WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 585 - Alex Karpovsky

Episode Date: March 15, 2015

Alex Karpovsky and Marc are enemies on the fourth season of the HBO series Girls. But in this conversation, they bond instantly over OCD, separation anxiety, karaoke and gratitude. Alex also talks with Marc about the films he's written and directed, and about the early morning hangover that introduced him to Lena Dunham. 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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Lock the gates! Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckeneers? What the fucksticks? What the fuckadelics? What the fuckaholics?

I am Mark Maron. This is WTF. Welcome to the show. Thank you for being here. Today on the show, Alex Karpofsky from Girls. Yeah, that guy. Actually, the season finale of Girls is on next Sunday, and I'm on it in another scene with Alex.

So that's exciting. He's going to be right here in the garage talking to us. Yeah, the guy who plays Ray. Some of you saw the scene I had with him a couple weeks ago where I took umbrage. But yeah, we got another little bit coming up at the end, I guess. Maybe they'll bring me back. I don't know. But it was great talking to Alex.

Got an interesting story. So that'll happen in a few minutes after I do this thing. You know this thing. If you hear some noise in the background, it's my neighbor. He's hammering away on something. He's in a little discomfort over there. There's, I guess, a sewer line problem. And I'm starting to wonder whether or not that's what's been causing the smell up here on the slopeage that kind of happens at random times during the day. And it's got nothing to do with your house.

It's disconcerting. And then a plumber says, yeah, well, you know, if you live on a hill, all houses have vents that vent the sewage line. So sometimes that comes uphill on you. And I'm like, I never heard of that. I don't even know if it's true. I'm hoping to God that maybe it was something next door i'm sad that he's going through that but maybe it's gonna maybe who knows maybe the the the weird um mystical smell of sewage that randomly takes over the the area will will now recede after he does whatever he's doing over there.

Again, my heart goes out to him. Shitty to have a house that starts to, you know, right when you get everything just the way you want it, boom, you've got a room full of poop or something like that. Never ends. My house, I think, is falling into the, it's being eaten by the ground. I was going to do some work on it. I was going to renovate. I was going to add on. I was going to make it a whole different house. And like, just telling you that, just telling you that just now has gotten me wracked with anxiety and overwhelmed and tired. I just need to do something because

there are parts of it that are literally falling apart and that's how i'm living and i don't need to live like that am i right am i right still off the nicotine lozenges getting getting a little sick but i think that's because we wrapped marin season three on friday we did it uh i spent the entire day friday directing the last part of my episode that i wrote and uh directed it was very thrilling. It was an amazing crew. It's really an amazing thing to be involved in a process. Obviously, you know, I had a lot to do with everything, the writing, the producing, and even some directing, but, you know, and the acting, but there is an, there are just all different levels of production crew. There's gaffers, there's ADs, there's second ADs, there's the sound guyers there's ads there's second ads there's the um sound guy

there's producers line producers uh you know locations i mean it's it with transportation it's a big undertaking and i gotta tell you man everybody in the marin team and we had a lot of new people this year were just amazing like it was not, not only was it painless, but it was fun. And it felt like we made something, hair and makeup, amazing. Wardrobe, spectacular. It was just incredible. I had an amazing time. And I don't get to appreciate or really notice a lot when I'm in it

because all I'm doing is, we're doing 9 to 13 pages a day and i'm just trying to keep my head filled with lines we don't barely have rehearsal time at the schedule we're on we've got it we're on a schedule we're doing one episode every three days there's no time for table reads there's no time for thorough rehearsing with actors so it's i don't know what people would do in that production schedule if they could not memorize lines. I just have sort of a facility for it. But I would love to have more time to rehearse. And I think it could be an even more amazing show. Last couple of episodes were gnarly.

And I can't even tell you why. I had to do acting. You know, I don't consider myself an actor. I think I've gotten better at it. I am a comedian who acts. And I am playing myself. There was a bit of a learning curve. But I think I've watched the cuts.

And I believe that I'm doing a better job at it. I think the writing is... Everything's better this season. But the last couple that we did i mean we're draining i had to shave my face to play a younger me it was pretty fascinating they put a little color in my hair i shaved my face i got my old glasses frames and they found some clothing from 10 12 years ago and i wore it and i it was bizarre man i'm like, because I have no mustache or beard right now, I'm wearing old shoes and an old shirt of mine

because I enjoy the time traveling. It's nostalgic, but I really think that I've gotten younger. And it's weird because I'm actually not treating my girlfriend as well as I did when I had my beard and mustache because I'm old to me. I'm being a little snotty, a little fucking nasty. And maybe that'll have something to do with it maybe that has something to do with it but i took a picture of myself and

i sent it to my mother you know in the in the uh the um dated garb with that beard with old glasses and she's like she wrote back what did you how did you do that just shaved put a little color in the hair that was it i'm going to do a couple of Trippany House dates just to get my brain back into the hour or so I was working on before I started shooting Marin, the Trippany House at the Steve Allen Theater here in Los Angeles. I'm going to do 3-31. That's March 31st. That's a Tuesday. I'm going to do April 6th.

That's a Monday. So if you want to come to those, they're usually pretty inexpensive. And I do it all as a benefit for the theater. Yeah, go to tripandthehouse.org and the whole schedule is right there and you can get some tickets to me. And it's a good place to come see me. It's a good place to have a nice... It only seats like a few people. It's just going to be me and you and a few other people. The Rochester dates, I know that that's happening this Friday and Saturday, the 20th and 21st. I'll be at the Comedy Club.

I guess it's in Webster, New York. So come out to that if you're in that area. Could you? Nice. Go to wtfpod.com slash calendar and see all the full tour dates. I can't wait for you guys

to see the new season though. I can't wait for you guys to see the new season, though. I can't wait till we get it all edited and stuff. I got to go in this week and edit mine. And I'm telling you, the cuts look great. It's a lot of great stuff, a lot of great co-stars. Judd Hirsch is back. Adam Goldberg, Andy Richter, Patton Oswalt's on the show. Andy Kindler, of course.

Dave Anthony. Who else? Bruce Bruce. Got Bruce Bruce in on the show. Andy Kindler, of course. Dave Anthony. Who else? Bruce Bruce. Got Bruce Bruce in on an episode. I do not want to spoil anything. Mary Lynn Ricegum. Hmm? Hmm?

Very exciting. But now I'm going to start living life again, so I'll probably have more things to talk about because I'll be out in the world and not just on a TV set. So look forward to that. be out in the world and not just on a TV set. So look forward to that. Me being in the world talking to you about that. I'm so curious as to whether the floating cloud of sewage stench that randomly occurs on my hillside is going to go away after my neighbor fixes whatever problem he has over there.

Things to look forward to. That and Marin Season 3, premiering in May the 14th, I believe. Let's talk to Alex Karpovsky. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes, we can deliver that.

Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th

at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Now. Now. We might have a little bit of an obsessive problem. I understand.

I do. I do have an obsessive problem. With sound of your voice in general? There's an underlying reservoir and it trickles in all sorts of ways. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like full on kind of like,

like you have rituals around. When I was a kid, I was an obsessive tapper and I couldn't, I had magic numbers and good numbers and bad numbers. And, you know, it was magic.

It was a way of keeping the world safe and somewhat controllable. That is magic. Yeah. It's OCD. I have often said, Alex Karpofsky, is that right? You it yeah that uh that that you know those are rituals those are magic that's how you control the

environment you're in and make things happen yeah and at that time i think it was a way of negotiating with a really acute separation anxiety that i had with my mom. And I felt every time she'd go out, something awful, this is before cell phones too, something awful has happened to her and I can't get in touch with her. So I tap and I have these magic numbers to make sure that she's going to return in one piece. How old were you? Was this like a couple of years ago? Oh yeah. No, no, no. This was when I was a kid. But you know, it's interesting that you say that because I think that whatever that hole that has been created and will always be there has then been filled by other things like a death anxiety or something. Oh, the hole of separation anxiety.

The hole of just like chewing on an anxiety. No, I know. You know, I'm full of dread and weirdness. And you have to be careful not to let it turn into morose rumination or depression or paralysis. Paralysis is probably the biggest fear of all those that you mentioned. Oh, you get it? No, but it's the biggest dread that I have. It's the biggest fear of those that I mentioned is just stagnation, paralysis, not moving forward.

