Episode 1679 - Tracy Letts

Hey folks, we already had this episode in the can and then the Jimmy Kimmel news broke last night.

Jimmy Kimmel has been muzzled and taken off the air by his network ABC who is buckling and appeasing Nextstar Media Group who own many affiliates that carry the show and threaten to preempt Kimmel at the strong suggestion of FCC chair Brendan Carr because of a fucking joke.

Carr is one of the architects of Project 2025.

Nextstar is on the verge of a massive merger with their competitor and wants the Trump administration in their corner.

All that said, this is how authoritarianism works in the U.S.

currently, and this is a major attack on free speech.

So all of you free speech warriors, we need your voices.

If you were at all serious about fighting for free speech, this is your moment.

We all have to stand up.

This isn't Twitter.

This is the U.S.

government.

And if they can do it to Kimmel, they can do it to to anyone.

Okay,

let's do the show that was already in the can.

Lock the gate!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Knicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How's it going, man?

How's it going out there?

So today I talked to Tracy Letz.

And look, he was on in 2018.

He's one of the only guys who's been on this show that I have a friendship with.

Very smart guy, great actor, great playwright, great guy.

And we just kind of talked.

You know,

he's in the new Sterling Harjo project, the lowdown.

We talked a bit about that, but yeah, we just kind of kicked it around about the end of the podcast, about our age, about art, about politics, about,

you know, work ethic.

I don't know.

It was one of those ones where some of these shows, as we head in towards the end,

are going to be me catching up with people I like and

who I want to talk to again.

And Tracy and I, we talk off the mics, but it's always exciting, like Tom Sharpling as well, to kind of get on the mics and do the thing.

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So, in sad news, or

it's sad, but I don't know that it's tragic because he was an old man who had a good life and lived a righteous life.

Robert Redford has passed away.

And Robert Redford,

look,

you know, I don't know what we take for movie stars right now.

I don't know, you know,

what show business is like right now in the sense that it's certainly not the same as back in the day.

But I got to be honest with you, Robert Redford was one of the greatest movie stars ever.

And look, I'm not alone in saying that, but just just one of the, just a guy that knew exactly who he was, what he was doing, what his strengths were as an actor.

And he

was just great.

He was gorgeous.

He held the screen.

He could act.

And he was funny.

I mean, you really think about some of those movies.

I mean, just the best.

One of the best.

I mean, what did I see?

I saw some weird 70s movie when I was very young.

And I think all I remember

was

it was in 1970.

So, and I think I saw it when I, when it came out, Little Voss and Big Halsey.

It was this, it was a motorcycle movie.

It was a weird movie for him to do.

He'd already done Butch and Sundance

and he'd already done Barefoot in the Park.

Downhill Racer.

That's another one.

After Butch and Sundance, which was, I think, one of the best movies ever, he did Downhill Racer, which is an interesting movie about a ski racer that many people haven't seen.

And then he did tell him Lily Boy is here, which I don't remember seeing, but Little Foss and Big Hause was a motorcycle movie.

And I just remember seeing it when I was a very little kid.

And Robert Redford's character was always walking around with a toothbrush in his mouth.

And somehow he made it cool because I thought it was cool because I remember like, I'm going to walk around with a toothbrush in my mouth.

And I did that.

I don't think it was very cool, neither for him or me.

But for some reason, in my young brain, I thought that was, yeah, that was cool.

And then Jeremiah Johnson just re-watched that recently.

What a great movie.

This guy could carry a movie effortlessly.

Oh, I remember the candidate, too.

I'm just kind of going through him.

That's an interesting movie about politics, the way we were, of course.

The sting, come on,

come on, the sting.

What are you kidding me?

And what about, what about the great Waldo Pepper?

Great movie.

And how about all the president's men?

Awesome.

Brewbaker.

Remember Brubaker?

The natural?

Come on, The Natural?

I can't believe that's 1984 again.

The movies I re-watched that Robert Redford was in were All the President's Men, The Natural.

I'll watch The Sting.

I'll watch Bushcassie and The Sundance Kid again and again.

And he directed the Malagro Beanfields for a good director, Ordinary People.

This guy was

what is great

about

what is Hollywood.

I mean, Robert Redford will definitely be missed and remembered, and I would go watch any of those movies.

If you haven't seen Butch Casting and the Sundance Kid in a while, just watch it.

I mean, Newman and Redford together in both The Sting and that movie, just it just doesn't happen like that anymore.

And maybe it does, but not at that level, not at that stature.

I mean, these guys, and maybe I'm an old man, but fucking just real movie stars.

Just, I don't know.

There's a gravitas to it.

I don't know what to tell you.

I'm sad he's dead, but he's one of those guys where it's like, same with Gene Hackman, especially the earlier stuff.

Watch that work because it fucking holds up.

And it's just, it's stunning.

It's just, it's totally entertaining.

It's just beautiful.

All the president's men, I might watch that tonight.

Oh, my God.

I want to watch a Robert Redford movie right now.

You know what I was watching yesterday?

I started watching that Charlie Sheen dock because I couldn't just, I couldn't stay away.

I could not stay away from it.

I was curious, the whole story, and they seemed to be giving it.

But some of you remember I told this story when he went through that period, and you get the backstory in the dock, which I didn't get.

When he snapped and went into that mania after he got fired from two and a half men, he started the tiger blood winning thing.

And it was a very public spectacle, a very public train wreck.

But I didn't know the backstyle, but I do know that I was pulled in by a promoter who I knew, who I've worked with at Live Nation.

And he sort of said, look, I don't know if this is right or wrong, but Charlie Sheen's going to tour this insanity.

And I was thinking, oh, it's definitely wrong.

But look, I mean, if he's in a state where he thinks that's a good idea and you're going to monetize it, what am I going to do to stop you?

But it doesn't, no, it all felt very not good.

But he said he needs writers.

He wants to put together a stage show.

And I'm like,

I'm not that guy.

And he's like, will you just meet with him?

I'm like, I don't know.

And then I thought like, yeah, why not go meet Charlie Sheen?

So I met him in the middle of that at the four seasons.

I sat with him in a suite and, you know, he told me what he wanted to do.

And I told him some ideas about some sketches or how to frame the stage show or whatever.

And I was like, all right, that's that.

You know, he's definitely out of control right now in a way I don't quite understand.

But maybe

hopefully he doesn't want me to do it.

But he did.

He wanted me to come out to his house with a bunch of other writers.

And I, a couple of days later, so I went out to Brentwood or wherever the hell it was.

And I just remember all I was looking forward to is I'd heard he had a lot of good cigars.

And I got a cold that day.

So he had this amazing humidor and I couldn't even taste a cigar and I felt sick.

And there was a whole fucking thing going on over there.

They had screens.

There was a few other writers.

Everyone was trying to put together this show for, you know, just crazy Charlie in the middle of this fucking mania.

And I just, I was there one day and I'm like, I'm out.

It just, it was felt, did not feel correct.

And when you watch the doc,

it was literally he was out of control on substances, but also was jacked to the gills on steroids and really hitting the wall.

But

they wanted me to tour with the show.

I'm like, I'm not doing that.

I actually

told them Kirk Fox would like to do it.

So I got Kirk roped into that thing, but he did all right with it.

But I just thought the whole thing was a sad spectacle of somebody that might not survive whatever this was.

But the spectacle of this

proverbial, is that the word I want?

Kind of a mythic,

you know, fuck up.

I mean, Charlie Sheen was synonymous with like with out of control.

You know, his whole career, you know, he had been getting in trouble for drugs, for

some domestic violence business, some

more drugs, women.

It was just, he was the baddest of boys.

And what I noticed in the dock was that people were so excited.

There was a certain type of person just wanted to watch this train wreck that knew the guy was in trouble, but he was going down in in flames and he was, you know, going down shooting.

And it was entertaining and a little menacing.

And there was a type of person that was just like, go, Charlie, go, burn it down, baby.

It was just this mass of a type of anger and nihilism

to seek that kind of entertainment.

Like to go see Charlie fucking on fire

and maybe on his last legs.

People were just cheering him on a lot of people and i realized like this is part of the core of why trump is president that there is this idea of like you know fuck everything burn it all down you know who knows what the fuck this guy's gonna gonna do but i'm not gonna miss it it's sort of like that guy i talked about a while back

when I was touring the the special and I was, I think, I feel like it was Skokie Skokie or one of the, you know, it was a bluer city, maybe a bluer state.

