Speaker 1: It was this discovery of me that those who are
Speaker 1: interested in you in this business, by and large are
Speaker 1: interested in taking advantage of the level that you are
Speaker 1: at when you don't need them, as opposed to offering
Speaker 1: you a new step up to the next level.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Off the Cuff, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
Speaker 2: One of the best parts of this podcast for me
Speaker 2: is getting to interview really creative people. I admire people
Speaker 2: who can create their own opportunities and carve out their
Speaker 2: own spaces, people who make genuinely new stuff, not the
Speaker 2: stuff they're told to make to climb the ladder of success.
Speaker 2: And it's especially nice when those people are rewarded for
Speaker 2: that creativity, when that works, when that creativity and ingenuity
Speaker 2: and sense.
Speaker 3: Of self pays off.
Speaker 2: Today's guest is Mark Duplas, whose career has modeled this
Speaker 2: creative arc in a way that's super impressive and frankly,
Speaker 2: I'm jealous. He's a filmmaker, actor, writer, musician, writer, director,
Speaker 2: star of The Puffy Chair, co writer and star of
Speaker 2: the Creep Horror series, Star of the League, Emmy winning
Speaker 2: producer of the incredible documentary Wild Wild Country, and Emmy
Speaker 2: nominated actor of the Morning Show.
Speaker 3: Welcome Mark to Plus.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, and you just made my mother so
Speaker 1: happy with that introduction. Send this to her and good boy,
Speaker 1: that's my baby.
Speaker 4: Boy.
Speaker 2: Well, I really do admire your career arc and we
Speaker 2: want to get into it. But to start a lot
Speaker 2: of guests that I've had on here, I've known a
Speaker 2: little bit or maybe even a lot.
Speaker 3: We don't know each other.
Speaker 2: We don't know each other, but I did consult on
Speaker 2: The Morning Show before you came on it.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I was brought in by Apple early.
Speaker 2: When the show was first being conceived and it was
Speaker 2: meant to be a comedy, and so I was brought
Speaker 2: out to La to join the writer's room and helping
Speaker 2: to like round out Reese's character because she was like
Speaker 2: a center right, you know, that's right like me, and
Speaker 2: Hollywood doesn't know how to write conservative and so I
Speaker 2: mostly told like scenario stories.
Speaker 3: They'd be like, what would happen in this scenario?
Speaker 2: And I had consulted for Aaron Sorkins the newsroom as well,
Speaker 2: so helping with verisimilitude in the media landscape was really fun.
Speaker 2: But of course then the Morning Show morphed into a
Speaker 2: drama mostly, but you were you were apprehensive about taking
Speaker 2: this role, were you not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for a number of reasons. I think the first
Speaker 1: was more of a pragmatic consideration of you know, I
Speaker 1: run my own company and I have to be available
Speaker 1: for them. And when you take a job like there's
Speaker 1: a big job like this, particularly with Apple, you know,
Speaker 1: it introduces a new overlord in my life, and so
Speaker 1: that when they say jump, I have to say how high,
Speaker 1: and particularly I have to say when. So I had
Speaker 1: sort of promised myself and a bunch of people, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, my days of doing long term acting
Speaker 1: TV gigs where I'm not the boss, I think those
Speaker 1: are numbered, you know. But what I had an accounted
Speaker 1: for is the size of my own ego because when
Speaker 1: when a big job, when Aiston calls and Witherspoon calls
Speaker 1: and Steve Carrell's riding shotgun, you know, I'm a human
Speaker 1: I'm a human being, and I'm like, I get to
Speaker 1: hang out with all my favorite stars that I've you know,
Speaker 1: all the men and women I've been crushing on, you know,
Speaker 1: for years. So I had to say yes. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think there were other considerations I had about the show,
Speaker 1: because you know, it's such really anathema to everything I
Speaker 1: believe in terms of the creative process and what I do.
Speaker 1: I'm like, keep it cheap, keep it small, and keep
Speaker 1: it on the air, you know. And this thing was
Speaker 1: just this bloated monson had to be so massively successful
Speaker 1: for it to work, and go figure it. It does work.
Speaker 1: And I'm so glad that I took the gig and
Speaker 1: didn't allow my preconceptions or fears to stop me, because
Speaker 1: there have been so many wonderful things that have happened.
Speaker 1: Not only you know, just the accolades, all that stuff
Speaker 1: has been great, But honestly, I've learned so much watching
Speaker 1: that machine operate together. Yeah, yeah, and can apply to
Speaker 1: my own life. And and it's just it's just a
Speaker 1: wonderful job. Everybody is so nice. And I know you're
Speaker 1: supposed to come on podcasts and say how nice everybody is,
Speaker 1: but I really really mean it, Yeah, and I mean
Speaker 1: it in a surprised way of you know, big international
Speaker 1: celebrities everywhere you turn. It should it should be honestly
Speaker 1: a shit show of personality disorders. It should be awful,
Speaker 1: you know, And and it's really friendly and lovely and
Speaker 1: basically it's the greatest day job anybody like make it
Speaker 1: ask for because I you know, it makes my face
Speaker 1: more popular on an international flaught, it provides seed capital
Speaker 1: for my own company. Right, It's just it's great.
Speaker 3: It's great, great all around.
Speaker 2: The relationship between producer and anchor is very special, sometimes
Speaker 2: very fraught. It's honestly very hard to capture in fiction
Speaker 2: or a scripted material because it's it's both so codependent, yes,
Speaker 2: and sometimes very unhealthy. But also if it works, it's
Speaker 2: the best relationship you have, like better than any personal
Speaker 2: or professional relationship, because this person knows you so well
Speaker 2: that it's not just a work relationship. It becomes, like
Speaker 2: I said, one of your most important relationships. How did
Speaker 2: you go about trying to capture this complicated relationship.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would love to say that I have
Speaker 1: some sort of formula and we followed it and worked.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of luck and Jen and
Speaker 1: I having to really really like each other. And I
Speaker 1: think that's the most important thing of this is that,
Speaker 1: you know, the scenes are full of us just being
Speaker 1: horrific to each other, mostly horrific to me. Let's fix it.
Speaker 1: But what's beneath all of that is how much Jen
Speaker 1: and I actually love each other. So that little formula
Speaker 1: is pretty simple, and I don't want to be reductive
Speaker 1: about it, but that's a big, big part of it.
Speaker 1: And then I think that I do have some experience
Speaker 1: with a type of relationship like this because of how
Speaker 1: long I have worked in lockstep with my brother as
Speaker 1: my best friend, my brother, my creative partner. The ugly sides, yes, Jay,
Speaker 1: the ugly sides of ourselves that we've shown each other,
Speaker 1: and then you keep returning back and you feel that
Speaker 1: despite what you showed, you are still loved provide. It's
Speaker 1: the kind of incredible safety that you need to survive
Speaker 1: and sort of a Machiavelian environment like yeah, independent film
Speaker 1: in my life or in this case, you know, live
Speaker 1: news television, you know. Yeah, So that that really resonated
Speaker 1: with me. When you've been horrific and somebody shows up
Speaker 1: and they're still there for you, Yeah, that's that. That
Speaker 1: to me is a secret ingredient in the recipe of
Speaker 1: you know, that that strange codependence that keeps on It
Speaker 1: takes a licking and keeps on ticking.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2: And I've I've had some terrible producers but I've mostly
Speaker 2: had some wonderful producers.
Speaker 3: Some of them are like my family, basically family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but those relationships can get so tricky because as
Speaker 2: an anchor or host, you don't want to feel undermined,
Speaker 2: and you can get very paranoid about what this person
Speaker 2: who controls your fate is really trying to do. I mean,
Speaker 2: it can really play mind games with you. And I
Speaker 2: think you guys do a really good job of, thank you,
Speaker 2: of capturing that.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's a fun one.
