Episode 929 - Paul Rudd
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:Paul Rudd.
Marc:Paul Rudd is on the show today.
Marc:This was a long time coming.
Marc:We've been trying to do it.
Marc:I think there was a couple times where it just didn't work out for some reason, but Paul Rudd will be here.
Marc:He's got that Marvel movie, that Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Marc:Opens this Friday, July 6th.
Marc:We talk about that a little bit.
Marc:We talk about the broader Paul situation more so.
Marc:But that's happening shortly.
Marc:Let's hang out.
Marc:Hang out here.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So...
Marc:I'm on a Netflix show called Glow, the gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Marc:And and that show premiered.
Marc:Well, they dropped it as a as Netflix does.
Marc:It's not a premiere per se, but all episodes of the new season, all 10 are available as of last Friday.
Marc:Today's Monday.
Marc:I do a show on Thursday.
Marc:Did I mention that Glow would be dropping the day after?
Marc:The last show that I was on here in my garage, my own show.
Marc:Did I talk about the show that I am a featured performer on?
Marc:Premiering the next day, dropping the next day, 10 episodes?
Marc:No, I did not.
Marc:Was the oversight on purpose?
Marc:It was not.
Marc:Did I know it was coming out that day?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So why would I not promote it?
Marc:And I've done that before here, where I forget to promote my gigs.
Marc:It's a strange phenomenon.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't think it's fear.
Marc:I don't think it's insecurity.
Marc:I think that I come out here.
Marc:I'm so intent on figuring out what I'm going to say right now.
Marc:If it's not written down, I forget it because I'm caught up in sitting here playing my guitar, meditating on what the fuck I'm going to say to you people.
Marc:And I mean you people in a nice way.
Marc:And I just forget to promote the wonderful things that are happening in my life.
Marc:Okay, see, that might be it.
Marc:That might be it.
Marc:The wonderful things happening in my life I forget to talk about.
Marc:I forget to engage in.
Marc:I forget to be grateful for.
Marc:I forget to be humbled by the journey I've been on and have some satisfaction in what I've accomplished.
Marc:I forget all those things.
Marc:I forget what I mean to some of you folks, what the show means to you.
Marc:I forget all this good stuff that I've worked for in my entire life.
Marc:and just fester on the shit.
Marc:But nonetheless, Glow Season 2 is up.
Marc:It is out.
Marc:It is on Netflix.
Marc:It did come out tremendously well.
Marc:Everybody did a great job.
Marc:I mean, literally everybody on that show did a great job.
Marc:All the actors...
Marc:I think we did a wonderful job.
Marc:The directing, the writing, the wrestling.
Marc:I mean, it's been a thrill to be part of it, and it's exciting.
Marc:After you shoot these things last year, October, November, whenever we did it, in the fall, and then they put it together for months, and then they put it on hold until they drop it, and then they drop it, and you're like, oh, that's what I did.
Marc:That's what we all did.
Marc:Look what we all did.
Marc:I guess what I'm trying to point out is I'm proud of the show.
Marc:I'm proud of the work that we all did, and I'm excited for you all to see it.
Marc:So if you didn't already know, Glow Season 2 is now on Netflix.
Marc:It's probably something I should have said last week.
Marc:Did not say it.
Marc:I got an odd email because like I often wonder where people are at.
Marc:And, you know, sort of it's not even it's not even a substantial email.
Marc:But like I don't I'm always amazed.
Marc:It's like in the in the movie Michael Clayton, which if you haven't seen it.
Marc:You should watch it.
Marc:It's one of the great movies.
Marc:Michael Clayton.
Marc:Sidney Pollack says people are just fucking incomprehensible.
Marc:People are incomprehensible.
Marc:Can that be true?
Marc:It is true, isn't it?
Marc:I don't think it's not so much because we can't make assumptions about human beings, but human beings in different situations will do things that you could never know.
Marc:You can never know what the fuck's going on.
Marc:They're incomprehensible.
Marc:It's true.
Marc:Whatever you think you have a handle on when it comes to other people, don't be so sure.
Marc:This is a big this is a big ramp up for a cute email.
Marc:But but I just just says sometimes the oddest things make me laugh.
Marc:Mark, I was listening to the Eleanor Kerrigan episode today.
Marc:And for some reason, the moment where you dropped your pen made me laugh harder than anything has for days.
Marc:I can't explain it.
Marc:Thanks as always for your show.
Marc:You are a voice of empathy and reason and humor and I appreciate the laughs even when they come from unplanned and utterly mundane events.
Marc:I don't know what's up with that guy.
Marc:I don't know how it hit him, but those are the laughs that I love the most.
Marc:The one guy laughing at the thing that nobody else laughed at.
Marc:I don't even remember dropping my pen.
Marc:But it happens on stage sometimes.
Marc:There are certain things where I think they're funny and I know that they're funny, but they may be awfully subtle.
Marc:They may come after a barrage of other things, but...
Marc:Sometimes I'll have a line where one personal laugh and it's a type of laugh that should be crying.
Marc:It goes deep.
Marc:It is unavoidable.
Marc:It registered without fully even knowing what hit him or her.
Marc:Love that laugh.
Marc:And you're welcome, Darren.
Marc:You're welcome.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So Paul Rudd finally is here.
Marc:I was excited to talk to him.
Marc:He's a sweet guy.
Marc:No one's going to say Paul's a shitty guy.
Marc:I don't think.
Marc:Maybe there's somebody, but not to my knowledge.
Marc:The new movie is the Ant-Man movie, Ant-Man and the Wasp.
Marc:It opens this Friday, July 6th.
Marc:But, you know, Paul's been around a long time.
Marc:He's one of those guys that many of us feel like we kind of grew up with.
Marc:And it was a pleasure to talk to him.
Marc:This is me and Paul Rudd.
Guest:You know, it was really, my wife and I, before our kids, really, while we were thinking, do we buy an apartment?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or get a house upstate?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:It was, I think, a better call to get the house upstate.
Marc:The house?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's like in the country?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you spend a lot of time up there?
Marc:As much as we can.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess, uh... How many kids?
Marc:I got two kids.
Marc:So, yeah, I mean, what is it, half and half?
Guest:No.
Guest:Mostly city?
Guest:It's mostly city.
Guest:And weekends, hopefully upstate or part of the summer.
Marc:Oh, that's how it goes, huh?
Marc:So you're really a city guy.
Right.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:I mean, my kids are now actual kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So we can't just, you know, 13 and 8.
Guest:13.
Guest:There was a while there we were going to maybe make the move.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But my son, who now is like, you know.
Guest:He's locked in.
Guest:He's locked in.
Guest:He's like, there's no way.
Guest:There's no way we can do that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Not disruptive.
Marc:It just felt cruel.
Marc:Because he's got friends.
Marc:He's probably in business of some kind.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:yeah probably well that's and and the thing is is that he says like you know we go out there there's he really made me laugh he said dad i was born in this city and you know they say uh he wasn't even trying to make me laugh right he said you know they say new york uh is the city that never sleeps upstate is the city that only sleeps there's nothing to do and and he's right there's really yeah that's what i love
Marc:about he's out at studio 54 you know he's got things all night long he's either if he's not at studio 54 he's hanging at those kind of Upper East Side Dick Cavett socials sure man he is full-fledged in New York City yeah he probably you know he probably told you that when you had slept and he hadn't slept all night and he was sitting at the counter in the kitchen still in his suit mm-hmm yeah
Guest:That's it.
Guest:A little tired from the night.
Guest:13.
Guest:Going on and on about Michael Musto.
Guest:Oh, of course.
Guest:That guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Nan Golden.
Marc:Nan Golden taking pictures.
Marc:That's a rough party your kid's at.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's exploring every facet of New York City.
Marc:In the 1970s.
Guest:You've seen that movie Kids?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what he's up to.
Guest:That's what he's living.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:God, I hope not.
Guest:That would be my nightmare.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Does that exist anymore, I think?
Guest:I'm sure it's morphed into something else, but kids in New York City is a very real thing, and I'm raising kids in New York City, which is kind of a bizarre thing to do for me.
Marc:It seems like the romanticization of that lifestyle that was still around.
Marc:I don't know how old are you?
Marc:I'm 49.
Marc:So I'm 53.
Marc:So like, you know, no one's romanticizing drugs really anymore in a cultural way.
Marc:Like when we were kids, it was like, yeah, man, let's get high.
Marc:I don't feel that those role models are as much around as they used to be.
Guest:Well, I hope not.
Marc:That's all I'm saying.
Marc:I'm saying your kid's probably okay.
Marc:I'm sure you got him at a good school.
Marc:He's not in too much trouble.
Guest:You know, he's a good kid.
Guest:Both my kids are great.
Guest:At a certain point, you could just try and teach them as best you can and then let them go be kids.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You got to separate, huh?
Marc:You got to let them be their own people.
Marc:And you have the other one's a girl?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:Younger.
Guest:Eight.
