WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 904 - Jason Alexander

Episode Date: April 4, 2018

Jason Alexander was one of countless New Jersey kids who couldn't resist the lights of Broadway on the other side of the river. When he became a steady working actor on the New York stage, Jason was totally content with how things turned out. But then he just so happened to get cast on a show that became the most successful sitcom of all time. Jason talks with Marc about Seinfeld, life after Seinfeld, magic, acting, directing, and the McDLT. Actually, there's a surprising amount of talk about the McDLT. 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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We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global bestselling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life when i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening it's mark maron me this is wtf my my podcast welcome to it broadcasting from the new space, the new garage.

I did have a spin out. I will tell you about it. I feel okay right now, but I definitely went into a vortex the other day. A lot of things going on. Having a hard time talking today. I just did two hours doing a book on tape reading for Amber Tamblyn's new book. She asked me to do a part basically and it took a lot out of me. It took a lot of my out of my mouth, out of my tongue, out of my heart, out of my mind. It's a beautifully written thing and I don't know when it's coming out. I put a lot into it and it wore my mouth out. But anyway, Jason Alexander,lexander is on the show today we're going to talk about i don't know i don't know that we're i think he just wanted to

come by i think that was really the idea i think he's going to be doing a live concert with the new jersey symphony orchestra on april 14th and 15th at the new jersey performance art center in newark and State Theater in New Brunswick. But aside from that, I think he just wanted to come by and hang out in the old garage. I'm still moving through many interviews that were done in the old space. But you want to hear about my spin out? I don't know if you know this about me.

I don't know how much you know about me. But if I decide there's something horribly wrong i'll generally do everything in a flurry of obsessive compulsion to correct it even if i'm making it up in my mind i i have that's the way i get things done sometimes and that's the way i overdo things sometimes i was incredibly nervous as you know from the last uh from the first broadcast from the new space here, about how it would sound, how it would feel, what's happening, what am I going to do? I've got to get books set up.

I've got to get the space buffered. What if it doesn't work out? What if the buffering doesn't work? What if it doesn't sound good? A lot of things were going through my mind because I did have my first guest interview in here the other day. You're not going to hear it today, but you'll hear it in the future. And it went great. It went better than anticipated.

So here's what happens leading up to the first interview I had here in the new space. A few days ago, before I had set up and I was in between the old garage and the new garage and not knowing whether or not this would be up and running, I scheduled to do an interview at another space at a studio. It's not going to be on for a long time. So I don't know that I need to tell you who it is because you'll get excited. You'll be beside yourself. You'll be chomping at your bit, champing at the bit or whatever it is. You'll get anxiety over.

You'll be impatiently waiting. Johnese it was john cleese so and that was a classic setup for a dumb dump of a punchline not that john cleese is a dumb dump of a punchline just the i can't do it i won't do it i'm doing it classic classic joke garbage 101 but while i'm there i noticed a kid who's working the board you know he's a kid who works the board he's uh he's there he's obviously paid by the company that owns the studio he's a trusted guy and you know we were talking sound we were talking uh you know the um the soundless spaces the dead spaces the studio what you do to have it completely uh insulated for sound so you know you can clap and it just

you can't even it just gets sucked away you hear no bounce but we were talking about sound i told him what was up and um he gave me his number out of nowhere he said uh yeah i'm uh you know i'm a i'm a consultant and i can come over and i'm like all right i might need this and then i got home and then i immediately started obsessing i recorded what you heard was the first intro. And I just started freaking out about, wow, is it good? Is it bad? Is the sound right? So then I call this kid in a panic and I, you know, I'm like, uh, when can you come over? He's like, I can come over in a couple hours. He comes over in a couple hours and he brings these things that he made for himself. He's basically tells me he just got out of college.

He's building this audio consulting and studio guy business. And he comes in to give me a consultation. And he says, well, I got my panels out in the car. And he brings in these four foam panels. They're just straight up foam. There's no covering on them. panels like they're just straight up foam there's no covering on them and they're they're sort of sitting on bases with the dowels that are running halfway up the foam and then they're taped on with black electrical tape so they're just freestanding but they definitely

don't look like you bought them at a store they definitely look hand rigged so he brings those in and we talk about the ceiling we talk about the side of the over here we talk about the back here and you know what he can do and this and that he gives me some recommendations i go all right and then i just freak out and i'm like well i don't know man it sounds pretty good right now can can i can you just leave your panels your homemade um doweled supported with splints giant pieces of foam here i'll pay you i'll pay you for the consultation and i'll pay you to rent these from you until uh until i i get a permanent solution so that's what's going on in here so i've got these panels in here and uh

i kind of moved them around and hold on i think i'm going to move one now hold on i'm going to move this one over here a little because that's what i'm feeling mystically see see now in my mind that's a lot better because i made a i moved them over there i moved one about a half a foot in that's the world i'm living in i am obsessively moving uh these panels around not knowing if they're doing anything and it sounds fine to me in my head it actually sounds pretty good but so i got my first guest coming over and i don't need to tell you who it is because it's not going to be on for a while and there's no point in me you know getting you anxious and excited and uh you know uh full of anticipation there's no reason for me to even tip to you who the first guest I interviewed in the garage was.

It was Josh Brolin. And he strikes me as sort of an intimidating person to begin with, but I've been wanting to talk to him for a while. I think he's a tremendous actor. So I'm waiting for Josh Brolin. It's an hour or two before he comes over. I'm sitting out here in the garage.

I'm putting books out. I'm trying to clean things up so it at least looks a little, not settled per se, but at least it looks like there are things in the right place, books up. I just wanted to be able to explain everything as something temporary and not feel like an asshole. So about an hour and a half before Brolin comes over, I'm sitting in this chair and out the window over here, which is not great

for sound either. Out the window, as if it were just outside the window, I hear somebody using a tool that I've never heard before. And this is day one, first guest in here. I'm scheduled to talk to Josh at 1230. At 11 o'clock. I hear a tool that sounds like several hammerheads attached to a jackhammer being used on the outside of a wall for a, uh, of a box that has nothing inside of it. It just this ricocheting sound of a rapid fire hammering tool. And of course my response was like are you fucking kidding me is this like is this what is is this god's ironic sense of humor that he's going to put me through this shit so i i leave my my space here and i walk out into the street of my new neighborhood and directly across the street caddy corner there's some guys sawing on a front porch

for something they're gutting over there and i'm trying to figure out where the fuck the machine gun style jackhammer hammering instrument is coming from and that's way across your street a couple of three houses down i see these guys and i'm wandering around i think i have my headphones still on outside i I unplugged them. And I'm just wandering around with my hands out spread in the middle of the street looking for the sound. These two guys were working on a porch down the street there. See me. And I'm just standing there with a baffled and aggravated look on my face with my hands

out spread. And one of them comes up to me and goes, yeah, it's okay. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And that's not a Mexican accent. That's a vague, might be Armenian, not sure, might be Italian. I don't know. That wasn't from here. There's no reason for me to do it. I just want you to know that whatever I'm attempting to do is a broad-based foreigner accent that could apply to many different types of ethnicities. And I said, how long is it going to go on for the noise he goes maybe 10 minutes and i'm like 10 minutes that's it he goes oh then we go around back

and again for an hour and i'm like what an hour and he goes maybe we use smaller uh you know uh how you say uh i'm like okay so an hour max and he's like yeah and i'm like all right because i figured josh is not going to be here until 1230. Then I come back in here sweating. I'm sweating and panicking. Because I don't know if the foam's going to do it. I don't know what's going to fucking do it. I don't know if I'm going to have to move the show to another goddamn place.

And I hear the hammering. And then I just move this one foam panel that's about five inches thick that's being held up by stilts on a small platform of wood and taped I moved this just slightly angle it in front of the window and it's a miracle can barely hear the the the the weird machine and I'm like wow maybe this is gonna work out and then I go out and wait for Josh and he walks in. And I was concerned that like with these weird stilted pieces of foam that it would look too professional. That was my fucking concern that someone would walk in here and go like, no, this isn't this is a professional operation. Yeah, you can tell by the wood that was bought at the Michael's Crafts that wherever the fuck. Anyway, that's not how it went.

My point is that I was sweating and spun out for nothing because I tried to solve problems that may or may not be there, but I tried to solve them preemptively to them even happening and made myself completely crazy as if I had bought the wrong house. And here I am talking to you. Just, uh, just want you to remember who I am

and how some things apparently will never fucking change. So I guess the moral of this story is outside of me being consistent in this strange behavior of spiraling and anxiety and things I made up in my head is that I told the kid, Julian, the kid who's lent me, who leased me his foam panels propped up by dowels, who's starting a business. He's a young kid. who's starting a business he's a young kid he's starting a business he's starting an audio consulting business and he offered to make me professional panels and i thought not unlike when i started the old garage and laughing andy from an old radio show that i used to do brought over his phone to help me get started. This guy is starting a business. He's a young guy, and he made me a price. He offered me a price on making nice panels that I can move around on the sides and maybe put some up on the wall on the ceiling. And he said he'd give me a consultation and install them and everything.

