Happy Sad Confused - J.K. Simmons

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons joins Josh on this week's episode to discuss his journey from unemployment to Broadway to becoming one of the most celebrated character actors of our time! It's a busy Fall for J.K. with Aaron Sorkin's "Being the Ricardo", "National Champions", & a return as J. Jonah Jameson in "Spider-Man: No Way Home"! Happy Sad Confused is also proud to announce our 3rd annual holiday benefit! On December 16th, Tom Hiddleston will join Josh for a LIVE chat at 4pm ET. This event will NOT appear as a podcast. The only way to watch and enjoy is to purchase a ticket. All proceeds go to charity! Purchase your tickets here! Don't forget to check out the Happy Sad Confused patreon here! We've got exclusive episodes of GAME NIGHT, video versions of the podcast, and more! For all of your media headlines remember to subscribe to The Wakeup newsletter here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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or go to explorevolvo.com. The new BMO ViPorter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks, more points, more flights, more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card, and then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter MasterCard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit BMO.com slash ViPorter to learn more. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now.

Today on Happy, Say, Confused, Academy Award winner J.K. Simmons joins us to talk about national champions, being the Ricardo's, and returning to Spider-Man. Hey, guys, Josh Harrow, what's here with another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused, and a new guest on the pod this week, someone that we have long respected and loved, the great J.K. Simmons. Yes, of course, he won the Oscar a few years back for Whiplash, a film I was obsessed with, a performance I was obsessed with. But beyond that, J.K. is one of these guys. You can plug into any kind of film and is just always fantastic. His work with Jason Reitman, going back to Thank You for Smoking and Juno, his work with Sam Ramey and the Spider-Man films. He's been in Cohn Brothers films. Damon Chazel has worked with them a couple times. He's just always fantastic. even his television work, going back to Oz and Law and Order, just somebody that whenever he pops on screen,

I know I'm going to respect and love what he does, regardless of the project. So this was a great chat with a consummate actor, a character actor, extraordinaire, someone. That is fantastic. And these two new movies are really well worth talking about. Being the Ricardo's is Aaron Sorkin's newest film. It's coming out in a few weeks on Amazon Prime and in theaters. It's Being the Ricardo's, and it's kind of a week in.

the life of the making of Ilo of Lucy. And J.K. Simmons plays William Frawley, who was a part of that ensemble. The film is led by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. They're both fantastic in it, and it's obviously got that crackling Aaron Sork and Dialogue well worth checking out. Also, we're checking out, and this one was a little bit more of a surprise to me, is this movie National Champions, which is kind of a football movie without the football. J.K. plays a big time college football coach and finds himself in the center of kind of the student athlete debate, whether student athletes should be making money, who is profiting in college sports and the injustices, perhaps, in the system that's benefited the coaches and the colleges and maybe not the athletes.

And it's a really good, compelling story with some great performances from Stefan James and JK, as I said, as the coach. So that's worth checking out. One film I haven't seen that J.K. does pop in is the new Spider-Man movie. That's coming soon. And of course, we had to talk about J.K.'s long-running now performance as J. John and Jameson. He was J. John and Jameson in the Sam Ramey Spider-Man films. And he is that rare actor in the Spider-Man films or any comic book film that's kind of transferred into the different universes. So now a different version of J.K. Simmons, a different version of J.K. Simmons is a different version of J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. J. of course, in now the new Spider-Man films with Tom Holland. We talk a bit about that and how that all went down. We also talk about his involvement as Commissioner Gordon. He is, of course, in the DC universe as well. And yes, he had only a small bit in the Justice League movie, but happy to say, JK is going to be in the Batgirl movie. Did you know there was going to be

a Batgirl movie? Yeah, they're about to make it. And it sounds to me from this conversation, we're going to see much more of Commissioner Gordon in that one. So there's your tease for that. other stuff to mention and there is a bit to mention the big announcement that we've just made is that we are doing our third annual happy sad confused holiday benefit um this is very special to me every year the last couple years we've done one of these uh and it's going to be with one of our favorite human beings it's tom hittleston is the guest of honor this year Thursday December 16th an hour long chat me and tom and hopefully you guys it's virtual anybody can watch anybody can participate you can even send in your video questions all you have to do is go to the symphony space website symphony space.org i'll also put the link in the show notes here i'm going to tweet it out you won't be able to miss it but hopefully this is a nice fun event for everybody um and it's a way to raise some some money for a cause that's very important to me not only does symphony space raise some money and they're a great arts institution

But my mom's nonprofit website Harlem is, which is this kind of like, this rare, more than rare. It's like the only website of its kind that documents kind of the living cultural history of Harlem. And it could definitely need all your support. And that's all every single dollar goes to what Harlem is and to Symphony Space. So hopefully a bunch of you guys will shell out a couple bucks for this event and enjoy it as well. I mean, it's me and Tom talking for an hour. That's always fun. And I should say it's not going to appear as a podcast.

We're trying to make this special. This is the only way to watch it or listen to it is to buy tickets for this event. Live December 16th, 4 p.m. Eastern Time, 9 p.m. Greenwich time. I encourage you guys to come by, check it out, enjoy me and Tom. And, yeah, a good time will be had by all. What else to mention? Other things to mention. I don't know.

