WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 975 - Jeff Daniels

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

Jeff Daniels has delivered great performances in films, plays and TV shows for more than 40 years but he thought a true “dream role” had eluded him. Until now. Marc talks with Jeff in the midst of rehearsals for Aaron Sorkin’s adaptation of To Kill A Mockingbird on Broadway, in which Jeff plays Atticus Finch. Jeff explains how he applies his Midwest work ethic to acting, why he sustains his own theater company in Michigan, and what he learned about the job of acting from people like James Cagney, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, and Debra Winger. This episode is sponsored by Spotify, Holmes & Watson, SimpliSafe, and quip. 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.

Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated

category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. 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. all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuckables what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf welcome to it if you're new hi how are you hope you're comfortable hope you're doing what you uh just. If you're new, hi, how are you? Hope you're comfortable. Hope you're doing what you just normally do. You're just trying it out. Like I've heard about this guy. People say he's good. One guy says he's annoying. They say his interviews are good, but sometimes he's a little rambly at the beginning. Yeah, welcome. For those of you who have been here before, nice to see you. Nice to have you back.

What's going on today on the show? Jeff Daniels. I talked to Jeff Daniels, the actor, who in that, it turns out to be kind of a great conversation, really. I think he surprised himself. Last night was the last night of Chanukah. last night was the last night of Hanukkah. And the night before last, I lit the candles. It was pretty exciting to light so many, to start out with so many, you know, because I started out with seven. I didn't light them until last night. That was the night that, you know, I'd been busy,

been doing Globe and getting home late and studying my lines. But with Sarah, the painter came over and she wanted to witness it. And I begrudgingly did it. And I'm sorry that it was begrudgingly, but sometimes it's just a vulnerable place. I talked about that last week, but I did it. And the pretty hand-dipped Hanukkah candles made a very compelling, colorful mess. And my smoke alarm did not go off. I said the prayer the best i could did not know the second one dug up my yarmulke from the from the drawer where i have a couple that i've collected from

weddings and then one nice woven one where i don't remember where i bought it but i must have bought it somewhere and uh i laid into it i leaned in to the menorah lighting ceremony i have been trying to use my time efficiently uh working all week doing the glow been some late shoots uh going into the night and a couple nights i got home but then i get home when i'm doing the show and i work on the scenes for the next day and i've kind of relaxed into the process god knows i should this being the third year. But it's going well. But then the weekend comes, and I want to get some shit done. There's some stuff that needs to get done, house stuff.

Things, you know, making my new house a house still needs to be done. Like, I have this room upstairs. It's supposed to be an office, so I want it to be an office, not just, you know. Well, here's my problem. It's like there's about, it starts out like three or four things I want to do, and then instead of just doing one at a time, I'll start doing one, and then I'll drift, and then I'll go do something else. I'll play guitar.

I'll think about stuff. I'll read a book, and then I'll go do some of the other, and I just sort of create this multitasking rotation of projects. And then it just, it becomes bigger as the day goes on because you find other things like this weekend, the idea was to get the office, the study or whatever, the room that I'm going to allot for work in my home to get it set up. And by set up, I mean, just file all this stuff that is now in piles on the floors and get it out of the way and make it look, you know, at least neat. And then I could start putting stuff in my desk.

So the room looks like it functions and doesn't just become a storage room for a growing pile of papers and things that are in the do I need all this shit limbo. I just I get a lot of shit. Do you understand? And this stuff is all over the house. i don't know where it all comes from i don't know how it just start you know just all of a sudden there's new things i mean i know that you know people and and companies publishers record labels they send me shit books records you know then people send me gifts and they people send me big ideas and i look at them and then i put them on the table or the floor and they enter the first realm that they enter. The first circle is really the I might want to keep this shit.

That's the first level. And they can stay there for a while and for years even. And then eventually it gets to the point where when I decide, like I did this weekend, that it's time to go through this stuff, that they enter the do I need all this shit limbo. And I'll tell you, man, it can be a little overwhelming because, like, I'm in my office. I'm going through papers because I have all this stuff that was unfiled. I'm going through bank statements, insurance stuff, pay stubs, receipts for things that happened a long time ago. You know, my birth certificate. I got the deed to the old house. I got the deed to the new house. I got two marriage licenses, both of them void at this point, obviously. I got this huge folder of panic papers and like this aggressive

documentation I did and all the actions I had to execute when my identity was stolen. I got random song lyrics. I got question sheets for question sheets for, for podcasts, notes for interviews, just all over the place. You know, so can you, I'm sure that some of you can relate to this. Then there's the stacks of books and everything. It's just sort of like, do, do I, you know, do, do I need all this shit? And you don't want to throw important papers away. Why am I holding on to the, to the marriage licenses? That stuff has to be done that's over right but but they're on official pieces of paper that are issued by the state it's almost like it seems important it seems like it's a for archival purposes am i ever going to need proof of that i don't know who do i call who do i call to find out whether i need all this

shit whether i can start shredding and throwing stuff away? Why do we hold on to it? Don't things lose their meaning or their importance? How long do you have to keep this stuff, man? So I'm making the rotation, the multitasking, you know, multi-floor, multi-room rotation, just moving around, folding laundry, going through a few piles of papers, looking at books on the dining room table. The paper thing just overwhelmed me. Yeah, I think it was the marriage licenses. I mean, then it's just sort of like, oh my God, life just stacks up. And I don't know that it made me feel bad, but it does.

I guess it makes you feel reflective. I don't even know if it made me feel that. It's just sort of like I have lived a life. So in the middle of this rotation, I'm trying to read the new Beastie Boys book, which is great. And then a box came delivered new litter box. So I had to set that up and go through the litter and clean the litter and change the litter. I don't know, but I'm doing the papers. I'm doing the books. I'm changing cat litter. I'm playing guitar. I'm reading. Never one thing at a time. And, well, I don't think I have to tell you, the piles are not done yet. They're smaller, but they're not done yet. So finally, I break down all the boxes. I get those in the recycle. That's part of the rotation now, breaking down boxes. Then another box comes, and then I don't open it yet because I'm in the middle of the other thing. And then I noticed that on the shelf with all my little bullshit tchotchkes, there's some old Mexican

hand-carved winged monkeys that both of them lost their wings. I can't explain the whole story. And so I'm like, all right, I've got the piles going on. I got the boxes going on. I got the reading going on. I've got folding laundry, everything. And I'm just like, hey, why not add gluing the wings onto the little monkeys? So I had two winged monkeys. I threw one away. It was irreparable. Both of these things. They're just, I just, there's all these artifacts from trips I took with women who are no longer in my life, wives.

And these things, they don't seem to be triggers. They're barely reminders at this point. from trips I took with women who are no longer in my life, wives. And these things, they don't seem to be triggers. They're barely reminders at this point, just stuff I'm afraid to throw away. I feel like I go through this stuff every few years, but I'm happy that one of my monkeys now has wings. One of my little hand-carved, hand-painted, funny winged monkeys can now fly again. Oh, that must be what's going on. That must be what Buster's chasing around in the middle of the night.

