Mark Duplass, radical optimist?

This week on Off the Cupp, S.E. chats with forever Indie fave and star of The Morning Show, Mark Duplass. S.E. finds out Mark was a pretty different kid than how he presents today. Mark talks about the unique alchemy of personality and childhood helped him take some bold risks in his early career and propels him still. Mark also dishes on his famous co-stars and what it's like in the Big Hollywood Leagues. Mark also gets honest about his own mental health journey, the signs he ignored,  and the systems he has put in place to help him cope. Finally it's a very Duplass lightning round! Tune in to find out!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
It was this discovery of me that those who are
interested in you in this business, by and large are
interested in taking advantage of the level that you are
at when you don't need them, as opposed to offering
you a new step up to the next level.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome to Off the Cuff, my personal anti anxiety antidote.
One of the best parts of this podcast for me
is getting to interview really creative people. I admire people
who can create their own opportunities and carve out their
own spaces, people who make genuinely new stuff, not the

(00:39):
stuff they're told to make to climb the ladder of success.
And it's especially nice when those people are rewarded for
that creativity, when that works, when that creativity and ingenuity
and sense.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Of self pays off.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today's guest is Mark Duplas, whose career has modeled this
creative arc in a way that's super impressive and frankly,
I'm jealous. He's a filmmaker, actor, writer, musician, writer, director,
star of The Puffy Chair, co writer and star of
the Creep Horror series, Star of the League, Emmy winning

(01:13):
producer of the incredible documentary Wild Wild Country, and Emmy
nominated actor of the Morning Show.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
Welcome Mark to Plus.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Well, thank you, and you just made my mother so
happy with that introduction. Send this to her and good boy,
that's my baby.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
Boy.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, I really do admire your career arc and we
want to get into it. But to start a lot
of guests that I've had on here, I've known a
little bit or maybe even a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
We don't know each other.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
We don't know each other, but I did consult on
The Morning Show before you came on it.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
I was brought in by Apple early.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
When the show was first being conceived and it was
meant to be a comedy, and so I was brought
out to La to join the writer's room and helping
to like round out Reese's character because she was like
a center right, you know, that's right like me, and
Hollywood doesn't know how to write conservative and so I
mostly told like scenario stories.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
They'd be like, what would happen in this scenario?

Speaker 2 (02:17):
And I had consulted for Aaron Sorkins the newsroom as well,
so helping with verisimilitude in the media landscape was really fun.
But of course then the Morning Show morphed into a
drama mostly, but you were you were apprehensive about taking
this role, were you not?

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah, for a number of reasons. I think the first
was more of a pragmatic consideration of you know, I
run my own company and I have to be available
for them. And when you take a job like there's
a big job like this, particularly with Apple, you know,
it introduces a new overlord in my life, and so
that when they say jump, I have to say how high,

(02:58):
and particularly I have to say when. So I had
sort of promised myself and a bunch of people, like,
you know what, my days of doing long term acting
TV gigs where I'm not the boss, I think those
are numbered, you know. But what I had an accounted
for is the size of my own ego because when
when a big job, when Aiston calls and Witherspoon calls

(03:21):
and Steve Carrell's riding shotgun, you know, I'm a human
I'm a human being, and I'm like, I get to
hang out with all my favorite stars that I've you know,
all the men and women I've been crushing on, you know,
for years. So I had to say yes. But you know,

(03:42):
I think there were other considerations I had about the show,
because you know, it's such really anathema to everything I
believe in terms of the creative process and what I do.
I'm like, keep it cheap, keep it small, and keep
it on the air, you know. And this thing was
just this bloated monson had to be so massively successful

(04:04):
for it to work, and go figure it. It does work.
And I'm so glad that I took the gig and
didn't allow my preconceptions or fears to stop me, because
there have been so many wonderful things that have happened.
Not only you know, just the accolades, all that stuff
has been great, But honestly, I've learned so much watching
that machine operate together. Yeah, yeah, and can apply to

(04:27):
my own life. And and it's just it's just a
wonderful job. Everybody is so nice. And I know you're
supposed to come on podcasts and say how nice everybody is,
but I really really mean it, Yeah, and I mean
it in a surprised way of you know, big international

(04:48):
celebrities everywhere you turn. It should it should be honestly
a shit show of personality disorders. It should be awful,
you know, And and it's really friendly and lovely and
basically it's the greatest day job anybody like make it
ask for because I you know, it makes my face

(05:10):
more popular on an international flaught, it provides seed capital
for my own company. Right, It's just it's great.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
It's great, great all around.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
The relationship between producer and anchor is very special, sometimes
very fraught. It's honestly very hard to capture in fiction
or a scripted material because it's it's both so codependent, yes,
and sometimes very unhealthy. But also if it works, it's
the best relationship you have, like better than any personal

(05:42):
or professional relationship, because this person knows you so well
that it's not just a work relationship. It becomes, like
I said, one of your most important relationships. How did
you go about trying to capture this complicated relationship.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
I mean, I would love to say that I have
some sort of formula and we followed it and worked.
I think there's a lot of luck and Jen and
I having to really really like each other. And I
think that's the most important thing of this is that,
you know, the scenes are full of us just being
horrific to each other, mostly horrific to me. Let's fix it.

(06:21):
But what's beneath all of that is how much Jen
and I actually love each other. So that little formula
is pretty simple, and I don't want to be reductive
about it, but that's a big, big part of it.
And then I think that I do have some experience
with a type of relationship like this because of how
long I have worked in lockstep with my brother as

(06:43):
my best friend, my brother, my creative partner. The ugly sides, yes, Jay,
the ugly sides of ourselves that we've shown each other,
and then you keep returning back and you feel that
despite what you showed, you are still loved provide. It's
the kind of incredible safety that you need to survive

(07:06):
and sort of a Machiavelian environment like yeah, independent film
in my life or in this case, you know, live
news television, you know. Yeah, So that that really resonated
with me. When you've been horrific and somebody shows up
and they're still there for you, Yeah, that's that. That
to me is a secret ingredient in the recipe of
you know, that that strange codependence that keeps on It

(07:29):
takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
You know.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Yeah, it really is.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
And I've I've had some terrible producers but I've mostly
had some wonderful producers.

