WILLIAM H. MACY Talks Fargo, Auditions, PTA

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Speaker 2 Mike Varga. American Masterpiece.
Yes. I was doing backflip.
No, I was terrified that I wouldn't get it. I was up all night.
Everybody I knew in LA was there.

Speaker 2 I probably memorized my entire part before the morning. Yeah.
Damn.

Speaker 2 When I found out they were auditioning in New York, I got my Lutheran ass on an airplane and I crashed that audition and I said, I really want this part.

Speaker 2 I'm scared you're going to screw up your movie by not casting me. That was not a good idea what I did.
It worked. I don't recommend it.
What did you say?

Speaker 2 I said, you're going to fuck up your movie if you don't cast me. I think I went farther and told Ethan, who had a new puppy, that I would kill the dog if he didn't cast me.
Thank God he laughed.

Speaker 2 Hello and welcome back to the Adam Friedland Show. It's Adam Friedland.
Off top, I just have to say I'm going back on the road. It's perhaps an economic necessity.
Oh, God.

Speaker 2 I'm going back on the road, folks. This year, 2026, I will be hitting

Speaker 2 next year, 2026. I will be hitting a city near you.
First date, Seattle, Washington, January 22nd to the 24th. Five shows.
Get your tickets at emeraldcitycomedy.com.

Speaker 2 There's also a link in the description. My man over here, Mr.

Speaker 2 Mr. Knows What Year It Is, is going to be there too.
Mr. Caleb Pitts, give it up for him.
Caleb Pitts, everyone.

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Members get access to all of our episodes early.

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Finally, merch is available. Go to theadamfreedline.show to check it out.
Shirts, hats, some hoodies.

Speaker 2 We got the freaking sicka. You want to just.

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Speaker 2 They're all available right now. Get them before they're gone.
They're flying like hot cakes. My guest this week is Emmy Award-winning actor William H.
Macy.

Speaker 2 I call him Bill personally, but you probably will, you know him as William. William is known for many roles in film and television, gritty properties like Fargo and Shameless.

Speaker 2 Bill, on the other hand, is known by me for roles of some of my favorite films, The Tale of Despero. What is this? Despero? Despero.

Speaker 2 Are these movies that he's in? These are great movies. These are great movies.
So we're doing the thing again where Caleb writes it, and then I kind of not good at reading.

Speaker 2 Bill, on the other hand, is known by me for roles in some of my favorite films, like the tale of Desparot or Marmaduke.

Speaker 2 He's in Marmaduke? The dog one? That's funny. Okay, see, some enjoy mystery, horror, romance.
I like talking animal movies. There's a certain funniness to an animal that speaks English.

Speaker 2 And to sit across from a veteran of the genre, a man portrayed not only Dr. Don...

Speaker 2 And to sit across from a veteran of the genre, a man who portrayed not only only Don Twombly, but also Desparot's father, Lester. What a treat.
Sometimes I can't believe my life.

Speaker 2 Ladies and gentlemen, William H. Macy.
Wow, it's a nice pick.

Speaker 2 The eyes, too. Phenomenal.
Give it up for him, guys.

Speaker 2 And Thomas Eisman, Caleb Pitts. I love my team.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, our next guest is a legendary American actor.
It's a great honor. William H.
Macy, everyone. Give it up, Rip.

Speaker 2 Guys, boys, a lot of noise.

Speaker 2 What do you think? 40,000 people.

Speaker 2 40,000. Don't get up.
Don't get up. Stop.
You stop. You, you're crazy.
We really let out the insane asylum with these guys, huh?

Speaker 2 We're in an empty room. We're going to do

Speaker 2 an empty room. Would you say that if you were shooting a picture?

Speaker 2 No, I would only say that on your show. Yeah, yeah.
Thank you.

Speaker 2 Sir, thank you so much for coming on. So he's a huge fan.
He hasn't missed a single episode, apparently. That's what you were telling me before.

Speaker 2 I think I missed one. Yeah, yeah.
I think he's missed every episode. So this is going to be.

Speaker 2 It's a great honor. I've been watching a lot of interviews with you.

Speaker 2 I do quite extensive research. And

Speaker 2 you're Bill. Yeah.
And I can say Bill. Yes, you can.
That makes me feel famous, kind of. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 I'm glad. I remember like.
We're a cheap date, but I'm glad.

Speaker 2 I just want to go into you a little bit, your upbringing, and then kind of just work our way out from there.

Speaker 2 Like, I think you grew up, you were born in Miami, grew up around Atlanta and then Maryland, is that correct? Correct. Your father was a bomber in World War II.
He flew a B-17 in World War II.

Speaker 2 He was a pilot. He was a pilot.
Did he get shot down? No. There was no Hogan's Heroes situation with him?

Speaker 2 No. When the 8th Air Force first went to England, they would send over 80 planes and 20 would come back.
It was just this shy of a suicide mission. By the time my dad got there,

Speaker 2 80 would go over and only 20 would not come back. So

Speaker 2 it was

Speaker 2 death-defying, man.

Speaker 2 From what I understand, the RAF, they would do nighttime just like bombing raids and they'd just bomb indiscriminately,

Speaker 2 but the United States Air Force...

Speaker 2 We can't hit anything. Yeah, we would go surgical, and then thus it was a lot more dangerous.
It was a big controversy because in daylight bombing, you stood a much bigger chance of getting shot down.

Speaker 2 By the time my dad got there, the Luftwaffe was pretty much blown out of the skies. And that was one thing.
But there was still a lot of flack. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, it would have been fun to be in one of those prank kind of

Speaker 2 prisoner of war camps where they were like

Speaker 2 pranking the Commandante

Speaker 2 jokes out there.

Speaker 2 That's what they made it look like. Hogan's Heroes, yeah.
I took my dad to see, well,

Speaker 2 a war movie

Speaker 2 that was about B-17s and bomber pilots. I said, what'd you think? And he said, that's ludicrous.
It's ludicrous. First of all, you can't talk.
You can't take the headsets off and talk.

Speaker 2 And even with the headsets, you can bear. There were four Rolls-Royce engines with no mufflers on them.

Speaker 2 I mean, they must have been deaf. Yeah, my dad had hearing loss from that.
And the second thing, of course, in this movie,

Speaker 2 they thought bombing was not dramatic enough, so they put, you know, interstitiary fighting between the bombardier and the pilot. And my father said, oh my god, that's the stupidest premise ever.

Speaker 2 When you were up there, man, you didn't... You didn't think of anything except getting back alive.
I mean, it was just like

Speaker 2 literally like 10% would come back.

Speaker 2 At the beginning. At the beginning.
Yeah. My grandfather was a cartographer in the RAF, actually.
And he was stationed in Italy.

Speaker 2 And then after he died, I guess the flirt back in the day, instead of like,

Speaker 2 you know, messaging someone on Instagram, was a snapshot. It was like a passport-sized photograph.
And then the girl would write a note on the back.

Speaker 2 And he, after he died, my father and I were emptying out his office.

Speaker 2 And there were stacks of these pictures of Italian women in post-war Italy that were like, Barney, I've never known a lover like you. And I was like, he was cleaning up.

Speaker 2 But yeah, I mean, I think being

Speaker 2 in the air, I think, was a sexy thing to chicks. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 One time I was living in Chicago.

Speaker 2 I grew up in Cumberland, Maryland, so you had to go to... Baltimore, Washington airport.
And I said, Pop, can you take me? He said, yeah, I'll take you.

Speaker 2 I said, we should leave it, blah, blah, blah, to get there.

