WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1152 - Billy Crudup

Episode Date: August 27, 2020

It's been 20 years since Marc demanded that someone “lock the gates” on Billy Crudup and the rest of the band in Almost Famous. Now that both of them are older and wiser, Billy and Marc discuss the simultaneous drudgery and privilege of acting. They also talk about why Billy often opted for roles in the theater over roles in movies, why he thinks he wasn't destined to be a Hollywood leading man, and how he's settled into a career as a character actor by virtue of only taking the parts he finds interesting. 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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nicks what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf how's it going are you guys all right i'm not home that's why it sounds like this. I got out. I had to get out. It was scary getting out, but I got out. I definitely got out. I'm recording right now in a casita behind a house outside of Taos Village in New Mexico where I grew up, not in Taos.

I grew up in New Mexico. I felt I needed to do something. Monkey was gone. He was sort of keeping me tethered to the house so I could care for him. Lynn obviously is gone. And also I wanted to point out that today I might as well do this now. So, cause I think I need to do it today it would have been Lynn Shelton's 55th birthday happy birthday Lynn you are missed

dearly desperately sadly in all ways missed and it's just a fucking it's ridiculous what a goddamn rip off to everybody alive that that woman is not here really so much more life could have been had with or without me but in in bringing up her birthday

i do want to say that there is something that has been set up in her honor by her father and her uh her husband her ex-husband uh it's to uh it's a fund at the school where their son went, where Milo went. It's a school for people who have hearing impairment. You can go donate. It would be a nice thing to do. If you go to northwestschool.com slash donate, you'll see right there at the top, the Shelton Seal Family Fund. And it was set up in honor of Lynn and her son Milo and the school that helped them so much. northwestschool.com slash donate. The Shelton Seal Family Fund is something you can do

that's proactive and very specific and helps very specific people in a very big way. You're very missed, Lynn. Also, a little more Lynn news. If you go, we did a big tribute to Lynn and her television work for American Cinematheque last night or the night before last live. It was a panel. or the night before last live. It was a panel.

It was me and John Hamm and Reese Witherspoon, Michaela Watkins, Eddie Wang, Kerry Washington. It was great. It was great. You can go to American Cinematheque. That's cinema, T-H-E-Q-U-E, AmericanCinematheque.com and go to their virtual programming. So it's slash virtual dash programming.

They got a Herzog thing tonight, it looks like, or last night. But there it is. Lynn Shelton Tribute virtual Q&A. It's also on YouTube, but that'll get you to the YouTube, I believe. And it looks like they got a lot of cool stuff on there. Free plug. A free plug for American got a lot of cool stuff on there. Free plug.

A free plug for American Cinematheque. They deserve it. They got a couple of outlets that aren't operating, a couple of theaters. So that being said, oh, by the way, did I mention Billy Crudup is here on the show? Billy Crudup is on the show today. And this is the first time I've ever pronounced it

Crudup instead of crud up, which is wrong. So it's crude up and he's here. I talked to him back in the house on the, on the computer and it was pretty great. It's a, it was a pretty great conversation. So look, I couldn't leave my house because monkey was ill. And I, and i kind of made a promise to myself that when monkey passed or when i passed him when i helped him out into the final the final frontier the big leap uh that i would try to get away because i've been i've been home like many of you for for months on end however long it's been since March mid-March the end of March pretty much home except for a drive to Malibu with Lynn one day but home eating

at home cooking at home granted some takeout had been happening people were sending me food but everything was being done in the home in the house where monkey was sick where Lynn was sick where you know I don't have you know my house is not haunted with grief but i am haunted with grief and i didn't know if it was possible was it possible is it possible to to go out and be in the world here's what i did i got it in my head i needed to go somewhere i couldn't fly anywhere really and feel okay because you know me i'm getting fucking covid tests every two weeks or so just because you know it's i'm being safe but uh i i'm just i'm a little nuts a little paranoid but i mean i i don't know that i'm getting less so but i i decided i should come home i should go

to new mexico that would ground me that would you know ground my heart that would ground my mind i would get up into northern new mexico maybe i could go to taos specifically and just get up into the hills into the mountains into that air into those into the into that sky into the big frequency that i talked about i need to tap into the big frequency so what i did was i joined airbnb which i'd not been on i never went to airbnb ever i'd always go to hotels i don't know i was at airbnb adverse for years but for some reason i'm just like fuck it i'm gonna join and i made the reservation and the woman who owns the house got back to me and said i don't know why they let you do this i don't usually accept reservations from uh from people who have not been on the platform before for newbies

i guess i would be uh you didn't uh put any bio info you there's no picture i don't know anything about you um so i'm not i'm not sure i'm comfortable with this reservation i'm like holy fuck what did i do so i wrote her uh i messaged her back i said look i'm you know i'm 50 i'm 56 years old i don't drink i don't smoke i i've just gone through some you know tragic loss in my life. I'm in the entertainment business. I'm a comic writer, podcast host, producer guy. I'm okay. I grew up in New Mexico. I was looking forward to coming home and maybe regrouping a bit. So I kind of rambled on a little bit and sent that off to her. And a couple hours later, she writes back, well, that was a little too much

information. I really just needed a bio, like you'd put on a social networking platform or a social media platform, whatever. I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'll do that. But can I come? So she said, yeah, and I'm here. And it's lovely. It's great. But I had no idea just how terrified I'd be to leave the house, to get on the road,

what to bring, plenty of hand sanitizers, all my different kinds of masks, hats, my plexiglass face protectors. I just had no idea what it would be like to drive out of my five-mile radius. You know, I made a reservation at the uh marriott courtyard in flagstaff and i'm like what's gonna what's what's it gonna fucking be like there in arizona is it gonna be crazy are people gonna be like not giving a shit is it just gonna be you know just are there am i just gonna be on the highway with you know covid pilgrims from all over the place out spreading the virus far and wide. What's happening? It was, I was terrified to leave.

And I knew other people were doing it. I knew that I had friends that were driving across the country and I was like, how are they doing it? And then I realized like, dude, just do what you do here. When you go to the supermarket, just do what you do here. I told you, I think secretly between us that I have these two, you know, legit N95 masks that I covet. They were given to me by my friend kit and, uh, and I covet them. I only use them when I go into supermarkets and stuff. They're not the casual, you know, hiking, hiking up the hill, walking

outside, checking into a hotel. But if I'm going to spend some time in a place, I'll go full PPE and I'll put on a N95 and a face screen. So I'm driving, I'm fueled up. I'm scared to stop at fucking gas stations. It's crazy. And then like, I don't know what it was, but just being in the hotel room, I spent a lot of my life in hotel rooms and it just felt so alien, five months.

I hadn't been in a hotel room, hadn't eaten anywhere but my house. I drove, I ordered a takeout at this, I think it was called Red Curry Thai or Red pepper Thai or whatever it was on the list of the seven restaurants you can eat at in Flagstaff but all they're just doing takeout everyone's in a mask ordered this vegan it's all vegan vegan curries and uh some fried tofu and I brought it all back to the room and I don't know whether

it was fear or or just the excitement i don't know what what was going on but it was like the best food i'd ever eaten in my entire fucking life it was like the food of freedom or something i don't know maybe it was the best thai food ever i don't i'd probably not but there was just something about not eating at home being out it was everything was all electrified it was great it was great food and i didn't know if that could continue but uh next morning i got up got out masked up hit the road again made it to albuquerque now here's where it gets sad because i'm going to my hometown i'm staying at los poblanos for the night they give me a beautiful suite but there's fires in northern new mexico so there's this

there's this orange apocalyptic haze all over fucking New Mexico too, just like California. And I'm like, holy shit, you really can't get away. It really is over. What the fuck is happening? What is happening? It is happening. The plague is going, the fires are going, and I can't even get away from it in my hometown. I'm down the street from my house.

I can't get away from it. It was so sad. I had to see my dad. Didn can't get away from it. It was so sad. I head up to see my dad. Didn't want to. Did it anyway. Spent 45 minutes in and out. Touched base. Sat.

Told him I loved him. Talked to his wife. Talked to him. They probably gave me COVID. Left. That was it. That was enough. And then the next day, I drove to Santa Fe.

