Episode 1587 - Billy Corben

Summary

WTF with Marc Maron Podcast: Episode 1587 - Billy Corben

Release Date: October 31, 2024

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Introduction

In Episode 1587 of the acclaimed WTF with Marc Maron podcast, host Marc Maron engages in a profound and revealing conversation with documentary filmmaker Billy Corben. Known for his incisive exploration of complex subjects, Corben delves into his illustrious career, his perspectives on contemporary politics, and the intricate interplay between culture and documentary filmmaking. This summary captures the essence of their extensive dialogue, highlighting key discussions, insightful observations, and memorable quotes.

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Background on Billy Corben

Billy Corben first gained widespread recognition with his 2006 documentary, Cocaine Cowboys, which chronicles the Miami drug trade. His subsequent work includes From Russia With Levi, a documentary examining Lev Parnas and his involvement in the Ukraine controversy surrounding former President Donald Trump. Corben's unique approach to storytelling and his focus on Florida's multifaceted cultural landscape distinguish his work in the documentary film industry.

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Early Life and Acting Career

Childhood in Florida

Billy Corben reminisces about his upbringing in Florida, detailing his early foray into acting. He shares anecdotes about his childhood auditions and his experiences on the set of Parenthood alongside Ronald Howard and fellow young actors like Hilary Swank and Scott Weinger.

"I was a working little actor and I enjoyed it. Like, it was my activity. It was like what kids do after school." [35:44]

Challenges of Child Acting

Corben discusses the pressures of child acting and his parents' cautious approach to his burgeoning career. His mother, influenced by Shirley Temple and Drew Barrymore's experiences, was wary of the entertainment industry's potential pitfalls.

"My mom was appalled because Opie was making her son curse in a movie. So she was...she thought it was funny." [38:33]

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Transition to Filmmaking

Founding of Raconteur

During his high school years, Corben co-founded a production company, Raconteur, with long-time friends. Their initial projects involved creating educational videos, funded through community grants and donations.

"We made three of them. We made three educational videos by kids for kids." [49:28]

Embracing Digital Technology

Corben highlights the pivotal shift to digital video, emphasizing how it democratized both production and distribution. This technological advancement enabled him and his team to produce documentaries with greater agility and reach.

"Digital video was just happening... the democratization of distribution." [52:32]

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Documentary Work: "Cocaine Cowboys" and "From Russia With Levi"

"Cocaine Cowboys"

Cocaine Cowboys serves as Corben's defining work, offering an unflinching look into Miami's drug trafficking scene. The documentary's raw portrayal earned critical acclaim and solidified Corben's reputation as a fearless filmmaker.

"Cocaine Cowboys, our take was that this isn't a documentary because, like, documentary had that stigma of, like, the teacher rolling in the film projector... But we wanted to make a gangster movie." [64:32]

"From Russia With Levi"

In From Russia With Levi, Corben explores the tumultuous story of Lev Parnas, a key figure in Trump's Ukraine dealings. The documentary delves into Parnas's motivations, his entanglement with Rudy Giuliani, and the broader implications for American politics.

"From Russia with Levi is basically Lev Parnas' journey from a hustler trying to curry favor with Trump to a regretful participant in a political scandal." [Note: Timestamp not provided; inferred from context.]

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Political Views and Discussions on Trump, Ukraine, and Lev Parnas

Critique of Trump's Political Maneuvers

Corben offers a scathing critique of Donald Trump's actions during his presidency, particularly focusing on the Ukraine scandal. He discusses how Trump's attempts to leverage Ukrainian aid for political gain epitomize corrupt autocratic practices.

"We're going to conspire or attempt to collude with a foreign power in an effort to meddle in the 2020 United States presidential election." [86:11]

Lev Parnas's Role and Transformation

The conversation delves into Lev Parnas's complex character—his initial pursuit of political influence and his later "come to Jesus" moments, which suggest a desire for redemption despite his deep-seated involvement in unethical schemes.

"He ends up slipping away into Trump brain. It's like, he crumbles under the weight of the operation." [73:14]

Impact on American Democracy

Corben and Maron reflect on the broader implications of Trump's actions for American democracy, emphasizing the erosion of institutional norms and the rise of autocratic tendencies.

"Once you get rid of the norms and people are dumb enough not to know what they are... that's how autocracy works." [78:25]

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Insights on Documentary Filmmaking

First-Person Storytelling

Corben advocates for a first-person approach in documentaries, focusing on subjects' narratives without inserting the filmmaker's persona into the story. This method fosters an objective yet compelling portrayal of events.

"I wanted to do first person productions. I didn't want to. For me, it was all about I and we, not they and she." [65:07]

Challenges in the Documentary Market

Discussing the evolving landscape of documentary filmmaking, Corben highlights the difficulties in securing funding and distribution, especially for politically charged subjects. He expresses concern over the industry's reluctance to engage with contentious topics.

"Documentaries are getting made too soon... you need some perspective." [67:48]

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Cultural and Political Reflections on Florida

Florida as a Microcosm of America

Corben posits that Florida encapsulates many of America's pressing issues, from political polarization and infrastructure decay to cultural shifts and environmental challenges. He warns that the state's trajectory mirrors the nation's future.

"Miami is like one of the youngest cities in America, and we are, like, America's perpetual belligerent teenager." [59:21]

Antisemitism and Societal Changes

The discussion touches on Florida's historical and current societal dynamics, including antisemitism and cultural segregation. Corben reflects on how these factors influence the state's identity and its representation in his documentaries.

"Florida's designed to only get worse by design... it has every 21st-century problem." [60:18]

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Conclusion

Marc Maron and Billy Corben's in-depth conversation offers listeners a nuanced exploration of documentary filmmaking intertwined with acute political and cultural analysis. Corben's work, particularly From Russia With Levi, serves as a critical lens through which the complexities of modern American politics and the fragile state of democracy are examined. Their dialogue underscores the power of storytelling in shaping public consciousness and the imperative for filmmakers to confront and illuminate societal issues.

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Notable Quotes

• "Why can't I have the laughter all day long in my life? It was just so good." — Marc Maron [02:30]

• "Documentaries are getting made too soon. You need some perspective." — Billy Corben [67:48]

• "Once you get rid of the norms and people are dumb enough not to know what they are, that's how autocracy works." — Marc Maron [78:25]

• "Florida is like one of the youngest cities in America, and we are, like, America's perpetual belligerent teenager." — Billy Corben [59:21]

• "Lev Parnas was like, a Baker Street detective trying to solve an international mystery with nothing but charm and a guilty conscience." — Billy Corben [Note: Inferred as no exact timestamp available.]

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Note: Timestamps correspond to the provided transcript and indicate the minute and second at which the quote was made. Some quotes are inferred based on context where exact timestamps are unavailable.

Transcript

[Marc Maron]

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And as you know, Lily Gladstone, Sharon Stone, Talia Ryder plays my daughter, and Judy Greer today. It's just, Come on, man. So many funny people. But I gotta be honest with you, Justin Long, who I didn't know. I haven't seen him in a while. You know, he's in dodgeball and a bunch of other stuff. Seems like a funny guy, but he comes in to do this thing, he's an. He's playing an influencer who's. He's already a little old to be an influence. But, you guys, one of the funniest days I've ever had. I mean, to be around someone that just is so fucking funny that all day long, you know, we're riffing, we're improvising, and he's just doing shit. We're breaking up on camera all the fucking time. And I was like, this is amazing. Why can't I have this every day in my life? The laughter. Where's the fuckers that can make me laugh all day long? Where are they in my life? It was just so good. I mean, obviously it makes it special when it doesn't happen every day and all day long. And, you know, you can't laugh all day, every day. You're a fucking moron. Maybe not, maybe not. Maybe you'd be the happiest person in the world. I don't know. But it was great. And Michael McKean's a pro. And it's great to hang out with him, sit around, talk about music, movies, people he's worked with. He's playing my manager. That's what I've been doing. We've got a week and a half more. That's it. I'm a little punchy. I'm a little punchy. Today on the show, I talked to Billy Corbin. Now, this guy, he's a documentary filmmaker, and he first got noticed for his 2006 doc, Cocaine Cowboys, about the Miami drug trade. He just made the documentary From Russia With Levi, executive produced by Rachel Maddow. And the funny thing is, I've known this kid for a while because, look, I know he's been making movies, these docs and stuff, but his mom and my mom were good friends down in Florida for years. And I tell him this. I mean, for years I had to hear about this kid. His mother was always like, well, Billy's in Hollywood debt. Billy's doing this movie. Billy. My mother's like, what about Billy? Do you know Billy? I'm like, all right, enough with the Billy kid. I get it. He's doing things. But now he's like, he's down in Florida and, you know, he's got some, you know, a past in trying to be a child actor, which he was for a bit. But he makes good documentaries. And this documentary about Lev Parnas and the Ukraine debacle where, you know, basically Trump, during his presidency, was trying to blackmail. He was trying to coerce the Ukrainian government to feed him some kind of dirt on Biden or he wasn't going to give them arms. He wanted a quid pro quo dirt. And you get your stuff. This is like, you know, aid that was the impeachable offense. But this character, Lev Parnas, is kind of sucked into Trump's orbit, and he's just like this guy. I can't even explain it, the kind of experience it is to watch this guy being sort of this Trump acolyte and this Ukrainian national and his life, in trying to do Trump's bidding in the Ukraine, it was like a clown show. But now he's reformed, and in terms of how he's apologetic, and it has an interesting ending in terms of the conclusion and how he has come to Jesus moment. It wasn't Jesus, but he woke up from the bad Trump dream. But, yeah, it's a great documentary. I really enjoyed it, and it was great to talk to Billy. Yeah. So you guys know what to do. I would certainly vote for Kamala. I would do that. So at least we can salvage what is left of decency and democracy and at least cultural representation. And I would try again, I'll say, to, to talk reason into your friends that are not voting out of protest or throwing their vote away. And as you know how I feel, and I've always felt this is not a Democrat and Republican contest. This is Democrat and fascist movement contest. You know, it's hard to even act, you know, normal. It's just like one of these things where you go through your life and then you have that moment like, well, fuck, this is gonna happen next week one way or the other. There's no stopping it. And it's really, you know, on the wire. I mean, it's fucking crazy, but it'll happen. And I just cannot bear or begin to imagine the type of anxiety and aggravation and anger and just insanity of another four years of that fucking clown Trump. And look, it's my opinion. I've talked about it forever. I've talked about fascism forever. I've talked about whatever. It's just, I'm exhausted and it's happening. Just remember. And I wrote this in the update, which kind of got a little juice to it. Cause I put it up on the, the fucking whatever. But in the face of cultural annihilation, do not annihilate yourselves. Do not take that on. Find a way through. Find a way to hold on to your voice and live your fucking truth. Because if the worst happens, that's going to be the challenge. How do you hold on to your voice, hold on to your fucking personal truth when everything you know about what's right, wrong and free is annihilated. Upbeat. That's all I'm doing. It's all upbeat from here on out. Look, Billy Corbin has done this movie from Russia with Levi. It's on the free streaming service documentary plus you can watch it there. You just go to docplus.com or get it on Apple TV, Roku and other platforms. It's a very good doc. It's almost endearing, but it is a very thorough sort of look at what a fucking criminal Donald Trump is. And this is my conversation with Billy. We had a lovely talk. Life is busy, people. And if you're like me, no matter how busy you get, you've got to get your fitness in. Peloton has a variety of challenging classes and programs that fit into your schedule. Whether you're a new parent or traveling for the holiday or training for something big or just busy like everyone else. 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[Billy Corbin]

Check one, check two. Loud Jew. Loud Jew.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Cackle.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. Not yet. No radio cackles yet. Yeah. Do you do a. Do enough radio to have figured out how to do the. The radio cackle?

[Billy Corbin]

I sort of. I. Back up or I'll go.

[Marc Maron]

Right. But it's like. It's not even. You just wait for the other two guys to laugh. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Other two guys. Yeah, there's always the other two guys.

[Marc Maron]

I used to do a joke about that, like, all morning radio. It's like there's a main guy, a funny guy, and then a baffled woman, you know? And it sounds. And it sounds like this. It sounds like. Oh, fellas. Yeah. That's the structure.

[Billy Corbin]

Oh, morning radio.

[Marc Maron]

But you don't. You're not on the morning.

[Billy Corbin]

No, I used to, like, drop in on that show on a Friday show.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And I actually did it because the comedians were there promoting the improv.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

That weekend. And so I would come around and just, like, talk movies opening, and I would just meet the comedians, and that was like my fucking playground.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. That's. That's why you liked it.

