Marc Maron

57m
Ted Danson doesn’t mind getting a little dark with actor, comedian, and podcasting pioneer Marc Maron. Marc talks to Ted about the passing of his romantic partner, filmmaker Lynn Shelton and how he processed that loss on stage, including in his HBO special “From Bleak to Dark.” They also discuss why Marc would never run for office, losing loved ones, and Marc’s acting roles from “Maron” to films like “To Leslie.”

This conversation was recorded in 2023. To help those affected by the Southern California wildfires, make a donation to World Central Kitchen today.

Like watching your podcasts? Visit http://youtube.com/teamcoco to see full episodes.

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Transcript

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I hope you're prepared because I'm a notoriously difficult interview.

I don't know if you know that.

Oh, no, I don't, but that's very exciting for me.

You got to stay on it.

Welcome back to where everybody knows your name.

Today I'm joined by an actor, comedian, and one of the godfathers of podcasting, Mark Maron.

He's been the host of WTF with Mark Maron since 2009.

And in that time, he's talked with pretty much everyone.

I mean, everyone.

His 1600-plus episodes have included guests like Barack Obama, Robin Williams, Anthony Bourdain, Ted Danson.

I know.

I know what I did.

I slipped it in there.

I'm aware of that.

Anyway, one of Mark's special powers is how he can weave humor with aging and death.

That's actually the subject of his most recent comedy special, From Bleak to Dark.

Thrilled to have him on this show.

Here he is, Mark Marin.

So I literally had this thought of you should run for office.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm sure it would suck for you personally, but you...

My brain went like this.

Yeah.

Sobriety,

which means you're familiar with wanting to tell the truth and

not have secrets and all of that stuff.

You have balls of steel because you're a stand-up

and that means you're going to step up and you don't really care.

You do a little about what people think.

You're willing to take shots and still hold true to your whatever it is, your belief system or whatever.

And that's so rare nowadays that I went, yeah.

The idea of running for politics in the culture that we live in now, you know, despite sobriety, fine.

Uh, secrets, you know, in sobriety, you've worked through a lot of stuff and some of that, you know, you tell your sponsor or you tell the people that you're supposed to.

And those things are, yeah, anyone who is sober has got some stories.

And some of those stories, yeah, I don't need them brought up.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And I hate to say, like, you know, I'm sorry, Ted, but I just, I don't want to be part of it because I'm too nervous.

Yeah.

But that's my my truth

or even worse.

Yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

But, you know, I'll speak out on stage and on my podcast and I tend to feel a certain amount of pride in being a voice for people who might not have one.

But it's usually around

depression and,

you know, sort of moving through life with the obstacles of being emotionally hobbled or psychologically frail.

What do you mean?

Well, I just mean I get hobbled.

Well, I mean, you know, you come from a certain world.

You have certain parents and there are certain ways that you're wired that you're not going to be able to unfuck.

And so you kind of live with them and you're sort of like, well, you know, I got some little problems with intimacy and trust and, you know, generally

somewhat self-centered.

So how do I constantly be vigilant around behaving appropriately within the context of whatever I was brought up with?

Right.

So see, that's

even this podcast, I sit there going, oh, shoot, my granddaughters.

Oh, I don't know if I, oh, my parents, they're They're not even alive.

Oh, my parents.

Yeah.

You know, well, I can't say that or I shouldn't do that.

I have so many fucking shoulds and shouldn't.

Oh, I'll throw my parents right under the bus at any opportunity.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

And I don't have kids or grandkids, so I don't have to worry about that.

Yeah.

But the type of emails I get in terms of what I do generally, you know, outside of, you know,

trying to talk about the Israeli conflict are generally emails like, sir, hey, you helped me through a dark time.

Really appreciate it.

I got sober because of you.

Those are big.

Yeah, sure.

Recently, I've been talking about colonoscopy on stage, and I literally do a PSA to preface the bit.

I'm like, if you're a guy and you've been told you need one,

don't be a baby about your asshole.

Just go.

And don't lie because it's kind of enjoyable.

Well, I mean, well, the prostate exam is enjoyable.

The colonoscopy, you're basically anally raped by a machine by professionals while you're sleeping, but it's to see if you have cancer.

So do it.

Just man up it.

and do it.

It's the day before that sucks, right?

Oh, yeah, the bit I do is like, you know,

you get a prescription and you go to the pharmacist and he puts two bottles on the counter and he says, don't go outside.

But oddly, I got a note that was given to another comic that was left basketball for me from a guy who said that because I brought it up in the way I brought it up, he finally went.

Yeah.

And they found two polyups.

I didn't follow up, but he went.

Yeah.

It's not my job to follow up.

It's just my job to inspire, Ted.

I inspire.

So if you had to name a philosophy that you have or a point of view that you're trying to get across, or maybe you're not at all in your podcast and your stand-up,

what would it be?

Do you have guardrails that say, I want to...

This interests me, so I'll talk about this.

But my purpose in talking about this, besides being funny and entertaining, do you have one of those kind of things?

Well, you know, I said something weird on stage.

It might have been last night for the first time in talking about, I performed at Largo and I've been working out this new hour, you know, a new hour of stand-up because I did the special from bleak to dark.

And it took a long time to put that together.

And the thing I said on stage last night, I said, I don't know that if I, I don't know that I got into comedy for money.

I really think I got into comedy just to be seen.

You know, and I think that's true.

And I think

I never would put it that way.

Being seen, being witnessed.

Yes.

And I'm doing like, you know, some pretty gnarly shit right now about stuff.

You know, and I think the last special was really a portal into something.

You know, to be able to address grief the way I did, you know, kind of opened up possibilities in terms of

what you can and can't make funny

in a deep way, not just in a sort of like, because comedy kind of is also can be dismissive and act as sort of a, you know, kind of a buffer of feelings, right?

Right.

But to sort of go into the

darkness or into, you know, whatever your personal,

you know,

sadness or whatever is and really kind of elevate it.

Did you workshop that after Lynn died?

Yeah.

Did you workshop that special?

Oh, yeah, for, for, for a year, a year and a half.

So in the beginning, I'm assuming the emotion was raw.

Yeah.