Speaker 2: So through the lens of the morning show, what has
Speaker 2: it made you think about the news?
Speaker 1: That was a great question, you know. The first the
Speaker 1: first thing that really occurred to me when I started
Speaker 1: playing this role and getting immersed in this world, which
Speaker 1: you know, of course is just a mere fact simile
Speaker 1: of what you guys do. Was just shocked at how
Speaker 1: high the stress levels must be because of the live
Speaker 1: element of it. You know, I really told myself, like,
Speaker 1: I'm a producer, I'm a producer of independent films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what it's like to play Kate, difficult personalities,
Speaker 1: to try and bring the whole three ring circus, you know,
Speaker 1: in clack Quadjet and all those kinds of things. And
Speaker 1: then immediately I was like, oh, but I have.
Speaker 2: Take two yeah, and those live audience of people watching
Speaker 2: in real time.
Speaker 1: You don't have take two yes, And that just really
Speaker 1: shocked me. Seem like an obvious thing, you know. So
Speaker 1: that was like the first thing that I sort of
Speaker 1: walked away with, you know. And then you know, the
Speaker 1: second thing that I really loved, And this is something
Speaker 1: I can identify with a lot, is that it's very
Speaker 1: very easy when you're in the middle of a flawed ecosystem, politics,
Speaker 1: the news, Hollywood, to convince yourself that you are the
Speaker 1: last bastion of integrity, because all you do is you
Speaker 1: see the flaws, and so the way that you operate
Speaker 1: is like, well, I'm going to be either the one
Speaker 1: that saves it or it's up to me in order
Speaker 1: to do this right. And so it's the easiest way.
Speaker 1: It's well, it just it feels very obvious, you know,
Speaker 1: And so you get on your high horse very very quickly, right,
Speaker 1: And I think that some blinders kind of show up,
Speaker 1: at least in my opinion, of like, you know, well,
Speaker 1: I'm doing the great work and it must be the
Speaker 1: right thing to do because everything next to me is
Speaker 1: so the wrong thing to do, and so you get
Speaker 1: blinded as to the own cracks in your own morality.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what's so fun about my character there.
Speaker 1: He is, he really is in some ways, you know,
Speaker 1: in a show of morally questionable people and behavior, a
Speaker 1: little bit of the moral center. But he's not clean, right, well,
Speaker 1: no one is, No one is, you know. So that's
Speaker 1: that's the part that's so fun for me to play.
Speaker 1: And like, yes, what is it like when awareness starts
Speaker 1: to creep in on you that, like you really do
Speaker 1: imagine yourself, you know, the Clinicewood riding in on a
Speaker 1: horse to save the broken town of News and you realize, yes, man.
Speaker 3: I'm part of the problem.
Speaker 1: I'm part of the problem.
Speaker 3: Am I the problem? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I love it. I love that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean that's so brilliant too, because maybe it's
Speaker 2: obvious to you, but I feel like inside the business,
Speaker 2: this is not obvious.
Speaker 3: And you're right about the blinders.
Speaker 2: And it takes maybe an election, or it takes maybe
Speaker 2: some kind of day six Macina event, or or just
Speaker 2: some you know, some introspection or ratings crashes, whatever it
Speaker 2: takes for you to say, oh maybe I am not
Speaker 2: as morally superior as I think I am. And maybe
Speaker 2: I'm doing this in a way that isn't actually great.
Speaker 1: I think that that that to me, you know, and
Speaker 1: this really is where my reflection takes hold, is that
Speaker 1: to me makes really compelling television, you know. And so
Speaker 1: I'm only going to be able to understand the news, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so far as the fact sim lady of
Speaker 1: a TV show allows me. But but it keeps coming back. Wow,
Speaker 1: what a fun character to play, What a fun world
Speaker 1: to play in, and changing and moving so quickly, just
Speaker 1: when you think you've got a handle on what might
Speaker 1: be working, all of a sudden, you know, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: Now we're moving into the streaming service and plus and
Speaker 1: this and everything, and then and then these two people
Speaker 1: that I trusted are fired now, and it's like, yes, were.
Speaker 2: The show I had is gone jettison because we're doing
Speaker 2: something else now.
Speaker 3: But I was doing fine? What happened?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's a bitch. That's the bitch of I
Speaker 2: have a.
Speaker 1: Lot of I have a lot of empathy. Yeah, yeah
Speaker 1: we could. I'll take it.
Speaker 2: Two Emmy nominations. We're going to get into your independent
Speaker 2: film career. But did you think you'd get here, nominated
Speaker 2: for Emmy's in a big role in a big budget
Speaker 2: streaming series with a list movie stars, Apple backing like,
Speaker 2: this is not where you envisioned being.
Speaker 1: No, it's not where I envisioned being You're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: But it's a little bit of a securitist journey. And
Speaker 1: I won't suck up too much time saying this, but
Speaker 1: I just want to be a little honest about it
Speaker 1: because I don't like false humility. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: came up in the independent sphere and it was definitely
Speaker 1: this sense of, Oh my god, I was making three
Speaker 1: dollars movies in the kitchen with my brother. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm just so grateful to be here, right. That's like
Speaker 1: the first phase, you know. But then I'm around for
Speaker 1: a little while, you know. Yeah, And if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: there was a part of me, you know, in my
Speaker 1: mid thirties doing shows like Togetherness for HBO. Yeah, where
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, bro, where's my fucking Emmy?
Speaker 3: I killed this.
Speaker 1: I killed this and it kind of snuck up on
Speaker 1: me and mister Ego got tapped again, you know. So
Speaker 1: there was that phase for me and I felt like,
Speaker 1: oh God, I guess they just don't see the value
Speaker 1: of me. Oh well, you know, so that happened for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, and then what happened is I
Speaker 1: was just like, you know what, this is stupid. Award
Speaker 1: shows are just ridiculous. It's ego bullshit. Just let it
Speaker 1: go and it doesn't matter at all. So by the
Speaker 1: time it did come around for the Morning show, I
Speaker 1: was a surprised and then be perfectly willing to throw
Speaker 1: out my philosophy that awards show were bullshit to embrace
Speaker 1: them as the greatest thing that ever happened, because you
Speaker 1: gotta be fluid, you gotta adapt, you got to adapt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of what happened to me there. So
Speaker 1: I came, I came full circle on it, and it
Speaker 1: was a surprise and I loved it.
Speaker 3: It was great. Right, well, let's go back. I always
Speaker 3: like to ask what kind of kid were you I was?
Speaker 1: I think people would be a little surprised, knowing me
Speaker 1: now how I was as a kid. I was very,
Speaker 1: very brash. It was extremely confident walking into any room
Speaker 1: and almost borderline like a bully, just southern male like
Speaker 1: temper driven kid, and there was no limitter on the behavior,
Speaker 1: you know. And and I hadn't learned yet that well,
Speaker 1: that kid might not win so much in the world.
Speaker 1: That's not kid's not going to win in every room.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I sort of realized, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to become an artists. I have no
Speaker 1: connections to this industry. If I am going to do this,
Speaker 1: I can't really walk into a room like wreck at Ralph.
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to learn how to read rooms.
