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Steven Weber
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Interviewer
Look at you a bona fide network television star. Those used to matter in this town.
Steven Weber
Feast your eyes.
Interviewer
Wings Chicago Med I'm glad to be talking to Steven Weber for a number of different reasons to probe his psyche, but also a lifetime in Hollywood.
Co-host/Comedian
Has it been what you expected because you've arrived at great successes, But I
Interviewer
imagine the dream looked different than whatever happened when it arrived.
Steven Weber
Well, the odd thing is that my dreams were mid level. I was raised lower middle class guy and so my dreams were lower middle class. I I never envisioned kind of a classic Hollywood scenario, you know, glitter and starlets and awards and all that stuff. I always wanted to be a very kind of utilitarian working actor and that came from growing up in New York and doing early stuff. You Know on a soap opera and seeing the behind the scenes, having a father who was an agent and manager of comedians and so I saw the backstage.
Interviewer
Grandfather too, right?
Steven Weber
My grandfather too, yeah. So when I came out to Hollywood, I wasn't shocked or were aiming for something higher. I came out here working and, and so that's. My expectations were always fixed in that. On that level.
Interviewer
Given what your parents did though, you had no shot but to be somebody who was going to be an entertainer. Right.
Steven Weber
Because I don't know, I mean, maybe, I don't know. The thing is, I describe my upbringing as being benignly neglectful. So I could have gone in any sort of direction, but my proclivities were more towards performing. And so I guess I found my way there. But I don't know if they, my parents background, my mom had also been a nightclub singer in the 50s, necessarily pushed me in that direction. But that was certainly the prevalent kind of flavor in my household.
Interviewer
You know, benignly neglectful because they were busy working all the time.
Steven Weber
Yeah, they were busy working and they themselves weren't schooled in how to parent. I mean as a, as a parent of sons of a certain age, now they're in their 20s, I realize how woefully unprepared I was to be a parent and everything that that entails.
Interviewer
I mean that's not unique to you though.
Steven Weber
Everybody is not unique. That's right, that's right. But. Well, the same way people accept that they, they must have, they must be married or they can have children, it rarely goes beyond that kind of first step or that first expectation. There's so much that goes into the making of, let's say a marriage or a relationship or being a parent that isn't really spoken of or expected from these young idiots who go into it unknowing.
Interviewer
And you have learned what from parenting? It's a broad question.
Steven Weber
It's a huge mistake to even try it. I mean that it takes enormous effort and that the irony is, I guess as fit or able physically or maybe emotionally as one might think they are to become a parent. It's a full time job even beyond feeding and housing this kind of burbling,
Interviewer
massive protoplasm thing that will die if you don't take care of it.
Steven Weber
That's right. You have to model a certain kind of behavior. And I didn't understand what that was until late in my being a parent. It's more than just telling them and then living your life apart from rules that you're imposing on children. On these kind of malleable blobs. You have to. At least for me, I realized that I had to model certain behavior certainly for sons. And I think sons are different from daughters and male different from female. And that's a whole other.
Interviewer
Don't get too controversial here. Be careful. You don't want to get aggregated in these modern times.
Steven Weber
Their genitals are different.
Interviewer
Yeah, you're talking about something there though. When being ill equipped to be a parent, anybody can feel that. But you were young and an actor, so I imagine without trying to make too many judgments, you were probably pretty self involved or at least selfish, the way young people can be selfish.
Steven Weber
I was self involved, I don't think to the point of deep narcissism. It was very superficial. I enjoyed the affirmation I got from people, but also I didn't give it that much weight. And part of my issues, my personal issues with that was that I didn't give a lot of things very much weight. Perhaps I should have. I should have given things more thought. And that goes into my. My profession and the kind of actor I was and am less of now, but absolutely became, which is to say that I liked light entertainment and I approached life in that same way. And so I had a degree of self involvement that I suppose one requires to be a performer, but I don't think it was dangerously narcissistic.
Interviewer
So. But when you say light, then you were fun, you were enjoying it. Putting it in its proper perspective suggests that you are actually interesting and not interested in only the vanities that are provided out here.
Steven Weber
I would say I'm pretty interesting, but I am vain. But the thing is that I'm not. What am I? I never gave too much import to it, too much gravity to it. And maybe that was a function of, as I said before, the kind of upbringing I had, which I immediately saw what was behind the veil. I immediately saw how human everybody was and how flawed and can you curse?
Interviewer
Yes.
Steven Weber
Fucked up people who are.
Interviewer
And that was really liberating for you. That really came from your bowels.
Steven Weber
Just shat my pants, Sue. At the same time, you know, so again, my, my expectations weren't false. I realized that there was a reality behind how show business is presented.
Interviewer
Did you have other jobs? You started as I. Because I thought as a child. Your first job as a child act was as a child actor?
Steven Weber
Yeah, I did commercials as a little kid, but even that was very superficially kind of attended to.
Co-host/Comedian
I mean, the faith you're making suggested you were deeply Bored as a child doing the silliness of television commercials. You're looking down on the child actor you were, and look at this shit, doing commercials.
Steven Weber
It was just folded into the routine of living, like I say, a lower middle class life and a lower middle class neighborhood in Queens, New York. And it didn't leap out as anything special. And again, that might be a function of the background that my parents had, that this was their way of life and they knew a couple of show business types, but they ate dinner and they drove to work and they, you
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know what I mean?
Steven Weber
So it wasn't special. They weren't royalty.
