Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Hear the Thing
Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio. My guests today are actors from
Speaker 1: two very different backgrounds. David Arquette was born into a
Speaker 1: family of entertainers. His four siblings became actors. His mother
Speaker 1: and father were actors. His grandfather, Cliff Arquette, was a
Speaker 1: famous comedian. Even his great grandparents were vaudeville performers. Acting
Speaker 1: is in his blood, but he's also a die hard
Speaker 1: fan of wrestling, which is the subject of his new
Speaker 1: aptly titled documentary You Can't Kill David Arquette. But first,
Speaker 1: I'm talking with actor Eddie Marsan during the pandemic I
Speaker 1: binged the Showtime series Ray Donovan. Marsan plays Ray's brother Terry,
Speaker 1: a former boxer with Parkinson's disease. Within a terrific cast
Speaker 1: that stars Liev Schreiber and John Voyd, Eddie Marson stands
Speaker 1: out beautifully. These days, Marsam is an in demand actor
Speaker 1: who has worked with the likes of Scorsese, Gonzalez Inobtu
Speaker 1: and Mike Lee. But growing up in working class London,
Speaker 1: becoming an actor was a long shot. Even now, despite
Speaker 1: a long successful career. He struggles with typecasting in the UK.
Speaker 1: When I spend time in America, I think it's race
Speaker 1: and class, and I think it's the same in the UK,
Speaker 1: probably more race in the US. Idriss is a friend
Speaker 1: of mine and he had to come over to the
Speaker 1: US and do the Wire to reinvent himself. And I
Speaker 1: needed to come over to do Ray Donovan to kind
Speaker 1: of get diversity in my career. Even now in the UK,
Speaker 1: I still struggle to get diversity. They still defined me
Speaker 1: by class. I had a really interesting conversation with Wendell Pierce,
Speaker 1: is a really good friend of mine. He was asking
Speaker 1: me what I was doing over and doing Ray Donovan,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, when do I I never wanted
Speaker 1: to be defined as a work class actor, and he said,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. Eddie said, because as a black African
Speaker 1: American actor, I couldn't help but be defined because of
Speaker 1: the color of my skin. He said, And what my
Speaker 1: advice to you, Eddie is, don't seek not to be
Speaker 1: defined as a working class actor. Seek to change their
Speaker 1: definition of what it means to be a working class actor.
Speaker 1: And that suddenly opened my mind because I was always
Speaker 1: trying to escape it and now I kind of think
Speaker 1: we're now embrace it, you know, And Terry was a
Speaker 1: great embrace of that because Terry when you were quite often,
Speaker 1: because writers write working class actors, they make because working
Speaker 1: class blue color people speak a colloquial language, they make
Speaker 1: them sound dumb. And what was great about Ray Donovan
Speaker 1: They were inarticulate characters, but they were very articulate in
Speaker 1: a in a weird way. Terry was a great character
Speaker 1: because really he was the mother of the family. He
Speaker 1: basically represents an Irish Catholic wife who can never divorce
Speaker 1: John Boyd even though he's abut so as an access Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. Yeah, it is a class system
Speaker 1: in the UK and and but the US has much
Speaker 1: more much still still, how do they find you to
Speaker 1: do the Raynavent? Sure? What were you doing that you
Speaker 1: thought spark their interest in here? I think Leev put
Speaker 1: the call out to see if I could audition, and
Speaker 1: I auditioned for that. And I love boxing anyway. I
Speaker 1: used to dance when I was younger, so I physically
Speaker 1: quite capable. You're dancing, you like boxing, and you were
Speaker 1: born where bethnal Green. You're the James Cagney of bethnal
Speaker 1: Green were learning Yeah, yeah, I never thought that. Boxing
Speaker 1: and the beginning of two thousand four I did two movies.
Speaker 1: I did Vera Drake for Mike Lee and I did
Speaker 1: twenty one Grahams for Alejandro Gonzalez and The Routu, and
Speaker 1: both of those movies got Oscar attention. I didn't get
Speaker 1: Oscar attention. My parts weren't big enough, but I played
Speaker 1: that kind of part where in Vera Drake I played
Speaker 1: a working class London ex soldier, and I played a
Speaker 1: born again Christian preacher for Bernicia do Toro in twenty
Speaker 1: one Grahams. And on both sides of the Atlantic suddenly
Speaker 1: people thought this guy is a good character actor. There
Speaker 1: was an American actor who said to me, Eddie, you're
Speaker 1: a doughnut actor. He said, in America, he said, quite
Speaker 1: often studios picked young stars who can't act yet. And
Speaker 1: he said, if you imagine a donut, the center as vacuous,
Speaker 1: there's nothing there, but you got surrounded with something that's substantial.
Speaker 1: He said, you've got a lot of money, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be a donut actor. Our version of that was you'd
Speaker 1: play the hackman role. We called it. Yeah, you were
Speaker 1: hired to do the Gene Hackman role, which was they
Speaker 1: had the young star who sold all the tickets and
Speaker 1: brought in all the young audience, and then they had
Speaker 1: to have someone play the Admiral of the Shippers, but
Speaker 1: who could really act. Yeah. Yeah, So that's in a sense,
Speaker 1: that's what I did, and that's what I've been doing
Speaker 1: for the last twenty years, popping up and being there
Speaker 1: and having great parts and just being really I love
Speaker 1: being an act her and I loved at what was
Speaker 1: media like entertainment like movies and TV. For you growing
Speaker 1: up in bethnal Green, Hoskins was a big When Hoskins
Speaker 1: came on the scene, he sounded like my father and
Speaker 1: that was the first time I thought, that's my old man.
Speaker 1: He literally sounded like him, and that was a big
Speaker 1: thing for me. There was a driver, my dad was
Speaker 1: a truck driver, Yeah, and he looked a bit like
Speaker 1: Hoskins as well, very similar kind of man. But I
Speaker 1: remember when I was younger watching on the waterfront and
Speaker 1: being captivated by Rod Steiger. I always kind of knew
Speaker 1: loved character actors, always did love John Robert de Vao,
Speaker 1: love love Steiger, and and then I was fascinated by
Speaker 1: character actors who became diverse, like John Hurt in A
Speaker 1: Naked Civil Servant where he played Quent and Crisp, this
Speaker 1: gay man in the fourties. And even as a child,
Speaker 1: I was absolutely fascinated by actors, but I had no
Speaker 1: means of which to pursue it. There was no drama
Speaker 1: school for me until when well, I served an apprenticeship
Speaker 1: as a printer, and and how will read? Then I
Speaker 1: was sixteen to twenty out of school. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: left school at fifteen, no qualifications. And then I was
Speaker 1: in the club. I was dancing in the club and
Speaker 1: somebody asked me to be an extra in a movie.
Speaker 1: And I went on this movie set and I saw
Speaker 1: an actor doing a scene and I thought I can
Speaker 1: do that, and I had no idea how to do it.
Speaker 1: And then and then it went from there, really And
Speaker 1: what was the first job I got paid for? Oh?
