WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1251 - Tom McCarthy

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Tom McCarthy approaches his films like a journalist, even when he's creating a work of fiction. Just as a reporter discovers facts about their stories, Tom's years of research help him unearth truths about the characters he's creating. Tom and Marc talk about how this played out in the process of making movies like Stillwater, Spotlight and The Station Agent. They also talk about how Tom's devout Catholic parents reacted to him making a movie about the deep rot within the church. 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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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. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? What's happening? I'm Mark Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it. How's it going? Are you guys okay?

What'd you do this weekend? Are you out there dodging the Delta? Wait for the Omega. Wait for the Omega. It's going to burn your face off uh i was out i was out in the world i'm sorry i don't mean to make light but uh sometimes what i do today on the show i talked to tom mccarthy all right he uh you know his work he just uh i i just saw stillwater and i i really enjoyed the the writing which he did as well, and directing that was great.

I also loved his movie Spotlight. He's a Jersey guy. He was he began working, doing sketch comedy in college. He's an actor and all around interesting guy. Also a friend of Lynn Shelton's, which I didn't fully realize until he mentioned it. He also directed The Station Agent. Oh, yeah. And The Visitor and Win-Win. And I believe he co-wrote Up.

Dude's a talented dude. I will get into what went down around this booking a little bit more before the interview. Because he was booked. And there was some online controversy about the movie Stillwater. get into what went down around this booking a little bit more before the interview because he was booked and there was some online controversy about the movie Stillwater and then suddenly he wasn't booked and then he was rebooked but I'll talk about that in a second let's talk about Denver Denver Colorado so I've had some thoughts all right as many of you know about a week after the comedy store opened I started back up I started going at it getting you know

getting strong again getting my my muscle memory back getting my chops together getting my calluses back for doing the stand up comedy at the nightclubs and then I did four shows over the course of four Thursdays in July at Dynasty Typewriter so once i got my uh

calluses back i just started doing the big riffs big riffing hour 20 hour 25 uh working through the new material the new thoughts the pain the glory the uh the the confusion all of it dumping it into the big hour riffs and then like as per how i was trained as to how as per how i came up you know when you got the shit going how do you test it out well you got to go to a comedy club look man comedy clubs honestly are still the best place to see stand-up comedy you know once we polish it and it gets to a theater it's a different thing there's no frenzy it's a it's a set piece for the most part i leave a little room for a little riffing but for the most part you want when you're out of theater you want to present the good thing

the whole thing the polished thing the thing as it comes together in the clubs sometimes you don't know what the fuck is going to happen you You're trying to sequence it, order it, add new shit. But I got to be honest with you, man. I hadn't been at a comedy club in a while, over a year. Now, this has always been the way I've done it, man. You know, work it out in the clubs. And since I've been able to do theaters, take it to the theater. And sometimes you work out more in the theater, but mostly it's in the trenches, you know. And I had some feelings. i had some feelings i had

some feelings man i spiraled a bit after my thursday show so i get to denver on thursday i get to denver on thursday i rent a car because i'm planning on gonna do a little record shopping i'm just trying to get back to normal even with the delta variant ripping through the world and uh colorado has no mask mandates and it's sort of a free-for-all. But I mean, I think they're pretty low in cases, and they do all right. It's kind of an outdoorsy state. Everybody's not up each other's ass. But nonetheless, I didn't check the vax level, but I have required vaccine-only shows that you need vax proof to get in. I'm doing that at most of my upcoming dates that I have on the books. I'll be in Phoenix

at Stand Up Live this Thursday and Friday. Those shows are Vaxxed Only. I'll be in Salt Lake City, I believe, the week after at Wise Guys. Those shows are also Vaxxed Only, and that was the only place where it seemed like there was a significant bit of refunds. But we're going forward. That's the way it's going to be at Helium in St. Louis in September. We're requesting Vax only comedy attic in Bloomington in October. Vax only all of them upcoming shows and whatever ones I do in the near future are going to be Vax only. And again, you can have your feelings uh you can be like that's authoritarian liberalism that's a tyranny this is the end of democracy the vax passport

okay well i'm going inside are you going to wait out here go home what are you going to do uh it's a public health issue it's not a authoritarian device uh if people can't be adults around this i what can i tell you uh my audience mostly vaxxed and uh didn't didn't diminish the the denver shows at all all of them sold out and it just makes my audience more comfortable for the most part so that's the way it's going to be so thursday i go up on stage in, in Denver at the comedy work. Sam talent opens for me, uh, does a bombastic,

uh, opening set. And I get out there and I work through my stuff. The audience is great. Mostly my people, but it felt a little choppy, a little fragmented. It was a good show.

But when I left, I'm like, fuck man, am I cut out for this anymore? Can I fucking deal with this shit? Now I'm going to do like late shows on Friday and Saturday. I'm going to do two shows on Friday and Saturday. I don't fucking need to do this anymore can i fucking deal with this shit now i'm gonna do like late shows on friday and saturday i'm gonna do two shows on friday and saturday i don't fucking need to do this anymore this is my inner monologue i'm not saying this to anybody but me i don't need to do this shit anymore i don't need to do comedy clubs man i can just work this out in a more supportive

space this is delicate business i'm doing man i don't need to go out there and put myself my heart on the line for a fucking drunky audience at 12 at, you know, at second show Friday, second show Saturday, like do the fucking crowd management business along with putting my heart on the line, man. Why the fuck am I doing this to myself? And I sat at this coffee shop called Crema and I spread out all my notes and I just started doing the work, man. I started thinking, looking, ordering things in my head and you know as I spiraled and decided that I probably wasn't long for the comedy game which is obviously part of my preparation apparently didn't help that on Thursday night the only place open for dinner was some Cajun place and because I was a little unhappy with my set I decided to bury myself in fried food which which I never eat. So then I can't sleep. I'm

burping up blackened spices. I'm fucking rolling around in bed. I got the sweats. The altitude's fucking with me. I can barely breathe. My brain's not working right. The next day, just spiraling, getting out of the business, just going to fall into a pit of self, top it with some ice cream and call it a fucking career. You know what I'm saying? And then God damn it, man, I go back to the club Friday, first show fucking locked in order sequence. Good callbacks working all the delicate stuff, the heavy hearted business, the pushing back the sad bits worked. I'm feeling like I'm in the fucking pocket. I got a real groove going. And the only way to test fucking comedy jokes is to do them at a real comedy club for a mixed crowd i would say it was mostly my audience but there was other people

in there just seeing if the shit lands seeing if you can fucking land these bits and they were fucking landing man they were landing like goddamn parachute people just sort of slowly coming down and just a little plunk on the bottom you pull the chute down and man little tears coming at the corner of your eyes a little laughy laughy you know what i'm saying saturday night shows get back in it adam kate and holland opens for me uh brent gill opened for me on friday he did a good job adam i've worked with before smart guy he does the opening i go out fucking saturday first show working the shit out kind of tweaking the order heavy you know taking out the bits that weren't quite working or working them out so they work better landing that shit again saturday second show was the one i was worried about but uh great

fucking crowd i fucking love doing comedy clubs i I went from Thursday, I got to quit, and I'm just going to allow myself to become an obese person and live in shame to this is what I do, man. This is what I fucking do. So I drove to the airport, got on a plane, typed up my little dispatch for the week, landed in Burbank, got in my car, was back home in 24 minutes, got in the house, said hi to the cats did a home COVID test negative thank you thank you very much I earned it then I got on the mic

here and I'm going to go to the premiere of respect soon but that'll be yesterday by the time you hear this all right so listen folks Tom McCarthy is my guest today. And right off the bat here at the beginning of this interview, we talk about the Amanda Knox thing. Now, for those of you who don't know, a couple of weeks ago, Tom did an interview with Vanity Fair and they asked him. They asked him, you know, if if the movie was inspired by Amanda Knox's false conviction and imprisonment in Italy. And Tom talked about how some aspects of that true story inspired him in thinking about the script for Stillwater, which is not that story. It's not her story. When the article came out, it, you know, in a clickbaity way,

it really played up that aspect of the interview, In a click-baity way, it really played up that aspect of the interview, making it the headline of the piece and talking about it being inspired by the Amanda Knox saga, quote unquote. And then, understandably, Amanda Knox herself had a very negative reaction to that piece. explaining why she felt the promotion of the movie in this interview was exploiting her, right down to the magazine calling her real-life ordeal a saga, a quote-unquote saga. It's definitely worth reading her tweets about it, and I would suggest you do that. Well, when all that went down, suddenly our interview with Tom got canceled, which we just figured was because they didn't want him doing any more publicity about the film because of this swirling buzz. But within a couple hours, we got notified that it was back on and that Tom specifically pushed to have the interview uncanceled, to uncancel the interview. So that's really where we enter this conversation. It's the

first thing we talk about here at the beginning of this talk. And we got right into the idea of what inspired the movie and whether or not the film is exploiting a real-life situation. So you can decide for yourself because you can see Stillwater in theaters now. And this is me talking to Tom McCartney. 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.

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I'm happy you did this. You cancelled and then you're back. Did I officially cancel? Yeah, it was officially canceled. I'm like, what happened? And then it's like, no, he's coming. What happened? That sounds like how I plan everything in my life. It literally sounds like everything in my life.