Speaker 3 (07:37):
Some of them are like my family, basically family.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah, but those relationships can get so tricky because as
an anchor or host, you don't want to feel undermined,
and you can get very paranoid about what this person
who controls your fate is really trying to do. I mean,
it can really play mind games with you. And I
think you guys do a really good job of, thank you,

(08:00):
of capturing that.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
It's fun. It's a fun one.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
So through the lens of the morning show, what has
it made you think about the news?

Speaker 1 (08:10):
That was a great question, you know. The first the
first thing that really occurred to me when I started
playing this role and getting immersed in this world, which
you know, of course is just a mere fact simile
of what you guys do. Was just shocked at how
high the stress levels must be because of the live
element of it. You know, I really told myself, like,

(08:33):
I'm a producer, I'm a producer of independent films. Yeah,
I know what it's like to play Kate, difficult personalities,
to try and bring the whole three ring circus, you know,
in clack Quadjet and all those kinds of things. And
then immediately I was like, oh, but I have.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Take two yeah, and those live audience of people watching
in real time.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
You don't have take two yes, And that just really
shocked me. Seem like an obvious thing, you know. So
that was like the first thing that I sort of
walked away with, you know. And then you know, the
second thing that I really loved, And this is something
I can identify with a lot, is that it's very

(09:13):
very easy when you're in the middle of a flawed ecosystem, politics,
the news, Hollywood, to convince yourself that you are the
last bastion of integrity, because all you do is you
see the flaws, and so the way that you operate
is like, well, I'm going to be either the one
that saves it or it's up to me in order
to do this right. And so it's the easiest way.

(09:33):
It's well, it just it feels very obvious, you know,
And so you get on your high horse very very quickly, right,
And I think that some blinders kind of show up,
at least in my opinion, of like, you know, well,
I'm doing the great work and it must be the
right thing to do because everything next to me is
so the wrong thing to do, and so you get

(09:55):
blinded as to the own cracks in your own morality.
And I think that's what's so fun about my character there.
He is, he really is in some ways, you know,
in a show of morally questionable people and behavior, a
little bit of the moral center. But he's not clean, right, well,
no one is, No one is, you know. So that's
that's the part that's so fun for me to play.

(10:18):
And like, yes, what is it like when awareness starts
to creep in on you that, like you really do
imagine yourself, you know, the Clinicewood riding in on a
horse to save the broken town of News and you realize, yes, man.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
I'm part of the problem.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I'm part of the problem.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
Am I the problem? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:36):
I love it. I love that.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
Oh, I mean that's so brilliant too, because maybe it's
obvious to you, but I feel like inside the business,
this is not obvious.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
And you're right about the blinders.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
And it takes maybe an election, or it takes maybe
some kind of day six Macina event, or or just
some you know, some introspection or ratings crashes, whatever it
takes for you to say, oh maybe I am not
as morally superior as I think I am. And maybe
I'm doing this in a way that isn't actually great.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
I think that that that to me, you know, and
this really is where my reflection takes hold, is that
to me makes really compelling television, you know. And so
I'm only going to be able to understand the news, uh,
you know, so far as the fact sim lady of
a TV show allows me. But but it keeps coming back. Wow,
what a fun character to play, What a fun world

(11:27):
to play in, and changing and moving so quickly, just
when you think you've got a handle on what might
be working, all of a sudden, you know, oh no, no,
Now we're moving into the streaming service and plus and
this and everything, and then and then these two people
that I trusted are fired now, and it's like, yes, were.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
The show I had is gone jettison because we're doing
something else now.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
But I was doing fine? What happened?

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, Yeah, that's a bitch. That's the bitch of I
have a.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
Lot of I have a lot of empathy. Yeah, yeah
we could. I'll take it.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Two Emmy nominations. We're going to get into your independent
film career. But did you think you'd get here, nominated
for Emmy's in a big role in a big budget
streaming series with a list movie stars, Apple backing like,
this is not where you envisioned being.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
No, it's not where I envisioned being You're absolutely right,
But it's a little bit of a securitist journey. And
I won't suck up too much time saying this, but
I just want to be a little honest about it
because I don't like false humility. So, you know, I
came up in the independent sphere and it was definitely
this sense of, Oh my god, I was making three
dollars movies in the kitchen with my brother. You know,

(12:42):
I'm just so grateful to be here, right. That's like
the first phase, you know. But then I'm around for
a little while, you know. Yeah, And if I'm being honest,
there was a part of me, you know, in my
mid thirties doing shows like Togetherness for HBO. Yeah, where
I was kind of like, bro, where's my fucking Emmy?

Speaker 3 (13:02):
I killed this.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
I killed this and it kind of snuck up on
me and mister Ego got tapped again, you know. So
there was that phase for me and I felt like,
oh God, I guess they just don't see the value
of me. Oh well, you know, so that happened for
a couple of years, and then what happened is I
was just like, you know what, this is stupid. Award

(13:24):
shows are just ridiculous. It's ego bullshit. Just let it
go and it doesn't matter at all. So by the
time it did come around for the Morning show, I
was a surprised and then be perfectly willing to throw
out my philosophy that awards show were bullshit to embrace
them as the greatest thing that ever happened, because you

(13:45):
gotta be fluid, you gotta adapt, you got to adapt. Yeah,
so that's kind of what happened to me there. So
I came, I came full circle on it, and it
was a surprise and I loved it.

Speaker 3 (13:56):
It was great. Right, well, let's go back. I always
like to ask what kind of kid were you I was?