There's a ton of stuff going on. all big holiday movies. I've been watching a bunch. I've been trying to catch up with everything. There's just too much out there, guys. But it's all good. I hope you guys, if you're listening to this prior to Thanksgiving, I hope you guys have a chance to catch up with your families and enjoy yourselves and eat way too much turkey and stuffing. I know I will. And I hope you guys enjoy this conversation with one of my favorite actors who I finally got to know a little bit. It's the great J.K. Simmons. Enjoy it. Mr. J.K. Simmons, welcome officially to the podcast.

They're a long-time fan, first-time caller. I don't know what we say nowadays. It's good to see you, though. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, right off the bat. It is Dr. Simmons. Yeah.

I do have an honorary PhD. Thank you very much. I didn't mean to sound so surprised when I said that. My voice went up like six octaves. Do you really? I am apparently a doctor of humane letters, courtesy of, and courtesy is the correct term, courtesy of the University of Montana, which is my actual alma mater for my actual bachelor's degree. You did complete, you got your bachelor's degree.

I know you bounced around a couple schools, but you got the official degree. Yeah, as my, as my wonderful late Aunt Connie used to refer to her son Ted, who was my age and myself, we were both on the graduation prevention program for five years plus two, quarters in my case at three different schools and three different degree programs and two different dropout periods. But yes, by golly, I am a Bachelor of Music. There you go. Or BM, as we call it. No, we don't. That's probably not the best acronym to use. Yeah, I had a similar trajectory in high school. But us late bloomers, we look, we got there. We got where, you know, where we needed to get to on our own schedule. We're talking and people are actually watching and

listening. So go figure. So since we're reminiscing and we're going to bounce around your storied life and career, sir, I did take the opportunity to revisit, first of all, your Oscar speech last night. And I was, for even a dark soul like myself, I was profoundly moved because this was a speech that Neri, a manager or an agent was mentioned, though they obviously are important. But you had been on that long run and you clearly had some time to think about it. And you really kept it personal and talked about your wife, your kids, and your parents. And it was very moving.

Just talk to me a little bit about what you wanted to say and how important that speech was for you at the time. Well, I recall a close friend of mine, Bill Fagerbocky, on a text chain at the very beginning of the whole phenomenon that was whiplash and that whole awards, you know, thing. saying in a three-man text chain with him and our friend Dan Erickson saying, I bet I know what Gator, we could spend half an hour on why that's my nickname, but I bet I know what Gator's going to talk about it, his Oscar speech. And I didn't even know at the time, but both of them had been very close with my parents. And as I sort of went down that trail of, you know, a trophy a week, it seemed like, in that, you know, in the blessing that was whiplash.

Yeah, I did realize kind of in the middle of that whole thing that, that, you know, if I was fortunate to keep getting handed those things, that that would be the focus of the big one. And I never really wrote it for better and or worse. I never really wrote any of those, you know, acceptance speech kinds of things. I just went in knowing what I wanted to say. in a general sense. And then after, and since you have it in your recent history, you can review this again,

if you like, after I slightly headbutted Lupita Nyango, as she handed me the trophy, because I was so just generally awkward and went up to accept the piece of hardware from her and to shake her hand like we were businessmen in 19. to 55, I realized, oh, no, no, no, this is, this is Hollywood and you have to do the fake kiss on the cheek thing. And I, and I, I just faked her out just enough that we did a little, a little clash of, a little clash of foreheads there. And marking your territory. You were, you were saying, this is my ausp. You had your time last year. This is my time. Yeah. Yeah. Like a, like a ram on the

mountain side, budding heads with Lupita. Yeah. It's my turn now. You compensated with the emotion that came in the 90 seconds there hence yeah uh well yes and i and i thank you and i'm and there were many many really wonderful moving and some amusing stories that came out of that but but yeah i just wanted to take that opportunity to talk about what's most important were your parents worried about you over the years because you know we'll get to this a bit but like the trajectory of your career there's no like there's no like standard trajectory always obviously for any actor but yours is an interesting one in that like if you look at the last 15 years you have not wanted for work but if you look at the first 15 or 20 years it was a much different story in that first

section of the career what were the parents attitudes about jk's future yeah i think i think concerned is a is a fair term to use um i was fortunately they were you know both uh you know creative performing arts types my father was a music professional and conductor and my mother. And they had met in the chorus of a college production of Kismet, I'm pretty sure, at Knox College. And, you know, we're both always very supportive of my brother and myself and our sister who actually went on to do smarter things for a living and just retired as a college professor.

But yeah, they were always completely supportive of whatever. path we wanted to take to express ourselves creatively, artistically. And even when I was, I keep not wanting to use the word struggling because there are certainly many people on the globe whose struggles are much more serious than mine. You know, when I was barely making ends meat and, you know, trying to find a job waiting tables in Hell's Kitchen. And my friend Greg gentleman came over to visit one night and after after hearing me be honest about how hard up I was for cash at the time I noticed the next morning under my answering machine he'd left me 40 bucks which he knew I wouldn't accept you know if he handed it to me and so yes a variety of friends

and certainly my parents were very supportive and understanding and helpful during those days when it seemed, frankly, like I was probably beating my head against a wall trying to pursue this ridiculous career. Does the mindset ever change? Because that must be so ingrained in you in that first part of your life where, like, it's on and off. You have a gig here for a few months or six months, and then you're struggling and you're waiting tables again.

And it must be such kind of, for lack of a better term, a mind fuck, to now be like, so wanted. and have an abundance of work. Like, does it ever... Do you find that the old JK still lives in the body of the new JK? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And mostly, I think, I hope, in positive ways. Yeah.