Marc:Eight.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So this is good times.
Marc:This is good times for the kids.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They kind of like you.
Marc:They need advice, but you don't have to worry about them constantly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I worry about them constantly.
Guest:I did that.
Guest:I've always worried about them constantly.
Marc:That's why I don't have any.
Marc:The idea of having them causes me extreme panic.
Guest:I get it.
Guest:And I think that makes sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you did it.
Marc:I did it.
Marc:You had two.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had two of them.
Marc:You seem like a genuinely more stable person than I am, I believe.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm not so sure about that, but I do know this.
Guest:I was really nervous about having the first kid for a myriad of reasons, several of which I think are probably ones you think about.
Marc:You have to make sure they're breathing all the time, but they're supposed to just do that.
Marc:They do kind of do that.
Guest:They do that on their own.
Marc:They're just laying there in the other room.
Marc:Is it okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's weird.
Guest:It's weird when you leave the hospital with a kid because you feel like you're doing something that's just not supposed to happen.
Guest:As soon as they're born, they're there for a couple of days and people who know what they're doing are monitoring the situation.
Guest:But then they're like, okay, sign this, and then off you go.
Guest:And you're like, what?
Guest:Is there a booklet?
Marc:Wait a minute.
Guest:When are you coming with me?
Guest:But when we had one, then I thought, well, you know, I'll have six.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Once we had one, but then we stopped at two.
Guest:Yeah, no, you don't need six.
Guest:Well, my immediate thought was I want them to have somebody to defray medical costs with down the road when both my wife or I are in the home.
Marc:Oh, so you're looking ahead.
Marc:I'm looking ahead.
Marc:So you just wanted at least two.
Marc:Yeah, I want at least two so that- One of them at least will have the bread to put you up somewhere.
Guest:So one, I can't just foot this whole bill.
Guest:And two, that they'll have at least somebody that they can kind of commiserate with.
Marc:Sure, but you never know how things are going to turn.
Marc:I mean, you hope them both will stay on board.
Marc:One might be like, oh, fuck them.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:oh yeah it's like that's it i'm out of here and i'm never talking to any of you again yeah that's why i think if you have many your odds are better that's just you're gonna have the one bad egg yeah yeah yeah and i think we're look look i mean even even the greatest sports teams had one guy on the that was on the bench the whole time yeah you know it's all right to yeah one that maybe goes and finds their own yeah so you're here you're doing the promotion for the ant movie yeah ant man yeah yeah
Marc:But you guys with the superheroes, you like that look?
Marc:That's sort of like, yeah, I got to do that.
Guest:Well, no, it's not that.
Guest:I think there's just something so artificial and weird.
Guest:I'm excited to sit here and talk to you, but then it seems like, oh, this is why I'm in town.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:No, no, I know.
Marc:But I'm not saying we have to talk about that.
Marc:But I mean, I do think it's interesting because I've had I have Brolin in here a couple of weeks ago.
Marc:And, you know, his sort of like you guys are aware of the movie you're doing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there is like I imagine in some way you have to bend it into like, you know, not, you know, something fun and exciting and something you can get behind, even though there's part of you that's sort of like a superhero movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I feel that with all things.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I mean, it's part, you know, there are some things that I get more excited about than others.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it is, it's, you know, you go around, you have to talk about it and essentially- The selling part.
Guest:The selling part, which I've never really been very, very good at.
Guest:It's easier when it's also something that I believe in, but yeah.
Marc:But you're not, you know, Brolin's like, you know, he's all distorted and weird looking.
Marc:Like you can't, you know, he's like half a monster.
Marc:You're like just the guy.
Guest:Yeah, but I'm also sitting on an ant.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so that's your price to pay.
Marc:That's your cross to bear.
Guest:I do love it.
Guest:It's been a really great experience.
Guest:It's been super fun.
Guest:It has.
Guest:Yeah, and completely different, obviously, than anything else in my life.
Marc:I mean, I just can't imagine what the arc of it, though, when you're doing Shakespeare in the park in the 90s.
Marc:I mean, whoever thought that you'd be wearing these kind of tights?
Marc:That's true.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I don't know.
Marc:I guess you just look at it as an acting job.
Marc:I mean, obviously, it's a great opportunity.
Marc:It's financially lucrative, and kids love it.
Marc:There's not too many people that are going to be standing on the sidelines going, yeah, they fucking sold out that guy.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Well, I mean, that always was my greatest fear.
Guest:I would hate to be one of those people that would be considered someone who sold out.
Marc:What does that mean anymore, though?
Marc:How does one do that?
Guest:Can you name one?
Guest:I think it's basically going against your own sense of what you find worthwhile and worth doing.
Guest:But it is silly, but every job is silly.
Guest:Acting is silly.
Guest:It kind of is, right?
Guest:The whole thing is just kind of weird.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I've been doing more of it lately, and I start to realize that there is an element of getting away with something to acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Once you figure it out, or if you're lucky enough to have the knack for it, if you're lucky enough to work, there are definitely days where you're on set going like, this is fucking ridiculous.
Yeah.
Guest:For sure.
Guest:Especially you walk outside and you see what other people are doing for real work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you just think, I mean, I really scored.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you can only justify it up to a certain point.
Marc:Like, it is real work.
Marc:I have to sit there and do that scene 9, 10, 20 times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You have to do that.
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:You know, being an actor is really hard.
Marc:Hard sell, huh?
Marc:It's a hard sell.
Marc:But like, you know, you have a fairly oddly thorough Wikipedia page that like because I sometimes look at these things and like in the early life segment, I almost thought maybe I should make sure maybe you should check this to make sure it's not someone being funny.
Marc:It seems very convoluted.
Marc:There's Ireland involved.
Marc:There's England involved.
Marc:There's Russia, Belarus, Poland, Jews, British.
Marc:A lot going on in the first paragraph of your Wikipedia page.
Marc:uh i don't know what it says i haven't checked it out but uh all of a lot of those european countries yeah they go back from before i was born no i know that yeah i know but i know that there's i didn't spell any time i spent any time in belarus my family's from there too i found out really yeah but i didn't even know you were jew yeah yeah yeah uh you know you you passed man what's that was that the plan i have no plan no
Marc:No plan, but where'd you grow up?
Guest:I mean, I grew up ... I was born in New Jersey.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:What part of Jersey?
Guest:Palisades Park I lived in.
Guest:I was born in Passaic, but I lived in Palisades Park, which is basically you cross the George Washington Bridge.
Marc:Fort Lee.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's right by Fort Lee.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:My aunt lived there.
Marc:I remember the Palisades Amusement Park before it got taken away.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I kept hearing about that.
Guest:I think it was taken down, I think, right before I was born.
Marc:Or maybe right around the time.
Marc:Right around the time that you were born.
Marc:Yeah, I remember going there once.
Marc:My recollection, it was literally in the cliff.
Marc:I think, yeah.
Marc:Like it was right there at the edge of it.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So that's where you grew up, Palisades Park?
Guest:Well, I lived there until I was about five, five and a half or so.
Marc:Any recollections of looking at the bridge?
Guest:It must have been like- Yeah, I remember always going into the city because it was 10 minutes away.
Guest:Right there.
Guest:And we'd always cross the George Washington Bridge and that we would, both my sister and I would always say, we're going across the George Washington Bridge.
Guest:And it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized that was what it was actually called.
Guest:I thought that was just something we made up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It took a while to.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:But it's good that you didn't think they took it from you and renamed the bridge.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Who coined it first?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I remember certainly going into the city and I remember life in New Jersey and had family in New Jersey.
Marc:Humid.
Marc:It's humid.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then moved to Kansas for about a year.
Guest:That's wild.
Guest:A couple years, a year and a half or so.
Marc:Why is that?
Marc:Do you remember in your childhood, just curiosity, I don't know why, do you remember in childhood, New Jersey, Jewish, do you remember melon and tomatoes and sodas and stuff and fruit involved, summers in New Jersey?
Guest:I remember a certain...
Marc:I don't know why I'm asking you.
Guest:Yeah, I remember certain things with the corn being very good.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:And some of the summer, I never liked the tomatoes, so I never ate them.
Guest:Right, but you remember them, right?
Guest:But I remember the food being a certain kind of way.
Marc:People talking about it.
Guest:Yeah, and then moving around, as a kid, I discovered foods in other parts of the country.
Marc:Did you ever go down the shore and get steamers or anything, clams?
Marc:No, no, I never did any of that.
Guest:I never was kind of,
Marc:old enough and then also because both my parents are from London yeah oh I don't think that they ever even British Jews knew some of that stuff was going on they were British Jews British Jews interesting yeah I've only met a couple oh yeah I know they exist and they've been around a long time yeah but they're baffling to me
Guest:I have friends that are British Jews, and they have said it was tough in a way to be Jewish and British, that there was a high anti-Semitism kind of- Within you.
Guest:Within themselves.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No, I bet you that's true.
