John Malkovich | Club Random with Bill Maher

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Whole stage, wooden stage on fire. Since it was opening night, did they think that was what was supposed to happen in the play? They always think that.

Now you're the older guy. I'm the older guy,

but I'm not. And yet, you're running out of people who are older than I'm.
Yeah.

John.

Hi.

Hey, man.

All right.

Just had a sprint

from my studio. Yeah.
Jesus. What's the hurry?

You, when I told me, I mean, I never do a show on Friday because I tape my show from four to five. I've never run out of that studio like a bat out of hell like I did tonight.
Jesus.

No, no. I'm such an admirer.
I haven't seen you in years, but you know, I'm just.

I was just thinking the last time. Do you know what I think? The last time I saw you was...

Also,

the last time I saw Chris Wolcan.

Christopher Wolkin? Yeah, at a party which was for something I have no idea what. Out here?

Out in L.A., out here, at the Beverly Hills Hotel, but outside. Yeah.
And I have no idea what it was for or anything like that. I never go to stuffs like that.
I never go.

But that was like kind of 20 years ago, I think. Long time ago.
I have so much stuff. Some of it's in this room.
that,

you know, people say to me, where'd you get that? And I'm like, I don't know.

Well, I'm going to be one of those people. What about the Supremes? Yeah.
That, I know where I got it. Who did this?

Nobody did it. That's a poster that was inside their album.
See, that fits inside an old LP. Oh, my God.
And

the triptych

of the Supreme Court. Fantastic.
Isn't that fantastic? Beautiful. Yeah.
Yeah.

I wondered where that was from. It reminded me of Painter from Chicago, but he mostly did sport people.
A guy called, I think, Tim Anderson. It's a very similar vein to what he did.
Funny.

I mean, memory is such a funny thing the way whole swaths of time

will be gone from us.

And then like the slightest little detail, the slightest little moment that seems to have no significance. Like, why do I remember in 1978

when somebody said to me, you know, all the things you put out for snacks are cheese. Yeah.

Cheese is not important in my life. And yet I remember that kid saying that.

Why?

I have no theory on that. Do you?

No, not so much in theory on that. Make it secretly somehow

significant. Well, I don't know.
I'd say what?

Was there

was this a friend? Yeah, I just remember in college.

I mean, I could pick so many examples like that, but just like a moment where somebody said something and you'd just be hard-pressed to find why it was significant, but it just stuck in your mind when so many things, and then there's so many things where, like, I wish I could remember, why did it so significant?

Why don't I remember what, you know, losing my virginity was like?

It's just very vague. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. No, I have no idea.
I remember very strange things as well. And

I have a pretty good memory, all in all.

But

I tend to remember

I I can see a photo from 40 years ago and kind of remember yeah that was there at this point blah blah yada yada but

I always think I don't much remember my life before I had children really yeah not not too much because your life takes on a dimension of significance that's incomparable to before

not so much my life but I think your life focuses

and

you're not really part of that focus. There is a kind of new focus and you have a kind of role in it, you know.
That's one reason I never had kids. Yeah.
Well, I never wanted to be 2.0. Yeah, yeah.

Well,

that's probably a good idea. You did that.
Well, no, I mean, people, there's nothing, and I say this as someone who never had kids, but it's just so obvious that even an outsider like me can see

that there is nothing like the love a parent has for the child. Yeah, sure.

Possibly because it's sort of you. Yeah.
And well, I don't know if it's that. In fact, I think

it's funny, and I think now I'm kind of in a phase that's even removed from that, which is I went home last week.

I'm shooting a series out here, and I went home last week because we live outside of Boston, and my daughter had our second grandchild

on the 17th, and

the hospital was already closed, it was near midnight now.

So we went to see the baby on the 18th. And I was reminded that a friend and collaborator of mine,

his grandmother, when she had her first, they had the first grandchild in Mickey's family, the mother printed a t-shirt that said,

had I known it was this much fun, I would have done this first.

And I kind of

really began to understand that after I had the first grandchild, because there's a lot about bringing up children that's not so much fun. But the grandchild is a no-brainer.

For the most part. Because you're not doing the heavy lifting, right? Yeah.
Although that often does not become the case when

the kids are near to Wills, which happens a lot. Of course, the kids on SMAC, so who takes over? The grandma.
That's right, yeah. I mean, it's

you know, you never know.

I I think our daughter loves being a a mother, and uh

I got to talk to my granddaughter right on the the way here, who I hadn't been able really to talk to because

my daughter has been busy, and when I called, I don't get an answer, et cetera, et cetera. But so I got to hear her pooping.
And how old?

Seven days. Oh, good.
Yeah. Because if it was like five,

I'd be like, I'd have to call child services. That's right.
I hope we have no friends. Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I can relate to absolutely none of this, but it is one reason I like to hear about it because

it just fascinates me as things fascinate a person when you can't relate to them because it's just more interesting because it's so not you. Me, I get me.
I know me. Sure, yeah.
Those things are.

And did you come from a big family? No, I came from an absolutely believe it to beaver background. My parents were World War II vets, both of them, my mother a nurse, my father in Patton's army.
Wow.

Yeah.

And barely knew each other in high school, but reconnected in Europe at the end of the war. How funny.
Yeah, very romantic. Yeah.
Wow. And

my father's Catholic. I was raised Catholic.
My mother's Jewish, but only culturally. I didn't even know it when I was a kid.

But my father was going to marry somebody else because Catholic boys just didn't marry Jewish girls in 1951, but at the last minute

he had the change of heart.

so, yeah.

So he was a, you know, I was very,

you know, you're just so lucky if you have good parents. Yeah.
Oh, God. And so unlucky in ways if you don't.
Yeah. You know.
Yeah. So I was lucky and, you know, leave it to Beaver.

