Mark Ruffalo

Speaker 1 Where everybody knows your name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

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Speaker 2 Before we begin, a word of caution. This episode contains a brief discussion of suicide, which some listeners may find upsetting.

Speaker 2 If you or someone you know needs support, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.

Speaker 1 I've emailed you like 50 fucking dollars.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, don't go there. No, I'm kidding.
I made that.

Speaker 1 welcome back to everybody knows your name. Mark Bruffalo is a guy that I've admired from afar, which is stupid.
I should have tackled him years ago and sat down and talked to him or whatever.

Speaker 1 I so admire him. His range is incredible from the 2015 drama Spotlight, for which he was nominated for an Oscar, to playing the Hulk and Bruce Banner in eight Marvel movies.

Speaker 1 He currently is the star and executive producer of Task on HBO Max, which I really encourage you all to watch. Today is a double treat for me.
We've got Woody joining us from Paris over Zoom.

Speaker 1 So hello, Woody. Hello, Mark Ruffalo.

Speaker 1 This is a big deal, Woodrow.

Speaker 1 I'm so excited to see you, buddy. Woody.
Good to see you, brother. How you doing, T? Yeah, good.
Really good, actually.

Speaker 1 You guys? Kids, grandkids, babies crawling around. It's been very,

Speaker 1 are they here?

Speaker 1 Ohio. That's wicked.
I love Ojai, man. I really love it.
It's amazing. I like where you are, too, Woody.
I got to come see you there. In Austin? In Austin?

Speaker 1 No, on the island. Is he on the island still?

Speaker 1 Well, I mean,

Speaker 1 i've kind of been living in austin more lately but but i'm definitely always going to be going back to maui for sure anytime i can't yeah so you know the reason why i'm doing a podcast and loving it so much is because i i watch woody create family and community wherever he goes true And it's a genuine party and people flock to him and

Speaker 1 he really has this community of people he loves and love him. Huge community.

Speaker 1 I don't.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't. I don't have time for you if you ask me to go have a beer and let's talk.
Look, here we are. I know.
That's what we get to do that. This is good.
This is a good excuse. All right.

Speaker 1 Enough about me and Woody.

Speaker 1 Woody and I had a bar fight in New Orleans while we were making a family together.

Speaker 1 We were faking it. Like we were fighting? No, no.

Speaker 1 Fighting. Well, it turned into do you remember a girl a woman came up to you we were shooting

Speaker 1 we were shooting um now you see me the first one in new orleans completely on the streets yeah totally wild you know capturing stuff on a long lens, getting dragged into bars during the middle of a scene, like total in the middle of Mardi Gras.

Speaker 1 But we were out one night and it was a packed place, Woody. And a woman came up to him and she said, oh my God, I love you so much.

Speaker 1 And Woody put his hand on her arm and he said, Oh, thank you, thank you, darling. You know, and this guy comes over and he pushes her out of the way and he shoves Woody.
Oh, bad, bad, bad, bad.

Speaker 1 No, bad. Yeah, I remember that.
Because Woody's first response is

Speaker 1 not shove someone back, but immediately punch them in the face,

Speaker 1 which is the right thing to do, by the way.

Speaker 1 It's the absolute right thing to do.

Speaker 1 But then a whole melee broke out in this bar. Anyone on your side? Or was it all? Well, he was in it.

Speaker 1 I was in the middle of it, and it was turning into a, I mean, it was going to become a whole thing.

Speaker 1 And I grabbed you. Yeah, we needed the...

Speaker 1 We needed. Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 I grabbed you, and I pulled you out because I was like, this could be fun, but it also just could go so disastrously wrong because you and I might be able to handle ourselves, but the rest of the folks we were with,

Speaker 1 I don't think so.

Speaker 1 I'm embarrassed to say that I would have been the guy who said, I'll be right, I'll call someone, I'll be right back.

Speaker 1 You wait right there.

Speaker 1 Well, I was a wrestler, he handles the head, and I can take the legs. So together, we're like a perfect combination.
I'm very impressed with the wrestling thing. That's a real deal.
That's a real

Speaker 1 sport.

Speaker 1 Real, you work your ass off when you're a wrestler. Oh, yeah.
That was the most. But you know, a wrestler, a wrestler is a way better fighter.

Speaker 1 It's like jujitsu in a way, because they want to get close. They want to get on the ground.
And great, you want to get on the ground? Let's get on the ground. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, normally you're thinking, I don't want to be on the ground. No, but no, we want to be on the ground.
Mark, he's ready to get on the ground. Yeah, I do better on the ground.

Speaker 1 Really, you're like a good wrestler, right? Like, I was pretty good. Yeah, I was pretty good.
And then what weight class? You know what? I started in seventh grade and 86 pounds. Oh, geez.

Speaker 1 Wow. I was just a little.
I see pictures of me as like these little legs in tights with my.

Speaker 1 My knee pads are like, my legs came out and the knee pads were like this.

Speaker 1 They're like these little marshmallows around

Speaker 1 my toothpick legs. And you fought until how long? How much did you weigh when you quit? When I stopped, I was 126,

Speaker 1 but I was losing 15 or 20 pounds to make weight. You know, at that time, you were cutting all this weight, which was insane.
Your body's growing and you're literally starving. Yeah, you're starving.

Speaker 1 I mean, I would walk down the, I'd walk down the hallways like a zombie hadn't eaten.

Speaker 1 And you do it, you wait till the last minute you know so you're literally cutting 10 15 20 pounds in the course of like three days it's all water weight so you're spitting in a cup oh geez

Speaker 1 you're wearing um garbage bags yeah plat garbage bags essentially

Speaker 1 and and you're trying to make as much sweat it's all water weight And so you're delirious. And I'm going from one class to the next, just trying to get to,

Speaker 1 you know, making weight, which was three o'clock. And then we would go out and binge on Snickers, big gulps, you know,

Speaker 1 slushies,

Speaker 1 you know, pizza, like the crappiest junk food. Most of it was sugar.
And it was, it was, it was terrible. But, but it was also like an incredible

Speaker 1 form of discipline at that early age. Until you were 18, maybe? I did.
When I was 17, I left. I went, I was

Speaker 1 i used to walk by the drama department and i secretly wanted to be in where are you i was in uh i was in virginia beach virginia at first colonial high school and

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 uh nancy curtis was the teacher there and i'd walk by the drama department i'd look in there

Speaker 1 and there was you know, I'm in the wrestling room and it's a bunch of guys and we're all on the mat sweating and in each other's crotches and, you know, just miserable and tearing tendons and you know bloody mouths from your braces getting scraped across your like and i walk by the drama department and it's like 20 girls and two guys and they're all rolling around on the ground

Speaker 1 and i'd be like

Speaker 1 i want to do that i want to be in there

Speaker 1 so my senior year i quit i quit wrestling and i and i joined the drama department.

Speaker 1 Hold on. You didn't want to quit the one before you knew you were going to get to do the other, did you?

Speaker 1 Or did you already, I mean, in other words, you didn't get cast in something and then no, no, I just, I took the drama class.

Speaker 1 As an elective, I took drama. And all my friends are like,

Speaker 1 is there something you want to tell us?

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 you're quitting wrestling and going into the drama department. Like, is there something?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I was like, yeah, I'm sick of rolling around with a bunch of guys when they're in there rolling around with a bunch of girls.
But I really wanted to be an actor secretly. And so it was my segue.