Certainly, it's easy to begin to take things from granted, you know, the good fortune I've had in my career and in my life with, you know, my beloved wife and kids and friends and siblings and all of that. So, so yeah, it is, I think, important once in a while to kind of go back and, you know, sit across from that 20-something-year-old dude who just had absolutely no clue. And fortunately, really not much in the way of viable options in terms of. of, you know, a career to make a living other than, you know, something in the service industry

and say, you know, it's going to be fine. You're going to be okay. You know, you're going to be able to work and share with, in fact, you know, more people than you ever dreamed you would. Your prodigious talents. And, you know, again, more importantly, you know, you're going to, you're going to have a life. You spent a lot of the early career, primarily in the theater, and I realized going back that that's in fact where I first saw you. I born and raised New Yorker, and I saw a lot of theater growing up,

and I remember seeing the amazing production of Guys and Dolls that was like, hey, it was like the Hamilton of the day. It was a film. Oh, dude. It was. Yeah, yeah. It was, well, it was, you know, the box office Broadway record.

at that time was shattered by that genius Jerry Zach's directed production with Nathan Lane and Faith Prince and Peter Gallagher and Josie de Guzman and I mean you know the the cast was Walter Bobby Timmy shoe my illustrious self that remains one of the the highlights of my life as an actor particularly the the little chunk of time when you when you move in to the theater and you get through the annoyance of tech rehearsals and you're and you're in final dress and previews and all that and meeting in the lobby after those every night with Jerry Zax, the funniest director on the planet. Just getting notes. I mean, those sessions of getting notes surrounded by, you know, the funniest most talented people in New York. It was really one of the one of the highlights of my career and life. I mean, in all honesty, it remains like my favorite Broadway musical I've ever seen. And I always bring it up when I'm talking about like film adaptations.

And I have kind of like a soft spot for the weird, you know, Marlon Brando film version, which is, you know, obviously not the best song and dance man. But it boggles my mind. They've never made it into a feature, like another version of it for a feature film, one of these days, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, maybe maybe I can play Arvite Abernathy in that version. I played Abernathy in my camp production. maybe we'll do it out. Dude, I mean, that show, I mean, that was, that was part of the reality of that show.

And that from, from Jerry, Zach's perspective that was, that was really intimidating going into that because everybody did that show in high school or theater camp or wherever. Everybody thinks they know, you know, how that show needs to be. And it was, you know, the show itself is so genius that Jerry was like, look, all we could do is screw this up because everyone has the raw material. it to be sheer genius. And fortunately, it was. Well, go back to the original cast recordings for that one.

People should check it out. You've lived such an interesting life in film and TV where you're a lot of different things to a lot of people and you've kind of like reiterated with thanks to these very kind of iconic roles over the years. Is there one specific shift that you noticed in public where like you were suddenly perceived very differently, if not overnight, in a short period of time? Uh, the first one that comes to mind, I mean, there have been several. The, the first one, I mean, the first one was somebody knowing who the hell I was, you know, when I was walking down eighth avenue. Um, uh, but yeah, a big one that comes to mind was after Oz had been on for a while and, and we were living in New York, obviously at the time. And, and Oz was, you know, a phenomenon, uh, particularly in New York City. Um, and, uh, you know, the, I mean, the, the, the thunder was kind of stolen. by the Sopranos a year or two later, but, but Oz, and God bless Tom Fontana, you know,

Oz was the first original drama on HBO or on any of the, you know, premium, you know, cable networks and broke ground in so many ways. So I, yeah, I began, you know, getting recognized on the street all the time for that. But then I was riding my bike down, I think, Broadway. at one time with, you know, the helmet on and the shades and everything. And it was shortly after the first Spider-Man movie had come out. And, I mean, I'm about as anonymous as you can be, you know, with the gack I was wearing it on my bike. But as I finally got to a light that I had to stop for, you know, it couldn't run through

the red light. Some people crossing in the crosswalk were like, oh, my God, it's Jay Jonah Jameson. And I thought, wow, that's that's, that's, That's a powerful, you know, franchise is the word that I'm trying not to use. But, you know, that first Spider-Man movie, you know, had such an impact on, you know, the zeitgeist of, you know, popular culture in this country. And thank you, Sam Remy. Yeah, one of who, someone you've collaborated with, I mean, the fact that I was going to get to this later,

but if you look at the ones that you've collaborated with multiple times, speaks volumes about your career, whether it's it's Damien Chiselle, it's Ramey, it's the Cohn brothers, it's Jason Reitman, it's like, you know, put that, put that on the resume. That's, that's all you need to know about what this guy can deliver. I was just finding Jason last week and, you know, he can, as you know, he calls you his muse. So that's, uh, which is disturbingly wonderful, yeah, or wonderfully disturbing or something. Well, we'll get to that with Jason in a second, but I'm curious. one person I've also talked about you with was Chris Pratt for Tomorrow War

and you came up in conversation. There's no way for me to ask this without sounding creepy. I'm going to do my best. But your physical arrival in our zeitgeist the last few years, thanks to, I guess it was first thanks to the whiplash where people were like, oh, like this guy looks like jacked.

