July 9, 2024 • 44 mins
David Duchovny believes he’s a writer at heart. And though the Golden Globe-winner has achieved a level of acting success that would seem to eclipse his proficiency in any other art form, he has a point. After developing a love of books in high school, Duchovny was off to Princeton, and then to Yale to pick up an M.A. in English Literature. All this before ever trying his hand at acting, and starring as the enthusiastic Fox Mulder in X-Files. Duchovny has also written five books, including one that grew into the new film Reverse the Curse, in which he also stars. On this week’s episode of Table for Two, he sits down with host Bruce Bozzi to discuss his favorite authors, the three celebrities he had to introduce himself to, and the inspiration behind his podcast, Fail Better.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey everybody, thanks for joining me for lunch today on
my podcast Table for Two. This time we're not at
the Sunset Tower or Via Carotta, but it's Zinc in
beautiful Malibu, California.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'll just like a hot macha with oat milk or
something and some kind of milk.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Our guest today is a super smart, multi talented actor
who's had an amazing career. You know him from The
X Files and Californication. He's also a writer, a musician,
and now a podcaster.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you so watching me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I have a little I guess it's early lunch sometime.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, I'll just have a little pick me up.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We're having lunch with the one and only David Ducovney.
We're going to talk about his new podcast fail Better
and his new film Reverse the Curse. It's going to
be a breezy afternoon here in Malibu, so pull up
a chair, grab a glass of rose, and enjoy. I'm
(01:11):
Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast Table for two.
You've pulled up a chair. Today we are sitting with
an actor, a writer, a director, a New York Times
best selling author, a singer, a songwriter two times Golden
(01:32):
Globe winner, four time Emmy nominee. You know, you're classic underachiever.
I mean I think that would be. We have something
in common, which is we are New York City boys.
Went to collegiate, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To Saint David's you did, Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I love New York.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, sure, job.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So you graduated high school in seventy eight, you know,
and I was eighty to eighty four.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So going city kids, you know, I went back and
I raised my kids in the city.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I did not know, Yeah, because you know, from the
ages of like i'd say nine or ten to fifteen,
it's the best place to be raised because.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You can get some independence.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Like if you raise your kids in LA you're just
gonna be show fering them around.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I'm never gonna be They're never going to be rid
of you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I hate you, they hate you, and you hate them.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I don't want to drive you anymore. Like I told
it the other day, you got to figure this out, right,
But it's a skill set we learned.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That was yeah. Kind.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So I grew up on eleven and second, which is
is a cool you know mix of a neighborhood. It
was actually like the ethnicity of it. When I was
growing up, and it was weirdly Puerto Rican Ukrainian. Really, yeah,
it was very Ukrainian neighborhood. And my dad actually is
part of Ukrainian, but that's.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Not why he was that's not why he ended up there.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
But you know, they had Bisielka down there in the
Ukrainian catering home, and so there's a lot of Ukrainian
influenced a lot of Puerto Ricans, and it was just
a really you know, you don't think about it when
you're growing up in New York or anywhere. I assume
you don't think, I wonder what it's like to grow
up somewhere else. You just kind of take a program.
And for me, you know, once I got out of
(03:06):
New York or whatever, it was just very I was
very accepting of everything, like I'd seen everything, and you know,
you don't react, like that's one of the things like well,
I mean it's like survivalist things like if you reacting
all the time, it would just seem weird and they'd
kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But it's like you don't belong here if you react.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So I mean, I think, you know, the unconscious education
that I got was really living.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Let live. I mean, i'd have to say it was.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, New Yorkers have a reputation being very tough,
but it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's not that way at all. It's very They're very accepting.
You have to be. Yeah, everybody in the world is
living on top.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Of each other, the coexisting every.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Culture, color, of religion is just right on top of
each other, and you just got to accept it.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I find the same thing, the skill set that's developed
as a result of this daily sort of confluence of
just all this noise and people. And like I thought,
it was a beautiful thing. I mean literally, you know,
you're nine years old, you're ten years old, you walk
out your door, You're like, I'll see you guys later.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right, You're in the world. So I don't know if
they do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I don't think that they do.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
But it's I think more in New York than here, obviously.
But yeah, my mother.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Used to give me two bucks Saturday, put of my
sock and I get a sandwich Minnesota at lunch, right,
and I'd make my way home by by the dinner time.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
It was. It was perfect.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I was talking to Matthew Broderick, who also grew up
in New York and Matthew Roderick, his mother and my
mother used to push our carriages around Washington Square Park
for some reason, our mothers knew each other.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
So I know Matthew a little bit too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
My daughter was just acted with him, which was great.
And so yeah, Matthew and I I wouldn't say we're
close friends now, but back.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Then we were a little babies.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You were going around Washington's. I sat to him, I go, oh, yeah,
I know that you know street you grew up And
he's said, no, we grew up in them, not street,
but in the building that was sort of like the
tenement of the building, right. But what he was saying
with the two bucks, He's like, you know, the police
officer came to school, and we grew up at a
sea where you had the meeting where the officer was saying, okay,
I always had like two bucks in one posit.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Like you know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Money you gave up if you got mugged, you're mugging money.
And he goes, he was always mugged. He goes, I
don't know if I had a sign on the over
up and I was mugged all over the place.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't get mugged much. I think I ran,
I ran a lot, yeah, or I was just you know.
The other the flip side of being accepting is you're
also hyper aware of your surroundings and you know, you
just stay out of what looks like a bad situation.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well you smell it, I mean, so that skill set.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
It was weird when I got to La. I couldn't
smell it on the streets.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It was weird because you'd be walking down a nice
street and then people would say, because there's nobody on it,
people say, that's that's not a good place to be working.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well, you know, I could remember at.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Some point someone's saying I think it was a cop
that said, you know, La is actually mask itself, so
it's a very dangerous city because it appears so safe.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, I didn't know how to read it exactly.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
We know how to read like you know how to
walk through the inside of the street, or you know
how to absolutely like like if you and I are
walking down the lock and I'm like, okay, this might
be trouble as opposed to even there just always scanning always.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That's what I would have this argument with my kids
because they go out with their earbuds in.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I'll be like, you can't do that. You can't.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
How about wanting this, I don't think so. I don't
think it's a good idea. You want to be aware,
even if it's just traffic.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, you can't lose that sense, right. That's and like
you know, with with the crossing the street, I always
tell our kid, you can't assume that that person's not
looking at them right now. Yeah, so you gotta be
on your game.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, when I first started acrossing the street in La
it was crazy because the streets are like a mile
but a mile long, and so you can't get across
on a green By the time by.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
The time you got to run, it's like always like
oh my god, wait a minute, I'm going to get
like they really just did nothing to make this a pedestrians.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
It's not. And that's that's fine. It is what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So growing up, you know, you were a collegiate boys school.
It was the top all boys school in New York
City by five I mean it was like you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Were like I would say, you know, I would say, still,
it's a hundred, it's a great It was a great school. Yeah,
I mean it's a school of privilege and all that.
But you know, in terms of like a classic education,
a foundation, what.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Did you take away from that school. I always looked
back so much.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I mean I went there for four years. I didn't
go the whole time.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Ye Oh, they just they worked my ass off. I
mean I had I just had to work so hard,
and I learned how to write. It was a writing school.
Every everything was written, you know. It was just always writing,
always reading, always writing. And that was that was the education.
It turned me into a writer, or at least comfortable
with writing. And for me, writing has always been a
(08:06):
different kind of thinking that I can do. You know,
I can sit here or I can talk to you,
or I can sit here and think. But it's a
different kind of thinking. When I have a pen in
my hand or a you know, a keyboard up my fingers,
I think differently. And I like having access to that
and Coleas it would have just been the ones to
cultivate that.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Set that foundation.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean that was the most important thing. I
mean I've called it a writing school. I think it
is a writing or was.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
When you sit down, I mean, you do so much.
I don't think I mean, I certainly did not know, David.
I mean, your education is just phenomenal. Obviously, you're extremely
smart going to Princeton and Yale. When you sit down
to write and you know you've written books, You've written songs.
I was grooving to your album on my way up
and yesterday that you wrote I believe you wrote it
(08:53):
during the COVID time. What did you sit down with
the intention to, like, do you have an idea? Like?
How does that flow?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It just depends on the idea. Like, if I'm lucky
enough to have an idea, I'm not sitting around having.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Ten ideas a day. I mean, there maybe was a
year or two when I did, but it's past.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And so if I'm lucky enough to have an idea
that I think and usually because of what my business
has been and what my primary.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Business always was was as an actor in.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Hollywood, I would think, oh, I would I want to
have an idea for a movie or a television That's
what I wanted to have, and then I would sit
with it and try to see what it was. My
first experience of writing a book was actually to take
movie ideas that I'd had that I wasn't able to
get done. The first one, Holy Cow, was actually an
(09:44):
animated film that I wanted to pitch that I did
pitch a couple places, no takers, And then in twenty
fourteen or whatever it was when I first started, I
remember just waking up one morning and it's just saying,
fuck it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You know, I like that story.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
If I don't write it as a novel, it's not
going anywhere. Nobody's going to do it, and I'm not
interested in like banging my head against that wall.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, So I just sat down and I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
In the same with Buggy Fucking dam Wow, was like
I tried to make it for six or seven years,
and I was like, fuck it. I love the story.
