The Watch - Ep. 33: 'The Andy Greenwald Podcast' With Sam Rockwell

Episode Date: April 12, 2016

Actor Sam Rockwell, star of the new film 'Mr. Right,' joins Andy Greenwald to discuss acting, creativity, and the persuasiveness of Brad Pitt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to the Andy Greenwald podcast. Hello, my name is Andy Greenwald. This is my podcast. Now part of the Ringer podcast network and exclusively the Channel 33 podcast feed. To hear it? I mean, you're hearing it now, so we've done pretty well already. But I encourage you to subscribe to Channel 33.

You get all sorts of great podcasts. You get this one. You get The Watch with me and Chris Ryan. You get Chris and Juliet doing sources say. Now you get my current favorite podcast, the political podcast, keeping it 1600 with Dan Pfeiffer and John Favro, all on Channel 30. Go to iTunes.com slash channel 33 or SoundCloud.com slash channel 33.

You can even find it on Stitcher. I highly recommend subscribing. You can also go to The Ringer.com and subscribe to the newsletter. We get all sorts of fun written content in your inbox every week. Today's interview was with Sam Rockwell. Sam Rockwell is one of those actors that if you mention him to certain people, their eyes light up. He is some people's absolute favorite actor, even though other people might not even be able to name five movies that he's been in. I'm in the category where I love him every time he's on the screen, whether it's in matchstick men or moon or the assassination of Jesse James, he completely lights up the screen and it just transforms the movie. He changes the oxygen and the gravity, the whole thing.

I had met him once before when he was doing a junket for seven psychopaths with Christopher Walken, and I just thought he was a really fun guy. And it turned out in person one-on-one, he's both fun and extremely thoughtful. I thought this was a really great conversation. We were talking specifically about his new movie, which is out April 8th, called Mr. Wright, which is a, a hitman rom-com with Anna Kendrick, written by Max Landis and directed by Paco Cabezas. I say hitman rom-com as if that's a thing, and it is because as Sam mentioned, this movie was walking in the footsteps of gross point-blank, which was, I guess, the originator of the form. But the conversation went all over the place from his experience working on Westerns to

working on Iron Man 2 and why he likes those sorts of movies to working with Joe Swanberg on Digging for Fire, a movie I really loved in 2015. really interesting to talk to Sam about his process and the way he sort of takes creativity and anarchy and professionalizes it and gives it some structure in how that is what allows him to be so unexpected in his performance choices. He also told a story that he had never told before

that involves Brad Pitt and a baby. So I definitely think you should listen through to that. We'll get right back into it. You can, again, Channel 33 on iTunes and SoundCloud, and thanks, as always, to the amazing Scottish band Churches, churches with a V for my theme music. Let's get into my conversation with Sam Rockwell. Because these things, sometimes I wish there was a service

where you could arrange conversations with actors and directors during the off cycle, because then their thought bags are full and you can gently massage them and things will come out. Yeah, yeah. But then you wouldn't really want to do that in your free time. Well, yeah, there is no free time. I mean, it's kind of, yeah, you mean break it up, so to speak. Right, because right now, you know, we're going to talk about, I think we've started, by the way, just.

Oh, we've started. But we're going to talk about Mr. Wright, which is your new film. Yes, yes, yes. Which is out in theaters and on some on-demand platforms, I believe Friday, April 8th. Yes, I think that's this Friday, right? That's this Friday. Yeah. So we are going to talk about that.

But in general, right, like the idea that maybe I could catch you in a moment when you're not full of these thoughts specifically on the one project, you're just full of the thoughts of the world that might pass through your head. Absolutely. I mean, they schedule these things in a very short amount of time, and they press it all in. And there's always like a premiere. Yeah. And a party. And then there's the next day you have to get up at the crack of ass.

See, that part's not fair. You've earned a party. It doesn't really make sense. No. But it's about scheduling and getting, you know, maximizing your time while they have you before you disappear into the ether or to other projects. We have Anna for, Anna, Kendrick for a short amount. of time. She's going to do the MTV Awards. So, you know, take advantage of that. We have to take

advantage of that. And it's very generous of her to sit out in the hall and not join her interview. Yes, she's being very sweet about that. Do you vanish between projects? Like when you have time for yourself, do you like to go? I don't vanish enough, probably. I probably should vanish more like Batman. I should get out. Yeah. Well, Batman's kind of having a rough couple months. I mean, he's really taking it on the chin. Maybe. Yeah, is he? Yeah. I mean, is he, fighting Superman, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. He's not equipped for that.

No, I don't think he is. But it's funny, we are talking about press, which is everyone's favorite thing to talk about. Yes. So we actually met briefly four years ago during one of these things for seven psychopaths. Oh, cool. Were you in Toronto?

No, so I got 10 minutes of your time in one of those hotel things, which are always so weird. Did it one-on-one? No, it was you and Christopher Walken. Oh, fantastic. So that's actually, that was amazing. It was great. It's amazing. You guys were great. And it was for seven psychopaths. So it was like late 2012. And you guys were just locked in this hotel room together. And the energy was hilarious. And you were having, so he would be having a really good time. Yes. And after I had that time talking to you guys, I started to pay more attention and realize that you'd work together before. You'd done theater here. Yes. Yes. That's right. That's right. So you guys had worked together before. But I noticed that when you were both written about in reviews and things.

