WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1018 - Anjelica Huston

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

If there was one constant in Anjelica Huston’s early life and career, it was the pressure to prove herself. Anjelica tells Marc about the benefits and drawbacks of being part of a Hollywood dynasty, the strains on the relationship with her father when she started making movies with him, and what it meant to her when she won an Oscar for working under her dad’s direction. They also talk about her life with Jack Nicholson, her work on Wes Anderson’s movies, and why it was difficult to make the Addams Family movies. Plus, Anjelica explains why she loves being part of the John Wick franchise. This episode is sponsored by Turo and Hair Club. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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fuck nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it how's it going happy monday or whatever hope you're okay. Hope you had a good weekend. My weekend was, um, it was okay. You know, I got into, uh, I got into some very minor trouble with the police. See, now that'd be a good tease, wouldn't it? So, like, if I just said that, like, I got into a little trouble with the police. I'll get to that in a few. You'd be like, oh, fuck. Don't be. It was stupid. But Angelica Houston is on the show today. The Angelica Houston. She's in that big John Wick movie that opens this Friday, May 17th. I got to be honest with you. I haven't seen any of them. Is that too honest? But she's here. We're going to talk about that and talk about some other stuff. I don't need to have seen the movie to talk about it. It was funny. I'll tell you a little inside baseball. You want a little inside baseball? I was at a hotel in New York. I was in New York last week, as some of you know, because I told

you. And I was staying at a hotel. I stay out occasionally. And I was getting back to the hotel. It was late at night. And a wardrobe person, like a personal stylist, I guess, someone came in with a rolling rack with several boxes of shoes. And it looked like several options in a garment bag hanging. It looked like a production, a bit of a deal. But then I hear the guy go uh yeah i'm gonna take this up to uh uh jason manzoukas's room and i'm like oh and i uh and i and i said so jason's here he goes yeah and he told me he's a big fan of mine like that's nice i said what's

what's going on it's like well you know the premiere for the john wick movies tomorrow and i'm like oh okay so this is here's the deal you know i don't i don't know from personal stylists i i i'm a i'm an idiot who buys one black suit and i've worn it like three or four times at any event that requires that so apparently you know jason you know you wanted to look sharp for the premiere but that didn't stop me from texting him and saying, hope you can find a dress you like. That didn't stop me from doing that. Hey, Jason, I saw your stylist on his way up. I was just being a dick, but he went ha ha and whatever one does on text. Anyway, I thought that was funny. That's all. I was very excited about that moment. Didn't hang out with him though.

And I don't know if he did find a dress he liked. And why is it funny? So what if he wants to wear a dress? He didn't. I got to make up for a couple of things, I think. First of all, okay, I get it. You schooled me. I had a blind spot or a blind side or a lack of or an ignorance of maya erskine's uh dad peter erskine

thank you drum nerds jazz people when i talked to her about him being in steely dan and i didn't really go off i didn't i clearly didn't know anything about the man and he's one of the most important jazz drummers that has ever lived and continues to live a lot of fusion stuff but like just a tremendously respected prolific jazz drummer and i did not want to diminish that by my ignorance so thank you emailing people for educating me about peter erskine but i do want to uh to pay my respect not right well that's's not dead, but I just want to be respectful of Mr. Erskine after the fact here that I may have seemed a bit dismissive, but mostly just ignorant, which is, I think, honest and probably not as bad as dismissive. Just didn't know.

Wasn't being condescending. Honestly, did not know. So there. Okay? I cop to that. Also want to give everyone a heads up. I'm going to be in Seattle this Thursday night at the Seattle International Film Festival with Sword of Trust. It's the opening night film.

I believe that's Thursday night. I believe you can go to it if you're in Seattle. You can go to siff.net for more info. I will be there. Lynn Shelton will be there, the director. And it's a big deal. I think the play seats like 3,000 people. It's going to be very exciting to see

it play in that big room i've never been to a premiere event of a movie that uh that i i'm in and um man maybe i should hire a stylist i'd like to hire a stylist in seattle for my premiere could somebody uh get come up to my room with a rolling rack of stuff that I could try on? I'd like to be wearing a very nice dress on Thursday night. Is that okay? So yeah, let me know. Not really. I'm probably gonna wear my black suit because I paid a lot of money for it. Or maybe my kind of eggplant suit. I'm actually gonna go dressed as an eggplant it's unique it's a unique look but i do have an eggplant suit another thing uh easy the the last the third and final season of joe swamberg's easy on netflix uh is up and i gotta be honest with you again and you know that i'm not

one to toot my own hornage i'm not i don't i don't engage in tooting my own hornage but that episode that i did uh this season which is up now, episode six, you should watch the whole thing. But it was it's really I'm very proud of it. It's some of the best work I've done. It's a it's a very relevant situation. It's me and Jane Addams and Melanie Linsky. And it deals with sort of, you know, the spectrum of toxic masculinity, which, you know, I have clearly been in my life on the spectrum of toxic masculinity. And we kind of get into a situation. And I'm just very proud of the acting I did. I was very honored to work with Melanie and Jane. Me and Melanie have a very long scene together dealing with some shit.

And I just was, I'm just, I feel like it's really some of my best work. And I'll have a lot of work to show for myself in that world. But this was like, it was a high point for me. And I'm glad it turned out so well. You don't really know when you're improvising anything not unlike sort of trust which it really is in the hands of the director and both uh you know joe and lynn are great but joe like you know was i don't know how you know we had discussed the story you know we knew going in that we wanted like what were what were we going to do with that character, Jacob Malko? I don't know if you've seen all of the EZs, but the arc of my character, the graphic novelist Jacob Malko, who's a very self-involved, aggravated person. So right away, I'm really kind of acting my balls

off there. I mean, come on. But where do you go with that in the third and final episode? And it was either a heart attack, like a mortality thing, or being confronted on something inappropriate. And how do you handle that so you can sort of stay within the character and within reality and something that can be sort of dealt with? And it should all be dealt with. But, I mean, how do we do a story? And I just think we really came upon something in just Joe's ability to shoot these things

where you're just improvising these scenes and kind of edit in his head as he goes along to create this final thing. It's kind of astounding. But again, it's easy. It's on Netflix. I'm in episode six. Watch all of them.

There's a lot of great people in it but I just wanted to give you a heads up if you are a fan of me I think it's me at my best alright okay that's all I'm trying to say so I wanted to tell you about this run in I had with the police

it's always a bit intense you know when you have a run in with the cops with the fuzz with the man i had a had a run-in with the man i uh i was parked on the street it was a two-way uh it was four lanes so there's two lanes on my side and uh there was a turning lane and then on the other side there was a turning lane then on the other side there were two lanes going the other way so in that moment when i was in my parking spot all the way to the right i uh i saw a window like there was there doesn't seem to be there didn't seem any i knew it was illegal but i had plenty of room to make a u-turn plenty of room and you know when

you're just sitting there and you're like i can do this man am i going to go up to that light and take a right or and then turn back around or go around the block? Or can I just wait for a break in traffic? You can just find that window where you pull one of those big, massive across four lanes, U-turns and just barely make it. And you're like, fuck yeah, man. I just saved myself some time and did something pretty fucking exciting.