I want to see it. I want to I want
to share the story.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So let's talk about Bucky fucking which I.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Believe, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think we have to call it reverse the Curse
because what happens is, Yeah, what happens is I've been
told by a vertical who's releasing the film that once
it goes to streamers, the algorithm will then bury it
if it has fucking the title, because we protect children
from you know, it won't give me like it won't.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It won't be forthcoming.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I mean, if you type it in, I'm sure it'll
show you that it's there, but it'll it'll be harder
to find.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, And I was like, oh, that sucks. Okay, well
you have to figure that out. So it's now reversed
the curse.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I think reverse the curse. Okay. So you know, several
months ago, I had the good fortune of seeing this
movie way before. But it was even in that if
you go up in New York City in the nineteen seventies,
in the eighties, you knew Bucky Dank the movies really amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And it really is such an interesting story of a
father and a son and aging and health and caretaker
and romance and relationship and what what was what spoke
to you about that telling that story and very powerful story.
Your performance is truly amazing and the cast is great.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Thanks came together.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Like most like stories that can hold up the foundation
of a novel or a movie, they have different strands
in them.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
In my experience, they come together.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
There's an initial idea, and usually I'm attracted to the
initial idea, probably for a reason that I don't know.
Yet that I figure out, oh there was something in there,
and then it becomes something else and with with with
Bucky or reverse the curse, whatever the reverse. What happened
was I was married at the time, and Taya's parents
(12:03):
had this house out in Massachusetts, and there were guys
working on the roof. So one of the guys I
heard Bucky fucking Dan and I was like, Yeah, that
amuses me. And I knew about the game that was
Actually it was my first like probably my third week
at Princeton when that would be September, like early October
seventy eight, right, I had just gotten there, and I
remember listening to it on the radio or something, and
(12:26):
I just I have this kind of affinity for I
wouldn't say losing, but losers are failure. And I'm doing
this podcast now about pitt failure. So I'm interested in.
I really dislike the last eight years that were ushered
in by the kind of Trumpian like Winter Winter winner.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Like world winners.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And I see it also in sports now, where there's
not a graciousness towards the losers or even a respect
for thank you for pushing me than you thank you
for making me do my best. I mean, it does exist,
but it's like less and less. So for me, it
was like my heart breaks for the losers and we
all do. We all lose way more than we win.
That's the fact of life. And we all lose in
(13:05):
the end, we all die. So it was like I
was thinking about these things and Bucky being the symbol
of the guy who wasn't supposed to beat you, and
Boston being the symbol of it, of futility, of never winning,
and that I had this idea that Boston fans really
missed that identity, you know, like they really had an
identity when they were losers, and when they're winners, they
(13:27):
just they can't really embrace that. It didn't feel right
to them, I would say, So that's kind of circulating around.
The name was important to me, and that there would
be humor and that name always that nickname always made
me laugh. And then my daughter got when she was
nine months old, she got very ill and she had RSV.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And double ammonia. They didn't know what else. They thought
maybe she had manage it just to get respired to it,
very much like.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
In the movie. And I had had this notion that
when she came back she lived. Obviously, she's doing great.
She was in the hospital a week or two, touch
and go. It felt for like a few days. And
I had really been scarred by this in some way
(14:13):
that I couldn't quite figure out.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And it felt to me like it was hard for.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Me to reattach to her because I was so terrified
of the power that her life and death had over me.
And I thought, oh, that's that's an interesting story about
how love can make you not.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Love, you know, how love can make you detach rather
than attached. Orr what does that do to a child?
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And now you have the child grown up and lacks
a certain kind of confidence and not talking about my glory,
but talking about the character of the book. So these
are the things, the plates that you spin up in
the air, and then you try to execute a plot
that is fun and surprising and it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It's interesting, David, because you know, then you have the
story of the father in the sun. I find getting olders.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Not for the you know, not for the for the young.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
For the you for sure, but it's you know, and
being there with aging parents, and you know, it's very hard,
and it's a beautiful sort of because the relationship was
not a great relationship going into when you went back home.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
But you're like, Okay, how.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Is your relationship with your dad? Is that?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That's the funny thing is it's nothing like that, really.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean that that if that character, if the Marty
character in the book is similar to any anybody in
my family. You know, my mother was kind of fierce
like that, but my mother's Scottish and Marty feels his
way to American. And then there's kind of my dad
is super gentle, uh you know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Not aggressive, not macho, yeah, very.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Easy going, uh you know, not super decisive, just kind
of go along and get along kind of a guy.
So neither of my parents are really models for for
that guy. But my my dad and my mom divorced
when I was eleven, so I didn't see much of
him after that. So some of him for a couple
of years. But then he moved to Boston and then we.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Moved to Paris actually, and so I didn't really see
he was remarried.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I didn't really see much of him. So I had
a great kind of lack of a man in my life.
You know, it's funny, I'm just rereading my buddy and
I Jason Bagay, Like when I first came out here,
he was already acting and I was just beginning, and
we had all this time on our hands and kind
of we were young men trying to figure out what
(16:32):
it was to be a man, you know, And we
read Iron John.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I don't know if you remember reading that.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Robert Bli's book fascinating and I'm just talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I'm rereading it right now.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I'm a feeling that you've read a lot more books
than I have.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, Iron John, it's a beautiful book about I don't know,
I haven't re read it again. I'm in the middle
of it, but I'm giving it to my son, you know.
And it's kind of because I think men are it's
a tough time.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's a tough time.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I don't want sympathy.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, I think am I soon is twenty one, and
I look at him and say, it's hard to navigate
how you're supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So that's a great book, you're saying for him too,
as he's entering.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Well, it's all about it's about fathers and sons, but
it's also beautifully about and this is not something I
had and sadly not something I had for my son,
but to have.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Like male mentor figures in a.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Child's life because the father you're always going to have,
it's always going to be complicated, like and a father
is not a mentor.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Really, a father is a father, and a mentor is
a mentor, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And so the idea that you can have uncles, I
think some cultures like have uncles and stuff like that.
Whether or not they're blood related, I don't know, but
this idea of kind of you know, a bunch of
dudes that you could call on every now and then
when you get in trouble or it's important.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
This movie is coming out around Father's.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Day, yeah, like June fourteenth, right, so it's a big deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I mean I think you wrote it and you directed.
What was it like to direct? What's it like to
direct yourself?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's easy, it is, yeah, because you have all this
creative energy. Whatever you're doing, if you're doing the podcast
or you're doing you're acting or whatever. You know, you
bring your entire being to it. And when you're acting
that can sometimes be a pain in the ass because
all you've got is this performance that you're doing. And
everything creative is going towards it, and you're sometimes you're worrying.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It too much. You know, you're just not letting it
fly when you're acting and directing.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I mean, I'm just like not even thinking about it, right,
I'm just because I have I'm directing the whole time. Yeah,
I'm like, so there's a certain kind of like thrown
away quality.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It feels good. It's like I'm like, did I get
the words? Close? Scripts of Advisor says yes, I it fine, great,
Let's move on.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So you're really it's really in sinctual as opposed to like, oh,
I'm sitting around all day for one scene.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I got some ideas, you know, let me let me
do another take, let me do another take.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
It's just like, no, just go with the instinct.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That's why. I mean, Plus you wrote it. I mean
it's like so like this whole thing is living inside
of you.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Well. The weird thing is that I had written when
I first wrote the story, I had written myself for
the snow.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, and then.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I didn't get it made for you know, however many
years and I almost made it, like four years ago
that the pandemic screw it up. I even four years ago,
I was going to play the son, and I'm glad
I didn't because I was too old. And you know,
it's like, you wouldn't have sympathy for a guy my
age who's still whining.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
About his father. No, you know, so he had to
be he had to be in his thirties.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's really funny when I listen to people and you know,
you god do the work, But when someone's past a
certain age and they haven't dealt with it, and you're like,
you gotta figure this out.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I don't want to listen.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
You know, you really don't want it in a movie.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You don't want to go on the ride with the guy,
you know, if you don't respect him.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
My guest David Duchovny just launched a new podcast called
fail Better. As an actor who is used to being interviewed,
I'm curious what it feels like to be the one
asking the questions.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, I've been thinking about this, you know, doing the
podcast in your position, and you know, I'm used to
being in this position with you, But when you're in
that position, your position, it's different because you can really
you have to be okay with somebody being silent, you know,
and just figuring out what they want to say, and
you you're kind of you know, you kind of know
(20:57):
you want to go certain places. So there's a little
bit of like your manipulating, but you also want it
to be You don't want to like ruin their trust,
right because you're like, I'm here to just talk about
whatever exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It's a funny. It's like a bifurcated consciousness that happened.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And if you're I find the beauty of it is.