And ultimately the paralysis turning into like a gangrene, emotional and- Emotional gangrene. Yeah. Where you have to cut your heart out. Exactly. Right? It's a tricky surgery. It's very tricky. you can do it though this you can do it with your brain just yeah and you know just cut your heart out but i wouldn't do it myself i'd want to um you know have a surgeon like like a professional well clearly you've done some work on yourself you

thought about this i thought about the root of your tapping. I've done some drilling, some fracking, some emotional and spiritual fracking. Are you guided or unguided? That's what I was going to say is I've never gone to, I say this with a very small asterisk, but I basically have never gone to a therapist. Yeah. And that's not something I'm proud of. But you've done some reading. I've done some reading.

I've listened to your podcast. I think when I first met you, Phil Stutz had a big impression on did he yeah he did you introduced me to phil i didn't really know about him beforehand you can go see phil where oh yeah he practices in la right yeah you do yourself uh this is your way to pop your therapy chair this could be the year of psychotherapy for me but you seem pretty well adjusted and well let's keep talking let's see what happens i could unravel but where did you start what was what drove you to put those pieces together because putting the pieces together between ocd tapping separation anxiety from your mother when did you first notice that how old were you um i i don't remember these actually

i would guess around six or seven or eight it's another weird thing too mark like my parents are immigrants and they never, I just talked to them for the first time about this last week. I don't know why it took so long. Where did you talk about it? We had our girls premiere. They've never been to anything

that I've done. So I brought, they're in Boston. I'm from Newton, Mass. So I kind of, you know, bought the Acela train, got a little hotel for them across the street.

For both parents? Both parents. For the premiere? Yeah, for the premiere. Yeah. And they've never, I've never invited them to anything before really yeah uh they won't ever listen to this so i love them to death but i'm a little bit they're a little bit of a lie i guess everyone's parents but my parents are really i fear as a liability they could always say they're immigrants they haven't really made any attempt to integrate themselves socially or culturally

you're embarrassed by them i'm embarrassed by what they could potentially do. Yeah, I guess I'm embarrassed by them. But they're great people. And when people meet them, they always say they're very sweet. But they don't really speak the language and they don't really get all the customs. Which language do they speak? They only speak Russian. And I'm just so nervous. Do they come from Russia?

They're Russians. They're Russians. And they don't speak a lot of English. My mom speaks virtually no English. And my dad speaks, yes, some English. And have they insulated themselves this long? How long have they been here? You can do it.

You can do it these days with satellite television, you know, all of their news. So they can watch all the Russian stuff? They watch the Russian stuff instead of the American stuff. All of their friends are Russian friends. And, you know, there's no Russian. Did they long for Russia? Did they come over with the massive expulsion of the Jews? They came with the Jews, yeah, in the early 70s.

At that point, I think. Like that was the sort of like, you can go, just go. Yeah, fine, get out of here. Yeah, here's your window. Stop nagging us. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, they don't miss it, but at the same time, they made no attempt to integrate themselves culturally in America.

So you invite them. I invite them, and that was the first time in my life that i've ever talked to them about my tapping we're not a very open like we don't talk about a lot of stuff you know we don't talk about my childhood we don't talk about this and that i was an only child i never had a babysitter that's what we didn't talk about you were only child only child and i never had a babysitter so when they were like they'd go away to go to like restaurants or parties or whatever when i was seven years old and they'd leave me by myself what do you mean by yourself yeah that's the thing like they would leave me by myself and then i get really fucking freaked out when you were seven yeah left you alone in the house yeah well that's

that's not right well that's what i was trying to to tell them and my dad just like realized that last week and i was told he's like oh that that's not that's not correct i was like no that's like that was i'm still recovering from that like there's a reason I'm in my thirties and I'm fucking single. And I don't like being alone in my house. Yeah. And like, you know, and what I, you know, there's still this sort of, um, that fear that sort of neuro, that, that, that neural pathway that has been really deepened since I was a child. And then I'll be negotiating with the rest of my life. It's no longer, um, pulsing around this sort of separation anxiety anymore.

I think it's been filled by other things, but it'll always have to be filled by something. I don't think I'll be able to rewire that. I don't think so. Well, that's like a terror. Because I had some of that when I was a kid. Like my parents, if they'd go out of town, I would be sure they would die in a plane crash. Right. But like I'd get nauseous.

I threw up. Like I'd be paralyzed at school. But I'd have a babysitter. Did you have siblings as well? Yeah, I have a plane crash. Right. But like I'd get nauseous. I threw up. Like I'd be paralyzed at school. They'd have some, but I'd have a babysitter. Did you have siblings as well? Yeah, I have a little brother. Did that help? Well, being an oldest probably doesn't help. I just don't know.

It's just like I was, I got so consumed and sad with the idea that their plane would crash. That was how it manifested. Me too. For me it was car crashes. And I was absolutely convinced it's before self-defense. I would try to call restaurants that they would go to and just beg the manager to put them on did they put them on sometimes if it wasn't too busy but you know it was always like an incredible dread i'd be crying all night and uh and i think it messed me up but they're great parents in other respects was your mom like a

completely uh overbearing panicky person i mean why was the connection so strong because i don't i i'm not sure why like i i just couldn't uh the the the worry was something i got from them i don't think she was panicky but she was smothering she loved me a lot and that's a great problem to have you're the only one that's a lot of pressure and she was 35 when she had me too oh so she was mature she was mature and this was the last hurrah so i I think there was some of that. And I think my dad countered that by being a stoic, introverted, Soviet intellectual. I think he countered that by saying, you're giving him too much attention. You're giving this too much. So we need to harden him by giving him some alone time.

What kind of intellectual? He was a scientist or a professor of what? A computer science at Boston University. I went to Boston University. Yeah, I know. I went there too. Oh, you went there too? Yeah. Because he worked there. Yeah. You know. I went there too. Oh, you went there too? Yeah.

Because he worked there. Yeah. You know, I know that. We talked about that? No, but I saw the Jerusalem Syndrome. Oh, you did? Yeah. In New York?

Yeah. I was a big fan of yours, man. You didn't know that? No. There was this like a quote unquote alternative comedy scene at the Luna Lounge on Monday nights. Yeah. And you were a big heavyweight there. Yeah. And you were, you know, a big heavyweight there.

Yeah. And I was a fan. And it was like a black box, like shoebox thing somewhere. In the back, yeah. There weren't that many people there, but I really enjoyed the show. But at the beginning of it, there's some sort of like slide, you know, there's a little screen. Oh, you're talking about Jerusalem Syndrome.

Yeah. You saw it upstairs at not a 45. So that was in like, it was on like 46th Street or something. That sounds about right. Right. That was before I moved it to the Westbeth Theater. So you saw it in one of those

like two or three hour marathon things. I don't remember the duration or what floor I was on when I saw it, but I do remember. But a small theater. It was a small theater.

Nobody was there. Seven or eight people there and at the beginning it said it's Mark Merritt, something along those lines. It was brought to you by. Mark Merritt sponsored by, brought to you by,

and then it was like there's all this stuff coming out. And one of the things was Boston University. Yeah, yeah. I And one of the things is Boston University. I was like, I went to Boston University. I just remember that. You saw one of the early Jerusalem sisters. You know what's weird about that show?

I mean, I really like the show. There was this guy, like this corporate fratty guy, and he kept yawning. And I don't mean like small yawns. I mean like, and he wasn't being a dick. He just had no fucking grip on common sense. And I was like, it was annoying. It was like a small room. I feel like you were noticing it, but you were being a professional. He just had no fucking grip on common sense. And it was annoying.

It was like a small room. I feel like you were noticing it, but you were being a professional. Surprisingly, I didn't say anything. And then the show ended, and this woman who was sitting next to me the whole time came up to him and just berated him in the lobby. She's like, you're an asshole. You have no sense of common decency or common respect. And the guy was just befuddled. I really remember that after the Jerusalem Syndrome for some some reason so your dad was this a professor of b when did they

he still is yeah when did you were you born here i was born in israel my parents left russia my mom left moscow my dad left st petersburg they met in israel they stayed there for six years total but in the middle of that they weren't together when they met in Israel? They weren't together. But there was like a Russian community. I think it was easy for Russia. I don't know. They didn't leave together?

They didn't leave Russia together? Yeah, they didn't know each other in Russia. Okay. They met in Israel. They met in Israel in the 70s? They married. Yeah, early 70s. Yeah.

