WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1154 - J.K. Simmons

Episode Date: September 3, 2020

J.K. Simmons faced a tough balancing act when his lifelong nonchalance about awards for acting came up against him becoming the runaway favorite to win an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. J.K. and Marc talk about how he reconciled that contradiction with help from Jason Reitman and how his late-blooming Hollywood career helped him maintain perspective. They also talk about his time on stage in Seattle, Broadway and regional theaters across the country, his fear of being typecast when he was on Oz, and the big shift that happened when he made Juno. 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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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fucknics? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast. How are you? Are you doing all right man i've got to assume that everyone's tired of this shit and by shit i mean this fucking president anyway today on the show i talked to uh well i'm

gonna talk to jk simmons the actor you know him he was in Whiplash, Juno, Oz, Law & Order. He just did a movie called Palm Springs with Andy Samberg. He's on the Apple TV Plus series defending Jacob right now. He's an upfront dude, man. Straight ahead. Straight forward. No bullshitting. So that's happening.

That's going to happen. You're going to hear that happen in your head gotta confess i uh i did something crazy i really i did something crazy and i don't i'm fucking gonna have to get another test because i don't know if it was worth risking my life for but i went and had my car washed can you fucking believe that what is wrong with me man i went and had my car washed. Can you fucking believe that? What is wrong with me, man? I went and had my car washed. I took it to the place.

It's not as good as it used to be, but that was before COVID even. They sold it and no one goes there anymore, but whatever. Watch it go through the machine just like old days, just like old times. That weird, strange feeling of pride as if you're doing something watching your car go

through the machine through the brushes thinking like look at that look what i'm this is great i'm doing something i'm out in the world then it goes out and the guys dry it and then they open the door and they get in your car other human beings that I don't know getting in my car to wash it, to clean it in my car, but everyone's wearing masks. And when they got done, I walked over, I tipped them. I kept all the doors open. Then I opened all the windows. And then I brought with me a spray bottle filled with alcohol and I sprayed the inside of the car a bit, misted it with alcohol, drove away quickly with my mask on, with alcohol fumes kind of filling the car and then air coming in from the outside. I think I got away. I think I got away with it.

I don't know. Uh-oh. Where's the thermometer? Where's the fucking thermometer? Quick. Where's the fucking thermometer? Quick. You guys, look, I'm grieving the loss of a loved one.

And I know a lot of you people are up to your fucking necks with your loved ones. You've had it. You're at the end of your goddamn rope with your loved ones. Because how could you not be? I mean, when is this shit going to stop? How much can you take of your loved ones? Am I right? Cherish every moment.

That I can tell you right now from somebody who is dealing with loss. And that's not an unusual thing to say, but it's hard, you know, the cherishing every moment, the living every moment, the being grateful for every moment, the sort of like, make sure you know how amazing it is to be alive. Warren Zevon said, enjoy every sandwich.

Fine. But five months of sandwiches? Come on. It would take a fucking saint. i right i'm sorry what i meant to say is like i know things are difficult for some of you in terms of you know the stress of proximity but i also think that probably some of you are going pretty deep you're going pretty deep probably deeper than you ever imagined possible with your significant others with your children with yourself but again five months is a long time

and maybe we've all it's time to rappel out it's time to climb back out gone deep enough let's get back to some surface shit god i got to assume that people are just just just craving passing attention from strangers even just the feeling of walking by some people at the mall and you can see their faces remember i imagine some of us are missing behavior that borders on inappropriate you looking at me yeah mild flirtations office crushes you can hang in there we're okay we're okay all right talking to lipsight last night we have our nightly phone call, me and Lipsight. Sam got a new book out. We're just riffing, talking about public bathrooms because he went out into the world for the first time in months to his office. I fucking used a bathroom on the way home from Albuquerque at a rest area in the Mojave Desert, man. Just a bunch of trucks parked in the lot.

People coming and going. Had to go. Yeah, and I had to do that one. Yep. Who knows? But I think I'm okay with the COVID. No one was in there. Door was open.

Had my mask on. Dad, those little things that you put on the toilet seat. I don't know what that stops. covet is not the issue they're gonna get some sort of like trucker butt and we started trucker eczema we just started riffing on what one could possibly get from a trucker's ass and uh i came up with the winning answer and that was rig chiggers gotta watch out for those rig chiggers that's you sit on the trucker toilet you can get some rig chiggers winner bing bing bing uh cried to sam rockwell i did that i went down into the bunker at dreamworks to record some uh voiceover stuff for uh this movie that i'm doing animated movie bad guys it's me and sam rockwell

and uh aquafina and i believe craig robinson now and but you rarely read with the people but they like when me and sammy read together and i met Sammy a couple of times and I've interviewed him. And he was in a Lynn Shelton movie and I hadn't seen or talked to him since then. And it wasn't that he was there. They fed him in on video. It's very clean there. No one was there. I was the only one.

There's a sound engineer, the guy who walked me down into the bunker and me. Very clean, very safe. And they brought Sammy in on the video. And then you got the producers on. You got director on you got the sound guy on you got the um like five or six people on and I saw Sammy and he said you know how you doing and he's talking about Lynn and I just lost it I started crying it's hard Sammy it's hard he Sammy. It's hard. He said, I know, man. I can't imagine. Had some time with Sammy in front of all those people.

And sadly, they're not going to be able to use it for the character. The sort of criminal snake character I'm playing, there's no use for tears. So we don't have a blowout moment. Nope. But stay strong be there for each other it's important i'm here by myself it's not great don't love it dealing with it don't like it scary somehow is it though is that what it is loneliness is loneliness scary no it's not so much that it's scary it's just sort of like okay i guess i'm just gonna walk over here now and eat this

all right look at me i'm sitting on my couch it's my couch i like my couch this is a good couch i'm glad i got rid of that old couch i guess i'll just watch this movie that's on in the middle. I guess I'll watch it. I feel like I just watched Munich. So chewy. Chewy. Oh, God. Okay. All right.

So, listen. Let's do this now. J.K. Simmons, the actor, is in this Apple TV Plus show, Defending Jacob. That's on now. Palm Springs, the film, is streaming on Hulu. And this is me talking to J.K. Simmons. Coming up. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply.

J.K. Mark. Is that what people call you? That's what they say to you? They go, hey, J.K.? Yes. Generally speaking, there are a variety of nicknames that people who've known me you know more than 40 years might use but uh we haven't we haven't known each other that long so you know

we've known each other literally 30 seconds i think roughly but no one calls you by your name name no i don't get a lot of jonathan or uh except actually that's it's a good thing too because when i get you know a random phone call and it says, or email or whatever, it says Jonathan, then I know it's going to be BS. Right. That guy doesn't know me. Yeah. Not reading that shit. When did, but when did you become JK?

