"Mark Ruffalo"

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Speaker 1 Here's how I make a tuna sandwich. I take the celery sticks, the chop, chop, chop, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip, chip chip chip chip chip chip, chip, chop.

Speaker 1 I put them on the, in the bowl before the tuna goes, and then I put the tuna in.

Speaker 1 Here's how I make a tuna fish sandwich. I open up the can of tuna.
I put it in a bowl. I I slice up the celery.
It has to have celery. Cannot have celery.
Cannot not have celery.

Speaker 1 Here's how I make a tuna fish sandwich. I open the can of tuna.
Tuna can of

Speaker 1 here's how I make a tuna fish can. Here's how I make a tuna fish sandwich.
I opened up two cans of sand.

Speaker 1 Here's how I make a tuna fish sandwich. I opened up two cans of tuna in water, not oil.
It has to be water. Oil is disgusting.

Speaker 1 And then you put it in the bowl and you, I chop up a celery stick really, really fast. Touch

Speaker 1 up. Super like dick.

Speaker 1 Ah, fuck it. Welcome to Smart Life.
Smart.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 You heard about Bennett, you know, that he's doing some personal training now. Do you know about this?

Speaker 2 You're late to the bit. You know, some of us get on a little bit early and make sure our devices are working.

Speaker 1 I like those.

Speaker 1 It's a good bit. It's proven as a good bit, too, for sure.
What time is your next session? I've got one at 9.45.

Speaker 1 we could start wrapping this one up, please. What are you talking about? For sure.

Speaker 1 Sean? Oh, there he is. Sean, we could have you start stretching, please.
And Chaturanga. Surprise guests, give us a little snap if you don't mind.

Speaker 1 Sean, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Sean, you know, what Bennett is, do you know what Bennett's background is? Really quick, do you know what that is?

Speaker 1 It looks like a gym. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 You're reading books, I see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you've seen picture rolls. Somebody's seen pictures of stuff

Speaker 1 so uh so will is will is back from georgia when did you get back will yesterday that's cool and uh yeah are you checking your text you want to get back to us yeah i'm just exactly we can just hold we hold the record

Speaker 1 somebody's calling me so i'm trying to think like why am i do not disturb didn't work but oh guys hey um i did have

Speaker 1 We flew back yesterday and

Speaker 1 had some crazy turbulence early into the flight. Wow.

Speaker 2 And I love turbulence.

Speaker 1 And it was maybe the worst I've ever had. And it was

Speaker 1 like, it was scary AF. And

Speaker 1 the rest of the flight, I was just, the cortisol dump that I had from that was just so intense. Yeah.
It was like one of those side to side and up and down.

Speaker 1 And being alone is scary too, because I'm sure you were alone. Well, I was flying.
Yeah. Oh, so you were up front.
I flew myself. Yeah, I was up front.

Speaker 1 So I was really scared because also I don't know how to fly a plane. Yeah.
Do you get, do you get really, Do you get really scared about turbulence? Yeah, I do, yeah.

Speaker 2 Hang on a second. You guys talk about all your world travels.

Speaker 2 You don't remember

Speaker 2 flying next to this old gal?

Speaker 1 Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right.
I forgot. I know that I am.
And Jason, you know.

Speaker 2 She loves to dig her fingers into your arm if you're sitting next to her.

Speaker 1 But what was that?

Speaker 1 She white knuckles it all the way. I know.

Speaker 2 If you don't bring a white Russian in time, you're going to get some fingernails.

Speaker 1 Oh, listen,

Speaker 1 I was just like, at that point,

Speaker 1 anything was on the table.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But was it like Gaspy? Was it, were you?

Speaker 1 We were like, oh, yeah. And it was just me.
It was me and Eli and our buddy Bob and Liz

Speaker 1 on the plane.

Speaker 1 And everybody ends up just closing their eyes and not talking. Yeah, nobody talked.
It got really, you know, it gets weird.

Speaker 2 Are they as nervous flyers as you are?

Speaker 1 Or were they more casual? No, but I think that everybody plays a role. Once somebody is the most nervous, then everybody else can be degrees of less.

Speaker 1 yeah yeah um and i was i was definitely the worst i've been better lately but that one yesterday and the guy had said to us like look there's going to be some pretty uh it's going to be pretty choppy early on um i didn't think that he did you say choppy he said pretty choppy yeah because i wanted to get what choppy we got it good he's in pretty choppy early on uh anyway it was one of those like

Speaker 1 you know please don't let this be the moment all that kind of shit and um

Speaker 2 did you send off any texts to any family members?

Speaker 1 I couldn't even reach for my. Are you kidding? He's doing it now.
He was doing it at the beginning of the show. You know, well, the funny thing about it is it's the control, too.

Speaker 1 So it's like looking out the window, holding on, as if like my worry or looking out there or any of it's going to have any effect on the outcome.

Speaker 1 Like if I grab the, if I grab the thing with the chair really hard, it'll brace my fall.

Speaker 2 Have you thought about hypnosis at all? I have.

Speaker 1 I have. Because I know our friend, she did it, right? Yeah.
And it works

Speaker 1 for her.

Speaker 1 Does it?

Speaker 1 Well, she won't play as nicely worse.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 2 what about, but hypnosis, have you guys ever done hypnosis?

Speaker 2 You ever been.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did guided hypnosis or something, but I didn't really, I don't know.

Speaker 1 What were you trying to do? Do we go for guesses? Eliminate marshmallows from your diet.

Speaker 2 And it was half successful. Now he's just doing the mini ones,

Speaker 1 drinking hot cocoa, so it didn't work. Are you really drinking hot cocoa? Are you having hot cocoa right now? Yeah, right now.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing. I know it is like every day.
It's an 11-year-old's birthday party.

Speaker 2 No, he truly is one of Santa's elves. I think that's who Sean is.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 1 Last night, I flew. I went out yesterday and came back last night to Vegas to see you two at the sphere.
Oh, wow. Wasn't it? You guys went.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It was unbelievable. He went.

Speaker 2 Wasn't that, isn't that the sphere? It's incredible.

Speaker 1 It's mind-blowing.

Speaker 1 I don't know how they do that. I saw that picture that you guys posted that, or you did or Scotty did of you guys with Jimmy and Deb and Edge.
The Edge. Yeah.
It's just Edge. Yeah.
Sorry, Edge. Sorry.

Speaker 1 Mr. Edge.
Fuck, man.

Speaker 2 Come on. The is not his first name?

Speaker 1 It is not. No.
It's mine. He's a very cool dude.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no.

Speaker 1 The Jason Babian. They're all so great.
But anyway, it was great. It was amazing.
I can't believe I lost so much money. We landed, gambled, ate, saw the show, came back home.
That's how you do it.

Speaker 1 I can't sleep overnight there. It's so depressing.

Speaker 2 But your game is, guess, I think, Will, you might know this, but listener, you guess what Sean Hayes's uh game of choice is.

Speaker 1 Well, I think he's mentioned it on the show before, but but it's

Speaker 1 roulette, he likes roulette and blackjack. Yeah, I was gonna say that, yeah.

Speaker 2 Oh, oh, you're not supposed to be here.

Speaker 1 Is that our guest? That's our guest. Well, why don't we come? Why don't we introduce this guy? Our guests are anxious to get

Speaker 2 the first time. That is a guest violation.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the first one. Could you tell, by the way, could you tell just by the voice? Not yet, I couldn't, but we're we've started uh

Speaker 1 here we go in the penalty.

Speaker 2 We're starting in two-minute penalty box. Just a minor.

Speaker 1 Well, my intro is about two minutes. That's perfect.
Okay. I'm so excited about my guest today.

Speaker 1 They're obviously excited because they're already on the show. I mean.