So, uh, you know, I, I wait for my moment and I'm like, I just start that U-turn across all four lanes. And literally as I am at the center, like where my car is basically perpendicular to the street in the turning lane, I don't know when he got there, but in the turning lane, probably 50 feet away from me, there was a, just a motorcycle cop sitting there. And I believe that as I took that U-turn and I was like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to make it right. As I hit that, that perpendicular point. And I'm looking down the street to make sure I'm going to make it. I just see that guy. I see that cop. And I'm like, that's a cop. And I am sure that he saw my face see him just that that moment where you're like okay just busted just but in just busted just that sort of like here we go so I follow through with the u-turn

and I you know I saw him go turn around lights, lights on, pulls me over. And, you know, he comes up to the window and I just look at him. I'm like, hey, officer, it's like license. I'm like, yeah, yep. Here you go. There was nothing. What was I going to do? There was no way.

There was no explaining. There was nothing. There was no excuse. There was nothing. But there was something about my face i think because he went back he got my gave my license and my registration and my insurance he comes back and he's like okay i am uh i'm gonna give you a warning today i was like well thank you officer and and it just and then he explained to me you know the rules of U-turns. And I know he knew I knew.

I know he saw my face. He saw my face. Now, I don't know what makes a cop make a decision like that, you know, to give a warning. I was ready for a ticket. I deserved a fucking ticket. I knew I was doing something wrong. And I knew, you know, he caught me, you know, just in the middle of it. Saw my face. But maybe I'd like to think he knew I knew that I did something wrong and that maybe I shouldn't do that.

And I will think twice before I do that again. Look, no one got hurt, but I surrendered right away, you know, and he. But what was weird is he cuffed me and no, he did not. But but that was lucky. It was one of those, you you know it was a good day it's a nice day when you get pulled over by the cops and they let you go with nothing nothing on your record but i don't know why they decide that i'm not look i'm happy he did i guess they got bigger problems but i think they have a quota but i do think it was that moment like they gotta know when you like just

to see my face as a cop as i'm in the middle of that u-turn he was literally just sitting there watching me just watching me do it and saw my face at just that moment where i'm like okay all right well that's done oh busted maybe maybe that was it i don't know i learned my lesson okay i'm just putting that out there to the LAPD. Not going to see me doing that. Those illegal U-turns across all the lanes. And I think I'm just going to share this conversation with you now. This is me.

I love Angelica Houston. I think we had a pretty good talk. And, you know, it's interesting. Yeah, I've been watching a lot of old movies lately. And I watched The searchers again last night but john houston was you know these are these were important people and you know she's done a lot of great work and to come from a family like that her grandfather i and you know and then being with jack nicholson all those years and them working together and she's just an

interesting actress interesting person interesting family and it And it was daunting, but you get into it and you see where you can go. This is me talking to Angelica Houston, whose new film, John Wick 3, opens this Friday, May 17th. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? If your existing business insurance policy is renewing on autopilot each year without checking out Zensurance, you're probably spending more than you need. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year. Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need, and policies start at only $19 per month.

So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance, mind your business. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000

fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. I just went to, I just came back from Ireland. I'm still actually a little jet-lagged. Where were you? Dublin.

I was there. I did a stand-up show at Vicar Street, which is a nice venue. Great. Have you been there? Yeah. Yeah, and I love it there. Dublin's the best city. The whole country.

I fucking love it. No, it's a brilliant country. Fantastic people. Yeah. Great music. Incredible hospitality. Yeah, they're just so like, and I like the whole sort of attitude of like, there's a mild kind of existential,

you know, they're not going to blow smoke up your ass, but they're not going to be unpleasant. That's right. And there's a kind of overall feeling of sort of it's a sanguine country. It's been through so much. Right. And, you know, everything is sort of accepted. Yeah.

And, you know, everything is sort of accepted. Yeah. Even things that cause tremendous pain are somehow incorporated, as you say, into the psyche in a not entirely negative way. Yeah, there's just something resigned about it. Yeah. You know, like we give up, but we're still going. You know, I was having a lot of those early Irish feelings last night as I was watching Notre Dame in the flames. And on one side, you think, oh, my God, this is where James V got married in the 11th century. This place has survived two massive world wars. Napoleon had his coronation there.

It's been burned. It's seen revolution. It's seen the plague. And yet it rises like a phoenix from the ashes. Very appropriate that it's the Pentecost and it's Easter because it sort of symbolizes to me in some way it's an extremely important and moving moment in a positive way as well as a completely heartbreaking way. There seems to be enough there left to rebuild.

Oh, and always. And that's what faith is all about, right? Kind of. Yeah. For sure, yeah. You can't burn it all down. That's right. It can get sad, but it's not all gone.

Exactly. And I think that's a very sort of, that reminds me of the Irish spirit. You can starve us. Our women can die, you know know in the fields with grass stains on their mouths but we'll be back yeah and we'll take new york and boston and boston and the entire united states exactly the number of well that was the weird thing that i experienced when i was there is that because i spent a lot of time in boston right and the boston irish are their whole that's their own thing.

And they're tough and they're a little intimidating and they're scary and they're not to be fucked with. And all the years I was living there, I had a slight complex about it. Just don't fuck with them and they scared me.

And then the first time I went to Ireland, they all look about the same, the people. Yeah. But there, they're polite and nice and not intimidating at all. At first, I was like, oh, my God, there's so many of them. They're going to be hating on me.

No, very sweet. No, no, very different. And I went to Glendalough. It's so beautiful. Right? Oh, it's fantastic. That was the thing I couldn't understand was sort of like there is this sort of dark disposition, but the whole fucking country is stunning.

It's so beautiful. It's so visually beautiful. I think maybe that's the reason that Ireland doesn't have many great painters. I mean, it has William Butler Yeats. Poets, yeah, sure. Poets up the gazoo, but they have so much in the visual department. I don't think they had to recreate it too much. Right.

How are you going to recreate it right how are you gonna how are you gonna do it justice exactly but yeah but to count like i i just thought thank god it's so beautiful because if it was in any way not beautiful that the whole the the people would be sunk exactly you know at least they can walk out and be like oh look at this exactly so my father was like that in ireland oh really yeah We used to go on day trips to County Mayo and Donegal and stuff. And we'd have usually a carload of American tourists, friends of his in the car. He'd gesture out at the landscape and say, isn't it beautiful? You know, like it was his.

So you've been going there your whole life? So you've been going there your whole life? I grew up there from the age of two till I was 11 and went to school in England after that. But I went to the nuns for a while. In Ireland? Yeah, I was a day girl. I wasn't a boarder. Right.

But, yeah. So is Houston a clan name? Is it an Irish? No, it's a Scottish name. There's a Houstonottish name um there's a houston castle in scotland and original originally we're proddies we're we're scots irish northern irish so um the fact that i grew up in catholic west of ireland is you know a sort of happy mistake oh yeah so your dad always felt a connection to it like you know uh i mean that's a long time to mistake. Oh, yeah. So your dad always felt a connection to it? I mean, that's a long time to live there.

So you lived there. You had a place there for nine, ten years? I think in the aftermath of the witch hunts here in America. The McCarthy time? The McCarthy time. My father stood on the committee for the First Amendment, which was basically that no one could fuck with him. But having done so and having experienced sort of the worst of the American spirit at the time,

bigotry and so forth, he decided he didn't want to be in America and took his wife and children to France for a while while he made a movie called Moulin Rouge. And then he was invited on a fox hunting trip to Ireland, to County Wicklow. And having gone and had the time of his life, he decided that's where we should live and consequently bought a house there. And that's how it all happened. And was your grandfather still alive? No, he wasn't. I never knew my grandfather. He died a year before I was born. Did you grow up seeing, knowing about your grandfather, obviously? I did, yes. I knew him mostly from a very tattered copy of Treasure of Sierra Madre

that used to be put through the home projector three to four times a year when I was growing up. And that's who I thought my grandfather was until- That guy? Yeah. That's funny. Until later, I was in New York when I started modeling. I was about 21 when I first saw Dodsworth.