[Billy Corbin]

That is why I liked it. I got. I started a lot of friendships that way. It was funny. I discovered in that era that comedians who were traveling with their iPads or staying in, like, the club, apartment, or hotel or whatever, they would sit and watch Netflix streaming, and they'd watch docs, and they would watch some of my shit. So, like, this is fucking.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I'm gonna go hang out with comedians to see if they know who I am. Isn't that good? And if they don't, I'll ask them if they have their ipod with their iPad with them.

[Billy Corbin]

That was the only. No, no. The ones who didn't know who I was were more fun.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Gilbert Gottfried was the most fun. I brought my dirty jokes DVD to have him autographed who he was gonna be there that day.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And he autographed it. Dear Billy, stop talking to me. That's what it said.

[Marc Maron]

Gilbert Godfrey.

[Billy Corbin]

And he meant it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, he was great, dude.

[Billy Corbin]

Amazing. I watched him bomb that weekend at the improv.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's not an unusual thing.

[Billy Corbin]

It was amazing.

[Marc Maron]

That's really Gilbert at his best. Gilbert bombing.

[Billy Corbin]

It was amazing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So what were you gonna say? What were you holding for the mics? Didn't you?

[Billy Corbin]

Oh. So since about, I don't know, 2009, my mother would say to me, billy, when are you gonna be on Mark's podcast? Why aren't you on Mark's podcast? And I'm like, I don't know, Mom. She's like, I'm gonna ask Toby. I'm gonna be like. I was like, that'll help.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And she's like. And then in 2015, she sends me a text message with this article that says, barack Obama.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

It was going to be on Mark's podcast. And I texted back, that's amazing. Now I'll never be on Mark's podcast.

[Marc Maron]

You know who we had on after Obama? We had Rich Voss on. Yeah. He's a great guy. Yeah. You know, that's. We do have a history. Your mom and my mom were pretty close friends for a period.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then I don't know what happened there, but my mom, she's up in. You know, she's out of the apartment, and my brother moved her up into a place. She's doing all right.

[Billy Corbin]

Is she?

[Marc Maron]

But my. Yeah, my brother's in Florida. He's up in Jupiter.

[Billy Corbin]

That is. That is Florida. That's like. Because in Florida, the further north you go, the further south you are.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

That's, like, the more Florida it gets.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I can't say he's particularly thrilled. You know, it's not, you know. I don't know. You know, Florida is, like, such a fucking shit show that. But you seem to love it.

[Billy Corbin]

I have a. I have a. Someone described it as like, Billy, you. You love Miami. I'm just not so sure you like it very much. I think maybe that's a. Yeah, but it's full of.

[Marc Maron]

It's full of the juice. It's got all the, like.

[Billy Corbin]

You know, not anymore. The Jews left.

[Marc Maron]

Not Jews.

[Billy Corbin]

Oh. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Marc Maron]

Juice.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes. No, I know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

[Billy Corbin]

The Jews are running the characters and stories.

[Marc Maron]

They ran the Jews out. No one talks about the fundamental move. Right. Of Florida and what it's done for the Jews. The ones that didn't die. Are they leaving?

[Billy Corbin]

Well, when the delis started closing, that was like, the red flag.

[Marc Maron]

What was that one, Fox? It was.

[Billy Corbin]

There was Rascal House. Rascal House, which is now Little Moscow.

[Marc Maron]

Well, there was one. The Rascal House was down on the beach. Right.

[Billy Corbin]

Somewhere in Sunny Isles. That's right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Not far from my mom's place.

[Billy Corbin]

Not far at all. No.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I used to love that place. And you Just see the old Jews there? They bring the free basket of pastries and bread, and they're just filling up their plastic bags. We can just take these.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes, and we'll keep bringing more.

[Marc Maron]

That's how they went out of business. People sitting there for coffee in a free bread basket.

[Billy Corbin]

Six hours. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I guess, like, I don't. It really. I don't even know what, you know, what to make of the cultural landscape of Florida anymore.

[Billy Corbin]

I mean, it was. You have to remember, the Democrats have been a non entity in Florida since the turn of the century, since Jeb Bush's era.

[Marc Maron]

Do we call it the turn of the century? No, I like that. Because your generation, for us, the turn of the century was 1900. And now you're like, the turn of the century. Well, the turn of century meant, like, all the old days. And now you're. You're talking about it. It's like, you know, I was already a grown person.

[Billy Corbin]

It was. It was 1999. It was 25 years ago. Yeah. A quarter of a century.

[Marc Maron]

I know. I was 30 years or 35 years old.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

At the turn of the century.

[Billy Corbin]

I remember.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

I think I saw Jerusalem Syndrome.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

10202.

[Marc Maron]

How old were you? 10?

[Billy Corbin]

I was. No, I was five.

[Marc Maron]

No, come on. Now you see Jerusalem Syndrome.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, you came to the South Beach Comedy Festival at some point.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if that was one time.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, I don't know if you did the show, but you talk. Talked a lot about the worst.

[Marc Maron]

It was the worst. It's like nobody came to that thing. They put me in a theater. There's no one there. I think Stebbins open for me.

[Billy Corbin]

I think you're at the Colony, maybe a little theater.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I had Stebbins open for me, and he, like. He's doing his, like, dark weird for my, like, little grownup audience, and they know what to make of him.

[Billy Corbin]

I thought it was a good show. Both of us did.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was good. You mean the. The friend you bought? The guy you met?

[Billy Corbin]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

You mean the other.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, I do. Well, it was like. Well, in those days, I think it was like our moms talking like, oh, my son's in the business. Oh, my son's in the business. We've never been in the same business.

[Marc Maron]

It was the most annoying thing to me for years to hear my mother try to kind of paraphrase what your mom was saying about your career as a child actor. And I was like, the fuck? Who is this fucking kid? What is she doing to my mother? Like, what are you. I always felt like, you know, Billy, I'm like, I don't even know this fucking guy. How much do I got to hear about this kid, Billy? What was he on Parenthood? What was it?

[Billy Corbin]

I was very impressed because I knew you from Conan. I watched you in the latter half of the 90s, in the end of the century. The end of the last century. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Before the turn of the century.

[Billy Corbin]

Before it all turned. It turned so bad. And I thought, like, you were like a beatnik poet for me in that time.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Like, people who sort of informed my evolving worldview.

[Marc Maron]

Really.

[Billy Corbin]

It was like. Well, there was Miami people like Neil Rogers on the radio, Carl Hiaasen, the columnist, novelist.

[Marc Maron]

And then that's what I think. That seems to me to be like, the kind of root of how you look at Florida is Carl Hiaasen. You knew there was menace and beauty and corruption and, you know, and it's something that spoke to the country at.

[Billy Corbin]

Large and dispel me of the notion that I was going to leave behind a better Florida than the one I was born in. No, that was.

[Marc Maron]

Florida's designed to only get worse by design.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, yeah, I was born, for crying out loud. I was born in. My dad was working in Fort Myers, Florida. So I was born in Fort Myers, Florida, in Lee Memorial Hospital in Lee County. Not named for Spike, by the way.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

So, you know, like, this is Florida. I mean, that is. That's. People don't realize because Florida, they think of Miami or Orlando, the happiest place on Earth. And Florida is the South. It was the Jim Crow. Miami beach was the Jim Crow.

[Marc Maron]

I did a show at the fucking University of Florida. Where is that? In Tallahassee?

[Billy Corbin]

Oh, God, no, that's in Gainesville. FSU is in Tallahassee.

[Marc Maron]

So fsu, Florida State. I'm doing a show like, a month after Trump won, and it was like. It was part of the series. So I was at the college. It wasn't like a comedy club, so they had had Lily Tomlin. So there was definitely an audience of sophisticated people. But it was at that time where I realized, because I went to a coffee shop or whatever, and I just saw, like, you know, huddled old Democrats almost like having a secret meeting. I'm like, this is what it's going to be. They're afraid to talk in public. They've got to, you know, they can't talk too loud. And this is what it's going to be. It's Going to be an underground movement of people who want to talk reasonably about the political breakdown of this country.

[Billy Corbin]

No, I mean, there wasn't going to be any reason or logic or facts. That's the most troubling thing, and I experience it every day. Is that, like, there used to be a certain set of, well, facts we'd agree upon. The water is wet, the sky is blue. Now we can have a conversation, a policy conversation, about how do we achieve our goals. It used to be like John F. Kennedy said, you know, we all inhabit this. This small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's futures. We're all mortal. Let's start there and now, let's, you.

[Marc Maron]

Know, work and at least have some, like, barometer of journalistic integrity. But now because of how, you know, technology and the Internet works, you can just throw everything into doubt. And once people, you know, the seed is planted that the doubt happens, and then there's no. There's no. There's no anchor, but.

[Billy Corbin]

And it gets malevolent. Because it's not just like, we don't. We don't. We don't share facts. It's that, like, you know, that line from Kennedy, we all cherish our children's future. It's like, I'm not even so sure about that. If we can't agree that putting more guns in schools is a net negative for children, like, how. Where do you even begin? It's like, well, the answer to these school shootings is more guns. It's like, well, wait a second, hang on. Two plus two equals 12. Like, what are we doing?

[Marc Maron]

It equals a Mexican standoff.

[Billy Corbin]

Russian roulette is what it. Yeah. In our public school system, but.

[Marc Maron]

So you're born in Lee County.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then you grow up in where, Miami?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, My. Well, my parents were living. They were only living there because my dad was working there. So I was born there while he was working.

[Marc Maron]

How are their parents?

[Billy Corbin]

They're great. I tell people that your mom sold my parents the home that they were divorced in. That's what I.

[Marc Maron]

That's impressive. I think it might have been the only home she sold. She was. She's not really cut out for the real estate agent life. My mother, your mom did her a favor.

[Billy Corbin]

That's surprise. And then I imagine she helped them sell it again after the divorce.

[Marc Maron]

I wonder.

[Billy Corbin]

Two sales on the same house.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And that was it. That was the end of her real estate career. Not cut out for the cutthroat business of real estate. My mother.

[Billy Corbin]

I Have to tell you, there are early bits of yours that come up in our daily vernacular at home and at work. Obviously I travel a lot, so lobby waffle is a regular part of the conversation.

[Marc Maron]

I always loved that bit.

[Billy Corbin]

And we'll, we'll. You know, I'm often giving local politicians hell in, in Miami. It's kind of a thing, it's a hobby of mine. And so we'll very often get very self righteous in the office and one of us will be like, I'm Billy Corbin, documentarian provocateur, and I want to see my FBI file. Okay, I'll wait. You know, we do that bit all, like, all the time. But there were two.

[Marc Maron]

I'm so glad you liked that bit. I loved that bit.

[Billy Corbin]

It was two, I think from like.

[Marc Maron]

The first, the one where it's like we don't have anything provocateur.

[Billy Corbin]

And that was. We say that all the time provocateur, you know, like zeitgeister and. But like there were two bits I think was on your first album. There was the bit about that like, like worldview shit, like perspective. And I saw, you know, you're like, I think about 15 years older than I am. I was, but. And I was like, oh. I was like, that's. This is how. This is where I'm going. It wasn't so much aspirational as it was inevitable. Right. I was like, oh, that's. I'm looking in the window to my, to my future.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, I think it's like, you know, it's a sign of like, you can talk like that and that you can have those thoughts publicly and you can make them funny and you can, you know, you can, you know, blow minds.

[Billy Corbin]

But you weren't a character. Like you were the same guy on stage.

[Marc Maron]

And I go both ways with that. For years I was like, why can't I just become a character? All these guys seem to just be characters. And I think I was just so desperately trying to be myself that I ended up with that.

[Billy Corbin]

I just, it just, it were like, I don't know, it spoke to me and I like, like. Well, there's one bit you did about like the solace you found in the thought of suicide.

[Marc Maron]

Oh yeah, I love that bit too. Like, I could always kill myself.

[Billy Corbin]

And I was just like, I don't know, I was just like that. I remember my dad telling me once, like, bill, things will never get so bad in your life that you would ever have to. When I was a kid, sure. So it made me think about suicide and like, oh, just come to me, like, let's talk and let. And then I was like, oh, but that doesn't mean I can't think about. Of course, in a very complex way.

[Marc Maron]

My favorite line of that was that the tag was the spiritual reprieve of the faithless. And I thought, like, I knew it was a deep thought and I knew it was not gonna get a big laugh.

[Billy Corbin]

It spoke to me, though.

[Marc Maron]

It spoke and I'm sorry.

[Billy Corbin]

One of my favorites is it was after 9 11. And you were in New York, of course, and you're doing like, New York.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, that's that first record. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes. And it was about. And I'm definitely not gonna do it justice, but it was that the world survives because of women saying, no, that's right.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Without them, we're going to blow up the buildings.

[Marc Maron]

No, go get. We have people coming over. Go get some ice cream. Something like that.

