WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 741 - Ron Perlman

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

Actor Ron Perlman is often buried under layers of makeup, whether he's playing Hellboy or the Beast or some other humanoid oddity. But Ron's not hiding anything when he joins Marc in the garage, revealing his heartfelt thoughts on the entertainment business and his evolving role in it. Plus, Ron shares a Marlon Brando story to rival the best of them. 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! Alright, let's do this. How are you what the fuckers, what the fuck buddies, what the fucking ears, what the fucking del are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking

ears what the fucking delics what the fuck tuckians what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it i'm in a large hotel room not a fancy hotel room i guess it's fancy for a uh a hotel that one goes to on the road. It is a Holiday Inn Express. They are not paying for that plug. I'm just trying to give those people that do the traveling a sense of where I'm at. So it's a large room with a big bed, and there's a little kitchen operation here with a microwave and a fridge and an ugly sink. There's a couple of chairs over there, and I don't know what's going on over there. We've discussed that, but if I sit here and I'm left to my own devices

and I picture the possibilities of what could happen in two sort of lounge chairs in a hotel suite outside of Rochester, New York, sky's the limit. Anywhere from a nice business meeting to a three-day crank bender, and all that entails. Today on the show we have ron perlman you might know him from uh the uh the the anarchy show that thing and uh you know you might have seen ron on my show that was fun it was great working with him or you might be watching his original amazon series hand of god uh season one's up in season two's coming he also has a book out sons of anarchy sorry i think you know i i don't do that on purpose

i'm just i'm old manning i'm starting to old man a bit you know the thing with the thing it's my father who's in town by the way he's right down the hall in rochester what what is that about good question maybe you're asking why isn't he on the show why aren't you talking to him right now He's right down the hall in Rochester. What is that about? Good question. Maybe you're asking, why isn't he on the show? Why aren't you talking to him right now? I don't know that that would be great for everybody. I don't know that he's really on the mic personality. I don't know if that's necessary, but I will tell you this.

He's down the hall, and I can feel the vortex from here. He's literally five rooms down in a similar room. I know what's going on in the chair in that room, probably a bit of sad reflection. But anyways, getting back to Ron Perlman, yeah, he's got a book out called Easy Street, The Hard Way. That's out in paperback. So I'll talk to Ron in a little bit, but let me get you up to speed with what's happening with me, if that's okay. Those of you who are checking out, good riddance. Good riddance to you, but I've got things to talk about, and you're missing out. The tour. I'm doing two shows at the Wilbur Theater in Boston,

Massachusetts, September 24th, and then I will be at Campbell Hall at UCSB in Santa Barbara, at Campbell Hall at UCSB in Santa Barbara, October 21st. I'm doing a big show at Largo, October 22nd. And I'm doing a club show at the Ice House, October 23rd. And of course, there are a few tickets left for Carnegie Hall, November 4th in New York City. And I mean that there are a few tickets left. I would get those tickets. They are going.

It is happening. So that's that update. In terms of what's going on with me personally, I've not started shooting the new show on Netflix. I've not started shooting GLOW. I am now in Rochester, New York. before uh last thursday my my uh significant other my partner my uh lady friend my uh my someone came up with a good one uh how about my lover my my lover's show sarah kane's uh art show at gary gallery la long in new york city went beautifully it was a great event man thursday night real art opening, Chelsea style

in New York. There's a lot of other openings on the street. A lot of people came out. I want to thank the fans who came out, fans of mine who had never met me or seen art or that art. A lot of my fans are creatives and I don't like that word. How about artists? Let's go with artists. A lot of people who came out to the show that heard about it on my show were painters who painted me talking and then came to see my partner's paintings at Gallery LeLong. But I'll tell you, man, as somebody who grew up with a mother who painted as a hobby, she painted, but she meant business. She went to graduate school and didn't finish, but she's painting again.

I was brought up to like art. I was brought up around art. I was brought up to appreciate art. And I thought of myself as an artist. I did some very cutting edge photographic essays, sophomore year of high school, very provocative, probably way ahead of their time i did some some powerful silk screen work uh maybe junior year in graphics class i also made some business cards for a band i did uh never did any painting mostly photography but i did some combined media stuff that never got

the attention it deserves a senior year of high school and some drawing. I did a very, very provocative and cutting-edge portrait of John Lennon from the 8x10 that came with the White Album that won a Best of Show Award in my high school art show. I'm not tooting my own horn here. I'm just, I got out, you know, I got out just in time before I ruined my life trying to do that because there are people better at it. And one of them being my girlfriend, Sarah Kane, who does these large abstract paintings. And I started to realize some things about art or whatever we call art. If I could indulge myself, I've always had a tremendous respect for painters, visual

artists, poets. I've always had an envy and respect for people that have the courage to put that much of their creativity into singular objects and things like a powerful poem. Holy fuck. A powerful painting. What? Punch me in the fucking face. Do it. But sometimes I don't always understand what it is I'm looking at or why I'm looking at it or what it represents. And I had sort of a mind blowing moment looking at Sarah's paintings because they don't happen unless she manifests them. They are not pulled out of the great collective unconscious or the strange abstract zone of simplicity beyond things we understand, beyond things that we attach meaning to, beyond ways

of speaking they are pulled out of the universe and onto the canvas by creative spirit that knows when they're done that is the true gift of a painter it's like i'm done anyone else looking at it might be like how do you know when you're done because look at it it's finished right but what does it really mean there's especially with abstract stuff which is trickier for people to get or some people just prefer not to but what you are seeing is you are looking into a portal beyond all understanding and if it is done properly and with balance and with courage you are seeing something you know at once present and modern and primal at the same time. And it's sort of mind-blowing. It's sort of mind-blowing the risk-taking that's involved.

You sort of take a lot of stuff for granted when you look at a painting. You can easily walk by a painting, even the great masterpieces. And sometimes I get a little cynical. Sometimes I get a little defensive. And sometimes I think there's no hope and that nothing fucking matters.

And it's easy for me to go like what's the point what's the point of art what's the point of painting what's it really doing how is it moving us forward it's not that that's not its job if it could just you know blow a couple minds and move through uh the world that it moved through and get the respect it deserves it does move the dialogue forward it does open a portal into the great unknown it does bring something into the world that did not exist before solely for the fact of a creative expression and we can't fucking lose that man and i also got the opportunity to hang out with one of a favorite artist of mine that i didn't

know sarah knew i went to the dinner after the opening and I hung out with Fred Tomaselli, who is this amazing artist who I saw for the first time like back in the 90s. He does these amazing sort of collage-like paintings, but he uses like marijuana leaves and he uses hallucinogenic drugs in them and he coats them with a resin and he creates abstract sort of hallucinatory paintings using all sort he coats them with a resin and he creates abstract sort of hallucinatory paintings using all sort of elements of painting and collage and actual pills and i got to hang out with him for an hour i never thought that would happen and we we had some pretty deep talks about nicotine delivery systems and power pop and that's what you talk about when you got

time on your hands and you're doing the big work. What do you got going? Well, he happens to be a nicotine gum guy. I'm a nicotine lozenge guy. He kind of want to make the jump. He wants to make the jump, never tried a lozenge. So I gave the guy that uses drugs in his painting half a nicotine lozenge. I think I might've just changed his life. That said, boy, I'm sort of on a bit of a tear that may or may not make sense. I'll finish it up momentarily. So you know what I did that I didn't know I could do because I'm sort of old manning a bit, as I said, is I got HBO Go because I got HBO on Time Warner cable. Again, these are not paid plugs. This is just my life.

And I didn't know I could just get HBO Go. So you know what I've been doing instead of like putting my act together and doing important readings and learning things and expanding my mind, is I'm watching The Sopranos from episode one. You know why? Because I fucking miss it. God damn it. Do you remember when The Sopranos were on and you'd look forward to Sunday because you didn't have HBO Go and there was no other way to watch it? And you knew that Sunday there'd be a new Sopranos. And if there wasn't, it'd be a sad fucking Sunday. And I'm watching them all. It's fucking great sitting in a hotel room, watching the Sopranos when he should be doing other stuff. But what's better than the Sopranos? It's so nice to have those people in

my head again, because they've already infused into my dreams. It's amazing. What an amazing thing that, that the Sopranos changed everything. And I don't need to plug the Sopranos. But before I forget, there's also a spectacular exhibit at the New Museum in New York. I guess I'm going to be art guy. I was going to play guy for a while, but now I guess I'm going to be art guy for a second because the New Museum has this, just all these obsessive collections of creative people that infused all sorts of purpose in their creativity, that what they were doing served a specific purpose in terms of their life and keeping it together, awarding off spirits. There's almost a mystical element. It's a curated exhibition of specific people that did odd,

you know, artistic things and sort of coveted them in series or, you know, in papers or, you know, in collections of photographs. It's pretty fascinating. But on the top floor, there's a series of paintings by a woman named Hilma af Klint. It's a Swedish woman. And Sarah is a huge fan of this woman. I, of course, had never heard of her. And these are these mystical abstracts.

Apparently, this woman was a realist painter and she secretly way ahead of the game, like in the early 1900s, was doing these abstracts that were sort of attempts at bringing together a mystical system that her and a few other people were working on putting together a mystical system to explain the great primal forces of the universe in a very simple thing. Because you break it right down man this is the thing is if you move the scrim of garbage aside and just look at the light you're looking at frequencies shapes colors cohesions through through just mystical and some still unknown mysterious forces that remain you know unexplained by science and only theorized that that these forces they propel us and everything

we know and don't know through time and through universes and through these portals as i said before you tap in and the truth is simple and it makes everything in the moment that you lock into that canvas or in the moment that you lock into that poem or that you lock into that portal that has been you know offered to you by an artist, it suspends and just devastates every element of our trivial, petty, garbage-filled, distracting, dumb lives. And there you look at the simple truths. Simple truths.

