WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1249 - Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's long career in show business has left him with a keen sense of the problems caused by the constant bombardment of media and technology in our lives. Joseph tells Marc how he was able to channel some of his anxieties about how we're navigating the modern world in his new series Mr. Corman. They also talk about his life in New Zealand, growing up on the screen, and why he hopes his company HitRECord can take the edge off social media. 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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This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required.

T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Adelics? What the fuck, Knicks? What the fuck, Tuplets? adelics what the fuck nicks what the fuck tuplets how is everyone everybody okay is everybody locked in joseph gordon levitt is on the show today and we had a

very nice chat i like his new show i enjoy the new show the uh mr corman show i've been watching a lot of stuff for homework but uh sometimes it's like, oh, good. Thank God. Thank God it's good. But I've been pushing it with the stand up and I can feel an edge to it. There is a point where my excitement, it's not that my excitement diminishes. It's that I come up against the wall of like, all right, a lot of this stuff is working. A lot of it is riding an edge. A lot of it makes people uncomfortable, some of it. And am I doing that on purpose?

Can I relieve that tension? Like there's been a couple of incidents on stage lately where I feel the tension I've created, and in my heart, I don't exactly know why I'm creating it, and I almost have to laugh cry in order to move forward. I mean, the other night I went on stage just stripped down. And it was funny because I was talking and some woman stage right was sitting with her husband or boyfriend, a man, said something. It didn't seem like a heckle, but I'm like, what was that?

Did you say something? And the man she's with goes, she said she feels sad for you. And I'm like, oh, no, no. I'm like, it's oozing. It's seeping. The cracks, the cracks. And then I thought back to that night when I was a doorman in the main room in the 80s and Rodney Dangerfield had come into the main room and he never went to that club.

He never went to the comedy store, really. But he was just running a few minutes for his Oscar set. I've told this story before. And he pops off a couple of bits and some guy in the room just goes, Hey, Rodney. What? Why are you so sad?

What does that mean? What kind of room is this? Like, he just kind of, it kind of shook him up. Like, he didn't know. Like, it's an honest question. It's a weird question. The answer is difficult. But it was that moment of acknowledging that somebody had seen through.

That was what caught him off guard. But for me, I was like, no, you're right. You're right. This isn't, i've got to stuff it down i've got to push down that sadness i mean what the fuck am i thinking god damn it you're right lady you're right is this a better tone are we gonna go from here let's go from here this is funnier so i went all the way out and i pulled it back in and i killed and they were having a great time but it was nice to sort of lay that foundation

of honesty at the beginning, just to see if I could, you know, run from it, you know, build a funny wall around it, you know, put on the clown's nose. And then the other night, last night, the night before last night, I was in the main room and I just felt the tension I was creating because the audience was okay. So they weren't great. So I'm trying to meet them halfway. And then I realized, all right, well, this is going to be how it's going to be. This is the best that's going to happen in here. Every joke was starting to set over in a way.

You had to earn it, every joke. And I just began to create tension. And at some point, I'm like, what am I doing? I'm like, I started laughing to myself. I put one of my hands over my face. And I'm like, I can feel the tension I'm creating. I don't know why I'm like, I started laughing to myself. I put my hands over my, one of my hands over my face. And I'm like, I just, I can feel the tension I'm creating. I don't know why I'm doing it, but it's making me want to cry. And then I said, is this even comedy?

Why am I doing this? Why can't I just release this crowd? Why do I, what am I trying to find here? And they were laughing hysterically at my you know fairly controlled meltdown but it was you know it was uh it was cathartic in a way mildly cathartic you know i can't you know it broke me down i let go and i realized i got to get back to that place where i can you know where i gotta let go i mean what you know what i get it some part of my heart has been broken and it's just the way i'm gonna be until it goes away and uh what am i expecting audience to do why do i need to is there part of me which i'm sure there

is that that wants to drag them into my heartbreak is that part of what i do of course it is uh but i i need to be more conscious of it right now because of the amount of anger and sort of free floating sadness that i that is you know, kind of moving through me, but in its purest state, not hilarious. My friend Jerry texted me that he was feeling a little down. He asked me how I was doing. I said, dealing day to day, pushing back the sad. Now, is that a good name for a comedy tour?

pushing back the sad now is that a good name for a comedy tour or would that not be one that people would buy tickets to pushing back the sad 2021 mark maron comedy tour huh no yeah no yeah oh i don't know how many of you listen to the lindsey buckingham uh show but i was talking about my experiences at uh brush ranch camp and about a particular gal girl woman she maybe they who was out in the world still who i i kind of like sent a uh a signal out to i wondered what happened out loud and uh karen mckibben is alive and well and has emailed me i've not emailed her back yet nervous not nervous i mean what what have i got it's been like a million years but it's it's interesting about this podcast it's like obviously not everyone listens to this podcast but there's a real good chance that somebody you know or somebody who you know who knows you know that you like i'm just saying you're there's only a few degrees away between you and someone who listens to this show.

But you're listening to this. Who am I talking to? But you know what I'm saying? You get it. That's you get my point. Right. Same with this guy, Luke, from the Matt Damon episode. Someone sent me some info on Luke.

Apparently, he's obviously no longer a street musician and he runs some. He's the head of a department at some college, like Vassar or something, a computer or something. I don't know. And I don't know what Mike is up to, but I've got, I got an email from somebody from the Tasty who told me that he was one of the Mikes out of the three. But I think the Mike that I was referring to was a guy named Mike Smith. But anyways, but anyways, that's, that's all coming back around, man. People are checking in.

I'll reach out. I'll see what happens. I'll see what happens. I left my house the other day without my phone, and I didn't go back for it. That's right. Hero. That's right. Brave.

That's right. The unknown, folks. To be in that car for what was going to be probably an hour errand, about 20 minutes to, 20 minutes back, 20 in the middle, doing the thing, no phone. And I felt a little vulnerable. I felt a little naked. I felt a little disconnected. I felt a little like crazy, like, you know, like, what am I going to do? Where's my friend? Where's my friend? What am I going to do? And that led me to believe what am I gonna do where's my friend where's my friend what am I gonna do and that led me to believe that maybe I need to break up with my phone I don't know I don't know if that's possible I don't think it is possible but

it did show me that I could leave it at home more like I and then I the other night I left house left the house with my phone but no wallet a different type of uh like feeling like oh my a little untethered but the wallet wallet fear is really just about if I get mangled and my car drives off a cliff or I get into a head-on collision and I'm nothing but mush and I don't got my wallet with me, that's not going to be easy to find me. I guess they, well, that's not true. They just find my license plate. Oh, good. I just found a way to comfort myself the next time I'm in my car and I forget my wallet. Is that like, hey, if they need to ID your remains, they can just pull your info off the plate.

Whew. Thank God. I don't need to beat myself up about that next time. I just need to know I'll be okay when I'm dead. If I don't have my wallet. Cause this is pull it off the plate. Pull that net. Get that info.

Yeah. But the phone thing was real. And then I, I did, I tried an experiment. I took a walk on purpose the other day without my phone, on purpose. Because, dude, the reality is mundane. The reality is slow.

