Danny McBride Thinks Men Learned All the Wrong Lessons From Movies

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0:41From the New York Times, this is The Interview. I'm David Marchese. Danny McBride's great HBO shows. I'm talking about Eastbound and Down, Vice Principles, and The Righteous Gemstones, all of which he co-starred in and helped to create, weren't just satirically sharp, hilariously profane, and sneakily heart-tugging. They also worked as almost anthropologically detailed studies of a certain type of modern American manhood. McBride's antiheroes in all of those shows were arrogant, insecure, unapologetic, vulgar, status-obsessed, and nursed all kinds of petty grievances. They were also widely beloved.

1:23Now he's applying his gift for satire and character studies to short stories, with his first book, the forthcoming collection, Thrilling Tales of Modern Men. Some of the stories fit pretty neatly into the McBride canon of Wounded Men Who Lash Out, a canon that also includes his work co-writing the rebooted Halloween horror films. Other stories tip toward a quieter emotional depth, albeit a depth still laced with obscenity and the occasional violent outburst. But they're all undeniably the work of a storyteller interested in entertaining, while also poking at what makes men tick and then go boom.

1:59Here's my conversation with Danny McBride.

2:08Danny, thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I appreciate it. Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. You know, reading the stories in the book, Thrilling Tales of Modern Men, you know, to me, they feel like they are very much Danny McBride stories. They only could have come from you. There's the specific use of language, obviously the sense of humor, even sort of like the explosions of violence here and there. It kind of, you know what I'm talking about. But the overarching themes of the book, they speak to my mind very clearly to one of the great themes of this moment, right?

2:45Which is, you know, what people call like a crisis of masculinity. Do you have a sense of why that feels like a particularly acute problem now? I mean, maybe it's because everyone says that there's something wrong with men now. But, you know, I don't know. I think it's probably, you know, maybe it's even that we're this generation that's like grown up so heavily on media. You know, I mean, like being a kid and growing up in the 80s, it's like you are 100 % being sold machismo action, kill them all, let God sort them out. Like that was sort of pounded into anyone's brains that came up on cable television or, you know, watching movies.

3:26And I think it took me a little while to realize when I got older, like, oh, shit, the movies are just that's not really real life. That's not really how things work. And maybe there is just this kind of slow awakening of like, yeah, I guess everything I've been told isn't necessarily how it's supposed to be or how it goes. And then it's kind of that awkwardness of you sort of then finding out what is important to you or how what your values are, what your morals are, what kind of person you want to be. There's one story called the Institute of Men, which is about a guy who goes to like sort of a creepy hair growth clinic.

4:00And he has to take this intake survey that has some pretty for what he thought was a medical procedure, some sort of strangely emotionally direct questions. I want to ask you a couple of those questions. okay wow how clever of you here we go um one of the questions was when was the last time you were in a physical altercation it was it was a long time ago it was in i feel like it might have been 2000 i got into a scuffle with the next girlfriend's boyfriend who was being abusive and i went to go pick her up and i got into a fight in the middle of burbank how did the fight go you know So it was actually very exciting.

4:44What ended up happening was, this is crazy. So this girl broke my heart. I was a young man. This was like my first real serious girlfriend all through college. We moved out to LA together. She got mixed up with another guy. She wanted to end it with that other guy, and he wasn't happy about that. She called me up and said, hey, can you come pick me up? I'm at this guy's place, and he's giving me a hard time. so you know me and two of my roommates we're all guys who went to art school like nobody hears a bruiser nobody hears a scrapper we're not we're not trained for this so i'm like you know but i'm my heart's broken and i have to i'm like we got to go get her you know like come on let's go and you know we're just like looking around like do we have weapons you know it's like i take like a you know we like a golf club here you know so we we we drive in my honda elantra to burbank to where this is where she's going to be.

5:34And, uh, she's waiting outside and the guys with her and the dude is like six, five, he's like massive. And my first instinct was like, damn, dude's strong. Like she went for a really strong guy after me. And I, uh, you know, we just kind of standing there. And so then I finally get out of the car, my buddies who I thought were going to get my back just stayed in the car. Uh, and I'm like, Hey, all right, let's, let's get her. Come on, get in the car, leave her alone. And I look back to my buddies and my one buddy just like rolls the window down and just like hands the golf club out the window.

6:04I wasn't even asking for the golf club, but then I just, so I just took it because I wasn't sure what to do. And then that escalated things. Cause the guy's like, what are you going to do with that golf club? And I was kind of like, well, I'm not really sure what the plan was for the golf club. I guess hit you with it. I don't know what's, I don't know what's happening right now. And, uh, he came at me. And so I did, I took the golf club and swung and hit it. I aimed for his knees and I hit him with the shaft and it just easily broke across his knees, didn't slow him down at all. And I'm just holding the handle for the golf club.

