Episode 993 - Tony Shalhoub
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast.
Marc:Today on the show, I'll be talking to Tony Shalhoub in a bit.
Marc:It was a nice chat.
Marc:He's a great guy, and I was excited to talk to him.
Marc:He's very good in Mrs. Maisel, but he's also been great in everything he's ever done.
Marc:I think my first experience with Tony was...
Marc:probably in Barton Fink, which he was great in Barton Fink.
Marc:But I would be... You know, I got to tell you what's going on because this is audio.
Marc:Some of you know me very well from listening to me, and I don't want to sound heavy-hearted or fucked up to you in a way where you're like, what's up?
Marc:But I am heavy-hearted today, and I know it's Monday, and I don't want to...
Marc:Bum anybody out, but things happen.
Marc:Obviously, the world is out of our control, sure.
Marc:There's horror stories every day all around us.
Marc:But my little kitten, Buster Kitten, is sick, and he's very sick.
Marc:And he's in the hospital.
Marc:Now, I don't know.
Marc:When this stuff happens, I always think about other people with bigger problems with, you know, real illness and family members and themselves, a tragedy, whatever.
Marc:But this this is my life in this kitten.
Marc:You know, I've gotten to love this kitten.
Marc:And he's you know, he's in the hospital.
Marc:He's he's.
Marc:he's sick you know and uh the i don't know what the fuck is wrong with him but uh i i do know exactly what's wrong with him i don't know really how it happened you know the a few days ago he was throwing up and he threw up a few times during the day and he wasn't eating but these are cats i've been dealing with cats for years and it happens sometimes and
Marc:I didn't know whether I should take him in.
Marc:I didn't take him in.
Marc:And then that night I got home, his energy was okay, but he still was not eating.
Marc:And I loaded him up.
Marc:I called the emergency vet in Eagle Rock and I was like, you know, should I bring him in?
Marc:And of course they're like, yeah, bring him in.
Marc:And then I looked at him and I said, I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to just do it in the morning.
Marc:And, you know, cause he'd had some sort of stomach thing before.
Marc:And while the next morning I, I,
Marc:I got up early and he was, I don't know, you know.
Marc:So I brought him into my vet and there's a new vet there, thank God.
Marc:And, you know, he was really good, this guy, Dr. Ram.
Marc:And, you know, I told him about the stomach thing.
Marc:He looked at the past files and then he did blood tests.
Marc:And, you know, he comes out, he says, look, this cat, you know, is in kidney failure right now.
Marc:And I'm like, what the fuck?
Marc:This is a two-and-a-half-year-old cat.
Marc:This is a little black cat.
Marc:And I'm like, what do we do?
Marc:And he said, well, it's Friday.
Marc:He's going to need 24-hour care.
Marc:We've got to put him on fluids and antibiotics.
Marc:We don't know what it is.
Marc:And then I started thinking, did he eat some of this poison shit?
Marc:You know, then I started thinking, like, wait a minute, you know, he was kind of licking his dick the other day, you know, last week on Sunday, last Sunday.
Marc:And I think there was there might have been bloody pee in the box.
Marc:But, you know, sometimes Fonda does that.
Marc:I know if it was blood.
Marc:I didn't know if it was, you know, shit.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I got three cats over here.
Marc:And I'm not trying to let myself off the hook.
Marc:I think the best apparently that can happen is that it's a, that it's an actual infection and it's not toxic and that, you know, that hopefully, I don't know.
Marc:I'm waiting to hear today.
Marc:So I took him to another vet that has 24-hour care, and we got him on it, and he's been over there.
Marc:And I don't have children.
Marc:I don't have a lot of debt.
Marc:I don't live a big life.
Marc:And I've been critical in my life about people who spend what seems like a lot of money on cats.
Marc:But, you know, look, I'm 55.
Marc:I'm going to spend a little money to see if I can save this guy.
Marc:So I'm waiting to hear, you know.
Marc:I just, it's weird what you go through when you're a cat owner or a pet owner, like especially one with no kids and not a ton of successful relationships behind you.
Marc:You know?
Marc:You know, why, you know, we get very emotionally invested, you know, in these animals.
Marc:And I try to think about that because people are like, they're like your kids.
Marc:Well, they're not really like kids.
Marc:They're very different than kids, obviously.
Marc:You know, he's sick.
Marc:buster is he's in intensive care and i'm not sitting here thinking i had a whole future planned out for that cat i you know if i wanted to get him into a good kindergarten so he could go to a good uh elementary school or whatever and i yeah i wanted him to win track meets and stuff i didn't you know i had none of those expectations but that doesn't make it any less upsetting it does in a sense because there are plenty of cats out there and
Marc:You build a relationship with these things.
Marc:But what I was thinking about this morning is that some of us who own animals, that's what we can handle emotionally.
Marc:That's not sad.
Marc:It's not weird.
Marc:Sometimes maybe it's just a reflection of what we know about ourselves.
Marc:You know, some of us are not built for the child rearing in the long haul.
Marc:You know, maybe we could adapt to it.
Marc:But, you know, there's something about, you know, having a pet where, you know, the emotional connection is manageable.
Marc:You know, it's something we can handle.
Marc:You know, it's relatively consistent and it can last a long time.
Marc:And it's deep and it's honest.
Marc:And it doesn't change a whole lot.
Marc:And, you know, if you're lucky, you get to grow old with your stupid animals.
Marc:I mean, I got Monkey and La Fonda in there.
Marc:And those are the longest relationships I've had.
Marc:It's been 15 years.
Marc:And, you know, they've changed.
Marc:But it's just consistency.
Marc:And you can take care of them.
Marc:And the thing about cats more than dogs is that it's not always perfect.
Marc:Because you realize, like, they don't really need you that much in some ways.
Marc:They're not loyal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you have an understanding, an emotional understanding.
Marc:And I was building one with Buster.
Marc:And, you know, he was a very unique cat.
Marc:Is.
Marc:I'm sorry.
Marc:Is.
Marc:I hope.
Marc:I'm waiting to hear.
Marc:And... But, you know, he fetches.
Marc:He's unique looking.
Marc:He's kind of peculiar and smart.
Marc:And, you know, he's an energetic guy.
Marc:He is.
Marc:We went over and visited him yesterday.
Marc:You know, and then I'm like, am I that guy?
Marc:So, yeah, I am that guy.
Marc:I'm...
Marc:I'm going to go visit my fucking cat at the hospital to see how he's doing.
Marc:So, I don't know.
Marc:Hoping for the best.
Marc:I'm hoping for the best I'll know today.
Marc:You know?
Marc:And this is just, you know, this is my life.
Marc:And it's like, it's different, but it's weird.
Marc:That moment that I had that sense that like, you know, this is why we have cats because, you know, it's what we can handle, you know, in that way.
Marc:But I wasn't going to read this email because I don't know really what it says about me or what it is really, but it has some bearing on what's happening right now.
Marc:How do I transition to an ad?
Marc:Shit.
Marc:Maybe I should read the email after and pull it together a little here.
Marc:And I'll tell you, a lot of you people don't even know
Marc:It's okay, but I, you know, someone came up to me last night and he's like, who's Boomer?
Marc:If you listen all the way to the end of this show and you hear me say Boomer Lives, you know, people are like, some people come up to you and go, how's Boomer doing?
Marc:And it's like, Boomer's not around.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:And I realized that we've been doing this so long, you know, over almost a thousand episodes that some people don't know, you know, what Boomer Lives means.
Marc:And many of you who have been with me the whole time have been through a lot of stuff with these cats and other cats.
Marc:When I lived at the old house, you know, it was a little more rural and there was a lot of cats coming and going.
Marc:And, you know, I had deaf black cat who for years, that deaf, weird, feral cat that I had, I used to feed.
Marc:And he was, you know, he was he he he ended violently, you know, with another animal.
Marc:He got he was killed by a coyote.
Marc:But it was a decade of relationship with this cat that I couldn't even touch.
Marc:And then there was a big head, you know, is still around out there.
Marc:He started coming around and then there was scaredy cat who, you know, got hit by a car eventually another feral and then scaredy two was around.
Marc:And then there was one that came around the house back at the old house from, you know, like a decade ago and then showed up like eight years later just to die under my house.
Marc:And then there was another one that used to hang out on my porch, a wild cat that was clearly ill that I had to put down.
Marc:And all through this, I had Monkey and LaFonda.
Marc:And then earlier, you know, when I was with my second wife, Mishnah, she had Moxie, who was a great cat, fat little cat that used to fetch things.
Marc:And, you know, in my sadness and anger during the divorce, I made her take Moxie away, which was probably a mistake.
Marc:I probably could have used Moxie.
Marc:But Boomer...
Marc:Boomer, for a little backstory, and this is a transition, Boomer was a cat.
Marc:When I moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2002, I went to a shelter with Mishnah, and I looked around at all these old cats.
