WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1202 - Sam Neill

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Sam Neill never had any ambitions as an actor, which is not true about his ambitions as a wine maker. Speaking to Marc from one of his vineyards in New Zealand, Sam talks about how he's still striving to make the greatest bottle of wine as he lives a sort of double-life as a very familiar face on screens big and small. They also discuss Sam's ideal music festival, their shared love of Randy Newman, the therapeutic reason Sam started acting in the first place, his new movie Rams, and his own ram named Jeff Goldblum. 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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what the fucking frozen people jesus man how's it going i'm sorry if you're out there and you're freezing to death literally i am sorry that you're going through that there's nothing worse than being cold and not being able to get warm i hope you're okay i hope you have quilts i hope you have a space heater don't set yourself on fire i don't know what's going on with where you are but we used to do it the uh the tenement heat way i don't know if you're in new york do you have that radiated are the radiators freezing is the hissing stopped has that horrible dry heat hiss you got to put a like a baking baking tin full of water under those things, all the liquid will be taken out of your body. Sorry, name that tune that's my fucking radiator in new york city i uh i tell you i've never been more grateful to be in california when it's not burning than uh at this particular moment

everybody was like you got to move to texas i think i'll wait i think i'll wait on the big move to texas not that it was on the menu but i guess this is the way it's going to be all over erratic weather who knows weather beyond what we can handle with the structures that we put in place the infrastructure we built was not for almost unsurvivable temperatures and conditions. So either we fucking do something to maybe stop the escalation of this, or make better hats, make better boots, make better jackets, make better pipes, make better infrastructure. You know, some of this shit has not been updated since the turn of the century i don't know where you're from or what town you're in but uh infrastructure is a back

burnered item most of the time so some of that shit that you guys are relying on might be from 1904 but again i hope you're taking care of yourself i I can't imagine. Well, I can. I've been in some pretty gnarly two- or three-day snowstorms. But to not have power, to not have heat, that's just fucking awful. Kick on those burners, man. Is the gas working? Is the natural gas working? You got a gas stove? I guess this is going to be the era of guns and generators.

You better get your guns. You better get your guns. You better get your generators. You better learn how to store your food. Canned. Can some stuff. Make some pickles. I don't know. It's not what I'm doing, and I guess some people have been doing it for a

while. Get that jerky going. No human jerky. Do not make human jerky. Alright? I don't care how cold it gets don't eat your family god damn it all right have some soup okay sam neill is on the show today i'm very excited about it because i didn't know what to expect but we had a kind of a lovely conversation you know him from jurassic park the hunt for red october the, and lots of films he's made in New Zealand. He's a native New Zealand person.

He's also known for his many vineyards and his two paddocks wine. He was at the farm on one of his vineyards when we talked to him, people. He was like in a bar of his own building, of his own creation, in one of his vineyard buildings with a bunch of wine behind him i said it wasn't video so he could start drinking he's also become sort of an online favorite with his uh social media videos of him singing songs and hanging out with farm animals and drinking his wine i might add sam neill great conversation i am i'm having I'm not having a hard time, but I'm having a raw time. I'm having a raw time, people. The assumption I made at the beginning of this shit show was true,

that as this thing goes on, you will become more acquainted with who you really are. And I'm not so sad to get down to the baseline. I did just spend a couple hours on Twitter reveling in the death of Rush Limbaugh. I was happy to know that my armor comes up pretty quickly. I think I got out while I was ahead or at least even. But look, the honest to God truth is, having done talk radio, it's not that I don't have him in perspective or it's not that I don't understand that he was a capable and pioneering broadcaster no one paused better than Rush and I can say that honestly that if there's one thing that he brought to the table

it was letting something sit for a minute after he said something terrible. and sickness of those he judged and disagreed with was as he reveled in their demise in their pain in their deaths he would let it sit there for a minute as if to let you revel in the evil fucking piece of shit that he was. Rush Limbaugh, and I'm talking about Rush Limbaugh, was an evil, malignant piece of garbage, responsible for more deaths and more brain fucking than any broadcaster in history. Many of us have lost relatives to Rush's show, to his way of thinking,

to the rancid garbage he put into people's brains. He was proud of it. He was proud at laughing at the pain of others and causing pain and hatred. He loved it. Fuck him. Good riddance. So what I was saying was in terms of figuring out who you are, I got kind of off topic there. figuring out who you are. I got kind of off topic there. And now I'm just trying to stop myself in the midst of this ongoing anxiety and sort of inability to sort of function and the anxiety

of waiting to get a vaccine, of waiting to get some sort of normalcy, of wondering how things unfold and just dealing with the day to day, the day to day, the day to day, today of the day, the same day. I have to fight my desire to do dumb little things man i i wanted to go replace the cartridge on my turntable and switch out my turntable that can wait no i messed up and did it my rug one of my rugs is coming unraveled i know there's a rug repair place around the corner here but that can wait like those weird things like i literally have to say to myself dude you don't need to do that. Dude, you don't need to run to the fucking supermarket for smoked paprika.

You don't even need it in a recipe. Just because I lock in, I get obsessed and I think, got to go do it. Mask up, go do it. But you don't have to do that stuff. That's a daily struggle with me when I'm alone during the day is not to go to a store or to a place or do a thing that is fucking completely unnecessary. Huh. Going to get a kitten in a few weeks. Probably going to call him Mingus.

All right. Here we go. Sam Neill. The new film. Another great film. Beautiful small movie this is, called Rams. It's about two sheep farming brothers in Western Australia who are at war with each other over their prized breed of rams and come together kind of in the face of adversity. Maybe.