6:34And he just looks at me and is just like, what the hell? And so then he socks me. We're on the ground. We're tussling. And then the girlfriend comes in. She pulls him off by his hair. You know, we all get back in the car and take off. My nose is bleeding. We rescue her and go. But that was the last physical fight I was in. That was a good story. Also, I hate to implicitly endorse physical violence as a means to solving any sort of problem, but you were like the good guy in that story. We had to, and someone had to stand up for what was right. And then another one of the questions in the story that the character is asked is, when was the last time you cried?

7:14Do you have an answer to that one? Oh, God. When was the last time I cried? You know, it probably wasn't honestly too long ago. Like, it doesn't take much these days. Like, this is like, my son just graduated from eighth grade and there was like, you know, which isn't even that big of a deal, but there was a ceremony. And they put together this little slideshow that is just like the, you know, just the kids in science lab and stuff. And I definitely found myself there like, oh, damn, I hope the lights don't come up right now. I'm welling up. I'm leaking here. But just to connect this a little bit to some of the themes in the book, you know, I feel like a lot of the characters in the stories, you know, they're basically struggling to find purpose in their life.

7:59Or they're like looking for meaning, you know, maybe because they feel emasculated or because they feel anxiety about their status or, you know, whatever the reason might be. Where do people find meaning and purpose, do you think? you know when i was a kid i i grew up going to church you know we went to church all the time my my you know i've talked about this before like my mom was like a puppet minister like my parents were really involved and you know after my parents got divorced and i was in sixth grade we really just stopped going to church you know and so now i have kids and you know church isn't really a part of our life either and i started thinking like man there's all these like basic things i learned from going to church just basic morals and values that are like oh i'm like taking that for granted that my kids are just going to pick all that stuff up just from the world around them.

8:44But they're really, they're not. You do have to think about that. And I think it's a dangerous time, honestly, with how much influence these phones and what people can be getting exposed to without really realizing it and how even just the logarithm can be tainting what you think is right and wrong or all this stuff that everybody's afraid of. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit more about your mom's puppet ministry? I mean, maybe I'm betraying my own ignorance here, but I wasn't really aware that that was a thing until I... You seem like you'd be really into puppet ministry. I actually like puppet ministry, but it's puppets of the band ministry.

9:25It's a kind of... Yeah, exactly. That's it. They're on tour. Pretty different. But yeah, tell me about that. What was that? Well, when I was a kid, we went to this little Baptist church in Spotsylvania, Virginia, and both of my parents were pretty involved with the church. And my mom bought these puppets. And then she would write these plays and she would like do the children's sermons during church. And so, you know, on Sunday mornings, we would load the stage up and the puppets into the car and go to church early to help her get it set up. And then, you know, before the big sermon would happen, my mom would go in there with like a few other people that were voicing these other puppets.

10:01And they would do these little morality tales, you know, about why you shouldn't steal or covet what your neighbors have, just the most basic stuff. But we bought, I remember our family, we didn't have a computer or anything. My mom bought a typewriter and I used to watch her. I was pretty young. This was probably like third or fourth grade, but I'd watch her like in the kitchen with that typewriter typing up these scripts for these puppet ministries. They would be two or three pages long, simple stories, but that had a massive influence on me when I was a kid. I thought it was cool that she was creating something in our kitchen, this place where we all hang out and just watch TV, and she's creating something.

10:40And then two days later, I'm in the middle of church watching people react to something that she created. It always had an impact on me. And you think that's part of why you got into storytelling? I think it was. I mean, I wasn't participating in those stories, but even just participating in the sense that I would help set the stage up. And there was this anticipation of like, oh, I wonder what they'll think about this one this week. I just – I don't know. There was something about it that I just found fun to know that there was something concocted for the benefit of other people and then wondering how they would react to it.

11:13I kept those puppets for a long time. They were – I didn't know what to do with them. They're kind of creepy. So they were like in Tupperwares in my house in Virginia. And then finally after years and years, I gave them to my sister because she had been asking for them. I don't know what she does with them. I'm not sure if she's doing her own puppet shows for the enjoyment of herself at the house or what. I don't know. It's kind of a weird thing to get rid of, though. I mean, like, you have these puppets that your mom had when you were a kid. You can't just – the idea of them just sitting in a dumpster somewhere is heartbreaking.

11:42So then they just become, you know, some massive part of your closet that you're like, why can't we put anything here? And you're like, well, that's where all the puppets are buried. We can't put anything else there. Just because it's been rattling around in my head since you said it, when I said I didn't know about Puppet Ministries, and you said something like, you don't seem like somebody who would know much about that. Was I supposed to be insulted by that? No, no, not at all. I don't know what type of person should know about Puppet Ministries. You. I guess me, right? Do I fit the profile?