I might have come in with the intention of a question,
but you go down to different exactly half and then
that's the path we're going to go down.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You don't have anybody like talking to you, at least
I had, you know, if I'm doing it from my
zoom or whatever, right they can my producers say, go back.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
To well you drop that one, you know, Yeah, did
you just hear that?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Believe me? I walk away a lot like did I
miss that one?
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Your podcast Failed Better explores failure in all of its forms,
professional personal, in the ways in which failure, shame, and
falling short shape our lives. I think that's really a
great conversation and have many people because we do live
in the culture of everyone gets a trophy and also
(22:06):
winning and winning winning, So and you have guests. I
mean Bette Midler, who I've sat with and she was
she doesn't really do a lot of podcasts. No, she
was simply amazing. I know, the energy, the energy and
the force and just the life.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, you know how I didn't know Bet, but I
was having lunch in Santa Monica and I saw her
walk in and I'm pretty sure this is in the podcast,
but that's okay. But I was having lunch with a
friend and I said, ah, you know, I spent Midler.
(22:42):
I used to bartend at Radio City Musical when I
was twenty one twenty two for a catering company that
had the concession of the drinks. So you'd set up
before the concert, sell some drinks, and then you'd sell
more drinks at intermission, and then you break down. But
I got to see a lot of people because after
I set up and drinks in the beginning, I could
go watch, and then I could watch afterwards after I
(23:03):
broke everything down, and I saw Bet Middler, who I
really have no interest in seeing back then, you know,
because she wasn't like hip right right, and.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
My god, she was the best performer I'd ever seen.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Like I'd never seen somebody that took the audience from
like laughing.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And then she came out with the rose. She stood
there saying it alone and everybody's fucking crying, and I
was like, who is this person?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, never met her, So forty years later whatever, I'm
in Santa Monica and I'm like, you know what, I've
always wanted to meet Bet and just say I had
the best experience watching you, you know, And so I did.
And then we just started talking and she asked about
my writing and said she was going to read books,
and I told he about podcasts and she said she'd
come on and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
See, it's wild. I think it's like, first of all,
telling someone the effect that they've had on you is
so great, and we get so afraid to come go
up to somebody, whether someone's especially when someone's famous, but
in whatever way, say you affected my life, and.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
You know it so important because I've only gone up
to three people in my life that I really who
that Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I saw him in a I was I was going
on Central Park West in the cab and I just
looked into one of the hotel you know, like he
was talking to the door man, and I was like stop.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I got out and I said, I just want to
shake your hand.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Champ, you're saying that was it? And Ringo recently. I
was on a plane recently, maybe five years ago, and
I was just I was.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
In I seen him and I was sing. I was like, fuck,
I really wanted to just to say.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I love the Beatles, just like such a part of
the fabric of my life, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
And so uh.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I eventually asked the flight attendant do you think Ringle
would mind if I said hi?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And I'm like, yeah, no, he's really nice. So I.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Your podcast? What inspired that for you? And can you
give me also an example of in your own life
a failure or a failure.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
It came about during the strike last year, which was
he went on for like nine months or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
So like in the sixth month, my agent Carter said
to me, you know, we can't do any work for you,
like it's illegal, but podcasts are okay. You know, podcasts
are not covered by this by the strike. Have you
ever thought about doing a podcast? And I said no,
not really. He said, well, if you want to think
(25:41):
about it and talk to our guy, and I said okay,
And then I talked to Josh le Migrant over there
at CIA, and I just gave him a couple of
ideas and he liked this one, and then we just
set it up almost immediately, which you know, which is
not my experience in Hollywood at all. And it was
really fun to just go out and be like, oh shit,
we're doing it all ready, and I think it's been
(26:02):
you know, for me, it was really it's really about shame, really,
because I see shame as being like a real killer,
like a real heart attack in the making. And you know,
I've dealt with shame in my life over whatever issues,
personal failures, sexual issues, things like that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, I deal with We all deal with shame. We're
in civilization.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
We got to be broken enter it in a way
because we're animals, So here we go. And for me,
it's about lessening shame and just having a discussion about
rather than like saying, you know, I what do people say?
You know, losing is not an option? And I was like,
you think, really, so great, well good luck to you, right, Yeah,
(26:42):
So how do you feel when you lose. If losing
is not an option, what does it feel like to lose?
So if that's the culture, that's a real shame based
around losing culture. So I'd like to see a different
way of embracing failure, of forgiving failure, of moving on, resiliency,
of all these things that I think are indispensable to
(27:04):
continuing on in life, you know, moving on beyond a success,
beyond a failure or whatever, all different kinds of failure.
What could have been like huge box office could also
be like I hate that fucking movie you know that
I did or whatever. You know, So there's different. It's
not just about oh yeah that movie sucked and you
got terrible reviews and that was a failure. It's personal,
(27:24):
subjective kind of feelings of failure for me, you know,
you ask for you know, specific instance.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It's even like just.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The creative act. To me, it's always right with failure.
It can be wonderful and it's going to be what
it is. But let's just say writing, Like if I'm writing,
I'm dealing with words, right and I'm thinking in words.
But that's that's kind of already a step removed from
feeling and inspiration. So there's always like this leap that
(27:52):
you're making from if you can imagine what it's like
inside your head.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It's not words, it's chemicals and feelings. Yes, it's impulses.
And then then you go, Okay, I'm an artist. I
want to express something.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I'm going to have to translate that shit into something
that other people understand words. So I have my words,
but already I feel, oh, there's a failure there because
it's not exactly what I'm feeling. It's what i'm thinking,
it's what i'm writing, it's what i'm saying.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
So and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I
don't know that.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I'd love to have, you know, God's words, you know
whatever you know, because because Adam named the animals, you know,
that's what we do.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
We're the naming animally. We're given the power to name things.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So I'm not I'm not looking for perfection, And in
that failure, it's the most beautiful thing to me. That's
where my heart goes out to a performer when I
see them on the brink of failing. Not totally in command.
I don't totally in command is not that interesting? So
interesting to me is to watch somebody like, oh shit,
(28:54):
they're just on that high wire right now, and even
if they fall, I love them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
We're not taught how to live with failure. We're not
taught how to you know, to be with it. So
it becomes this thing that you're just like the shame piece.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know. There was so much.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Shame I had in my life just based on my
sexuality growing up in the time that we grew up.
And I looked back and they were I always knew.
I mean it was very you know, and and and
kids knew. So kids were rough, you know, they do
all that shit. But like, what was amazing to me
was that the adults that clearly knew or had an
inkling that were responsible for the upbringing. I often say, wow,
(29:34):
like there would have been a lot of time saved
in figuring this out if there was a conversation to
be had. And but then I look back and say,
that helped make me who I am and created a
sense of empathy and sympathy, and you know, so I
think it's a really fascinating one.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I also had to get resilient, right, you have to.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Get results laid down, No, no, no, you create the wall
that you know how to. So when you're thinking, like
when you go into this conversation with your guest, because
it's really you don't know where this is going to go,
because you're not like you're sitting with someone like that,
you don't know what she's say. Necessarily you're going to
be like, oh, okay, wow, it wasn't how is that?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
God?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
My kind of feeling off the top is I don't
want them, the guests, to feel that I'm I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
To find something right.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It's not a gotcha that they failed.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
At tell me about your failures as a person, you know,
I want you to tell me what you want to
tell me along these subject lines. I have no interest
in trying to figure out, you know, or relitigating or whatever. Yes,
and you know that comes from being on this side mostly,
but also like you know, sometimes I think maybe I'm
not tough enough to be doing. I'm not an investigative report.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I want to
have this discussion. I don't want you to lie. I
don't want it to be you know, easy right, But
I'm not interested in finding out something that you did.
It was a failure and hurts and could hurt other
people by talking about So sometimes I feel like, oh,
I don't want to, you know, push on that area
(31:14):
because I don't want somebody to say something that they
will regret. They know what the show's about. They have
agreed to do it. Which is why I don't like
calling in favors, you know, because I don't want somebody
who doesn't want to be there. But I want them
to be interested, you know, like, oh, that's a conversation
that I want to have.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
David is obviously incredibly bright, having attended both Princeton and Yale.
