J.K. Simmons, Vol. II

0:00Sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands you need. From athletic stuff, like a full-court pickup game, swish, to athletic stuff, like a half-mile stroll. Get those steps in! And for morning hikes up the mountain trail, good pace, to nighttime ghost stories from the camping chair. What a twist! Whatever level of active, Sierra loves it all. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom scrolling? Smart move.

0:37Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. Bundling. Just another way to save with the personal price plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Was it ever possible to put too much mustard on a bring me Spider-Man bellow? Like, could you ever go too far with something like that? Apparently not, because Sam never pulled on the reins. You never said go down to an eight? No, no. One of my favorite Sam directions was there was a scene where our daughter is getting married, and there was a scene looking down the aisle, and he said, and then JK, right when the camera gets to here, if you would just tilt your hideous mug into the frame thusly.

1:28You know, I was like, yes, yes, sir. Mr. Ramey, sir. That's what I will do. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins. Hey, guys, it's Dosh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. We have a legend in the house today, J.K. Simmons, an Academy Award winning actor. You know him from everything from Oz and Juno, Whiplash, Spider-Man. Too many credits to count, including his new TV series, The Westies. A great conversation with one of our greats. Thanks, as always, for checking out the podcast today, guys. Remember to hit that subscribe button on YouTube, on Spotify, however you're doing it.

2:04You know what to do. And remember to check out our Patreon if you haven't already. Patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused. You get early access to all of our episodes. You get bonus content. You get access to our live events in New York and Los Angeles, autographed merch. What more can you ask for? It really does help us make more stuff over here. So check it out, patreon.com slash happy, sad, confused. Okay, so main event today is, as I said, the one and only J.K. Simmons. He's a character actor, a leading man. He can kind of do everything. And he is currently leading the charge in this new series on MGM+.

2:39It is called The Westies. It tells the tale of an Irish mob that he leads in the 80s in Hell's Kitchen in New York City. He's great in it, as he always is. But this conversation not only, of course, covers that, but a lot of his storied career, as much as we could pack into 45 plus minutes. And there is a lot. Of course, we talk about his iconic role as J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man. We talk about Commissioner Gordon in Justice League and the Batgirl movie that kind of never was. but also touch upon his theater work, Oz, Juno, so much in this conversation. He's a class act, truly one of those iconic faces and voices that I was so pleased to have back on the podcast.

3:22So I'll throw to our conversation without any further ado. Please enjoy me and J.K. Simmons. J.K. Simmons, you're back on the podcast. Thank you, sir, for being here. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I was saying before, I had the J.K. Simmons podcast experience, but it was in the pandemic fog. I didn't get the living, breathing, the bearded visage that is before me today. Yeah, I was probably just semi-unkempt at that time. Same, same. Is the beard today, is this evidence of work or lack of work? Because it could go either way, right? Yeah, yeah. No, it used to be the unemployment beard. this is it's something that first of all I hate to shave so that's mostly what it is when we finished the Westies seven months ago I was shaving everything sure got tired of that so part of it was just like let's not shave for a while and then a couple rolls came along that were like this is a good fit and then the last thing I did was like I'm just gonna make this be a good fit.

4:24I don't want to shave. I just want to. I'm either going to be this guy with the beard or get somebody else. Yeah. And then I have something that, you know, fingers crossed that I'll be doing in a few months that'll just be a real wild man look. Nice. It won't be. It's not the kind of thing that will take two weeks. You'll need to. This kind of investment. Yeah. Can we talk important stuff? The relationship with your hair over the years? Because as I understand it, you were starting to lose the hair pretty early in your 20s. Was that, as an actor, as a young actor, was that a moment like, oh, God?

4:56I mean, I wasn't even a young actor. Yeah, I was a young, you know, semi-wanted-to-be-a-rock-and-roll-troubadour-turned-classical-music-student. Yeah, about the time that I stumbled into doing summer theater at the Big Fork Summer Playhouse was, first of all, my hair was like Greg Allman hair. You went from one extreme to the other. Yeah, and it was very blonde, and it was, you know, yeah, down to my, not quite my belt, but getting there. And just beginning to show those signs, and then when I got a cut to do summer theater in 77, when I was 22, it was, yeah, it was starting to show. You could look at the five years I was at the Big Fork Summer Playhouse, and every year is a little further back.