You know, what pace is your true reality? How much are you putting in your head that's making you crazy? So 85%, 90% of the assumptions we're making have nothing to do with our life. They have nothing to do with how we are. They have nothing to do with how we are. They have nothing to do with how we treat other people. If your only relationship is with your phone, how often do people factor in? Are you saying thank you?

Are you opening the door? Are you asking people how they are? Are you having moments? Do you sit with people? Sit with people. We're all right. Stop the fire. Stop the fire in your brain.

Take some time off. Take a little time off from the machine. Okay, so Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been working in show business since he was six years old. His grandfather was a director. He was in popular movies as a kid, like Angels in the Outfield and the long-running sitcom Third Rock from the Sun. He was in movies like 500 Days of Summer, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Brick, Looper, and a bunch of other movies.

But now he's created this amazing show. He's written it, directed it, and stars in this new Apple TV Plus series called Mr. Corman. I watched six episodes. I thought I watched the whole thing, but I hadn't. He sets me straight. And it's just about a guy. It's about a teacher.

I think he's a fifth grade teacher, but it's not what he wanted to do. But there's not much, he wanted to be a musician, but there's not much more to the pitch than that. But there's something about the intensity of this guy's way of seeing things and being it's very familiar and uh i i liked it he's an intense guy and it's a very human kind of show it's on apple tv plus and it premieres friday friday august 6th okay this is me talking to Joseph Gordon-Levitt. That's why you need to switch to low-cost coverage from Zensurance before your policy renews this year.

Zensurance does all the heavy lifting to find a policy, covering only what you need. And policies start at only $19 per month. So if your policy is renewing soon, go to Zensurance and fill out a quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel.

To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Look at that mic. That's a lot. I'm on the Marc Maron podcast.

I'm not not gonna go through some fucking computer speaker microphone that's very i appreciate it i want to sound good i appreciate the respect and are you guys recording video as well or is this just audio no we don't do the video thing great i'm all i'm all for it yeah you don't have to well yeah yeah what would you what would you have done right now if i would have said yes we're doing video i'll tell you what i would have done is i would have held the microphone here so you could see my right instead of holding it here right i can't see my mouth would you make a hat adjustment would there be other things you'd have to i might be more prone

to take off my hat knowing that we're not on video because uh i don't know what my hair is going to look like right right i'm just being really honest here that's why we never do video and i never wanted to because when you put video maybe not now because people have gotten so accustomed to it but you deal with hair and makeup it is one of my favorite things about the medium of the podcast that it is audio only, and it puts the attention on the substance of what you're saying as opposed to the- It's an audio experience. Yeah. Have you ever read Amusing Ourselves to Death?

Yes. Neil Postman. It's one of the most important- Whoa, hey. I'm impressed you knew what I was talking about. That's great. Yeah. It's one of the defining books of my brain.

Mine too, to be really honest. Really? Yeah, mine too. I read it about five years ago or so, and I'm rereading it now. I think about it constantly. Yeah, I think I read it when it came out. Oh, wow. So there you go.

I'm older than you. It's fascinating to read now because for those who haven't read it, it's analyzing television largely and kind of what the medium of television does to our culture and to public discourse. And what it was becoming. Right. That was before it tipped. Right.

So it's prophetic, I would imagine. It's incredibly prophetic because when you read what he says about television, but you read it today and you see what new media technology is doing to our culture and to public discourse, it seems like he's talking about Facebook when he's talking about television. So it's just been this progression, this march towards the lowest common denominator and the inability of us to have productive conversations. Exactly. He was kind of intellectually picturing the nightmare scenario, right authoritarian government that burns books, that prevents everybody from reading, that by force prevents you from doing it. And in Brave New World, he says the government doesn't have to burn books because nobody's interested in reading. People are going to be so apathetic by fulfilling their needs and desires in the empty hole.

And now we're evolving into some sort of hybrid of both. How exciting. We've got a very active. Where's the hype? Like, are we any 1984? It seems like we're purely. Are you kidding, dude? Like, you know.

What are you talking about, man? All these Republican state legislatures who are trying to ban critical race theory and define exactly what education the kids can have and what books and what can be in those books. I mean, you're right about that. Yeah, man, there's a full on fascist thrust going on. But it feels like the way that they get away with it is because everyone's so distracted and amused by all the entertainment. Sure. So maybe in that model of thinking, the Huxley version is just the antecedent.

Is that the right word? It's what happens before. It's the palate cleanser for a more classical authoritarianism to take over. I wonder. I wonder. I feel like it's all kind of more sly than what you see in 1984. They couldn't get away with- No, no, that's right.

Yeah, because we are big brother. In the sense that we've offered ourselves. We've allowed ourselves to be surveilled. in 1984 they couldn't get away no no that's right yeah because we are big brother they you know that in the sense that we've offered ourselves we've allowed ourselves to be surveilled we signed up for it yeah sure so i watched uh the entire series uh mr gorman you did oh man you're honestly you're one of the first people i've actually spoken to who's watched the whole thing that that wasn't involved in making it wow Wow, I'm delighted. Thank you. Yeah, sure.

Oh, yeah, buddy. But before I get into it, I liked it very much. And I liked it because it seems that intellectually I'm with you in terms of how you're seeing what's happening currently and just, I think, life in general. Thanks. That means a lot to me. Sure. I'm assuming there's a lot of you in that character and in that show. Yeah, that was sort of the goal from the outset,

was to make something really personal. I really love playing characters as an actor that is very different from me. It's one of the things I love about acting, is putting myself in someone else's shoes. And the first thing I wrote and directed is called Don John. I wanted to play a character that was really different from myself, even though it's not to say he's 100% different.

I have overlap with that character, but he was quite different from me. And then with Mr. Corman, I really wanted to try to do something more like myself. But I think in both, when you talk about Don John, I mean, I think that, you know, I don't think in both when you talk about don john i mean i think that you know i don't know maybe we can talk about how how we were brought up a little bit but both of them are you know fairly astute uh cultural criticism and and and and sort of like it's a

little more subtle in mr corman but i mean in, I mean, you're talking about the sort of in a comedic way that the debilitating reality of, you know, of chronic porn consumption. Right. Yeah. Which is, you know, which sort of shifted, I think, a lot more than anybody's willing to admit culturally and with sexuality and just with, you know, causing the isolating power of the of the internet and technology to really take hold. I agree. I think the proliferation of online porn is enormously impactful in ways that we barely talk about. And I think it's actually going to go more and more and more in that direction as the technology gets more sophisticated. And I'm scared of a generation that's just completely, completely plugged in and blissed out on, on hyper on addictive tech generated hyper stimulation. Well, but also like, you know, in light of that,

I'd like to talk to you a little bit about your company, but we can do that after. Oh yeah. Let's go. But approaching. All right. right so so this is more personal mr corman but but what i want to know because you know i've been pitching a show that looks like is going to go somewhere at least uh where at least we're going to write a script so i i'm just like watching that show outside of like you know i'm i'm you know joseph gordon

levitt and you know me i'm a known quantity that that has a certain audience outside of that what what's the pitch for that show i i don't know if there was a ton of a pitch for that show because you're right it is pretty slice of life it's a picture of a human being and right so you didn't have to pitch it they you had to deal with apple to do i had written had written a spec script, and they read it, and they liked it. And I didn't have a deal with Apple before that. Well, they liked it. Did they say, where is this going to go?