And then like an Instagram post a few years ago goes viral. I mean, I guess my serious-ish question about this is, has that changed your, like, career in the industry? Do people now perceive you as, like, a guy that can do different kinds of things? Now they realize, like, underneath, he's actually, like, got something interesting there. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, it has. And it's also, you know, as my wife will attest, you know, just helped me become a more physically healthy human being in general

because I've gone back and forth a few times in my life, beginning with like the first season of Oz, in which I was kind of a fat piece of poo. And as I watched that first season and saw so many of the things that were so brilliant about it, I also saw, I just, I'm having a hard time believing this guy as the head of the Brotherhood in a maximum security prison because he looks like, you know, the Pillsbury dough boy. So that was the first time I, you know, kind of got my butt to the gym and tried to be healthy.

And then I've gone back and forth a few times. And then it was coincidentally shortly before Whiplash that I had been like really grotesquely obese on purpose for a movie a couple years before that. And, and, and listened to my wife. Michelle Schumacher, another long time or multiple collaborator as a filmmaker, who finally said, you know what, maybe moderation would be a good thing and eating a little less and exercising a little more and getting some supervised training and all that instead of starving yourself and then eating like a pig.

So I had done that and it just happened to coincide with the time. Whiplash was, you know, being put together. And I think the only thing that I, aside from Miles and I having the freedom to, you know, improvise around Damien's brilliant script, the only thing that I, that I asked to do differently than what he had written was he had written Fletcher's wardrobe to be sort of men in black, you know, a very put-together dark suit, tie white shirt and and and I said what if instead of the white shirt and the tie under the jacket it was just a black t-shirt and it was like you know he's like a beatnik you know that has you know 10 of those jackets and 15 of those t-shirts in his closet and that's his uniform you

know and and and and he embraced that idea and then uh such a great time with miles teller you know the young stud mocking me all the time about you know trying to be the the sort of semi buff old guy in that in that movie because because miles of course was supposed to look not as you know i mean a year or two later he's doing the boxing movie where he's all shred and you know but but yeah that was there was a whole interesting amount of testosterone flying around that set not unlike the tomorrow war with with pratt who obviously is you know america's you know flat abs sweetheart, much to his chagrin because, of course, you know, he's like, now everybody thinks I walk around with a six-pack all the time, but the six-pack is not abs, it's ale, you know.

Right. Most of the time, until he's training again for a movie. Exactly. I feel like underneath that, that thing that he can adopt, it's like me or just like a normal guy. He's like, he's like, he's like, he's like, all of us. Right, he is. Yeah, yeah.

He just happens to be able to wear the superhero costume occasionally. Yeah. And now be related to Schwarzenegger. Exactly. Now, yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaking of physicality, so I want to, let's start to get into some of the recent work you've done because I've seen being the Ricardo's national champions. And let's start with being the Ricardo's because it's really striking to me, you know, playing this character, the physicality of William Frawley, like he, tell me, like, I'm just curious. Like, I assume there's no like big, like, fat suit or anything.

here, it's more of just like a gate, like the way you carry yourself. But like you really, you inhabit a different body in this without seemingly changing your diet significantly. Or you tell me, I'm curious. Well, yes. Really interesting question and interesting sort of journey to get to where we got. Because, because, you know, along with the maestro, Aaron Sork and Susan Lyle, the costume designer, you know, once I frankly got over my terror and agreed to do it, you know, one of the first conversations was about fat suit, not fat suit, you know, hair, prosthetics, you know, how far do we want to go? And Aaron said several times early on that he wasn't looking for, you know, an impression. And one of his go-to phrases was that this is really, the actors,

you know, should think of this as a painting more than a photograph, is impressionism rather than an impression. And Susan and I went back and forth sort of conceptually and then physically with some different versions. And, you know, a year and a half after the Tomorrow War, most of which had been during the pandemic, obviously, you know, I had let it slide a little bit. So I had put on a few pounds.

And my initial idea was to not have any kind of fat suit and simply do it with my posture. And then we tried, you know, the sort of traditional fat suit that you pull on that's attached to a t-shirt, you know, that you wear and kind of snap at your crotch like a, you know, leotard or so. And that didn't feel or look right. And I finally, along with Susan, we came up with the idea. of kind of like bicycle pants, you know, under, you know, exercise, under armor and sewing a small pad into that that really owned, because William Frawley was not fat. He was just kind of pear-shaped, right? He wasn't fat up here. And his, the way he carried his belly was all kind of below that high-wasted 1950s belt. So there was no padding except a small layer attached to my underwear that I just pulled up high, you know, over my belly button. This is getting way more anatomical than people are going to want to really hear about. But, you know, and then, and that was very slight and I think, you know, hopefully very subtle.

But then, you know, to the extent that I did want to try to embody him. physically without being rich little or an impressionist, you know, so much of it then was the posture and the two or three sort of idiosyncratic ways that he, that he tended to stand or sit, you know, that just helped me sort of begin to, you know, physically and psychologically emotionally, you know, begin to inhabit that guy. And the physicality was, was dead. definitely an important aspect of it. That and the tiny little comb over, which, I mean, we talked about doing, because he had a different kind of old guy neck thing going on than I do.

We talked about prosthetics and Aaron, you know, again, correctly, talked me out of it. Yeah, yeah. But the little comb over was another touch that, to me, you know, actually made a significant a difference in whatever, in becoming that guy. Do you ever as an actor hang your hat on like a specific line of dialogue in a script? Because like one jumped out at me when I was watching this. And I believe it was your character.