In one of those paintings, there's a helix structure 50 years before DNA was even discovered. Why? Because that woman was tapped in to the abstractions that define those mystical forces that move us through all life, all space. Right? That's what you get. Did that just exhaust you?

Could you still walk by it and not see that? Absolutely. Is it really that simple? Yeah, if you strip it all away and not see that absolutely is it really that simple yeah if you strip it all away and you just deal with those basics that said sometimes it's nice just to plow through a pint of ice cream and a kit kat and watch the sopranos on a computer in a hotel room where probably bad things happened that's all right that's okay you can't spend all your time in the abstract so right now let's go to my conversation with the lovely Ron Perlman this conversation definitely has an arc to it and we definitely get to something so this is me and Ron Perlman as I said you can watch his

show on Amazon Hand of God season two is coming soon and you can get his book. Easy street the hard way that's out in paperback now. And you can listen to me and Ron Perlman right now. 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. PM 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. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that.

An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. This is one of these fucking shows, dude, where like, you know, we live in a world now where people tell me, you got to see this show. And I'm like, what's it on? I don't even know what it's on when they tell me.

I don't know what they're talking about. We've overloaded it, right? We fucked up a good thing, didn't we? I don't know. I had nothing to do with it. We went from the golden age of television to like, please stop. I don't even know what it is. It's the golden age of chaos and clusterfuck.

It's employing a lot of people who have no reason to have no right to be employed well i didn't say that i'm working with someone isn't this your show isn't this your show well i like to think it is but then again i think that of everything i did when i was on your show i thought it was my show it was your show i made i made your show my show what is this your show. What is this hand to God business? Pitch it to me. Pitch it to me. Okay.

It's not hand to God. It's hand of. Right. It's actually unpitchable. Okay. Great. I'm in. Because it's so dense.

It's so dense. Would you like to dance? It's very dense. It's very it's very uh it's very it's very dense it's um it's very complex yeah um yeah there's no way to describe it i mean i could how long we got as long as you need you're early okay you know i i could i could i am i'm an hour early are you the lead in this show i am i'm number one on the call sheet you're number one on the call sheet but it's a vague show like it's like my version of marin okay yeah except you're not ron but i'm pernell harris pernell harris i am a judge um uh of of of some consequence yeah uh every street or boulevard in town is named after either my grandfather or my great-grandfather small town i'm that guy

san vicente californ, the fictional town. Okay, yeah. Sort of northern California. Right. Two-hour drive, an hour and a half drive from San Fran. Right. And when you meet me in the beginning of our little foray, I am stark naked in broad daylight in a fountain.

So you're a judge with problems. In a fountain, and you're a judge with problems. In a fountain, and I'm speaking in tongues. And I'm taken in, and it turns out I've been missing for three days. Manic episode. And then it turns out that we find out that my son is lying on life support, having shot himself in the head because he had to watch his wife get raped for an hour. This is the opening episode we're given to believe that he's uh he's he's in a position where we're being we're

being advised to pull the plug right so suddenly this man this is the first episode this is the first episode this this is like old news right i'm just i'm just hipping you to this because you know you're setting it up you you don't own a tv obviously i own a tv i don't have the time ron i don't know where people find the fucking time i don't listen i don't even watch my show yeah i'm watching my show for the first time i'm i'm finally with uh like i'm three seasons i couldn't watch my show for one reason or another it's good though isn't it yeah i like it you're fucking good man oh that's sweet yeah you know i i you caught me on a good season a guy this is it? Yeah, I like it. You're fucking good, man. Oh, that's sweet of you. You know, I... You caught me on a good season. This is the fourth one in.

I figured it out. It was figured. It was figured, man. I didn't even break a sweat. And I'm a sweater. I go through boxes of tissues. We had some good scenes. We had some good scenes.

We had some nice stuff. You, me, and MC Ganey. MC Ganey acting way out of character. I loved the conceit of who it was we were. Yeah. Sweet. Really easy to plug into. Very, very, you did all my thinking for me.

You as the writer, which pleases me no end. And I didn't have to do anything except, you know, as they say, occupy. Yeah. Is that what they say? I don't know. I just said it. I like it. Just be?

Just had to be present? I'm throwing shit out what do i know so with that now like getting back to i i appreciate the you know talking about my show but this judge is in trouble the judge is for the first time in his life you know he's gone from knowing nothing but winning because he's you know he's the richest guy in town so on a personal level he takes this hit he's the most powerful guy in town. Oh, so on a personal level, he takes his hit. He's the most powerful guy in town. He lives in the big house, shining house on the hill. He's got every single motherfucker in town in his hip pocket. Yeah. He does a lot of people favors, and he fucks up a lot of people.

Is he a corrupt guy? He has the ability to be. He has a wife. He has a mistress. Okay. So he's living the American dream. Right. You know, with all its like, you know.

Yeah. All the accessories. The fringes. Yeah. Benefits. And here he is. So it turns out where he was in the three days he was missing before he turns up naked speaking in tongues is he he he just kind of went on a stroll and ended up in this church and got saved and found god and i felt like i i almost felt like

i could have been saved two days ago really i'm through it i'm okay now but i i realized what i understood for some reason for the first first time in my, the idea of sin and the pain of being flawed and why Jesus could work for some people. I mean, I wasn't looking for Jesus, but I understood it. But I don't even know why. I'm not even sure what I was thinking about. Was there a trigger?

No, I'm trying to figure out how to structure some stand-up oh well that's trigger enough anybody who's ever tried to to play you know uh the improv right the comedy store knows that's that's plenty that's trigger plenty right well i'm sort of fascinated with the idea of sin as not being like there was never any there was never any the idea of sin was only designed and and constructed to to for people to judge themselves against not to be sinless but for people to accept sin and and that you know that's something that that happens you just want to try and keep it in check and then when it's not in check you have to you have to look for the relief or the salvation or the the corrective now are you one of these guys that believe that all of this stuff that we find at the root of civilization, meaning the Bible and the notion of the dogma that comes with organized religion and all of the bells and whistles,

that that's an invention so that man could figure out a way to... Behave properly? To forgive himself? I don't know if it was forgive himself, but I think that it's probably two-tiered, that it was a way for the people that ran the religion to keep people in check somehow and also a way to contain a certain amount of power. I don't think it was ever done in earnest. I think that people have to believe in something bigger than themselves to explain the horror of day-to-day life and catastrophe.

I don't know if it was to forgive themselves. Christianity seems to have something to do with that. The Jews are not great at that, that I can really see. I'm never going to forgive myself for one. For just being alive? For whatever happened this morning? Right over? Every time I go in the refrigerator, it's another reason to

Why? It's another foray into self-hatred. Right. I think I'm struggling with some of that right now. What I was saying about the sin thing is just that what I think about those things is that it was pretty clear. Like the seven deadlies are pretty specific on how human beings can really get themselves fucked up. So, you know, that's a good list.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Food's in there. These guys were good, man. Right. It was solid. And just the idea that this entity went through all the pain possible for everybody to sort of use as a barometer for their own pain i got it i'm not i'm not i'm not saying i'm looking

for it i you know i'm i'm completely happy in my recurring pattern of self-defeating and self-hatred with you know weird spans of manic excitement that i think are actual change. And then a month later, I'm like, I guess that was just a good week. You? Whew. That's too much? No, no, no. You just got out of catering and you come over here? No, I was talking about just out of catering with a donut in my hand.

Are you kidding me? With a couple of Teamsters. Sorry to repeat the conversation. No, I'm starting to get it. Yeah. No, for me starting to get it. No, for me, it's like people say, Ron, you need to fucking smell the roses. Calm down.

You're so on edge. You're so angry. Yeah. You know, what is there to be so angry about? And I said, without that anger, I'd be working in Macy's. I know, dude. I don't know what to do about it how are we gonna be happy you work constantly I'm you know I was like I'm gonna talk to Ron Perot and let's take a look at some of the shit he's done it's like oh he's done everything there's 900 movies there's 50 fucking tv shows you work constantly I'm right now well well are

you shooting right now while I'm talking to you I have my phone under the table, and I'm writing a script. Why don't you just take a minute, Ron? Smell the roses. Are you afraid of silence? Fuck that shit. Are you afraid of sitting with the silence, Ron? No, not really. No, I'm really good at lying on the couch.

Are you? Oh, phenomenal. Really? Phenomenal. Where do you find the time to do that i find the time i find the time and and and and it's like the uh the workaholic aspect of it has everything is the only the only fucking good thing about getting older yeah is the is the perspective is that is that start things start to mean less yeah and also you do start understanding that some of the things that you would have thought were completely unexcusable about yourself and unforgivable about yourself

are the very things that make you um who you are that give give you your fingerprint, because there's only one of everybody, and that if you're lucky enough to get to the point where you feel, I'm living the dream, because I have gotten to that point. I truly, truly have gotten to that point. I am the happiest motherfucker you've ever met.

You're grateful for that? You take that in? No, no, no. I mean, every single thing that's happening is all stuff that I used to dream about. Yeah. And it's all just my reality. It's part of my daily occurrence.

But you don't belittle that or have any, you appreciate it. I love it. Good. I love. That's a good thing. No, I love it. It. I love... That's a good thing. No, I love it. It's scary because, you know, I'm wired to, like, you know, feel guilty about shit.

Why? Where'd that happen? Let's go back. Well, I wasn't... Let's go back. No, I don't really think... I didn't want to lie down or anything like that, you know, and get analyzed. Well, no, but where does that come from?

I mean, it's got to come from somewhere if it drove you for that long. You wrote a book. It's got to be in the book. You didn't read the fucking book. What do you want from me? I know you're a busy guy. It's not that I'm busy. I figure if you're going to tell me a story,

the problem with reading books thoroughly when I have a guest is then I lead. Then I know what the answers are. Well, let me tell you then. So in chapter one. I like the cover. You look mean and angry and you're smoking a cigar and compelled by it. It's a great cover.