Speaker 2 it's a long drive and he said no I'll take you I said yeah I'm just saying I got to be there in Alberta and he said no I'll take you I said what are you saying he said I'll take you I said to Chicago he said yeah I'll take you and he drove me to Chicago we took two days to do it we hadn't gotten out of the driveway when my dad started telling me about

Speaker 2 every woman he had ever slept with. How bad was this war? You know, he said.
These guys were getting trim left and right. not in the Pacific boat.

Speaker 2 Crazy. And the second the war was over, it went back to that puritanical thing.
But during the war, all bets were off. He's like, I'm not Lutheran.

Speaker 2 You know, all the way to Chicago, I sat there with my mouth open, just listening, soaking it up. And it was before cell phones.
If I could have recorded that, oh my god. Oh, my word.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's nice to know that our,

Speaker 2 you know, the older members of our family, you know, were cool guys. You know, it makes you feel good.
I'm glad my grandfather...

Speaker 2 Yeah, his older brother was a gunner in the RAF, also stationed in Italy. And a friend of his had a sh he took a shift for a guy, and he was shot down by the Nazis over Crete.

Speaker 2 And he's my father's namesake, actually, Max Friedland. He's like, that's the one instance of heroism in our entire family tree.
Who's that guy?

Speaker 2 But anyway, I want to get to you. So

Speaker 2 from what I understand, you knew that you wanted to go into acting and dramatic arts fairly young.

Speaker 2 What were some like films and performances and actors that kind of spoke to you when you were growing up?

Speaker 2 I did it in high school and I didn't fail, which was

Speaker 2 new for me. And then I did it in college.
And then I finally went to a

Speaker 2 hippie college in Vermont called Goddard College. And that's where I met David Mammot.
Yeah. And he taught me everything I know.
He was your mentor, if I understand.

Speaker 2 My mentor, my pal, and he gave me my career, and he taught me everything I know about acting. And he's the smartest guy I've ever met, present company excluded.
And I'm smarter than that.

Speaker 2 I saw the French connection with Gene Hackman. Yeah.
And I thought, if I could ever act like that,

Speaker 2 that was my goal and remains my goal. How old were you when you saw that? Twenties.
In your twenties. And you were like, that

Speaker 2 man. Have you ever been in in a car chase?

Speaker 2 I mean, I assume the actors don't drive the cars, but...

Speaker 2 I haven't. But in that one, this is before they started to crack down on that stuff.
Gene Hackmoon was driving. And

Speaker 2 I've read stories that they owned a bunch of the streets, but not all of them. Oh, yeah, and it's also Marseille, it's in Marseille, right? Which is like a mafia city.
No, New York.

Speaker 2 Well, it's it's but it starts off in Marseille. Yes, it does.
But the car chase. So the car chases are the case.
The arrests.

Speaker 2 But those are like, yeah, under the elevated trains, of course.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. So those old Gene Hackman? Rest in peace, both.

Speaker 2 I never got to act with him. Dave did a movie with him.

Speaker 2 He was never bad. I saw him in some stinky movies.
He was always the best part. He was never bad.
It's true. Yeah, it's really just like, I don't think there's anyone that's universal.

Speaker 2 I mean, yourself included, actually. The two of you might be the most.
Just every time

Speaker 2 you're on screen, everyone's like, oh, great. Like, my pal.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It feels that way. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That's a good thing. When you were studying with David Mammet, like, as you've said, he was your mentor.

Speaker 2 Like, what specifically were the things and the lessons that he imparted on you that you've taken into your career?

Speaker 2 Well, it was a hippie college, so there were no grades and no tests and no requirements. So we did theater all day and all night sometimes.
And there was a class of about 30.

Speaker 2 He had gone, he graduated from Goddard and he'd gone to New York and he

Speaker 2 did one year of the neighborhood playoffs. And then he came back then.
So it's the technique is

Speaker 2 Stanislavski through Meisner, roughly. And he refined it.

Speaker 2 When I start talking about acting technique, I can see the will to live drained from people. So just stop me at any time.
No, no, no. I'm getting a free class right now, basically.

Speaker 2 The cameras aren't even on.

Speaker 2 I'm a schizophrenic person who's recreated the Dick Cabot show set.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I've spent all my life savings, and when they run out, I'm not going to be able to talk to.

Speaker 2 Well, that's sad. I'm glad I

Speaker 2 made it before that happened. Yeah, yeah, hopefully.
Anyway, he took the Meisner technique, which is all about the objective as opposed to the emotions, and he refined it even more.

Speaker 2 So the lessons that he gave me,

Speaker 2 he said it doesn't matter how you feel, it's what you do. I'm talking about you acting when the light, when the camera's rolling or the curtain is up.
It's what you do about it.

Speaker 2 Don't worry about how you feel about it.

Speaker 2 He said, he taught us that the most The founder of the feast is the writer and that it's not an actor's job to be funny.

Speaker 2 It's the writer's job to be funny

Speaker 2 or dramatic and that our job

Speaker 2 was to find a solution to these problems and never give up. So irrespective of what you're doing,

Speaker 2 figure out what to do to fix it and let the rest go hang. He taught us that the audience only wants to know one thing and one thing only,

Speaker 2 what happens next.

Speaker 2 That's it. He simplified simplified it.
And you know what? It stuck with me for my whole life. He said, as an actor, if anyone ever treats you with disrespect, quit.

Speaker 2 Leave the room. Don't ever let that happen.
And this was back in a time

Speaker 2 when acting teachers were notoriously vicious. Notoriously vicious.
Like cult leaders, in fact. Yes, rip your soul out of you.

Speaker 2 They want to convince you that you were like molested even if you weren't like they were like yeah I've had friends have horror stories about acting teachers. Oh god.
Yeah. Awful, awful.
And

Speaker 2 I loved him for that because it's true. It's true.
I even talked to a really famous teacher one time. We were drinking.
I ended up standing on the table saying, you're a fucking asshole.

Speaker 2 He thought it was his job to rip people down emotionally, just to leave them in tatters and then rebuild them.

Speaker 2 And I said, man, I'd love to teach you how to teach and rip you down and destroy your self-esteem so that I could make you a better teacher.

Speaker 2 Also, you're teaching because you don't know how the fuck to hat.

Speaker 2 I mean, Kyle. You said it.
I didn't. I mean, it's like sometimes when you read a review, like, that's why, like, Roger Ebert made like an incredible movie, right?

Speaker 2 And I think, like, to some extent, it's like, if...

Speaker 2 If you're talking shit on some other people's, like,

Speaker 2 you better just be able to do it yourself, you know?

Speaker 2 like uh beyond the valley of the dolls is an incredible picture but but i will say dave mammett is a magnificent teacher and director and he knows more about storytelling than anybody i've ever met he couldn't act his way out of a paper bag and he was the first to say well he's a filmmaker you know he's a filmmaker yeah yeah and uh as you know playwright and a screenwriter i mean uh it's so funny to imagine him at a hippie college though that's that's the visual that i'm getting because he's just like a fucking alpha male like sergeant major general you know, and like he's surrounded by like the dawning of the age of Aquarius.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 you're not wrong. We showed up.
First thing he said is, you got to be on time. If you're not on time, I'll kick you out of the class.
And on time means five minutes early.

Speaker 2 After that, I'll lock the door. And all this, you know, my hair was down to here.
I think I was stoned for the first five classes anyway, because I was stoned all day anyway.

Speaker 2 And you're like, hey, President Nixon, man. Yeah.

Speaker 2 What? On time? On time. Time, Miami.

Speaker 2 Jesus.

Speaker 2 Chill out. And so you got your starting theater in Chicago with him.
Is that correct? Yeah, my friend Stephen Schachter and me,

Speaker 2 after graduating from Goddard, we wanted to start a theater company. That's another thing Dave taught us.
You can sit by the phone or you can make your own fun. And we decided to make our own fun.
So

Speaker 2 we went to LA.