Was there a reason? Was there panic? There was no panic about this. I mean, other people can stand and get nervous about doing things when I actually like. Yeah. But there was more I didn't know I was gonna stay till Monday. Oh, okay. It's been driving this, you know Releasing the RV and I was like, maybe I just want to get back to New York and then right now

Let's stay and do it. That was the decision. So it's all personal You know what it was what the tipping point was my longtime editor Tom McCartell. Yeah, he somehow caught wind Yeah, I was gonna do it. I think I think he heard Matt's interview and you mentioned it. Yeah. And so he shot me an email. He's like, you got to do that, right? Right. Oh, really?

Yeah. I think he was maybe the first person who mentioned your podcast to me. Oh. Yeah, because I had made this assumption. I'm like, oh, shit. Like, what is happening? Is there panic at the studio? Yeah.

Because like- It's all me. All me. I thought it had something to do with the uh amanda knox tweets oh yeah but uh you know and it's you know i we don't need to dwell on that but that was my assumption it's sort of like oh here's what i do like the studio said this is oh god no you have got to do some damage control but uh but it's an interesting topic about inspiration you know and and the difference between you know inspiration

uh uh life story yeah and and also the difference between sort of like uh art and life yeah and what what was your reaction to that just that like sort of analyzing that a little bit like look you know first of all i i really empathize with her feelings and the circumstances around all that. Yeah. It's tragic and horrible and traumatic. But Stillwater is a work of fiction. Right. Like, that's it.

And I think with everything in my life, I'm pulling, sort of magpying, as you are, as we all are, from different creative things. So, one of the biggest inspirations for this was a conversation I had with a relative of mine whose father like really struggled with addiction and there and I always knew it. And I saw I finally said, hey, could we just do like three one hour phone calls and you just lay out that relationship with me? Yeah. And it was it was the most it was the deepest she ever went on. It was like really beautiful. Her father. Yeah.

About her relationship with her father and how dysfunctional it was and what that meant and it provided so much and i'm like okay that's the relationship i want to explore in this movie and so you know that was a big piece of this yeah and then i would say you know of course yeah that story was sort of a in the headlines a lot you know her story in the headlines a lot when the trial was going on. So that was a piece of like, oh, I like that relationship. I like these two people, father and daughter,

being in a cell together. That was critical to me with great dysfunction and great pain. And then another example would be like, I read this amazing book that dealt with psychologists from Berkeley who went to rural Louisiana and embedded with Tea Party, you know,

members and tried to understand them with empathy. And it was like this incredible distillation of like their situation. And I'm like, okay, this is 2016 when I re-engaged with this script. I had two French writers and I'm like, okay, this is at the heart of it. Like we've got this woman in a cell. We've got this, you know, father-daughter huge dysfunction. And we've got this philosophy of a middle American that is so well articulated. Let's try to unpack that.

Well, interesting thing about the film was that it is not a political film. It's not a political character. Yeah. And you make assumptions about it. Because I remember people were calling it a Trumpy movie, and I'm like, I didn't see that at all. Because that's the way a black and white tribal culture thinks that like you know they're willing to write off any character that wears a hat or those glasses as as being indicating

something whereas like yeah the in the scene where it's addressed which I thought was kind of great where the French people were just like, we have to ask you. We have to ask you. That's right. And his answer, again, was sort of like, you don't really know how he feels because of what he's enabled to say in that moment. Yeah. And I don't want to ruin it for anybody. But there was a lot of that going on in the film.

Like, I talked to Matt about it, where the viewer this you don't even know what the fuck is happening for 15 minutes yeah and i think that's a that's a great thing and a testament to your writing and it must have been something that you had to craft fairly carefully yeah very much like you're like i you know it's sort of like where are we going what's going on who is this guy yeah who's that lady where's the money coming from why does he why does he know marseille how does this guy why does this guy travel to france you know right and look i'll say this about that i when i re-approach the script i started it 10 years ago put it down started from scratch in 2016 and i've been to marseille at that point about five

or six times i knew marseille research you know just just hanging out in the city research so this is your process with all movies? It's very journalistic. It's very journalistic. But this is a work of fiction. I mean, Spotlight was different. Spotlight was different. Spotlight, okay.

So going back to what you asked about what this is based on, Spotlight was a true story, right? Based on real people. When I do that, I engage them. I know I'm writing about real people. I'm going to tell their story. I got to be factually accurate. was that this was fiction and the way I build that is like so yeah ten years ago Hanging out Marseille learning the city, but when I picked up to say this script in 2016, I realized I hadn't been to, Oklahoma

Like I'm like I said to my wife. I literally woke up one day. I'm like, oh my god I know Marseille may be better than Oklahoma and I got got off the plane there and you realize, you realize in this, how big this country is, right? Cause I got off the plane. I'm like, I don't know this place at all, at all. And I started setting up these interviews with roughnecks and my assistant tracked down these roughnecks. How do we do that? But I mean, it's like you set up interviews with roughnecks. That's not, I'll tell you one thing. That's not something that happens in a roughnecks wife every day. And I imagine it's not something that, you know, to have sort of a general kind of like, let's just, you know, get to know each other chat. You know, I want to know what makes you guys tick.

It was kind of that. Yeah. It was literally- How do you set those interviews up? When they go, she go out to an oil field? No, I set it up at a barbecue joint in a small town, a barbecue joint. And they- Where they go.

We would just set up in these locations. And I had met one or two oil rig workers, roughnecks. And then what they would do was just call their friends and say, hey, man, go to this barbecue place at one o'clock and talk to this guy, Tom. He's okay. He's okay. And they would sit with me and I would just have these interviews. He's not out to fuck us.

No. They, you know, I'm sure Matt mentioned it, but you know, when I first started going there and just showing up, they were a little reticent. They didn't know. Yeah. I'm a director from Brooklyn, you know, I'm sure Matt mentioned it, but you know, when I first started going there and just showing up, they were a little reticent. They didn't know. Yeah. I'm a director from Brooklyn, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

It took them a little bit to open up, but by the time, you know, four or five, six visits, and then I brought Matt, you know, they started to. When they saw Matt, they're like, all right. They were pretty good about it. Yeah. Well, I mean, like what, what was the interview? I mean, what, what did you what literally everyone was different because each one of these guys had a drastically different personality and

come from really background some of these guys were still you know some of these guys were pretty broken and damaged some of these guys really got their shit together yeah you know roughnecks just a background on these guys like they're an iconic like persona in oklahoma and like most of them a lot of them at least you know going back a ways when Kenny Baker and Ryan and these guys Who was meeting with were breaking out they didn't graduate high school. They got right to work They you know they did no interest in college. It's a very specific type of Weird challenging dirty work huge hugely hugely gotta have a truck. Yeah, man. You gotta be strong Yeah, you gotta be tough. Yeah, and by the way, I think the one thing these guys pride most in ourselves is their work ethic

Yeah, so these guys pride most on themselves is their work ethic. Yeah. So these guys get out of high school, they get these jobs and they start working rigs. Right. And, you know, it's this culture and they make a lot of money and they live hard and they play hard and they work hard. And some of them burn out. A lot of them burn out. A lot of them really struggle with a lot of things, drugs, drinking, addiction, you know,

hard living. And then some of them, like the guys we met, made it through. So those are the guys we started talking to. set up these initial interviews and then i just sat and listened and sometimes it was really awkward some of these guys felt awkward you know i'd order some barbecue i'd get him a coke right sit there and we'd chat and inevitably over time they would start telling me about marriages and work and and you know struggles and what their other jobs were and their occupations and their brothers and losing people along the way. Yeah.

All that shit. But it's interesting. I mean, you come, I don't want to stereotype or seem insensitive, but I mean, you come from an Irish family and there was no alcoholism or? Oh yeah, sure. Yeah, of course.

Fucking Irish. I'm sure there still is. I mean, I'm sure. i'm sure i'm but i mean you had to go to oklahoma to find uh you know um why that kind of to explore the relationship of a child and a parent in terms of alcoholism and addiction and again it goes back to reference points for the movie right jumping off points right you know you mentioned the prison thing you mentioned and i i knew i wanted to take someone from the middle of the country i literally i mark i literally just circled on the map oklahoma and i like likes the name of stillwater i i have been condescending in my life and recently about the midwest and i've since talked to a director, John Schaub, from Oklahoma. And now I just watched like four films by Sterling Harjo, who's a Native American.

I know him. Good guy. Great director. Dude. Like to see the Native American story. Yeah. You know, and how that played out. Yeah.

And Oklahoma is like, you know, ground zero for a lot of that stuff. Yeah. And also that horrendous, you knowous decimation of African American people. Like, that there's something about Oklahoma where I'm like, Oklahoma has to rise correctly for the rest of the country

to repair itself. Yeah, I think there's something in that. I mean, it's a bit biblical and epic, but I think there's something in that. And like, first of all,

Sterling, I'm glad you're chatting with him. He's a great guy. Dude, those movies are great. Really poetic. Yeah. Really beautiful and really soulful. Yeah.

And something at the heart of this country. Yeah, man. I'm glad he's getting his voice. He's got that new Showtime show coming out. I'm waiting for the links but but yeah so the but the uniquely american experience you know even though this is a white guy and sort of a juxtaposition to that culture yeah that is in oklahoma it is sort of another type of uh kind of a post-indigenous culture that's been in oklahoma forever these guys cowboys and whatnot yep yep yeah you know, I think so. I think, look, there's definitely, we're taking

a hero sort of stereotype. You didn't take Texas. I like that you chose, because Texas is sort of established. Oklahoma is a little like, but Oklahoma is all about cowboys. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, no, you're right. When you're talking cowboys, when you're talking Texas, you're talking American iconic hero

on some level, right? That's kind of what roughnecks are in Oklahoma. No, I think this is like now that i'm talking to you about it i'm gonna go ahead and call stillwater a western i think that's i think there's a template of a western in there for sure i mean look stranger gets on arrives in a town doesn't know anyone goes to say right yeah we just and and you know look there's been a lot of talk about what is this movie and some people have knocked it been like oh it's a couple of different movies at once. And I'm like, absolutely. Well, it is and it isn't, right?