Interviewer
You also weren't dreaming of Hollywood as if it was a dreamy thing because it's your normal right or something. Something close to. It's not this far away place that's gonna take you away from everything as an escape from all your woes.
Steven Weber
To me, it wasn't an escape at all. I didn't have anything to escape from because I had a reasonably pleasant upbringing. That said, there was dysfunction all around me and perhaps my, you know, my attraction to performing or show business was my, I guess, escape in as much as any kid, you know, wants anything, has something that they like that they will indulge themselves in, whether it's sports or art or math.
Interviewer
What was the dysfunction that was surrounding you?
Steven Weber
The dysfunction was that my parents had a. They were mismatched, age wise. My father was 15 years older than my mom. My father's upbringing was very dysfunctional, came from a very har household, in contrast to my mom's, which was very, very loving. And my father was a Korean War veteran who had lots of tamped down, you know, anger and had definitely had ptsd, which had occurred to me years after the fact. So he was quick to anger, lots of resentment and a kind of inability to focus his emotions, his love. I'm sure he had some thwarted ambition thrown in there. And I don't think my mom was at first prepared for all of that. And so that's what was swirling around in my home as a kid. I had a sister who passed away in 1990, but she was three years older than me. And so she was able to, I think, detect more of what was going on around me and actually have it impact her more, at least in the immediate, I believe. Whereas I was just, just a kid and loved watching TV and mimicking Alan Funt and commercial jingles of the day and all that stuff. So that kept me happy and afloat and I absolutely was present for and glimpsed A lot of the dysfunction, but my head wasn't, you know, I wasn't in it.
Interviewer
Well, it sounds like you're apart from it, but it sounds. I don't know if it's coping mechanism, escapism, or you're accurately describing your childhood when you say all of that is benign. Father with a temper problem. Whatever a child is experiencing there, I wouldn't think it's benign. Maybe because your sister was older, she had some sort of perspective you weren't mature enough to. But what you're describing doesn't just sound casually like, ah, I was. You know, it was good. It was good enough. It sounds like a father with a temper problem and ptsd, it would be something.
Steven Weber
It was that. But, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't 24 7. It wasn't every minute of the day. I wasn't waking up in some sort of Dickensian workhouse knowing that as soon as I get up, somebody's going to come at me with a stick. You know, we threw a baseball, we had breakfast, we watched tv, we laughed a little bit. But there wasn't a lot of integration beyond sort of perfunctory expressions of parental love coming my way. Now, that's mostly my dad. My mother was, like I say, extremely loving and fun, but she was fighting a different front with her relationship, in her relationship with her husband, my father. But again, look, maybe I'm describing something just for dramatic effect, but the reality was that I describe it as benign neglect. The benignancy. Is that a word? The benignness. The benign aspect of.
Interviewer
I'd say benignity, but I don't.
Co-host/Comedian
I don't think I've got it right either.
Interviewer
Now you've got me, Fennick.
Steven Weber
Nasty. Well, you're from Florida, so. Beignet. The beignet of it all. That's New Orleans.
Co-host/Comedian
It was my weight. That was Freudian. What just happened there, that was subconscious. You attached a beignet to me just by looking at.
Steven Weber
This is your dysfunction. Let's talk about that. You're well proportioned. You're not. Your weight. You're fine.
Co-host/Comedian
Thank you. You're well proportioned. I am charmed by you. I've just been touched. Charming. My glasses have fogged up. From you. Just saying the compliment.
Steven Weber
I'm well erotic. A minimum here.
Interviewer
The benignity.
Steven Weber
The benign. The Benini, the Benito Mussolini of it all. It was benign. You know, there were moments of. Terror is too much of a word, but there were moments of, you know, concern when they, you know, when their arguments would get out. Of control, you know, but. But I mean, again, it wasn't 24 7. But getting back to the question about. Or what we talk about in terms of parenting, I realize that kids absorb everything, even if they don't stop and say, wow, something horrible is happening. They could be. As I was watching TV and imitating jingles, but there was shit happening on the periphery that entered my consciousness.
Interviewer
Well, it seems like it's clear escape. And it led to some of the choices that you made afterward. You also.
Steven Weber
I think so, yeah.
Interviewer
Something else in there that you sort of skipped by, which is, I'm assuming, the adult in you now can see that your dad was frustrated by being the manager of comedians instead of perhaps being the comedian.
Steven Weber
Well, the story there. There was definitely frustration as to the specificity of what it was. I can only believe that it had to do with the fact that his father, a guy named Willie Weber, who's known to a certain generation of older comedians, was a guy that was known for managing a young Jackie Gleason, managing a young Don Rickles. But before that, he had grown up. He was an orphan in Harlem at the turn of the 20th century and fell in with Jewish gangsters. There were Jewish mobsters that were featured in the show Boardwalk Empire and a guy specifically named Waxy Gordon. I mean, you can't make it up. And my grandfather was a very tough, probably extremely antisocial dude, and he was a diminutive, kind of skinny Jewish kid who nonetheless found himself amongst these arguably awful guys and role models. And. And in fact, at some point, he did time for two years in prison in the place of some other gangsters. So he took the fall and thus endearing himself to mobsters for the coming decades when he became a theatrical agent. Clearly he and my father had no, you know, comic. They had no sense of humor. First of all, I don't know what kind of creative elements they had in them to spot talent, mold talent. I used to see my father giving his comedians notes afterwards. And I'm thinking, now, even at the time, I thought, my father can't even tell a joke. I mean, I. I don't know what qualified him to do this, but he was able to do it, and his father, too.
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Steven Weber
Offer Ltd. Time offer so you know, I forgot what we were talking about.
