Episode 932 - Ray Liotta / Jim Jefferies

Episode 932 • Released July 11, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it

00:00:26Marc:The sun burned my trees.

00:00:29Marc:The sun burned my trees.

00:00:32Marc:What the fuck is happening?

00:00:34Marc:I asked the gardener guy.

00:00:35Marc:I'm like, what's up with the trees?

00:00:38Marc:He said, I'm pretty sure it was the sun just burned them.

00:00:42Marc:Oh, is that all?

00:00:42Marc:The sun burned the trees.

00:00:45Marc:Is this unusual?

00:00:46Marc:Is 118 degree heat in Los Angeles unusual?

00:00:50Marc:Yes.

00:00:52Marc:And then when you realize, oh, it burned the trees.

00:00:54Marc:It burned a lot of trees.

00:00:56Marc:It just burned the landscape.

00:00:59Marc:Just fried it.

00:01:01Marc:So if you're thinking about doing exercise and working out and stuff, make sure adapting to the life of a lizard or a snake operating in that type of intensity is part of your plan.

00:01:18Marc:If you can get your body temperature down to about cold-bloodedness and you can sort of exist under rocks where it's still hot because once we blow out the power grid and the trees burn,

00:01:31Marc:It's going to be, you know, I'm just saying, look, I'm not being negative.

00:01:36Marc:I'm just saying integrate that into your workout, you know, preparing for that.

00:01:41Marc:You know, if you're doing the running, you know, do it in 110 degree heat.

00:01:46Marc:You know, deny yourself water and don't cool down.

00:01:50Marc:Can the distractions available obliterate our awareness totally of what is happening?

00:01:57Marc:The trees are burning, right?

00:02:00Marc:Not from fire, it's from a hot day.

00:02:04Marc:Will the distractions available, will the Marvel movies and the options and the streaming services, will it succeed in obliterating our ability to connect with reality, completely enabling our denial of said reality?

00:02:24Marc:I don't know, but I'm just rethinking the last paragraph of George Orwell's 1984.

00:02:31Marc:And he gazed up at the enormous face.

00:02:36Marc:40 years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark mustache.

00:02:42Marc:Oh, cruel, needless misunderstanding.

00:02:44Marc:Oh, stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast.

00:02:48Marc:Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose.

00:02:52Marc:But it was all right.

00:02:54Marc:Everything was alright.

00:02:57Marc:The struggle was finished.

00:02:59Marc:He had won the victory over himself.

00:03:02Marc:He loved Big Brother.

00:03:04Marc:I think what might be more frightening and what really might be

00:03:10Marc:The next turn of the screw of how consumer culture works is that the last line, but it was all right.

00:03:17Marc:Everything was all right.

00:03:19Marc:The struggle was finished.

00:03:21Marc:He had won the victory over himself.

00:03:25Marc:He didn't give a fuck.

00:03:29Marc:Didn't give a fuck.

00:03:31Marc:I'm tired.

00:03:33Marc:I'm through the worst of it.

00:03:36Marc:You know, I don't give a fuck.

00:03:37Marc:I'm going to sit on my porch and watch the trees melt.

00:03:45Marc:Ray Liotta is on the show today.

00:03:47Marc:Who doesn't fucking love Ray Liotta?

00:03:50Marc:You have to just recognize it.

00:03:54Marc:Goodfellas is the most watchable movie almost ever.

00:04:01Marc:I'll start watching Goodfellas wherever it's on, even if the cussing is cut out.

00:04:08Marc:But Ray Liotta is here.

00:04:11Marc:And it was wild to sit across from Ray Liotta.

00:04:14Marc:Also here today, Jim Jeffries for a minute.

00:04:19Marc:But on the other side of burning trees and fucking it all and

00:04:24Marc:Losing hope or hoping for not the best, but just a little bit of relief from something.

00:04:33Marc:I went to see an amazing chunk of art.

00:04:37Marc:Sarah the painter is doing a public...

00:04:40Marc:Art Commission for the city of San Francisco for their new airport terminal.

00:04:45Marc:And she is designed a it's going to be about 150 feet long, 10 foot high by six foot panels of stained glass.

00:04:57Marc:And in her style of abstraction.

00:05:00Marc:And I went and saw about five or six of the panels as they move together as they are created over at Judson Studio, which is this century-old plus stained glass studio.

00:05:18Marc:And just the meeting of the creativity and abstract intent of Sarah Kane with this, you know, kind of an old-timey

00:05:29Marc:Medium, pretty fucking stunning.

00:05:33Marc:She gave a little talk, had some people over, shared the process, but it's going to be just massive colors to see stained glass taken out of the hands of Jesus.

00:05:43Marc:You don't see it too often.

00:05:44Marc:You see it as decorative in houses and whatnot.

00:05:47Marc:But this thing is massive.

00:05:48Marc:And just this place that's making the glass that she's designing did Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

00:05:56Marc:They do big churches.

00:05:58Marc:It's just a medium.

00:05:59Marc:You may not pay attention to it.

00:06:01Marc:It may have a sort of place in your mind, but it's probably not an exciting place.

00:06:06Marc:But man, it was just exciting to see some new kind of understanding of something so familiar and so mind-blowing.

00:06:17Marc:Art is good for you.

00:06:19Marc:Pull yourself out of your phone.

00:06:21Marc:Get yourself out of the clickbait.

00:06:22Marc:Get into some stuff that's moving into the imagination, out pushing the envelope with creativity.

00:06:31Marc:I don't know if it's going to save us.

00:06:34Marc:I don't know if art is going to save us, but it can certainly remind us that we're fucking human.

00:06:43Marc:Right?

00:06:44Marc:So Jim Jeffries has been here before.

00:06:46Marc:He's a filthy man.

00:06:49Marc:You know Jim.

00:06:50Marc:He does have a new special coming out on Netflix.

00:06:54Marc:This is Me Now, it's called.

00:06:55Marc:It premieres tomorrow, July 13th.

00:06:57Marc:So we dropped by and we talked a bit about who he is now, Jim Jeffries.

00:07:03Guest:Jim Jeffries.

00:07:09Guest:How many kids you got now?

00:07:11Guest:I've only got the one kid, but I have like a live-in nanny when I've got him and stuff like that, you know, so that's two people.

00:07:19Marc:So you've got the kid, but you got no... The wife's gone?

00:07:22Guest:The wife's gone, but she only lives half... Well, I was never married, but she only lives half a mile down the road.

00:07:26Guest:Yeah.

00:07:27Guest:We have a very good relationship, so I see her once a week probably.

00:07:31Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:07:31Guest:Yeah, yeah, it's all good.

00:07:33Guest:Yeah?

00:07:33Guest:We were very clever, and what we did was...

00:07:36Guest:She got pregnant after knowing her for two months.

00:07:39Guest:Yeah.

00:07:41Guest:You knew her for two months?

00:07:42Guest:Knew her for two months.

00:07:43Guest:I think I kind of remember this, yeah.

00:07:44Guest:But one of the good things is people, a lot of people get people pregnant that they love.

00:07:49Guest:Yeah.

00:07:50Guest:And that's a silly thing.

00:07:52Guest:Because that'll turn to hate eventually.

00:07:55Guest:So if you just get someone pregnant who you kind of like and maybe know a little bit, you can get to know them.

00:08:00Guest:And then you'll always kind of like them.

00:08:02Guest:Yeah.

00:08:03Guest:It may never turn to love, but it probably won't turn to hate.

00:08:06Marc:That's right.

00:08:06Marc:So then you have a kid, so that gives you an excuse to sort of get to know them as they grow as people.

00:08:11Marc:So how long did the thing last anyway?

00:08:13Guest:We muscled out four years.

00:08:16Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:08:18Guest:And now it's like...

00:08:19Guest:he's heading on to six now so but no we maybe we did five years including before he was born yeah but we've been bringing up for a bit over a year how's the kid turning out he's doing good yeah happy little fella yeah yeah yeah he's like the problem it's like it's nothing to do with me he's just very well behaved yeah and so I've always wanted I don't know if it wants a thing but I've always thought that I would be a very strict parent yeah the

00:08:48Guest:Really?

00:08:49Guest:I thought disciplinary.

00:08:50Guest:I was disciplined very hard as a kid.

00:08:52Marc:Yeah, but it seems like your entire life has been pushing back against that.

00:08:56Guest:Yes, I know.

00:08:59Guest:All I've got is the naughty step.

00:09:00Guest:That's all I do.

00:09:01Guest:The naughty step?

00:09:04Guest:Yeah, it's the naughty step.

00:09:05Guest:It's a big thing.

00:09:06Guest:And they have to sit there for one minute of each year of their life.

00:09:09Guest:So he's up to five minutes naughty step time now.

00:09:11Marc:What is that?

00:09:12Marc:Some kind of Australian disciplinary thing?

00:09:14Guest:No, you watch any like super nanny type program.

00:09:17Guest:Any parent knows about the naughty step.

00:09:19Guest:Well, explain it to me because I avoided the parenting.

00:09:22Guest:Okay.

00:09:22Guest:What happens with the naughty step is the child has to sit on a step like somewhere in the house and just sort of ponder what they've done.

00:09:29Guest:Yeah.

00:09:30Guest:If it's one year, they have to sit there for one minute, two years.

00:09:34Guest:And so my son's up to five minutes worth of naughty step.

00:09:37Guest:I don't know if he knows that if he just decides to stand up and walk away, I really don't have anything else to do.

00:09:43Guest:I have no other, I have nothing else in my artillery to go in there.

00:09:47Guest:You sit there on that step and you have a think about it.

00:09:50Guest:But it's like, yeah, it does work for some reason.

00:09:52Marc:So if he says, fuck you, dad, I'm out, that's, you're okay.

00:09:56Guest:You have a good time.

00:09:57Guest:Get back on your step.

00:09:58Guest:All right, I'll remember this.

00:10:01Guest:Next time you're getting a double amount of step.

00:10:03Guest:But he's like, what is he?

00:10:04Guest:Six, right?

00:10:05Guest:He's five.

00:10:05Marc:Five.

00:10:06Marc:So, I mean, this is relatively easy.

00:10:09Marc:If he's been easy up to this point, I guess when they're really two or three, it's a pain in the ass.

00:10:15Guest:It can be.

00:10:16Guest:Yeah, I heard about terrible twos and stuff.

00:10:18Guest:I miss him being two.

00:10:19Guest:Yeah.

00:10:20Guest:I like that.

00:10:21Guest:It was, it was the, it was, you didn't really have to worry about them at that age.

00:10:24Guest:Right.

00:10:25Guest:I'm starting to, even now, I start to worry about things like, are you worried, like, like, are they going to, like, you're going to be boiling some hot water and they're going to pour it over their head?

00:10:33Guest:Do you have a pool?

00:10:34Guest:I have a pool, yeah.

00:10:35Guest:Yeah.

00:10:35Guest:But now we can swim, so that's, that's cool.

00:10:37Guest:Oh.

00:10:37Guest:But you never had to worry.

00:10:40Guest:Now I worry about my child socially.

00:10:42Guest:Yeah.

00:10:43Guest:Like when he's starting school and I go, oh, geez, I hope he has friends.

00:10:47Guest:Right.

00:10:47Guest:And how's that turning out?

00:10:49Guest:Well, he's just about to start school.

00:10:51Guest:He had preschool and he had his group of mates and now he has to go off and get his new group of friends.

00:10:57Guest:But how was he in preschool?

00:10:57Guest:A leader or was he?

00:10:58Guest:He was all right.

00:11:00Guest:I don't know if he was a leader.

00:11:01Guest:You watch these plays that they put on at the preschools.

00:11:05Guest:Yeah.

00:11:05Guest:And I was like, wasn't Michael Jackson discovered at five?

00:11:08Guest:I don't know, maybe.

00:11:09Guest:It was around.

00:11:09Guest:It was a family thing, yeah.

00:11:10Guest:Yeah, the whole family.

00:11:11Guest:And I look at the concerts they put on, and I'm like, none of these kids.

00:11:16Guest:None of them.

00:11:17Guest:We're not going to do it.

00:11:20Guest:But then is it that we're just not hitting our kids?

00:11:23Guest:Is Michael Jackson a product of childbeating?

00:11:26Guest:Is that where the motivation comes in to be elite?

00:11:29Marc:Maybe, but then there's a question, of course, of like, do we need another Michael Jackson?

00:11:35Marc:I mean, can he, you know, because it's got to be incredibly hard on the kid at some point.

00:11:40Guest:Yeah, of course it has.

00:11:41Guest:Did your dad hit you?

00:11:42Guest:My mother did.

00:11:43Guest:My dad didn't.

00:11:44Guest:Yeah.

00:11:44Guest:My dad probably hit me two or three times, but nothing too serious, like a little smack here, a little smack here.

00:11:50Guest:But my mother really wailed on us.

00:11:52Guest:Oh, really?

00:11:52Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:11:53Marc:Like, out of control shit?

00:11:54Guest:Like, it wasn't about discipline.

00:11:55Guest:It was just about she had enough.

00:11:57Guest:Broke one of my brother's legs.

00:11:59Guest:What?

00:11:59Guest:Yeah, one time she... I went to a hospital with, like, a split in the side of my head from a belt that hit me.

00:12:06Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:12:07Guest:Oh, she went to town.

00:12:08Guest:Big woman.

00:12:09Guest:Big, like... She had a real good... She had a real good swing on her.

00:12:13Guest:Yeah.

00:12:13Guest:She used to do that thing, if you've answered back, where she did the open-hand slap.

00:12:16Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:12:17Guest:But do you remember when parents used to hit their kids, like...

00:12:20Marc:in like just in Ralph's yeah oh yeah of course and now it doesn't really happen so much in public yeah I mean well there's a thankfully a bit of shame involved there's a bit of shame yeah I remember I used to get popped my dad used to pop me with like these two fingers like just like it was almost on the forehead yeah just on the face like in the head yeah like it was almost more humiliating than a hit just sort of this way it got bing it stung it didn't bloody me but it was just sort of like you know it was just kind of annoying and fucked up

00:12:49Guest:Yeah, my son would go into his bedroom for, I'll just lose him in the house.

00:12:54Guest:Well, I'll be watching TV.

00:12:55Guest:I'll wander off.

00:12:56Guest:I assume he's off doing something with Lego or something.

00:12:58Guest:And then I think, I haven't seen him for about an hour.

00:13:01Guest:And I'll wander around.

00:13:03Guest:I'll find him.

00:13:04Guest:And he'll be like in a cupboard, just in a ball.

00:13:06Guest:And then I go, what's wrong with you?

00:13:07Guest:He goes, you hurt my feelings.

00:13:10Guest:And then I'm like, how did I hurt your feelings?

00:13:12Guest:You said that I was, and I can't even remember saying anything.

00:13:15Guest:Sure.

00:13:15Guest:I thought I was joking around with him.

00:13:17Guest:Very sensitive little kid.

00:13:18Guest:Oh, well, yeah, they were kids.