And I did my show, and if you watched the special, all the stuff I had said about Trump and where we are politically.

And a guy came up to me after the show, and he said, I think I was the only Trump supporter here.

And I said, well, did I get it right?

And that guy said, yeah, man, he's crazy.

And I didn't understand, like, how do you argue with that?

Or what does that mean?

Like, everything I was saying did not have great implications.

But this guy was there for the fire.

He was there for the train wreck.

He was there to burn it all down.

He was there for the nihilistic entertainment factor of watching a dude that gives zero fucks about anybody but himself, who is a lying sack of shit, who is erratic and dangerous and a fucking toxic bully, who's more than willing to micromanage the presidency to the point of shitting on celebrities, comedians, TV hosts, anybody.

And this guy was like, fucking, yeah, man, it's just, you got to love it, man.

It's just fucking crazy.

You don't know what's going to happen.

And I think you can kind of see the seeds of it in the frenzy around Charlie Sheen almost dying for entertainment.

But yeah, that's what I noticed.

I don't know if you watched it.

Did you watch it?

So listen, Tracy Letz is a brilliant guy, brilliant actor, brilliant playwright, and a friend of mine.

And as we kind of head towards the end here, I really wanted to get him back in here to talk.

He is on that Sterling Harjo show, The Lowdown, which premieres September 23rd on FX.

And I love Sterling Harjo.

I think, you know, Reservation Dogs is still one of the best TV shows to happen in the last 20, 30 years.

And I got the privilege of working with Sterling on Reservation Dogs.

And now Tracy worked with him as well.

So we'll talk about that, but we talk about a lot of things.

And it's always great to hang out with Tracy Letts.

And now you can hang out with the two of us.

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All right.

I have actually somehow successfully been

somewhat detaching from the compulsive news reading.

Good.

Have you?

In fits and starts.

Yeah.

Because I'm not sure, you know, after a certain point, you're like, well, this is the way it is.

Yeah.

It's not like something's miraculously going to change the narrative.

And also, what are you going to do about it?

Well, that's a good question, Tracy.

What are you going to do about it?

You?

I'm going to vote.

Yeah.

I'm going to give money to people I think can help.

Yeah.

And I'm going to

participate in my art and craft.

Yeah, and I guess that's sort of what I'm wondering about.

Like,

you're writing a thing?

You know, the truth is, I just don't know.

I don't know what else to do.

I'm not.

I'm 60 years old.

Sure.

I'm not going to, you know, what good does it do me to get out in the street with a sign or go down to the courthouse and

late?

You're too young for that.

All the people out there with signs are the same ones that were out there in 68.

You know,

I truly ask myself,

what can you do?

You like to think you have more power than you do.

You don't, really.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And also there's this idea that I'm kind of locked into about

permitted resistance.

That I believe that in an authoritarian structure, that, you know, especially with an impulsive autocrat, that

a lot of it is going to keep happening, but very little is going to get through the noise.

And on some level, they're just sort of like, all right, let them run around with the signs.

Right.

Do you you know what I mean?

Yeah.

No, they'll shut down anything that's a legitimate threat to their

or they'll militarize everything and people would just be afraid to go out with the signs.

But

what I do, like, I wonder that too.

So, you know, I recently kind of shot my mouth off here and there,

and some of it went viral, and it was good.

It was, you know, I did it for democracy, but I did it for the comics, but I also did it to promote my special.

But there's a hunger for it.

For shooting your mouth off?

For people that can frame it properly and have the gravitas to shoot their mouth off.

And if you're fortunate enough to have some sort of cosmic timing to where something gets through the fucking noise, it is inspiring to people.

I think so.

And I think it takes, I think that if people, because, right, the next...

The next idea of like, what can I do?

I'm doing all I can.

There's this,

it's not futility, but on some level,

we're living in this fucking thing.

And we can only do what we can.

And on some level, you have to accept that this is the reality we're living in.

And if you want to tear yourself up about it every day, you can.

But as I say on stage recently, I'm like, if you think about it, there's probably someone in Hungary with your same job, and they're getting by okay.

Yeah.

Also, how can you tell the difference between those people who

maybe inspire you or give you some hope

and those people who are just monetizing opinion, right, for takes or clicks or whatever.

Yeah, there's a lot of that.

Right?

I don't necessarily believe that I know anything about Bill Maher's ethos.

I don't know what he really believes in.

I know what he says to get people to click on his shit.

Sure, yeah.

Well, there's some selfless cats who are still making a living.

And on both sides, right?

And this is not a

partisan per se, right?

It's on both sides.

It's like, I don't know what the fuck you're, you know, you're saying a thing because

otherwise, because it's worth a lot of money.

I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene ran a gym, right?

And now she's worth $10 million

because she's a loudmouth.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah,

where does the belief

end and the grift start?

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

But as an artist, though, like to me, like, because I don't remember the last time we talked, but when it comes, when, like, I feel like playwriting is a noble pursuit, an elevated occupation.

I do, too.

One that I believe has

meaning and purpose.

I do too.

So, how's that going?

It's hard.

It's really hard.

It's hard to write a play.

So, so, where does that fall into the menu of reasons to feel futility?

I went to the museum to the Art Institute in Chicago recently.

I was talking about that with Kit.

Yeah.

Went there.

First time I'd been there in 10 years.

Yeah.

And

it's an amazing museum.

Not only the work they have in it, but architecturally, it's just so sort of constantly surprising and the way it's curated.

You're looking at an amazing piece of art and then you can just see around the corner into another room where there's another amazing piece of art.

Is it an old building?

The modern wing is new.

Okay.

And, well,

new-ish.

The last 15 years or whatever.

And it's a gorgeous piece of architecture.

But there were so many people in there looking at the art.

And some of them were

kids.

And some of them were college kids.

And some of them were like fat, white-haired Iowa farmer dudes who are being dragged in there by their wives or whatever.

But they're walking through that place looking at the art.

That's the most hopeful I've felt in a long time.

You know, there's just the fact that people are still interested in taking it in and looking at something 100 years old, 400 years old, and seeing something in it that's confusing them, inspiring them,

depressing them, whatever.

You know, it's just like, well,

if we've still got this.

Yeah.

Right.

You feel like if we still got this,

we're okay.

If there's still a desire, even on behalf of the most detached or seemingly uninterested, that makes them feel like, well, we have to go to the museum.

Yeah.

You know, not knowing why, but it's like, we're going to the city, we go to the museum.

That's right.

And that's still in place, you're saying.

It is still in place.

It's in place until they start, you know, stripping the art off the walls.

Well, they're just doing that in federal buildings.

They're not doing it to city-owned museums or privately funded museums.

Not yet, right?

Not yet.

But they're definitely doing it.

Yeah.

It's kind of crazy.

Yeah, it is.

It's crazy.

I mean, it's shit we haven't seen in our lifetimes.

Well, not here.

Right.

Not here.

So when you go to the museum, what do you gravitate towards?

Like, what do you feel like you need to see?

Like, I went, like, when I first went to, like, I like the art and I like painting and I can let it in and I can be moved.

I don't always know how to contextualize things, but I know that it's on this wall in the Prado or wherever, that

it's a thing and I should give it some time.

I think context helps.

It's not necessary.

But there are certain things that if I go to a museum, I find comforting.

Like it used to be when I was younger.

probably because of my mom, it was the Impressionists.

And that was comforting.

And then you kind of branch out from there, more modern art, older art, whatever.

But

I personally don't know what it does to me, but I know that it's important to me.

Yeah.

I guess

I like the stuff that

I don't understand how it's operating on me.

Yeah.

Like Rothko.

I'm like, he's my favorite.

I don't know how, I don't, what is this alchemy?

He's my favorite.

Have you been to the chapel?

Yeah.

In Houston?

Yeah.

And then you just sit there going like,

what is this doing right you just don't understand I I I think he was at the edge of the fucking abyss and the only thing he could do not to dive into it which he eventually did was make those pictures yeah I think it kept him out of wherever he went but how does he know

that just putting those two bars of color on a canvas is going to

move us deeply emotionally confuse us confound us.

How does he know that?

Well, then you're assuming he's playing to the audience.

I don't know that he is.

I think he was looking for truth and he had the chops to do it.

I mean, it's the same with plays, isn't it?

I suppose.

I suppose.

That's probably a good way to think about it, right?

