WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 960 - Richard E. Grant / Brian Posehn

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

Actor Richard E. Grant keeps a daily diary and has done so since he was ten years old. Having immediate access to his past experiences has no doubt helped his performances as a wide variety of characters throughout his career. Richard and Marc talk about his standout roles, working with directors like Scorsese, Coppola, and Altman, and now working side-by-side with Melissa McCarthy in Can You Ever Forgive Me? Also, comedian Brian Posehn stops by to talk about his new memoir and how being a nerd can also be a religion. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace and YouTube Music. 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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T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck tuckians? I don't know why I'm focusing on you. How's it going? What's happening, buddies? What the fuck, Tuckians? I don't know why I'm focusing on you. How's it going?

What's happening out there? The paperback of Waiting for the Punch is now available in stores, folks. Or you can go to markmarinbook.com and order a copy from wherever you like to order books. Also, the Across the Divide event. The Across the Great Divide event is tomorrow night, Friday the 19th. I'm going down to the Ace Hotel. I'm hosting the thing. I got to get that together, the hosting, what kind of funnies do I want to make.

Then I got to bring up all the acts, including Bob Weir, Lucinda Williams, John Prine, Jimmy Vovino is the musical director. He's cajoled me, talked me into playing a song that I played with him before. But Slash is going to be sitting in on that song as well. that i played with him before but slash is going to be uh sitting in on that song as well i discussed this with you before i'm going in i'm going full throttle i practiced a bit i know i got this problem with my arm and my fingers my other hand my picking hand the nail is uh seems to be uh not falling off i can hold the prick a prick not falling off. I can hold a prick.

Oof. Let's not assess that too deeply. I can hold a pick pretty well. Pretty well. You know, I got the strength back in it, so I'm going to go in. I'm going to do it. But boy, did I have a waffling. I just was waffling confidence-wise all day yesterday.

You know when you get that slight sinking feeling, you know, a slight heaviness in the heart maybe your stomach feels a little pulled upon a mild kind of tinge of the depression that just makes you feel like you're not good enough to do anything yeah i had that for a few hours and then i just leaned into the guitar and i'm just sort of like get it out get it get it out, man. Worked on my stand up a bit. Yeah, I have a bit of a, that's where it came from. You know, like I can't just admit that like, hey man, I'm a little nervous about this shit coming up. I'm a little scared.

You know, I got to play guitar with Slash. I got to host a big event with some big musical acts, which, you know, should be fun. But I'm just like, oh, fuck, what am I going to do? And then I've got I'm going to New York to shoot the Joker movie with De Niro and Joaquin with that scene. And I'm like, oh, my God, that should be. But I'm excited about it. But I have to assume that somewhere under the excitement and the the actual feeling of groundedness around this stuff, there exists the ever-flowing wellspring of fear and insecurity that I keep underground.

It's a subterranean well. I put some concrete over the hole that it used to flow through into my being. But every once in a while, You know. It'll just. There'll be a little fissure. There'll be a fissure. And then it starts seeping out. Just like this. The fluid.

You know. You can't do this. You're not going to pull it off. Don't pretend like you can handle this. You suck. Just a little. Just kind of oozing out of this fissure. I'm excited.

Is what I'm trying to say. I can't wait to do the stuff I have ahead of me. You know, things are tough in the world. My world is okay. I got some opportunities. Looking forward to it. It's going to be fun, right? I don't know, man.

It's like, you know, you're going to pull it off. I don't know. God damn it. Don't talk to me like that. Today on the show, I talked to character actor Richard E. Grant. You know him from a lot of things. Famously, Whitnail and I, and these were the early movies, how to get ahead in advertising.

But he was in Bram Stoker's Dracula. He's been the player. He's been in a lot of stuff. But he's here to talk about this movie, Can You Ever Forgive Me? with Melissa McCarthy, which I thought was very good. Melissa's doing a serious role. It's based on a true story about forgery and desperation.

And I enjoyed it. But I was fascinated to talk to Richard E. Grant because he's one of these guys that he's always very intense and slightly morally dubious in movies. And he's got quite a presence. So I didn't know what kind of person he was. Is he going to just tumble in here like Richardard burton after a bender no quite the opposite great talk though enjoy talking to him brian posain is uh here as well for uh our last i believe our last

shorty as i call him brian posain doesn't know it but he's the last of the short form interviews that we do occasionally here. What can I tell you about Brian Posain? I've known him since he was a youngster, it seems. We started out sort of together years ago. I remember him when he started. He's got this memoir coming out, Forever Nerdy, My Dorky Dreams and Staying Metal. That comes out next week, actually, October 23rd.

You can preorder it right now. That comes out next week, actually, October 23rd. You can preorder it right now. And we had this talk over the summer when we were still doing these shorter interviews, and we held it until we were closer to the book coming out. And it was fun, and it was good. Brian's an evolving guy. I've known him a long time, so it was a great little reconnect. So this is me and Brian Posse.

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Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth

at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com How are you feeling? So your wife told you to get rid of all the things on the phone? Well, yeah, because it was driving me crazy.

Like it was affecting your life? You couldn't get out of the phone? I'd just wake up angry and sad, and that would be the first thing I'd go to, and then whatever I read would set me off in that direction. And if it was a positive thing, then I would lay all my, you know, oh, that's going to happen now.

He's out of here. He's gone. And now it doesn't happen. Then fucking nothing. Right. And then I'd get mad. Right. But I started off the election on that,

just kind of not believing that it was even happening. Right, sure. The night that it happened. Yeah. Once it started to turn around and go the other way, I went to bed. I went to bed around 10 o'clock. Right.

And I was just pissed off. Right. And the poor kid could sense my energy yeah because i can't really hide things how old was he then he uh he was seven then yeah and uh like he drew a picture of trump and like the bird shitting on him oh man like to try to make me happy but it was already over for me i was just like i can't believe this is yeah i'm gonna go try to sleep right and then the last two years have just been uh yeah well you know writing the book but then and i talk about at the end of the book uh how hard it

was to write while i was that pissed off and that worried and that sad and you know just going highs and lows right and writing about you know my life yeah trying to reflect on these things while i'm you know also self-medicating with whiskey and weed and trying not to kill my family. You're back on the weed and whiskey? Yeah. It works. Well, I mean, it took the edge off, huh? Right.

So everything was falling apart and then you had to go back into the childhood. Right. So everything was falling apart and then you had to go back into the childhood. But did that, was there, the book is called Forever Nerdy, Living My Dorky Dreams and Staying Metal. Like I find that when I write, I hate it primarily. And that like when the last book I did on my own, like it was a real chore and it's time consuming and it hangs over you. And like, you know, even if I'm writing about myself, it sort of like oh but i still gotta write it yeah but there are those

moments where you go on these runs where there's a sense of discovery and you frame you know all of a sudden you see things that you in a way that you didn't see him before right did you have that experience there were a couple of things there were a couple of things of uh stuff where and i even talk about it in the book where i'm like oh my mom was a virgin when she met my dad that's weird ew like i kind of put things together like yeah i'd never thought you know like as a grown-up yeah right yeah yeah because like there's still so much of your mind is because your parents is locked in child mind. Right. And you refuse to see them.

And I'm just kind of going through the whole thing, and I'm like, oh, I don't think she, yeah. And then the mom's boyfriend after that, and I was like, oh, she's really only had these three guys. Stop thinking about that. You had to reel it in. That was one of the things. You're seeing your mom too much as a person. Yeah, and I was also, I felt bad i was because i don't have a dad so pretty much everything in the book is kind of blamed on her right and then she moved down here during she moved down here last november so i was finishing this up and i'm forced to be around her all the time when i'm

writing about her right and i And I felt like guilty. But like, there's so much of that shit already in the book. Yeah. You know, did you put that in there that you're feeling that she that was already in that? No, no. I barely talk about that. Yeah. I mentioned.

But well, what did you made it harder because I'd see her. Right. And I just written about something about how pissed off I was about this shitty thing she said 30 years ago. Right. Ever. whatever that still is stuck in my brain. Like what? Oh, just, you know, stuff about the dad kind of, you know, when I would say to her or when I was a teen, you know, and I thought maybe the situation would have been better if my dad had lived. She'd say stuff like, you know, he wasn't that into the idea of you.

You know, when you were born, he wasn't pro-Brian. And he's not that great of a dude. And just like she would just throw him under the bus. And it just made me hate her, too. It's weird, though. In her twisted mind, she was probably trying to help. Yeah. To sort of like you know you

know uh yeah the guy how did he die again uh he died of uh um blood a rare blood disease right um uh they uh negligence at the hospital and my mom didn't do anything about it but what did she but did she know you're still you haven't resolved this stuff you're supposed to maybe process this stuff i didn't think we were going to get this deep this quick but i mean what you forgot who you're talking to the uh but uh we were just on your porch you tricked me into this we were just you were showing you my plan with the cigar we were looking at shit and then now boom mom yeah well no but like uh but were you did you find well it is a memoir and i have experience with that and i also have experience with

alienating a parent because of what i wrote oh she's gonna flip yeah but did you but i turn it around because we our relationship is mostly positive now so yeah i and i she was super um supportive of comedy yeah and that's the one thing and i i make a big point of that in the book of going look the high school years were rough right but once i found this thing that i loved she realized that you know even though she didn't think it was awesome right she didn't laugh at what i was doing but she thought you know saw that I loved it and saw that I had some sort of skill with it. And also that you were probably out among people. Right.

Not down in the basement with a bunch of nerds playing a game. Right, right, right. Like he seems to be out in the world. Yes. And that must have been the, thank God. For sure. So you go all the way back. You do the whole thing.