It's a great cover. It's a great cover. It was a shoot I was doing for the cover of Cigar Aficionado. Yeah. And we borrowed one of the pictures that came out of that shoot because it's me with a cigar in my hand. Obviously, it's for a fucking cigar magazine. And we used it as a placeholder for my cover of my book. You don't smoke them no more, right?

I don't smoke them. Because we had these conversations on set when we were doing my show. No, I gave them up. I had one yesterday. Yeah. No, I can smoke them, but I had to stop because I was using them very nefariously. What does that mean? Constantly? Not in a Bill Clinton kind of way. No, I know, but very nefariously. What does that mean? Constantly?

Not in a Bill Clinton kind of way. No, I know, but you couldn't stop. I was inhaling every puff, and I was chain smoking. You got it. You got the bug. Oh, I was. I could. First thing in the morning.

Compulsive guy. First thing in the morning and the last thing at night was a big pull off the cigar. I got a fucking nicotine lozenge in my mouth now, right now. Yeah. Uh-huh. It's great. But I'm clean.

I'm sober. I have gone beyond it. I can now actually smoke a cigar in a scene in a movie and not get a Jones. Oh, yeah? To start up again. Do you do anything else? Do you drink? Only socially.

No. No weed? No weed, no. Not even socially? No. No pills? No. Wow. I mean weed, no. Not even socially? No. No pills? No. Wow.

I mean, you know, Crestor, 66. Sure. How about food? That's my thing. Yeah. That's the one. That's my, if there was an AA for food, I'd be in it. They have it.

What, are you kidding? They have it, right? OA? Yeah. I have food issues too, dude. Where'd you get yours? Lower middle class, Jewish. Right. Eat something, yeah. I have food issues too, dude. Where'd you get yours? Lower middle class, Jewish. Right.

Eat something, darling. You're not eating enough. They were always worried about you weren't eating enough. And it was like back in the day, it was probably like, here, have a plate of kishki. Have some fucking kasha varnishkas. You can't find that shit anywhere. I may actually go straight to Nate and Al's from here now that you mentioned they gotta be that's got to be the only place

that has it stuff derma is what right i think has it but when i see it like it's a it's a rare treat and it's it's tasty but like who's eating it for it to be sitting there how long has it been sitting there fucking canners you'd be surprised oh what that i think the kishka moves that do you yeah there's still a few guys i think the good news about cantos and nathan else is that that shit still moves it's only guys like you second generation immigrants you guys who the hell the the your parents age they're not around anymore i have a house account at nathan else so when i was a young kid my dad my biggest my dad's biggest year was twelve thousand dollars that was the biggest year he ever had.

And, I mean, we were like Bernie Sanders in training, you know? Yeah. Socialist left wing, you know? Yeah. And every once in a while on a Sunday when my dad was feeling flush, which was very rarely, he would bring home this stuff called kippered salmon, which is baked salmon. That's not the smoked ones, right? That's the fresh fish. Oh, the smoked kippered, yeah.

It's smoked salmon. They call it kippered salmon. They used to have all these great, what do they call them, appetizing stores in New York City. Like Russ and Daughters. Yeah, Russ and Daughters, like Zay Bars. Yeah. And this is where you got that kind of stuff.

And that's high-end shit. But he would bring home for a family of four a strip that was basically a quarter of a pound with eight bagels, so two each. See, it really... And he'd spread this shit out so thinly. With cream cheese, right? Well, I liked mine with butter.

But my promise to myself was, if I ever make a living, the first thing I'm going to do is buy a piece of kibbert salmon bigger than a quarter of a pound and put as much on a fucking bagel as I fucking can until I can't get my mouth around it. Yeah. So cut to I get my first show in the 80s, Beauty and the Beast. Big show. Start making some money for the 80s, Beauty and the Beast. Big show.

Start making some money for the first time. Start making some money. I call up Nate and Al's because I'm here in Hollywood. And I say, what day do you get your fish delivered? Because it comes from Zabar's, their fish. Does it? Yeah. It comes from the same place Zabar's comes from.

And they say it comes in Thursday. They ship it all the way across country? They ship it. Fly it in? Yeah, they fly it in. So I show up around 3.30 on a Thursday. There's nobody in the restaurant. And Al, Al of Nate and Al's, who's passed away now for at least 15, 20 years, he's at

this cash register. It's between lunch and dinner, so there's nobody in the fucking restaurant. I go in there. I order a pound and a half of kibbutz salmon. I get some chopped liver. I get some bagels. I get a pound and a half of kibbutz salmon I get some chopped liver I get some bagels I get some pickles and stuff like this and I said I said by the way um I would like to open a house account and from and I'm at the counter so Al is like 20 feet away at the cash register and I hear Al say no no no house accounts no we can't do, we can't do it. We can't do it. No house accounts.

Sorry, you look like a perfectly nice fella. I can't do it. The paperwork is choking me. It's killing me. No, no house accounts. I said, okay, okay, Al. Okay, no problem. I'll pay cash.

Look, no offense. You look like a nice fella. I said, no, it's good. It's good, Al. It's good. So anyway, I get about $86 worth of stuff. Yeah. It's good, it's good, Al, it's good. So anyway, I get about $86 worth of stuff. Yeah.

And you take the bill and the bag, and you walk over to the counter where Al is sitting, and he puts the bill on the spindle, and he takes the $100 bill, and he gives me the change, and I start to walk out, and I'm halfway to my car, and I realize I have two 20s,

a 10, a 5, three 1s and some change. Too much change. On an $86 bill and I've given him 100. Yeah. So I walk back in, the money's still in my hand and I said, Al, what's wrong with this picture? And he looks at the change

and then he pulls my bill off the spindle and he looks at the bill. He looks back at the change and he looks at the change, and then he pulls my bill off the spindle. He looks at the bill. He looks back at the change, and he goes, give this guy a house account. It's the first honest Jew I met in 40 years. So I still have a house account in there now. Do you go there often? I do.

I like that place. No, I mean, look, I grew up kind of. It's good. Yeah, I'm a little younger than you but like it's like it's a very specific thing to find comfort in that food you got to have it in your past somewhere oh of course you do i mean you grew like i'm saying you grew up in the real shit yeah when i was a kid there was it was a deli on almost every block right and people would eat there and on every second or third block there was a really good deli.

Now, I mean, they're not there anymore. It's only because the taste for that stuff is so specific. You know, it was the culture then. You know, now it's like a special thing. If your grandparents, like if my grandfather hadn't driven me into the city from Bayonne so he could pick up tongue at Katz's and built that into my brain. Or my grandmother didn't make matzo ball soup and brisket. I wouldn't know. I wouldn't know because my generation is the one right after you.

And we were the first ones to go, I don't eat that shit. Yeah. But where'd you grow up in New York? Washington Heights. And what is that? Is that Brooklyn? No. Bronx?

It's upper Manhattan. It's like near the Bronx. It's upstate Manhattan. Almost a Bronx, right? Washington Heights is so named because it's the highest point in Manhattan. It's where the George Washington Bridge is. Right. Okay.

And George Washington, ergo Washington Heights, stood up there and watched the Hessians as they made their way up New York. Yeah. And a decisive battle was fought because he was able to watch them march up because he was perched at this highest point. Right. So named Washington Heights.

Glorious history to where you grew up. Where they put the George Washington Bridge, which I think they're renaming the Chris Christie. Aren't they? Yeah, I think so. So how many kids in your family? I mean, siblings and stuff. I had a brother.

He passed away very young. He was 38 years old. When he passed away? Jazz musician. Oh, really? Yeah. What happened? Struggled a long time with manic depression.

Was found dead. Right. Not a pretty story. So you got that in your family the depression i guess so yeah i mean i i mean if you'd read the fucking book you'd understand why you gotta say like that why can't we just tell why can't we have a conversation about your life here's why here's why because i admire you god you too but you know what the only time i read books is when i'm nervous about talking to the person i don't know that's a great thing to say i appreciate that that's a very great compliment but here's why here's why it's important i'm gonna read it eventually here's why it's important i'll

tell you why it's important to me right and you know you want to come back another day i'm not a i mean does that mean i gotta leave now maybe what are you gonna say no i got more shit i got more i got a lot of shit i know you especially because you didn't read the book now i gotta tell you the whole that's exactly the point of the conversation but the thing of it is is that uh like the okay the reason i'm here the reason i'm here is because of a guy named phil stutz okay yeah the therapist i love phil stutz how's he doing is he all right phil stutz he and i worked for years and years and years. I haven't spoken to him. Did he fix your brain? He fixed me. I mean, I'm a graduate. When I go to him now, it's usually maybe twice a year, and it's mostly-

Tune up. It's mostly, every once in a while, you still go to territory where you really have never been before and don't know quite how to maneuver your way around it. Really? Within yourself? In the world. Not within myself. But yeah, in applying... How to handle something. How to handle...

Because the thing that was brilliant about Stutz and why the interview you did with him on the show, which I guess was inspired by... Hank Azaria. A book that he wrote called The Tools. Well, Hank Azaria brought him up and did an impression of him, and then the woman who was the publisher of my book

published Phil's book, sent it to me, and I said, of course. Phil doesn't... He doesn't... He doesn't... You know, there's no, like, so, you know, what happened when your mother did this to you and you know like the conversation you and I were

about to have about why I eat the way I do I'm sure that there's a fucking reason I'm sure that there was some I'm sure that there's you know there is but what good does it do I'll tell you why you want to know

to go back to that moment where you've realized that that all the other shit you couldn't get in this life and you were three years old you could finally get from a piece of white

Wonder Bread with mayonnaise on it what good does that do? that's a very touching image I would think that'd be a great resource creatively that moment when you feel that. You could be right.