5:47So yeah, I mean the writing was on the wall from the beginning you look up your mom's brothers and father and like it's all there Oh, yeah, that's so I'm gonna be I would argue this has served you well over the years You're like I'd like I had Stanley Tuesday on the podcast like a couple You know a couple months ago and I think the same thing of him as you it's like you both have been like 45 for 30 years Like you were prematurely that age and you still are kind of that absolutely I mean, I've always I've always said 50 I got a 50 year old character actor kind of waiting to happen for 25 years and yeah a little over the 50 mark now but yeah there was never I mean I was a little vain about my long blonde locks but once I cut them off it was like you know and then actually like doing things like A Few Good Men the play were really good moments for me because I was like well everybody's just got a super buzz their hair anyway so part of the military not that much of a difference really yeah kind of bad wig effective performance oh absolutely you had that experience where like oh we made a bad call from day one oh i had to wear a terrible wig in college when i was i was sort of got my arm twisted to be in a production of a of an opera operetta deflate a mouse and i didn't particularly want to do it and and this was before I cut my hair for summer theater and and they like kind of whatever it got my arm twisted and ended up doing it and then during dress rehearsals the stage you said all right the following people need to get hair cuts you right and myself my buddy Michael Morris and a couple of others and and I was just like no how sorry a little you know a bit of a bruised banged up rib cage from a surfing boogie boarding incident.

7:43And I ended up wearing a short-haired wig that was, I don't know, acquired somehow hacked off over my already big head tucking up all my ponytail and everything, wearing a short-haired wig and then trying to find a top hat that would fit over all of it so that I could play whoever they are. Bad choice upon bad choice. Yes, bad, yes. Kind of a hat on a hat. It's literally. Bad choices, yeah, yeah. We're not going to spend the entire podcast talking about your hair. We're going to talk about your versatility as an actor because you are one of these guys. I know you're a baseball fan. You're like the ultimate utility player.

8:26Let's talk about an old tiger like Tony Phillips. You're the guy that can fill any spot. The new tiger, Zach McKinstry. There it is. Thank you. But do you take a certain pride in that? You can be, look, you can be a leading man. You can be the baddie. You can be the nice dad. That's, not many people can have that kind of range. Yeah, no, I think range is something that, you know, a lot of actors, most actors probably enjoy doing. Yeah. Just because it keeps things interesting. And, yeah, I do like being able to play up different styles, different time periods, different regions, different humans.

9:05Did you ever feel like you were typecast? Was there ever a role early on, or a path you started to go down, you were like, uh oh? I was concerned early on, early on in my camera career, because I did theater for 20 years, and was always able to bounce around between, you know, classical, modern, musical, good guy, bad guy, supporting, lead. and then when Oz came along I knew that it was going to be impactful and I was a little afraid that I would end up being the Nazi of the week on every TV show for my whole career and wanted to avoid that and was really fortunate that first of all that Tom Fontana created such a great character that had some, you know, I mean he was complexities, he was an evil dude but that, you know, there were some layers and then within months of finishing the first season of Oz, Law and Order came along.

10:02Right. So audiences initially saw this sort of yin-yang. It's a dichotomy. Two characters. I would imagine Juno also does a lot for that too. Juno was fantastic. And when Jason Reitman handed me the script for that, because I was in his first movie, Thank You for Smoking, which is, I think, an underappreciated movie, certainly especially as a debut feature. and he joined a poker game that I was playing in and handed me the script for Juno but didn't say he wanted me to play Mac, you know. And I read the script and obviously fell in love with that character but I was also looking at, oh, well, I could play this guy that has three lines.

10:46You're so predisposed to thinking like, oh, they obviously just want me for this thing. Right, yeah. We'll be right back with more Happy, Sad, Confused. So some of you may think what you see and hear on the podcast is the total me. The truth is I get super stressed like everybody else. Work challenges, the health of a loved one, it can all feel pretty overwhelming. That's why I'm so happy Rula is an ongoing sponsor for Happy, Sad, Confused. It's one thing to find a therapist you like, but then you learn the problem of actually making sure that they take your insurance. then there are all those online therapy platforms, right?

11:23But the truth is that many of them don't work with insurance. And then you're looking at huge out-of-pocket costs. So guess what? Now you can add money stress to the rest of your problems, not with Rula. Their average copay is just$15 per session. And that's because they partner with over 100 insurance plans. And it's real therapy from licensed professionals. This should be how insurance works after all, right? You use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health. Why shouldn't you do the same for your mental health? And Rula knows that in order to provide you with the best care, they have to consider your goals and preferences and backgrounds so that you can get a curated list of licensed in-network therapists who are actually aligned with what you need.

12:03Because finding the right therapist can make all the difference. No wait lists. Appointments are available as soon as tomorrow, and you're not on your own, guys. Rula sticks with you throughout the journey. They check in to make sure that your care is helping you as you move forward. So go to Rula.com to get started today. That's R-U-L-A.com for quality therapy that's covered by insurance. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high-quality therapy that's actually covered by insurance. Visit Rula.com to get started. And after you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them.