Marc:Like Bob Hoskins, it was one of the first guys I realized was a British Jew.
Marc:Oh, I didn't know that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, what did they bring with them?
Marc:Because Jersey Jews, like East Coast Jews, American Jews, very specific kind of thing, give or take a few things.
Marc:What did the British Jew, what's a British Jewish thing that you grew up with?
Marc:I mean, I don't know.
Guest:I didn't, yeah, we didn't grow up, I didn't grow up religious.
Guest:I didn't go to... Who does, but you're Jewish.
Guest:I'm Jewish, but I mean, yeah.
Guest:We celebrated Christmas, so... Oh, that's really pushing it.
Guest:That's a little... We did that a couple years ago.
Marc:Did you?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:My mom, she likes the lights.
Guest:Yeah, I would always say, we're not supposed to do this, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they would say, we celebrate for the Santa side of things.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So...
Guest:There was probably always that assimilation.
Guest:It was also a British thing.
Guest:I think that maybe my mom celebrated it growing up as a kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It certainly was a part of our lives.
Guest:And if you are, you are.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was bar mitzvahed.
Guest:I still- Yeah.
Marc:You do a thing.
Marc:You light the candles.
Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:My mom would do it.
Guest:My mom was into it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:There was a time, I think, early on when I was a kid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where, you know, we didn't really go to synagogue all that much.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:All that much, like barely at all.
Marc:But you had to learn to sing the songs, the bar mitzvah.
Guest:Yeah, well, that was, and I went to Sunday school a couple of times.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But there was, I think at this time, my mom was saying, what do you think, Mike?
Guest:That was my dad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:are we going to send our kids to Sunday school?
Guest:And his response was, ah, kid's got a good sense of himself.
Guest:He doesn't need that shit.
Guest:So I never was raised very religious.
Marc:But it's usually a cultural thing, which that's the interesting thing to me, is that because they were British and you didn't grow up with that kind of like first or second generation Jewish experience East Coast thing, that the actual cultural experience was not the same.
Guest:Well, the thing is, the cultural experience, regardless of where you are, and I've described it this way before, which is it's kind of in the marrow of your bones.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And while we were not religious, I think that we all identified as Jews.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad, who didn't really believe in any organized religion, didn't really, I think, believe in God or anything like that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that was not a part of my life growing up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:At the same time...
Marc:was fascinated with judaism couldn't there was always a hitler documentary on in the house yeah and uh and he was very pro israel and uh and uh proud to be jewish sure right yeah well that's the thing you know it's not you know if you don't look if no one teaches you how to use god what you don't you know you're not going to use it but it doesn't you know but you but you are taught that you're a jew
Guest:yeah yeah yeah you're a jew i don't know i i mean i i if no one teaches you how to use god i think some people probably find it as a as a kid in their own way yeah maybe you can find it but i mean i i think it's it's got to be i don't know you know like later in life you know the wheels have really got to come off to really embrace it i think so well that's that's that's does seem to be the time when people find them
Guest:Have you found him?
Guest:No.
Guest:I know.
Guest:But what are you doing with your kids?
Guest:Uh, kind of the same thing.
Guest:They got pretty good sense of themselves.
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Um, it's, it's a tough thing to kind of, uh, you know.
Guest:Navigate.
Guest:Navigate and like my son was just bar mitzvahed.
Guest:You did it.
Guest:We did it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, um, it was really.
Marc:So you're done.
Guest:You did it.
Guest:We did it.
Guest:It was really mellow.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It was just like a kind of a, a small group.
Guest:And he said that, uh, look, I'll do it.
Guest:You know, all of his friends are doing it.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:And I think that there's something to be said about participating in something that is thousands of years old that gives you a sense of sanity and something continual.
Guest:Tradition.
Guest:Yeah, there's something to it.
Guest:Tradition.
Guest:There's something to it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There is something at least comforting to that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When my grandfather died, I remember it was a year later, it was the unveiling of his tombstone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was there and everyone started putting a rock on it.
Guest:And I didn't realize that was a thing you did.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But my mom did it and then I did it.
Guest:You gotta go take a rock off another tombstone.
Guest:Yeah, but that's just it.
Guest:We were in a rockless cemetery.
Yeah.
Guest:And I remember in that small gesture thinking, wow, this is pretty crazy.
Guest:People have done this for a very long time.
Guest:And there's something good about that.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah, because it's a sense of history.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, which is what we're being chipped away at.
Guest:And that makes us feel sane and probably puts our own importance in line of where it actually is, which is...
Marc:Minimal.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I think that's good.
Marc:I think that's good.
Marc:So maybe that's the lesson you pass on.
Guest:Well, he said, look, I'll do it.
Guest:And I said, here's the reason why you should do it.
Marc:Is the kid?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, because later on, you might find something from this down the road.
Guest:It will affect you in ways possibly that you might not predict.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And two, there's something nice about being around other Jewish people.
Guest:Maybe later on when they're talking about their bar mitzvahs, you won't feel self-conscious and say like, oh, yeah, I didn't have that.
Guest:But he said, look, I don't believe in certain aspects of this.
Guest:And as far as a God and all this, he's 13.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I couldn't really debate him on a lot of it.
Marc:I'm like, well, I get that.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:He said to you, like, I was hanging out with Lou Reed the other night, and we were having a discussion.
Guest:Yeah, no, we were, I was up all night.
Guest:I was up with David Byrne, Lou Reed, Debbie Harry, and Tom Verlaine.
Guest:And the God thing came up.
Guest:And we were just like, you know what, let's just check out the Ramones and go all night, and this is just not something I'm ready to deal with.
Guest:I'll meet you at the factory.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:I mean, those are interesting conversations.
Marc:It must be interesting.
Marc:Because I don't know how attentive my parents were in doing those conversations.
Guest:Well, I mean, I don't think that these are conversations that I instigate.
Marc:No, I know.
Guest:I don't think that they happen actually with too much frequency either.
Marc:Right.
Marc:No, no, it's one or two.
Marc:Just like you remembered what your dad said.
Guest:Well, I mean, this is it.
Guest:There was a time, I think, in my early 20s when I was really having this kind of spiritual and existential debate and reading books and thinking about things.
Marc:Oh, yeah, with yourself?
Guest:Yeah, and I had a buddy of mine, I think post-college, a friend of mine who had died, and I was dating a girl who was really into kind of new age, past lives, all kinds of stuff.
Guest:Rocks and smells.
Guest:Eagle feathers and crystals.
Guest:But anyway, I remember having a conversation with my dad once, who we had gone through a particularly rough period when it came to
Guest:finances and everything and my dad was feeling pretty I think in life you mean as a family as a family you know pretty cynical and beat up and but I said you know dad you know we never grew up with any of this stuff you know you talk about being Jewish but like
Guest:do you believe in God?
Guest:Do you believe in anything?
Guest:And this is when he did tell me, I don't really believe in any organized religion.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm interested in Judaism from the historical perspective and that it's a series with the laws of the land.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:There are aspects to it that I think make sense, which is enjoy your life, try and acquire knowledge and...
Guest:He goes, but really all I worry about is treat people the way I will want to be treated and the rest will take care of itself if there is anything else.
Guest:And he goes, that's all I think about.
Guest:And that's the way I think I feel too.
Marc:But was that the beginning of your existential crisis?
Guest:That's what kicked it off.
Marc:Thanks, Dad.
Marc:Now what do I do?
Marc:Well, that's sort of interesting.
Marc:Well, let's go back.
Marc:When you grew up, where'd you do most of the growing up?
Guest:Most of the growing up, I feel like really the crucial years for me were in Kansas City.
Guest:Because I went from New Jersey to Kansas to California for about three and a half years and then back to Kansas City.
Guest:My dad used to work for TWA Airlines and TWA's hub was in Kansas City.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I remember TWA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's why we moved.
Guest:So I would say from the age of 10 to 20, I was in Kansas City.
Marc:Kansas City, Missouri?
Guest:Kansas City, Kansas.
Guest:Kansas.
Guest:But about 10 minutes from the state line.
Guest:Aren't there two Kansas cities?
Guest:People always think that, but there's really one Kansas City, but it just happens to sprawl over into both sides.
Guest:There's a street called State Line Road, and that's the border of the two states.
Guest:And so on the left side, you're in Kansas.
Guest:On the right side, you're in Missouri.
Marc:Kansas City, Kansas City.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:That is the definition of the Midwest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Mm-hmm.
Marc:and your british jewish family in kansas city right are you uh like what is growing up there like what is inspiring about it because like now i don't you know i was it ever in any way progressive or you know interesting i think that um it was it was a nice place to grow up and i i liked it okay yeah um and
Guest:I think we all have these general ideas of what places are like.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And certainly people have an idea of what Kansas is like.
Guest:And yet in Kansas City, there are many aspects to living there and people that you meet and the kind of progressive thought that are in contrast with what people's general opinions of that state might be.
Guest:So I found some pretty good friends.