All right, but Bill. I'm going to leave the door open for you to be partially right on that. Well, I just had an experience yesterday that speaks differently to this. I had a realization yesterday around food. My mother was the opposite. She was a not eater. She was an anorexic person. So what I grew up with,

you're unlovable if you're fat, if you put on weight. You know what I mean? Oh. So I had body image issues from the get-go because my mom was so afraid of fat that she couldn't handle it in herself. And my entire childhood was

based on denying me food and i was a chubby kid so like she literally said to me recently i don't think i could love you if you were fat that's in the last decade but what i'm telling you is that i went back yesterday to the moment that's a giveaway by the way that she would say something like that that there's a good chance she she just fundamentally can't no no i know she said that too she said that like in passing sort of like a like a jokingly thanksgiving one she goes you know mark when you were a baby i just didn't know how to love you and i'm like holy shit there's the missing piece but but that moment the moment yesterday where i realized that that she was incapable of it because she was so insecure in her own self.

It's a powerful moment. And then you can let them off the hook. Cognitive shit's fine. Yeah, you learn how to live your life. But the moment where you can actually let go of some shit or feel the grief or the sadness of it, that's not nothing. Well, I'll tell you something. I was about to say the genius of Stutz is that he actually, the name of his book, The Tools, the genius of his therapy is that in the 55 minutes or 50 minutes that you're in session with him, whatever I ever brought in, in 50 50 minutes i was beyond it and simply because there was no exercise in going backward and and trying to to deconstruct something and and so that you

deconstruct it so you can build up on it again which is why classical therapy usually takes years and years and years doesn't work necessarily yeah his thing was, okay, here's your problem. Yeah. Do this, this, and this. Yeah. Close your eyes, and he gives you an exercise, and then maybe he gives you a second one, maybe even a third one, depending on how profoundly deep this shit is. And you walk out, and you go,

I just, not only did I get past it, I have wiped the slate clean, and I'm fucking empowered now. Yeah. And that's an amazing conceit until you get to the next one right but if you get to all of the triggers yeah and you get enough tools to sort of um redirect your misinformation yeah which is coming from the short-circuiting of your inability to cope with something on your own. And you get a tool that immediately totally redirects it

and manages it in a way where something that was suicidal and negative and dark all of a sudden becomes celebratory and beautiful. So he has this thing, which this will tie into everything we're talking about, called the shadow, which is one of his tools. And this was the hardest one for me to get to because I have such an aversion to wanting to go back to the original sin. But the shadow is that kid with the piece of white bread and mayonnaise on it, eating it where he didn't want anybody to see him because it was so...

Everything that you find at the root of all of your self-loathing is the shadow. That's the shadow. Got it. If you do this therapy diligently, you summon the shadow. Summoning the shadow took me fucking years because i was so resistant to it but finding that kid finding my little kid that was like so in need

of of being said hey you know it's it's good you're good man you gotta check this out you know and it came from okay you identify it came from, okay, you identify it, and then you treat it as if it's your own child, and you're going to give it unconditional love and support to the point where you make it feel beautiful. And now you are in control of the kid because you're taking care of it and you're telling it. And you're also at peace with the fact that that very thing

that used to cause you all this discomfort and self-loathing and lack of esteem and everything is the very thing that makes you fucking beautiful. Right. That's, you know, that's. Yeah, it's overcoming shame. Yeah. Yeah, no, but it still sounds like on some level. Simple exercise. Simple exercise. Right. I mean, I just described it to you. You can do it now. Sure, no, but it still sounds like on some level. Simple exercise, though. Simple exercise.

Right. I mean, I just described it to you. You can do it now. Sure, that you can repeat. The real trick becomes if you're used to being an aggravated, compulsive, cycling guy, like if that's your baseline, aggravated, there's a certain comfort in that. You may not seem comfortable when you're in it but that's home to you so when you leave home you're like hey i feel pretty good

fuck that fuck that right so that's a that's a tricky thing well that's a problem right but but that's is that but i mean it's different than what you're saying because like what we opened the conversation with was that you who am I without the anger? Right. Right? Oh, no, I won't give up the anger. Right. I'll never give up the anger.

I'll never give up the righteous indignation. Okay. Because I'm totally convinced that that's where all of my genius comes from. All of it. But you're also happy, though, so that we got to qualify that. Yeah,ibly happy. And the anger, which is always right, ready to,

ready to pounce. I know me too, right? Constantly, I mean right next to me. Right, but so how is that, how is that,

how is that like, you know, you've dealt with your shit, you're good. If the anger is right here, like I could trigger it, I don't know how, but I,

what's not to be angry about? No, I get that. Look at the world we're fucking living in, man. how but what's not to be angry about no i get that look at the world we're fucking living in man i mean i happen to be a news junkie now i'm having to look at this shit yeah but but but the world that you're living in is you like to lay on the couch you're working all the time people know you you're no no my shit's cool you know okay fine well that then i i'm talking about i'm talking about i'm talking about i'm talking about, you know, there's this civic awareness of the world that we're living in. I tend to avoid that.

There's child hunger and people being profiled. No, I know. So you grew up with a social awareness. You bring up your father. Were they Jewish socialists? No, no,. So you grew up with a social awareness. You bring up your father. Were they Jewish socialists? No, no, no, no. My dad was an agnostic. My dad had an active disdain for religion.

What did he do? He was fundamentally a musician. Stopped being a musician before I was born because he decided that he needed to be responsible now that he was a dad and started to go door to door fixing people's televisions, broken televisions, back in the day when people had picture tubes

and tubes and shit. So he's an on-call TV repair dude. He was an on-call TV repair dude. He charged $3 a house call. Did he regret not being a musician anymore? He never seemed to. We had a piano in the house. He taught himself how to play trumpet, and we would come home from these back-breaking, arduous days

and then play for an hour and a half piano before dinner. And by the time he sat down at dinner, he was like the savage beast who had been soothed. Wow, so he used his passion as a meditative, beautiful hobby. He seemed to have an amazing balance. That's great. Amazing balance without any of the self-obsessed bitterness.

Claptrap that guys of our generation are fucking going through. I mean, I feel like there was so much less self-indulgence with those guys that came up a generation before me. They had to feed the kids. That's a couple of generations before you. But when you hear guys like Brokaw

talk about the greatest generation, the World War II guys. Was your dad in the war? He was in the Army. He was never in combat, but he was in the Army during World War II. And his experience was shaped by being a depression baby, number one, by being a depression baby, number one. Yep.

And somebody who, you know, sacrificing whatever plans you had in order to go serve your country was not even something you thought twice about. Right. And then getting on with it afterwards, not sitting around and indulging in, you know, like the horrors that I've seen. Right, right.

I knew a lot of guys who actually did serve and who somehow... Of your generation, you mean? Or his? A little slightly older. I got to be very close with Charlie Durning, who was... Oh, a great actor.

But he was one of the most decorated soldiers in the history of this country who turned into an actor. Charles Durning was? He landed on Omaha Beach. Really? I't know he took out he took out some he lost 38 guys his greatest friends around him or something like that yeah he took out a machine gun nest and he carried 12 people to safety and you know on his back and and uh and then he turned into this fucking beautiful bright song and dance guy who great actor who who who spread joy into everybody's lives for decades and decades.

And right before, I got to work with him a lot. But the last time I worked with him, he would just suddenly sit there in the chair waiting for them to light a shot. And he would just break into tears. And he was trying to finally purge the stuff that he held in for all those years. Yeah. Because if you ever touch, you ever say, yeah, I heard you were on Omaha Beach.

He would change the subject. And then right before he died, and I've seen this with other veterans, he needed to get it all out. And you couldn't stop him from talking about it. Oh, really? You couldn't stop him from talking about how. Oh, really? You couldn't stop him from talking about how he never slept more than two hours a night,

and his wife would have to hold him in his arms while he sobbed because of what he saw at Normandy. So they had PTSD, but it wasn't a thing, these World War II guys. I don't understand this. It wasn't labeled. It was a thing. It was a thing, but somehow was... I don't, I'm obsessed with this, Mark.

I just have to figure out what it is about these newest, latest wars that we have guys, you know, 23 a day, almost one an hour, you know, getting to the point where they, whatever it was they saw. Well, one of the things that's gone is the, that not a second thought about serving your country, that it's a choice and that it's an occupation. And some of these guys are coming from, you know, relatively desperate situations. The war, it does not necessarily have public support anymore or even have anything to do with, you know, the integrity of america a lot of times like a lot of these guys are going in and it's an ill-defined agenda so so you know they're not coming home you know with the the decorated heroes with the with the country support and you know if it wasn't for you guys we'd all be in trouble kind of thing and they're

not fighting other guys in uniforms they're they're they don't know what they're walking into fighting people that are holding up babies as shields. That started in Vietnam, that stuff. That whole tone. Well, that's when it all

turned real dark. Yeah. And that's when war was no longer this thing that you associated gallantry and nobility and all those other kind of abstract words.

But those were the words that were associated with our efforts to protect our liberties. Well, you must have been of age for Vietnam, no? I was. What happened? I basically didn't see any logic in our engagement in Vietnam.

I didn't see anything noble about it. Were you an actor at that point already? No, I was just getting out of college. And it was the one lottery that I won. Because the year that I became eligible is when they went from a straight draft to a lottery draft, where they would draw birthday numbers.

And then if you were in the top, say, 250, you were fucking going. If you were in the bottom 165 or 135, whatever was left of birthdays, you probably weren't going to get called. Yeah. I got number four. I won big.

And we had a thing. i won't go into great detail but you know we were hippies we were fucking you know tuning in and turning on and tuning out where were you i was at lehman college in the bronx so everybody's long hair everybody's smoking dope everybody's dropping acid everybody's listening to you know to uh the beatles going to fucking ashrams yeah shit and you know did you have a good time transcendental i had a great i was discovering theater but i was also kind of politically aware and i was part of the 60s thing where you were active yeah there was there was a there was a kind of a everything seemed to to everything seemed to be even even my involvement in theater,

was somehow interweaved with the times that were changing. Theater was very experimental. What were we doing, like Julian Beck shit? Well, that was happening, and we were studying it, and we were trying to figure out where that came from. That didn't happen to be my cup of tea. It turned out I was more inclined to more classic, more traditional type things, but I was trying everything.

