Eddie Marsan and David Arquette Transcend Typecasting

Alec talks with two very different actors. Eddie Marsan grew up in working-class London and left school at 15 to become a printer. He was discovered on a dance floor, and a patron helped him afford drama school. Marsan’s worked with the likes of Martin Scorcese, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Mike Leigh, and he often gets cast as the tough guy. It’s an image he’s ready to shed. One of his most recent roles was in the Showtime series Ray Donovan as Terry Donovan, Ray’s brother with Parkinson’s disease. David Arquette comes from a long line of entertainers. His career hit a lull two decades ago when he won a WCW World Heavyweight Championship. It seemed Hollywood scorned him due to his love of pro wrestling. A self-produced documentary, You Cannot Kill David Arquette, chronicles David Arquette’s journey to store his name and his sense of self.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Hear the Thing
from My Heart Radio. My guests today are actors from
two very different backgrounds. David Arquette was born into a
family of entertainers. His four siblings became actors. His mother
and father were actors. His grandfather, Cliff Arquette, was a

(00:24):
famous comedian. Even his great grandparents were vaudeville performers. Acting
is in his blood, but he's also a die hard
fan of wrestling, which is the subject of his new
aptly titled documentary You Can't Kill David Arquette. But first,
I'm talking with actor Eddie Marsan during the pandemic I

(00:46):
binged the Showtime series Ray Donovan. Marsan plays Ray's brother Terry,
a former boxer with Parkinson's disease. Within a terrific cast
that stars Liev Schreiber and John Voyd, Eddie Marson stands
out beautifully. These days, Marsam is an in demand actor
who has worked with the likes of Scorsese, Gonzalez Inobtu

(01:09):
and Mike Lee. But growing up in working class London,
becoming an actor was a long shot. Even now, despite
a long successful career. He struggles with typecasting in the UK.
When I spend time in America, I think it's race
and class, and I think it's the same in the UK,
probably more race in the US. Idriss is a friend

(01:31):
of mine and he had to come over to the
US and do the Wire to reinvent himself. And I
needed to come over to do Ray Donovan to kind
of get diversity in my career. Even now in the UK,
I still struggle to get diversity. They still defined me
by class. I had a really interesting conversation with Wendell Pierce,

(01:52):
is a really good friend of mine. He was asking
me what I was doing over and doing Ray Donovan,
and I said, well, when do I I never wanted
to be defined as a work class actor, and he said,
that's very interesting. Eddie said, because as a black African
American actor, I couldn't help but be defined because of
the color of my skin. He said, And what my
advice to you, Eddie is, don't seek not to be

(02:13):
defined as a working class actor. Seek to change their
definition of what it means to be a working class actor.
And that suddenly opened my mind because I was always
trying to escape it and now I kind of think
we're now embrace it, you know, And Terry was a
great embrace of that because Terry when you were quite often,
because writers write working class actors, they make because working

(02:36):
class blue color people speak a colloquial language, they make
them sound dumb. And what was great about Ray Donovan
They were inarticulate characters, but they were very articulate in
a in a weird way. Terry was a great character
because really he was the mother of the family. He
basically represents an Irish Catholic wife who can never divorce

(02:57):
John Boyd even though he's abut so as an access Yeah, yeah,
that's what it is. Yeah, it is a class system
in the UK and and but the US has much
more much still still, how do they find you to
do the Raynavent? Sure? What were you doing that you
thought spark their interest in here? I think Leev put

(03:18):
the call out to see if I could audition, and
I auditioned for that. And I love boxing anyway. I
used to dance when I was younger, so I physically
quite capable. You're dancing, you like boxing, and you were
born where bethnal Green. You're the James Cagney of bethnal
Green were learning Yeah, yeah, I never thought that. Boxing
and the beginning of two thousand four I did two movies.

(03:42):
I did Vera Drake for Mike Lee and I did
twenty one Grahams for Alejandro Gonzalez and The Routu, and
both of those movies got Oscar attention. I didn't get
Oscar attention. My parts weren't big enough, but I played
that kind of part where in Vera Drake I played
a working class London ex soldier, and I played a

(04:03):
born again Christian preacher for Bernicia do Toro in twenty
one Grahams. And on both sides of the Atlantic suddenly
people thought this guy is a good character actor. There
was an American actor who said to me, Eddie, you're
a doughnut actor. He said, in America, he said, quite
often studios picked young stars who can't act yet. And

(04:24):
he said, if you imagine a donut, the center as vacuous,
there's nothing there, but you got surrounded with something that's substantial.
He said, you've got a lot of money, you're gonna
be a donut actor. Our version of that was you'd
play the hackman role. We called it. Yeah, you were
hired to do the Gene Hackman role, which was they
had the young star who sold all the tickets and
brought in all the young audience, and then they had

(04:45):
to have someone play the Admiral of the Shippers, but
who could really act. Yeah. Yeah, So that's in a sense,
that's what I did, and that's what I've been doing
for the last twenty years, popping up and being there
and having great parts and just being really I love
being an act her and I loved at what was
media like entertainment like movies and TV. For you growing
up in bethnal Green, Hoskins was a big When Hoskins

(05:09):
came on the scene, he sounded like my father and
that was the first time I thought, that's my old man.
He literally sounded like him, and that was a big
thing for me. There was a driver, my dad was
a truck driver, Yeah, and he looked a bit like
Hoskins as well, very similar kind of man. But I
remember when I was younger watching on the waterfront and
being captivated by Rod Steiger. I always kind of knew

(05:31):
loved character actors, always did love John Robert de Vao,
love love Steiger, and and then I was fascinated by
character actors who became diverse, like John Hurt in A
Naked Civil Servant where he played Quent and Crisp, this
gay man in the fourties. And even as a child,
I was absolutely fascinated by actors, but I had no