What's this about? They did. I came on for what they call a development deal where I wrote a second script and wrote a quote-unquote Bible, like sort of outlining and telling them about what I thought the rest of the season was going to do before they greenlit it. So, okay. And how far down the road does that Bible go? How many seasons? It went into some amount of detail in the first season and then broad strokes for following seasons you know it's odd there's there's i just watched a movie by that uh that woman

zoe lister jones she's an actress but she made this little film called how it ends and it's really just a a walk what's what's in the middle of covid she shot it and it's sort of a walk through what looks to be mostly silver lake and los felos these abandoned streets and it's supposed to be taking place on the last day of the planet earth because there's an asteroid heading towards earth that everyone knows about and it's going to be over but it's also like it's also how you characterize your panic attacks in mr corman there's just this burning ball in the sky that you don't mention but you you assume because of one of the animated cutaways that you know it is an asteroid you know heading towards earth yeah

but i think as a means to to sort of uh make people understand what panic is and what panic feels like. It's a good device, just a hanging flaming ball in the air. Well, that actually came from someone I'm close to who, you know, the anxiety and or panic that the protagonist of the show, Josh experiences is sort of an amalgamation of feelings. I've had feelings of other people I'm close to that. I'm, you know, that I've sort of experienced it secondhand through being with them.

And, and also several of the other writers in our, in our writers room had, it seems like everyone has either firsthand or secondhand experience with these kinds of feelings. It's extremely normal. In general or currently? that the numbers are up and I could see that, especially with given what we were talking about a second ago with social media, I do think that it's an anxiety generator. I think that's part of what drives the advertising business model. And I could see that the advent of social media could make anxiety rise. But I also think probably people have always experienced these feelings. They're just becoming a bit more willing to talk about it now than they used to in prior generations.

And I think that also, like, you know, you're able to sort of hit all these kind of these these marks, you know, throughout the the episodes. Was it how many of the six? There are 10, 10, 10, 10. So the funeral is the last one, right? No, that's the sixth episode oh so i only watched six aha you got i thought i got but that's all i got oh i'm sorry we didn't say well we just probably we just just finished uh the last couple so maybe uh they weren't available on your link yet okay well we'll send it to you if you want to see them or you can you can watch them later but what but what's sort of interesting is that you tie you touch on like

it's not just social media i mean i'm trying to figure out like anybody else is you know where we're headed you know culturally uh you know environmentally and and otherwise and that we're all sort of we're not even coming out of covet it's still a reality here. So there's going to be a bunch of entertainment and art product, you know, that is going to reflect on this time. Now, somehow or another, I don't know when you shot this, there is a sense of dread and darkness and overbearing anxiety that's out of our control that kind of runs through this. I mean, I just saw the movie Pig. There's a lot of darkness in there. And then this other thing I just saw.

But I don't know when you made this, but it seems maybe social media and everything else contributes to anxiety. But literally what seems to be the end of the world as we know it on a few different levels is a reality to many people. Yeah, well, you're 100% right. I mean,

it's to your question of when we made this. Um, and it's funny that you only saw the first six episodes because we started shooting and three weeks in lockdown arrived and we had to shut down our show. Of course, like everybody else in the first episode, uh, we were, we were almost done with shooting three episodes with having three episodes out of the 10. And we had to stop. You were cross-shooting? You were shooting three at once? We were shooting a block of three different episodes, and we were almost done with that block. So we were almost done with three different episodes, but all three of them were slightly incomplete. I was very lucky to be working with these incredibly smart producers at A24 who had the idea because we tried to get the

show up in LA and do it safely, but we couldn't do it in a way that was both safe and feasible. feasible. And so the folks at A24 had the idea for us to come to New Zealand. And it was just a godsend. I feel like I won the lottery. I feel so incredibly lucky and grateful that we got to come here. Are you still there? I am. I am still here right now. Yeah. Are you ever coming back? I don't know, man. I mean, I am going to come back in a little bit to do another acting job. And I'm frankly scared to come back into pandemic. But I mean, you know, I just dropped my five-year-old off at school and, you know, no one wears masks here. There's no cases here. The cases are zero here. And like I said, I just feel incredibly lucky. I wonder what it would be like to spend as much time as you have away and what it's going to be like when you come back.

But so getting back to it, how did COVID influence then the next three or seven episodes? Yeah. So what we actually did was. Were they written already? They were written and we did some pretty substantial rewriting. And we were faced with this challenge of, well, if we don't, you know, the show was written not during a pandemic. But we don't feel like we can really just set the show not during the pandemic. This isn't a fantasy. fantasy you know if you're writing game of thrones or whatever or you're writing even just something that's set in contemporary times but is more fantastical or you know right spectacular sure

just set it in some alternate reality where there is no pandemic but our show is very much about real life and so the solution we came up with was we we kept the first seven episodes exactly how they were oh see now i missed the pandemic hits in episode eight yeah it's just the last three episodes eight nine and ten where the pandemic hits um so yeah we'll send you those what the fuck happens to josh when the pandemic hits a guy can barely keep it together you know he says it he's like this is my exact nightmare and it's it it felt cohesive with the rest of the story we were telling to have this happen but it seems like he wouldn't even be able to function was he he retreats to his mom's house and when it arrives and that's okay that's actually that's the that's the only episode we really focus on it we really just focus

on it in one episode and then episode nine and 10, it's more in the background. Right. But yeah, he retreats to his mom's house and, and his mom, you know, says like,

yes, okay, this is a challenge, but look, you find the worst version of everything and you feel like everything's a complete disaster. You're not helping yourself. You know,

how much is Debra Winger's character like your real mother? Yeah, good question. Deborah Winger's character is definitely informed by my mother, but also my father. That character, she's sort of an amalgamation of my mom and my dad because zooming out a bit, the whole character of Josh, Mr. Corman is a lot like me, but with a few things changed. And one of the biggest things I changed was Josh has one great parent and one problematic parent. I just like the whole balance of, you know, the fact, you know, the, the idea of a character who had, who was really pursuing music. And then because of pressure from within himself or expectations or family you

know he decided that it was irresponsible and then put it on the shelf and the fact that you chose that what he would do was teach is sort of the it's like the default for artists uh in general that's what i think i would do i mean look i I'm, I feel very grateful that I've gotten to earn a living as an artist. And I also feel very lucky. And it's not to say that I don't feel like I've worked for it. I do feel I have, but I also know a lot of other people that work really hard and don't, don't reap the same rewards that, that I have. And so I, I, I really consider it very lucky that I get to do what I do for a living. And I've certainly thought plenty about what would I do if I hadn't gotten so lucky?

And I just love the idea of teaching. I admire teachers a great deal. And it feels like it'd be really challenging, hard work, but also really rewarding in some of the same ways that being an artist is. Well, I think that it's rewarding right up until or shortly after what you choose to teach as the character of Josh. Like, I think once you get to junior high, it's probably a fucking shit show.

Yeah. But like fifth grade. So is show business. No, no, I know, I know. But I think that the challenges become exponentially more challenging once they get old enough to really, I mean, they're just starting, it seems, to push back in the grades you're teaching. Yeah.