Speaker 1: I'm going to need to learn how to shape shift
Speaker 1: a little bit and people please and do all these things,
Speaker 1: which is a dangerous, slippery slope, but it's probably something
Speaker 1: you can identify with as a woman coming up in
Speaker 1: a male dominated industry. Yes, you kind of you kind
Speaker 1: of feel like, if I'm going to make my way
Speaker 1: here as someone who's not connected, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: shape shift a little bit, you know. So I learned
Speaker 1: that and that that can be a little dangerous to
Speaker 1: the soul. So I wouldn't say that that was a,
Speaker 1: you know, a particularly clean way to do it. But
Speaker 1: I did those things, and so I think it helped me.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think you'd be if you went and
Speaker 1: saw a video footage, you'd be like, whoa Mark duplus
Speaker 1: was a little insensitive and braddy and had a real
Speaker 1: rock and temper.
Speaker 2: Like, well, I don't have any I didn't find any videos,
Speaker 2: but I did find.
Speaker 1: Oh look at that man, you yeah, that's senior high school.
Speaker 3: Mm hm, I found out what a hunk. I mean,
Speaker 3: you look good to me.
Speaker 1: All right, I'll take it this.
Speaker 3: Was you were on the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, baby, I'm holding up pictures of from Mark's yearbook
Speaker 2: for I'm a newsman.
Speaker 3: Tell I looked around. I mean you did. I looked
Speaker 3: through your entire yearbook.
Speaker 2: And you did a lot of stuff, but you weren't
Speaker 2: like front and center, and you.
Speaker 1: Look at my yearbook and you're not going to be
Speaker 1: like this guy is going to go out in the world.
Speaker 1: My high school is not a microcosm of the domination
Speaker 1: to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. By the time I
Speaker 1: was eighteen, I went to an all boys Catholic school
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, very conservative, very rigid with academics. Very
Speaker 1: good for me, like because I was really really creative
Speaker 1: and I and I had that to fight against and
Speaker 1: it was nice to have that little you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do my Latin five homework, I want
Speaker 1: to write this song. And Yeah, but the rigid of
Speaker 1: my and the discipline that I received from that school
Speaker 1: and taking that rigor and applying it to the artistic
Speaker 1: process is probably besides my parents loving me the way
Speaker 1: they did and supporting me the way they did, and
Speaker 1: my brother being such a good big brother, that's like
Speaker 1: probably in the top three things that helped make me
Speaker 1: who I am. Yeah, it was really helpful.
Speaker 2: I couldn't tell from year book, but were you? It
Speaker 2: didn't seem like correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't seem
Speaker 2: like you were in Chicago or a funny thing happened
Speaker 2: on the way to the forum.
Speaker 1: I wasn't.
Speaker 3: You didn't do drums.
Speaker 1: I didn't do any of that stuff. No, I was,
Speaker 1: you know, primarily a musician in the first phase of
Speaker 1: my life. I loved music. It was my first love.
Speaker 1: And while I did go to film school and study
Speaker 1: those things, when I went to I went to University
Speaker 1: of Texas in Austin, Yeah, and got an education in it,
Speaker 1: and I loved it and it was really good for
Speaker 1: me and my brother and I used to work a
Speaker 1: lot as editors, and I used to edit. I used
Speaker 1: to edit a church television show in Austin. From I
Speaker 1: took the night shift from like nine pm till seven
Speaker 1: am on a Monday and a Tuesday, And over the
Speaker 1: course of those twenty hours, I would make enough to
Speaker 1: pay my rent and then the rest of the time
Speaker 1: I would spend as a musician. So really until my
Speaker 1: mid twenties, you know, I was a touring singer songwriter.
Speaker 1: I was in indie rock bands, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, tell me talk about small hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was a I made a record when
Speaker 1: I was like twenty one years old. This pretty much
Speaker 1: sums it up. My friends called me the Indigo Boy.
Speaker 1: It was a singer city, it was a it was
Speaker 1: a it was a very earnest singer songwriter record, you know.
Speaker 1: And I loved Sean Colvin and the Indigo Girls, and
Speaker 1: you know, it's just that's that's what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Well, you could have been the Indigo Boys. Did your
Speaker 2: brother no part of this?
Speaker 1: He didn't want to. Yeah, he was done with that
Speaker 1: at this point. Yeah. This was like nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: you know, Lil a Fair tours were out there. This
Speaker 1: is what we were doing. Yeah, And but it was
Speaker 1: it was also it's part and Arsel with the way
Speaker 1: that I ended up building my film career, which was there.
Speaker 1: I've had an inherent impatience in me my whole life,
Speaker 1: which has been helpful to also dovetail with this sense
Speaker 1: of independency and just doing things my own way. Because yes,
Speaker 1: there was no one giving me a record deal at
Speaker 1: the time. So I was like, well, the technology is
Speaker 1: here now, Like, I can buy a tape machine record
Speaker 1: this record. I can press a thousand CDs. It'll cost
Speaker 1: me like two grand I will book my own tour.
Speaker 1: I like traded in my car and got an old
Speaker 1: conversion van and I just lived in my van for
Speaker 1: four months and traveled around the country and made my
Speaker 1: own version of being on tour. And that was critical
Speaker 1: for me, being like can I do this? I dropped
Speaker 1: out of college for a semester and I did it.
Speaker 1: And that taught me like, oh wow, if I just
Speaker 1: put my head down and keep banging on these doors,
Speaker 1: I will be able to get through, you know. And
Speaker 1: it was a wild time. I talked to my daughters
Speaker 1: about it all the time. I daught I was sixteen
Speaker 1: and twelve, and you know, they're having their figuring out
Speaker 1: their relationships to technology. Right now. And you know, I
Speaker 1: had no smartphone out there. I can only find these
Speaker 1: venues by a Rand McNally map that I had.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I.
Speaker 1: Would, you know, sleep in my van and I would
Speaker 1: sometimes go three to four days without speaking to anyone.
Speaker 1: And I've had all of this reflective time with myself
Speaker 1: because I didn't have this device that I could just
Speaker 1: pick up and distract myself. I just had to be
Speaker 1: with myself and I think it really helped develop me
Speaker 1: as a person.
Speaker 2: But how do you get the courage to just go
Speaker 2: out and say, I'm just going to go do it.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go do it. I'm going to go
Speaker 2: make it myself.
Speaker 1: Part of it is that brash, cocky kid that I
Speaker 1: am in my DNA, but a huge part of it
Speaker 1: is the way that I was raised, which you know,
Speaker 1: it's not perfect because it has its downfall, but I
Speaker 1: was given very strong message for my parents, You're incredible,
Speaker 1: you can do any thing. I love you. And then
Speaker 1: also the wonderful privileges I had of growing up middle
Speaker 1: class and having no high school or college debt, so
Speaker 1: I wasn't in a hole already. So subconsciously I had
Speaker 1: this feeling, well, I can just go, I can just
Speaker 1: spring forward, you know. So that was very helpful. But
Speaker 1: that confidence boost I got from my parents, you know,
Speaker 1: I heard that voice in the back of my head. Now,
Speaker 1: the problem with that approach is when you're twenty four
Speaker 1: and you're not killing it, you get real down on
Speaker 1: yourself because you're, like my.
Speaker 3: Mom told me, I was also, mom, what the fuck
Speaker 3: making it?
