December 9, 2025 • 54 mins
Larry discusses his brilliant autobiography Comedy Samurai, becoming a writer, Friday's, arsenio, seinfeld, mad about you, borat, curb your enthusiasm, and all of the strife and feeds, and turmoil they and he created. We talk about the passion that drives you to take risks. And why wearing pajamas is dangerous.
Bio: Larry Charles, rose from the mean streets of Brooklyn and the working class housing projects of Donald Trump’s nefarious father Fred, to become the director of BORAT, BRUNO, THE DICTATOR and RELIGULOUS amongst others. He directed Bob Dylan and an all star cast (Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Penelope Cruz among others) in the film, MASKED AND ANONYMOUS which he and Bob wrote together. He has also directed numerous episodes of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and was one of the original writers and producers of SEINFELD. He has been nominated for 12 Emmys, winning two, 8 Golden Globes, winning one, a Peabody award and some other stuff too. He has collaborated with a diverse group of cultural icons from Mel Brooks to Michael Moore to Nicolas Cage. In 2018 he created, directed, wrote and starred in the four-part limited series for Netflix, LARRY CHARLES’ DANGEROUS WORLD OF COMEDY. His new film for A24, Dicks: The Musical (formerly and more preferably Fucking Identical Twins), premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2023 and won The People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. And yet, despite all this, or because of it, he remains kind, humble and grateful.
Bio: Larry Charles, rose from the mean streets of Brooklyn and the working class housing projects of Donald Trump’s nefarious father Fred, to become the director of BORAT, BRUNO, THE DICTATOR and RELIGULOUS amongst others. He directed Bob Dylan and an all star cast (Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Jessica Lange and Penelope Cruz among others) in the film, MASKED AND ANONYMOUS which he and Bob wrote together. He has also directed numerous episodes of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and was one of the original writers and producers of SEINFELD. He has been nominated for 12 Emmys, winning two, 8 Golden Globes, winning one, a Peabody award and some other stuff too. He has collaborated with a diverse group of cultural icons from Mel Brooks to Michael Moore to Nicolas Cage. In 2018 he created, directed, wrote and starred in the four-part limited series for Netflix, LARRY CHARLES’ DANGEROUS WORLD OF COMEDY. His new film for A24, Dicks: The Musical (formerly and more preferably Fucking Identical Twins), premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in the fall of 2023 and won The People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award. And yet, despite all this, or because of it, he remains kind, humble and grateful.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 3 (00:01):
Strawhut Media.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, I'm Larry Charles. Don't Be Alone with Jake Hogan
is this show and I'm here to talk to Jake Cogan,
and neither of us are going to be alone through
the entire show.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Don't be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi, cognation, It's me Jake Cogan and you're listening to
Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan. I am so thrilled
you're here. We have a great show for you today.
Larry Charles, the great writer, director, is here. He just
wrote a book about his life called Comedy Samurai, and
it's amazing. We'll be talking about it. But before we
get to him, I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to this show. You could also share the show with friend,
(00:42):
wouldn't be bad. You could review the show, don't hate that.
You could email me at dbawjk at gmail dot com
and talk to me about what you think of the show.
Your comments, your criticisms, your compliments, your suggestions are all needed,
especially your viewer mail. I need your mail questions to
continue the show. I also have this dumb new substack
(01:04):
thing that I'm making every week, so it's got special material,
some written materials, some video material and we're going to
get more and more into the bonus aspects of don't
be alone with Jake Cogan. Things never before seen will
be on my substack. So go to a Jake Cogan
is a substack, Ja Cogan at substack or Ja Cogan substack.
(01:25):
I'm not sure the address, but you people are smart,
you can figure it out. Today we have a great show.
Larry Charles is here. Larry is a writer, he's a director,
and when you read his book, Comedy Samurai, you realize
he's at heart an artist. He's got something to say
and he wants to say it, and he's willing to
(01:45):
go to great extremes to get it done. He put
his life in danger. He has risked his personal safety, finances,
other things to get it done. The remarkable thing about
him is he has a tenacity and a spirit that's
pretty remarkable. His book, Comedy Samurai is very, very very revealing,
(02:06):
very open about affairs, about drug use, about things he's
done wrong in the world, and very open about things
other people have done wrong to him, especially people who
he was working with creatively who didn't do right by him.
Everything's at risk all the time, it's never an easy road.
So you got to fight for what you believe in.
And he is a guy who has been fighting for
(02:26):
what he believes in his whole life. It's going to
be an interesting discussion, I promise you this with a
very interesting guy. We'll be right back with Larry Charles
right after this.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Don't be alone with j.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Larry. It's so great to have you here. This is fantastic.
Thank you for I read your book and I don't
know what I was expecting, but I kind of wasn't
expecting that, and I thought it was great. I really thought,
like you really went down, you know, as clearly and
as completely and as honestly as you could the events
(03:06):
of certain things, Yes, and when things went haywire, when
things went well, you know, And so I mean, you're
my audience probably knows, but just so, you've been a
part of some of the biggest comedic things on the
face of the last twenty years, including Seinfeld, including uh
borat you Know's and and Curb your Enthusiasm. I mean,
(03:30):
all these things are amazing and fantastic, and you've been
a big part of it. But it's you know, like,
if you're generally speaking a face behind the screen, so
people don't know. And I didn't know when I read
your book how much directing meant to you?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And and I assume still does. Yes, why do? Why?
As I mean, I love directing too, by the way,
It's one of my favorite things. But why directing as
the thing more than perhaps writing?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well? I love writing. I do, and I do a
lot of writing. I write every day, our as many
days in a row as I possibly had. Every now
and then there's a distraction, But I do love writing.
I loved writing the book. I've been writing screenplays all throughout.
They just don't They don't get produced, you know. And
I'm very frustrated by the commercial applications of my writing.
(04:21):
They don't go. The book got published, which was lucky,
but getting a screenplay produced I have found to be really,
really difficult. I'm not a big fan of the writer's room,
you know. On Seinfeld, we really didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Have that writing.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And although I've done it, you know a few times
over the years and worked on Mad About You, which
was a writer's room kind of environment, I didn't really
enjoy that kind of writing. I like solitary in a
room by myself, kind of writing, and I do enjoy that,
but the intensity and the action of directing is something
that appeals to a part of me that's hard to
(04:56):
scratch that itch any other way.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Read and I'm going to say the book the word.
Reading your book a lot, I felt like reading too. Yeah,
but it felt like, you know, your aspirations artistic aspirations.
Artistic aspiration, not just I want to have something to do,
not just I want to have something to do and
I want it to be successful. But I want to
have something to say, and I'm willing to risk a
(05:22):
certain amount of safety or to do it most certainly.
So I mean, that's where do you think that comes from?
Because I mean, I don't I got in the show
business to be funny.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Right, right right, I don't know that I did. I mean,
my father was the comedian in the family, and he
was a failed comedian, you know, and he was very
obsessed with stardom and the glitz and the glamor. But
he would take me on. He was friends. He'd gone
to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after World War
(05:53):
Two on the GI Bill, and a lot of those
guys that he grew up with in that environment didn't
want up becoming actress, but stayed in show business unlike him,
and they became like production managers or lighting directors or
whatever they did, and we would go visit them on
shows like the Craft Music Hall was right down the
(06:14):
street from where I lived in Brooklyn, which I'm sure
your dad wrote for you know.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You may have. I mean, I know the Craft Music Hall.
You know, my dad worked for The Tonight Show and
some other things in New York.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
But yeah, that, yeah, yeah, And with the Ed Sullivan Show.
He was friends with the production manager of The Ed
Sullivan Show, So I would see the rehearsals and I
found the what went into making a show fascinating more
so in some ways than what you saw on the screen.
The fact that there was all the stuff going on
outside of what you saw on the screen was just
(06:46):
really like a magical discovery to me. So I think
there was something about that that really appealed to me.
That was in the back of my mind. How do
you get to do that? You know, this is before
film schools and things like that.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I first being on a sound stage, I thought this
is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I didn't care about
the proscenium. What you saw in the proscenium, but what
you saw behind it was also pretty cool, fascinating. It
didn't inspire me to sort of be an avant garde artist,
right well, But.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I mean, here's another thing. I mean, I say it's
a confluence of events because I grew up in New
York in the sixties and seventies, where I could go
take a train from Brooklyn into Manhattan, go to these
little underground movie theaters and these revival theaters. And so
while I was into show business really heavily because of
my dad, I also got turned onto like Jean Luca
(07:34):
Dart and Felini and Andy Warhol and all these avant
garde experimental filmmakers, and that really excited me. Also, you
could do this with movies. I mean, it didn't even
occur to me, and then suddenly that became a part
of my reality also, So there was a number of
things that were kind of like influencing me at the
same time. And I liked the idea of pushing the limits.
(07:58):
I remember going to see a pink Flamingos the first time,
and these things kind of changed my life in a way.
It's like, wow, this is a very different kind of
movie than a George Stevens's Greatest Story Ever Told type
of movie. And I grew up around a bunch of
guys who were like gamblers and risk takers in very
self destructive ways in some cases, and that was also
(08:20):
part of my personality as well.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And you grew up around the stand up comedy you know,
circuit and those guys too, so those guys are also
risk takers.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yes, exactly it was. Andy Kaupan was right in the
middle of all that too.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, So I mean, so it's an interesting confluence of
all this events. But the goal, how much of the
goal when you first were beginning, was I gotta be funny?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
You know something? I don't know that I even I
knew that. I had read that Woody Allen had sold
jokes to comedians and that was a way to start.
He was from Brooklyn, we had the same birthday, so
he was a very important person to me. And when
I saw Take the Money and Run Bananas, I was like, Wow,
I would love to do something like that. How do
you get there? And he by the the idea of
(09:08):
writing jokes for comedians was like something, well, maybe I
could do that. You know that seemed like a place
I was funny, funny enough, I was a pretty good writer.
I thought, wow, I could just write jokes maybe and
I could sell the jokes. And when I came out here,
I actually literally would go to the comedy store stand
in front of the comedy store with handwritten jokes. I
(09:30):
didn't even have a typewriter. And when I saw a
comedian I recognized, I'd go, literally, you want to buy
a joke? And that's how I got started.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
How often did they want to check out your weird
scrawl notes?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Enough enough that I started to make a little bit
of money, not a lot of money, not enough to
live on. I was still parking cars, but getting that feedback,
that positive feedback, was very, very encouraging. And then one
of those guys, eventually, a guy that I met in Venice,
actually not at the comedy store, darro I Gus got
cast on Fridays and he recommended me as a writer
(10:04):
on Fridays, and so it was like a bunch of
lucky you know incidents.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Fridays from my seat at home was an interesting thing
to watch, like in a train wrecky kind of way,
like like that quality. Yeah, I had that thing like
it was. Yeah, I knew what they were trying to
do because Statelive was also on and then they and
I'd recognize some of the some of the people on
(10:30):
Fridays I'd known from before, and it's okay, there's funny
people trying to get together. And it was all about
the chemistry, whether or not it's gonna jive or not,
whether it's going to work or not. In comparison to Centerlive,
it seemed to be it wasn't working all that well.
It was a lesson.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I would say. There was a lot of things against it.
There was a lot of odds against it for a
variety of reasons. And I don't say variety. No put
intent right. But ABC didn't own Fridays the way NBC
State Live. That was one thing right there. Sanate Life
was kind of divinely inspired in a way when it
(11:05):
came along. It's a very organic outgrowth of what was
going on in the culture. The ABC wanted to cash
in on that, so they decided to create this show.
But for the writers, we were all like a radical
bunch of writers who could have worked out side I Live.
