WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1181 - Zach Braff

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Zach Braff and Marc both dealt with a lot of loss in the past year. For Zach, keeping it all in perspective is helping him get through the daily stress of pandemic life, as he fires up his creative impulses. Zach and Marc talk about the struggle of saying goodbye to beloved pets, the trauma of losing someone close to you, and managing childhood anxiety later in life. They also discuss Zach's past projects like Scrubs and Garden State, as well as his new podcast and his upcoming movie with Robert De Niro, The Comeback Trail. 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.

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. 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 talked 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. Lock the gate! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck

nicks what the fuckadelics what's happening i'm mark maron this is the podcast this is the podcast. This is my podcast. This is WTF. The podcast with the name and the profile pic. That pic, the WTF, what do you call that? Avatar or thumbnail or whatever the hell it is on iTunes. It's been the same since day one. We haven't changed it. With half of my face and my long hair and the glasses i haven't worn in a decade we've left it like that there was something about it we got so committed to it a lot of people change up change your picture change the uh the branding but we

just we just couldn't let it go we didn't let it go we just there was something about that turquoise man there was something about that color and the weird half a head that was taken from a painting that a guy named Nathan Smith did a long time ago but it it just stayed in it stayed on pow look out I just shit my pants just coffee.coop there's an old timey plug I guess I'm going back i guess i'm stuck in a nostalgia mode i have been actually i have been stuck in i don't know if it's a nostalgia mode i don't know if it's a melancholy how about we just call it reflection god knows we've got time to reflect and i've been surprised lately at my feelings about my past me. It's upsetting in a way. But today, a couple things I want to tell you. First, today I will tell you that we have Zach Braff on the show. You know him from Scrubs and Garden State. He also hosts a podcast, Fake Doctors, Real Friends, with his Scrubs co-star, Donald Faison.

He's also in the upcoming movie, The Comeback Trail, with Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman. I don't know. I think they pushed that, so that'll be out when it's out. Other thing I need to tell you is that if you're looking for those WTF mugs, it's holiday time. And the hand-thrown ceramic mugs that are generally only given to guests who come to my house

and appear on the show, there's a new batch coming up. They're made by Brian Jones and they're going to be available. These are the handmade mugs that I give my guests. So right now, getting these mugs by Brian Jones, and they're going to be available. These are the handmade mugs that I give my guests. So right now, getting these mugs from Brian Jones is the only way that you can get them. These are unique items, and a portion of the sales of these mugs go to the Connecticut Food Bank.

Just go to brianrjones.com slash shop while they're still in stock. They go very quickly quickly and they're beautiful all right so there's that i guess what i'm finding and this is like and i'm meditating folks i'm i'm in i've been doing it now for a couple of weeks but i'm finding that uh the gnawing thing that happens to me and i don't know if this happens to you is that you know when i think back on things when even when i think back at the like the beginnings of this show or things i did when i was younger just getting to where i am just shows or or trying things or doing things is i'm amazed how fucking angry I can be at myself

for not knowing how to do something or for doing something in a way that I didn't think was great or I didn't think was good or I thought was embarrassing. I think my entire life has been a personal war against embarrassment and i nobody wins that nobody wins that war but i think that there for some reason in my dumb head i've always if and this is what i'm really thinking about when i'm taking apart my psychology when i'm just breaking myself down it's just this idea of being embarrassed, of being laughed at, of being too weird. And ultimately, it comes down to being vulnerable. It comes down to being exposed. But I don't know. When I really think about some of the risks I've taken and some of the things

I've done creatively and personally, I'm very hard on myself looking back like you idiot that was fucking sad that was ridiculous why'd you do that I mean like you know better now or you know more now you wouldn't do that today Jesus Christ that is fucking pathetic that was embarrassing that was like terrible. And I'm just surprised I do that. Why can't I give myself a goddamn break? Why can't I give myself a retroactive break? Why can't I give myself a fucking pardon?

You didn't commit no crime, dude. You were just bad at something. You just did something that was silly or you did something that made you feel too too vulnerable or too uh exposed or or or you got laughed at for the wrong reason this goes all the way back man there are memories i have that are ridiculous just you know ridiculous and like i have a memory. Jesus Christ. This is the dumbest memory. Oh my God. I don't even know how old I was, but like I was in some sort of summer art class that my mother had signed us up for at the university.

I get like a few hours a day. I don't know. I must've been, I don't know, 10. And I show up at this class maybe a little late and they're making tortillas. That was the project. And all I could think was like, I just wanted to eat a tortilla. Like I got there and they're making these hot tortillas

and so I just grabbed one and ate it but I didn't know that they were kind of making shapes with them or making things out of the tortillas so I just fucking wolfed down this tortilla of this group of kids I didn't know and a dumb art teacher or craft teacher and uh you know they finished making them and i already ate one and the teacher just goes hey who ate the elephant who ate the elephant and i didn't know that you know we were making art with the tortillas i just wanted to eat a tortilla and i fucking ate the elephant i ate it did i say that i ate it i don't think i did i just sat there like an idiot knowing i ate the elephant I ate it did I say that I ate it I don't think I did I just sat there like an idiot

knowing I ate the elephant and listen to how I talk about that kid fucking guy I didn't know I walked into it I was hungry I was chubby I just want to eat a fucking tortilla who ate the elephant I guess I did I guess I did I didn know. I didn't know we were making art. I just was hungry. I don't like the way my mom makes food. I ate the elephant. It was me. What are you going to do to me? Are you going to shame me for being an elephant eater? Don't bother. I'm on it bother i'm on it i'm on it i have to assume that the reason i'm being so hard on myself retroactively it's because i'm i'm gonna start shooting today on this movie and it's been a while since i've been on a set it's been a while since i've acted

i don't always feel like i can but i went out there on friday to their location to uh to get a covid test and to also like do this still photo for this set and i met my my daughter and my granddaughter and it was great it was kind of interesting to like that feeling of driving onto a set of you know getting ready to do the work. That's why I cannot stand people that condescend to the business of filmmaking or TV making or just sort of like you Hollywood types, you actors. It's like you get to a set, you drive up, you see the sign, the little coded sign pointing to where you go to base camp.

And there's a security guy there tells you where to go. And you just see that you see it all happening, man. You see the trucks, you see people scrambling with lights. You see people, you know, you see extras sitting six feet apart over by catering. You just see the trailers. You just see like this whole little universe of work on all levels, you know, coming down from the director to the actor, the gaffer to the lights, the electricians to, you know, PAs, hair, makeup. It's a little city of employment and of creativity. And it was kind of great driving onto one and realizing like this.

I understand this. I haven't been on one of these in a while, but like somehow or another, I've done a lot of this in the last decade. And, uh, and you just feel your body or my body. I felt my body just switching into like, all right, we're going to do the work. We're going to make up, we're going to tell a story. We're going to make a movie. I'm going to make a guy up. That's probably kind of like me. And I don't know how that guy's going to interact with these other made up people, but that might be fun. So I'm trying to get it in my brain that it's going to be exciting and fun.

Maybe it will be, but God damn, I beat myself up. And, uh, I just, I'm trying to figure out how to stop that. I think that's been the journey. The one man's war against embarrassment. I mean, when you think about it, what is the one thing you can do to try to fight embarrassment is get on stage and try to make people laugh. You're going to beat it out of you. After a certain point, you know, you don't, it doesn't matter if they're laughing with you or at you. You can probably control either of those after a certain point with a certain skillset, with a little craft. My mother was one of the most

embarrassing people I knew knew she embarrassed me constantly and she made me feel like i was embarrassing i'm not mad at her for it i guess it was a gift if my mother didn't make me feel like a mediocre chubby piece of shit through most of my life and if she didn't do things in front of other people that made me embarrassed i might not have the amazing career i have today in my war against embarrassment but i don't care anymore see i think that's also what's happening is that i've been doing a lot of the instagram lives which are kind of interesting because i speak freely and i also do things that i wouldn't do on a standup stage or in front of people live necessarily, even on television. I sing, I speak in a tone that's a little more candid.

There's just something about engaging in that process that's kind of helped me accept more of who I am and who I was. And after coming out of those. That makes me feel a little exposed. But I think it's going to help ultimately. I think it's all about dragging that fucking chubby kid. Into the present. And just making him sit uncomfortably with himself within me.