Speaker 1: I was in a pantomime in a in a place
Speaker 1: called Chipping Norton, and I was a clown throwing suits
Speaker 1: of kids and a little fucker's throw him back and
Speaker 1: the stage show. Yeah, yeah, the first was the first
Speaker 1: movie or TV part you got? I did a movie
Speaker 1: called Gangs to Number One with Paul Bettany. He was
Speaker 1: Gangs to Number one and I was the coward. And
Speaker 1: I always Paul always said to me, and if you
Speaker 1: can't be Gangs to number one, don't be Gangs to
Speaker 1: number two. Be the cow Yeah. Yeah. When you talk
Speaker 1: about the working class, you know, when I was first
Speaker 1: working in this business, in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: the things that were memorable were, you know Robert Newton,
Speaker 1: because I love Robert Newton. Yeah, oh god, I know
Speaker 1: every every line, every facial gesture from Oliver Twist. And
Speaker 1: so speaking of Robert Newton and Dickens that you have
Speaker 1: a magwitch in your life, that the Pip that is
Speaker 1: Eddie Marsen. You had a benefactor? I did, I did.
Speaker 1: I had an Eastern bookmaker called Mr Bennett. Yeah, who
Speaker 1: was Mr Bennett? Can you say? He used to run
Speaker 1: a men's worth store, but he used to run a
Speaker 1: book But he was a bookmaker at the dog track.
Speaker 1: And I used to work for him. What did you
Speaker 1: do for him? I used to I still so close
Speaker 1: to him. I used to sell smarter and stuff I
Speaker 1: wasn't interested in the betting side. Used to run a
Speaker 1: clothing store. But he was a big bookmaker and he
Speaker 1: said to me, what do you really want to do?
Speaker 1: And I said, I want to be an actor. And
Speaker 1: he said, well, if you get to get to drama school,
Speaker 1: I'll pay, and he did. And the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible malaprop. I get words wrong all the time.
Speaker 1: So when my first couple of weeks of drama school,
Speaker 1: a really strong Cockney accent and I walked in and
Speaker 1: he was there with his wife and I said, he said,
Speaker 1: how's it going. I said, well, they said I've got
Speaker 1: so with my voice, and they want me to see
Speaker 1: a chiropodist because I never and he said his wife
Speaker 1: said that you mean speech therapist and Mr Bennett said no,
Speaker 1: because he keeps putting his foot in it. But this guy,
Speaker 1: so this wasn't about the guy want you to clean
Speaker 1: his guns, or drop this bag of money off at
Speaker 1: the train station, put it in the locker for me.
Speaker 1: None of that. Now, he was a really sweet He
Speaker 1: was a sweet man because he was a bookmaker. If
Speaker 1: you went into a pub with him, all the local
Speaker 1: villains would know him, and he won't have to buy
Speaker 1: a drink because they probably a while within money at
Speaker 1: one point or another. I just love any story about
Speaker 1: mentorship and people who have benefactors, someone who helps you,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I mean if someone because
Speaker 1: this business is so tough now, so you tell me
Speaker 1: this guy. I love that Mr Bennett. Do we all
Speaker 1: wish we had a Mr Bennett? Would have? Is he is?
Speaker 1: He passed away. He's gone, he passed away. I was
Speaker 1: working with Ethan Hawk on a movie and it was
Speaker 1: it was a TV think of Moby Dick. And I
Speaker 1: had a week off and I went to see him,
Speaker 1: and my wife told me that he's not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: You won't be able to get back to see him.
Speaker 1: So I had to go and see him one morning
Speaker 1: and I told him how much I loved him. You
Speaker 1: did get to see him before he passed. I held
Speaker 1: his hand and I said I said to him, I
Speaker 1: owe you everything. I said, I owe you my career,
Speaker 1: my happiness, my childhood, the mortgage, the debt, the stress. Everything.
Speaker 1: He was Yeah, but Ethan was very good. Ethan took
Speaker 1: me at the other end of the ship and just
Speaker 1: sat with me while I cried, and gave me a pride.
Speaker 1: Make sure everyone just left me alone. He's very sweet.
Speaker 1: Actor Eddie Marsan. Another actor who outgrew typecasting is John Deturo.
Speaker 1: He says, despite his success, there was a moment not
Speaker 1: long ago when he considered a career change. I had
Speaker 1: a sort of crisis, maybe eight, nine, ten years ago
Speaker 1: and told my doctor, I said, you know, I'm done
Speaker 1: with this business. I've got to do something really important,
Speaker 1: like what you do. I said, I want to go
Speaker 1: to medical school. I was like fifty years old. And
Speaker 1: he was like, John, you're crazy. He was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you know how long medical schools? You know? And he
Speaker 1: said what you do is there's a value to what
Speaker 1: you do, when I was like, no, there's not, you know,
Speaker 1: And he talked me out of it. Here more of
Speaker 1: my conversation with John Tuturo at Here's the Thing dot Org.
Speaker 1: After the Break, Eddie Marsan talks about playing Terry in
Speaker 1: the Showtime series Ray Donovan. I'm Alec Baldwin and you
Speaker 1: were listening to Here's the Thing. The Showtime series Ray
Speaker 1: Donovan is heavy. It's about a troubled family living with
Speaker 1: the legacy of sexual abuse, and Eddie Marsan worked hard
Speaker 1: to realistically portray the progression of his characters Parkinson's disease.
Speaker 1: It got very dark at times. There was a darkness
Speaker 1: in the piece because the thing about Ray Donovan is
Speaker 1: what people didn't realize is it's Trojan Horse television. You
Speaker 1: kind of think it's going to be about Hollywood and
Speaker 1: and actually it's about three Irish brothers who were sexually
Speaker 1: abused and can't articulated. So quite often as an actor,
Speaker 1: you would hold all this darkness about the history of
Speaker 1: being abused by priests in Boston and you couldn't express it.
Speaker 1: So so that was tough. And for me, We've created
Speaker 1: this story that Terry knew that his brothers were being
Speaker 1: abused by the priests, but the priest was given his
Speaker 1: mother solace and so if he told his mother, she
Speaker 1: would die. So we had to allow the priests to
Speaker 1: abuse his brothers. And he was caught between a rock
Speaker 1: and a half place. And that was what the shaik was.
Speaker 1: The shaiksa belize somebody caught between a rock and a
Speaker 1: half place. Morally mainlyev used to get drained by it
Speaker 1: because it was unsaid. It had to be so authentic
Speaker 1: because it was unsaid, and so we had to hold
Speaker 1: it within us. You started shooting the show where in California.
Speaker 1: In California we started in two thousand and twelve. Did
Speaker 1: you live in California? I used to go and live
Speaker 1: in Culver City. Yeah. Yeah. From season six and seven onwards,
Speaker 1: we went over to New York without the first time
Speaker 1: You've lived any length of time in the US. No,
Speaker 1: I've been working in the US. I mean what I
Speaker 1: did was I made a very conscious choice that it
Speaker 1: was a real big strain on my marriage and my
Speaker 1: family life doing this show. But I knew we had
Speaker 1: to do it. So I decided that I could work
Speaker 1: and have family, but I couldn't work have family and
Speaker 1: have a social life. So I couldn't go go out
Speaker 1: in the evening. I would literally work. As soon as
Speaker 1: I wrapped, I'd fly home every weekend. I flew home.