And I thought, well, that's the way to do it. I could have ordered from a catalog, but this kid is making a go at it, so I'm going to give him a go. So he's going to make that for me, and I'll get those in a month or so. But I'm going away for a few weeks, so I gave him that time to do that. He said he could get it all done by next week. I said, take it easy, pal. If you just leave the ones here that are propped up,

the ones with the tape, up until you get the good ones in, I'm good. So that's our agreement. So I'll let you know how that comes out and how that goes. Jason Alexander is a great guy. I'm glad we talked. He's exactly who you think he is. And that's comforting. As I said earlier, he's going to be doing a live concert with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra on April 14th and 15th. That's at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center in Newark and State Theater in New Brunswick. So this is me and Jason actually talking in the old garage. Get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream?

Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing.

With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Ouch. You know, that's the weird thing.

You drove up in your whatever that was. That's a Prius Prime. Prius Prime? Part of the solution. You're probably. It's relatively new. I've only had it about a month. But that's a budget conscious solution doer.

I, yeah. Could have bought electric. You didn't want electric? No, you know why? I, like most Jews. Yeah. Know that at some point I'm going to have to flee. Right.

And the electric doesn't give you enough distance. 60 miles is not enough? One tank of gas and a full charge, that puppy should go 650 miles, which will get me at least to Nevada. Oh, yeah, much better there. You'll meet the other Jews that are fleeing. And eventually you get to the middle of it. Because no one's going to target Vegas.

That's right. Well, sure. You'll get to the middle of the country. It's going going to target Vegas. That's right. Well, sure. You'll get to the middle of the country. It's going to be nothing but fleeing Jews from both coasts going like, what do we do now? And you're right where they want them. How did all these Jews get to Wisconsin? Yeah.

And now they're just going to build a fence around the Jews that ran from both coasts. That's right. Oh, no. You're going to need a plane, buddy. You betcha. You're going to need one. Do you know when the timing? are you up on the timing? Do you know when we go?

No, I don't. That's the problem. I'm not in the loop. Yeah, who's in the loop? Well, I am such a peripheral Jew that I'm not even going to get the memo. I'm not on the email chain. I know you're a fairly public Jew. I imagine that people, you know, when they think Jew, you're probably an example that anti-Semites use.

Like for, you know, you don't know what a Jew is? That's right. Look at this bald bastard. He screams Jew. Oh, my God. I hope it doesn't come to that. I was panicking. I was panicking at the beginning.

I'm like, I got to get a new passport. Bannon's probably got my name on the list. I was going nuts at the very beginning. And then my girlfriend said, I don't think they're after you. And that's a cold comfort. Youannon's probably got my name on the list. I was going nuts at the very beginning. And then my girlfriend said, like, I don't think they're after you. And that's a cold comfort. You're like, yeah, you're right. You know, not yet.

I haven't made the list. No, no, it's sort of like, it's probably, you know, there's a couple other ethnicities before Jews at this particular juncture in history. Yeah, he's looking for a Jew. He wants his Roy Cohn. I'm going into law school.

Oh, yeah, you're going to flip sides. Like, hey, like hey fuck you know what i mean i can keep living here really but aside from that uh jews from new jersey i'm genetically jersey yeah uh you are you know full-on jersey like i i only spent the first six years my life in jersey oh really my but i always went back because the family was always there you're never gonna get away no but i i've gotten it's true. But I think it's in me deeper than I thought. Both of the parents are from Jersey. Sure.

But I feel like I'm from, I feel I'm Jersey. Do I feel Jersey to you? Yeah. I would have said, oh, this guy feels comfortable. Yeah. He feels like he's been through Elizabeth and smelled that fabulous aroma. The Secaucus aroma. Secaucus has it.

So what town did you grow up in? I started. You started? Is that you talk about when you're born? I started out. I began. I played. I lived two years in Irvington, New Jersey.

Then we moved upscale to Maplewood, New Jersey. And then we moved further upscale to Livingston, New Jersey. Now, Livingston, I know, because that seemed like there was, I remember the signs. Because my grandmother, like, you go to Livingston. I feel like, you know, the signs for Livingston. Well, we had a mall. It wasn't Short Hills-esque, but we had a mall.

And the reason we were there is my mother was a big muckety-muck. She sort of founded and ran the school of nursing at St. Barnabas Medical Center. Uh-huh. So that's hence living. That's why you were there? Yeah. How many siblings?

A half of each. One of them is deceased. Sorry. That's all right. Thank you. A half of each? Yeah. My father was a widower, so I'm my mother's only child.

Oh. That's a lot of pressure. Yeah. Yeah, it is, actually. Carrying them, you know, being the Messiah is not an easy thing. It's not. She relied on you a lot? Yeah.

There's a lot weighing on you? There was a... You know, actually, it was great, because my mother was a career woman at a time when most women were not. Right. My mother was the major breadwinner in our house. My father always worked,

but my mother was the major breadwinner. At the nursing school? Yeah. Teaching? She ran it. She created the curriculum. worked but yeah my mother was the major breadwinner at the nursing school yeah teaching she ran it she created the curriculum she ran that she was the executive director she was on uh there was i don't know if it's still around but there was a national organization of nurses that she was on that board as well she was a big honcho in that oh yeah yeah and so she was a nurse her whole life whole life life. Wow. And what did your dad do? He did a variety of things. One of those guys. You know, with my dad, I'm never sure how much of the history is dead on accurate and

how much of it is urban legend. Is he around? My dad died in 2001. He was 91 years old when he died. Wow. My mom is about to turn 98 this month. Oh, my God. Yeah.

My dad... It's great. Congratulations on the genes. Thank you very much. My dad. It's great. Congratulations on the jeans. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. My dad, as a young man, supposedly did some work for the Jewish mob on the Lower East

Side of New York. Oh, yeah? Then became a Pinkerton detective. I don't know how you make that transition. He was a mole. He was a rat. I guess. He was on the inside.

He worked for Bell Laboratories during World War II as a project manager, although he never had a college education, so I'm not quite sure. Bell Laboratories for the military? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And then during my lifetime, he was a transit bus driver from Bayonne, New Jersey into New York, back and forth that route.

He was an account manager for a brush manufacturing company. I mean, he did all kinds. He sold life insurance for New York Life for a while. He was an account manager for a brush manufacturing company. I mean, he did all kinds. Sold life insurance for New York Life for a while. He was all over the map. It's quite a mythic resume. Yeah. He was an interesting guy. Well, you know, you got to assume that it's sort of like, it sounds pretty real because

no one's going to throw in the bus driver from Bayonne in New York. No, that I know for a fact. So that part of it, that validates a lot, you know. Absolutely. The working for the mob one, maybe? Well, the only reason

I tend to buy that is if you look at my Bar Mitzvah photo album, you know, the table shots, you see table Jews, table Jews, table Jews,

table Jews, and you get to one table and you go, holy shit, what am I looking at? And it's a couple of guys I know for a fact, you know,

were killed in jail because they were, yeah, he, my father says he wasn't a... He certainly wasn't a violence guy, but I guess he had some relations. Hence the Pinkerton detective. He drove the truck. He had some relationships with the police precinct down in the Lower East Side of New York.

And he used to go in when the guys got arrested. He used to go in and kind of get them out. Oh, really? So he was friends with those guys. And he would say, you know, I was affiliated. And I think he and kind of get him out and oh really so he was friends with those guys and he would say i you know i was affiliated and i i don't i think he just kind of knew him and so he'd go schmooze the cops to let the guys out and when i graduated high school my dad god bless him he gave me a piece of paper not high school college he gave me a piece of paper and he said look i you know i can't give you very much but there's a phone number here yeah if you ever need

anything anything you call this number. You tell him you're my kid. Yeah. And be taken care of. And I went, are you out of your goddamn mind? You handed me a loaded gun. What are you doing? What are you doing?

Look, you're going to have to pay for it for the rest of your life. Right. And the big's pretty heavy. But he was deadly serious. He said, you know, you need anything. This is the phone number. Did you call? No, I threw it away.

You threw it away? You bet. Right then? Right then and there. After you walked away? No, actually, I said, Dad, I can't. Please, don't do this to me. What would you think it was?