Guest:There were actually other Jews.
Guest:None of them went to my school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I heard about them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I heard that they were in town.
Guest:The mythical Jews.
Guest:But honestly, what I remember kind of when I first got there was the things that a kid would notice, which is they talk differently.
Yeah.
Guest:Like in New Jersey, I remember everybody says orange.
Guest:And then when I got to Kansas City, everyone said orange.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when I got to California, everyone said, oh, it's hot, you know, or that's rad.
Guest:And then in Kansas City, everyone said, that's excellent.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so these were kind of the big differences that I really noticed between states in that you couldn't get OP shorts or Vans in Kansas.
Guest:Well, that's the big one.
Guest:Yeah, by the way, that was the biggest one when I was 11 years old.
Guest:You won those OP corduroy shorts?
Guest:So badly.
Guest:I had a bunch.
Guest:I would get so excited if in Kansas I saw somebody wearing Vans or OPs, I'd go out to go, are you from California?
Guest:like strangers and and you know this was pre zappos yeah sure man um and i uh yeah i had like an uh a weird kind of unabashed enthusiasm uh with like anybody that was had anything like kind of from california right which i just come from the same thing if anybody ever had some kind of snack that i could you could only get in london
Guest:you know, like round tree fruit gums or something, I would freak out.
Guest:And I think that it was kind of some sort of deep-seated longing to be where I had just come from because I did feel a little bit like an island.
Marc:Or stranded.
Guest:A little bit, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Because in your memory, you knew you'd been in big places before.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now it's sort of like, are we cut off?
Guest:Well, I didn't even have really kind of a grasp of it.
Guest:As a little kid, we traveled a lot because my dad worked for an airline.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My parents were both born in London.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd already lived in three states before the time I was in.
Guest:And you were going back to London occasionally?
Guest:All the time.
Guest:And traveling, my dad would have some kind of job thing.
Guest:And so we'd travel with him.
Guest:So my worldview was pretty big as a kid, but I didn't realize that that wasn't the norm.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so when I would meet other kids and I would say, where are you from?
Guest:And they said, I'm from Kansas.
Guest:And by the way, they'd be nine years old.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'm from here.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd say, wait a minute.
Guest:You're from here?
Guest:You were born here?
Guest:Well, what about your mom and dad?
Guest:It's like, oh yeah, they were born here too.
Guest:And that was like, you're a Martian.
Yeah.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Guest:That's not even possible.
Guest:You've got to get out.
Guest:But it wasn't even that you've got to get out.
Guest:It was more of just such a bizarre idea that somebody could actually live in the place that they were born.
Guest:I didn't understand.
Guest:That's what most people did.
Marc:Yeah, I think that I relate to that because if I think about it, I was so dug in family-wise in New Jersey because both my parents were from there and I'd go back all the time.
Marc:And I lived there when I was a little kid.
Marc:But when I was in New Mexico, the idea that people had lived there felt like for generations, it was sort of weird and backward and seemingly kind of limited.
Marc:But they don't think that.
Guest:You know, your reality is your reality.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you had that same, I mean, obviously New Jersey to New Mexico.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Alaska for two years.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:You really, I thought I had it diverse.
Marc:But I never went to Alaska because my old man was in the service.
Marc:Like, you know, and then we, yeah, but New Mexico was a big shift, but I always was very connected to the family back East and, you know, I always, which becomes a point of pride really.
Marc:It's like, yeah, I'm going to go to New York.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we would go back too because my dad's brother, my aunt and uncle and cousins and my grandparents were still in New Jersey.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it was like, that was an amazing thing.
Marc:I remember when I was in high school, I made my friend David go with me to New York.
Marc:I'm like, let's go.
Marc:I got to show you New York because he'd never gone.
Marc:He'd never been there.
Marc:And we did that.
Marc:And I remember we bought Famolari shoes because they gave us three inches and we had fake IDs and it was a big deal.
Marc:We're going to go get a beer.
Guest:Nice.
Marc:Like at Hamburger Harry's or somewhere.
Marc:The shitty place, we're just sort of like, we're going to do it.
Guest:You planning it?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Talking about it for a long time.
Marc:Pitch your beer.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:And they bring it and you're like, fuck yeah.
Guest:Yeah, we did it.
Guest:We pulled it off.
Guest:It's the best.
Guest:It went something like that.
Guest:That kind of excitement over something like that.
Marc:Just sitting there, just kids getting drunk.
Marc:What's better?
Marc:Nothing.
Marc:No, it's all behind us.
Marc:So you're in Kansas and, well, I don't know.
Marc:I guess I was being presumptuous or making assumptions about what you like because when you bring up OP and Vans, I remember that.
Marc:I had a friend who's very into OPs and then I got into them.
Marc:And then I remember the corduroy shirts
Marc:and the pockets were a certain way.
Guest:And you'd let your boxer shorts hang below.
Guest:Under the cuff?
Guest:Yeah, so that your boxers were kind of hanging out a little bit below the shorts.
Marc:Oh, yeah, I didn't get that far away.
Marc:That was serious.
Guest:That's when you wanted to up it up, you know.
Guest:That was it?
Marc:Yeah, well, yeah.
Marc:But I remember the shirts, the T-shirts.
Marc:But I don't know if I was into them as much as my friend was into them, but because he was into them, I got into them.
Marc:But you were all in.
Marc:But you like weren't a punk rock kid or an art kid necessarily?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I liked... I remember when I moved to California the first time, I thought it was weird.
Guest:Every kid has a skateboard.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was a whole new kind of experience.
Guest:And then I got into kind of skateboarding and BMX.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But really peripherally.
Guest:Could you do pools?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:Bunny hops.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's about it.
Guest:That kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I didn't get into it where I was really...
Guest:Risking your life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'd read magazines and learn about zap pads.
Guest:You didn't need a helmet, though.
Guest:Did you have a helmet?
Guest:I didn't have a helmet.
Guest:Oh, so you... Yeah, and red lines and mongoose and all of those.
Guest:So you had the shit, but you didn't... I had the shit.
Guest:But you didn't walk the walkway.
Guest:I would have liked to, but by the time I think I discovered it, I'd already gone to Kansas and that stuff, you couldn't find it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But then I started kind of getting into, you know, as a young teenager, kind of weird new wave kind of stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And some punk music and then some Euro kind of keyboard-y stuff.
Marc:But because you grew up in the Midwest, like I grew up in Albuquerque, you're not unlike that movie, what is it?
Marc:You're with Jason Segel, the Rush movie.
Marc:Oh, I Love You, Man.
Marc:I Love You, Man.
Marc:That was part of my life.
Marc:Like, you know, those bands, like, you know, you had to meet somebody who was, or go somewhere to turn you on to alternative shit, or you're going to be locked in with Rush and Bob Seger.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Foreigner and whatever.
Guest:By the way, all of those songs, all those artists are playing on Kansas City radio right now.
Guest:They're playing everywhere right now.
Guest:Yeah, but I mean, that's all, still.
Guest:Tom Petty.
Guest:Yeah, that's, I had a theory about Kansas City.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That is.
Guest:Kansas.
Guest:Kansas City, Kansas.
Guest:And Missouri.
Guest:No, but like the band Kansas.
Guest:Oh, the band Kansas.
Marc:Carry on my wayward son.
Guest:There'll be peace when you are gone.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I always said that you will be able to find Bad to the Bone on the radio at any- Bad to the Bone.
Guest:One time.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Thorogood?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But that was sort of what you were up against.
Guest:And I didn't like any of it.
Guest:I really rebelled against all of that kind of stuff.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I didn't like it, no.
Marc:OP was your rebellion?
Guest:Well, this was a little post.
Guest:This was a couple years after that when I was like, hey, guys, I'm sorry.
Guest:I'm listening to Depeche Mode and Howard Jones.
Guest:You guys can take your Kansas and your...
Marc:look at my skinny tie and your uriah heap uriah heap that's going back even further yeah i well okay so your yes take your yes take your yes i say no to your yes yeah but you went new wave that's good i went i went uh yeah i went real new wave any bowie little bowie
Guest:Yeah, I like Bowie, but I was never an aficionado.
Guest:I don't think I ever quite discovered the brilliance.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Well, who were you aficionado of?
Marc:I mean, Howard Jones can only go so far.
Marc:Yeah, can only go so far.
Guest:I really got into kind of the Smiths and R.E.M.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:But then before that, Depeche Mode, huge.
Guest:My first concert was the Stray Cats.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And I loved- That was a good few albums.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I loved-
Guest:I really liked In Excess.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I'm not judging.
Marc:You're looking at me like, what are you going to come at me with that?
Marc:What do you got to say about that, Mary?
Guest:I would say Depeche Mode.
Guest:Was it?
Guest:There were a few years there where it's like, if you wrote Depeche Mode on a piece of paper, I would offer you money for it.
Guest:Because I just like anything Depeche Mode, I want to buy it.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That was it, huh?
