Episode 975 - Jeff Daniels

Episode 975 • Released December 10, 2018 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Marc:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:Alright, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:13Marc:What the fuckables?

00:00:15Marc:What's happening?

00:00:16Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:17Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:00:18Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:20Marc:If you're new, hi, how are you?

00:00:22Marc:Hope you're comfortable.

00:00:23Marc:Hope you're doing what you just normally do.

00:00:25Marc:You're just trying it out.

00:00:27Marc:Like, I've heard about this guy.

00:00:29Marc:People say he's good.

00:00:30Marc:One guy says he's annoying.

00:00:33Marc:They say his interviews are good, but sometimes he's a little rambly at the beginning.

00:00:38Marc:Yeah.

00:00:38Marc:welcome for those of you who have been here before nice to see you nice to to have you back what's going on today on the show uh jeff daniels i talked to jeff daniels the actor who in that it turns out to be kind of a great conversation really i think he surprised himself last night was the last night of hanukkah and the night before last

00:01:04Marc:I lit the candles.

00:01:05Marc:It was pretty exciting to light so many, to start out with so many, you know, because I started out with seven.

00:01:13Marc:I didn't light them until last night.

00:01:15Marc:That was the night that, you know, I've been busy, been doing Globe and getting home late.

00:01:18Marc:I've been studying my lines with Sarah the Painter, came over.

00:01:21Marc:And she wanted to witness it.

00:01:24Marc:And I begrudgingly did it.

00:01:25Marc:And I'm sorry that it was begrudgingly, but sometimes it's just a vulnerable place.

00:01:29Marc:I talked about that last week, but I did it.

00:01:31Marc:And the pretty hand dipped Hanukkah candles made a very compelling, colorful mess.

00:01:39Marc:And my smoke alarm did not go off.

00:01:41Marc:I said the prayer the best I could.

00:01:43Marc:Did not know the second one.

00:01:44Marc:Dug up my yarmulke from the drawer where I have a couple that I've collected from weddings.

00:01:50Marc:And then one nice woven one where I don't remember where I bought it, but I must have bought it somewhere.

00:01:55Marc:And I laid into it.

00:01:57Marc:I leaned in to the menorah lighting ceremony.

00:02:01Marc:I have been trying to use my time efficiently.

00:02:05Marc:Working all week.

00:02:07Marc:Doing the glow.

00:02:08Marc:Been some late shoots.

00:02:10Marc:Going into the night.

00:02:12Marc:And a couple nights I got home.

00:02:13Marc:But then I get home when I'm doing the show.

00:02:15Marc:And I work on the scenes for the next day.

00:02:17Marc:And I've kind of relaxed into the process.

00:02:20Marc:God knows I should.

00:02:21Marc:This being the third year.

00:02:23Marc:But it's going well.

00:02:23Marc:But then the weekend comes.

00:02:25Marc:And I want to get some shit done.

00:02:27Marc:There's some stuff that needs to get done.

00:02:29Marc:House stuff.

00:02:31Marc:Things, you know, making my new house a house still needs to be done.

00:02:36Marc:Like I have this room upstairs.

00:02:40Marc:It's supposed to be an office.

00:02:41Marc:So I want it to be an office, not just, you know.

00:02:44Marc:Well, here's my problem.

00:02:45Marc:It's like there's about...

00:02:46Marc:It starts out like three or four things I want to do.

00:02:49Marc:And then instead of just doing one at a time, I'll start doing one and then I'll drift and then I'll go do something else.

00:02:55Marc:I'll play guitar.

00:02:56Marc:I'll think about stuff.

00:02:57Marc:I'll read a book and then I'll go do some of the other.

00:03:00Marc:And I just sort of create this multitasking rotation of projects.

00:03:05Marc:And then it just it becomes bigger as the day goes on because you find other things like this weekend.

00:03:10Marc:The idea was to get.

00:03:11Marc:The office, the study or whatever, the room that I'm going to allot for work in my home to get it set up.

00:03:18Marc:And by set up, I mean just file all this stuff that is now in piles on the floors and get it out of the way and make it look at least neat.

00:03:27Marc:And then I could start putting stuff in my desk.

00:03:30Marc:So the room looks like it functions and doesn't just become a storage room for a growing pile of papers and things that are in the do I need all this shit limbo.

00:03:39Marc:I just I get a lot of shit.

00:03:41Marc:Do you understand?

00:03:43Marc:Then this stuff is all over the house.

00:03:44Marc:I don't know where it all comes from.

00:03:45Marc:I don't know how it just works.

00:03:47Marc:Start, you know, just all of a sudden there's new things.

00:03:49Marc:I mean, I know that, you know, people and and companies, publishers, record labels, they send me shit, books, records.

00:03:55Marc:You know, then people send me gifts and they have people send me big ideas and I look at them and then I put them on the table or the floor and they enter the first realm that they enter the first circle.

00:04:07Marc:Is really the I might want to keep this shit that that's the first level and they can stay there for a while and for years even.

00:04:16Marc:And then eventually it gets to the point where when I decide, like I did this weekend, that it's time to go through this stuff that they enter the do I need all this shit limbo.

00:04:26Marc:And I'll tell you, man, it can be a little overwhelming because I'm in my office.

00:04:30Marc:I'm going through papers because I have all this stuff that was unfiled.

00:04:35Marc:I'm going through bank statements, insurance stuff, pay stubs, receipts for things that happened a long time ago, my birth certificate.

00:04:42Marc:I got the deed to the old house.

00:04:43Marc:I got the deed to the new house.

00:04:45Marc:I got two marriage licenses, both of them void at this point, obviously.

00:04:49Marc:I got this huge folder of panic papers and like this aggressive documentation I did and all the actions I had to execute when my identity was stolen.

00:04:57Marc:I got random song lyrics.

00:04:59Marc:I got I got question sheets for for podcasts, notes for interviews, just all over the place.

00:05:06Marc:You know, so I'm sure that some of you can relate to this.

00:05:09Marc:And then there's the stacks of books and everything.

00:05:11Marc:It's just sort of like, do I need all this shit?

00:05:17Marc:And you don't want to throw important papers.

00:05:18Marc:Why am I holding on to the marriage licenses?

00:05:21Marc:That stuff has to be done.

00:05:23Marc:That's over, right?

00:05:24Marc:But they're on official pieces of paper that are issued by the state.

00:05:28Marc:It's almost like it seems important.

00:05:31Marc:It seems like it's a...

00:05:32Marc:for archival purposes am i ever going to need proof of that i don't know who do i call who do i call to find out whether i need all this shit whether i can start shredding and throwing stuff away why do we hold on to it don't things lose their meaning or their importance how long do you have to keep this stuff man

00:05:53Marc:So I'm making the rotation, the multitasking, you know, multi-floor, multi-room rotation, just moving around, folding laundry, going through a few piles of papers, looking at books on the dining room table.

00:06:07Marc:The paper thing just overwhelmed me.

00:06:09Marc:Yeah, I think it was the marriage licenses.

00:06:11Marc:I mean, then it's just like, oh, my God.

00:06:13Marc:Life just stacks up.

00:06:15Marc:And I don't know that it made me feel bad, but it does.

00:06:18Marc:I guess it makes you feel reflective.

00:06:20Marc:I don't even know if it made me feel that it just sort of like I have lived a life.

00:06:25Marc:So in the middle of this rotation, I'm trying to read the new Beastie Boys book, which is great.

00:06:30Marc:And then a box came delivered new litter box.

00:06:35Marc:So I had to set that up and go through the litter and clean the litter and change the litter.

00:06:39Marc:I don't know, but I'm doing the papers.

00:06:41Marc:I'm doing the books.

00:06:41Marc:I'm changing cat litter.

00:06:42Marc:I'm playing guitar.

00:06:43Marc:I'm reading never one thing at a time.

00:06:46Marc:And and well, I don't think I have to tell you the the piles are not done yet.

00:06:52Marc:They're smaller, but they're not done yet.

00:06:55Marc:So finally, I break down all the boxes.

00:06:58Marc:I get those in the recycle.

00:06:59Marc:That's part of the rotation.

00:07:00Marc:Now breaking down box and another box comes and then I don't open it yet because I'm in the middle of the other thing.

00:07:07Marc:And then I noticed that on the shelf with all my little bullshit tchotchkes, there's some old Mexican hand carved winged monkeys.

00:07:14Marc:that both of them lost their wings.

00:07:15Marc:I can't explain the whole story.

00:07:17Marc:So I'm like, all right, I've got the piles going on.

00:07:19Marc:I got the boxes going on.

00:07:20Marc:I got the reading going on.

00:07:22Marc:I've got folding laundry, everything.

00:07:25Marc:And I'm just like, hey, why not add gluing the wings onto the little monkeys?

00:07:31Marc:So I had two winged monkeys.

00:07:33Marc:I threw one away.

00:07:34Marc:It was irreparable.

00:07:35Marc:Both of these things.

00:07:36Marc:There's all these artifacts from trips I took with women who are no longer in my life.

00:07:41Marc:Wives.

00:07:43Marc:And these things, they don't seem to be triggers.

00:07:45Marc:They're barely reminders at this point.

00:07:46Marc:Just stuff I'm afraid to throw away.

00:07:49Marc:I feel like I go through this stuff every few years, but I'm happy that one of my monkeys now has wings.

00:07:56Marc:One of my little hand-carved, hand-painted, funny-winged monkeys can now fly again.

00:08:03Marc:Oh, that must be what's going on.

00:08:07Marc:That must be what Buster's chasing around in the middle of the night.

00:08:11Marc:My little carved Mexican monkeys with wings...

00:08:16Marc:Come to life like Pinocchio and fly around my house again.

00:08:20Marc:Ah, the poetry.

00:08:23Marc:So the big question, how does this stuff keep reproducing?

00:08:29Marc:Why more stuff?

00:08:31Marc:Okay, so another box comes, as I mentioned.

00:08:36Marc:And I open it and I'd ordered a new vegetable steamer, just that thing that goes in the bottom of a pot, because the one I had was silicone.

00:08:47Marc:And I don't know if you have this problem, but I've become very sensitive and very aggravated.

00:08:51Marc:I have a dishwasher.

00:08:52Marc:I don't always use it.

00:08:53Marc:But when I do use it, all the plastic takes it all starts to smell and taste like that dishwasher soap.

00:08:58Marc:Like this dirty dishwater soap water.

00:09:00Marc:Maybe my dishwasher is fucked up.

00:09:02Marc:I don't know.

00:09:02Marc:Do you have this soap problem where your fucking plastic and even the glass stuff makes the food taste like soap?

00:09:11Marc:Is it my machine broken or is that a common problem?

00:09:14Marc:Get back to me on this.

00:09:16Marc:But I had this silicone, is that what it's called?

00:09:18Marc:I had to look it up.

00:09:19Marc:The silicone steamer that I have had for over a decade.

00:09:24Marc:And it just was making all my kale and vegetables and raw and everything I steam tastes like soap.

00:09:29Marc:So I was furious after a certain point.

00:09:31Marc:It's been going on for about a year.

00:09:32Marc:It took me that long to order a new steamer.

00:09:35Marc:And I ordered one that was too small for my big pot.

00:09:38Marc:So I had a moment of anger.

00:09:39Marc:And then there's the next moment when you order things online.

00:09:42Marc:It's like, did it cost enough to return it?

00:09:44Marc:No, it did not.

00:09:46Marc:It's like six bucks.

00:09:47Marc:So I went on and I ordered the larger one.

00:09:49Marc:And now I'm going to have two.

00:09:51Marc:And that's how things reproduce in the shopping online culture.

00:09:55Marc:Depending on how much time you have, you might like to return things.

00:09:58Marc:But I wasn't going to return it for six bucks.

00:10:01Marc:Now, in my mind, I'm like, that's good.

00:10:03Marc:I'll have two.

00:10:04Marc:One for the little pot and one for the big pot.

