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- [00:01]
Marc Maron
Hey folks, I need your questions. I'm getting ready for another Ask Mark Anything bonus episode on the full Marin, so fire away. Just click on the link in the episode description and send me a question. Then subscribe to the full Marin so you can get every Ask Mark anything bonus episode. All right, let's do the show.
- [00:25]
Carrie Coon
A lot of people talk about elevated.
- [00:27]
Marc Maron
Style these days, but whenever you hear that, it usually means elevating your check total as well. Luxury clothes and home goods come with a high price tag. But I got hip to Quint's and we have them as a sponsor because Quint's is a great way everyone can upgrade their style without breaking the bank. Quint sells high quality essentials in clothing, home decor, kid stuff, even travel accessories. It's all priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. There's no middleman. And the factories Quince works with only use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices. I just got a rattan hamper with like this removable laundry bag inside of it and it looks good and the cats aren't messing with it. And that's what I chose out of their entire catalog.
- [01:15]
Carrie Coon
Indulge in affordable luxury.
- [01:17]
Marc Maron
Go to Quince.com WTF for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com WTF to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com WTF all right, let's do this. How are you? What the fuckers?
- [01:47]
Carrie Coon
What the fuck, buddies?
- [01:48]
Marc Maron
What the fuck Nicks? What the fuck? Tuck Ians? Yes. What the fuck Tuck ins. I'm in. What the fuck Kentucky. What the fuck Tucky.
- [01:57]
Carrie Coon
What?
- [01:57]
Marc Maron
I'm here. I'm taping this. In your state. How's it going? Well, that's. I'll just ask that to the world. How are all you WTF people doing? How is it going out there? Is it a day to day slog through fear and hopelessness and panic and food and more food and some movies and some doom scrolling and some fear and some panic and some hopelessness and oh hey look. Come here buddy. Come here. That's it. Pet the dog. Hey, hey, hey. Pet the cat. Fear, hopelessness. Panic, food. More food. How about an errand? Yeah, let's go pick up the thing at the place. All right, great. Oh, I love it. Panic, fear, food. How about another movie? Okay. What's going on? Just. I'm just trying to recap the days I have been out on the road. As you can hear, I'm not in the garage. I'm in a high ceilinged hotel room that it looks like it's literally, literally built to have echo and bounce. So enjoy that. I am in right now. I am recording in Lexington, Kentucky, before my show yesterday. I will say this trip has been. It's been interesting and odd to me to travel in the south in this new world that we are entering, being dragged into. Maybe I should say that before I start rambling. I'd like to say that I have Carrie Coon on the show. She's been on the series like the Leftovers, the Gilded Age, Fargo. She's in movies like Gone Girl, the Nest and His Three Daughters. You can see her now on the new season of White Lotus. She's married to Tracy Letts, the brilliant actor and playwright who, for some WTF trivia. Out of all the guests that I've had on this show over the years, people always ask me, do you hang out with any of them after? You know, not comics, not guys I already know. But have I made friends with anybody who has been on the show? And yes, Tracy Letts is my friend and I can say that with confidence. And I am today interviewing his brilliant wife who is a great actress. So there you go. It's all set up. I want to sneak this in, too, before I start babbling aimlessly. I will be at Largo tomorrow night in Los Angeles. I just want to make sure that that's out there because I feel like I've not worn out my welcome in L. A But I feel like everybody who wants to see me has seen me here or in L. A And that they assume that, you know, like, well, is he going to do the same stuff? I'm not always. I rarely do the same set. But I do want to put that out there. Largo at the Coronet tomorrow night in Los Angeles. That's Tuesday, February. February 25th. Then I got another Red State run. I'll be in Oklahoma City at the Tower theater on Thursday, March 6th.
- [05:28]
Carrie Coon
Dallas.
- [05:29]
Marc Maron
I'm at the Majestic Theater, Friday, March 7th. I'll be in Houston at the White Oak Music hall on Saturday, March 8th. San Antonio at the Empire Theater on Sunday, March 9th. Yeah, San Antonio. Look, I don't know how many of you listen or give a shit, but you know that, that shows. Looking a little lighter than I'd like. I don't want it to be a strange, isolated experience for the diehards that come. So I'm not begging. I'm just trying to get it out there. Maybe you didn't hear me say it. But San Antonio. All right, you listen in Empire Theater, Sunday, March 9th. And then I'm going to south by Southwest to let everybody watch a fairly detailed and thorough documentary about me. And some of the subtexts are my inability to pull my pants up. You know, look for that. If you're seeing the documentary chart, the, the sort of drooping of Mark's pants, I don't know why I think no one notices that. I mean, I feel like I pull them up enough and I feel more comfortable when they, when they're a little low. But I'm not looking for them to hang out on, you know, off of my ass, you know, just hang. I just, you know, I just, I like the doc, you know, it's hard to watch myself. But yeah, maybe there's a little Easter egg in there for you. Is that what you call them at some point. Keep, you know, keep an eye out because you will, towards the end of the film, see my naked ass because I'm bending over to put something in the oven. I, you know, just look out for it. That's a big, that's a, it's a big payoff. After an hour of just, you know, drooping pants to get, you know, to finally get the punchline. I will be in Durham, North Carolina at the Carolina Theater of Durham on Friday, March 21st. I'll be in Charlotte, North Carolina at the Knight Theater on Saturday, March 22nd. And Charleston, South Carolina. I'm at the Charleston Music hall on Sunday, March 23rd. Little Marc Maron trivia. The last time I was in Charleston, and that show could use some people too, but I'm not expecting massive Marin crowds in thoroughly read places. But the last time I did Charleston, some guy brought a pre psychotic Nancy Mace to the show. She was always Republican, but there was a point there where she was relatively reasonable and now she's just a fucking clown. But someone brought her to my show. She was there on a date with a guy who was a fan of mine. And after the show I remember meeting her and she was slightly panicked. She said, I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'm doing at this show. I don't know what I'm doing here. And just frenetic, A little bit frenetic. I'm glad that she got to see me and that I delivered the goods into that jumbled, attention seeking, morally bankrupt brain of hers. I'm coming to Illinois, Michigan, Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York City. For my special taping. So you can go to wtfpod.com tour for any of my dates and links to tickets. So that's that. That's where we're at. This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. And here's something there's no getting around. Nothing lasts forever, people. But in the case of Squarespace, that's a good thing, because Squarespace has evolved into the best version of Squarespace there's ever been. Squarespace has always been the best platform to create your online presence, but now Squarespace is even better thanks to cutting edge AI technology that makes building your site even easier with better results. Design intelligence from Squarespace helps you design a more personalized website tailored to your unique needs. There are also innovations when it comes to getting you paid. Squarespace Payments is the easiest way to manage your payments in one place. You can also connect major social and multimedia accounts to your website in a few clicks as icons, direct links, or embedded feeds. Go to squarespace.com wtf for a free trial and when you're ready to launch, use offer code WTF to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com WTF offer code WTF. So I've been trying to do some reading out here on the road and been reading Sidney Lumet's book about G directing movies, which has been helpful. I've really kind of taken my time doing that homework because hopefully I will be directing a film towards the beginning of next year. And I've been reading How Fascism Works, the Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley, which, you know, I was only about halfway through and then I realized, like, I don't know if I need to finish it because I can. I can just pick up where the book left off with my newsfeed. Yes, kind of a joke, but kind of not right. Kind of right. I'm not enjoying this space for recording, but this is what it's going to be. So, yeah, I've been out here, I've been in the South. I, you know, I've toured the south many times before. I've been down here a lot. I always have. I always end up being paranoid and wondering about how I'll be received or what the people are like down here. And generally in the past, I've come away thinking like, well, those crowds were great and everybody seemed real nice and I had a nice time seeing everybody and, you know, I had no problems this time, whether it's my mind or reality. Not as comfortable. Not as comfortable though. The Crowds have been great, truly great. I mean, Asheville at the Orange Peel was spectacular. Love the people of Asheville. I saw my buddy Stan and Lori.
- [11:41]
Carrie Coon
They got a house over there.
