September 5, 2023 • 58 mins
Mark Ruffalo and Kevin reminisce about the old days of acting, being political (or not) and the power of climate justice in this week's episode. Special guest Gloria Walton, president and CEO of The Solutions Project, joins them to discuss the importance of a holistic approach and the sacrifice of "most impacted" communities.
*Note: this interview was recorded before the SAG-AFTRA strike took effect.
To learn more and get involved with The Solutions Project, head to www.thesolutionsproject.org. To support more initiatives like this program, text 'BACON' to 707070 or head to SixDegrees.Org to learn more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following episode was recorded before the WGA sag Aftra
strikes of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome to the very first episode six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon. Every week, I'm going to be sitting
down with some of your favorite celebrities as well as
leaders from their favorite nonprofits, and we are going to
highlight some of the most pressing social issues of our time.
So tune in every Tuesday for your weekly dose of
do gooders. Now, let's start the show, And what a
(00:30):
way to be kicking this off with one of my
absolute favorite actors. I am constantly in all of the
work that this man does on the screen and off
A great, great person, a great citizen of the world,
and a terrific and versatile performer. Mister Mark Refle So
(01:02):
happy to have Mark Ruffalo here today. Well, we've known
each other for a long time. But you know, it's
funny because I actually, and this is embarrassing to say,
I've forgotten that we'd actually worked together. I mean, we
didn't really work together, but we were in the same movie, yeah,
(01:23):
which was in the cut. That's right, And I I
We're going to get into your activism and the and
the organization, et cetera. I just want to shoot the
ship just for a little bit. I remember that two
things about that movie. One was that I wanted your
part really, really badly, and Jane Campion was like, now,
(01:46):
are you out of your mind? I got fucking Ruffalo
and you're not. You're not going to play this part.
And so she came back and said, well, there is
this weird, you know, tiny little thing. And I was like, okay, cool.
I mean, she's like, you know, an amazing director and
you were were doing it and Meg and I, you know,
(02:08):
and my wife always jokes with me that I have
this way of finding like these incredibly important directors and
doing the one movie with them that nobody saw. Like
she says, that's like my talent. And I thought you
were great in the movie. And it was a really
(02:29):
cool movie, very very interesting, trippy, like in the way
it was shot, you know, if I remember correctly, yes,
all that kind of like split diopter stuff and yes,
all this kind of crazy shit going on, but it
was not. It didn't make it. Nobody put on a tuxedo.
Let's say.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
No, No, it was quite I remember, Yeah, I think
it's such a I think it's underappreciated obviously, and you
were great in it too, by the way. And but yeah,
I think there was such a backlash to first of all,
the audience. I don't think wanted to see Meg Meg
(03:09):
like that, you know. I remember there's a lot of
a lot of the criticism was to see her like
that was too disturbing for people.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Which is just so wrong. I mean, you know, and
it's interesting when you have the kind of huge success
that she has really, as you know, she was America
Sweetheart clearly, you know, and it very very had a
very kind of specific kind of thing. And then to
kind of you know as well as I do that, well,
(03:40):
I mean, speak to me about that. Like, you are
an actor, an incredible actor, if I may say, who
is not in any way pigeonholed in terms of the
things or the kinds of parts that you do, or
the size of the movies that you do, or the
(04:03):
tone of the movies that you do. You really have
an incredible kind of diversity. But I have felt, and
I'd like to hear your feelings about this, that getting
that in this business is a is a real struggle
for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
First of all, want to say, I did think with
Meg it felt a little sexist to me, you know,
you know, it's like, it's much harder, I think, for
a woman to do that than a guy. You know,
they celebrate it when a guy does it all then
look at you did it while he's doing something new.
You know, he changed it up. It is incredibly hard,
(04:45):
and you know you've done the same thing. You just
have to, you know, I found myself always having to
fight against you know, people think they know you. Casting directors,
think they know your directors, think they know you do
You do one part, and you do it well, and
then everyone thinks, oh, that's who you must be, right, yeah,
(05:07):
but but it isn't and and we're much bigger than
but you know, no one they don't know, but they
don't have the imagination or they just they haven't seen
you do much of anything yet. And so it was
always this kind of fight to stay ahead of that
and to make sure early on that what I was
doing wasn't a repeat of I know this. I mean,
(05:31):
you can count on me, you know. I specifically try
to do something totally different than that, just to keep
widening the brackets of what people thought was possible.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
By the way. It was incredible and you were incredible
in it, and I think that was probably the first
time that I saw you. You know, it was just
so it was so great, and you're right. I mean,
you do something well and they want to see you
do it again.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean, how many dance movies where you offered you know?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, I'll tell you. The next movie that I did
after the dance movie was a bike movie. And I
did it because it had this The director kept saying
to me, I'm gonna have this kind of gritty you
know score. He kept talking about Scorsese, you know, and
like that was my whole hero world was the whole Scorsese,
(06:22):
you know, the narrow Paccino New Yorky kind of thing,
and we're shooting New York and it was going to
be gritty, gritty, greedy kept taking gritty. By the time
the movie filmed, I had a dance sequence on a bike.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
It was just the worst. I mean, I snunk it
up on me and I tried to push back, but
to no avail. And I you know, to this day, honestly,
it's funny that you bring that up. I think of
I think of that as exactly the issue that we're
(07:01):
really talking about is that you know, I was trying
to go in a different direction and I just it
was just like they're just pulling me back to you know,
you know America's whatever, dancer or whatever. I was. So
I admire you for, you know, for stepping outside. I mean, what,
(07:23):
let me ask you this, what was it that gave
you the confidence? You know, even after you can count
on me to to make you think that you could
do that?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You know, honestly, it was it was all the years
that I was struggling. And in those years, you know,
the thirteen years, dude, you can count on me, was
all theater, you know, it was all this little you know,
I was living in LA so you could do like
a three thousand dollars production. It wasn't like New York
where you have to have half a million dollars to
(07:55):
do like the crappiest little thing anywhere. You know. It
was like we could do it three thousand dollars production.
So in those thirteen years, I'd done you know, like
thirty five plays.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And in the course, okay, so I mean you left home,
you moved to New York, I mean to LA, not
to New York. Yeah, yeah, when I was ok okay, okay,
and yeah, where were you coming from? Where were you
coming from?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I was coming from at that point, I was
coming from I was coming from California. No, I was
in Californa. I was in California, but I was coming
from Virginia Beach, where I spent part of my teenage years,
and the rest of them were in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And so by the time I was eighteen, I had moved,
My family had moved like six times.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You know. So I also started to understand that, you know,
a personality wasn't muted or mutable. It was like something
that was constant could be was malleable, you know. And
and and you know, moving that many times you're sort
of recreating yourself with a different friend group and so
(09:10):
on and so forth. You're just so self possessed that
you never change.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I wasn't that guy.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right, right, and so you so you were all it
was already kind of laying the foundation for understanding how
to walk in somebody else's shoes because you were trying
to to to fit in to to to to definitely yeah, yeah, years, Yeah,
I think a lot of the same way. Yeah, yeah,
I remember that I'm feeling a way. And you know
(09:37):
there were times that I sometimes, I don't know if
you ever had this, where I would sometimes have a
you know, a dark day and feel that I wasn't
really being authentic in anything because there were some people
who were just so specifically like that guy, and because
my friends were you know, kind of all over the
map and my my point of view, and like I
(09:58):
had friend groups that really wouldn't intern act with each other.
You know, sometimes I felt a little i don't know,
fake or something. You know.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Well, yeah, well I was the same way. You know
I could have. I was with the wrestlers, I was
with the stoners, I was with the you know, the
punk rockers. I was with the skaters, I was the surfers.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And know, I can I can move all those groups,
you know. But I know, so you met, you went
to LA and did theater in l A.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
See that's really interesting because, uh, you know what, I
never really even considered going to LA because I was
coming from Philly so it was a short trip, and
and New York was you know, I had a kind
of a romanticized idea of what a New York actor was,
but it was also because of the theater and the
(10:49):
idea of I mean, uh, actually doing theater in LA
was like very far, but that's totally cool.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Who did that? I mean, you know who goes to
LA to do theater? And you know, the funny and
the hilarious thing was as I'd been doing theater there
for so long and I had been begging casting directors
to come and see it, and I came to New
York to do a play. I did This is Our Youth,
which was like it just exploded right, and all the
(11:19):
LA casting directors are like, where the fuck did you
come from? And I was like, motherfucker's I been under
your nose for the plast thirteen years doing this exact
same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You know, Yeah, that's funny because that was kind of
I remember people saying, well, you could go to LA
and do a play. But the great thing about that
is that all the casting directors when you get to
LA will all come to the theater. And I have
my doubts. That's really interest because they were all, you
know whatever, having dinner at the Ivy. But that's that
(11:51):
is a that a that's fascinating. So do you think
that getting a bunch of theater under your belt has
had has uh contributed to this, you know, ability to
be diverse in the in the in the parts that
(12:12):
you play.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Absolutely. I mean, you know, I was doing Shakespeare, I
was doing Chekov, I was doing you know, modern stuff
that we were writing.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I was doing.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
We were doing David Ray, we were doing O'Neill. We're
doing Tennessee Williams, we were doing every we were doing Moliere,
we were doing Uh, we were doing Bernard Shaw. We
were doing so many different styles and ages and time
(12:48):
periods that I just I just became very fluid in
my understanding of style, my understanding of forrest, my understanding
of comedy, my understanding of drama. You know, and then
and then just all that character work that you're doing
along the way, and you just you just came to
see that, you know, there really was as an as
an actor, there really was no limitations. You weren't just
(13:12):
a comic actor, or you weren't just a dramatic actor.