My little carved Mexican monkeys with wings come to life like Pinocchio and fly around my house again. Ah, the poetry. So the big question, how does this stuff keep reproducing? Why more stuff? Okay. So another box comes, as I mentioned, and I open it and I'd ordered a new vegetable steamer just that thing that goes in the bottom of a pot because the one I had was silicone and I don't know if you have this problem but I've become very sensitive and very aggravated I have a dishwasher I don't always use it but I when I do use it all the plastic takes it all starts to smell and taste like that dishwasher soap like this dirty dishwater soap water maybe my dishwasher is fucked up i don't know do you have this soap problem where you're fucking plastic and even the glass stuff

makes the food taste like like soap is it my machine broken or is that a common problem get back to me on this but i had this silicone is that what it's called i had to look it up the silicone uh uh steamer that i have had for over a decade. And it just was making all my kale and vegetables and rabe and everything I steam taste like soap. So I was furious after a certain point. It's been going on for about a year. It took me that long to order a new steamer. And I ordered one that was too small for my big pot.

So I had a moment of anger. And then there's the next moment when you order things online. It's like, did it cost enough to return it? No, it did not. It's like six bucks. So I went on and I ordered the larger one. And now I'm going to have two. And that's how things reproduce in the shopping online culture.

Depending on how much time you have, you might like to return things. But I wasn't going to return it for six bucks. Now, in my mind, mind i'm like that's good i'll have two uh one for the little pot one for the big pot but it'll only be a matter of time before uh before it ends uh ends up in the do i need all this shit limbo two vegetable steamers how often am i going to use one in a small pot doesn't matter doesn't matter people but i got two steamers now so jeff daniels uh this interview that you're about to hear was recorded in the schubert theater during the first week of preview

performances for to kill a mockingbird uh that's a play adaptation of uh the harper lee book written by aaron sorkin opening night is this thursday december 13. You know, it was great because it was one of those things. I was in New York. I brought my equipment. I met Brendan over at the Schubert Theater. We went up into the old offices that are beautifully redone in the Schubert.

And we sat in this gorgeous room because I guess one of the Schuberts used to live there back in the day. And I set up on the table and Jeff brought his guitar in case we might want to do that. It's a little tricky to do that, but we noodled on it a bit before the day. And I set up on the table and Jeff brought his guitar in case we might want to do that. It's a little tricky to do that, but we noodled on it a bit before the interview. And we just talked, you know, and it's interesting because Jeff is an intense guy, but you enter an interview and I know from someone who's doing them with a sort of kind of like,

all right, what are we doing? And it sort of started in that tone, but then it started to open up and you can hear it open up, and we ended up having a really great conversation, a nice time, and we really connected, and there was a lot of great little tidbits about acting, about his career, about other actors, and just about his kind of journey as an actor,

because everyone knows Jeff Daniels. He was a great actor, and the play was very good. What's horrible about the play is how relevant it is today. And I entered this thing, oddly enough, maybe it's because I was lazy in high school or I don't know, but I have not read To Kill a Mockingbird. And I did not see the movie.

So this play was actually my first experience with the story. And it's a devastating story. And it was very well executed by the actors and by Aaron Sorkin, who I'll talk to at another time. So this is me and Jeff Daniels upstairs at the old Schubert Theater in New York City. in New York City. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those.

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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed,

how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. I saw it last night. Last night, yeah. How did you feel about last night? I thought it was great, by the way. We did well, but we had like 12 changes in the second act.

So you're flying around speed bumps. Boom, there's one. Here comes a change, here comes a change. Don't forget what you're saying here about the you know you're writing change and then you go i just word burgered that line okay here we go let me make sure i got the piece out that was necessary to move the dialogue forward yes what i meant to say yes and uh something about jim Yeah, but you guys, he's got some of you, it seems like some of the actors have to push the stairs under the platform

and then roll the thing out. Yeah, and it's just things that are new. And everybody, Aaron and Bart and Scott, are making it better. It's just a bit of a, you want to shush down the mountain straight right yeah yeah yeah and we're not there yet we have to write and here's a new gate yeah over here are you changing every day like is they are there tweaks what kind of tweaks happen there are two weeks every day yeah right now yeah to what lines movements cuts all of it, cuts. Really?

Directing an actor to go deeper, and now he or she is now diving in deeper, and that changes the rhythm, so you're riding them and their changes. And you get the stares instead of her getting the stares. You know, it's just tough. It's tightening the show. It's all the things you do with a new play to make it great.

And on top of that, it's Aaron Sorkin. On top of that, it's the speed and the mental dexterity that it takes to handle Aaron Sorkin well. Yeah. that it takes to handle Aaron Sorkin well. Yeah. And that is, it's a challenge, and it's a great challenge. But this is, what, the third or fourth time you've worked with him? Newsroom, I count that as three seasons, three years,

of doing exclusively Aaron's dialogue. And then it was Steve Jobs, and I don't think I'm forgetting anything. So this would be the third project, yeah. And when you do, like, when you say, like, because I notice that Aaron, like, when I watch his stuff on, in a movie, like in Steve Jobs' movie, like, I liken it to, like, you know,

Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, that there's a patter to it. Like, it's not, it becomes about the rhythm of the patter, not whether or not people talk like that. It's like whether you can deliver his style of writing. Yeah, I mean, it has to do with being a musician and finding the rhythm. Yeah. But it's also written.

Yeah. It means it has to be rehearsed. Right. And I don't mind having the writer in the scene. I enjoy listening to Paddy Chayefsky in Network. Right. I like that he's in the scene with Holden and Dunaway. Yeah.

I don't mind that. No, it's great. I think too many actors have decided that, well, I think paraphrasing is best. And I think, let me just do it the way I would do it. And a lot of times you're in a movie where it's written by junior executives on the 18th floor and it's noted to death. And you go through the scene and you're in the line and you're talking to your daughter and you say, you know, your mother, Nancy, and you're going wait a

minute why why am i telling my own daughter that her mother's name because we're reminding the audience so late oh shut up right so with an aaron sorkin or a chayefsky or david mammett or lanford wilson preston sturgis let's go way back yeah you want the writer in the room yeah i'm reading a book i want to know i'm reading paul rudnick right now i'm i love that i'm listening to paul rudnick and that other people are talking what is wrong with that right i've always and it comes from the theater it comes from there's a tone there's a rhythm there's a there's something there's a respect for the writer they perfected it they this is what they they trust me they've worked on this before they gave

it to you yeah and they might have tried all the things that you're going to do and these the the actor thing of well let me do my it's you're gonna go down the road to your own little bag of tricks yeah the thing that you do in every single movie that you think makes you special that let me do what i do that america loves well you're just a brand. Why don't you get inside Aaron Sorkin? Get inside his Atticus Finch. Right. And find out what that is and go to some place you've never been before.

Otherwise, get the hell out. Yeah. Go do something else. So do you, like, I've talked to Mamet about his approach to acting, which I initially, like, just on paper and having read what he- I think I threw the book against the wall. Yeah, right. How he feels about it.

Yeah. But I did take something away from that, is that it is on the page. I mean, what you need is on the page. And you have to honor that first. Absolutely. And then build it from inside that. Don't change a word. Right.

Especially a Mamet, a Lanford, or an Aaron Sorkin. Don't change a word of it. You're not allowed. In the theater, you are not allowed. In movies, somehow, somehow, somebody gave actors the permission to do that. I was doing a movie, The Hours, with Meryl Streep. That's a heavy movie. Yeah.

Yeah. But you're with Meryl. Right. And I had worked with her on Heartburn, and I got the chance to do ours and went over and did it. We're walking into her apartment, the character's apartment, and the director, Stephen Daldry, said, Meryl, just say a couple things about your apartment as you're coming in. And she said, I have to write it too? I had never heard an actor say that.