But I thought the sensitivity to the kids and the fact that, like, whether he wanted to do that or not, because of the profound, you know, selfishness of the character and his own fear, you know, you know selfishness of the character and his own fear you know selfishness in the way because he can't escape himself that the balance of the kids you know it somehow manages to to humanize him and and to sort of show that you know he's learning something despite himself about being human yeah i i really like the idea of someone who who is a really good teacher and is doing his best and sincerely wants to do right by his students who are you know 10 and 11 year olds but behind his teacher self is someone who's not necessarily all grown up yet himself and who's but also sort of yeah heartbroken lost you know a creative person i mean it really speaks to like those memories we we all have of like you

know what are our teachers are they even people you know so yeah you you don't assume your teachers have lives or humans or that you know what i mean i remember this is ringing a bell i haven't thought of this a long time i feel like i read a kid's book when i was young where a kid goes and sees that their teacher's house like right and and it's a and it's mind-blowing to the student like oh you don't just live at school like you have yeah right you have a house like i have a house or you see him at the supermarket or somewhere you're like oh my, they're out in the wild. But, yeah, so how much of, like, because I think, honestly, even looking at the sort of extensive resume of your acting career,

that it seems like this is you being a fully realized artist. Acting is one thing. But, I mean, the way one thing, but I mean, this, the, the way this thing moves and the way it's written and, and the, the, the sort of vision of it as a director visually, I mean, you know, you really kind of like you've, you've created a, a very specific and unique tone. There's a, there's a certain menace to the, all the hand holding camera, you know, and there's a certain you know the the sort of close-ups get a little claustrophobic and then you've created this space to sort of depart into fantasy you know animation and even musical uh which i think you see a little

more now and i you know in general but i i don't think i've ever noticed it like this that you know because the scene with you and deborah winger where you can't quite emotionally communicate with your mother and then all of a sudden we're in a musical which was that was an original piece of music correct yep yeah nathan johnson our composer and i collaborated to make that song but like you know you're sort of using all these filmic devices yet it still stays grounded in the humanity of the situation and the guy who plays your roommate's quite good arturo he's amazing oh man well what you're saying just means a lot to me thank you i i uh and you're right this does in many ways this project has felt like a culmination of kind of everything i've learned for the 30 years that I've been doing this and really my

taste. And I've worked on so many things where I'm helping a filmmaker realize their vision. That's what you do as an actor. You're there for the filmmaker and you're providing the ingredients that they need to tell their story. And of course, you bring yourself to it. Just like all the actors are bringing themselves to Mr. Corman. And like you mentioned Arturo or, or Deborah Winger and, and all the actors, they, they made it so much better than it was in my head and, and good actors do that. And I feel like I've, I've had the opportunity to do that and worked with great directors who were

collaborative, but still it's always when you're acting it's always the work of the filmmaker right it's really you're helping to do but going back i mean when you think about it i mean how well did you know your grandfather uh michael gordon oh good question not very well um he was the kind of guy that so that's my mom's dad but he directed a lot of like big studio movies i mean like he did pillow talk like doris day rock hudson you know uh he did a lot he did a lot of movies he did as a director he did he did he did cyrano de bergerac which is a that's a big movie pillow talk pillow talk who was it that? Jose Ferrer? Jose Ferrer, who won the Oscar and is, I think, even called out in Annie Hall or some Woody Allen movie

that Jose Ferrer won instead of Marlon Brando for On the Waterfront. And that it was an upset. Right, right, right. For Cyrano, yeah. Yeah, but he was actually blacklisted after that because he had been to some meetings.

Your grandfather. My grandfather was he had been to some meetings uh grandfather my grandfather was yeah and uh some meetings um that you know bore the name communism and at that time the meetings he was going to were really just people getting together and trying to talk about what today you would call social justice you know trying to but also unionizing the film industry correct yeah well yeah unions were a big part of social justice of making sure that labor wasn't abused by the big companies and and you know trying to end poverty and things like that um but uh yeah the the u.s government felt very threatened by mccarthy this the McCarthy here, the McCarthy era. Exactly. He was blacklist. And it's one of the darker moments of the American government where it really went back on the principles that the founders of the country imbued into the Constitution,

the right to the freedom of speech, the right to freedom of assembly, the right to hold whatever opinion you want to hold. Did you know him, though? I knew him a little bit. He was the kind of guy that he died when I was 10. And I wish he had stayed alive a little longer because I feel like by the time I was say 14 or 15, we would have connected much more because I would have read more things and been more ready to have the kind of conversations that I think he liked to have. He wasn't the kind of guy that could get down on the level of a five-year-old or a 10-year-old. It's just not the way he did it. I remember I played him in chess once because I was learning chess and he just destroyed me and barely explained how. He wasn't warm and fuzzy in that way.

Wasn't a kid guy. Yeah, he wasn't a kid guy. He's old fashioned, I guess. But your mother, that's as much of a lefty Jewish upbringing that you can have is to have a blacklisted father. And she kind of stuck with that, right?

Yeah, both my parents, where they met, was working at a lefty public radio station called KPFK in Los Angeles. Pacifica? Yeah, Pacifica Radio, exactly. It's still around? It is, KPFK, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's a very significant presence, that particular.

It's sort of like, as long as it's left, it goes. It's sort of like the guy, as long as it's left, it goes. Doesn't matter how far out you go, but as long as it's left, we could do it. I will agree with you. And I say this as a staunch leftist. I probably don't agree with 100% of the rhetoric on Pacifica Radio. Were either of them on air? My dad was. My dad was one of the main news readers and news editors at KPFK.

Okay. Is he still around? And my mom worked there as well. My dad, yep. Yeah, he's no longer a journalist. He had a few different careers. He, for the last number of decades, run a software company. Actually, he started one a long time before it became such a,

you know, before Silicon Valley was Silicon Valley and your mom. And my mom quit working when she had kids and, and was a full-time parent, which I admire greatly as well. You know, not that, not that anybody necessarily should or shouldn't do that. Everybody's got to find their own life and make their own choices, of course. And I respect

any given... I'm a parent who works, but my mom decided to do some stuff. You took some time off though. I did. I was able to... I'm lucky. I was able to take quite a bit of time off when I first had kids. I wish that everybody was able to do that. So they at least know who you were when you came home? Yeah, exactly. Did your mom run for office as well? She did. Yeah, she ran under the Peace and Freedom Party, and I think she was a founding

member of that political party, which still exists, if I'm not mistaken, kind of a far left. Yeah. Yeah, which at that time, their main platform was trying to end the war in Vietnam. But how do you like you started acting when you were like, what, a month old? I mean, like, how does that like how does six I was six when I started doing my first job and it was very much, you know, I give a ton of credit to both my parents, especially my mom helped me enormously. But one of the ways she helped me was she never, ever pressured me. To do what? To stop or go?