(05:52):
means of which to pursue it. There was no drama
school for me until when well, I served an apprenticeship
as a printer, and and how will read? Then I
was sixteen to twenty out of school. Yeah, yeah, I
left school at fifteen, no qualifications. And then I was
in the club. I was dancing in the club and
somebody asked me to be an extra in a movie.
And I went on this movie set and I saw

(06:14):
an actor doing a scene and I thought I can
do that, and I had no idea how to do it.
And then and then it went from there, really And
what was the first job I got paid for? Oh?
I was in a pantomime in a in a place
called Chipping Norton, and I was a clown throwing suits
of kids and a little fucker's throw him back and
the stage show. Yeah, yeah, the first was the first

(06:36):
movie or TV part you got? I did a movie
called Gangs to Number One with Paul Bettany. He was
Gangs to Number one and I was the coward. And
I always Paul always said to me, and if you
can't be Gangs to number one, don't be Gangs to
number two. Be the cow Yeah. Yeah. When you talk
about the working class, you know, when I was first
working in this business, in the back of my mind,

(06:57):
the things that were memorable were, you know Robert Newton,
because I love Robert Newton. Yeah, oh god, I know
every every line, every facial gesture from Oliver Twist. And
so speaking of Robert Newton and Dickens that you have
a magwitch in your life, that the Pip that is
Eddie Marsen. You had a benefactor? I did, I did.

(07:20):
I had an Eastern bookmaker called Mr Bennett. Yeah, who
was Mr Bennett? Can you say? He used to run
a men's worth store, but he used to run a
book But he was a bookmaker at the dog track.
And I used to work for him. What did you
do for him? I used to I still so close
to him. I used to sell smarter and stuff I
wasn't interested in the betting side. Used to run a

(07:42):
clothing store. But he was a big bookmaker and he
said to me, what do you really want to do?
And I said, I want to be an actor. And
he said, well, if you get to get to drama school,
I'll pay, and he did. And the funny thing is,
I'm a terrible malaprop. I get words wrong all the time.
So when my first couple of weeks of drama school,
a really strong Cockney accent and I walked in and

(08:03):
he was there with his wife and I said, he said,
how's it going. I said, well, they said I've got
so with my voice, and they want me to see
a chiropodist because I never and he said his wife
said that you mean speech therapist and Mr Bennett said no,
because he keeps putting his foot in it. But this guy,

(08:25):
so this wasn't about the guy want you to clean
his guns, or drop this bag of money off at
the train station, put it in the locker for me.
None of that. Now, he was a really sweet He
was a sweet man because he was a bookmaker. If
you went into a pub with him, all the local
villains would know him, and he won't have to buy
a drink because they probably a while within money at
one point or another. I just love any story about

(08:45):
mentorship and people who have benefactors, someone who helps you,
you know what I mean. I mean if someone because
this business is so tough now, so you tell me
this guy. I love that Mr Bennett. Do we all
wish we had a Mr Bennett? Would have? Is he is?
He passed away. He's gone, he passed away. I was
working with Ethan Hawk on a movie and it was

(09:08):
it was a TV think of Moby Dick. And I
had a week off and I went to see him,
and my wife told me that he's not gonna lie.
You won't be able to get back to see him.
So I had to go and see him one morning
and I told him how much I loved him. You
did get to see him before he passed. I held
his hand and I said I said to him, I
owe you everything. I said, I owe you my career,
my happiness, my childhood, the mortgage, the debt, the stress. Everything.

(09:34):
He was Yeah, but Ethan was very good. Ethan took
me at the other end of the ship and just
sat with me while I cried, and gave me a pride.
Make sure everyone just left me alone. He's very sweet.
Actor Eddie Marsan. Another actor who outgrew typecasting is John Deturo.

(09:56):
He says, despite his success, there was a moment not
long ago when he considered a career change. I had
a sort of crisis, maybe eight, nine, ten years ago
and told my doctor, I said, you know, I'm done
with this business. I've got to do something really important,
like what you do. I said, I want to go
to medical school. I was like fifty years old. And
he was like, John, you're crazy. He was like, you know,

(10:20):
you know how long medical schools? You know? And he
said what you do is there's a value to what
you do, when I was like, no, there's not, you know,
And he talked me out of it. Here more of
my conversation with John Tuturo at Here's the Thing dot Org.
After the Break, Eddie Marsan talks about playing Terry in
the Showtime series Ray Donovan. I'm Alec Baldwin and you

(10:54):
were listening to Here's the Thing. The Showtime series Ray
Donovan is heavy. It's about a troubled family living with
the legacy of sexual abuse, and Eddie Marsan worked hard
to realistically portray the progression of his characters Parkinson's disease.
It got very dark at times. There was a darkness

(11:15):
in the piece because the thing about Ray Donovan is
what people didn't realize is it's Trojan Horse television. You
kind of think it's going to be about Hollywood and
and actually it's about three Irish brothers who were sexually
abused and can't articulated. So quite often as an actor,
you would hold all this darkness about the history of

(11:36):
being abused by priests in Boston and you couldn't express it.
So so that was tough. And for me, We've created
this story that Terry knew that his brothers were being
abused by the priests, but the priest was given his
mother solace and so if he told his mother, she
would die. So we had to allow the priests to
abuse his brothers. And he was caught between a rock

(11:56):
and a half place. And that was what the shaik was.
The shaiksa belize somebody caught between a rock and a
half place. Morally mainlyev used to get drained by it
because it was unsaid. It had to be so authentic
because it was unsaid, and so we had to hold
it within us. You started shooting the show where in California.
In California we started in two thousand and twelve. Did

(12:20):
you live in California? I used to go and live
in Culver City. Yeah. Yeah. From season six and seven onwards,
we went over to New York without the first time
You've lived any length of time in the US. No,
I've been working in the US. I mean what I
did was I made a very conscious choice that it
was a real big strain on my marriage and my

(12:41):
family life doing this show. But I knew we had
to do it. So I decided that I could work
and have family, but I couldn't work have family and
have a social life. So I couldn't go go out
in the evening. I would literally work. As soon as
I wrapped, I'd fly home every weekend. I flew home.
Now everyone in Los Angeles to London, Yeah, every weekend.