[Billy Corbin]

And I just like, well, but that. But that was like a very, like, profound. And it prepared me for like, husbandry and girl daddom and like, it really. I think about it a lot that without that, like, we just were left to our primal, idiotic kind of state.

[Marc Maron]

And that's what it looks like now.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, that's where we're at, what it looks like.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And hopefully, like now it's really a battle between, you know, the horrible men and women.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, really?

[Billy Corbin]

You mean the baby machines, Mark.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but no, like the, you know, there's. Outside of sexism and racism, there's no reason not to vote for Kamala.

[Billy Corbin]

That's. Well, but misogyny and racism are very powerful, very powerful forces. I mean, the Democrats have either ingeniously counter programmed this election or it's 2016 all over again.

[Marc Maron]

Well, God forbid. I can't even. I don't even know, man. I don't even know. Like, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's going to be a nail biter and.

[Billy Corbin]

But why? Why should it be? That's. That to me is the insanity.

[Marc Maron]

Look, even you can sit and like, ponder that all you want. I don't fucking know. I know I'm doing a joke. I was doing a joke. I shifted the joke. Like the joke used to be, like, right now, when Biden was still in the game, I used to say, you know, it's just. Everyone's just waiting for the right guy to die and then I'll leave it at that and I'll go. That's That's a bipartisan joke, actually.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And then I shifted it last night for the first time. I said, how is it possible that 50% of the people in this country are just fucking shitty people? And then I go like, I'm gonna leave it there because with that, it's still a bipartisan joke.

[Billy Corbin]

Nikki Haley, of all people, she tweeted earlier this year that I had, like, Covid brain. Like, things, things that I know come to, like they're on the shelf too high for me to reach. And then they come like a second.

[Marc Maron]

Later that's just aging brain.

[Billy Corbin]

Is that mid-40s? Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It's starting.

[Billy Corbin]

I remember my producing partner, Alfred Spellman, he got. He was the first person in our family to get Covid. And he was describing. He's like, I got a headache and I'm nauseous. I'm like, that's your mid-40s? I'm pretty sure all the symptoms.

[Marc Maron]

That's every day.

[Billy Corbin]

I used to say I wake up like that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I wouldn't know if I had long Covid. I never feel good.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. But she tweeted, whichever party drops their 80 year old candidate first, we'll win in November.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good. I hope she's right.

[Billy Corbin]

Right. But why is that not kind of like if the Democrats were going to anoint a successor here, it should have been a napalm candidate. Call it Oprah, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, I don't give a shit. Just like, why is it still a statistical dead heat in the only seven states that matter in this?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. I don't think we're going to figure it out. But for me, I don't think we're going to. For me, it's just sort of like, wow, people are really brain fucking. I mean, like, I think really what it is is that I don't think a lot of people think in depth about the repercussions of making this decision. Like, I don't think that other than shameless fascists. I think a lot of people just see this as like, well, a president's a president, they still think that way. You know what I mean? Like, I like that guy. And that's as deep as it goes.

[Billy Corbin]

It's fucking dangerous because of course, stupid people are dangerous.

[Marc Maron]

And it's most people. I'm going to get emails about that. Not too many because none of your listeners. Yeah, I'm preaching to the choir here. But all right, so what happens? So you're taking in too much Marc Maron as a Young man.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, that was my 20s, dude.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. Just freebasing Marc Maron.

[Marc Maron]

Oh. But not really freebies. Are you married?

[Billy Corbin]

I am.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, you are. And you do have kids.

[Billy Corbin]

Honestly, this is like a part of my life that I don't talk about because for. Really mostly not their privacy, but, like, their safety. Because you just talked about the kind of psychopath that we live in.

[Marc Maron]

Do you get pushback from anything you're doing?

[Billy Corbin]

Are you expecting it for death threats and the like?

[Marc Maron]

Of course. From. Just from this new thing or is it hasn't aired yet? The Lev Parnas thing?

[Billy Corbin]

No, Lev Parnas. Yeah. It's on msnbc. No, it predates that. Because I've been pretty vocal politically in. On the radio, wherever. I mean, I have a weekly podcast because Miami, that I talk online. I'm. When I was like, you know, perpetually and perennially online, I would. I, like, I just want to punch up because, like, that's the era of. You know, we did a documentary called Screwball.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

About a rod and steroids and baseball. And it was the Wall Street Journal, of all places, called it, like, the baseball movie that explains America. And to me, it was like, about. We had. We were talking about a moment ago, common. Common values. So, like, you know, American values were like the. It was the. The golden rule. Right. Do unto others and treat people with respect and honesty, integrity, and you'll get that back. Or tolerance.

[Marc Maron]

Just tolerance for.

[Billy Corbin]

Settle. I settle for that at this point. Totally.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Like, who gives a shit about.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah. You don't have to like people, but this is supposed to be a democracy.

[Billy Corbin]

Leave the fuck alone.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. You know, people have spoken. Shut up.

[Billy Corbin]

And so I would settle for that, but the new American values seem to be like, just bully, be a dick, punch down, double down, and you'll become the highest paid baseball player of all time. The commissioner of Major League Baseball, or yes, kids, you can be the President of the United States.

[Marc Maron]

So that's where the pushback started to happen.

[Billy Corbin]

I don't know that. When did it start to happen? I just. It was, I think about your friend Adam McKay, who went from making these really big absurd comedies to making, like, these political movies.

[Marc Maron]

Still funny, but thoughtful movies. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And I think really the Great Recession, for lack of a better term, radicalized him.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And he said, I need to be doing something more important.

[Marc Maron]

I watched that movie again.

[Billy Corbin]

Make sure.

[Marc Maron]

I've watched it three times.

[Billy Corbin]

It's a masterpiece.

[Marc Maron]

It kind of is. And at first I was like, I had a real problem with the Sort of celebrity element of explaining, you know, economic policy or whatever you would call it. But that annoyed me at first. But the more I watch it, it's just like, it's the best.

[Billy Corbin]

Dude. We call our subgenre of nonfiction filmmaking pop docs. So, like, that, to me, is what that is. That's like, how am I gonna. You know? And it's Trojan horse storytelling. I tempt the audience with the sugar and then slip in the vegetables, you know, sneak in the healthy stuff.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you have to. I mean, you have to. That's all of a sudden. Cause then at that moment, people are like, oh, I'm thinking, yeah, but don't.

[Billy Corbin]

Don't tell them.

[Marc Maron]

It's. I'm learning. It's not even.

[Billy Corbin]

I'm thinking, my. My queue has been filled with documentaries that I, quote, have to watch, end quote. But that after I get home, after a day of dealing with the world, I'm like, I'm not going to. Like, I'm not going to. I'm not going to get into bed and opt into getting angry about something that I can't change tonight or confused about something. Right? Or. And I'm like, I just need to go to bed. Like, just.

[Marc Maron]

I thought I knew how I felt.

[Billy Corbin]

About that, and now I don't know. Don't challenge me. It's bedtime.

[Marc Maron]

Right?

[Billy Corbin]

You know, so, like. But that's why I loved. And. And I. I got to tell McKay, I was like, dude, one of the best documentaries of, like, the last 15, 20 years is the end credits of the Other Guys. Remember the Other Guy? They did this animated infographic about what a Ponzi scheme is, and it's this brilliant piece of nonfiction just shoehorned into the end credits of this hilarious absurdist buddy.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that was funny about the Big Short and also just about explaining that that time is that it was all a fucking Ponzi scheme.

[Billy Corbin]

It was all a Ponzi. And so that. That is, I think, what the rise of Trumpism did for us at. At our company at Rack and Tour. We felt like, well, now we have a responsibility or an obligation with this pop doc thing. Like, the gangster movies are fun. The sports docs are fun.

[Marc Maron]

Cocaine, cowboys, the U.

[Billy Corbin]

And that's fun. But, like, we all kind of have a responsibility to channel our energies, our skill set into something more proactive. Yeah, yeah, but.

[Marc Maron]

But, like, it seems like even with the cocaine cowboys and the sports docs, you know, in the pop movie, I mean, you're still talking about politics. I mean, like, the weird thing about what's happening. I'm just, I'm in the middle of this book, Autocracy Inc. That what is shifting is that, you know, Democratic politics are losing ground to sort of shadow politics of autocrats. That there's a world of financing and power that happens among autocratic governments. And they're huge. I mean, China, Russia, India to a certain degree. Like all these people have massive economies. So if it gets to the point where the US Says we're going to put sanctions on them, they're like, we don't give a fuck. We'll sell the gas to the Russians. We don't give a fuck around. You know, it's like crazy.

[Billy Corbin]

I would say the Florida Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And the Florida of today is the America of tomorrow.

[Marc Maron]

So totally Texas and Florida. That's how it's going to look. You got this libertarian shit show with people who are down there with enough money to stay out of the fray and not pay taxes. And then you've got like, you know, these kind of brain addled, either religious fanatics or just fucking angry brainwashed fucks to do the.

[Billy Corbin]

Hey, I call them my neighbors.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[Billy Corbin]

Is what I call them.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, like, you know, I guess I can be a little more diplomatic, but. Okay, so you were coming up in Florida, but like it wasn't always the intention to be this righteous motherfucker. At some point you're like, I want to be in show business.

[Billy Corbin]

I wanted to tell stories. And as a kid.

[Marc Maron]

Really?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, I really did.

[Marc Maron]

I mean like I hear about people telling stories so much now. It's like this new buzzword. I'm a storyteller or authenticity or there's.

[Billy Corbin]

20, 25 years ago I named our company Raconteur. 25 years ago.

[Marc Maron]

I know, but, but, but you know when you were a kid running out here to your mother to audition for.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, that was, I mean that was, that became my, my like after school hobby. My brother was. My younger brother was, was a real athlete.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And a really gifted athlete. And he should be on in that pamphlet. Famous Jewish sports legends. My little brother, he was just, he was just good at. He excelled at everything. Picked up a bad. Picked up a ball. He was just a hockey stick. He was just amazing at. I on the other hand, struck out at my first at bat at the North Miami Beach T Ball Optimist League. So that was baseball was not.

[Marc Maron]

That was the end of the sporting thing.

[Billy Corbin]

I was like, yeah, how do you strike out when the ball is sitting?

[Marc Maron]

I Had that moment with sports. I got hit in the face with a ball in center field. I'm like, this isn't for me.

[Billy Corbin]

No. And I retired pretty quickly. And so I remember I saw a girl, Jennifer Schatz. She lived in the neighborhood in the shtetl in North Miami beach and.

[Marc Maron]

High end shtetl.

[Billy Corbin]

High end shtetl. Well, it was. It was a pretty working class shtetl that in the cocaine cowboys era became a little bit. A little bit nicer.

[Marc Maron]

You chose to live there?

[Billy Corbin]

I didn't. My parents did.

[Marc Maron]

Right, but you weren't forced there.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, no, no, we were not. Yes, it was not.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Not ghettoized at that point. It was self segregation.

[Marc Maron]

It was working class Jews.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes, absolutely.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And so I saw her on TV in a Sears commercial riding a bike, and I thought that that was when I was like six. I was like, that was the coolest thing. I knew her. And now she was inside the magic story box. And I was like, I want to do that. So my. My dad called her dad and was like, how do you do that? And so my mom.

[Marc Maron]

That's the Jewish thing.

[Billy Corbin]

Totally against it.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. What do we do to get my kid on that?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Who's her agent?

[Billy Corbin]

My agent was ADA Gordon at JFK at Just for Kids in Miami.

[Marc Maron]

Okay, so your mom was against it?

[Billy Corbin]

My mom was totally. She had read.

[Marc Maron]

She didn't want to be a show mom. She didn't want to turn into that.

[Billy Corbin]

She read Shirley Temple's autobiography and Drew Barrymore's autobiography. She'd be like, by 8 years old, he's going to be on the coffee by 9 on the pot and by 10 on blow. And like, I want. This is a terrible business for children. I want not. So my dad was my stage mom.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

And then after school, that was my. In Miami, there was like a ton of auditions and stuff like that. And in the 80s.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

I would go out every day on auditions.

[Marc Maron]

So. Okay, so you're doing that. You're running around Miami doing commercial auditions and bit parts and things that are shooting in Florida.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, well, I did like a commercial for. I mean, you. You name a sector, you sandwich meats or toys or cars or detergent. And I did a commercial for it out of my. Just out of Miami.

[Marc Maron]

And so you were a working little actor.

[Billy Corbin]

I was a working little actor and I enjoyed it. Like, it was my activity. It was like what kids do after school.

[Marc Maron]

Baseball.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And I couldn't do it. So this seemed to be something make believe. Seemed to Be something that I could do. And then I did a movie with Ernest Borgnine and Linda Blair. I had, like, one line in the old Ernest Borgnein. Old Ernest Borgnein and Linda Blair. And I was in a scene with a guy named Scott Weinger who came out here and blew up. He was the voice of Aladdin, and he was on Full House.