That you don't worry about playing to the audience.

You think about what it is that...

Have you seen those ones?

He was contracted to do a hotel lobby, the Seagram's pictures?

Yeah.

And this is for a public space where people are eating yeah and it's the darkest fucking shit I've ever seen in my life they had him at the Tate in London all of them yeah and I'm like oh

I was there I saw those and you're like this is so he's not thinking about the audience if he is it's it's fuck you yeah because those were like purple and fucking you know like you you were sitting in death yeah

so so I guess that's what it comes down to I mean when you when you write a play but you're not you're not a you're not I don't I haven't seen the minutes, but

you're not an abstract

playwright.

Not per se.

I mean, I like a little abstraction.

I like when a realistic work turns.

Turns,

becomes a little more abstract.

It's like, oh, I thought I was watching a strict representation.

A story.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, but wait, this isn't, now we're in a different realm.

Yeah.

I love that.

But like when you, because I'm just, I'm curious about this because I don't, I find it daunting.

And I talked to an old friend of mine.

He said he set out to be a playwright, but I don't think he would have ever been a very good playwright.

And

I remember I had thought of a play when I was earlier, but younger, but I didn't have the follow-through.

And it was based on

the lives of a family after the father had died.

in a plane crash and they had just received the black box recordings.

That's all I got.

And so maybe you can run with it.

The family gets the black box recordings.

Well, no, they got the transcript.

Does that happen?

I'm sure they get.

Why wouldn't it?

We want you to hear just exactly what was going on in the cockpit

on the flight that your father died.

Wouldn't they have to?

Wouldn't that be part of it?

Would you want to hear that?

I don't know.

Sure.

I mean, but, you know, like it would be, maybe he said a goodbye.

Maybe he said.

Do you want to hear any black box recordings?

Well, usually it's just sort of like,

we have a problem.

Okay, we'll try that.

We'll try that.

And then nothing.

I knew a guy whose dad, his job was to investigate plane crashes.

Yeah.

And

he said that every single plane crash he ever investigated, the first people on the scene,

the scavengers.

Really?

There are all you emergency vehicles show up.

There are already people there.

Picking through.

Going through the shit.

Luggage and whatever.

Yeah.

Huh.

Always.

I bet you that's the same as Battlefields.

Probably.

Yeah.

Do you remember in the Wild Bunch when was it Struther Martin?

And

they were like, oh, I got a watch.

That's mine.

Yeah.

But when you start to do the plaything,

does it build out?

Or do you have a story generally?

It's never the same twice.

It's always different.

But you as a playwright, because you do all these other things.

Yeah.

And do you get to a point where you're like,

well, I'm taking this job.

It's only for a few weeks.

I'll get to the play later.

Do you find that any part of acting is procrastinating?

Oh, sure.

Sure.

I can't possibly write a play now.

I've got to learn lines to order this drone strike.

Because I have to believe that once you

create plays that

you get the attention that you've gotten critically and and you have a uh a confidence in it that that that has to be the thing that possesses you the most no

well it's i

it's certainly the thing i kind of recognize maybe has the most value ultimately i mean personal value it's like well this is my this is me yeah yeah right right right the other stuff is me acting I'm translating somebody else's work I'm you know I'm figuring something I'm I'm I'm entertaining an audience.

I'm telling a story.

But the plays are me.

That's who I am.

So, yeah,

and even like being at Emmy shit this weekend, it's funny the people who will come up to you and you'll be at some Emmy party and there's loud music and there's people all around and you can't have a real conversation.

And some people will want to sort of draw a circle around you to say, I need to tell you that Augustos H can, this is not the place to say it, but Augustos H.

You know, they need you to know that I recognize that space.

Yeah, yeah.

And that, you know, there's a slightly different value system.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're kind of pulling you aside in this sort of like horrendous display of nothingness.

Yeah.

Well-dressed nothingness.

But everybody knows it.

Everybody knows that's what it is.

I don't think anybody.

I find I was at, I didn't see you.

I went to the HBO party.

Did you end up there?

I was at the HBO party last night.

You must have gotten there later.

Because I was going to get get there earlier.

I was out pretty quick.

Really?

Yeah.

Because that always happens, right?

All I know is that Goggins was everywhere I went.

Yeah.

I think he might be in my house right now.

Well, he cuts a figure.

It's hard not to see Walton.

He's having the time of his life, that guy.

He is, absolutely.

I sat by him at the Emmys.

He was my seek mate.

Oh, how was that?

Great.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's loving it.

I mean, I was surrounded by losers everywhere.

You know, Carrie was losing on the left, Walton was losing on the right, and Jason Siegel losing over there.

And I was looking at my phone, and my football team is losing, and

everybody I knew was losing.

I was just surrounded by losers.

I try to see that on the faces of the early losers.

Like, now they're stuck there for three hours watching other people win.

Although, in Carrie's case, it's like, now I can relax.

You know, her category was pretty early.

That was sort of a surprise one.

Was that the woman from the pit that won?

won yeah

yeah I mean how did how does uh one take that was Carrie fine

it's hard to imagine being much more fine than Carrie is with that stuff yeah really fine that's good yeah yeah but I had a good attitude about that I was at the party and

and then I went over to the chateau because Nate had hosted a sort of after after party there and I felt like that one would be comedian was that a was that a scene was there a scene no there's people I mean you know like the HBO thing I went because I I had the special there.

And

the high point was that, you know, Kit is mildly obsessed,

on the verge of very obsessed, with two people.

David Lynch, who she cries over regularly.

Right.

And Colin.

He was not there.

No.

No.

Arguably maybe he wasn't.

I think he's everywhere now.

That's the way that works.

And Colin Farrell.

And I knew that like there was a good chance that Colin would probably be there.

But what I didn't know,

so Kit, you know, her and I go and

I'm like, I'll find him.

She's like, just stop it.

I don't even know if I could talk to him.

She's like civilian.

So it's like, you know, big fandom shit.

And I see him over at the bar talking to Justin Thoreau, who I don't really know.

I met him years ago.

And I walk up there and I'm just getting a Diet Coke and Colin's like, Mark.

And I'm like, you know me?

You know, like, I still have that.

Like, why would he know me?

Yeah.

Turns out he's a listener.

Justin remembers me.

He's a listener, right?

Nice.

And I see Kit hiding, hiding away.

And then he walks away.

And then I realize I didn't compliment him on his work in the penguin, which I thought was good.

I go up and I say, you know, great job on the penguin.

I meant to tell that to you.

And then I see Kid kind of float in, you know, kind of get the courage to do it.

And to me, it was fucking great.

It was hilarious.

It was hilarious.

And now he wants to go on a hike.

Nice.

Does he live here?

Yeah.

I have to adjust my cock.

Yeah.

Sorry.

That's that's staying in.

We're not cutting that out, even if you ask me to.

No, you don't have to cut it out.

I just had to do it.

Who were you sitting on it?

It's just an uncomfortable angle.

See, if you didn't have an aversion to shorts, you wouldn't have that problem.

I went out of my way to wear shorts.

But this is something that, like, being that these are the last episodes, you, somehow or another,

are the only person, really,

that I have a friendship with with that I met on the show?

I find that hard to believe.

Haven't you done like a thousand of these fucking things?

Almost 2,000.

Isn't that wild?

Why me?

I don't know.

What do you think?

I don't know.

When I did the first one, you kind of dared me to be your friend.

That's right.

There was a bit of a dare on the way out the door.

I was like,

okay, so we had our talk.

And you said, no, we were going to see each other.

We were going to be at the same event that night.

We were going to be at the SAG Awards.

Yeah, but then I ran into you in the bathroom.

But before that, as I was leaving, you you said, now, if I see you at the SAG Awards tonight, are you going to snub me?

And I'm like,

what do I look like?

A guy who snubs people?

I don't do that.

So that night, I saw you in the bathroom, and I went up and I gave you a hug.

And a friendship was born.

That's right.

But you did not adjust your cock

at that moment.

I didn't identify it.

That would have been an awkward first meeting post-the desire to be friends if you were like, just give me a second.

I'll give you a hug.

My cock's in a, it's in the wrong direction right now.

Yeah.

I'm not going to snub you, but I am going to adjust my cock.

I don't know.

I don't, it's interesting to me because I think about it, because like what I find, what I'm finding is that like, I still think I'm an outsider, really, and that, because I'm not like a big celebrity, right?