Speaker 1 No, I seriously, I've been trying to get him for a long time.

Speaker 1 He's considered rom-com royalty, but he's also done it all, guys, exceptionally well, I might add. I'm a huge fan, and the best part is he may be even nicer than me.

Speaker 1 When he first moved to Los Angeles, he worked as a bartender for nearly a decade.

Speaker 1 Over the years, he's become a very effective environmental activist, fighting for, amongst other things, climate change and a zillion official.

Speaker 2 Ed Begley Jr., the rom-com king.

Speaker 1 Here he comes. Us is exciting.
Ed Begley Jr., who I love, actually, by the way. I'm such a fan of this person.
I can't wait for you to see who it is. You're going to love him.

Speaker 1 One of his characters makes me green with envy.

Speaker 1 Whenever I think of how to spell or say his name, I always think of the word Buffalo. It's my hero, Mark Ruffalo.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Of course I broke the rules. Wait, Ruffalo.

Speaker 1 Are you a rom-com king? Is that your favorite?

Speaker 2 I was going to go with Hugh Grant or.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 No, you've done obviously amazing dramatic work, but I love your rom-coms. Thank you.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Mark, look, we've got matching peepers on.

Speaker 1 I know. I saw that.
I was like,

Speaker 1 what else can I use here? Do I have anything else?

Speaker 2 Mark, did I just see you got nominated yesterday? Critics' Choice Award, maybe, something like that?

Speaker 1 The National National Board of Review. National Board of Review.

Speaker 2 But who's counting?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Come on. I mean, but I am a New Yorker, so, you know, I had a shoe win.
Mark Ruffalo, dude, welcome.

Speaker 1 Will,

Speaker 1 Will and I go way back. Do you know that? No, tell me how.
I mean,

Speaker 1 like mid-90s, early 90s.

Speaker 2 I'll bet you can give us the month, Willie.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah,

Speaker 1 how about this?

Speaker 1 Fall of 96 is when you guys did This Is Our Youth. You're unbelievable.

Speaker 1 How do you know that? How do you know that? Because, well, because so Mark did This Is Our Youth with Josh Hamilton and my then girlfriend, Missy Yeager, whom I've talked about. That's a great play.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that Kenny Lonergan wrote. And

Speaker 1 they did it off Broadway.

Speaker 1 Fuck, what was that theater, Mark? The first theater you guys did it? The Intar. The Intar.
The Intar. The Intar.
And it was like,

Speaker 1 and Mark and Missy had also done

Speaker 1 a lot of, I guess it was like Tuesdays at night that you guys were doing a bunch of scenes that Kenny had written, right? For a few years leading up to it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, there was some, they had that playwright. Naked Angels had that

Speaker 1 short plays festival. Yeah.
And then are you in a closet, Mark?

Speaker 1 No, this is my office.

Speaker 1 My wife has the giant room upstairs at the balcony, and I'm in what used to be a laundry room slash bathroom. And where I'm sitting is where the toilet was, basically.
Oh, wow. It's pretty awesome.

Speaker 2 Listener, it is a, it's wood-paneled. It's got beautiful pictures on it, but it is narrow.

Speaker 1 It's New York. It's New York.
This is like premium space in New York. I mean, people have apartments this size in New York.

Speaker 1 Mark, it's so nice to meet you. I'm so glad you're here.
Thank you for joining me. Thank you for bringing me.
It's really cool. So cool.

Speaker 2 You're just meeting him, and he's your guest. Will and I both know him.

Speaker 1 Why aren't you wondering? Yeah, we go back, Jason, and I go back. He's my guest because I'm a big fan.

Speaker 2 You guys go back a tiny bit. We don't go back to the intern theater or whatever it was called.

Speaker 1 Sorry, bro. That's it.
Sorry, bro.

Speaker 2 But Mark is just,

Speaker 2 I think I fanned out quite a bit when I met you the first couple of times, and I'm kind of fanning out now. You're just one of my favorites, Mark.

Speaker 1 Truly. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Coming from you, that's a huge compliment.
Thank you. Any of you.
Thank you, Sean.

Speaker 1 Yeah, i'm excited whenever i see kenneth lonergan i'll name i was like i think it's kenny loggins at first glance but tell me like how because will mentioned um

Speaker 1 wait can we back up into that compliment one more time

Speaker 1 like whenever i see his name because lonigren just spun in his early grave real quick no i know but i'm just

Speaker 1 um but wait this is our youth first of all it was a huge hit and like every actor in the world does scenes from that now like it's i mean isn't that wild it's so my son is doing scenes from it in no way.

Speaker 1 Acting class, dude. Yeah, yeah.
Everybody, every actor does it. How old is that? That's so crazy.
He's 22. 22.
Dude, that is so fucking crazy. That's what happens.

Speaker 1 You guys, you have to understand that when that, when these guys did This Is Our Youth, when it came out,

Speaker 1 it was like shot out of a cannon. It took everybody by surprise in this way that you can't believe.
People were like,

Speaker 1 all of them were so, I mean, Josh and Missy and Mark, but Mark was so good in this part that people were like tripping over themselves to offer himself. They couldn't believe what it was.

Speaker 1 It was so good. And the play is so well written.
Mark, you can

Speaker 1 speak to that. What a beautiful, right? Beautiful character.
So perfect almost, that play.

Speaker 1 You want to hear something crazy? We just did a fundraiser here in New York City. Me, Missy, and Matt Damon, who took the play to London a couple years after we did it.

Speaker 1 You did like a reading. White beard.

Speaker 1 We did a reading.

Speaker 1 It was basically, it was kind of turned into the stage reading. Like Missy remembered all her lines.
I remembered some of mine. Wow.
Of course, Missy remembered all hers. Of course, she did.

Speaker 1 And Damon, you know, was just right there. And literally, it was the play.

Speaker 1 I mean, we had the hat, we had the Major Matt Mason.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was, you know, it's funny because it just tells you like what you could get away with on stage. People, I think people bought that we were 19, you know,

Speaker 1 even with my big Santa Claus beard.

Speaker 2 I'm so jealous I have zero theater

Speaker 1 history in my, you know, you would be great in theater, man.

Speaker 2 I remember reading for a couple in my early 20s in New York and was so nervous to get out on stage and audition for, you know, those

Speaker 2 three, you know, silhouettes deep in the house you know speaking you know that you can't see their faces but you I just thought it was thanks we're good yeah exactly from the darkness yeah I just felt like I just did not belong here

Speaker 2 and that they're doing me some kind of a favor

Speaker 2 get your sitcom ass off the stage we we need to cast some some real actors here

Speaker 1 by the way I've been thinking of this this is upper bow of nothing I'm sorry to hijack it here but I've been thinking about this character I was watching TV the other day

Speaker 1 and I saw like one of those judge shows. They have like so many different judge shows, you know, judge this and whatever, midday shows.
And I thought, I want to do one called Judge Camp.

Speaker 1 And he's like a super campy judge. And he's like,

Speaker 1 you're wearing no shoes into my court? Guilty. Get out of here.
Sean.

Speaker 1 Sean would crush you. Sean, love for you to sell me.
How good would Judge Camp be? Oh, my God. Out with that blazer.
Out. With that tone, I'm ruling for your mother.

Speaker 1 You owe her $300.

Speaker 1 Two years in fashion jail. Yeah, exactly.
Judge Camp. That is so.
Thanks. We're good.
Thanks. We're good.

Speaker 2 How many things have you done with Kenneth Lonagren?

Speaker 1 That's what my mom calls him. Lagernet.

Speaker 1 Lonergan. Longer name.
Lonergan? Yeah. What did I say, Lonagren? Yeah, but everyone does it.
It's amazing.