Speaker 1: And you feel like you're disappointing everyone you love, and
Speaker 1: you feel like you are somehow wasting this like beautiful
Speaker 1: life you've been given. So that was really really hard
Speaker 1: for me, and I had to get a handle on that. Still,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't trade it, it was I'd rather have the
Speaker 1: confidence with that with that downside. Yeah, So yeah, that's
Speaker 1: how I came out blasting and I try to do
Speaker 1: as much of that. It's gonna sound like I'm getting
Speaker 1: my high horse. I don't want to sound like this,
Speaker 1: but like now that I am in a position of like,
Speaker 1: so I have a little bit of influence and I
Speaker 1: have a little bit at your wealth, Like that's my
Speaker 1: big like give back thing. It's like to try and
Speaker 1: when I see people who don't have either the financial
Speaker 1: stability to have the confidence, I had and or the
Speaker 1: person in their life that was like, I see you,
Speaker 1: I believe deeply in you. You've got this. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's how like my survivor's skill plays out. It's like
Speaker 1: trying to pay that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2: So after the success of the Puffy Chair, Yeah, did
Speaker 2: doors just open wide for you or did you still
Speaker 2: have to like prove yourself to get where you wanted
Speaker 2: to get with the next thing you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a yes and no to that, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's all relative, right, you know. For me having
Speaker 1: done everything myself up until that point, no one had
Speaker 1: ever helped me or offered to do anything. There was
Speaker 1: I never had a mentor, I never had any I
Speaker 1: had j side by side working together, so I had
Speaker 1: a compatriot, you know. And then I had my girlfriend
Speaker 1: then who's now my wife, Katie, who then kind of
Speaker 1: joined us, and so we were kind of like arm
Speaker 1: and arm. But after the Puffy Chair hit Sundance, I'm
Speaker 1: twenty seven, this is the first time I have the
Speaker 1: experience of, well, now I have an agent who's going
Speaker 1: to go out and represent for me. And the movie
Speaker 1: did hit well at Sundance, and so I have people
Speaker 1: coming to me, which feels good, but of course it's
Speaker 1: not what it all seems. You know. Most of the
Speaker 1: attention I received was like, well, we heard you made
Speaker 1: this movie for fifteen thousand dollars and it sold well
Speaker 1: at Sundance, So sure I would love to give you
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars to make a movie and take half
Speaker 1: of you of your equity and take all the credit
Speaker 1: for it, you know, because are the offers I was getting.
Speaker 1: And I was like, no, I don't really need you.
Speaker 1: And it was this discovery of me that those who
Speaker 1: are interested in you in this business, and maybe it's
Speaker 1: the same as others I don't know, by and large,
Speaker 1: are interested in taking advantage of the level that you
Speaker 1: are at when you don't need them, as opposed to
Speaker 1: offering you a new step up to the next level
Speaker 1: when you need it, when you need it, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: It was like, huh, so I'm getting attention. This is cool,
Speaker 1: but I'm kind of still in the same boat. But
Speaker 1: you know, there were some really cool things that happened,
Speaker 1: Like we met with the folks at Universal and they
Speaker 1: were really interested in us, and they gave us one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars to write a script for them, which
Speaker 1: was more money than I ever thought I would ever
Speaker 1: make in my life. I was like, I can't believe
Speaker 1: this is happening. So immediately what we did is Jay
Speaker 1: and I took that money. We each took twenty five
Speaker 1: of it. We took the next fifty and went and
Speaker 1: made another independent film with it. Yeah, we get to
Speaker 1: blow It's like an episode of Dumb and Dumber here,
Speaker 1: you know, just like that's what you're doing. You get
Speaker 1: money blow out on more independent films. But it was
Speaker 1: it was a really interesting thing that happened, which is
Speaker 1: to your point of did the doors open? I thought
Speaker 1: the doors would open up top. What happened is the
Speaker 1: doors opened below in a way. And I'll explain this,
Speaker 1: which was we were the first people in our group
Speaker 1: of friends to make money, of the group of artists.
Speaker 1: So we signed that universal deal. I'll sign a deal
Speaker 1: with Fox Searchlight to write this movie Cyrus that we
Speaker 1: eventually made. We made this movie bag Head for like
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars. It sold it Sundance for like a
Speaker 1: half a million dollars. So we started the ownership of
Speaker 1: our business, and so all of our friends were coming
Speaker 1: to us like, hey, you know you guys have connections
Speaker 1: with Sundance, could you help us get our movie into Sundance?
Speaker 1: Or Hey, you know you guys are really good editors,
Speaker 1: will you help us edit our movie and make it
Speaker 1: a little better? Or hey, I heard your friends with
Speaker 1: Jonah Hill, could you help me in our movie? Or
Speaker 1: we lost ten thousand dollars of our finance saying you
Speaker 1: guys have money. So we were doing all these things
Speaker 1: as friends, and then a friend of mine, Michael Costigan,
Speaker 1: he's a producer. He looked at me and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what producing is, right, Like everything you're
Speaker 1: doing is reducing And I was like, oh, I never
Speaker 1: thought of that. I always thought I was going to
Speaker 1: be a writer, director, just artists, you know. And that's
Speaker 1: when sort of the producing element of my career was
Speaker 1: born and I realized that that probably is more of
Speaker 1: my superpower actually than being a director. Is that team
Speaker 1: building and the putting together and the supporting of artists
Speaker 1: is something that I never envisioned for myself. And to
Speaker 1: put a finer point on that, I think it's important
Speaker 1: to talk about this. I was raised in the generation
Speaker 1: where a lot of the media in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: the independent film books was kind of a fuck commerce
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and if you try to if you
Speaker 1: try to combine art and commerce, you're a sellout, right,
Speaker 1: And I kind of bought into that. But the thing
Speaker 1: is like.
Speaker 3: Sort of the reality bites theme.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly exactly, but but the truth is, like I've
Speaker 1: always loved numbers, and I grew up in a very
Speaker 1: like conservative environment. All my friends with the business school
Speaker 1: all this, and I love that stuff, you know, and
Speaker 1: I have my little stocks and I want and I
Speaker 1: always felt like a little ashamed, like I need to
Speaker 1: like hide that from people, because like I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: be an artist, I'm the indigo boy, right, and these
Speaker 1: things don't these things don't mix, right, you know. But
Speaker 1: once I learned to embrace the ven diagram overlap of
Speaker 1: art and commerce and know that, like, I love the
Speaker 1: business game of this. I love making a movie fifty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and taking it back and selling it and
Speaker 1: getting profit margins and cutting people into the points and
Speaker 1: grinding the deals, you know. And people meet me and
Speaker 1: they're just like, wait, you're business man, what is this?
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna tell me about your yeah,
Speaker 1: and I guess I'm both is really the case? You know?
Speaker 1: Once I learned to love that embrace that I think
Speaker 1: that's been a key to the sustainability of my career
Speaker 1: is understanding the business.
Speaker 2: Next, I talk to Mark Duplas about anxiety and turning
Speaker 2: the bad stuff into.
Speaker 3: The good stuff. I want to talk to you about anxiety.
Speaker 3: It's why I do it.
Speaker 2: I was so looking forward to this interview because you've
Speaker 2: been very honest about mental health struggles with depression and anxiety,
Speaker 2: and I talk a lot about mine as well. I
Speaker 2: suffer from severe anxiety disorder, and it's debilitating, it's isolating,
Speaker 2: it's depressing, it's exhausting.
Speaker 1: Most of the exhausting is key.
Speaker 3: Exhausting is what it's mostly. And it's a liar.
Speaker 2: It lies to me, lies to me about whether I'm safe,
Speaker 2: whether I'm happy, whether my loved ones are safe.
Speaker 3: It's a liar.
Speaker 2: And I'm writing a book about it right now because
Speaker 2: I want to graphically explain.
Speaker 3: What it means.
Speaker 2: Because people hear anxcieited, they think, well, everybody's worried about something.
Speaker 1: I get nervous. I get worried.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I get nervous when I fly.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, it's a different thing, and I feel for
Speaker 2: you and that is awful. I'm sorry, but that's a
Speaker 2: very different thing. And so I feel like if you
Speaker 2: don't talk graphically about it, people don't really get it.