And the best actors are actually one foot on a
banana peel and the other in the grave. You know,
where you could where you could shift those gears.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know, Yeah, easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I
remember having a little notion about theater, and that was
that you know, if you that that when they were
casting television and movies in in in New York, that
(13:45):
they were really they wanted the actual person to the
closest they could, like it was the closest that they
could find to the actual person. If they you know,
the kid was supposed to be from Brooklyn, they wanted
to get from Brooklyn. Yeah, that that that was the
person that the they got the part. But theater was
not that way. If you went and auditioned and did
(14:05):
a good job portraying that character in the audition in
that you know, on that stage, then you would get
the part. And I noticed that really really early on.
And I don't know about you, but I think part
of it is that, you know, film is so in
your face, and I think the directors get really afraid
(14:29):
of something becoming being false. You know, acting. Yeah, see
you acting now, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean especially when you're young too, because
you only are one thing when you're young, you know,
the idea of you being anything more than what you
walk in the door with. For a casting direct there
is as far as they can see. You know, I
just did this documentary. Someone was just giving me shit
(15:05):
about this, But I just did this docum my wife,
I just did this documentary about Bonnie Timmerman, the great
you know casting director.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Who you did it? You directed it?
Speaker 3 (15:15):
No? No, not I. I did an interview for it
because because she's someone I knew. I never got a part, right,
but she asked me to do this, uh, this doc
and they use a clip in this thing where I'm
arguing with Michael Bay that I could play somebody other
than who he thought I was, you know, and I
(15:37):
was so righteous and it's it's it's embarrassing now.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
But what happened was they got me in for.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
One part, you know, and then halfway through the part
he's like, go, no, no, no, you're not right for
this part. Go read this part. So I went out
and prepared for the part, and when I came back in,
he's like, you're too young for this part. And I
got pissed.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Man.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I was like, you know, you asked me to come up,
you know, and that's the that's the clip they used.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Of course, Oh that's great. I got to see. This
has to come out yet, this Bonnie Timmerman.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's been out for a while. It's it's
floating around on the internet. That clip.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I gotta check it out. I gotta check it out.
I remember that. I think it was Bonnie who always
had the polaroids, right, Yeah, you always you always had
started that. Yeah, you always had to take a polaroid,
And there was a there's a at one point, I
don't know. I guess I'd been doing enough stuff for
I've been in the office enough times where I was like,
I do I have to take a fucking polaroid? I mean,
(16:38):
come on, you know what I look like, right, you know?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Anyway, that's not she she uh, she told me that
she did that because remember how we had to do
they don't do this the same way. And remember how
we had to do head shots and you'd have your
like headshot if you played tennis, the headshot with your
scuba you're on. They had to do all the character
(17:05):
headshot or preppy headshot and right, and so you know,
she was fighting against that kind of affectation, which is
why she wanted to do those bullet rights. But yeah,
it was like what it was, are you putting a
book together? Like, why, you know, I don't have any
makeup on. I'm wearing a T shirt, you know. But
that's that's what Bonnie wanted and she you know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
It makes a lot of sense really because I mean,
those those head shots are I mean, to this day,
they're just oh they're embarrassed. I mean they're embarrassing, you know.
I And I remember having, uh that, that the the
when I finally got an agent and this will probably
be I guess maybe seventy nine or something like that,
(17:48):
and he said, uh, you have to get a head shot.
And the photographer is a Gerard Barnier. Do you remember
this name? He was a he was a headshot he
was the head shot photographer.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And it was something like, to me, like an outrageous
amount of money. It was something like five hundred bucks. Yeah,
nothing like that. And I was like, I got how
am I good? How am I going to get five
hundred dollars to have it to have a picture taken?
I can't can't like you know, my cousin take it
or something. But now they had to get had to
get your Arbonne. I think I still have those pictures.
(18:24):
They're pretty bad. Yeah, we we.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Had like that there was a you know, then there
was a scale down version. We had like one hundred
dollars person who we all went to, which was literally out.
I was always outside with a you know, a bounce sport.
You're holding your own bound sport for the shot. Oh
my god, yeah, man, five hundred bucks to us is
like that was that was like two months rent you.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Know, No, no, no, that was that was crazy, crazy,
crazy crazy. I I maybe it was less, but I
remember it just being so.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
No, it was. It was that expensive. It was. And
there was some people that I rememberer. I can't even
remember their names, but there's people in LA that were
making a grand to do headshots in the late eighties.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But now you have this thing. Okay that again, I
don't I can't, off the top of my head think
of somebody who is able to coexist between you know,
you're awesome Marvel World and then these movies that are
(19:38):
completely in another sort of direction in the world and
in a totally different kind of budget range and stuff
that's like about something serious and things that you care about,
and you have them both happening at the same time.
And and first off, it's it's it's sometimes when I
think about how long these these superhero movies take them. Sometimes.
(20:01):
I when I look at your career, I think, how
did he fit all of this in? You know, I
mean that it's in it itself, must must have been
a challenge or must continue to be a challenge. But
also is there ever a time when you kind of go,
I mean, I'm gonna know the answer to this, but
we ever, we're just kinda go, well, you know, yeah,
I mean I was, you know, working on a on
(20:24):
on the on the big movie for a long time.
Now I'm just gonna you know, I don't want to
do anything else for a little while. I just want
to rest, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I I it's funny you bring that up, because I
probably in the last three years have been away from home,
you know, in in chunks, probably about a year and
a half, almost two years, running back and forth between
(20:56):
year in Europe. And I mean, I you know, I
used to.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I was on it.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I don't know what. I thought I was going to
die young.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So I was just.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Trying to get as much in as I possibly could,
you know. Yeah, in a way, yeah, I mean I
was like, I gotta I was driven. I don't know,
I don't know what it was. And then I just
burned out, and so I said, I need to take
a year off, which is which is basically what I've
been doing in the middle of and it's been I mean,
(21:28):
we had COVID and all that happened, but that was
just so stressful that, you know, it was so kind
of traumatic and and it was hard to really rest
because you didn't know, you know, when you're going to
get another job, and you know, if you're going to
refinance a house, all those things that were happening during
that time. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I definitely got
(21:51):
to the place where where I just felt totally burned
out and I and I and I was like, I
don't know if I I don't know if I ever
really want to act again. I'm not even enjoying anymore.
I mean, I'm sure everyone gets to some version of
that at some point, and uh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
But have you gotten past it or or is that
still kind of how you're feeling?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, you know, I go to the Art Students League
and just started a sculpture class, and it's just like
that's like you love you know, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That's such a that's such a that's such a cool place.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Oh my god, it's I mean, my sister.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
My sister goes. She used to go when she was
living in New York and sometimes I would go over
and you know, kind of see what she was working
on and stuff. It's it's it's it's a for people
that don't know it's it's it's a it's a it's
a place for artists and to work out, and it's
it's it's probably been there since oh gosh, I don't know,
the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Maybe, Oh yeah, I mean it's probably one of the
oldest establishments in New York City.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
And you know, you go and and any any any
level of artist, from the rank beginner to the most
you know, established artists are they're all working side by side,
and it's affordable. I mean, you get studio space, you're
there for five hours as a live model. You know,
all the materials are there. I mean, it's it's just
(23:15):
it's such an invaluable thing in New York City. It's
surprised it's even left after Juliani and Blueberg. You know,
let's make New York a luxury high rise built.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Especially that right in that in that little zone too.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, survive, you know, but it's it's thriving, it's beautiful,
it's uh, you know, there's a quality there. It's diverse.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know, it's so you're sculpting. So so it was
that was that relatively new or or or No.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's something that I it's something I always fancied myself.
I don't even I don't even know why. I was like,
I'm going to be a sculptor. I'm gonna be a sculptor.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And then finally I had some time to do it,
and I made a promise to myself that I would,
I would, you know, really spend these last few months
doing it and just be a beginner. And uh, you know,
put your put my phone down. It's like five hours
of no phone and uh you're there for five hours.
(24:18):
Yeah yeah wow. Yeah. And it's a life it's a
life sculpting class. So it's it's very intense and quiet
and and solemn, and you know, there's just such meditating,
very meditative, and you know, you realize.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Are you using tools or or your hands or in
the us in.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Your hands mostly in the clay. I mean you're there's
some tools there's a you know, my teacher, you know,
you have a sculpting knife basically, or or even he's
used will use like little plastic butter knives too, because
you get that nice raking quality. But it's very minimal.
But it's you're in the dirt, you know, you're in
(24:56):
the mud, and uh, it's so primal and and you're
you know, your focus is so extreme and you have
to see, you know, you really have to see, and
you realize how you know, we we think we see,
oh that's a tree, you know, we we we label things.
We'll immediately go to a label, but to really take
(25:19):
the time to see is like its own discipline. And
and I just find it incredibly soothing to me in
this jangled you know techno digital, ultra ultra ultra ultra
world we're living in. You know, it's just all this time.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That's great, that's great. I mean I think that uh, well,
you know, we all we all can use different forms
of mental soothing, of physical connection to two things that
aren't on a screen. You know. It's well, it just
seems like it's so important musing.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I mean, is it your music like that for you?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, totally, totally yes, that's it for me. Music and
the animals, you know, horses and all kinds of animals
and and and you know, I find that, uh, you know,
when you're playing music with people, you have to listen,
(26:22):
you have to react, you have to you know, you
have to group. And I even think that as an
act is as an actors, you know, you've worked even
in such extreme you know, technical situations, you know, way
beyond any of the stuff that I've done. But even
(26:43):
the difference between going from the stage to film, there
is a lot of gear that sometimes can distract you
from this exchange of the emotions and characters and eyes
and and and and and bodies and and all this
kind of stuff that that you know, you you I
(27:05):
often say that you know, you you could. You got
to make sure when you're when you're acting with somebody
in a in a film, that you don't let all
that gear get between you and and the person. And
I would think that working in a in a in
the in a you know, a green screen or digital
or superhero kind of situation, it becomes even harder to
fight against that.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Oh my god, it's so intense. I mean, when I'm
doing the Hulk stuff I have. I have a helmet
on that has like four cameras, you know, basically in
my face, and you know, and and then a whole
rig attached to me like a vest that has all
(27:47):
of the digital recording system on it, you know, with
the batteries. And then I'm in a suit that's basically skinned.