Speaker 1 (14:03):
I think people would be a little surprised, knowing me
now how I was as a kid. I was very,
very brash. It was extremely confident walking into any room
and almost borderline like a bully, just southern male like

(14:24):
temper driven kid, and there was no limitter on the behavior,
you know. And and I hadn't learned yet that well,
that kid might not win so much in the world.
That's not kid's not going to win in every room.
And it wasn't until I sort of realized, Okay, I'm
going to try to become an artists. I have no

(14:46):
connections to this industry. If I am going to do this,
I can't really walk into a room like wreck at Ralph.
I'm going to need to learn how to read rooms.
I'm going to need to learn how to shape shift
a little bit and people please and do all these things,
which is a dangerous, slippery slope, but it's probably something
you can identify with as a woman coming up in

(15:07):
a male dominated industry. Yes, you kind of you kind
of feel like, if I'm going to make my way
here as someone who's not connected, I'm gonna have to
shape shift a little bit, you know. So I learned
that and that that can be a little dangerous to
the soul. So I wouldn't say that that was a,
you know, a particularly clean way to do it. But

(15:28):
I did those things, and so I think it helped me.
But yeah, I think you'd be if you went and
saw a video footage, you'd be like, whoa Mark duplus
was a little insensitive and braddy and had a real
rock and temper.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Like, well, I don't have any I didn't find any videos,
but I did find.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Oh look at that man, you yeah, that's senior high school.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Mm hm, I found out what a hunk. I mean,
you look good to me.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
All right, I'll take it this.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Was you were on the newspaper.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah, baby, I'm holding up pictures of from Mark's yearbook
for I'm a newsman.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Tell I looked around. I mean you did. I looked
through your entire yearbook.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
And you did a lot of stuff, but you weren't
like front and center, and you.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Look at my yearbook and you're not going to be
like this guy is going to go out in the world.
My high school is not a microcosm of the domination
to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. By the time I
was eighteen, I went to an all boys Catholic school
in New Orleans, very conservative, very rigid with academics. Very

(16:47):
good for me, like because I was really really creative
and I and I had that to fight against and
it was nice to have that little you know, I
don't want to do my Latin five homework, I want
to write this song. And Yeah, but the rigid of
my and the discipline that I received from that school
and taking that rigor and applying it to the artistic

(17:07):
process is probably besides my parents loving me the way
they did and supporting me the way they did, and
my brother being such a good big brother, that's like
probably in the top three things that helped make me
who I am. Yeah, it was really helpful.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I couldn't tell from year book, but were you? It
didn't seem like correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't seem
like you were in Chicago or a funny thing happened
on the way to the forum.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
You didn't do drums.

Speaker 1 (17:35):
I didn't do any of that stuff. No, I was,
you know, primarily a musician in the first phase of
my life. I loved music. It was my first love.
And while I did go to film school and study
those things, when I went to I went to University
of Texas in Austin, Yeah, and got an education in it,
and I loved it and it was really good for

(17:56):
me and my brother and I used to work a
lot as editors, and I used to edit. I used
to edit a church television show in Austin. From I
took the night shift from like nine pm till seven
am on a Monday and a Tuesday, And over the
course of those twenty hours, I would make enough to
pay my rent and then the rest of the time
I would spend as a musician. So really until my

(18:19):
mid twenties, you know, I was a touring singer songwriter.
I was in indie rock bands, you know.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Yeah, tell me talk about small hands.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, so that was a I made a record when
I was like twenty one years old. This pretty much
sums it up. My friends called me the Indigo Boy.
It was a singer city, it was a it was
a it was a very earnest singer songwriter record, you know.
And I loved Sean Colvin and the Indigo Girls, and
you know, it's just that's that's what I was doing.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well, you could have been the Indigo Boys. Did your
brother no part of this?

Speaker 1 (18:49):
He didn't want to. Yeah, he was done with that
at this point. Yeah. This was like nineteen ninety eight,
you know, Lil a Fair tours were out there. This
is what we were doing. Yeah, And but it was
it was also it's part and Arsel with the way
that I ended up building my film career, which was there.
I've had an inherent impatience in me my whole life,
which has been helpful to also dovetail with this sense

(19:12):
of independency and just doing things my own way. Because yes,
there was no one giving me a record deal at
the time. So I was like, well, the technology is
here now, Like, I can buy a tape machine record
this record. I can press a thousand CDs. It'll cost
me like two grand I will book my own tour.
I like traded in my car and got an old

(19:33):
conversion van and I just lived in my van for
four months and traveled around the country and made my
own version of being on tour. And that was critical
for me, being like can I do this? I dropped
out of college for a semester and I did it.
And that taught me like, oh wow, if I just
put my head down and keep banging on these doors,

(19:55):
I will be able to get through, you know. And
it was a wild time. I talked to my daughters
about it all the time. I daught I was sixteen
and twelve, and you know, they're having their figuring out
their relationships to technology. Right now. And you know, I
had no smartphone out there. I can only find these
venues by a Rand McNally map that I had.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Yeah, and I.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
Would, you know, sleep in my van and I would
sometimes go three to four days without speaking to anyone.
And I've had all of this reflective time with myself
because I didn't have this device that I could just
pick up and distract myself. I just had to be
with myself and I think it really helped develop me
as a person.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
But how do you get the courage to just go
out and say, I'm just going to go do it.
I'm going to go do it. I'm going to go
make it myself.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Part of it is that brash, cocky kid that I
am in my DNA, but a huge part of it
is the way that I was raised, which you know,
it's not perfect because it has its downfall, but I
was given very strong message for my parents, You're incredible,
you can do any thing. I love you. And then

(21:04):
also the wonderful privileges I had of growing up middle
class and having no high school or college debt, so
I wasn't in a hole already. So subconsciously I had
this feeling, well, I can just go, I can just
spring forward, you know. So that was very helpful. But
that confidence boost I got from my parents, you know,

(21:26):
I heard that voice in the back of my head. Now,
the problem with that approach is when you're twenty four
and you're not killing it, you get real down on
yourself because you're, like my.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
Mom told me, I was also, mom, what the fuck
making it?