Speaker 1: Now everyone in Los Angeles to London, Yeah, every weekend.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, yeah, And I've made that choice, and
Speaker 1: it was the best thing I've did. And your wife
Speaker 1: was grateful, Oh yeah, and God come home. And we'd
Speaker 1: have some days because of the schedule, you'd have three
Speaker 1: or four days at home, and some days you'd have
Speaker 1: one day at home. But it was just to be
Speaker 1: there for the kids just to be a presence. You
Speaker 1: just broke my heart. You have to make that choice.
Speaker 1: And actually it wasn't bad for me. I'm not a
Speaker 1: big social animal anyway, and I love the work and
Speaker 1: I have so much fun at work on set. That
Speaker 1: was your social life, that was my social life. What
Speaker 1: was it like for you in the I know that
Speaker 1: in film there's one director you start and finish with,
Speaker 1: and and TV there's many directors. What did directors? Will
Speaker 1: use Ray Donov as an example, and we'll also talk
Speaker 1: about britt directors. What did the American directors on Ray
Speaker 1: Donovan have to offer you? Were they helpful? Yeah? Very
Speaker 1: much so. We had the show runner, Dave Hollander talk
Speaker 1: me about the rhythm of multi season, multi episodic dramas.
Speaker 1: He he taught me how to to set up something
Speaker 1: in one season you'll pay off two seasons later, so
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay off everything straight away. You've
Speaker 1: got loads of time. And the other thing I learned
Speaker 1: was that you don't have to play characters who are sympathetic.
Speaker 1: You just have to play characters that are empathetic because
Speaker 1: time restrictions meant that within a two hour drama, a
Speaker 1: character had to be sympathetic over multiple seasons, multiple years
Speaker 1: a character and only needed to be empathetic. You could
Speaker 1: do the worst thing a character could do as long
Speaker 1: as he audaers thought. If I was in that situation,
Speaker 1: I would do the same thing. Then you've done your job.
Speaker 1: So I began to understand the rhythm of it and
Speaker 1: to trust it and don't force it. Also, I've never
Speaker 1: been a big showy actor. Anyway, when I work with
Speaker 1: Mike Lee, I learned so much from Mike Lee because
Speaker 1: as an actor, you always there's always a voice in
Speaker 1: your head which either wants to be clever or be true,
Speaker 1: And with Mike Lee, the answer will always be true.
Speaker 1: From that point, artist that would you know, don't show off?
Speaker 1: Mike would always say, you've got to dig a hole
Speaker 1: and sit in it. Well, it's interesting you look at
Speaker 1: his filmography. He hasn't made that many films. In seventy
Speaker 1: one his first movie Bleak Moments, High Hopes Come, and
Speaker 1: he's made six films since two thousand two. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: what did you I mean you made three films with him?
Speaker 1: How would you describe working with him? Well, his work
Speaker 1: is all about creating the character. There's no script you
Speaker 1: create the character and the story develops out of the character.
Speaker 1: And what I found with Ray Donovan because you had
Speaker 1: a writer's room and the writers would come on set
Speaker 1: and they would be informed by my performances, Terry and me,
Speaker 1: so they would begin to write Terry based on our
Speaker 1: own discussion. So all the characters on Ray Donovan were
Speaker 1: analistic creation of all the writers and the actors and
Speaker 1: the crew together because um, there was so much that
Speaker 1: you were given to them and they were given to you,
Speaker 1: And it was very much like likely is he the
Speaker 1: only director you've worked with more than once? No. I
Speaker 1: worked with David Leach and who's does a lot of
Speaker 1: superhero movies, and he always pulls me in to play
Speaker 1: this villainous part, and quite often he shoots me from
Speaker 1: behind because when the plot doesn't make sense, I can
Speaker 1: go and do a d R and say some stuff
Speaker 1: that no one sees. My lips move. You've done a
Speaker 1: lot of players. I used to. I haven't done place
Speaker 1: for twenty years. We haven't. Do you ever miss it?
Speaker 1: I do? But I never used to get offered good plays.
Speaker 1: It was interesting what you're saying about class. When I
Speaker 1: went over to do Ray Donovan. We were doing a
Speaker 1: second season and it was already quite successful, and I
Speaker 1: was doing nice films on American TV, and I was
Speaker 1: playing more Diversity in America. And then my agent called me.
Speaker 1: He said, the BBC are doing Richard the Third, and
Speaker 1: I played Richard the Third. I toward Europe Richard the
Speaker 1: Third years ago, and she said they're going to offer
Speaker 1: your part. I don't know what, and I felt, great, okay,
Speaker 1: this is fantastic. And they cooled and it was to
Speaker 1: play a thief with two lines, and and and there.
Speaker 1: I am going to work with leev and John Voights
Speaker 1: and and dash My Hawk and and working with all
Speaker 1: these great writers. But in the UK I was a
Speaker 1: thief with two lines. But you should be grateful for
Speaker 1: the privilege of doing Richard the Third exactly. Don't you
Speaker 1: don't get too big now, don't get too hearty. No.
Speaker 1: I found that Stafford Clark and other Brits I've worked with.
Speaker 1: It was really, I mean, just the Steaks and the
Speaker 1: uh Tony Walton. We did equest together and oh my god,
Speaker 1: just the rigor. I said to somebody. They said, what's
Speaker 1: the task for you? Now? I said, to remember that
Speaker 1: every job is a chance for me to still to learn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: someone said to me, what's change in your acting? I
Speaker 1: was that guy that was standing there on the set
Speaker 1: with that director, sobbing from the opening line, Oh God,
Speaker 1: how can you do this to us, lady, this clinic.
Speaker 1: You know, we need the money in Jesus Christ. And
Speaker 1: I'm like fucking going up coming to pieces. It's totally wrong.
Speaker 1: And someone said, I said, how's that changed? I said, well,
Speaker 1: that accessing that reservoir of emotion, which is still relatively easy.
Speaker 1: I guess I think you either have a knack for
Speaker 1: that or you don't. I said, everything is technical to me,
Speaker 1: it's so technical line pause, pause, like music, be b
Speaker 1: I often think of myself as a session musician, And
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you that. Explain why, Because
Speaker 1: you're creating notes, and you're working in collaboration with other
Speaker 1: other actors, So sometimes you have to play the baseline.
Speaker 1: They're the lead guitar and you have to play the
Speaker 1: baseline for them, and and and and and it gives
Speaker 1: you a feeling of the collaboration element of the art
Speaker 1: and fitting in and fitting in and working like music.
Speaker 1: I see people, I'm here to play a part by
Speaker 1: the part that fits into everything that what everybody is doing.
Speaker 1: When you went home, did people recognize you? Do people
Speaker 1: watch Ray Darnovan in the UK? They do? It is
Speaker 1: not as big in the UK. Why do you think,
Speaker 1: just not on a big format. I mean, the people
Speaker 1: who watch it are obsessed with it. But in the
Speaker 1: in the U S it's it's massive in the US.