How does that happen? I've, I've never gotten that. I've never gotten abbreviated or I kind of wish I I kind of wish I had a nickname. How does that happen? It happened, actually. Every time I joined an actor's union, they would take away part of my name because somebody else already had it. So by the time I finally got around to joining SAG for a job that I ended up not doing and paying money that I could not afford on my regional theater actor

salary to join SAG and have my name taken away. I just, JK actually kind of made sense. My father had occasionally called me JK or Jake when I was a kid. Jake. And yeah, I still, yeah, that's one of the nicknames that some of the old pals call me, actually. I like that. Jake's a good name. I gave it away, yeah. So literally, when he signed up for the union, they're like, no, we got a Jonathan Simmons. We got a John Simmons. We got a Jonathan K. Simmons. Jay Kimball Simmons.

Yeah, all taken. None of them popular actors. That's the thing is all your names are taken, but you don't know who the fuck those guys are yeah well but you know maybe they're making a living somewhere uh well that's true that's i mean yeah doing what i was doing for 20 years before anybody heard of me i know it's like it's sort of astounding that you uh you hung in and seemingly uh didn't get miserable and bitter and resentful but i don't know you that well and and uh perhaps i try to keep that only in private only for those near and dear to me so i so i only really annoy you know the uh the close people yeah

that's how you test your family that's what absolutely yeah but i mean where did you where did you come from uh born in detroit on well okay say Grosse Pointe, but then people see mansions. So I was born in the slums of Grosse Pointe, Detroit adjacent, and then spent several years in central Ohio growing up, and then a few years in Montana, went to college there. So you don't remember Detroit? You would think Detroit would have been something. I mean, I was 10 years old when we left. They're still a big Tigers fan and all that. But it's really, it's mostly a baseball team to me at this point. We don't really have any family or friends back there anymore. Yeah, I'm always curious to talk to people from Detroit in its heyday. Because it sounded like the industrial period of Detroit must have been amazing. But then just the rock and roll period must have been amazing. Yeah, I was 10. So my rock and roll period must have been amazing. Yeah, I was 10.

So my rock and roll period was in the suburbs of Columbus when my dad was teaching at Ohio State. Oh, yeah? I did have a couple of bands. You were in bands? Yeah, sure. Well, a duo and a trio. I was very acoustic and very mediocre.

very acoustic and and and very mediocre uh-huh um we we wrote some some original cry and die and going away love songs and stuff and did a lot here was this how old were you was this the 60s yeah 68 69 70 yeah you know early mid-teens um long hair do you have the long hair i had the hair i had the had the beard as soon as I can grow it. You know, the beard coming in. Yeah. Sure. Oh yeah. I went from, went from jock to hippie freak, uh, at about that age. Yeah. Just, just had to happen to blew out my knees, which was, which was a blessing in disguise. And, you know, I was like, okay, football wasn't, you know, quite as fun as I was pretending it was anyway. So I'm just gonna turn on tune in drop out and play play rock and roll so you started as uh like a jockey guy i started as a lousy guitarist

singer songwriter and uh and then yeah when i got out of high school i ended up uh i thought I was super cool, and I got a gig at Ohio University as a disc jockey on not even the campus radio station. It was each green at its own tiny little radio station that basically broadcast to three different dorms. So I was doing the graveyard shift, doing my progressive rock, playing entire album sides of Emerson and Palmer's first album. For 12 people. so i was doing the graveyard shift doing my progressive rock you know playing like entire album sides of emerson palmer's first album for 12 people who might have been awake 12 was optimistic yeah but that was great well it's so funny because when i said jockey i thought like

i was talking about football so you you blew out your knees in high school so that was behind you and then we end up you know turns out you know you're a long-haired uh yeah but you're not even going to the college you just got a gig being the, but you're not even going to the college. You just got a gig being the DJ. No, no, no. I was going to the college. I snaggled a way to get out of high school a year early, actually, and started at OU when I was just such a child, you know, now looking back.

Were you playing coffee houses? My friend and I had played coffee houses. My friend Randy and I had played coffee houses in high school. Right. And we were at OU together, but didn't really continue that. At least we didn't get any gigs. I don't remember if we kind of still strummed around a little bit. Do you remember when Kent State happened?

Oh, all too vividly, yeah. I would have been a freshman in high school, I guess, 1970 in Columbus, you know, at Ohio State. And we had, I mean, and there were things going on there, not, you know, with the same awful consequences. But, you know, a lot of student protests and stuff going on there. And, you know, the cops shooting beanbags at people and quelling the crowd. And your dad, he taught there? My dad taught at Ohio State for several years before he went out and became the head honcho at the University of Montana.

Not head honcho, not like president of the university. I mean, he was head of the music department. Well, I mean, let's not diminish that. That's very important. No, no, no. It was a great gig for him. And Montana was a beautiful thing for our whole family of five. And then six, ultimately, with my mom's mom ended up joining us when our grandpa passed away. And we had a whole Waltons thing going on there for a while.

How many siblings do you have? Older sister, younger brother. So my little brother was in high school. My sister and I both transferred to University of Montana, and we all ended up graduating from there. We lived under one roof again after my sister and I had both been away from home for another two or three years. it seems with the parental draw in that it seems like that they were encouraging of the arts and that there wasn't there couldn't have been much resistance, given that that was your dad's job. Yeah. And they had met in college, actually, in a musical theater production kismet, as it turns out, literally. And so, yeah, yeah, they were they definitely encouraged us. And we all, you know, at least dabbled in the arts and performing arts. Did your mom stay in the arts?

Well, she stayed in the arts as an administrator for a while at Ohio State, and then with the Arts Council in Montana, and then more in the business sector after that. after that. But yeah, they were always big supporters and, and continued to, you know, leave a real legacy in that way in, in Missoula, Montana. Missoula. I just talked to somebody else from Missoula. Who the hell was that? Dana Carby. Is he from there?

Yeah. That's the one guy, you know? Well, he, I don't even, we haven't even met, but he grew up there. I didn't, I didn't move there until I was in college. I always pictured Montana to be a beautiful. It is indeed. indeed uh don't don't don't tell anybody else though because they don't want more people there do you have a place there still or anything no we yeah we've thought off and on over the years about getting a place but we just you know we go there almost every summer and visit and uh either missoula or up on the lake and uh started doing my summer theater

there so i have a lot of friends i've had for you know 40 years or more now that uh that we go back and and uh have little mini reunions oftentimes in the summer up there it is it is beautiful yeah i gotta get up there before i don't know someday when we can when we can all move freely if that day ever comes. I noticed on the credits, I was looking at some of your credits, that you've already done a voiceover for a COVID informational video. Yeah, that was weird because it's a Netflix show called Explained where they explain different scientific things, things you know rocket science you know right um and i did

and this was over a year and a half ago now like more than a year before covid hit the united states the uh the topic was pandemics in general yeah and and the thrust of the show that i narrated was was kind of like hey we're not ready uh oh wow could be maybe we should be but not not just the u.s nowhere i mean the world is not ready for what the scientists kept saying was you know an inevitability a not if but when kind of scenario and then oh yeah shortly shortly after it happened here we uh we did a little uh home recording uh update and made it a little more uh you know coronavirus specific so it was uh not a happy recording session but uh hopefully a helpful one where are you holed up uh we're holed up in la now we were all our kids are in college in new york

yeah so uh my wife and i uh stalking them as all good parents do at that age right uh we had well we had met in new york and done broadway and you know sure uh love new york so so we got a place in new york a little over a year ago and the four of us were there just at the time when new york became the epicenter so we uh got out i i rode my bike on the last day before everything just shut down every non-essential thing shut down i uh i rode a bike to queens and uh got a minivan through my bike in the back of it it went back to our apartment, and threw a bunch of junk in there. Our son, we were pretty sure, had been exposed. Well, he had been exposed.

