The "Ask Sean Anything" Mailbag. Plus: The Amazing Life of a Character Actor, with Patrick Fischler.

26:59Sean Fennessey:It's true. Yes, you fucking did, motherfucker. Yeah. Well, as per the Spider-Man brand new day note, like I'm not always right, but I knew I was going to be right about this one the minute I saw the movie. Also, Ari Aster, another person who I've had on the show several times and have gotten to know a little bit. and I feel a kinship with his storytelling, so maybe I have to check myself on this sort of thing, but Eddington just felt tremendously, transparently, clearly right about how we are with each other, to each other, and about the world. And so I'm happy that people are coming around to it.

27:36Sean Fennessey:It's also just very, very, very funny. And it's hard to be funny about the things that it's funny about, but it is. And so, yeah, I'm thrilled about that. I thought of a couple of movies that I think sort of saw the future or were prescient or were a little bit overlooked upon their release or maybe need a revival. The one that I think needs a revival and that is not really available in too many forms, like there's not a fancy Blu-ray release, for example, is Bob Roberts, which is a 1992 political satire comedy directed by Tim Robbins about a millionaire Republican presidential candidate. and who could that possibly have something in common with?

28:19Sean Fennessey:I don't know. The movie is really funny because Bob Roberts, the character that Robbins himself plays, is sort of like a folk singer, but he's transforming folk ballads and popular contemporary music into Republican sloganeering. And it's a very amusing movie, but it's mostly a movie about the kind of messaging, branding, and packaging of political candidates and the way in which provocation is used strategically, the way in which the sort of like empty suit persona is leveraged very clearly by most politicians. And Tim Robbins, of course, is a huge lefty and very politically active. And he's portraying somebody who's all the way on the other side of his politics in an effort to draw attention to it.

29:02Sean Fennessey:The movie, I think, was a Miramax film. And I think it's basically been kind of buried in part because of maybe some of Robbins' opinions. I'm not totally sure the origins there, but it's a movie that if you look at our contemporary political landscape, it sees the future, I think, in a way that is very similar to Eddington. And it probably seemed like it was a little bit broad and over the top at the time that it was released. And now it seems maybe a little mild relative to the world that we live in. Another movie I thought about was Karin Kusama's Jennifer's Body. And there's two things happening in that movie that feel very contemporary to me.

29:37Sean Fennessey:One, it's a very kind of amusingly and intensely scary slash funny combo that recalls Obsession. And it's not quite at that kind of demonic chaos point that Obsession gets to. It is a little bit more arch because it's a Diablo Cody script, but it does feel like it's moving in a similar direction to that movie. And then the other thing is like, it's a very, it's a very comfortably queer story without the trappings of a lot of traditional queer storytelling. And I think that if you look at something like Teenage Sex and Death and the way that like it's kind of responding to the history of slasher films, and we'll talk about that more with Adam Naiman later this week, this movie is kind of a link in that chain.

30:24Sean Fennessey:And it's not surprising that it's had like a big cult resurgence in the last 10 years and is being rightly recognized. And, you know, Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox are so terrific in that movie. Adam Brody is so funny in that movie. But that's one that feels like just tonally it was way ahead of the curve and trying to replicate something that was happening in the 80s that was hard to replicate at that time but now feels more comfortable so I'll point people to that I just rewatched Ghost in the Shell the Japanese anime film from 1995 and I just feel like that movie sees everything style wise and it's been noted over the years how most science fiction storytelling seems to be riffing on it these days in terms of the sleekness the sort of robotech that you find in it, that kind of cutting edge surveillance style that it utilizes.

31:14Sean Fennessey:And, you know, it's kind of in the aftermath of the cyberpunk moment, but it also feels like it's predicting things like the Matrix that are coming very shortly thereafter. If you haven't seen Ghost in the Shell, I couldn't recommend a movie more. This seems kind of obvious, but psycho, which at the time, there were not very many movies about mass killers and the serial killer psychosis and attempting to psychoanalyze those figures in any way and about repression in that way. And Psycho is, of course, one of the most historic movies ever made. We've talked about it many times on the show over the years.

31:50Sean Fennessey:Might be fun to do like a proper psycho. Actually, when I get questions about what would be the best old school rewatchables that we could do, we've joked about movies like Casablanca in the past or The Wizard of Oz. Psycho is kind of an obvious one. I actually think that would be a great episode if anyone from the Rewatchables universe wanted to do it because it does feel still so modern in the way that it tells its story. And kind of pinned to that, I thought of They Live a bit, the John Carpenter film from the 1980s about obeisance in society. And then the fifth one is Speed Racer. And people might have heard Daniel Goldhaber, the director of Faces of Death, stumping for it on the show earlier this year.

32:29Sean Fennessey:The 4K was released this year, went back into theaters. If you were lucky enough to see the movie again in theaters, you know what a sensation it was. At the time when Speed Racer was released, I must admit, I did not get it. It's not that I disliked it. I don't think I truly saw the vision, though, that everyone sees. And I have really been swayed over the last five or ten years, as it has become more of a cult object. And I look at the incredible vision that the Wachowskis had for that movie. I didn't watch the Speed Racer cartoon as a kid. And so I thought maybe it was a little bit outside of my realm of interest, but it's such a propulsive, electric, colorful movie that it feels like it consumes everything around you.

33:12Sean Fennessey:Like there, you can't, in a time of distraction, you can't be distracted watching a movie like Speed Racer because there's so much happening in the frame at any given time. So that movie, I think also, like I said, it was way ahead of my time. Like it was way ahead of time for me because I just didn't see the way. I think I was looking for something a little different from the Wachowskis after the Matrix trilogy and kind of got wrong-footed by it. And now I go back and look at it. And maybe the same will happen for me for Cloud Atlas or for Jupiter Ascending, movies that I never really have totally clicked in with.

33:41Sean Fennessey:But there's a lot to admire about them. But there seems to be something silly and a bit strange about them at times. But that was sort of how I felt about Speed Racer. The Wachowskis are really due an episode on this show because their legacy is so incredible. and I just heard Lana on the business, the KCRW podcast with Kim Masters last week and there's just an amazing wellspring of stuff going on there. So maybe we'll think about a Wachowskis episode in 2027. Okay, Jack, what's coming next? This next question really gets to the Ask Sean Anything portion of the mailbag. It comes from Simon. How do I know when I find someone that I love and want to pursue as a partner?

34:20Sean Fennessey:When did you know you were in love with your wife? How did you know you wanted to spend the rest of your life with her? Was it a realization one day or did it require a lot of work to get to where you guys are? Simon! Wow, Simon. Earlier in this episode, I threw out the names of actors I think should appear as X-Men characters in a movie that's not even on the calendar yet. And this guy's asking me about how I fell in love with my wife. What an amazing show we've created. well I've been with I've been with my wife more or less since 1999 so I I'm not the most experienced when it comes to playing the field and so it's an interesting question to ask me I think that but I like the way that he framed it because it's not about falling in love it's about being in love falling in love I think is relatively easy because you know when you connect with someone.

35:17Sean Fennessey:You know when you have things in common with them. You know when you're on their emotional wavelength. You know when you have fun together. It seems obvious, but having fun together, I think, is the most important thing. Eileen and I, my wife, you know, we met when we were very young. We probably met when we were in sixth grade. But we were not even really friends for a number of years, all the way up until 11th grade. And then in 11th grade, we had health class together. I don't know if they still teach health class, but they do, Jack. They did for me. Yeah. I just said a thing like, I don't know if they still teach, which just means I'm officially in my mid-40s.

35:55Sean Fennessey:So health class, Eileen sat in the front row and I was seated behind her. And I would say neither of us were terribly interested in the class. But we talked. It was the first class in the morning, this first period. And we both, let's say you get to school five minutes early. We talked nonstop for five minutes. We had a connective tissue because we had a mutual friend, our friend Becky, who sat next to Eileen in the class. And I sat behind both of them. And they would both turn around and talk to me. And then I would talk to Eileen, make jokes, attempt to charm her throughout class. And then we had AP American History immediately after that together.

36:34Sean Fennessey:And same thing. She sat in front of me. No, she sat beside me. And she famously cheated off me on a test. I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm sorry, Eileen, you're going under the bus. Not a cheater. Eileen was an excellent student. And yet for some reason she cheated. And the question was about the Enola Gay, which I believe was the plane that, I can't remember what bomb the Enola Gay dropped, but it was a significant plane in military history. I did very well on the American History AP, by the way. And Eileen looked at my paper and tried to copy my answer on this quiz in class. and she wrote down Erwin Gray.

37:15Sean Fennessey:And that is not Enola Gay. She just couldn't read my chicken scratch handwriting. And that was the funniest thing in the world to me at the time. And I remember that story vividly to this day. And we weren't dating when all this was happening. We were getting to know each other in 11th grade. But I just remember laughing a lot with her and really appreciating that she got my sense of humor, which is sometimes welcome and sometimes not. and so and we basically kind of danced around the idea of dating all the way up until the first day of our senior year of high school and she's the one who stepped to me and was just like let's let's let's get on with this big romance as James Caan says in Thief quite memorably and we did and we haven't looked back since and I don't think we analyzed it a lot We were two people who were pretty sure we were going to be together for a very long time.

38:13Sean Fennessey:We clicked into place. We had some similar experiences and some different experiences. I was a little bit more tentative about marriage, given my parents' divorce. I was not a person who wanted to have kids. I was very driven in my career and very focused on things I felt I wanted to accomplish. I feel like the work always came to her very easily, and she was not as career motivated, even though she's very successful. But we were very in step and in tune. and we like to do the same things together and spend a lot of time together. I'm sharing all of this with you on this podcast because if you have to think a lot about it, if you have to spend a lot of time intellectualizing it, I don't think you're in love probably.

38:54Sean Fennessey:But if it feels like it is flowing and your life is sort of falling in together, then you are in love. The falling in love part is like you're going to be physically attracted to a person, then you're going to start talking to them and you're going to get much more attracted to them if you like talking to them. And then you're off to the races, I think. But I haven't really done this in 27 years. So don't take me at my word. Maybe somebody can ask Amanda when she comes back. She took a little bit more time to find her partner, so she might have a little bit more insight than I do. Okay, interesting question.

39:27Sean Fennessey:Thank you, Simon. I would love to know how old Simon is. Right back at me, Simon. The next question comes from Ryan. I started a movie club with friends and family where we each pick a movie and meet every few weeks to discuss. We started picking movies from each decade starting with the 1940s and we're currently in the 1980s. Can you lend me and the listeners some lesser known criminally underrated 80s movies that we should check out for our movie club? You know, I love a family movie club. That's just wonderful. Yeah, I can talk about some 80s movies. I'm not the biggest 80s fan, although I have caught up with a lot of blind spots over the last 10 years and have somewhat shifted my opinion on the 80s as a film decade.

40:08Sean Fennessey:I do think a lot of it is really related to when you were growing up and the 90s is really more my period. But just a couple of quick ones for you. Sleazy fun movie. Maybe don't watch this with your parents, but I really like John Frankenheimer's 52 Pickup starring Roy Scheider and Ann Margaret, which features an incredible John Glover performance. It is just like a nasty piece of trash that I love. if you're looking for some anxious Safdie style energy I recommend The Boost which is a Harold Becker movie about a guy who moves with his wife from New York to California to try to level up in his career, stars James Woods in an electrifying performance a movie that really surprised me and I'd never seen before, if you're looking for self-referential horror, try Fade to Black, a movie about a movie obsessed teenager who becomes a killer and is inspired by the movies to execute his kills.

41:01Sean Fennessey:If you're looking for some Armageddon fun when it feels like everything is burning around us, try Miracle Mile, one of the great Los Angeles movies starring Anthony Edwards. Slick Thriller, I just watched The Package late last year, the Gene Hackman movie, which I think will come up when we do our Gene Hackman Hall of Fame later this fall. I will be doing it with Tracy Letts. I've been doing a lot of Abel Ferrara prep for an episode and one movie that I haven't seen in a really long time and I just revisited is China Girl, which is sort of his version of West Side Story, sort of a romance between an Italian-American kid and a Chinese girl, Chinese-American girl living in downtown New York that is just absolutely gorgeous and beautiful to look at and beautifully told.

41:47Sean Fennessey:And then sci-fi comedy, I think a lot of people know this movie. It just got a beautiful 4K from Arrow, but Innerspace, Joe Dante's comedy about, I guess, a man who has to go inside of another man and be shrunk down in the meantime, starring Martin Short and Dennis Quaid, that is great and is also a very fun movie that my wife loves. So those are my 80s picks. You know, there's a lot more there. I'm just trying to give you some recent favorites. What's next, Jack? Next question comes from Nick. Who are the most reliable chemistry alchemists in Hollywood history, i.e., which actor reliably produces it across many different partners, genres, and directors came to mind when reflecting on Gosling's career.

42:28Sean Fennessey:Just Next Level with Rachel McAdams, Emma Stone, etc. You'd believe he'd married each of them. Good question. Cary Grant, number one for me. There's nary a performance where you feel like he's not in the relationship that he's in. I think he's really well known for playing this kind of fast-talking, prat-falling, debonair screwball comedy figures, but an Alfred Hitchcock movie I love is Suspicion, where he plays a man who may or may not be plotting to kill his wife, and he is dynamite in that movie, and he has great chemistry with all of his opposite numbers. Jack Nicholson? Jack Nicholson could have chemistry with a telephone pole.

43:16He is the most locked-in actor

43:19Sean Fennessey:I think of all time. And I find him to be so fun opposite women that he obviously has a connection to. I just discovered, you know, Iron Weed for the Meryl Streep Hall of Fame. I'd never seen that movie before. And their chemistry is incredible in that film. But yeah, he is, I mean, The Witches of Eastwick opposite all three of those women is amazing. You know, we talked about Reds and the way that he connects with Diane Keaton in that one critical sequence as he's playing Eugene O 'Neill. So he's somebody who's very obvious to me. I'm trying to think of a contemporary person. Can I give a shout?