Right when I got in, went to Tia Sofia's. Got some enchiladas, green chili, chicken enchiladas with green chili for me and my buddy Devin. Took them up to his house and I took a couple of bites and I hadn't seen Devin in a long time and he's a dear friend

and we go way back and love the guy. But I don't know, he just was sort of a y'all right and I'd just taken a bite of my green chili enchilada and I just I the tears just consumed me not because of the food just because of everything and I hadn't cried like that you know since the first week with my brother after when passed away and I kind of stifled it but it happened for a minute but it was like it was so dramatic and so guttural and so out of nowhere that I almost lost a bite of my green chili enchilada, which I did not want to do, but it was, it was heavy, man, you know, but he was, you know, he was a good guy

to, to be there for that. But we, you know, we talked and we hung out a bit and we, and I ate, and then I came up here and I checked into this place and it's so sweet. It's this beautiful little place up in the, in the foothills of Taos, not, not on the ski area side, but on the other side, you know, it was great. I'm just trying to clear my head. And I think Lynn, you know, and I don't believe this stuff, but why not? I was taking all kinds of pictures. I was so excited to be up and out and alone on the, Usually I'm terrified of being eaten by animals or falling into a ditch and having to cut my own arm off with a shoe. But I didn't have any fear these last couple of days. I just went up and I just did it.

And I thought about her. I thought about me. I thought about the future. I thought about what do I need to do for myself? What do I need to do for other people? What do I need to do for my country? A lot going on. But just the sadness, the sadness, the grief was there, but it was like part of the frequency. It's part of the big continuity. It's part of the momentum of humanity, the grief. It's weird though,

what I do to not feel feelings, know if i whether it's listening to music or just sit around and think about all the horrible shit i've done in my life there's there's that seems to be my my body my brain's way of dealing with having immediate feelings uh in my brain it's like you can have those and be sad or you can just you know maybe beat the shit out of yourself for things you did before how would that be for a while that that could go on you know maybe beat the shit out of yourself for things you did before how would that be for a while that that could go on you know for you know ad infinitum pal yeah you you know you've changed your your your who you are but like let's go over the books i'm like can i just feel the grief all right all right but you know let me know when you want to crack these bad boys like look man i've

made my menses come on come on let me up for air but i did the breathing and i saw the views and i took the pictures and it's been just great it really has i'm reading a book on meditation well i read the first few pages i brought a guitar i haven't played it yet but you know no pressure i'm all right i stopped in a royal seiko is that it i think it's a little town just shy of the ski area i bought some pots bought some ceramics for my house even though i might have to be moving in a hurry who knows right it was fucked up though i was in one of the pottery stores and the guy said you know there's a whole family of nazis just came in here in full uniform i'm like what what are you talking about he's like well they were wearing some kind of uniform i think it was a white supremacist

uniform i'm like are you serious they just came in like you know like nothing was happening yeah and i was like thinking get the fuck out of my store white supremacists i'm like a family he's like yeah that's fucking nuts he's like they might still be out there look around i'm looking if there's nobody in this town there's 12 people some tourists eating tacos across the street people wandering around with masks a little tourist towns like five ten stores in a taco place and it's up in the mountains i I'm like, what are the fucking white supremacists doing fully uniformed, a family? They weren't still there. And for some reason I had to ask, I'm like, well, when they were in here, did they wear their masks? It's like, yeah, they all wore their masks and they were actually very nice. I'm like, well, that's how it's going to happen. That's what it's going to be like. You're just going to know, you're not going to say anything, you're going

to be scared and they're going to be very nice and follow the rules. And you know, we have to follow their rules. Jesus Christ. And by the way, the air is actually a little clearer here and it rains up here in every day. It kind of cleans the, the palette of the, of the big frequency. I'm okay. Are you guys okay? So Billy crewedup, not Crudup. Of course, you know him from Almost Famous. It's our big reunion. I haven't spent any time with Russell since my equipment fucking shocked him back in the day. So you know him from that movie, Almost Famous.

Watchmen, his many shows on Broadway. The Morning Show, which he's nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy this year. That's happening. That's why he's on the show. Also, I might want to tell you that he's a little punchy. He'd been up all night, and I think he seemed pretty caffeinated. And we got to talking, man. We got to some serious talking. So again, he's nominated for playing cory ellison on the morning show in the category of outstanding supporting actor in a drama series you can watch all of season one of the morning show on apple tv plus and this is me and billy

crude up coming up We'll be right back. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. 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. Hey. Wow, man. Nice to see you, man. It's been a while. It has been. Hey. Wow, man. Nice to see you, man. It's been a while. It has been a while. Yeah. It has been a while. That is true. When did we make that movie, Billy?

Gee, it's hard to remember right now. Some people seem to suggest it was 20 years. Oh, that's right. There was a big anniversary that I wasn't invited to 20 years. You were, you were invited. You just weren't available, man. You've got this thing going and it keeps you busy. That is not, that is not true. I could have come and recaptured my amazing two minutes on screen. I have this memory. I don't know if it's invented or not but of watching you and noah do that fight from inside the bus and it'd be one of the more entertaining parts of that experience he made us do it like 10 times i know and every i remember noah's voice getting shot too and it was done for like a week and a half oh my god he made it there was several versions of it

where noah comes out he every time i think he was on the bus telling noah to do shit to fuck me up so like one time he came out and broke a guitar another time he showed his ass i remember they showed his ass part i'd forgotten about that oh what, what a fantastic memory. That's really funny. That was crazy. Yeah, that was fun. That was a long time ago, and everybody was so deep in it. I remember that. I mean, I come on for one day, and you guys are acting like a real band. Yeah, it was a totally immersive experience, I'll tell you that from the second we, we all said, yes, Cameron had us in band camp and was the the mind meld was like instituted immediately where we had to, he wanted to make sure that all of us non, well for me in particular, because I was not a band guy,

the other three were that we were all part of the same thing. And I didn't fuck it up. They'd all, all the other thing and um i didn't fuck it up they'd all all the other guys had been in bands yeah um jason too yeah mark um my no mark the red house painters and um yeah our drummer jump was the session drummer for him occasionally and then jason you know i don't know if he ever had a formal band but but he played the guitar. He could sing. He was actually the weirdest to me out of all of them. The character or the person?

I couldn't tell. I projected a lot into it. I felt distinctly like he was shutting me out. And I thought, well, maybe I'm one of those negative people that Scientologists are afraid of. So I thought that might be it. I personally, I liked it very much. We got along perfectly well. And the antagonistic relationship that developed was really enjoyable to play.

But it wasn't real. No. Oh, no, not at all. I can't do anything for real. It's all fake man this is like uh i i don't know how to play guitar i mean this as you can see this is real um you can do this yeah uh the the whole acting part of it you know some people they get you use the word immersive um yeah for me it that's all about the content the story you get immersed in the

storytelling of it not actually personally immersed in the experience of it sometimes there are you know residual effects because you trick your body long enough that it fires the chemicals it's supposed to fire and then you feel emotionally hung over the next day it's a real effect of you know like going through some of the uh traumatic parts of playing a character some of the connections you know well that's interesting of the uh traumatic parts of playing a character some of the connections you know well that's interesting so you don't really now like to go back to jason like i think that his reaction to me was appropriate for the character i thought everybody handled me for my little part there which is you're killing us get the fuck out of our way

well that and just you know i was a promoter and yeah the band is not going to be the pal of the promoter but you know but me mark maron was just this insecure idiot who was there for a day's work and uh wandering around saying hi to people and uh you know the saddest part for me was that you know i had to shoot like you know i felt like part of the crew there for a while part of the team you know yeah cameron even ate with me and my wife at the time and then like when i had to chase the van the bus in the cart everybody left it was just me and a secondary crew bt just me riding up and down that ramp by myself in the middle of the fucking night and i'm like this is show business what happened to everybody no we we were there in spirit man we were there you know yeah i know how it works now that's right i get it i'm off camera get me the fuck out of here i'm back

to my of course why would anyone stay i just had to suck i suck up that bus actually that is a pet peeve of mine and sometimes producers they there's a bait and switch um where they'll tell you you're not needed and then the next day you show up and the actor's like, so you don't do off camera. And what are you fucking talking about? But I, there, there,

if this, this would have been a scenario where I would have said, we're on the bus. Yeah. Windows are closed. Yeah. I mean, if Mark needs me on the bus,

I'll stay up. Sure. That's how I connect, man. I need to know that all that emotion is still in the bus, I'll stay up. Sure. That's how I connect, man. I need to know that all that emotion is still in the bus. Feeling it up. It's riding away. Yeah. I got a feeling.

You'll be able to sense my seething emotions from inside the bus. But that's interesting. Well, I mean, I know that's a thing. I will always do off-camera, too. I mean, I guess sometimes, not that I do a lot of acting, but I do more now, but I, you know, it seems like the right thing to do unless, you know, it's really nothing. I, I, it almost always seems like the right thing to do and not the least of which, because the whole, I feel like the whole bait and switch of doing a movie or a play or TV show, whatever is, uh, you know, convincing the audience that everything is happening for the

first time, when it's highly choreographed, and you've collaborated on the narrative together, and you're just simply executing it as craftspeople. And if you like to that way of thinking, I want to be in on it. So I want to influence your performance, I want you to influence my performance. So if you say you don't need me for off camera, I'm like out of the book. I don't, I don't know what I'm doing there. Right. Right. Well, I mean, I think I was talking to Rob Reiner, James Brooks. I don't know who about Jack Nicholson on the set of a few good men, you know, in the scene where he's in the witness box and he goes off. Right. Even when he was off camera, he did it all the way. Right. All the way. Yeah. And, uh, and I, I think it was Reiner because I think Reiner directed it.