I wasn't taking precise notes, but it's something dies when a man is called old. I believe your character says that, right? Is that something that's a slight paraphrase, but yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, Aaron Sorcon would take me to task for, for miss. one does not paraphrase I know I know exactly but does that speak volumes of your character

is that one jump out or something else I'm curious yeah absolutely absolutely and that's and that's it's so genius of course Aaron Sorkin the writer and now more and more people are seeing him as the director that he has become

the way he drops those those little breadcrumbs because that was such an important aspect of what Bill Frawley's life was at that time, you know. And when he and Vivian met for the first time at the read-through, she walked into the room with Lucy. Bill was, you know, across the room. And she saw him like in person for the first time, I think.

And it was overheard by Bill to say to Lucille, you can't be serious. I'm married to that old coot. Wow. And that was kind of the end of any possibility of them being friends. And that was part of their, you know, difficult relationship, Bill and Vivian for the duration of their time together. And, and, you know, and I think, you know, that was the, that and maybe, you know, Aaron is, I think not as old as I am, but certainly not as young as we once were.

You know, I think there's obviously to a guy who's been on the planet for a while. That's a reality. That's a reality when you, whether somebody says that to you or about you, or whether you just, you know, you begin to realize, oh, oh, yeah, I'm not, I'm not the way I've always perceived myself to be. I'm the old guy now. And that's, and it's, It gets difficult, I think more difficult for women, but it's difficult for anyone to come to terms with. It's a delicious script and great filmmaking, get from Sorkin and amazing performances throughout.

Another one I want to mention that really kind of caught me off guard, to be honest, was National Champions, which I think is a really fine film. Rick Roman Waugh. Yeah, I think you're excellent. And I've talked to other actors who have talked to him up, and it struck me, this is, your second film with Stefan James, I believe, if I remember that.

Right, even though our paths didn't directly cross on 21 bridges. I do remember, it's funny because, like, you know, I can't say I knew him well, but I knew Chadwick a little bit and talked to him a bunch. And I remember whenever I talked to him about 21 bridges, he went out of his way to talk about Stefan and how impressed he was and how that was the story of the film for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, and it was for me, too, as an audience. and seeing the movie.

And Stefan and I met, I think, before we started shooting, like, you know, for literally a minute and, you know, crossing paths in some office somewhere. But that was all that I had, the only connection that I had personally with him before national champions. And then, of course, I mean, no spoilers, but despite the fact that our characters are so intertwined

in national champions, we don't really share all that much screen time in that film either. Right. this character you play this coach uh it's revered coach of a college football team um and it's a football movie without football no spoilers really it's not i mean it's about football but it's not it's about some some much bigger stuff um but that being said you do still get kind of like the iconic speech in a different sort of way it's not quite the Vince Lombardi speech but there is like a really amazing uh sequence in there um as an actor knowing you're doing like

a quote unquote sports film of a kind are you thumbing through the pages looking for that kind of thing, not to say, like, I need a big speech, but like, you know, if you're going to be the coach, you kind of want it. Yeah, I mean, honestly, sort of in retrospect, I guess, but, but I still try to do this almost invariably when I get, and again, you know, here I am, people are approaching me with scripts all the time now, you know, and it's not 1984, you know, waiting tables at Joe Alan. So now that I that I have that luxury of deciding what I want to do, I try, I don't read, I don't look at look books. I don't read synopsies, log lines, you know, I don't look at genre

or any of that. I don't even really usually look at who's producing it or is it a studio or is it an indie. I just read the script. And I just, you know, started at the beginning. beginning and read the script and as it on and I think I'm pretty sure that well no there were there were some kind of significant changes between that first script I read and and the script we shot and of course then the finished film but it was fundamentally very close to that and and yeah when that time came for for the you know the impassioned locker room or hotel ballroom technically but but you know that speech that that I think sometimes people do expect especially in a more formulaic kind of sports movie it was such an interesting take on that because as you said

it's not raw raw raw you know let's go beat the other team it's a very different speech and it was and it was so beautifully done by Rick Waugh the director as the whole movie is to just put me in this room with with, you know, 50 guys, you know, most of whom look believably like, you know, they could be higher level college football players and not tell that. And then, you know, with a few of our principal actors, you know, sprinkled in there among them and just have these young extras, these young guys who just like want to drink,

yeah, 100 bucks to pretend to be a football. football player, sure, you know. Right, right. Who were, you know, because of, because of the way Rick prepared them for what we were about to do, it was a very emotionally charged room that day. And all these guys who, you know, have never acted a day in their lives, most of them and maybe never will, were like, you know, giving me back so much during that speech. You know, the, the emotion was, was really real and raw.