And then they met each other, boned. I came out, and then I came here when I was three. Upstate New Yorkork so you were you were in israel for three years the first three years yeah so you have citizenship in israel yeah but you got to go fight you know what happened man when i was 20 years old i went i went to school um i i took i went to israel when i was 20 years old yeah and uh when i now when i came in the country but i was leaving the country they ran me through and they said, you have like a working equivalent of a social security number because I had dual citizenship. Yeah.

And they said, technically, we have every right to put you on a bus and throw a uniform on you. Right. And I was like, surely there's a reason. You can't. And so I missed my flight. They took me into a room and I signed a stack of papers, mostly in Hebrew. Yeah. A lot of initials, a lot of signatures.

And I don't know what I signed that day, man. I could have been confessing to terrorist acts. I have no idea. You really don't know. I really don't know. You don't read Hebrew. I don't read Hebrew. I wouldn't be shocked if I somehow forfeited my citizenship.

I've never been back since that day, so I don't know. You know, you could probably find out. Yeah, I probably could. I've never had an opportunity to visit Israel. You were 20 and you went there for, you went to school for a year or what? No, no, no. I went to school in England and we had a break, so I thought I would check out Israel. Actually, I had a great trip.

All right, let's back it up. All right, back it up. Yeah, we did kind of just cannonball right into like my separation anxiety. We went from like you were seven and sad calling restaurants. Yeah. And now you're leaving Oxford for a year. Yeah. This is like the structure of a New York article.

You're going to dive in, then you back it up. Exactly. But all right, so you're in Israel for three years. You don't really remember that. Do you have relatives there or nobody? Nobody. I had a grandfather, but he died, yeah. He was in Israel?

Mm-hmm. So they all went to Israel first. They went from Russia to Israel. Russia to Israel. Yeah. I think there was three paths at that point. Israel, Italy, or US. And it was a lottery system from what I understand.

To get out of Russia. To get out of Russia. Yeah. My dad was a refugee. My mom won. Well, they both won the lottery. But ultimately, yeah, they went to Israel. Israel took them.

And okay. So then you move here when you're three to upstate New York? To Binghamton. Right. That's where he got his gig? Yeah. First gig? His first gig, yeah. So he's got to speak enough English to teach fucking computers.

Yeah, but you've heard these professors, like, you know, like, it's, like, really fucking broken. And, you know, he's saying the same shit over and over again, so it's kind of like rote memory. But he's been there for, what, a couple decades? He must be doing a good job. He's got his little speech down, but, like, get him outside his comfort zone,

it breaks down pretty quickly. Oh, really? Like talking about movies or something? Or anything, yeah. But that's the thing, man. They have an integrated social culture, so he can't talk about movies, he can't talk about TV shows,

he can't talk about music or anything like that. Does he have those interests? No. No, he's a very solitary man. After work, he goes upstairs to a study, and he's just in front of the computer reading Russian news on the internet.

Is he responsible for any amazing things? Is he known for something as a computer guy? Fault-tolerant self-diagnostic electronics. Oh, and also, cryptography. He got his PhD in cryptography, but I don't think

he's like... Is that maps? No, that's cartography. I got his PhD in cryptography. But I don't think he's like- Is that maps? No, that's cartography. Oh. I think it's code breaking. Oh, right. I just saw a movie about that. Well, yeah. This is a big code breaking movie.

Did you see it? No, I didn't see it. I didn't know anything about that Turing guy. Yeah. Did you? A little bit because of my dad. Yeah. Oh, so he's like a Turing fan?

Well, he's a mathematician code breaker. I think Turing's like the holy grail. So cryptography, your dad was a code breaker? He went to, he got his PhD in cryptography. I don't know if I can say that. In Russia? In Russia, yeah.

And then he taught it in Israel and then he taught it in the US. He was supposed to go to the US for a year or a semester and then he fell in love and they stayed. How are you doing? Can you break a code?

No, I can't break a single code. You didn't say, give me some tricks? You didn't have those kind of interests? Even if I asked my dad for tricks, I would be really surprised if he gave me any. He would be withholding? He'd be withholding his tricks.

Like you got to go learn it on your own? I tried to get him to teach me chess a few times. He's not a patient man. He's an incredible chess player, too. Well, isn't that part of Russian culture? It's part of the whole jam but uh i would ask him to teach me stuff and he'd be so frustrated i'm like dude i'm fucking nine years old like i'm sorry i don't know you should oh you should have taught you chess maybe you would uh you know you might have changed your life there are a lot of things he could have done to change my life like what else

do you think he could have done teach me me about chicks. Does he know about chicks? He's a computer guy. Why don't you stick within his realm of expertise? Your cryptography and chess seems reasonable. He managed to marry a very beautiful woman and my mother. So he knew enough to pull that off. Well, why do you think that this separation anxiety has kept you single? How old are you?

39. So you're almost 40. Almost 40. Well, 39. Okay. it do you have a girlfriend no man have you ever yeah but i can't ever say like it was they've always been i don't know i'm gonna sound like everyone else now i i've had girlfriends but i've never been in a relationship that i ever thought was really really perfect i've never and i guess anybody could say that. But there have been moments in my life outside of relationships where I felt this is perfect.

This is great. I would love to live this way forever. Like if I could freeze time and just hover in this haze, it'd be great. But I never felt that way in a relationship. That's not the way life works. But I felt that way, man. Even last winter, I spent like January, February, and March here last winter. I lived in New York. I spent in LA. And it was blissful. It was really great. Really? I could have lived that way man even last winter i spent like january february and march here last winter i live in new york i spent in la and it was blissful it was really great really i could

have lived that way for a few years you try living out here for a year straight yeah that's see how the bliss see what the bliss does yeah pretty soon you'll be like nothing this is the temperature no there's no variation on this except for 10 12 degrees i guess every every type of bliss has a shelf life but i never felt even that way that I felt last winter in a relationship. That's all I'm trying to communicate. I get. Well, you know, having poetic sort of, you know,

nice deep feelings about weather is different than, you know, having that with a person. Well, my love for LA isn't just weather-based. It's not just weather-based. No, it's a big part of it, but there's other things. You have love for LA. I've never lived here. I spent three months here last winter, but it was a love affair.

And you're back. How long have you been back so far? A week. All right. And you're going to spend another three months. Yeah. But this could be it. You're like, I was wrong about that bitch.

I could be. It wouldn't be the first time I'd be wrong about a bitch. Absolutely. LA, fuck me this time, was not good. What was nice about LA last year is A, I dodged the brutal winter. B, I knew it was temporary.

C, I wasn't here hustling, trying to pitch something or going to meetings. I was just, I had a little house that I found on Craigslist in Echo Park, carved into this hill,

beautiful view. I just wrote, played tennis, and occasionally went on a few dates and it was awesome. It was a really nice time. Played tennis. Yeah, I'm a big tennis player. Are i just wrote play tennis and occasionally went on a few dates and it was awesome it was a really nice play tennis yeah i'm a big tennis player are you tennis no i don't play tennis my brother plays tennis yeah it's nice he used to play all the time it's so easy to play in la it's really hard in new york all right so you're in upstate new york binghamton for how long five years three to eight so you're eight you leave how was it

binghamton that's cold gets cold up there I've been cold my whole life until last year. Yeah. How's your Russian? Pretty good, right? It's pretty good. I speak fluently, but I got a thick accent. So you'll know, like a Russian will know within half a sentence that I'm an American. Oh, really?

Yeah. But you grew up speaking it. I grew up speaking it. Yeah. I can't answer that. And I can't read it and I can't write it. I'm stupid speaking it. Yeah. I can't answer that. And I can't read it and I can't write it. I'm stupid with language. Because I was looking at your credits.

And your second credit after the film you made was a voiceover. Is that a true credit? Oh, Grand Theft Auto 4? Yeah. Yeah, I did that. There was a... But they were Russian guys, right? I played a different...

A set of Russian gangsters. A set of Russian gangsters. Yeah. What were the variations on guys, right? I played a different, a set of Russian gangsters. A set of Russian gangsters. Yeah. What were the variations on those, Alex? I want to. There'd be like a tough guy. Then there'd be kind of a nebbish guy. Then there'd be like a guy.

Give me a taste. Tough guy. Tough guy. Why do you want to get him? He has nothing for you. You know, when I walked, this is the thing. I thought I'd be doing one know, when I walked, this is the thing is like, I thought I'd be doing one thing.