Speaker 1 I could say, well, I was an EZ A. That's what I told everyone.
Yeah, it's an EZ A, my senior year. It's an EZ A.
I can, you know, I'm going to take the drama department.

Speaker 1 But as soon as I got- I'm glad you knew you'd found your tribe.

Speaker 1 And a kid broke his arm in the first production. A kid broke his arm and and nancy curtis my teacher said i want you to replace him and i said i don't know if i can and she said i think you can

Speaker 1 do you remember what it was the play it was it was a it was a it was um i think it was it was called runaways and it was about these kids who were run it was a musical about runaways living in a like a halfway house and one and and they're all in trouble and and i play a detective who comes in

Speaker 1 and i i basically just did peter falk i was can i ask you a question

Speaker 1 i just did peter falk but but i got a laugh my first scene a big laugh

Speaker 1 and i was like what was the you remember the jet it was some some i was on the phone and i was like yeah excuse me mrs uh so uh hold on a second and i'm like

Speaker 1 I just made something up. I was smoking a cigar and I was like, excuse me.

Speaker 1 And there's a big laugh. It was just a stupid bit, you know, and shameless.
And, well, you know me. And

Speaker 1 it was a big laugh. And I was like, this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life.
Yeah. That big laugh did it, right? Funny.
There is nothing better, right? Nothing. Nothing better.

Speaker 1 Happened to me the same way. I followed a girl into an audition because I wanted to be with the girl.
She didn't want to be with me. Made up.

Speaker 1 I thought she was making up that she had to go to an audition just to be away from me. I tagged along to stay in the room.
I had to audition. So I made something up and somebody laughed.

Speaker 1 I didn't think a lot, but somebody laughed. And I went, oh, oh,

Speaker 1 this is almost as good as basketball. Almost.
Right. And I was, I was fucked.
But not as hard. But everything made sense in life.
Right. Everything was right.
So after that, you knew.

Speaker 1 I mean, you had the calling. Yeah.
And Woody, you were doing theater too, right? Yeah, my senior year. It was.
Like you. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And it was the same kind of vibe. They call you a theater f ⁇ ,

Speaker 1 you know, and the kids were just so hot. You know,

Speaker 1 there's jocks. Yes.
And there's all the different surfers.

Speaker 1 Yes. Yes.
Did you move freely between all those, by the way? Just quickly?

Speaker 1 Were you someone who moved freely between all the different groups? You know, he was. Yeah, I think so.
Yeah. I know.
Kind of did. Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, but, you know, it was like, I remember doing the, the first play I did was

Speaker 1 Lil Abner. That's right.
And I played

Speaker 1 Senator Fogbound, I think it was. And I, and I had one number, right? Yes.

Speaker 1 I do this number in front of the live audience when we finally, you know, did it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 after all that rehearsal and everything, and it sure paid off.

Speaker 1 The audience was like in hysterics and they loved it, although I didn't think it was a particularly funny song, but the appreciation was over the top.

Speaker 1 And afterwards, my mom said, oh, you know, that little

Speaker 1 Jamie was back behind you during your song, doing the funniest dance.

Speaker 1 And that's where I learned about about upstaging and I never forgot.

Speaker 1 No, you have not.

Speaker 1 Let me be the upstage. That's right.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's great.

Speaker 1 I love that. You're like, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I was just thinking, man, am I crushing it?

Speaker 1 That's amazing. But you fell in love with it.
I think it's the same thing.

Speaker 1 Well, what? But, you know, I did that my senior year. I just did a couple of things.
And then it was really

Speaker 1 when I went

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 Hanover College, I had thought, well, you know what? I could keep my hand in. I like this theater thing.
It's exciting, scary, you know, you don't see.

Speaker 1 But it was my sophomore year.

Speaker 1 I did this play, Mad Woman of Chayo. Oh, yeah.
Like French play.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 A lot of people were doing that

Speaker 1 back in the day.

Speaker 1 That was like one of the popular ones yeah i don't i mean i don't remember if it was a good play or not but probably fun play and and anyway i was playing a very kind of a small part i was like a sergeant in the you know in the french police and and i was just so

Speaker 1 boring like i was just really really boring right so

Speaker 1 And I, you know, I don't,

Speaker 1 I didn't need anyone to tell me I was boring. You know, you can tell.
Oh, you can.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 So I go up to the guy, Doug Rogers, was the lead in the play, and

Speaker 1 he'd done a lot of stuff. He was a senior and a veteran at this point.
And so I asked him,

Speaker 1 what should I do? I just feel so boring and I'm not good. He says, well, if you don't like what you're doing, just change it up.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, change your voice, change your clothes, change the way you walk. And I did all of it.

Speaker 1 I was walking funny, you know, and I and I changed my voice. I was talking like this.
There's a man drowning in the sand, you know, like weird voice.

Speaker 1 And I did that classic kind of, you know, the thing Johnny Ratz does, you know, where he pulled up the. the pants so you could see the white socks.

Speaker 1 And anyway, so then my very first thing I'm supposed to do is to walk from on the upstage and look at the mad woman and then walk off.

Speaker 1 No, no lines, but you know, I got my belly club and I'm doing this funny walk.

Speaker 1 Ovation.

Speaker 1 They applauded me. And I came off, you know, and hadn't said a word.
And

Speaker 1 the other actors are like, what did you do? And I'm like, I'm not sure, but I'm doing it again tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that was it.

Speaker 1 And that's what I was hooked.

Speaker 1 I'm still that that actor. I'm always looking for a, couldn't I have a scar or a limp? That, that, you know, please give me something.
Something. Yeah.
Clearly, I'm not enough.

Speaker 1 No, you had to stand out, man.

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Speaker 1 Let's talk about how courageous you are. I mean, Woody, you are too, but

Speaker 1 we're going to talk about Mark.

Speaker 1 Well, Mark,

Speaker 1 you are such a bad person. You're one of the great environmentalists, dude.

Speaker 1 Balls, you too, brother. You've been talking a lot about what's going on in the world, which I'd love to get to in all of that.
But it's also in your performances.

Speaker 1 Poor Things, to me, is one of the most astounding performances I've ever seen. Truly.
It was so good. Did you see it, Woodrow? That wasn't with Emma.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 It was outrageous. It truly was.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What's his name?

Speaker 1 Jurgis. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jurgo Slantimos. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I know there's lots of stuff that happened in your life, which we can talk about or not, whatever, but there's a lot of human, real,

Speaker 1 intensely real tragedy.

Speaker 1 So did you

Speaker 1 was the courage that you feel to talk out in life, to act and be bold, did that come before human stuff that was big in your life? The death, you know, the tumor, all of that stuff.

Speaker 1 Or did you get that from your parents? Yeah, were you always that way? I'm always courage, you know.

Speaker 1 I was a pretty courageous kid.

Speaker 1 I mean, part of it was wanting to be liked. So,

Speaker 1 you know, I was not good in school.

Speaker 1 And, but I was, I was pretty good physically, you know. Woody could probably, probably knows a little bit about this too.
I think we're similar in that way.

Speaker 1 And, um,

Speaker 1 and so

Speaker 1 to stand out, you sort of had to be a little bit more brash.

