WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 999 - Alfred Molina

Episode Date: March 4, 2019

Alfred Molina was told early on that he was a “dreadful actor but a marvelous show off.” Thankfully, he took that assessment as a positive and became one of our great actors, working in experimental British theater, BBC radio plays, and large-scale musicals like Oklahoma. Alfred tells Marc how he transitioned to movies, with his first film being a small trifle called Raiders of the Lost Ark, and how that paved the way for his future work with directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Sam Raimi, and Jim Jarmusch. And yes, he and Marc talk about THAT scene in Boogie Nights. This episode is sponsored by SimpliSafe and Aspiration. 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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Alright, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuckologists? How are you? Mark Maron here. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it, if you're new to it. Or I just, you know, I'm in the habit of saying welcome.

I hope everyone's having an okay Monday already. Or, you know, do what you can. God damn it, how's it going? You alright? So today, on the show, Alfred molina is here uh which is great one of the great actors very exciting guy very exciting to talk to and of course of course i talked to him about that scene come on um he's got he's he's constantly working right now he's a voice actor on the the 10-part narrative mystery podcast, The Angel of Vine. You can get that where you get podcasts and you can listen to me and Alfred talk in a few minutes.

I have some housekeeping, though. I have a bit of housekeeping, a couple of things. A couple of things in relation to the last episode, the Gary Clark episode, which I'm so happy that people enjoyed so much. We had a very nice time. I might see him in Austin. Did I mention I'm going to Austin? Have I mentioned that? I don't know if I've gotten you up to date, but let's do the housekeeping first, which is I was talking about Jason Isbell, who made a statement on Twitter, which was old guitars aren't really all that special. And I didn't do any research i don't know why i just

saw that part of it but i don't want to misrepresent jason's view of old guitars because the tweet he was responding to was if you were kidnapped and were being forced to tweet so things appeared normal what would you tweet to alert us you need help old guitars aren't really all that special so it's the exact opposite which makes more sense but you know i'm willing to believe shit at face value at first until someone calls me out and says dude that was a that was an ironic so uh so i don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about jason the other thing i'm going to talk about jason more in a minute the other thing is that Magic Sam piece

that I was obsessed with and am obsessed with that I played for at the beginning of the Gary Clark thing which was a conversation we had is actually called it's not called Sam's Boogie it's actually called Looking Good and it's actually a cut on um on the West Side Soul album which I have and I didn't realize I had it and I didn't realize that song was on there because that live version is just so crazy on fire, and the un-live, un-live, not live version of it is a little more laid back, but probably a little more of a portal or a key to how to learn how to play it. Okay, so that being said, while we're in the music groove here,

as you know, there've been many musical guests on this show. Many of them have played, and almost all of them, I would say all of those moments, for me, are beyond anything I can even imagine. I mean, to have people play guitar and sing right in front of you, literally three feet away from me in front of, you know, right here. And I'm just, it's just me and them in here. And I'm just on my dumb little mixer trying to make it sound right,

trying to make the levels not peak. I'm no master engineer, but I've recorded some amazing people in here and it's been some of the most amazing experiences in my life. And people have always asked us, me and Brendan, that being about putting together a compilation of these songs from the show. And we always wanted to, but it's a tricky thing to do logistically. So, good news. We got hooked up with the folks at Newberry Comics who were interested in doing something with us. And in partnership with them, we've put together, I think, something really special. Record Store Day is on April 13th.

And for this year's Record Store Day, we're releasing an exclusive, limited edition, vinyl album called In the Garage, live music from WTF with Marc Maron. And it's got some great performances on it. Okay, these are 10 acoustic performances with Jay Maskis, Melissa Etheridge, Eve from Eels, Karen Kilgariff,

Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, Nick Lowe, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Amy Mann, and Dave Alvin. And I actually play with Dave Alvin on that track. I mean, all these artists in responding to this record were extremely generous in allowing their performances to be featured on the album. And Brendan and I are donating our proceeds to the charity Musicians on Call, who bring music to the patients of health care facilities and bring a little joy into their day. facilities and bring a little joy into their day. So record store day 2019 is happening April 13th. So you can pick up your copy.

Then participating stores can be found at record store day.com. And I listened to the test pressing of this thing and it's pretty, it, you know, when you, you heard the list of artists that I just told you about and like why, if you put their produced music, you know, when you heard the list of artists that I just told you about, and like why, if you put their produced music, you know, from their albums up against each other, it would seem very odd. You know, it probably wouldn't fit together, but they all fit beautifully together because it's recorded in the same way.

Very simply, I'm not going to say badly because i use pretty good mics but uh but basically the setup here is it's the same mic that we talking to it's an sm7 a sure sm7 i don't have any effects i don't know how to use even this very simple mixer so i just stick that mic in their face and i stick a mic uh in front of their. Back in the day, it was a blue Encore 200 only because I had them. And then I would just sit here and it's on one track. They're not even separate tracks. I record on one track of GarageBand. So any conversation, it makes it difficult probably, certainly difficult to do any remastering or work with the song after the fact. But for and brendan it's pretty even then

you know two tracks would be nice but uh i don't so all these recordings are done the same way you know except for the uh the jason isbell one so with that as the through line basically with the garage and my way of recording people which is very raw and straight up uh it it provides a connector and it all the performances are are relative you know or or you know done like that these are all just people with guitars and a harmonica in the case of charlie muscle white and they all fit together because you just hear the artist with a guitar. And I tell you, man, I can't tell you how. I like talking to people, of course.

But there's also something about these recordings that I think are exactly like what happens here. All these were done, I believe, in the old garage. But these performances were great. And everyone sitting across from Jay Maskis with his antique Gibson just going at it. It's just amazing. Melissa Etheridge is probably one of the most charismatic and moving performances I've ever seen in this place, in my old garage. E was great. Karen Kilgariff made me cry. Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite.

Charlie Musselwhite is one of the last of the great old harp players Nick Lowe singing the beast in me because I asked him great Margo Price come on Amy Mann just solid and me and Dave Alvin Dave being very gracious letting me play with him but the Jason Isbell one is the only one that wasn't recorded here in the garage and I've told this story before but just so you know you know in relation to us talking about music in relation to us talking about this release of this record jason isbell i didn't know a lot about him or his music until i realized that we were both going to be doing the same show up in minnesota in minneapolis i think that we were we

were both on an episode of wits, that radio show, that podcast. So I got in touch with him probably through Twitter initially, and I said we should talk, and then I got caught up on his work. And then we got there, and I met him at that show, and we did the show, and he'd been on the road for weeks, and we were staying in the same hotel. And that night at about 12, 31 o'clock, I went and interviewed him in his room, and then I sat there with him with his guitar. He had a guitar. It was in a hotel room.

We were both exhausted. He probably more than me, and I sat in front of him, and I held the mics. I held one mic to his guitar, and I handheld one mic to his face, and I sat in a chair right in front of him, and he did that song, Elephant, and it was one of the most moving musical experiences I've had in my life. mic to his face and I sat in a chair right in front of him and he did that song elephant and

it was one of the most moving musical experiences I've had in my life it's a very intimate odd recording almost like a field recording of a song that that is a powerful song and heartbreaking in its own right but just the uh the intimacy of the recording process was pretty crazy but that's on there so okay so i guess i'm just telling you my experience with these things and that that that album will be available from newberry comics on record store day 2019 uh it's happening april 13th you can get a copy then and you can find participating stores at recordstoreday.com and i imagine that you can go ahead and tell them if you have a store that you are in relationship with, you can tell them maybe they could get you one. So, yeah, I'll get you up to speed here. Oh, you know what I did?

I, you know, I put the the old rug from the old garage up in one of the bedrooms in my house here. That's going to be sort of an office-ish kind of space. I unrolled that rug. And I remember I had vacuumed it when I got to this house out in the front yard. And then I brought it up into the bedroom last night and I vacuumed it again. It was just like inches and inches of dust. And I've talked about this before in in relation to that fucking rug but here it is in a new place in a new home and all that dust from all those talks little bits of skin and pieces of dirt from the journeys of my

guests it's just sort of weird it was like the you know the history of wtf and dust i could make that available would anyone like a vial of uh wtf dust from the uh from i guess uh skin and hair and things that come off of the guests any any hundred i got to assume some of that shit's been in there since the beginning you never know how the things lodge a history in dust but now i i threw it away they should i should i kept it what do you keep shit for why am i even keeping that rug i've had that rug forever it's been through several apartments a house and then i ended up in the garage but uh you know you attach meaning you attach meaning yeah that rug it's a magic carpet man yeah man magic carpet i like to i don't even know the words to that magic carpet ride but so yeah i'm going to uh be at south by southwest for a few days this week uh the premiere of the film, the sort of trust that I am in,

uh, Lynn Shelton film, a completely improvised movie. It was, uh, shot. I mean, I think some of you were with me during this.