(13:04):
You know. Yeah, yeah, And I've made that choice, and
it was the best thing I've did. And your wife
was grateful, Oh yeah, and God come home. And we'd
have some days because of the schedule, you'd have three
or four days at home, and some days you'd have
one day at home. But it was just to be
there for the kids just to be a presence. You
just broke my heart. You have to make that choice.

(13:26):
And actually it wasn't bad for me. I'm not a
big social animal anyway, and I love the work and
I have so much fun at work on set. That
was your social life, that was my social life. What
was it like for you in the I know that
in film there's one director you start and finish with,
and and TV there's many directors. What did directors? Will
use Ray Donov as an example, and we'll also talk

(13:48):
about britt directors. What did the American directors on Ray
Donovan have to offer you? Were they helpful? Yeah? Very
much so. We had the show runner, Dave Hollander talk
me about the rhythm of multi season, multi episodic dramas.
He he taught me how to to set up something
in one season you'll pay off two seasons later, so

(14:11):
you don't have to pay off everything straight away. You've
got loads of time. And the other thing I learned
was that you don't have to play characters who are sympathetic.
You just have to play characters that are empathetic because
time restrictions meant that within a two hour drama, a
character had to be sympathetic over multiple seasons, multiple years

(14:34):
a character and only needed to be empathetic. You could
do the worst thing a character could do as long
as he audaers thought. If I was in that situation,
I would do the same thing. Then you've done your job.
So I began to understand the rhythm of it and
to trust it and don't force it. Also, I've never
been a big showy actor. Anyway, when I work with
Mike Lee, I learned so much from Mike Lee because

(14:56):
as an actor, you always there's always a voice in
your head which either wants to be clever or be true,
And with Mike Lee, the answer will always be true.
From that point, artist that would you know, don't show off?
Mike would always say, you've got to dig a hole
and sit in it. Well, it's interesting you look at
his filmography. He hasn't made that many films. In seventy

(15:17):
one his first movie Bleak Moments, High Hopes Come, and
he's made six films since two thousand two. Yeah, and
what did you I mean you made three films with him?
How would you describe working with him? Well, his work
is all about creating the character. There's no script you
create the character and the story develops out of the character.
And what I found with Ray Donovan because you had

(15:39):
a writer's room and the writers would come on set
and they would be informed by my performances, Terry and me,
so they would begin to write Terry based on our
own discussion. So all the characters on Ray Donovan were
analistic creation of all the writers and the actors and
the crew together because um, there was so much that

(16:02):
you were given to them and they were given to you,
And it was very much like likely is he the
only director you've worked with more than once? No. I
worked with David Leach and who's does a lot of
superhero movies, and he always pulls me in to play
this villainous part, and quite often he shoots me from
behind because when the plot doesn't make sense, I can

(16:22):
go and do a d R and say some stuff
that no one sees. My lips move. You've done a
lot of players. I used to. I haven't done place
for twenty years. We haven't. Do you ever miss it?
I do? But I never used to get offered good plays.
It was interesting what you're saying about class. When I
went over to do Ray Donovan. We were doing a
second season and it was already quite successful, and I

(16:43):
was doing nice films on American TV, and I was
playing more Diversity in America. And then my agent called me.
He said, the BBC are doing Richard the Third, and
I played Richard the Third. I toward Europe Richard the
Third years ago, and she said they're going to offer
your part. I don't know what, and I felt, great, okay,
this is fantastic. And they cooled and it was to

(17:03):
play a thief with two lines, and and and there.
I am going to work with leev and John Voights
and and dash My Hawk and and working with all
these great writers. But in the UK I was a
thief with two lines. But you should be grateful for
the privilege of doing Richard the Third exactly. Don't you
don't get too big now, don't get too hearty. No.

(17:24):
I found that Stafford Clark and other Brits I've worked with.
It was really, I mean, just the Steaks and the
uh Tony Walton. We did equest together and oh my god,
just the rigor. I said to somebody. They said, what's
the task for you? Now? I said, to remember that
every job is a chance for me to still to learn. Yeah,
someone said to me, what's change in your acting? I

(17:46):
was that guy that was standing there on the set
with that director, sobbing from the opening line, Oh God,
how can you do this to us, lady, this clinic.
You know, we need the money in Jesus Christ. And
I'm like fucking going up coming to pieces. It's totally wrong.
And someone said, I said, how's that changed? I said, well,
that accessing that reservoir of emotion, which is still relatively easy.

(18:07):
I guess I think you either have a knack for
that or you don't. I said, everything is technical to me,
it's so technical line pause, pause, like music, be b
I often think of myself as a session musician, And
I was going to ask you that. Explain why, Because
you're creating notes, and you're working in collaboration with other
other actors, So sometimes you have to play the baseline.