Turns out he didn't have the virus, but we thought he did. So my wife went full-on MacGyver and manufactured this, like, boy-in-a-bubble kind of thing for him with a bunch of old plastic recycling and duct tape that we had. Really? Stuck him in the third row of the minivan. And the four of us pedaled to the metal from New York to LA in about two days. With the kid in a bubble?

With the boy in the bubble and the girl up as far away as she could be from the bubble in the passenger seat and me doing most of the driving. Oh, my God. My wife partly documenting some of it. And then, you know, when we stopped for gas once, she commandeered the driver's seat and made me take a break. But, yeah, I mean, we just got out. And, of course, now we're in the new epicenter in southern california so yay well the i guess there's really no benefit other than it's easier to isolate here

in southern california yeah that's definitely the having a backyard and uh yeah i mean new york there's no way you can avoid anybody ever ever yeah there you know that was just built for uh you know spread but uh how that uh how'd your son feel when he found out he didn't have it and spent uh you know 42 hours on the road in a bubble and of course we couldn't you know testing was not available so we didn't find out until maybe two months later you know he and i both finally got tested and got tested for the antibodies and we were like what he didn't have his roommate had it and and you know do you get sick is he all right it's nice no the roommate still cannot smell or taste anything which a lot of people especially back then didn't know that was a one of, one of the symptoms. Oh God, it's just so fucking terrifying every day to be alive right now.

That's it's, it's just daunting. Yeah. Uh, daunting. That's a good word. Yeah. The good word,

the good news is Ben did not get really sick. The bad news is he can't smell or taste, but again, the good news is, you know, then why not eat nothing but broccoli and spinach if you can't taste it anyway. So he's been super healthy since then. Get in shape. time yeah there's no pleasure in eating so so might as well

get in shape yeah exactly now when did you shift from a bad singer songwriter into acting hey not just mediocre not bad i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Mediocre. I apologize. I transitioned from, you know, acoustic coffee house, James Taylor wannabe into classical Leonard Bernstein, Pavarotti wannabe and studying classical music in college, which is singing though, like opera. Yeah. Singing, composing, uh, which is singing though, like opera. Yeah. Uh, singing, composing,

conducting. Wow. Really? Uh, how are you, how are you at the site reading music? Good. Uh,

used to be adequate. Uh, you know, it's one of those muscles I haven't used in a long time. Although when, when whiplash came around, uh, whatever that was five years ago or so,

uh, Damien and I first met to talk about me doing that and uh and i had read the script and you know was you know not an idiot so i was in love with it but wanted to do it and the first thing he wanted to assure me was that uh that i shouldn't worry too much about the technical aspects of being a conductor and a musician and we could fake a lot of that and we'd have a body double and a technical advisor and all that and i was like dude i have a college degree in conducting and composing and singing he was like what so so that was i mean that was one of the coolest aspects of that gig especially as we were

doing it that's crazy You were the guy. Yeah. I was actually reading those charts and, you know, we were, and all the guys, all the musicians, and I say guys, because, you know, it was 99% guys. Right. Those were all actors slash musicians. They weren't, you know, the music we were making isn't as great as the final mix sounds. But during all those band scenes, we were really cranking out the tunes

and I wasn't just waving my arms around. I actually kind of knew what I was doing. Right, and it's interesting because it's probably not something, the effort it would take to fake well would have been extraordinary. Yeah, that's always been one of my growing list of pet peeves that you see in films

is somebody playing a baseball player who clearly has never swung a bat until he picked it up to do that. Or musicians. I mean, conductors and musicians. I mean, it's such a hard thing to fake. It really is. Because you're usually playing, obviously, a character who performs at a high level. I just did a film. I played Jerry Wexler in this upcoming Aretha Franklin film with Jennifer Hudson.

So there's all the Muscle Shoals scenes. And they hired to play Spooner and Dave and all those guys. They hired real musicians. So all the dudes could play. That's a beautiful thing. That's the way to do it. It really is. It's not like they, and they, you know, they had a few lines.

There is, you are kind of, there's a balance to it. It's like, they're going to look like they're playing, but you don't want them to talk too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're the musician actor crossover rarely successful yeah yeah so so you study music and you're you're studying singing composing and is this like a and your

dad must be thrilled yeah yeah and i think i think you know it took me a while to wrap my brain around that that's what i really wanted to do because it just seemed so oh i want to be like daddy you know so which is why i didn't to be like daddy, you know? So, which is why I didn't gravitate towards it immediately, you know, when I was 16, 17, 18, but, uh, but yeah, yeah. Ultimately. And my brother, uh, my younger brother got a degree in music too. And he's a real Renaissance man, you know, singer, performer, writer, conductor, teacher, uh, all around world saver.

Oh, really? In Phoenix, Arizona. The UBUproject.org. And our sister, yeah, also dabbled in a lot and ended up having a career as a college professor. She just retired from University of Washington. How's your brother doing? That place is a COVID shit show right now. Yeah, well, I mean, like everybody else, he's doing a lot of Zoom and a lot of this and that.

And, you know, just hunkered down and trying to get through it. It's feeling more and more to me like hibernation here. And just, you know, waiting for spring, which will come, I guess, with the vaccine, I guess. Hopefully. I mean, people are definitely getting a little squirrely. I can tell you that. Yeah.

So, all right. So when do you start, where do you start training as an actor? Well, I did a musical theater, community theater production of Oliver when I was a music student, playing the pivotal role of the knife grinder. Uh-huh. And I had like an eight-bar solo. Very exciting.