I call it the man canceling suit because it makes
you look big everywhere you want to look small, and
small everywhere you want to big.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I've been in suits like that before, you know what
I'm saying, I do.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And so, uh, I had I had a special loin
cloth made for my because it was just it was
too too revealing, you know, so the amount you know,
getting used to that and trying to be present in it,
and and and I'm standing on a box that makes me,
(28:34):
you know, ten foot tall. So all the actors I'm
working with are literally at at you know, crotch level.
Thus the loin cloth, you know, and you're trying to
you know, you're trying to do that thing. You're trying
to listen and connect and and you.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Just have this.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
You know. It was funny because we just did She
Hulk and and I was breaking in Tatiana with all
this technology, you know, and what it happened. What happens
is is the technology takes over and the acting part
becomes the sort of side side gig, you know, it's
(29:18):
sort of the it's the augmentation, it's it's no, it
was no longer the thing, you know. And and I
really had to like fight and fight for her and
teach her that we can't let this technology stand in
front of what we do as performers, which is I
(29:39):
think part of this big fight we're about to have
with the.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Screen percent is and uh, it is really important to
remember that and you know, to hold on to it.
And we're going to have to We're going to have
to fight to keep that in the forefront of people's minds.
It's you know, it's ultimately never gonna work if if
(30:03):
if we are you know, just recreated, and I can't
wait to see that. I love Tatiana. She's so she's
so good.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I love her. It's so funny too, She's great and
it man, she's just so good.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know, a lot of the movies that you've made,
you know, Spotlight being a perfect example, have had a
you know, a point of view, not you know, how
can I put this a social point of view or
an environmental point of view? Which which is going to
(30:40):
I mean, did you come up with something like The
Solutions Project because of that experience or do you sometimes
look for those movies because of your your your feelings
about the world.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
You know, It's funny because well, first of all, I
was always you know, Stella Adler was my teacher, and
she was like, you have to be political. You have
to be politically involved. You have to know what's happening.
You know, even if you're playing something in the thirties,
you have to know what the political scene was. You
have to be involved in that part to understand the
(31:15):
time and the place and who you're playing and and
and their place in the world at that time.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Right, So I didn't know that was part of her technique.
That's really fascinating to me. Yeah, I've never studied, didn't
study any of that, so and.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That was a big part of it. So we were
already like we were already conscious, socially conscious as artists.
She really believed that you had to be socially conscious
as an as an artist, and so but there wasn't
you know, you know, the funny thing about acting is like, oh,
what what made you decide to pick that part? It
(31:49):
is like, I didn't pick anything.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, that's true.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I mean, I'm lucky to even have a job, you know, right,
I know, for so long, you know. And so you know,
I found myself moving up state in the middle of
this fracking fight, you know, and it's happening all around me.
So I'm the longer like a guy on the sidelines.
I'm like in the middle of it. And I'm trying
to raise kids there and and you know, my neighbors
(32:17):
like willing to poison my water, you know, and and
and poison everyone's water around us, you know. So I'm
right in the middle of that thing. And I and
I get like a front seat view of what it's
like to be in a sacrifice Zoe, and what it's
like to be a frontline fighter, and what it's like
(32:37):
to live in a world where there's two sets of laws.
You know, there's the laws that are for all of us,
and there's the laws that are for corporations or no
laws that are for corporations, big wealthy corporations and people
of power. And so that really changed me. And and
that that started, you know, that moved on to the
(32:58):
Solutions project. It was that it was my activism that
that I was finding myself part of that made me say, hey,
you know, why don't I do this with movies more?
You know, I I you know, and I was at
a point where I could, you know, I could start
producing things and developing things and and that and that
(33:20):
and and I you know, I'll tell you I did
The Kids Are All Right, which was just a great
film and a funny film by itself, but it ended
up having a real impact on the gay marriage issue,
which was which it landed right in the middle of
right right, and it was so humanizing and and what
you realized about gay people is their marriages were just
(33:44):
as bad as everybody else's.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
It's like, you know, they were they were going through
the same stuff. You know, people who were married were straight,
were laughing at the same issues, you know, and just
humanize it. And I think it really did change the
conversation culturally. I saw how important that became to that
(34:07):
specific fight, and that's when I started to really feel like,
you know, an article goes in a newspaper, goes this far,
a documentary goes this far, but a movie that level
of storytelling, if you could get past the polemics, if
you can get if you could just tell the human story.
(34:28):
It resonates in all kinds of people outside of their
political beliefs, like you know dark waters that you know
that things, that thing is seen by everybody, and and
and we can all agree, like we don't want to
be drinking poison water that some major corporation you know,
knowingly did to us. We don't want our kids doing that.
(34:50):
You know, we don't want that in our popcorn. We
don't want that in our frying pans. You know, we
don't want to die from some disease that someone else
knew they were they were passing to us. No one
wants to do that. So you know, when they hear
that story, they see working class people being affected by it,
and then all of a sudden, you have a change happened.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Mm hmm. It's great. Well, I think this is a
good segue for us to bring out Gloria Walton, who
works with you on the Solutions project. So please join us. Gloria. Hi, Kay,
Thank Gloria, Hey you Mike, Well, thanks Gloria, thanks for
joining us.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm thrilled. It's very nice to meet you. I mean,
I guess my first question is how the two of
you met and how this whole thing came together.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Gosh, how did the two of us meet? So in
the work, Mark is hardcore, which I know, you know,
given that your friends and so. And when I say hardcore,
just meaning that he's always like in it with us
in the community, you know, having just being really connected
(36:01):
to his own personal experience and therefore being able to
show up with like true authenticity and just one of
the comrades. So, and that was like several years ago,
because I've been doing this work for about sixteen years,
and I started in South central Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And what were you doing in south What was it
you were doing in South Central? Just just kill people
in Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
So I actually used to be a community organizer, and
I still identify as an organizer. So I'm not necessarily
I mean, sometimes I'm organizing people, but not in the
ways that I did when I was at this organization
called SCOPE, and I started as an intern there. It
stands for Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, and
(36:51):
so essentially we were organizing the community's most impacted, and
in South Central that was black and brown communities. And
if you're not familiar, which I know you know we
are familiar, but like South Central is a community that
is surrounded by freeways from the north, south, east, and west,
(37:12):
so it's literally in the center and therefore diesel trucks
are kind of going through all the time going to
the ports. And it's a highly concretized community, so minimal
green space, minimal trees, and it has high rates of
poverty and like low wage sector work. So that kind
(37:37):
of gives you an idea. And so when we're talking
about most impacted communities, these are communities that are unfortunately
living adjacent to freeways, living adjacent to oil drilling and fracking,
and so often the entrepe point and to climate was
really like around public health, because you know, it wasn't
(37:59):
a co incidents that South Central, you know, when you're
looking at like Hounty averages, it was one of the
sickest communities in LA and really across the state, and
high mortality rates, high infant mortality rates, high rates of asthma, cancer,
(38:22):
things like that.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, it's interesting I think when talking about climate, you know,
trying to talk about it for so many years. I
think for so many years it was such a big
concept that it was hard for people to get their
heads around even to this day, of any kind of
like personal impact. I mean, when you think about it,
(38:46):
it's you know, force masure is act of God and
like and a lot of times there's things that are explained,
but climate wise, they say it's a force masure. And
when something I it sounds like what you're doing is
bringing it home to the community that if your own
health or the health of your children is being specifically affected,
(39:10):
making that connection between climate change and something that's really
as personal and as easy to grasp onto is that
is is a really important thing to do.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Yeah, And you know, one of the things that like
the first lessons that I learned in community organizing was
really talking about power and agency. So this idea of
all of us having power to change things and the
reality that the conditions that the communities, you know, people
(39:43):
who live in communities like South Los Angeles are living
in are not happenstance or coincidence, but it's actually the
result of decisions that have been made by people and
decision makers to create the conditions that we're living in
and so in the movement, we often say that the
redline communities of yesterday are the environmental justice communities of today.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
For that reason.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Yeah, because it's not just some random act of God, right, Like,
you know, people decided who was going to live adjacent
to freeways, who was going to live you know, what
children were going to play next to fracking and oil drilling.
Who was going to live in a community where all
the diesel trusts run through it?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Right? If I could get just personal for one one
second with Gloria, I mean, you know, doing the kind
of work that you do. I'll speak for myself. You know,
when I decided to do the kind of work that
I do, I did it because I wanted to be
(40:52):
rich and famous and get girls. But somebody who who
devotes and spends their life on something as you know,
as as selfless as community organizing or you know, fighting
you know, for against climate change, et cetera, it's such
(41:15):
a it's it. I'm just always impressed with that, And
I wonder if you can shed any light on what
it was for you, uh, you know, parents, or one
experience or or uh you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Yeah, I'm appreciating that question. And I guess for me,
it definitely started in childhood. You know. It's like I
come from a most impacted community. My family is still,
you know, in most impacted communities in Jackson, Mississippi, you know,
(41:56):
is where my family is, and they're you know, dealing
with the water crisis, amongst many other things.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Right now, right down.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
And I grew up you know around like my uncles
were day labors, and therefore they had infrequent work and
inconsistent work, and often stayed with my mom. My mom
was like the house that everyone could come to and
eat and sleep and you know, clean their bodies. You know,
she was that person, which was a beautiful thing to
(42:26):
grow up around and a little traumatic in some ways too,
But at the end of the day, it was just
really showing me about and demonstrating the importance of showing
up for the people that you care about. Generosity exactly,
and compassion, right and love and so that's one one thing.
(42:48):
So the fact that I come from these communities, it
is personal and it's a deeply personal issue for me.