12:15A hundred percent.

12:19Then you said you stopped going to church. Why did your family stop going? You know, it was really interesting. This was back in the 80s, and divorce wasn't as accepted as it was now, especially not in the church. And it was my first taste of sort of the hypocrisy sometimes of the people that can go to church. And, you know, here it was like our family was so involved with the church and my parents get a divorce and my dad's in Florida. My mom's raising me and my sister by herself. And, you know, we're going to church and they're all just like whispering behind her back. And so I think it became an uncomfortable place for her.

12:57And so she stopped going and would drop me and my sister off each Sunday. And then I think after a few weeks of that, we were sort of like, I think we're good with church. I think we've got it. We'll take care of ourselves now. Yeah. Did that mean you stopped being a believer or you just stopped going to church? No, I don't think it made me stop going to church. I mean, it's different. When you're a kid and you're taken to church, you're not really thinking whether you believe or not. You're just kind of going because your parents are making you go. And I think that I took a lot of those beliefs for granted.

13:27And then I think as I've gotten older, I definitely think about spirituality a lot. I think about, I wonder where we're from and where we're going. If we're going anywhere, I don't feel like I have the answers. And so I'm just very open to what other people's answers could potentially be. It's funny. You said when you're a kid and you would go to church, you're not really thinking about whether you believe or not. But I had the opposite experience. My mom was Jewish. My dad was, well, he converted to Judaism, but he's Italian Roman Catholic. And so sometimes I would end up at mass and sometimes I would be at temple.

14:00And I really remember thinking, is any of this true? Like they're saying this one thing over here. And in the other place I'm going, they're saying a totally different thing. You got to see both sides. They're not both right, you know? Yeah, I spent most of my time in church, like, drawing pictures over the minister's face in the programs. Like, I wasn't really, I don't think I was giddy. I wasn't soaking the whole message in, I don't think. Yeah. I know you said your folks divorced, but are there ways in which your dad was an influence on the kind of work that you ended up doing or even the kind of person you became?

14:33Uh, maybe just because he was a piece of shit. Maybe he's inspired a lot of these jackasses I've played. No, I'm just kidding. You're not kidding.

14:44No, I mean, he wasn't much of a storyteller, except for maybe the stories he would tell me and my mom and my sister about what he was up to. Wait, what kind of stories was your dad telling you? Nothing. Nothing cool. Nothing good. And I just want to go back to the church influence for a second. How much was Righteous Gemstones kind of an outgrowth of that? You know, it was. You know, I left Los Angeles in 2017. Like, my son was about to go into kindergarten. And I just sort of was looking around the city, and I, like, wasn't sure how I was going to raise my kids there. Like, you know, we lived up off of Mulholland behind walls.

15:24And I remember my son was asking me, I want to learn how to ride a bike. And my thought was like, why? You're never going to ride a bike ever down Mulholland. That's silly. But it got me thinking about, well, do I want to try to give them something similar to what I had? Do I want to see what it would be like for them to live in a smaller town, live somewhere where they can ride a bike down the road? And so my wife and I, that's what brought us to Charleston. And I just started kind of looking around and seeing all the churches that were in Charleston. I mean, there were so many. and obviously in Los Angeles, you don't see them quite as much.

15:57And every other radio station here is like a religious radio station, it seems like. And it had just been a long time since I had been back and lived back in the South. And it just got me thinking about when I was a kid and going to church. And I just got curious of how church had changed, how it was different from when I was a kid. And I started doing research, and that's when I started finding out the mega churches that were around here locally. And it just became fascinating to sort of dive in and see how different everything was now. You know, it's easy, I think, to point at things to do with the church and say, like, well, this is hypocrisy or this is really just about money.

16:33But did you find that when you were doing the research you just described, were there any sort of more positive realizations you had? Or did you connect with anything in the research that you were doing? Oh, I connected with a lot of it. I mean, I— Yeah, tell me about that. As we were writing, I was reading the Bible. I was looking for everything of just immersing myself in this world. And you start kind of looking at the Bible that way. You're like, wow, this thing at the end of the day, it's a bunch of stories that are passed down for generations and generations and generations that are sort of like, this is what people think you need to be able to do to have a good life, to survive.

17:12I love it. I love looking at it that way and thinking about it like that. I don't think there's inherently anything wrong, obviously, going to church. It's like the times I've been here with my kids, it's like there's a sense of community. It's awesome. It's nice that people are positive. I think like everything, it just all depends on the people that you happen to be around when you go. I mean, you could have the greatest church in the world, and if the people in charge are assholes, then it's not going to be the same as going to another church where maybe they're not. What was the most interesting feedback you got about Righteous Gemstones from a churchgoer?