And she goes, you have David Hare, one of the great screenwriters, sitting over there. Go ask him. And Stephen rightly went over and said, David, and he's something. I hope you like it. Something, nothing, generic. And he gave me two lines. And she goes, thank you. And I said, OK, that's it.

That's the role model. That's it. I get if it's written by 12 people. I get that. But if you got the real writer there, I did that on Looming Tower. We had Adam Rapp was a playwright and had written one of the episodes. And he was sitting over there, and they're going, I go, Adam, come here. Yeah, tell him

what do you want me to say because that what it does for the actor then you stop trying to do someone else's job you stop trying to write it too in between action and cut you're also rewriting can't do it right can't do it well i had a like a an experience with that the other day like i did like i'm not i'm not here to talk about me, but I do sometimes. But let's. Yeah. I did one scene, like a walk and talk with De Niro on the Joker movie. Pretty good.

Right. And I'd never been in that situation or on a set like that. But with De Niro, we did it. We did the scene. And then he went over and talked to the director, who was Todd Phillips, and then I'm standing there. I'm not saying anything. Then Todd Phillips comes over to me and goes, you think you're being a little too big?

I think you might be a little too big. You do work for Bob's character. I'm like, oh, that's what he just said. I didn't take it personally, but De Niro didn't say to me. No. He did the right thing, and on a film, too, and with somebody like De Niro, if Bob thinks you're a little big, you might want to bring it down.

I was happy to bring it down. Sure. I did everything I could to bring it down. So you were a complete zero. You were barely audible in the next take. I didn't even talk. I just walked behind him nervously. That's perfect.

Seemed like the right thing to do. Sure. Built it up from there. But do you ever improvise? Yeah. When you're called upon to do so. I'm not good at it. I never took an improv class.

So I'm not, I'm not, I'm okay at it. If I'm in the character and asked to, you know, do something. I mean, when you're doing dumb and dumber with jim carey you better be ready to roll a little bit but often on dumb and dumber i just go jim tell me give me something to say when you say that just give me something to say um you can try to say this fine thank you again i don't want to write it it's your job to react to jim just i worked really hard to make it work the way it is. Now I'm supposed to, come on. So when you started, where did you start doing the acting?

I mean, when did it dawn on you that you needed to do that? It's still dawning. Yeah. But you've gotten very good at it. Well, I kept waiting for it to end, the career. I did. I was in high school. There's still time, Jeff. Trust me. end yeah the the career i did i i you know i was in high school you're still timed yet they're there trust me um they keep pulling me back the high school it was just small town they

needed guys from south pacific what town a little town called chelsea michigan that's where you live now i still live there uh ann arbor right near ann Arbor. The director was doing South Pacific. She needed guys. So I'm walking off a basketball practice where we did nothing but run for three hours because we were five and 15. And we had just lost by 30 points. And I'm one of the starters. And you're just going, just get me out of basketball. And she's going, Jeff, get in here. Because I was in choir. I could carry a tune. She hauls me up there. I do a funny dance in the middle of I don't know what the song was. And then next thing you know, I'm in the show. I do the funny dance in front of 700 people.

And I know exactly what to do. And I'm not nervous. Right. And you don't have to make a shot. Don't have to make a shot. And then she gives me Fagin and Oliver. Then she gives me, wait for it, Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof. Sure.

Blonde, Midwestern, 18, not a clue what Jewish was, but I went to see the movie six times, so I did a dead-on impression of Topol. Oh, good. I would have loved to have seen those costumes. I wonder how they would play today. I remember spraying the blonde hair with gray hairspray paint and a glue-on gray beard.

And you did... I did it all. But I knew what to do. Yeah. I could get out in front of those people and I could work them. I could pull them in. I could push them away. You have the timing.

Yeah, at 18. So I was a natural. There was a lot I didn't know, but I was a natural at it. I kept going to college got a break went to new york city joined circle repertory company what about your folks were they into it my dad ran a lumber company and uh i'm the oldest son how many how many kids uh three my brother runs it now but i was being groomed to be the lumber guy. Family, business. It would have been third generation.

And I took trigonometry. I took geometry. I took algebra. I barely. For lumber? I mean, things have to fit in houses. Yeah. That takes geometry.

You have to be able to tell the customer. But when you're pulling a D plus after studying three hours the night before with your father, and you're still pulling a D plus on the test, and you're throwing the book up in the air, and your dad's going, this is just not going to. Yeah. No basketball, no lumber for this kid. Well, then I got the, and they saw it. They saw this natural ability in this kid.

Yeah. And the teacher had said, the choir teacher, the musical director, just kept saying, watch this kid. There's something going on. I don't know how good he is, but this is unusual. Which is also, on some level, horrible news for parents. Like, guess what? Your kid might have a future in show business.

Well, but we're in the Midwest. We don't know what show business is. Isn't that weird? You don't, do show business is we weird you don't do you no and new york city is a place where people go to die yeah you know it's like getting shot or yeah it's the 70s it's it's it kind of did go it's before rudy saved the day right you know way before and the city was depressed and broken oh my god bond out and son of sam hadn't happened yet it was just just drugs and weirdness yeah and and uh and hang on gay people yeah they live there right so that but they looked at that and i remember coming home i i did a thing at a college that the artistic director of circle

repertory had come out to pick up a check to direct some college kids. The head of the department at Eastern Michigan University was his old college friend from Northwestern. And he's directing a bunch of college kids. Marshall W. Mason, would you come out and direct these college kids? Got the lead in Summer and Smoke and Hot El Baltimore. And before Marshall went back to New York, he said, you know what you should do with your life, don't you? And I'm 21, and I go, well, you know, I think I'd like to be an actor. He said, you should come to New York. You should join the Circle Repertory Company as an apprentice.

No guarantees, but you should chase acting. So I went home to my lumberyard father and my housewife farmer mother yeah she comes from farmers farmers and i said this is what i'm being offered and my dad looked at my mom and he looked at me and he said you should go really pretty good that's great pretty good did you grow up with uh was it a conservative household were you you know hammered with republican moderates yeah republican moderates so decent people but a little nervous i i they said you should go yeah there was no hesitant there was did it surprise you they saw it um was it like did you get emotional i mean was it one of those things where it was like uh you wanted no no because i think it was why don't you go and it

wasn't even go and try and then when you fail fail, come home, and we'll put you in. I knew I had the lumber company. I might have been on the counter going, what would you like today? But I knew I had the lumber company. The simple son. Were the younger brothers running things? Yes, I would have been working for my younger brother, definitely. But no, it was, no, I have to see this through.

Yeah. And then I went to New York and waited to fail. And this was 72? 76. Okay. So where do you move? You first get here, you must have, had you been here before? No, I stayed with Marshall for a couple of weeks and then I got a one room apartment on 23rd and 7th Avenue.

Okay. Pretty, what was going on over there then not much not much chelsea it was chelsea though kind of almost yeah it was it was 23rd and 7th yeah um the next year son of sam happened uh also the blackout remember the blackout right yeah yeah i was understudying on broadway and then blackout happened. Walked down to my apartment. I was on the 10th floor. No lights, no elevator. Calls from home.

Are you okay? No. Be careful, Son of Sam. No. No, no. I heard the lights didn't go on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they didn't go on.