Marc:I... What was their big hit?
Marc:I'm trying to remember.
Marc:I know I got a Depeche Mode record in there with the older records.
Marc:Like, yeah.
Guest:Well, People Are People, I think, was probably that big hit that really... But R.E.M., like, that was something.
Marc:That was a time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So when does acting become an interest to you, really?
Guest:Well, I suppose in the abstract, it was always an interest.
Marc:Do we need to deal with abstracts?
Marc:Let's deal with abstracts.
Guest:In the abstract, because I didn't realize that this was the kind of thing somebody might be able to do.
Marc:I hear that a lot.
Marc:It's kind of interesting.
Guest:Why would you know?
Guest:No one in my family had ever done anything like this.
Guest:I was living in a place where this kind of thing- What about siblings?
Guest:You have them?
Guest:I have a sister.
Guest:How old?
Marc:Older than you?
Guest:She's two and a half years younger than me.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And so I think that, you know, the idea of being an actor wasn't something that I really ever wrapped my brain around until I was maybe 16 or 17 and somebody had suggested it.
Guest:But I did kind of gravitate towards comedians and comedy at a pretty young age.
Guest:And maybe it's because I moved around so much.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Or maybe it has nothing to do with any of that, and I just really liked comedians.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I mean, comedians make sense of things.
Marc:I think that kids who like comedians, who are the comedians you like?
Guest:Well, I loved Steve Martin when those albums came out.
Guest:I think those were seminal to a generation of comedians for sure.
Guest:I used to listen to Mel Brooks and the 2000 year old man with my dad.
Guest:I loved George Carlin as a kid.
Guest:And to this day, probably consider him maybe my favorite.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you ever get to work with him or meet him?
Marc:Never met him.
Guest:Never worked with him.
Marc:Well, yeah, because I think for me, like when I look back at my compulsive sort of interest in comedy was because they seem to have a handle on things.
Marc:And they made you laugh and they made sense of things and they made you look at things differently.
Marc:It was like when you're young or you're a little vague on what your identity is or who you're going to be.
Marc:These guys seem to know what they're talking about.
Guest:Who was it for you?
Guest:Who was it that...
Marc:Well, I mean, when I was a kid, I liked Jackie Vernon and Don Rickles and Buddy Hackett, because my grandfather liked slapstick, but my grandmother liked those old guys.
Marc:And then later, Woody Allen became important, and then I had all the Carlin records, Cheech and Chong records.
Marc:I had the Steve Martin records, and then SNL for that thing.
Marc:But yeah, I mean, and Richard Pryor.
Marc:When I saw that Richard Pryor live in concert, the first movie, when I was in high school, like 14 or 15 years old, I was like, what the fuck just happened?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like me and my friend Dave went to a movie theater to see a stand-up comedy movie, and it was insane.
Marc:I know.
Marc:To watch it, it was insane.
Guest:It was the best.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:It did tend to make sense of things.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, that's why I got into it, I think.
Marc:It was innate.
Marc:Like, how do I get a handle on this shit?
Marc:You know?
Marc:It's like, well, make it funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He figured it out.
Guest:And it's interesting to see how your interest in it and who you're kind of drawn to starts to change.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where, you know, I...
Guest:It's funny, when I hear Steve Martin talk about those years and how- Unhappy he was.
Guest:Yeah, or how he doesn't feel like it was that funny.
Guest:I think even as a kid, I understood on some innate sense, some part of me of-
Guest:uh this that it's more than silliness that the deconstruction and kind of uh philosophical experience that it it actually was in in silliness same thing with monty python yeah you know we would watch that sure obviously because of british parents like as a kid on pbs you'd have to watch it oh yeah i loved it yeah and uh and so i think there was that first thing of oh my god these are grown-ups acting in insane yeah
Guest:I've never seen such silliness out of Grown Ups.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, you know, and I would love like shows like Make Me Laugh and all, and then getting into- Bobby Van, Make Me Laugh.
Guest:Bobby Van, yeah.
Guest:Bruce.
Guest:Baby Man Bomb.
Guest:Bruce Bomb.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Gary Mule Deer.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I would still go down the rabbit hole of Joe Bolster.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:All of those comedians.
Guest:And then we got HBO and all of a sudden there was, what is this Robert Klein special?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:There's nine of them.
Marc:Another one.
Marc:He still can't stop his foot.
Marc:Wait, he's at Yale.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, right.
Marc:So you just loved it.
Marc:And then... I remember seeing Steve Martin.
Marc:I saw Steve Martin on that first tour.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:After the first record, it was at the... It might have been at the pit at the basketball stadium.
Marc:I remember seeing him.
Marc:You did.
Marc:What was that like?
Marc:Well, it was great because it was big, you know?
Marc:Like, he was not...
Marc:If I look back on it, he's obviously not an influence or necessarily even somebody that I put in my top 10.
Marc:But he was something at the moment.
Marc:It was like he was a rock star.
Marc:He was sort of like, hey, let's get small.
Marc:I had the records, but I didn't get the same out of them as I got out of Carlin.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Where you got a history, an identity.
Guest:He's the guy I think that I probably think of more than anybody and of having more importance in my life, even as an adult.
Guest:I think the way that I approach certain things in my life, he was our greatest social commentator.
Guest:There are many times where I think about what's going on in the world, and I think about what he said.
Guest:I'm always thinking about his bit on saving the planet.
Guest:He said, you know, I love people.
Guest:I hate groups, but I love people.
Guest:I think that that makes a lot of sense.
Guest:Because then, you know, my interest in comedy...
Guest:was starting to veer.
Guest:I mean, in my early 20s, got really into Andy Kaufman and then turning into kind of the anti, more performance art aspect of it.
Marc:This is during the existential crisis period.
Guest:I think it was probably.
Guest:I remember him as a kid and thinking he was really funny on SNL.
Marc:But you didn't realize the scope of it.
Guest:Well, I remember watching him on Letterman.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:With the wrestling thing?
Marc:With what?
Marc:During the wrestling period?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember the wrestling period and thinking, well, this is kind of weird.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And yet-
Guest:And again, feeling like I think he's doing something to provoke people and not even understanding what that was.
Guest:There was something intrinsically interesting about it.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:And then I really got into that and his whole thing about getting just...
Guest:uh reactions and hearing stories about some of his early routines about you know coming out on stage eating potatoes and then going to sleep yeah and that was his act and thinking that's brilliant yeah and and unless you're there unless you're there if you're there about an hour into that you're like what's happening yeah yeah do we leave
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Having an intellectual appreciation of it and an emotional annoyance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, but like, so, but like, okay, so, so you're in your teens.
Marc:Someone says you should get into acting and this stuff's all coming into your head.
Marc:And, you know, I, and basically we were talking about you realizing that maybe it is a profession if these grownups can act this silly on some level.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That, you know, there's a, there's an avenue there.
Guest:Well, I think that when I- Did you do stand-up?
Marc:Did you go see live stand-up?
Guest:I used to see stand-up whenever people would kind of come through.
Guest:I saw some really cool shows.
Guest:I saw Bill Hicks in a room of about 20 people.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you were in high school or later?
Marc:Yeah, high school.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I saw Carlin a few times in Kansas City.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Whenever a comedian- I saw Jay Leno.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He was good, wasn't he?
Marc:He was great.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:So that was- So you loved it?
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:You thought about doing it?
Guest:I-
Guest:I think I thought about doing it for a little while, but not seriously.
Guest:Again, it was something that I also really liked art and drawing, and it seemed like, well, who's a comedian?
Guest:Were you drawing?
Guest:I was trying to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think that...
Guest:And naturally, I started to gravitate towards speech class, public speaking class, and there was a radio and TV class in my junior high and then high school.
Guest:I used to make these little short movies and do, they called it in Kansas City, forensics.
Guest:It was like speech tournaments and stuff.
Guest:But I was also hugely influenced, I'd say, comedically and just by Letterman.
Guest:Letterman was the guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so a lot of the stuff that I was doing in high school with a video camera in that class, I think, was Letterman-esque or trying to be.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I would make these shorts and things to show on our school TV channel.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And said, have you ever thought about being an actor?
Marc:Because I was also doing, you know, like these speech turns.
Marc:So you're kind of like hosting things and like kind of like with that, with a kind of Letterman approach.
Guest:Well, they were more just kind of, yeah, you know, like, like I remember one of the very first ones I did was I, I decided that I was going to go out trick or treating on October 19th just to beat the rush.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I was going to film it and just see what people would give me.
Guest:That's funny.
Guest:And so that was one of the first.
Guest:And then they started to get progressively weirder.
Marc:And this is before Kaufman, right?
Guest:This is before you- Yeah, I was probably about 16, 17, 17 maybe.
Marc:And then what happened?
Marc:What was the next one?
Guest:Um, oh, I would just, they started to turn into like comedy routines.
Guest:I was going to a grocery store and seeing, I don't know, just taking a camera and seeing what would happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, but, uh, and then making videos and things like that.