Tone holds it all together, but, like, there's a number of storylines here. And I'll tell you, when I started working with these French writers, these guys are great. Thomas Bidigan. So how does that go? So you're like, you know, you know half this movie or most of this movie is going to take place in Marseille. So out of respect, you're going to engage French writers and co-write with them because you don't know the culture or the language or what? It was, I don't want to say worse than that, but it took me longer to get there.

What I did was started this first draft with a guy in New York City. I didn't like it. I didn't like the movie. It was a straight up thriller. Same conceit, same setup, but I didn't like the thriller. And I was like, okay, I put it away for six years. Your movie was turning into a thriller. It was thriller first draft 10 years ago that's right did you hear me ask Matt if I like I told him I thought this might be a franchise yeah okay could you see this guy

bungling cases around the world still water too yeah uh and then when I picked it back up I'm like okay it's lacking dimension it's lacking authenticity I need French writers obviously it's set in marseille started at the top of the food chain i love this director jacques odiard i love his movies and profit rust and bone a bunch of others and i said who's his who does he work with and i just reached out to these guys email just got their email sent him email said here's a draft of a script i don't love it it's too much of a straight-up thriller i want to expand it i want to change it start from scratch will you guys work with me?

Yeah. And we did. They jumped in and we started talking about it. How many other scripts do you have just sitting around? Not that many. In fact, when I put that down, it was the first time in my life I literally walked away from a script. I spent a year and I thought, wow, I got to be careful because I didn't get paid for that.

Right. I'm not super rich. And I'm like, I can't spend that kind of time on something I don't get paid for and not do it. But in its inception, I mean, when you began write it you're did you set out to write a thriller and then become disappointed yeah yeah i think i did interesting because like what i've started to notice in watching like pig and in watching your film and i just watched um all of uh underground railroad is that i think that one thing the Trump presidency and the pandemic has diminished greatly is the happy ending. And it seems that, you know, there is something to

be said about antiheroes and morally ambiguous endings that are obviously have usually almost always reflect an honesty in what the human condition is at any given time but it seems like there is an appetite for it again not unlike the 70s am i projecting do you think it's possible i think now's the time for that i think i think with stillwater look the original was a thriller what thrillers don't usually possess are consequences right of for actions and i think this film needed to examine consequences for the main character and hence our actions, right, both at home and abroad. And so that was something we started to talk about.

I had two French writers looking back, talking to me every day in 2016, 2017, trying to analyze what was happening in this country and how we felt about it. And I'm like, oh man, that's the other thing I didn't have in the original draft. I didn't have a point of view. Like I didn't have a cause.

I didn't have a discussion. I didn't have something I was trying to understand. When I went to Oklahoma, we were doing a lot of finger pointing. It was a lot of, screw those people, they're the problem, we're the problem.

I'm like, I gotta go sit with these people. I gotta start to understand our countrymen as hokey as that sounds in a more complete way. And I'll be be honest at that time it was incredibly it was enlightening it was uh sounds i i would i would come back from those trips feeling hopeful about our country at a moment where i was not feeling hopeful about our country well you know it's weird that happens when you actually talk to people there you go i i

mean it's like i'm glad it made you feel helpful hopeful but you know the the chances of you walking away from that and then re-entering some rabbit hole of of uh misinformation is high but i mean but when you sit with people and among people which i think our phones and our computers you know kind of put a a real wall between us and actually communicating you realize like oh we're all just people. There's a vulnerability to it. There's a, there's a tenderness to it.

There's a respect to it, which is, which I'm starting to see in some of these films I've been watching. I'm, I'm kind of having this weird kind of a brain changing moment around watching, you know, like Sterling's stuff and still water.

And also like, you know, the underground railroad is that, you know, the, the only thing that's going to save us is is that connection that tenderness that you know attempt at at at being better i think so i think they're more human movies right they're just they're just there and and there's empathy like bill baker who matt damon blaise is a very flawed character but he's a dimensional character but yeah he's also like fails yeah i mean yeah i mean that that is the whole thing is like once you realize where you are in that movie you're like no he's not this is not how you go about doing this yeah it creates

real tension and those moments where matt's like you know i'm sorry i you know like where he does things that he again knows are wrong and they're going to be he he tries but he doesn't think things through yeah i think you're right i think look i think there's a fallibility to us all and i think you know now as a guy with two young daughters you think oh man i just screw up all the time i do the wrong things i say the wrong things i act out in the wrong way and you're you know when you got little people staring at you you're really I'm really conscious and so those scenes with him and his daughter to me I think it's the thing Matt probably connected with first in the script they're just heartbreaking to me

they're heartbreaking you know look again it was interesting you know when when we started to when we were working on the original draft of this we were all listening to podcasts and by that I mean like long form story podcasts s town cereal those things things are kind of just talking about it and the craze of it and we're like oh this is cool how these things start off as one thing and become something else and they keep evolving and suddenly like I don't care what they're talking about I'm deeply involved so it starts as a mystery and because a love story and whatever and we were just really into these things and we're like why can't that be our template here? Why can't that be our sort of cinematic template?

Oh, interesting. And let this movie change lanes and become more human when it needs to. Because we knew we weren't just interested in the straight up thriller. That has been done and done well. This isn't just an American on a mission. This is an American abroad. You almost inverted the thriller. Definitely.

Right. Well, yeah, because, well, that's interesting. So that was the template is that, you know, you realize, like, we know we have a certain amount of freedom narratively. I guess so. That we're not beholden to anything. That, you know, this is set up to be a rescue mission. But what it's really about is this guy's journey to, possible journey to his own personal freedom and and the literal uh attempt to free his daughter no question look and what normally happens on those missions the mission is the story right

this is like what happens because we all have other life around our missions we all work hard but we have all this other life around it let's continue to keep that alive let's continue to explore that because ultimately that's where the pain comes from at the end and i think that's what separates this movie from just a particular genre it's a more human drama in that than it is yeah and i didn't see i didn't see you know uh a genre and i didn't see also like i it's also like talking that we did in the kitchen about pig this is also a grief movie definitely and i'm just finding in life that most people are carrying around unresolved grief and if you start

to look at that like who knows how to handle that shit yeah because you know you got to suck it up and live uh but like you know I recently you know had a a revelation about my my mother's boyfriend I'm like oh my god you know if I look at his life you know grief is going to twist you in ways that you can't imagine if you don't process it. Yep. Yeah. I think you're right. And look, I think sometimes it's beyond us to take the proper steps to cope, you know, unless we really have a mechanism set up in our life.

Right. That really forces us. And then so sometimes, as in movies, I think, as in the story, events happen to us. If we're lucky, that push us to confront these things, it's painful, but it like forces our hand a little bit, forces us out of our lane a little bit and makes us, and it doesn't mean we're going to be necessarily better for it, but we are going to start to understand and be more in touch with it, which is at least a silver lining. At least that's hopeful.

Maybe. Beaten into humility. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. But that's hopeful maybe beaten into humility maybe maybe yeah but you know you might not know it right you know and that's the worst part is like if life is beating you into humility but you're the last to know then you're just this comedy of errors that everyone's sort of like when is he going wow that poor guy he's walking dead walking dead yeah so you mentioned that uh you got to know Lynn Shelton a bit. I did. I did.

I've been a fan of your show for a while. And again, tragedy is a funny thing. I didn't reach out when Lynn passed. And I was, as everyone, just brokenhearted about it. Well, thanks. But it was interesting. I met her randomly one night. I was invited by Edgar Wright and Paul Rudd. And I went to see Paul Simon play. And I knew Lynn. I met her a one night at a we I was invited by Edgar Wright and Paul Rudd

Yeah, I want to see Paul Simon play and I know I met her a couple times I was a big fan of her movies. We met in LA one night Just randomly and had a nice chat and she showed up She was the fourth and we had the best time we went to this Paul Simon Yeah, his last concerts went out for dinner talked all night You know the four of us just geeked out and this started this great funny new relationship And then I'm on I think what's called the old people's social media app. Yeah, Marco Polo. Yeah, she loved that thing I'm not on it, but she was I don't do with anyone. I have two groups of friends

I do it with that's it and one day I get smart Apollo She's like tell me this can't be you you don't you're not because I don't have any social media presence And she's like you're not on this and it started this very funny back and forth with her and i at random times and just go and it was like i and finally my wife's like who's on your market but i'm like this group this group and lynn shelton i don't know why she's become this thing she's like okay i totally condone that yeah and uh you know in fact one of the last times we spoke on it was i was in marseille making still water she didn't know she reached out you guys were coming to- Spain. No, you were coming to New York with Sword.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And she asked me to sort of, she said, she goes, I really want, have you met Mark? I said, no. She goes, oh, you guys, you got to meet. And if, would you meet us for dinner and then do like a, you know, Q&A and- Oh, moderate. Yeah, moderate. And I said, of course. I said, but I'm in France till this date.

And it didn't work out. And so that's why we didn't meet that time. Yeah. So, but man, I just, you know didn't meet that time. Yeah. So, uh, but man, I just, you know,

well, it's to say, yeah, what do you do? What do you do? I mean, by the way, sort of true.