Speaker 1: You know, the feelings that people get from Ray Donovan,
Speaker 1: I've never had it before because I've always been an
Speaker 1: actor who disappears into thinks and you know, I've always
Speaker 1: been the outer to focus, best friend, and suddenly for
Speaker 1: people to love Terry, they get very disappointed when they
Speaker 1: find out I'm not as charismatic as Terry, as decent
Speaker 1: as Terry. No, Terry is decent and brave. Well. Of course,
Speaker 1: there was a lot written about the fact that they
Speaker 1: ended season seven very unceremoniously. No season eight. Was everybody
Speaker 1: very taken aback by that, Yeah, very surprised. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the decision was. I don't know why it was.
Speaker 1: I think there was an outline for season eight. They
Speaker 1: were going to finish the show. They had a storyline,
Speaker 1: and I think there's always talk of coming back and
Speaker 1: finishing it in something like a four hour or like
Speaker 1: a two part Yeah, there's something like that. They got
Speaker 1: that they're not done. Yeah, I won't surprise me if
Speaker 1: it happened. I thought, I don't want to say this
Speaker 1: is a spoiler. Or so you folcus out there listening,
Speaker 1: if you are going to watch Ray Donovan, you can
Speaker 1: turn your volume down now while I say that. One
Speaker 1: of the most audacious sequences in the TV show I've
Speaker 1: ever seen was when everybody thought Mick was dead and
Speaker 1: he's not. Yeah, yeah, He's like, oh God, I blew
Speaker 1: out the back of the bus and Jesus and he lives.
Speaker 1: And you knew he was gonna live. You knew he
Speaker 1: was gonna come back. But when he does come back,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh fuck, this guy's the cock wroks that
Speaker 1: won't die. One of the joys of Ray Donovan was
Speaker 1: to watch John act. When you get him talking about
Speaker 1: New York in the sixties and seventies and being a
Speaker 1: young actor and he gave al Pacino a thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to do a play, to put on a play, and
Speaker 1: he talks about Bobby de Voo and all these all
Speaker 1: these actors that he knew, and for an actor, that's
Speaker 1: just it's just manna from heaven to to listen to
Speaker 1: those stories. You're not mute about your politics, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Why as that? Well? When I grew up, my parents
Speaker 1: had a very very difficult marriage. I come from an
Speaker 1: area full of immigrants, lots of black Caribbean families, and
Speaker 1: I kind of took refuge in a Caribbean family's house.
Speaker 1: They kind of adopted me in a sense. So I
Speaker 1: always felt safer amongst immigrants than I did amongst the
Speaker 1: blue color white working class. And and that those people
Speaker 1: that showed intolerance or bigotry, which is an element of
Speaker 1: the white working class, I was always more threatened by
Speaker 1: them than I was, and I felt safe with them.
Speaker 1: And I was always more encouraged and inspired and and
Speaker 1: nurtured by immigrants. So whenever I hear racism of any
Speaker 1: kind or bigotry, it touches a trauma within me. And
Speaker 1: so I have to come out and say I don't
Speaker 1: like populism. I don't like anybody who sees things in
Speaker 1: a very binary way. I don't trust it. I think
Speaker 1: I might might you know, my economics, I think we
Speaker 1: have to have a certain distribution of wealth because I
Speaker 1: believe in a meritocracy, and in order for for capitalism
Speaker 1: to be a meritocracy, someone like me has to pay
Speaker 1: more taxes for someone like me to achieve their potential.
Speaker 1: I don't trust populism to me. Was that guy in
Speaker 1: the corner of the bar who can manage the England
Speaker 1: soccer team, run the country, but never leaves the bar.
Speaker 1: So you're obviously you wanted to stay. You didn't want
Speaker 1: to leave. You were against brexit. Oh yeah. The reason
Speaker 1: I wanted to stay within the European Union because I
Speaker 1: think that it's brought prosperity in peace to Europe in
Speaker 1: the last fifty years, and that's a great thing. I
Speaker 1: think it's great for workers rights. I think I also
Speaker 1: distrust referendums because if a politician lies, you can vote
Speaker 1: them out with a referendum. They lie and it's done.
Speaker 1: There is a populist xenophobia that has been prominent in
Speaker 1: America with Trump and prominent in Britain with Brexit. Very similar.
Speaker 1: It's very Any of your kids show any inclination. My
Speaker 1: twelve year old son just did a movie. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're doing a movie about Roll Dahl and he plays
Speaker 1: a young boy in roll those writing room who kind
Speaker 1: of inspires him to write. And my daughter at sixteen,
Speaker 1: she's just on a movie. But they spent their lives
Speaker 1: on film sets. They have a very healthy attitude. You
Speaker 1: didn't shield them from that. They were there, I mean
Speaker 1: because their mum's a makeup artists. I mean, my wife
Speaker 1: was much more successful than I was when we got married.
Speaker 1: I always say I married her for a money and
Speaker 1: so she was really so I would take my kids
Speaker 1: to go and see mommy and they would go into
Speaker 1: the makeup room and and on Ray Donovan, they used
Speaker 1: to come and the crew used to give him a
Speaker 1: radio mike, and they used to run around and give
Speaker 1: everybody coffees and things. So they've got a very healthy
Speaker 1: attitude towards it. You have a bunch of projects and
Speaker 1: assuming that you're in a pipeline that there's a maybe
Speaker 1: a COVID clouded pipeline. Yeah, I've got a film coming
Speaker 1: out with Sean Penn directed flag Day. Yeah, flag Day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What kind of care are you play? I play an
Speaker 1: insurance guy. Come at the end, I got a big
Speaker 1: speech at the end. While it was a big speech,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's going to be a big
Speaker 1: speech by the time the film comes out, but I
Speaker 1: come out in the end, and what kind of the
Speaker 1: piece as a drama about a young girl and a
Speaker 1: dysfunctional relationship with her father in the seventies, and he
Speaker 1: kind of comes in and out of her life and
Speaker 1: Sean plays the father, his daughter plays the girl. She's
Speaker 1: fantastic in it. It's a it's a great movie. What
Speaker 1: was he like, what did he have to offer you
Speaker 1: as a director? Well, first work with him in a
Speaker 1: movie called The Professor and Madman in Dublin about four
Speaker 1: years ago, and what I found with Sean. I thought
Speaker 1: Sean was very similar to Spielberg in a strange way,
Speaker 1: because what what Spielberg does is Spielberg dances with a camera.
