Kevin Pollak

Actor, comedian, and poker shark Kevin Pollak, currently starring as Moishe on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, tells Brian all about starting stand-up as a child at his family Seder, taking a chance on a little script called The Usual Suspects, and the best acting advice he ever got: do less.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you were to google these words Christopher Walking impersonation,

(00:04):
search answers will come up. I drumroll, please a number
one on that Google search. There you go. Now that
in six dollars will buy me a coffee at Starbucks.
So it's a it's an absolute worthless brag. It's just
a fact. Hello there, Kevin Pollock here, how are you?

(00:29):
Don't get up? I am so very excited to be
here with you and Brian right now. Hello friends, it
is me Brian Baumgartner, back with another episode of Off

(00:50):
the Beat. Thank you for joining me. My guest today.
As you just heard he is, well, he's a legend,
Kevin Paula. You might know him as Hockney in The
Iconic and one of my favorites The Usual Suspects or
most recently Moista Maizel in The Marvelous Mrs Mazel. But

(01:12):
today we're gonna go way back to Kevin's comedy roots
in the great city of San Francisco. Are you aware
that Kevin is one of the greatest improvisers and stand
up comedians of all time? He started stand up at
the age of ten, if you could believe that, and
he kept working on his craft until he started his

(01:35):
professional comedy career just right out of high school. And
boy was it a career. Back in the seventies before
many of you were alive, including myself obviously, Kevin worked
alongside Robin Williams Dana Carvey, together becoming the kings of

(01:55):
the Bay Area comedy scene. This led him to Hollywood
and to talk about a career roles in Willow Casino,
A few good men, grumpy old men, many many more.
Today we're gonna get into Kevin's full story, from his
best jokes as a child comedian to what the marvelous

(02:15):
Mrs Mazel means to him as a stand up icon himself.
This is a great episode for all you comedy nerds
out there, myself included. So please, with my greatest of
all pleasures, welcome Kevin Pollock. Bubble and Squeak. I love it,

(02:38):
Bubble and Squeak, Bubble and Squeaker Cookie every month left
over from the night before. What's up, Kevin? How are you? I?

(03:00):
You know, it's it's funny in going back and re
studying your amazing career. Uh. The thing that that popped
out first, of course, was your love for poker, and
I was like, oh, yes, we have met at a
couple poker tournaments back in the olden days, and I

(03:21):
and I specifically remember this is gonna come up a
few times. I just moved, okay, And so I found
a gigantic crystal trophy at a poker tournament that you
were at. So really, I'm leading off this conversation by
saying I kicked your ass once. Did we ever play
a hand together? No, I don't think I let somebody

(03:45):
else take you out, So yeah, yeah, someone else did
take me out. Um yeah, the charity, um, I assume
that's what it was. Poker tournament, Those are um um,
always fun to to give to a worthy cause and
their horrible old poker. Yes, if you're a you know,
serious poker player, just because there's wonderful, wonderful, generous people

(04:06):
donating to the cause who invariably will say I don't
really know how to play poker. I just wanted. And
then that person is the most dangerous person, I would say,
because they'll play every hand and you have no way
to gauge whether it's a good or bad. How many
times have you played the World Series of Poker seven
and I've cashed twice? Which is not quite Hall of

(04:27):
Fame batting average inductee, but close. Yeah. So that event
that was for a seed at the World Series of Poker,
which is what you won along with your Crystal trophy,
which is what I want along with my Crystal trophy.
And then of course I was I was shooting a
television show and had to take a cash buy out,
so I didn't I didn't actually make it, but my

(04:48):
bucket list for sure. Um, well, I want to go
back to your early days. First, you grew up in
San Francisco, born into San Francisco, raised in an hour
south in San Jose, and you started doing stand up
at age ten? Well, sure, um, first for family and

(05:09):
then eventually at school. Yeah, it was just lip syncing
a comedy album at ten, that was the act. Okay,
it was lips What what comedy album? Well, if only
he had put in the liner notes of his comedy
album that he would go on to be the most
prolific serial rapist from show business in history, maybe I

(05:30):
wouldn't have chosen that one. But that wasn't in the
liner notes. So it was Bill Cosby's first album. Interesting, Yeah, yeah, okay,
fair enough. What was it that attracted you to it.
Performing in that way. Oh um, my mom brought home
his first album, and I watched my parents laugh uncontrollably

(05:52):
listening to the stories coming from the stereo Hi Fi,
which back then was a seven ft wide piece of furniture.
Compared that to the tiny devices we used now you
hold in your pocket, right, yeah, or just shoven your ears.
But watching my folks laughing uncontrollably like that, it was
the first and it was as off putting or awkward

(06:13):
as watching them openly weep. I mean, it really was strange.
Not that they never laughed, it just they never laughed
at someone talking from the stereo. So when no one
was around, I just listened to it a lot more
because I wanted to be that person telling the stories
making my parents laugh, right, I think that was the obsession.

(06:34):
And then I would race home after school and listen
to it, and eventually standing in front of the stereo
pretending I was the one telling the stories. Not knowing
that a lip sinking was a thing, so I wasn't
trying the lip sing, uh, Nor did I think I
was inventing lip sinking. I didn't even know the term.
I was just playing. I was. There was no interactive games.