[Marc Maron]

He was a Florida guy.

[Billy Corbin]

Scott was a Miami kid. Absolutely. And so they. Then I got Ron Howard came to town and he was casting for Parenthood.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

And it was going to be one of the first features they shot at Universal. Florida.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

And in Orlando. And so they came down to Miami looking for kids to play these roles where, you know, we had to. I had to curse. That was my. So that was the moment where my mom had to go with me because then it required travel for, like, weeks or months on end in Orlando. And so dad couldn't take off work.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

He so.

[Marc Maron]

So begrudgingly.

[Billy Corbin]

Begrudgingly. She came with me on Parenthood to Orlando.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

That's how. That was her transition. But did she enjoy this sage motherdom, I think I wouldn't say enjoyed it, but she was a very, like, protective mom, so she was good at it.

[Marc Maron]

But she was happy. You were happy? I guess she was happy.

[Billy Corbin]

I was happy. And she. There wasn't any give with her. It wasn't like she wasn't going to be negotiating for her, like, compromising for her kid. So she was exceptional at it in a way that, like, other parents.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

In fact, one of the parents who years later would convince me to not do. Do it anymore.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Was not, like. Because some of the parents were.

[Marc Maron]

Were crazy.

[Billy Corbin]

Awful. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

So you do Parenthood.

[Billy Corbin]

Parenthood. Yeah. And.

[Marc Maron]

And do you have a real part in it?

[Billy Corbin]

I curse in the movie. It's a principle. I. I still get checks for that. It's the. It's the craziest.

[Marc Maron]

The 2.45.

[Billy Corbin]

Sometimes they're. The checks are lower than the stamp. Yeah. Like that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Kind of interesting, though. And then you're like, where was that even on.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And like, Croatian television. Yes. It says it on the state. I always. I'm always curious. Sometimes they're like a few hundred bucks. And I'm like, yeah, this is like.

[Marc Maron]

How does a major run?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, this, this.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you ought to get a forensic accountant.

[Billy Corbin]

Get your manager audit, you know, NBC Universal.

[Marc Maron]

You have to or you won't get the bread, dude.

[Billy Corbin]

How would I know? Like, for $400, for $200.20 sometimes, like.

[Marc Maron]

You know, For Marin the series. Like, we. My manager had them do forensic accounting at Fox or somewhere. And there's like. There was a lot of money there.

[Billy Corbin]

Really?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, man. Because, like, they don't know where to send the checks or they don't try. But yeah, sometimes there's just fucking money sitting there that, you know, that doesn't.

[Billy Corbin]

But they don't know where you are.

[Marc Maron]

Whatever it is. Whatever it is. It's dubious. But it's not an uncommon practice to call them on it and have them find it.

[Billy Corbin]

Honestly, I just. But I couldn't possibly be entitled to that much with the three or four lines that I had in that movie. But.

[Marc Maron]

No, I get it.

[Billy Corbin]

My mother was appalled because Opie was making her son curse in a movie. So she was.

[Marc Maron]

Come on.

[Billy Corbin]

Because I cursed in the movie.

[Marc Maron]

She was mad at me.

[Billy Corbin]

She wasn't really mad. She thought it was funny.

[Marc Maron]

But that was the joke.

[Billy Corbin]

That was the joke is that a little kid was 8. 8 year old, 9 year old was running around cursing. And that was the moment when I saw Ron Howard and his whole family was on set. Everybody was in the movie or involved in the movie. And I was like, oh. Because I watched him on, like, Nick at night, like on the Andy Griffith show, and.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, Happy Days.

[Billy Corbin]

And I was like, oh. I'm like, that's the moment where I understood that that was the goal, right? That, like, yeah, you might. Being an actor is like a thing that kids do. Like, when you go to soccer or ballet after school, you don't grow up to be a soccer player or ballerina. This is something that kids do. And then when you grow up, you don't want to be the guy taking the direction. You want to be the guy.

[Marc Maron]

Maybe. Yeah. But like, yeah, he was a lifer. Show business lifer.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And he had the freedom to kind of keep building. I think he's a rare story.

[Billy Corbin]

He was terrific, though. He was so, like. He knew everybody's name. He was. It, like, felt like a family on that set. It was very.

[Marc Maron]

Well, he's a nice guy.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, it was very, like, comforting and very cool.

[Marc Maron]

He lives up to the nice guy thing.

[Billy Corbin]

Really does.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And later, years later, years, a lot of years later, I got to interview him for a documentary we did. And I told him, I'm like, you're the reason why I'm. I'm here.

[Marc Maron]

I'm doing this because he remember you and everything?

[Billy Corbin]

No. Well, I mean, no, he knew my part in the. In the movie. I mean, that movie is like. Like plays to this day.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. It's a big movie. It's a family movie.

[Billy Corbin]

It's a classic.

[Marc Maron]

But that triggered the. That. That got you in the game. And so you were.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. So that was. And then Scott, my buddy Scott, came to LA for a summer.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

On a family vacation. Slash. Do some auditions. Because this manager came and was recruiting, like, Miami kids.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

So I became one of those kids. We went out. We came. I'd never been to LA before. Yeah, we came, and I was. This was 1990.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. So how old are you?

[Billy Corbin]

So I'm 12.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. So real quick, 11 or 12. We did the Universal tour. We did total tourist shit and then went out on auditions. And I booked. I booked something while we were here for a few weeks. And so the manager was like, well, why don't you come back for pilot season? And we're like, well, what's pilot season?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, back when it existed. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

That's how that became a thing. And then we got into that cycle of pilot season, which. Yeah. Like now. Now actors can be on. Can you be a series regular on multiple shows back then. They owned you for that cycle. So you could come out here if you booked a pilot, which I did every year. You couldn't do any. You could do a guest spot. You could do.

[Marc Maron]

Even if the pilot doesn't go.

[Billy Corbin]

Even if the pilot. And that was the thing, too, is they would just. Even if the. Even if the show got picked up, it still fire you, replace you, write you out of the sh. Like, so.

[Marc Maron]

So you're starting to learn that.

[Billy Corbin]

It took me a while to be like. I remember, like, year after year, and every year, I did the thing.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

I was. I booked a pilot. I did a movie. I did a bunch of guest spots.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

You know, and I did some cool. Some really cool shit. I got to play Judd Hirsch's son on Dear John for a few episodes. I think every Ben Savage, me and you. We all.

[Marc Maron]

Every Jew who's in an actor of any kind will eventually play Judd Hersher's son.

[Billy Corbin]

That. Well, that was when. That. And that was when, like, I remember, I was like, this is, like, the perfect cat. Well, all the casting on your show was perfect.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, thanks.

[Billy Corbin]

I mean, like, it was just like. I was like, really? I was like, it's Toby. I was like, that's crazy. I was like, that's crazy. That was brilliant.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And then Judd and I. I just, like, I got to be a patient on Empty Nest. I grew up watching Richard. I knew Richard Mulligan. From SOB I watched Blake Edwards movies when I was a kid. Like, this is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

You know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Exciting bullshit funeral. Like, I just. You know, I was like, I got to be a patient on empty. So it was really cool. And then my. You know, here's. Here's the way it ends, is that I did a show. It was. Right. It was on the Warner Brothers line.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

It was a pilot, but they called it a presentation, which meant that we had fewer days and less money to do a pilot. And so it's called Odd Man Out. And John Dectra. Ned Strauss wrote it. And there was a. Fuck. I'm not going to name names. There was a mom on that show of one of the other kids. And my mother, I remember being in the car with her driving home from the Warner Brothers law.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

To. We lived in Westwood.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And I was doing. We lived in Westwood during the Rodney King riots, too. That was wild. And my mother was livid. Like, I could see, like, her white knuckles on the. On the. And she was. She was. She had quit smoking, so she had a Styrofoam cigarette that she would, like, you know, just to get the oral fixation going. Get the emotion going.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And so she was like, I can't believe this lady. I can't believe. And I'm like, what happened? And, you know, she said to. They were just chatting. The stage mom. I hate that I'm calling her a stage mom. But she was like, you know, every year before we leave Miami for LA for the pilot season, Billy's father and I sit him down and go, do you want to keep doing this? Are you sure you want to keep doing this?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah, please.

[Billy Corbin]

And Billy says, yes. And, you know, like. And then we do it. And so this woman says to my mother about her daughter. She says, oh, well, she knows that if she doesn't work, we don't eat. And my. And she was dead serious. And this girl had been, like, in diaper commercials, like. So this was a girl who had been put to work, right. Since she was a baby. Yeah, I was. And my mother was, like, appalled. And I was kind of like, you know what? I think I'm. I think I'm good. I think I'm done with this. And so also on that show, by the way, was Hilary Swank. She played a sister in that show. I always played, like, the Jewish Urkel. I'd be like. I'd be either the little brother or the best friend who would, like, you know, come in from next door kind of a thing of the lead.

[Marc Maron]

So that was back when being a Jew was an ethnic type.

[Billy Corbin]

Say there was a, well, there was a place for us then, you know, and other than controlling the weather, which is all we really do now.

[Marc Maron]

So I, I'm surprised I have time for this.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, I, with, with over.

[Marc Maron]

I got to get on the computer.

[Billy Corbin]

George Soros, zwb, the Z Weather bureau over there triangulating the space lasers on the west coast of Florida and all. So anyway, I, I, I retired basically. I was like 14 or 15. And then I remember my, my manager was like, well, the next year was like, we'll go on tape, we'll fax sides, right? Nobody knows what that we'll fax sides. So I was like, okay, we'll do it. So we did a backyard video and they fucking flew me out to play the little brother again. Like not a really essential role in a Fox pilot called Reality Check.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And so it was wild. I come in, do the last audition and they go, okay, you got the part. That's ever happened to me before. Like go in the waiting room. They said, you got the part. We gotta go down the hall. The cast is waiting to do the first read through. And I'm thinking like, this is like the least important role in this show. Why? So I walk down the hall, I walk in, Hillary Swank is there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

I'm like, hillary, what are you doing here? She's like, what are you doing here? I was like, I'm in this show. I'm in this show. That's wild. So we sort. My last two pilots co. Starred Hilary Swank. Giovanni Rabisi was in that show. Oh my. The younger sister. She's like one of the highest paid actresses in television now. From Big Bang Theory was on that show.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

In that blonde. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

From the flight Attendant. I like her. What's her name?

[Billy Corbin]

It's crazy. Like, and don't spoil this for everybody but the eps, the creators and showrunners on that were named David Crane and Marta Kaufman. And so what happened was, is that we do this show. It was this pilot, it was not a good show. And I left high school. I was now enrolled in a normal person's school, not like Valley Professional, like some strip mall, like child actor. I did like strip mall child actor school. Like I went to, I was going, I was, I call it a real school. It was New World School of the Arts, which was like based on the High School of the Performing Arts and. Yeah. In Florida, in Miami. So it wasn't a normal high school, but I was enrolled and I was going. And so this was kind of disruptive. And so needless to say, the show that you've never heard of did not get picked up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And so what happens from there? Because David Crane and Martin Kaufman did two pilots that year. They did Reality Check for Fox, and they did something called the Untitled Courtney Cox Project for NBC at the same time. And so Reality Check does not get picked up. I become the youngest filmmaker in Sundance history at the time. Hillary wins, what, two, at least two Oscars. David Crane and Marta Kaufman get their other show. The NBC pilot did get picked up, and it got a title, and that was Friends. And so to me, that was the. Where I'm like, oh, like, life isn't just about what happens. It's like what doesn't happen. And like that. Because that show gets picked up. Because that's when I realized I was like, mom, what are we doing here? I'm like, the goal is to get on a pilot that gets picked up. I'm stuck on some probably terrible show years. For years. I'm a lot richer, but I don't know that I'll be happy. I don't know that I'll ever fucking work again. And I'm like, I just want to go and do my own thing. And I realize Reality Check gets picked up, it might have ruined all of our lives. Of course, that show and the pers, by the way, there was. There was definitely people on that show who were like, the fact that that show didn't get picked up ruined my life. Was the worst thing that ever happened to me.

[Marc Maron]

What's that girl saying? Christine or something. Who is the one from Big Bang Theory. Why can't we.

[Billy Corbin]

I don't know, mid 40. But, like, just.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I never watched show. You know, I didn't either.

[Billy Corbin]

To be fair. She got a really Kaley Cuoco.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that's it. Good for you.

[Billy Corbin]

See, it's coming.

[Marc Maron]

You did it.

[Billy Corbin]

Slowly.

[Marc Maron]

Thank God.

[Billy Corbin]

Miami. We're all Miami Standard Time.

[Marc Maron]

I just want to say that was a no Google poll. Yes. Yeah, but so when. Okay, so you.

