WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 846 - Kathy Bates / Graham Elwood

Episode Date: September 13, 2017

Kathy Bates hammered her way into movie and pop culture history with her Oscar-winning performance in Misery. Kathy tells Marc why acting never seemed like an option when she was younger, what she learned working with colleagues like Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Tandy, Mike Nichols, and James Caan, and why after decades of work on the stage and screen she decided now was the time to do a show like Disjointed, a three-camera sitcom with a live studio audience. Plus, comedian Graham Elwood stops by to talk about Ear Buds: The Podcasting Documentary. 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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wtf how's it going i i don't know how long i can talk because i have uh stitches in my mouths i have stitches in my mouth i have like four or five stitches in my mouth right now got him this morning i could tell you about what happened or what it is but it might gross you out so let's ease into it let's ease into it i'd like to uh say hello to everybody down in florida if you can hear me i've been getting emails from people who are listening to the show it's kind of taking their mind off the the waiting for power whatever i appreciate that i hope you're okay i hope everything everybody made it through down there and now the horrible repair and restoration and rebuilding and just getting back to some semblance of reality for a lot of people a reality normalcy uh just uh for a lot of people is going to be a long a long stretch it's going to be a long haul i'm sorry you went through that

my mother's back online back uh i heard from her she's down there and in the hollywood area and it was intermittent uh hearing from her and wondering how she was doing i never really texted i don't text her that much on purpose. I don't initiate many textings with my mother. But I started during the hurricane. And there were times where she wouldn't get back to me. And I was concerned. But it worked out. And I'm glad she's okay and that her home is okay.

It's a little messy around where she lives. But just saying, I hope you're doing all right and uh and the struggle ahead is not too horrible and if it is that that you know you got a lot of support and help to get through it okay that's what i'm saying and i'm glad you're okay mom i have not heard from my father he was nowhere near the hurricanes he's uh he's in new mexico but i think he might be mad at me again i don't know you know i i i'm a little hard on the old man in the specials occasionally but i thought it was endearing enough this time i get along fine with him but you know they they're gonna take the hit sometimes the folks take the hit in the comedy and again uh i'm astounded and grateful and uh and happy

that you're all enjoying the special too real on netflix so much i i do i'm excited i'm excited about it makes me feel good it's getting a very nice response as i said before i'll keep saying you can watch it on netflix some people are complaining that after they watch my show, it suggests the Jeff Dunham special. I have nothing to do with that, certainly. I did not tell Netflix, look, if you're going to promote me and people watch me first, make sure Jeff and the Puppets get, you know, shout out at the end or, you know, at least people,

maybe just have that special start right after mine for Jeff and the Puppets. I did not say that. I'm not going to judge anybody, but I just want you to know I had nothing to do with it, with that being sort of piggybacked. I guess it does refer people back to Thinky Payne as well on Netflix, and you can get the Epic special on Demanded Epics, or you can get that more later.

That's the special in between Thinky Payne and Too Real. you can get that uh more later uh that's the special in between thinky pain and too real you can get that on itunes so enjoy all three mark maron specials and soon enjoy the wtf book so what's wrong with my mouth it hurts my mouth hurts it definitely hurts look i but before i get to my mouth um we have Kathy Bates on the show today. And we have Graham Elwood is here, a fellow podcaster, to talk about his podcasting documentary. So my mouth. Yeah, I went to the oral surgeon today. Because I don't know.

I don't think I ever had one of these things since I've been on the show. And I don't know if anybody gets them. When I talk about them, it's like nobody gets them. A muco, muco seal. What they are is like, I think because of my bites fucked up and sometimes I bite my lip funny, it's basically a clogged or crushed salivary gland that can no longer salivate.

So it just kind of fills up like a blister and pops and fills up again. Just a never ending process. Heals, fills up again, got to get them removed. Well, I went and I just thought it'd just a never-ending process heals fills up again got to get them removed well i went and i and i just thought it'd be a quick and easy thing but this uh this gland i guess was huge and uh i just thought i didn't know when it was going to stop like they took a lot of meat out of my face inside sorry if you're eating they do a local anesthetic right and and then they just start going at it you know there's an assistant this woman is pulling up my on my lip by the doc dr gooey is his name

out here in pasadena he's cutting away on my inner mouth and it's going on for a while and you can see gauze i can see you you know, bloody things being pulled up and out and, you know, in my periphery. But then there's small talk, you know, like he keeps going, like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, okay, okay. And then he's like, so you went running today? And I'm like, what? And he's like, oh, no, no, she's been running. I'm just asking her.

And I'm like, oh, okay. And then she's like, no, not today. Maybe I'll go after her. And then like'm like oh okay and then she's like no not today maybe i'll go after her huh and then like just you know he's like oh this is a big one and i'm like yeah well me are you talking to me yeah this is a big one we're taking i'm like okay and but i'm not talking very well and then he's like he's talking to her about like you know i like your new car it looks like a good car and she, yeah, it fits better in the parking lot here. And I'm like, is it, I'm awake. I'm awake. It was like, I can understand the chit chat when you're under, you know,

full anesthetic, but I'm right there. I mean, I, I, it's nice that you guys are talking, but you know, don't,

don't pretend you're not cutting my mouth up. Like it got to the point where I'm like, I'm, I, I literally, I was like, are they just going to start being like, this guy's an idiot,

isn't he? I know he looks like an idiot. says he's on television i don't know if he's really on television man his mouth is a mess right because i it was it was that kind of like i i was i i was one of those moments where i'm like hey i'm not invisible i i'd like to be part of the conversation thank you so i don't know what's gonna happen i don't know but i have five stitches in my mouth and hopefully everything's okay because they send them out for a biopsy and, you know, okay. So we'll see. Ugh.

I have good things going on in my life, but they're just right, just, you know, like right when you get a bunch of good things going, it's like, don't get too happy. Be afraid of this. So look, Graham Elwood, he's been making this movie for a while. It's Earbuds, the podcasting documentary. It's now available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and many other on-demand platforms. I hadn't seen Graham in a while. And this was actually a lovely conversation with Graham Elwood about the movie, about other stuff. And it continued into the house where it got even heavier and more intense, but we left feeling elevated and that we had bonded and that we understood each other.

Maybe you can glean some of that from this discussion. I didn't tape the one in the house. This is me and Graham. Are you self-employed? Don't think you need business insurance? Think again. Business insurance from Zensurance is a no-brainer for every business owner because it provides peace of mind. A lot can go wrong. A fire, cyber attack, stolen equipment, or an unhappy customer suing you. That's why you need insurance. Don't let the, I'm too small for this mindset, hold you back from protecting yourself.

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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. I'm Elwood. Graham Elwood. This motion picture has been in the making for what seems like a decade. It absolutely feels that way. It's been three and a half years but every documentary is a hey man you know they take time well yeah i mean we i i guess this is better because the first

documentary i did um about telling jokes overseas to the troops in afghanistan what was that called lafghanistan did what happened to that because i know, what's his name? Jordan just made a... Yeah, he made I Am Battle Comics. Are you in that? No. Huh. Way to go, Jordan. Wow. Nice guy.

Yeah. But yeah, so we, yeah, I did Laughganistan, but that took me, God, that took me five years or something like that, six years. So this being three years was a... And where, can you get lafganistan yeah actually lafganistan so comedy dynamics who's distributing earbuds yeah uh is also distributing lafganistan so uh earbuds is available now on everything and lafganistan will be available like on amazon because we were just selling it like at comedy film nerds

for a while for just for several years hard copies yeah yeah and we sell downloads but then comedy dynamics goes graham you want us to sell your other film too and i'm like well i don't know i don't know if i give up those 12 downloads a year we're selling a comedy film nerds so we we put infrastructure in on the site to make it a pay site for this so i don't know if i want to give that up. I still got a lot of envelopes. Man, see, I got padded envelopes and, you know. Yeah, what are we going to do with those now? I know.

I got adhesive labels. Sure. From Uline. I got thousands of them. We have big plans. Those big goddamn catalogs from Uline. Yeah, we're going to go. We're going to make a bundle out of this shit.

This is going to be, everyone wants to see a comedian cry in a war zone. So in other words, you're going to let comedy die now. Yes, yes. Go ahead and take the load off your back. Yes, so that maybe we actually break even on the Laughganistan. Now, I remember when you started doing was at it was at the podcast festival the second year of la pod fest we started we were like let's make one so we were decided we're going to do a kickstarter so we're like let's get some interviews for like the the real yeah yeah promo thing yeah so we interviewed some people at that i think you

were one of them and then we we funded it the kickstarter we raised 140 grand you did a reel for the kickstarter yeah we did a reel for the kickstart yeah yeah exactly kickstarter reel and we raised 140 grand that was february of 2014 right and then so then we shot that whole spring and summer and then that third year of the festival that's where we got some other interviews with you as well but we got interviews with you at two two two festivals in a row sure well it's weird at those festivals like you know you're running the festival and you got mancini running around and then there's 900 other fucking people going like hey man can we just do an interview i'm like who are you what

are we doing but it's nice you know it's like these guys, you set up the room, but like there was a period there where I'm like, I couldn't differentiate. Between? Yeah. Like Graham, is this any different than that guy over there? Yeah, I remember. Is this the guy who's just having me talking to his iPhone and four people are going to listen to it? Or is this like a real thing?