you know, as it is in the best moments of any kind of acting you're doing, whether it was a scene with Kristen Chenoweth and me, you know, as the married couple or whatever it may be. I can just say, it's so interesting to say that because it occurred to me when I'm watching that. I'm like wondering for you as an actor because it is a monologue. It is a speech, but it's so funny that you're talking about what you're receiving back even though it's, it's energy and looks as opposed to dialogue. And that can be just as important clearly for you.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, unless you're literally doing, you know, soliloquy where you're just talking to the air, you know, I mean, I mean, if it's a two-page speech that's that's on me. And again, Rick, God bless him, you know, like the script was so wonderful, but, but, you know, Rick always gave us room to, you know, do our thing and make. at our own and depart from what was on the page. What was my point? My point was, yeah, your, you know, your, your, your aim almost always in any kind of scene you're doing is to connect, to communicate to, you know, and, and yeah, despite

the fact that none of those 50 kids or, you know, a dozen assistant coaches had anything to say in it, yeah, they spoke volumes with their, with their, their focus and and their commitment to, you know, being in the moment. And it was really helpful to me. If you'll indulge me, you can tell from the glasses, obviously I watch a lot of superhero movies. So let's talk a little bit about some of your iconic roles because you mentioned your participation in Spider-Man,

which was and it is a phenomenon. You've worked with Ramey many times. That role is an iconic role. And I'm curious, like, from the beginning, When you first play Jay Jonah Jameson, did you know exactly what your take on it was? Did you know, like, that I have license to go a little big with this, thanks to Sam's direction. Like, tell me about how you dialed that performance in from the start. Yeah, I definitely knew going in.

And I did five movies, five Sam Ramey movies in a row, beginning with for love of the game. Right. The baseball movie with Costner, where I played the coach of my home. downtown Detroit Tigers. And then a movie called The Gift, which people should see if they haven't, kind of under-recognized Sam Ramey film. And it was during that that the word got around to people who actually pay attention that Sam was going to be directing Spider-Man and friends of mine, you know,

would be calling, say, oh, you got to, you got to play. Most of them thought I should play, I think, like the vulture or, you know, whoever the bad guy might be because nobody knew. and and then when uh whatever i i i've never been good at sort of self-promotion or or smoothing or any of that uh i'm trying not to sound like whatever like i'm above that i'm just really lousy at it so so so i never did try to, you know, schmoo Sam and go, hey, oh, so Spider-Man, wow, that's going to be fun, isn't it?

But I think shortly after we finished the gift, I heard directly from Sam that, you know, he wanted me to play that part, but obviously I had to audition and the studio had to approve and all of that. And I immediately did know that, that after seeing the script that he felt to me like the character that needs to almost more than anybody else in the movie just jump off the pages of the comic books and be that kind of

anachronistic like have that kind of 1950s 60s kind of vibe even though we were updating the story yeah and and sam was you know completely on board with that in every way. And, you know, I mean, it was one of the biggest blessings of my blessed, fortunate career. And who knew it continues to this day? I know from the recently released trailer that we can officially say you are in the new Spider-Man film.

We actually can, yeah. So I'm just curious, like, are you starting from scratch with this character? Like, do you view it, is it the same guy in your mind? Or are you doing it a different version? I mean, I think it's a slightly different version and certainly from the, you know, from the creators of this current iteration of the story. It's a very different character. To me, it's a slightly different character.

It's it's the same blow hard, you know, the same guy with less hair. And honestly, I kind of wish he still had the same hair. But I think the first time they asked me to do it, it was so, I assume it was kind of late notice decision on their parts to, you know, to add Jameson because because once they came and asked me to do it, it was like, let's sit down. Let's have a meeting with all the big wigs at Sony and talk about it. And yes, okay. And bang, bang, bang, the deal's done. And, you know, we're shooting the day after tomorrow. And no, we don't want you to, you know, have the flat top haircut. And I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait, well, what? That's how I become Jameson Jameson. Yeah, we don't want the cigar and the mustache and the blah, blah, and I was like,

it's kind of a guy, you know. So, so, you know, it was a negotiation then at that point. And obviously the most important thing is that he's still the same blowhard. And he does have, he does have the same damn mustache. Very close to it.

And cigar, at least. So, yeah. And, you know, and as his approach. appropriate for that character, you know, he's, you know, just a little, a little kind of, you know, comic relief thing that, that gets sprinkled lightly into the movie. And, you know, after the, after the, after the first two, especially with Sam, you know, people, you know, friends and people in the business were like, now they should, they should do a movie about Jay Jonah Jameson.

And I, and I always said, no, no, no, no. He's best. In the corner, a couple of scenes doing his thing. And then, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Your journey with, more recently, with James Gordon is an interesting one. Obviously, you know, you were in Justice League and that we don't have to rehash that fraud production, but it went through different iterations, et cetera. I'm just curious, like, was there an initial plan for, like, did you know, like,

were you going to be in the Batman movie? Like, did you know what the next, what the plan was supposed to be for your character? Yeah, when I first signed up to do Justice League, it was. a three-picture deal and there was going to be you know the intent was at that time you know that those actors were going to keep playing those you know iconic superheroes and and uh you know there would be something for me to do in in a couple of more movies um and you know as is often the case that didn't come to fruition for a variety of reasons and uh i was completely flabbergasted that they came back to me you know recently and right

and wanted to have me be Commissioner Gordon again. And, and have it be a, you know, a more significant role in that this has all been announced, right? Yeah, I know. This is Leslie Grace. Leslie Grace is bad girl. And, yeah, and I'm looking forward to, actually, I think I'm going to get on the horn with her and the directors in the next couple days and do a little preliminary. rehearsals honored and a couple of months from now while they start very soon and then I jump on board sometime in January over in Glasgow which is a wonderful place to be shooting it because

it's you know gothic yeah and yeah I'm I'm excited to be to be the once in future Jim Gordon yeah I would think by the nature of the story I mean you have Barbara Gordon at the center James Gordon's going to factor have you have you been able have you read the script do you have a sense of sort of your part to play in this? And I had had a long discussion with the guys about, you know, how we want to portray him and the script. You know, I thought, I just don't want to give away anything. No, that's okay. It's okay.

