Episode 1670 - Ben Stiller

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Okay, all right, you got it.

All right, let's do the show.

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How's it going, man?

Women,

those,

what's happening?

Every day is two days at least.

You know,

I go through the full arc of all the emotions on any given day.

Some for longer than others, most of it self-generated reactions to things that my brain makes up.

But it's a full day.

A lot of busy work, a lot of adjusting to this new time that I have in the sense of being off the road, out of the publicity mill, and just kind of locking in for the long haul before I start shooting stick.

But I'm all right.

Are you?

I guess.

Been going up at the store trying to get some new shit going.

It's amazing how I give myself no real break to kind of not not rest on my laurels, but just kind of regroup.

I just don't do it.

I just get up there out of habit.

And some of it's coming along to what end?

I don't know.

I don't know.

A lot of stuff going on in my mind on a lot of levels.

All right.

My brain, when overloaded and full of panic and fear, well,

in in terms of the world that we live in, my brain wants to just sort of bring that down to me.

How can I make my

little world

equally as terrifying so I can feel like I have a little control over it?

And there's a word for that.

I think my psychiatrist said obsessional anxiety with a focus.

I added that part.

It has a essential focus on only bad things.

Anxiety is never a good feeling.

Someone sent me an email that said, maybe you should frame your anxiety as excitement.

Well, that would mean I'm excited about the worst things happening possible.

And I guess I could do that.

I don't know how that would change my personality.

I don't know.

I don't know, folks.

A lot going on.

And as you get older, the first thing you realize in terms of this, as you hit a certain age, that your parents can't help you anymore.

If they're like mine, they really can't help because they just,

well, they're just who they are, but they're there.

But you do realize at some point that it's on you.

You got to help yourself.

And then in the world we live in now, you're like, wow, no one's going to help at any level.

That's a lot to manage when you've got the unresolved parent shit going on.

And on top of that, the sort of the world of politics and government and police and everything else is sort of like, will anyone come to help after a certain point?

Will they?

Look, don't want to be weird.

Don't want to be scary.

Ben Stiller is on the show.

He was actually the first really big star to come to the garage in the first months of the podcast.

It was episode 79, and it was a big deal for us at the time.

Obviously, he's continued to act, write, and direct since then, including his work behind the camera for Severance.

Season two is nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys, and Ben is nominated for Outstanding Directing.

He's here.

Nice to catch up with Ben.

We're all becoming old men, me and Ben.

A few things that I did not

tell you about.

I will be hosting a screening of McCabe and Mrs.

Miller at the American Cinematech at the Arrow Theater.

That'll be on Saturday, 8:24 at the Arrow Theater, 7:30.

McCabe and Mrs.

Miller, I'll chime in a bit about it at the beginning, but it'll be nice to see a nice print of that, won't it?

You can go to wtfpod.com/slash tour for a link to that.

I'll be at Largo

doing a show with a couple of other comics on the the 28th of this month.

Again, you can go to WTF Pod for a link to that.

That's on Thursday, the 28th.

And then hopefully this link will be up as well.

I'm going to do a show with the band at Largo on September 10th.

And we've got some good songs.

We're going to start working on them.

That's the whole idea of working with this new crew

is to...

rehearse.

And we got plans, man.

We're going to do Guilty by Randy Newman, I hope.

We're going to do Jumping at Shadows,

the old Fleetwood Mac version, and stunning songs, those two.

Heavy.

We're going to do Can't Put Your Arm Around a Memory, Johnny Thunders.

Again,

a little heavy.

And maybe George Jones say it ain't you.

So there's

a lot of kind of self-reflecting and sadness in this list.

And we'll do a couple of happy ones.

Maybe Heaven by Talking Heads.

That's the plan.

We'll see how that unfolds.

Oh, before I forget, if there's anything you wanted to ask me, now's your chance.

We'll be doing our final ask, mark, anything bonus episodes.

So send in your questions.

Just go to the link in the episode description of today's show and send me whatever you want to ask.

Then subscribe to the Fulmarin to get the final Ask Mark Anything bonus episodes as they roll out in a few weeks.

Okay?

I think I walked you through the toe problem and I just didn't believe the doctor.

And then I went to another doctor and he confirmed the first doctor's feelings that it wasn't anything I should worry about.

And you give me a week or so and I won't believe that doctor either.

You know why?

Because I want to be afraid.

That is where I'm comfortable.

Full of self-flagellation, fear, shame, panic.

Yeah, that's my, that's my, that's my family of origin groundwork, folks.

That's my self-parenting skills.

You fuck.

But I, a couple of, I guess,

you know, there's some light in the midst of all this.

I don't know.

It's so funny, man.

You know, sometimes,

you know, sometimes these comedy shows that I do, I did Triple E show last week.

They're sponsored by weed companies.

So there's guys in the back from the weed company, and they got weed.

Like all kinds of I've talked about this before, but I don't think I really put it together until Kit, you know, pointed it out to me how funny funny it was because

i don't smoke obviously i haven't smoked in a long time i just had what is it 26 years

sober but i was thinking back on it i used to smoke man

and

back in the day i had a roommate who sold weed

and uh so there was weed everywhere and just the daily weed practice I need to get into a meditation practice.

And I'm in the point with a lot of this advice I'm getting, I'm almost doing it.

I'm in the, I'm planning on doing it stage of doing things that are helpful to my mental well-being.

Almost doing it.

I can stay there for a while.

But back in the day, the weed was everywhere.

And again, the daily practice of weed smoking and knowing there was weed in the house and knowing that the guy, you know, across the hall had the weed most of the time.

It was just a part of my life for a long time, weed before, but it was illegal.

And I remember one time in college, the dealer asked me to go across town and pick up the weed from the main guy.

And it was like a pound of weed in my memory.

And it was terrifying because, you know, I had to walk about a couple of miles with a backpack and pick up the weed.

And, you know, I was breaking the law, right?

Walking down the street with the pound of weed on my body.

But it was pretty fucking exciting.

And the only reason I did it was for weed.

That thrill of, you know, just being transport.

and

it took me a lot to muster up the will to do it and then to sort of figure out how I would get out of it if I got caught.

Hey, it's not mine.

It's for my friend.

You know, that one.

That always works.

But I guess the thrill of pulling it off and then getting a bag of weed because of it was,

you know, I was a fucking outlaw man.

This fucking outlaw.

And I think that part of this whole thing with, you know, getting legal weed for kit and then putting it in a bag and putting it in my car, that she pointed out to me that you know, you're you're fucking old school and you're an old timer and you're an old man.

There was a time where that was pretty thrilling, and I think that's probably true.

It's just sort of like, look at all this weed back in the day, this would have cost a fortune.

I'm gonna, I'm just gonna put it in my car, and then you're driving with this weed in the car, and you're like, I don't even have to worry about it.

So, the thrill is gone, but there is some phantom limb there that gets reactivated when that stuff happens.

So look, Ben Stiller is here.

Severance is streaming on Apple TV Plus.

He has Emmy nominations this year

for outstanding drama series and outstanding directing for a drama series.

And this is me talking to Ben.

So I haven't seen you in a long time.

I know.

It's been 15 years ago.

15 years.

Since we did this?

Since we did this at the old house.

That's fucking crazy.

Isn't that crazy, dude?

15 years.

I was thinking about it.

You're like one of the early guests.

I was thinking like, maybe it was like seven years ago.

No.

Well, that's what happens.

You enter this time zone of a certain age, which I guess we're at, where like the things behind you compressed into like, what was that last year?

Yeah.

No, dude, it was 10 years ago.

No.

And I don't know.

I never feel like time is flying by when I'm in it.

But now when you hit this certain age, you're like, what the fuck?

Now

it didn't fly by, but it's gone.

Yes.

It's really weird.

And it definitely,

it's, I mean, it's such a strange thing.

Like when you're in the moment, you're in the moment.

Yeah.

But then I, yeah, I look at like friends that I have and people that have watching my kids.

Yeah.

My daughter's 23.

Jesus.

Well, that's, I think that's a nice reality check with kids because sometimes when you don't see a friend for a few years and then you see them and you're like, holy fuck.

Right.

I got to go look at myself.

Am I not?

If you look like everybody around me is aging horribly.

Right.

I don't change at all.

Of course not.

Not you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I've noticed, and I've talked about on stage that the relationship we have with our mirror is

not right.

Yeah.

Because you see pictures of yourself and you're like, oh, fuck.

What's happening?

I don't understand.

No, no, but it's really depressing because I look in the mirror.

Yeah, and you're like, I'm holding on.

No, kind of.

But then there are moments where I'm like, who the fuck?

Like, whoa.

I know.

And then I think about my dad

saying to me when he was older, like,

I look at myself and I don't recognize who this person is because inside,

he's still like 30.

Yeah.

And I'm that guy.

Yeah.

Sorry about your dad.

Oh, well, thank you.

I mean, it's been a while, right?

It's been five years.

Yeah.

He had a, you know, he had a, he was the best.

Yeah.

And he had a, he lived to almost 93.

93.

Yeah.

And he had all his wits about him?

Not not all the way through.

And, but he was, you know, he

was a...

He was always there, though.

Yeah.

But the last couple of years were tough.

Yeah.

Yeah, because my dad's 86, and it's all going away.

Yeah.

And when you say 93, I'm like, oh, Jesus, I hope it doesn't go away.

No,

it's a real thing.

And, you know, my dad's sister is still alive, his younger sister.

And of the four siblings

that there was, oh, my dad, his sister Doreen, his sister, Maxine, and his brother Arnie.

She's the one who's still alive.

She's 90.

Now she's 94.

Yeah, it's a classic list of Jewish names.

Yes.

Arnie.

Arnie.

My uncle Arnie.

Arnie, of course.

He, yeah, he had a lighting fixture company in Beverly Hills.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He did well for himself.

He got out of Brooklyn.

He moved to Chicago, became a traveling salesman.

Oh, yeah.

And

married his high school sweetheart.

And he did well.

My grandpa Jack had a hardware store and an appliance store.

Oh, wow.

Did all right.

Okay.

Drove a big caddy in the hills of New Jersey.

Yeah.

He did all right, those guys who sold things.

No, my dad's brother was sort of like the guy who went, he moved out to L.A.

and he moved to Beverly Hills.

Yeah.

Before my dad even was, you know, successful.

And my dad and mom never moved out there.

They never came out here?

My mother hated LA.

So they were always in New York?

Yes.

I mean, there was a period of time when they came out here to work in the 70s, and we'd come out with them, and I loved it.

I loved it.

To be on all the shows?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To do like Courtcha Pavetti's father.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did they do like Merv Griffin and stuff?

They did Merv Griffin.

They did,

you know, like whatever, Hollywood Square.

Mike Douglas.

Yeah, Mike Douglas.

But Mike Douglas, you'd go to Philadelphia to do it.

Oh, it's Philly.