He played the exact opposite of the character in Treasure. And I realized, ah, my grandpa was an actor. Right. He could be a lot of people. He could. I can't like so are you there how many you have an older sibling i have an older brother and he's tony and he's also in show business no he's not he he he screen wrote um for a short while he did the screenplay for

the dead that was my dad's last film yeah uh that we together. But he lives in New Mexico and flies hawks. I grew up in New Mexico. Did you? Yeah. Where does he live? In Taos. Oh, that's nice. He's a hawk guy?

He's a hawk guy. He's been a hawk guy since he was 13. He just, like, you know, he holds his arm out and they come? Oh, yeah, all of that. Yeah, he like, you know, he holds his arm out and they come? Oh, yeah. That kind of thing? All of that, yeah. He's, I say he studied. He was very good friends with one of the legendary Hawk men who lived in the west of Ireland, a man called Ronald Stevens.

Interesting. And, yeah, if you look up, you know, Hawk lore, Ronald Stevens is one of the great heroes. And he decided that's why he, how do you do, how do you make that your life exactly? I don't know, but Tony was, he was eccentric then and I believe he's eccentric now. I haven't seen him in a number of years. And then you have younger brother who's an actor? Yeah, my younger brother Danny. Yeah. We have different mothers, but we're very close.

And then there's another one? And then there's my sister, Allegra. Okay. And then is there a nephew who's an actor now as well? Yes, Jack. It's amazing. I know. We keep going on with it.

And there's a whole new batch of little nieces for me, great nieces and nephews, but I can see the ones that have the bug. Yeah. Do you think there is some sort of genetic adaptiveness to being on? Do you think some people belong on screen? I do. You do, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of think so as well. Some people really enjoy it. Other people just don't have the taste for it. Well, they just fit on there. Like, there's plenty of actors that can do acting. It's true. But there's certain people that, like, they just, they belong in movies.

It's true. And also, I think, partly, it has something to do with character. Because I remember on quite a few occasions people telling me how I really didn't have a face for film. That's not a nice thing. It's not. You know, it's depressing. And you go, well, why not? And they say, well, your eyes are too close together or your nose is too big.

And you go, well, that's okay, but it's really the only thing that I want to do with my life. You can't turn me away from that door. What does that even mean, though? It's completely meaningless. And it's also mean, and also it's like because you're a woman. I think so, to a degree. But people love to tell you what you can do and you can't do, don't you think? I tell them to fuck off mostly.

Throughout my life, I've sort of managed to find my way. I'm not sure how, but I know that it's in my house and that because of this, I'm able to do other things like act. It was a different journey. Most of the time, people would say to me, we don't know what to do with you. You can't do. Most of the time people would say to me, like, we don't know what to do with you. Not you can't do. Well, the problem is often having to prove it, you know. Yeah.

Because that's just their suspicion that you can't do it. You know you can do it. Right. But coming from your family, that must have been even worse to be like a Houston. Well, to a degree, yes. And to a degree, no. You know, my problem was that I didn't want free handouts from my family. That was a bit of a drawback since basically it's a business that depends completely on nepotism, whether or not you want it or not. They're going to know that too, though. It doesn't have to be a handout. They're going to know who you are. They're not going to want to piss you off and make your dad pissed off or however it works. However it works.

But when he came along to me with a movie when I was like 16 years old and it wasn't a script that I really loved that much. I thought, or at least I had the confidence to say to him, Dad, I don't think this is for me. What movie was that? I didn't quite say it that way. I went into a sulk. But it was a movie called A Walk with Love and Death, and I thought it was corny then, and I think it's pretty corny now. But he was determined that this was going to be his sort of offering to me.

How old were you? 16. And what was the part? It was the part of Lady Claudia of Saint-Jean, a nobleman's daughter who is rescued by a young student, Heron of Foix. Aren't you impressed that I remember all of this? I was surprised that you knew all the history of Notre Dame. I was just listening,

playing along, but you seem to be kind of a history person. I do like history and I grew up in Europe. So I have a different kind of history. Don't ask me about Union and Confederate and all of that. Right. But you know the French stuff. I do. Yeah. So you did the role, obviously. I did the role. It was not a happy moment for either my father or myself. We didn't speak for a while. Really? No, not really. On set or after? On set or outside.

Really? No, it was very difficult. Had you done any acting? In school. Okay. But no, not of any consequence. And then I went back to London. The movie was supposed to have taken place, or at least we were supposed to shoot it in France.

But we weren't able to because it was 1969. It was the student revolution and nothing could be done in France. So we shot it in Vienna. And when I got back to England after that, my mother died in a car crash and my life completely upended and I went to America. Were they married at the time? They were married, but they didn't live together. That's horrible. And you were like 16 or 17? Yeah.

That's devastating. So, and then you didn't talk to your father for a while? It wasn't that I didn't talk to him so much as I avoided him for a while. Yeah, just because? Because he'd been quite critical of me and I've never taken well to that. Yeah. I like advice more than criticism. And it's tough when it comes from your old man, I guess.

Yeah, for sure. And sometimes he was a little heavy-handed. Yeah, I imagine. But he was like, I can't. But he was such a, I mean, just growing up with that in your life in general, he seemed to be of that generation of sort of kind of like swashbuckling adventurers. Also, you know, these were the guys that won the war. Yeah. Let's not forget.

Right. And he was, yeah, he was definitely. Like Hemingway-esque going to both. People say Hemingway-esque, going to both fights. People say Hemingway-esque, but I call Hemingway Houston-esque. Yeah, there you go. Were they friends? They were. Yeah.

Yeah. Although I never met Hemingway. I met John Steinbeck. Oh, yeah? Yeah. John came to St. Clarence, our house in Ireland, for two years running at Christmas. He played Santa Claus. He was the greatest, nicest man. I really loved him very much, and he treated me like an equal.

And it was people like he who kind of set me up. Okay. So when you came to the States, you were just on your own. Who'd you stay with? I stayed with my best friend from when I was six years old, John Buck, the writer, John Joliet. Out here? No, in New York. That must have been like New York at a very exciting time. Decadent and weird.

Decadent and weird. And she introduced me to Downtown and Andy Warhol and all of those people in the factory. You went over there? Oh, yeah. I went to Max's Kansas City. I was pretty young for the whole scene. Was it like 70s, early 70s?

Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, it was great. I started modeling. I worked a lot with Richard Avedon, which is like starting at the top. So I had, you know, no further upwards to go in that respect. But I spent about four years modeling in New York.

Avedon, he's great. The best. Yeah. And like, okay, so you'd been directed by your father in a movie. And then that didn't go well in your mind. And now you're being sort of shot by Richard Avedon. What makes it, like outside of printing, what makes that relationship so good? I mean, if you spent a lot of time being shot by him.

I don't like, some people are just great at things, but there's part of you that it's sort of like he was just taking pictures. Well, not for me, because Avedon had been a friend of my parents, particularly my mother's. And we'd done some test pictures in London before my mom died and before I came to America. And he told me, he was one of the people who told me that, you know, he said, I know you want to be a model, but it's not going to happen. Your shoulders are too wide. Oh, another one with that. But then, you know, the 70s came along with shoulders, huge shoulders. Everyone looked like a linebacker.

Cosmic timing. That was okay for me. You did it. You don't even need the shoulder pads. Is that what the deal? Exactly. Jackets are perfect. My shoulders were bigger than the shoulder pads.