It's a real thing? I remember that. Yeah. Because we have the, at the festival, we have the, we call it the lab. Yeah. So anyone, you can have a show that you do, whatever, and that's a cool thing. So we, you know, comics come in there, but I remember you, and you were like-

Walking around. Walking around the room doing interviews, and you're being very gracious, so that there's always someone who's like, you're like, all right. Oh, who does it? Yeah. Who'd you end up talking to? We talked to everybody you know it was really i gotta tell you making making earbuds it was such a cool journey we interviewed joe rogan we interviewed aisha tyler we talked to todd glass and we you know we wanted to show the connection between podcasters and

fans as you know you know that's how it evolved it was originally supposed to be a podcaster or was it always supposed to be about the podcaster on the fans or was it just about podcast well it was initially going to be about podcasting and then we were like well let's because you know you've gotten the letters from fans oh i know you got me through a tough time right yeah yeah and so we track some of them down oh you did and then we also wanted to get the sort of big moments like we interviewed todd glass about coming out on the show. Sure. And why he picked this show.

Yeah. Instead of comedy film. What did he say? We could have used the goddamn downloads. What an asshole. You've known him longer than me. What the fuck? You guys are better friends.

Come on. But no, he made some great. I got to say, I learned so much from the podcasters. It sounds weird because people would, you, Aisha, Joe Rogan would articulate things and I go, oh, God damn, that's right. You know, like you said, you got to show up for people, like pick a time and stick to it because you're like, people are starting to, they start to count on you. Right.

And you're like, oh boy. And yeah, there is a like, oh God, we got to release something today. And you're like, oh boy. And yeah, there is a like, oh God, we got to release something today. So, and then, you know, when Todd talked about the coming out thing, you know, I was like, why did you pick a podcast? I think I know why. What did he say?

He said, you know, he said like, if I'm, if I'm doing a four minute, if I'm on panel on like Jimmy Kimmel, that there's no environment to do that. And I'm not big enough to get interviewed by Barbara Walters. Right. But I also think he wanted to get interviewed by Barbara Walters. Right. But I also think he wanted to get it one and done. Like he wanted the entire community

to know. Like mostly the comics and everybody. So he wouldn't have to email everybody. He just, he wanted, he wanted him being out

to be out there in our world. Right. So he wouldn't have to do any follow-up. Like, you know, he was just done. One foul swoop.

I think there's probably, yeah, I'm sure there's some truth to that. Yeah. And also, too, I remember I was working with him in Vegas before he recorded it. And I remember we were like in the car and he was like, ah, I got something. And I go, you're gay. And he goes, huh? I go, yeah, come on. Oh,, well, huh? I go, yeah, Todd, come on. Oh, he was hedging?

He was hedging. Like, he didn't, like, I've known him a long time, but you know, like, a lot of- But did you know? Uh, yeah. I mean, you go on the, I went on the road with him a fair amount. I guess that would, yeah.

A guy's either complaining about his wife or girlfriend or trying to get laid. Right. Not Todd. Todd, no, no, I wasn't doing either one of those things. And there was never a, oh, I just met this girl. this girl oh i got this crazy thing and there was none of that so i was just like oh he's probably gay yeah and i didn't give a shit yeah right sure you know but you didn't bring it up either but he didn't bring it up you didn't bring it up i didn't bring it up

but so then he was in the car and he goes yeah i've been talking to mark i think i'm gonna i go i you know i said to him i go look i'm a straight guy so it's easy for me to go just say it who's gonna give a shit you know what do i know but i said i think you'll just be happier once you say it yeah and and he says it he says in the film he goes you know i felt lighter and he and he goes i don't know what the fuck mark does but he just knows how to interview people and just make you feel and and, and then you guys were very cool. You, you know, we use some clips from it and it was just good. So you just, the way you, you went into it, it was awesome.

So it was really good. Good. Good. Who else? Did you talk to Dave Anthony? Uh, yeah, we talked to, we talked to Dave Anthony and Greg Barrett about when they were doing walk in the room and Greg, Greg broke his sobriety and and oh that's in the movie oh yeah did he tell the story about the dog pills yeah oh yeah yeah oh good so that's out there so yeah we got that done yeah no i got a lot of really heartfelt things i mean hardwick told the

story about interviewing his dad and then like several months later, his dad passed away. Oh, yeah. And the response from the podcast community about that was really powerful. And then, you know, we had Gil Martin talking about mental illness. Sure. And then got a lot of, we just set up some like fan interviews, we call them. We just like at the improv or we did it Zanies in Chicago. We just said, you know, we're going to be at this theater for a couple hours. Come by. Of each of your show or of shows in general or how that works we just to fans we just told the fans come

by we'll interview for 10 15 minutes and all of a sudden this was the thing that changed while shooting that we weren't anticipating we knew we were going to talk a little bit about mental illness with gil martin sure but fans started showing up and then telling us on camera you know i suffer from depression or bipolar or whatever. And this is how podcasts have literally helped me or saved my life or whatever. And it was like that I wasn't anticipating. Right. And, you know, there's an interview in there with a woman in Sydney, Australia, because

we went to Australia and Japan. Really? Yeah. For the movie? Yeah. Ah. You got to watch it, Mark. You're in it.

You got to check it out. I'm sorry. I didn't do my research i think it makes for a good better interview yeah if i don't you explain it to me oh so wait let me let me reframe it this is great i'm in this uh which is so it must be good it must be good if I'm in it. Yes, it's the glow of podcasting documentaries, which by the way, I loved. Oh, thank you. I love glow. Thanks, man. I loved it.

Are you a wrestling fan? Never been. I was in that era of wrestling. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So you go to Japan, you talk to people. Well, we connect, we talk to, so I was going to say, yeah,

a woman in Australia came in off the streets, didn't know her. And she just talked about how she was in like an abusive relationship and pod you know she had to leave and podcasting helped with her ptsd and then we interviewed you know there was what is it exactly that they point is like just the constant companionship the the talking about the people talking about themselves on podcasts like because it's like there's something about hearing conversations about real shit and about struggles and all that that really makes you feel less alone. What did you find after talking to so many people was the thing?

Was there one thing? Well, it's that. It's a lot of things. It's what you just talked about. It's the real conversations that are had, but also the technology and how they're delivered yeah because you know most people are listening on like earbuds yeah so you're we're literally talking in someone's oh yeah you're right in there it's different than like if you're in your car and you're listening to talk radio even

if it's a profound conversation it's still there's other right you got you got other things are open yeah yeah so i think that was it in the the way i mean honestly again i learned so much and i'm not just i'm not just saying this but like when we when we were in post is when you interviewed obama right and that interview i listened you know, I don't listen to a million podcasts because I'm busy, whatever, but like that one- I don't listen to any. I know. People always go, what are you listening to?

I'm like, eh, Cherry Pick, this one here and there. I listen to music and myself talk. I know. I know, it's like all I do is talk. I got to listen to more of it. Yeah. But no, the Obama interview, and again, thank you for giving us a clip to put in the movie.

I was listening to that. I was like, God, I feel like I'm just hanging out having coffee with the goddamn president. Yeah, it's crazy. And that was like, not that I hadn't listened to a podcast before, but I think going back to your initial question of the thing that the fans resonated is you feel like you're just hanging out with humanizing it's totally human because you know you've you and I have done a million tv shows tv is very slicked up and it's oh yeah hey all right you never know you know like any time I did tv for like 20 years five five minute spots, eight minute spots. It's like, that's not, it's not a good representation of anything.

You get a few hits in, but you're not going to get it. That's all you're caring about. Like I get it. I got to get a hit. Got to get a laugh in there. That's it. And then like you get off,

it's like, well, if you really want to see me stretch out, that's what you got to see. Yeah. Come see me do an hour and I'll, you know, right.

Then you get, and then you're not even doing yourself any favors with those fucking shows like because like sometimes you're so restricted that's like no one's gonna be like i gotta see that guy no they're like that guy seems uncomfortable yeah that guy was in some clothing that he never normally wears he just bought that jacket that guy like he never wears a jacket i stopped doing that yeah showing up on shows with new clothes i just was like, fuck this. I know. It's because like I look back on it, 90% of the decisions, I'm like, why was I wearing that?

What the fuck was I thinking? And I think too, going back to the podcast thing, like we get to be so authentic doing this. Yeah. That then when you go, like I had some audition for something and i wore some dumb shirt i was like what the fuck what am i doing we get to talk about that i i knew a guy some guy i just met a neighbor was a clothing designer and he said he would make me a pants and a shirt for conan and he made me pants and a shirt and i wore them and they were fucking ridiculous and i'm like this guy made these for me.

The material of the shirt was like, it was almost like it's something you'd make like a window shade out. It was like this thick, it looks stupid. And these pants, they look like punk rock wham pants. And I'm like, this is great. This guy knows what's up. And I'm like, your chubby neighbor,

you don't even know what his credentials are. His girlfriend came over and painted your house red. His girlfriend was some sort of interior designer. She made my kitchen horrendous. And I don't know what the, but I did it.