Speaker 1 What is it again? Sorry? Lon Lonergan. Lonergan.
Lonergan.

Speaker 2 How many? Well, you've done

Speaker 2 two films? At least one?

Speaker 1 I've done two films with him.

Speaker 2 Two films and how many plays?

Speaker 1 I've only done one play with him. I directed a version of

Speaker 1 This Is Our Youth.

Speaker 1 I directed a version of You Can Count On Me. God damn it, I love that one.
A one-act version of You Can Count On Me.

Speaker 1 I acted in a one-act version of You Can Count On Me.

Speaker 1 Like on stage?

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. It was part of that one act festival that missy and i did with rob morrow playing my character and

Speaker 1 you can count on me for my sister tell my sister who missy is oh missy yeager is um just the most

Speaker 1 brilliant actor she's a writer now yeah yeah daughter of steve yeager and granddaughter of chuck yeager yep not true

Speaker 1 but really good

Speaker 1 thank you

Speaker 1 that covers the jaegers i know good calling people

Speaker 1 associating with other Jaegers you've heard of.

Speaker 1 It's really from the Jaeger Meister dynasty that Misty Company. That comes from.
Jaeger Meister.

Speaker 2 Talk to us about how exhausting it was trying to prop up

Speaker 2 that talentless actress, Laura Linney, and you can count on me.

Speaker 1 Such a good movie.

Speaker 1 I mean, you can find some talent.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's just, it just, it'll wear you out.

Speaker 1 You know?

Speaker 2 Just love her so much.

Speaker 1 Love her so much. The most brilliant, sweetest, most humble.

Speaker 2 And you could tell because you two are so high quality and just being people, that that was like this extra special rocket fuel in that movie. In a movie that the chemistry and

Speaker 2 the brother-sister connection had to be sort of palpable, tangible. Like

Speaker 2 I imagine it wasn't luck that they put you two together

Speaker 2 in that you're both so kind and such a a match that you could just kind of feel it through the screen, that extra little bit that gave that match.

Speaker 1 I love that much. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I was not supposed to be in that movie at all. I had to literally beg Kenny Lonergan to give me an audition for him.
Really?

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 We were actually, we'd had lunch. We had the great success of This Is Our Youth.
We were having lunch one day at Cafe Lou

Speaker 1 on the 13th.

Speaker 1 And we were walking out, and Ethan Hawk was sitting at the bar. Uh-oh.
And Kenny's like,

Speaker 1 Ethan,

Speaker 1 did you read that script?

Speaker 1 And Ethan was like, oh, no, man. You know, I did.

Speaker 1 It's just not for me.

Speaker 1 You know, I just did this other thing that's basically the same character. So, you know, it's good, bro, but it's, you know, it's just not for me right now.

Speaker 1 And we started to walk out, and I was like, what script?

Speaker 1 And he's like,

Speaker 1 you haven't read it?

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 no.

Speaker 1 I'm going to direct a movie.

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 can I read it?

Speaker 1 He says, just don't get your fucking manager on me.

Speaker 1 I love that. And

Speaker 1 finally, he acquiesced and it was basically like, fine, we're going to fucking, I'm casting Timothy Oliphant this weekend. You don't look anything like Laura Linney.

Speaker 1 But I'm going to give you, I'll let you audition just because you're such a pain in the ass.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he brought me in on a Sunday

Speaker 1 in the casting direct, into the casting office with him holding a camera in one hand and and reading the script in the other. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 And that was my audition after the first scene. He's like,

Speaker 1 that was really good.

Speaker 1 Damn it. You might be good in this part.

Speaker 1 All right, let's read the next one.

Speaker 1 And we read the next one. No way.
That's crazy. He was like,

Speaker 1 you're really fucking good in this.

Speaker 1 Great. Great.

Speaker 1 Just great.

Speaker 1 That's hysterical.

Speaker 1 And we will be right back.

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Speaker 2 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 Mark, there's two things I'm obsessed with, theater stories, if you got one, and medical stories.

Speaker 1 But you don't have to do either one, and you can set, you can not answer any question you want to. But the, the, what happened to you during You Can Count on Me is fascinating to me medically.

Speaker 1 Actually, that was after

Speaker 1 all that. Okay.

Speaker 1 And I was, you know, I was, I was on my way, you know, I was like all the big agents and

Speaker 1 everything.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, I had a brain tumor after

Speaker 1 the success of You Can Count On Me.

Speaker 1 And you had a dream about it or something? Yeah. Wow.
Crazy. Yeah, it's the craziest thing.

Speaker 1 I was actually shooting The Last Castle with

Speaker 1 Candolfini and

Speaker 1 Robert Redford. And I had about a week left on that.

Speaker 1 My son, Sunrise was like nine and a half months pregnant.

Speaker 1 And the baby was eminently coming.

Speaker 1 And I had, you know, I had one of those like 4 a.m.

Speaker 1 calls

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I woke up probably around three

Speaker 1 and I just had this crazy dream. And it wasn't like any other dream I'd ever had.
It was just like, you have a brain tumor. It wasn't even a voice.
It was just, it was just pure knowledge.

Speaker 1 You have a brain tumor. That's insane.
And you have to deal with it immediately. That's crazy.
Jesus. Wait.
I mean,

Speaker 1 were there any symptoms?

Speaker 1 No, no. It's funny.
I had like an ear infection that night. And

Speaker 1 so I was feeling, you know, that was hurting me. And

Speaker 1 so I went to the cast doctor the next day, who was literally sat on the board of, you know, the Nashville

Speaker 1 Presbyterian Hospital.

Speaker 1 And I said, listen, this is going to sound crazy.

Speaker 1 I had this dream last night that I had a brain tumor. Fucking actor.

Speaker 1 She said, that is crazy.

Speaker 1 But there's no reason that you should, you know, have to worry about it.

Speaker 1 I'll order you a CAT scan, and we'll go right after work today, and

Speaker 1 we'll show how crazy you are.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, great. I am crazy.
Just do it anyway.

Speaker 1 And I went and then we went up to the neurologist's office who's going to read the scan. And the nurse calls

Speaker 1 the doctor out.

Speaker 1 I could hear them talking in the other room. And she comes in.
She's just kind of like

Speaker 1 a zombie.

Speaker 1 And she says,

Speaker 1 you have a mass behind your left ear the size of a golf ball.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 yeah, we don't know what it is. We can't tell until it's biopsied.

Speaker 2 Same ear as the earache?

Speaker 1 The ear infection? Yeah, same ear as the earache.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I said,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 1 How old were you? Yeah, oh my God.

Speaker 1 I was 33. 33.
And thank God it was benign. About to have a baby.
About to have a baby. And you just finished You Can Count On Me?

Speaker 1 And you've worked super hard and you've just done all this stuff and now you're making a movie with Robert Redford and Gandal Feeney. It's all coming together.
And in this moment, you're like, uh-huh.

Speaker 1 And they're like, it's on, so, so then I, so I didn't tell Sonny because I, you know, she had the birth planned, she did the, you know, the yoga, she had the doula, you know, we had the hot tub ordered, you know, we had like for the party after.

Speaker 1 This is like, yeah, this is like her wedding, you know, man. Like,

Speaker 1 this is like her christening, her, her quinceinero.

Speaker 1 And, um,

Speaker 1 and I just was like, I can't, you know, she's already like,

Speaker 1 oh, God, him again. I mean, has everything got to be about him?

Speaker 1 And so I just couldn't.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 like a few days, like a week after the baby, I had to go in and meet the neurologist and decide

Speaker 1 what I was going to do. And had you told Sonny yet? I hadn't told her.
No way.

Speaker 2 What a thing to sit on.

Speaker 1 Until the night before. Dude.
I mean, yeah, like Jason says, like, you're sitting there with all this stuff going on. What a thing to sit on.