So I practiced one thing. When I walked in, there was a little like five foot two guy with a clipboard and he walked me into the sound booth and he's like, okay, so the first thing we're going to have you do is you just, you just fucked a prostitute and then you killed her to get her money. Okay. So we're going to start.

You want some hot water? You want a lemon? This is a brutal game. Have you played it? No, I didn't. I didn't, so we're going to start. You want some hot water? You want a lemon? This is a brutal game. Have you played it? No. I didn't play it either. I haven't played any video games. I don't know anything

about modern video games. You didn't grow up playing video games? Legend of Zelda? I'm 51. I'm 51. My video games were a little before Donkey Kong.

I was around when the first ones came. Space Invaders. Asteroids. Are we talking Atari system? No, are we talking atari system no we're talking you know at the bowling alley oh okay i'm talking about quarter machine nothing nothing at home well they had pong but i mean i don't know i mean a lot of grown-ups play them i just i can't maintain interest it takes too long yeah i can't i don't i can't i can't do it well they sucked

when you were growing up now they're i know i know grown people that play them. Do you play them? I don't play them. No, but that's my point. It's like now they're really, really... I want to hear the Nebushy Russian guy. I'm not going to do party tricks for you here, Mark. Sure you are. Excuse me.

I would like my money back. I enjoyed fucking you, but can I have my money back, please? Nebush guy. It's like kind of Peter Lorre-ish. That's not a party trick. That's a skill. You're exhibiting your amazing... My reign. So when did you end up in Boston?

How old were you then? Hey, we went from Binghamton to Boston. My dad got a job at BU, so he's been there for a long time. Where'd you grow up? What part? 31 years. Newton, Mass. Newton.

That's where Louie grew up. I know. I saw that episode where he went back home and tried to talk to his dad. So, Mass. Newton. That's where Louis grew up. I know. I saw that episode where he went back home. Yeah. And tried to talk to his dad. How you got, so you're almost 40. 30 not. You keep saying that. He's older than you, so you didn't know him.

So you were there from eight until you left. Yeah. Eight until 20, which is when I went, 20 or 21 is when I went to grad school in England. Yeah. Okay. So when, did you do standup? Did you do acting? What were you doing at BU? Yeah, eight until 20, which is when I went. 20 or 21 is when I went to grad school in England, yeah. Okay, so when did you do stand-up? Did you do acting? What were you doing at BU? Oh, man, no.

I did a neuroscience and anthropology. I was a huge fucking introvert. I mean, I still am to some extent, but I was like a clinical. Undergraduate neuroscience and anthropology. Were you there? You know, when I was at BU, there was a program called UNI, University Professors Program. Yeah, for smarties, right? It was a little bit for smarties, but you can kind of do your own thing. Right, right.

Like you just write a little thesis, kind of a bullshit thesis. And whatever the thesis is about is what they put on your name. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. They shut it down, by the way. That's no longer, the program's no longer there. But I did that. So it's kind of like a, I mean, I don't really know know that much about neuroscience i didn't really know that much about anthropology but you know what i mean i just kind of wrote the thesis more or less on those subjects yeah i sort of bullshitted

my way through yeah with my degrees like what do we got at the end yeah i mean what do i what do i really know that i could but you must have done all right to get into oxford i really you know yeah i really, I worked hard in my undergrad years. Noon South, which is the school I went to, it was,

I didn't realize until I was done with it just how difficult it was. Were you at Oxford? No, going to BU relative to Noon South. BU is really,

What's Noon South? It's just a really like good public high school. Oh, you went to, oh, Newton South. Noon South High School.

Right. I grew up in Newton. I heard that was a good school. It was. I didn't realize how tough it was until I left it and went to Newton South. Newton South High School. Right. I grew up in Newton. I heard that was a good school. It was. I didn't realize how tough it was until I left it and went to BU, and everything just seemed a lot easier. Really? So you studied hard in high school?

I studied hard, but I only got decent grades. And then at BU, I studied hard, I think, to impress my dad. Yeah, that's what you do. I did that for a semester, and then I'm like, fuck that. Yeah, it took me a few years, but ultimately, I did say fuck that, too. Did you do. I did that for a semester then like fuck that. Yeah, it took me a few years But ultimately I did say fuck that too. I think you know, we did you impress your dad? We'd really helped me I smoked my I did everything late. I like I lost my virginity late. I can't like I how old I Really I am too embarrassed to tell you really. No, it's time to fess up. No, man. I'm embarrassed seriously No, I'm one percenter like I'm a one percenter. What like last year? No, it wasn't that bad, but it was like I

Like I'm a one percenter. What, like last year? No, it wasn't that bad. But it was like, I can't tell you, man. I'm not ready. I'm not ready. What are you talking about? I'm not ready to tell you. You're like 25 to 30?

A little bit lower than that. Okay, I was 23. That's not horrible. That's a one percenter, I think. I don't think so. You don't think so? No, man. You just said you were socially awkward and introverted and it was difficult and you can't,

you know, you're not that great at it now, it doesn't seem. All right. What? What do I know? But what do you know? You're right. Was it great, though, the first time? No, because I was so old, I had to pretend like I did it like 50 times before.

Oh. So I had to like pretend I'm all smooth, but ultimately I had no moves. I didn't know what I was doing. I went down on her for like, I think three hours. So she'll always remember it. Hopefully, hopefully. And I didn't come the first time. Really?

It was too overwhelming. That is not a one percenter activity. I mean, most people, I came within seconds. You did? Sure. Prophylactic? Did you use one? No.

Sorry to ask. No, I mean. So offended. Well, it wasn't necessary then. But when I lost my rigidity, you didn't need one. How old were you? 17 or 18. That's right in the sweet spot.

I guess, but it didn't go well. It did not go well. Did she know you were a virgin? Yeah, I told her. Everything was out front. No, she was older than me and she was like okay we're gonna do it and i was so nervous took me forever to get it up and you know when i finally did it was like oh god and then you know it just paralyzes it with anxiety and it was not it was it was a lot of pressure and how long after

your that uh experience did it take you to have sex again was it immediate did you like want to wash the bad taste out of your mouth yeah no i kept trying you know to have good successful sex but i don't think i really got rolling until i was maybe uh you know 20 19 or 20 and then like i thought i figured it out i figured it out like your junior year bu you got in a groove i was doing okay okay i did all right developing the game like knowing how to talk to women i had nothing to do with that just developing the skill of sex you know i was never i don't know if i ever had a lot of game you know i mean the ones that came around came around you know i don't know i you know i would get obsessed with girls and i would focus on them and i put a lot of attention on them and so that could go either way either you could frighten them or they're like wow this

kid means business right it's very very focused and it could go that way and then then what but the problem with that being obsessive like that then they sort of you know once you once they're like okay i'm in you're like no i guess i'm done right yeah the hunt's over yeah i understand that but oh you're talking about weed yeah well that's what I was about to get to. I think weed really injected me with perspective. It forced me or allowed me to look at myself from a completely different vantage point, which is really helpful. I think if I didn't smoke weed when I was like 19 or 20, I would have been a very unhappy academic or scientist or something.

Really? It opened you up? It opened me up, man. I didn't have any therapy beforehand. I had very little life experience. I didn't have a lot of close friends. I had no fucking relationship experience. So I had no sort of reflection upon myself. What did it do exactly?

Did it relax you? I saw myself from a removed point of view, from a completely unfamiliar vantage point. Right. And that's what meditation can do. That's what psychotherapy can do. That's what a great close friend can do. But I didn't have any of those things. All I had was a bong and it really, really, really helped me. Yeah. It really helped me.

Do you still smoke? Like once a month I'll smoke. Really? Yeah. But like back then, were you like hitting it like, you know, wake and bake kind of stuff? No, no, I never waked and baked, but I would like, I would do it at the end of a night and yeah and i would just lie down on my bedroom floor and just close my eyes and just go go places when but when you were bu did you live at home uh first year i lived at warren towers remember warren towers you were down the street and you were in the and you went and lived in warren towers well there's no way i'm gonna live like that's i didn't get to like go away for college at least i'm gonna go and live in Warren Towers? Well, there's no way I'm going to live. I didn't get to go away for college. At least I'm going to go and live in the dorms.

I mean, I'm not going to. Oh, but those dorms? I know. It was brutal. Horrendous. It's a lottery. I didn't ask for those dorms. But yeah, it was horrendous.