I wasn't going to. When I was going to write, when I started, I had the idea. Why'd you do it? Was it your idea or did somebody say, why don't you write a book? Yeah, I had written some blurbs for some friends of ours. It wasn't Stan Hope, but it was the same editor that's worked with stanhope and um i'd done a blurb for rex brown's book he's uh the bass player for pantera and then i'd done one for uh one of scott ian's oh yeah yeah and um nice guy so that editor said hey man if you have a book in you we'd love to hear it because he liked what i had written just

in the blurbs all right you like, you clearly can write. You got to break through blurbs. Yeah, kind of. And then instead of going through my agency and having them shop it, when I came up with the concept, I just went to this guy. I said, look, you've done Madeline comedy, and this is, you know. That's me. That's me.

So do you want to hear it? He loved it. And then we just went through Decapo. Oh, great. It was easy. Instead of getting my agent got involved then once I had sold it on my own. Right. Oh, that's great.

Yeah, that's what they do. That was kind of the way I wanted to do it, though. But I didn't mind. I didn't mind because I didn't want to go through the other process of them trying to take me around all these places. Beating wars and that kind of thing. Well, there wouldn't have been. Right. In my head, everybody was going to go, nah, process of them trying to take me around all these bidding wars and that kind of thing well there wouldn't been right in my head everybody was gonna go nah we're good yeah we'd want to go through that yeah that kick in the nuts i'd rather go to somebody who you know was into it was into it and they just came in to negotiate yeah oh yeah let's see and

then take their 10 right we're here we're uh so you got everything done great we'll put the paperwork together. Which is fine. Yeah, no, it's what they do. That's what I wanted. Yeah, no, I'm not criticizing them. That's the way the business is structured because we don't know how to handle money. No. No.

So it originally started as kind of I was just going to do essays. No, I was going to do essays about my life. That's what I did. Yeah, the last one. And then I just, when I started writing about the first 10 years, because I talk about nerdiness, but I also, and I've talked about it in my act, how I think, you know, you're not born a nerd.

Right. You find it, you know, you might be born with like OCD. Right. Which, you know, leads to nerdiness. Plays into it, yeah. But to me, you know, it started at 10 years old, but then I talk about those first 10 years and I talk about, you know, the darkness.

Sure. The death and that kind of stuff. And what was your original obsession to start defining the nerd? The first one I say in the book is Jaws and then the first bit after that was Star Wars. Right. That was it?

Jaws was paled by how massively I got into Star Wars and how obsessed I got. And then Kiss was right around the same time. It was Kiss and Star Wars were my first two things. That's a pretty good trifecta. Jaws to start, you know, and then boom. The machine, the shark. And it all within 76, 77, within like two years that, you know, I was.

And you're able to track it to like, you know, handling grief and the sadness and the isolation of the dad thing and being awkward in general. It's almost like nerdism is almost like it can be like a religion. is almost like it can be like a religion yeah because like you know you find these things that you know define you and are massive right you can sort of turn your life over to them well i even say yeah i say in the book that uh to me nerdiness is just about obsession and i even think religion is they're just jesus nerds no and their cosplaying is a little more dangerous yeah in general the cultural implications of christian cosplay could end the world right yeah no i think that's true i i thought i thought that about um you know just ritualistic religions like you know orthodox jews you know uh muslims catholics that you know there's that the idea of all these arcane rituals is an OCD.

It's an organized method to sort of keep you connected to this thing. And you have to do it. Right. And it's funny. I even talk about I was Christian until I kind of around. It's not like I left Christianity. Now I'm into Star Wars instead. Yeah.

But it kind of happened around the same time. Well, yeah, but it's like- And where I got more into metal and I got, you know, when people were shitting on Kiss and stuff, I was like, Kiss is not Knights in Seat and Service. It's- Yeah. Oh, right. It's two Jewish guys and an Italian dude and another guy, whatever Fraley is.

In clown makeup. Yeah, yeah. No, but I think that's true because like for kids certainly, and I think it happens now too with gaming and stuff. It's like it's present. It's accessible. It's engaged. And it's now.

Right. You know what I mean? It's not like some sort of hypothetical. It's like I see Luke Skywalker, you know, right? Right. Yeah. So that's where it started, and then you kind of moved through the life? Yeah, and then comedy, finding, you know,

it's about all the different obsessions. I touched on comedy. Were you a D&D guy too? I wasn't at first, and I talk about that. So in junior high, I heard about it, about it and i was like oh this seems like something i would love yeah but there was already a kid that i hated at sunday school yeah he was like the christian bully which is so weird like he would he would fuck with me yeah kind of was because he was the one guy that was like that i felt like at christian camp and at sunday school and at church group and all those

places i felt pretty safe yeah except for this one dude yeah and uh and then i showed up at dnd and he sees me i walk into the room you know it's dnd club and right seventh grade yeah and i'm like oh this is gonna be my place i open the door he sees me and goes posain what are you doing here and i'm like i can't even be into this. And then I just went to the library. And I talk about that in the book. I worked in the library in junior high and high school. And that guy is now a congressman.

Probably. He's a Facebook friend, and I try to. Oh, is he? He asked me. So you guys all right? I changed his name in the book. Oh, good. You got it. There's a lot of that the book. Oh, good. You got it.

There's a lot of that. Yeah. Oh, yeah, you have to. Yeah. So you don't get in trouble and you can just write about it. Right. But so that guy was sort of the bane of your existence? Well, at church camp.

Well, yeah, at Sunday school. There was plenty of dicks at high school and junior high. Yeah. Yeah. And isn't that like sort of the thrust of the story is that, you know, know how you you know were were isolated because of things that were sort of out of your control you know and you had to sort of uh cloister with the other freaks right and then like you know at some point you know because there was a shift in culture you were able to own it yeah well i talk about that definitely yeah i mean because now I'm not bitter about it either.

Because there's a ton of bitter nerds that are like, hey, I didn't have the, there weren't hot girls wearing the I Heart Nerds shirt. And I'm like, well, it is what it is. And it worked out for me. I'm not mad about the girls that didn't fuck me still. You're just mad about your mom. Yeah, yeah.

You go to the source. For making me unfuckable. It's her fault. Yeah, yeah. You go to the source. For making me unfuckable. It's her fault. Yeah, that one is all her fault. That's all her fault. Yeah, so, I mean, but I remember, like, and we talked about this the first time we talked. I mean, there was, I remember the shift. Like, it's weird because when I see guys do it now, I think they're kind of late. I don't want to mention anyone's name.

Now I think they're kind of late. I don't want to mention anyone's name. But I remember you shifting from long hair, metal dude to guy wearing glasses with a good haircut and beard thing. It was a very distinct shift. Right. Right. You know what I mean? Well, it didn't happen.

It wasn't like I went, I'm going to be this guy. No, no, no. I know. The hair was the girlfriend at the time and her friend. What do you call it when people gang up on you? Intervention. They showed up and said, you're cutting your hair today, and we're taking you to a different clothing store, and you're going to turn this shit around.

Because all you wore were T-shirts and a hat sometimes. Yeah, pretty much. I looked like I still worked at a skateboard shop which was my last day job well record store was my last day job right my last two day jobs right you know skateboards and record stores but it was right around like the like the mr show time yeah where you know you're sort of like oh that's look at brian's oh yeah and it was also like david cross looks good with a bald head i should just do what he doing. I think maybe I co-opted the beard from Louie. Oh, yeah?

Maybe. I feel like there were other guys that were doing the bald head beard thing. Yeah. Or at least, because I experimented with goatees. I used to have the Pearl Jam thing back when I knew you. Yeah. When I had long hair, but then I had just the flavor saver. No mustache. Nothing. Just the flavor saver. No mustache.

Nothing. Just the flavor saver. And I grew it long. Like, what the fuck? Like, I thought I was Stone Gossard. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, yeah. You have to be defined by something.

But then talking about nerdiness came from also me wanting to be less brick road, or brick, not brick road, brick wall. Yeah. Which is what I had kind of been lumped in. Like I was finding in the alternative scene in LA where I would show up at some of those shows and they'd go, no, you know, you're an improv guy. You're a mainstream comic. Yeah.

I won't name some people, but there's people that ran some of those rooms that were like, no, no. Really? Yeah. Patton fits. This other guy fits, but you don't fit. But we all started. And so that were like, no, no. Really? Yeah, Patton fits. This other guy fits, but you don't fit. But we all started. And so then.

Me, you, Blaine, we all started. Most of the people that. Most of us were brick wall comics. Of course. Before we found that, you know. That was because that was all there was then. Yeah, and Patton had a suit in his first, you know. Oh, yeah.

His first 8x10. You know, we did all those things. That alley shot. But you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Like we did those things. We had business cards in 8x10s and eight by tens like because we all the comics in the 80s did right because we came in a little earlier like we were all like probably you know middles or headliners by the time all comedy started right but you've been writing for a long time i remember

because like i was a bitter cunt then you know like saw Mr. Show, I'm like, what the fuck? What are all these guys who just get the TV show? And you're on there. I'm like, Poseidon's on there. How is this happening? I got that gig, I think, because Bob loved that I didn't give a fuck. Bob and I met one time. He knew who I was, and I knew who he was through David.

I knew David first. Cross was coming up to San Francisco a lot before I moved down here. And so when I moved down here, they'd already done Stiller. Right. And so they were looking for the next thing and they were starting to write sketches together. And they were friends. And then I met at that old Virgin Mega store. Yeah.

And I was wearing a sub pop jacket that said loser on it and i just moved here i was living with dave rath and uh was working at mtv i remember that and i see uh odin kirk and odin kirk sees me and i should have been like hey man how are you doing he's like he comes up to me he goes you're brian persain right and i go yeah and i'm just kind of a dick yeah and then he walked away from that going across like, hey, is there something wrong with that guy? Across like, he's funny enough. And then I think Bob was like, eh, maybe we're kind of the same guy because we can't really talk to people or want to. Right.