And now like, yeah, I can express that anger here on the podcast. Because you felt, and you felt physically uncomfortable. Like if you're wearing, it's just a human thing. If you're wearing clothes, you're not.

What the fuck is wrong with me? And then comedy, we have to feel so comfortable. At least I do. I got to just t-shirt and jeans. And so then I'm in some collared shirt. I just feel like a fucking robot. It's weird, man. I don't like it.

I got to, I feel like I don't even really own a suit, a new suit. Like I got one from a sponsor. Right. You know, whatever it's called, the Indochino or whatever. But I haven't really worn it yet. I don't have a reason to wear them. Is this what we're talking about? I guess this is what we're talking about.

Do you have a suit that you- I have a suit, but it's- Like a new one? No, it's 10 years old. It's from Men's Warehouse. It would look like a kid on picture day. What am I going to wear a fucking suit? And then if you do a show where you got to wear a suit, like if you're on a regular as

a show, they'll buy you suits. Yeah. They'll buy you suits. I swear to God, dude, five or six of the suits I have are from a game show I hosted in 19, like a VH1 game show. Never mind the Buzzcocks, which shot 13. No one saw it. Thank God.

I was in, it was like 1999 i have them that's when all the game i i hosted two different game shows back then late 90s and i i did 300 episodes of tv you get that did you steal any of the clothes yeah but it was all like you know the first show i did strip poker was so it was all these like bowling shirts with flaming dice on them and it was just like those are out out. Those are way out. And then I did this show cram and I was, somebody posted a video of it on Facebook and I was like, Oh my God,

like khaki pants, some awful haircut. I was just like, this is a, this is a disaster. I was so lucky that there's no one has video of that thing. It doesn't even exist. Mark,

we got to find it. I try. I'm somebody find copies of nevermind the buzz. Mark, we got to find it. Try. Somebody find copies of Nevermind the Buzzcocks, which is a British show. I hosted the American show. It was during the brief reign of when Zach Galifianakis

was the image guy for VH1. There was this brief period where he was like on buses and everywhere. He hosted this weird game talk show thing. Yeah, where he would like go to grade school. I remember he always did this weird game uh talk show thing yeah where he would like go to grade school i remember him doing all this weird yeah weird shit and then the other

what the other show was my show and i didn't even understand the show i didn't understand the rules i knew nothing about but i did get some good suits and i was violently ill during the entire time we shot how many episodes you do like we did like 13 episodes and they were game shows so we could do like two in a day right so it was like a week or so week or two of the shooting but i just had diarrhea and i was like sweating and i was like my weight was way down it was like too thin and like uh so the suits don't even fit of course so they're all baggy one suit fits all right they were well the suits don't fit me now because now i'm like regular weight a burberry suit i think still holds up oh that's the fucked up thing it's like i wore that on maybe my last letterman like i kept wearing those fucking suits when i you'd

only do it on letterman that was the one he had to do it on i never got any of those shows so i just was like i did you know everything i did was like ferguson or whatever where i could just i think and i think i wore when i did do those shows it was when i was doing the game show so i would wear some ridiculous yeah bowling shirt this is good i think someone bought it for me yeah i didn't i didn't dress myself the first my first letterman i went out and bought a calvin klein suit that was shiny the fuck was i thinking a shiny i'm wearing a fucking shine i'm like this looks cool and i'm like no it doesn't no it's too big on me it's so stupid oh god yeah i like i had my hair was all sort of

spiky yeah vince vaughn-ish kind of slicked up and it was uh a lot of makeup thank god for podcasts oh god i mean it's just fantastic. So, okay, so the humanization thing, it helps people. Yeah. It connects people. So this is really like kind of an homage to not only the medium, but the fans and what it does. Yeah, it's more emotional. Some people, they hear podcasting documentary and they start getting bored because they think i'm just going to talk about rss feeds or something like that i really wanted to show the human connection

and i wanted to show how it us is all of us like people who especially in la who are like comics for a long time that that embraced it because of the empowerment of it but then like the fans and the connection like you know we had a fan at comedy film nerds this housewife from japan and we would talk about her on the show we'd call her japan yeah and then when the earthquake hit there all these fans reached out to her on twitter like hey are you okay are you okay and you know she tells us the story of going through that and these fans listening to podcasts when you know they were like i just had some podcasts downloaded on my phone the power was out and i had to walk through to through Tokyo for eight hours to get home because

everything was down and your podcast got me through. And just like all this stuff where you're like, really? Just me and Chris Mancini talking about, you know, getting mad at a Transformer movie is like matters to somebody. Getting you through the earthquake. Me yelling at Michael Bay for being a bad director. I find that does. It's like, it just takes people's mind off of shit.

Yeah. Yeah. And it was so literally not now we're like friends with these folks in japan it's it's it was it's been the coolest journey not just you know podcasting and doing the la pod fest and then the movie earbuds is like it's really it's it's it's it's changed my whole sort of view of of the world in a lot of ways i think that the war zone when i the first documentary did too because being in war zones obviously changes your view but this was like you know i didn't think podcasting would matter as much right like i remember doing a bunch of tours with scott kennedy in iraq and an officer said to us you know whenever you guys come through the fire base and do shows the suicide rate drops and i was like oh wow really oh yeah so i just always sort of you know put the war zone shows as sort of up on their own like nothing would attain be that powerful and then doing this documentary i'm

hearing people tell me very similar stuff of like your podcast helped me i I was going to kill myself. And I loaded up a bunch of comedy pod, you know, like, and you're just like, God. Yeah. I get some of those. You don't know whether like, am I supposed to? I know. How do I? I know. Like, if it's like, I was gonna, that's fine.

If it's, I'm about to, I, you know, you're supposed to do something. that's fine if it's i'm about to i you know you're supposed to do something like you know you know like one time we called the police but there's no way to track where the person is and but you know a lot of times people just need to write shit down you know but it is nice it is great it is a community and it is like it does do something you know what i mean it does help a lot of people because everybody is so goddamn like you know separated now and isolated in a weird way and uh well i'm glad you did it and you know by the time i put this up i will have watched it so i'll go ahead and say this is a really good movie you did a good job with it that's kind of meta it's like reverse meta yeah this is this was great i'm saying this as because i'm gonna watch it

well that's good i hope you don't have to go back and edit and go oh boy elwood made a fucking real he made a real silver suit out of this i'll drop this in and then afterwards i'm like man was i wrong all right that was me projecting the best no no yeah I'm glad you did it, and I'm glad to be part of it. Yeah, man. Thanks a lot. It was a cool thing. And again, like the- Where is it available?

iTunes, Amazon, everywhere. Like video on demand, your cable. Earbuds, the podcasting documentary. Thanks, Graham. thanks Graham that was Graham and me I don't know that conversation changed everything I didn't think badly

of Graham but now I feel I feel you know it was a nice nice talk nice connection the movie Earbuds

the podcasting documentary as I I said, available on iTunes, Google Play, Amazon, and many other on-demand platforms. I'm sorry about my mouth. I got fucking five stitches in there, all right? Do I have a guitar pick out here? That's not for now. Think about that later. Talk about Kathy Bates now. Kathy Bates, I had an opportunity to talk to Kathy Bates.

I took it. Obviously, she's a great actress, and I've always loved her work. And I found her intimidating, both on film and when she came to my house. So you might hear a little of that. I just, I was like, Kathy Bates, she's intense. I'm a little nervous. I'm a little intimidated by Kathy B bates but we had a nice conversation i should tell you about her new tv show it's a comedy series called disjointed it's now streaming on netflix it's very interesting

it's a like a traditional three camera show with that they shot in front of an audience i found it jarring when i watched it the audience i'm gonna tell kathy that okay so this is me and kathy bates I found it jarring when I watched it, the audience. I'm going to tell Kathy that. Okay, so this is me and Kathy Bates. Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. Is this a jarring situation to be interviewed in? No.

Oh, good. It's happened before. You've acclimated to the new media environment. Oh, yeah. Way back. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Back in the day, I remember doing a radio thing before I was famous. I don't know why I was doing a radio thing in my hometown Memphis with Carol Burnett.

And she was like, why am I doing an interview with this person? I think I was still in high school. That's the only memory of it you have? Yep. That was Carol Burnett. You were at a radio studio. And you don't know why. And I have no idea why.

I can't remember. Were you acting in high school? Would there be a reason that you were? I don't know. Or maybe it was after. I don't know. Everything back there is pretty foggy. Does it?

Is it foggy? Yeah. It just starts to get hazy. It goes away. You know what? I live in the moment. Yeah. So some moments vanish.

Do you ever try to like get, you know, find things back there? I find I do it more now. Like when I'm falling asleep, sometimes things will pop up and i'll think oh but um yeah you know or you'll make connections between memories oh yeah yeah yeah just rewrite them oh that's what that meant oh that's what that person meant when they said that right yeah years later is it so you count you come from memphis yeah i come from memphis t Tennessee. I was born there in 1948. 1948. Do you have good memories about it? Some good.