Do they? It's available now on all digital on-demand platforms. And it's a beautiful movie. I highly recommend thisand platforms uh and it's a beautiful movie i highly recommend this movie rams it's a great story and it's so tight so simple characters are beautiful farmers in new zealand or australia in western australia and this tension this family tension uh heirloom hot you know beautiful uh heirloom sheep a lot of there's a lot of uh goat testicles in this movie and the uh the handling of goat testicles now if that doesn't get you in i don't know what will uh sam was at his vineyard in new zealand when we had this

conversation and you'll notice that because i'm not doing stand-up you know when i got an audience i'll keep trying to get some laughs he was great truly a truly a joy to talk to Sam. 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. Are you self-employed? brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. and equipment or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the I'm too small for this mindset hold you back from protecting yourself. Zensurance provides customized business insurance policies starting at just $19 per month. Visit Zensurance today to get a free quote. Zensurance, mind your business. How are you, Sam? I'm fine, thank you, Mark. Nice to meet you.

I see you've got Gimme Shelter behind you. Was that the movie about Altamont and all that? Yeah, it definitely had Altamont in it. It was, yeah, the Maisel brothers. Yeah, that was the one. They set out to make an exciting, fun documentary about the Rolling Stones tour, and then it turned into a fucking demonic nightmare. Yeah.

But I heard a reassessment of all that, that cast the stones into a much worse light than you would have it. That's true. I read a book. There's a book that was written by a journalist in San Francisco. And yeah, it turns out that the stones were just awful from the get go, that there was no precautions taken, that no one was prepared for anything. And they didn't care. go that there was no precautions taken that no one was prepared for anything and uh and they didn't care yeah it was actually a really chilling account well what was chilling about it was just how out of control it got because there was no bathrooms there was no doctors there was no water and they didn't expect that many people in like hundred like a hundred thousand people however many came it was just insanity no one one was there. It was chaos.

And then there was this bad drugs going around. Everyone was out of their mind. The stage wasn't even, the stage was like three feet off the ground, Sam. Three feet with no security, but hell's sake. It was crazy. I know. And people wonder why I don't go to festivals anymore.

Scary. Did you used to go the last time i went um was actually in ireland maybe 10 years ago in ireland in ireland yeah it was kind of cool it was good it was out in the middle of nowhere and there was so many more good bands than i expected it's a nice way to spend the day it was a good good way to spend the day. They had like tents with different things on. Sure. Yeah, you always had a choice of like three things at any one time. Who are your bands?

Like who do you like? Who do I like? Yeah. Oh. Who are your go-to bands? Okay, my ideal festival. Yeah. I'd need to revive them, but I little feet with lowell george oh nice yeah

sure yeah uh probably headlining great um i'd like randy newman in one of the side tents oh randy's great yeah i don't want him on the main stage i want him in a side tent so there's just a hundred of us and randy you know he He'd feel better about that. He doesn't need the pressure. You know, he's hard on himself. I tell you who I also saw live, and to my complete surprise, they were about as good a thing live as you could possibly imagine was Radiohead. Oh, yeah.

You wouldn't imagine them being a great live band. They were fantastic. Great live band. Why wouldn't you imagine that because they're sort of uh enchanting somehow you know well they're not exactly uh rock and roll you know what i mean they're sort of and and um uh it's kind of miserabilist rock and you you wouldn't think that'd be a good day out, but oh my God, they were fantastic. Tom York was really compelling. They get into a zone.

They're great. I saw you sing a Randy Newman song from Sail Away. I think it was on Sail Away. On one of your, what is that, Instagram or Twitter? What do you do the little movies on? What did I dare to do on that? Dayton, Ohio. Dayton, Ohio, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Ohio. Dayton, Ohio. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a kind of a safe song. I wanted to do Sail Away, and I thought, oh, no, maybe. Not everyone gets Randy Newman. Not everyone gets irony. Not everyone understands that he's. Yeah. It's not him.

Yeah. It's a character. He wrote one of the best songs ever written. I'm one of, I, that song guilty is one of the greatest songs ever. Do you know the song guilty? It's incredible.

Oh my God. That song kills me. I can't get through it without crying. I know. And, and it's a great song to cover too, you know? Yeah.

It's a sweet song. And, and then like, I liked the last night I had a dream. There's a great song to cover, too. Yeah, it's a sweet song. And then I like the Last Night I Had a Dream. I interviewed him once for a couple hours. It was one of the high points of my life. What a great thing to do. I was listening the other day to, it's hilarious and grotesque. I love L.A.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's a great, that's, yeah. He's such a, he's so funny, man. And dark, too, you know. Yeah. How dark is You Can Leave Your Hat On? I love that song, yeah. But it's dark. It is.

It's so dark and creepy and strange. What about Let's Burn Down the Cornfield? Oh, God. The list is endless, isn't it? We need five hours with Randy. Yeah, man. He's great. So are you in a – is that a bar?

Do you have a wine bar in your house? What's going on in that room? Did you think – No, this is – you know, I have four vineyards. This is kind of the principal one. And it's midsummer. And, you know, the vines are in full, pumping at full rate at the moment. My cattle and my sheep are over there.

So wait, you have four vineyards and each one of them has a house on it. This isn't the house. This is, if you, if you come to my, if you come to my vineyard, this is where I will,

I will pour wine down your throat liberally. Well, you know, I would like, I don't, I don't drink anymore, but if you can get me citizenship, I might need it. And I'll let you do that. It's getting a little dicey here. I don't know if it's a great turn of events is going to save us.