Is that how it happened? Pretty much. And then, you know, they said they said hey do you want to write some sketches for this thing and yeah it was great and they had already put me in sketches by that point because i fit like a type they had like a grunge thing they wanted so yeah you know i already had this up pop thing and they had to you know put a hat on me and there we go but i mean part of the book is sort of like you know hanging on to the parts of that that you still love and define you right and and and yet still uh you know you don't you don't have a choice right yeah like you know like even if you

wanted to to shift there just some things there's no way that you could let go right uh my therapist seems to think that i could let go of that but But then you have to, as a grown person, you make these decisions where you're like, why are we trying to get rid of that? No, no, that was a, you know, and I've made money off being the nerd or being the picked on guy. So, you know, but there was a point 10 years ago in therapy where my therapist was like,

you should let go of that. You're not that guy anymore. And I'm like, I'm kind of making money doing it. But do you think you are not that guy anymore? I guess you're not that guy anymore and i'm like yeah i'm kind of making money doing it but but do you think you are not that guy anymore i guess you're not being well i'm not no i'm not because i'm also you know i'm a little i'm a little kid's uh favorite person in the world right you know what i mean like so there are there are things where this nine-year-old thinks i'm the coolest guy ever and the funniest guy ever and so there is confidence that comes with that and you know and also that's the service having fans and sure and knowing that you know i did connect with some people and you know but how does that evolve though

like it makes you feel a little better about you know sure well you're functioning adult right and you know and you you know what your your your limitations and what your talents are right but i mean but you know in in writing the book like do you find that like okay so you don't have to overplay it anymore but you're still sitting around listening to metal right and you know i'm sure you're like i don't know what your your game intake is or what you're telling your kids good and bad you know but i imagine a lot of that stuff is the same stuff oh what I'm turning him on to yeah yeah I mean just sort of like you know and and and in terms of you know how you guys interact yes yeah yeah but I'm I'm I don't have anything to go off of with the dad thing so I just tried to be cool and just tried to be there for him and and also you know be his friend and yeah when I get to the

phase you know we're not at the phase yet where I'm gonna have to be more stern or also you know be his friend and yeah when i get to the phase you know we're not at the phase yet where i'm gonna have to be more stern or right you know because he's he's a good little guy now he's nine yeah yeah and i keep waiting for you know the turn yeah the turn like i like sublime dad you're a dick because that's gonna be the one like trump and sublime would be the way to yeah really i think that like you got a good chance it might not happen like is anyone going to give a fuck about sublime by the time he's 14 right it'll be somebody else but that's the way to rebel right house so um what was the big takeaway from the book like you know when you were done writing it outside of like that's a fucking relief uh you know what did anything did anything sort of like come together for you well i think there's a couple of things in there that uh because you had asked me on the porch about you know when we

were talking about uh the if the book's gonna be out before the end of the world and you know it reaching some nerd i think i think some of the things that i say about bullying and and uh and uh my situation with that and and uh and then also kind of embracing the nerdiness yeah uh might ring true for some people and it does have a big impact yeah you know like and that's why ultimately like that was the sort of i hope yeah yeah yeah i mean but i also wanted it to be funny and and have dumb things that people can you know picture coming out of my and i'm gonna do a you know a audiobook too so oh yeah it's great but i felt like as i was writing it i was like oh this

definitely feels like it's in my voice and i kept getting that back from the editor that was the main thing was like have it be readable have it be funny yeah have it be in my voice and then and honest yeah yeah and i think that's great because like that that's the weird thing with the way this stuff works even like the podcast and stuff is that you know there's a lot of people out there that are isolated that don't talk to people much that don't like that have similar issues that we do and when they just like if they can just hear someone else talking about it it's like it's it it makes so much difference to know that you're not fucking alone in the world. Right, right, right.

I never really understood it because part of me just kind of likes being alone in the world. Right. Well, and there was a point where people would go, hey, if you can get a pretty girl, then I can. And I was like, well, fuck you. And then I'm like, oh, wait. No, no. Yeah, you're right. That is cool that I prove to you that

that you could get it but also fuck you yeah well I wish you the best of luck with it man thanks buddy it's great for having me hey it's great seeing you it's always great seeing you seriously he's the real deal folks Brian Poe sayinghn, The Memoir Forever Nerdy, My Dorky Dreams, and Staying Metal comes out next week, October 23rd. It'll be funny. And those of you who relate to that stuff, it's about you. You can preorder it right now. Oh, I remember what I wanted to tell you about. I had a humbling experience.

But last night, I decided to go to a party I was invited to. I didn't really know why I was invited. It was a charity event, kind of. It was at a home. It was an evite

from Kathleen Hanna and Adam Horowitz. You know, Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill and Adam from The Beastie Boys. I have not,

I've never met either of them. But I figured, well, they must want to meet me. They must want to have me over. That's exciting because I'd like to talk to both of them and it would be fun to meet them. And I'm glad that my reputation precedes me. And so it was an event at their home for an organization called uh peace sisters uh peace sisters.org it's about uh you know raising money to uh pay for the education of girls in togo in africa but you know so i made a donation through the evite and uh you know i i was pretty sure i'd see people i knew there but i was thrilled that uh that they knew who i was and

that uh they're having me their house so you know we you know, we get there and, uh, we walk in and, you know, Kathleen comes to the door and I, I say, hi, Mark Marin. And it didn't seem to register that much. And I said, you know, I just talked to Joan Jett. She had nice things to say about you. And she's like, oh yeah, you talked to Joan. I'm like, yeah, I did on my podcast. She's like, oh, you have a podcast. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I do. Um, she goes, oh, you have a podcast. I'm like, yeah, yeah, I do. She goes, yeah, I'm just starting to get into podcasts. And part of the event was that she's making t-shirts of people, having artists do t-shirts to sell with all the proceeds going to the charities. So there's a small t-shirt shop in the house there. And she was wearing a Hari Kondabolu shirt which is a

uh an esoteric shirt but you know many of you may know hari's a comic and i saw a w kamau bell shirt and i'm like oh i know hari and yeah i see kamau i know them uh yeah they're uh you know they're comics i'm a comic she's like oh you do comedy too and i'm like yeah yeah I do. I do do comedy. I have a podcast. And then I realized that she didn't know me at all. No idea who I was or what I did. And that, you know, I mean, after a certain point in this game, you know, you think you reach a certain level, certainly with a certain type of person that, you know, you'd be known. Nope. And Adam Horowitz, the same thing, did not really seem to know who I was.

So I'm like, why am I at their house? How did this happen? But I saw Fred Armisen there and Carrie Brownstein and Jackie Tone was there. And I saw some of the guys from SNL, Paul Ross. I saw a lot of people I knew. And Sarah, the painter, saw a lot of painters that she knew there. It was a nice event, and I learned about this cause, and it was very moving. The woman who started it was there, and Kathleen is involved in it.

But there was sort of that, you know, all the way through, that kind of weird kind of like nag of like, why was I invited? These people don't even know me. And then I ran into the publicist who handles, uh, they might be giants. And apparently she, she recommended that I come. And I, and I'm glad that I had that, uh, uh, moment because I wouldn't have known why. And I, I do admit that I was a little, it's a little humbled by the whole thing by the, is that wrong that wrong i mean if you were invited to a party and you weren't sure you never met the people that were having the party but you were

invited and then you got there and they didn't know you wouldn't you be like oh that kind of stings a little well it did all right but it was nice to meet everybody and and hopefully i get to talk to the beastie boys and maybe Kathleen at some point. But right now, let's talk about Richard E. Grant. Now, you know this guy. If it's not ringing a bell, you know him. If you haven't seen the sort of the classics, the Whitnail and I or How to Get Ahead of an Advertising, I mean, he's been in a lot of stuff. L.A. Story, The Player, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Age of Innocence. He was in, oh, Gosford Park. That was a big movie. He was great in a lot of stuff. L.A. Story, The Player, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Age of Innocence. He was in, oh, Gosford Park.

That was a big movie. He was great in that. He's just one of those guys you see around, and you're like, oh, that guy. It's that guy. But apparently he was in Logan, too, which I didn't see. And he's in the upcoming Star Wars, from what I understand. That's what he told me. But anyways, his new film, Can You Ever Forgive Me?

with Melissa McCarthy. It opens in select theaters tomorrow, October 19th. And it's good. It's good. This is me talking to Richard E. Grant. Old houses are nice.

Do you have an old house? 1870. See, that's the thing. Where are have an old house? 1870. See, that's the thing. Where are you in, London? Yeah. You know, London's got a lot more older stuff. Yeah, it does. We're very excited here when something's lasted 100 years.

Exactly. There you can live in a place that's 4, 5, 600 years old. I don't know. We can't even make it through 200 years in this country. Why? I don't know. It's going downhill richard how are things in england oh that's exactly the same you know it's a it's a shit show wherever

you go and uh i was reading roman diaries from ancient rome oh good and you know plotters and all those guys they were just saying it's you know it's the end of the world it's all everything's gone down the pan uh-huh so i think it's just you know it's the end of the world. Everything's gone down the pan. So I think it's just the nature of stuff. I speak to people who lived through the Second World War, and they say, compared to what they went through, we're living in jam and honey. Look at honey. It's right. When I've talked to the few people that I've talked to from the UK guys, you know, McKellen and Patrick Stewart and people,

they're like, I remember bombs. Yeah. You know, we were in tunnels. Exactly. So the fact that we don't have them now,

you think, well, that's an improvement. I guess so. But it's the very proficient and focused psychological warfare that's damning right now.

Yeah. Yeah, you just turn on any device and you're going to just shatter your brain's ability to function properly. Absolutely, yeah. Do you stay away from them? I plunge into every single possible thing that I can. I'm information overload.