(18:30):
They're the lead guitar and you have to play the
baseline for them, and and and and and it gives
you a feeling of the collaboration element of the art
and fitting in and fitting in and working like music.
I see people, I'm here to play a part by
the part that fits into everything that what everybody is doing.
When you went home, did people recognize you? Do people
watch Ray Darnovan in the UK? They do? It is

(18:52):
not as big in the UK. Why do you think,
just not on a big format. I mean, the people
who watch it are obsessed with it. But in the
in the U S it's it's massive in the US.
You know, the feelings that people get from Ray Donovan,
I've never had it before because I've always been an
actor who disappears into thinks and you know, I've always
been the outer to focus, best friend, and suddenly for

(19:12):
people to love Terry, they get very disappointed when they
find out I'm not as charismatic as Terry, as decent
as Terry. No, Terry is decent and brave. Well. Of course,
there was a lot written about the fact that they
ended season seven very unceremoniously. No season eight. Was everybody
very taken aback by that, Yeah, very surprised. I don't

(19:36):
know what the decision was. I don't know why it was.
I think there was an outline for season eight. They
were going to finish the show. They had a storyline,
and I think there's always talk of coming back and
finishing it in something like a four hour or like
a two part Yeah, there's something like that. They got
that they're not done. Yeah, I won't surprise me if

(19:56):
it happened. I thought, I don't want to say this
is a spoiler. Or so you folcus out there listening,
if you are going to watch Ray Donovan, you can
turn your volume down now while I say that. One
of the most audacious sequences in the TV show I've
ever seen was when everybody thought Mick was dead and
he's not. Yeah, yeah, He's like, oh God, I blew
out the back of the bus and Jesus and he lives.

(20:20):
And you knew he was gonna live. You knew he
was gonna come back. But when he does come back,
you're like, oh fuck, this guy's the cock wroks that
won't die. One of the joys of Ray Donovan was
to watch John act. When you get him talking about
New York in the sixties and seventies and being a
young actor and he gave al Pacino a thousand dollars

(20:42):
to do a play, to put on a play, and
he talks about Bobby de Voo and all these all
these actors that he knew, and for an actor, that's
just it's just manna from heaven to to listen to
those stories. You're not mute about your politics, No, no, no,
Why as that? Well? When I grew up, my parents

(21:04):
had a very very difficult marriage. I come from an
area full of immigrants, lots of black Caribbean families, and
I kind of took refuge in a Caribbean family's house.
They kind of adopted me in a sense. So I
always felt safer amongst immigrants than I did amongst the

(21:25):
blue color white working class. And and that those people
that showed intolerance or bigotry, which is an element of
the white working class, I was always more threatened by
them than I was, and I felt safe with them.
And I was always more encouraged and inspired and and

(21:45):
nurtured by immigrants. So whenever I hear racism of any
kind or bigotry, it touches a trauma within me. And
so I have to come out and say I don't
like populism. I don't like anybody who sees things in
a very binary way. I don't trust it. I think
I might might you know, my economics, I think we

(22:06):
have to have a certain distribution of wealth because I
believe in a meritocracy, and in order for for capitalism
to be a meritocracy, someone like me has to pay
more taxes for someone like me to achieve their potential.
I don't trust populism to me. Was that guy in
the corner of the bar who can manage the England
soccer team, run the country, but never leaves the bar.

(22:28):
So you're obviously you wanted to stay. You didn't want
to leave. You were against brexit. Oh yeah. The reason
I wanted to stay within the European Union because I
think that it's brought prosperity in peace to Europe in
the last fifty years, and that's a great thing. I
think it's great for workers rights. I think I also
distrust referendums because if a politician lies, you can vote

(22:53):
them out with a referendum. They lie and it's done.
There is a populist xenophobia that has been prominent in
America with Trump and prominent in Britain with Brexit. Very similar.
It's very Any of your kids show any inclination. My
twelve year old son just did a movie. Um, yeah,

(23:14):
they're doing a movie about Roll Dahl and he plays
a young boy in roll those writing room who kind
of inspires him to write. And my daughter at sixteen,
she's just on a movie. But they spent their lives
on film sets. They have a very healthy attitude. You
didn't shield them from that. They were there, I mean
because their mum's a makeup artists. I mean, my wife

(23:36):
was much more successful than I was when we got married.
I always say I married her for a money and
so she was really so I would take my kids
to go and see mommy and they would go into
the makeup room and and on Ray Donovan, they used
to come and the crew used to give him a
radio mike, and they used to run around and give
everybody coffees and things. So they've got a very healthy

(23:57):
attitude towards it. You have a bunch of projects and
assuming that you're in a pipeline that there's a maybe
a COVID clouded pipeline. Yeah, I've got a film coming
out with Sean Penn directed flag Day. Yeah, flag Day. Yeah.
What kind of care are you play? I play an
insurance guy. Come at the end, I got a big
speech at the end. While it was a big speech,
I don't know if it's going to be a big

(24:17):
speech by the time the film comes out, but I
come out in the end, and what kind of the
piece as a drama about a young girl and a
dysfunctional relationship with her father in the seventies, and he
kind of comes in and out of her life and
Sean plays the father, his daughter plays the girl. She's
fantastic in it. It's a it's a great movie. What
was he like, what did he have to offer you

(24:38):
as a director? Well, first work with him in a
movie called The Professor and Madman in Dublin about four
years ago, and what I found with Sean. I thought
Sean was very similar to Spielberg in a strange way,
because what what Spielberg does is Spielberg dances with a camera.
You know, he kind of visually complements what you're doing.