Yeah. Often you get the same adjectives or similar adjectives. Yeah, I mean, a lot of stuff about, you know, bringing a different energy, stuff about being unexpected or surprising or courtinged or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And A, I thought I was just curious that you guys were harnessed together with that energy. Is that something that you recognize in him as a performer that you both share? And is that something you would even discuss?

I was just curious because that is something that has said about you, but then here you are spending this time together. and do you feel a commonality with him as an actor? I do. I do. That's well put. I do. And I, um, uh, he's become a friend. You know, we, we talk from time to time still and, uh, I've gone to his house and he's, uh, made me an omelet. This is. And, um, he's a, he's a lovely man and, and, obviously a hero of mine. And I've worked with, you know, some of these icons like, you know, Gene Hackman and, uh, Robert De Niro, I've done readings with Al Pacino, and, you know, you work with these guys, and it's pretty strange, you know, and then Harvey Kytel, I just worked with.

And, but John Malkovich, you know, but, you know, it's, it's interesting. Chris and I, I never spent that much time with somebody like that, you know. I think Bradley Cooper got to become friendly with Robert De Niro because they spent a lot of time together, and I guess they're friendly, you know. And I can say that I'm friendly with Chris, and we spend a lot of time, especially doing the play together. Yeah.

The play, and then the film, Seven Psychopaths. But, yeah, Roger Ebert had said something about comparing me to Chris, and then that got. out on the internet or whatever. And so, but also, you know, Chris is a theater kid, and I was a theater kid, and Chris dances in a lot of his films, and I've done some dancing. And so, you do some fight dancing in this film. I do some fight dancing. And I'm also, I played villains, and I've done, you know, anti-heroes. And so I've done character parts and kind of leading men, I guess.

And so, yeah, it's, there's some similarities. You know, and I think Chris and I both feel, it's a long answer, but I think that, you know, when you're, when you're from a sort of Bohemia background, when you do theater and you're part of that, you see that. Like, you know, the way Bob Fosse probably grew up. And I think you see things that most children don't see, you know, so you're exposed to that adult life very early on. I think it makes you a little stranger or strangers. It even sounds judgmental. It makes you a little more jaded, I guess, and streetwise.

So you kind of, when you're not as easily shot. by stuff, I guess. And I think that Chris and I share that, you know. Well, it came out in that room. I mean, you were spending a lot of the time trying to get him to come visit you with the Chateau Marmont because he was staying at the relatively more stayed four seasons, I think.

And he was saying he wasn't up with that crowd. But what came out of that, also, though, was a real sense of play. He loves the Chateau. He does. Yeah, but back in the day, yeah. I think he's being coy. Maybe he was feeling a little piquid that day.

Yes, yes. But there's a sense that you both were talking about acting with a real sense of play and how you enjoy rehearsal and finding things, and it was very nice to hear. It was exploratory. And it made me think that one of the things that I really always admire and enjoy in your performances

is that there's a real palpable sense that when you get these scripts, and you've had some really good ones, and maybe ones that you feel aren't as good when you get them. But that the writing is not the end point. It's really the beginning. That you get the script, you learn the lines, and then you can play.

Does that make sense? Yeah. There's always a lot going on between the words in one of your performances, which I really enjoy, and particularly that's there in Mr. Wright as well. Thanks, yeah. I think if you're, I think the idea is that the text is malleable

and that it's really the clay for you to shape and you're there to bring behavior and, you know, subtext to the text. And so it's a kind of regard and respect for the written word, but it's also a disregard. Right. You know? But it's also maybe some people could look at the words and think those are the walls that you have to constrain yourself in.

But it feels like you look at them as like the poles holding up the circus tent. Like they're there and it's great that you're there because now you have space to play. Exactly. But I feel like is that a mindset that you always brought to acting or do that come from? Well, I was trained in improv as a kid and then I did Meisner. I did two years of Sanford Meisner training. We could do Meisner right now. We could just do back and forth.

We could do Meisner right now. We could do repetition. We could do repetition. We could do repetition. We could do repetition. We could do repetition. I love doing deep Meisner jokes. I would stretch this, but some people have to listen to it.

We, you know, Misner is very improv-based, and so I think that that's, you know, the text, again, is not, it's just there. It's a bouncing off platform for you, and I think, yeah, I think that that kind of training makes everything very playful, hopefully, you know. Yeah, but it's a, it's a bouncing off platform for you. remarkable, you know, it's literally, these things are often called plays, teleplays, but that word is often absent, you know, and I don't mean to say that because people are always constrained by the words or because writers have power because as a writer, I definitely don't feel that's the case. But the sense of play, you know, when it's called out in your performances, it's called out for being unique. And I wish that more people shared that spirit, that spirit, you know,

I think that it would elevate things. The spirit of audience, literally the spirit of play, like finding something within these words, dancing around them, making it breathe, making the unexpected choice, and committing to it. Yeah, I think actors like Chris and Chris Walken do do that, and I think that's what makes them special, you know. If you look at Biloxi Blues, if you look at the play, I've read the play, there's a lot of exclamation points,

like a typical drill sergeant, attention, you know, and that kind of thing. And if you watch the movie, the Mike Nichols movie, Wauken never yells. and so what he's done, he always takes the punctuation out and does whatever he wants with that and that's what makes him a genius. And what makes him scary because it's something you've never seen before. Yes, exactly.