It was a number for a guy that would do whatever you need. But, you know, you'd go, I'm Al's kid, and he would go, what do you need? I need this guy killed. I need, whatever. I think your father was assuming that wouldn't be the request. Make no assumptions with my dad. Was he a hard guy or not? No, he was, by the time I came around, he was 50 years old when I was born.

So by the time I came around, he was a pug from the Lower East Side of New York. And as a young man, he was always an ethical guy. He was a good man, but he was a pug. He was a good man. But he was a pug. He had a bad temper. But by the time I came around, he had mellowed. Yeah. And I said to my half-brother at my dad's funeral, I said, you know, the reason you and I are so different is not that we had different mothers.

We had different fathers. Oh, that's interesting. different mothers we had different fathers oh that interesting and um you know my my dad was just a very sweet man and and so clearly adored me from the minute i was born that i had i had all that yeah you got you got the good stuff because you know you you're what how most people treat the first grandkid right exactly right right like you know these other two yeah i did what i could but this one gonna get all the good stuff he was by time I came around, he was a pussycat. Uh-huh. It happens in your 50s. How old are you? 58.

Really? Yeah. When did that happen? Yeah. And you know, so I'm a September baby like you, and so to me, I just started saying 58, and I feel like it's half gone. Yeah. By the time I get used to the number, it changes again.

It's going very fast. September 1. Did you research on me? No, but I know you're a September guy. I think you're a little after i'm the 23rd i'm the 27th there you go so you're libra too i'm right on the cusp yeah i am a libra if you go by the descriptions i'm a libra than virgo yeah but but when people ask you do you say libra no i say i'm right on the cusp i'm more i just said it mark i'm sorry but what does What does that mean? You can't be two? Yeah.

Some charts have me as a Virgo and some have me as a Libra. Oh, really? It depends who's doing the chart. Do you put any credence in that? Not as far as predicting anything. It is interesting, and I don't know if you could do this with any other of these pseudo-sciences, but the generalized descriptions of people that fall into the signs, I find there is a general accuracy to that. And I'm not sure why that is.

What makes us Libras? I'm never quite clear. A sense of looking for balance, a preoccupation with justice and injustice. See, it's now starting to sound like borderline personality disorders. The same? For me, it's the fact that the symbol is a scale.

So my fat ass is constantly reminded that I should drop a few. That's how you take it? That's how I take it. It's God's little thumb. Your other siblings, which one passed? Your brother? My sister.

My sister passed away about three years ago. Sorry. And what did they do? What were they like? My brother was career military. My brother is away about three years ago. Sorry. And what did they do? What were they like? My brother was career military. Oh, really? My brother is 20 years older than me. 20 years older than you?

Yeah. So he was career Air Force for almost 30 years. He left the service as a lieutenant colonel. Was your dad's first wife full Jew too? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay.

And then my brother worked as a field investigator for the IRS for several years. And then he did something else. I'm not sure what. And then he's been retired for a while. Wow. And my sister had been ill for most of her life. She had a disease that she and I went to work for called scleroderma. It's in the autoimmune lupus family right um and but she uh she had done a lot of things she uh had worked as an accountant

she had taught latin uh at high school level when that was a thing yeah um you know she for a woman that should have been on disability all her life she she had a pretty plugged along that's great all right so when does uh so you're in Jersey, you're the young kid amongst the, I mean, your brother's out of the house already. Oh yeah, I never grew up with my brother. My sister was there for five years and then she was gone. So you're like almost the only child.

I was more or less raised as an only child. And what compels you to entertain? Were you a child entertainer? Not knowingly. I was, and people unless they really know me they go come on i was a very shy very somber very frightened cowed little kid really and uh i believe that i didn't have a lot of friends and i was kind of a loner i mean i had my friend bruce davison who lived down the block block. But so I'd come home and like all little kids that feel lost and lonely and

scared, I discovered magic. And I started trying to do magic. I had the magic kit and I got the books and I, you know, and I was pretty serious about it. And I thought that it was going to be what I did, never thinking it was performing. Yeah. I just thought, oh, it's, it's fun to feel powerful. Right. And know, know that there's a trick behind everything. Correct.

And around, when I was 12 or 13, we moved from Maplewood to Livingston. Yeah. And I didn't know a damn soul in Livingston. And the first kids I met were the theater kids. At school? And they pulled me,

Livingston High. Yeah. Actually, Heritage Middle School and then Livingston High. Did you use the magic to sort of open conversations with girls and stuff? Girls. Girls. Oh, sorry.

Sorry. Please. You know. But it was a girl. I was, my parents, we moved there in the summer before I was going to start seventh grade. Yeah. And my parents, because they both work, said, we signed you up for the community pool, which is beautiful. Because I weigh about 500 pounds.

And I'm pasty and white. You were always a little heavy? I was at least 30 pounds overweight. But you're not. You look good. I'm okay. I'm all right. I can get sick and survive.

So that's what my mother always says. And I'm in the pool. And I don't know a damn soul. And this gorgeous young girl comes up and goes, hi, you're new. Do you sing? And I went, the pool and I don't know a damn soul. And this gorgeous young girl comes up and goes, hi, you're new. Do you sing? And I went, yeah, kind of. And she pulled me into this production of Sound of Music that the local teen theater was doing.

You're 14 or something? I was 12 or 13. Yeah, yeah. And I met all these kids and I suddenly had friends and community and I went, hey, this stage thing is pretty good. I could hide in plain sight. I didn't feel like I was me when I was performing. I was whoever the person was.

So that was kind of cool. And I just liked hanging with these kids. So I started going to the theater in New York a lot and doing all the plays at school. So at school, because they were misfits, or not misfits, but theater kids are different. They weren't the coolest kids. No, of course not.

But they would turn out you know they they were sort of uh they i think a lot of the theater kids in my memory is is that like they had this capacity to just sort of like live through the parts and sing out loud like they weren't oh sure it was a lot like glee right they weren't effective right no they had no guile really right you know some of them um some of them were manufacturing some attitudes and persona sure in order to cope but they they were all what was nice about the theater kids is they were generally nice guys they were nice people yeah um you know they weren't out to hurt feeling there were no bullies in the theater community manufacturing attitudes

and personas to cope yeah i think i'm still doing that. I think we all are. I think people are seeing through mine at this point. But I believe you were a shy kid. Why wouldn't you be? I mean, you know. Well, you know, it was funny. And I always thought it was very obvious. But I remember when I was in college, I went to Boston University as a theater major.

And I started dating this girl and uh who i hadn't really known and we had been together about six weeks seven weeks and she goes you know everybody at this school thinks you are the cockiest son of a bitch in the world i mean you gotta be kidding me i had no idea it was a shock to me she like laid that on you six weeks in yeah and i said i'm i'm scared to death i don't think I measure up. And she goes, oh, I know that now. But your cover for your insecurity is kind of this, I got this attitude. I had no idea that was what I was projecting. Well, that's like a sense of humor.

You know what I mean? Yeah, but that's why I say when most people, so apparently the thing I. Was she breaking up with you when she told you this? No, no, she was a lovely woman. the thing i was she breaking up with you no no she's a lovely woman um the thing i seem to project when i am my most uncomfortable yeah uh or or just is this kind of oh man he's comfortable in his skin and he knows what he can do and nothing could be further from the truth but so when i tell people that i was a very shy kid and that in fact if you you know if we were close personal friends people come to my house yeah we will play games and stuff but i'm

like let's have a conversation yeah you know there's i think i've lost some of my funnier friends because they go he's not a lot of fun to hang not anymore well that's well that's the weird thing because like uh yeah because we're serious i'm kind of serious yeah yeah and there's that you know like the one thing i have to i've learned over time that i protect the people in my life from if i can is dragging them down into whatever sad shitty neurotic hole that i'm in yeah because my brain wants to do it instinctively sure absolutely so i like i gotta know when it's happening and know like i'm about to say something that's got absolutely no uh floor to it right and we're both gonna fall down if i continue absolutely you know that feeling yeah you bet like the we're

all gonna die it's not i don't go i don't go to dark places but i do go to serious places you know uh and uh oh yeah you don't you don't have dread i don't i don't live in dark places, but I do go to serious places. Oh, yeah? You don't have dread? I don't live in dread because my life has been so frigging blessed. It's not attractive to live in dread. That's right. People are like, come on, shut up. Yeah, it's just not.

That's true. I haven't earned dread at this point. I guess so. Yeah. I guess you're not entitled to it. No. Though, you know, it's... It's unseemly.