00:13:20Marc:Yeah, I was tough, I reckon.

00:13:22Marc:Well, when your mom's like smacking you with a belt, I guess you get a little resilient, don't you?

00:13:27Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:13:28Guest:Is your mom still around?

00:13:29Guest:She's still around.

00:13:31Guest:With her beatings, both me and my brothers have confronted her, but she's a little, she's like, oh, I don't remember if all of those things happened.

00:13:39Guest:Some of them sound a little familiar.

00:13:43Guest:So does the kid have any talent that you can see?

00:13:45Guest:it's a weird thing it's a weird thing like i went i took him to um uh it's the most embarrassed i've been as a parent as like a person i took him to harry potter world yeah and he said he wanted one of the wands and then they you know they choose you out a wand you know there's a special thing where they go this is the one that you're gonna get you know yeah and so he stood there and then the the girl who was working there she goes to me what interest does he have

00:14:11Guest:toys pulling his dick a little bit like just stretching it not like masturbating but stretching his dick yeah and toys and that's it he likes he likes practical jokes you know what I mean like what interest he's five what interest does he have I don't even know my interests yeah right now yeah yeah did he get the dick wand what did he get the pulling the dick wand yeah

00:14:39Guest:He got like, I can't remember what it was.

00:14:41Guest:It was like, I think it wasn't a good one.

00:14:42Guest:I think it was like a Slytherin-y one.

00:14:45Guest:I don't know really the Harry Potter movies.

00:14:47Guest:I think it was in the, yeah.

00:14:49Guest:People like them.

00:14:50Guest:So what, yeah, they do.

00:14:52Guest:They fucking like them.

00:14:53Guest:They like the books too.

00:14:54Guest:I never read them.

00:14:55Guest:Yeah, I'm thinking of reading the books.

00:14:57Guest:For him?

00:14:58Guest:Well, I've just recently become a person who can read.

00:15:01Guest:I'm looking at your place here with all these books, and I'm like, you obviously read.

00:15:06Guest:Well, some of them are aspirations.

00:15:08Marc:They're not all read.

00:15:09Guest:I haven't read all of them.

00:15:11Guest:Well, I always...

00:15:15Guest:I had dyslexia as a kid.

00:15:17Guest:And so then I just didn't read.

00:15:19Guest:Dyslexia?

00:15:19Guest:Yeah, I was just dyslexic.

00:15:21Guest:And so I just found reading hard as a teenager.

00:15:24Guest:So I never read for pleasure.

00:15:26Guest:And I have read, I think, like two or three biographies.

00:15:29Guest:And that's all I've read in my whole life.

00:15:31Guest:Right.

00:15:31Guest:And one of them was like Chevy Chase's biography.

00:15:34Guest:Time well spent.

00:15:34Guest:Yeah.

00:15:35Marc:Out of the three books you read, one of them was Chevy Chase's biography.

00:15:39Marc:Not even his autobiography, just a biography.

00:15:41Guest:I read the Chris Farley story.

00:15:43Guest:Sure.

00:15:44Guest:It's exciting at the end.

00:15:48Guest:And so I can't remember what the other thing was.

00:15:50Guest:It was something to do with the Beatles or something.

00:15:52Marc:Yeah.

00:15:52Marc:And now you're picking it up again?

00:15:53Guest:Anyway, no, but since I started doing the TV show and I had to start reading the autocue, I'm getting good at reading.

00:16:01Guest:Just reading in general.

00:16:02Guest:And so I'm starting to enjoy reading.

00:16:04Guest:Oh, that's interesting.

00:16:05Guest:And so I'm starting to think about, I might buy a book.

00:16:09Guest:But you haven't done it yet?

00:16:09Guest:You're close?

00:16:10Guest:Well, I started reading books to my son, and this is why I started thinking about the Harry Potter thing.

00:16:15Guest:I'm thinking of just reading a chapter of Harry Potter to him each night to see if that's something he might dig.

00:16:22Guest:Right, and it'll help you.

00:16:24Marc:It'll help me.

00:16:25Marc:So you're saying by reading Teleprompter, you- I've gotten good at it.

00:16:29Marc:I can read Teleprompter.

00:16:30Marc:What do you think happened to the dyslexia?

00:16:31Guest:Well, I still have it, but it's a muscle that I, you know, I still find it.

00:16:37Guest:I'm not there loving it and doing it, but it's, you know, it's like anything.

00:16:41Guest:If you work at it a bit more, you get a bit better at it.

00:16:44Guest:It's like I could play golf every day and I'll never be awesome at it.

00:16:49Guest:Right.

00:16:49Marc:I'll get better.

00:16:51Marc:But you seem natural on camera.

00:16:53Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:16:54Guest:It's no problem.

00:16:55Guest:I try to vaguely know the whole script all the way through so that even if I go off script or whatever, I sort of know where the joke's headed at the beginning.

00:17:03Marc:Well, how much research are you actually doing in terms of staying up to speed on shit?

00:17:08Marc:What are you doing?

00:17:09Guest:Do we do the show weekly?

00:17:10Guest:Yeah, we do the show weekly.

00:17:11Guest:I just came from there now.

00:17:13Guest:We have eight writers and two researchers.

00:17:15Guest:And, you know, it's like sometimes I'll go in on a Wednesday, sort of this hour Monday because the show's recorded on Tuesday, and I'll go on a Wednesday and go, so this week I'd like to talk about these two topics.

00:17:27Guest:There might be a couple of things that I'm passionate about, and then other times it's just like we're going to talk about Scott Pruitt leaving the EPA with a blah, blah, you know what I mean?

00:17:38Guest:And it's like, I'm not, I watch a bit of news, but I mean, I have to have people explain it to you.

00:17:43Guest:Sure, no, no.

00:17:44Marc:I was in that situation for a couple of years when I was a radio host at Air America.

00:17:49Marc:You know, like you just, you know, it's hard to know all the nuances, but like once you get it all in your head, how it fucking works, it just becomes, you just fill in the people.

00:17:59Guest:I spoke to Paul Hogan today.

00:18:01Guest:You did?

00:18:02Guest:Yeah, I spoke to Paul Hogan today.

00:18:03Guest:How's he doing?

00:18:04Guest:Yeah.

00:18:04Guest:I did it.

00:18:05Guest:I spoke to him on a conference call at work.

00:18:07Guest:Is he a hero of yours?

00:18:08Guest:He kind of is, yeah.

00:18:10Guest:Yeah, like what other Australian comic giant did I have to look up to?

00:18:16Guest:What was that guy Einstein?

00:18:17Guest:What was it?

00:18:17Guest:Remember him?

00:18:18Guest:Oh, Yahoo Serious.

00:18:19Guest:Yahoo Serious, yeah.

00:18:21Guest:I was thinking about Yahoo Serious the other day.

00:18:23Guest:It's funny you should mention it.

00:18:24Guest:So what happened with Paul Hogan?

00:18:27Guest:We had a sketch where I wanted him to play my father in a sketch.

00:18:32Guest:And I don't think he liked the sketch, and he might do a different thing with this.

00:18:37Guest:And he goes, but he said to us, he goes, I don't know if people will really believe that I'm your father.

00:18:43Guest:Yeah.

00:18:44Guest:And I'm like, it's a sketch.

00:18:45Guest:Yeah.

00:18:46Guest:Yeah.

00:18:47Guest:Do you think people believe you were a crocodile then?

00:18:48Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:18:49Guest:It's acting.

00:18:50Guest:Just do it.

00:18:50Guest:Yeah.

00:18:51Guest:But it was very exciting to talk to him.

00:18:53Guest:I did get a little starstruck talking to Paul.

00:18:56Guest:I bet.

00:18:57Marc:I mean, was he a star in Australia before he was?

00:19:00Guest:Yeah, before those movies.

00:19:01Guest:He was?

00:19:02Guest:He was a big star, yeah.

00:19:02Guest:But what did he do?

00:19:03Guest:In movies or?

00:19:04Guest:It's a fascinating thing.

00:19:06Guest:That was his first movie.

00:19:07Guest:Crocodone only was his first movie.

00:19:08Guest:What happened was he was a rigger on the Harbour Bridge.

00:19:10Guest:So the Harbour Bridge has to be painted constantly.

00:19:12Guest:Once you reach the end, you've got to start again.

00:19:14Guest:Yeah.

00:19:15Guest:And I think there was only four blokes who constantly was painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

00:19:19Guest:And he was in his 30s at this stage.

00:19:22Guest:And there was a show, New Faces, or the Gong Show, whatever the fuck it was.

00:19:27Guest:And his mates kept on egging him on because he kept on saying he could do better than the people there.

00:19:33Guest:He did somewhat what you would call a stand-up sort of performance.

00:19:38Guest:Uh-huh, uh-huh.

00:19:38Guest:That went well.

00:19:40Guest:And then they, I think he came second or something, but they brought him back for another thing.

00:19:44Guest:And then the phone lines lit up.

00:19:46Guest:Yeah.

00:19:46Guest:And then in Australian news, I don't know if they did this, but this is a very Australian thing.

00:19:49Guest:You have, you know, like we don't really have the 24 hour news channels.

00:19:53Guest:We didn't back in the day.

00:19:53Guest:In Australia.

00:19:54Guest:Yeah.

00:19:54Guest:And so we just have news is from six, six till seven.

00:19:57Guest:Yeah.

00:19:58Guest:You get the news.

00:19:58Guest:Right.

00:19:59Marc:It was better time.

00:20:00Marc:It's better back then.

00:20:01Marc:It's better.

00:20:01Guest:It's all you need.

00:20:02Guest:Yeah.

00:20:02Guest:Now they just have the six or seven news played every hour over and over.

00:20:05Guest:And on your phone.

00:20:06Guest:Yeah.

00:20:07Guest:So you can't get away from it.

00:20:08Guest:So, but on Fridays, in the last four minutes, every Friday night, they would have a sort of cheesy comedian do a rap of the week.

00:20:18Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:18Guest:You know?

00:20:19Guest:Right.

00:20:19Guest:Where he'd go, those idiots in parliament, what are they up to?

00:20:23Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:24Guest:You know, one of those ones.

00:20:25Guest:Kind of like your show.

00:20:26Guest:Yeah, kind of like my show, but shorter and more succinct.

00:20:29Guest:Right?

00:20:30Guest:Yeah.

00:20:31Yeah.

00:20:31Guest:And so Paul Hogan became that guy.

00:20:35Guest:He would be like, oh, this happened in the news.

00:20:37Guest:Oh, the politicians are idiots.

00:20:39Guest:Was he doing a character, though?

00:20:40Guest:Did he have the hat?

00:20:40Guest:No, no.

00:20:41Guest:He just played himself Hoag's.

00:20:42Guest:Yeah, Hoag's.

00:20:42Guest:He would call him Hoag's.

00:20:43Guest:Then they'd give him the Paul Hogan show.

00:20:46Guest:And that's the top show.

00:20:47Guest:It was just like a sketch show every week, like the Benny Hill show or whatever.

00:20:52Guest:And then he starts advertising cigarettes.

00:20:55Guest:Yeah.

00:20:56Guest:And then cigarette sales in Australia go through the roof.

00:20:59Guest:And anything they put his face on, he's the biggest marketer.

00:21:03Guest:And then what he did was he wrote Crocodile Dundee.

00:21:05Guest:It was fascinating because that whole...

00:21:08Guest:Throw another shrimp on the barbie thing with Australia.

00:21:11Guest:That all comes from a commercial from an Australian tourism ad where that Paul Hogan was like, if you're going to come to Australia, you're going to get wet because it's an island.

00:21:19Guest:And then some hot girl walks by and goes, G'day, Hugs.

00:21:22Guest:He goes, hello.

00:21:23Guest:He goes, hey, make sure you come over here.

00:21:25Guest:We'll throw another shrimp on the barbie.

00:21:26Guest:Now, those adverts were played before every movie kept going.

00:21:32Guest:He did it for free because he knew his other movie was coming out.

00:21:35Guest:Yeah.

00:21:35Guest:And then that would be sort of the trailer to the Crocodile Dundee.

00:21:38Guest:Everyone knew him from that advert.

00:21:40Guest:Right.

00:21:40Guest:And went, oh, yeah, that's the guy from the advert.

00:21:43Guest:So he really had a business going.

00:21:44Guest:Yeah.

00:21:45Guest:Australian hero.

00:21:46Guest:He owns the first two movies top to bottom.

00:21:49Guest:Oh, wow.

00:21:50Guest:So how old is he?

00:21:51Guest:He's got to be like, what?

00:21:52Guest:I think he's late 70s now.

00:21:53Guest:Yeah.

00:21:54Marc:Still smoking?

00:21:55Marc:I feel like he's smoking.

00:21:56Guest:I don't know if he's still smoking.

00:21:58Guest:They did the tourism commercial for the Super Bowl with Danny McBride where it was Crocodile Dundee's son.

00:22:03Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:22:04Guest:And all the Australian actors do that.

00:22:05Guest:They have him at the end in the outfit.

00:22:07Guest:Oh, they did.

00:22:07Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:22:09Marc:Well, I'm glad you got to talk to one of your heroes.

00:22:11Guest:I got to speak to Hogs today.

00:22:13Guest:How often do you go back?

00:22:15Guest:I go back once or twice a year.

00:22:17Guest:That's it?

00:22:18Guest:Yeah, I went back in January for just take my kid back from my parents.

00:22:26Guest:And then I'm touring Australia in December, just five shows.

00:22:29Guest:Yeah.

00:22:30Guest:And what are you selling out big?

00:22:32Guest:Yeah, Australia was the last place for me to sell tickets, but I do like the Rod Laver tennis arena, like where they hold the Australian Open.

00:22:40Guest:What's that, like 15,000?

00:22:42Guest:It's like 14 or something.

00:22:43Guest:14,000?

00:22:44Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:22:45Guest:That's huge.

00:22:45Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:22:46Guest:I do big venues in Australia.

00:22:47Guest:Yeah, only recently though.

00:22:49Guest:Up until about four or five years ago, I couldn't get arrested.

00:22:51Guest:And how you do in the States?

00:22:53Guest:I do all right.

00:22:54Guest:Yeah?

00:22:54Guest:I do slightly better in Canada than I do in America.

00:22:58Guest:Why do you think?

00:22:59Guest:My TV show does better in Canada as well, so I don't know if it's got something to do with that, but I don't know.

00:23:05Guest:So they run it on Comedy Central in Canada?

00:23:07Guest:Yeah, they have their own Comedy Central in Canada.

00:23:09Marc:Yeah, you know, it might be like, I think maybe the slight foreigners take on the States.

00:23:14Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:23:15Marc:You know what I mean?

00:23:16Marc:Like, because I don't, that would make sense to me, I guess.

00:23:20Guest:Yeah, I think that like me teasing America is something more akin to what they, but then you go, what's John Oliver?

00:23:27Guest:And what's Samantha Bee's Canadian?

00:23:28Guest:Yeah.

