Happy Sad Confused - Jack Black

Episode Date: May 11, 2015

What you see is what you get when it comes to actor, comedian, and all around great guy Jack Black. Jack talks about the one time he drew a Satan Claus picture for Martin Scorsese, savoring the latest hot out of the even Letterman episodes, his thoughts on his past appearance on Getting Doug with High, having an early obsession with John Malkovich, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Get after him or have you shot What do you mean blow up the building From this moment on None of you are safe New episodes every Wednesday Wherever you get your podcasts Hey guys. Welcome to another edition of Happy Sad Confused. I'm Josh Horowitz. This is a podcast. You are listening to it in your ears. I hope. I don't know through what other orifice you would hear this. That's a medical issue that I cannot address in the time that I have allotted here. Welcome to the show. Welcome aboard this week's guest. I won't even tease it. Why should I take it? it because when you clicked on this, you probably saw the name. So there's no point in me being

coy. The guest today is Mr. Jack Black, actor, comedian, um, mini-mogel. He's produced a lot of stuff, so I can call him that. And star of the D-Train, a new movie out in theaters, which you should seek out. But I'll get to that in the second. First, let me catch you up on, uh, what's going on in my universe. Uh, been back home this week. Busy week. Taped Mr. Black for the podcast. Did some interviews with, oh, here's a movie I want to recommend. You've probably heard about this one if you're in the know. X. Machina, great sci-fi thriller, exploration of AI. You know, it's kind of a futuristic tale, but really not like, is it not Blade Runner? This is not hundreds of years in the future. This is like, what could happen five years from now? It's directed by Outta. Garland, who wrote Sunshine and the Beach. This is his first directing effort. Excellent movie. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Especially, there's actually a good amount of really quality

movies given that we're in May, which frankly, usually we have to wait until September, I feel like, to get some really good movies. But I would recommend X. Makina. The reason I mention it is I got a chance to interview Alicia Vakander. I believe that's how you pronounce her name. I think it's Alicia because that's how she introduced herself to me. And Donald Gleason, Donald Gleason, you may know for an underrated movie about time. I would recommend that. He's also going to be the new Star Wars film. Got a chance to talk to them about this one.

Some of the content is up on MTV's YouTube channel. Seek it out for an interview with them. What else is going on? Saw some good movies. I'm obsessing about, I can't talk about it yet because the embargo's not up, but the fact that I'm obsessing about Mad Max Fury Road should tell you all you need to know. We'll get into that in a few days next week. Trust me.

And not much else. I'm catching up on some TV. Have you guys watched the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt? I'm like five episodes in. I'm going to crank through the rest in the next few days. I'm loving it from the same team that brought you 30 Rock. I'm a little weight to the bandwagon. I get it, but I've been busy with movies.

What can I say? So, yes. So before we get into Mr. Jack Black, as always, hit me up on Twitter. Send me your questions. And without any further ado, let's dive into a question this. week from, I'm looking, let's see, from Mary's World. Well, Mary's World, here's your question. Josh, what is Tom Hiddleston smell like? I'm guessing fresh cut grass and lemons.

Excellent guess. I don't recall him smelling like fresh cut grass and lemons. I probably don't remember much of an odor, which is a good thing. Usually you don't want to remember the odor of somebody. That's usually a negative connotation. My, here's my Tom Hiddleston odor-related anecdote, as it were. Really, it's not much odor-related, but it's, you'll see where I'm going with this. I once had a, you know, you have these uncomfortable. Okay, so it's one thing to, like, interview people in an interview context. They come to you, you go to them, yada, yada.

I was out in Los Angeles, out of New York, and I was out in Los Angeles. I was actually going to do a bit with Tom, a sketch in L.A. a couple years ago. The next day, and I went to the hotel gym, and I, yes, I work out occasionally, okay? Stop judging me. I was leaving the gym, and who walked in, but Tom? So, that's unusual. I don't know how you guys feel about running into people you know at the gym. I don't feel good about it.

I don't want to see my coworkers, my friends, my loved ones, anyone I even remotely know at the gym. I just don't. Let alone an actor, I really respect, Tom, if you're listening. It was great to see you, but I wasn't necessarily looking to see you at the gym. Now I can say it. And he was lovely, but what happened then, it was literally, oh, here's the other thing. We were the only two people in the gym. We were literally the only two people in the gym. So he walks in,

I'm on my way out, then I feel compelled to stop and we're talking, and I just have this vivid memory. We're sitting on like the mat, just talking for like 20 minutes as he's stretching. I'm pretending like I'm not done with my workout. Like, should I just stay here? Are we just chit-chatting at a gym for an hour? What do I do? How does this end?