It's almost like prison. And then my first semester of sophomore year, I did live at home. And I was very unhappy. And then I went. I lived in Alston since then, basically. Right. The rest of BU. How did Oxford happen? I got good grades at BU. home and i was very unhappy and then i went i lived in alston since then basically right the rest of bu how did oxford happen i got good grades at bu but did you learn about anthropology a little bit what do you mean a little bit you got into oxford we with you majored in neuroscience and

anthropology i mean that's what my thesis was on like i i hesitate to say major did you study theater or film or anything no no i was i would never hesitate to say major did you study theater or film or anything no no i was i would never do algebra what did you study at b i'm curious because it was hard i think unless unless you were like a sfa school of fine arts student it was hard to do plays i did stage troupe you did yeah you an sfa kid no i was a college liberal arts i was an english lit major i minored in film studies but you did which was an art history minor did you do stand-up in boston when you're an underground i did a little stand-up like very early on on campus but i i didn't i started doing it after my sophomore year that summer and it killed me and i stopped until i graduated so i did stage troupe though what exactly is stage

that's for the non-sfa drama club so you know i did, I did Indian Wants the Bronx. And I did, I directed Woody Allen, two plays by Woody Allen for Stage Troupe. I was in Don't Drink the Water. I was in that Woody Allen play. And, you know, I was part of that. Okay. Yeah, I just, that wasn't anywhere near my radar. So what did you, why'd you apply to Oxford?

Whose idea was that? You know, I went there my junior year abroad. I took the entire junior year. I went there from BU. I fell in love with it because I could finally go away from home for the first time in life. And I could truly be whatever I told people I was. Are you a religious Jew? Not religious, no.

Were you bar mitzvahed and everything? I was bar mitzvahed, yeah. So you went to Temple in Newton? Went to Temple. Yeah. Sometimes I still visit my parents and I time my visits with High Holiday so can go to temple together okay yeah and okay yeah all right so you're not julia on your own time i'm not doing on my own no i don't really i don't do you on you don't you on your well you know i actually uh one or two yom kippur's ago i went to a temple in new york on

my own time so yeah but very rarely anyone Yeah. Why do you think it went away? I don't know. I just, I don't know that it was, I'm culturally Jewish. I don't know if the religion outside of like feeling like I had to do it at any, it didn't resonate. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that it, I don't, I don't pray. I mean, I got warm feelings sometimes going to temple, but I don't know that it really, it just felt like something I did with my family.

Yeah. And when I went alone, it felt sad. Yeah. Lonely. I don't know if it's lonely, but it's just sort of like, what am I doing? Is this just a habit? Am I really praying? Am I really repenting?

Did you repent when you went by yourself? I made a list on a piece of paper of all the things that I was apologizing for. So yeah, I atoned. Yeah, that's what I meant, atoned. Yeah, writing everything down on a piece of paper. It was kind of helpful. It actually was very helpful. And then I created my own ritual.

I burned the piece of paper because I wanted it to like, I don't know, just go away. That's some magic. I guess it is magic. Magic still trickles through me, I guess. No, I think that's actually a magic thing that you burned the list. Burning list it felt good it felt good to see it go up and

that's well that's all this necessary that's how you change your feelings about things is taking ritual action and if it was effective it was effective if you felt like it was good closure to burn a list like a lunatic and like an alleyway behind the temple. Trying to get the flame going in the wind. Yeah. All right. So Oxford, what do you study there? Anthropology. More anthropology.

More anthropology. Ritual and myth was my concentration. That's exciting. So that must have helped a little bit with the writing of the screenplays and the thinking about the drama. In a way. But, you know, when I went to Oxford, that's when I really, that's when I started, I don't know exactly how this happened,

but I started kind of going on auditions and doing sketch comedy, improv comedy. In Britain? Yeah. This is what I was trying to say a moment ago. When I went there, no one knew who I was. I went to, like a lot of kids from Newton South went to BU.

Yeah. My parents, my dad is fucking on campus. Yeah. I could run into him at any moment. Did that happen a lot? Yeah, it happened every now and then. Yeah. But like it could happen at any moment.

So like mentally it was always there. So just the notion that I can go 5,000 miles away or whatever and wear whatever clothes I want and say whatever I want. It allowed me to finally reinvent myself. Right. Long overdue. And I'm out of your shell. Yeah, very much so. And as an extension of that, I started kind of doing stand-up and sketch comedy and improv comedy

and other things that I wouldn't have dreamed of doing with the past still kind of wrapped around me. Sure. So close to me. And I really loved it. I took, after being at Oxford for a year for my master's degree, I took a leave of absence to go to London just to do it full time. Stand-up? To do stand-up and sketch comedy. I was obsessed with Andy Kaufman at the time.

It was kind of prankish, comedic performance art stuff. A lot of it didn't work, but it was really, really fun. Give me some examples of a bit. So one bit was, I would, it's kind of hard to, I don't know if it'll, okay. I would have a boom box with two cassette players and I would introduce my brother who couldn't be here tonight because of an illness.

So I'd play like the best of his tapes and then I'd old box of tapes and I would sort of try to make it, I can't explain it. That one killed. That was a good one. It was? Yeah. and then another thing was i played a russian comic where i got to try to translate my jokes it feels so outdated um talking

about there's a stoic comic a guy who like prided himself on never being able to laugh and this other guy would tell him jokes but you know like the thing that i found was it was really hard to like um did you work with other people when you yeah there's a guy named quinn burke who's just a brilliant guy that also an american guy that I used to do. Is he still in the racket? No, he shut it down and I've lost touch with him. Oh. But it was hard to like, you know, widen that.

Like you do like a five minute thing that may eventually work, but you can't really like, you know, stand ups like you. You do an hour. Yeah, you slowly, you get best subs and best subs and you tighten up and you get it longer. I couldn't do that. But you were never a joke guy it was all sort of like you know you got to go up and commit to these lengthy things that might go nowhere exactly and and most of them are rooted in some notion of like you're you're you're you're playing a character where the audience doesn't know you're playing character and so you reveal that you're playing a character and once the you know the

jig is up the jig is up and you can can't play another character after that. But what kind of improv were you doing? Just regular sort of college-based improv, which means bad improv. Right. We would just go up there, and it was mostly with me and my friend Quinn. We would just go up there and do long-form improv, which you have to be really, really good to do. Later on in my life, I met these two guys named TJ and Dave who do long form improv out of Chicago and I made a movie about them

and I was like, Jesus Christ, I should have never even, after seeing those guys, I was like, what the? Well, you just didn't go further with it.

What are you going to do? You tried something. Yeah, I tried something. So which movie was that? Trust us, this is all made up. And it was just following those guys?

It's basically a live concert performance film. Of them? Of them, yeah. They do this show at the Barrow Street Theater in New York. They're Chicago guys, but they come to New York to do this show every few months. And you shot a concert movie? Concert movie.

It's exactly what it is, yeah. And were they happy with it? I think so. You know, they were very wary about the whole endeavor. In fact, they said no repeatedly, and I slowly kept nudging them. But the thing that made them- Why? Because of the intrusion?

Well, one or two botched efforts in the past a with you or other people no with other people and ultimately that led them to feeling b that this it couldn't be translated this fundamentally 3d live theatrical experience could be translated into a flat cinematic 2d long that was the challenge that you wanted to take yeah but but yeah so one of the things i told them was like know, we're not just going to launch into the live concert. We're going to have like this 20-minute documentary type of buildup. So we have a little bit of, you know, three-act structure. We're going to make the audience nervous and hopefully exhilarated.

But ultimately what I'm getting at is I gave them final cut. And if they were embarrassed by the movie and if they felt there was something they didn't want to get out there, they could shut it down. So the fact that it's out there is some sort of sign, I guess, that they weren't horribly embarrassed by it. When it premiered at South by Southwest, it played at a few other festivals. They traveled with the movie. They did shows with it.

Sure. So that was very nice. So is it available now on DVD? Yeah, I think on Netflix, Amazon. Still on Netflix? iTunes, maybe. Yeah? I'm not sure.

All this stuff is up? One of those. Okay. All right, so let's go back so you're in london you took a semester off you did the stand-up took a year off a year off and then you go back you finish no i think i i i asked to go back i asked to take a leave of absence and to come back in a year and then i ultimately didn't ever want to go back you didn't finish your master's at oxford i got they have a master they have m, which is a master of studies, which you get after a year.