Speaker 1 You had to be a little bit, you know, you'd have to be the one to jump off the roof first. And, and I, but I did learn early on that, you know,

Speaker 1 Kenny Lonergan always tells me,

Speaker 1 with you,

Speaker 1 what does he say?

Speaker 1 Fortune favors the the brave or something like that and the bold the bold yeah fortune favors the bold and i and i did

Speaker 1 that is a truism that i stumbled upon

Speaker 1 i had a a karate teacher when i was 13 years old

Speaker 1 he he he gave everybody um you have a bukto which is uh which is your sword but it's a wooden sword it's a practice sword and on your bukto he wrote in japanese he was a 17th generation samurai

Speaker 1 he would write um in japanese a phrase

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 was meant for you and who you were

Speaker 1 and i was but i also had a timidity uh to me as well um

Speaker 1 and he wrote um courage conquers all

Speaker 1 And I really took, and he specifically wrote that that specifically for me.

Speaker 1 And I really,

Speaker 1 that really internalized that. It was a moment in my life where I was really looking for some guidance from a male, you know, that I respected.
And, and, and that's, and he gave me that.

Speaker 1 And I, and I've never, it's like, it's, it's been like a mantra of mine throughout my life. It's always, it's, it's sort of always in the background repeating itself, you know?

Speaker 1 And um

Speaker 1 it is fed by loss because you know my best friend killed himself when i was 20

Speaker 1 and we're he was my dearest dearest you know in a way a soulmate and um

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 after that michael dardin was his name beautiful incredible guy

Speaker 1 and um but just depressed and

Speaker 1 but you but you couldn't tell that he was no i knew no i knew and

Speaker 1 he was trying to find help. And I was in the same boat.
I mean,

Speaker 1 we related to each other on our depression, honestly. Like

Speaker 1 that was something we were both, you know, he was the only person that I could really talk to about it, you know, because guys don't really talk about that.

Speaker 1 He was the only guy that I could like say, I loved you when I was in my 20s, you know, and we knewn't each other since I was like 12.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we went to Mexico together. We had this huge,

Speaker 1 the Mexican witch doctor came out of the mountains with a giant bag of mushrooms.

Speaker 1 And he cooks that down for us.

Speaker 1 And we were these kids, we were on a surfing trip. We were like, these kids.
And we were like, maybe we should try mushrooms, you know?

Speaker 1 So this guy comes down and he boils this concoction down with some other stuff in it, and he hands us a

Speaker 1 giant cup like this.

Speaker 1 And he's like, drinking

Speaker 1 it. Yes, and it's thick.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 we were like,

Speaker 1 and he just went.

Speaker 1 And we're both just like glop, glop, glop, glup, glop, glop, glop. Wow.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he leaves us.

Speaker 1 And we're under the almond trees and Puerto Es and

Speaker 1 Oaxaca and Puerto Escondido, like this monster wave. It was the best.
It's a Mexican pipeline. It was hardcore.
And we're in our hammocks under the almond trees. And this

Speaker 1 we're hit like a fry. I remember he gets up to go to the bathroom and I just hear him go, oh,

Speaker 1 and then boom,

Speaker 1 he just passes out.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, I'm not feeling anything. I run over there, and he's just laying on the ground, like, oh,

Speaker 1 I'm like, What is he? Like, oh,

Speaker 1 are you okay?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I'm okay.

Speaker 1 And so we have this

Speaker 1 like like

Speaker 1 ego shattering thing. But

Speaker 1 and I, it's a very long story. No, no, keep going.
And I love mushroom stories. We're literally sitting across the room in communication with each other without speaking.
Wow.

Speaker 1 And for hours, was this hours?

Speaker 1 Oh, man, this thing went on. I woke up on the top of this rock in the edge of the ocean, like 70 feet up by myself.
I don't know how I got up there. Wow.

Speaker 1 I had to get down and it was just a cliff, a sheer cliff.

Speaker 1 And I woke up there by myself, right? I mean, part of the night, I don't even know what happened.

Speaker 1 But the last time I saw him, we were sitting there and we were

Speaker 1 having this kind of talk. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we were these guys, we were these macho surfer dudes, you know, and, and, and it was just like, hey, man, I love you.

Speaker 1 It was the first time I ever had that with a man or, I mean, even a woman, like just to be like, hey, man, you're like a brother to me. I love you.

Speaker 1 Um,

Speaker 1 and we've been through so much together. And it was just this, it was just a deep, deep sense of brotherly love, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And, um,

Speaker 1 but that was our relationship after, ever, ever since then. It's just that connection, you know, and then, yeah, he, so he, he, he killed himself.
He was, he was too unhappy. Um,

Speaker 1 how old were you? I was 21.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 so it was 36, uh, 36 years ago. And, um,

Speaker 1 but what I got out of that was you got to live. I have to live.
I'm living for him now.

Speaker 1 Because suicide was always something that was

Speaker 1 in my mind, too,

Speaker 1 as this young, depressed guy, you know?

Speaker 1 And after that, and I saw what suicide does to a family and friends,

Speaker 1 it's a bomb that goes off

Speaker 1 and it just leaves devastation all around you, you know? And

Speaker 1 I understand it, like, but I also know the cost of it. But what I did say was like, okay, I'm living for it for for for all of us now.

Speaker 1 And it's been like that ever with all the people who have died in my life. I'm just like, okay, I'm living for them now, too.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 you don't like.

Speaker 1 What pulled you out of your depression?

Speaker 1 Where are you pulled out of your depression? It's now I just manage it, man.

Speaker 1 I've, you know, I've tried medication, I've talked, talk therapy,

Speaker 1 you know, everything you do.

Speaker 1 Age has helped. Having the kids was a huge help, you know, just having to like engage with the kids every single day when they're little and their needs.
Like you, there's just no time.

Speaker 1 And it's very hard to approach your kid and go, whoa, I'm depressed. Yeah, bro.
I'm out for the day. I'm laying in bed.
No, you can't do that. And so like, that was a big thing, Woody.
And work.

Speaker 1 you know, not struggling so much has been helpful. But really like struggling with worker value.
Yeah, as an actor and money, like the rejections, the, you know, it was so hard in the beginning.

Speaker 1 And there was just no reprieve. It was just

Speaker 1 so hard. And so just being able to support myself as an actor was like, oh,

Speaker 1 you know, and not having to worry about my car getting booted and taken away and never be seen again because I, it's too expensive to get it out.

Speaker 1 The car is not even worth what it costs after you finally figure out where they've taken it in Los Angeles, you know?

Speaker 1 You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 over time, it's gotten better and better, you know?

Speaker 1 And then just a relationship

Speaker 1 to the earth, like that's probably.

Speaker 1 Do that a little more. What do you mean?

Speaker 1 Just making sure that I'm out and in that reality

Speaker 1 and letting it speak, being in it enough for it to speak to me. Nature.
Nature.

Speaker 1 Just on a hike, just touching the ground, sitting on, you know, being grounded on the ground with your body, with some part of your flesh in touch with the ground, you know.

Speaker 1 But listening, and it's the feeling. It's a

Speaker 1 and you have to sort of, I sort of do it alone mostly, because if you're with people, it sort of becomes a more

Speaker 1 thing about you and the people and communicating with people. But the awesomeness of it, even in the smallest places like Central Park, there's an awesomeness that is available to anyone at any time.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it just is like, that feeds me now.