- [11:42]
Marc Maron
And I took a ride down where the floods were and kind of addressed, you know, the fires and talked about natural disasters with the audience. But the place was packed. And it's always. It's still. It's a sweet town and it seems to be bouncing back. And my people came out because they are there. It is a kind of blue dot, as they call them. I'm a little bit concerned with the blue dots being erased somehow. But then again, I'm concerned about all of us being erased somehow, at least in our ability to speak and organize publicly. And then after Asheville, Ally Makofsky and I, my opener drove to Nashville. That was quite a ride, quite a ride. I'd never taken that ride through the Blue Mountains, through Appalachia. Is that how you say it? I used to say Appalachia, but I think it's Appalachia. And it's beautiful in a very kind of rugged way. But the nature is beautiful. The small towns are a little beat up, but picturesque. And you can make assumptions about the history there or you can make assumptions about whatever's happening now. But I do know one thing that I've experienced traveling through the south this time is that it is very rural in most places and very spread out. And it's not congested in any way. The smaller cities certainly aren't. They're a little bit congested, but they're small. And everything is very spread out. One or two houses sometimes for hundreds of acres. And I don't. I know that this is whatever this part of America is, however you want to refer to it, a flyover state or the south or whatever, or rural America. And I understand that's what a lot of the country looks like, but I do not guess I understand why they're so worked up about the foundations of democracy functioning. They live, it seems, fairly isolated lives. And I think that they just fill their brains with garbage. And as I move through this tour, I've been down here five days in the south and moving through the south, it's felt like a month. And it's, it's. It's weighs heavy on me that, you know that I like living in a large city. And I know that on some levels, to the people that live in these other places where the enemy. We live in a bubble. But our bubble may be a very large bubble in terms of the scope and size of the city, but it is a functioning democratic bubble in a lot of ways, because the city I live in is very well integrated and there's all kinds of people there, thousands of them. And I find that comforting and human and tolerant and all the things that seems to be on the menu for, you know, getting rid of. And it's really not about, you know, an arrogance or an elitism or anything else. It's just I like being around a lot of different kinds of people who have different paths, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different approaches to life and food and everything else. It just seems to be a celebration of humanity. We're out here. I don't know. It's pretty one dimensional in a lot of ways. And I just think a lot of the fury is stoked by misinformation that they get from the thing that they hold in their hand or else from the thing that they watch. I don't know. But it's weighing heavy on me this trip, moving through these areas. A lot of people get stressed out when it comes to finding a place to live, but the Redfin app now makes it not only easy, but fun to just check out all the dream homes in your area. Use the Redfin app to find homes for sale or places to rent. And if you find a place you love, Redfin makes it easy to see it in person. Just schedule a tour right from the app. Plus, if you're looking to sell, Redfin agents know how to get the best price possible for your home. That's because they close twice as many deals as other agents, and with a listing fee as low as 1%. Redfin's fees are half of what others often charge, which means you'll have more money to put towards your next home. So whether you're looking to buy, rent, or sell, Redfin's got you covered. Download the Redfin app to get started. All right, good. Oh, another high point of the trip. Another high point of the trip. I done a tour with Ali before, and we had driven by a Buc Ees, I think, somewhere on the coast of California. And she goes, you have you been to Bucky's? And I'm like, I have not been to Buc Ees. And she goes, you gotta go to Buc Ees. But we'd already passed it. And I'm like, all right, someday I'll go to Bucky's. And we were in, I guess we were driving from maybe Asheville to Nashville, and there was a sign for a BUC EE's and she said, we gotta go. And I'm like, it's a truck stop, right? She goes, no, no, it's its own thing. It is a truck stop, but it is. It's like the Walmart of truck stops. I have never seen anything like it. And I'm happy I went to BUC EE's because it's like going to the America that you don't get when you live on the coast or in a city. It is something Buc EE's. The logo is a beaver. It's a little beaver. Cute little beaver guy. And this truck stop is huge. All right? They have all the things a truck stop has, but much more. I can't even describe it. I stood before the wall of jerky. There's an entire wall of packaged jerky. And I'm talking a wall. A wall of jerky, which would be a good name for an album or perhaps a band. So there's a wall of jerky and then they have sort of a butcher shop set up with some meats, but mostly jerky in the case. All kinds of jerky. And then there's a food station in the middle where they make brisket sandwiches, egg sandwiches, like, and people love the brisket. Huge food court within the BUC EE's. Okay. And across from the wall of jerky there's the faith based boutique, I guess you would call it, with, you know, a lot of kind of Christian oriented fun T shirts. And then they have the Buc EE's T shirts and then they have the coffee station and then they have, you know, other clothing and then they have, you know, the cigarette counter. And it is if, if, if you wanted to shrink a Walmart a little bit and make it everything that a truck stop has, but much more, that's BUC EE's. And you get a, you know, you do get a sense, you know, there again, back in the day, if I would have gone to the South, I would have thought like, well, look at all these, you know, people are just traveling, they're just nice people. But it's very hard to separate my sense of why this country is heading the direction it's headed from the people standing with me before the jerky wall. But again, I don't want to be judgmental or divisive, but I think it's too late. I think we are divided and heavily judging each other and the victors are going to eliminate our ability to judge publicly. Just my.
- [19:36]
Carrie Coon
It's just.
- [19:36]
Marc Maron
I'm just talking, just talking, you know.
- [19:39]
Carrie Coon
That'S all just chatting.
- [19:41]
Marc Maron
So, look, Carrie Coon is my guest, and it was exciting to have the conversation with her that I had. She's on season three of White Lotus with new episodes airing Sunday nights on hbo. You can stream it on Max. And this is me talking to Carrie Coon.
- [20:12]
Tracy Letts
My voice. I've had this flu. A man this three weeks.
- [20:17]
Carrie Coon
What is it?
- [20:18]
Tracy Letts
My voice is.
- [20:18]
Carrie Coon
What am I gonna get? What did you.
- [20:20]
Tracy Letts
You're gonna get this sexy. The sick, sexy version of me.
- [20:23]
Carrie Coon
What was it? A flu voice? A flu A. I just.
- [20:26]
Tracy Letts
They call. It's influenza A. It's what all the kids at school had. So what? My kids got it, I got it, Tracy got it. We all got it. My voice hasn't got.
- [20:33]
Carrie Coon
Really. No, that's the thing about kids.
- [20:35]
Tracy Letts
And they're doing press. Oh, God. You're just sick all the time.
- [20:37]
Carrie Coon
Sick all the time.
- [20:38]
Marc Maron
It sounds great.
- [20:39]
Tracy Letts
And they recover. Thank you. They recover so fast.
- [20:43]
Carrie Coon
But it's rewarding, right?
- [20:44]
Tracy Letts
I actually. Yeah, I'm. I've become real. A real, like, pronatalist person. I believe in having children, but I also believe. Now maybe you shouldn't, because we're all gonna die.
- [20:52]
Carrie Coon
But that's practical.
- [20:53]
Tracy Letts
But I also believe it doesn't matter where they go to school or anything.
- [20:56]
Carrie Coon
It doesn't?
- [20:57]
Tracy Letts
No. Because it's a fucking. Like the world we grew up in doesn't exist anymore. We don't have a paradigm for my children's lives.
- [21:03]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but you have one at home. No.
- [21:05]
Tracy Letts
What do you mean? Like an idea of how we'd like to raise them.
- [21:08]
Carrie Coon
Sure, yeah.
- [21:09]
Tracy Letts
I'm like, building a Mormon pantry and. Sure, yeah. Treat people how you wish to be treated. And also get ready. You're gonna have to distill water with a tarp and a hole.
- [21:17]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [21:17]
Tracy Letts
So you ship people to protect your food? Not yet. No. We're protecting them from that right now. So wait, someday they're look at me and say, and what were you doing when the world was on fire? And I'm going to say insulating our house and, you know, converting to heat pumps.
- [21:30]
Carrie Coon
Sure. And thinking about opening a boutique of some.
- [21:32]
Tracy Letts
Oh, God.
- [21:33]
Carrie Coon
That's not you.
- [21:34]
Tracy Letts
No. God.
- [21:35]
Carrie Coon
But. But. So the prepper mentality happens when they're in their teens? Probably.
- [21:39]
Tracy Letts
Probably.
- [21:40]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. You're gonna buy.
- [21:41]
Tracy Letts
I mean, there's probably some camp I can send them to soon that will start to teach them how to make a fire, skin a squirrel.
- [21:46]
Carrie Coon
Unfortunately, it might come with an ideology you're not happy with.
- [21:49]
Tracy Letts
I mean, look, it's a fine line these days.
- [21:51]
Marc Maron
Is it?
- [21:51]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. The far right and the far left are closer than ever.
- [21:54]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, it's come full circle. People always say that, but. But I think there is still some distinction.
- [21:59]
Tracy Letts
No, no, I agree.
- [22:00]
Carrie Coon
I agree.
- [22:01]
Tracy Letts
I don't. You know, there aren't just like entire groups of people I want to put on a train, sent to a camp. Well, maybe I'm slowly moving that way.
- [22:09]
Carrie Coon
Too, but which people would they be?
- [22:11]
Tracy Letts
I'm not going to say that, but they're some of my people. No, honestly, though, I do think. I do think there's no paradigm. I think the world our kids will live in is horrendous. I mean, if you're paying any attention to climate scientists, which, you know, you know what we're in for. It's devastating.
- [22:25]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I know. I just, you know, you can't think.
- [22:27]
Tracy Letts
About it all the time.
- [22:28]
Carrie Coon
Well, there's always this hope that I'd get out under the wire, but I don't have kids, so, you know, you.
- [22:33]
Tracy Letts
Can take the pill. Tracy's taking the pill. He's like, I'm cyanide pill. I'm out.
- [22:36]
Marc Maron
I'm not fighting.
- [22:37]
Tracy Letts
Really? Yeah, he's not gonna fight.
- [22:38]
Carrie Coon
He's like, I'm cyanide online.
- [22:39]
Tracy Letts
Not yet, but, you know, we're not there yet. I'm just. It's all like, you know, on a little graph paper. Plans.
- [22:45]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. I don't understand completely the sort of idea of prepping for the end so you can live after it.
- [22:50]
Tracy Letts
What's that?
- [22:51]
Carrie Coon
Life.
- [22:51]
Tracy Letts
Well, here's the thing, Mark. When you have kids, you have to consider how to keep your children alive.
- [22:56]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Tracy Letts
Because that's your fundamental responsibility.
- [22:58]
Carrie Coon
And that's. And that's.
- [23:00]
Tracy Letts
And I'm gonna have to do that by myself because he's gonna take the.
- [23:02]
Carrie Coon
Pill and just like, I think you could talk him out of it.
- [23:05]
Tracy Letts
I don't think so.
- [23:05]
Carrie Coon
Really pretty committed.
- [23:07]
Tracy Letts
I mean, he's had a very full life, Mark.
- [23:08]
Carrie Coon
You know, he really has.
- [23:09]
Tracy Letts
He's been very successful.
- [23:11]
Carrie Coon
It's annoying that he's younger than me.
- [23:12]
Tracy Letts
Empty and meaningless. That was the thing.
- [23:14]
Carrie Coon
Is it?
- [23:15]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. It doesn't matter.
- [23:16]
Carrie Coon
I mean, you'd like to think it matters for a little while if you can get a six months.
- [23:19]
Tracy Letts
For a little while, no.
- [23:20]
Carrie Coon
But six months of recognition and you move the sort of artistic ball forward a bit.
- [23:28]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I guess. I guess you get the power of no. Like, you get to say no to things. That's the real. Isn't that glorious power.
- [23:33]
Carrie Coon
I mean, outside of acting, when you Write a play you'd like to think that has a place in the world that will outlive you.
- [23:41]
Tracy Letts
I do believe that my husband, he still hopelessly believes in the power of art. He believes in it more than I do.
- [23:49]
Carrie Coon
Well, I mean, I think that real artists have to believe that. I get cynical about it because I'm like, yeah, so what song's gonna get us out of this?
- [23:58]
Tracy Letts
Right.
- [24:00]
Carrie Coon
Which play that no one goes to is gonna change the.
- [24:02]
Tracy Letts
Well, that's what Tracy said. I mean, the last play he wrote was about fascism. He's like, literally nobody came. And when it was still running, the New York Times didn't even write about it.