So what was this? How did the circle rep work? So you come out here. You're the new guy. Who were the big guys? Your apprenticing? I mean, what were you watching? Apprenticing, it was a company of people that they had done

Hot El Baltimore. You know, Judd Hirsch was in that. Soon after I came, Bill Hurt showed up. Oh, yeah? Chris Reeve showed up. Oh, that was that crew. Yeah, but there was a group of people john hogan danton stone stephanie gordon tanya barrison trish hawkins nancy snyder

solid from who had been taught by marshall mason this is kind of listening reactive acting yeah that you are part of a whole don't try try to stand out. That was your training? Yeah. And it served me really well in film as a supporting actor, which is how I really started out. So you didn't do any of the Meisner, Stanislavski, Metzi? He took Meisner, who took it from Stanislavski, and created his own thing. It was like a third step, what Marshall did.

So it was based on Stanislavski, based on Meisner. But Marshall wrote his own book on it. And that's the book I use today. And those guys like Reeves and Hurt, they came out of Juilliard, right? They came from elsewhere. And so there was a bit of a speed bump for those of us who were trained under marshall yeah and but you know bill extremely talented chris talented you know they they fit in um but it wasn't the same as those of us who had been through it right because they like someone like

it hurt it seems awfully thinky. Stinky? Thinky. Thinky. Yeah. Is that a word? I use it a lot. It is now. Thinky, where he seems to process. There's a process going on with Bill.

There's some cerebral stuff. Yeah. But he's fun. All you got to do is poke him. Yeah. I mean, with a sharp object. But you got to poke him, and then he's there. Yeah. So you apprentice for how long what does it mean to apprentice apprentice means you

uh you uh i went right he he had a part for me this was the spring when he said why don't you come to new york in the fall he had a part for me it was a play called the farm by david story The Farm by David Story. Richard Gere had done it like six months earlier. Yeah. And Richard got the Terrence Malick, now this movie, I forget which one. Oh, yeah, Days of Heaven maybe? That one. He got that, I think that, with Brooke Adams. Right.

So Richard couldn't do it. Gere couldn't do it. And he found me and said, Jeff can do this part. Why don't you come and be an apprentice and the first thing i'm going to do is put you in a play at circle rap off broadway didn't have a clue what i was doing uh-huh and and really let marshall down i think and uh really yeah didn't go well it i wasn't the guy in summer and smoke i just i just got scared sure and you felt that it's a horrible feeling on stage yeah you just feel like you're around people that know a hell of a lot more than you do,

and it shows. But the critics were whatever the critics were. But Milton Goldman, who was running ICM at the time, big agency in New York City, was there to see Jack Gwillum, his 65-year-old client, who was playing the father in the play. And he saw this kid, and he said, I want to meet the kid. And he hauled me up, and it's everything. It's Milton Goldman. You knew about him.

You knew enough about him. I didn't know anything. It's the posters on the wall. It's the little kid. And Milton's going in the formal suit behind his desk at 10 in the morning going, you're good enough to circle up in Marshall Nation. You're good enough for ICM. Tell me a little bit about yourself, kid.

Well, I was just in Tevye and Fiddler on the Roof, and he started laughing. And he wouldn't stop laughing. And I said, no, I was good. He goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Eric, Eric, come here a second. Tell him what you just told me. Tell him what you just told me. Tell Eric what you just told me. I was Tevye and Fiddler.

Now he's laughing. And he goes, you're going to be fine, kid. You'll be fine. Go down to the commercial department. We're going to put you in some Listerine and some McDonald's, and we're going to get you on that. So I did commercials for like five years. So you started making money as an actor, though.

Yeah, I didn't have to wait tables. Because I would make just enough on i'd get one out of 30 commercials that i'd go up on any memorable commercials i did about 12 pepto-bismol oh that's good yeah in the 70s in the 70s pepto-bismol i was a student at the university of mexico, and my parents from Long Island with a camera around the neck and the Hawaiian shirt came down to visit me at the University of Mexico City. And they said, how you doing, son? I said, pretty good. This was a precursor to dumb and dumber. Pretty good. I just just took a test there are 500 of us have diarrhea

and um 250 of us had took pepto-bismol and i was one of them and boy does it work cut it that was it that was the spot what that's a hell of a setup for a pepto-bismol commercial they went right to it not only that but but you have to call your parents and going you know this week on uh you know uh manix uh in the 8 30 hour i'll, you'll see the Pepto-Bismol commercial. And they call all their, you know, their bridge club friends. Right. There you go. They are talking about diarrhea.

There's my son. It was sort of interesting. It was like real fear-mongering about dysentery, about everything that you're afraid of about eating in Mexico. There it is. There's 250 of us with diarrhea from being in Mexico. But there's a cure. Yeah, Pepto-Bismol. So it was before that.

Yeah, it was before that. I didn't have to do that. So then after those commercials, when do you start to, did you stay at ICM? Like, are you still at ICM? I'm still there. I haven't moved. You know, Paul Martino was an agent at the time. He picked me up in 1980.

He's my manager now. Eddie Ablons started his mail as Paul Martino's receptionist at Paul Martino's office. This is Eddie Ablons. Now he runs movies in LA. That's how it happens. You got to be nice to all those people. So I've been with Eddie and Paul since 1980.

My mistake was made when I had no respect for any of them. And you told them. Assistance, assistants whatever i was just an asshole and then all of a sudden they're the running the business and you're like yeah you don't remember when i was younger yeah i do you fuck i'll never forget that good luck with your career that's true yeah they don't they have a long they're like elephants so when does the how did you start doing the movies when did that break how did that happen was it the jonathan demin circle rep um did a lot of plays the circle rep quite a few fifth of july was the one that i really rode that one lanford wilson wrote it we did it off broadway then we did it in LA. You started in it. Yeah, well, I was one of about seven or eight people. And Lanford, every part was a great part.

So that was my ticket. That just kept me working and kept me in what money you could get in the theater. Do you love theater? Love theater. Because you did a lot of it. You've done more of it than I think most film actors already. I think so. Yeah.

It's hard to know. But I really wanted to do movies. Theater was my ticket to movies. But that was always the idea. Yeah. I saw Dog Day Afternoon when I was in college in 76, before I moved to New York. I saw it six times.

I kept going back to it. And I wanted to figure out what Pacino was doing. I wasn't getting taught that. Every scene was so alive and so, and I went so I could think, I thought I could see the script. Yeah. And I thought I could see him improv. I thought I could see the script. Yeah. And I thought I could see him improv. And then I could see the choices. Right.

None of which I knew until like three years at Circle Rep where I understood what choices are. You know, De Niro said an actor is only as good as his choices. You get the script, what are you going to do with it? Right. And so I was just doing it. I didn't think about it. So I said, wherever I have to go to figure out what Pacino is doing

and how he does that, I'm going to go there. And so that was New York. Interesting. So it was the third thing down, the choices. I wasn't even aware of choices. Right. You do it. You don't even think about it.

Yeah, and when you do it that way, it's sort of you know it's a free fall in a way i mean like right because choices at least give you something to land on you're like you learn all this stuff later yeah yeah no i did the acting club but you know initially coming out it was just like i i just i did i think i people seem to like what i did you know the movies the marshall came to me after about three four years at Circle Rep and said, look, the next season is this, that, and the other thing, and you're not in any of them. So this would be a really good time to go chase- A movie?