And then there's like the beauty.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Of it too.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
So you know, I shared like a lot of the
crisis in South LA, but you know, the grassroots leaders
there are very much the reason why I stayed in
this work is really hearing their values, hearing their vision
about the kind of community that they want to live in,
(43:20):
you know, where people have like access to clean water
and clean air and green space and good jobs and
a connection to their power. And that's also something that
I saw with my grandmother. She actually raised me the
first four years of my life. And my grandmother was
(43:41):
a farmer. And you know, there's like sayings and adages
that I grew up hearing which we all know, you know,
where my grandmother would be like, you know, make sure
if someone lent me something, make sure you give it
back better than you found it. You know, if I'm
playing somewhere, make sure you clean it up and leave
(44:03):
it better than you found it. And these are like
adages and sayings that you know, you don't think much
about when you hear them. You know, you may even
get a little irritated hearing it. But these are the
things that are It's like simple things like that that
will help us do better as a society. And it's
like a reflection again, like I just have to go
(44:25):
back to values, you know, she would say that you
need to think about the consequences of your actions. And again,
all of this is about climate and the climate crisis
and what we can be doing better. You know, Indigenous
communities up and talk about thinking seven generations ahead, which
(44:47):
essentially is what that's saying is about, like, think about
the consequences of your actions. How is this going to
impact you, your family, your community. You know, she would say,
you're going to reap what you sew, so plant seeds
that you actually want to harvest, right, and that everything
(45:08):
comes from the natural world. Like as a farmer, that
was really important to her and she instilled that in me.
And you know, she was like from your food to
your medicine to this home. You know, if you take
care of the land, the land will take care of you.
And so these were like basic things, you know, from
the experience of poverty to the experience of people connecting
(45:32):
to their individual power, values and vision is really what
helps to sustain and drive me in this work.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
So for both of you, what is the day to
day work for the Solutions Project.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
The Solutions Project essentially we are a national organization and
you know, we were talking about most impacted communities and
so that is who we are here to serve. That's
who we represent our Black, Indigenous, immigrant, Asian, American, Pacific Islander,
(46:07):
LATINX and other communities of color, and especially women of color.
And the reason for that is because often, you know,
regardless of what organization or corporation or wherever you're at,
like women are the backbones of these places in spaces,
and so that's something that we always want to elevate.
(46:28):
But at the Solutions Project, essentially we are investing in
BIPOP communities. We're amplifying by pop communities and their solutions.
And I raise money, you know, that's one thing that
I do. And when I say that, like I come
from a most impacted community, I also used to organize
(46:49):
in the most impacted community. I ran the organization called Scope,
and therefore I understand intimately what it means and what
it takes to do this work, and how often this
work is under resource and underfunded, and especially if it's
(47:09):
work that's led by you know, BIPOP communities and women
of color, A fraction of resources go to those places
and spaces, even though these are the communities that are
like innovating transformative climate solutions. And I can share what
some of those look like I'm.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Really curious about that. What are some of those solutions,
you know?
Speaker 4 (47:31):
So we find a plethora of organizations and some highlights
that come to mind. I'll probably talk about Uprows, which
is like an organization that's in Brooklyn, New York, and
they are transforming as we speak, this industrial waterfront into
a wind energy hub. And for them, that's about creating
(47:55):
thousands of jobs, that's about powering millions of homes in
New York. And that's about a demonstrative model of what
a just transition looks like, which is a transition that
is bottom up, where the people who are closest to
the problems are actually informing the solutions. You can think
(48:17):
about APEN. They're in in the Bay Area in California
and they are instituting what's called resilience hubs and building
this and essentially resilience hubs are all the community assets
kind of coming together, whether that's youth centers, community organizations, libraries,
(48:39):
places of worship, where people are saying, hey, we are
the backbones of our community. Let's link up and figure
out how to be proactive when we have any crisis,
let alone a climate crisis. So you know, I can
think about like COVID for example, community these came together
(49:01):
and we're like the first responders, and so resilience hubs
are really building off of that model, especially when it
comes to climate, because often we're reacting to climate conditions.
But when you think about building a resilience hub, it's saying, Okay,
if we know that we're going to have these recurring events,
let's figure out how to be proactive and think about
(49:22):
climate adaptation and mitigation upfront, and let's think about the
democratization of an energy transition upfront. And so these communities
are in a long standing relationship to transform their neighborhoods
in ways that benefit everyone. One thing that I think
(49:44):
about with the climate crisis is people often just want
to reduce it to solely being about too much carbon
in the atmosphere, and that it is right, Like, we
know it's definitely about carbon emissions, but when you just
think of it only as that, essentially you think it's
(50:05):
just a balancing act. Okay, we just remove the carbon
and that's it. But one thing that I often say
is that you know, you can have a clean, green
economy that still has the same income, inequality structural inequities, racism, zenophobia,
sexism that exists in today's society. And so when you
(50:26):
think of it that way, that's actually a community and
a society that's not so clean. And if our values
aren't changing, you know, we'll be clean for a minute,
but we're still going to get right back to where
we started, because you know, we should be thinking about
it as like the carbon crisis, like too much carbon
(50:49):
in the atmosphere is really a symptom of the root
causes about the values and dominant world views that drive
our world and some of those things that come to
mind for me again when I think about like most
impacted communities is commodifying people and the places that we
(51:10):
call home, and that means putting a price tag on
the value of my life and putting one on the
value of yours. And often the value of my life
is sadly less than the value of yours. And that's
how we've been making decisions in our society. And then
on top of that, it's like values around hyper consumption,
(51:32):
hyper production, mass waste, and you know, the phrases that
none of us like to hear, but you know, we're
in a reckoning where we do need to talk about
white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, because all of these are the
ideas and the values that got us here to think
that we can extract and exploit at any cost, you know,
(51:55):
the cost of human life and the cost to our environment.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
I love what you say because I really believe that
you do a disservice in life if you don't look
at the connections between things, the connections between things that
are negative and the connections between things that are positive.
It is very very important. Two, you know, not to
(52:24):
completely compartmentalize these these these issues because oftentimes they are related,
you know, education and race and climate and uh, you know,
economy and all these things. So I'm really I'm very
very impressed both with that notion and with you and
(52:49):
with the great and powerful Mark Ruffalo. And I want
to thank you guys for for being here and for
hearing about this. But before I let you go, is
there someplace that people can go or help out or
or where can we where can we go to see
this great work that you're doing.
Speaker 4 (53:11):
Well. The first thing you can do is check out
our website, the Solutions Project dot org. And there's an
s at the end of Solutions so Best Solutions Project
dot org and you can see what we're doing, who
we're funding. So again, I raise money every single year
to resource frontline most impacted communities that are black, Indigenous immigrants, API,
(53:36):
LATINX and other communities of color. And we also amplify
their solutions and their vision and their values. And we
really try to disrupt the dystopian narratives around climate and
instead connect to the dreams the aspirations of frontline communities
(53:58):
because that's what's really going to help make a world
a better place. So check us out at the Solution's Project.
That's also a great site where you can see, you know,
if there's an organization that you want to get involved
in in your neighborhood. We actually have a map and
if you live in California, you can lift that up
and see which organizations are in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
That's great, that's great, that's great localizing it which is
always really.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Important, so important, and re resource over two hundred organizations
across the country. Cool, and so please donate.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yes, yes, I'll just say this. As far as you know,
probably a lot of your listeners are very feel, very
responsible and responsive to you know cluses and the environment
and social justice and so on and so forth. You know,
there's very a lot of them probably actually give to
(54:54):
a lot of big organizations. The one thing I could
promise you this is that when you when you give
to this organization, the greatest percentage of your money will
end up in these communities, more than I would say
any other environmental organization. I could say that for sure,
(55:15):
and probably on par with the best social justice or
environmental justice groups for sure. I mean, we are probably
the best as far as getting resources, not just money,
political resources, storytelling resources. You know, my function here is
(55:36):
to use my privilege to lift these stories up into
the mainstream to hear from the people we never get
to hear from. That's been probably the greatest gift that
I've been given and the greatest gift that I could
give back. Thank you, Gloria. And Gloria does it, and
(55:59):
she buyer values. And so just as far as organizations go,
and even those small dollars, you know, we could stretch
ten dollars into one thousand dollars. That's what these communities do,
and we are the organization that's actually will make sure
they get that money. The lion's share of that money.
(56:22):
So you know, I know it sounds like, oh, you know,
these are big things, but man, even even you know,
ten dollars a monthly, twenty dollars, these these little donations
that people are giving to NRDC, and not to take
anything away from them or some of these bigger organizations.
Your money will go much farther and the return on
(56:42):
your money will go much farther in this organization that
so many others. So when you're taking that time to give,
you know, definitely consider what we're doing, because you know,
it's it's lifting the whole country from the bottom, and
it's writing the grit eightest wrongs that the whole country
was founded on. And until we do that and heal
(57:06):
in that sense, you know, the rest of it, I
just don't see. It's like building your home on a faulty,
faut faulty foundation. You know, we have to write that
and then the rest of the rest of the building
squares up, it becomes straight, comes.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
Whole, beautiful. I love it. Thank you guys so much
for being here. Mark Ruffalo, Gloria Walton, keep up the
good work.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
Appreciate you man, thanks for having us that was so fun.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Thank you, thanks for listening. That was a really fun
episode of six Degrees. And if you want to learn
more about the Solutions project, you can go to the
Solutionsproject dot org and that's Solutions with an s the
Solutions Project dot org. And you can find all the
(57:56):
links in our show notes. And if you like what
you hear, make sure sure that you subscribe to the
show and tune in to the rest of our episodes.
You can find six Degrees on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us
in supporting SixDegrees dot org by texting the word Bacon
to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift empowers
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work of everyday heroes. We'll also enabling us to provide
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(58:36):
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The following episode was recorded before the WGA sag Aftra
strikes of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hey guys, welcome to the very first episode six Degrees
with Kevin Bacon. Every week, I'm going to be sitting
down with some of your favorite celebrities as well as
leaders from their favorite nonprofits, and we are going to
highlight some of the most pressing social issues of our time.