Speaker 1 I'm like, oh, I need to hit, I need to fix of that. I need to hit of that.

Speaker 1 And so that, that helps me and then in exercise man

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 1 I never used to exercise do you surf because

Speaker 1 yeah the ocean's my place but I live in Manhattan it's the hardest thing to do um

Speaker 1 so I'm on my bike like I'm on my Peloton or I'm on my road bike in the mountains of upstate New York or we have a pond i swim in there i spend a lot of time in the pond um

Speaker 1 you guys are kindred spirits you and woody you really are so much in front of you. I know he's my brother.
He's, yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, that's like, you know, you know, this, Woody, because I think we had, you know, we also came up with this. Our dad, my dad is a wild guy, too, you know, and like,

Speaker 1 there was a,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 it's just, I relate to his story quite a bit. Yep.

Speaker 1 And he's, he's courage. He's courageous too.
Oh, Lord. Right? I mean, that guy is like fearless.

Speaker 1 Nothing.

Speaker 1 fear. I'm more afraid of the world than he is.

Speaker 1 I have to be careful with Woody because he's a little bit, if I try to fly too high,

Speaker 1 you know, it's like Icarus. If I get too close to Woody, I get burned.

Speaker 1 I burn sizzle when I crash to the ground. Oh, he's crashed me out.
No, I seriously. One night with him in New Orleans, I was like laid out.
I have to stop.

Speaker 1 I consciously had to stop comparing myself to you, Woodrow, because it was just. It's hard.
It's too hard. He's got an engine inside of him.
He's got a desire and love from a distance.

Speaker 1 I feel like I'm at my own funeral. This is wonderful.
Just wait till you die.

Speaker 1 This is nothing.

Speaker 1 But so, you know, the time

Speaker 1 I got depressed when I moved to New York. And

Speaker 1 I was living with two roommates who were both, one was going to Juilliard,

Speaker 1 and Rob was going to, he was getting all these commercials and everything. And I couldn't even get an agent.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, and it's like that catch-22 where you realize, well, the agent's not going to take you if they haven't seen you in something and you can't be seen in anything because you don't have an agent to send you on and on.

Speaker 1 You know, it's like that.

Speaker 1 And I just, I'd sunk into this depression the winter of 1983.

Speaker 1 And, you know, what really pulled me out of it more than anything was so one day I went and I was a temp at some at a

Speaker 1 random house, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I, that temp, like, I'd answer the phones, I'd type shit.

Speaker 1 And, you know, the reason the way I got the job was when I went in to try to get the job to become a temp anyway,

Speaker 1 they sent me around to different places.

Speaker 1 but anyway i i found in the trash a version of what i was supposed to be typing the typing tests so when i did the typing test did i score well because i had already typed it up yeah of course you did but anyway i i was at random house and then i was i was leaving random house and and i said well

Speaker 1 oh man you got all these books here and there's a bunch of classic novels and stuff And they go, you can take whatever you want. I was shameless.

Speaker 1 I took like, I literally, I must have taken 200 books off that shelf. Like, they were thinking, you can have a book, you know.
And I had it in a box that I had to drag because I couldn't carry it.

Speaker 1 It was so heavy. I had to drag this thing all the way down the subway on an apartment.

Speaker 1 And this is in, I was living on 51st between 8th and 9th. Anyway, so I get them back and I start reading.

Speaker 1 And it was one of the most helpful things for my, you know, rather destructive thinking was just getting into these other characters' lives. And of course, many of them have real trouble.

Speaker 1 You know, you read in Charles Dickens, everybody in there is having more trouble than you are. Yeah, that puts things in perspective.

Speaker 1 Anyway. I never heard that story.
I love that story.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. I never knew that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And then did that pull you out pretty much? Have you had bouts of it?

Speaker 1 You don't seem like you're ever depressed. No, I'm really a generally happy person, but

Speaker 1 I do think that that was maybe the best thing that I just, I just, you know, I've always been a... a reader, you know, but

Speaker 1 I just was so immersed in these other stories, you know, like you read Papillon, for example, I mean, you got no fucking problem. Exactly.
That's 100% true. That's right.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Anyway. Was that one of the ones you read? Was Papillon?

Speaker 1 No, I read that when I was in high school. I read that when I was like 15 or something.
God bless you. See, I was dyslexic.
So

Speaker 1 I didn't read well. I am dyslexic, but I don't know.
I overcome. You could read.

Speaker 1 I was reading about you having dyslexia and I thought, I don't remember you. Did you ever, did we ever talk about that? No, no, we didn't.
No, people didn't talk about that.

Speaker 1 That was something I was ashamed of. I didn't want people to know.
So you were kind of faking your way. Oh, man, I told you.
Me too. Faked.
Well, how do we look at us now? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Does your brain still mix up the no, no,

Speaker 1 it's a thing you grow out of. Did you grow out of it, you feel like? I have a different thing.
I don't mix up. Sorry.

Speaker 1 I have a thing where I can't retain. I can read for pleasure because it just goes in and out.
Yes. But if I'm supposed to retain and regurgitate what I can't do it.
It's so hard to do. No.

Speaker 1 I have to study it. Yes.
Paragraph by paragraph. Yes.
So you wander. Yeah.
I gave up is what I knew. Yeah.
But how's your memorization skills generally, Daddy? I have to hear it. I have to be taught.

Speaker 1 Nowadays, I have to be

Speaker 1 taught by my daughter. And I, Orly, I get it right away.
Bump. Yeah, I use an app that I, that I record everything, my lines in and I listen to them and I say them with the line.

Speaker 1 It's it's hard for me. I'm, I'm terrible at memorizing lines.
So, Woody, it's easy for you. Well, I wouldn't say it's easy.
I mean, I'm memorizing now.

Speaker 1 I mean, this is an epic amount of words I'm memorizing. I start Monday, this uh movie, and uh

Speaker 1 it's like, holy fuck, man. Like,

Speaker 1 uh, it's a brain, like, yeah, and I haven't done anything to help my brain. I got to say, I've done a lot to not help my brain.
And boy, it's like, you know, I memorize Zeus' story on a Sunday.

Speaker 1 The whole thing, all the monologues and everything, on a Sunday.

Speaker 1 That's another thing. You got a different brain.
We don't relate over that. That I can't even understand.

Speaker 1 Well, now it's my brain level has the wattage is

Speaker 1 just down to like one last neuron or dendrite. I mean, it just barely

Speaker 1 when they turn the cameras around, while they're turning the cameras around, I have to reload the lines into my brain. I get it.
You know, I'm there. You know what? But you do what you have to do.

Speaker 1 That's right. Who cares? It's harder.
Who cares?

Speaker 1 I mean, there's a lot harder job to do. Athletes, they play hurt.
We're playing hurt. That's right.
It makes us better.

Speaker 1 It makes us have to learn the lines in a way that makes it better. I don't know.
It's a gift. Yeah.
I think it's all, there's always a gift in the hardest things.

Speaker 1 You just don't, it takes you a long time to know what it is. Tell me about tasks.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 People seem to like it. No, it's really good.
Yeah. Thank you.
Smart, dark, and scary. Stark, scary.
And it's got, it's got, it's, it's got a heart, you know, it's got a good pulse, you know?

Speaker 1 It's got a good pulse, but your character got a good heart pushing that pulse. You're an ex

Speaker 1 yes, FBI, yes.