So you modeled for four years. And then and then when did you get back to acting? Well, I'd come to America ostensibly in a production of Hamlet that Tony Richardson was directing. Oh, yeah. With Nicol Williamson and Marianne Faithfull had been playing Ophelia in the London production. I thought, well, maybe I'll get the part. But I didn't. Do you know her? Yeah, I do.

Is she all right? How's she doing? I think she's okay. She's had a moment. She's in the hospital in Dublin now. Oh, really? Yeah. But I hear she's being well looked after.

But she's had a problem with her shoulders. Yeah, she's been through a lot. Yeah, but I hear she's being well looked after, but she's had a problem with her shoulders. Yeah, she's been through a lot. Yeah, she has. She was always a brave girl, always at the forefront. Yeah, I used to see her. I didn't know it was her for years, but I worked at a coffee shop in Harvard Square in the late 80s. And I think she was out at McLean's at the hospital and she used to come in and she just was like, you know, tough and beat up and just drinking coffee and smoking those cigarettes.

But she like puts out a record. She put out a record a few years ago. It was great. I just heard a new release by her that's really fantastic that she did with Hal Wilner. She's amazing. She's a phoenix too. Yeah. No kidding.

Several times. Several times. Yeah. All right. So you're hearing that you're doing Hamlet. So I was doing Hamlet while I was modeling. And then after that, nobody was beating my door down to act. And you're in New York.

I'm in New York. And I had a boyfriend who was also a photographer, but a difficult person leading a difficult life. And his name was Bob Richardson. He was very brilliant, but very tortured soul. And we went on a holiday to Mexico. And we parted at the airport in Los Angeles on the way back. That was it? Yeah, that was it.

I didn't go back to New York. Really? It was that dramatic? Yeah. You're like, nope. Send my stuff. Fuck it. I didn't even say send my stuff

good relationship huh you know well wound up not so good yeah the the there were brilliant elements to him but he was not a he was not a happy man yeah i i uh yeah when that wins out it's hard to live with after a certain point. Yeah, definitely. Especially when you come into the line of fire. It's one thing if people are self-punishing, but it's very hard to be around. When they've filled up with the self-punishing and then they're going to punish you. Exactly. It overlaps. Oh, my God.

Yeah. It's terrible. It's draining. Good. Glad you got out. Me too. Thank you. Do you look at those moments where, just by circumstance, do you look at that and think,

well, if it hadn't been for that horrible thing, I don't know if I would have come to LA at that moment or would have happened at all? Definitely. Although, I don't know, there was always something about LA that attracted me. Even when I was young, people who came from L.A. were kind of better looking. And I don't know. Americans were very attractive people when I was growing up. They had good teeth for a start. Oh, that's for sure.

Yeah. Over there, teeth are not premium teeth. Something about Americans, they always had a bit of a tan. Their hair was a little blonder. So you really didn't identify as an American for the first part of your life? No. My parents were American, and they had accents, and they sounded American. But to all extents and purposes, I wanted to be like the rest of the little Irish kids.

Yeah, and did you have an Irish accent? Oh, yeah. Really? Yeah. I guess you would. Yeah. Why not? But, I mean, there must have been some part of you

when you got to L.A. that realized that, you know, your dad was at one time the king of that town. Yes, definitely. But he was also the king of our town in Ireland. He's just a king wherever he goes. Yeah. When I took Jack Nicholson there sometime in the 80s. To Ireland? Yeah, to Ireland. We got off the plane in Shannon and there was a chauffeur standing there with a car and he opened the door and he said, welcome to John Houston country. And I thought, that's good.

I could have paid that guy. So when you got to LA, what was the first sort of like, how'd you start? What'd you do? I was staying with my father who'd recently married again. Okay.

Was it the third one or second? This was his fifth wife, actually. Oh, my God. He never divorced my mother. She was his fourth wife. But Cece, Celeste Chain,

was his fifth wife. I got on really well with her. She was sympathetic. Even though St. Clarence was sold soon after, I never really blamed her for it. It was the end of an era.

What, the house in Ireland? The house in Ireland. It broke my heart when it went. I'm a sentimentalist. I'm a cancerian, and we hold on to things with a grip of steel, like little crabs on a rock. Anyway, Ireland. Ireland had to go, or at least St. Clarence had to go. And I started to hang out with Cece.

My dad went off to make men who would be king in Morocco, and she showed me L.A. She took me to the hot spots And we went shopping So this is still the 70s, right? This is still the 70s Early 70s Oh, so it's like crazy here too Yeah, well, I don't know that it was crazy

There was the daisy And there were kind of nice places to go And good music to hear And I guess it was a little crazy. It's not like New York because everything's out in the street in New York. Right. So you can feel it all over the place.

Exactly. Here you've got to drive to someone's house to feel it. And also you have to know the house. You have to know the people. Right. It takes a while to get inside LA. But the strip was still kind of wild. Yeah, there was the Rainbow and the Roxy

and Lou Adler and Elmer Valentine were kind of running the strip. The Tropicana Hotel with Duke's Coffee Shop. That's right. The greatest. I loved the Tropicana. The Comedy Store was just opened. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

When I talk to people who were around for that, I've talked to a few that, like Ed Begley Jr., some people that, there's some part of me that believes that the business was a smaller community then. It was a smaller community then and a lot more trustworthy. Yeah. Trustworthy how? Just like, you know, these people. Mind your business. Mind your business and these people were your buddies. Right. And, you know, things went on in people's houses, as you said. It's absolutely true that L.A. was an interior life.

It's funny because you think of it as such a sunny exterior place. But in actual fact, the whole zeitgeist was on the inside and who you knew and whose house you were going to. We used to go to a little club called On the Rocks above the Roxy that Lou had. And it was a great time. I was all pals and everything was cool and confidential. Sure. And everyone was doing blow. Everyone was doing blow, which was, I think, you know, it had its moment.

Sure. A lot of talking. Yeah. A lot of talking, a lot of unnecessary staying up way too late. Yeah. I'm so glad that's out of my particular orbit. Oh, come on. We can't.

It was such a dreadful, destructive drug. Yeah, it was exhausting and it made people crazy. Cost so much money. Yeah. And it never ended well. No. There was no coming down in a nice way. The only way was to get off that stuff and stay off it.

Yeah. It's just like once you get away from it, like, I can't imagine. I've been sober a long time. But there's something about that, like, when you're in it and someone's got it, and you're like, oh, fuck, yeah. I'm like, what are you celebrating? We're going to be up for three days.

I don't like that guy. Speaking gibberish. Yeah, to people that we don't really necessarily want to. Know or like. I know. Stupid. That was the entire 70s, I guess, and the 80s. It was the 80s for me.

Yeah. Yeah. But I came away with some really tight friendships, I have to say. Oh, yeah? From my early days in L.A., those friends that I make are still my friends. Yeah? We still hang out. We still, you know, cleave to each other, shall I say.

And you have good memories, bad memories, but you're all alive. Exactly. It gets to a certain point, it's like we're still here. Well, those of us who are alive are still alive. Yeah. A few didn't make the grade, I'm afraid. Of course. Yeah.

So, okay, so you're running around, you're digging in. So how do you start pursuing the acting? Well, I always had a taste for it. Yeah. So it was kind of in the background. And I'd had success as a model, so I knew that I knew something. Yeah. And I'd learned quite a lot I'd learned about how light works and what to provide for a

photographer if you were doing a fashion shoot how to make a picture yeah how to apply makeup yeah sounds trivial but it's important me well yeah and at a certain point I think you know I must have said I met Jack Nicholson at a certain point, I think, you know, I met Jack Nicholson at a party at his house, a birthday party. The same house? Is he still in the same house? Same house. Hasn't changed. And we started to see each other. How old were you? I was maybe 20, 20, 21.