00:10:06Marc:But it'll only be a matter of time before it ends up in the do I need all this shit limbo.

00:10:14Marc:Two vegetable steamers.

00:10:15Marc:How often am I going to use one in a small pot?

00:10:17Marc:Doesn't matter.

00:10:18Marc:Doesn't matter, people.

00:10:19Marc:But I got two steamers now.

00:10:21Marc:So...

00:10:23Marc:Jeff Daniels, this interview that you're about to hear was recorded in the Schubert Theater during the first week of preview performances for To Kill a Mockingbird.

00:10:33Marc:That's a play adaptation of the Harper Lee book written by Aaron Sorkin.

00:10:37Marc:Opening night is this Thursday, December 13th.

00:10:42Marc:You know, it was.

00:10:44Marc:It was great because it was one of those things.

00:10:46Marc:I was in New York.

00:10:46Marc:I brought my equipment.

00:10:47Marc:I met Brendan over at the Schubert Theater.

00:10:49Marc:We went up into the old offices that are beautifully redone in the Schubert.

00:10:53Marc:We sat in this gorgeous room because I guess one of the Schubert's used to live there back in the day.

00:10:59Marc:And I set up on the table and Jeff brought his guitar in case we might want to do that.

00:11:04Marc:It's a little tricky to do that, but we noodled on it a bit before the interview.

00:11:07Marc:And we just talked, you know, and it's interesting because Jeff is an intense guy.

00:11:12Marc:But you enter an interview and I know from someone who's doing them with a sort of kind of like, all right, what are we doing?

00:11:19Marc:And it sort of started in that tone, but then it started to open up and you can hear it open up.

00:11:23Marc:And we ended up having a really great conversation and nice time.

00:11:27Marc:And we really connected.

00:11:28Marc:And there was a lot of great little tidbits about acting, about his career, about other actors and just about, you know, his kind of journey as an act.

00:11:37Marc:Because everyone knows Jeff Daniels, he's a great actor.

00:11:41Marc:And the play was very good.

00:11:44Marc:What's horrible about the play is how relevant it is today.

00:11:48Marc:And I entered this thing, oddly enough, maybe it's because I was lazy in high school or I don't know, but I have not read To Kill a Mockingbird.

00:11:58Marc:and i did not see the movie so this play was actually my first experience with the story and it's a devastating story and it was very well executed by the actors and by aaron sorkin who i'll talk to uh at another time so this is me and jeff daniels upstairs at the old schuber theater in new york city

00:12:33Guest:I saw it last night.

00:12:36Guest:How did you feel about last night?

00:12:38Guest:I thought it was great, by the way.

00:12:40Guest:We did well, but we had like 12 changes in the second act.

00:12:45Guest:So you're flying around speed bumps.

00:12:49Guest:There's one.

00:12:50Guest:Here comes a change.

00:12:51Guest:Here comes a change.

00:12:52Guest:Don't forget what you're saying here.

00:12:53Guest:You're making change, and then you go, I just word-burgered that line.

00:12:59Guest:Okay, here we go.

00:13:00Marc:Let me make sure I got the piece out that was necessary to move the dialogue forward.

00:13:05Marc:Yes.

00:13:06Marc:What I meant to say.

00:13:07Guest:Yes, and something about Jim.

00:13:09Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:13:11Marc:Yeah, but you guys, he's got some of you, it seems like some of the actors have to push the stairs under the platform and then roll the thing out.

00:13:20Guest:Yeah, and it's just things that are new.

00:13:24Guest:And Aaron and Bart and Scott are making it better.

00:13:28Guest:Um, it's just, uh, it's a bit of a, you want to shush down the mountain, straight down.

00:13:34Guest:Yeah.

00:13:35Guest:Yeah.

00:13:35Guest:And we're not there yet.

00:13:36Guest:We have to.

00:13:36Guest:Right.

00:13:37Guest:And here's a new gate over here.

00:13:39Marc:Are you changing every day?

00:13:41Marc:Like, is there, are there tweaks?

00:13:42Marc:What kind of tweaks happen on a daily basis right now?

00:13:44Guest:There are tweaks every day.

00:13:46Guest:Yeah.

00:13:46Guest:Right now.

00:13:47Guest:Yeah.

00:13:48Guest:To what?

00:13:48Guest:Lines?

00:13:49Guest:Movements?

00:13:50Guest:Cuts.

00:13:50Guest:All of it.

00:13:51Guest:Cuts.

00:13:51Guest:Really?

00:13:52Guest:Um, directing an actor to go deeper.

00:13:57Um,

00:13:57Guest:And now he or she is now diving in deeper and that changes the rhythm.

00:14:02Guest:So you're riding them and their changes.

00:14:06Guest:And you get the stares instead of her getting the stares.

00:14:11Guest:You know, it's just tough.

00:14:13Guest:It's tightening the show.

00:14:14Guest:It's all the things you do with a new play to make it great.

00:14:20Guest:And on top of that, it's Aaron Sorkin.

00:14:22Guest:On top of that, it's the speed and the mental dexterity that it takes to handle Aaron Sorkin well.

00:14:32Guest:And it's a challenge, and it's a great challenge.

00:14:38Guest:But this is what, the third or fourth time you've worked with him?

00:14:43Guest:Newsroom, I count that as three seasons, three years of doing exclusively Aaron's dialogue.

00:14:50Guest:And then it was Steve Jobs.

00:14:52Guest:And I don't think I'm forgetting anything.

00:14:54Guest:So this would be the third project, yeah.

00:14:57Marc:And when you do like when you say like because I notice that Aaron like when I watch his stuff on in a movie like in Steve Jobs movie.

00:15:05Marc:Like I liken it to like you know Cary Grant and Catherine Hepburn that there's a patter to it.

00:15:11Marc:Like it's not it becomes about the rhythm of the patter not whether or not people talk like that.

00:15:17Marc:It's like whether you can deliver his style of writing.

00:15:20Guest:Yeah, I mean, it has to do with being a musician and finding the rhythm.

00:15:25Guest:Yeah.

00:15:26Guest:But it's also written.

00:15:29Guest:Yeah.

00:15:29Guest:It means it has to be rehearsed.

00:15:31Guest:Right.

00:15:31Guest:And I don't mind having the writer in the scene.

00:15:35Guest:I enjoy listening to Paddy Chayefsky in Network.

00:15:40Guest:Right.

00:15:40Guest:I like that he's in the scene with Holden and Dunaway.

00:15:43Guest:I don't mind that.

00:15:44Guest:No, it's great.

00:15:45Guest:I think...

00:15:46Guest:Too many actors have decided that, well, I think paraphrasing is best.

00:15:51Guest:And I think, let me just do it the way I would do it.

00:15:55Guest:And a lot of times you're in a movie where it's written by junior executives on the 18th floor and it's noted to death.

00:16:03Guest:And you go through the scene and you're in the line and you're talking to your daughter and you say, you know, your mother, Nancy.

00:16:11Guest:Yeah.

00:16:11Guest:And you're going, wait a minute, why am I telling my own daughter her mother's name because we were reminding the audience so late?

00:16:19Guest:Oh, shut up.

00:16:20Guest:Right.

00:16:21Guest:So with an Aaron Sorkin or a Chayefsky or David Mamet or Lanford Wilson, Preston Sturgis, let's go way back.

00:16:29Guest:Yeah.

00:16:29Guest:You want the writer in the room.

00:16:31Guest:Yeah.

00:16:31Guest:I'm reading a book.

00:16:32Guest:I want to know.

00:16:33Guest:I'm reading Paul Rudnick right now.

00:16:35Guest:I love that I'm listening to Paul Rudnick and that other people are talking.

00:16:38Guest:What is wrong with that?

00:16:40Guest:And it comes from the theater.

00:16:42Guest:It comes from... There's a tone.

00:16:43Guest:There's a rhythm.

00:16:44Guest:There's something that... There's a respect for the writer.

00:16:47Guest:They perfected it.

00:16:48Guest:This is what they...

00:16:49Guest:Trust me, they've worked on this before they gave it to you.

00:16:52Guest:And they might have tried all the things that you're going to do.

00:16:55Guest:And the actor thing of, well, let me do my – you're going to go down the road to your own little bag of tricks.

00:17:02Guest:The thing that you do in every single movie that you think makes you special, that let me do what I do that America loves.

00:17:10Guest:Well, you're just a brand.

00:17:12Guest:Why don't you get inside Aaron Sorkin?

00:17:14Guest:Get inside his Atticus Finch.

00:17:17Guest:Right.

00:17:17Guest:And find out what that is and go to someplace you've never been before.

00:17:21Guest:Otherwise, get the hell out.

00:17:22Guest:Yeah.

00:17:22Guest:Go do something else.

00:17:23Marc:So do you like I've talked to Mamet about like about his approach to acting, which I initially like just on paper and having read.

00:17:31Guest:I think I threw the book against the wall.

00:17:33Guest:Yeah.

00:17:33Marc:Right.

00:17:34Marc:How he feels about it.

00:17:35Marc:Yeah.

00:17:35Marc:But I did take something away from that is that it is on the page.

00:17:38Guest:i mean what you need is on the page and and you have to honor that first absolutely and then build it from inside that don't change a word right especially a mammoth a lanford or an aaron sorkin don't change a word of it you don't you're not allowed in the theater you are not allowed in movies somehow somehow somebody gave actors the permission to do that i was doing the movie um the hours with meryl streep that's heavy movie

00:18:04Guest:Yeah, but you're with Meryl.

00:18:07Guest:And I had worked with her on Heartburn, and I got the chance to do hours and went over and did.

00:18:13Guest:We're walking into her apartment, the character's apartment, and the director, Stephen Daldry, said, Meryl, just say a couple things about your apartment as you're coming in.

00:18:23Guest:And she said...

00:18:25Guest:I have to write it, too?

00:18:28Guest:I had never heard an actor say that.

00:18:31Guest:And she goes, you have David Hare, one of the great screenwriters, sitting over there.

00:18:37Guest:Go ask him.

00:18:38Guest:And Stephen rightly went over and said, David, and he's something, you know, I hope you like it, something, nothing, generic.

00:18:48Guest:And he came in two lines, and she goes, thank you.

00:18:50Guest:And I said, okay, that's it.

00:18:52Guest:That's the role model.

00:18:55Guest:I get if it's written by 12 people.

00:18:57Guest:I get that.

00:18:58Guest:But if you got the real writer there, I did that on Looming Tower.

00:19:03Guest:We had Adam Rapp was a playwright and had written one of the episodes.

00:19:08Guest:And he was sitting over there.

00:19:09Guest:And I go, Adam, come here.

00:19:12Guest:Yeah, tell him.

00:19:14Guest:What do you want me to say?

00:19:15Guest:Because what it does for the actor then, you stop trying to do someone else's job.

00:19:20Guest:You stop trying to write it too.

00:19:23Guest:In between action and cut, you're also rewriting.

00:19:26Guest:Can't do it.

00:19:27Guest:Right.

00:19:27Guest:Can't do it.

00:19:28Marc:I had an experience with that the other day.

00:19:31Marc:I'm not here to talk about me, but I do sometimes.

00:19:35Marc:But let's.

00:19:35Yeah.

00:19:35Marc:i did one scene like a walk and talk with de niro on the joker movie and i pretty good right and i've never been in that situation or on a set like that but with de niro like he like we did it run we did it we did you know we did the scene and then he went over and talked to the director who was uh todd phillips and then i'm standing there and i'm not saying anything and then todd phillips comes over to me and goes

00:19:58Marc:you think you're being a little too big I think you might be a little too big you know you do work for for Bob's character and I'm like oh that's what he just thought but I didn't take it personally but De Niro didn't say to me no he's not yet he did the right thing and uh and on a film too and with somebody like De Niro it's if if Bob thinks you're a little big you might want to want to bring it down I was happy to bring it down sure like

00:20:20Marc:I did everything I could to bring it down.

00:20:22Guest:So you were a complete zero.

00:20:24Guest:You were barely audible in the next take.