12:37Please support our show and let them know we sent you. That's Rula.com. You deserve mental health care that works with you not against your budget.

13:15Athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it.

13:21You've talked about this before, we've talked about this before, but for those that don't know, yeah, the arc of your career, you kind of referenced it. You had a whole life, a whole huge life in the theater before your on-camera career began. Yeah. And I do think of folks like, I actually think of someone like Gene Hackman often, because Gene Hackman, really his on-camera career didn't start, I mean, Bonding Cloud is really the thing that set him off, and he was in his late 30s. pretty similar trajectory in some ways. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think my first feature, I was 38, maybe. The Ref was my first feature film.

13:57Under its head demi-movie, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. So by that time, I mean, because you also kind of, I feel like, dispel the myths of like, it's not like you were unhappy. You had a very happy life. Oh, that was great, yeah. It wasn't like you were wanting maybe for some things, but you were fulfilled as an actor? Is that safe to say? I had a roof over my head, and I was single. I had no responsibilities, so all I had to do was feed myself. There were times when people refer to those years as struggling, but it was not. I mean, sometimes I was pretty broke, but that's what friends and family are for.

14:36Also, I've heard say that you sucked early on as an actor. Numerous times you say that. But are you happy there's not a lot of game tape out there of you early on? Absolutely, yeah. No, no, it was good to be starting in the theater and dozens, possibly hundreds of people seeing my early work. Because I was fervent and committed and ham-fisted and, you know, I had a lot to learn. It's not like you just get off the bus and you know how to be an actor. Yeah. You know, and I had some really good appropriate age appropriate directors along the way who guided me and, you know, helped me begin to figure it out.

15:20How fine is the line, you think, between good acting and bad acting? Well, it can be. I mean, especially when you're taking big swings to go back to the baseball metaphor. Yes. it's a very very fine line between you know really committed and really intense and really great and like really oh oh no just just trying a little too hard there you know yeah do you ever do you like that feeling of feeling out on a whim sometimes like is there I mean I I think it's it's something that I try to continue to embrace because uh because I certainly felt that way a lot early on. And I do think it's important to take risks and to, you know, not be too comfortable all the time.

16:09And yeah, in some ways Eamon Sweeney felt like that. Felt like a, you know, a larger than life, you know, certainly very specific time and place. Yes. So that was a big part of for all of us, you know, and we had a lot of Brits and Irish and American and Canadian actors, you know, playing this really insular group of Irish-American immigrants in 1980 Hell's Kitchen. You're talking about the Westies, which I've called the first couple episodes of. I mean, I was telling you before, I grew up in the city, not so far, I mean, the same time period. I was a kid on the mean streets of the Upper West Side, a little bit nicer than the Westies region.

16:4930 blocks north, you're a little safer. It's amazing how much of a difference 30 blocks can mean, right? Yeah. Did you spend a lot of time in New York? Did you ever get mugged in New York? Well, I lived in Hell's Kitchen in the early 80s when I was an actor slash a waiter. I was doing regional theater, and I would book a job and go to Buffalo for six or seven weeks, come back and wait tables at, if I was lucky, somewhere nice like Joe Allen or whoever was hiring. and living in a variety of sublets in Hell's Kitchen and walking home at 1 a.m. after the post-theater shift with a pocket full of cash, you know, kind of looking over my shoulders.

17:30Clutching it a little. Never got mugged. So how much is the appeal of something like this, the setting, the world that you know a little bit, you at least were adjacent to, and how much of it is the character? I assume it's all of the above. Yeah, it's all of the above. As anyone who asks that question will hear me say over and over again, it's all about what's on the page. And what Chris Brancato and Michael Payne's put on the page. And of course, in situations like this where you're doing an eight episode season one and you hope season three, four, five, six, you're basing everything on one pilot script.

18:11That's a leap of faith. And yeah, it really is not like reading a feature or a play and like this is it. This is your arc. This is your character. This is. But when you have writers who are able to really create that world and introduce, you know, over a dozen major characters in one episode, it's a it's a real feat of. And obviously it's not Chris's first rodeo, particularly with Narcos and Godfather of Harlem. and this is sort of genre, historical drama, crime drama is something that he's really adept at. Yeah. Do you like the cadence of a series? I mean, you've done series a bunch over the years, but you also have, I mean, you have over 200 screen credits.