Speaker 1 (21:46):
And you feel like you're disappointing everyone you love, and
you feel like you are somehow wasting this like beautiful
life you've been given. So that was really really hard
for me, and I had to get a handle on that. Still,
I wouldn't trade it, it was I'd rather have the
confidence with that with that downside. Yeah, So yeah, that's
how I came out blasting and I try to do

(22:08):
as much of that. It's gonna sound like I'm getting
my high horse. I don't want to sound like this,
but like now that I am in a position of like,
so I have a little bit of influence and I
have a little bit at your wealth, Like that's my
big like give back thing. It's like to try and
when I see people who don't have either the financial
stability to have the confidence, I had and or the

(22:31):
person in their life that was like, I see you,
I believe deeply in you. You've got this. Yeah, you know,
that's how like my survivor's skill plays out. It's like
trying to pay that stuff.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Yeah, I get that.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
So after the success of the Puffy Chair, Yeah, did
doors just open wide for you or did you still
have to like prove yourself to get where you wanted
to get with the next thing you wanted to do.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, it was a yes and no to that, you know.
So it's all relative, right, you know. For me having
done everything myself up until that point, no one had
ever helped me or offered to do anything. There was
I never had a mentor, I never had any I
had j side by side working together, so I had
a compatriot, you know. And then I had my girlfriend

(23:17):
then who's now my wife, Katie, who then kind of
joined us, and so we were kind of like arm
and arm. But after the Puffy Chair hit Sundance, I'm
twenty seven, this is the first time I have the
experience of, well, now I have an agent who's going
to go out and represent for me. And the movie
did hit well at Sundance, and so I have people

(23:39):
coming to me, which feels good, but of course it's
not what it all seems. You know. Most of the
attention I received was like, well, we heard you made
this movie for fifteen thousand dollars and it sold well
at Sundance, So sure I would love to give you
fifteen thousand dollars to make a movie and take half

(23:59):
of you of your equity and take all the credit
for it, you know, because are the offers I was getting.
And I was like, no, I don't really need you.
And it was this discovery of me that those who
are interested in you in this business, and maybe it's
the same as others I don't know, by and large,
are interested in taking advantage of the level that you
are at when you don't need them, as opposed to

(24:21):
offering you a new step up to the next level
when you need it, when you need it, Yeah, exactly.
It was like, huh, so I'm getting attention. This is cool,
but I'm kind of still in the same boat. But
you know, there were some really cool things that happened,
Like we met with the folks at Universal and they
were really interested in us, and they gave us one
hundred thousand dollars to write a script for them, which

(24:44):
was more money than I ever thought I would ever
make in my life. I was like, I can't believe
this is happening. So immediately what we did is Jay
and I took that money. We each took twenty five
of it. We took the next fifty and went and
made another independent film with it. Yeah, we get to
blow It's like an episode of Dumb and Dumber here,
you know, just like that's what you're doing. You get

(25:06):
money blow out on more independent films. But it was
it was a really interesting thing that happened, which is
to your point of did the doors open? I thought
the doors would open up top. What happened is the
doors opened below in a way. And I'll explain this,
which was we were the first people in our group
of friends to make money, of the group of artists.

(25:27):
So we signed that universal deal. I'll sign a deal
with Fox Searchlight to write this movie Cyrus that we
eventually made. We made this movie bag Head for like
fifty thousand dollars. It sold it Sundance for like a
half a million dollars. So we started the ownership of
our business, and so all of our friends were coming
to us like, hey, you know you guys have connections
with Sundance, could you help us get our movie into Sundance?

(25:49):
Or Hey, you know you guys are really good editors,
will you help us edit our movie and make it
a little better? Or hey, I heard your friends with
Jonah Hill, could you help me in our movie? Or
we lost ten thousand dollars of our finance saying you
guys have money. So we were doing all these things
as friends, and then a friend of mine, Michael Costigan,
he's a producer. He looked at me and he's like,

(26:09):
you know, that's what producing is, right, Like everything you're
doing is reducing And I was like, oh, I never
thought of that. I always thought I was going to
be a writer, director, just artists, you know. And that's
when sort of the producing element of my career was
born and I realized that that probably is more of
my superpower actually than being a director. Is that team

(26:31):
building and the putting together and the supporting of artists
is something that I never envisioned for myself. And to
put a finer point on that, I think it's important
to talk about this. I was raised in the generation
where a lot of the media in the early nineties,
the independent film books was kind of a fuck commerce

(26:52):
kind of thing, and if you try to if you
try to combine art and commerce, you're a sellout, right,
And I kind of bought into that. But the thing
is like.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Sort of the reality bites theme.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yes, exactly exactly, but but the truth is, like I've
always loved numbers, and I grew up in a very
like conservative environment. All my friends with the business school
all this, and I love that stuff, you know, and
I have my little stocks and I want and I
always felt like a little ashamed, like I need to
like hide that from people, because like I'm supposed to

(27:26):
be an artist, I'm the indigo boy, right, and these
things don't these things don't mix, right, you know. But
once I learned to embrace the ven diagram overlap of
art and commerce and know that, like, I love the
business game of this. I love making a movie fifty
thousand dollars and taking it back and selling it and

(27:48):
getting profit margins and cutting people into the points and
grinding the deals, you know. And people meet me and
they're just like, wait, you're business man, what is this?
I thought you were gonna tell me about your yeah,
and I guess I'm both is really the case? You know?
Once I learned to love that embrace that I think
that's been a key to the sustainability of my career

(28:08):
is understanding the business.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Next, I talk to Mark Duplas about anxiety and turning
the bad stuff into.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
The good stuff. I want to talk to you about anxiety.
It's why I do it.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
I was so looking forward to this interview because you've
been very honest about mental health struggles with depression and anxiety,
and I talk a lot about mine as well. I
suffer from severe anxiety disorder, and it's debilitating, it's isolating,
it's depressing, it's exhausting.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Most of the exhausting is key.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
Exhausting is what it's mostly. And it's a liar.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
It lies to me, lies to me about whether I'm safe,
whether I'm happy, whether my loved ones are safe.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
It's a liar.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
And I'm writing a book about it right now because
I want to graphically explain.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
What it means.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Because people hear anxcieited, they think, well, everybody's worried about something.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
I get nervous. I get worried.

Speaker 3 (29:15):
Yeah, No, I get nervous when I fly.