So, uh, I don't know how many people, do you know many Americans who have run away down there? Do you know, do you have friends from show business, Sam, that have bought palatial chunks of property down there? I don't have any, no. It's mostly, I believe, the chunks of property have been bought by people with something called hedge funds. I don't know what hedge funds are exactly. I think we all need one because they're obviously, know what hedge funds are exactly. I think we all need one because they're obviously, they obviously, you know, they reap great profits from whatever these things are. But

yeah. There are a bundle of different stocks run by a few guys and those guys take other people's money and gamble with it on their hedge fund stocks. And some of them make a lot of money. I think that's my limited understanding of it. Well, we're in the wrong business. We need to gamble with other people's money. Yes. I have no idea. Sometimes I don't even know how I'm getting paid. I just assume the guy I call, the guy who tells me I'm great and they want me, he also tells me i got paid so i i just have to trust that guy yeah yeah um i i i am that guy around here at any one time i have about 10 people working for me yeah and um yeah so i'm the guy that i'm the guy that everyone depends on and i have to say there is no money and i don't like to tell them that because they're all working for me in a wine capacity right, there is no money in, I don't like to tell them that because they're all working for me in a wine capacity.

Right. There is no money in wine. So what is it about the wine people? I mean, is this just a way of you servicing your alcoholism? I mean, how? Yeah, it works. It works that way. It seems like a lot to do for, you know, you can just buy a few bottles a day.

A sane man would do exactly that, Mark, a sane man. No, in my case, it's kind of historical. I have family. I've found out I've got family that goes back to 1805 growing wine. And my father. In Ireland? That was in Sicily. Oh, you have Italian family?

He wasn't actually. What's that noise? I don't know. Is that you or me? I don't think it's me. Is that someone upstairs? Is that someone upstairs having a good time? It's the ghost of your great-grandfather.

Yeah, maybe. No, that was a man called Benjamin Ingham, and he went to Sicily and made a fortune from Marcella. Oh, I see. So he was not Italian. He wasn't Italian, no. He was a Yorkshireman. But on the neil side yeah um i'm i'm fourth generation possibly fifth in wine and spirits but i'm i'm i'm the first one

i'm the first neil to grow wine wait so you're the fifth generation in wine and spirits but you're the first one to actually make their own is that what is that what you're really telling me yeah the others the others were merchants and were drowning in it is that the i don't want to i don't want to be stereotyping but is that the irish line the neils that's the irish line yes what part do you do you spend time in ireland at all uh i have, and in fact, I've worked in Ireland two or three times, and I love going back. And I kind of feel weirdly at home, and I tell you, there's something about Ireland that kind of makes me feel comfortable,

and I'm always puzzled as to whether that's because my first seven years were there or if it's a DNA thing. Well, I'll tell you, I don't want to burst your bubble, but I'm a 100% Ashkenazi Jew, and I have the exact same feeling in Ireland. So maybe don't lean on the genetics so so much let's go with the other thing but Marc Maron sounds entirely French to me yeah I don't know why that is there it does look French it sounds French but it isn't it's it goes all the way back to uh like Belarus I think pale of settlement pogroms you know I come from yeah, I come from a line of, of, of tailors and people who own surplus stores. Yeah. It never pays to sort of go back too far.

I think Stephen Fry's family, you know, that, you know, that series, who do you think you are? Yeah. No, but we have one here somewhere. Yeah. Finding your roots. similar yeah finding your roots yeah finding your roots and and and whenever anyone says um belarus or something it always end you think you know and ends up with some grotesque thing that happens in the in the yeah yeah it's all that's the palisade and the people those are the jews right yeah usually yeah yeah or pogroms or some sure yeah yeah no it never you know it never it doesn't generally end well for the jews like yeah it seems like the jews that ended up in america and maybe in england they're only there

because they were running away that anywhere there are jews surviving it's because they left in a hurry wisely yeah yeah the ones who got out under the wire yeah but okay so you come fifth generation spirits but you're the guy that made the investment you're the one that did it do you have like are you a wine nerd is that what it is because like i don't drink anymore so i and i i enjoyed wine but it seems like it's one of those things like there's no end to what you could obsess about yeah yes thank you much um no i'm look i i'm yeah i love wine but i'm not i'm not um i'm not i'm not crazy about it i'm not i'm not exactly wild eyed about it but i i look it's more of course i deeply care about this i care about what's in the bottle is that one of yours and yeah and and i'm i'm wildly ambitious that this should be the greatest wine in the world yeah i'm i'm i don't i have no ambitions as an actor at all

no more oh really but i started off very humbly and modestly in wine. Yeah. And my ambition gets more and more out of control every year. Right. And you know what, Mark? Yeah. I think I'm getting close to it. I think I'm getting very close to making the greatest wine on the planet.

Oh, that's great. That's great that, you know, all you need to do is believe that, Sam. No one can take that away from you, all right? Please don't present me as some self-delusional fool from the South Pacific. I'm not. I'm not. You're a good audience, and I don't talk to anybody. I'm all alone here, Sam. This isolation thing is starting to get to me. Oh, my God. I completely understand that.

Not only that, when you get out of isolation, which I finally did in December, when I got out of quarantine here, I sort of wanted to go back into isolation, I'd become so institutionalized that people walking, you know, unguarded in the streets, unmasked, terrifying, kissing each other, breathing everywhere. Yeah, I, I, I, it completely freaked me out. I was, I was state of absolute chaotic terror. Yeah, I can't, I don't, I talked to my friend in New York and he said his son is taking the train downtown. I'm like, a train?

A train? What? You're going to let him back in the house? Yeah, that's right. I love. So where are you holed up? Glendale. Glendale?