You can't dismiss him as a cliche or as something that was expected. That's right. That's right. The other thing, and we can move off the Chris Walken portion of the interview, but when I was thinking about what I liked about seven psychopaths, the thing that came back to me a few years later was Watkins' character's relationship with his wife and he played these, you know, it's an over-the-top, intentionally so film in a lot of ways.

But it had this very, very sweet love story inside of it. There was a very minor part of the movie, but it, that stayed with me. And I was thinking about that when I watched Mr. Wright, which, you know, for promotional purposes, we can say, is out April 8th. Yes. Which is, you play a great love story in this movie.

Hey, thanks, man. You know, it's fun. It's, yeah, it's a nutty love story. It's a nutty love story. It's a nutty love story, but that has to be a delicate thing because for people who haven't seen it yet or thinking about checking it out, again, it's an elevated world. I wouldn't compare it directly to seven psychopaths, but it's a little bit not dissimilar. It's a world of broader characters and ideas, and there's violence. You play a hitman who's developing a moral conscience who falls in love with Anna Kendrick's character, and they sort of have to fight through his circumstance to find true love.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think Silver Linings playbook, and I think Gross Point Blank are sort of the standards, especially Gross Point Blank, was really what I was aiming to do. That was, Romancing the Stone is another one where you get two people like that, two unlikely people. But I think Gross Point Blank to me was the one that really stuck out as like, okay, so this is how it was done, this genre, rom-com, action comedy thing. it's that's the best I've seen this particular thing done with an assassin and a love story. I've never really seen it done better than that. It's a tricky tight. It's honor, but, you know.

It's a tricky tightrope to walk. Yeah. You know, because there's a, you know, you have to be able to do these extreme things, but then you don't want the emotional heart of the movie to be cartoony. You want that to be the thing that keeps people grounded to something. That's right. And it can't be. It's got to be grounded, yeah, for sure.

And there's a moment in the movie that I think was my favorite moment where, and I'm not going to spoil anything, but it's not a spoiler to say that your character is roughed up and perhaps covered with blood, some of which is his and some of which is belongs to others. Yes. And he sees Anna Kendrick's character for the first time after some peril. And I think the line is nothing. The line is like, hey babe, basically. Yeah. And you deliver it in a way that completely won me over. Because that's what you say to someone you love when you're excited to see them, despite the mayhem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, just purely from an acting craft perspective, yeah. How do you hold on to that, the, you know, the subway pole of emotional truth when you've just finished fighting someone? You know, again, I reference Gross Point Blank. I think Minie Driver and John Cusack really did that very well in Alan Arkin, you know,

and Joan Cusack is in that film too. And I think what's really funny is the way that, for example, there's a moment that when John Cusack is in the middle of a battle in her house and he's professing his love and I think

you also there's there's moments where with Alan Arkin where he's talking to his therapist anybody who's ever done therapy and I have and it's it's very well done that's the best

I mean I think that was before the Sopranos you know so that was was the first time I'd seen that before analyzed this, you know, where they did that joke. Yeah. And it's very funny. I mean, and it's very real.

And John Kuzek is saying, you know, he says, I don't think you're taking this job seriously, you know, and Alan Arkin's like, I don't, I'm not, you're not hearing me. I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this. Yeah. I'm not going to be your therapist. You don't understand. Yeah.

He says, I think really, we're, we got to work this. out, you know. And it's very funny. I mean, it's very, because it's so real, I think that that's, it's still a rom-com, even though you've got a gun and stuff like that, you know. I actually have a therapist who looks exactly like Alan Arkin. That's no joke. Which is both, you know, hardening and a little bit chilling because it takes me to memories of that and maybe he's just playing apart. That's amazing. But it's a calming presence, you know. Yes, definitely, definitely. Yeah, there's, but there are a couple of things like that that that I appreciated just in terms of a little thing, you know, as the violence gets over the top, the other half of it does its half of the bargain, carries its weight.

Like, one thing I noticed that I appreciated is that your character, Francis, when he gets hit and he gets hit often, it says, ow. Like, it hurts. Yeah, that was important to me because I'm glad you noticed that. Yeah, well, especially when Tim's got that rod, that's with those, some of those. Tim Roth is the antagonist. He's the antagonist, yes, and he has one of those rods that I think sometimes cops use or military people. It's very, very painful if you've ever even been touched by one of those things. And sort of a baton, I guess, but it's metal.