It was shot in Birmingham, Alabama. It was, uh, it's, it's me, Jillian Bell, uh,

John Bass, uh, Michaela Watkins, uhkins are the primary characters. Lynn Shelton directed it and has a small role in it. Dan Backdahl is also in it. Toby Huss is in it, among a few other people from the area. And we improvised that in about three weeks. And now it's a movie and it got into South by Southwest and the premiere is Friday night.

All the music for the film is music that was played here in this garage or in the other garage. She kind of, Lynn, took a lot of my guitar pieces and layered them throughout the movie. and layered them throughout the movie. And then the song under the credits, the instrumental under the credits, is something that me and Tal Wilkenfeld wrote and played in a studio with some amazing musicians, Doyle Bramhall, one of them. Well, anyway, so I'm going to be at South by Southwest

for just a few nights. And more importantly, in terms of that trip, the premiere is exciting but opie's barbecue opie's gonna go to opie's and spicewood always great so yes i'm looking forward to the movie premiere and doing press for that and uh being part of that but uh i don't know it's pretty pretty 50 50 you50, you know, movie premiere. Oh, peace. Alfred Molina, obviously one of everyone's favorite actors. Maybe you don't know that, but he is. And it was definitely a great, you know, honor and exciting thing to talk to him.

And he lives not far from me, which made it even better for him. You can hear him currently as a voice actor on the 10-part Narrative Mystery podcast, The Angel of Vine, which is available wherever you get the podcasts. And you've seen him in everything you've seen him in. Go look him up if you're like, who? Because that's crazy. This is me talking to Alfred Molina.

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attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5pm in Rock City at torontorock.com yeah how long you lived in up in this area only about a year and a half it's um i lived in i lived in hollywood before that because you had to no just because it's just it's just where we ended up. You know, there was when we first arrived in the States, we arrived in New York. And the when was that?

That was ninety ninety three. Uh huh. And I'd been coming here to work on and off since the mid 80s. Yeah. But always just for a specific job yeah like that and this time uh we came out and we kind of made a conscious effort decision to uh to live here and you know to do the la thing do the la thing we arrived in new york and i was we were hoping to stay in new york yeah but then my then agent kind of said oh, you know, you've got to be where the action is, blah, blah, blah.

Right. Come to L.A. So we kind of came to L.A. And but what I didn't realize in my naivety at the time was that L.A. Hollywood is not the center of the film industry. It's the center of where they make the it's the center of the film business. Yeah, right. You know, yeah, the deals are made.

It's where, you know, it's not where the work is made not not as much anymore no and and we could have easily i mean i can see now we could have easily have stayed in new york which we preferred um but then you're gonna be flying out here every other week yeah but you know what i that's not so bad you know it's not like if you know they fly you and they take care of you it's it's uh you can still do it you can still go back to new york i could i could but you know, it's not like they fly you and they take care of you. You can still do it. You can still go back to New York. I could, I could. But now, of course, I think we missed out. We sort of missed the boat a little bit, I think.

You missed the window to buy the building in Brooklyn. That's right, yeah, when things were cheap. I mean, mind you, I've always had terrible luck with buying houses like that. I've always seemed to have sold when the market was low and bought when the market was high. I've never been one of those people. I have friends who are like that, friends who kind of do things like,

oh, I got this for a steal. And they'll say things like this, all these buzzwords like, I bought it when it sank, I bought this when it was good. Aren't they annoying, those people? They piss me off a little bit because what they're saying, they're not celebrating the fact that they've had a stroke of good luck.

They're celebrating and lording it over you of how stupid you are that you didn't manage to do the same thing. It's a kind of modesty brag combined with a sort of slap around the face. It's like, know i could do this and you didn't it always reminds it reminds me of that great thing that chevy chase used to do when he was on saturday night live when he was what he would until you would say hi i'm chevy chase and you're not yeah yeah it's like hi i'm a i'm a lucky fucker and you're not yeah you don't have the foresight or the wisdom or anything or the luck. You can't.

How do you function in the world? I'm a lover. You're a loser. Yeah, right. But the thing is, like, I don't know about you, but I buy, I've only owned two houses in my life and I live in them. I don't ever think, like, I always think they're too expensive, the two I've bought. You carry the resentment around with you a little

bit but but but but it turned out the other one the little one that that went crazy over there in highland park it went like when i bought that house i thought like this is who would pay this much money for a less than a thousand square feet and like what what little i knew that like now it's crazy but but i buy places to live there. Those kind of people, a lot of people don't get attached to places. Exactly. Do you? Yeah, I mean, I think it's that moment when a house turns into a home.

Yeah. And it's all to do with, I mean, good luck. When people kind of brag about how they've made money on houses, that's fine, and I've had good experiences and bad experiences. This is only the third house that I've actually owned. Right. So you like to live places. You're not thinking like, I'm going to buy this.

You're not thinking when you buy it that you're going to sell it. No. I never think of the house as a possible investment or something that is going to make me money in the years to come. Right. I mean, the house in Hollywood for i was in there since 95 i was there for the best part of 25 years and you lived in the hills yeah no we lived uh we i i we lived in what was told i was the realtor said we were hollywood hills adjacent oh so not the hills not the hills

it was like we we saw the hills at the top of my street it was there was suddenly this precipitous rise yeah yeah where those houses were you could see the houses that were in the hills and and i remember that the realtor saying uh and you're really close to sunset boulevard and that's where the action is you know and the first action I was aware of on my street, it was we moved there when the neighborhood wasn't so gentrified as it is now. And the set the third night, I think the third was certainly within the first week that we were there in bed. One o'clock in the morning. There's some noise outside. I get up.

I look out the window and there's a hooker in our driveway. Working? Well, she's making a deal with someone. She's having a little argument with some guy. I don't know. Maybe they were just negotiating the deal. And my wife said, what's that? And I knew.

I knew. If I said to her, there's a hooker in the driveway, she'd have packed a bag and gone. Yeah. So I just went, oh, kids. You know, because I just knew she wouldn't have borne that. But now it's kind of smartened up now. When I got my house over in the other place in Highland Park, like within a week, someone had tagged my wall.

They'd spray painted. And I was like, holy shit, it's already someone else's territory. What is happening? But it leveled off. But you grew up, you were in England most of your life. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't come to the States until I was in my 40s. Really?

Yeah, yeah. So where'd you grow up in England? I grew up in London. Just quick, my background is basically my parents were, my father was Spanish. My mother was Italian. What did he do? My father was a waiter. Yeah?

And my mother cleaned hotel rooms. She was Italian? Like Italian-Italian? Italian-Italian. Not Italian-American. I did an interview once and someone said, and your mother was Italian? And I said, yeah, she was Italian. And the interviewer said, from New York?

Brooklyn? I said, no, no, Italy. She's not Italian-American. And your dad was Spanish? Yeah. From Spain? From Spain. That's right.

Yeah. Madrid. Really? Yeah, just outside Madrid. I've been there. I was in, oh, no, I haven't. I was in Barcelona. Do you now? Make your mind Yeah, Madrid. Really? Yeah, just outside Madrid. I've been there. Oh, no, I haven't. I was in Barcelona. Make your mind up, Mark.

I'm just trying to seem international. I spent a week in Italy, and I was in Barcelona briefly. I don't know how to speak Spanish or Italian, but I've walked through the areas. So did you grow up with the languages yeah yeah my uh my parents my parents kind of both of them they they had finished their formal education by the time they were like 15 16 my dad was a uh worked as a laborer in spain before he kind of joined up with some trade union militia and he was he was a refugee from the civil war in spain oh really and he arrived in england uh just in time for world war ii oh man so he couldn't go back to spain so he uh

he just signed up he signed up to the british army so after the revolution in spain because he was on the he was at he he was he was in a trade union militia. He was on the Republican side. He was fighting Franco. And they got pushed out. Yeah. There was a lot of refugees who were political refugees. They went. A lot of them joined the refugee trail into France. Yeah.

And from there, they kind of scattered around the world, really. Many went to South America, Latin America. My dad went to south america latin america my dad went to france um it's here where the family history gets a bit murky yeah he spent some time in france certainly enough time to learn how to speak french yeah and then he ended up somehow he ended up in um in england murky like a well-kept secret murky well murky like no i never quite found out what he was doing that my mother i remember my mother oh, yeah, yeah, your father was in the Foreign Legion. And I think that sounds a bit fanciful to me.

Because I think from what I know, the Foreign Legion, once you're in, it's really, really hard. You can't just pop in for a few months and kind of go, you know, guys, I'm good. And so anyway, he arrived in England in the top of 1939. My mother emigrated from Italy after the war. She arrived in England in 1947. And she got a job as a chambermaid in a hotel where my dad was working in the restaurant as a waiter. And that's where they met. So they'd pass each other in the hallway.