He's also a writer and a music and it seems
like his life could have taken many paths. What inspired
him to pursue acting.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Talk to me a.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Little bit about so you decide, you know, you're obviously,
like I said, a very educated, smart man, and you've
decide you wanted to go into movies. What made you
want to pursue such a difficult career where there's so
much asking for permission? And what do you consider like
(32:29):
your first sort of like break into the business.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Well, first of all, I didn't know anybody who was
an actor. I never I never knew an actor.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
None of my parents' friends were in show business, so
I didn't know how difficult it was.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We only knew Matthew, but he was a big We
lost us with one another.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
So I just didn't know. Yeah, which is great. I'm
glad I didn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I mean, that's one of the tough things about the
Internet is like you know everything now, and you know
how hard everything is, and how many.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
People won't what you you're trying.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
To do, and like, fuck it, why would I even
so I didn't As far as I knew, I was
the only one who was going to try this for
me when I got out of it was coming from.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And again I talked about this in the podcast a
little bit, coming.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
From an intellectual background, coming out of collegiate and going
to Princeton and then Yale. I'd over developed certain muscles
and some muscles were undeveloped, I think, And when I
went when I first started going acting class, it wasn't
even about acting.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Were in New York there was a woman named Marsha
Halfrecht who was associated with Strasberg method teaching, and I
had I had grown up around a certain like fragility
in my parents, let's say, especially single mom, you know
where you know, my job was to like do my
work and do well and not create drama. And here,
(33:54):
all of a sudden, they were saying, drama is the best.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Thing to do.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You know, create drama, you know, being asshole, get into
a fight, be a problem, be the obstacle, you know.
And I was like, I'm always the guy that makes
things easier. I'm the grease. Now you're saying I can
be the obstacle. That's great.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I'd never It was a part of me that was dying.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I don't want to say that acting is therapy
because I don't really love that topic and the way
people talk about it, because it's not quite that. But
it was part of my soul that was languishing and
I found, you know, a place it felt like home
in a way. I was like, oh shit, you know
I really can live here now?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Is that amazing?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
You find this place I know that came out of
nowhere you didn't even know existed, and it becomes a
feeling of home.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So that was the initial attraction to performance, was I
could indulge all the feelings that I had and there
were no consequences, you know, So not only were there
not concert quences, but there were positive consequences if you
gave into your worst impulses.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, true, right, I mean surrounded by a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, right right, No, but I mean just in the
acting space, screaming, yelling, crying, y laughing, all those things.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Getting it all out.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I think it must be so great to be able
to put on someone else's skin for a while and
have this ability to perform, and then it ends and
then there's something new.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, it is great.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I mean for me, it's always it has been, you know,
like a continuing education just of my spirit in a way.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Not not intellectual, right, you know, and you know it's
true that acting is not an intellectual pursuit.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But that's not to say that actors are dumb.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You know, they just have different kind of emotional intelligence
or whatever. My emotional intelligence was not cultivated until until
I went to this place, or it was it was
it was looking for places to work out, you right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
That's so interesting because you were you know, literature was
such a big part of your education, so you were
reading and reading and Honestly, I think that foundation creates
the space to be an incredible actor as you are,
and also to have emotional lives because you're you're reading
all about you know.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Well, for me, you know, literature is philosophy. Yeah, literature
is history. Uh, you know, it's it's it's it's a religion.
You know, it's a it's all these things, and religions
are just stories, you know, instructive spiritual stories as well.
There you know, you can see the Bible as a
novel if you want.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Right, So to me, it was the deepest understandings that
you can have. But again, you know I was lacking,
you know in the kind of person to person, right,
you know, emotionality of life.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Is there a particular book or author that really kind of.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
You just oh that I come back to, Yeah, I
mean I come back to I tend to come back
to Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Emerson, Nietzsche, William Blake. These are
poets and philosophers. But even if their philosophers like Emerson
and and and Nietzsche, they write poetically.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Philip Roth as a novelist I think was my favorite
of the past century. Thomas Pinchon, Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
More contemporary like Richard Powers. I think this is an
amazing whetter.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
You also, I thought it was so interesting You've been
directed by Mike Nichols.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah, I guess I was like a glorified set.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You know, you're like learning and uh, you know it's
like the beginning of like having such a genius, you know,
of seeing someone like that.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, well, well for me it was. You know, I
think it's it's very important to have a moment in
one's career. Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
And I think about this with my children as well,
where you you have that moment of oh I belong here,
you know, And that happened to me with Chaplain actually
down And I.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Mean that was a hell of a movie.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, and I had, you know, basically, I was there
a lot, not a lot to do. I played his cameraman,
Benn Raley Tothereau, and I worked with Downey again just
recently on.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
The Sympathizer, which is coming on and it was great.
It was great to do.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And I remember kind of watching I had a scene
with dan Aykroyd and then there was a scene that
Kevin Klein was doing and you know, Downey and they
were all these great actors, and I just remember, and
not to denigrate them at all, but I remember thinking,
it's not so different from what I think I want
to do. You know, it's not They're not doing something
(38:48):
different from what I think I'm doing. I mean, that's
going to sound like ego, but it was really like, Oh,
they're human beings. They're trying this, they're doing this thing.
They're really good at it. But I don't think it's
a different language from the one I'm trying to speak.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, you know. And so after that, I was like,
I can play there.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That's really cool to get there, because we tend to
sort of put people in a pedestal and think like, well,
that's them and I'm different. But if you're right, the
end of the day, we are animals. We're all the same,
and if you know, there's different skill sets and there's
different things that you know will light us up. But
being on that set and being in the room and
(39:28):
looking at them and as opposed to sort of leaning back, yeah, okay,
they're speaking a language I could speak.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm speaking and you know, Richard Amber was the director,
so I was it was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
A lot of heavy hitters at all time.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Meg Ryan directed by Meg Ryan, which I didn't realize,
you know, America's Sweetheart in the nineties, like, you know,
awesome that Again, going back to the idea of being
directed by another actor, was that something that was Did
you find that to be I don't want to say
better process and just you know, someone who's a dire
But it.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Just depends on it depends on the person really.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I mean, you know, you you do assume that an
actor is going to know a little bit more about what.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
It's like to be out there.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I mean, for me, I always thought, oh my god,
you know, they it's it's insanity.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Now we're in a close up and it's like it's
just I can't I can't hide, you know, it's like
it's not a two shot, it's not a master it's
like fuck, you know, like it all came down to this, Yeah,
am I ready? And I think an actor gets that
maybe more than any other director could get, you know.
But on the other hand, directors, you know, great directors
(40:38):
come in all shapes and sizes, and often it's not
till later you see the genius that they were doing,
you know, and the way they.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Put it together. But with Meg.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
It came to me as this script that she was
adapting from a play, and I was just flattered to
be in a movie with Meg when I when I
received it, and then we just worked on it for
like almost like nine months, just doing zoom reading through
it because when we shot it, we only had twenty
days and it was really it was like a place
(41:09):
so you had to be off book. I mean you
couldn't because we had like five page walking talks and
shit like that, and you if you didn't show up
knowing it, it was not gonna fly. So Meg had
a real sympathy for the craziness of being out there
alone and all that stuff, and she was.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I mean, I had just had the best experience working
on that. That nice. Yeah, I mean she's become a friend,
you know, so.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I mean that's that's sort of the benefit of it all.
I cannot wait to hear Phil better. I just feel
I was thinking about when you were talking about, is
the generation of people now that have so much shame
(41:56):
looking at social media is they don't have any see
others to have or look like when most of it's manipulated.
Not This is going to be a real interesting art for.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, yeah, and it's also talking. It's not only talking
to performers, but it's talking to people like Gabor Mate. Yes,
you know, people who actually work in the world of
shame addiction.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Uh, what have you like?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Experts right, because I'm no expert, like we're we're not experts, no,
but we're we want experts to come in like I'm
an expert on me whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Like other people come in they're experts on themselves.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
But I like people to come in who have actually
made their lives work in this area.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I can't wait to listen to it. So everyone, you
have to so big, David, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Thank you for having me come up to Malibill and
meet you in your world.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
And yeah you are a living room.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah see your living room. You're you know. I think
one of the things that I just would like to
say to the people that have pulled up chairs, you're
a very gentle person. You have a lot of very warm,
gentle energy, and so thank you for Table for two
(43:08):
with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeart Radio seven three
seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce Bosi
and Nathan King. Our supervising producer and editor is Dylan Fagan.
Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Our sound engineers are mel B Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor,
(43:29):
and Jesse Funk. Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our
talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin. Table for two's
social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special thanks to Amy Sugarman,
Uni Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter Graber. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(43:52):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey everybody, thanks for joining me for lunch today on
my podcast Table for Two. This time we're not at
the Sunset Tower or Via Carotta, but it's Zinc in
beautiful Malibu, California.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'll just like a hot macha with oat milk or
something and some kind of milk.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Our guest today is a super smart, multi talented actor
who's had an amazing career. You know him from The
X Files and Californication. He's also a writer, a musician,
and now a podcaster.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Thank you so watching me.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I have a little I guess it's early lunch sometime.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, I'll just have a little pick me up.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
We're having lunch with the one and only David Ducovney.