So when I go out to these things last night, it was very gratifying.

A lot of people were like, I'm sorry, the show's ending.

But also, I find that people who I've had these conversations with,

they resonate with them.

Yeah.

And they don't talk like this too often.

So like, you know, when Jude Watt comes up to me out of nowhere and gives me a hug and just starts telling me how it's like, you know, things are changing as he gets older.

We're surrounded by people.

It's like, I'm a little more sensitive and, you know, I care more.

I'm like, wow, you know, I guess he had to get that out.

And I'm that guy.

It's kind of nice.

But for you, I don't know.

Like, I think you're, you know,

funny.

I like the acting, everything, but I think it was the playwriting.

I just, I decided that you and I would be okay as friends.

Like, you know,

Josh Browland gave me a cell number once, but I don't even think it was real.

He gave you a fake number?

I think so.

I was going to set him up with the flavored Zins because I know a guy.

First of all, I have a couple of things to say about all this.

You say that you feel like an outsider.

Don't most people.

I mean, I know that, you know, Ted Danson doesn't feel like an outsider, right?

He feels very much like an insider.

Sure.

Tom Hanks feels like an insider.

Yeah, well, he's like, you know, he's he's at the top of the insider game.

Right.

But aren't most people,

aren't 80% of the people you might think are insiders actually outsiders who feel like outsiders, even though you would identify them as insiders?

I wonder.

I mean, I think that on some level, most people in this business are mildly to extremely desperate.

and not sure where their next job is coming from.

I think it's easy to elevate them.

I still have a childish awe

of actors and celebrities and people who make great things or I know from television.

And now that is

working up against this fact that I talk to them, I've seen them at the grocery store or whatever.

But when I get to these places, that childish awe wins out.

I see somebody, I'm like, and I'm moving through the crowd quickly to get to them.

Do you need to get to them or get away from them?

No, to get to them.

Because Because I want to be like, huh?

Me and you.

Yeah, right.

The validation.

But I guess they feel like outsiders, but I think that the people that are,

you know, like, I think once you get inside, maybe it's tenuous, but I do think you know you're inside.

Really?

Yeah.

You don't think so?

I don't know because I've done, I don't know, five seasons of episodic television.

You've done more than that, maybe eight, ten seasons of episodic television.

Yeah.

You've had specials all over.

You've played leads and films.

You know, it's just like, I don't know how much more fucking insider it gets than that.

You know, nine

SAG has 96% unemployment.

I mean,

extremely successful.

A lot of outsiders.

Well, for me, I judge it on like, you know,

I wrote about this the other day, that, you know, if I have jealousy

or I'm not grateful or I have resentment, what is it based on?

And it's not, I don't want anyone else's life.

Right.

I don't don't want anyone else's lifestyle.

Right.

But I would like more attention.

I would like more love that I can resist.

From whom?

You know, the people, the more people.

Because I have a great audience and I love them and they come out and see me do it.

And I'm completely comfortable with that.

But there is some part of me that thinks like, I'm for everybody.

And I'm just not.

And I'm okay with that.

But I just, I insist in my heart that there's more people that could use me.

Man, I'm so not for everybody.

Yeah.

I'm really not for everybody.

James Taylor and I have been working on a music for a few years now.

Yeah.

And one of the first conversations we had about this was when I said, James,

the appeal of your music

is so broad.

Right.

Right.

You're hard pressed to find people who say, well, I fucking hate James Taylor.

I mean, I'm sure they're out there, but I don't know them.

Yeah, I'd like to meet a couple.

They're really broad.

And I actually fanned my hands out like this to show, like, this is your appeal.

And then I narrowed them like this.

I was like, this is my appeal.

Sure.

And I'm okay with that.

I mean, at least I have some.

This is not nil, right?

There are people who like my work and like it passionately, but not like James.

And I'm like, if we're going to work on a thing together, I think you've got to be comfortable with this.

Knowing that I'm going to neuter your appeal.

Somewhere, the truth is somewhere in between the two, right?

But what is that project?

I mean, how are you going to

minimize James Taylor in your your project?

I've done it.

I've managed to.

Congratulations.

Finally, someone has stepped up and taken him off his high horse.

We had a second workshop, and I kind of felt like we were ready to go into production.

I thought, oh, well,

this is like a musical driven by his music.

Yeah.

Using his songbook, though not the James Taylor story.

Right.

And so

we.

Oh, interesting.

So you're taking songs and you're building stories.

Yes.

The template for this might be

the Bob Dylan musical Girl from the North Country,

which Connor McPherson directed and adapted or wrote the original piece.

And Mama Mia, actually, which is not the Abba story, but uses the music of Abba.

So it's using his music, but it's an original story.

So we did this workshop.

We've done a couple of workshops, and the last one I thought, well, we're ready to go into production.

Probably not on Broadway.

We'll start somewhere.

We'll start at a regional theater.

I've certainly plays have been not as far along as this one that I've done that have gone into rehearsal.

A couple of months later, the producers came back to me and said,

We're not quite there.

We need more time.

The note being, it's a little too sad.

Yeah?

There's no uplifted.

It's a little too sad.

Jesus Christ, if you just did James Taylor's story, it'd be the saddest fucking show in the world.

Well, that's why we're not doing the James Taylor story.

In fact, my son, my little boy,

he's seven now, but when he was four, he asked me to take off the James Taylor.

I was playing James Taylor.

He asked me to take it off because it was too sad.

Really?

Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah.

What were you playing?

Like Fire and Rain or something?

Whatever?

You can hear it in the voice.

It's in the voice.

It's in the chordal structure.

It's in

something he discovered really early.

Right.

Man, I talked to him.

That story's harrowing.

Yeah.

You know, drug addiction and depression.

Yeah.

My God.

I can't listen to Brian Wilson.

I feel the mental illness.

Can't listen to Towns Van Zandt.

Same thing.

I fucking feel the alcoholism.

And it's not fun party alcoholism.

Right.

You know, but it's not Jimmy Buffett alcoholism.

No, no, it's like end of the rope alcoholism.

Right.

Everything, every song could end with him dying.

But James, even before those troubles, I, because, you know, I found these recordings of James

doing his music when he was, I don't know, 19, 20 years old

in England.

He was doing a thing on the BBC, just him and his guitar and the BBC.

And I was struck by

he was just like a fully formed artist.

I'm like, it's all there.

The thing

he's doing now at 76, he was doing then.

And his response when I mentioned this to him was like, well, aren't most artists

developed by that point?

I was like, no, they're not.

You're really an outlier.

It's really uncommon to find somebody who is essentially the same and he said well actually he said he said I figured something out he said I actually figured it out a little earlier I figured it out when I was like 15 yeah he figured something out

that he's been able to continue to mine and explore he figured out his zone of vibration yeah you know which is kind of heavy but somehow

uplifting enough yeah to where it resonates with everybody yeah which is part of the challenge of writing this piece right?

I've got to find that zone of vibration in the piece.

Yeah.

But

you are a lifelong fan?

I am.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But not like Steely Dan.

Well, I love them both.

Yeah.

You can do that.

That's fine.

I can love them both.

Yeah.

I'm more of a jazz guy.

In fact, when James and I first started spending time together,

it was so great to just listen to all the songs, and all my questions were about who's playing what instrument, and how did you get this guy, and

where were you recording this?

You know, sort of the how of the music.

I was really interested in that.

So you're more of a jazz guy?

Yeah, usually.

Uh-huh.

Do you have a deep knowledge?

Deep.

I mean, I'm not a.

Because I do jazz myself

in terms of listening.

Oh, yeah.

And because I'm

mildly OCD and kind of a completist, is that what you call it?

That I realize at some point there's no way I can know all these guys.

There's no way I can know all the music.

There's no way I can wrap my brain around the movements of

the context of jazz.

And so you end up with that, you know, the core group of about 20,

25.

You can't know all of it, anything.

You can't know all.

There's always another fucking room to explore.

Yeah, well, if they die, you've got a limited, you know, you've got the catalog.

That's all you've got.

And then someone digs out shit they didn't want released, and then you're listening to stuff.

The lost tape they would never put out.

And somehow that's a window in to their imperfection.

And slowly you realize, like, this guy just never stopped playing.

Right.

And it was probably better if they just left the fucking stuff that was unreleased alone.

Right.

Springsteen was like, what are they?

There are like five albums they just now they're finding worth of materials?