What were your first ventures into theater at that time? It must have been pretty wild shit. No, no, no, because most of my theater exposure was through school. So whatever the school was doing, I was in high school plays, college plays, got $7,000 worth of parking tickets by going to Lehman College in the Bronx and then decided to go to grad school in Minnesota because I figured the cops would never look for me there. And I really did.

What graduate program? Where? University of Minnesota. Doing acting? Doing MFA, yeah, Masters of Fine Arts for acting. Was that a good program? Where? University of Minnesota. Doing acting? Doing MFA, yeah, Masters of Fine Arts for acting, yeah. Was that a good program? It was a great program. It was Minneapolis-St. Paul

is a highly cultured region. Even then, huh? Very much so. The Guthrie Theater was there. Oh, yeah, I just did a show there. The Walker Arts Center. You know, people have a lot lot there's some money in that town there's a lot of

3M was there a lot of sophisticated cultural people a lot of corporate headquarters so there were a lot of wives who had a lot of time on their hands who had money and they shoved it all into the arts

so there were museums there were galleries oh yeah thereved it all into the arts. So there were museums, there were galleries. Oh, yeah. There were theaters all over the place, community theaters all over the place. So there was no lack of some place to go apply your wares. So when you do the MFA there, you do all of it? You do the Shakespeare, you do the dance,

you do the movement, you do sword fighting, you do a clown workshop. Did you do clown work? My dad used to accuse me of doing anything for a laugh he says you break a fucking leg to get a laugh wouldn't you you were that guy huh i was that guy i he said you do anything for a tone it down that's funny because a lot of your roles are a little heavier than that i started off doing stand-up no first thing i ever did in show business was stand where in the bron In the Bronx. For real?

For reals. Like, did you do the improv? No, I never got that far. I only did other people's shit. I never evolved to the point where I wrote my own stuff. Where'd you do this? I basically mostly did George Carlin's act. Where?

Started off locally, and then wherever discotheque there was around, we would go, we would audition, and they would say, yeah, you could do a couple nights here. Really? Yeah. Huh. My last gig was on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx. Oh, yeah, that's where all the Italian restaurants are.

Yeah, and we got heckled. Who's we? I had a partner. Spencer Schwartz was my partner. You were doing the comedy team? And Ron Perlman, Spencer Schwartz, on stage we were Stuart and Perry. Yeah.

Because it wasn't cool to be, you know, Your name? Schwartz and Perlman. Right. So anyway, we get heckled, and we heckled back, and all of a sudden, you know, about 40 guys.

Made guys. Started for the stage and we we've we've we've bolted last night that was the final performance there was a back door there was a luckily a cab waiting and that was my final that was it your farewell to comedy and the only reason i went into legitimate acting is because you know like the old john wayne joke who's doing, you know, he's apparently doing Julius Caesar in some town in Pennsylvania. And some woman is snoring in the front row and he turns to her and he goes, hey, lady, I didn't write this shit. the uh uh so that's why i went into legit theaters so that i could say hey you know if the play bombs it's not my fault some fucking jerk writer wrote this shit right so when you started doing theater in new york like what what were you doing i mean were you doing la mama and that kind of you were

yeah so i i go i i grew up all all through new york uh go high school start acting in high school act all my way through college, two years of grad school, so there's eight years of stage. Finish grad school and then say, okay, you've got to go back to New York. You can't keep running away from this. Start. I threw down. You feel like you were running away from it?

I thought I tried to run away from it as long as I could because every professional actor I knew had a horrific life. They were all living on spaghetti and you know in cold water flats and you know struggling to to pay the bills but what'd you go to undergrad for was it for what do you think you might I loved I know I know but like did you have a plan b or like another idea the problem was there was never a plan b so eventually the problem that not the problem. That's what... Yeah. Yeah. Eventually, you got to make... Figure it out.

Stand and deliver or move off. So you moved back to New York. Moved back to New York. My buddy had a boutique in Greenwich Village. Worked for him. He let me go whenever I had a play, whenever I had an audition. What year are we talking? 70?

73 to 80. Exciting place, New York, at that time, huh? Incredibly exciting place. Was it like all broken? It was very much in transition, you know, because the 60s were giving way to something no one quite knew what it was. Turned out it was AIDS.

Yeah. Kind of, I mean, I hate to talk about it. And also bankruptcy. Yeah, it turned out, was AIDS yeah kind of I mean I hate also bankruptcy yeah it turned out it turned out at all you know the all these hippies turned into yuppies and and you know whatever whatever it was we were fucking you know you know fighting revolting against just absorbed you was was was just a big wank uh-huh and I think so what kind of theater were you doing in the 70s i was doing a lot of classics i really loved i really loved i had got very lucky um uh because i met a a professor

at lehman college yeah who brought me through from from escalus to sam beckett and everything in between yeah like the entire history of... So you were a full-on theater guy. Theatrical literature. It wasn't about movies, really. You wanted to be a stage actor. But it was about the literature of theater. The art.

The literature. Yeah. Not the art. The art came later. The literature of theater. Yeah. Like what the Greeks started doing, and then everything that..., everything that they died.

Yeah. Only to be replaced by something else. Then they died. But through every phase of history, there has been theatrical literature. Yeah. Up until now, there's hardly anybody writing plays anymore because you can't make a living doing it. I just talked to a couple guys. There's some good shit around. There's some anybody writing plays anymore because you can't make a living doing it. I just talked to a couple guys. There's some good shit around.

There's some good shit around. But arguably, we're not living in an age where people like Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Samuel Beckett, Gunter Grass, William Inge, Edward Albee are all walking the earth at the same time. When I was learning my value system, all those guys were not only walking the earth, but they were Harold Pinter.

They were what people had to aspire to, had to look up to. We don't live in a condition right now that supports that particular kind of... And my theory is it's not because a Tennessee William isn't being born every five minutes. It's just that his ability to get to the marketplace has been completely stultified. That's true. So he has to go find a way to do something to keep his lights on. And that usually means he's going to be working at FX or Amazon and thank God for those places. Because right now, that's where all the great literature is.

It was definitely, what I've learned from talking to people that lived through this and yourself included, is that it was a much more intimate business in the sense of outlets. And people who were truly gifted and full-on geniuses that did the work were celebrated more because of that intimacy. You know, now the whole thing is broken open. There's a million different outlets. There's the issue of corporate occupancy of the arts and very little public support in a lot of ways. And there's just thousands of people doing things and they can do it on their own. But back then, if someone came up through the ranks,

and all of a sudden there was a play, and it had to be reckoned with, it was reckoned with. It was a small community. Because there was an edifice into which it could plug into. Yep. And it was a thriving edifice. But it was also a small, you know, it was like, I think that the politics of the business and sort of the competition was always there and there was even less opportunity.

So the motherfuckers that got through had to be real fucking geniuses. But that's true of any generation. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. However, what is not true of every generation is what's happening now is that the edifices have all been ripped away including the record industry like i have a kid who uh she recorded her first album of 10 songs that she wrote and if she had done that literally two years earlier she'd have been signed they would have given her three million dollars one million dollars to make album, another million dollars to turn her into a brand name, and a third million dollars to send her out into the world on tour. And by the time all those three things happened, if she was meant to be a star, she was going to be a star.

And they had a revenue stream. Yeah. It's all broken open now. There's no edifice. It's all broken open now. There's no edifice. It's become so difficult to sort through because there's always been 55 layers of garbage before you get to Stevie Wonder. Right.

But somebody was in charge of sorting through that. Right. Now we all just have to do it for you. And there was a place where somebody would be playing something and all of a sudden they'd hear, you know, for once in my life. And they'd go, holy shit. Yeah. Get him on the fucking phone. And all of a sudden, the world has Stevie Wonder, and not just you and me,

because we happen to catch him on YouTube, but the fucking world has Stevie Wonder, and he's filling stadiums all over the world. So you're doing the classics, you're in New York. And I'm still doing the classics. But you had an amazing career, so I'm just trying to, like, you know, how did you come to Hollywood? What happened?

So you're doing theater in New York. What was the break? Because it seems like you were eating a lot of shit for a few years. Yeah. I mean, I had sporadic moments of sublimeness. On stage? Throughout my whole young life. Yeah.

Sporadic moments of sublimeness. Met a guy right after I got out of school named Tom O'Horgan. Yeah. And Tom O'Horgan was known for Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Lenny. He directed all those things. Oh, yeah. I caught him in his waning days. Mm-hmm.

But we made some noise, and so the play that we did got a huge amount of noise. Which play? It was called The Emperor and the Architect of Assyria, or The Architect and the Empress of Assyria. It was a very, very angry, expressionistic Spanish play by a guy named fernando arabal but we fucking set the town on fire in new york at ray reviews what year was that

uh 76 oh that's exciting and so from that i got um uh an equity card from that i got a my first agent and everything like that. And then nothing for three years. I thought you were going to go. This is it. Yeah. And then 1979, I get called in to do this audition where I'm supposed to try to act like a Neanderthal. And so I cavalierly go go and I treat the fucking director

because he's French and he seemed like he was wearing jeans that were ironed. Yeah. You know? So you're full of the hate. Do you iron your jeans?

No. Do you have like a crease in the front of your jeans? No, no, no. This motherfucker had creases in the front. Dry clean jeans, my friend. He was a Frenchman.

He had a sweater tied around his shoulders. So you got the right attitude going into this. He had perfect hair, and he was French, and he was doing a fucking caveman movie. All I could think of was Victor Mature and Virginia Mayo in 2000 BC, where she's wearing- A loincloth.