Yeah. And I met him and it was an immediate attraction. And we were together for, you know, kind of on and off for about 17 years after that. That's so long. It was very long. But, you know, we carved up our time a little bit. Are you still in touch? Yeah.

How is he? He's okay. I miss seeing him in public. I know. But I guess he's older. Yeah. And also, I think, you know, that's up to him. Sure.

When he wants to share himself and when he doesn't. And frankly, you know, it's a bit of a drain on him yeah people don't leave jack alone they love jack they want to eat jack for lunch everybody loves jack yeah it's just like from like you know what it made me realize i'm getting old where like he's not sitting up front at the oscars anymore and i'm like well what's the point of watching where are those guys you know but they're just they're old. I kind of agree with you. Yeah, they're old. We're old.

You know what I mean? It's funny about old, isn't it? It's always there getting old, but until you look in the mirror. That's right. Yeah. But yeah,

now it's other people. Yeah. And we have to learn to love them as much as we loved our generation. I guess, but like it's still for me, it's, you know, I'm a nostalgia. So like I'm 55, but for me, like for some reason, because of the small community feeling

that like, you know, like there was a time when I was growing up and watching people of his generation, whether they were comics or whatever, and you really got the sense that they weren't all necessarily friends, but they certainly all knew each other. And that there was some sort of continuity to it. There was a specialness to it. You were right. And now it's like it's not that. You're right.

And then there was the glue. And the directors were the glue. There was Hal Ashby. There was Polanski. Yeah. There was Bertolucci. There was Michelangelo Antonioni, very big influence, European influence. And yeah, we all used to go to Cannes together and sit on juries and talk about films.

And there was a great passion for... There was an intellectual approach to it. Absolutely. And I remember those being some of the most exciting, wonderful times of my life where after the jury had gone home and you'd seen the movie of the evening at Cannes and going to Jeremy Thomas's suite at the Carlton Hotel and talking about it and talking about the movies and getting passionate about them. The critic? Who is Jeremy Thomas? Jeremy Thomas, he's a British producer responsible for practically every great English film

you've seen since the 60s. And there was that sort of passion. There was sort of an intellectual passion. Absolutely. And I learned so much. Passion. how movies had political import and how that worked, you know, how people in different countries were making movies that were speaking for the people, speaking for the country. Interesting, yeah. So it was a revelation to me.

Because you had to go to the movies. The movies had a special place. Exactly. in culture. And now it's all sort of dissolved a bit. I mean, obviously they still do, but sadly, the biggest movies are superhero movies. Those are the ones that people go to theaters to see. Every other one,

they're just going to sit at home and watch. It's true. Right? It's true. It must have been an amazing time. And you knew Ashby and you knew all those cats? I knew and loved Hal Ashby. He was a really special director, that guy. Fantastic director and a really special friend. Yeah.

And one of the people who, because it was a very heady time, particularly for Jack, who was enjoying all kinds of sort of unmitigated success, it was hard for me often because I felt that I was an adjunct and that I was a little bit, you know, not exactly a sidekick, but not that important in the big scheme of things. But people like Hal and, well, I won't even say people like Hal. Hal himself was particularly kind to me and always spoke to me about the fact that I wanted to act and, you know, what was it about that that attracted me. You know, he had a real interest.

He wasn't just a sort of dick. Right, right. Right. You know, he had a real interest. He wasn't just a sort of dick. Right, right. Those guys, those sort of, you know, the big guys of that time, do they all have very specific styles? Like what Elia, you know, because I know I've talked to a couple, a few directors. Some directors are very hands off, but I feel like somebody like your father was probably all over everybody. Well, if he didn't like what you were doing, he was all over you. If he liked what you were up to, he'd leave you well enough alone.

Yeah. But my father had a way of coming in and saying just the right thing. Oh, yeah. And if an actor was talented and interpretive, like Bill Hickey, when he said to him, you're playing a reptile. For Princey Donner? Yeah. That first image of Bill Hickey in the church. Talking like that.

Like that. And Bill Hickey's kind of half asleep during the wedding, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. At the beginning of Preetzy's. And he opens his eyes suddenly like a lizard, you know, and shuts them again. And that was the direction? Yeah. And he directed him in Wise Blood, too, right? He was in Wise Blood as a young man. Yeah, he fell in love with him on Wise Blood.

He just thought Bill was great. It's weird because he's not one of those guys you see a lot, but he was a very prominent teacher, right, in New York forever. Yeah, I audited his class once. It was crazy. Yeah? Yeah, he had this cigarette that just used to burn out all the way to his lips. You'd watch that ash drop onto his lap. Yeah, yeah.

But he was unique. So you were studying a little bit when you were in New York before you came out lap. Yeah, yeah. But he was unique. So you were studying a little bit when you were in New York before you came out here. Oh, yeah. I had also a very good relationship with a teacher here, a fantastic teacher who changed my life, called Peggy Fury. And she was great. And she was great. She gave me all kinds of confidence and, yeah, really changed my whole game. And you were also with Jack during all the – he did a lot of big movies during your time with him on and off.

And was he at all – because I know he – who was his teacher that he used to talk about a lot? Sandy Meisner. Oh, it was Meisner. I know he, who was his teacher that he used to talk about a lot? Sandy Meisner. Oh, it was Meisner. I know Meisner was big. He had a whole bunch of people he'd worked with. Yeah. But I think Sandy Meisner had made a big difference for him. Because I remember the movie that you got, like, in Preetzy's Honor. Like, I remember for me watching it when I was younger a kid I was like it felt like the first

time that he you know created a character that was so not him and you know it was sort of daunting at first but like he was doing the work yeah and it worked out I think so and also I think initially he was really you know he was a bit afraid of that movie because dad was asking him to play dumb. Right. And initially, I don't think Jack had understood that it was a comedy really until he went out to talk to my dad about it. on a stretch of deserted coastline past Puerto Vallarta in southern Mexico. Well, who does that? Nobody does that.

All right, okay. And Jack went out to see him, you know, under sort of heavy pressure from the producer, John Foreman. I refused to go because I knew it would be like hell on me. So I just opted out of the whole thing. And Foreman is saying, come on, you want to do this movie, don't you? Because he'd sort of set me up to read the book and to get excited about the part of Mayrose. Then he'd said, well, how about your dad to direct and Jack to star?

And I went, oh, no. Save me, God. But it happened in the end. I know, both of them. But they loved each other. And next thing, we were in New York. And Dad, I don't know. We had several read-throughs, and Dad would close his eyes,

and I could see he wasn't completely happy. And he had a full cast at that point. No, he was thrilled with Jack. Jack could do no wrong. Right. But in general, I could tell there was something sort of vaguely troubling him. And then one day, kind of very early on in the production, dad called us. And we were at the Carlisle Hotel. And he said, kids, I want to come over.

And he came over. And it was night. And there were picture windows looking out over Central Park, one of those beautiful New York evenings. And Dad put his arms around Jack and I and said, kids, isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever seen? And we said, yes, yes, Dad, it's so beautiful. He said, I found the voice of the movie. And he had a tape recorder with him. And he pressed a button, and it was this actress, Julia Bavasso's voice.