We were out here and they said to us, for instance,
think of a title for this show, you know, that'll
(11:27):
kind of set us apart. And we all went off
I talked about in the book. We all went off
and came up with these crazy titles, more Monty python
Esque than anything, sometimes just symbols, not even words. And
eventually we brought it back to the to the executives,
to the producers, and when we got there, the binders,
(11:48):
the jackets, everything, I already said Fridays, it was already decided.
And that was in a way that radicalized us even more.
But you're right, there was not an organic The actors
and writers were not like all like in one group
moving forward. There were different motivations on everybody's kind.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Of agenda, right, And the network said, I mean, basically,
we're going to make our own comedy version of the
thing that's going on over there, and you're already behind
the eight ball when that's happening. Yes, you're not going
to make that. It's very rare that the second version
becomes the better version.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Right. Well, we got lucky for a moment in time
because Saturday Live had one of its weakest casts, one
of its weakest couple of seasons. While we were sort
of ascended and so for a minute there we actually
gathered that audience and they were sort of turning to us.
Plus we had really cool music.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
On occasion, I watched I mean, I'm sitting at home.
What am I gonna do? I'm going to watch everything
anything that's on. I'm gonna watch that. I'm gonna watch
that live, I'm gonna watch commercials.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We can all co exist. It could have co existed,
but at a certain point it was too much for ABC.
They were not invested in it. They wanted to own it.
They wanted the profits. The producers owned the show, and
so when the Iranian hostage crisis came along, if you
could believe it, they decided to come up with a
show called Nightline and that they owned, and they pushed
(13:15):
us back later into the schedule, and from there the
ratings started to dissipate.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
In your book, you talk about that, then you talk about,
you know, working on I guess was our senior next.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I'm trying to about seven years later, right, You also.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Talk about like you talked to our Senio say, I
think we can we can enhance what you do in
a better way by addressing some very interesting social issues
and things in a way, like you were trying to
lift up the show to sort of be something better
than it was.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Right, well, I would have to find some justification in
my own mind for making it work. And I thought, wow,
if I could do these richer pryor like monologues for
our Sineo, that would be really cool. That would be
okay then, And this was before the show really took
off also, and he was very open to it. A
lot of people don't have a clear vision of our Sineo,
but he was actually a very cool guy and he
(14:09):
really wanted to do that. And at that point the
show started to get popular, and with the popularity came
a lot of hate. He started to getting so much
hate pre Internet hate, of course, so it was like
letters hate, letters, violent sexually violent hate mail I would
get and he had to back down. We used to
(14:31):
have to have metal screeners at the at the interest
for the audience because they were bringing weapons in, you know,
So he was he had to back down for his
own safety and take a much safer route, and the
show of course exploded.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Anyway, what he was doing, the other backdown version was
very popular, was very popular. So it's like he can't
be you know, you can't blame the guy for saying, well,
the thing that you're doing is really popular, you doing
it well, and it's it's hard.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Don't you think now, like this is thirty years back
or whoever long it is, that just being a black
star on TV was controversial?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, just that tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, exactly. So he had to really deal with all
that stuff. Although at the same time, part of his
radical approach was he was having bands on and groups
on and music on and nobody that Jay Leno or
anybody else would never have on a million years, and
that changed the landscape.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Also, what intrigues me though, is you're my vision of
you as a guy who sort of has artistic aspirations
trying to sort of make it in the world of
you know, talk shows or what have you. And and
I grew up in Hollywood. I know the landscape. The
landscape isn't like, oh, we are going to brace your artistry.
(15:47):
We're here to embrace your artisty. The plans cap is
we have we want to make money, right, so let
me help us make money or get out.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, and here's your here's your deadline. Every day, you know,
from the talk shows like that is a hard deadline.
You have to come up with pages of jokes per day.
We'd all get the newspapers at that time. You know,
you'd just be reading through the newspapers and desperation looking
for subject matter. You know, Yes, I held onto my aspirations,
but I also thought, wow, I don't know where I'm
(16:15):
going for I was lost. I was very lost at
that time. And I only lasted at our cineo for
a season, half of which I didn't even get a
joke on the air. So and I got fired. But
it was only because I got fired and then keenan
Ivory Wayans stood me up for a meeting in Loving Color.
That happened that Larry called me and said, hey, I'm
(16:37):
who was also struggling at that time. I'm doing this show.
You want to work on the show, We'll do thirteen weeks.
You'll make a little bit of money. And I was like, yeah,
of course, And that was Seinfeld.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Reading the book also made me think and sort of
the I don't know if it's obstinates or stubbornness, or
Larry is a stubborn guy. So I worked with him.
I would work with him is wrong. I was a
runner on It's Gary Shandling Show when he was there
for an episode of writing it, and he was furious,
like constantly do it right, and he'd want his way,
(17:26):
and if he didn't get his way, he'd be furious
and want to storm off. And got it's Gary Shandling's show.
It's literally Gary show, and so Gary's going to do
it his way. That's it's his show. But he had
no patience for it at all. And it seemed like
the confluence of that attitude with you was either going
to be very explosive, like you're going to have two
(17:49):
separate things, or it's going to be as it did,
it worked really well. So what do you think made
you sort of with your own vision and expertise and
him with his own sort of the own vision blends
so well.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Well, he was you know, he was a writer and
an actor on Fridays, right, So, and he was older
than me, and we were from the same neighborhood, and
so I immediately gravitated to him, and he immediately became like,
go I call in the book an inadvertent mentor, And
he really showed me how to navigate this business. Through
(18:23):
his lack of compromise, and I learned about integrity. I
learned about authenticity, and I learned really how to be
a man. I was a kid when I worked on Fridays,
and he was already a man, and I saw how
he dealt with these compromises and these challenges, and he
was and I was learning from him. So he was
(18:43):
somebody that I deferred to. As obstinate as I might
have been, he was somebody who I respected so deeply
that I deferred to him when it came to these
kind of matters.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Now, I of course think Larry's a genius and that
his work is fantastic. I also think, at least at
that time, he seemed a bit like a like he
really didn't seem like he's he's not addressing the world
as it is, He's addressing the world as he wishes
it was.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We take Seinfeld out of the equation, you'd be totally right,
because without Seinfeld, that's all he would have been. He
would have been like a very talented, you know, a nut,
you know, and he probably would have struggled his entire
life without that having happened.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
The uniqueness of that show and that vision could probably
only come from somebody with that stubbornness and that way.
And the reason explodes is everybody seeing something they hadn't
seen before and say that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And they stuck with it because they had nothing else.
NBC didn't have something better to put on the air.
It was a pretty cheap show. It was reaching a
demographic that had not been tapped into before. There was
a lot of outside you know, you know, factors that
came along that allows Seinfeld to exist long enough until
the audience really found it on Moss.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And then when you joined the show, you felt like
you created your own kind of niche on that show, right,
So what was your niche on that well?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I was still looking to express myself even within the
confines of Seinfeld and Jerry and George were always well
taken care of by Jerry and Larry and Kramer. Although
Kramer was a real person and a friend of Larry's
and his next door neighbor in real life, he was
very untapped on the show. He was Michael Richards, So
(20:25):
I knew for Fridays, I knew his ferocious sense of humor,
and I also knew that this was a character that
was coming in right now. He was just playing the
usual traditional neighbor who would come into the sitcom, do
his scene, mess things up a little bit, and then leave.
And I thought this guy could be much more than that.
(20:45):
He has much more potential, both the real Kramer and
the Michael Richards version of it. And I wrote an
episode that really brought him out of the apartment and
gave him a major story. And that worked and everybody
love that and they gravitated to that, and it really
kind of showcased Michael's capabilities.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Right, did you feel that showcase your capabilities? Well?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, I think so too, Yeah, exactly, it did.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
It worked. So at that point in the Seinfeld era,
you still held your dreams of wanting to be a director,
but you didn't really there was no place to do that.
You're waiting for your time.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
First of all, I was from Brooklyn. I was from
you know, kind of a lower working class kind of area.
The idea of me saying even just saying, and if
I had said it out loud in Brooklyn, I would
have gotten my ass kicked, you know what I mean?
I did not I yeah, yeah, I could not utter
it out loud. It was a secret dream because I
(21:44):
was too embarrassed to go, well, actually I really like
to direct.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I mean, it just sounds like the only person in
Hollywood who was too embarrassed to say that. Every other
person I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And there was a time on Seinfeld in fact, when
they were thinking about bringing in other directors and the
audition a number of people, David Steinberg and a few
other people, and it didn't work out. And I thought
myself at that time, should I say something. No, I'm
not going to say something that's ridiculous. Who am I
to even like suggest that I should direct. I've never
directed anything, So I kept it to myself, kept going, figured, Okay,
(22:16):
maybe I won't be a director, maybe I'll be a showrunner, right,
because a showrunner has a lot of power. The showrunner
is the tour of the show to television. Showrunner is
the director. Yes, exactly. So I worked. I went to
Mad About You. I left Seifel, I went to Mad
About You, and there I was the showrunner and I
got a lot of satisfaction. But I still had this
desire to direct. And there were four really cool directors
(22:40):
that Mad About You, each of whom taught me kind
of a lesson about directing. So I got very lucky
to sort of have that film school while I was working.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Do you judge the success of your work by the
reception from others, either the audience numbers or just by
in general accolades from people around you, or is it
something the interior.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, there's definitely an interior aspect to it. I mean,
if I feel good about it, I feel like I
did something, I accomplished something I kind of set out.
I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. That's good.
But I am always shocked by both the success of
things and the failure of things. And I've learned a
lot from the failure of things, you know. So failure,
I realized, is a very important component. We can't get
(23:23):
through our lives in this environment without some failure, and
you bitter embrace it in some way, or you're gonna
be very bitter very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You seemed in the book a little naive and still
to this day a little naive. The particular example was
the Robert Redford thing where you had a movie and
it was in trouble, and you read it and you said, Okay,
here's my fix, and I'm going to go do this
fix and you talk to Redford and said, what do
you think of this? And Redford said, yeah, I like it,
(23:52):
go do it. And then you did it and you
got notes back the stinks or whatever he said, yeah, yeah,
but and you seem shocked in the book like but
he but he approved it. Yeah, as if that's not
every day in Hollywood. Somebody proves it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
And then side of the stings, I know, I think
I'll never get used to that. Actually, you know, which
is bad.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, but I mean that is the way I am.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I mean, I can't. I was like shocked. I was
shocked that he turned on me like that. I mean,
I did not see that coming. He seemed so excited
by our relationship first of all, and then by the
idea of what I wanted to do with the script,
and he backed me all the way until I gave
him the script.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Right, But then but then you cut back something the
equivalent of you should be a shamed of yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah yeah, and it's like, what were you thinking, Larry,
That's what he said, thinking, I'm.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Seen the thing.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I thought I'd tell you right right, But that reaction,
that sort of whatever whatever happened, between the time he
turned it in and the time he read it and
his people read it, and there was a conversation and
somebody else had made him a different pitch and he
decided to go another way. Then you get the phone
call this stinks, which is basically saying we're not doing this,
thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, I did get some Shane Freud satisfy action out
of the fact that the version that he wound up
doing was not very good, right, So he would have
been better off doing what I was suggesting. I'm I'm
convinced of that, you know, But what could you do? Right?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
The two best outcomes when you're fired from a show
or something like that is the show disastrously glow hard
collapses under them. Aha, they did it without me, which
you could have easily done with us. It feels good.
And then the other way is you did something and
you still own a piece of it and it's gigantic, right,
and then at least you're getting money from right, whichhouldn't
(25:32):
happen to me either. Yeah, But those are two only
two good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Those good outcomes.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
But well, I mean, let's let's talk about a little
bit about Borat and I had seen Ali g You know,
I was very excited about a new you know, the movie,
Sasha Baron Cohene movie. Uh, you know, I think he was.