I mean, we're the same age almost. I mean, you were like the

America of, this is New Jersey, you know, all white. You know, no drugs in the high school.
I mean, it was just such an innocent black and white time. My life was

super leave-it-to-beaver. In fact, probably the big event of my life

was when I was,

one of them was doing a play out here in Los Angeles at the Margaret Aboral Forum. And at the end of the play, there was a knock on the door, and I opened the door, and it was Barbara Billingsley.

Barbara Billingsley?

Wait, wait.

I watched all these shows in reruns as a kid. That's either.

Beaver's mom. Oh, Beaver's mom.
And. Beaver's mom.

She kind of started with, you know, I just have to tell you this for fun.

Excuse me. So sorry.

Can we stop right there?

You're Beaver's mom.

You were like my whole sexual.

Beaver's mom? Yeah.

Couldn't wait for I Dream of Jeannie. No, first it was Haley Mills and then for quite a while, Beavers came.

John. And Haley Mills, too, I met backstage.
And I had to kind of say the same thing. Sorry, I had to.
No, I mean, I'm your biggest fan, but Barbara Billingsley, that's sick.

I mean, like, I could see Haley Mills. She was cute.
Sure. But

Barbara Billingsley was strictly mom vibes.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, probably

some problem.

You know.

No, I had Barbara Eden sitting in that chair this year. Wow.
And she's 94 and

she betrays it by, I would say, a quarter century. I mean, you would think,

and some people just carry themselves with an energy and a movement that does not suggest age, you know?

I mean, Trump has that quality. He's almost 80, and he doesn't read as 80.
Funny.

He reads as crazy,

but not 80. Different topic.
But it's funny because I was thinking about Barbara Eden, who I haven't haven't thought about in years. I was staying at a hotel when I came out here for a few days

because I had stuff to do in Burbank, and I stayed out there at a place called Amarona, I think it's called. Nice, perfectly nice.
And it had only photos of Sobiz people everywhere.

And one was Barbara Eden with Groucho Marks. With Groucho Mark? Which was a fantastic photo.

And so I was just kind of, every time I'd leave my room and go down the stairs, I was kind of contemplating it. You know, which must have been, been

I remember I remember the thing about it that when I was a kid of course

they seemed ancient to Marx brothers when I was small me too yeah and probably they were 40 right I mean or not even I remember George Burns when I was a kid yeah and he was like his character was almost an old man yeah he reminded me of not just my uncle but every uncle yeah yeah because a smelly cigar I remember I had an uncle who smoked his and it was like this awful burning, smelly, horrible thing in

the smoke. It was just a camp that a kid and a human rejects that you have to force yourself to like things.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

But he was still playing an old man when I was an adult. Like he played an old man for like 40 years.

I remember he did.

The last time I saw him,

he did a movie. I don't remember the name of it, didn't he? With John Denver.
Oh, God. Oh, God.
He's God. Yeah, yeah.
He was so old, you know, now they'd probably cast you.

Exactly.

I mean,

if you're iconic enough, you get to play God. If you haven't done it already, you will.

You're a perfect. They must have asked you to be God.
That would alarm me for a humanity. Really?

Because Anthony Hopkins,

God, or like I think Zeus or something like that, maybe not our God,

Morgan Freeman. Morgan, I'm totally comfortable with.

That I'm good with. Oh, he's the best God, yes.

Anthony Hopkins is great, but you get the feeling God is just doing it for the money.

Yeah, could be.

Yeah, that could be a little worse. I like him.

Great actor. Oh,

so great. Yeah.
So what's this project you're working on here? I am doing right now

the second year of his series, which I

liked

and which I watched all of it,

called Bad Monkey.

Vince Vaughan.

Oh, Vince Vaughan, I saw it. I was going to start it.

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't. I didn't know you were in it.
No,

it's not at. Mine is year two.
Oh, I see. I didn't do the first year.
I like Vince. I do too.
He's funny.

This was a terrific part for him.

And I liked it very much. And somewhere somebody had asked me, what are you watching? or something.
I said, why is that? I find it quite funny.

And you're happy working?

Yeah, I'm always working.

If it's not that, it'd be something else. You know, I tour in maybe six pieces fairly constantly for

decades.

I

direct,

write, I know. Do no, you're Steppenwolf.
You still have.

I'm not in Steppenwolf anymore. It got too much for me.
Oh.

I always associated

you. Yes, sir.
You know. I was for 40 years.
No, I know. Yeah.
But, you know, it's time for a kind of new generation and their culture, their ideas, their life.

I do.

I do,

for the most part, I spend a lot of time doing classical music collaborations for the last 20 years almost.

Four with the Viennese Broke orchestra and colleagues there, and

other ones with different colleagues, all kinds of different things. Yeah, you're a deep guy.

I must say, I spend a lot of time on this thing, like getting high and then talking about like, well, show business. I try to avoid politics because I started this, so I place not to talk politics

it goes where it goes as you can see there's no quetchy just this is my attempt to get as close as we possibly can to just being exactly how we would be which I feel we are

yeah that's why I didn't want microphones and all this

but

I just got off the road at 70. I've been on the road doing stand-up for 42 years along with this and my show.
So it was a lot. And it feels right as the right thing.

I mean, we just, and I just, I don't know, I sort of pictured that you were like

brando-esque because you are brando-esque to me on that level.

And when he well and then well like he was just

in his later years

you know you know he was not into the work. You seem like you actually like it.
I love the work. And you don't mind being like on the set and in the trailer and no.
Oh, see? I love the work.

I don't even if it's in something that's not like the deepest, really. It doesn't matter.

I never was a genre person.

When my mother said that when I saw Peter Pan, Mary Martins, I think that was like 56 or something like that. I remember in black and white on T V.
Exactly.

That I stayed behind the stove for two days.

I

I guess I was so upset by it, you know, and why I have no idea was the idea of, you know, Wendy, I'm back. Well, no one cares, you know, fuck you.

Or you know what I mean? Something along those lines. But

unlike a lot of wonderful actors,

I think

Brando was certainly one.

George C. Scott, I think, was one.
Loved him. Also.