Speaker 1: You know, he kind of visually complements what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And Sewn as an actor who's always aware of of
Speaker 1: every moment, every note, every bat and when you were
Speaker 1: being directed by him, you knew you were with somebody
Speaker 1: who was whether where the camera was an instrument that
Speaker 1: was complimenting you, and he was fantastic directing it. So
Speaker 1: the chasm between the leading man and the character man
Speaker 1: who is as well defined, And I always wonder to
Speaker 1: say to somebody like you, who's as gifted as you are,
Speaker 1: and you're truly a gifted actor, if I said to you,
Speaker 1: you're gonna make seven eight figure salaries a year and
Speaker 1: you'll never get to play those juicy roles where you're
Speaker 1: going to be the number one on the call sheet
Speaker 1: at this point in your career, would you set aside
Speaker 1: or the nutritious juicy roles you've played to become rich
Speaker 1: and famous, or do you like things exactly as they
Speaker 1: are now? I'd like to play some leading roles. I
Speaker 1: always in that My analogy is that a movie is
Speaker 1: like a ghost train ride, and the central character is
Speaker 1: a neutral character, so that they the audience sit on
Speaker 1: the train and go on the ghost train ride, go
Speaker 1: on the ups and downs, but the central character is
Speaker 1: quite neutral, quite bland. And me I played the guy
Speaker 1: who goes boo. I do about six or seven movies
Speaker 1: a year, and I'd like to do one or two
Speaker 1: movies a year and and really get into So I'd
Speaker 1: like a career like yours are like Sean, where you
Speaker 1: end up playing great character roles, but they are the
Speaker 1: leading part. Are you're going to direct films. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was going to direct. My mother died a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. I was about to direct a film for
Speaker 1: for BBC Films, but my mother passed away and when
Speaker 1: she was ill, we had to I had to stop.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I'm writing things. I have a
Speaker 1: fascinating with American politics. What I love about America is
Speaker 1: it's an idea and it's an idea that people are
Speaker 1: trying to implement as as best as possible. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's like anything, it exposes people's shortcomings. Some people
Speaker 1: think it supports their bigotry, and other people it inspires generosity,
Speaker 1: and I think that's fascinating. I want to tell you
Speaker 1: again that I watched seasons five, six, and seven of
Speaker 1: Ray Donovan. It's on showtime anytime for people that are
Speaker 1: out there, all seven seasons. Eddie Marson, I mean you
Speaker 1: you really you ripped my heart out. Thank you were
Speaker 1: ripped my heart out. I mean the it's the sweet
Speaker 1: and the sour, it's those extremes. It's the dignity and
Speaker 1: the malevolence, but the whole range is there. Not many
Speaker 1: people get that, and that's what you did on that show.
Speaker 1: You got everything out of that part you possibly can.
Speaker 1: You were great in that fucking show. Great, Thank you
Speaker 1: very much, Actor Eddie Marson. David Arquette has seen some
Speaker 1: turbulent times, a very public marriage and divorce, rehab, a
Speaker 1: heart attack, and a career that's stalled in part because
Speaker 1: he won a pro wrestling championship two decades ago. But
Speaker 1: David Arquette comes from a long line of performers, and
Speaker 1: he knows how to reinvent himself. My dad was a
Speaker 1: big improvisational actor, and we did a bunch of that
Speaker 1: growing up. That was built into sort of our playtime.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't really serious into it until high school.
Speaker 1: Where school Fairfax in Los Angeles? Where were you living
Speaker 1: one part of town. We lived right down the street
Speaker 1: from Paramount Studios, right in Hollywood, But back then it
Speaker 1: was pretty crazy area at the time, punk rock and
Speaker 1: roller skating and you know, just all this bizarre world.
Speaker 1: Then I got into break dancing and graffiti and I
Speaker 1: was kind of like all into that world. And then
Speaker 1: they were doing a school play. They couldn't find the
Speaker 1: lead and they approached me, and then I met my teacher, Bendibaldo,
Speaker 1: who had a real impact on my life. Helped me
Speaker 1: focus on just acting and like getting into acting. And
Speaker 1: where were your sisters at that point in your family?
Speaker 1: At the point were they all dabbling in it? Like
Speaker 1: in my family literally because I'm the oldest, My brothers
Speaker 1: were sitting around in the den of our house and
Speaker 1: I was doing a soap opera, you know, and they
Speaker 1: were sitting there, stoned out of their mind and say, now,
Speaker 1: if ship Head here can get on TV, why can't
Speaker 1: we get on TV? You know, there was really the
Speaker 1: such contempt for me that launched their careers. Who was
Speaker 1: the first one to jump in the pool of your
Speaker 1: famous siblings? Rosanna really broke down the door for this generation.
Speaker 1: I mean, my great grandfather was cliff ar Ket Charlie Weaver,
Speaker 1: and then my father and my mother was also an actress.
Speaker 1: But then this generation, it was Rosanna. She ran out
Speaker 1: to Hollywood and stayed with the family that we were
Speaker 1: friends with when she was like fifteen or sixteen. Patricia
Speaker 1: then got into it, so they were both working actresses
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. And this fascinates me,
Speaker 1: this whole family thing, because you walt to such distinctive personalities.
Speaker 1: Did you have a similar goal? I don't know, there
Speaker 1: was eleven years difference between me and Rosanna, So when
Speaker 1: I was a teenager, she was a woman like starting
Speaker 1: her career, and I always remember like seeing some of
Speaker 1: her early work and being really impressed by it, like
Speaker 1: the Executioner Song and Big Blue and After Hours. I mean,
Speaker 1: she was doing such incredible work and I was just
Speaker 1: in awe of her talent. We all have this improvisational
Speaker 1: bass because my dad was a working actor like forty
Speaker 1: five years, so he'd do industrial films and commercials, and
Speaker 1: I was still on the Walton's and just kind of
Speaker 1: paying the bills. So there was also a real kind
Speaker 1: of blue collar element to acting for me. I still
Speaker 1: kind of hold that even though I love theater, I
Speaker 1: fell in love with theater. I've been able to do
Speaker 1: a couple really beautiful plays and a couple of real stinkers. Well,
Speaker 1: what's one you enjoyed and where? Describe where were My
Speaker 1: favorite play was at the Geffen. It was called The
Speaker 1: Female of the Species and that Benning was the lead
Speaker 1: in it, and I learned so much just watching her.
Speaker 1: But Net Benning, who has that rare distinction of someone
Speaker 1: who became a movie star based on the performance in
Speaker 1: a play, she did them, the play Coastal Disturbances, the
Speaker 1: Tina how Play on Broadway with Tim Daley. I've always
Speaker 1: found it if I need something to kind of get
Speaker 1: my mind right, like to get my feelings right of it,
Speaker 1: what am I doing and why? Because movies and TV
Speaker 1: has been so daunting for me. I go to a
Speaker 1: play and all of a sudden, then I I just
Speaker 1: feel better, like if we were doing a revival. It
Speaker 1: was a famous piece of material, and it was a
Speaker 1: process that I was much more familiar with. It was
Speaker 1: movie making just seem like, man, you gotta be lucky.
Speaker 1: You know, you need a lot of luck in this business. Definitely,
Speaker 1: When did the luck come for you? When did you
Speaker 1: first feel lucky? I did a film called On His
Speaker 1: Way Back that was sort of my first indie film, Darling,
Speaker 1: that went to festivals and people sort of appreciated it,
Speaker 1: and I think from there, I did a film called
Speaker 1: Dream with the Fishes. I really loved that experience. Who
Speaker 1: was the director, Finn Taylor, really amazing writer director. She
Speaker 1: was brilliant. It's one of my favorite films that I've
Speaker 1: done because it's based on a true story and just
Speaker 1: really had a lot of hard and really beautiful music
Speaker 1: in it, and I got to work with this actor
Speaker 1: Brad Hunt, that I've still dear friends with. And then
Speaker 1: what happens in terms of you make a movie that
Speaker 1: makes a huge amount of money correct they scream and
Speaker 1: that movie makes bags of money, and then what happens
Speaker 1: do you all of a sudden you decide now I
Speaker 1: need to do different movies. I could select sort of
Speaker 1: more films that I wanted to do. I had met
Speaker 1: Courtney Cox, my ex wife, on Scream that had been
Speaker 1: become a big focus of my life, just my relationship.