Speaker 1 Was that does this come from a book, or how did this sound so many layers? It feels like it was created.

Speaker 1 That's Brad Inglesby, our writer. He is incredible.
He wrote Mayor of East Town.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 he's just,

Speaker 1 yeah, but this is even, this is on a whole other level. There's so much, he like front-loaded this character.
My character, Woody, is he's an ex-priest who

Speaker 1 Catholic priest who became a chaplain for the FBI and was going to mass shooter events to counsel the community.

Speaker 1 And he met a woman

Speaker 1 while doing that, doing social work, fell in love, left the priesthood, and decided because he made those connections at the FBI to move towards, you know, police work

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 married the woman, couldn't have kids adopted two um

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 uh puerto rican kids uh dominican kids and um one of them's mentally ill and he uh this is before the first episode uh ends up having a um schizophrenic break uh attacks the mother my wife pushes her, she falls down the stairs and dies.

Speaker 1 He's in prison.

Speaker 1 He's in prison.

Speaker 1 And that's where the show begins.

Speaker 1 I'm on leave. I'm basically working a desk

Speaker 1 at a jobs fair,

Speaker 1 totally falling into alcoholism. And that's where the show starts.

Speaker 1 I'm surprised they didn't come to me first.

Speaker 1 I'd love to see you in that part, actually. Oh, man.

Speaker 1 That would be a treat.

Speaker 1 You have so much life under your belt that you walk in and you don't have to do anything.

Speaker 1 Oh, but that's your acting talent, one of the two or both. But you hung out with FBI?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I hung out with FBI. I've done three, played,

Speaker 1 this will be my third FBI agent, but one of them was in

Speaker 1 Now You See Me.

Speaker 1 And so I spent actually for that, I did spend a lot of time with FBI guy.

Speaker 1 And that was probably the most, the deepest FBI preparation that I feel like has set me up to play FBI agent for a while.

Speaker 1 But I also had this great guy, Scott Duffy, who is an FBI agent and a trainer who was with us every single day on set. Which one? For which one? For task.
For task. Oh, wow.
And so he, he was really,

Speaker 1 I would, I was always going to him

Speaker 1 or calling him or texting him and just being like, what is this?

Speaker 1 How does this work?

Speaker 1 Does this seem honest? You know,

Speaker 1 what about this approach?

Speaker 1 And he's an interesting, it's an interesting. Did you work out with him too?

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 no, you'll have to see his terrorists.

Speaker 1 When you see me, oh, no, he trains other FBI agents. He's a tea, he's like a teacher.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, I thought he did it.

Speaker 1 I thought you meant like, did you guys become such good friends that you started training together?

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 Mark got a little plump for this role.

Speaker 1 That's a suit. Oh, God bless.
Much easier on your body. Oh, my God.
Because I was thinking, damn, you really did put on some weight. You just never let yourself go, do you, Mark?

Speaker 1 I have.

Speaker 1 You're fit, dude. You're fit as a fiddle.
No, no, no. And this, Sonny came to visit me.
I hadn't seen her for like a month.

Speaker 1 Or three weeks, and she came to visit me at the kids for Mother's Day. And she looked at me.
She's like, well,

Speaker 1 your father's eating his way through Philly.

Speaker 1 I started with the fat suit and the fat suit just got fatter and fatter and fatter as I was getting fatter and fatter and fatter underneath it.

Speaker 1 Eventually, we could just dispense with the fat suit. Just like, hey, this fat suit was so stupid.

Speaker 1 I looked like a little Ken doll, a little fat boy coopie doll with this thing on.

Speaker 1 Was that your idea? Fat suit? Yeah, it was funny. I went in for my costume fitting and I was like, I see him as like 30, 40 pounds heavier than me.
And they went,

Speaker 1 yes, they made that face, Woody. They went,

Speaker 1 they're like, what? I was like, I see him as 30, 40 pounds heavier than me. They're like, okay.

Speaker 1 I said, do you have anything? I'm like, well, we have a pregnancy belly we can work with. I was like, get it.
So we're doing the costume fitting and they're pulling out bigger clothes.

Speaker 1 And my assistant is watching this. And I go to the go to the, ask him for something to go to the bathroom.
He's like, can I talk to you for a minute? I was like, yeah, what's going on? He's like,

Speaker 1 I don't think people really want to see you as a fat guy.

Speaker 1 And I was like,

Speaker 1 thank you. Thank you for the input, Arthur.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 this is kind of how, but when I walked out, we we were doing a screen test that day, and I walked out and the producers literally saw me and they were like

Speaker 1 the same

Speaker 1 response. Like, what is he doing?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I was talking to the director and Brad Inglesby and I was like, this is how we see it. And they're like, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Well, we just want, we got to see if, you know, make how it looks on camera. Everyone was freaked out.

Speaker 1 And then after that screen test, the first day, they were like, Okay, we love this, we love this, but no one had seen it like that, yeah.

Speaker 1 But I, you just felt like it

Speaker 1 just felt right for that character, yeah, yeah. You know, how you daydream about the character?

Speaker 1 Like, I'll read something, I just like I'll daydream about it, you know, like the part of the preparation is just like laying there and daydreaming about it. Like, what does he sound like?

Speaker 1 What does he look like? What is he,

Speaker 1 you know, just impressions, sometimes even dreams, real dreams, you know, it gives you a sense of layer upon layer upon layer of life. Yeah.
When

Speaker 1 you walk in. No, I mean, you,

Speaker 1 it was like, oh, this person's gone many miles in life. Yes, and he has.
And his shoulders are,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 he sort of has, he sort of has, his shoulders are like, it's just like the weight of the world. And I love that you said that you discovered FBI,

Speaker 1 the empathy. Yes.
That

Speaker 1 the guy you were hanging

Speaker 1 I think the great FBI agents are empathetic.

Speaker 1 One of the great, I mean, the really, where you really do the FBI work is interviews. It's all about interviews, you know? Right.

Speaker 1 And to be a good interviewer, you guys know, because you're good interviewers, is you have to be empathetic. You have to like...
listen and feel and and find what is motivating and be curious. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And to be curious, you had to be empathetic to somebody, you know? You have to feel into them a little bit. And my guy was like,

Speaker 1 Scott Duffy's clearly an empath, you know. And he's like, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1 that's one of the techniques that really pays off. You want people to trust you.

Speaker 1 You want them to feel. safe with you.
And the way that you can do that is through empathy, understanding where they're coming from. I have a friend who spent some time in prison.

Speaker 1 He had a drug issue.

Speaker 1 He's sober 17 years. Now he's a great actor.

Speaker 1 Oh, is his name Robert Danny Jr.?

Speaker 1 And that's one of them.

Speaker 1 I have another friend who has been in prison.

Speaker 1 But he told me, he's like, Mark,

Speaker 1 there's no excuses, but there's reasons.

Speaker 1 And he told me that early on well, I was talking to him about this

Speaker 1 and And it was not it wasn't about this. It was about something else, but he said that phrase to me.
There's no excuses, but there's reasons.

Speaker 1 He's like, I'm not going to make any excuses for why I ended up in prison. I deserve to be in prison, but there's reasons why I got there.
And we all want to be witnessed.