Interviewer
Well, there are a number of things here. That story you told about your grandfather is am just a great story, but I was talking about where you had mentioned your father was frustrated that he hadn't gotten somewhere else in life. And it also made me wonder as it applied to you, whether he was proud of you or jealous or both.
Steven Weber
So yes, so thank you for getting me back on track. I don't think my father wanted anything to do with his parents, frankly. I think he wanted to do other things. But but for some reason, and I don't know why he felt this kind of fealty towards his parents and his father. My grandfather was extremely forceful. I think he was even physically abusive, certainly mentally abusive. I'd heard stories that my father wanted to be a park ranger. He wanted to go into the roller derby. The joke that my mother told was that my father had enlisted at the end of World War II and in the Korean War and they're you know, five, six years apart.
Boar's Head Sponsor Announcer
Right.
Steven Weber
Or maybe four or five years apart to get away from his family effectively. But it was there in Korea that I'm sure he saw some horrific stuff and came back just I described gouged. So I don't know if. So that's what I mean when I describe him as having thwarted ambition. As for me, I think my father was proud of me. He was always able to say the words, I love you, I'm proud of you, and was able to show it to me in a way that I appreciated. When I tried as I got older in my early teens to kind of probe him the way you're doing it now to me, ruthlessly and sick, kind of weird and manipulative way. He did not spark to it at all. I mean he was from clearly a different generation where the idea of anything therapeutic was like what? You know, are you kidding? And he would bayonet you.
Co-host/Comedian
Great word.
Steven Weber
But so, you know, again, because I didn't let anything weigh upon me too heavily until I became, until I became an older guy and I realized that there's so much weighty material around me,
Co-host/Comedian
so much to worry about that you were oblivious to as a 40 year old airhead chasing these acting vanities.
Steven Weber
I kind of was, you know, and plus whatever I was doing was being affirmed by whatever success I was enjoying. So who was I to even worry
Interviewer
about, well, what is success? So define it for me now because before we started, actually I was just talking to you about how I'm surprised that the number of actors who come on here, not necessarily of your stature, but that the business has changed so much that they always feel like they're failing, even though no neutral observer on the outside would look at it that way.
Steven Weber
Yeah, so I guess success for me, loosely defined, is being able to make a living at what I'm at my chosen field. Beyond that, anything that brings a kind of affirmation or you know, respect is to. It's kind of fancy word but you know, basically again I'm pointing to my lower middle class roots. Anything that allows me to continue living at a, at a, at a nice little level.
Interviewer
Yeah, but you're speaking like a plumber as opposed to a creative. Like that's.
Steven Weber
Well, look, in many ways I approached my career as, as a kind of, as a utilitarian kind of a job, you know, and was almost embarrassed to even tell people that I was an actor. Eventually I lost that embarrassment and even being an artist still kind of makes me a little nervous if I say as much. But yeah, you know, it took me a long time to accept that or
Interviewer
to admit that makes you nervous to say you're an artist, that you're a creative.
Steven Weber
Yeah. Because I didn't think, think that it rose to the definition of a kind of a useful existence, a useful job. I was able to appreciate art and moreover, I wasn't certain of my own ability to create. And that's why I approached it in a very kind of utilitarian fashion and, and liked the behind the scenes approach. I liked seeing the cameras, I liked people plugging in cables and turning dials and doing all that stuff. That to me was really exciting. The actual acting part was, I think, a little daunting to me, which is why I always prefer to think of myself as a light entertainer.
Interviewer
Somebody that, you know, you're describing something though, that is somewhere on the spectrum between something close to imposter syndrome and also questioning the worth of what you do for a living because it doesn't have sufficient nobility in it for you.
Steven Weber
Why the fuck did I come in here today for this? I mean, I never thought of it that way, Gee whiz.
Co-host/Comedian
But it also allowed you to conquer it though, because if you're not taking it too seriously, if you're concentrating on
Interviewer
the details, if you're always wondering, well, am I actually good at this?
Steven Weber
Well, here's another thing. Dr. El Probo.
Co-host/Comedian
That's a great.
Steven Weber
You need to have that El Provo. Or at least put that in your.
Co-host/Comedian
I hope they do it right now. And I, I want, I want to. They call me the Grief Eater.
Interviewer
Right, The Grief Eater.
Co-host/Comedian
I feel like I've graduated to Harvester of Sorrow. But I think Dr. El Probo.
Steven Weber
El Probo. You know, and then you need to be in a white coat with buttons on the shoulder and have one of those reflectors and have finger up with one gloved little El Provo. I mean, also I think part of this, now that I guess we're going to dismantle my childhood. Thanks a lot. Is that maybe I just wanted to be liked. That's okay.
Co-host/Comedian
I was just thinking about the finger being the only part that didn't have latex on it.
Steven Weber
Yeah, that's right. Because you need to feel. That's right.
Co-host/Comedian
You need to feel. Sir, I feel. From what it is we're doing here, you need to feel. I feel.
Steven Weber
No, you keep your one finger denuded. You keep it nude, you know, because it's the most sensitive part.
Co-host/Comedian
All right, please stop.
Steven Weber
Alright, I'll stop it.
Co-host/Comedian
You've crossed the line, have I? For Dr. Lpro.
Steven Weber
This microphone stinks. Rob Cordry must have been here. I could smell his belches on it. Look, I also think that it was a way for me to be liked. When I was kind of performing like a little organ grinders monkey for my parents friends, I was able to imitate Ed Sullivan or Al Jolson or all that stuff, doing things that I saw on tv. Have I watched the. Not the Tonight show because I was too late in the evening for me, but the Ed Sullivan Show.