Yeah. Some very difficult. I mean, I think one of the main events in my life was that I was born very late in life. My father was born in 1900. My mother was born in 1907. 41 and 48. Yeah. And especially in those days in the South, because the South was sort of like 20 years behind the rest of the United States, I think. And very, very conservative. And I remember my mother saying she was embarrassed to be pregnant at that age because they meant that she was having sex.

At that age? At that age. Oh, that's sad. I know. I mean, the whole idea about sex. And then, you know, then you fast forward to the 60s. Right. When it was the sexual revolution.

Yeah. And here they have a kid who's like all for it. And they're like, what? What is happening? Yeah, you went to a hotel and listened to guys play folk music. You sat on their bed. And they were, you know, my friend Cherry screwed the whole thing up. For some reason, she put her purse on top of the car when she was getting in.

So it fell off in the middle of the street. And that's how they found out we'd been there. And these are guys we met at Christian camp. It was in Memphis? In Memphis, yeah. So, you know, it wasn't easy for either side. I mean, it was really like growing up with grandparents, and my sisters had grown up by then. Oh, they were older than you?

Oh, yeah, 15 and 9 years older than I am. Oh, wow. So it was a whole, they were really the 50s generation. Yeah, yeah. And I was more the 60s. And so it was a real, real well it was an upheaval in the country so you can imagine what kind of upheaval it was at my house i can't yeah i can't imagine it like so like when you're 15 it's like the beatles and everything else yeah exactly i

mean my mother was cool she said she she loved music and she thought i should get a guitar and so um i remember we went to sears and bought a $20 silver tone guitar, which I hear they're still actually pretty good. And I didn't know anything about gauge strings or anything. They were really heavy, but I taught myself how to play. You did? Yeah. I loved it. And it was a great escape for me to get away from them. I can't imagine what the South, you know, because the South is still a little uncomfortable in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, yeah. I mean, I know my mother, when she was dying, she was probably in, was it, probably it must

have been in 97, I'm not sure. She was in a coma, we thought, and we were at home. And so I was playing some of Ken Burns' music from the Civil War. And she was fine until they played the Battle Hymn of the Republic. And she started to shake and go. No. Yeah. So it was, that's the kind of, you know, when I wanted to go to New York, it's like you can go up there with all those Yankees.

So it's still very much, you know, and in some ways, look, a lot of people have been writing about that nowadays, that it's really, the Civil War is still alive and well. Yeah, it's clearly, there's a bit of that going on. It's a little frightening, but I imagine that, you know, these kind of rifts don't, in countries, that's just going to be there. It was always there. So then every once in a while, it gets more voice than usual. Well, I felt that naively that once education was, I mean, when I went to school, we were segregated.

Yeah. And I had my first African-American friend when I went to college. Where did you go to college? Southern Methodist University. Where's that? Dallas, Texas. Oh, yeah. So I remember I always tell the story about Texas. When I went to open a bank account there, you could get either a set of dishes or a.22 rifle.

So I was like, hmm, what shall I get? I think I didn't get either one. You didn't get the rifle? No, no, hmm, what shall I get? I think I didn't get either one. You didn't get the right one. No, no, because the only thing I know how to make is reservations, so the dishes would have been wasted on me. I knew how to shoot a gun, but I figured I wouldn't use it on a campus. Little did I know. Did you grow up with guns?

Yeah. My dad slept with a.45 Colt. I think he had it in the army way back when. And he had that by his bed till the very end. Yeah? Yeah. In your family, was there generational history with the South? Oh, God, yeah.

I had cousins that were in the Civil War. Right. Yeah, we had a newspaper article about we had cousins that the Yankees were ensconced in the Gayosa Hotel in Memphis. And apparently cousins of mine rode their horses up onto the porch of the Gayosa to route the Yankees out. And then one of them fell off his horse. The other one ran back and pulled him up on his horse. And, I mean, yeah, we go way back. And actually, our family is from, I was a member of the Children of the American Revolution.

So my mother was totally into genealogy. So, yeah. So you know all that stuff. Yeah, most of it. I mean, my oldest sister has really all the copies of everything. But it was a big deal. And I think that was a Southern thing. The Daughters of the Revolution thing?

Yeah, it's like, you know, and now i'm realizing it was the whole ethnic thing sure which i didn't at the time american aristocracy or or the the legacy of the original founders and that kind of yeah and since we weren't really the original ones and i didn't find that out till till then bury my heart it wounded right you didn't quite frame it the way it might have. Yeah, I liked what Kamala Harris recently said. If you're not Native American, you're an immigrant. Right, yeah, exactly. So how did you, when you were growing up, did you feel constricted when you went to Southern Methodist? Were you like, I'm finally out, but that's Dallas, it's not.

Yeah, well, it was the theater department, though. Oh, okay. So that was a whole other thing. Did you have to audition? No, you know well it was it was the theater department though oh okay so that was a whole nother thing did you have to audition no you know what it was there was a really it was i didn't have a clue when i was in high school i remember in my senior year people were talking about where are you going to college where i'm going to apply to harvard i'm going to apply to mit and i was like what i don't get it you know and they said no plan yeah he said you have to figure out where you want to call it could go to college and so uh they had somebody from smu coming to talk to people in the library and i thought well that's that's convenient yeah so i went up there and and i said that sounds good

my father nearly had a heart attack why what do you want it was so fucking expensive i mean we didn't come from a lot of money you know he wanted you to go to state school yeah yeah no my mother wanted me to come back i didn't get this but my mother said come back with an mrs which is what mrs oh i get it yeah i did the same thing and because my father always said we'll get you two years of college and then um you get a husband yeah you decide if you want to keep going but what happened was um i went to uh i went into the school of humanities i'd done plays in high school but it just didn't click that you could that i could do that for a living did you love it though oh yeah yeah that's where i really felt at home really yeah so so what

happened was i was there for orientation and i don't i think his name was kermit hunter i think he was dean of the school of humanities and were having orientation, and he was giving a speech about how this was going to be the beginning of what you love to do in life. And suddenly, the whole playing field shifted for me. And I got very excited, and I started asking him about the theater and acting. And he got so exasperated that I kept interrupting him. He gave me my folder. He said, you're in the wrong school. Go down the hall, last door on the left.

Of course, it's the last door on the left. And that's where you belong. So I went down and I opened the door and I was horrified. I mean, I was so conservative. conservative i had a little like um i had my penny loafers and my i don't know a little you know shirt waist flowered a little circle pin my hair and a bob you know and i look in and there's these guys that look like you yeah you know and i was like what so i was so nervous about i just felt so different i changed my major back and forth like two or three times. And then I went to see a play. And it was almost like they said later, like when gurus touch your solar plexus.

I saw the play and I saw this wonderful actor. And it was just like, and I said inside me, it was like, I'm going to do this. I don't care if I have to change my name. Whatever it is I have to do, I'm going to do this. And from then on, I had just landed in Clover. You were all in. Yeah. And that's where Beth Henley studied and she did Crimes of the Heart. We had a great group and we went from having a little theater up at the Rotunda to having a huge

theater and Bob Hope gave a lot of money. Where's this? This was in Dallas and they had all the rich ladies. So you stayed involved or this was all when you were there? All when I was there, I studied. And you did undergraduate and graduate? No, I graduated a semester early because my dad did have a heart attack, actually. And but I had gotten extra credit doing theater up the coast from here in Santa Maria at the John Hancock Center for Performing Arts. So we got eight hours credit each summer.

So I had enough credit to graduate a semester early. And I went to New York and, you know, bunked with my friends. After college. After college. So do you remember what that first play was? Queen Esther and the Yellow Ganders. That was it. Yeah. And the actor I saw was Garland Wright, who was brilliant, brilliant.

And he actually directed Jack Hefner's play Vanities off Broadway in 1975, which really gave me my start. And then he went on to replace Liviu Chulet at the Guthrie Theater and has since passed away, unfortunately. In Minnesota? Mm-hmm. They have a good theater scene up there. Oh, yeah. For many, many years. Yeah.

It's a very kind of rooted thing. Yeah. It's serious theater. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so you do all this work. So there's a lot of hippies around? Oh, God, yeah. Beards, you know.

The teachers, too? No, yeah. Beards, you know. The teachers, too? No, no. The teachers were pretty conservative. Also, you know, Neiman Marcus wasn't far away. And, you know, you had Kappa Kappa Gammas there who were, like, dressed to the nines. I could afford one cheap outfit from Neiman Marcus. You know, my parents really tried hard to give me everything. You were in a sorority?

For, like, a day. really tried hard to give me everything. You were in a sorority? For like a day. I literally, we went for dinner. Well, the sorority that wanted me to pledge was the only sorority that played touch football on the quad. So that wasn't so exciting. But I remember walking in that first Monday for dinner and all I could hear was 50 girls just talking at the top of their lungs. And I've never never i grabbed the

president and i'm like shy right but i grabbed the president by the hand i yanked her in the back room and i said i'm out that's it well we have a lot of girls that are in theater i'm out i can't be here anymore i'm sorry and i let because i knew i could not i could not be in a room of girls screaming at the top of their lungs. I just couldn't. And pretend to sit down at dinner. I mean, I would just, I'd just take the knife and slit my wrists, you know. Do you have that thing where you, are you sensitive to sound or was it just that sound?