So it's not really odor-related, except that I associate gyms, gymnasiums, as it were, with odors. And I don't remember him smelling sweaty or anything, though he had just arrived at the gym, so why would he smell? I probably smelled. I was leaving the gym. um so tom smells great in answer to your question uh thanks for your question and uh keep

them coming in uh send them to me at joshua horowitz with the hashtag happy sad confused um okay back to the order at hand uh the event of the day which is jack black um so thrilled that jack came into my office to chat uh last week um i've done a lot with jack over the years he is always game for he's just like a great personality. He's one of those guys. I feel like I say this a lot, but the people I always gravitate towards, A, they need to have a sense of humor, B, they need to have a sense of humor about themselves. C, it's better if what you see is what you get. And that's exactly what Jack is. He's, um, as you would expect him to be. I mean, the, um, Colin, who's probably listening to this, our photographer was there and he said to me afterwards, like,

that's exactly what I hoped he would be like. Um, so Colin see that, that's, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Those are the good ones. Jack is in a new movie called The D-Train, which we don't reveal too much in this, so don't worry about spoilers. There's been a lot to talk about this one in that there are some twists and turns in it. The less you know going in, the better. So I'm not going to say too much except to say that Jack's in it, James Marsden's in it. It's a little bit fucked up in a good way. It's produced by Mike White, who did Chuck and Buck way back when. So that could give you a little hint of where the story's going. slightly subversive, edgy, weird comedy that I highly, highly, highly recommend.

Also worth noting, Jack's got a new show called The Brink, which I've seen the first two episodes of. We don't really talk too much about it except keep an eye out. It comes out in about a month or so on HBO. Really cool cast, directed by Jay Roach of Austin Powers fame. And it's kind of got a little dash of strange gloveish vibe to it. It's a political satire comedy. Good stuff from Jack Black. always an entertaining guest

and always a great performer. I hope you guys enjoyed this conversation. I know I did. Enjoy Mr. Jack Black. Yeah, that's an entrance. Yeah. I would expect nothing less. Hi, brother.

It's you. Stay there. Okay. I'm going to do it over here? Yeah, this is what we need. This is like a papal. What are we doing? What's happening?

I don't know. How would you describe this for audio purposes? Right now, I'm embracing for two hands. There's two hands holding. I love your sunglasses. This one's shaking, but this one's just holding. I want the best of all possible worlds. There was formality and there was love.

That sums up our relationship, I feel. That's right. It's good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, too. I'm not going to let you see the windows to my soul. I'm going to wear these sunglasses to keep a cool air of separation. What did George Stephanopalus do to you? this morning that you're hiding behind

those shades, dude. George did very little to me. We talked for about 20 seconds. Most of the 20 seconds was about touched by an angel. I saw. There wasn't a lot about you. I confess, I watched. If you'd be so kind, bring in the mic, you know how to do this, buddy. You want this tight?

You want this tight and intimate? Thanks, my friend. Boom, baby, boom, baby, bing, boom. This is, this is just for us. This is, we've had a lot of fun over the years. I've never been here in your private office. The inner sanctum the officina it's just you and me and i see you're a fan of the color of money one of my favorite martin scorsesey films i always feel like it's an underrated one it is underrated it's a it's a sequel to uh the the hustler which is one of my all-time favorite movies and it it does not disappoint it's like you know it's right there with the hustler in terms of

drama and intrigue and just plain straight up entertainment and i also feel like you know often they say like Newman got the Oscar Ford and it was like like they almost feel like it was like a make good for his career. No, he fucking rocked in that. He crushed it. He crushed it. And Tom Cruise's best work, some say, and, and, uh, have you, you and Marty ever, ever talked? Um, you know, we've never, uh, exchanged pleasantries. But one time he was involved in a charity and he or one of his people sent a request that a bunch of, of celebrities draw pictures about Christmas to raise money for this charity I think it was

feeding hungry kids or something and I worked very hard and I was like okay I'm gonna make this a Scorsesey Christmas I know what he wants

and so I drew a beautiful picture of Satan Clause and I thought it was clever because it's just one letter changed to make Satan instead of Santa it's the same letters

in fact, it's just moved around a jumbly. Yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I sent it over it with Satan Clause, and he was being pulled by a bunch of, like, gargoyle monsters instead of reindeer. Right. And it just

looked pretty badass. It sounds amazing. It was pretty bitching. It wasn't just a scribble. It was like, I took time. I got shading on there in colors, and it was returned to me, and they said, yeah, no, we can't, we can't do, it's a children's charity. and children and Satan don't go well together generally speaking yeah I don't I don't even think Scorsese ever saw the the drawing so I don't want to blame him yeah he would have loved it

it was made for him and maybe in the back of my mind I thought when he sees this he's going to put me in his next movie but then he just he just got Jonah Hill instead this is younger and funnier I don't blame I'd get Jonah Hill too not true um congratulations in earnest I spoke to you in Sundance. I saw the D-Train. I love the D-Train, truly. I also got a chance to watch the first couple episodes of the brink. Also, crazy, amazing. Thank you. As soon as I heard about that one, I was like all in. Yeah. You know, a little Dr. Strange Glove-ish meets Ishtar. And I mean that as a compliment. I liked Ishtar. I'm one of those. Now, do you think that he wore a strange glove in Dr. Strange Glove? He did as a matter of fact, didn't he? Yes, he did. Now that you mentioned it, he did. Are you doing double duty right now on the press store? Are you mostly on the D-Train right now? I'm keeping it clean, strictly D-Train.