Are you, all the time? I don't know whether you do this, but if you Wikipedia somebody or you Google them beforehand, and then, of course, you time you know is that i don't know whether you do this but uh if you wikipedia somebody or you google them beforehand and then of course you think you know everything and then of course you meet the person face to face and all that stuff just goes out the window and you go oh there's a human being that i'm talking to and you look them in the eye but you know you go on the subway or the tube or whatever it's you know whatever the train system it is and the silhouette of our age seems to be everybody is their head is even when they're crossing pedestrian crossing oh yeah to the to the you know yeah they're getting hit by car that's

cell phone it's my biggest fear of being of walking down the sidewalk or crossing a street is some asshole is going to be looking at his phone like i do but we sound like these grumpy old guys you know walloff and statler i know right. Right, but we're also old guys that have adapted. You know, my dad, I don't think, has ever listened to one of my podcasts because he claims he can't make the jump to push an arrow on his screen. And how does that make you feel? Well, that's a long story. I've covered it fairly thoroughly. You're very angry.

No, no, no. You know, it is what it is. He is what he is. And, you know, whatever damage he did i i've transcended some of it okay right yeah did you uh yes but you know what you've done is remarkable that you're here in your garage yes and you've done it so you've brought the world to you i have it was a it was sort of a a bit of cosmic timing that finally worked out yeah and just being uh yeah having some sort of talent for it that I didn't know.

It was all born out of desperation, Richard. As everything is, isn't it? Yeah, for sure. But the Google thing or the Wikipedia thing you say is true because I do that often. I always do find that there's a person over there, like I see you as a person. My assumptions about you after doing a bit of research, I don't like to do too much. But a lot of times, two thingsikipedia can be way wrong yeah like way like there's just made up people in it there's made up pasts and i learned early on that to make you know like i start if i

start leading a guest into sort of like so your dad was the army that's right and they're like no you know i'm like he was a play dancer. But the human thing is, because I assumed, like, having watched your work for years, that, you know, that you would come, like, tumbling in here like Richard Burton, you know, up all night with a cigarette, just reeking of alcohol. I'll go out so that I can fulfill this fantasy of yours. But I don't know why I would think that. But, you know, I mean, some of the characters are a little gnarly. But you're clean.

You're showered. Allergic to alcohol. All of that helps. That must have been a rough thing to find out. Were you told that or was it an experience? Oh, no, I couldn't give anything down. When I was 16, I went to the doctor and said, you know, I'm socially embarrassed because I can't hold alcohol. because I can't hold alcohol.

In a macho culture that I grew up in, in this tiny country, the smallest country in the southern hemisphere, Swaziland, that was, you know, you were pursuing an engrata. You needed a drink. And he did a blood test,

and he said to me, do you have Asian blood? And I said, not that I know of. Why are you asking that? He said, because you have no enzyme to process alcohol whatsoever. You can never, ever drink. It's completely toxic to you so so you lucked out you avoided the alcoholism trap he said order a ginger ale and people leave you alone and i've done that ever since yeah no smoking either no really i tried one 1970 oh my god you're like completely

not the guy that i've seen in movies yeah but, but I like dope. Oh, good. So you can smoke dope. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah. Swaziland, like I had to research that. I had to, because I was sort of like, what am I going to talk to him about? It's like the size of Glendale.

Is it really? It's that small? Yeah, it's tiny. What years were you there? You were born there? I was born there because my father was the minister of education while he was still an English protectorate under the last gossip of the British Empire. and then they gained regained their independence in 1968

and we carried on living there and i went to school there because of my father's job so he still had the job even after the uh how does that work so he worked for is there an empire he worked for the, and then the empire was pulling back? Yeah. He worked for the British government. And then after independence, he was kept on as an honorary advisor because he was fluent in Sassuati. So he stayed on, and then he died there at the age of 51. So they kept him there sort of like, just, you know, we're not in power, but keep an eye on things.

He's a token white guy. Let us know what they're up to. Affirmative action. Exactly. Yeah. And so what was the culture like so how did that define you do you have siblings uh i do but i haven't seen his my father's funeral about 100 years ago and but you haven't seen your siblings since your father's what it essentially was was a hermetically sealed uh more english than english uh colonial bubble oh so so you you didn't go beyond the fence not really and it was characterized by the three b's booze boredom and bonking uh yeah

bonking yeah i think that word's no longer in operation it's no it's gone how old i am what did that was that did that evolve into shagging yes shagging bonking bonking stooping stooping whatever you were you could go yiddish meeting stooping stooping whatever you call it go yiddish meeting yeah i think some of the the youngsters call it just hanging out now hanging out yeah do you want to hang out yeah uh but all right so you you weren't you didn't experience the the tension of apartheid was your was your father you know do you come from Dutch people? No, I come from very liberal, white, Caucasian, highly educated people. And Swaziland was essentially, it was nicknamed the Switzerland of Africa because it was mountainous and it was between Marxist Mozambique on the one side and fascist apartheid South Africa on the other. So they tread this neutral line.

So all the South African political dissidents sent from the ANC sent their kids to school in Swaziland. So I went to school and did school plays with Nelson Mandela's daughters and stuff. So that gives you an idea that I had a very liberal, you know, essentially white middle class education. Well, that's a gift, I think. I think so, yeah. It sets you up for tolerance in the world and hope and idealism. Oh, those two, the last two are trouble, but... Yeah, they've been beaten out of it by real life.

Tolerance is something that, I think that is actually one of the interesting things about the possible crumbling of liberal democracy is that was the hinge that a lot of people just couldn't handle, that it's necessary for democracy to work, that you have to have tolerance. And it's not necessarily, you're not born with it.

You have to engage it. You have to learn it. Yes. Like good manners. Right. And now that all these shameless tyrants and weirdos are taking over, people are like, you mean we don't have to put up with this shit anymore?

And they couldn't be happier. Yeah, exactly. It's a fucking nightmare. But let's get back to you. Okay. So you're in Switzerland of Africa. Yeah. What about you?

Where were you? When I was younger? Yeah. When it all went down? Well, when Kennedy was shot, I was two months old. I grew up in New Mexico, born in New Jersey.

Most of the formative years, I was a second grade through high school in New Mexico. So you, Frank Sinatra, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis. About what, Jersey? Yeah. Yeah, but I i i well there's more springsteen i mean the list goes on jersey jersey produced a lot of people uh i do feel genetically attached but i am not uh i was

more new mexico and then i was in boston la new york i got around chasing the so where do you feel that you belong where Where's your identity? Where my brain goes when it seeks comfort? Yeah. Probably New Mexico, I would think. Albuquerque. Yeah. Northern New Mexico in general,

the feel of the air and the kind of, it's weird that the sky's there. There's something about, the thing that draws me back there is not my high school buddies or that my parents were so terrific the geography yeah how about you smell of it yeah it's the exact same thing but uh with swaziland yeah but do you find that breaking bad has given albuquerque a bad or a good reputation was that your experience of it well anything that can bring money into that city i think is good and if people want to take little tours to the doghouse where the hot dogs were and here and there, I think it seems fine.

I think that the studios that were built out there, and I guess the tax incentives that people get for shooting, helps the economy. I mean, I don't know that Breaking Bad was – it's a fictitious story, but I do think that the economy of New Mexico has its problems and they do have, I believe, a methamphetamine issue. Right. What you're talking about is that landscape has this real homing pigeon instinct in you. I think, yeah. It goes beyond your friends, your parents, whatever. You just, you're drawn back to that. You're drawn back to that.

Well, it is something like if the landscape, because I remember New Jersey too, but what I remember about it is sort of humidity, green, tomatoes, like my grandmother's house. Yeah. But if you're forming and you're in high school and there's some sort of whatever struggles you're going through as a conscious person, if you find some sort of reprieve in the environment, and New Mexico is very beautiful you know it kind of it sits in the back of your head as as like i constantly think about moving back there and has this increased as you've got into your later fifth second half of your 50s um well i just hit the middle 50s i just hit 55 right it's increased since i've had the freedom to make choices about my life you know before i earned a living which was you know to up to 45 years old there was a bit of panic but now i'm sort of like wouldn't it be nice to just stop now you live in the mansion in glendale you live in the dream yeah i guess so yeah i'm just like i don't have a wife i don't have kids i don't have much debt so i'm like what am i saving money for why have

why have you had so many wives two wives yeah? Yeah. You did do your homework. Yeah. I just had two. Is that so many? Well, that's quite a lot because they weren't long-lived ones. I mean, they weren't so long ones. No. Long ages. The first one, I think, was something I did out of an attempt at normalizing. Yeah.

And the second one, I was- But you feel abnormal. Well, I just feel like, you know, when you live the life of an entertainer an actor i would assume as well where your security is you know dubious yes that you know and also i was a a drinker and you know a little out of control and i you know i met a woman who was uh familiar to me in in uh you know the social structure you know and i and i thought like well that that'll shape me up right didn't and then i fell in love with some other woman and i got sober and i was a i was a crazy person sober and i you know i only you know eventually drained her of her life force and she went away and who is who is

currently re-energizing your life force well i think i found a fairly non-dramatic um sort of a stable grounded uh woman who's a painter abstract painter so does that mean that you were addicted to people that created drama around you before well i don't know like it i think that if you do the research that um yeah you're going to you know whether you don't know so immediately you're going to the people you're most connected with are going to be what you come from have you found that yeah yeah but you didn't come from drama you didn't come from insanity oh yeah hi ty drama you know alcoholic father um drank himself to death basically unrequited love for my mother and he tried to shoot me when i was 15 because he was because

i emptied a crate of his scotch down the sink oh my god and uh you know all that stuff but it's but they were divorced they were divorced? They were divorced. And I didn't realize that he was still in love with her. He told me in his deathbed that he'd never stopped loving her. And so in that moment, I understood the tragedy of his life. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's weird, the finite nature of it.

Yeah. That, you know, it's not that long of a run. And if you don't make some minor fixes, like what about your mom? Oh, she's 87 and firing on all cylinders. Oh, really? Yeah. And she's a chipper?