Anyway, yeah, I think that, you know, in my memory, I think superheroes are getting a little too, leading men action heroes are getting a little too invincible these days. Yeah, I agree. And I go back to Indiana Jones, you know, and Indiana Jones bled, and he said, ow, and he ran, and he was scared. And he was sore, and he was sore. He was sore. There was a toll. Yeah, and you could see fear in his eyes when he was running from the big ball, you know.

I mean, he was afraid of snakes, and, you know, he was a human being, and he plugged through. But, I mean, you know, it's more interesting to me to see the vulnerabilities and an action hero. I don't find it interesting. You know, you're not able to get hurt. And this is kind of a, this character is kind of a superhero, Mr. Wright. Yes. I mean, they have, he has a matrix sort of ability to see stuff before it happens. To grab knives out of the air.

Yeah, and so does Anna. And so, you know, it is a bit of a superhero character, and yet it's still, we talked about that a lot. We wanted him to be, you know, human. Yeah, so you can relate to something going on here. Yeah, you know. Neurotic and also able to bleed. It's nice that he can do both.

Yeah. Because if you're going to be throwing that many knives, you're going to get cut at some point. You're going to get cut at some point. The odds are not in your favor. It makes you tougher, actually. Getting cut that much? I think if you say ow and you keep going and you get cut, you're bleeding, I think it. That was actually the remarkable thing about it, that he certainly doesn't give up.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there are injurricular. general, I'm curious about this in an actor's life, like the things that get you to commit to parts because you get scripts, you have choices, you look at things. And I was thinking about this because for you, for us, it's, did he like the movie that he wanted to be in because we'd see the finished product? For you, it's time out of your life and time out of your career. And so I was trying to, I was just trying to think using this movie as an example, but, you know, we could talk about other movies. Yeah. How do you break it down? Like, do you look at this and you're

like, well, you know, four, five, six weeks in New Orleans with the Rizza, that seems like fun. Like, I would say yes to that. And then it's like, well, you and seeing the things that you and Tim Roth would have to do in the pouring rain to each other. And it's like, you guys are not, you're not old by any stretch, but you guys are not, you know. You're not 20-year-olds. Yeah. And it's pouring rain on stone steps.

Yeah. That takes a toll on Sam, not the character. Yeah, no, that you definitely think about that stuff. I mean, I turned down a Western, I've done two Westerns, and I, that was a low-budget film and I you know because I know I've done westerns

and they're not easy to make and so this is a low-budget action movie so you know you're thinking about that and I'd never done a fight scene in the rain with a rain machine yeah I'd been in rain machines

and I don't know if I'd really looked at the script carefully okay I got you that I think it was nighttime originally thank God we changed that because it would have been freezing It was already cold. The rain machines, no matter how warm it is outside,

you get very, very cold. It's hard to describe, but that's a lot of time under a rain machine. It's just a lot of time to be wet. It's a long time to be wet. You start getting like, you start shivering. And it's interesting. You realize what bothers you? I'm not good with the cold.

you know so yeah we just it's like the South the North Pole Expedition movies should not be saying your way yeah I don't know if that would be my thing but but you know I love the fight scenes that was really fun I was really

into that I love doing the fight scenes but and you know Tim did that amazing sword fight in Rob Roy so he's no stranger right to choreography like that but that was like 20 years ago I'm just saying that was 20 years ago and he looks great I not I don't mean to

cast aspersions. No, and I'm not some kid either. You know, I've got some aches and pains. And Tim and I were definitely bumping each other a little bit in that. But we didn't have enough, we didn't have a lot of time, the choreograph and the money like you'd have on a mission impossible. We ever had a week and a half, which you normally, five, six fights, you'd have months to choreograph. Yeah. You know, for something like that.

And so, yeah. But I think you just, you realize it's a good part and I can do this. and you're getting Anna Kendrick and Tim Roth and Rizzen all these people. And you're saying, okay, well, I know how to do this. I've done this enough times. The 30-day shoots are tough. That's what it was. This was longer than that, a little longer, not much longer.

But the 29 day 30, I think I might be done with those. I don't know. But, you know, so like a month, you know, four to five weeks can be tough. But if you get seven weeks, eight weeks, you're okay. You know, you can figure it out. Because you feel like you have time to get the work you need to go to the level. You need to get it. You get comfortable.

Yeah, I think it's hard to make a movie in 29 days, a good movie. It's done. I've done it. Yeah. I've done. We did moon in 33 days. Oh, that's amazing. I did choke in 29, 30 days.

But, you know, it's tough. It's tough. When you got a lot of locations or you got a lot of costumes, a lot of cast members and logistics, it's tough. And then if you're like fighting traffic going to New Jersey or you're going and that you're in the mountains.

If you're going to New Jersey, you already forget about it. Forget about it, dude. You know, I was thinking though, like the, you mentioned Moon, I was going to mention it. The movies that I really, that stand out to me,

the movies that I really loved your performances the most in, I think about Moon or assassination of Jesse James, match sick men, Thanks. Galaxy Quest. All these movies, if you just look at them,

they don't have very much in common on paper other than maybe, your presence on the NDB page. But I was thinking about them in the larger scope of Hollywood and where Hollywood movies have gone, and they all kind of feel like miracles that they happened. Like none of those movies are movies that you green light being like our Christmas bonuses are paid for on any end of them.