I guess. Yeah. I guess they were changing into their outfits. And he stayed in that job his whole life. His whole life. Yeah, he was a waiter, bartender. He was a restaurant manager for a while. It's a certain deal in England.

I guess when you have your health care covered and also there's a union to it too, isn't there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just after the war, it was really the beginning of what became known as the welfare state, where you had universal health care, free education, all of that stuff. you uh free education um all of that stuff and i mean i i i think i may be part of the last generation in england who i got educated from the age of 5 to 25 and i didn't pay a penny and it was good education it was a good education i went to a good i went to good schools uh parochial schools they were catholic schools yeah and i went to drama school i got i got my degree

at drama school and you know and that was it i mean mean, all I had to find was, like, my pocket money. Right. But all my tuition, all my school expenses were all covered. It's a beautiful thing. Yeah. And there was no shame in the working class then. Not at all. There was, in fact, quite the opposite.

There was a great deal of pride. You know, there was a movement after the war. There was a movement where the working class had had a kind of profile and people were, you know, it was clear that there was many, many talented people in the working class and all that they were lacking. They weren't lacking the skills or the talent or the ability. What they were lacking was the opportunity. Right. and that was given to them by uh successive governments after after world war ii but it's always it strikes me like in growing up in england that you do there is sort of a a class system oh completely and you're like no one talks about it here you know yeah but there's a class system here too oh absolutely but i think i think i think the difference between the systems in a way is that here it's a meritocracy here.

I mean, and also it's all about whether you have money. It's a meritocracy, but it's also what the merit could be is just your ability to bullshit and hustle. And make money. Yeah. And make money. Yeah. And make money. Right. If you can make money, then it doesn't, seemingly at this point, especially with this president, it doesn't fucking matter how. Yeah. I tell you, here's the thing. Here's the difference that I've, this is my theory.

Yeah. When you talk to an American, when you're talking to someone from America. Like me. Yeah. You hear the accent. Right. when you're talking to someone from America, like me, yeah, you hear the accent, right? Now, all I can tell from your accent is I can maybe have a vague guess at where you might be from,

but your accent doesn't give me any information about your education, your, your financial status, uh, how you were raised or anything like that. When you talk to a Brit, yeah, all that information is in there in their accent in seconds you can kind of tell you know he's middle class he's

working class he's upper class he's had an education she hasn't you know you can there's all that and it's all subtle it's all subliminal but all that info is there and as brits we kind of we respond to it and act on it yeah you. You know, so someone comes in. I remember being, when I was a student, constantly being told about, you know, you've got to neutralize your accent. My first agent actually said to me, you really got to calm down with the London accent because otherwise you're going to be playing Spanish waiters all your life. Because my name was Alfredo. Yeah. You know, and he was saying drop the o or change it but i mean now it was that uh like it was that hobby like london was a bad accident what was

the preferable when i went to drama school my accent was a lot more kind of a lot rougher than it is now i mean i i i sweetened it up you know because i took his advice this was 1971 but how and then it just sticks or you are you putting on an effort now? No, no, no. This is now how I talk. But I think that's after years and years of kind of reading. Like what did you used to sound like? Well, it was all sort of a bit like that. A bit kind of thrown back in the mouth.

Yeah. A bit kind of, oh, hello, Mark. You know, all right. But of course, now when I do it, it does feel to me affected. Yeah. When you do your old accent yeah but when I went at the time it was just the way I mean every now and again my my uh my daughter said to me once she said dad when you get so I can really hear the London when you get angry oh there it comes

yeah because it's suddenly it's kind of suddenly it goes from you know it goes from this to kind of like, I fucking told you. How many more times? That's interesting. That's where it comes out. It's still in there. It makes sense because at those moments of high emotion, we always betray ourselves. Right. Or you betray yourselves, but no, you're probably being more honest on some level.

That too. Then that's when people go, that's who you are that's the real i can see it now you faker but so what was the educate where'd you go to drama school i went to the guildhall school of music and drama or as it was known then the guildhall school of screech and trauma uh we and it was a very good education you know it was it was a kind of classical education it was uh you know this was the very early 70s but did you do were you doing it in in high school or whatever you call yeah yeah when i when i was at high yeah our version of high was secondary school yeah i went to a roman catholic secondary school for boys were you very catholic no no my parents sent me there just in case. In case what? There was a God? Just in case there was a God.

My parents were not what I call kind of, they were like part-time Catholics. Well, Spain and Italy, those are big Catholic strongholds. They were raised Catholic, but they weren't practicing. In fact, if anything, my father was actually very anti-clerical. He had some experiences during the Civil War that kind of really kind of turned him off the church. Catholic fascists? Yeah, all the Catholic fascists. Yeah.

And my mother was just, you know, so they sent me to a Catholic. I was baptized. Right. They sent me to a Catholic school. Right. But that was partly because it was a good school and it was the nearest one to where we lived. Sure. My brother went to a Catholic high school and it was the nearest one to where we lived. Sure. My brother went to a Catholic high school and he's a Jew.

There you go. Yeah, my parents' choices weren't quite so stark. But I get it. Yeah, there was some point where my brother went to like some school and he came home singing a song about, you know, Jesus loving him. And my parents were a little taken aback. Sort of set him straight with the vague notion that we don't do the Jesus thing. We're not sure what we do, but it's not that. That's right.

That's right. I remember coming home from school one day. This was primary school. I was younger than 10, certainly. I remember coming home and telling my dad that one of the priests or one of the nuns at school had told me off because um i hadn't gone to i'd said that we didn't go to mass yeah and the nun had said something like well you know you're going you know there's a good chance that you know people who don't go to mass will go to hell yeah something like that and i told my dad and he hit the roof he was so he was

i've never i've never seen my dad it was scary actually he was like screaming and shouting in italian spanish and and he went down to the school he went down to the school yeah the next day and he kind of just was screaming at the headmistress. And after that, I was. What was he screaming about? He was just basically just saying, you know, don't talk to my son this way. Terrorize the kid. Say these things to my kid. I remember he said something about, I know about you people.

I saw things in Spain. And he told me this story that he had seen in the bowels of some church, he had seen sort of the bones of babies. And this may well have been just him swallowing, you know, propaganda. Yeah. But he said these were the these were the bones of babies who had been born from nuns and how they'd been killed and kept there secretly. You know, all this kind of weird wacky stuff. But then I remember thinking, oh, come on. Yes, he's probably he's probably exaggerating. But then, of course, you talk to kind of hardline Catholics and you kind kind of know that there's there's all that there's all that shit in the background

you know there's layers and layers yeah and you kind of and you start thinking well maybe yeah there's just maybe there was a there were elements of truth in that but anyway on that day he was absolutely furious but the irony of course was that he scared the bejesus out of me because he was so angry but when i went back to school the day after i was like the hero for a couple of days you know your dad your dad your dad told mary sister mary kevin that she was an old arsehole i was like you started a revolution yeah i was on the cool kid for about yeah you know a day yeah you you fought the fight against hell that's right so but you were acting then?

No, I didn't start. Not at 10, but it was. No, not at 10. But I know that around that time, we used to do this thing in school. I think it was just a way of filling the last hour of the Friday. We used to do this thing where we would kind of put on little plays put on little shows and i just remember doing a little thing a little skit that i'd worked out with my chum yeah and getting a laugh right and you know and i this is a story you hear a million times from performers you know that mother the moment yeah that you kind of go oh yeah yeah yeah. Yeah. Yeah, this is it. This is it.

Now, I had no idea. You know, my mother told me once that I was nine years old when I first said I want to be an actor. But I can't believe for a moment that at that age I had any idea of what it implied or what, you know, what was involved. Right. You were just a showman. I was a show-off. I was a show-off yeah i was a show and in fact um years later when i was doing i was doing my first leading role on broadway for which play it was a

play called art oh yeah and uh and it was a huge success and and my old drama teacher from high school who i'd stayed friends with this guy was a very very very important part of my life and he came with his with his partner to come and see the show in new york which i was thrilled about from england yeah and i took him and his partner out to dinner with another friend of mine who happened to be in town and my friend andy turned around to martin and said so martin um when you were teaching fred at school was was he a good actor and martin instantly kind of went no he was a dreadful actor but he was a marvelous show-off so that's how i started i was a terrific show what was great this guy's name was martin martin corbett and he just encouraged you what yeah he his uh His first day at school as a teacher was my first day there as a student.

Uh-huh. And he came in as, I think he was deputy head of the English department. And one of the first things he did was he started a Wednesday night drama club. And he started teaching plays and putting on plays at the end of each semester. And, of course, I was happy as a pig in shit. I thought it was just the most fantastic thing. I lived for those Wednesday nights. It's weird how that one guy or that one teacher in high school can change your whole life.