While we meditate. So listen. Zach Braff. he's in a new movie. It's called The Comeback Trail with Robert De Niro, Tommy Lee Jones, and Morgan Freeman. It's set to come out sometime next year, so look for that. He hosts the podcast Fake Doctors, Real Friends, with his Scrub co-star, Donald Faison. You can get that wherever you get podcasts.

And I didn't know what to expect. I knew he was probably a good guy, but I was like, I want to meet him, though. And he wants to meet me. And you know what? We had a great talk. Great guy. New Jersey.

He actually talks like a New Jerseyan, a New Jersey native with the real New Jersey accent. Real New Jersey accent. And he reminded me of some of my relatives. So this is me talking to Zach Brown. 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. Be honest. When was the last time you thought about your current business insurance policy? store and ACAS Creative. 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. I pictured you in your garage. It looks like you got a fancy setup. This is a garage that's a fancy setup.

I moved and the garage was sort of built into a room. And then I had to make it into a house, kind of. Got it. So it's not really a studio. It's more of a house. And I've got sound panels up so the noise doesn't bounce around. Hold on. Let me get the squeaky toy away from my puppy.

Stand by. Hey, no. How old is that puppy? I got a 10-month-old puppy that's just been spayed two days ago. So she's got a big foam thing around her neck and she's pissed off and i have to constantly be apologizing to her you just got the puppy did you have a dog another dog i did i just lost a dog i had for 17 years a little guy named roscoe i had to put him down which is the first time i've ever had to do anything like that but it was clear that

it was time he was blind and and deaf and starting to have seizures. I do that with a couple of cats in the last year. Two 16-year-old cats. It's the worst. It's really horrible. I mean, I'd seen it in the movies, but I'd never done the hold the thing you love most in the world while they inject death medicine into it. It's terrible, man. Yeah.

But I was clear it had to be done i was it wasn't one of those things i wasn't i was shocked it was the day because i brought him in to be like why is he having so many seizures and the vet beautiful sweetheart of a guy said you know he said exactly what he needed to say it was like what what what's your plan for this animal this animals is is is it's not really fair anymore. Right. And, and, and that kind of really hit, I knew it was coming, but I didn't know it was that day, you know? And, and so we just did it. We, we, we, we, we, we, we, we, you know, we went in and said our goodbyes and then did it.

Yeah. I had the same experience. The first, like, I've been through a few cats, but these last two, like, I just wanted to be there, you know, for it. And, like, in both times, I went to the vet thinking, like, well, we'll see, but there's probably a good chance this is it, like, knowing in my guts. Like, even with the last guy, Monkey, you know,

the vet was like, look, we could give him this and that. And, you know, he'd probably live a little longer. But what are we doing? Yeah. You know. You sometimes need, in all aspects of your life, the person who goes, what are you doing? And if the vet says it, it's like it's not in their best interest financially to tell you to, you know what I mean? So that's a good vet that says that.

You sometimes need someone to push you over the edge and sort mean so that's a good vet that says you sometimes need someone to push you over the edge and sort of see the thing you're not seeing i mean here's this 17 year old animal who's blind and deaf and having seizures you know but you're you know i'm holding on for me not for the animal i know and it's weird because like what do you hold like i was saying they're going what am i hold what am i holding out for i mean what what do i think's gonna happen after a certain point it's like they're not going to get better. They're old. He's going to wake up and be like, wait a minute.

I'm fine. But that's what you really did. When they brought him in, so they say he was really just on death's door. And they said, okay, say your goodbye, and we'll come in and give the medicine when you're ready. So we were hugging him, and we're kissing him. And go okay it's time they come in the doctor comes in he stands up and starts wagging his tail and we're like you what are you doing dude you're not helping us at all no exactly but that but it gets to that point where it's like well they had a good day they had a good hour look he's walking like he used to yeah and that's what you're

holding on to and it's it's crazy it's a crazy lesson yeah i mean there but you know it's like i think you and i have have had a lot of loss in this last year yeah uh and it's like brutal it is it is i've lost um in the last couple I lost my father, who was 84 and at least of old age. I lost my sister to an aneurysm. And I just lost my friend to COVID. So I've had a lot of death in my life. And during this insane pandemic time, it's been a real challenge for mental health. I know. You know, like, obviously, I was following the stories about your friend Nick because it became sort of, you know, just the focus of what the disease was, what could possibly happen.

It was sort of hanging on, you know, the public case of his, you know, hospitalization and you showing up for him. And, and it's just, you know, and my, my girlfriend died of something else. I know I had met, I had met, uh, Lynn. I was lucky enough. I was lucky enough to have met her. And it's just like, you know, I don't want, you know, I don't want us to both end up crying too much, but, but yeah, but it's, it's very hard to sort of find your way through it. And you had his wife and kid there too, huh? Yeah, so we don't have to go down the whole rabbit hole, but just the cliff notes are that they were falling in love with L.A. They wanted to live in Laurel Canyon.

He loved rock and roll and the history of Laurel Canyon and rock and roll, and that was their dream. How did you know him? We did a Broadway show together. We did Woody Allen turned bullets over Broadwayway the movie into a big musical okay and everybody thought it was going to be an enormous hit and he was the chas palminteri character and i was the john cusack character right and um it was the most fun i ever had in my life um wasn't a huge critical success, so it didn't last that long. But the friendships that I made there,

one with him, and then with the woman he fell in love with on the show, a dancer named Amanda, they became my best friends. And they decided to move out to LA and I have a guest house in my yard. So I said, guys, you know,

don't pay me a dime. Live here while you search. Live here for a dime live here while you while you search live here for six seven months while you figure out la right um because i it's win-win you guys get to live for free and look around and i get to have two of my best friends and their baby in my yard right and um they were just you know adorable and happy and new baby and looking for houses and just on cloud nine and they found a house um yeah and uh and that he went home to pack into they both went home to pack and he must have contracted it while in new york oh jesus and he came back and had a very quick um very quickly

needed to be hospitalized so right after it all went down i had them in my home so my girlfriend and i and and friends in the neighborhood became, she didn't have her family here. Her family couldn't travel. We became the support group, the community for her. And everyone in the neighborhood and all of our friends just became her family until her family could actually come and help as well. Wow. That's so heavy. And where is she now? She go home or? She, no, she, she's staying in the house. You know, she, she was of course debating as anyone would, do I want to live in this house that we just bought? But she's decided to stay and she

loves it here and she knows that Nick would want her to be here. So she's, she's staying, she's, you know, running, running her business to try and keep everything afloat and of course you know I'm I'm here to help them if they need anything well that's good yeah it's like this time is so brutal and to be saddled with grief and the reflection that you the time you have to sit in it is, is it's profound on one level. And, and I think it's probably a very pure form of grief, but on another level, it's just,

you know, with the world weighing down on you on top of the grief, it's like, holy shit. And then, and then I don't know about you, but I'm, I,

I, it's almost like cutting how much I read the news and the politics and, and watch everything. And it's, you know, one could choose, I'm not that person, to not engage so much in the political discourse. But that almost is harder. I can't turn my eye to it. So I feel like I'm torturing myself. No, yeah.

It's just like crushing. It's like I can't breathe some days dude i can't breathe it's like it's taking the wind out of me yeah i'm exhausted i know and it's fucked up it's so funny i don't know what to do i mean what do you yeah exactly that what can you do does my fucking retweet on twitter mean anything no i don't think it does i'm just preaching to the choir and the people who fucking are MAGA and already hate me are just going to unfollow me or say something shitty. So I don't know.

I think you're just screaming. And I once got to sit with David Simas, who runs Obama's foundation. Yeah. And it's just one of the smartest men. I wish he'd run for president one day, but he said absolutely no fucking way. But he's just one of the smartest men. I wish he'd run for president one day, but he said absolutely no fucking way. But he's just a genius. And he said, you know, this whole social media thing, it's, you know, a lot of it, he said, is just screaming into your own echo chamber. No one, it's sort of pointless.

It might rally a few people that may not have been rallied, but you're not changing anybody's minds. Yeah. And most of the time you're just making it worse. You're just giving yourself a reason to get more angry because I don't know how sensitive you are, but trolls are trolls and you learn how to deal with it and shut it off and not engage. But it's like every time you put one of those things out in the world, you're like, oh, here it comes.