Speaker 2 tried to start a theater there, which is like opening a Sunday school in Beirut. It was just not a good idea.
And

Speaker 2 Dave called up and he said, Bully Stevie, I just wrote this play. It's called Squirrels.
Come on to Chicago. And he'd just done

Speaker 2 sexual perversity in Chicago, which was a huge hit. Did it at the Organic Theater.

Speaker 2 Stuart Gordon directed it. And yeah, he was the

Speaker 2 beast.

Speaker 2 He was the. Sorry about that.

Speaker 2 He was the.

Speaker 2 I saw. Is that your daughter? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Does she know the show? She might know the show. I'll bet she does.
She knows everything.

Speaker 2 She'll tell you it's good.

Speaker 2 There was a Paul Simon, a Simon and Garfunkel concert one time when the phone rang and Art Garfunkel said, stop, and he stopped the band and he said, you better get that. It could be important.

Speaker 2 He was a good actor, too. Yes, he was.
I just watched Cardinal Knowledge. Fabulous.
What a movie. Mike Nichols.
Had you ever worked with him before? No. No.
No. He came out of the theater as well.

Speaker 2 You know, you could tell in this movie. Nichols? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, Second City.

Speaker 2 Him and Elaine May were just like...

Speaker 2 I got to work with Elaine once. She is...

Speaker 2 She was the best. Yes.
The fucking best.

Speaker 2 I saw her in a Kenneth Lonergan play

Speaker 2 probably eight years ago, and it like floored me. She played like a matriarch that was like early stage dementia.

Speaker 2 And the whole family was fucking sick and tired of her. And it's just,

Speaker 2 it breaks you that way. Oh, man.
What was she like to interact with? Pretty crazy. She had written the play.

Speaker 2 It was called Mr. Gogol and Mr.
Preen at Lincoln Center. And

Speaker 2 she's a kook. She's an eccentric and delightful and...

Speaker 2 smart as a whip,

Speaker 2 indefatigable knowledge of all things theatrical. Yeah.
It was something.

Speaker 2 I found out when she made Ishtar, she was one of two women in the director's guild.

Speaker 2 Jeez. At the time.

Speaker 2 I had no idea.

Speaker 2 I liked Ishtar. Remember how they just skewed it? I liked Ishtar.
I loved it. Well, it was because she was spending so much money.
The Camel. The Camel sunk.

Speaker 2 Well, you know what I really liked about that movie was that they got them to play against type.

Speaker 2 Totally. Dustin Hoffman's the pimp and Warren Beatty's the Nebish.
I know.

Speaker 2 Dustin Hoffman's the genius casting. And they were both great.
Oh my God. We love them.
They're amazing. Yeah.
You can't, what's the song? You can't get respect if you play an accordion.

Speaker 2 The songs, I love funny songs, too. You know, that as a three-line throughout that movie is hilarious as well.

Speaker 2 You know, I hate that I have this instinct to do it, but we're really annoying people. But it's just so funny because every name that comes up, you're just surrounded by Jewish people.

Speaker 2 It was good for me. One, I was exotic.
Yeah, yeah, no, listen. Still had a bit of a southern accent.
Brazilian, basically. Yeah, right.

Speaker 2 So they sort of marveled at me. And every once in a while, when we'd read something by A.
R. Gurney or something, I had to translate.

Speaker 2 This is what wasps do.

Speaker 2 And Dave once described me as being Hebraically challenged. Hebraically.

Speaker 2 He was on me all the time. He was a wild man.
He was like a gambler and like a smoke, a cigar. He had cigars and stuff like that.
Yeah. He was kind of like

Speaker 2 a, what do you call it? Like

Speaker 2 peck and paw or something.

Speaker 2 Well, strangely, he's the most courtly and gentlemanly man I've ever met.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's really good that way. And a laser-sharp mind.

Speaker 2 I've seen him on a set

Speaker 2 greet the extras and introduce himself and 14 hours later he says good good night to them by name. Oh, he has that like Bill Clinton

Speaker 2 quality. Yeah, he's like, just knows people's name.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, the man's a genius. You told a story about

Speaker 2 in Chicago when he was living in the hotel on a podcast that I heard once, and I just thought it was so funny.

Speaker 2 Hotel Lincoln, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But you were saying that like he would just disappear for weeks on end, and you're like, he's on another gambling bender.

Speaker 2 And well, it he put it this in American Buffalo, which was based on his card game, which was uptown

Speaker 2 at Kenny's resale shop.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 Dave was teach, and Kenny was Donnie. And

Speaker 2 I got to meet Kenny. And

Speaker 2 you'd know whether Dave had won or not by his wristwatch. If he had his wristwatch, he was doing fine.
If he had no wristwatch, we had to get the check. Did you have some rough customers after him?

Speaker 2 Was it like, don't pick up the phone today? Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 You didn't have some, like, yeah. You didn't have some

Speaker 2 guys.

Speaker 2 That tough tough guy

Speaker 2 thing that he puts on. Um

Speaker 2 he's a lover, not a fighter. Although

Speaker 2 he's been taking jiu-jitsu

Speaker 2 for a hundred years, so

Speaker 2 I wouldn't want to tackle him.

Speaker 2 I would tackle David Mammoth without even saying hello.

Speaker 2 I would take him down. No.
Um you were in a lot of the original productions of a lot of his and you've been in a lot of pictures he's made.

Speaker 2 But like from there, like what was the decision to to kind of move to New York and then eventually L.A. and like

Speaker 2 get in the business, make movies, be in movies?

Speaker 2 We were pretty snobby in Chicago. I was there a little less than 10 years.
We started a theater company called the St. Nicholas Theater Company.

Speaker 2 We were part of that off-loop renaissance, as they called it. Our theater was on Halstead Street.
And we were the bees' knees.

Speaker 2 We started the theater with three solid gold hits. You had to know me to get a ticket.
It was, we were sold out.

Speaker 2 Reality set in shortly after that.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 I think in the back of my mind, I always wanted to make movies. Yeah.

Speaker 2 But at the time, we thought,

Speaker 2 I don't need to go to New York. It's better theater here than in New York.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It was the same. I do stand-up, so it was like I started in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 2 And like, you start in a tertiary scene, then at a certain point, you have to go to New York or LA if you want to make a career out of it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So, like, you were working for about 10 years prior to, like,

Speaker 2 I think in the 80s and early 90s, you were like auditioning all the time. You were on the fourth ever episode of Law and Order.

Speaker 2 I was in the first Law and Order. You aired it for the fourth.
As the fourth. I mean, that's an honor.

Speaker 2 I didn't know that until a couple of years ago when someone said you were in the pilot of Law and Order, which is how actors paid their rent in New York for many years.

Speaker 2 that and Spencer for hire it is that a demoralizing process like going out all the time like you know going to set for a couple days just like being on that treadmill yes yeah sucks yes auditioning is awful

Speaker 2 if there were a better way

Speaker 2 I'm sure someone would have thought of it but it's soul-sucking it's really rough of the good things that have happened to me right after

Speaker 2 my wife and daughters

Speaker 2 not having to audition is really up there. Did that happen after Fargo, I would assume? About a year or two after Fargo.
Yeah, because you got the nomination. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Someone should have told me, just get an Oscar nomination. You can quit auditioning.
I should have done it years earlier. Do you know if you're going to win or not when you're at the...

Speaker 2 You don't know. They don't tip you off.
No, no. Did you have like a prepared face? for like if you didn't win? A speech? No, a face.

Speaker 2 Like if they say someone else's else's name, like, you don't want to be like, yes. Fuck.
Yes. Because a couple of guys have.
Yeah, yeah. Or women.
What do you do with your face? And the winner is.