He did it in Philly, and we'd all take a limousine down to Philadelphia.

Oh, it's the best.

Yeah,

it was so exciting.

For me, I loved coming out here, but my mother never drove.

Yeah.

Hated it out here.

So they would come out when they had to work.

Later on, they'd stay at the Chateau Marmont, and my dad would do King of Queens, Seinfeld, King of Queens, and my mom would stay at the chateau with him.

And she'd take a cab to the grove and go hang out and then just be there with Jerry.

And it was really sweet.

I mean,

they hung out together a lot.

That's so nice.

Yeah, I met your mom once at some panel or something.

I don't remember, but she was.

I mean, she was a

tough fraud.

A little scary.

Yeah.

I just, I did, I've been working on this documentary about them for like the last five years.

Yeah.

Five years.

Yeah, and it's finally finished, and it's going to be coming out in October.

On what?

On Apple.

It's an Apple original film.

Totally on Apple Service and also in theaters, too.

Did you dig up all the old footage?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

So there's a lot of Mike Douglas.

There's a lot of Merv Griffin.

There's a lot of Barbara Walters doing a show.

Barbara Walters did a Sunday morning show called Not for for Women Only,

where they would like have people in a studio and they'd talk about issues.

So my parents are talking about a lot of real stuff

in their relationship.

Did you learn anything?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Things you didn't know about?

Well, I mean, my dad also recorded a lot of their conversations.

He recorded us a lot.

Like Nixon?

Kind of.

Well, he would do a rehearsal.

Like they'd rehearse for, and they'd improvise on their, you know, their sketches.

So they'd tape it, and then he'd keep the tape going.

Oh, yeah.

So you have some arguments that they had.

Oh, and discussions about like my mom's drinking.

Really?

Stuff like yes.

It's all in the documentary.

Was it triggering?

I mean, how could it not be?

I know.

But were there moments where you're just like, oh, my God.

I mean, I still have those moments because I look at this thing and I'm like, it's kind of weird.

Like sometimes I don't know if it's totally healthy because I'm like, I go back and I'm like spending time with my parents.

Oh, yeah.

You know, it's like

it actually feels good.

Right.

But it's the first time you're detached from it.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You're in a safe space.

Right.

And also, it's in a movie that I've made.

Yeah, yeah.

So in a way, like I can control it.

Oh, that's true.

I'll show them.

What if I put this here?

Exactly.

But it's kind of great, too, because I feel like I did learn stuff about them and I see them in a different context because I really do feel like I kind of understand a little bit more about how tough their

work dynamic could be because they were tied to working together as a comedy team.

And it was like, it was just all within the space of our apartment where they would have one room that they'd work in.

After a while, they got an office on 57th Street.

But a lot of it was just happening sort of like, you know, it was all like overlapping with our lives.

Well, it's a weird thing when you, like, if you have difficult parents, no matter what they do, that

to separate the bad things that you have in you of them from the good things, like how to manage like, all right, well, this is not a great thing I've inherited from this person.

How do I keep that under, or like, how do I manage that and embrace the other thing as opposed to just be pissed off?

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, and also, I think when you're younger, there's a stuff that you rebel against.

You say, I'm definitely not doing that or not doing that.

And then for me in life,

life has gone on and I've made those mistakes.

And I've done those things.

And I see it from another perspective, too, having kids and seeing my attitude towards my kids who

both are wanting to, my daughter's an actress, my son's going studying.

It's like, you know, my parents must have been thinking when I was doing it, those protective feelings, the concerns, all that stuff.

Is there any part of you that's sort of like, don't do show business?

Sure, sure.

It's like, you know, I got lucky.

I got talent.

I made it, but most people don't.

Well, I don't.

I think that's how my dad, I know that's how my dad felt about me going into it.

But as soon as he saw that I was serious about really, like, I was just going to do it,

he was supportive and then protective.

Yeah.

My mother was a little bit more at arm's length with it.

I don't know how to explain it.

She was not, she wasn't, not that she wasn't supportive.

She just was a tougher audience.

You know, so the bar was a little bit higher.

And by the way, I like I actually

sort of feel like I have a similar sensibility to my mother comedically than my father, more similarly than my mother.

Really?

Yeah.

Like, yeah, in terms of like the stuff that my mother, like my mother would like, like, love spinal tap.

Right.

My dad, I think, would appreciate spinal tap, but not really.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

Because Because he's broader.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, he was from the Eddie Cantor trade.

I don't get it.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, and he would enjoy it.

He wasn't like tough on things like that.

But my mother really loved the nuance of those show business humor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I just watched, what was it, Day Trippers, where she played that?

She's great.

She's so good in that.

Yeah, she's a good actress.

No, she's great.

Yeah, and she's in fame, the movie fame.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

She plays the mean English teacher.

But when she was like,

it's already

a problem when when you have a mom that's like not necessarily judgmental, but slightly diminishing, you know, just in terms of whatever that is in their being that does that.

But to perform for your mother and to not get the laugh or something, it must be like, that must really kind of give you some chops of some kind.

Yeah, I mean,

I guess so.

I don't remember like really like performing for her.

You know, not bouncing bits off her.

No, it was more like kind of when I went out in the world and started acting and doing my stuff, what she responded to.

Oh, yeah.

But when she didn't respond,

what did she say?

Like, I don't.

It was never like a direct.

Like, I don't get it.

What do you mean?

It was just more like,

like, I remember when.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, she'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, that was good.

That was good.

Did you see, like, when I was making, this is like,

first of all, like, I had the probably the, I had a great close relationship with my mother, especially as she got older.

Yeah.

And, but she, like, like, when I made, was I was making Secret Life of Walter Mitty, that was a big one.

Argo had just come out.

And she was like obsessed with Argo.

And she's like, oh, did you see Argo?

I was like, yeah, yeah, it's really good.

She's like, oh, it's so good.

Or go fuck yourself.

Argo.

I'm like, yeah, yeah.

I'm like, mom, did you check out my movie?

I mean, it was a subtle thing.

But

it would just be like, oh, why can't.

It's the worst.

Yeah.

Like before I had any visibility, my dad would say things like, hey, why don't you, you know, maybe call Bill Maher.

Maybe he can help you.

Exactly.

Right.

No matter what you do.

Right.

No matter what you do.

And Walter Mitty was a huge movie.

Yeah, yeah.

She'd be like, why don't you do a movie with the Cohen brothers?

I'd be like, I would happily if they called me.

It's never enough.

Yeah.

What did she like that you did?

She liked the stuff I did with Noah, Bomback, like Greenberg.

She really, you know, like the, or Permanent Midnight, she liked a lot.

The Meyerwood stories I just re-watched.

Yeah, yeah.

That's such a fucking great movie.

Yeah, it's a good movie.

Yeah.

Like

he's great.

Noah's great.

And Adam's great in it.

Adam's so good.

It's crazy.

And Dustin Hoffman's great.

And just the end of that movie where they go into the basement and they dig out that box.

I know.

It's the fucking best.

Yeah.

No, it's very moving.

Oh, my God.

So

I have to tell you, like,

I was watching the Academy Awards, and I talked to you about this 15 years ago.

15 years ago.

But it was a different bit.

But it's so funny that the way I'm i'm wired to uh receive you know you is like when conan says brought you up yeah that ben stiller was going to present i was like here we go

now we're going to get a laugh i don't know what he's going to do

oh the pressure it was so funny though it was it literally paid off it satisfied i'm very happy that it worked

i don't know how you do that those things are so surreal but i don't know how you do that like because i you know and i i mean outside of whether you want to hear it or not, I think you're like one of the best physical comedians ever.

Wow.

And, but it's so natural because it's not something that I have.

Like, if I'm going to do a physical bid, I got to work on it.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, it seems that you can just do it.

Like, if like the end of my last special, I mean, I had to orchestrate this thing and figure out the beats, but you got to do that, right?

Right.

Yeah, sure.

I mean, those are all like technical things where, like, how did you get the timing?

You had to trust a guy?

Yeah, we went through it in rehearsal, and I just basically said, you know, I've learned what the parameters of the elevator thing were.

And then I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't too easy.

It was like, and in rehearsal, it was too hard.

Too easy to what?

Too easy to get up.

Like when the thing started going down and I like finally got up at the end and I wanted to make sure that it didn't wasn't too easy so it didn't look like fake or something.

But in rehearsal, they made it too hard and I could, I literally could try to do it and couldn't.

And people were laughing.

I was like, no, this isn't funny.

I'm trying, I literally can't get up there.

But it would be funny if I could almost do it and then finally get up there.

So it was just like trying to figure out the right height.

And then I had like did that thing where I was jumping up and down.

And so I realized I needed a mini tramp.

So they slid a mini tramp in there for me.

So that was the thing I was most stressed about: I'd miss on the mini tramp and like, you know, fall and not come back up.

Yeah.

And then I just wanted to get the words out.

Right.

That was the other thing.

Because you just, on those things, you just don't want to, you just don't want to screw up the words.

You want to just like have it go smooth because like one little flub kind of just, because it's so short, it just throws off the whole thing.

Yeah, and it's remembering.

Yeah.

So it was just like, can I just get the words out?

Will I be able to read the teleprompter without my glasses?

And is the height of the elevator thing right?

And then it just becomes like, all right, like right that moment before you do it.

Yeah.

And the thing, the guy puts the elevator down, you just hear like, why am I doing this?

What is my life about?

Why do this doesn't even matter?

Of course it doesn't matter.

Yeah, whatever.

Whatever happens, happens.

This is just, these are just human beings sitting in a room.

And then it's

almost yourself down.

Well, just sort of like, and like, didn't I do this like 20 years ago?

Like, why am I, why have I not progressed any further in my career?

Well, that's definitely not true, but because like the timing of it.

No, no, I can't.

I give myself credit for recognizing when they pitched me a couple of ideas that I was like, okay, that idea seems like it's funny and simple.

Because it was so simple that I thought, okay, this is.

And you had to time out right.

Like, you had to, like, you had to come up and then it had to stop.

Right.

But then you're also at the mercy of the technical people.

Right.

So you just have to trust them that they're going to do what you did in rehearsal.

Right.

And thankfully, they were great and they did it.

Oh, it's so fucking funny.

And then you're just so happy when it's over.

Yeah.

So happy when it's over.

If it lands.

And it landed your hands.

No, no, when it lands, it's great.

It's great.

And you come off and you're just so happy and you see people with their Oscars.

And then you're like, oh, they have an Oscar and I did a bit.

But it's not nothing.

And the person with the Oscars is like, oh, my God, you're so funny.

You're so funny.

I'm like, thanks.

Yeah, yeah.

Congrats.

I got to go.

Wait, you haven't gotten an Oscar yet?

Not yet.

Oh, goddammit.

It's just killing you, huh?

You know, at this point, when you hit this point in your life,

I've won nothing.