Speaker 1: And then I did a couple uh studio movies, but
Speaker 1: they're kind of It was funny. I was watching this
Speaker 1: documentary on the casting director of of Midnight Cowboy, and
Speaker 1: I'm all captivated by this beautiful story of this incredible
Speaker 1: artistic casting director and she cast one of my favorite films. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching it and I'm like loving it. And
Speaker 1: then she was like, then the studio made me start
Speaker 1: casting crap. And it's like the show picture of me
Speaker 1: c spot run the movie. I had done a kid's movie,
Speaker 1: you know, So I was like, oh, it was like
Speaker 1: this gut punch. I know, people are really selective about
Speaker 1: what they do and the protective of their careers. And
Speaker 1: I'm getting that more now, but I never really was.
Speaker 1: I'd always do like a kids movie if I wanted
Speaker 1: to do a kid's movie, or or horror film, or
Speaker 1: I do a fun like I did this movie Eight
Speaker 1: Legged Freaks, which was like a throwback to the sixties
Speaker 1: kind of creature features like I love all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So I never saw it as selling out or you
Speaker 1: weren't calculating enough. Now you know you made the mistake
Speaker 1: of doing what you wanted to do right right, as
Speaker 1: opposed what they wanted you to do, you know now
Speaker 1: at the same time, because I don't want to dwell
Speaker 1: on this too much, but I just find the counterpoint interesting.
Speaker 1: When you met Courtney on Scream, she was on the
Speaker 1: TV show already or no, yeah, she she was on Friends.
Speaker 1: They were in like their first or second year, so
Speaker 1: it was very early on. And then she when she
Speaker 1: comes out the other end of that tunnel. She's one
Speaker 1: of the most famous women and she's part of one
Speaker 1: of the most famous TV shows in history. You were
Speaker 1: married to her for how long thirteen years or twelve
Speaker 1: years or something, so that run of that show, you
Speaker 1: were pretty much the run of the show. Yeah, through
Speaker 1: the run of the show. We have a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old daughter together now, but yeah, through the run of
Speaker 1: the show. You know, when you were with someone in
Speaker 1: that acting relationship, I became her husband a lot, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, you become second fiddle to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: or like there's an effect on your career in a sense,
Speaker 1: or you even just in any relationship. You just have
Speaker 1: to start making choices. Like I remember I was up
Speaker 1: for a role with High Fidelity, but I had already
Speaker 1: committed to me and Courtney doing this film together called
Speaker 1: The Shrink Is In, And Stephen Fears called me in
Speaker 1: the office. He said, come on, you gotta do this movie.
Speaker 1: You know, I know you have the film with your wife,
Speaker 1: but marriage is temporary. Movies are forever. Yeah, right, I
Speaker 1: had guys call me up. I had guys call me
Speaker 1: up and they said they were like, we can always
Speaker 1: get you another wife out, Like, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: let's get serious. Did you get that sense from her
Speaker 1: that the goose that lays the golden egg and you
Speaker 1: have to really really protect that there were risks that
Speaker 1: she couldn't take in her career. Yeah, for sure. I
Speaker 1: definitely had to watch my self. I was a bit
Speaker 1: of a wild character anyway. But when we had our daughter, Coco,
Speaker 1: I remember the paparazzi at this point in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: had just gone crazy. They were like gangsters with cameras
Speaker 1: and they would like provoke fights with me, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like screaming, like I got this protective instinct of
Speaker 1: my child. It was like, you know, you know about
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know anything about that, David, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what you're talking about. Paparazzi threatening your wife, your child,
Speaker 1: and you become really really activated over that. I have
Speaker 1: no idea what you're talking about. I know. It's so
Speaker 1: it's gets so crazy. It was a weird time because
Speaker 1: we were she was like the darling and and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, and you start going to all the parties
Speaker 1: and you start meeting all the big people and all
Speaker 1: the stuff. And then we got a divorce and I
Speaker 1: just kind of like really took it hard. I started drinking,
Speaker 1: just heartbroken. That was a tough time just to sort
Speaker 1: of bounce comes apart. When there's no kids, obviously, it's
Speaker 1: a it's different when those kids involved. You know. When
Speaker 1: I got divorced and have my daughter Ireland. It was
Speaker 1: fucking agony, man, it was fucking agony, you know, just
Speaker 1: to be another statistic, you know. Now, let me ask
Speaker 1: you this, your sister who was born your brother Roberts, right,
Speaker 1: if I read correctly, Alexis didn't emerge till she was
Speaker 1: really in her thirties correct well, within the family, she did.
Speaker 1: She came out in her late teens, nineteen or something,
Speaker 1: and my mom was really liberal and she had a
Speaker 1: really hard time with it. That was really a weird
Speaker 1: time because we're like, Mom, you're like the most open minded.
Speaker 1: She had a hard time because she knew it was
Speaker 1: just gonna be a hard life for Alexis. But then
Speaker 1: she did the wedding singer and she was boy George
Speaker 1: and that, so she kind of did certain roles where
Speaker 1: she showed that side, but she didn't really come out
Speaker 1: like publicly until she was ready to say, I only
Speaker 1: want to do you know, either female or transgender parts,
Speaker 1: And that's where she kind of came out publicly early
Speaker 1: two thousand's two four that yeah, I was reading about
Speaker 1: her and said she was born in sixty nine, so
Speaker 1: that makes her like thirty five years old. So she
Speaker 1: was living with that and and and keeping that close
Speaker 1: until she was thirty five years old. Oh, when she
Speaker 1: was thirty five, that's when she became a woman. But
Speaker 1: then at the end of her life then she wanted
Speaker 1: us to refer to her as our brother again before
Speaker 1: she died. So it's like this confusic thing where I
Speaker 1: say my brother and my sister. But towards the end,
Speaker 1: Alexis was like the female side of her, or her
Speaker 1: wanting to be a female she realized was connected a
Speaker 1: lot to sexuality. So at the end she wanted to
Speaker 1: be referred more to as our brother. David Arquette follow
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
Speaker 1: leave us a review. When we return, David talks about
Speaker 1: why he wanted to get back in the ring for
Speaker 1: his new documentary You Can't Kill David Arquette. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. David Arquette is
Speaker 1: a long time real deal fan of professional wrestling. In
Speaker 1: the year two thousand, he won the w c W
Speaker 1: World Heavyweight Championship, a title he held for twelve days.
Speaker 1: An achievement that was mocked by wrestling fans and Hollywood alike.
Speaker 1: His career stalled, he let himself go, and then he
Speaker 1: decided to get back in the ring. It's all captured
Speaker 1: in a documentary released last year whose idea was the
Speaker 1: movie you Can't Kill David Arquette. You can't. And by
Speaker 1: the time I was done watching the movie, I mean,
Speaker 1: I thought, that's a cute title. That's a fun title.
Speaker 1: This is his middle aged crisis. You know he's up there.
Speaker 1: It was like my third middles his third When it
Speaker 1: came around to his third midlife crisis, he decided to
Speaker 1: film it. That's genius. So you do this movie. And
Speaker 1: I watched and by the end, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: that's a very apt title, because you can't kill David
Speaker 1: ar cat When did this wrestling thing begin? And why?