Speaker 2 You pretend you're really happy that they won because. Who won that year? It was Cuba? Cuba Gooding.
Oh, that was rough.

Speaker 2 That was a big year. I mean,

Speaker 2 your performance in Fargo, and I want to get into it a little bit, is just like, the man is in hell. Like, the man is just in literal hell.
It's a genius script. How did you

Speaker 2 walk us through the auditioning for it? Like, I mean, you'd been on ER at that point for a couple seasons.

Speaker 2 So, and, you know, like, you were making a living, you know, you're paying the damn rent. Yeah, I'd moved to L.A.

Speaker 2 And I had enough juice that I was working all the time guest stars and that kind of thing. Yeah.
And so how did you know that this?

Speaker 2 Because from what I understand, like, you kind of pushed it. Real hard.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Dave Mamet taught me everything everything I know. I think I'm pretty good at reading scripts.

Speaker 2 And here's what I do.

Speaker 2 And I suggest it. I try to read them in one sitting.
I kind of skip over the stage directions because they're nonsense. They don't help you.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 if you can see the film in your mind's eye, You can read it if you skip the stage directions. You can pretty much read it in the length of time the film film will be.

Speaker 2 When you see it in your mind's eye, it's pretty easy to decide which are the good ones and which are the bad ones.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I'm pretty good at reading scripts, and I really like Vargas. American Masterpiece.
Yes, I was doing backflip. No, I was terrified that I wouldn't get it.
It was perfect for me.

Speaker 2 I knew how to do the thing when I

Speaker 2 turned the last page. I knew exactly how to do it.

Speaker 2 So they called me in to read for the detective role and they said, that's real good. You want to read Jerry Lundergarden? I said, yeah.
And I went out in the hall and I read it, came back in.

Speaker 2 They said, that's real good. You want to work on it and come tomorrow? And I said, absolutely.
I was up all night. Everybody I knew in L.A.
was there.

Speaker 2 I probably memorized my entire part before the morning. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I auditioned again. They said, that's real good.

Speaker 2 And then I found out they were auditioning in New York, so

Speaker 2 I got my Lutheran ass on an airplane and I crashed that audition and I said I really want this part I'm scared you're gonna screw up your movie by not casting me that's mammoth

Speaker 2 that's like don't be afraid of these pussies

Speaker 2 yeah that's like that day it seems like what he taught you to do is act but also just like just like it this is this is all bullshit just like if you want something go for it yes that was not a good idea what I did it worked I don't recommend it what did you don't do that What'd you say?

Speaker 2 I said you're gonna fuck up your movie if you don't cast me. I think I went farther and told Ethan, who had a new puppy, that I would kill the dog if he didn't cast me.
Thank God he laughed.

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Speaker 2 By the way, Ethan Cohen has

Speaker 2 a show at the Atlantic Theater Company, which I'm part of. It's called Let's Love.

Speaker 2 Run, don't walk. It's the funniest thing.
It's magnificent. They're geniuses.
They're geniuses. And Ethan is a stunning writer.
It's so freaking funny. They are the best.
I mean,

Speaker 2 when I saw a series, man, I know you're not in it, but I went into a three-month depression. Yes.

Speaker 2 Because it's about just how, it's just beyond how bullshit life is, it's about how bullshit being Jewish is. And I just,

Speaker 2 my dad... Also, went into a three-month depression.
The two of us were, I called him, I was like, I'm still fucking thinking about that movie.

Speaker 2 They are really good at getting under your skin it's not about the emotions about what you do right you said that before so it's not a matter of like drilling into some past trauma what it is is just approaching the work for what the assignment is right I that's a good way of putting it that's our assignment yeah so so is that how you went into Lundergarden obviously there's a dialect aspect of it too there's like Minnesota nice which you were like fucking perfect at

Speaker 2 not very nice but but

Speaker 2 I come from the school.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying you don't have to do some research. If you're going to play a doctor, you've got to learn how to do all that stuff.

Speaker 2 If it's an accent, you have to study.

Speaker 2 If there's some physicalization, you've got to memorize that. But that's

Speaker 2 that's those are externals. They're not acting.
The acting is looking at each other and deciding what I'm going to do about what you just said and making that decision. It's improvisatory.

Speaker 2 Beautiful, I say. It's got to be improvisatory.
Same words. I also believe, I don't believe in ad-libbing.
I say learn the script.

Speaker 2 Of course, when Dave Mammet writes a script, nobody has to be told to learn it exactly. Actors love his script so much, they...

Speaker 2 they hold themselves to a higher standard than Dave does. I've never heard him bark at someone about paraphrasing.
Love you alive. As a matter of fact, I've heard him say, whoa,

Speaker 2 you keep saying that way. I must have wrote it wrong.
Really? So he's not precious at all? Not at all. It's very interesting.
Isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 So going for Pargo, like you had that Oscar knock. What does it feel like sitting there at the Academy Awards?

Speaker 2 Did you want to win? It seems like... Dear God, you want to win.
You want to fucking win. Do you have to go to a party afterwards? Don't have to.
But did you? No.

Speaker 2 You drove home. You only go to the party when you win.
You only go when you win. And then it's a great party.
Yeah, yeah. When you lose,

Speaker 2 the world is out of sync. And then you get home and you take off your monkey suit and there's your speech, which is so much better than any speech that was given.

Speaker 2 This is a great speech. But it's also best supporting.
So you've got to wrap it up fast because it's the beginning of the show. That's the one where they start playing the music.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And you have in the speech, you have a guy that you deliberately don't think, right?

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 Well, I would. If I was mad at someone, I would just forget to say their name.
And you know who you are. I have no idea what to say.

Speaker 2 I think, and I hope you get to go to the Academy Awards sometime as a nominee, but I'll tell you,

Speaker 2 it's overwhelming. There's no time to think of clever stuff.
Maybe. If you're one of those guys that's...

Speaker 2 If you're Meryl Streep and this is your 40th trip,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 I was a live wire.

Speaker 2 Oh my god. I was cavalier about it on the way in too because I was directing a play here and it's that whole Chicago attitude.
I thought, you know, I got a play to do. Fuck the Academy Awards.

Speaker 2 So I didn't do much of a campaign. Woody would never go, apparently.

Speaker 2 I know a lot of people that won't go, especially people that have gone. It's kind of a taller move.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think you get old enough and you think,

Speaker 2 I've done it. I gave it the office.
I don't need to do this anymore. The Oscars, I don't know.
The Emmys, I don't know. But there's a bunch of awards out there.
And

Speaker 2 sometimes you get exhausted. Yeah, I have to go to the SAG East.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 it's in a tent.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the food is cold. On the other hand, if you can hold it lightly, that's where you get to meet all your pals.
It's fabulous. It's a fun night.

Speaker 2 I've been to the Emmys a lot of times, and I got two. And they were all of us, you know, for about three or four years.
We'd see this, all of us. And

Speaker 2 modern family, shameless and modern family was always there. Do you talk shit to them? No, quite the opposite.

Speaker 2 When we would lose, both tables would get up and we were all toasting each other while somebody else is walking up there. We were going, yeah.

Speaker 2 When did you meet Paul Thomas Anderson? How did that come to pass?

Speaker 2 They sent me boogie nights.

Speaker 2 And the script they sent me was even more racy. I thought I was being punked.
And I called my agent.

Speaker 2 He said, no, this is legit. It's got to have an R rating.
That's in the contract.

Speaker 2 And then I...

Speaker 2 When I got back to town, I was working someplace. I went to see his film Heart 8.

Speaker 2 And I thought,

Speaker 2 I'll read the newspaper for this guy. Was he 25? Yes.
It's a fabulous film. Jesus Christ.
And that, him doing boogeynets.