00:20:26Guest:I didn't even talk.

00:20:29Marc:I just walked behind him nervously.

00:20:31Marc:It's perfect.

00:20:33Marc:Seemed like the right thing to do.

00:20:34Marc:Sure.

00:20:35Marc:Built it up from there.

00:20:36Marc:But do you ever improvise?

00:20:38Guest:Yeah, when you're called upon to do so.

00:20:41Guest:I'm not good at it.

00:20:42Guest:I never took an improv class, so I'm okay at it if I'm in the character and asked to do something.

00:20:52Guest:I mean, when you're doing Dumb and Dumber with Jim Carrey, you better be ready to roll a little bit.

00:20:56Guest:But often on Dumb and Dumber, I just go, Jim, give me something to say.

00:21:00Guest:When you say that, just give me something to say.

00:21:01Guest:You can try to say this.

00:21:03Guest:Fine.

00:21:03Guest:Thank you.

00:21:04Guest:Again, I don't want to write it.

00:21:06Guest:It's your job to react to Jim Carrey.

00:21:08Guest:I worked really hard to make it work the way it is.

00:21:10Guest:Now I'm supposed to.

00:21:11Guest:Come on.

00:21:12Marc:So when you started, where did you start doing the acting?

00:21:16Marc:I mean, when did it dawn on you that you needed to do that?

00:21:19Guest:It's still dawning.

00:21:21Guest:Yeah.

00:21:22Guest:You've gotten very good at it.

00:21:23Guest:Well, I kept waiting for it to end.

00:21:28Guest:Yeah.

00:21:28Guest:The career.

00:21:29Guest:I did.

00:21:29Guest:I was in high school.

00:21:32Guest:You're still timed, Jeff.

00:21:34Guest:Trust me.

00:21:37Guest:They keep pulling me back.

00:21:38Guest:High school, it was a small town.

00:21:41Guest:They needed guys from South Pacific.

00:21:44Guest:What town?

00:21:45Guest:A little town called Chelsea, Michigan.

00:21:46Marc:That's where you live now.

00:21:48Guest:I still live there.

00:21:49Guest:Right near Ann Arbor.

00:21:52Guest:The director was doing South Pacific.

00:21:54Guest:She needed guys.

00:21:55Guest:So I'm walking off a basketball practice where we did nothing but run for three hours because we were five and 15.

00:22:01Guest:And we had just lost by 30 points.

00:22:03Guest:And I'm one of the starters.

00:22:04Guest:And you're just going, just get me out of basketball.

00:22:06Guest:And she's going, Jeff, get in here.

00:22:08Guest:Because I was in choir.

00:22:09Guest:I could carry a tune.

00:22:11Guest:She hauls me up there.

00:22:12Guest:I do a funny dance in the middle of I don't know what the song was.

00:22:16Guest:And then next thing you know, I'm in the show.

00:22:19Guest:I do the funny dance.

00:22:20Guest:And in front of 700 people.

00:22:22Guest:And I know exactly what to do.

00:22:23Guest:And I'm not nervous.

00:22:24Marc:Right.

00:22:25Guest:And you don't have to make a shot.

00:22:26Guest:Don't have to make a shot.

00:22:28Guest:And then she gives me Fagan and Oliver.

00:22:30Guest:Then she gives me, wait for it, Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof.

00:22:33Guest:Sure.

00:22:34Guest:Blonde.

00:22:35Guest:Midwestern, 18.

00:22:36Guest:Not a clue what Jewish was, but I went to see the movie six times, so I did a dead-on impression of Topol.

00:22:42Marc:Oh, good.

00:22:43Marc:I would have loved to have seen those costumes.

00:22:44Marc:I wonder how they would play today.

00:22:47Guest:I remember spraying the blonde hair with gray...

00:22:50Guest:hairspray paint and a glue on gray beard and you did I did it all and and and but I knew I knew what to do yeah I could get out in front of those people and I could work them I could pull them in I could push them away timing yeah at 18.

00:23:08Guest:So I was a natural.

00:23:09Guest:There was a lot I didn't know, but I was a natural at it.

00:23:12Guest:Kept going to college, got a break, went to New York City, joined Circle Repertory Company.

00:23:17Marc:But what about your folks?

00:23:18Marc:Were they into it?

00:23:19Guest:My dad ran a lumber company, and I'm the oldest son.

00:23:24Marc:How many kids?

00:23:25Guest:Three.

00:23:26Guest:My brother runs it now.

00:23:27Guest:But I was being groomed to family business.

00:23:33Guest:It would have been third generation.

00:23:35Guest:And I took trigonometry.

00:23:37Guest:I took geometry.

00:23:39Guest:I took algebra.

00:23:41Guest:I barely... For lumber?

00:23:43Guest:I mean, things have to fit in houses.

00:23:46Guest:Yeah.

00:23:46Guest:That takes geometry.

00:23:48Guest:You have to be able to tell the customer.

00:23:49Guest:But when you're pulling a D plus after studying three hours the night before with your father, and you're still pulling a D plus on the test, and you're throwing the book up in the air, and your dad's going, this is just not going to...

00:24:02Guest:No basketball, no lumber for this.

00:24:04Guest:Well, then I got the and they saw it.

00:24:07Guest:They saw this natural ability in this kid.

00:24:10Guest:Yeah.

00:24:10Guest:And the teacher had said who had the choir teacher, the musical director just kept saying, watch this kid.

00:24:17Guest:There's something going on.

00:24:18Guest:I don't know how good he is, but there's this is unusual.

00:24:22Marc:Which is also, on some level, horrible news for parents.

00:24:25Marc:Like, guess what?

00:24:25Marc:Your kid might have a future in show business.

00:24:28Guest:Well, but we're in the Midwest.

00:24:30Guest:We don't know what show business is.

00:24:32Marc:Isn't that weird?

00:24:32Marc:You don't, do you?

00:24:33Guest:No.

00:24:34Guest:And New York City is a place where people go to die.

00:24:36Guest:Yeah.

00:24:38Guest:By getting shot or whatever.

00:24:39Guest:Yeah.

00:24:40Guest:It's the 70s.

00:24:40Guest:They kind of did go.

00:24:42Guest:It's before Rudy saved the day.

00:24:44Guest:Right.

00:24:45Guest:Way before.

00:24:46Guest:And the city was depressed and broken.

00:24:48Guest:Oh, my God.

00:24:49Guest:And Son of Sam hadn't happened yet.

00:24:52Marc:It was just... Just drugs and weirdness everywhere.

00:24:55Guest:Yeah.

00:24:56Guest:And hang on, gay people.

00:24:57Guest:Yeah.

00:24:58Guest:They live there.

00:24:59Guest:Right.

00:25:00Guest:So that...

00:25:00Guest:But they looked at that.

00:25:02Guest:And I remember coming home.

00:25:03Guest:I did a thing at a college that the artistic director of Circle Repertory had come out to pick up a check to direct some college kids.

00:25:12Guest:The head of the department at Eastern Michigan University was his old college friend from Northwestern.

00:25:18Guest:And he's directing a bunch of college kids.

00:25:20Guest:Marshall W. Mason, would you come out and direct these college kids?

00:25:23Guest:Right.

00:25:23Guest:Got the lead in Summer in Smoke and Hot El Baltimore.

00:25:27Guest:And before Marshall went back to New York, he said, you know what you should do with your life, don't you?

00:25:35Guest:And I'm 21, and I go, well, you know, I think I like to be an actor.

00:25:39Guest:He said, you should come to New York.

00:25:41Guest:You should join the Circle Repertory Company as an apprentice.

00:25:44Guest:No guarantees, but you should chase acting.

00:25:48Guest:So I went home with my lumberyard father and my housewife farmer mother.

00:25:53Marc:Yeah, she comes from farmers?

00:25:55Guest:Farmers.

00:25:55Guest:And I said, this is what I'm being offered.

00:25:58Guest:And my dad looked at my mom, and he looked at me, and he said, you should go.

00:26:01Marc:Really?

00:26:03Guest:Pretty good.

00:26:03Marc:That's great.

00:26:04Guest:Pretty good.

00:26:05Marc:Did you grow up with... Was it a conservative household?

00:26:07Marc:Were you hammered with... Republican moderates.

00:26:10Guest:Yeah.

00:26:11Guest:Republican moderates.

00:26:12Marc:So decent people.

00:26:13Guest:But... A little nervous.

00:26:15Guest:They said you should go.

00:26:16Guest:There was no hesitation.

00:26:18Guest:There was... Did it surprise you?

00:26:19Guest:They saw it.

00:26:23Marc:Was it like... Did you get emotional?

00:26:24Marc:I mean, was it one of those things where it was like... No.

00:26:27Marc:No?

00:26:28Guest:No, because I think it was, why don't you go and it wasn't even go and try.

00:26:32Guest:And then when you fail, come home and you'll put you in.

00:26:34Guest:I knew I had the lumber company.

00:26:36Guest:Yeah.

00:26:36Guest:I might've been on the counter going, what would you like today?

00:26:39Guest:But I knew I had the lumber company.

00:26:40Guest:The simple son.

00:26:41Guest:We're the younger brothers running things.

00:26:44Guest:Yes, I would have.

00:26:45Guest:I would have been working for my younger brother.

00:26:47Guest:Definitely.

00:26:47Guest:But no, it was, no, I have to see this through.

00:26:51Guest:And then I went to New York and waited to fail.

00:26:56Guest:And this was 72?

00:26:57Guest:76.

00:26:59Guest:Okay.

00:27:00Marc:So where do you move?

00:27:00Marc:You first get here, you must have, had you been here before?

00:27:03Guest:No, I stayed with Marshall for a couple of weeks and then I got a one room apartment on 23rd and 7th Avenue.

00:27:10Guest:Okay.

00:27:12Guest:pretty what was going on over there then not much not much it was chelsea though kind of almost yeah it was it was 23rd and 7th yeah um the next year son of sam happened uh also the blackout remember the blackout right yeah yeah i was understudying on broadway and then walk blackout happened walked down to my apartment i was on the 10th floor no lights no elevator calls from home are you okay it's a

00:27:39Marc:No.

00:27:40Marc:Be careful, Son of Sand.

00:27:41Marc:No, no.

00:27:42Marc:I heard the lights didn't go on.

00:27:44Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:27:45Marc:Yeah, they didn't go on.

00:27:47Marc:So how did the circle rep work?

00:27:49Marc:So you come out here, you're the new guy.

00:27:51Marc:Who were the big guys?

00:27:54Guest:Your apprenticing?

00:27:54Guest:I mean, what were you watching?

00:27:55Guest:Apprenticing, it was a company of people that... They had done Hot L Baltimore.

00:28:03Guest:Judd Hirsch was in that.

00:28:04Guest:Soon after I came, Bill Hurt showed up.

00:28:08Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:28:08Guest:Chris Reeve showed up.

00:28:09Marc:Oh, that was that crew.

00:28:11Guest:Yeah.

00:28:11Guest:But there was a group of people, John Hogan, Danton Stone, Stephanie Gordon, Tanya Bereson, Trish Hawkins, Nancy Snyder, solid from who had been taught by Marshall Mason.

00:28:23Guest:This is kind of...

00:28:25Guest:listening, reactive acting.

00:28:27Guest:That you are part of a whole.

00:28:30Guest:Don't try to stand out.

00:28:31Guest:That was your training?

00:28:32Guest:Yeah.

00:28:33Guest:And it served me really well in film as a supporting actor, which is how I really started out.

00:28:40Marc:So you didn't do any of the Meisner, Stanislawski, Messi?

00:28:45Guest:He took...

00:28:45Guest:But Stanislavski, he took Meisner, who took it from Stanislavski, and created his own thing.

00:28:51Guest:It was like a third step, what Marshall did.

00:28:54Guest:So it was based on Stanislavski, based on Meisner, but Marshall wrote his own book on it, and that's the book I use today.