Speaker 2: So I'm wondering if you can just talk a little
Speaker 2: bit about how long you've battled your mental health and
Speaker 2: what it is in particular that you deal with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course I would love to, and thank you
Speaker 1: for inviting me to talk about this. So, you know,
Speaker 1: as with most people who grew up in the seventies
Speaker 1: in the South, identifying this was extremely difficult. You know,
Speaker 1: the generation previous who was raising us was not well
Speaker 1: versed in what this was. There was just a lot
Speaker 1: of a tough aout mentality. I get it, No no
Speaker 1: blame or you know, it just wasn't in the lexicon.
Speaker 1: So the first things that I can identify looking back
Speaker 1: now are are I remember waking up, you know, five six,
Speaker 1: seven years old and feeling this extreme pit of emptiness
Speaker 1: in my stomach and not feeling like I can't go
Speaker 1: to school, I can't get out of bed, and I
Speaker 1: remember theme it was, that's so weird. Did I eat
Speaker 1: dinner last night because I'm so hungry, my stomach so empty,
Speaker 1: and I have no energy. And that's how I would
Speaker 1: explain it. It's just like and I would I would
Speaker 1: like actually eat these like huge dinners sometimes in the
Speaker 1: hopes that it would give me enough fuel for the morning.
Speaker 1: But I had no idea that that was just depression,
Speaker 1: you know, exhibiting itself in a way that I just
Speaker 1: couldn't identify, you know. But here's the good and the
Speaker 1: bad news is that I have a really strong constitution.
Speaker 1: I have a really big drive, so I can actually
Speaker 1: put my head down and muscle through quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And that's what I did, is these things came to me,
Speaker 1: and I just was quiet about it, and I swallowed it,
Speaker 1: and I put my head down and I just kept
Speaker 1: banging on doors and banging on doors. And the next
Speaker 1: thing I can really remember is from the ages like
Speaker 1: sixteen to eighteen, you know, feeling a little lost, feeling
Speaker 1: like I don't really belong in this school that I'm in,
Speaker 1: feeling some nerves about where I'm headed for college and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And that's when I first started having panic attacks. It
Speaker 1: was manifesting as anxiety, you know, the sweats I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm going to throw out. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: going to pass out. I feel like I'm going to die,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's when I spent a good two
Speaker 1: years convinced that, like, yeah, I probably have cancer or
Speaker 1: something like that, right, but I wouldn't talk about it
Speaker 1: with anyone. And I really wish I could go back
Speaker 1: and say, you can open up and talk about this.
Speaker 1: And that's one thing I'm very excited about for this
Speaker 1: new generation is they are talking. Yeah, so much by
Speaker 1: the way to talk about it right. And then the
Speaker 1: next way it manifested in me because again I muscled
Speaker 1: through it, and my anxiety and my depression was like,
Speaker 1: we're going to get you to pay attention. I tried
Speaker 1: to make your stomach hurt when you were five and
Speaker 1: didn't listen. Then I gave you panic attacks at sixteen,
Speaker 1: and you somehow muscle through this. So now you're twenty three,
Speaker 1: you identify as a musician. That's all you can do.
Speaker 1: And I developed crippling carbal tunnel and repetitive stress injuries
Speaker 1: in my hands and all through my neck and shoulders
Speaker 1: from the tension and everything because I was like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna put it in your body now now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: try and slow you down. Yeah, and still I would
Speaker 1: not listen. I didn't know that I should be going
Speaker 1: to therapy. I didn't know about medication. I still thought
Speaker 1: that like Prozac was this evil drug that was find control,
Speaker 1: do that and then you're weak if you do that.
Speaker 1: All those things, you know. So what I learned, so
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, well I can't play acoustic guitar anymore.
Speaker 1: Rather than like sit and think maybe there's something wrong
Speaker 1: here that I need to examine inside, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'll just play this like cassio instrument that doesn't hurt
Speaker 1: my hands and go to another one hundred and eighty
Speaker 1: days a year, which I did, and I'll go make
Speaker 1: an independ feature film with my brother. And I did.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until I reached some sort of organic
Speaker 1: zenith to this drive, which was making the Puffy Chair,
Speaker 1: getting it in Sun Dance, finally making enough money that
Speaker 1: I can pay rent, and a little bit of calm
Speaker 1: came with that. And as soon as you know, it's
Speaker 1: almost like when you have like a job, you're like
Speaker 1: at the you know, you're at the Republican National Convention.
Speaker 1: You can't let yourself get sick because you got to work,
Speaker 1: and then as soon as it's over, Yeah, right, sure,
Speaker 1: that's what happened to me. And I had a nervous
Speaker 1: breakdown at twenty eight, consistent panic attacks, couldn't get myself
Speaker 1: off the floor, just got engaged in my wife Katie.
Speaker 1: So I'm super embarrassed and ashamed and like, this is
Speaker 1: what she signed up for. She's gonna be like and
Speaker 1: I'm really that feeling of like I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm ever going to be the same again. Yea, And
Speaker 1: so I was. I was. I guess at that point
Speaker 1: around enough artists and I'm in California on the West Coast,
Speaker 1: there's enough people and friends around me who are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is anxiety and depression, and like you need to
Speaker 1: go see a specialist. So let's to see a psychologist.
Speaker 1: Want to see a psychiatrist. I was too afraid to
Speaker 1: take the SSRIs, like you know, the prozacs and the
Speaker 1: selecxis and the zolofts. You know, I'd had enough friends
Speaker 1: who take like Xanax and things like that. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's temporary. So so I started there and I was like,
Speaker 1: this helps with the panic attacks doesn't help with the depression.
Speaker 1: Not sustainable. So that's when I had to really make
Speaker 1: the best decision I ever made in my life, which
Speaker 1: was to go on SSRIs they and really was tough
Speaker 1: because I was like, Okay, started Zoloft first. You know,
Speaker 1: I had some of those tough sexual side effects that
Speaker 1: you get on those. Sometimes I got to weight gain,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't know if this is
Speaker 1: right for me. You know, I'm an actor too, I
Speaker 1: have ego all these things. Yeah, I was able to
Speaker 1: move over into selects experience less of those side effects,
Speaker 1: and then and then the the sky opened up just
Speaker 1: enough for me that I could see how, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be able to get myself out of this.
Speaker 1: It's going to take a lot of work. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be a little bit of that long, slow road. And
Speaker 1: this is where I started doing my deep dive into
Speaker 1: the systems that I have built for myself now, which
Speaker 1: is just like minimum eight and a half hours of sleep,
Speaker 1: non negotiable, non negotiable, Minimum twenty minutes of hardcore cardio
Speaker 1: exercise per day, non negotiable. Got to have this, you know,
Speaker 1: always eating good foods and healthy foods, all these little
Speaker 1: things to keep myself in place, you know. And I
Speaker 1: got myself on my feet, and I lied to myself
Speaker 1: and I convinced myself, as soon as I get myself
Speaker 1: on feet, I'll get off the medication. I can wean
Speaker 1: myself off and it's gonna be fine. And I did,
Speaker 1: and I like, wean myself from twenty milligrams then to
Speaker 1: ten milligrams, and I was like, I think I'm doing
Speaker 1: Oh god, no, no, no, I'm not ready, you know. So
Speaker 1: I've been on SSRIs for eighteen years. Yeah, and no,
Speaker 1: it's not ideal, but it's it's what I need and
Speaker 1: it's not a fix all of anything. It's as you know,
Speaker 1: it's Yeah, sometimes it's seasonal. Sometimes it comes. I talk
Speaker 1: about the delay where there will be times when I'm
Speaker 1: like really stressed out, like I can see it, but
Speaker 1: the anxiety isn't there. It's the normal everyday stress and
Speaker 1: strain and I'm like, I should be tanking right now.