And here's why. I think it muddies the issue when actors go out and talk about two upcoming projects. Got it. I'm going to go around and do all this stuff for that show when it's time for that show. I don't like piggybackers. I'm like, stop stowing away on this D-Train, you hobo. And you come around when you're, uh, when your time has come

that's like a month from now I would like I would never I would never promote a movie a month before it comes out because it's just too far out right people don't want to hear about what you're doing in a month no they want to hear what's what should I do this weekend yeah they want to because we can talk about

what am I going to buy tickets to a thing a month out yeah we're denying them they want immediate gratification you can't even set your TiVo to a month ahead I wish you could I would do that do you set your TiVo I really this is a big thing for me me every week. I, I immediately, as soon as like the weekend hits, I'm like, I schedule the whole next week. I go in hard. Yeah. I scroll through everything. I make sure I, I tape the talk shows I want to see. Yeah. Jack Black is on a show. Yeah. I'm recording that. Thank you.

Are you a big TV over? I do. I do, but I don't go way ahead in advance. In the morning, if I think of it, I'll be like, okay, let me just quickly see who's going to be on the talk shows. Like you say, that's a good way to go. Um, this month, I just, block T-vode all Letterman's. It doesn't matter who's on because he's almost gone and he's such a national treasure and I want every last drop because the thing is people think, oh, well, I can always go back and watch the old episodes. No, with these talk shows, you need to watch them on the night that they came out,

maybe the next day if you T-vote it. Yeah. Because they immediately lose some of their juicy sauce. Yeah. The talk shows like Letterman, you need to get them right out of the oven. And this is the last week where you, in the last couple weeks where you can get them hot David Letterman straight out of the oven. It's really upsetting, actually.

As we taped this last night, they had like the primetime special. I watched that. I'm exactly like you. I mean, I grew up with Dave. So you watched Dave last night. So I watched the primetime special, which was like a retrospective. Oh, my God. And I watched the opening, which had Will did a little Harry Carrey.

Oh, my God. I haven't watched the rest of it yet. That's great. So you didn't get to see me on Jimmy Fallon last night? I haven't seen that yet. That's not an edit in the audio. No, I just, yeah, you made your choice. Well, no, no, no, I don't believe.

No, no, I don't believe. You, like, totally sucked me into that. Yeah, yeah, no, no, David Latterman. It's special. And then you lied and said that when you see that I'm going to be on a thing that you tape it and not this time. It must be on the DBR. It was all about the other guys. Do you think I make a point of recording GMA every morning?

No, only. if, you know, Will Ferrell is on another channel, would you not? Is it, you, you mentioned the, the Satan and the children and, and perhaps not being appropriate for kids, you have an interesting career in that you have a major, you know, you've got the Kung Fu Pandas, you've got the goosebumps coming out, you are a icon for children the world over, and you also are able to do some pretty subversive shit, including the D-Train. Yeah. Is that something that was ever concerned?

Does Team Black ever say, dude, you can't do a movie where you do that with James Marsden? Because Kung Fu Panda 7's coming. Oh, yeah. You know, actually, yeah, that is a consideration. I'm like, wait a second. How is this going to play when, but I know that the world doesn't really do that. You can do things for different audiences and it's okay. It works.

I've done it before. and I can do it again. I just, you know, when something cool comes along, you do it. Yeah. There's not enough cool things to say, you know, tiptoe around the tulips. Not for me anyway. When I see gold, I mine it. You don't care.

Damn the torpedoes. That's your motto. Yeah. Do you have a tattoo? Would you tattoo that? If you had to tattoo a credo on yourself, do you have any tattoos? I don't have any tattoos. Damn the torpedoes.

That's kind of lame, actually. a tattoo. Where would you put it? On your butt? Or right on your dick. Wow. Damn. Apparently you're better down than I am.

How could you even fit all? I mean, you'd be telling your dick to go to hell. Why no tattoos? I just never found one that I thought, wow, this really encapsulates who I am. It just seems like forever. I'm very tentative when it comes to forever. Right.

It's like picking movies or picking things or picking, you know, loved ones. You got to pick wisely. And I just like, man, if you pick a tattoo that it sucks, you're stuck with it forever. Yeah, I could never pull the trigger. So what if does that apply also to films? Are you, do you act on instinct? Do you labor over it when the, when the offer comes around? I do labor over it and I do flip-flop.

But once I commit, I commit. Yeah, I never pull out. Wow. Um, let's talk. But if I did get a tattoo, yeah, there were a couple candidates. Okay. I was thinking it would be cool. Did you ever see Fantasy Island?

Yes. Remember the little guy that would say De Plain? Herbri Pilas shows. Yeah. What character did he play? Wait, was he tattoo? No. He was tattoo.

He was tattoo. He was tattoo. So I was thinking it would be cool to get a tattoo of tattoo on my ass. And you could get like almost life size. You could, it's got a small scale back. When you say, have you seen my tattoo? You're saying there's a double meaning there. I thought that would be pretty rad

And I also was thinking It would be cool to get a little devil A cute little devil You have some preoccupation with the dark one, don't you? Yeah, but also I just think, yeah, I think of my I like to think of myself as a little devil All right, I'm not going to say it anymore, I'm sorry I can feel your audience getting nauseous

That's my stomach gruffling I did my requisite research because you can never do it. Here are a couple things that struck me last night in reading up and watching some video of the Jack Black. One, I feel I feel intimidated because I feel like this is the follow-up podcast to when you and Doug Benson did your thing a few months back.

Oh, my God. Which I watched in its entirety last night, which is amazing. Wow, thank you. So for those that don't know, you got high with Doug. I did get high with Doug. I got Doug with high. That's exactly.