Yes, it's still scary, though. So when did you... Did you do magic for money? I used to do kids' parties and stuff, and then I totally dropped it because I realized as a teenager I wanted to be a close-up magician. I wanted to do cards and coins and that sort of thing.

Do you enjoy it now? I love magic. And I am a member of the magic castle and i actually won an award for uh i i was asked to perform there in the early 2000s because they were having big financial trouble and i did a week in the uh parlor room which is the mid-size yeah yeah and i i was actually very proud of that act and uh the magicians awarded me parlor magician of the year that year. So I was very pleased. But I kind of, I gave magic up because I realized when I was a teenager, I was never going to be good enough.

And I knew the difference between good enough and not. Yeah. And I loved magic and I loved magicians. And I went, you know, I've got this theater thing. That's an illusion that I can do. Right. So I kind of, I was always a hobbyist, but I never, all my aspirations about it went away. When you see that stuff, is your brain automatically going, okay, so now I see what he's saying. So I know, I know the principles for almost all the stuff that I see.

Yeah. What I love is with knowing the principles, I don't see the moment. And I go, that's great. Right. Because I love that. It's a surprise. Yes, I love it. I love it.

It makes me so happy to go i know what you did and i don't know how you did it you know some people it's great it is great it's hard to be cynical about it but i know people are they it's like i think they're oh my wife hates it my wife hates me really hates it yeah my wife's my my wife's whole attitude about magic she sums it up to this there's a secret you know it i don't you won't tell me go fuck yourself that's her she feels it's all a power but you just told. I don't. You won't tell me. Go fuck yourself. That's her. She feels it's all a power trick. But you just told me you don't know most of it.

I know. I don't see it. I understand it. Right. There's most of it I understand. And then there's some things where I go, I don't even know what principle they're using for this. Well, that's the real thing. And that makes me really happy.

Right. Because you're actually, you're confounded. Yeah. So, you know, you do a card trick on your wife, and she goes, yeah, it's my card, fuck off. As long as, if I do a trick for her, she immediately goes, all right, tell me. Oh, really? Yeah.

And do you? For her, I have to, because otherwise it's an argument. So that's the one condition that the oath can be broken. Yeah. But Dana doesn't like surprises. Like, you would never throw my wife a surprise party. No. She'd be so pissed.

Angry. Yeah. It'd be like, surprise, get the fuck out of my- She slammed the door on a friend of mine who came cross country to celebrate her birthday and didn't tell her. Just appeared at the door with a bag of New York bagels and she went, go fuck yourself and slammed the door. Really?

What is that? She got over it. No, sure. It makes her feel unsafe. She's a very organized, she's not a control freak, but she is an organization freak. And she likes to know what's going to happen and be able to plan for it. Sounds like a fine line.

And she feels like the people close to her should know that. And she forgot for a moment that it came from a good place. And, you know, she reopened the door and got over it. Right, right. But the initial reaction was, oh, I hate you for doing this. It wasn't on the schedule. No, it was not on the schedule. Yeah, right, right, right. What does she do? She's a painter. Oh, yeah, I hate you for doing this. It wasn't on the schedule. No, it was not on the schedule. Yeah, right, right, right.

What does she do? She's a painter. Oh, yeah, I'm dating a painter. Ah. That's interesting, isn't it? Abstract painter. Mine is not abstract. She's figurative and impressionistic and feminist and very, very good.

She's been doing it. She was not doing that when I met her. She was an actress. We've been together forever. We've been together 38 years. What's her painting name? It's her name it's dana and spelled d-a-e-n-a and her last name is title like the title of a book dana title yeah yeah painter like i i it's interesting they they definitely live in their own world they you know it's a it's a very uniquely solitary

thing but they you know they do it they go to a different place yeah and being what we are you know which is you know people primarily driven by charm right you just all you can do is sit there baffled when they produce something like how does where does that it's also a magic treatment because i have no artistic ability whatsoever and so she shows me the stuff she does and you know things look like things and i go i don't i don't know how you took three dimensions and made it two yeah it looks like it's three i just yeah so she's got you you can't figure out that trick no and also you know that one of the big um challenges for us is that art visual art doesn't often speak to me it it feeds her soul she can

look at a painting the way i look at music right and it changes who she is as a person and i don't get it almost never have that reaction to anything visually and uh and and so i'm i'm less of a man in her eyes well i mean you, have you learned that maybe you just keep that to yourself? It's too late. You blew that one a long time ago. 38 years, that cat is out of the bag. Can't pretend? No.

You're an actor. Can't you have the one moment? Just next time you go to a museum, go, it's happening. Yeah, I've learned to speak art a little better, and I've learned to speak to her art a little bit better. Oh, I see that you did the thing with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I can talk some of the terms, but I'm-

I just felt like there was a lot of fighting around this at some point. I felt it. No, not fighting. Disappointment. Oh, jeez. Which is worse than fighting. That's worse. That's like the Jewish curse.

Yeah. But I always say, you know, you didn't do this when we met. You changed the rules. You were an actress when I met you, or trying to be an actress when i met you were trying to be an actress when i met you and we had everything going together and now you decided this thing i never said i was that thing yeah right interesting but so you guys were together before anything happened yeah we met we met in 1980 we were married in 82 yeah so when do you okay so you go to high school and you do the theater kid thing and then you get into BU, the theater program.

What year? 77. So you graduated? I didn't graduate. I finished three years and I had been working professionally from the time I was 14. I sort of fell into a professional career. What do you mean? I was doing a children's theater in Livingston,

or New Jersey, it wasn't Livingston. Yeah. And they were doing little original children's musicals. And you did that? I was part of that company, and then some dad in the audience one day was a TV producer, and he said,

this could be a cute little children's series. And he ponied up the money, and we all joined after him, and we shot a pilot. And he couldn't sell it as a series, but he got the pilot on on local new york television like a sunday morning at 7 30 oh yeah and um these managers for young people saw it and hunted me down and said we'd love to rep you and i went okay at 14 at 14

so i started doing commercials and that kind of stuff at 14 you're doing the commercials we were you making money saving up for college oh yeah So you paid your own college Most of Half of it Because of the Commercials Yeah Doing all kinds of commercials Did a lot of commercials In the 80s

Commercials were amazing I remember in the 1984 Olympics I was doing a play on Broadway A musical on Broadway And the Olympics Was that summer And they went to a commercial break And there was like

You know I don't know Eight to ten commercials Back to back I was in four of them Oh you were like that guy. Uh-oh. They're onto me now. Right.

I'm overexposed. But that happens with commercials. You see like, well, that guy's in all of them right now. Yeah, it was not good. And actually then it tamped down for a while. But the commercials were great. I watched the McDLT commercial. Yeah.

I have the only McDonald's product that didn't go. Even the McRib comes back. I think you were too excited about it. I was excited as they told me to be. Because I said that my producer, he says you should watch it. And I watched it and I'm like, that didn't really hang around that long. I remember it. No, it was Amy.

The product was not a bad idea. So what the McDLT was is that they had a two container container. Yeah. And the idea was that the vegetable material would be on one bun on one side and the hamburger would be on the other and it wouldn't... All right. That worked as long as you built it level on the horizontal plane and put it in the bag that way and carried it out that way.

Yeah. But the minute you put the thing in the bag on the vertical, everything in the top fell to the bottom. They weren't sealed separate compartments. And it was a mess. So people would open the box and they'd have just this salad of hamburger. I also think that nobody wants to see the meat of a McDonald's hamburger. It's my belief. You may be right.

That just keep it covered. It's like, I know that that can't be good meat. Yep, yep, yep. It's McDonald's. Yep. You're just hoping it's meat. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't want keep it covered. Yep. You know, it's like, I know that that can't be good meat. Yep, yep, yep. It's McDonald's. Yep. You're just hoping it's meat. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So you don't want to see all that meat. It was a product that just would not catch at all. And you, God, you danced the hell out of that product. Well, the crazy thing is, is that behind me in that mob are some of Broadway's best dancers at the time. And I have never been accused of being a dancer, but somehow they put me in the foreground. I was an actor who moves, and I've done, in my Broadway career,

I did more than my fair share of dancing. I like it. I'm not mocking it. I just thought it was interesting that you are obviously directed to really be excited about that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that all of that just couldn't do it. Yes.

And those outfits. Also, if you look at it, I have a Trump at the airplane moment at the very end, because my hair was already quite thin. And at the very end, there's a gust of wind. And what looks like a full head of hair on the top suddenly is revealed to be, oh, he's becoming a monk very quickly. They left that in? They left it in.