So tune in every Tuesday for your weekly dose of
do gooders. Now, let's start the show, And what a
(00:30):
way to be kicking this off with one of my
absolute favorite actors. I am constantly in all of the
work that this man does on the screen and off
A great, great person, a great citizen of the world,
and a terrific and versatile performer. Mister Mark Refle So
(01:02):
happy to have Mark Ruffalo here today. Well, we've known
each other for a long time. But you know, it's
funny because I actually, and this is embarrassing to say,
I've forgotten that we'd actually worked together. I mean, we
didn't really work together, but we were in the same movie, yeah,
(01:23):
which was in the cut. That's right, And I I
We're going to get into your activism and the and
the organization, et cetera. I just want to shoot the
ship just for a little bit. I remember that two
things about that movie. One was that I wanted your
part really, really badly, and Jane Campion was like, now,
(01:46):
are you out of your mind? I got fucking Ruffalo
and you're not. You're not going to play this part.
And so she came back and said, well, there is
this weird, you know, tiny little thing. And I was like, okay, cool.
I mean, she's like, you know, an amazing director and
you were were doing it and Meg and I, you know,
(02:08):
and my wife always jokes with me that I have
this way of finding like these incredibly important directors and
doing the one movie with them that nobody saw. Like
she says, that's like my talent. And I thought you
were great in the movie. And it was a really
(02:29):
cool movie, very very interesting, trippy, like in the way
it was shot, you know, if I remember correctly, yes,
all that kind of like split diopter stuff and yes,
all this kind of crazy shit going on, but it
was not. It didn't make it. Nobody put on a tuxedo.
Let's say.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
No, No, it was quite I remember, Yeah, I think
it's such a I think it's underappreciated obviously, and you
were great in it too, by the way. And but yeah,
I think there was such a backlash to first of all,
the audience. I don't think wanted to see Meg Meg
(03:09):
like that, you know. I remember there's a lot of
a lot of the criticism was to see her like
that was too disturbing for people.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Which is just so wrong. I mean, you know, and
it's interesting when you have the kind of huge success
that she has really, as you know, she was America
Sweetheart clearly, you know, and it very very had a
very kind of specific kind of thing. And then to
kind of you know as well as I do that, well,
(03:40):
I mean, speak to me about that. Like, you are
an actor, an incredible actor, if I may say, who
is not in any way pigeonholed in terms of the
things or the kinds of parts that you do, or
the size of the movies that you do, or the
(04:03):
tone of the movies that you do. You really have
an incredible kind of diversity. But I have felt, and
I'd like to hear your feelings about this, that getting
that in this business is a is a real struggle
for sure.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
First of all, want to say, I did think with
Meg it felt a little sexist to me, you know,
you know, it's like, it's much harder, I think, for
a woman to do that than a guy. You know,
they celebrate it when a guy does it all then
look at you did it while he's doing something new.
You know, he changed it up. It is incredibly hard,
(04:45):
and you know you've done the same thing. You just
have to, you know, I found myself always having to
fight against you know, people think they know you. Casting directors,
think they know your directors, think they know you do
You do one part, and you do it well, and
then everyone thinks, oh, that's who you must be, right, yeah,
(05:07):
but but it isn't and and we're much bigger than
but you know, no one they don't know, but they
don't have the imagination or they just they haven't seen
you do much of anything yet. And so it was
always this kind of fight to stay ahead of that
and to make sure early on that what I was
doing wasn't a repeat of I know this. I mean,
(05:31):
you can count on me, you know. I specifically try
to do something totally different than that, just to keep
widening the brackets of what people thought was possible.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
By the way. It was incredible and you were incredible
in it, and I think that was probably the first
time that I saw you. You know, it was just
so it was so great, and you're right. I mean,
you do something well and they want to see you
do it again.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
I mean, how many dance movies where you offered you know?
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Well, I'll tell you. The next movie that I did
after the dance movie was a bike movie. And I
did it because it had this The director kept saying
to me, I'm gonna have this kind of gritty you
know score. He kept talking about Scorsese, you know, and
like that was my whole hero world was the whole Scorsese,
(06:22):
you know, the narrow Paccino New Yorky kind of thing,
and we're shooting New York and it was going to
be gritty, gritty, greedy kept taking gritty. By the time
the movie filmed, I had a dance sequence on a bike.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
I remember.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
It was just the worst. I mean, I snunk it
up on me and I tried to push back, but
to no avail. And I you know, to this day, honestly,
it's funny that you bring that up. I think of
I think of that as exactly the issue that we're
(07:01):
really talking about is that you know, I was trying
to go in a different direction and I just it
was just like they're just pulling me back to you know,
you know America's whatever, dancer or whatever. I was. So
I admire you for, you know, for stepping outside. I mean, what,
(07:23):
let me ask you this, what was it that gave
you the confidence? You know, even after you can count
on me to to make you think that you could
do that?
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You know, honestly, it was it was all the years
that I was struggling. And in those years, you know,
the thirteen years, dude, you can count on me, was
all theater, you know, it was all this little you know,
I was living in LA so you could do like
a three thousand dollars production. It wasn't like New York
where you have to have half a million dollars to
(07:55):
do like the crappiest little thing anywhere. You know. It
was like we could do it three thousand dollars production.
So in those thirteen years, I'd done you know, like
thirty five plays.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
And in the course, okay, so I mean you left home,
you moved to New York, I mean to LA, not
to New York. Yeah, yeah, when I was ok okay, okay,
and yeah, where were you coming from? Where were you
coming from?
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I was coming from at that point, I was
coming from I was coming from California. No, I was
in Californa. I was in California, but I was coming
from Virginia Beach, where I spent part of my teenage years,
and the rest of them were in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
And so by the time I was eighteen, I had moved,
My family had moved like six times.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
You know. So I also started to understand that, you know,
a personality wasn't muted or mutable. It was like something
that was constant could be was malleable, you know. And
and and you know, moving that many times you're sort
of recreating yourself with a different friend group and so
(09:10):
on and so forth. You're just so self possessed that
you never change.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Ever.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
I wasn't that guy.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Right, right, and so you so you were all it
was already kind of laying the foundation for understanding how
to walk in somebody else's shoes because you were trying
to to to fit in to to to to definitely yeah, yeah, years, Yeah,
I think a lot of the same way. Yeah, yeah,
I remember that I'm feeling a way. And you know
(09:37):
there were times that I sometimes, I don't know if
you ever had this, where I would sometimes have a
you know, a dark day and feel that I wasn't
really being authentic in anything because there were some people
who were just so specifically like that guy, and because
my friends were you know, kind of all over the
map and my my point of view, and like I
(09:58):
had friend groups that really wouldn't intern act with each other.
You know, sometimes I felt a little i don't know,
fake or something. You know.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Well, yeah, well I was the same way. You know
I could have. I was with the wrestlers, I was
with the stoners, I was with the you know, the
punk rockers. I was with the skaters, I was the surfers.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
And know, I can I can move all those groups,
you know. But I know, so you met, you went
to LA and did theater in l A.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
See that's really interesting because, uh, you know what, I
never really even considered going to LA because I was
coming from Philly so it was a short trip, and
and New York was you know, I had a kind
of a romanticized idea of what a New York actor was,
but it was also because of the theater and the
(10:49):
idea of I mean, uh, actually doing theater in LA
was like very far, but that's totally cool.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Who did that? I mean, you know who goes to
LA to do theater? And you know, the funny and
the hilarious thing was as I'd been doing theater there
for so long and I had been begging casting directors
to come and see it, and I came to New
York to do a play. I did This is Our Youth,
which was like it just exploded right, and all the
(11:19):
LA casting directors are like, where the fuck did you
come from? And I was like, motherfucker's I been under
your nose for the plast thirteen years doing this exact
same thing.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You know, Yeah, that's funny because that was kind of
I remember people saying, well, you could go to LA
and do a play. But the great thing about that
is that all the casting directors when you get to
LA will all come to the theater. And I have
my doubts. That's really interest because they were all, you
know whatever, having dinner at the Ivy. But that's that
(11:51):
is a that a that's fascinating. So do you think
that getting a bunch of theater under your belt has
had has uh contributed to this, you know, ability to
be diverse in the in the in the parts that
(12:12):
you play.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Absolutely. I mean, you know, I was doing Shakespeare, I
was doing Chekov, I was doing you know, modern stuff
that we were writing.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
I was doing.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
We were doing David Ray, we were doing O'Neill. We're
doing Tennessee Williams, we were doing every we were doing Moliere,
we were doing Uh, we were doing Bernard Shaw. We
were doing so many different styles and ages and time
(12:48):
periods that I just I just became very fluid in
my understanding of style, my understanding of forrest, my understanding
of comedy, my understanding of drama. You know, and then
and then just all that character work that you're doing
along the way, and you just you just came to
see that, you know, there really was as an as
an actor, there really was no limitations. You weren't just
(13:12):
a comic actor, or you weren't just a dramatic actor.
And the best actors are actually one foot on a
banana peel and the other in the grave. You know,
where you could where you could shift those gears.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know, Yeah, easily. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I
remember having a little notion about theater, and that was
that you know, if you that that when they were
casting television and movies in in in New York, that
(13:45):
they were really they wanted the actual person to the
closest they could, like it was the closest that they
could find to the actual person. If they you know,
the kid was supposed to be from Brooklyn, they wanted
to get from Brooklyn. Yeah, that that that was the
person that the they got the part. But theater was
not that way. If you went and auditioned and did
(14:05):
a good job portraying that character in the audition in
that you know, on that stage, then you would get
the part. And I noticed that really really early on.