(06:54):
We had just invented fire. This was a while ago, Brian.
So there I was, and my mother came home and
quote unquote caught me. And I used that term because
it was as if I was as embarrassed as if
she caught me doing something else. So then she laughed,
pointed at me and said, you're doing that for the

(07:16):
zookers that pass over. So my first live show was
on the white painted out fireplace shelving in front of
the fireplace, stood on that and performed for twenty relatives
that pass over and crushed Brian. I just killed well,
and I went on to do it at school and

(07:37):
other functions. But you know, it was a ten year old,
precocious Jewish kid lip syncing this hilarious comedy bed. I
didn't write the material. I didn't even perform it, really
I but you know I cleared my throat at the
same moment he does on the album, and those little
things from a ten year old forget it. So I

(07:57):
just killed. I killed constantly, and I did that act,
I'm gonna say, for another five years at every function
at school, be at a folk festival of father daughter dinner, dance,
you know, whatever the events were, There's Kevin and the
no and the arc routine. I mean, I was mesmerized
by all the comedy albums of the day, and when

(08:19):
friends would gather, I would be quoting the album. And
then I realized, I guess I need my own material.
And uh, but I was. I was a natural and
doing impersonations. And then that became the cornerstone of what
I would call an act. At seven sevause, when I
performed professionally in a nightclub, did you did you inherently

(08:42):
feel the comedy in the rhythms or in the you
felt it? Yeah? And you? And then no, any arcr
tune in particular is just Noah talking to God because
Noah's confused about how to build the art and it's
as g rated as comedy gets. And then once I
I think, dialed into the story, I organically or involuntarily

(09:06):
picked up the comedy rhythms. So I learned timing timing
from this Jedi master through osmosis, and then I think
the impersonations was just a natural thing, but also it
taught me how to act. I learned acting nuances from

(09:28):
the nuances that I went on to create while doing
an impersonation. We talked to me a little bit about that,
meaning different people's timing depending on who you were imitating.
You started to assimilate all of that. Yeah, I mean
I I learned from from watching actors and then impersonating them.
So I would implement what I thought were gestures and

(09:52):
nuance and line readings because I was speaking. Finally, then
I learned to act the set of movies. I never
attended an acting class. I'm not proud of that. I
never studied at university. In fact, I graduated from San
Jose State University in nine months. My friends called a

(10:13):
dropping out, but I was done. I was done, and
you finished. There was no ceremony. I didn't need a
little hat with a tassel. I was done. Also, I
had started performing fairly regularly in in as a comedian.
There were no comedy clubs in San Jose at that point,
and I was only eighteen. At that point, I didn't

(10:35):
have quite the courage to drive up to San Francisco,
the hotbed of stand up comedy, and so I would
open up for music acts in bars. And it might
have been the toughest forging steel through fire. I could
have chosen because these are little ship kicker bars and

(10:57):
and the band. The bands are all doing cover music,
and it's feel good music and hooting and holler and
and when the band takes a break, that's the first
opportunity that guys have to to buy drinks for women.
Was the experience in the mid seventies, anyways. And the
last thing they want is to look at the stage

(11:18):
and see some little puts. Think who thinks he can
do Peter Folks, Lieutenant Columbo, you know. And it was
I Sometimes I would get the bartenders looking and laughing,
but none of the audience. You know, it's a long
time before I don't know. I don't even remember the

(11:39):
moment when someone decided to listen and it turned everything around.
But I do remember one arc of success within this
myopic world. I was performing standard. This was in a
restaurant where in the corner they would move a foretop
and put up a microphone and the band would play,
and then I would go on during their break and

(12:00):
how people are eating. So that's a little better than
guys trying to pick up. So I had their attention
at least, and I did so well at that restaurant
the Addict, Addict Attic above your House, not the Addict.
Uh I did so well the Addict that eventually the

(12:22):
band was playing during my break. Oh I know, right,
So that was the arc of the and I could have,
by the way, I could have just tapped out and said,
this is it, this is what I'm a star here
in Las Cattis, California. And then I eventually went up
to San Jose, San Francisco, rather from Santose when I
was twenty for the San Francisco International Stand Up Comedy Competition.

(12:45):
When you were you did that. Yeah, I'm still living
down at San Jose till I think I was twenty
almost twenty two. Uh So I would go up to
San Franco, do some shows and come back down. And
I was a waiter at the Attic Antique. That's what
it was called, the Antique, not the Attic and the
Antique Antique in Las Gnas. If anyone wants to do

(13:07):
a deep dive, it was the Antique. And so anyways
I would go, Yeah, I was. I was a waiter
and by the way, I crushed as a waiter, and
the reason was I had these impersonations. So most wait
staff will panic if they put down the plates, and
one of the patrons says, I asked for rice, this

(13:28):
is potato, you know, because that just means the cook
screwed up, and they you know, you wrote it down correctly, right,
And so I would just go right into Columba. Jeez,
I'm sorry I did I said right, I said it
plainly day right. There was face there he put potato
on your plate. I'm so sorry. And my tip went

(13:49):
through the roof because now I'm doing a table show, right,
and no one could figure out why I was getting
great tips. Well, what were what were your what were
your goal go to impressions, your best impressions, the impressions
you liked the most that would kill well, Peter Falk
in the seventies because he was the reigning champ on television,

(14:10):
you know, Colombo was it was all the rage, and
then followed by I guess, you know, William Shatner and
whoever the president was at the time, I guess Nixon.
But also when I eventually started up in San Francisco,
was around the same time as Dana Carvey, and so
we you know, we both did voices and impressions, and