He did. He was the first adult, apart from my mother, who I sort of confided in and said, I want to be an actor. And Martin basically said, okay, I'll do whatever I can to help you, but the minute you drop the ball, I'm washing my hands of you. What does that mean? Basically what he meant was if you're serious, I'll be serious and I'll help you. In high school.

Yeah, but if you're being flippant or you don't put 100% effort into this, I don't want anything% effort into this, I don't want anything to do with you. Wow. Yeah, and I was a little taken aback by that approach, but actually I really appreciate it because he gave me reading lists. He gave me things to look at. He suggested plays I should read, movies I should see. Really? Like what?

Well, kind of just stuff that was appropriate and that would that would help me understand what being an actor was going to be like but you never would you would never know about them hadn't he told you not really no you know he's in that there's certainly a lot of plays he said you need to start if you want to if you're serious about being an actor you've got to start reading plays like shakespeare yeah shakespeare noel coward george bernard shaw you know all that stuff stuff which in the normal traffic of events probably I wouldn't have been exposed to. Yeah, you need that guy.

Yeah. For sure. And he did things like when I auditioned for drama school, for instance, in my second last year, my last year at school, I got a place at drama school, and then I auditioned in front of a board, the local educational authority, for a grant. So I could afford to go to college. And I forgot my lines in the audition, and they turned me down.

So I was heartbroken. I went back to the school. I told Martin what had happened, and he wrote a very impassioned letter to the board saying, please, this young man is talented. him another chance he was nervous you know uh i guarantee you he'll be spot on next and they and he really fought for me and and i got another audition and i passed and i got my grant oh that's great yeah yeah like what movies did he make you watch uh well i think it was things like it was. I tell you what, it was the title of it now.

But there's that wonderful movie with Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier about the escaped convicts. Oh, yeah. In the heat of the night. He told me to look at. He told me to look at movies like Lawrence of Arabia and all these comedies, all these Ealing. These were like old movies, which would turn up on TV. So you said, you know, make an effort, watch these movies. Was it The Defiant Ones?

That's it, The Defiant Ones, yeah. I can't believe I remembered that. Neither can I, but I'm thankful. My brain rarely works. I just want to make it clear I did that without Googling. I did that. Yes, I can verify that. I'm sitting right directly opposite him. Did touch my keyboard i just remembered that it's a real

it's a rare thing so all right so but like the education like i mean you've done so many different roles in your you can't like you're constantly working yes yeah touch wood uh that that's been the case i've been very fortunate that way but like what was he you know because i you know i do a little acting myself now and i know my listeners get tired of me now now that now that i'm acting a bit and whenever i have actors on i'm like so what's uh what's your process so but the education is because i didn't have any of that education but i mean you you were classically trained yeah and and And that was the traditional and accepted and expected journey, was to go to drama school and get trained. But that was what, Shakespeare, the classics?

Yeah. The most contemporary play that we actually worked on in my drama school was written in 1939. Everything else was before that. You know, it was all kind of, everything we looked at was in the classical canon. But that was the way, that was the way that drama was taught in those days. I mean, now it's very different. Sure. But like, like in doing that, you know, what, what exactly, what paces are you sort of walking through that that stay with you i mean like

you know when you're just doing if you're doing shakespeare or you're doing uh i don't know you're doing greeks too like you know what what what what does that program in your brain i think what it i think what it gives you is an understanding of the history of the tradition that you are now joining. Ah, right. And it's a bit like the old adage about breaking the rules is great, but you've got to know what the rules are first. Sure, sure. And I think that's essentially what it is. In order to kind of express and kind of break new ground, you have to understand how that ground arrived there in the first place.

Right. Or else you're just a cheater and an idiot. Well, kind of. You can't be trusted. Or you don't have a context for what you're doing. You know, I remember the first time I heard very kind of out there freeform jazz. Yeah. Cecil jazz. Yeah. Cecil Taylor.

Sure. People like that. And I didn't get it at all. I'm kind of going, what is this? It just sounds like people just kind of making noise. And then it was a friend of mine who was a jazz fan said, no, no, no. You got to understand these guys, they could play you anything you ask them to play. They've arrived.

They've journeyed here to get here they've journeyed to fuck you they yeah they haven't just they haven't just landed and kind of gone hey what's this a saxophone what does this do but this is the 70s you said yeah i was at drama school from 72 to 75 so when you get out i mean is the heyday of experimental uh british theater is it's a little it's already going it's already oh yeah yeah there was uh when i when i came out of drama school there was a very healthy alternative theater circuit and a theater scene there were lots of small companies kind of applying for project grants and so on and they were doing some really interesting work there was a big explosion in uh

in in feminist theater in in in kind of gay theater alternative theater there was loads of these wonderful disparate voices people making work making theater you know sometimes they do it in a garage or they do it in a small little black box somewhere in the middle of nowhere they would tour that you know touring art centers working class working men's did you do social club yeah i worked with two companies. One company was called 784, and the other company was called Belt and Braces. And we took shows that had a very strong political content, and we took them on tour to colleges and working men's social clubs and stuff like that. And how was the reaction? Well, the reaction was, depending on the quality of the show, the reaction was good.

Sometimes it was not so good. We did a play. We did, for instance, with 784, sorry, with Belt and Braces, I did what was then the original British production of a Dario Faux play called Accidental Death of an Anarchist. Oh, yeah, I remember that. And that was a hugely kind of successful, very successful tour successful tour it went to the west end eventually but without me uh and uh you know it was it was a time when there was a lot of public money available for art for art yeah in all its forms art theater music you know for fine arts. There was a generosity with state money. Yeah.

And that started to shrink once Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. There's always a blossoming of public money for the arts whenever there's a Labour government in power. As soon as the Conservatives get back in, it all starts to shrink again. And did you find that in Britain that there's more of an audience an audience for theater there is very much so very much so there there's an audience for theater there's an audience for good theater certainly because you know the the british enthusiasm for theater doesn't mean that they'll just they'll take anything you know right if anything they're quite they're kind of quite fussy. Yeah. You know, I remember going to the theater in New York with an English friend of mine.

And he said, I've seen five shows this week. And every single show, there's a standing ovation at the end of the show. And quite honestly, Fred, one of them deserved it. The other four certainly did not. Because in England, in London, you know, audiences don't stand up. They stand up if it's really exceptional. I mean, I think here you get a standing ovation if you turn up. Yeah, if you get through it.

If you get through it, it's like everyone's on their feet cheering you. But I guess that's also part of that tradition that you, you know, you sort of learn when you do classical stuff and you do Shakespeare that there is that. It all started there. So there's like centuries of what it sort of invented theater in a way. And also now that theater has become, you know, theater. I think somewhere along the way in the modern era, somebody, I don't know who, I don't know when, but somebody somewhere suddenly said, you know what? This can make money. This is a good workable business model and so people like camera mcintosh who was you know an independent producer that i worked with they started putting money into the infrastructure you know they started

they started renovating theaters so making the whole experience of going to a theater much more pleasant yeah you know when i was a of going to a theater much more pleasant. Yeah. You know, when I was a kid, going to the theater was a bit of a challenge because the theaters were a bit grubby. Right. They were run down. You know, you couldn't get a drink in the interval. You know, the ice cream came in these tubs and it was weeks old and warm.

You know, there wasn't much care. Warm ice cream? Warm ice cream. Basically like a thick milkshake. That's really bad. Yeah, it's disgusting. But that started to change. So now, you go to the theater now in London and major cities in England, and it's a great night.

What was the big break? I mean, were you gunning for television work? No, no, no. You were going to be a theater guy. Yeah, that was the thing. television work you were no no you were going to be a theater yeah that that was the thing in my for my generation theater was was always the first entry point for for work um you didn't even think about like how to get in movies movies and tv was something that was way ahead in the future that you had to kind of like work towards right you had to sort in a way kind of get well known enough or earn

earn the chance to do a tv movie or a movie and who were the elders in you know for your generation you know in the in the theater world that everybody looked up to oh it was i mean it was people like you know glenda jackson yeah uh trevor nunn yeah we had We had some great actors. You know, Donald Sinden, Peter O'Toole. Yeah. You know, there were great, there were actors who were like maybe 10, 15, 20 years ahead of us. Yeah. Who were doing great work. And that was what we aspired to.

getting into the national theater or getting into the royal shakespeare company uh working with you know really good provincial companies like the bristol old vic or the exchange theater in manchester and so on that was what you aimed for yeah um but it was always theater because that's all we were trained in i mean there was no when i when at my drama school the the most technological class was a class that was rather vaguely called radio microphone technique and that was it there was no there were no classes about screen work or how to how to audition for camera but at that time you know not unlike i guess the thing you're doing now this uh the angel of vine yeah podcast that like the bbc had radio plays oh yeah and in, in those days, they may still do it. The BBC had a repertory company. Yeah.