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Right.
Steven Weber
And so I was doing that and I was getting a lot of attention from my parents and my parents friends. So, you know, that's a clue as to maybe what pushed me into this.
Interviewer
Well, you said affirmations, and I mean, everybody needs those. Like, who doesn't need their validations? It's better if they come from within. But apply applause, laughter, all of those things.
Steven Weber
But clearly. Okay, so if we're going to go back to the kind of dysfunction that was in my home growing up, this was a way for me to kind of mollify that and to get my parents to perhaps stop fighting and look approvingly not only at me, but this was our home. This was our apartment that we lived in. It was nice. It was fun. There was somebody generating joy.
Interviewer
Why'd you say it like that?
Steven Weber
We'll be right back.
Co-host/Comedian
Why did you say joy that way? That is like that, aspirationally. Okay. For everything that I'm doing right now
Interviewer
in life is in pursuit of joy
Co-host/Comedian
and trying to be better at joy,
Interviewer
trying to be somebody who more readily finds it.
Steven Weber
So I guess what I'm showing or demonstrating right now is that I have a fear of sounding fancy or sounding elevated, which is why I didn't embrace the idea that I was an artist or a creator or a creative. So even as I just sounded out those words.
Interviewer
Is that why you've hit the note lower middle class three or four times already? Like, are you. You don't want to be a Hollywood elitist.
Co-host/Comedian
You don't want to.
Interviewer
Somebody who takes himself very seriously because he does this in Wings.
Co-host/Comedian
He was a star in Wings. He's a star in one of those Chicago shows.
Steven Weber
Yeah, look, you know. Yes. Yeah, Yeah. I don't want people to be mad at me.
Co-host/Comedian
Huh.
Steven Weber
Well, you want to be liked for my superiority. Yeah, I want to be liked. Yeah, that's right.
Co-host/Comedian
It's pretty. Pretty basic human need. I think you broke me open. I don't. I don't have.
Steven Weber
You broke me open like a Coconut at a, at a low rent resort.
Co-host/Comedian
We're just getting started.
Steven Weber
All right.
Co-host/Comedian
We haven't even gotten into the good stuff yet.
Steven Weber
Oh, God.
Co-host/Comedian
As a creative, which of the things
Interviewer
do you like the best? Just most enjoyable, like audiobooks, comedy, drama, like any of it. Where, if, if I say to you, artistically, what do you enjoy? Like, you're, you're most excited to go into work today because Blank.
Steven Weber
I mean, there's very little that is more satisfying than getting laughs from people on stage or even working with other artists. Other people. Look, I enjoy acting. I enjoy feeling emotions. I enjoy expressing clever things that other people may have written or I may have come up with to an audience. So whether it's an audiobook, which I enjoy, or doing a drama or,
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you
Steven Weber
know, doing a comedy, they are all actually equally enjoyable. Like I say, I like being in this business.
Interviewer
Oh, but there's. The things you're describing are very different though, right? An immediate laugh like that, that validation there. You don't have to sit in a trailer seven hours to get it. You don't have to wait eight months for post production. You don't. I don't know what, you know, playing, doing a voice in the, in a Batman audio series. Like, I don't know what is the thing that, like, you're wandering around the house thinking about it before you get to work, just not because you're compulsive, but because you're just. Just enthusiastic about the playground.
Steven Weber
Well, look, I began to give more weight to doing theater. You know, I haven't done all that much. I've done maybe more than some, but I mean, there are English actors, have literally done hundreds of productions, and I have not done hundreds of productions. But when I do a play or something theatrical that is invariably in front of an audience, that's when I realized that maybe what I do or as an actor is different than what is not utilitarian, that is not just routine. That it actually requires some, for lack of a better word, expertise and experience. And that has probably helped me get work. And yet I didn't focus on that as I was coming up. But it began to occur to me the older I got and I guess the more aware of my past and aware of my surroundings I became.
Interviewer
So, yeah, you must have enjoyed doing the Producers then. Like that must have.
Steven Weber
Incredibly enjoyable, incredibly enjoyable. But also, I was still not as mature emotionally and psychologically as I was. I was still treating it like, wow, I'm here and I don't really have to employ that much thought to it. I got here for whatever abilities I have, and I can coast in that way, and it worked. But personally, looking back at that experience, I realized that I should have gone deeper. I should have taken that experience and. And kind of made more in an effort. Made more of an effort to dissect it and to understand it and to understand the why I got there, the why of how I got there and what it offered me, what I didn't know. I mean, I did learn a lot, and I had an incredible time doing it. But looking back, I think I could have had a richer time had I been more disciplined. You know, I went out a lot, I partied a lot. I enjoyed that aspect of being on Broadway, which is as romanticized and celebrated as the actual play itself. It's the drink afterwards. And I realized that I tried to be. In many ways, my whole life, I tried to be like one of those actors I saw on talk shows. And I loved hearing the backstage. I loved hearing the idea that they went to the bar at intermission or they hung out with other interesting and storied and, in retrospect, kind of broken men in a way. Now we're getting heavy. And so doing the Producers was a sort of version of that I had. I was on Broadway in what was then the hottest show ever, and I guess I got there. I guess I got there.
Interviewer
And now you're a beloved talk show guest.
Steven Weber
I'm a beloved talk show guest because I let it all hang out.