And

there are many others uh i think that fit into that category they grew to be embarrassed by that kind of work exactly or grew to dislike it yeah i don't feel that way at all that's so much better i i i'm lucky oh i'm so glad to hear that because like i would see you in so many things and like oh he's the spy master in this thing with a movie which i'm enjoying very much but it's not some deep fucking no no no no it's not long day's journey into berlin

It's just a good spy thing, and he's great in this because he's always great. But I just had the feeling,

oh, you know, I know he'd really rather be doing like Richard III

and he's just doing it for the money.

And I'm so glad to find out that really,

meaning

I do things that sound

like when I was a kid, of course, I grew up listening to mostly to pop music or my parents' music.

When

in

just a little more than 20 years ago, I got approached by classical musicians. Would I consider doing a piece with them about blah, blah, blah.

I knew nothing about classical music, no background, no interests, no love of it,

etc.

And

I started doing it because

the power of that music

and

let's say especially the power of that music harnessed in the service of something

excuse my stupidity, but

you're doing spoken word with the classic.

It can be that, or

sometimes

I hesitate to say I'm singing because there is some debate about that.

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And

maybe you're singing like Rex Harrison and My Fair Lady.

Because he famously was not a singer. No, I'm not a talk singer.

I was

many years ago before the trans craze, I was referred to as like saying like a trans Tom Waits.

And many years ago when I used to see a lot of Tom, he just played my brother in a film, or rather I played his brother. And

I

one Christmas I sang Heart of a Saturday Night with my guitar into his

into his recording machine. And he he called me, you know,

a couple of hours later and he said, Man, you sing like a fucking girl.

So,

but

it's a lot of different things. It could be something I adapt and perform in or blah, blah, blah.
They're not just kind of narrations. They're

pieces.

It's not the worst thing.

No. Frankie Valley.
Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I could name a lot of people. That was my song at the talent show.
Eddie Kendricks, you remember the highest.

Oh, yeah, that was, I was listening to

it not so long ago. That's why I remember the name.
But so,

and that kind of

also

revivified

interests at

a time

in the same way that, say,

when

I was 28, 29, something like that, I did a play with Dustin, the Hoffman.

Oh, I saw it. I think it's the first time I ever saw you.
You were talking about Death of a Salesman? Yeah, I saw it on TV. I remember the TV.
I remember where I was.

It was like 85? 80. Yeah, my dad came out in 85.
It was my first apartment out here. Wow.
Yeah, on Westmount. Well,

and I was blown away. Well, and that, but that was his kind of work ethic and the way he worked so hard.
Who? Dustin?

meant a huge thing to me, actually,

because

I was not a big worker.

I was like, yeah, yeah, I read it.

Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, I was like, okay, Gladsman is, yeah, he's a guy.
Yeah, okay, I got it.

Just go out and do it and blah. And never thought about it, never really worked on it, just did it.
Maybe that's the best way to do it. I mean, I.

Isn't that what they're always trying to get to, that are, sort of just don't act, just be just

don't think about it too much.

But the older you get, you can't really do that, I find.

I mean, maybe it's the 5,000 bottles of red wine, maybe

it could be a Catholicity of issues, but talking about memory, don't even.

So

I have to really apply myself. And i ran into people along the road that helped me to

uh it's work is never something i took too seriously i i can always leave it at home i can always go on to the next etc

but

i met people who

um

kept me interested in work my whole life and that was great luck whereas some people I think Brando is one for whatever reason I didn't know him but for whatever reason I think

there are people who really lose interest in the work and I find the work interesting.

Well because you get offered good work and the reason why that happens is because you are great at what you do, amazing at what you do. And you also were in hit movies.

You were in like movies that everybody saw and you also have that kind of cachet as that kind of a top-tier actor. Well earned, you know, the Daniel Day-Lewises and the De Niros and the Dustins.

And you, you know, so when you have both of those, you'll always work. I mean,

there'll always be in demand. And I'm telling you, very lucky.

It's not luck. But it's lucky being born John Malkovich.
Yeah.

And it's lucky being born when I was

in America. Absolutely.
Oh, et cetera, et cetera. And the color of my skin without sounding like some kind of

clown.

No, it's absolutely

advantages, but I do think

I say luck to the extent somebody says, you work very hard. Yeah, sure, I do.
But so

do a lot of people who work in a factory or do so do a lot of actors who never get anywhere. No, we are very lucky to toil in the vineyard of the Muse.
Yeah, absolutely. Which is a lot I still have.

And it's a great job.

That's what I mean.

It's fantastic.

There's jobs and there's careers.

Careers are fun, jobs are drudgery. I've had both.

I know the difference. And by the way, everyone in America knows the difference.

And that's why they don't want jobs. I can't blame them.
No, I can't. Don't worry, kids, with AI, there won't be any.

Well, boy, what about Drato? I mean, see,

this terrifies me on a number of levels. It should.
It's terrifying. I have children and grandchildren.
Yes.

And also because

I remember already five, six years ago I was doing a play

in London, and I was talking to a taxi driver there

because they're always very chatty. And we were talking about this idea of,

you know, they're always, we were talking about this idea of driverless cars, and I just kind of go,

okay,

that's okay.

But,

and, and maybe they'll be better than people. We're profoundly flawed, we're distracted, we run red lights, we get drunk, we get a hug.
We text while driving.

Yeah, we text while driving, we put on makeup while driving. I do.
Yeah, certainly I do.

Just the other day I was watching a girl as

someone was driving me to work, as the driver is driving me to work, who was just doing her makeup in the visor and really not looking at the road for kind of 20 seconds and going along the freeway, you know.

And, you know, you kind of do,

is this a 101 or is this...

You didn't say anything? No, she was in the next car. Oh, the next car.
Yeah, just driving along, looking at herself. And, you know, you just

said something. Yeah.

I was once pulled over by a citizen. Yeah.

I was driving so badly, a citizen pulled me over.