It's like, yeah, he just didn't put this out.

Could you imagine that?

It's like if they put all my open mic sets on stage, like we're releasing the stuff that Mark was doing for nine people

in 1989.

It'd be a fucking disaster.

Terrifying, right?

In the documentary about me, you saw it.

That footage of me doing stand-up early on was the cringiest thing I ever saw in my life.

Yeah.

Had no love for that.

You don't go back and look at that stuff as a matter of course, right?

No, why would you?

Right.

I mean, the last special I looked at, because I was proud of it, but like seeing yourself, would you want to see yourself acting in 1990?

No.

No.

I don't want to see myself now.

I don't want to see,

I might have told you, I have a kind of reverse-body dysmorphia

where I think I look all right.

Yeah, you think you look great.

I think I look pretty good.

And then I see myself.

I'm like, what the fuck?

I'm living the line.

I felt like I kind of nailed it on the last special.

I got the shirt right, got the hair right, got the pants right, but I wore it for months.

The outfit.

See, you're a one-man band, so that's,

you know,

you're stripped of all that other context, which is.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes up there, you know, fashion-wise, on television, off television.

Even last night, I was.

But you know as well as I do, that don't mean shit.

It means a lot to me.

If we go through my closet and I show you the things I bought for a special as opposed to just wear clothes I was comfortable with.

The time I hired a stylist, it was kind of a mistake.

Then there was the one time I said, why don't I just wear exactly what I wear, which was this shitty LL bean flannel shirt, which looked terrible.

It's been a long road.

But it doesn't matter at all to him.

And material is the only thing that matters.

Material that delivers matters.

I think that we could argue on the vest I chose for End Times Fun.

I think a lot of people probably had a problem with that.

Why are you stopping?

I have a theory about why you're stopping.

That's what's a good question.

Yeah.

Well, honestly,

the idea that people talking on microphones

is some casual kind of process.

The way people take this in and like, well, why would he stop just talking?

The way I do it is

for both better and worse, emotionally taxing in some ways.

Not taxing, but it takes a lot out of me.

And we do two of these a week.

And the way my producer, Brendan, produces is meticulous.

And we never missed a show, never missed a Monday and Thursday.

The workload was real.

And

I think in terms of just talking and in terms of the media environment, I'm kind of, I'm a little tired of talking in a way.

And I'm a little tired of digging parts of myself out, which is what I do,

in order to share and relate.

And my fear is that having not taken a break from it in 16 years,

that

I don't really know where I sit in myself because

just by virtue of what you expect out of yourself and what you think the audience expects in terms of the monologues and stuff, I'm kind of doing the same narrative of my anxiety and my heartbreak and all that stuff.

And I feel part of it is me just wanting to keep it to myself for a bit and to feel what that space feels like.

Also to challenge myself to know whether or not my creativity

operates beyond immediate gratification or impulsive talking, which is the root of both of what I do.

It's what this is, and it's also stand-up.

That I create all that stuff on stage.

I don't write in a formal way.

And I'm just, you know, I know I'm talented and I've been playing more music, but I'm curious to see if I can apply with focus and intent my creativity to something outside of my own narrative.

That mostly jibes with my theory.

Yeah.

What do you got?

I think that we all have a

our public personality is curated.

Yeah.

Everybody, whether you're in the entertainment nature or not.

You're talking,

but some people more on purpose.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some people have to.

Right.

Right.

It's mostly defensive.

Some people have to.

Yeah.

And I think

part of your appeal, not only as an artist, but also as a whatever this is, I don't know what you call this, podcaster, talker,

conversation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Conversationalist.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that there's curation involved in that as well.

Part of the gig is, I'm going to show you who I am, wartz and all.

But of course, you don't really do.

Nobody does that.

Nobody shows everything.

Nobody says, let me tell you the fucking worst.

I've gotten pretty close, dude.

I've gotten pretty close.

Like, you know, between the books and this,

like, going on the day after Lynn died.

Yeah.

I mean, I've definitely done that in a lot of instances.

You know, there are certain things that I kind of want to keep to myself, but they end up in the stand-up.

You know, like,

I'm really kind of, I don't know where else to dig, and I don't want to become redundant because at the core, you know, if what you're saying, what you're saying is true, I think for most people, but I feel like I've put a lot of it out there.

I do too.

And the stuff that doesn't get out there is usually Brendan protecting me from myself.

Right.

But like, at what point do you become and that that depletion from that it's deep it's it you know it's It's beyond exhaustion.

I don't feel tired.

I can still talk.

But it's like

I don't have the inner resource other than to become redundant in my patterns, which is my version of public personality.

And I think it is with a lot of people.

It's like with any band.

When I look at my last three or four stand-up specials, I'm basically talking from the same place, just with different stories and words.

So

maybe I don't want to be locked to that anymore.

Right.

Maybe you'd like to

try it without the mic, in a sense, right?

Try and try to be a person in the world.

Try being a person in the world without the microphone.

A little bit.

You know,

when I first decided to stop, I thought, like, well, people really need my voice.

And then, like, I go out to promote this special and I just talk without Brendan, Brendan protecting me from myself.

And it's just interesting, you know, how much fuck you is still in me.

And, you know, how much that if there's anything I do or I've learned to do, it's to be more diplomatic about reactive feelings.

Yeah.

So,

you know,

it would behoove me not to do much, too much talking without Brendan.

Because

I know from the past that I'll eventually get myself in some kind of trouble.

Right.

But yeah, but

do you think it's valid?

My reason for stopping?

Well, sure.

Yeah.

Of course.

I'm going to try to direct a movie.

I'm sure you're going to do lots of things.

I'm going to act in a golf show.

You're going to act in a golf show.

You're going to direct a movie.

You're going to continue to hone your stand-up.

You've told me stand-up is always kind of the number one job, right?

But there's part of me that's sort of like,

after that last special, I'm like, I said it.

I've said it all.

Yeah, how much.

I I told you, I thought it's my favorite

of yours.

Yeah, it was really a different type of work on that one.

But I feel like I've said it.

You know, people ask me, I'm like, it's in the, Jonah,

it's all in there.

Just go look at it.

I already said it.

You want to do more acting, not just a golf show.

You want to find other opportunities to do stuff.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I mean, yeah.

I mean, I...

I've been presented opportunities,

but I don't love to travel.

There's a miracle happened with the golf show.

Fucking miracle with the second season because they picked it up and I was, and they couldn't shoot in Vancouver again.

And because it's too late in the year, and they were looking for places.

And I'm like, New Mexico would be good, you know, because I grew up there.

But now then all of a sudden it comes down to Atlanta or like Charleston.

And I'm like, I can't fucking do that for three months, three and a half months.

And then like,

you know,

because I have this sort of zero fuckness, I start texting the showrunner.

I'm like, I'll be miserable in Atlanta and

I'll be difficult on set.

I promise.

And then he texts back, well, that's a choice.

And I'm like, yeah, it's my livelihood.

You know, that's what I said.

But

some miracle happened, they're going to shoot it here.

Wow.

They got the tax break.

So that's fucking great.

I will try to find more work within the craft of acting to do with this guy.

I will try to do that.

I will try to, the guy in the golf show.

That's what my assignment is.

We've established a character.

Now it's, you know, hopefully the writing will match up with my desire to go deeper with that, and we'll see.

Isn't that always the way it is?

I suppose.

Or no, it's not always the way it is.

Some people say, I'm going to get that check.

Don't write too much stuff for me to do.

Oh, yeah, no, I'd like more.

I want more stuff.

Right.

Some people don't.

Some people are like, this is too much shit.

The supporting role thing,

it's great, but, you know, because it's not all on you, but a lot of waiting.

Right.

What about you?

How was

working with Sterling?

Oh, fantastic.

Are you a regular on it?

You all the way in it?

Well,

of this first season.

I don't even know if there's a second season.

Oh, so that's what's coming out?

Is it out?

It's not out yet.

It's just the first season of the lowdown?

Yeah.

I love that fucking guy.

I do too.

And what was your experience?

Because my experience on the days, the week I did Reservation Dogs,

which I I thought was the best show of the last 20 years.

Yeah.

Me too.

It was a way of thinking, a way of humor, a way of spirituality, a way of living that nobody

knew about or paid attention to.

And

it was honest.

Yeah.

And

I just couldn't believe it.

So when he put me in it, and to see that most everyone on the set is native,

it's like joyous.