Speaker 2 (29:17):
Okay, Yeah, it's a different thing, and I feel for
you and that is awful. I'm sorry, but that's a
very different thing. And so I feel like if you
don't talk graphically about it, people don't really get it.
So I'm wondering if you can just talk a little
bit about how long you've battled your mental health and
what it is in particular that you deal with.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
Yeah, of course I would love to, and thank you
for inviting me to talk about this. So, you know,
as with most people who grew up in the seventies
in the South, identifying this was extremely difficult. You know,
the generation previous who was raising us was not well
versed in what this was. There was just a lot

(29:56):
of a tough aout mentality. I get it, No no
blame or you know, it just wasn't in the lexicon.
So the first things that I can identify looking back
now are are I remember waking up, you know, five six,
seven years old and feeling this extreme pit of emptiness

(30:16):
in my stomach and not feeling like I can't go
to school, I can't get out of bed, and I
remember theme it was, that's so weird. Did I eat
dinner last night because I'm so hungry, my stomach so empty,
and I have no energy. And that's how I would
explain it. It's just like and I would I would
like actually eat these like huge dinners sometimes in the
hopes that it would give me enough fuel for the morning.
But I had no idea that that was just depression,

(30:40):
you know, exhibiting itself in a way that I just
couldn't identify, you know. But here's the good and the
bad news is that I have a really strong constitution.
I have a really big drive, so I can actually
put my head down and muscle through quite a bit.
And that's what I did, is these things came to me,
and I just was quiet about it, and I swallowed it,

(31:02):
and I put my head down and I just kept
banging on doors and banging on doors. And the next
thing I can really remember is from the ages like
sixteen to eighteen, you know, feeling a little lost, feeling
like I don't really belong in this school that I'm in,
feeling some nerves about where I'm headed for college and whatnot.
And that's when I first started having panic attacks. It

(31:24):
was manifesting as anxiety, you know, the sweats I feel
like I'm going to throw out. I feel like I'm
going to pass out. I feel like I'm going to die,
you know. And that's when I spent a good two
years convinced that, like, yeah, I probably have cancer or
something like that, right, but I wouldn't talk about it
with anyone. And I really wish I could go back
and say, you can open up and talk about this.

(31:45):
And that's one thing I'm very excited about for this
new generation is they are talking. Yeah, so much by
the way to talk about it right. And then the
next way it manifested in me because again I muscled
through it, and my anxiety and my depression was like,
we're going to get you to pay attention. I tried
to make your stomach hurt when you were five and
didn't listen. Then I gave you panic attacks at sixteen,

(32:07):
and you somehow muscle through this. So now you're twenty three,
you identify as a musician. That's all you can do.
And I developed crippling carbal tunnel and repetitive stress injuries
in my hands and all through my neck and shoulders
from the tension and everything because I was like, we're
gonna put it in your body now now I'm gonna
try and slow you down. Yeah, and still I would

(32:29):
not listen. I didn't know that I should be going
to therapy. I didn't know about medication. I still thought
that like Prozac was this evil drug that was find control,
do that and then you're weak if you do that.
All those things, you know. So what I learned, so
I was like, Okay, well I can't play acoustic guitar anymore.
Rather than like sit and think maybe there's something wrong

(32:50):
here that I need to examine inside, I was like, oh,
I'll just play this like cassio instrument that doesn't hurt
my hands and go to another one hundred and eighty
days a year, which I did, and I'll go make
an independ feature film with my brother. And I did.
And it wasn't until I reached some sort of organic
zenith to this drive, which was making the Puffy Chair,

(33:12):
getting it in Sun Dance, finally making enough money that
I can pay rent, and a little bit of calm
came with that. And as soon as you know, it's
almost like when you have like a job, you're like
at the you know, you're at the Republican National Convention.
You can't let yourself get sick because you got to work,
and then as soon as it's over, Yeah, right, sure,
that's what happened to me. And I had a nervous

(33:33):
breakdown at twenty eight, consistent panic attacks, couldn't get myself
off the floor, just got engaged in my wife Katie.
So I'm super embarrassed and ashamed and like, this is
what she signed up for. She's gonna be like and
I'm really that feeling of like I don't know if
I'm ever going to be the same again. Yea, And

(33:54):
so I was. I was. I guess at that point
around enough artists and I'm in California on the West Coast,
there's enough people and friends around me who are like, oh, yeah,
this is anxiety and depression, and like you need to
go see a specialist. So let's to see a psychologist.
Want to see a psychiatrist. I was too afraid to
take the SSRIs, like you know, the prozacs and the

(34:15):
selecxis and the zolofts. You know, I'd had enough friends
who take like Xanax and things like that. I was like, oh,
that's temporary. So so I started there and I was like,
this helps with the panic attacks doesn't help with the depression.
Not sustainable. So that's when I had to really make
the best decision I ever made in my life, which
was to go on SSRIs they and really was tough

(34:38):
because I was like, Okay, started Zoloft first. You know,
I had some of those tough sexual side effects that
you get on those. Sometimes I got to weight gain,
and I was like, I don't know if this is
right for me. You know, I'm an actor too, I
have ego all these things. Yeah, I was able to
move over into selects experience less of those side effects,
and then and then the the sky opened up just

(35:01):
enough for me that I could see how, okay, I'm
going to be able to get myself out of this.
It's going to take a lot of work. It's gonna
be a little bit of that long, slow road. And
this is where I started doing my deep dive into
the systems that I have built for myself now, which
is just like minimum eight and a half hours of sleep,
non negotiable, non negotiable, Minimum twenty minutes of hardcore cardio

(35:25):
exercise per day, non negotiable. Got to have this, you know,
always eating good foods and healthy foods, all these little
things to keep myself in place, you know. And I
got myself on my feet, and I lied to myself
and I convinced myself, as soon as I get myself
on feet, I'll get off the medication. I can wean
myself off and it's gonna be fine. And I did,

(35:46):
and I like, wean myself from twenty milligrams then to
ten milligrams, and I was like, I think I'm doing
Oh god, no, no, no, I'm not ready, you know. So
I've been on SSRIs for eighteen years. Yeah, and no,
it's not ideal, but it's it's what I need and

(36:07):
it's not a fix all of anything. It's as you know,
it's Yeah, sometimes it's seasonal. Sometimes it comes. I talk
about the delay where there will be times when I'm
like really stressed out, like I can see it, but
the anxiety isn't there. It's the normal everyday stress and
strain and I'm like, I should be tanking right now.