And I got that. Then if you stay another year, you get an MPhil, master of philosophy, which is like an advanced master's, which I did not get. And then if you stay another three or four years, you get a DPhil, which is basically our PhD. So I got like the lowest, like beginner stage master's. So it's useless. Completely useless. Yeah. I've done nothing with it i've never once

you know what was it myth and rituals you said ritual and myth in amazonia but that's interesting stuff it was great stuff i loved it i had a great time there i had a blissful year there i was doing comedy in the evenings i was having these like really really fun um lectures and study groups in the daytime it was blissful it was really great. When did you go to Israel? When I was 20. So I went there doing my junior year abroad. Oh, so that was before that. Yeah.

So now, all right, so you got the bug. You're doing Andy Kaufman stuff. Moved to New York. Okay. Going to the universe that you're kind of hovering around, the Luna Lounge, Monday night's Luna Lounge universe. Heavyweights, Todd Berry, guys I really love, Rick Shapiro,

Sarah Silverman, Janine Garofalo, Louis would do stuff. Tons of other people. Sloan and Allen, I thought were really funny. Yeah, so that was sort of the scene

and it was hot. Where were you living? I was living, I was subletting on Craig's, or I don't know if Craig's, I don't even know how I did this, but I was subletting place to place. So, for I've done first and first I lived there longest and then uh I would

just hop around yeah I'm gonna show you every side guy yeah East Village guy yeah yeah yeah oh yeah East Village I was at second and B between A and B yeah and uh yeah it was something right yeah like it was packed on Monday night it was crazy it was fun down there I don't know if it doesn't feel the same anymore down there I'm so removed from the scene I don't know what's going on no but I mean just I don't like the area doesn't feel the same anymore like you know there was still sort of like

the tail end of whatever happened in the 70s and 80s you know it was sort of like there was still it felt gritty still doesn't feel gritty anymore almost anywhere there alright so but you're not doing stand up I didn't see you do stand up did I It felt gritty still. It doesn't feel gritty anymore. No. Almost anywhere there. No. All right, but you're not doing stand-up?

I didn't see you do stand-up, did I? Are you doing it in New York? I don't know if you saw it. I would do it like once every... I would have to wait like five months to get back on the stage at Luna Lounge. Did you ever meet Eugene Merman at that time? Eugene I know well. I actually started doing stand-up,

like really like my own stand-up, in Boston at a comedy studio. Upstairs in the high. Of his place, yeah. And he hosted the Friday night show. When did you do that?

So yeah, I mean, I'm not going, there was like a six month period between when I dropped out of Oxford and when I moved to New York and I lived in Boston

with my parents. So right when he got back from Britain. Exactly. And that Friday night scene was fun too. It was Eugene and Brendan Small. Yeah, I love Brendan. And and this guy named patrick borelli i know him and

louis would come uh up from new york every now and then it was a fun night it was good yeah it wasn't there when i was there so so do you and eugene speak russian together uh i think we've exchanged a few russian words together yeah it's family from a similar place as your family in Russia? Did you ever have that conversation with him? I'm sure I did, but I don't remember. He's from Lexington, Mass., which is really close. My mom knows all the Russians in Boston, so she knows. She knows the Mermen?

She knows the story. I just don't know it. She knows all the Russians in Boston? She's a social butterfly. She arranges all these charity events and stuff. She knows everybody. All right. So when did you make

the first movie? At what point? So you didn't stick with standup obviously. No. You had bigger ambitions. I had bigger ambitions. Yeah.

Yeah. And I was working as a caterer. And then this guy who I went to Oxford with was editing corporate videos and industrial videos and karaoke videos. And he's like, do you want me to, it's like a small post house, like five or six people.

He's like, do you want me to see if I can get you a job here? And he said, it pays better than catering. It's also more interesting. And it's also a daytime job, so you can go and do your thing at night. And I did, and I loved it. I was editing rubbish, but it was absolutely fascinating. So you learned how to edit there? I learned how to edit.

I edited hundreds of karaoke videos. I don't even know what those are. Well, you know, this is sort of more back in the day, but you would kind of go to a karaoke bar and there'd be like these cheesy videos of couples holding hands while they're walking on a beach in the sunset. Oh, those where they play behind the songs?

Somebody has to cut those together. Oh, really? Yeah. That's hilarious. They don't just come out of the box that way. No. Someone has to sculpt. Some guy do that work.

There's a narrative there. You did some of your greatest work. You probably have seen my work. Sure, maybe. Your listeners may have seen my work. But that was sort of my film school. I mean, I fell in love with editing. I fell in love.

They had like a few cameras and cheap microphones. And I went off and made my first movie with their stuff. And it's about, it's called The Whole Story. And it's about a karaoke video editor who has bigger dreams how'd that movie do good i think i don't know i mean uh i think it's in many ways it's the movie i'm proudest of like i care the most about you wrote it and you shot it i wrote it direct no budget yeah it took me two years i didn't know what i was doing we shot it in minnesota and then we'd have to fake get in New Hampshire and stuff. It took forever.

It took two, two and a half years to finish, and I was editing in my parents' basement. I moved back in with my parents because I just ran out of money. And I really cared about that movie. I haven't- So you left New York with the raw goods, with the tapes? Yeah, with the mini DV tapes, yeah. And I went up to Boston and I spent, yeah, about two, two and a half years in the hole in my parents' basement. Were you doing stand-up then?

No, no. You were just kind of... Going a little nuts, yeah, and just editing the stuff. Were you smoking cigarettes? No. Weed? A little bit of weed, yeah. Drinking? Maybe. I've never been a big drinker cigarettes no weed a little bit of weed yeah drinking maybe i've never been a big drinker but maybe a little bit i was seeing a girl uh i was in a relationship and that

yeah she was up there yeah she i yeah she was out there she was in jamaica playing that really helped oh it would have been impossible without that yeah absolutely impossible still friends with her no but she lives right near me in williamsburg i see her sometimes oh really is it weird no no that's good so you finish that movie and then what are you doing you go back to new york i finished that movie um and what are your parents thinking now like what are you doing oh yeah in a russian accident yeah my mom has been always so supportive and patient and my dad is um he just you know he's i understand his position now but he was like very nervous about me he thought you get worried about your security yeah i wasn't making any money i was toiling away in the in the basement type of thing so yeah they were nervous i had to borrow some

money to move to new york and get another shitty apartment yeah like kind of back to where you finished a movie but the movie did okay like you know obviously didn't make any money but it like it played enough festivals for me to feel like it didn't make any money, but it like, it played enough festivals for me to feel like it wasn't a total failure. Right. But you know what? I like really was excited

about every festival, like the Sedona International Film Festival. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was pumped. Yeah. And I'd go there a week early and plaster the town in flyers

and I was just so excited. And you're starring in the movie. Yeah, starring. I did everything on that movie and then, and I met all of these people through the festival circuit. That was the best part of it because they became really close friends. That became my new sort of social circle in New York,

all these sort of indie filmmakers in New York. And since then, we've collaborated on millions of movies. I have a life because of the people that I met. On the whole story. On the festival circuit of the whole story, yeah. Wow. Yeah, that was good. So you've done, what, five features on your own?

Mm-hmm. I didn't see any of them. Yeah. Is that wrong? No, I think you're in a vast majority. Huh? No, but I got to go look for them because this interview happened pretty quickly

and I don't know if I would have known about them. Woodpecker, what was that about? That was about two bird watchers looking for a bird that was thought to be extinct, but apparently is flying around the swamps of eastern Arkansas based on true events that happened in Arkansas. So what the whole story is, not what it's about, but what we try to do with it is we basically injected

a fictitious character in a fictitious story into a fictitious character into a real life situation. Yeah. So there's a weird lake in Minnesota that didn't freeze over in the winter, despite the fact that hundreds of surrounding lakes are coated in three to four feet of ice. So we threw like a real person with a real, sorry, a fake person, me with a fake backstory into this real situation. And we did the same thing in We.

I did the same thing in Woodpecker. There's this real search for this real bird, the I Rebuild Woodpecker. And we just, I found these two actors that I really liked and we just injected them into this real life search that was happening. And I was really excited about that, about that at the time. When I made the whole story, it felt like a kind of a semi-new, semi-unexplored terrain. And then Borat came out not long afterwards which are basically injecting a fictitious character into real events and they did it way better and way more spectacularly and funny than were you trying to be funny yeah but in a

more like slow and meditative and existential way like this guy like cries in the movie he goes on these sort of like you know there's these little sick sad montages and then you did trust us it's all made that's the documentary right and then what's rubberneck about rubberneck is the only movie that made that isn't really a comedy it's about it's a psychological thriller about a scientist in boston who slowly unravels because he can't get over this girl he's completely obsessed over her then he wrote and directed that wrote directed and acted yeah he has this tryst with this co-worker. She's beautiful, out of his league. She was wasted.