Speaker 1 What a thing to have literally in your head and also swimming around in your head in both ways. I mean,

Speaker 1 that time between you know and telling her must have been just absolute torture.

Speaker 2 It was extremely like shave your head and cut cut into your scalp and take

Speaker 1 it.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I have a big scar, you know, that quarter horseshoe thing.

Speaker 2 Did they say that the prognosis was like, were you super concerned or were they like, listen, this is something we do a lot. It's, it's early, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1 I was super concerned because I didn't, you know, I hadn't really gotten the, I hadn't met with a neurologist, you know, there, I, what I was told by the doctors was like, you know, it's a brain tumor.

Speaker 1 But from the dream, the dream was so intense and it was literally like you have a brain tumor, you have to deal with it immediately. Right.

Speaker 1 And it just had this sense of doom.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I'm like, it's a funny thing. You're like, no, that's just the tumor talking.
Dude, it's a psych.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 You know how my tumor ran away with me, really.

Speaker 2 I love that it was close enough to your ear to actually speak to you and say, hey, come get me a whisper now.

Speaker 1 That's crazy that you had a dream about it, doesn't it? No, dude.

Speaker 2 So they take you in there,

Speaker 2 they shave a spot, they cut open your scalp, they cut it out. And then, like, is there an extensive rehab process or are you out and about that afternoon?

Speaker 1 No, man. Well, first of all, I just got to say, when I told Sonny about it, first she thought I was joking

Speaker 1 and then she just burst into tears and said, I always knew you were going to die young. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 That's horrible.

Speaker 1 But so good. I mean,

Speaker 1 if you wrote it in a script, it would be too much.

Speaker 2 Let's just play that instead of saying it.

Speaker 1 Here we go, everybody. Exactly.
Exactly. It's so good.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 wow. I think I might.
They took it out. It was benign,

Speaker 1 but it left you a little deaf in your ear.

Speaker 1 Not a little, just totally. Totally.

Speaker 2 Really? Completely deaf in one ear?

Speaker 1 Completely left deaf in one ear. And when I woke up, the left side of my face was totally paralyzed.
No.

Speaker 1 Like I couldn't even close my eye and was talking over the side of my mouth like this, you know?

Speaker 2 Did they say that to expect this or was that a shock to you?

Speaker 1 They said to me I had like

Speaker 1 they I had a

Speaker 1 20% chance of

Speaker 1 nicking my nerve on the left side of my face and killing it.

Speaker 1 And then I had 70% chance of losing my hearing, which went.

Speaker 1 And at that point, like you in the airplane,

Speaker 1 you're like,

Speaker 1 okay, I don't really believe in you.

Speaker 1 But, you know,

Speaker 1 take my hearing.

Speaker 1 let me keep the face, and just let me be the father.

Speaker 1 Foxhole prayers, right? I mean, like that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Reverse for me. They took my face, but I can hear great.

Speaker 1 You're beautiful. And you have incredible hearing, by the way.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Mark, can we start at the beginning? And I want to know more about you. You grew up in Wisconsin.
When did you move to LA? What made you move? Did the whole family move to LA?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And why?

Speaker 1 We moved.

Speaker 1 No, no, the whole family didn't move to L.A.

Speaker 1 We started in Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 You know, the family business sort of blew up. You know,

Speaker 1 my family business was, they had a construction painting business.

Speaker 2 Construction painting?

Speaker 1 Yeah, like huge jobs, like the Libby factory and

Speaker 1 GM Motors, American Motors, you know, bazan blasting.

Speaker 1 Paint the whole factory.

Speaker 1 Huge, huge jobs. Okay.

Speaker 1 And that went under, and my dad was, you know,

Speaker 1 trying to start a new life. And so that took us to San Diego.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he had the original soda butler, which was you can make your own soda at home for fractions of the cost. Really? I mean, like, carbonate your own soda.
Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 1 That was his baby. And he was ready to take off like we see it today.

Speaker 1 And Coca-Cola and Pepsi and all those brands stopped selling, wouldn't sell him the syrup because it was a home delivery kind of system.

Speaker 1 And there's an antitrust law against that. They have to sell those syrups to the public.
Really?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's like, this is against the law. And they're like, fuck you.
Take us to court.

Speaker 1 And basically, once those high-end brands weren't available to people, they just sort of lost its popularity popularity and that crapped up. So we were living in San Diego.
With nothing to do. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we moved there the day after I graduated from high school. Wow.
And I had no support group there. And I was based.
I mean, I'd been surfing since I started living in Virginia Beach.

Speaker 1 All I was doing was really surfing and smoking weed.

Speaker 1 We all know that. Sure.

Speaker 1 And wrestling, by the way, you were a wrestler. Yeah, I was a wrestler during high school.

Speaker 2 It's going to get us to Foxcatcher at some point in this interview.

Speaker 1 If I love that movie.

Speaker 1 I love the movie, too.

Speaker 1 And, you know, someone said,

Speaker 1 go to Los Angeles. You know,

Speaker 1 you want to be an actor. Go to Los Angeles.
Go to the Stella Adler Conservatory.

Speaker 1 you'll meet people there. They'll take care of you.

Speaker 2 Where did that acting interest come from?

Speaker 2 In Wisconsin, was it born?

Speaker 1 Yeah, man.

Speaker 1 You know, I was in a Catholic, you know, my family's Catholic. My grandmother was a born-again Christian.

Speaker 1 And my father was a Baha'i. So I had like the whole Middle East, you know, a good part of the Middle East living in my home, you know.

Speaker 1 And they still couldn't get along.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I would, you know, I'd, first of all, I'd go to church and I was like, wow, that guy is,

Speaker 1 wow, he's captivating.

Speaker 1 Captivating as a priest could be. Then I was saved by Jimmy Swaggart at the first assembly of God and I was like whoa

Speaker 1 he's got a band yeah you know he's sweating he's like Elvis

Speaker 1 so I you know I started a

Speaker 1 I got an idea what it was like to perform and it was weird my grandmother one night I was probably like eight she everything that happened to me that's like core experiences were my grandmother whether it was my first enema or it was

Speaker 1 and my last, by the way. I was just gonna say, not your last.

Speaker 1 And, but, and being saved by Jimmy Swaggart, um, but also letting me stay up at night and watch like the movie of the week. And that one was um streetcar named Desire.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 And I saw Brando like at eight years old, and I was like, I didn't know it was Brando. I don't even know, you know, I was like, Grandma,

Speaker 1 who's that?

Speaker 1 She said, tells me. I was like,

Speaker 1 what is he doing?

Speaker 1 She says, he's acting. I was like,

Speaker 1 I want to do that.

Speaker 1 Just like that. She's like, let's get finished with this anima first, and then we'll

Speaker 1 let's clean you out first. I have just the thing for you.
We're going to cure you of that. Wow.
Wow.

Speaker 2 So then, so then that kind of goes on pause through

Speaker 1 moving.

Speaker 2 Yeah. And then you're out.
Then you move up from San Diego to LA to pursue that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I'm like, Dad, I kind of want to go to the school. And he said,

Speaker 1 I was like, but it's in L.A. and I, you know, I've never really been away from home.
I was 18. And he's like, well, you know, why not?

Speaker 1 I was like, I don't know. I'm afraid.
And he's like, well, what's the worst that can happen? What are you afraid of? I was like, what if I die?

Speaker 1 And he's like, well, if you die, who gives a shit? You know, you'll be dead. You won't even know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'll be sad, but you're not going to know. I like your dad.