Marc:Some look like people just left in places.
Marc:But there was this one skittish, fucked up, crazy ginger cat.
Marc:And I'm like, that's my guy.
Marc:The nut couldn't even get him in a cage.
Marc:I now realize he was a feral cat that someone brought in because of my other cats were feral.
Marc:And but Boomer, you know, eventually somewhat got socialized.
Marc:And he was with me for like, I don't know, almost a decade.
Marc:We moved him to the other house.
Marc:He used to pee on everything.
Marc:And then he was outside.
Marc:So for years, you know, Boomer sort of held up the porch and was out there with the wild things and
Marc:He was a very unique cat.
Marc:He had a very sweet voice.
Marc:And I kind of regret having put him outside, but he just peed on everything.
Marc:He peed where we ate, where we, my shoes, everywhere.
Marc:So he lived outside and he lived out there for years.
Marc:And at some point he disappeared.
Marc:And I don't know what happened to him.
Marc:Sometimes I think that's harder.
Marc:Sometimes it's better.
Marc:I just assume that maybe he went on to a better life.
Marc:And that's where Boomer Liv comes from.
Marc:I guess he disappeared probably like eight years ago.
Marc:But that's where that comes from.
Marc:That's a short history of me and the cats.
Marc:It is what it is.
Marc:And, you know, this is life.
Marc:So I didn't know if I was going to read this letter, but I will because it's strange for me sometimes being a public personality because I'm not a huge celebrity or anything, but I am a public personality.
Marc:And people who know me, they now know my work from a lot of different areas with acting or whatnot.
Marc:And I don't really know what they're...
Marc:recognizing me from or whatever but uh you know I as I've always tried to be gracious and but it it is sort of interesting the world we live in that we're all pretty accessible and you know things get through to us you know I didn't mean for this to have this impact but but I it when I read this when it came in it it was it was the first thing that
Marc:sort of connected me with how I was feeling because you get, when you have a sick, you know, anything and you're trying to take care of it and you're in that panic of trying to save something or help something or, you know, make it okay.
Marc:You know, you're not thinking about really yourself.
Marc:You're not thinking about how you're being seen or others or anything.
Marc:So I got this email and it really connected me with what I was feeling because I stuff things down.
Marc:You know, I stuff, I don't,
Marc:I really try to.
Marc:If I'm going to cry, I'm going to do it alone.
Marc:And that sometimes is here on this microphone.
Marc:I'm alone right now, believe it or not.
Marc:I am.
Marc:So the email.
Marc:Lessons learned at the vet.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:I've been listening since 2010.
Marc:Not in a dramatic 180 kind of way, of course.
Marc:Radio fandom runs in my family.
Marc:My dad had Gene Shepard.
Marc:And I get a lot out of your show.
Marc:It's a beacon in the dark.
Marc:Last night, I was with my daughter at the vet with a little dog we'd adopted from a shelter the day before.
Marc:That very sweet dog surprised us all and turned out to be very sick.
Marc:While we were waiting in the lobby to talk with the vet, I knew the dog wasn't going to make it.
Marc:Anyway, that's when you walked in.
Marc:You were with your lady, I guess, who seemed real cool.
Marc:I could tell you were both totally focused on care for your cat, and I could tell it was a tough night for you too.
Marc:I'm in show business.
Marc:You're one of my heroes, but I'm not an approacher.
Marc:So I felt a little sheepish just sitting there witnessing the scene.
Marc:But what I saw was a big deal.
Marc:I struggle with the business.
Marc:I struggle with illusions and mistakes.
Marc:honesty and yeah even booze and you've narrated those struggles for me giving them context and turn them into gold I put you on a pedestal for that if you don't have it all figured out at least you've reached a level of self-awareness that defines your ultra successful art I also love to see you on the screen because I identify with you just a matter of shared traits there are lots of us you are a massive personality that night at the vet I saw something different
Marc:I saw a man who cared about his pet.
Marc:Someone expressing unconditional love.
Marc:I saw someone coping with the bullshit of medical forms and responsibilities, waiting in waiting rooms, just hoping your little buddy wasn't suffering.
Marc:I think it's a beautiful thing you were doing, just totally human.
Marc:And it helped me deal with the loss we suffered last night when we knew that our little crickets short life was over.
Marc:I want to say thank you for all that you do, for caring about your cat and everyone else you've spoken to in that intimate space between our ears where your show is piped right in.
Marc:You've made us all feel better, and that's all the more profound, knowing you are a real goddamn human being.
Marc:Thanks, man, a thousand times for being you, Ivan.
Marc:Well, I do my best, buddy, and I'm sorry for your loss, for your new little friend, and, you know...
Marc:I got to tell you, man, this email really kind of... I guess sometimes it takes... It's weird.
Marc:You have an outsider view and I'm just caught up in it.
Marc:But I think I'm feeling more feelings for what you're going through, actually.
Marc:But it's good.
Marc:It's good.
Marc:Fuck.
Marc:I don't know...
Marc:okay tony shalhoub great guy and uh the the second season of marvelous miss mazel is now streaming on amazon prime and you know it was a it was it was just a pleasure talking to him this is me and tony
Marc:So wait, so you're going to do a season three?
Marc:Starting in March.
Marc:In March.
Marc:But I've been down since mid-September.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I watched the whole first season.
Marc:I've watched like six of the new ones.
Marc:So you've seen the Catskills?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was fun.
Marc:No, I'm surprised I like it.
Marc:Because it's a very specific, Miss Maisel is a very specific type of show, but it's so specific and it's so attentive to detail and there's such a rhythm to the writing and it's like, and I'm a comic, so I get very moved by the whole thing.
Marc:It works for me.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:I really like it and I like it.
Marc:Your character really has a lot to do this season.
Marc:Yeah, they really boosted my part.
Marc:It's weird because how are you finding people responding to the show in general?
Marc:Well, the show's blowing up.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:It is.
Guest:We did a whole press junket prior to the premiere in early December in New York.
Guest:Right after that and before the premiere hit, we went to Milan and we did another press junket for all of the European press and outlets.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And when we were there, then it really started to become obvious that it was catching fire around the world.
Guest:Globally.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we actually had people interviewing us.
Guest:The Italian press, of course, was there.
Guest:People from Germany, Spain, France.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were doing phoners with people in India.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:And I was thinking, how is this working in India?
Guest:they seem to really embrace the show.
Guest:They drop these episodes, you know, all at the same time everywhere.
Guest:Our premiere date was December 5th, I think.
Guest:And, you know, in the old days when I did network and even cable, you know, you did a season and that aired.
Guest:And then two years later or something, that season would air in Europe.
Guest:And it would go to Far East.
Guest:It'd get bought and syndicated.
Guest:Whatever.
Guest:And Russia and...
Guest:But, you know, they were always, I would get letters and things, they were always two or three years behind us.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And now it's... It's great.
Guest:Everything just goes everywhere at the same moment.
Marc:Well, I just like the, like, I don't, like, the reason I say I'm surprised I like the show, because I don't watch a lot of things, and it's such a... I don't either.
Marc:It's such a specific sort of world, and the device of it to sort of put a feminist voice...
Marc:you know, in that period, you know, which I think is the device of it as a comic, because I know that comics of that ilk were not women then, right?
Marc:And they are now.
Marc:And then to sort of set this... And it's just... The writing is so tight.
Guest:How, I mean... Well, I think that's the thing about it, too, is that it takes place in the late 50s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I think there's a...
Guest:A need for us to escape, you know, for viewers to escape the present day madness.
Guest:But at the same time, it's not just a nostalgia piece.
Guest:It has a modern sensibility.
Guest:It sort of bridges the two periods, I think, in a smart way.
Marc:Yeah, and also, like, and that's the thing.
Marc:It's like you're not watching.
Marc:It's nostalgia in one way, but the sort of attention to detail of the period, you know, really goes a long way.
Marc:I mean, it just seems like, you know, every frame, including the dialogue and the look and the pace and the costumes and everything else, they're like jewel boxes.
Marc:I mean, they're meticulous in terms of their attention to detail.
Marc:And it's heightened somewhat.
Guest:It's very heightened.
Guest:We're not trying to paint an absolutely...
Guest:authentic reproduction of that period.
Guest:It's more almost people have referred to it kind of more like a musical in a way.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:It's kind of bright and colorful and energy and there is a lot of music just inherent in it and it's written in a kind of rhythm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It has that heightened feeling.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You're not sitting there going like it wasn't really like this.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Comedy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's not like, I mean, you've done three-camera stuff.
Marc:It's not a joke-to-joke thing, really.
Marc:No.
Marc:So it's one of these hybrids where you realize that this is not supposed to be realism.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you realize it's heightened.
Marc:But because of the shininess of it and the pace of it and also the emotional range of the thing, you love it.
Marc:The stakes are very high.