And then the guy that directed that, an old pal, Jim Caron, was directing at this summer theater in Big Fork, Montana, looking for a music director. So I got the gig as the music director, and then they asked if I'd also audition for the shows, and I was unwisely cast as the lead in Brigadoon. Yeah. Because I could sing, and that was the beginning of me being a terrible but passionate and willing to learn young actor ah so we so not

mediocre but truly bad oh absolutely awful and uh and such a blessing that there's no video from those days but you could sing right i could sing and and i had hair uh and so i was you know i did a lot of sort of musical leading man things i was there for four four years uh during college and after college going back to the big fork summer playoffs uh doing my thing and learning and having some great mentors jim karen and todd peters and got to work with some some really wonderful directors who were sort of age appropriate and, and, you know, taught me how to be less terrible. So you mean as an actor? As, as an actor and a human being. Yeah.

And so like, did you, so like, cause I, like I, when I watch a lot of your roles and I've, I've watched your work, you seem to be like a sort of like you know like almost like a practical actor like it seems like you've got a set of tools that you apply and you transform your emotional spectrum appropriately and your intensity appropriately it seems like that you know it seems like you you you you lock in a certain way well and i've learned certainly from from a lot of people since then, too. I mean, up to and including Damien Chazelle and some of the great directors that I've had an opportunity to work with, Jason Reitman and the Coen brothers and Sam Raimi. So you learned something from all the directors. They actually mold you somehow.

I think so. Certainly back in my theater days you know working with jerry zacks on broadway and uh i mean i one of the things i preach and try to practice is uh you know i mean to be open to learning something new every day at work or every day whatever life so when was the so what is the sort of trajectory you were After Montana, where do you go to pursue acting? Really, a lot of people from Montana did what I did and went to Seattle, which was kind of the nearest, you know, big city with, especially at that time, you know, late 70s, a real burgeoning performing arts community there. Yeah. Stumbled into my union card, actor's equity card at Seattle Rep.

And I was in Seattle for almost five years before I finally got up the nerve to go try New York City. So Seattle Rep. And that was like you were just doing, you know, a rotation of plays. Well, it wasn't actually a repertory company by the time I got my card there. It was one show at a time. And I got my Equity card as an understudy in a production that I was never on stage in.

And then worked at a few different, I worked at Seattle Rep a few other times in small roles. And at ACT, there was a dinner theater there at the time, an equity dinner theater. So free food eight times a week. That was, you know. Yeah.

It was a great beginning and really equipped me well for, you know, another, even after I moved to New York, I was basically doing regional theater for another seven or eight years before I got my first Broadway show. And when like regional theater, generally those are, you know, what, what characterizes it? Is it just accessible productions for older people in, in other, that you bring it to them?

You're really selling it, man. Yeah. It's not just the blue hairs. It's, uh, uh, selling it, man. Yeah. Well, I hear it a lot. It's not just the blue hairs. I mean, look, every decent-sized city in the country has a professional theater going on with usually a combination of local actors and sometimes imported talent from New York, L.A., whatever. I mean, I went back to seattle and did a show there i worked in whatever atlanta austin buffalo but what would they hire you how did that work though you would just get cast yeah they would they would have casting sessions in uh in new york and la right right um and uh and i i got got to know enough different casting directors in New York got to know me that saw me in different ways.

You know, one guy would see me as the musical leading guy. One guy saw me as a, you know, Shakespeare guy. Another person saw me as, you know, so I actually was able to have a, you know, pretty well-rounded career as a theater actor, um, and not get pigeonholed too much. And, and yeah, I mean, you'd go back to New York, you'd wait tables or 10 bar or whatever, and, you know, uh, play softball in central park during the day and, and wait, you know, for another audition and get a gig, go to Buffalo for, you know, four weeks of rehearsal and a four week run and then go back and do it all over again. Yeah, I didn't like I didn't mean to come off as condescending.

I guess what I'm confusing certain things with like regional theater is really it's real theater. Every city's got its its its theater. And it's usually nine times out of 10. It's a well-operated, well, you know, sound structure, you you know that some some of them have been around forever and uh they're just doing real shows like i think i'm confusing it with uh like in my mind it was dinner theater where you're doing some sort of shtick with uh yeah yeah well which i certainly did there was you know some dinner theater as i already have confessed to uh right right mixed in there um where i did uh i played the third night from the left in camelot uh-huh yeah and also did a play uh an old chestnut called bell book and candle um

but uh but yeah no most of it was most of it was regional theaters you know doing doing really good work and believe me there's there you know well not right now i mean right now good lord stage actors are among you know the most devastated now i mean right now good lord stage actors are among you know the most devastated group in this because there there ain't no work for them and you can't even go pick up a gig you know attending bar waiting tables so right but uh but you know in a non-covid world uh you know there's thousands of actors that most people haven't seen you know making a living out there doing, uh, doing good work in regional theater.

And, and would you like, would you have, you considered yourself one of those actors for a good chunk of your life or? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. For five years in Seattle and then another 13 years or so. And then, and then I was, you know, a Broadway guy for five years, really. What were some of the big shows? Well,

the first one, first one, not a big one. Uh, it was, uh, it was a, uh, a little musical called a change in the air.

H E I R. Uh, subtitled a musical tale of good and medieval. Huh? And that was the funniest part of the show. The title. Yes. Okay.

It did not do well. In fact, the contract in those days, the production contract, the Broadway contract, you had a four-week out. You could give four weeks' notice, at least on the contract that we had. Yeah. And I ended up giving my four-weeks' notice

two weeks before we opened because the writing was on the contract that we had. And I ended up giving my four weeks notice two weeks before we opened because the writing was on the wall. That was terrible. Among other notable things about it, though, was it was the first time my wife saw me because the show was so terrible that they were papering the house, they call it, giving away free tickets to all the other Broadway shows to come on their night off. So my wife was doing Cats at the house, they call it, giving away free tickets to all the other Broadway shows

to come on their night off. So my wife was doing Cats at the time, an actual Broadway show. Yeah, I'll say. She was among the people who subjected themselves to an evening at A Change in the Air. And she saw this magnetic, incredibly good-looking, charismatic, sexy guy up there and uh lo and behold a couple of years later then i did a big revival of guys and dolls with uh jerry zacks and nathan lane and faith prince and peter that was a big show that was fun right oh it's huge still some of the most fun i've ever had in in the business or in life was uh rehearsals really in previews for that show and sitting around with that group of hilarious people listening to Jerry give notes. And that was really, really,

really fun. Yeah. And then I did a few good men. I did the Peter Pan revival, which is where I finally met my wife and Michelle Schumacher, by the way. Uh-huh. I was Captain Hook, and she was Tiger Lily. Oh, there you go. So we had kind of an illicit romance going on there. Uh-huh. Then a Neil Simon play, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, with a really fun cast, yeah. That was about a writer's room, right?

It was loosely based on the old Sid Caesar writer's room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was Nathan Lane. So Nathan and I did sort of two shows in a space of three years. Cause we did guys and dolls and then, and then laughter together. It's great cast John Slattery and loose. That guy's good.