No, I was doing small shows at Dynasty Typewriter here.

And and I, because I write on stage, like, you know, Richard and I are similar like that.

You know, you make notes and then you g-riff.

So

what, what I, what, what, what happened is I'd move through this stuff, you know, and that's how I write the act is I have an idea, you know, I, I start talking about it.

And if it sort of sticks, it sticks in my head.

And then I kind of build it and hone it.

But at the beginning of talking about grief,

I was doing a small theater and the people that came knew it was a workshop.

So, you know, I was emotional.

I mean, I would cry sometimes, and it would take, it took a while to talk about.

But I said to them, I said, you know, I think there's got to be a way for me to talk about this up here.

So let's do it.

But you're, in essence, rehearsing

something that started out being very emotional.

And then with rehearsing, you become intellectual.

So by the time you did the special,

was the emotion that you started with as raw, or had it become something that you were now not acting, but

acting?

Kind of.

I don't know if it's quite acting.

I think that if, you know, if I am

true to myself in what I think comedy can do, that, you know, I had to eventually frame it that way.

If you love comedy and you are a funny person, you're, you're doing it to protect yourself from something or to process something.

Right.

So I don't know.

Things become an act, but, you know, not unlike acting, as you know, that, you know, even when you're acting, you know, you've put those emotions in place, you know, for that character.

And, and, right.

My wife's divorcing me.

This, this is horrible, but man, it's going to be great for my acting.

No, not quite like that, but let's say you're playing.

I mean,

a lot of actors do feel that way.

I'm not saying you do.

Sure, but it gives you a new

source of emotions to draw from.

But when you're putting a character together and this guy's got to be, you know, sad, you're going to tap into your sadness

as a foundation.

So, you know, you just remove the character from that and the character is me.

The sadness is real.

And so it doesn't, it's not entirely an intellectual exercise.

Right.

You just learn how to manage the emotions.

Right.

But

as an actor, I will find

an as-if,

not a literal.

Right.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Because if it's literal, I may not.

be able to tap into I there's a lot of protection around it if I imagine one of my kids dies dying or something like that.

But if I take something right next door to that sure then I can

allow it to tap in.

Yeah.

So I think I'm just I guess what I here's what I'm really saying is I cannot imagine losing my wife Mary.

I cannot imagine losing her suddenly out of the blue.

I just can't imagine how you how you had to process that.

And well, it was, you know,

I think grief is complicated because

everyone's going to experience it.

And I think that the idea of being public about it, but also being respectful of

her and her family.

Yeah.

For the most part, I don't really know how they responded to it.

But

one of the more difficult things

outside of losing her was that we were a fairly new relationship.

I'd known her for several years and we had been, but we weren't together that long.

And it was during COVID.

And I didn't really know her family yet.

And all of a sudden, she's you know has gotten sick very quickly and ended up in the hospital and and I didn't even have numbers to call I had to have an ICU nurse get into her phone to get me the numbers of people who I didn't even know which one was the dad which one you know

but

but

you know there's no way to to say anyone's grief is deeper than the others but what others that but what I realized you know after she passed was there were people that had a whole history you know with this woman and a history I didn't know and and

so I'm left with this idea that I had found the perfect partner.

And

it was a sort of death of possibility, you know, that of the life we could have had.

And also just being, you know, the guy who was there when this happened,

it was very complicated, but

it's still the loss of somebody you love is just shattering.

And when it happens that quickly and totally unexpected,

there's nothing you can do to control it.

But I knew a few things

fairly quickly that

it wasn't about me.

I'm not the victim here.

This is not,

there has to be a way to sort of be with this.

And I chose to do it publicly because I don't think that people, I think we're terrified of death, obviously, of our own death and of the people we love, but it's inevitable.

And it's not really part of the cultural conversation.

I think we do everything we can.

And

the very nature of capitalism is designed to keep us away from thinking about that stuff.

It's what fuels it.

How can I not think about that?

How about these chips?

I don't want

to, at the end of life, all of a sudden have to stop living.

I want to be able to make jokes.

be you know be present be the same i i get to be alive until i'm not breathing yeah and i don't want people to look at me like i fucked up somehow yeah i don't want to you know don't usually you sit there and you look, he died.

Oh, what did he do?

Oh, got it.

He did that wrong.

I won't do that.

Right, right.

You know, or boy, he fucked up.

No, you find that

in your world, in your age group.

Which part?

Just that, like, because like what they do to fuck up, yeah, because like I find that, like, I'm starting to see people die, obviously, and you have as well.

You've lost a lot of friends, and some of them we know.

But for me, when I see that happening, happening, you know, I have friends who are a bit older than me and, you know, who are sick.

And it's, it's just heartbreaking because you realize, like, you know, you very quickly go, like, well, well, what did they do?

But the thing is, is that you get to a certain age and you're in the window.

Yeah.

You know, so as my friend Jerry Stahl says, it's like, you know, something's in the mail for everybody.

So you don't know what that is.

Yeah.

But you do know that it becomes more,

it happens more as you get to a certain age window.

So

I generally find that I feel terrible and I don't, about someone's,

what they're going through.

And then it's sort of like, well, what do I do?

Like my dad's, you know, in the, in the, he's in, he's in the dementia now, but he's still around.

He's still engaged.

And I don't call him as much as I should.

I mean, theoretically, like, why don't I just call him every day and say, what's up?

Yeah.

Because I, I don't, there's something heartbreaking and hard about it.

Yeah.

But sometimes you just got to step up and ride it out, I guess.

Yeah.

But I are you close with your dad?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm close enough.

You know, do they live?

He lives in New Mexico.

My mom's in Albuquerque.

In Albuquerque, yes.

You know, we've had our hard times.

And I, you know, my parents were, were not great, but they weren't terrible.

They were a little selfish.

I usually...

Did you know they weren't great when you were a kid or no?

Kind of.

Just in hindsight.

No, kind of.

I mean, yeah, my dad had his own kind of mental health issues.

He was a surgeon.

And, you know, at different points, he was diagnosed as bipolar or depressed or narcissistic.

My mother had

sort of a chronic kind of,

I think her eating disorder was her job.

And,

you know, she's all right.