Marc:It is like a musical.
Marc:It's not a sitcom.
Marc:No.
Marc:It is like a musical a little bit.
Guest:It is, yeah.
Guest:I think that's... There's choreographed... They're not actual dance numbers, but they feel like... Oh, were people coming and going?
Guest:Moving through rooms and turning and spinning.
Guest:And those are long, long master shots, long takes without a lot of cuts.
Guest:And those are rehearsed like...
Guest:Like almost like a play.
Guest:I mean, they really have to be precise with the steadicam and all of the background.
Marc:And that's so like, that's not just that's a that's a very deliberate, but deliberate.
Marc:But as an actor, I mean, that's that's one of the it's like a play.
Marc:It's like doing a musical that you're the requirement isn't just like hit your mark, do your line.
Marc:No, you've got a dance number to do in a way.
Marc:Like that scene, just even in that bit where you guys are rearranging the furniture in the Catskills cabin, the things coming out, things going in.
Marc:And that's just a lead into the episode.
Guest:Yeah, the camera lays back and stays in that wide master.
Guest:Right, but there's all that stuff.
Guest:It goes on for four minutes.
Guest:It's fantastic.
Guest:Does it remind you of doing, you've done musicals.
Guest:Well, I did one musical this past year, The Band's Visit, which is not a conventional musical.
Marc:Oh, you didn't, like when you were starting out, you didn't do any?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, maybe when I was in school and in theater, I did one or two, but I was not a musical guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Guest:But this does have a feel like we're doing a play every week.
Marc:I bet.
Marc:I bet it does.
Marc:And I'm curious about this because I'm on a show.
Marc:Yeah, it's a great show.
Marc:Simultaneous to yours.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:But I'm just curious in terms of her writing, like Amy Sherman Palladino, is it Amy Sherman?
Marc:Amy Sherman, yeah.
Marc:Her dad was a comic, right?
Marc:He was.
Guest:It's not Don Sherman.
Guest:Don Sherman.
Guest:You can actually see him on YouTube.
Guest:He's really funny.
Guest:He was a guy who, what I've seen of him, he was on like cruise ship.
Guest:Oh, that kind of guy.
Guest:But he was a Borscht Belt guy.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:He was coming up with, you know, Jack Carter and all those guys.
Guest:Freddie Roman and Jan Murray.
Guest:They were all, Jan Murray, all those guys when I was a kid, we used to see on Ned Sullivan.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And he was rising, rising, rising.
Guest:And he just didn't quite, you know, Don Trump didn't quite break through like those other guys did.
Guest:But he was, you can watch him and he's,
Marc:really funny there's a lot of those guys man there's a lot in that world yeah oh really so she really knows it well that's what she's kind of writing about her mother was uh and still is actually she's still kicking um a kind of cabaret singer you know dancer oh really she's amazing she's in her 80s she's still doing it also so like my question is how many how much writing is still going on when you shoot like how many times do you read through
Guest:We do a table read for each episode.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's like 100 people in the room.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:All the designers are Amazon people.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:It's a big room in Brooklyn, New York.
Guest:But that's it.
Guest:We read it.
Guest:We read it once.
Guest:There's some changes.
Guest:Some changes are made.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Not a lot.
Yeah.
Guest:It doesn't change drastically.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And then we start, you know, there's whatever location scouts they have to do, and then we just hit the ground running.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We do them in 10 days.
Guest:10 days each episode.
Guest:Yeah, but they're full hour.
Guest:You know, there's no commercials or anything, so it's a full 60 minutes of craziness.
Guest:And everything's on location?
Guest:Well, we have a standing set on the soundstage at Steiner Studios near Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Guest:So what do you got?
Guest:You got the apartment there and you got the nightclub there?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:We got B. Altman's, some of the interior of B. Altman's there, the basement.
Guest:And then they build sets for each individual.
Guest:There's certain permanent standing sets.
Guest:And then there's what they call swing sets where they just build them and tear them down.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Some of the Catskills stuff, we shot a lot of the Catskills on location, but some of the interiors like the breakfast room and all that was done on the stage.
Marc:You shot on location in the Catskills, but you had to build one of those camps.
Marc:They're not around anymore, right?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:That was there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:They found a place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's still there.
Guest:It's not... I don't know that we were actually in the Catskills.
Guest:We were a little west of the Catskills in a town called Deposit, New York.
Guest:And at this resort that's really locked in time.
Guest:I mean, it's...
Guest:It's still functioning.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Yeah, it's beautiful.
Guest:I mean, in fact, when they visited this location the year before we shot season two, they discovered they had old bowling alleys, so they wrote a bowling alley scene.
Guest:They wrote the episodes to the location.
Marc:Around the place, right.
Marc:Absolutely.
Guest:It became a character.
Guest:Absolutely right.
Guest:And it suited...
Guest:I mean, this is a place that is just so beautiful.
Guest:And so it has never been, not to speak disparagingly of it, but it's never been upgraded or kind of modernized.
Guest:So it really feels like you're back there.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And you shot in France?
Guest:We shot two episodes in Paris.
Guest:Have you been there a lot?
Guest:I had not spent that much time in Paris.
Guest:I'd been to France a number of times, but we were there for three weeks, and it was heaven.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Do you speak French?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:That was the French no, by the way, not the English no.
Guest:Very little, but enough to order the right wine and the right kind of foie gras.
Marc:Yeah, so your character's not that far from you in that way.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:We were in Paris in March of last year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We had brought some of our crew with us, and there were a lot of French crew too, and it was just an amazing experience.
Guest:Oh, that's great.
Guest:And they were into it.
Guest:They loved the show from season one.
Guest:They did?
Guest:Sure.
Marc:It's exciting, man.
Marc:It's exciting to be part of an international phenomenon.
Marc:Well, I feel like I was very lucky, and I sort of stepped onto the right bus here.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:What was the audition process?
Marc:Did they pick you?
Marc:They knew they wanted you?
Guest:They called me.
Guest:I didn't read.
Guest:They just asked me if I was interested, and I read the pilot.
Guest:We only had the pilot to go on.
Guest:And it wasn't much...
Guest:There wasn't much of my character in the pilot.
Guest:I mean, it was a few scenes, but they assured me that it was going to be expanded.
Guest:And I love that period, first of all.
Guest:And I like the writing and made me laugh.
Guest:And so I figured, you know, how bad could it be?
Marc:Yeah, I didn't know what was going to happen, like in terms of your character, because the weird thing about the show is that...
Marc:When you first start watching it, you think it's broad.
Marc:You think the characters are broad.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And then you realize it sort of sneaks up on you that they're not really, that there's a lot of depth and there's a lot of definition.
Marc:And I imagine a lot of that you guys bring to the roles, but they're not.
Marc:In the first few episodes, I was like, well, what are they going to do with Tony?
Marc:And then in this season and half of the last season, you really have an emotional depth to the thing.
Marc:You know, you're not just, you know, this presence.
Guest:Yeah, thank you.
Guest:Yeah, it definitely, with all of us, I think, the complexity of the characters has expanded.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because her life, when her husband leaves her in the first episode of the first season, you know, her life is impacted
Guest:And there's all this upheaval, of course, but it takes a while in the story to see the ripple effect of that upheaval.
Guest:The ripple effect to all the other characters.
Guest:Everyone's life changes in this story to a degree, especially the family.
Guest:And Joel's family, the Maisel's, the people who run the garment.
Guest:Kevin Pollack.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:And what's her name?
Guest:And Caroline Aaron.
Guest:Genius.
Guest:Genius.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we see the ripple effect of this one action.
Guest:And even the ripple effect to Joel, her husband, and his regret and his kind of disconnection from what was his life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:everyone sort of seems to be kind of landing and he's not landing.
Guest:He's just kind of floating out there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, what to do is having a gigantic identity crisis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, so it's good.
Guest:It's good.
Guest:It's not just about this one character.
Marc:And also like the, the, the Jewish middle class of that time is a very specific thing.
Marc:You know, there's like, right.
Marc:So that's like one generation from immigrants.
Marc:Most of them.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And this is the first generation to kind of find their place.
Marc:But you didn't grow up Jewish.
Marc:No.
Guest:I grew up in a Lebanese-American family.
Guest:My father was an immigrant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But...
Marc:Is there a similarity in the Semitic?
Marc:Oh, absolutely.
Marc:Very much so.
Marc:You're of desert people.
Guest:Technically, we're Semites.
Guest:Yeah, I know, right?
Guest:It's really very close.
Marc:How'd you grow up?
Marc:What was your religion?
Guest:Well, we were Catholic, I guess.
Guest:I mean, you know, just sort of... That was the... That we grew up in a... You know, we went to parochial school and all that.
Guest:Where was this?
Guest:In Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Guest:Green Bay, Wisconsin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:An unlikely place for an enclave of Lebanese people.
Marc:Right.