Speaker 1: What's the funk were you thinking? Well? I did a
Speaker 1: movie called Ready to Rumble years ago. It was one
Speaker 1: of those like three studio films I did that kind
Speaker 1: of didn't get received very well, and it didn't even
Speaker 1: get received very well by the wrestling community at the time.
Speaker 1: It's a really over the top comedy, but it's since
Speaker 1: kind of grown some cult status. So I did this
Speaker 1: movie Ready to Rumble. It was through Warner Brothers. Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers at the time owned w c W, which was
Speaker 1: like the competiting brand to w w E, the two
Speaker 1: largest wrestling companies, and to promote the film, I went
Speaker 1: on and I did some like appearance and got involved
Speaker 1: because Diamond Dallas paid a big wrestler at the time,
Speaker 1: and he's also the star of the film Ready to Rumble,
Speaker 1: and we'd become friends through the process. So I came
Speaker 1: and I did some in ring thing and it got
Speaker 1: a really good reaction from the crowd. So they brought
Speaker 1: me back to do a second thing and they said
Speaker 1: we're going to make you the champion. That was wrestling fans,
Speaker 1: So I was like, no, that's all. Yeah. And since
Speaker 1: I was a kid. For since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I always loved it. I'd go to the matches throughout
Speaker 1: the years and I saw Andre the Giant as a
Speaker 1: kid and it just kind of blew my mind. I
Speaker 1: just love it because my family goes back to Vaudeville.
Speaker 1: There's such a like a circule, this kind of connection.
Speaker 1: I love clowns. I love you know, the circus world.
Speaker 1: You know wrestling was kind of connected to that, and this,
Speaker 1: you know sport that I believe for a long time
Speaker 1: was a normal sport where it's not sort of predetermined
Speaker 1: like it is. So it was like an opportunity. And
Speaker 1: all these guys that I was fans of, Hulk Hogan
Speaker 1: and Macho Man were all at this company, and so
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, that would be amazing, and they
Speaker 1: said we're gonna make you the champion. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible idea. Domdal's page said, well, listen if
Speaker 1: you if you don't do it, then it's over. There's
Speaker 1: no more promotion to ready to rumble, there's no more wrestling,
Speaker 1: like that's it. And I said, well, what if I
Speaker 1: do it? They say, you get to come with us
Speaker 1: for the next two weeks, travel with all this whole show,
Speaker 1: and you know, you're the champion for two weeks and
Speaker 1: then you'll lose it at the pay per view. I'd
Speaker 1: rather be champion for two weeks than not at all. Exactly,
Speaker 1: That's what I thought. I thought, Oh, be the fan
Speaker 1: that finally became a champion. But the fact that I
Speaker 1: was a comedic actor from Hollywood, the they saw it.
Speaker 1: Married to some girl on sitcom. They didn't go for it,
Speaker 1: and they've projected me. They hated me for twenty years.
Speaker 1: They'd spit on me and yelled the most horrible things
Speaker 1: and like trying to pick fights with me and all
Speaker 1: this stuff. And then the internet, Who's day? The fans
Speaker 1: fans wrestling fans and it was second. So you were
Speaker 1: the champion for two weeks and they rejected you could
Speaker 1: then though you were a Hollywood poser. Yeah, you're a
Speaker 1: Hollywood got to like get drunk with Rick Flair in
Speaker 1: a ball married to her. It was a huge baggage
Speaker 1: for you. Yeah, you need to be married to a
Speaker 1: woman with like scars on her face and everything. But
Speaker 1: so you're married to her and they think you're a
Speaker 1: Hollywood poser. You do this for two weeks, But do
Speaker 1: you find that all of a sudden you want to
Speaker 1: get into the wrestling thing for real because you're sick
Speaker 1: of people thinking that you haven't got what it takes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean when we were younger, we used to scrap
Speaker 1: all the time, get into little rumbles and fights and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. You know, But was it your pride
Speaker 1: the triggered you? Yeah, it was. I I hated that
Speaker 1: they were like, I was a wooss you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? They just treated me like this, like little
Speaker 1: punk being bullied. I was constantly being bullied for like
Speaker 1: and I was like, shut up, I'm gonna prove my show.
Speaker 1: You show you? Yeah? I did? And how does that beginning?
Speaker 1: Who do you go to? Sit there and go I
Speaker 1: really really want to get into this. Who do you
Speaker 1: tell that to? It built up for years and then
Speaker 1: I had two stints put in my heart. I had
Speaker 1: a really bad reaction to a stress test. I thought
Speaker 1: it was having no hard attack. And when I came
Speaker 1: out of it, I told my wife I've been really
Speaker 1: thinking about wrestling. She was like, what are you talking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My current Christina, who's incredible. She produced the film You
Speaker 1: Cannot Kill David or Catch was McClarty. McClarty and she
Speaker 1: was a correspondent for E. Yeah. She went to n
Speaker 1: I U as a journalist and then did local news
Speaker 1: and then then E and we had met sort of
Speaker 1: at an eighties boat party. She's just such a badass,
Speaker 1: Like the skill set that she got from being a
Speaker 1: journalist goes right into being a producer. So incredibly well.
Speaker 1: And her her uncle was like a chief of staff
Speaker 1: to Clinton his first term, so she just could really
Speaker 1: get stuff done. Two stents in your heart, You I
Speaker 1: want to begin my wrestling career, Well, it was what
Speaker 1: did your wife? I literally was watching my life and seeing,
Speaker 1: like my friends, my family, my children, well kids, Well,
Speaker 1: this is a life if I if I don't make
Speaker 1: it through. And I didn't have like many regrets necessarily,
Speaker 1: But then I was thinking about wrestling. It was so
Speaker 1: strange to me that it was such a high on
Speaker 1: the list of like things that still were kind of
Speaker 1: gnawing at me. So I told her everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: return to wrestling. I also knew I had to lose
Speaker 1: a bunch of weight and get in shape, and I
Speaker 1: just thought if I were to do this process, it
Speaker 1: would be fun to film it so that I could
Speaker 1: give wrestling fans a glimpse of the experience I had
Speaker 1: when I first wrestled. So the film covers the period
Speaker 1: of your launching of your legit wrestling career. Yeah this
Speaker 1: is twenty years later. Now twenty years later, two stants later,
Speaker 1: divorce later, You're gonna launch her wrestling career And Christina
Speaker 1: doesn't sit there and call her a divorced Lawyer. She
Speaker 1: seems like she really got it together. What was her response?
Speaker 1: She thought it was crazy she did. It's all in
Speaker 1: the in the film. You know, there's also like this
Speaker 1: whole undertone was like my love for Randy Kaufman. Uh,
Speaker 1: he always loved wrestling. He actually went to Memphis and
Speaker 1: like wrestled for a year or two. Randy Piper was
Speaker 1: one who slapped him. That was Jerry Lawler, JR. Lawler,
Speaker 1: j Lawler and he also I've wrestled Jerry Lawler in
Speaker 1: the in the Doctor Ventary, I got of the do
Speaker 1: a pile driver just like Andy, but it literally messed
Speaker 1: my neck up to this day. It's it's so much
Speaker 1: more dangerous and painful and like how physically challenging than
Speaker 1: anything I've ever done before. I never knew like how
Speaker 1: how real it is, Like it is more there's more
Speaker 1: contact than you think. So my view of it, I mean,
Speaker 1: my sense of it is I think most people share
Speaker 1: this is that it's an extraordinary amount of physical conditioning.