You have to look at

what are your goals?

Because, you know, do you want to spend your last 20 years worrying about the stuff that you haven't gotten?

But isn't that weird, though?

It's like, it's not even worrying about it because for some reason, my timing with, I'll blame timing.

Yeah.

Like

I've gotten no prizes.

And

well, I got one for podcasting that was important within our medium.

Right, right.

But there's still this thing where, and I don't do as much as you in the big-time show business, but you just,

you spit, you can spend your whole life saying it doesn't matter.

Right.

Like, you know, you're doing the work, but it so fucking matters.

It matters in that people, you know, it's an acknowledgement and it's an ego thing that we all would love.

Yes, the ego thing.

But it's also, it's very, I think it's a very real thing that if you focus on that, I mean, that's like, you know, Tropic Thunder, whatever.

It's like actors like getting getting obsessed with, you know, you can't do it.

It's not something you can focus on going like, I want that prize, so I'm going to do this with that.

Well, that's just doesn't

encourage it.

Yeah, I know.

It doesn't work at all.

Well, no, you can't.

I mean, you can do the best work you can and then think it deserves an award.

Right.

But then also, of course, there's also like all of the machinations that go behind that.

Well, that's the thing.

Yes.

It's not like based on some system of merit.

Right, right.

But then I look at like Daniel Daylos.

I'm like, yeah, of course.

But like, but usually it's just based on, you know, our peers or or the hundreds of people who we don't know in show business, you know, going through a site going like, I didn't see that, but I like him.

Right, exactly.

Exactly.

And the campaigning and what people, you know, which, which, you know, it was funny, I was talking to Seth Rogan last night and we were talking about having a TV show and all of the Emmy campaigning stuff and all that stuff that happens, right?

Yeah.

And when you have a successful show,

the stuff that you were not aware of, or us both having done movies for a lot of years, going like, I never knew there was like this American Film Institute top 10

movies and shows luncheon that's been going on for like 30 years.

Yeah.

Yeah, because we were never invited to that.

It's like all of a sudden, like, now your show is getting recognized.

Oh, wait, there's this thing.

And then, yeah, oh, yeah, we've been doing the, you know, Spielberg.

Yeah, I've been doing these things for years.

It's like, oh, this is just something that was not on my calendar.

Nobody no one told you.

It's not that anybody tells you, like, oh, this is happening, but you don't have to do it.

It's just it happens and nobody's not aware.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, like, well, I realize that too about the directors guild.

You know, like, it's a very,

like, when I talk to directors, they, they all kind of know each other because it's a relatively small community.

Yeah.

Like, those, like, the, the director's guild is not 10,000 people.

Right.

Right.

There's like, what, a few hundred at you?

I think, I'm not sure how many, but it's definitely smaller than like the academies.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it feels like a kind of a unified bunch somehow.

Yeah, and also, I mean, honestly, the directors guild awards and those things, like, those are the things that are like, as when it's your peers, you know, those are the things you really appreciate because it's people that you really appreciate.

Sure.

So even to be able to like hang out with those guys or to go to one of those events and talk with other directors for me is always the most enjoyable.

The best, right?

Yeah, because I really, you know, I really love.

movies and to be able to talk to like yesterday I also got to talk to Rob Reiner because they were doing something for a spinal attack too.

Yeah, and we didn't hear him.

Did he say this?

Trump, right?

Yeah.

He did not bring Trump up.

He didn't, to his credit.

He didn't bring Trump up.

He's so funny.

Yeah.

But I also got to say to him, I sort of got to fanboy to him because this guy's made some, like, more than a lot of incredible movies.

Oh, yeah.

You know?

Oh, yeah.

And it's just sort of that appreciation for me, like, even as a kid growing up watching movies, even when my folks were in the business, I just, I really, I kind of nerd out because I was like, didn't he?

He did the Princess Bride?

Yeah.

And didn't he do Stand By Me?

Yeah.

And he did A Few Good Men.

And he did Spinal Tap.

I mean, he did Misery.

It's like the guy has had a run.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah, he's a really good director and different genres.

And you know what's great about him is like there's no affectation.

He's just a loud Jew.

You know,

you can come right down to it and he's like, what?

But he's so funny.

Like as an actor, Meathead.

The best.

Meathead is, right?

He was like, come on, arch, arch.

But then in Spinal Tap, he's the best straight man.

The best.

He just sets them up, asks them the questions.

They're improvising.

He knows how to just not react or react.

I mean, I don't know.

I really appreciate that.

Did you watch the doc with him and Albert?

Yeah, yeah.

It's pretty funny.

It's a very managed situation, but it was fun.

Sure, funny.

But you know what?

I'm glad somebody is giving Albert Brooks the

it took me so many so long to get him.

You know, I had him on, you know, but he made me go.

You know, he didn't want to come here.

Okay.

I don't know why.

He didn't want me to come to his house.

Where's he doing?

He got a room at that old Deco hotel on Santa Monica, Georgia, or something.

I can't remember.

It's a beautiful place.

But he's like, meet me here.

We'll do it there.

And

that's where it happens.

Was it fun?

It was great.

It was great.

He's the best.

I just watched the other day the Albert Brooks School of Comedy.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

One early, the early show.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

It's like one of his earliest ones where he walks in the room and they're doing spit takes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the guy's talking about things that are like funny and things that aren't funny and like cancer.

Yeah.

Cancer, not funny.

Yeah.

He's just so funny.

But yeah,

you know, I think I'm slowly compiling a list of modern masterpieces.

Yeah.

And Tropic Thunder is pretty high up there.

Oh, wow.

But apparently, according to my producer, the last time you were on, we talked about that at the end of the day.

We did?

Okay.

That's how long ago Tropic Thunder was.

What have you done lately?

Well, I watched it.

I watched it again.

Oh, wow.

Really?

Yeah.

It's the fucking best.

Yeah.

I'm so happy that it has a life, you know.

I try to keep things alive, you know, with people, but it does have a life.

It does.

You kind of get feedback from it.

Yes, I do.

Yeah.

And also a lot of it is in relation to like the cancel culture and like you couldn't make that movie.

Oh, right, right, right.

It's like a perennial sort of question.

What do you think of that, though?

I mean, like, when you think of

we'll talk about the other stuff, but like those type of, well, just film comedy in general.

I mean, are they even doing it?

I don't think it exists right now.

It's kind of weird, right?

Yeah.

Because no one's willing to take a chance or what.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I mean, I think it's just the movie economics right now is that the movies that are in theaters are not, you know, are movies that have to seem like they have to make a huge amount of money.

Right.

Like a billion dollars.

And then comedy had its day.

It used to make money.

Yeah, it did.

And people not going.

I feel bad that people can't experience the fun of what we used to experience all the time, which was comedies in theaters and people laughing their

asses off.

Yeah.

And just feeling that energy in the theater.

And no more.

It was so exciting.

How did we get him back?

I don't know.

It was hard to land.

I think show business is in a weird place in terms of just what streaming has done to movies.

And, you know, I'm happy that movies are, that blockbuster movies are working and that people are going to the theaters, but it's hard to

make something that is not a blockbuster now or is not a sequel or is not a genre movie like a horror movie that they can make for a moment.

Horror movies.

That's the thing.

It seems like all the creative, like truly inspired people are going to horror because it's the place with the most freedom.

Yeah, and it's a genre where they can make them for a budget that would then

get the money back at the theater.

And it's, yeah, it's too bad that the movies that we grew up watching in the theaters, you know, dramas and comedies and sort of these mid-budget movies, you know, that, you know, like Dog Day Afternoon and movies like that were like mainstream movies.

The best.

Yeah, the best.

That one's crazy.

I hosted it at the Cinematech screening.

Yeah, recently.

Yeah, not from last year.

Oh,

they were like, do you want to host a movie?

And I'm like, yeah, and my first one was Dog Day.

Oh, so great.

And by coincidence, some woman who's a listener was the assistant editor on it.

And she had this story about having to bring the one cut that existed up to a screening room for Lumette and Pacino.

And she left it on the ground when she was getting into a cab and it got run over by a bus.

Oh, my God.

The one print.

So this day of panic, of hoping the film wasn't damaged, and then not telling them, it all worked out.

But what a great fucking story.

The idea that that time existed, like you got the one print?

Yeah, the print.

Holy fuck.

But I wish it was more comedy.

I keep thinking like the last time I, did you watch that movie with Nicholas Cage, the dream scenario?

I didn't see it, no.

Oh, boy, there's a fart scene in that that's worth that's worth the last 10 years of comedy.

Really?

Oh my God.

I had not heard about that.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

And then when I was watching that, just the laughs of something that simple, I was like, where are these movies?

Where's the whole fart movie?

Yeah, I know.

I have to believe.

And you actually mocked that in Tropic Thunder.

Yeah,

Fatty Spark too.

I mean, I wish I knew what the answer was, other than I think somebody has to make a comedy that a studio puts in theaters that does well.

And also, like a lot of the, I don't know who the truly hilarious people are that have

the gravitas to carry a movie.

Well, that's a whole other

discussion, I think.

Yeah.

In terms of like not having a runway for actors

to build a career in movies because that doesn't really exist anymore.

Right.

So

they can't hold it.

Yeah, because

then is there sort of this catch-22 where the studios want to have a recognizable star in a movie.

Yeah.

So to kind of guarantee that people are going to go.

But then there hasn't been any ladder to build those stars.

So it's stuck with people like old people

who people know somehow that then they, you know, and that can't, that model can't last forever.

Right.

You know,

it's too bad because there's so many talented people who should be in the movies and that

should be big movie stars.

But I guess you're right that the business of movies doesn't exist in the same way at all.

So they've got to find it's like they're not willing to take the chances on the movies that will create stars.

Yeah.

And so you get plugged in, maybe somebody gets plugged into a superhero movie or something like that, and and then they end their career that way.

But

it's unfortunate because

there's a dearth of

those people.

But you don't have, but you're interested.

I mean, it's not like a dearth of talented actors.

It's just like proven actors in movies

that get the chance to carry something.

Well, some people are hilarious that are, you know, there are movie stars that are hilarious that aren't essentially comic actors.

And when they do comedy, like if Clooney does a comedy or Matt David, you're happy about it.

but still we're the young guns of the funny stuff.

Yeah.

Well, that's also the, I always feel like that's also bonus comedy.

Like, it's always easy to have bonus comedy in something where you're not expecting it to necessarily be funny, but the humor is added in.

Oh, yeah.

And then you really appreciate it.

Oh, it's the best.

Even like on Severance, I feel like it's so much less pressure because it's not a comedy.

It's just.

Well, yeah, but there's some funny that there, there's very funny shit.

Yeah, but I feel like we're allowed to put that in there because there's no expectation of like, okay, we're the laughs.

Right.

And

that's a load off.

Yes, it's a load off.

But that's interesting.