Speaker 2 And I've told the story a lot, and I think Paul's okay with it. But I went there ready to put the full court press on him, how I saw the through line, the way I was going to play it.

Speaker 2 I thought you were conditioning.

Speaker 2 And I said, hey, nice to meet you. And Paul started talking.
And he didn't stop for seven minutes and he talked me all the way through the film the way he was going to shoot it what

Speaker 2 and at a point I realized oh my god

Speaker 2 he's auditioning he's also not me he's 28 he's 28 he's the I'm the guy who's gonna make the decision and I remember going

Speaker 2 Tell me more. You're an Academy Award nominated actress.
I know, baby. And he's a 28-year-old.

Speaker 2 Fargo was out a year and a half before I started feeling the love.

Speaker 2 The love, yeah.

Speaker 2 Well, speaking of flooded blondes, I mean, the thing is, your character kind of

Speaker 2 kind of sets the insanity of that movie. And like the end of your character's arc just sets the movie explodes, right? Yes, yes.
And it's the centerpiece kind of of the rise and the fall.

Speaker 2 I like Barry Linden also, and they're both rise and fall movies. They're about a nimrod who nature pushes upwards and then begins to believe in their own genius, and then nature slaps them down.

Speaker 2 That's true.

Speaker 2 about.

Speaker 2 But you famously, you steal the show a couple times. You have a couple lines in that movie that are just...
I know what you're talking about. Okay,

Speaker 2 the first is, we missed the cumb shot.

Speaker 2 Okay, so that scene is so intense, right?

Speaker 2 And there's no dialogue, and everyone's gasping.

Speaker 2 And you break the tension. I mean, you, that is, it's so funny for that reason.
What did you say? We missed missed the cup shot. Like, he came inside of her.

Speaker 2 Should we go to stock footage? Yeah.

Speaker 2 And everyone's stunned by the size of his member, I think.

Speaker 2 And Bert played that

Speaker 2 thing, you know. He was trying to pretend he was in charge, but he was, he had had a bomb go off in his face, too, you know, and he said, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Yeah. That line, and then, of course, the famous flubbed line.
So

Speaker 2 I. It was a mistake, correct? Yeah, the wife is down in the driveway getting laid by all these guys, and Ricky J did this speech with me.
Legend. And I said,

Speaker 2 do you mind? My wife is down there

Speaker 2 with an acinercock. I can't concentrate right now.
And he says, sorry, sorry, sorry. And Paul came and said, you said asinercock.
And I said, I did.

Speaker 2 Sorry, sorry. And he said, let's go again.

Speaker 2 So we did the scene again. And he said, you said asinercock again.
I said, no, no, I didn't. Were you fucking with him? No.

Speaker 2 I said, no, I didn't. It was just a brain worm.
Yeah, a brain fart. I said, no, I didn't.
He said, I said, check the tape. And he said, let's just go again.
Turns out I did it the second time.

Speaker 2 And the third time, I did it correctly. And Paul, and this is why he's Paul Thomas Anderson,

Speaker 2 he decided there was some wisdom, there was some truth in the reason that I

Speaker 2 said it wrong. You were losing your mind.
You lost it, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 it's such an amazing story. I mean, how does a set work, right? Like, in a production that is so, I mean,

Speaker 2 you've been a character actor for a lot of your career, right?

Speaker 2 And in particular, like, PTA's movies are so ensembly. They're like Robert Altman's kind of movies.
So there's so much chaos going on

Speaker 2 on camera. Like, how, A, is the set chaos? Like, how does one control that? Like, how does a filmmaker control that? And then you as an actor,

Speaker 2 you're kind of like on a football team, if I had to assume. You're like the nose tackle.
Everyone has like a specialized kind of assignment. Like, how do a group of

Speaker 2 11 people become one thing?

Speaker 2 That's what's glorious about this business.

Speaker 2 Everyone thinks Hollywood, it's one thing. They're a bunch of liberal blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 2 And it's not, as you well know, it's eclectic. It's a hodgepodge of people.
And when you get all those people of all different backgrounds and political bents and race and creed and

Speaker 2 outlooks and ages, and they're all pulling in one direction.

Speaker 2 It's moving. They're all pulling in one direction for art, for a piece of art.

Speaker 2 It's really moving. What happens if just one guy just fucking sucks?

Speaker 2 If you've got a good director and good producer,

Speaker 2 they'll straighten him or her up. If you don't, you suffer through it.

Speaker 2 It's got a fucking... One person can really cause a lot of it.
You've famously said that before, I think.

Speaker 2 You said something about

Speaker 2 I want to find the...

Speaker 2 That it's a major block for you, is that worrying about the potential for someone else?

Speaker 2 I think you're pretty sure you're talking about Travolta and Wild Hogs.

Speaker 2 No, I'm joking. I'm joking.
I'm joking. He was fabulous.
I'm joking. I'm joking.
Okay. Okay.

Speaker 2 No, I think what you're referring to is when I did Shameless, that TV show, it ran 11 seasons. And I finally got my 10,000 hours, if you know the phrase.
Malcolm Gladwell thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And one of the things that I learned, which I wish to God I could have learned earlier, was to do my job and let everybody do their job.

Speaker 2 I'm pretty sure I was a jerk at the beginning of my career. I thought I knew more than everybody else and I took responsibility.

Speaker 2 and worried about stuff that was not in my purview at all. And it causes chaos when someone does that.
Is there like a key grip or a best boy that you'd like to apologize to?

Speaker 2 No, probably more directors and actors.

Speaker 2 And so what would you say if John Travolta was here about your behavior towards him on the set of wild hogs?

Speaker 2 You're stirring up the pot, aren't you? I'm just teasing.

Speaker 2 I will tell you this about John Travolta, and this is unknown. There is a hierarchy on the set, and the number one on the call sheet has a responsibility.
I mean,

Speaker 2 we need no ghost ghosts from the grave to tell us that shit flows downhill. So, if you've got a bad producer,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 a mean,

Speaker 2 disrespectful producer, or a mean, disrespectful director, or a mean, disrespectful number one in the call sheet,

Speaker 2 everyone's going to suffer. And the converse is true.
If those guys are great, or people, men or women, are respectful and kind

Speaker 2 and create

Speaker 2 a set that is safe,

Speaker 2 nobody will act up.

Speaker 2 It just, they set the tone. And John is great at that.
He's always number one in the call sheet. And he just sets the tone of kindness and respect on the set.

Speaker 2 Being on the set like a set of like Boogie Nights, it feels like it looks like when you're watching the movie, like these guys are having a blast. Even when the cameras weren't rolling.

Speaker 2 Was it like summer camp or something like that?

Speaker 2 There was a lot of joking

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 a lot of

Speaker 2 humor on that set because Paul is, he loves making movies. It shows.

Speaker 2 He's got a huge knowledge of every movie ever made and he loves actors. So he was delighted.
Every second of the day, even when we were chasing the sun or it was

Speaker 2 a tough scene. Like that first scene, we rehearse that thing forever.

Speaker 2 Tracking shot. Yes.

Speaker 2 And that makes producers very nervous because it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon and you haven't rolled a piece of film yet.

Speaker 2 But then when you do, the whole scene's done. Burt Reynolds was...

Speaker 2 He was a curmudgeon on set, like notoriously. I made a joke one time.
He mentioned

Speaker 2 Smokey and the Bandit, and I said something snarky.

Speaker 2 And everyone thought, he's going to deck you. What did you say? What was this joke?

Speaker 2 I'm sorry. He said, we were trying to decide how to do something, and he said, well,

Speaker 2 in Smokey and the Bandit, I did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said something to the effect of, well, we know how that turned out.