43:58Sean Fennessey:Please. I just saw Tony yesterday and I would shout Antonio Banderas. Not strictly from like a romantic perspective, but when I walked out of the movie and I was talking to my girlfriend, I was like, he is such a force multiplier in that he brings the best out of all of his scene partners. I completely agree with that, Jack. It's a great shout. He's one of the absolute highlights of Tony. We'll talk about him a bunch. I had Antonio on the show for Pain and Glory, the Almodovar film. And he's been one of my favorite actors. He might have been one of the very first solo actor conversations I ever had on the podcast because I like him so much.

44:33Sean Fennessey:And I tell you what, I think he and I had chemistry. We were clicking that day. And he was very humble, very humble actor. But Tony is a real, he doesn't have an Oscar and he should have an Oscar. and we should just like start pushing that. He is the like absolute heart core of Tony. And I agree with you. And he's like great opposite Salma Hayek and Desperado, but he's also great opposite Sylvester Stallone in Assassins. You know what I mean? He can really do it all. Okay, next question. Really fun one up here. This one comes from Kyle. I recently saw a tweet going around claiming that you're quote too horny.

45:11Sean Fennessey:Would you agree? Or are you the right amount of horny? For context, that tweet exactly says, I love Sean Fennessey, but sometimes he's too horny on the big picture. I think that's a misrepresentation. I'm not saying I'm not too horny, but on the big picture, I think me noting my appreciation for certain actresses, you know, I have my faves, right? Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, There's others there That is not too horny It's like looking at a great work of art And saying, God, there's such depth And specialness here We should acknowledge it every time we see it If you go to the Louvre, if you've been to the Louvre five times You don't not look at the Mona Lisa You look at the Mona Lisa It's there It's a classical work of art That's meant to be appreciated over and over again And it's right to say so Is that too horny?

46:06Sean Fennessey:No That doesn't mean I'm not horny But it doesn't mean I'm too horny And the other thing I'll say is one, you know, elder millennial repressed Irish Catholic, like I'm doing the best I can. There are times when I feel like I shouldn't say anything. And then there are other times when I feel like I should only say what I'm really thinking. And this is the paradox of being a podcaster. You want to be honest. You want to be yourself. But you're also performing, but you're also protecting yourself. But you also want to create avenues of no ability. I'm doing my best. If I cross the line sometimes, it's only out of appreciation and respect.

46:42Sean Fennessey:I'm not trying to objectify anybody, and I won't. Amanda, on the other hand, is too horny for the big picture. Next question. Getting us back on track with a question from Lucas, not our Lucas. There were lots of conversations around Nolan's strengths and weaknesses as a filmmaker after the release of The Odyssey. I saw some people saying that others could have made a better movie if they were able to get a$250 million budget. Which makes me wonder, who are the$250 million directors, the people that a studio would give that much money with no questions asked? And in addition, who are your$250 million folks, the people that you would like to see given that much money through a studio might not take that same chance with them?

47:23Sean Fennessey:I think the question has a faulty premise because there are no$250 million no questions asked directors. The idea that Christopher Nolan did not have to sell Universal on his idea is wrong. It doesn't mean that Universal is desperate to keep Christopher Nolan in their stable. Of course they are. He is the most proven commodity in filmmaking right now. But nobody writes a$250 million check to an auteur and says, have fun. That's just not how it works. Like there's a huge process that goes into these movies getting made. So I'm not sure I totally agree with that idea. I do think that there's obviously a few people who have a tremendous amount of leeway when they want to make a film.

48:03Sean Fennessey:obviously Nolan is on that list. Denis Villeneuve, I think, is climbing the ladder on that list. James Cameron has been at the top of the food chain for a very long time. But even then, like, I don't know if Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, a lot of the kind of masters that we venerate on the show, none of those people really have$250 million blank checks. You know, does Greta Gerwig have a$250 million blank check? Not really. I mean, she's adapting IP for Netflix, so she's making a very big movie. But I don't really think that that exists. I don't think that there's a person. I don't think Ryan Coogler could get a$250 million original movie made right now unless the material was exciting enough for the people who are funding it.

48:45Sean Fennessey:So to me, there's a vast difference between my desire to see artists empowered and the way that we talk about people getting a chance to tell original stories or fresh stories and the fact that telling them at scale is really what matters. And part of what makes the Odyssey so special is those boats are out at sea. You know, like that movie looks like it was incredibly difficult to make, incredibly challenging. And it was so challenging in part because it was so expansive and expansive often means expensive. But I don't really think there's anybody who gets to do that. You know, I would love it if somebody gave Steven Soderbergh$250 million and he got to do whatever the hell he wanted.

49:23Sean Fennessey:and he could be the most experimental version of himself while also scaling every massive building in the world and traveling to the pyramids and to Machu Picchu and doing all kinds of crazy things. But that's not realistic. Like this, it is a commercial art form. And this kind of relates to a question that we'll get later. But one of the reasons why I constantly talk about box office and industry trends and where things are going and what power people have on the show. One, obviously it's fun and it creates some dynamic structures for the discussion. But two, it is a commercial art form. It is not painting or poetry.

49:59Sean Fennessey:It is meant to be, it is the creation of a work of art that is meant to go out into the marketplace and consumed. So you have to see it from that perspective to understand it. And as much as we want to say like, well, that guy should be able to do whatever he wants. Greta Gerwig made Barbie. She should do whatever she wants. Like it's pretty much never going to work that way. And it's good to understand it, that that's not going to be the case anytime soon. Okay, what's next? Next question comes from Mallory. I really like this one. I'm 17 years old, just starting my senior year of high school and trying to figure out what to do after I graduate.

50:33Sean Fennessey:I love to watch and write about movies and I'm considering getting a journalism or film degree and going into entertainment journalism or academia. You have what would basically be my dream job. And I really admire the way you discuss movies on the podcast and in your writing. I wanted to ask if you had any advice on how to get better at thinking, talking, and writing about film? This is also a great question because of the conversation you had with Patrick about giving advice to younger people. So this is a great one, Mallory. I find it very hard to answer now. And years ago, I would do lots and lots of calls with college students who would reach out and ask about this.

51:07Sean Fennessey:And I always try to make time for people because people made time for me when I was really young. In New York, I would reach out to people. I told the story about meeting Chris Ryan, but there were a lot of people whose writing I really liked and I would reach out to them. Some of them made time for me and chatted with me and gave me some insights into their journey. And, you know, things are much harder than they were before. I think there's a big difference between like, how do I make a career out of this? And how do I get better at thinking, talking and writing about it? If you just want to think, talk and write better, you just have to do those things all the time.

51:38Sean Fennessey:You have to read a lot. I would just go out and buy the five Pauline Kael collections. I would go out and buy the five key Ebert books. You know, just those like real starter kit kind of things. You know, I have vivid memories of going on road trips with my parents, my two siblings in the back seat. And I'm sitting at the window on the right side behind my mom and pouring over the Pauline Kael collections, you know, like 5 ,001 nights at the movies. And I would get them out of the library. And my parents thought I was an alien. And I probably was like kind of an alien. that we were going to like a beach vacation and I just wanted to be inside and reading about movies, which is, will be no surprise to you if you see me now, given how pale I am.

52:22But I,

52:24Sean Fennessey:I think that was all like work towards getting to this place where I got super lucky to get the opportunity to do this, but all that reading and then making friends who are really into movies and spending all my time talking about movies with my friends and music and, and other forms of culture books that I really cared about. But I talked a lot, I do talk, still talk a lot about movies all the time. And I'm constantly thinking about them. And so it's just like, it's a life's practice. And if I didn't have this incredible job, I'd still be doing that. And I, when I was doing a not this job as recently as nine years ago, I was doing that.

52:57Sean Fennessey:I think one of the reasons why I'm doing the show right now is because Bill Simmons was sick of hearing me talk about movies all the time. So I, I would just encourage you to kind of throw yourself into it as much as you can in your free time. And, and some people, if you're really lucky, you get to make your hobby, your career. And that is something that I don't even really felt I knew I could do and has slowly snapped into place over time. But journalism degree is a tricky one, I'll say, as someone with a journalism degree. I had a good college experience. I learned a lot at my college. I learned most of it from doing it.

53:35Sean Fennessey:I learned most of it from working for the school newspaper, writing for local newspapers, working for Newsday in my summers off, getting internships at magazines. That was where I really learned to do the work. The classroom stuff, not as much. I wish I had spent more time in film class. I wish I had spent more time studying film theory and film technique because I had to do all that work as a catch up when I got older and I'm still doing it. I'm doing it to this day. I'm still trying to learn as much as I can without kind of burning out my passion and enthusiasm for it. So I would say think critically about what kind of degree you think you need to go forward.

54:10Sean Fennessey:What's next? Next question comes from Jackson. Has it sunk in that you are considered one of the major founders of, quote, it's so over, we're so back, and how much it has become a ubiquitous saying in modern lexicon? I use some variation of it all the time, and it's also used constantly on the internet. See the Alamo Draft House reopening, or acquiring the Cinerama Dome, excuse me. Beyond your daughter, would you consider impacting the English language your greatest career achievement? Beyond your daughter? No, I would not consider that my greatest achievement. I also don't even really know how responsible I am for it.

54:45Sean Fennessey:I've been asked this many times. I was interviewed by the New York Times about this a couple of years ago where they said I was one of the proprietors of the phrase. I don't know. I definitely didn't invent it. And I do think it was very much a component of what it felt like in COVID as a hardcore movie fan, someone talking about movies every day. because it did feel dramatic. And I was dramatic about how things were going. And that feels like a long time ago, given how things are now. But catchphrases are important. I have no shame about having a catchphrase. It's nice to have something that people can relate to and remember you by.

55:21Sean Fennessey:And if this is something that people relate to me and remember me by, I'm not opposed to it. I do think it would be really funny if there was a large banner over my coffin that said it's so over at my funeral, Just throwing that out there for everybody If they're interested in that This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime What pairs with a nail-biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime What pairs with the big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life With great entertainment and fast shipping That delivers what the moment calls for From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head.

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57:14Sean Fennessey:What's next? Next question comes from Steve and Charlotte. Criterion calls you and says you can do a commentary for any movie you want with any guest you choose. What movie and which guest do you pick? Love this question. I just did another commentary with Tracy Letts and I had a great time. And I, I really liked doing those with him because he's so smart and so informed and we're similar in some ways, but he sees things from a different angle in ways that not just like educates me, but really entertains me. And so I would do, I would do commentaries with him until the day I die. And if you work at a Blu-ray 4k distribution space that is, is looking for commentaries with folks, give us a shout because we're interested in doing that.

58:00Sean Fennessey:And I think we've really enjoyed doing it together. But the easy answer for me with this is the third man with Orson Welles. I never met Orson Welles. He died well before I was in the movie game. But there's probably not a single person I like listening to talk more when I'm bored and I don't have a movie in my queue. I will sometimes just go to YouTube and just Google Orson Welles interviews and talk show appearances and just listen to him cook for a while. And The Third Man's my favorite movie, and he's obviously one of the stars of that film. And it would be amazing to just sit with him for a couple hours and hear him talk about his experience making that movie and the craft of acting and filmmaking.

58:39Sean Fennessey:He didn't direct the movie, but you can see that he would see what is so special about the filmmaking in that story. So that's what I would really love to do. I'm such a fan of those early Peter Bogdanovich books, the Who the Devil Made It and Who the Devil's In It and a couple of others. There's a now I think a full, I think there's a full My Lunches with Orson Peter Bogdanovich book as well that is just his conversations with Wells over the years. And Bogdanovich is such an interesting cat, you know, obviously a great director, but he spent the first five, 10 years of his career effectively transforming his movie psychosis fandom into a sort of hobbyist career as well, where he would write these index cards out and do these kind of like mini reviews of movies just for himself when he was a kid and a teenager.

59:28Sean Fennessey:And then he transformed that into kind of a journalism career, which allowed him to meet a lot of the iconic film directors of the 30s and 40s, some of whom he befriended. And he would have these long conversations with them and these deep relationships with them. And he learned a lot from them and he applied some of those techniques to the films that he made. but he and Wells had a really fascinating relationship and I just wish I could have been in the room for some of those conversations let alone watching a movie with them and talking about it while it was happening. So there's my answer to that question.

59:56Sean Fennessey:Okay, what's next? Next question comes from Adam. Similar to CR's stocking guys like Logan Marshall Green and Luke Wilson, I was wondering who you have stock in and no one else seems to be buying. That's interesting that no one else seems to be buying thing because I don't know, I don't really think you could have that anymore. Like in the era of Stan culture, everyone's got a shooter. Everyone's got someone who they claim. So it's a little tricky to be like, well, no one loves Patrick Fishler. So I had him on the podcast. Like we put that picture of me and him up on Instagram today and people were just like, hell yeah, that guy's amazing.

1:00:27Sean Fennessey:So everyone knows who everyone is now. So it's a lot harder to achieve that. Part of what's really funny with CR is that, you know, he loves Logan Marshall Green, but he also loves Tom Hardy. And Logan Marshall Green is constantly mistaken for Tom Hardy. And he's even talked about this in interviews now. And so what that means is really that CR has a type. There's a certain kind of a man. There's a masculine man, a Bernthal type, a Luke Wilson type that Chris is very fond of. So the question could have been, do you have a type? And I probably do, but I didn't give that too much thought. So I just thought of a couple of people who were like earlier in their careers who I think I'm sure have lots of fans and lots of supporters, but who I am very fond of.