A loincloth and eye shadow and he's perfectly shaved with great hair and so I cavalierly went through this whole audition process and the day they flew me to London

for the final audition I find out that this Frenchman had won the Academy Award for black and white and color for best foreign film and that he was a serious motherfucker yeah and on the last audition I finally got nervous but I hadn't blown it I didn't get so nervous that I blew it they gave me the part it was uh called Quest for Fire my first movie 20th Century Fox a big movie huge budget

for the time for 1980 Academy Award winning filmmaker. Do the movie. It's got Anthony Burgess who wrote Clockwork Arts. He's writing the glossary. It's got the greatest anthropologist in the world. He's setting up the world for us. It's just teeming with class. It's got Ray Don Chong.

It's got Ray Don Chong. It's teeming with class and teeming with- It's got Ray Don Chong. It's got Ray Don Chong. It's teeming with integrity. It's teeming with- Yeah. It's the most serious look anybody's ever taken at 80,000 years ago, what that might have looked like. Right. And it's not playing. It's not fucking playing.

And we do the movie, rave reviews, get a couple of nominations. Nothing happens for three years. Again. Again. Three years. Three years. Nothing. Nothing. get a couple of nominations nothing happens for three years again again three years three years nothing nothing then that same dude who did quest for fire uh comes back and and hands me this another fucking trippy gem called the name of the rose but quest for fire was like that was that was no english in that no there was no there was. I mean, it was like you were. It was like a silent film. But that's hard acting.

With sound. Yeah, it was hard. Like, you had to draw from all your resources. I'm telling you, it was a sublime. I know. Artistic endeavor. Yeah. Which was received in a beautiful way, but there wasn't a commercial success.

Right. None of the things I was doing were commercial successes, including the thing at La Mama. were doing with commercial successes, including the thing at La Mama, but the people who I cared about, their opinion, they were going, holy shit, this is some trippy shit. And that was plenty for me. Then three more years, and then he decides he's gonna do The Name of the Rose, which was for 200 weeks, the number one bestseller on the New York Times bestseller list on Berto Echo and a lot of people were trying to do the movie

and he gives me this role of the hunchback which is almost as colorful as the one in Notre Dame and it's Sean Connery's in it What was that like working with him? Beautiful, beautiful I mean you you have certain expectations of your of your true heroes because i don't have you don't have that many heroes yeah guys from that generation are

the only white guys who could ever who could ever um be in the category of heroes for me anyway yeah you know the sean connery he was the end of of all the guys who are larger than life he was the last bastion of that and when you meet a guy like that and he doesn't disappoint, that he's a real fucking OG, he doesn't suffer fools, he drinks hard, he plays hard, he lives hard, and he loves to laugh and sit there and have a great time.

But when they say action, he's like Michelangelo. So that was thrilling. thrilling uh so name of the rose happens uh how that would be received very very beautifully by the press didn't make a lot of money but it broke even like most of my shit and then uh beauty and the beast yeah um that's how everyone knows you. Yeah, it goes for two and a half years, primetime CBS, the show finally ends, the phone literally doesn't ring for three fucking years. Why do you think that is, Ron? I don't know.

I just... Just the nature of the business? I think that... I think I would be immodest if I even tried to address that or answer that. Right. But I think it has something to do with the fact that none of those things were indicative of making me saleable. Right. For sure.

of making me saleable. Right. For sure. None of those things were indicative of saying, oh, this is the guy who's going to be doing this for the rest of his life. Because each one of those were kind of one-offs. And also you get cast as, not necessarily a heavy, but a heavy presence.

You have a certain intensity and look to you. But none of them were sort of said, oh, yeah, he'll be the best friend of the lead for the rest of his career. Right. He'll be Zach Galifianakis. Right. You know, you see most people and you go, oh, yeah, he's going to be that guy. But did you want that?

Well, I thought I did because having the phone not ring for three years and always being on the verge of selling your house. Yeah. You know, or pulling your kids out of fucking school. You know, that's not fun pulling your kids out of fucking school. You know, that's not fun. Scary. It's not fun.

It's just not fun. So what I really wanted was some sort of seat at the table and some sort of feeling that everything wasn't always going to be complete feast or famine. Especially after, like you did like 55, 60 episodes of that thing, of Beauty and the Beast. So you banked a little money. Yeah. Yeah. Just enough to get into trouble.

Right. Just enough to buy my first house and then, you know. And then wait. And then not work for three years. So were you like. After I made my first down payment. And you got a wife and two kids at that point? Yeah.

Yeah. A wife and, yeah. The second kid got born the year they canceled beauty and the beast now but what kind of guy are you when that happens do you freak out are you yelling at your agent i call phil stutz that was when he started with stuff i call i call my shrink i say how do i do this and there were times where i really didn't have the resources where i was in total panicsville where I was like um getting ready to throw everything overboard you know where I was you know I was like I I don't know

uh never did I think about getting out of the business because I what are you gonna do never what am I gonna do first of all what am I ever gonna do that gives me the thrill that this thing gives me that that sort of uh engages me in you know all my cylinders are pumping when i'm doing it right there's nothing that even ever came close to that but you're still doing you know parts and movies at that time right little parts here and there things that i would rather not have been in you know things that i'm not proud yeah you know just just shit work and then um i met guillermo del toro and and uh i've been steadily working ever since yeah he's he actually was the one that changed my life for i finally got momentum and it's yeah it is and you credit him exactly like he's the guy credit him exactly

he's the fourth leg of the stool uh-huh there were there was uh studs yeah there's the guy in in college arzemanian who taught me how to love literature um there's jean-jacques hanaud who gave me um question fire and name of the rose and enemy at the Gates and then there's Del Toro and you know there's like any one of those people in somebody's life that is that much of a game changer for you where you're completely

going in one direction and all of a sudden the whole direction changes your whole perception any one of them is a good thing to have in the arsenal of living a life. But to have four people who had that much of an impact and continue to. Yeah. That was when I realized, holy shit, Perlman, whatever little moments of discomfort,

you are a very, very lucky dude. Yeah. And how did Del, he directed the Hellboy. He directed a little movie called Kronos. Right. It was his first film. Yeah. 1992 or three or something, whatever it says there. And that was when, after Beauty and the Beast,

that was the first job I did in three years. Yeah. But his coming out party was for real. This was like a filmmaker that the world was going to stand up and take notice to, and everybody realized from his first movie, this little tiny, little weird vampire movie, that he was going to leave behind a body of work, an important body of work.

And not only did we have a great working relationship, but we turned into great pals. And then he did this seven-year battle with a studio and a half. Because for five years it was at one studio. And he kept saying Ron Perlman. They kept at one studio and he kept saying Ron Perlman and they kept saying Nick Cage

he kept saying Ron Perlman they kept saying The Rock he kept saying Ron Perlman it was Hellboy and it took him seven years but he finally won me the role and got the picture made and now no one can see it

as anybody else yeah but I mean that was like I don't know I've never seen anything quite like that before where somebody could have made his movie That was like, I don't know. I've never seen anything quite like that before, where somebody could have made his movie 20 times over. Yeah.

He could have made his movie 20 times over, but just by going, yeah, all right, this is a losing battle. And even I was saying to him, dude, you're not going to get the movie made this way. Give me a small part. Let me be an FBI agent or something. But he did that. So that was a game changer.

And then Hellboy 2. And then Sons of Anarchy. One thing started leading into another, which is what I mean by momentum. And you're in your 40s. No, I'm in my 50s. At that point. I'm in my 50s. Shipping away, doing things you're not proud of,

taking whatever you can to stay in the game. 40s was that. Yeah. 50s was when the momentum started. Life began in a strange way. 50s was a phenomenal decade. Thank God. And the 60s aren't so bad either so far.

I'm not gone blue. Well, it's amazing, because Sons of Anarchy was huge, got a nice tight following. We're in parking lots shooting my show. People are coming up to you with stuff to sign, dolls, lunchboxes. I don't know what the fuck it was. People love

that show. You locked into something that, even in this media landscape where the edifices are limited, you know one thing you can find that is especially with a show like that and with a personality like yours and is that a very loyal fucking following hellboys the same way there's a certain group of people that love that fucking movie that probably see it once a year right right yeah and they love you no no no the the fans uh even beauty and the beast the fans were were rabid they were a small number but they were rabid that's

the way it works now and it's probably better for you that you weren't some sort of you know major movie star that had a five-year window and then became sort of like uh like what was it like to work with brando at the point you work with him it was that's that's something you know we're either gonna have to do another podcast or you're gonna have to read chapters 20 no you're gonna tell me the story like a fucking jew 20 and 21 well brando was i mean i i i don't even know where to begin. I mean, you know, of all the actors who love Brando, of all the actors who are obsessed with Brando, of all the actors who try to emulate him and figure out covert ways of homaging him without being caught,

no one is bigger than me. Nobody has more revere for that motherfucker than me. There are others that are kind of tied with me, but no one has more. So when I heard that he was doing this film and that it was tailor-made because it was the Island of Dr. Moreau, so everybody in the film had to wear

these transformational makeups, and that was my thing. That was my wheelhouse. I had already done Quest for Fire, transformational makeup, Name of the Royals, transformational makeup, and Beauty and the Beast. So I was known, and Beauty and the Beast. So I was known as this guy who liked to work behind rubber.

And had the patience to go through 20 hours. Yeah, and that I dug it. And there was no complaining. It was like, you know. Yeah. And so I was a shoe-in for this next Marlon Brando movie, which I never imagined I would ever be in. Had you ever met him?