- [24:11]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, so that's gonna work. That's gonna hold the line.
- [24:13]
Tracy Letts
He's like, so if nobody saw my fascism play, I guess I'm done.
- [24:15]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. If no one sees a fascism play, does it happen?
- [24:18]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, if a fascism plays.
- [24:20]
Marc Maron
Which way was that?
- [24:21]
Tracy Letts
The Minutes. Did you not see the Minutes?
- [24:23]
Carrie Coon
I don't think I did see it.
- [24:24]
Tracy Letts
Oh, Mark, it's so good.
- [24:25]
Carrie Coon
It's hard for me to see theater out here. I did go see.
- [24:27]
Tracy Letts
It's hard for me to see theater in New York. Yes, you saw it out here, but that was great. Yeah, I know. It's such a. I mean, it's a Steely Dan. He's a character to Steely Dan.
- [24:35]
Carrie Coon
Well, him and I, we split paths on that. On the Steel.
- [24:38]
Tracy Letts
Sure, sure. Right, right. I know it's one of your fundamental disagreements in your friendship.
- [24:41]
Carrie Coon
No, I understand. Steely Dan.
- [24:42]
Tracy Letts
Right.
- [24:43]
Carrie Coon
I don't. I don't freak out over them.
- [24:45]
Tracy Letts
Nor do I.
- [24:46]
Carrie Coon
But he's younger than me, and we're not quite boomers yet. He shouldn't adapt.
- [24:50]
Marc Maron
Adopt it.
- [24:51]
Tracy Letts
All kind of opposite ends of the same generation.
- [24:52]
Carrie Coon
So you think about this end of the world thing all the time.
- [24:54]
Tracy Letts
Yes.
- [24:55]
Carrie Coon
And what are you trying to really do? Have you reconciled it in a real way?
- [25:00]
Tracy Letts
No, no, no. I think, you know, isn't sort of the responsibility of any human being to prepare yourself for death.
- [25:07]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [25:07]
Tracy Letts
So I feel like I think about death all the time in order to prepare myself for the inevitability of the dissolution of everything around us.
- [25:14]
Carrie Coon
Well, let me ask you.
- [25:15]
Tracy Letts
So I can be at peace with it.
- [25:17]
Carrie Coon
Well, that's. Well, that. I mean, be at peace with your own death, but then be at peace with, you know, the planetary death or the death in, you know, starving in a camp somewhere.
- [25:25]
Tracy Letts
Right, exactly.
- [25:26]
Carrie Coon
Because you're an actress.
- [25:27]
Tracy Letts
Yes. Yeah, I'll be on the. Yeah, I'll be on the Train for sure. Absolutely.
- [25:31]
Carrie Coon
Is it going to be trains and.
- [25:33]
Tracy Letts
Not anymore. Our infrastructure is really broken down. We don't really have the infrastructure for the trains.
- [25:38]
Carrie Coon
But I mean in terms of like really dealing with that death thing, I mean, as an actor person, because I feel like I can intellectually wrap my brain around it, but to really feel the terror of it, that's all. Different story somehow. Another one night in bed, I'd gotten myself into a situation where I was pretty sure I had cancer. And I felt the terror of it. And it made me realize I'm not prepared for this at all.
- [26:06]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I think that's real. Tracy's went through a couple of health scares like that. But for him it was like, oh, my children are so young now right now. That was true. Now for him it's about his kids.
- [26:16]
Carrie Coon
Well, they both happened when he was. Or he had.
- [26:18]
Tracy Letts
After he had children.
- [26:19]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Really.
- [26:20]
Tracy Letts
So he was really. You know, he's had a lot of brushes with death, but. But yeah, I mean, now it's like that's a very different thing is to think about how what you do to sustain your children in the event of your death or if you're leaving your children too soon.
- [26:33]
Carrie Coon
But what about some spiritual foundation? Anything that's.
- [26:36]
Tracy Letts
We really struggle with that because I'm a recovering Catholic and Tracy, a full on Catholic.
- [26:41]
Marc Maron
You had it hard.
- [26:42]
Tracy Letts
No, I mean, my dad almost became a Catholic priest. He went to Borromeo Seminary in Cleveland. He and my mom went out to dinner and got engaged because they've been making out since fourth grade. And he always took us to church and he got us confirmed and we were baptized. Wonderful.
- [26:57]
Carrie Coon
Kind of.
- [26:58]
Tracy Letts
But my mom didn't go to church.
- [26:59]
Carrie Coon
Swinging orbs.
- [27:00]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, we did all this stuff, you know, in Ohio. As committed as they would be.
- [27:04]
Carrie Coon
Ohio Catholics. Yeah.
- [27:05]
Tracy Letts
And his family's very Catholic, his side of the family. My mom's mom was a scientist. She was a science teacher. She didn't let any of the chaplains in her room when she was dying. She was like, get the fuck out of here.
- [27:14]
Carrie Coon
Really?
- [27:14]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. No, she was not a science.
- [27:15]
Carrie Coon
Science.
- [27:16]
Tracy Letts
She wanted to donate her body to science.
- [27:17]
Carrie Coon
So no. Hell that you believed.
- [27:20]
Tracy Letts
I mean. No, I absolutely. All I wanted, Mark, was a statue of Mary to talk to me. I just wanted to be special. I was a middle child. Nobody was paying any attention. And I wanted, you know, I just wanted to like all the. I feel like all the women teaching catechism talked about was like Mary appearing in Medjugorje.
- [27:34]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah, sure.
- [27:35]
Tracy Letts
I was like, is that really what it's about? Or how girls shouldn't play sports because it would damage our reproductive organs? Which. That was not supposed to fly with me. Yeah, that was really a thing they were teaching me and I was like, I like sports.
- [27:45]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [27:45]
Tracy Letts
I mean, I looked like a boy till I was 17 and a half. I wasn't.
- [27:48]
Carrie Coon
Did you have hell? Did you believe it?
- [27:50]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, sure. It's very romantic.
- [27:52]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah. Fun.
- [27:53]
Tracy Letts
I mean, are you kidding me? Like, the power of guilt and shame in my life up until I was probably 30 was so up until this morning ruined everything.
- [28:00]
Carrie Coon
Coming back later today, I'm sure.
- [28:02]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
- [28:04]
Carrie Coon
But the guilt and shame. Shame religious, as opposed to just free floating is probably more specific.
- [28:08]
Tracy Letts
I mean, guilt and shame is also like a parenting strategy. Strategy that people relied on for decades, I think. Like, that's how you imparted, like the moral. Right. Your moral is all based on guilt and shame.
- [28:18]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah. Hate yourself for doing this. Self loathing, tell jeezy to jeez.
- [28:21]
Tracy Letts
And also people pleasing just like, don't make waves, ladies.
- [28:25]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [28:25]
Tracy Letts
You know, that was a real thing. Yeah, but it's still a real thing.
- [28:28]
Carrie Coon
It didn't stick with you?
- [28:29]
Tracy Letts
No. You know, because I did some work on myself and I met. I met somebody who I fundamentally realized could, like, handle anything I had, which I never believed. I didn't trust anyone before that.
- [28:41]
Carrie Coon
I don't either.
- [28:42]
Tracy Letts
No, that's a real thing, Mark. But you can work on it.
- [28:45]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but what? Okay, so with the work you did, what was it that you couldn't trust them with? Was it real or was it just some weird childlike thing that the fear wasn't practical?
- [28:58]
Tracy Letts
Well, it is. It's real insofar as it's impacting your life. I mean, I think when you're growing up in the Midwest and my parents.
- [29:05]
Carrie Coon
Where parents. Where you grow up.
- [29:06]
Tracy Letts
I grew up in Ohio.
- [29:07]
Carrie Coon
In Ohio.
- [29:07]
Tracy Letts
There were five kids in my family.
- [29:08]
Carrie Coon
Which town?
- [29:09]
Tracy Letts
It's called Copley. It's outside of Akron. So it's like Akron's a very urban area, but we were in a very rural area that had been in my family since the 1800s.
- [29:16]
Carrie Coon
But it's pretty, right?
- [29:18]
Tracy Letts
It's beautiful. I loved growing up since the 1800s. Yeah, my dad's family lived on that property.
- [29:22]
Carrie Coon
Was it a farm?
- [29:23]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it was a farm.
- [29:24]
Carrie Coon
Where'd they come from? Scandinavia?
- [29:26]
Tracy Letts
Oh, no. I mean, my dad's family's mostly like. My grandma was some French.
- [29:30]
Carrie Coon
Oh, really?
- [29:31]
Tracy Letts
They're all like European mutts. And my mom's side was mostly Hungarians.
- [29:33]
Carrie Coon
Wasn't part of the Midwest Swede invasion.
- [29:36]
Tracy Letts
No, no, it wasn't the Lutherans. I don't think much of that. I don't think.
- [29:38]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah, Yeah.
- [29:39]
Tracy Letts
I think I'm more Neanderthal than Swede.
- [29:40]
Carrie Coon
Oh, okay.
- [29:41]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [29:42]
Carrie Coon
So. And what? So what? How does that impact you?
- [29:45]
Tracy Letts
Well, it's just, you know, Midwest. I mean, my parents were raised by people who grew up in the Depression. And they worked. My parents worked full time. Like, what?
- [29:53]
Marc Maron
They did.
- [29:54]
Tracy Letts
My mom was an emergency room nurse.
- [29:55]
Carrie Coon
Oh, my God.
- [29:56]
Tracy Letts
My dad ran the family auto parts store because he didn't become a priest. So then he had to find, you know, a vocation.
- [30:01]
Carrie Coon
What is it about people who want to become priests?
- [30:03]
Tracy Letts
What was his traumatic.
- [30:05]
Carrie Coon
Is it romantic to be.
- [30:06]
Tracy Letts
Well, here's the other thing. My dad was really smart and he wanted to get a good education. The seminary had that. So he got, you know, classically educated.
- [30:13]
Carrie Coon
But you got to forego all the passions.