That movie, sorry. So fucking good. Yeah. It's an interesting little movie. I went back and watch it again. And that like that one scene, it's a really,

and you're amazing in that movie. And it's a really, really deep movie in a lot of ways. But that one scene that you and Lynn have in the shop. At the beginning, yeah. That scene is so intense. And I mean connection-wise. Yeah.

It's just like a deeply quiet, patient, deeply heartfelt, intense scene. Did you feel that when you were shooting it? Well, yeah, of course. And the waves of grief you know they kind of it's hard but you know that scene what was very important to her you know because at that time it's difficult when you are sort of in love with somebody but you can't really uh um allow it to happen because of situations. So there was a lot of kind of interesting tension with us anyways. Yeah. But, you know, we were definitely close.

At that moment. Yeah. But so it was kind of loaded up. And also there was a dynamic with her and I where, like, she was directing me, and she directed me many times before in my own show, in comedy specials. Yeah. She always wanted to make a movie with me that we were writing that we never finished

that still remains unfinished. But she sort of pulled this together primarily to direct me in a movie. So then she's like, I'm going to play this part. And then there was always sort of like, I'm not difficult on set, but it was hot. In Birmingham, I was cranky. Were you difficult? I couldn't get the cereal I hot. You know, in Birmingham, I was cranky. Were you difficult?

They couldn't, the cereal, I couldn't get the cereal I wanted. Of course, man. Yeah, and. The important stuff. I'm not a prima donna, but I mean. No, it doesn't sound like it. How hard is it to get this one cereal? Anyways, so I, so there's a tension of like, you know, in a sort of like couple-y way where

she's telling me, giving me direction. I'm like, no, I don't want to, you know, and I have to move through that, you know, the kind of like, because she's always right. And it just takes me a minute to be like, all right, okay, okay. So that's all playing in that scene? Sure. But what's really playing in there is that, you know, she just moved me, you know she just moved me you know and and ultimately you know that scene is about having to shut somebody out who you love out of necessity yeah you know which is you know that drug relationship yeah so you can feel a bit you talked about still water and the mystery of it like who

is this guy what's happening that scene has that so brilliantly because you don't you don't and you don't reveal what's going on in that movie and that relationship for what another hour that's right that's true and so like you're just sitting there i remember the first when i went back and watch it that's when i was like god damn the fucking the tension between these two people is so palpable as actors as characters but the first time you see that think about that you really don't know what's going on because you don't say anything yeah you're just you brilliantly play that quietly play that

of just like this pain this sort of fear this tension and having to fight that charm like you know and she's so

charming right you know you've got to keep you've got to hold back someone who has your number yeah deeply

you know I love watching that yeah that's what makes that last moment in that movie so powerful when you just believe that so beautiful i couldn't watch it again for a while quite honestly because it's hard man it's you know it's like it's it's hard with the loss because like you you want to keep going back to it you know but you can't like you know like i have pictures and stuff and like there's a you know i had her uh her jacket and her hat and her boots in the hallway for a year and i just finally put them away yep you know because you know what are you gonna do my

wife and i were just talking about this because she's a friend who just lost her husband a dear friend and i didn't meet him yeah and i and my wife always wanted me to meet him and her friend came over the other day and I just felt such a sense of like missed opportunity yeah and I might we were literally talking about this yesterday and I felt that about Lynn quite honestly cuz yeah cuz it was such a new relationship like I bear I that's why there was such an outpouring for grief and people reaching out to you and these community things yeah I didn't feel like I even had a seat at the table because I was like the new friend. I barely did.

So I just quietly sat on the outside and was like mourned. Like Josh Pice was a dear friend of mine. I worked with her a bunch of times. And, you know, I called him. I called friends that I knew that were closer to her. But like it's such an odd feeling. And I remember saying to my wife, because she's like, what is, what's, you know, I keep hearing about Lynn suddenly before she passed away. I'm like, you're going to love her.

She's going to be a part of our circle. she just she has like this great kind of she's such an artist she's such a woman she's such a she has like this dude energy she can hang with anybody yeah she's smart but she's so accessible yeah i'm gonna talk about her in the present because it still helps you know but i there's that sense of like it's a unique part of grief when you when you don't you feel things are interrupted which you yeah well that was the that's the hardest thing about that was that you know our relationship was new relatively new yeah and i didn't really know a lot i i mean dude i mean i didn't i had not really met her parents or spent any time with her son yeah and and and all of a sudden like you know the way I really build a relationship with them

is the day she's taken to the hospital. Right. So, so that, like, in realizing that I had no real history

with this woman who I was in love with was, you know, that's the hardest thing is that you're grieving the possibilities. Yeah. And a lot of people

had a lot of time with her. Yeah. You know, and deep, long ties. Yeah. And, you know, I didn't have that and i always felt like you know like you know i'm the guy she died with you know i don't have this long

life with her you know it was rough man is it rough is it something you'll ever examine in any way uh through work through writing i've been trying to you know i mean you know i'm you know sadly i'm a comic yeah so what do you do with that? You know, how do you process that on stage? And I've been sort of, you know, doing it. You know, I've been improvising through hours, an hour and a half. Because, like, I do think that grief is underrepresented. Yeah.

In the sense that it's something that we are all going to experience one way or the other. You know, and the one thing that got me through this thing was realizing this is not unusual. It's sad and tragic, but losing people in grief, it's not, it's human. Right, but you're, I mean, you are a comic, but you're also a very good actor. Sure. Right, and there's other ways of expressing,

I'm just curious, because I know you've been talking a lot about that way, and I'm just wondering if there's other long-form ways. Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's going to be in writing but i did a small movie uh which i brought a lot of it to that i think it's it's opened something up in me that's you know not that's good and probably isn't going to close if i don't let it become bitterness yep yeah so but like in speaking of how you got to be uh like you know somebody who tells stories i mean that that wasn't the original intention was it for you no i mean like how did you come up

where'd you go where'd you grow up i grew up in new jersey just a jersey yeah here's a jersey what part of jersey it's new providence where's that Providence. Where's that? What county? Union County. Oh, really? Yeah. Are you a Jersey guy? Yeah, I'm born in Jersey. Morris County is. Oh, yeah.

Pompton Lakes is where my mother's from. Yeah, I think I knew that. My dad's from Jersey City. I'm genetically Jersey, I said. Yeah, I got Jersey in me. Yeah, well, I got a lot of Jersey. Severe Jersey. You can't put a...

How long were you there? Your whole childhood? Yeah, until I went to college. You know, so Jersey's all right. I like Jersey. A lot of cool people come out of Jersey. You came out of Jersey. But it's so lush.

It is such a unique place, and it's got such a unique personality. And yeah, but no, no one I knew did this or anything like this. I didn't think about this until- How many brothers and sisters? I got three brothers and a sister big Irish Catholic family but in none of them went into show business no no what if what did your parents do my dad was in textiles my mom was a housewife what his textiles mean like towels and sheets and things like manufacturing them yeah I mean he was on the corporate side he

didn't actually work though you know so they sold the goods to people that put their labels on it. Yeah, like an office in New York and he worked at these companies. Oh, so he drove into the city every day. Every day. Commuter guy. Took the train. Erie Lackawanna back in the day. Huh.

Yeah. That's kind of cool. It was cool. You know, it was like, I don't know, when I told them I was doing this, they sort of just looked at me just blankly. Just almost not even an opinion. What did you tell them you were going to do? You know what I started to do? I started to do improv comedy and i got out of college and i say i'm gonna go work with this improv comedy group where'd you where'd you go

to college boston college undergrad oh you catholic genius yeah straight up it's like you know it's like i was down the street genius you don't hear that enough yeah not since aquinas i was down the street at bijou for us us Jewish kids who couldn't quite make the grade. Bijou is like this great sort of like middle class Jewish repository of kids who disappointed their parents. Yeah, look, it was an interesting place to go to school. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the education. Looking back, it was a wonderful school.

Maybe a bit homogenous in terms of the type of people. Pasty. Yeah, a little Irish pasty in a way. It's a Jesuit school. Jesuits are very interesting people. They're an interesting folks. How so? Learned.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. But you grew up in the church? I did. Yeah. Heavy duty. Heavy duty. Huh.

So when you got to college, like you you you uh i started to separate a bit but you naturally had respect for the jesuits i still do i still do for the catholic church but i'm just i'm not really a practicing catholic even after spotlight even after you immersed yourself in your oscar-winning movie i think spotlight sealed the deal i think it no i mean by that point you know actually part of the reason i wanted to make it i remember my father who's now passed away when i decided i was going to do that movie because they were they're very good catholics and i realized how important the catholic church is to a lot of people and i went out and i sat with him at a diner and said i'm going to direct

this movie and as soon as they announce it it's going to get a lot of press yeah and i want you to know about it and some catholics probably won't be happy about it and i'm going to do my best it was a run of intense conversation and then he said you better go talk to father immediately he no he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and took me over to the church no no he said he said look i'm down he said i understand why do you want to do it and like you know just represent all sides you know and i said look it's not a movie if i just pillar right like i've got it there's got to be a bigger conversation there. And he understood that. Well, how did your parents' generation respond to the reality of what was...

Of the sexual abuse? Yeah. You know what was fascinating about that? My father sat with me first. This was so old school. We went to the diner, two guys over a cup of coffee. In Jersey? Yep, in Jersey, in New Providence.

Old Glory, the diner. And we talked about this. And then my mother joined at some point. I don't know if this was planned, but suddenly she showed up. And, you know, at this point, I don't know, I'm 40-something years old. This is just bizarre. I'm talking to my, I'm like pitching my movie to my parents. But we started talking about it.