Guest:I mean, was there a community?
Guest:Mostly, they were my relatives.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you know...
Guest:It was a smaller community of Lebanese people.
Guest:How'd your old man end up there?
Guest:You know, I asked that question many times.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Never got a straight answer.
Guest:You know, it was like all immigrants, you know, the people, whatever ethnicity they were of, you know, people came to New York or came to Boston or whatever and
Guest:Or some of them went to South America.
Guest:And, you know, they just kind of moved west because they were following whatever, wherever the work was.
Guest:And when certain a certain area or certain region, you know, the factories or whatever filled up and people had to keep moving and somehow they ended up there.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Do you know why he left Lebanon?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Guest:He left because it was right after the First World War.
Guest:His parents had died there.
Guest:He was the youngest of five.
Guest:He had four siblings.
Guest:And it was really, really tough times there.
Guest:And the parents had passed away within a year or two of each other.
Guest:And they were sent for by relatives already living here.
Guest:Because everybody... You had to be sponsored, of course.
Guest:You did.
Guest:But they came through Ellis Island.
Guest:My dad, you know, they were orphans.
Guest:And they came... How old was he?
Guest:He was eight.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:The oldest on the boat was only like 17.
Guest:She...
Guest:And they came together.
Guest:They didn't speak English.
Guest:All five siblings came.
Guest:I believe the first one was already here because she had gone to school.
Guest:She was the eldest, and she had gone to school in France, I guess.
Guest:And so she had made her way here.
Guest:But she couldn't have been maybe even 20.
Guest:But of the ones that were coming over on the boat, the oldest was, I think, 17 or 18, and my dad was 8.
Guest:And they came and landed at Ellis Island and took, I guess, a train to the Midwest and were met by other relatives.
Guest:And, you know, what was really kind of heartbreaking was that...
Guest:The relatives that they met there in Wisconsin, well, no one family could have the wherewithal to take them all in.
Guest:So they were kind of split up.
Guest:Split up, well, this one would go with this relative and this one would go this one.
Guest:But in the neighborhood?
Guest:Relatively in the same community, but not in the same household.
Guest:And then they had to assimilate and learn English and all that.
Guest:And it's while trying to hold on to their heritage too.
Guest:Like the immigrant experience.
Guest:Wow, Green Bay.
Guest:And then it gets cold there.
Guest:And then my dad bought season tickets and I still have them.
Guest:And so it's a happy ending.
Guest:Are you serious?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:I have eight.
Guest:If you ever want to go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Forever.
Guest:You've had them since your father?
Guest:Well, I had my, they were, yeah, passed down.
Guest:And my father, I think, even had 16.
Guest:But anyway, somehow I ended up with eight.
Guest:And I try to go to at least a game or two.
Guest:But when I can't go, other family members still live there.
Marc:You grew up loving football?
Marc:Well, you had to.
Guest:It was mandatory.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I grew up in the Lombardi years.
Guest:You know, that was.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The glory days.
Guest:It was like going to church.
Guest:It was fantastic.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was never geared towards sports.
Marc:And I think I missed something.
Marc:You never got that gene.
Marc:I did not.
Marc:It has to be passed down to you behaviorally by a parent or an uncle or a sibling.
Guest:Well, I think my dad, you know, he was a big guy.
Guest:and he played football in high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was kind of part of- Assimilating.
Guest:Part of our thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he loved going to the games, and it was kind of a thing.
Guest:Take his friends and his customers and his- How many kids?
Guest:There were 10 of us.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:I was number nine of 10.
Marc:You were the ninth one?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you have- Second youngest.
Marc:You have siblings that are how old?
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My oldest sister, I think, just turned 79.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:She probably wouldn't want me to say that.
Guest:Sorry, Sherry.
Guest:And you know all of them.
Guest:You get along well.
Guest:We all get together, you know, for a week in the summer.
Guest:We have family reunions.
Guest:We're all very, we stay close.
Guest:You know, I mean, we live in, some are still in Wisconsin, but two sisters in Atlanta and a sister in Sacramento.
Guest:We're all a brother in Denver.
Guest:We're all over the place.
Guest:But we stay close and try to, you know,
Guest:Now our kids, we try to keep them closed.
Guest:It's a lot, huh?
Guest:It's a handful.
Marc:I bet.
Marc:So 10 kids.
Marc:That's crazy.
Marc:That's really Catholic.
Marc:It was bedlam.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Total pandemonium.
Guest:And how did your old man support 10 kids?
Guest:Good thing about being in a family of 10 is you have a built-in audience always.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is probably why I...
Guest:chose this oh yeah how did my dad do it I don't know you know he was a really he was an independent businessman yeah figured it out did you know we weren't we were you know very middle class yeah lower middle class right you'd say but um
Guest:We never really were, you know, it's not like we were wanting for too much.
Guest:What was the business?
Guest:He was a meat peddler.
Guest:He sold sausage.
Guest:He bought from this little German sausage company in Sheboygan, which was about 40 miles away.
Guest:and then he had a route, and he built it up, and he sold to stores and various places, and he built up his own business, and here's the cool part.
Guest:The meat business.
Guest:Well, yeah, meat, and it was great.
Guest:It wasn't like commercially made.
Guest:It was like the Oscar Mayer thing.
Marc:So he found this German sausage maker who- There were a lot of them in Wisconsin, but they were doing the real thing.
Guest:Eventually, they all got kind of-
Guest:you know, kind of crushed by the larger companies.
Guest:But at this period, you know, people were... He believed in it.
Guest:It was quality stuff.
Guest:He was a really good salesman, I guess.
Guest:And he just... Here was the cool part, though.
Guest:He... I remember this when I was growing up.
Guest:He worked four days a week.
Guest:He could have built it up and worked six days a week and made a lot more money, probably.
Guest:But he...
Guest:Had a lot of kids and he was a real, you know, he valued his time and his, you know, his family and his other, you know, relatives and so forth.
Guest:So he figured out a way to work just as many hours, worked hard, but had, you know, those three days.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:He knew what life was supposed to be.
Guest:Yeah, and he always told us, too.
Guest:He was a big proponent of being your own boss and not having to work for the man.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he always had sausage.
Guest:And we always ate.
Guest:We had a lot of sausage.
Guest:We had it for breakfast.
Guest:We need something, we just go out to the truck and open a box and boom.
Guest:yeah was it other meats or just sausage uh you know it was like different all different kinds yeah and then they got into like the he opened a little shop that was like a mail order thing it was kind of like candies cheese and sausage uh-huh and it was kind of like one of those uh things so he had a cheese guy too yeah he was well it was wisconsin yeah i know exactly everywhere yeah he tripped over it in the street but it was um yeah he was a
Guest:pretty cool guy and your mom did she work she uh well she worked her ass off but she was right thank you mother of 10 and yeah man when i think about what she did i man she she was amazing i mean she was just running up and down stairs doing laundry line you know she was she was uh
Guest:She kept it all together.
Guest:Imagine cooking for 12 people for that many years.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:And she was really exhausted.
Marc:And then having to love them as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She was loving.
Guest:I remember these days when I don't know how this woman did it.
Guest:My wife and I, we had two kids and we had help and we couldn't figure it out.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:We screwed up everything.
Guest:But she made our Halloween costumes and did our school projects.
Guest:I mean, I just can't even imagine it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And plus, that was in a day when there wasn't a lot of permanent press, right?
Guest:So she was ironing when she wasn't cooking and doing laundry.
Guest:She was ironing, for God's sake.
Guest:No help.
Guest:I don't get it.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think one of my early memories, one of my early memories, I think I was like in first grade.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were, um, you know, my homework was to, um, you know, to like read aloud to my, to my mother for, you know, 15 minutes or whatever.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And I remember sitting on the couch after dinner and I was reading very stilted thing and reading my book to her.
Guest:And at one point I looked up and she was just fast asleep.
Guest:She was sitting straight up with her glasses on.
Guest:And I just thought, of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I'm like number nine, for God's sake.
Guest:Maybe she listened to my older siblings' books.
Guest:And I didn't, you know, it wasn't upsetting.
Guest:It was just like, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, makes sense.
Guest:So I jumped off the couch and went about my business.
Marc:Let her sleep.
Marc:Nine.
Marc:So she had the hang of it by the time you got there.
Guest:Well, she was over it.
Guest:Over it.
Marc:I mean, I think I got away with a lot of things my older siblings didn't.
Marc:How many, what's the breakdown between men and boys and girls?
Marc:Six girls, four boys.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And did anyone else end up in the entertainment industry?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I have a sister, an older sister, Susan, who's actually on Stranger Things.
Guest:She's Flo.
Guest:She's the sheriff's, you know.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's been a theater actor forever and done film and stuff.
Guest:And now she lives in Atlanta.
Guest:And so, you know, I guess somewhere in the blood.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Just you two, though, in the show business.