We're going to talk about his new podcast fail Better
and his new film Reverse the Curse. It's going to
be a breezy afternoon here in Malibu, so pull up
a chair, grab a glass of rose, and enjoy. I'm
(01:11):
Bruce Bosi and this is my podcast Table for two.
You've pulled up a chair. Today we are sitting with
an actor, a writer, a director, a New York Times
best selling author, a singer, a songwriter two times Golden
(01:32):
Globe winner, four time Emmy nominee. You know, you're classic underachiever.
I mean I think that would be. We have something
in common, which is we are New York City boys.
Went to collegiate, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
To Saint David's you did, Yep.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I love New York.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Yeah, sure, job.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So you graduated high school in seventy eight, you know,
and I was eighty to eighty four.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So going city kids, you know, I went back and
I raised my kids in the city.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I did not know, Yeah, because you know, from the
ages of like i'd say nine or ten to fifteen,
it's the best place to be raised because.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
You can get some independence.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Like if you raise your kids in LA you're just
gonna be show fering them around.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
I'm never gonna be They're never going to be rid
of you.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
I hate you, they hate you, and you hate them.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I don't want to drive you anymore. Like I told
it the other day, you got to figure this out, right,
But it's a skill set we learned.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
That was yeah. Kind.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
So I grew up on eleven and second, which is
is a cool you know mix of a neighborhood. It
was actually like the ethnicity of it. When I was
growing up, and it was weirdly Puerto Rican Ukrainian. Really, yeah,
it was very Ukrainian neighborhood. And my dad actually is
part of Ukrainian, but that's.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Not why he was that's not why he ended up there.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
But you know, they had Bisielka down there in the
Ukrainian catering home, and so there's a lot of Ukrainian
influenced a lot of Puerto Ricans, and it was just
a really you know, you don't think about it when
you're growing up in New York or anywhere. I assume
you don't think, I wonder what it's like to grow
up somewhere else. You just kind of take a program.
And for me, you know, once I got out of
(03:06):
New York or whatever, it was just very I was
very accepting of everything, like I'd seen everything, and you know,
you don't react, like that's one of the things like well,
I mean it's like survivalist things like if you reacting
all the time, it would just seem weird and they'd
kill you.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
But it's like you don't belong here if you react.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So I mean, I think, you know, the unconscious education
that I got was really living.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Let live. I mean, i'd have to say it was.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You know, New Yorkers have a reputation being very tough,
but it's not.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
It's not that way at all. It's very They're very accepting.
You have to be. Yeah, everybody in the world is
living on top.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
Of each other, the coexisting every.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Culture, color, of religion is just right on top of
each other, and you just got to accept it.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
I find the same thing, the skill set that's developed
as a result of this daily sort of confluence of
just all this noise and people. And like I thought,
it was a beautiful thing. I mean literally, you know,
you're nine years old, you're ten years old, you walk
out your door, You're like, I'll see you guys later.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Right, You're in the world. So I don't know if
they do that anymore.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I don't think that they do.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
But it's I think more in New York than here, obviously.
But yeah, my mother.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Used to give me two bucks Saturday, put of my
sock and I get a sandwich Minnesota at lunch, right,
and I'd make my way home by by the dinner time.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
It was. It was perfect.
Speaker 5 (04:29):
I was talking to Matthew Broderick, who also grew up
in New York and Matthew Roderick, his mother and my
mother used to push our carriages around Washington Square Park
for some reason, our mothers knew each other.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
So I know Matthew a little bit too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
My daughter was just acted with him, which was great.
And so yeah, Matthew and I I wouldn't say we're
close friends now, but back.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Then we were a little babies.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You were going around Washington's. I sat to him, I go, oh, yeah,
I know that you know street you grew up And
he's said, no, we grew up in them, not street,
but in the building that was sort of like the
tenement of the building, right. But what he was saying
with the two bucks, He's like, you know, the police
officer came to school, and we grew up at a
sea where you had the meeting where the officer was saying, okay,
I always had like two bucks in one posit.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Like you know.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Money you gave up if you got mugged, you're mugging money.
And he goes, he was always mugged. He goes, I
don't know if I had a sign on the over
up and I was mugged all over the place.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't get mugged much. I think I ran,
I ran a lot, yeah, or I was just you know.
The other the flip side of being accepting is you're
also hyper aware of your surroundings and you know, you
just stay out of what looks like a bad situation.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Well you smell it, I mean, so that skill set.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
It was weird when I got to La. I couldn't
smell it on the streets.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
It was weird because you'd be walking down a nice
street and then people would say, because there's nobody on it,
people say, that's that's not a good place to be working.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
Well, you know, I could remember at.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Some point someone's saying I think it was a cop
that said, you know, La is actually mask itself, so
it's a very dangerous city because it appears so safe.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Yeah, I didn't know how to read it exactly.
Speaker 6 (06:06):
We know how to read like you know how to
walk through the inside of the street, or you know
how to absolutely like like if you and I are
walking down the lock and I'm like, okay, this might
be trouble as opposed to even there just always scanning always.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
That's what I would have this argument with my kids
because they go out with their earbuds in.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
I'll be like, you can't do that. You can't.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
How about wanting this, I don't think so. I don't
think it's a good idea. You want to be aware,
even if it's just traffic.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
No, you can't lose that sense, right. That's and like
you know, with with the crossing the street, I always
tell our kid, you can't assume that that person's not
looking at them right now. Yeah, so you gotta be
on your game.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Well, when I first started acrossing the street in La
it was crazy because the streets are like a mile
but a mile long, and so you can't get across
on a green By the time by.
Speaker 5 (06:52):
The time you got to run, it's like always like
oh my god, wait a minute, I'm going to get
like they really just did nothing to make this a pedestrians.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
It's not. And that's that's fine. It is what it is.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So growing up, you know, you were a collegiate boys school.
It was the top all boys school in New York
City by five I mean it was like you guys.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Were like I would say, you know, I would say, still,
it's a hundred, it's a great It was a great school. Yeah,
I mean it's a school of privilege and all that.
But you know, in terms of like a classic education,
a foundation, what.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Did you take away from that school. I always looked
back so much.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I mean I went there for four years. I didn't
go the whole time.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Ye Oh, they just they worked my ass off. I
mean I had I just had to work so hard,
and I learned how to write. It was a writing school.
Every everything was written, you know. It was just always writing,
always reading, always writing. And that was that was the education.
It turned me into a writer, or at least comfortable
with writing. And for me, writing has always been a
(08:06):
different kind of thinking that I can do. You know,
I can sit here or I can talk to you,
or I can sit here and think. But it's a
different kind of thinking. When I have a pen in
my hand or a you know, a keyboard up my fingers,
I think differently. And I like having access to that
and Coleas it would have just been the ones to
cultivate that.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Set that foundation.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, I mean that was the most important thing. I
mean I've called it a writing school. I think it
is a writing or was.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
When you sit down, I mean, you do so much.
I don't think I mean, I certainly did not know, David.
I mean, your education is just phenomenal. Obviously, you're extremely
smart going to Princeton and Yale. When you sit down
to write and you know you've written books, You've written songs.
I was grooving to your album on my way up
and yesterday that you wrote I believe you wrote it
(08:53):
during the COVID time. What did you sit down with
the intention to, like, do you have an idea? Like?
How does that flow?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
It just depends on the idea. Like, if I'm lucky
enough to have an idea, I'm not sitting around having.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Ten ideas a day. I mean, there maybe was a
year or two when I did, but it's past.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And so if I'm lucky enough to have an idea
that I think and usually because of what my business
has been and what my primary.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Business always was was as an actor in.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Hollywood, I would think, oh, I would I want to
have an idea for a movie or a television That's
what I wanted to have, and then I would sit
with it and try to see what it was. My
first experience of writing a book was actually to take
movie ideas that I'd had that I wasn't able to
get done. The first one, Holy Cow, was actually an
(09:44):
animated film that I wanted to pitch that I did
pitch a couple places, no takers, And then in twenty
fourteen or whatever it was when I first started, I
remember just waking up one morning and it's just saying,
fuck it.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
You know, I like that story.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
If I don't write it as a novel, it's not
going anywhere. Nobody's going to do it, and I'm not
interested in like banging my head against that wall.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Yeah, So I just sat down and I wrote that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
In the same with Buggy Fucking dam Wow, was like
I tried to make it for six or seven years,
and I was like, fuck it. I love the story.