(14:31):
you know, you you learned that you're not the only
one who learned how to do say, in this example,
Johnny Carson by watching uh Rich Little you Know someone
and Danna became sort of the king of this. Someone
has to create the key that opens the lock. And
then it's there's a template that anyone who has a
knack for this could follow. So we we would learn

(14:54):
Nixon from David Fry's comedy album about Nixon. We would
learn Douglas and Burt Lancaster from John Biner. So there
were other impersonation experts on television. There was a show
featuring all impression. It is called the Copycat. Anybody that
you feel like you've found the key two, well, listen, Brian,

(15:20):
you've claimed to have done research. But if you were
to google these words Christopher Walking impersonation, thirty thousand search
answers will come up. I drumroll please, and number one
on that Google search. There you go. Now that in
six dollars will buy me a coffee at Starbucks. So
it's a it's an absolute worthless brag. It's just a fact. Yeah,

(15:46):
I wasn't the first. I mean I saw Jay Moore
dude on SNL and then he gave somebody else credit
when I asked him, and you know, countless people have
done it since, and I'm sure that there I'm not
gonna say better because that's absurd as good, I'm sure,
But to me, it was always about finding the nuance.
It was never, um, what if Christopher walkin, we're a

(16:07):
bus boy? It might go something like this. That felt
real hacky to me right from the beginning, you know,
so eventually, yeah, I would say Christopher walking. I might
also be on the search on doing Jason Statham, Albert Brooks.
I had Dave Crea on my live streaming internet video podcasts.

(16:28):
I may have been one of the pioneers in the
podcast world, you know. And Brian it's not a competition,
um but I had Dave Creer on once and he
did Bob Einstein, who was Albert Brooks's brother, So we
did the two brothers talking to each other, and it's
it's pretty pretty great. You're performing in San Francisco at
this point, you and Dana Carvey, Robin Williams, to name

(16:53):
just three. Were there any Were there any women in
San Francisco that you were Paula pound Stone shortly there
or after, not at that exact moment maybe, but shortly
that Ellen DeGeneres did some time in San Francisco early on. Um, yeah,
there are a lot. There were a lot of women
actually carry snow good name a lot. Yeah. How often

(17:15):
did you work with Robin Well? Um? By the time
I moved to San Francisco, I guess would be about
nineteen seventy nine, he had already I think done morean Mindy,
but he was still spending all this time or the
majority of it in San Francisco. So at that point
he was already famous, and he was just unbelievably supportive

(17:36):
to all the local acts who were doing well at
the time. I remember years later when I did the
movie Willow Willow Yes, Rick Overchon and I were the
two Brownies, and we shot our scenes on a giant, big,
largest blue screen facility in the world, and it was
up by Lucas Ranch. You know. After we got and

(18:00):
work and we would contact Robin and say, we're gonna
be in the city doing a show, and the three
of us would do improv together on stage, and which
really most times resulted in me being upstage against the
wall while the two of them were downstage crushing it,
and I was just watching You're crushing the comedy club

(18:39):
scene and doing incredibly well. Where was the decision to
start auditioning for movies? And you get quite a few
in the early eighties before willow Um. But was that
wanting to try something different, or that just opportunities that
presented itself, or was that a conscious decision to start
focusing more on acting and film. Well, I'd always wanted

(19:03):
to be an actor, even though I refused to take
acting classes. I just had that, you know, I guess
from doing the impersonations. I had convinced myself I could
do it because to me, while I was doing those impressions,
there weren't a lot of punch lines. I was getting
jokes from behavioral performance, and so I was quite convinced.

(19:25):
So in nineteen two, I had come in second place
in the San Francisco International Stand Up Comedy Competition, which
was a very big deal in San Francisco, not internationally.
It just meant you could come and compete from other countries,
which really was Canada. Um, And so coming in second
meant I wasn't going to compete again. That was it.

(19:48):
And then that's when I decided. Before the next competition,
I would move to Los Angeles. And growing up in
San Francisco, you know you're really trained to hate Los Angeles. Um,
it's in our DNA, not just the sports rivalries. It's
really a deep, deep, deep thing. And once I got
to l A, I realized they don't even know we're there.

(20:10):
You know, it's a one way thing. Yeah, you know,
they keep sending out ships, they don't come back. They
had no idea we were there. So I had met
a few acts like Leno and Seinfeld and Shandling who
had come through the punch line at San Francisco, and
I had opened up for them, and they had said,
when you got to l A, let me know and

(20:31):
I'll introduce you to Bud Freeman and get you on
at the improv. So when I got to l A
and eighty three, I was instantly getting stage time, which
was incredible, and I was then once I was there,
everyone said you gotta audition, you gotta start audition, and
you gotta start auditioning. And I didn't have an agent
or manager. You would just hear about auditions and you

(20:51):
could somehow sign up or whatever. And I went on
a lot of auditions before Willow. Yeah, I didn't get
the part. So many times it felt like I would
enter the room to audition and they would say, how
about anyone but you is going to get this? Well,
it's you just said so many things that I well love.

(21:14):
We're in a lot of ways, I think the opposite, right,
Like for me, I was comedy wasn't even something that
I did or focused on early on in my in
my career. I mean, I was doing straight theater and
most of it wasn't funny at all, right, But for me,

(21:35):
it wasn't hold on. The material was not intended to
you weren't even allowed to show if you could be funny, right,
But it was about creating characters and behavior, and see,
to me, I think the best comedy is about that. Obviously,
great writers help so if they could write some funny

(21:57):
situations or some great joke, that's helpful, But behavior is
what really makes people laugh. I think. Yeah, of course
I agree, And that's what I had studied in performances
on TV and film, which was my school of acting.
You know, I would lock onto somebody that I really
liked and just study all the characteristics and timing. And

(22:22):
for sure, I agree that behavior was was everything Willow.
You've called it your your breakthrough role happens in Yeah,
I don't know. I mean, it didn't feel like acting.
It felt like clowning, which was fun, and we were
allowed to improvise and be silly, and it was incredibly fun.