- [30:16]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I mean, it's very. It's just. But, like, it's such, like. Church is theater. And now my dad has found his way back to the theater. He's found, like, this troupe of guys at his bar, and they do. They just did Harvey. And now he's, like, helping them write a play. It's very. I'm so proud. I love it. I haven't actually seen it yet. He already did a wicked good accent last.
- [30:35]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah.
- [30:36]
Tracy Letts
Of what's Up? Production. I don't know. I didn't. I don't. Nobody could really identify what it was. But I gotta ask him about that.
- [30:41]
Carrie Coon
That's the best way to do an accent, I think. So he's doing one, but I don't know what.
- [30:44]
Tracy Letts
He's just. You kind of can't place it. I specialize in those. Everybody thinks I'm, you know, like, not American. They all think. Or I'm deaf. They think I'm German or deaf. They think I talk funny.
- [30:54]
Carrie Coon
But that's interesting. So you recognize it as theatrics early on?
- [30:58]
Tracy Letts
Sure. Oh, yeah. I wanted it. I wanted to be part of it. I loved the church. I loved singing. I loved punishing myself.
- [31:05]
Carrie Coon
How many siblings do you have?
- [31:06]
Tracy Letts
4. I'm the dead middle of 5.
- [31:08]
Carrie Coon
So that's pretty Catholic.
- [31:09]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And my parents even adopted one. Really super intense. Yeah.
- [31:13]
Carrie Coon
And how's everyone doing?
- [31:15]
Tracy Letts
I mean, they're Americans in the Midwest. It's not great. It's really hard. It's hard to make a living. It's hard to Pay your bills. My siblings have sort of various degrees. They're like, you know, we sort of are kind of representative of a certain kind of American family. Right. That's been here for many generations. You know, some of us went to college and some of us didn't.
- [31:33]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [31:33]
Tracy Letts
You know, one of them's an immigrant. And, I mean, we just have. We kind of represent all things. So, like, you know, I've got a chef, I have a general manager. I have somebody who didn't go to college, who's kind of works in a trucking company. My sister, who, you know, just kind of is, I think, mentally ill and struggles in the world. Italy.
- [31:49]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [31:50]
Tracy Letts
And, you know, is not from. Is El Salvadoran. And, you know, has the adopted child, like, the always going to feel like she was abandoned on some level?
- [31:57]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah.
- [31:58]
Tracy Letts
It's really an intense psychology to be adopted.
- [32:00]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. My. My brother has three adopted kids.
- [32:02]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it's really. And. And back then, when my sister was adopted from El Salvador, which was in the middle of a civil war, they were just like, good luck Christians. There was no trauma counseling. There was no sense of, like, telling my parents, like, hey, get ready. There could be some real deep psychological shit going on.
- [32:17]
Marc Maron
Yeah, they weren't.
- [32:18]
Tracy Letts
And they come from a generation that, like, it's all stoicism. Nobody was going to therapy. Even the scientists in my family go to therapy.
- [32:24]
Carrie Coon
Really?
- [32:24]
Tracy Letts
Absolutely.
- [32:25]
Carrie Coon
And is there a full political spectrum amongst the siblings?
- [32:29]
Tracy Letts
No, my family's very classically liberal because my dad, again, he was educated, liberal, Catholic. Yeah. That's good.
- [32:35]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [32:35]
Marc Maron
There was a whole humanist.
- [32:36]
Tracy Letts
My dad understands that there are other religions, that God. He believes in God, but he believes that God will appeal to different people in different ways, which I think is a really respectful way to think about it. And my mom's kind of like, I treat everybody the same. If that's wrong, I guess I am going to hell.
- [32:50]
Carrie Coon
Fuck off. But emergency room nurse, that's intense.
- [32:53]
Tracy Letts
It is intense.
- [32:53]
Carrie Coon
So swipe and death every day.
- [32:55]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it is. And she would just, like, smoke cigarettes at the kitchen table and look at the obituary, see who died, you know.
- [33:01]
Carrie Coon
But like, that relationship. I talked to Noah Wiley about that because he's got that new show on the pit. Just, you know, your understanding and intimacy with mortality and the fragility of. Of the human body. It's just like, day in and day out.
- [33:16]
Tracy Letts
Absolutely. And I think my. And like, none of those nurses go to the doctor and they, like, all smoke. I mean, they're so aware of just how tenuous it all is. And I think my mom is. You know, my mom is not a person of faith. And I would say that she's probably on the spectrum, like, very afraid of death. Whereas my dad feels genuinely prepared and ready to go. Yeah. Which his parents also were. They were practicing Catholics. They're like, oh, finally.
- [33:36]
Carrie Coon
Yes. It's going to happen. Yeah.
- [33:38]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And they were in their 90s. I mean, they also live good, long lives.
- [33:41]
Carrie Coon
What's interesting about that emergency room nurse or the smoking or anything else is that it's like, it's got to be some kind of addiction almost.
- [33:48]
Tracy Letts
It's ad. They're adrenaline junkies.
- [33:49]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, totally.
- [33:50]
Tracy Letts
I mean, they're so ready for this dopamine world we're living in.
- [33:54]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. They're prepared.
- [33:55]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [33:55]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. They're ready to go. Like, they got a bag to pack to help.
- [33:59]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Right. And she was. She was always. She was a really good nurse. I mean, she was really good at her job. But sometimes I think that also got the best of her, you know, like, her energy was kind of put into that. Yeah. She worked at five kids and she slept during the day.
- [34:11]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [34:11]
Tracy Letts
And, you know, when Marianne Jean Baptiste wakes up in that. In the. The new Mike Lee movie, you know, she, like, she screams, wakes up and throws her pillows. That was the way my mom always woke up. It was terrifying.
- [34:22]
Carrie Coon
That movie was gnarly.
- [34:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. It's hard to watch, but he really does capture a certain kind of person who you're just like, oh, no. What happened?
- [34:29]
Carrie Coon
I talked to him. He's a beautiful man.
- [34:30]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, well, he makes beautiful.
- [34:32]
Carrie Coon
Unbelievable.
- [34:32]
Tracy Letts
We don't even have somebody who. Who's treating the working class like that in the center.
- [34:37]
Carrie Coon
He's a singular guy.
- [34:38]
Tracy Letts
He really. I bet. I would love to meet him.
- [34:40]
Carrie Coon
Like a real. Like a humanist and a collaborator and, you know, that all that stuff, it takes weeks to improvise, to find where the scenes are fascinating. It's crazy.
- [34:50]
Tracy Letts
I would love to be involved in a process like that. I think it's so interesting.
- [34:53]
Carrie Coon
You should do a Mike Lee movie.
- [34:54]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Well, yeah, you're right. Let me call him. That's not really how this works, Mark. You know, that's not how this works. Well, sometimes I'm fighting for everything.
- [35:01]
Carrie Coon
Are you?
- [35:02]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, of course.
- [35:02]
Carrie Coon
I went. I kind of did a. A small crash course in some of the stuff you did, and I'm a little traumatized because I watched.
- [35:09]
Tracy Letts
No. What did you watch? The Leftovers?
- [35:10]
Carrie Coon
No, I watched the Nest.
- [35:11]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah.
- [35:12]
Carrie Coon
And then I watched Gone Girl.
- [35:15]
Tracy Letts
Huh. Yep. First.
- [35:16]
Carrie Coon
But the Nest. I'd never seen that before, but I saw that guy's other movie.
- [35:19]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, you liked Martha Marcime Marlene. I listened to your interview with Lizzie because of course, you know, she's my.
- [35:23]
Carrie Coon
Pal, she's the best.
- [35:24]
Tracy Letts
And that movie's great. I mean, Sean, a great filmmaker and she's magnificent.
- [35:27]
Carrie Coon
What is it about that? You know, because I just. I watched another indie movie the other night because my friend's in it. And there's a real difference between filmmakers who are just honoring a script in a very sort of basic way to execute the script, and then filmmakers who have like a real full vision, like they. And it happens a lot with comedies, independent comedies. I don't even know why people do them because, I mean, because it's so like if you look at a script and it's, oh, this is a funny scene.
- [35:52]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [35:53]
Carrie Coon
To make it funny on camera for everybody, you gotta have really have some magic or else it's just going to be like, no. Okay.
- [36:00]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I mean, comedy.
- [36:01]
Carrie Coon
But that guy, the guy who did the Nest, he seems to have a real understanding.
- [36:05]
Tracy Letts
His scripts are all really personal. I feel like he's the one who's deciding what story he wants to tell. And then when he's on set, he's like, you know, he's like a great athlete. You know, the really good directors, like, that's where they're most at home is when they're on set and doing that work. And he. And our dp, Matthias Erdley, who's an amazing dp, Disney, I swear to you, they communicated telepathically. I've never seen anything like it. They would just kind of walk around in a circle, putting their, you know, stroking their chins and then they would just nod and then we would do the shot and they never said a word. And then pretty soon you found yourself also being like. Sean would say, carrie. And you'd say, uh huh, yes. And you knew exactly. It was so strange. I've never experienced anything like it before. But I loved it and I loved Jude and I love those kids. We just had a great time, but.
- [36:47]
Carrie Coon
It'S like, I can't.
- [36:48]
Marc Maron
It's weird.
- [36:49]
Carrie Coon
Nobody saw, really.
- [36:51]
Tracy Letts
No, you saw during the pandemic. I know. It's a really good movie. It's an adult movie.
- [36:55]
Carrie Coon
Totally adult movie. And it's surprising in a way that's not overwrought.
- [37:00]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, thanks.
- [37:01]
Carrie Coon
Like in the sense of like how that character of him reveals itself in that one scene with the mother, you're like, oh, this monster.
- [37:10]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, that's such a great scene. I know, right?
- [37:11]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [37:12]
Tracy Letts
And he's like. I mean, Jude would say. I think it's like, there's so much of his father in it, too. It was very personal.
- [37:17]
Carrie Coon
And it's a completely real sort of depiction of a type of guy and a type of woman and the kids and Gone Girl. That was great. But, I mean, I know you've done a lot of other stuff, but this is what's in my head. And I watched all the episodes of White Lotus.
- [37:30]
Tracy Letts
Oh, did they give you one through six?
- [37:31]
Carrie Coon
One through four.