Speaker 2 And everyone goes, oh, my God, what happened?

Speaker 2 I laughed, immediately going, aren't I funny? I was just making, that was hyperbole.

Speaker 2 but Paul said, You came close to getting decked. Apparently, Mark Wahlberg also says it's the one movie he regrets because he's very Catholic.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 A movie about your penis being enormous? Yeah. What an idiot.
If I was in a movie called The Biggest Penis of All Time,

Speaker 2 and I'm like, oh,

Speaker 2 I really regret that. No, no, it's it's it's like oh, so embarrassing, that movie about the biggest penis.

Speaker 2 um I watched Magnolia within the last year and I lost a parent I hadn't seen it since I'd lost a parent and my understanding is that Paul wrote it after his father passed away but that movie

Speaker 2 was devastating after losing a parent

Speaker 2 you played Donnie the quiz kid

Speaker 2 yes and

Speaker 2 that character is also just

Speaker 2 in the vein of you were kind of on a run of like just these tragic men characters.

Speaker 2 But that performance of yours is just brutal. Thank you so much.
It's a man reaching out for love.

Speaker 2 I have a lot of love. I just don't know where to find it.

Speaker 2 The braces.

Speaker 2 The braces. Getting braces to impress a hunk that just doesn't even know you're alive.

Speaker 2 Oh my God. I have to see that.
I haven't seen it in a long time. I want to see that again.
My daughters just saw it. It devastates you.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's a phenomenal movie.

Speaker 2 What was it like working with PTA the second time around?

Speaker 2 A joy.

Speaker 2 So many people from Boogie Nights had

Speaker 2 come on for the second one

Speaker 2 so we knew each other. I mean making a movie is like a pickup baseball team.

Speaker 2 It's scary and you get there and

Speaker 2 most people have this experience. You know, when you begin the second, if you've got a big role, when you begin the second or third day or the second week, you go, oh, now I know how to do this.

Speaker 2 I understand this. If only we could go back and start again.
So when it's people you know,

Speaker 2 there's an ease about it. So it's a head start.
I'm a big believer in rehearsal. Was there someone in that crew that felt like top of the class?

Speaker 2 Was Phil Hoffman like working with him were you like, this is,

Speaker 2 I mean, this is the greatest actor in the world. I think we all knew he was the best of us.

Speaker 2 What was it like just in the flesh watching him work?

Speaker 2 Like, what did he do with the words on the page that were just like, how did he...

Speaker 2 Was it magic?

Speaker 2 It was a bit magical.

Speaker 2 First of all, all I knew about him was boogeynights, you know, eating the pencil and hugging himself and so

Speaker 2 implosive. The boom pull, where he's like basically ejaculating in his own pants, is one of the funny.

Speaker 2 That's that part.

Speaker 2 Well, that's right after we missed the come shot. Or that's right before we missed the come shot.
Yeah, yeah. He makes it look so natural, you have to sort of remind yourself, this is Phil.

Speaker 2 This is the same guy that did that other thing.

Speaker 2 He was

Speaker 2 magnificent. I think I really,

Speaker 2 I really

Speaker 2 fell in love with him after Magnolia when I saw him do these other roles. I mean, talk about being a chameleon.
And

Speaker 2 he didn't change his appearance that much. He was just a different guy in the same skin.
It was almost as if you had never seen him before, but he looked exactly the same. Yep.
He had...

Speaker 2 He's a complicated man. All those characters live within him.
Yeah. Obviously, we found out.
Do you get a better performance when you're like

Speaker 2 with someone like that?

Speaker 2 I think so.

Speaker 2 I think so.

Speaker 2 I mean if you want longevity in this business you can't count on that but boy it's a you know a rising tide lifts all boats and

Speaker 2 when the leads in the thing are just killing it and simple and honest and so in your face, so when they look at you, you're being looked at.

Speaker 2 It's powerful it's powerful medicine you're just seeing like him go 99 yards with the ball yeah yeah every time yeah and you're like i better block for this guy

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Speaker 2 You want to hear a great story? Yes.

Speaker 2 It became clear that

Speaker 2 Shameless was going to run for a while. I think about the fourth or fifth season.
We were selling them like hotcakes. And Felicity, my wife, said, what are you going to do next season?

Speaker 2 What are you going to work on next season? I said, what do you mean? She said, well, you've got this lab.

Speaker 2 You get to act every day.

Speaker 2 You get to act all this stuff.

Speaker 2 Do you have a goal, something you want to work on?

Speaker 2 I married very well. And

Speaker 2 I said,

Speaker 2 good God, you're right. I hadn't thought about it.
And it sounds trite and it sounds mundane, but

Speaker 2 one of the foundations of acting is to really look and really listen. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And to a certain extent, really talk. Really talk to someone.
And to react to what someone else is saying. No, you can let that go.
You gotta let it go. You can let that go.
Okay. Write that down.

Speaker 2 But to really look and really listen. So I decided in that next season I would really look and really listen.

Speaker 2 And it turns out that's not something you can make a decision and then for the next 10 episodes or 12 episodes you'll do it. You have to remind yourself before every single,

Speaker 2 not only scene, every take.

Speaker 2 You got to remind yourself because everything is trying to push your attention back on yourself. Everything.
Right.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 this is what happened.

Speaker 2 We would do a take, and I would go, God, Bill, really look and really listen. So we'd do the second take, and I would really look at my fellow actor.

Speaker 2 And nine times out of ten, they would go,

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, I've got a cut. I have no idea what my line is.
Sorry, I just went up on my lines. You're getting in their heads.

Speaker 2 They saw me really looking at them and they went,

Speaker 2 what's going on? Really? Yeah. So did they have to account for that or did they? I don't think they ever knew.
It's because I was really looking at them rather than actor looking at them. Right.

Speaker 2 As a guy.

Speaker 2 As the guy. As the guy, yeah.
As the guy. No, as me.
As you, yeah. That's the difference.
There is no character. This is another tenant of this thing.
I like this.

Speaker 2 This makes a whole lot more sense than this, like,

Speaker 2 yeah, when you were three,

Speaker 2 you pissed yourself and that you have have to bring this into your scene where you're playing some sort of Marvel superhero. It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 2 I don't think it's possible. It's so cult-ish.
I know for me, when everybody gets quiet and the camera starts rolling, I've got all I can do

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 get the lines out properly and to really look at someone and

Speaker 2 improvise with them, throw them a curveball, see what they do, figure out what I'm going to do based on that. I can't think of another thing to do.

Speaker 2 So the idea of bringing forth the time Sparky got run over, I can't do that. Or even if you do it before the scene, it's gone.

Speaker 2 You're like a guy going to the office and you're doing your job and you're focusing on your fucking job. Yeah, it's a craft.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 It's really a craft. If you do it well enough, it's an art, but ain't everything.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Character, the idea of character is a trick we play on the audience as a magician would, and the audience says, yes, trick me again. Yeah,

Speaker 2 I think that that is like an articulation of

Speaker 2 directing that is like the most down-to-earth articulation of the craft that I think I've ever heard a performer give.

Speaker 2 That's why Atlantic Theatre Company, which has a school, they call it practical aesthetics. Yeah.

Speaker 2 with the emphasis being on practical. Is it annoying to work with a guy that's just like fully method?

Speaker 2 And he's like, and you're like eating lunch with him and you're like, come on, dude.

Speaker 2 Come on. This is one of the things I learned.

Speaker 2 Stop it. We're not actually ninjas, okay? Yeah, right.
We're playing ninjas that work.

Speaker 2 We're adults

Speaker 2 wearing costumes.

Speaker 2 President Lincoln, it's for you.

