people play.
Marc:Sometimes I wonder why they play, but I like having things out there.
Guest:Do you think, wow, they're playing because they're nervous?
Marc:No, I think it's a comfort.
Marc:thing they wish they had a cigarette or what is it something yeah are they bored i don't mind if people smoke if they want to smoke but i don't know if they're bored i think it's a it's a way of anxiety anxiety and also sort of like uh it's distracting hey and you know what this looks like mosaic man
Marc:Yeah, it's a mosaic mushroom.
Guest:Is this Mosaic Man?
Marc:No.
Marc:That was a fan made that.
Marc:They put the name of the podcast, and they put a little cat on top for me.
Guest:And you know Mosaic Man in the East Village?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:He does them all over the lights.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Oh, that's right, that guy.
Marc:No, I don't think that's his work, but when I go to New York, I do like it.
Guest:It's definitely inspired by him.
Guest:Anyway, yeah.
Marc:Acting.
Guest:So, acting.
Guest:Ah, yes, acting.
Marc:So...
Guest:Try to get a little... The subject that I warm to.
Marc:But in Georgia, what were you doing?
Marc:Just like high school stuff?
Guest:Just high school stuff.
Marc:But you knew you wanted to do it.
Guest:Musicals.
Guest:I was in high school musicals.
Guest:I would love to see you in a high school musical.
Guest:And then I was a director...
Guest:Saw me in a high school play, and he was the director of the Alliance Theater in Atlanta, which is Atlanta's big theater, and he did repertory theater in upstate New York.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Summer rep.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And so he said, do you want to come to my summer rep company and apprentice?
Guest:This was when journeymen.
Guest:This is when you apprenticed.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You learned how to clean things and build things and, you know, serve food.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wash people's underwear.
Marc:Oh, well, that's a...
Guest:you sure that everyone did that and i had to and uh you you know i helped actors off the stage in the dark and i turned the turntables in between scenes and all that all that crazy stuff that that that apprentices do did you love it i loved it and what were some of the shows who were some of the actors you walked off stage did you meet people that impressed you
Marc:Was it life-changing when you saw the people on the stage?
Guest:You know, it was the first time that I had encountered a gay community that I knew was a gay community.
Guest:And that gay community knew that they were gay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that when I went back to my high school, I went, oh, wow, he's gay.
Guest:You know, one of my classmates.
Guest:But did they know or did you go tell them?
Guest:He's gay and he doesn't know it.
Guest:And he may never...
Guest:He may never know it the way that I know.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:He may never be as comfortable as the people I met up there.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's almost a sad feeling for that person.
Guest:It was, but it was an exciting awakening for me because there were all these incredibly theatrical, at-home films.
Marc:fun yeah um you just wanted to take the gay guy you knew in high school and bring him up there yeah i know i just say hey man wild it's okay yeah yeah right right um so yeah there were a lot of really fun impressive people and i went oh i want i want to do this this is you want to become part of the i want to be part of this world yeah oh that's great and you did you became that
Guest:And I became that.
Marc:What were some of the shows, though, that you were able to see?
Marc:Because Summer Stock's always a little odd.
Marc:It is funny.
Marc:It is funny?
Guest:Well, I mean, we did Gypsy.
Guest:We did Anything Goes.
Guest:We did Cabaret.
Guest:We did, you know, all these.
Marc:But you didn't have celebrities coming in to do shows?
Marc:It was just a group?
Marc:It was just a group of people.
Guest:And some professional actors were coming through.
Guest:But it wasn't like it didn't have that kind of high profile.
Guest:But for me, that didn't matter.
Guest:This was the life.
Marc:And so after you did that, you were never the same again and you knew you had to leave.
Guest:I was just like, can I come back?
Guest:So they invited me back to the second summer.
Guest:To apprentice.
Guest:When I was 16.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was 15, and then when I was 16, I went back.
Guest:And then I just said, where should I go to study to be a professional?
Guest:Where should I study?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they are at that.
Guest:It was I don't even know why, but they all said Carnegie Mellon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All those guys said Carnegie is the place to go.
Guest:So that was the only school that I applied to.
Guest:I mean, I put everything in that basket.
Marc:And, you know, you got it.
Guest:Well, and yeah, so thank God, because maybe I would just be a secretary in Atlanta.