(36:28):
I can't believe them on my feet. And then three
months later, three months later, it hits me old the
Christmas holidays when I'm totally relaxed, and then whams me
and I'm like, what the fuck man, I'm I'm I'm
relaxed now.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
It's a wild part of it. I remember being very
stressed over this summer. I was juggling four different jobs
and I had a vacation coming up.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
But I was like, oh, I'm so excited for this vacation.
And I'd add a couple.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Of traumatic safety security incidents before then, but I felt okay.
I moved through those. Normally, I would think those would
spiral me.

Speaker 3 (37:03):
I didn't. It caught up to me on my vacation.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
Of course, when I'm like really just trying to take
a break from everything, suddenly this is where my anxiety
decided to pop up and say, no, no, no, those things
that happened did affect you, and I'm just here to
remind you. But what you said a little bit ago
when you said you'd have this nervous breakdown and you

(37:28):
didn't know if you were gonna be yourself again, and
I had those same feelings. My nervous breakdown happened at
forty and I thought, I'm not going to be myself again,
and guess what I am not.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
I am not myself again. And some of that is
for the better, yes, but some of that is, like, God,
I used to not care about this stuff.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
I used to not have to do all this stuff
just to get myself going and feeling okay.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
How fucking exhausting is it that you feel like you
need four systems just to hit baseline?

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Well, yes, I hate thinking so much.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
Attention to what my mind is doing so it doesn't
do the unhealthy things is exhausting too. And then when
I'm not doing well, when I'm catastrophizing and thinking about
danger around every corner twenty four hours a day, that
is exhausting, and I feel it physically.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
And listen, my brain is not as sharp as it
was before this. It just is not.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
I can now, like if I'm writing or reading something
and my son or my husband says something, I used
to be able to do eight things at once. Now
that will completely stop me and my train of thought,
and I have to separate these things. I have to
ask my family, like, for total, can I just have

(38:42):
ten minutes where you're not interrupting my train of thought
for this thing that I'm doing that never used to
be me So I'm not the same. And I think
maybe wrapping your mind around that is one of the
hardest things to do.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
It is hard, but you know, I think that like
if you look at it and pull out thirty thousand
and feet, it's not dissimilar to the aging process, which
this was a couple of ways to look at aging,
which is just like you can look at as a
constant series of diminishing loss where it's just like, oh,
now my lower back is doing something, so I can't
do running like I used to do, so I have
to do the elliptical. Gosh, oh oh, now I have

(39:16):
tennis elbows, so I can't do the lip. You know,
you can look at it like that, you weally and
and I don't blame you if you do, you know.
Or you can look at it as just like, well,
it's just a change, and it's just a little bit different.
And you know, I I I'm trying on a little
bit of radical optimism these days, and I'm actually kind
of enjoying it to the to the extent of let's

(39:39):
take your example of you know, I can't multitask the
way I used to. You know, well, the way that
I would approach that is I would say, okay, that
multitasking probably led to efficiency, and it probably led to success.
Did it definitely lead to happiness? Maybe not? No, And
is it possible that se in this phase your life,

(40:00):
you're financially sustainable, you got a nice family, all your
good systems are in place. Yeah, but that's slow down
and that unilateral focus might actually lead to some more contemplative,
deep thought and ways of doing things. That might You know,
when you're cooking in the kitchen and it's just the
music and you and the vegetables and meditative you.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Know, I love I just did that last night. I
put in a little divorgac I my cooking. I tell
the boys to go in the other room. It is
the best.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
By the way, you and I are gonna have to
have a classical music dorkout session outside of this podcast, because.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Okay, great, no one wants to listen to this.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Well we're gonna, but we're gonna do it. We're gonna
do it.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Okay, I'll do that.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
But but yeah, that's how I look at the things.
And maybe it's a rationalization or maybe it's a self
fulfilling prophecy. I don't care. But if I lean into that,
it helps me to reframe it in a way that
can be healthy, you know, the way I take this.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
Like that because you know what, and I I you're
just reminding me of this. I've been reading a lot
about this, and you know what, Multitasking is awful for you.
It is terrible for you, even when you're healthy.

Speaker 3 (41:05):
It is not good. So, actually, you're right.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Some of these things I wanted to hold on to
that I thought were very much part of my identity
and my ambition and my success, we're probably not great things, and.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
I just need to view them that way.

Speaker 2 (41:20):
This is why marketing plus, this is why I love
talking about mental health because you just told me something
I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
And you know, here's the dirty truth about multitasking too,
which is like you're right about what you just identified.
You know. And I think a lot back to ages
zero to twenty eight, before my nervous breakdown, before I
became self aware, you know, and I think to myself, like, God,
did you have to drive yourself so hard? Did you
have to do all those things to yourself? And here's
the thing, Like, I have a hard time going into

(41:51):
deep regret about that, because the truth is that drive
that you had, yeah, it actually was cumulative and it
did help builds to this moment where you're at right now.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
I know.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
So it's not all empirically bad. I know, maybe there's
a balance the way we could have done it. That's
the rub, you know. So what I want to say
to anyone who's listening to this and you know, is thinking,
either you know what, I'm twenty two, fuck you guys.
You have the luxury and your successful place right now
of saying, don't bang your head against the wall. But like,
sometimes the balanced life at seventeen doesn't actually lead to success.