Guest:But you're having a good time.
Guest:Yeah, it was just fun.
Guest:Did you have a crew?
Guest:No, there was one other guy, a friend of mine named Brendan Snegas, that we would do a lot of these videos together.
Marc:Snegas?
Marc:Yes, Snegas.
Guest:How's he doing?
Guest:He's great.
Guest:I saw him recently.
Guest:I hadn't seen him in like 20-something years.
Guest:Good name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A good dude.
Guest:Oh, good.
Guest:He went into social work.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:Good.
Guest:That's a noble profession.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But very, very funny guy.
Guest:You saw him back in Kansas?
Guest:I saw him back in Kansas, yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Did you go to a reunion or something?
Guest:I did.
Guest:There was a radio show in our school.
Guest:There was a little radio booth, and you could play music.
Guest:And I remember for a secret Santa once in class, I got a dolphin that had just a horrible squeaking sound.
Guest:And we locked the doors.
Guest:We named the dolphin Flapjack.
Guest:yeah and we thought we were hilarious yeah and uh and then just started squeaking it into the microphone and just not stopping and they couldn't get they couldn't open the door yeah and did and we did it for i mean 10 10 minutes again this is pre kaufman pre being introduced but this is you can see like i had it in i i it's like it it was just waiting to be discovered
Marc:This amazing propensity to annoy people for long periods of time relentlessly.
Guest:It just seemed funny.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that is funny.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:So the guy tells you you should be, so you're doing all this stuff.
Guest:Yeah, so I'm doing all this stuff and he had seen my videos and stuff and knew that I did these speech tournaments and he said, have you ever thought about being an actor?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is, I go back to this story and I don't know whether or not it's true.
Guest:I think maybe it is, or maybe I've just said it so much that now I really think it's true.
Guest:But it seemed to be a bit of a thunderbolt moment where I thought, hmm, an actor.
Guest:His son was an actor in New York and- That guy?
Guest:The guys.
Marc:Your neighbors.
Marc:My neighbor.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And-
Marc:So you kind of knew it was possible.
Guest:And I think that I started thinking about acting more than just comedy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so then what I do remember feeling when I made the decision to study theater and acting, that I went into it whole hog.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I didn't ever waver from it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I feel like I figured that out as maybe an 18-year-old.
Marc:And then you got into the theater program in college?
Guest:I did a play in college.
Guest:Yeah, I studied theater in college.
Marc:Here it comes.
Guest:Oh, is that the leaf blower?
Guest:Here it comes.
Guest:Sounds like an alien ship is about to land.
Guest:It's coming.
Guest:what if a bunch of leaves just blow in the window smashes?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What if he just keeps going like a Kaufman bit and just comes right behind here and just doesn't shut it off?
Marc:I think, you know, I never, like, usually, like, I have, I'm trying to, like, I know they come at this time, but I, you know, I thought we'd get in under the wire, but we'll keep going until, like, we'll just let it be a performance piece.
Marc:And then we'll just wait until it goes away.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's exciting.
Marc:We feel like something's going to happen now.
Marc:Something's going to happen, Paul.
Guest:You could maybe even put another, somehow bring up a chord on your computer or something.
Guest:We can add a layer of a harmonic to it and it will create an ambient kind of soundscape.
Marc:Well, let's do that with our voices.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Let's hear it.
Marc:Wait, can we hear it?
Marc:No, but when it gets close, we'll do it.
Marc:So you go, you do a play, what, in college before you get into the program?
Guest:I did a play.
Guest:I did a couple of plays in high school.
Guest:I did a play in college.
Guest:And then when I was at, I went to the University of Kansas.
Guest:And then midway through, I'm like, I'm going to go to this theater conservatory, this school.
Guest:In Kansas?
Guest:In California called the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Guest:Yeah, I've heard of that.
Guest:You just decided.
Guest:I just decided.
Guest:Why on that one?
Guest:Seemed like they had a pretty impressive alumni list.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:That was it.
Marc:So you were festering about it.
Guest:You're like, I got to get out and do this.
Guest:I heard, I thought like, well, if I'm going to do this, I need to go there because that's where everybody goes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I didn't really research other schools.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't, I was just like, all right, this seems good.
Guest:I knew somebody else that was auditioning for that school, a friend of mine.
Marc:But you had to audition.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You had to audition.
Guest:I got in, but I never even visited.
Guest:The first day I even saw it was the first day that I went to school there.
Marc:You're just all in.
Marc:I just went.
Guest:You decided.
Guest:I just decided.
Marc:Yeah, that's all right.
Marc:And I don't know if it's all right, but it's what it's- When you get caught up in like, I'm going to try to get into Yale.
Marc:And so, you know, you got in, go.
Marc:It's acting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're trying to go to Juilliard, Carnegie Mellon?
Guest:By the way, don't think I didn't have that after the fact kind of, I should have looked at Yale and I should have looked at Carnegie Mellon.
Guest:I should have looked at Juilliard because it seemed like, oh, those are the places.
Guest:Those would have killed you.
Guest:I would have, no, I would have embraced, one, I doubt I would have gotten here.
Guest:Juilliard sounds miserable.
Guest:I think maybe it might have been.
Guest:I have friends that went to Juilliard and loved it.
Guest:Yeah, how they do in career wise.
Guest:Actually, a couple of them are doing okay.
Guest:Okay, good.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I don't know.
Guest:I think that now that I have a little bit of, I can look back in the rear view mirror.
Guest:You did all right for yourself?
Guest:Well, I started thinking, this is the thing about acting schools.
Guest:They're all going to teach you how to ride an ant.
Guest:You're exposed to plays.
Guest:You're always reading plays and working on scenes.
Guest:And ultimately, that's it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what I think.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that's what you do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:I mean, that's the good part.
Marc:I mean, you're reading plays and you're working on scenes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you learn, for me, there were certain things in acting school that I was like, what the fuck is this?
Guest:Where we'll all lie down on the ground, close our eyes, and now we have to act like the color green.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And get up and do it.
Guest:And I remember even starting off, I was doing it all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But thinking, what?
Yeah.
Guest:And if all of my friends walked into this class right now and saw this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And all my friends were not actors.
Marc:If Brendan came over.
Guest:If Brendan was there.
Guest:They all just are making fun of it so much.
Guest:And yet there were certain things in school, tangible things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That I could hold on to that made a lot of sense.
Guest:Practical.
Guest:Practical things.
Guest:Like I had a teacher named Diana Stevenson who was great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, here's a good way to memorize your lines.
Guest:write them out don't say them write them yeah if you're working on a scene and then and you also have to you have to look at the other people's lines yeah uh so you read those so you know what your response will be and then you start writing it out well it's a great way to memorize things because when you write it out it gets into your brain in a much deeper way and then if you mess up you have to go back and do it again and do it again until you get a word perfect uh-huh
Marc:And that worked for you.
Marc:That works.
Marc:You still do it?
Guest:That also, I do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When I'm doing a play, I do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's something very tangible about that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that kind of stuff, I think- And applicable.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And if you're doing Shakespeare, there are certain rules that you kind of have to follow.
Guest:And there are certain things you could do, like buy Shakespeare's glossary and go through and figure out what it is you're saying.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I wouldn't have learned that kind of stuff without going to school.
Guest:How much Shakespeare have you done?
Guest:Uh...
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:A lot?
Guest:I mean, not a lot.
Marc:A fair amount.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I mean, but I just don't talk... Like, I talk to a lot of actors, but not everybody has a stage component that seems to go on.
Marc:Like, you like doing stage.
Guest:Well, I liked... I wanted to...
Guest:kind of be I wanted to have a career that was going to last and I thought the way to do that is to know that your craft a little bit and the way to learn your craft if you're an actor is to do theater right all the actors that I really admired did that yeah and so uh I went in I went in that direction that's part of why I'm I mean it's a big reason why I moved to New York yeah
Guest:And I still believe that.
Guest:I still try and do it.
Guest:It's been a few years since I've done a play, but I also enjoy doing it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, like we were talking sort of glibly and dismissively about the process of...
Marc:Acting, and I do think it applies to maybe movies and TV in terms of kids.
Marc:It's almost an experiment in blue balls in terms of waiting to do a scene.
Marc:Everything is so disconnected.
Marc:There's no sort of narrative through line.
Marc:When you're acting in those things, it is sort of a job because you've got to take everything apart and show up for bits and pieces, and it's not very satisfying.
Marc:But I imagine the theater, because it's like you start and then you go to the end.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And you got to be in it.
Guest:That is a very different sensation.
Guest:And it's also, it can be thankless and it's not, I don't know, the thrill of the stage.
Guest:That is true.
Guest:I know it sounds like I'm contradicting myself, but there's something pretty cool when it's clicking and an audience is into it and there is an exchange of energy.
Guest:It's a bit like if you're telling a joke or if you hear somebody telling a joke and they're telling it really, really well and there's a kind of several people around listening to the joke and it really lands.