Marc:Yeah, a very, very exciting secretary.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Intense.
Guest:You know, dictation.
Guest:Very dramatic secretary.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Why is she all worked up all the time?
Guest:Yeah, wow.
Marc:She just seems... What a pip.
Marc:She seems really... Very intense about the... She answers the phone very intensely.
Marc:So unfulfilled.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you did undergrad at Carnegie Mellon.
Marc:Is that how it works?
Marc:You're there for four years?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that was, well, that might have been like, I don't know when the other, Yale is Yale, but that's a graduate program.
Marc:Juilliard, I don't, that's a graduate program.
Guest:No, Juilliard's undergrad, too.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:They do the undergrad as well.
Marc:Probably lucky you didn't go there.
Guest:But, you know, I'm really happy, you know, not, not, not.
Guest:I'm just happy that I wasn't that I didn't go straight from the farm to New York City.
Guest:It was very nice to have a pit stop in Pittsburgh.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Pittsburgh's all right.
Guest:Pittsburgh's all right.
Guest:And it was a great little way station, you know, because New York would have been too intense for me.
Guest:And Pittsburgh.
Guest:Carnegie feels a little bit more like a little a little womb.
Guest:It's a little safe.
Guest:It's a safe place.
Marc:To learn and see Spalding Gray come down and get your mind blown in a safe environment before you go get beat up.
Guest:Yeah, New York in 1976.
Guest:Probably when you know.
Marc:Exciting.
Guest:It was, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was ready for it by 1980.
Guest:But 76, just give me four years.
Marc:Is that when you went to, when did you get out of Carnegie Mellon?
Marc:80.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:So, I mean, I hit New York and New York had like all the edge that we were talking about.
Marc:Yeah, just you caught the last wind of it.
Guest:Well, I would say the 80s.
Marc:The 80s had some nice.
Marc:I guess that's true, you know, because a lot of the, you know, a lot like stuff that a lot of performance art stuff that was going on was still kind of doing it.
Guest:And Soho was still very much an artist, you know, they were getting ready to be pushed out, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But a lot of those buildings didn't have certificate of occupancy.
Guest:I mean, all this, you know, all that stuff was still happening.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So when you went up there, did you have a sense of how show business was supposed to work?
Marc:Did you know what you were to do when you left Carnegie, when you moved to New York?
Marc:Or were you just sort of like, I'm here with my headshot?
Marc:I came there with my headshot and a real sense of entitlement.
Marc:Which is necessary when you start to be in show business.
Marc:You need to be delusional and maintain it for as long as possible.
Marc:Well, didn't you feel that way?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Why else would anyone fucking do this?
Guest:Right.
Guest:You need to have a certain amount of fearlessness.
Guest:Like, hey, man, I get to be here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, like, it'll come.
Marc:I just got to show up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's a certain kind of, you know, as you get older, it's willful naivete.
Guest:But at that point, it's just naivete.
Marc:I don't know how else, what other kind of person really takes the chance.
Marc:You know, anybody who's sort of like, I'm going to try it.
Marc:It's like, no, well, that's not going to work out.
Guest:You're pretty much not going to go, you know what, I'm going to give stand-up a real world at the age of 45.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Believe me, it happens.
Marc:I've seen it happen.
Marc:But the bigger problem is, is like, what if what if all that self will and delusion that you need to sort of propel yourself into such a ridiculous profession?
Marc:What if it doesn't work out?
Marc:That's the sad story.
Guest:That's a sad story.
Guest:But then, of course, you know.
Guest:And sadness, you know, strikes us all sooner or later.
Guest:I mean, you're going to get the ebb.
Guest:You're going to get the flow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some get it or, you know, earlier than others.
Marc:There's no happy ending for anyone.
Guest:Nobody gets out of here.
Guest:That's right.
Marc:And so, yeah, when you get to New York.
Marc:So what do you do?
Marc:Like, what's your first move?
Marc:Who are your pals?
Marc:What's happening?
Guest:I didn't really, well, I had a few pals, but I think, you know, I met this casting director, Joy Todd.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she just went, she just liked me.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And she started giving me extra work.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:So I just did a lot of extra work.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Instead of having to wait tables, I did extra work.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So you could make, you know, 100 bucks a day, 200 bucks a day.