Yeah. Yeah. Nathan's a great guy. I really like him. Really, really great guy. And, and so,

you know, so like so unusual, I mean, almost unique that there's a guy who's got a really, really great career as mostly a theater actor. I mean, obviously, Nathan's done a lot of really great TV and film stuff, too. But to be an actual theater star is know yeah that's really his thing yeah an unusual thing now yeah so now during all this broadway time you're going you're going to auditions right for tv well yeah no not really i mean i was really happy to be where i was and i'd never really even

thought about a career in television or film i i did once guys and dolls hit and we were i mean we were like the hit of the century it was crazy how long that run like a year no i ran like four plus years i mean uh you know most of us end up leaving you know for greener pastures after a while and no matter how big a hit you're in you know when you're doing your 414th performance it's it's a little like punching the clock at the factory you know is that how many you did i i don't well let's see from from the first rehearsal to when i left the show to move on was a year and a half i probably yeah yeah i probably did over 400 performances oh my god so how how does that how are you not like hearing that in your sleep oh dude yeah I mean, it gets into your head sometimes.

And even with laughter, which which we did for like just under a year, 11 months. And then but still, that's, you know, almost 400 because you're doing eight a week. So and then I did on tour again with my wife, Michelle Schumacher. Well, that must have made it better. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, that must have made it better. Yes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, we're banking double per diem. Are you kidding me?

We're shacked up. I mean, it was great. But it wasn't really until Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which was my last Broadway show in 94. I'm already pushing 40. And most of the people in that show, Nathan, John Slattery, Mark Lynn Baker. You know, most of those most of those actors had, you know, theater and screen. They've done a lot of television, huh? Yeah.

Yeah. And they were they were getting, you know, mailbox money, as we call it, you know, a residual check once in a while. And I was like, wow, that sounds pretty cool. residual check once in a while and i was like wow that sounds pretty cool so when that show uh put up the closing notice i i told my agent i didn't want to audition for any more plays i wanted to see if we could get some film and tv going and a couple of lucky breaks came along with a an episode of homicide life on the street tom fontana show that then led to Oz and Law and Order and all that. Well, I mean, what about like, yeah, it seems like if you live in New York and you've got any chops at all, you're going to end up on one of those procedurals at least a few times. Oh, you read every playbill you go, you know, yeah, you see, you know, television includes

Law and Order. Yeah. What about the films? What was the first film? First, the very first film was The Ref. Dennis Leary's movie? Dennis Leary film. And I had a-

Was that John Demme? Did he direct that? No, it was Ted Demme. Ted, right. Ted, right. Ted, yeah. His nephew. I remember that because that was a big break when, you know, I'm a comic.

So when he got that, we were all like, oh, man, Leary doing it all. Yeah. No, it was his first big movie star. Yeah. And he was great in it. And it was, yeah, it was a really terrifying and great experience because I was this, you know, I mean, I'm this whatever 40-ish, you know, average bald white guy. I don't look like it's my first rodeo but i was you know i was like i was shot out of a cannon of course ted i mean the directors you know i don't

know how much younger than i was at the time but uh you know grew up in the business and you know even even at that time felt like a seasoned pro uh my scenes uh some of my scenes were with a like a 14 year old actor who had done you know 14 films uh so it was a little bass ackwards uh in many ways yeah right but really fun experience and leary was great he was he was a really great guy so the tv though it's interesting because i think my first memory of you the one i can't get out of my head i don't know, it's interesting because I think my first memory of you, the one I can't get out of my head, I don't know if it's the first memory, but when you were tattooing a swastika on that guy's ass in a jail cell. Wasn't that sweet? Yeah, I mean

I'm never going to be able to shake that. And you know, this was my mother was so appalled because and this didn't make the final cut because of a rights issue I get, but as I was tattooing poor

Beecher's buttocks on that show, I was humming a little lullaby that my mother had sung to me when I was a little boy called Hush Little Baby, Don't You Cry. Hush little baby. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

Because I didn't want him to. my god that show was so heavy man uh so twisted and what was the name of that actor lee turkison good actor that guy beats a really good actor yeah i mean yeah i mean he's still working a lot and keeping busy and yeah i mean a lot of guys from that from that show i've uh you know stayed in touch with over the years that was a a long run that was a that was an intense show and that was an intense character i mean that must have been an education in and of itself to stay in that groove for that long yeah yeah it was a huge uh you know first of all you know put a lot of us on the map really for the first time. And

second of all, yeah, education in many ways. And really we got spoiled in a lot of ways too, because the way that show was run, you know, largely because of budget limitations, you know, the days where there was no over, I mean, well, it was overtime, but we didn't go over 12 hours. It was like 7am, the bell rings at 7pm, everybody goes overtime, but we didn't go over 12 hours. It was like 7 a.m. The bell rings at 7 p.m. Everybody goes home. Guys were still doing Broadway shows and Oz at the same time. No long waits in between shots.

It was like bang, bang, bang, set it up. Because we were shooting a 56, 7, 8 minute show in a 7 day shoot. So yeah, we're shooting 9, 10 pages a day a lot of the time. Oh my God, that's a lot. You'd get a take in and they'd go,

okay, did anything fall on anybody's head? I mean, let's move on. So then when you get onto a big film where they're actually, you know, taking two and a half hours to set up the lighting and doing nine takes of something, you're like, oh, my God. It's tedious, right? Yeah, absolutely.

So where did they shoot? Did they shoot that at Silver Cup? Where did they shoot Oz? No, I don't know if Silver Cup even existed then. Well, it probably did. No, we shot the first. We did six seasons. The first four we shot at the Flower Warehouse in Chelsea.

Oh, weird. On 9th Avenue. So they just built sets in there? They just rented the whole top floor of that warehouse, which was not anything like what it is today. I mean, it was just a few florists on the ground floor and a bunch of mostly unused offices. And, of course, had a handshake deal with the landlord.

Hey, if the show's a hit, don't worry, I won't screw you. So four years later, he tries to screw Fontana. And so the last two years, yeah, we're going to quadruple the rent. What do you say? The last two years, we shot on a pier in lovely Bayonne, New Jersey.

Bayonne! I was riding my bike to work. My wife and I, we got married the year before Oz started. Yeah. I'm riding my bicycle to work. We're having an hour walk away at lunch and you can actually walk away and go to one of the, you know, hundreds of restaurants in the neighborhood and,

you know, run off and do a voiceover audition, you know, in between shots. And then, and then, you know, the last two years were marooned on an old military barracks in bayonne it's so odd that like he chose to do it that way over a soundstage i guess for for budgetary reasons yeah i mean it was it was cheap rent it was uh and honestly now that i think of it was probably just because fontana could walk to work from there because uh he was he was he still lives in the neighborhood so and then what do you think was the, like, so that puts you on the map.

So what do you think was the big kind of film break for you? Because I remember, I think it was probably Juno for me in terms of remembering, you know, like, who's that guy? Well, that was huge. I mean, God bless Jason Reitman.