Interviewer
So, yeah, that's the lament of age, though, to be 20 years past something and say, oh, I wish I'd done that slightly differently, because that was the top of the mountain. I had that thought on the way in here. I did, for eight years, a show on television with my father. Our relationship was closer than it ever was in adulthood.
Steven Weber
What shows this?
Interviewer
It was highly questionable. It was a show on ESPN that we did. It was sort of aspiring to make him a sitcom dad. And I didn't enjoy it as much as I should have. I was thinking about that on the way in, and my father's still alive. I was just thinking about it because I'm like, man, that was such a precious time. But the cooker of, you had to do eight shows a week on Broadway. We had to do a show every day, and I had to do something else. I dropped. Just wish I'd done a little more with that time in terms of just sort of like kissing him on the forehead, you know?
Steven Weber
Well, clearly that paradox is ingrained in humanity, you know, it keeps us from somehow achieving what we as a species should be able to achieve with less effort and with fewer obstacles. Right. Is just. Look at how we're living today. It's, you know, as a. A country. I mean, we shouldn't be in this place of such division and everything, but there's something in this, in the human character that just prevents us from understanding when we're young enough of what lies ahead, what we need to do to ensure that we're surviving and thriving. But.
Co-host/Comedian
Yeah,
Steven Weber
and because that's. I believe that that's just the natural way of things.
Co-host/Comedian
But do you think.
Steven Weber
To lean into it and not have
Interviewer
regrets, do you think. And I didn't expect to get here. Exactly. But do you think that if you'd respected it more or had the wisdom you presently have back when you were doing the Producers, that perhaps you would have then dedicated your life to life in the theater instead of all the other things you did? Because that's the thing that most makes you feel most challenged, most alive in these arts.
Steven Weber
Well, I would not have eschewed any. I wouldn't have, you know, not wanted to survive. It's hard to make a life in the theater. Just literally, it's hard. You don't make that much money and everything's expensive, and living in New York or wherever the hell you want to do it, it's kind of rough. But I was lucky enough to have television jobs which paid well, which afforded me a kind of a lifestyle and a kind of comfort that I now want to keep, I want to sustain. But on the other hand, had I taken myself more seriously as an artist, as a theater actor, when I really started in my early 20s, I may have had a different trajectory altogether.
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Steven Weber
I may have met totally different people. I may have. Have lived a different life. And you can't say if it would have been more fruitful.
Interviewer
I guess I was asking most delicately instead, you know, you could have been noble thespian instead of guy whose face I want to punch when he's that character.
Steven Weber
Right, right.
Co-host/Comedian
You could, because you're good. You're good at. You're good at the despicable. You're good at the.
Interviewer
And I don't.
Steven Weber
Yeah, that's right. I get it. Yeah. No, like, I. You're a violent doctor. Dr. Probo is sad.
Co-host/Comedian
He looks. He looks on the inside like he can't harm you.
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I can't.
Steven Weber
I must do this.
Co-host/Comedian
I'm sorry.
Steven Weber
That's right. Turn your head and sob.
Co-host/Comedian
Oh, my God, you twisted that finger. I don't. We didn't.
Steven Weber
We didn't think.
Co-host/Comedian
We're going into town territory now. That is too dangerous for television.
Steven Weber
Are you kidding? I often turn to people after watching something horrific on TV and say, Boy, TV's changed, hasn't it, since the Hollywood Palace? Like, you know, watching. Oh, my God, watching the most horrific shit ever on tv. And, you know, some of it enjoyable, but some, like, oh, my God, I
Co-host/Comedian
mean, why am I watching this? This is grotesque in its lack of subtlety, but, yes, you can watch.
Steven Weber
I watch this. The boys sometimes, but I mostly watch it for the effects and for how outrageous it gets. But holy shit, when a character shrinks itself down and goes into the urethra of some other guy, and we're saying is, you know, I'm thinking, wait a second. I used to also watch Nanny and The professor, room 222.
Co-host/Comedian
What the hell is this?
Steven Weber
Yeah, it's pretty insane.
Interviewer
But you took us off of point because I was speaking of I was being dickish.
Co-host/Comedian
The way that your characters.
Interviewer
How did you become for the first time, how did you realize or did
Co-host/Comedian
it sneak up on you?
Interviewer
Oh, they're hiring me because they think I will be somebody who does despicable.
Steven Weber
Well, well, despicable again, you're projecting something really deep into this otherwise friendly kind of gathering we're having. No, I don't think despicable ever came into the. People wanted despicable. I was an affable dickhead. So when I was doing Wings, I really think that was maybe the. Maybe the first kind of iteration of that where it was, again, almost an acceptable kind of character in, you know, in American tv. It was the type of thing that was already in movies, I want to say. Like, you know, Tom Hanks sort of played an affable dickhead in. What was it, Bachelor Party or something like that. You know, there was always that guy that was, you know, kind of a winky womanizer, but has a gooey interior. That was sort of what I was playing. But. But, yeah, I was doing that a lot. It was really the first time that I was doing that because on stage I was playing interesting, kind of likable, offbeat roles. But for about eight seasons on Wings, that became my brand in a way, and I rose to it. I did a number of appearances on talk shows, which are now crazily cringy to see. To see myself trying to affect the kind of attitudes that I. That was a combination of that character, that brand, but also thinking that I was witty, funny, outrageous, like other Guests on talk shows that I'd seen growing up that I referred to earlier, you know, like Dick Sean, or. Or, you know, the. I'm trying to think who else was on the Tonight show that were relaxed.
Interviewer
But what a fascinating way to look at that through the timeline of. You're the kid who admires those people so much. You go in and sit in those seats, and you're still in costume of the affable dickhead.