Speaker 1 You know, we don't want to have to be, you don't have to forgive me for what I did, but I do want you to see me. You know, and that's the reason.
This is my story. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And we all want to tell our stories. That's why I think we're so lucky as actors because, and we get, we get a bad rap, right? Like you actor, Hollywood liberal, whatever, right? We get a bad rap.

Speaker 1 But what are we really doing but like entering people's lives and trying to tell their stories as honestly as possible. Without judging them.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, and you can't really, I mean, we could do send people up and do,

Speaker 1 you know, satirical stuff, but you really want to tell, we want to tell the truth, you know? Yeah.

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Speaker 1 Boy, we could switch gears if you guys want to.

Speaker 1 Empathy is a great way to start talking about what's going on in the world or lack of empathy. And you are so outspoken.

Speaker 1 Outspoken is the wrong word. You are outspoken.
No, you know, you speak out. That's better.
You're a great voice for the truth, dude. Oh, man.
Thank you guys. I don't know.
So weird.

Speaker 1 It's like we're all on the Titanic. And, you know, we got the champagne going.
We got the violins. And I felt a little bump there.
Okay, no problem. Let's keep the party.
And then it's just like,

Speaker 1 we're going off there. We're going in.
We're going in the triangle of sadness. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's the triangle of sadness.

Speaker 1 I love you and that. I haven't seen you since that.

Speaker 1 I sent you a text, but

Speaker 1 I don't know if I still have your number, the right number.

Speaker 1 I don't even have a phone anymore for five years. So you definitely.

Speaker 1 I love that. Someone's been like woody how you doing yeah he's a free spirit everyone around him is working their asses off but he's a free spirit

Speaker 1 hi laura i'm talking about you laura

Speaker 1 it is it is hard it's hard sometimes like when i go somewhere and i'm supposed to meet someone and then they're not there and i'm like

Speaker 1 well i don't know what my next step is i don't have phone i have no ability i don't wouldn't even, I don't even have a number to call, you know, like I don't, it's like that happened to me the other day.

Speaker 1 Just like, fuck, I, I, there's, there's sometimes you think I, I might have to get a fucking phone again, you know? I love you don't have a phone. We should all have a right not to be digital.

Speaker 1 Well, we're not forced to be digital. We don't have

Speaker 1 except your winner. I still email.
I still email. Yeah.
But the problem is, if I email you now, you get,

Speaker 1 it's an email address you're not familiar with. So you, I get.
Have you emailed me?

Speaker 1 I've emailed you like 50 fucking times.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, don't go there. No, I'm kidding.
I made that up.

Speaker 1 I was like, I missed your email. That sucks.
Wait, what is your email address again? Just for the viewers.

Speaker 1 Oh, we'll cut it out. Oh, yeah, tell us.
Yeah, go on.

Speaker 1 It's too dangerous. too dangerous i'll be asking you to do all the time you know that if you give i'm gonna send you a uh email and i'm gonna and i'm just put a low uh in the okay you know

Speaker 1 well i have a new email address too so

Speaker 1 oh

Speaker 1 me okay

Speaker 1 how am i gonna

Speaker 1 go through me i got the same one that i've had since i'll give it i'll give it i'll give it the oh perfect i'll give it the t

Speaker 1 okay

Speaker 1 t i love it you just call me T. That's what Woody used to call me.
I heard him call you T. I still call you T.
You were listening. I wasn't.
Sorry. Well, you've been with him a long time.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's been a deplorable time.

Speaker 1 It's a sad time.

Speaker 1 It's a sad time. It is sad.
It's scary. I don't like to say it's hopeless, even though they may have won already, but

Speaker 1 it's not hopeless. No way.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 we can't succumb to that. I mean, we can.
And

Speaker 1 it's, it's, it's grievous.

Speaker 1 It's

Speaker 1 with smidge of a touch of wickedness every once in a while. But it's also like we can be in grief.
We could have grief about this, you know? Like, that's okay.

Speaker 1 I think, you know, we're, we're, we are, there is a loss. Something's being lost.
Something that we feel a loss.

Speaker 1 But also, like I said, in every, every bad thing is a gift. We just, there's an inherent gift that comes along with it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that's just been my experience. Every terrible thing that's happened to me has always been a gift inside of it.

Speaker 1 Even when somebody dies, when somebody dies, they're actually leaving you a gift that of learning, something you learn from their death that you can't get any other way, but them passing them.

Speaker 1 Because it is so real and so so truthful when death is, there's no wiggle room. No.

Speaker 1 And whether you're coming to terms with your own mortality or you're coming to terms with how to grieve or you're coming to terms with

Speaker 1 how much you love somebody or love them and miss them.

Speaker 1 and the value of that person to you that can only come through their death, that's their gift that they're giving to you in parting. And that is part of your growth as a human being.

Speaker 1 And so nothing, there's nothing that's happened to me. I mean, terrible things have happened to me, and I would take many of them back.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I also know that I learned how to more about being a human being here from those things.

Speaker 1 And I feel like in this time, What we're seeing, someone's said the apocalypse, the apocalypse.

Speaker 1 The apocalypse is the actual word, apocalypse, the root of that word is the veil, to move the veil back.

Speaker 1 And I feel like what we're seeing is a reality that's been ongoing.

Speaker 1 But under a veil. But under the veil.

Speaker 1 And now we're all seeing it. And now we have to be conscious and make a choice about who we are, who we're going to be in the world, what kind of world we want it to be.

Speaker 1 And that's where the hope is because I've seen people,

Speaker 1 I'm seeing things happen that I never five years ago would have imagined. I'm seeing people engage in ways that I've never thought would happen in America.

Speaker 1 I'm seeing the world being engaged on issues that I never thought would happen.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I don't see any other way for us to move forward without it because

Speaker 1 the system has been so gamed. It's been so corroded.
It's been so

Speaker 1 tooled. Fucked up.
Fucked up. Tooled.
Yes.

Speaker 1 To work against the people. There's a study that just came up.

Speaker 1 0.01%

Speaker 1 of policy.

Speaker 1 Who just came out with this?

Speaker 1 Oh, we all love him.

Speaker 1 I'll think of it in a second. 0.01% of policy policy is actually reflective of the common citizen of the United States.
Every decision, policy-wise, that's being made is money and power.

Speaker 1 And that's why we're here where we are today, with people so desperate that they're willing to kill somebody over a political idea.

Speaker 1 That's where we're at.

Speaker 1 And that's reality. And the only way you can go down that road is if you lack empathy.

Speaker 1 When you get to the point where you're

Speaker 1 the only way to solve a problem

Speaker 1 is to kill it,

Speaker 1 is to use violence against it, you're either so desperate, you're mentally ill, or you've lost your empathy, which is really mentally ill. Yep.

Speaker 1 In a way, isn't it?

Speaker 1 But I see this time, and believe me, I wake up in the middle of the night like, what is happening? Is this a nightmare? Is this real?

Speaker 1 But by dawn,

Speaker 1 the day breaks. You see your kids.
I see my kids. And I see people actually getting engaged who weren't engaged.
And we need to be engaged. We need to be awake.
Now the question is, is what do we do?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that's a question that I think people are starting to seriously ask now. It would be nice if you could take just

Speaker 1 a fraction of the hundreds of, well, the trillions of dollars spent for the war machine and just put that toward buying up rainforests, you know, or just doing

Speaker 1 simple

Speaker 1 meta, hopefully metamorphosizing the way we have our energy,

Speaker 1 our energy needs both really, both, you know, collectively and personally. Yes.
You know, like this feels like

Speaker 1 if we just had the same will we have as a country and as a, well, politically, the same will to support war

Speaker 1 and you just

Speaker 1 modify that a little bit and help out the

Speaker 1 mother nature, it'd be so cool. It'd be so cool.
And we can do it.