She's very chipper. Yeah. Because her second husband's not so chipper. But she is on, you know, she has great longevity in her genes. And she reads, you know, eight books a week. And she's on fire with stuff so i'm very impressed by her and i've had a rapprochement with her which has been good for my mental health yeah all these things are important so you were holding on to some darkness yeah yeah yeah i

don't know it was breakdown i was 42 and then how old are you now i am 62 so let's go back for a second so you're you're a kid in uh swaziland yeah you've got a sibling that you don't talk about or talk to don't know what happened there well uh he's i think he has he has issues and problems oh sibling rivalry you know yeah he perceives me as the favorite child and that's the narrative that he has in his head that I can't dislodge. And it's an aggressive narrative. Yes, it has been, yeah. So these are just boundaries that you're— Just boundaries that you finally have to draw.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For your own safety. That's true. And it's a painful thing when you have to do it with family. Absolutely, yeah. Because they believe they have extraterrestrial rights over you, and, you know, they don't. No, is he older? Two and a half years younger. Oh, yeah. Because they believe they have, you know, extraterrestrial rights over you, and, you know, they don't. No, is he older?

Two and a half years younger. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's just, it's the same thing. They hang on to it. It's hard to, like, it's like your sad father with the unrequited love, you know, like, if you lock into something and it feels, you know, deep enough, no shaking it.

Yeah, exactly. So your parents, how old were you when they got divorced? I was 11, and I woke up on the back seat of a car and inadvertently saw my mother shagging my father's best friend on the front seat so that that sort of got me started diary writing because i couldn't tell anybody you know you're you're you knew that it was bad i knew that i was seeing something that i shouldn't see it so yeah and she just thought you were sleeping and she was going to get away with that i She thought I was sleeping, yeah. Yeah.

She didn't have too many choices about where she could do it. I know, but maybe it says something to her British nature that it would be quiet enough. Probably. Stifle it. Stifle the noises. Add to the excitement. Yeah. But, you know, we've discussed this, and it's all been out in the open now, and it's, you know.

At 42. Yeah. You know, we've discussed this and it's all been out in the open now. And it's, you know, at 42. Yeah. But at 44, I finally confronted her about it in a peaceful way, you know, as a result of help from a psychoanalyst. And, you know, she said the three magic words, which I'm sure you will know the power of these, when she said, please forgive me. Oh, my God. And that was, you know, the power shift was instantaneous. And my mental health improved increment you know the power shift was instantaneous and my mental health improved incrementally by the nanosecond that's why i'm this happy well-adjusted person you know

because you felt it you like you know it wasn't it was real yeah because she had probably been carrying it somewhere and as well absolutely can you imagine carrying that no that you do you have all that stuff it's in burden yeah it's insane what we carry for a lifetime. This seems to be the theme. Are you positive by nature? What are you, kidding? You're a curmudgeon, like Lee Israel. Yeah, well, no, I'm not that much of a curmudgeon.

We're sitting in a dark cave in Glendale, covering cobwebs and misery. I'm not as much of a curmudgeon as we Israel in the film or in person. And I watched it. I enjoyed it a lot. And we're going to talk about it. But I'm not through with my vetting. Oh, okay. Yeah.

So there's diary business. Yeah. Because I know you hang on to that, but you still do it? I still do it because I think because of the country that I grew up in, the circumstances, there was no television, and the huge thrill of my childhood was Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. On the moon. They're making a movie about that, I think.

Exactly. It's called First Man. And I saw that. I heard that on the wireless. It was then called, in 1969, when I was 12 years old when you were still in diapers. Well, I was six. Okay, maybe I wasn't diapers. I had problems.

No, I'm kidding. Go ahead. And so it seemed as unlikely to say that you wanted to be an actor as it was to say, well, I'm going to be an astronaut. So to have ended up traveling the world as I have done, meeting the people that I have done, sitting here opposite you. Yeah. This is a big one. It's a way of making it feel real. Yeah.

The diary is. Yeah, it is. I think that's a good thing because I've never been able to stick with it, you know. But at 11, it was more a- Yeah, but you record everything. So you've got- I record a lot. But, you know, the stuff that goes on-

You've podcasted your life. Behind the face is really the important stuff. Yeah. What comes out of the face. So you're the smiling clown. You're Ippolite because you're smiling at me now, but you're actually weeping in misery. Not misery. But I could weep pretty easily. Okay.

Could you? That comes with age. Oh, yeah. Since having a child, I don't even watch the news. It makes me weep. Yeah. And I mean that genuinely. No, no.

The sensitivity thing is kind of profound, but it happens in weird ways. I don't get it from the news, but I can get it from moments on the street that seem painfully human. You know, that, again, tolerance and the other that you have to learn, and another thing you have to learn is empathy. I don't think we're naturally prone to that. We're selfish monsters. Acts of selflessness or kindness or tenderness completely undo me because they're not the norm in my experience of life.

Yeah, and how old were you when you had the child? Oh, I was, she is 29. I can't do the math. I was oh well that's all right i mean so so you've had this crying problem for you know 25 years oh yeah 29 years yeah since the day she was born 1989 yeah since then so this thing so but but it seems like the diary was more of a confessional thing like you know you needed to sort of account for this yeah the the darkness you were carrying yeah i tried religion i don't know whether you tried that but uh you know i got no answer when how old were you when

you tried religion uh when i was 11 oh and that was it that you made one attempt at 11 and you're like i tried for about six months and what'd you try i just got i tried the i tried the bible and praying and all that you didn't come from a church family no and i got no answer my father said that you know heaven and hell is what you make of your own life it's the here and now be reassured that there is nothing beyond that when you die you go back to the unbeing of before you're born unbeing i kind of like that and i found that very reassuring to have that. And now you know, in retrospect, that your father lived in a hell until his deathbed.

He chose hell and you don't. Living hell. Exactly. Yeah. So keeping a diary was a way of, you know, I couldn't tell my friends. I certainly couldn't tell my parents. Yeah. So it was a way of making it that I didn didn't go nuts that i thought this has happened it's and a recording of

what's going on that's it's fucking genius because as you get older yeah i i can't like i met if you do a diary in the immediacy of of it if you do it every day yeah i would imagine that you can at least document the moment in your mind and in reality. Because as I get older, I don't know what's happened and what hasn't and what really happened. And like I've lived in enough cities now and I'm 55. People walk up to me and they're like, hey, man, you remember? I'm like, you're going to have to. Yeah, you're going to have to give me a city, a time period because I'm not clicking right now.

So how do you get out of swaziland what's the what how do you end up uh an actor because i always make assumptions about the british actors like that you're all hanging around the same lofty uh kind of classically trained shakespearean model well that's not true in my case my father said um your brain is too good to waste on trying to be an actor. There's no precedent in our family for doing that. So if you can find a university where you can do a theater training at the same time, do that. Right.

So he wanted you to be what? He wanted me to be a lawyer or a writer or a journalist or something with a noble profession. And he genuinely thought that being an actor was a lifetime of wearing makeup tights and avoiding buggery but it is interesting those were his concerns not that like you would possibly not make a living or that it was a scary thing for you he also thought that i would be destitute yeah right um and i said well i didn't care about money and he said well you can only say that because you're young because you will need money yeah and this is in this is in swaz. And this is in Swaziland.

This is in Swaziland. So I found there was a local architect who told me that there was a drama training thing in Cape Town, which was 1,200 miles south of where I grew up. Yeah. And you could go and do a university degree there and then make an exception according to your academia of doing the theater diploma at the same time over four years. So that's what I did. In Cape Town. In Cape Town. In Cape Town. I co-founded a theater company, and then I left there after two years and emigrated to England.

Well, what was the theater company? It was called the Troop Theater Company, and it was multiracial. It was based at a theater called The Space in Cape Town. The Space in Cape Town. What year is this? What are we talking, like 60? This is 19. I graduated in 1979, and I worked in a theater company 1980, 1981, and then

emigrated. Okay, so like the world was very connected at that point. You weren't living in, you know, people got information, not as quickly as we do now. So I'm just trying to figure out the tone. Was it like experimental theater? Were they confronting political? Everything was anti-apartheid. Right. Yeah. When did apartheid get lifted it was in the 80s 1992 when Nelson Mandela was released

from prison so so it was provocative dangerous theater you were doing that's what we were doing but unfortunately as you will know all too well that's if you are doing theater for a liberal middle-class audience they're you, you're preaching to the converted. Right, and that is the audience. Theater has a hard time bringing in the youngsters. Exactly, yeah. It costs too much. Well, I don't know what it is, but when you read about it, and I'm sure you have too,

when you read about whether it's the theater of cruelty or whatever was going on with Julian Beck, or you read about even the group theater with these noble sort of ideas of bringing poetry and populism to the masses. There was still the old people that were shuffling in and filling up half the house to see the new Odette's play. I think it's romanticized. I don't think it ever had the traction. Maybe I'm wrong, though, in some theaters. I think you're absolutely right. But you feel like

you're doing something. You do. You feel like you're changing the world. Yeah, and so do you feel personally that you had some effect on the decision to release Mandela

from prison in the 90s? No, because I realized that after doing it for, you know, doing every political writer that we could lay our hands on and having actors within the group write plays, we made not an ounce of difference. It counted on the most

right-wing, extreme Afrikaner apartheid people meeting the most extreme left-wing African National Congress people. And they were the people that, you know, that's where it happened. Sure. Nothing to do with the liberal minority. people that's you know that's where it happened sure but nothing to do with the liberal minority right but like i guess on some level though like and i think this is probably more important you know in terms of looking at historically you did you know meet different people you did engage in different points of view you did work with you know like i think that that that sort of micro uh level of integrating and embracing and doing that kind of stuff doesn't mean nothing.