(42:23):
So I'm here to say it's it's not the worst
thing in the world if you want to go overdrive
for a little bit and have an awareness to it
and then put your systems in place later. Yeah, so
not the worst thing in the world if you are
smarter than us and you want to get yourself balanced
now and realize that, well, the success that our drive
brought us didn't necessarily bring happiness. And there's new ways
to look at things. You know, there's no one way

(42:45):
that's definitively right or wrong. The only thing I'm discovering
for myself is just you know, trying to find the
right framing devices and appreciate the good things that have
come with these crazy things I've had to deal with.
You know, that has really been the only thing that
I find to be empirically helpful.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
Yes, and me too, And even just the way we're
talking about sort of reframing these things and thinking about
when you're coming up, because I too would advise someone
coming up in my business or any other competitive business,
work your ass off in your twenties, like that's when
that's when you can do it, before you've got a.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
Family and when you're hungry and all of that.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Maybe be a little more aware than you and I were,
but still work hard, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, yes, But I would tell myself as I was
pushing and pushing to the next thing and the next thing,
I'll take a break eventually, or I'll check in with
my mental health eventually. And especially as I got into
more intense journalism where I was covering wars and awful things,
seeing awful things, i'd compartmentalized do what you did, keep
my head down. I can push through I can push

(43:47):
through this anxiety. It can push through depression. I can
push through the awfulness and I'll check in later. But
I wouldn't and now what I do, because I still
have to do that. It's still my job to do that.
I do check in later, I do correct for what
I've just put myself through.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
But I didn't do that growing up because who knew.
I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know I
was anxious until forty something.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at my you know, my
daughter's journey right now, sixteen. It's her story to tell,
and I don't want to get into the specifics of it,
but she, you know, very early on cluede into you know,
the mental health journey and what that would mean for her,
and like how she's functioning now at sixteen is incredible.
She's in Maine right now with my wife. They're making

(44:30):
an independent film together, and like, I'm just watching the
way she processes it and what she does with her
days off and like knows how to give herself rest
and amazing and puts her boundaries up with us, and
you know, I'm like, whoa, that's so so downstream, and
I'm really I'm really as much as they have it
really difficult, particularly you know, visa via the technology element. Yeah,

(44:52):
I'm seeing really good signs of what they're doing well.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
And that's something too My therapist was like, let me
ask you a question. When you're anxious, do you hide
that from your son? My son's young, and so I
would say, of course, and she'd say, well, don't do
that like in age appropriate ways, trinity ways.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
Yes, for sure, because.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
If you model to your son that you are perfect,
you have all the answers, you have never had a challenge,
he's not going to know how to be imperfect. And
you're not raising a perfect son, you know, You're raising
someone who is going to be imperfect and show him
what it's like to ask for help, to not have
it all figured out, to take care of your mental health.

(45:31):
So yeah, that sticks with me too, because if there's
one silver lining to all of this, it's that maybe
the next generation will do it better.

Speaker 4 (45:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:41):
I have a little story to share of when I
didn't actually do that very well, you know, And a
part of it was some gender preconceptions I had growing
up in the South, which was like, I have two daughters,
and I wanted to project oak, Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm here,
you got this, you know, and when they had questions,

(46:01):
I wanted to be able to be there to offer
them insightful answers that felt like they were coming out
of Nicholas Spark's novel and and and you know what,
that was helpful to them and good for them. And
there were also times when my wife, Katie, who processes
things in extremely healthy and ways, where the emotions come

(46:22):
to her big, they explode, she moves on from them.
It's great, you know. And and there was a time
where she was really struggling with her career as a filmmaker,
as an actor, you know, and our daughters would walk
in on her a lot, you know, crying in the
kitchen and sobbing, and and and and worrying about is
this ever going to be okay? And I don't know
the existential was And I remember thinking to myself, like,
where's the oak, Like give these kids the strength, Like

(46:44):
we need to let them know that it's okay in
the world.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Of course I didn't say anything, because parents have to
parent their own ways, you know. And I was talking
to my twelve year old the other day and she
told me, unprompt out out of anything, she's like one
of the best lessons she got from her parents was
watching her mother in the kitchen crying after she didn't
get those auditions because it allowed her a for the
first time, to not be the comforted, but to comfort

(47:07):
someone that she that she assumed was in a position
of house and it gave her confidence that she might
know something that maybe she doesn't and offer her a
little bit of advice. And then subsequently, in the years
to come, she watched her get hit, fall on the ground,
pick herself back up, go on the audition, get hit,
going there, and she never gave up. So all that
Nicholas Sparks bullshit modeling I was doing was not the thing.

(47:30):
It was just my wife being real with them and
them seeing her do it. That was the thing.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Great to hear.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
I'm so glad you shared that, because, yeah, I try
to envision as my son gets a little.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
Older how that will look. And that's really great. That's great.

Speaker 1 (47:44):
The vulnerability went in doubt, just go that way.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, Okay, let's lighten up with a lightning round.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Many of our guests are graduates of a vaunted Hollywood institution,
the School of Law and Order. Uh, you did not
matriculate through the School of Law and Order?

Speaker 3 (48:20):
How is that possible? How did it? Miss?

Speaker 4 (48:22):
You?

Speaker 1 (48:24):
So I I came up in this very interesting way,
which was through the independent film route, you know. And
then I made a lateral move straight over into the
directing chair and into writing studio movies. And then by
the time I got my first like acting gig, I
weirdly had like leapfrogged the Law and Order guest star

(48:44):
because I was like, okay, the leads and independent films,
so then they, yeah, they would go to it.

Speaker 3 (48:49):
You were too too big for it when you start
missed it.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
That being said. That being said, really there's some really
fun legal conspiracy shit coming up in season four of
The Morning Show. Oh okay, good And and every now
and then Reesa and I will look at each other
and joke and be like, this is kind of like
our Law and Order.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
This is the perfect h You and I both did
Celebrity Jeopardy. How did that go for you?

Speaker 1 (49:16):
Dude? It was the dream of a lifetime. I mean,
being on the stage was incredible. I was very nervous,
tons of ego wrapped up in it, like really really
wanted to win, you know. And I did not win,
and and and came home and was morbidly depressed for
two hours until I realized, you idiot, it's a game,

(49:36):
it's a game show, you know. But the most fun
was and I'll have to share this with you later.
My friend Ike Barnholts had won it the year before, right,
and so I called him. I was like, dude, what
are the tips he did? And he sent me like
a three minute video with instructions on how to properly
bring in Yes, and he gave me all the buzzer

(49:57):
stuff and it's so he took he took a pen back,
you know, and he's like, when you buzzn't it's not
like this, not like once. He's like, He's like, it's
like you're playing Nintendo's because you lost out, you know.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Yes, so yeah, and who did you?

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Who were your competitors?

Speaker 1 (50:11):
I played with my friend Uktars from the show Ghosts,
and then Emily Hampshire who is the Levy the Levy Show. Yes,
and man, we had so much fun and it was
it was it was great.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
Uh did you was yours? Did you get to do
it with Alex?