And I don't know about you, but I think part
of it is that, you know, film is so in
your face, and I think the directors get really afraid
(14:29):
of something becoming being false. You know, acting. Yeah, see
you acting now, that's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean especially when you're young too, because
you only are one thing when you're young, you know,
the idea of you being anything more than what you
walk in the door with. For a casting direct there
is as far as they can see. You know, I
just did this documentary. Someone was just giving me shit
(15:05):
about this, But I just did this docum my wife,
I just did this documentary about Bonnie Timmerman, the great
you know casting director.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Who you did it? You directed it?
Speaker 3 (15:15):
No? No, not I. I did an interview for it
because because she's someone I knew. I never got a part, right,
but she asked me to do this, uh, this doc
and they use a clip in this thing where I'm
arguing with Michael Bay that I could play somebody other
than who he thought I was, you know, and I
(15:37):
was so righteous and it's it's it's embarrassing now.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
But what happened was they got me in for.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
One part, you know, and then halfway through the part
he's like, go, no, no, no, you're not right for
this part. Go read this part. So I went out
and prepared for the part, and when I came back in,
he's like, you're too young for this part. And I
got pissed.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Man.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
I was like, you know, you asked me to come up,
you know, and that's the that's the clip they used.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Of course, Oh that's great. I got to see. This
has to come out yet, this Bonnie Timmerman.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Yeah, yeah, it's been out for a while. It's it's
floating around on the internet. That clip.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
I gotta check it out. I gotta check it out.
I remember that. I think it was Bonnie who always
had the polaroids, right, Yeah, you always you always had
started that. Yeah, you always had to take a polaroid,
And there was a there's a at one point, I
don't know. I guess I'd been doing enough stuff for
I've been in the office enough times where I was like,
I do I have to take a fucking polaroid? I mean,
(16:38):
come on, you know what I look like, right, you know?
Speaker 3 (16:42):
Anyway, that's not she she uh, she told me that
she did that because remember how we had to do
they don't do this the same way. And remember how
we had to do head shots and you'd have your
like headshot if you played tennis, the headshot with your
scuba you're on. They had to do all the character
(17:05):
headshot or preppy headshot and right, and so you know,
she was fighting against that kind of affectation, which is
why she wanted to do those bullet rights. But yeah,
it was like what it was, are you putting a
book together? Like, why, you know, I don't have any
makeup on. I'm wearing a T shirt, you know. But
that's that's what Bonnie wanted and she you know.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
It makes a lot of sense really because I mean,
those those head shots are I mean, to this day,
they're just oh they're embarrassed. I mean they're embarrassing, you know.
I And I remember having, uh that, that the the
when I finally got an agent and this will probably
be I guess maybe seventy nine or something like that,
(17:48):
and he said, uh, you have to get a head shot.
And the photographer is a Gerard Barnier. Do you remember
this name? He was a he was a headshot he
was the head shot photographer.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And it was something like, to me, like an outrageous
amount of money. It was something like five hundred bucks. Yeah,
nothing like that. And I was like, I got how
am I good? How am I going to get five
hundred dollars to have it to have a picture taken?
I can't can't like you know, my cousin take it
or something. But now they had to get had to
get your Arbonne. I think I still have those pictures.
(18:24):
They're pretty bad. Yeah, we we.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Had like that there was a you know, then there
was a scale down version. We had like one hundred
dollars person who we all went to, which was literally out.
I was always outside with a you know, a bounce sport.
You're holding your own bound sport for the shot. Oh
my god, yeah, man, five hundred bucks to us is
like that was that was like two months rent you.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
Know, No, no, no, that was that was crazy, crazy,
crazy crazy. I I maybe it was less, but I
remember it just being so.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
No, it was. It was that expensive. It was. And
there was some people that I rememberer. I can't even
remember their names, but there's people in LA that were
making a grand to do headshots in the late eighties.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
But now you have this thing. Okay that again, I
don't I can't, off the top of my head think
of somebody who is able to coexist between you know,
you're awesome Marvel World and then these movies that are
(19:38):
completely in another sort of direction in the world and
in a totally different kind of budget range and stuff
that's like about something serious and things that you care about,
and you have them both happening at the same time.
And and first off, it's it's it's sometimes when I
think about how long these these superhero movies take them. Sometimes.
(20:01):
I when I look at your career, I think, how
did he fit all of this in? You know, I
mean that it's in it itself, must must have been
a challenge or must continue to be a challenge. But
also is there ever a time when you kind of go,
I mean, I'm gonna know the answer to this, but
we ever, we're just kinda go, well, you know, yeah,
I mean I was, you know, working on a on
(20:24):
on the on the big movie for a long time.
Now I'm just gonna you know, I don't want to
do anything else for a little while. I just want
to rest, you know.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
I I it's funny you bring that up, because I
probably in the last three years have been away from home,
you know, in in chunks, probably about a year and
a half, almost two years, running back and forth between
(20:56):
year in Europe. And I mean, I you know, I
used to.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
I was on it.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I don't know what. I thought I was going to
die young.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So I was just.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Trying to get as much in as I possibly could,
you know. Yeah, in a way, yeah, I mean I
was like, I gotta I was driven. I don't know,
I don't know what it was. And then I just
burned out, and so I said, I need to take
a year off, which is which is basically what I've
been doing in the middle of and it's been I mean,
(21:28):
we had COVID and all that happened, but that was
just so stressful that, you know, it was so kind
of traumatic and and it was hard to really rest
because you didn't know, you know, when you're going to
get another job, and you know, if you're going to
refinance a house, all those things that were happening during
that time. So yeah, I mean, yeah, I definitely got
(21:51):
to the place where where I just felt totally burned
out and I and I and I was like, I
don't know if I I don't know if I ever
really want to act again. I'm not even enjoying anymore.
I mean, I'm sure everyone gets to some version of
that at some point, and uh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
But have you gotten past it or or is that
still kind of how you're feeling?
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, you know, I go to the Art Students League
and just started a sculpture class, and it's just like
that's like you love you know, Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
That's such a that's such a that's such a cool place.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Oh my god, it's I mean, my sister.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
My sister goes. She used to go when she was
living in New York and sometimes I would go over
and you know, kind of see what she was working
on and stuff. It's it's it's it's a for people
that don't know it's it's it's a it's a it's
a place for artists and to work out, and it's
it's it's probably been there since oh gosh, I don't know,
the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
Maybe, Oh yeah, I mean it's probably one of the
oldest establishments in New York City.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
And you know, you go and and any any any
level of artist, from the rank beginner to the most
you know, established artists are they're all working side by side,
and it's affordable. I mean, you get studio space, you're
there for five hours as a live model. You know,
all the materials are there. I mean, it's it's just
(23:15):
it's such an invaluable thing in New York City. It's
surprised it's even left after Juliani and Blueberg. You know,
let's make New York a luxury high rise built.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Especially that right in that in that little zone too.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Yeah, survive, you know, but it's it's thriving, it's beautiful,
it's uh, you know, there's a quality there. It's diverse.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You know, it's so you're sculpting. So so it was
that was that relatively new or or or No.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
It's something that I it's something I always fancied myself.
I don't even I don't even know why. I was like,
I'm going to be a sculptor. I'm gonna be a sculptor.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And then finally I had some time to do it,
and I made a promise to myself that I would,
I would, you know, really spend these last few months
doing it and just be a beginner. And uh, you know,
put your put my phone down. It's like five hours
of no phone and uh you're there for five hours.
(24:18):
Yeah yeah wow. Yeah. And it's a life it's a
life sculpting class. So it's it's very intense and quiet
and and solemn, and you know, there's just such meditating,
very meditative, and you know, you realize.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Are you using tools or or your hands or in
the us in.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
Your hands mostly in the clay. I mean you're there's
some tools there's a you know, my teacher, you know,
you have a sculpting knife basically, or or even he's
used will use like little plastic butter knives too, because
you get that nice raking quality. But it's very minimal.
But it's you're in the dirt, you know, you're in
(24:56):
the mud, and uh, it's so primal and and you're
you know, your focus is so extreme and you have
to see, you know, you really have to see, and
you realize how you know, we we think we see,
oh that's a tree, you know, we we we label things.
We'll immediately go to a label, but to really take
(25:19):
the time to see is like its own discipline. And
and I just find it incredibly soothing to me in
this jangled you know techno digital, ultra ultra ultra ultra
world we're living in. You know, it's just all this time.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
That's great, that's great. I mean I think that uh, well,
you know, we all we all can use different forms
of mental soothing, of physical connection to two things that
aren't on a screen. You know. It's well, it just
seems like it's so important musing.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
I mean, is it your music like that for you?
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Yeah, totally, totally yes, that's it for me. Music and
the animals, you know, horses and all kinds of animals
and and and you know, I find that, uh, you know,
when you're playing music with people, you have to listen,
(26:22):
you have to react, you have to you know, you
have to group. And I even think that as an
act is as an actors, you know, you've worked even
in such extreme you know, technical situations, you know, way
beyond any of the stuff that I've done. But even
(26:43):
the difference between going from the stage to film, there
is a lot of gear that sometimes can distract you
from this exchange of the emotions and characters and eyes
and and and and and bodies and and all this
kind of stuff that that you know, you you I
(27:05):
often say that you know, you you could. You got
to make sure when you're when you're acting with somebody
in a in a film, that you don't let all
that gear get between you and and the person. And
I would think that working in a in a in
the in a you know, a green screen or digital
or superhero kind of situation, it becomes even harder to
fight against that.
Speaker 3 (27:25):
Oh my god, it's so intense. I mean, when I'm
doing the Hulk stuff I have. I have a helmet
on that has like four cameras, you know, basically in
my face, and you know, and and then a whole
rig attached to me like a vest that has all
(27:47):
of the digital recording system on it, you know, with
the batteries. And then I'm in a suit that's basically skinned.
I call it the man canceling suit because it makes
you look big everywhere you want to look small, and
small everywhere you want to big.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
I've been in suits like that before, you know what
I'm saying, I do.