Good. Well, I'm glad to hear that. My education was an entire waste of time. Well, I have to believe that, right? You have to believe on some level that if you do good things and you take chances, you don't know the butterfly effect. Exactly. you know you take chances that that you know you don't know the butterfly effect i mean exactly so but you so you were you doing like um you know all the regular kind of experimental weirdness

naked plays and you know uh yelling plays and we did we did all of those things yeah you're out in the audience making them uncomfortable plays exactly yeah so but you never had any training theater without walls no we had training oh you did three years of drama training yep and what kind of training was that based on the Stanislavski method and they used the curriculum of in a very colonial way

of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London so you got both as a template of what to do so you had the Royal Academy template and then one guy who taught method exactly yeah exactly there's sort of a smorgasbord of

stuff so theater of cruelty mime restoration drama you know how to walk and talk and there's also be bold enough to take all your clothes off and keep a conversation going at the same time and improvise shakespeare yeah yeah yeah lots of shakespeare i get a little obsessed with shakespeare when i talk to british people why because i i don't i don't have the love for it that i should and you know and ian mckellen sir ian mckellen sat there across from me in my old garage and did a monologue to my face wow and i was like okay i get it i get it you understand what he was saying i did oh that's great well that's the tricky thing is like if you listen it's still going to be difficult but you'll get the hang of it yeah but if you check out for a second you know you're fucked you're fucked plot wise you're you know like we'd be talking mongolian yeah i don't like it exactly but do you find that you

understand it um because i grew up reading it yeah and it was read to me um it's something that's familiar yeah but i perfectly understand that my daughter doesn't have that. Yeah. Same thing. I mean, she likes going to the theater to see it, but I certainly didn't read Shakespeare to her. Does she want to go into show business? She is a casting director. Well, see, that's a reasonable job in show business.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Have you had to go before her to audition, Frank? She has. She got me a job in a movie called The Nutcracker. Well, those connections really worked out for you. Yeah. Well, she put me up for the job.

That was your ticket. You didn't have to get it. Exactly. Yeah. I'm counting on that. From my old age. So you're loaded up with method Shakespeare and a sort of unique racial tolerance and you go back to Britain? Yeah. And what? And then what happens? Yeah. And what? And then what happens?

Well, when I got there in 1982, Mrs. Thatcher was the then prime minister. She decided to invade these tiny islands called the Falklands of Argentina. Yeah. You know, to what effect? I have no idea. Does anyone know? Who knows? Yeah.

I don't know. I think, you know, her polls were very, very low at that point. Sure. Yeah. She was a great Churchillian follower. And I think she thought this would be the way that would save her bacon. Yeah. Right. And it did. By having a generation of people going where yeah that said 82 Thatcher yeah you're going and you want to make a difference in England now right you're going to jump right into the provocative theater scene exactly 25 years old and then you find that all you can get is you know a job as a waiter in covent garden next to the opera house that's about as radical as you can get so all those you know the ideology

goes out the door because suddenly you don't have you don't have this big wall of apartheid to fight right because it's you know happening on another continent in a different hemisphere but you do have the fight in in england but for some reason those fights seem less pressing yeah they do yeah it fights you know that the when people were sort of getting hot under the collar about what mrs thatcher was doing compared to the labor party it seemed in relation to what the atrocities and inhumanity of the party system it seemed small seemed political yeah it seemed political yeah so you were a waiter and you were like, what do I have to do to work? Yeah.

Enough of this ideological. Exactly. Just get me a job. And what was the first big acting job? Oh, I did a lunch hour play and then from that I got an agent and then started doing dribs and drabs. It's absolutely the classic route or route. What's a lunch hour play? Oh, you go to a soap opera? No, it's in a pub, or route what's a lunch for a lunch hour play oh you go

oh it's soap opera no it's in a in a pub in a bar really yeah at that point you could do a play for an hour

and people used to take lunch hours and they don't anymore they go to a pub to see they go to see and they'd see you know

some young actors performing and they get some poor agent dragged in there to come you know stuff their face

with a sandwich and see you act and then give you become and you know represent you as an agent and then that's how it got started and so then you started doing tv work or what no i'm doing theater work oh it's all theater work yeah all theater work and then i got one tv job in 1985 followed by nine months of unemployment and the job was with an improvised thing for the bbc with gary oldman of all people and then when it came out the day after it came out a year later um i got a new agent and cast in a film called with nell and i because daniel day lewis had turned down the part really if he hadn't i wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now that broke you that's like

this uh to this day is a is a cult favorite of sorts. It is in England. Yeah. Well, I mean, it is a bit here. We have the Anglophile population. They're quiet here, but there's a lot of them. And I don't know. It is a very specific thing. American Anglophiles, it'll just be like, oh, anything, anything English.

They're on PBS, sort of mainlining. Waiting, waiting, like, you know, for something. Waiting for Downton Abbey. Waiting for Downton Abbey. Yeah, Downton Abbey. But it used to be, what, upstairs, downstairs? And then Monty Python. Exactly. Masterpiece theater.

Anything the English people did. They loved it. They were like, why can't we be as together as those people? Proper and whatnot. But was Withnell, so when it came out in England, was it popular? No. It came and went very, very quickly. And it was only as a result of being on DVD, on video and DVD, and students taking it up that it then developed this cult following.

I think that guy is interesting because he did a couple movies with him. And the other movie was amazing. Again, a cult favorite. But I don't know. I think everyone should see How to Get Ahead in Advertising. That thing is a crazy fucking movie, man. Well, it's about a man who grows a talking boil on his neck. It's so good.

When it first starts talking, it's insane. An anti-Thatcherite rant from the director, writer, Bruce Robinson. Do you like that guy? What happened to that guy? He lives on a farm. He's 72 years old on the Welsh border in England. He's out of the game? I see him very regularly. You do? We stay great friends. I think he's sort of the game? I see him very regularly.

You do? We stay great friends. I think he's sort of a brilliant guy. Yeah, he is. Did he do a lot of work after How to Get Ahead in Advertising? He originally wrote The Kidding Fields, which made his name and nomination.

Oh, my God. That movie, Sam Watterson, Malkovich, that was a great movie. Yeah, great movie. I hadn't thought about that movie in a long time. Yeah, yeah. So he wrote that, and he recently published a book, a huge 1,200-page doorstopper called Jack the Ripper.

Is it a historical thing, or is it a fictionalization? No, no, no. He believes that he found who the real Jack the Ripper was. And was it part of the royal family? No, it wasn't. No. I'm thinking that's a theory, though, wasn't it? Yeah.

There are so many theories, and nobody's nailed it. And you work with, what were you in Henry and June? I don't, I remember. I played Anais Nin's husband, who had a 12-inch penis. And despite which, she went off with Henry Miller instead, because he was much more interesting, with a lesser-sized member. And that was a shaved-head Fred Ward, in my recollection?

Shaved-head Fred Ward, yeah, because Alec Baldwin was going to play the part, and then he pulled out, I think, two weeks before we started shooting. And Daniel Day part and then he pulled out I think two weeks before we started shooting and Daniel Day-Lewis pulled out of Withnow he was offered it

because he had he had broken America essentially because he played in a feat Edwardian in

Room of the View and Gay Punk and My Beautiful Laundrette right My Beautiful Laundrette and they were released on the same day

which was an absolute, you know, just genius from his variety point of view. Yeah. Because people couldn't believe it was the same person. Do you know that guy? Yeah. He was opposite of absolutely everything. Yeah. And chose to do The Unbearable Lightness of Being instead.

The Unbearable Length of This Movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he was, so he chose to do that. And so they were scraping around and they found, you know, a guy had been in one TV show with Gary Oldman. And so that's how I got to play that part. Yeah.

Thank God. Are you friends with Daniel? I met him on, I was on, I had a small part in Scorsese's Age of Innocence. Oh, yes. His warden novel. And on the first day of shooting, i prostrated myself in front of him and i said oh daniel i owe you my entire career and life and he said arise young man in character still he was not in character at that point and then he was in character from the next day and didn't speak to me for the next three

months and then spoke to me on the last day that i was shooting and came out of his character so it was an extraordinary experience but what do you think of people who work that way well daniel has three oscars yeah so you can't really you can't really in all conscience argue with the man's method. But have you tried to do that? Your approach is... No, my approach is doesn't do that, and I don't have any Oscars on my shelf because I think that, you know, at the end of the day, you have

your own life, and you are pretending to be somebody else. That's right, but, you know, let's not, you know, let's not be... The Oscars is somewhat of a political ordeal, and, you know, I mean, don't, you know, let's not. The Oscars is somewhat of a political ordeal. And, you know, I mean, don't just talk about it like it's some sort of weird justice system. I mean, he's a great actor.

I'm not going to deny him that. But you'll get an Oscar. If you keep working and you live to about 90, they have to give you one. Okay. It'll happen. Well, then I've got to live for another 30 years, baby. You can do it i'll keep trying my breathing like it's weird you work with these great you work with coppola and scorsese

when they decided to do things that were completely different than what they had done before exactly you know like you know you missed the gritty sort of like you know hands-on guy in your age of innocence i mean what was like that was like a study in table settings. Completely. But what was your, did you have a, I imagine because of Dracula, you had a bit more to do. What was it working with Coppola? Was it something? He was like a circus ringmaster, and he likes to work in a self-confessed state of chaos where family, friends, people, dogs, music, everything is just into the mix of it he told me the best way i understood of of him because we were rehearsing at his um biggest state in the napa valley yeah

before we started and i said he said i can't cook for two people i can only cook for 30 people and i thought that was exactly the metaphor for how he worked as a director yeah where scorsese was the exact opposite he worked in monastic silence people whispered on the set and if people whispered a little bit louder than that he would literally blow a gasket no kidding yeah so it was very it was the exact opposite and i worked one from one director to the next without i think with a two-week break so it couldn't have been more extreme and whether that was because of the subject matter of La Dida, upper class, you know,

Edith Wharton's society, turning the center of New York, or whether that's how he always is, I don't know. But Michael Bauhaus, the late Michael Bauhaus, the cinematographer on Dracula and Age of Innocence, said to me that this is how he always works. Hmm.