Speaker 1 I mean, that was the other thing of the study is all of our, we are paying more welfare to the fossil fuel industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the agricultural industry, the industrialized agricultural industry, the weapons industry, than we are to actually our own welfare of human beings in the United States and abroad.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And if you believe in free trade and all of that, markets and all of that, then take away all those subsidies.
And let's see when your gasoline's actually $30 a gallon. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You all of a sudden, yeah, it would not be all gung-ho. No, we are supporting and it's the

Speaker 1 Republican or a liberal organization. No, dude, that's what's fact.
They got us all in this game. We're at each other's throats while these guys are making off like bandits.

Speaker 1 And I think that's the reality that people are coming to understand now.

Speaker 1 The same people in MAGA

Speaker 1 who are raging, they're raging over,

Speaker 1 and this is the same.

Speaker 1 Trump tapped into this idea that there's corruption, that the people aren't getting what they deserve, they're not getting what they need, the elites are taking it all, the game is rigged against us, but what he did was get it, but make it on the idea of race.

Speaker 1 He's

Speaker 1 scapegoating race and immigration, which is what a fascist regime does, right?

Speaker 1 But the truth of the matter is it's all of us.

Speaker 1 This is why they killed, This is why they killed Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Speaker 1 was actually

Speaker 1 using the civil rights movement to integrate the working class and the people of color. That was the next move.

Speaker 1 And that is too powerful. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because once the work, once they, once you take that race out and you, and you, and you unite the people based on economics, they're having us fighting a culture war, but the real war is a class war.

Speaker 1 I don't want to be that too radical, but that's what I see. Beautifully stated.
I mean, I feel like,

Speaker 1 no, go ahead, Teddy. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 I'm the only place where I feel confident talking, not because I'm an expert, but I've been doing it for 35, 40 years, the environment, climate change, oceans, all of that.

Speaker 1 I've hung around scientists and been a spokesperson. So I have some, I feel I have some license and not to score points.
I don't get to go, so you see

Speaker 1 these floods are coming because of oil companies. I don't get to do that.
No, no. All you get to do is be human, caring,

Speaker 1 hopeful, da-da-da-da. That's how we do it.
Because, and that's storytelling. Why does storytelling work? Why, why can, why does something like Dark Waters, okay, which is really

Speaker 1 fantastic? Fantastic. Like, why does that

Speaker 1 quickly work? Dark Waters was about

Speaker 1 a story that I read in the L.A. Times,

Speaker 1 the New York Times magazine by Nathaniel Rich, Frank Rich's son. And it was the title of was The Lawyer That Is DuPont's Nightmare.

Speaker 1 And it was, he was a corporate lawyer who defended. chemical companies.

Speaker 1 His family's friend reached out to him and said, my cows are dying.

Speaker 1 My cows are dying, and DuPont has poisoned them. And I want someone to help me.
And you're the only person I know.

Speaker 1 Wow. So he shows up there.
He grew up next to this farm, going to this farm in the summertime, knew this guy. He shows him the cows.
The cows got

Speaker 1 their eyeballs are milked over. They have huge tumors.
And right above him, the water is DuPont's dumping.

Speaker 1 And the stream is coming through his land and it's killing his cows. And he says, I'm going to help you.

Speaker 1 And he uncovers the fact that DuPont had been poisoning us since the 50s with forever chemicals, PFAS.

Speaker 1 And he got the biggest class action lawsuit in the world,

Speaker 1 which he used to make the biggest human health study ever done.

Speaker 1 to prove that PFAS, forever chemicals, which is in all of us, is linked to 17 different illnesses. And then he used that to, and this is a story of that, right? That

Speaker 1 there's been so many documentaries written, done,

Speaker 1 so many

Speaker 1 articles written, but that movie.

Speaker 1 Wow. That's amazing.
That movie has changed more laws in the world

Speaker 1 than any of those other efforts.

Speaker 1 Storytelling. And it's storytelling.
And what is storytelling other than empathy in action? What is storytelling? I mean, the whole idea of empathy being some made-up thing is so

Speaker 1 funny to me. You know, it's just like

Speaker 1 the world would not work without empathy.

Speaker 1 You couldn't do your job without empathy. I don't care what your job is.
If you're a salesman, if you're a doctor, if you're a lawyer, even working,

Speaker 1 I just don't know how the world would run.

Speaker 1 It's smart. If you want to be selfish, it's brilliant selfishness to understand the other person.
It's what we need to survive. It's not what we're using to destroy ourselves.
It's not suicidal.

Speaker 1 It's how we actually are going to live and thrive is through empathy. And look at any, and

Speaker 1 every single successful person that you, that we know has, well, no, I can't say that. Sorry, there's some real assholes who don't have empathy.
They're sociopathic and they do pretty well.

Speaker 1 Elon Musk, for example, or Jeff Bezos or any of these people now, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, all of them are lacking empathy. Just a quick parenthetical thing.

Speaker 1 I was in a show called Damages where I play this billionaire sociopath. Yes.
And they had me talk to, they were so brilliant, the writers, to a Fortune 500 guy.

Speaker 1 And he said,

Speaker 1 because the study that came out of, I think, Harvard was that the similarity between people in prison and Fortune 500 executives is they're both sociopaths. They both have a lack of empathy.
Right.

Speaker 1 This is a sweeping generality. No, I know.
But this guy said, I realized with the help of my family that I

Speaker 1 didn't have the ability to empathize. I just literally don't.

Speaker 1 I hired somebody to be with me in literally every meeting who is capable of empathy so he could pat me on the shoulder and go, you're missing the point here. Wow.
Isn't that amazing?

Speaker 1 That's incredible. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We have too many people lacking empathy. Running the show.
Yeah. But I was going to say, there's a lot of people in prison who do have empathy.
I mean,

Speaker 1 that's true.

Speaker 1 Per capita, more Fortune 500. Yeah.
People without the empathy gene. That's right.

Speaker 1 Well, now we're just warehousing people in our prisons. I mean, look at, we have more people in prison here than any other country in the world per capita.

Speaker 1 I feel like, because I have a friend who does Pathway to Kinship, which is this helping people get

Speaker 1 out by learning to truly empathize with what they have done

Speaker 1 to a family,

Speaker 1 which is the only way if you've done your time, you will get paroled really is if you see that you really do understand the impact you had.

Speaker 1 Help them do that. This person, my friend, Mark,

Speaker 1 and then he helps them get jobs, high-paying jobs in unions and stuff like that to keep them out of jail. Yes, they do.

Speaker 1 Because if you don't be smart about that, then you're just feeding the system again. Yes, and that system is a big money-making system.
And look at all these.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Alcatraz, the alligator Alcatraz. I mean, how much was that? It was like hundreds of millions of dollars for a few tents.

Speaker 1 Someone ran off with that money.

Speaker 1 They closed it down now.

Speaker 1 That money's gone. You have Holman taking $50,000 from some schmo in cash.
And what is that? That's a bribe for one of these prisons, these detention centers that they're building.