I was in his first movie, which is an underseen and I think maybe underappreciated movie called Thank You for Smoking. That's a good movie. Who's that blonde guy? What was the lead guy? Aaron Eckhart. Aaron Eckhart, yeah.

That put Jason on the map and justifiably so. Obviously, he grew up in the business. He'd made a bunch of short films. And, uh, you know, that was another one of those experiences where I was kind of like, you know, still felt like a kid, like a beginner as a, as a film actor. And this guy, who's, you know, I mean, I basically could be his father, you know, is, is like a mentor to me. He's got a good pace on those movies. There's like, um, yeah, he's got, he definitely got a good feel for it.

Absolutely. And, and, and makes, I mean, you sort of, you know, can tell a Jason Reitman film, but he also doesn't, you know, he doesn't repeat himself, though, in sort of the obvious ways, you know. So, you know, each one is really its own unique self. And before Juno came along, he had no intention of directing any script that he hadn't written himself. But then he read Diablo's brilliant script for Juno and actually handed it to me at a poker game, handed me the script back in the days when people handed people scripts. said, and I had sort of welcomed him into an established poker game at that time because I asked him if he played

poker and he said, not really. And I said, perfect. You're in. Bring a lot of money. Of course, like after the first four times he played with us, he became one of the best players at the table because he's just a super smart, annoying guy. But he handed me the script and said you got to read this it's great

and didn't say you know i'd like you to play the dad you know yeah so i read the script and i'm and i'm falling in love with the part of mac mcguff you know uh and uh but then thinking well let's be realistic you know he's gonna get to get some big movie star to play that part. So maybe this one scene part or that one scene part. And then I called him the next day or a couple of days later. And I was just trying to sort of chat. So, hey, man, how's it going? That's a pretty good script.

And he was like, dude, we want you to play Mac McGuff. I was like, oh, yeah. He and Dan Dubecki were putting that together at the time. And really, they went out on a real limb, casting both Ellen Page and me, because Jason knew when he read the script that he wanted me, he wanted Ellen, he wanted Allison Janney, he wanted Michael Cera jenny yeah he wanted

michael cera i mean he knew most of the cast in his head already and he also knew that it would be a hard sell because the producers wanted you know the young pop star you know at the time who was oh really becoming a a film actor and they wanted you know they wanted somebody established you know yeah yeah play to play my part and right um so uh so ellen and i and ellen was just coming off that movie is it hard candy this that were this horrible i mean great film where she had played this this victim of this kidnapping who'd been starved and she was i I mean, she's already a tiny little, you know, 97 pound thing, but she had starved herself. And I mean, she looked like hell probably 87 pounds. And and she and I did a full on old school screen test together.

And, you know, Jason went and, you know, sold us to the powers that be, the money people. And, you know and we got to make the movie. Yeah, and that was obviously huge in my career because I had done some kind of high-profile stuff like the Spider-Man movies where I was this over-the-top, you know, screaming guy, and people knew me as the bad guy from Oz and stuff. So it was a great opportunity,

and especially when Juno became what it became. Yeah, to see, yeah, the kinder, gentler side of whoever that bald white guy is. Yeah, I thought it was. And also there was something unique about the language of that movie. There was a patter to it. Oh, brilliant, brilliant colloquialism

that Diablo created that was, and that Ellen, you know, and the rest of the, especially the young actors, you know, really ran with so brilliantly. Yeah, it was great. Everybody was great. It did sort of, it was, I was happy to see you in that role. Yeah, I was traumatized by Oz on some level. I watched it every week and it was a relief to me that you weren't a monster, but it took you about, it took about a decade for you to erase whatever Oz did to me in terms of how I looked at you. Well,

and that was, that was one of the things that, you know, when, when, when they first asked me to do Oz and I, I realized what a huge opportunity it was, but I also realized,

you know, if this takes off, it's going to be hard I also realized, you know, if this takes off, it's going to be hard for me to, you know, get away from. Right. And hard for me to do anything other than the Nazi bastard of the week on every, you know, procedural. And I actually expressed that to Fontana in a meeting. And after he got done looking at me like, are you kidding me? You know, like this guy that's making, you know, $400 a week, you know, is thinking of turning down this career changing opportunity. He said, look, I understand that. I appreciate that.

That's, you know, really smart and forward thinking of you. And he said, I'll tell you what, sign the contract, sign the six year deal. He said, shake my hand, and if you ever want out, I will kill your character off the next day. Really? Just between you and me. So it's a win-win. I want you to do it, and I want you to feel comfortable doing it.

And then the other blessing was months after we finished the first eight episodes of Oz, it was only eight episodes per season. They asked me to play the shrink on Law and Order. So I'm playing the psycho here and the psychiatrist there. And right away, audiences that had never seen me before, or at least some audiences are seeing, you know, two very different characters that I'm doing. So that helped me not get pigeonholed the rest of my life.

Yeah. Right. And you become a character actor, not just a lunatic. Yeah, exactly. Which is far preferable. Yeah. But, uh, when, what was the first Coen brother movie you did? Uh, I had auditioned for them a couple of times, uh, didn't get hired yeah although one time there was a film that they had offered me a part in but yeah but because of oz the part was to play this you know southern racist nazi you know and i was like i just know i can't i can't i cannot do that please maybe this part that part the other part yeah even smaller parts because I was dying to work with them, but, but they have such a specific vision, you know?

So that one didn't work out. And then I auditioned for the lady killers and, and they put me through the ringer. They put me through a ringer every time those guys, because, because they always have such a specific vision in their minds of, of everything. I mean, when they're writing the script, they're already in their minds. They're in the editing room doing the final cut.

They're so thorough and brilliant. So I was very different physically from what they saw the character as in The Lady Killers. But they kept coming back around to me. but they kept coming back around to me, you know, and, uh, and finally the last time I auditioned, uh, it was the two of them, you know, you know, sitting on a couch in a hotel suite somewhere, I guess, LA probably. And I, and I read, you know, two or three of the main scenes for my character, uh, Garth pancake. Yeah. And, um, and, uh, you know, I, I did the last scene and,

and they sat there and, you know, looked at me for a beat. They looked at each other for a beat. And then, and then Joel, he goes, well,

damn it, JK. That's exactly right. Okay. All right. Yeah, I guess. And I was like,

Oh gee, well, thanks. That's, uh, and, uh and uh you know i mean that was one of the best times i ever had because tom hanks was such an awesome you know sort of movie star slash team leader you know to be doing that with and and the four of us who were playing the uh the gang of you know misfit kn knuckleheads all had a great time together. And as usual, as I found out, as usual,

I did a little part in Burn After Reading. I remember that. That was a funny part. A really funny part that, like, considering that I did the whole thing in one day, really paid off brilliantly. The scenes with David Rashi and myself were just, like, just teed up everything in the entire movie for us to get to pay them off.