00:29:01Marc:And those guys like Reeves and Hurt, they came out of Juilliard, right?

00:29:06Guest:They came from elsewhere.

00:29:08Guest:And so there was a bit of a speed bump for those of us who were trained under Marshall.

00:29:14Guest:Yeah.

00:29:15Guest:But, you know, Bill, extremely talented.

00:29:19Guest:Chris, talented.

00:29:20Guest:You know, they fit in.

00:29:23Guest:But it wasn't the same as those of us who had been through it.

00:29:27Guest:Right.

00:29:27Marc:Because someone like Hurt, it seems awfully thinky.

00:29:31Guest:stinky thinky thinky yeah like i have never is that a word yeah i used it a lot where it is now thinky where he you know just he seems to process you know there's a process going on with bill there's some cerebral stuff yeah um but he's fun all you got to do is poke him yeah i mean with a sharp object but you got to poke him and then he's there yeah

00:29:53Marc:So what what so you apprentice for how long?

00:29:56Marc:What does it mean to apprentice?

00:29:57Guest:Apprentice means you you I went right.

00:30:00Guest:He he had a part for me.

00:30:02Guest:This was the spring when he said, why don't you come to New York in the fall?

00:30:05Guest:He had a part for me.

00:30:06Guest:It was a play called The Farm by David Story.

00:30:09Guest:Richard Gere had done it.

00:30:11Guest:The like six months earlier.

00:30:14Guest:Yeah.

00:30:15Guest:And Richard got the Terrence Malick.

00:30:19Guest:Now this movie.

00:30:21Guest:I forget which.

00:30:22Guest:Days of Heaven.

00:30:22Guest:Maybe that one.

00:30:23Guest:He got that.

00:30:24Guest:I think that with Brooke Adams.

00:30:26Guest:Right.

00:30:26Guest:So Richard couldn't do it.

00:30:27Guest:Gear couldn't do it.

00:30:29Guest:And he found me and said, Jeff can do this part.

00:30:32Guest:Why don't you come and be an apprentice?

00:30:33Guest:And the first thing I'm going to do is put you in a play at Circle Rep off Broadway.

00:30:37Guest:Didn't have a clue what I was doing.

00:30:39Guest:And really let Marshall down, I think.

00:30:43Guest:Really?

00:30:44Guest:Yeah.

00:30:44Guest:Didn't go well?

00:30:45Guest:I wasn't the guy in Summer and Smoke.

00:30:47Guest:I just got scared.

00:30:49Guest:Sure.

00:30:49Guest:And you felt that?

00:30:51Marc:It's a horrible feeling on stage, isn't it?

00:30:52Guest:Yeah.

00:30:52Guest:You just feel like you're around people that know a hell of a lot more than you do.

00:30:56Guest:And it shows.

00:30:57Guest:Yeah.

00:30:58Guest:but uh the critics were whatever the critics were but milton goldman who was running icm at the time big agency in new york city was there to see jack gwillum his 65 year old client yeah he was playing the father in the play right and he saw this kid and he hauled he's he said i want to meet the kid and he hauled me up and it's and it's everything it's milton goldman it's the

00:31:21Marc:You knew about him.

00:31:22Marc:You knew enough about the business.

00:31:23Guest:I didn't know anything.

00:31:25Guest:It's the posters on the wall.

00:31:27Guest:It's the little kid.

00:31:29Guest:And Milton's going in the formal suit behind his desk at 10 in the morning going, you're good enough to circle up in Marshall Mason.

00:31:36Guest:You're good enough for ICM.

00:31:37Guest:Tell me a little bit about yourself, kid.

00:31:40Guest:Well, I was just in Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof.

00:31:42Guest:And he started laughing.

00:31:45Guest:And he wouldn't stop laughing.

00:31:47Guest:And I said, no, I was good.

00:31:49Guest:He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:31:50Guest:Eric, Eric, come here a second.

00:31:52Guest:Tell him what you just told me.

00:31:53Guest:Tell Eric what you just told me.

00:31:55Guest:I was Tevye and Fiddler.

00:31:56Guest:Now he's laughing.

00:31:58Guest:And he goes, you're going to be fine, kid.

00:31:59Guest:You'll be fine.

00:32:00Guest:Go down to the commercial department.

00:32:01Guest:We're going to put you in some Listerine and some McDonald's and we're going to get you on that.

00:32:06Guest:So I did commercials for like five years.

00:32:09Marc:So you started making money as an actor, though.

00:32:10Guest:Yeah, I didn't have to wait tables because I would make just enough.

00:32:14Guest:I'd get one out of 30 commercials that I'd go up on.

00:32:18Guest:Any memorable commercials?

00:32:20Guest:I did about 12.

00:32:23Guest:Pepto-Bismol.

00:32:24Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:32:25Guest:Yeah.

00:32:25Guest:In the 70s.

00:32:27Guest:In the 70s.

00:32:27Guest:Pepto-Bismol.

00:32:28Guest:I was a student at the University of Mexico City.

00:32:33Guest:And my parents from Long Island, with the camera around the neck and the Hawaiian shirt, came down to visit me at the University of Mexico City.

00:32:42Guest:And they said, how you doing, son?

00:32:44Guest:I said, pretty good.

00:32:46Guest:This was a precursor to Dumb and Dumber.

00:32:49Guest:Pretty good.

00:32:49Guest:I just took a test.

00:32:51Guest:500 of us have diarrhea.

00:32:54Guest:And 250 of us took Pepto-Bismol, and I was one of them.

00:32:58Guest:And boy, does it work.

00:33:00Guest:Cut it.

00:33:01Yeah.

00:33:01Guest:That was it.

00:33:01Guest:That was the spot.

00:33:03Guest:That's a hell of a setup for a Pepto-Bismol commercial.

00:33:05Guest:They went right to it.

00:33:06Guest:Not only that, but you have to call your parents and going, you know, this week on Mannix, in the 8.30 hour, you'll see the Pepto-Bismol commercial.

00:33:16Guest:And they'd call all their Bridge Club friends.

00:33:20Guest:Right.

00:33:20Marc:There you go.

00:33:20Guest:There you are talking about diarrhea.

00:33:22Guest:There's my son.

00:33:23Marc:It was sort of interesting.

00:33:24Marc:It was like real fear-mongering about dysentery, about everything that you're afraid of about eating in Mexico.

00:33:29Marc:There it is.

00:33:30Marc:There's 250 of us with diarrhea from being in Mexico.

00:33:34Marc:But there's a cure.

00:33:35Marc:Yeah, hepto-bismol.

00:33:36Marc:So it was before that.

00:33:37Marc:Yeah, it was before that.

00:33:38Marc:I didn't have to do that.

00:33:40Marc:So then after those commercials, when do you start to... Did you stay at ICM?

00:33:44Marc:Like, are you still at ICM?

00:33:45Guest:I'm still there.

00:33:45Guest:I haven't moved.

00:33:47Guest:You know, Paul Martino was an agent at the time.

00:33:50Guest:He picked me up in 1980.

00:33:51Guest:He's my manager now.

00:33:53Guest:And Eddie Ablanz started as Paul Martino's receptionist at Paul Martino's office.

00:34:01Guest:This is Eddie Ablanz.

00:34:02Guest:Now he runs movies in L.A.

00:34:04Guest:That's how it happens.

00:34:05Guest:You got to be nice to all those people.

00:34:06Guest:So I've been with Eddie and Paul since the 1980s.

00:34:08Marc:My mistake was made when I had no respect for any of them.

00:34:12Marc:And you told them.

00:34:14Marc:Assistants, whatever.

00:34:15Marc:I was just an asshole.

00:34:16Marc:And then all of a sudden, they're running the business.

00:34:18Marc:And you're like, you don't remember when I was younger.

00:34:20Marc:Yeah, I do.

00:34:21Marc:You fuck.

00:34:24Marc:I'll never forget that.

00:34:25Marc:Good luck with your career.

00:34:27Marc:That's true.

00:34:28Marc:Yeah.

00:34:28Marc:They don't.

00:34:29Marc:They have long men.

00:34:30Marc:They're like elephants.

00:34:31Marc:So how did you start doing the movie?

00:34:35Marc:When did that break?

00:34:36Marc:How did that happen?

00:34:37Marc:Was it the Jonathan Demme movie?

00:34:38Guest:After about three years of Circle Rep.

00:34:40Guest:Did a lot of plays of Circle Rep?

00:34:42Guest:Quite a few.

00:34:43Guest:Fifth of July was the one that I really wrote that one.

00:34:46Guest:Lanford Wilson wrote it.

00:34:48Guest:We did it off Broadway.

00:34:49Guest:Then we did it in L.A.

00:34:50Marc:You started in it.

00:34:52Guest:I was one of about seven or eight people.

00:34:55Guest:And every part was a great part.

00:34:58Guest:So that was my ticket.

00:34:59Guest:That just kept me working and kept me in what money you could get in the theater.

00:35:05Guest:Do you love theater?

00:35:07Guest:Love theater.

00:35:11Marc:Because you did a lot of it.

00:35:12Marc:You've done more of it than I think most film actors already.

00:35:15Guest:I think so.

00:35:16Guest:But I really wanted to do movies.

00:35:22Guest:Theater was my ticket to movies.

00:35:24Guest:But that was always the idea.

00:35:26Guest:Yeah, I saw Dog Day Afternoon when I was in college in 76, before I moved to New York.

00:35:33Guest:I saw it six times.

00:35:35Guest:I kept going back to it.

00:35:37Guest:And I wanted to figure out what Pacino was doing.

00:35:40Guest:I wasn't getting taught that.

00:35:43Guest:Every scene was so alive and so... And I thought I could see the script.

00:35:51Guest:Yeah.

00:35:51Guest:And I thought I could see him improv...

00:35:54Guest:And then I could see the choices.

00:35:57Guest:Right.

00:35:58Guest:None of which I knew until like three years at Circle Rep where I understood what choices are.

00:36:02Guest:You know, De Niro said an actor is only as good as his choices.

00:36:06Guest:You get the script.

00:36:08Guest:What are you going to do with it?

00:36:09Guest:Right.

00:36:10Guest:And so I was just doing it.

00:36:12Guest:I didn't think about it.

00:36:13Guest:So I said, wherever I have to go to figure out what Pacino is doing and how he does that, I'm going to go there.

00:36:20Guest:And so that was New York.

00:36:21Marc:Interesting.

00:36:22Marc:So it was the third thing down, the choices.

00:36:25Marc:I wasn't even aware of choices.

00:36:28Guest:You do it.

00:36:29Guest:You don't even think about it.

00:36:31Marc:Yeah, and when you do it that way, it's sort of like it's a free fall in a way.

00:36:36Marc:Because choices at least give you something to land on.

00:36:38Guest:You learn all this stuff later in the acting club.

00:36:41Guest:But initially coming out, it was just like, I think people seemed to like what I did.

00:36:48Guest:The movies, Marshall came to me after about three or four years at Circle Rep and said, look, the next season is this, that, and the other thing, and you're not in any of them.

00:36:58Guest:So this would be a really good time to go chase.

00:37:00Guest:A movie?

00:37:01Guest:Chase ICM.

00:37:03Guest:And I said, you know what, I'll go now.

00:37:05Guest:And it was very great.

00:37:06Guest:He'd been so great to me.

00:37:07Guest:And I said, I'm going to go to ICM and just let them have me.

00:37:11Guest:I'm not going to, well, you got to work around this play.

00:37:13Guest:I'm doing it.

00:37:13Guest:So I grew up no more.

00:37:14Guest:I'm going to go for a year or two and just go straight ICM.

00:37:17Guest:And that's when we started chasing.