Here comes something that's going to punch me, but I'll just like, I'll try to be above it. Right, but that's impossible punch me yeah but i'll just like i'll try to i'll try to be above it right but that's impossible because they know how to hit you and they know how to get you engaged and they know how to get you upset how do they get you upset what's what's your button oh i don't know they just they'll say you know oh this is why i don't watch your shitty movies or this is why you know this is why that movie you made is a piece of shit. I mean, not that that riles me up because I know that's just an easy grab, but I don't know.

I definitely can get riled by them. And the thing I don't do anymore really is engage. I don't, I'll say what I say, people write what they write. If someone's horrible, I block them. But I don't engage in a Twitter war anymore. I've grown out of that. Good, yeah. I think that's the first step to getting off No, no. I've grown out of that. Good, yeah.

I think that's the first step to getting off it altogether. I wish I had the fortitude. Oh, dude, I've done breaks, just like alcohol. I mean, I don't know if you drink or not. I'm sober, long time. Oh, you're sober. Oh, yeah, sorry, I knew that. That's all right.

I go through alcohol breaks when I'm like, hey, you're drinking a little too much, and I want to prove to myself that I can, like, you know, obviously. Take a break. I'll take a break, two, three months, whatever. And I've done the same thing with Twitter because it's just as much of a fucking addiction as anything. So you can shut your page down for what?

You got two months before, or you never shut it down? No, I don't shut it down, I just log out. I don't turn the page off. I'll just, I'll go through periods. Like, I went to do a movie with Christopher Walken up in the middle of nowhere in Canada. When was this? This was a year ago.

Is it out? It's coming out. It's out in Canada, and it's a tiny little indie. I'm sure it'll come out on streaming. It's called Percy. It's a true story about this tiny bumblefuck farmer who took on Monsanto. Um,

and is it, did you direct it or just act in it? I just acted in it. I play his lawyer. Okay. Uh, so you're up there and you got off Twitter. I was,

I went up there and I went, you know what? If I get mom, this bumblefuck, like meth farm town and I'm drinking and I'm on Twitter. Um, and it's cold. I'm going to get'm on Twitter and it's cold. I'm going to get depressed.

I just knew the ingredients. That's the cocktail for depression. Neftown drinking cold and dark. I'm very affected by the weather. So if it's like cold and rainy and I'm drinking too much and I'm reading too much Twitter, I just, it sounds like a horrible recipe. So I committed to myself. I was there for two weeks, three weeks.

No booze, no Twitter. And I'm going to work out. And it made a big difference. I didn't get melancholic. Did you do the working out? Yeah. Working out is key for me in mental health. In order to keep my serotonin level above a

above the right in the right green zone i need to work out i've been doing it too i mean i've been doing it more more diligently now like and i'm old i mean how i'm i'm 57 and i'm working out like circuit training three days a week and hiking two days a week and i'm always fucking sore yeah but i don't know what it would be like if i didn't do that but dude you know you feel much better when you're doing it yeah it's a self-esteem thing it's a it's a it's a serotonin thing it's a dopamine do you have serotonin problems yeah i have had throughout times in my life like like real depression not like bedridden but but but definitely i've been i've been on um antidepressants at times in my life

for just feeling like um but i i have i have lots of psychologists in my family so none of that was ever frowned upon or or uh or or looked down upon so i yeah there's been times in my life um i've had some some some periods of feeling really really really low and then sort of used SSRIs, antidepressants, to sort of get myself above water, almost like a crutch. Get a little, put a little floor down. Yeah, just get out of a hole. And, you know, sometimes it's triggered by a death or sometimes it's triggered by, you know,

sometimes the scary ones are triggered by nothing right or you know you can work on what what is the source of this but you know the probably the scariest one time i've been down is like my life is pretty amazing right now what is going on you know that's yeah it's fucked up brains are fucked up that's the scary one it's so funny i talked to you and like you know my family's from jersey i can hear jersey yeah i can hear it you have a real jersey accent people say i have a little one but i don't have i don't think i have one it's certain words um are stronger and of course when i talk to my family it gets stronger but uh you know words like coffee dog talk my sister used to be like oh my god you guys we got to get chocolate because I took the dog on a walk.

It's so specific. Yeah. It's very North Jersey. Yeah. It's really not New York. It's really its own thing. Which Jersey did you grow up in? South Orange.

It's right next to Newark, about 45 minutes from Manhattan. Right. I grew up. I'm from my family was in Jersey City. My father's family, mother's family's in Morris County, I think. Yeah. You know, Wayne, we're Wayne. That's all around me.

I, you know, we grew up, you know, the commuter train was 30 minutes to Manhattan. So we, you know, we thought of ourselves as a suburb of Manhattan because we weren't really going to Newark for anything. Well, when you were growing up, Newark was not – there was nothing there to go there for. There was nothing there to go to, and it was scary to us. It was like – Yeah. It was a tough city that we had heard about, but there was no reason to ever go there. Right.

It was the opposite of – it was the polar opposite of Manhattan. Manhattan was like, oh, my God, we get to go to the big city. Holy shit. It's very exciting, yeah. Yeah. We're going to go see plays my god we get to go to the big city holy shit it's very exciting yeah we're gonna go see plays we're gonna go we're gonna go to exciting things we're gonna you know we're gonna go to an adventure no one was ever like we're going to New York on an adventure so how did you grow up like because like I met I didn't realize that that Jessica Curzon was your half sister she's my step-sister. She's my step-sister, yeah. So my parents, my father married her mother when I was 13.

And, you know, she was always class clown of the, the family class clown, hilarious. And she wasn't, she went to college and didn't, she was going to be a social worker. And then, but everyone, she was so funny.

Everyone kept saying, you got it. You should do standup. And I've watched her career go from those things that we, where you had to bring people and we had to buy four drinks and all that. Right. With like two people in the audience to a billboard of her with her, with her time,

with her in Times Square, with her special that Bill Burr produced. I've watched that whole evolution happen for her. And there's nobody I know that works harder. Yeah, no, I love her. She's hilarious. She's a real character. Yeah.

So how many kids? So, okay. So your parents got divorced when you were like 11 or 12? My parents got divorced when I was eight or so. And then my father started dating. And was very bizarre we did joint custody so my my mom moved in with a man she was seeing and she had a house and then my father um moved in with um with no one he but he got an apartment and and we and but he had fought hard for joint custody so and he won it so we did a week and a week, every Sunday night.

There were four kids. Oldest went off to college. Second oldest was like, I'm 16. I'm not doing this bullshit. And, but me and my sister would go every Sunday. We'd switch homes. They were both in the same school district. And we'd pack up all our shit and move every Sunday.

It was horrible. So your dad had the sad divorce department and your mom had the house? Yes, my dad had the sad divorce apartment and even more bizarre, and I got to put this in a movie one day. So my dad was dating and was back out on the market and was a trial attorney, very busy.

So we needed a full-time nanny, this Haitian woman named Jocelyn, who also had a young daughter. She must have been six. And so in the apartment, she and her daughter would sleep on the fold-out couch in the living room. My sister and I would share a bedroom, and my father would be in the other bedroom sometimes with whatever uh woman he was he was hanging out with the real party it was a it was a packed apartment and then and then and then it was it was kind of insane but

uh but that's so funny because he had the nanny because he didn't want he didn't want to let you guys stay your mother's more than they right right in his mind right right and then so he's out working and then dating and we're packed into this house it was a very surreal time i hated it really um because every sunday i would we would pretty much cry because we'd gotten attached to that parent right and then you'd move and then you'd be grumpy and and and a melancholic and then about wednesday you'd be settled right i mean i really think it's a source of anxiety uh for for me as an adult still because it was you know without like clockwork on Sunday, something traumatic was going to happen. Right. You knew it.