They all just seem like these happy, lucky accidents, convergence of things that, you didn't know necessarily going in that they would be what they turned into. Yeah, yeah. I think about that in general about the business, but often actors have the least. control over these things because you go and you do your best and then you don't see what people do with it. Yeah.

How do you gauge this? I mean, when you made those movies, is there a vibe that you've learned to recognize as this is a good vibe or is there something more zen about letting go of that need to control and you just do what you can do with your work and then cross your fingers and you're, you know, you're in a van to New Jersey by the time it comes out? Hopefully not the Meadowlands, but, you know, to a film set. Yeah, I think you just try to work with good filmmakers and you try to do good parts and you really don't have a lot of control.

You know, in the case of Jesse James, I was very conflicted about that because we all, including Jeremy Renner, we all auditioned for Casey's part. We all wanted to play Bob Ford. So I actually turned that movie down quite a few times. I never told the story on the radio, but Brad Pitt showed up in my house a lot like the character, Jesse James, and he convinced me to do the movie. But it's a good move because I think I made a lot of friends, but I also, it turned out to be, I think one of the best westerns, you know, best 10 westerns in, I don't know, 40 years or something.

I think it's a very good, I think it's up there, you know. I think it's a masterpiece. I think it's a great movie. It's a great film. You know, and so, you know, that's something, you know, and then I think, I don't know if it's make, is Brad Pitt a hard sell or a soft touch when he comes to your house to personally lobby? He was a soft touch. He was very, he was beautiful. He was very, he is beautiful.

He is beautiful. He's beautiful man. And he had a baby on his shoulder. Like a stunt baby or a real one? He had a real baby who's now, I guess, full grown now. Okay. but, um, and, uh, he, yes, but, you know, you know, I think that, um, you know, this, this is just, these kind of things probably wouldn't be made now. Matchstick men wouldn't be made for the

kind of money it was made for. It would be made. It would be on cable or moon. I don't even know if moon, I don't know. I don't know how they, you know, I think a lot of this stuff, you know, I think a lot of this stuff would be on cable now. Yeah. It's changed so much. Yeah. Yeah. And you see, you know, people are reacting to those changes in different ways.

And, you know, it made me think of, obviously, one of the, the one thing that some actors can do is, you know, you find one reliable gig. Yeah. You get a franchise gig and then you do your other work on the side. And if it ends up being a small cable thing, then you do that because you have the bigger thing defining your income level but also your schedule. And you put a toe in those waters, the Iron Man, too. Yeah. Is there a part of you that finds that world at all appealing? Like the fact that those guys, some phenomenal actors, I mean, you mentioned Jeremy Renner.

He's just one of many now who basically have once or twice a year's summer camp. They go to Atlanta. They put on Lycra. They punch each other. They don't say ow. And they make fun movies. And then they go do their... Jeremy's got like four franchises, I think.

Well, he's the franchise. Yeah. Or three, at least three franchises. I'd like to do a whole other podcast about that. I find that amazing. And they do that and they do their other work. And is that, that breakdown of a career appealing to you at all? Or did you feel like you had your taste of it and that was enough?

I think that it's, no, I mean, I did a remake of Poulter guys. So my career is very eclectic. I think that you just, you go to work and you try to find stuff that appeals to you. you know, I didn't want to do Galaxy Quest. You know, I didn't want to do that job because the guy was a coward, and I didn't want to play a coward, and then that turned out to be an amazing film. But, you know, you just try to do different stuff,

I think you're just trying to, you know, change it up and do different stuff. And so Iron Man, too, was actually really fun to do. it was actually strangely actor-friendly that film because of Justin Thoreau who wrote it and John Favreau. They have some history in front of the camera. Yeah, yeah, you know, and Fav was really, he had a very, it was a very relaxed set. And Mickey Rourke and I really had a good thing.

We had a good thing. And we, he, you know, it was a lot like Gene Wilder and Peter Boyle and Young Frankenstein, you know, I was the talker and he was the muscle. The muscle. And so, or Lex Luthor and Terrence Stamp and Superman too, it was like, you know, we were a perfect comedy team. Yeah. You know.

So he would speak Russian and grunt and I would be the fast talking salesman. And you got to wear a nice suit and he was shirtless with exoskelet. It was the perfect comic team. And I think Favaro knew that. He instinctively and Thoreau knew that. And so they wrote us this great material. And a few times we had to write speeches on the fly, and I had to use an earwig and all this stuff. But that was really fun to do.

I think that where you get into trouble is where you, when you have too much time on your hands and you're in a location where you got to, you don't have a lot of acting to do. And that's stuff that I try to avoid. Right. You're going to be there for six months when they need you. They need you. And when they need you, you might be moving an elbow in front of a green screen for five minutes. Yes. Yes, that can go bad fast.