So why do you do it? Why do you keep doing it all the way? Because I love to act, man. I couldn't agree more. It's such a privilege. And when you're firing, when you're like, I mean, that scene obviously became iconic for him, too. So that must have been incredibly fun to play. But when you're firing with people there's no greater joy most of most actors slog to get any work at all you

know much less something they enjoy much less something that they feel is important to be a part of you know like all of those things are there's so many layers to this profession that you know i'm sure the people that you speak to are all occupying a certain echelon that like those, those worries are long gone. But for me, you know, I went to acting school with, you know, 18, 20 people who were really good young actors. And so many of them now don't work at all. And so many of the ones that do work, working things that are unsatisfying. There are a handful that get good opportunities or are given

the opportunity to exploit them and move on and have great, you know, but the abundance of good fortune that I've had is absolutely apparent to me at every stage and you have gratitude um endless stores of gratitude yeah uh i don't know i i don't i don't i don't know how people do it i don't know how you guys do it because you you i don't know how you go on doing it without getting a break or without getting opportunities because you're showing up you're auditioning to do somebody else's bidding and you're hoping that that bidding is good, at least well written to some degree. And if it isn't, you got to suck that up and make the best of it. And sometimes it's, the one thing I noticed about acting when I started to do it more for the TV show, I'm like, with TV acting, you do a thing and it's like two seconds. You get it. You know, you're on camera.

It's like, hey, wait. All right, cut. Let's turn the cameras around. And it's like, what the fuck is that? That's a day. Yeah. And there was actually a moment where I was like, this is fucking ridiculous. I'm just sitting around watching The Sopranos on my phone for four hours.

But but I've grown to be a little more grateful. But I've grown to be a little more grateful. But I guess what I'm leading towards is that it sounds to me that your process is not all immersive to the point where you're going to convince yourself that you've become a character. And I imagine that doing theater kind of knocks the kind of pragmatic working element. The sort of like, I'm a working actor guy. Like I think theater really is what must define what feels good about acting. Well, I, I have had that experience. It's true. And it, it, it was, it was the philosophy was instilled in me before that. And the reason for that gratitude is in no small part because of the abundance of opportunities I had early in my career. I actually felt bad about it.

I felt bad about telling some of my peers about like the great jobs that I was getting. And like, you know, I was six months out of school and I was playing one of the leads in a Tom Stopper play on Broadway directed by Trevor Nunn at Lincoln Center. I was originating the American part of it. Nobody gets to fucking do that. I wanted to hide my head in the sand. Not to mention the fact that I was shitting myself in

everybody's company trying to accomplish that. We were taught about... The reason I went to graduate school originally, you know, I thought I might teach because I didn't know anybody who was a professional actor. The great thing about actors is that like, you can tell all your friends about this amazing opportunity and because they're actors, you know, they're not going to be bitter or resentful of you, which is, which is one of the great things about that community.

Well, I have to say, I do have some anomalous experiences because me and my friends are incredibly supportive of each other. And I think this goes back to your point of theater, but I also think it has to do with New York. So many of the actors that I came up with, Sam Rockwell, Josh Hamilton um Ethan Hawke and then Joel De La Fuente John Conley Carl Kent so all these guys from school we all are still in touch and supportive of each other we actually went through that version each of us at different

times with one another where you know we we would just talk about how shitty it was that some people had you know these opportunities and how thrilled they were that other of us, uh, others of us were having other opportunities and they like really would. It's, it is different in Los Angeles. Right. Well, I think it also sounds like that's a handful of guys and it seems like the, the bitter nasty ones probably you just weren't friends with because there's gotta be a few. We could only put up with them for so long and they we sure over the years possibly well it's just like it just filtered out that way you know well it's a it is a pretty broad grouping though when i think of it now like how many

there's got to be a good 20 um people that i'm still in touch with and really supportive of you know well that's great no no i mean i you know maybe i'm just thinking of comics or maybe i'm just thinking about me i think you could be thinking of comics uh because yeah but no no of course you're thinking about actors and every time somebody gets a part that i really wanted um turning down the volume on the envy you know is really difficult and what was the what was the one time that you can remember where that was really like, was it something? What do you mean?

Like today? I mean, this shit happens all the time. I feel like to your point before about the never ending series of potential like crevasses you're going to fall into. It starts with, can you get the audition next? Okay.

If you get the audition, are you going to nail it in the audition are you then going to nail the callback are you going to do okay in the meeting with the director all of those like are replete with things but dude you're like you're oh no i still audition i still audition okay okay but i mean you do walk in they're not like who's this guy some of them are like you're're still acting. That's great. And I'm like, what?

You don't care for the theater. Go fuck yourself. But the, but then after you get the part, then there's the question of executing the part, right? Cause I've been fired from a job too. Once you execute the part, then it's a question of whether or not you're in the film.

Then if you're in the film, it's a question of whether or not the critics like it. Then if the critics like it, it's a question of whether anybody goes and sees it. I mean, every one of those things can play with your sense of self-consciousness. Yeah, right. But a lot of them are out of your control. They are, but getting to that point where you recognize that is really hard because you want to have, unless you're somebody who can write, I can't. I'm a completely interpretive artist. I need somebody to give me material.

They need to tell me what the story is going to be. They need to give me some perspective on how I can help them tell the story before I'll have any kind of creative agency or insight. So for people like me who are waiting for people that they respect to come to them, it can sometimes be a long, frustrating wait. So saying that it's out of your control is one thing, but being able to internalize it in a way that you're not immobilized. Yeah, it's immobilized, heartbroken. Yeah, that's it. That's where the community of Confederates comes in handy. Sure.

Is, you know, we all lean on each other at different times. Well, yeah. And then after a certain point, that group of actors, you've all been cut out of things. You've all done great things that were never seen. You know, you've all made mistakes and things that you took and are out there. So, so with age comes a certain amount of of humility that that must aid in the ability to go like fuck it they that didn't work out no question about it that in fact i think that as we get older and discover that we know we know and have known less and less the sense of humor seems to be rising to the top, you know.

It has to. It has to. Or you just fucking implode. Yeah, you're dead in the water. But let's get back to that, the process of like, because I don't talk to, you try to talk to actors about, you know, how they do it, how they, you know, what their craft is. Or I used to do it a lot when I was starting to act more

so I could get free acting lessons. But, you know, what it comes down to is like, what is the, you know, the most effective way that these individuals on top of their natural talent to do it are able to pretend to be somebody else. So, you know, how do you engage that? But it seems like you're kind of practical about it. Well, there's two different things you were talking about there. I was thinking about before too. Yeah. Like I'm for the collective enterprise to create a cathartic event for people, right? That's what ultimately you're doing. You're having somebody pay $13 the same way when you're doing a comedy show. I'm going to charge you 20 bucks, and I hope this 10 minutes gives you a giggle or i'm gonna charge you 40 and i hope you

laugh your ass off you know like that's it's the same thing for and we're all gonna charge you 75 and thank you for subscribing this season we hope you enjoy the play you need the hearing aids there's that version too um we've kept the theater alive for you so So enjoy your nap. Um, I've, I've, I've been in plenty of those productions and by the way, giving people good nap. Uh, and I feel proud of that. Cause sometimes nice long nap. Yeah. Sometimes we need nap. Um, but the, all right. So, so the cathartic enterprise, that's one. That is, that's a comprehensible journey to me. You know, like, I like being in a group of people doing it.