00:37:20Marc:movies and there were a lot of auditions yeah can i ask you a quick question about choices and about like when you do like i just saw you do atticus finch right now when you put choices in place what what is the what is the emotional choice i mean i i know when you start i'm going to say this like this i'm going to turn this way yeah i'm going to listen this way or i'm going to engage here but what is the driving

00:37:45Marc:force emotionally uh that you make like for something like atticus do you or do you just is it instinctual or do you say this guy wants justice this guy believes people are good what's do you put something in place like that for yourself i i i simplify as often as possible yeah it i want justice is too big right um

00:38:09Guest:I want Tom Robinson I'm going to represent Tom Robinson I want him to sign these papers

00:38:16Marc:Okay.

00:38:17Guest:That's it.

00:38:18Marc:Yeah.

00:38:18Guest:That's it.

00:38:19Marc:For that moment.

00:38:20Guest:That scene.

00:38:20Guest:For that scene.

00:38:21Guest:That's it.

00:38:22Guest:That's all you're there to do.

00:38:23Guest:Now, through rehearsal and through the choices and all that, you've got the accent, you've got the optimism of, no, they are completely wrong and I'm 100% right.

00:38:34Guest:You're innocent, Tom.

00:38:34Guest:You're innocent.

00:38:35Guest:You walk in the door of that scene going, I'm going to be your lawyer and here are the papers, sign the form in triplicate, and he signs the form and I go, all right, I'll see you tomorrow morning.

00:38:45Guest:That's all that's going to happen today.

00:38:46Guest:So it's scene for scene, really.

00:38:49Guest:Yeah.

00:38:50Guest:You sit with Scout on the bench and you explain to her what a mob means.

00:38:54Guest:Right.

00:38:54Guest:And how that's going to work for us.

00:38:56Guest:That's all you do.

00:38:57Guest:I'm just teaching my daughter.

00:38:58Guest:Right.

00:38:58Guest:You just happen to be watching.

00:39:00Guest:Right.

00:39:00Guest:How simple can you make it?

00:39:03Guest:I watch these actors, not in this show, but other actors.

00:39:07Marc:Not naming names, but yeah.

00:39:09Guest:And they just discuss it and talk it, and they get in their head.

00:39:12Guest:They think too much.

00:39:15Guest:The less I can think about things, the more you're in free fall.

00:39:22Guest:Because if all you're doing is going to Tom Robinson saying, just sign the papers, and, of course, there are obstacles to that.

00:39:28Guest:Every good scene is, you know, you aren't going to get what you want easily.

00:39:32Guest:Otherwise, there's no scene.

00:39:34Guest:So here come the obstacles, and you've got to...

00:39:37Guest:Fight your way through those.

00:39:38Guest:With the same thing, I just want you to sign the paper for your own benefit.

00:39:42Guest:Right, right.

00:39:43Guest:You know?

00:39:43Guest:And so you start going forward.

00:39:46Guest:You aren't sitting back going through all your notes, all your, you know, I've got to show them this and I've got to make sure I look like that.

00:39:54Guest:Right.

00:39:54Guest:That's all horseshit.

00:39:55Guest:Right.

00:39:56Guest:It gets in the way.

00:39:57Guest:Yeah.

00:39:57Guest:You want one thing.

00:39:58Guest:What is it?

00:39:59Guest:Go get that.

00:40:00Marc:Yeah.

00:40:01Marc:So you start chasing movies.

00:40:02Marc:A lot of auditions.

00:40:03Guest:Yeah.

00:40:05Marc:Are there any that you can think of that you're like, fuck, I should have got that?

00:40:11Guest:Oh, a couple.

00:40:12Guest:Yeah, I was close on American Beauty.

00:40:15Guest:For the spacey part?

00:40:16Guest:Yeah, Kevin was, they were trying to do his deal and it wasn't going well.

00:40:20Guest:And I met with Sam Mendes and I really, you know, I really wanted that one.

00:40:23Guest:It would have been a huge leap to put me in that.

00:40:26Guest:I was really nobody.

00:40:27Marc:It's that weird position to have to accept.

00:40:29Marc:It's like we're going to use you as leverage to get Kevin.

00:40:32Guest:I was a backup and I he didn't offer it.

00:40:35Guest:Right.

00:40:35Guest:And I imagine there were two or three other guys that were, you know, in the short list.

00:40:39Guest:If Kevin's deal didn't come through and then his deal came through and that was that.

00:40:43Guest:But that was like that's the only one.

00:40:45Guest:Really.

00:40:46Guest:I mean, it was you like that part.

00:40:48Guest:Oh, it would have been a great part, but she did great in it.

00:40:51Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:40:52Guest:I mean, you know, that's not to bitch about.

00:40:54Guest:What was the first movie, Something Wild?

00:40:56Guest:No, Ragtime.

00:40:58Guest:I got into Ragtime.

00:40:59Guest:That's right.

00:41:00Guest:I had two or three scenes.

00:41:01Guest:Yeah.

00:41:02Guest:There's James Cagney.

00:41:03Guest:Yeah.

00:41:04Guest:81 years old, sitting there, and you're in the scene with James Cagney.

00:41:07Guest:Pretty special.

00:41:08Guest:You did that.

00:41:09Guest:Pretty special.

00:41:10Guest:You're in the room.

00:41:11Marc:And he had that beard.

00:41:12Marc:He had like a curly mustache, right?

00:41:14Guest:He had a curly mustache.

00:41:15Marc:Was he the police chief or the fire chief?

00:41:16Marc:He was the commissioner.

00:41:17Guest:The police commissioner, yeah.

00:41:19Guest:I remember him coming in.

00:41:20Guest:He didn't want to do it.

00:41:21Guest:He didn't think he could do it.

00:41:22Guest:He was retired at his upstate farm in New York.

00:41:25Guest:He wasn't acting anymore.

00:41:27Guest:Milos Forman said, come on down to New York City.

00:41:30Guest:We'll do a screen test so that you can see that you can do it.

00:41:34Guest:And he reluctantly came down with his nurse, came in on a walker, sat there.

00:41:40Guest:And it was a four-page scene.

00:41:41Guest:They brought in Kenny McMillan, the police chief, and three or four cops to just act around him.

00:41:47Guest:But we're in a studio at the PBS station here just to test Cagney, his request.

00:41:55Yeah.

00:41:55Guest:And black and white monitors.

00:41:57Guest:This is 1980.

00:41:58Guest:You're playing a cop.

00:42:00Guest:I'm just, I'm one of the cops back.

00:42:01Guest:I got one line or something.

00:42:03Guest:Four page scene.

00:42:05Guest:He couldn't do it.

00:42:06Guest:Couldn't remember it.

00:42:07Guest:Couldn't stay.

00:42:08Guest:I just, it was, come on.

00:42:10Guest:Milo said, no, no, no, no, no.

00:42:11Guest:We cut down to three pages, down to two, down to one page.

00:42:14Guest:Cut it down to one page.

00:42:16Guest:Still couldn't do it.

00:42:18Guest:You say one line.

00:42:19Guest:You say one line, Jimmy.

00:42:20Guest:You say one line.

00:42:21Guest:And then, you know, we cut, we cut, we edit.

00:42:23Guest:We just say one line.

00:42:24Guest:And Jimmy, and you look up at the black and white monitor because they were shooting it.

00:42:29Guest:And you could see it.

00:42:32Guest:You could see the medium close up.

00:42:34Guest:And all of a sudden, the jaw sets and the finger comes up.

00:42:39Guest:And there's Yankee Doodle Dandy.

00:42:41Guest:There's everything.

00:42:43Guest:There's Cagney.

00:42:44Guest:And it's still in there.

00:42:46Guest:And Milo says, that is, we got it.

00:42:47Guest:You'll be good.

00:42:48Guest:We do one line at a time.

00:42:49Guest:You'll be beautiful.

00:42:50Guest:one line at a time yeah that's how you got to shoot those guys sometimes sometimes but you know it was it was clint is the only other guy jack's another one those three guys you know when they go how do you you know jack how do you want me to do it yeah and jim brooks is well i mean you think yeah all right boom boom and you look at the monitor and then all of a sudden there he becomes

00:43:11Guest:And Clint, I did a movie with Clint, Bloodwork, and he just casual, easygoing, plays golf.

00:43:21Guest:He's that guy.

00:43:22Guest:And then he sits in there and you got the camera.

00:43:25Guest:Yeah, you got it ready.

00:43:26All right, good.

00:43:28Guest:All right.

00:43:29Guest:Anytime you're ready.

00:43:30Guest:What?

00:43:31Guest:That was action.

00:43:32Guest:By the way, that was action.

00:43:34Guest:And you say the line, and you watch Clint set the jaw, do the speech, and then at the end of it goes, all right, that's enough of that.

00:43:45Guest:And it's done.

00:43:47Guest:But you see him become it and then come out of it.

00:43:50Marc:On camera.

00:43:51Guest:On camera.

00:43:52Marc:I just had that experience because I couldn't figure it out.

00:43:54Marc:Because I was working with De Niro and watching him trying to get the lines in his head or whatever.

00:43:58Marc:But then you watch the pictures of it or you watch it on the monitor and you're like... It's like you can't even explain it.

00:44:04Marc:I guess it's just years of experience or they live on the screen.

00:44:07Guest:Oh, there's so much technique that you learn...

00:44:11Guest:How to forget it.

00:44:12Guest:And Nicholson said, you got to know what the muscles in your face do.

00:44:18Guest:And, you know, Winger, Deborah, said to me on terms, she said, you lead with your eyes.

00:44:26Guest:Just little things.

00:44:26Guest:On stage, you've got the whole body you're looking at.

00:44:30Guest:So when you say something, sometimes there's a physical adjustment to pull focus to you to hit this line.

00:44:37Guest:But on film, you lead with the eyes.

00:44:39Guest:You follow where your eyes look.

00:44:41Guest:You make a note of that.

00:44:42Guest:And then you forget them.

00:44:43Guest:And then you do them.

00:44:44Guest:That's what these guys know instinctively now.

00:44:46Guest:They know which camera's on them.

00:44:48Guest:They know what this looks like when they do this.

00:44:51Guest:They know what this looks like when the Altman, Robert Altman said...

00:44:56Guest:Yeah.

00:44:57Guest:Give me a reveal, Jeff.

00:45:00Guest:What?

00:45:01Guest:Where you're looking down and then you come up and you say the line.

00:45:06Guest:Then I worked, it was beautiful.

00:45:08Guest:It was a great movie trick.

00:45:10Guest:And then I was doing a movie with someone who shall be named, will be nameless.

00:45:18Guest:And every single line was a reveal.

00:45:20Guest:Every single line.

00:45:23Guest:All of them.

00:45:24Guest:Always found a way to look away and then come back up.

00:45:27Guest:Always looked away and then came back up.

00:45:29Guest:And you just wonder, what are you looking at?

00:45:30Guest:What's down there?

00:45:33Marc:Which movie did you do with Altman?

00:45:35Guest:Um...

00:45:37Guest:What was that?

00:45:37Guest:Cane Mutiny Court Martial.

00:45:39Guest:It was a CBS TV thing with Brad Davis, Peter Gallagher, Eric Bogosian.

00:45:47Marc:Seems like you got to work with a lot of great guys.

00:45:49Guest:I did.

00:45:50Guest:I did.

00:45:51Guest:Altman was... That's where you learn how to improv.

00:45:55Guest:Altman is famous for...

00:45:58Guest:He mics everybody.

00:45:59Guest:Yeah.

00:46:00Guest:And then he says, yeah, you're just you're going through the door.

00:46:03Guest:Yeah.

00:46:03Guest:Just you and your lawyer are going through the door.

00:46:05Guest:All right.

00:46:06Guest:And then what he doesn't tell you is that he's sending three people through the door from the other direction.

00:46:12Guest:Action.

00:46:14Guest:And then you're doing the dialogue.

00:46:16Guest:Yeah.

00:46:16Guest:And then one of those guys, other guy says something to you.

00:46:20Guest:And now you what happened?

00:46:21Guest:Cut it.

00:46:22Guest:We got that.