And the BBC Radio Rep. And every drama school was invited to enter a competition. And so every drama school would send maybe two or sometimes three of their best students to enter this competition. Yeah. And you would basically audition for the BBC Radio Rep. And if you won, the prize was a six-month contract with the BBC Radio Rep. Now, that was like, I mean, that was serious. That meant that if you won this, you'd leave drama school and you'd be in a job. You'd have a job, a paid job for six months.

Talking. Talking. You know, and it was like, so we all went and and did it we all kind of tried to do that no i like i did one i did a radio show for the bbc in one of their old hall like they have like those even the bbc in that building you know i'm in this room that has an audience in it and it it has its own history you're like a lot of shit happening here you know there's like a true not a tradition but it's all it's all in one place there's very few places like that here where you know that that's where it all happens that we when you have a national radio you know

the the the studios are are historical that's right that's right and so much has gone on yeah and you you i remember the very first time i worked at the BBC to do a radio job, I was told that the studio we were in was where some really famous science fiction series from the 40s had been transmitted. Yeah. When it was live. And you would find all these sort of old actors who were radio stars who did almost nothing but radio and they'd be full of little hints like you know dear boy uh when you turn the pages of your script just hold it away from the microphone yeah and perhaps try and try and um try and uh uh fold up the ends of the pages so you've got something to grab just a little hint and they give you all

these little and of course at the time i was young I was young. I loved all those old guys. Those old guys were. I looked. You looked up to them. They were the elders. They were the they were the actors that had been through what you were going through, had been had experienced what you were hoping to experience and what they and their knowledge, their understanding, even their cynicism about it was was useful. And also there was a it sounds like in britain there was a working class element to that oh very much so yeah these guys you know

they had jobs for a lifetime it was peter o'toole and albert finney's generation yeah they went to the royal academy of dramatic art and they just kicked the shit out of that place i mean you know that they were the ones that were kind of going no i'm not going to change my accent you don't like my accent don't talk to me you know that they had the they had the guts to kind of just challenge all that did you get to work with you i got to work um no i didn't i got to i became sort of friendly for a while with uh albert finney because we had a couple of mutual friends yeah um i never got to work with any of those old guys, but they were, they were the people we were kind of, they were the people we adored, you know, that, that, that, cause they, they, they seem to, they walk the walk and talk the talk. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. And they, they lived the life. They did very much. Very much. I mean, I mean, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of lessons from that that you might want to avoid. That's right. I worked with a wonderful old actor called Sebastian Shaw, who was a great character actor and leading man at the Royal Shakespeare Company when I was there just kind of spear carrying. Yeah. And the way, you know, the way.

Is that what it's called? Yeah, I was a spear carrier. Yeah. And lantern bearer. And I, you know, like a lot of young actors you know you when you when you're talking to older actors you you want to know so you want to and i i think i said to mr shaw i think i said something like um mr shaw do you have any any advice yeah for me i you know and i was kind of a bit gushy and and he said yes i have he said yes i'll give you some advice he said, yes, I have. He said, I'll give you some advice. He said, never stand when you can sit and never sit if you can lie down.

And at the time, I thought, oh, he's just an old fart. But now that I'm in my 60s myself, I'm thinking, that's really good advice. So thank you, Mr. Shawaw it's practical totally so so when does the what how does the big the big break reveal itself or i mean in terms of when did you start working well i i was always working uh not always doing what i wanted to do or not always doing necessarily what what was the best thing to do but but you seem but that's just part of your work ethic yeah i just yeah i mean i just uh you know i grew up with i grew up in a family that really lived paycheck to paycheck was your dad on board with the acting not really no not really he thought he he he was a little um he was a bit bemused by it and then i think he became slightly

irritated by it and then he just dismissed it you, because it wasn't it didn't seem to be of any consequence. Did he see he didn't get to see any of you got to see a few things. He got to see a few things. I mean, he was he was there, but he had something about he never quite was able to express any pride or any enjoyment of what i did there was always a caveat there was always it was always kind of like almost begrudgingly acknowledging what i was doing but then of course after he died i discovered that he had a suitcase like a big bag of clippings full of clippings and posters and articles and photographs you know he just but he couldn't actually you know i remember the lot one of the last things he saw before he passed

away uh he i did a play where in the second half of the play my character is in full drag yeah because he's that's his that's his job in this he's he's in a gang of and and there's Because that's his job in this. He's in a gang. And that's his job in the heist is to kind of like deflect attention. Right. So he's in full drag on a street corner pretending to be a lady of the night. And my father comes to see the show. And afterwards he says to me, he says, Alfredo, it was incredible. When you dress up as a woman, you look just like your mother.

And I was thrilled by this. And I kind of went, oh, did you think I was attractive? And he goes, don't be ridiculous. So that was the best. That was the closest I got to a compliment was when I was in drag, I looked like my mom. Why is it with that? What is it with fathers in that thing? Like, what is the obstacle?

Well, I don't know. I can only speak from my own experience. I don't know. I'm sure there's a million and one reasons why fathers do that with their sons. They can't express their yeah i i think i think with my dad it was because i think what i was doing what i was the way i was living my life you know what was important to me he just could not understand i mean he got me a job just after a ball just after drama school he got me a job in the restaurant

where he was working yeah he was bartending by this time got me a job in the restaurant where he was working. He was bartending by this time. He was bartending in this restaurant, and he got me a job as a waiter. And if I say so myself, I was quite good at it. Good enough that my manager asked me if I'd be interested in going on a paid two-week course, which the restaurant would pay for, to train as an assistant manager. Yeah. Now, if waiting tables or waiting and if working in the catering business had been my ambition, that would have been like a great thing to do.

Yeah. But I turned it down because I wanted to. I didn't want to get stuck. Yeah. I wanted to. I wanted time to go to auditions and stuff and when I told my dad that I turned it down his disappointment was palpable yeah and he was but I don't think he was disappointed for me I think he was just embarrassed you know

because he he it made it I think he thought that it made him look as if he hadn't raised me properly right well also somehow something like that. And then when I left that job and took an acting job, which was paying me something like a third of what I was earning as a waiter, he could barely talk to me. Yeah. He just didn't understand your choices. Didn't get it.

So was Oklahoma the first big thing? That was the first big uh that was the first big um sort of stage production that i got involved in yeah and that was the one that kind of got me a little bit of attention and that was like in the 80s that was nine yeah that was right about yeah because it was right about when my daughter was born so it would have been like yeah 1980 81 so that was what it what it's like i don't know anything about the production, but I know it got a lot of attention and it was a revival of.

It was the first major revival of the musical since like the 1950s. It's sort of odd that it got so much attention. What was it about that production? Well, I think it's because

it was very popular. The show's very popular and it was the first time, I mean, there hadn't been a production of Oklahoma for nearly 30 years. It was like some sort of unearthing. Yes, it was like a big deal, and we took it on tour first, and then we came into the West End.

So, yeah, and also we had a great, this young Australian singer, John Dietrich, who was absolutely brilliant in the role of Curly. And it was a, yeah, it was kind brilliant in the role of Curly. And it was kind of a big deal. It ran for a year and a half. I did like 10 months in it. I wonder what the appeal was. Because I guess in terms of, I guess it's Britain, and Oklahoma is very specifically American. But it was a huge success when it first came over to England.

And there's always been a great... What, in the 30s, you mean, or whenever? Well, yeah, when it came over in the late 40s, I believe. And I think that was the last time we'd seen a production of it in the West End. I don't know the show, but musicals are their own thing. Every number in the show was a hit. Over the years, every number in the show was a hit yeah um over the years every number in the show had either been released as a single or had been part of famous singers repertoires

so all this all the numbers were right my character i played judd fry you know the bad guy he has one song in the original musical yeah which was cut from the movie. So every night when I went on stage, every other song, as soon as it... People were singing along. Yeah, well, they were either singing along, or as they heard the opening bars, there was a kind of a round of polite applause. Right, right. You know, oh, what a beautiful... You know, I'm just a girl who...

And then, of course, I come on, and my song starts... It's really dark, you know. The my song starts. Dung, dung. It's very dark. You know, the floor creaks. The door squeaks. There's a mouse nibbling on a broom. It's all very kind of dark and paranoid. And, of course, when that starts, I could see the whole audience kind of turning their heads, kind of going, I don't know this one.

What's this song? I've never heard this song. So every other song in the show got like cheers at the end. You know, people will say we're in love. The place goes mad. I end up with my in my lonely room. Nothing. Tumbleweeds.

But you stood out. I stood out. It was a real kind of learning experience. And that started the theater role? Yeah, well, yeah, kind of. And then it was just after that that I did my first movie. Which movie was that? That was Raiders of the Lost Ark.