I want to see it. I want to I want
to share the story.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
So let's talk about Bucky fucking which I.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Believe, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
I think we have to call it reverse the Curse
because what happens is, Yeah, what happens is I've been
told by a vertical who's releasing the film that once
it goes to streamers, the algorithm will then bury it
if it has fucking the title, because we protect children
from you know, it won't give me like it won't.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
It won't be forthcoming.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
I mean, if you type it in, I'm sure it'll
show you that it's there, but it'll it'll be harder
to find.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, And I was like, oh, that sucks. Okay, well
you have to figure that out. So it's now reversed
the curse.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
I think reverse the curse. Okay. So you know, several
months ago, I had the good fortune of seeing this
movie way before. But it was even in that if
you go up in New York City in the nineteen seventies,
in the eighties, you knew Bucky Dank the movies really amazing.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Thank you, You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
And it really is such an interesting story of a
father and a son and aging and health and caretaker
and romance and relationship and what what was what spoke
to you about that telling that story and very powerful story.
Your performance is truly amazing and the cast is great.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Thanks came together.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Like most like stories that can hold up the foundation
of a novel or a movie, they have different strands
in them.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
In my experience, they come together.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
There's an initial idea, and usually I'm attracted to the
initial idea, probably for a reason that I don't know.
Yet that I figure out, oh there was something in there,
and then it becomes something else and with with with
Bucky or reverse the curse, whatever the reverse. What happened
was I was married at the time, and Taya's parents
(12:03):
had this house out in Massachusetts, and there were guys
working on the roof. So one of the guys I
heard Bucky fucking Dan and I was like, Yeah, that
amuses me. And I knew about the game that was
Actually it was my first like probably my third week
at Princeton when that would be September, like early October
seventy eight, right, I had just gotten there, and I
remember listening to it on the radio or something, and
(12:26):
I just I have this kind of affinity for I
wouldn't say losing, but losers are failure. And I'm doing
this podcast now about pitt failure. So I'm interested in.
I really dislike the last eight years that were ushered
in by the kind of Trumpian like Winter Winter winner.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Like world winners.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
And I see it also in sports now, where there's
not a graciousness towards the losers or even a respect
for thank you for pushing me than you thank you
for making me do my best. I mean, it does exist,
but it's like less and less. So for me, it
was like my heart breaks for the losers and we
all do. We all lose way more than we win.
That's the fact of life. And we all lose in
(13:05):
the end, we all die. So it was like I
was thinking about these things and Bucky being the symbol
of the guy who wasn't supposed to beat you, and
Boston being the symbol of it, of futility, of never winning,
and that I had this idea that Boston fans really
missed that identity, you know, like they really had an
identity when they were losers, and when they're winners, they
(13:27):
just they can't really embrace that. It didn't feel right
to them, I would say, So that's kind of circulating around.
The name was important to me, and that there would
be humor and that name always that nickname always made
me laugh. And then my daughter got when she was
nine months old, she got very ill and she had RSV.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
And double ammonia. They didn't know what else. They thought
maybe she had manage it just to get respired to it,
very much like.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
In the movie. And I had had this notion that
when she came back she lived. Obviously, she's doing great.
She was in the hospital a week or two, touch
and go. It felt for like a few days. And
I had really been scarred by this in some way
(14:13):
that I couldn't quite figure out.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
And it felt to me like it was hard for.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Me to reattach to her because I was so terrified
of the power that her life and death had over me.
And I thought, oh, that's that's an interesting story about
how love can make you not.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Love, you know, how love can make you detach rather
than attached. Orr what does that do to a child?
You know?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
And now you have the child grown up and lacks
a certain kind of confidence and not talking about my glory,
but talking about the character of the book. So these
are the things, the plates that you spin up in
the air, and then you try to execute a plot
that is fun and surprising and it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
It's interesting, David, because you know, then you have the
story of the father in the sun. I find getting olders.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Not for the you know, not for the for the young.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
For the you for sure, but it's you know, and
being there with aging parents, and you know, it's very hard,
and it's a beautiful sort of because the relationship was
not a great relationship going into when you went back home.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
But you're like, Okay, how.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Is your relationship with your dad? Is that?
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That's the funny thing is it's nothing like that, really.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
I mean that that if that character, if the Marty
character in the book is similar to any anybody in
my family. You know, my mother was kind of fierce
like that, but my mother's Scottish and Marty feels his
way to American. And then there's kind of my dad
is super gentle, uh you know.
Speaker 3 (15:45):
Not aggressive, not macho, yeah, very.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
Easy going, uh you know, not super decisive, just kind
of go along and get along kind of a guy.
So neither of my parents are really models for for
that guy. But my my dad and my mom divorced
when I was eleven, so I didn't see much of
him after that. So some of him for a couple
of years. But then he moved to Boston and then we.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Moved to Paris actually, and so I didn't really see
he was remarried.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
I didn't really see much of him. So I had
a great kind of lack of a man in my life.
You know, it's funny, I'm just rereading my buddy and
I Jason Bagay, Like when I first came out here,
he was already acting and I was just beginning, and
we had all this time on our hands and kind
of we were young men trying to figure out what
(16:32):
it was to be a man, you know, And we
read Iron John.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I don't know if you remember reading that.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Robert Bli's book fascinating and I'm just talking about.
Speaker 3 (16:42):
I'm rereading it right now.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
I'm a feeling that you've read a lot more books
than I have.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Well, Iron John, it's a beautiful book about I don't know,
I haven't re read it again. I'm in the middle
of it, but I'm giving it to my son, you know.
And it's kind of because I think men are it's
a tough time.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
It's a tough time.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I don't want sympathy.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, I think am I soon is twenty one, and
I look at him and say, it's hard to navigate
how you're supposed to be.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Uh huh.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So that's a great book, you're saying for him too,
as he's entering.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Well, it's all about it's about fathers and sons, but
it's also beautifully about and this is not something I
had and sadly not something I had for my son,
but to have.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Like male mentor figures in a.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Child's life because the father you're always going to have,
it's always going to be complicated, like and a father
is not a mentor.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Really, a father is a father, and a mentor is
a mentor, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
And so the idea that you can have uncles, I
think some cultures like have uncles and stuff like that.
Whether or not they're blood related, I don't know, but
this idea of kind of you know, a bunch of
dudes that you could call on every now and then
when you get in trouble or it's important.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
This movie is coming out around Father's.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Day, yeah, like June fourteenth, right, so it's a big deal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
I mean I think you wrote it and you directed.
What was it like to direct? What's it like to
direct yourself?
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (18:14):
It's easy, it is, yeah, because you have all this
creative energy. Whatever you're doing, if you're doing the podcast
or you're doing you're acting or whatever. You know, you
bring your entire being to it. And when you're acting
that can sometimes be a pain in the ass because
all you've got is this performance that you're doing. And
everything creative is going towards it, and you're sometimes you're worrying.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It too much. You know, you're just not letting it
fly when you're acting and directing.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I mean, I'm just like not even thinking about it, right,
I'm just because I have I'm directing the whole time. Yeah,
I'm like, so there's a certain kind of like thrown
away quality.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
It feels good. It's like I'm like, did I get
the words? Close? Scripts of Advisor says yes, I it fine, great,
Let's move on.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So you're really it's really in sinctual as opposed to like, oh,
I'm sitting around all day for one scene.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
I got some ideas, you know, let me let me
do another take, let me do another take.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
It's just like, no, just go with the instinct.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
That's why. I mean, Plus you wrote it. I mean
it's like so like this whole thing is living inside
of you.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Well. The weird thing is that I had written when
I first wrote the story, I had written myself for
the snow.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, and then.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
I didn't get it made for you know, however many
years and I almost made it, like four years ago
that the pandemic screw it up. I even four years ago,
I was going to play the son, and I'm glad
I didn't because I was too old. And you know,
it's like, you wouldn't have sympathy for a guy my
age who's still whining.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
About his father. No, you know, so he had to
be he had to be in his thirties.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
It's really funny when I listen to people and you know,
you god do the work, But when someone's past a
certain age and they haven't dealt with it, and you're like,
you gotta figure this out.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
I don't want to listen.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
You know, you really don't want it in a movie.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You don't want to go on the ride with the guy,
you know, if you don't respect him.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
And welcome back to Table for two.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
My guest David Duchovny just launched a new podcast called
fail Better. As an actor who is used to being interviewed,
I'm curious what it feels like to be the one
asking the questions.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, I've been thinking about this, you know, doing the
podcast in your position, and you know, I'm used to
being in this position with you, But when you're in
that position, your position, it's different because you can really
you have to be okay with somebody being silent, you know,
and just figuring out what they want to say, and
you you're kind of you know, you kind of know
(20:57):
you want to go certain places. So there's a little
bit of like your manipulating, but you also want it
to be You don't want to like ruin their trust,
right because you're like, I'm here to just talk about
whatever exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
It's a funny. It's like a bifurcated consciousness that happened.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
And if you're I find the beauty of it is.
I might have come in with the intention of a question,
but you go down to different exactly half and then
that's the path we're going to go down.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
You don't have anybody like talking to you, at least
I had, you know, if I'm doing it from my
zoom or whatever, right they can my producers say, go back.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
To well you drop that one, you know, Yeah, did
you just hear that?