(22:45):
It was incredibly exciting to be in a high profile
movie produced by George Lucas and directed by Ron Howard.
When my dad drove up from San Jose to visit
me on the set, when I introduced him with George Lucas,
he shook George Lucas his hand and said, I really
loved et. And George, who's not necessarily known for his
sense of humor or being or being funny, he certainly

(23:08):
has a sense of you, but he's rarely the funny one. Um.
When my dad said that, George smiled and said me too, um,
which a lot him off the hook pretty quick. So
it was a big deal in that regard. I don't
know that it led a single job, yeah, because again,

(23:29):
it wasn't really an acting performance, and we weren't the
stars of the movie, and it didn't propel us to
anything other than more auditions. But I think everything I
did between Willow and a Few Good Men in ninety
while we shot at ninety one and came out ninety two.
So those four years I did another six movies or so.

(23:49):
Those are all auditions, and none of it was because
anyone said I saw you and Willow and loved you.
It was a great experience. And to this day, you know,
people love that film so much that a new TV
series has come to Disney plus the end of November. Yes, well,
you do do a number of movies during that time.

(24:12):
After Willow, you get a Few good Men, then grumpy
old Men. It's all about men. I guess with you,
and then one of my favorite you know you have
like what's your favorite movie? I have another category called
my favorite underappreciated movies. So right, like True Romance for

(24:34):
me is on that list. I love True Romance. I
think it's genius. Yeah, Tarantino script The Usual Suspects is
also on that list. What it does in that moment
is so transcendent and amazing and beautiful, and the movie
is filled with beautiful performances. Talk to me a little bit.
I hear that you met with singer, so not an

(24:57):
audition movie. You met with singer and then you heard
two other people were coming in, and you went in
an audition. Is that yeah? After a fun Man came
out of ninety two, I did across the goal line
for every actor, going from auditioning to getting offers. And
that was It's why I did forty movies in the nineties,
because I came up in stand up comedy and when
someone offers you a gig, the answer is yes. So

(25:20):
in the nineties I was a girl who couldn't say no,
and and six of those forty movies are really good.
But so my vetting average is not that great. But
uh so I was just getting offers and then you know,
I would talk to my agent. He would He kept saying,
You've got to read this script called The Usual Suspects.
And I said, well, okay, who's directing it? He said,

(25:42):
a young guy had never heard of him. Was it
all right? Who's in it? Um? Nobody right now other
than this other character actor named Kevin Spacey, who no
one was green lighting Kevin Spacey movies. So that was
a very little interest to me. Because when you have
a small or sizeable stack of scripts that you and
your agent are deciding which to do, all I care about.

(26:06):
Are the components who wrote it, who's directing it, who's
in it. You're as good as the company you keep.
You want to raise the level of your tennis game,
play with a better player all that. So when he
says you've never heard of the director or the writer,
they're both kids in their early twenties or mid twenties,
and it starts Kevin Spacey. My reaction was, who, what

(26:26):
are the other scripts that I should be reading? I mean,
it's only funny in retrospect. At the time, it was
just you know what, you did, what you said, But
he just kept hammering me, just read it, just read it.
So eventually I said, okay, I'll read it, and only
to shut you up. Well am I reading this? And
at page five I called him and said I'm in

(26:47):
and he said, well, the director wants you. Let me
call him and let him know that you're interested to
see if there's any parts left, because I don't know
where he's in the process. So he talked to the director,
Brian Singer, and he called me back and he said,
there two parts left. Brian would love you to do
whichever one you want. And at the time it was
Todd Hackney the character ended up playing, and it was Fenster,

(27:09):
the character of the Pinzio del Toro ended up playing.
And I said to my agent, well, I don't want
to play Fenster because that character is only the spoiler alert.
That character is only in the script to die so
to tell the other suspects they can't run from Kaiser.
So he has no moments, he has no scenes, he
has no he's McManus's sidekick. And then Benetzel steals every

(27:34):
scene he's in because he's brilliant. But so I said,
I'll do Todd Hackney. And then the agent calls Brian
calls me back and says what you quoted, which is
Brian said, there, he has to see these two actors.
He would love you to do Todd Hackney, but he's
already agreed to see these two actors today and to

(27:54):
not piss off agents and things. He has to see them.
But the part is yours. That was the conversation. And
I had finished reading the script by then, and I said, well,
I'm not gonna let one of these two actors come
in and blow his mind and steal the part. Tell
him I'm coming in today to audition. And my agent

(28:15):
was like, no, no, no, no, no, no no, we
are not breaking the precedent of you getting offers. Only
you're not auditioning. And we argued around and round and round,
because there's a whole thing about that once you get
to that lofty purch you don't undermine it by auditioning.
So I won the argument. I went in, I auditioned,
I got the part end of story. What about the

(28:38):
script did you respond to so so quickly? It's still
the best script I've ever read. Years later. Yeah, So
as great as the movie is, the script is even better,
I would say, because you're envisioning in your own mind
what is happening, and it's great at a job as
Brian did in the movie, that script is just one