There's the other version of it, which is some people are really, really good. And the event is watching the peacock. The event is watching somebody display these skills in a radical way that, uh, like takes you out of yourself. Um,

and you know, that's, that happens in athletics. I'm sure there are people, um, in comedy as well who just have an explosive kind of gift that so you're saying that sometimes even but that doesn't preclude the ensemble element that you're just the ensemble is in support of the peacock and you got to live with that fucking weirdness yeah exactly and then and that's all the time i mean and and and people sometimes who have been a part of the ensemble before become the

peacock for a moment, you've got to navigate that moment. And I mean, all of us have been through it, but for the audience, I was thinking, you know, like sometimes I I'll just pay to go see a Meryl Streep movie, whatever she's doing. I don't know what the movie is, but of course that, that's somebody who can fucking work. So you want to see the work. And, but usually it's about the story, whether or not the story works, but of course that that's somebody who can fucking work. So you want to see the work. And, um, but usually it's about the story, whether or not the story works,

whether or not that's what I want to do to curate my evening. And that is the workman part of it that I was taught in school, which is you take your time going over the text, collaborating with the director, the other actor, you become very fastidious about how you understand your role in creating this event. And then you try to do that. You try to technically implement that in a way that makes it seem like it's happening. Right. Can't when you go, when you watch

Meryl Streep though, can you see the work? I can't work. No, it's, I mean, it's upsetting, you know, as somebody who has spent a lot of time and money trying to figure it out. It's disappointing and humiliating, but it's thrilling to see somebody, you know, in the same way you see Jordan or anybody who has a rare kind of gift. Yeah. I don't know how he makes his body move like that you know in uh processing information some people just it just it's natural talent and she's both too because she went to school as well and is highly trained in theater and uh and she can sing it just doesn't end with her but she can also collaborate you know uh with people in in uh in the way that I'm familiar with, but, um,

she does it on a different level. Have you worked with her? No. Why not? Um, nobody's asked once again, have you been in, have you been in movies together where you just didn't have scenes together or no, I don't think so. No, no, no, I'm not going to take that personally. The, um, I just showed my son Defending Your Life. You remember that Albert Brooks movie? Sure, sure. I'm a sucker for Albert Brooks and certainly was, you know, like in my family, he was somebody that we all kind of enjoyed collectively. So I was thrilled how much he enjoyed Albert Brooks as well but watching meryl streep's uh capability and even a comedy that um you know

it's kind of a heightened fun comedy is yeah it's it's it's it's it's very hard to do it's very hard it was like it was amazing my recollection of seeing her in that movie was like she must be doing him a favor they must be friends why the fuck is she in this movie? I bet she, I mean, I bet that she loves doing it. I mean, you know, for the first time she didn't have to be tormented by like the death of a child. How old's your kid? He's 16. 16.

Wow. That's kind of my, my buddy's got a 16, a 15 year old. Sounds can be rough. Yeah. I don't know how it was for you, but. When I was 15, I grew up in New Mexico, so we could drive by then. But yeah. When did you start driving?

14 and nine months, you got your learner's permit. Right. I started driving early too. I mean, I didn't get my learner's permit until 15, but yeah. Where'd you grow up? Well, this was in Dallas. Right. New Mexico. I guess driving early too. I mean, I didn't get my learnings from until 15, but yeah. Where'd you grow up? Well, this was in Dallas. Right. New Mexico. I guess it's the same. They're like, it's plenty of room. Let the kids drive. There was something called a hardship. There was a hardship license. And I think it was mostly for

families and rural communities who, if somebody was working, they needed to drive the kids to school or something. And my parents were divorced at that point. And my mom was working. And so my brother turned 15 and got his hardship license and was driving us around. And so, you know, I was a year and a half younger than him. And one day he decided to teach me and it was a stick shift Volvo station wagon. Nice. And I just remember viscerally learning how to deal with a clutch, um, on a suburban Dallas street.

That was the only thing. Like when I was a kid, it was like that you wanted like any idiot could drive a, an automatic. So like when I got the opportunity to learn, I learned on a standard and I'm very happy. I've been driven one in fucking years. I know.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, there was a, a pickup truck that my dad had one summer. With the three on the tree? Yes. Now that was harder. That's a fucker to drive.

I mean, you feel like you've done something if you've made it through a day on that one. Right. They're scary and they kind of lurch around. Yeah. And a really loose clutch, you know, like you don't know when the gear is kicking in really you know it could be like three feet of give yeah oh yeah yeah yeah so what your dad was a pickup truck guy no no he was uh he was a businessman um he he was um he tried to do a lot of different things and, um, but you know, most consistently, uh, he, he was a bookie and a loan shark.

And, uh, I think this, this, um, this pickup was probably payment, um, at a certain point that then my brother and I were given used to, uh, drive. He obviously wasn't a high level bookie based on the pickup truck. He always tried to like find his way back into a normal way of doing business by buying products that were in the marketplace that had failed in the marketplace. He'd buy the copyright and then he would try to remarket them. Like there was these umbrella umbrella hats i don't know

if you remember in like the late 70s early 80s i can picture them yeah and um so there there was you know they came out with the rainbows on them or whatever and they didn't really uh work because how why why would anybody do that but my dad thought i know what I'll do. I know Lou Brock, who was a baseball player for St. Louis, I believe. And he was like, I'm going to get Lou Brock to endorse these, and we're going to sell the Brock umbrella. And sure enough, we had, I don't know, 2,000 of these things in the basement. So he was always trying to, he was an entrepreneur. And he wanted his pet rock. That's what he thought.

No, of course. Right, right. If I can just get the pet. My mom is the one who is working, keeping everything together, working in an advertising agency and taking care of three kids in their teens. Boys, three boys. So she's the hero in the story. So when, when, when, when he was a bookie, was he his own man or was he working for someone else?

Yeah. I suspect there was a, someone else involved there, Mark, to your question. And. Cause it doesn't sound like your dad's got the muscle. Yeah. Well, he did work with a, a man named Mr. o who was a six foot four former boxer oh okay so that was his guy he had a name bullet yes and i mean he carried a firearm you know uh and all of it was very charming like he's a he was a really charming guy he made it seem perfectly normal when

there was like you know a riot shotgun next to his bed one day he was like oh no that's fine just don't touch it you kind of like is it fine okay um man it makes me nervous i don't know why but that thing you know it's it loaded you got you have stuff for it too um all right yeah okay did you ever go out shooting um not not with him no i don't think i ever did i was in i i i was in um the boy scouts and i went to a camp uh a ymca camp uh one summer two summers where you know you do riflery and stuff but that's about the extent of my shooting exactly 22 rifles i guess you did a lot in new mexico well i went to a camp as well where we learned how to load shotgun shells and shoot skeet. And we did some 22 stuff. And then my dad had some guns around. There was a lot of

guns around. And I ended up shooting guns here and there. I never owned one. Recently, I've been thinking maybe I should get one. But then there's always the possibility that you might have a bad day. Yeah. It didn't seem like a good idea to me either i decided on a on a bat i'm gonna get a bat i hope you're confident enough in my ability to protect myself uh with the gun yeah you know when i look at things statistically back to my rationalization uh agenda here it doesn't seem statistically in your best interest to have one around for your own safety oh no that's for fucking sure i read this article about like not that i'm depressive but you know you have your moments right but in england the the suicide rate went down dramatically

when they changed the type of natural gas that was available in the ovens to a less toxic type of gas that like that that the number of people that just didn't follow through because it didn't work out i mean was like i'm picturing some awful macabre comic moments where some you know person in a desperate what the fuck is wrong with this gas exactly but then then they live through that and the next day they feel okay that's the point is that if you don't have the gun in that moment you're probably gonna get a night's sleep and be all right it's a smart it's a smart move to put as many impediments in in the way of uh those kind of self-destruction yeah so wait how old are you when the folks split up, though? We were living in Long Island, and they were divorced when I was six.

So that was like 1974. And then they tried to make it work again, and that's when we moved to Dallas because my dad had the business opportunities. But as you can hear from my previous stories, those business opportunities didn't lead to more security and predictability. So my mom did the smart thing and let him move out on his own. With his umbrella hats? Yeah, with his umbrella hats, precisely, which did not fit in his new singles apartment, I can assure you. He was the kind of guy who had storage spaces everywhere. apartment i can assure you uh he had he was the kind of guy who had storage spaces everywhere like you know we're just gonna hey need to run out to a play note for uh an afternoon um oh oh

what's going on well gotta check out the the storage space i believe i've uh uncovered a few gems that and of course you know he just could pick out shit and we'd go to the flea market and he'd try to sell it there. Oh, God. So he was like, he was just like not even a good hustler, really. Yeah, exactly. He was a marginal hustler. Anytime there's a flea market involved, that's hit or miss. That's hit or miss. Not if that's where you're aiming if you're aiming there

flea market you're gonna come in nine times out of ten you're gonna come out happy because you know it's not like you're gonna make a killing one way or the other and if you don't sell it i mean it's not like you have a whole lot of stink um but i do have a big affection for, for, for flea markets and, and people on the fringes, I think for that reason. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, if it's part of your childhood, I mean, how are you not going to, like, you know, I, there's moments where I used to love to go to the flea market, but my dad, there's like, there's part of my childhood where, you know, he, what did he do? No, my dad, he didn't sell at the flea market, but, um, but I used to go to the flea market all the time. Cause I was fascinated with it. All I remember is there was a doctor in town who my father knew and who was Jewish. We're Jewish.

This guy was Jewish and he used to sell Nazi paraphernalia at the flea market. And I could never quite connect it, but I was sort of found it kind of fascinating well i mean immediately i jumped to the notion that like if he can make a few bucks off these fuckers that's a little that's a thorn it's back in the old days it was the old days and it was real stuff it was like the real like it was it wasn't kind of new there it's not like today where they're they're making the stuff new for the new generation. Well, and he may not he may not have thought through thoroughly who he was selling to. Like who might want to collect this kind of stuff. That's true. That's true.