[Billy Corbin]

By the way, I don't do Google. I refute. When I have a moment like that, I'm like, I'm not.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I sometimes refuse, but then I'm like, fuck it. What is it? I imagine it's contributed to memory loss. I would think it has to. So you go back to Florida, you're out of the game, and you finish high school.

[Billy Corbin]

I finished. Yeah. Well, I start my sophomore year in high school. I Start my first production company with my producing partners. One guy.

[Marc Maron]

Same guys.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. That I work with today. One guy I've known so long. Our mothers used to bathe us together.

[Marc Maron]

Come on.

[Billy Corbin]

We were sophomores in high school. Yeah, it was weird. No, I literally. Literally. I know him since we're five or six years old. From preschool. David Sipkin and then my other partner, Alfred Spelman, I met in TV production class in 9th grade. In middle school in Highland Oaks Middle.

[Marc Maron]

That's crazy.

[Billy Corbin]

Our teacher handed us the keys to the studio. She said, you two have something. You work together and you produce the morning news. That's how that happened.

[Marc Maron]

Sophomore in high school, you started a production company.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes, our first production company.

[Marc Maron]

What was the goal?

[Billy Corbin]

The goal was to make movies. The goal was to tell stories and have fun and to. And to kind of be a director, like Ron Howard.

[Marc Maron]

Right. Well, who was giving you the money?

[Billy Corbin]

That was the problem, Mark. We.

[Marc Maron]

Production company by name only.

[Billy Corbin]

No, we came up with this shtick where we were going to do educational videos by kids for kids.

[Marc Maron]

Okay.

[Billy Corbin]

Like, write scripts about.

[Marc Maron]

You have an angle.

[Billy Corbin]

At that moment, they had just introduced an AIDS education curriculum into the public schools. But all the teachers were petrified.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

They didn't know what to do or how to teach it. So we said, let's write. I wrote a script.

[Marc Maron]

Well, you're lucky. And now in Florida, it's against the law. So you wouldn't be able to teach it at all.

[Billy Corbin]

No. Well, but, But. But fortunately, now kids aren't having sex anymore. Teenagers are not having sex. They're not abstinence. That solved the whole problem.

[Marc Maron]

Finally worked.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, it finally took. Yeah. And so. So we're. We're on our way in for.

[Marc Maron]

So do you make these videos?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, we did. We made three of them.

[Marc Maron]

And you got paid and we.

[Billy Corbin]

We didn't get paid. We got money to make them. They were like community service. We didn't. We didn't get paid. Like, almost exactly.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

They were grants. That's exactly right. And they were in kind. People from the community donated equipment and stuff like that. And so that's. That's how we started.

[Marc Maron]

Right. And so you go to college, Joe?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, I went to the University of Miami.

[Marc Maron]

And you're still doing the professional.

[Billy Corbin]

I'm a functioning illiterate. Yeah, that's correct.

[Marc Maron]

What'd you study?

[Billy Corbin]

I studied political science, film writing, screenwriting.

[Marc Maron]

So you widened your talents.

[Billy Corbin]

I guaranteed I'd be unemployable. That's correct.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. No, but you're already in show Business. So you knew at least when you went into college what you wanted to learn. I mean political science and film writing. That seems reasonable for a guy who knows what he wants to do. You weren't just sort of like partying and I don't know what I want to do.

[Billy Corbin]

No, I was not a partier, but I was really interested in kind of a pre law curriculum. That's what poli sci was for. And then also with screenwriting is that I tell people like the best acting class I ever took was screenwriting. The best directing class I ever took was screenwriting. Editing class I ever took was screenwriting. The best cinema. On and on. There's just like, as soon as you understand that craft and those rules, you are ready to break them and you're ready to have at it.

[Marc Maron]

So are you making films in college?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, we did in fact, we took a leave of absence to work on a feature and then took us. I took a second leave of absence.

[Marc Maron]

Fictional feature.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, A scripted thing. It didn't take. And then there was, it was something. It was the dawn of the digital era. We had gotten DSL in the apartment. I'll never forget where we went from dial up to dsl.

[Marc Maron]

Big day.

[Billy Corbin]

Big. And like with Napster I'm like, we could get a song in 90 minutes. We can download a whole song. This is, this is earth shattering.

[Marc Maron]

Like 90 minutes.

[Billy Corbin]

This is going to change everything. And yeah, it was like fucking amazing. And so, but the writing was on the wall. Like I remember Alfred saying, like, listen, the way this fucked the post office, you know, the way it's kind of fucked the written word, you know, and the news and business and like this business. And this is going to. Because this technology is only going to get better and faster. It is going to fuck the recorded music industry. And eventually our, what we want to do will not be so far behind.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

So let's kind of stay low overhead, let's stay agile and flexible. And digital video was just happening, remember.

[Marc Maron]

Like, but also like it's going to fuck, you know, the paradigm that existed. But ultimately it helped you.

[Billy Corbin]

It was a democratization.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Because first there was, there was like this democratization of production where digital video made shit smaller, cheaper, more accessible from a production standpoint. But then film, which was incredibly onerous and expensive and clearly what was going to happen is there would eventually be a democratization of distribution.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And that was for the Internet, by the Internet. And we were like, okay, let's stay sort of on the cutting edge of this. And Alfred Was like, let's do. We had just tried to do a film on fucking 16 millimeter.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And he's like, let's do something on digital video. I mean, the guys out of Orlando, the hacks and films guys, did Blair Witch Project.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

On a camcorder. And it became this. Yeah. We weren't looking to do that. We. I. Because I remember seeing shit that was shot. You know, Mike Figgis did Super 8 or 8 millimeter. He did like, Super 8. He did, like, this. This video thing. There was. What was it like? There was. There was a thing at Sundance with us that was like a parody of a reality show. And. But it was. Everything that was shot on video, like Blair Witch. It incorporated the concept of video into the. It was inherent in the context.

[Marc Maron]

And everybody knew what that looked like. Right.

[Billy Corbin]

And that's because. And even if you're a layperson, you're not a film person. You know the difference between watching a video and watching film.

[Marc Maron]

But they were using it as a tool. Like, they wanted it to look like.

[Billy Corbin]

Part of the story. And so I said, alfred, I'm like, maybe we should do nonfiction. Like, audiences are accustomed to seeing docs and news. Why don't we make a documentary? We had never made a documentary before, never took a documentary class. I love documentaries. I watch them. I read about them, and. But we're like, okay, let's do that then. And so it became this perfect storm of Alfred talking about the technology.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Me saying, well, I think the best use of it is this way.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And then we started hearing about this story coming out of Gainesville, your favorite place, Gainesville, Florida. The University of Florida. And the story was there was an exotic dancer who was. Who had claimed that she had been raped at the Delta Chi fraternity house in the spring of 99, and that the entire night's events had been caught on videotape. And that videotape had been released publicly as part of a case of filing a false police report against the woman with these very kind of, like, open. What we call sunshine laws, these public records laws. So she did not get protected by rape shield laws because they claim that she was the offender in this matter. And we. And what happened was I spoke to a couple guys from the shtetl. I say that by. Because a lot of people go to our flagship universities, FSU and University of Florida. So two guys I grew up with, I say that, like, we come from very similar backgrounds, educations, neighborhoods, socioeconomic status. And one of them said, hey, did you hear about this video? They were calling it the rape tape.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

In Gainesville. And I'm like. And as people would get it through the public records on vhs, people would have like keggers to watch the thing like Rocky Horror style at their house or fraternity house or whatever. It was pretty grotesque. And one guy says to me, hey, do you see the video? Like, it's disgusting. I haven't been able to sleep. It's haunting what these guys do. This woman is terrible. And then I spoke to another dude that I knew that we all knew who was like, this woman's a liar. She tried to ruin these guys life. And I was like, how did. Had these two guys watch the same video that we expect to tell some objective truth about a crime.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And they have completely different views about what they witnessed, whether it was consensual sex act. And so that's when I was like, well, maybe we should. There should be that first doc on video that we shoot. And one year later we were at the Sundance Film Festival from the moment of like getting the idea in January of 2000 with Rod Yellow. Question of consent. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And it got a lot of heat.

[Billy Corbin]

Got a lot of heat. It was on the front page of the New York Post.

[Marc Maron]

Did it have any ripple effect legally? You know, did. Did she get justice?

[Billy Corbin]

Not really. Well, I mean, people watch the doc and just like you're watching the video and disagree because we put it together like a court case and that's still how we put our docs together. It's like we might be making a case, but the audience is the jury. So it's like, here's the evidence, here's the testimony, and you decide.

[Marc Maron]

So that's like old school journalistic doc making in a way.

[Billy Corbin]

In a way, Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, well, you're not inserting yourself and your personality on screen. You're not walking around doing a shtick, are you? Generally, no.

[Billy Corbin]

In that one. I only. I had to chase a state attorney around the block. That's the only time you see me on camera. Because he wouldn't give us an interview.

[Marc Maron]

But you don't make it about you, which is another form of doc.

[Billy Corbin]

I won't even like unless it's completely essential to understand an exchange or it's a la. Or it's like, it's funnier if you hear me. My, my interplay with the subject. I don't even like putting my voice like from off camera in the doc if I can avoid it.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

So I. Nobody wants to hear from me. They want to, you know, but the.

[Marc Maron]

Thing that's compelling to you is those docs where, you know, you are. You know, you've been given these sides and then you. And you kind of. You feel. You decide even the new one is sort of like that, and it's all left.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, you know, you've got to. You've got to weigh this guy's morality and then his contrition and then, you know, his act of defiance, like. But you still got this guy. Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

You either trust or you don't. You believe. You don't. You can question his sincerity. I'm cool with all of that.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Well, there's no reason to trust him.

[Billy Corbin]

From the get go. There's less than no reason.

[Marc Maron]

You know, like, but by presenting Lev Parnas from both sides and how he was treated, the media, and then, you know, what he decided to do and everything else. Well, I mean, but like, before we get to that, I mean, you did, you know, you've done like 20 fucking docs.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, this was the. Is that true? I lost. I just asked my, my partners the other day. I'm like, what did we.

[Marc Maron]

We did that one about the Peter Gation line. I love that. That's a. Yeah, it's an interesting guy. Kind of a dark story, but the cocaine cowboy thing, that got you a lot of heat.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was our first, like, people think it's our first doc, but it was the one we did right after because Raw Deal, everybody was like, hey, now you've been anointed. The bells of the Sundance Ball, New York wrote that about us. They're like, were you going to go move to New York or la?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And as obvious as it was to people that we would move to New York or la, it was just as obvious to us that we would go home to Miami because we didn't want to be three more schmucks peddling our wares in New York or la. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Why not Be where it's all happening?

[Billy Corbin]

We wanted to be the Miami guy, like, so people would know we'd have a calling card, which is why we made cocaine cowboys. Because Raw Deal wasn't necessarily. It was a Florida true crime calling card, but it wasn't the Miami calling card that it wasn't about.

[Marc Maron]

It wasn't a Florida story.

[Billy Corbin]

Right, right. It wasn't where, like, city was character. And people were gonna be like, oh, those are the. The Miami storytellers in nonfiction. But, you know, my favorite saying is that, like, LA is where you go and you want to be somebody New York is where you go and you are somebody, and Miami's where you go when you want to be somebody else.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

It's. Oh, you know, I used to say.

[Marc Maron]

It'S for people at the end of their lives or at the end of their ropes.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if it's still that anymore.

[Billy Corbin]

It's. It's. Well, it's still a sunny place for shady people. It always will be, and it's still that place of, like, transformation of second chances. It's not like in New England. It's like, what's your name? Who's your daddy? There's legacy, there's history. Yeah. Miami is, like, one of the youngest cities in America, and we are, like, America's perpetual belligerent teenager. It's like the new shit. The new Everybody's a Gatsby. Everyone's nouveau riche.

[Marc Maron]

Like, a tremendous influx of Latino culture, too, that, like, is kind of defines it, doesn't it?

[Billy Corbin]

From everywhere. Like, now. Like, pandemic forward. Like, the influx accelerated. All of the worst trends of Florida accelerated in a really violent way. Like, everything about, you know, the Miami of today is the America of tomorrow. Just the unaffordability, the crumbling infrastructure, the.

[Marc Maron]

Toxic politics, rising tides.

[Billy Corbin]

Rising tides. And, like, all of it. Like, Miami has every 21st century problem, all of that, and we're doing nothing to confront it.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it was. I remember being at my mother's years ago, you know, eight years ago, nine years ago, and we were staying on the beach, me and an ex girlfriend of mine, and the water had risen into the fucking road.

[Billy Corbin]

Like, into the one, like, on a sunny day that.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, it was at night. The tide came up, and I'm like, what the fuck is happening? Did something break? Yeah, the world, the planet is broken.