Speaker 2 Who was like that? Like,

Speaker 2 is there anyone in particular that was like that? Oh, sure.

Speaker 2 It's

Speaker 2 a common story that they want to be the character. Brando is like that, right? Nah, I don't know.
Off stage? I'm not sure. I've never heard that.
He's the best. He's the best.

Speaker 2 Who's been your hero throughout your career? In theory, Meryl Streep could be bad, but she's never been bad yet. No.
She can do anything. I'd love to work with her if she's listening.

Speaker 2 The aforementioned Gene Hackman. I'm lovely.
A genius actor. Never saw him be bad.
There's a whole bunch of them, man. You guys are good.

Speaker 2 So, acting's gotten better. I mean, it was just 75 years ago when

Speaker 2 to show that you were upset, you went like this. That's not that long ago that that was acting.
And look where we are now.

Speaker 2 There's a movie I really like with you that, like, I don't know if anyone remembers, especially not these boys.

Speaker 2 They were born after 9-11. You were? Yeah.
That's crazy. Anyway,

Speaker 2 my hemorrhoid just acted up when he said that. You gave him a hemorrhoid.

Speaker 2 No, he's had it, but it just hurt when he said that. Why'd you hurt his hemorrhoid? The cooler.

Speaker 2 Fabulous. What a good movie.
Fabulous. You kind of returned kind of to your broken man.

Speaker 2 And I'll tell you, they sent me the cooler, and I thought, nope, if I do this, I'm just going to be Jerry Lundergaard for the rest of my life, the hapless loser. I don't want to play that role.

Speaker 2 Because in real life, you're one of the coolest guys I've ever met. I think so, too.
Maybe they named it that to trick you into thinking it's a cool guy. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Maybe not a cool guy.

Speaker 2 God bless Ed Pressman, who I'm pretty sure I had that right, was the producer. He wouldn't take no for an answer.
And the director, they just pounded me and I'm glad I did it.

Speaker 2 And you guys should see it. It's a movie.
Not for me, for Maria Bello. She is just stunning.

Speaker 2 It's a really touching love story there. Yeah.
Like it's a movie about a casino who hires a guy who's such a loser that his loserdom actually

Speaker 2 kind of radiates towards the guy at the table.

Speaker 2 The casino has hired me.

Speaker 2 Someone's at Blackjack and winning all the time.

Speaker 2 All I gotta do is go sit there and have a drink and then the guy starts losing.

Speaker 2 There's a scene of a guy throwing craps and he's winning every time. And I just walk by in my ill-fitting suit, schlumped by.
And I just put my hand on the table and I walk away.

Speaker 2 And as soon as I walk away, you hear, oh.

Speaker 2 Well, you're 75 now? I'm 75. You look fucking great.
Ah, thanks. How'd you do it? No drinking?

Speaker 2 No smoking? I own a distillery.

Speaker 2 I don't own the whole thing.

Speaker 2 Woody Creek distillers. Nope.
I love to drink. You love to drink? Why do you look so good?

Speaker 2 Beats me. I think I can thank mom and dad.
And

Speaker 2 every woman I've ever gone out with exercised like crazy. So I did it too.
And Felicity is no exception. And then about 22 years, 24 years ago, 22 years ago,

Speaker 2 We hired a trainer in LA

Speaker 2 and we've had the same trainer for 22 years, and I'm still working with her. So I work out.
You work out. I work out, and I gave up meat maybe 10 years ago.

Speaker 2 And I'm cutting back on the drinking because it's hard on you. Oh, I was going to say after this, we could.

Speaker 2 I know it's.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. It's like a...
What time is it? It's noon. It's 12 o'clock somewhere, dude.
It's 12 o'clock. It is literally probably.
It's 12 o'clock right now.

Speaker 2 Personally,

Speaker 2 once you're engaged with your work, I feel this way right now. Like, I don't really ever want to stop doing

Speaker 2 work. I hear you.

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 what motivates you, like, looking ahead, like, future challenges? Like, you know, you've directed, of course, you've written,

Speaker 2 but, like, what's like, what is, you know, what are you searching for? Like, what or are you content? Like,

Speaker 2 just drinking in Colorado? When I took off some time, it turns out I'm

Speaker 2 not good at that. I need

Speaker 2 some sort of

Speaker 2 creative challenge. It's the way I've always challenged myself in my life, and I think I need that.
It turns out I'm not as rich as I thought it was, too.

Speaker 2 What did she do?

Speaker 2 Who?

Speaker 2 Your wife. She bought a boat? No, no, no.
She makes more money than I do.

Speaker 2 No, I just...

Speaker 2 I like to live large. and you do I do I do what like what you're what you're ostentatious gentleman

Speaker 2 no but we have we still have a house in LA and one in

Speaker 2 in Woody Creek and

Speaker 2 that's expensive and

Speaker 2 I like not looking at the check just

Speaker 2 I don't know how much money I have yeah yeah it's a it's a great feeling they'll call me when you're also I've got two daughters and you know I'd love to make sure that they can do anything

Speaker 2 in their lives that they want to.

Speaker 2 I agree with Warren Buffett. I want to give them enough money they can do anything they want to, but not enough to do nothing.
Right. I have a friend who's a billionaire son who just

Speaker 2 reads that Carl Ovan-Nausgaard book and smokes cigarettes. He just has nothing to do.

Speaker 2 He just smokes cigarettes and reads My Struggle by Carl Ovan-Nausgaard.

Speaker 2 It's really like, he's got great Knicks tickets. To answer your question, though, I do want to, I still like acting, and

Speaker 2 I feel like I recently got pretty good at it. You know, I put down a lot of baggage that I carry around.
Yeah, I think I can do it. And there's always an altercocker in any film.

Speaker 2 So I think there's work for me.

Speaker 2 Do I want to carry a film? Do you want to Paris, Texas?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I did one called Happy Texas. Have you ever seen that? Great movie.
Fabulous. The gay, the gay, the

Speaker 2 guys on the lamb, and they have to act like gay guys, and then you're the sheriff.

Speaker 2 And I'm the sheriff. Right, and you're gay.
Yeah, and I fall in love with one of them.

Speaker 2 What do you make of the shift in the industry? So obviously, you were on a television series for 11 years, right? It seems like there's been a shift towards that medium.

Speaker 2 Yeah. TVs where it's

Speaker 2 streaming. Do you miss the movies? Yeah.
I miss them. Me too.
Remember when they were about people?

Speaker 2 They're still about people. Sometimes they're just trying to engage with some of the things.

Speaker 2 The movies. Yeah, it seems that

Speaker 2 comic books are the only thing that they can guarantee. But there's a shift.
It's recent, last couple of years.

Speaker 2 I've done a lot of indies, and

Speaker 2 sometimes they just forewall them and put them in theaters, but they're a bunch of them I've been involved with where they're going into theaters, and I think they might succeed.

Speaker 2 I've got this one that's coming out any minute.

Speaker 2 Trace Cruise? No, Soul on Fire. Okay.

Speaker 2 I think they're going to put it in a thousand theaters.

Speaker 2 Who made it? You want to make it? It was an Indy. It was an indie.
It's an indie.

Speaker 2 I'm behind the... I think they might have sold it, but I don't know who they sold it to.

Speaker 2 Anyway. Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 2 I'm off to St. Louis next week for the opening, and I'll find out a lot more.
Lovely film.

Speaker 2 What is it about? It's a true story about

Speaker 2 this guy who, as a child, was burned over 90% of his body, 92%. He should have died, but he didn't.
And I played Jack Buck, the...

Speaker 2 The Cardinals announcer? Cardinals announcer. And.

Speaker 2 Joe Buck's dad. Yep.
I met Joe. And I did a look-alike with Jack.
You know, that white hair, I did that. And it was really weird.