But my dad, we used to like there was a period there where he he was into showing to dog shows. So there's part of my life that there was there's dog shows involved. So I have sort of a soft spot for it. But I don't go to them. Well, best in show was enough for me to. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Yeah.

That's exactly what it's like. So you're moving around. So you like where did you end up like going to high school, Dallas? Well, I went to a lot of different schools schools and you know in Dallas at the time there was um busing and so um I was at um a elementary school in one area and then I went to a middle school we were bused to a middle school for uh seventh and eighth. And then I went to high school for one year at Hillcrest High School. And then we moved down to South Florida. Oh, my God.

As my mom got remarried. And we went- How was that guy? And we went to St. Thomas Aquinasinas high school and it was a catholic school um uh but i had i had an excellent time there i really did i thought uh they're most notable for uh their athletics uh program and um uh like michael ervin uh went there he was there when I was there. And Brian Piccolo, remember Brian's song? And Chris Everett. Oh, really? They all went there? They all went there. And I was not, I mean, as you might be able to tell by my size, a stellar athlete.

But I did wrestle. You could do soccer? Oh, wrestle, okay. Yeah, I wasn't fast enough. In fact, I loved playing soccer when I was younger, but at my freshman year at Hillcrest, I tried out for the team, and I just started to grow. I was always the shortest kid in class. Me and Richard Winfield, we would compete for shortest kid just about every year. How's that guy? I wonder what he's up to.'s great actually he's a lawyer in dallas and i think he does really well yeah i think better i think he i think he won but he's a little lawyer in dallas i think he's bigger now just like me almost average size um but i had just started to grow and became you know

wildly uncoordinated and was so slow that they called me flash. And that's when I thought, okay, I'm done with this shit. And I wrestled, but the one year I was not great at wrestling. I was kind of, you know, I was there for the exercise and I did like the sport, but the one year I didn't wrestle, we won state. It gives you some idea of my ability and the ability of the, uh, you didn't drag him down, huh? I didn't drag him down. I wasn't there to weigh him down. Are your folks still around? My dad's not, no, he passed away, uh, in 2005. He was 63, but my mom, um, is around and like, she, she's, she's really the Genesis of, uh, i got into acting she loved uh taking us to the theater

and going to broadway and stuff growing up um so really but how long so wait just wait so you're in florida oh yeah no first we were on long island my dad was selling yarn um yarn yarn because he was from a small town in north carolina had a yarn mill. And so he was selling that yarn here in the city. So he worked out like this is he worked out an angle with the yarn mill where he grew up before the angling. So what happened was when they came up to New York, I mean, this I'm kind of putting this together. I don't know if this is true or not, but he comes up to New York to sell yarn, a legitimate business. You know, like his dad was the vice president of marketing there. He got, you know, got a job there selling the yarn here in the city.

He was working in the garment district. And then he was in the garment district and got introduced to some people that he found more colorful than the fabric he was selling. And I think he was intoxicated by that life, you know. My mom, meanwhile, was like, why are we at a mob funeral? That doesn't seem – yeah, there's a lot going on there. But she loved the arts, loved the theater. And so even after we moved to Dallas and Miami and Fort Lauderdale and stuff, she would still bring us back to New York to see plays. And, you know, I saw some phenomenal productions. And she was also like one of my

primary support engines when I was younger about performing. Did you when did you first start doing the performing? I would say, I don't know if you remember my first grade interpretation of Uncle Sam during the 4th of July festivities. I've read about it. I read some of the many critical pieces on that. Yeah, the smallest next big thing, I think it was called. Yeah. That's when the – what I discovered was my way of fitting in, going to these different

schools was being a class clown. So I didn't have any problem humiliating myself in front of people, which is one of the crucial things about being an actor. It's there's, you know, there's not dignity in the act of doing it. It's mostly class. Is that a class at NYU? It's just no dignity and acting, you know, getting over embarrassment. Well, it's funny you say that because that is what people end up doing. There's no dignity in acting. Getting over embarrassment by making a fool of yourself.

Well, it's funny you say that because that is what people end up doing. There's not a specific class about it, but nearly everybody at some point or another makes themselves as vulnerable as possible. Often, it's in the form of being completely nude. Everybody has to get completely nude at some point in acting school just to bear their truth. It's exhausting. Or the person that cries too much all the time, no matter what they're doing. point in acting school just to bear their truth you know it's exhausting or just uh or the the person that cries too much all the time like no matter what that's me now but it wasn't me then you were the nude guy i i wasn't yet the new guy actually i i wasn't nude until um

my first uh paying job in the city um oh yeah that's how it usually works i was new for 212 a week and welcome kid welcome kid take it out i was super excited about it um until maybe two weeks into it when i'm standing backstage in a pretty cold theater thinking what the fuck am i doing right now which gig was this this was uh it was it was a kind of esoteric think piece on Japanese internment camps. And I played the token. So that was worth it, right? That was worth it? It absolutely was.

And I'll tell you why. Okay, this is a great freaking transition. I didn't even see this one coming. But it was at the Vineyard Theater. And the Vineyard Theater on Union Square, a fantastic theater, they hired me a couple of years ago to do a solo performance of this guy, David Kale's play. It was a one-man show. And so I played a bunch of different characters.

It was an hour and 15 minutes long. But Jen Aniston and one of her producing partners came and saw that. And after they saw that, she was like, I want you to be a part of the morning show. We just have to figure out at what capacity. you to be a part of the morning show we just have to figure out at what capacity so me doing that 212 job a week has brought me to you know one of my uh favorite roles that i've had uh in the same theater the same theater i did it in the same theater yeah it was pretty it was pretty cool but going back to your your mom like so you started but you were always doing stuff on stage throughout junior high yeah there

wasn't an acting program at um at st thomas as you know they put most of their money into the athletics department yeah um but when i was i went to unc chapel hill and um and when i was town yeah i love chapel man that's a great time have you worked there before yeah yeah it's it's a really great town. But I started out as like a business major because, I don't know, I suppose that's what you were supposed to do at school. With such an impressive father as a role model of what's possible. You know, it was kind of, and I haven't thought about this in a while, but his mom passed away the day that I graduated from high school. And he had always vowed to her that because he didn't finish Chapel Hill, he had like nine hours left or something, you know, like he had to take three or four classes, told her he was going to finish.

She passed away when I graduated graduated and he went back to summer school in dallas so he could graduate and get his degree just before i started there so like you know he and he was very proud that he was a straight a student he had a little backpack that he gave me that i then used you know when i was in school there yeah yeah there was there was some charm to it but maybe that's why i got into business. I mean, that was my first major. I thought, well, some of us needs to know how to do it. Yeah, he got it done? He did.

He graduated. Yeah, so you thought like, I'm just getting like, you know, he didn't quite master it, but I'm going to be the guy. Yeah, exactly. Let's give this generation a second go. But, you know, my first semester, it was clear that I was not going to succeed well as a business major. So I just started taking as many different kinds of classes as I could.

And I took this one class called Oral Interpretation of Prose and Poetry that was taught by Paul Ferguson. And he became like an immediate mentor to me. And I knew that these were my people. Like they, I didn't know what this, what it was that we were doing with this art form nobody was going to really pay to see this um we did a production of james joyce's short story clay i think it was called um that you know that it's not it's not a play so you have to spend half

your time figuring out how to make it a play and then you use the the narration as a part of your like first person speaking it it's weird stuff. But what it allows you to do is think creatively about what kind of thing you're, you know, engaging in. It's not just about like, Oh, let me, I've been dying to play Annie. Um, by the way, I have been dying to play Annie and I'm not going to settle for daddy Warbucks. So, but, um, I, you know, I made A's and so I could be, you know, a good student there while taking these performance classes.