(28:59):
of the greatest page turners. I mean, it won the
Academy Awards, so I'm not an idiot for saying this.
Now here's where things get tricky, Brian. The movie is
filled with lines that were not in the screenplay that
I improvised that helped win Chris mcquarie the Oscar and
I tell that prick to put the trophy on my

(29:22):
mantle one week out of the year. One he gets
it fifty one weeks. I get it. One. Do you
think that's too much to ask? I think that's I
think that's very fair. I think that's very fair. Now
do you want to guess? Or I could just tell
you something. So there's so many So the police line up. Well,

(29:45):
the very first time you see me in the movie,
there's a montage of each one of us being collected
by the police. And mine is my garage door opens,
a half dozen cops flood in. I'm working on the
side mirror with the screwdriver. I look at them through
the side mirror. That's what was in the script, but

(30:06):
in the movie I look at them in the side
mirror and say, are you sure you're broad enough? Guys? Hilarious,
hilarious and sets the tone, thank you very much for
my character, and that the movie is going to have
some humor. That's right, that's right, and it's in the movie.
Chris macquarie last week a year Oscar winner at you,

(30:30):
prick um. Yeah, and there's a bunch of others. I mean, wow,
so you were you were as great as the script was,
as page turnery as it was. Brian the director still
had the wherewithal if we knew what we were doing.
We because we could improvise. What makes a truly great improviser,
which I know you are, is the ability to improvise,

(30:54):
not for a joke alone, but that stays on story
and on point. And that's where people get in trouble. Right, yes,
are you allowed to swear on this? So Chris wrote
the great in the Inn the interrogation. The interrogator, who

(31:15):
is a young Chris mcquarie you never see his face, thankfully,
says they're trying to figure out who robbed the truck.
And he says, um, you know I can put you
in Queens on the night of the robbery. And he
wrote the line, oh really, I live in Queens, And
then I added, you put that together yourself, Einstein, what

(31:36):
you got a team of monkeys working around the clock
on this. So again he just wrote, I live in Queens.
That's it also funny, but not as funny. So I
just kept talking in that moment. So it was that
sort of thing where I and that's been true on
everything until Mrs Masiel, where you sort of have to

(31:58):
say every word exactly as in, which I'm fine with
and a few good men was also from a place,
so Rob Ryner was very very strict about not changing
the dialogue. But yeah, I mean I I don't look
to create problems for people by improvising, but if given
the opportunity, you'll take it. Yeah. And also now, I've
been a member of the Writer's Guild forever and I

(32:19):
kind of know what I'm doing in terms of making
some suggestion, right, But I'm very as a writer all
these years. I'm also very very respectful to the writer.
Now that I've directed a few times, I'm also very
respectful to what the director's needs are. And you know,
I use sort of sense. Is this a playground where
I'm tethered or not? Right? Were you looking at that time?

(32:44):
I mean being at this point, it's fair to say
a legendary comedian, at least in the San Francisco and
stand up circuit. Are you looking for something different? Is
that a part of the conversation you're having with your
agent as you're as you're mulling over offers. No, I
had a secret notion of doing dramatic work, but because
I had no training, I was very intimidated by it.

(33:07):
I mean, I've done a few dramas before that. Ricochet
with Denzel Washington. But that was an audition. You understand,
as I'm sure you know, when you're first starting out
your audition for everything that you're remotely right for, you
don't have the conversation, well, I'm looking to do comedy.
So after a few good Men, however, people discover you

(33:29):
is how they know you. I'd been doing stand up
for fifteen years. My second HBO special came out at
the same time as a Few good Men, and it
didn't matter. What mattered was that a few good Men
made half a billion dollars in It was a juggernaut,
and thankfully I was getting all these offers. Some of
them were comedies like Grumpio Men, and some of them

(33:53):
were were, you know, dramatic. I didn't feel worthy of
seeking a dramatic career. My my real fantasy was born
when I saw Michael Keaton in Night Shift. A lot
of stand up comedians, because he had started as a
stand up also, a lot of stand up comedians saw
that performance because it was so all over the place

(34:14):
and so great. In fact, I remember when I talked
to Ron Howard, who Drew also directed Night Shift. He
said Michael's performance was so all over the place. The
first couple of weeks, the studio was calling him every
day after seeing dailies and wanting to fire him because
he was all over the place, and I didn't understand
what he was doing. But to me, it was comedic gold.
That's what the plan was. Do that. You know, Tom

(34:36):
Hanks and Splash there were least great comic lead designs,
but then after a few good men, it just shot
on fifteen years of stand up and I was to
this day having to remind people that I started in
the stand up comedy. And then by the mid nineties,
Casino and The Usual Suspects came out in the same year,

(34:57):
and I was just I was just done being funny,
to the point where years later when Bruce Willis and
Matthew Parry we're going to start in this movie called
The Whole nine Yards, and they they had talked over
me being in it as this character Yanni goglact, this
hit man, and they mentioned it to the director, Jonathan Lynn,

(35:19):
British guy done my cousin Vinny and some great comedies,
and and Jonathan Lynn's response was, yeah, well, I mean
he's quite good, isn't He's I've seen a few good
men have seen usual suspects. He's very talented, very diverse.
But you know, Fellas, this is a comedy. That's a quote.