Speaker 1 (50:28):
No? No, mine was was post Alex was with Ken? Okay,
how did yours go?

Speaker 3 (50:34):
It went fine?

Speaker 2 (50:35):
I got to do it with Alex. It was one
of the last years and beautiful.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
That was lovely.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
And my competitors were Chuck Todd from MSNBC, who's a friend,
and Jonathan Franzen, novelist very smart.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
I really love his books.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
Yeah, two very smart guys. It was a joy to
beat them both.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
But but yes, but but I can I tell you
I don't get nervous for TV at all, not even
a little. It doesn't even register like the camera's on.
I don't There's no difference to me. When I got
to Jeopardy, man, Yeah, the nerves came out of every
pore of my body. And you just I just didn't

(51:17):
want to be embarrassed. I did not care if I
want to hundred percent, I just don't want to be humiliated.
Where this is going to live forever somewhere.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
I do a lot of game shows. I'm on the circuit.
I did a celebrity Wheel of Fortune.

Speaker 3 (51:30):
I get on the circuit. I love game shows.

Speaker 1 (51:32):
It's so fun and you win so much money. It's
the best robin hooding ever. I want one hundred thousand
dollars on Wheel of Fortune for Smallscure Charity. Yeah, it's
the greatest thing, Like I love it.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Yeah, Well, I did love winning for my charity No
Kid Hungry, which was great, But I want to get
on the game show circuit.

Speaker 3 (51:49):
It seems really okay, I got it, I got you,
Set me up, Set me up. Okay, what's your favorite
news show to watch?

Speaker 1 (51:58):
That's a really good question, and it makes me realize
that I don't really watch news shows.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Good for you.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah, I mean I had this moment post twenty sixteen
election and my wife Katie got pretty obsessed and kind
of tanked pretty heavily. So I think in that moment,
I was trying to model like, hey, maybe we don't
do news shows. Maybe we you know, open up our
three sources and we read our articles and then we
got that. And then I got a little healthier honestly,

(52:26):
by yeah, by not doing that.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
So I applaud that great. Brennan's or Cafe Dumont.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
Oh, what a great question. I'm hitting you hard. Brennan's,
you know, and they own multiple restaurants. There are restaurants
in New Orleans for those who are listening.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Yes, it's an empire of sorts.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
So for me, for me, Cafe Dumont is it for
a number of reasons, because when you're grow up in
New Orleans. You start drinking at twelve, you start drinking
and driving at fifteen. I'm embarrassed to say, and I
can't believe I'm alive with all the things I did.
And what part of that process is when you're done
at two in the morning, Like there's no better way

(53:05):
to soak up the alcohol than you know, big coffee
and Begnet's, you know. And then we developed this This
is so I can't believe I've never even told the story.
You developed a system where the bathrooms a Cafe DeMont
in the quarter were just nasty because everybody was coming through.
Of course, we always had to go to the bathroom.
And so what we would do is the boys are
fine going to the bathroom standing up, but the girls

(53:26):
didn't want to sit on the seats, you know. But
a lot of them are too drunk. They're worried about
the squat. So we would go in with our friends,
the girls into the and then we would hold out
our arms and they would like hold on and use
that to squat over the caven DeMont toilets. Yeah, good friends,
you know. And I was a good Southern boy. I
looked away, you know, it's amazing. Yeah, so deep history
of Cafe DeMont. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
Do you know what your classmate Michael White does?

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Now? Yeah, he's a massive head basketball coach. Last I checked,
he was Florida.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
I believe. Now he's University of Georgia.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
He's Georgia now yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
He he he.

Speaker 1 (54:00):
Mike and we were close in high school and you know,
went our separate ways. And he called me like six
or seven years ago and it was really lovely. He
was just checking in on me, you know, and I
was like, I was like, I was like, Mike, I
was like, I don't want to make this awkward, but like,
is the tenor of this call? Basically we're the two

(54:20):
people who are a public profile, famous from our high
school and now we're talking about it. Is that what
he says?

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Totally?

Speaker 1 (54:26):
He was like, and he was like kinda yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
So Matt Welch, who seemed to have the lead in
every play, did he not go into the business.

Speaker 1 (54:36):
I don't know, but wait, you are You're incredible. That
is a deep dive. No. I ran into him in
an airport. You don't know what he's doing. Yeah, I
ran into an airport. I didn't recognize him. Because he
didn't have any more hair. Oh okay, you know, yeah,
but it was lovely. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
The final question is very important to me spiritually culturally.

Speaker 3 (54:58):
When is iced coffee season?

Speaker 1 (55:00):
M hmm, well, I have a I have sort of
a complicated relationship with coffee these days. I've been I'm
a big backpacker and hiker, and I've moved into like
green tea and mint tea when I'm out in the woods,
and so I've tried to like bring that thing back
into my life here. So I I swore off of

(55:25):
coffee about six months ago, and life is less good. Basically,
it's the answer is the answer, and I'm making I'm
making do. But but what's fun is like I do
treat myself, you know, like every couple of weeks, I
allow myself to have one and it is golden.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
If you were not off of coffee, what would you say?

Speaker 3 (55:49):
Iced coffee seasons.

Speaker 1 (55:50):
All year round in California, baby, all year round.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
It doesn't matter where you live, it's your.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Right way way and got seasons. We got ice coffee.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
I knew we'd get along. Mark du Plus, thank you
so much. This was really really funny.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
You blessay, Thanks Pal, Thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Next week on Off the Cup, it's Andy Astroy, host
of In the back Room podcast.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
I Feel Like My Life is about highs, lows, tragedies,
good times, love, heartbreak, insanity, and like I find myself,
I have found myself in crazy situations.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
Off the Cup is a production of iHeart Podcasts as
part of the Reasoned Choice Network. I'm your HOSTI Cupp
editing and sound designed by Derek Clements. Our executive producers
are meet Sie Cup, Lauren Hanson, and Lindsay Hoffman. If
you like Off the Cup, please rate and review wherever
you get your podcasts, follow, or subscribe for new episodes
every Wednesday.