Speaker 1: I can't believe them on my feet. And then three
Speaker 1: months later, three months later, it hits me old the
Speaker 1: Christmas holidays when I'm totally relaxed, and then whams me
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what the fuck man, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: relaxed now.
Speaker 2: It's a wild part of it. I remember being very
Speaker 2: stressed over this summer. I was juggling four different jobs
Speaker 2: and I had a vacation coming up.
Speaker 3: But I was like, oh, I'm so excited for this vacation.
Speaker 3: And I'd add a couple.
Speaker 2: Of traumatic safety security incidents before then, but I felt okay.
Speaker 2: I moved through those. Normally, I would think those would
Speaker 2: spiral me.
Speaker 3: I didn't. It caught up to me on my vacation.
Speaker 2: Of course, when I'm like really just trying to take
Speaker 2: a break from everything, suddenly this is where my anxiety
Speaker 2: decided to pop up and say, no, no, no, those things
Speaker 2: that happened did affect you, and I'm just here to
Speaker 2: remind you. But what you said a little bit ago
Speaker 2: when you said you'd have this nervous breakdown and you
Speaker 2: didn't know if you were gonna be yourself again, and
Speaker 2: I had those same feelings. My nervous breakdown happened at
Speaker 2: forty and I thought, I'm not going to be myself again,
Speaker 2: and guess what I am not.
Speaker 3: I am not myself again. And some of that is
Speaker 3: for the better, yes, but some of that is, like, God,
Speaker 3: I used to not care about this stuff.
Speaker 2: I used to not have to do all this stuff
Speaker 2: just to get myself going and feeling okay.
Speaker 1: How fucking exhausting is it that you feel like you
Speaker 1: need four systems just to hit baseline?
Speaker 3: Well, yes, I hate thinking so much.
Speaker 2: Attention to what my mind is doing so it doesn't
Speaker 2: do the unhealthy things is exhausting too. And then when
Speaker 2: I'm not doing well, when I'm catastrophizing and thinking about
Speaker 2: danger around every corner twenty four hours a day, that
Speaker 2: is exhausting, and I feel it physically.
Speaker 3: And listen, my brain is not as sharp as it
Speaker 3: was before this. It just is not.
Speaker 2: I can now, like if I'm writing or reading something
Speaker 2: and my son or my husband says something, I used
Speaker 2: to be able to do eight things at once. Now
Speaker 2: that will completely stop me and my train of thought,
Speaker 2: and I have to separate these things. I have to
Speaker 2: ask my family, like, for total, can I just have
Speaker 2: ten minutes where you're not interrupting my train of thought
Speaker 2: for this thing that I'm doing that never used to
Speaker 2: be me So I'm not the same. And I think
Speaker 2: maybe wrapping your mind around that is one of the
Speaker 2: hardest things to do.
Speaker 1: It is hard, but you know, I think that like
Speaker 1: if you look at it and pull out thirty thousand
Speaker 1: and feet, it's not dissimilar to the aging process, which
Speaker 1: this was a couple of ways to look at aging,
Speaker 1: which is just like you can look at as a
Speaker 1: constant series of diminishing loss where it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: now my lower back is doing something, so I can't
Speaker 1: do running like I used to do, so I have
Speaker 1: to do the elliptical. Gosh, oh oh, now I have
Speaker 1: tennis elbows, so I can't do the lip. You know,
Speaker 1: you can look at it like that, you weally and
Speaker 1: and I don't blame you if you do, you know.
Speaker 1: Or you can look at it as just like, well,
Speaker 1: it's just a change, and it's just a little bit different.
Speaker 1: And you know, I I I'm trying on a little
Speaker 1: bit of radical optimism these days, and I'm actually kind
Speaker 1: of enjoying it to the to the extent of let's
Speaker 1: take your example of you know, I can't multitask the
Speaker 1: way I used to. You know, well, the way that
Speaker 1: I would approach that is I would say, okay, that
Speaker 1: multitasking probably led to efficiency, and it probably led to success.
Speaker 1: Did it definitely lead to happiness? Maybe not? No, And
Speaker 1: is it possible that se in this phase your life,
Speaker 1: you're financially sustainable, you got a nice family, all your
Speaker 1: good systems are in place. Yeah, but that's slow down
Speaker 1: and that unilateral focus might actually lead to some more contemplative,
Speaker 1: deep thought and ways of doing things. That might You know,
Speaker 1: when you're cooking in the kitchen and it's just the
Speaker 1: music and you and the vegetables and meditative you.
Speaker 3: Know, I love I just did that last night. I
Speaker 3: put in a little divorgac I my cooking. I tell
Speaker 3: the boys to go in the other room. It is
Speaker 3: the best.
Speaker 1: By the way, you and I are gonna have to
Speaker 1: have a classical music dorkout session outside of this podcast, because.
Speaker 3: Okay, great, no one wants to listen to this.
Speaker 1: Well we're gonna, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll do that.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, that's how I look at the things.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's a rationalization or maybe it's a self
Speaker 1: fulfilling prophecy. I don't care. But if I lean into that,
Speaker 1: it helps me to reframe it in a way that
Speaker 1: can be healthy, you know, the way I take this.
Speaker 2: Like that because you know what, and I I you're
Speaker 2: just reminding me of this. I've been reading a lot
Speaker 2: about this, and you know what, Multitasking is awful for you.
Speaker 2: It is terrible for you, even when you're healthy.
Speaker 3: It is not good. So, actually, you're right.
Speaker 2: Some of these things I wanted to hold on to
Speaker 2: that I thought were very much part of my identity
Speaker 2: and my ambition and my success, we're probably not great things, and.
Speaker 3: I just need to view them that way.
Speaker 2: This is why marketing plus, this is why I love
Speaker 2: talking about mental health because you just told me something
Speaker 2: I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And you know, here's the dirty truth about multitasking too,
Speaker 1: which is like you're right about what you just identified.
Speaker 1: You know. And I think a lot back to ages
Speaker 1: zero to twenty eight, before my nervous breakdown, before I
Speaker 1: became self aware, you know, and I think to myself, like, God,
Speaker 1: did you have to drive yourself so hard? Did you
Speaker 1: have to do all those things to yourself? And here's
Speaker 1: the thing, Like, I have a hard time going into
Speaker 1: deep regret about that, because the truth is that drive
Speaker 1: that you had, yeah, it actually was cumulative and it
Speaker 1: did help builds to this moment where you're at right now.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: So it's not all empirically bad. I know, maybe there's
Speaker 1: a balance the way we could have done it. That's
Speaker 1: the rub, you know. So what I want to say
Speaker 1: to anyone who's listening to this and you know, is thinking,
Speaker 1: either you know what, I'm twenty two, fuck you guys.
Speaker 1: You have the luxury and your successful place right now
Speaker 1: of saying, don't bang your head against the wall. But like,
Speaker 1: sometimes the balanced life at seventeen doesn't actually lead to success.
Speaker 1: So I'm here to say it's it's not the worst
Speaker 1: thing in the world if you want to go overdrive
Speaker 1: for a little bit and have an awareness to it
Speaker 1: and then put your systems in place later. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: not the worst thing in the world if you are
Speaker 1: smarter than us and you want to get yourself balanced
Speaker 1: now and realize that, well, the success that our drive
Speaker 1: brought us didn't necessarily bring happiness. And there's new ways
Speaker 1: to look at things. You know, there's no one way
Speaker 1: that's definitively right or wrong. The only thing I'm discovering
Speaker 1: for myself is just you know, trying to find the
Speaker 1: right framing devices and appreciate the good things that have
Speaker 1: come with these crazy things I've had to deal with.