Chase ICM. And I said, you know what? I'll go now. And it was very great. He'd been so great to me. And I said, I'm going to go to ICM and just let them have me. I'm not going to, well, you got to work around this play i'm doing a circle no more i'm gonna go for a year or two and just go straight icm and and that's when we started chasing movies and there were a lot of auditions yeah can i ask you a quick question about choices and about like when you do like i just saw you do atticus finch right now when you put choices in place, what is the emotional choice? I mean, I know when you say, I'm going to say this like this, I'm going to turn this way,

I'm going to listen this way, or I'm going to engage here. But what is the driving force emotionally that you make for something like Atticus? Is it instinctual? Or do you say, you make like for something like Atticus do you or do you just is it instinctual or do you say this guy wants justice this guy believes people are good what's do you put something in place like that for yourself I I I simplify as often as possible yeah it I want justice is too big right I want Tom Robinson I've got I'm going to represent Tom Robinson. I want him to sign these papers. Okay. That's it.

Yeah. That's it. For that moment. That scene. For that scene. That's it. That's all you're there to do. Now, through rehearsal and through the choices and all that,

you've got the accent, you've got the optimism of, no, they are completely wrong and i'm 100 right you're innocent tom you're innocent yeah i x you walk in the door of that scene yeah going i'm going to be your lawyer and hear the papers sign sign the form in triplicate and he signs the form and i go all right i'll see you tomorrow morning that's all that's going to happen today so it's scene for scene really yeah yeah yeah you sit with scout on the bench and i'll explain to her what a mob means right and how that's going to work for us that's all you know i'm just teaching my daughter right you just happen to be watching right how simple can you make it i watch these actors not in this

show yeah but other actors with not not naming names but yeah And they just discuss it and talk it, and they get in their head. They think too much. I think, how, the less I can think about things, the more you're in free fall. Because if all you're doing is going to Tom Robinson saying, just sign the papers. And of course, there are obstacles to that. Every good scene is, you know, you aren't going to get what you want easily. Otherwise, there's no scene right so here come the obstacles and you've got to fight your way through those with the same thing i just want you to sign the paper i just for your own benefit

right right you know yeah and so it because you start going forward you aren't sitting back going through all your notes all your yeah you know i gotta show them this and i've got to make sure i look like that right that's all horseshit right that gets in the way yeah you want one thing what is it go get that yeah so you start chasing movies a lot of auditions yeah are there any that you can think of that you're like fuck why am i i should have got that oh couple yeah i was close on american beauty for the spacey part yeah kevin was uh they were trying to do his deal and it wasn't going well and i met with sam mendez and i really you know i really wanted that one it would have been a huge leap to put me in that i was really nobody if that we're positioned to have to accept it's like we're

going to use you as leverage to get kevin to i was a backup right and i i he didn't offer it right and i'm there i imagine there were two or three other guys that were you know in that short list if kevin's deal didn't come through and then his deal came through and that was that but that was like that's the only one really i mean it was you like that part oh it would have been a great part but he did great in it sure yeah and what do you know that's not to bitch about but what was the first movie something wild uh no uh ragtime i got into ragtime i had two or three scenes yeah there's james cagney yeah 81 years old sitting there and you're in the scene with james cagney pretty special you did that pretty special you're in

the room and he had that beard he had like a curly mustache right did he play he had a curly mustache was he the police chief or the fire he's the commissioner the police commissioner yeah i remember him coming in he didn't want to do it he didn't think he could do it he was retired at his upstate farm in new york he wasn't acting anymore yeah milo's foreman said come on down to new york city we'll we'll do a screen test so that you can see that you can do it and he reluctantly came down with his nurse came in on a walker yeah sat there and it was a four-page scene yeah they brought in kenny mcmillan the police chief and three or four cops to just act around him but we're in a studio at the pbs station here just to test cagney his request and black and

white monitors this is 1980 you're playing a cop i'm just i'm one of the cops back i got one line or something four page scene he couldn't do it couldn't remember it couldn't stay i just it was come on milo said no no no no we cut down to three pages down to two down to one page cut it down to one page still couldn't do it you say one line you say one line jimmy you say one line and then you know we cut we cut we edit we just say one line and jimmy and you look up at the black and white monitor because they were shooting it yeah And you could see it. You could see the medium close-up. And all of a sudden, the jaw sets, and the finger comes up, and there's Yankee Doodle Dandy.

There's everything. There's Cagney. Yeah. And it's still in there. Yeah. And Milos says, that is, we got that. You'll be good. We do one line at a time.

You'll be beautiful. One line at a time. Yeah. That's how you got to shoot those guys sometimes. Sometimes. But, you know, it was Clint is the only other guy. Jack's another one. Those three guys, you know, when they go, you know, Jack, how do you want me to do it?

Yeah. And Jim Brooks is, well, I mean, you think, yeah, all right, boom, boom. And you look at the monitor, and then all of a sudden there he becomes. And Clint, I did a movie with clint blood work and he just just casual easy going plays golf right he's that guy yeah and then he sits in there and he you got the camera yeah you got it ready all right good all right anytime you're ready what that was action that was by the way that was action yeah and you say the line and you watch clint set the jaw do the speech and then at the end of it goes all right that's enough of that and it's done but you see him become it and then come out of it

on camera on camera i just had that experience because I couldn't figure it out. Because I was working with De Niro and watching him trying to get the lines intended or whatever. But then you watch the pictures of it or you watch it on the monitor and you're like, you can't even explain it. I guess it's just years of experience or they live on this. Oh, there's so much technique that you learn how to forget it. And Nicholson said, you got to know what the muscles in your face do and you know winger deborah said to me on terms she said you lead with your eyes just little things that you know on stage you've got the

whole body you're looking at right when you say something there sometimes there's a physical adjustment to let the to pull focus to you to hit this line yeah but on film you lead with the eyes you follow where your eyes look you make a note of that and then you forget them and then you do them that's what these guys know instinctively now they know which cameras on them they know what they know what this looks like when they do this they know what this looks like when the the uh altman robert altman said uh yeah give me a reveal jeff what were you looking down and then you come up you say the line then i worked i that was beautiful it was a great movie trick. And then I was doing a movie with someone who shall be named, who will be nameless. And every single line was a reveal.

Every single line. All of them. Always found a way to look away and then come back up. Always looked away and then came back up. And you just want to look. What are you looking at? What's down there? Which movie did you do with Altman?

What was that? Kane Mutiny Court Martial. It was a TV, CBS TV thing with Brad Davis, Peter Gallagher, Eric Bogosian. Seems like you got to work with a lot of great guys. I did. I did. And Altman was, that's where you learn how to improv. Altman is famous for, he mics everybody.

Yeah. And then he says, yeah, you're just, you're going through the door. Yeah, just you and your lawyer are going through the door. All right. And then what he doesn't tell you is that he's sending three people through the door from the other direction. Action. And then you're doing the dialogue. Well, yeah.

And then one of those guys says something to you. And now you're, what happened? Cut it. We got that. That's all. Yeah, just like threw all the obstacles at you in real time. Yeah, I just want to catch it on camera. Good, I got it.

Clint's the same way. Really? you only do one take one take he wants it to happen for the first time and it does and then that's free fall yeah and because you can't go back even in your mind you're like if we go back uh it's uh if i blood work was what 10 weeks um we went back twice you want another shot at that thank you that would be that would be great seeing how i butchered the speech yeah and did you did you start means clint can't use it right did you start in tv did you do little tv i did some tv uh the commercials really were a great you're in front of a camera. Right. And you learn about that. You do a Burger King commercial where you're the kid in the back cooking the burgers. Yeah.