So, but your interest in comedy in terms of projects or directing is limited if not there at this point, right?

There's an interest.

There is.

I'm just, I don't know how to figure it out really right now.

Because severance, for me.

Not, you know, not being totally a sci-fi guy and being impatient.

Sounds like this show for you.

No, my girlfriend loved it.

I mean, she was like crazy about it.

She really, she's got this dream that you could put her dog into the next season.

I don't know why.

Yeah, she's got this miniature bull terrier that she just thinks should be a star.

But no pressure.

Let's have a meet and greet.

Yeah, okay.

You can zoom with the dog.

But yeah, I watched all of it.

But for me, and I appreciated it.

But like at some point with shows like that, about halfway through, I'm like, all right, let's just, let's wrap it up.

Where's this going?

How long do I got to wait?

I can't figure it out.

I can't figure it out.

I understand.

I get that.

But I think it was great.

It was beautiful.

It was funny.

It was like, and she said to me, interesting, she said, well, if you've never worked in a job,

it's not going to land the same way.

But what's interesting to me about it is like, I never worked in a cubicle office job ever, too.

So I'm sort of fascinated with that world because I never experienced it.

For me, what was interesting about it and I was excited was when I read the pilot, I thought the tone of it was so unique.

Yeah.

And it reminded me of these office comedies.

Okay.

It reminded me of like The Office or Parks and Wreck or it just had this banter.

But it wasn't written as a comedy.

It was written as like a weird, like,

I think there were elements of humor.

I think he was thinking about like, what if the office was in like this weird Twilight Zone where people like were going to work and doing their thing, but they didn't know who they were or what they were doing or why they were there.

Right.

And so, you know, it's a little bit of this sort of like, you know, six characters in search of an offer.

Sure, sure.

And that's one of the, it's such a high concept.

That's like that, like Charlie Kaufman script, where you're just sort of like, what?

Yeah.

No, but the basic idea behind it was like, what if you could just shut off your outside life when you go to work, and then when you left work, you don't remember what happened and you just go back to your life so you don't have to have the drudgery of, you know, eight hours or ten hours at work.

Right.

And so that was where it came out of for Dan Erickson.

Yeah.

And then the the idea of like, well, how can you, can you really deaden parts of your, you know, of your,

like,

can you deaden pain?

Can you mask pain?

Can you forget things if you, you know, can you cut yourself?

Can you turn off yourself of self?

Yeah.

And then the question is like, well, then what, if you have two selves, the one that goes to work and the one that's outside, which is the real one?

Right.

And can we compartmentalize like that?

And then the questions in the show through the second season become like, well, who's more important, the any or the Audi?

Right.

And yeah.

So the device of the implant was always there from the day?

Yeah, from the beginning.

That was what I thought was really interesting was that it's not really a sci-fi show because the only sci-fi part of it is the chip.

Yeah.

The chip is just like a, if we believe there's a chip you can put in your head that could, you know, get triggered and cut off your memory from, you know, the outside world.

All the guy's doing is he has a chip in his head and he goes into an elevator.

Yeah.

And he literally just goes down a few.

Gets activated.

Yeah.

So there's nothing like magical happening.

So So it's not sci-fi because, like, come on, they can do that, man.

They could do that.

Right, right.

Which, by the way, yeah, they're on their way to being able to do that.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah.

Neuralink and all that stuff.

Right.

But that's what was interesting to me.

It was like, okay, so this is actually just like a guy going down the elevator, but he just doesn't remember who he is upstairs.

Right.

And then there's also a weird sort of like mystical kind of company, you know.

History.

History and, you know, ethos that is, you know, very religious.

Secret society kind of thing.

Yeah.

And so who came up with that script?

That was all part of the original screen.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then we kind of developed it out as we worked on the episodes to really this company lure, the idea of sort of

like

the company being almost a religion.

And that goes back to like, you know, like to Amway or you know, back in the day.

Even earlier.

Yeah.

You know, like the,

what was it?

What was the one, the Kelloggs or somebody, the one that started as sort of this health food culture.

Right, right.

And then eventually became a cereal.

Right.

Or whatever.

Yeah, I think they were all the early sort of

business entrepreneurs were kind of hucksters on some level.

Yeah, and the question of this guy, Kier Egan, who created the company, what his story

around the time of the Civil War.

Yeah.

And a guy who was trying to figure out something that would

help you

dead in pain.

But so building out the secret society or religious cult or the, like, how did that evolve?

How many writers were on that thing?

It's like basically a very small group.

It was Dan Erickson who created the show, and then we had a couple of other guys, Mark Friedman, the first season, and myself and Dan and Mark spent a lot of time talking about all of it.

And it was all out of Dan's mind.

But we really wanted there to be like a very, very specific history that these people were taught.

Because imagine if you're in this world where you don't know anything else, this corporate theology and ideology becomes everything for these innies because they don't have any other religion or any memory of a life.

That's right, so they're blank slates.

Yeah.

So, in a way, you know, there is a certain amount of

cult-like sort of activity going on.

And how does it feel to

have a show where you've got an entire sort of group of like severance nerd Reddit people who are trying to deconstruct or read into it?

Yeah.

But you know the answer.

Right.

And, you know, like, because I, sadly, I know that most of the time when you're writing, you're flying by the seat of your pants, you don't have answers yet.

And, you know, you're like still working on

the episode that's two after the one you're shooting.

Yep.

And that no one's sitting there going like, no, the goats are getting.

But look,

it's not that on this show because there is a lot that has to be, you know, thought out.

All the way through.

It has to be, but you're right in that the creative process is very messy, and it should be.

You know what I mean?

The creative process has to allow space to figure stuff out.

But I've never experienced anything like this where I've worked on something where people are so curious.

First of all, the people who are fans of the show, which I so appreciate, are watching every little detail.

For some reason, from the first season, they really saw.

Well, it's so sparse.

I mean, like everything is infused with meaning.

Right.

When you know, it is so that the way it's shot right when when very little happens when something happens it's very little yeah from everything from you know the you know the the gifts that they get you know to you know to the the the fruit platter to whatever exactly yeah and then like when you bring goats in it's over right you know people are going to be wondering about goats for like you know and we the first season apple was concerned about the goats that we in what way they that they thought the goats they were like concerned that we were going to have goats in the show because they just didn't want to deal with animals they were like no like maybe the goats are too weird Like, are people going to be able to, like, is that going to be too out there?

And what do you mean?

That's the thing.

Well, just that there would be baby goats in a room.

Yeah, in a room.

And we were like, no, this is like what the show is.

And we feel like this, and interestingly, the baby goats did become a real focal point for the first season.

But yeah, like it's the audience for the show is paying such close attention.

So you know that, and by the way, that's like, what a great thing.

Because when you make stuff, you hope that people are going to like pay attention.

Like, how many times have you made something and you go like, I hope the guy's not watching it like on his phone

while he's watching Knicks game or you know, whatever.

It's like, how can you?

Or watching it at all?

Or watching it?

And they're like, they're like, where is it on?

For sure.

I mean, that's the other thing.

We've all done stuff too that like you make it and then it kind of just goes into the ether because there's so much stuff out there.

So I'm very like aware of like

to have an audience that's paying attention and watching is like, that's a good thing.

Well, the type of people that like that it gravitates or that it resonates with, like for me, I don't know if if it's because I'm old or what but even when you know we get the resolution at the end of the season I'm the guy who's sort of like I'm not sure I get it right

and I think that might just be my age because that's what for me that's what my wife is for because she's the one who explains everything to me too

I've just become my parents it happens what are we gonna do because I'm I'm like that too what's interesting to me also on the show is that people get are focusing on different things so people get really locked up in like what is the the mystery of what they're doing or why they're doing it.

But other people get really into the relationships and like with Mark and Helie and Helena and

Gemma, they care about that too.

So it's like constantly kind of like trying to

navigate

all these different aspects of the show that you hope people are connecting with.

Yeah, it's amazing.

It's kind of astounding how much you got in there.

And I think that when you can deal with

a kind of poetry that is sparse, that it must enable you to, when you decide on an element, and you know it's going to pop because

that's the whole show.

It's not complicated in terms of how it's set.

So if you do something that's a little cryptic, you know it's going to be loaded.

Exactly.

And

it can imply anything.

There's a poetry to it.

Yeah, and that's the fun of it, too.

Yeah.

Because

you don't want to answer people's questions or give them too much feedback on what they're stipulating or or postulating because you don't want to take away the possibility for them of what it might be for them.

Because even if it might not be that for me, I've seen people write out

theories that are like, oh, yeah, that actually could be something.

Where'd you find Trammell, though?

I've never seen him before.

He came in and audition.

What an interesting guy.

Yeah.

And it was interesting to see his character develop over the course of two seasons, too.

Because

he really has a lot of layers to what's going on in his face, too, when you watch him work.

Oh, and the dancing?

And like, how much of that stuff was, did you give that?

Was like, you know, I didn't know he was such a great dancer, but we had this idea to do this music dance experience.

And I said, should we get a choreographer?

He's like, yeah, we could get a choreographer, but I have some ideas.

And then he got out and did his.

I was like, oh, my God.

Yeah.

You're like,

smoothest guy ever.

But

how did you sort of devise, like,

what was your thinking around the,

not so much the direction, but in terms of production design and all that stuff, what were you thinking when you decided on it?

Were you thinking like

THX?

Were you looking at sci-fi stuff?

A little bit, but it was like a lot of reference points with Jeremy Hindle, our production designer, and Jessica Lee Gagne, who's a cinematographer.

We would like to get a lot of photography and just look at like pictures by like the guys like Lars Tunbjork,

you know, and Elliot Irwood, even like stuff like 60s office photography.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And then design elements from like, you know, like Russia in the 60s and like just weird sort of brutalist stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we put together a book, a look book, like a 200-page lookbook that's always growing that Jeremy was in charge of.

And we just started to go, yeah, this, this image, this image, this image.

So we knew we had to have this main set where a lot of the show was going to take place.

And it was written as sort of an oversized room with four cubicles in the center

and a slightly lower ceiling.

And that's it.

And the effect of that, like when you must have looked at the framing of that, you're like, oh my God, this is it.

Well, I was because it's so bizarre.

But also, we thought, okay, if this show is successful and runs for a few seasons, a lot of scenes are going to take place in this room.

And that was a little bit daunting to me because I knew that this set was sort of like the hero's set.

Yeah.

And I'd never made a series before.

I did Escape at Dana Moore.

It was a limited series, but I'd never done like an open-ended series.

Yeah, but also like Dan Amara, it's a fucking prison.

It's a prison, right?

So it's a reality.

You're just going for it.

Right.

Like, you know, this, I mean, it must be.

But weirdly, this place is kind of like a prison, too.

Of course, but it must be daunting to realize

the weight that the actors have to carry, you know, in such a sparse thing.

Like these characters.

100%.