1:01:02Sean Fennessey:The first one is Juliette Gorepi, who is the star of Red Rooms, which we have talked about a bunch on this show, a movie that came out a couple of years ago, Canadian film, about a woman who is obsessed with a serial killer who is standing trial. And Adam Neiman talked about it lovingly. Ciara and I talked about it on a couple of our horror episodes as well. And she also cropped up in Chandler Levesque's Mylon Kicks earlier this year, which I think is on Netflix now, if you haven't seen that movie. And she plays the woman who lets her house to Barbie Ferreira's character when she's moved to work as a PR flack for a band.

1:01:37Sean Fennessey:and she's completely different in Mylon Kicks, completely transforms. You wouldn't recognize her as the scary, obsessed girl from Red Rooms. And so I have a lot of stock in her right now. I feel like she's a super special actress and I'm excited to see what she does next. The other person who popped into my head is Theodore Polarin, who, forgive me if I'm mispronouncing his name. He was the star of Lurker, the Alex Russell movie that came out last year. and he gives an insidious and terrifying performance in that movie and I feel like he's got a really bright future. And then two filmmakers who I really like.

1:02:12Sean Fennessey:One is Arcosia Stevenson who directed The First Omen who was a great guest on this show during that and she's now making a movie for A24 that I've heard some very exciting things about and I think she will, she is about to be a thing. So buy her stock now. The other is Curtis David Harder who made two movies for Shudder, one called Influencer, the other called Influencers, a follow-up film. that I thought were very slick and really well made and really entertaining and deserved a little bit more attention than they got. And I could really see him making something pretty profound. So those are my early stock buys for actors and filmmakers.

1:02:46Sean Fennessey:Okay, what's next? Oh, yeah. Made sure to include this one for you. Yeah, thank you so much for including this. Of course. This one comes from Nick. Could you see Jay-Z releasing a Taylor Swift-esque concert film with all the hype he has generated with the three nights at Yankee Stadium? is there real domestic or worldwide box office potential for more hip hop oriented concert films to succeed now or in the near future and please give a quick top 5 HOV album ranking if possible incredible stuff this has got to be a real one who has this question Nick I mean Jay already had a theatrically released concert film it's called Fade to Black it's one of the best concert movies of all time unfortunately it only made$800 ,000 at the box office But it was meant to be his final performance that also acts as a dual making of the Black album where you see him behind the scenes working on songs with Timbaland and Pharrell and Kanye and all the producers who worked on that record.

1:03:46Sean Fennessey:And it's a great movie. It's a really fun movie. I saw it in movie theaters. Not many people did. But among Jay fans, it's a hugely relevant artifact. Could he do another one? I mean, I guess he could release the Yankee Stadium performances that he just did a couple weeks ago. And that would be cool. And I was really jealous to not be there for those. I've seen Jay in concert many times, probably 10 or 12 times. So I don't feel like I need to go see him again. I saw him on tour with Mary J. Blige. So it was like an unbelievable performance at MSG. So I've seen him quite a bit. Top five albums is hard.

1:04:24Sean Fennessey:This really torpedoed my night looking at this question. I got back from vacation. Let me just tell you a little story about my travel back from vacation for a second. I had a 12 p.m. flight on JetBlue, and we flew out of JFK, which is the eighth circle of hell. And 12 p.m. flight took off at 11.45 p.m. We had an 11-hour and 45-minute delay. We were boarded. We were about to take off. and they told us the flight path closed. We were deboarded. We sat in the terminal for about three hours. Then we scanned our passes again. We went back into the airway, the sort of the air bridge. We lined up, stood there for 30 minutes.

1:05:12Sean Fennessey:Then they had us exit again and we sat in the terminal for another three hours. Then they boarded us again and we sat on the plane for two hours. and then we were told that the pilot was going to time out. This was after the previous round of pilots had already timed out. We were told that the pilot was going to time out at 11.45. The plane took off at 11.43. I was traveling with my wife and a five-year-old. This was one of the worst days of my life. There's nothing more boring than travel struggle stories from people who have nice lives. I understand that. I wish I could have used that time that I lost in this 12-hour period listening to Jay-Z albums to come up with a better list for you.

1:05:53Sean Fennessey:Can I tell you something? Yes. This exact thing happened to my father. You guys must have flown on the same day, except he made the critical mistake of not getting off the plane. So when they said everybody can get off the plane, he stayed on the plane, but then they got delayed again for like another six hours. So he was stuck on the plane the entire time. We actually were going to stay on the plane, but they told us we had to get off after an additional hour. So anyway, that's 12 hours that are never coming back in my life. I did nothing of use at that time other than just be like a coil of anxiety about what was going to happen because there were no flights the following day.

1:06:31Sean Fennessey:Everything was all booked out. And there was only one or two flights on Monday. I wouldn't be here with you recording this episode and thinking about Jay-Z, my beloved Jay-Z, if not for that. Jay, let me just say a quick thing about Jay. I've met Jay-Z many times, like maybe four or five times. I've been proximate to him a bunch of times. Had interviewed him maybe twice. He's like one of the signature artists of my life, somebody who I've poured so much time and energy into thinking about. None of that comes up on this show because of what the focus of this show is. It's so funny that Nick asked this question and that Jack even knows to include this question.

1:07:04Sean Fennessey:Making a top five is a disaster because of how much time I've spent with the records. There's a part of my list-making instincts that wants to be like, oh, people don't understand how underrated Blueprint 2 is or American Gangster or, you know, I still ride for Watch the Throne despite Kanye being an absolute nightmare public figure and doing deplorable things. I still hear Watch the Throne and I get excited. You know, I have a lot of time for 444 even though I was kind of shifted out of that world by the time that record came around and I respect old guys making hip-hop. It's something that has not happened very often and that's a very reflective album that I appreciate but the 5 for me right now One is Clearly Reasonable Doubt, which is one of the most cinematic albums in the history of music.

1:07:49Sean Fennessey:And it's just the introduction to a storytelling icon and someone whose grace with verbosity truly inspired me. I really, I love listening to Jay string words together and also craft his persona in such a compelling way. And really like using the tools of gangster movie storytelling, of 40s gangster movies, of Scorsese films, of Coppola films. Like if you listen to the best songs on that album, then Can I Live is one of my favorite Jay songs of all time. And that song sounds like it belongs in The Godfather, even though it was recorded 25 years after that movie came out. Number two. Okay, here's my one zag.

1:08:31Sean Fennessey:Just go with me on the zag. Number two is volume three, The Life and Times of Sean Carter. now does it have the best most insightful lyric writing no does it have the best pop hits no give or take big pimping um but it sounds like the future like we had that question about movies that see the future and the production on that album the dr dre beats the timbaland beats the the beats are so crazy it still sounds like a it sounds like a thx 1138 or something it's such a incredible document of the way that hip hop production was evolving and that Jay was always willing to kind of jump on where it was going and push it a little bit further.

1:09:12Sean Fennessey:And I was in high school when that album came out and I remember mowing my mom's lawn and being so fucking miserable. I had to mow the lawn twice a week for years and years. And, uh, you know, not unlike the Long Island weather I was experiencing this weekend. And, um, volume three was my salvation. being able to listen to volume three loud enough that I could hear it over the lawnmower. It transported me. Okay. So that's number two. Most people will probably say that's a crazy choice, but it matters to me. Number three is The Blueprint. Truly one of the, you know, most significant personal documents, I think, in rap storytelling.

1:09:52Sean Fennessey:And also a movie that I think shifted the paradigm of hip hop production. Really, really personal record. number four is the Black Album which is such a fascinating farewell and I would love to know what the world of rap would be like if he never came back, if he just stayed gone he obviously was never going to stay gone but such an interesting experiment by using a number of different producers not every song holds up for me on that album but the experience of that album's release in real time was incredible number five is the Dynasty Rock La Familia which is a fun album full of bangers. That's all I got.

1:10:29Sean Fennessey:You could easily slot in volume one or volume two into number five. I love volume one and volume two. I was listening to Friend or Phone 98 nonstop on the way to work today feeling like I was 16 again and loving it. My best experience with Jay was I went to a listening session. For those of you who don't know what that is, once upon a time, journalists would be invited by a record label to come and sit and listen to a new album. Oftentimes those events that I went to in the 2000s were full of like 100, 200 people and they'd ply you with free drinks and they'd play the album so loud you could barely hear it that the decibel level was so overwhelming that you couldn't tell if a song was good or bad.

1:11:07Sean Fennessey:Jay-Z had this great tradition of inviting a select few people to come and sit with him and he would play the songs one by one and talk about them. I did that with him like maybe three or four times and I did it once for the American Gangster soundtrack, which I thought was such an inspired idea and I sat right next to him during that session and he was making fun of me because I'm a dorky white guy I was about to get on a plane ironically based on that JetBlue story and I had all my bags with me and I was like the first person to arrive and so I took basically the front row seat and he like lovingly mocked me the whole time because I was like really vibing out and feeling myself during that listening session and And afterwards, I got to hang out with him and talk to him for about 15 minutes because I was taking so many jabs from him throughout the session.

1:12:02Sean Fennessey:And just a fascinating artist, like somebody who I really, to this day, just by thinking about this question and listening to those albums was really taken. Okay, let's do a couple more questions. Okay, great. This next one comes from Shreeman. On a few occasions, you've said that you and Amanda are not critics. That being said, you continue to have, quote, serious critics on the show like Wesley Morris and Adam Naiman. In decades past, serious critics like Pauline Kael played a significant role in shaping the film canon that we appreciate today. What role do you think academic criticism has to play in defining the current era of cinema for the future?

1:12:38Sean Fennessey:Do you think instead that Kael's progeny has been replaced by you and Amanda Griffin, David, C.R., etc.? Um, gosh, this is such a thorny one. I don't think anything has been replaced by anything. I don't think that critical canon is going anywhere. I just, I spent a lot of time over the break reading Jonathan Rosenbaum's Substack, which is full of his writing over the years. He had a great piece about his time with Sam Fuller, the filmmaker. So all that work is still present. There are tons of great working critics. I do think movie podcasts are very successful and popular right now. And so that maybe is throwing some of this in a state of disrepair.

1:13:16Sean Fennessey:I say that the show is not criticism because it's not. It doesn't mean that we're not saying whether we like or don't like a movie, but saying whether you like or don't like a movie and even doing thematic analysis of a movie isn't necessarily film criticism. But the reason I keep saying it is because not just I have respect for the craft of it, having done it many times over the years, especially when it comes to music, but, and not just because it's a conversation, but because we're operating from a wholly subjective point of view in this space. And I don't really subscribe at this stage of my life to this idea of a kind of objective analysis of a work of art.

1:13:50Sean Fennessey:I'm very informed by my relationship to the filmmakers, not just in real life, but my relationship over the years. I fully acknowledge that. If it's a filmmaker that I love, I've just wrote about this recently with Spider-Man 3, like Sam Raimi, I'm just, I'm really interested in what Sam Raimi is interested in. And so I'm more willing to be forgiving of certain flaws in a film because I see other things that I admire so much. We talked about this a bit in the Spider-Man Brand New Day conversation about the subjective experience of art as it's been more democratized across lots and lots of platforms thanks to social media.

1:14:24Sean Fennessey:It doesn't mean that criticism isn't still, there isn't still incredible work being done in that space because of course there is. And maybe I do it from time to time, but I always feel a little uncomfortable with that word because I'm also talking about a lot of things in the show that are not necessarily historically the domain of criticism, not just interviewing people, but talking about the industry and history of the business and my relationship to the careers of figures and a lot of hierarchical stuff, which is all like kind of made up sports jargony stuff that doesn't really have any meaningful relationship to criticism.

1:15:03Sean Fennessey:People are always saying like, do I not call myself a critic so that I can like be nice to movies and not break relationships on the show, which like, I get why people think that's the case, but I don't really know what to say. Like, I don't ever have a guest on the show whose movie I don't like, or I'm at least not interested in. And I see all the movies beforehand. I never booked a guest before seeing the movie. So it's not really about that either. It's more just that the act of criticism, I think is a very, a very singular experience. David Sims is a great film critic. I'm not sure that he's practicing film criticism when going through you know his favorite hamburgers on blank check you know like they're just two totally different styles of media and so I don't think that they're going anywhere you can read David's work in the Atlantic it's terrific you know you can read my sub stack and sometimes there will be some criticism I've been thinking about Final Girls a lot so I was reading Carol Clover's book again, Men, Women, and Chainsaws, and its relationship to teenage sex and death in a lot of the horror movies that we've seen this year.

1:16:09Sean Fennessey:And so I'm thinking like a little bit more academically about the history of horror and female representation in the stories. And you could make the case that whatever I end up writing, if I write it, would be an act of criticism. But talking with Adam on the podcast about some of those ideas and talking through them, I just don't see it through the same prism. But thank you for your question. What's next? Next question comes from James. Coming off the Knicks finally ending their long championship drought and the Mets recently celebrating the 40th year anniversary of their last World Series. Exactly.

1:16:41Sean Fennessey:World Series. I was wondering if you held any optimism for the future of the Jets and Mets to do what the Knicks have done. Which team do you think is more likely to do so first? And what is the path forward for these franchises? For the record, I wholeheartedly disagree with Sean's take. Boy, I'm excited about everything going on at Jets camp. You know, the obvious answer is the Mets, right? The Mets have young talent. They have two exciting outfielders. They have three potential rotation pieces. They have Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto and Bob Shett almost certainly on their team next year. They have Steve Cohen spending power.