I had never met him. Oh, my God. So, Richard Stanley, there's a documentary called Island of Lost Souls, I think. Right. Richard Stanley was the genius. He was kind of a low-budget wunderkind

who had directed a couple of really cool, edgy, low-budget, stylish movies. New Line, he went to New Line with his newly formed little notoriety. He was kind of an egghead. He stumbled when he spoke, and he was a very brilliant guy, but not a battler, like a real intellectual. And he's the director. He goes to New Line, and he pitches the notion of doing Island of Dr. Moreau, and they say,

well, this is fascinating. It's time that we do this because vivisection has suddenly now become, whereas H.G. Wells wrote about this in 1895, now it's actually, cloning is actually on the radar. So can you get somebody, and he goes to Brando, and Brando says, he watches his movies, and he signs on. Hire everybody, Stan Winston for the makeup, they hire me, they hire a lot of motherfuckers all over the place.

Go to far north Queensland, Australia to start shooting. And on the fourth day, they fired Richard Stanley. Why? Because on the fourth day, he was four days behind through a series of happenstances that most of which were not his fault but he got he got the rug pulled out from under him by some very crafty shady motherfuckers yeah who did not appreciate him wielding power you know on a big thing yeah where he was not ready yet right i was still in la i was meant to go out on the next plane. But they said, hold on.

We may not be doing the movie. Then I heard rumors that they're not going to do the movie unless they can find a director that Brando approves of. Then I hear that there's, I'm starting to get emails from director friends of mine, like, hey, I got a meeting with Marlon. What should I expect? And I go, I don't know. I never met the motherfucker.

But good luck. Well, what about this movie? I hear it's a clusterfuck. I said, yeah, I don't know I never met the motherfucker but good luck yeah well what about this movie I hear it's a clusterfuck I said yeah I hear it's a clusterfuck too but I'm I got my ticket I'm you know

22 hours away by plane so I don't know what the fuck I mean it's all just rumor and conjecture at this point and then there's this

like like one car would be going up to Mulholland Drive while another one was coming down to Brando's house this steady parade of cars of be going up to Mulholland Drive while another one was coming down. To Brando's house? This steady parade of cars,

of directors going up to pitch their version. The guy who ends up getting it is John Frankenheimer. He's an old-timer? He was an old-timer. He was exiled from filmmaking. He made very, very big films in the 50s and 60s and 70s. Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May,

The Train, Birdman of Alcatraz. Oh, that's good. But he was an alcoholic. Right. And he destroyed his career. Yeah. And for 12 years,

he went into exile. And the way he came out was he started making these very big miniseries that got all these awards. And suddenly, Richard Stanley's out. We're looking for a director. Frankenheimer goes up to Brando's house,

and Brando says, maybe it's time for you to finally get back what you lost. You know? And Frankenheimer becomes the director. Frankenheimer goes to Australia. Another couple of weeks go by. And Brando probably knew him, right? No. Never met him. Never met. Australia. Another couple of weeks go by. And he, Miranda probably knew him, right? No.

Never met him. Never met. Huh. Another couple of weeks go by, and they say, Pearl, okay, get on the plane, go. Yeah. I show up.

After about two or three days, we have our first welcome Marlon party. Yeah. He's supposed to come on the plane. Right. And we had a welcome Marlon party for the next three weeks every night and he never showed.

He finally did show up. And... I can't imagine what you're doing. Like, what the fuck is... Everybody is like... You know, it's like he's like the Wizard of Oz. Yeah. You know, he's like...

It's like, you know, the Dalai Lama. So, Pardew's an actor who's been around the block. Like John Lennon. Who knows the game and is sort of like, it's like the Dalai Lama. So part of you is an actor who's been around the block, who knows the game, and sort of like, what is this bullshit? But the other part of you is like, yeah, I've got to meet Marlon Brando. That's the only reason I'm here. That's the only reason I'm putting this shit on my face and becoming this fucking, you know, Ram with, like, goat with Ramsiers. Yeah.

You know, that's who I'm playing. To meet Marlon. So I could be there. Yeah. So I could be in his presence right so he finally arrives and let me jump to our first day on the set we're doing

the scene I'm playing this character out of H.G. Wells called the Sayer of the Law and he would intone these incantations because he would be the one if one of these animals stepped out of line they would have a trial and he would be the one, if one of these animals stepped out of line, they would have a trial, and he would be the one intoning the laws of these animals,

not to slurp but to sip. Right. That is the law. Yeah. Not to walk on all fours. That is the law. And it was this thing that H.G. Wells wrote. So I had to do this at this big trial

where Moreau is presiding, and I'm the guy with the staff. And I decided to play him blind because I suddenly, you know, I think I smoked some peyote and I said, oh, Justice Blind. Yeah. Hey, that'd be cool. Yeah. And they let you. Frankenheimer was okay with it?

Frankenheimer says, let me think about that, Rom. And so he thought about it for a day. He said, okay, I like it. Yeah. And I went to the makeup guys and I said, I want to have those, you know, milky lenses. Yeah, yeah. And they said, well, the only way to do that is the lenses are actually opaque. You cannot see through them.

They'll make you blind. And I said, that sounds cool. It was big as fucking stupid bonehead move. You know, I couldn't hit a mark for the rest of it. I hated them putting the lenses in and taking them out. So once they put them in, I would just sit there for like three or four hours through lunch and everything just so that they wouldn't fuck with my eyes. Blind. And I'm blind.

I can't see. I have to be led everywhere. And you're wearing horns. And I'm trying to do a performance. I can't hit a mark. be led everywhere you're wearing horns and i'm i'm trying to do a performance i can't hit a mark i have no idea who i'm you're working with your hero i'm i'm brando is is a foot and a half away from me you can't see him we're on this little platform that you know that's big enough for his chair and me yeah and he's like he's got a throne and i'm there with the staff and i'm giving these incantations.

So we do the first shot. It takes us about 12 takes. We finally get this big shot, and then we're going to move in for Marlon's close-up. And so Marlon is talking to Frankenheimer. He says, First thing I want you to do, John, I want you to take all these extras

and put them in the shade and give them a Coke. And he says, I don't know who this guy is over here, but get rid of him. He's talking about me. Now, I've come 85,000 miles, you know, 45 years

to be in this guy's presence, and the first thing he says is get rid of this guy i don't know who this guy is get rid of this guy so frankenheimer says well we can't get rid of the extras marlin because we need them for their reactions he says it's a close-up on me john what do you fucking need to put them in the shade they're dying there's no ozone we're in australia put them in the shade buy him a coke Take it out of my salary, John. Don't be a fucking Nazi. And Frankenheimer says, Marlon, I protest.

I'm not a Nazi. He says, did you ever see a movie called The Young Lions? He goes, oh, yes. Edward Dimitrick directed that. You and Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin. He says, well, I know Nazis, John, and you're a fucking Nazi. Get rid of the extras and get rid of this fucking guy.

I don't know what the fuck he's saying. I don't know what he's doing. He's very distracting. And so I'm starting to really get nauseous now. I'm about to throw up in my mask, which reminds me of the movie The Verdict. You throw up in your mask. It's not a good thing. which reminds me of the movie The Verdict. You throw up in your mask. It's not a good thing. So he says, I'll make you a deal.

I'll get rid of the extras, but Perlman stays. He goes, who's Perlman? He goes, this guy's Perlman. He's playing the sayer of the law. And Marlon, for the first time, I guess, looks. I don't have my lenses in right now, so now I'm watching. I can see all this shit because we're getting ready. And he looks at me and he goes,

Well, does he have to say those really dumb lines? And Fraganami says, Well, that's in the script. That's the script you agreed to do, Marlon. He's the sayer of the law. He says he has to say those lines. And I said, H.G. Wells wrote those, sir. And he goes, I wasn't talking to you. And so he says, look, the extras can go.

Have a Coke. Perlman stays. He says, all right, but tell Perlman. Now he's talking to me through Frankenhammer. To just say it as quietly as he can so maybe I can't even hear it because it really sucks. It's bad. And so the discussion goes on for so long that the first AD says,

okay, we got to go to lunch, right? Right. I walk off the set. I go and I throw up. Just out of humiliation? I just go, all my life I've been fucking fantasizing about this guy. I would fuck this guy if I had the chance. Yeah.

And he hates me. He thinks I'm a fucking idiot. He thinks I can't act. He thinks I talk too loud. And I'm projectile vomiting through lunch. Really? And I have all these, and I'm really far from Phil Stutz, so I can't call him on the phone and say,

Phil, what do you do when your hero has just destroyed you and you're about to go play a scene with him one-on-one? Wow, what a unique situation. And by the end of lunch, I said, you know, it would have been nice, it would have been really nice if me and Marlon would have hit it off and we could talk about shit,

you know, a streetcar named Desire on the waterfront. I could tell them about my ex, you know, my, you know, flights of daring dude. But it just didn't happen. But here I am. They've paid me. They've hired me to do a job. I'm a professional actor.

And I got to do this performance. So fuck him. Fuck that fucking overweight, over-the-hill piece of shit. Fuck him. I'm going to destroy him in this scene that's where the anger works and that's and that's what i channeled and i because i had to get my self-confidence yeah i had to i mean i was gonna go out there with nothing so we do the scene and and he but i could feel us uh doing the scene where i i have a couple of lines and then he speaks and I have a couple of lines.

But you got the contacts in. I got the contacts in. And we do it a few times. And next to the last time we do it, I can feel him on my wavelength. Yeah. Like we're now acting together. Right. That must have now acting together. Right. That must have been acute sensitivity.

You can't see, so you really got to feel it. But I can feel like, because I'm almost like the chorus in a Greek play. Right. And he has to come in and top it. Yeah, right, right. So there's a kind of a, it's like the chorus. So he's got to work off it. He can't fake it.

And he has now, I can feel him realizing that I have taken charge and I'm conducting this fucking orchestra. And you're either going to play or you're going to be fucking buried. And the beautiful thing about this moment is like, who gives a fuck about the movie? Right, right. Right? Oh, yeah.