He's got a lot going on in his mind. Quiet and intense. Well, you know, with Coppola, I think there's like a pre-aging and pre-medication Coppola. And it sounds like you got in under the wire. I feel like I think something shifted in his disposition. Because if you watch Heart of Darkness, the documentary, Hearts of Darkness, about making apocalypse, it was clear that he was just like, rah! Yeah. So you got to experience that yeah and altman as well towards the end i guess with uh well that was i was gonna say the player you were great in that thank you because like i

think you have a knack for for um slightly morally bankrupt characters yes but this is true but but that cynicism will out. Yeah. Right, exactly. But, I mean, there's that moment. It was a great turn in that movie. And one of the, I think, few comedic turns in The Player was when, you know, you shift. You start out like an artist and then, you know. No stars.

Yeah. That's right. No stars. Yeah. And now we've got Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis. The complete sellout complete just like boom yeah but what about him as a director because that was seemed a little more controlled for him than usual that movie well because that movie was scripted and so his his what he really added to that was casting everybody who was an extra as a movie actor oh really so that was that was the thing that really was the kick of that of of the player yeah yeah and it but it's a it's a great movie

yeah do you like it yeah i loved it i loved i loved doing it and because i'd seen i'd seen nashville 27 times when i was a theater student so i thought that i'd never live long enough or he would live long enough yeah i'd never get the chance to work for him and i was told when i left drama school i looked too weird to be an actor who could make it so yeah um i never thought that i'd work with with with him and so i got three three goes with him and he was he was very loyal to actors and he loved them yeah so that was you know you think that would be the norm for movie directors, but I don't think it entirely is. But he certainly, he loved people and he was very loyal.

So you did Player, Predator, Porter. And Gosford Park. Oh, Gosford Park. That's right. That was sort of a return to form a little bit. Yeah, again, completely scripted with improvised bits around it. But essentially, it was Julian Fellow's script that he had to follow. but they had that vibe though like that was one of those oh you played the like the the head butler guy right but that was it had that vibe because you know the difference

between you know the the serving class and and the upper class like the chatter but that it was that was the play in that movie right the the Yeah. The way humans interacted. Exactly. Yeah, that was a good Altman movie. I'd forgotten that he did that. Yeah. A lot of directors just think like, well, we hired you to do what you do, so what do you want from me? Exactly. Don't ask.

Yeah, just go do what you... Just don't bump into the furniture. Just get on with it. Yeah. Yeah. That's the norm, I would think. I think it is. Yeah. Was that disillusioning for you initially? It was a big surprise.

And that's when your theater training comes to the fore, that you know that you've got to know all the stuff in advance and make decisions about it and not entirely rely that the director is going to be the person who's going to provide you all the answers. Not daddy. Yeah. Not the Wizard of Oz, but I mean, you pull the curtain back and you see somebody who's not to be the person who's going to provide you all the answers. Not daddy. Yeah. Not the Wizard of Oz, by any means. You pull the curtain back and you see somebody who's not thinking about the acting. But in Henry and Junior work with Kaufman. Yes.

And he was like an underappreciated director, I think. I think he was, yeah. I think he is. Was he engaged? He was completely engaged. And he and his late wife, Rose, had co-written the screenplay, and they were passionate about Henry Miller. And they'd lived all their lives in San Francisco. Yeah, right.

So they had all the sort of liberal arts credentials to take that story on. I thought it was a pretty good movie. I want to talk a little bit about the movie that you made that I did not see. Okay. Because it was an autobiographical film right wow wow yeah and set in swaziland where all the stuff that i talked to you right at the beginning yeah and the the movie opens with uh miranda richardson who played my mother yeah you know shagging a guy that was was my father's best friend and gabriel burn played my father and em and Emily Watson played my stepmother so it was and Nicholas Holt played me when I was 14 years old so it was a very cathartic

thing to do it was painful to write and then an amazingly cathartic and rewarding experience to to direct because I was going as a middle-aged person in control of 120 people. Yeah. Recreating. Your life. Yeah. It was an amazing thing. Of course, egocentric in the extreme. But to do it in the actual locations where this stuff happened was really bucking the theory that you can't go back in time.

Sure. Like we literally did go back in time. And you're proud of it. Yeah. Was it a struggle to do? Oh, it took five years. And, you you know the money fell through all the time and yeah we never thought it would ever get released but you know got shown at the toronto film festival and won awards and things so you know that's i'm just amazed that we ever got it made do you do you direct more now i

tried and i've the other two projects that I've had have financially collapsed three weeks before shooting started. Oh my god. So it kind of, yeah, put a dent in it for a while so I thought, well, I'll stick to the day job. I'm always amazed at people that do that because it really does, like you want to make a movie on an independent level. I mean, it could take five, ten years of your life. Yeah, it's

masochism. I don't have that many years left. So I started making perfume instead. I read that and I was sort of like, you know, what is that about? Well, there's a lifelong obsession. I fell madly in love with an American girl called Betsy Clapp who arrived in Swazia in 1969. I couldn't afford to buy perfume for her. So I made what I thought was going to be, you know, absolute Chanel No. 5 out of gardenia and rose petals boiled up in sugar water and buried in the garden. And, of course, it was just stink bombs.

So it took me another 40 years to professionally make it. So I've now made it with, you know, lime, marijuana, mandarin. You can buy it in L.A. and you can buy it online. What's it called? It's called Jack, and it's unisex. And this was not some sort of, like, because I was looking at that.

I'm like, would a company reach out to Richard Grant? Like, has he, like, got that much traction in that world? No, I don't. To make a cent? Self-finance and self, you know, the whole thing is. This was an obsession. Yeah. It's a one-man brand obsession.

That's insane. It seems like that somewhere in you, you're your father's son. You have a little unrequited love. I do. For that girl. Clearly, yes. What happened to Ms. Clapp? I don't know. She left Swaziland a year later. I've never seen sight girl. Clearly, yes. What happened to Ms. Clap? I don't know.

She left Swaziland a year later. I've never seen sight nor sound of her since. But boy, burying that bottle, it stuck with you. It has certainly done. And how's that scent selling? Yes, done really well. It has? Yeah.

Well, there you go. A whole new business. A whole new business. More reliable than trying to make independent movies. That's insane. So, all right. Well, I guess what people have seen in recently is jackie i thought that was a great movie oh thank you great movie did you enjoy that movie yeah because i thought that uh natalie portman did an extraordinary job it's sort of like uh it's kind of a meditation on grief yeah it is

it was really kind of a powerful interesting movie yeah. Yeah. And I didn't see Logan. I'm not a superhero guy. Was that fun? It was very testosterone-ized. Yeah. Is that a lot for you on a set? A crew of 300 people as opposed to, you know, working with Marielle Heller and all her predominantly female crew on How Can You Ever Forgive Me, which is the complete opposite of that experience. Well, I mean, it's like I would assume that Wolverine is the extreme example of Alpha.

Yeah, yeah. A crew of 300 men and, you know, they've all got muscles the size of my head. And you're the bad guy. I was a bad guy, one of them. Yeah. You like that? Yeah, it was fine to do. Yeah.

And also I have to pay a little uh attention to like i'm not a doctor who guy but i imagine there's a lot of people that you know they love you for that you did it twice yes no no and uh i did a they did a radio version of it at one point um so it was never i think it was animated with voiceover and stuff so i played the doctor in that and then i played the villain in a Christmas special of Doctor Who. Do you find a lot of people know you from that? A certain type of person? Yes.

Do you do Comic-Con and stuff? I haven't, but I've heard about them. And I've been invited. That's that world, isn't it? Yeah. And you won't go? I haven't gone yet. I'm sure I will.

And what is this Star Wars business? Star Wars business is, you know, you read, get sent a generic scene, and you self-tape, and you send it off, and you have no idea what it is. It goes out of the ether. And then two months go by, and your agent calls up, or my agent called up and said, they're sending a car for you to go to pinewood studios to meet jj abrams the director for what star wars right okay so you go in there and he says so you're going to do the part you go what's the part and uh from then onwards you sign a confidentiality treatment yeah and you know you can not mention anything other than that you're in it oh so you don't know the you don't know anything about it publicly? Not at all, no. Not at all.

But apparently I've been doing it. Oh, good. Yeah, and I've been costumed. Is that exciting? In there. It is because you go into a parallel universe that's something that I'd seen when I was 18 years old at drama school in 1977,

and suddenly you're in that place where spacey things are going on around you. And also you're part of the history now. I mean, it's like it's a rarefied kind of, you know what I mean? Mark, the cynical part, you know, the terror part, paranoia part of my brain thinks, will I be in the movie when it comes out next Christmas or will I be cut out or replaced?

And that's always a possibility. That's the problem of the acting thing. Exactly. So if I was doing stand-up Star Wars, I'd just be riffing here and there for the next two hours. That's right. Maybe that's it.

You can still do it, man. But the new movie, I watched it last night, Can You Ever Forgive Me? And I've talked to Melissa before. Oh, you have? Yeah, yeah. And we all know her as a comedian.