And it's something about how great the burgers are. I don't know what the commercial is. And, of course, I did a whole four-page backstory of him. You know, he's in high school. He's supporting his family of seven. The dad died. You know, and the director's going, just cook the burgers. Yeah.

Do you still do backstory? Not to the extent that the acting classes think is so important. I do do givens. Circle taught me something called given circumstances. Where's Atticus coming from? The backstory on, for instance to kill a mockingbird

for me is all were all the books I read in the last six seven months to I wanted to know what Atticus saw when he was standing on his porch goes beyond just Harper's book right Jim Crow South I got to know what that's about and I i gotta know what it feels like in 1934 alabama sundown towns the green book stuff so you got to educate yourself to be you got to go to grad school on atticus finch you read you read joe crespino's book about atticus you you all of that you got to go to school otherwise you're not you're not gonna you're not going to get up and over Gregory Peck. You just aren't. So I said, let's get educated about what he was seeing

so that when Bob Ewell comes up on the porch in the play, I know that there's a lynching Thursday. You coming? Right. We had a good one about two weeks ago. We hung three of them. You coming? Oh, you ought to come.

This special. Got some liquor for you. Yeah. And it's normal. Right. That's the normal. That's the common. And you got to understand that before you walk on stage as Atticus.

And so it's get educated. Go to school. Know more about what's going on back then than the critics, than some other actor who might do it. That comes from the Midwest, too. There's a work ethic out there. We will work all day. I mean, we will look at the clock, but we will work until the job is done.

And that's been instilled in me from my dad. So that's one of the things I told my kids. I said, you're only special because I'm famous. That might get you through a door or two, but then it's also there are one or two strikes against you because of that. Your only way to beat the guys who think, oh, you're just the special kid or the famous father is you outwork them. Are they all going into acting?

No, no. One thought about it, and then he just didn't. I said, you've got to want it more than anything. And he goes, I don't. I said, well, then why don't you be the star of your own life? Why don't you go find out what you want to do? The only privilege you have is that you have time to find what you want to do versus what you have to do to make a living. Yeah. So you have that.

I'll give you that. That's your privilege. But you've got to work your ass off. You've got to outwork other people. And you have to make a living. So you have that. I'll give you that. That's your privilege. But you got to work your ass off. You got to outwork other people. And you have to be a professional. You have to be responsible, accountability, all that stuff that I learned as an apprentice of Circle Rep and my dad taught me. My theater company, that's what we teach. Are these kids and actors going to go off to be famous and be in movies? No. Some might, but most won't. So what are you going to take away? Professionalism, discipline, behavior, accountability, responsibility, be a pro.

And that means you outwork everybody else. Get to work. Do you find a lot of the people that come through your program know that they may not be famous? There are a few that have the dream because the dream came true is standing right next to him right because i'll walk into the theater company i'll write a play and there i am and it you know it's it's it can happen but but seven years in new york city before i got a movie but it's interesting like i see it all the time where there's no way to tell somebody that it's over. Only they can tell themselves that.

Oh, yeah. This business is ridiculous. Oh, you're the last one to know. Of course, because you keep setting your precedent higher. It's like, well, that guy didn't make it until he was like 60. You know what I mean? There's a sadness to show business.

Oh, my God. That is undeniable. You sit with college kids yeah which i do occasionally which i enjoy because you can't what you start is let me talk to you about rejection right and why you're going to need you know antidepressants at some point or something something yeah something so you're going to need some medication nothing can prepare you for that it's just how bad do you want it and by the way how talented are you you got to look in the mirror be honest that's it what are your limitations are you really that talented right are you are you do you want to be al pacino are you that talented yeah if you aren't then shoot for something less and many people do

yeah but I said I can't tell you that I can't tell you whether you're talented or not right but they're all sitting there going I got it I got it okay good luck good luck to you all right get back to me and when you're I remember god I remember I was in a bar after a play, and Richard Dreyfuss was there. Oh, yeah. And he was at the peak of his career. He was working with Spielberg. He was doing the whole thing. Jacked up.

I don't know about that. But it was a cool table to be at, and I don't know how I got there. And I was 22, and Richard saw me, and he goes, are you an actor? I said, yeah, yeah, I'm just starting out. He goes, doesn't mean shit till you're 30. And he walked away. But there was something to that. Put in your time.

Yeah. Learn the craft. Learn the techniques. Yeah. Don't just walk in the room on the, you know, riding the brilliance of your personality and charm. That ain't going to make it. Then you did the Demi movie?

Demi was later. Something Wild was later. There was Terms of Endearment. There was Marie. Terms of Endearment was before Something Wild? Oh, yeah. That was 83. Terms was 83.

Something Wild was 86. Terms was like, I watched that again recently because I talked to Brooks not too long ago. I love Jim. Oh, he's a great guy. And that movie's great. I mean, that cast, it must have been just insane to not work with. Yeah, it was insane.

I mean, Shirley MacLaine's sitting there and Jack's on set, and you're all kind of on set at the same time, right? Yeah, there was definitely a relationship dysfunctional thing I mean, Shirley MacLaine's sitting there and Jack's on set. And you're all kind of on set at the same time, right? Yeah. There was definitely a relationship, dysfunctional thing working between Debra and Shirley. And then Jack showed up after two weeks of shooting. I mean, Shirley and Debra, what it was, I thought, was Debra going, we have a mother-daughter relationship that is love-hate. Yeah. And we're going to make sure we get the hate in there.

Yeah. Because Shirley was a little bit, let's just it you know uh she was she had a way that she was going to do it and deborah wasn't going to allow her to do that and i watched that happen which was an education and then jack shows up after two weeks of pretty much strife and stress on the set and brooks was trying to get in there and trying to make it work. And just, you know, I mean, the girls were, it was rough. Yeah. And Jack shows up and says, why are you having such a problem?

He was great. And as soon as Jack showed up, everybody got along. Everybody was fine. Jack said, do you want me to wave like this or should i wave like that jim says i may try the second one i'll try the second one and he'd back up the car and he'd wave like the second one you got it yeah well i think we got it and he kept i like the way he kept looking up at the stars yeah like he had this weird thing yeah He'd been there before. Oh, my God. It was just great. Shirley had butterflies, adhesives, just under her hair.

And it pulled the forehead back. So it made her younger, which is an old Hollywood trick. Terrific. Brooks wanted him out. And he couldn't get Shirley to take him out. So Jack's doing the, I'm sitting on the fence across the driveway from him. He's meeting Shirley for the first time, and Jack says, I'll get him out for you.

Rolling, action. So you're an astronaut. Yeah, I'm an astronaut. I'm kind of a, what do you got in your hair there? I can't help but see what you got. Cut it. Jack, those are adhesives. I'm just reacting to what I'm seeing. Every take

he would do. Finally, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. He pulls them out. He looks over at Jim and winks. That was pretty good. And it was great that it kind of forced her into a different place with it. And God bless Shirley. She really, at the time,

and God, to be fair to her deborah had just an officer and a gentleman she was it yeah she was it right shirley used to be it right so there was that and and it would became about in the nebraska the um the um hospital scenes later in the movie he he wanted the roots to show. He didn't want the perfect hair and all of that. Jim did, and Shirley fought him on that. And Shirley said, Jim said, I want you to fall apart physically. And, you know, for an actress to do that later, that's a lot. That's asking a lot.