Do either? Either way. She always just said, hey, this is something you love doing. And I loved doing a few different things. I also went and did a lot of gymnastics when I was a little kid. And I played sports and did a lot of gymnastics when I was a little kid and I played sports and did piano lessons. I never connected with the piano as much because I didn't like reading music, but actually my music teacher who taught piano, she also taught a choir,

which I really liked. I was in the choir. And then she also started teaching this kind of like community theater. We would put on musicals and we'd be a group of kids putting on peter pan and grease and guys and dolls and things like that and i played the scarecrow and i played you know nicky and whatever and and uh and i love those old timey suits yeah yeah little kids and old-timey grown-up suits what could be better than that the best yeah and uh and there you know then luck comes in i happen to be doing this in los angeles you know and i i grew up in a suburb of la which part where'd you grow i grew up in the valley in sherman oaks oh yeah i went to van nuys high a couple of the kids that were in my community theater classes went on auditions, and their manager asked my mom if I wanted to go on auditions.

So you were recruited out of- Out of playing Scarecrow. Yeah. Elementary school musicals. Yeah. Wow. And it's just a privilege to have been born in a house where those auditions were, you know, a half hour drive away. So after your mom wasn't working, my mom wasn't working.

My brother was already quite grown because he's six and a half years older than I am. And so she would drive me to auditions and I would go on a number of auditions every week, sometimes two a day. I went on hundreds. I think I've probably I think I've probably been on a thousand auditions. Because you wanted to or was she sort of like it was just she was helping facilitate this. Oh, you had a manager. OK, right. Well, there was a there was a manager or an agent.

Yeah. Give the info. And then manager or an agent yeah give the info and then i got an agent yeah but um i absolutely wanted to and in fact whenever uh whenever i would say i don't i don't want to go her her thing was always okay look you committed to going into this today yeah and it wouldn't be right of me to teach you that you can just flake on a commitment. So you should go today. But after that, you don't have to do this. We can stop. I can call Susan. Susan was the name of my agent. I can call Susan and tell her that you don't want to do this. It's perfectly fine. It's 100% cool with me. I love you no

matter what. I think you're great no matter what and you're doing great things no matter what we don't have to do this but I just really loved it ever since there's a story about the first time the first job I ever did was this peanut butter commercial and it was

sort of a difficult shoot there was fake rain and I had to sit there and kind of get rained on and it was kind of long difficult shoot. There was fake rain. And I had to sit there and kind of get rained on. And it was kind of long. I was only six years old. Yeah. But I loved it so much that when we came out of the soundstage that evening and I saw that it was nighttime, I turned to my mom and said, whoa, it's nighttime already?

Because the time had gone by so fast. I just loved being part of that team, part of a crew, part of a set where everyone's got their job to do and everyone's working together to make this thing happen. I loved it so much. So you love the whole collaborative nature of it. That's exactly it, man. I think I always just really, I loved the acting, but I also just loved the whole process. And even from a very young age, I was always fascinated with all the different jobs. And what about training? Did you do any?

Well, not formally so much, although I did have one acting teacher. There was a teacher named Kevin McDermott, who I still think about all the time. It's been a few years since I've talked to him, but he, I really consider him one of the great influences in my life. Kevin, as well as the music teacher I mentioned who taught choir and community theater.

Her name is Ms. Karen. And both of those are two teachers that I consider just hugely impactful. At the same time. That was the same time of your life. Roughly. Yeah. Similar time in my life.

Yeah. So you're like a kid and Kevin was, you took a drama class or he was part of the guy who made the plays, produced them or directed them? He was a totally separate operation than Miss Karen who did the plays. He was an acting class and kids in LA who were doing acting like I was took classes with him.

Oh, so it was outside of school. It was outside of school. Both of these were outside of school. Oh, okay. Yeah. And, and Kevin was just a brilliant,

brilliant teacher that he didn't talk down to us. And he, he didn't teach the academic version of acting. Like he never told us, okay, this is what Stanislavski said or anything like that. But he taught us about what it meant to put yourself in someone else's shoes, to create a character that was different from yourself and really be real, really be that character.

We used to do an exercise in Kevin's class where we would spend weeks creating a character. And we would come up with all their backstory and who they were. And every character had to end up for some reason in a juvenile detention psychology group. Cause Kevin actually, he had a background in, he used to work in, in juvenile detention centers and things like that.

Yeah. And, and so it was up to you to create this. We had to. Yeah. And he had a friend. So it was up to you to create this. We had to create a character, and he would help us. And over the course of weeks, we would do different exercises of how to create a character and how to embody that character. And we would do improvisation, like working on – this is when I'm seven.

Working on being that character and refining who that character was, and we would write down things about our character. And then once we had our character all done, he would bring a friend of his who was an actual child psychologist who actually ran a group therapy sessions with kids. And I was seven, but most of the kids were older in this class. And she would come, we would, we would get into character and then she would come. She would never meet us as actors and she would run a group therapy session and we would stay in character for 45 minutes straight. Holy man.

Doing a real group therapy session as run by not an actress, but a group, a real therapist. Interesting. And then the session would end, she would leave. And only then after she left, would we break character. So she really treated us as those characters. And I think about that exercise all the damn time. Walsh Schmidt was her name. Dr. Walsh Schmidt was the name of the therapist. And you think about that as a point of reference to building characters throughout your career? Exactly. Yes. I've never heard anything like that.

Yeah. Kevin, Kevin McDermott. He's a real talk about teaching a real brilliant teacher. I'll say, I mean, you know, to deal with young people and that is the arc of like a four week process. Yeah. Really interesting. Huh?

Yeah. I, I, I highly recommend it for anybody, whether you, you're interested in being an actor or not, just think it, just go into extreme depth on what it would be like to be someone else, someone other than yourself. I have a hard time holding onto the, my, who I am. You know, I, I get nervous about acting. It's like, well, what if it sticks? You know, I, I really think, I think it took Pacino years to shake Scarface. Yeah, well, yeah.

You can see, I actually, I got to do a segment of Sesame Street while I was shooting Don John and it's ridiculous because I sound a little bit like that Don John character. Creepy guy. Talking to Murray the Muppet. It's really, really funny. What would you think is the first role little bit like that that don john character creepy guy talking to murray the muppet it's really funny what would you think is the first role that you've had on either television or in

a movie where you know you were really able to apply and feel successful in executing you know a character like when did you know although you you may have loved it and you were doing a lot of stuff when did you really feel like you know you sunk into it and you had a nice meaty part and you, you know, you really kind of showed up for work. Yeah, that's a great question. Um, cause you're right when, when you're, when you're doing acting jobs, oftentimes you're doing stuff that doesn't really give you that opportunity to really be creative or express yourself or sink your teeth into it um well the first thing that comes to mind is i did a movie of the week they were called back then a movie of the week is you know this is for television broadcast television but it's like a feature

length movie that plays with commercials and they called it movie of the week and uh it was one of those ripped from the headlines tv movies um at the was called Gregory K, which was a boy who had who filed to divorce his parents. Oh, yeah. His parents were both right. Kind of dysfunctional and abusive parents. And he had been in foster care and he really liked this foster family and he wanted to stay with his foster family. But his parents wanted him back and he he filed to divorce his parents. And and so we made a TV movie about that. And I got to play him.