That's the name of this show. Not to promote another podcast. podcast, but you guys need to go seek this out because it's amazing. Was there any regret immediate? It felt like you were going through something. Look, there was never any question that I was going to do it because Doug Benson, brilliant comedian, agreed to be in my festival. I have a comedy festival called Festival Supreme. I asked him to do it as a favor to me. And he said, yes, I will. And my policy is, anyone that says yes to the festival, anything that is asked of me, I will do. Dangerous. And so I, I,

asked him to be in the festival and it was quick prode quo and he was like will you be on my podcast getting dug with hi and i was like oh my god okay let me just tell you dude i am such a lightweight i don't know what happened to my body chemistry but i i barely smoke anymore because i get super paranoid and i will not be a good guest and he was like i will take you as you are i will take you as it comes i was like i will do it for you done so it was done i was done i was on. And I was thinking, you know, it's 50-50. Sometimes I'll smoke a J or bongload and I will have the best fucking time. So I was like, this, you know what? I'm not going to be a negative Nelly. I'm going to go on the show. I'm going to smoke some bongloats. And I'm going to have a

good fucking time. It's going to be really funny. We're going to get off some weird tangents. Unfortunately, I knew pretty quickly. And he was just smoking like a chimney. And I felt a lot of peer pressure to keep up with him. But it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, it, quickly became apparent that it was going to be the other kind of high, the kind where I can't form a sentence. I get super terrified and I get up in my head and I'm like the part of your brain that is the communication center just basically shuts down. And then it's like, that's it.

And you go slightly comatose and it was a living nightmare for the next 20 minutes. And I actually, have you watched the back? In preparation for this, um, yes, I did. It was, it was tough to watch. I told my wife, who was there off camera, the safe word is cantaloupe or whatever it was. I think it was cantaloupe I watched. And, uh, she was instructed to come in and pull me out and save me and rescue me.

She didn't. And she did not do it because she didn't know if I really meant it when I said cantaloupe. And she's like, also, what am I going to do? Am I going to actually just, Stop the interview and pull you out? Is that going to help you in any way? Or is that going to actually make it worse? But here's the thing.

I've talked to Doug about it, and I said, I want to come back on. And I want to come back on, and I want to win. I want to beat this thing. Because you knock me off my stoner horse. I will get back on. And I'm going to train. I'm going to do bong loads. And I'm going to go on there.

And I'm going to fight my inner demons. and I'm going to slay that dragon. You know, as we tape this at Sika Damayo, I feel like I should have brought margaritas. He's another thing, though. Yeah. Doug could have helped me a little bit more. What could he've done?

Just like, uh-oh, my buddy, my good buddy's having a bad trip. Let me help him out here. Let me guide him out. Maybe it was a relaxing guided imagery. And instead, he just sort of ridiculed me and then was kind of like annoyed with me and just made it shittier. Thanks a lot, Doug.

But be that as it may. Right. You're going back. You're going to conquer it. It's like, man, it's like, it's like Pachie Al Mayweather Part 2. It's inevitable, right? I think so. I'll watch.

I'll be there. No matter how bad it goes, you get $100 million, right? It brings up a point that, that ties into our past, which is that I know you weren't necessarily doing publicity for that one, but like when you go make the rounds, you, I feel like you make the best of it. You turn it into fun for yourself. you'll do crazy shit we've done some crazy shit yeah you see it as an opportunity rather than I mean it is a job obviously but I mean is that fair to say that like when you have to do

the rounds and you're like okay let's let's just I just see it as an important part of the job yeah I mean we got a we got to get people to come to our movies and uh to think that you know you can just go and and make the movie and then your job is done is naive. That's the thing that you do for free. We got paid to go out and like, now, granted, I didn't get paid to do this movie. So what the fuck am I doing here? And the answer is, I'm proud of the movie.

So I want people to see it. So I go around and do it. But I feel like it's good in this context when I'm here with a cool dude laying down some knowledge about not just the movie, but life in general. These are the fun ones. when it gets crappy is when it goes on the conveyor belt and you're doing just straight up junket and it's one after the other after the other after the other and you can't help it because if you're working on a line

what do you call that line conveyor belt the assembly line yes we become robots all people that work on assembly lines all over the world it's a dehumanizing thing even for actors assembly line junkets, you're going to start getting really lame answers and doesn't matter how gung-ho you are and excited to give everyone a good interview. After a couple hours of the same questions coming at you, it's going to turn. Yeah, so I try to avoid those whatever possible. It's a crazy bizarre environment. You know, actually, I meant to tell you this, at one point, you know, our mutual

collaborator, Amanda Lund, did a little pilot thing for me that we wrote up about the junket circuit. Oh, my God. She played a correspondent in the Junkett world and killed it. Oh, that sounds amazing. Amazing. What's that called? It's called correspondence, actually. Correspondence.

Yeah, soon to be, hopefully, on the platform near you. We'll see. Yeah, thank you, buddy. Knock on for Micah. So, have you ever pulled an R.D.J? Have you ever walked out of an interview? Did you see that recently where he had the little... I saw that, yeah.

I thought it was brilliant marketing. How'd they do on their opening weekend? Not bad. Mission accomplished. You believed that. Sucker. Smarter than all of us. Ever been pissed off in an interview enough to walk out?