- [37:32]
Tracy Letts
They give you one through four. Oh, so you haven't gotten to, like, when the ladies go crazy yet, have you?
- [37:36]
Carrie Coon
I can feel it coming.
- [37:37]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, of course. Of course. It's all gonna.
- [37:39]
Carrie Coon
And you were in Thailand.
- [37:40]
Tracy Letts
Yes. For six months, man. Tracy was taking care of the kids for six months.
- [37:44]
Carrie Coon
Is that how you got it worked out? You don't work well?
- [37:47]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, there's a bit more. Taking turns now.
- [37:50]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [37:50]
Tracy Letts
You know, we just don't want to. Like, there's a version of life where you take your kids all over the world and just, like, plunge.
- [37:56]
Carrie Coon
I know I talk to actors that do that.
- [37:57]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And I. And I also. I kind of always thought we might be those people. When my son. You know, my son, all the way up until the pandemic when he was 2, he'd been all over with us, all around the world and on sets. And then the pandemic hit, and then we found out maybe he's, like, not that kind of kid. And they kind of tell you disruptive. Yeah. Like, he really likes his routine. He loves school. He loves his school, and we just don't feel good taking him out.
- [38:19]
Carrie Coon
I don't know that any kind of kid is necessarily like that. That's where the whole sort of selfishness of the parent comes in.
- [38:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, that's true. It's like your family culture, isn't it?
- [38:26]
Carrie Coon
Well, what's the bargain? Like, do they miss having a parent for six months, or do you drag them wherever you are to, you know, watch movies in a strange apartment?
- [38:34]
Tracy Letts
It's pretty tricky. Yeah, exactly. It's weird. I mean, I didn't. I was gonna bring them to LA because Tracy's in New Zealand. I was like, are you crazy?
- [38:41]
Carrie Coon
How long is he in New Zealand for?
- [38:42]
Tracy Letts
Like three and a half weeks.
- [38:43]
Carrie Coon
Not six months?
- [38:44]
Tracy Letts
It's not the same as six months, but. Yeah, you really have. You have to weigh all those questions. It's hard to balance two careers.
- [38:49]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I think I have three, but I Have no kids. But the level of worry I have about my cats is. It's unnatural.
- [38:57]
Tracy Letts
Yes, right, of course. Well, animal. It's very pure, that, you know, the animal.
- [39:00]
Carrie Coon
I guess that's what it is.
- [39:01]
Tracy Letts
I like being away from my kids. I mean, I say that with love.
- [39:03]
Carrie Coon
I.
- [39:04]
Tracy Letts
It's. As a woman, it is very powerful to recover your autonomy, period.
- [39:07]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [39:08]
Tracy Letts
I don't think most moms, in the way we're parenting now, get to do that. So.
- [39:11]
Carrie Coon
So that's interesting.
- [39:12]
Tracy Letts
As a cat mother, you're, you know, of course, you're.
- [39:14]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah, it's just. It's. It's ridiculous in a way.
- [39:17]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And it's such a pure kind of grief, too. It's horrible. Having animals is horrible. I had them growing up, and I just don't want them ever again.
- [39:22]
Carrie Coon
Really.
- [39:23]
Tracy Letts
Because that's death. That's where you learn about death.
- [39:25]
Carrie Coon
Well, it's where you learn about death.
- [39:26]
Tracy Letts
You have 21 dogs since you're 6.
- [39:27]
Carrie Coon
And you have to do it.
- [39:29]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. You have to bury them in the backyard. And we have no hit.
- [39:31]
Carrie Coon
Somehow you have to get them.
- [39:33]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, you do. Yeah, I know. I took. We got. We had one. My grandma and I ended up putting it down. And the vet was like, oh, just so you know, that was a flesh wound. She probably would have survived. And we're like, well, thanks for telling us.
- [39:42]
Carrie Coon
Shut up.
- [39:43]
Tracy Letts
Like, great, now to go tell everybody. But we killed the dog.
- [39:45]
Carrie Coon
Oh, it's the worst.
- [39:46]
Tracy Letts
It's the worst.
- [39:46]
Carrie Coon
I used to avoid it because we grew up with dogs. My mother was more in the school of, like, drop them off and do it. But the last couple I went in and, like, was there. It's awful.
- [39:58]
Tracy Letts
But you should be there, though. It feels like the right thing to do.
- [40:01]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. But it's heavy, man.
- [40:03]
Tracy Letts
It's so heavy. It's awful.
- [40:05]
Carrie Coon
The sort of thing you got to do with your head. It's like, well, you know, you gave him a good life and he wouldn't have survived out in the wild and, you know, whatever. And you're doing the right thing. Because when you're in that zone of, like, maintaining an animal's life when it's ridiculous.
- [40:19]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. We never got that far because we lived in the country.
- [40:21]
Carrie Coon
But, yeah, I was giving IVs.
- [40:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I mean, I've seen people pay us, you know, it's crazy. Ostentatious amounts of money to keep their.
- [40:29]
Carrie Coon
You gotta let them go.
- [40:30]
Tracy Letts
You do. I think. I think you do.
- [40:32]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [40:32]
Tracy Letts
That's my personal philosophy.
- [40:33]
Carrie Coon
So wait, did you, what'd you do when you were a kid? Was there an active farm?
- [40:37]
Tracy Letts
I mean, it was not an active farm. It was like an old farm. We had like apples and blueberries. We didn't have animals. But there were animals across the street.
- [40:44]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [40:44]
Tracy Letts
You know, there was a guy with chickens who probably shot six of my dogs. I think, you know, they were dying all. We used to do this thing at Christmas where we would recite all the names of the dogs and how they died at Christmas.
- [40:55]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [40:55]
Tracy Letts
Because it would make my grandma laugh so hard, she'd just fall off her chair laughing. We'd be like, Abby, Maggie, Yukon. You know, this one was shot, this one was poisoned, this one got hit by a car and then shot. You know, we would just go through the whole litany of dogs.
- [41:07]
Carrie Coon
There is something about country people's relationship to animals.
- [41:11]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it's more. It's more visceral.
- [41:13]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [41:13]
Tracy Letts
I mean, your relationship to death and animals. We've gotten so far from death. It's probably good to, you know, have your hands in the dirt that way.
- [41:20]
Carrie Coon
But I think so. I don't, you know, I don't know. My dad's in the throes of the dementia thing.
- [41:26]
Tracy Letts
Oh, dear. That's a hard one.
- [41:28]
Carrie Coon
And I detach from it. His wife's still taking care of him, but I don't know if I'm feeling. I think after somebody you love dies or you see enough of it that you realize like, well, this is inevitable and grief and loss is inevitable on some level. And that's just part of the thing.
- [41:48]
Tracy Letts
Everything you love will die and pass away.
- [41:50]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. If you don't go first.
- [41:51]
Tracy Letts
Right. That happens too.
- [41:54]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [41:54]
Tracy Letts
You hope for the natural order of things.
- [41:56]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [41:56]
Tracy Letts
It doesn't always go that way, of.
- [41:57]
Carrie Coon
Course, but when you're growing up, I mean, how. When do you start doing the. The acting business?
- [42:02]
Tracy Letts
Oh, you know, I saw. My mom hates this story, but I saw a play when I was 10 at the Akron Civic Theater, which is one of those atmospheric theaters where you have like the stars and the, you know, on the ceiling. It was so beautiful.
- [42:12]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [42:13]
Tracy Letts
And there were 10 year old. It was called Babes in Toyland. For kids my age. I was probably like 10. And I was like, whoa, those people are my age and they're up there. How did they get to be up there? And I came home and I knew my grandfather after he fought in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. And he made it out.
- [42:26]
Carrie Coon
Really?
- [42:27]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Really intense. He just passed away last year.
- [42:29]
Carrie Coon
Did he Talk about it.
- [42:30]
Tracy Letts
Not until his 80s. You know, when the Leopoldville surfaced, there was the sinking of a submarine that had been covered up, I guess, for decades. His battalion was on the Leopoldville being transferred somewhere, and he wasn't on it because they put him on a jeep to drive something somewhere. So he had this sense of like, having. Having shirked death in that circumstance.
- [42:49]
Carrie Coon
Survivor's guilt.
- [42:50]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, a little bit. And that's when he started talking about it. But he didn't like to be with other veterans. He didn't like talking about it. He didn't want people to be.
- [42:55]
Carrie Coon
It seems like that generation doesn't.
- [42:57]
Tracy Letts
No, it's so traumatic. I mean, can you imagine the growing up you had to do?
- [43:02]
Carrie Coon
I can't imagine.
- [43:03]
Tracy Letts
No, I can't either. I mean, he would talk about, like, you know, seeing his commanders get blown.
- [43:07]
Carrie Coon
To smithereens and he was tracking through the snow.
- [43:10]
Tracy Letts
You know, he was in Arles in France. I don't know what it was. I mean, it was just.
- [43:14]
Carrie Coon
But he wasn't like. That wasn't the one from Save a Private Ryan.
- [43:17]
Tracy Letts
No, that. No, that was like D Day. No. But it was a terrifying.
- [43:20]
Carrie Coon
The Battle of the Bulge, I thought was in the snow where they were pushing back. That the Germans.
- [43:25]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [43:25]
Carrie Coon
Who were off. It was towards the end of the war. Right.
- [43:28]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it was.
- [43:28]
Carrie Coon
He didn't talk.
- [43:29]
Tracy Letts
The fact that he actually made it. Yeah. None of them did for. You know, they didn't talk about it for decades. I feel like.
- [43:35]
Carrie Coon
I know. I just watched that. You ever see the Straight Story? No, The David lynch movie.
- [43:40]
Tracy Letts
I haven't, actually.
- [43:41]
Carrie Coon
Oh, you got.
- [43:42]
Tracy Letts
Which I'm sure we own it because, you know, because Tracy's insane.
- [43:44]
Carrie Coon
It's a masterpiece. And it's not a weirdo movie. It's not like a freaky David Lynching. It's. It's a very straight story.
- [43:52]
Tracy Letts
Okay, well, I'll.
- [43:53]
Carrie Coon
And there's a scene in there, two veterans. It's like, mind blowing. Richard Farnsworth.