And it led to a conversation about the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic Church. And I realized they had never had a deep conversation about it. I think they just put it in a box. It's not that they didn't acknowledge it. It's not that they weren't horrified by it. But they never, as two partners, sat down and said, let's talk about this as two Catholics and how we feel. And they started to have this long conversation. And I just sat back and drank my coffee and watched. And I'll never forget that conversation. So I thought, oh, this is why you and how we feel. And they started to have this long conversation. And I just sat back and drank my coffee and watched.

And I'll never forget that conversation. So I thought, oh, this is why you make the movie. You kind of keep the conversation going. Obviously, not enough has changed in that regard in that particular case. And this is like two very thoughtful, you know, loving, caring people and good Catholics. And they really hadn't had the deep discourse on it that I felt it deserved. Where'd they end up with it? Like what, you know, like what was the arc of that conversation i mean where where did it land

a bit unresolved my father passed away before i finished the movie uh my mom yeah i know it always made me sad um my mother came to the premiere this is actually a nice story she came to the premiere and was so overwhelmed by the movie because i think my father sometimes is a way of my mother processing things they work together they work through things like good partners yeah and she lost her voice at the premiere like literally you know i took hysterical blindness this was like hysterical voice loss literally in the course of the screening and i think by the end and it was a big premiere and there's a party yeah and she she struggled for that week

of trying to understand where this put her in her community of Catholics and friends, I think. Oh, wow. And then in a kind

of amazing moment, Father Joe, from her parish, drove into New York that next weekend when it opened, went, saw the movie

at Angelica, drove right to my mother's house, knocked on her door and said, it's a good movie, you should feel good about this he basically absolved her and voila

she was back and she was my most she's been my most ardent supporter since but she she needed Father Joe to you talk about a guy

I'm forever indebted to I literally went to church with her the next week and thanked him did you? yeah I walked in sure I remember my brother

over my shoulder saying are you sure you're welcome here? And I said, that's a good question. I don't know. But I did. I went up and thanked him and said, hey, man, that was solid. I appreciate that. That's interesting. I didn't say, hey, man.

I think I said, hey, father. Did you grow up with that guy? I mean, was that- No, no. That was long after I left. Oh, oh. But I was an altar boy. Yeah.

And? Yeah, it was fun. No, nothing. I was an altar boy. That's it. End, it was fun. No, nothing. I was an altar boy. That's it. End of story. Well, that is- And?

And? Just the way you looked at me over your glasses there. Well, that is the repercussion of what went down for centuries. And I don't- Well, it's interesting that the compartmentalizing thing that you talk about. Because I'm Jewish and I'm relatively unsophisticated in terms of knowing anything about the Catholic Church or even my own religion to a certain degree. But I do know that the older people know. And I think they knew.

Good question. And I think they knew. And they didn't know what to do with boys who were moving towards something that they saw as a sin. And I'm not saying that pedophiles are homosexuals, but there was something about repressive sexuality that the way some men or boys were driven into the priesthood was dubious. Absolutely. I mean, look, it was a total broken system. And I don't just mean just in terms of the church, in terms of society, right? Right. It wasn't safe to be gay for hundreds of years, right?

They're barely safe now and you've got to have certain cities. Of course, of course. And many of these families, I think you're right, they'd literally put their children in that situation. And then it just was corrosive.

Like the Catholic Church didn't deal with it. Parishioners didn't deal with it. There was no transparency. And honestly, quite honestly, not enough has changed in that regard. Not enough. A lot of young people are at risk in all these situations. And we as a society are still choosing in many cases to look the other way. But one thing that's happened is a lot of people have recalibrated

their opinion and their approach and their commitment to the church, I would think. I think so. And I think the church is recalibrated.

I think the church is like, look, we're not going to change as much as people want so people can stay or they can leave. I think the church has drawn a line. Rebranding,

they're sort of like, we're not about pedophilia anymore. We might be downsizing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It, we're not about pedophilia anymore. We might be downsizing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a new non-pedophilia Catholic church.

That's part of the new, yeah. The pitch. So you tell your folks like, you know, I'm going to do improv. Like, why?

Did you do it in college in some silly group? Yeah. It's not a silly group. I'm sorry. I guess it was a silly group now to come to think of it. I mean,

it was. It was a group. Did it have a silly name? My mother's, I'm just realizing you're right. it was a silly group now to come to think I mean it was it was a group that was a silly name my mother's I'm just realizing you're right it was a silly group my mother's flea bag okay yeah and what was it that was there forever as an improv group sure it's always anything like that met this group of people who still are dear friends today who still all work who still are smart people who do comedy and acting and other things and that was the beginning for me that was like oh okay this is i i like this this is different you liked it and it was like a big group how many seven seven eight people men and women yeah and you were doing a sketch sketch comedy improv and improv yeah and you'd perform and it's kind of a big thing

on campus like a lot of people you know polar was in that group when she was there. She sort of started the year I left, I think. Oh, really? Nancy Walls, now Nancy Carell was genius in it. Miley Flanagan, Wayne Wilderson's an actor. You know, there's like, you're in LA. So there was a lot of like really talented people who came through that. And more for me, it was just like, you know, I was a kid from Jersey who never thought of this stuff. So suddenly I was like, oh, this is a different way of thinking.

I'm looking at the world. Were you an English major or something philosophy really yeah i started in the business school huh because that's my you know i'm the kind of irish catholic kid that went to bc with like three pairs of slacks yellow green and red right i think in navy blue i think four yeah so i i literally had slacks yeah you know i don't know who has slacks you have slacks i don't know what you you mean like slack slacks i don't i don't i might have a pair of completed chino and yeah no i i mean no i remember my parents gave it to me i was like i don't think i'm gonna wear these very much i don't think i ever wore them but they everybody wore chinos in fucking bc it's like that yeah you're right it was a chino culture like boat boat shoes and Chinos and button down collars.

All right, don't overdo it. Geez, it wasn't a country. Navy blazer guy. It sounds like. He had a navy blazer. Green line anger coming right down the green line. He had a navy blazer.

Oh, I still have one. I definitely had a navy blazer. It was like, come on. That's the uniform. Right. But yeah, so you go there with that. I started in the business school. I had a great professor.

Oxford shirt. I have many Oxford shirts. Actually, the best teacher I had at BC, one of them was a business school professor, accounting finance guy who basically pulled me into his office and just said, don't do this. Yeah. You shouldn't be in this school. Really? Yeah.

Professor Turner. I wonder what happened. He just saw it inside you? Yeah, he came in. I thought he was calling me in to say, hey, you're doing great. And he basically said, hey, you're trying really hard and it's not working. You should think about something else. And that was the great philosophical question.

So that's where you're like, I don't know. Philosophy. I need answers. I walked out of that school and changed my major the next day. So were you taught by Jesuits in philosophy? Yeah. That's when it got interesting. Because the professors were either Jesuits, holy men, or taught by jesuits in philosophy yeah that's why that's when it got interesting because the professors were either jesuits holy men or ex-jesuits and many men who

would push their logic to a pay through it could no longer support their faith and so they let them stay there oh yeah of course they engaged in it there were like these great debates that's a lovely that was the best part yeah wow yeah so you'd have a jesuit and then you'd have the the fallen jesuit yeah i mean these guys i don't know if they consider themselves fallen but or risen i guess are you depending how you look at it and what you know what what strain of philosophy did you write you could wrap your brain around it i loved it only because i felt like i was behind all that there were so many people who were so far beyond me i was playing catch up and they were just, they were just,

I would be in classes with people who could just think in, for lack of a way of better way of saying it, they could think better. They have bigger brains. They could process bigger ideas. They could sort of, and I'm like, I think that's as I think that was probably the beginning of my writing.

I'm like, Oh, this is becoming a writer. Cause I'm like, Oh, I need to be better at processing ideas, distilling them and then articulating them. That's a really cool thing that i can't do oh so it was the structure of the philosophical argument that had an impact i think so that more so than the you know necessarily the answers yeah there was never is there ever answers

not every day every day i'm working on it well it was more the questions and like that that and that for me was like set sort of set me off in that direction i think you know so you change the course you're doing the philosophy and you're doing the comedy yeah that was it yeah then i got out it works together it works where'd you go when you got out we all moved to minneapolis and we all yeah the troupe that a lot of people I performed with at Boston College. So you created your own troupe and then moved to Minneapolis? Yeah. Because Minneapolis?

There was one, we sat around thinking, where could we go? And we're like, we can't afford to go to New York, so we have no money and we'll never survive. We can't go to LA because who the hell goes to LA? We're a bunch of Irish Boston College kids, right? And there was one dude, Wayne Wilderson, who said, I live in Minneapolis. It's a cool town. There's a lot of musicians and there's some comedy.

Let's go there. So the idea was you get a residency at a theater? Yeah, not quite. We didn't quite have that ambition. We literally were performing anywhere they would let us. From car shows to... How many of you were you? Like seven of us. So there were seven when you left too?

Yeah. Huh. So car shows? Anything. Yeah, literally car shows. We performed first on Cape Cod for the summer, and then we performed all over the Cape. What town? All over?

All over. We spent a lot of time in Wellfleet at the Wellfleet Foister House. Huh. And then we just got better and better at it, and then we moved to Minneapolis. We did that for like two years until we totally exploded because we were like, you know, we didn't know what we were doing. Exploded, oh, not fame-wise, but as people. Yeah, we were like, okay, we got to go on our own. So it's how many men to women?