But even with the set, the first thing I'm thinking is like, okay, the carpet.

What color green is the carpet?

Because whatever color green we choose, this is going to be the color of the carpet for like, you know, the next five seasons if the show goes.

So those, those responsibility, the responsibility of those questions and making those decisions was like, I did think about that a lot.

And then it was like, okay, this set is basically this set.

It's kind of cool, low ceiling.

It has some really great angles.

The ceiling is really interesting.

But then at the end of the day, it's the actors.

It's going to be, it's all about the actors in the show.

It's crazy.

I mean, it's the best thing I think that Adam Scott's ever done.

He's great.

Well, I mean, it's like there's so much depth and weirdness and shifting between things.

And, you know, and he's a funny guy.

Yeah.

But like, you know, it really, if he's he's funny in this it's only because he's he's wry right about you know what I mean but that the struggle of that character he really did a fucking great job yeah and he was to me was always the choice for it because of what he'd done in Parks and Rec and like understanding and I work with him in MIDI like I knew that he got that that sort of office humor rhythm but then I also felt like he had a lot underneath that too.

It's so funny to think about that there that at the core of this is sort of an office comedy

because it does function that way in terms of their dynamic.

But then all the other layers of things, it's almost like it's not that it's nothing, but it's sort of, it just kind of gives life to the coldness of the rest of it.

Right.

Well, it does become like, it's like a workplace.

You know what I mean?

It's a workplace, but they're in, like, maybe in hell.

We don't know.

That's not, by the way, what it is.

Oh, yeah.

Don't cause trouble with people are going to be waiting for it.

Like, how are you doing another season?

That would be like the most obvious thing.

They're in hell.

we are we're doing another season but isn't it amazing you create this canvas for people to

because it's uh bordering on sci-fi that they can think anything yes i i've never been in that world before and it's amazing it's amazing and it's it's really fun it's fun to be because then you're like oh wow we actually if we do this in in a way that's deliberate we can you know it can be really entertaining and fun to give people yes those the the freedom to have those theories yeah and and patricia our quette like i mean you work with her on Dan Amora, and it was like, she is so intense and such a great actress that you, like, when you cast her, you just knew that that would be the anchor of this kind of thing.

Yeah, you know, it was sort of like the role was to me, like, it kind of like the, I thought like the more sort of like straight ahead casting would have been like someone like Tilda Swinton or something for that role, you know, because she was like kind of this very like ice-cold

boss.

Right.

But I also, having just worked with Patricia on Dan Amora when we started working on Severance, and she had played like sort of the opposite of that character.

I was like, I could see Patricia as this kind of cold ice queen who has so, she has such a weird sense of humor, too, in real life.

Have you ever had her on?

Yeah, yeah, years ago.

You know, she's just so funny and goofy.

But also, she's got that, that sort of,

you know, that kind of like emotional

just, you know, a slight emotional instability somewhere in there.

Sure.

Yeah.

So like the character who was brought up in the religion of the corporate cult, then starts breaking away, you know, to be able to play that.

Yes.

Where she like, you know, is betrayed by the corporate cult policy.

I mean, like, she's the perfect person to do that.

Yeah.

Well, she invests so much into it.

You know what I mean?

And she is so vulnerable.

Yeah.

And I don't know.

I love her.

I love working with her.

She's the most incredible person.

She's, you know, she really cares about people.

She just, you know, and she's just, and then she's just like, she doesn't, she's not precious in any way, and she's willing to take chances.

Yeah.

Because honestly, the first season on the show, we were trying to figure out her character.

Yeah.

I mean, she was trying so many different things.

Yeah.

And I think in my head, I had a, like, an idea that was my preconceived idea of what Miss Cobel was.

And she had a slightly different idea.

And I kept on like kind of going back and forth, well, maybe it's this or that.

And to her credit, she like let me kind of

be a pain in the butt for a long time with her.

Well maybe try this or that, you know?

And I don't think there's there's very few actors I would feel comfortable even having that.

Like, I would not, like, with Christopher Walken, who I love and is the sweetest guy in the world, yeah, I maybe have said two words of direction to him ever

because he's Chris Walken.

And, like, I'll say, maybe, like, hey, maybe this time a little slower.

Yeah.

Or, like, I didn't quite hear that last line.

That's about it because I don't want to mess.

And by the way, Chris Walken and Patricia Arquette are equally brilliant people, but I have a relationship with, and I know Chris because he worked with my dad back in the 80s.

And he's the warmest.

I go to his house, and I love him.

But

when it comes to acting and directing him, I

didn't.

Like, what am I going to say to Chris Watkins?

Well, some directors, like I've talked to people, like they, like, it was kind of mind-blowing to me when I talked to, I think, Walter Hill.

Because I was like, my perception of what a director does, I'm like, how much do you, you know, kind of work with the actors?

He goes, I don't.

I hired them because

you're going to do the job.

That's what Ridley Scott says too.

Yeah.

It's like, and it's a very specific attitude that great directors.

And I can understand that because sometimes I've worked with directors who, like, as an actor, who will come in and start talking and you're like, well, you're getting in my head.

What do you, you know, you don't have to necessarily say anything to me if it's working, you know, if it's working.

Right, right, yeah.

Like, like, you don't have to justify the job by coming in and doing like, you have to this or that.

And I think those directors who have a really healthy sense of themselves in terms of how they work know that that, no, no, it's like the actors do their thing it's about the casting exactly you've you you've hired the guy to do a thing yes but i mean but my perception was always like you know you're gonna work close right the director and really hammer this out but in my experience of being on set it's usually like maybe maybe not so you know you're coming in a little hot right

can you turn that down a little bit and it's yeah no problem it's it's whatever's it should be whatever is needed Right.

You know what I mean?

Like to me, that's what the job of the director is, is you're watching the scene and you're looking at it, and get the camera set up and hopefully the right place.

Yeah.

And then you watch the rehearsal and then you react to what is working, what's not working.

Or if you think an actor is missing something or if you're not believing something,

whatever it is.

And then you have to figure out how to communicate to whoever it is you want to communicate that note.

But sometimes not saying anything is a way of doing it too, because maybe the next take, they won't do that.

Maybe me saying something is going to get too much in their head.

And this actor seems to want to have space.

Other actors seem to want to talk it through.

But I also think, like, what you're saying with Patricia, it's not that you're just saying, like, let's try this or that.

It's not like you're not getting it.

I think with Patricia, because I'd had the experience of Dana Mora and we'd worked together

30 years ago or whatever on Flirting with Disaster, and I hadn't really seen her a lot since.

And who she is as a person,

I feel like she's like a sister or something.

Yeah, sure, sure.

I don't know.

You know how some people, you just have that comfortability.

So I felt from the previous pro by the way, I didn't give her a lot of direction when we were were doing Dan Amora, too, because she came in the same way like Robert Downey on Tropic Thunder.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not, this guy came in with his thing.

I'm just watching going, oh, shit.

You know, as an audience, I'm going, that's good.

Okay.

I like that.

So when, right?

It's like, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So you just, right?

And that's what your job is.

And then to figure out how you can communicate what you want to communicate without making it worse.

Yeah.

But it's like you said, it's kind of like there is

a a theatricality to the thing.

It's almost like a play.

Yes.

So

everything operates as sort of this Beckett-like situation.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

And so you had a lot of, like, you knew that anything any actor was going to say

it was going to resonate.

Right, for sure.

And also, like, I love trusting that not having to, you talk about the pace in the show and stuff like that.

It might be a reaction for me from having the years of

the test screenings and the pacing and sort of, you know, doing like, you know, a screening of a comedy.

It's been around a long time.

Yeah, exactly.

Back in the day where, you know, we'd do the test screen, the focus group, and you'd sit in the back of the theater and they'd be like, so what'd you think?

And even Ben Stiller fans here.

I'm like, yeah.

That's over, huh?

You don't have to do that anymore.

Well, on Dana Moore, that was the first thing I ever made that I didn't have to test it.

Yeah.

The first thing I ever directed that I really had to test.

And it was so freeing.

And so I was like, wait a minute, I could do this whole scene and I'm just going to let it play out and that's it.

I'm not going to see if anybody thinks it's too long or anything like that.

And that's what we did.

And then we'd send it to the network and they were like, yeah, that's good.

Or they'd say, like, this might have been a little, like, maybe you could tighten this up.

And that's a whole other thing.

But it's so different that these projects you're doing, even like from the jump from MIDI to Dan and Mora to all this stuff.

So you just want to try shit.

Yeah.

I also want to make stuff that I really want to see.

What drew you to Dan Amora?

I wanted to see it.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, I love it.

This is like, this reminds me of like, you know, Dog Day After Day for some reason.

The tone, like, it feels like a 70s story.

Yeah, yeah.

Even though it's, you know, whatever, 2015 or whatever it is.

And because, and why is it that?

Oh, well, because they're in prison.

And then when I went to visit the prison, I was like, oh, wait a minute.

This could be 1975 because there's no cell phones in here.

Nobody's got any technology.

You're not allowed to.

This place looks exactly the same as it did.

To communicate with a guy, you got to do a secret note and put a thing.

And it's like, oh, yeah, the storytelling, because you know how much of storytelling has been screwed up by cell phones, right?

Everything.

Everything, right?

So detective stories, anything.

It's like everything you just Google it or find.

So when you're in prison, all of a sudden you have, you can do like a period piece without it being in the period.

Oh, that's great.

And then it becomes about people.

Yeah.

And then, right.

And then it's just about people who are like, how do people react?

Unmediated with no technological mediation.

Yeah.

And then like barriers that they have to figure out how to get around, which is, you know, like human nature.

It's just like people are going to be people.

Guys are going to like girls.

Guys are going to like guys.

Girls are going to like girls.

All of it.

People are going to be attracted to each other, figure out how to connect.

And then you have Benizio in the middle of it.

Exactly.

I mean,

that character was something.

Yeah.

And that guy was a, Richard Matt was a really interesting guy.

He was a brilliant

person because he was a great artist.

He was really smart, understood the machinations of how to work, to live in the prison society.

And then when he got outside of it,

it all kind of fell apart.

Yeah.

He was much better within that structure.

The real guy?

Yeah, the real guy.

Yeah, he died out in the wilderness because I don't think he could handle it.

Working with that guy.

Benizio?

Yeah.

Was that the first time you worked with him?

Yeah.

And did you know him before?

I knew Benizio because we're like same age.

Yeah, you've been around.

Over the years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And run into him.

I knew Rick Yorn, who's his manager for years.

And

it was really quite an experience working with Benizio.

It was great.

I never worked with an actor who, first of all, he had never done a limited series.

It was the first time he ever done anything on television.

And so when we met, his whole thing was like, the thing was not written all the way through when we met.

And he's like, well, how can I play it if I don't know what the ending is?

And I, which was interesting because as a guy done movies, he'd have a script.

He'd read a script.