But she did it. She did it. Yeah. I get choked up just now thinking about it. I don't know. She won the Oscar. Yeah, she did. Yeah. So, like, okay, so thinking about it. I don't know. She won the Oscar. Yeah, she did. Yeah.

So, like, okay, so obviously we can't go movie to movie, but Something Wild had a profound impact on me just because I think. That was improv. There was a lot of improv on that. Yeah. And it wasn't what I think of as improv, but it really was. That was Jonathan Demme before he was really Jonathan Demme. Right, and it had a feel of a movie that, like,

something you'd never seen before. There were colors in it. There was a pace to music. Music. You know, like, and it just had a style that was, like, I had never really seen before. He was very highly stylized right out of the gate. Yeah. And to work with him, what was he like to work with?

Did you learn from him? There was no such thing as a bad idea. Right. Try it. That's nice. Yeah. He could have had $ a hundred grand to make the movie or a hundred million yeah wouldn't matter he'd have he jonathan would have approached it

the same way we get to make a movie today come on let's go let's try that you get on you look out the window and there's a dog sitting on the back of a motorcycle and the dog has a helmet on yeah and you're going this is is a Jonathan Demme movie. It's the same feeling I had the year before working on Woody with Purple Rose. You look around you and you go, this is the frame of a, and you're seeing things in it that only would be in a Woody Allen movie. And you realize you're with a filmmaker. Same thing with Jonathan.

Same thing with Altman. Same thing with Clint. And you've also worked with guys who are just doing the job as opposed to a filmmaker or are told to just do the job because you know what it was a different time uh and maybe television is getting back to that yeah where where aaron sorkin gets to run Newsroom with Alan Poole and a couple other people. And they aren't told what to do. It's like that. It's Coppola. Even though Coppola had to fight to get Pacino into The Godfather,

he still had his battles, but the director was king or queen. And that went away. king or queen. And that went away. Suddenly there were 17 producers on the front of the movie, and they all got to get their notes in. And that's not great. Too many cooks. That's why Squid and the Whale with Noah Baumbach, the budget was what, a million won or something? That's like 20 bucks. There was nobody else. So when we have to make a change at two in the Whale with Noah Baumbach. The budget was, what, a million won or something? That's like 20 bucks. There was nobody else. So when we have to make a change at 2 in the morning, it's Noah Baumbach and Laura Linney and me.

There is no phone call to L.A. to go, is this okay if we do this? Well, that's why those guys shoot like that. That's why they make the choice to keep the movie small. But it's single voice. Yeah. Singular voice. Same thing with Sorkin.

Right. And I love that I miss that I think that's the difference is that somebody like Bombeck is going to keep making these small movies because he can wrangle his own sort of funding and he can have control of the movie

creative control it's all about creative control Aaron has made people fortunes so he can operate at a different level and they're going to give him everything he needs creative control right creative control just the upper the different like the base you know spielberg fought for final cut creative control yeah you know it's that's what it's about it's not about and that that is hard to get you have to be somebody to get that at a high

level or you do a budget of a million bucks so that they don't bother you right and with the with the theater with your theater theater, the Purple Rose, is it called the Purple Rose Theater? Mm-hmm. Now, how much are you writing? How many plays are you kind of producing on your own? I've written 17. And the one I have up now in the fall here is Diva Royale.

I wrote Flint, which we produced in January. I just love writing plays, and it's creative control. I work with one person, the artistic director, and he and I collaborate. We work well together, but in my theater, the playwright is king. And you're developing playwrights and actors? Yeah, we have six playwrights, men and women, who are always writing the next play. And you've got to produce these people. Their first play is you get it in as best shape you can, and you've got to produce it. And their next play will be their fifth,

simply because you produced it. I can't stand the theater companies that do staged readings or workshops of the play, development hell, and they won't produce it. They'll bring in what was popular in New York last year because it's published, because doing a new play is really hard. You've got to originate. You've got to make those original choices. You've got to cut this scene.

You don't cut scenes in Arthur Miller. You shouldn't, Tennessee Williams. You can just do it the way it's written, and it's hard to do. But if you can figure out how to do it and how to tell story on a stage, structure, what you need, what you don don't take that joke out because you're spending a whole page just to get to that joke kill the babies as we say in writing yeah um you learn how to do that and then you get a voice and then you get lauren knox or carrie crim or jeff daniels or dave mcgregor and you get these you, and people start to come to see the writer.

They come to see the writer. He or she has written another play. And, by the way, why don't you write about the people in the seats? Not always, but I prefer to write about people sitting in those seats. Hold a mirror up to them. I don't care what you think as the playwright. That doesn't interest me. I care what you think about what they think.

And if you write about them, they will come. And by the way, if you make it funny once in a while, they'll bring their friends. Yeah. And now is it self-supporting, the theater now? Nope. We're nonprofit. Our budget's a little over $2 million a year.

The box office, we demand a lot of the box office. We've got to bring in 60% box office, something like that. Are people coming from all over the world to be part of it? No, I mean regionally. Certainly the audience is a 90-mile radius. We draw actors from Chicago who come out to audition for us. Oh, yeah. But we develop the people there okay we take them we put them through the act the same acting program i had a circle rep they get the same apprentice program is is the same one at purple rose and we we teach

you how to do what we call being purple and it it's just listening and reacting and keeping it on the stage. That's what it's about. Have you worked with, who have I talked to, Tracy Letts? You know Tracy Letts? I don't know. I may have met him. I've never worked with him, no. He's another guy.

I mean, he's a pure artist. He's a great American artist. And everything the guy writes is just gold. It's crazy, right? Yeah, keep writing tracy don't ever stop writing yeah now you've got the um the emmy for godless yeah i saw you over there i was at the emmy's sitting there it's not it's kind of a tedious evening isn't it oh oh i mean i walked by you and you do you i was like I'm not going to say hi

to that guy he doesn't look too happy today no it's just my overall look I'm just not as euphoric as everyone else is you know about this incredible opportunity to wear a tuxedo and probably lose it's probably an impossible

show to do and maybe what we should all do with all these shows, since this isn't really a competition, really, is take it off television. Put it back at the Roosevelt Hotel banquet room and hand out the awards. Let people have fun. People have fun?

Yeah. Why do we have to televise it? I don't know why we have to televise it. Is it important to you? Does it feel good to win? Absolutely. Yeah. Yes.

You don't go there not to. But look, to be invited to the party, I felt this the first time I got nominated for the Tonys with God of Carnage. That was the first time I felt, for the tony's with god of carnage that was the first time i felt you know what win or lose and i'm and i'm we're not here to win because there's the jeffrey rush and there's some and you're looking around you're going i'm part of a lot of great work just enjoy that you know and i did i really got it for the first time which is different than watching it as an actor on television. So just a couple of years ago, you finally- And you're never invited and you're like, oh, I never liked him.

Oh, he shouldn't have won. He sucks. My friend Kravitz used to call the television the resentment box. Yeah, I was, oh boy. Yeah, Oscars, about 15 minutes into the Oscars and I'm in the other room. I can't do it.. I can't do it. I just can't do it. There's just too much bitterness and hate and rage.