You're just not engaged at that point. Yeah, you know, that can be bad news, you know. Is it true? I read this, which means it's almost definitely not true, but I had to ask. There was that... Grab some water here. Sure, of course. Thanks.

That Favro had talked to you about doing Iron Man as Iron Man initially? Yeah, I got a call, and then I never heard back about it. But Peter Billingsley and John Favro called me, just said, hey, would you be interested? and this were doing this movie. And I said, yeah, sure. And we talked about it. And then I never heard anything. And then I think Robert Downey screen tested.

And that was that. But I think maybe that was the seed for Justin Hammer because when we did, John and I were doing, we'd done made together, but we were doing G-Force, this guinea pig CGI movie. You don't have to explain it to me. This is the internet's leading CGI Gini Pig-related podcast. You know, Zach Galefinacus.

Yeah. So I was insisting because I'm, you know, I'm a nerdy actor and I'm like, can I, I was doing it alone. We were doing it alone a lot. Yeah. And I've done some of this animation stuff. And it's always better when you have, you're with an actor. So I said, can I please, please get an actor in the room with me? And they say, okay, well, schedules are hard.

You know, they finally, they got Vav in there. And we, John and I probably did some of the best work. we did in the film because we were in the room together. We got to even get physical, and it was like, we got to actually do a scene, you know, and it was fun. And so that day, I think he said, I want you to, and I talked to Thoreau. Thoreau was an old friend of mine from Williamstown Theater Days,

and we'd done Repertory Theater. And so he was now this writer, and he was going out there. And I think I kidded him like, hey, write me apart in the thing. And my girlfriend was in the original one. all these coincidences. And then Favreau said, you know, I want the Marvel guy, Kevin's going to come down when we're doing the G-Force. We want to talk to you about something. So he told me. Did he bring a baby? Huh? Did he bring a baby also? Because he'd heard. He did not bring a baby. But I was very interested in this and the idea, even though there was no script. Right.

But they were going to do one villain and then they decided to split it into two villains. And so that's when I think it became kind of like, you know, Gene Hackman and Terrence Stamp. in Superman too, where you've got the Uber Alpha and then you've got the fast talker. And so it was an intriguing prospect. The thing that I find really fascinating is that you're able to talk about your career in a way that I think many successful actors are,

which is with some perspective on the long game. You know, you're working with good people, you're having good experiences, and then over time it builds into something, you know, it's a career. And you've had good things to look back on. But I feel like that must be incredibly, challenging because as an actor it's so much, you know, especially when you're starting out, but it's so much about the short game. It's about, you know, getting a job.

Yeah. And what will this job do about the next job and what will it mean? And all these things that are outside of your control. Yeah. It can be very stressful making a decision, but it's also, sometimes you just have to go to work. Right. You know, and make a living, but it's, but it's, it is stressful and it is your life, you know. And sometimes people don't understand. You're like, You know, no, this is my life, you know. And so it's, yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky sometimes. But I love big movies.

That's the thing I'll say about Iron Man, is that I loved what John did with the first Iron Man. Oh, me too. I really thought it was an amazing superhero film for adults. And probably in many ways, the most influential movie of the last, you know, certainly the last 10 years because every movie is trying to chase that one. Yeah, I agree.

I agree. I think it really was the, yeah, really like set the bar really high. And so I was a huge fan of it. And, you know, and I like that stuff. I like the first Avenger film and I, the first Batman with Keaton and Nicholson and the X-Men movies. But, you know, I like big movies and I like small movies. I like, I like it all. And I think we all do, you know, to some extent.

that we like, I mean, I have some friends who are snobby and they just like art films and foreign films, but I like everything, you know. That's a healthy attitude since, you know, you might have the chance to play in all those sandboxes. Yeah. But do you give Renner a hard time when you see him about these five franchises and about the time he saved the city that was floating in the sky with his bow and arrow? I mean, you got to, right?

I, you know, he's, he's living a good life and he's doing his thing, you know, and he's a good, good man, he's a good friend. He always keeps his feet on the ground. He's, uh, he's real, he's still a good old cowboy from Modesto. I mean, he's, he's, uh, he'll never change, man. He's the same guy I met in Calgary, you know. He's still flipping houses. He's still, like, he's still flipping houses. By the way, making a lot of money doing that. He doesn't need to act. Yeah, I mean, shit, you know. He's doing just fine. Yeah, I'm not worried about him. Yeah. I think it's amazing. Um, you mentioned small movies. I did want to mention this, um, that, a performance that I just loved last year was you in Dinging for Fire,

the Just War I movie. Oh, hey, man. Yeah. Which is a really cool movie. I hope people would check it out. Yeah, that was fun to do. It was a weird experience. That's what I wanted to ask about, because people have seen this movie.

I mean, Swanberg shoots in a very almost 70s verite style, right? Yeah. You find the movie. That was real film, if I'm not mistaken. You shot it on real film. Yeah. It's kind of gently improved in terms of dialogue. Is that right?