And for his process as an actor, he has to know what the arc of the character is and where he's going.

And I said, oh, that's okay.

I get that.

We know what the general ending is because it's a true story.

But the scripts don't exist yet.

And it was a series of meetings with him,

a bunch of meetings where I'd come out here to meet with him and talk to him about it and tell him what we, the script, how it was developing, talk about episodes.

This is before he agreed to it.

Before he agreed to it.

And then he finally, you know, you got the closure.

Then he agreed.

I think in the beginning, he was always daunted by the fact that it was so much, which, again, totally understandable as a movie actor, you know, two-hour movie.

This is going to be like a seven or eight-hour thing.

Yeah.

That's a lot of work.

And we just developed a sort of trust with each other talking about it where I said, look, I totally get it.

This is the first time I've done something like this too.

Sure.

But we both knew that we'd been around, but we didn't really know each other.

So it was like, do you want to jump in together on this?

And

I remember we had this conversation.

I said, you know what, we chip away at it.

We just chip away at it scene by scene.

And

I think that's where we connected, where it's just like, yeah, we're going to chip away at it scene by scene and try to make every scene as good as possible.

And that's what I got working with him is that every scene he approached, he wanted to make as interesting

and as

layered and as good as he could.

Well, every scene has an arc.

Right.

Yeah.

Every scene has its own arc, right?

So once you develop the character,

you know, he's just playing this, like I imagine you look at the scene and you can kind of see where that goes, even if it's in two minutes.

Right, right.

Which is, you know, analyzing the scene, like really looking at it, as opposed to just saying, like, I go here, I go there.

You know, he was thinking about, and then also like literally thinking, like, what can I do here that's going to somehow illuminate who this character is and show something.

And

you can't take your eyes off him.

Right.

The character was, it was crazy.

Yeah.

He's seductive and he's scary.

And it's an interesting thing with those actors because I have this like other thing with Malkovich too, where it's like, there's the movie and then there's the one they're in.

Totally.

100%.

But it's great.

It's worth it.

You know, it's worth it.

But it's definitely like,

this guy's on another level, yeah, and yeah, and it's every scene is like he's coming and going, What if I, you know, was like standing on my head at the beginning of this scene?

Like, whoa, yeah,

interesting, yeah, interesting.

Okay, why?

Well, I don't know, like, you know, he's trying to stay in

and you have to be like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, try it.

Well, sometimes, yeah, sometimes it would be like that, and sometimes it'd be like, I don't know about that, and then we'd have the discussion about it.

Yeah, there was, you know, there was one choice he made where you know, he says to her, like, don't tell anybody,

And he like does this crazy voice when she finds out that they're going to try to escape.

And he did this huge thing.

Yeah.

And it was really interesting.

Right.

And I, and I was like, wow, that's a choice that like, I did not see coming.

And he's like, and he's like, yeah.

And I think, you know, I'm trying to scare her into not telling anybody.

And I was like, all right, great.

That was great.

Should we try another?

And you want to try like maybe one that's like a little smaller?

He's like, no, no, I think I think I'm good.

I'm kind of married to that one I'm like okay all right

and my director

yeah oh for sure

oh definitely like I mean like he's you know he he has a presence yeah and that tension was actually like a very real thing on set but like you know what that was good for me to learn as a director too like when do I go like do I need to assert myself here as a director right and like show that I'm the director like how much is my ego as a director that I have to you know because you do get into that thing there's always a risk in that right because like you do that once and you risk the possibility of an entire cast going like, oh, fuck.

Right.

Or the relationship that we have,

Benicia and I, like, if you don't want it to become tenuous, but also like you don't ever want to not say something that you feel.

Yeah.

So,

you know, like on that one in particular, I saw like he really wanted to do that.

And it probably was, I think, ultimately that he didn't necessarily trust that if I get if he gave me another choice, that I might use the other choice in the edit.

Right.

Well, that's.

Which is how you, as an actor, sometimes you protect yourself.

Yeah.

If you don't give them a choice.

If you're on top of it.

yeah yeah right so i felt like the only thing i thought there was like oh maybe i wish he trusted more that you know to have this also like but i also totally understood that because he had never worked with me before necessarily and then when he saw the first and when he saw the cut of the first episode yeah he was like oh man i really that's that's it was the first time i feel like he was like oh i get it you know oh really sure yeah yeah but funny yeah but how's he gonna know until you see how it comes together right exactly like owen doesn't watch anything he's ever been in ever it's crazy i know it's so crazy you know and because

it's like i remember like just after the premiere like he he he showed up for the press and then him and luke went and got something to eat right and they come back and i saw him at the party and uh you know i asked him why and he said because like you know that little fight scene we did it was like i remember that being the greatest scene ever why would i want to with that like you know why would i want to see what it's become right but then when i went up to him after after the

premiere and I was at the party, I said, I think it really works, dude.

I think you and I, it works.

He's like, really?

Of course.

But

he still needed that.

Of course.

I mean, it's a really interesting thing because I obviously know Owen.

Forever.

Yeah.

And it's really hard to imagine all the stuff that we did over the years that he's never seen.

So funny, too, right?

Yeah.

Because he's done some really amazing, funny stuff.

No, it was great to work with him.

He's an interesting guy, and he's just one of those guys where you're like, all right, well, I guess,

yeah, well, you know, you're a mysterious guy.

Did you ever have him on the podcast?

No, I don't think you do it.

Really?

No, I mean, like, I don't know.

It's so interesting.

I was thinking about that when I was coming over.

Like, did you have him on?

Because he is an interesting guy.

Totally.

He's got so much going on, and he is a mystery.

He's a really good.

I've known him for whatever, 30 years.

He's got very poetic sensibilities.

He's very smart.

And he really takes things in and engages with it.

But you do get the sense, it's sort of like, well, you know, I'm not going to poke around

in there.

Yeah.

You're good.

Yeah.

I'm glad you're good.

And that's good.

And he

loves, you know, he loves to read.

I think he loves movies.

Yeah.

He loves biography.

Oh, yeah.

He locks into movies.

Like, you know, he's really good with that.

Like, you know, certain lines and stuff.

We got a lot of laughs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Doing, just talking about movies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, he's great.

That's my memory of working with Owen, and we're about to work together again because we're going to do another Meet the Parents.

And it's been a while since I worked with him,

is the the laughs with him on set hanging out like yeah yeah us like like we um

we did in the last like little fockers i think we had a scene with harvey keitel yeah and it was just a funny energy with like me and owen and harvey keitel because

and again harvey i i i know from when i was a kid because he worked my dad and people like yeah yeah but harvey keitel and de near these guys are like you know these screen legend kind of guys and like i think owen and i were feeling very insecure doing a scene with harvey Yes.

Harvey was like in Mean Streets or something.

And he kind of was like looking at us like we were two wise guys or something.

Like, what do you two guys got going on here?

And I like moments like that with Owen over the years that just really.

And he's good.

He likes to laugh.

Yeah, he loves to laugh.

Yeah.

He'll like call me up and like, he also has the craziest memory.

You know that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He'll remember stuff that I told him about my childhood like 25 years ago that he'll like go, hey, he'll just literally call me up and goes, yeah, I was just thinking about that time when, you know, you said your dad picked you up from camp when you were homesick and then you told him to leave when you met that girl.

And

he was just making me laugh.

Well, I think that, like, I think.

That's that's impression, by the way.

Yeah,

some people can really do him.

Spade can do him.

Oh, can he?

Yeah, yeah.

But,

but there's something, I think he, like, he, when, when something has meaning to him, when he sees it or reads it or something, it stays in there.

Yes.

And it becomes a point of reference, an emotional point of reference.

And I think that's sort of why he's also also kind of a great natural actor.

Like, he does find meaning.

Yes.

Because it's all very immediate.

It's like a poetry to it.

And his performance in Bottle Rocket for me is like one of the most special

comedic performances.

And then when I watch him on the show, because when you're acting across from somebody, you don't know what they're doing really.

Because you're just in, you know, you don't know how it's going to read.

Right.

Because you're just in the scene.

Right.

And then he's just got all this crazy natural timing.

And it's like, you know, you're watching.

I'm like, I didn't even notice that he was doing all that.

And I'm sitting here like,

you know.

Yeah.

It's kind of crazy.

All right.

So let's just lay out the entire next season of severance.

Okay.

What do you care?

I watch it.

I watch it.

I'm aware.

A lot.

It's going to be very slow.

All goes.

Not as much is going to happen.

And then all of a sudden something will happen.

I got a lot of laughs and I was always interested.

The only, and I didn't mean to diminish it.

No, no,

I find it refreshing to talk to someone who wants to talk about what they're feeling is for real about it.

It's just, it's a narrative in patience.

Right.

It's not anything.

And by the way, that's the constant for me when we're making it.

Yeah.

Is my concern is people like you who are, you know, going, come on.

But I do go back to Dan Amore for me.

Like, just, I feel like you establish from the beginning, you say, this is what the pace is going to be.

And then we can mess around with it within it.

And you just have to trust that.

And hopefully that enough people will, you know, be able to.

Well, yeah, no, it builds up and it definitely delivers.

Yeah.

But I, I, I can't even watch a, like for me, the enjoyment of suspense is very limited.

You know what I mean?

Like, I don't get a kick out of like, oh, what's going to happen?

You know, like, I did, that's like, there's nowhere in my life that's a fucking enjoyable experience.

You don't need that in your life.

No,

I have it just like I have it a half hour before you come over.

God, what the fuck the fuck am I going to talk about for an hour and a half?

But you know what I mean?

Like,

my life is so consumed with dread and panic, it's not something I'm looking for from entertainment.

I understand.

I totally get that.

I guess I can put my dread and panic of my life into my work.

You know what I mean?

Yeah, I can sort of like go, okay, I'm just going to experience it.

Well, yeah, but it must be like a Zen exercise almost.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

It's interesting because, like, having edited all these episodes, it becomes like, you know, like it has its own language.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then you, but I do, I mean, there's the challenges of like, how do we build this thing to a head?

Well, what, well, so how much do you know?

Because this is like the one thing I know from doing the type of TV I've done.

And then like seeing like what seems like fully formed visions

that like

it, but most of the time you're still writing when you're doing the show.

Like this idea that like it's a rare person that's got the whole thing mapped out.

Yeah.

I've never, like I said, I've never had an experience like this where people people care so much about, also about the process or like are very curious, like, how much do you know?

Do you know the ending?

What is, you know, like, because there's this institutional memory of like, we've been burned before by shows that are these mysteries that are leading to something and then we feel like they didn't.

I really, we have felt that a lot with this show, where people like, oh, well, I don't, I hope it better have a good ending, otherwise the whole thing will not have been worth it.

But also, but the ending in a show like this, you know, has to have a certain element of vagueness in order to propel the next

unfolding.

Right.

What did you think of the ending of The Sopranos?

I was fine.