Co-host/Comedian
Like, why would you cringe?
Interviewer
Because it's not you, because you're performing not well, as opposed to being you.
Steven Weber
Well, I'm seeing somebody. I'm seeing myself not being relaxed. I'm seeing myself performing in a way that I wasn't ready to. You know, even though I'd gotten to that seat, I'd gotten to those seats on those talk shows, I really don't think I was good enough. You know, that became clearer to me a little later on when I was. I made a couple of appearances on what's his names?
Interviewer
Is it Conan?
Steven Weber
No, no, no, no. It was, you know, Real Time with Bill Maher. And I was still being the, you know, I guess, nominally witty, funny, affable, snarky guy. There was one episode where I found myself seated between, I think, Congressman Darrell Issa and Hirsi Ali. Ayaan. Hirsi Ali. Is that her name?
Co-host/Comedian
I think.
Steven Weber
Sorry. And she is this amazing woman who was raised in violence and rose to become, I want to say, a Danish MP and was targeted by Islamic extremists and for assassination. And. And one of the things I heard was that she had written a book that Theo van Gogh, who is Vincent van Gogh's, I guess, grandson or great nephew, whatever, was making a film based on something that she had written, which was, of course, viewed as blasphemous. And Theo van Gogh was killed by an extremist, stabbed in the chest, I think. And there was a note in the blade of the knife in his chest. And the note was, I think, again, a death threat to her. So I'm sitting next to her affable dickhead from Wigs. And I'm sitting next to Darrell Issa, who, you know, was a lovely guy to me then, but has, I guess, a political platform that I have. No, I don't like at all, but very articulate, knows what he's doing. A real kind of. Of, you know, stalker, as we say, you know, like a real. Yeah, yeah. And. And me. And at one point, I realized that I could not say anything. And so I sat there and I think Bill Maher at one point said, and so Stephen Weber, you know, and I said, that's right. I'm in the why the fuck is he here? Chair. And that. So that was the wittiest thing I could have said, But. But that, in a way.
Co-host/Comedian
Well, but you can't go in with. With that attitude. It does make sense, though, that you would, as someone who is perpetually walking around asking, do I belong here? Am I good enough?
Steven Weber
Well, I realized I was out of my depth and that what came to me just now was the image of me competing in the Olympics as a swimmer. I can swim, but there's no way I can compete with these other people who are trained, really trained in their fields. But I was like Zelig, in a way. I just found myself in these places and was getting the spill from the rest of it and kind of taking it as, oh, this is affirmation. The fact that I did the producers was great and I guess an acknowledgement of whatever talent I had. But I was no Nathan Lane or Matthew Broderick. I was something a little different, arguably less still good enough to get that job. But I was enjoying the attention that the show itself was garnering, the phenomenon. You could have put. I would say you could have put, you know, two bowls of manure on stage, and people would have rolled in the aisles. Wow, this is great. Do you know what I'm saying?
Co-host/Comedian
Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Weber
And so I took that and enjoyed that again. It was years later when I was able to kind of assess the arc of my success and kind of look at it. It just. Apart from who I was and if I made it happen, that I was. I was surfing. I was surfing on a lot of stuff.
Interviewer
But I could also see, though, where it is some of that stuff through a child's eyes or wherever your scars are, on not being good enough, where you're noticing that you're less than Nathan Lane or whatever it is, and you're doing the comparison shopping everyone's doing on social media now to make themselves so unhappy. Because even when you. You arrive at your stuff, someone else has more stuff.
Steven Weber
Right. Well, now that you said social media, I mean, the technology has turbocharged people and has kind of really magnified their neuroses. They magnified their projections and their ability to avoid even as much as I did.
Interviewer
Get rid of that. You're really struggling with it. It wants to get out, and you won't free it. It's a prison, okay? It's a prisoner in your body.
Steven Weber
But, you see, I want people to like me. And so I don't want them to hear my belch.
Interviewer
It's okay, though.
Co-host/Comedian
This is a free. And we already cracked you open like a coconut. Now the coconut makes sounds.
Steven Weber
Coconut must belch. The coconut must belch.
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Yeah.
Steven Weber
I just. I realized that there were a lot more elements went into my path than I thought. And obviously that's for everybody. That's for everybody. And the thing is that technology has just amplified all that stuff.
Interviewer
Well, your kids is one example. Like, this would remove people generationally. If you talk about what this addiction is and how it's distorted all of us to raise kids in a climate where this is all they've known, where you knew Ed Sullivan on a television and three channels. Like, it must be in some ways hard to reach down there and not be a scold about, like, do you guys know the infection? This thing is, like, it's gonna. It'll destroy your neuroses if it'll make you crazy.
Steven Weber
Well, it certainly has made those of us who come from the before time made us insane because we see the immediate change, the immediate results of. Of living a life with our phone and in evidence all the time, which it is in my life, and grabbing these serotonin shots from this kind of artificial and constant, constant stimulation. I think my kids and this next generation are of this particular generation. And so I'm actually hopeful. I've actually seen my sons who are incredibly gifted musicians and creatives without italicized. You know, without an italics. They are. They're creatives, and they know it. They also have technology integrated into their understanding. It's not alien to them. They were born knowing how to do this, you know, kind of enlarged stuff. And. And so they're also. They are able to utilize technology in a way that freaks me out, but it doesn't freak them out. They're able to have. And create. They're able to create great art and also play games on it.