And he's where he's at.

Usually how I frame my parents is that I don't look at them as parents.

I wouldn't go to them as parents.

They're just these people with problems I grew up with.

And so I, which is true.

It is.

They're a couple of nice kids who are doing the best they can.

Right.

And had you.

That's right.

Very young.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really?

Sure.

My mom was 22.

That's young.

Yeah.

That means what they did.

And because of that, they're both still around.

And I'm 60.

Yeah.

You know, I'm like, and that weird age gap, you know, it switches because for years, you're like, my parents are old.

Now you're like, oh my God, they're only 20 years older than me.

How'd that happen?

20 years.

I know.

I look back.

Mary and I have been together 30 years and I go, it just was like yesterday.

Then I go, well, 30 years from now.

Oh, oh, shit.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

15 years from now.

I know.

And that, yeah, you can't go, can't linger there too long.

No.

Yeah.

And I think they, I don't know if it's true of everybody, but baby boomers just think they're entitled to live forever.

Well, yeah, you guys, you're a boomer.

I'm, I'm the tail end.

I don't, but I don't count myself as a boomer, but you're full in.

Yeah, full in.

Is it time to pass the baton?

No.

Yeah, the great age of entitlement.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, my parents, but yeah, in terms of him aging and stuff,

I'll tell you, losing Lynn sort of was,

I wouldn't call it a wake-up call, but it does sort of

bring you into reality.

Yeah.

You know,

in a very brutal way.

I mean, you know, you kind of expect your parents to pass.

You don't don't know how you're going to handle it.

But all of a sudden, man, you know, people are dying.

And you get to an age where you're like, well, shit, no matter how much I don't want to do this or how I feel or whatever, they're going down.

You know, there are people like for some reason, you know, Sagat's death had a huge effect on me because it was like, that was another one.

It's like, what the fuck happened?

Yeah.

You know, and he was such a, you know, fun, kind of loving guy.

But I'll tell you, man,

you know, I've kind of, I tried to

show up for funerals, for other people.

I didn't use to.

I I was afraid of it and I didn't want to deal with it.

But when he died and no one knew what happened, you still don't even know what happened.

But I went to that funeral and I live in Glendale.

So I got to drive past Mount Sinai, the cemetery every day.

And I couldn't get it out of my mind for like a year that that guy was just at home a week ago.

And now he's just in the ground up there.

And I drive by it every day.

I'm like, oh, my God.

It's sobering, but not awful.

But I'm going to be cremated.

I have a hard time with just laying there rocking.

I decided that when I had my first MRI.

I was like, oh, no, I know it's silly because I'll be dead, but I am not, you're not burying me in a box.

I'll go out.

Thank you.

And they, and it's like, it's not even organic.

You know, like up in Mount Sinai, like they, they, they put the casket into, in the, the, in the hole in the ground.

It's like fortified with cement.

I mean, it's like just this.

crypt.

I mean, like the idea, especially with Jews, there was the wooden box for a reason.

So eventually it breaks down and we can re-enter the ecosystem, not just be in this cement box, this tomb.

Like you go like where my grandparents are buried.

This has gotten really upbeat.

No, this is what we, this is my.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Like, you know, you start to realize like it's sort of disturbing like because they're buried in some weird old Jewish cemetery in like Elizabeth, New Jersey, in this industrial area like that got built up after, but there's this little plot of land.

There's this, you know, dead Jews in it.

And like, you know, after a Jewish cemetery, especially the older ones, you start to, you know, if you go visit the grave, you can see the ground is sagged.

And it's like, well, I guess it's given way.

They've begun

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Yeah.

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My father died watching this old house, having had a steak and probably fibbed about the second drink he had.

And then he sat down to watch it and

slowly went.

And my mother said,

Ned, are you enjoying it?

From the, you know, she was changing into her nightgown or something.

And are you enjoying your show?

And nothing.

So she went out and could see what was happening and held his hand so that, and there was a chair because this, you know, she's almost, I don't know, 85 at this point.

So she couldn't have gotten down on the floor with him, but she got to hold his hand and his pulse.

So he called my daughter, my sister, to let, you know, say, come, come quickly, but then was able to sit with him.

My father, who never was great about being 100% truthful

in life and had secrets here and there

and

took kind of the easy way, the unexamined, you know,

got a little Alzheimer's going,

but it works to my advantage.

I get a second drink.

Yeah.

No, I remember the first time.

My mother, on the other hand, got pneumonia.

She's about 89.

And the doctor said, you have to go to the hospital.

You're going to die, Jessica.

She said, thank God.

She couldn't speak because she had

had such bad.

coughing, she had swallowed something wrong.

And so she had lost her voice almost completely.

And my my sister and I, you know, oh, we're taking her home no longer to try to keep her alive.

Yeah.

We're taking her home to be with her while she dies.

Yeah.

Which took two weeks.

Yeah.

But when she got home,

she very spiritual, very religious,

Catholic, and

was very excited about meeting her maker, you know, about going.

See how that works?

And when it works, it really works.

Yeah.

It's like, finally, I get to meet the guy.

Yeah.

Gonna relax for eternity.

Yeah.

And, and so.

So, did you get a priest of the house?

No, because we were, we had the hospice lady came and said, well, this is not how this works.

Because

mom thought, oh, I've chosen to die.

Let's go.

Let's do it.

We're off.

And the hospice said, no, it's going to take a while for your body to shut down.

And this will happen.

This will happen.

Yeah.

But my mom couldn't speak or ask questions.

And the hospice person said, and then we'll have

an opiate, morphine yeah went again she went my mom went no

and it was like oh my god and my sister and I played this desperate game of charades with my mother to try to think no she wanted to burn and we kept going burn burn what what do you mean burn but we couldn't she couldn't speak she couldn't write yeah

And what she meant was that in some religions or philosophical thought, if you choose to suffer consciously at the end of your life,

choose to suffer, feel it all.

Yeah.

That you can burn off some whatever karma, sins, however you want to hold it.

So she wanted the full month.

She was her name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

Yeah.

Wow.

They just let her burn, huh?

She had people from the...

I think some Catholic order, a camp of monks, came down from Colorado and sang evening prayers.