Yeah. No, just a guy who said,

dude, you're going to have an accident. Okay, well, that's fair.
Very fair. Yeah.
And then I celebrated my way into his car and he drove me home. Wow.
Yeah. Remember,

he was beefing with his wife and we wound up going to strip clubs together. Wow.
And then one of the strippers drove him back to where we left his car in Malibu. That's hilarious.

But

most of your friends, show people? I have a good amount of people

who are friends in some version of show business or the other, either producers, writers,

actors, et cetera. Because that's who we get to know.

That's who we get to know. That's who we work with.

Most of them are that.

And then I have friends who are not that.

I still have friends from childhood. Me too.

And many people, you know, show business. Look, I rag on it all the time here, but

the truth is that it's like any other industry. There are saints and there are sinners, and there's a lot, you know, if you think it's all shit, it's not all shit, it's mostly shit.

It's mostly shit, but the stuff that's good is good. We're like, you know, we are very entertained, but we do the best we can, and we can take solace

almost everybody in show business that what we obsess on, that we could have done better, they're not noticing anyway. No.

They just, I never once saw you perform

and thought, oh man, I would have really liked to have seen an alternate version of that scene because he really could have, it's like, no, he's killing it as he always is, you know.

And I'm so glad to find this out about you, your attitude. It's rare, really, among icons like that.

You're right.

The Brando and those guys, they did have a, George C. Scott kind of got cranky at the end.
I mean, poor Gene Hackman got eaten by rats. I mean,

how mad do you have to be in jail business

to let that happen to you?

You know, yeah, yeah.

Oh God. Yeah.
No, but you have such a great attitude and

it makes me think, oh, then he must be very proud, as I hope he is, of like the con airs, the

in the line of fires, because like those were like

just for the guy like me who was like, I am not a culture vulture. You know, I like culture.

I think I'm pretty more cultured compared to where society has gone than the average bear, but I'm not into opera or ballet.

But I just like a good movie that's all, it's entertaining and it's about something. And those were movies that fit that.
I mean, I think in the line of fire,

it's could be in my top 10 of all movies of all time. Like the things I can watch over and over,

can't seem to resist it. It sort of has a perfect script.

I don't know if you won awards for it, you probably should have. If you didn't,

they got it wrong. And then Clint East actually could have and should have won a

leading man actor for that. I love Clinty.

But that performance. Yeah, it was great.
He does some great work in that.

I love him. And he was terrific.
And I have a great Conair story, I think.

I was,

we had a house in France, and I was living there

and I was there working on a screenplay of a film I later had directed with a writer called Nicholas Shakespeare who'd written the novel and Nicholas had never written a screenplay.

So three, including on the set of Conner later, we were

working on the script in the afternoon.

We'd come in for lunch, we were still there having a coffee and then a package came and it was a DHL and it was a script, which is how you used to get, you know, before internet or in pre-history.

You, that's how you got a script. And so I open up this package, I look at it, I see the title, I open the first page, I see the characters listed,

you know, and I look at that, I kind of look at the first

three lines or something. Of your character or of the whole thing? No, of the whole thing.

Just the title, the list of characters and stuff, which I noted seemed to all have the last names of Romantic era poets. And

kind of an Easter egg for. Yeah.
And so I kind of thought, okay. And I threw the script like this.
We have a...

have a long kitchen in France. It's kind of 16 meters.
I just chugged it like that. And Nicholas and I went on talking, etc.

And

then we went out and I picked weeds, we went on working, as we did kind of all day long, et cetera, et cetera. And then at the end of the night, after a bunch of wine,

Nicholas said to me, you know, John, I've never read a screenplay. Would you mind terribly if I took this screenplay that you received today and read it? And I said, oh,

of course, be my guest, Nicholas. Of course, he went up to bed.
Next morning he came down.

He was just so upset, and he said, I've read this thing, it's just the biggest piece of crap, it's just the worst thing I've ever read. Blah, blah, blah.
Yada yada.

He went on for kind of three minutes. Very, very English, public school boy,

very elegant language and, you know, very passionate.

And he has a kind of sweetness about him, Nicholas. And he went on and on and on.
And then he said, I'm just so glad

I'm working with someone with such integrity that they would never consider a thing like this. And I was like, Nicholas, whoa, whoa, Nicholas, stop.
Sorry. I'm doing it.

That's great. I read what I had to read.
Con air, convicts on an airplane named after romantic area poets. That's 500 million.
Jerry Bruckheimer producing.

Sorry, don't.

Don't really need to read it.

I'm not a kind of

snob about that.

No, you're not. I love you.
I love it. I like funny things.
I like you more. I love childish things.
I like you a lot, and I like you more now.

It's great. Because, like, I have to tell you, I was starting to say this like 20 minutes ago and then was stoned and forgot, but I'm going to say it now.

Like, I do spend a lot of time here because politics comes up and show business talking about actors. And I'm afraid it's not often very complimentary.
I believe this about people in show business.

The talent is overflowing. The talent is so awesome sometimes.
I mean, just in music, acting, all this, all the arts, you know, it's just so, they are so talented, but not that bright.

And whenever I say this, I always say, with notable exceptions. And I just wanted to say to you, because I really, I don't do any preparation, obviously.

But this is the one thing that I said, oh, he's here. I have to tell him this.
When I say with notable exceptions, I think you are exactly who I'm talking about. I don't mean just you,

but I mean, like, see, you said I was sitting in a house in France. This is how I picture you.
You're sitting in a house in France, surrounded by beatniks and poets and, you know, brilliant people.

And then I thought,

you're just like, okay, I've got to go to work for the next month and make $12 million so we can live here in France. That's how I thought you were.
So it's nice to know that you're enjoying the work.

And actually, you want to get out of the house. Yeah.

Well, you're like every other guy.

Sorry, I did this for three days.