18:58So, like, you're not wanting for, you know, film work. So, I mean, that's, again, as you said, it's a big, this could be a few years of your life on and off. Yeah, it's a big commitment. But, you know, in the olden days, especially New York actors, you know, if you were lucky enough to book a pilot, you know, a network pilot, you'd go out to L.A. and shoot a pilot and sign away seven years of your life. Yeah. On a completely one handed or one sided deal. Yeah. Yes, I'm guaranteeing you seven years and they're guaranteeing nothing. Exactly. Right. Like we can kill you off in episode three if we want.

19:34But you have to. So that was that was daunting in the old days. That's still I think the case for all these Marple auditions all these guys that auditioned to be superheroes They have to like yeah before that while they're auditioning right seven sequels or yeah Yeah, yeah, well even with spider-man we when that which obviously was a real gift to my career um When they they made the offer my agent, you know I was very excited to do this movie called spider-man with Sam Raimi who I'd already done two really fun movies with and then And days later, my agent called and he said, oh, by the way, I just got a call from the studio.

20:15And now they need to, the guy kind of made a mistake. And he was supposed to make a, you know, tie us up for three movies. Call that leverage. Yes, he did. The ball was kind of in my agent's court at that moment. But that was the first sort of, wow, three movie deal. Yeah. And then actually made the three movies. Exactly. We'll get to Spider-Man. Trust me, I'm too much of a geek to let you out of here without talking about that. But a little bit more on the cast of this is exceptional. I mean, Titus Titus Welver, I feel like is also cut from the same cloth as you. I don't know if you guys go back at all.

20:46We don't at all. I mean, you know, we've been seeing each other and aware of each other over the years. Yeah. But no, when I heard that he was coming on board to play Glenn Kane, and I thought that's fantastic. And also this guy, Tom Brittany. Yeah. Who, I mean, he was on my radar. Again, not to connect everything to superheroes, but like apparently he almost was cast as Superman. and he's like, there's rumors that he might still be in the mix for Batman. It was during our shoot that it came down to two guys. You were aware? Was he talking about it on set? Yeah, yeah, no, he wasn't one of those, you know, not wanting to jinx kind of guys.

21:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course, we were all rooting for him, but, you know, those kind of close calls come and go. And then you look back 10 years later, 20 years later and go, you know what? Exactly. worked out well yeah yeah and James Gunn always said very nice things about him so I'm sure I mean this opportunity here and there'll be more along the way well he's fantastic I mean he and Stanley Morgan and especially these English actors UK actors Australian actors Irish actors that that have a tend to have a traditional training yeah you know I think both Tom and Stan off the top of my head really immersed themselves in these characters these American 1980 yeah Hell's Kitchen characters and then and then you hear them talk off camera and it's like it's a very different dude yeah yeah it's talking about a different dude you kind of reference this like the the beginnings of your kind of like tough guy era was Oz and this was a little bit of the lineage a different kind of a tough guy but he's a you know someone you don't want to cross is it funny to you that you have that identity like you seem like a very genial friendly man yeah well this is this is the acting um no i think i i mean i think a lot of it is what we were saying before you know i was i was this older character actor waiting to happen i was the bald guy i'm you know uh i have a low voice i'm sort of this natural authority figure and whether that means I'm you know the dad or the teacher or the police officer or the head of the Aryan Brotherhood or the the Irish-American gang the Westies just for whatever reason that I I often tend to be the guy in charge which is really disconcerting you know in real life because I'm in charge of almost nothing yeah also can be the editor of a great newspaper we reference Spider-Man yes indeed I've heard you talk about you had worked with Sam a couple times.

23:27You were his choice, but you still had to audition for J. Jonah Jameson. Tell me a little bit about that audition, because I heard you talk about how the absurdity of that, where you have to pretend to be choked by Green Goblin at one point in the audition. Is anybody else choking you, or are you choking yourself? no you have to endow the universe of the choker which of course ended up being Willem Dafoe lifting J. Jonah Jameson off the ground by the neck playing those kinds of things in an audition and of course this is obviously old school audition where there are actual humans in an actual room and a camera and somebody telling you how to maybe make an adjustment which actors now like our daughter who's you know starting her career doing all these self-tapes it just will never yeah you're out to see on your own you have to be your own yeah yeah but that was that felt very very silly um and obviously it was silly in the right way or enough of the right way that they hired me did you walk out of the room thinking you'd done i mean i walked out of the room feeling that was silly but also knowing you know that was the goal it's a comic book movie so um and then and then actually found out i was cast i'm pretty sure was the same day later in that afternoon when i was auditioning for a voiceover at gray advertising where my uncle dave had had worked for decades um and was you know in the waiting room signed in waited and then the person comes back to walk me to the recording booth and somebody in a cubicle slides out their desk chair and says congratulations.