Speaker 1 And so I did. I did too.
And I went up there, and

Speaker 1 I was taking the train. I used to.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. We didn't have any money at that point.
We were just poor as church mice. So I'd bus tables at night.
And then the next day,

Speaker 1 I went to school every other day. So I'd work one day and make just enough money to pay for a round trip train ticket and buy a burrito that I cut in a third.

Speaker 1 A rural cheese burrito right off Hollywood Boulevard at Dos Puritos. Yeah.
That's true. And

Speaker 1 yeah. Wow.
And that was it. And I just had my mind blown.
And I'm like, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.

Speaker 2 And then from that acting school, was there like a showcase in there where agents came by and you got an agent and then you started getting some auditions and got a couple jobs and just sort of a natural progression?

Speaker 1 I was there for seven years. Wow.
Without representation. Pony My Craft.
And bartending at the Chateau Marmot, right? But didn't you drive a motor?

Speaker 1 You rode a motorcycle everywhere, which is my first thing was when I read you had a motorcycle and you drove it to auditions. I was like, what about your hair? Like, you see on camera.

Speaker 1 It was amazing because there was no helmets back then, which is

Speaker 1 deadly.

Speaker 1 Oh, my hair was awesome. It was all windblown.
Oh, okay. You know, I looked like it crossed between Salminio and

Speaker 1 Bozo.

Speaker 1 Bozo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no,

Speaker 1 it's wild that you drove a motorcycle everywhere. Like, I can't imagine.
I couldn't afford a car. It was like, I had a $250 1974 Honda XR250 that I could personally work on when it broke down.

Speaker 1 And that was the only way I could get around LA. I just couldn't.
I was living in a closet for 200 bucks. My whole nut was about 300 bucks a month.

Speaker 2 So then was there a big job that kind of launched you or was it sort of like a little bit here, a little bit there, and just sort of a slow progression?

Speaker 1 It was a very slow progression i mean the there's really no reason that i should have tried as long as i did because that was from 18 to 28.

Speaker 1 i mean that is such yeah that's such a long time to like stick with you want to talk about stick with it yeah there's so much opportunity in there for you to say it and throw it in and go do anything else yeah i did i tried no but i mean yeah i'm just thinking the similarities between your story and sean's story Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love that. No, I am.
No, but because I'm thinking about, like, I think, if I'm remembering correctly, you used to, you came to L.A.

Speaker 1 and you smoked a lot of weed and wrestled, and you'd never nut for less than $300 either.

Speaker 1 If I'm putting all the pieces.

Speaker 1 If I'm thinking back,

Speaker 1 if I'm thinking of the right

Speaker 1 $300 for a nut? That's why Will was silent for the last two minutes. He's been constructing that show.
He's been shaping that joke. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We love it. It was so well executed, too.

Speaker 1 It was beautiful. I was like, wait, that's not my story.
I got

Speaker 1 to LA and got a sitcom right away. God bless you.
I love you for that.

Speaker 1 But, Mark, Mark, let me ask you this. Because my recollection is,

Speaker 1 so you're 28.

Speaker 1 When you came to New York and started doing stuff with Naked Angels with those guys, with Missy and Kenny, is when I first met you, when you guys were doing the short plays.

Speaker 1 Before This This Is Our Youth, you guys were doing,

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 you had done, oh no, right before This Is Our Youth, you had done a movie and you had an I feel like you had an agent at that point, like right before This Is Our Youth. Am I right about that?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I did. Yeah.
I had done a few softcore

Speaker 1 horror films.

Speaker 1 No, that's not true. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 Mirror, Mirror 2 and Mirror, Mirror 3.

Speaker 1 Raven Dance and The Voyeur. Oh, wow.
We'll be looking at it. No, there was something.
What was the other movie you did?

Speaker 1 Fucking

Speaker 1 teen movie, or like you did

Speaker 1 like a ski movie. Am I remembering this right? No,

Speaker 1 I had a one-day role, and There Goes My Baby. I don't know if you remember that.

Speaker 1 John Augustine. That sounds like a made-up name of a movie.
Yeah. I know.
And then, you know what? I actually did have a couple pilot shots of pilots that never went. Oh, with

Speaker 1 with Kenny

Speaker 1 Marino. Ken Marino.
Ken Marino. No shit.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was like my first job. And it was the play, like the little Na'er Do Well, you know.
You guys be great brothers.

Speaker 2 Would you guys play brothers? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you really? Yeah, we were brothers. Me, him, and Sean Aston.
No. Oh, wow.
Love Sean. Yeah.
Chiller cast. Love Sean.
Love Ken Marino. Ken Marino is an all-time great dude.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we should have got that.

Speaker 1 We should have.

Speaker 1 They blew it. Someday someone will show that pilot.
Hey, you know know, I had an idea. You guys could probably actualize this.

Speaker 1 Why doesn't someone start a movie state, a streaming station with all the files? All of the fucking failed pilots and television shows.

Speaker 2 You'd think that the networks would,

Speaker 2 you know, just like during the summers, show all the pilots that they didn't pick up just to sort of cross-monetize what they did.

Speaker 2 And the reason they don't do it is because they don't want one of those pilots to be well-received, and then they look like schnuckster not ordering it. That's the only reason they don't do it.

Speaker 1 It's the same reason that they don't want to say that

Speaker 1 they hate putting movies in turnaround and letting other studios make the movie on the off chance that another turnaround is for Tracy's that if a studio is developing a movie and then they decide they're not going to make it, they have the potential another studio to come in and say like, hey, we'll pay you for whatever it costs you to develop that script and we want to make that movie.

Speaker 1 They don't like to do it because they'd rather eat the fee on

Speaker 1 another studio and it does really well, then the guy who decided not to make it gets fired, right? Right.

Speaker 1 And it happens all the time. It's so fucking time.
But you're right, Mark. That's a great idea.
There's so many great pilots out there.

Speaker 1 There are people who do show them sometimes because what's that great one that Owen Wilson Jack did, Blackboard The Talking Motorcycle and Owen Wilson's The Voice of the Motor.

Speaker 1 Have you ever seen this? No, I haven't. No, I want to.
What were they on? It's hilarious. There's so many.

Speaker 1 That's how I met Andy and Akiva and Yorm, those guys, Lonely Island. They did a pilot, a Lonely Island pilot that Phil Lord and Chris Miller produced.
Wow. That was all sketches before they got SNL.

Speaker 1 And somebody showed it to me. I was like, these guys are fucking hilarious.

Speaker 1 And then Network, you know, didn't pick it up. And then imagine if you showed that, that whoever that person is, they'd be.
banned from showbiz forever. Well, they're probably gone already.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's true. I mean, they really like burned through all those exactly.
Turnovers fast there. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, Mark,

Speaker 2 with those humble beginnings

Speaker 2 and an extended period of

Speaker 1 time. Let me just, let's not romanticize.

Speaker 2 But so then,

Speaker 2 was it difficult at all when you just like hit the massive amount of success that you're in now? Was that also a slow progression as well?

Speaker 2 Or was there a moment where you got a big fat check or a big fat job and the transition was uncomfortable or difficult for you because of such humble extended beginnings?

Speaker 1 All I know is

Speaker 1 my big break was a play with Holly Hunter and Carol Kane and Bill Pullman

Speaker 1 and it was it was the hot thing in Los Angeles at the time.

Speaker 1 Hot LA play. You don't hear that often.

Speaker 1 No, but it was those people. And, you know, Holly had already won the Academy Award and Carol was huge and Bill was huge.
Where was the play? Amundsen? No, it was at the Met Theater.

Speaker 1 They started their own theater.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 it was in the early 90s.

Speaker 1 And that was going to be my big break. And I, of course, was fired four days before we opened.
No.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, a stage hand fired me because Beth Henley was the director, but she just couldn't bring herself to fire me. So they basically had a stagehand who told me he was the producer fire me.