Guest:In that buildup to the punchline, the air is charged.
Guest:And so amplify that by a thousand people in a theater.
Guest:And what people that don't do theater maybe don't realize is just how much energy the people on stage are getting from the audience, where each show feels drastically different based on who's watching.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, and it's a, it's a, it's a strange and fascinating feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:To, uh, have it work.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you feel that lightness.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, and in that moment, it's really cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when it's done, it's great.
Guest:Cause it's just like, oh, it's over.
Guest:It's like a workout.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You feel great after a workout, but you never really want to go to do the workout.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Sometimes I feel that doing a play.
Yeah.
Marc:yeah yeah no i feel it about you know comedy i feel yeah i well i mean in a place i talked to harbour david harbour he's so funny he's talking about you know not stage fright but just panic in general yeah like and he just had this like he told this story about like he'd be like like you know he's in a major play and like he's about ready to make his entrance and he's like
Guest:Somebody give me a script.
Guest:Yeah, I know that feeling so well.
Guest:Yeah, what am I supposed to say?
Guest:Because it is a little bit of, whatever you do for the next 10 seconds, don't think of a pink elephant.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:You're going to.
Guest:Exactly, right.
Guest:Whatever you do, you're going to go on stage in front of this many people.
Guest:Whatever you do, don't forget your lines.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:Oh God, oh God.
Marc:I don't know any of them.
Marc:I don't know any of them.
Guest:Yeah, it sucks.
Guest:It's such, it's terror.
Guest:It's terror.
Marc:Has that ever happened where you don't know your shit?
Guest:I have had moments on stage where it's like blank, or I start thinking two or three lines ahead.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Where you're in the middle of a run and you've done...
Guest:you know, 50 performances already.
Guest:And so you can kind of, you know, everybody's lines.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um, and in those moments, you can think, oh, all right, three, what's three lines ahead?
Guest:Like you just, for a second, you get out of it.
Marc:You take yourself out of it.
Marc:I know where this is.
Guest:Too long.
Guest:And then, and then you're like, oh, oh God.
Guest:Oh, oh my God.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And, and a momentary, oh, it's the worst feeling in the world.
And,
Guest:And you just look into the eyes of whoever's on stage with you.
Guest:They know.
Guest:Well, they know.
Guest:And I feel like something kicks in in them where they go into full-on safety net mode.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or what's really bad is if they get what you got.
Guest:And then you're both lost.
Guest:And then you're both lost.
Guest:That's terrible.
Marc:And the audience doesn't know.
Guest:Well, that's the other thing.
Guest:Audiences never know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The terror that you're going through.
Guest:The terror or if you mess up.
Guest:I mean, any actor that has done a play, people come back afterward and you say, oh my God, I can't believe you're in that moment.
Guest:You guys saw it when I did this, this, and this.
Guest:And they're like, what?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:We loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had no idea that-
Guest:We're just so egotistical that we assume everyone is really dissecting what it is that we're doing.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:They're thinking about themselves.
Guest:Everybody's thinking about themselves always.
Marc:Yeah, that's true.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But we were talking about comedy and about what's interesting to me, like a lot of times, is just people's timing.
Marc:Is that some people have timing and some people don't.
Marc:And I think there's a lot in terms of what makes me laugh and just the timing of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sometimes timing, you don't even know what was said.
Marc:It was just said just at the right moment.
Guest:The musicality of something and you like the musicality.
Guest:You like a certain band because of the way they sound.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The way they put their rhythms together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But you have good timing.
Marc:You have good comedic timing and it's always great to see you.
Marc:But I was thinking about that.
Marc:I guess like...
Marc:Your movie career, I know you did a lot of TV here and there, but the Wet Hot American Summer was sort of this big cult hit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did that sort of land you on the radar of things or was it before that?
Guest:No, I think it was, that was, there are certain things that have kind of, I look back and think, oh, this was important in a lot of ways.
Guest:And Wet Hot American Summer was something that when I read it, I was, oh my God, I love this so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I knew David.
Guest:I knew those guys.
Guest:From where?
Guest:Well, I watched The State.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I knew who they were.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I had become friends with them by the time we started making that film.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had worked on Romeo and Juliet, you know, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I was in that, and there was another guy in that named Zach Orth.
Guest:Zach is also- I know Zach.
Guest:Yeah, so you know Zach.
Guest:I don't know him, but I've, yeah.
Guest:He's great, and he lived in New York, and I lived in New York, and so we became friends on that film, and then when we got back to Manhattan, he said, you know, my buddies are doing this play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:called Sex, AKA Wieners and Boobs.
Guest:And it was Showalter and Joe LaTrulio and a lot of those guys.
Guest:And so I went to go see it and loved it.
Guest:And then David said, look, we have this script.
Guest:We're trying to make this movie.
Guest:Um, and I was like, oh my God, well, this is kind of the first thing I've ever read or, uh, that seemed like it was, it kind of spoke to my own sense of humor.
Guest:You know, everything was kind of, every comedy you'd ever read was like, all right, that's kind of funny, but not like this.
Guest:And so that was the feeling in, in making it, uh, that we all, everyone got the joke.
Guest:Everyone was friends and everybody kind of, uh,
Guest:Even midway through, I remember Zach saying to me, I don't know if this will ever come out.
Guest:I just want to have a videotape of it.
Guest:And I was like, I know what you mean.
Guest:And so I think because of that movie, in the comedy world, people saw it and liked it.
Guest:And it certainly played a part in me getting the role in Anchorman, which was certainly a kind of sea change, you know.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:I think it's time for the interlude.
Guest:We got to do one of these like... Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's kind of...
In.
In.
.
Guest:.
.
Guest:oh man I could have done it longer and I laughed damn it and I feel bad breaking it because it's going against what I instinctually want to do so you feel like I could do this for another 45 minutes right your instinct is like let's just end this way but keep doing it for an hour keep doing it yeah for an hour
Guest:and i knocked up on the movie knocked up there was a scene where seth rogan and i are in um uh las vegas and uh during that shoot that shoot was like four days in las vegas right other guys in the cast yeah came out and we were all going out to las vegas as a in a group uh we're like gonna go to some um like a like a club yeah and uh
Guest:And then, you know, go around and like something that none of us really are the guys to do that.
Guest:But we're like, this is what you're going to do.
Guest:And I think early on I made a joke.
Guest:I was on my cell phone saying, pretending I was calling Treat Williams.
Guest:I'm like, hey, Treat.
Guest:Yeah, come out.
Guest:Yeah, we're going to rain.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I made some joke that was, it wasn't really funny.
Guest:And I realized the only way to make it funny is to just keep talking to him all night.
Guest:You're intrigued.
Guest:I was just laughing and just talking to Treat Williams for about three hours or so, three and a half hours.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Really?
Guest:No, I wasn't talking to anybody.
Guest:Were you getting the reaction to it?
Guest:No.
Guest:The guys were just like- All right.
Guest:And every few minutes they'd look over and they'd laugh saying, wow, you're sticking with this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think they had an appreciation that I was sticking with it, especially because we then went to a few different places and I never engaged in any of the conversation.
Guest:I just only pretended to be talking at Treat Williams.
Guest:Then we went back to a casino and everyone sat at a blackjack table.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you're not allowed to talk on a cell phone instead of the blackjack table.
Guest:So I stood behind them and didn't play and just kept laughing and pretending to talk to Tree Williams.
Guest:And the whole night out, I never engaged in anything, only just talked to Tree Williams.
Guest:And so that is the equivalent of... Hold on.
Marc:Where is he?
Marc:Where is he?
Guest:And now that I've called attention to it, I feel like I can't continue the length of this.
Guest:But what made me break it in the first place was wondering if somebody was listening to this.
Guest:And do you think either one, that woke him up or two, put him to sleep?
Marc:Or made him go like, this is fucking ridiculous.
Marc:I think maybe the majority said, all right, fast forward.
Marc:Enough, right.
Marc:We don't even know if my producer's going to leave it in.
Marc:No.
Marc:I think he should.
Marc:I'll make note.
Marc:I said, I think it's important to me and Paul.
Guest:At least if your producer decides to cut it, at least we have to let the people know we did it for a reason.
Guest:Really long.
Marc:Yeah, you did it.
Marc:I felt at some point during one of those runs that you were like, how long can I do this for without taking a breath?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:You challenge yourself.
Guest:Yeah, and the only way you can do it is if you go really, really deep.
Guest:And not release a lot of air.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I'll see how long I can do that.
Yeah.
Ah.
Guest:This has to be the most boring thing you've ever done with anybody at the desk.
Marc:I've never done it.
Marc:I've never done it.
Guest:No, me neither.
Marc:I'm just glad you broke because I'm like, you got to that, like, you know, I got to that point where I'm like, am I going to pass out to try to win this?
Marc:So Judd Apatow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Changed everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Anchorman.