She just kind of surrendered herself at this office Christmas party. And she basically said, that was a mistake. It's not going to happen again. He just can't get over it. And it's like Chinese water torture every day at work.

He sees her. She's pretty. She's not reciprocating his infatuation. Does he kill her? It gets ugly. Is it on Netflix? No, I think that movie's still streaming. Rubberneck?

My first three movies were streaming, and then they made them DVD only, which means no one ever watches them anymore. But I think Rubberneck is streaming. Red Flag? Red Flag is streaming, yeah. That's my last movie. Are you in that too? Yeah.

You're in all of them? Not in Woodpecker, and I'm not in Trust Us. Right. What's red flag about it's about basically a caricatured version of myself when i made woodpecker a few years ago and there's this organization that puts these obscure movies on tours of the south where you play like these small little art house theaters so i agreed to go on the tour because it's flattering to show your movie anywhere. But the thought of kind of going on a two-week tour in the South and playing these small venues was really, I wasn't excited about it. And I was dreading the loneliness of, the allure of the American highway has evaporated

for me, you know? Yeah, like the interstate is not an exciting place. No. Even the country roads have become less exciting. I wasn't looking forward to being alone by myself for two weeks, driving from one rinky-dink place to another and staying in crappy motels. So I try to make a story about a filmmaker on tour showing his movie, and Red Flag is about that.

It's about a guy showing a movie that he no longer really is attached to emotionally. They all sound so good, I have to watch them. Some of them, yeah, you should watch some of them. But, you know, like what you do in your show, like I play in a lot of these movies anyway, I play, if this is fair, I feel for you, I feel like I play a caricatured version of myself. Yeah.

And that's sort of, you know, the comedic thing that we reverberate off in most of these. But it looks like you did a lot of of acting in small films yeah now were you ever are you considered to be part of a movement are you part of the mumblecore movement like it's a really sloppy term in some ways it's just such a wide umbrella there's so many different types of movies that could be who are some of the directors you work with well i think like the the one of the people who are labeled in the mumble mumblecore camera most probably

is a guy named Andrew Buzalski which is a great filmmaker out of Austin. Yeah. And the first thing I acted in after the whole story was his movie. Yeah.

Which is called Beeswax. So I think because of him if I have any affiliation to Mumblecore it's because of that movie. All right. So I emailed Lena today. I said I was going to interview you.

Did she email you back? Yeah. You want me to read it? Yeah, sure. She said, here we go. She emailed me back immediately. She said, I met him as he was wandering drunk across the road in Austin, Texas in the morning. I was hungover.

I wasn't drunk. It's a big difference. And she capitalized morning. It's true. I mean, like a lot of the people that I've ended up working with and collaborating some way, I met at film festivals. She was there with her first movie that she made before Tiny Furniture. And I was there with Trust Us, my third movie. And yeah, I was, I guess, crossing a road and

a mutual friend of ours named Bob Byington was driving his car and he pulled over because we're friends and Lena was in the car and he gave me a lift, like literally one block. And I talked to Lena for a moment and I was just immediately impressed by her. This is a 22 or 23-year-old girl with a feature-length film, a very personal feature-length film at a major film festival. And she's really just funny and cool. She's impressive. Yeah, but immediately impressive. Yeah. And so I got her information and we kept in touch.

We did DVD swaps. She showed me all the stuff that she's done, Delusional Downtown Divas and these web series that she did beforehand. And we just became fans of each other. And she put you in Tiny Furniture? Yeah, later that year in November. I met her in March at South By. And then in November, yeah, she wrote a poem

for me in Tiny Furniture. That's so sweet. She's the sweetest. And she's championed you ever since. She's a real sweetheart. And it seems like the role of Ray In girls is is kind of close to you. It's not a caricature. Is it it feels well You've seen the show right? Yeah, and you've talked to me for an hour. You genuine tell me it does

It feels close to you. Yeah, it does Yeah, I feel like he reminds me a lot of who I was like five or six years ago Okay, I think rather like when I think of him like I don't really think like oh like, Oh, he's like a little bit like this guy. And he's a little bit like Gary and a little bit of Brian. No, it's just like mostly me, but five years ago, like nurturing a lot of unresolved issues, negotiating with a pain in a way that he doesn't know how to make constructive, um, overthinking things to a detrimental degree, getting in relationships that aren't going to move him forward emotionally or spiritually. This is stuff you're all beyond now.

That was five years ago, you. I just talked to you for an hour. I haven't conquered it, but I hope I made some fucking progress. Jesus Christ. What are you, sad now? Reflective. Yeah. Meditative.

What are you thinking? Just looking over my life, you know, where I was when I was 33, 32, which is where I kind of look at Ray. It's like a 32-year-old Kroposki. What do you mean you're doing good? No, no, I'm not. You're making movies and stuff. I'm not singing any sad song or I'm not throwing a pity party. I'm just reflecting.

You're trying to convince yourself that you're different now, much different. I've evolved. What's the indicator of that? I don't know. Yeah yeah maybe you're right maybe i haven't grown i have no fucking evidence i'm not trying to corner you look i feel like i've grown and i think i have what are indicators maybe if you tell me your indicators i'll know what to look for i don't freak out about the same shit i used to i freak out about less shit okay and uh you know i feel like i can i take it a little easier on myself and you know i can usually stop myself from engaging in the type of panic or anxiety that i used to you know that used to

just happen naturally because i was very in my head and very paranoid and you know and defensive and weird and like when i really look about look back on the things I used to obsess over, I don't do it anymore. Those things. And what was the greatest aid in that evolution? Trying to stay in the present. Trying to figure out the difference between reality and what I'm manufacturing in my head, either voluntarily or not. But in a practical sense, how did you go about obtaining that perspective? Through therapy, through meditation?

No, not meditation, but I was in recovery and a lot of those ideas resonate. Engaging with other people and helping them to get out of yourself. Saying things like, what color is the rug to get out of yourself. Saying things like, what color is the rug? To get myself into the present. Therapy, I didn't do for a long time. It was scattered. Recently, I've done some therapy and that's helpful. But I think most of it has just been hard knocks and staying sober.

But really just trying to be like, is this a real fear? What are you doing? Why are you freaking out? Are you making this up? Is your brain making this up? Can we turn it off? Yeah, if that's an indicator, and I think it is,

I do think I'm much less prone to get lost in a stress spiral than I was a few years ago. And I have a slightly more uh well-fitting a slightly tighter grip on gratitude gratitude is very important yeah and i think that's something that i was completely oblivious to when i was if you don't if you don't like check in with gratitude you and your people are going to find you irritating absolutely absolutely you know because it's sort of like everything's going for good for you nah i got things to do yeah yeah you and i did a movie together i know sleepwalk right but we had no scenes together none

but i saw you and i'm like that guy you saw me when when the movie was made well i saw you in a like like i don't think we had met why why why why the scowl when you say that guy because you look familiar you look familiar to me and like i know like there was that immediate my immediate feeling was like why didn't he cast a comic as a comic and then it was like who's this comic supposed to be i know comics i don't know this guy and then i was like oh he's pretty good it's good actor and then i saw you on, I think, probably on, it was around the first season of Girls, right? I'm like, there's that guy.

It's his time. He's doing it. That guy's doing it. I mean, there were plenty of, not plenty, but there were a handful of cameo comics in that movie. I think you just didn't want to sort of carpet bomb the place with like, you know, real comics playing comics. I think you wanted to kind of intersperse it. I guess there was a few around playing comics, you know, real comics playing comics. I think you wanted to kind of intersperse it. I guess there was a few around playing comics, you know, but, and also I thought it was good

to use an actor and I think you did a good job. How did you like being, so you're on our show this year. Yeah, with you. Yeah. My scenes are with you. Can we talk about that? Okay. What do you want to talk about?

I want to talk about how you felt working on the show. Was it fun for you? Yeah, I was very excited. I was excited to do it. When I got there, I was hoping that... I didn't know what we were going to do. I didn't know if I should shave my face, how we were going to make me look less me. You had a really bush...