(24:59):
And Sewn as an actor who's always aware of of
every moment, every note, every bat and when you were
being directed by him, you knew you were with somebody
who was whether where the camera was an instrument that
was complimenting you, and he was fantastic directing it. So
the chasm between the leading man and the character man

(25:20):
who is as well defined, And I always wonder to
say to somebody like you, who's as gifted as you are,
and you're truly a gifted actor, if I said to you,
you're gonna make seven eight figure salaries a year and
you'll never get to play those juicy roles where you're
going to be the number one on the call sheet
at this point in your career, would you set aside
or the nutritious juicy roles you've played to become rich

(25:45):
and famous, or do you like things exactly as they
are now? I'd like to play some leading roles. I
always in that My analogy is that a movie is
like a ghost train ride, and the central character is
a neutral character, so that they the audience sit on
the train and go on the ghost train ride, go
on the ups and downs, but the central character is

(26:05):
quite neutral, quite bland. And me I played the guy
who goes boo. I do about six or seven movies
a year, and I'd like to do one or two
movies a year and and really get into So I'd
like a career like yours are like Sean, where you
end up playing great character roles, but they are the
leading part. Are you're going to direct films. Yeah, I

(26:26):
was going to direct. My mother died a couple of
years ago. I was about to direct a film for
for BBC Films, but my mother passed away and when
she was ill, we had to I had to stop.
And because of that, I'm writing things. I have a
fascinating with American politics. What I love about America is
it's an idea and it's an idea that people are

(26:48):
trying to implement as as best as possible. Yeah. Yeah,
but it's like anything, it exposes people's shortcomings. Some people
think it supports their bigotry, and other people it inspires generosity,
and I think that's fascinating. I want to tell you
again that I watched seasons five, six, and seven of

(27:10):
Ray Donovan. It's on showtime anytime for people that are
out there, all seven seasons. Eddie Marson, I mean you
you really you ripped my heart out. Thank you were
ripped my heart out. I mean the it's the sweet
and the sour, it's those extremes. It's the dignity and
the malevolence, but the whole range is there. Not many

(27:30):
people get that, and that's what you did on that show.
You got everything out of that part you possibly can.
You were great in that fucking show. Great, Thank you
very much, Actor Eddie Marson. David Arquette has seen some
turbulent times, a very public marriage and divorce, rehab, a

(27:52):
heart attack, and a career that's stalled in part because
he won a pro wrestling championship two decades ago. But
David Arquette comes from a long line of performers, and
he knows how to reinvent himself. My dad was a
big improvisational actor, and we did a bunch of that
growing up. That was built into sort of our playtime.

(28:15):
But I wasn't really serious into it until high school.
Where school Fairfax in Los Angeles? Where were you living
one part of town. We lived right down the street
from Paramount Studios, right in Hollywood, But back then it
was pretty crazy area at the time, punk rock and
roller skating and you know, just all this bizarre world.

(28:39):
Then I got into break dancing and graffiti and I
was kind of like all into that world. And then
they were doing a school play. They couldn't find the
lead and they approached me, and then I met my teacher, Bendibaldo,
who had a real impact on my life. Helped me
focus on just acting and like getting into acting. And
where were your sisters at that point in your family?

(29:01):
At the point were they all dabbling in it? Like
in my family literally because I'm the oldest, My brothers
were sitting around in the den of our house and
I was doing a soap opera, you know, and they
were sitting there, stoned out of their mind and say, now,
if ship Head here can get on TV, why can't
we get on TV? You know, there was really the

(29:21):
such contempt for me that launched their careers. Who was
the first one to jump in the pool of your
famous siblings? Rosanna really broke down the door for this generation.
I mean, my great grandfather was cliff ar Ket Charlie Weaver,
and then my father and my mother was also an actress.
But then this generation, it was Rosanna. She ran out

(29:44):
to Hollywood and stayed with the family that we were
friends with when she was like fifteen or sixteen. Patricia
then got into it, so they were both working actresses
when I was in high school. And this fascinates me,
this whole family thing, because you walt to such distinctive personalities.
Did you have a similar goal? I don't know, there

(30:04):
was eleven years difference between me and Rosanna, So when
I was a teenager, she was a woman like starting
her career, and I always remember like seeing some of
her early work and being really impressed by it, like
the Executioner Song and Big Blue and After Hours. I mean,
she was doing such incredible work and I was just

(30:24):
in awe of her talent. We all have this improvisational
bass because my dad was a working actor like forty
five years, so he'd do industrial films and commercials, and
I was still on the Walton's and just kind of
paying the bills. So there was also a real kind
of blue collar element to acting for me. I still

(30:47):
kind of hold that even though I love theater, I
fell in love with theater. I've been able to do
a couple really beautiful plays and a couple of real stinkers. Well,
what's one you enjoyed and where? Describe where were My
favorite play was at the Geffen. It was called The

(31:08):
Female of the Species and that Benning was the lead
in it, and I learned so much just watching her.
But Net Benning, who has that rare distinction of someone
who became a movie star based on the performance in
a play, she did them, the play Coastal Disturbances, the
Tina how Play on Broadway with Tim Daley. I've always

(31:30):
found it if I need something to kind of get
my mind right, like to get my feelings right of it,
what am I doing and why? Because movies and TV
has been so daunting for me. I go to a
play and all of a sudden, then I I just
feel better, like if we were doing a revival. It
was a famous piece of material, and it was a
process that I was much more familiar with. It was
movie making just seem like, man, you gotta be lucky.

(31:51):
You know, you need a lot of luck in this business. Definitely,
When did the luck come for you? When did you
first feel lucky? I did a film called On His
Way Back that was sort of my first indie film, Darling,
that went to festivals and people sort of appreciated it,
and I think from there, I did a film called
Dream with the Fishes. I really loved that experience. Who

(32:13):
was the director, Finn Taylor, really amazing writer director. She
was brilliant. It's one of my favorite films that I've
done because it's based on a true story and just
really had a lot of hard and really beautiful music
in it, and I got to work with this actor
Brad Hunt, that I've still dear friends with. And then

(32:34):
what happens in terms of you make a movie that
makes a huge amount of money correct they scream and
that movie makes bags of money, and then what happens
do you all of a sudden you decide now I
need to do different movies. I could select sort of
more films that I wanted to do. I had met
Courtney Cox, my ex wife, on Scream that had been