Yeah. Separation anxiety. Yeah. Because you do bond with that parent. And they had very different lifestyles. My mom was living with this man who she's still married to, who was a psychologist. And they were homebodies and they were sort of,

you know, hippies a bit. And my dad was like, you know, we're going out, we're going to a restaurant with this new flight attendant i met and uh this is cheryl your dad was the traditional midlife crisis guy oh yeah i mean he was a master at seducing flight attendants um wow i remember there were always like uniforms hung on the on the back of his bedroom door of like the woman he'd met on on on the plane that trip and just the sort of like fucked up boundaries of that do you know what i mean like now like i've in my life i've dated a woman with a kid and it's sort of like you know i don't want to meet the kid for six months i you know like you

know what i mean it's like it's not fair yeah you know if you're going to build a relationship with somebody because then like god what if he had gotten attached to one of them we did and then we did there was plenty of time we did get attached to them and then they go away and then he decided that was over and then you'd be you know that's more anxiety we there were definitely ones we liked more than others and then eventually the good news is eventually he found the woman who my dad needed therapy. It goes without saying at this point, he eventually started dating a therapist who was incredible. And we kids loved her because not only was she so fun and beautiful and amazing, but she was also saying, listen,

if you want this to be real, you got to start doing some work on yourself because, you know, I'm not going to, I'm not going to commit to, to you being the way you are now. So she started and he was in, he was starting to fall in love and this was the one, and he was with her, he was with her until the day he died. Jessica's mother, sorry, putting it all together, Jessica's mother. Right. So she kind of like, was like, we, it's like the $6 million man. We have the technology. We will rebuild him. And she turned him into a much more mentally healthy man. They both ended up with therapists. Oh, you have to understand, my mom is a psychologist.

My stepfather is a psychologist. My stepmother is a therapist. My father was a lawyer who thought he was like a marriage counselor. we were surrounded by all four of them uh analyzing and weighing in on everything and and there was like four kids that you have three brothers and sisters and then there was how many stepbrothers and sisters so i had i had um i had in the original plan there were two brothers and an adopted sister um as she has since passed. When they got remarried, on my dad's side, I gained two stepsisters, including Jessica Kirsten. And then on my mom's side, I gained a stepmother. So there were seven of us total.

And was this a Jewish undertaking? Yes. Very Jew-y. The Jew was strong. Really? How strong? Like strong like i mean like well when we grew up before they got divorced my i grew up kosher uh conservative come on oh yeah here's an interesting thing my dad was religious and felt my mom was not jewish and he said look i'm in love with you but i can't marry a non-jew will you have an orth conversion? Like, that means like a no fucking around, like real conversion. Yeah. Not like, here's a sign here, now you're Jewish.

Like, she had to go do the work and study with rabbis. Once a week classes. All this stuff. But my mom was in love, and she didn't have any connection to Protestantism. And so she did it. And then I think this happens with a lot of people who find a religion later in life. She was like, I'm all in. And then she ended up making him more Jewish.

He wasn't kosher originally. That happens a lot. Yeah, she was like, this is amazing. But if we're going to do it, let's do it. And so they became kosher. He became president of the temple. They got very, very into it. Wow.

And their whole community was the temple. That happens a lot, though, with converts. They become more Jew-y. Yeah. Because, like, usually Jews, like middle-class American Jews, like, I'm a Jew, could you be a Jew? But they're not really, you know, they just grew up Jewish. Yeah, I mean, that's funny.

I think a lot of people, I had a bar mitzvah. My parents, you know, we were kosher for a time. But we weren't going to temple regularly once I was, you know, we're not. My father would get very religious around the high holy days. You know, that's when he really wanted to flex his Jewishness. Yeah. You know. And you didn't stick with it really?

I didn't. No, not at all. I mean, I relate to the, I love the food. I love the comedy. I love the i love the food i love the comedy i love culturally yeah the traditions the culture of it all yeah the inside jokes uh woody allen even though you know i know we're not allowed to talk about woody allen anymore but i was raised on woody allen i was raised on mel brooks i was raised on on on jewish humor uh that i love but but the spiritual element like you know for me like it comes down to you

know what about that god you know and and what about the context of the jewish god like i don't i to be honest with you i don't know enough about it and i never followed any of the rules i never understood the prayers you know even on my you know haftor and all the i don't know any of it uh in english so like i don't i never was it in English. So like, I don't, I never was, I never had that relationship. It seems like people who grow up with Jesus, it's pretty simple to understand. The Jewish God, on the other hand.

They have their bullet points down better. Yeah, it's true. And the iconography is clear, you know. Very clear and very practical to them. Ours is like, I'm not sure what our relationship is. We need better branding. We need better branding and marketing. Yeah, that's for sure.

It's a little vague. I mean, I act like we, like I'm trying to recruit. I mean, it is a little vague. But I didn't know. I grew up in North Jersey where there were a lot of Jews. I went to then spend time in Manhattan, then went to school outside Chicago, then moved to LA. I've always been in communities where that had a lot of Jews.

I was shocked when I learned we were like 2% of the population and shrinking because I was always in communities with lots of Jews. Yeah. That our generation's fucking it up. This is the, your generation, my generation, the one after they,

they want nothing to do with it. It's not that important to them. They don't even know what the food is anymore. They don't have that grandparent that's first generation anymore. Right. That's true. I believe that. So now, with all this chaos outside of anxiety, did you find that you had other psychological problems with all these psychologists in your family?

I think i was depressed i had some ocd i was definitely doing the uh some of the tap you know the tapping stuff that ocd kids do really oh yeah so it's a control thing like you know everything's it's a little chaotic you gotta this is what i remember as a child and and i'm sure there's people listening who either are still doing this or did this but but I remember thinking, I need to kiss that teddy bear goodbye six times. If I don't do it, I'm not positive something bad will happen, but it might.

So just to cover my bases and be safe, I'm going to kiss the teddy bear six times. The weird thing about that type of thinking is that you decided that the teddy bear kissing times the weird thing about that type of thinking is like that you decided that the teddy bear kissing was the thing that well that's an example it could be there was a myriad of things but i'm saying that was what i remember no i get it i get it but i it's curious what those choices are to to guarantee your safety for the rest of the day right but i convinced myself as a child that i even as a child i knew this is ridiculous zach but just to be safe why

not it's just kind of it's actually kind of like praying for people it's like i don't know if i necessarily believe in this but just to cover my bases i'm gonna pray to god no i did a joke about that about ocd requires it's ritual yeah and and and and there's ritual to it that that you find comfort in so it's not you know i I think that some religions, especially the more complicated ones, are organized OCD around, you know, the ritual element is. Comfort, comfort. I've covered my bases. It's funny, though, that I guess in the OCD realm, you yourself in your own soul are making up what the tenets of the religion are. Do you know what I mean?

Right. the tenets of the religion are do you know what i mean right they do like that's like i used to do a bit about the positive side of ocd is that you know every time you go back to check to see if you turn the gas off you know every time that it's off you get that same bit of relief that yeah so like yeah that's not nothing yeah it's like a dopamine hit right so yeah i did some of that stuff and i i grew out of that. But it's funny. I remember a psychiatrist when I was a child telling my parents, you know, he'll grow out of some of this, but some of this he'll be dealing with his whole life.

And what was it? I'm just thinking it is a form of anxiety. I mean, every human being has anxiety. I don't say that I have normal anxiety. I just mean I think the OCD, I'm not tapping teddy bears anymore, tapping anything anymore. But I think that the roots of it, which are some, you know, anxiety based are still aspects of my life. Yeah. I've, I've, I've, I think I have, and I've talked about a million times, like I realized that I'm not really a depressive as much as I am as anxiety person. Yeah. I give a lot of dread, you know, and that's- Do you, sorry, if you've spoken about this, but do you meditate? I don't. And I've been told to. Lynn used to,

she was a TM person twice a day or if not more. And I, you know, I'm a sober guy and I know meditation's all part of it. I just don't, I don't know what it is, Zach, about my brain where it's like, I know that would probably be good. Why not just try that? You're exercising. You're doing all this other stuff. Why are you holding out? You know what the thing is about?

When you reach our age, I'm 45. Right. And I think you know the things that are going to help or hurt you, right? Sobriety has really helped you. Exercise has really helped you. Exercise has really helped you. Right. I have my things. And it's like, I could lay out, in fact, I've done this.

I had a friend who was having like a breakdown and I said, all right, I'm going to write you a menu of what you need to do. If you do this, I guarantee you, I'm not a psychologist, but I've been to plenty of therapy. If you do this menu, you're going to take some leaps forward. Obviously go see someone professional, but here's a start. What were they? Exercise, diet?

I mean, in broad strokes, stop drinking, stop smoking weed, exercise every single day, meditate twice a day, journaling, writing everything down that you're stressed about, being in conversation

with loved ones. There were a few others. Eating right. He did every single one. And then, of course, started seeing someone professional. And now he's found true love and he's married and never been happier. I'm not saying I saved his life. I'm just saying I was a crisis counselor for a second. That's all I'm saying. That's a big list. That's a lot to do.