And this is a serious role for her. Yeah. And it's kind of an abrasively heartbreaking character yeah and you i i i've not seen this much of you in a long time in a movie i mean this is a big role uh-huh and it was uh you know again a sort of a heartbreaking abrasive character yeah but it was uh it was great i i really enjoyed the film and i thought you know you're you captured that particular guy with all his flaws you know very uh perfectly well thank you but that's entirely due to the screenplay by nicole hoff center and jeff witty and mariel's direction and how he was working with melissa and how was that working with melissa she's she's very difficult oh no yeah she's very very difficult she's unkind she's unfriendly she never knows

a line she's always blatant she has terrible breath it was it was a nightmare frankly but i hope you don't publish any of that we wouldn't we wouldn't dare put that on the podcast she was absolutely extraordinary yeah everything that you'd hope for she's you know i know this sounds pretentious but i don't i'm what i mean i mean it very very sincerely she's incredibly as you will know sitting across from her yeah she's emotionally present oh yeah it's like blotting paper you say something to her and you see the effect right there's no there's no subterfuge there's no calculation or whatever yeah you just feel that you're getting the the genuine person i think that is why people love her so inaudibly and it's interesting to see her do such a difficult and imagine yeah and and angry yeah she's an angry woman yeah i just thought the

whole thing was was played really nicely that you know that the the center like the story itself being a true story about the you know this desperation that leads to this fairly you know gifted writer doing these forgeries and you your your relationship with her as her partner it kind of haps it haps haphazard happens out of nowhere yeah because you meet in this sad lonely kind of daytime gay bar yeah but i what i thought was interesting out is that the focus now it didn't shift to the sexuality of the thing i mean it, it was there, but it was really about the relationship with these two sort of broken, desperate people that were doing what was necessary and also exciting to sort of live. Yeah, he happens to be gay, she happens to be lesbian, and it doesn't seem to be of any real, it's not ever made into an issue movie in that way. And I thought that was a great strength to it

yeah it was just is yeah it wasn't avoided obviously absolutely i mean the the scene towards the end where like that moment where she says watch your house i'm watching the movie going like no you can't let that guy wait what are you thinking is gonna happen yeah oh it was so sad when she comes home yeah it's so funny i don't want to talk about it, because that's actually a spoiler in that movie. Oh, okay. I don't want to. You've watched her apartment, and she comes home. It's a very sad moment.

But oddly, you know, that as difficult as she was and, you know, as somewhat contemptible as your character is, you do empathize. I mean, you do at the end, you know, want them to be okay. Yeah, and I think that what Marielle Heller really did as a director was she was uncompromising about dealing with the loneliness and desperation of these people. Yes. You know, it's like just muddling through life.

You know, what John lennon famously said just before he was murdered that yeah life is what happens in between your plans and this is exactly what happens to these two people yeah and in in the the sort of the desperation and the loneliness and you're sort of a hustler yeah you know and she is just you know a desperate and and um bitter yeah and it was like yeah i think that, you know, oddly, a lot of people can relate to that. Yes. What's amazing about Melissa

is that she just innately minds the inherent comedy of what's in there. It is fascinating. That, you know, she gets laughs out of things you think, wow,

on paper, is that funny? Yeah. But she makes it because it's, you know, it's very, very true. It's her nature. Yeah. Like she can't, it's very, very true. It's her nature.

Yeah. Like she can't, like, yeah, because now at this point in culture, when you see her, you're kind of like, is she going to make it? But she doesn't really do it that way. No. She does it very much in character. And it is a hard character. And I thought that the surrounding actors were kind of great as well. Like that woman who owned the bookstore.

Dolly Wells, yeah. Wow, man. And that was shot really smartly, you know, in the sense that when she's sitting there, you can't really see how tall she is or how old she is or, you know, where she's coming from. But then when, you know, they're out, it's like a whole different thing.

And she played the vulnerability of that character. It was, like, devastating. Yeah. Yeah. But the story is a true story. Now, if people don't know, it's about a woman who had written successfully a couple of biographies and been on the bestseller list but could not really make her own way writing about herself. And she was obsessed with writing about Fanny Bryce.

And then somehow or another falls into forging letters of famous writers and selling them. Right? Yeah. In order to pay a rent. In order just to survive. Yeah. So it's a kind of act of literary ventriloquism. Yeah.

And she was successful at it because she could find the voice of these people and make it convincing. I mean, she convinced experts that these were letters, unknown letters by Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman, Noel Coward, you know, great writers in their own right. And she managed to clone herself into being who they were. Her name was Lee Israel. Lee Israel. Yeah. Now, and this all happened to her. Now, when you got the script, was it offered to you?

Did you have to audition for it? Or did you, you know, when you read the material were you like oh this is great story i got called by an agent who said you have 24 hours to read the script and made it make a decision start shooting in a month's time in in what two months time in manhattan january two years ago and i said who has dropped out or who has died and she said that is not what you should be asking yourself are you concerning with yeah do you want to do this all right so who's playing the israel said melissa mccarthy and i thought well you read that yeah because i've seen everything she'd done i knew that it was just a gift of a part and a gift of a role so yeah we jumped at it those are the questions you shouldn't

be asking except it's happened to you twice three times yeah it's a natural because i know it's so fucked up about show business is sort of like you get offered these things it's a natural because i know it's so fucked up about show business is sort of like you get offered these things it's like you have 10 minutes yeah it's like how did it get to the how did it get to that to 10 minutes how am i yeah did you find out anything to make it bad for you uh no i didn't no that's good and i try to stick with the thing of not asking who or what or how who would turn it down or pulled out or whatever because it's not good you know if you're given to paranoia which i am um that's not the that's not the way to go but what do you do when that happens i mean if you found out if you found out before you took you started acting

and then you just compare yourself to that person yeah i think you do yeah but you even do that do you it's like people you know it's like trying to ask what somebody was like the person that the who you're with now yeah that that they were stooping before. You may have enormous curiosity to find out about them. It's best not to know and certainly not see a photograph of them. Because you're only going to feel probably inadequate, I think. Yeah, I think that diminishes a little bit with age. When you get a little bit of confidence, it's sort of like, all right, what am I going to do?

Yeah, but you know about confidence it just doesn't you know unfortunately it's that sort of like juggling with jelly and water it doesn't it doesn't hold for long it's the worst yeah it's the worst you feel so great on one day and then somebody just comes up and side swipes you and you're just you're like you know flattened all over again yeah or when you have to show up to do the work and you you feel that heaviness and the heavy-hearted thing we're like i'm not i can't do it i'm not good enough yeah i can't go out the door yeah yeah you get that still oh yeah that never goes away i just accept that that's how it is but do you find that like right when you start doing what you're doing that you kind of yeah you're professional yeah but you does it diminish when you engage? Once you start. Because, I mean, in this situation, in this movie, I got to New York on a Wednesday and I said, I think there was a plan that we were going to rehearse before we started shooting on the Monday.

Yeah. And then I was told, you know, Melissa had been making, I don't know, 75 movies in four concerts or whatever she was doing, writing and publishing three books and launching a fashion line. She turned up on the Friday and and i begged mariel heller i said can we please just have half an hour 10 minutes anything just so we meet so it was not on the first day having to play these people that clearly oh really so it turns out that melissa felt the same way and you know we spent the whole morning going through the script and having lunch together and talking and you know as you know from the malcolm gladwell you know blink book essays that you make a decision about another human being whether you're going to get on with them or not instinctively within you know 15 nanoseconds is that true yeah i think so so

well you have a you have a very sort of animal instinct instinctive response to somebody yeah and we got on right from the get-go and I think that that was a godsend because it then meant that when we started work on Monday, actual shooting, I felt like I I I sort of innately knew something about her. Yeah. Right. In a way that if we met on the first day, my nerves would have been so shredded with jet lag and not sleeping for 72 hours trying to get through the week. Am I going to be fired? You. Will McCarthy hate my guts or whatever? So we'd gone through that. And we all found that we had the same idea about what this movie could and should be. Oh, that's great.

And I would think that you would have to be a real tremendous asshole for Melissa McCarthy not to like you. Believe me. Believe me. Do not be fooled. She so you know embracing you know she is it was nice to see jane curtain too huh yeah gosh so good and so good yeah yeah i i love when that happens uncompromising and just straight down the line being absolute yeah it's great there was yeah

and there was a there was a sort of a nice comedic balance to the thing a little bit subtly you know and i like when melissa mccarthy i guess her husband got cast as the scumbag guy, the guy who's shady. Yeah, one of the autographed booksellers. Yeah, yeah. But she essentially got the part by sleeping with him, by being a husband, because he was cast in the former incarnation of the movie. Oh, really?

And when that cast and director went down, he was still attached to it. And Melissa then read it. And she obviously was a fan of Nicole Hofer Center's writing. And so then Melissa got very keen on this project and kept saying, you know, this is a great character and this should get made. So she happened to be married to the guy that was cast. So he was the common denominator. Yeah. They make their own movies, those two.

They do. So Lee Israel is no longer with us? No, she died 2014. Did she die happier or with more money? What do you know? There was a guy that was hanging around the Julius Bar, which is the oldest gay bar in Manhattan, where we were shooting, where Lee parked herself regularly yeah with headphones on a Walkman cassette to shut the world out but not to be harassed by people and a guy came up to

Melissa went up to this guy who was hanging around a lot and said you know I don't know who you are you on the crew whatever he said no no I was a friend of Lee's and he said it's very uncanny for me to be seeing you as Lee's sitting there because I used to sit next to her. And she said to him, do you think Lee would have been happy with what we're doing? And his response was, happy was not really anything that Lee did. But, you know, the guy that knew her, who's the producer, David, who encouraged Lee to write this story eventually about her FBI forgery life. Yeah. He thought that she would have been incredibly thrilled to have this spotlight on her work and her life.

Uh-huh. Did Melissa get her? I mean, like, I mean, was. Yeah. Yeah. You read the book and you go, she's absolutely nailed who this person is. That's great. Well, I enjoyed the movie.

It was great talking to you. Good luck with the rest of the junket. Thank you very much. And, yeah, I look forward to seeing you in movies always. Thank you. That's it. That was great. You know, I had no idea what what to expect he wanted to know a bit about me i gave it to him and then he told me about him and it was an interesting story it was unique and i

enjoyed his company he's a very sweet guy and um great actor loved it hey have a good weekend maybe i'll see you at the thing and if not you know have good have a good weekend. Maybe I'll see you at the thing. And if not, have a good time at that thing you're doing. Hey, good luck with the thing that you got going. Hope that works out. Don't worry about it. It'll be good. It'll be good. It'll be good.

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