- [43:57]
Tracy Letts
Oh, wow. Oh, wonderful.
- [43:59]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [43:59]
Tracy Letts
Okay, I'll check it out.
- [44:00]
Carrie Coon
Oh, it's. It's. It's.
- [44:01]
Tracy Letts
I can't believe I haven't seen it.
- [44:03]
Carrie Coon
You got to see. I keep talking about it. I met some guy at the deli after I did comedy, and I was like, you've never seen that?
- [44:11]
Tracy Letts
That's how I felt when I saw Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. I feel like I was telling everyone to go see.
- [44:15]
Carrie Coon
I know. I do that all the time. Like, I discover a movie that's been around for decades.
- [44:18]
Tracy Letts
Right. Well, that's why Tracy and I wanted to start like a blog or. I don't know what you do now. A podcast or you. Because I feel like we are always. We have all those movies, we own them. And so, you know, when our babysitter. We have this babysitting friend of ours who comes in, she's an actress and she had seen like Dog Day Afternoon. She hadn't seen Deliverance. She'd seen memes about Deliverance, but she'd never seen. And like so many kids in this industry have never seen these films.
- [44:41]
Carrie Coon
Well, Deliverance, I had to go back and watch because I was brought to it by my grandparents.
- [44:45]
Tracy Letts
Oh, wow.
- [44:46]
Carrie Coon
When I was like 11.
- [44:47]
Tracy Letts
So dark and.
- [44:48]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. But like, it's weird what you remember. I did learn something about kids brains. It's like I didn't really register the rape.
- [44:55]
Tracy Letts
Right.
- [44:56]
Carrie Coon
You just register the scary parts, right?
- [44:58]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Portent. You feel it.
- [45:00]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. And. But like when I saw it again, I'm like, wow, they really show that.
- [45:03]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I mean, they really do.
- [45:05]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [45:05]
Marc Maron
But you're right.
- [45:05]
Tracy Letts
You don't process it.
- [45:06]
Carrie Coon
No, because it's. You don't have the. The point of reference.
- [45:10]
Tracy Letts
Thank goodness.
- [45:10]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. It's true.
- [45:11]
Tracy Letts
You shouldn't.
- [45:12]
Carrie Coon
So. So you're 10.
- [45:14]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I see a play and I come home and I look in the. So I was talking about my grandfather because he ended up doing some community theater. When he got out of the way.
- [45:21]
Carrie Coon
All these actors around, you just wait. These. But your dad.
- [45:25]
Tracy Letts
Oh, well, he's, you know, I think he's just. Now he's just competing with me. No, I'm just. He's so sweet. I think he did a little bit in college. Yeah, but. And I saw the Weathervane Theater where he was. Still existed, and they were holding like general auditions or something. And I said to my mom, can I do this? My mom was like, no. Because my sister and I babysat our little brothers every weekend.
- [45:44]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [45:45]
Tracy Letts
And my mom worked at night and so she slept during the day. So she didn't drive us anywhere. So if you ever wanted to do. Yeah. She's like, if you can find a ride.
- [45:51]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [45:52]
Tracy Letts
We were going to the grocery store and buying your cigarettes. That was the time when you could. You had a note and you bought your mom's cigarettes.
- [45:56]
Carrie Coon
So. Yeah, I did that.
- [45:57]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Right.
- [45:58]
Carrie Coon
We all did Skaggs Drugstore.
- [45:59]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, totally. We all. We went to Acme or whatever. But. So I didn't do it until senior year in high school. I was playing soccer. I was an athlete. I auditioned for the play. I got the lead in our town, and then I ended up doing, like, four or five plays in college. Playing. I was also.
- [46:13]
Carrie Coon
Where'd you go to college?
- [46:14]
Tracy Letts
The University of Mount Union, it's called now. It's a small school in Ohio.
- [46:17]
Carrie Coon
Ohio.
- [46:17]
Tracy Letts
It's just like, they. They let me play soccer, and they had a little bit of support for academics.
- [46:22]
Carrie Coon
Did you study anything that.
- [46:23]
Tracy Letts
I changed majors, like, eight times. I was a business and Japanese major for the first two weeks.
- [46:27]
Carrie Coon
How's your Japanese?
- [46:28]
Tracy Letts
Terrible. I changed majors immediately. I was like, business. I'm insane. And I think I ended up in education for a while. And then I did a classroom observation. I was like, I'm not special enough to be an educator. And then I did philosophy for a while.
- [46:41]
Carrie Coon
How'd that go?
- [46:42]
Tracy Letts
You know, I loved it. But, you know, I had enough credits to become an English lit major, and I studied. I studied abroad in Spain. I became a Spanish lit major, but I did not study.
- [46:50]
Carrie Coon
How's your Spanish?
- [46:51]
Tracy Letts
Oh, God, the past tense is really gone. Yeah, I'm trying to practice. I try to, like, every year. I'm like, my duolingo is this, you know.
- [46:57]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [46:58]
Tracy Letts
But I'm terrible, and I'm so sad. I mean, it would come back if I made the effort, but I don't have time to do anything.
- [47:03]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but so did that sort of engage you in the arts somehow?
- [47:08]
Tracy Letts
Well, I did plays in college, and I had a professor who said, I think you could go to graduate school for acting now. I grew up in Ohio. I didn't know about Juilliard. I didn't know about nyu.
- [47:16]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [47:16]
Tracy Letts
So I wasn't. I didn't have any aspirations, so I ended up at UW Madison in Wisconsin.
- [47:20]
Carrie Coon
Madison.
- [47:21]
Tracy Letts
There's 10 actors. For three years, they were remaking the program.
- [47:24]
Carrie Coon
Good town.
- [47:25]
Tracy Letts
It's a great town. Yeah, it's a great college town.
- [47:27]
Carrie Coon
Lots of fun. I like playing there.
- [47:28]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I bet it's fun. It's a great. You know, it is. I loved being there, and it was a great place to pay attention to myself for three years in my twenties.
- [47:35]
Carrie Coon
So the program was small.
- [47:37]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Ten actors, three years.
- [47:39]
Carrie Coon
Good attention from an okay teacher or what.
- [47:42]
Tracy Letts
Yes. You know, they were. I feel like my teachers were very different and had different philosophies about what we were trying to accomplish there. But I had a great voice teacher, Susan Sweeney, who'd come from the PTT program in Delaware, which is kind of a notorious EST program. They try out all the EST technology on those kids.
- [47:56]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah.
- [47:57]
Tracy Letts
Anyway. But she was a great.
- [47:58]
Carrie Coon
Did she have it or did she run for it?
- [48:00]
Tracy Letts
She had some of that.
- [48:00]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [48:01]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, sure. She used it effectively. Get in there for us. But I realized having been from the Midwest, I had never maybe taken a deep breath. My voice was not in my body. And so that was.
- [48:11]
Carrie Coon
The angle was be present and self affirmation. And what.
- [48:16]
Tracy Letts
I don't think it's. I don't think it's self. I mean. Have you ever gone to the Landmark Forum?
- [48:19]
Carrie Coon
No, but I know people. I guess it is. It a. A sort of.
- [48:23]
Tracy Letts
I think that life is empty and meaningless and it's empty and meaningless. That it's empty and meaningless would be the overarching philosophy.
- [48:29]
Carrie Coon
But it's. It's ambition based. It's. It's. It's manifesting your best self to do what you do.
- [48:36]
Tracy Letts
I think it's sort of like corrupted Buddhism, like there is no self, so it doesn't matter what you do.
- [48:41]
Carrie Coon
I know one guy who's in the. In the Landmark and it's.
- [48:44]
Tracy Letts
You can't argue with those people.
- [48:45]
Carrie Coon
Well, there's a confidence to it. That's annoying.
- [48:47]
Tracy Letts
There is. Yeah, there is. Because they're like, oh, that's yours. That doesn't belong to me.
- [48:50]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [48:51]
Tracy Letts
You know, so you can't hold them responsible for anything.
- [48:53]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [48:53]
Tracy Letts
Because they're like, well, that's your experience that you're having that I did not cause in you. Very frustrating. I can't really wrap my head around.
- [48:59]
Carrie Coon
I'm walking away.
- [49:00]
Marc Maron
Aggressive detachment.
- [49:01]
Tracy Letts
It really is. But the voice work was amazing and really life changing for me.
- [49:07]
Carrie Coon
And so.
- [49:08]
Tracy Letts
And then I just kept doing plays. I was doing plays.
- [49:11]
Carrie Coon
But then how does it become in Wisconsin?
- [49:13]
Tracy Letts
So I went to the American Players Theater in Spring Green, Wisconsin, an amazing outdoor Shakespeare theater that's been around for a long time.
- [49:19]
Carrie Coon
You did Shakespeare?
- [49:20]
Tracy Letts
I did Shakespeare. I did Chekhov. I did. You know, they do Eugene O'Neill. They do the big. The big guns out there under the stars. And it's an 1100 seat house outside. And you have to figure out how to fill that space, truthfully.
- [49:30]
Carrie Coon
And it's a membership thing, so it's pretty full usually.
- [49:33]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah. I mean, the audience has grown up with them. Generations of families coming to this theater. It's a beautiful place. I highly recommend people go.
- [49:40]
Carrie Coon
And you got to learn how to fill it with your presence.
- [49:42]
Tracy Letts
You do your presence and your voice, which is hard for a little lady.
- [49:45]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [49:45]
Tracy Letts
And you're in these, you know, you're outside and so there's rain and there's thunder and lightning. There's all the conditions you have to fight against as well. And you're in upholstery fabric so they don't get ruined. And yeah, I was there and a lot of the directors working out there were Chicago based. Everything's made of upholstery fabric. And like, you know, you have to be nice to people or they won't wipe the mosquitoes off your face when you're playing a dead body. And then so the directors. James Bonin, who worked at the theater in Chicago, gave me my first job in Chicago. And then I was auditioning at Steppenwolf and I was getting called back. And then eventually my first job on the main stage was who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? And that play ended up going to Broadway and I met Tracy, and that's the play that changed my life.
- [50:22]
Carrie Coon
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
- [50:23]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Cause we went to Broadway.
- [50:25]
Carrie Coon
But Steppenwolf, like, what generation of actors were there?