25:16And I was like, okay, thanks for what? And he said, are you kidding me? Spider-Man. And that was when I learned the power of the internet. And this is – That's 2001 or 2000? 99, 2000, yeah. Yeah, it was already on the – like my agent hadn't called yet with the offer. but it was on the internet. That was a sign of the times to come, yeah. Which means, of course, that it was true. Always. Because it was on the internet. Everything, as we know. No fact-checking required. Was it ever possible to put too much mustard on a bring-me-Spider-Man bellow? Like, could you ever go too far with something like that?

25:54Apparently not. Because Sam never pulled on the reins. He never said, go down to an eight? No, no. He did. he did one of my favorite Sam Raimi directions, this was Spider-Man 2 one of my favorite Sam directions was there was a scene where our daughter is getting married right? Yeah. And things are maybe not going particularly smoothly and there was a scene looking down the aisle and he wanted J. Jonah Jameson's and he said and then J.K. right when the camera gets to here, if you would just tilt your hideous mug into the frame thusly. You know, I was like, yes, yes, sir, Mr. Ramey, sir, that's what I will do.

26:38He was wearing a suit at least, so he probably, he was classy saying that nasty thing to you. A rumpled suit. Right. But a suit, yes. There was sadly a time where you weren't, there was no J. Jonah Jameson briefly in the Spider-Man world when the Andrew Garfield films were happening. There was talk that like they were going to get you in there, maybe even in the third film that never happened. Was there ever, do you remember any conversations of you entering that world? The only conversations I was aware of were the ones that people would call my attention to on the internet. Yeah. Again, always true.

27:12Hey, why not? Or maybe this or maybe that. Yeah. I don't know that there was any. I mean, and then in the third iteration, when that came along to do the little sort of cameo reprise, that was a complete shock and a very last minute decision. which I still think is why JJJ doesn't have hair in the Tom Holland Spider-Man universe because like they literally like called my agent we had a meeting the next day and it was like a day or two later I was shooting in somebody's office some executive's office on the lot because there was no set there was no there was like they were well into editing the film when they went what if we stuck a little JJJ in here always helps Have you still not shared a scene with Tom Holland?

27:59Have you ever... I've not met Tom Holland. You literally have never met Tom Holland. No. No. Delightful guy, I'm told. I've spent more time with Tom Holland than you. This is wrong. It is. It totally is. On the flip side, you did have a run in DC as well. Do you feel like you robbed a little bit playing... I mean, you get this iconic character, Commissioner Gordon. It was a little bit like Snakebit, it feels like, because Justice League obviously had some issues beyond anyone's control. This crazy Batgirl thing happens. The last time I spoke to you, you were about to play, you were about to do Batgirl.

28:35Yeah, that big hit Batgirl. Well, we don't know. I mean, it didn't exist. Yeah, no, it's in a vacuum. Did you ever see it? It's bizarre. No, no. Apparently one test audience saw it and it wasn't like it was a bad score from the test audience. it was yeah it was a whatever business decision obviously and and yeah justice league where which was a very small part yeah had its own drama attached to it but then then zach's cut yes the director's cut came out which the dc fans you know really love yeah and uh and which is really you know a lot of fun and then yeah when when when batgirl came along with adil and bilal and you It was an exciting prospect to be part of the origin story of Batgirl, for those who don't know, Commissioner Gordon's daughter.

29:29And, yeah, maybe we'll never know the worldwide audience. I mean, did you feel like it was a good experience? Did you feel like the script was solid? Yeah, we really had a good time making it. I thought it was going to be a fun superhero movie. and one of the strangest stories and oh well the third part of your of your comic book trifecta i do want to mention i mean invincible is huge i mean those fans are such a surprise to me really because it's it's you know i mean i read it and they asked me to do it and i thought this is you know really fun and like a genre that's that i sort of took me a while to wrap my brain around This is, you know, it's a superhero animated show.

30:17And it has, you know, there's comic relief elements to it. But it's like, you know, intense. Yeah. And it's not for kids. And I was like, well, who's it for? You know, but well, then I found out. Everyone. Everybody. Because people stop me on the street all the time now and talk about Invincible. Yeah. Have you seen the Think Mark meme around? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, my first meme was with J. Jonah Jameson. Right. And now it's you're the king of memes. There are tons. But can you feel the same connection with a voiceover role as a live action role? I mean, I mean, yes and no. And there were times when we were doing the first season where because in voiceover, the vast majority of the time is just you in a studio.