1:17:16Sean Fennessey:They have a, I think, a very shrewd behind-the-scenes team, especially in the developmental phase. This year has been a fiasco. The year before that was a fiasco. I'm happy with the five out of six run that they're on right now and I do think that they're that Nolan McClain is going to be a really really really good pitcher for a long time and that Carson Bench is a star I agree with all those things something is not clicking though and the Mets find ways to lose in dispiriting ways I guess all the things I'm seeing are also true of the Jets and the Jets are even more foolhardy and ridiculous as a franchise but I don't know I just have a weird feeling like it's been too long for the Jets for them to not do anything.

1:18:04Sean Fennessey:We just had 2024 with the Mets. And now I'm just doing like Cosmos stuff where like the Cosmos were so against the Knicks for so long that like the dam had to burst at some point. And I have a very similar vibe with the Jets. I love the offensive skill players in those position groups. I don't love Aaron Glenn as their head coach, and I don't think he'll be their head coach. I don't think he'll be drafting their quarterback of the future next year. I could be wrong about that. I do think the team will be much improved this year though I think they'll win 6 or 7 games and there'll be a pain in the ass to play at times because they're just going to chuck the ball downfield every single game and I really like Darren Mushi their GM and I think he's made several smart moves and so yeah I'm choosing the Jets prove me wrong if the Mets win next year fucking A who cares being wrong would be meaningless I was totally wrong I thought the Knicks should have signed Katie and Kyrie and their failure to sign them I thought was the worst thing that had ever happened to the franchise you know what why that mattered?

1:18:57Sean Fennessey:Not at all. Katie and Kyria could not care less about them. Jalen Brunson is an icon. Great story. Stayed in a hotel for a couple nights in New York City, and we had to walk to the Long Island Railroad, to Penn Station, my family and I, last weekend. And we walked from our hotel to Penn Station, and we arrived right outside of Madison Square Garden, and one of the big LED screens flashed an image, and my daughter looked up at the image, and she raised her hands, and she said, Brunson. It was Jalen Brunson on the screen. And I've never felt better about being a New Yorker in my life. Obviously, I'm not a New Yorker anymore, but I will be forever.

1:19:36Sean Fennessey:Okay, one last question, Jack. Let's go. Comes from Leslie. What movie are you most excited to show Alice that you haven't yet? We tried to watch Project Hail Mary yesterday and it didn't take. It was too human and too complicated, but it made me think this week we should do E.T. Project Hail Mary is the first movie that hasn't worked on Alice in a long time. She's a very good watcher, but it reminded me of just how much you need ET to get Project Hail Mary. So that's my answer. I think that'll do it. We should save some of these and do some more in a future date. That sounds good. Okay. Thank you for all your incredible questions.

1:20:15Sean Fennessey:I hope I was open and honest in ways that were useful to you. I hope you find love. In the meantime, please enjoy my conversation now with Patrick Fischler.

1:20:31Sean Fennessey:Okay, Patrick Fischler is here. You're here to tell me about the life of an actor, your life of an actor. Okay. I want to start like all the way at the beginning. The first thing that I read about you is that you were named after or an iconic eatery was named after you. An iconic eatery was named after me. Yes. So Patrick's Roadside. Roadhouse. Roadhouse. Yes, I was four. Four, five, when my dad opened it. And literally, it just closed last year. So it was open for like 49 years. And this is on the one? It was on the PCH going up before Malibu. And my dad opened it when I was super little. And it kind of took off.

1:21:08And in the late 70s, 80s, it was like incredibly iconic here. And I was around sort of the business starting at a really baby young age.

1:21:19Sean Fennessey:Yeah, so tell me about Los Angeles in the 70s, 80s, 90s. What was it like growing up here? What was it like to live here? What was your relationship to the media entertainment complex like? I love LA. I love LA. But LA in the 70s and 80s was pretty fucking great. It's really great. In what ways? It felt alive in a way. Santa Monica was not what Santa Monica is. It was not rich. It was a lot of old age homes. You know, on Ocean Avenue, it's all like fancy hotels and club. None of that. It was my grandmother who was in her 80s lived on Ocean Avenue in an old age home in one of those tall buildings.

1:21:56So it just felt different, especially Santa Monica. The west side was not a thing. So that felt different. And being down at the roadhouse, I just – I grew up in front of a TV. I was like a latchkey kid. So my mom lived in South Africa. My dad had the roadhouse. And after school, I'd get home at age seven, which I can't believe because I have a daughter. I'd walk home alone from school. and I would eat a bowl of Lucky Charms and watch TV all day. And so I grew up in front of a TV and went to movies every five seconds. And then actors started coming in the roadhouse. And that for me was like, wait, holy shit, these people are real.

1:22:39And at a very young age, like Goldie Hawn, I was a huge fan of foul play. Private Benjamin seems like old times. And And so she'd come in the roadhouse, you know, 1979, 1982. And I was a little kid. And so it just, it was kind of mind-blowing. And then it just became normalized. And I worked there. That was my first job when I was, you know, 12, child labor loss. It's a family business.

1:23:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's fine. So it was kind of incredible. It was kind of great. I mean, I just love the business and not the business side of the business. I just love movies and TV. I think they have been kind of everything to me. Did you learn that actors were real people by seeing them in your father's establishment? A hundred percent. Do you remember the first person you saw that kind of broke the illusion of movies and TV? I'm using Goldie Hawn as the example because she meant a lot to me. Like, she's a comedic genius. And I guess foul play was really like late 70s, 78. Yeah. So I was very little when I saw this person that—and foul play kind of covered a lot of stuff that was interesting to me.

1:23:45mystery thriller comedy. And I tried telling my daughter a couple of years ago and she was like, mm, mm.

1:23:52Sean Fennessey:It's really fallen out of fashion, that movie. Yeah. For a movie that was a really big hit when it came out, it's not, it hasn't been canonized in quite the same way as some of the others. It didn't really hold up. But at eight or nine, fuck yes. I mean, it was great. So yes, she's someone I really remember as like, wait, what? Oh, that's you? Oh yeah. And then it just kind of snowballed. Did that encourage you to want to be an actor? No, no, no. I don't know what encouraged me to be an actor. I kind of, I went to NYU. And when I went to NYU, I didn't even know if I wanted to be an actor. Before I went to NYU, I worked at Paramount in the story department.

1:24:29No kidding. Yeah, for like six months. My dad, again.

1:24:32Sean Fennessey:Like after your senior year of high school? Yeah, I took a sort of, I went to Northridge and went for a month to Northridge and I was like, nah, I don't want to be here. And my dad from the Roadhouse knew Ned Tannen. Oh, sure. Of course, legendary executive. Yeah, so he was like, does your son want a job at an internship? It won't pay. I'm like, he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I worked at the story department and then did a good job and worked then for Teddy Z, who was a vice president of production. And he would just put me in a screening room and be like, watch these old movies. Tell me if we should remake any of them.

1:25:05It's like, what is happening? And at that time, they were doing like Cousins. You remember that movie? it's a remake of oh I think you guys just talked about this it's a remake of the French film Cousin Cousin yes yes and Joel Schumacher did it so that was Teddy's movie yeah that's the movie

1:25:21Sean Fennessey:that um gosh who is the star of the film it's uh William Peterson right yes exactly yeah and it's like the William Peterson like sliding doors yes that's so funny so that was Teddy's movie um so that's one of the ones I remember we did but so I was at Paramount I was like oh I'm gonna be an exec. And then a bunch of my friends who were the year below me at, I went to Beverly Hills High School. They were like, we're going to go to NYU. I'm like, well, I want to go to NYU. And again, Roadhouse, everyone's going to be like, oh, Nepo guy, but I'm not. Steve Tisch came in the Roadhouse. And so he, Tisch School of the Arts.

1:25:54He was, my dad was like, my son wants to go to NYU. He's like, well, he's got to audition. So I went to New York, auditioned and got in and went with my friends to New York, to NYU. And when I was there, I was, I was really like, am I going to me an actor or an exec? And by the end of school, I'm like, I'm going to be an actor.

1:26:12Sean Fennessey:That's so fascinating. Were all of your friends going to study acting? Yeah. Yeah. And was that because they were Hollywood kids and that was what you did? Well, one of my friends who was a really good friend of mine is Jameson Newlander. He was in The Lost Boys, the original Lost Boys. He was one of the Frog Brothers. And so he went and I thought, I just want to go. And they weren't Hollywood kids. They just all wanted to kind to be actors, which changed very quickly. When you go to college and everybody realizes freshman year, this many people stop, sophomore, junior, it goes, the pool gets smaller and smaller.

1:26:42Sean Fennessey:Why did it whittle down? Because people realize like, I don't want to be an actor. They think they do. I mean, it has continued to whittle because then a bunch of my friends after school moved here, a whole group of us. And it's just hard. The business, you know, wears you down. Yeah. I have a lot of questions. Yeah. We can hit all of them. I'm very curious. it's a real thing. And so, anyway, so I went to NYU, and by the end, I decided, oh, I want to be an actor. I want to go back to LA. Now I laugh because I do believe in my heart if I said I want to be a studio executive, I'd probably be a miserable guy, but I'd be running somewhere because I just, I knew I was on that.

1:27:18Those are sliding doors. Those are my paths.

1:27:20Sean Fennessey:Can we talk about that for a minute? Please. Like one minute. You having that exposure to that kind of world at such a young age is really interesting to me. I feel like I'm talking at studio executives professionally all the time. And most of the men and women that I meet that do the job are really kind, thoughtful people who really like movies. Not all of them. It's changed a lot in the last 15 years. But a lot, the ones who are aware of this show, I would say, usually are like, you really love movies. Let's talk about movies. But that job gets a terribly bad rap. Yeah. Um, and the idea of you going in the direction of like pure artist and expression of yourself working in, in these formats versus the person who's making the decision that hurts people and breaks their soul and maybe ruins the movie industry is such a fascinating pivot in your life.

1:28:11Sean Fennessey:Like, is there any part of you that wishes you went into the executive route? This is amazing because I've never talked about this besides with my group of friends. And, um, no, there's no part of me that wishes I'd done that because I really love being an actor. I love it so much. but I would have been one of the few studio execs who tries not to break everybody's heart but it's impossible the job sucks because you can't make everybody happy like there's no way I go to so many movies and I see all the movies that are greenlit and I'm so excited and then sometimes they're bad there's ones that don't make it it's just all impossible so no I'm happy my choice luckily worked what were the actors that you looked up to wanted to be like thought about emulating, especially when you're going to Tish?

1:28:56God, I mean, I'm going to shout out the number one because people never expect it. Glenn Close. She is, by the way, I'm just saying right now, if you ever do a Hall of Fame and you do not call me, we are never speaking again.

1:29:10Sean Fennessey:That's good to know. And I love that. And as you know, I love to have somebody backstop us on a Hall of Fame. That she is. And again, as a young kid, randomly, my dad took me to New York when I was like 10. and we saw Barnum the musical and it was starring her. And she, I remember being like, who is this woman? She's incredible. And then seeing her in Garp was the beginning. I mean, she has a run of Oscar nomination, Oscar nomination, Oscar nomination that are, that's mind blowing. And again, the big chill personally means a lot to me because I was a kid, latchkey, family, sort of not around a lot.

1:29:46And I, my friends kind of became my family. So I saw that movie at 13 and I was like, oh, friends are the answer for everything. And it has stayed that way. That my group of friends I've known since college, my wife I met in college. So that movie really spoke to me and kind of shifted my life a little bit. And then she continues on a run that's just like, I mean, Fatal Attraction is, her performance is unbelievable in films. Anyways, she was someone that I thought, wow, she can kind of do it all. So is that what it was?

1:30:21Sean Fennessey:Was it her flexibility, versatility as a performer? Versatility. The fact that she could do period, she could do contemporary. All of it. Yeah. Forgetting, by the way, Dangerous Liaisons, which was another one that I thought, she just always blew me away. And obviously, De Niro, Pacino were all I watched like as a kid and thinking I want to be them. But then something happened with her and it continued for years because Damages, which was a show I was obsessed with. a good friend of mine, Glenn Kessler, created it. And I remember seeing her on that when movie stars weren't doing TV. And I just was like, she can just do, she can sort of be a bad guy, but you still just love watching her and care about her.

1:31:06And it kept going. It's in everything she does. So maybe that was it. I don't know. Her versatility was probably the biggest thing.

1:31:14Sean Fennessey:It's fascinating. She's still going. I just saw her in La Bola Negra at Cannes. And I'm like, she's great. You know, it's amazing that she's still doing great parts. Incredible. I mean, I think she's kind of going to go forever. Yeah. Like she's someone who the business is lucky to have. That's a great role model though, because you can tell that she chooses things that interest her. Yeah. You know, that she's not driven by market forces. Not at all. No. And that's really interesting for an actor like you. Did you study a particular methodology with a particular kind of teacher? Yeah, I went to NYU at the time, and still now you pick a studio.

1:31:48So it was like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler. I picked a place called Circle in the Square, which is a Broadway theater on like 50th. And their method spoke to me because, again, this is kind of how I work. It was like everything put into one, meaning there's no right method. There's whatever method you choose, which Adler was very specific. Strasberg was very specific. And I just knew I didn't want, I wanted to just kind of take a bunch of the meal and see which piece I like, what bite I like. So I went there and that was, I had a teacher named Alan Langdon who passed about two years ago. And he was, that was it.

1:32:24That's when I knew I was a good actor. He helped me realize, oh, I'm a really good actor. Because when I went, I didn't know. I was 18 years old. I had no idea.

1:32:32Sean Fennessey:Were you intellectualizing the process in college? Like, did you like that idea? or was it because some actors are like that and some are very just feel-based, right? They're just emotional. Fully feel-based. Fully, I hate overthinking anything in life. My wife would tell you right now, I make decisions very quickly. I'm like, I think this is our, I go with my gut and that's the same with acting. Obviously, if there's things to do or research to do, I'll do it, but I'm the guy who really likes to just go. As you were learning about acting and thinking about it as a career, was your relationship to movies changing at all?