Speaker 1 What was your problem?

Speaker 2 Why did you get fired?

Speaker 1 I sucked. No.

Speaker 1 I bet not. I mean, why else do you get fired?

Speaker 1 I'll bet their taste was up their ass.

Speaker 1 No, no, you know what? Honestly, I was probably what they what I was told was I was in a different play, which, you know, could possibly be a lot of fun. That's a director's fault.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, the director's got to get everybody in the same project.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Thank you, Jason.
That's what I was trying to tell them. It's true.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now, back to the show.

Speaker 1 By the way, Mark, we could like, there's so many, I could ask you a thousand, like the normal hearts. Let's start with one.

Speaker 1 I thought you were incredible.

Speaker 1 Do you want a minute to think about it? No, I don't need a minute. But this much is true.
I mean, it was mind-blowing. You played.
those two brothers. I mean, how did you do that?

Speaker 1 What was your approach to this much is true where you played identical twins, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's just incredible. I mean, I look at that and I was like, God, the work.
Like, how did you even start? Where do you start?

Speaker 1 Well, Derek and I, you know, I...

Speaker 1 Derek C. Franz? Yeah, Derek C.
and Franz. Our director.

Speaker 1 Our director and the writer.

Speaker 1 He adapted it from the book.

Speaker 1 Genius, genius, man. Yeah, he's a genius.

Speaker 1 You know, I had gotten the book rights and I immediately wanted him. And,

Speaker 1 you know, he was, he was, he'd only done his own stuff that he'd ever, you know.

Speaker 1 And so he was taking a meeting out of, you know, courtesy because we love each other and we keep talking about working each other, but we never were finding anything. And so I meet that guy.

Speaker 1 He's like, yeah, man, you know, let's meet and we'll go for a walk and we'll talk about it. And, you know, he started with, no, this isn't for me.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't want to do the CGI kind of thing with this.

Speaker 1 i don't know how to do that and and we walked for like three hours and i just kind of like pitched him you know what i was thinking and seeing and how it related to his his work and at the end of it he's like okay man let's do this

Speaker 1 and that was like a year or two before we started working on it together a year or two before we ever shot it

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 2 was it always going to be HBO? It was HBO, wasn't it?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 we took it out, we shopped it, and everyone's, HBO kind of was interested, sniffing around, but everyone else was like, no way.

Speaker 1 This is no.

Speaker 1 No one wants to see someone cut off their arm in the first 10 minutes of a show.

Speaker 1 That was wild.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 Francis was like, Francesca was like,

Speaker 1 who was running the television department? Yeah, Francesca, of course, he was like, wait,

Speaker 1 no one else wants it? I'm like, No. She's like, Okay, we'll do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, she's a badass.

Speaker 1 That's so cool. Yeah, that's so cool.
And we did it. And, you know, but Derek had the genius idea.
It was really, you know, he really approached it as two different films, really.

Speaker 1 And he said, I want you to go out and gain the weight, and we're going to take

Speaker 1 eight weeks, and you're going to, yeah, I was like, no gym, weight gain.

Speaker 1 Sign me up. Yeah, exactly.
And that was really like having the space between that.

Speaker 1 And, you know, usually you do a twin movie and literally you run off, you put a mustache on, you run back in the same day and you shoot it. But I get.

Speaker 2 Well, that's how you did Lego Masters this year, right?

Speaker 1 That's exactly how I do everything. Glue it on, my spirit gum, let's tamp it down.

Speaker 1 And I just use clippings from my wig. Yep.

Speaker 1 And you're so damn good. And I hate you for that because I have to take eight weeks to get my shit together and grow on Mustash.

Speaker 1 Wow, wow. I know

Speaker 1 your performance deserved the nomination.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Just incredible.
And of course, because you're sitting here and I'm a huge fan of the Marvel stuff and

Speaker 1 how did you get the Hulk? When I see what you guys do.

Speaker 1 And the Marvel movies, I'm just like, you know, not having done a ton of movies myself, but enough to know that the schedules are like 15, 16 hours a day.

Speaker 1 But those, I imagine, where you shoot like, well, let's shoot like three lines of dialogue today. That's what it feels like from the outside.
Like, they have so much limited money.

Speaker 1 It just must be so cushy.

Speaker 2 Meanwhile, you spend three hours in the makeup chair before you even do those.

Speaker 1 Downey says he won't do more than three words a day, I heard. Yeah, well, he's on a per world rate.

Speaker 1 That's when he's busting his ass. Yeah, that's when he's working his hardest.

Speaker 1 Why would I do more than three? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Actually, Downey could probably do 10 pages of dialogue in a day. Oh, yeah.
I mean,

Speaker 1 he speaks quickly. And the guy, I mean, it's just like, I don't understand how he does it.
He's just amazing.

Speaker 1 He's a genius.

Speaker 1 It takes me like a month to learn a line. Truly? And so, oh, God, it takes me forever.
It's such a drag. Really?

Speaker 1 What's your goal?

Speaker 2 Do you have like a trick? Some people write their lines down. That makes them remember it.
Others kind of say it into a mirror.

Speaker 2 Do you have a way?

Speaker 1 I, you know, I have this app called Scene Study. Really? And

Speaker 1 I record each line.

Speaker 1 And then I could pull out my character's line and it just runs in repetition over and over and over again. And then I just

Speaker 1 learn it that way. And what I have to do, it's weird.
I have to be walking to learn lines, to really learn them.

Speaker 1 And I just repeat them over and over and over a thousand times until I learn it like a song, kind of, you know? No, shit. Do you have

Speaker 2 the way lines go into my head is that I don't decide exactly how I'm going to be saying a line, but

Speaker 2 I fully sort of understand kind of what I'm saying and why I'm saying it. So there's a little bit of performance that's kind of in there.

Speaker 1 Like I can't just learn word, word, word, word, word, period.

Speaker 2 You know, like it, there needs to be in context or something. So do you marry in a certain amount of performance when you're learning learning your lines? And if so,

Speaker 2 are you able to be flexible once you get on the set and now the other actor is doing it differently or the director is asking for a different tone and you are unable to pivot your performance because the learning of the line is married to the performance?

Speaker 1 Does that make sense?

Speaker 1 Yep.

Speaker 1 I learned early on, you know, this is a technique that was taught to me from my acting teacher who had learned it from someone who learned it from Paul Muni.

Speaker 1 So, this technique goes like way back.

Speaker 1 And the whole thing was that

Speaker 1 you just spit it out and you start really slowly at first. So let's say, you know,

Speaker 1 to be or not to be or whatever. So

Speaker 1 you do it to be or not to be very slowly.

Speaker 1 And you work it up faster and faster and faster until it's to be or not to be. To be or not to be, to be or not to be, to be or not to be.

Speaker 1 And it's really just to teach your muscles to know it without having to think about it.

Speaker 1 So then, when you are on, when you are working, you're super free. And you haven't really,

Speaker 1 you've learned it in a way that is like, doesn't have any inflection on it, it's just very flat. Yeah.
So that you can be more open to what's coming at you.

Speaker 1 And you don't get stuck in a particular way of saying it, although I do anyway. Isn't it amazing that you're not going to be able to do that?

Speaker 1 Right, because the way that you learn it can, if you do it that way, can sometimes affect the cadence, like quite literally, just the to get to the mechanics the actual cadence of how you say it yeah i was talking about this yesterday with an actor whom we all know and he was saying we were talking about this and i said uh about this weird sort of quasi improv thing that we were talking about and i said uh i remember there were people that we worked with uh i could count on that person delivering a line they would they always delivered it the same way every time and i knew that they were going to deliver it that way right which freed me up or us up to do whatever the fuck we wanted because they were just like a spine.