But then you win, and you win for newsroom, which you're not supposed to win. You're not supposed to win. There was an audible gasp in the audience when my name was called. The New York Times wrote about it. The gasp? The gasp, the audible gasp when Mr. Daniels' name was called because it was Spacey and it was Ham, it was Damian Lewis, it was Brian, it was loaded, loaded. And we got it. I had the Northwestern speech. They didn't have that.

That's what did it, I think. But then with Godless, yeah, you wanted that because I took a risk. I took a big risk with that. Darrell Bock Playing it heavy? John Dickerson The beard and the thing and the western, and it easily could have been, oh my God, what is he doing? You took a risk and I wanted it. I worked hard on that and And then I was glad to win. But it wasn't the euphoric, you know, I'd like to thank everyone. Oh, my God.

It wasn't that at all. Did you talk about the guy who had your horse? I thanked the people that my driver. Yeah. I thanked Mark Warwick, my wranglerler who saved my life one day when the horse threw me off and he saved my life yeah and then um i thank my horse just to let them know that let's all just calm down just a little bit yeah it's a great honor thank you very much yeah but yeah i'm gonna thank my horse and let's all let thank my horse. And let's all think about that.

Let's all think about who. Has anyone ever thanked their horse? Maybe John Wayne. Google it. Go look it up. Get back to me. Gene Autry. I'm going to say no.

So let's do that. Not since Trigger. Not since Roy Rogers and Trigger. But these eras, you know, like something like when you talked about Atticus and about researching Atticus and then about like, but less so in terms of going to the old West, which is something we grew up with, which is like a genre that, you know, comes and goes. But did you feel the weight of it? Did you feel like, I mean, I have to assume that with Atticus, when you did all that research, that to really engage with that, the heartbreak of it has to be there with you on stage.

That this is the way humans behave. Yeah. You got to delete the movie because that's not helpful. Yeah. I can't use it. I can't do what he did. I'm not going to. Right.

Goodbye. The book is the source, but it's the play. It's Aaron Sorkin. Atticus makes a change. He goes through a change in this. Less so in the movie and probably less so in the book because it's truly from Scouts POV. The play is more about the change that happens to Atticus. So you have to, again, simplify.

I want to win this case for Tom Robinson, my first two criminal clients, for the last two people hanged in Maycomb. So this is going to be the one I'm going to win. It's going to be good for me as a lawyer. I'm going to do something good for Judge Taylor. And I'm going to get this guy off who's absolutely innocent. That's what I'm going to do.

And it's a slam dunk case. Walk face first into that. And then the story is going to take that away from you. Now what do you do? And it can't be just righteousness and being a Mount Rushmore statue about it. You've got to go through it. He's a human being, a living, breathing human being. And he just lost.

And this guy is going to the electric chair. I'll get him on the appeal and then they shoot him yeah and you got to go through that you got to go through that and it may not be what they did before but it's what we're doing now and and you get atticus to kind of go through that emotionally and then his son is guilty probably of killing bob ewell i have three kids what would happen if your son yeah and the sheriff is going let's go outside talk on the porch and you can feel that oh well you bring it with you you use it yeah you use it i'll tell you the other thing too is my dad was an Atticus Finch. He was the guy that everybody in town went to to get advice. He was there was right and

there was wrong there was how you treat people. He was that glorious Republican moderate who hired the poorest guy in town to clean the lumber company. I remember coming home, 8, 9, 10, walked into our living room. There's my dad sitting with a black man, a guy named Herbie Pearson, one of the two black families that had wanted, he had just moved to town. Dad heard about him. Dad had Herbie come to his house. I walked in there laughing at the kitchen table with a black guy. I'm like, Jeff, I'd like you to meet Herbie Pearson. Herbie's going to be working for me.

And he was also the guy who said, when you go to school, because we were in small town standards well off small town well off when he owned a business it was doing okay we had money right comparatively he goes you find the poorest kid in your class and if you find that people are making fun of them you be you stand next to him you be friends with the people on the other side of town. And that's Atticus. And I was. And it led me into the theater because the misfits of the... And so I wish he were alive to see this.

Because my brother and sister are coming to opening night. And I look like him, facially. They're going to see him. They're going to hear him. That's going to be great yeah so it's personal yeah to get this opportunity which is i'm so fortunate but you know my my wife had said the other day she got and she people have asked and um is there a role of a lifetime that you wish you could play king lear ham, Hamlet, you know, and I never had one.

And she said, you've got it now, don't you? And I said, yeah, this is it. So every night is a joy. It really is. I wish he could see it. I wish he could. You know, if you believe in that stuff, I guess he is. And, well, that's beautiful, man.

That's so good. So in closing, any notes on how to transcend resentment? I think you need to embrace your resentment. Yeah. You know what? I'm working on that. I can go to instant rage. And it's always about lying, cheating, stealing, not being truthful.

You know? Yeah. It's raining and they're pissing on my forehead and they're telling me all the stuff that's going on today. Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong with playing hardball. Right. With what's going on now. If that's the game, then I think those who are with the resistance in a peaceful, nonviolent manner, start throwing right hooks.

Yeah. If that can be nonviolent., start throwing right hooks. Yeah. If that can be nonviolent. But do not shy away from that. So channel that resentment. Yeah, we can make it about something. Yeah, yeah. But I have, I will always, and I will always rise up for people who don't do the work, who feel entitled, who aren't prepared.

Yeah. You don't have to outwork me because you're not going to. But if you're not even doing the minimum, then you're going to hear about it. Yeah. And I don't know if that's resentment, but that outcomes the rage when that happens. Right. Well, it's good that, yeah, you know, it's reasonable. It's the unreasonable rage. It's for a reason. Yeah you know it's reasonable it's it's the unreasonable

it's for a reason yeah the unreasonable rage is worth yeah no that's uh it's like being a six year old you know up the medications yeah well it's great talking to you i don't think we need to play guitar you need to save your voice that's fine we uh but you you love playing it i do you play well oh thank you i've been playing i I've been practicing. I keep practicing. I'm not sure what I'm practicing for. It's all I do. It's great. I get those Stefan Grossman videos. Oh, you do?

So you sit with it? Oh, my God. Stefan Grossman, I got to meet him, and I got a lesson from him. It's a very long story, but Pat Donahue is a guy. I've got his DVDs. That's what I'm going to do once once we get past opening night is sit in the dressing room with my download of Pat Donahue and

Stephen Grossman. I don't know that guy. Look him up. I mean it's acoustic blues I mean whatever you're doing he does it better. Sure. And you Kelly Joe Phelps. These are guys that teach and Kev Moe that you just start going I'm going to just learn how to do what they're doing.

And then you're instantly better. Yeah. I need some new tricks. Like I, you know, I keep, I never thought about it as a profession. So it's a very meditative and I love doing it. It's where I go to chill out. I mean, I used to play golf and talk about rage, you know, the seven iron that stuck, you stuck to the pin three feet today. You go out tomorrow and it's in the water. And I'm going, why is it in the weight? No, but you learn a riff on the acoustic guitar. Oh, it's the best. And it's there tomorrow.

Yeah, it's the best. And you don't have to town's in your guitar at home. No. No reason to start breaking your guitar. No. Well, it's great talking to you, man. Thanks for doing it. I appreciate it.

I thought that was great. I really was happy that Jeff took the time and that we got to have that conversation, got to know each other a little bit. Just a really great, memorable conversation. And now let's ease into some thoughtful two-chord guitar playing. Here we go. Boomer lives! get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats, get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region.

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