I'm trying to think if there's ever been something where I was like, you motherfucker. Not really. I don't have that kind of sweet baggage that could lead to that. Yeah, what's your, what's your button? What pushes your button? What's the topic I should not bring up? I don't know. But I think if I were really trying to.

do some verbal jiu-jitsu and get out of a thing i wouldn't just get up and walk out that's what you do if you actually are looking for extra youtube hits right i think the thing to do is just i don't know next question next question is the magical elixir it works every time and if they just stay on it i'm like oh man is that it that's all i got all right well good interview you got you got You got to shake hands and keep it all good and just walk out like it's just a normal interview. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about, here's what I'm curious about. I always like to talk to people about like the films, the pop culture touchstones when they were growing up that they like were obsessed with.

Like what were the, what was the movie, the movies, the actor, the actors that you were worshipping at the altar of when young Jack Black was. John Malcovic was the king pin. Love John Malcovich. I saw, he was the actor's actor. When I was growing up, I mean, in the 80s, if you were a theater major, yeah, uh, uh, then that was, that was the pinnacle because he was, he was coming out of, he was coming out of Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago and he, you know, did True West, and you could only see it on PBS if, if you, uh, didn't make it out to see it in Chicago

or New York, but, uh, you could tell that he was on another level. It was just realer than everyone else. And he was more peculiar than everyone else. Yeah. And he was dangerous and, and hilarious and real and just relaxed. And there's just something magic about his performances. And he was,

he never hit the big time in, I mean, he had big roles. Yeah. But he never like hit the mainstream like, oh my God, he is our best actor. Right.

He never had that like, he's one of those stuff like, we'll have that Michael Cheathe moment where like he'll get another great. and he'll kill it and be like oh wait but you look at that in that theater stuff always kind of flies under the radar yeah but true west and then death of a salesman who's in fucking credible and then um dangerous liaisons amazing uh in the line of fire beautiful just uh you know these were the things that i was doing i was doing a lot of john malcovitch impersonations from like you know 1988 to

to 1999 was all the way up to being John Malkovich that's I think that's 99 So the so were you I mean you

I mean you actually see something occurs to me when you talk about theater you've never done have you done Broadway you've never done Broadway have you

I've never been on Broadway but I did do off Broadway at the public Joe Papp public theater with a theater production with the actors gang yeah los angeles troop tim robin's company that he started in the 80s and uh it was a show

called um carnage and it was all about televangelism okay and it was really good it was really funny and weird and um and timely and frank rich the uh new york times theater columnist just gave us the worst review imaginable and uh from what i could tell he just hated us for being from Hollywood and daring to bring our juvenile sorry excuse for theater to the East Coast. He's such a pompous piece of shit. How do you feel about Frank? Oh my God. Frank Rich. He just thinks he's the fucking arbiter of. How about Ben Brantley? He's the new guy. Maybe if you bring something new, you got a new guy. But you know what? In fairness, though, I actually really did enjoy that review because it was so mean and it was so he's good at writing a mean

review yeah and uh he just carved us up and spit us out and you kind of would rather have a review like that then then uh than one that just writes you off but one that takes the time to destroy you it's like you really care so have you considered going back to theater um yeah You know, I get a lot of of that live juice from Tenacious D. Sure. When we perform live, we do mix in some sketches and there's a lot of theatricality. And we get that love from the crowd. And it's not dissimilar.

Right. Wait a second. There was like three negatives in there. Not dissimilar? Yeah, no, that's right. It's not dissimilar. Yeah. Right, right.

Anyway. Okay, so you mentioned Malkovich. What about comedy-wise? Were you a big comedy geek, like in terms of stand-up or movies? Yeah, I loved, Gene Wilder comes to mind. He rode the line of crazy, you know, just insanity. I was like, wait a second. He's super passionate or he's, you know, mentally unstable.

Young Frankenstein is pretty much a perfect movie, right? Incredible. Also, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. yeah um some of the stuff with prior is pretty good amazing yeah yeah i was like silver streak and um and uh also peter sellers i loved peter sellers yeah um so his stuff like lollita and dr strangelove just very influential so the here's the other thing that struck me in in reading up and obviously like we've talked a lot about a lot of recent in films, but, like, looking at the first, I don't even know, 10, 15 years of your career before, you know, you were a character actor, right? Like, I mean, you really before, I guess, high fidelity put you in a certain place as a, as a supporting actor, and then you got a shot to kind of be the guy and have been the guy ever since in a lot of things. But, like, you were in so many movies that I loved, like, in, like, the 90s and stuff in, like, these, like, small, bizarre, weird roles. Like, was that an exciting badge of honor at the time?

Like, I'm, I have this throwaway thing in demolition, man. I'm this guy and this. And was it satisfying or was it like, oh, God, when do I get my turn? No, I was always happy to be working. I never felt like, God, yeah, when's my ship going to come in? Because it was a miracle that I was, I was paying the rent. Yeah. And I was having fun.

It was my dream to be acting in things. And in those days, basically all the 90s, I was going back and forth from little roles in TV and film and the actors gang theater company. So, you know, even though I wasn't getting all of my artistic jollies from those little glorified extra roles, I was getting getting some good experience in. in the theater and when i ran out of money which happened a lot i would just go back and live at my mom's all the way through my 20s really yeah my mom was very supportive did she ever say maybe you need something to fall back on never once really never once that's amazing yeah um i uh one one that i hadn't seen in in a long time i watched your scene in the jackal which is remarkable. Oh, thank you. You are

sprawled. Abliterated by Bruce Wilson, such a graphic, horrific way. You're a bad mofo. What do you recall of that? It's really a dehumanizing scene. Yeah. Well, you know, there's a scene where we're in my sort of workshop, where we're talking about building the gun. Right. And I say, I can do that for you. And then there's another scene where we're in my workshop and I'm saying, you know, the only thing is, this is going to cost more than I originally say.