- [50:29]
Tracy Letts
Well, I mean, everybody. I mean, everybody who'd founded it was gone. You know, Laurie Metcalfe, all those guys had moved on. It was the new generation. And TR was kind of like. I don't know what you'd consider him. Is he like third generation Steppenwolf or something?
- [50:40]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I guess so.
- [50:41]
Tracy Letts
I was the one kind of coming in under him.
- [50:43]
Marc Maron
And in some ways he wasn't there.
- [50:45]
Carrie Coon
Though, when you were there.
- [50:45]
Tracy Letts
No, he was. He played George.
- [50:47]
Marc Maron
Oh, so he's been a company member.
- [50:48]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. This is like Post, who's a. I mean, this is Post August, Osage County. I mean, he's kind of the man who was sort of responsible for funding the theater at that point because of his plays. But Tracy and I were. Yeah, he'd been. I mean, he and Amy Morton had played Married like, I don't know, 12 times or something by then.
- [51:03]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [51:04]
Tracy Letts
And so that's where Tracy and I met. And then that play went to Broadway. And that's when I started going to casting directors in New York. And I had done a. I had done commercials and one guest star spot on tv.
- [51:13]
Carrie Coon
Now, like, my assumption in terms of what Steppenwolf means and what was going on there, that there was a, like, it was sort of intense and angry and focused bunch of people.
- [51:27]
Tracy Letts
I think in the early days, it probably was because they were just like hungry students. The thing that Steppenwolf brings and why I think Chicago theater is singular is the ensemble ethic, that it's about telling a story. It's not about one Person who stands out from the ensemble. So it's always about what is the best choice you make to tell the story.
- [51:47]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [51:48]
Tracy Letts
And that's a great philosophy for theater, and I think that's what makes Chicago actors really unique and special.
- [51:53]
Carrie Coon
It's also, I guess, also why sketch comedy has taken over comedy. It's the same thing. It was never a stand up town, but it was always an improv town.
- [52:02]
Tracy Letts
It was. Right. And it's a huge yes and town.
- [52:04]
Carrie Coon
Yes. And that's all ensemble collaborative work.
- [52:07]
Tracy Letts
That's right. And like TJ and Dave and the Herald was like the hour long. Right. Where you're.
- [52:11]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, it's a lot to go through.
- [52:12]
Tracy Letts
It's a lot. Yeah, it is a lot to go through. But it's fun to watch. Gosh, it's a hoot. Sometimes Tracy and Mike Shannon do it with those guys and it's really fun to watch.
- [52:19]
Carrie Coon
They do the Herald?
- [52:20]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, they do The Herald with T.J. and Dave. Tracy was supposed to do it a few weeks ago in New York, but he had to bow out because I think everybody was sick or something. But oh, my God, family, you know, Blah.
- [52:29]
Carrie Coon
So that must be fun.
- [52:30]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Good times.
- [52:31]
Carrie Coon
But, but so Tracy, like, as an actor, what in. So you played opposite him. He was your husband?
- [52:39]
Tracy Letts
I mean. No, I was playing honey. So I was playing the younger. I mean, we're 15 years apart. I was playing the younger. The younger couple and he was playing.
- [52:45]
Carrie Coon
So you got to sit there on stage watching him yell and.
- [52:48]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I mean, he was. He's very. You know, it's funny, Tracy, he wouldn't claim to ever being an athlete, but he's really in his body and as an actor, he's such a. He's such an embodied. Makes him so great on stage. He's great on stage.
- [52:59]
Carrie Coon
I know. I saw him in that Arthur Miller play.
- [53:01]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, he was with. With Annette.
- [53:02]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [53:03]
Tracy Letts
All My Sons. Yeah, he was beautiful in that.
- [53:05]
Carrie Coon
He was.
- [53:05]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, he really was.
- [53:06]
Carrie Coon
But I talked to Mangold yesterday.
- [53:08]
Tracy Letts
Oh, you did?
- [53:08]
Marc Maron
Yeah, it was so.
- [53:09]
Tracy Letts
He had a great time with James. He loved working on Ford v Ferrari.
- [53:12]
Carrie Coon
The life I live, you know, I get. I get out. I was told he's going to be early. And I come out here to set up and he's sitting in his Porsche in my driveway like, hey, buddy, you want to come in? Yeah, yeah. But I talked specifically about that scene where Tracy gets driven in the Corvette.
- [53:25]
Tracy Letts
Oh, my gosh, it's so funny.
- [53:26]
Carrie Coon
It's the best scene.
- [53:27]
Tracy Letts
Well, it's so. I mean, My grandfather talked about that scene till he died. He loved that movie. He began to watch it when it came on tv. That was his favorite part Tracy ever did. But, yeah, because Tracy is really claustrophobic and he was genuinely afraid in that rig. The rig is really fast, Mike. I remember he said that Matt Damon was like, man, you're so pale. Are you all right? And he's like, no, I'm not okay. So, like, the crying, I think, came easily, but it's so funny.
- [53:49]
Carrie Coon
It's hilarious.
- [53:49]
Tracy Letts
It's a great choice.
- [53:50]
Carrie Coon
So. But do you guys talk about acting?
- [53:54]
Tracy Letts
I mean, we talk about everything.
- [53:55]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [53:56]
Tracy Letts
That's the nice thing about a marriage, where everything's on the table as you talk about everything. We like working together. We're great together. We have a. Like, we kind of have a production company. I'm very cynical about it, but, you know, I've done a lot of his plays. We haven't really acted together much since Virginia Woolf, but.
- [54:12]
Carrie Coon
But you. You're available.
- [54:13]
Tracy Letts
It's a weird way to fall in love. Yeah, totally.
- [54:15]
Carrie Coon
Well, how did you fall in love?
- [54:17]
Tracy Letts
Well, I mean, we just. I don't know. It was one of those. We were both in other relationships.
- [54:22]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [54:22]
Tracy Letts
You know, which. I was a serial overlapper, anyway.
- [54:25]
Carrie Coon
Yes.
- [54:25]
Tracy Letts
That was kind of my thing for a long time. It's what people do. It's how if you don't know. How if you have no boundaries and you don't like conflict, that's how you get out.
- [54:32]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Yeah. You just move into another thing. Yeah.
- [54:34]
Tracy Letts
Like, oops.
- [54:35]
Carrie Coon
This thing seems better.
- [54:35]
Tracy Letts
Are you gonna break up with me now? Yes. It's a terrible. I mean, it's such a.
- [54:39]
Carrie Coon
What is the no boundary thing? It's annoying.
- [54:42]
Tracy Letts
It's Nobody.
- [54:43]
Carrie Coon
It's exhausting.
- [54:44]
Marc Maron
Dude, we don't.
- [54:44]
Tracy Letts
I know. And you really have to. You really have to be conscious about learning that stuff if you don't know.
- [54:49]
Carrie Coon
Or else you're just gonna be drained.
- [54:51]
Tracy Letts
That's right. It's terrible. You don't say no to anything.
- [54:53]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [54:54]
Tracy Letts
Everything has a cause. You're resentful of everybody, and it's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. But Tracy and I were. We saw. I mean, he had. Also had patterns like that in his life. And it was like, I see you over there and, like, neither one of. We're not jealous people. Like, we don't have any of those hangups. We didn't wanna ever be with the police, you know, so it's nice to be in a relationship where I can. We can always talk about, like. Well, who's, like, who are you attracted to on set?
- [55:17]
Carrie Coon
Oh, really?
- [55:18]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah, totally. It's so fun. I love it. He sees, like, Tracy's the kind of person who sees like, everybody on the street when he's walking and every woman. I mean, he notices every single woman on the street. And he's. He always tells me, like, who's. Who he has a crush on or talking about. It's fun.
- [55:32]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [55:33]
Tracy Letts
It's interesting to know what your partner's into.
- [55:35]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [55:35]
Tracy Letts
Like, it's like, it's titillating, but it.
- [55:37]
Carrie Coon
Doesn'T ever go over the line.
- [55:39]
Tracy Letts
We don't like. We don't really like lines. Yeah, lines are really boring.
- [55:43]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [55:44]
Tracy Letts
So, I mean, look, life is short.
- [55:47]
Carrie Coon
Finite.
- [55:48]
Tracy Letts
Finite. And you know, it's like, Tracy, you guys know you both have lost partners in your lives, which is a devastating thing. And what I think Tracy and you have probably spoken maybe a little bit about this, but. And I don't think he would mind me saying, I think Tracy understood then from a very young age, because he went through it.
- [56:05]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [56:05]
Tracy Letts
Like, he would never begrudge anyone a human experience.
- [56:08]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [56:09]
Tracy Letts
In fact, the. Every day after that for him was a gift he got, was to continue living in the world. And I think he recognizes that. And he sort of embraced being a person of appetites and like, acknowledging that we have these proclivities.
- [56:21]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [56:22]
Tracy Letts
And actually we're not really. Monogamy is sort of something we've imposed on ourselves through. You know, we were supposed to have babies and die when we were like 30. And that's not the way life is anymore. And so I think you have to stay. You have to. Got to be open minded about what is, what makes you feel, what engages you in the world and what sparks your imagination and where your passion is. And I think if you. If you're willing to stay open to that, then you're living a more full life. And I don't think either one of us would want to keep the other from living.
- [56:49]
Carrie Coon
Right. I guess the question becomes like, you know, depending on what those passions or proclivities are in relation to compulsion and the damage it may do to your life.
- [57:01]
Tracy Letts
Sure.
- [57:01]
Carrie Coon
That becomes the tricky thing to say.
- [57:03]
Tracy Letts
Well, I mean, there's. There. Yes, yes. Because there's reactivity and that's different reactivity where you're acting sort of blindly out of your patterns of behavior.
- [57:12]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [57:12]
Tracy Letts
You have to be. You have to also have to be willing to unpack that stuff. And Tracy and I are both, you know, we're both in recovery. We both have done a lot of, like, AA Al Anon therapy. We have a lot of that language out there.
- [57:23]
Carrie Coon
Oh, really?
- [57:24]
Tracy Letts
I mean, I'm four years in. He's 30. I think he's 31 years.