00:23:29Guest:I don't know how they do.

00:23:30Guest:Trevor Noah is South African.

00:23:32Guest:It's all just like foreign people saying, this is what you're doing wrong, America.

00:23:36Marc:It's very weird.

00:23:37Marc:I think it's smart in a way, because there's that distance.

00:23:41Marc:They have a little bit of distance.

00:23:43Guest:American things that have just shoved down your throat as a child, these things weren't shoved down our throat as children, so we can have a little bit more stand back and look at this.

00:23:53Marc:Sure.

00:23:53Marc:And even just the nature of the presidency and just the structure of the government and the idea of the states and like all of it.

00:24:00Marc:I mean, it's like it's so encultured in us because we live here and you come here and like if there's an issue about the Pledge of Allegiance, what are you talking about?

00:24:07Guest:Whatever it is, you have at least a little bit of... Yeah, things like I would never for a second get offended if someone kneeled at the Australian anthem.

00:24:15Marc:Right, right.

00:24:16Marc:That kind of stuff.

00:24:17Marc:Wouldn't bother me.

00:24:18Marc:Right.

00:24:18Marc:You know, it's incomprehensible to a degree.

00:24:21Marc:It's incomprehensible that Ireland just legalized abortion and we're on the verge of making it illegal.

00:24:28Marc:Ireland.

00:24:29Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:29Marc:Probably the most Catholic fucking country, you know, shy of Rome.

00:24:33Guest:Right up until the 1980s, condoms were contraband.

00:24:41Guest:In Ireland.

00:24:42Guest:They didn't have Playboy until the 90s.

00:24:44Guest:Right.

00:24:45Guest:And now they do that and we're about to go backwards?

00:24:47Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:24:48Marc:It's fucking baffling.

00:24:49Marc:So where'd you shoot the special?

00:24:52Marc:Hammersmith Apollo in London.

00:24:54Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:24:54Marc:It's a good room?

00:24:55Guest:It's a great room.

00:24:56Guest:It's one of the classics.

00:24:57Guest:Springsteen played there.

00:24:58Guest:The Beatles did 27 shows in a row in 1964.

00:25:02Guest:Wow.

00:25:02Guest:How many is that seat, man?

00:25:05Guest:I want to say 4,000.

00:25:06Guest:Oh, really?

00:25:07Guest:Yeah, it's just a big rock venue.

00:25:10Guest:Yeah, and it came out great?

00:25:13Guest:I think so.

00:25:14Guest:I haven't watched it for a while since the beginning of the edit.

00:25:17Guest:I look a bit puffy in it because it was at the end of a one-month tour of Britain.

00:25:22Guest:So there was a few Guinnesses that had been through me.

00:25:26Marc:A little bloated.

00:25:27Guest:Yeah.

00:25:27Guest:A little sweaty.

00:25:28Guest:Yeah, normally.

00:25:29Guest:Normally very special.

00:25:30Guest:I work out a little bit or eat well for a couple of weeks before.

00:25:35Guest:This one isn't my best looking one.

00:25:37Marc:So what number is this one?

00:25:39Guest:I think seven.

00:25:42Guest:Really?

00:25:43Guest:Yeah.

00:25:43Guest:Seven in 10 or 11 years.

00:25:46Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:25:47Guest:Yeah.

00:25:48Guest:I'm thinking of slowing it down.

00:25:50Guest:I've sort of been bringing one out every year or year and a half.

00:25:53Guest:And I think now I might have a little rest for a couple of years.

00:25:56Guest:I'm just really, I always watch a lot of television, me.

00:25:58Guest:Yeah?

00:25:59Guest:What have you been watching?

00:26:00Guest:You know what I, with TV, I get offended when people say they don't like it.

00:26:07Guest:Or they say it's stupid.

00:26:09Guest:Oh, TV in general?

00:26:10Guest:Just a broad sort of like... Does anyone say that anymore?

00:26:12Guest:They call it the idiot boxer.

00:26:14Guest:Does that still happen?

00:26:16Guest:It does a little bit.

00:26:17Guest:You know when you meet braggy people who are like, I don't even own a television.

00:26:21Marc:I knew a girl like that, yeah.

00:26:22Marc:And they're always telling you.

00:26:24Marc:Yeah.

00:26:24Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:26:24Marc:Yeah.

00:26:25Marc:I didn't know that was still happening.

00:26:26Marc:With the computer, it doesn't really hold as much as it used to.

00:26:28Guest:Well, before the computer, it was quite impressive.

00:26:30Marc:Oh, what do you do?

00:26:31Marc:I sit and read books.

00:26:32Marc:I do this.

00:26:33Marc:I always found it condescending.

00:26:34Marc:And I never even watched that much TV.

00:26:36Marc:When I was in New York, I didn't have a TV, but it wasn't because I was making a statement.

00:26:40Marc:It was a year or so there.

00:26:41Marc:You just hadn't gone around to it.

00:26:42Marc:Well, no, it was just, yeah, I was out doing comedy every night.

00:26:44Marc:I just didn't fucking have a TV.

00:26:46Marc:I don't know why.

00:26:46Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:47Marc:I don't remember having it.

00:26:48Guest:I've got seven.

00:26:51Guest:If there's a room, I'll put a TV on there.

00:26:54Guest:What do you watch, sports?

00:26:55Guest:I watch a bit of sports.

00:26:56Guest:I watch Dodgers sort of every day.

00:26:58Guest:Yeah.

00:26:59Guest:And I watch a lot of news and a few dramas here and there, a lot of sitcoms.

00:27:06Guest:And my only reality show is RuPaul's Drag Race.

00:27:09Guest:That's a good show.

00:27:10Guest:I love RuPaul's Drag Race.

00:27:11Guest:He's a great guy.

00:27:12Guest:He's one of the people that I've actually asked to interview on my show.

00:27:15Guest:I keep on putting out an invitation to RuPaul's Drag Race, but it hasn't been picked up yet.

00:27:19Marc:He won't do it?

00:27:20Guest:I don't know if he won't do it.

00:27:21Guest:He might just be busy, but the invitation's out there.

00:27:24Marc:Yeah.

00:27:24Marc:Well, maybe he'll come now.

00:27:26Marc:Who have you talked to that you really were impressed with lately?

00:27:29Guest:I got a little star.

00:27:31Guest:Carol Burnett was one that I really enjoyed.

00:27:32Marc:I'd love to talk to her.

00:27:33Marc:I haven't talked to her yet.

00:27:34Guest:Carol Burnett was cool.

00:27:36Marc:Did you do a long one or a short one?

00:27:37Guest:We edited it down to like seven minutes, but I talked to her for about 50.

00:27:41Guest:Oh, yeah?

00:27:42Guest:You know what I mean?

00:27:43Guest:So she was very interesting.

00:27:45Guest:Like I said, so with the women's equal pay, you know, you were like a lead female of your own show in the 1960s or 70s.

00:27:54Guest:Yeah.

00:27:55Guest:And, like, did you feel that, you know, you weren't, you know, treated fairly or equally?

00:28:03Guest:And she goes, look, let's not really talk about this.

00:28:06Guest:She goes, I think I was the highest paid person on TV.

00:28:09Guest:So...

00:28:10Guest:You're talking to the wrong person.

00:28:12Guest:Yeah, it's really the wrong person to go to Carol Burnett, number one TV show, and then go, do you feel like you were paid well?

00:28:19Guest:Yeah, I was, actually.

00:28:20Guest:I did fine.

00:28:23Marc:All right, buddy.

00:28:23Marc:Well, good luck.

00:28:23Marc:The special's called, what is it?

00:28:26Marc:This Is Me Now.

00:28:27Marc:Yeah.

00:28:27Marc:And the show's Jim Jeffery Show.

00:28:29Marc:The Jim Jeffery Show, yeah.

00:28:30Marc:Good to see you, man.

00:28:30Marc:Thanks for having me.

00:28:36Marc:That was Jim Jeffries.

00:28:37Marc:The This Is Me Now premieres tomorrow, July 13th.

00:28:42Marc:Enjoy the button-pushing monster that is Jim Jeffries.

00:28:49Marc:So Ray Liotta.

00:28:51Marc:He's one of the most memorable actors ever.

00:28:53Marc:A lot for Goodfellas, but he's in a lot of, he's in all kinds of cop land.

00:28:57Marc:I mean, he's done some great, he always plays the corrupt cop.

00:29:01Marc:But, you know, he is distinct and he is who he is.

00:29:06Marc:uniquely and he has a series shades of blue with jennifer lopez it's in its uh third and final season on nbc new episodes on sunday nights at 10 p.m you can catch up on past seasons on hulu before this series finale if you need to and this is me talking to jersey's own ray leota

00:29:31Marc:I got in under the wire somehow after 25 years in the business.

00:29:36Marc:It's horrible, isn't it?

00:29:37Marc:The business?

00:29:37Marc:It takes forever, yeah.

00:29:38Marc:It took me forever to get started.

00:29:41Marc:It is a horrible business.

00:29:42Guest:It's horrible.

00:29:43Guest:It's a great way.

00:29:44Guest:It's a fun way to make a living, but it's a horrible business.

00:29:47Marc:I mean, you've got to be crazy to do it.

00:29:49Marc:And then to expect it to work out, you innately expect it to work out based on nothing.

00:29:54Guest:Well, totally.

00:29:55Guest:And when you go in cold because it's just something that you want to try to do.

00:29:59Guest:I never wanted to do this ever.

00:30:00Guest:And it just happened in college that I didn't even want to go to college.

00:30:05Guest:It came time to go to college.

00:30:07Guest:My dad said, go wherever you are.

00:30:08Guest:I walked out of my SATs.

00:30:10Guest:It came time to go to college.

00:30:12Guest:I said, I don't want to go to college.

00:30:14Guest:He says, go wherever you want.

00:30:15Guest:Take whatever you want.

00:30:17Guest:So I got into the University of Miami.

00:30:19Guest:This was 1973.

00:30:20Guest:So all you needed was a pulse to get in there.

00:30:24Guest:I get in there.

00:30:24Guest:I'm going to take liberal arts because I had no idea what I wanted to do.

00:30:29Guest:Get to the front of the line.

00:30:30Guest:They say I had to take a math and a history.

00:30:32Guest:I said, well, forget that.

00:30:33Guest:I don't want to take math and history.

00:30:35Guest:I looked up.

00:30:35Guest:It was for the drama department.

00:30:36Guest:I took a step over.

00:30:38Guest:And as I was in line, there was this typical actor story.

00:30:41Guest:There was this pretty girl.

00:30:42Guest:She said, you auditioning for the play tonight.

00:30:44Guest:I said, no.

00:30:45Guest:And then she berated me.

00:30:46Guest:What do you mean?

00:30:47Guest:That's all it's about.

00:30:47Guest:It's all about doing the play, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:50Guest:So I go up there, get my classes, and then I go and audition for the play.

00:30:56Guest:And it was for a musical.

00:30:58Guest:And now I'm a jock from New Jersey.

00:31:00Guest:All I did was play soccer, basketball, and baseball.

00:31:02Guest:That's it.

00:31:03Guest:That's what my whole life was about.

00:31:05Guest:And then you realize, well, I'm not fast enough, tall enough, or anything enough to play professionally.

00:31:12Marc:That's a tough hit, right?

00:31:13Guest:It's horrible.

00:31:13Guest:Well, yeah, until junior high school.

00:31:15Guest:Then when you're a senior in your high school, then you realize, well, it's never going to happen.

00:31:21Guest:It's good you realized it.

00:31:22Guest:So the first thing was...

00:31:24Guest:auditioning for the play and i got into the play but it was a musical so the first thing you had to do was tell a sad story i told a sad story about a dog of mine that got hit by a car true story true story yeah and then uh then you had to sing yeah so the only i was i lived grew up 45 minutes outside of the city in a town called union new jersey union yeah yeah yeah i'm all jersey so what'd you sing

00:31:47Guest:We saw Pippin.

00:31:49Guest:They took me to see Pippin.

00:31:50Guest:And there was one song that I remembered, Magic To Do.

00:31:55Guest:So she went and got the sheet music.

00:31:57Guest:There was already a cast album.

00:31:59Guest:So I'm singing to the cast album.

00:32:02Guest:And that's it.

00:32:03Guest:So I got to go the next day to do the audition.

00:32:08Guest:And I hand the music and stuff to the piano player.

00:32:15Guest:And then I take it from him.

00:32:17Guest:He says, what are you doing?

00:32:19Guest:I says, what do you mean, what am I doing?

00:32:20Guest:I got to sing this.

00:32:21Guest:And then he was a real bitchy piano player, if you know what I mean.

00:32:25Guest:And I said, I don't have this memorized.

00:32:30Guest:He said, just do the best you can.

00:32:32Guest:So I get up there.

00:32:33Guest:I start singing this song.

00:32:35Guest:And all I remember is the refrain, we got magic to do.

00:32:38Guest:We got magic.

00:32:39Guest:And so I'm just going over.

00:32:40Guest:And then they say, you got to dance.

00:32:42Guest:Now, I don't know if you remember.

00:32:44Guest:Remember Freddie and the Dreamers?

00:32:46Guest:It was a youth group.

00:32:49Guest:It was for younger kids in the 60s and 70s.

00:32:52Marc:A little before me.

00:32:53Guest:And there was a dance, do the Freddie.

00:32:54Guest:And the Freddie was just putting your hands and your arms up.

00:32:57Guest:So I'm doing the Freddie saying, we got magic to do.

00:33:00Guest:We got magic to do.

00:33:01Guest:And believe it or not, I get into the play.

00:33:04Guest:Yeah.

00:33:04Guest:And the first thing I did was I was a dancing waiter in cabaret.

00:33:09Guest:Uh-huh.

00:33:09Guest:And the first year, all I did were musicals.

00:33:11Marc:That's insane.

00:33:13Marc:But how terrified were you when you, like, wasn't there fear involved?

00:33:17Marc:I mean, I know you- None.

00:33:18Guest:None?

00:33:18Guest:None.

00:33:18Guest:That's what- To sing and dance?

00:33:20Guest:No.

00:33:20Guest:And I was really, really fragile in high school and not with sports, but-

00:33:27Guest:I just was fearless.

00:33:29Guest:I didn't care.

00:33:30Guest:I didn't know any of the people.

00:33:32Guest:I didn't care what they thought.

00:33:33Guest:Yeah.

00:33:34Guest:And in high school, you always care what people are saying.

00:33:38Marc:Oh, right.

00:33:38Marc:So you're on a whole new playing field.

00:33:40Marc:Yeah, there was nobody I knew.

00:33:41Marc:What could they say?

00:33:42Marc:So you grew up all in New Jersey.

00:33:44Guest:Yeah.

00:33:45Guest:You're born there.

00:33:46Guest:Yeah.

00:33:47Guest:In Newark?

00:33:48Guest:That's what I say.

00:33:49Guest:I'm adopted.