Guest:Yeah, well, I have a couple other siblings that do it, kind of, you know, community theater stuff, just for fun.
Guest:Anybody in the meat business?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I'm in the meat business, aren't I?
Marc:I'm a piece of meat.
Marc:Yeah, you move around.
Marc:Move the meat around.
Yeah.
Marc:How does it begin, though?
Marc:When do you start doing the acting?
Marc:In high school?
Marc:Were you a football guy or no?
Guest:I tried to be a football guy, and I got my ass kicked.
Guest:Yeah, I did a little in high school and college, I guess.
Guest:Where did you go to college?
Guest:Well, I started at the University of Wisconsin in Green Bay, but then I transferred to Portland, Maine.
Guest:I went to the University of Maine in Portland, which happened to have a really good theater department.
Guest:But you didn't go for that?
Guest:No, I didn't know what I was doing when I moved.
Guest:Why'd you pick that school?
Guest:Because I needed to get out of Green Bay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I needed to have a little bit of a change and shake up.
Guest:When I first went to college, to be completely honest, I wasn't really pursuing anything.
Guest:I was...
Guest:I was just kind of buying time and avoiding getting a job.
Guest:Right.
Guest:As many.
Marc:And what, what, what years were these, or were they, what was it crazy times in the country?
Marc:What year?
Marc:Like you're what?
Marc:10 years older than me.
Guest:I was, uh, it was in the, I went to college in the seventies, early, mid seventies.
Guest:It was, you know, Watergate was happening in the mid seventies and the war was trying to wind down.
Guest:But I was, you know, I was, uh, when I was a senior in high school and I was 18, we had to draft, you know, lottery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So that was still scary.
Guest:And what happened to you?
Guest:Well, my number wasn't really that high, frankly, but it was, this was 72.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my number was, I think it was just like around 100 or 110.
Guest:It wasn't high.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But that year, because things were beginning to draw down,
Guest:And there was protests, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:That all started in the late 60s.
Guest:I think my year, they were only going up to 75, and my number was just over 100.
Guest:But the year before, they were definitely into the 100s, into mid-100s.
Guest:So it was a little bit of a nail-biter.
Guest:And none of your siblings had to go?
Guest:My older brother Michael was in Vietnam.
Guest:He was?
Guest:In the 60s.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He's about 12 years older than me, so that would have been... He did not... I don't know.
Guest:I think he got drafted or enlisted or whatever, but he was over there.
Guest:Luckily, it was...
Guest:He, he was right in Saigon, but it was before Saigon fell.
Guest:So he was not seeing a lot of combat thing, but it was, my mother was just, she was a wreck during that whole year period.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And he fared all right.
Guest:He, he came home.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:We did all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you didn't have to go to war, so you went to Maine.
Guest:Which is kind of like going to war.
Marc:Maine was fantastic.
Guest:Portland was just so happening right then.
Guest:And you were just sort of biding your time?
Guest:But I was... Then I just... You know, they just... I did...
Guest:More theater.
Guest:And I just discovered that that was, you know, it might be my strong suit.
Marc:Were you like a long haired guy?
Marc:Were you doing experimental stuff?
Guest:A little fro.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A Lebanese fro.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As opposed to the Jew fro.
Marc:A leb fro.
Marc:A leb fro.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You still got it.
Guest:Oh, please.
Guest:It was a lot thicker then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Um,
Guest:But yeah, I just, no, we were doing, you know, whatever we could do.
Guest:And the school, as I said, had a really good theater department.
Guest:And so I was afforded a lot of opportunities.
Guest:And then I went to the Yale Drama School.
Guest:From there, I was fortunate enough to get accepted to Yale.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Do you remember what you auditioned with?
Guest:Oh, sure.
Marc:Really?
Guest:We had to do two pieces of modern... Modern and classic, yeah.
Guest:And one... And they each were two minutes long, which is not long.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I did Malvolio from Twelfth Night, I remember.
Guest:And I did a piece from a Pinter play called The Homecoming.
Guest:The Homecoming, yeah.
Guest:I did a Lenny monologue.
Guest:Oh yeah, those are good.
Guest:Nice and dark.
Dark.
Guest:Dark and funny and twisted.
Guest:But then I got in, crazily enough.
Guest:Was that a two-year program?
Guest:Three-year master's program.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I auditioned for it, but I was not in any way prepared.
Marc:Oh, I see.
Marc:Yeah, I didn't.
Marc:It was all very last minute, and it was ridiculous.
Guest:Well, mine was ridiculous in the sense that it was the only school I auditioned for, which was stupid.
Guest:You should audition for five or ten.
Marc:Yeah, but was it because you're like, if I get in there, it was meant to be.
Guest:No, it was because I was stupid and didn't even know.
Guest:I came into it almost by...
Guest:It was just a fluke.
Guest:I didn't know anything about it, but a friend of mine's girlfriend who graduated the year before us had gotten in there.
Guest:She had graduated, you know, the year before us and she had gotten in and she told me, you know, this would be a really good place where you should try.
Guest:I had no idea where Yale was.
Guest:I didn't even know where New Haven was.
Guest:I didn't know anything.
Guest:I just was in a... It wasn't that far from where you were at.
Marc:You're lucky you weren't in Wisconsin.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, it was not that far.
Guest:But I'm telling you, when I was a senior in college, even though I was doing plays, I was in a kind of a fog, in a deep fog.
Guest:I don't know what...
Guest:I can't even explain it.
Marc:But you wanted to act.
Guest:You liked acting.
Guest:I knew I wanted to act, but to be completely honest, Mark, I didn't know that there was such a thing as a graduate drama program.
Guest:It wasn't not on my radar.
Guest:Nothing was on my radar.
Guest:My radar was a blank screen.
Guest:Were you lost?
Guest:I was just...
Guest:I was an idiot.
Guest:Ah.
Guest:Yes, lost.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lost idiot.
Guest:And so had she not gone there and told me about it and encouraged me.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I would have, you know, I don't know where I... Did it have the reputation it has now?
Marc:I mean, I guess it was.
Guest:Meryl Streep had just graduated, you know, three, four years before that.
Guest:And so it was, yeah, I mean, it had a reputation.
Guest:I didn't know what to, what I was doing or what to expect.
Guest:What did you graduate college with?
Guest:What was your degree in?
Guest:It was theater.
Guest:It was.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I didn't know what I was going to do.
Guest:I mean, I...
Guest:You know, there were a few opportunities in Maine for professional or semi-professional theater, but I assumed, you know, what would I do, teach or end up working in a bar?
Marc:But did you, like, when you were acting in college, did you feel like you were meant to do that?
Marc:I mean, did you relish it?
Guest:I loved it, but I didn't believe or think that it could be a viable career.
Guest:I just thought, well, this is fun and I probably would love to do this as a
Marc:hobby right that's a reasonable uh uh thought to have but the fact that you didn't prepare anything else is you know to be like you said like this can't be a job but uh i had no i had no plan b i had no plan a yeah i had nothing i was very very lucky so you sat there and you auditioned for what three people right three or three or four people
Guest:yeah and then i left the room yeah you know hundreds of kids you know waiting no kid audition they'd audition people in new haven they audition people in three other cities and they take like nine oh they took uh my or i think they took 15 or 16 out of hundreds now thousands that audition really oh yeah thousands that's crazy but then there was like seven eight hundred that auditioned and they we had uh 16 in my class yeah and then um
Guest:But that was, you know, that was a place where we thought, you know, when we were going there that we were going to have a life in the theater.
Guest:That was what it was geared to, not for, I mean, and then when I left Yale, I went to a regional theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Marc:How much of what you learned there sort of defines how you approach the acting now?
Marc:Or does it all just kind of?
Guest:No, I think it definitely informs it because we were... It was all about doing characters and doing things that weren't close to yourself.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And transforming and trying to stretch.
Guest:And my career has kind of been about doing characters.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I guess.
Marc:And the structure of it was like... That was one of those schools where you had to do sword fighting and dancing.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Movement classes.
Guest:We had...
Guest:stage combat.
Guest:We had voice classes.
Guest:We had, you know, scene study and text analysis.
Guest:What we didn't have, thank Christ, was, you know, actual papers to write and tests to take.
Guest:We didn't have that.
Guest:We had, it was all, you know, conservatory.
Guest:And it was the Yale Repertory Theater was there, so it was a conservatory situation.
Guest:Students were being fed into professional productions at the rep.
Guest:And that was, and some of those professionals were teachers at the
Marc:School.
Marc:And then you started working shortly after or were you working during school?
Marc:Were you in the Yale rep?
Marc:Did you get in there?
Guest:I worked some at the Yale rep.
Guest:I mean, we weren't exactly getting paid, but we were doing plays there.
Guest:And then after that, Yale, I went to Cambridge and I worked in a regional theater, repertory theater.
Guest:ART?
Guest:That's right.