Oh, very improved, yeah. And so you... Ben, who shot the movie is Anna Kendrick's boyfriend. Oh, I didn't know. Oh, because she had worked with Joe. She was in that movie. She was in digging for far. She was at a big part in Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas,

some of these recent really good movies. You play this character. You show up at the house one night. And what's so amazing about this is you have relatively little screen time. It's just not a long movie. And you are immediately a guy that everybody knows. I know this guy. Everyone has the one friend who's going to show up a little too late

and take it a little too far. Yes. But you can't quit. You can't quit that friend. Yeah. And so I was curious about your way. into this because, you know, you go from, you didn't go directly from the Iron Man 2 set, but we're talking about that kind of filmmaking world to this, where they're in a house,

it's rented for a couple days, I don't, you tell me how, how much you were told and what you knew before you set foot on the, well, I really like drinking buddies. Me too. I really liked it, and I was, I was intrigued by Joe and his love of IPAs and beer. And, um, that's a good start, being a hop chaser myself. And so I think I talked to Joe, and Jake, Jake is a great guy, Jake Johnson. Yeah, I love him. I really liked him in the movie, you know, where he was, you know, the one with Duplas, where they're an Audrey Plaza.

Oh, safety, not Gary. Yeah, I mean, I thought Jake was incredible in that movie. So I was like, all right, and we got Chris Messina to do it. And, you know, from the room, you know, the, you know, the, Brie Larson was in it. And we had all these amazing Orlando Bloom, Rosemary, DeWitt. So it was like, there's an amazing cast.

And, you know, the character, they really, you know, we kind of pitch this kind of Raleoota sort of something wild kind of guy or something. It was, it was, yeah, we were, he said, you're going to be this friend and you maybe played baseball together. And it was very vague. And then we got more specific about it, you know. And it was definitely about being trouble. This guy represented trouble.

Yeah, the potential, the road, the open door that he might not go through. Yeah, exactly. So it appealed to me, even though it was a smaller part, it really appealed to me. I thought it actually was an important role. Yeah, it's a crucial role for the movie. But I imagine it, I wondered if it sort of sparked something in you in that sense, you know, that we've been talking about since we sat down. Like we were talking with Chris Walken about finding the play, playing,

and here's a chance you just, you walk on and you're playing again, right? That's right. It's kind of no bullshit, no pressure, but you got to. Well, the thing with improv that's tricky if you're doing improv is that when you're preparing a script and you want to do drama, you have time to digest the emotional stakes and sort of, you know, water that plant, which may turn into emotional, you know, emotional data. Refine it, articulate it. Yeah, and so you can kind of like, you know, sit with it for a while and fantasize about it.

But like when you're doing improv, it's really on the fly. So to have emotional stakes can be difficult on the fly. You can't just like say, oh, yeah, okay, your character has cancer or your HIV or something. And it's hard to, you have to really have great actors faith in order to fall into those imaginary circumstances. So, you know, my thing with improv is that it's difficult. You have to have structured improv because, so I was looking to find, you know, dramatic moments. And I think we did at the end, me and Jake, our sort of breakup scene,

had a moment that I was very happy with. Because sometimes it gets too light. Improv can be too light. And so everybody just being clever. There's a tendency to make yourself look good and also to want to stay away from the pit in the middle of the room, right? You don't want to go too deep. Yeah, yeah.

And I prefer, I like, you know, Eugene O'Neill and August Wilson and, you know, Arthur Miller. I like high stakes melodrama. You know, I like melodrama. So I don't think things should just be light of fare. I think they should be deep, you know. Otherwise, why bother? That's the thing. When I say that Dinging for Fire is a small movie,

I only mean in terms of its budget because the breakup scene you're talking about and there's a scene with Brie Larson and Jake when she sort of an entire relationship passes over her face in one take where she realizes this isn't going to happen. It's very uncomfortable. It's an amazing emotional expression

that they reach in this movie. Yes, yes. And Rosemary and Sam Elliott, I think have a great, very cool moment. Rose Marie has some amazing moments in that. Yeah, and that's, you really got to be searching for that, you know, really actively searching for that with an improv movie, I think. You mentioned at the very beginning that, you know, you hailed from Bohemia,

which I think in this case is located near San Francisco, right? Yes, yes, and New York in the summertime, yeah. So you come from an artistic background. You have actors in your family, is that correct? My parents were actors, and my mom's a painter now, and my father lives in California. He quit, and he became a union organizer for the printing union and the supermarket clerks and stuff.

And so, yeah, he was a real, you know, Woody Guthrie kind of working man. Don't cross the picket line. So he still is. He's a, you know, he's a Bernie guy. Big Bernie guy. The thing that I was wondering, this may seem sort of counterintuitive as a question,

but I wondered if because you came from a place of creativity being prioritized and encouraged, and you've been doing this sort of work for some time now, did you ever feel envious of nine to five life? Do you ever feel? I have a friend who came from a similar world in San Francisco, and he actually, I think at times, found the weight of expectation to be creative,

almost suffocated. Which is not something you normally think about because people are like, oh, my dad wants me to be a banker, I wish I could paint or act. But I wonder if the reverse is ever true, if you ever just kind of want to. Well, you know, I think people do long for structure if they come from

you know, crazy childhood or whatever. I think they long for structure. And I like structure, but I also like chaos too. So I like a little bit of both. But I don't know about the nine to five. I don't know.