She had the passing of her dreams.

She really did.

See, now, how is that not amazing?

It was amazing.

And I remember watching it.

Last, last thing.

Remember watching her.

She had no longer was really present.

She had about two more days of her body shutting down, but she really wasn't there anymore.

And I remember, and I had the night shift.

My sister watched her during the day.

I watched her at night.

And I sat there and every spiritual idea, thought, book, what, you know, Zan,

whatever I had nibbled at or studied, sure, went flying out the window.

Oh, wow.

And I realized, oh,

I don't know.

Yeah.

I really, truly don't.

Let's tell the truth, Ted.

Yeah.

You don't know.

She might, but she will soon.

She will soon, but you have no fucking idea.

And it was very humbling.

And from that moment on, I went to, I'm going to try to do the best I can every day.

And that's my override in terms of what I thought.

And also just the, I think the hardest thing is just that acceptance.

It's like, sure, you don't know, but you might not ever.

And, and, and it's inevitable.

Yes.

Uh, you know, you just, uh, you know, you get in terms of spirituality, I don't really think in those terms, but, you know, I, I'd prefer not to go out slowly as my mind goes away.

Yes.

It'd be nice if I went out pretty quick.

At choice, yes.

You know, and I, and I think about it pretty often, uh, just that the idea of nothingness.

You know, I'm doing this big bit about right now about

I passed out at the top of a mountain when I was hiking.

You did?

I did.

Yeah, I blacked out.

And I've kind of tied in

death and everything, but I was,

but the essence of

the experience was that when you black out, I don't know if you've ever passed out, but when you pass out, it's like nothing's happening.

Right.

Like there's nothing.

And if you don't wake up, you wouldn't be the wiser.

And nothing, it's just nothing.

Because when you wake up, you're like, oh my God, there was nothing going on.

And I'm like, if that's what happens, I'm okay with it.

Do you know what I mean?

It's fine because I'm not, I'm not really going to know.

But it is sort of,

you know, kind of disturbing to just, you know, contemplate your absence, you know, but also like you've had parents pass.

And, you know, when Lynn went, what happens really is in the living is just sort of like, well, what should we do with these shoes?

Yeah.

I mean, that's what happens.

That's the legacy.

Like, does anyone want this?

Call your sister.

Does she want this?

All right.

So, and that's the horrible thing.

And you're like, well, what would the deceased want?

Like, nothing.

What do they, what do you mean?

What do they want?

Jokes on you, not her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So do you do

spiritual?

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

After afterlife or not, not afterlife, but how about energy?

Have you ever talked to a medium?

Have you ever talked to anyone who knows a medium?

No.

Because

you've decided something?

And I don't, I,

it's bullshit.

No, I mean, I've just realized that, like, I'm not, uh, I don't, I'm not on that search for some reason.

You know, my brother is, is a little more, you know, he's gone through a lot of like,

what does it mean?

Yeah, what's happening?

How do I feel better?

And I don't have it in me for some reason.

I know, like, when people are like, do you believe in God?

I'm like, I don't know if I give a shit, really.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

To me, it's like the the struggle to accept what is.

You know what I mean?

I don't,

it seems that the basic payoff is that, yeah,

it's kind of sad ultimately.

You know, you've done everything you could and then it's over.

But I don't, I don't find any solace in the idea of an afterlife.

I, I do, I feel like there's a universal order to things.

It's kind of baffling and that I think we're well on the way of fucking up as humans.

But I don't, you know, I don't, I don't lean on it too much other than I do think I am oddly not optimistic, but, but I enjoy

what's good in, and, in people and, and, and I enjoy the struggle.

And I, you know, and I, yeah, but I do not think about God.

I've meditated a bit and, you know, and I've done, you know,

I was brought up Jewish, which is completely a mystery.

I, I, I was doing a bit about that.

What was it?

I, I say, um,

you know, people don't, when you, people don't really understand Jews, they're, they're sort of like, well, you're Jewish.

Are you religious?

I'm like, no.

You know, they go, what is it?

Like,

do you believe in, oh, no, yeah.

You're a Jew.

Are you religious?

I'm like, no, I'm a Jew.

We don't have to be religious.

We're the chosen people.

You know what I mean?

You guys are just going to have to live with that.

There's nothing you can do to take that away from us.

But then at other times, I've said, well, do Jews believe in heaven?

I'm like, it's not clear to me.

I was never told.

I'm not sure.

What about hell?

Again, no idea.

I don't don't know.

So to me, that's closer with my belief system or whatever is

the truth.

You know,

I have talked to mediums.

I've been in rooms where you would be hard-pressed to explain what just happened if you tried to be logical about it.

Have you seen David Blaine?

Yes.

Well, I mean,

was it magic?

Was it a sleight of hand what you're saying that can't be explained?

No, it was it was, I mean, I'm not going to do the thing, but it was truly, it'd be easy, it's easier for me to just believe that's true.

And not on a God,

not on a

god.

I don't know about something else, but I do believe that energy, just physics, does not just magically go away because whatever it is that's you and your thoughts, that's that's that's physics.

That's chemistry.

That's thoughts have energy.

Yeah, I don't know the difference.

So energy just disappears when your body stops breathing?

I don't.

No, I mean, I mean, but fine.

That's all fine and good.

But whatever you think is going to happen to that energy, you're not going to be like, oh, I'm finally energy.

Here's my point, though.

It doesn't fucking matter.

Yeah.

Because the truth is you got to wake up and live today and try to be nice to people.

You know, try to be nurturing.

Try to be kind.

Try to be real.

Try to be truthful.

And that.

job remains the same no matter what your belief system is.

Sure.

No matter what happens or doesn't happen.

it's still.

Yeah, at different times I'm prone to mysticism.

But yeah, the idea of being good and don't

create emotional terror.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But that's not even a spiritual thought.

It's just like it feels better.

No, it's, it's, it's a, a, trying to live a principled moral life, but accept that you are not perfect and make mistakes and that,

you know, you try to do better or you just turn it over to Jesus.

It really depends on who you want to give responsibility for your fucked upness.

I'm embarrassed that I haven't known you for a long time.