(35:40):
That's a quote. And as the story goes, Bruce grabbed
him firmly and said sternly, he's a comedian, that's what
he does. Um. So that was an offer, maybe against
Jonathan's wishes, but um. But then it ended up being
this in incredibly great comedic opportunity within this kind of

(36:03):
dramatic part that I was playing in that movie, because
the director said, yes, under dress. But then when I
was talking to him about the character, I had said, well,
in the script, he's it's it makes reference to he
was born in Hungary, but he was raised in Chicago,
where the story takes place. And so do you want
a Hungarian accent or do you want a Chicago accent?

(36:25):
And he said, much to my consternation, do you think
you could do both? And so I did, and uh,
it was it was cheating because for Hungarian I just
switched the vs and the ws. That was pretty lazy
on the accent, and then that hard Chicago thing. You know,
it's pretty hard to hit. So Yanni would say, my

(36:47):
father was a great main a man of Wigan. Um, yeah,
so so. But anyways, by the mid nineties, I was
stamped dramatic actor and I don't know I was next
Harvey Kitel. I wasn't the next Michael Keaton their tomics.
Does that bother you? Well, it was frustrating at the time,

(37:08):
but I was still getting offer, so it wasn't that frustrating.
You know, don't cry for me, Argentina. Right again, there
was no grand design. When people think any of us
decided this, these extraordinary paths that we've taken, you know,
they need to rethink the question. Yes, I think I
asked because I was I was hopeful. I think in

(37:29):
a way that that you had devised the plan, because
I think for me, when I left the office that
was I had the plan. It just didn't It didn't
quite happen that way, right, I mean, it was like
I'm going to return back and do you know dramatic roles,
bad guy, like this is what I'm gonna do. And

(37:50):
it was like no, no, no, you're not. No, that's
not our plan for you, my friend. And again there's
no it's not really as a way of a plaining
at all, but it's more, just like wondering whether that
was something that you had devised or thought about, but
it sounds like it just happened. Well, here's a great
irony and a few good men. I was so intimidated

(38:13):
by all the great actors, and I remember going to J. T. Walsh,
great character actor who plays Markinson and a few good men.
Remember going to his trailer and confessing, I didn't have
any formal training. I don't know what I'm doing, and
this is the movie I'm found out on what do
I do? And he basically said, I've been watching you

(38:35):
and you're doing a technique of acting that actually people study.
It's called less is more. And I said, yeah, yeah,
I'm underplaying everything because I don't want to get caught acting.
He said, well, that's good. You should just do that,
but you should know also there's a second half to
that technique, less is more. Nothing is best. If you
can do nothing in a scene, nothing and pull focus,

(38:58):
you win. And so then I devoted my entire career
to basically doing nothing. I mean, your career. We could

(39:26):
we could talk all day, but you know, I do
want to touch on Mrs Mazel, returning back clearly to
your comedy roots. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the marvelous Mrs Mazel.
You know, I watched the pilot. Amy Sherman Palladino, Damn
Paldino realized they hadn't cast any in laws in the
pilot and they needed in laws, so they offered me

(39:47):
this thing, and I do the thing and my better
half together fifteen years now, but she watched my first
performance in it in the first season and said, this
was the part you were born to play, allowed, obnoxious jew,
That's the part I was born to play. And how
the funk? I've been throwing everything away from my entire career,
under playing everything, and I'm finally a blow hard and

(40:11):
everyone thinks this, Wow, this is a return to what
you're supposed to be doing. This is who you are.
Fuck me, Um, this was an offer. And did you
read the pilot? Did you or you watch the pilot?
I watched the pilot. Yeah. The Amazon did a thing then.
I don't know about now, but they did a thing then.

(40:31):
They just put their pilots up on the streaming platform
and invite people to watch them, and based on the reaction,
they would make their decisions, which is kind of amazing, right,
And you responded to it, and so I responded, Yeah,
I mean, you know, they picked up the pilot to
two seasons. It's a crazy ass great pilot. Yes, and

(40:53):
so yeah, it's pretty pretty no brainer. Plus they had
the pedigree of Gilmo Girls and other things, and uh, yeah,
it was a quick and easy yes. Yeah. Is it
fun for you to be able to do more than nothing? Well, unfortunately,
it's been incredible fun. Yeah, it's been extraordinary fun. It's

(41:14):
been the greatest gig ever. I mean, you know, when
you're in the pocket of a great television show that's
an ensembled cast and you get to do um multitude
of episodes and multitude of seasons and people love you.
I know you guys, like a lot of historically successful sitcoms,
I think, struggled in the first season maybe yeah, to

(41:35):
find an audience. But in our case, it was insane.
It was. And also we premiered I think a week
before they announced the Golden Globes and we were nominated
within a week and one. But yeah, it was weird
to break through the zeitgeist immediately. And even then, five

(41:56):
years ago there were at least five hundred scripted shows.
Now I think there's seven undred, maybe eight hundred. It's bonkers,
isn't a great Nellet you pass a billboard that says
so and so the name of the show, and then
it says season four premiere next week, and you think,
I've never even heard of this fucking show. I never
heard of this show. But some of them are like,
oh I do. I'll see it. I'll be like, oh,

(42:19):
that's or I'll see a trailer and I'll be like, oh,
that sounds really interesting, and then I'll see that it's
season four and I'm like, oh, yeah, I can't I
can't invest I can't go backwards. Yeah, the point being,
there's too much content. So the fact that we broke
through the noise in the conversation to be what the
show was right out of the cannon was historical and
one of the many reasons it's been the greatest gig ever.