Where's that? Los Angeles. I'm in Los Angeles. Okay. But I'm okay, man. It? Los Angeles. I'm in Los Angeles. Okay. But I'm okay, man. You know, it's all right. I'm working it out. I'm figuring it out.

I try to talk to people. I was doing what you were doing on Instagram. I make videos every morning. But yours are like a minute, two minutes. I'm on there for an hour just talking to a live audience of about 800 to a thousand people in the morning just wandering around talking to my cats i play records for them and then and then by the end of the day it gets anywhere from like 10 000 to 25 000 views like something that's how bored people are here they'll watch me make coffee for an hour you know at some point during their day

and you're doing it on camera yeah do it on the yeah i do with my phone but you know the great thing about show business right now uh at least here is that i have the same production values with my phone as the tonight show has so no one no one that is true. Yeah. And a better set. My God, you've got Mick Jagger on your set. Look at that. Yeah, exactly. But wait, so you had no ambition as an actor ever?

No. So how did you get into it? Every time I get a job, I'm completely astonished. Who are these fools that want to employ me? It's that attitude they love so much i don't i don't know it's i i it's i harrison ford's turned them down yeah everybody's turned where's sam neill number i'm number 27 on the list does he still act i don't know he's making wine well just is he alive yeah is he alive call him up how old is he now but what but how did you get why did you get started in it i didn't really mean to

i didn't really i i i never imagined that i would get into acting as a career yeah i love i knew loved acting and i started at school and it was a sort of, it was therapeutic as much as anything. I underscore that by saying I really, really don't like drama as a therapy, but it was therapeutic for me because I had a very bad stammer as a child and I stuttered very badly and I hardly spoke for 14 years until I sort of gradually started to get some confidence as an adolescent and I realised on stage I could actually speak clearly and that gave me the sort of courage

to sort of actually talk to people and talk to adults, for instance. Yeah. And then when I left university, I got a sort of pretty ordinary degree in English at university. And I left there thinking, I don't know what I'm going to do. I would have liked to have gone to drama school. There wasn't any drama school to go to. I would have liked to have gone to drama school. There wasn't any drama school to go to. I would have liked to have gone straight into acting.

There wasn't really any film being made in New Zealand in those days. What was going on there? Anything? What did you do? What did people do in New Zealand? What did your dad do? He was in Wine and Spirits. Ah.

So in New Zealand. Oh, he was actually there. He had a liquor store? Yeah. They were merchants, Neal company wine and spirits merchants okay okay yeah and he was uh he he said to me you need to get a job and i i realized it didn't there was there was no chance of acting as acting as a career that just wasn't any work so i i got a job working as a uh in documentary film and i trained as a film that just wasn't any work. So I got a job working in documentary film, and I trained as a film editor. I became a director.

And then I did that for six or seven years. While I was doing that, I would sort of moonlight in one or two of my friends' little films, little short films. And a guy called Roger Donaldson spotted me in one of those films and cast me as the lead. Again, I don't know. I thought this guy was crazy. Yeah.

In the first colour feature film ever made in New Zealand and the first film that had been made for 20 years. Wow. A film called Sleeping Dogs. And that sort of, and then I went back to making documentaries. Someone saw me in that film and they asked me to come to Australia and act on a film called My Brilliant Career opposite Judy Davis. She's great.

That is a big movie. Yeah, well, that went to Cannes, and I realized when I got to Australia that for the first time in my life, people said, you're actually really quite good. I said, what? No, no, you're good. You're a good actor. Oh, come on.

Pull my other leg. And then I started making a good living as an actor, and that took me to England and points beyond. So it's sort of, and I'm still surprised, it's actually 50 years, someone reminded me rather cruelly in an interview earlier today, since the first time my face was seen on celluloid yeah it's a 19 um 1971 or something like that that's a long time years it's a hell of a long time well what let me just

ask you though like so you did all that you were six seven years in documentaries what does that mean what is there some amazing business in documentaries in new ze Zealand in the late 60s? I mean, how was that in employment? What were the documentaries about? Yeah, well, it was the New Zealand National Film Unit, and it was a government. Most people worked for the government in those days. Okay. And we made films for government departments,

a lot for tourist and publicity. And occasionally we'd get a film, we'd make a film for ourselves. And so my very first film was for the New Zealand Post Office. It was about telephone courtesy. Yeah. New Zealand Post Office. It was about telephone courtesy. Oh, yeah.

How to answer a phone and not offend people. And you acted in that film? No, no, no. I wrote it and directed it. Oh, so you had to bring another guy in, huh? Yeah, I cast my friends in these roles that I'd written. The New Zealand Post Office ran the telephones in those days. Different days.

I mean, like, so what do you tell me? So at that time, did you know everybody on the island? I mean, was there a lot of people there? In those days, there were two and a half million people in New Zealand and 70 million sheep. Wow. We were vastly outnumbered by the sheep. And what are the, I don't want to be ignorant, but what are the indigenous people called? Maori. Maori, right, right, right.