Speaker 1: You know, that has really been the only thing that
Speaker 1: I find to be empirically helpful.
Speaker 2: Yes, and me too, And even just the way we're
Speaker 2: talking about sort of reframing these things and thinking about
Speaker 2: when you're coming up, because I too would advise someone
Speaker 2: coming up in my business or any other competitive business,
Speaker 2: work your ass off in your twenties, like that's when
Speaker 2: that's when you can do it, before you've got a.
Speaker 3: Family and when you're hungry and all of that.
Speaker 1: Maybe be a little more aware than you and I were,
Speaker 1: but still work hard, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, But I would tell myself as I was
Speaker 2: pushing and pushing to the next thing and the next thing,
Speaker 2: I'll take a break eventually, or I'll check in with
Speaker 2: my mental health eventually. And especially as I got into
Speaker 2: more intense journalism where I was covering wars and awful things,
Speaker 2: seeing awful things, i'd compartmentalized do what you did, keep
Speaker 2: my head down. I can push through I can push
Speaker 2: through this anxiety. It can push through depression. I can
Speaker 2: push through the awfulness and I'll check in later. But
Speaker 2: I wouldn't and now what I do, because I still
Speaker 2: have to do that. It's still my job to do that.
Speaker 2: I do check in later, I do correct for what
Speaker 2: I've just put myself through.
Speaker 3: But I didn't do that growing up because who knew.
Speaker 3: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know I
Speaker 3: was anxious until forty something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at my you know, my
Speaker 1: daughter's journey right now, sixteen. It's her story to tell,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to get into the specifics of it,
Speaker 1: but she, you know, very early on cluede into you know,
Speaker 1: the mental health journey and what that would mean for her,
Speaker 1: and like how she's functioning now at sixteen is incredible.
Speaker 1: She's in Maine right now with my wife. They're making
Speaker 1: an independent film together, and like, I'm just watching the
Speaker 1: way she processes it and what she does with her
Speaker 1: days off and like knows how to give herself rest
Speaker 1: and amazing and puts her boundaries up with us, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm like, whoa, that's so so downstream, and
Speaker 1: I'm really I'm really as much as they have it
Speaker 1: really difficult, particularly you know, visa via the technology element. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm seeing really good signs of what they're doing well.
Speaker 2: And that's something too My therapist was like, let me
Speaker 2: ask you a question. When you're anxious, do you hide
Speaker 2: that from your son? My son's young, and so I
Speaker 2: would say, of course, and she'd say, well, don't do
Speaker 2: that like in age appropriate ways, trinity ways.
Speaker 3: Yes, for sure, because.
Speaker 2: If you model to your son that you are perfect,
Speaker 2: you have all the answers, you have never had a challenge,
Speaker 2: he's not going to know how to be imperfect. And
Speaker 2: you're not raising a perfect son, you know, You're raising
Speaker 2: someone who is going to be imperfect and show him
Speaker 2: what it's like to ask for help, to not have
Speaker 2: it all figured out, to take care of your mental health.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that sticks with me too, because if there's
Speaker 2: one silver lining to all of this, it's that maybe
Speaker 2: the next generation will do it better.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I have a little story to share of when I
Speaker 1: didn't actually do that very well, you know, And a
Speaker 1: part of it was some gender preconceptions I had growing
Speaker 1: up in the South, which was like, I have two daughters,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to project oak, Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm here,
Speaker 1: you got this, you know, and when they had questions,
Speaker 1: I wanted to be able to be there to offer
Speaker 1: them insightful answers that felt like they were coming out
Speaker 1: of Nicholas Spark's novel and and and you know what,
Speaker 1: that was helpful to them and good for them. And
Speaker 1: there were also times when my wife, Katie, who processes
Speaker 1: things in extremely healthy and ways, where the emotions come
Speaker 1: to her big, they explode, she moves on from them.
Speaker 1: It's great, you know. And and there was a time
Speaker 1: where she was really struggling with her career as a filmmaker,
Speaker 1: as an actor, you know, and our daughters would walk
Speaker 1: in on her a lot, you know, crying in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and sobbing, and and and and worrying about is
Speaker 1: this ever going to be okay? And I don't know
Speaker 1: the existential was And I remember thinking to myself, like,
Speaker 1: where's the oak, Like give these kids the strength, Like
Speaker 1: we need to let them know that it's okay in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: Of course I didn't say anything, because parents have to
Speaker 1: parent their own ways, you know. And I was talking
Speaker 1: to my twelve year old the other day and she
Speaker 1: told me, unprompt out out of anything, she's like one
Speaker 1: of the best lessons she got from her parents was
Speaker 1: watching her mother in the kitchen crying after she didn't
Speaker 1: get those auditions because it allowed her a for the
Speaker 1: first time, to not be the comforted, but to comfort
Speaker 1: someone that she that she assumed was in a position
Speaker 1: of house and it gave her confidence that she might
Speaker 1: know something that maybe she doesn't and offer her a
Speaker 1: little bit of advice. And then subsequently, in the years
Speaker 1: to come, she watched her get hit, fall on the ground,
Speaker 1: pick herself back up, go on the audition, get hit,
Speaker 1: going there, and she never gave up. So all that
Speaker 1: Nicholas Sparks bullshit modeling I was doing was not the thing.
Speaker 1: It was just my wife being real with them and
Speaker 1: them seeing her do it. That was the thing.
Speaker 3: Great to hear.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you shared that, because, yeah, I try
Speaker 2: to envision as my son gets a little.
Speaker 3: Older how that will look. And that's really great. That's great.
Speaker 1: The vulnerability went in doubt, just go that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, let's lighten up with a lightning round.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Many of our guests are graduates of a vaunted Hollywood institution,
Speaker 2: the School of Law and Order. Uh, you did not
Speaker 2: matriculate through the School of Law and Order?
Speaker 3: How is that possible? How did it? Miss?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: So I I came up in this very interesting way,
Speaker 1: which was through the independent film route, you know. And
Speaker 1: then I made a lateral move straight over into the
Speaker 1: directing chair and into writing studio movies. And then by
Speaker 1: the time I got my first like acting gig, I
Speaker 1: weirdly had like leapfrogged the Law and Order guest star
Speaker 1: because I was like, okay, the leads and independent films,
Speaker 1: so then they, yeah, they would go to it.
Speaker 3: You were too too big for it when you start
Speaker 3: missed it.
Speaker 1: That being said. That being said, really there's some really
Speaker 1: fun legal conspiracy shit coming up in season four of
Speaker 1: The Morning Show. Oh okay, good And and every now
Speaker 1: and then Reesa and I will look at each other
Speaker 1: and joke and be like, this is kind of like
Speaker 1: our Law and Order.
Speaker 2: This is the perfect h You and I both did
Speaker 2: Celebrity Jeopardy. How did that go for you?
Speaker 1: Dude? It was the dream of a lifetime. I mean,
Speaker 1: being on the stage was incredible. I was very nervous,
Speaker 1: tons of ego wrapped up in it, like really really
Speaker 1: wanted to win, you know. And I did not win,
Speaker 1: and and and came home and was morbidly depressed for
Speaker 1: two hours until I realized, you idiot, it's a game,
Speaker 1: it's a game show, you know. But the most fun
Speaker 1: was and I'll have to share this with you later.