Speaker 2 When I met the family, I was on set the first time they saw me, and here I am dressed and looking like their father. But they were very cool about that.
That's your second announcer role, right?

Speaker 2 The Sea Biscuit. You're the...
TikTok. You're TikTok, yeah.

Speaker 2 You're the guy with the sound effects.

Speaker 2 I know. That is a great role.

Speaker 2 You were talking a mile a minute in that movie. Yes,

Speaker 2 I practiced it so I could do it really fast. And I did about three ticks.
And Gary said, great, it's great. It's great.
What if you do one really fast? And that was the fastest you go.

Speaker 2 What are you talking about? That's as fast as my tongue can work. So

Speaker 2 you got hooked on methamphetamine on that side? No, it's before that. I should have.
Yeah. I should have started my meth habit earlier.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 You directed a sex road trip comedy with with Alexandra Didario and Kate Upton.

Speaker 2 All right. Enough said.
No, it was,

Speaker 2 you know, it's about

Speaker 2 two women in their early to mid-20s who are having a crisis. So who better

Speaker 2 to direct it than a 70-year-old man? Yeah, I bet it was.

Speaker 2 Were you in pajamas the entire time? Yeah, I should have been. Were you in a bathroom? They did great, and it's got moments in it.

Speaker 2 But I did not do that script justice as a director. I've done three of them.
You maybe were you.

Speaker 2 I threw my hat in the ring, by the way.

Speaker 2 I threw my hat in the ring to direct another one, so I haven't learned my lesson. Are the boobs going to be even bigger?

Speaker 2 Were there boobs in that? Oh, what a. What a professional, ladies and gentlemen.
What a professional.

Speaker 2 They were stunning women, boy. Everywhere we went, it was like Moses parting the sea.

Speaker 2 Crickets would stop chirping when they came on set. Birds were so

Speaker 2 fine-looking and really delightful, both women. We had a good amount of fun on the thing.

Speaker 2 What happened? I want to talk about your two projects that are coming up. You're in Edgar Wright, Edgar Wright's new picture,

Speaker 2 The Running Man, which I understand is a Stephen King adaptation.

Speaker 2 He wrote the book, and there was the Schwarzenegger version of it. And for this one, they went back to the book, and

Speaker 2 it's big. We shot it in London.
I've got

Speaker 2 two scenes. It's like a most dangerous game kind of thing?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah. It's a dystopian future.

Speaker 2 The government, which looks like a studio, it's more television than government, runs everything. And there's this game.
They choose a guy as the running man. He starts going.

Speaker 2 If he can stay alive

Speaker 2 for a certain amount of time, they give him a million dollars.

Speaker 2 But anyone can kill him. Oh, anyone? Anyone.
Oh, wow. It's like the game Mafia.
Yeah. Yeah.
And

Speaker 2 you happen to be best friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Speaker 2 No.

Speaker 2 I got that one wrong.

Speaker 2 So now that you're working out, do you think you could

Speaker 2 go toe-to-toe?

Speaker 2 With Arnold? Yeah,

Speaker 2 maybe enter a couple competitions, maybe?

Speaker 2 I would do it if it was he and I.

Speaker 2 Just the two of you? Just the two of us.

Speaker 2 He's amazing. I love him so much.

Speaker 2 My father and I, one of the biggest categories of pictures that I grew up watching were just the neck snap genre.

Speaker 2 The genre where the guy just kills someone by snapping them their neck so i've seen pretty much every segal john covin damn you know

Speaker 2 they make it look so easy they just walk up and go and that's it yeah that could be a good goal for you moving forward you know at 75 you haven't done one neck snap no yeah yeah i i i or you have you ever said secure the perimeter nope never lock it down no no what's your favorite line you've ever delivered in any movie uh

Speaker 2 It's not mine. It's Mammet, who went insane.
I did Air Force One, and I say,

Speaker 2 let me save him. He's the president, for God's sake.
Dave still quotes that to me.

Speaker 2 Just even your delivery makes it funny.

Speaker 2 He's the president, for God's sake.

Speaker 2 That movie is awesome.

Speaker 2 Get off the movie. This is while Harrison's on the back of the plane going like this.

Speaker 2 The president is hanging out the best. Let me save him.
It's the president.

Speaker 2 Well, we should talk about training dreams. Yes.

Speaker 2 I love Westerns. I'd love to do a Western, but they're all just,

Speaker 2 to coin a phrase, horseshit. Because all the Westerns that come out now are based on Western movies, John Ford movies.
And the real West

Speaker 2 is best.

Speaker 2 It's fascinating. The shootout at the OK Corral.
You ready for this? Two guys got shot, got killed. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Five guys got shot. And that lives in lore.
They've written poems and songs, written movies about them.

Speaker 2 That's the biggest shootout in the West. I read

Speaker 2 a Western script the other day. There's 14 bodies on page 3.

Speaker 2 Just blaming away. It's like Hong Kong action.
And I've shot off my mouth a lot about it, but I think all this bullshit, untruthful gunplay and violence in movies is hurting us as a culture.

Speaker 2 Because kids see it and you know this whole thing we used to say, hey, don't blame, I'm just the messenger. This is what America's like.
That's not what America's like. It's horseshit.

Speaker 2 And it really offends me. I just think, tell the truth about it.

Speaker 2 Just tell the truth. And that's kind of what the the new picture that you're in with Joel Edgerton about.
Yes. Yeah, it's about, it's about...
It couldn't be quieter and simpler.

Speaker 2 What I understand is your character is kind of like

Speaker 2 a poet and a philosopher.

Speaker 2 It's based on a novella. It's very quiet.
I've read the book, the Dennis Johnson book. Yeah.
I read it because it was short. This is pretty close.
I read it on vacation. This is pretty close.

Speaker 2 He's an amazing writer. And they got his voice in this thing.
And

Speaker 2 he's a lot of people. Joel is great in it.
And everybody, it's quiet. It's so moving.
We were in Toronto. Were you in Toronto or you just saw that then?

Speaker 2 I heard something where you spoke about it.

Speaker 2 We watched the thing. I hadn't seen it

Speaker 2 completed.

Speaker 2 I had seen a cut.

Speaker 2 And I'm watching it in the big theater with a lot of people. And I was a mess.
I was weeping like a baby. And then they go, okay, time to get up on stage now.
Yeah. And I was still really...

Speaker 2 Was that the first time you'd seen it? Finished. Yeah, finished it.
And it's different when you see it with a bunch of people as we in a theater. Yeah, theaters, man.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Especially with comedy, like seeing an audience laugh at a joke, especially if you've made something and you've that you've you've like deliberately done a cut, like an edit, like it just feels so satisfying.

Speaker 2 It feels more satisfying than doing sand-up for me. It's like seeing an audience interaction with something you've totally.
If you're watching from the side, you're not watching from the stage.

Speaker 2 You can't really, with the lights, you can't really see. I mean, you know that from the theater.

Speaker 2 Well, the way I put it is I've written a bunch of stuff and a lot almost all of it has humor in it and when you sit at your Typewriter that's how far back I go and you write a joke and it goes from there to a producer who steps on it and then it goes to a director and then it goes to production designer then it goes to the actors and if that joke is still funny after all those people have handled it, that's a good joke.

Speaker 2 That's the highest high I've ever had in this business. Getting a pop feels good.
Oh, getting a pop feels good. We missed the come shot.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 2 Guys, thank you for your time. Thanks, William H.
Macy. I've loved this.
You've loved it? Yeah, you could do this professionally. This was a good idea.
I do, I do, actually.

Speaker 2 Oh, you do? Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 Sorry. Oh, no.
Yeah.