He was more well known in Hollywood than he was
in other places, and it was very exciting. You seem
to have really strong ideas is about how to make
(26:01):
something like that work, how to make it come about
in a way that and I know he had his
own people and been doing a TV show so with this,
but what you wanted a real truth behind what he's doing. Yes,
and you and I don't even understand how you did
it where you set up a situation and just did
it a bunch of times until you got stuff you like.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Well, I think one of the keys to the success
of Borat that kept it from being just another series
of sketches, really a little episodes which were all funny.
But I think the key was that he was a
real person in the world and that he had an
emotional through line. And so that was something that I
really felt I brought to the show that wasn't there originally.
(26:48):
Todd Phillips was the original director and he's a great director.
And the scenes they shot, they shot a few scenes
they were really really funny. But Todd was in the movie.
He was almost really the star of the movie, and
we had to remove him. And then the idea was,
you know, Borat is the star of the movie, and
we gave him a sidekick that he could talk to,
(27:09):
and then he had to have like an emotional sort
of roller coaster arrived and doing that engaged you in
a way that most sketch type movies would not do.
The best Saturday Live movies had that as well. They
really were able to transcend the sketch origins of the
movie and that way he hits bottom. When he hits bottom,
(27:29):
you're feeling for Borat. You're not going what's the next
bit going to be? And you could be patient and
have to go.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
With an outline of that journey of getting to hitting
bottom and did you know what that was going to
be or did you feel it out as you went.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Well, there's both both. There was I pitched to them
this idea of a throw much more of a through
line emotionally for him, and they were very responsive to that,
Sasha particularly. But then as you're going along, you're getting
scenes that really help that, and you're getting scenes that
don't quite work for that, and you're sort of like
paring away some of the stuff that doesn't really feed
(28:05):
that idea, you know, and then you go into editing.
You know, somebody I'm just reading, Like Jean lu Goudar said,
there's five movie. When you make a movie, it's five movies.
There's the casting, there's the writing, there's the shooting, there's
the editing, and then there's the releasing of the movie.
So that's this movie was really different with each iteration
of it.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
And you and you say something in the book, which
I think is absolutely true, that Borat is the most
successful one of those things because he has an innocence. Yes,
and it's one hundred percent true. I'm on Borat's side, Yes,
no matter what he does, no matter what he has
usually anti Semitic or sane, or he's a rapist, he's
(28:45):
terrible to women, to everybody. But I'm on his side
because we explore that this is kind of where he's from,
not who he is.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He's naive, Yes, he's naive, and he's forgiven. And it
showed the tolerance and the patience of America towards him,
and that really was helpful because it allowed him to
go much further with the scenes that he might have
been allowed to on Bruno. It was just the opposite Bruno.
And we did the first test scenes on Bruno right
out here, and people were immediately hateful. People were immediately intolerant, right,
(29:18):
and they felt comfortable getting physical with him right off
the bat, and he couldn't get away with as much.
Even though the movie is great and radical in its
own way, people did not love Bruno.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
No, Bruno snotty. Yeah, I mean he's kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
A jerk and he had only selfish desire.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right you know.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, so it made it. It definitely made a difference.
It's interesting, and I also understand that it's a format
that couldn't continue because people would recognize him.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, although they didn't recognize him, but Bruno was amazing.
We thought, well, that would be the thing that stops
that movie from going forward. And that's why we took
him out on Melrose here because the officers were right
down the street and we just put a crappy CVS
wig on him, you know, and a little makeup and
some clothes, and he walked on the street and nobody
recognized them on Melrose places. So we thought, well, maybe
(30:04):
we can get away with this, you know. Yeah, I
mean he's hard to miss, he's very tall, supposed to
be the platform.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
SOO sure. I'm like you in that I'll do what
it takes to make it. If I see that there's
something that I really want to get done. That's usually
because it's funny, not because I have artistic intentions, but
because I just want to make people laugh, and I
think it's good. And I think I do think part
of what's good and what's funny is having something to say.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I do agree that it's funny for funny sakes, not
the best. The best is having something to say. But
I will suffer and I will not sleep, and I
will deprive myself of food and anything to make that work,
because that's ingrained in me the way I think it's
very much ingrained in you. Yes, But then I wonder
when I'm reading your books, like is that a good quality?
(30:53):
That's dumb? Like you've risked a lot, You have family,
you have other things going on, and the for risk
ratio may not be worth Do you feel it was
worth it all those things that do all those risks
that you described.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I questioned, it at all. I'm constantly questioning it all.
When I did that show on Netflix Larry Charles name
just World of Comedy, you know, was going to Somalia
and Iraq to interview comedians there. And I don't think
I realized the impact I had on my family. Actually,
a lot of the things that I've done have had
a tremendous traumatic impact on my family, and I think
(31:26):
I really haven't been that fair to them about that
kind of stuff. And I do have you know, I've
had this discussion my wife recently about regrets. I mean,
unlike Frank Sinatra, I have a lot of regrets, you know.
And and as Bret Garrett was saying to me the day,
don't worry. Frank Sinatra had plenty of regrets also, right,
That's right, you know, And it's like that that is
kind of the choice, the life we've chosen.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Anyway, early on, I through Gavin Or, I was introduced
to you. You seem cool, You're part of like George
Meyer and Maria Simple and you're part of this group.
And you always seemed definitely a little enigmatic, but a
little scary, a little scary. And it wasn't just your beard,
your look, but just you had a vibe about you.
(32:10):
And I'm pretty I have a pretty big radar because
I come from like a very tumultuous parent mother who
just like to survive. You have to know what's going
on around everybody, to read everybody a little bit. It's
like you have a little bit of vibe, like I
don't know about this guy. I was worried and and
and when I read the book, I go, oh, some
of it was justified with some of this stuff, because Okay,
(32:32):
you know there's a certain behavior that's inappropriate and other
stuff that's sort of not. I'm not a I don't
I'm not a moral guy. I just don't do a
lot of stuff, and I'm I don't judge people, but
it's just not into that I wouldn't get along. So
I vibed you in a certain way that I think
it was partially partially right. I don't think it completely well.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I think I've evolved also. I mean I think I
was a very out of control person for a lot
of years, and I really didn't know who I was,
didn't know what I wanted, was very hungry, was lashing
out in all kinds of directions, had an uncontrollable temper.
Did a really look I crossed a lot of lines, of.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Course, But in that in the heart of and by
the way, I've made horrible mistakes in my life too.
And it's also in service of wanting to be feel loved,
wanting to feel wanting to feel some measure of happiness
in a world where you're not feeling happy. All this
kind of angst and desire and you're trying to put
out a fire and maybe doing it in the wrong ways.
(33:33):
But so I have an incredible amount of empathy and
sympathy and connection to that is and.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
It's a comedy writer's dilemma to some degree, but I
think I do irony.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yes, it's true.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
But also there was a lot of fear. I was
afraid did I belong here? How do I fit in here?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
You know? I was very lost in a lot of ways.
And I and and in a way, sunglasses, beard, long
hair was a way. It was a mask to keep
people sort of at arms.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, And I'm more willing to take the glasses off
and connect now. So I've learned how to be okay
with all.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That because why why why Because it's exhausting to.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Have a persona right, you know, it's like I don't
I'm past all that, you know, I don't need. I
would carry around worry beads and I would wear pajamas,
and you know, it was like I was like I
was being It was all surface stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
And there's a part of the book where you say, like, oh, yeah,
I guess wearing pajamas is somehow disconcerted, like you didn't
realize that, or at least it didn't take you like me.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Well, when I was working eighteen hours a day, seven
days a week, I'm mad about you.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
It was a practical choice, right.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
But then once I wasn't doing that, I still was
wearing the pajamas and I'd walk into a restaurant, I'd go,
wait a minute, what am I doing? You know, It's
like I snapped out of the trance, right, you know,
And that was a kind of an epiphany for me. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
You know, your book has a happy ending in that
you find love. I'm alive and you're alive. You got
through a lot of this stuff. I mean, yeah, the
very have the very ending was very like that you're
going through this heart attack or whatever whatever. I'm not
even sure what that was.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm not myself, but I think it was a
heart attack, but it was not. It was like a
a fib right, Okay.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
But you're you're here, and you seem to be aware
of responsibilities to make sure that people around you who
you love, feel loved and are taken care of, Like
you're more aware of all that.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
So it really, you know, if you're if you're looking
for an entertainting story and that somebody who struggles and
gets to the end. The end to me isn't your
artistic vision. It's coming to a life that accepts love
and has love, and you care about that so much
more important, Yes, very much. Movies will disappear at that point, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Everything disappears. Everything was temporary. So all you could do
is be in that moment and love those around you
and forgive and not carry that that burden of hate
with you, you know, right. I mean I still have anger,
you know, but my is now directed more about about
the world. I see that, and that is something that
really that does bother me still, But I mean I
(36:08):
think that's a good focus for my anger to look
at the world and go, wow, this is so unfair.
There's so many people suffering. What can I do about that?
You know? And so I've tried to apply it to that.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'm on your feed, like I see you give on
TikTok and and Instagram or wherever there's little screeds about
we're not even the little screeds long, the diatribes about
where you're at and what's going on and who you think,
you know, how politicians and the corrupt world around us
(36:38):
is taking advantage of everybody else. And you know, to
my way of thinking, yeah, well said, all great, thank you.
It's what's what's interesting though, is like not, it's not funny.
It's not what I expect from you, and it's not
and you wouldn't be the source, it wouldn't be the
immediate source I would go to for that kind of
political commentary.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I don't know what else to do. And it's like
I would like to be funnier in those situations, but
I write them and that's how they come out, and
I want it to be as immediate as possible. So
I don't go back and kind of punch them up,
you know what I mean, I just like I let
it go, you know. And because They are sort of
like journalistic because they're there and then they're gone the
next day. You know, that is that's the way that
writing happens to be coming out today.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Fine, you're getting a lot of feedback about that, and
I get.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I get a lot of feedback, and a lot of
people are angry that I'm not funnier in those situations.
You know, it's like, aren't you the guy from Seinfeld?
What are you doing? You know, I just they just
realized that that's me.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
But the satisfaction rate comes from getting people. Do people
comment or people talk to you and say thank you
for saying that?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yes, yes, I get. I get a lot of Really,
I mean, for all the hateful comments or the negative comments,
I get mostly overwhelmingly positive comments for people who are
really happy that someone is voicing these opinions.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Don't be a.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Back to Sasha for a second. If you could give
Sasha advice entertainment wise, acting wise, what would be the
next step for him to move forward?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
He's a brilliant one of a cond comedian. He is
in the tradition of a Peter Sellers was also I'm
talking about a troublesome, troublesome personality, dysfunctional person I would
be recommending him. But this is something I told him.
What we did the Dictator, You've got and this is
something I say to myself and I say to anybody.
(38:45):
Trust your instincts. You have sharp instincts. You are constantly
being diverted from your instincts and doing things that other
people are telling you to do instead of doing what
you think you should be doing. You should be doing
the being there, You should be doing this Strange Love.
You should be doing those kind of parts that showcase
(39:06):
your diversity, your characterizations. You're one of a kind comic sensibility.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Do you think that he'll ever learn to share the stage.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Well, that's the problem. I think that part of the
reason he's not able to do that, And again that's
fear maybe on his part and insecurity. But he was
not generous enough on the Dictator to allow that to
be this kind of Strange lovey in epic movie. And
I thought that was a terrible mistake, even though I
tried to keep moving him in that direction of this
(39:36):
ensemble piece where he's clearly the star. Still like Strange
Love is a great ensemble piece. Sterling Hayden, George He's
got all these great people, but Peter Sellis is in
the center of that with all those parts. I tried
to move him in that direction constantly, but he wanted
to even turn the dictator to me, which seemed into
(39:57):
a one man show. And that's what I would I
would be trying to tell him to relax about that.