1:33:05Sean Fennessey:Like there's a little bit of that thing when like you are a sports fan growing up and then you become a sports writer and you lose all your fandom because you've learned too much. You never lost that. I'm one of the few, there's so many actors I talk to. They're like, I don't like movies anymore. I don't watch TV anymore. I watch everything. I go to every fucking movie I can go to. I have made my daughter who's 17 now at a young age be like, we are going to the theater. You are not watching this at home. We are going to a movie theater. I love movies. It's one of the reasons this podcast kind of just shifted my life recently because I'm like, oh, there's like-minded people out there.

1:33:41We're still around. I'm not alone. And by the way, the business, we're back a little bit. We are back a little bit. It's an exciting time to be here. But I just, yeah.

1:33:50Sean Fennessey:So what'd you do? Did you immediately move back home? Immediately. I mean, like. That was always the plan. The day after I graduated. I knew, here's why. Because I had friends who stayed there. My wife, who I wasn't married to at the time, she stayed in New York for a couple of years. I knew I wanted to do film and TV. And this was at a time when film and TV was not in New York. It's so different now. It's so crazy that film and TV is not in LA. It's everywhere else. But I knew I wanted to get right into that. I just, I wasn't, theater wasn't where I was going. I just, I wasn't as interested in it.

1:34:21And so I moved back here right away. And then slowly a bunch of my friends from New York started moving.

1:34:25Sean Fennessey:Okay, you're 21. You've moved back. 22. 22. 22, yeah. You, do you have to get an agent? How are you figuring out how to go on auditions? How do you actually do the job? Again, anyone who's listening to this podcast who's under 40-something will not realize that it was a time when we had to do plays. And so with my friends from NYU, we started a theater company called Neurotic Young Urbanites. Terrible name, but NYU. And our first play was like A Night of One Acts. I mean, if I saw it now, I'd probably die. And from that play, one of the girls in the play had an agent. And they came and they were like, hey, do you want to audition for us?

1:35:07Come in to the fucking offices and do a monologue. So I went into, it was an agency called Buckwald, and this is 1993 at this point. And I went in and did a monologue.

1:35:18Sean Fennessey:Do you remember what you did? From the play called Private Wars. I did a monologue from the play I was doing. And they signed me. And I started auditioning. Like what was, when you were signed, was your mentality like it's happening. I will be De Niro. Like genuinely, like give me, give me. There's going to be a meme of me saying it. So I'm not going to say it. But just examine your ego from that time. I'm very curious. Like what you thought. This is, oh my God, you asked such good questions. I didn't think I was going to be De Niro, but I did think like, here we go. And the reality is this. So we can get, we'll get to this at a later point possibly.

1:35:54But my look in the 90s was actually not a look that the business really wanted very much.

1:36:03Sean Fennessey:Can you describe what that means? Like, not generic, not handsome. If I was 22 in the 70s, my career would be totally different. Leading man. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe that sometimes when I see these guys. I watch movies and I go back. I'm like, fucking A, this is the best time. And it started to shift in the 80s, but by the 90s, forget it. So I didn't audition as much as my other friends who were like, you know, more traditionally handsome or, you know. I didn't audition as much, but I did start working very quickly. Because it took directors who were like, I like his look. And my first job was someone who appreciates he's a European director and appreciates a different look.

1:36:51So I did kind of think like, here we go. And it didn't kind of go like I thought right at the beginning.

1:36:57Sean Fennessey:Well, okay. Yeah. Tell me about your first job. Speed. Okay. So you booked Speed. So I went in and auditioned for Speed. This is what you know television for this. This is the first job in film and television that you got was Yon de Bont Speed in 1994. Hold on. It's 93. 93? No, the film came out in four, but we shot it in three. Okay. I may have done like a guest spot on, I kind of don't know. There was like a really bad show. I did do, again, Roadhouse. Oh, God, these stories suck. I did a Knott's Landing. Okay. Which was, the producer used to come in the Roadhouse. And I wanted to get my SAG card.

1:37:38And that is how I got my SAG card, was Knott's Landing. I was like a guy at the business who was like, hey, where are you going? I mean, I don't know if you found it again. Worst thing. And so this is how I got my SAG card. But the first job I think I booked may have been speed. So I went in and auditioned and it was yawn. And I was auditioning for like the guy on the bus. There was like a younger guy on the bus. And I didn't get it. But my agents were like, you got the guy on the elevator. I'm like, great. Amazing. I didn't care. I'm like, oh my God. And that elevator shit shot for two weeks.

1:38:15And we shot downtown and we shot at Fox. And they built the whole elevator shaft. And I'm 23. And I'm like, this is everything. This is the great, this business is amazing.

1:38:31Sean Fennessey:Wait, so before I ask you about that, can you just tell me how you were cast out of it? Is Jan in the room when you're reading? And a casting director? Anybody else? Any of the stars? No. No, no, no, no. It was Jan, casting director, producers. Okay. Because I pre-read. I'd read for a casting director. And it was the guy on the bus. So I don't even remember. It was like, I had a couple of lines. I don't even remember. And then I got called back to read with Jan for that same part. And he was, I remember just sort of loving his energy. And I could tell he liked me. Then, yeah. And then I got cast.

1:39:06Sean Fennessey:Did you know when you were making the movie, this is going to be a massive sensation? No, we could talk about this for probably three hours. We won't. But you guys, that movie was, I mean, it was not, Sandra Bullock had never done anything. Keanu Reeves was Bill and Ted. So yes, we had Dennis Hopper. I mean, you know, but the movie was not anything anyone talked about ever. Like that was not talked about. So when it opened, I love those movies when all of a sudden everyone in town is like, wait a minute this fucking thing is great and when we were shooting it i did feel something i did which i have the experiences where i can feel something and i'm right or feel something and i'm wrong and this one was like oh i think this could be really good what do you think what's your percentage you think over your career in terms of guessing right whether something's going to work or not because you've been in a million things at this point i'll go i'll go 60 40 okay 60 60 right yeah but most of the wrong was when i was younger i'm pretty good now so So speed happens.

1:40:07Yeah.

1:40:07Sean Fennessey:Millions of people see that movie. It is a genuine sensation. Does it have a meaningful effect on your career? Like, are you not at all? That's why this is a weird job. It's honestly, man, there's there's not. I mean, we can talk about it, but there's very few jobs that have been like the thing that have changed something. Speed. I mean, I had like two lines and I'm at the beginning of the movie. So it was like I just went back to auditioning for guest spots on TV shows, like small little things. um it didn't it didn't if it did anything it was introduced me to yan who then cast me again in twister um that was the only thing it really did it did something for me though because like and emotionally it actually did something for me sharing a personal moment of like my dad died in 97 so taking him to the man's chinese in 94 to see speed and be like you know i'm doing it yeah i Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:41:04That was really lovely. That was lovely.

1:41:06Sean Fennessey:So how do you make a career at this stage of your life? You're in your 20s. Jobs, they're not like jobs I've had where I am hired by a corporation and they pay me money to do a thing and I go in every day. Yeah. You're trying to piece together each component part of your life. Is your now wife still living in New York? Are you guys going to get back together? We were just friends until she moved here. And then we started dating about two years after she moved here. We've been together for 30 years. So we started dating in 97. So at this point, she moved here in 95. But I had this whole group of friends.

1:41:43To be honest, I love this because I'll be frank and my daughter will watch this. But like we just get high and go to movies. I mean, that was what we were doing. It was 1994. And I was like, we'd either all have an audition and we'd work on auditions. We'd be like, oh, my God, we have an audition. And then, you know, but financially I stopped working. I worked at the roadhouse up until speed. And from that moment on, which is kind of amazing and I feel incredibly proud of it, I got health insurance every year, which is hard to get in SAG, especially when you're not working a lot. Health insurance every year and never went back to waiting tables.

1:42:19So that's pretty, that's how it changed my life. You know, because I would do guest spots. I would get a guest spot on, you know, NYPD Blue. Like I did that. Like I do stuff like that, you know.

1:42:33Sean Fennessey:Can you describe maybe the psychological feeling of constantly being evaluated when you're reading for jobs like this? It'll break you. Yeah. It has not broken me. I actually, I had a very weird strength that I still have, which is the power of saying no and the power of passing and not trying to take stuff personally. I feel like most actors are totally unempowered. And I try to talk to young actors to be like, don't let the business not treat you well because it's going to try to break you. Not intentionally. It's not like some evil thing. But it's really hard. It's really hard to not go into a room and not think that it's something to do with you personally.

1:43:20And it's often not.

1:43:22Sean Fennessey:Are you trying to be artistically strategic when you're trying to book jobs like that? Are you trying to say, I'm looking for filmmakers or shows that I know I respond to or creators? At that point? Yeah. No. Do you want to give me money? I mean, like, I couldn't. There was no way because I wasn't capable of doing that because I also just, I think the reason I have as big a career number-wise as I do is because I'm a real believer in, like, I just love working. I love it. And I enjoy making the money because there's been many years I haven't made as much. So residual checks are everything. They are everything.

1:43:59And that's another way I lived back then. I'll never forget that after Speed came out on DVD and I hadn't been working a little bit. and then, oh, actually it wasn't Speed. Damn it, it was Twister. But I got a residual check a year later that was so big, I'd never seen a check like that because this was back when residuals were like insane. And so I'm very grateful that residuals have fed my life for a long time. But I do pass if I don't feel like I'm being valued in the way I feel like I deserve to be valued.

1:44:33Sean Fennessey:What did you learn on the set of Speed about acting? Like I'm sure you learned a ton about how movies worked. I learned nothing about acting. Nothing? No. We'll get to the day I learned about acting on film. We're a ways away from it. Interesting. Yeah. Because I'm a 23-year-old kid from New York who'd only really done theater, and I thought—I didn't realize what the camera was. That will come. But, you know, what I learned about more was starting to see, like, shots. And there's two things. There's acting on camera, and a big one that a lot of actors don't do is learning where the camera is. so you you're the camera's doing scenes with you like if you and i are doing a scene you're my scene partner but the cameras are scene partner too and i i think it's very important to be aware of it um which a lot of actors aren't but i i i why is it important because for certain shots it's very important to know the size so i want to know if we're wide my performance is going to be a little different than if we're here because I try to give the same performance, but when you got to save some of the stuff here and it's also got to be just a little bit less when you're here.

1:45:47Sean Fennessey:So much of what, uh, film actors do is with their face. So I've always wanted to ask an actor this and I never have. Do you look at yourself in the mirror and practice making a gesture or a move with your face that indicates something? I just, rewatched a bunch of episodes of you doing Jimmy Barrett. That's such a physical performance that you're doing in Mad Men. And it is a different kind of character than you have played many times over the years. And I was looking at the choices that you're making very specifically, but is that something that you have to work on individually to know that you're getting what you want to accomplish and what the film needs mad men is very specific so that can be its own like conversation what i didn't do though is practice in front of the mirror i don't i i i can't really do that that would make me crazy that would it would make me crazy to look at myself it just would not so i maybe i've done it maybe what i the saying the lines out loud but looking at myself i i don't know i feel like i'd go crazy um no i've never done that i've never done mirror acting okay so I'm going to try it now, though.

1:46:56I'm going to try it once.

1:46:58Sean Fennessey:Whatever you're doing is working. Don't change right now. In the 90s, were you thinking, at a certain point, this is going to evolve and I'm going to be a big star? God. Yeah, probably. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And was there a moment when you realized, like, actually, I have a different niche or I have a different skill and I should apply that? No. No. I just kept going. Also, you know, I mean, you remember being in your 20s. You're just an idiot. And so I was kind of just an idiot. So I just was like, let's just go. Let's just go. Let's hang out. Let's go drinks. Let's go to the bar. Let's do that.

1:47:33Like, that really was my life. And because I had a group of friends, we were all together. We all lived in Santa Monica. We all went out all the time. I started dating my wife. It was just like a sort of super free time. And I really wasn't thinking. We were all talking about what jobs we were booking. And I was psyched for every guest spot I got. I was psyched for the jobs. But no, I wasn't, you know, and I was thinking like, where's this going? You know, but I don't know. I think just people in your 20s, you're just so dumb.

1:48:01Sean Fennessey:Were you and your friends competitive with one another? Not really. No, I don't think so. I don't, I mean, I don't think so. We were all super psyched for each other and we were in a theater company together. So we were all happy to, you know, congratulate each other and be there for each other. And it was all exciting. So we were all kind of riding the same wave together. And the waves start to break differently. as it goes. What was it like when one of your friends either in school or in this time in your twenties, like threw in the towel and was like, I'm not, I'm not going to pursue this anymore.

1:48:31Sean Fennessey:I'm going to go get a day job. It was, you know, it's always hard because I find the business is like rolling dice. I don't believe if you're great, you're going to make it. It just, it doesn't work like that in any, in any field of art. It's, it's, it's a lot of it is random. So it was a little heartbreaking. It was, it was heartbreaking because I just feel like I've, I know many talented people who should be working more than people I see that or work with that I'm like, wait, what? I find it very random. A lot of the times, what would it be like? I don't know if you want, I don't know if you'd feel comfortable setting a specific example of, did you ever go up for something that you thought you were perfect for and didn't get that really hurt?

1:49:11Oh my God. Fuck. I must've. Didn't I?