I know.

I know.

It's remarkable.

Look, I did something I've never done before in my life.

I got my agents.

I said, just

get me on a call with that dude.

And I got on a call with him.

I got on a Zoom call with him.

And I said, I'll do anything.

Yeah.

I said, just based on that show and who you are and what your mission is, I'll do anything.

I said, if you don't have a part for me, I'm coming to Tulsa and I'm going to get a food truck for the casting crew.

I'm going to help.

You can't keep me out of it.

And

he sent me a script and he said,

pick what you want to do.

And I sent it back to him and I said, no, you pick.

You tell me how I can help you.

Yeah.

And it was everything I wanted it to be.

It was everything I hoped.

And I was not the only person making that call.

You know, Tim Blake Nelson, also from Tulsa.

Jeannie Triplehorn, also from Tulsa.

I mean, you know, some of us are like, you can't do this without us.

Jeannie Triplehorn's from Tulsa.

Yeah.

And she's in it.

I haven't seen her in years.

She's in it.

Yeah.

How's she doing?

She's great.

She's great on the show.

And Ethan?

Fantastic.

All in.

Yeah.

All in, that dude.

Yeah.

He, uh, what's the part?

His part?

Your part.

I'm a bad guy.

Yeah?

Yeah.

What kind?

The kind with money.

Ah, yeah.

So you're

a high-level bad guy.

Well, you have to watch a show.

I'm excited about it.

I am too, man.

It's so Tulsa.

It's so.

What part did you grow up in?

I was was born in Tulsa, but never actually lived there.

I grew up in southeastern Oklahoma in a little town called Durant.

Yeah.

And what was your experience

as a kid with the native population?

Well,

Durant, Oklahoma is the seat of the Choctaw Nation.

Yeah.

You know, I just did one of those

Finding Your Roots.

Really?

I did?

With Gates?

Yeah.

I did one of those.

It was pretty great.

Yeah.

And it was pretty great.

And one of the things I wanted to investigate was the Native American blood I have, which is on both sides.

You have

mom and dad.

Really?

Pretty extensive.

And in fact, they were able to come up with a lot more history than

they normally can.

I said, normally when we find a lot of Native American blood,

we hit a wall of history.

But they were able to trace it back fairly far.

They said that about my Jew, too.

They said, we got further back into Belarus than we ever had.

So, you know, my experience.

Where did you find out?

Well, you got to watch the show.

I'm not going to give away the show anymore.

You're not going to give away finding your roots?

The fuck?

It's going to be so less interesting.

Me telling it is going to be less interesting than the way they're going to fucking reveal it on the show.

I mean, at some point, they started talking about some Confederate asshole, and I'm just like, yeah, whatever.

Okay, I don't care.

You know, there's a whole story about this guy.

It's like, well, he went out to the fucking,

he got shipped off to a prison somewhere.

And then

he got released as part of a prisoner exchange program.

And then he re-signed up with the Confederacy.

And then just at every step of the way, they're like, and what do you think happened next?

I'm like, I'm sure he was fine.

I'm sure he was absolutely fine.

But what did you find out that surprised you?

That's not something you get totally with the show.

Because you're sitting there kind of in shock and you're like, wow.

But like,

what do you walk away from it?

So I knew about the Creek Creek blood, Muskogee Creek blood on my dad's side,

and they found out some stuff about that.

But then my mom had always claimed Cherokee blood,

which we laughed about because people who are from Oklahoma who claim Cherokee blood were always, it's always met with a shrug.

Like, it's what everybody claims.

Sure.

It's like, you don't have any fucking Cherokee blood.

Turns out she did.

Turns out she had Cherokee blood.

How many generations back on these things?

A few.

I mean, going back to, you know,

a few.

Yeah.

I was hoping for some Viking,

but I didn't get that.

Didn't get any money.

No, I thought I got like 99% Ashkenazi.

I don't even know what the other 1% would be.

I guess it's just,

you know, we don't.

Blood is different than heritage.

They're two different things.

Sure.

Sure.

But I was hoping maybe the Vikings came into Poland.

Did the Vikings go into Poland?

Didn't they?

I don't think so.

I think they made maybe the coast of Europe somewhere.

I thought maybe one coast of Europe?

There was maybe,

you know,

somewhere.

It's possible.

I got to look at a map.

I was just hoping for a little, like, you know, because I consider myself kind of a.

There's your new, there's your new, there's your new show, the coast of Europe.

Yes, Mark Marin explores the coast of Europe.

I'd watch that shit.

But it's interesting growing up in New Mexico around

Indigenous people because it was so,

I imagine the presence in New Mexico is different than Oklahoma.

Like in New Mexico, it was definitely in terms of art heavily integrated all throughout my life.

There were native painters, jewelry, all that stuff.

But in terms of having the experience of, you know, being in their lives or them being in yours,

there was not much of that.

You know, you would see them around,

but you wouldn't, you know, you didn't know what was going on and what the life was.

Well, but again, we were them in a way.

You know,

don't get me wrong, I was raised in a very, very, for lack of a better word, white household.

But, you know, my brother, my oldest brother, is

half, quarter, his grandfather was full blood.

So, I mean,

so you know, the

presence was ubiquitous or part of us.

Sure.

Right, right.

I don't know how else to define it.

I mean, and of course,

it's a legacy of bloodshed and horror.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, I was totally thrilled to be part of it.

Yeah.

You know?

I told Sterling, I said, I got a little mad when I saw your show, when I saw Reservation Dogs.

Yeah.

I said, because I've lived in Oklahoma for the first 17 years of my life.

I was like, why have I never seen these people represented on TV before?

How many fucking bad doctor shows have I watched in my life about white doctors or white cops?

You know, I've seen that show.

I love some of those shows.

It's not a problem with that.

It's just, why did I have to watch a thousand of those to get to one reservation?

That's the way I felt.

Like, it's almost like, why did I wait my entire life to know anything about this?

And the zone of it, like the timing, the sense of humor, the spirituality the the the actual um

uh environment yeah of the reservation what's left from the heritage and what carries on like it's all in there in the most entertaining sort of and it was like it was it I can't shut up about it usually yeah well what did he say

yeah I know

no shit did you watch any of his movies no you should watch them he's made some good movies yeah I love him.

You know,

we shot a lot of the load down on his property.

He's got a couple hundred acres, Keystone Lake in Oklahoma, and we shot some of it on his property.

It was great fun.

I love the crew.

I loved being in Oklahoma.

I loved being home to be part of it.

I loved

the sense of ownership of that, like the place.

Yeah.

And the fact that he's making a community there where there wasn't one before.

Totally.

It was so exciting.

Tim Blake came back, one of the great Oklahoma Jews.

That was the greatest revelation to me when I had Tim on here.

What, that there are Jews in Oklahoma?

Not only are they Jews, but like how they got there.

There was like, I can't remember what year his family settled there, but there was a Jewish diaspora kind of, not diaspora, like they, they were, they, you know, they spread out throughout the country.

So they wouldn't all be in the same place.

Yeah.

But that was great.

Did you have scenes with him?

Never once.

You know him?

Never met him.

Really?

Yeah, I know.

Weird.

It's kind of weird.

My dad died in a Jewish community,

you know, community center, Jewish.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Because of that?

Well, it didn't help.

Yeah, the Jews, they get around.

They're all over the the place.

So

what's on the acting

docket?

For you.

Do you care?

Well, yeah, because I want to learn.

I mean,

I got some stuff coming out.

You know, I'm not here to talk about stuff.

I mean, I'll tell you about my stuff.

I don't care.

I just want to know about the roles that you've taken.

So I play

a general in the new Catherine Bigelow movie, A House of Dynamite, coming out

soon?

In what era?

Modern, contemporary.

Oh, so you had to put on the uniform?

I did.

And do the whole thing?

I did.

That must have been good.

That was a blast.

Yeah.

It was hard.

It was a hard gig.

Yeah.

It was almost all, you know, computer screens and having to do all this.

In front of green screens?

No, not green screens, actual computer screens, actual monitors in which I'm like talking to everybody I'm talking to is on a screen somewhere.

Okay, yeah.

And having to talk that kind of shit NADSAT language, you know,

operationalize and, you know, shit words like that.

It's just like a language I don't fucking speak.

So it was really hard.

At one point,

the AD came up to me.

We were shooting.

The AD came up to me between takes.