And she's all the way like this, you know. We look at dad like, are you out of your mind? He said, I want everyone to speak this language. And that was the beginning of pretees and it was before you know moonstruck or goodfellas or any of those right pictures so that kind of new york gangster new york gangsters thing and and you know i could tell jack was he was a little trepidatious but we all we went ahead and we did it and it got done and it's so funny, that film. It's great.

Still, it's really funny. Yeah, I want to watch it again. Yeah. But you did it like you were in The Postman with the Ray Fulson movie. Yeah, that was like second up after The Last Tycoon. What's that guy? Is he still around?

I haven't seen him in quite some time. He lives in Aspen oh okay so that was like his movie after the 60s movies like five easy pieces yeah yeah like that this was a big it was a remake and it was a good movie i remember yeah yeah it was a john garfield movie originally yeah yeah well i and i can't remember how did you have a big part in that? No. I played a lion tamer for a short while. I was in bed with Jack, and it was kind of weird because I was naked to the waist and a bit insecure. But it was good. It was fine.

I remember you pop up in Spinal Tap with the Stonehenge model. You were the one where they're like, what is that? That's right. And you're the one who shows them the measurements on the page. Yeah, two inches. That was fun, right? That was very fun, yeah. And then like Gardens of Stone, that was a weird movie, huh?

It was such a weird movie. And it started off kind of wonderfully and beautifully. With Francis. With Francis. With Francis. I feel like it was the first, and I don't know if it's true, but I remember seeing it and it seemed like it was the arc of the beginning of medicated Francis. And I don't know if I'm projecting that,

but it seemed like the edge had diminished a little. Well, initially I think he wanted to make sort of a movie that was the antithesis of Apocalypse. And I think, you know, whatever his impulse for that was a very pure one. But things went terribly wrong on the movie. His son got killed. Oh, is that when that happened? Yeah.

In the boating accident? That's right. Oh, my God. And Gio had been doing the kind of like a documentary on the movie. And we were at the Kennedy Center in a bunch of rehearsal halls. And some really great work was going on. Yeah. And after that happened, that was it.

There was just no way to hold your head up. There was no way to help Francis. It was just a total disaster. Yeah, so now I feel insensitive. That's what happened. It was just horrible. Jeez. Yeah. And then your dad's last a total disaster. Yeah, so now I feel insensitive. That's what happened. It was just horrible. Jeez. Yeah.

And then your dad's last movie. Yeah. Wow. But how old was John when he did that? 82. Oh. Because that's sort of a beautiful, lyrical, poetic movie. It's a fantastic movie, I think.

And it's got so much going for it, and you don't even know until it's crept up on you the expanse of this movie and this story. It all starts very small at a little table, a little dinner table, and then all of a sudden it's about the world and life and relationships and the past and the future. Yeah, I just remember needing to see it again.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a really beautiful film. And throughout these movies, do you still, like, so you studied with Fury? Is that her name? I did Peggy Fury. And what was her approach? Peggy, I don't know. It's hard because people have asked me that question,

and I can't be all that succinct about what it is that she did specifically. All I know is that after I worked with Peggy, I felt like I could do it. I felt like I had an approach. I knew how to go about a script and an interpretation. And it took the fear out of it for me. She gave me my confidence back. And it was as simple as that, like someone handing it to you on a dish.

Because that's, well, that's great. Yeah. Why, you mean you just lost it by being in the shadow of Jack or what? Yes, and also I'd gotten some really bad reviews from A Walk With Love and Death. And although it seemed like a long time ago, actually I was still kind of wearing the same wardrobe. It was just a matter of three or four years since that clobbering.

Right. That position your father put you in to get clobbered. Poor man. I think it must have been as bad for him, worse maybe than it was for me. Were you around when Chinatown was shot? Yes, I was. Were you with Jack? I was.

That's some, because I know your dad did some acting, but that role was so fucking crazy. It was crazy, and it was a crazy time in his life because he was divorcing Cece at this point. The fifth one. Yes. And he wasn't a happy camper. And you could see the full extent of what My Father on Fire looked like. In that movie. In that movie.

Oh, man. It's like, it was such a stunning movie. Yeah. I can't, you know. It's a beautiful film. I can't say that I understand it that well. There are parts of Chinatown that remain enigmatic to me. Yeah, it was sort of, like which parts?

I mean, like the- Like the glasses that they find in the pool. Right, in the, yeah. What do they call it? The tide pool? Yeah. But they have a word for loose ends like that. Oh, yeah. Well, the idea was that they drowned him in there, right?

Right. That your dad did it with his own hands. Yeah. The character. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Noah, what was it?

Cross. Noah Cross. That thing was, Yeah. Noah, what was it? Cross. Noah Cross. That thing was, I guess that's what is that, Robert Townscript, right? Yeah. So that thing was like loaded up. It sure was. On all layers. And then whatever Polanski was thinking, he just loaded it up more.

And it was, yeah, it's one of those movies. Everyone talks about it when people gave a shit about the intellectual, you know, component of movies and how it was really the first film noir since film noir that, like, they took that genre and just went deep. Absolutely. And it just, like, just even with the placement of your father, you know, given his experience with the old film noirs and that, you know, what that meant. Yeah. You know, all of meant, all of it was all very heady and very amazing. Yeah, it was. It was strong stuff. And you were on set sometimes? I was on set sometimes.

My first day I went to visit, I arrived at lunch. And everyone was, they were all sitting outside in an orchard, this long kind of refractory table. The orange orchard? The orange orchard. And there was a silence and an angel passed and suddenly my father turned to Jack and we were up at sort of the head of the table, and said, I hear you've been sleeping with my daughter.

This terrible kind of silence echoed. And there's a lot of people there? Like the full packed table. Yeah. And then he gave it a you know, a nice, a nice moment after that and said, Mr. Gitz.

Good one. And everyone laughed and it broke the ice and it was all good. But it was pretty funny. Oh, wow. And then, you know,

I never like hanging out on other people's sets, albeit my boyfriend or whatever. I just think. Your dad. No. Yeah. If I'm not working, I don't want to be whatever. I just think. Your dad. No.

Yeah. If I'm not working, I don't want to be there. Sure, yeah. It's the most extraneous feeling in the world. It's weird, yeah. Visiting somebody's set. Awful. Because there's all that downtime.

There's all that downtime. But worse than that, there's, you know, you don't have a purpose. Yeah, yeah. What are you doing here? Go away. I will say this. you don't have a purpose yeah yeah what are you doing here yeah go away i will say this like the your performance like i've watched um i believe that um like crimes and misdemeanors is one of the great masterpieces of movies it's a good movie yeah it's it's great really great and you were just

so good and so you know vulnerable and broken and scary. Right? But I don't mean broken in a bad way, but just sort of like. Lost. It was so heartbreaking. Obsessed and lost. Yeah, and it just goes horribly. And he gets away with it. It's so good.

I think it's a genius script by Woody. He's a master. I think it's a genius script by Woody. He's a master. And it was scary, too, because I'd never met the man. When you got the part? When I got the part. He just chose you?

Yeah. Yeah. I kept trying to meet him. Woody has a way, I'm sure you've noticed, of sort of casting the comers of the moment. He goes right to the source of what's working at the moment. And I guess I was in that. You were an Academy Award winner. We didn't even talk about that.

So, well, maybe we will. But I arrived on the set and it was a rainy day in New York in a very small apartment building or small rooms. Yeah. And he was there with Sven Nyqvist and the room was crammed with people, you know, moving cables and grips and lights and all kinds of things. and lights and all kinds of things. And there was no sort of clear area in which to act, it appeared to me. In your apartment, the set? Yeah. I had to traverse from a bar to a window back to a couch or whatever. And the place was completely packed. And also, it's all in one shot pretty much.