Was your mustache bushier? Maybe. I did a comb over, which I think was relatively effective. And they sort of unhipsterized my clothing. And, you know, it was good. It was loose and, you know, the improvisational element was good. And I think the character was right for me.

And I think you and I had a good time riffing. I had a great time riffing with you. Yeah. It was really fun. And the whole sort of city council thing, the borough council, all those other actors, once we other actors, once they kept letting us go, it got kind of exciting. Did you do research? No. Did you watch any two videos about council board meetings?

No. No? Well, don't be so offended by the question. No, I'm not offended. I just, like, I knew, like, I could tell by the tone of the script that, you know, he was sort of, you know, territorial and over it, but kind of dug in. Yeah. of the script that you know he was sort of you know territorial and over it but kind of dug in yeah and and i knew that uh you know my my particular energy or what i've been honing my whole life as a not an actor but as a human would fit this guy right you're cast for a reason yeah yeah and uh i had a great time i you know like like anybody like i'm very grateful that i was part of it i would have liked the entire episode to be about me and you.

Sure. But that's just me being greedy. I'd like to try to do more acting. But then they brought me back, and you actually run for my position. Let's not be a spoiler. Yeah. Who knows how that's going to go. Your character is basically a lazy and corrupt incumbent.

I saw it differently. I saw it differently. You saw it differently. That's what you are. Okay. And basically, I let everyone know. What's your character's name? I don't remember. Not me either.

Corrupt? Yeah. Like you got, you kind of, yeah, you're a corrupt incumbent. You got some parking space bullshit, right? I can't remember all the details. I don't know if it's corruption. I think maybe he took a little bit of advantage of his position, but I think at the level that he was operating at, it was, you know, maybe he abused his power a bit. The small power that he had.

That's corruption. That's basically corruption. Right. Well, this is your self-righteous character that is very exciting. This idealistic guy that just wants to do good by himself in the community. Yeah.

He has a lot of, he's driven to some degree by ideological endeavors, but he also is nurturing a tremendous heap of inner demons. And oftentimes, you know, that gets in the way of his ideological pursuits.

Most of the time. It certainly, you know, that gets in the way of his ideological pursuits. Most of the time. It certainly does later on in the season. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited about it. What else are you doing? You doing a movie? I came,

this week I did the new Coen Brothers movie. They're one of my favorite filmmakers. I'd love to work with those guys. Never done it? No, I don't.

No one thinks of me as an actor, really. Sad. It is a little sad. I'd love to work with those guys. Never done it? No, I don't. No one thinks of me as an actor, really. Sad. It is a little sad. I'd like to do more. I auditioned for a Coen Brothers movie. Which one?

I auditioned for A Serious Man for the lead. Did you really? Uh-huh. I never got anywhere. I just did casting agents. Were they in the room

when you auditioned? I didn't make it that far. But you were in their last one. I remember you on a couch with a wife. Yeah, it's nice to be at an Asian wife. It's nice to be

invited back, you know? And they're out here doing it? Yeah, that's what I was saying. So this week, they're shooting a movie called Hail Caesar here in LA. And it's in 1950.

Really funny script. Kind of more wacky and zany than their last movie. They do that sometimes. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, and I got to play

one of the roles. That's great. What's it about? It's about a fixer played by Josh Brolin in 1950 Hollywood and just putting out one fire after another in the studio. Like a studio fixer? Yeah, studio fixer. And Clooney is one of the studio actors,

and he gets embroiled into a situation that needs fixing. I like it. Yeah. I like Josh Brolin. Who is your scene with? Clooney. All week with Clooney. Really?

Fun. That's amazing. Yeah. Not just me and him. Me, him, and like a group of other people. Yeah? Yeah. How is he?

Is he a good guy? Great guy. Like, generally a great guy. Yeah. It's easy to kind of say everyone's great. But he's like, he would never go to the trailer. He would always hang out with us between breaks and show us these really elaborate pranks

on YouTube on his iPhone and stuff and just joke around. He's just a really, really easy going dude. I like that guy. Great movie star. He's a great movie star. Great movie star. Classic. I know, right? That's what I'm about to say. He's a classic movie star. They can still exist.

He's one of them. Classic. I know. Right. That's what I'm about to say. The classic movie star. They can still exist. He's one of them. Yeah. Brolin's pretty good too. I don't know if he... He seems to have some demons. But I think he looks great on screen. Yeah. He does look great on screen. But Clooney's also making movies. He's involved in all these other humanitarian projects. No. I love the guy. I love the guy.

He's a big deal. Yeah. And he's humble. I think he's very humble. He's the guy. He's a big deal. And he's humble. I think he's very humble. Yeah, he's the guy. He's the movie star. Yeah. He's it. On the Golden Globes, they just gave him the award for being an amazing movie star. Amazing guy.

Yeah. The lifetime achievement for being amazing. That sounds like a great... I'd like to interview those guys. I'd like to work with them. I'd like to do some more acting. I don't know. They don't like to talk.

No, I know. It's fine. Yeah. Directors are hard to get. And they're the guys that have the most to interview those guys. I'd like to work with them. I'd like to do some more acting. They don't like to talk. No, I know. It's fine. Yeah. Directors are hard to get. And they're the guys that have the most to talk about sometimes. Yeah. Like you're a director.

That means you're well-versed in things you think about. What do you think the high point of this conversation was? I think we started strong. I think we started really strong. I enjoyed... For me, I enjoyed talking about

where my separation anxiety went. I mean, this is right out of the gate. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed talking about marijuana. See, for me, the editing karaoke films, I enjoyed that. Oh, you enjoyed that, yeah. That's kind of a dark part of my life, so I guess I didn't enjoy it for that reason. But we didn't really cover what do you feel this separation anxiety

with now? You said sometimes you just feel it somehow. What are you feeling it with? What do you do with that terror? Well, it's replaced by a death anxiety. And I think everything, this red flag anxiety is always there. I know, but, but, but like, you know, like everything that I'm doing is some sort of reverberation or negotiation with this anxiety. And all of us are doing it. All of us are doing it. And I think it's unhelpful to be conscious of it to a large degree. That you're negotiating with your death anxiety? Just to be thinking about it.

I think it's horrible. I think it's in people's subconscious for a reason. It stays there for a reason, largely there for a reason. Most of my life's work is about what you're talking about. Negotiation with your death anxiety. Yeah, you and Phil Stutz really got into it. Well, yeah, it's like the denial of death stuff. Yeah, exactly. You know one thing I can't do?

Think about organs. Can't do it. Can't think about kidneys, livers. I have a real problem when I start thinking about organs working. Why, what happened? Think about your pancreas right now. What's happening? Well, I don't't know i don't know what it's doing but i hope it's okay yeah yeah it's just like i don't know what i don't i don't know where it even is on my body yeah i can't locate the pancreas but if something's wrong with it you are fucked i know like really

fucked see this is exactly that steve jobs i think died of a pancreatic condition i think yeah i just don't have the money in the world i I don't do that. I don't do that thing. Yeah. We talked about, another high point for me was talking about gratitude and that being sort of a litmus. Need to do it more.

Need to do it more. Of growth and emotional and personal evolution. I'm not as grateful as I should be. I go on gratitude walks every two weeks for about an hour and I think a lot about my health and I get a lot of airtime goes to my organs. I really do think about my organs.

Not the whole time. How do you think about them? I'm grateful that my liver works. I'm grateful that my kidneys work, that my pancreas works. I'm grateful that my GI works. I'm grateful that my dick works. I'm grateful that my lungs work,

my heart works. I'm just grateful. And it's so easy to forget it. Do you thank God? Sometimes I feel like there's like, i don't know if i use those words or kind of um look upwards but i feel like you know that's that's it's in the ballpark yeah okay yeah we're in the spiritual ballpark yeah looking upwards in gratitude for your your vessel it's operating properly it's easy to forget how lucky one can be. Fine way to close.

Thanks. Thank you, Alex. That was Alex Karpofsky. I enjoyed talking to him. He's a bright guy. Interesting story. I may not be a great actor, but I definitely committed. And there's a couple of episodes this year that are pretty intense.

And I really let myself go. And I really immerse myself in this thing. That's the only thing I know how to do is just go all in. Go all in. So look forward to that. Boomer lives! Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs, mozzarella balls, and arancini balls? Yes, we deliver those.

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