00:33:50Guest:So the adopted paper said, yeah, I'm pretty sure it said Newark.

00:33:55Guest:Yeah.

00:33:55Guest:And then I saw something for some other town, but I'm not sure what happened there.

00:33:59Marc:Yeah.

00:34:00Marc:Oh, you did the research though?

00:34:02Guest:When I was ready to have a kid, my ex thought it would be best since we don't know anything about what was my family history in terms of illnesses and things.

00:34:15Guest:So at that time...

00:34:16Marc:Did you just assume you were Italian?

00:34:19Guest:It turned out that I'm not.

00:34:20Guest:I'm like, there's a little bit of Italian.

00:34:22Guest:But Leota is the father that adopted me, and he's my father.

00:34:27Guest:But yeah, he was Italian, so I was Leota.

00:34:30Guest:So then we found my birth mother, just because at that time, there was a time when on every Oprah show or any show they wanted to...

00:34:42Guest:Locate people.

00:34:43Guest:Locate family members, boyfriends, girlfriends, whatever.

00:34:46Guest:So there was a locator's name at the end of the show.

00:34:50Guest:She called the locator up, said who I was, and said I was looking for my birth mother.

00:34:56Guest:Next day, he had her number.

00:34:59Guest:Really?

00:34:59Guest:Yeah.

00:35:00Guest:She gave me the number.

00:35:02Marc:So you were like in your- I was 44.

00:35:04Marc:And you'd never investigated it before?

00:35:06Marc:No.

00:35:07Marc:But you knew you were adopted.

00:35:09Guest:Yeah, I knew I was adopted.

00:35:10Guest:I wore it on my sleeve forever.

00:35:12Guest:That you were adopted?

00:35:12Guest:Yeah.

00:35:13Guest:In what way?

00:35:13Guest:Well, just feeling that I was giving up.

00:35:15Guest:Oh, right.

00:35:16Guest:So then when you're meeting a girl, you know, like within three minutes, I would tell people that I was adopted and, you know, that was my line, thinking they would feel sorry for me or something.

00:35:26Marc:But did you really feel like you were?

00:35:29Marc:Totally.

00:35:30Guest:Yeah, all the way through life.

00:35:32Guest:Yeah, giving up.

00:35:33Guest:Because I never could understand why someone would give up.

00:35:38Guest:A baby.

00:35:38Guest:Yeah.

00:35:39Guest:But your parents were good, right?

00:35:41Guest:They were great.

00:35:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:35:42Guest:They were great.

00:35:42Guest:I was the luckiest person alive to get the parents that I have.

00:35:46Guest:And then you realize, though, so I went and met my birth mother.

00:35:52Guest:Where did she live?

00:35:53Guest:Well, she was at one of their family's houses.

00:35:57Guest:Well, one of her daughter, her kids' houses.

00:36:00Guest:Yeah.

00:36:01Guest:It was on Route 22.

00:36:02Guest:In Jersey.

00:36:03Guest:In Plainfield.

00:36:05Guest:Yeah.

00:36:05Guest:It was right off 22.

00:36:06Guest:There was this stone driveway and this two-family house.

00:36:14Guest:woods and train track yeah and and i'm there early i got there fast and i mean i got there early and and and and this this car comes careening around the corner spitting up the the the the rocks and everything and there was a dead deer on top of the car it turned out that that person was my half brother and

00:36:36Guest:And it turned out that I have five half-sisters, a half-brother, and a full sister.

00:36:41Guest:And I found all this out when I was 44 years old.

00:36:45Guest:Holy fuck.

00:36:46Guest:So that's like, that's got to be mind-blowing.

00:36:48Guest:It was crazy.

00:36:49Guest:It was totally mind-blowing.

00:36:51Guest:And like in a movie, so we're leaving, right?

00:36:55Guest:It was pretty much like a typical Jersey thing, like olive loaf pickles, you know.

00:37:00Guest:Right.

00:37:00Marc:But what about the dead deer?

00:37:02Marc:What about that guy?

00:37:03Marc:He just gets out of the car and, you know.

00:37:04Guest:And it turned out that that was my half-mother.

00:37:08Marc:And his name was Ray.

00:37:09Marc:Wow.

00:37:10Marc:But she raised these other kids?

00:37:12Marc:Yeah, these were her kids.

00:37:13Marc:Did you see a resemblance right away?

00:37:16Guest:No, maybe just in the eye.

00:37:18Guest:area we had similar eyes uh she raised all the other kids right but not you and the full the full sister and what happened was she took me home from the hospital i said well who's my father she said i i i don't remember

00:37:33Guest:All right.

00:37:35Guest:You don't remember this.

00:37:36Guest:I'm here for information and I don't think it's going to be coming because she doesn't remember who the dad was.

00:37:43Guest:And then I got a call from my, I told this story once on Letterman and I got a call.

00:37:49Guest:from uh from the the the spokesman for them and and and she didn't like that i told this story at all but it's true the spokesperson for the family well yeah she was she was the the talkative one the the the one they turned to some of them were shy one of them was was sick one of them was in jail but this was the the the other siblings right yeah right a half sister so she's the spokesperson

00:38:13Guest:Right.

00:38:14Guest:She's telling me all the stories like you don't know how lucky you are because when mom threw a shoe, it could follow you around the wall, through a door.

00:38:24Marc:So she was an angry woman.

00:38:28Guest:She talked like this because she smoked, so she had this really smoky voice.

00:38:34Guest:Yeah.

00:38:34Guest:Yeah, they were just telling me stories about her gambling and this, that, and the other thing.

00:38:39Guest:And when I left, the first thing I said is, thank God I'm adopted.

00:38:44Guest:Well, that, I went with my best friend since third grade to this day, my best friend, and we stopped at a... In New Jersey, for some reason, they still call it SO instead of Exxon.

00:38:57Guest:Oh, yeah, the gas station?

00:38:58Guest:We stopped at the gas station, but as we're driving, all of a sudden, this...

00:39:02Guest:rain just just torrential rain came almost kind of like if it was in a movie and say things were like cleansed things were being cleansed which it happened and we're sitting there and that's what he said so so what do you think because we're all shell-shocked from this whole experience how many of the people showed up that first day you go over to meter the guy with the deer on his car comes but did they all come no

00:39:24Guest:No, I think there were two sisters and then there were one of the sister's kids and her boyfriend and his boyfriend or girlfriend.

00:39:36Guest:And they know you from movies?

00:39:38Guest:Yeah.

00:39:39Guest:So that must have been weird.

00:39:40Guest:It was more about that as far as they were concerned.

00:39:43Guest:And I just wanted to find out more like who...

00:39:46Guest:Who am I?

00:39:47Guest:How did this happen?

00:39:49Marc:So you're at the Esso station.

00:39:50Marc:It's raining.

00:39:51Marc:It's raining.

00:39:52Guest:It's pouring.

00:39:53Guest:And then my friend Gene says, so what did you think?

00:39:56Guest:And I said, I can't.

00:39:58Guest:I'm so happy that I was adopted.

00:40:01Guest:And he starts bawling.

00:40:04Guest:I mean crying because he had just adopted two kids, two different families.

00:40:11Guest:It just happened at once for him.

00:40:13Guest:And he was just so happy to hear that because he didn't know how his kids are going to react.

00:40:17Guest:You don't know how the kid's going to react to you as a parent when you adopt a kid.

00:40:22Guest:You don't know what's going to happen.

00:40:23Guest:And nine times out of 10, people put kids up for adoption for the betterment of the kid.

00:40:28Guest:Right.

00:40:29Guest:But, you know, it took me a while to learn that.

00:40:32Guest:But by the time that I went and did this, I had pretty much stopped using it as the sob story and just realized this is what happened and that's all there is to it.

00:40:40Marc:My brother's got three adopted kids.

00:40:42Marc:I have no idea what's going to happen.

00:40:43Marc:They're all from different families.

00:40:45Marc:And the oldest one's like 17 or 18.

00:40:47Marc:They all know they're adopted.

00:40:48Marc:He knows who the... But in his case, he knows who...

00:40:51Marc:I guess that happens more now.

00:40:55Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:40:56Guest:Back then, I was adopted through Catholic charities.

00:41:00Guest:But what really messed me up was the fact that she took me home.

00:41:05Guest:My birth mother took me home for three months.

00:41:08Guest:So I'm bonding, being fed by my birth mother, and then all of a sudden just taken away and put in an orphanage.

00:41:19Guest:And I have to...

00:41:21Guest:I can't imagine it not affecting me somewhere deep down or maybe not so deep down that I was just taken away from my mother.

00:41:31Marc:The primal union, the bond.

00:41:34Marc:Do you have kids?

00:41:35Marc:No.

00:41:36Marc:Oh.

00:41:36Marc:No, I never did it.

00:41:38Guest:I always wanted to do it because of that, to start a family tree.

00:41:44Guest:Not in an ego way, just to have my own blood.

00:41:48Guest:Right.

00:41:49Guest:But what'd you find out about the father?

00:41:52Guest:Nothing.

00:41:52Guest:Never did?

00:41:53Guest:Nothing.

00:41:53Guest:She claimed that she didn't remember who it was.

00:41:56Guest:And then the full sister called me.

00:42:00Guest:So she said, I think I know who our birth father is.

00:42:04Guest:She called the house.

00:42:06Guest:She explained the...

00:42:09Guest:The situation that Ruth, I don't even remember her last name, was our mother.

00:42:15Guest:We think that your father had two kids out of wedlock.

00:42:20Guest:And the guy just didn't want to hear it.

00:42:23Guest:Just said, get out of here.

00:42:24Guest:Don't ever call here again.

00:42:26Guest:You're crazy.

00:42:27Guest:That never happened.

00:42:28Guest:The son of the father.

00:42:30Guest:The father had passed away.

00:42:32Marc:Ah.

00:42:33Marc:So that's why your real mother was probably protecting the guy because he was married.

00:42:39Guest:No, no, no, no.

00:42:41Guest:She was used by the guy.

00:42:43Guest:He was the neighborhood kid.

00:42:47Guest:She was a mark.

00:42:50Guest:He went with her.

00:42:52Guest:He goes off to the Korean War.

00:42:54Guest:He comes back.

00:42:55Guest:does it again and then it just disappears and she's left with with with two kids and then the rest come later then the rest come after because then the the the birth mother my birth mother ruth she then had the crew of right right right so now that you got so you have two kids no one one kid and when'd you have how old were you when you had the kids 44 wow

00:43:20Guest:and was it amazing yeah yeah yeah for me it was i i really really really wanted to have a kid i i love being a dad yeah it's just a shame that i did it so late and that i didn't find someone else after i got divorced to have another one but i'm just grateful that i have uh that i got one kid now because i love being a dad that's great that's great kids okay yeah yeah yeah

00:43:48Marc:Okay, so the parents you grew up with, your adoptive parents, what did they do?

00:43:54Marc:Do you have a sister or brother with that family?

00:43:56Guest:Yeah, I have a sister who was adopted.

00:43:59Guest:I remember my parents led me to believe that I picked her out, but I still have an image.

00:44:07Guest:It's either that or it's from a picture of holding her.

00:44:11Guest:I was three years older and we had just gotten her and I think she was just weeks old when my parents got my sister Lynn and holding her and feeling so proud because they made me think that I picked out my sister, that I picked her out.

00:44:26Guest:Yeah.

00:44:26Guest:And then everything was just normal.

00:44:30Guest:And then we just fought like cats and dogs, like most brothers and sisters.

00:44:33Marc:And did she ever go find her birth parents?

00:44:35Guest:No, she had no desire.

00:44:36Guest:Total opposite of me.

00:44:37Marc:She couldn't care less.

00:44:38Marc:Down the floor, couldn't care less.

00:44:40Marc:She's like, what's the point?

00:44:41Guest:Yeah, didn't bother her, didn't affect her.

00:44:45Guest:But it haunted you.

00:44:47Guest:Yeah, haunted's a little strong, but I couldn't understand how someone can give up a baby.

00:44:56Guest:I just couldn't wrap my head around that when I was younger.

00:44:58Marc:Yeah.

00:44:59Marc:And what was your old man's game again?

00:45:01Guest:What was his story?

00:45:02Guest:My dad had a chain of automotive stores called Rocket Auto.

00:45:05Guest:And it was like the Pep Boys.

00:45:07Guest:It was exactly like the Pep Boys, but he had five stores.

00:45:10Guest:He didn't expand on and on and on like the Pep Boys.

00:45:14Guest:And he had one in Jersey City on Garfield Avenue and then one in Bayonne on Grand Avenue right around from the hospital.

00:45:20Guest:They're still there or they're gone?

00:45:22Guest:No, they're gone, I'm sure.

00:45:23Guest:Although I was filming Copland

00:45:26Guest:and i i took a walk we were on a break and it turns out that the house that we were filming at i walked to the to the to the back of the house and looked over and there was my dad's store it was still there and and it flipped me out because this is years and years since he let the store go yeah 10 15 years when he had it right uh still the same name

00:45:51Guest:No, yeah, it was an automotive store, but it wasn't his.

00:45:57Guest:Yeah, that's wild.

00:45:58Guest:Yeah.

00:45:59Marc:So, all right, so the two of you are growing up, and your mom worked too?

00:46:04Guest:Yeah, first she was a stay-at-home mom, and then she was very involved in the PTA, and then she started, when we went into junior high school, she ran the store in Jersey City

00:46:19Guest:And then my dad watched the store in Bayonne.

00:46:22Guest:So you grew up in car parts.

00:46:24Guest:Yeah, I hate the smell of tires to this day.

00:46:30Guest:Yeah, because you go in and that's what it smells like.

00:46:34Marc:But it's like those stores are so amazing because you usually have like one or two guys working just aisles of pieces of things in boxes.

00:46:40Guest:Yeah, and then you had to look it up.

00:46:42Guest:Like someone would come in with a carburetor for a 68 Pontiac and then you'd have to look it up.

00:46:47Guest:And I hated it.

00:46:48Guest:I hated everything about it.

00:46:50Guest:You worked there though?

00:46:51Guest:Yeah, on weekends they made me work there.

00:46:53Guest:And little did I know that my dad was kind of hoping that I would take over his store.

00:47:00Guest:And there was just no way.

00:47:02Guest:I thought I was going to work construction or something for the rest of my life.

00:47:06Guest:But then the drama thing started.

00:47:08Guest:And the only reason why it started is after we did the musical...

00:47:12Guest:was there was an acting teacher his name was robert buckets lowry and he was a guy's guy he he directed like a like a coach like he was on his haunches and he had these blue glasses his hat was on backwards and he had this gravelly kind of thing and

00:47:27Guest:uh you identify with that yeah it was and he you know i wasn't somebody who was doing drama my whole life i didn't do it at all but in high school what did you do you just played you had no interest though no interest in in drama none we we took a me and my friend gene we took a you're allowed an elective your senior year of high school yeah and we took drama because we thought it would just be easy right and all we did was children's theater and things like that yeah uh

00:47:52Guest:But not ever wanting to.