Yeah. And now, was there a dynamic between the Maori and your family or people in general when you were growing up? I don't know what the situation is there. Yeah, it's an interesting situation. I grew up in the South Island, and there were very few Maori people in the South Island in those days. in the South Island in those days. Things have changed considerably. Like Indigenous people pretty much everywhere,

there's disadvantage and a fair amount of poverty too up in the north. But things are changing rapidly, and the Maori people were – it's very different from Australia, for instance. There was a treaty called the Treaty of Waitangi that was struck between the crown, the British, and the Maori people in 1840. Okay. Waitangi Tribunal has been redressing grievances and returning land and compensating in a monetary sense for loss of lands and deprivation one way or another. So while it's not perfect, I think we're a very different society than the one I grew up in. People are much more respectful and aware of Maori traditions and te reo, that's Maori language,

and actually very proud of how integral Maori people and Maori culture is to is to new zealand society yeah isn't isn't taika uh waititi uh maori part maori absolutely yeah because i i just watched that movie it's still in my mind because i i watched that movie that you were in you know the hunt for the the wilder people and it was that kid uh maori. Yeah, absolutely. What a great movie. Yeah. I think it's kind of central to the story of New Zealand now, too, that film in a strange way. Is it?

Yeah, I think so. It has a sort of healing quality. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of wounds. There's a lot of blood in the soil in New Zealand. There were in the 1860s, 1870s, what were known as the Maori Wars when I was growing up, they're now known as the New Zealand Wars or the Land Wars. And there's still a lot of bad blood, but a film like Will to People has the effect of bringing people together rather than separating them. Yeah, it's beautiful.

So it had a profound effect on the culture there, that film in particular. It played well there. I'm not sure about profound, but it had a big effect. Yeah. No, it's a beautiful movie. And, you know, it's just sort of interesting. I watched the Rams movie as well. And I like this version of you, this kind of like, you know, beaten down, aging,geonly, yeah. I read somewhere once that Gregory Peck would make notes on his scripts, but on most pages he would put these three letters at the top of the page,

N-A-R, and someone asked him, what does N-A-R mean, Mr. Peck? He said, no acting required. me, Mr. Peck. He said, no acting required. Well, I mean, it seems like, you know, what kind of animals you got on the vineyards there? You got, is that a farm? Do all vineyards have animals? How does it work? Do you have to have animals? What do you do with the animals? You're making wine? Are you butchering animals too? Or milking them? What are you doing? Do you make milk? animals too or milking them what are you doing do you make milk no i don't make any milk i love the innocent premise of that question no um um um the look um everything we do here is organic.

We make organic wines. We use a lot of biodynamic principles. And for that, for instance, animals are absolutely integral to those procedures. Okay. Highland cows have big, scary horns, and they're sort of shaggy. And they produce, to put it as pleasantly as I can, the best manure possible. And manure is absolutely, we're all about soil health.

And for soil health, you need good compost, good manure, because you're restoring nitrogen to the soil. I'm getting really boring now, Mark. I apologize. I'm getting into this nerdy, techie thing. It's okay. But we're talking about poop, and that's always good. People enjoy poop talk. It's refreshing, isn't it?

Yeah. As long as it's not too sciencey which i think we're the idea is yeah and i think that it's not you so you have these very exotic kind of uh you know prehistoric looking animals that you just you just have around so you can collect their shit i mean they yeah that's and and but but so you just you're really so you're shit farming with the cows to make the soil better for the wine. Yeah. Yeah. Good shit.

Good wine. You know? So that's how many cows do you have just for this purpose? Like what's the herd number? I think I've got 12 or 14. We just had a few new calves. I haven't had a head count for a while, but I think it's about 14 at last count. I've got about 30 sheep.

They also do the same thing. They're on weed control too. Instead of spraying the place with foul chemicals from you-know-who, we use sheep to… I don't know who. Like Monsanto? Well, like Monsanto, yeah, obviously. Yeah.

Okay, so you use sheep poop to kill bugs? Weed control. Bugs aren't such a problem here, but weeds. We get a lot of competition from weeds. So sheep poop kills weeds? No, they eat the weeds. Oh, got it. Okay, got it.

So how many sheep you got? You've got to get out of the house more, Mark. I'm learning the secrets of farming. I know that I'm familiar with the eating of the—I learned a lot with the sheep movie that you were in. Yeah. So how many sheep is there over there? I think about 40 at the moment, 40 or 50. And do you name them?

Do you shear them? Do you make wool? Do you have people come in and make wool? I do name some of them, and those are the ones that I don't want to end up on somebody else's plate. I have one called Jeff Goldblum, who is a retired ram, and he's a good friend. I can see him actually at the moment.

He's up the top under a power pylon up there. Very nice ram. Is he neurotic and speak in a strange kind of rhythm? Yeah, there's a lot of humming and harrying well that's nice so there's no no one's getting killed unless yeah because like you know in the in two movies i've seen you and there was just a massacre of of animals and they like i'm happy to know that it's just terrible. No, look, I have to say, look, if you want the sorted facts, in any given year we might get 24, I think we got 24 lambs this last season.

Twelve of those will be boys, and 12 of those will not, and the boys will not make it to the, you know, we bring in a new ram. You just need one ram for the flock. Yeah. And the boys, well, they'll have a happy life, but not necessarily a very long life. Okay. Fine.

Now, I think. It's tough on the farm. Why? It's tough on the phone. Why? It's tough on the phone. What? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you got to... What do you do?

Do you eat them? I do. Yeah. You don't have to be ashamed of that. I would think that even people... Like, you're doing it correctly. You get to know them, and then you tell them to look the other way, and you murder them, and then you chop them up, and you eat them.

Everything's used. You make soup with the bones? I mean, if you make soup with the bones i mean if you make soup with the bones you get the bones of the dogs how many dogs you got over there i just have one dog who's sleeping outside and scratching okay are you scratching or sleeping so i guess like okay here's a pressing question in the movie rams your new film which i enjoyed a great deal. Good. Thank you. Are those prosthetic testicles or are those actual balls? Those are real balls, Mark.