I'd been through enough.

Right.

You know, like, I mean, what do you

think?

But like the ending where it cuts to black and we don't know what happened.

Yeah, I know, but like with a show like that, I mean, it's like you've seen these guys do everything.

They've killed everybody in every different way.

I mean, how are you going to beat whatever's happened?

The idea.

I think, too, that I like that ending.

Me too.

I think, and also, like, I'm still thinking about it 10 years years later.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, I don't know.

It hit me on some level.

Yeah.

So, like, you have to be willing to make a choice sometimes that is going to leave some people feeling.

But actually, with that one, it was ultimately the human.

It followed the...

The core of the show was it was humanized.

Yes, yes.

By the way, I think that's what every show is about.

Yeah.

Ultimately.

People get connected to the characters.

Yeah, and that, like, you know, well, they just had dinner.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so the guy walking towards them didn't shoot him.

Right.

Well, who's that that on?

That's on you.

You know, maybe you should, you're maybe shoots him and 10 seconds later.

Yeah, yeah, but I mean, but yeah.

Let's re let's restart the soprano.

Then Stellar starts the Sopranos controversy again.

Yeah.

I was fine with it.

I talked to, you know, I just thought it was, I just, there's something about it to me that was like very intrigued.

Like, it hit me.

But, you know, but if anyone is disappointed with an ending of a series that went on that long and went through that much, they can go fuck themselves.

Right.

Exactly.

Or like is going to retroactively judge the show based on on

how they landed on it.

What do you want?

Yes.

It's like whatever.

But I understand, you know, look, this is all spoken from people who are the stress of making these things, right?

Yeah.

Because ultimately,

you want the audience to be happy, right?

You want, but you can only make your, like, when you're making a show or you're writing a show or editing or directing, whatever, all you can do is try to satisfy for you

what you think feels right.

But I think that the poetry of what this show is, is that there is sort of this kind of, I don't know know if the word cryptic, but you know, there is a mystery there that doesn't really have a clean resolution.

Right.

Right.

But you want to feel at the end of the whole thing.

Yeah, that something is happening.

Right, that's right, exactly.

That this was somehow, you know, that it was, that it doesn't in some way feel like, oh, they copped out or something like that.

Right, right, yeah, yeah.

And that comes from understanding where you're going.

But

I will say, and I think I said it earlier, it's like

it's a messy process.

Creativity is messy.

Yeah.

So yeah, it has to be.

And you have to allow room for discovery within what you're doing.

But the benefit of this is that like with a lot of shows, procedurals or whatever, not a show like this, is that when you have a like, you know, when you're trying to figure out the puzzle, I mean, the big crime of those shows is all of a sudden something in the last episode or the last two episodes is inserted into this puzzle you've been trying to figure out for the entire season.

And you're like, what the fuck?

There was no way to figure this out.

Right.

You didn't.

Right.

You didn't, right.

You sort of just.

You didn't have all the information.

You guys didn't do that.

No, no, no.

And it's very important, I think, that you honor that.

You know what I mean?

You don't like go back and go, well, we figured out this thing.

Yeah, yeah.

But I will always say you have to have room to discover stuff within these.

Sure.

Well, right.

So then that's the creative process.

And that's the excitement of it.

Yeah, that's the fun of it.

Yeah.

So, but when at the end, did you like picture at the end of both seasons that this could be the end and it has to be enough?

No.

You were always like, we're going to keep going.

Yeah, yeah.

And if they fuck us, it's on them.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, you can't not do that.

You know, even in the first season, when

it's like, okay,

we have to have another season of this show.

And we felt like even if Apple is not going to pick it up, then the people are going to be upset.

So let's leave a cliffhanger so they hopefully have to pick it up.

Yeah, it's good that you're in that situation because they'll just blame Apple.

Yeah.

Right, exactly.

Yeah.

We wanted to make sure that they had that person.

But do you have an arc laid out for the next season?

Yes.

Yeah, you do.

And that's also like what, you know, what we, that's why I'm out here right now is we, you know, we're working on, we're writing and sort of really

figuring out exactly the, it's like there's a, the, the cadence of the show, how often it comes on, you know, the air is three years between two seasons, which is too long.

Too long.

So we're figuring out how to do it so that, you know, it doesn't happen again for the life of the show.

So are you going to go back up to Canada?

We don't do it all in New York.

Oh, all New York.

This season or always?

Always.

Didn't you shoot somewhere up in Newfoundland?

We shot up in Newfoundland for one episode for one episode.

Yeah, this one episode where Patricia's character goes back to her.

The Jerry episode.

You got to go to Jerryfinland.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, it's all in New York.

Yeah.

Well, that's easy.

It's like mostly in the Bronx.

Well, we had the stage in the Bronx for the first two seasons.

So I got very familiar.

For five years.

I've been working on five years.

Yeah.

That's crazy, man.

Yeah.

It's so weird.

19 episodes.

You're so lucky that it's satisfying.

Well,

it kind of pulled me in.

And then the first season, we had COVID.

So we shot in the height of COVID,

which was crazy.

And then the second season, we had the writer's strike.

So that stopped us in the middle.

And I kept editing during the writer's strike because I was a non-writing executive producer.

And so I was, I've been working on the show straight through.

And that's, oh, my God.

Yeah.

Like, that's the difference between like whatever talent I have or may have for this kind of thing, the idea that like, okay, we're going to do this movie could take seven years.

Right.

Oh, my God.

I don't know.

And I'm the most impatient person.

And I think this process has taught me like to be somewhere where you're shooting a show.

You're like, okay, we're on the set.

We're shooting season two.

We didn't know it was going to be three years before.

Sure.

But it was a good chance it was going to be at least two years.

I was like, we're shooting a scene now, guys, that will not be seen for two years.

Oh, my God.

That's crazy.

And by the way, you finish editing the scene because you can edit it like two weeks later.

Sure.

And

it's there.

It's like, okay, that's good, but we got to do the other nine episodes.

And because of the way streaming works with these, you know, with Apple and these streamers, you have to deliver, you deliver everything.

Yeah.

So, you know, if it was a show that was a sitcom or whatever, you'd be making the show and six weeks later, it's on the air.

Yeah.

You know, and you're making the next one.

This one, it's like, even if you finish the first, you know, three episodes, it doesn't matter.

Those three episodes are not going to be delivered or they're not going to be in any way, you know, sent out to the world for a long, long time.

Yeah.

And so do you have time to do anything else?

Are you acting?

Are you going to do

it?

So during the strike, I acted in this little movie, this little Hulu movie called Nutcrackers that David Gordon-Green directed.

Yeah.

That's the only thing I've acted in.

Do you miss that?

And I kind of miss it, but and I'm excited to do the Meet the Parents one with OA

because it's fun because I haven't done that for a long time.

Funny stuff.

And it's also a little bit challenging in a way because I feel like

well, no, just because I haven't done it.

Like, I feel like a little bit nervous.

Yeah, sure.

It comes back, right?

Yeah, it does come back.

Who's directing that?

John Hamburg.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He did some of the stick episodes.

Yeah, and he, you know, he did

we work together, and he's great, great comedy director.

He is, yeah.

But it's, yeah, it's interesting.

I love directing.

I'm really happy not having to worry about putting my face or sitting in a trailer.

Or like you talk about looking in the mirror.

It's like, you know, oh my God.

Yeah.

So we're sitting in a trailer.

I was talking to Rogan about that, too, like how it can be sometimes like kind of boring.

Dude.

Right.

That's the fucking fucking worst part of it.

Yeah.

And what do you do when you're working?

Like, do you write?

Do you go, like, do you, when you have downtime?

No, I look at food.

You circle crafty every hour or so.

And then you sit in your trailer and eventually you get to the point where you're like, what could they be doing?

Right.

What are they doing?

Right.

So that's my experience.

Yeah.

But the last one on stick, I was like, I was lucky because this is like me in acting all the time where I'm not sure I like it because

the waiting doesn't justify.

I need the acting part to justify the waiting.

But somehow I figured out how to hook the Samsung TV in the trailer up to my phone and I could get the Criterion channel and my Netflix and everything.

So I'm like, fuck, I'll watch The Godfather again.

Right.

Yeah, I could watch Once Upon a Time in Hollywood again, Tropic Thunder.

And how does that work with your acting process?

And I'm not saying that facetiously, but like, you know, seriously, like, because I find that kind of like, okay, I'm watching The Godfather, I get into it.

And then there's like, hey, five minutes.

Five minutes.

Right.

And it's like, oh, shit.

Wait a minute.

My mother just died.

Okay.

Well, that's true.

Maybe I'm not as committed as I am.

No, I don't know.

I find it challenging, too.

Like, I don't know how to, like, I

think like, like, for a day's scene, you know, you look at it like, oh, here, here's what you got to do.

Right.

So, and then you kind of lay out your choices.

You get to the emotional zone.

I'm not, you know, I'm not, there's a heaviness to this character that I can live in and still watch The Godfather.

Right.

Right.

You know, but there were, like, when I shot a, I was the lead in this indie movie that Rob Burnett did.

And that was the biggest thing I've ever done.

But like, when you're that.

But you're in every scene, right?

Yeah.

So you're in the scene.

So you're never watching anything.

Which is much, in a way, it's much easier to do it that way.

It's better.

Yeah, it's better.

It's because it's the same thing, like, you know, when you're starting out and you get like, or a day on a movie or something like that.

And then all of a sudden you got to come in and do your thing.

And everybody's like super relaxed and they've been doing it.

And all of a sudden you're in front of a camera.

It's like, it's not a comfortable situation.

That's what happened.

on fucking uh that was the funniest thing i you know todd phills let me be in the first joker right because i was de Niro I was the producer on the TV show that De Niro was and like

I it's just like I'm just doing these few lines and there you know there is a whole movie but all I'm I'm like ready yeah and it was it was that moment where we do a walk and talk that didn't even make the movie and I meet De Niro and that's a big deal I don't know fucking I never met him before and trying to connect and we

and we did which is not easy not easy

I love him.

He's the best.

But, you know, it's Robert De Niro.

It's kind of amazing when you watch actors, like I said with Owen, it's like, I'm watching him do these takes, you know, for this, for the show.

He's the host of that show.

Yeah.

And I'm just watching him go over and over there.

He doesn't have all these lines.

I'm like, oh boy, this is going to be a problem.

And then you watch the thing, you're like, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Like, there was never.

Oh, my God.

I've seen that.

I've seen that before, too.

It's crazy.

When you see like a brilliant actor, their process sometimes, you're like,

and you're like, oh, wow, he really didn't.

Wait, I don't know.

I've seen that where it's like, this take, I don't know, that take over there.

And then all of a sudden it's like the next take and the take locks in.

I see that with Tom Cruise.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you're like, oh, shit.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because that person, because he understands that he has to get to somewhere, and then he knows he only needs one take.