And that was when I sealed my fate. Yeah. And I kind of deserve to be destroyed because. And that one deserves to go that with that like that. You don't renegotiate with that guy. That guy's clearly a psycho killer. I'm an idiot. I'm great with making crazy guns, but not so much with, you know.

So anyway, yeah, what was it like when he shot me? That scene was intense because first. before he kills me, I run through a swamp for, you know, a good portion of the scene. It's not the coolest run. And that first run, my pants were falling down, and I was so exhausted from running through the swamp. Take one. I was like, I just need a breather.

And then it's like, uh, Jack, we need to do that, do it right away again. Michael Cainton Jones, the director is British. And I was like, I can't do it right now. Just getting 15 minutes. And I'll be good to go again. And he's like, bring in the stuntman. And so most of the run in the swamp is my stuntman, pretending to pull up his pants.

And then, yeah, then he shot me to death. Did you learn something in watching, you watch someone like Bruce, you're in the cable guy, which obviously has like a second and third life years later as a classic. But like seeing before you get an opportunity to be the guy in movie and to see how others carry themselves for good or for bad, did you take something away from that when it was your turn to be the guy? Did you feel like it's some,

is there something incumbent on you as an actor when you're number one on the call sheet and you're carrying the load? Did I learn anything from like Bruce Willis or, or, uh, or Jim or or Sly or whatever, all these, or Sly. No, not really. You know, you always, maybe not the best three examples. You always try to, yeah, you always try to, uh,

my thing is always just try to be one of the guys let's not think about the order the pecking order on the call sheet yeah um yeah hopefully that's what i've done um why are you uncredited in i still know what you did last summer oh maybe i didn't want the credit that they were giving me oh there was a description there was maybe i was like 15th and i was like well how about uncredited i don't know i don't honestly i don't remember? Right. Yeah, but sometimes it's better to be uncredited than to be credited. Yeah, it stands out. I wouldn't be asking otherwise if you were. Crappy slot. Exactly. I know we're scattered all around, but another one that always comes up is Heat Vision and Jack. Anyone that's seen it is obsessed with it. Yeah. Has there ever been, here's at my curiosity, in this,

in this realm where like everything is resurrected, have you guys ever talked about like trying to resurrected in some form yeah there was talk of doing a heat vision and jack animated series which i said absolutely you guys get it going i'm there um what happened i don't know maybe it's still in the works but um i i would have loved to have done that tv series it would have been so fun yeah it dan harmon and rob shrob are geniuses i don't know if you've seen community but of course guys brilliant and um that was you know it was a combination of my favorite things it was a uh uh like the talking car like it was a talking motorcycle from from uh kit what was that show called night rider night rider of course and uh the six

million dollar man that the astronaut that uh perfect crashed and and uh was put back together and now he is the smartest man on earth it was like the perfect show do you remember there was like a rip off of i think there was a rip off of night rider too there was do you more street hawk this just popped in my brain. I ever saw Street Hawk. Do you know what I'm talking about? Was it one season? Was it one I think it was a one season wonder. I feel like someone has told me about Nighthawk. Street Hawk. Don't combine night night rider and Street Hawk. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't good. It wasn't very good. Street Hawk. It's no Knight Rider. Hawk of the streets. I mean, Night Rider, it really, I was going to say it holds up. It probably doesn't hold up. But any show where you can have like the evil doppelganger of the lead with just a goatee. Street Hawk would just like prey on the vermin of the city.

Right. And there was a guy, it was the guy from Murphy Brown, like the bald guy was like the eyes and ears like back, you know, in the headquarters that was like helping him out. Yeah. It must be unwatchable now. I can only imagine. I would say go to YouTube and watch it, but I don't want to waste your time. No, I'm going to watch it.

Street hug. That sounds hilarious. So something like D-Train when, like, is that sort of where your heads at in terms of comedic sensibilities now? Would that have appealed to you five years ago? do you find that like what you found funny 10, 20 years ago is what's funny today? Well, I like those kinds of projects now just because they're original, you know. And I liked the message.

It's not a message movie, but I liked where it was coming from, you know, politically a little bit. You know, there's a, there's a message that's kind of like. Stop worrying about what people think about you. We're also obsessed and worried, especially now in the Facebook age of like, like, what's, what's your status and profile? How many followers do you have? Yeah. And, and also I liked it that there was like a bisexual character in this movie that is kind of a hero. You just don't see it very often.

It was like, yeah, I want to be part of that. This is, this is badass. And it was funny in a super dark way. And I don't laugh very often You kind of have to surprise me You have to shock me a little bit And you have to get me in a way That I haven't been gotten before

Yeah And that's how I felt when I read the script And you know, that's what I look for Yeah You re-teaming to a degree with Mike White On this one I mean if you look at a, you know A touchstone

Like I walked out of it being like Well, have you seen truck and buck Have you seen that? Yeah Then if you like that You're in Totally That's subversive

Yeah it's dark And it's unconventional And it's not for everyone Some people are going to go see it And they're going to be pissed off And maybe that's why I like it too. Yeah. And I like it that it's not for everyone.