You can like Jerry's brilliance in a way, like Jack
Benny when we were kids, is somebody who was not
afraid to not be the funniest person in the scene.
If the scene was funny, he came off as funny,
of course. And that's how Jerry was, and that's how
Jack Benny was.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Just that's the great secret of comedy. You get credit
in being on screen with somebody when something funny is happening.
It doesn't have to be you.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
What are you watching or reading that you're loving that
you think is funny or great or wonderful? Right now?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Oh my god, I've watched I started watching. I mean,
comedy wise is I find it very hard to find
things that are funny. I did stumble onto a show
called The English Teacher.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, do you know that show?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That made me laugh. So I was very happy about that,
but not too much else makes me laugh. I mean,
I watched mostly dramatic stuff, you know, like Mayor of Easttown.
I just watched that. I'm late, I know, but I
thought it was really cool. And there's this new show
and Mark Ruffalo done by the same people that seems
like a good show. I do a lot of reading,
but I don't read really comedy. I'm reading a great
(41:11):
book called Service by this guy John Tottingham, who's like
a poet who works at a bookstore down on the
East Side somewhere, and it's about a poet who works
at a bookstore or the side. So you know, it's
a great, great book and very kind of Bukowski like
in some ways, you know. And that's the kind of
stuff that I'm gravitating to right now. I go through
(41:33):
different periods, like I'm into it. I was into a
very science fiction period before that and reading a lot
of science fiction Philip K. Dick and things like that,
so I kind of and that's what I mean. I
like drawing on those kind of things to influence.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Like my work. All right, so now you're writing every day,
what are you looking forward to what's what what is
the on the agenda? What do you hope to accomplish?
And if you do or don't, that doesn't what else
are you looking forward?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I'm going to try to stay alive. That's that's the age,
all right there, that's the foundation.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Because how's that going? Well?
Speaker 1 (42:06):
So far, so good. I mean, nothing else is going
to happen if I don't stay alive. I want to
continue working. I have a couple of movies that, look,
you know, have some traction. We know how it is
if they can still fall apart. But hopefully those movies
will happen. I'm writing another book. The original draft of
the book that just came out, Comedy Samurai, was a
(42:26):
thousand pages and included my childhood up to the time
I got the job on Fridays, that whole section of
my life. I'm reworking that to maybe put that out
as another book. I'm working on yet another book. So
I'm staying prolific. I'm staying, you know, kind of fertile and.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Creative in that book. One that never came out of
the first part of the book that never came out,
that will be booked book two eventually. Yes, the childhood
looking back and writing it and saying, this is where
I come from. What did you learn from that?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I learned the the both pop positive and the negative
impact of my parents. I think that my parents did
the best they could. I think they loved me, you know,
But I think that my father had a lot of
jealousy and pettiness and competition with me, and he couldn't
really be encouraging of my dreams, right because they reminded
(43:22):
him of the dreams deferred for himself. And I realized
that in a way that sort of fueled me, that
sort of pushed me out into the world. Was trying
to accomplish what he had and accomplished.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
One of the great stories in the book is that
he wanted a picture with Jerry. Yes, and then there
was a picture of him and Jerry, and a picture
of him and you and Jerry, and of course he's
your dad, and so like the Seinfeld show, is your accomplishment, right?
And this is his father who could certainly put on
(43:57):
his mantle a picture of his son and Jerry Seinfeld
him saying, look at what my son did. But he
chose the picture of him and Jerry, correct, And that
says a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
That said a lot. That said a lot about who
he was.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
And so he wanted and that was kind of a
culmination of what I'm talking about. I wanted the glory
and he didn't want you.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
To be first thing he said to me when I
won the when I won an Emmy in ninety three
whatever it was, and he called me and said, well,
you look fat. You know, that was his first thing
to say to me. So, you know, it's like he
never really was quite Now. Maybe he was proud and
couldn't express it. I don't know, but he did not
express this.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And your mom, though, was a big cheerleader, right, she
was a saint, right, so she she of course she.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Was killed in a car acts right. My father lived
to be in his nineties. My mother was struck down inadvertently,
you know, in a car accident.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
But the cheerleading, you know, remains in your head.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
All the love and encouragement that somebody pours into you
doesn't go away when they go.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
And I miss her, you know, I miss her. I
missed my dad too, but I and that's the thing.
I've come to a place where I can miss my
father also.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Right, what's the biggest mitigating factor that allows you to
forgive your dad.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
I think the place that i'm you know, I've I've
had my brush with mortality, I've had failure in marriage,
I've had failure in many things in my life. And
I'm able to get inside his head better as a
result of those things. Understand the pain and the frustration
he must have been having that as a kid. It
(45:29):
didn't make any sense today.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
This is a separate question entirely, but also reading the book,
and I wouldn't ask these questions of anybody else who
didn't write a book, honest, But since you did and
I read it and I enjoyed it, I'm gonna ask
you to analyze your behavior for a lot of this stuff.
It seems like you're a little bit of an action junkie, definitely,
(45:52):
Like so like the affairs and other thing, there's like
there's action in that you're right, right, so borat and.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
It trills the interest world of comedy right in my work.
In my private life, I have sought action, like a
compulsive gambling right.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
And then so it's the tumultuousness that sort of you know,
even though it punches in the face sometimes it's still
like action.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, I still say to my wife now and I'm
happily married. I love my wife. Everything's really good.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I want action. How do you quench that thirst now
chasing these projects?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Okay, yeah, I try to. I try to channel it. Finally,
I'm channeling all of that energy into my creativity.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Let's talk about the landscape, the entertainment landscape. Yes, so
you're gonna get movies made in a world where they're not.
They're making way less movies, and the movies that they
make sometimes come out on streaming and sometimes don't get
released and sometimes so how are you protecting these projects?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Well, part of it is I don't care anymore if
I would prefer with certain of these projects that they
got released in a movie theater. But overall that's not
a concern of mine anymore. I want to make it.
I wanted to exist, and then wherever it's seen, it'll
be seen on a phone, on a screen, wherever on TV.
I'm okay with that first, to.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Make it just on a phone and put on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yes. Part of part of my little experiments with the
with the rants that I do is to try to
just do something that's I've done. I have a YouTube
channel and on the YouTube channel. I've made a couple
of shows and a couple of documentaries and things like
that that are just for the YouTube channel, and that's
my that's my you know, kind of entering into that
(47:30):
world because there's an audience there, and so I'm ready
to reach that audience that way. I'm okay with that.
I don't need to have a billboard on I've had it,
you know, I don't need to have the billboards. I
don't need to have the big openings. That is kind
of much less interesting to me now than making something
cool and getting it directly to people. When I did
(47:51):
Larry Charles Danger's World of Comedy, I met so many
people in Liberia and places like that who are doing
it on social media and reaching millions of people, getting
around the usual state media or government media, and that
really inspired me.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Well, now we all get to do it the Liberian way,
right exactly ironically, Yeah, right, we're down the street from
the Paramount Studios. Liberia is a better release of your movie.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yes, it's a better role model.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Have I grilled you enough about your life?
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I think so?
Speaker 3 (48:20):
But I'm okay. I'm open.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I'm an open book, as you know.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
I know, how'd your wife feel about the book?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I think she was pretty happy with it, you know.
I think she was proud so and I talked about
us in a very positive way. So I thought that
was your kids feel about it. My kids are much
more trepidacious about it, And in fact, I was thinking
they all started reading it like together, like a book club.
And I haven't heard from them recently, so I have
(48:47):
to check in and see how they're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I think they knew most of the stuff in there,
or do you think they'll be surprised by.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I think they were worried about some of it. My
oldest daughter, I tell a story about the police coming
to our house and she's always responsible for that incident,
which she wasn't right, And she's like, Daddy, you gonna
put that in the book. And I'm like, yeah, it's
a great store, you know. And so I think they
have some anxiety about it a little bit. And so
(49:13):
I think they knew a lot and there's a lot
that they probably didn't know as well.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Yeah, I guess there is a freedom that comes with
i'man it's all out there now, yeah, right right exactly?
Walking you're walking now? Yeah, with the with the load
up your chest.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
And I lived with lots of secrets for a while
in my life, right and it's a burden, yeah, tremendous,
stressful burden, and I don't have that now.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
It's part of the action, though, it is part of
that well, building up news exactly. All right. Well, it's
a great book. If anybody has a chance to read it,
it is. I don't know if anybody's going to have
the same perspective I do as another comedy writer who
was working at the same time and dealing with many
of the same issues the same people. So I had
(49:58):
it was. It was particularly in to me. But I
have friends who just read it. This is one of
my son's friends. Last night, we're at dinner. I said
you were coming in. He said, oh, I just read
that book. It's fantastic. He goes to Stanford, he's a kid,
and they're very They love it because they love you
know your work, and it's insightful to see how different
(50:18):
artists are.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
You know, well, I really appreciate that. That's very nice
for you to say. Thank him as well.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I will, okay, So Daniel Rashes you. Thank by Larry Charles,
like you all right, So this is the listener mail.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Dear Jay and guest, how do you define a great artist?
Is it someone who takes a great risk and digs
deep to reveal a truth that may only be relevant
to one person? Or is it someone who's able to
communicate an idea that is relevant to many people and
carry it in a medium that's entertaining or interesting enough
to capture the imagination of many interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I just moderate a Q and A with the artist
named Paul McCarthy. I don't know if you know who
he is. One of the Beatles, right, something that I
don't have to say, well all the time, he is.
He's a very interesting visual artist. He does a lot
of videos and things like this, very extreme stuff. And
he said, and I thought, this is really a cool definition.
He said, art is what I enjoy and entertainment is
(51:21):
what everybody else enjoys, you know, And I think that
is the difference. An artist is not as concerned with
the audience. Entertainers are more concerned with the audience reactions.
So that is a distinction. Beyond that, it's really hard
to define when an artist.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Well, are you an artist or an entertainer.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Well, I think I actually fall in that kind of
middle ground because I feel I want to be an artist.
That I am an artist. I'm aspiring to art, but
I'm also I want the audience to respond. That is
important to me. You know, that part of me is
a very important part of me as well.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
I always thought that art was good art. Good art
is when there's an idea that an artist wants to
communicate and he communicates it through a medium, whatever that
medium is, and that the receiver gets that's something maybe
not exactly that message, but something from that art that
(52:20):
that that that telephone of idea to medium to respond.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
But is this a kind of a mystery why certain
pieces of art or artists do reach a large audience
and others don't. You know, if you look at roth Gooe,
you look at the abstract expressionist, it's like, why is
that popular? Why do people?
Speaker 3 (52:39):
What do people what?
Speaker 1 (52:40):
What's the resonance for an audience over generations for something
like that. It's kind of a mystery in a way,
and maybe it should be a mystery.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
I think, I mean we have to as being in
show as part of it is dumb luck, right, I
mean of your one decision away from being an insurance
salesman in Brooklyn. I mean honestly, so some luck is.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Such a big factor in all of this. This could
be the foundation for everything we've spoken about it.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Something one said that you need three things, and two
of three things to survive in art one or in
show business, which is luck, talent and drive right to
any too. Yes, you'll be good at you know where
you want to go right right, it's just having one
not enough.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah. Luck to me is like synchronicity is like you.
It's an essential component. Yeah, Larry, this has been great.