Marc:Yeah, that place is... I lived in Boston for years.
Guest:I wonder if we were there at the same time.
Marc:Well, I was in college there from like, you know, 81 to 87.
Marc:I was there 80 to 84.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know if I saw any productions during that point.
Marc:But then I went back and started my comedy career there in like 88, 87, 88.
Marc:And but I remember who was there.
Marc:Who's the guy from the... Mark... What was that show with Malky?
Marc:You remember Braz... Oh, yeah, Mark Lynn Baker.
Marc:Yeah, Mark Lynn Baker.
Guest:Mark was there because Mark was a year ahead of me at Yale, and then a lot of us went up to ART.
Guest:Mark's still a very dear friend and lives in New York.
Marc:I just remember him being in everything when I was seeing him there.
Guest:He was and is an amazing theater actor.
Guest:And...
Marc:So you were there for three years.
Marc:I was?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was there for four seasons.
Marc:Four at ART.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Living in Cambridge.
Marc:Living in Cambridge.
Marc:I lived in Somerville before it was cool.
Marc:I spent many, many nights lost in Somerville.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know where I worked?
Marc:I worked at a place called, do you remember the shopping center, the garage?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:The coffee connection where you'd go and you'd get the French press coffee.
Marc:Yeah, beautiful.
Marc:I worked there.
Guest:I remember the garage.
Marc:Yeah, I was there.
Marc:I was there.
Marc:You probably came in and had coffee.
Guest:It was over by, what is that, Mount Auburn?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, there were two entrances.
Marc:There was one next to what, Dunster Street.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, and there was an entrance right there, and you could go in the garage, which used to be a parking garage, and it was all the stores.
Marc:But I was working at a coffee restaurant before Starbucks, and they'd serve, if you were going to have more than a cup to go, they'd serve it in a French press, very high-end-y.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Very ahead of its time.
Guest:Yeah, because I did stuff at the Hasty Pudding, too.
Guest:Our new play festival was always there every year.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And were you doing mostly, what, traditional stuff, or did you do any, like, crazy shit?
Guest:We did a lot of crazy stuff.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:I mean, we did...
Guest:Well, we did everything.
Guest:That was the beauty of ART.
Guest:You know, we did some classics and reimagined classics, Shakespeare and Chekhov, of course.
Guest:But we also did, you know, Lee Brewer came up from New York.
Guest:He was part of Mabu Mainz.
Guest:He's a very, very avant-garde director.
Guest:And we had directors from England and from, you know, from Eastern Europe.
Guest:And so it was a real broad, you know, kind of range of approaches and material.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so you got to experience that.
Guest:And I think that was really good because it didn't get locked into just one kind of school of thought or one way of working.
Guest:All these different demands being made on us and you didn't have to be... We were members of a company and so you didn't have to be afraid of making a fool of yourself.
Guest:You could really take risks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so that was your gig.
Marc:You were a theater actor.
Marc:That was what my life was.
Marc:For years.
Guest:That's what we were trained for.
Guest:Even when I moved to New York after Boston, I did pretty much nothing but theater for another six years.
Guest:So it was like 10 solid years of doing theater.
Guest:And once I was in New York, okay, then I would do like a soap opera, a day player on a soap or I'd do an episode of such and such or
Guest:It was pre-procedural, though.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Then I went into, you know, like do a little part in a movie here.
Guest:What was the first one of those?
Guest:The first one of those I was completely cut out of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a fun story.
Guest:But you still got paid for it.
Guest:I did, but it was Heartburn.
Guest:It was Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson directed by Mike Nichols.
Guest:Mike Nichols, yeah.
Guest:And I had a great little part in it and then was completely cut out of it.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because it still hurts.
Guest:It does?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:It was a learning experience, character building.
Guest:Then I did a quick change.
Marc:What was it like working with Nichols, though?
Marc:I mean, did you have enough of a part to have a relationship with him on set?
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:yeah and also he brought me in to do um uh uh you know the the the few few years later um oh god you know i can't remember that it was with travolta the one about the kind of clinton candidate oh oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what was that called primary primary colors yeah and and i would do readings for mike nichols all the time and
Marc:What makes a guy like that who had done theater and done these amazing movies and was one of those guys that really kind of defined himself in theater and then moved to film and made a mark on film in a very experimental way early on?
Marc:So what was it about him as a director that was compelling and different than working with other directors?
Guest:Well, I think with Mike, you just knew that, first of all, he had all of this body of work behind him.
Guest:And you have a guy with sort of this mind.
Guest:He was so intelligent, so sophisticated.
Guest:so well-read, so well-traveled, so well-everything.
Guest:And with Mike, you just always trusted that he has this amazing, gigantic overview of not of just what he's doing, but of the context in which that all sits.
Guest:And so you always got the sense that it was...
Guest:about more than just what it was about.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And that his agenda or his objective was much more far-reaching than just that piece of material.
Guest:So you trusted and respected.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And he was funny and warm.
Guest:And yeah, so it was an honor to be working with him the few times I did.
Guest:I never got to do a play with him, though.
Guest:I always would have loved to have done that.
Marc:Do you prefer theater?
Marc:You know, it's a weird question, but it's so immediate and it's so exciting in a way.
Guest:Yeah, I get asked that a lot.
Guest:I don't I can't.
Guest:I mean, it's where I sort of started out different job.
Guest:It's a different discipline and all of that.
Guest:But the truth is, is that.
Guest:I base my decisions and also what I like on the material, not the venue.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because I've been in bad plays, bad productions.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And there's nothing more torturous than that.
Guest:But you're stuck in it.
Guest:And that's been true of film and television where you're just in things and the fit is just not right.
Guest:But you're...
Guest:Whereas if you're in a slot, you know, and you're feeling like you're in the right role in the right material at the right time, it doesn't matter if it's TV or if you're just working on a street corner.
Guest:It's just, it's all about that.
Marc:Right, but there is a difference when, because, you know, when you're working in film or TV, cut.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Like, I'm just, like, I haven't done much theater, but I do stand-up, and now that I'm acting a bit, I realize that, you know, the trick of...
Marc:of doing that type of acting is to really make the time on camera immersive.
Marc:There's so much time in between things that it must be a whole other discipline to sort of realize like, all right, I'm about to work for two minutes.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And when it's an emotional scene or something where you really have to load up before you do it,
Guest:it's tricky because, you know, they tell you, we're going to do this scene in half an hour.
Guest:And so you're, you're gearing yourself up for that moment in 30 minutes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there's some delay and then three hours later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you're lucky or, or we're going to do this in an hour and then, Oh, we change it.
Guest:We're doing it right now.
Guest:Well, I didn't really load up here.
Guest:So it's all, you're always at the mercy of the production.
Guest:But if it's an emotional scene, you know, it's, uh,
Guest:That's the challenging thing of movies, and television, because they're all shot out of sequence.
Guest:I mean, the worst story imaginable happened to me.
Guest:I was doing a film a number of years ago.
Guest:It was The Siege with Denzel Washington.
Guest:And this is a movie about a terrorist attack in New York prior to 9-11.
Guest:And I'm playing an FBI, a Lebanese-American FBI agent.
Guest:And I'm Denzel's partner.
Guest:And Ed Zwick is the director.
Guest:And it's a really heavy-duty, great script and everything.
Guest:Big Fox, 20th Century Fox movie.
Guest:Annette Bening and everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was doing a movie just before that.
Guest:I was doing Civil Action out in L.A., and The Siege was going to shoot in New York.
Guest:And I was supposed to have a break of about two or three weeks between movies.
Guest:That almost never happens where I get back-to-back jobs.
Guest:This was a rare thing, and it happened.
Guest:So I had this thing.
Guest:It was all scheduled.
Guest:We're going to finish Civil Action, and then three weeks later, I was going to go to New York and start on The Siege.
Guest:Totally different character, totally different everything.
Guest:Well, we got behind on civil action.
Guest:It just, you know, we would lose a day and here and there, and then, oh my God, and we're behind a week, now we're behind two weeks.
Guest:And then it looked like I wasn't even gonna finish by the time they needed me in New York.
Guest:It was really right down to the wire.
Guest:And they were almost gonna have to recast me in the siege, all that, because of the schedule.
Guest:It was a nightmare.
Guest:and then anxiety on both levels and this production is freaking out and this production is freaking out and i'm freaking out my agent's freaking out so finally they just you know a lot of back and forth between the producers and they were they hammered it out and i literally finished a scene on my last scene on simple action six at night in la they
Guest:That drove me to the airport.
Guest:I take the red eye to New York and I start that next night.