No, but what my point is to you is that I was thinking that you and I have reached a point where we know what works for us. And then of course, there are things on top of that. They're like the bonus things. For me, it's meditate. I haven't done TM yet, but I just use one of the apps. I know if I do that 20 minutes every morning, five days a week, my anxiety is going to be noticeably less. Really? Can I always do that?

Do I sometimes go off? Fuck it. Of course. But I can't. But then if I'm anxious, I have to call myself out and go, dude, did you fucking exercise? Did you drink too much?

Did you meditate? Did you do the things on the checklist? Because then you have to take 100% responsibility for your own mental health. Yeah, and I've been jacking myself on coffee again. I didn't drink coffee for a year. That's another one. That was another one on the list. No caffeine. As I sit here drinking a Red Bull, by the way.

I got an addictive brain, so it's like I just do it all day until I'm exhausted. Can you sleep? Yeah, I sleep all right. Yeah. Well, I think if you've given up booze, in my humble opinion, you should allow yourself some caffeine. No, I'm good. So when did you start the performing business? My dad did community theater.

Oh, my God. Jewish community theater? Oh, yeah. Very Jewish community theater. Oh, my God. Jewish community theater? Oh, yeah. Very Jew-y community theater. And he was good because he was a trial attorney, so he knew how to entertain a room full of people. Did he play Tevye? Pretty close. He did Prisoner of Second Avenue, the Neil Simon play.

And then he did Hello, Dolly. He was Horace Vandegilder. Wow. And he was good. He would get the leads. He was Horace Vandegilder. Wow. And he was good. He would get the leads because he was charming. And so I was a little kid and I'd go watch him do the plays. And I'd be like, this is a job? So you're saying some people don't just do this as their hobby.

This is a job you can have? Because I just thought it was the most, I was watching my dad make 500 people laugh. And I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. How do I get into this? Yeah. And I had no interest in sports at all. Couldn't be less interested.

And so when it came to camp, which is very big on the East Coast, especially for Jews, they were like, you know, there are camps that aren't sports related, Zach. There are theater camps where you go and like you perform and you take classes. And I was into the tech theater too, like lighting and stage set building. And he was like, you do all that. You build sets and you do anything. Stage combat. This is right when video cameras were starting to become popular.

Like they even have video courses. And so I went there to a place called Stage Door Manor in upstate New York. And I just was like, it was utopia. I, I, I had never been so happy in my whole life. It was a summer camp. It was a summer camp where you'd go for three week intervals.

I went for six weeks where every three weeks you would do a shit. You'd be putting a show. Every kid was putting a show and you rehearse the show and also take classes and also fall in love for the first time and also be up in the woods. And then, and then, and then you'd start again the next three-week session and your parents would come up at the end of each of the three weeks and see the plays yeah i went to camp every year i like i always wondered whether it was my parents wanting me to have new experiences or just wanting me out of the house it was never probably both why can't it Why can't it be both? It can be both.

I went to an arts and music camp in Pennsylvania. That was the best one. What was it called? Lighthouse. Okay. Because there was another one called French Woods that was very popular too. This was in like Pottsville. It was in Pennsylvania

and it was mostly music and there wasn't theater. It was all music and painting and photography and ceramics, but no theater that I can remember. Right. Well, mine was very musical theater, Broadway kind of show based. I mean, they did have non-musicals as well. How many years did you go?

I went to two different camps. I went for a total of four summers. But the one that I'm mentioning is because it was the most impactful I went to for two years. And while I was there, and it was just, it was utopia because in public school, not playing sports, I had friends because I was a class clown and funny, I think. But I couldn't get the girls because they weren't that interested in me. And this is right when puberty is really kind of kicking in. And there I go to camp, and I'm like, good. So I'm getting the leads.

And keep in mind, half the boys there are already realizing they're gay. So it was like, I was like, oh. All the girls, I was dating the popular girl, and I'm the lead in the play. I was the quarterback of the football team there. Right. And I never want to leave. I was the quarterback of the football team there. Right. And I never want to leave. I would sob when it was time to leave. So because it was so close to Manhattan, two hours away,

scouts would come up and look at the kids and see who was. Really? Yeah. Were there a lot of good actors there? Well, yeah, plenty of other known actors besides me have gone there. Robert Downey Jr. went there, Natalie Portman, Josh Charles, Mandy Moore, John Cryer,

a lot of, a lot of... So this was a high level, this was a known place. It's still to this day, the most known if you're, if you're going to send your kid to a program in the summer. Oh, okay.

All right. So the scouts come. The scouts come up and they see like, was there any talent for me to recruit to send on auditions in manhattan and i got scouted and um a manager started submitting me for auditions in in the city my parents would bring me um 13 do you remember your first girlfriend's name the first girl at camp was lacy tucker i. I was just smitten. She was my first French kiss. I didn't really know what was happening.

I knew that there was going to be tongue involved, but I didn't really know what to do, and she kind of took the lead. Yeah. And there it was, and it was glorious. Yeah. The innocence of that first French kiss. Oh, and I remember the bench, because I've gone up since to see my nieces and nephews go bench, you know, because I've gone up since to, you know, my nieces and nephews go to the camp now,

and I've gone up and seen the bench. It's just like, oh. Where you had the French kiss? Yeah, where the French kiss went down. Oh. Does it do anything? Does nostalgia kick in? Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. I'm very emotional when I'm there because it was such a, it was such a, it was heaven to me, that place. It was an escape from the family drama I've told you about. It was escape from anxiety. It was escape from feeling, I just didn't feel like I fit in at all at public school. And then when I was there, it was magical. And then, of course, like you said, I'm leaving out, I'm burying the lead.

It was magical. And then, of course, like you said, I'm leaving out. I'm burying the lead. I was performing and getting laughs and going, this is just so intoxicating. I'm in. And when the manager took you on, what were you going out for? Did you get anything? Oh, I went out for a lot of famous movies. I got callbacks on like Big and Parenthood.

Wow. I remember meeting Ron Howard for Parenthood. Wow. I remember meeting Ron Howard for Parenthood because I got a number of callbacks. I met Oliver Stone for Born on the Fourth of July. Lots of things like this. I actually got a film called The Good Son, which was going to change my life because it was a lead in the movie. And then the movie got shelved. They later made it with Elijah Wood and Maca and um macaulay culkin i believe right so a lot things were happening and then i got a pilot for cbs um bruce paltrow who had created saint elsewhere

um made a pilot called high which was supposed to be like his his big new show about a high school and it was going to be gritty it was the same year 90210 came out, and Bruce Paltrow's answer to that was, no, we're going to do the opposite of the glossy soap opera version. We're going to do a gritty, like, Hill Street blues, but a high school in Jersey version. And it was Gwyneth Paltrow's first job. She was his daughter, and she was the beautiful cheerleader,

and I was the sort of nerdy freshman and um and we shot it in jersey and i couldn't believe it i thought my life was going to change and then they didn't pick it up and i was like what do you mean you're not picking it up i have a gift bag i have a gift basket it says i have a card that says welcome to the cbs family i didn't know that pilots didn't get picked up i thought i thought wow so that's like you had to learn like that's like you had to learn that i learned that at 14 because like they they almost always never get picked up yeah i didn't i didn't i remember not understanding how would you how would you know i didn't understand and i was so high profile it was like a big budget thing and this was a famous showrunner and i was like what do you mean i don't get it yeah how is this possible but i think it was such a blessing in disguise because i i i i would not have have accomplished the things i've accomplished i don't think had i been a like a full-fledged successful

child actor no probably not i mean so what what what happened after that audition i kept auditioning for a bunch of things and then i didn't get much, kind of checked out a little bit. You know, it was tough because I was a teenager. And then it would take me an hour to get in. I'd go sit in a waiting room. Sometimes I'd go in and be like, thank you. And then it'd take an hour to get home. All my friends are hanging out and swimming in pools and pulling bong hits and hooking up with each other.