Thank you for being here. This is pleasure, such a joy,
And thank you for writing that book pleasure. Thank you
so much for having me all.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
The great movies and all the great TV shows.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I'll keep trying.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Okay, me too, and thank you for being here. That's
my audience. I talked to you in the camera even
though they're not here.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
You know, when you get a chance to be connective
and sit with somebody face to face, do it. Don't
get get off your computers, get off your phones. Just
the whole point of this is remind you sit with
somebody and meet somebody new, somebody but be connective. That
would be great. And write me at d v A
w JK at gmail dot com if you want to
connect with me. And if you have something to say Larier,
I'll pass it on UH And until next time, I'll
(54:10):
see you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Don't be alone with JJ cogain.
Strawhut Media.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, I'm Larry Charles. Don't Be Alone with Jake Hogan
is this show and I'm here to talk to Jake Cogan,
and neither of us are going to be alone through
the entire show.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Don't be Alone with jj Cogan.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Hi, cognation, It's me Jake Cogan and you're listening to
Don't Be Alone with Jake Cogan. I am so thrilled
you're here. We have a great show for you today.
Larry Charles, the great writer, director, is here. He just
wrote a book about his life called Comedy Samurai, and
it's amazing. We'll be talking about it. But before we
get to him, I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to this show. You could also share the show with friend,
(00:42):
wouldn't be bad. You could review the show, don't hate that.
You could email me at dbawjk at gmail dot com
and talk to me about what you think of the show.
Your comments, your criticisms, your compliments, your suggestions are all needed,
especially your viewer mail. I need your mail questions to
continue the show. I also have this dumb new substack
(01:04):
thing that I'm making every week, so it's got special material,
some written materials, some video material and we're going to
get more and more into the bonus aspects of don't
be alone with Jake Cogan. Things never before seen will
be on my substack. So go to a Jake Cogan
is a substack, Ja Cogan at substack or Ja Cogan substack.
(01:25):
I'm not sure the address, but you people are smart,
you can figure it out. Today we have a great show.
Larry Charles is here. Larry is a writer, he's a director,
and when you read his book, Comedy Samurai, you realize
he's at heart an artist. He's got something to say
and he wants to say it, and he's willing to
(01:45):
go to great extremes to get it done. He put
his life in danger. He has risked his personal safety, finances,
other things to get it done. The remarkable thing about
him is he has a tenacity and a spirit that's
pretty remarkable. His book, Comedy Samurai is very, very very revealing,
(02:06):
very open about affairs, about drug use, about things he's
done wrong in the world, and very open about things
other people have done wrong to him, especially people who
he was working with creatively who didn't do right by him.
Everything's at risk all the time, it's never an easy road.
So you got to fight for what you believe in.
And he is a guy who has been fighting for
(02:26):
what he believes in his whole life. It's going to
be an interesting discussion, I promise you this with a
very interesting guy. We'll be right back with Larry Charles
right after this.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Don't be alone with j.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Larry. It's so great to have you here. This is fantastic.
Thank you for I read your book and I don't
know what I was expecting, but I kind of wasn't
expecting that, and I thought it was great. I really thought,
like you really went down, you know, as clearly and
as completely and as honestly as you could the events
(03:06):
of certain things, Yes, and when things went haywire, when
things went well, you know, And so I mean, you're
my audience probably knows, but just so, you've been a
part of some of the biggest comedic things on the
face of the last twenty years, including Seinfeld, including uh
borat you Know's and and Curb your Enthusiasm. I mean,
(03:30):
all these things are amazing and fantastic, and you've been
a big part of it. But it's you know, like,
if you're generally speaking a face behind the screen, so
people don't know. And I didn't know when I read
your book how much directing meant to you?
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
And and I assume still does. Yes, why do? Why?
As I mean, I love directing too, by the way,
It's one of my favorite things. But why directing as
the thing more than perhaps writing?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well? I love writing. I do, and I do a
lot of writing. I write every day, our as many
days in a row as I possibly had. Every now
and then there's a distraction, But I do love writing.
I loved writing the book. I've been writing screenplays all throughout.
They just don't They don't get produced, you know. And
I'm very frustrated by the commercial applications of my writing.
(04:21):
They don't go. The book got published, which was lucky,
but getting a screenplay produced I have found to be really,
really difficult. I'm not a big fan of the writer's room,
you know. On Seinfeld, we really didn't.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Have that writing.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
And although I've done it, you know a few times
over the years and worked on Mad About You, which
was a writer's room kind of environment, I didn't really
enjoy that kind of writing. I like solitary in a
room by myself, kind of writing, and I do enjoy that,
but the intensity and the action of directing is something
that appeals to a part of me that's hard to
(04:56):
scratch that itch any other way.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Read and I'm going to say the book the word.
Reading your book a lot, I felt like reading too. Yeah,
but it felt like, you know, your aspirations artistic aspirations.
Artistic aspiration, not just I want to have something to do,
not just I want to have something to do and
I want it to be successful. But I want to
have something to say, and I'm willing to risk a
(05:22):
certain amount of safety or to do it most certainly.
So I mean, that's where do you think that comes from?
Because I mean, I don't I got in the show
business to be funny.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Right, right right, I don't know that I did. I mean,
my father was the comedian in the family, and he
was a failed comedian, you know, and he was very
obsessed with stardom and the glitz and the glamor. But
he would take me on. He was friends. He'd gone
to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after World War
(05:53):
Two on the GI Bill, and a lot of those
guys that he grew up with in that environment didn't
want up becoming actress, but stayed in show business unlike him,
and they became like production managers or lighting directors or
whatever they did, and we would go visit them on
shows like the Craft Music Hall was right down the
(06:14):
street from where I lived in Brooklyn, which I'm sure
your dad wrote for you know.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
You may have. I mean, I know the Craft Music Hall.
You know, my dad worked for The Tonight Show and
some other things in New York.
Speaker 1 (06:25):
But yeah, that, yeah, yeah, And with the Ed Sullivan Show.
He was friends with the production manager of The Ed
Sullivan Show, So I would see the rehearsals and I
found the what went into making a show fascinating more
so in some ways than what you saw on the screen.
The fact that there was all the stuff going on
outside of what you saw on the screen was just
(06:46):
really like a magical discovery to me. So I think
there was something about that that really appealed to me.
That was in the back of my mind. How do
you get to do that? You know, this is before
film schools and things like that.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I first being on a sound stage, I thought this
is pretty cool. Yeah, I mean, I didn't care about
the proscenium. What you saw in the proscenium, but what
you saw behind it was also pretty cool, fascinating. It
didn't inspire me to sort of be an avant garde artist,
right well, But.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I mean, here's another thing. I mean, I say it's
a confluence of events because I grew up in New
York in the sixties and seventies, where I could go
take a train from Brooklyn into Manhattan, go to these
little underground movie theaters and these revival theaters. And so
while I was into show business really heavily because of
my dad, I also got turned onto like Jean Luca
(07:34):
Dart and Felini and Andy Warhol and all these avant
garde experimental filmmakers, and that really excited me. Also, you
could do this with movies. I mean, it didn't even
occur to me, and then suddenly that became a part
of my reality also, So there was a number of
things that were kind of like influencing me at the
same time. And I liked the idea of pushing the limits.
(07:58):
I remember going to see a pink Flamingos the first time,
and these things kind of changed my life in a way.
It's like, wow, this is a very different kind of
movie than a George Stevens's Greatest Story Ever Told type
of movie. And I grew up around a bunch of
guys who were like gamblers and risk takers in very
self destructive ways in some cases, and that was also
(08:20):
part of my personality as well.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
And you grew up around the stand up comedy you know,
circuit and those guys too, so those guys are also
risk takers.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yes, exactly it was. Andy Kaupan was right in the
middle of all that too.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah, So I mean, so it's an interesting confluence of
all this events. But the goal, how much of the
goal when you first were beginning, was I gotta be funny?
Speaker 1 (08:44):
You know something? I don't know that I even I
knew that. I had read that Woody Allen had sold
jokes to comedians and that was a way to start.
He was from Brooklyn, we had the same birthday, so
he was a very important person to me. And when
I saw Take the Money and Run Bananas, I was like, Wow,
I would love to do something like that. How do
you get there? And he by the the idea of
(09:08):
writing jokes for comedians was like something, well, maybe I
could do that. You know that seemed like a place
I was funny, funny enough, I was a pretty good writer.
I thought, wow, I could just write jokes maybe and
I could sell the jokes. And when I came out here,
I actually literally would go to the comedy store stand
in front of the comedy store with handwritten jokes. I
(09:30):
didn't even have a typewriter. And when I saw a
comedian I recognized, I'd go, literally, you want to buy
a joke? And that's how I got started.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
How often did they want to check out your weird
scrawl notes?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Enough enough that I started to make a little bit
of money, not a lot of money, not enough to
live on. I was still parking cars, but getting that feedback,
that positive feedback, was very, very encouraging. And then one
of those guys, eventually, a guy that I met in Venice,
actually not at the comedy store, darro I Gus got
cast on Fridays and he recommended me as a writer
(10:04):
on Fridays, and so it was like a bunch of
lucky you know incidents.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Fridays from my seat at home was an interesting thing
to watch, like in a train wrecky kind of way,
like like that quality. Yeah, I had that thing like
it was. Yeah, I knew what they were trying to
do because Statelive was also on and then they and
I'd recognize some of the some of the people on
(10:30):
Fridays I'd known from before, and it's okay, there's funny
people trying to get together. And it was all about
the chemistry, whether or not it's gonna jive or not,
whether it's going to work or not. In comparison to Centerlive,
it seemed to be it wasn't working all that well.
It was a lesson.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
I would say. There was a lot of things against it.
There was a lot of odds against it for a
variety of reasons. And I don't say variety. No put
intent right. But ABC didn't own Fridays the way NBC
State Live. That was one thing right there. Sanate Life
was kind of divinely inspired in a way when it
(11:05):
came along. It's a very organic outgrowth of what was
going on in the culture. The ABC wanted to cash
in on that, so they decided to create this show.
But for the writers, we were all like a radical
bunch of writers who could have worked out side I Live.
We were out here and they said to us, for instance,
think of a title for this show, you know, that'll
(11:27):
kind of set us apart. And we all went off
I talked about in the book. We all went off
and came up with these crazy titles, more Monty python
Esque than anything, sometimes just symbols, not even words. And
eventually we brought it back to the to the executives,
to the producers, and when we got there, the binders,
(11:48):
the jackets, everything, I already said Fridays, it was already decided.
And that was in a way that radicalized us even more.
But you're right, there was not an organic The actors
and writers were not like all like in one group
moving forward. There were different motivations on everybody's kind.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
Of agenda, right, And the network said, I mean, basically,
we're going to make our own comedy version of the
thing that's going on over there, and you're already behind
the eight ball when that's happening. Yes, you're not going
to make that. It's very rare that the second version
becomes the better version.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
Right. Well, we got lucky for a moment in time
because Saturday Live had one of its weakest casts, one
of its weakest couple of seasons. While we were sort
of ascended and so for a minute there we actually
gathered that audience and they were sort of turning to us.
Plus we had really cool music.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
On occasion, I watched I mean, I'm sitting at home.
What am I gonna do? I'm going to watch everything
anything that's on. I'm gonna watch that. I'm gonna watch
that live, I'm gonna watch commercials.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
We can all co exist. It could have co existed,
but at a certain point it was too much for ABC.
They were not invested in it. They wanted to own it.