That was the best take. Oh, my God. So, all right. So you go to BU, which is a good theater school. Yeah. Was it then? Because when I was there- Yeah, it was considered,

it was in the, there was a league of theater schools. In 82. 82 I got there. Yeah. It's still considered one of the better college programs. Was Julianne Moore there

when you were there? She was, Julianne was one or two years behind me. Mike Chiklis was there. Gina Davis was there. Right. Tassis was there. Gina Davis was there. Right. Tassler was there. Jerry Levine was there.

And you didn't see Julianne when you were there? I did. You did? Yeah, she was Julie Smith then. Uh-huh. And the person she is now is exactly the person she was then. She was as sweet and kind and lovely. Did you see her early stuff there?

I think she was two years behind me and the the freshmen were not allowed to do the big shows so i may have seen her in a scene here and a scene there and then i didn't do my senior year which is when she would have started to be cast so but like what did you learn there how you just bailed on your senior year why because i didn't bail i did a movie what movie yeah oh my god what do you think what it's one of these horrible movies it was a movie it was harvey weinstein's first movie it was a little horror film a la uh friday the 13th called the burning summer camp terror weinstein's first movie so you knew him at the beginning i was aware of him yeah i wouldn't say i knew him we didn't hang excuse me and he's just a producer he was a producer i think harvey and his brother were

concert promoters in buffalo new york right time and he wanted to get into this and i and as far as i know it was their first film and it ran late it went late so i didn't get back to school in time to start the last year. And I was going to take one semester off. And I got a very good gig in New York. And I decided to stay and do that. And then gig led to gig. And I never got back. What were you learning there? Walking and talking.

Were you prepared? It was advanced walking and talking. Yeah. I mean, did you feel like, you know, like, all right, you got the movie. Who's the guy that I took a class with up there was his name Bill Young oh Bill Young

yeah sure yeah yeah cause I was I went to be but I was not I did stage troupe but I took class took a class up there

as an elective that was smart you did it the right way yeah because I thought it was a whole I thought they were really trying to be like a complete program

like Yale they are you know I do a lot of teaching these days. And I teach a lot of, I go around to master classes at universities. In acting? Yeah. And I honestly don't believe that the best training for anyone in the arts is at a college. And not because they don't have good teachers and not because they don't have good curriculum.

But by the very nature of a college program, they're on a schedule. they don't have good curriculum but by the very nature of a college program they're on a schedule and artists learn a a craft right in the time it takes them to learn it yeah but the college needs you to go on to the next thing right so you find that you are burning through ideas before you really grok them but this is that with anything in college that's correct unless anything in the arts right unless you're doing something Right. Unless you're doing something, even English. Unless you're doing something like engineering or something. Right. If it's math and science, you kind of have a barometer for you need to know this before

you can do that. Yeah, because that's why everybody says, I wish I'd go to college now. Right. If I were to go again. So my older son, who's in this business, he went to Yale and he went as a theater major, but that's not a conservatory program. So he actually got an education. He got a great education. What does that mean but that's not a conservatory program. So he actually got an education. He got a great education.

What does that mean, it's not a conservatory? So all I studied at BU, because it's a conservatory-style program, is I was doing movement, vocal production, acting technique, history of the theater, and stagecraft. And I had like one or two electives every semester. That's right, you guys had to take like an elective

in liberal arts. Right, but I had no math or science requirements. I had no language requirements. I did not need to get a real education of any kind. I was solely focused on the craft that I was studying. Yeah, yeah. I don't think doing that at a college, I wouldn't recommend it for my kids. Well, yeah, because like what if you get out and the odds are against you.

Well, that's true no matter where you study. No, but that's what I mean is that at least with a few other things, you're a little bit well-rounded. So when you get out and you can't get a job in the theater, you don't go apply to restaurants showing them your swordsmanship. And even in the theater programs, the whole notion right now, and I'm on the dean's advisory board for BU, for this college, and the thing we keep talking about is even the name, College of Theater. Right.

No actor is making their living solely in the theater. So this is a misnomer. It should be the College of Performing Art because you need to understand film. You need to understand television. They changed you, right? Not yet. Right. Not yet. art because you need to understand film you need to understand they change you right you need not yet all right not yet it is still a a hyper focused um and it's not just boston university it's all of these guys but so so wait they don't teach like you're saying that they should there is no business of the theater there is no other medium there's not a real immersion to other

medium there's no idea i came out of college. I didn't know. If I wanted to put up a play, if I wanted to take a space and put up a play, I didn't know how to budget it. Right. I didn't know what a stage manager does. So there should be that option. Production. Of course. It should be an immersion.

If you're going to teach a performing art, yes, you have to teach the technical of the trade, but you also, you got to teach people to go out and be entrepreneurs. They got to be able to do the business of this craft. But don't you know how that happens? The old school way is you go out, you fail as an actor, and you're like, I kind of like this world, though. And then you go talk to the guy, the director. But much like you're doing here, I mean, when Howard Stern graduated BU, there was no such thing as a podcast. He had to get a job in somebody's radio station or he was out of work.

Now, there's no reason an actor can't work every day, but they got to know how to make their own stuff. They have to know how to develop material and put things together. I think so. I guess so. It's a whole new world. It is, but in some ways, you can get deluded in the sense that there's something about taking your hits. And I think that, you know, self-producing, you know, at a certain level, you think you're doing something.

Well, you are doing something. Even if you fail, you're doing something. Yeah, but how do you know if you succeed or fail? I'm saying like anyone could put something out into the world. Right. But, you know, how does it get traction? What does it mean? What the hell difference does it make?

That's the big challenge. How do you make money? Brave New World is that. How do you monetize what we do? What barometer is success? But I know more actors that are gone now. They don't work. They're out of our business.

Why? Because they had nothing in their quiver other than to sit around with their talent and hope to Christ that somebody threw a job or an opportunity at them. Because they couldn't do anything else. Were they talented? Oh, yeah. or an opportunity at them because they couldn't were they talented oh yeah i went to school with some people that you know you've never heard of that i thought were some of the most talented people i've ever seen in my life yeah i've known guys like that yeah yeah but like you know what about the the that isn't there a natural sort of uh thinning of the herd that you know they i think

one of the things that we see now is that there are more opportunities if you can find them. Yes. But some people are just not cut out for this shit. That's absolutely right. That's true. But I'd love to see, what I think is exciting about these times is that if you are willing to try and create your own opportunity, you can. When I was a kid, you really couldn't. Right, right.

You needed, there were gatekeepers. The means of doing it were too tough. But all that stuff is still there. And the level of, it is true. It's determining what is success. You know, making a living. Absolutely. Is important, you know.

And, you know, it's hard to say that, like, even something like, in the media landscape we live in now, would a Seinfeld ever even happen again? Never. It just won't. Well, we wouldn't have survived. We were so not a hit. We weren't producing. I mean, from my understanding, we weren't producing enough of an audience.

The only reason we kind of kept going is that the audience we were getting was the demographic that was very hard to get. It was guys, you know, 18 to 35. so advertisers would throw some coins at us but right we had no we we did not have an audience that would have sustained a tv show in that day and age or this day and age right yeah and now because there's so many different there's like there's so many great shows on you like where is it i don't even know where that is what is it called what's it on but like what do you teach what so what's the structure when you say you go out and teach? So when I left college, I mean, every school does a very fine job of introducing theater students to the tools of the craft, which I didn't even know existed when I went in.

I thought you just memorize the lines and pretend to be the actor you thought would be good in the role. That was my idea of acting. Did you learn the tools? I did. And did they help you? They introduced me to the tools. But what they didn't do, and might have gone further had i done my final year but they so if you teach me

you might have done had a better career i might have i might have done a little bit better um if i always say i use this analogy so if you know nothing about construction i show you how to use a hammer i show you how to use a drill i show you how to use a saw i show you how to use the tools yeah the tools this is how a saw works. Don't hurt yourself. And now I say, okay, go build a house. You don't know how to build a house. Yeah.

You don't have a methodology to use those tools to create something. Yeah. So when I left school and I started finding different teachers, looking for that clarity, it took me a couple of years. And then I met Larry Moss and I studied with- Out here? Yeah. Actually, I met Larry in New York and then I studied with him several years there,

and then he moved here, and when I got here, I resumed study with Larry, and I did about 12 years with Larry on and off. One-on-one? Class? No, no, no. Scene study? Class.

Larry, among having his own students, used to teach at Circle and Square in New York, and that's where my wife met him. Uh-huh. Sang his praises to the Sun and the Stars. And I did a little workshop in new york when i you know like i was two years out of school yeah and he had two students in it who i thought were spectacular and he came to a performance and he said came right up to me afterwards and went you're

very good but i can make you much better oh yeah and uh and so i i joined with him but larry larry introduced me to a methodology that i could understand to plug those tools in. Right. And that's basically what I teach. I've built on what he gave me and some things that I've discovered along the way. And I go to actors that go, I know all this. But if I say to an actor, okay, I give you a piece of material. How do you do what you do?