I was on a New Jersey transit train going in for a 30-second audition. So I started to get a little demoralized by it. Then when I was 18, Woody Allen cast me in Manhattan Murder Mystery. I am in one scene in the film, but I play his and Diane Keaton's son. And that was like, oh, shit, maybe I should be paying attention to this because I just got a, I got, it's a small part, but I just got a part in a very high profile thing. But I had gotten into Northwestern film school. So I had to choose, okay, fork in the road. Are you going to stay in Manhattan and ride this? You just got a part in a Woody Allen movie, or are you going to

say, fuck it and go off and study? What I really wanted to do was study filmmaking and acting at Northwestern. And so that's what I did. So you went there all four years? I went there four years, yeah. Studied filmmaking, made short films, just did anything. Anything pretty much that wasn't filmmaking or acting related, I was mildly interested in. I mean, it was a liberal arts education, so I studied lots of things. I had to.

interested in. I mean, it was a liberal arts education, so I studied lots of things. I had to. And of course, made amazing friendships and had my first true love and all those wonderful college things, but really focused on filmmaking and making movies. That's what you wanted to do. Yeah, I think I kind of got clear. Because I'd had this experience, I'd seen so many actors that were good that were barely surviving. Sure. I had an education because of my exposure that showed me this is so,

such a fucking lottery. I mean, I'm sitting next to these actors who are chain smoking. They need this pilot because they got to pay their mortgage. Yeah. And it scared me. At a very young age it scared me and i said i love to act and i want to act but that's such a fucking lottery i'm not investing in that i'm going to invest in making my own stuff you really you you had that realization at what age

in my teens really you were able to see oh yeah man because i would go do play readings um you know you do play readings for anyone listening who doesn't know. They're trying to see if they're going to do this play. They don't pay you anything. You just go and you read the play. I would go do that. Let's say I was 15 years old, and I'd sit across from an actor who was giving the performance in this play like I had never fucking seen another actor given my life. And you'd never seen them, and you never knew who they were and they had no money

and that scared the shit out of me i was like this isn't a meritocracy yeah i mean i always say obviously if you're genius you've bought a lot of lottery tickets and if you happen to be also good looking you've bought even more lottery tickets but it's still a fucking lottery and i didn't want to be reliant on that no it makes sense but it's good that you had that realization young right so i knew if i if i got the education in filmmaking and producing and making stuff i'll always if i know if my number doesn't come up as an actor i'll i'll produce movies i'll make movies i'll i'll be a cinematographer i'll be a first ad i i i will in my, my backup won't be being an orthodontist. I knew that I was going to somehow be in production. Right. And then, but like, when does, how does scrubs happen? That changes fucking everything, right?

Yeah. Well, that's a bit of a jump. I went, I went back to Manhattan after school and started PAing on, on a route. So you, you, you made the movie before that huh no no no first i i went to manhattan and started doing what a lot of kids do at a film school i was peeing and this is the height of video music videos right so it's like this is like 97 people are making like seven million dollar music videos right and a lot of them are shooting in manhattan and i worked on a lot of those and that kind of was a continuing education. I got to see production firsthand and be a grunt. Right.

Kept auditioning. Not much happening. And then my very first job I get as an actor is in the public theater in Manhattan's production of Macbeth. With Angela Bassett, Alec Baldwin, Liev Schreiber, Michael C. Hall. That's crazy. Yeah, George C. Wolfe directing, huge theater director. I've interviewed him. Yeah, of course.

He's a legend. And so that was my first job. And I had really gotten a lot out of Shakespeare in college. I had a professor that really opened my eyes to Shakespeare. So I had a great audition for George. And my first job was playing the two young characters in, in Macbeth.

And I had a giant broad sword duel with Alec Baldwin. And, um, it was thrilling. What was your experience at that? How old were you? 20? I must've been right out of college.

21. 21. And you're dealing with Alec and you're dealing with these huge actors. What, you know, was it overwhelming? Yeah. Alec was scary. Alec dealing with these huge actors. Yeah. You know, was it overwhelming? Yeah. Alec was scary.

Alec's a scary fucking dude. Yeah. He was always nice to me, but he was very intimidating. Right. But I mean, to be operating at that level at that age, you're really in it. At that point, you must have thought, like, well, acting's pretty good. Yeah. First of all, I'd never been paid.

I mean, I've been paid a little bit for the kid things I'd done but this was like i was fresh out of college i'm doing pa rate which was like 100 bucks a day yeah so all of a sudden even though it was theater it was equity it was like a weekly check i was my self-esteem shot up because i was like not only am i in a play but i'm getting a regular check for acting. This is cool. And, you know, Liev Schreiber is inarguably, I think, the best American Shakespearean actor. Alec was great, don't get me wrong, but I think even he would say watching Liev play Banquo in the show was like grad school because he's just a phenomenal, phenomenal Shakespearean actor. That was one of the coolest things I took from it,

just getting to watch. I learned so much from watching him and Michael C. Hall, obviously. Then I started to get a little traction. I did a little indie called Getting to Know You. Then I did a film called The Broken Hearts Club, Greg Berlanti's first feature film. It was about a bunch of gay friends living in west hollywood and i by this point i'd moved i'd followed a girl out to la which was a debacle

and i was waiting tables at a french vietnamese restaurant called look colonial i remember that place yes it's now if you know um where the like a story beverly hills right it's over on you know where the there's a giant like a store that's Beverly and Robertson. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That used to be it. Yeah, I remember it. Yeah.

And I wear a beige tunic and I was waiting tables there. And I was in Broken Hearts Club, which was out at the Sunset Five. And people would come. So you had moved out here? I had moved out here. I followed the girl out here. But in my mind, it was kind of like, even if it doesn't work out with the girl, I'm starting to get momentum. I got two indies under my belt.

Like, I got to start making some moves. But I got out here and was broke. So waiting tables, like all broke actors do. But my film, the indie Broken Ice Club, was at the Sunset Five. And people would come from the movie theater, having seen the film, to the restaurant for drinks or dessert. And they'd do a double take. And they'd say, we just saw your movie. And I'd say, oh, thank you.

And they'd say, you were great. And I'd say, well, thank you. Let me tell you about our specials. It was so incredibly humbling. And I always say that only in Hollywood can you go see a film and then have the star of the film wait on you for dessert. Sure. And it was in this time where I first auditioned for Scrubs. And that, of course, changed my life.

I didn't make Garden State my first feature until, I I think the second hiatus from Scrubs. Oh, yeah. You were in Scrubs. It's so funny that whole waiter story. There's a guy, a comic named Mark Cohen, used to do a joke about living in Hollywood, and his parents came out to visit him. They'd be out to dinner, and his mom would say, like, I think that waiter is Potsy from Happy Days.

And Mark Cohen goes, no, that can't be Pots god it is potsy that's true i mean i i uh i would have the most humiliating things mark where i would like go on a meeting and i'm a general meeting where i'm just talking to a producer and i'm blowing myself up because i'm talking about all the great things that are going on and yeah i can't believe it it's so exciting you're just fucking doing a dog and pony show and then i'd go to work and i'd look and they'd be like i just sat table 25 and it would be him and his friends and i'd be like fuck and then it's awkward he doesn't want to address it so he gives a little smile but i'm like pouring wine for him and his friends after two hours earlier doing in general about how great my life is oh it's the worst and

it's like but you got you know you made it like i remember the story has a happy ending yeah i mean i remember i had and i had a fucking meeting with somebody i i don't know if it wasn't the four seasons it was another hotel and this was like, you know, like maybe 10 years ago or less. And fucking Sebastian Maniscalco is waiting tables over there. And then I knew he was a comic, but I didn't know he had that day gig. And now he's like one of the biggest comics in the world. So sometimes it ends okay. Yeah, there's plenty of happy endings.

But I remember that moment of seeing him and knowing that you know this is just fucking hell i know so many you know listen there's plenty of people uh who don't have a happy ending to that to that tale and i'm i i'm very aware of how how lucky i am that i that i uh yeah it's not for the faint of heart this fucking hard business yeah so all right so see but scrubs turns everything around to hit show and you do it forever but then but but but mostly if in in if what you're saying is true and i'm not doubting you that it gave you the the wherewithal and the momentum to make a movie which is yeah so the first thing that because of because of my hustler i'm gonna fucking make it or or die trying

mentality i went oh my god this show is going to be my ticket to having people take my my screenplay seriously yeah so i i had i had i had the screenplay in pieces but um i i i put it all together i i really i really i really sat down once i got scrubs and took it seriously and said you're a fucking idiot if you don't have a screenplay because this is come on this is momentum. I didn't know how long Scrubs was going to go. Went on forever, didn't it? Well, I did nine years, yeah.

But I mean, I don't, but who the hell ever thinks that's going to happen? I mean, it was unrealistic. I thought it could go two. I got to ride the wave. So then my first hiatus, I did Shakespeare in the Park in New York, a production of Twelfth Night.