They wanted the profits. The producers owned the show, and
so when the Iranian hostage crisis came along, if you
could believe it, they decided to come up with a
show called Nightline and that they owned, and they pushed
(13:15):
us back later into the schedule, and from there the
ratings started to dissipate.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
In your book, you talk about that, then you talk about,
you know, working on I guess was our senior next.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
I'm trying to about seven years later, right, You also.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Talk about like you talked to our Senio say, I
think we can we can enhance what you do in
a better way by addressing some very interesting social issues
and things in a way, like you were trying to
lift up the show to sort of be something better
than it was.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Right, well, I would have to find some justification in
my own mind for making it work. And I thought, wow,
if I could do these richer pryor like monologues for
our Sineo, that would be really cool. That would be
okay then, And this was before the show really took
off also, and he was very open to it. A
lot of people don't have a clear vision of our Sineo,
but he was actually a very cool guy and he
(14:09):
really wanted to do that. And at that point the
show started to get popular, and with the popularity came
a lot of hate. He started to getting so much
hate pre Internet hate, of course, so it was like
letters hate, letters, violent sexually violent hate mail I would
get and he had to back down. We used to
(14:31):
have to have metal screeners at the at the interest
for the audience because they were bringing weapons in, you know,
So he was he had to back down for his
own safety and take a much safer route, and the
show of course exploded.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
Anyway, what he was doing, the other backdown version was
very popular, was very popular. So it's like he can't
be you know, you can't blame the guy for saying, well,
the thing that you're doing is really popular, you doing
it well, and it's it's hard.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Don't you think now, like this is thirty years back
or whoever long it is, that just being a black
star on TV was controversial?
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Yeah, just that tell me about it.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yeah, exactly. So he had to really deal with all
that stuff. Although at the same time, part of his
radical approach was he was having bands on and groups
on and music on and nobody that Jay Leno or
anybody else would never have on a million years, and
that changed the landscape.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Also, what intrigues me though, is you're my vision of
you as a guy who sort of has artistic aspirations
trying to sort of make it in the world of
you know, talk shows or what have you. And and
I grew up in Hollywood. I know the landscape. The
landscape isn't like, oh, we are going to brace your artistry.
(15:47):
We're here to embrace your artisty. The plans cap is
we have we want to make money, right, so let
me help us make money or get out.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Yeah, and here's your here's your deadline. Every day, you know,
from the talk shows like that is a hard deadline.
You have to come up with pages of jokes per day.
We'd all get the newspapers at that time. You know,
you'd just be reading through the newspapers and desperation looking
for subject matter. You know, Yes, I held onto my aspirations,
but I also thought, wow, I don't know where I'm
(16:15):
going for I was lost. I was very lost at
that time. And I only lasted at our cineo for
a season, half of which I didn't even get a
joke on the air. So and I got fired. But
it was only because I got fired and then keenan
Ivory Wayans stood me up for a meeting in Loving Color.
That happened that Larry called me and said, hey, I'm
(16:37):
who was also struggling at that time. I'm doing this show.
You want to work on the show, We'll do thirteen weeks.
You'll make a little bit of money. And I was like, yeah,
of course, And that was Seinfeld.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Don't be alone.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Reading the book also made me think and sort of
the I don't know if it's obstinates or stubbornness, or
Larry is a stubborn guy. So I worked with him.
I would work with him is wrong. I was a
runner on It's Gary Shandling Show when he was there
for an episode of writing it, and he was furious,
like constantly do it right, and he'd want his way,
(17:26):
and if he didn't get his way, he'd be furious
and want to storm off. And got it's Gary Shandling's show.
It's literally Gary show, and so Gary's going to do
it his way. That's it's his show. But he had
no patience for it at all. And it seemed like
the confluence of that attitude with you was either going
to be very explosive, like you're going to have two
(17:49):
separate things, or it's going to be as it did,
it worked really well. So what do you think made
you sort of with your own vision and expertise and
him with his own sort of the own vision blends
so well.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Well, he was you know, he was a writer and
an actor on Fridays, right, So, and he was older
than me, and we were from the same neighborhood, and
so I immediately gravitated to him, and he immediately became like,
go I call in the book an inadvertent mentor, And
he really showed me how to navigate this business. Through
(18:23):
his lack of compromise, and I learned about integrity. I
learned about authenticity, and I learned really how to be
a man. I was a kid when I worked on Fridays,
and he was already a man, and I saw how
he dealt with these compromises and these challenges, and he
was and I was learning from him. So he was
(18:43):
somebody that I deferred to. As obstinate as I might
have been, he was somebody who I respected so deeply
that I deferred to him when it came to these
kind of matters.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Now, I of course think Larry's a genius and that
his work is fantastic. I also think, at least at
that time, he seemed a bit like a like he
really didn't seem like he's he's not addressing the world
as it is, He's addressing the world as he wishes
it was.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
We take Seinfeld out of the equation, you'd be totally right,
because without Seinfeld, that's all he would have been. He
would have been like a very talented, you know, a nut,
you know, and he probably would have struggled his entire
life without that having happened.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
The uniqueness of that show and that vision could probably
only come from somebody with that stubbornness and that way.
And the reason explodes is everybody seeing something they hadn't
seen before and say that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
And they stuck with it because they had nothing else.
NBC didn't have something better to put on the air.
It was a pretty cheap show. It was reaching a
demographic that had not been tapped into before. There was
a lot of outside you know, you know, factors that
came along that allows Seinfeld to exist long enough until
the audience really found it on Moss.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
And then when you joined the show, you felt like
you created your own kind of niche on that show, right,
So what was your niche on that well?
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I was still looking to express myself even within the
confines of Seinfeld and Jerry and George were always well
taken care of by Jerry and Larry and Kramer. Although
Kramer was a real person and a friend of Larry's
and his next door neighbor in real life, he was
very untapped on the show. He was Michael Richards, So
(20:25):
I knew for Fridays, I knew his ferocious sense of humor,
and I also knew that this was a character that
was coming in right now. He was just playing the
usual traditional neighbor who would come into the sitcom, do
his scene, mess things up a little bit, and then leave.
And I thought this guy could be much more than that.
(20:45):
He has much more potential, both the real Kramer and
the Michael Richards version of it. And I wrote an
episode that really brought him out of the apartment and
gave him a major story. And that worked and everybody
love that and they gravitated to that, and it really
kind of showcased Michael's capabilities.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Right, did you feel that showcase your capabilities? Well?
Speaker 1 (21:07):
Right, I think so too, Yeah, exactly, it did.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
It worked. So at that point in the Seinfeld era,
you still held your dreams of wanting to be a director,
but you didn't really there was no place to do that.
You're waiting for your time.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
First of all, I was from Brooklyn. I was from
you know, kind of a lower working class kind of area.
The idea of me saying even just saying, and if
I had said it out loud in Brooklyn, I would
have gotten my ass kicked, you know what I mean?
I did not I yeah, yeah, I could not utter
it out loud. It was a secret dream because I
(21:44):
was too embarrassed to go, well, actually I really like
to direct.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
I mean, it just sounds like the only person in
Hollywood who was too embarrassed to say that. Every other
person I couldn't do it.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
And there was a time on Seinfeld in fact, when
they were thinking about bringing in other directors and the
audition a number of people, David Steinberg and a few
other people, and it didn't work out. And I thought
myself at that time, should I say something. No, I'm
not going to say something that's ridiculous. Who am I
to even like suggest that I should direct. I've never
directed anything, So I kept it to myself, kept going, figured, Okay,
(22:16):
maybe I won't be a director, maybe I'll be a showrunner, right,
because a showrunner has a lot of power. The showrunner
is the tour of the show to television. Showrunner is
the director. Yes, exactly. So I worked. I went to
Mad About You. I left Seifel, I went to Mad
About You, and there I was the showrunner and I
got a lot of satisfaction. But I still had this
desire to direct. And there were four really cool directors
(22:40):
that Mad About You, each of whom taught me kind
of a lesson about directing. So I got very lucky
to sort of have that film school while I was working.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Do you judge the success of your work by the
reception from others, either the audience numbers or just by
in general accolades from people around you, or is it
something the interior.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Well, there's definitely an interior aspect to it. I mean,
if I feel good about it, I feel like I
did something, I accomplished something I kind of set out.
I accomplished what I set out to accomplish. That's good.
But I am always shocked by both the success of
things and the failure of things. And I've learned a
lot from the failure of things, you know. So failure,
I realized, is a very important component. We can't get
(23:23):
through our lives in this environment without some failure, and
you bitter embrace it in some way, or you're gonna
be very bitter very quickly.
Speaker 3 (23:31):
You seemed in the book a little naive and still
to this day a little naive. The particular example was
the Robert Redford thing where you had a movie and
it was in trouble, and you read it and you said, Okay,
here's my fix, and I'm going to go do this
fix and you talk to Redford and said, what do
you think of this? And Redford said, yeah, I like it,
(23:52):
go do it. And then you did it and you
got notes back the stinks or whatever he said, yeah, yeah,
but and you seem shocked in the book like but
he but he approved it. Yeah, as if that's not
every day in Hollywood. Somebody proves it.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
And then side of the stings, I know, I think
I'll never get used to that. Actually, you know, which
is bad.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, but I mean that is the way I am.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I mean, I can't. I was like shocked. I was
shocked that he turned on me like that. I mean,
I did not see that coming. He seemed so excited
by our relationship first of all, and then by the
idea of what I wanted to do with the script,
and he backed me all the way until I gave
him the script.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Right, But then but then you cut back something the
equivalent of you should be a shamed of yourself.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah yeah, and it's like, what were you thinking, Larry,
That's what he said, thinking, I'm.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Seen the thing.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
I thought I'd tell you right right, But that reaction,
that sort of whatever whatever happened, between the time he
turned it in and the time he read it and
his people read it, and there was a conversation and
somebody else had made him a different pitch and he
decided to go another way. Then you get the phone
call this stinks, which is basically saying we're not doing this,
thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Well, I did get some Shane Freud satisfy action out
of the fact that the version that he wound up
doing was not very good, right, So he would have
been better off doing what I was suggesting. I'm I'm
convinced of that, you know, But what could you do? Right?
Speaker 3 (25:10):
The two best outcomes when you're fired from a show
or something like that is the show disastrously glow hard
collapses under them. Aha, they did it without me, which
you could have easily done with us. It feels good.
And then the other way is you did something and
you still own a piece of it and it's gigantic, right,
and then at least you're getting money from right, whichhouldn't
(25:32):
happen to me either. Yeah, But those are two only
two good outcomes.
Speaker 1 (25:35):
Those good outcomes.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
But well, I mean, let's let's talk about a little
bit about Borat and I had seen Ali g You know,
I was very excited about a new you know, the movie,
Sasha Baron Cohene movie. Uh, you know, I think he was.
He was more well known in Hollywood than he was
in other places, and it was very exciting. You seem
to have really strong ideas is about how to make
(26:01):
something like that work, how to make it come about
in a way that and I know he had his
own people and been doing a TV show so with this,
but what you wanted a real truth behind what he's doing. Yes,
and you and I don't even understand how you did
it where you set up a situation and just did
it a bunch of times until you got stuff you like.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Well, I think one of the keys to the success
of Borat that kept it from being just another series
of sketches, really a little episodes which were all funny.
But I think the key was that he was a
real person in the world and that he had an
emotional through line. And so that was something that I
really felt I brought to the show that wasn't there originally.
(26:48):
Todd Phillips was the original director and he's a great director.
And the scenes they shot, they shot a few scenes
they were really really funny. But Todd was in the movie.
He was almost really the star of the movie, and
we had to remove him. And then the idea was,
you know, Borat is the star of the movie, and
we gave him a sidekick that he could talk to,
(27:09):
and then he had to have like an emotional sort
of roller coaster arrived and doing that engaged you in
a way that most sketch type movies would not do.