Marc:Right, and also you could be on a set.
Marc:You could be on a set.
Guest:I didn't really care so much about that, but the money was nice.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I didn't want to... I wasn't fighting for the front.
Guest:I wasn't fighting for camera time.
Guest:Like, not at all.
Marc:You weren't walking by several times.
Marc:There's that girl again.
Guest:Yeah, no, I didn't.
Guest:That was not my... Well, what were you thinking?
Marc:You wanted to do theater?
Marc:Were you thinking, like, what was the plan there?
Guest:I wanted to do theater.
Marc:That was it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You weren't even thinking in terms of movies or TV.
Marc:You're like, this is garbage.
Marc:Where's the theater?
Guest:No, I didn't think that it was garbage at all.
Guest:I just, like, it was the theater.
Guest:That was what I... Trained for.
Guest:Wanted to do.
Guest:But, hey, I didn't have any problems with movies or television.
Guest:I mean, none.
Guest:I wanted to be an actress.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I did move to L.A.,
Guest:Right.
Guest:I did move.
Guest:To New York.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On purpose.
Guest:It was a stage thing, but I had no, you know, I wasn't snooty about like, oh, television.
Marc:Where'd you live in New York when you first got there?
Guest:uh like where didn't i live oh really i mean but you know those were like like i said you know it was it was 80. yeah so you could be an out-of-work actor and live in manhattan sure you could do that yeah i mean i had five roommates
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Where was that place?
Guest:On like 60, between 66th and 67th on Columbus.
Guest:Oh, up there, yeah.
Guest:But then, you know, I was on Amsterdam and 73rd, right, you know, across from Needle Park.
Guest:Then I was in the Bronx, the North Bronx.
Guest:Then I was in 9th Street between 2nd and 3rd.
Guest:which was groovy.
Guest:That's nice down there.
Guest:Not far from you.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, 9th Street, yeah, by Tompkins Square.
Guest:Then I was, you know, Morton and Hudson.
Marc:Oh, yeah, other side.
Guest:Then 11th in.
Marc:Wow, really got it wrong.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I mean, you move around a lot when you're young and you're living in New York City.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're moving.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you just meet people.
Marc:You're like, no, you got a room.
Marc:I'm tired of living with these nine people.
Marc:How many people do you live with?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The North Bronx is dull.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Let's get off the D train.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So when did you start getting work?
Guest:Well, I got a horror movie within three weeks.
Marc:Of being in New York?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I got this horror film and actually with Harvey Weinstein was his first movie that he ever produced.
Marc:Right when he got out of the music business?
Guest:He was a concert promoter, right.
Guest:And in fact, we were up in Buffalo in North Tonawanda, New York, and the Commodores came through town.
Guest:So we went and saw the Commodores.
Marc:Because Harvey was promoting concerts.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And was he a monster yet?
Guest:You know, I had many, many dealings with Harvey.
Guest:Harvey obviously was a monster.
Guest:I didn't see that for a long time.
Guest:And the monstrous part of Harvey that I was privy to was his temper, which he has a mighty one.
Marc:How did that come out in your experience?
Guest:At the Cannes Film Festival, which Harvey was kind of a permanent fixture at.
Marc:But not directed at you.
Guest:No, yeah, directed at me, sure.
Guest:But Harvey, you know, he could be very sloppy with all things.
Guest:Everything, yeah.
Guest:With everything.
Guest:But, yeah, so I did the burning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And got so much money.
Guest:I mean, I just had, I was like sleeping in cash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I would just like wake up with bills from my per diem.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I just couldn't believe how much money, you know, I was making on the burning.
Guest:It was 1980.
Guest:I'd been in New York for three weeks and I it was raining, raining.
Marc:Give me a number amount.
Marc:This sounds crazy.
Guest:You know, I made like a thousand dollars, you know, and it was like incredible.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like so happy.
Marc:You're a working actress and it's raining money.
Marc:A thousand whole dollars.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm going to move to a place with only two other people in it.
Guest:And that is what happened.
Guest:And I and I just got a roommate.
Marc:Who is that?
Guest:Jason Alexander, you know, of Seinfeld.
Marc:He's been in here.