I did your podcast and I thought, this is weird.

I didn't know that this existed.

Weird ancient days of early podcasting when we were all just working out of our homes and our garages.

Right.

I mean, it was true.

I did this.

I made this.

I know you did.

And I'm my fault.

And I'm trying to learn from you.

Yeah, it's on now.

You're doing good.

You're professional.

But anyway,

I'm embarrassed to say that I'm catching up with who you are.

And let me jump in here.

Before you you do it,

I just wanted to put a tag on the last conversation about

spirituality.

It's like I am prone to ridiculous mysticism or

things that transcend coincidence occasionally.

And I have to reel myself back in.

And I just happened to have one of those today.

where, and it's just like one of these things, and what do you do with this information in terms of energy or in terms of

things that are beyond our understanding?

For some reason, I've had a traveling Wilberry song stuck in my head for like two days.

And I don't even really like them.

But, you know,

it was okay.

I like them all separately, but

I'm not particularly fond of Jeff Lynn's production, but that's beside the point.

But that song that, you know, I'm so tired of being lonely.

Yeah, Roy Overson.

Roy.

It was just stuck in my head for a while.

And, you know, I woke up with it in my head.

And then I went to the gym and it was playing.

Do with it what you want.

Oh.

I'm not saying God's talking to me.

I tend to look at those moments as.

Mark, he was.

He was.

No, I just look at that as like, well, I'm on the right.

I'm in the right groove.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, it's just an indicator, like, well, you're a little ahead of it.

Okay, I was going to transition and give you a compliment.

Okay.

Let's stay where we are.

We'll get back to you.

No, no, no.

No, no, no, no, later.

What about law of attraction, right?

What about

creating your reality because the energy you're putting out there attracts?

And you do start to create your own reality.

Do you, I'm not, you've heard of law of attraction so i won't have to explain i don't know if i've heard of it but i i you know i understand it and i think that like on some level you know that that that's got to be sort of true you know what is our own perception in you know how do we process reality you know what do we manifest yeah i don't put a lot of thought into that i'm i'm kind of uh i i'm impulsive in my in my uh in my life and and somewhat you know neurotic in my brain you know i don't i i think that probably has to be true Has to be.

Yeah.

And I'm opposite of that as being the victim where everything gets done to you and it's very mysterious.

No, you're not.

No, I but I believe that.

I think that is true.

And I think there is a language outside of something we understand in terms of how we engage as humans.

And I, yeah, and I think it's, you know, I see it with all animals.

I have been in some sort of algorithmic loop of, you know,

interspecies animal vids on Instagram, you know, just to, you know, see puppies and ducks and stuff.

You're like, well, they get it.

You know what I mean?

Like,

there's just part of me, like, you know, these people are like, why are the killer whales attacking boats?

Because they're upset with us.

I mean, they're, and the way animals communicate.

So there's got to be this, we have this big brain, and there's a lot happening that we just don't acknowledge or we've shut down.

Yeah.

And, you know, I believe that's true.

I believe there is a frequency of communication and understanding that I don't think it's spiritual.

I just think, you know, we've limited ourselves by the context of civilization and whatever the fuck we're living in now is.

And, you know, a lot of that's gone away, but I think it's there.

Yeah.

I think science and spirituality in the purest of sense for both are,

you know, right next to each other.

Yeah, I mean, I guess they'd have to be.

Again, I don't do as much homework as I should.

You know, I'm busy trying to figure out what I'm going to eat and what I'm going to say to Ted Danson.

Okay.

Or Joan Baez came to my house the other day.

And for three days, I'm like, what am I going to say to Joan Baez?

listen, I've been in a depression thinking about talking to you because I do not stack up, so I become self-deprecating and get

yeah, yeah, no, no, that's me.

But let's move on to the compliment.

Yeah, you're a really good actor, and I

shouldn't say that like I'm surprised, but I haven't seen that much of your work, and you're really

good.

Well, thank you, genuinely.

I try, I saw Linsfeld, oh, yeah, sort of trust.

Yeah, a lot of stand-ups do not pass the ball well when they're acting.

Yeah.

You know, I got the ball and watched this.

Yeah.

You didn't have an ounce of that.

You're really good.

Well, it's a comedy, and it was kind of an oddball improvisational

comedy.

But, you know, there was a, there was beats in there.

Like, I've had to, look, man, you know, it's weird with acting.

for me because you know it's something i always wanted to do and

you know i had a i did four seasons of my own show on ifc and i knew that you know because i'm a comic and i'd seen other comics go through this that you know the first season i was going to take a hit i was not going to know what to do with my hands or how to be on a set and it was going to look stiff and it did but over time it became uh a little more comfortable and

Was that all self-generated?

You, you said, I'm going to do this.

And they said, right.

We pitched a show based on the podcast.

You know, it was like,

yeah, as a comic, you kind of part of the old-timey way of thinking was you were working towards a show

based around you.

I did it on IFC, and it was, I thought we did a good job.

And it was a scripted show, and not many people saw it.

It's hard to find.

Even it's funny because people ask me, like, where can I see it?

I'm like, I don't know.

I think you can get it on iTunes.

You can buy it maybe.

And, you know, I'd done a little bit here and there when I was younger.

I have a very small part in Almost Famous, you know, which is at the beginning of the podcast where I played the angry promoter.

but like look with acting

um it's taken me a while to understand

how you extract you know satisfaction out of the process of making film or television because it's so like it's repetitious there's a lot of waiting you know you you you could wait all day to to be to do three lines so like you know how do you make that satisfying and not think this job is ridiculous.

Like, I'm not great in a trailer.

Yeah, I'm not, you know, I can't sit there.

Like, you know, no matter how many shoots I've been on, you know, I'm too smart to be a full-time actor.

Well, yeah, but after hour three of the lighting problem, I'm like, what could be the problem?

Right.

No matter how many sets I've been on, it's like, what is he doing?

Just turn the thing on, you know.

So,

and people are like, well, you should read.

I'm like, I'm not reading in the trailer.

I'm sitting there on a, on a, on a, on a, a, a fake leather couch that they've gone out of their way to make uncomfortable, it seems.