So when I was off camera, I was stumbling over lights to kind of come back into the shot. It was pretty crazy. And we kept on doing it. And I kept thinking, God, you know, I must be really bad. But it was all right. You know, the must be really bad. But it was all right. You know, the results were great. We must have gone, you know, over 25 takes for that initial scene. And I was, I thought, God, I'm going to get fired any minute.

With you and Landau? Yeah. And I'd heard that he'd fired, that Woody had fired Elaine Stritch because she didn't like her jacket. So I was determined to love everything, including that hideous Argyle sweater. I love it. She was casting your part? No, no, no. And some other movie.

But that was Woody's reputation. If you gave him trouble, you were out of there. Oh, he's got a different reputation now. Yeah, but it's not a reputation I want to talk about. I just want to talk about his movies and how brilliant, what a brilliant artist he was. Yeah. Well, so when you won an Oscar, that must have been validating. Highly.

Yeah, for preaches, right? So all that insecurity or whatever you were feeling, that had to go away at that point. Well, it never goes away. You're always, you know, and I think you always have to. But you knew you could do the job. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it's still a scary job.

Yeah. It is, yeah. Yeah, you have to be a little scared. Yeah, and like especially for like that role in Crimes and Misdemeanors, which is an incredibly vulnerable role. It seemed to me that to be in that place must have been kind of like, It was. It definitely was.

It's so heartbreaking. It's so awful. It's fucking awful. It's horrible to be rejected. To be rejected and then killed. And then killed on top of it. And actually, Woody had written me this really nice letter when he did invite me to do the movie saying,

you know, you probably like this because you'd get murdered at the end. Yeah. Yeah. And I like the movie you directed. I like that movie. Thank you. The Bastard Out of Carolina.

Yeah, because for some reason it was odd. I just remember buying that book and reading it and being leveled by it. And the fact that you chose that story to tell was like, I thought that was kind of bold and it was kind of great. I didn't really choose it. It kind of chose me. Another director was attached to it, and I'd never directed before. So when it came, I had to give them, you know, it came on a Friday, and I had to give them my answer on a Monday. And it floored me too. It rocked me, that story.

And I thought, well, you know, I haven't directed before. I'm not keeping that secret from anyone, so why not? And you don't want to do it again, or you just haven't? I've done it again. Right, you did one of them, yeah. I did a movie which was originally called The Mammy in Ireland from a Brendan O'Carroll book. He's an interesting character.

He kind of started off doing pantomime. And I like the movie. I mean, I like the book a lot. It's kind of funny and tragic and sweet and sad about a widow who has seven children who loves Tom Jones. And there was something sweet and simple and kind of before the troubles

about that film that I was attracted to. Because at the time, everyone was making serious movies about the hunger strikers and so forth. So Jim Sheridan's movies, obviously. So Jim Sheridan's movies, obviously. So it was, I'm proud of the movie, not just because of its own lean merits, but because I had to act in practically every shot. And that was really hard. To direct yourself? To direct yourself and to be a female actress. You have to go to hair and makeup, all of that. And hard you know to direct yourself to direct yourself and to be a female

actress you have to go to hair and makeup all of that and then you got to check on and then you've got to check it and then you've got to figure out how to keep it all movie yeah and um and so i it was a big challenge it could have been better but it's got some really nice stuff in it and then after i did a movie i did a movie for television that kind of that tanked because it sold it sold unfortunately to hallmark and became a hallmark movie which wasn't my intention oh yeah but you know that's kind of negligible but you learn these things as you go along. I'd like to do another movie, but it's really hard to direct yourself. I don't think I'd do that again. Yeah, because you can't really fully focus on the directing.

No. You've got a million other things. Everyone resents you because you can't tell them what kind of chair you'd like. Yeah. I don't know. It's crazy. Too much pressure? Yeah yeah a little yeah and the grifters that was a like uh you got that was a great role a great role great it's a great movie really i love that movie i loved working with stephen frears who's a master yeah and um who Yeah. And who has this great sort of quiet, inverted British humor.

Mm-hmm. And. And Cusack. And Johnny was so on his game. We had a lot of fun. And Annette Bening was incredible. She's something else, right? Oh, my God.

I went to our first kind of read-through on that movie. Yeah. And I thought, ooh, I of read-through on that movie. Yeah. And I thought, ooh, I better pull myself together on this one. Yeah. This girl is so good. And what's the relationship like Wes Anderson uses you a lot? Yeah. I love Wes.

I love his movies. He seems like a very meticulous, he's got a very meticulous approach. He certainly does. Like he knows exactly. Exactly to the T. Where you're going to just move your hand, I would imagine. Yeah. I was in India doing the Darjeeling Limited.

What a wild movie. Yeah. And a wild place, too, Rajasthan. Yeah. Had you ever been there? No, never. To India at all? No.

I hate flying, and it took a long time to get there. But anyway, and it's a very mysterious, strange place. of Rajasthan when we had to do this kind of pretty big scene where I come out of a monastery with a bunch of kids. Yeah. I'm a weirdo. I'm the mother of these three misfits. Right, right. And I become a nun and stuff. Anyway, I had quite a long speech.

And Wes kept doing take after take after take. It was like that experience with Marty and Woody. Finally, I said to Wes, is something wrong? Am I not doing something right? And he said, there's a comma after that third word. Oh, my God. I went, oh, my God. I should have looked at word. Oh, my God. I went, oh, my God. I should have looked at that.

Oh, my God. And that was the sticking point? That's the precision of Wes Anderson. Are you going to do another movie with him? If he asks. Yeah. In a second, yeah. He's got a point of view, and not everyone does.

Visually. Visually. And also, I think. also i guess so a tone yeah i think in tone yeah yes very specific and very much his even even his weird animation films have this yeah that's true dogs you know yeah have this yeah there's definitely yeah he definitely has being yeah it it's a tone. That's a real auteur thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's weird because it's really kind of stunning how many people you've worked with. Because you did that Clint Eastwood movie, Bloodwork. That was a weird movie for me, too. I had to be really tough on him. And he kept going, come on, come on, be tougher, be tougher, be tougher. Yeah. I was like, I've got to be tough on Clint and um he kept going come on come on be tougher yeah be tougher be tougher yeah i was like i've got to be tough on clint eastwood and not only that um he looked you know because i'd i'd been through you know quite a good deal of of my father's medical experiences you know, in and out of hospital. And I'm telling you, Clint Eastwood from the back in a hospital bed with his bony elbows above, you know, above his head on the pillow,

were so reminiscent of my father and, you know, going through all his numerous surgeries and sicknesses, it was pretty potent. But he's great. He's really gentle and a lovely man. And, you know, he'd come up to say something to me and I'd think, oh, my God, he's going to impart something really serious. And he'd say, we're having lobster for lunch. Okay, Clint. He plays your father in a movie, I think. Yeah, he did in White Hunter Blackheart.

Right. Yeah. How did he do? In long distance, it was pretty good. But, you know, it was hard for me to be a judge of that. And then The Addams Family, that was a big movie. Two of them, yeah. Yeah. That must have been a blast.

Well, they look like a blast. Not so fun. But actually, they were physically two of the hardest movies i've ever done just because of hair and makeup and and uh corsets and and it's also like this established character you had to draw from an established kind of thing oh really no they didn't ask you because no one else had had really done it um carolyn jones had done it on television. But I didn't have a precedent really. So I was able to do what I wanted to do pretty much.