1:49:16Sean Fennessey:I don't know. This is hard in this moment. I've certainly applied to jobs that I haven't gotten in. God damn it. I would have killed this. This is the worst question because I would answer it. I can't think of it right now. Okay. There is. Stew on it while we go through your career. There is a hundred percent jobs that I've gone out for that I've been like, I can't believe I didn't get that. Did you have any preference towards film or television when you were booking jobs? Because you've done a lot of both and you've done a lot of TV now at this point too. It's just, there's more TV made. I started to come into a time when like TV exploded, you know in the 2000s till now it's like so there were more opportunities and i was a believer of you do it all i i even though i grew up at a time where film and tv actors were so separate so like when cluny left dr he went and did movies you know um i just saw from dusk till dawn at the academy museum and i was like that was the moment that was the moment when he was doing when he decided to do that that's so funny i love that movie it's a great movie so no i was i was a big one for like Because I also grew up in front of a TV, I love TV.

1:50:17And I think you can tell incredible stories on TV. And so I was happy to do any of it.

1:50:25Sean Fennessey:What was the job where you really figured out what film acting really was? Mulholland Drive. Okay, so let's talk about it. Yeah. I know that you get asked this all the time. but it does feel like it may be at the top of your legacy in terms of what you've done. So, you know, you appear in this extraordinary sequence in the film, legendary sequence, Lynch just passed last year. I'm sure people were asking you about it or talking to you about it nonstop, but I do want to hear from your perspective. How did you get that job? How did you prepare for that job? What was it like doing that sequence? What does it mean to you now like i i want the the whole i'm kidding i could talk about this forever um so i'll start with uh he doesn't audition actors so i don't know if you've ever heard this he didn't audition actors you would go and meet with the casting director and she would ask you questions about your life and so i went to audition for maholland drive and it was an abc tv pilot which i'm sure you know and so she would just say hey where are you from and i was like you know and we just had a conversation like this with the cameras filming and that's what David watches.

1:51:37So it's why in his movies you could get like some amazing acting and then some like, is that person an actor? Do you know what I mean?

1:51:45Sean Fennessey:Yes. And so, because he never auditioned, he never auditioned people. But he's responding to an essence that a person has. Yes. Yes. And so I did that and then I was like, okay, never heard anything, but not right away. And then all of a sudden my agents were like you got that David Lynch pilot and I was like what and then they sent here's your scene and I see this monologue and I'm like oh my god I'm gonna die how am I doing this and I kind of internally panicked because I will say this before I tell the story that David Lynch means more to me than anyone in this business. Because as a 14-year-old, he sort of changed what movies could be.

1:52:31When I saw Blue Velvet, I forgot what year it was. 86, yeah. So I was 16. As a 16-year-old changed, I didn't realize movies could be that. And then in college, I didn't realize TV could be what Twin Peaks was. So it changed movies for me, it changed TV for me, and then he changed acting for me because doing Mahalo and Drive with him was a game changer.

1:52:51Sean Fennessey:Was that the number one reason you went up for that? Was that like a thing where somebody was like, you should audition for this because it's a new show. How does that actually work? Are you seeking it out? No, my agents called and said, there's an audition, David Lynch is doing a new show. I mean, the answer was immediately, oh my God, yes. Because Twin Peaks was, I think people don't realize how ahead of the time Twin Peaks was. It really, there was nothing like that. That was not TV. In 1990, yeah, 91? Yeah. No, come on. Nothing looked like. We were just coming off Dynasty and Dalit. Like, it was late 80s was just ending.

1:53:26There was nothing like that. So I did it, went and just talked to the casting director, and got it. It was Joanna Ray, who was the casting director. And then they called and sent me the pages. And then I go to set. Wait, let me ask you one question before you talk about that.

1:53:45Sean Fennessey:Was the idea that that part that you were playing in that pilot would be an ongoing character in the series. It was, okay. I don't think I've ever said this, but it was, and people have guessed. They're like, oh, a guy talking to his therapist or their businessman. We were, I was an agent. Ah. Which makes total sense when you think about that show. So I don't know where that would have gone, but that's what I was told. And - That's amazing because it actually just makes it way more legendary that A, we don't know, and B, that it didn't continue in that way. No, I know. I don't know if that had been a pilot and kept going, this would not be talked about in the way.

1:54:23The whole thing would be different. So again, that's another sliding doors. There's Mulholland Drive, the ABC show that lasts for one season, or there's Mulholland Drive, the film.

1:54:33Sean Fennessey:You show up on set. What happens? I show up on set, and I do terrible, terrible impersonations. So when I start to sound like him, it doesn't sound like him. Okay. But you'll understand. I go, and so we rehearse the scene at the... at the table and, um, I do the monologue and I was doing what I thought was good acting. And David, who is one of the loveliest people who's ever lived, came and sat next to me and was just like, um, wow, that was, that was really good, Patrick, really good. Um, and I'm like, thank you. And he said, so, you know, let me just, let me just talk to you. Um, you know, you're just having, you're just having a dream, you know, you just, you had a bad dream, right you've had bad dreams and I'm like yeah yeah yeah and he goes and it's just um he didn't want to say the word simple but I could tell what he was telling me was just bring it do a little bit less do a little bit less because I think what I was doing if we could ever see that rehearsal footage was pretty like just didn't work for what he was doing and doesn't work for film and tv and I instantly understood when he was like you know it's just it's simple it's just a bad dream and I thought okay and I'm kind of internally panicking because I'm like oh I'm doing a bad job and then something just clicked in me and I just shifted everything I was doing and I could just tell right after I did it and him coming over and just putting his arm around me and I just knew like, oh, this is what acting in front of a camera is.

1:56:12It's just, it's just less. It's just less.

1:56:17Sean Fennessey:And you've been doing it for eight years at this point? Yeah, but I've been doing, you know, nothing that had a guy like that. Jan is amazing, but Jan's watching the stunts and the like making everything be incredible. And David was not doing that. This was still in the rehearsal though. Yeah. But then we shot it and he never gave me a note again that whole day. And we shot all of that in two days, I think. Because then we did the inside and then we did the walk outside. Which he talked me through what he was going to do sound-wise. That's what I was going to ask you. Because so many of the choices that he's making in that scene, I feel like would inform how you would perform.

1:56:57Sean Fennessey:Like cutting out all of the background noise and the ambient sound. But then what he's going to do with score and then how even the camera is going to move. Like maybe you can help us understand what that's like when you're creating something, but it's all there's it's just artifice all around you. I mean now in my career for many, many years, I'm I'm very clear on what's happening with the camera with direct like I want to know everything because I understand that I didn't fully get that then. But he was clear enough to say we're going to he did tell me that like a lot of the sound was going to be taken out, but he didn't talk about score or anything.

1:57:27And at that point, I was so kind of in it that I just, I didn't even need to know anything. Because I knew the idea was this guy. And as we all would be, if we had a bad dream somewhere, to take your friend to that place. The dream is just what you're thinking about when you're walking down there. And so him taking out the sound and the score and the like, that's what it internally felt like to me. So I didn't even need to know that much, but he did include me in some of it. And camera-wise, he didn't. But again, I'm not an actor-y actor, but I was kind of lost in all of that at the time in a great way.

1:58:05I felt very just lost in the whole thing because it was also so Lynchian to be lost.

1:58:10Sean Fennessey:So does a moment like that spoil you as an actor where the next thing that you're working on that is more of a work-a-day type job? You're like, I wish I could get back to that feeling? That's an entire career. That is my entire career. Yes. Yes, that is. I would love to talk to any actor that wouldn't say, you get spoiled, and then the next one may spoil you again, or it may not. And you just kind of got to go and do it. Can you just talk about that interregnum between it not becoming a series and then it ultimately becoming a film? I'm curious how you felt about it, because I'm sure you felt like, I gave a good performance in a David Lynch thing, and I want this to come out.

1:58:47I was like, I can't wait until everyone sees this. This is going to change everything. and then we got word ABC didn't pick it up and I was like okay so back to the grind of auditioning for step by step or whatever which I wasn't

1:58:58Sean Fennessey:has that happened many times though where you were in things that eventually never yes again continual you just can't expect anything to be anything because when you don't expect it to be something it's obsession meaning you just don't know but I was bummed I was severely bummed and then I got it like a letter in the mail I'm not kidding I got a letter in the mail from David a typed letter saying hey Studio Canal wants to put up some money to turn Mahal and drive into a movie would you for scale come back and do a little additional thing which is what ends up being when she turns around and sees me standing at the cash register that was added and I was like obviously of course so we went back to that same place I just did that little shot where Naomi looks over and I'm standing there.

1:59:50I had no idea what's going on. And then next thing I know, it's a film. And the majority of the first hour and something is the pilot. Like he really just shot another movie. Like he shot like 45 minutes, I guess, of additional footage to turn it into a film.

2:00:09Sean Fennessey:This is an interesting contrast to the speed experience too, because even though the speed part is significantly smaller, you don't have a monologue. It's not this kind of iconic moment. it also, both sequences happen early in the film. Yeah. And you could forget them, just like people tend to forget the first hour of many movies after they sit down and watch them. But your scene, I mean, I remember I was in the theater when that movie came out and we were all like, what the fuck just happened? Like, it really is such a truly memorable moment in a film that is full of memorable moments and really impacts people in a very deep way.

2:00:42Sean Fennessey:Did anything change after that? Because I'll tell you from the outside what changed for me. Please. Well, I think that that's when you ascend to this, like the that guy status, where it's like you are a person who at a minimum, you will forever be associated with that. And then when you see older things that you were in, you're like, oh my gosh, that guy. And I'm interested in that person because they can do something that is very special. So even if your name is not yet known, you take on a character, you become a character in the wider world of Hollywood storytelling. Here's what I'll say. That is all absolutely true.

2:01:15it didn't happen at the time it has happened over a progression of time because at the time that movie comes out it's not it was like a people i mean obviously he got a best director nomination but it still didn't shift anything for me i kind of just kept on the same because the business was like uh naomi watts is the thing you take away from that movie not the guy at the diner but the that guy status, what started is that performance, as you just said, kind of helped people notice me in other stuff. And then it has built, what's happened over the years is that movie has become so incredibly iconic that my, that movie being associated with me has helped me much more in the last 15, 20 years than right when it came out.

2:02:07Even though I guess that's 25 years ago it came

2:02:09Sean Fennessey:Do you feel like that part is the thing that led to that, you know, Ghost World, old school, Black Dahlia? Like you're in this like chain of movies where they're made by real filmmakers or they're studio movies. And are you getting like called in to audition? No, I don't think so. I mean, I got into audition for Ghost World, which my wife is in Ghost World as well. That was the first thing. She's the girl. Have you seen that movie a lot? Of course, yeah. At the yard sale, the one that's like, fuck you. yes that's great that's my wife so we have like three things we've crossed over together that's an iconic moment um so that movie was uh an audition i had and then i mean all of that was all me just kind of that part again was nothing but sort of the pen in the ear was all me just kind of doing it at the time i i honestly i don't even remember but i don't know how much that was all mulholland drive but it was like a slow build and old school i actually this is fun to tell stories I've never told.

2:03:05But like it was Piven and I for his part. And then I didn't get it. And then they were like, do you want to be this guy? And I'm like, sure, I'll be that guy. And so I did that. And then it just kind of kept going. It kept, it just kind of kept growing, but I don't know how much at that time had to do with Mall and Drive. Like Black Dahlia had nothing to do with Mall and Drive because I auditioned for that. And I am, uh, Carrie was the first movie I saw in a theater, which is unfortunate because I was six.

2:03:36Sean Fennessey:Um, nothing unfortunate about that. Um, and I, so the Palma was big for you. I mean, yeah, the dress to kill blowout Carrie, that's it. So when I went in and read for that, I was really nervous. And when I was leaving after I read, I just read and he was there and he was like, okay, thanks. And then I left on and before I left, I'm like, I just have to tell you, you mean a lot to me. Like as a director you have meant a lot to my life. How did he receive that? Fine. Okay, yeah. You know. He's not the warmest. No, no. He received it to Pama-esque. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay. And then I got it and went to Bulgaria and shot that which I will share and be totally frank.

2:04:16That is a movie I think I'm not very good in. I think I'm fine. I think I may be miscast. I think I may be too young. And I also think I may not I think I didn't I still needed a director to help me and no offense I'm not sure that's what was going on we were all in different movies like Scarlett and me and Josh and Hiller we were all like I kind of just felt like in different movies and that is so interesting because I'm really sort of I like to look at myself and be like honest about it and I do remember kind of watching that and thinking uh oh that's alright it's not great

2:04:48Sean Fennessey:so interesting you know Amanda and I always talk about duplicity and like if you did duplicity a hundred times like it would have come out better 99 times Yes, yes. Black Delight is kind of one of those movies to me too where I'm like, it's all the right people. It's the right story. It's the right material. I mean, it was Vilma Sigman, Dante Ferretti because I remember doing it and thinking, there we go. Hold on. This is a perfect example of what you asked. I was like, oh, it's about to change because 13 Oscar nominations. I was thinking of the Oscar nominations when I was there. And then I went to the premiere and the air was going out of attire like live while I was watching that movie and thinking, and I felt it on set and I don't blame Brian.

2:05:29I don't even, I don't know what it was. We were all in different movies and movies can't work if everybody's in a different movie. You all need to be doing the same thing. No matter what, the TV show, the movie, you all need to be on the same page and that felt like something that, it just felt off. It felt like the, like you said, the parts didn't click and maybe there's a version where the parts do click.

2:05:48Sean Fennessey:Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. Is there ever a moment when you realize that on set and you can change the dynamic or shift it? No, the director, I can't. I mean, I can only realize, and I do realize it on set now, and I didn't then, because I was, again, 33, 30. I was young. Yeah. That's why I think I was kind of too young for that role, but, you know, I just, I'm so grateful for him, because I loved doing it, and I got to travel a lot of that part of the country, and my wife came to visit me, and everybody was lovely, and, you know, there's nothing you can do about it, because you're not in charge.