The trailers, you know, I guess when you get to a certain level, maybe you get a nicer couch, but you can't even sleep in the fucking thing.

Anyway, I'm not going to complain.

We live a

gifted life.

But

but in terms of, you know, I studied acting a bit in college.

And then, you know, when I was in San Francisco, there was a guy in New York I took from that was kind of a, like a secondary Methodi guy.

And I think his name was Mark Howard, who had a studio where he was like the little, you know, the little Meisner of the thing.

He said, sit there, and you'd go up there and cry with a person that you did a scene with.

And he'd be like, okay, let's talk.

So,

so I always wanted to do it.

But I think most of my

understanding of it in recent years has come from talking to you guys.

Like, once I started acting, I would just drill actors

and figure out, you know, because you always want to ask him, so what is the craft?

What is your process?

And none of you have an answer because you're embarrassed.

No actor is willing to go, like, to be honest with you, about 70% of it is just natural.

You know, I don't know why it's a gift.

I look good on camera and I listen, you know.

So, like, if you're not doing the kind of work where you're like immersive, yeah, like there's only one or two Merle Streeps.

There's one Merle Streep and a few other ones that can do that kind of work.

You know, if you're not that, you're getting away with something and you know it.

Yeah, yeah.

So, but you're pretty good.

No, but my joke is I, I, Sam Malone.

That's all I've got.

Then Sam Malone became a doctor on Becker.

Sam Malone, you know, became a demon.

You were great in body heath.

You know, you were great in that.

And that's the first time I saw you.

And that's the first time I noticed you.

And that was before Sam Malone.

Good point.

And, you know, you really did it, you know, because, you know, you got like, you know, kind of like knotted up William Heard.

Like,

yeah.

And you're just dancing around doing this thing.

And it was, there was a lot of choices there.

And I've watched it recently and it still holds up.

And it was real work.

It wasn't Sam Malone.

This podcast is looking up.

No, I mean, it's a memorable character.

And it's always stuck with me.

The sort of strange dancing DA.

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So I'm trying to figure out this podcast thing.

Yeah.

Here's all I know so far.

It's a privilege,

genuinely, a privilege to sit down for an hour and talk to you.

We would never talk like this

at a party.

I mean,

you just can't.

And it is a privilege.

I've always wanted to know what it's like to be you, to be the other person.

Well, I mean, there's something amazing about that because even like, you know, with my podcast, like it is, it is

a big part of my social life is that like I have these very focused,

you know, engaged conversations with amazing artists and people.

Yeah.

And

it's very deep to me in the moment.

And my experience with it is always sort of like I just try, you know, I want to show up and be respectful, but I engage.

You know, like the fact that you know yesterday I spent an hour and 15 minutes with Joan Baez and I spent

yeah and I spent three days kind of like trying to put her together in my mind

in terms of how you know with the arc of her life and everything there's a new doc about her and you know I'm I'm always terrified and nervous and full of dread before any of them and I've done like you know 1500 of these things and these conversations because like I've you know I kind of do a method trip with it you know I had to, I watched the doc.

I, you know, I didn't necessarily resonate with her music as a younger person because I didn't, you, you guys grew up with it.

Right.

But to me, it was like it felt a little distant and a little almost perfect, you know, the way she sang.

And but, you know, also what she represented is all different.

And I had to sort of load up.

So I watched this documentary, which is very revealing.

And she's like 82 or something now.

And then after seeing the documentary, I revisit the records.

I have the first couple records and I listened to, you know, I kind of put together the arc of her life that I learned in the dock with the records and how she was feeling at the time of these records.

And I kind of immerse myself in her,

in Joan Baez.

And then what happens with me in the podcasting is like, it's usually the day of me talking to somebody after I've loaded up, not with questions, but with a sense of person.

That's great.

Because when I try to think of questions, I just.

I'm not looking forward to it.

I'm no longer.

But when I did watch your stuff and go, oh, wait, I want to know.

Yeah, I just want to know about that.

Yeah.

And so what usually happens to me is I'm looking for a way to start.

You know, where, because what is the, what is the thing that, what am I going to, what's on my mind that's going to start this conversation?

Yeah.

Because I know all the stuff.

Yeah.

But, you know, I don't want to, you know, that you're genuinely curious about.

Yeah.

Or just that I, I think is, it's almost like a, in my mind, it becomes an emotional through line, right?

Right.

And that usually happens when I take a shower the day of the talk, where I'm just sort of like, What, where am I going to, what do we, where do we, where's the starting point, you know, of this?

Do you know what I mean?

I know I'm in trouble when I fantasize asking you a question, then chuckle wryly.

This is all in the shower about whatever it was.

And I'll find myself, you know, if Mary walks in and goes, what are you laughing at?

Yeah.

Oh,

nothing.

An imaginary moment.

Well, yeah, but I mean, that's your, that's an actor's process.

But I was going to say about acting, acting, I'm sorry, is that,

you know, I learned from all you guys that, you know, I'm not belittling it.

I think that a lot of acting is a fairly, you know, either you're intuitive and you're natural or you're not.

And you like make-believe.

You got to like make-believe.

I think so, but you also have to, yeah, see, I don't have that part of it.

But what I do think a lot of actors are naturals in a lot of ways.

And they, you know, you train and you put in a pro, you get your own process.

But it's never one process.

No.

You know, it's just whatever your work is, your work is.

You take a little of this, you do a little of that, whatever, you know, experience, it all adds up.

But, you know, in, but most people, it was so funny because,

you know, like I remember,

cause I remember taking these classes, you know, and, and, you know, sometimes early on when I was talking to actors and I wanted to understand acting more, you know, I, I was maybe a little snotty, but I, uh, I remember just like things I did in college or some of these acting classes.

I remember I was talking to Paul Dano, you know, and, you know, we were kind of getting into it.

And, you know, he was loose and open.

And I just almost in a, I don't know if I was joking or not.

I said, do you ever do animal work?

And dude, which we did.

Yeah, he said, I do.

Yeah.

You completely, yeah, I do do animal work.

And I'm like, and I don't remember what movie it was.

So in this, in this film, was there any animal work in your process?

He's like, there was.

Well, he's good, so maybe I should start bringing that back into my life.