Guest:And Jason and I got a place on Amsterdam between 73 and 74.
Guest:Really?
Marc:You lived with Jason Alexander?
Guest:Yeah, me and Jason.
Guest:And Jason's wife, eventual wife, moved in with us for a little while.
Guest:And then they moved out and got married.
Guest:But, yeah, so it was just me and Jason.
Marc:Did you guys get along?
Marc:Did you...
Guest:We were pals.
Guest:We were good pals.
Marc:He's a sweet guy.
Marc:I've talked to him in here.
Marc:We did a really great episode about acting.
Guest:He's very sweet.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Very sweet.
Guest:And he was doing musical theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was kind of a musical theater actor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Big Mac, the commercial, the McDonald's commercial he did.
Marc:I pulled that up and we talked about it.
Guest:I'm not surprised.
Yeah.
Guest:Jason would be a total natural.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's just a dancer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So then what happens after the burning?
Guest:Then I went into a period of not working.
Marc:After the raining money?
Marc:$1,000?
Marc:Right.
Guest:Then I had to like, you know, hit the deck with, you know, waitressing.
Marc:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Which place?
Guest:Chip's Pub.
Marc:Hmm.
Guest:um and then after i got fired from chip's pub then i you know i started um temping you know you know yeah doing sector and i did secretarial stuff at hbo oh yeah i was a temp over on brian park was that what it was um well actually yeah not far on sixth half yeah and then i got a play and once i got the play yeah then i just started doing plays was it a big play what'd you do
Guest:It was an off-Broadway play, but it was a really cool play.
Marc:You could work.
Guest:Yeah, it was a really fun play, and then I started just doing plays.
Marc:Oh, just almost all theater, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I just went from one play to another and did that for a couple of years and got a Broadway play.
Marc:Which one?
Guest:Crimes of the Heart.
Marc:Oh, that's big.
Guest:And then Joel and Ethan Cohen saw Crimes of the Heart.
Guest:And then, you know, I got to know those guys.
Guest:They were doing Blood Simple.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Was the Cohen married to Francis yet?
Guest:No.
Guest:Fran and I were rooming.
Guest:Fran and I were roommates.
Guest:You were?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That must have been an intense household.
Guest:Up in the North Bronx.
Marc:I just can't imagine the two of you just running around the apartment.
Guest:An effortless friendship.
Marc:I'm sure.
Guest:And so Fran and I were up in the North Bronx, and I met Joel and Ethan, and then they met Fran, and then they did Blood Simple, and then we all did Raising Arizona.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Were you in Blood Simple?
Marc:Oh, you had a little... So did you facilitate the meeting of Fran?
Guest:I said, you should meet my roommate.
Marc:And that's how it started?
Marc:She's married to Joel, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:I can't.
Marc:And wasn't she involved with the Worcester group at the time?
Guest:And no, no.
Guest:But Fran is deeply involved in the Worcester group present now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:She's she's done stuff with them through, you know, through the course of of of these last, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But not when you were roommates.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:You just were trying to get Fran's involvement with the Worcester group was later.
Marc:OK.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that's so that's exciting.
Marc:So you meet these Coen brothers.
Marc:Before they even start, you're around with their first movie.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then they give you the lead in their second movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And Fran is in the second movie too.
Marc:Oh, yes.
Marc:I remember.
Guest:And I'm in the answering machine in Blood Simple.
Guest:There's an answering machine that comes up and my voice is on the answering machine.
Marc:I love Raising Arizona.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I can't.
Marc:I mean, it was so funny and so wild.
Marc:And like how now you've worked with them then and later.
Marc:So how did how did they work at the time they did Blood Simple?
Marc:Because I've talked to I just talked to Josh Brolin about working with them.
Marc:And I'm just curious about how that process is.
Marc:I mean, was it different working with them on Raising Arizona and then, you know, a brother where I mean, you know, what's the have you can you see the evolution in their process?
Guest:You know, oddly, not really.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Joel and Ethan are highly original.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think, you know, an exception.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To any rule, really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's the way they feel slightly impervious to stress.
Guest:I mean, things might annoy them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they have a real... It's a feeling of...
Guest:They've got a safety.
Guest:Maybe it's because they have each other, but they feel, like I said, it's impenetrable in terms of the normal stress levels that people experience in making a movie.