I think it was that sound. It must have been that sound. But it may be a knee-jerk reaction because I was in girls school for a couple of years. Yeah. And the fun thing that we got to do on weekends was put on our hose and our panty you know belts and whatever you call them and go for tea parties from one house to the next yeah so maybe I developed an allergy at that point to a lot of women oh my god I just can't I can't do it I can't do it it's just it's not even you can't even hear what they're saying, right? It's just a frequency.

Yeah, it's like geese in a field. Yeah. So when you moved to New York, it's like, it must be, what year is that? It's got to be like New York and it's like grimy heyday. That's right. 1970, theater was dead. Was it? I think the city was almost dead.

Oh, yeah, it was. There were so many derelict buildings. We lived on the Upper West Side. It wasn't very safe. You had done some, like, what was the theater you were doing up north here, like when you'd go away from school during the school year when you were in college and you'd go get those other credits? Oh, I did things. They had a wonderful program. They had a wonderful state. The state gave them money to do this. They had a beautiful theater in the round. They had the best educational. Where was this? Up in Santa Maria at the John Hancock Center. And we went as apprentices and they had, you know,

actors who were real professional actors who were coming in. Yeah. So we got to do all the classics. We got to do Chekhov. We got to do the Greek theater. We got to do musicals. And it was just such a wonderful education. Wow. Wow. And do you remember the teachers that you had at that time as an actor? Did they make an

impact on you that lasted? Oh, definitely. Do you feel like you learned most of what you learned there? Yes. I mean, we had a teacher in college. He was the head of our department dr hobgood we called him hob and they were very what i neglected to tell you before is we went from just a regular college you know theater department which was oh we'll go once every monday wednesday friday to a proper conservatory by the time that i left right so they had movement voice you know the whole nine yards varied styles while you were there all happened while you were there? All happened while I was there. And it was from these rich ladies, you know, the oil ladies in Texas who were very involved in the arts,

and they were very supportive of the campus, the Meadows Art School. And it wasn't just theater. It was everything, you know. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. It was a huge complex. And now they have the, I think it's called the Meadows Museum. It has the largest collection of Spanish art outside the Prado.

And then the Bush Library is there. So you said, did they make an impression? So Hob would be the first one, I think, when he sat us down and said, this is going to take you 15 years. It'd be just like if you were going to be a doctor or a lawyer. You've got to learn your craft. He said, you've got to learn your craft. He said, you've got to, you know, intern, you've got to go out and develop your, you know, your fan base.

Was he right? Yeah. Yeah. To the day. So 15 years. So at that time, so you're a couple of years in when they bring in movement and they bring in all that stuff, the layered sort of multi-tiered performing artist training. Yes.

And you did all that? Yes. We did even fencing. I was just going to say that. You did fencing. We did fencing. We had a Hungarian fencing master, but we didn't have any places to do it except in the law quad.

So that was kind of funny. But I remember when I did one, I fought with Andy Traister and I cut his shirt. Oh, yeah? Yeah, on his arm. It was like, cool. Yeah. This is real. Yeah, it's real.

So you did dancing and movement and all that stuff? Yeah. So did you do mask work and all that kind of stuff? Oh, yeah. I remember when I was up here, we did Greek theater and I sculpted a mask for Tiresias. And you did all kinds of things. You did practicum. So you did sets and costumes and you learned everything. So history, theater history, you know, all kind of stuff. And you loved it. I loved it. Yeah. So when you go to New York, what are your expectations?

They were very high. And that was some kind of a mountain to fall off of, I'll tell you. What was it like when he got there? Well, it was terrifying. I'd never been on a subway, and seeing the subway come in was just horrifying. And I just didn't – it took me such a long time to adjust to being there. I can't imagine, because it's really grimy at that time. I watched the first episode of David Simon's The Deuce, which is this James Franco thing about porn in 1971. And they're showing Times Square in 1971.

And I have vague memories of it because I was a kid when we visited. But it was filthy and scary. Okay, well, I'll tell you what we did. Yeah. We took those burlesque houses and turned them into theaters. You did. We created Theater Row. We took those burlesque houses and turned them into theaters.

You did. We created Theater Row, the Lion Theater Company, Playwrights Horizons, all these different groups now. On 42nd Street. Yeah. We were there before. I've been to Playwrights Horizons. Huh? Yeah. I've been there, yeah.

Yeah, that whole thing. In fact, we did a play at Vanity's that I mentioned, and at the beginning, we're getting dressed, and some old guy stuck his head in the door looking for the burlesque house. And we had to say, no, we're doing a play here, you know. But no, we would go to these cold rooms and rehearse. And we were so passionate. How did that evolve? Like, what was that?

How did that come together, the movement that did that? Just sort of organically. I mean, I think, you know, it came from college for us because Garland, as I spoke about, we ran that department. He did. And Jack. They just let us run it because he was so innovative and he directed so many wonderful productions. In Texas. Yeah.

He'd go to New York. They'd see the great plays and they'd come back and do them there. Yeah. And they were wonderful. And so the same thing happened. They continued that evolution. We did Music Hall Sidelights, which was a little-known novel by Collette. It was beautiful.

He did Kafka, which was about Franz Kafka. And they did it in all these different spaces along 42nd Street. In New York. So he came back from – so you knew him from Texas. He'd come back. Yeah. We were all there. Right.

So you were – so there was a crew of you. Yeah, there was a whole crew. We were like called the Texas Mafia. Who were they? Jack Hefner, who wrote Vanities, Garland, Gail Forsythe, who worked for a milliner, a very famous costumer milliner there. Who else? Roseanne Gates.

We all shared an apartment. Roseanne became an agent. We all shared an apartment. Roseanne became an agent. And then we all were supported, too, by going down to the Humana Festival in Louisville, Kentucky, which supported a lot of – that's where Beth's play opened. Yeah. When I was in the original production. Crimes of the Heart. Yeah, yeah.

So you're all in New York. And so I would imagine that at that time doing theater in those spaces was thought of as pretty experimental, right? Yeah. We really had free reign to do our own. Are you all right? Are you getting the cat allergy thing going? No. I'm just, my nose is dripping.

Anyway, excuse me, I'm sticking my finger at my nose. They were more the ones that were really engineering it. And I was just lucky to be a part of it, you know, to get to be in the different shows and stuff. And, I mean mean we do crazy things like jack had that one of the first plays that jack wrote before vanities was called casserole yeah and it was about a kid who's been to new york and he comes back to his little town yeah and they it's the same thing his his family just doesn't get him yeah well we had no place to perform it yeah right yeah so there was a performance going on at one of those little things there and so john arnone who was also into set designing he was one of our group

they made a quilt yeah that flew in right before the other the other set stage the other set right so we could perform in front of it yeah there were always ingenious ways that that they came up with to do things for little or no money. It's sort of great. It's great. Because you got that training doing like big theater and knowing the ins and outs of all elements of theater.

And then you take those skills and just apply them to whatever space necessary. Yeah. And Hobb and Jack Clay and Clayton Karkosh and so many of the professors there were really responsible for taking us seriously, but also giving us the skills to do what we needed to do. So your first, like, when did you start doing film and television? Well, actually, the first film I did was with Milos Forman. He was in New York and quite, quite, it was sort of an odd thing. I mean, Gail, who I mentioned, who was one of my roommates, and the milliner, she was also a gourmet cook, and she was friends with John Guare, the playwright. I know that guy. Yep.

He's still around. Yeah. Yeah. And Milos was making his first American film, and apparently he had gotten into a really shitty deal with one of the big companies and ended up with no money and had to do it with another company. And so he got John down there to help him rewrite the screenplay, and they had no money. So Beth used to go down there and cook for him. Yeah. So my nickname was Bobo.

Don't ask me where that came from. So they were looking for girls who had written their own songs, but had never had them published and stuff. And she said, you know, they said, do you know anybody? And she said, oh, Bobo does. So I went down, and I didn't know who Milos was, so I wasn't nervous. And I played him my song, which was about loss of innocence and everything. And so he put me in the film, and Carly Simon's in the film. It's a wonderful film.

It's called Taking Off. And it's about a girl who runs away from home to be in a rock band, and it's still so current. It's wonderful. It's hard to find it on CD, but it's worth it. It's around, though? Yeah. I mean, we made it in 1970. I think we got made $5 a day or something, but I loved the way bruce uh buck henry was in it

lynn carlin i mean it was such a wonderful and it was such a smart uh take on on american life and at that time yeah but it was also it's about you know living the dream yeah but it's also realizing these people were so worried about marijuana and rock and roll and they invite the guy over and he's making millions and millions of dollars. Yeah. And then they suddenly get the perspective on, and it was how everything was changing then. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The business of being a hippie. Yeah. Celebrity versus, you know. Sure. That's what happened at that time, I guess, after the 60s, after the real social movement died, Adele became mainstreamed. Yeah. But were you surrounded by troubled people and drugs and weirdos and freaks? Or were you pretty insulated with the working folks?