I think it was a penguin.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But, but I did need to find out why,

you know, what made acting great.

You know,

you know, and what makes it satisfying.

And I think with this, that last film I did too, Leslie, which got a lot of attention because there was a sort of grassroots kind of momentum to get Andrea Riceborough.

nominated, which they did, and it caused a little controversy.

But it brought a lot of attention to a very small movie directed by this guy, Michael Morris.

He shot it in like three weeks on film here in town.

It was middle of COVID.

And it was just so funny because

I didn't want to do it.

Like I read the script and it's sort of, it takes place in Texas.

The thrust of the story is about this woman who is a hopeless alcoholic who, you know, ends up in her hometown.

And this guy who I play kind of gives her the space to start to rebuild her life a little bit by giving her a job at the hotel I manage.

So this is not a guy that's me.

It's a Texan.

He's a humble guy, a little bit beaten, but you know, innately sort of

giving and somewhat codependent.

And I read the script.

This is you.

What are you talking about?

That's

not what I'm known for.

But see, I didn't see that really.

But what I saw was a director asking me to do a part that he couldn't get John Hawks to do or any other fucking cowboy.

There's nine, you know, there's 20 guys in Hollywood.

I love you said John Hawks.

That's great.

Right?

Yeah.

So

I'm like, I said to my management, who's want me for, who did, who turned this down?

I'm like this like aggravated Jew, you know, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm sensitive, but like, this is like, there's guys that could just, you know, sleepwalk through this.

So I didn't believe that he wanted me.

And I was like, I'm not doing it.

You know, and I'm still pretty much in grief and COVID's pretty, like, it's like all over the place, heavy protocols.

And then, and then, like, my manager's like, no, he wants you.

I'm like, I, I, just stop it.

I don't want to do it.

And then out of nowhere, Chelsea Handler texts me, like, why don't you meet with my friend Michael Morris, who's directing that movie?

I'm like, why is he got?

And you don't want to piss her off.

So I'm like, all right, you know, I'll talk to him.

And so this guy, he's a British guy.

He was directed, I think, Better Call Saul and some other ones.

He's TV director.

Nice guy.

And he gets on the phone with me.

I'm like, what, what, what?

Why do you, why do you, what do you want?

What do you need me for?

And then he says, well, I just, you know, I thought the last season of Marin, my TV show, was great.

And you have something,

there's an emotional element to you that I think would really work with us.

And I'm like, oh, man, he does want me.

And I'm like, oh, my God, now what do I do?

So, of course, I said, well, all right.

Okay.

So I believe you, but no accents.

But then the other thing I knew was that like.

Like, you know, dude, if you want to do this acting thing, you're going to have to risk, you know, failing.

You got, you know, you're going to have to try an accent.

You got to try an accent.

And I knew that, like, as long as it's not Boston,

you might have a shot.

Don't do the Boston.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's no way you can.

True hard.

Yeah.

And

so I'm like, all right, well, I got to do this.

And the only reason why I felt like I could do it is I had interviewed James Khan, you know,

shortly before he died.

And he's like a ball-busting maniac.

And he's, and at the time it was on Zoom, and he was old, and he didn't know where to look.

And he was wheezing and yelling at me, but it was great.

So, but I had watched all his old movies, like real old and there's a movie called the rain people which was a copola's first movie and he plays this kind of like uh you know mentally uh challenged person who was like the guy with the broom at the college that he played football at and he had an accident and he but he had he was doing an accent and and then i watched a couple other movies and he tried it a couple other times but he never really do it that well and then i realized like no it doesn't matter really yeah you know just try it you know the worst thing that happened is it goes in and out but your performance will still have emotional integrity but i'm not james Khan, but like, he did it.

And there was no reason to think that he could do that.

So,

so I meet with this dialect coach.

And I always think this is a funny story, but I really think he meant another reference.

I can't remember her name.

No, woman.

She's real good.

Real good.

You know, she works with Rockwell and some other people.

And I tell her, like, all right, I'm nervous about this.

She goes, look, there's not really a Texan accent.

There's a lot of different accents.

Some of them are Southern, some of them, but there's, there's not really a one Texas accent, but I think we should do Lubbock.

And I'm like, okay, Lubbock sounds great.

And then, so she sends me some links.

Yeah.

And I look at two of these links and they're just, they're not even televised interviews.

They're like, you know, the Grammys Association kind of backstage interviews with Mac Davis.

Right.

And I'm like, this is the only example of Lubbock available on the internet is these Mac Davis talking videos, an old Mac Davis talking because he was from Lubbock.

Yeah.

And I'm like, like, all right.

And then she gives me like the, the, you know, the, the sort of dialectic, you know, diet, what do you call them?

The keys, the pronunciations.

Phonetic.

Phonetics.

Oh, the phonetics of the accent.

So I'm like, all right, I'm going to do this work.

Fuck it.

You know, I'm going to do this work.

Like, I, you know, I know that I can listen.

I know that I can engage.

I know I can be present in a scene.

I can take direction.

So this is the work.

Is that, you know, you know, before each scene, you know, make your choices and get, you know, and figure out how to say this shit.

And I did it.

You know, I did it.

And I think it did all right.

I did all right.

And I'll bet you you were, I found when I did Fargo,

and I'm terrible at acting.

Yeah.

So I, you know, I reduce everybody down to my level.

They're from Arizona.

Yeah.

Coincidentally, they're from Arizona.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, right.

But I had to work so hard that I knew that, every syllable of that script.

Right.

And it also informed my character.

Did you find out that all the work you put into the dialect was actually beneficial to how you acted?

Well, yeah, because you know, it's a different frequency.

Yeah.

Like you can't just speak freely.

You know, there's a deliberate,

there's an intention to it.

And because of that,

it informed the character because it slowed me down.

You're fucked.

You're an actor.

You're an actor.

You know, you can do podcasts all you want.

You're an actor.

Thank you.

I'll take it.

I remember I did one day, two days in Saving Private Ryan.

But I always thought it's kind of weird to be immersed in this astounding war movie.

Yeah.

And then, and I heard some people say, oh, that's Ted Danson.

Immediately, you're out of the story.