Guest:I start the siege and my first scene because of the scheduling jumble.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My first scene is my big emotional scene in the movie where I'm at the, this is kind of like an internment camp where all these Arabs have been rounded up and, and, and, uh,
Guest:martial law has been declared and all that stuff and I'm looking for my son who's been rounded up and put in a pen and it's the middle of winter for Christ's sake on Randolph Island or one of these places and it's like my big peak emotional scene of the movie it's my first day and I've just taken the red eye you know and Denzel's there and there's army trucks and there's thousands of extras and I'm like oh my
Guest:I haven't even met this kid.
Guest:I haven't met the kid who plays my son, who's like a teenager.
Guest:And what happened?
Guest:Well, I pulled it out of my back.
Guest:I wish we could pull it up right now.
Guest:I wish I could.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You have to watch the movie.
Guest:I was in a... I was just... I was so... Because I thought... Well, you're frazzled, that's for sure.
Guest:I was frazzled, man.
Marc:So that helped, I suppose.
Marc:But did you then have to, like, how much thought had you put into that character?
Marc:I mean, did you have to sort of retrofit the character from that moment?
Marc:Well, I had to.
Guest:I mean, literally on the plane to New York, I'm reading and trying to make up some backstory for myself and sure wish I'd met that actor who plays my son, who I'm so in love with, you know, who I have to, I'm dying to see and save.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:So I'm walking through this set.
Guest:The cameras are rolling.
Guest:I'm screaming for my son.
Guest:I'm screaming my son's name.
Guest:I don't even know what this guy looks like.
Guest:No.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:We hadn't even, you know.
Guest:You hadn't met him when he played it?
Guest:No, because I just arrived and it was like night and they're all in the thing.
Guest:And Denzel's got to be intimidating.
Guest:And Denzel...
Guest:Denzel he'd already they've already been shooting for a couple of weeks so other stuff around me because we're partners I was in this movie for three months oh my god and he was great though he is he is a force man he is he is the most the hardest working most uh
Guest:kind of disciplined and, and really, really serious about, about his craft and, you know, and what he brings to it.
Guest:So, so that was kind of an inspiration to, you know, just being at his side and then doing this scene.
Guest:We'd only met, he, he and I had only met briefly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Uh, but, but, and he, he brought it for me, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause, cause I think he understood.
Guest:I was, I was on the hot seat and,
Guest:Anyway, it's never been quite that bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That was the peak of bad.
Guest:So when you did Quick Change, was that like your second movie?
Guest:Well, it was my second movie, but it was my first movie that I actually... And that was a funny little part.
Marc:It was a really fun part.
Marc:The cab driver, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then was that the thing that kind of broke you, you think, that got you visibility?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I think in terms of film, sure.
Guest:I mean, I was doing theater a lot in New York.
Guest:But TV too, right?
Marc:I mean, didn't you pick up Wings after that?
Marc:That put you on the map a little, that quick change did?
Guest:I don't know if that did.
Guest:Because I remember the producers of Wings who then also went on to do Frazier.
Guest:Those guys used to come to New York a lot.
Guest:They were real into theater.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they loved theater actors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I think maybe they had seen me in a play or something.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Or maybe it was quick change.
Marc:And Wings, that's what made you move out here the first time?
Guest:No, I moved out before I had Wings.
You did?
Guest:Yeah, I'd been in New York for about six years, and I wanted to see what L.A.
Guest:was like.
Guest:So I came out.
Guest:I didn't have anything out here.
Guest:I got that a number of months after I was here.
Guest:And that was a hell of a job.
Guest:That was a sweet gig.
Guest:I mean, that was for years, right?
Guest:Well, I was on it six years because I came into it late.
Guest:It had already been on for a year before I got into it.
Guest:Because I came just to do one episode.
Guest:And then they wanted me to bring me back.
Marc:I just remember there was a period on television where Wings reruns were everywhere.
Marc:Like every station you were watching Wings somehow.
Guest:It was a really cool group of people.
Guest:And...
Guest:You know, what was cool about Wings was I had never done sitcom before.
Guest:I'd never done multicam.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:I hadn't done that much TV, really.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what was sweet about it was that we did it in front of a live audience.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So the theater, all the theater that I had done and my background in theater, it was sort of came into play.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because we had immediate feedback and...
Guest:And so it was kind of a hybrid.
Guest:And also, you know, I was newly married and my kids were young.
Guest:Where did you meet your wife?
Guest:I met my wife doing a play on Broadway.
Guest:We were doing, I was doing Heidi Chronicles.
Guest:And she came in to replace someone.
Marc:And then it was all.
Marc:I remember her from movies, from The Dead Zone.
Marc:Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Days of Heaven.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:She's great.
Guest:She's still going.
Guest:She's so great.
Guest:And you've been together a long time.
Guest:We've been together.
Guest:Well, we'll be married 27 years in April.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Amazing.
Marc:So let's talk Barton Fink for a minute.
Okay.
Marc:Because, like, I talk to people about the Coens.
Marc:That character is so fucking memorable.
Marc:And that movie is literally one of my favorite movies.
Marc:Period.
Marc:That was maybe my second movie.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But that character, was it Ben Geisler?
Marc:What's the stomach problem?
Marc:Geisler.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Geisler.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What was that?
Marc:Because I think that for me...
Marc:like a lot of people hail caesar which i thought was great yeah like that is a double feature i think would be the greatest hollywood double feature oh because it's all the studios yeah it's like the same you know it's it's it's literally the same world but like quite different looks into the tone yeah tone is the wrestling picture now wallace beery wrestling what do you need a road map
Guest:Great words.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I had seen them.
Guest:I didn't know them, but I had seen Blood Simple in whatever was right.
Guest:Was it Raising Arizona?
Guest:Yeah, Raising Arizona.
Guest:Great.
Guest:Something.
Guest:I don't know where that falls in the lineup, but I was mad for Blood Simple.
Guest:And then when I got this call to come and audition for them, I was like, oh, my God.
Guest:I don't even have to read the script.
Guest:I just want to do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I auditioned in New York.
Guest:I was living in New York.
Guest:And they were very receptive, but they said, hey, listen, we're going out to L.A.
Guest:to read people.
Guest:So I wasn't going to get an answer right away.
Guest:You don't have to always wait, but I was really impatient with this one.
Guest:And so they went out to L.A.
Guest:and weeks passed, three, maybe four weeks passed.
Guest:And I just hope that they didn't find another Ben Geisler out there.
Guest:So they didn't.
Guest:Then they came back.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Maybe I did a callback.
Guest:I'm pretty sure I did a callback.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Um, and then they went to LA and then, um, and then they gave it to me and it was a unbelievable experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Well, I had never worked with two directors before, you know, in the same picture, but, but also just their, their writing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sure you can, you know, as an actor, you can see, sense it too.
Guest:It's, it's written in such a rhythm.
Guest:It, it, it, it really almost plays itself in a way.
Guest:Uh huh.
Uh huh.
Guest:You sort of step on the train and it carries you.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And when I read it, when I read this character for my audition, it just...
Guest:I can't explain it, but somehow the mantle of this character or the voice of the character, it just came to me.
Guest:I read it as, I sort of heard it in my head as a cross between Jackie Mason and Yogi Bear.
Guest:Remember Yogi Bear?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Hey, boo, boo.
Guest:And I thought,
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:It's almost like that's how they were.
Guest:Of course, I've never had this conversation with them, and I'm sure they didn't intend that.
Guest:But that's how it struck me.
Guest:And I thought, I wonder if I could do something.
Guest:Jackie Mason and Yogi Bear combined.
Guest:And so I started playing with that.
Guest:And then... That was it.
Guest:That was Ben Geiser.
Guest:It was just this crazy thing.
Guest:Have you gone out for any of their other movies?
Guest:Oh, I did.
Guest:A number of years later, I did The Man Who Wasn't There.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was a totally different character.
Guest:I played a lawyer named Freddy Regenschneider.
Guest:I didn't have to read for that one.
Guest:They just got you.
Guest:They just want me for that one.
Guest:But it's been a long time since I've worked for them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'd love to get back into that.
Marc:I worked with Michael Lerner, played my mother's husband on my show, on Marin, on IFC.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:For one episode.
Marc:Crazy, man.
Marc:That's for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a real character, buddy.
Guest:He's a character.
Guest:But I got to work with John Turturro in Barton Fink, and I had known John just a little bit.
Guest:He was at Yale after me.
Guest:But we came out of the same program and everything, so we had a blast.
Guest:And an actor who just died a few years ago, John Pulido.
Guest:Oh, yeah, he's great.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So funny.
Guest:One of the funniest, loveliest, best actors.
Guest:And they used him a lot.
Guest:I mean, they just kept pulling him into every movie.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Big Wabowski.
Guest:He also was in The Man Who Wasn't There.
Guest:I actually asked him to come on.
Guest:When I was doing Monk, I asked him to come on and do...