And then whilst I was there, a production of Twelfth Night. And then whilst I was there, I wrote Natalie Portman a letter because I knew that she had done the Delacorte Theater. She had done a production of The Seagull. And I thought, God, Natalie is my perfect person for this film.

I'm going to use this angle of we've both been in this theater. I wrote this very personal note, sent her the scripts. She loved it. We met for coffee. And then she said yes, which meant my second hiatus, we were off to the races making the movie. And there were some other people that went on to pretty big careers in the movie, too. Yeah, Peter Sarsgaard and Ian Holm, who just passed away.

I know Ian was the best. Wonderful man. Oh, oh my god I bet I just watched it I just watched the sweet hereafter again oh that's how I discovered him yeah I mean that's how he that's how I he became known to me that movie is insane so dark do you like tragedy like that I I really love a a good tragedy well yeah yeah, I mean, it's like, I don't know how I saw it. I just saw it that they were, how'd they get that? They had one, they must have had one take on that school bus shot. How many times could they?

Sometimes you just got to roll five cameras on it and hope something good happens. I mean, they couldn't rebuild, they couldn't get the ice back up on that lake. There's no fucking way, man. It's like, it's like Buster keaton in the general they're only blowing that bridge once but i love uh i love i'm really in you know it's funny people um think of me i think a lot of for for for comedy because of scrubs or romantic comedy because of garden state um but i i'm very often drawn to to writing and appreciating darker fare. The thing I'm writing now is a pretty dark tragedy.

Really? But maybe it's because of all the, I mean, not maybe. We're living in it. It's what's coming out of me, you know? I think that it's what's, I once had an amazing singer write a song for my film and it wasn't exactly right. And I tried to give him some notes and he said, Zach, I got to be honest with you. It's just in this day and age, in this moment, after watching your film,

that's what came out of me. And I've been feeling that with this thing I've been writing is that it's kind of what came out of me during this period. Well, it's good that you're able to generate at all. I'm trying. I'm trying. It takes work getting my ass in the it takes ass it takes work and ass getting my ass in the chair i mean i've talked to you know other you know writers who you know i have one friend who's a big shot and it's like it's he's having a hard time i mean it's hard to it's hard to reflect because we're still in the trauma. Right, right. But for me, I feel like I got to do it because I can't allow myself the distraction of not working on it because there's just so much time for me to be sitting here and staring at the cursor.

So you beat yourself up? I do. I'm very hard on myself, yeah i want to i don't want to for this to i am a writer but it's hard for me to write i find it to be the hardest of the of the things i hate it yeah it's very hard lawrence lawrence lawrence kasdan apparently once said uh being a writer is signing up to have homework for the rest of your life and that's how i feel about it yeah i feel like i always have homework but you brought you know garden state together you pulled it you know you found your your backers you've in the

movie did well it was a personal movie you know like it was great and that way i mean i remember the soundtrack was huge yeah i won a grammy yeah it's great and then you just kept going with that tv show did they did that get to a point where you'd had enough of that yeah yeah i loved it right i i mean in fact i loved it and donald fazon who was my co-star and we actually are doing a podcast now called fake doctors real friends because it's i just saw him in a movie um remember the titans or clueless no a new movie with i don't think it's out yet, with Dorf. Oh, yeah, yeah.

He's got a new film with Stephen Dorf coming out. I just watched it. Dorf sent it to me. It's called Embattled, I think. Was it good? Yeah, I liked it. He plays a vet. Yeah, he's amazing.

He's my best friend in the world. And so we kind of like during quarantine and everything said, well, we have a lot of free time on our hands. Let's go back and watch the episodes and talk about them and joke about them and kind of tell old stories. So we've been doing that. And it's reminding me of how much fun it was and all the nostalgia. But, of course, after nine years, I was definitely over it because I just felt like I started to see us all recycling jokes and leaning into jokes. And it's hard because the money is ridiculously intoxicating. But I felt like I want to do other things.

But you did do another movie and you did other things. Yeah. I've directed three features. Two of them were yours? Two of them I'd written. One called Wish I Was Here I wrote with my brother Adam. And how did you finance that? Oh, you can vote.

That one I got in a bit of a pickle because someone presented me the idea of trying to crowdfund like half of it. Uh-huh. And this was right at the beginning of Kickstarter being on everyone's radar. And I said, okay, that's kind of cool. Like what if we did that? What if we didn't have a studio? And I put in my own money and we get a financier to put in a little bit of money. But then like half the money comes from promising promising these incentives set visits and t-shirts and merch and posters and signed everything and and um

we uh it became very controversial i became i think i was the first known actor director to do it and it became it was so successful it funded beyond what we asked for in in 24 hours right that that there was instant backlash saying you shouldn't you as a known entity shouldn't be using this right this should be for people who who have no other means um and it became i i unfortunately or fortunately i guess became the face of the debate. Should people who have fan bases be allowed to participate in crowdfunding campaigns? And where did that land? Well, I think after people weighed in enough,

nobody really does it. I was on the cover of Variety being like, is this the new wave of financing? And not many people, I think, have ever done it since because of the amount of antagonism there was for the very idea. Which then hurt the film, I think, because I think that people judge the film as like oh that's that half crowdfunded movie um wow and it was it was a bit of a bummer because i i really am proud of the film but not a lot of people saw it well i'm sorry buddy and i it's okay it was years ago so and then the one you directed after that going inside in Style. Yeah, so then I got hired. Then I had my first big studio come to me and be like,

hey, we loved that movie, and we loved Garden State. Do you ever think about directing a big-ass studio movie? And I was like, go on. And it was a remake of a George Burns movie called Going in Style, and it was Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Alan Arkin starring as three seniors who rob a bank. Well, I remember the original. I remember, you know what I remember the most out of that movie?

What? Is that medium shot of Shroudsburg having a heart attack on the bench. Yeah. It's almost like a long shot, right? Am I remembering it right? Yeah, I remember that. You know, Ted Melfi wrote the script. Great screenwriter. And he didn't. There's not a ton that's that's still from the original. I mean, other than the concept of three seniors who were sort of fucked over by society and by the system.

Go go rob a bank. And ours, ours was able to fold in all this, you know, current day conversation about, you know, corporations, you know, canceling pensions and, and the bank has their money and they don't want any, they don't want to steal a dime more than the pension that's owed to them. And it was great, man. I got to, I got to make a big ass action heist movie in Manhattan and Brooklyn. And, and I think it's, I think it's really funny. But was the experience, I mean, it's a lot to manage, I guess, but the experience of shooting your own movies,

I guess you just sort of like keep your cool and you've got your DP and you focus on what needs to be done. It's all about the sort of community that you build around the production, right? Right, and taking one day at a time because you've got to, if you think about making a big action movie with three seniors in the height of summer in Manhattan, it is impossible if you look at the whole thing. We have – everywhere Morgan Freeman walks, there's paparazzi following him and fans. And so it's not – it's advanced filmmaking, making an action movie in Manhattan in the summer with celebrities. Right.

So you just got to go, okay, what is today? And you put blinders on. Okay, fuck. And then now what is this morning? Right. And if you just keep making it smaller, smaller, smaller, and if you ignore the fact that you have a huge crew and ignore the fact that you have celebrities and you just go, okay, this morning we're going to make a short film. And the short film is called This Scene. And that's how I approach it.

It's like applied OCD. Exactly. Yeah, it's ritual to make it handleable. Right, exactly. I did watch the new movie, The Comeback Trail. Yeah. And is that based on another movie? Very loosely.

George Gallo, who made Midnight Run and has sold more screenplays than anybody in Hollywood, is sort of an action comedy writing legend, saw years and years ago at a festival, he saw like a super low budge version of the concept of this. Right. And said to himself, man, this is not well executed, but what a concept.

And it always stuck with him. And he went on and had years and years of his career and then ran into the widow of the man who'd made the film randomly and said, oh, my God, I never stopped thinking of that film. Would you honor me with the rights so I could write a sort of big budget action comedy version of it? And she said, I'd be honored. So he did just that. And then he cast, uh, Robert De Niro,

Morgan Freeman, um, Tommy Lee Jones and, um, and me shockingly. So, uh, that's what this is.

This is a, this is something I've never really done, which was to be cast. You know, I did the TV show forever. I've done my own films. I've done some smaller films. Yeah.