(32:55):
become a big focus of my life, just my relationship.
And then I did a couple uh studio movies, but
they're kind of It was funny. I was watching this
documentary on the casting director of of Midnight Cowboy, and
I'm all captivated by this beautiful story of this incredible

(33:16):
artistic casting director and she cast one of my favorite films. Yeah,
and I'm watching it and I'm like loving it. And
then she was like, then the studio made me start
casting crap. And it's like the show picture of me
c spot run the movie. I had done a kid's movie,

(33:37):
you know, So I was like, oh, it was like
this gut punch. I know, people are really selective about
what they do and the protective of their careers. And
I'm getting that more now, but I never really was.
I'd always do like a kids movie if I wanted
to do a kid's movie, or or horror film, or

(33:59):
I do a fun like I did this movie Eight
Legged Freaks, which was like a throwback to the sixties
kind of creature features like I love all that stuff.
So I never saw it as selling out or you
weren't calculating enough. Now you know you made the mistake
of doing what you wanted to do right right, as

(34:19):
opposed what they wanted you to do, you know now
at the same time, because I don't want to dwell
on this too much, but I just find the counterpoint interesting.
When you met Courtney on Scream, she was on the
TV show already or no, yeah, she she was on Friends.
They were in like their first or second year, so
it was very early on. And then she when she
comes out the other end of that tunnel. She's one
of the most famous women and she's part of one

(34:41):
of the most famous TV shows in history. You were
married to her for how long thirteen years or twelve
years or something, so that run of that show, you
were pretty much the run of the show. Yeah, through
the run of the show. We have a sixteen year
old daughter together now, but yeah, through the run of
the show. You know, when you were with someone in
that acting relationship, I became her husband a lot, you know.

(35:05):
You know, you become second fiddle to a certain degree,
or like there's an effect on your career in a sense,
or you even just in any relationship. You just have
to start making choices. Like I remember I was up
for a role with High Fidelity, but I had already
committed to me and Courtney doing this film together called

(35:26):
The Shrink Is In, And Stephen Fears called me in
the office. He said, come on, you gotta do this movie.
You know, I know you have the film with your wife,
but marriage is temporary. Movies are forever. Yeah, right, I
had guys call me up. I had guys call me
up and they said they were like, we can always
get you another wife out, Like, I mean, you know,

(35:47):
let's get serious. Did you get that sense from her
that the goose that lays the golden egg and you
have to really really protect that there were risks that
she couldn't take in her career. Yeah, for sure. I
definitely had to watch my self. I was a bit
of a wild character anyway. But when we had our daughter, Coco,
I remember the paparazzi at this point in Los Angeles

(36:08):
had just gone crazy. They were like gangsters with cameras
and they would like provoke fights with me, and I'd
be like screaming, like I got this protective instinct of
my child. It was like, you know, you know about
I wouldn't know anything about that, David, I have no
idea what you're talking about. Paparazzi threatening your wife, your child,

(36:30):
and you become really really activated over that. I have
no idea what you're talking about. I know. It's so
it's gets so crazy. It was a weird time because
we were she was like the darling and and all
that stuff, and you start going to all the parties
and you start meeting all the big people and all
the stuff. And then we got a divorce and I

(36:51):
just kind of like really took it hard. I started drinking,
just heartbroken. That was a tough time just to sort
of bounce comes apart. When there's no kids, obviously, it's
a it's different when those kids involved. You know. When
I got divorced and have my daughter Ireland. It was
fucking agony, man, it was fucking agony, you know, just

(37:14):
to be another statistic, you know. Now, let me ask
you this, your sister who was born your brother Roberts, right,
if I read correctly, Alexis didn't emerge till she was
really in her thirties correct well, within the family, she did.
She came out in her late teens, nineteen or something,

(37:36):
and my mom was really liberal and she had a
really hard time with it. That was really a weird
time because we're like, Mom, you're like the most open minded.
She had a hard time because she knew it was
just gonna be a hard life for Alexis. But then
she did the wedding singer and she was boy George
and that, so she kind of did certain roles where

(37:57):
she showed that side, but she didn't really come out
like publicly until she was ready to say, I only
want to do you know, either female or transgender parts,
And that's where she kind of came out publicly early
two thousand's two four that yeah, I was reading about

(38:17):
her and said she was born in sixty nine, so
that makes her like thirty five years old. So she
was living with that and and and keeping that close
until she was thirty five years old. Oh, when she
was thirty five, that's when she became a woman. But
then at the end of her life then she wanted
us to refer to her as our brother again before

(38:37):
she died. So it's like this confusic thing where I
say my brother and my sister. But towards the end,
Alexis was like the female side of her, or her
wanting to be a female she realized was connected a
lot to sexuality. So at the end she wanted to
be referred more to as our brother. David Arquette follow

(39:02):
Here's the Thing on the I Heart Radio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there,
leave us a review. When we return, David talks about
why he wanted to get back in the ring for
his new documentary You Can't Kill David Arquette. I'm Alec

(39:29):
Baldwin and this is Here's the Thing. David Arquette is
a long time real deal fan of professional wrestling. In
the year two thousand, he won the w c W
World Heavyweight Championship, a title he held for twelve days.
An achievement that was mocked by wrestling fans and Hollywood alike.