00:47:54Guest:It was like, whatever, you know, like two little silly things for the little kids.

00:47:59Guest:And that was it.

00:48:01Guest:And then my senior year of high school, I got into a fight with the basketball coach and I quit.

00:48:07Guest:And the drama teacher asked me if I wanted to audition for the play.

00:48:11Guest:He says, what do you mean audition for the play?

00:48:12Guest:You already had auditions and everything.

00:48:15Guest:And he said, no, don't worry about it.

00:48:16Guest:And I got the second lead of a Neil Simon play Sunday in New York.

00:48:22Guest:And I hated it.

00:48:23Guest:I hated everything about it.

00:48:25Guest:The memorizing the lines.

00:48:27Guest:Yeah.

00:48:27Guest:The even getting up there and doing it.

00:48:30Guest:And I'm sure I wasn't special in the least.

00:48:35Guest:But it was because of that class that made me want to take drama.

00:48:40Guest:And it's only because who knows what would have taken science or anything else.

00:48:44Guest:I don't know what I would have done.

00:48:45Marc:So you just were aimless.

00:48:48Marc:Exactly.

00:48:49Marc:I had the same thing.

00:48:49Marc:I didn't want to go to college either, but my parents were like, just go.

00:48:52Marc:Just go somewhere.

00:48:53Marc:So this guy.

00:48:54Marc:So you get there.

00:48:55Marc:You do the musical.

00:48:56Marc:And what's the guy's name?

00:48:57Marc:Robert?

00:48:58Marc:Lowry.

00:48:58Marc:Buckets.

00:48:59Marc:Buckets Lowry.

00:49:00Marc:Now, he's the drama.

00:49:02Marc:He's the head of the department?

00:49:03Guest:He was the acting coach.

00:49:04Guest:No, no, no.

00:49:04Guest:There was another guy who was the head of the department.

00:49:06Guest:But he was the acting coach.

00:49:08Guest:Buckets, and they called him Buckets because he played basketball, put it in the bucket.

00:49:12Guest:And he was a trumpet player.

00:49:14Guest:And like I said, he was a guy's guy, and he wasn't used to a guy's guy as coming out of high school.

00:49:21Guest:Usually the people, the kids who are doing it, they have a certain way about them.

00:49:26Guest:when they come out.

00:49:28Marc:They're like a club.

00:49:29Marc:Yeah, and they're just different.

00:49:32Marc:Yeah, I know what you mean.

00:49:33Marc:Yeah, the theater kids.

00:49:35Marc:Yeah.

00:49:35Marc:Yeah, and you're not a theater kid.

00:49:37Marc:No.

00:49:37Marc:And you're a jock, and you've got an edge to you.

00:49:40Marc:Chip on your shoulder, probably.

00:49:42Guest:Yeah, I guess, sort of.

00:49:45Guest:But he, and then the next year, my sophomore, I came back, I said, let me try it another year.

00:49:51Guest:The first year, all I did were musicals.

00:49:52Guest:Oklahoma, Dames at Sea.

00:49:55Guest:And you're singing.

00:49:56Guest:Yeah.

00:49:56Guest:That's all I was doing, singing and dancing.

00:49:59Guest:And I didn't know anything about anything with it.

00:50:01Guest:But for some reason, I just kept it.

00:50:05Guest:It didn't dissuade me from doing it.

00:50:07Guest:I just... Well, did you enjoy it?

00:50:09Guest:Yeah, I must have.

00:50:10Guest:I stayed with it.

00:50:11Guest:But what I really liked was the acting class with buckets.

00:50:15Guest:But you're singing and dancing.

00:50:17Marc:I mean, you can't remember if you really liked it.

00:50:20Marc:I mean, maybe it's not your bag.

00:50:22Guest:Well, there is...

00:50:23Guest:There is kind of a joy, I guess, in doing it.

00:50:27Guest:All I can say is I didn't quit.

00:50:30Guest:I'm not sure that I love doing it, but I love doing the acting class, the scenes that you had in class because of Bucket.

00:50:37Marc:So you said, I'll do these if I can do that.

00:50:39Guest:Well, kind of, yeah.

00:50:40Guest:And then doing the plays where it was fun, you know, one, two, three, kick.

00:50:46Guest:Yeah.

00:50:47Yeah.

00:50:47Guest:You feel like an idiot, but I didn't care.

00:50:51Marc:I really didn't give a shit.

00:50:52Marc:I like watching musicals.

00:50:55Marc:I get very moved by people moving and singing.

00:50:58Marc:Do you ever watch musicals?

00:50:59Guest:Yeah.

00:51:00Guest:It's great.

00:51:00Guest:Totally.

00:51:01Guest:When I'm in New York, I always catch it.

00:51:03Guest:I saw Hamilton like three times.

00:51:05Guest:It's great.

00:51:05Guest:It's unbelievable.

00:51:06Guest:Yeah.

00:51:07Marc:All right.

00:51:08Marc:So now you're in the drama department.

00:51:10Marc:Right.

00:51:11Marc:That's what you're studying.

00:51:14Marc:Right.

00:51:14Guest:Yes.

00:51:15Guest:I decided to go back for a second year.

00:51:17Guest:And that year, I got all the leads of the plays that they had.

00:51:25Guest:Like what?

00:51:27Guest:Streetcar Named Desire.

00:51:28Guest:There was a new play that came in.

00:51:30Guest:You played Kowalski?

00:51:30Guest:Huh?

00:51:30Guest:You played Stanley?

00:51:32Guest:Yeah.

00:51:32Guest:uh we did west side story i didn't play tony i played riff uh-huh taming of the shrew i was petruchio so i was getting like the leads in in the plays and and i would get you know nice praises like anything when was the last time you did shakespeare when was the last time you did shakespeare then

00:51:54Guest:that was it once was enough was it hard yeah i was too dumb to know better i just learned the lines and and and that play in particular you know that's a husband not a boyfriend and girlfriend or whatever they're going for each other and and it's just they're back and forth making fun of each other and calling each other names you understood that much yeah i can relate to that yeah so okay so you do all those plays and now you're you're loving it right

00:52:22Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:52:24Guest:And I stayed for the four years and then graduated and there was an auditioning class.

00:52:30Marc:What was it that he learned from him though?

00:52:32Marc:I mean, you're very compelled by this guy and obviously he bonded with you too.

00:52:37Marc:What was some of the stuff you learned from him that you still use today?

00:52:40Guest:Just the commitment of playing pretend.

00:52:44Guest:See, most acting is taught by you can't do it, so we're going to show you how to do it.

00:52:52Guest:He was very Stanislavski heavy.

00:52:56Guest:And I had since found a teacher out here in L.A., Harry Mastrogeorge, who to me is the best ever.

00:53:03Guest:And he really capitalized.

00:53:05Guest:It's just you're playing a kid's game.

00:53:07Guest:All you're doing is playing cowboys and Indians.

00:53:09Guest:Boom, that's it.

00:53:10Guest:Yeah.

00:53:10Guest:And that's why I always get kind of like annoyed or when people think they're special because they act.

00:53:17Guest:Yeah.

00:53:17Guest:They're playing pretend for a living.

00:53:19Guest:That's it.

00:53:19Guest:Like get off your high horse.

00:53:21Guest:Yeah.

00:53:21Guest:It's ridiculous.

00:53:22Marc:Yeah, it's true.

00:53:23Marc:It's true.

00:53:24Marc:Yeah.

00:53:24Marc:I mean, like on some level, you realize that a lot of guys, a lot of people get into the acting gig because it's like if you've got a knack for it, it's, you know, it's a hell of a way to make a living.

00:53:34Guest:That's a great way to make a living.

00:53:35Marc:You count your blessings every day.

00:53:37Guest:Totally.

00:53:37Guest:It's just the business that sucks.

00:53:39Marc:Right.

00:53:40Marc:All right, so you do all the plays.

00:53:41Guest:You graduate?

00:53:42Guest:I graduate.

00:53:44Guest:And we had an auditioning class where we got eight by tens and a resume.

00:53:49Guest:And the resume, all you're doing is putting down the plays that you did.

00:53:53Guest:In Florida?

00:53:53Guest:Yeah, the University of Miami.

00:53:55Guest:Uh, and, and, and we got our resume together and I went to stay with this girl, Lenora, Lenora May, who had, who was, uh, already a couple of years in, into New York and she was, uh, she was going to sign her contract at Fifi Oscar.

00:54:14Guest:And that was the name of the, uh,

00:54:16Guest:The agent back there at that time.

00:54:18Guest:In New York?

00:54:19Guest:Yeah, and she went to sign a contract because she just got Jaws 2.

00:54:23Guest:And while I was with her, we went up there like 6, 7 o'clock.

00:54:28Guest:A guy, an agent came up to me and said, hey, you want to do a commercial?

00:54:32Guest:I said, yeah, sure.

00:54:35Guest:And he sent me on this go-to, and the guy said, yeah, fine, you'll do.

00:54:42Guest:And what I did was they took still pictures of me and this girl, and it was for love songs of the 50s.

00:54:49Guest:It's like, you know, those K-Tel record things.

00:54:51Guest:Sure, sure, sure.

00:54:52Marc:And they scroll by you.

00:54:54Guest:That was the first thing I got.

00:54:55Guest:But within a month, I was screen testing out here

00:54:59Guest:uh because they had moved to new york uh out here for beatles forever it was a robert zemeckis movie and but i didn't get that and then a few months after so then i was bartending at at the schubert organization for the theater chain right exactly so we're in new york yeah i was watching uh watching plays and and and you know working at the bar or or a coat check or whatever

00:55:24Marc:Just like which theater, though?

00:55:26Guest:Which one was it?

00:55:27Guest:I don't know.

00:55:28Guest:Different ones.

00:55:29Guest:Oh, really?

00:55:30Guest:My first one was I Love My Wife, but I don't remember which theater it was at.

00:55:34Marc:You worked at many of them?

00:55:36Marc:Yeah, and a lot of them.

00:55:37Guest:Yeah.

00:55:38Guest:How'd you get that gig?

00:55:40Guest:Everybody from college had an in there.

00:55:43Guest:So I guess we're always looking for people.

00:55:47Guest:So not so much actors, just somebody who could be there, but it was great because you could audition at the same time.

00:55:54Guest:And watch plays, right?

00:55:55Guest:And watch plays.

00:55:56Guest:And then after that, within six months, I auditioned for a soap opera.

00:56:02Guest:And I just did it just...

00:56:04Guest:because i just figure experience well i got it and i said oh no there's no no way i'm gonna do a soap opera because then i'm in the 70s it's in the 70s while i'm at college and i'm first getting into this acting stuff and the plays back at the movies back then were just unbelievable right the uh scorsese was all they're all like you know yeah coppola all these guys are doing their thing and

00:56:30Guest:So I said, no, I don't want to do a soap opera.

00:56:33Guest:But my dad, being a depression baby, said, look, it's money.

00:56:37Guest:It's money in your hand.

00:56:38Guest:And two, you've never worked in front of a camera before.

00:56:41Guest:Mindful to learn, right?

00:56:42Guest:Yeah, it's a perfect time to learn.

00:56:44Marc:Why are you living in the city or living with them?

00:56:46Guest:In the city.

00:56:46Guest:I lived in a city with three other people that graduated that year.

00:56:52Guest:What part of the city?

00:56:53Guest:92nd, West End, the Ruxton.

00:56:54Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:56:55Guest:Where Charles Grodin used to live.

00:56:57Guest:Did he?

00:56:57Guest:Yeah, or probably still does.

00:56:59Guest:I don't know.

00:56:59Guest:When you were there, you used to see him?

00:57:01Guest:No.

00:57:01Guest:I never saw him, but I heard later on through the grapevine that he was a tenant in the building.

00:57:08Guest:That's funny.

00:57:09Guest:He's a funny guy.

00:57:10Guest:Yeah.

00:57:10Guest:So you took the gig?

00:57:12Yeah.

00:57:13Guest:Yeah, and I did the soap for three and a half years.

00:57:16Marc:No kidding.

00:57:17Marc:And what was your guy?

00:57:18Guest:What was your character?

00:57:19Guest:My character was Joey Perini, the nicest guy in the world.

00:57:23Guest:It was a blue-collar guy.

00:57:26Guest:My mother rose.

00:57:27Guest:I took care of my mother rose.

00:57:28Guest:And I had a sister, Angie.

00:57:31Guest:And I proposed to my girlfriend, Eileen.

00:57:35Guest:I gave her a St.

00:57:35Guest:Christopher's medal when she was in the hospital.

00:57:38Guest:She ends up dying in the hospital.

00:57:41Guest:I go to where I proposed to her.

00:57:43Guest:It was during the winter.

00:57:44Guest:I slip.

00:57:45Guest:I fall.

00:57:45Guest:I end up in the hospital.

00:57:47Guest:There's a nurse taking care of me.

00:57:48Guest:I fall in love with the nurse who's taking care of me.

00:57:51Guest:And I eventually marry her.

00:57:53Guest:We're married for months.

00:57:54Guest:And I find out she's the richest woman in America.

00:57:57Guest:Whoa, shit.

00:57:57Guest:She lied to me.

00:57:59Guest:So I got an annulment.

00:58:00Guest:That's what this character was.

00:58:02Guest:He was like this nicest guy in the world.

00:58:05Guest:And then later I said, well, wait a minute.

00:58:06Guest:I love her.

00:58:07Guest:And then I decided that it was time to move to New York.

00:58:12Guest:And the only reason why I stayed the half year is because there was a writer's strike.

00:58:15Guest:But the only people that weren't affected was AFTRA.

00:58:17Guest:And we went off to skiing in Switzerland.

00:58:22Marc:Who?

00:58:24Guest:Me and the nurse.

00:58:26Marc:Yeah, in the show.

00:58:27Marc:In the show.

00:58:27Marc:So how many episodes is that?

00:58:29Marc:Like, we on a bunch of them?

00:58:30Marc:Three and a half.

00:58:30Marc:I mean, three and a half years.

00:58:32Guest:It's like lots.

00:58:34Guest:Lots and lots.

00:58:35Guest:We were the first.

00:58:36Guest:This show was the first show to go an hour and a half.

00:58:40Guest:And it was right in the middle of big storylines for me.

00:58:44Guest:So I was learning 30, 40 pages a night.

00:58:46Guest:It's another world.

00:58:47Guest:Another world.

00:58:48Guest:Wow.

00:58:49Guest:So you learned how to memorize?

00:58:51Guest:Yeah, you learned how to memorize, yeah.

00:58:53Guest:And you learned how to be on camera?

00:58:54Guest:On camera.

00:58:55Guest:And what was great about it is the producer, Paul Roush, when he needed a part, he would go to Broadway houses and watch plays.

00:59:02Guest:Exactly.

00:59:03Guest:And if an actor was right, he'd go backstage and say, look, if you want to make some money, come and do the soap opera.