Guest:I just think that there's a confidence there.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:They're in total control.
Guest:Totally exhibited in, I'm sure they exhibited in Blood Simple.
Guest:They certainly, it was there in Raising Arizona.
Guest:And it was, I felt like almost identical in O Brother.
Guest:And I was cut out of Miller's Crossing.
Marc:but like raising arizona like i know it's a long time ago but like everybody was so hilarious and and kind of like you know nicholas cage at that point was so young and beautiful i know and just so fucking funny john goodman i know i mean it's like it must be wild to look back at that and just be like oh my god it's just a really funny movie it really is just really funny and i read somewhere that they based nicholas cage's character on wile coyote
Guest:Well, no, that was Nicholas.
Marc:Oh, he did.
Guest:Nick did that.
Guest:That was the Cage influence.
Guest:He brought that in.
Guest:He did.
Guest:And they, like, couldn't deny it.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:I mean, Nick is very committed, and he lived that.
Guest:He did.
Guest:He walked the walk, and Joel and Ethan were like, yes.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So did you love working with him?
Guest:Nick?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm in awe of Nick.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think he's like a... There's nobody like that guy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I mean, what Nick keeps showing up with over the decades is incredible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The chances that Nick...
Guest:can take, the, I don't know, the ability that Nick has is kind of, I feel like it's without limit.
Guest:I mean, what can the guy not do?
Guest:I guess that's true, huh?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I feel that way about him.
Guest:I mean, David Gordon Green did this movie called Joe.
Marc:Yeah, I heard about this.
Guest:And I thought that Nick was, you know, so beautiful in it.
Marc:I was just talking to Lynn Shelton about that the other night.
Marc:I've not seen that movie.
Guest:Yeah, it's a real, he really does, it's a very difficult thing because David Gordon Green likes to work with a bunch of non-actors.
Guest:And that's a hard intersection to be cool with.
Guest:If you're working with non-actors, in a way, to be as good as them can be hard.
Marc:Right, because they're just doing the one thing they do.
Marc:Because, yeah, they're just being.
Guest:And sometimes that's all you're aspiring to do.
Guest:And so I thought Nick just did that so gracefully.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Do you talk to him?
Guest:I haven't seen or talked to Nick in years, but whenever we run into each other, there's, I think, great affection.
Marc:Like we went to high school together kind of thing?
Guest:Well, I mean, I think that, you know, because the success of Raising Arizona, it had a strange kind of shape because initially it was not a successful movie.
Guest:It became beloved over the decades.
Marc:Oh, I guess that's true, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I and it was at the beginning of both of our careers at a very vital time for each other.
Marc:You were there.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then like you took off and then like broadcasting you like it seems to me like I feel like I grew up with you because I see you in movies so much.
Marc:But broadcast news and other like because you take a lot of chances, too.
Marc:I mean, when you say that about Nicolas Cage, I mean, when I was looking at the films you've done, I mean, you don't shy away from going out there.
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:I mean, like Crash.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:That's heavy shit.
Marc:And even The Firm, which I love that movie.
Marc:I love The Firm.
Marc:And I thought you were great in that.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:And I don't think these are safe things.
Marc:Well, obviously, the piano.
Marc:But there's nothing safe about how you approach acting.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:And when I think of you and Frances together, I'm like, oh my God, how can one room contain that?
Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But let's move through a couple things.
Marc:When you do something like the firm, working with all these different directors, someone like Sidney Pollack, who was kind of amazing, how do you judge directors in terms of the work?
Marc:I mean, do most of them just hire you and expect you to just do what you do?
Marc:Or are there ones that really kind of work with you through things?
Yeah.
Guest:I think that, you know, a great director, a really great director casts magnificently and then steps out of the way so that, you know, and really, I think what most actors want is the director to provide an environment, you know, an atmosphere that feels right for that story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's supportive of the story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that feels, for me, I love it if I feel, just in general, if I feel loved by a director.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, if I feel that the director really admires these actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I mean, I've worked with some directors who were a fabulous audience, like my dream audience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that can kind of inspire a better performance.
Guest:Yeah, I bet.
Guest:I don't want it to be a negative atmosphere.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like if somebody is a screamer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's hard.