And I became a communications major because I thought, well, who's going to go into acting? And I can use the communication major as my way into the workplace. And I pretty soon I had taken all the performance classes in there. And then I started going to the drama department, taking classes there. And then the drama teachers there, Susanna Reinhart, Didi Corvinas, they like convinced me that I could take some of the major classes there. So by the time I had finished, I'd taken every performance class at Chapel Day offered. And you were doing productions as well? I was doing productions too. Yeah, I think that let's see, I did

Your Good Man, Charlie Brown. I did Burn This. I did The Resistible Rise of Arturo Uy, which I would later do, and I played Arturo Uy in that production, I'll have you know. But I would later do it with Al Pacino playing Arturo Uy off-Broadway. So you know. But I would later do it with Al Pacino playing Arturo

Uy off-Broadway. So that was a nice full circle moment for me. So you did theater with Al Pacino? I did. That cast, can I tell you? Steve Buscemi, Charles Durning, John Goodman, Tony Randall, Paul Giamatti,

Linda Eman. That's crazy. Yeah, and i'm forgetting people uh sterling brown um uh johnny vittimiglia it was an unbelievable cast uh wow we had an absolute uh ball doing it i'm forgetting like 300 people that were in it and but it was directed by this guy simon mcbirney who ran this theater company in london that did some of the most incredible productions i've ever seen they're called theater to complicit there or complicity now or whatever. Yeah. Um, but so to get to work with him and to see somebody with that kind of mastery of

the craft was pretty, it was killer. Yeah. Cause I think Pacino can still do it when he wants to. Oh, he, he works his ass off. I'll tell you that straight up. I mean, he works his ass off, uh, and he is invested in it you know and i can't say that for for everybody but um it was when i watched him play uh like the when he did cavorkian in that hbo movie oh yeah holy fuck i mean because like there was a while there where he was just sort of

yeah but like when but you gotta figure at a certain point, nobody is giving him direction. You know, they're saying that's how you like to do it. Sure. Right. Right. Cause they're, they're nervous.

Why then? Well, yeah, of course. I mean, listen, if you do dog day afternoon and Godfather part two in the same year, which I think he did,

um, those two different roles that are so brilliantly executed, you know, fuck it. That's you, that you, that's more, you've had more than your share. Okay. Yeah. brilliantly executed, you know, fuck it. That's you. That's more. You've had more than your share. OK, yeah, you can do whatever you want, whatever you want for the rest.

But I don't think he is ever lacked in a continued commitment to working. It's just odd to see that generation becoming these old men and who kind of can still not do it yeah okay let's let's let's go back to so you finish at Chapel Hill then you go to Tisch and that's where you really lock in is that how it works yeah exactly and it is a professional actor training program that focuses you on essentially taking the shotgun approach like we're going to teach you as many different skills. So when you enter the workplace, whatever you're offered, whether it's voiceovers, whether it's commercials,

whether it's theater, film, television, whatever, you're going to be moderately prepared to get into it. And so, you know, it's also in New York City. So casting directors and agents would come and see some of the productions that you were doing. Not just because they're looking for talent, but because some of the productions that NYU was doing and Juilliard was doing and Yale was doing at the time. They were doing some of Tony Kushner's first productions of Angels in America and Perestroika. I saw Michael Stuhlbarg do Angels in America at Juilliard before

it was out. Really? Yeah. So, you know, there was a lot of opportunity for actors in those programs because of our proximity to being in New York. Then you also get to see actors who you were there with as, you know, third year students go into the world you get to see them manage their careers so you kind of have uh an experience of being in the workplace and studying at the same time now but so because you're really like more than almost anybody i've talked to a theater guy i mean you you're a theater actor really for the most part i mean that's what you do when everyone if anyone ever says like what happened to billy crudup it's like he's probably doing a play yeah right well and that's almost always almost always the case but that's a choice you make yeah i it's you know i don't know you kind of go you go to

where you feel right you know where you feel i i don't have wild ambitions in terms of collecting money and things. You make a living. Listen, I'll tell you what. You want to know how I made a living? There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's MasterCard. I've heard that. Let me tell you, that gave me my agency to do as many plays as I wanted to for a while

because it was a guaranteed sum you know like how long did you do that like a decade 13 years and so my god can you I mean it really is again of the things to be embarrassed about it was mortifying to me um but obviously I kept that ball rolling um as long as I could um but that like, but that's like, like that's, you know, that's a lifetime's worth of money. But I think it's interesting that you really, because like going into this interview, there was this idea that like, all right, so you made, because I'd read that you made the bread doing the commercial. And so you could choose what you wanted to do. But for some reason, I automatically thought, well, why isn't he in more movies then? Because you chose theater.

Well, yeah, I do. I mean, it was always my plan to do as much of everything as I could. And the fact of the matter is I wasn't getting great parts in movies at a certain point. I was getting great parts on stage and I went to where the great parts were because that again, like why would I refuse a great part? I mean, you know, the Vineyard Theater where I was nude first, where I did Harry Clark, my first thought at reading this piece was no, Jesus, that's so much work. Why would anybody ever do that? That's exhausting. And then in the middle of the night, I wake up, how many people get the opportunity to open a one person show in New York,

get off your fucking ass and get to the theater, you know, like that. Yeah. Is typically my, my, my response. So the kinds of things that I got to do working with Martin McDonough, actually Michael Stuhlbarg was in the production with Jeff Goldblum and Jelko Ivonek that we did have a play called the pillow man doing the coast of utopia, which was a Tom Stopper play that was a three-part epic about Russian philosophers at the turn of the, I don't know, 19th century

or something. And it was spectacular at Lincoln Center. And you would come see it. You would see the first part on Tuesday, the second part Wednesday, the third part Thursday, or you could come see them all on Saturday. Um, started 11, then these marathons and every one of those marathons was sold out.

So I was getting opportunities like that. Um, you want a Tony for that, right? I did want to Tony. I, I, I should get it.

Okay. Bring it. I should have brought all to show you just, I should carry it with me. Um, yeah, just as evidence. I'm looking around like, did I get a Tony bring it. I should have brought all to show you just, I should carry it with me. Um, yeah, just as evidence. I'm looking around like, did I get a Tony for it? Um, but, uh, over there somewhere. Yeah. Just the experience of it. Um, to me, that's the kind of life I wanted to lead. So, you know,

if I was getting those kinds of opportunities in film, um, to work with, you know, the, uh, the caliber of people that I wanted to work with, it's very likely I would have been doing more film,, you know, the caliber of people that I wanted to work with. It's very likely I would have been doing more film. But, you know, but what do you think that was about? Why? Why don't you think that happened? I mean, it seems like you were like, I mean, it seems like you can definitely carry a movie.

Well, things come and go, you know, like and you get opportunities or somebody like me got a lot of opportunities early on based upon potential. And so. Oh, my God. So you were that first, you were in that movie Sleepers. Yeah. Man, that like that movie so fucking heavy, man. Yeah.

That was your first movie? That was the first one that came out. I did an independent film before that called Grind. Adrian Shelley, Paul Schulze, Amanda Peet. independent film before that called grind um adrian shelly paul scholzi amanda pete um and then i had a small part in a woody allen movie um called everyone says i love you but yeah that was that was the first big one that came out and then i did uh inventing the abbots pat o'connor and joaquin phoenix and jennifer connelly and then uh and then so i got an opportunity to be a lead in uh without limits about the runner Steve Prefontaine.

You were great in that. Oh, thanks, man. I still, when I jog, I still remember things that you were told in that movie. That's killer. That was, that guy, the guy, Steve Prefontaine, he had an indelible image in my memory because my dad loved him and had the cover of sports illustrated that he was on, on our countertop when I was younger. Um, you know, I must've been five or six or something, but this haunting image of him was with me the whole time. And so when I saw his name, it was with, you know, Robert town who wrote Chinatown and was being shot by Conrad hall,

um, Donald Sutherland and produced by Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner. And so, you know, I was punching above my weight at that point. And if you don't deliver under those circumstances, you're unlikely to get those opportunities again, until you do deliver in something, you know, it's just like from a financial point of view, if they're, if they're mostly interested in like even almost famous uh that that didn't do well at the box office when it came out you know so so the steve prefontaine movie didn't do great no um and almost famous didn't do great yeah and so you know that that's that's some portion of it um and some portion of it is that i would say no to things because i was doing

a play and people were like jesus everyone loved j Jesus's son yeah but we couldn't get people to see it um it's like have you seen the cast for that it's an unbelievable it's like a really great cast but we couldn't get people to the theater well it's a heavy movie I get it and it was it is well and it's it's beautifully unconventional um and, I love that about it, but, but also too, you know, like, uh, yeah, I, at, at a certain point, if you keep saying no, because you're doing a play, people, they get pissed off at you, I think. And, uh, and then also 16 years ago, I had a son, so I wanted to be located here in New York as much as possible. And, you know, that was before know, That was before the commercials.

That was, it was in the middle. I had, I'd already had, I started, I think I, I got that commercial probably in 97, 98. But that's also like that. That was also the thing you had to deal with is, you know, they, the press was not too kind to you around your relationships. You know, what is there to say about that? I mean, I appreciate people using trauma for their own clickbait and follow. You know, go for it.

I'm just not going to participate. So there's not a whole lot uh to navigate there and i who can say what the effect of that is you know how is everybody now do you get along with her and the kid and listen we all do the very best we can but you know i try listen one of the reasons i i don't comment uh well there's like three good reasons. First of all, there are other people involved. And unless they want to talk about it themselves, why the, you know, what the fuck am I going to say? Well, that's right.