Catherine was back over by the monitor.

And he said,

Catherine wants to know why you keep looking down.

And I said, because I'm reading my lines.

Literally got them.

You weren't fooling anybody, were you?

So you get away with it.

This will be okay here.

It's hard.

I ran up against the same thing when I did the big short, when you have to learn a different language.

Dude, you're so funny in that.

Oh, thanks.

I re-watched it.

Yeah.

Because I found it annoying the first time I watched it.

Yeah.

And then I watched it again, and I liked it better.

And then I watched it a third time, and I was like, this is fucking great.

Yeah, it's really good.

I mean, that scene where it's like, you can give us back our money.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really good.

But for all of us, it was just like, we don't speak that language.

We don't speak money.

We don't speak money.

And we don't sure don't speak military.

We don't know that language.

Yeah.

I had a couple of dudes on set with me who were the real deal.

Yeah.

And they were like, they're the guys.

They're the technical advisors.

Sure.

They've sat in the seat I'm pretending to sit in.

So it's

fun.

It was hard kicked.

It was funny because

but I mean,

when you read the script,

what did you realize about that character that got you there?

Well, it's funny.

The script for Catherine's movie

is very

process-oriented.

It's really a procedural.

Here are what these people in government do.

So the job in some way is to find a human being

who's doing that job, performing this function, right?

And so just find the moments where a little humanity kind of leaks out, creeps out.

For all of us, it's a real ensemble film.

Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Jared Harris, Greta Lee.

There's a lot of really good people in it.

But that's

it's really the gig is just to find the human being who's making these decisions, who's making these calls.

You know, the guy I play doesn't have my

he's not, he doesn't think the way I do.

yeah so that's always fun yeah to think sure think the way somebody else thinks yeah yeah and that and that's what it really comes down to and that's on the page

it's always on the page I'm you know people ask me about all the research I I'm not a big research guy I'm always kind of like I just put on the costume and act like I'm pretend I'm the person find the feelings

Find the feelings and if it's well written, they're there.

It's there.

And in fact, I think it really served me on that picture in particular because like the other generals were saying,

the guys I was talking to, they were like, you're not answerable to anybody.

You do whatever the fuck you want.

You know, there's no,

there's no protocol that you, you know.

You're the general.

You want to drink a coffee?

Drink a coffee.

You want to stand up?

Stand up.

Sit down.

You don't have to salute.

You're indoors.

You know, you do what the fuck you want.

You're the guy.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's a good mindset to get into.

Yeah.

You know, it's amazing.

The props, the hair, the costume, the set, the lighting, the cutting,

so much of it just doing all the work for you.

You kind of don't have to do shit.

Yeah, you just have to listen.

Yeah, listening, which is the skill.

I remember reading about Mickey Rourke one time that he kept a little rock in his pocket.

His whole thing was like just trying to keep all of his focus at all times on the rock in his pocket.

To what end?

So he wasn't thinking about

all he's thinking about is a rock in his pocket.

I don't even know if that's true.

Mr.

Rourke, if you're listening and I'm wrong, I apologize.

Oh, my God.

Just a rock in his pocket.

I don't know.

I don't know.

Maybe he was adjusting his cock.

Are you doing that again?

I am.

Maybe I don't have good underwear.

I wore the wrong underwear for Marin.

So are you thinking about a play?

James Taylor.

I've been thinking about James Taylor.

Okay.

And trying to get, you know,

some more productions of the minutes would be good.

That was my last play.

I just got an email from a guy who said it's going up in Vermont.

Ah, maybe.

My play, Mary Page Marlowe, is opening in London in a few weeks.

That's the one I told you about that Andrea Ryseborough

and Susan Sarandon are doing.

And this is the first run?

No, no, it happened at Steppenwolf 10 years ago.

So it's the first London production.

So I've been over for a few rehearsals of that, and I'll go go back over for a few previews.

I'm excited about that.

And then Carrie is doing Bug.

We were doing Bug at Steppenwolf when the pandemic hit.

It was also the show we did to come out of the pandemic, but we're finally moving that production to Broadway.

That's coming,

opens in January.

But as a guy who writes plays.

Yeah.

Like, I think we had a conversation about,

you know, writing during COVID.

Right.

And, you know, what does one do?

How does one.

like because it seems to me that a good play

that isn't made specifically as a pandering product

must somehow speak to the impact of

time and

reflect on that like in terms of like you know, what we've gone through as a country or whatever, right?

Even if it's abstract.

Do you,

is that a conscious thing?

Well, I'm certainly conscious of the world I live in, right?

I mean, no matter how much news I'm taking in or not taking in on any given day, I know what's going on in the world.

My response to what's going on in the world is

perhaps not especially sophisticated.

Right.

Right.

But it's human.

You're human.

It is human.

And I try and contextualize that some.

That's what The Minutes was supposed to be about for me.

You know, I wrote a play about fascism and nobody came.

It's kind of how I feel.

Yeah.

Went for The Minutes?

Yeah.

The Minutes is very much about fascism.

When did you write that?

2016.

Yeah.

First appeared on stage 2018 and we took it to 2020 and got shut down by COVID and you came back from it on Broadway

with a new cast, 2022 or something.

But when you look at the news and you think about what's going on,

when you're conceiving of a possible play, do you think about

a person, a phenomenon?

Do you think about like what would the world be like through these characters' eyes?

No, I don't know.

I'm telling you, man, I got 10 plays up on the shelf.

They all started different ways.

I don't know how the fuck I wrote them.

I don't know how anybody writes a play.

I look at it totally daunted by it.

I'm like, I don't know how anybody writes a fucking play.

I don't know how to do it.

I never did it the same way twice.

I'm not good at it.

Like, I don't know when to write.

I don't know how to write.

They asked me about Mary Page Marlowe.

I'm like, I was sitting in a director's chair in Cape Town, South Africa, working on homeland, and my mother had just died.

And I started writing this play on an iPad.

That's not how you write a play.

Tennessee Williams didn't do that.

I don't know how the fuck you do it.

It eventually became a play.

Right.

Linda Vista started out as just like a noodling exercise on the keyboard.

It was just like a conversation between two guys.

And then slowly, I'd never written a play like that.

That just turned from this conversation with two guys into this two and a half hour play about this guy's unraveling.

Yeah.

None of them are written the same way

twice.

Well, yeah, I mean, I talked to Lipside, who says, hi.

Hi, Sam.

He generally starts with a sentence and builds out.

Yeah, right.

If you, you know, you get a good idea and you can build out from there.

Yeah.

I've written, I don't know, I've written 10 plays in a 30-year career.

I'm not that prolific in terms of.

And that's because you're avoiding it with acting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, and a little screenwriting mixed in, and a little improv, and Blu-ray collecting, and whatever the hell else.

You know, I've got two kids, too, which is a, you know, I've got two little kids, which is a.

How's your yeah, how old's the second one?

Seven and four.

Yeah.

Seven-year-old boy, four-year-old boy.

How's the Blu-ray collection?

Extensive.

Like a thousand?

11,500.

What?

I didn't even know there were that many.

Do you have all the boo-rays?

I don't.

I don't.

I don't.

It's my.

Do you watch them?

Yeah, fuck.

We watch, we watch pretty much a movie every night.

Yeah.

Yeah, we go.

We have the kids down and we watch a movie.

Yeah.

It's like it's very important to do that now.

Well, again, what we were talking about.

As long as we're taking something, you know, as long as we're experiencing

story.

Yeah.

Well, I go out of my way.

Yeah.

I mean, we went to see

the director's cut of Close Encounters at the Egyptian for American Cinematech, which does great stuff.

How'd you like it?

It's great.

Yeah, right.

Because I don't have any recollection of seeing that in the movies ever.

Really?

We just went to see the 50th anniversary of Cuckoo's Nest.

Oh, yeah.

Fucking great.

Yeah.

I hosted a screening of McCabe and Mrs.

Miller for the American Cinematech.

Great print.

I wasn't even of age to have seen that in the movie theater.

Yeah.

I'm not sure that I had.

It's spectacular.

Yeah.

If you watch good movies, like I just watched

Trouble at Big Rock, or I can't remember, it was Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan.

Bad Day at Black Rock.

Bad Day at Black Rock.

Yeah.

Great.

Yeah.

Why don't you remake that movie?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I, yeah.

That story could totally play now.

Yeah.

I'm pitching it.

To me?