Yeah. No, I'm not even so eager to get out of the house, but the fact is that's where the work is.
You know,

in the year

when this series finishes, which brings me here, I'll have tours all over South America, North America, Europe. I'll direct a play in Japan.
Wow.

Your life is on the road, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it. I couldn't anymore.
This is where we part. Yeah.

You're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I am so happy not having to be just

away from the house.

But some people are more homebodies, and some people were born in a trunk, and that's how they feel comfortable. Yeah.
I mean, W.C. Fields couldn't get to sleep

unless it was raining. All right, y'all.
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No se que pedir estas navidades, porque ya tingo todo lo que de siaba. Que McDonald's trajera de regres el magrib.
Y a un that is only for time limits.

It is delicious, sandwich decerdo dead, son of cubierto unintense

barbecue. It's sufficient for me to leave this.
And no one receives a year, because also

a refreshment calculation

of Magri por solo unuses news. But

participation can bear no puede combinar que conno uno troverto cómio.

How much did you tour

like how every other weekend I was on the road? Like just two two cities, a very pampered way of doing it. And it was still, it just got to be, first of all.
It's a lot.

And also, I hate to put it this way, and of course people will be upset, but people are just like at hotels and stuff, they just can't do shit anymore.

I mean, I don't know whether they're stoned or disaffected or both or, you know, just whatever it is. But there's also it's just like, I just, and I'm not asking for the world.

I just want a comfortable experience in a hotel. Don't fuck with the heat and the TV and what something, don't make it like I have to think about the fucking room for the all of 18 hours I'm here.

Yeah. Well, they can't do that.

And why I'm screaming? Yeah.

I scream about it too. I know.
See, something happened.

One could say it was during COVID, but I think it's actually predated COVID.

Now,

you're supposed to do that job. So, in other words, you no longer can go, say, to a travel agent and say,

I would like to go from here to there, blah, blah, blah. You have to do it yourself.
You have to notice that

whenever you book an airplane ticket, that whatever you say, one bag,

no

Tulsa, not Tulsa, no Oklahoma City, know this, that the date changes.

After you go through all this misery to book an airplane ticket,

then they want to know how they did.

And so you have to do that job. It's so needy.

And it's so

needy.

To be corporately needy, it's one thing to be personalized. I don't want to keep it.
But as a corporation, how were we at car rental? Do you like me? Yeah. Do you like me? And I kind of go, listen,

I picked up a car, just a car,

when I got back on the 20th. I won't say what company.
The woman is perfectly pleasant.

And she started re-asking me all the questions where it says, do you want insurance?

Okay.

Do you want

thousands of dollars of third-party insurance?

Okay.

Do you want this? Does your butt hurt? Does this, blah, blah, yada, yada, and fucking on and on and on. And so you fill out all that.

And

I take the flight at dawn from Boston. I get TLA.
I go to the the rental car in Studio City, and she starts the same questions over.

And I kind of say, excuse me, Miss,

see,

when you fill out this form,

you answer all those questions

with your reward allegedly being shorter time at the checkout.

And now you're re-asking me all these things in the hopes of getting me to pay $27

for

this radio station or blah blah blah, all of which I already answered. I already did all that.
And that's in everything now. If they ship you something, how was it?

Well, I paid you, you shipped it, I have it. If I don't have it, you'll hear from me, but otherwise it's fine.
And now you just do everyone's job. Everyone.

See, this is another reason why I didn't have kids. You just have more money when you have no kids.

I haven't faced any of this this century. I flew on a private plane, got picked up.
I never dealt with a fucking agent. They'll rental cars.
You shouldn't either.

But because you have kids, which take all your money. Yes, sir.

Yeah.

I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely, which you don't get to leave them. No, no.
No, and I'm sure the reward is much greater than having to deal with that agent. But after hearing that story, it's

like.

Sure. But

it's just, that's what I find now.

Everybody wants you to do their job. But you, and yet you put up with this because obviously it's worth it to get there to the gig.
Yeah.

It still is. Yeah.
Wow. For me.
That must be. If I go.

That's a powerful love that you have for me. If I go,

one of the pieces I tour

is

a piece called The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman.

This is...

I simply read a story. I don't act.
There is no acting in it. I read a story.
It's a story by Roberto Bolaño from his book, Nazi Literature in the Americas, which is

a book,

a small novel of Bolaño's. He wrote two massive masterpieces, one called The Savage Detectives and one called 2666.
I took them both to the beach. Yeah,

brilliant. Okay, well, brilliant writer.

He wrote a kind of very childish, quite funny book, and quite, I mean, in a very dark way, quite a mordant way, but also quite a sad book,

this book, Nazi Literature in the Americas, which is essentially 40 fake obituaries of fake Nazis who never existed, all of whom have idiotic literary obsessions. So

I... Fake Nazis, like

so somebody who they're claiming, for example, was spirited out of Germany after the war, wound up in Brazil, say, or Paraguay.

Boys from Brazil.

Because that did happen. Yeah, of course, a lot.
Eichmann and

a lot. Many of them.
And Boys from Brazil movie. Of course, yeah.
Right. There's a new movie.

But these are fake ones. Yeah, these are fake ones.
These are AI Nazis. AI.

Exactly.

I hope they'll be more likely looking than the AI Nazis.

But

because I don't remember a lot of African Nazis. No, I remember that

I saw a picture. That's

right. If you think AI might be,

but this, I got asked by a pianist, a very gifted Rajan pianist, what would I do if

what could I come up with her

if she wanted to do a tango program? And I immediately thought of this book because South America, boys from Brazil, very, very

kind of American movie culture thinking about it, Eichmann. What is the point of view of the the book?

It's quite...

Some of it's

very funny, very mordant, quite dark humor. That particular piece is

actually terrifically

sad,

which is about a character in Chile.

who is called the infamous Ramirez Hoffman,

who starts out as a kind of artsy, fartsy, pot-smoking poet. Hey, I'm sitting right here.
Yeah, and ends up as a serial killer and

the representative of the Pinochet regime

interest in avant-garde art.