Okay. You have to tilt your hat. Yeah. You have to tilt your hat to your average ram. There is no animal so prodigious on the planet. Let me tell you. Yeah. A good ram can cover 80 females, 80 ewes in a given day. Huh.

80. Huh. Now, even the worst sex addict from your town. Sure. Can't come anywhere close to that. No, no. They've tried, but it doesn't end yeah that's right back in the day you know some guys got close

that's what i hear there was a time sam but that's that's why they need very very big testicles per body weight they're the biggest balls on the planet. Yeah. Well, that's okay. That's good to know. I don't know what to do with that information. I was going to make a joke, but I couldn't come up with a name quick enough. Just slowly process.

Yeah. Sleep well, you know. Yeah. I love the movie. I like both of those movies. I like the older movies, too. So you didn't train as an actor what you're just learning on the job were the directors that gave you some hints other were there co-stars that you had that said maybe you should think about

you know doing it this way i mean how did you pick it up i think uh uh listening and listening and and kind of working it out for myself. And in the old days, we used to have what they called dailies or rushes. Sure. And we would all file into a screening room a day or two after you'd shot that day and watch those dailies. And I learned a lot from that, just going, just going oh my god what did i think i was doing there oh oh no that's oh it's worse yeah don't do that again right i learned a lot from that i

learned a lot from other actors just just watching and and and observing who i liked and who I didn't like, and that guy's good. Who? Like who? But also, oh, so many. Like who were the, what was one of the first guys you're like, oh, my God, I got to figure that out. That was great. I think I was processing that very early on. I was a big fan, actually, of British movies when I was growing up. So I liked people like Dirk Bogart and James Mason, actually, of British movies when I was growing up.

I like people like Dirk Bogart and James Mason. Yeah. Those sort of actors. Oh, yeah. James Mason's great. I just watched a couple of the Joseph Losey scripts. I just watched. Oh, yeah.

What was the one with Anne Bancroft? Oh, The Pumpkin Eater? Was that it? The Pumpkin Eater? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. That was brutal. I love those Losey films. Do you know what I think?

It might be the greatest film ever made, and I haven't seen it for a long time. It may have dated. But The Go-Between. Oh, I got to watch that. Oh, it's fantastic. Is that a Losey film? Yeah.

Julie Christie. It's a fantastic, fantastic film. Edward Fox. I just watched The Accident. Because I'm watching on the Criterion criterion channel they got all these pinterest scripts so i watched the accident which i think had dirk in it and i watched uh uh yeah the pumpkin eater which had james mason in it and um who was the lead in that uh oh uh Peter Finch. Yeah, Peter Finch. Australian.

Interesting actor. Yeah, I remember I've seen Network many times, and that was the last movie. Yeah, that was his last film. But it was Laurence Olivier that encouraged him to leave Australia and seek his fortune fortune elsewhere and the rest is history yeah what about did olivier did you like olivier yeah not so much on on film you know there's not not a lot on film that that i particularly cared for why not what do you think what was about the

other guys you could see their personality i don't know they always kind of smacked of the theater a little bit, you know, whereas James Mason was made for cinema. He was so watchable, so watchable, and does seemingly so little, but so little can speak so much. so little, but so little can speak so much. I know. So you learned that. So that's what you learned from him. Because it's my instinct when I act. I come in always too hot, too just out of control. But that's fine.

It gives me a lot of leeway. Turning things down is easy. Actually, either way. I like being directed. You? I love being directed. And one bit of advice I got very early on, I've never forgotten it, was if in doubt, do nothing. Huh.

But that's only if you're in doubt, I think. Doing nothing isn't enough. And sometimes I see actors doing nothing. I think, well, come on, do something. Well, I think doing nothing isn't enough and sometimes i see actors doing nothing i think well come on do something well i think doing nothing that's insufficient right right right i think doing nothing and being engaged is different than doing nothing actually doing nothing sometimes i worry about my hands did you ever worry about your hands like what am i doing with my hands like you know because like film Jeff Daniels said to me he said you got to learn how to use your face because most of film is face and

you know I'm a mouth breather so that's tricky every time you cut to me my mouth is going to be open I'm like if I look at myself on film like why is my mouth fucking open can't just tell me to close my mouth? Well, the mustache helps.

Yeah, a little bit. But I can't be aware of everything. That's something that's deep. I just never breathe through my nose. I can't worry about that while I'm acting on top of everything else, like to breathe through my nose. I think the best motto I ever heard was what is acting? Yeah. And I think it's and this sums it up better than anything I've heard.

Yeah. Is pretending to be someone else, but really, really meaning it. Yeah, right. And that's all you need to know, really. Either you got it or you don't you don't need to go to drama school you just just remember that shit but do you feel like you've gotten better over time of course right i hope i have you're always pretty good though i mean i even remember like i don't know the really i i can't remember if i saw my brilliant career but i

remember the the the damien movie that was. I wish people didn't remember that. Really? Why? It's like, you know, that was one of the great characters, the Antichrist. You have a problem with the? I wasn't very happy with my performance. But I thought. What was the problem with it in your mind?

Oh, I just wasn't very good. It was very early days but um i'll forgive myself for it how many movies have you forgotten have you you must you must have forgotten if you yeah i've forgotten most of them but the someone said it was 75 movies or something like that it's a lot yeah but you can't remember all of them. No. But I thought the problem with playing the Antichrist and the gift is this. It must be the loneliest job in the world being the Antichrist, don't you think? I don't know.

Ask our last president. Yeah. Well, I mean. It is kind of. Yeah. president yeah well i mean it is kind of yeah i don't know he's there's no way a buffoon could be the antichrist if you're going to be the antichrist you're going to be really clever aren't you i guess otherwise you're not you know you know i mean the last president was a was a complete buffoon yeah a dangerous buffoon a very dangerous a dangerous buffoon. A very dangerous buffoon. Never arm a clown.