I like a work day, though. I like to go to work. You know, and our job is more 12 to 14 hour days on a film set. And if you're doing theater, that's a very odd schedule. But, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's really feasible. or famine as you're either not working or you're working a lot. Or you're under a rain machine? Yeah, under a rain machine. So it's a strange life. But, you know, I think I took it for granted because it was sort of the family business, although my parents, they did a lot of theater and they never did movies or anything.

But, you know, you take it for granted. And then when I studied at William Esper, I think that's when I realized it was more of a real calling or a kind of a. I always say like Jedi training thing, you know, where you're like, oh, okay, this is something to be taken seriously. This is a real, there's an apprenticeship and this is a craft. Yeah, you know, it's like becoming a journalist or a doctor or like, you know, whatever. It's like this is something to be taken seriously. One thing that sometimes adds structured actors lives is signing on to do to work on TV.

And I was curious, I do most of my writing about TV. Uh-huh. If, you know, the explosion of good parts and good writing there, if that's ever been appealing to you. Well, yeah, I mean, after True Detective, everything kind of changed or, you know, I think the first True Detective really, it seemed to sort of, that to me was a big change. I mean, you know, when Robert Duvald did Lonesome Dove, I remember that was kind of like, oh, wow, you know. Yeah. And Tommy Lee Jones. So, you know, I was like, oh, okay.

So you can really do good work. There's no stigma either. Yeah. And I think Picky Blinders and Louis and all these things, you know, and Breaking Bad. I mean, it's exploded, you know, Boardwalk Empire. It's exploding. So it's, I guess, Sopranos and, you know, Gary Shanling, going back to the Larry Sanders show. I mean, he really started it all, a lot of it.

There would be no curb your enthusiasm without that, you know. The whole language of comedy on TV today comes from that show. Oh, yeah. There would be no Louis without Gary Shanling. I think. And Judd Apatow worked on that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, Gary started it all. And, you know, God bless Gary, man. And we did Iron Man two together. Oh, that's right. I didn't realize that you would cross paths with him.

Yeah, he was a cool guy. Very cool guy. That's the impression I get. The outpouring of just personal love is so outstripped. The professional love. It's kind of amazing. Beautiful guy. Yeah. His teacher was Roy London, who died, who was an amazing acting coach, acting teacher, who taught a lot of great, especially women, like Sharon Stone, Gina Davis for Thelman Louise,

and Roy London, remember Gary telling me about Roy London. He was a great acting teacher, but anyway, I don't know what we were talking about. Oh, it was just wondering if the TV was appealing to you. Yeah, I think that it is, I think that it would probably, for me, though, it's, you know,

I don't go, I'm not good with the line changes, you know, I've done that on movies like Iron Man. Yeah. I'm not, it's not really, it doesn't, it's not good for me. I like to prepare, so I think. You mean the constant change and churn of the script? Yeah, like a typical TV structure,

I don't think it would be good for me. I like to prepare. And so I think something like True Detective or that movie Game Change, you know, that Woody and Julianne Moore did, I think, Ed Harris, you know, where you have one director, one script, and you can do it like a movie, that appeals to me.

Yeah, you know, Lonesome Dove. Lonesome Dove. But you just said you don't want to do more westerns. Well, that's not true. I would do a Western, but it's got to be a good part. What if you were just more of a sedentary character in the Western, you never had to get up on the horse? You could just be rocking.

No, I don't mind getting up on a horse. And now that I can do the lasso, I'd like to incorporate the lasso. And I love playing with guns. But I think I... As evidenced in, Mr. Wright, the film is open tomorrow. See, I'm weaving it in. There you go. But I think I'd have to play a different archetype

like a Shane, you know, kind of archetype in a Western. I think I've done the Jimmy Stewart character and the, you know, I need to do the Steve McQueen character. I love the idea of just as you go through your career, you know, people think you've collected these films. You have this filmography, but I'd like to see the list of skills that grows in weird directions because, you know, you're saying, oh, now I know how to work a lasso. Yeah.

That has never, I've never heard that sentence. That's never come up in my life. Well, we did this play Fool for Love. and I had to learn the lasso. We didn't even talk about Full for Love. Spent a year learning that lasso. That was fun. You got to, Shepherd is pretty demanding.

Very demanding. That's a precise language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should let you go. This has been a great conversation. Thanks for taking the time. So great. Thank you so much, man.

And people will be even more impressed when they find out the 45 minutes of Misenor back and forth that we cut from the first part of the interview. I think that's podcast gold, but maybe that's like a good. Well, I started crying and you were yelling at me. I just think we should, I don't think. anybody wants to hear about that. No, I think the activity I chose was a little odd also for such a small and closed space, so we'll keep that. Who does that with a violin? Well, I didn't know I could do it with a bow. I knew I could do it with a string. Sam, thank you so much for taking the time to

talk to me, and best luck with everything. Thanks, man. Thanks a lot.