00:59:14Guest:I'll get you out whatever time you want to be out by so you can prepare for your performance that night.

00:59:20Guest:And these people would say, yeah.

00:59:23Guest:So I was working with these great actors.

00:59:26Guest:And this one woman is probably the best actress I've ever worked with, this woman, Kathleen Widows.

00:59:32Guest:She was great.

00:59:32Guest:She played my mother.

00:59:34Guest:And she just had a real ease about it.

00:59:37Guest:And they all did.

00:59:38Guest:Because they didn't take it too serious because it was a soap.

00:59:41Guest:They were doing their whatever at night.

00:59:43Guest:So they were just having fun and talking about whose illness and who's this and who's going with who.

00:59:50Guest:Typical soap opera stuff.

00:59:51Guest:Like the soap opera behind the soap opera.

00:59:53Guest:Exactly.

00:59:54Marc:So that was sort of your baptism in the business and like a hell of a way to train for a few years.

01:00:00Marc:In terms of listening, being with people, being with actors, doing the thing, acting like a nice guy.

01:00:06Guest:Acting like a nice guy, totally.

01:00:08Guest:No question.

01:00:09Guest:And this was in the late 70s.

01:00:11Guest:Yeah.

01:00:13Guest:And I left to move out here in 81.

01:00:15Guest:So you're going to Studio 54, you're doing this, you're doing that.

01:00:19Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:19Guest:You remember that stuff?

01:00:20Guest:Crazy, crazy.

01:00:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:21Guest:Oh, wow, I can't imagine.

01:00:23Guest:There was a guy, the doorman, and he would never, ever let me in.

01:00:28Guest:At Studio 54?

01:00:29Guest:Yeah, but if Steve Rubel, one of the owners, if he saw me, he would always let me in.

01:00:35Guest:Cut to maybe 10, 15 years later, the doorman, I see him in Century City.

01:00:40Guest:And he comes up to me and he says, you know what, I want to ask you some questions about being an actor and everything.

01:00:49Guest:And I remembered him as the doorman and he never let me in.

01:00:53Guest:And I went fucking nuts on him.

01:00:55Guest:You did?

01:00:56Guest:I went nuts.

01:00:57Guest:Because it was so humiliating to be in line waiting to get into Studio 54 on a Monday or a Tuesday night, never mind a weekend, and just him poo-pooing me that I never forgot it.

01:01:10Guest:Yeah, of course.

01:01:10Marc:Of course.

01:01:11Marc:It's humiliating over and over again.

01:01:13Marc:Oh, it drove me nuts.

01:01:14Marc:So, wait, he just came up to you out of nowhere?

01:01:16Guest:Just came up.

01:01:17Marc:Just came up.

01:01:18Marc:I was coming out of some place.

01:01:19Guest:After you were already successful and he- Yeah, I was doing stuff already.

01:01:22Guest:Yeah.

01:01:22Guest:And I said, you never let me in.

01:01:25Guest:You were the doorman and you never- Well, no, I was just doing my job.

01:01:28Guest:I said, no, I just kept going and going and going out of my job.

01:01:33Guest:I just held on to it for a long time.

01:01:36Guest:Did it feel better to get it off your chest?

01:01:39Guest:It certainly did.

01:01:41Guest:It certainly did.

01:01:42Guest:And then did you help him?

01:01:43Guest:No.

01:01:45Guest:Done.

01:01:46Guest:Over.

01:01:49Marc:Next.

01:01:49Marc:So I can't imagine what the hell New York was like, because that was the craziest time.

01:01:54Marc:I mean, the late 70s, early 80s, before AIDS became a thing.

01:01:59Marc:You said before AIDS became a thing?

01:02:02Guest:Yeah.

01:02:02Guest:Yeah, never mind that.

01:02:04Guest:42nd Street wasn't Disneyland.

01:02:06Guest:It was all porn houses.

01:02:07Guest:It was fucking crazy.

01:02:08Guest:Live sex shows.

01:02:09Guest:That was the first place I ever got recognized.

01:02:12Guest:Was it one of those?

01:02:13Guest:Oh, in a live sex show?

01:02:15Guest:Okay, so I'm going to the Port Authority's right there, okay?

01:02:20Guest:Lovely place.

01:02:20Guest:Wait for my bus.

01:02:21Guest:To go what, to Jersey?

01:02:22Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:24Guest:And there was a place, so you put the quarter in, the thing comes up, and...

01:02:28Guest:And you see naked girls dancing.

01:02:31Guest:I'm 21 years old, so that's like a big deal for me.

01:02:34Guest:The thing closes.

01:02:35Guest:I put it in again.

01:02:36Guest:It opens up.

01:02:37Guest:And one of the dancers, she looks over at me.

01:02:42Guest:And the thing closes.

01:02:43Guest:As it's closing, she says, no, open it up again.

01:02:46Guest:I'll put another quarter in.

01:02:48Guest:So I said, all right.

01:02:49Guest:So I put another quarter up.

01:02:51Guest:And then she went down again.

01:02:54Guest:And she said, no, no, no, no.

01:02:55Guest:Let it up again.

01:02:55Guest:Put it up again.

01:02:56Guest:And then she calls a friend over when it comes up.

01:02:59Guest:And she comes up.

01:03:00Guest:And she says, look, isn't that?

01:03:01Guest:And she said, yeah.

01:03:02Guest:And they both yell at my name at the same time.

01:03:04Guest:And it was every businessman in New York.

01:03:06Guest:It's all suits with attache cases.

01:03:09Guest:Yeah.

01:03:10Guest:Joey Perini.

01:03:11Guest:And she starts asking me questions about what's going to happen on the show.

01:03:16Guest:And the guy who's in charge is telling them, they're totally naked now, these girls.

01:03:20Guest:And they say, keep dancing, girls.

01:03:22Guest:Keep dancing.

01:03:23Guest:Keep moving.

01:03:24Guest:You always got to keep moving.

01:03:25Guest:And they're asking me questions about storyline.

01:03:28Guest:And that was one of the first times I said, oh, my gosh, my life will never be the same.

01:03:32Guest:Oh, that's hilarious.

01:03:33Guest:Those weird, dirty places.

01:03:36Marc:Oh, my God.

01:03:38Marc:So, you do Another World, and what makes you decide to move out here?

01:03:41Marc:Because I always wanted to be in movies.

01:03:44Guest:Sure, right.

01:03:45Guest:That was the thing.

01:03:45Marc:They weren't casting movies out of New York.

01:03:47Guest:They were, but I wasn't getting any.

01:03:49Guest:So, they said, and at that time, New York was down on its luck, and I went to- The city was.

01:03:55Guest:Yeah, the city, totally.

01:03:57Guest:So I moved out to L.A.

01:04:02Guest:What year is that?

01:04:02Guest:This is 1981.

01:04:03Guest:A friend of mine, I stayed at his house.

01:04:09Guest:He was married to Melanie Griffith at the time, and they took my place in New York.

01:04:13Guest:I was now out here.

01:04:16Marc:Oh, so you had a place that you could switch with him?

01:04:18Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:04:20Guest:You weren't living with people?

01:04:21Guest:No, it was just me by myself.

01:04:23Guest:I was on Big Rock Road in Malibu.

01:04:26Guest:I couldn't be further away, and I didn't know anybody out there.

01:04:29Marc:But the place in New York was, oh, by the time you did the soap, you got your own place.

01:04:33Guest:Yeah.

01:04:34Guest:The second place I lived in was on 85th between Columbus and Amsterdam, and then the last place was on 72nd and Columbus, right down the street from the Dakota.

01:04:46Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:04:47Guest:Were you there when he got shot?

01:04:50Guest:I come home that night, and there's a bunch of people outside, and where I parked my car was in the parking garage right next to the Dakota.

01:05:01Guest:And I come out, and I remember it was freezing outside, and they're all singing, all we are saying.

01:05:07Guest:And they're singing it and singing.

01:05:08Guest:I said, what happened?

01:05:09Guest:They said, John Lennon just got assassinated.

01:05:12Guest:Here I was like I walked I walked into it, you know, just want to park my car and Here were all these people yeah candles and it was it was intense.

01:05:22Marc:Oh man.

01:05:23Marc:It was a horrible day So did you own that apartment?

01:05:27Marc:No, I was renting so you yes, so you went out to Malibu and they came and used your place in New York right and you're just out there and

01:05:33Guest:Right.

01:05:34Guest:And then they, but he turned me on to the Harry, the best acting teacher that I think that's ever lived.

01:05:39Guest:What's his last name?

01:05:40Guest:Harry Mastro George.

01:05:42Guest:So I went and started studying with him twice a week, six hours a night because, you know, as he used to say, yeah, man, I was dedicated.

01:05:50Guest:I was, by the time I graduated college and I said, I'm making it.

01:05:55Guest:And it's like what we were saying before, you come out here and you don't really know what's going to happen.

01:06:00Guest:The one thing you don't think is going to happen is that it's not going to happen.

01:06:03Guest:You're just too stupid to think that it's not, you know, to realize all the odds that are against you.

01:06:08Marc:Yeah.

01:06:09Marc:But at least you, you know, you had some experience and you probably had an agent, right?

01:06:13Marc:Yeah.

01:06:14Marc:Yeah.

01:06:14Marc:I got an agent in New York and they had a sister agent.

01:06:17Marc:At least you had some sense of the business.

01:06:18Marc:You weren't coming out here going like, well, where do I start?

01:06:21Marc:But nothing happened.

01:06:22Marc:Nothing happened.

01:06:23Guest:You took these great classes.

01:06:25Guest:I was.

01:06:25Guest:Yeah.

01:06:25Guest:But work-wise, I didn't do my first movie until I was 30 years old.

01:06:29Guest:And at that time or even now, that's really late.

01:06:33Guest:And the only reason why I got it is because of Melanie Griffith.

01:06:36Guest:Yeah.

01:06:36Guest:Because she was already cast in the movie.

01:06:39Guest:And I went home.

01:06:40Guest:I was dejected.

01:06:41Guest:I was 30 years old.

01:06:42Guest:I went home to Jersey.

01:06:43Guest:And my parents were heavily involved into local politics.

01:06:46Guest:Yeah.

01:06:47Guest:They said, call her up and ask her if she can get you an audition.

01:06:50Guest:Oh, Melanie?

01:06:51Guest:Yeah.

01:06:52Guest:And I said, there's no way I'm going to call her.

01:06:53Guest:I just thought that wasn't the way you do it.

01:06:56Guest:But I was so despondent.

01:06:57Guest:And I just said, all right, I will.

01:07:00Guest:And I said, Melanie, I know you're doing this movie, something wild.

01:07:03Guest:It's actually the guys in that acting class that said, you know, you're really right for this part.

01:07:08Guest:Have you gone up for it?

01:07:09Guest:The psycho boyfriend?

01:07:10Marc:The psycho ex-boyfriend, right?

01:07:11Guest:Yeah.

01:07:11Marc:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:12Guest:And she said, yeah.

01:07:16Guest:So Jonathan said that she could have a say in who played her husband because she had a bad experience with somebody that she worked with before.

01:07:24Guest:It was the husband, right.

01:07:27Guest:So she called him up and he says, Melanie, please.

01:07:30Guest:It's been taking me so long to find this guy.

01:07:33Guest:Yeah.

01:07:33Guest:I got it narrowed down to three people.

01:07:36Guest:I can't see anybody.

01:07:37Guest:And she said, Jonathan, you promised me that I was going to be able to help pick and have say in who's going to play my husband.

01:07:46Guest:I want you to see Ray.

01:07:47Guest:I think she just wanted to use that chip, that card as a husband.

01:07:51Guest:than believing that i could do it but in any case i went and and then there's a story monday i i i i meet him okay tuesday i get a call come in and read with an actress come in read with the actress thursday i get a call come in and read with jeff daniels i'm saying oh my god this is great i'm not going to be told no by a casting agent you know now they're if they don't want me i'm just not right for the part or my acting chops wasn't right

01:08:19Guest:That night, I'm watching Johnny Carson.

01:08:22Guest:Jeff comes on.

01:08:23Guest:He's talking about Woody.

01:08:25Guest:He's talking about Jack.

01:08:26Guest:He had just done the Purple Rose and Cairo for Woody Allen.

01:08:29Guest:He's talking about Jack Nicholson in terms of the deer.

01:08:32Guest:He was in both those movies.

01:08:34Guest:I hit the floor doing push-ups.

01:08:36Guest:I'm looking at the script because I have to read with him the next day.

01:08:40Guest:Yeah.

01:08:40Guest:And I just was ready.

01:08:44Guest:I just was ready.

01:08:45Guest:I did my homework.

01:08:47Guest:And I'm a wound up crazy bastard in that.

01:08:50Guest:And luckily, when he said action, that's what came out.

01:08:56Guest:Wow.

01:08:57Guest:That's great.

01:08:58Guest:And you were at the end of your rope, too.

01:09:01Guest:Totally.

01:09:02Guest:As a matter of fact, it was almost to the day.

01:09:05Guest:Because my dad, being a depression baby, he handled my money, all the money that I made from the soap.

01:09:10Guest:I just gave it to him.

01:09:11Guest:And I was living off that money for five years.

01:09:14Guest:But I lived in a struggling actor's box on Beachwood Avenue, five blocks up from Fountain.

01:09:20Guest:is that fountain there or franklin franklin yeah and and it was i mean it was brown shag carpeting with dirty curtains yeah and and i know right where that was it was it was so you're about to run out is that what you're saying yeah well i had to get a regular job and i couldn't even your old man told you that because i didn't yeah he said like it's you know it's down to it and i remember i was with my my sister and her then uh

01:09:47Guest:husband and we were at Alice's restaurant at the pier out in Malibu and I think I was supposed to call them in like no cell phones or anything so I was supposed to call in and find out what happened and they said that Jonathan wanted to talk to me and he called me up and said Ray would you like to be Ray and I was like wow I got it

01:10:16Guest:Yeah.

01:10:17Guest:I did, and I cried like a baby.

01:10:19Guest:Yeah.

01:10:19Guest:Because the pressure of five years of not knowing that you're going to get whatever it is that you want.

01:10:25Marc:That you're working for.

01:10:26Marc:How did you end up starting with stand-up?

01:10:29Marc:When I was in college, I just always wanted to do it as a kid, and I couldn't figure out how to do it.

01:10:34Marc:And then when I graduated college, I moved out here.

01:10:37Marc:I was a doorman at the comedy store.

01:10:38Marc:I got all fucked up on drugs, went back to Boston, and started doing open mics.

01:10:43Marc:Once I figured out, back then, it was like, you go do open mics.

01:10:46Marc:So I just kept doing them, and I kept doing them.

01:10:49Marc:In my mind, though, there was nothing else to do.

01:10:51Marc:There was no other thing.

01:10:53Marc:But you decided in high school that you wanted to do stand-up?

01:10:55Marc:I think I decided in college.

01:10:57Marc:I went to college.

01:10:57Marc:I did a lot of other stuff.