Now, if you're really the Antichrist, you can't go around saying, oh, look, can I take you out on Friday night? Oh, this is nice, isn't it? Another martini. By the way, I'm the Antichrist. People are just going Oh, this is nice, isn't it? Another martini. By the way, I'm the Antichrist. People are just going to run and run screaming, aren't they? Or they're going to go like, sure you are. Okay.

Okay. Come on. Scary man. I've heard that. Yeah, all the guys tell me that. I'm the Antichrist. And it doesn't turn me on. Get out of here.

Take another. Do another angle. New angle. So you thought he was too human. That was your problem? No, I thought. I felt kind of sorry for him. It must be so lonely, you know.

But that's good, though. That's good. Bleak and lonely. I've seen guys overplay satan you know i mean pacino just chewed up the scenery in devil's advocate yeah i mean it's like wow and that's it's a lot of satan a lot of hello come on he's chewed a lot he's chewed a lot of scenery and so i don't remember him chewing scenery in the early days do you remember i don't know he was doing scenery no No, it all happened after Scarface.

Scarface was the turning point. And then everything was like. What happened in that film? He just was talking loud. Too much fun? Yeah, yeah. No, he did Tony Montana. But you know what?

It was scent of a woman, too. Hoo-ha! You know? And then. You know, the. You know, but you know what you know the... You know the... But you know when he's... He can still do it, Sam.

Did you see him play Jack Kevorkian? Great. He was great in that. The HBO movie? I haven't seen that, no. He can still dial it way down. He comes in a little hot because he's got a lot to prove now.

But he can... If you want him to take it down... He does biopics now and he's very good at it. Have you ever done a biopic? Yes, I did. I played a sort of very famous

kind of Trump-esque mining magnate from Australia. What's that movie called? His name was Lang Hancock. And he made a fortune from just, he flew over these hills and said,

why are these hills red? I realized they were like 90% iron. And he became one of the wealthiest men on the planet wow from just that little insight and so he just strip mined all of new zealand or australia australia australia yeah yeah there seemed like some people made a lot of money in australia the cattle money the kidman family but i i found out it's not nicole right that no it's actually here yeah i mean i interviewed her recently, and I was like, so come on, tell us about, you know, you're not half Australia, right?

She's like, no, that's not me. So that was a good question. Yeah, she might have really been that kid, but she's always said no. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it, unless her dad was like the black sheep of the family. Right, yeah. You worked with her. That was a big movie, right? Which movie was that? Dead Calm, right? doesn't seem like it unless her dad was like the black sheep of the family you know like right yeah

you worked with her that was a big movie right the which movie was that dead calm right dead dead calm yeah and um she was good always right oh she was fantastic i'm not sure if that would be appropriate these days uh i think i was 41 and she was 22 or something like that. The characters are in real life. Well, we weren't dating. We were just in the movie together. No, I get it. But I mean, you're implying that the relationship on screen wasn't appropriate, correct?

I'm not saying you were dating. No, it's just, I don't know. There's a lot of sensitivities about um look i've i've done material on it as a comic i've talked about dating younger women i you know it's like someone i did a joke years ago on letterman and i got an email because someone saw it and they're like maybe you should you know figure out how to take that down like you you just want me to erase my history this is it's a it's a good joke. You're going to start scrambling. It was on television, man.

Whoa, girl. That's not going to happen, buddy. So what happened with James Bond? I mean, that could have been a game changer. Am I bringing up touchy stuff? I almost always get asked about this. I went to a – I was sent along reluctantly by my agent in the early 80s. They said, darling, they're casting a new James Bond,

and you should be the new James. I said, I don't want to be James Bond. Darling, I'm telling you to go. So I went and I had this excruciating audition. And A, there's no way I want to do it. And B, there's no way they're going to offer it to me. And they didn't, which was a relief. So I didn't have to say no.

But I tell you what I would have dreaded about it because today, I mean, it's like being branded somehow. Yeah, yeah. And I would go to it. If I'd done that, I would, having spoken to you, I'd go down for a coffee at my local village and there would be people I don't know there would go, oh, my God, look, that's James Bond over there.

That's the one I always hated. The bad Bond. Look, there's the crap Bond over there in the corner. How sad. And that would be with you for the rest of your life. So I dodged a bullet there one way or another. Dude, I have not watched a James Bond movie in 40 years. I think the last James Bond movie I saw was a Roger Moore James Bond movie.

I missed all the Timothy Dalton ones. I don't care about it anymore. Yeah. So which one would you have been? The one that Dalton got? Dalton got that gig, yeah. You know that guy? Welcome to it guy I've met him once I think in a car park you know as you do yeah I I don't think I've seen one Dalton Bond and then what

wasn't there another Bond too that I before uh didn't Remington Steele what's that guy's name uh he lives in Hawaii. He's Australian, too. There was George Lazenby, an Australian. He did one. Yeah, what about the guy who lives in Hawaii? What's his name? I can't remember his name.

The guy. Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan. Pierce. Yeah. And Pierce was very good, and he always wanted to be James Bond. He was very good at it. Where's he from?

Is he Australian? He's Irish. Irish. I saw him in that movie. I watched a Bob Hoskins movie, The Long Good Friday. Bob Hoskins plays a British mobster, and Pierce Brosnan plays one of the IRA thugs. I've been watching old movies a lot,

because what else are we supposed to do? I don't have a vineyard or sheep. I've just got, you know, I'm in my house. I smoke fish. I've got a smoker and I've been making fish. That's what I do. Wow. What do the neighbors say about that?