And I said, I want to take this short story. and I want to make a musical piece out of it.
So it's kind of 82 minutes. I do nothing but read this story.

It has a brilliant pianist, a brilliant violinist. But what is it saying that made you want to do this of all the things you could do? I mean,

you say fake Nazis. Is that some comment on how it's easy to put one over on people?

I mean, we can always be fooled into or a... Well, we can certainly be, as we know, including me.
But no, I don't think it's that. It's about the cost of things,

the cost of being human, the cost of what you do to others,

the cost of violence and death and the reverberations. Oh, that's a deep thought.

But all told.

No, I mean it. It is.

And

that's why I do it. I mean, it's just because I remember Woody Allen was here recently, and I was kind of pressing him on this idea that he said at a certain point,

he never made a great movie,

which I would debate.

Oh, Broadway Danny Rose is

a lot of his

stinkers. Yeah, that's true.
But because he's a true artist, he's willing to. And we make stinkers.

Yeah, and we make stinkers, absolutely. Maybe we're making one now.
Absolutely spossible. No, you're definitely not.

I'm enjoying the fuck out of it.

Yeah, I.

But

he's a smart man. I agree with him about that.

It happens.

But at any rate,

so that's why I do it.

That connection

with people

who

understand

what this writer is saying and what the the music is saying,

and are touched by it, irregardless of the fact that it's not in their language, yeah, it has a running translation,

irregardless of the fact that they don't like classical music as far as they know, but because they don't know, in fact, they do like it, they just haven't heard it.

And they haven't heard it in a way that

they can see and most importantly feel what it does to them when channeled in a certain way and that's why the form interests me.

I must say when I hear things like this, it's another one of those

where it's fascinating to me because it's not me.

And I'm torn because part of me says, I'm a little jealous that I'm not on this intellectual level.

I don't think it's a high level at all.

I do. I mean, I do.
I just said people who haven't heard classical music, I have heard it, and

it's not for me. Yeah.
You know, I mean, I grew up on fucking, you know, the Rolling Stones.

Yeah, I know. But me too.
But some people can make that bridge. I'm just saying,

part of me like wishes I could and knows that there's a place to get to that's like, like, maybe would tickle my brain even more. And part of me is like, eh, I'm smart enough.
You're a very smart man.

Thank you. I mean, I have a very good common sense and a balance.
Yes. And

I think it's just, and this is where this form

first appealed to me.

I think it's just

how one is or isn't exposed to something

and how that thing impacts you.

I remember seeing, I directed a play in London a few years ago called The Good Canary, and that was the third production I had done of it

in two other countries before.

And

a young kid at Intermission came over. It was a good production.
It's a very nice play by an American writer called Zach Helm.

And

it was a good production with an excellent cast.

And a kid came over to me, young kid, probably 20, very early 20s, very good-looking kid, English boy. I was standing there.

I still

think I still smoked then.

I think, maybe I didn't, but

went out for intermission. And the kid came over to me.
He was kind of shaking.

And he said to me, and this was just a kid,

and he said to me,

Excuse me,

are plays always like this? I've never been to a play.

And I said, no, they're not. Usually it's a misery.

And I've been in a lot of those. This one is not one of those.

So

they can also be very, very

special

and

make you, in the best way, reflect profoundly on life and the human experience. What do you think is it that makes it a misery, though, when it's a misery? Well, like, what were you referring to?

Many plays I've directed. For instance, I directed a very famous production of a play called The Savages by the great English writer Christopher Hampton, which was

widely chosen as the worst production in the history of Chicago theater.

This had 35 35 naked alleged savages who were meant to be the Zintas Largas Indians in

Amazon basin of Brazil who were being exterminated.

The play started on press night. I had said to two of the savages, people playing savages, but these are kids from the north shore of Chicago, whatever, suburbs,

In seats quite low in the theater. So you either had a vagina,

a butthole,

or a set of balls directly in your face. Wow.

So

here's how the play, sorry, sorry with my friend Tom Irwin, terrific actor,

reciting a poem about these Sintas, Largus, Indians. I had said, five minutes before the play started, I had said, Hey, hey, listen to me.

If the torch goes out to these two actors who are playing savages, two of the savages,

if his torch goes out or your torch goes out with the Sterno in the torch, don't try and attempt to light the other idiots'

torch with your

defunct torch. Okay?

Am I clear? What?

Okay. Again, don't try to light.

So

the poem starts, 35 naked Indians have walked out doing what is

what the Peruvians referred to as a piss dance.

Everybody's kind of like this. They're this far away from the actors.

They're like, fuck, wait, what?

And

one torch goes out, the guy goes to light up the guy's torch. Of course.

Whole stage, wooden stage, on fire.

No. Opening press night.
Since it was opening night, did they think that was what was supposed to happen in the play? They always think that.

Right. So if it catches on fire, they think

and if they catch on fire, well, I guess it's just meant to be. We're talking about directs? Hey, hey, there's no bad policy, am I wrong? That's right.
So

we had a girl who, during the scenes of the terrorist,

kind of Carlos the Jaguar figure you may remember. Of course.

And the kidnapped English diplomat up on the top of our set,

which had three

strips which looked like giant sisline members, sisline, the kind of fake bacon.

For some reason, which I never understood and never asked, because I wasn't the set designer. I wonder what that cisline is for.
But

as the savage band would be playing their little homemade instruments underneath this very serious set, there was a girl who was just

had a gas issue

who would just. Not with that fire.

Oh my God, talk about a recipe for that. But he's talking about the audience, the furthest person is like where that sofa is.
So

there's olfactory, there's smell, and on a certain level, isn't there taste? Right. I mean, and you had people who supposedly have never heard English spoken,

and

have never even heard Portuguese spoken, let alone English. And the guy is supposed to be the chief of the tribe, and then during the ritual, he gets handed the bowl of fruit, and what does he say?