Marc:And that happens?
Guest:Yeah, I don't like, I won't deal with that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's not conducive.
Guest:It's abusive.
Guest:It's abusive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that's got to stop.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I just don't, I don't truck with that.
Marc:Have you walked off sets before because of someone's insanity?
Guest:No, I just take them quietly aside.
Guest:I just take them to somewhere and say, listen, man, you got to go back and apologize to everybody.
Guest:I mean, now you got to say you're sorry.
Yeah.
Guest:because we can't yeah you're going to ruin everything yeah now you gotta go do that yeah and you probably don't want it want to but that's the only way that everybody's going to be able to stay on board with you and you need us you know you need us to stay on board with you to do this movie
Guest:You know, I mean, it's like, you know, I don't want to be, I don't want to fight fire with fire in those situations.
Guest:I want to fight fire with a certain amount of love and say, like, you lost your shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everybody has.
Guest:And now, you know, you can make it right.
Marc:I feel like just, you just saying that right now, I feel like I should try to make something right.
Guest:Can you?
Marc:I just want to apologize for everything I've ever done.
Guest:That's so great.
Guest:We can go on.
Guest:But anyway, I mean, yeah, sometimes I would never want to direct.
Guest:It looks like a nightmare.
Guest:It looks like a nightmare, a mountain of stress.
Marc:And working with, like, the piano obviously was a wild movie, and that's a long time ago, but, like, I mean, you won the big thing.
Marc:Was that great?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Listen, that was great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I love Jane.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I love Campion.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I love Harvey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Harvey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Have you worked with him again?
Guest:No.
Marc:He's like a trip, man.
Guest:I love Harvey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, what an odd part for him, too.
Guest:I mean, you know, I see Harvey.
Guest:We start crying.
Marc:You do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, we fall into each other's arms.
Guest:I mean, I love I love him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And was that the first time you met him, was on the set of that thing?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:It was.
Guest:That's the first time I ever met him.
Guest:But I do, I hold Harvey close.
Marc:He's another one that takes real chances.
Marc:Like, for just a kid from New York, I mean, he really does a thing.
Guest:I know, man.
Marc:It's crazy.
Guest:I mean, I'm looking forward to seeing this movie that he did with Scorsese and De Niro.
Marc:Oh, the Italian movie?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Is it done?
Guest:I don't know, but whenever it is, I'm going to go see it.
Marc:And what about the movie 13, which I thought I love that movie too.
Guest:Oh, me too.
Marc:It's kind of a harsh movie, but really great.
Guest:Really beautiful.
Guest:I mean, Catherine Hardwick.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:She did such an incredible thing.
Guest:She really took risks.
Guest:She had this thing.
Guest:It was like when I met her, I went, okay, this is the girl to direct this movie.
Guest:I don't know what this movie is, but I want to be part of it.
Guest:I just felt like I was going to be on her ride.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was raw, man, right?
Guest:It was raw.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And very articulate.
Marc:I thought so.
Marc:It made an impact on me.
Marc:So, like, outside of the, do you still, do you like doing any more theater?
Marc:Do you still do theater?
Guest:I did a play that the great David Rabe wrote.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:He did, he was.
Guest:Streamers?
Guest:Streamers.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And Hurley Burley.
Marc:Oh, Hurley Burley, yeah.
Guest:And he also wrote a play called Sticks and Bones that I did about three years ago at The New Group, which is an off-Broadway.
Guest:And I just recently saw his latest play, Good for Otto, with Amy Madigan and Ed Harris, Mark Lynn Baker.
Marc:It was great.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So now you've got kids now, right?
Marc:Yeah, but we don't talk about them.
Guest:We leave them out of it.
Marc:But you're having a good time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:And you're happy in your life and everything's cool.
Guest:Everything's really good.
Marc:Well, I appreciate you talking to me for a while.
Guest:Yeah, that was really, really a blast.
Marc:That was intense and exciting.
Marc:It was great to meet her.
Marc:She's an awesome kind of personality.
Marc:Full-on Holly Hunter, exactly as you imagine Holly Hunter to be.
Marc:I am on the road.
Marc:I am tired.
Marc:I don't know if you can hear that in my voice, but no guitar today.
Marc:No guitar today.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Boomer lives.
you