You know what's tough about it is that the main character is not likable. Right. When you come down to business and talk about that, that's a tough place to start from. Yeah. Because what makes movies hits is when the main character is, you know, you relate to them and you love them and you root for them. And that's not the case here. And but that's also why I liked it. It's like, I want to, yeah, I don't see that.

Yet, yeah, like, I mean, looking at a lot of the stuff that you've done, stuff that Will's done, other successful people in that space, what gets, what's gone you by, I feel like, is playing somewhat unlikable people and being able to kind of, like, have a natural likability and, and that's the lovable loser. Yeah. This is a different kind of loser. Right. This is the hateable loser. And this is like the character that you see in a movie that you go, oh, that fucking turd. And you see him get stomped by the hero. and you go, yes.

So this is the movie about that guy, that turd. We follow that guy around. And, you know, yeah, there's something very fascinating about it to me. Yeah. Hopefully there's going to be a lot of people out there like me looking for that kind of strange movie. What are the scripts that you get now and how depressing is it in terms of like the small percentage of things that actually make you get? I mean, obviously I get a lot of like dad things now because I'm a dad, a famous, famous dad. dad. So those things are always pretty mind-numbing and lame. The movie about being a father

is like, oh boy, that's got to be really special. Right. There's got to be something extra cool about it. A lot of Santa Claus offers to be Santa Claus. Is that true? But now this is new grandpa's Santa. This Santa is got a screw loose. Whatever. There's always some new spin on on a Christmas tail because they see dollar signs in it right I was just not interested in any kind of Santa are you wait are you uh are you practicing Jewish man I am a Jewish man and I haven't been to synagogue before I had my kids go to a Hebrew school I hadn't been to synagogue since I was 13 years old and got my bar mitzv been a very bad Jew I wasn't even bar mitzvah dude but now that my kids are you know going to hebrew school it's like i'm back in

back in just there's some things that i liked about it yeah and and i was straight up with them i was like just so you know i'm an atheist but uh there were some cool things i remember i have some good memories from hebrew school so i'd be stoked if i could get my kids into this school and they were like you are just the kind of jew we're looking for are you ready for your kids aren't close the bar mitzvah age yet but but uh that's going to come and and nowadays i can only imagine what the scene is like for a bar mitzvah that's going to be like a i mean that's going to be an avengers themed bar mitzvahs in your future or something who knows i don't know that's up to them though that i'm not going to say you have to get a bar mitzvah that if they want to do it they can do it

you you're you're another thing i appreciate is you we kind of alluded to this before but like it doesn't matter if it's film or tv or web like if it's cool if it's fun if it's new if it strikes you're fancy, you're in. Yeah. And that applies to, like, you know, tenacious D is a full-time thing for you and Kyle as well. Is that something, again, just like the criteria is just keep me interested, make it, like, I don't want to get bored?

Sorry, just taking off my sunglasses. Are you having a stroke? Are you okay? No, I'm not having a stroke. I was just, it was time to get serious. Okay, we're going to get, it was just time to, like, really be present. Time to be here with you now and look around the rest of your dressing room. Oh, back to the future.

Signs. Huh? Michael J. Fox. And who else? That's Emacus. Holy shit balls. Can you identify? I'm sure you know this guy.

Who do you think painted that one, that little thing? Wait a second. So I just guessed that that was Michael Fox. It is. Yeah, yeah. That's correct. Another perfect movie, right? Yeah.

So you need Christopher Lloyd. Definitely need Lloyd. Definitely need, I mean, Crispin Glover is going to be a tough. You've got to get Crispin Glover. He's going to be a tough one. Leah Thompson would be a bonus. That'd be a lot of... Wouldn't be bad to get Biff.

Yeah, Thomas something. I think he's a comic now. He's a stand-up comic. Yeah, I'm impressed. What about... Too shabby. You recognize this over here on the right, this guy? Yeah, he looks very familiar.

Come on, dude. No, no, don't say anything. Don't say anything. outlander it's a great guess who is it it's a sequel it's a comedy sequel don't tell me back

a ghostbuster yes yeah Vigo the Carpathian the sequel yeah where do you come down I've had this conversation

with a lot of people where do you come down on the sequel decent watchable shitty here's what I have to say forgettable I don't remember very much about it was it great

it's good honestly I stand it as half of a really good movie kind of falls apart under a lot of special effects in the second half. Obviously, the first one, again, a perfect movie. I love that first one. You did a reading a few years back. You got to play Ray, didn't you?

I did. Was that amazing? It was the, it was the character played by was Ackroyd, right? Yeah, Dan Aykroyd. And I had a really good time with that character. I don't want to brag,

but I think I found some things that Dan Aykroy might have missed. I think he was too close to the material because he wrote it. Right? And I think I put some shades on it. That maybe weren't intended, but maybe he gave it a little more depth.

You were always one of those guys in the many years of development. Maybe three-dimensionalized it a little bit. Oh, wow. I'm sorry, Dan. You're throwing down against Dan Aykroy. I love Dan Aykroy. I'm just being an asshole.