Well, I finally got a job at the Museum of Modern Art. I got jobs as a temporary secretary thing. And the Museum of Modern art has their uh christmas catalog comes out of course you can order all these cards and stuff so they always hire a lot of temps and so i got in that way and then they asked me to stay on and i used to count the money that they took in you know and um i met this guy phil phil bowditch who worked in the mail department and he was a wonderful guitar player so we hung hung out together, and, you know, that was fun. But we tried playing the guitar together.

Oh, did you go out and do it? Yeah, we went around, Fat Black Pussycat and a couple of other places, you know. But I was not nearly as proficient on the guitar as he was, so. But you used to sing? Yeah. Yes, I did. But I doubt I can do it very well now. Although, you know, with my show, I do sing a little bit on our show, Disjointed.

Disjointed, yeah. Yeah. And actually, Chris Martin donated. They got a big D420 that they make now. And you can look it up online on their website. And the front is covered with all of these marijuana things. Oh, yeah. It's such a beautiful guitar. So he gave it to us to use for the show. And it's so lovely to play

that I started getting back into it. So I see you play. I do play. Yeah, I've kind of played, you know, quietly all my life. I don't really play out that much or anything, but I like to do do it it's a great thing to have for me it's like meditation really I'm starting to get back into that I bought a Collings acoustic I found this thing I love to go to

this shop in New York and I found this really cool guitar called the Moonstone Eagle, I think. Beautiful. It's shaped like an eagle. Oh, really? It's really beautiful.

Electric. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Are you going to get it? I got it. Oh, you did? I got it with a Princeton reverb. Oh, good.

Yeah. So you're jamming. So I'm ready, man. I'm ready. You putting a group together? No. The group I'm putting to is the disparate groups that are in my head and my fingers. Pulling them all together?

Yeah. Did you continue to study acting or was that you were done once you got to New York? Well, you know, that's interesting, too, because after Vanities was a success in 75, I came out here. That was your big break in theater. And I came out here and I just decided that I didn't know enough yet about what I was doing. And I thought that it was a little shallow out here, you know, that I felt. Was it too business? No, it was, yeah.

Yeah, it was something I couldn't perceive, but that part of it I couldn't. But I remember testing for Three's Company, and it was just not my thing at the time. Now, here I am doing a sitcom, so I have to eat my words. But back then, I really felt it was the wrong step. So I went back, and that's when I started working in actors' theater. And I felt like I needed to continue to evolve as an actor. And by doing that, you practice. What's actors' theater?

Actors' Theater of Louisville was John Jory's company's company okay so that's where you started yeah and back in the 80s yeah that was in new york as well no that was in the early 80s in louisville kentucky oh when did you do a straight time oh straight time was uh out here actually i did that in 76 i think i kind of like that movie i thought it was a great movie. It's great. It's great. I watched it not too long ago. It's a very kind of a tough story. I know. Well, and Eddie Bunker, I remember him coming to the set. It was his story.

Oh, okay. And I remember it was the first day that he had never been wanted by any- Law enforcement? Yeah. Yeah. In his life. But I remember him leaning up against the refrigerator and then he was just gone. And his cigarette ash got longer and longer.

So I guess he was doing a little celebrating there. Yeah, yeah. A little opiated celebrating. And how much did you talk to Dustin Hoffman at that time? We talked a lot. He was great. He really loves what he does. And I remember him taking

me by the hand and saying there's the camera you know and but but i also remember being on set with him and they turned around to do my part in this dinner table scene and i got really nervous and i had the presence of mind to say to him, I'm really nervous, what do I do? And he said, can you hear Owen setting up the shot? That's Owen Roisman, one of the best guys in the world. And I said, no. And he said, well, listen. So I started focusing on... What was going on.

Yeah. And now it reminds me of a very famous quote by Konstantin Stanislavski. The secret to an actor's creativity is the object of his concentration. So I concentrate on the other actors. I concentrate on a prop or whatever it is. And that's my focus. That's where I get my creativity. Like when I worked on Fried Green Tomatoes, Jessica Tandy gave me my performance.

It's a high wire act. And when I was sitting there with Dustin, when I relaxed, he knew. And he said, that's it. You know, I mean, he's just so supportive. And I did a little movie with him a couple of years ago. And we were talking about, we remember the audition that we had together, you know. For a straight time? Yeah.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. It was cool. It was so cool to see him. And we had done another tiny thing with Dick Tracy, and he had just won the Academy Award for I think it was for Rain Man. And he'd been up all night long and he had to do all this makeup. And he still and he had he had in his hand the Shakespeare of Merchant of Venice. Uh-huh.

And I thought, Jesus Christ, man, this guy, all he wants to do is be in it. He's just in it. He loves it. Oh, yeah. And did you, was that inspiring? Yeah. Yeah. When you work with somebody like that, that you've admired and you see what they're really like when they're dealing with the craft or with Jessica Tandy or people who have maintained

their joy in the craft for years and years and years it inspires you to keep your light bright and you know and keep going yeah the craft I guess because like I've done some acting recently and it's interesting because once the cameras go on there's a lot of downtime in between cameras going on cameras going off so to maintain that focus and to really look forward to that moment, I mean, that's what it's all about, I guess, huh? Yeah, you don't socialize. No socializing. No.

No. I mean, I remember hearing, I don't know if it's apocryphal or not, but that when Daniel Day-Lewis did Lincoln that he had everything closed off so that he could stay in that. Yeah. Because you can't just turn things off like that. You can experience it yourself and know that if you're screwing around with somebody and talking everything you can't you can't get in it and Dustin used to always say you need to be plugged in, you know, and you need to stay plugged in and and you're working you're not there to you know, hang other people. And you've got to focus on what it is you want. It's not just your lines. It's just, it's, you know, how you play a scene.

It's who you're working with. It's all you want to stay focused. It's the characters, all of that stuff. So what do you do when you're on a set and you're not on? Oh, I just talk to everybody and have a great time. No, no, I try not to. I, yeah, I try to stay off in a corner if i have to you know yeah but i mean can't you do that like when you've got like you know 15 20 minutes before you shoot or do you have to do that what are you a weenie or something you know i'm asking you because i'm

asking for my own advice really yeah yeah because i yeah, because I got to shoot something in October, the second season of a show. So when I talk to actors, I'm always curious as to, because I come from comedy. I'm not really an actor, trained actor. So anytime- What is your focus when you do comedy? Well, I just try to be as present as possible

and do the material and connect with the audience. There you go. Your audience is the secret to your creativity. Yeah, and do the material and connect with the audience. There you go. Your audience is the secret to your creativity. Yeah, right. So you know how to do that. So they just substitute the person you're working with. Exactly. But I think what I was talking about is just that in between takes, I think I innately try to stay in it.

And I think that you probably do too. But I don't cloister myself away. I mean, I kind of do. Well, it depends. I did a very difficult scene in Primary Colors. You're great in that. That's a great movie. Well, there was one scene that was really, really difficult, and I cloistered myself away for that.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. Which one? Which scene? Well, we did the scene in the truck where she's getting ready to commit suicide, but we don't know yet. And we had to break it up. We had to do the interior on the set and the exterior in New Orleans a month later. So that was kind of tricky, and you have to do it from a bunch of different angles.

So I really cloistered myself. And it was Mike Nichols, who I love so much, and I'm just, God rest him. I wanted to do super well. And it was an A-plus production. And I mean, not that you don't want to do everything great, but it was especially important to me with that caliber of work and the script by Elaine May and Emma and everybody. It's just I wanted to rise to the occasion.

It was a wonderful part, and I wanted to do it right. Yeah, it was a great part. Yeah. I remember now, it's a heavy scene. Yeah, it's a very heavy scene. So you've worked with a lot of great directors. Yeah, I've been lucky. I've had some bizarre directors and bizarre projects.

I mean, you look back, and it's called making a living. But you worked with Altman real early on, right? And how was that? He, God rest him, he was a real character. He was tough. He could be very tough. He could be very caustic. You know, he knew exactly what he wanted.

Cher was in the play with us. Come back to the five and dime, yeah. And he thought we were going to do the play at night and shoot the movie during the day. And I just said, are you out of your fucking mind? I said, I just, and he was very upset that I was against it. You know, but we shot the movie in four weeks on the soundstage. And just, you know, it was punishing. But that was after the play was over.

Did he let you, people tell me he lets you watch the dailies and you can see yeah you have a big party he shoots french hours you know and then no break for lunch right but then he has quite a spread and you all go in and watch it's kind of funny that's nice right yeah it was very fun oh good good did you do soaps uh very very early on i did when you when you're first starting out in New York, right? Yeah. You know, it was okay. It wasn't my cup of tea. Oh, good. That would have been a whole different career.

Yeah, it would have. I wasn't pretty enough. But you just had occasional episodes where you do this stuff? Yeah, we just did. You know, I played a dyke in prison with uh god is that on pc now to say you can say what you want okay well she was love she yeah she was a dyke she was in prison and she was the nemesis of erica you know i'm gonna take my jacket off it's fucking hot in here all right all right man okay so uh but okay so let's talk about i just just read something about, you won the Oscar for Misery.