To this day, nobody gives a fuck about the movie. Exactly. But what I'm saying is that you've pulled your shit together, and you're working with the greatest it ever was, and finally you're locked in. I love the fact that you can't see. All you can do is feel like a real fucking actor that you're locked in with the best actor that ever lived.

To make a long story short, I'll cut to the... So that was a big breakthrough. And that scene, which should have taken a day and a half to shoot because the set was such a clusterfuck and because Frank and I were so over his head. Yeah. That scene took five days. And every time we got finished with a shot, I would sit there because I didn't want to take my lenses out.

I'd just sit there and wait. And Brando would go back to his trailer. And every time they got ready for him to come back, he would actually have to, like, move me. Because I couldn't hear him. I couldn't feel him. And he would have to move me so he'd get his overweight body into this chair. And for five...

I like that your respect is diminished enough that we can refer to him as the fat brando yeah well you know yeah um on day five on day five uh i'm sitting there and i'm waiting and i'm waiting and it's a long relight so i'm sitting there for about an hour and i guess uh they say okay we're gonna go to picture and a picture and invite Mr. Brando. And I'm sitting there. I'm sitting there. And I suddenly feel two hands violently grab my shoulders. And I go, ah!

And I turn around and I hear Brando go, holy shit, what is that in your eyes? And I go, what? your eyes and I go what he goes are you are you wearing lenses I go what are you asking me he goes wait a minute are you are you playing this guy blind I go you're kidding right I said we've been doing this fucking scene for five days and it's the first time you realized I'm playing him blind he goes holy fuck

that's fucking brilliant oh we need to start again if I knew you were playing him blind I would have done everything differently he thought you just were stinky actors

he thought I was I was this big fucking loaf that wouldn't get out of his way when he wanted to get in his fucking chair. He had no idea. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Oh, my God.

And he also said, by the way, let me ask you something else. I got here, when I got here last week, there was like a whole basket of really great Latin, Cuban, African jazz. Was that from you? And I went, yeah. And I was wondering whether you got it, because I never got, you know, I never even heard

like, hey, that's nice. He goes, dude, I've been in my fucking trailer dancing my ass off to that stuff. How come you don't come in and hang out and dance with me? And I go, well, you know. And all of a sudden, you know, after five days, you know, and he slaps me on the face like, you know, which he loved to do. Yeah, yeah. You're a beautiful kid.

Thanks for the records and come to the trailer. Which I never did, but it's a beautiful ending to what got off on a rocky footing. You never went? No, I never felt like I was his equal. I never felt comfortable enough to just knock on his door and say, hey, Marlon, let's hang. Did you do the scene again? We finished the scene, and at the end of the scene,

you could tell he was like nice job kid you know did it play better once he figured out that you were blind no it didn't nothing changed the movie's horrible i mean the movie's horrible the movie's just was that wasn't there some weird debacle were you telling me that story that the the original director never left the set well he never left australia he was, after he got fired, he kind of like, he kind of stayed there. But did he like linger around and become an extra or something? He did. He did.

I'd prefer not, I'd love the guy so much and I'd prefer not to talk about how deeply, negatively that affected him. But it really hurt him. Did he bounce back? He's in the documentary, and it seems as though he's made his peace with it. I was invited to be in the documentary, and I chose not to, because I just,

there's no reason to be in it unless you could tell everything that happened, and it would have hurt people to hear my version. Was Val Kilmer in that too? Yeah. That was one of the last moments of, because at that point, Val was, he was a huge deal. He was like the new Brando, right?

Yeah. What a great story, though. Yeah. Are you, to this day, do you regret not going to the trailer? Yeah. Yeah. What a great story, though. Yeah. Are you, to this day, do you regret not going to the trailer? Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yeah.

Yeah. I think it would be different now. I think I could, like, actually relax around him now. But back then, I was, you know, I just couldn't do it. I just, you're Marlon Brando, and I'm, you know. Really? Yeah. So that's'm, you know. Really? Yeah. So that's the fight you have?

Yeah. Is that? Yeah, it's always been a little bit of that when I get around people who really take my breath away. But it's funny though, don't you find, look, I've talked to a lot of guys. I mean, you're a deep guy with an inner life. You're not vapid.

You're a huge fan of this stuff. You've been in this business long enough to know that you're fairly defined as a personality for an actor. You know what I mean? But I've met a lot of actors who have a shyness. Yeah. of actors who are who are uh uh they have a shyness yeah you know they have a kind of um there's something about them that where they're there's a place where they're not all that comfortable right and i'm much more comfortable now than i've ever been um is it a sensitivity in my own skin but it took a long time it took a lot of work yeah it took a lot of uh of really uncomfortable moments like that where where uh

i mean when he when he decided that you know get rid of that guy yeah he's a fucking just hurt you oh god it was you threw up i threw up but it's a it's a sensitivity i guess i mean i guess it like i never thought about that way because a lot of people say that you know actors a lot of times are are a little not necessarily empty but but they're able to fill up with other emotions and and other characters because they're not that complicated but I guess the other side of that is the sensitivity that there has to be a vulnerability that that whether you want it there or not is there yeah right i think yeah what do you what are you all right what are you now you're thinking i'm thinking like oh shit did you what i've just shared my inmost darknesses this is going everywhere but but it's good i'm happy you did. And I'm happy you're working so much. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. And I'm happy that we had this conversation. Me too. And I didn't mean to make anything sad. No, no, no. I'm not sad. I'm not sad. But when I work with you, when we had that time, I felt the same way.

Because I felt honored to work with a guy who you know who's a real actor and like to see you work so effortlessly and seamlessly and like i'm sitting there doing it with you and and i'm like i like it just felt like we're just doing just talking and stuff and then you look at the dailies and i'm like holy shit this guy's like he lives on screen you know like you know because like when i'm in it i'm like i just feel connected because i don't come from years of acting so i'm like i'm just talking to a guy and then you know i look at he's a fully formed character it's all all the craft just lands right well thank you i mean i i actually was i've been you know i mean not to sound like i'm

quit pro crowing here but uh it was it was a great experience work watching you work, watching you work on something that, that, that springs so personally out of you. And yet you're so, you're so comfortable with, with, with, um, sharing with the world because it's, it reflects a huge ability to admit, Hey, I don't have all my shit together. But the way you performed it on a purely acting level was wonderful. Oh, thank you, man. Wonderful. That means a lot to me. And it was a cool thing to watch. So outside of the book and outside of working on the thing,

is there something that, because I know we had talked once about you you know just spending a lot of time with freak and not something never happened but is there something that you really want to do for yourself so my conclusion to all of the the you know the the stuff that room well i was ruminating about in trying to figure out why i even deserve to have a story to tell was, and part of it was, my daughter going to SUNY Purchase, which is an acting conservatory school. And so she seemed like she was going to take the mantle. And in visiting her, I became Papa Ron and all these kids who were in this arts program. I'm taking them out for burgers and I'm being invited to parties. They're like raves and shit.

And I'm being invited into the inner circle. And I ended up getting very personally involved with a lot of these kids through their whole four-year educational thing. Oh, yeah. their whole four-year educational thing. Oh, yeah. And the more deeply involved I became, the more I realized I should be able to say something to them when they get out of school that can maybe lighten their load

or make the distance between point A and point B a little bit more direct or something useful, something helpful. Right. And this was one of the other reasons why I wanted to write the book is because I've been answering a lot of questions from young actors who like, well, how do you do this? And by going to school and learning how to play a scene, that doesn't mean I know how to fucking talk to an agent or what happens when I get a callback

or what happens when I suddenly am making 100,000 an episode. You know, how do I manage that? I mean, it's tricky. There's a lot of tricky shit

in the business that's not just about what you studied for, the craft. And this is how privileged you are to be in this fucking business because if you look on the shoulders of whom we're standing,

starting in the teens, in the 20s, in the 30s, everything that's mind-blowing that you can do on screen has already been done. It's already been done. And it's been done by the fucking greatest people who ever walked the earth. And if you ever lose sight of that and you ever... So the book was also like a mind your manners kind of thing.

Yeah. And never think that you're bigger than anything that's ever come... Because you're fucking tiny. Yeah. Compared to some of the people who have paved the way for us. Yeah. So it's partially that, but it's partially like I can't tell everybody the edifices that have been built or not built

in replacement of the ones that no longer exist are bankrupt and one-dimensional and bullshit and they're just nothing but the worshiping of false idols, which is money. I can't be that guy unless I can, you know, like, what do you do about it? You can't just complain. You have to figure out, okay, well, here's what I'm going to do.

Right. And so the movie studio is is my particular providing uh a place for myself yeah and people who might be like-minded of of me yeah to ply our our energies for reasons that aren't just driven by money Money. By bottom line, by... So you started a studio? Yeah. So I have a studio called Wing and a Prayer Pictures

and we've now produced three films. Which films? One is called The Runaround, which is looking for distribution right now. Another one is called Pottersville with the great Michael Shannon. Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is in post-production right now.

Another one is All I See is You, which is directed by Mark Forrester, which stars Blake Lively. And we have another four or five that are on the five-yard line getting ready to get greenlit. Oh, so you've come full circle and you're doing the beautiful work.

I become Louis B. fucking mayor. Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. And, you know, I'd like to continue working with you, Mr. Mayor. Do. I'm ready. I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. Perlman. I know you are. I know you are.

It's great talking to you. Back at you, man. That's it. That's the show. I thought it was beautifully human, and I love talking to him. Thank you, Ron. Again, thank you for listening, people. For my tour dates and my special more later and WTF merch,

you can go to WTFpod.com, powered by Squarespace. Tap into the abstract primal truth, or just listen to me play a little uh let's do some more jazz whip trumpet i feel like i not unlike my guitar playing my my jazz trumpet my hotel room trumpet kind of um seems to fall back on similar similar riffs let me let me try let's pick it up. Let's pick up the swing. I'm having a hard time with my mouthpiece. Boomer lives. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats.

But meatballs and mozzarella balls, 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.