Yeah. There's a couple of great beats in there. You know, when you, when you have to troubleshoot the situation, that's very funny. Yeah. Yeah. And do you, I mean, do you make a, how do you, do you make a big differentiation when you know that something's written to be funny? You just got to play it straight. really oh yeah i mean certainly the vast majority of the time yeah um yeah yeah i mean if if if the intention isn't there if it isn't you know grounded is the sort of actory word you know uh then then it's just you know what what do you mean silly and unbelievable right teach me the grounded the grounded one. The intention has to be grounded in reality or in the character? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, both. Right. I mean, you still have to have an objective. You still have to have something that you're after and some place that you're coming from and some place that you hope you're going. Right.

And if that's not a part of the, not even necessarily the style but but the substance of of what you're doing that it's just you know you can laugh at stuff but but if you're going to be with these characters you know especially for you know an hour and a half or two hours in a feature film if if you don't believe them and care about them yeah why would you it's going to get pretty old after a while it's so it's so funny because so many comic so many comedies like big comedies just just throw that whole conceit of character in the garbage in the third act and i find it annoying yeah that you know what i mean it's weird yeah yeah yeah like you know you're going with it you're like all right i'm

gonna suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy this thing. And then like, what's happening now? This is stupid. Yeah, I don't. Why are, how are they now on the moon? Yeah, it's not supposed to matter at that point. But working with the Coens, though, they, it's, so the primary takeaway is they know exactly, you know, what they want. Oh, dude, and they're so low keykey and obviously just genius and brilliant, and that line of dark comedy zany like the lady killers or, or burn after reading and, uh, and do what are really vastly different films. But, but if you think about it, have a very similar sensibility and just like being low key,

cool guys to be on the set with. I think sometimes actors have a difficult time with them at first because they don't do that thing after a take where they come up and go, great. That was, oh, that was great. That was great. Yeah. Yeah. That was great. You know, they just, they just come up and they kind of, they kind of stand there and they go, okay, let's, let's do the next, you know, and if you're, if you're one of those actors whose ego like really needs that feedback, you're in the wrong place.

You're working with the wrong guys. Yeah. But but there are a lot of actors that do that. I mean, a lot of directors, I guess, like you said earlier, that you learned a lot from a lot of these directors. I mean, most of the time directors, when they hire an actor, they're like they know exactly what they want that actor to do. They're hiring you because of what you do. You know, they're exactly what they want that actor to do. They're hiring you because of what you do. You know, they're not there to teach you how to do it. They want you to show up ready to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And whether it's, whether you're,

you know, like when I was beginning and they're looking at you on tape, you know, and going, yeah, that's it. Or whether it's, you know, you're an established guy. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're certainly not, you know, they're not in the business of they're not you know college professors they're not in the business of teaching but yeah but there's this idea i guess i i had a naive idea that you know you it's a some sort of collaborative process where they're you're helping you make choices or i mean i guess some of them guide you if you're not hitting it right but most of the time it's like do the thing and like yeah do it different yeah but but where the brilliance lies in a guy like a Jason Reitman or Sam Raimi, the Coen brothers, is those little adjustments where, you know,

you're obviously, you know, you're in the ballpark or you wouldn't be there to begin with, you know. But they're not getting exactly what they want. And the communication, the way they're able to communicate and get out of. And that was one of the things I noticed about Jason in the first film we did together was his ability to deal with a vast range of actors, you know, some really established, some young and nervous and, you know, this and that, you know know some more open to direction than others and you know and and really able to uh to effectively communicate and get his point across with with anybody and

that to me uh probably the because i'm not all that visual a guy i don't i don't appreciate you know the brilliant cinematography and the and and the creative vision, you know, as much as some movie people do to me, that's that communication, that ability to communicate with a wide variety of actors is the main attribute that I really respect and admire and appreciate. Sure. Right. Right. So that they can, you know, you're all, it is a collaborative work to honor the vision of the director and the writer and, you know, or how they interpret the work. So, you know, if they can sort of in a nuanced way and in a, you know, an encouraging way, make that thing come together.

I mean, that's the whole trick, you know, where they're not an asshole, you know, because you hear a lot. they're not an asshole you know because you hear a lot you hear and not being not being that is a big part of it too yeah which is another another common thread between the directors that i that i first of all have really enjoyed working with and second of all have worked with multiple times and you've worked with some assholes no never not in show business i wasn't gonna ask names i was just gonna ask if if, of course. Yes. Yes. And, you know, I mean, I mean, you know, directors, actors, I mean, you know, craft services guy. I mean, you know, they're everywhere.

Yeah, you throw the craft services guy under the bus. By and large, I've been fortunate and, you know, mostly been surrounded by people that you don't mind being surrounded by when you're working for 12 13 14 hours a day yeah and like i i have to assume that well obviously but like to get a fucking i don't know why i'm saying fuck so much with you but it happens to get an oscar you know for whiplash at you know at you know at that age after that life you've led that must have been like just the best thing in the fucking world yeah it was all right oh come on come on no it was uh i mean honestly i've had this uh this sort of stick in my rear for for my whole life about about the whole concept of awards, you know, and for creative, artistic things. Yeah, I get it.

And, you know, and nobody, I mean, you know, with a few small exceptions, you know, nobody had ever really been wanting to shower me with them anyway. I'm in the same boat, buddy. And I got the same attitude about them. They're bullshit, right? They're bullshit. they know what do they know so uh i mean honestly i was you know when that whole thing was just taking off and we we were the you know the bell of the ball at sundance and all that uh which i didn't even go to uh but uh but i was talking to you know the powers that be uh the the sony classics guys uh uh tom and michael about you know this is what's going to happen and there's going to be all this and

it's going to get a lot of attention and there's probably going to be nominations and yada yada i was like yeah no no yeah no not interested thanks i'll be you know i'll be at home with my wife and kids or working on whatever's next you know yeah um and I really kind of had to get talked into it and again it was Jason Reitman who kind of talked me into like look you either you either need to do this you know or you can be that guy and you can be like no no no I'm an artiste and I'm not going to do all that yeah or he said or you can do it and obviously everybody's telling you to do it and and there are reasons you should do it for your career, for the good of the movie, for Damien, for Miles.

But he said, here's the reason that you really should do this. He goes, everybody that you've known your whole life, from your best friend in second grade before you moved away from Detroit, to all of your fourth cousins. He goes, all of those people are going to be so excited and so happy and so thrilled for you. The people you were doing theater with in Buffalo in 1979, you know, all these people, it's, it, you're, you're, and obviously your close friends and your family, the real reasons to do it, you know, that, that really sunk into me.