I think it was an even split. I think it was three. And how long did it take for everyone to start commingling and creating negative relationships? It took a while. Look, some of us commingling and creating negative relationships uh it took a while look with some of us commingled some of us a lot of people there was a two or three people who came out at that period it was a great exploration yeah and understanding look for me what it was was like i wasn't an artist i didn't come from that my i came from this really structured irish catholic sort of usually get a job when you get out of college and you go to work at a corporation so it let me start thinking about the world differently and and and

and and that was the beginning of i would say that period that two or three years in minneapolis was way more informative than college oh yeah what was your most you think if you had to look back most informative period you know there i there's actually been several, you know, I think, you know, college didn't really pan out for me because I'm not I was emotionally sort of incomplete and needy. So I couldn't really like I somehow charmed my way into honors. Yeah, I graduated with honors, but it was not based on anything, I think, other than my ability to sort of, you know, it was liberal arts. So what does that really mean? But there was the drug part and then there was the, I don't like the periods. Like I've been looking back a lot, dude, on my commitment to comedy happened right after

college. And I put myself, I dragged myself through a lot of very weird, painful, not heavy trauma, but emotionally traumatic situations to get where I am. And I can't tell you why. It's weird. But I guess the most, I mean, once the podcast started and I started to feel and I got recognized for something, I think that was the most significant. Oh, wow. But you did a lot of great stuff up until that point. Yeah, but I didn't recognize it and I didn't feel like I was culturally recognized either.

So whatever self-esteem was supposed to fill in in me didn't until we created this podcast out of nothing when there were no podcasts and all of a sudden there was something happening around my stand-up and around this yeah where i'm like you know i'm doing something that i'm proud of and so something filled up in me so somehow that was for you was also linked to being recognized definitely you know because i i'd worked hard and i always thought my comedy was worthy and i never knew like i knew i wasn't an entertainer but i thought i i was culturally relevant but that's relative to the cultural what do you mean by you weren't an entertainer i never thought of myself as an entertainer i thought com i thought of comedy as some kind of weird truth pulpit where

the context was specifically you just you had to be funny yeah but like what was really going on there was like i was i needed to find myself yeah and and find myself in relation to the world that i live in and then share this journey with people and sometimes it got very dicey i mean i i think back on it all the time there was a i was in boston at the sort of at the beginning of my career working at a club club, doing whatever the fuck I did. I don't even know why I was driven by anger and sort of like, you know. Yeah, truth. Yeah, right, that.

And I did a set once, and some guy who was in a local media position, I don't know who he was, but he just, he walked up to me and he looked at me and he goes, why comedy? Did it resonate with you? Yeah, because I still think about it i'm like i don't know i still don't know uh you know i've gotten better at it but i don't really feel like i do it like many people and i don't think i do it for the reasons that many people do i never was in it for the money i just wanted to be a great comic and for me great comics did something more than just entertain that's it yeah so i don't know when does someone

know they're there i don't know i still don't quite know i know that i'm doing good work but you know culturally relevant i don't know well i would say that's safe to say you are sometimes to some people but like but then it's like well i think you're right but it that my brain goes like but now it's a small bunch it's a small crew of people that think that. Of what? Think that I'm relevant. So then it comes to like, you know, how many do you need? I need the world. Yeah.

But then I know like I'm not for everybody. I'm barely for me. So like, you know, like how, you know what I mean? Yeah, I do. I do. Trust me, as a filmmaker, you deal with that all the time. Especially, I never think of myself as a filmmaker who puts myself out there into the world i don't i just some filmmakers lead with their personality and in a great way and they lead with their brand for lack of a better word yeah i've never been that way i love like you just said it i've never thought about making money right i just love

the work like i i you know i boston college led me to that i started acting i'm like oh acting school and then i had this dream like oh maybe i could be an actor in my you know, Boston College led me to that. I started acting. I'm like, oh, acting's cool. And then I had this dream like, oh, maybe I could be an actor in my, you know, and I'm like, that would be amazing if I was an actor. Like that would be incredible. How does that happen? I mean, so you're like, you know, you're a, the, the, the improv group is breaking apart. Yeah. And then what do you do?

I was, I started, I always loved plays and I'm like, why couldn't I do a play? In Minneapolis. Then I moved to Chicago. I was like, I'm going to move somewhere else. I I moved to Chicago I just started trying auditioning but I didn't know anything did you ever do stand-up no that would scare the shit I did a lot of comedy in the improv side but not stand-up stand-up just always scared the shit out of me yeah um no and I just started acting and I thought okay this is cool I really dig this like I was pretty good at it I started getting roles.

Yeah. And then I realized- In Chicago you started? Chicago, yeah. Why do you say it like that? That's a good theater town. No, I know. I'm just like-

See, judgmental. No, not at all. I mean, Chicago turns out to be the sort of source of most of modern comedy. You think so? Well, yeah. Because of Second City and all that? Well, the shift from

sort of like stand-up based yeah product and and sketch group based product yeah it's different yeah like you know like you know you had these this generation of stand-ups who are these weird rogue characters that yeah you primarily got into the racket because they couldn't get along with people and that sort of the focus of television and comedy shifted from there to like these relatively emotionally healthy groups of people that knew how to work with each other and there were many tiers that you know there was writing and directing acting all in one package yeah and it kind of left the the gypsy stand-up alone to figure out a new way but uh that's how i see and it's a great theater town like you know oh yeah no i mean tracy let's has become a great friend of mine yeah what a terrific

artist that guy is he's he's solid guy and on so many levels you know it's just it's crazy yeah because he's like you know you talk you know you hang out with him he's just like this good chicago he's oklahoma guy yeah right correct august osage yeah but but a great guy but yeah just a monumental talent but but i think he's emblematic of like chicago it's sort of like a blue collar theater artist town like they don't they're not fussy they're not fancy they just work they love the work i think that's probably where now i think about it how i started and so i'm like i'm like oh just do the work and don't worry about the other shit. Right.

Right. So where'd you start working? Did you do Steppenwolf? No. They never hired me. You weren't angry enough. No, I was not angry or cool enough. I think it's more anger.

I just started doing plays. Yeah, I was not a terrible anger. I guess I am. You got to be fueled by sweaty booze. Yeah. And yelling. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, you think about like, yeah. I have that in my DNA but maybe not enough for Steppenwolf at the time and I just started doing plays at theaters there and I loved it

but I realized I didn't really know what I was doing. Like, people kept using terminology and being like, what's the beat here? And I'm like,

what the fuck is a beat? So you didn't take, so you had no acting training? None. Not a day. Just being funny with a group of people from college. And suddenly I was like with a group of people from college.

And suddenly I was like with real hardcore theater people who understood it and were very good at it. But you had a knack for it. I was pretty, yeah, I did. Yeah. I did, if I'm fair, because I was getting roles. Yeah. Probably, I probably shouldn't have been.

So I'm like, okay, I'm pretty good at this. And then I thought I need to get training and I went to the Yale drama school. I went to the best place available, which was, and they let me in because I lucked into it. That I probably did. No. Yeah, I do think on some level. Isn't everything a little luck on some level? Come on.

There's a lot of good people out there, right? Yeah, I know. But that program, they only let like 12 people in and you've got to go through this panel of people that are pretty snooty. So you've got to at some point. That alone for me is that it's got to be some luck involved. No, they've got to sense some innate talent. Of course.

We can build this guy. Coupled with luck. Yes, of course. We can make him. Six for $1 million. Exactly. Yeah, I think that was it. And then that changed the course of everything.

Once that happened, then I was sort of off and running so that probably informed just being in that environment must have informed your writing as well everything because were you doing you know graduate i was doing a lot of plays training all that stuff but i was also writing in the cabaret which is sort of a separate thing that you can do but i think more than that i was around people who are articulating what we do like smart people who thought a lot more about theater acting writing and directing in a way where i was like oh i love the way this i remember james bundy who now runs the drama school was in my class and i would just listen to him talk right and think god that guy's smart and i love the way he articulates his ideas

on performance and what was the kernel of of this you know this awakening in terms of like uh the art of it what do you mean well i mean like you're saying that like these were intelligent people talking about directing acting writing yeah so what was it that it made you realize that you wanted to do or could do? I think also because there was an intellectual side of the pursuit, which I didn't realize. And I had the same thing with movies about four years later. That it was like, suddenly I realized, oh, there's not just this emotional side to this work,

but there's something deeply intellectual, which I find fascinating, which I'm a very, I was always a curious person. I'm like, oh, this is where I can, I think I was a curious person who wasn't always an intellectual person, even in college. I didn't pursue it as,

even though I was a philosophy major, I just didn't have the, I didn't have the training. I didn't have, I wasn't rigorous enough as a person to dig in as deep as I should. I was immature. I was immature. Drives me nuts, man.

Like, you know, cause all I wanted was to be an intellectual, but I didn't have the discipline. It's not, I don't think it's immaturity. It's like in order to really source, be able to source what's necessary to be a traditional intellectual, you've got to do a lot of fucking reading, dude. It's a lot of work. I think, by the way, I think you just cracked it. Yeah.

That's it. For sure. That's where the charm comes in. Yeah. You know, you'll fake it, man. That's what charm takes over when the intellect sort of hits the wall. I was like, I'm out of my league. And look, I'm Irish, right?

So it was like, oh, the charm I can do. I'm out of my league here. I'm going to tell a story. I'm going to be funny for about two minutes. And that'll make everyone forget I was supposed to be smart. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I do that in Q&As when releasing movies all the time.

Yeah, where you get the film nerd question and then you sort of like... Matt and I were just talking about this. We were up in Santa Barbara yesterday. And I remember the first time I went to Santa Barbara, you know Jim Sheridan, the great Irish director.