Interviewer
You said something really cool. I wonder if you've taken inventory of the job that you have done as parents and you as a father, to say simply the sentence coming from where you do. They're creative and they know it. Because it seems like you haven't known it for whatever was happening in your household, and you've provided the household where they have the freedom to. To know that and what a gift to have that belief like that has to be from the str.
Co-host/Comedian
From.
Interviewer
That's not DNA.
Steven Weber
No, I think that's a kind of a nurturing that comes from a nurturing Environment and with a lot of support. My wife, their mom has absolutely wanted to raise artists. And we have. The downside is that my joke is they can't flush a goddamn toilet.
Interviewer
Neither can I.
Steven Weber
You can't.
Interviewer
I mean, I'm. I'm very bad. I am embarrassed and also turned on by the fact that my wife can walk across a room with a drill. And I don't. I just don't know how to do that stuff. It's not something that. No, my father. What my father taught me is to have friends who could fix things. Like, that's what I learned in my house.
Steven Weber
That's great.
Interviewer
So I'm not good at any of that stuff. I can't fix a toilet either. You said flush a toilet. Flush a toilet. I can flush a toilet.
Co-host/Comedian
Yes.
Interviewer
I can successfully flush a toilet.
Steven Weber
I hope so.
Interviewer
Thank you.
Co-host/Comedian
There it is. I was well proportioned when it began. But then Dr. Provo cracks you open and then this is how you makes
Steven Weber
me think that you need to be able to operate a toilet.
Interviewer
This has become unpleasant.
Steven Weber
What's the matter now? You can't take it?
Co-host/Comedian
I can't dish it out, but you can't take it.
Interviewer
I don't want to do this with him anymore.
Steven Weber
All right. Dr. Provo.
Interviewer
He's got too sharp a knife.
Co-host/Comedian
Too sharp.
Interviewer
You're hitting in the sensitive spots. Surgery.
Steven Weber
You can't do surgery with a dull knife, baby.
Interviewer
People don't know. Can't fix a ton of it. Well, I hope they put this all up in post production. I hope there's a Dr. Probo here. I hope that there's some stuff that
Steven Weber
they do creatively, are capable of it, because guys like you and I would never be able to do it. You need somebody of this world, of this generation.
Interviewer
Well, you, you mentioned that. So this is. I don't know how it is that you wrestle with aging, but over what has now been a 40 year career in this medium that is competitive, whatever content is. Yeah. It's much more difficult to keep up with kids or know what it is that the kids want when influencers are trafficking in whatever the, you know, thing of the day is on TikTok. And so in building a media company around some of the things that we're making, it can be confusing to me on how it is to reach young people because as a 57 year old sports writer, I don't have any sort of understanding of why young people do listen to the things that we're doing, but they are still listening to them. But it's a constant fight. It can feel like the absence of joy to fight in a space where you're already feeling like you should feel like you're on top, but the fight makes you feel like you're sinking.
Steven Weber
Yeah. Wow. Yes. I have nothing to say except yes, you're absolutely right.
Interviewer
I don't know what is next for you in terms of challenges. Like when you look at the landscape of how, how much Hollywood has changed, you're on the rare show that now exists, 12 seasons going into a 12th season. That's going to be a bygone thing at some point soon when everyone is just binge watching television, right?
Steven Weber
Yes. I'm in the gratitude portion of my life. I'm very much aware of how rare and, and lucky I am to be on this particular show. I've also been relatively good at kind of managing, you know, money over the years. I haven't been kind of extravagant. I mean, here and there I've been lucky enough to be able to do that, but I've found a way to maintain a kind of comfortable level. That said, living in LA is incredibly expensive and I wish there was a different place that I could conceivably live in. But the next challenge for me is almost a continuation of what we were kind of talking about, maybe indirectly, which is having a deeper understanding of how to, how to help my children without infantilizing them. How to help myself in a way that isn't, you know, that doesn't include self loathing, how to be a better person. As I get older, you know, more and more people, more of my peers are dying, are, or getting sick or, you know, things are happening that I hadn't reckoned with for many years having to do with one's mortality. I have a son who's one of my boys, is engaged to be married. So that's something that's wonderful and also fascinating. My younger boy is embarking on a musical journey that, that he's just beginning to experience. And that's incredibly uplifting to see. And the next challenge for me is to see if I can make it to the end with dignity and a greater understanding.
Interviewer
Oh, Dr. Probo was going to accuse you of just skipping right past mortality, but you got back to it at the end. You're looking to be a better person is what you're saying, or to realize what are the most important things, even more than you have in parenthood, in stumbling out of the producers and all the things that you've learned you are now. I mean, it's not A small one. To feel safe in what must feel like an unsafe time out here. Right. Like you. You feel like you're on the last boat. Right?
Steven Weber
I mean, I possibly. Look, I'm. I just turned 65. I could live another 35 years, you
Interviewer
know, but I'm in the career boat. I meant the career bo. I wasn't. I went from more. I'm saying, you feel like you're on the last boat out of Hollywood.
Steven Weber
Possibly. Look, for everything I just described about being, feeling less than or kind of, you know, valuing myself in kind of a lower way, I'm just light entertainment. On the other hand, I'm still working, and there must be a reason for that besides just dumbass luck. I must have found a way to convince people to hire me. So, look, there hopefully will be room for the type of character and the type of actor I am, the type of characters I present, and perhaps I will work more. But, oh, my God, there's no real science to it. So I don't know. The next challenge is not to be overcome by fear of mortality or encroaching age and all that stuff. I mean, I'm definitely noticing changes in myself and in my body and in my mind and in the world around me, and I just have to reckon with that without kind of caving under the burden of it.