I've learned that the hard way. Yeah. Yeah. I remember doing an interview early on and I talked about my childhood. And so the writer summed it up as like his traumatic childhood. And my mom read that as one of his traumatic childhood from, you know, like, and my mom read that as one of the first pieces and, you know, called me crying. And I was like, Oh mom, shit, we got to get, you know,

like some understanding of, of this. Otherwise this is going to be a tough, tough, tough ride. But that's interesting because now when you talk about it, the tone is different and the trauma is less. It doesn't come off as traumatic because you put things into perspective. Well, when you're older, I guess that happens. And you're successful. life that don't have a voice when I decided to do an interview. I was really protective early on of having any kind of public persona because

my whole jam was going to try to be a character actor. So if you know shit about me, I'm not going to be able to be two different things in two different movies and have you think you should never, you should like at the end of the movie go, Oh, that was Billy Crudup. I didn't know that.

Oh, shit. Right. That was going to be my whole – I just wasn't like great at it at the beginning. I was giving some kind of like goodish performances, but they were in lots of different kinds of things. So what they were – what the industry wants you to do is cultivate a personality at that point and become a star so that they can use you, you know, for their own nefarious purposes. But it's interesting because, you know, I think at that time, you're probably a little too attractive to be a regular character actor. Yeah, I had too much work done too early. And that was the fault of mine.

I thought it was going to be great. These cheekbones are, this is cartilage from my head. You know what I'm saying. No, trust me. You're no Ned Beatty. That brings up so many different memories. Oh, my God. I love Ned Beatty.

Holy shit. No, I wish I wasn't Ned Beatty. I love that baby. Holy shit. Oh no. I wish I wasn't that baby. I'm the baby, but no, I was, I had, you know, a very photographable, is that the word? Photographable. Photographic. That's the one we're looking for, Mark. Um, uh, and so people, I was really aware early on of how people wanted to cast me. And I would look at some of these parts and say, I don't know how to play that guy.

Like you need somebody who can do a hero. And that I, I, I'm, I need, I need a different angle. Like I really, yeah,

that, that, those are the things that appeal to me. They're interesting to me. But that's the reason you would actually turn down leads because you know, this guy, you know, this guy comes out on top.

He's the, he's like a star. You know what the here's the thing with uh heroes mostly when they're written in subpar material is they don't have any character traits so people can projection onto them right they don't have any inner monologue they don't what they have is the fierceness of their action and the uh the ability to to muscle through the obstacles with um grit grace and a little bit of sexiness um and you know i just i didn't know i didn't have that i didn't have that character in me you know like uh i had different characters in me that wasn't come on you just didn't want to pretend they're just paying you to pretend billy yeah but i'm not you got to do you got to go to where you're good at i could play steve prefontaine because he was he was fucked up and he was kind of a dick at times you know that's interesting he was a thorn in the side of the of the machine you know like so he was a bit of an

anti-hero and it's the same with russell in almost famous he's an anti-hero you know he makes some fucked up decisions. You never know what his angle is. Well, that's interesting. Isn't that interesting? Is that the business, you know, theoretically, the industry wanted to make you a leading guy because you look like a leading guy. And you hold the screen like a leading guy. But some, you know, some something inside of you wasn't going to do that.

Yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I was like, well, I mean, I can be a shitty one of those. Um, you know, if that's what you guys are looking for, but. And then you played a bunch of fucking like mildly shitty people. Yeah. Well, and those were the ones that I was more interested in, you know, like the characters in spotlight, this guy in the morning show. Um, and yeah, so many of the plays that I've done are the ones who are wrestling with internal as well as external conflict.

But I like the guy. You were just a journalist in that Jackie movie. But Spotlight, you were the lawyer, right? I was a lawyer, exactly. Yeah, right, right. That's a really fascinating story, too. I love that movie. Yeah so that's a really fascinating story too that guy because i love that movie yeah and that was a great movie and tom mccarthy when i read it on

the page i was like no he just seems like a dick i don't quite understand him and he goes let me tell you the story of this guy and it turns out that um he had been negotiating all of these deals between the victims and the church um in no part because he was abused as a child. And he knew that all of the systems were going to be obstacles in the way of them getting anything. So he was like set upon himself, listen, I'm going to get you 20 grand and a sit down with the bishop. And that's the best you're going to do anywhere. And Tom was like, so I'm not going to write that in any of it, but that's, what's going to be going through you. So that, that makes him an interesting presence on the screen, uh, because there's this whole mysterious inner monologue

going on. And, um, in fact, he actually had sent the paper names of these people before and the paper buried it. And they put that in the movie after they discovered it during interviewing him where he was like i hope you're not going to make me the the villain in this uh let me tell you you know the effort that i made so that's interesting because like you know you think like it's kind of bizarre like what effect do you think like because you've done you've done pretty well for yourself. It just worked out that way. But there's nothing, I don't know, do you think that your father's disposition and his mode of operating has made you more sort of attracted to these type of characters? There's a whole lot of different influences. And again, like back to my earlier point, I wanted to go for the most disparate kinds of interesting parts so I could build up as much facility so I could last for a long time.

So it's actually anti-my dad. What I wanted to do was work consistently. And the way to do that, as I was taught in school, is build an arsenal. So you can deliver a lot of different things. And I didn't want to be pigeonholed because I knew that I would have no arsenal. Once I got older and the cheekbones started to droop, I was going to be dead in the water. So- So, okay. So it was anti your dad because you wanted to have some security in a business exactly and it was predictability right that was from exactly which comes from being able to adapt to but it's interesting though isn't it that the characters that you want to play are not they're not murderers they're just sort of slightly morally dubious. Yeah. And, and, and, and work. I would say that is interesting. See,

look at that. You're just trying to get close to him after all these years. That's all. I can understand that. Yep. You tend to miss them when they're gone. Yeah. But,

but like, I like the, the character that Corey Ell ellison character is is a surprising character really because like you know you it's it's a great character you do a great job with it and i think um because you you don't want to like him just because of what you project on to him and then as it as you know as the show goes on and you realize that you know he has a certain integrity to him somehow. Right. Because of his own sort of problems, which he reveals.

I think it makes it a very unique take on that guy. I do, too. When I read that, I had to call. I mean, I had an immediate response that was something like, what the fuck is going on with this person? How does somebody imagine that that's an okay way to be in life? You know, so I would, my curiosity was piqued about who, what was happening underneath him. And that's always a great place to start creatively, where you got a lot more questions than answers. And so I know when I'm reading a script, and I pause to like, think about it, and I can kind of visualize like moving around,

or I'm kind of daydreaming about this person and trying to see if there's any kind of authentic version of me that's in there that I can, I know that like, that's a character I should go towards, because typically, those are the ones where we get to become most creatively engaged and it's rewarding, you know? And so this was one where I was like, man, I've seen this fucking New York angler my whole life. And this guy who is just a room reader who you can't, you put your finger on what his motivations are other, other than the display of his incredible social calculus. You know, like that's what he's capable of doing, managing chaos in real time. And there are people in New York like that.

I mean, everywhere, you know, they're the people who will sell you sunscreen when you're getting out of the train, when on Sunday day and then next day they'll be there with umbrellas, you know, they're just, but it's, but, but this guy's got like, you know, once it, once he's trying to, you know, sort of connect with Reese's character, you know, he's offering up a vulnerability that seems genuine, even amongst the hustle, you know, even within the hustle. Well, I think it's a question because, you know, some of the, the greatest hustlers, um, can, uh, the greatest hustlers can project a kind of authenticity because, again, they're reading people. And they know, Corey knew in that moment what she needed to feel safe in this transaction. And he had enough empathy for her as a woman trying to establish herself and her moral agency in this environment that he could identify with her. Isn't that weird, though, like the hustle, like the idea of empathy in that type of character,

even when you look at this fucking current president, that isn't empathy or is it just a mode of manipulation? I mean, I guess the empathy is there at the core, but ultimately its goal is not to empathize. I think that's a great question. And I actually, that has been, that was a source of ongoing conversation with, with Kerry. And I think we, we discovered a kind of moral ethic that, you know, maybe his own creation, but that really is about a more level playing field. And perversely, the reason it may be about a more level playing field is because he just wants to display his talent with as many people as possible. So he doesn't want to shut anybody out just for no good reason, just because they're a

woman or just because they're not like him. He wants the best people playing the game so he can show off how good he is in a way. And by the way, this is what some people argue is a meritocracy, that get everybody in the mix, that competition will promote the kind of creative productivity that will make us all thrive. Well, I mean, but that's what you were talking about at the beginning of what one of the things that you like being part of is the ensemble driven catharsis of a story. And now it's like getting kind of meta, isn't it? Well, so you think about that. Yeah, exactly. Like

then think so put that philosophy in the body of a guy who's like a stone cold killer and like a wackadoo and um you've got a really interesting individual uh with a lot of power and uh a capacity to evolve and shift before your eyes that's fun yeah i thought i really was you know amazed by the the the unfolding of i like this show you know and my you know the woman i was, the, the unfolding of, I liked the show, you know, and my, you know, the woman I was seeing who's not with us anymore, you know, she directed. Let me tell you, Lynn. Yeah. Uh, and I, when I wanted to pass along my condolences, uh, I had a very superficial interaction with her, but, um, actually after working on the morning show, she and I were talking, um, about doing another show together that she was working on about a chiropractor called Posture that was being produced by Steve Golan, who ended up passing away, too.