And Jim, I remember I was on this panel with him and Anthony Mighella and Danny Arcon. All these great directors. All so far beyond. And Jim does this thing. It's the actual, it's the perfect Irish answer to everything

where any question they would ask, he would answer any way he wanted to. It had nothing to do with the question. Right. And he would just be charming and funny. Right. And he would finish and people would be like,

oh, amazing. Oh, so warm. So Irish. So Irish. So inviting. And I was like, and I would be staring down the line being like,

he didn't answer the question. That was not a proper answer. And I thought, oh, the line being like, he didn't answer the question. That was not a proper answer. And I thought, oh, Jim has it mastered. Yes, yes. The great art of Irish bullshit. Totally. Totally. And he knew the A-new geek.

That guy knows how to make a movie, obviously. And he just didn't want to play the game. That's great. So, but when, do you write any plays? It wasn't your thing. I wrote two one-act plays with a buddy at Yale. And it was the second one that we wrote together about the Ford brothers and P.T. Barnum in New York

where I met Peter Dinklage, who then started my first film, Station Agent. You met him where? I directed him. I cast him. Tom Thumb was a role in this play that you wrote yeah the one act yeah yeah and and i needed to find tom thumb in new york city and everyone's like you got to see dink he's great he's a theater actor don't tell that's his nickname

is dink yeah wow yeah okay yeah well i mean they're like in order to cast tom thumb properly dink sounded right i said i gotta find find him. I had to go find him. I had to go down and see this play, and he was in it, and he was really good. And I'm like, wow, that guy's kind of a stud. And I met him afterwards, and I cast him in this play, and we worked together, we became friends. And then when I was writing Station Agent,

I started thinking of him for the role. So you actually, you kind he created it for him kind of did yeah yeah yeah because i just hadn't seen it and i i thought what i saw in him when i directed him which i think now the world knows because of game of thrones was that like he was a leading man yeah he was a leading man in a you know in an unconventional way and And he was just such a deeply soulful actor. Yeah. And I thought, oh my God, if I could capture this in a film and capture it. And so I started writing for him.

To transcend dwarfism. Yeah, on some level. Or embrace it or everything. Right. You know, and just be human. Humanize it. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's right. And you did it. Yeah, we did it. What play involves Tom Thumb? What was the pitch on that? It was a play called The Killing Act about the Ford brothers who killed Jesse James coming to New York based on a true story and selling their act, their killing act. To Barnum. And then what Barnum did was spun it and he sold them not as heroes, but as cowards, which is now most people know them as the cowardly Ford brothers.

Right. And we thought, well, it was a cool comment on fame and all that stuff, and it was a crazy, interesting, weird place. And you call yourself not an intellectual? That's some pretty thinky shit. It was, but, you know, we had... To pick that story.

I mean, but that was your own sort of like you. It comes from your curiosity that, you know, that, you know, you you find things in the culture that that will that will enable you to execute these explorations of morality and humanity and and and and have a relationship that's kind of juiced up with something. Struggle. All that sounds great. I still wouldn't call me an intellectual, right? Like you and I know, you know when we're around real intellectuals, you're like, wow, that guy is a great thinker. And I can name many that you're just like, oh, that's a different kind of mind.

That's a mind that I will never have. No, no, absolutely. But I guess you're right. You're not an intellectual, but that's the artistic brain. It's not the intellectual brain. Right. But the conversations that will come out of that inspiration in the intellectual circles will be, that's not on you. Yeah.

You've done your part to move the ball along. I think so. I think so. And for me, it's a little more enjoyable. Absolutely. But I'm just thinking about you know what what does inspire because i'm i'm thinking about things that i get hung up on because when i put together an hour of stand-up you know i've got you know i have to think in terms of themes and i have

to feel that there's some engine driving it uh you know and i've become obsessed with you know the difference between what we do in our real lives and what we are reacting to uh that we put in our heads yeah yeah that the the the disparity is profound yeah and it speaks more to like what we were saying when you sit down with roughnecks yeah as opposed to so there's something really kind of uh compelling about that lens i think so yeah well that's just what I'm just but it's going back to the intellect I think no I think you're absolutely right but I think it's like for me and it sounds like you're the same like there and anything I do there just needs to be a little bit under the floorboards

something operating that intellectually I can go chase so first draft of Stillwater was a straight-up thriller I couldn't find that thing as I reproached it six years later, I had both a point of view and I had questions. I had a lot of questions I wanted to sort of explore and ideas I wanted to explore in terms of screenplay. Suddenly it started to come alive. It was interesting to me. Right. But the more you acted, because, I mean, you did a lot of acting before Station Agent.

Yep. Here and there. Yep. But then, like, I mean, I would assume that The Wire was a big deal. Yeah. Like, because I, you know, I remember that part, and I remember watching you in it and thinking, like, you know, who's this guy? Yeah.

But that was a- You were thinking, who's this guy? I hate this guy. I think I was one of the more disliked characters on that show. Well, you just saw the evolution of spinelessness. Yeah, yeah. Right? Wasn't that it? Yeah you just saw the evolution of spinelessness. Yeah, yeah. Right? Wasn't that it? Yeah. I epitomized spinelessness.

Yeah. In fact, I remember- But not out of the gate, right? It sort of- No, slow. Turned. Slow and horrible. In fact, I was editing my second film, The Visitor,

when David Simon called and he offered me that role. I had auditioned for a couple other roles in the show and didn't get them. And then he called me in that fifth season. He's like, I think I have the role for you i think i have something you really connect with yeah now looking back yeah i was always like what did simon see in me i would capture that spinelessness but he did the the same thing yale did they're like look at this spineless irish guy we need guys like this need guys to puncture out there in the world yeah

you're right it is a tragic. They see my tragic flaw and they capitalize on it. These Irish guys can take a beating. Ah, sad. It is. It's painful. The Visitor, that was a great movie. Where did that, you know, where did you, where did that, where did the inspiration for that

come from? I was in the Middle East screening the station agent. Yeah. I was sent by the State Department to screen the station agent with Errol Morris and the Fog of War. So picture that double bill. The station agent and the Fog of War. Oh, the movie about McNamara. Yeah.

And so a really weird double bill. And I was spending time in Lebanon and I was spending time in these incredible communities of artists, Arab artists, and just thinking like, wow, we're talking a lot about this part of the world. And I don't think we know these people. Like I want to start, I want to write a movie with some of these artists. And I started there. And then I started thinking about the part that Richard Jenkins played in this professor. I just, same way I was talking about Stillwater, right? There's all these little pieces I kind of magpie from in my life. And then I started spending more and more time. And then I was like, what's going on with detention in this country? And this was back in 2005, 2004, before really talking about it. And I signed up through a church in Brooklyn to visit, I'm in New York, to visit one of these detention facilities. And it

was horrifying. And I i started that started again sort of a little bit journalistic in my research interviewing detainees interviewing people who were deported and and started focusing on that and boy did that get worse way worse well i mean well that's interesting too that the like what i was talking about at the outset of this thing was that the exposure to other cultures art and artists yeah it you know as an american who you know you know whether you admit it or not this sort of weird um entitlement and and you know even if you're you don't see yourself in that way there is a a kind of perspective there there's a there's something myopic about just being american no matter what you are absolutely so you know artist or lefty or right or whatever yeah

but you know all of a sudden when you're like oh my god there there's this entire like you know uh age-old culture of creativity and expression and and history that you know i i know nothing about and it's enchanting and beautiful and and crazy relevant yeah yeah it's really a to be open to that is is profound and i i think that's what i'm sort of experiencing now because i'm always open but you get very kind of stuck in your your life yeah and what are you letting in how what you got to make choices yeah like i'm gonna go do this yeah i think it's the biggest problem maybe in this country today right that's why i'm saying people aren't breaking out of their lanes yeah and look i'm guilty of it still when i dropped into oklahoma i was like oh man i i in some way felt i understood that place without

actually going there right and like you know likewise the, a bunch of these roughnecks and their, and their family came into New York for the premiere. And we had, I'm had them over the house in Brooklyn. Matt came over, we had dinner in the backyard, literally had pizza and beer and just hung out. And like, you know, I realized like most of them hadn't been to New York. Most of them hadn't, you know, had that experience. And it was, it led to this really lovely late night, thoughtful conversation about our differences

and about our sort of isolation and our sort of siloing in this country. And as you said, more with, you know, phones and, and, and, and, you know, the interweb and all those things that divide us. And like, it's gotten pretty critically bad right now. Well, what's interesting is critically bad right now. Well, what's interesting is that, you know, and I've talked about this with my producer,

Brendan McDonald, is that, you know, really the singularity has happened. Yeah. It just, you know, I don't know.

We were expecting something more sci-fi. Yeah. But we are now sort of thoroughly appendages of, of, of, of a technological algorithm. Yep we're just all being pimped out by algorithms to the point where it's very hard to decipher if we're honoring any of our own desires or pursuing any personal truth or being critical of anything coming in or what that information is. It's being

tailored to us by machines yeah it's kind of fucking horrendous that you have to kind of consciously go like all right i got a mind my mind yeah and who has time to do that right and who has the sort of rigor to do that like most people don't even think that way most people don't even realize it's happening right now right well i mean creativity enables you to do. The life of an artist or a creator, it's your responsibility to react to that. And we do almost innately. There's a pushback.