It's the first time I played a protagonist in in a in a movie. And it was a really heavy role because, you know, this is a kid who had suffered child abuse and who's really know really and you're like 13 high-stakes situation i was 12 yeah i was 12 yeah and um that that's the first time i that's the first thing that popped in my head when you asked your question and that that seems like a completely perfect way to apply kevin's method exactly yeah and i and I did. I thought about his method all the time. I think I talked to Kevin about it. I've talked to Kevin about things much

even later in life as well. Do you do backstories all the time? Yeah. For characters? I mean, yes is the answer. It depends on the character and it depends on the material and sometimes I do it more than other times. But yeah. And certainly with Mr. Corman, this is where, and in a way,

what you're saying about kind of the culmination of all these things, this is where writing and acting sort of blend into each other. The process of creating this character of Mr. Corman absolutely was drawn from what I've known how to do ever since learning it from Kevin of creating this character. And you apply those same processes to writing as then to acting. Right. And also, I imagine you know, you, I, I imagine that, are you writing these alone? No, I, well, I, I wrote the first two spec scripts alone, but then we brought on four other writers and, uh, we wrote the, we wrote the rest together and, uh, they were awesome. And it was a really, I think really fruitful collaboration. And, and I definitely don't think that the scripts would have been nearly as

good if I had been alone versus working with Bruce and Rosa and Julia and Roja. Yeah. And like, it's sort of amazing that, you know, your entire process that, you know, you were one of these people, you never stopped working. And as a child actor, you know, doing angels on the Outfield, and I remember The Juror. But those were big movies, right?

So you really kind of like, you got a toehold in, and you didn't really ever stop working, all the way through adolescence into adulthood. And it's sort of astounding, isn't it? I stopped when I went to college so at you after after what 12 years at 18 years old you quit for a little while yeah and that was the longest my freshman year of college is the longest break i had ever taken and and then i got back into it and and then actually having kids was i took another break and then that was an

even longer break because i took i took two years off and uh that was after was that after third rock yep it was at the end of third rock in fact they they let me out of third rock early because i wanted to go to college and i did 131 episodes of third yeah yeah i wasn't in all of the episodes in the final season because they let me out early all right so what 115 yeah something like that right right so you know with that and that was still back in the day where syndication meant something so you were good right yeah i made money as a kid and very very lucky too and and that that allowed me then to kind of choose what i wanted to do after that because the the next bunch of parts i did i didn't make money right but you were also fortunate not you didn't have crazy parents exactly well that's that's my biggest piece of good fortune because it's true a lot of

child actors sadly um and and look i it is it's important to say i also i didn't have crazy parents but i also had parents who you know my dad earned a a strong living so So there wasn't that kind of pressure. A lot of families end up in show business. And if they don't have the kind of income that my family did, it's harder to blame them for getting sucked into spending the money that their child makes. I's, you know, I wish we lived in a world where everyone had more money and a few of the super rich people had less. Well, you know, and also again, like what I was saying is that the way you handle kids in this thing,

now again, I don't watch a lot of television with kids now that I think about it or a lot of shows with kids, but I think that the respect you give the kids in the classroom and also the sort of attention i thought that the episode where it's just all arturo yeah is that his name yeah just yeah like and that's like what is that that's like episode five yeah four episode four you just sort of like all right this is going to be the roommates episode which i loved i love that tv is now

so untethered from any you know kind of network model that it's respectful of the audience to realize like they can handle this do you know that's why i wanted to do a serial a series was because of exactly what you're talking about i feel like when i was last time i was on tv in in the nineties on third rock from the sun, TV shows were much more rigidly formulaic. And now there's this appetite for, for TV shows to do kind of what movies like I grew up loving the movies that came out of Sundance in the nineties, you know, swingers or sling blade or big night or train spotting,

or, you know, these kinds of movies. You've done a few of those kinds of movies. I was, I, I, and it was like a huge, huge thing for me to get to finally be in movies that, that played at Sundance. Cause that's what I always wanted throughout my time working on third rock from the sun. I loved working on that show, but I also what I really wanted to do was do weirder indie Sundance like movies. And finally, then in my 20s, I got to do it. What was the first one you did? I did a movie called Manic. Yeah, that that was that went to Sundance.

That was the first movie I was in that went to Sundance. So your whole thing was like after Third Rock, you're like, I'm good. You know, I've, you know, I've done good work. It was a funny show. Everyone knows who I am. The money's going to keep coming in as long as people,

they keep selling that show. So why not, you know, take some risks and do what I want to do? That was, that was it. Yes. That's exactly it. And you did Manic. Which one do you think was the,

the most successful one of those experiments for you as an actor? Well as i mean that one manic was a really great and in fact speaking of of the group therapy sessions i was talking about that we did in kevin's class manic was like that in real life we made a movie basically about it was kind of perfect for me having had that background um and manic's where where I met Zooey Deschanel. That was our first movie together. And Don Cheadle is in that movie also. It's really great. I'm really proud of that one.

And that was the movie that then Ryan Johnson saw when he cast me in Brick. And then that Greg Araki also saw Manic when he cast me in Mysterious Skin. me in brick and then that greg iraki also saw manic when he cast me in mysterious skin and those two movies were kind of the ones that allowed me to to you know then go on from there yeah to be an adult actor yeah yeah i mean mysterious skin people love brick i you're like so that was sort of your baptism into grown-up movies, and then you had this. You're still having a pretty amazing run with the grown-up movies. Well, thank you. Yeah, I took some time away.

Yeah, so what happened with college? Well, Brick and Mysterious Skin is kind of what I did right after college. Did you finish college, though? No, I stopped. I was enjoying college, but actually you want to know what um changed it for me uh was i got my first copy of final cut pro the editing software yeah and uh i got that for myself for my 21st birthday and i got so hooked on editing if i don't have you ever

spent any time editing not hands-on sitting there next to somebody doing it, but not. Yeah. So, I mean, sitting next to someone doing it, you'll get it. It's just so thrilling because you're finally making the thing. Like, shooting is great. But when you're editing, you're actually making a movie. You know, shooting, you're still just like kind of you're getting raw footage and you're like, well, eventually, I guess this will be a movie. But when you're editing, it really starts to feel like a movie.

It was you getting final cut that made you realize, I'm going to be a filmmaker now. That's it. Yeah. I was so in love with editing and I would just stay up all night doing it. And I would be posed with this choice of like, well, okay, I could write this paper for the class I'm in, or I could keep editing. Finish my short. knowledge and and and said i want to i got to get back into this i know what i want to do i always knew i wanted to do this and now i'm really gonna i'm really gonna go for it and to direct my goal was to be a filmmaker yeah yeah and i thought all right if i'm gonna do that the best way in is for me to get back into acting and like as you do it you know even heading into i

know you made a couple of shorts but the first feature you did was Don John. That's right. And you wrote that too. Yeah. So like heading into that, and now here we are with this series. I mean, when you look back at a life onset, when do you really feel, was it after you quit college where you really started paying attention

to what was going on behind the camera? Or were you always sort of on top of that? I always was into that from the beginning. Like I said, like that first peanut butter commercial, I was just fascinated with all the different people and what they were doing, what the camera crew was doing, what they were doing with the props, how they made it rain, all of it. All of it was always fascinating to me.