(42:42):
And we're in the midst of shooting our fifth and
final season right now. What what do you think the
primary message is from the show? Do you think there's
anything specific about the fact that the story takes place
as a young woman in a world of stand up
that has typically and very difficult for women. Yeah, I

(43:03):
mean Amy Sherman. Palladino's father was a stand up comedian,
so she grew up in that world. You know, he
was on Playboy after Dark and he was he had
made it to the middle, I think, and um, she
was fascinated by that world her whole life. And also,
you know, one of the greatest compliments I get about
the show, the greatest to me in the sense that

(43:25):
means the most to me, is from other stand up comedians,
because we sort of hate shows about comedy and movies
about stand up because they never get it right. Like
I'm sure trauma surgeons looked at the are and said,
this is horseshit, or any other dated reference I could
think of. So, um, what I got calls from comedians saying,

(43:45):
and to this day, I'll get a text out of
the blue, like the last season when my character falls
off his stool when his son tells him something. I
used my stunt double actually from Usual Suspects, Max Daniel
has been my stunt double ever since. But I my
character just takes this dead fall right off of stool
to the ground, And I got a text completely out
of the blue from Paul Left Tompkins that said, and

(44:07):
and it included a gift of me falling off the stool,
and he just wrote how and sure enough they use
CG I to put my face on Max. That was
the answer. But anyways, um to hear from comedians who
love this show. But I think it's because Rachel Brosenhan
is just a great dramatic actress, and these great writers

(44:32):
have written, you know, the type of stand up which
is stream of consciousness, which didn't exist then. It barely
exists now where someone would literally go on stage and
just speak their mind. It's it's not really a thing.
It's a thing for about five minutes. It's not a
thing for a whole act. I remember Paul if Tompkins
actually for a while would go on stage and improvise
his entire act. And I think some people try it.

(44:55):
It's just not the way to do stand up. It's
too hard, especially you have to do an hour, which
is a typical headline at least an hour. So she's
written these great stream of conscious monologues that Rachel has.
A dramatic actress is able to perform real authentically, not
joking lee or jokey. She's not delivering punch lines very

(45:19):
often Alex Borstein, a great comic who plays Susie has
all the one liners. Really, so the show is pretty
behavioral also. But yes, and I think that was one
of the impactful things about the show is that this
woman falls asked backwards onto a stage because she was
drunk and her husband left her and she had been

(45:40):
to this comedy place earlier, and magic happens. Yeah. From
the very beginning, I was just always struck by that
you found an environment where mostly no one can shut
you up. You literally have the mic and you have

(46:02):
the voice, and that she uses that to process what's
going on inside of her and at the same time
be funny with behavioral observations. I think that's for me,
the real magic of it. Yeah, and I would add
to great points, and I would add to your great points.
It allows the writers to let the audience know what

(46:23):
this central character is going through and thinking without her
having to tell someone in her life. She's telling an
audience that's right, it's exposition, that's right, that's right. We're
getting we're getting to know her, We're getting to know
how smart she is, We're getting to know how funny
and clever she is without seeing her in quote unquote
real life situation. You probably said it better. It's kind

(46:45):
of genius in that regard, and I don't think I've
thought those specific words before. It is, so thank you,
You're welcome anything I can do to help um. Do
you feel like it's time for it to be over? Well,
for the very first day of shooting the series, I
don't know about the pilot, but the series, so officially
episode two, Amy would casually say, if we're lucky enough

(47:11):
and successful enough to get more than one seed, more
than two, because they picked it up to two seasons,
just so you guys know, we see this as a
five season show. We know where it's going, we know
the arc, we know where we want it to go.
If we're lucky enough to be allowed to do five,
that'll be it. And she she just kept saying it,

(47:31):
and every you know, we won Emmy's the first year,
and we would check back in with her as we're
shooting season two, so just five seasons, and she'd say, yep,
just five season, and every year we would check in
with her, yep, just five seasons. So it wasn't a surprise.
It's certainly a bitter sweet it's kind of great to
get out when the show is still really good. It
sucks to end the greatest job you ever had, for sure,

(47:54):
But I guess because she had warned us year after
year after year. The lack of surprise takes away a
lot of the negative experience. It's all just gratitude. It's
kind of been gratitude every year. But it's his gratitude tour.
Shooting the fifth season, we're in the last three of

(48:14):
nine episodes. This is the best job you ever had.
Oh yeah, it probably just because it's more, you know,
there's a beat working with Casino on Casino, with Martin Scorsese.
I mean, I've just been sick lucky in terms of
the great directors, Rob Reiner, I mentioned Ron Howard, Barry Levinson. Yeah,

(48:35):
extraordinary directors, and those were seminal experiences for sure. But
the fact that this is five seasons over six years,
it's just gone on so long that it just wins. Also,
it's the most challenging and rewarding work I've done, maybe
since a few Good Men, in terms of don't funk

(48:56):
this up, you know, And also because Amy and Dan
with like to shoot these eight page one ers, and
you know, when you shoot a master of a page scene.
You just can't wait to get the coverage. And when
you know there's no coverage right and there's fourteen moving parts,
you do not want to be the reason we're going again.

(49:18):
And it creates a work in practice and rituals and
environment for me that I just never had. That's awesome.
I find that so fun. I love I love those
and they do now. It's become a signature. So there's
many of them in every episode. It seems. In fact,
when we do a scene and it's not a wonder,
it feels kind of weird, like we're wait, we're doing coverage?