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Believe me? I walk away a lot like did I
miss that one?
Speaker 3 (21:41):
You know?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Your podcast Failed Better explores failure in all of its forms,
professional personal, in the ways in which failure, shame, and
falling short shape our lives. I think that's really a
great conversation and have many people because we do live
in the culture of everyone gets a trophy and also
(22:06):
winning and winning winning, So and you have guests. I
mean Bette Midler, who I've sat with and she was
she doesn't really do a lot of podcasts. No, she
was simply amazing. I know, the energy, the energy and
the force and just the life.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Well, you know how I didn't know Bet, but I
was having lunch in Santa Monica and I saw her
walk in and I'm pretty sure this is in the podcast,
but that's okay. But I was having lunch with a
friend and I said, ah, you know, I spent Midler.
(22:42):
I used to bartend at Radio City Musical when I
was twenty one twenty two for a catering company that
had the concession of the drinks. So you'd set up
before the concert, sell some drinks, and then you'd sell
more drinks at intermission, and then you break down. But
I got to see a lot of people because after
I set up and drinks in the beginning, I could
go watch, and then I could watch afterwards after I
(23:03):
broke everything down, and I saw Bet Middler, who I
really have no interest in seeing back then, you know,
because she wasn't like hip right right, and.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
My god, she was the best performer I'd ever seen.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Like I'd never seen somebody that took the audience from
like laughing.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
And then she came out with the rose. She stood
there saying it alone and everybody's fucking crying, and I
was like, who is this person?
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Yeah, never met her, So forty years later whatever, I'm
in Santa Monica and I'm like, you know what, I've
always wanted to meet Bet and just say I had
the best experience watching you, you know, And so I did.
And then we just started talking and she asked about
my writing and said she was going to read books,
and I told he about podcasts and she said she'd
come on and all that.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
See, it's wild. I think it's like, first of all,
telling someone the effect that they've had on you is
so great, and we get so afraid to come go
up to somebody, whether someone's especially when someone's famous, but
in whatever way, say you affected my life, and.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
You know it so important because I've only gone up
to three people in my life that I really who
that Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I saw him in a I was I was going
on Central Park West in the cab and I just
looked into one of the hotel you know, like he
was talking to the door man, and I was like stop.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
I got out and I said, I just want to
shake your hand.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Champ, you're saying that was it? And Ringo recently. I
was on a plane recently, maybe five years ago, and
I was just I was.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
In I seen him and I was sing. I was like, fuck,
I really wanted to just to say.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
I love the Beatles, just like such a part of
the fabric of my life, you know.
Speaker 3 (24:44):
And so uh.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
I eventually asked the flight attendant do you think Ringle
would mind if I said hi?
Speaker 3 (24:49):
And I'm like, yeah, no, he's really nice. So I.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Your podcast? What inspired that for you? And can you
give me also an example of in your own life
a failure or a failure.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
It came about during the strike last year, which was
he went on for like nine months or whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
So like in the sixth month, my agent Carter said
to me, you know, we can't do any work for you,
like it's illegal, but podcasts are okay. You know, podcasts
are not covered by this by the strike. Have you
ever thought about doing a podcast? And I said no,
not really. He said, well, if you want to think
(25:41):
about it and talk to our guy, and I said okay,
And then I talked to Josh le Migrant over there
at CIA, and I just gave him a couple of
ideas and he liked this one, and then we just
set it up almost immediately, which you know, which is
not my experience in Hollywood at all. And it was
really fun to just go out and be like, oh shit,
we're doing it all ready, and I think it's been
(26:02):
you know, for me, it was really it's really about shame, really,
because I see shame as being like a real killer,
like a real heart attack in the making. And you know,
I've dealt with shame in my life over whatever issues,
personal failures, sexual issues, things like that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, I deal with We all deal with shame. We're
in civilization.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
We got to be broken enter it in a way
because we're animals, So here we go. And for me,
it's about lessening shame and just having a discussion about
rather than like saying, you know, I what do people say?
You know, losing is not an option? And I was like,
you think, really, so great, well good luck to you, right, Yeah,
(26:42):
So how do you feel when you lose. If losing
is not an option, what does it feel like to lose?
So if that's the culture, that's a real shame based
around losing culture. So I'd like to see a different
way of embracing failure, of forgiving failure, of moving on, resiliency,
of all these things that I think are indispensable to
(27:04):
continuing on in life, you know, moving on beyond a success,
beyond a failure or whatever, all different kinds of failure.
What could have been like huge box office could also
be like I hate that fucking movie you know that
I did or whatever. You know, So there's different. It's
not just about oh yeah that movie sucked and you
got terrible reviews and that was a failure. It's personal,
(27:24):
subjective kind of feelings of failure for me, you know,
you ask for you know, specific instance.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
It's even like just.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The creative act. To me, it's always right with failure.
It can be wonderful and it's going to be what
it is. But let's just say writing, Like if I'm writing,
I'm dealing with words, right and I'm thinking in words.
But that's that's kind of already a step removed from
feeling and inspiration. So there's always like this leap that
(27:52):
you're making from if you can imagine what it's like
inside your head.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
It's not words, it's chemicals and feelings. Yes, it's impulses.
And then then you go, Okay, I'm an artist. I
want to express something.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
I'm going to have to translate that shit into something
that other people understand words. So I have my words,
but already I feel, oh, there's a failure there because
it's not exactly what I'm feeling. It's what i'm thinking,
it's what i'm writing, it's what i'm saying.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
So and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I
don't know that.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
I'd love to have, you know, God's words, you know
whatever you know, because because Adam named the animals, you know,
that's what we do.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
We're the naming animally. We're given the power to name things.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
So I'm not I'm not looking for perfection, And in
that failure, it's the most beautiful thing to me. That's
where my heart goes out to a performer when I
see them on the brink of failing. Not totally in command.
I don't totally in command is not that interesting? So
interesting to me is to watch somebody like, oh shit,
(28:54):
they're just on that high wire right now, and even
if they fall, I love them.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
We're not taught how to live with failure. We're not
taught how to you know, to be with it. So
it becomes this thing that you're just like the shame piece.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know. There was so much.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Shame I had in my life just based on my
sexuality growing up in the time that we grew up.
And I looked back and they were I always knew.
I mean it was very you know, and and and
kids knew. So kids were rough, you know, they do
all that shit. But like, what was amazing to me
was that the adults that clearly knew or had an
inkling that were responsible for the upbringing. I often say, wow,
(29:34):
like there would have been a lot of time saved
in figuring this out if there was a conversation to
be had. And but then I look back and say,
that helped make me who I am and created a
sense of empathy and sympathy, and you know, so I
think it's a really fascinating one.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
I also had to get resilient, right, you have to.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Get results laid down, No, no, no, you create the wall
that you know how to. So when you're thinking, like
when you go into this conversation with your guest, because
it's really you don't know where this is going to go,
because you're not like you're sitting with someone like that,
you don't know what she's say. Necessarily you're going to
be like, oh, okay, wow, it wasn't how is that?
Speaker 3 (30:18):
God?
Speaker 2 (30:18):
My kind of feeling off the top is I don't
want them, the guests, to feel that I'm I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
To find something right.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
It's not a gotcha that they failed.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
At tell me about your failures as a person, you know,
I want you to tell me what you want to
tell me along these subject lines. I have no interest
in trying to figure out, you know, or relitigating or whatever. Yes,
and you know that comes from being on this side mostly,
but also like you know, sometimes I think maybe I'm
not tough enough to be doing. I'm not an investigative report.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
You know.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
I don't want you to be uncomfortable. I want to
have this discussion. I don't want you to lie. I
don't want it to be you know, easy right, But
I'm not interested in finding out something that you did.
It was a failure and hurts and could hurt other
people by talking about So sometimes I feel like, oh,
I don't want to, you know, push on that area
(31:14):
because I don't want somebody to say something that they
will regret. They know what the show's about. They have
agreed to do it. Which is why I don't like
calling in favors, you know, because I don't want somebody
who doesn't want to be there. But I want them
to be interested, you know, like, oh, that's a conversation
that I want to have.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Thanks for joining us on Table for two.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
David is obviously incredibly bright, having attended both Princeton and Yale.