Big career changer, right? Yeah. I mean, I remember going to a party. I live not far from Ned Beatty. And I remember going into his house, and the minute I came in the door, he put his hand on my head like a preacher and went, Heel! Heel! Because, you know, after you win an oscar you never you know work again uh i think that that

has changed but uh yeah it was hard to get a good part after that really yeah well that's crazy well you know when you think about it though it's very unusual for for a woman to have that kind of lead in a movie uh-huh unknown yeah you know unattractive really fucking nuts and you know it's very unusual to have that so i was very lucky yeah i just read something that that stephen king that your character was a physical manifestation of his cocaine addiction are you serious yeah well that's i have to hold on i have to process that hold on i'm going to read the quote. The question to Stephen King was, I'm trying to comprehend how you live this whole secret life of a drug addict for eight years, all the while churning out bestsellers and being a family man.

And he said, well, I can't comprehend it now either, but you do what you have to do. And when you're an addict, you have to use. So you just try to balance things out as best you can. But little by little, the family life started to show cracks. I was usually pretty good about it. I was able to get up and make the kids breakfast and get them off to school. And I was strong, had a lot of energy. I would have killed myself otherwise, but the books start to show it after a while. Misery is a book about cocaine. Annie Wilkes is cocaine. She was my Wow.

Wow. What do you think of that? Liar, liar, pants on fire. Because there was just an article in The Guardian about him, and I remember he refers to Annie as Scheherazade. And then he realized he's Scheherazade having to come up with all these chapters every time for her. And that he also looked at her as being a bee, like a queen bee. So maybe all of that is really fucked up cocaine-like images. Does that change the way you see her in retrospect?

I've got to wrap my head around it. It's kind of hard, right? Yeah, I've got to do some thinking about that. Wow. What was the process of that working with Jim Kahn, Jimmy? Yeah, I got to do some thinking about that. Wow. What was the process of that, working with Jim Kahn, Jimmy Kahn, James Kahn? He's one of the funniest people I've ever met in my entire life. That's good to hear. Yeah.

Funny, great guy. He's doing so well these days. He was, you know, it was the worst thing to ask Jimmy to do was to lie in that bed. Yeah, because he wanted to be up and around he's he's like the most i think he can do every sport in the world yeah and so they actually hired a guy to play basketball with him so that it could keep him active and keep the blood going because he hated lying in that bed but my mother loved him in the movie she said it looked like he was watching a snake like he just was like he wasn't sure where she was gonna go next well that was one of those great things to see him work

like that yeah because like that was one of those career changing you know you never saw him like that no to be that vulnerable and that you know out of control and scared he's a wonderful actor he is i always loved him. Especially as they get older, they seem to have less invested in the image. Yeah. And they can kind of work differently. Well, see, that's what I like about working as an older actress. And that's why I sort of, more than one reason that I scoff at ageism, because let's face it, the more you do it, the better you are. What did Mel Gibson say? Just when you have it figured out, you're not good looking enough to do it. You know, but thank goodness, you know, on shows like American Horror Story or whatever,

Ryan's always, you know, loves movie star actresses, you know, but actresses, really wonderful actresses. I think one of the people that he interviewed first as a young man was Betty Davis. And of course, he did that wonderful feud last year. You had a part in that, right? Tiny, tiny part. Yeah. But I just thought Jess and I thought Sarah, I mean, Susan were just wonderful. Yeah, it's great.

Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. But see, being older like that, I just think it's like good wine. Yeah. Or good tequila. How are you I just think it's like good wine. Yeah. Or tequila. How are you not going to get better? When you get comfortable and you get deeper and your wisdom is different and whatever you go through in life kind of informs your craft. As long as you stay humble.

And don't become a monster? No. It's just if you get to the point where you think, I got this. Yeah. And walk through it. Yeah, I remember shortly after Misery doing a little thing for Shelley Duvall for her children's program. And I asked her something about the character. She said, well, you just won an Academy Award.

I said, yeah, but not for this part. You know, to me, you got to start from scratch. And yeah, you can, you know how to play your instrument, you know, your guitar, your finger is pretty good, but you still got to learn the song and you've got to figure out how you're going to deliver it and bring it into being and all of those things. And you start all over and it's a mystery. Otherwise, if you don't look at it that way, you just skating on the surface you're just sitting in the plane with the blocks on the wheels is every relationship with a director different yes it's like veterinary

medicine actually i think directing is more like being a veterinarian but for example on misery rob helped me with every bit every bit of it re Yeah. Well, he's an actor and he's a wonderful, he's got a great ear and, you know, he's just, he's a great communicator. But then sometimes you're out there on your own and, you know, I kind of, in general, look at it like you're in a space pod. You're out there in space and you need Houston. I mean, you got, I need help, you know. But other times, sometimes you got it and you say, the director says, can I help you? And I say, no got, you got, I need help, you know, and, and, but other times, sometimes

you got it and you say, directors, can I help you? And I said, no, I think I got this, you know? So I guess it depends on the depth of the work that you're doing and, you know, the genre and then the, uh, what's expected of you, but. But like doing something like a Titanic, like, which is like, I imagine all mostly in a studio, right? Titanic like which is like I imagine all mostly in a studio right no it was um actually they built a seven-eighths replica of the ship along the coast in Baja uh-huh so you're out there in the water no no no we were up um on the uh the the promenade uh-huh that was a trip the first time going up in the elevator and then opening the door and it's 1912 yeah everybody in their costumes walking up and down i couldn't see the cameras at that point and i because i was just visiting the set

and i was like holy crap you know this is real i mean everything that he did was amazing yeah and how'd you get that part uh i don't know i think they offered it oh yeah yeah great i can't remember yeah it's pretty amazing pretty amazing what he accomplished with that movie yeah and you I don't know. I think they offered it to me. Yeah. That's great. I can't remember. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing what he accomplished with that movie. Yeah. And that was a great part for you. It was a good part.

Although I was upset in that the real Molly did go back for swimmers, for people who were in the water. I mean, swimmers, victims. And they pulled a guy in and she gave him her fur coat. So it bothered me that the license was taken, that she couldn't get the guy to go back. Because actually she was quite a hero. So he has revisionism in a negative way. Yeah, and that so often happens. And I don't like that.

Where they just take a character and they fictionalize it? Yeah. But it takes the character and instead of respecting what they did they it's in service of the greater good which is the film which is which they're making a film they don't really care about you know who's gonna look up molly brown and say oh wait she gave somebody her fur coat yeah nobody's gonna do that yeah well but yeah but it's sort of horrible like it's the family you know like because that's the biggest movie in the world because so much now you know reality has become movies yeah and it's how a lot of young people especially get their history yeah they think oh this really happened and you go uh no this is a

movie yeah i know you direct but do you want to do that more it doesn't look like you've done as much i'd like to you know i i wanted to get back actually i wanted to do a an episode on american horror story this summer but it conflicted with disjointed so and and ryan has really made a pledge to um hire more women directors and more women on the crew uh he really feels that there's a discrepancy and which shows this american horror story yeah and his others know, American Crime and stuff like that. So he's going to do more. What have you directed? You've done most with TV.

I did a couple of movies. I did one called Dash and Lily, which was about Dashiell Hammett and Lily Nelman and Samuel Shepard, Sam Shepard, who just passed away, and Judy Davis. She's a trip. Oh, she's amazing. Have you interviewed her? No. I haven't seen her in a while.

So I did that. But mainly my most fun directing was in Six Feet Under. I directed about five episodes of that. And so I learned a lot working on that. That was such a great-looking show. Wasn't it? Yeah. A lot of theater actors.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Who produced that? Who was the director? looking show. Wasn't it? Yeah. A lot of theater actors. Oh, yeah, yeah. Who produced that? Who was the... Alan Ball. Oh, that's right. And also Alan Poole was our... Alan Ball. And Alan Poole was our producer on set.

He's fabulous to work with. We're still friends. Oh, that's great. And theater, do you want to do it anymore? Well, I kind of feel like I'm getting my fix with doing Disjointed.

I know. I was surprised to see that it was like a live audience in fact you know if there's any i know you have a big following i would just like to put it out there that this is not a laugh track it's a live audience yeah i it was surprising to go on netflix and like at first i thought it was an effect like what's the angle here with the live audience and i'm like holy shit they're shooting yeah and for me, that's great. You know, I love, you know, I mentioned working up in Santa Maria way back when. And I have to say, the first night I was sitting in my little chair off stage while they were shooting something else. And it just reminded me of the days when I was there lying in the vomitory watching shows, you know, and learning.