2:06:21And so, if people are, I don't even think anyone was necessarily miscast. It was just, it just was a, you know, I like to cook and sometimes you, the ingredients just, they don't make a dish that tastes good.

2:06:34Sean Fennessey:You mentioned you have a daughter. I do. Um, Fia. This movie was made before you had her. Yes. And I'm wondering like if your career and the jobs you took changed before you had a family. If it changed once I had the family? no no yes sorry yes actually i've been offered like um serial killer like which i would totally play a serial killer if it was in something that was trying to do something or was but i've been offered things that are not or child molesters or things that i'm like i i don't want any part of that unless the writing is incredible and i feel like we're going to touch on something that hasn't been touched on.

2:07:17So I have said no to stuff that just feels like since my daughter, that I would have taken it 30.

2:07:23Sean Fennessey:I'm interested in that component too, because many people think of a working actor as like somebody who's constantly trying to book jobs. But I love talking to Tracy Letts about this, about saying like what the things he said no to, where they're like, we want you because you're perfect for this. And you're like, well, this isn't something that I want to do, but also I want to pay the bills and take care of my family and so on and so forth. Maybe can you talk about the decision-making, like the financial component, the artistic component, how those two things fit together? Well, yes. As we said earlier, I'm good to say yes.

2:07:50I enjoy saying yes. And I enjoy making the money because it helps to pay the bills and send my daughter to college and all of that stuff. But if it just feels wrong, it's not going to be fun for anybody, including myself or anybody there. And I've been doing this a long time. So if you're not paying me what I feel like I should be paid, that's the other thing. I'm okay to say no because I know something. I've always been this guy that I know something else is around the corner and I know I'm going to be okay. And I feel like it's served me. I've yet to be like... And I've done stuff for money.

2:08:34I'm not past doing stuff for money. I have no problem with that because I do have to... it's my job. Yeah. But I, it's not hard to say no when something just feels like, nah, yeah.

2:08:44Sean Fennessey:Does your antenna go up when something like Lost comes around where you're like, I know that this is a sensation and I'll do anything to be a part of it? Fuck yes. Jesus. Can you talk about, because I want to hear about Lost and Mad Men and appearing on two shows just as they are like, something is happening. I mean, just an incredible time. I was also at the same time on a show that didn't take off in the way I thought Southland. Southland, amazing show. I love that show. Okay, That was like, what is happening in my life? If that show was on AMC or HBO, it would have been different. It would have been.

2:09:13That show was really incredible. So Mad Men was first. So do you want me to talk about that before I lost? Yes, let's do Mad Men. So Mad Men, I was out of town in Florida doing a show called Burn Notice.

2:09:26Sean Fennessey:That was a show as well. It was a show. Popular show. And I was doing that. And my manager, who has been my manager for years, I have two managers, and they're amazing. she reached out to me and she said hey oh my god i wish you were back they're auditioning for this comedian i'm mad men you'd be great for it and this is before again self-tapes we are in a different era now this is this is the self-tape was not a thing so i wasn't in la and i was like well i'm shooting i obviously can't come back i landed and got a phone call from her and she's like they're they're doing one more day of mad men can you get this all these sides together tonight.

2:10:04And I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake. And I look at the material and it was the dinner scene when I go and yeah.

2:10:14Sean Fennessey:From the benefactor. Yes. So something clicked where I knew this, I knew who this guy was. I really knew who this guy was. My dad at the roadhouse would insult people when they came in. He was a very gregarious guy with white hair and he stood in the front and he'd insult people and they'd laugh and people would come to be insulted. It was really interesting. And I had this moment of like, oh, this is kind of like my dad. And I thought, I also just, I didn't even watch anything, but I was like, oh, I kind of feel like I get this kind of insult comedian. And I wanted him to have some sort of charm because I didn't want it to, and he wasn't Don Rickles.

2:10:59It's not Don Rickles. Like he was kind of Don Rickles meets Joey Bishop in my mind. And so I went in and I read, I met Matt and there's a New York times magazine that you, you article you can find about, there was a reporter in the room when I auditioned and it's in the New York times magazine. So I only know all of this from fucking reading the article.

2:11:24Sean Fennessey:And you didn't know when you walked in that room at that time. No, it was Matt casting this woman. I thought she was a producer. and she wrote about it's a little unfair to you it's kind of awful because she writes about they couldn't find this part and they kept seeing people you have to find this Google my name New York Times Magazine not New York it was you know in the Times on Sundays yeah and it was a whole article on Matt and it was this is coming off of the first season the success of the first season and we're leading into Mad Men season 2 yes and so she talks about an in I'm not giving myself a fucking compliment here I'm quoting what it said she goes and in came gold.

2:12:00And she talks about Matt's shoulders going down. And like, to read about what someone was in an audition experiencing with you, I've never had since. I'll probably never have again. Because that's not a thing. Reporters are not in rooms.

2:12:13Sean Fennessey:Great for you, you're a legend. Dude. Dude. So, but I knew when I was in the room and I knew Matt, I could tell his energy to me was like, oh shit. I just got it. I got the guy. And so then I read, got the part, go to the table read and the woman who was playing my wife melinda mcgraw is older than me and matt came up to me after the read and he's like we got to do something to make you look older it's a problem and i'm like i'm getting fired i can't fucking believe i'm getting fired from mad man and i my hair is very white i most jobs diet like the show i'm on right now colors it and i said to him oh whoa whoa whoa wait wait it's really white under here and he goes what and I go look look look so I show him my roots and he's like okay we gotta grow it let me get hair so they got the hair department and he's like I want him to have all white on the sides and that'll help age him so don't dye your hair we'll just dye the top cut this short all of this is happening as I'm thinking fuck am I fired am I fired am I fired and I wasn't fired obviously and then I go and do Mad Men it's a wonderful thing because your performance is phenomenal it's also you know coming off of a moment where the show gets very hot all of a sudden after that first year.

2:13:24Sean Fennessey:So a lot of people are interested in it. It's also, it's the media's favorite show, so they're constantly talking about it. But it's also your character is so pivotal to the rest of the future of the series because of what he does and how he affects Betty and Don's marriage. So like, you're one of the 10 most important characters in the history of that show. I kind of knew when we were doing it. You did? Oh, well, I knew what I was doing. I mean, I'm the first person, like I'm telling Don off, calling him on his shit and telling Betty about his affair. So I knew it at the time. I'm like, this is insane.

2:13:54And when I did the first episode, you know, I hadn't seen scripts. I didn't know what was coming. But Matt did say to me, he was to help your performance. You're going to have a line in six episodes from now. I've been standing behind guys like that my whole life. And I was like, oh, my God. Like, I just got it.

2:14:14Sean Fennessey:Did you know then that you were on like a six-episode run, that it was going to be multiple episodes in a row? I think they had told me. I forget, but I think they told my reps. Is that usually how it works? Yes. Like for Paradise, are you like, I'm signing up for X number of episodes? Yes, with Paradise I knew. Okay. Yes, they tell you. Shows that haven't mapped out usually tell you. Yeah, most of the shows I've done recently in the last years, yeah. So Mad Men, I think they had told me how many I was doing. But he, I didn't know, I didn't know that I was telling Jan. I didn't know any of that.

2:14:42So he just wanted me to know, here to help you, this is a line you're gonna have. Does that help? And I'm like, that's it. That's the guy. That is literally the guy. I've been standing behind guys like this my whole life is the line. I mean, that's who this guy was.

2:14:56Sean Fennessey:I still think that's the best show. It is my favorite. Just going back to look at what you were doing yesterday, I was like, I'm in my happiest place watching this show. It is really remarkable. So that was spectacular and super fortunate. And I, again, that is, that show was the career shifter for me. Was it? Yeah. That was the game changer. That's interesting to hear. So does that lead directly to Lost? That leads to Lost. That leads directly. And Carlton, my first recurring thing on TV was a show called Nash Bridges. Oh, of course. Oh, boy. Yes. The late Chuck Norris. Off Mike, we can talk about that.

2:15:26No, not Chuck Norris. Oh, I'm sorry. Don Johnson. Don Johnson.

2:15:29Sean Fennessey:Not Walker, Texas Ranger. Nash Bridges. No, no, no. The other ones. Cheech Marin. Don Johnson. My apologies. Boy. Oh, boy. Anyways. Fun production? Sure. So, again, I'm 24, 25, recurring on the show, playing a character now I'd be canceled for. I again I mean seriously never it is on network television oh yeah so offensive I honestly I just can't even but I mean look in fairness to me I didn't know what the hell was going on the world was different it was it's the that was a whole ball of something but um Carlton Cuse wrote on that show Damon Lindelof wrote on that show Sean Ryan wrote on that show I mean that show found some sort of something all of those network shows were crucibles for all those creators who you ended up working with later in your career.

2:16:14And so that was Lost. And so then I get a call, they want you to come do Lost. And that was an example of they didn't tell me how many episodes. I just went and did that first one. And then I kept not being able to leave because they're like, wait, you're in the next one. Wait, you're in the next one. And my wife was pregnant. And so I will always give credit to this, to Damon, the line producer, everybody for helping me, but I knew we were done. They kept saying, and I said, am I in the finale? And they said, yes. And I said, my wife is due. I, I, I can't either. You have to shoot me out way at the beginning or I can't do the end episodes.

2:16:51And they changed the, they put all of my stuff, which people don't do on big productions. They do not do, especially, well, I wasn't some huge part or anything, but they, um, I guess, sure. You know, and then they did it for me and I was able to get back. I had to be back like three weeks in case, you know, my daughter came early and I just was like, no job. There are just things you're just nothing in my life am I ever missing for any kind of job, no matter what the job.

2:17:17Sean Fennessey:That's such fascinating timing too, that your daughter would be born at this time when it feels like everything changed where you're like, I assume stability is a part of that. For the most part, with a window in there where I did think like, oh, I was wrong. It comes up later where I had a sort of dry period where I, and it came at a time when my wife was on True Blood. She was on True Blood for five years. So the timing was okay because we've always seesawed kind of. But I knew in my heart it was all going to be fine. But yes, my daughter, I think children bring great luck and great fortune and great everything.

2:17:53And she brought that for sure because it was all just happening. And lost was one of those things. Then that year, Lost and Mad Men were the five nominated writing Emmy drama, those two shows. So I went to the WGA Awards and presented because I was on both shows. So it was pretty fucking cool to be like, oh, wait, these five things nominated are all something that I got to say the words of.

2:18:17Sean Fennessey:That is absolutely amazing. What's it like being in a marriage with somebody who is doing the same job as you? Amazing. You talk about the work? Well, we've been together so long. We talk about the business more than the work, but we talk about the work. We talk about everything. I mean, she's my best friend and I mean, it's just my life. But yeah, I love it. People are always like, don't marry. And I'm like, that's complete bullshit. If you're stable and you're cool and you guys love each other and you're best friends, you can both be actors. It's all going to be okay. That's interesting. So what is the down period that comes up?

2:18:52Sean Fennessey:This is after the shows? It was after Mad Men lost Southland. and there's like, if we look at my MDB page, there's like a period that's like, eh, what was I, I don't know. Did you ever think about quitting? No, God, never. Literally. Never. 22 on, never. It was never an option and I knew I wouldn't have to. No, so when I say a down period, I still worked, but I'd maybe get a guest spot of one episode or like, it was sustaining me, but it wasn't, it's so hard to go from the best show on TV to, you know, I don't know, whatever I did. But it was a little bit of a period of time that just felt like I was not being seen, you know?

2:19:37And that was a little challenging.

2:19:40Sean Fennessey:You were a little critical of your own performance in Black Dahlia. Is there anything that you've ever done that maybe is lesser seen or lesser known that you're like, I know I crushed this. I know that I was good in this. Defending Jacob, an Apple. I haven't seen it. Is this the Chris Evans show? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I, that was a perfect example. I shot that and I thought, I mean, here we go. Chris Evans is doing TV. This is a game changer. And that was such a great story. The showrunner of that told me when my audition came in, he saw my face and was like, oh, he's not right for this because it's a grieving dad.

2:20:23I'm the dad of the kid who's been killed. And he just was like, I mean, I love that actor, but he's always playing the asshole or the villain or the this. And so he watched my tape and said to me, I was totally wrong. You floored me. And that was one of the best auditions I've ever given, ever, because it's a very emotional scene. And that's emotion stuff is often hard. I can find it in my later life. It's post-kid, super easy to find. And this is a thing about a kid who's passed, who was murdered. And so he totally, it was amazing to have someone be honest with me. That is the business. They want to box us.

2:21:05And I'm just like, don't box me. I promise you I can do a lot of stuff. And so Defending Jacob was one of those things that when I was shooting it, I did think, and I'm good in it. And I thought, oh my God, I can't wait for the world to see it. And then COVID came out, COVID came, and it came out in April 2020. So again, people were home and the reviews weren't great, but it's fine enough that I thought people would watch. And Chris is one of the loviest people I've ever worked with. He is an absolute joy.

2:21:39Sean Fennessey:So that, when you say you thought everything would change and you've had that thought a few times, was part of that thinking like, maybe I won't be typecast as the asshole or as the villain? Yes, that's exactly it. Which I'm really, I'm really not anymore. I will say the business doesn't, they're people that still want that. And they want to limit you because, you know, I think it's easier for them. And I'm happy to play the asshole. Like, I love playing the asshole. It's great. But I also want to play the this or the that. And I feel like I'm really getting to. I feel like I'm really, really getting to do that.