Try to step out also, right? We're trying to step out. I think so. You create a world. I mean, there's not, you have habits, but ultimately, you know, if you're going to spend six months or a year making a movie,

you know, you're not just sitting at home festering about Facebook. No, no, you you're not and you can't really learn anything like you get to you know it's interesting with it with the pandemic i had a couple ideas i was starting to work on and i kept hitting walls yeah and i was like what the fuck is why am i hitting these walls like these are kind of cool ideas because you're not leaving the house and i'm not interviewing anybody right i'm not going and sitting literally that was it yeah i was doing this whole thing on low power radio i was really interested in low power radio stations and i was listening to these stations around the country which are super cool and

they're like just great radio stations and i was like i got stuck in my writing and i was like what's the matter and i'm like oh i'm not actually i've never been to a low power radio station because i have what is what is you mean not you mean regional or just local or low power is something that started probably back in i don't know 2010 ish when their pirate radio was really they were trying to they were trying to like halt pirate radio you know right and they started creating low power radio zones which is they're like they have a you know they have like a they're like 50 watt stations they reach like a mile or a mile and a half but they're they're all over the country right now. Really?

And they're amazing. And so some of these radio stations, like I was listening to one in West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia, which is just like an amazing radio station. And just to wake up and put it on and hear these- It's live radio. Live radio. Playing great music. So it's not podcast.

It's just like, you know- No, they're just in there spinning. It's just guys in their backyard. Yeah, no. They have a station. They have a little station or from their home, but they just kind of of and what's the following uh imagine it's pretty local but you know now i was listening yeah i started am band and i started communicating with them uh-huh yeah and they would communicate back with me and we started that you know but but i couldn't go down there i

couldn't sit in a room with them i couldn't get to them i still haven't so what happens now how's the movie doing i think the movie's doing well. It's tough, really tough to tell in these times, just because of the box office and COVID and who's going and who's not. Yeah. But I think we had a pretty good opening weekend as far as the studios concerned.

They're really excited about it. They've all been calling me. And, you know, the movie's playing really well. And I'm super proud of it. I'm super proud of Matt's work in it, the whole cast. And I don't know. It's, you know. I find these times, I love the work. I love doing it. All this part of it seems a bit beyond me at times. Sure. So now what are you actively engaged with creatively? Is it that radio thing? No. No, I'm working on a TV project right now actually that i sort of started for

some reason during covet and i'm kind of excited about it but i don't think i can go deep on it until i know what it is so but you're you're sort of like uh you're in the groove of it a little bit yeah yeah yeah yeah and with that you did that big uh that big series that 13 reasons why right yeah you know a guy i know i it was right after spotlight and brian yorkie who's a really talented writer out of the and came out of the theater musical theater he reached out to me and just said hey i got this thing i don't know how to get it there and can you help me get it there and uh we just kind of jumped in together i directed the first couple episodes and uh i didn't know it was going to have the impact it did and start the conversation

it did uh but it kind of blew up that one yeah and what was because there was a little like yeah uh yeah you know heat yeah i mean this show focuses on on a young woman and the book the ninja book on a young woman who commits suicide and it's a really obviously powerful and topic that a lot of people feel strongly about and i think it played out in in when that thing was released oh so right so oh i remember so it's like people thought you were glorifying or romanticized i think so i think some people felt strongly about that and some people didn't some people thought especially i think the young people watching the show felt like, no, this is a conversation we're talking about. I'm always a fan of having the conversation.

I think that's more important. I think that's our job as artists to kind of promote the conversation. No, absolutely. And I think that there is an issue about that the dialogue around criticism and around, you know, that as like I just had a conversation with A.O. Scott. It was a different conversation. But the idea that criticism is supposed to sort of also have its own language around evolution of art, right? It's not designed to stifle creativity yeah or to moralize yeah necessarily so like you know there's a risk that if these conversations around what can and can't be said

culturally yeah uh you know continue to push back yep creativity yeah that you know we deny the exploration of the struggle absolutely it shuts down the conversation yeah right right now we're seeing this our society and look there's a lot of good happening, but there's a lot of like narrow lens focus on certain issues that I think are becoming so explosive for people that artists are feeling more and more tenuous about extending themselves. And like, that's what we need to do. You know, I'm a white middle aged guy, I need to go explore other cultures and ideas to expand and hopefully to bring my self to that conversation and it's tricky to do i think right now because there's just so many landmines and i feel like that that is making it uh you know it's something a lot of us are talking about all the time what we have the right to do what we can talk about what the pushback is it's a it's an incredibly tenuous time the artist is stuck in the middle of a strange kind of uh uh kind of a viral explosion of of particular public opinion yes it might even be a minority situation on a platform that does not have a you

know global impact or impact even uh nationally right but but it is antagonizing enough for the corporate uh overseers right who facilitate the making of the work to be nervous yeah so then you know the artist is stuck in the middle of like well fuck if the studio is going to get pissed off because yeah this thing is blowing up i you know i believe my vision you know can transcend this and will add to the conversation yeah but now we're stuck transcend this and will add to the conversation. Yeah. But now we're stuck in this other, I'm in the middle of a conversation that has nothing to do with what I'm doing.

Which, which is the, which is trying to have the conversation, right. Which is trying to engage with the ideas. And like, you know, I talked to so many writers and filmmakers who are feeling that pressure right now. And it just, and it's coming from all sides. And, and I think like as artists, we're always trying to liberate ourselves. We're trying to be, there's a, there's a courage to like driving into ideas, knowing we're not going to get everything right. You never do, you know, that's not our job to get it right. It's our job to kind of have the

conversation, to explore things, to be curious and to push people to sort of look at themselves and look at others and think differently. But with that, you need to make mistakes. And I think we're getting to a place in this culture, it feels sometimes to me that like making mistakes can be critical and people are ready to jump on people who make mistakes. That's, I think, can become problematic. Yeah, like, told you! Yeah.

You know, I think that's why a lot of people just like to do their work and not talk that much. It's why sometimes, and even these situations, just us throwing ideas around, it's a different time than it was 10 years ago. I mean, do you feel it on your show? Do you feel a reticence, a hesitancy, a pressure, either from yourself, probably not at this point, but from guests coming on? I'm curious. Like, can you feel people? Yeah, sometimes.

You know, and I'm certainly sensitive to some of it. But the weird thing is, is like, I think generally a responsible artist with some sensitivity, you know, knows what's correct and what isn't. Yeah. And is sensitive to real issues versus, you know, reactive issues. But alongside of that, it's so easily to be misinterpreted Absolutely, so like it becomes tricky to even have a conversation about certain things I think so and I will go a step further than that like things are changing Language is changing right well language the world always does right and so and you're right and we're gonna misspeak and we're gonna say things We grew up. We have to evolve. Yes, and we have to well

But the problem is if the punishment is so swift and severe that making those mistakes sort of overrides the evolution then i think we're in a really bad situation then we're not growing in a healthy way we're not expanding and exploring we're sort of in a defensive posture well people like if they want people to change they've got to learn you gotta make and it's like okay examples can be made but then we have to continue learning yeah yeah and growing yeah and most people will given the chance sure especially if they're not public people yeah if you have you give the exactly if you give them a second chance but i think we're i don't know it just feels like it's such a harsh climate right now you can feel it you know and i feel like some of it is because of the isolation and the lack of human connection sitting across from each other.

But also some of it is, you know, dealing with personal trauma. Like I talked about grief, unresolved grief earlier. Yeah. That like what any individual is carrying with them and how that manifests in their behavior, what they want to cause out in the world, especially if they're not creative and they just want to start shit because they're sad and angry. That, I think, accounts for a lot. Like a lack of personal, not responsibility, but ability to deal with their own-

What's going on. Yeah, in themselves. And I think that's a lot of what the movie's about. I think so. I think if you don't, that's where sort of generational trauma and generational decay starts. And I think that's what happens in families and in communities and even in countries. And I think right now we're at a point in this country where we're having a reckoning. Yeah. And some days I'm hopeful, some days I'm not.

Yeah, that's the game. It feels like we're right on the brink some days. Yeah. Some days I'm hopeful, some days I'm not. Yeah, that's the game. It feels like we're right on the brink some days. Yeah, you know, but like I found a lot of hope in like these, like in terms of creativity, having, you know, some power in the world with like your movie and with Pig and then watching, you know, the Underground Railroad and then the indigenous stuff. I'm like, you know, like these are the voices.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it feels like it's all part of a similar conversation from all different angles. And, you know, there's great representation and just what you just cited right there, an exciting representation in the best way. That's, that's not sort of, it's, it's organic. It's just, it's just like artists having their moment, you know, like Sterling having his moment, having a chance to find. But you also have to go want to go look, you got to go, to go see you know it's like you when you were in the middle east and

you were like you know like oh my god yeah in arab country wherever it is that i don't do it enough yeah you know just to to hear the other voices yeah yeah it's i literally probably mark is the favorite part of my job is those early days of research of diving in of geeking out of something of learning of reading of Like when I'm there being pressed of going home and researching going back if there's just a quality of it where there's a journalistic Approach to it, which I just totally Totally find completely compelling. I always think if I don't make this this has been great Right because it's a discovery that it's going to feed everything in your life. It's everything. Yeah, great talking to you

Really great talking. Thank man really great talking thank you thanks buddy tom mccarthy that was a great talk i enjoy that guy and i got very moved and i between us you know we were talking about when after the interview on the porch and i fucking started crying. I guess that doesn't stop the crying in front of people you don't know that well. Crying in front of strangers entirely even. Now I will play some murky music on my little neck guitar. Thank you. Boomer lives. Monkey and Lafonda. Cat angels everywhere, man. Man.

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