And then when he finds that take,

it's insane.

Yeah.

But they're not worried about, they're not worried about how they get there because they know the process.

That's what a film

knows.

They know that that's what I honestly, what I love about movies, as opposed to doing like the Oscars one.

You can do it 10 times.

I'm sure you get it right the way you feel.

Right.

But there was my scene, though, like the first, like we, I talk to, you know, Todd and I meet De Niro, and then it's just sort of like, all right, let's do one.

And I'm like, okay, so it's this walk and talk.

And I'm like,

you know, I'm like, going at it.

And then he's cut.

And I go back to my chair and De Niro's across the way at his chair.

And I just see De Niro get up and walk over to Todd and then walk back to his seat.

And then Todd comes about.

He walks up to me and he goes, you're coming in a little hot.

Remember, like,

De Niro's your boss.

I'm like, yeah, okay, hey, yeah, I got it, I got it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, good, good, good.

But because I'm in, I know I'm just this two-line guy, and then De Niro's not going to remember me.

He's worked with a million two-line guys.

Right.

But then all of a a sudden you're going, like, God, I already fucked it up.

Right.

Yeah, but

then you just kind of pull it together.

Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know.

I don't know how much I enjoy that aspect of it as opposed to coming to a set as a director.

You never have to get in front of the camera.

You, it's a different part of your brain in a way.

Yeah.

The thing I do feel like you have to do is

like you have to somehow try to empathize with the actors.

Yeah,

I kind of learned that with, you know, with Lynn,

the late Lynn Shelton.

I mean,

she was all about that.

And it's really, yeah.

And like, some people just have that weird empathy thing.

But if you're like a self-absorbed, anxious fucking mess all the time, it's something

you have to work on.

Yes.

But it's something I never even thought.

It's funny that she did that because that is, I think, something that

nobody tells you to do.

Right.

It's like, how do you, I thought about it when I was doing Dana Moore.

Like, okay, here I am.

I'm an actor.

I'm looking at these guys who are these amazing actors.

How can I connect with them somehow in the scene?

They don't need me to connect them, but how do I connect so that I feel like I'm the most connected to the scene to figure out how it should be?

And I realized like for me, it's like, oh, maybe I'm just going to try to empathize with the situation that they're in.

Okay.

Yeah.

I don't know if that makes it work.

Well, it worked for me in that it just made me feel a little bit more connected to the choices that I was making.

And you knew as an actor, the situation they were in.

Yeah, I knew as an actor.

And also empathized with the fact that I I didn't have to be them in that situation.

If that makes sense, because it's real, I had so much more of an appreciation

for how hard it is.

Yeah, you didn't go cut and go like, hey guys, I'm so glad I'm not doing it.

Yeah, no, great.

But I felt like somehow, like, psychically, if I could sort of put myself in there with them, for me, I would be more connected to the movie.

That's great.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's like that, like as a director, you know.

But that's interesting that she just instinctually knew that because she was, was she an actress?

Yeah, yeah, she was.

So she had that, that's the thing, that understanding as an actor to empathize with.

Yeah, and also I think it's like something I should have realized that I didn't until I talked to Pacino, which was fortuitous because I talked to him just as I was starting that movie.

That, you know, artists,

the job of an actor is the job of an actor.

But the art of an actor, like, you know, Pacino,

I didn't know him.

And, you know, you make assumptions about people from seeing their work your whole life, but he's a neurotic guy.

He's a shy, neurotic guy.

And the whole thing for him has been about pursuing the truth of a role, of a scene, of a moment.

And that's really it.

I mean, that is the art of it.

So I think if you're keyed into that and that's what you're looking for, and you have an innate sense of what that is,

that's an empathy thing.

For sure.

Yeah.

For sure.

And I think that sometimes can get lost on a set, you know, when you're just because it's not a place where that's unless the director sets that table and says, okay, you know, in whatever way.

And also holds back the forces that, you know, money or we don't have time or all you gotta do.

Like how many times as a director, I've felt like, oh shit, I got like, you know, 10 minutes to get the shot.

Yeah.

I'm not going to go up to, you know, whoever and say like, hey, I got to get a shot in 10 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's the last thing I want to do.

Yeah.

So there's so many things that are going on that you just want to shield everybody else from.

And then it's just sort of like you want to have this exploratory space where there isn't pressure, but it is in a situation that there is.

Oh, sure.

Sure.

But sometimes you got two actors like, is this the martini?

Are we done?

Right.

Right.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Well, yeah.

This is an ADS.

Owen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You guys are going to have fun.

All right, ma'am.

Well, and your health is good?

My health, yeah.

My health is good.

I'm 10 years past my prostate cancer.

Well,

how did you not catch that?

I caught it because my doctor gave me a PSA test.

Oh, so like the right way.

So you went in for the PA.

I had it at 47 or 48 when PSA started going up.

And the national guidelines are like at 50, you get your, it's a blood test.

Yeah, I know, yeah.

But my doctor just started giving it to me at like 46, 47.

Yeah.

Thankfully.

And he looked at it and he monitored it for like a couple, like a year or two, and he saw a jump and he said, hey, maybe you should get it checked out.

That's good because that's a treatable thing.

It is a treatable thing if you get checked out.

Yeah, but a lot of people, you know, they miss it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I taught, I used to be a little bit more.

I mean, it's what President Biden is dealing with right now.

He's old.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, the thing is, a lot of people

get diagnosed with prostate cancer at a certain age where they don't do anything about it anyway because it won't grow past their natural lifespan.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Well, you just got to get those.

It's when you're younger and you get it.

You just got to get the PSA.

Yeah, yeah.

And you do it every year.

Get the colonoscopy when you're supposed to.

And by the way, yeah, I I mean, not to talk about colonoscopy, but like, you know, the last time I did that, my doctor explained it to me in a way, because I, I, I don't know about you, but like, I don't like going in for tests and things like that.

I don't want to, there are people I know who get like every year the whole

body scan?

Full body scan.

You can't do it.

Yeah, right, because you're scared of what you're going to find.

Yeah.

I had the calcium, you know, the heart, you know, plaque test like eight or nine years ago, and I'm like, all right.

Well, that didn't happen.

No, I did that too.

A CAT scan?

Yeah, heart CAT scan.

Yeah, where

they can see how much plaque is.

I didn't like that.

Because you didn't want to know that the plaque was how much plaque.

Well, I kind of wanted to know because I don't want the clog up.

But you should, right?

You should.

No, of course.

Yeah.

And the thing is, when you, like, with the colonoscopy thing, it's like the guy explained to me, he's like, hey, if you do this every whatever, five years or whatever,

they can find polyps, right?

Yeah.

That they eventually turn cancerous, but they can find them and take them out before they do that.

So in a way, if you do it,

just do it because you'll be preventing it.

Yeah, of course.

And my fear was like, oh, they're going to do it and they're going to find out like I have, you know, it's all should be preventative.

Yeah.

You know, like, but now they, like, it's so funny because I don't know, someone told me that they don't, they can do the PSA.

The PSA test has gotten, you know, specific enough to where they don't have to do the actual finger in the angle.

Yeah, yeah.

But there's part of me that's like, go ahead and do it.

Go ahead and do the finger.

Just double-check it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just make sure it feels firm and whatever.

No, I don't like it.

I'm just saying, you know.

Sure.

You want a little physical contact just to

to make sure that we're connecting here

yeah no so that's all good oh good all right man well great work Thanks man I mean I'm so happy I get to be on the podcast before it goes away because you're like the you're like the OG guy

how's it been it's been good you know it's it's a heavy decision 16 years 16 years there's this idea now we in the media landscape we live in where people just can't understand that like why would you stop right I mean because we did it yeah you know like what you want to end up just being like, is that guy still doing it?

You know, just go.

You know, we did all right.

We talked to everybody twice.

Right.

Right.

How many people you had on twice?

Not that many.

I feel very honored to have that.

Yeah, not that many.

Yeah.

And we don't, we generally didn't do it at all.

But you sort of created a genre.

Yes, I did.

You really did.

And I feel proud of it.

I don't know what my life is going to be like without it because it is pretty labor-intensive.

And, you know, there's going to be a void there that, you know, I'm going to look at as

a world of possibility.

Sure.

As opposed to like, fuck.

Podcasts are so fascinating to me.

I mean, because I feel like they fill this void now that comes from talking about, like, when I was working on the movie About My Folks and looking at these 70s talk shows, people talked about real stuff.

Sure.

I think the podcasts fill that void where people get real conversations.

Yeah, a lot of times.

Because talk shows now are just, you know,

just beat package.

You know,

keep the beats viral, whatever.

Yeah, no, I think some podcasts are like that, but there's also like, I think there's like 20% of that, and then about 80%,

you know, mediocre drive-time afternoon radio.

Right.

And it's also like gotten very segmented, hasn't it, in terms of who the audience is.

Sure, tribalized.

Well, that's a bigger conversation.

Oh, my God, right?

Yeah, there's some,

on some level, like I said this, I think, in the last, when I announced the ending, it's like I was at the beginning of this amazing new medium, but I also feel like I unleashed some sort of evil on the world, you know, the possibilities of it.

Who would have thought that it became such an important part of our political landscape?

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Important's a diplomatic word.

Yeah, well, yeah.

I would go with destructive

for the most part, but another day, Ben.

Another day.

No, it's so complicated and interesting, and I definitely don't want to talk about it here.

Good seeing you, man.

All right, man.

You too.

There you go.

Me and Ben Stiller.

Again, he's up for Emmys as the producer and director of Severance.

You can watch both seasons on Apple TV Plus.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, if you want more discussion about Ben's work, Brendan and Chris are covering Tropic Thunder on the Full Marin bonus feed.

It's a two-parter that continues this week.

As this music swells and you see this shot, and then you get another chopper shot above this chopper, like this is before

there were drones.

Like that, to do a shot that high in the sky, you needed a helicopter.

So it's like a helicopter above a helicopter.

And I'm just sitting there watching this going, like, this is good filmmaking.

Yes.

Like, they're making this.

It's like one of the reasons the movie is so successful is that they legit made the movie their parody.

Right, right.

Like with all the pot, this movie cost over $90 million.

Like that's a lot for a comedy.

But you know, it looks great.

Everything looks great.

Even when they're just like at a river.

I'm like, man, they got a great river here.

Like I know they're not in the, in the, they're not in Vietnam.

They're in Kauai, right?

They filmed all this in Hawaii.

Yeah.

But it still looks great.

Like they did all the right location scouting and everything.

Like Stiller does not get enough credit, which I think he gets now because he makes Severance and everybody thinks he's a good director for real.

He did not get enough credit with this movie for being a good director.

That's on the latest episode of the Friday Show for Full Marin subscribers to to sign up and get bonus episodes twice a week.

Go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

Here's some Johnny Thunders.

Boomer lives, monkey and the fondant at cat angels everywhere.