He's also a writer and a music and it seems
like his life could have taken many paths. What inspired
him to pursue acting.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
Talk to me a.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Little bit about so you decide, you know, you're obviously,
like I said, a very educated, smart man, and you've
decide you wanted to go into movies. What made you
want to pursue such a difficult career where there's so
much asking for permission? And what do you consider like
(32:29):
your first sort of like break into the business.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Well, first of all, I didn't know anybody who was
an actor. I never I never knew an actor.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
None of my parents' friends were in show business, so
I didn't know how difficult it was.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
We only knew Matthew, but he was a big We
lost us with one another.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
So I just didn't know. Yeah, which is great. I'm
glad I didn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:54):
I mean, that's one of the tough things about the
Internet is like you know everything now, and you know
how hard everything is, and how many.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
People won't what you you're trying.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
To do, and like, fuck it, why would I even
so I didn't As far as I knew, I was
the only one who was going to try this for
me when I got out of it was coming from.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
And again I talked about this in the podcast a
little bit, coming.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
From an intellectual background, coming out of collegiate and going
to Princeton and then Yale. I'd over developed certain muscles
and some muscles were undeveloped, I think, And when I
went when I first started going acting class, it wasn't
even about acting.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
In New York.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Were in New York there was a woman named Marsha
Halfrecht who was associated with Strasberg method teaching, and I
had I had grown up around a certain like fragility
in my parents, let's say, especially single mom, you know
where you know, my job was to like do my
work and do well and not create drama. And here,
(33:54):
all of a sudden, they were saying, drama is the best.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Thing to do.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You know, create drama, you know, being asshole, get into
a fight, be a problem, be the obstacle, you know.
And I was like, I'm always the guy that makes
things easier. I'm the grease. Now you're saying I can
be the obstacle. That's great.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
I'd never It was a part of me that was dying.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
And I don't want to say that acting is therapy
because I don't really love that topic and the way
people talk about it, because it's not quite that. But
it was part of my soul that was languishing and
I found, you know, a place it felt like home
in a way. I was like, oh shit, you know
I really can live here now?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Is that amazing?
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:40):
You find this place I know that came out of
nowhere you didn't even know existed, and it becomes a
feeling of home.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
So that was the initial attraction to performance, was I
could indulge all the feelings that I had and there
were no consequences, you know, So not only were there
not concert quences, but there were positive consequences if you
gave into your worst impulses.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Yeah, true, right, I mean surrounded by a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Yeah, right right, No, but I mean just in the
acting space, screaming, yelling, crying, y laughing, all those things.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Getting it all out.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
I think it must be so great to be able
to put on someone else's skin for a while and
have this ability to perform, and then it ends and
then there's something new.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Yeah, it is great.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
I mean for me, it's always it has been, you know,
like a continuing education just of my spirit in a way.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Not not intellectual, right, you know, and you know it's
true that acting is not an intellectual pursuit.
Speaker 3 (35:44):
But that's not to say that actors are dumb.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
You know, they just have different kind of emotional intelligence
or whatever. My emotional intelligence was not cultivated until until
I went to this place, or it was it was
it was looking for places to work out, you right.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
That's so interesting because you were you know, literature was
such a big part of your education, so you were
reading and reading and Honestly, I think that foundation creates
the space to be an incredible actor as you are,
and also to have emotional lives because you're you're reading
all about you know.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
Well, for me, you know, literature is philosophy. Yeah, literature
is history. Uh, you know, it's it's it's it's a religion.
You know, it's a it's all these things, and religions
are just stories, you know, instructive spiritual stories as well.
There you know, you can see the Bible as a
novel if you want.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Right, So to me, it was the deepest understandings that
you can have. But again, you know I was lacking,
you know in the kind of person to person, right,
you know, emotionality of life.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Is there a particular book or author that really kind of.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
You just oh that I come back to, Yeah, I
mean I come back to I tend to come back
to Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Emerson, Nietzsche, William Blake. These are
poets and philosophers. But even if their philosophers like Emerson
and and and Nietzsche, they write poetically.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Philip Roth as a novelist I think was my favorite
of the past century. Thomas Pinchon, Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
More contemporary like Richard Powers. I think this is an
amazing whetter.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
You also, I thought it was so interesting You've been
directed by Mike Nichols.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah, I guess I was like a glorified set.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
You know, you're like learning and uh, you know it's
like the beginning of like having such a genius, you know,
of seeing someone like that.
Speaker 3 (37:50):
Yeah, well, well for me it was. You know, I
think it's it's very important to have a moment in
one's career. Uh.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
And I think about this with my children as well,
where you you have that moment of oh I belong here,
you know, And that happened to me with Chaplain actually
down And I.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
Mean that was a hell of a movie.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, and I had, you know, basically, I was there
a lot, not a lot to do. I played his cameraman,
Benn Raley Tothereau, and I worked with Downey again just
recently on.
Speaker 3 (38:22):
The Sympathizer, which is coming on and it was great.
It was great to do.
Speaker 2 (38:26):
And I remember kind of watching I had a scene
with dan Aykroyd and then there was a scene that
Kevin Klein was doing and you know, Downey and they
were all these great actors, and I just remember, and
not to denigrate them at all, but I remember thinking,
it's not so different from what I think I want
to do. You know, it's not They're not doing something
(38:48):
different from what I think I'm doing. I mean, that's
going to sound like ego, but it was really like, Oh,
they're human beings. They're trying this, they're doing this thing.
They're really good at it. But I don't think it's
a different language from the one I'm trying to speak.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
Yeah, you know. And so after that, I was like,
I can play there.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
That's really cool to get there, because we tend to
sort of put people in a pedestal and think like, well,
that's them and I'm different. But if you're right, the
end of the day, we are animals. We're all the same,
and if you know, there's different skill sets and there's
different things that you know will light us up. But
being on that set and being in the room and
(39:28):
looking at them and as opposed to sort of leaning back, yeah, okay,
they're speaking a language I could speak.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
I'm speaking and you know, Richard Amber was the director,
so I was it was a big deal.
Speaker 3 (39:38):
A lot of heavy hitters at all time.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Meg Ryan directed by Meg Ryan, which I didn't realize,
you know, America's Sweetheart in the nineties, like, you know,
awesome that Again, going back to the idea of being
directed by another actor, was that something that was Did
you find that to be I don't want to say
better process and just you know, someone who's a dire
But it.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Just depends on it depends on the person really.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
I mean, you know, you you do assume that an
actor is going to know a little bit more about what.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
It's like to be out there.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
I mean, for me, I always thought, oh my god,
you know, they it's it's insanity.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Now we're in a close up and it's like it's
just I can't I can't hide, you know, it's like
it's not a two shot, it's not a master it's
like fuck, you know, like it all came down to this, Yeah,
am I ready? And I think an actor gets that
maybe more than any other director could get, you know.
But on the other hand, directors, you know, great directors
(40:38):
come in all shapes and sizes, and often it's not
till later you see the genius that they were doing,
you know, and the way they.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Put it together. But with Meg.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
It came to me as this script that she was
adapting from a play, and I was just flattered to
be in a movie with Meg when I when I
received it, and then we just worked on it for
like almost like nine months, just doing zoom reading through
it because when we shot it, we only had twenty
days and it was really it was like a place
(41:09):
so you had to be off book. I mean you
couldn't because we had like five page walking talks and
shit like that, and you if you didn't show up
knowing it, it was not gonna fly. So Meg had
a real sympathy for the craziness of being out there
alone and all that stuff, and she was.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
I mean, I had just had the best experience working
on that. That nice. Yeah, I mean she's become a friend,
you know, so.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
I mean that's that's sort of the benefit of it all.
I cannot wait to hear Phil better. I just feel
I was thinking about when you were talking about, is
the generation of people now that have so much shame
(41:56):
looking at social media is they don't have any see
others to have or look like when most of it's manipulated.
Not This is going to be a real interesting art for.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, yeah, and it's also talking. It's not only talking
to performers, but it's talking to people like Gabor Mate. Yes,
you know, people who actually work in the world of
shame addiction.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
Uh, what have you like?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Experts right, because I'm no expert, like we're we're not experts, no,
but we're we want experts to come in like I'm
an expert on me whatever.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
Like other people come in they're experts on themselves.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
But I like people to come in who have actually
made their lives work in this area.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
I can't wait to listen to it. So everyone, you
have to so big, David, thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (42:38):
You're welcome.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Thank you for having me come up to Malibill and
meet you in your world.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
And yeah you are a living room.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Yeah see your living room. You're you know. I think
one of the things that I just would like to
say to the people that have pulled up chairs, you're
a very gentle person. You have a lot of very warm,
gentle energy, and so thank you for Table for two
(43:08):
with Bruce Bosi is produced by iHeart Radio seven three
seven Park and Airmail. Our executive producers are Bruce Bosi
and Nathan King. Our supervising producer and editor is Dylan Fagan.
Table for two is researched and written by Jack Sullivan.
Our sound engineers are mel B Klein, Jess Krainich, Evan Taylor,
(43:29):
and Jesse Funk. Our music supervisor is Randall Poster. Our
talent booking is done by Jane Sarkin. Table for two's
social media manager is Gracie Wiener. Special thanks to Amy Sugarman,
Uni Scherer, Kevin Yuvane, Bobby Bauer, Alison Kanter Graber. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
(43:52):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Host
Bruce Bozzi
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