I'd never been like in a big movie where, with, where I'm one of the lead. I mean, it's basically me and De Niro through most of the movie, as you saw. Right. And, and now was that something you didn't go out for it that was offered to you? No, George really liked me as a, as an actor and liked my stuff. And, and, um, And I got a call one day saying, George Gallo wants to meet you at his house and talk about this script. And I was like, go on. They're like, yeah, De Niro's attached.

And just read it. And I would have gone, I would have ran over there if it was two scenes. Yeah. It's one scene. But I'm flipping through the script and I'm on fucking every other page. I'm like, is this,

are you sure this is the character? Right. So he said, yeah, yeah. And I said, do I have to read? I'll read. You know, as an actor, you're like, this is a big part with De Niro. I'll audition for this if they want me. Like, no, no.

He just wants to talk to you. Went over his house, cracked up, made him laugh, started talking about movies, started talking about Hollywood. And he goes, i want i want you to do it the only thing you got to do is look bob happens to be in town and uh and you know i know you met but i had met bob like so you know socially once or twice but yeah um he said bob just kind of wants to talk to you yeah and i'm like oh okay so i go and meet bob for coffee and i'm so fucking nervous.

My palms are sweating thinking about it and I don't know what's going to happen. And he just kind of, he's like, you know, we're actually, he knew Jessica because Jessica Curson, all circles back to Jessica,

was his advisor. Coach for that movie, yeah. Coach for the comedian movie. The comedian, yeah. And so we talked about Jessica. We talked about the other talked about did he know that going into it though or did you tell him that yeah he knew yeah he knew i well that was my ace in the hole i was gonna i was gonna be like hey you know we've met before but you know jessica who's you

know jessica has become like his his good buddy um they've stayed friendly so anyway couldn't have gone better we we laugh we shoot the shit and then as we're walking out he goes all right well i'll see you on set. And I was like, holy shit, I think I just got this big ass movie. So we go down to Albuquerque, New Mexico. That's where I grew up. Really?

It's quite a place. I don't know that people always get the best impression of it. I didn't necessarily have the best impression of it. I think it felt like it was on hard times. It's a little beat up yeah so you shot the whole movie in new mexico yeah whole film shot in new mexico um and um and it was a blast and i got to know him and work with him and really had to give myself pep talk after pep talk like dude you cannot be intimidated by this being dinero like you have to i don't know if that's ever happened to you when you're working with someone you really admire and you kind of like pretend this is somebody that's not a living legend it's weird i did one scene with him in the joker and you know but i was on set for like a week you know watching him but i had one walk and talk and a scene with

him yeah i remember i know he became very human to me very quickly i i maybe it's just because i interviewed so many people but like you know i i definitely within you know half an hour i'm like oh this is this is this guy robert de niro he's the greatest actor ever but this is who he is now and this is his process is what's very you know sort of humanizing in my very brief experience with him anyways, was to just sort of watch his process at this point. Like, cause you make all these assumptions about somebody's process when you watch your movies growing up, you know, but you know, as an older actor, you know what it takes for him to get the stuff in his head and the kind of the process of that

you're like, you know, you, you really, you start to see him, or I did anyways, as a guy who does the job, and he's just, he's the guy. You know, didn't that happen? Yeah, I think he was way, I think people don't, can't imagine how, I found him very shy. Very. And every, I was with him for a whole movie,

so every day on a graph, I could feel him warming up to me. By the end, we were texting each other and making each other sending each other funny shit on the internet yeah and i've been to dinner at his house since and and uh and now we become friendly but i i was taken aback by how he would be sitting in off in his chair um not really talking to anyone reading a book or on his phone and then he'd come to set and he'd call action. And there was De Niro. And he'd come to life.

And he was intense. And he was amazing and brilliant and going forward and saying, keep the camera rolling. I want to go again. I want to go again. And then they go cut. And he'd kind of just quietly go back to his chair and pick up his book. I was surprised by that, that he wasn't like he didn't he wasn't he was quiet and shy.

But it is true the way those guys can turn it on and the control they have over, you know, I've become very aware of people's faces. Guys that are great at it have this amazing consciousness of their face. That's interesting. of their face. That's interesting. I think what a lot of film actors who aren't great at it don't know is that so many times we as directors just need a shot of you looking out the window.

Reacting. I just need, yeah, you're trying to do too much. My girlfriend and I watched lots of films and TV and we're saying to each other like, oh, I wish someone had told him or her to just do less because you can tell the person has talent but they haven't been directed to trust that the camera's going to take them 75 percent of the way there they over they she's actress right yes she's uh florence. She's a phenomenal actress. What did I just see her in?

She just did Little Women. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's great, yeah. And she's the co-star with Scarlett Johansson in the new Black Widow movie. Wow. Yeah. That's exciting. She's doing well.

Good, man. Well, that was great seeing you in the movie. Fun movie. Thank you. You know what's amazing? You know who's really kind of surprising in that movie, in a way, is he's always good, but Tommy Lee Jones. I mean, that part was like, he's one of those guys where you put the camera on him and he

knows exactly how to play it with the face, you know? Yeah. He has such a face. He's one of those guys where you look at Tommy Lee Jones in person and you go, okay, that's Tommy Lee Jones. I know that's what he looks like. And then you look at the monitor when he's on screen

and you're just like, holy shit, that's a movie star. He's got movie star face. Talk about facial expressions. Right. But De Niro, too. But, like, De Niro's playing this kind of schleppy guy,

which I like to see him do. But there's a couple of monologues in there. That scene between the three of you when he opens up on Tommy Lee and tells him, like, you know, what he's going to do. Like, you're not going to kill yourself. You're going to go to bed. That whole thing? Yeah. I mean watching i'm i'm there i'm blessed enough to be sitting there watching in the middle of it i'm literally in the middle watching tommy lee jones and deniro

screaming each other i mean it's my dream come true i can't believe it and how about that scene in the hospital where i have to berate and slap den Niro I mean that was one of the coolest things I ever did in my career I mean I was just I was that was one of the big ones I gave myself a pep talk to like I know this is De Niro and I know that you're gonna slap him across the face and scream at him but you just got to pretend this is John Smith actor and do not be in your head about because then then De Niro then De Niro is gonna react to me and he's gonna I'm gonna it's like playing tennis he's gonna be rise to the going to, it's like playing tennis. He's going to be rise to the occasion.

Yeah. Right. And how many times did you have to do it? Oh, I did. We, we, we did that scene for all,

you know, all day. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But I, but you know, it's the first scene in the movie where he's watching me. Right.

I'm driving that scene. And I was just like, I wanted, I wanted, I wanted Bob to be proud of me i was not gonna fucking leave anything on the floor yeah yeah yeah was he oh yeah you know he's in his own little way a little pat on the back oh good good because you know it's interesting too i guess working with those guys it's like they've worked with the you know dozens of young actors in all

different types of parts you know they've seen them come and go, and they're like the mountain. And then they see these guys come up the mountain. So it must have been really exciting. I wanted his approval so badly. I wanted him to think I was good. It sounds like he did. It sounds like you guys are friends.

Yeah. I think he did. I mean, I think if he didn't like your work Yeah. It sounds like you guys are friends. Yeah. Yeah. I think he did. I mean, I think if he didn't like your work, he wouldn't have you at the house for dinner. No, you don't have a bad actor over for dinner. Come on. All right, buddy. It was great talking to you, man. Thank you so much.

It's an honor, man. I really love your work, and I love your podcast, and I just think you're a really special human being, and I appreciate you having me on. Oh, I appreciate you doing it. What's your podcast called again? My podcast is called Fake Doctors, Real Friends, and it's me and Donald re-watching Scrubs and telling old stories. Oh, that's the new racket to get the, you know, you guys can't have the rights to Scrubs, but you can tell the stories. You can tell all the stories, and you can, more importantly, we use the episodes as a guide.

It's kind of perfect for us because neither one of us were stand-ups or anything. But if we have the material to reference a half hour of comedy, we can reference those jokes but then go off on these long-ass tangents about other shit. And it's perfect for us. Well, great. Well, best of luck with it man all right thank you it's great seeing you thanks take it easy all right bye that was fun right zach touching nice good talk good guy decent fella all right he's in the comeback trail with robert de niro uh tommy leeiro Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman sometime next year you'll see that movie

he hosts the podcast Fake Doctors Real Friends okay alright let's play a little Thank you. so Thank you. boomer lives and monkey and La Fonda Boomer lives! And monkey and Lafonda, cat angels everywhere. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats.

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