Guest:Huge, huge thing there.
Marc:And then he became like sort of a Judd Apatow surrogate in a way.
Marc:Like you played his, his vision of himself twice, didn't you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Would it be like, and this is 40.
Guest:This is 40 and then knocked up.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And that relationship is, are you guys friends?
Marc:Do you have an understanding?
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Friends.
Guest:I saw him two weeks ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I see him at the comedy store now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's fun, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:The whole family is great.
Guest:And it was and is a very unique experience to kind of act opposite his wife and daughters with him in the room.
Yeah.
Guest:That is wild.
Guest:It's kind of weird.
Guest:He trusts you.
Guest:I think he does, yeah.
Marc:He trusts you to be him.
Guest:Well, yeah, I think he does.
Guest:I remember before we did This Is 40, he's like, come on over and just hang out at the house and see what our life is like.
Guest:I remember going with him, putting the girls to bed.
Guest:It's creepy now.
Guest:Yeah, they're kind of thinking about this.
Marc:And how'd the girls react?
Marc:Were they...
Guest:I think that they were just, all right.
Guest:They already knew who I was.
Guest:Ever since they were little, they knew who I was.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:They were probably already used to so much weirdness in their life that had to do with the movie business.
Marc:Yeah, and now the old man's back doing comedy talking about him.
Marc:This is what they needed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:uh in the in the david wayne and show walter you know all you've sort of grown up with them too right you've done a lot of their movies yeah and still really close with uh that whole community that whole crowd yeah joe lives around here i know like in don knott's old house does he really yeah that's oh i had no idea i've not been over there i ran into his wife at an event i saw them at the award show and i know like it's one of those things like hey we should all like yeah well maybe that i don't know if that's gonna happen
Marc:Oh, well, I, I'd like to, but I like, I'm sure he would too.
Marc:I know, but like, how do you do that as grownups?
Marc:I got to figure out how to do that.
Guest:It's, it's harder.
Guest:It's harder as grownups.
Guest:It's harder when you're married.
Guest:It's harder.
Marc:And they have kids.
Marc:And it's sort of like, you know, we're not, you know, we, we've sort of known each other just in passing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So like, let's try the new friend thing.
Marc:And yet you two would be a total chums.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I like him.
Marc:He's done, he's been in here in the old garage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:oh i saw you in duncan jones's movie that was the interesting turn like the the like you don't you need to do a few more movies where you're just a completely horrendous person yeah that was fun yeah i you know i i liked it a lot of it you know i thought it was an interesting movie and i thought that the riff on the original who was the other guy was it just justin thoreau yeah that the riff on the original mash was odd yeah so to make those characters horrible
Guest:really weird yeah and to put them in that movie yeah in the future yeah berlin it was so when i read it i was like huh yeah and i met duncan who i really like yeah and think is a really talented filmmaker but uh he's the one that kind of explained it to me and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I want to go along for this ride.
Guest:It seems like it's a weird one.
Marc:Well, I thought that it was like I was sort of surprised that, you know, sort of like you're one of these guys that we've all grown to know and love in terms of the range that you've made available in the movies.
Marc:Right.
Marc:The comedies.
Marc:Like, you know, we've seen you sad and happy and whatever, but we haven't seen you menacing necessarily.
Marc:And, you know, like, it's funny because you enter it like I'm watching.
Marc:I'm like, oh, look, it's cute.
Marc:Paul Rudd.
Marc:And then you're like, what the fuck?
Marc:Awful person.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's like, yeah, but you turn like when you get evil, you're like, no, he can do that.
Guest:It would be nice to do it more often.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I don't think people necessarily think of me for things like that, nor maybe want to see me in things like that.
Marc:But isn't that interesting?
Marc:People, they know you have a marketable quality that's worked for you for many years, and obviously it's a big part of who you are, but you are an actor.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So does that get frustrating?
Guest:Yeah, times.
Guest:Yeah, and have you tried to do things that... I have, and sometimes they're the right things, and sometimes they're not.
Guest:I've been offered, throughout the years, things that were dramatic roles, but I just didn't really connect with them.
Guest:I don't want to do something dramatic or play a bad guy for the sake of playing a bad guy.
Guest:It has to be the right thing.
Guest:And I've done it in plays more than movies or anything like that, but...
Guest:It it can be a little frustrating, but that's, you know, at the same time to complain about certain things seems a little.
Marc:No, no, I get it.
Marc:I get.
Marc:But like what I mean, you've got it's got to be available to you in a small movie, an indie movie where it's just a matter of I would imagine having discussions with a director like you must have had with Duncan where, you know, it's it's sort of who would want you to play against type.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, every once in a while, I meet a filmmaker who does.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think in the right thing, it can be an effective thing.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:People have a preconceived notion of who I am.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:But I never really had the kind of purposeful decision-making that said, I'm going to do something dramatic because I just did a comedy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I'm going to switch it up and really... And maybe I should have...
Guest:No.
Guest:But I didn't really and don't really think in that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think more in terms of, wow, I really like this.
Guest:A lot of comedies I read and I was like, these are really fun.
Guest:I think they'd be fun to work on.
Guest:I love the people and people I'd work with many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in truth, that is really what I probably enjoy the most.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why fuck that up?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:These are also, at the end of the day, it's a movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So who gives a shit?
Guest:Nobody cares.
Guest:It's not that important.
Guest:Anyway, 99% of the world doesn't care at all.
Guest:Is that true?
Guest:I think so.
Marc:Some things are memorable.
Marc:Well, absolutely.
Marc:Some movies, they change lives.
Marc:They do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They do.
Guest:And look, they had enough of an impact on me.
Guest:They changed my life.
Guest:Look at what I want to do for a living.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But like my girlfriend, like I'm like, I'm going to interview Paul Rudd.
Marc:And she's like, who is he again?
Marc:And I said, well, you know, he's in the jet.
Marc:Oh, the one who was looking at the hemorrhoid on his own asshole.
Marc:I'm like, yeah, that guy's like, oh, that was funny.
Guest:So there we go.
Guest:I changed your girlfriend's life.
Guest:You're that guy.
Guest:I'm that guy.
Guest:So anyway, what I was going to say is that you see a movie and it's two hours.
Guest:You don't like it.
Guest:You can walk out.
Guest:But when you're making it, it's months on end and you're in it.
Guest:And so the experience, I have certainly done it enough now for a long enough time that the experience of working on something counts a lot.
Guest:yeah and sure i want to enjoy it yeah it's like it's half a year yeah of your life sometimes right when you do that do you usually have the kids over or what do they do no i mean not it normally i'll go i'll travel back on weekends right right i mean a lot of the marvel stuff has been shooting in georgia and because i live in uh new york it's really easy not too bad yeah it's not too bad if uh if it's during the summer yeah i will they'll come with me if
Marc:you know but they got their lives now yeah so it that's the that's honestly like the hardest part of this whole job is uh being away from the kids yeah yeah i bet well good luck with the movie thank you what uh are you shooting something now you got something coming up that you know you want to break news no no i got uh i got no i got i got no news to break you just do it you're gonna do the ant-man publicity and then have a summer or what
Guest:Yeah, which is going to take up a big chunk of the summer.
Marc:You're just starting it?
Marc:Just starting.
Marc:It opens when?
Marc:July 6th.
Marc:Oh, yeah, so you've got a couple weeks, huh?
Guest:Yeah, and then it comes out later in Europe.
Marc:So you've got to go over there right after?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You still have family in England?
Marc:I do.
Marc:Oh, that would be nice.
Marc:Do you see them?
Guest:Yeah, I'll see them.
Guest:I'm only going to be there for about two days, but I'm going to see them, yeah.
Marc:All right, buddy.
Marc:Well, I'm glad we got to do this finally.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Marc:And we did some experimental stuff.
Guest:Yeah, I like it.
Guest:We made an ambient soundtrack.
Marc:Yeah, we did a lot of things here today.
Marc:We really did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I feel we've run ourselves through the ringer.
Guest:Let's just go to Joe Trulia's house and knock on the door.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And go like, hey, look.
Guest:Hey, we're here.
Guest:Tell us about Don Knotts.
Guest:Did you find anything in the attic?
Marc:Oh, Don Knotts.
Marc:All right.
All right.
Marc:Lovely man, just as expected.
Marc:Lovely person, that Paul Rudd fella.
Marc:Glow on Netflix is up.
Marc:Season two is on now.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:I'll play some guitar.
Marc:I'm playing sloppier guitar.
Marc:I'm playing more distorted guitar because, I don't know, it's satisfying.
Marc:The action on this guitar is way too high, and I don't know what happened, if it bowed or what.
Marc:I've got to bring it in to get fixed.
Marc:Strings are old.
Marc:Why can't I just keep up?
Marc:Do I need a guitar tech for my hobbying?
Marc:Is that what I fucking need?
Marc:A guitar tech for my hobbying?
Marc:Am I at that point in my career?
Marc:No.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.