01:10:58Marc:I acted.

01:10:59Marc:I wrote.

01:10:59Marc:I did liberal arts and whatever.

01:11:01Marc:Where'd you go?

01:11:01Marc:BU.

01:11:03Marc:Oh, oh, oh.

01:11:03Marc:Okay.

01:11:03Marc:Yeah.

01:11:03Marc:But when I graduated, I'm like, I'm going to LA.

01:11:05Marc:I want to be stand-up comic.

01:11:06Marc:Since I was a little kid, I wanted to do it.

01:11:09Marc:But it's hard to figure out what you do.

01:11:10Marc:But looking back on it, I don't know, over the years, how the fuck I stayed in it.

01:11:14Marc:Because you just keep building your time.

01:11:17Marc:You keep going up there getting beat up until you got an act.

01:11:20Marc:And then you get someone to book the act.

01:11:23Marc:And then you keep going.

01:11:25Marc:But the thing was is that people ask you about the career.

01:11:27Marc:It's like, if you do this shit,

01:11:30Marc:Most of the time, you don't have a plan B. It's not like there's no other thing.

01:11:34Marc:No.

01:11:35Marc:So it's in your brain.

01:11:36Marc:It's like there's no choices.

01:11:38Guest:Right.

01:11:38Guest:Right?

01:11:39Guest:And you figure, look, you watch people doing it, and you're saying, I know I could do at least as good as this guy, and he's making a living.

01:11:47Guest:Yeah, I was driven by- That stuff kicks in.

01:11:50Marc:Oh, yeah, man.

01:11:51Marc:I'd say the first decade of my life was driven by spite.

01:11:55Guest:Totally.

01:11:55Guest:It's the best motivator.

01:11:57Guest:Calling my manager.

01:11:58Guest:How the fuck did that guy get that thing?

01:12:00Guest:Exactly.

01:12:01Guest:Exactly.

01:12:02Guest:No question about it.

01:12:04Guest:I still do that.

01:12:04Guest:I'm still like that.

01:12:06Guest:Yeah, you must have a tolerant agent.

01:12:11Guest:I don't know.

01:12:15Guest:I call a lot.

01:12:16Guest:You play guitar?

01:12:17Guest:I do, yeah.

01:12:18Guest:A lot?

01:12:18Guest:Yeah.

01:12:19Guest:You?

01:12:19Guest:I did in sixth grade.

01:12:21Guest:Yeah?

01:12:21Guest:And I think...

01:12:25Guest:I played at a dance once.

01:12:27Guest:We had one song.

01:12:29Guest:But I would sing upstairs and I had a decent voice from what I hear.

01:12:33Guest:And my mother said, oh, I love when you play.

01:12:35Guest:And that shut me right down and never did it again.

01:12:38Guest:Really?

01:12:38Guest:Yeah.

01:12:39Marc:Yeah, it was something I held on to.

01:12:40Marc:I did it when I was a kid and I just always did it by myself.

01:12:44Marc:And it's like a meditation.

01:12:45Marc:I got better.

01:12:47Marc:I keep getting better.

01:12:48Marc:So I keep playing.

01:12:48Marc:Every day you play?

01:12:50Marc:I pick it up, you know, like, if I'm in town.

01:12:52Marc:Like, I don't compulsively practice, but I'll put on some records, play jam with them.

01:12:56Marc:Oh, really?

01:12:57Marc:Yeah.

01:12:57Marc:I start playing with some people sometimes.

01:12:59Marc:I keep trying to get better.

01:13:01Marc:That's all.

01:13:01Marc:You know, it's a hobby, though.

01:13:03Guest:Right.

01:13:03Marc:You know, like, that's one thing.

01:13:05Marc:I used to do a joke about it, how, like, I never tried to be a professional musician, so my guitar isn't haunted by failure.

01:13:12Marc:I don't...

01:13:13Marc:Is that why it looks so clean?

01:13:14Marc:Yeah.

01:13:15Marc:It's not haunted.

01:13:16Marc:It doesn't represent something that didn't happen for me.

01:13:19Marc:It's just something I enjoy doing.

01:13:21Marc:So, wait.

01:13:22Marc:So, let me just ask you about Harry again, the acting teacher.

01:13:26Marc:What was his last name again?

01:13:27Marc:Mastro George.

01:13:28Marc:Now, was that a scene study class?

01:13:31Marc:Was it a lot of people in there?

01:13:32Marc:Because you were with him for, what, four or five years before you got the part, right?

01:13:36Guest:Yeah.

01:13:36Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:13:38Guest:And after I did my first move, Something Wild, went back to class.

01:13:41Guest:Dominic and Eugene, back to class.

01:13:42Guest:Field of Dreams, back to class.

01:13:44Guest:Goodfellas, back to class.

01:13:46Guest:Really?

01:13:47Guest:Yeah, I just kept going because he just said that the imagination is like a muscle.

01:13:52Guest:The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.

01:13:54Guest:And I bought into everything he said because it totally made sense to me.

01:13:58Marc:What was the other thing?

01:13:59Guest:It's just that it's a child's game.

01:14:01Guest:Oh, that one, yeah.

01:14:02Guest:You just played with a child's rules, but not at an adult level.

01:14:06Guest:Right.

01:14:06Guest:And it was as simple as that.

01:14:09Guest:And then the things that could throw you off were the things about you're worried about presentation.

01:14:14Guest:Yeah.

01:14:14Guest:You're saying somebody else's words.

01:14:15Guest:Yeah.

01:14:15Guest:You're saying things on cue.

01:14:17Guest:Yeah.

01:14:17Guest:And that could throw you off.

01:14:19Guest:Right.

01:14:20Guest:If you just stick to the playing pretend.

01:14:22Guest:Yeah.

01:14:23Guest:uh you can't go wrong and sticking with the story it was really simple stuff it wasn't like some crazy thing but he was he came from the platform of you anybody can do it it's just you know and right if you just play the simple game or pretend oh really most acting teachers saying you can't do it so i'm going to give you the methodology of how you can do it yeah

01:14:44Marc:But I think that the thing that really separates actors is I think some people, you know, you can work and work and work.

01:14:50Marc:Who the hell knows why anyone's going to break?

01:14:52Marc:There's some people that have different talents for it or innately have it.

01:14:55Marc:But, yeah, you can function as an actor.

01:14:57Marc:But, you know, you somehow I think you're authentically yourself.

01:15:03Marc:Right.

01:15:04Marc:You know, always some part of that's going to come through.

01:15:06Marc:Totally.

01:15:07Marc:You know, you don't.

01:15:08Marc:It's not like you see a part that you play go like, who is that guy?

01:15:12Guest:No.

01:15:12Guest:Right, or like all of a sudden you're not going to get to the point of, yeah, there's a camera there.

01:15:16Guest:You're going to know there's a camera there, but you just ignore it and do what you have to do.

01:15:20Guest:Sure, right, yeah.

01:15:21Marc:Don't forget.

01:15:22Marc:Not everybody can do that.

01:15:23Marc:It's a weird thing that once the camera's there, you know, it is a unique skill.

01:15:26Marc:All you got to do is watch porn and you realize like...

01:15:30Marc:Not everybody can do this.

01:15:32Marc:They can fuck on camera, but they're not doing the other thing right.

01:15:37Marc:It's a weird thing.

01:15:38Marc:Okay, so you do something wild, and Demi directs you, and that's early on.

01:15:43Marc:It's like his first movie, isn't it?

01:15:44Guest:Yeah.

01:15:45Marc:What was he like then?

01:15:46Guest:He was great.

01:15:48Guest:He was great.

01:15:49Guest:One, because he gave me the part.

01:15:50Guest:And two, you know, he started.

01:15:52Guest:He said, all right, let's make some movie history.

01:15:54Guest:He was really, really into it.

01:15:56Guest:And there's nothing more... Scorsese had the same thing.

01:16:00Guest:There's nothing more exciting than working with somebody who is really excited about playing pretend.

01:16:07Guest:Yeah.

01:16:08Guest:It's very contagious and really makes you want to do it and do it for them.

01:16:14Guest:But you know...

01:16:15Guest:You know, that it's pretend.

01:16:19Guest:You don't have to live there.

01:16:20Guest:Yeah, exactly.

01:16:21Guest:Well, no, at first you did.

01:16:23Guest:At first I did.

01:16:24Guest:I was a little too methody because I didn't trust myself enough.

01:16:28Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:16:29Guest:So, not that I went out beating up people, but I kind of kept it always in my head, always ruminating up in my head what I'm doing.

01:16:38Marc:The emotions of the character?

01:16:39Marc:The next day in the

01:16:40Marc:It's exhausting doing it that way.

01:16:42Marc:I guess it would be.

01:16:43Marc:You show up exhausted, I can't work because I've been too busy being the guy when I was sleeping.

01:16:47Guest:You do it because the adrenaline kicks in.

01:16:49Marc:But then I can't imagine... It's interesting for me about Goodfellas.

01:16:56Marc:It's one of those movies where...

01:16:58Marc:Especially with Italian movies, especially with Scorsese.

01:17:02Marc:Your whole life, you got guys coming up to you, right?

01:17:05Guest:Now to this day?

01:17:06Guest:Sure.

01:17:06Guest:Yeah.

01:17:07Guest:That's it.

01:17:08Guest:I have kids coming up to me.

01:17:09Guest:Right.

01:17:09Guest:Because what happens is fathers turn their sons on to the movie.

01:17:13Guest:But sometimes it's like you can tell the kid's only 12 or 13 years old and he comes up and says, I loved you in Goodfellas.

01:17:19Guest:And I'm saying, what kind of parents do you have?

01:17:21Guest:Right.

01:17:21Marc:you're really too young to be watching it but because everybody's got their head in these things they can look up anything they want anyhow so the kids now are much more sophisticated than we were as kids just because they can google whatever the fuck they want they can do whatever they want without anyone knowing it there's no way to control them because most adults don't understand what the hell they're doing or how they can get things but I mean that part that was your fourth movie and it was a huge part it was a huge lead what was the auditioning process for that?

01:17:51Guest:I didn't audition at all.

01:17:52Guest:I just kept talking to Marty.

01:17:54Guest:Oh, really?

01:17:55Guest:First person.

01:17:55Guest:It took about a year to get.

01:17:58Guest:I was the first person from what I hear that he met.

01:18:02Guest:And then months go by.

01:18:04Guest:Dominic and Eugene is at the Venice Film Festival.

01:18:08Guest:He was there with Last Temptation of Christ.

01:18:11Guest:I took my dad with me to Venice for the experience.

01:18:16Guest:Uh-huh.

01:18:16Guest:And we're standing on the second level of the Excelsior Hotel.

01:18:20Guest:And there's this crowd of people moving as one.

01:18:26Guest:And from my vantage point on the second floor in the middle of it, I saw Marty.

01:18:31Guest:So I said I hadn't seen him in like months.

01:18:33Guest:So I just wanted to put my face in front of him before he remembered me.

01:18:38Guest:So I came running down.

01:18:40Guest:I come, Marty, Marty.

01:18:41Guest:And he had bodyguards all around him.

01:18:43Guest:Because he was getting death threats because of Last Temptation and the controversy of what that movie was.

01:18:49Guest:And they pushed me away.

01:18:50Guest:And I said, no, no, no, no, no.

01:18:51Guest:I just want to say hi to Marty.

01:18:53Guest:I just want to say hi.

01:18:55Guest:You're not Travis Bickle.

01:18:59Guest:That's when he decided that he was going to cast me.

01:19:01Guest:Because the only thing he had really seen is something wild.

01:19:04Guest:So he didn't know I was like... And me, personally, to this day, I've never gotten in a fight.

01:19:09Guest:So to play these kind... And Henry Hill, the only way he got as far as he did was because he was a good soldier.

01:19:15Guest:He did what he was told, but he didn't... He wasn't going around whacking people or things like that.

01:19:20Guest:He was just getting them things to eat or whatever.

01:19:23Guest:Yeah.

01:19:25Marc:So that's how the persistence got him.

01:19:27Guest:Yeah, I guess.

01:19:29Guest:You've never gotten into a fight?

01:19:31Guest:No.

01:19:31Guest:Once in seventh grade.

01:19:33Guest:Once in seventh grade because me and this guy, Jeff Roth, we were fighting over what grammar school had better cafeteria food.

01:19:41Guest:I swear to God, I think it was something like that.

01:19:44Guest:So we went down.

01:19:45Guest:First, we were going to fight at the path.

01:19:47Guest:And then I said, no, not the path.

01:19:48Guest:Meet him down at the house.

01:19:50Guest:So then we went down to the house with this big field, the soccer fields and baseball fields.

01:19:54Guest:We had a fight and it was stupid and I won.

01:19:57Yeah.

01:19:57Marc:At least you won.

01:19:59Marc:I did.

01:19:59Marc:That's hilarious because even today, I know I'm going to talk to you, and in my mind, I'm like, oh, boy, this guy's a tough fucking guy.

01:20:07Marc:What the fuck am I going to say to this guy?

01:20:11Marc:But that's interesting that you get identified with the characters.

01:20:16Marc:Yeah.

01:20:16Marc:It does happen.

01:20:17Guest:Of course.

01:20:18Marc:Because how are they going to know you?

01:20:20Marc:They don't know you.

01:20:21Marc:Unless they saw the Muppet movies.

01:20:24Marc:And then it's a different guy.

01:20:25Marc:Two Muppet movies with the Muppets.

01:20:26Marc:Muppets.

01:20:26Marc:Yeah, maybe there's a younger generation that just thinks you're a sweetheart.

01:20:30Marc:Yeah, exactly.

01:20:30Marc:And the people from the soap.

01:20:32Marc:Yep.

01:20:32Marc:Way back.

01:20:34Marc:I imagine.

01:20:34Marc:Do you still get people who recognize you from that?

01:20:36Guest:Come on.

01:20:38Guest:Sometimes, but yeah, they're a little older.

01:20:41Marc:So when you did Goodfellas, I mean, like that set, I can't, and if you're tired of talking about it, I can't imagine how amazing it was to be on that set.

01:20:50Marc:Was it?

01:20:50Guest:It was...

01:20:51Guest:It was the ultimate in playing pretend.

01:20:54Guest:Yeah.

01:20:55Guest:But also, not to bring a downer into it, my mom was sick with cancer during the whole time and passed away in the middle of filming it.

01:21:05Guest:And the Teamsters and Pesci, they all came to the funeral.

01:21:08Guest:They came to my house after.

01:21:10Guest:So it was really... So my thing is, like, I can play pretend with everybody.

01:21:16Guest:My mom's dying.

01:21:17Guest:So I don't care who you are, what reputation you have, what movies you did.

01:21:21Guest:Yeah.

01:21:21Guest:This is something that's really serious.

01:21:24Guest:All we're doing is playing pretend, so let's play pretend.

01:21:27Guest:And I don't mean that in a cocky way.

01:21:28Guest:It's just the mindset that you get when you're going through something like that.