And they go, well, I kind of. And most actors, that's the answer. I kind of this. I kind of that. It's a little bit instinct answer. I kind of this, I kind of that. It's a little bit instinctual. I never do the same thing twice. Ask me, because I'm acting now. All right, go ahead.

So what do you do? Well, I read the script. Yeah, that's good. I read the material. Yeah. I start to, you know, I say the lines out loud. I read them out loud a little bit. Sure.

I'll decide, I'll make some choices in the reading. How do you do that? Well, how do I read the lines or how do I make the choices? Well, from reading out loud, I can try to understand how it's being said and what I can do to make it my own.

Uh-huh. Right? And then I'll start memorizing. Uh-huh. And then I got to wait until the other guy comes to move around in it. Uh-huh.

Yeah. That's what most actors do. Yeah. And part of that actually is is you know unavoidable you're going to do that i don't i don't have much training so take me to the next level so what actors have to make choices about is um you're you're carefully and selectively building the illusion that somehow you are this person inhabiting these circumstances in this world yeah um so the first thing I talk about,

I have actors come in and they start with monologues. Yeah. And in a monologue, they're talking to somebody. I go, who are you talking to? Yeah. They go, what? I go, who are you talking to? Wait, you.

You have not. Talking to you. I mean, it's one thing to feel the words and feel the material, which is part of what you're talking about. You get into a space, either here or somewhere, and you start to say the words out loud and you see how they affect you and you affect them. Okay. But I know who I'm talking to.

I'm on a show. So I know the other people. You know the idea of who you're talking to. Yeah. But you don't know what they're going to do. You don't know who they are. So for instance, if I do, because I'm on a show, but like you're saying in the monologue. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But even, so what I love are actors. But like when you read a Seinfeld script and it says Jerry on there, you know what's going to happen. But who is Jerry to George? A friend. What does that mean? Why are friends friends? Uh-huh.

What makes a friend a friend? What do you get from a friend that makes them a friend and on seinfeld it's going to be the exact opposite of anything you answer because mostly we're friends with people who we have a natural simpatico with our ethics our ideas our creativity are they line up right i feel um somehow appreciated by that person uh uh know, there are all kinds of reasons friends are friends. So for an actor, specifics are your best friend. Specifics. The more you can go, I specifically have this,

I specifically have this, the deeper and richer your work goes. I see. So when you have an actor that comes in, he's doing Hamlet. He's doing a scene between Hamlet and Gertrude, his mother. And I go, who are you talking to? And he goes, well, the character's talking to his mother. I go, uh-huh. But the character doesn't exist.

This is somebody's idea on a piece of paper. You're a real person pretending to be this person. Yeah. So are you talking to Hamlet's mother? Because she doesn't exist either. So who are you talking to? Uh-huh. And what's the right answer?

The answer is, what is the relationship between hamlet and his mother right is it in some productions it's an incestuous relationship in his mind in some productions it's a hateful relationship in some productions it's a lost relationship where he so you have to decide who hamlet's mother is to hamlet and in order to explore that in order to say those words out loud in a way that is guaranteed to affect you you have to create a mother right it has to be and when people say well i used my mother i go what does that mean how many roles does your mother play in your life which mother are you talking to and so everybody goes and they have a very complicated relationship

everybody believes it is simple. And ultimately, all this complexity is to get back to something very, very simple and organic and instinctual. But most actors- That's the groundwork. And most actors, and by the way, good actors, great actors, better actors than me, a lot of them are just instinctual. They don't know how they do what they're doing.

They just feel it. They get there. You're okay with that but i do theater right and i gotta tell you at six months in on a thursday night i ain't feeling shit so i better have some technique behind me in order to create this illusion for the audience that something's happening there that's what it's for yeah and this is something that really affects theater actors more than film actors because film actors have to get there once yeah theater actors have to get there over and over and over and over and i was i was trained for and all my fantasies of a career were about being a theater actor and all this other stuff was just gravy and icing on the cake that's what you wanted that's all i imagined i i thought you

never thought was good to me i would somehow wind up working in the New York theater. That was my fantasy of success. But movies were not part of it. I didn't think about them. I didn't think I would be a movie or television director. Well, why did you love theater so much? Because I was always excited. Whenever I went to, well, first of all, that's how I became an actor.

I got pulled into this theater company. I know, but then you'd go see theater and you'd be just astounded. Absolutely. I love, the greatest nights of my life have been nights spent either on the stage or in the audience of a stage. Yeah? Yeah, I love it.

I love it because, again, my thing is magic. Magic gets me off. That is the most exciting illusion in the world. Nothing on that stage is real. Nothing! And yet you suspend all... People sit in a magic show and go, yeah, he didn't saw a woman in there. Nobody goes,

oh, come on, he wasn't her father. They don't do that. That's not a real apartment. So it's a very exciting illusion that you can really get people to invest in, but you have to do it well. And everybody has to do it well at the same time. But as you became more professional, the thrill was not losing yourself, it well at the same time but you know as you became more

professional the thrill was not losing yourself it was doing the job right i mean or do you still the thrill was the detective um you know case of who is this person what is this event how do i building the character and that and that i went from i hate rehearsing i can't wait to perform because i so desperately needed the affirmation right to. To I could, which is why I try now to do more directing than acting because I don't really, I don't crave or need the applause. I love the discovery process. And to be part of the ensemble. Yeah. And working with an ensemble.

Yeah. What were some of the mind-blowing kind of things that really kept you excited about theater? If you're going to so much theater at that time when you're younger, you must have seen a lot of great stuff in New York. I saw a lot of great. I saw a lot of terrible. Sure. But were there performances where you're like, holy shit. The performance that made me go, I have to do this was Ben Vereen and Pippin.

Really? Yeah. Huh. And I'm not alone in that. I've known Ben, we're not friends, but I've been at things with him and gotten to chat with him. And a lot of people had that experience. He was so extraordinary in that piece, and it was so theatrical and so magical and so charismatic

that it made a lot of people go, I have to try and do that. Yeah. And it stayed with me. I know his readings. I know his, I mean, you know, that performance is- That was it. That was raised in my mind. But I saw, I mean, I saw amazing things.

I saw Anthony Hopkins do Equus on Broadway. Oh, yeah. I saw Malkovich in Burn This. Burn, absolutely. With that three-page rant that he comes on with that wig and he couldn't find a parking space yeah i mean it's those it's those things that just go oh my god i was here when that happened and it's living and breathing right in front of me and even the the i love musicals and i know there are people that

genetically just hate musicals i genetically uh like like, I'm a repressed musical lover. Uh-huh. Like, I don't seek them out, but when I go, I'm always like, oh, I love them. I get crazy over them. I love them. When they're good. Yeah. There's something, right?

It's like magic. As soon as people start singing, I get all teared up. Yeah. I don't know what it is. Yeah. I do not know what it is about many people singing on a stage. Because there is something about, you know, we as a creature raise our voice and song at the heightened moments of our lives.

They're either celebratory or they are at our deepest despair. That's when we sing. Really? And so I think the act of lifting into music, just whether you are aware of it or not you you tap into that where'd you learn that life observation that's not like a study certainly not in college they didn't teach me that in my so uh now why you did it looks like you before seinfeld i don't i don't know what your timeline is but you were on stage constantly in new y. I had my- You were like a Broadway guy. Yeah. So Seinfeld happened around 1990, and I came out of college in 1980, and I spent the 80s

primarily doing Broadway and off-Broadway and commercials. Yeah. With a little bit of a tiny film or a tiny TV thing here and there. Right. And you were content? Extremely. I never thought I'd- I didn't think life could get better. Because you were on stage all the time.

I was a working theater actor in New York City making a fine living. I was putting money in the bank every year. My wife and I lived great. And I didn't think anything beyond that. And you had the craft in place that would enable you six months in. I was getting it. I mean, you know, I was still, I mean, I was still learning but i but in the 80s i was really putting pieces together i think that's important what you said because i just talked to somebody else about that about that specific thing

about maybe it was tracy letts about about you know like six months in where you you know when you got nothing but you got to do it that's the the job. That's a hell of a thing to know. I know it as a comic too. I've dragged some audiences down the garbage hole. After a certain point when people are coming to see you, that you've gone and saved that for your own head. Yeah. You learn it.

But so you're doing that and then you do this other thing, this world-changing thing for a decade. There were three things that happened back-to-back, and it changed my life. One was winning the Tony Award in 1989 for a show that I had no idea would even put me in the running for such a thing, because I didn't really. It was a dance review.