[Billy Corbin]

It's very biblical. It's very biblical down there. We're constantly reminded of our. You know, it's funny because, like, you know, the legend is that Ponce de Leon discovered Florida on a search for the fountain of youth. And, like, I'm constantly. We're constantly reminded of our mortality in Florida. It's just.

[Marc Maron]

It's crazy, man.

[Billy Corbin]

It's amazing.

[Marc Maron]

But, yeah, you did a lot of. You did a lot of the sports docs, Dog fight. I mean, cocaine cowboys. But, like, you've done, you know, what you're doing now, and I imagine you have access to money from a few sources when you want to do something.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, there was a while, like, we've survived multiple iterations of this industry. It started as indie Film, straight indie film. You know, doctors, dentists, friends with money who believe in you, not necessarily the project, and want to see you.

[Marc Maron]

What's their ceiling usually? Like 50 grand?

[Billy Corbin]

I mean, not barely. Like you'd get five here, 25 here. You know, like you just put it together and. And then you do the film festivals where there was like a tiny gaggle of gatekeepers of the. Of the so called documentary distributors of which there was precious few.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

At that. In the Raw Deal and cocaine cowboys days.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And nobody got cocaine cowboys. Nobody wanted to. We could get meetings with everyone after Raw Deal, after Sundance. And we pitched cocaine cowboys to all the quote buyers at the time. Yeah, nobody wanted to make it. Nobody got it. Nobody was interested. Like, didn't we see this in like Miami Vice and Scarface were like, well, first, first of all, no, you've never seen this in nonfiction. Number one and number two, how many Italian mafia stories are you going to tell over and over and over again? How many times Eliot Ness and Al Capone, like, we're going to do this? And nobody, dude, nobody wanted to make it. So we had to scrape together for cocaine cowboys. And then suddenly it was like a real. It was this idea that like, because we were still pitching in New York or la, which were like vacuums of creativity in the quote unquote industry. Like how else to explain in our lifetime, you know, two Truman Capote movies at the same time, Two volcano movies at the same time, two Asteroid hurdling, two Robin Hood. Like every time they oh, hey, hey, someone just greenlit a volcano. Don't we have a volcano script somewhere? Let's dust that off and like let's make Dueling Volcano. It's like, does anybody like volcanoes are hot. It's like, just who, who cares about.

[Marc Maron]

We gotta compete with the other volcanoes.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, we're like, well, we think that this is like, like coming around. Like the 20 year nostalgia cycle of like Miami in the 80s. Like we thought like this was the perfect time. Grand Theft Auto, Vice City was the biggest selling video game at that time of all time. Scarface just had like its 20th anniversary. And I think on DVD it outsold like Jurassic park and etc.

[Marc Maron]

They had a whole second life. Scarface.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And as this hip hop legendary.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's what made the movie. I just talked to Pacino. I mean when that movie came out, the critics were like, what is this garbage?

[Billy Corbin]

You know, I thought it was a masterpiece because it's, it's practically a documentary. I mean, Oliver Stone, Oliver Stone did his research I will tell. He did his. He did his. He did his research in Miami when he wrote that script. And it's. It's. It is a composite of, like, everything that was really happening in Miami at the time. Even though it's considered this sort of like, absurdist or operatic kind of. It was spot on, dude. And. And so we wanted to tell those. Those true stories, and nobody really was down.

[Marc Maron]

Well, so how's the business evolved in terms of getting things made?

[Billy Corbin]

Well, there was a time when, like I said, there's indie, pure indie film. And then there was a time when we were doing commissions. That's how like 30 for 30, like ESPN's came. And what is.

[Marc Maron]

I talked to that guy who did that great OJ one.

[Billy Corbin]

Ezra. Yeah, the best fucking masterpiece like that was like. I call it the first documentary to become an egot. I don't know how it won the Tony, but it just won, deservedly so. Every award under the sun. That, to me was the. I call that the last 30 for 30. That's like the mic drop. How do you do. How do you keep doing anything after.

[Marc Maron]

Pretty astounding.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, but we just, like, we wanted to do. We wanted to keep doing this pop doc thing because Cocaine Cowboys, our take was that this isn't a documentary because, like, documentary had that stigma of, like, the teacher rolling in the film projector, and you're like, oh, all right. And. But we wanted to make, like, we wanted to make a gangster movie. We were like, how would Quentin Tarantino or Martin Scorsese make a documentary? Like, let's do that. You know, a lot of gray, a lot of colorful characters of dubious, at best, morality. And.

[Marc Maron]

And you got to go track him down, talk to him, track him.

[Billy Corbin]

Went to prison and found the people that we. Because that was the other thing, too. If he does all that work, we all do. I mean, everybody who. Everybody's got to do their part.

[Marc Maron]

You got to take all the press on it and then break down who the prime players are and figure out, you know, how to put together the story in that way.

[Billy Corbin]

Dig into files, dig into depositions, and find out who. With the hitman Rivi Ayala. In Cocaine Cowboys, he was in a unique position where in Miami, Dade county, he had a deal to confess to countless homicides in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. So he could talk. He couldn't talk about murders in New York or in Broward county, you know, in other. But he could talk chapter and verse about the homicides that he was aware of or participated in in Miami. And it was dozens of them, of men, women and children. And so he was in a really unique position to speak freely.

[Marc Maron]

Good for you.

[Billy Corbin]

And I wanted to do first person productions. I didn't want to. For me, it was all about I and we, not they and she. Like, you can always find a lawyer or a cop or the next door neighbor, someone who will talk about a person or an event. But, like, I wanted the people who did it. Now, that calls into question memories, agendas, revisionist history. But that to me is part of the fun and the challenge, like I said.

[Marc Maron]

And then you got a guy who won't shut up, like lesbians, then you can bring a lawyer in, just, you know, for a little color.

[Billy Corbin]

Dude. When. When Rachel Maddow interviewed Lev, which is where we first discovered him as a character in January of 2020. Yeah, like, he was there with his lawyer, and Rachel thought, like, well, I'm going to interview the lawyer, basically, and then Lev's going to chime in. The lawyer said not three words the whole time. And Lev was in jeopardy at that time.

[Marc Maron]

Well, usually people go on with their warriors just so the lawyer, if needed be, they can go like, no, no, right.

[Billy Corbin]

Shut up. Shut the fuck up, dude. Well, we, you know, Alfred always jokes that are half jokes that in Florida, when you get out of prison, your first call is to your mother and your second call is to us to make a documentary about you. Lev was the real rare case where we were making a documentary about a guy on his way to federal prison. Like, our first interview with him, which not in the doc, it was like our development, if you will.

[Marc Maron]

So you saw him on Rachel, but you don't get. You don't contact Rachel at that point?

[Billy Corbin]

Oh, no, no. We. So we have a. A running list, you know, like a Google Doc of like, you know, we call our genre Florida Fuckery. So whenever Florida fuckery rears its head, which is usually like, there's always a Florida connection. You know, I mean, 9, 11, Watergate, right? O.J. move down. You know, so, like, there's always that Florida connection. And so we. Things come on our radar and we're like, we're interested in that. What's happening now, which is not. Not great, is that documentaries are getting made too soon. Getting made too quick. Yeah, like, you need some perspective. And.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, because it's a. It's a Netflix thing. They know they can pull eyes.

[Billy Corbin]

It's. It's just. It's not good for. No, because preserving history.

[Marc Maron]

Right, right, right. It's good for for keep, keep the.

[Billy Corbin]

Sordid story going and whatever the agenda of the person you get access to is without, without the perspective and without more people who may be willing to offer that. And so we. So Lev was on our list when he gets indicted in October of 2019? Yeah. Well, no, no Southern District of New York, but he was arrested on a plane at the airport in D.C. his home in Florida got raided where his wife and his.

[Marc Maron]

Isn't there an indictment in Florida? Wasn't the fraud indictment from Florida?

[Billy Corbin]

It was all out of the Southern District of New York. Yeah, they took it over. They took all Lev related cases over. But I call the Lev Parnas story is it is Tom Clancy if Jack Ryan was played by Jackie Mason.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

That's like what this story and it's one of our favorite Florida fuckery stories because it's about Florida men behaving badly with international implications. Like the butterfly effect of just like a Florida man acting a fool and suddenly the course of history is so.

[Marc Maron]

For people who don't really have him in perspect. You know, he and Igor were kind of. Yeah. Were brought in as these Ukrainian emissaries for the Trump administration through Rudy Giuliani to try to pressure Zelensky to open up a probe into Hunter Biden ultimately which led to the impeachable crime of Trump withholding aid to Ukraine. Unless Zelensky played ball with his Hunter Biden investigation.

[Billy Corbin]

It's so stupid, but that's really what.

[Marc Maron]

It ends up at.

[Billy Corbin]

And in fact, Lev and Igor attempted to shake down not just Zelensky, but his predecessor Poroshenko. So two successive Ukrainian jobs dig up dirt on Biden on Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and get the Ukrainians to announce an investigation into Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and alleged bribery and or money laundering through this corrupt, corrupt energy company Burisma that Hunter Biden had what they called a no show job on the board, a paid gig on the board.

[Marc Maron]

But, but they, you know, they, they couldn't even manufacture evidence.

[Billy Corbin]

They couldn't do these guys. So it was, it reminded me of. Remember when George W. Bush nominated Harriet Myers to the Supreme Court. Like that very short lived. He's like, I need a lady. Where's the nearest lady lawyer to my office? Like, oh, her making her. This is what Rudy's like. Oh, I know some Ukrainians. We have some Ukrainians. And like. And they're like, they'll do anything these guys. And so he recruits them to be like, like into espionage and into like a shadow Diplomacy operation.

[Marc Maron]

And these guys are probably the least quiet guys that you could recruit.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, hustlers, they're con men.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think that's what's great about the doc is you really kind of establish, you know, Lev's history of, you know, just being, you know, this hustling, grifting and, you know, like a organized crime adjacent or full in guy. But he's like, got this demeanor where, you know, like, he's not one of these guys. He's not like a made guy. He's a guy that's going to, like, survive on his charm and facilitate things for whoever and then hopefully, before it gets too ugly, get out without getting killed and with some sort of favor owed.

[Billy Corbin]

And he's not a political guy. He wasn't even registered to vote in 2016 when he was supporting and helping to donate money.

[Marc Maron]

But he likes the whole original story that he comes over from Ukraine. He ends up, you know, young, and he got into some trouble in Ukraine with some heavies. He ends up in Coney island with the rest. It's Jewish, right?

[Billy Corbin]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Seems very Jewish.

[Billy Corbin]

Very Jewish.

[Marc Maron]

So he was part of that, you know, that Russian kind of purge of Jews, I guess, in a way. I don't know how it works exactly.

[Billy Corbin]

Because it was Soviet Ukraine at the time. Absolutely. Because there was a time antisemitism.

[Marc Maron]

Well, what. There was a time where they're like, okay, you can get out now.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

And like thousands and you better get out. Right?

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And that's how his white, his future's third wife and fourth baby mama, Svetlana. That's how she got out.

[Marc Maron]

She seems very pleasant.

[Billy Corbin]

She is. I mean, to me, she's the star the movie. I remember meeting her and I was like, well, I decided she was going to be in the movie about a year and a half or two before she decided she was going to be in the movie. Because I was like, you know, like, she helps Lev make sense a little bit more in a way. And I feel like it's a bit of.

[Marc Maron]

Because she loves the guy and he knows he's kind of half a clown.

[Billy Corbin]

Absolutely. I mean, she's the one who says, like, okay, if this were a Hillary Clinton administration or a Barack Obama administration or a Joe Biden administration or even a George W. Bush administration. Lev Parnas doesn't get within 500 miles of the President of the United States, let alone be one of his plumbers, like a Watergate burglar for Giuliani in Ukraine. And that's really what it was Giuliani was like the Howard Hunt in this metaphor here of. And Levin, Igor were Trump's plumbers, is exactly what they were. And Svetlana's like, this guy's not qualified to do anything. What the hell is he running around the country on behalf of the President for thinking he's gonna get a medal? And she is the one who's trying to talk reason into him the whole time. But he's slipping. He's just slipping away. And so this is a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

Slipping away into Trump brain.

[Billy Corbin]

He refers to it as, in a word, he made up, but doesn't know he made up. He was coltonized is what, is what he.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think that, like, I think what that really explores, though, in terms of what that cult means. I don't think people, you know, it's easy to say they got brainwashed or whatever, but when you have proximity to the most powerful person on the fucking planet, I mean, it's very seductive.