The lights is the thing, man. Like the DP, you're like, how do they know this? Yeah, it does. It still seems like magic. They disappear for an hour somehow. It's true. I probably could do almost any job on a set, but a gaffer? I don't know that I could actually do a good job as a gaffer what

about a dp could you be a dp if i had a good gaffer i think you always gotta have the guy that you can tell to do the thing that gives you the options to make give you choices right right yeah uh-huh yeah so again when you look at the evolution outside of, of Kevin's class, what were the directors like? Cause it seems like this, this series, Mr. Corman is, you know, it's very stylized, but it's not, it's not stylized in a way where it seems like you're trying too hard or, or, or trying to get a lot in. It seems to be appropriate to the way the character sees the world and the world you've created. But there is a thing you're doing with the camera. I really wanted to.

Yeah. Speaking of directors, they were influential. And we just talked about Brick. So Ryan Johnson, who wrote and directed Brick, that's his first movie. His latest movie was Knives Out, The Last Jedi. He and I did Looper together. He's a really wonderful artist and just a fantastic human being and a good friend. And he was one of the first people I showed the spec script of Mr. Corman to. And when he read it

at that point, it wasn't as fanciful. It was more just pretty grounded and realistic. And his feedback was, look, I think this is great. It feels very real, but I also, I know you and I know what you love doing. And you could give yourself the license to be more playful here. You could, you know, what are the things that you would really want to do if you could do anything? And that's where things like a musical number or a fantasy fight sequence, or, you know, falling out the window and flying through space, like kinds of you know these kinds of magic or like the meteor you talked about this looming meteor is about to destroy humanity um all sort of stemmed from that great piece of feedback that ryan gave me like give yourself the liberty to

play do whatever the fuck you want and uh and i did and and that's that really kind of turned on this other side of the show like you're talking about where we kind of a lot of it is very grounded and realistic but you know in my experience real life doesn't always feel realistic real life sometimes really feels larger than life and and those those sequences are addressing why i think that you know that juxtaposing the kind of claustrophobic filmmaking you do with the character when he's not in a fantasy sequence uh is a good a good counter to that it makes the other thing work okay actually can i ask you a question because speaking of like you brought up you know things feeling real so we both we we both made shows like largely about ourselves but i didn't i would i would not want to make a show with my name like right you know j Josh Corman does sound sort of like Joseph Gordon, but to me, I can't talk about myself, like my personal life like that. I'm happy to talk about my work life and my creative self, but when it comes to, you know, my family or my love life or things like that, it would drive me insane to be open about that. And so when you make

Marin, you put your name on it, is that not scary for you to open yourself up like that so much? I guess so. But that's always been the way I do it. Yeah. I think there are, there's definitely a liability to it. And there's definitely something to be said about protecting your real life and, and keeping the art and, and, you know, your expression,

you know, within your creative output, as opposed to putting your life on the line for it. There is elements of privacy, boundaries, you know, vulnerability, all that stuff. And also, that's the thing. I always, I always imagine like, you know, vulnerability, all that stuff. And also

that's the thing. I always, I always imagine like, this is gonna, this is gonna haunt me. Something's going to come back. But like, have you had moments where, where's, I don't know, where someone knows something about you and you're like, Oh God, I, or I don't know, maybe I'm inventing this as, as like worse than it would really be. No, dude. I mean, I do this podcast all the time. You know, I talk about myself in my stand up in the show. And like, I can't tell you that it's a better way to do it because you do have all of a sudden you have a very intimate one sided relationship with a lot of people.

Now, I know Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Now, I'm no Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I would say that the people that actually watched Marin is far fewer than you would assume. I was on IFC. It wasn't like a hit show, dude. And also, the life I was living at that time was sort of, it was an anomaly to be this guy who's making a podcast in his garage and have this standup career and ex-wives and whatever. Um, I thought that, you know, kind of making that a character, uh, you know, it wasn't exactly how things played out. It was based on my life, but I just thought I was doing it like any other comic would do a show, but I'm more, I'm more revealing on the podcast and just talking and, or in on Instagram live and stuff but I do volunteer it because I seem to want to have that that that type of relationship with my audience but you know you don't have anything to fall back on you you know you don't have the same type of private life and also you know you kind of are required to really show up for everything you're doing in a way that's much more personal than it would be if you were you know slightly different in terms than the character yeah yeah

but yeah you're doing it the right way dude i don't i don't know i wonder sometimes because i because i i do feel like i mean i i feel like it's right for me, but I also do feel that if I were more forthcoming about the intimate details of my life, probably more people would connect with that. I mean, people can't help it. They're drawn to that sort of transparency sometimes, but they're also joined, drawn to entertainment. I mean, some people are sort of like, there's definitely a large contingent of people that are like, yeah, there's a little too much information, buddy. Can you just do the funny stuff? You know, right. You know, a lot of people enjoy the distance of of of entertainment of knowing that it's a

character they can actually invest more where you don't want them walking out which i'm sure has happened to me many times uh of a show or a movie going like god i hope joseph's okay i mean that that was pretty heavy man a little worried about him i always try to like uh i always try to not know about the artists that i love especially musicians i mean it's also true about actors and comics etc believe me i i like like there was recently um there have been documentaries about some of my favorite musicians like nina simone or harry nilsson yeah yeah and i i go out of my way to avoid those documentaries because i just don't want to know well those two are like fairly you know those two are tragic stories in a way that doesn't make you it makes you deeply empathetic

and and heartbroken for those people it's better that than seeing a documentary like, that guy's a fucking asshole. Yeah, yeah. How did I like... I've watched, I've seen, I'm not going to say who, but I recently was watching a documentary of like a famous musician. It was like, oh my God,

I don't know if I can listen to this music anymore. Yeah, yeah. No, that, you know, that was so funny to me in Mr. Corman. You chose to be Arrow for Halloween. Oh, yeah. You a fan of the point? Love the point.

I'm a fan of his. I don't know that I'm as deeply into that record as I am some of the other ones. But conceptually, I just thought how esoteric and how utterly irritating that this guy is going to put himself in a costume that he can't even really explain without looking like he's he's an art snob that's what he is right but it makes it it makes him like he's not able to laugh at himself but you make it so we can kind of laugh at the character you know which is good it's good well i i did dress up as arrow one time for halloween a few years ago uh yeah that was true and and no no no one no one knew what it was and that kid they thought i was sonic the hedgehog or they thought that i was whatever

a smurf but i i sort of really liked also the way that you created that Dax, the Dax character, who is sort of like an aspiring influencer, I would imagine is what you would call him, is a tragic character. Just in terms of how he's approaching life. And he kind of sees it, but he kind of doesn't until he breaks down. But like that, that is the future, you know, that is the future concern. You know, what is that life based on? Right. Yes. It's really true.

By the way, just tangentially, the guy who played that character, Dax, I don't know if you know logic, um, you know, he's, he's a very, he's like a Grammy nominated musician and rapper. That guy, this is his first. This is his first time acting. He did an amazing job. He's a great actor, and I think he's going to go on to do great things. I love that you're picking up on that character. It's something I think about all the time.

I gave a TED Talk, actually, about this. I always feel self-conscious when I mention the fact that I get TED Talk. God, you are the character. Go ahead. I told you i was uh but about about how craving attention can destroy your creativity and uh being an influencer you're signing up for a product that will get you addicted to attention. And if you're trying to really embark on a creative process and express yourself and make art, it makes sense that you care about an audience and what an audience thinks. But if you're overly swayed by that, if at the very beginning of your creative process,

you're thinking about likes and follows because your brain has been trained into those dopamine hits and you're a fiend for the addiction to the attention that you get. It's going to corrupt your creative process. You're not going to be able to dig deep down into your unique self. It's going to corrupt your sense of humility. It's going to corrupt more than just your creativity. Yes. Yeah. That's just it.