And I was an actor in a dance review. But it was flashy enough and it got me a Tony. Which one? It was called Jerome Robbins Broadway. It was a big celebration of Jerome Robbins. And you were singing and dancing? I was singing and dancing and playing a bunch of characters. Won the Tony. And then somehow that put me in Gary Marshall's purview and I got Pretty Woman.

Oh, yeah. And the Gary Marshall to Rob Reiner to Jerry Seinfeld connection began to get me. Because Reiner was a partner at Castle Rock. Right. And Rob was married to Penny at that point. Right. Oh, wow. And then Glenn, what's his name at Castle Rock?

What was Glenn's name? Padnick. Padnick. Yeah then Glenn, what's his name at Castle Rock? What was Glenn's name? Padnick. Padnick. Glenn Padnick. I had a weird meeting with Glenn Padnick after Seinfeld. I was coming in pitching something, and he just couldn't be more thrilled about how it went with Seinfeld. Oh, yeah.

I'm sure. They were all still in shock. They were like, whatever I was pitching. What is this, 2018? They're still going, I can't believe we did that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So whatever I was pitching was like, let me tell you, with Seinfeld, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But okay, so all those things happen. Yeah. And then everything changes, right? So then you're Costanza for a decade. Yeah. And you love it? Yeah, for the most part. But the time I was there, I got a little cranky with it in the last two years.

When Larry David left after season seven, I felt like the best of George went with him because, you know, Larry, that was the alter ego he was writing. And the writing staff at that point, all unbelievably talented guys who have gone on to huge careers. Yeah. But I felt like they didn't quite understand George to the depth that Larry did. So it wasn't, the stories were a little less interesting to me. But that may have just been the fatigue of you doing this gig for, it's been nine years. Right. And that's where I guess that theater craft had to come in yeah but but but the doing of the show was

always a joy right you know live audience there well not even that but just the just being there for the week and playing with everybody and figuring out what the what the show was going to be and you know we the great thing about doing that show was it was just, we would go and laugh. We would just go down and laugh and try and put this thing together. Yeah. Then other people would laugh and we'd go home and get a check. It made no sense as a job. It was a lot of work, though.

Come on. Once you're shooting, some of those shows were big. I swear to you, I wish I could say to you, oh, what a grind. It was not. You know, after, it wasn't for Julia and Michael and I. I'm sure it was for Jerry because he wore 50 hats on that show. But we went from a five-day week to a four-day week. Two of those days were less than eight hours,

and sometimes by a long shot, less than eight hours. And then two longer days, but it was, we were having fun. Yeah, yeah, sure, sure. Nothing about it was hard. We weren't out in the hot sun laying tar. And you're on a set, too, which is a big difference. We were mostly on a soundstage or on our back lot. Right.

It was just a very, it was a gift. It was just a gift, that job. And you moved out here. I moved out. We started in 90, and in 92, my wife and I got pregnant. We had been going back and forth. And I went, how are we going to, I mean, with a kid. And so we were not a sure thing by any stretch of the imagination yet.

But I went, let's roll the dice. And we let our New York apartment go. And we bought it. Wow, you didn't even save it, huh? No. Well, we didn't own it. We couldn't. Oh, right, right.

But even if it was a rent control? You know what it was? We had the upper two floors of a three-story townhouse yeah and so it was just the the people that owned it and us so we couldn't sublet it yeah and we couldn't put a place it was it was not expensive if you live there but when you're carrying two rents yeah it was it was more than we could bear so sure sure so so you come out here and you do it. You do it for a decade, basically. Were you ready for it to end? Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I'm sure Jerry tells the story the same way. I mean, ultimately, everything was his decision. But starting around season six at the Christmas break, we'd all sit down, the four of us would sit down, and he goes, what do you think? We got more in us? And we go, yeah, yeah. And season and season nine season eight we kind of went yeah and season nine you know it we didn't go into nine knowing it was going to be the end yeah it was an inkling

but around christmas he went i'm thinking we're done guys and none And none of us went, oh, no, no, no. We all went, yeah, I think so. Yeah. Not because it wasn't funny. I mean, the writers were glorious. They could have been funny forever. Why do Larry go? You couldn't surprise anybody anymore. You know what these characters are going to do.

What are we doing? You'd have to ask Larry ultimately why he left. I think it was always, you know, we at how larry couldn't handle the success of it but he always from my understanding he always saw the doing of seinfeld as a very stressful thing i mean it was if it broke it was going to be him and jerry that broke it but i think he took more of that responsibility and we would finish every taping you know he's got a whole season arc laid out on a on a whiteboard somewhere but we'd finish every taping and go it can't be done again that's it can't be done and he would you know like like they had no idea for next week and yeah not only you have an idea you got a draft right and it's

but he would feel that that pressure very acutely. And I think after seven years and the money he'd made, he went, I can't do this anymore. Right, right. And Jerry felt like he had a little more left. And so it's interesting to me that, like, you know, after you do this, like, you go on, you do movies, you do animated movies. You do a series of your own briefly. And you just kept working. Yeah. do a series of your own briefly and you did you just kept working yeah by that point i had i had started to believe because i always believed when seinfeld started to hit i went oh i'm done

i'm done because at that point historically if you were on a hit tv show and you played an iconic character forever yeah that was it you were done you weren't invited to the party anymore. So I said, I better start diversifying and maybe trying to start a few things. So I started doing a lot of solo. I started doing, because I was a singer, I could do symphony shows with pop orchestras. I started doing that. That's right, yeah. I started doing a lot of corporate hosting gigs where it was light stand-up, because I was never stand-up.

But I could, my writing partner and I could come up with just enough of that but what was that so that was so this was just to to was it to earn a living you were just trying it was more to do stuff i didn't know i was i was 40 you weren't i wasn't quite ready to sure you know buy a boat and go right so uh and i had been i had fell into a production company deal uh from a movie so i had a production company for 10 years we were always developing tv and film and i just never had a lot of clout and i wasn't i think ultimately i wasn't very good at it i was good at part of the job but not all the job uh-huh um and my tv series you know so the first one out after Seinfeld was this thing, Bob Patterson, which is a show that I will go to my grave going, good show. Yeah, yeah.

Worthy show. Right. There were a couple things on it that I think if we had done a second season, we would have figured it out and fixed. But if I go back and look at them, they're funny. It was a real unique idea. We went on the air days after 9-11 oh yeah um nobody was laughing no we were up against tough audience yeah um we had a lot of things structurally going

against us and um one of the things that i've never been fortunate to have since seinfeld was a you know a bulletproof part of the team. A guy who was much higher up the food chain than me. I was always hovering near the top of the food chain on the product. And I was not strong enough to have that role. So when the going got tough, I didn't have the experience to know how to fix it

or play the politics or whatever was needed. And so they would ultimately crash. Oh, to get a series over the top. To keep it going. You know, part of it is just creative. Right. And part of it is kind of knowing how to play the game. Who's repping you?

How do you pull things together? Oh, right. How do you get your agent to muscle the producer? I didn't. I'm still a dummy about that stuff. I'm a dummy too. But that doesn't seem to be a foolproof thing. No, it's just helpful.

It can get you over a hump. And I felt like with Bob Patterson, we hit a hump. And if we could have gotten over it, I think we would have been okay, but we could not get over it. Didn't have enough people at bat for you. No. And we had a tough situation. Nobody's fault. But we had two competing studios co-producing that show.

Oh, yeah. And you go, I'm getting notes from from everybody what am i listening to right i have no idea yeah yeah and we were on abc and at the time abc had two presidents yeah and one of them kind of liked us and i think the other one really really didn't kind of like us and so there was an internal conflict there and it just everything about it was not set up for success yeah that's well that's the one thing that people don't always realize is that you know you have your thing but then no one knows like what the fuck is going on in a corporate level who just left who's coming in you know who who do they like who they not like absolutely you know it's not just as easy as like it's not all it's not just oh it's a really funny show and i like this yeah or yeah there's a lot more going

on yeah or even that was the part that i did not know or did not understand yeah it's a really funny show and I like these guys. Or yeah. There's a lot more going on. Yeah. Or even ratings. And that was the part that I did not know. Right. Or did not understand. Yeah. It's a heartbreaking part when you, like, which is sort of the, in a sense that what you're talking about, teaching younger people today about taking more control over their stuff. Yeah.