Yeah.

Read my day.

Am I writing it or am I playing Spencer Tracy?

Well, would you rather do that or Robert Ryan?

Robert Ryan has to do more physical stuff, I feel.

He has to do a get more.

It's interesting that he was such a great heavy, but he could also play.

Yeah.

Like Robert Ryan and the Wild Bunch is just a marvel.

I know.

It's funny.

Those guys, when they made Bad Day at BlackRock, were probably like 40, right?

They were probably like 20 years old.

20 years older.

20 plus years younger than we are now.

You think?

I don't know.

Okay, maybe.

They looked older.

Spencer was older.

Yeah, different time.

Because there's that moment where Spencer's got to do a little karate business.

Because when we were kids, 60 and 60 plus was fucking A old.

Yeah.

And truth is, it really is.

Yeah,

that's the big secret.

It still is.

It is.

I'm not enjoying it.

No.

I mean, I enjoy it to a degree, but like the clock, the clock.

Hey, man, 60 bothered the fuck out of me.

It just turned a few months ago, and it bothered the fuck out of me.

Sorry, I missed your birthday.

How did it bother you?

You're like,

I don't like that number.

I didn't like it.

It's never bothered me before in my life.

60 really bothered me.

And I got little kids.

So you can't help but do the math, you know?

It's like the math becomes really easy all of a sudden.

You turn 60 and you're like, oh, I can pay.

Yeah, I know how that goes.

Get around.

Yeah.

I know.

Some guy told me to get a kitten to stop my other cat from beating up on the old cat.

I'm like, I'm not, I can't bring another, it's going to outlive me.

It's a fucking cat.

You know, Carrie is 15 years younger than me.

Yeah.

And her people live a very long time.

Okay, so you're good.

The kids will be fine.

No, no, what I mean is

she lost three grandparents in a year.

They were all in their mid-90s.

So her people live on for fucking ever.

And she's 15 years younger than me.

And she's a woman, and women live longer than men.

So I'm like, honey, you're going to have 40 years after I'm, you're going to have a whole fucking huge life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What was the impetus for this conversation?

The only

was that the speech you gave at your 60th birthday?

The only thing I asked was I said, don't marry some guy who's going to do something stupid with my plays.

Oh, okay.

Right.

Who's going to like do something stupid?

Not with your kids.

Yeah.

But with you.

Yeah.

With your plays.

August Osage County on ice.

Don't marry that guy.

How have the kids changed your outlook?

Well,

they're just amazing.

I mean, my son is a little weirdo.

He's into weird stuff, and he's very sensitive, and I worry about him all the time.

And my daughter, my four-year-old, just has

ice water in her veins.

There's not a sentimental bone in her body.

She's entirely the opposite of my son.

She says the most chilling shit.

She said to my son, you know, again, he's three years older than her.

She said to him, Haskell, you will never be loved.

She's reading your place?

And he's totally susceptible.

You know, he's just like, no.

Oh, God.

That's pretty cold, dude.

Yeah, she's cold-blooded.

And how do you bounce back from that conversation?

When I snuggle, you know, my son is very snuggly.

He wants to snuggle up and cuddle and stuff at night.

My daughter's like, it's okay.

You can leave.

Take a break.

You can leave.

Good for her.

All right, buddy.

Well.

Did we do it?

Did we talk about it?

Yeah, we talked about it all.

Mortality, creativity, why I'm ending the show, acting,

a little bit about movies, the importance of movies.

What have you been watching?

What was the last movie you watched?

Edit out in this long pause while I try and remember that.

This is what makes

audio so good.

It's that pensive long pause.

The last movie I watched was a rewatch of Park Chan Wook's Decision to Leave

from about three years ago.

Good?

That's a fucking great movie.

And he's got a new one coming out, so I kind of wanted to

re, you know, the first one is, the one I just watched is so elliptical.

It takes you a while to sort of catch up to what's going on while you watch it.

So I wanted to watch it a second time, so I was like, I kind of knew where I was a little bit more and locate myself in it a little more.

That's good.

Yeah, I watched

Akira Kurosawa's,

what is it, high-low?

Oh, yeah.

Because I watched Spike's version and I talked to Spike.

Yeah.

And I got to rewatch or watch for the first time some Kurosawa stuff.

Oh, man.

That's the shit.

That's the good stuff.

It really is, right?

Yeah.

I don't think I've seen Yojimbo.

Oh.

That's the shit.

I got to do it.

I mean, I remember seeing Rashaman at some point.

Yeah.

And Seven Samurai, but I haven't seen Yojimbo.

Yojimbo is the one that I think that

he sued Sergio Leone because

Fistful of Dollars is such a direct rip-off.

I mean, some shots are the same.

It's really a rip-off.

He sued him in one.

Oh, yeah?

Yeah.

Oh, good for him.

Yeah.

It's funny you get to a certain age, all the old movies.

I've kind of realized that about myself.

It's like, I've got to go back about 30 years to start really hitting the patch.

After about 95, my interest

starts to really wane.

yeah it's a couple of things there are there are oh there's great great artists yeah everywhere you look yeah always looking forward to this new paul thomas anderson thing i am too it's going to be good i think how about that like you know celebrating pynchon that like you know he loves the guy yeah i mean i re-watched inherent vice because i was working with owen right that was so funny yeah he like because you remember owen's character yeah kind of shows up places

and i because owen never watches himself and i'm like i thought that was a pretty good role for you and he's like

I didn't understand that movie.

I'm like, that's perfect for the character.

Yeah, right.

Did you ever read Pynchon?

Yeah, somewhat when I was too young to know what the fuck I was reading.

You know what I mean?

I haven't gone back and reread it since I was a.

I like that Paul finds some sort of truth in there because it's tricky stuff.

Very.

Yeah.

All right, pal.

What are you going to do now?

When are you going back?

Go back tomorrow morning.

And how's it living up in there in the country?

It's great.

You know, we did all the math of where we should live, and we got it right because the kids are really loving it.

They really thrive there.

I mean, I feel like an East Coast imposter.

I guess I am.

I've never lived in a

I've always lived in the central time zone.

So now I live in the And Chicago's indelible.

It is.

I was just back there with some friends not long ago, and just some people had never been there before.

So to be the tour guide and and show them around was just a great feeling.

Yeah, yeah.

I feel very much like a Chicagoan

who now lives on the East Coast.

Yeah, you know, yeah.

But we live in a beautiful place, beautiful area.

The people are really nice.

Yeah, everything's great.

You seem good.

Thanks for coming by.

Mark Marin, I love you.

I'm sorry that your show's going away, but I understand.

Yeah, I love you too.

And you'll probably be talking to me more whether you like it or not.

Gonna need friends, Tracy.

This is what you signed up for.

I'm gonna like it.

Tracy Wetz, my pal.

The lowdown premieres next week, September 23rd on FX.

Hang out for a minute, folks.

Hey, people, don't forget if you want all the WTF episodes ad-free and nearly 300 bonus episodes, sign up for the full WTF archives through Supercast.

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

Next week, we've got one of the people who helped inspire WTF, Jimmy Pardo, podcast trailblazer, is back in the garage.

Somebody will say to me,

hey, on the show, you said blah, blah, blah, a lot.

I go, I don't remember anything that happened on the show.

I've been doing this thing 19 years.

They go, it happened Monday.

Yeah.

Like, okay.

Well, again, I've done a lot of shows.

I don't, yeah, I'm the same way.

Cause I, you know, once I talk, it's out.

You're in it.

And then my producer takes to rest.

So if you're just asking me to remember a conversation from

15 years ago, it's not going to happen.

Me neither.

So let's talk about the evolution.

I do have to give you a lot of credit because when we started this,

which we're now kind of wrapping up, you were already dug in and doing it and an inspiration.

And you kind of had a you set a precedent and you helped us in

kind of figuring out how we were going to approach ours.

You're really one of the OGs of this wave of podcasting.

I am doing my best not to get emotional because that's very kind of you to say.

Thank you.

It's true.

And I will say this publicly, and I do say it publicly on my show.

There are some folks that forget that I was in early on podcasting, and you never do.

You give me credit everywhere you go, and it means the world to me.

That's next week on WTF.

And if all goes well, today I'll also be recording an episode for next week with a comedy genius who we never had on the show before.

Fingers crossed for that.

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

Here's some sludge.

Rumor lives, monkey and the fond of cat angels everywhere.