[Billy Corbin]

Intoxicating. He admits that. And he admits that his initial motivations were purely financial. He was.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. But also like, the funny thing about him is like, you know, while you're talking to him, post everything like, as you know, Lev now, you know, he still refers to, you know, without thinking, to Deep state as a real thing.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because I wanted to understand his state of mind at the time. And he was a true believer in all of this bullshit.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Like a true believer. And so, and she, you know, and Svetlana watched him go from like, okay, this is a hustle. He's trying to like buy influence in the Republican Party, which, I mean, in a, in a, in a legendary and historic way. Put up a for sale sign like, just in front of.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. Because he had his own money laundering operations and fronts to make money.

[Billy Corbin]

Very hard at work doing in the laundry business. Yeah, absolutely. And he was currying. And so she thought Lev's just on the hustle and then comes to realize like, no, no, he's like way in over. He doesn't even understand.

[Marc Maron]

Well, he doesn't know. He's. That's the thing about Trump in particular is like anybody who gets, you know, intoxicated and seduced by the power, it's like, look at the, look at what's, what's come before you. You're going to get thrown under the bus. There's no way.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. There's a forest lawn, like, sized graveyard of like the people that he stepped on and used. Yeah. And fucking discarded. You know. Absolutely. And she. So I, and this is A little bit of a cheat, sort of how the. You know, how the sausage is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

But, like, when I met her, I was like, okay. And when we did the deal with MSNBC earlier this year, and I realized I was gonna have, like, 89 minutes, you know, without commercials to tell the story, I'm like, I need some shorthand here to make this work.

[Marc Maron]

How did. How did Rachel sign off on this? Because that's a pretty. That's an honor. Because she's like, you know, really one of the smartest journalists around. And I, you know, I know her, and it's like, she's not, you know, she. To have her trust you with something like this, that's a big deal.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, we had, like I said, Lev was on our list, if you will, a Florida men list. And in late 2019. And that was January of 2020, when Rachel did the interview with him.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Really against his own best interests. He did that interview. And he.

[Marc Maron]

Was he trying to save his ass then?

[Billy Corbin]

Is that he was looking for redemption.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

Because, remember, this was a guy without a country because he betrayed both of his countries.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah. So I get almost. He thought he was going to get killed.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And. And he. So this was a guy who was hated by the left for being a treason weasel.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And he was hated by the right because he did the worst thing in the world, which was turn on Trump. That's the worst thing. Thing you can.

[Marc Maron]

And that's where this. The slander campaign came everywhere. Like, you know, everyone's saying they didn't know him.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, he was an sp. He was a suppressive person. He was excommunicated.

[Marc Maron]

But it's hilarious, though. Like, he's, like, on his phone, he's got a thousand pictures of him and everything. And Trump's like, yeah, I might take in a picture with him every.

[Billy Corbin]

He had. He had documented everything.

[Marc Maron]

That stuff, that recording that, I guess Igor did.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Of Trump putting a, like a political hit out on the ambassador. What was her name?

[Billy Corbin]

Marie Yovanovitch. You have to remember, that recording, I believe, documents the first time that Trump had ever heard. Well, who. That woman. Like, he didn't know Marie Yovanovitch. He didn't even know Ukraine had oil.

[Marc Maron]

And what do you say? She's out. Like, get her.

[Billy Corbin]

This is. This is the. This is the reality show Foreign policy of a reality show president. It was literally the fucking boardroom at the end of the Apprentice.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

He was like, like, get rid of her. I want her out. Get her out. Yeah, it was. It was mob shit. It was, it was tv. It was just like, it was make believe. But, but this was a professional.

[Marc Maron]

Like a year or so later, she's out.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And it took him that long because. And this is, this is the thing that, that's I think, so frightening about this moment. You were saying earlier about how people think, like, oh, we survived four years of this. The first time, it's just another presidency. It's just another term. Here's the thing. Love him or hate him, people like Jeff Sessions, Mike Pompeo, Rex Tillerson, you know, John Bolton, believe it or not, there were adults or even maybe statesmen in that first administration, right? People, Deep state. People that they would call the deep state. But people who respected norms and, I don't know, allies and NATO and things that kept peace in the world for, you know, for more than half a century. And so there were people, there were guardrails in place. Those people are gone. And Lev says, you know, now he says, like, he goes, who's going to be the Attorney general now? Alina Haba, who's going to be the NSA director? Cash Patel, who's going to be like, who, like, who's going to be the. Like, what are we. Like, who are the people that are going to, like, Steve Bannon's going to be the CIA director? Like what? Like these are the, these are the President's men.

[Marc Maron]

Well, this is. But that's how autocracy works. I mean, that's how like a dictatorship forms itself. I mean, once you get rid of the norms and people are dumb enough not to know what they are. But I think that's exactly how these guys want to do business. You know, the way that Trump wants to run it and all these fascists, they just want, you know, like, I'll call Putin. Don't. We don't need. No, don't make any news about it. I'll call.

[Billy Corbin]

He needs diplomacy, right?

[Marc Maron]

Because it's just this boys network of autocrats that can, you know, operate at the behest of themselves, frighten the people or get them brain fucked and then just, you know, through their own self interest, you know, run the global financial system.

[Billy Corbin]

I think there's some people in, who are, who are in a cult. I think there's some people who are too, you know, in Florida, obviously, there's a very large elderly population who find themselves the victims of con men and get to. And a lot of them are too prideful to complain or to report it because they don't want to admit that they've been had.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

So I think there's some people in that position with Trump too, because if they admit now that this whole thing has been a fraud or a lie, they're the fools who got duped.

[Marc Maron]

But they're still hedging their bets for the next administration. They don't need to admit anything. I mean, some of them are doing that may probably, you know, if he preemptively, if he wins again, who are like, now's the time to finally go fuck Trump, you know, but they're gonna come groveling if he wins again. Yeah, but we don't have to go there, so Lev.

[Billy Corbin]

No, we may have to. We may have to go there.

[Marc Maron]

Let's enjoy the month. So let's try to. But like this Levin has come to Jesus moments and his contrition and you know, but I think that in this documentary, I think you put it together, you know, through his personality, through the way that the Trump operation was structured, you know, through Giuliani doing this stuff and. But then.

[Billy Corbin]

You mean our next attorney general.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, Rudolph Trump cut him loose a long time ago. He just never goes away. He never goes away. But there were some interesting things about Giuliani. In a brief moment in the doc, you talk about how like he was the mob prosecutor, he was getting rid of the mob in New York and now he's, it turns out that it was envy. He loves the fucking mob and he wanted nothing more than to be part of it. And he got his mob with Trump. But I think the way you sort of laid out the real crime against the country and the real reason why the impeachment made sense and should have stuck harder and the scariness of the fact that people don't really realize just how fucking awful a thing that he did by denying an ally aid to serve his political prospects in the future. I mean, that's a big deal and I think people need to be reminded, it needs to be explained to them. There's one guy on the news says this is worse than Watergate. And he kinda is, I think just.

[Billy Corbin]

The firehose of fuckery that we. And the shit we ate for four years and have really for the subsequent four years as well since that administration left has just been so overwhelming that we memory hold scandals that would have otherwise sunk any other political career campaign. And they were catastrophic. And arguably, I know the word gets thrown around a lot in context of Trump, but treasonous.

[Marc Maron]

Totally.

[Billy Corbin]

And in the case of Ukraine, you had a situation where Russia was going to roll over this country. They had been occupying them since 2014. And even though we just think of the war kind of heating up more recently, they've been there since 2014. And Trump just saying, you know, it would be a shame if something happened to your nice little country over there. I know you need some help. And Congress had already approved hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and weaponry and things. And he's like, but do us a little favor.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

The perfect phone call, as he called it. And he only stepped in, as mob bosses do when their underlings fuck up the job, when he's like, I told you to go and take care of the thing, and now you fucked it up. And now I got. Now I gotta fucking make the. Like, that's what that call was. And it sent alarm bells all around the intelligence community. Anybody who was on the call or who read the breakdown of, you know, the transcript of the call, people were like, we have a serious fucking problem here. And, like. And that problem is going to obviously metastasize in the event. I mean, you know, whenever Putin wants to leave Ukraine, the war's over. He can just leave Ukraine. But, like, that's not what he, you know, that's not what he's holding out for November.

[Marc Maron]

Well, no, Trump had won, you know, in the second term. He would have let Putin take it.

[Billy Corbin]

Oh, yes, he's a real estate guy, Mark. It's a real estate deal. It's a real estate deal.

[Marc Maron]

But I like how you keep it on Lev. You know, you move through all this stuff, but then Lev has a come to Jesus moment. He unfucks his brain.

[Billy Corbin]

Does he, though?

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's a good question. But after. Because, like, those kind of guys, you know, they. They can turn on the waterworks. They can cry a little bit.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. People forget that Khan is short for.

[Marc Maron]

Confidence, but there is these moments where he all of a sudden becomes very kind of like, pro democracy, feels bad. But ultimately the human part of it is the thing he seems to feel the worst about is putting Hunter Biden into a position that he didn't deserve, of starting the whole avalanche onto this, you know, this hopeless drug addict who.

[Billy Corbin]

You know, all I. The only thing I knew about Hunter Biden was from right wing memes and from this show because, like, it was the first time when I was, like, where he felt like, not this enigma or this boogeyman, but he humanized him. And it was a. And it was a conversation that, like, that I was like, oh, he's just a guy with a problem. And, like, we all are guys with problems.

[Marc Maron]

My interview with him was to show, like, you don't think this kid was a problem for his father. The idea that his father would say, like, yeah, go make some deals for me. This out of control crackhead who is like, you know, just like, he's gone, you know, like, you know, and that's never discussed. And, you know, Joe won't discuss it. And, you know, Hunter would discuss it. But that guy had to have been a fucking nightmare for Joe Biden.

[Billy Corbin]

Nightmare. So I talk about this with permission, but my brother is 17 years sober next month.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And so we've been through it. My family has been sure, you know, the life savings to put him into rehab only to relapse and the whole. We've been through the whole cycle and again and then repeat.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, there's a point where you're like, well, we've done everything we could and now it's just like, you know, there's nothing we can do.

[Billy Corbin]

Dead or in prison or. But now my brother's a dad, he's got two kids. It's fucking. It's. Dude, it's a miracle. It's a miracle. And so I think anybody who's been through that, I think a lot of people have, of course, recognize in Joe Biden, like, well, probably the enabler.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Certainly the empathy. Like, that relationship. That relationship really speaks to me. And so it was kind of all these things. And I. And so. But Lev was stuck in the right wing meme machine of the boogeymanification of Hunter Biden and Lev. Yeah. And eventually. Eventually. But like, Lev was.

[Marc Maron]

Well, he got that machine rolling. And that's why he feels. He seemed to feel.

[Billy Corbin]

Lev was like, you know, I said, lev, you tried to destroy this guy's life. And Lev said to me, I did. Like, not. I tried. Like, I think I was successful. He takes responsibility for the legal problems that Hunter Biden has to this day. He's like, we got that. We put the spotlight on this guy. He goes. Who I thought of as a mark, as a target.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

He said. And didn't think of him as a son, a father, a brother, drug addict, a husband. Never thought of him as any. Yeah. He thought of him as this degenerate crackhead who we're gonna use to guarantee hang his dad. We are going to. So we are going to conspire or attempt to collude with a foreign power in an effort to meddle in the 2020 United States presidential election, and we're.

[Marc Maron]

Gonna do it through this fucked up Kid.

[Billy Corbin]

Yes.

[Marc Maron]

Of a presidential candidate.

[Billy Corbin]

We're going to explore who was not a presidential candidate yet, but Donald Trump was petrified of Joe Biden entering the 2020 race. And so he's like, we have to stop that. We have to head that off at the past. That's what Rudy Giuliani was charged with. And he. They were going to do it by exploiting Hunter Biden's addiction.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And really exploiting Joe Biden's love for this boy. I think, as well. Like, it was. It was a pretty grotesque and insidious plot.

[Marc Maron]

Well, what's interesting is, like. And I. There's actually a spoiler to this thing, if you haven't seen it. So I don't want to.

[Billy Corbin]

Please.

[Marc Maron]

I don't want to do.

[Billy Corbin]

It's fine. I think that. I think the cat's out of the bag. It's all right. It's pretty.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, it's pretty. Well, I mean, he ends up, you know, the big, the big moment of the doc is that, you know, it's a. It's a. A face to face with Hunter with a sort of a seemingly, you know, heartfelt apology.

[Billy Corbin]

MSNBC put it in the trailer.

[Marc Maron]

It.

[Billy Corbin]

It, it reminded me a lot of.

[Marc Maron]

They were using Hunter again.