You've really done your research, Mark. I'm really impressed. Raiders of the Lost Ark. I don't know. Sometimes I talk to people from... And you've never heard of them wikipedia is not always great imdb is good but but sometimes i talk to people it's like well i did this little movie that you can't find on there yeah but you know that was a matrix yeah no that's a big movie i remember you you're the guy with the spikes coming out of you yeah yeah, that's right. It was very disturbing. My producer, I think it scarred him for life. My work here is done.

For most of his life, you were that guy because he was a kid. It was like, that's the guy who was, oh, my God. Yeah, that's right. So you get booked out of England for a radio? Yeah, because in those days, the studio system in England was very economically depressed at the time. The studios were empty. People weren't shooting there. The British film industry was going through one of its cyclical downturns.

See, I might want to add real quick that here on this particular resume, it says that there was a movie before that. What was that? It was Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square. That's erroneous. See? That's why I played stupid. That's erroneous. I've never done a movie called.

I don't know what that is. I've got a feeling. It says you're uncredited, and it's a port official. Oh, I know what. No, no, no, no. I've got a feeling someone's got. I think that was the title of an episode of a TV show I did. Ah.

See, Wikipedia, you can't count on it. You can't trust them. You can't trust them. So the film industry is very depressed. It was very depressed. And so it was very cheap to shoot in England. Yeah. So basically what Paramount did is that they brought their whole production office over to England.

They had already cast Harrison Ford and Karen Allen from the States, but every other actor in the, in the movie was cast in London. As a consequence, we were all working under British equity contracts, which did not include any residual payments. Really? No.

So we all got paid like a lump sum. Was that a plan? That, no, that's just the way it was. We, we, we didn't,

we never had a residual system in english film contracts you just got paid your fee and if you were a star you'd negotiate a big fat fee and that was it that's really yeah and and uh i mean it's i think it's slightly changed now but certainly in those days so we were cheap yeah we were very cheap and but also very grateful and and then you were you were were doing British television as well? Yeah, I did a little bit of TV. But still, even after the movie, I was still regularly working in the theater and regional theater in London. I mean, it was just an ongoing.

The films really didn't become my main stay of employment until I came to live in the States. But for years, you were sort of like one of those guys, like, there's that guy again. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, I suddenly was on that track of the character actor. Oh, yeah, isn't that what's-his-name? Yeah. Which I've never complained about. I mean, that's's it's a better way to be it's a better way to work yeah that life got to you know put two kids through college i'm i'm i have no complaints

and you don't have the pressure of like you know you gotta be you know that's right i mean you know there's a great there's a great i've i've told this story often but it's a great quote of the late Bob Hoskins who said that he loved popping in and out of movies, doing little cameo parts. And the reason he loved it so much, he said, when you turn up, they're happy to see you. They treat you like the crown jewels. And if the movie sucks, nobody blames you. That's right. And it's perfect. But then you had big, like, nobody blames you. That's right.

And it's perfect. But then you had big, like, prick up your ears. That was a big part. Yeah, that was a nice big lead in what was then a very prestigious, that was a movie that very much kind of pushed the envelope socially and politically. You know, it was the first time that we saw uh a gay relation albeit a destructive one but a gay relationship portrayed uh as as a relationship and not as some kind of you know secretive criminal uh you know kind of endeavor you know yeah it was it was uh it was

the opening up of a whole new way of telling a story, you know, and of course it was based on true events and everything. So it was quite that was quite an important moment. And such a disturbing character. Very much so. Yeah, very much so. I mean, it was that was the first time that I actually spent a lot of time before shooting actively researching the role and the history of these two characters. You know, Gary Oldman and I, we'd been friends, and, you know, we'd done a play together,

and we spent three or four weeks just every day together just kind of working out these timelines of, you know, where these characters were at at any particular moment. So when we arrived to shoot the movie, we kind of felt very much at home with with the characters and with the events of the story and so on and uh and that really that taught me a great lesson you know and that's something that i've continued to do whenever i've worked on particularly when i've worked on films

where i'm playing a character who actually existed at some point well that and i would imagine too like because you did do uh you played played Mark Rothko in Red. Yeah. And he was a complicated character. Very much so, yeah. And interesting, the more complicated they are, the more contradictory the information you get, the more interesting it is to play. What do you mean by contradictory? Well, in the sense that there used to be an exercise at drama school that we used to do. Yeah. You would write down a list of all the things that your character says about himself,

and then you write a list of all the things that the other characters say about your character. Right. And the best writing is often when those things contradict each other. Yeah. You know, if a character says, oh, I'm just an ordinary person.

Right. You know, I'm just, you know, and then someone else says, oh, my God, I saw him the other day. He was drunk and dancing on a table. Yeah. You know, that kind of contradiction, you think, oh, there's some interesting stuff to work on. Right, oh, my God, I saw him the other day. He was drunk and dancing on a table. Yeah. You know, that kind of contradiction. You think, oh, there's some there's some interesting stuff to work.

Right. Right. Yeah. Because in real life, we're all contradictory. We are constantly contradicting ourselves. And so that was, you know, so when when with Mark Rothko, you know, I read all the stuff that he'd written about his work. I read, you know, I read the the stuff that he'd written about his work. I read, you know, I read the. Was it Breslin biography?

Yeah, the Breslin biography, which is absolutely definitive. Yeah. Plus Christopher Rothko, Mark Rothko's son Christopher has written a fantastic book, which is a kind of analysis of his dad's work and where his dad was at in his life at any particular time. So all of that stuff was very, very useful and very helpful. But ultimately, the last thing an audience is paying for is to watch an actor schlep his homework on stage with him. Yeah, so you have to integrate it somehow. Yeah, what you do is, at least what I do,

is you absorb as much of it as is useful and then forget it. Yeah yeah because ultimately all you're doing is really create recreating what's on the page right you know you can't suddenly decide to rewrite something because you happen to know what he had for breakfast in 1959 but you believe that it goes in there i think yeah i think lodges itself yeah it becomes part of your i don't know I'm going to sound terribly highfalutin now, but it becomes part of your creative DNA in some way. Right. And that's something you've done, now you do it all the time. Yeah, and it becomes kind of second nature in a way. I mean, of course, if you're playing a purely fictional character, then of course, it's just your imagination.

You just need your imagination. Sure. It's just your imagination. You just need your imagination. Sure. So you're going back and forth from England to the States, but the play Art brings you to New York, and you stay in New York. Yeah, but I was already living in the States when I did Art, but that was the first time that I'd worked for a long period of time in New York.

That was a huge show. Who was in that, Garber? I did it with Victor Garber and Alan Alda. Yeah. Great, great company. We all became good friends, and we've remained so. Alan Alda's a good guy. Oh, fantastic.

I mean, and he was like our dad in a way. He sort of took Victor and I under his wing, and there's a wonderful moment when Alan was always very, very keen on, you know, on like finding a new restaurant. You know, he was he loves food. He was always very excited to find a new place. And he came into work one night and said, guys, there's a great new Italian restaurant. It's, you know, he mentioned the name of the chef. They've just opened downtown.

I'm going to I'm going to get my I'm going to get my assistant. And he gave downtown i'm gonna i'm gonna get my uh i'm gonna get my assistant and he gave a name he said i'm gonna get my assistant so and so to do it and i said oh i thought so and so was your assistant and alan said well i've got two assistants one here and one in the office and then i said something like wow alan that must cost you a a fortune and Alan very quickly said I've got a fortune I love that he was just and what how what how do you like because like I you've done a lot of movies some of them I've seen some of them I haven't like some of them I forgot I saw but like but you work with uh like how much uh like when you work with somebody like uh jim jarmusch like i i'm trying to remember how big the part in dead man was it wasn't very big it was basically one scene we had one scene in the kind of trading post yeah

johnny depp and gary farmer come in you know yeah and there's this kind of uh you know negotiation which gets very tense um and that was the only time I I went up to we that he was shooting it in somewhere in Oregon and I went up there for a week and I was there for three or four days not doing much and then we shot all that stuff in in like one day and then uh a few years later uh Jim called me. And in the interim, I'd worked with Sarah Driver, Jim's partner. And I'd done a film with her in Germany. Which one was that?

It was called When Pigs Fly. Oh, yeah, yeah. And starring Marianne Faithfull. Oh, wow. She's an interesting woman, really interesting. Yeah, I used to see her. I worked at a coffee shop in Harvard Square when she was drying out at some point in uh i guess in the late 80s and she used to come in every day and she looked uh weathered yeah but an amazing woman i mean yeah she's great so many stories so much anyway so and then after that uh jim called me up about um coffee and

cigarettes and he's been you know he'd been making these little vignettes for years, trying to find a way of somehow putting them together. And he just said, I've got this idea for a little short. Would you be interested? And it was myself and Steve Coogan. And I said yes straight away because I'm a big fan of Steve Coogan. He was just here. Cool guy, really fantastic.