Usually he just puts it in his mouth and chooses, he says nothing. He goes, hmm, berries.
Okay.

So it's like. You mean he adlib?

Yeah, it's an ad lib. And you kind of go, okay, and it was just,

my friend Bob Fules,

a terrific director from a different theater in Chicago, he came to it a couple weeks into the run and I asked him to come.

and say, listen, would you mind coming?

It's not good at all, but I'm hoping maybe you'll be able to say something that I can do, you know, blah, blah, blah. And Bob's very tall, he's like 6'4.

At the end of the play, he kind of stood up, stretched his legs, and I was still sitting down. He kind of bent over me, and I said, Well, Bob,

what do you think I should do? And he goes, close it.

And that's exactly what I'm saying.

Can I ask this question? What did you, or

you and or the people who put on this play, what point were you think you you were making that

was enhanced by the balls and the pussy and the asshole and this other

shit? What point did you think you were making?

You must have thought you were making a point. Because when we're young, we want to make a point.
No, I don't think it was about that point.

They were just meant to represent these naked savages. Okay, but what is the play about? What is it?

It's about the extermination of this

tribe of Indians as told through the eyes of this British diplomat.

Just saying that's bad. Yeah.
Okay. And it's just

a miserable production and then failed on every level. It should, because it's not a deep idea.
Like

evil is bad? Yes, it is. Now let's say something interesting about it.

I was going to say before, when Woody Allen was here, we were having this little debate about, you know, he never made a great movie.

I said, I think you did, and that's why so many of your idols, when you were, you know, making movies like Eliyah Kazan, were all your biggest fans.

They wouldn't be your fans if you didn't make a great movie. He said, I never had a lofty thought.
I said, lofty thoughts. First of all, there's only one.
And then I know you're a Eugene O'Neill fan.

He once said, and this is what I was saying to Woody Allen: the only lofty thought to me is that, in Eugene O'Neill's words, a life

with illusions is unpardonable, and a life without illusions is unbearable.

I feel like

everything is a variation on saying that in an entertaining way. Yeah, I would agree.
Really? I would agree. Yeah.

And there is also

a wrong question. No, I think you're right.
But there is also a question I think that should exist, should be innate in good, serious work, which is how do we live?

That

question,

not in a pretentious way,

how do we live?

And

does this tell me anything?

And in that case, probably the play, at least my production of it, didn't tell me anything. And I think really affecting things and affective things make you reflect on how to live.

There's such a cognitive dissonance in this age because of what is going on in Washington and what is going on in the country, which

you know is so different than

anything if you're a young person. You just don't have that experience that we have that we remember normal.
So

we can't quite communicate to you how abnormal things really are. And yet our lives go on the same way.
Totally fine. So it's almost like we're in a glass bottom boat.

You know, we're looking at the sharks, but we're in the glass-bottom boat. We're not in the water.
No. That we might be in the water.
Because we're talking about the ships.

Well, of course, anything could happen. But you know what I mean about

it? I don't see myself as a political person. Good, let's know.

But I

think about it like this.

I would never let,

and if it came to that,

then I'd have to rethink it, obviously. But I'm 71.
I'll be 72 in December.

I don't decide my day by who's president and who isn't. And you shouldn't.
I live my life. Yes.
I try to

be a decent person.

I try to be a good colleague. I try to be

a decent human being.

I tried to learn something. I understand

I don't have many questions,

many answers to many questions.

And that's all I can do. Well, and you're so lucky like I am is that you not just learn, you transmit.

You're in the job of transmitting what you learn. So am I, as best I can, of course.
I'm trying to tell people what I really think and what will be helpful and so forth.

But you do the same thing in your art form.

You're putting ideas in the water. Yeah.
And

you're much more daring than I am. But in a way, that's your job.

Yeah, it's my job. It's your job.
And

you're...

I love my job. Yeah, and it's a great job.
With all the

shit that goes with it. It's a lot of shit from both sides.

And it's so worth it.

It's so much, it's so, as the old ad used to go, priceless. It's so priceless to be able to say what you really think always

and not worry about where the chips fall. And, you know, they fall on lots of people on both sides.

Of course. And

they've fallen on you. And also

fall on me, sure.

It's fine. You know.

We're so lucky. Of course.
We're just basically lucky. We were born in the right country at the right time.
Don't you think we,

being our age, were kind of born at a blessed time because it's before the AI and environment goes really off the rails time, which is coming, the robots taking over.

And it's, you know, but it's also after we had toilets and antibiotics. And, you know, I feel like we were in a very favorable time.

The most favorable time I would say I could think think of in human history.

And

I know I benefited completely from that.

I had very solid parents.

I had

siblings that I loved.

Most of them gone now, sadly.

I grew up in a nice little town.

I had great friends. It looks like we could have switched.
switched. I mean and I didn't have a lot of friends.

I had a lot of friends and I still have quite a few, but

that's why

when I mentioned luxe, you don't get any luckier than that.

It's lucky to be making our living in the arts. You realize that the arts is not under the category with humans of necessities.
No, no. That would be like defense and getting food and shit like that.

We're definitely in the, well, you won't die without it category. No.
You're not going to die without

Netflix. No, you may read a book

without it. Even books, you wouldn't die.
No. Air,

water, food. Sure.
Barbarians attacking you. Warmth, maybe.

Warmth, absolutely. Yes, or whatever.
Clubs. Absolutely.

Lots of stuff could kill you. Yeah, we're not in the field.

Certainly not in this room. I wouldn't want to be.

No. And I'm glad I'm not.

But I'm also hopefully appreciative. I'm not.
I also wouldn't want to have been born even 100 years ago.

You know, I mean, I don't think people realize how much this country has changed in 100 years.

100 years ago, I would say

I'm pulling this out of my ass, but it's apropos because I'm going to talk about toilets. Like

a fairly goodly percentage of the country did not have like flow toilets. Like on the farm, they were 100 years ago.
Oh, God, even when I was a kid. What?