And I just just everything just relaxed i don't know why it just feels really like home for me and so in in both ways of working with young actors and seeing because that you know the craft itself evolves yeah so when you see the young actors who are really much more minimalistic these days really yeah yeah and how's that how's that play out like what do you mean um they managed to it used to bother me because they don't really speak up yeah but everything is much much more naturalistic even more so than brando or i mean it just gets more and more. Really? Yeah. They're just more, it's rare to see them really bust out unless they're given the opportunity. Like Johnny Depp can just crazy bust out and do all these great characters, you know, and

I'm sure I can think of other guys too, but. He can go soft too. He can go really soft. Yeah, exactly. He's a pretty good actor. Oh, he's fantastic. It's kind of wild right yeah it's great but you're working with young people i love working with them it's a great

cast and also nicole sullivan who i loved on man tv and she was trained to do shakespeare and she's this brilliant comedian tone bell who's wonderful stand-up chris red who is also wonderful he and betsy sedaro. These guys, especially Chris and Tony, travel all over the country and do their act. I don't know them. Oh, you will. Yeah. The show is like it's a shtick

show. I mean, it's jokes. You're doing jokes. It's joke to joke and the characters are very well defined and it's about we, but there's also these weird sketch elements like commercial parodies and animated like head trips and stuff yeah it's kind of it's it was it was surprising show it's whacked yeah it's different it's out there yeah and i think also you know in the first 10 it's it's um it it takes a while to find our footing you know in a new show and bring the cast together and stuff.

And by the last 10, I think we're really firing on all cylinders, you know. And the next 10 that are coming up, which we've already shot, that are coming up in April, are just off the fucking charts. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Some of the casts that are coming in to be a part of the show are just, I mean, it's so exciting. I can't wait for people to see it.

We're waiting to hear if we get picked up for another season. So all fingers crossed. Well, they're going to run all the ones that you have and can. Oh, sure. They will. They will. So how many seasons have you done? Two then?

Just one. Oh, just one? But you shot a second one or you didn't? Well, they were calling it one season. So we're doing 10 now and we have, I mean, they're airing 10 now and they'll air 10, um, in April. So 20 is one season. Oh,

it's like regular TV. It's a lot of shows. Yeah. And you like doing it. It's so fun. It is? Oh, it's so fun.

And it's, I mean, it's just, I've never worked on a set like this where it's all just, it's just cooking and everybody's on level playing field there's no like backbiting or you know pressure or it's just fun you know we had some great directors jimmy burrows did the pilot and and richie keen has been working with us he's great and you know it's just been jamie widows we've had some wonderful directors and uh so i i

want more so outside of the outside of the tv show what what are you doing movies too i'm getting ready to do a movie um called on the basis of sex and it's actually based on uh ruth bader ginsburg's earliest days and uh how she you know went to school her husband and her life up until when she begins trying her first case before the Supreme Court. Oh, wow. That's a great story. I don't know anything about it.

I'm playing a person named Dorothy Kenyon, who was very big in the ACLU and a wonderful lawyer. And I was studying last night that it's really the fight for women about becoming recognized as equal to men. And the thing they used was the jury system. Were women obligated to serve on the jury or was it a privilege not to serve on the jury? Interesting. You know, because women really, and this goes back to my parents. Yeah.

If my mother had wanted to leave my father, she wouldn't have been able to get her own bank account. She wouldn't have been able to do, you know, this, that, and the other. I mean, they were really considered the heart of the home and they needed a man's protection. And that patriarchal structure is something that we are really still fighting in terms of equal pay

right but um felicity jones is going to play ruth bader ginsburg and army hammers playing her husband mimi leaders directing it we're going to shoot it up in montreal i'm really excited about it um my mother being born in 1907 and going through all of that yeah doing the research has really helped me get a different perspective on her point of view, being a woman going through those years. Right. And seeing what was going on in another part of the world during that time. Yeah. Huh. That's amazing. That sounds like a great story. It's a wonderful story. And how is your health? My health couldn't be better. story. And how is your health? My health couldn't be better. That's great. I'm just so lucky. I recently went for a checkup and my doctor said, I haven't seen you this healthy in years. You look

great. Thanks. I've dropped a lot of weight and I've got a lot of energy. So what were the battles? What did you kick? Well, it was gradual. It was over a period of a few years. I got really, really heavy when I was doing Harry's Law. I was miserable. And then after I got breast cancer a few years ago, I guess I just started slowing down in terms of what I was eating eating and i stopped eating the junk and i cut out the coca-colas and stuff but then the thing that really helped me is i realized that and this my niece told me this and it's actually on the internet that there's a biological thing that happens when you're eating uh-huh you sigh at a certain point after you've had a bit of food,

there's this involuntary deep sigh. It happens to all of us. And it's our brain telling our stomach, okay, we've had enough. And that's what I do. And even if it's two bites, I say, okay, I push it away. So it's not time to plow ahead.

No, it's not time to plow ahead, so to speak. And so, and then I, you know, early on when I was doing that, I left the plate there thinking, okay, if I get hungry, I'll eat some more. But then I waited maybe five, 10 minutes and I didn't want anything. That's good. So that's what I've been doing. And now I realize it's called mindfulness and all this other stuff. But, and so that's what I do. And the other part of it is consistency. Yeah. You know, and that's what's been different for me is like this last year doing the show because, you know, craft services is always there.

I'm the only person who didn't gain 10 pounds. Yeah. Oh, you do. Oh, so you held the line. Oh, yeah. I was the first time in my career. And I don't know why it's been so late for me to get to this, but it's great. Better late than never.

And cancer-free for a long time? Yeah. Oh, that's great. Yeah. Congratulations. Knock wood. That's great. Well, I'm so happy we talked.

Is this it? No, we don't. I'd like to talk more. Do you want to talk more? You know, I want to say something. Oh, what did I do? And I prepared for you. No, no, I prepared for you. Did I screw up somehow?

I thought you might get into what's happening, you know, in terms of politics and stuff. I'm ready. So I've really stayed out of it. Yeah. Right? Mm-hmm. But after the last few days with the decision with DACA coming down, I would like to, I know you have a lot of listeners, and I would like to send a message to them.

Okay. To send to their representatives. Sure. To Congress. I'm happy to do that. And to the president. Yeah. And this is from The Merchant of Venice.

Okay. Act 4, scene 1, The Quality of Mercy. And I'm not going to try to do it like a British actor here. And I'm going to even tell you what it means, because I bet a lot of people don't understand Shakespeare. I try to. I've had Ian McKellen sat right there and did Shakespeare for me. And I got it.

All right. Of course you do, because he gets it. So, I mean, I get it, and I can't do his accent. I love him. He's brilliant. Talk about developing your craft. Well, I'm just talking, like, I don, I get it, and I can't do his accent. I love him. He's brilliant. Talk about developing your craft. Well, I'm just talking, like, I don't always register. Shakespeare's difficult for me.

All right, well, I can give credit, too. I looked up also No Sweat Shakespeare, which is online, and it tells the translation in modern day. Okay, so I'm just going to read part of it. This is what I'd like to say to Congress and the President. Okay. The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed.

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, the attribute to awe and majesty, wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings. But mercy is above this sceptered sway. It is enthroned in the hearts of kings. It is an attribute to God himself. And earthly power doth then show likest gods when mercy seasons justice. Okay, what that means in everyday English, again from No Sweat Shakespeare, the quality of mercy is not strained.

It drops onto the world as the gentle rain does from heaven. When you say it's not strained, it's not forced. It's free. It's doubly blessed because it blesses both the giver and the receiver. It's most powerful when granted by those who hold power over others. It's more important to a monarch than his crown. His scepter shows the level of his temporal power, the symbol of awe and majesty in which lies the source of the dread and fear that kings command. But mercy is above that sceptered power. It's enthroned in the hearts of kings.

It is an attribute of God himself. And earthly power most closely resembles God's power when justice is guided by mercy. I'm just like sick every day of what's happening. And it's just heartbreaking and scary and awful. And I hope that something like that could get through to people. I've been trying to find a way to not buckle under that fear that many of us are feeling now every day. I read the New York Times. I read all kinds of things.

And it's almost like I don't want to read it, but I need to know what's happening. And I resisted talking about political views. And then I don't know when this came to me, but I thought that's what we need is mercy. Look at the Mexicans, the Mexican army coming across the border to help people in Texas after the horrible rhetoric that's been slung at them in their country. Look at what they've done. Look what they did to help, look what immigrants did to help rebuild New Orleans. We need to be merciful to one another and be compassionate

because we're all in the same boat. We certainly are. And it's just like the polarization and the intensity of the rhetoric is so brutal that like when you just go out and you see what other people do and see who they are and what they're made of, really, you know, that's where you see it you can't be distanced from it well i wonder i i i once went back to smu i was given an honorary doctorate and it was an honor to meet gloria stein i've talked to her she's nice she's amazing and um i remember i gave my speech and i i could only talk about it from

my point of view and it was at the time that Bush was going into the Middle East and it was really scary and um but my mother used to always say you know you um you can't judge someone until you've walked in their shoes for a moon you know and so I talked about that and and afterwards I asked Gloria, I said, did I do okay? And she said, it was very subversive. And I said, why? And she said, because if you can empathize with someone, it makes that much harder to kill them. Yeah. Thank you so much for talking. You're welcome.

All right. That went pretty well. It was an honor to meet Kathy Bates, to be honest with you. I want to play guitar, but I've got to find a pick. Thank you. Boomer lives! It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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