It's not a big operation. I'm talking one piece of fish. It's not like I've got a, you know, a hut out there. It's not commercial. No, I'm not... You're not stinking out the block. No, no, I'm not a problem in the neighborhood. Like a meth lab.

It's a fish smoker. Where do you live? I live in the smoked fish region. Oh, I know. I've been there. It's horrific. Oh, you live near that... Who is that guy?

Yeah, that Jew who smokes a fish. Where does he think he's at? Mark Marauder. That's horrific. Oh, you live near that? Who is that guy? Yeah, that Jew who smokes a fish? Where does he think he's at? Mark Marauder. That's him. The smoked fish guy. Yeah. It's a nightmare. So then like looking back at the whole operation of your life,

I mean, which movies are you like, that I nailed it. I nailed that one. Oh, I don't think you ever really nailed it. Come on. Come on. No, no, no. There's always something. There's always,

there's always a flaw, but you know, nothing's perfect. And if you, if, look, if you, if you,

when did it get close? I don't know. Look, it's for other people to judge. I, I, um, your experience. Look, it's for other people to judge. Your experience.

No, look, I'm mostly mortified by watching myself. Still. I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy it. I don't enjoy watching myself. Really? But if other people enjoy it, then I'm happy. And the thing about Rams is that I've had such warm response to it and people have been getting hold of me and said, you know,

it's the sort of film that makes you feel better about things. Yeah. And that's a bit of a gift in these rather bleak times. And I have to tell you I've been looking at a lot of recent movies because I'm in the Academy and I need to see what's going on. And there's been some very good films, but almost universally they're a bit depressing. Yeah.

Which ones did you watch? I really liked The Suitable Girl. You know, what is it? The Suitable Girl? That was the last one. I don't know. Promising Young Woman? Is that what you're talking about?

Promising Young Woman. You watch it? I'm not so bad at titles. Yeah. I mean, that's a bleak film, but it's a very good film, isn't it? You know which one's a real killer? Did you watch that Pieces of a Woman? No.

Whoa. That's rough. Did you watch that Nomadland? Did you watch that with McDormand?? No. Whoa, that's rough. Did you watch that Nomadland? Did you watch that with McDormand? Yeah. How was that? It's good. I mean, she's just amazing, isn't she?

She's remarkable. And it's a very interesting film that it's seemingly completely unstructured. Yeah. I just watched, I love him so much i just watched the news of the world with tom hanks oh was that good it was an object lesson how to act on screen and and he has such sort of warmth and humanity which just there's no one like him you know yeah he's he's really remarkable. Yeah, he is. I think the thing about Rams, to wrap it up on that movie,

I didn't know what to expect from that movie. I didn't know where it was going to go. It's always sort of heartbreaking, these deep family feuds. It's sort of interesting to me that you come from generations of people involved with spirits, and this is a generational kind of goat movie, sheep movie. Yeah, yeah. But all of it is so weighted, but it's so simple, and everybody's so lovely in it.

And the woman who plays the vet, what's her name? Miranda Richardson. She's great, and I haven't seen her in a while. And what about the guy who plays your brother? Who's that guy? Michael Caton. He's been a friend of mine since 1979 that's the last time we worked together really it was just so like I just didn't know how it was going to resolve itself and it's so it's so kind of emotionally rewarding you know oh good yeah I'm glad you say that it's good yeah it was it was it was and and those those feuds you know where i am now on my vineyard if you if you drive a mile

down the road there's a big old homestead and uh it was built in the 1890s i think it's a huge yeah huge house and it was inherited at one point by two brothers. Yeah. And these brothers grew to hate each other to the extent that they could not live under the same roof. But neither of them would leave. So what they decided to do was to brick it up right through the center of the house. One lived down one end of the house. That's crazy. That takes a certain type of will. Let me ask you something.

So you, you had that, you've had the first, when did you, did you, is this what you always wanted to do? I mean, did you, did you get out of show business to be like, did you buy? I bought the land. Those first three vineyards I planted, you know, we planted those grapes. We didn't. It's only the last vineyard that was established that I bought. So it's 30 years now and it's, you know,

I lead a sort of double life. I'm a Jekyll and Hyde. And Hyde is the guy that's growing the grapes and is crazily ambitious. Dr. Jekyll is the guy that goes to work on the movies. And while it might seem like a double life, it's also, I think, a sort of a balanced life. So it's somewhere between, you know, I've got one foot in the arts

and the other one in the soil, I suppose. So it's not one or the other, and you still like doing movies. Oh, I love it. Okay. And I wouldn't go to work if I didn't love it. And I wouldn't be growing anything here if I didn't love it. So it is a balance. Yeah.

It's not like I've got to feed this bad idea that I can't seem to extricate myself from. I think there were times when my ex-wife would have said that, yeah. Oh, yeah. What are you doing? What do you think you're doing, you crazy man? Well, I tell you, man, it was really a pleasure talking to you. I made my night. Thank you, Mark.

It's lovely to see you. Lovely to talk to you. Yeah. We'll do it again sometime, but I think you got other stuff to do. Thank you so much. It's lovely to see you. Thanks, buddy. Take care.

Okay. Bye now. That was fun that was i really enjoyed talking to sam the film is called rams it's definitely a sweet movie to watch highly recommend it all right dig some uh hard rock riffage Thank you. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon Boomer lives. Monkey Lafonda. Cat angels everywhere, man. Cat angels everywhere, man. We'll see you next time. almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those. Moose? No.

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