(49:41):
What the hell? Um? You like being a director? I do?
I do because it it um calls on all the
training from stand up and acting and writing. I was
playing poker for one of these TV shows recently. Sitting
next to me was Chris you Banks Jr. This brilliant

(50:01):
British boxer, and we became friendly and we were texting
afterwards and I ended up sharing with him something that
I had thought but never articulated, and it was only
based on his instant positive response that allows me to,
I guess share it with you now, which is a

(50:22):
comedian is like a fighter, a boxer, professional boxer. You've
got people in your corner, you've got training that you
can do constantly. But when you step in that ring
or on that stage, you're not only by yourself. You
are living or dying moment by moment based on your
instincts and your training and your skills. And uh, that

(50:44):
is not the case with acting, and that is not
the case with writing. So those instincts are honed a
piece of metal through fire into a sword. Because on
a set, as the director, you you are in charge
of everything. Everyone comes to you all day long with questions.
In fact, I remember interviewing Jason Jason Rightman on the

(51:05):
Chat show technically still available on YouTube, found episodes ten
years no big deal. I remember interviewing him and he said, uh,
he said, well, people are gonna come to you all
day long with questions, whether you have an answer or not.
You need to give an answer. It doesn't even need
to be the right answer. But you could never say
I don't know, what do you think. You can give
your answer and then say what do you think? What

(51:26):
do you think? But you have to have an answer
because it's about leadership first and foremost but then empowering
other people with their opinions is also important. But anyways,
stand up and then writing and acting it all kind
of fueled this idea and then a scoche of confidence
that I might be able to do it, and then

(51:46):
once you do it, you're just hooked for life. In
addition to the the chat show that you have mentioned
four episodes available on YouTube, you also have a very
successful podcast, asked Alchemy this what what was the inspiration there?
Just to make people laugh? I sunk around with your friends. Yeah.

(52:09):
I live on the West Side of Los Angeles and
there's a little theater in the the entrance to which
is in the urine soaked alleyway between third and fourth
Street in Santa Monica. It's called the West Side Comedy Theater.
And uh, my better f Jamie and I had gone
several times and we'd seen some very very funny improvisers,
and she was writing for a sketch team there, and

(52:29):
we just became friendly with a bunch of these folks.
And so when I ended the chat show after ten years,
I took some time off, and then I just got
the itch to do another podcast, and so I realized,
I know all these brilliant improvisers. What if I forced
these brilliant improvisers to sit around a table with microphones
in the studio theater of the mine, and we just

(52:50):
improvised scenes based on the scene suggestions from the audience.
And then when every time I asked, somebody great like
Craig Gatkowski or Vanessa Raglan, Joe Agreer, Chris Alvarado, James
Heeney and I think were the initial group and they
leapt at the chance. And then I was ship, what
have I done? Now? Now I got to do this,

(53:11):
and we did. We did it for three years. We
just halted it a few months back, but because it
went to zoom through the way so many of these
do during the pandemic, and that really lost a lot
of the fun in terms of being live in a
room improvising. You know, sure, aside from Mrs Maisel, favorite

(53:31):
film and best film that you've done well, the most
seminole and life changing started with avalon to Barry Levinson
film because that was the first you know, he he
had just come off all the awards on rain Man
and he was given the Keys to the Kingdom and
he wanted to do another small Baltimore set film. It

(53:52):
was the third set in his hometown and so to
be given one of the leads in that by the
genius writer director who who just wanted me to be
loose and natural, just be you, and I learned so
much from him. And then also while the movie didn't
wasn't a huge box office success, it got everyone's attention

(54:14):
within the industry and it did bring me to the
attention of a lot of people. So that was the
first one, and then a few Good Men, and then
Usual Suspects and Casinos, so those, you know, those were
all just bananas, over the top, ridiculous, high profile. Usual
Suspects premiered at the can Film Festival, so having that
experience and also pulp fiction had won the Palm Door

(54:35):
of the year before, so when we got there as
the next American crime movie, we were it was like
the Beatles landed. No one had even seen the film yet,
but that's just how we were treated. It was really bizarre,
surreal and exceptional and the the grumpio meta movie studying at
the feet of Mount Rushmore, between Math and Lemon and
Margaret and Burgess, Meredith and those people amazing. Yeah, if

(54:55):
you can't tell I'm such a huge fan of not
just the movie and shows you've been in, but of
you great actor and guys. So thanks. I want you
to know how much I appreciate you coming on today
and and sharing some insight. Oh you're very welcome. Thanks
for the invite, Happy to be here. Listen to the show,
and let's let's play poker. At some point I would

(55:19):
like I would like to are you a regular poker player?
I am okay, Well, I host a weekly game, so
do you. I'll tell you I used to play a lot,
a lot. I got married and I had two habits
graduate a long time, each poker and golf. So I

(55:40):
sort of I haven't given up poker, but I don't
play as much as I used to, but I would.
There may be a scene would love to play. It
may be a seat this week, so get me your information.
Thank you, Kevin, Thank you so much, Kevin, Thank you

(56:06):
so much for the chat. I loved hearing your story.
By the way, make sure to save a seat for
me at your next poker event. I will be awaiting
your invitation. Listeners. I'll see you next week for another
episode of Off the Beat. One of my favorite female

(56:27):
comedians both she and I I think not. It's going
to be a great one, mark my words. I will
see you next week. Off the Beat is hosted an

(56:48):
executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley.
Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and
Emily carr Are. Talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary, and
our intern is Sammy Cats. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak,
performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,