00:46:23Guest:that's all yeah just like threw all the obstacles at you in real time yeah i just want to catch it on camera good i got clint's the same way you only do one take one take he wants it to happen for the first time and it does and then that's free fall yeah and because you can't go back even in your mind you're like if we go back uh it's uh if i blood work was what 10 weeks um we went back twice um

00:46:52Guest:You want another shot at that?

00:46:55Guest:Thank you.

00:46:55Guest:That would be great, seeing how I butchered the speech.

00:47:00Guest:It means Clint can't use it.

00:47:03Guest:Right.

00:47:03Marc:Did you start in TV?

00:47:05Marc:Did you do little TV stuff?

00:47:06Guest:I did some TV.

00:47:08Guest:The commercials really were a great – you're in front of a camera, and you learn about that.

00:47:14Guest:You do a Burger King commercial where you're the kid –

00:47:18Guest:In the back, cooking the burgers.

00:47:19Guest:And it's something about how great the burgers are.

00:47:21Guest:I don't know what the commercial is.

00:47:23Guest:And, of course, I did a whole four-page backstory of him.

00:47:26Guest:He's in high school.

00:47:27Guest:He's supporting his family of seven.

00:47:29Guest:The dad died.

00:47:30Guest:And the director's going, just cook the burgers.

00:47:33Guest:Do you still do backstory?

00:47:35Guest:Not to the extent that the acting classes think is so important.

00:47:43Guest:Circle taught me something called given circumstances.

00:47:49Guest:Where's Atticus coming from?

00:47:51Guest:The backstory on, for instance, To Kill a Mockingbird, for me, were all the books I read in the last six, seven months, too.

00:48:02Guest:I wanted to know what Atticus saw when he was standing on his porch.

00:48:06Guest:It goes beyond just Harper's book.

00:48:08Guest:Jim Crow South, I got to know what that's about.

00:48:11Guest:And I got to know what it feels like in 1934 Alabama.

00:48:15Guest:Sundown Towns, the Green Book stuff.

00:48:18Marc:So you got to educate yourself to be educated.

00:48:20Guest:You got to go to grad school on Atticus Finch.

00:48:23Guest:You read Joe Crispino's book about Atticus.

00:48:26Guest:All of that, you got to go to school.

00:48:27Guest:Otherwise, you're not going to...

00:48:31Guest:get up and over Gregory Peck you just aren't so I said let's get educated about what he was seeing so that when Bob Ewell comes up on the porch in the play I know that you know there's a lynching Thursday you coming right we had a good one about two weeks ago we hung three of them you coming yo you ought to come this special got some liquor for you

00:48:55Guest:And it's normal.

00:48:58Guest:That's the normal.

00:48:59Guest:That's the common.

00:49:01Guest:And you've got to understand that before you walk on stage as Atticus.

00:49:04Guest:And so it's get educated.

00:49:06Guest:Go to school.

00:49:07Guest:Know more about what's going on back then than the critics, than some other actor who might do it.

00:49:14Guest:That comes from the Midwest, too.

00:49:16Guest:There's a work ethic out there.

00:49:18Guest:We will work all day.

00:49:19Guest:I mean, we will look at the clock, but...

00:49:22Guest:but we will work until the job is done.

00:49:24Guest:And that's been instilled in me from my dad.

00:49:28Guest:So that's one of the things I told my kids.

00:49:30Guest:I said, you're only special because I'm famous.

00:49:34Guest:That might get you through a door or two, but then it's also there are one or two strikes against you because of that.

00:49:40Guest:Your only way to beat the guys who think, oh, you're just the special kid of the famous father is you outwork them.

00:49:47Guest:Are they all going into acting?

00:49:49Guest:No.

00:49:50Guest:One thought about it and then he just... I said, you got to want it more than anything.

00:49:54Guest:And he goes, I don't.

00:49:55Guest:I said, well, then why don't you be the star of your own life?

00:49:59Guest:Why don't you go find out what you want to do?

00:50:01Guest:The only privilege you have is that you have time to find what you want to do versus what you have to do to make a living.

00:50:09Guest:So you have that.

00:50:10Guest:I'll give you that.

00:50:10Guest:That's your privilege.

00:50:11Guest:But you got to work your ass off.

00:50:13Guest:You got to outwork other people.

00:50:16Guest:And you have to be a professional.

00:50:17Guest:You have to be responsible, accountability, all that stuff that I learned as an apprentice, a circle rep, and my dad taught me.

00:50:24Guest:My theater company, that's what we teach.

00:50:27Guest:Are these kids and actors going to go off to be famous and be in movies?

00:50:31Guest:No.

00:50:31Guest:Some might, but most won't.

00:50:33Guest:So what are you going to take away?

00:50:35Guest:Professionalism, discipline, behavior, accountability, responsibility, be a pro.

00:50:40Guest:And that means you outwork everybody else.

00:50:42Guest:Get to work.

00:50:42Marc:Do you find a lot of the people that come through your program know that they may not be famous?

00:50:50Guest:There are a few that have the dream because the dream came true is standing right next to them.

00:50:56Guest:Right.

00:50:56Guest:Because I'll walk into the theater company, I'll write a play, and there I am.

00:51:00Guest:And it can happen.

00:51:03Guest:But...

00:51:04Guest:But seven years in New York City before I got a movie.

00:51:09Marc:But it's interesting.

00:51:09Marc:Like I see it all the time where there's no way to tell somebody that it's over.

00:51:13Marc:Only they can tell themselves that.

00:51:15Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:51:17Marc:It's a fuck.

00:51:17Marc:This business is ridiculous.

00:51:19Marc:Oh, you're the last one to know.

00:51:20Marc:Of course, because you keep setting your precedent higher.

00:51:23Marc:It's like, well, that guy didn't make it till he was like 60.

00:51:25Guest:you know okay you know what i mean like it's so like it's sort of a there's a sadness to show business oh my god that is undeniable you can't you sit with college kids yeah which i do occasionally which i enjoy because you can't what you start is let me talk to you about rejection right and why you're going to need you know antidepressants at some point

00:51:49Guest:Or something.

00:51:50Guest:Something.

00:51:51Guest:So you're going to need some medication.

00:51:54Guest:Nothing can prepare you for that.

00:51:56Guest:It's just how bad do you want it?

00:51:58Guest:And by the way, how talented are you?

00:52:00Guest:You got to look in the mirror.

00:52:02Guest:Be honest.

00:52:03Marc:That's it.

00:52:03Marc:What are your limitations?

00:52:04Guest:Are you really that talented?

00:52:06Guest:Do you want to be Al Pacino?

00:52:08Guest:Are you that talented?

00:52:09Marc:Yeah.

00:52:10Guest:If you aren't, then shoot for something less.

00:52:14Guest:And many people do.

00:52:15Guest:Yeah.

00:52:16Guest:But I said, I can't tell you that.

00:52:17Guest:I can't tell you whether you're talented enough.

00:52:19Guest:Right.

00:52:20Marc:But they're all sitting there going, I got it.

00:52:22Marc:I got it.

00:52:22Guest:Okay.

00:52:23Guest:Good luck.

00:52:23Guest:Good luck to you.

00:52:25Guest:All right.

00:52:25Guest:Get back to me.

00:52:26Guest:And when you're... I remember... God, I remember I was in a bar after a play and...

00:52:31Guest:And Richard Dreyfuss was there.

00:52:33Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:52:34Guest:And he was at the peak of his career.

00:52:37Guest:He was working with Spielberg.

00:52:38Guest:He was doing the whole thing.

00:52:39Guest:Jacked up.

00:52:41Guest:I don't know about that, but it was a cool table to be at, and I don't know how I got there.

00:52:48Guest:And I was 22, and Richard saw me, and he goes, are you an actor?

00:52:55Guest:I said, yeah, yeah, I'm just starting out.

00:52:56Guest:He goes, doesn't mean shit till you're 30.

00:52:58Guest:And he walked away.

00:53:01Guest:But there was something to that.

00:53:03Guest:Put in your time.

00:53:05Guest:Learn the craft.

00:53:06Guest:Learn the techniques.

00:53:07Guest:Don't just walk in the room riding the brilliance of your personality and charm.

00:53:13Guest:I ain't going to make it.

00:53:14Marc:And then you did the Demi movie?

00:53:17Guest:Demi was later.

00:53:18Guest:Something Wild was later.

00:53:19Guest:There was Terms of Endearment.

00:53:21Guest:There was Marie.

00:53:22Marc:Terms of Endearment was before Something Wild?

00:53:24Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:53:24Guest:That was 83.

00:53:25Guest:Terms was 86.

00:53:27Guest:Terms was 83.

00:53:28Guest:Something Wild was 86.

00:53:30Marc:Terms was like... I watched that again recently because I talked to Brooks not too long ago.

00:53:35Guest:I love Jim.

00:53:36Marc:Oh, he's a great guy.

00:53:38Marc:And that movie's great.

00:53:40Marc:I mean, that cast, it must have been just insane.

00:53:45Marc:Yeah, it was insane.

00:53:46Marc:I mean, Shirley MacLaine's sitting there and Jack's on set.

00:53:49Marc:And you're all kind of on set at the same time, right?

00:53:52Guest:Yeah, there was definitely a relationship dysfunctional thing working between Debra and Shirley.

00:53:59Guest:And then Jack showed up after two weeks of shooting.

00:54:01Guest:I mean, Shirley and Debra, what it was, I thought, was Debra going, we have a mother-daughter relationship that is love-hate.

00:54:09Guest:Yeah.

00:54:09Guest:And we're going to make sure we get the hate in there.

00:54:11Guest:Yeah.

00:54:12Guest:Because Shirley was a little bit.

00:54:14Guest:Let's just make it.

00:54:15Guest:You know, she was she had a way that she was going to do it.

00:54:18Guest:And Deborah wasn't going to allow her to do that.

00:54:21Guest:And I watched that happen, which was an education.

00:54:24Guest:And then Jack shows up after two weeks of pretty much strife and stress on the set.

00:54:30Guest:And Brooks was trying to get in there and trying to make it work.

00:54:33Guest:And just, you know, I mean, the girls were it was it was rough.

00:54:36Guest:Yeah.

00:54:37Guest:And Jack shows up and says, why are you having such a problem?

00:54:43Guest:He was great.

00:54:45Guest:And as soon as Jack showed up, everybody got along.

00:54:49Guest:Everybody was fine.

00:54:50Guest:Jack said, do you want me to wave like this or should I wave like that?

00:54:55Guest:Jim says, try the second one.

00:54:57Guest:I'll try the second one.

00:54:59Guest:And he'd back up the car and he'd wave like the second one.

00:55:02Guest:You got it?

00:55:03Guest:Yeah, well, I think we got it.

00:55:04Marc:And I liked the way he kept looking up at the stars.

00:55:07Marc:Yeah.

00:55:07Marc:Like he had this weird thing.

00:55:09Guest:Yeah.

00:55:09Guest:He'd been there before.

00:55:10Guest:Oh, my God.

00:55:11Guest:It was just great.

00:55:12Guest:Shirley had butterflies, adhesives, just under her hair.

00:55:19Guest:And it pulled the forehead back.

00:55:21Guest:So it made her younger, which is an old Hollywood trick.

00:55:25Guest:Yeah.

00:55:26Guest:Brooks wanted him out.

00:55:28Guest:And he couldn't get Shirley to take him out.

00:55:30Guest:so jack's doing the i'm sitting on the fence across the driveway from and i'm he's meeting shirley for the first time and and jack says yeah i'll get him out for you rolling action so so you're an astronaut yeah i'm an astronaut i'm kind of a what do you got in your hair there i can't help but see what you got cut it jack those are adhesives i'm i'm just reacting to what i'm seeing i just

00:55:57Guest:Every take, he would finally, bing, bing, bing, bing, she pulls him out.

00:56:00Guest:He looks over at Jim, winks.

00:56:03Marc:Oh, that was pretty good.

00:56:04Marc:And it was great that it kind of forced her into a different place with it.

00:56:09Guest:And God bless Shirley.

00:56:10Guest:She really, you know, at the time, and God, to be fair to her, Deborah had just done Officer and a Gentleman.