17:51You know, we surprisingly had a lot of people that went to church that watched the show. And I think— I bet, yeah. Part of it was like, you know, one of my, like, rules in the writer's room was that I never wanted religion to be the butt of any jokes. Like, I didn't want belief to be what we were making fun of. Like, that felt too easy. It felt cheap. You know, I actually went around—before I did the show, I went and I interviewed, like, a bunch of different megachurch pastors. I didn't tell them what I was working on, but I just kind of like, you know, and everybody was always gracious. People opened up their doors to me.

18:21And I wasn't asking questions about religion. I was asking questions about the business of it, like when it's time to expand or when it's time to do another one or when to shut one down. Because it's interesting. It is like, you know, you would think that, all right, well, they would decide to put a church somewhere because, you know, there's no churches in that town. They were like, no, it's the exact opposite. it. You put a church where there's already a bunch of people going to church because you know you have the audience there. And so even thinking about planting churches in such a business way, I don't know, that was sort of, that felt rich and that felt like what I wanted to make the show about.

18:56But in doing that, I met all these different pastors and talked to people. And I always wondered when it was over with, like if they put two and two together or what they thought of it. And there was one time where I was out and I ran into one of the pastors I talked to and he just came up to me and like whispered in my ear and said, I can't tell anyone I watched it, but you nailed it. And I was just like, oh, great. Yeah, you're supposed to feel good or bad about that. It's like, awesome, got it. You were briefly a substitute teacher? I was, yeah. There was a brief moment where all was lost in Los Angeles and I moved back to my parents' house and I was substitute teaching by day and bartending by night.

19:43And yeah, that was where I got the idea for Eastbound was just, you know, I'm sitting here in these local high schools in Spotsylvania, Virginia, trying to kind of like convince these kids that I'm not like the rest of the teachers, that I'm trying to do something with my life, that I'm trying to be famous in Hollywood. The kids don't care. Were you a good teacher? You know, I thought I was good. You know, probably not great, probably not what they were looking for. all the kids cared about then was just like what kind of car you drove. That was it. They all wanted to know. And the moment I told them it was a Hyundai Elantra, I think I lost all of their respect.

20:20So when you were in LA, and it was after, you know, foot fist away, kind of, you know, you got yourself in the door and then you started to make your name really with some of the R-rated comedies, right? Like, you know, Pineapple Express or This Is The End. And people talk about how Hollywood doesn't really want to make those kinds of comedies now. It's basically R-rated comedies. But you seem to be able to do the work that you want to do and write the stuff that you want to write. Do you have any sense of being inhibited in any way? Or do you ever feel like someone's sort of looking over your shoulder or giving you notes about that kind of stuff?

21:00You know, my experience is never – I've never gotten a note to sort of like don't make this R-rated, don't make this R-rated comedy, don't have this point of view. I mean I think for comedy, there was definitely an awakening and as I think with all things, it's like different generations come up and different things are important to different generations. I think that's what it's all about and with movies especially. It's like, you know, there was a time in the 50s where it was only just Westerns, and then there was only just musicals. And, you know, in the 80s, 70s, it's only like teen movies and action movies.

21:33It's like movies always go through that. And I just think that, I think that that younger generation that kind of came up like, you know, after this height of these R-rated movies, it just wasn't what I think that they were interested in. Or maybe that's what Hollywood thought. I don't know. Do you have a sense of what your son, for example, is interested in when he wants to see something and laugh? It's YouTube. I mean, like, you know, I have a hard time getting him to watch movies. He just doesn't want to – we'll go – I'll try to drag him to the theater. But if it's in the house and it's an hour and a half, like, good luck.

22:06It's like, you know, it's constantly like me policing him. Like, no, no, no. Get back here. Get back. Finish this. You have to finish this part. I just think that they – there's so much stuff that's competing for their attention. When we were kids, it was movies. There was like 12 channels on the TV. You kind of, you know, you got what you got. And now everything is so customized. And YouTube is pretty amazing. I mean, every time my son or my daughter get a new interest, like, boom, there's a million things that they can watch of people who have that same interest or are explaining how to get into that thing.

22:41And I don't know. I find it kind of fascinating. Do you find the prospect of raising a boy or a girl like more? I have two girls, but does it feel more difficult to raise a boy or raise a girl? You know what? They haven't felt more difficult. They're just totally different. You know, they really are. My son is more like my wife and my daughter is more like me. My daughter's 11. My son is, he's 14. And it's been so much fun. And I'm sort of a sap, you know, already right now, I'm already counting down like, oh, I only got four more summers until he's in college. And so I'm always just trying to be a part of their life as much as I can.