And Jim just basically said that he didn't have a script. He just had an idea for a scene. Yeah. And so we improvised a lot of it. Was it fun? A lot of fun. We didn't improvise in front of the camera. We worked it all out the day before in a rehearsal.

Yeah. So we had a pretty good idea of where we were going to go with it. Yeah. But I'd never worked that way before. I'd never done a movie or worked on a film where there was so much freedom to just kind of invent stuff and just cut you know and that that was really exciting have you done more of that since no not not no i haven't it's funny i that it kind of it was like uh the most delicious it was like finding the most delicious dish in a buffet yeah and just singing

you know what i'm just gonna have that now. And then you go to another buffet and there's nothing like, it's not there. I think you and Coogan should work more together. Well, we had fun. I mean, I hope Steve's memory of that film

is as fond as mine is. But I mean, I remember, I remember for instance, we did this whole, we got into this whole riff about his coat. Yeah.

Which was a conversation that we'd had literally a couple of hours before in the lunch break. Yeah. When I'd said something like, that's a really nice coat. And he went, yeah, it's a Vivian West one. I said, that's cool, that's cool. And then, so in the scene,

I just kind of went, nice coat. And then he just went off on this whole thing. It was brilliant. I thought this was such a great way to work. It's fun, right? Yeah, I loved it. In the such a great way to work it's fun right yeah in the moment i loved it it's hard to get in the moment so like i just read the weird thing is we could spend a long time with the with a lot of the stuff in the in the in the resume because he's done so much but there was i just read an article recently like two days three days ago about your scene in boogie nights like yeah it was like a new

yorker scene someone sort of like how does it hold up and you know and there's a reference to that scene and i'm i have to assume that no matter what you do a lot of people are never going to forget that oh yeah that comes up a lot and i'm delighted you know there's there's uh that i've never i don't i've i've never understood it when actors kind of get a little irritated when people kind of mention yeah iconic stuff that they've done right you know you know you hear actors kind of saying things like oh i wish i would i wish i'd stopped talking about that movie i did you know that never bothers me because it's those moments that you know in a small way i mean i may be it may be a footnote in the history of film, but it's there.

Yeah. And it exists, and I'm very, very proud of those things. Like when people come up, people still say, I mean, usually men of a certain age will say things like, I'll be in a bar or something or in a restaurant or in a line in the coffee shop, and someone will come up and say, throw me the idol, I'll throw you the whip huh that's you right and i'll say yeah and that was me and and then they always say then they always apologize they're saying yeah you must you must get you must hate that when people do that yeah and i always say no no i don't hate it i'm delighted i'm delighted that you remembered it i'm delighted that it's part of your kind of you know memory of

of things nice things that's i'm i'm i'm delighted but that's also the kind of, you know, memory of nice things, I'm delighted by that. But that's also the great thing about, you know, going back to Bob Hoskins' talk, is that when you have those moments where you're not the whole movie, but you can really be in that moment, that those are the ones that people really remember. You know, you and the boulder. That's right.

I'm very happy with the billing you've given me, by the way. I came before the boulder. I'm delighted. But you're right. I mean, it's and it's not it's not I don't think it's anything to be ashamed of. It's nothing to be embarrassed by, you know, and then, you know, other people might talk about Boogie Nights or and it's I'm it delights me. I find it flattering that they remember, and I'm delighted that it's a positive memory.

It's a great movie. He did the most wonderful thing. T.T., he did the most wonderful thing. When Boogie Nights was released, he went to the trouble of calling every single person that was involved in that film to thank them for their contribution to it. And I don't just mean the actors.

I mean crew, people who weren't on screen. That movie was a huge thing for him. And he just called everyone. I thought that was such a classy thing to do. Now, thinking back on that scene, I mean, in terms of how you put together a character, what was that work? on that scene, I mean, like in terms of how you put together a character, you know, what was that work?

Well, the, uh, the, the story goes, I'm not sure I've never, I've never been able to corroborate this, but the story goes that the part was already cast.

Yeah. And the actor who was cast at the very last minute dropped out. Yeah. Um, the story goes that his, that this actor's reps got wind that this this movie was about pornography and stuff and they were maybe you shouldn't be maybe you shouldn't be associated with it or something yeah and so he dropped out so i got a call from uh one of the

producers john lyons who i knew when he was a casting director and he said look i normally wouldn't do this but you know we're we're in a bit of a jam. Would you be interested in coming and playing this part? It's only going to be like a couple of days' work. Yeah. Turned out to be about three or four days. And I had just come back from a film. I'd been away for a long, long time,

so I was really happy to be working in L.A. And I said, sure. And then he said, well, I'll get Paul to call you. So Paul calls me and says, okay, this is the part. He's a coked up drug dealer on a shotgun rampage. And I went, yeah, I'll do it. Because I was thinking, I've never done that before. So I said, yeah, I'll do it.

And then he sent me the script and he explained who this character was, how it was loosely based on this character that actually existed. Nash. He was based on someone. I think Eric Boghossian played him in another movie. I think his name was Nash, but he was like Armenian or Iranian or Israeli. Yeah. The co-owner guy.

Yeah, and he was kind of into drugs and porn and stuff. But I thought, this is going to be great fun. Great fun to do. And we had a wonderful time. I think he played him in the John Holmes movie. Yeah, was it Wonderland? Wonderland, yeah. That's it.

That's a disturbing movie. Yeah, very much so. But that set must have been crazy. It was. And it was a lot of fun because pt was very inventive he the scene with you know the with the crackers yeah you know firecrackers he basically uh he told the young man who was playing uh cosmo you know the young kid who was like lighting the firecrackers the firecrackers were full bore they were like you know they weren't damped down so and he said

and he said to this kid just like them any old time Don't worry about continuity just like them whenever you want to hear Which of course the sound man just kind of went nuts, you know, because how do you but but he had a good read What he wanted to do is he wanted all the actors except me to be really genuinely Right by them. Yeah, so whenever you had a shot of Thomas Jane, John C. Reilly, and Mark Wahlberg on the sofa, and they're jumping every time. That was for real because they didn't know when it was coming. This guy would just light them and just throw them, bang.

And I said, well, how am I not going to react? Because I'm going to be hearing. So what they did, one of my ears was plugged up, and the other ear had an earwig in it, so i couldn't hear anything all i could hear was dialogue right so for me every firecracker just sounded like yeah very kind of vague faint in the background noise in which i didn't react so they're all jumping out of their skins and i'm walking through the scene like i can't hear it like i oblivious, like in this coke cloud. And it was such a brilliant idea. It was so brilliant.

And of course, it created this weird, there was this weird energy in that scene. Yeah, because you're just. Everyone else is like freaking out. And I'm just floating through it like, you know, like I'm oblivious. Singing. Which I was. Yeah. It's just singing.

I loved it. We had such a good time. It must have been. There was a, John C. Reilly did an interview somewhere, and he was being asked about that scene. He said, yeah, yeah, we were just sitting on the sofa watching the Alfred Molina show. Which it kind of was.

It was a good show. And you worked with him again on Magnolia? Yeah, yeah, had a nice little part in that. That was interesting. I love his work. I was a good show. And you worked with him again on Magnolia? Yeah, yeah. Had a nice little part in that. That was interesting. And, you know, I love his work. You know, I was a fan. You know, I'd seen Hard Eight, you know, his first movie, which I thought was fantastic. So this was a, you know, I just, I would have, you know, I said yes even before, you know, even before John finished his first sentence, really.

Yeah. And, like, when I saw Spider-Man 2, where he played the Dr. Octopus, see, the thing is you bring something sort of so visceral to almost anything you do. That guy seemed almost like, I mean, the way you played it was like it was almost Shakespearean somehow.

Well, that's very kind somehow like well that's that's very kind of you but you know it was so like it's that nice way of saying over the top right but but but that's good it required that yeah well i know well it was partly that was that uh i'm glad that came across because that was partly to do with uh sam sam raimi i think what he wanted was something otherworldly somehow. He wanted his villain to be in the same way that in the first one, Willem Dafoe's villain in Sam's first Spider-Man movie had this kind of larger than light.

He had a style. Yeah. And I think Sam was into that. yeah you know and i think i think sam was was was into that you know and and so it was uh but that was another again that was another another amazing experience working in a way that i'd never worked with before i'd never i'd never done a movie that was so technically complicated yeah you know yeah it was and all the the cgi and the animation and the all, all the technology that was, that was employed in that film was at a level that I'd never experienced before. And it was exciting. It was,

it was like a real, it was like making movies in a whole other way I'd never done before. So it was, did you, but did you have to wear arms? Yeah. Well, in some,

yeah, there was a huge rig, um, that, that was operated by puppeteers. There was, there was another rig that was on cable. Some of the shots were animated and CGI'd and stuff.