00:56:18Guest:She was it.

00:56:19Guest:She was it.

00:56:21Guest:And Shirley used to be it.

00:56:23Guest:Right.

00:56:23Guest:So there was that.

00:56:25Guest:And it became about in the Nebraska, the hospital scenes later in the movie, he wanted the roots to show.

00:56:33Guest:He didn't want the perfect hair and all of that.

00:56:35Guest:Jim did, and Shirley fought him on that.

00:56:37Guest:And Shirley said, Jim said, I want to dress you.

00:56:40Guest:I want you to fall apart physically.

00:56:42Guest:And for an actress to do that later, that's a lot.

00:56:45Guest:That's asking a lot.

00:56:46Guest:But she did it.

00:56:46Guest:She did it.

00:56:47Marc:Yeah.

00:56:48Marc:I get choked up just now thinking about it.

00:56:50Marc:I don't know.

00:56:50Marc:She won the Oscar.

00:56:51Marc:Yeah, she did.

00:56:52Marc:Yeah.

00:56:53Guest:so like okay so obviously we can't go movie to movie but Something Wild had a profound impact on me just because I think that was improv there was a lot of improv on that and it wasn't what I think of as improv but it really was that was Jonathan Demme before he was really Jonathan Demme and it had a feel

00:57:11Marc:of a movie that like something you've never seen before there were colors in it there was a pace the music music you know like and it just had a style that was like I had never really seen before he was very highly stylized right out of the gate yeah and to work with him what was he like to work with did you learn from there was no such thing as a bad idea right try it nice yeah he could have had

00:57:32Guest:$100,000 to make the movie or $100 million.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah.

00:57:36Guest:Wouldn't have mattered.

00:57:37Guest:Jonathan would have approached it the same way.

00:57:39Guest:We get to make a movie today.

00:57:41Guest:Come on, let's go.

00:57:42Guest:Let's try that.

00:57:43Guest:You look out the window, and there's a dog sitting on the back of a motorcycle, and the dog has a helmet on.

00:57:49Guest:And you're going, this is a Jonathan Demme movie.

00:57:53Guest:It's the same feeling I had.

00:57:55Guest:the year before working on Woody with Purple Rose.

00:57:59Guest:You look around you and you go, this is the frame of a... And you're seeing things in it that only would be in a Woody Allen movie.

00:58:07Guest:And you realize you're with a filmmaker.

00:58:09Guest:Same thing with Jonathan.

00:58:10Guest:Same thing with Altman.

00:58:11Guest:Same thing with Clint.

00:58:13Marc:And you've also worked with guys who are just doing the job as opposed to a filmmaker.

00:58:17Guest:Or are told to just do the job because, you know, it was a different...

00:58:23Guest:Time, and maybe television is getting back to that, where Aaron Sorkin gets to run Newsroom with Alan Poole and a couple other people.

00:58:34Guest:And they aren't told what to do.

00:58:36Guest:It's like that.

00:58:37Guest:It's Coppola.

00:58:38Guest:Even though Coppola had to fight to get Pacino into The Godfather, he still had his battles, but the director was king or queen.

00:58:49Guest:Right.

00:58:51Guest:That went away.

00:58:52Guest:Suddenly there were 17 producers on the front of the movie, and they all got to get their notes in.

00:59:01Guest:And that's not great.

00:59:05Guest:Too many cooks.

00:59:06Guest:That's why Squid and the Whale with Noah Baumbach, the budget was, what, a million won or something?

00:59:12Guest:That's like 20 bucks.

00:59:13Guest:There was nobody else.

00:59:14Guest:So when we have to make a change at 2 in the morning, it's Noah Baumbach and Laura Linney and me.

00:59:20Guest:There is no phone call to L.A.

00:59:22Guest:to go, is this okay if we do this?

00:59:23Marc:Well, that's why those guys shoot like that.

00:59:25Marc:That's why they make the choice to keep the movie small.

00:59:27Guest:But it's single voice.

00:59:29Guest:Singular voice.

00:59:30Guest:Same thing with Sorkin.

00:59:32Guest:And I love that.

00:59:33Guest:I miss that.

00:59:34Marc:But I guess the difference is that somebody like Bomback is going to keep making these smaller movies because he can wrangle his own sort of funding and he can have control of the movie.

00:59:44Guest:Creative control.

00:59:44Guest:It's all about creative control.

00:59:46Marc:Aaron has made people fortunes.

00:59:48Marc:So like, you know, he can operate at a different level and they're going to give him everything he needs.

00:59:52Guest:Creative control.

00:59:53Guest:Right.

00:59:53Guest:Creative control.

00:59:54Marc:Just the upper, the different, like the big money.

00:59:56Guest:You know, Spielberg fought for final cut.

00:59:58Guest:Creative control.

00:59:59Guest:Yeah.

00:59:59Guest:You know, that's what it's about.

01:00:01Guest:It's not about, and that is hard to get.

01:00:04Guest:You have to be somebody to get that at a high level or you do a budget of a million bucks so that they don't bother you.

01:00:10Marc:Right.

01:00:11Marc:And with the theater, with your theater, the Purple Rose, is it called the Purple Rose Theater?

01:00:17Marc:Mm-hmm.

01:00:17Marc:Now, how much are you writing?

01:00:19Marc:How many plays are you kind of producing?

01:00:21Guest:I've written 17.

01:00:23Guest:And the one I have up now in the fall here is Diva Royale.

01:00:29Guest:I wrote Flint, which we produced in January.

01:00:35Guest:I just love writing plays, and it's creative control.

01:00:38Guest:I work with one person, the artistic director, and he and I collaborate.

01:00:43Guest:We work well together, but in my theater, the playwright is king.

01:00:48Marc:And you're developing playwrights and actors?

01:00:51Guest:Yeah, we have six playwrights, men and women, who are always writing the next play.

01:00:59Guest:And you've got to produce these people

01:01:02Guest:their first play is you get it in as best shape you can, and you've got to produce it.

01:01:09Guest:And their next play will be their fifth, simply because you produced it.

01:01:14Guest:I can't stand the theater companies that do staged readings or workshops of the play, development hell.

01:01:21Guest:Yeah.

01:01:21Guest:And they won't produce it.

01:01:22Guest:They'll bring in what was popular in New York last year because it's published, because doing a new play is really hard.

01:01:30Guest:You've got to originate.

01:01:31Guest:You've got to make those original choices.

01:01:34Guest:You've got to cut this scene.

01:01:35Guest:You don't cut scenes in Arthur Miller.

01:01:38Guest:You shouldn't.

01:01:39Guest:Tennessee Williams.

01:01:40Guest:You can just do it the way it's written.

01:01:42Guest:And it's hard to do.

01:01:44Guest:But if you can figure out how to do it and how to tell story on a stage, structure what you need, what you don't, take that joke out because you're spending a whole page just to get to that joke, kill the babies, as we say in writing.

01:01:59Guest:You learn how to do that.

01:02:02Guest:And then you get a voice.

01:02:03Guest:And then you get...

01:02:04Guest:Lauren Knox or Carrie Crim or Jeff Daniels or Dave McGregor.

01:02:08Guest:And people start to come to see the writer.

01:02:13Guest:They come to see the writer.

01:02:15Guest:He or she has written another play.

01:02:17Guest:And by the way, why don't you write about the people in the seats?

01:02:21Guest:Not always, but I prefer to write about people sitting in those seats.

01:02:26Guest:Hold a mirror up to them.

01:02:27Guest:I don't care what you think as the playwright.

01:02:30Guest:That doesn't interest me.

01:02:31Guest:I care what you think about what they think.

01:02:34Guest:And if you write about them, they will come.

01:02:37Guest:And by the way, if you make it funny once in a while, they'll bring their friends.

01:02:41Guest:Yeah.

01:02:42Marc:And now is it self-supporting the theater now?

01:02:45Guest:Nope.

01:02:46Guest:We're nonprofit.

01:02:47Guest:Our budget's a little over $2 million a year.

01:02:51Guest:The box office, we demand a lot of the box office.

01:02:55Guest:We've got to bring in 60% box office.

01:02:59Marc:And are people coming from all over the world to be part of it?

01:03:04Guest:No, I mean, regionally.

01:03:06Guest:Certainly the audience is a 90-mile radius.

01:03:09Guest:We draw actors from Chicago who come out to audition for us.

01:03:12Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:03:14Guest:But we develop the people there.

01:03:16Guest:We take them, we put them through the same acting program I had, a circle rep, they get.

01:03:21Guest:The same apprentice program is the same one at Purple Rose.

01:03:26Guest:And we teach you how to do what we call being purple.

01:03:29Guest:And it's just listening and reacting and keeping it on the stage.

01:03:33Guest:That's what it's about.

01:03:35Guest:Have you worked with... Who have I talked to?

01:03:38Guest:Tracy Letts.

01:03:39Guest:You know Tracy Letts?

01:03:41Guest:I don't know.

01:03:41Guest:I may have met him.

01:03:42Guest:I've never worked with him, though.

01:03:43Guest:He's another guy.

01:03:44Guest:I mean, he's a pure artist.

01:03:46Guest:He's a great American artist.

01:03:48Guest:And everything the guy writes is just gold.

01:03:51Guest:It's crazy, right?

01:03:52Guest:Yeah.

01:03:52Guest:Keep writing, Tracy.

01:03:53Guest:Don't ever stop writing.

01:03:55Marc:Yeah.

01:03:55Marc:Now, you've got the Emmy for Godless.

01:04:00Marc:Yeah.

01:04:01Marc:I saw you over there.

01:04:02Marc:I was at the Emmys sitting there.

01:04:04Marc:It's kind of a...

01:04:05Marc:Tedious evening, isn't it?

01:04:10Marc:I mean, I walked by you and I was like, I'm not going to say hi to that guy.

01:04:14Marc:He doesn't look too happy today.

01:04:16Guest:No, it's just my overall look.

01:04:18Guest:I'm just not as euphoric as everyone else is about this incredible opportunity to wear a tuxedo and probably lose.

01:04:28Guest:It's probably an impossible show to do.

01:04:31Guest:I guess so.

01:04:31Guest:And maybe what we should all do with all these shows,

01:04:35Guest:since this isn't really a competition, really, is take it off television.

01:04:44Guest:Put it back at the Roosevelt Hotel banquet room and hand out the awards.

01:04:50Guest:Let people have fun.

01:04:51Guest:people have fun yeah yeah why do you have to televise it you know and i know why we have to televise it but does it mean does it is it important to you does it feel good to win absolutely yeah yes you don't go there not to you know and but look it to be invited to the party yeah i felt this the first time i got nominated for the tonys with god of carnage that was the first time i felt you know what

01:05:15Guest:Win or lose.

01:05:16Guest:And we're not here to win because there's Jeffrey Rush and there's some... And you're looking around and you're going, I'm part of a lot of great work.

01:05:24Guest:Just enjoy that.

01:05:25Guest:And I did.

01:05:26Guest:I really got it for the first time, which is different than watching it as an actor on television.

01:05:32Marc:So just a couple of years ago, you finally... And you're never invited.

01:05:35Marc:And you're like, oh, I never liked him.

01:05:38Guest:Oh, he shouldn't have won.

01:05:39Marc:He sucks.

01:05:39Marc:My friend Kravitz used to call the television the resentment box.

01:05:44LAUGHTER

01:05:44Guest:Yeah, I was, oh boy.

01:05:47Guest:Yeah, Oscars, about 15 minutes into the Oscars and I'm in the other room.

01:05:52Guest:I can't do it.

01:05:52Guest:I just can't do it.

01:05:53Guest:There's just too much bitterness and hate and rage.

01:05:56Guest:But then you win.

01:05:59Guest:And you win for newsroom, which you're not supposed to win.

01:06:03Guest:You're not supposed to win.

01:06:04Guest:There was an audible gasp in the audience when my name was called.

01:06:08Guest:The New York Times wrote about it.