And I love the way it looked. I love the whole setup, particularly of the first one. And working with Scott Rudin, he's extremely impressive. And Barry Sonnenfeld

was great. As a producer what was Scott like though? I mean like he was around? He was the most hands-on producer I've ever worked with.

Because I'm in touch with him sometimes around you know he turns me on to a lot of theater guests and he has me go to plays and stuff.

I've never met him in person but occasionally I get these emails, and I'm like, oh, okay. Like, I know in my mind, I better take a look at this. Better obey.

It's not at all because, you know, he throws his weight around or sort of paints himself as someone of importance. Yeah. But particularly, I think, for Barry, whose first big film this was, Scott took care, took such great care of him,

of the movie, of the actors, of the look of the movie. I never was on set that he wasn't on set. And yet he never interfered. I think he's just an amazing producer. He's like the old school guys. And he could all different kinds of movies. All different kinds of movies and all different kinds of appreciation. Yeah.

No, I think he's fantastic. appreciation yeah no i think he's fantastic so this you've you've been put in you've you've been added into this franchise here this john wick franchise this is well i hope so i i hope i'm i'm an addition it's it's a lovely franchise to be a part of so far and what i i couldn't see the movie i don't think it's done or something it's fantastic is it it's fantastic yeah it's i i don't know i don't watch a lot of boys action movies sure but i have to say this drops your jaw oh yeah well for me yeah i'm um i'm a big keanu fan i've loved his work since The Matrix is. Yeah. I find him sort of mysterious and I don't know. Was he as a concept? Yeah, he's mysterious.

Yeah. You can make him into pretty much anything you want to make him into mentally. Do you know? Sure. This character is really interesting. He's a sort of hollow, broken-hearted assassin. There's something so great about that. And the fact that these guys do these stunts,

and there's very little CGI as far as I could see. Oh, really? No, he does amazing stuff. And you can tell when he walks onto set, you know, you can tell he's like partly broken. He walks with a limp and he, you know, he looks like he's been beat up 10 times over by the time he shows up in the morning. And it's because he has. He's unbelievable. He'll show up for like a shot at 8 o'clock in the morning, and then he'll be back after you've finished work at 11 o'clock at night

to do some hideous stunt in the rain. He likes doing it, huh? He loves it. And Chad, who used to be his stunt double and is now directing the movies, who used to be his stunt double and is now directing the movies, they have this language. They're kind of boys with their toys. They're having all kinds of fun.

What's your part? I play the director of a school for junior assassins. Oh, good. Yeah, I like my part a lot. I'm kind of Roma Ruska. Not an, I don't know if it's an expression, not a name I'd ever heard before this movie. And that's Roma Ruska? Roma Ruska, which would be sort of Romanian,

gypsy Russian. Did you speak with accent? I had to, and they, kind of made my deal. And then I had to be in New York all of a sudden. And I've never done a Russian accent. I've done Polish many years ago for Paul Mazursky, but I'd never done Russian. So that scared me. And then on top of that, I was supposed to speak some Russian.

So I was petrified. So how did you prepare then? I cried. And then? And then after I cried, Chad and Keanu came over to my hotel to see me. I didn't cry in front of them, I don't think, but almost. And then I kind of had to get on with it. So did you listen to tapes or what'd you do?

Yeah, I listened to tapes and I did a few hours with a Russian coach to try and get my... It must be so hard, you know, because I do a little acting, but just to choose the actions of your character, but then to sort of stay in the accent, that's got to be a whole other skill set. It is a bit. And if you're not quite sure, you know, if you're... You've got to lean in, I guess.

You've got to lean in and just do it, you know, and throw caution to the winds at some point. What was the Polish accent for? Which movie? Was for Enemy's Love Story. Oh, yeah. You know, it's like I was reading about that because I knew I was going to talk to you,

but I never saw it. I want to see it. It sounds like such a... It's a really nice film. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of his best films. And it was Lena Olin's first American film.

Uh-huh. She's great in it. It's... I just read the plot and it sounds like completely compelling. It's very beautiful. From Bashevis' singer. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah.

And so now that you've done this, and I see you're doing a lot of voice work, that's nice. That's a nice job. It is. It's a lovely job. Yeah. You get to kind of straggle in there looking like nothing. You've done a lot of the Tinkerbell. What franchise is that?

That's the voice of Queen Clarion for Disney. You are her. That's right. And so are you going to do any other movies coming up? Hopefully. Nothing I'm too sure about yet. I've been offered some weird stuff. Weird stuff.

We'll see. It's either like, I don't know. My offers are so diverse. Yeah. It's either, would you like to do this movie in Puerto Rico for no money? You won't have a trailer, but it's a great part. Or it's John Wick. I don't know.

I'm fluctuating somewhere in between. Do you still do those movies? Do you like to do those movies? You know, I did a movie last year called Trouble with the writer of Smash, which was a series I did for a couple of years in New York a few years ago, Teresa Rebeck.

And yeah, I did it because I believe in Teresa's work and it was nice and I was central to the movie and I worked my ass off. But yeah, I did it without a trailer. By trailer, I mean like a motorhome. Yeah, I get it. I mean, I've been acting not that long and the last I did a day's work on some movie and they gave me like, I think, an eighth of a trailer. Oh, yeah. That's like the triple banger.

Yeah. Some hideous thing. Yeah. There was a partition and I could hear the other actor. You hear the flush of their lavatory. Yeah. It's I know it's humiliating. It's almost a little better not to have anything because then you go, I'm free.

I'm just going to sit over here. I don't need your goddamn job. They sent me back to the city in an Uber. Exactly. It's like, all right, this is the movie business. Consider yourself lucky. That's how things are these days. So if you want to do the thing, then you have to go along with that.

I think you have to be game. Yeah. And then, you know, hope that something comes along that pays the rent. But it's sort of interesting now that, like, I imagine that you, too, as well, like, when you decide to do some movies, you realize, like, this might never be seen by anybody. Some, you pray, will never be seen by anybody. Like, which ones? Absolutely. Oh, God, I never be seen by anyone. Like which ones? Absolutely. Oh, God, I won't go into them.

You might, someone might hear. Do you know when you're- I've done some pretty, some doozies, yeah. Yeah? But, you know, not really through any fault of my own. We all have to pay the tax man. Sure. I mean, I'm looking at the breakdown.

I guess there's a few I haven't heard of, but a lot of them are, most of these are good movies that people saw. That one that you did with Sean Penn, that's a heavy movie. Oh, yeah. That's actually a beautiful movie, I think, The Crossing Guard. Was that one of those things where there was sort of a, you and Jack, a reunion? Yeah. Yeah.

We hadn't seen each other for quite a long time when we made that movie. And I think we carried a lot of the baggage from. Sure. From our relationship. I don't want to call it just baggage, but the history of our relationship. You guys knew each other a long time. A long time. And now is it just sort of like you're just pals?

Yeah. Yeah. You kind of live through it, right? Yeah, absolutely. It's nice, right? Yes. Everything that seems so important. Yes. Kind of fades a little bit.

Exactly. And then you think, well, we won the war together. Right. Well, it was great talking to you. Oh too i had such a good time thanks for doing it thanks for having me okay so that was uh it was that was great talking to her she's so she's so nice. She's a very sweet person. And now I will play guitar. I dirtied it up a little bit this time. I got the full effect of the P90s and the dirty old man, the

58 Deluxe. That's the amp. Fender. Real deal. so Thank you. Boomer lives. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction.

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