(39:50):
His career stalled, he let himself go, and then he
decided to get back in the ring. It's all captured
in a documentary released last year whose idea was the
movie you Can't Kill David Arquette. You can't. And by
the time I was done watching the movie, I mean,

(40:10):
I thought, that's a cute title. That's a fun title.
This is his middle aged crisis. You know he's up there.
It was like my third middles his third When it
came around to his third midlife crisis, he decided to
film it. That's genius. So you do this movie. And
I watched and by the end, I was like, Wow,
that's a very apt title, because you can't kill David

(40:31):
ar cat When did this wrestling thing begin? And why?
What's the funk were you thinking? Well? I did a
movie called Ready to Rumble years ago. It was one
of those like three studio films I did that kind
of didn't get received very well, and it didn't even

(40:51):
get received very well by the wrestling community at the time.
It's a really over the top comedy, but it's since
kind of grown some cult status. So I did this
movie Ready to Rumble. It was through Warner Brothers. Warner
Brothers at the time owned w c W, which was
like the competiting brand to w w E, the two
largest wrestling companies, and to promote the film, I went

(41:14):
on and I did some like appearance and got involved
because Diamond Dallas paid a big wrestler at the time,
and he's also the star of the film Ready to Rumble,
and we'd become friends through the process. So I came
and I did some in ring thing and it got
a really good reaction from the crowd. So they brought
me back to do a second thing and they said

(41:35):
we're going to make you the champion. That was wrestling fans,
So I was like, no, that's all. Yeah. And since
I was a kid. For since I was a kid,
I always loved it. I'd go to the matches throughout
the years and I saw Andre the Giant as a
kid and it just kind of blew my mind. I
just love it because my family goes back to Vaudeville.

(41:58):
There's such a like a circule, this kind of connection.
I love clowns. I love you know, the circus world.
You know wrestling was kind of connected to that, and this,
you know sport that I believe for a long time
was a normal sport where it's not sort of predetermined
like it is. So it was like an opportunity. And
all these guys that I was fans of, Hulk Hogan

(42:19):
and Macho Man were all at this company, and so
I was like, Oh, that would be amazing, and they
said we're gonna make you the champion. I was like,
that's a terrible idea. Domdal's page said, well, listen if
you if you don't do it, then it's over. There's
no more promotion to ready to rumble, there's no more wrestling,
like that's it. And I said, well, what if I
do it? They say, you get to come with us
for the next two weeks, travel with all this whole show,

(42:42):
and you know, you're the champion for two weeks and
then you'll lose it at the pay per view. I'd
rather be champion for two weeks than not at all. Exactly,
That's what I thought. I thought, Oh, be the fan
that finally became a champion. But the fact that I
was a comedic actor from Hollywood, the they saw it.
Married to some girl on sitcom. They didn't go for it,

(43:05):
and they've projected me. They hated me for twenty years.
They'd spit on me and yelled the most horrible things
and like trying to pick fights with me and all
this stuff. And then the internet, Who's day? The fans
fans wrestling fans and it was second. So you were
the champion for two weeks and they rejected you could
then though you were a Hollywood poser. Yeah, you're a

(43:27):
Hollywood got to like get drunk with Rick Flair in
a ball married to her. It was a huge baggage
for you. Yeah, you need to be married to a
woman with like scars on her face and everything. But
so you're married to her and they think you're a
Hollywood poser. You do this for two weeks, But do
you find that all of a sudden you want to
get into the wrestling thing for real because you're sick

(43:47):
of people thinking that you haven't got what it takes. Yeah.
I mean when we were younger, we used to scrap
all the time, get into little rumbles and fights and
all this stuff. You know, But was it your pride
the triggered you? Yeah, it was. I I hated that
they were like, I was a wooss you know what
I mean? They just treated me like this, like little

(44:10):
punk being bullied. I was constantly being bullied for like
and I was like, shut up, I'm gonna prove my show.
You show you? Yeah? I did? And how does that beginning?
Who do you go to? Sit there and go I
really really want to get into this. Who do you
tell that to? It built up for years and then
I had two stints put in my heart. I had

(44:32):
a really bad reaction to a stress test. I thought
it was having no hard attack. And when I came
out of it, I told my wife I've been really
thinking about wrestling. She was like, what are you talking. Yeah.
My current Christina, who's incredible. She produced the film You
Cannot Kill David or Catch was McClarty. McClarty and she

(44:53):
was a correspondent for E. Yeah. She went to n
I U as a journalist and then did local news
and then then E and we had met sort of
at an eighties boat party. She's just such a badass,
Like the skill set that she got from being a
journalist goes right into being a producer. So incredibly well.

(45:15):
And her her uncle was like a chief of staff
to Clinton his first term, so she just could really
get stuff done. Two stents in your heart, You I
want to begin my wrestling career, Well, it was what
did your wife? I literally was watching my life and seeing,
like my friends, my family, my children, well kids, Well,
this is a life if I if I don't make

(45:36):
it through. And I didn't have like many regrets necessarily,
But then I was thinking about wrestling. It was so
strange to me that it was such a high on
the list of like things that still were kind of
gnawing at me. So I told her everyone wanted to
return to wrestling. I also knew I had to lose

(45:57):
a bunch of weight and get in shape, and I
just thought if I were to do this process, it
would be fun to film it so that I could
give wrestling fans a glimpse of the experience I had
when I first wrestled. So the film covers the period
of your launching of your legit wrestling career. Yeah this

(46:19):
is twenty years later. Now twenty years later, two stants later,
divorce later, You're gonna launch her wrestling career And Christina
doesn't sit there and call her a divorced Lawyer. She
seems like she really got it together. What was her response?
She thought it was crazy she did. It's all in
the in the film. You know, there's also like this

(46:40):
whole undertone was like my love for Randy Kaufman. Uh,
he always loved wrestling. He actually went to Memphis and
like wrestled for a year or two. Randy Piper was
one who slapped him. That was Jerry Lawler, JR. Lawler,
j Lawler and he also I've wrestled Jerry Lawler in
the in the Doctor Ventary, I got of the do