You were one of those. those guys that everybody would always ask about the Ghostbusters movie for years. I was like, right? Like, was there ever an actual conversation with Ivan or anybody? You might have been floated. I don't think there was ever a real offer. But yeah, that was in the ether for a while. Yeah. I don't know what's happening now. Are there two of them? A woman's one and a man's one? Is that really happening? Something got destroyed. There is not going to be two Ghostbusters. I don't know. You know, everything has to be a world building like, you know, there's a spin-off and prequel happening

simultaneously. It would be amazing if they were two. It would be amazing if they were two. Is there, I mean, another amazing thing about your career is you've been able to be in films that may be early. Who's going to be the asshole that does the male Ghostbusters now? And it's like, yeah, fuck the ladies.

This is man's onlys. We's keeping it male the ways it shoulds be. I don't want to be in that movie now. Cross him off the worst guys. Fuck women. We rule as it should bes. That's how dude's talk when the ladies are not around. Do you ever feel,

have you ever felt miscast in a film? You've pushed yourself into some places where people didn't think necessarily you were the right guy initially, but you made it work, I feel like in things like, no, Boundback movies, you're in, you know, the holiday. Like, these are things on paper. You're like, wait, Jack's going to fit into that.

Did you feel out of place in any of those things? I always feel like I've been miscast. I can always think of people that would have done the role better than me when I get cast and I think. And I all, well, I often tell the director, you know who you should try to get and drives my agent crazy. I want to try to sabotage my own thing. But, yeah, I don't know how to answer that because it's a thing I always feel.

There's not, there's no movies where I was like, oh, this one, especially I'm not right for. Right. It's always. All right. Last thing before I release you out. If I gave you, I gave you $100 million to fund any project tomorrow. Is there a dream? Is there something that like you've been struggling to get off the ground?

Because I know, as I said before, you're always struggling a lot of different things. What's like the one that hasn't come to fruition yet that you need to get off the ground? Wait a second. What are we talking about? Just anything. A project. Is there a project that you're desperate to get going that hasn't happened for whatever reason? Yeah.

The Charlie Kaufman script, he wrote called Frank or Francis, is the best script I've ever written. And it's so weird. It's kind of a musical event. too right yeah it's a musical and um who knows if it'll ever get made i hope there's an eccentric billionaire that wants to make a masterpiece damn the torpedoes because it deserves to be made with or without me preferably with me uh are we gonna see some tenacious d in your future what's the what's the latest that's the plan okay and in my heart i'm writing it as we speak oh that's in reality we haven't even started writing we have talked a lot about it though conceptually it's it's really ready to be written

need to carve out some time. Are you talking about music or a film? The plan is to write the album this year. Okay. You know, there is a plan for a movie and, you know, animated webisodes, but it always has to start with the next record. And, yeah, so we're going to do some writing this year. Yeah.

It's just, I know how slow we are. We probably won't finish this year, but you never know. What's the lesson learned out of that film out of that's anaceous D, pick of death film the lesson learned always record is that the one where did you have a specific lesson in mind no I'm just saying I we all loved it but maybe it didn't find the audience that you thought it demanded it needed oh what's the lesson learned from the failure of pick of destiny I didn't say I want to split it that way um the answer to that is let me see if this is a dream first I see you've got one of these spinning tops here from inception oh what it's still spinning jack holy shit this isn't

real we're not having this conversation what a sad dream that i learned to be on a 45 minute podcast to see in the pick of destiny it's not going to stop um you know one of the things that i learned it's still spinning was uh that the musical section at the beginning of the movie was in many ways the most captivating an incredible part and maybe the thing to do was just to never stop singing make it a true musical just go for it yeah But that would have been so fucking hard. Because that song at the beginning was hard to write, and we really kicked its ass and knocked it out of the park.

Yeah. I don't know that we could deliver 90 minutes of nonstop magical music magic. If any two gentlemen. It's a tall order. Yeah. Three gentlemen. Liam Lynch helped write that. There you go.

Well, thank you for stopping by, buddy. Congratulations. Honestly, I, you know, when we talked at Sundance, I was not lying when I said it was my favorite. him I saw there. It's subversive. It's bizarre. It's funny. It's got great performances as you. Marsden kills it like in a role I've never seen him. No one's ever seen him do. I got to say one of the best performances of the year. He's so goddamn good in the movie. Um, so check out the D train. I know we're not going to talk

about the future, but in a little while, watch the brink too because it's pretty cool. That's enough. That's enough. Uh, thanks for stopping by, man. Thank you. I'm Josh Harrowitz. This has been Happy, Sad, Confused. Hope you've enjoyed the show. Hit me up on Twitter. Joshua Harowitz. Go over to Wolfpop.com.

Check out all the amazing shows over there. And most importantly, check back in next week for another edition of Happy Sad. Confused. Wolf Pop Pop is part of mid-roll media, executive produced by Adam Sacks, Matt Goorley, and Paul Shear. I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times. And I'm Paul Shear, an actor, writer, and director. You might know me from The League, Veep,

or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters. We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives. Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't. He's too old. Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude, too, is overrated. It is. Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspool, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits. Fan favorites, must-season, and Casey Mistoms. We're talking Parasite the Home Alone.

From Greece to the Dark Night. We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks. We've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look. And we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of like Ganges and Hess. So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure. Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to hit the follow button.