Interviewer
I don't think a lot of people take daily inventory of that one.
Co-host/Comedian
Right.
Interviewer
It's much easier to get into all of the distractions. So you're not thinking about that, the aging process, but you wouldn't be wisened if you weren't. Like, you would not be one of the industry's elders and the parent to your artistic creatives who know it if you weren't thinking about these things. Because there's the responsibility of how do I be a better dad the rest of the way? Or how do I be the best dad the rest of the way?
Steven Weber
I guess, I mean, look, I don't want to mistake. I don't want to. What is it equate, feeling less than or not embracing certain titles or certain ideas of what makes success with humility? I'm a fan of being humble. I'm a fan of humility, and that's in no way weakness. So. So we're living in the Noah Wiley chapter of Time now, and he, to me, epitomizes someone who is able to navigate and negotiate all the things that our society puts upon somebody who they deem as a commercial success, an artistic success at show business success. He's able to do it with real humility, but an understanding of how to maximize the position he's in without alienating people, without being inauthentic. Do you know what I mean? And he's doing it so well that. That's, in a way, what I aspire to.
Co-host/Comedian
That's a thing.
Interviewer
When you ask me, do I know what you mean, though, I'm not sure I do because you're making me constantly contemplate the idea. I don't know that I do. Humble. Well,
Steven Weber
yeah, I guess it has to be genuine. In other words, how can you not be humble in a world where there are so many people who go. Who probably have way more talent than I have, but who go unrecognized, who live lives of obscurity? There's somebody on the street now
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that
Steven Weber
has in their head poetry that's deeper than anything you know, imaginable, but it will never be belched onto a microphone.
Interviewer
Well, the only reason I said that you made me do something that I did not want to do. Admit something. You made me think about something. Like, I'm. Like, when you're talking about genuine and authentic humility, I can pretend. Like, I can pretend to be humble, but there are certain circumstances, like, I know I'm a decent interviewer, for example, so I have confidence in that thing. So how. Yes, I'm very fortunate to be able to have the ability to do any of this. That goes without saying. I am grateful in deep and meaningful ways. But I don't think it's because I'm not good at interviewing. You know what I mean? Like, I have. And so if you're asking me questions about interviewing as an example or the things that I think that I'm good at, I don't have an imposter syndrome there or a need to feel humble because it pays for everything.
Steven Weber
Well, I guess humble isn't something that you're striving for. Maybe it's something that just is that you acknowledge. Because I don't think you can be humble and still feel a need to be better than somebody else or to win at someone else's expense, even if you present as humble. That's not what I mean. I just mean somebody that understands that in the span of a person's lifetime and compared to everybody else's lifespans. What am I trying to say? It comes and it goes. You're a drop in the ocean.
Interviewer
Yes, we are. But a dust, dust mote on a beam of sunshine is yes, we are very small. If the conversation's about Mortality, then yes, we all must be humble. Yes. Because in the grand scheme of things, all of us are largely irrelevant.
Steven Weber
Largely irrelevant. That's right.
Interviewer
That's a good name for a show, Largely Irrelevant.
Co-host/Comedian
I think we should change the name to the title of this show every week. Largely irrelevant.
Interviewer
Dr. Pompeo.
Steven Weber
Or how about a Brand of Men's Underpants? Largely Irrelevant. Sounds like a large elephant. But then it also. It's like large, largely irrelevant. Meaning means nothing at the end of the day.
Interviewer
I appreciate your candor and your vulnerability. Thank you so much.
Steven Weber
You are a wonderful interviewer. Thank you for playing along, letting me express myself.
Interviewer
Would you like us to make sure that people know that you're doing know the 12th season of the Chicago Met is a source of pride. As we were mentioning, like, I mean, 12. That's. That's not a small thing in the
Co-host/Comedian
modern age to have something that's on net network television for 12 years and
Steven Weber
people like it, you know, and there are talk about creatives and artists on that show and craftspeople. That is a great example of all the people who kind of go unsung but produce something that I guess a guy like me gets credit for. That's keeps you humble.
Interviewer
Does it? Because that sounds like a lack of humility right there. A guy like me gets credit for. And you know the undercurrent. And deserves it. And deserves.
Steven Weber
We'll be right back.
Date: July 30, 2026
Location: Live from The Elser Hotel, Downtown Miami
Special Guest: Steven Weber (Actor: “Wings”, “Chicago Med”, Broadway)
This episode features an in-depth, candid conversation between Dan Le Batard, his co-host/comedian, and TV/star Broadway actor Steven Weber. The discussion centers on Weber’s life and career, his working-class upbringing, insights into Hollywood, the psychological dimensions of performing, challenges of parenthood, generational shifts, and reflections on aging and humility in show business. The freewheeling, funny, and probing dialogue explores vulnerability, the pitfalls and realities of creative success, and the changing landscape of the entertainment industry.
The episode moves between earnest self-interrogation and comedic riffing, marked by a mix of Le Batard’s probing questioning and Weber’s mixture of candor, dry humor, and self-deprecation. The show remains accessible and down-to-earth even as it explores the deeper, sometimes heavier realities behind Hollywood’s glitz.
Steven Weber’s visit to the Dan Le Batard Show provides a rare, resonant window into the mind of a performer who has balanced creative achievement with humility, insecurity, and self-awareness. Through frank talk about the costs and rewards of both art and family, Weber reminds listeners that beneath any career—no matter how “successful”—lie the universal struggles for belonging, relevance, and meaning.