Speaker 1: These guys and these women who do this look great.
Speaker 1: They're all athletic and ripped up and strong and powerful
Speaker 1: and muscled up and everything, and there's just enough reality
Speaker 1: and just enough violence to make it look real. But
Speaker 1: it's all choreography, and I mean there is some spontaneity,
Speaker 1: but it's all worked out for the safety of those involved.
Speaker 1: You don't take somebody and smash their face through the
Speaker 1: glass table, you know, sometimes people do. Actually, you know,
Speaker 1: it is all like worked out. But what you learned
Speaker 1: very quickly that people in the ring sometimes have other
Speaker 1: things going on in their life. There's something called a receipt,
Speaker 1: Like if somebody hits you with something, you can get
Speaker 1: a receipt to hit them back at some point. A
Speaker 1: lot of stuff happens in the wrestling ring. That's not
Speaker 1: when you work with like super pros, like the real pros.
Speaker 1: You could get in a ring with them and everything smooth,
Speaker 1: and you know, it looks like they're killing you. It's beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what was the most painful thing that happened to you
Speaker 1: in the ring? We had this death match where I
Speaker 1: got stabbed in the neck with a light tube and
Speaker 1: that was pretty in those painful Yeah, that's the film,
Speaker 1: but that actually wasn't the most painful. I think the
Speaker 1: pile Driver by Jerry Lawler or um I got put
Speaker 1: through a table through my back out against Bully Ray.
Speaker 1: Those were some of the most painful. You hit the
Speaker 1: mat so hard all the time. I got this kind
Speaker 1: of reoccurring whiplash is pretty much what it is. One
Speaker 1: of my muscles that connects my shoulder to my neck
Speaker 1: just has never been the same. But the really interesting
Speaker 1: thing is you learn a lot about acting like it
Speaker 1: has to be real, Like you have to tap into
Speaker 1: these emotions that you could tell a story without making
Speaker 1: a sound. You have to show that you're scared or
Speaker 1: like now you're filled with ancor yeah, and and it's
Speaker 1: all in your eyes and it's all in this thing.
Speaker 1: But it's also when you get into a wrestling room,
Speaker 1: time speeds up. You'll do something and think like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna stop to the corner like an upset little kid,
Speaker 1: and I'll watch it back and I like, run to
Speaker 1: the corner. I was like, wait a second, I thought
Speaker 1: I took so much time doing that, But when you
Speaker 1: watch it back, it's so much quicker. So it teaches
Speaker 1: you to really be in the moment. There's this connection
Speaker 1: with an audience that you don't even have enough play.
Speaker 1: It does like then move into this, Oh, you're doing
Speaker 1: a sport, You're combining. Like I was in my therapist
Speaker 1: office and I was like, oh, because my least favorite
Speaker 1: thing in the world is war and violence towards others,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to hurt anyone. So I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's my least favorite thing, and here I am simulating violence.
Speaker 1: Did this work that you put in for the film,
Speaker 1: the wrestling thing and coming back twenty years later, did
Speaker 1: that rekindle your love of acting as well? It did? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it did. It grounded me for one. It made me
Speaker 1: really just grateful for life. There's something that I've always
Speaker 1: tried to do is sort of stay in touch with people,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, not get all caught up
Speaker 1: in Hollywood and that world. I like people. I like
Speaker 1: really interesting characters that you'll meet in the world. So
Speaker 1: you find a lot of them in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, and you see a lot of like human
Speaker 1: nature in the rest of the world. And yeah, it
Speaker 1: keeps you grounded. What did your sisters say about there?
Speaker 1: They here in the film very fleetingly. What did they
Speaker 1: think about you getting light tube smashed in your face
Speaker 1: and all the stuff? Yeah, that wasn't Everyone was really
Speaker 1: upset about that. My wife was like, I just feel
Speaker 1: like you want to die, and I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to die, but I've definitely been beating myself up.
Speaker 1: I don't want to die, but I'm thinking about it. Mulligan, Honest,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a sado mastochistic element to deathmatch wrestling. People
Speaker 1: are doing it for some reason. They're beating themselves up there,
Speaker 1: numbing themselves, They're kind of experiencing this. It's also this
Speaker 1: connection with these fans that are watching it and they're
Speaker 1: like blood hungry, like they freak out. There's like when
Speaker 1: I went into that room, they hated me, like they
Speaker 1: literally did not like me, and then when I was
Speaker 1: leaving they were cheering me. So I kind of want
Speaker 1: them over in that moment. So here's this image I
Speaker 1: have of you because I've seen other people like this.
Speaker 1: I've seen people in the forty years that I've been
Speaker 1: working as an actor since nine, I've seen people where
Speaker 1: like the path you can take, and of course there
Speaker 1: are diverse paths, they're not all the same, but you
Speaker 1: achieve a certain place in the business where you can relax.
Speaker 1: You know there's work there if you want. It isn't
Speaker 1: always what you want to do, but one for them
Speaker 1: one for you. You can make a little indie movie.
Speaker 1: It's a clever part. Now do you think that's true
Speaker 1: of you? Do you think there was a point where
Speaker 1: you just sat there and said, fuck this, man, I
Speaker 1: just can't. I can't be what they want me to be. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. There's a lot about the business that doesn't
Speaker 1: appeal to me. And I just I'm horrible at auditions,
Speaker 1: So just doing auditions. But I've done a bunch of
Speaker 1: like little scrappy films just to like help first time
Speaker 1: directors and this and that. Like you know, I've been
Speaker 1: acting for thirty years, and I mean that's set just
Speaker 1: super ultra low budget, just to still stay sort of
Speaker 1: connected to it all. It's a long journey, you know.
Speaker 1: And you're starting out and come to l A and
Speaker 1: you your grandfather is this famous actor, and your sisters
Speaker 1: become famous, and then you marry the prom queen and
Speaker 1: you go through everything you've gone through and look where
Speaker 1: you are now you're married. Your wife saidal yeah, you
Speaker 1: have a lot to be grateful for. You got two
Speaker 1: little kids. You're still alive, even in spite of your
Speaker 1: best efforts, You're still alive. Yeah, And I get to
Speaker 1: have an interview with one of my heroes. You really
Speaker 1: are incredible actor. I've always been a huge fan. Listen.
Speaker 1: I hope you have a lot of great things coming
Speaker 1: up for you, man, because I think that you're really
Speaker 1: You're just so original, you know what I mean, You're
Speaker 1: so I watch you in that movie, and I hope
Speaker 1: people watch this movie. They've got to see this movie.
Speaker 1: You can't kill David Arquette. It is really, really, really
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to painful. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: it's funny. I appreciate it. Thank you. That'st of luck
Speaker 1: to you, buddy, to my thanks to actors Eddie Marston
Speaker 1: and David Arquette. We're produced by Kathleen Ruth, Carrie Donohue
Speaker 1: and Zach McNeese. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Sarah every and Justin Wright. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.