(47:01):
a pile driver just like Andy, but it literally messed
my neck up to this day. It's it's so much
more dangerous and painful and like how physically challenging than
anything I've ever done before. I never knew like how
how real it is, Like it is more there's more
contact than you think. So my view of it, I mean,

(47:25):
my sense of it is I think most people share
this is that it's an extraordinary amount of physical conditioning.
These guys and these women who do this look great.
They're all athletic and ripped up and strong and powerful
and muscled up and everything, and there's just enough reality
and just enough violence to make it look real. But
it's all choreography, and I mean there is some spontaneity,

(47:46):
but it's all worked out for the safety of those involved.
You don't take somebody and smash their face through the
glass table, you know, sometimes people do. Actually, you know,
it is all like worked out. But what you learned
very quickly that people in the ring sometimes have other
things going on in their life. There's something called a receipt,

(48:07):
Like if somebody hits you with something, you can get
a receipt to hit them back at some point. A
lot of stuff happens in the wrestling ring. That's not
when you work with like super pros, like the real pros.
You could get in a ring with them and everything smooth,
and you know, it looks like they're killing you. It's beautiful. Yeah,
what was the most painful thing that happened to you
in the ring? We had this death match where I

(48:29):
got stabbed in the neck with a light tube and
that was pretty in those painful Yeah, that's the film,
but that actually wasn't the most painful. I think the
pile Driver by Jerry Lawler or um I got put
through a table through my back out against Bully Ray.
Those were some of the most painful. You hit the
mat so hard all the time. I got this kind

(48:51):
of reoccurring whiplash is pretty much what it is. One
of my muscles that connects my shoulder to my neck
just has never been the same. But the really interesting
thing is you learn a lot about acting like it
has to be real, Like you have to tap into
these emotions that you could tell a story without making

(49:12):
a sound. You have to show that you're scared or
like now you're filled with ancor yeah, and and it's
all in your eyes and it's all in this thing.
But it's also when you get into a wrestling room,
time speeds up. You'll do something and think like I'm
gonna stop to the corner like an upset little kid,

(49:34):
and I'll watch it back and I like, run to
the corner. I was like, wait a second, I thought
I took so much time doing that, But when you
watch it back, it's so much quicker. So it teaches
you to really be in the moment. There's this connection
with an audience that you don't even have enough play.
It does like then move into this, Oh, you're doing

(49:56):
a sport, You're combining. Like I was in my therapist
office and I was like, oh, because my least favorite
thing in the world is war and violence towards others,
and I don't want to hurt anyone. So I was like, wow,
that's my least favorite thing, and here I am simulating violence.

(50:16):
Did this work that you put in for the film,
the wrestling thing and coming back twenty years later, did
that rekindle your love of acting as well? It did? Yeah,
it did. It grounded me for one. It made me
really just grateful for life. There's something that I've always
tried to do is sort of stay in touch with people,
you know what I mean, not get all caught up

(50:38):
in Hollywood and that world. I like people. I like
really interesting characters that you'll meet in the world. So
you find a lot of them in the rest of
the world, and you see a lot of like human
nature in the rest of the world. And yeah, it
keeps you grounded. What did your sisters say about there?
They here in the film very fleetingly. What did they

(51:00):
think about you getting light tube smashed in your face
and all the stuff? Yeah, that wasn't Everyone was really
upset about that. My wife was like, I just feel
like you want to die, and I was like, I
don't want to die, but I've definitely been beating myself up.
I don't want to die, but I'm thinking about it. Mulligan, Honest,
there's definitely a sado mastochistic element to deathmatch wrestling. People

(51:23):
are doing it for some reason. They're beating themselves up there,
numbing themselves, They're kind of experiencing this. It's also this
connection with these fans that are watching it and they're
like blood hungry, like they freak out. There's like when
I went into that room, they hated me, like they
literally did not like me, and then when I was

(51:45):
leaving they were cheering me. So I kind of want
them over in that moment. So here's this image I
have of you because I've seen other people like this.
I've seen people in the forty years that I've been
working as an actor since nine, I've seen people where
like the path you can take, and of course there
are diverse paths, they're not all the same, but you
achieve a certain place in the business where you can relax.

(52:08):
You know there's work there if you want. It isn't
always what you want to do, but one for them
one for you. You can make a little indie movie.
It's a clever part. Now do you think that's true
of you? Do you think there was a point where
you just sat there and said, fuck this, man, I
just can't. I can't be what they want me to be. Yeah,
I don't. There's a lot about the business that doesn't
appeal to me. And I just I'm horrible at auditions,

(52:31):
So just doing auditions. But I've done a bunch of
like little scrappy films just to like help first time
directors and this and that. Like you know, I've been
acting for thirty years, and I mean that's set just
super ultra low budget, just to still stay sort of
connected to it all. It's a long journey, you know.

(52:52):
And you're starting out and come to l A and
you your grandfather is this famous actor, and your sisters
become famous, and then you marry the prom queen and
you go through everything you've gone through and look where
you are now you're married. Your wife saidal yeah, you
have a lot to be grateful for. You got two
little kids. You're still alive, even in spite of your

(53:14):
best efforts, You're still alive. Yeah, And I get to
have an interview with one of my heroes. You really
are incredible actor. I've always been a huge fan. Listen.
I hope you have a lot of great things coming
up for you, man, because I think that you're really
You're just so original, you know what I mean, You're
so I watch you in that movie, and I hope

(53:35):
people watch this movie. They've got to see this movie.
You can't kill David Arquette. It is really, really, really
a lot of fun to painful. There's a lot of
it's funny. I appreciate it. Thank you. That'st of luck
to you, buddy, to my thanks to actors Eddie Marston

(53:55):
and David Arquette. We're produced by Kathleen Ruth, Carrie Donohue
and Zach McNeese. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Thanks to
Sarah every and Justin Wright. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the
Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.