01:21:33Marc:It must have helped you out.

01:21:35Guest:It certainly didn't make me shy.

01:21:39Guest:So I just went and had fun.

01:21:42Guest:But again, Marty is one of those kinds of people that's so excited by the pretend of it all.

01:21:47Marc:Right, right.

01:21:48Guest:so that wow that's amazing and so like she passed away and then he still had a month or two to shoot or like what yeah the first scene that i had i remember the scene i had a scene with paulie and some other guy yeah uh when they told me for sure to go home yeah that was brutal yeah uh but we still had to finish shooting and then she did she passed in my arm she waited for me no question about it

01:22:14Guest:And then I go back, and the first scene back is one of the only times that there's laughing.

01:22:21Guest:It's when Karen, Lorraine, comes at me saying, you stood me up.

01:22:25Guest:Who do you think you are?

01:22:26Guest:Frankie Valli?

01:22:27Guest:And blah, blah, blah.

01:22:28Guest:Wait, wait, wait.

01:22:29Guest:And that was my first scene back.

01:22:31Guest:Oh, like the day after or a few days?

01:22:33Marc:A few days after, yeah.

01:22:34Marc:wow yeah so you just walked right back in that's something thank god yeah thank god to tell you the truth right yeah yeah and and your old man was still around and yeah yeah yeah he's still around now no he died a couple years ago at 98. oh that's good run huh yeah wow so like what is it do you think like because you've done a lot of movies and uh and you just you you clearly love to work

01:23:02Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:23:04Guest:Sometimes you have to work.

01:23:05Guest:No, of course.

01:23:06Guest:Yeah, of course.

01:23:07Guest:There's a couple in there that I'd rather not have done, but you got to do what you got to do.

01:23:11Marc:But Copland, I love that movie.

01:23:13Marc:That was a really good movie.

01:23:14Marc:Right?

01:23:14Marc:It was totally a good movie.

01:23:15Marc:So it was NARC.

01:23:16Marc:NARC is a great fucking movie.

01:23:19Marc:Yeah.

01:23:19Marc:You're fucking menacing in that.

01:23:20Marc:What is it with you and corrupt cops?

01:23:22Marc:I don't know.

01:23:23Marc:They like me.

01:23:24Marc:They like you to do that.

01:23:26Marc:Yeah.

01:23:26Marc:So they show that, like, why is this going to be the last season of Shades of Blue?

01:23:33Guest:I have my theories, but I don't know for sure.

01:23:37Guest:I think really what it is is that Jen kind of had enough.

01:23:42Guest:And it was really hard.

01:23:43Guest:She has so much on her plate.

01:23:45Guest:Jennifer Lopez?

01:23:46Guest:Yeah.

01:23:46Guest:She's got the Vegas show.

01:23:49Guest:She's got a two-hour dance show on NBC every week.

01:23:56Guest:She's newly in love.

01:24:00Guest:And there weren't enough hours in a day.

01:24:03Guest:And doing a series, especially something like this one, it's draining.

01:24:09Guest:It's draining, and it takes a lot of time.

01:24:11Guest:And she didn't have that much time.

01:24:13Guest:She was busy with other things.

01:24:15Marc:Right.

01:24:16Marc:So did they just write a conclusion to the investigation?

01:24:19Marc:I mean, what happens?

01:24:19Marc:I mean, this is the last season.

01:24:21Guest:No, we didn't know until two weeks ago that it was ending.

01:24:24Guest:So the season that they wrote was as if it was going to continue on.

01:24:30Guest:I wanted it to go on because it's just a great character.

01:24:32Guest:Yeah.

01:24:33Guest:But we didn't know until maybe now it's three weeks, a month, that this was going to be it.

01:24:40Guest:So it's not everything is tied up in a bow.

01:24:44Guest:It's just over and that's all there is to it.

01:24:47Guest:I was hoping they would keep it going and not replace Jen because Jen is Jen, but they could have brought somebody else in.

01:24:54Guest:Right.

01:24:56Guest:It's a good show.

01:24:57Guest:Yeah.

01:24:57Guest:It's a really good show.

01:24:59Guest:But it's their ball and bat.

01:25:01Marc:Yeah.

01:25:02Marc:That's the business.

01:25:04Marc:We were in a movie together.

01:25:06Marc:We were?

01:25:07Marc:Yeah.

01:25:07Marc:What?

01:25:08Marc:Flock of Dudes.

01:25:10Marc:No.

01:25:11Marc:Yes.

01:25:11Marc:With... Dahlia...

01:25:14Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:25:16Marc:I didn't even see the final cut of it.

01:25:18Marc:Neither did I. I don't think it ever came out.

01:25:20Marc:No, it did kind of come out.

01:25:22Marc:Kind of?

01:25:22Marc:It's out.

01:25:23Marc:You can watch it.

01:25:24Marc:Really?

01:25:24Marc:Yeah, I played the boss of those guys.

01:25:28Guest:That's so funny.

01:25:29Guest:That's funny.

01:25:30Guest:Maybe we should watch it.

01:25:31Marc:I know I didn't do scenes with you.

01:25:32Marc:That I know.

01:25:33Guest:No, I had the scenes with Dahlia.

01:25:35Marc:Yeah, I see him all the time at the comedy store.

01:25:38Marc:So what are you working on now?

01:25:40Marc:You got a movie working?

01:25:41Guest:I just finished a movie with Noah Baumbach.

01:25:44Guest:Really?

01:25:44Guest:The public come out this fall.

01:25:46Guest:Do you play a corrupt cop?

01:25:48Guest:No, I'm a lawyer in this one.

01:25:51Guest:Yeah.

01:25:54Guest:It's funny.

01:25:55Guest:Cops love me.

01:25:56Guest:When I see cops in New York, we always just shoot the shit.

01:26:00Marc:Well, you understand them.

01:26:02Yeah.

01:26:04Marc:I mean, you know, there's got to be, you know, like, I don't know what kind of research you do or whether you just pull from the, do you go, when you do, when you get a part like that, you know, like Copland or even the first season of Shades of Blue or any of them where, you know, NARC, I mean, do you, do you just stick with the script and then use your own imagination or do you like, or do you talk to cops?

01:26:25Guest:No, no, I, in the beginning, I think the first time I played a cop was Unlawful Entry.

01:26:30Guest:And I went and did a ride along with a sergeant and I would go and ride with them.

01:26:39Guest:Yeah.

01:26:40Guest:As well as talking to them, going to the shooting range, reading books.

01:26:44Guest:Right.

01:26:45Guest:So I've done plenty of research.

01:26:49Guest:Yeah.

01:26:49Guest:And I used to really be into the research.

01:26:52Guest:I played a heart surgeon where I was watching open heart surgeries for weeks.

01:26:57Guest:Really?

01:26:57Guest:I was there so much that the doctor asked me, he said, do you want to come up and stand next to me while I'm doing this?

01:27:03Guest:And I said, yeah, I would.

01:27:05Guest:And he says, all right, come on, stand right here.

01:27:07Guest:And the woman's chest was wide open.

01:27:09Guest:Oh, my God.

01:27:10Guest:And he said, do you want to touch her heart?

01:27:13Guest:Oh, my God.

01:27:13Guest:I said, what?

01:27:14Guest:He said, do you want to touch her heart?

01:27:17Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:27:19Guest:And I went down and touched God.

01:27:21Guest:Boom, touched this woman's heart.

01:27:23Guest:Because it's not going up and down because they can't operate, but they got the bypass machine going.

01:27:28Guest:And I touched this woman's heart.

01:27:31Guest:It was great.

01:27:32Guest:Yeah.

01:27:32Guest:played a coroner once so I was going down to the city coroner's office and I hate being late and there was a lot of traffic I think it was on the 134 wherever it was and and I finally get there and I run up I said I'm so sorry I'm late I am so sorry and they they turn he said no don't worry about it and he pointed he said that was him

01:27:55Guest:There was a guy with a sheet over him, dead.

01:27:58Guest:He tried to cross the 134.

01:28:01Guest:Oh, my God.

01:28:02Guest:And that's what the traffic was.

01:28:03Guest:He got hit and died.

01:28:05Guest:Oh, my God.

01:28:06Guest:I mean, there's nothing funny about it.

01:28:07Guest:No.

01:28:08Guest:It's closure.

01:28:09Guest:It's closure.

01:28:10Guest:It's closure.

01:28:13Guest:So how long did you spend looking at bodies?

01:28:16Guest:Just a day on that one.

01:28:18Marc:What other weird-ass research did you do?

01:28:22Guest:Baseball.

01:28:23Guest:I played a lot of baseball when I did Field of Dreams.

01:28:28Guest:Rod Dado, who coaches the USC baseball team, has more national champions than in any other sport.

01:28:34Guest:He was a...

01:28:36Guest:13-time collegiate champion.

01:28:39Guest:So I went there and worked out with them and Donnie Buford who used to play for the Orioles.

01:28:46Marc:Had you played in high school or college?

01:28:50Guest:Little League and junior high school.

01:28:52Guest:And then I got hit a couple times and I said, that's it.

01:28:54Guest:I'm too chicken.

01:28:55Marc:Oh, the ball?

01:28:56Marc:Yeah.

01:28:57Marc:Can't be afraid of the ball.

01:28:58Guest:You can't be afraid of the ball.

01:28:59Guest:You just got to stand up there, and I don't know how they do it.

01:29:02Guest:Yeah.

01:29:02Guest:Because there was one kid who just had, and that time it was like heat, but he had no control.

01:29:08Guest:And I just didn't have him to stand in there.

01:29:13Guest:I didn't.

01:29:13Marc:No, no.

01:29:14Marc:I played Little League and that was it for me.

01:29:18Marc:I thought he'd get hit by a fucking ball.

01:29:21Guest:Little League.

01:29:23Guest:First game or whatever, a little ground ball comes.

01:29:27Guest:My glove falls off.

01:29:30Guest:Boom.

01:29:30Guest:The ball hits my finger and breaks it.

01:29:33Guest:It's a sign.

01:29:34Guest:It's a total sign.

01:29:35Marc:I was in center field.

01:29:36Marc:I got hit in the fucking face.

01:29:38Marc:I fell down.

01:29:39Marc:I was under...

01:29:40Marc:well you mean so what hit you the ball or the no it's a pop fly yeah and i'm backing up right and i trip and it bounced right off my fucking face and i'm like that's it if you get hit in the face in center field you're not meant for the game see right yeah no we're built for this stuff though yeah oh my god how often do you go back to jersey

01:30:02Guest:uh if i'm in new york now my sister and dad they were down in florida so i would always go and visit them but when i'm in new york and when i was doing the series we shot it here i would go home just to see some green yeah my best friend gene yeah uh lives in scotch plains so i would go out there and you guys are still best friends yeah since high school or something yeah

01:30:26Marc:That's great, man.

01:30:27Marc:Since third grade.

01:30:29Marc:Third grade.

01:30:29Marc:And he was in Jersey.

01:30:30Marc:Yeah.

01:30:30Marc:Oh, that's great.

01:30:32Marc:Yeah.

01:30:32Marc:And you feel good?

01:30:32Marc:You feel like you got closure in your life, the adoption, everything else?

01:30:36Guest:Yeah, yeah, all that, yes.

01:30:38Guest:And you're doing all right?

01:30:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:30:40Guest:I still feel I have a lot more to do with this, though.

01:30:42Marc:Oh, yeah, definitely.

01:30:43Guest:I still feel like I haven't made it.

01:30:45Guest:There's still things I want to do.

01:30:46Marc:Well, I'm curious about this Baumbach movie.

01:30:48Marc:I guess you can't really talk about it, but was it a small movie like he usually does?

01:30:51Marc:Yeah.

01:30:51Guest:Yeah, I mean, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, two hot people.

01:30:57Marc:Those big cast, yeah.

01:30:58Marc:Which, you know... But he shot it like he shoots his other movies?

01:31:01Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:31:02Guest:Oh, great.

01:31:02Guest:Noah's great.

01:31:04Guest:He's really great.

01:31:05Guest:And I kind of got the script kind of late, and I really need time now, especially at 63, to learn my lines.

01:31:15Guest:I can't do it overnight like I used to.

01:31:17Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:31:19Guest:And he wants every I dotted and every T crossed.

01:31:23Guest:Right.

01:31:24Guest:And if you don't get that, he'll just tell you again.

01:31:27Guest:And he doesn't get flustered.

01:31:29Guest:He doesn't get maniacal.

01:31:31Guest:He doesn't roll his eyes.

01:31:33Guest:He's not looking at his watch.

01:31:34Guest:You're just doing it again.

01:31:36Guest:You're doing it again.

01:31:37Guest:So you feel safe as an actor.

01:31:39Guest:And that only happened in one scene.

01:31:41Guest:And it was only part of one scene.

01:31:42Guest:Everything else I got, but there was one day I would like back.

01:31:48Guest:I thought, you know, you finish, you do a scene, you do your stuff, and it's over, and then it turns around on the other people, but I didn't realize it was still going to be on our side, and sometimes after you do your stuff, you just kind of, you just get it out of there, and you give them the cues they need, but the camera's on them.

01:32:05Guest:Let them get the words right.

01:32:06Marc:Yeah, you know, it's weird because I'm pretty new to acting.

01:32:09Marc:I'm on this show Glow now, and I'm still not 100% sure what's covered when I'm getting my coverage and when it's on them.

01:32:18Marc:I know when it's a close-up, but a lot of times in the bigger shots, I'm just going all in all the time.

01:32:22Guest:That's what I did.

01:32:24Guest:I agree with that, too.

01:32:27Guest:Unless maybe you've got a breakdown and it's on your back.

01:32:32Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:33Guest:But I think the more you do it, the deeper it gets.

01:32:38Guest:That's what I feel.

01:32:39Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:40Guest:Just do it.

01:32:40Guest:I know that some people will wait for... Yeah.

01:32:43Marc:There's some people that shut right the fuck off on their... Whether it's your coverage.

01:32:47Marc:And it's sort of like, come on, give me something.

01:32:49Marc:I've heard of people not even showing up.

01:32:51Marc:Oh, they have someone else read for it?

01:32:53Guest:Yeah.

01:32:53Marc:A stand-in?

01:32:54Marc:Yeah.

01:32:54Marc:It's rude.

01:32:55Marc:That's fucked up.

01:32:56Marc:All right, well, it's great to see you, man.

01:32:58Marc:Same here.

01:32:59Marc:It was great talking to you.

01:33:00Marc:Yeah.

01:33:01Marc:And best of luck with everything.

01:33:02Marc:Thank you.

01:33:02Marc:You too.

01:33:03Marc:That was him, man.

01:33:09Marc:Sat right across from me.

01:33:10Marc:Fucking Ray Liotta.

01:33:12Marc:For reals.

01:33:14Marc:Let's play some sad rocking guitar.

01:33:19Marc:Instead of fucking grumbling mess.

01:34:05Guest:Boomer lives.