I mean, whenever there were close-ups and I had the arms behind me kind of oscillating very, very gently, that was all because the puppeteers were giving it life. And this is the interesting thing. The puppeteers that were operating the arms yeah were actors themselves so they were kind of they they were giving the arms a kind of i don't know a kind of personality so each arm had its own thing we ended up calling them harry larry flo and moe you'd name the arm we named the arms harry larry flo and moe yeah

you still are you do you get excited about every job? I do, yeah, I do. Because I think that's what reads more than anything else. I haven't lost my joy of it. And I think it's partly because I'm, you know, I know this is where I might sound a bit sentimental, but I look at my family and what they had to do in order to allow me to do this. know that you know that they may not have

understood me all the time but they always but they made sacrifices on my behalf yeah and uh so i i feel i'm i'm conscious of that and i'm aware of it and i'm thankful and grateful for it and and and it's given me they gave me a chance to, in a way, to live a dream. Right. That has become a very nice way to earn a living. It's given me a lovely life. It's given me the chance to be part of a wonderful community. Yeah.

You know, so I'm, and I love going to, I love my, you know, I say to people, I love my tribe. Yeah. You know, I'm proud of them and I'm proud to be part of it. The actors. Yeah. Anyone who works in show business, really. And you do like, it's like, it's crazy. I mean, you do like voices, you're on Rick and Morty, you've done a bit on Drunk History,

you show up, like, you know, you do like, if you've got a few days, you'll go do it. Yeah, I'm a bit of a slut that way. I mean, I'll i'll yeah i find it very hard to say no yeah but you know i've said no in the past but it's usually when it's really really bad but i mean it's it's uh luckily i've i've always managed to find something that i've enjoyed in in the work i've done and you still you guys resurrected red and last year yeah we did it last because we never did a West End run. We'd done it on Broadway. We'd done it in L.A.

We did it in a small theater in the Donmar in London, which is officially regarded as the West End, but it's not like a proper West End house. It's kind of small. It's only 250 seats. And how was it? It went great. Yeah, it was a big hit.

How much of it was still in your head? Not a lot of it, actually, to be honest, because it had been a good eight nine years since we've done it before but once i started working on it and relearning and you know it big chunks of it were coming yeah so it was so it was all there yeah it just needed to be kind of dug out a little bit right yeah i i was i was amazed i was grateful for that because i looking at the play i remember how how kind of hard it was to learn it in the first place i was every night i was giving it a couple

of hours of just homework just drilling drilling the lines to so they were just like would come easy yeah and i thought oh god i do gotta do all that again you know but actually it started to come back but it came back in it was really interesting it came back in these chunks uh-huh and i so then i then my my problem was working out how to put those chunks in the right order yeah yeah yeah it's like you know it's like you have all the ingredients you're going well what goes in first the onions or the peppers i mean you weren't quite sure yeah you just got it through repetition? Yeah, exactly, yeah. Oh, you played Diego Rivera, too, so you've done a couple artists. Yeah, yeah. You've never played Gauguin, though.

No, no, I've never played Gauguin. You look kind of like him. I know. Well, you know, somebody sent me a photo, or no, a painting of Gauguin, like a self-portrait. Yeah, no, that's the one I'm thinking of. Yeah, and I looked, and he said, you know, and he sent it to me with a little note saying look familiar yeah it's like it's like the whole side of his head and some of the yeah i was amazing yeah stuff in the background and i thought yeah but i've never been asked to play him oh that'd be yeah maybe one of those i

i think let's get on that mark let's get on that, Mark. Let's get on to that. Okay, I'm making note of it. So let's talk about... Let's finish up by talking about this podcast. Yes, Angel of Vine. What is that? Well, basically, it's a 10-part podcast, and it's a combination of... It's a bit... It's a combination of, like, L.A. noir

and a little element of time travel, a little element of time travel, little element of documentary. The premise is that a stash of tapes are discovered. And the tapes are of a long-retired police officer on the LAPD in the 50s working on a case, working on a case, working on a case that was never resolved. And it's him recording his interviews, his encounters.

Is it a murder case? It's a murder case, yeah. From the 50s? Yeah. So it's like True Detective kind of? Kind of, and it's loosely based on the Black Dahlia story. Oh, that was earlier though, no? Yeah, but it's got this kind of, it's got this sort of, you know, the tapes are discovered. Yeah.

And it's how this character starts working on the tapes and going through them and gets caught up in this case and wants to try and solve the case. Sort of like a case, you know, going back in time through these tapes. Yeah. And so it's got this lovely, it's got all those elements and it's radio theater. Yeah. And so it's got this lovely, so it's got all those elements and it's radio theater. Yeah. People often use these euphemisms like, it's a movie in your head.

Yeah. It's a film that's going on between your ears. Yeah. But what it is, it's radio. It's radio theater. Sure. It's what existed before television. Yeah, in a very kind of classic form.

That's what's amazing about this medium is that all of these forms which were the primary forms of entertainment yeah you know before anything that's right are now back the great gift now of course is that we have mobility which means that you're not stuck sitting in an armchair glued to your radio. You can hear this anywhere. And do you guys record as a cast? Yeah, we recorded as a cast. We record. I did all my scene. I did my scene with Joe Maniello in front of me,

which is kind of unusual because very often you record on your own. But this scene was so kind of intense that very often you record on your own but this scene was so kind of intense that it was you know Oliver Vacker who's our writer and one of the producers

he felt that it was important that we could see each other and play off each other and that made a big difference yeah and it's and now of course

it's all now all episodes are available sure wherever you get your podcast yeah just download them and go ahead.

Yeah. Enjoy your drive. Exactly. Have a good time at the gym. This is the thing. I'm hearing this a lot now. People are saying that they love their podcast because they listen to them on their commute. Oh, yeah, man.

And it's a habit that I've started to get into now. I'm downloading podcasts now and listening to them while I'm driving. Sure. People do it at the gym. They do downloading podcasts now and listening to them while I'm driving. Sure, people do it at the gym. They do it at the commute. They do it secretly at work. Yeah, I'm busy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put your headphones back on. Well, it was great talking to you. Oh, thank you, Mark. Likewise. That was fun. And are you, oh, you were great in Vice, too, that one scene. You had the one sort of high satire scene of that movie. What, did Adam just call you up yeah well he adam cox i'd done some work for uh i'd done um you know uh some work before with with funny or

die you know those guys and and um they uh he just called me and said you know he said i've got two parts they're not big but either one is yours yeah and i looked at the script i i love the script and i said let me do the waiter yeah you know because that's uh that's that's in and out i mean literally in and out and i said let me do the waiter and i'll do it without a credit you know so so hopefully it'll be a nice surprise and if's not, no one will blame me. Again, Bob Hoskins rule. That's right. So there's no credit?

No, so I don't get credited. No, I'm not credited. Are you working on a movie now? Yeah, there's a couple of movies. I did a film called The Devil Has a Name, directed by Edward James Olmos, who a chum and that will be out that's due out this year there's also a movie called

St. Judy which with Michelle Monaghan that we now think it's going to be released round about middle of February end of February I played a part in it

but I was also executive producer I was one of the executive producers on that and yeah so there's there's a couple of films in the can and i'm i'm working on a movie that i hope to direct later this year have you directed before never oh never perhaps that's why no one's returning my phone calls but uh i i will persevere okay is it something you always wanted to do or it is it is and i And I haven't left it too late, I don't think.

But I've certainly, you know, people say, you've never directed before. Do you think you can direct? I say, well, I've been on enough movies to know that I know what not to do. Let's put it that way. I think I know how to avoid mistakes. And I know how to run up. I know what makes a day not go well. It's all about the DP. Yeah. It's all about the dp it's all about the dp and it's all about your assistant

director as well right ad and the dp yeah that's and then you just pretend that you don't let anyone see how confused and frightened you are that's right yeah and and there was one there was one thing a director i worked with i said i said what if i said if i was if thing, a director I worked with, I said, if I was to direct a film, what would be your one piece of advice? And he said, always have a decision. When people ask you what you want them to do, always have an answer, even if it's the wrong one. Right. He said, the worst thing you can do is kind of go, I'm not sure. What do you think?

Then nobody knows. Yeah. Mr. Molina, where do you think? Then nobody knows. Yeah. Mr. Molina, where do you want the camera? There. Yeah. Even if there is totally the wrong place. Right. Because someone will say, are you sure?

And you go, no, I'm not sure. Here. At least, you know, because that instills, at least if you've made up your mind about something, at least it's reassuring. Right. Sure. They know someone's in charge. All right, man.

Thanks a lot. My pleasure. That was great. I learned some things that I didn't know about that scene. How genius was that? Again, Alfred, you can see him in everything he's ever been in, which could take a lifetime. But he's also the voice actor on the 10-part narrative mystery podcast, The Angel of Vine, available wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget as well, studies show that security systems deter burglars, which is why securing your home is truly a necessity.

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