And my wife and I had a long heart to heart about, you know, because it's a whole thing, you know, the whole like award season is it's like a, you know, it's like a real gauntlet that you, that you have to sort of commit to. And, and yeah, once, once we decided that it was something we could do as a team, you know, and, and Michael and Tom at Sony Classics said, yeah, sure, we'll bring your wife and your kids along if you want them to come to whatever. This festival or that awards thingy.

And then obviously, I mean, ultimately, it just became a snowball rolling downhill. And the movie was so brilliant. And Damien had written me the part of a lifetime. And all the, all the statues kept, you know, getting handed off to me. You won every award. Yeah.

It was crazy. It was crazy. So really by the time the Oscars came along, it was, it was, I mean, I had friends who were like, dude, do you know, you're like a thousand to one in Vegas. I mean, it's, it's, it's ridiculous. You, I mean, there's no way they're not going to give you this trophy so when they when they finally announced my name it was almost more a sense of relief than like how big a schmuck would I have been if they just said somebody else's name oh right yeah right

right and then by the way this is one of my favorite little little uh aspect of that whole thing because I mean you know I sort of expected it but obviously you know there's a billion people watching across the planet and you know you're in the Kodak theater with every famous actor you grew up watching you know so I was a little nervous and as I walked up and I also didn't ever like totally write an acceptance speech like I kind of always had a theme in mind, you know, for the SAG awards, I want to talk about actors and about supporting and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, and I, and I knew that if I was fortunate enough to, you know, have somebody hand me an Oscar that, that I wanted to talk about what's most important in life,

which is family. Right. So, so I'm kind of, you know, formulating my thoughts and, and, uh, walking up on stage and, uh, uh, Lupita Nyong'o is the, you know,

going to hand me the trophy. And, and I, I reach out with one hand to take the trophy and I reach out with the other hand to shake her hand. Like we're, you know, two dudes making a business deal.

And then I realized, Oh no, or it's Hollywood. You're supposed to do the fake, you know, kiss on the cheek thing. So I, so I kind of awkwardly go to do the fake kiss on the cheek thing. So I kind of awkwardly go in for the fake kiss on the cheek thing.

And I'm sure you can find this on YouTube. Gave her a little headbutt. Did you? Got a headbutt in the beard there. Not enough to take her down. And then went on with my speech about my wife and my kids and call your mom and, you know, all that stuff. In the moment that you did the headbutt, did you know you'd done it? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

And I was just glad that there wasn't a house laugh because it was subtle enough that most people didn't know. But it grounded you in the moment, huh? Yeah, it did bring me back to earth yeah yeah i mean it looks like they actually made up new awards to give you an award for for for that yeah i mean it was it was crazy and uh and it was uh you know obviously a beautiful experience in every way and you know certainly hasn't hasn't hurt the number of scripts that are coming my way since then. And have I always made the best decisions? No. How do you decide now?

Well, I'm telling you, I still feel like I'm learning. I mean, I'm a senior citizen officially this year. But I still feel like I'm learning how to make those decisions. And I, and I, 90% of it still for me is just, you know, what's on paper. And, uh, uh, is, is the script there? Is it, is it great writing? Uh, is it a character that I, that I, you know, understand where he's coming from? Uh, and somebody that I want to play, is it funny? Right.

If it's a comedy, is it moving? If it's, you know, something dramatic and that's, you know, that's 90% of do I want to be involved in this project and then the rest of it becomes logistics. It's like, yeah, what's the time? Where's it shooting? Is it shooting in Kathmandu?

I'm not interested because I got kids in school and I don't like to be away a lot you know um and uh you know and then you know who's in it who's you know isn't it you know director this that the other thing but uh but I one of the things that I don't take into account still is you know do I see that it's you you know, going to be a big success or, you know, get a bunch of awards or, or, you know, does it have that kind of a pedigree to it? I still just try to gravitate towards stuff that I, you know, fall in, fall in love with because it's good. Yeah.

And your, your wife is in, is also in show business. Yes. Yeah. Michelle Schumacher. I've done a couple of films that she's directed as well. Well, some short films, too. We started out as, you know, theater actors together. She's I was basically Robin the Cradle. Oh, yeah. I was in my I was in my mid 30s when we met and she was in her mid 20s on that Peter Pan tour with Kathy Rigby. And yeah. And, and so we're doing our theater actor thing. And then once we got married and the, the baby started coming along was just about the time I was getting the film and television thing kind of rolling and off the ground.

And so she, you know, you can't be doing a play on Broadway and, you know, have your character go through, you know, nine months of pregnancy. So,

uh, not without a rewrite. She, uh, yeah. Um, so she became a, you know,

a brilliant and dedicated, uh, full-time mom for a long time. And then, you know, once the kids were, uh, uh,

old enough to, uh, you know, being preschool and this and that. She and some friends started putting some little short films together. Her last film was a beautiful little indie film called I'm Not

Here that features three actors playing the same character. I play him as obviously an old fart. It's available on Amazon Prime. I'm Not Here. Keckner's in it. I'm going to go. Oh, Keckner's in it?

I know Keckner. Yeah, I'll check that out. Keckner is kind of a, I guess you've got to call it a cameo for Keckner. Yeah. And believe me, going in. Mandy Moore. Love Mandy Moore. If you're going to Mandy Moore, Max Greenfield. I mean, it's a great, great cast, Sebastian.

You know, really, really wonderful cast. Because, you know, because again, it was a script that my wife, Michelle, and her writing partner, Tony Cummings put together that, you know, once it got out there, there were tons of actors who wanted to get involved in this for, even though it was, you know, paying like super low budget scale, nothing. And you know, the good thing about those movies, whether it's that or Juno or Whiplash And, you know, the good thing about those movies, whether it's that or Juno or Whiplash or, you know, whatever,

is you know everybody's there for the right reasons. You know, they're there because they love the story that you're going to collaborate and tell. Yeah, for sure. For a money or a big career break or this or that or, you know. Yeah, anyway, it's a beautiful movie but if you're a Keckner fan and you think it's going to be you know Anchorman

3 or something it's not the usual Keckner my reaction when I saw his name was like I'm glad he's working it wasn't like I love Keckner too. I mean, we go back a ways too.

That's always my reaction when you see any of those guys, you know, that you've worked with over the years and you see their name on something. Yeah. Oh, good. His nine kids, in Keckner's case, his 19 kids are going to have another meal. Exactly. Well, buddy, that was, it's great talking to you man hey you too this is really fun it worked out really well and uh you know congratulations on everything and it's uh

you know you're a good dude and it's good to see you yeah so busy thanks son you too i'll talk to you soon man all right all right so that was good he's exactly like you thought he would be right uh you can watch the limited series defending jacob on apple tv plus and the film palm springs on hulu go back and watch oz go watch juno whiplash now I will play some fairly simple, but nonetheless heartfelt, dirty blues music. Enjoy! Thank you. Thank you. Boomer. Monkey. Lavender. Live!

Live! Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting

and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.