Is that you usually don't have it. Yeah. That's right. And, and, you know, no matter how big you were, how big an actor you are,

whatever, if you can't sell a million tickets, then you still got to be like i gotta do that i gotta wear that that's right yeah yeah you want us to do what yep yeah that but that didn't work all right okay yeah yeah and now when you do all these other parts where you do like two episodes here a little episode arcs or you know uh uh guest uh uh characters do you do it because you love it yeah it's a combination i i try not to do something where i'm not attracted to the piece right or the people doing it um but sometimes i

mean there's nothing you do for the money anymore thank you jerry and god yeah um or could be the same person for a while don't tell them that but uh But you do like to go, I want to make sure I still know how to do this. Right. You know, so I'd rather work than not work. Right. Given the choice. Yeah. I don't want to do something that I don't believe has any merit.

You know, if you have a little reputation and you do something, you're kind of saying to the audience, I think you're going to like this. I never want to not be thinking that when I go in. Right. So I get a little picky with that. But generally, I like to work. I like to work with younger folks and see what's on their mind and what's going on. But generally, if somebody who I respect is doing something and it's being done with integrity and they invite me on board, I generally will go. Yeah.

And do you seek movies? I don't think anybody in our business doesn't seek movies. Sure. I don't think they're looking for me. I mean, if the recent Oscars, I haven't had nothing contention for about 10 years. Yeah. I guess it gets hard. I guess, you know, it's like.

I never thought I was a movie guy. I find that people in movies, my stock and trade is I'm kind of an everyman. Yeah. I remind everybody of somebody. Yeah. I find that movies are populated by people that really have a very distinctive. They walk on the screen you go got it yeah got it and i'm not that yeah yeah yeah but uh you know it may be a combination of uh

they don't want george yeah and that is a thing for some of them they don't want an iconic recognizable thing um or they may not think you know yeah but it's weird you know i can separate you from george now sitting here talking to you i imagine that that's a relief isn't it it is um you know i also say you know the audience doesn't watch tom hanks as sully stolenberger and go oh forrest gump yeah you know really it's not a thing but it is odd that some people can completely transcend iconic roles on television. I know. But it's not many. No.

It's just really, it's wild. You know, I have nothing on it. The truth is, I have loved doing movies on a couple of occasions where I've been the director. Yeah. I find every minute of it exciting. Yeah. As an actor, I find many of the minutes not so exciting. You know?

Oh, guys, a lot of minutes. It's a lot of minutes. And you're always hot or cold or tired or. Trailer's not great. Yeah. Or you're not home and you.

Oh, yeah. It's. You got a lot of time. I tip my hat to the movie people because it's. Yeah. You're out of your life. Yeah.

And it's hard. It's a hard existence. Now, what about stage? Yeah, I love it. I just finished a piece in New York I was doing from August to Christmas. What was that? It was a new John Patrick Shanley play at Manhattan Theater Club. And so you're still doing a lot of that?

I do now. I kept theater outside of L.A la at an arm's distance when my kids were young right oh but now you can do it but now they're grown-ups that's right so now i'm i'm going to do it again like what what do you what are you hoping to play i mean i mean the producers was great and you right and you did you did uh larry's play i did larry's play yeah but what would you like if they'd bring back something what would you want to there's only one part in the theater that i pine for and i'm probably uh a little old to play it at this point i always wanted to do and it's not something that people would think of me for yeah

but i always wanted to do sweeney todd oh yeah yeah because if you're going to do a role that somebody's done you kind of i always think well what can I bring to it that makes it worth doing for an audience? And I think there are things about Sweeney Todd, um, that, that I haven't seen an actor incorporate or deal with. Wow. I think it'd be really exciting.

Uh, what about non-musical traditional drama? There is nothing I pine for. Yeah. You know, there's no, I, i uh you don't want to play willie loman i i would you know if it was the right production i would be excited to do it i don't know that i am going to reinvent the wheel uh on willie loman i don't think, you know, I mean, I didn't get to see Philip Seymour Hoffman do it.

And the response critically to him was that he reinvented the role. I would have loved to have seen that because that's such a rare thing to be able to take a role like that and not step into echoes of what has been done before. If he was able to do that i really would have loved to have oh sorry i missed it they didn't tape it huh no well well it seems like you're good uh life is uh baseball has been very good to me how old's your kids uh my younger one is about to turn 22 and my older one will be 26 in May. Wow. Yeah. He's doing good.

He's a good actor and a very funny guy. He's got a two-man sketch comedy team here in town, does a lot of improv. Where are they working at? UCB? He does mostly, they work out of the I.O. space. Oh, yeah? But he's done UCB, he's done Groundlings, he's done all that stuff, and he's with like seven improv teams in town.

That's a new thing. Well, it's great. It's done all that stuff. And he's with like seven improv teams in town. That's the new thing. Well, it's great. It's the 10,000 hour thing. You know, it's get up and do something. But like improv in particular, I think that's one of those things, like what you're talking about. Like I've noticed just from like even from Seinfeld days that the model for what makes a show. Like it used to be we got a comic, he's got a point of view, we build a show around it. But these people that come up through sketch

and improv, they learn right at the beginning how to work with other people, how to direct, how to put things together. I mean, that's really where it's at. And that's the new world. That's kind of what I'm talking about.

So my son Gabe has this whole network of young writers, filmmakers, directors. So he's constantly doing stuff right eventually one of those things is going to make a difference that is that that is where it happens it's that it's the improv community yeah improv and sketch community it's very exciting and they're all you know normally they are good kids and normally i go to these things and i go yeah i'm not hip to what they're doing.

His stuff, I go, wow, that's really smart. That's really funny and really smart. You get it and it works. Yeah. Do you ever do improv? I've done it. I've never studied it. Right. You know, I've looked at it and I've jumped into it.

Oh, yeah. And I can hold my own. You know, I don't know the rules. I don't know all the things. You know, always say yes and. Yeah. See, the difference between improv and acting and you'll you'll know acting scenes become interesting the minute there's conflict yeah minute there's a conflict something starts to happen yeah in improv

they go yes yeah and and I go so my instinct in improv is for a guy to go the ship is sinking yes but it doesn't have to. If you do this, I can't do that, but you must do this. And then I go, now I'm in a scene. My son will go, yeah, that, you fucked it up. You can't improv. So do you ever go back to Jersey? I don't have family in Jersey.

What about, do you have any, what happened to Bruce Davidson? Bruce Davidson, when last I understand, is a doctor in Illinois. Okay. Doing quite well. I saw, actually, I saw him, I think the last time I saw him, he brought his kids to LA and we all went down to the farmer's market and had lunch down there and caught up a little bit. Yeah.

Yeah, because he's the one guy you mentioned from high school. And he had three sisters and his three sisters came to see me do a play in new york i can't remember it was larry's player this last one but yeah and you talked to uh everybody from the show still no nobody well not nobody but um i hardly ever communicate with jerry yeah uh michael i don't even know where michael is um and julia well, Julia's been going through a thing. So I adore Julia. Yeah. I just haven't heard from her, so I don't know how she's doing.

I've sent her some emails. I hope she's doing good. God, I hope so. Larry occasionally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But my closer relationships from that show are people like Patrickrick warburton uh brian cranston some of the bench right jerry stiller yeah um for whatever reason the four of us and i hope it

doesn't make people sad or think we're we're odd but jerry julia michael and i were never really social friends so we didn't like shoot the show on friday and go hey let's have dinner tomorrow yeah no so when the show ended we had no history of that that's what happens it's a very odd thing that you know you create this illusion for people of this unity yeah but like you know when you're done you're done i was on the radio for a couple years with a guy we never did nothing right and i talked to i just saw penn and teller and vegas and you know i'm always amazed at that relationship because they're really just professional colleagues yeah they don't really socialize they don't hang out how could you on some level it's but it's kind of brilliant because

what i what i found with our show is that i had such limited expectations of anything outside of the set right i was never disappointed right you know it's i didn't expect them to come to my openings i didn't expect them to you know send me. It just wasn't that thing. It's work. It was a great place to go to work. Absolutely. And at the sound of the jackhammer, that's when we got to wrap it up. Oh, is that what it is? It was a pleasure, Mark.

Great talking to you. I'm glad we did it. Thank you. That's it. That's our show. I hope you enjoyed that. Jason again at the New Jersey Performance Arts Center in Newark and State Theater in New Brunswick, April 14th and 15th with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. I will go to WTFpod.com

to watch tour for my Europe dates. I'm coming to London, Oslo, Amsterdam, Stockholm and Dublin in a couple weeks. And I have yet to set up the guitars, so bear with me. We're in the new space. I'm surrounded by foam, being held in place by dowels, by tape on a stand. And I'll get the guitars going soon, and I'll get that mic up soon. I'm just trying to get settled in.

All right? Boomer lives! I'm Terry O actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.

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