That's a good point. I mean, like when you talk about, you know, wondering whether or not you should offer more of yourself, what are some elements of your life that you would like to be more transparent or, or, or explore in a, in a more personal way. I, I don't want to, I, but I,

I wonder about it sometimes. I mean, and it's true. Like, look, there, there is a lot of very personal things in this show. It's just,

it's just through a filter, through a process where, you know that that protects my privacy i guess and the privacy of the people around me um but uh you know i i my partner my wife tasha is she's a very private person and um she's she just gets terrified at the thought of having people, strangers out there, knowing about her, knowing things about her, knowing things about our kids. Sure. That makes sense. And I love that about her. Actually, I feel some of the same thing.

Keeps you in check too, right? Absolutely. But yes, exactly. It helps to not go down the slippery slope of being addicted to the attention that comes with working as an entertainer. Because I really think that's a dangerous slippery slope that you see a lot of artists fall down is you get it's it's addictive it's like a drug there's there's a there's a song fame is a drug and i think it's incredibly true and the the scary part about social media as it exists today is that it's just a mass proliferation of that drug to everybody on earth, including kids, including young people just getting fed this highly addictive drug that's ultimately, like a drug, empty.

That will never really satisfy you. You'll never, you get a quick spike of euphoria and then you fall and then you want more. And that's what fame is. I'm so happy I've never had to experience that. Yeah, dude. You're interviewing presidents, man. Come on.

I've carved out a little world for myself, but there's no risk of me getting my own sneaker line. That doesn't mean that you're not subject to that kind of addiction. That's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's the thing. I think whether you're. Oh, yeah.

Look, I do Instagram lives, and I'm highly aware of how many people watch them. Yeah, me too. It's really addictive. They make it addictive on purpose. I get it, man. And I think that everybody's subject to that addiction, whether they have 500 followers or 50 followers or 50 million followers. Right.

But the trick is don't base your life on it. And I think that is the tragedy of that character, Dax. Exactly. Exactly. But all in, all said, what now just try to explain to me quickly so I understand what hit record. That's your production company. What do they do? Because I even looked at the I looked up the awards they won for innovative, interactive media. And I don't know what that what is it what are you doing yeah sure so there's an online community uh we say hit record it's sort of a word play on hit record um oh so okay hit record right the idea of our community is people collaborating so a lot of online creativity is about look at me look what i made and on hit record we really try to emphasize what can we make together okay so we made all kinds of things we've like you said we

made tv i feel like you're talking to an investor right now i'm interested keep going yeah well i i have spoken to investors my fair share so it's your apps in your observation uh and how how can i make wait give me some notes how can I make this less investory? No, you're explaining it. I just want to know what it is. So collaborative, you want to make it more collaborative. And what is the product? How does it, now, so how am I going to make a return on what I invest?

Well, I'm not going to talk to an investor. But so if you come to HitRecord, you download our app or you come to our site, you'll see all these different projects that we've won Emmys for. We've won two Emmys, one for a TV show we made a few years ago and one for a TV show we made last year. The one we made last year was actually on YouTube, but YouTube Originals. Was it for kids? Well, it was kind of family-friendly.

We definitely wanted it to be inspiring for families who were stuck at home during lockdown and wanting to like do something creative together and be like hey you know here's something creative you could do together you could draw this you could take a picture like this or you could sing along with this or you know it it's sort of like that and it is very wholesome i will say the whole the whole vibe on hit record is is extremely positive and wholesome and safe. Nice. The point is that it's somewhere where it's kind of an antidote to Instagram or YouTube or these places that are more focused on fame and followers and sort of racing to the bottom and trying to get attention and more about like, let's not focus on becoming influencers.

Let's focus on just the joy of being creative together with a community of people. That's great. And your folks, how have they evolved with your success? Oh, that's interesting. Like my mom was just reminding me, anytime anybody asks her like how, or says like, like oh you must be

very proud of of your son she always says i'm very proud of both my sons i've you know i have an older brother he's he actually died uh 11 years ago just the saddest thing in my life and that's terrible how yeah what happened it was uh yeah it was an an accident um yeah it was it shouldn't have happened okay sorry man but no thank you and he he was very dear to me and and he actually he and i started hit record together and it's part of why it's so important to me and and one of the things he was always really big on was just encouraging people to kind of find themselves and be themselves and be the most, I don't know, adventurous version of themselves. Yeah. His story was he was a pretty introverted person growing up and throughout like most of his 20s.

And he was a software developer and shy. He made a decision at a certain point in his life, I don't want to be shy anymore. I want to come out of my shell. He proactively, and almost I would say systematically, did that. It's funny because when I talked to people who knew him when he was in his 30s they're like wait he was shy because he's like he was the most outgoing like swashbuckling crazy guy that that you've ever met and um he became uh really into photography and fire spinning. And he eventually started teaching fire spinning.

What is fire spinning? You know, like you see people like holding, like swinging around a ball and chain that's on fire kind of thing, like a burning man kind of thing. Sure, sure, sure. It's, it's a, it's sort of a, it's a way of dancing. It actually goes back. They call it poi, which is actually a,

I learned here in New Zealand is a is a Maori word because it's a lot of Polynesian Pacific Islander people. Fire did a lot of fire spinning so that he really became this other person. Yeah, he really came out of his shell. And so he was so for him, hit record was a lot about that was a lot about people who had a thing inside them like i know i want to express myself whether it's you know i want to write or i want to act i want to make music i want to draw i want whatever it is yeah i know i want to do it but man i'm not that kind of person that's not me other people are able to do that and his whole thing was like that's exactly what i thought i didn't think i was that kind of person either, but I, I, I,

anybody can be that I, I became that. And so in the hit record community, this is years ago now, that was what he was always doing was just finding people who felt like he felt, who felt hesitant and encouraging them and scared. And that spirit is still very much a big, a big part of our community culture. That's great. Something I try to do and something everyone in our community does for each

other. Just really encouraging people to come out of their shells and, and find their creative voice. Well, that's a beautiful way to honor his legacy. Yeah. Thank you. But back,

back to your mom, she, she says, I'm proud of both my sons. Yeah. That's her line. Yeah. And she's, and she's, she is, and they both are great. And that, that goes back to, they never, my parents were always really determined to not, you know, not let the,

the trappings of being an actor corrupt me or corrupt our family. Because it can. It really can. It's dangerous and seductive. I feel bad for people who get seduced. It's very seductive. And I don't blame someone for it. Well, it sounds like you had a good unit going growing up.

And you're doing good things, man. And it was great to talk to you. Likewise. Real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for having me on your show. Yeah, and I enjoyed the series a lot, and I hope people like it. Thanks, dude. Thank you.

All right, buddy. Take it easy. All right. See you later. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The new show is Mr. Corman. it's on Apple TV plus uh enjoy it enjoy it okay here's some guitar familiar guitar Thank you. Boomer lives. Monkey and La Fonda.

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