Speaker 1 They would always do it the same way. So then you could just fuck with that.
It was so freeing knowing that they were always going to be right on it.

Speaker 1 So it didn't matter. So I've always felt so free to just fuck around.
No curveballs. No, no curveballs.
That's what's really beautiful in your work, though, too. It's like, you know,

Speaker 1 that freedom is.

Speaker 2 Is that one of the things that you like about theater?

Speaker 2 The fact that there is dialogue there that you, once you learn it,

Speaker 2 you don't have to learn anything yet. Like there's no new scene tomorrow and another scene the next day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I would say, like, Mark, not to get, I know we spend a lot of time on This Is Our Youth, but I mean, you know, and I maybe short of Kenny, I don't know if anybody saw it, especially that first run more than me.

Speaker 1 I fucking, that play has so much dialogue, and you specifically have so much dialogue in that play that it's mind-blowing. You guys, it's it's so crazy.

Speaker 1 And from previews all the way through the end of the run, your performance changed a lot.

Speaker 1 You know, it did. Like, it evolved.
And you were giving like, I mean, you remember, how much dialogue did you have in that fucking play? Oh, so much dialogue.

Speaker 1 We both, I mean, it was two people literally on stage. Yeah.
Either me and one other person or me and another person. But you all the time.

Speaker 1 And me just all the time.

Speaker 1 And big monologues and

Speaker 1 of lots of overlapping

Speaker 1 so you had to learn the overlapping and and and a lot and his writing is so crazy it's like um yeah you know what i mean it's like i don't know you know like

Speaker 1 like that yeah it has so many stops and starts and and idiosyncratic you know dialogue and for and for tracy out there in theater you cannot change the dialogue at all or you get written up by the stage manager, right and and then equity will fine you like you you can't change anything they're like why were you changing your why did you change where you moved on that line right that was set you know that was set with a director or or I would I would sink with the

Speaker 2 dialogue way too loose with the dialogue

Speaker 1 the first act it was it was a little it was two hours two two minutes too long yeah so can we just tighten that up again yeah and you're just like what are you talking I don't care and if you really want to get out of there it's five minutes too short

Speaker 1 no they never complain about it being too short yeah

Speaker 1 first of all have you ever I read that all your activism and you're using your voice on you have such a massive platform to use your voice and you're not afraid to use your voice and I love that about you your opinions you just spew them out this is what I believe this is what's right from wrong and I love it spew them out I mean that means no but I mean it's like intelligent different

Speaker 1 way no no no no

Speaker 1 It is.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Sean's right. It's remarkable, dude.
How much is it? It is incredible. And I love it.
And I wish I had the balls you have. But tell me what the Solutions Project is.

Speaker 1 But wait, before I talk about the Solutions Project,

Speaker 1 have you ever spoken in front of Congress?

Speaker 1 I've spoken on the Hill with the Senate. I've testified.

Speaker 1 So this is what I want to ask you. What is that like when you're sitting there? Because at home, when I'm watching somebody do that,

Speaker 1 they all look

Speaker 1 bored. And you're like, Scotty, who turned on CNBC?

Speaker 1 Is it effective? Did you feel like being there was effective?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 so I did that movie, Dark Waters, which is about forever chemicals. For Tracy, they're the chemicals that come from like Teflon that stay in your blood and are linked to seven different cancers.

Speaker 1 And they're in everybody and all over the world. And the mother passes it from themselves to the baby through their breast milk.
and it gets in your body, it accumulates, and it never leaves.

Speaker 1 And it's pervasive. So, we did a movie called Dark Waters to tell the story of the lawyer who exposes this.

Speaker 1 It's a true story, and brings all the lawsuits and wins the biggest tort, you know, lawsuit in the history of the United States to actually study this stuff. So, I was asked to go and

Speaker 1 testify to the environmental committee.

Speaker 1 When you go there, it's half Republicans, half Democrats.

Speaker 1 The seats are like, it's a gallery kind of thing, and they're all there. These are House people.

Speaker 1 I didn't go to the Senate.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 you're testifying and they're asking you questions and you're getting peppered a little bit. But on one side, the Democrat side, there was literally, every seat was taken, it was like 40 people.

Speaker 1 On the Republican side, there's three guys.

Speaker 2 And when they're done with their questions, they get the hell out of there.

Speaker 1 Oh, he literally, it wasn't even a question. It was like, I know why you're here.
You hate industry. This is all just a ploy for you to make a bunch of money and

Speaker 1 attack big corporations and the economic good of people.

Speaker 1 And that's all I got to say. And threw the mic down and walked out.
I yield. I yield.

Speaker 1 I'm like, you want to get a chance to answer that?

Speaker 1 And believe me, I know how to make a movie that makes a lot of money, and this is not one of them. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and there's nothing in here that's erroneous at all. Everything's completely vetted and backed up.

Speaker 2 I'm sure you've been asked this before, so I apologize for not knowing the answer, but have you ever given any thought to public office?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 2 And because of

Speaker 2 the pain in in the ass of it all? Because of

Speaker 2 folks that have different ideas about why they're there?

Speaker 1 Yeah. You know,

Speaker 1 I was there lobbying against fracking back in the day. And

Speaker 1 when it was all just kind of happening. And I was in Harry Reed's office.

Speaker 1 And basically, he didn't come to the meeting, but his chief of staff was there. And he said,

Speaker 1 listen, closes the door. He said, listen here's the deal

Speaker 1 this city is overrun with fossil fuel money

Speaker 1 we

Speaker 1 have to spend three quarters of our time on the phone raising money

Speaker 1 you're in the wrong place you need to do this on the regional level on the state level that's really where this kind of thing is the only place that this could get done

Speaker 1 And I was just like, are you kidding? Disheartening.

Speaker 1 Are you joking me?

Speaker 2 And the reason they need the money,

Speaker 2 or any politician needs money, is to buy 30-second ads, right? To get re-elected and re-elected, which only just puts them in a position of power.

Speaker 2 It's not like it's some extremely lucrative position to be a senator or a representative.

Speaker 2 Some of them are there for ideological reasons, right?

Speaker 2 I would imagine, but initially.

Speaker 2 Yeah, not to be overly cynical, but it seems like or sounds like a lot of them are there just because they enjoy the position of access and influence and power and getting their ring kissed at parties and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 It's just so heartbreaking.

Speaker 1 And it's pretty like, you know, like we see, it's just,

Speaker 1 you know, it's not really about policy that's going to help people. It's just, it just gets broken down along sort of these lines.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 a lot of them are just ideological. And it's, yeah.

Speaker 1 And it's, it's like, I need to get this money from this person. So there's a, you know, there's a little bit of back and forth.
I'm going to have to give them a little bit of something.

Speaker 1 And that's really, I mean, I think that's more true than any of us really want to believe. Yeah.
Yeah. But if you ran, you could start a change.

Speaker 2 If a bunch of people like you ran.

Speaker 1 Well, I guess

Speaker 1 what I sense from you is

Speaker 1 that you can really affect change. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, but is that

Speaker 1 you can affect change outside, like that there is no change on the inside. And that if you want want to make noise or whatever, you have to keep banging the drums.
And you do.

Speaker 1 I mean, we banned fracking here in New York State.

Speaker 1 And, you know,

Speaker 1 P. Foss is finally, you know,

Speaker 1 you don't really, I mean, we know, but there's such power in storytelling. And you can really change things with storytelling, especially if you're not like nailing it, hitting it on the head.

Speaker 1 You're sort of just telling that story, that human story that we all relate to, you know?