The best Saturday Live movies had that as well. They
really were able to transcend the sketch origins of the
movie and that way he hits bottom. When he hits bottom,
(27:29):
you're feeling for Borat. You're not going what's the next
bit going to be? And you could be patient and
have to go.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
With an outline of that journey of getting to hitting
bottom and did you know what that was going to
be or did you feel it out as you went.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
Well, there's both both. There was I pitched to them
this idea of a throw much more of a through
line emotionally for him, and they were very responsive to that,
Sasha particularly. But then as you're going along, you're getting
scenes that really help that, and you're getting scenes that
don't quite work for that, and you're sort of like
paring away some of the stuff that doesn't really feed
(28:05):
that idea, you know, and then you go into editing.
You know, somebody I'm just reading, Like Jean lu Goudar said,
there's five movie. When you make a movie, it's five movies.
There's the casting, there's the writing, there's the shooting, there's
the editing, and then there's the releasing of the movie.
So that's this movie was really different with each iteration
of it.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
And you and you say something in the book, which
I think is absolutely true, that Borat is the most
successful one of those things because he has an innocence. Yes,
and it's one hundred percent true. I'm on Borat's side, Yes,
no matter what he does, no matter what he has
usually anti Semitic or sane, or he's a rapist, he's
(28:45):
terrible to women, to everybody. But I'm on his side
because we explore that this is kind of where he's from,
not who he is.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
He's naive, Yes, he's naive, and he's forgiven. And it
showed the tolerance and the patience of America towards him,
and that really was helpful because it allowed him to
go much further with the scenes that he might have
been allowed to on Bruno. It was just the opposite Bruno.
And we did the first test scenes on Bruno right
out here, and people were immediately hateful. People were immediately intolerant, right,
(29:18):
and they felt comfortable getting physical with him right off
the bat, and he couldn't get away with as much.
Even though the movie is great and radical in its
own way, people did not love Bruno.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
No, Bruno snotty. Yeah, I mean he's kind of.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
A jerk and he had only selfish desire.
Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right you know.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, so it made it. It definitely made a difference.
It's interesting, and I also understand that it's a format
that couldn't continue because people would recognize him.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
Yeah, although they didn't recognize him, but Bruno was amazing.
We thought, well, that would be the thing that stops
that movie from going forward. And that's why we took
him out on Melrose here because the officers were right
down the street and we just put a crappy CVS
wig on him, you know, and a little makeup and
some clothes, and he walked on the street and nobody
recognized them on Melrose places. So we thought, well, maybe
(30:04):
we can get away with this, you know. Yeah, I
mean he's hard to miss, he's very tall, supposed to
be the platform.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
SOO sure. I'm like you in that I'll do what
it takes to make it. If I see that there's
something that I really want to get done. That's usually
because it's funny, not because I have artistic intentions, but
because I just want to make people laugh, and I
think it's good. And I think I do think part
of what's good and what's funny is having something to say.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
I do agree that it's funny for funny sakes, not
the best. The best is having something to say. But
I will suffer and I will not sleep, and I
will deprive myself of food and anything to make that work,
because that's ingrained in me the way I think it's
very much ingrained in you. Yes, But then I wonder
when I'm reading your books, like is that a good quality?
(30:53):
That's dumb? Like you've risked a lot, You have family,
you have other things going on, and the for risk
ratio may not be worth Do you feel it was
worth it all those things that do all those risks
that you described.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I questioned, it at all. I'm constantly questioning it all.
When I did that show on Netflix Larry Charles name
just World of Comedy, you know, was going to Somalia
and Iraq to interview comedians there. And I don't think
I realized the impact I had on my family. Actually,
a lot of the things that I've done have had
a tremendous traumatic impact on my family, and I think
(31:26):
I really haven't been that fair to them about that
kind of stuff. And I do have you know, I've
had this discussion my wife recently about regrets. I mean,
unlike Frank Sinatra, I have a lot of regrets, you know.
And and as Bret Garrett was saying to me the day,
don't worry. Frank Sinatra had plenty of regrets also, right,
That's right, you know, And it's like that that is
kind of the choice, the life we've chosen.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Anyway, early on, I through Gavin Or, I was introduced
to you. You seem cool, You're part of like George
Meyer and Maria Simple and you're part of this group.
And you always seemed definitely a little enigmatic, but a
little scary, a little scary. And it wasn't just your beard,
your look, but just you had a vibe about you.
(32:10):
And I'm pretty I have a pretty big radar because
I come from like a very tumultuous parent mother who
just like to survive. You have to know what's going
on around everybody, to read everybody a little bit. It's
like you have a little bit of vibe, like I
don't know about this guy. I was worried and and
and when I read the book, I go, oh, some
of it was justified with some of this stuff, because Okay,
(32:32):
you know there's a certain behavior that's inappropriate and other
stuff that's sort of not. I'm not a I don't
I'm not a moral guy. I just don't do a
lot of stuff, and I'm I don't judge people, but
it's just not into that I wouldn't get along. So
I vibed you in a certain way that I think
it was partially partially right. I don't think it completely well.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I think I've evolved also. I mean I think I
was a very out of control person for a lot
of years, and I really didn't know who I was,
didn't know what I wanted, was very hungry, was lashing
out in all kinds of directions, had an uncontrollable temper.
Did a really look I crossed a lot of lines, of.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Course, But in that in the heart of and by
the way, I've made horrible mistakes in my life too.
And it's also in service of wanting to be feel loved,
wanting to feel wanting to feel some measure of happiness
in a world where you're not feeling happy. All this
kind of angst and desire and you're trying to put
out a fire and maybe doing it in the wrong ways.
(33:33):
But so I have an incredible amount of empathy and
sympathy and connection to that is and.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
It's a comedy writer's dilemma to some degree, but I
think I do irony.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yes, it's true.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
But also there was a lot of fear. I was
afraid did I belong here? How do I fit in here?
Speaker 3 (33:48):
What do I do?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
You know? I was very lost in a lot of ways.
And I and and in a way, sunglasses, beard, long
hair was a way. It was a mask to keep
people sort of at arms.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, And I'm more willing to take the glasses off
and connect now. So I've learned how to be okay
with all.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That because why why why Because it's exhausting to.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Have a persona right, you know, it's like I don't
I'm past all that, you know, I don't need. I
would carry around worry beads and I would wear pajamas,
and you know, it was like I was like I
was being It was all surface stuff, right.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
And there's a part of the book where you say, like, oh, yeah,
I guess wearing pajamas is somehow disconcerted, like you didn't
realize that, or at least it didn't take you like me.
Speaker 1 (34:37):
Well, when I was working eighteen hours a day, seven
days a week, I'm mad about you.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
It was a practical choice, right.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
But then once I wasn't doing that, I still was
wearing the pajamas and I'd walk into a restaurant, I'd go,
wait a minute, what am I doing? You know, It's
like I snapped out of the trance, right, you know,
And that was a kind of an epiphany for me. Right.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
You know, your book has a happy ending in that
you find love. I'm alive and you're alive. You got
through a lot of this stuff. I mean, yeah, the
very have the very ending was very like that you're
going through this heart attack or whatever whatever. I'm not
even sure what that was.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
Yeah, I'm not myself, but I think it was a
heart attack, but it was not. It was like a
a fib right, Okay.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
But you're you're here, and you seem to be aware
of responsibilities to make sure that people around you who
you love, feel loved and are taken care of, Like
you're more aware of all that.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
So it really, you know, if you're if you're looking
for an entertainting story and that somebody who struggles and
gets to the end. The end to me isn't your
artistic vision. It's coming to a life that accepts love
and has love, and you care about that so much
more important, Yes, very much. Movies will disappear at that point, exactly.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Everything disappears. Everything was temporary. So all you could do
is be in that moment and love those around you
and forgive and not carry that that burden of hate
with you, you know, right. I mean I still have anger,
you know, but my is now directed more about about
the world. I see that, and that is something that
really that does bother me still, But I mean I
(36:08):
think that's a good focus for my anger to look
at the world and go, wow, this is so unfair.
There's so many people suffering. What can I do about that?
You know? And so I've tried to apply it to that.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
I'm on your feed, like I see you give on
TikTok and and Instagram or wherever there's little screeds about
we're not even the little screeds long, the diatribes about
where you're at and what's going on and who you think,
you know, how politicians and the corrupt world around us
(36:38):
is taking advantage of everybody else. And you know, to
my way of thinking, yeah, well said, all great, thank you.
It's what's what's interesting though, is like not, it's not funny.
It's not what I expect from you, and it's not
and you wouldn't be the source, it wouldn't be the
immediate source I would go to for that kind of
political commentary.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I don't know what else to do. And it's like
I would like to be funnier in those situations, but
I write them and that's how they come out, and
I want it to be as immediate as possible. So
I don't go back and kind of punch them up,
you know what I mean, I just like I let
it go, you know. And because They are sort of
like journalistic because they're there and then they're gone the
next day. You know, that is that's the way that
writing happens to be coming out today.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
Fine, you're getting a lot of feedback about that, and
I get.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
I get a lot of feedback, and a lot of
people are angry that I'm not funnier in those situations.
You know, it's like, aren't you the guy from Seinfeld?
What are you doing? You know, I just they just
realized that that's me.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
But the satisfaction rate comes from getting people. Do people
comment or people talk to you and say thank you
for saying that?
Speaker 1 (37:41):
Yes, yes, I get. I get a lot of Really,
I mean, for all the hateful comments or the negative comments,
I get mostly overwhelmingly positive comments for people who are
really happy that someone is voicing these opinions.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Don't be a.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Back to Sasha for a second. If you could give
Sasha advice entertainment wise, acting wise, what would be the
next step for him to move forward?
Speaker 1 (38:24):
He's a brilliant one of a cond comedian. He is
in the tradition of a Peter Sellers was also I'm
talking about a troublesome, troublesome personality, dysfunctional person I would
be recommending him. But this is something I told him.
What we did the Dictator, You've got and this is
something I say to myself and I say to anybody.
(38:45):
Trust your instincts. You have sharp instincts. You are constantly
being diverted from your instincts and doing things that other
people are telling you to do instead of doing what
you think you should be doing. You should be doing
the being there, You should be doing this Strange Love.
You should be doing those kind of parts that showcase
(39:06):
your diversity, your characterizations. You're one of a kind comic sensibility.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Do you think that he'll ever learn to share the stage.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Well, that's the problem. I think that part of the
reason he's not able to do that, And again that's
fear maybe on his part and insecurity. But he was
not generous enough on the Dictator to allow that to
be this kind of Strange lovey in epic movie. And
I thought that was a terrible mistake, even though I
tried to keep moving him in that direction of this
(39:36):
ensemble piece where he's clearly the star. Still like Strange
Love is a great ensemble piece. Sterling Hayden, George He's
got all these great people, but Peter Sellis is in
the center of that with all those parts. I tried
to move him in that direction constantly, but he wanted
to even turn the dictator to me, which seemed into
(39:57):
a one man show. And that's what I would I
would be trying to tell him to relax about that.
You can like Jerry's brilliance in a way, like Jack
Benny when we were kids, is somebody who was not
afraid to not be the funniest person in the scene.
If the scene was funny, he came off as funny,
of course. And that's how Jerry was, and that's how
Jack Benny was.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Just that's the great secret of comedy. You get credit
in being on screen with somebody when something funny is happening.
It doesn't have to be you.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
What are you watching or reading that you're loving that
you think is funny or great or wonderful? Right now?
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Oh my god, I've watched I started watching. I mean,
comedy wise is I find it very hard to find
things that are funny. I did stumble onto a show
called The English Teacher.
Speaker 3 (40:46):
Yeah, do you know that show?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
That made me laugh. So I was very happy about that,
but not too much else makes me laugh. I mean,
I watched mostly dramatic stuff, you know, like Mayor of Easttown.