Speaker 3 (28:11):
And so, uh, I had I had a special loin
cloth made for my because it was just it was
too too revealing, you know, so the amount you know,
getting used to that and trying to be present in it,
and and and I'm standing on a box that makes me,
(28:34):
you know, ten foot tall. So all the actors I'm
working with are literally at at you know, crotch level.
Thus the loin cloth, you know, and you're trying to
you know, you're trying to do that thing. You're trying
to listen and connect and and you.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
Just have this.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
You know. It was funny because we just did She
Hulk and and I was breaking in Tatiana with all
this technology, you know, and what it happened. What happens
is is the technology takes over and the acting part
becomes the sort of side side gig, you know, it's
(29:18):
sort of the it's the augmentation, it's it's no, it
was no longer the thing, you know. And and I
really had to like fight and fight for her and
teach her that we can't let this technology stand in
front of what we do as performers, which is I
(29:39):
think part of this big fight we're about to have
with the.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Screen percent is and uh, it is really important to
remember that and you know, to hold on to it.
And we're going to have to We're going to have
to fight to keep that in the forefront of people's minds.
It's you know, it's ultimately never gonna work if if
(30:03):
if we are you know, just recreated, and I can't
wait to see that. I love Tatiana. She's so she's
so good.
Speaker 3 (30:10):
I love her. It's so funny too, She's great and
it man, she's just so good.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
You know, a lot of the movies that you've made,
you know, Spotlight being a perfect example, have had a
you know, a point of view, not you know, how
can I put this a social point of view or
an environmental point of view? Which which is going to
(30:40):
I mean, did you come up with something like The
Solutions Project because of that experience or do you sometimes
look for those movies because of your your your feelings
about the world.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
You know, It's funny because well, first of all, I
was always you know, Stella Adler was my teacher, and
she was like, you have to be political. You have
to be politically involved. You have to know what's happening.
You know, even if you're playing something in the thirties,
you have to know what the political scene was. You
have to be involved in that part to understand the
(31:15):
time and the place and who you're playing and and
and their place in the world at that time.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Right, So I didn't know that was part of her technique.
That's really fascinating to me. Yeah, I've never studied, didn't
study any of that, so and.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That was a big part of it. So we were
already like we were already conscious, socially conscious as artists.
She really believed that you had to be socially conscious
as an as an artist, and so but there wasn't
you know, you know, the funny thing about acting is like, oh,
what what made you decide to pick that part? It
(31:49):
is like, I didn't pick anything.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
Well, that's true.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I mean, I'm lucky to even have a job, you know, right,
I know, for so long, you know. And so you know,
I found myself moving up state in the middle of
this fracking fight, you know, and it's happening all around me.
So I'm the longer like a guy on the sidelines.
I'm like in the middle of it. And I'm trying
to raise kids there and and you know, my neighbors
(32:17):
like willing to poison my water, you know, and and
and poison everyone's water around us, you know. So I'm
right in the middle of that thing. And I and
I get like a front seat view of what it's
like to be in a sacrifice Zoe, and what it's
like to be a frontline fighter, and what it's like
(32:37):
to live in a world where there's two sets of laws.
You know, there's the laws that are for all of us,
and there's the laws that are for corporations or no
laws that are for corporations, big wealthy corporations and people
of power. And so that really changed me. And and
that that started, you know, that moved on to the
(32:58):
Solutions project. It was that it was my activism that
that I was finding myself part of that made me say, hey,
you know, why don't I do this with movies more?
You know, I I you know, and I was at
a point where I could, you know, I could start
producing things and developing things and and that and that
(33:20):
and and I you know, I'll tell you I did
The Kids Are All Right, which was just a great
film and a funny film by itself, but it ended
up having a real impact on the gay marriage issue,
which was which it landed right in the middle of
right right, and it was so humanizing and and what
you realized about gay people is their marriages were just
(33:44):
as bad as everybody else's.
Speaker 4 (33:46):
You know.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
It's like, you know, they were they were going through
the same stuff. You know, people who were married were straight,
were laughing at the same issues, you know, and just
humanize it. And I think it really did change the
conversation culturally. I saw how important that became to that
(34:07):
specific fight, and that's when I started to really feel like,
you know, an article goes in a newspaper, goes this far,
a documentary goes this far, but a movie that level
of storytelling, if you could get past the polemics, if
you can get if you could just tell the human story.
(34:28):
It resonates in all kinds of people outside of their
political beliefs, like you know dark waters that you know
that things, that thing is seen by everybody, and and
and we can all agree, like we don't want to
be drinking poison water that some major corporation you know,
knowingly did to us. We don't want our kids doing that.
(34:50):
You know, we don't want that in our popcorn. We
don't want that in our frying pans. You know, we
don't want to die from some disease that someone else
knew they were they were passing to us. No one
wants to do that. So you know, when they hear
that story, they see working class people being affected by it,
and then all of a sudden, you have a change happened.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Mm hmm. It's great. Well, I think this is a
good segue for us to bring out Gloria Walton, who
works with you on the Solutions project. So please join us. Gloria. Hi, Kay,
Thank Gloria, Hey you Mike, Well, thanks Gloria, thanks for
joining us.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I'm thrilled. It's very nice to meet you. I mean,
I guess my first question is how the two of
you met and how this whole thing came together.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Gosh, how did the two of us meet? So in
the work, Mark is hardcore, which I know, you know,
given that your friends and so. And when I say hardcore,
just meaning that he's always like in it with us
in the community, you know, having just being really connected
(36:01):
to his own personal experience and therefore being able to
show up with like true authenticity and just one of
the comrades. So, and that was like several years ago,
because I've been doing this work for about sixteen years,
and I started in South central Los Angeles.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
And what were you doing in south What was it
you were doing in South Central? Just just kill people
in Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
So I actually used to be a community organizer, and
I still identify as an organizer. So I'm not necessarily
I mean, sometimes I'm organizing people, but not in the
ways that I did when I was at this organization
called SCOPE, and I started as an intern there. It
stands for Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, and
(36:51):
so essentially we were organizing the community's most impacted, and
in South Central that was black and brown communities. And
if you're not familiar, which I know you know we
are familiar, but like South Central is a community that
is surrounded by freeways from the north, south, east, and west,
(37:12):
so it's literally in the center and therefore diesel trucks
are kind of going through all the time going to
the ports. And it's a highly concretized community, so minimal
green space, minimal trees, and it has high rates of
poverty and like low wage sector work. So that kind
(37:37):
of gives you an idea. And so when we're talking
about most impacted communities, these are communities that are unfortunately
living adjacent to freeways, living adjacent to oil drilling and fracking,
and so often the entrepe point and to climate was
really like around public health, because you know, it wasn't
(37:59):
a co incidents that South Central, you know, when you're
looking at like Hounty averages, it was one of the
sickest communities in LA and really across the state, and
high mortality rates, high infant mortality rates, high rates of asthma, cancer,
(38:22):
things like that.
Speaker 2 (38:24):
Yeah, it's interesting I think when talking about climate, you know,
trying to talk about it for so many years. I
think for so many years it was such a big
concept that it was hard for people to get their
heads around even to this day, of any kind of
like personal impact. I mean, when you think about it,
(38:46):
it's you know, force masure is act of God and
like and a lot of times there's things that are explained,
but climate wise, they say it's a force masure. And
when something I it sounds like what you're doing is
bringing it home to the community that if your own
health or the health of your children is being specifically affected,
(39:10):
making that connection between climate change and something that's really
as personal and as easy to grasp onto is that
is is a really important thing to do.
Speaker 4 (39:22):
Yeah, And you know, one of the things that like
the first lessons that I learned in community organizing was
really talking about power and agency. So this idea of
all of us having power to change things and the
reality that the conditions that the communities, you know, people
(39:43):
who live in communities like South Los Angeles are living
in are not happenstance or coincidence, but it's actually the
result of decisions that have been made by people and
decision makers to create the conditions that we're living in
and so in the movement, we often say that the
redline communities of yesterday are the environmental justice communities of today.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
For that reason.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
Yeah, because it's not just some random act of God, right, Like,
you know, people decided who was going to live adjacent
to freeways, who was going to live you know, what
children were going to play next to fracking and oil drilling.
Who was going to live in a community where all
the diesel trusts run through it?
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Right? If I could get just personal for one one
second with Gloria, I mean, you know, doing the kind
of work that you do. I'll speak for myself. You know,
when I decided to do the kind of work that
I do, I did it because I wanted to be
(40:52):
rich and famous and get girls. But somebody who who
devotes and spends their life on something as you know,
as as selfless as community organizing or you know, fighting
you know, for against climate change, et cetera, it's such
(41:15):
a it's it. I'm just always impressed with that, And
I wonder if you can shed any light on what
it was for you, uh, you know, parents, or one
experience or or uh you know whatever.
Speaker 4 (41:32):
Yeah, I'm appreciating that question. And I guess for me,
it definitely started in childhood. You know. It's like I
come from a most impacted community. My family is still,
you know, in most impacted communities in Jackson, Mississippi, you know,
(41:56):
is where my family is, and they're you know, dealing
with the water crisis, amongst many other things.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Right now, right down.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
And I grew up you know around like my uncles
were day labors, and therefore they had infrequent work and
inconsistent work, and often stayed with my mom. My mom
was like the house that everyone could come to and
eat and sleep and you know, clean their bodies. You know,
she was that person, which was a beautiful thing to
(42:26):
grow up around and a little traumatic in some ways too,
But at the end of the day, it was just
really showing me about and demonstrating the importance of showing
up for the people that you care about. Generosity exactly,
and compassion, right and love and so that's one one thing.
(42:48):
So the fact that I come from these communities, it
is personal and it's a deeply personal issue for me.