01:06:10Guest:The gasp?

01:06:11Guest:The gasp.

01:06:11Guest:The audible gasp when Mr. Daniels' name was called.

01:06:14Guest:Because it was Spacey and it was Ham, it was Damian Lewis, it was Brian.

01:06:18Guest:It was loaded, loaded.

01:06:21Guest:And we got it.

01:06:23Guest:I had the Northwestern speech.

01:06:25Guest:They didn't have that.

01:06:26Guest:That's what did it, I think.

01:06:29Guest:But then with Godless, yeah, you wanted that.

01:06:34Guest:Because I took a risk.

01:06:36Guest:I took a big risk with that.

01:06:37Guest:Playing heavy?

01:06:38Guest:The beard and the thing and the Western.

01:06:40Guest:And it easily could have been, oh, my God, what is he doing?

01:06:44Guest:You took a risk.

01:06:45Guest:And I wanted it.

01:06:48Guest:I worked hard on that.

01:06:50Guest:And...

01:06:51Guest:And then I was glad to win.

01:06:54Guest:But it wasn't the euphoric, you know, I like to thank everyone.

01:07:03Guest:Oh, my God.

01:07:03Guest:It wasn't that at all.

01:07:04Marc:Did you talk about the guy who had your horse?

01:07:06Guest:I thanked the people that my driver.

01:07:08Guest:Yeah.

01:07:09Guest:I thanked Mark Warwick, my wrangler, who saved my life one day.

01:07:15Guest:When the horse threw me off and he saved my life.

01:07:19Guest:And then I thank my horse just to let them know that let's all just calm down just a little bit.

01:07:26Guest:It's a great honor.

01:07:27Guest:Thank you very much.

01:07:28Guest:But I'm going to thank my horse.

01:07:31Guest:And let's all think about that.

01:07:33Guest:Let's all think about who.

01:07:34Guest:Has anyone ever thanked their horse?

01:07:37Guest:Maybe John Wayne.

01:07:39Guest:Google it.

01:07:39Guest:Go look it up.

01:07:40Guest:Get back to me.

01:07:41Guest:Gene Autry.

01:07:42Guest:I'm going to say no.

01:07:44Guest:So let's do that.

01:07:45Marc:Not since Trigger.

01:07:46Guest:Not since Troy Rogers and Trigger.

01:07:50Marc:But these eras, you know, like when you talked about Atticus and about researching Atticus and then about like, but less so in terms of going to the Old West, which is something we grew up with, which is like a genre that, you know, comes and goes.

01:08:05Marc:But did you feel the weight of it?

01:08:06Marc:Did you feel like, I mean, I have to assume that with Atticus, when you did all that research, that

01:08:12Marc:To really engage with that, the heartbreak of it has to be there with you on stage, that this is the way humans behave.

01:08:21Guest:Yeah.

01:08:22Guest:You got to delete the movie because that's not helpful.

01:08:26Guest:Yeah.

01:08:27Guest:I can't use it.

01:08:27Guest:I can't do what he did.

01:08:29Guest:I'm not going to.

01:08:30Guest:Right.

01:08:30Guest:Goodbye.

01:08:30Guest:The book is the source, but it's the play.

01:08:34Guest:It's Aaron Sorkin...

01:08:36Guest:Atticus makes a change.

01:08:37Guest:He goes through a change in this, less so in the movie and probably less so in the book because it's truly from Scout's POV.

01:08:45Guest:The play is more about the change that happens to Atticus.

01:08:49Guest:So you have to, again, simplify.

01:08:52Guest:I want to win this case for Tom Robinson, my first two criminal clients, for the last two people hanged in Maycomb.

01:08:57Guest:So this is going to be the one I'm going to win.

01:08:59Guest:It's going to be good for me as a lawyer.

01:09:00Guest:I'm going to do something good for Judge Taylor.

01:09:02Guest:And I'm going to get this guy off who's absolutely innocent.

01:09:05Guest:That's what I'm going to do.

01:09:07Guest:And it's a slam dunk case.

01:09:09Guest:Walk face first into that.

01:09:12Guest:And then the story is going to take that away from you.

01:09:15Guest:Now what do you do?

01:09:17Guest:And it can't be just righteousness and being a Mount Rushmore statue about it.

01:09:23Guest:You've got to go through it.

01:09:24Guest:He's a human being, a living, breathing human being, and he just lost, and this guy is going to the electric chair.

01:09:32Guest:I'll get him on the appeal, and then they shoot him.

01:09:37Guest:And you got to go through that.

01:09:38Guest:You got to go through that.

01:09:40Guest:And it may not be what they did before, but it's what we're doing now.

01:09:45Guest:And you get Atticus to kind of go through that emotionally.

01:09:48Guest:And then his son is guilty probably of killing Bob Ewell.

01:09:53Guest:i have three kids what would happen if your son yeah and the sheriff is going let's go outside talk on the porch and you can feel that oh well you bring it with you you use it yeah you use it i'll tell you the other thing too is um

01:10:12Guest:My dad was an Atticus Finch.

01:10:18Guest:He was the guy that everybody in town went to to get advice.

01:10:24Guest:There was right and there was wrong.

01:10:26Guest:There was how you treat people.

01:10:28Guest:He was that glorious Republican moderate who hired the poorest guy in town to clean the lumber company.

01:10:38Guest:I remember coming home, 8, 9, 10, walked into our living room.

01:10:42Guest:There's my dad sitting with a black man, a guy named Herbie Pearson, one of the two black families that had just moved to town.

01:10:52Guest:Dad heard about him.

01:10:53Guest:Dad had Herbie come to his house.

01:10:56Guest:I walked in there laughing at the kitchen table.

01:10:58Guest:Well, the black guy.

01:11:00Guest:I'm like, Jeff, I'd like you to meet Herbie Pearson.

01:11:04Guest:Herbie's going to be working for me.

01:11:06Guest:And he was also the guy who said, when you go to school, because we were in small town standards well off, small town well off.

01:11:14Guest:When he owned a business, it was doing okay.

01:11:17Guest:We had money comparatively.

01:11:19Guest:He goes, you find the poorest kid in your class.

01:11:22Guest:And if you find that people are making fun of him, you stand next to him.

01:11:27Guest:you be friends with the people on the other side of town.

01:11:32Guest:And that's Atticus.

01:11:33Guest:Right.

01:11:33Guest:And I was.

01:11:35Guest:And it led me into the theater because the misfits of the... And so I wish he were alive to see this.

01:11:42Guest:Yeah.

01:11:42Guest:Because my brother and sister are coming to opening night.

01:11:46Guest:And I look like him, facially.

01:11:49Guest:They're going to see him.

01:11:50Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:11:50Guest:They're going to hear him.

01:11:51Guest:That's going to be great.

01:11:52Guest:Yeah.

01:11:53Guest:So it's personal.

01:11:54Guest:Yeah.

01:11:55Guest:Wow.

01:11:55Guest:To get this opportunity, which is... I'm so fortunate, but...

01:12:00Guest:You know, my wife had said the other day, people have asked, is there a role of a lifetime that you wish you could play?

01:12:10Guest:King Lear, Hamlet, you know, and I never had one.

01:12:14Guest:And she said, you've got it now, don't you?

01:12:17Guest:And I said, yeah, this is it.

01:12:21Guest:So every night is a joy.

01:12:24Guest:It really is.

01:12:25Guest:I wish he could see it.

01:12:26Guest:I wish he could.

01:12:27Guest:You know, if you believe in that stuff, I guess he is.

01:12:30Marc:Well, that's beautiful, man.

01:12:32Marc:That's so good.

01:12:34Marc:So in closing, any notes on how to transcend resentment?

01:12:42Guest:I think you need to embrace your resentment.

01:12:45Guest:Yeah.

01:12:48Guest:You know what?

01:12:49Guest:I'm working on that.

01:12:51Guest:I can go to instant rage.

01:12:55Guest:And it's always about...

01:13:00Guest:lying cheating stealing not being truthful you know yeah it's raining and they're pissing on my forehead and they're telling me all the stuff that's going on today yeah uh i don't think there's anything wrong with uh playing hardball right with what's going on now if that's the game

01:13:22Guest:that I think those who are with the resistance in a peaceful, nonviolent manner start throwing right hooks if that can be nonviolent.

01:13:34Guest:But do not shy away from that.

01:13:36Guest:So channel that resentment.

01:13:38Guest:Yeah, we can make it about something.

01:13:40Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:13:41Guest:But I have, I will always, and I will always...

01:13:45Guest:Rise up for people who don't do the work, who feel entitled, who aren't prepared.

01:13:55Guest:You don't have to outwork me because you're not going to.

01:13:58Guest:But if you're not even doing the minimum, then you're going to hear about it.

01:14:02Guest:Yeah.

01:14:03Guest:And I don't know if that's resentment, but that outcomes the rage when that happens.

01:14:08Guest:Right.

01:14:08Marc:Well, it's good that, yeah, you know, it's reasonable.

01:14:11Marc:It's the unreasonable rage.

01:14:12Guest:It's for a reason.

01:14:13Marc:The unreasonable rage.

01:14:15Marc:No, that's... It's like being a six-year-old.

01:14:18Marc:Up the medications.

01:14:20Marc:Well, it was great talking to you.

01:14:21Marc:I don't think we need to play guitar.

01:14:22Marc:You need to save your voice.

01:14:23Marc:That's fine.

01:14:24Marc:But you love playing it.

01:14:26Marc:I do.

01:14:27Marc:You play well.

01:14:28Marc:Oh, thank you.

01:14:29Marc:I've been playing.

01:14:29Marc:I've been practicing.

01:14:30Marc:I keep practicing.

01:14:31Guest:I'm not sure what I'm practicing for.

01:14:33Marc:It's all I do.

01:14:34Marc:It's great.

01:14:35Guest:I get those Stefan Grossman videos.

01:14:38Guest:Oh, you do?

01:14:38Guest:So you sit with it?

01:14:39Guest:Oh, my God.

01:14:40Guest:Stephen Grossman, I got to meet him and I got a lesson from him.

01:14:44Guest:I know it's a very long story, but Pat Donahue is a guy.

01:14:48Guest:I've got his DVDs.

01:14:49Guest:That's what I'm going to do once we get past opening night is sit in the dressing room with my download of Pat Donahue.

01:14:57Guest:and stephan grossman you know he's look him up i mean it's acoustic blues i mean yeah whatever you're doing he does it better sure and you kelly joe phelps yeah i mean these are guys that teach and keb mo that you just start going i'm gonna just learn how to do what they're doing and then you're instantly better yeah i need some new tricks like i you know i keep what's it i never thought about it as a profession so it's a very meditative and i love doing

01:15:21Guest:It's where I go to chill out.

01:15:23Guest:I mean, I used to play golf and talk about rage.

01:15:26Guest:You know, the seven iron that you stuck to the pin three feet today.

01:15:31Guest:You go out tomorrow and it's in the water.

01:15:32Guest:And I'm going, why is it in the weight?

01:15:35Guest:No, but you learn a riff on the acoustic guitar.

01:15:38Guest:Oh, it's the best.

01:15:39Guest:And it's there tomorrow.

01:15:40Marc:Yeah, it's the best.

01:15:41Marc:And you don't have to townsend your guitar at home.

01:15:43Marc:No.

01:15:44Marc:There's no reason to start breaking your guitar.

01:15:46Guest:No.

01:15:47Marc:Well, it was great talking to you, man.

01:15:49Marc:Thanks for doing it.

01:15:50Marc:I appreciate it.

01:15:51Marc:I thought that was great.

01:15:57Marc:I really was happy that Jeff took the time and that we got to have that conversation, got to know each other a little bit.

01:16:03Marc:Just a really great, memorable conversation.

01:16:06Marc:And now let's ease into some thoughtful two-chord guitar playing.

01:16:12Marc:Here we go.

01:16:14Marc:Here we go.

01:16:28Guest:Boomer lives!