Speaker 1 We all relate to other people's stories. And, you know, there's been movies that I, you know, the kids are all right, right in the middle of the

Speaker 1 dialogue on, you know, same-sex marriage. I mean, that movie opened people up to being like, oh, gay people have it just as bad as we do.
Yeah, right. You know, and then

Speaker 2 look at Sean's show, Will and Grace, is one of the first shows that, like, exactly.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God,

Speaker 2 I'm in love with these characters that are not heterosexual. So I guess gay people aren't so bad.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 it's making me laugh.

Speaker 1 That shift, shift, which was the biggest shift,

Speaker 1 societal shift on

Speaker 1 an issue, Sean, that you guys, that was the biggest societal shift on an issue with the largest spread of polling than any other. Yeah, well, thank you for saying that.

Speaker 1 And to your point, it's just telling a story. We were just, we weren't batting people over the head about it.
It's just like presenting the people and the facts.

Speaker 1 And this is how normal everybody is, you know? And

Speaker 1 we just frack a little differently. Yeah.

Speaker 1 that's so good

Speaker 1 how long that one

Speaker 1 just laid in so beautifully so many questions before we let you go mark uh

Speaker 1 you chateau marmont i can't believe you were the bartender at that hotel for 10 years you were at the bar no no you know no i i was doing pickup work there i was at another bar called um oh i was at two bars i was at the olive which was a hot little bar, and I was at

Speaker 1 that time. And I was at Smalls, which is kind of like this punk rock, rock and roll bar on the, you know, right where Melrose and Gower met.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I was doing pickup work at the chateau, which didn't have a bar yet. So we'd go in and set up a bar for all the events that

Speaker 1 isn't that wild to be back. Would you ever go back and be like,

Speaker 1 yeah, man, I'm there, and, you know, the young guy comes in at the food, you know, room service, and he's, you know, he's kind of looking at me, and I go to give him his tip, and he's like, wow, that's a huge tip.

Speaker 1 He's like, hey, man, you made it.

Speaker 2 And then do you say, I started right where you are.

Speaker 1 They know. He's like, you used to work here, didn't you? Oh, that's cool.
And I was like, yeah. He's like, you made it, man.
That's cool. That's so cool.
I love that.

Speaker 1 Jason and I had lunch there over 20 years ago. He does not remember it.

Speaker 1 Mark, thank you for being here today.

Speaker 1 Wait, wait, wait. I wanted to, before you go,

Speaker 1 Will. That's really dope.

Speaker 1 I'm looking at you right now going, what the fuck are you talking about? How long have you and Sonny been married? No, it's been forever.

Speaker 1 I don't mean it that way. I mean, it's awesome.
It's long. We've been together for 27 years.
Oh, that's great. That's amazing.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 How many kids? We have three kids. It's incredible.
22, 18, and 16. Can you believe your life?

Speaker 1 No, man. That's really cool.
You know, my biggest concern was would would I have a house, would I be, would I have a place to live?

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, that was like, that was like, I just want a place to live. Yeah.
You know, I just don't want to be in the streets.

Speaker 1 Like, if I can, if I can attain that, that would be, that would be great. Yeah, yeah.
And now look at myself. Oh, dude.
It's so cool. And now look at my office.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Slash boundaries.

Speaker 2 I'm not working on motorcycles anymore.

Speaker 1 Well, I tell you what. I tell you what, man.
You haven't, honestly, you haven't changed a bit. You're still the nicest, most talented dude.
And it couldn't happen. And I'm so happy for your life.

Speaker 1 You're such a always been such a great dude. You've always had such a great vibe.

Speaker 1 It makes me happy every time you're here. It's truly one of my favorites of my life.
I love you guys. I love you.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 Oh, me too. Thank you for having me.
Mark, thank you for being here.

Speaker 1 We appreciate it. And you were on my list for a long time for a reason.
And it's so nice to finally meet you and gush because I just think you're great. No, it's great.
And you guys are great.

Speaker 1 And this is such a, it was such a nice time. And Will,

Speaker 1 I know, just

Speaker 1 know we

Speaker 1 came such a long way. And Jason, you've always been so kind to me.
And Sean, now we know each other, and we'll be able to hug when we see each other. Get together and frack, you know? Yeah.
Our frack.

Speaker 1 Let's take things slow.

Speaker 1 Dude, I can't wait to see Poor Things.

Speaker 1 God, I got to know. I got to get it.
I'm dying. I got to go see it.
Crazy. I hear it's fan wave.
I know.

Speaker 1 Let's get that link. Let's get that link.
Yeah. Okay, let's go.
I'm going to pay for it. Full price.
evening price. Yeah.
Evening price.

Speaker 1 But soon it'll be just on the

Speaker 1 site.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I hear it's one you can go ahead and enjoy a bit.

Speaker 1 Please go see it in the theater this week.

Speaker 2 Let's go.

Speaker 1 Let's go, boys. All right.
Smart field trip. Yeah.
All right. Mark.
Bye, Mark. You're the king.

Speaker 1 Thanks for doing this.

Speaker 1 Have a great rest of the day. Grant to see you, man.
All the best. Thank you.
Bye, buddy. Amazing.
Bye.

Speaker 1 Man, that's a great guess. Yeah,

Speaker 2 that guy hits me right in the center of my like target. Like, there's just such a good vibe about those guys always seem like so confident.
Which, what do you mean, those guys? Which one?

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 2 I put him in.

Speaker 1 I feel like him, crude up, and Rockwell are like,

Speaker 2 came out of the same people.

Speaker 1 And you go, that's why

Speaker 1 they work because they're ultra-talented, obviously, but they also work a lot because you want to hang out like they're salty or young dudes.

Speaker 1 Totally. And he's very,

Speaker 1 he's just very,

Speaker 1 I don't know. He's like, he's so authentic.
Yeah. And he doesn't have to, he doesn't have to try, and there's no pretense.
He's really on the cutscenes. He's owned a lot.
Or did. Makes sense.

Speaker 1 It relaxes people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, let's segue into

Speaker 1 pushing a new product. Yeah, do you have a new pen anymore? You got a gummy you want to sell his name? What's going on?

Speaker 1 A new pen.

Speaker 2 No one's calling them vape pens anymore.

Speaker 1 It really relaxes people, which reminds me.

Speaker 1 take a deep deep breath this is my favorite though um

Speaker 2 thanks we're good you know he's you know what's you know what's pretty awesome about uh what what he does it for my taste is that he's this incredible actor but you never see him acting he's never taking these you know

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 2 i don't know these these these obnoxious character swings that some actors absolutely can pull off for sure but i never get the sense that he feels like he needs to. Like, just kind of just.

Speaker 1 Well, he's in the for me, he's in the John Goodman. I mentioned this all the time, the category of actors, and it's growing now because we've had a few on, but he's one of those.

Speaker 1 He's, it doesn't matter what he's in, he is always great. A, right? So, you start thinking, like, you think about like, oh,

Speaker 1 his kids are all right. And you're like, oh, he's great in that.
And you said Foxcat, you're like, oh, he's great in that. And then you're like,

Speaker 1 you forget about Spotlight. Oh,

Speaker 1 he's incredible in that.

Speaker 2 Really talented filmmakers are attracted to him.

Speaker 1 Well, because he's always great.

Speaker 1 It's his story about Kenny saying to him, like, you're not going to do it, blah, blah, blah. You go, you're really good in this.
Like, he's just really undeniable. That imitation is so funny of Kenny.

Speaker 1 It's so, so funny.

Speaker 1 You know, I like spending these days with you guys. I haven't seen you in a long time.
This is lazy. This feels so lazy already.
It's been a real quite a while since he's done. You should be banned.

Speaker 1 You should be banned from doing this.

Speaker 1 You know, I wish we could spend more time as the days go.

Speaker 1 Bye.

Speaker 1 Officially banned going forward by Smart

Speaker 1 Less.

Speaker 1 Smart

Speaker 1 Less.

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