So I'm not going to, yeah, I'm not going to talk about the structure of it or any of that. Okay. But, you know, I thought it was really an interesting take on, you know, introducing Bat Girl and giving Jim Gordon, you know, fleshing him out certainly more than I had a chance to do in my first foray into that. You know, other actors have had more meat on the bone with their versions. And, you know, I mean, I think at this point,

there's room for us all because they're, you know, the people who are really dedicated fans of whatever it is, DC or Marvel or whatever, you know, now know that there are whatever, nine different versions of the, you know, the Batman universe because of time travel and this and that and the other thing and, you know, spatial time, this and that. So it could be me or Jeffrey Wright or, you know, whatever actor, you know, playing Commissioner Gordon and there can be nine different Batman actors.

And it's all okay because there are these alternate kind of universes. We've learned a lot about these, yes. Parallel universes, thanks to Marvel and DC in recent years. We're all getting really sophisticated and smart about this. Aren't we, though? Yeah. Before we wrap up with your comfort movie, I do want to mention a little bit more about Jason Reitman

because he's been such an important part of your career. And from Thank You for Smoking On, as I said, he calls you his muse without, if people haven't seen, by the time this is out, Ghostbusters will be out, but I don't want to ruin it. But I will say, I was thrilled to see you in a really fun cameo in Ghostbusters. Of course, how can you do Ghostbusters with Jason Wrightman

without J.K. Simmons? But I guess just talk to me a little bit about how has that, has that relationship evolved or was it there right from the start? I mean, he was a kid when he was starting out. He was like Damien, pretty young. So did you guys click immediately and how has it changed, if at all? We did click immediately. And the first time I met him, I was auditioning for, thank you for smoking. Another movie, by the way, that people need to see if they think Juno was his first movie.

You know, because it's such a well-made. I mean, for a first-time writer-director, such a wonderful movie. And, you know, and I had gotten the script, and I was auditioning, and I had no idea. I didn't even know he was Ivan Reichen's kid. I mean, I don't, I mean, I make a living in show business, but I really have no idea what's going on in show business. And I was, and it was one of those auditions where we were living up in the hills at the time in Nichols Canyon in L.A. And the audition, of course, was, you know, way over by the beach in Santa Monica. And it was like, you know, it's at 1 o'clock.

And I was like, oh, then I got to go do some radio voiceover thing after that. And what a pain in my butt it is to schlep all the way out there and, you know, sit in traffic. And I get there. And, you know, as usual, they're significantly behind and on the day. And I go park at a parking meter and put in an hour. And I wait for 55 minutes. And I'm going back outside to, you know, kind of. of debating. Am I going to plug my meter or am I just going to say screw it, you know. And

as I'm going out to, you know, decide whether to plug my meter or not, this, you know, child comes walking toward me and goes, J.K. And I'm thinking, oh, wow, somebody actually recognized me, you know. And I go, yeah, hi. And he goes, hi, I'm, I'm Jason, Reitman. And I go, oh, oh, oh, great, cool. He goes, so, so sorry. I'm late. So sorry. Do you have to go, please, tell you know, and I obviously stayed and auditioned and we talked about who that character was going to be and why he thought of me for that character, which had a little something to do with Jay Jonah Jameson, or that was kind of part of why he thought of me, but kind of what he was sort of leery of too, right, you know, and we talked about how to, yeah, how to differentiate

to which I, of course, like a jackass said, well, he could not have a flat top and cigar and a mustache. I don't know what she had. She might have had a cigar. Two out of three though. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It was clear after that first audition and certainly during the process of shooting my little part

and thank you for smoking, that we just got each other and appreciated each other. And despite the fact that I'm his father's generation, he's such an accomplished, even at that time, with all the short films he'd made in commercials and his education, he was such an accomplished filmmaker. And I was still felt like a theater guy who had kind of segued and was more of a newbie than I appear to be.

It really became this odd sort of mentor, protege relationship in chronological, you know, reverse. And then I invited him to join my poker game of mostly, you know, guys my age. And he was like, well, no, that sounds funny. He goes, I don't really, you know, know how to play poker. And I, of course, went perfect.

Even better. Yeah. Bring your cash. Yeah. And he showed up and donated several dollars. And like by the fourth time he played cards with us, he was the best player at the table because he's, damn, he's right.

He's got that brain, yeah, yeah. And he committed to learning. you know, got really good at it. And so, yeah, so we did become, you know, pals, you know, outside of work as well. And then, and then God bless him for what he did with Juno because, because once he signed up to do that, which at the time, he was, when they first asked him to read Juno, I'm really digressing here. No, no, this is great. Yeah, yeah. Um, uh, his initial response when somebody said, oh, you got to read the script by this amazing new writer who came out of nowhere.

His initial response was, yeah, I'm, I'm really only interested in making my own films and I want to be the writer director and, you know, thanks anyway. But then once he finally did agree to read it, obviously, you know, he saw what it was and, uh, and knew that he wanted to make it. And not only knew that he wanted to make it, but knew 90% of how he wanted to cast it, including me and including Ellen Page at the time. And, you know, neither one of us was by any means a household name. And, of course, the people with the purse strings were all like, well, what about this super famous person who's going to bring people into the movie theater or this, you know, 17-year-old pop star chick who, you know.