2:22:15Sean Fennessey:What do you, why do you think that is? Because I think I'm older and I've done enough work that a lot of directors and showrunners and writers trust me. And they just know that I'm capable of much more than people maybe thought at first. You know, I'm not just Jimmy Barrett. I can do Jimmy Barrett because I have an ability to do a lot of different things. You know, that's why. So I find you at an interesting time where you're in a bunch of things. Yeah. And I feel like you're being used differently in all of the things. Yeah. Yeah. You know, at the top of the list for this show is Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

2:22:56Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Where I feel like you're being used almost as like a talisman. Like almost as like a sign to the audience of like, do you know what movie you're watching? That is. You remember Patrick? This is what he represents to us. Like, is that how you felt about it? That's how Jane feels about it. I think I'm putting words in their mouth. But I, yes, I do think that as well. I think that is a Mulholland Drive talisman, to be honest. And I think, I remember when I got the offer for that, and I love TV Glow. So I was pretty thrilled. And I'm a Friday the 13th absolute fanatic. Like the first one is, again, I could talk about Friday the 13th forever.

2:23:36I like when killers are not just monsters. But the fact, anyways, spoiler alert for Friday the 13th.

2:23:42Sean Fennessey:You're wearing a Halloween t-shirt today, but you're repping for Friday the 13th. I am. I am. Because I don't have a Camp Crystal Lake shirt. And if I did, I maybe would have worn it. I have one. That would have been great if I'd worn it today. Oh, fuck, you should have. But when I got the script and then I spoke to Jane. And I mean, I thought the idea is so brilliant. And I thought, I love your work. I told Jane, whatever you want. But I looked at it, and that part is like the guy at the gas station. It was written, not me. And I said, hey, I have thoughts. If you want me to do this, maybe it's not like the normal, you know, like hick at the gas station guy.

2:24:22And Jane was like, what is it? Tell me. What do you think? And I was like, what if I'm in like a sports coat? and it's more of like Norman Bates combined with something else. And Jane was like, let me go rewrite it. And then sent me pages, rewrote that stuff. And I was, my answer was like, amazing. Yes, I'm in.

2:24:41Sean Fennessey:So the thing that interests me about that from your perspective is like, what does it mean to become a signal to movie culture? You know, that like you're just your mere presence communicates something to those. Obviously, it's a very meta film and it's a film for, it really rewards like horror obsession. Yes. But for you as a person that you've gotten to a place in your career where someone is casting you in a part because of what you tell us about what kind of movie you're watching. Yeah. I mean, it's everything. Pretty cool. No one has said that to me. And I haven't been able to put that in those exact words.

2:25:15But that is everything. That's all I could ask for. Like, I don't need anything at this point. But that's pretty fucking cool. Yeah. And Jane, I remember writing them a note after shooting because Jane reminds me of David Lynch. And there's something similar happening of not caring what anybody thinks and just putting a singular vision on screen. And so, yes, I'm happy to be a talisman. I'm thrilled to be a talisman.

2:25:47Sean Fennessey:Please. So interesting. thing i did want to ask quickly about um working on la noir the video game yeah which is another like working actor thing like that's a job only game i've ever done i don't say yes to games i don't want to do games why did you want to do this because it was right after madmen and it felt like cool i don't know something felt cool about it and different again i didn't know people i've never i think i've seen my image on the game i i don't i don't you don't play you're not not a gamer i played atari and okay that's a little different yeah but it's a different kind of acting right because you presumably it's a mocap oh it's all mocap yeah and it was the craziest part was the room with all the cameras in the face and you know the mocap was all they had the the whole sets laid out in the um all the you know whatever silverware and all you had to do you had it all there but then you had to go into the room with all the cameras around you and do the face stuff it was pretty remarkable and i'm so glad i did that because it was super cool and i'm wait Who do I play in it?

2:26:43Mickey Cohen.

2:26:44Sean Fennessey:Right. And then I played, yes. And I played Meyer Lansky on the Frank Darabont show that didn't last, Lost Angels or whatever. Yes, that's right. Yes. So I did that. I remember that was one. There we go. I was in the finale. And I'm like, season two. This is Meyer Lansky. And Darabont was so lovely. And I'm like, I can't wait for, wait, it's canceled. Oh, okay. Oh, shit. All right, that's over. What a weird career you have. I have to ask you on Amanda's behalf. Something's got a gift? tell Amanda she'll hear this I had to audition for that I want to really give the real answer here I think I had to read for it four times because Nancy is very specific four times I think I have three lines maybe four lines four times and at the time I remember being like what's happening when they called me back the note was A or the note was B very small and I'm like okay and I was fine doing it because I knew who the movie starred and then I will say this shooting it there's maybe no one lovelier in the world than Diane Keaton that was she was just the best and I was a young guy and I was so starstruck and she was so lovely and then Jack was just watching the Lakers I mean no joke literally they had to bring a TV to set because we were in like a big theater downtown I forgot which one and she's he's just got the TV rolled in because it was at a time when and you know she's just talking to me and he's just watching the Lakers and I was like Hollywood that's really great um maybe setting aside Mulholland Drive what's your favorite thing you've been a part of or maybe your best experience on a project?

2:28:34Oh, man. Oh, my God. Oh. There's a very undiscovered gem of a TV show that I don't know if you can find it anywhere called Happy.

2:28:44Sean Fennessey:It stars Chris Maloney. Okay. I just did it in, we did two seasons. It was sci-fi. S, not like S-C-I, S-Y, sci-fi. Right, right, right. And then it went to Netflix. 2018, 2019. Okay. It's based on a graphic novel by Grant Morrison. Of course. About a hitman who starts seeing an imaginary blue flying donkey that's his daughter's imaginary friend that was voiced by Patton Oswalt. And I'm Smoothie, who's the big villain of the show for two years. It is so spectate. Brian Taylor. Yeah, sure. It's his show. I've never seen it. I don't know it. Find it. It's so fucking weird. It's so over the top. We did two seasons of it.

2:29:29I was so proud of it. It's balls to the walls. I love Maloney. I loved working with him. Our chemistry was great. And I'm the big villain that carries through the two seasons that it was on the air. And it was an amazing experience. And nobody watched it. Happy. Happy. Okay. Exclamation point. Happy exclamation point.

2:29:47Sean Fennessey:Before I let you go, let's nerd out about movies a little bit. Please go. So you actually are watching new releases regularly. In the theater, of course. I mean, I have not seen the new release, but I'm going Sunday. Okay. Because we had to take my daughter again, making her go to the theater. But yes, I'm seeing, I mean, I just saw The Invite, which is one of my favorite films of the year. Wonderful. So I'm interested in your ability to still be enthusiastic about it. When you're watching a movie, are you seeing the stitching and the choices that are made in a different way? And like, are you explaining to your daughter, well, here's how they did this.

2:30:21Sean Fennessey:Or I've been on a set that does this. She loves movies. She loves writing. She loves a lot. So I don't have to explain. At this point, she's in. No, I gotta tell you, man, it's the best. I watch things. I love things. Like, I wanna go in. I'm not going in judgmental, which is not common for actors and people in this business. I want to be swept away. I wanna be emotional. I could cry at anything. So I'm so open. So when I don't really like something, which is rare, but has happened this summer. There's been some things I've seen that I've been like either disappointed by or they've been okay. Me as well.

2:30:57I'm open. I'm totally open. And I don't watch the—I don't even think about actors on set, you know. I think about watching The Invite. I think about how fucking good the writing is. And I think about choices they're making and how incredible they are. But I really—I go in really wanting and open to this being great. I'm so excited to see stuff. What about TV? Do you watch a lot of TV? We watch way too much TV. I'm—I just—none of it's ever going to go away. we watch so much TV. Like we're, we have a couple, we're slow with TV, my wife and I, because we have like six shows going at once, which is kind of insane.

2:31:35But like, you know, we're still trying to get through beef. We're getting through Widow's Bay. We finished maximum pleasure guaranteed. It's exhausting. I am so busy in my life right now that we laugh, like we find time to just squeeze it in. But the same with TV. I am so open to wanting things to be good. I'm excited.

2:31:52Sean Fennessey:How much of when you're watching things is just like kind of industrial concern for the health of Hollywood. Like, do you think about that? Like, I think about that for reasons that are mysterious to me. Like, I'm like, why do I care about this so much? But I do, and it's a lens through which I see a lot of things. You know, once I'm done being swept away by something, and I've tried to figure out why I like it, then immediately it's like, well, what does it mean? How does it impact X, Y, Z? And when I sit down to write about something, it's always through that lens, and I'm trying to figure out why that is, but I'm curious for somebody who actually does the job, who is actually reliant upon, you know, the health of the movie business or the health of television or streaming versus whatever else is the other alternative you are you thinking with that cap on i'm not but we're fucked no i'm just kidding um it doesn't it seems like it's really really bad and also okay at the same time it's the weirdest feeling that is exactly what it is it's so scary and it's not going great and then at the same time i'm like i think we're okay so i don't understand the feelings i'm feeling i'm confused by them.

2:32:52Yeah. But I feel it with TV. TV's weird. TV's not great. Here's why TV's not great. I'll tell you this. I just listened to a while back, David Kelly on The Town. Yes. And he described this, that when he used to make TV, that it was like the execs were like customers at a restaurant who would just be at their table and say, I don't love this. And the chef would be, the showrunner would be like, oh, let me get you something else. And they'd go and fix it or let me fix that for you. All good. Now the execs who are the customers say, I don't like this. I'm going to come in the kitchen with you and I'm going to tell you what to do.

2:33:28And I'm going to, I'm going to cook the meal. And it's like, that doesn't work. Execs are the best shows are I think when execs give their notes, but also step back. And there's a lot of just touching that doesn't need to be happening.

2:33:42Sean Fennessey:From your perspective as a, not a creator or showrunner, Do you think that that is just because it's a very data-oriented business that tells you the things that they believe people do and do not want? Yes. Yes. I think we are, not we, you and me personally, but the business is relying on computers to tell them what, the joke in Barry, the algorithm joke. Yeah. It's not a joke. It's totally real. It's just really scary. That they're like, there's no audience for this. and it's a computer telling them based on data. But it's yet stuff comes out. If I can't believe baby reindeer was adolescence that a network that relies, a streaming service, I guess they'll never hire me again, relies on an algorithm, let those shows that then became huge and they're not realizing, oh, maybe we don't need to.

2:34:37Can you imagine adolescence being put through an algorithm? What? What? An algorithm would say no one wants to watch something like that. So, yeah, it's a little bit weird. It's very weird right now. It's very weird. I'm glad I'm not 20. No offense to 20-year-olds, but—or 24. I'm glad as an actor, I'm not starting out right now because it's a little scary.

2:34:58Sean Fennessey:Do you encourage people to do it? Wouldn't people ask you, like, can you make a living? Is it something I should pursue? I tell them if there's anything else you want to do, do it. Do the other thing. Really? That's what I tell young people who want to be journalists. That's so funny that you say that but why are we so wise no but like it worked out like we're okay because i didn't want to do anything else more than i wanted to do this like i love what i do and that doesn't mean but if i i've gone and spoken at uh acting classes universities and i've said you know do you have anything else do you you know if someone's like i love interior designing as well i'm like oh then you should do that if acting is the only thing you want to do if there's nothing else you're like i can't see any other light, God, go, just go toward the acting light.

2:35:39But if there's anything else, it's just, it's just hard. It's just hard. And you will, you got to fight and you got to stand up for yourself. All the same stuff. You know, it's just, it's not easy. And the business is getting harder.

2:35:51Sean Fennessey:Patrick, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? You mentioned the invite. Why did I say the invitation? You're We're going to have to go back to something before that, I think. Okay. So you mentioned you're a horror fanatic. That's why. And it's a movie that I think took off, got huge. And then anything that gets huge, there's a significant backlash to it as well. I saw it opening weekend. I saw it before. And I took my wife hates horror. My daughter loves horror. I took my wife because I'd read the reviews. And I'm like, I think this is special.

2:36:24This is not what you think it is. And she fucking loved it. We all three loved it. Loved it.

2:36:29Sean Fennessey:I feel like it did across that Rubicon of non-horror likers got interested in it. Because there's two scenes that are hard, maybe. But otherwise, it's just, you know, and it's well-directed. It's well-written. It's well-acted. It's great. It's great. But by the way, I should say that we're big on showing my daughter movies. And this weekend, we showed her Moneyball and Memento. Wow. What did she think of those? Loved. Memento, she said, is maybe one of her favorite movies she's ever seen. She hasn't been Nolan. She hasn't been. And she's going to Odyssey this weekend with us. so I said to her let me show you let's start without the following let's start at the beginning and she just was absolutely blown away it's a big leap from Memento to the Odyssey I know sorry we missed the in between I know we'll get back to it she'll get to it I just it felt like the right time to show her that and you know and Moneyball we went through 25 of 25 I was looking through and I'm like which by the way I laughed I'm on two of them what's the second one something's got to give of course of course how can I ask you about both yeah well maybe that's why you're sitting here oh my god You're an icon of this show as well.

2:37:28Sean Fennessey:I'm 10%. You've been incredibly generous with your time and your candor. I appreciate you speaking honestly about your working career. Thank you. Dude, I thank you guys for doing this show because it really does. It means a lot. Thanks, Patrick. Thank you. Thanks to Patrick for sharing his life. What a great chat. Thanks to the listeners for your questions today. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on today's episode. Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh for his production support. Later this week, we are talking about Jane Schoenbrunn's fascinating new feature, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, with several very special guests.

2:38:03Sean Fennessey:We'll see you then.

2:38:23Sean Fennessey:I see you. Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. It's the film critics are calling the best Avatar yet. Go, go, go, go! A true epic and completely jaw-dropping. This is the only purest thing in this world. Return to Pandora on Disney+. It will be an adventure for the whole family. And watch the Oscar-winning phenomenon at home. This is sick! Fire and Ash, now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13. Thank you.