Speaker 1 And these detention centers are, they're building them all over the United States to house, warehouse people.

Speaker 1 who have mental illness, who didn't have a chance,

Speaker 1 who weren't taught any skills. I mean, and that's their, and, but we look at Baltimore, what the mayor of Baltimore is doing.
What does he do? He opens up the pools later for the kids.

Speaker 1 He's teaching the kids at community. He's opening up more and more community hubs for the kids to go to after school.
And the crime rates have plummeted there. We know how to do this.
Sure.

Speaker 1 We know how to do this. Yeah.
But there's big money in prisons.

Speaker 1 Huge money.

Speaker 1 And when we took, we stopped, we made the private, private, private, we made

Speaker 1 privatizing

Speaker 1 money making.

Speaker 1 This is all fixable stuff. You know, this is not, this is not so esoteric.
You know, there's other countries that know how to rehabilitate criminals. You know, it's doable.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry. No, no, this is good.
I, all of a sudden, I, uh, I thought,

Speaker 1 this is the podcast that changed the world.

Speaker 1 Never. People listened

Speaker 1 and went, oh my God, those three actors. Oh,

Speaker 1 all right. It's going to take

Speaker 1 you for the common man. Hey, but guys, I'm sorry to say I have to go because I have a dinner that I'm supposed to be at.
Wait, where are you, buddy? He's in Paris. Oh, I'm in Paris.

Speaker 1 I'm doing this movie. We start shooting Monday, and Kristen Stewart's playing my daughter.
So I'm supposed to meet her for dinner. And I think it'd be really impolite to be late.
No, you can't.

Speaker 1 Give her marriage and she'd be like, yeah, just like, just like a father, late as always, you know, whatever. You could do that.
I love you so much. Give Laura our love, will you? Love you, man.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I love you too. Dave, Mark,

Speaker 1 what a fucking pleasure to see you.

Speaker 1 And I wish I was there in person with you guys. Teddy, always, always the best.
I'll see you down the road. I'll see you down the road.
Love you.

Speaker 1 Now we can talk. Now we can talk about him.

Speaker 1 Now you guys can talk. Oh, damn, he was listening.

Speaker 1 Hey. Hey, man.
We don't have to go on, but I still thank you. Sorry, I got off my soapbox.
That gets actually kind of boring, actually. No, no, no, no, no, no.
See, that's no, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 This is, well, for me, I'll just speak for myself, that I am in that position of, am I being courageous? Am I speaking out enough? Am I, what is my lane? What makes me feel comfortable and real?

Speaker 1 You know, and what's really for me the thing I thought about before

Speaker 1 we sat down was how much license you have

Speaker 1 when you talk about gun violence. You have a

Speaker 1 there's genuine, deep empathy that comes out of you because of where you've been and that your

Speaker 1 brother died from gun violence. So

Speaker 1 I so honor that that same kind of courage and

Speaker 1 going for it you have in your acting, you have in your life, and it's legit. So I'm really glad you spoke.
Okay. Because it is.

Speaker 1 You're not talking about ideals and belief systems and fuck them. You're talking about empathy.
Yeah, I try. Yeah.
Because we're all in this together, right? Ultimately. Yeah, we are.

Speaker 1 And that's the one thing that kind of,

Speaker 1 well, it's probably me being righteous, to be honest. But I always think, you know, know,

Speaker 1 you can call it a hoax. You can do this.
You can do that. You can, you know, but climate change doesn't give a rat's ass what your belief system is.
No.

Speaker 1 You know, it's marching forward. Oh, yeah.
And we're only going to, it's only going to get worse. Yeah.
And I think it would be a shame to lose us as a species. Do you know that

Speaker 1 80 million Americans?

Speaker 1 believe that climate change is real and it's caused by actual burning fossil fuels and they want someone to do something they want this the state to do something about it that's the polling that's the recent polling 80 million americans

Speaker 1 uh what a fraction of that is actually voting

Speaker 1 and so

Speaker 1 there's a huge untapped sort of power in that that none of our politicians are actually capitalizing on. I mean, in the last election,

Speaker 1 how much time was talked about climate change?

Speaker 1 But also, there's also like this incredible economic opportunity for us.

Speaker 1 The biggest emerging market in the world right now is renewable energy.

Speaker 1 And we're handing that all over to China.

Speaker 1 We're walking away from it.

Speaker 1 And just even this year, it's a 10% jump in renewable energy.

Speaker 1 And by the way, we're also at peak fossil fuel. The reason they have to do fracking, the reason they have to do tar sands, the reason that

Speaker 1 it's gone. And the reason gas, it's only going to get more expensive.
The reason we don't actually see what we're paying for it is because we're subsidizing it.

Speaker 1 But we're literally paying $20, $30 at the pump because of all of our tax money. So this wonderful irony.

Speaker 1 I think that the most clean energy coming out of solar is coming out of, and wind is coming out of Texas. Texas? Isn't that wonderful? Of course.
Because they're not dumb. No.
Energy is cheaper.

Speaker 1 Exactly.

Speaker 1 And that's the way it is. If it's cheaper, we move towards it.
And it's cheaper now. So it's just all, it's just, it's

Speaker 1 going to come out.

Speaker 1 How old are your children now? My son's 23. My middle daughter's 20.
And my little one's going to be 18 in a little over two weeks. Yeah.
Pretty magnificent. We have all of our kids.

Speaker 1 We have four together. I had two.
Mary had two when we got together. And they're now in their

Speaker 1 early to mid-40s. And our grandchildren are 13 down to, you know.
That's amazing. How big is the whole family now? How many grandkids?

Speaker 1 Five grandkids and,

Speaker 1 you know, four kids and their mates. It's beautiful, man.
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 So, you know what? We may not know how to do it, but

Speaker 1 they're pretty hip. There is hope.

Speaker 1 They're hip. Yeah.
I think there's a lot of hope. I just think, you know, it's always darkest before the dawn.

Speaker 1 Love talking to you.

Speaker 1 love and i you know i we didn't pay enough attention to how magnificent an actor you are but everybody knows that so this was fun that was fun that's an honor to hang out with woody too

Speaker 1 yeah i loved it it was so fun thanks thanks man thank you

Speaker 1 Thank you, Mark Ruffalo. Thank you, Woodrow.
Watch Mark in Task, streaming now on HBO Max. That's it for this week.

Speaker 1 special thanks to team coco hey i say that a lot but truly special thanks to team coco i wish you all could see who i get to work with they're all amazing people except for conan if you enjoyed this episode send it to a loved one Subscribe on your favorite podcast app and maybe give us a great rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 1 Thank you very much. If you like watching your podcasts, all our full-length episodes are on YouTube.
YouTube. Visit youtube.com/slash teamcoco.

Speaker 1 See you next time

Speaker 1 where everybody knows your name.

Speaker 5 You've been listening to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson sometimes. The show is produced by me, Nick Liao.

Speaker 5 Our executive producers are Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself. Sarah Fedorovich is our supervising producer.
Engineering and mixing by Joanna Samuel with support from Eduardo Perez.

Speaker 5 Research by Alyssa Grahl. Talent booking by Paula Davis and Gina Batista.
Our theme music is by Woody Harrelson, Anthony Yen, Mary Steenbergen, and John Osborne.

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