Speaker 1: My friend Ike Barnholts had won it the year before, right,
Speaker 1: and so I called him. I was like, dude, what
Speaker 1: are the tips he did? And he sent me like
Speaker 1: a three minute video with instructions on how to properly
Speaker 1: bring in Yes, and he gave me all the buzzer
Speaker 1: stuff and it's so he took he took a pen back,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's like, when you buzzn't it's not
Speaker 1: like this, not like once. He's like, He's like, it's
Speaker 1: like you're playing Nintendo's because you lost out, you know.
Speaker 2: Yes, so yeah, and who did you?
Speaker 3: Who were your competitors?
Speaker 1: I played with my friend Uktars from the show Ghosts,
Speaker 1: and then Emily Hampshire who is the Levy the Levy Show. Yes,
Speaker 1: and man, we had so much fun and it was
Speaker 1: it was it was great.
Speaker 3: Uh did you was yours? Did you get to do
Speaker 3: it with Alex?
Speaker 1: No? No, mine was was post Alex was with Ken? Okay,
Speaker 1: how did yours go?
Speaker 3: It went fine?
Speaker 2: I got to do it with Alex. It was one
Speaker 2: of the last years and beautiful.
Speaker 3: That was lovely.
Speaker 2: And my competitors were Chuck Todd from MSNBC, who's a friend,
Speaker 2: and Jonathan Franzen, novelist very smart.
Speaker 1: I really love his books.
Speaker 3: Yeah, two very smart guys. It was a joy to
Speaker 3: beat them both.
Speaker 2: But but yes, but but I can I tell you
Speaker 2: I don't get nervous for TV at all, not even
Speaker 2: a little. It doesn't even register like the camera's on.
Speaker 2: I don't There's no difference to me. When I got
Speaker 2: to Jeopardy, man, Yeah, the nerves came out of every
Speaker 2: pore of my body. And you just I just didn't
Speaker 2: want to be embarrassed. I did not care if I
Speaker 2: want to hundred percent, I just don't want to be humiliated.
Speaker 2: Where this is going to live forever somewhere.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of game shows. I'm on the circuit.
Speaker 1: I did a celebrity Wheel of Fortune.
Speaker 3: I get on the circuit. I love game shows.
Speaker 1: It's so fun and you win so much money. It's
Speaker 1: the best robin hooding ever. I want one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars on Wheel of Fortune for Smallscure Charity. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the greatest thing, Like I love it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, I did love winning for my charity No
Speaker 2: Kid Hungry, which was great, But I want to get
Speaker 2: on the game show circuit.
Speaker 3: It seems really okay, I got it, I got you,
Speaker 3: Set me up, Set me up. Okay, what's your favorite
Speaker 3: news show to watch?
Speaker 1: That's a really good question, and it makes me realize
Speaker 1: that I don't really watch news shows.
Speaker 3: Good for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I had this moment post twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: election and my wife Katie got pretty obsessed and kind
Speaker 1: of tanked pretty heavily. So I think in that moment,
Speaker 1: I was trying to model like, hey, maybe we don't
Speaker 1: do news shows. Maybe we you know, open up our
Speaker 1: three sources and we read our articles and then we
Speaker 1: got that. And then I got a little healthier honestly,
Speaker 1: by yeah, by not doing that.
Speaker 2: So I applaud that great. Brennan's or Cafe Dumont.
Speaker 1: Oh, what a great question. I'm hitting you hard. Brennan's,
Speaker 1: you know, and they own multiple restaurants. There are restaurants
Speaker 1: in New Orleans for those who are listening.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's an empire of sorts.
Speaker 1: So for me, for me, Cafe Dumont is it for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons, because when you're grow up in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. You start drinking at twelve, you start drinking
Speaker 1: and driving at fifteen. I'm embarrassed to say, and I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm alive with all the things I did.
Speaker 1: And what part of that process is when you're done
Speaker 1: at two in the morning, Like there's no better way
Speaker 1: to soak up the alcohol than you know, big coffee
Speaker 1: and Begnet's, you know. And then we developed this This
Speaker 1: is so I can't believe I've never even told the story.
Speaker 1: You developed a system where the bathrooms a Cafe DeMont
Speaker 1: in the quarter were just nasty because everybody was coming through.
Speaker 1: Of course, we always had to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: And so what we would do is the boys are
Speaker 1: fine going to the bathroom standing up, but the girls
Speaker 1: didn't want to sit on the seats, you know. But
Speaker 1: a lot of them are too drunk. They're worried about
Speaker 1: the squat. So we would go in with our friends,
Speaker 1: the girls into the and then we would hold out
Speaker 1: our arms and they would like hold on and use
Speaker 1: that to squat over the caven DeMont toilets. Yeah, good friends,
Speaker 1: you know. And I was a good Southern boy. I
Speaker 1: looked away, you know, it's amazing. Yeah, so deep history
Speaker 1: of Cafe DeMont. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you know what your classmate Michael White does?
Speaker 1: Now? Yeah, he's a massive head basketball coach. Last I checked,
Speaker 1: he was Florida.
Speaker 3: I believe. Now he's University of Georgia.
Speaker 1: He's Georgia now yeah.
Speaker 3: He he he.
Speaker 1: Mike and we were close in high school and you know,
Speaker 1: went our separate ways. And he called me like six
Speaker 1: or seven years ago and it was really lovely. He
Speaker 1: was just checking in on me, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was like, I was like, I was like, Mike, I
Speaker 1: was like, I don't want to make this awkward, but like,
Speaker 1: is the tenor of this call? Basically we're the two
Speaker 1: people who are a public profile, famous from our high
Speaker 1: school and now we're talking about it. Is that what
Speaker 1: he says?
Speaker 3: Totally?
Speaker 1: He was like, and he was like kinda yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Matt Welch, who seemed to have the lead in
Speaker 2: every play, did he not go into the business.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but wait, you are You're incredible. That
Speaker 1: is a deep dive. No. I ran into him in
Speaker 1: an airport. You don't know what he's doing. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: ran into an airport. I didn't recognize him. Because he
Speaker 1: didn't have any more hair. Oh okay, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: but it was lovely. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The final question is very important to me spiritually culturally.
Speaker 3: When is iced coffee season?
Speaker 1: M hmm, well, I have a I have sort of
Speaker 1: a complicated relationship with coffee these days. I've been I'm
Speaker 1: a big backpacker and hiker, and I've moved into like
Speaker 1: green tea and mint tea when I'm out in the woods,
Speaker 1: and so I've tried to like bring that thing back
Speaker 1: into my life here. So I I swore off of
Speaker 1: coffee about six months ago, and life is less good. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's the answer is the answer, and I'm making I'm
Speaker 1: making do. But but what's fun is like I do
Speaker 1: treat myself, you know, like every couple of weeks, I
Speaker 1: allow myself to have one and it is golden.
Speaker 2: If you were not off of coffee, what would you say?
Speaker 3: Iced coffee seasons.
Speaker 1: All year round in California, baby, all year round.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter where you live, it's your.
Speaker 1: Right way way and got seasons. We got ice coffee.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: I knew we'd get along. Mark du Plus, thank you
Speaker 2: so much. This was really really funny.
Speaker 1: You blessay, Thanks Pal, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Next week on Off the Cup, it's Andy Astroy, host
Speaker 2: of In the back Room podcast.
Speaker 4: I Feel Like My Life is about highs, lows, tragedies,
Speaker 4: good times, love, heartbreak, insanity, and like I find myself,
Speaker 4: I have found myself in crazy situations.
Speaker 2: Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
Speaker 2: part of the Reasoned Choice Network. I'm your HOSTI Cupp
Speaker 2: editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
Speaker 2: are meet Sie Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. If
Speaker 2: you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
Speaker 2: you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe for new episodes
Speaker 2: every Wednesday.