I just watched that. I'm late, I know, but I
thought it was really cool. And there's this new show
and Mark Ruffalo done by the same people that seems
like a good show. I do a lot of reading,
but I don't read really comedy. I'm reading a great
(41:11):
book called Service by this guy John Tottingham, who's like
a poet who works at a bookstore down on the
East Side somewhere, and it's about a poet who works
at a bookstore or the side. So you know, it's
a great, great book and very kind of Bukowski like
in some ways, you know. And that's the kind of
stuff that I'm gravitating to right now. I go through
(41:33):
different periods, like I'm into it. I was into a
very science fiction period before that and reading a lot
of science fiction Philip K. Dick and things like that,
so I kind of and that's what I mean. I
like drawing on those kind of things to influence.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Like my work. All right, so now you're writing every day,
what are you looking forward to what's what what is
the on the agenda? What do you hope to accomplish?
And if you do or don't, that doesn't what else
are you looking forward?
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I'm going to try to stay alive. That's that's the age,
all right there, that's the foundation.
Speaker 3 (42:04):
Because how's that going? Well?
Speaker 1 (42:06):
So far, so good. I mean, nothing else is going
to happen if I don't stay alive. I want to
continue working. I have a couple of movies that, look,
you know, have some traction. We know how it is
if they can still fall apart. But hopefully those movies
will happen. I'm writing another book. The original draft of
the book that just came out, Comedy Samurai, was a
(42:26):
thousand pages and included my childhood up to the time
I got the job on Fridays, that whole section of
my life. I'm reworking that to maybe put that out
as another book. I'm working on yet another book. So
I'm staying prolific. I'm staying, you know, kind of fertile and.
Speaker 3 (42:43):
Creative in that book. One that never came out of
the first part of the book that never came out,
that will be booked book two eventually. Yes, the childhood
looking back and writing it and saying, this is where
I come from. What did you learn from that?
Speaker 1 (42:57):
I learned the the both pop positive and the negative
impact of my parents. I think that my parents did
the best they could. I think they loved me, you know,
But I think that my father had a lot of
jealousy and pettiness and competition with me, and he couldn't
really be encouraging of my dreams, right because they reminded
(43:22):
him of the dreams deferred for himself. And I realized
that in a way that sort of fueled me, that
sort of pushed me out into the world. Was trying
to accomplish what he had and accomplished.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
One of the great stories in the book is that
he wanted a picture with Jerry. Yes, and then there
was a picture of him and Jerry, and a picture
of him and you and Jerry, and of course he's
your dad, and so like the Seinfeld show, is your accomplishment, right?
And this is his father who could certainly put on
(43:57):
his mantle a picture of his son and Jerry Seinfeld
him saying, look at what my son did. But he
chose the picture of him and Jerry, correct, And that
says a lot.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
That said a lot. That said a lot about who
he was.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
And so he wanted and that was kind of a
culmination of what I'm talking about. I wanted the glory
and he didn't want you.
Speaker 1 (44:15):
To be first thing he said to me when I
won the when I won an Emmy in ninety three
whatever it was, and he called me and said, well,
you look fat. You know, that was his first thing
to say to me. So, you know, it's like he
never really was quite Now. Maybe he was proud and
couldn't express it. I don't know, but he did not
express this.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
And your mom, though, was a big cheerleader, right, she
was a saint, right, so she she of course she.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Was killed in a car acts right. My father lived
to be in his nineties. My mother was struck down inadvertently,
you know, in a car accident.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
But the cheerleading, you know, remains in your head.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
All the love and encouragement that somebody pours into you
doesn't go away when they go.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
And I miss her, you know, I miss her. I
missed my dad too, but I and that's the thing.
I've come to a place where I can miss my
father also.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
Right, what's the biggest mitigating factor that allows you to
forgive your dad.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
I think the place that i'm you know, I've I've
had my brush with mortality, I've had failure in marriage,
I've had failure in many things in my life. And
I'm able to get inside his head better as a
result of those things. Understand the pain and the frustration
he must have been having that as a kid. It
(45:29):
didn't make any sense today.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
This is a separate question entirely, but also reading the book,
and I wouldn't ask these questions of anybody else who
didn't write a book, honest, But since you did and
I read it and I enjoyed it, I'm gonna ask
you to analyze your behavior for a lot of this stuff.
It seems like you're a little bit of an action junkie, definitely,
(45:52):
Like so like the affairs and other thing, there's like
there's action in that you're right, right, so borat and.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
It trills the interest world of comedy right in my work.
In my private life, I have sought action, like a
compulsive gambling right.
Speaker 3 (46:08):
And then so it's the tumultuousness that sort of you know,
even though it punches in the face sometimes it's still
like action.
Speaker 1 (46:16):
Yeah, I still say to my wife now and I'm
happily married. I love my wife. Everything's really good.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
I want action. How do you quench that thirst now
chasing these projects?
Speaker 1 (46:24):
Okay, yeah, I try to. I try to channel it. Finally,
I'm channeling all of that energy into my creativity.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
Let's talk about the landscape, the entertainment landscape. Yes, so
you're gonna get movies made in a world where they're not.
They're making way less movies, and the movies that they
make sometimes come out on streaming and sometimes don't get
released and sometimes so how are you protecting these projects?
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Well, part of it is I don't care anymore if
I would prefer with certain of these projects that they
got released in a movie theater. But overall that's not
a concern of mine anymore. I want to make it.
I wanted to exist, and then wherever it's seen, it'll
be seen on a phone, on a screen, wherever on TV.
I'm okay with that first, to.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Make it just on a phone and put on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yes. Part of part of my little experiments with the
with the rants that I do is to try to
just do something that's I've done. I have a YouTube
channel and on the YouTube channel. I've made a couple
of shows and a couple of documentaries and things like
that that are just for the YouTube channel, and that's
my that's my you know, kind of entering into that
(47:30):
world because there's an audience there, and so I'm ready
to reach that audience that way. I'm okay with that.
I don't need to have a billboard on I've had it,
you know, I don't need to have the billboards. I
don't need to have the big openings. That is kind
of much less interesting to me now than making something
cool and getting it directly to people. When I did
(47:51):
Larry Charles Danger's World of Comedy, I met so many
people in Liberia and places like that who are doing
it on social media and reaching millions of people, getting
around the usual state media or government media, and that
really inspired me.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
Well, now we all get to do it the Liberian way,
right exactly ironically, Yeah, right, we're down the street from
the Paramount Studios. Liberia is a better release of your movie.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
Yes, it's a better role model.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Have I grilled you enough about your life?
Speaker 1 (48:19):
I think so?
Speaker 3 (48:20):
But I'm okay. I'm open.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
I'm an open book, as you know.
Speaker 3 (48:22):
I know, how'd your wife feel about the book?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I think she was pretty happy with it, you know.
I think she was proud so and I talked about
us in a very positive way. So I thought that
was your kids feel about it. My kids are much
more trepidacious about it, And in fact, I was thinking
they all started reading it like together, like a book club.
And I haven't heard from them recently, so I have
(48:47):
to check in and see how they're doing.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
I think they knew most of the stuff in there,
or do you think they'll be surprised by.
Speaker 1 (48:51):
I think they were worried about some of it. My
oldest daughter, I tell a story about the police coming
to our house and she's always responsible for that incident,
which she wasn't right, And she's like, Daddy, you gonna
put that in the book. And I'm like, yeah, it's
a great store, you know. And so I think they
have some anxiety about it a little bit. And so
(49:13):
I think they knew a lot and there's a lot
that they probably didn't know as well.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
Yeah, I guess there is a freedom that comes with
i'man it's all out there now, yeah, right right exactly?
Walking you're walking now? Yeah, with the with the load
up your chest.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
And I lived with lots of secrets for a while
in my life, right and it's a burden, yeah, tremendous,
stressful burden, and I don't have that now.
Speaker 3 (49:38):
It's part of the action, though, it is part of
that well, building up news exactly. All right. Well, it's
a great book. If anybody has a chance to read it,
it is. I don't know if anybody's going to have
the same perspective I do as another comedy writer who
was working at the same time and dealing with many
of the same issues the same people. So I had
(49:58):
it was. It was particularly in to me. But I
have friends who just read it. This is one of
my son's friends. Last night, we're at dinner. I said
you were coming in. He said, oh, I just read
that book. It's fantastic. He goes to Stanford, he's a kid,
and they're very They love it because they love you
know your work, and it's insightful to see how different
(50:18):
artists are.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
You know, well, I really appreciate that. That's very nice
for you to say. Thank him as well.
Speaker 3 (50:24):
I will, okay, So Daniel Rashes you. Thank by Larry Charles,
like you all right, So this is the listener mail.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
Now it's time for listener man.
Speaker 3 (50:38):
Dear Jay and guest, how do you define a great artist?
Is it someone who takes a great risk and digs
deep to reveal a truth that may only be relevant
to one person? Or is it someone who's able to
communicate an idea that is relevant to many people and
carry it in a medium that's entertaining or interesting enough
to capture the imagination of many interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I just moderate a Q and A with the artist
named Paul McCarthy. I don't know if you know who
he is. One of the Beatles, right, something that I
don't have to say, well all the time, he is.
He's a very interesting visual artist. He does a lot
of videos and things like this, very extreme stuff. And
he said, and I thought, this is really a cool definition.
He said, art is what I enjoy and entertainment is
(51:21):
what everybody else enjoys, you know, And I think that
is the difference. An artist is not as concerned with
the audience. Entertainers are more concerned with the audience reactions.
So that is a distinction. Beyond that, it's really hard
to define when an artist.
Speaker 3 (51:39):
Well, are you an artist or an entertainer.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Well, I think I actually fall in that kind of
middle ground because I feel I want to be an artist.
That I am an artist. I'm aspiring to art, but
I'm also I want the audience to respond. That is
important to me. You know, that part of me is
a very important part of me as well.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
I always thought that art was good art. Good art
is when there's an idea that an artist wants to
communicate and he communicates it through a medium, whatever that
medium is, and that the receiver gets that's something maybe
not exactly that message, but something from that art that
(52:20):
that that that telephone of idea to medium to respond.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
But is this a kind of a mystery why certain
pieces of art or artists do reach a large audience
and others don't. You know, if you look at roth Gooe,
you look at the abstract expressionist, it's like, why is
that popular? Why do people?
Speaker 3 (52:39):
What do people what?
Speaker 1 (52:40):
What's the resonance for an audience over generations for something
like that. It's kind of a mystery in a way,
and maybe it should be a mystery.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
I think, I mean we have to as being in
show as part of it is dumb luck, right, I
mean of your one decision away from being an insurance
salesman in Brooklyn. I mean honestly, so some luck is.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Such a big factor in all of this. This could
be the foundation for everything we've spoken about it.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
Something one said that you need three things, and two
of three things to survive in art one or in
show business, which is luck, talent and drive right to
any too. Yes, you'll be good at you know where
you want to go right right, it's just having one
not enough.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Yeah. Luck to me is like synchronicity is like you.
It's an essential component. Yeah, Larry, this has been great.
Thank you for being here. This is pleasure, such a joy,
And thank you for writing that book pleasure. Thank you
so much for having me all.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
The great movies and all the great TV shows.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
I'll keep trying.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
Okay, me too, and thank you for being here. That's
my audience. I talked to you in the camera even
though they're not here.
Speaker 1 (53:48):
Hi.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
You know, when you get a chance to be connective
and sit with somebody face to face, do it. Don't
get get off your computers, get off your phones. Just
the whole point of this is remind you sit with
somebody and meet somebody new, somebody but be connective. That
would be great. And write me at d v A
w JK at gmail dot com if you want to
connect with me. And if you have something to say Larier,
I'll pass it on UH And until next time, I'll
(54:10):
see you.
Speaker 2 (54:11):
Don't be alone with JJ cogain.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.