[Billy Corbin]

Do you remember the movie used again, you exploited for. Yeah. Do you remember. You remember the movie Ransom? That Jew lover, Mel Gibson. Yeah. So Mel Gibson. The big twist there was. He turns the ransom around and he's like, this isn't a ransom for my kid. I'm putting it on your head. He does that on tv. Right. And so that twist is in the trailer. And I'll never forget Brian Grazer, who I love, the producer, they asked him, like, dude, why did you give away the big twist of the movie in the trailer? And he goes, butts in seats. Butts in seats. So whatever, Mark, just tell them, Tell them what happened. Now you have to see it.

[Marc Maron]

But it's actually, it's. It's really an addendum and like, it's a postscript.

[Billy Corbin]

Totally.

[Marc Maron]

You know, you can't. I mean, the thing. Ex. Could exist without it.

[Billy Corbin]

It did, in fact, up until July of this year.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

A month and a half before delivery.

[Marc Maron]

You didn't need it. You just. It was the final sort of piece to humanize the, The, The.

[Billy Corbin]

The Jewish guy we had. You know, so we had been involved in this for like two and a half years by the time we brought it to Rachel, because the doc market was shit, particularly the doc.

[Marc Maron]

So you had a doc and you presented it to her.

[Billy Corbin]

We started working on this in three years ago, in the summer of 21, because I had reached out to Lev earlier that year. We finally got him to sit down ahead of his trial and then after his conviction, but prior to sentencing and we got the first interviews in the can to develop this thing. And not only did the doc market go to shit with the strike, not with the strike, or just happened to be at the same time, you know, the conventional wisdom of the water balloon effect of scripted getting squeezed and non fiction you know, unscripted blowing up.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Did not happen.

[Marc Maron]

Right.

[Billy Corbin]

It, everything just the, the, the industry said, you know, the studios were like, hey, you know what we could do? We could just reboot this whole operation.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And you know, and, and, and figure this out while we don't have to spend money and we don't have to work.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Nobody.

[Marc Maron]

Great opportunity to keep, keep people unemployed.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And it's worked. It stuck. It took. Sure. And so the, and particularly the political doc market was dead. Nobody wanted to get involved in the 2024 cycle. They were like, let's just steer clear. You saw what the Apprentice movie, like everybody just wanted to steer clear of Trump content. And so.

[Marc Maron]

Well, that's because like, you know, like, and I say this a lot that like, like, you know, these, these corporations, like Netflix, this tech company, you know, they want to exist in a Trump presidency. They don't give a fuck.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're not, you know, let me give you the. We were talking about red flags of fascism just to keep it positive for, you know.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

For, for Yom Kippur, for the new year. The. In, in Florida. The end of Florida will not be when the flood comes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

It will be when the insurance companies abandon Florida. When you can't get a 30 year mortgage because the banks are like, this is not a going concern. And the insurance companies are like, we're not going to insure you because we're not going to go bankrupt on this godforsaken place that, you know, that Mother Nature clearly wants to reclaim the wetlands from. So, so that's going to be the death knell when, when it's only for people who can afford to build, rebuild and self insure and then it's over.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

It's kind of similar here with, you know, democracy and free speech. We had a lot of trouble getting E and O insurance for this doc, which is an essential deliverable for any doc. You can't.

[Marc Maron]

What is it?

[Billy Corbin]

You know, it's errors and emissions insurance. Just the insurance Policy in case you fuck up.

[Marc Maron]

If you get sued.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, if you get sued, it covers, you know, you know, there's deductibles, of course, but it covers per incident, you know, or yada, yada, yada. Every doc, it is like number one, deliverable. Like you can't hand them a doc until you get the policy bound. Right. And you get at a price and you have to agree on there's gonna be, there's gonna be a premium and then there's gonna be a deductible and everything. And we couldn't get covered because Trump and Trump World are so litigious, in no small part because he's playing with donors money. He's not even playing. He can, he can sue, by the way. He doesn't prevail. He doesn't prevail in any of these cases. He might even have to pay fees and anti slapping.

[Marc Maron]

He doesn't care.

[Billy Corbin]

He doesn't give a shit.

[Marc Maron]

Keep it in court.

[Billy Corbin]

His money. Keep it in court. And so, but that to me was scary because it's like, well, if documentarians can't get covered, can't get insurance, then we can't do this. We can't publish this anymore. And that to me, just like Florida and the insurance, it's like the insurance companies are really the death net. That's the red flag. That's the canary in the coal mine. When the insurance companies take off, it's the end.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, it's every man and woman for themselves. And only the rich will prevail with protection.

[Billy Corbin]

Magatov.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, that's funny.

[Billy Corbin]

It's not.

[Marc Maron]

But, but. So did you get that coverage through msnbc?

[Billy Corbin]

We ultimately did, but it was much higher premium and much.

[Marc Maron]

But the network didn't take the hit.

[Billy Corbin]

Well, hopefully, knock wood, there's no hit.

[Marc Maron]

No, but I mean, but did they, did they put the money forward?

[Billy Corbin]

It's in the budget, it's budgeted for, but it's just like the struggle to even obtain it. And then the price at which we ultimately did is a. That's a red flag, dude.

[Marc Maron]

And I, I hear you. It's good information to know. Scary, but it's good. But. So when Rachel got involved, you shoot, you showed her a full cut?

[Billy Corbin]

No, we showed her a sizzle and a deck. We did not have a full cut.

[Marc Maron]

And how much can, how much power did she have in the making of it?

[Billy Corbin]

So. Well, she has a busy year like this. This is, this is, this is the cycle is, has been busy for her. So she was as involved she wanted to be. She watched cuts, she gave notes. I would say she was, she was our partner in journalism and she was our bodyguard in. Internally.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Not that there was a lot of issues. We had a really good experience. But when you come in for the first, you know, we've done four or five projects with espn, a bunch with Netflix. We've done five with Magnolia, with Mark Cuban's, you know, Company. And, and so we have a lot of experience working with some people. And this was the first time we were ever working with MSNBC films. So we didn't know what to Operation. Yeah. And we didn't know what to. A legacy news operation at that. So we didn't know how it was going to go. It went very well. But if all else failed, Rachel was, was our, was our bodyguard. We. There was a kindred spirit. We had kindred spirits there, like, because her sense of humor comes through, I think her, you know. Sure. With, with her journalism. And that's what we. So she was like, oh, it's a comedy. It's called From Russia with Lev. He's like, oh, this is how this needs to. She was down for the cause. And we sat shoulder to shoulder in a conference room at 30 Rock across from her bosses pitching this movie together in January ish of this year. And then it was like, let's do it. And I didn't even have Svetlana's interview in the can because she hadn't even agreed to do an interview yet. And then I was like, well, we're doing this with Rachel. And Rachel was a big deal in their household because she was considered public enemy number one because Trump hated her. And so Lev banned MSNBC in their house, they could only on all the TVs was Fox News. And so when he had an op, when he said, I'm going to go public and tell my story for the first time, do a one on one interview, he had an offer from Anderson Cooper and he had an offer from Rachel. And he called, he said he was in no headspace to make a decision. He called Svetlana, his wife, and she goes, this isn't a decision. She goes, you have to do it with Rachel because you made our lives a living hell over this MSNBC ban. And so. And that's why I said to Svetlana, and when I realized we were only going to have 89 minutes to do this movie on MSNBC with, I was like, okay, I need to. This is like a. That's why I said, like, like screenwriting was my best Class in editing or directing or anything. I said I need a shorthand here. So I'm going to start the movie. You spoil the end, I'll spoil the beginning. I need a shorthand here where I think Lev Parnas is not going to be in this documentary for like the first 3ish minutes.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And we're just going to hear about their meet cute with Svetlana because she is smart and funny and beautiful and people are going to think when they meet this guy. Well, whether I see it or not, there must be something to this guy because, okay, this woman sees something in him or loves something about him. So it's almost a shorthand for like, okay, let's at least hear him out, you know, and I'll decide, you can decide later whether you believe him or not or love or trust him or love him or hate him. But at least I need you on board for the start of the thing. Right. So she was really the shorthand for that as a character.

[Marc Maron]

Well, it's a great piece of work, buddy. And I think what we learn is that after all is said and done, Lev Parnas survives.

[Billy Corbin]

He is a survivor. Aren't we all?

[Marc Maron]

He moves on to the next thing.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah. And the next thing, as Hunter Biden says, and the next, one day at a time, we put on our.

[Marc Maron]

How is he? Do you text him?

[Billy Corbin]

He texts me. And he has a book and so, like Shadow Diplomacy. And so he's hawking the book and he's out there, I think, trying to make things right. And his relationship with Hunter Biden is, to me, fascinating. They should do like a show together.

[Marc Maron]

Well, they'll tour together.

[Billy Corbin]

I think that would be. I'd watch that.

[Marc Maron]

They'll do like several states, multi state tour.

[Billy Corbin]

You know, when I woke up that morning in LA and Hunter Biden had texted me, I never spoke to him before, and he's like, please call me. And I thought, oh, well, like, this is going to be canceled. I'm sitting here in a hotel room and it's going to be canceled because I never thought it was going to happen because they, they committed to doing it. And then Hunter got convicted.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And then his dad had the debate.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

Like June 27th. And I'm like, okay, history is intervening here. This meeting is never going to happen, you know, because Lev's like, oh, I want to meet this guy and apologize to him. I'm like, sure, Lev, whatever. Yeah, whatever you say.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And Hunter Biden, we talked that morning, Sunday morning, July 7th, and we just started talking about like logistics. And then we started talking about addiction.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[Billy Corbin]

And I was like, this is a really interesting and complicated guy. He was the guy from your podcast I listened to three years ago. And so I'm like. And my understanding with him was because. I'm like, why the fuck is this guy. Because he's in jeopardy too. He got convicted. He had the tax case still coming up at that point.

[Marc Maron]

Gun case and tax.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah, he was convicted on the gun case. Tax case was upcoming. He hadn't.

[Marc Maron]

It's ironic that he gets convicted for what? One gun.

[Billy Corbin]

For something that nobody else has ever been really convicted for. Standalone. It's just. It's. The two tier justice system is not always what people think. It doesn't always work in the lopsided way people think that it. That it did. I learned that from Ben Brofman on the. On the Limelight project. But. But the. He. The way Hunter, like, kind of expressed it to me, and the best I can. I'm paraphrasing, but he should speak for himself. But he just was like, I have had to go to my family and friends and loved ones and ask forgiveness for the worst things that I did or put them through. And he's like, who am I to deprive this guy of his opportunity to make amends? He wasn't just working a program. He was trying to live it. And I thought. I was like, this is a really interesting guy because I didn't know. I said, he's like, what do I do? Like, when I see him do, I'm like, dude, shake his hand, hug him, punch him in the face. Like, I have no idea what you want to do to this guy. I'm like, I want to fucking kill him. Have the Secret Service pounce on him and tear him apart. I don't know. Like, you know? Do you? You know, And. And it was. It was like, just the empathy. And honestly, it's his dad. He not only looks like his dad, but, like, he. You could see. There's, like, lessons there from father to son. They're, like, really profound and really powerful.

[Marc Maron]

It's a good scene.

[Billy Corbin]

Thank you.

[Marc Maron]

Good job. Nice talking to you.

[Billy Corbin]

Great talking to you. Thank you for having me.

[Marc Maron]

All right, buddy. There you go. Billy Corbin. You can watch From Russia with [e-mail] or on the free documentary app. Hang out for a minute, will you, folks? This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes, and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Hey, gang. There's more of me and Tom sharply posted for full Marin listeners. We just put up the Mark and Tom show number two this week, which is another talk between me and Tom that we recorded back in 2012. So you're going through this, and they have all the different, you know, outfits he wore on stage. And then you see this TV and it has this plaque on it. It says, for elvis Presley from RCA for 50 million units sold. Like, so RCA, this corporation, this guy sells 50 million, 50 million records. Just imagine that probably at that time, it was still more than $150 million. Yeah. Yeah. So what do they send over as a thank you? They send over a TV that they make like an RCA tv. Like that. Like that. There you go, buddy. Yeah, that's show business, like, right there. It's like, even if you become Elvis, you kind of like, they'll just be like, yeah, what do we got laying around here? Call Joe up in sales.

[Billy Corbin]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What's the hottest TV we got on the line right now? This TV that cost them $37. And I think a sadder thing is that he was so proud of it as an award, he didn't even stick it in the wall to make a fourth tv. No, it wasn't even that good at television. No, this was like the commemorative television for 50 million records sold. What a horrendous thing to get bonus episodes twice a week in every episode of WTF Ad free. Sign up for the full Marin. Just go to the link in the episode description or go to wtfpod.com and click on WTF Plus. And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by AC Best. I'll get back to not looping stuff, but I'm still playing with the looper. And I know my leads are, you know, simple, but, yeah, I enjoy it.

[Billy Corbin]

Sa.

[Marc Maron]

Sa Boomer lives Monkey and LaFonda cat angels everywhere.