And Jason, you know, Doug, he knew he knew. wanted Alice and Janney. He knew he wanted Michael Sarah, you know, who was just kind of this kid from a TV show at the time. And he, Ellen and I did a full on like several hours, most of a day, old school camera test, you know, where we played, you know, the two main scenes between Juneau and her dad and even part of some scenes that included other actors reading off camera and uh you know so that jason could show i mean with like lights and make up and full on yeah yeah and and ellen was just coming off of that horrific film that she or brilliant horrific film that she had done hard candy or candy yep yep right where she was

starved and you know and she looked you know still she hadn't gotten physically sort of healthy again um not that she's the biggest girl on the planet or now boy man adult, you know, she's a, I keep talking about her as she, because that's the person I worked with, a tiny person. And I was, I immediately felt this sort of fatherly concern about how skinny she was at the time and, which I think probably actually helped, you know, begin that, you know, that relationship between the two of us. Anyway, obviously, you know, Jason was able to convince the money people, you know, yes, we could get bigger names and it might be very good, but these are the two people who I really, really, really want to have play these two parts. And then, you know, obviously that's the way it worked out.

And Allison and Michael, and he got the cast that he that he wanted all the way, you know, up and down the list. And again, you know, another, another series in my. a lengthy series of fortunate events in my career that because that really was a a senior perception i would imagine in the industry yeah yeah yeah yeah because people who did know me mostly knew me as either the you know the worst human being on the planet from oz or or the blowhard from you know spider-man or and to see you know the wonderful character of of MacGuff, you know, based, it's fair to say, I think, a little bit, at least on Diablo Cody's wonderful dad, whom I met during that process, was a, yeah, was a real, a real boom to my,

the way I was perceived in the business and whatever, sort of by the public as well. Well, all you can ask, and a creative collaborator, somebody that sees, like, the multitudes within you because I know then he he went on to recommend you I mean he was integral to getting you involved in whiplash which is like as far from mac as possible so he obviously sees all sides of jk which is amazing and and it's it's it's a blessing so I do want to wrap up with a comfort movie because I've been asking folks ever since the horrific beginning of 2020 we all needed comfort more than ever and I find it fascinating to hear about the movies that bring every actor and filmmaker on here comfort.

And you've chosen an absolute classic. And I just would love to hear as if it needs the fending, but what you find comfort in in the great to kill a mockingbird. Going back to, it was one of the first, you know, grown-up movies I saw as a kid. I think the very first was, guess who's coming to dinner that my parents took my sister and I, too, which I also considered as, you know, my, my tender movie.

Brilliant in its own way, obviously, and an iconic and, you know. But the story, the character, you know, the traditional, you know, the traditional, you know, mid-20th century, strong, silent, kind character of the, you know, Gregory Peck portrays and the brilliance of how the story is told from the kid's point of view and how it is adapted from the novel in that way. And then, you know, obviously just the bones of the story itself. And then add in that, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's Robert Duval. I know.

In the corner as Boo Radley, you know, in maybe his film debut, but, you know, Just, I mean, I get goosebumps talking about it now. It's such a beautiful story of, you know, human kindness and seeing people for who they are. And, you know, really, you know, good versus evil. And I know, you know, it's complicated, you know, recently. Sure. It doesn't dim my affection for that movie. and what I believe is a beautifully told

and important, especially at that time, important story. It's funny. Yeah, I thought back to it. I haven't seen it in a number of years, but I always remember the opening credits and I watched it again and just like you talk about seeing it from a kid's perspective and like the child, like opening that box and seeing like the marbles, et cetera, and hearing that gorgeous score from Elmer Bernstein. Oh, Elmer Bernstein, yes. It just like makes me want to weep just like watching the first two.

I'm barely through, like, written by credit, and I'm already weeping. So an excellent fix, sir. I really appreciate the time, man. As you can tell, I'm a great admirer of your work. You're one of those, in all honesty, that I feel like, you know, movie good or bad, I rely on you. You are dependable. There's not a false note that comes out of your mouth. You're one of those actors for me.

It almost sounded like you were saying I've been in some movies that were not great. We didn't cover those today. Possibly be what you meant. That's the next podcast conversation. The shitty movies of J.K. Simmons. That's the more interesting chat. Happy too. Yeah, yeah.

After I retire, we'll have that conversation. Exactly, exactly. Congratulations on being to Ricardo's national champions. As if Spider-Man needs another plug, but Spider-Man's coming soon too. And I look forward to chatting with you again soon, sir. Thank you for everybody. I hope so. Thanks a lot.

And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show. on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't to do this by Josh. Goodbye, summer movies, hello fall. I'm Anthony Devaney.

And I'm his twin brother, James. We host Raiders of the Lost Podcast, the ultimate movie podcast, and we are ecstatic to break down late summer and early fall releases. We have Leonardo DiCaprio leading a revolution in one battle after another. Timothy Salome playing power ping pong in Marty Supreme. Let's not forget Emma Stone and Jorgos Lanthamos' Bagonia.

Dwayne Johnson, he's coming for that Oscar in The Smashing Machine. Spike Lee and Denzel teaming up again, plus Daniel DeLuis's return from retirement. There will be plenty of blockbusters to chat about two. Tron Aries looks exceptional. Plus Mortal Kombat 2. And Edgar writes, The Running Man, starring Glenn Powell. Search for Raiders of the Lost Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.