Guest:a part uh-huh i can't remember the character's name but he was like the hot dog king you know the guy who runs all the yeah the hot dog cart yeah place yeah and that was we walk into this thing to talk to him and the place is filthy people are picking up hot dogs off the floor and putting them in the water i mean it was really a and he's always got one in his fist you know i could not look at him it was so funny yeah
Guest:um but i and weirdly i knew john way before that because when i was at yale to pull this full circle i was doing a production at the rep of measure for measure chris walken was in it and and that's the first time i met john palito he was playing uh lucio or somebody uh-huh anyway that was funny what a character yeah what a lovely crazy funny guy
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You were on Monk a long time.
Marc:I was eight years, yeah, eight seasons.
Marc:Do you find that that's the one that people identify you most with?
Guest:Yeah, it takes a while for, you know, that's what I like about Maisel, too.
Guest:It's just starting now to unravel that image of
Guest:Just the way Monk unraveled the image of Antonio Scarpacci from Wings.
Marc:TV's weird like that.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Do you find that?
Marc:Well, I don't know.
Marc:I mean, I've just started doing it, and it's a different type of television.
Marc:I mean, when Wings was on, it was like almost everybody was watching it.
Marc:Well, there weren't 400 outlets.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:There was like four, three.
Marc:And then by the time Monk got on, there was a few more, but still not the same as now.
Marc:What was that, on USA?
Marc:USA?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now it's just like free-for-all.
Guest:Now it's a mile wide and an inch deep, as they say.
Marc:Yeah, but a dear friend of mine who I love and I work with sometimes, we do broadcasts together.
Marc:Tom Sharpling wrote for him.
Marc:I love Tom.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:He's so funny.
Marc:Smart guy, yeah.
Marc:I think he probably... We did eight seasons.
Guest:Tom had to have been on six, at minimum.
Marc:Yeah, great guy.
Marc:You ever listen to his radio show?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's funny.
Marc:He's so funny, man.
Marc:Man, it's really got to... We do these things called Mark and Tom shows.
Marc:We've done three of them.
Marc:We're about to do another one.
Marc:Oh, let me know when you do that.
Marc:I will, yeah.
Marc:We got one coming up, I think, in a couple weeks.
Marc:When we have time, we'll just sit with Mike, just me and him, and just talk like the two guys we are who live on the microphones.
Marc:And it's usually fun for both of our fans.
Marc:So when I saw you...
Marc:When we did that roundtable together last year.
Marc:Oh, yeah, The Hollywood Reporter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think you had just come back from the genealogy journey to Lebanon, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I did that right after we shot Maisel in Paris.
Marc:Oh, so you were going?
Marc:You hadn't gone yet?
Guest:I think I was going.
Marc:And what happened?
Marc:So what drove you?
Marc:What was the plan?
Guest:Well, I was wanting to go to Lebanon for my entire life because hearing and reading so much about it.
Guest:But I never had the opportunity, and when the opportunity did arise a couple of times, then something bad would happen over there, and it was impossible.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we were going to Paris and knowing we had a break right after Paris before we had to continue Maisel.
Guest:I asked my wife, she said, look, this would be a great time to go.
Guest:We're halfway there.
Guest:We're almost there.
Guest:And we have time.
Guest:So...
Guest:So, yeah, we set it up and we went for a week.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:In April, early April when the weather was fantastic.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And we stayed in Beirut, but we would hire a car every day to take us to different... You know, it's not a very big country, so we would go in a different direction every day.
Guest:But I got to see the village where my dad was born and even the house where he grew up.
Guest:Really?
Guest:It was incredible.
Guest:How did you get that information?
Guest:It was not easy.
Guest:It went through a number of different channels.
Guest:People we were traveling with knew this woman who was a lawyer and then she made a call to this other person and then they got in town with the mayor of this little village and then mentioned my name and would it be possible for him to see the thing.
Guest:it was it was amazing we we met with these people in the village and then they walked us over to the house yeah the man who now owns the house just happened he doesn't even live there he just lives in montreal or something but he happens to visit there a month a year and so we he let us in it was open arms it was incredibly moving
Guest:I mean, the garden was, you know, the almond trees are there and the grapevines.
Guest:And oh, my God.
Guest:It was, I was trying to, you know, photograph and video everything I could.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was able to get a lot.
Guest:I don't speak Arabic, so it was, we always had to have a translator.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Did you have people there?
Guest:I mean, do you have relatives?
Guest:You know, I didn't find relatives there this time.
Guest:I wasn't really looking for relatives, to be honest, because we had a limited amount of time.
Guest:I was really focusing on just seeing as much of the country as I could and the village.
Guest:And then I thought, if I go back, then I'll get into the hole.
Guest:Because that's a whole time-consuming story.
Guest:Oh, to track relatives?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I think it really is.
Guest:And I would want to spend time.
Guest:Anyway, our time was limited, so we accomplished what we could.
Guest:We saw a lot of the country, and it's just an extraordinary place.
Guest:Did you feel connected?
Guest:Very much.
Guest:Very much so.
Guest:Was your mom Lebanese?
Guest:My mom was, well, yes.
Guest:Her father was Lebanese and her mother was, I think, from Egypt.
Guest:But that was sort of...
Guest:And her mother's, I mean, her family, my mother's family was from the same village that my father was from.
Guest:So they all, you know, it was all.
Guest:What village?
Guest:It's a little village called Abla, and it's on the edge of a larger city called Zahle.
Guest:And this is an area where, I don't know if you know this, but Omar Sharif.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:was actually Lebanese.
Guest:In fact, his name, his real name, it's the same as mine, same last name.
Guest:Salub.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And everyone thought he was Egyptian because he grew up in Egypt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he's really, I think his father was from this clan.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And so...
Guest:his family also was from this same area.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway.
Guest:That's a little movie trip.
Guest:Possibly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Possibly theirs were even related in some strange fashion.
Guest:You think so?
Guest:Well, I was at the Golden Globes last week.
Guest:Did you fix the gap in your teeth?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:But I tell you, if I showed you pictures of my dad when he was young.
Marc:And Omar Sharif?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Didn't he have a gap in his teeth or am I not remembering correctly?
Marc:Oh, yes.
Guest:Very amazing.
Guest:But at the Golden Globes last week, I ran into his grandson, Omar, who I had met last year at the Globes.
Guest:He's in show business?
Guest:He must be because he's at the Golden Girls.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:But he's really a fine-looking young man.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And I took a picture with him and everything, and he always said, my grandfather thought that we were related.
Guest:You're going to have to track it, man.
Guest:You're going to have to do it someday.
Guest:I am going to track it, and I'm really sorry I never got to meet Omar Sharif.
Marc:Yeah, but that's interesting.
Marc:I can't...
Marc:It must be like a complete mind-blowing thing to have your history in that defined a place or that unique a place.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:And then just to go see it for the first time, it must be mind-blowing.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was incredibly emotional and...
Guest:you can't even take it all in.
Guest:There's just so much going on there, so much to it, so complicated, the politics and the economy and everything that's going on in the region.
Guest:You know, it's...
Marc:But you must look around and think like, I look like these folks.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:Oh, there's my cousin, so and so.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Because like as a Jew, even though there's a Semitic connection, I mean, I don't know how many generations I have to go to get back to the desert.
Marc:I mean, for me to do what you did, I got to go to Poland and Russia.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I've often thought about it, but I don't know.
Marc:Poland doesn't seem that hospitable.
Marc:Russia seems interesting to me, but I don't know if it's a great time to go.
Marc:But maybe I'm wrong.
Marc:Yeah, maybe.
Guest:Well, you know, really in Lebanon, that's always been an issue.
Guest:When is a good time to go?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because everything right now, or when I was there eight months ago, you know, it was in a relative period of calm, but...
Guest:Everyone there is thinking, well, when's the other shoe going to drop?
Guest:Right.
Guest:When is the next crisis going to hit?
Guest:Now the whole world's thinking like that.
Guest:We're doing that here now.
Marc:I'm doing that.
Marc:I'm doing that in Los Angeles.
Marc:Yeah, every day.
Marc:What's going to fucking happen next?
Marc:But you did go.
Marc:That's good for you.
Marc:Yeah, I'm glad I did it.
Marc:And I really would like to go back.
Marc:Well, you will.
Marc:It's great talking to you, Tony.
Marc:Oh, Mark, I could talk to you forever.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:And congrats on the show.
Marc:It's really a sweet show.
Marc:And on yours.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Wonderfully done.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:What a great conversation.
Marc:Genuinely a nice guy.
Marc:As I said before, the second season of The Marvelous Miss Maisel is now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Marc:Go watch it.
Marc:You can also go to podswag.com slash WTF or the merch page at wtfpod.com.
Marc:There's new signed posters, there's t-shirts, there's signed books, and later this week, there's going to be some copies of my last special, Too Real, on vinyl.
Marc:i'm gonna i'm gonna play a song for uh and just make something up just riff the thing for uh for buster okay
guitar solo
Guest:Thank you.
Marc:Buster!
Marc:Live!