He passed away last year. Yeah, it's just been heartbreak after heartbreak. But I had a lot of affection affection for her even in our most superficial interaction yeah she was great but i you know watching the show i was surprised at how those those you know the that the whole issue of of sexual impropriety and rape and what i i was kind of amazed at how it was all handled. I mean, it was really written beautifully, the whole thing. Carrie Aaron, she's responsible for, to me, the creative application of a really complicated narrative, which is we're all people. You can understand some motivations and you can't understand other motivations. And the complexity of trying to manage a moment of redistribution of power and justice for people who have been

victimized is not going to be easy. And you're not going to get off by just villainizing everybody. And you're not going to get off by just villainizing everybody. You're going to need to understand the systems that create people, what goes into the kinds of things and to offer that and a drama like this. I mean, they've got some incredible to me, like tenacity and courage between the producers and Carrie, but Carrie is the one for me that I saw, you know, her and her writing team being able to put, it's one thing to think of that, but it's another thing to put it into action. That's some really sophisticated writing. Oh yeah. No, I mean, it's hard stuff. It's hard stuff to continue to understand these characters and fight your own, you know, desire or lack of desire to empathize with them absolutely um but like working with with reese i mean she seems like a real fucking pro that must be that she's a pro of pros you know i would do my scenes where i was chatting away doing my weird character and stuff

and then i was ready for a fucking nap i was exhausted i was sweaty i needed to change my clothes and reese um badass is going in and watching dailies from the last one reading scripts of stuff that are coming up probably producing three other things on the side um and then coming back after lunch to manage the you know next coverage so uh i have she and jen are doing something i couldn't do uh fun to work with them though fantastic because not only did they give me this opportunity they encouraged as you can see i like to talk about acting and stuff and characters and shit and and not everybody likes to hear about it yeah most people don't but uh they encouraged that in me they wanted uh me to have some insight understanding and um agency

and uh that that that was incredibly generous from a personal point of view but from like a you know cultural point of view what they're trying to do with this show i thought win lose or draw this is an effort i can be a part of hold my head up high you know sure yeah and the guy's a bonafide weirdo bonafide weirdo and i definitely relate to that and they didn't here's the other thing too is they didn't bat an eye at that they They loved it. And that's not an easy decision to make. You want to try to... Again, it's fine if he's complicated, but can he really be a weirdo?

And how far can I go with that weirdness? And also sexually ambiguous in a way. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yes, yes. Yeah, and maybe predatorial. You can't tell. tell i mean there's so and every time i would try because i would see it in the script and i often have this reaction i'll see something that i think it's very clear this is what this is the what this is obviously

what the story is going for and then we do the first table read and people be like, you really want to play him like that? And I'm like, Oh no, no, I don't. I just, I was trying to do the job. Sorry. What was I supposed to be doing? My bad. I just, I come to things from angles. That's I apologize. And this was one where the first table read, they were like, I don't know who that weirdo is, but let's keep rolling with that. And I was kind of like ashamed inside because I was thinking, I was just trying to do what you wrote. Because to me, it was so vivid. I wasn't trying to invent something off the page, ripping with my improvisation. I was word perfect.

Yeah. That was your interpretation of it.'s how you understood him that's how i understood because how i i didn't know i didn't know one there's there's three people that that influenced uh the character um and one of them it certainly had one of the um bigger brains of any of my friends that I've encountered. And when he starts to talk and when he goes into a tangent that involves some new insight that he's arrived at, he giggles and he giggles to himself just at like the, isn't my brain wild the way that it works? The discovery of it. The discovery of it is delightful to him you know

and i thought that would be a really disarming and interesting way for cory to talk about his ideas not dictatorial but isn't this crazy that the world is falling apart and it has given us this opportunity now to totally reshape things you know like that that to me um was a really interesting uh component to add to it and so i was laughing from the beginning and to me at that point it had seemed obvious but i had to back up and then tell them why after a while because they were like why does he laugh so much yeah and did they and they liked it loved it yeah yeah um as long as you had they did there was like a quiz they wanted you to have an answer if you didn't have an answer

if you're going to be taking swings like that you better have an answer and it's exciting that you got the nomination that's exciting yeah that was wild so what's happening I mean it's so fucked up because you know everything's on hold and we don't know when we're going to get the next season of anything

you guys hear anything we were two weeks into working when they shut us down. And, um, no, you know, it's like everybody else. Yeah.

We're going to start working again in June. Okay. Well, it's August. Did we do it? Cause I don't remember shooting it. I got to get the fucking tests that we can do in the morning and no in an hour.

Yeah. I think that's, uh, hasn't that just been proved by the FDA, the, uh, saliva tests that the NBA and Yale, um, uh, put together. I think that's,'t that just been proved by the FDA, the saliva test that the NBA and Yale put together. I think that's that's one of those that you can. It's pretty cheap and you can do a lot of them.

So working. Well, it's been approved and whether or not they can, you know, apply it. I don't know what kind of resources they have or what kind of infrastructure is in place to manufacture them because there's going to be a lot of tests but i have a feeling i think apple's got the bread to uh put into getting a testing for they do they've got to have a community though that is going to comply because the virus doesn't give a shit so if our community uh if it continues to circulate in the community i don't care how strong your fortress is um it's i it's shown a lot of evidence that it's going to get in there yeah fucking half a country full of morons i mean yeah just it you know living in new york uh and being going going uh through this here in new york and obviously the first thing you want to do is try to understand it so you can protect the people around you you know explain to my son and tell him why our strategy is this

and why we're doing certain things and um navigate it um it collectively with his mom and you know your keep your all of that stuff it's so I was watching that shit all the time trying to understand and getting as many updates and the best that I can tell is that the simple stuff that people are telling you works enough. Like change your behavior a little bit. Don't wash your hands. You pig. Wash your hands. And by the way, I was germ forward before this.

I was like, you know, let let you let them lick the sidewalk. It'll build up your immunity. It's like, yeah, that's them lick the sidewalk. It'll build up your immunity and stuff. Yeah, that's good for the stuff that we knew about before. This one is new. That's what novel means. It's new. So we don't know how to deal with this one. So it's happening. We're managing this in real time. And, you know, masks being politicized and people like feeling infringed upon. It's just something I can't relate to because I've been in New York and I saw what was happening in our community before people started doing this shit. And I've seen what's happened with the numbers since then. And I've seen the protests. I've seen people gather. I've

seen people at restaurants. And the fact that the numbers haven't continued to spike um here gives me some reasonable um i think understanding that this shit works like it it's not we haven't cured anything but we're able to do more because it's not circulating everywhere and if you keep it from circulating everywhere you can kind of do some stuff but not not everybody is in on that game believe me i'm living i'm in los angeles it's a fucking clusterfuck it's like no one's gonna no one's gonna take my summer away from me it's like yeah literally you're gonna take your future you're gonna take your future away from you yeah i don't want to be in my apartment anymore i mean you know like and and i don't have to be now in the same way it it it really um it's bouncing back a little over there yeah no well we'll see what happens i mean it's something

you know you want to i i look man it's it's getting a little crazy, and maybe we'll get through it. I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. And the way you expressed it is exactly how it feels in me on my best days. It is literally like my best days. It is literally like my best days. In fact, I thought about calling you earlier today because I couldn't sleep last night. I couldn't sleep the night before. There's so many different things going on to say,

listen, I've heard your show and you're insightful. You like to talk. You're articulate. I want to be there with you. I didn't sleep much last night because this is a crazy fucking time. Can we reschedule this? But then I was like, you can't do that to him, man.

You might as well just go in there and ramble. And look how lucid and rambly you were with no sleep. It's great. We got it. We got it all covered. God, please cut it together like one of my no it's great like to do with my performances it was fun talking to you man i'm glad you did it hey great talking to you i'll see you around maybe we can hang out when we get through this shit i i would love that okay buddy i love your

show man keep it going great talk we were moving had a good clip to it good clip to it uh once again billy is nominated for outstanding supporting actor in a drama series at the emmys this year you can watch all of season one of the morning show on apple tv plus i have no music for you just sort of I have no music for you. Just sort of take a deep breath in. Breathe out. In through your nose. Feel the universal hum. Can you feel it?

Happy birthday, Lynn Shelton. I miss you. Boomer lives! So does Monkey and LaFonda and all the cat angels everywhere. Oh no! It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

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