Yeah, yeah.

Out in the country. Oh, out in the country, yeah.

Miss Burkhardt, who my grandfather referred to as Bubbles Burkhart,

used to, when the bus would

let the kids from the country slide in, she would throw up the windows even with the dead of winter, to kind of emphasize their stink.

You know.

Which, you know, you don't really want that in a grade school teacher, but

okay.

So,

no, they couldn't even imagine, but that's the problem.

It's really hard to imagine. This is something I find

often fairly objectionable

in some youth. I don't in any way say all youth, because uh I've had great experiences working with

people who are much, much younger than me and kids and I've met and worked with some super smart ones. A little bit dangerous to judge people now

who lived a hundred years ago or two hundred years ago.

Yeah, I mean, it's really insane. Hey, listen,

you you're not.

I don't believe you're better. No.
I don't believe,

I mean, you might be smarter. You just came later.
You just came later. That's right.
And lots of things of

great beauty or importance or bravery or humor or kindness.

At least that I can say

I met

wonderful people in my life older than me, who knew more, who went to their grave knowing more, who did more important things for more important reasons. Well, now you're that guy.

Now you're the older guy. I'm the older guy,

but I'm not. I mean, you're running out of people who are older than us.
Yeah, well, I'm almost completely out.

I mean.

But what I mean is, you know,

I'll never be my father. There's no way.
You mean as good? Yeah, no way. Well, how is he better than you?

He was an environmentalist in the 50s when people thought he was insane. He was 82nd airborne.
He was

a lot of things. He didn't give a flying shit about money.
There was nothing corrupt about him. I would say the same with my father.
See, so I go, sorry.

You know,

if I detested myself, I would have killed myself.

They used to say about us boomers when we were kids that we were what we say now about like the millennials and the Gen Z, spoiled, like just entitled bratty, like soft, really soft.

Because compared to our fathers, we are soft. Of course.
It's just they got so much more soft. We're fucking Marines compared to them.
Of soft. Which is so ridiculous because we're not Marines.
No.

They were Marines. No.

Literally. We're Marines or Army people or whatever.
They went to war, depression, the whole nine, just like all the things. And the blacks fighting for like, you know, against fire hoses and dogs.

And like,

it just was a different

attack by German shepherds for being alive. Different levels.
Wanting to go to school. But they said that about baby boomers.
And

it's just, it never like,

there was never any,

you know, backlash. It was just more lash.
Yeah.

Yeah. It could go worse and worse and worse and worse.
Yeah, yeah. Until now they're just so fragile.
Yeah, it's just it's something I try

to

discourage,

but it exists and I don't know why like like I've often had people, you know, when I do interviews or something, my family was fairly prone to violence and my father

who, as I mentioned, was 82nd airborne, he would say a very simple thing. And you knew,

what the end result was going to be

as surely as the sun came up in the east.

He would say, Johnny, when you pull the chain, the toilet flushes.

Okay,

I pulled the chain all the time, and the toilet flushed. So there's no point in saying, I got wet.
Okay,

there's no point.

So I don't have any of that.

Right. Oh,

I was beaten. You're fucking right I was beaten.
And

I should have had four more for every one I got. And I didn't get a tiny amount.
I got

numerous ones. Well, I can't endorse that.
And I'm always... No, I'm not saying I endorse it.
Oh, okay. I'm just saying it doesn't make me a victim.

I am someone who believes in spanking as a sort of nuclear option. That I was just talking to somebody who had a very similar experience.
He said, you know, I didn't get spanked a lot a few times.

And I said, me too. Me too.
Like a few times. Like when

you really commit that kind of foul that they have to let you know, not a beating.

Not a beating, a spanking. But the fact that we got to this place where that was just completely verboten.
That was unthinkable. And it should not be unthinkable.
Yeah, I I kind of agree.

I don't think it should be unthinkable because what I've witnessed is just my personal opinion. What I've witnessed

is

a lot of kind of

emotional blowback both to parents

and in children who can that can never be expressed, which then I think ends up creating a lot of resentment. You know, for me, when I was a kid, I knew if I crossed that line, I was fucked.

That's it. You're fucked.

And that was boom, boom, boom. It's over.
I didn't really think about it. But, you know,

you actors who have your instrument.

Did this help you have your instrument?

Or was this like, now I'm just going to read the lines?

You know, that's a great question,

but I don't think it's one I can answer in that

like Popeye, you know,

we am what we am, and that's all we am.

So I can say what I would have been like as an actor if I didn't have my childhood.

But when you are that spitting, frothing assassin

in the line of fire, it it does make me think now that we're having this conversation that it would be so easy just to be like,

you know, you had that sort of attitude in you for a long time probably about your father. Because, I mean, even when the few times my father spanked me, I definitely hated him.

Of course, who's not going to hate somebody who's hitting you? Yeah.

Sure.

And you sound like you got a lot more than I did. Yeah.
I got a decent amount. Yeah.

I think I hated my father at times,

but mostly I loved him and I never, I'll tell you what I think was the important takeaway.

He, anything I did that was good, that was expected. It wasn't praised.

That was a minimum. My father was a son.

That was that generation.

That was how they were. Yeah.
So you get this many strikeouts, I was a pitcher. You get this many tackles, I was a football player.

You do this play or that play, you do whatever it is you do. I went to report that.
I tried with all A's in one B.

And he said about that subject, he said, oh, I guess you had some hard tests in biology, huh? You know, just sort of passive-aggressive, like, really,

nothing about the five A's. That's right.
No, no, that's run and peek. Yeah, yeah.

Well, but see, to me, that's what I think

is wrong

kind of generationally.

It seems to me, and I've been involved with it too, that you always say that was superb, that was fantastic, you're beautiful, you're funny, that's great.

What a beautiful drawing. Yada, yada.
I don't know if that's good for kids. It's not.

It's locked. No, no, no, it's not locked.
No.

Oh, it is. So hard to get good help.

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