You know, you know, well, that's, I guess that's the liability of being having baggage.

Well, being, you know, a popular character that everyone knows.

Yeah, but the other thing that I learned that

funny about actors, because I talked to Ethan Hawk, who I think can really do it when he sets his mind to it.

Yeah, he's spectacular.

Yeah.

But we were talking, when I interviewed him, he was talking about training day, you know, with Denzel.

But like,

he told me, he said, I said, well, how do you prepare for that?

He's like, I watched all of Denzel's movies as if they were game tapes and he was on a football team.

Yeah.

Because he was like, how am I not going to get eaten alive?

Yeah.

by Denzel Washington is was his primary concern.

How am I going to hold my own?

So he just watched Denzel and got hang.

He saw all his tricks.

Yeah.

And, you know, and figured it out.

And I thought that was so smart, right?

If you don't do that and you're working with some big guy

who specially you admire, yeah, you go to church.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, you're totally subservient and

like a puppy, as opposed to smacking him around like you're supposed to.

Does it happen to you?

Yeah.

A lot.

I'm a journeyman, man I'm not

you know the word artist never gets dangled in front of me can I go back for a second to

what was I mean Joan Baez that's astounding

but so is President Obama yeah how did that play out you and your garage yeah yeah yeah it was like you know with a bunch of secret service sure it was a like this is a story I told a lot but it was like you know it was a different interview because you know I had to create questions we had a tight hour I didn't want to get into politics I wanted to do a personal interview, and we had to address some stuff.

The entire event was of its own.

You know, a lot of preparation had to go into it.

You know, there were Secret Service that had to come a couple of weeks before.

They had to figure out what the perimeter was for protection.

I asked my neighbor if we could put snipers on his roof and all that stuff.

It was a little.

I remember I said to him, Are you nervous?

And he said, If I was nervous about this, we'd all be in trouble.

You know,

and then, like, I tried to, i had this idea about the presidency that was cynical

and the presidency or the general okay that you know it is a civil servant job and in my mind you know in terms of you know how you know lobbying works and how politics works i'd always you know thought of the presidency as the highest level of middle management right you know

and you said this throughout i kind of did yeah and it didn't i don't think it quite landed really

didn't see the humor humor.

No.

But yeah, that was an exciting.

There's very few interviews that were not surprising to me, really.

If you had to give up,

do you consider music part of your this is what I do in life?

I do music as well.

Or is that a lot of people?

I do a little bit.

No, I've always played, but in the last few years, I've sort of stepped out and

played with people publicly and sang publicly.

But it's still really a hobby.

It was always sort of a dream, but it was not a dream I would pursue because because it's a, it's a tough one.

If you had to give up, if you had to give up podcasts.

Yeah.

No problem.

No problem?

Yeah.

Really?

I think.

I don't know.

It's so much part of my social life.

No, it's not, it's not that it's no problem, but I mean, like, you know, I,

you know, I'm a comedian and I'm, and, and I, you know, and I, and I enjoy doing, you know, I'm starting to enjoy things, you know.

I don't know how that happened.

And I like, I love doing the podcast.

And again, it's always surprising to me.

It's never, uh, never feels like a job, really.

And again, it is a big part of my social life.

And, you know, we've held our audience for a long time.

And we're still kind of looked at as

an important podcast and one that people like listening to.

And I think I do a thing a way that people don't, you know, that I'm kind of singular in some ways in the style.

And I love it.

But I think that, you know,

if it ever started to,

like you get to a point where for years we were not repeating guests and, you know, after 1,500 people, but oddly, the writer's strike and the actor strike, you know, kind of brought in different types of people.

Yeah.

I mean, I interviewed Naomi Klein, who's a genius, the writer, the leftist writer, and Jeff Charlotte.

And, you know, I had Larry Charles in there.

And, you know, like, I'm still engaged with it.

But I think that, you know, as we get older, I still believe somehow that, you know,

stopping is possible.

I, sometimes i i i look at people uh your age or older and i'm like what are you doing yeah take it easy will you but i but i think that's probably naive i think that you know yeah if you're a worker yeah if you're a worker yeah

yeah you're gonna want to work a couple things mary sends her regards oh i love her and said that

it was her favorite interview she's ever done oh that's nice yeah i i love that i also happened to have interviewed her a few days ago so that sucks to hear.

But, and one more thing.

You are so kind to come on this podcast.

You are a very wise, kind, sweet soul.

Thanks.

I hope that doesn't suck to hear.

No.

But I really admire you, and I'm really grateful that you came.

Absolutely.

I mean, you're Ted Danson.

Yeah, but that does.

That means a lot to me.

That's great when I'm looking in the mirror.

I really enjoy being Ted Dans.

But other than that, there's not much.

Oh, it was my pleasure.

Thanks for you.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Who has to pee the most?

You or me, right?

You probably.

Yeah.

Thank you so much to Mark Maron.

It was an honor to have you on the show.

Thank you.

Check out his hit podcast, WTF, with Mark Maron and his HBO special, From Bleak to Dark.

That's all for this episode.

Special thanks to our friends at Team Cocoa.

Just a reminder, you can always watch the full-length videos of these episodes by visiting youtube.com/slash teamcoco.

As always, subscribe on your favorite podcast app and give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Why not?

See you next time, where everybody knows your name.

You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Dance and Woody Harrelson sometimes.

The show is produced by me, Nick Leal.

Executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself.

Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.

Our senior producer is Matt Apodaka.

Engineering and Mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Research by Alyssa Grawl.

Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.

Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Gen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

We'll have more for you next time where everybody knows your name.

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Hey, everybody, it's Paul Scheer, host of How Did This Get Made, a podcast that covers the best, worst movies.

This week, we're diving into the brand new War of the Worlds reboot starring Ice Cube.

Yes, the movie that got 2% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ice Cube is saving the world from aliens via his computer.

It's so convoluted, this plot, but basically, if you have an Amazon account, you can save the day just like Ice Cube.

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So join me, June Diane Rayfield, and Jason Manzukis as we break down every bizarre choice and every Ice Cube one-liner on this week's episode of How Did This Get Made?

The podcast that makes sense of movies that don't.