And then there's like the beauty.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
Of it too.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
So you know, I shared like a lot of the
crisis in South LA, but you know, the grassroots leaders
there are very much the reason why I stayed in
this work is really hearing their values, hearing their vision
about the kind of community that they want to live in,
(43:20):
you know, where people have like access to clean water
and clean air and green space and good jobs and
a connection to their power. And that's also something that
I saw with my grandmother. She actually raised me the
first four years of my life. And my grandmother was
(43:41):
a farmer. And you know, there's like sayings and adages
that I grew up hearing which we all know, you know,
where my grandmother would be like, you know, make sure
if someone lent me something, make sure you give it
back better than you found it. You know, if I'm
playing somewhere, make sure you clean it up and leave
(44:03):
it better than you found it. And these are like
adages and sayings that you know, you don't think much
about when you hear them. You know, you may even
get a little irritated hearing it. But these are the
things that are It's like simple things like that that
will help us do better as a society. And it's
like a reflection again, like I just have to go
(44:25):
back to values, you know, she would say that you
need to think about the consequences of your actions. And again,
all of this is about climate and the climate crisis
and what we can be doing better. You know, Indigenous
communities up and talk about thinking seven generations ahead, which
(44:47):
essentially is what that's saying is about, like, think about
the consequences of your actions. How is this going to
impact you, your family, your community. You know, she would say,
you're going to reap what you sew, so plant seeds
that you actually want to harvest, right, and that everything
(45:08):
comes from the natural world. Like as a farmer, that
was really important to her and she instilled that in me.
And you know, she was like from your food to
your medicine to this home. You know, if you take
care of the land, the land will take care of you.
And so these were like basic things, you know, from
the experience of poverty to the experience of people connecting
(45:32):
to their individual power, values and vision is really what
helps to sustain and drive me in this work.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
So for both of you, what is the day to
day work for the Solutions Project.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
The Solutions Project essentially we are a national organization and
you know, we were talking about most impacted communities and
so that is who we are here to serve. That's
who we represent our Black, Indigenous, immigrant, Asian, American, Pacific Islander,
(46:07):
LATINX and other communities of color, and especially women of color.
And the reason for that is because often, you know,
regardless of what organization or corporation or wherever you're at,
like women are the backbones of these places in spaces,
and so that's something that we always want to elevate.
(46:28):
But at the Solutions Project, essentially we are investing in
BIPOP communities. We're amplifying by pop communities and their solutions.
And I raise money, you know, that's one thing that
I do. And when I say that, like I come
from a most impacted community, I also used to organize
(46:49):
in the most impacted community. I ran the organization called Scope,
and therefore I understand intimately what it means and what
it takes to do this work, and how often this
work is under resource and underfunded, and especially if it's
(47:09):
work that's led by you know, BIPOP communities and women
of color, A fraction of resources go to those places
and spaces, even though these are the communities that are
like innovating transformative climate solutions. And I can share what
some of those look like I'm.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Really curious about that. What are some of those solutions,
you know?
Speaker 4 (47:31):
So we find a plethora of organizations and some highlights
that come to mind. I'll probably talk about Uprows, which
is like an organization that's in Brooklyn, New York, and
they are transforming as we speak, this industrial waterfront into
a wind energy hub. And for them, that's about creating
(47:55):
thousands of jobs, that's about powering millions of homes in
New York. And that's about a demonstrative model of what
a just transition looks like, which is a transition that
is bottom up, where the people who are closest to
the problems are actually informing the solutions. You can think
(48:17):
about APEN. They're in in the Bay Area in California
and they are instituting what's called resilience hubs and building
this and essentially resilience hubs are all the community assets
kind of coming together, whether that's youth centers, community organizations, libraries,
(48:39):
places of worship, where people are saying, hey, we are
the backbones of our community. Let's link up and figure
out how to be proactive when we have any crisis,
let alone a climate crisis. So you know, I can
think about like COVID for example, community these came together
(49:01):
and we're like the first responders, and so resilience hubs
are really building off of that model, especially when it
comes to climate, because often we're reacting to climate conditions.
But when you think about building a resilience hub, it's saying, Okay,
if we know that we're going to have these recurring events,
let's figure out how to be proactive and think about
(49:22):
climate adaptation and mitigation upfront, and let's think about the
democratization of an energy transition upfront. And so these communities
are in a long standing relationship to transform their neighborhoods
in ways that benefit everyone. One thing that I think
(49:44):
about with the climate crisis is people often just want
to reduce it to solely being about too much carbon
in the atmosphere, and that it is right, Like, we
know it's definitely about carbon emissions, but when you just
think of it only as that, essentially you think it's
(50:05):
just a balancing act. Okay, we just remove the carbon
and that's it. But one thing that I often say
is that you know, you can have a clean, green
economy that still has the same income, inequality structural inequities, racism, zenophobia,
sexism that exists in today's society. And so when you
(50:26):
think of it that way, that's actually a community and
a society that's not so clean. And if our values
aren't changing, you know, we'll be clean for a minute,
but we're still going to get right back to where
we started, because you know, we should be thinking about
it as like the carbon crisis, like too much carbon
(50:49):
in the atmosphere is really a symptom of the root
causes about the values and dominant world views that drive
our world and some of those things that come to
mind for me again when I think about like most
impacted communities is commodifying people and the places that we
(51:10):
call home, and that means putting a price tag on
the value of my life and putting one on the
value of yours. And often the value of my life
is sadly less than the value of yours. And that's
how we've been making decisions in our society. And then
on top of that, it's like values around hyper consumption,
(51:32):
hyper production, mass waste, and you know, the phrases that
none of us like to hear, but you know, we're
in a reckoning where we do need to talk about
white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, because all of these are the
ideas and the values that got us here to think
that we can extract and exploit at any cost, you know,
(51:55):
the cost of human life and the cost to our environment.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
I love what you say because I really believe that
you do a disservice in life if you don't look
at the connections between things, the connections between things that
are negative and the connections between things that are positive.
It is very very important. Two, you know, not to
(52:24):
completely compartmentalize these these these issues because oftentimes they are related,
you know, education and race and climate and uh, you know,
economy and all these things. So I'm really I'm very
very impressed both with that notion and with you and
(52:49):
with the great and powerful Mark Ruffalo. And I want
to thank you guys for for being here and for
hearing about this. But before I let you go, is
there someplace that people can go or help out or
or where can we where can we go to see
this great work that you're doing.
Speaker 4 (53:11):
Well. The first thing you can do is check out
our website, the Solutions Project dot org. And there's an
s at the end of Solutions so Best Solutions Project
dot org and you can see what we're doing, who
we're funding. So again, I raise money every single year
to resource frontline most impacted communities that are black, Indigenous immigrants, API,
(53:36):
LATINX and other communities of color. And we also amplify
their solutions and their vision and their values. And we
really try to disrupt the dystopian narratives around climate and
instead connect to the dreams the aspirations of frontline communities
(53:58):
because that's what's really going to help make a world
a better place. So check us out at the Solution's Project.
That's also a great site where you can see, you know,
if there's an organization that you want to get involved
in in your neighborhood. We actually have a map and
if you live in California, you can lift that up
and see which organizations are in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (54:15):
That's great, that's great, that's great localizing it which is
always really.
Speaker 4 (54:20):
Important, so important, and re resource over two hundred organizations
across the country. Cool, and so please donate.
Speaker 3 (54:30):
Yes, yes, I'll just say this. As far as you know,
probably a lot of your listeners are very feel, very
responsible and responsive to you know cluses and the environment
and social justice and so on and so forth. You know,
there's very a lot of them probably actually give to
(54:54):
a lot of big organizations. The one thing I could
promise you this is that when you when you give
to this organization, the greatest percentage of your money will
end up in these communities, more than I would say
any other environmental organization. I could say that for sure,
(55:15):
and probably on par with the best social justice or
environmental justice groups for sure. I mean, we are probably
the best as far as getting resources, not just money,
political resources, storytelling resources. You know, my function here is
(55:36):
to use my privilege to lift these stories up into
the mainstream to hear from the people we never get
to hear from. That's been probably the greatest gift that
I've been given and the greatest gift that I could
give back. Thank you, Gloria. And Gloria does it, and
(55:59):
she buyer values. And so just as far as organizations go,
and even those small dollars, you know, we could stretch
ten dollars into one thousand dollars. That's what these communities do,
and we are the organization that's actually will make sure
they get that money. The lion's share of that money.
(56:22):
So you know, I know it sounds like, oh, you know,
these are big things, but man, even even you know,
ten dollars a monthly, twenty dollars, these these little donations
that people are giving to NRDC, and not to take
anything away from them or some of these bigger organizations.
Your money will go much farther and the return on
(56:42):
your money will go much farther in this organization that
so many others. So when you're taking that time to give,
you know, definitely consider what we're doing, because you know,
it's it's lifting the whole country from the bottom, and
it's writing the grit eightest wrongs that the whole country
was founded on. And until we do that and heal
(57:06):
in that sense, you know, the rest of it, I
just don't see. It's like building your home on a faulty,
faut faulty foundation. You know, we have to write that
and then the rest of the rest of the building
squares up, it becomes straight, comes.
Speaker 2 (57:21):
Whole, beautiful. I love it. Thank you guys so much
for being here. Mark Ruffalo, Gloria Walton, keep up the
good work.
Speaker 3 (57:30):
Appreciate you man, thanks for having us that was so fun.
Speaker 2 (57:33):
Thank you, thanks for listening. That was a really fun
episode of six Degrees. And if you want to learn
more about the Solutions project, you can go to the
Solutionsproject dot org and that's Solutions with an s the
Solutions Project dot org. And you can find all the
(57:56):
links in our show notes. And if you like what
you hear, make sure sure that you subscribe to the
show and tune in to the rest of our episodes.
You can find six Degrees on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
If you are inspired by today's episode, please join us
in supporting SixDegrees dot org by texting the word Bacon
to seven zero seven zero seven zero. Your gift empowers
us to continue to produce programs that highlight the incredible
work of everyday heroes. We'll also enabling us to provide
essential resources to those that need it the most. Once again,
(58:36):
text b a Con to seven zero seven zero seven
zero or visit SixDegrees dot org to learn more.
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