- [57:27]
Carrie Coon
To Al Anon or to the other.
- [57:29]
Tracy Letts
I'm. I'm actually like, kind of double winner. I'm double winner. I'm a Al Anon.
- [57:33]
Carrie Coon
Me too.
- [57:33]
Tracy Letts
I kind of started in Al Anon, and then I was like, well, I actually don't need the other thing either. So our kids are being raised in this, like, incredibly even keel. Like, there's nothing volatile in my house.
- [57:42]
Carrie Coon
Because you can immediately take responsibility.
- [57:43]
Tracy Letts
That's right. It's about taking responsibility. And you know, Mark, I had. I had a very serious impulse control disorder. I mean, I was a skin picker from two. I've talked about it a little bit publicly.
- [57:53]
Carrie Coon
A skin picker.
- [57:54]
Marc Maron
Where does that happen?
- [57:55]
Tracy Letts
Compulsive skin picker. It's an impulse control disorder. You know, like you people who pick scabs. But then eventually it moved to my scalp, so I was like, losing hair.
- [58:02]
Carrie Coon
Were you a nail biter?
- [58:04]
Tracy Letts
No, I was just skin picker. You need your nails to pick your skin, Mark. And, you know, it's an overactive grooming, but it's impulse control. And it was really debilitating for a long time. And I also use it as an excuse to get out of, like, difficult conversations. It's like, well, I can't have this conversation. It's really making. It's really triggering me.
- [58:21]
Carrie Coon
Right. But do you. Were you able to track, like, the whole trauma business? Yeah, like. Cause I'm talking about it a bit on stage now, and it's kind of interesting.
- [58:30]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Yeah. Cool. I think that's really good.
- [58:32]
Carrie Coon
Well, I think the interesting thing about it is that, you know, trauma is relative to the impact it had on your life.
- [58:38]
Tracy Letts
That's so true.
- [58:39]
Carrie Coon
The most profound traumas may not be the ones that have fucked you up for the whole game.
- [58:44]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:45]
Carrie Coon
And there's something very funny about that. The one that's horrible. You're like, that wasn't horrible.
- [58:51]
Tracy Letts
That was fun. I moved through that just fine.
- [58:53]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, it's the other thing, the minor thing.
- [58:55]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I think that's true. Because I wouldn't consider myself to be like, I don't have some, like, big, huge sob story of trauma in my life. I just have, like, the kind of, like, work a day, you know, Midwestern sort of alcoholism around. Right. Family disease kind of stuff. And it's like, who doesn't have that?
- [59:11]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [59:12]
Tracy Letts
But, like, if it manifests it too, with you picking your skin off your body and then it continues to become really aberrant as an adult, and you're getting, like, infections and you can't play soccer because you have a staph infection in your leg or you have a wound on your body for two years. Yeah. That you kind of self. It's like, that's not. Okay.
- [59:28]
Carrie Coon
What is it? What exactly is the skin picking thing? Sating?
- [59:35]
Tracy Letts
Oh, God. Well, it's like any compulsion. It's like hungry, angry, lonely, tired, bored, overstimulated, understimulated, not living authentically. I mean, all the triggers, their triggers, I feel like, are the same, but.
- [59:45]
Carrie Coon
A lot of it usually comes down to, like, having some control.
- [59:49]
Tracy Letts
Yes. And I also found that it was a. What I've discovered in my process of trying of learning to deal with it, and I would consider myself recovered, is that it's also like. It's an absenting of self. There's a withdrawal that happens. Right. There's a dopamine. There's a brain component. Right. You create a stimulus that's actually chemical in your brain. That's the thing addicted to, like, everybody's addicted to now. And I realized there was like, you know, that there was an actual, like, chemical component to what was happening to me. But any Impulse is about 90 seconds long. So if you can create space between the moment you have the impulse and when you actually complete the action. Whatever. Whatever it is, Whatever.
- [60:28]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [60:28]
Tracy Letts
You. You can actually start to, like, rewire your brain.
- [60:34]
Carrie Coon
Absolutely.
- [60:34]
Tracy Letts
And I. And that was the stuff what acting taught me was like, acting is the opposite. Right. Acting is radical presence. And we speak of acting in, like, percentages. Like, what percentage can you be present on stage? I'm sure you feel that in a show. Right. It's like the headspace an athlete is in. It's the, you know, where you're just like, in the flow. Like the flow state of it.
- [60:53]
Carrie Coon
Sure. Yeah.
- [60:54]
Tracy Letts
And like, picking is the absence that you go away, you withdraw from presence.
- [60:58]
Carrie Coon
That's interesting.
- [60:58]
Tracy Letts
And so it was like, to find that that was the actual. The thing that I really wanted to do in my life. Acting was the opposite of the thing that was controlling my behavior, or it was really quite a revelation.
- [61:10]
Carrie Coon
Well, because both of them require self erasure in a way.
- [61:14]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. There is an annihilation of self.
- [61:17]
Carrie Coon
Right. But, you know, when you're on stage, it's part of the craft and part of the job. And the underlying thing is to be present. But when you're doing things to either lose yourself or take or diminish yourself as a compulsion, that speaks to some other weird thing.
- [61:35]
Tracy Letts
It is some other weird thing. And I think that's what's led me down the road to, like, I don't know, this question of, you know, in the sort of Buddhist philosophy where you're talking about, like, the no self and just sort of how. The only thing you can be sure of is that everything changes so that everything inside of you, there's no person there. There's no center for those things. And the story that you tell about your life, and I don't mean to diminish anyone's trauma, but, like, storytelling is powerful. And if you can start to let go of that story, then you sort of let go of the idea that there's any person at the center of it that can be. And as you get older or traumatized or anything.
- [62:12]
Carrie Coon
Right. As you get older, it starts to fade anyways.
- [62:14]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it does. I don't remember anything anymore.
- [62:17]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. I was trying to remember some part of a story that I used to tell about myself, of an event that happened, and I'm missing details now.
- [62:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Isn't that funny? And that was like, the way you asserted who you were was like, Here are my 10 stories I always end up telling. And it gets really exhausting.
- [62:32]
Carrie Coon
I think at the core of it, though, like, the. The idea of no self is that, like, what I find to be down there is. Is some sort of terror.
- [62:40]
Tracy Letts
Well, I don't know. That's interesting.
- [62:42]
Marc Maron
What do you mean?
- [62:43]
Tracy Letts
Like, that's the.
- [62:44]
Carrie Coon
Well, just a fear, a vulnerability. Yeah, that. And I think getting back to, you know, talking about trust.
- [62:52]
Tracy Letts
Right.
- [62:52]
Carrie Coon
So that vulnerability that you have at the core of yourself that may not be attached to a self can be, you know, very young and based in some sort of strange abandonment or distance or emotional. Lack of emotional support or whatever. But I find that when you get right down to it, it's this childish terror of not being taken care of because you don't trust.
- [63:17]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. That if you say your need that someone will actually be there to meet it. Absolutely. Yes.
- [63:22]
Carrie Coon
And so that kind of confuses the.
- [63:24]
Tracy Letts
Buddhism, but it's also. But it's also very egotistical in a way.
- [63:28]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah. Because your ego is fragmented, so you're gonna hold on to whatever.
- [63:33]
Tracy Letts
And you are fundamentally not trust. You're not giving people any credit.
- [63:37]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [63:37]
Tracy Letts
You're not allowing people, like, you're not Allowing for the fact that you actually don't know what that person is capable of.
- [63:43]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [63:43]
Tracy Letts
And that was the thing when I met Tracy that shifted is that there was a person in front of me who I could tell because of all the life he had had. He was older than me.
- [63:52]
Carrie Coon
Sure.
- [63:52]
Tracy Letts
Like, there was nothing I could hand him that he couldn't hold.
- [63:55]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [63:55]
Tracy Letts
So finally, in a way that I never trusted a peer, there was somebody in my life that I could trust. And it wasn't like, it's not like daddy issues. It was like, oh, no, no, I can. Like this person can actually. There's nothing I can say to this person that they can't handle.
- [64:11]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [64:11]
Tracy Letts
And that's like. That's the gift where you start to go, oh, and actually, I probably underestimated everybody on some level because of, you know, controlling information is egotistical, ultimately self protective. It's self protective, right? Yeah. But then you come back to the note, it's like, what are you protecting? You know?
- [64:28]
Carrie Coon
Right. Well, that's.
- [64:29]
Tracy Letts
What's the self you're protecting?
- [64:30]
Carrie Coon
What's the big question?
- [64:31]
Tracy Letts
And I'm kind of like, well, maybe there's nobody in there.
- [64:33]
Carrie Coon
Well, that's not true.
- [64:35]
Tracy Letts
I don't know. I kind of start. I'm starting. The older I get, the more I'm like. It's just like these impulses and.
- [64:40]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I know. Well, sure. It's a. Well, I mean, you can break it down to a bunch of ticks and habits.
- [64:45]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, sure. Right.
- [64:47]
Carrie Coon
But. But that's something. I mean, it's so funny.
- [64:50]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, it is something.
- [64:50]
Carrie Coon
I used to notice that about. About old method actors, you know, when they're. They're clearly doing jobs that they may, you know, that they're. They might not be all invested in.
- [64:59]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [65:00]
Carrie Coon
They've still got these ticks and habits.
- [65:01]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [65:02]
Carrie Coon
That have carried them throughout, all of them.
- [65:03]
Tracy Letts
That's true. Something to rely. And no one's gonna be like, you know, maybe you should consider. No one's gonna give you direction anymore.
- [65:08]
Carrie Coon
That's right. Lose that weird thing you do with your head. Right.
- [65:13]
Tracy Letts
But it's more fun to. I think it's more fun to like, know that's there and be able to work around it. Let go of it.
- [65:19]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah, well, I mean, I.
- [65:20]
Tracy Letts
Make yourself.
- [65:21]
Carrie Coon
Well, I don't do much too much acting, but like, when I really try to do it, it's, you know, my first. If I get cast in something that's not of type, I realize like, oh, this guy's not neurotic. So I can just turn that part off.
- [65:37]
Marc Maron
Right.
- [65:37]
Tracy Letts
And do you find that liberating?
- [65:38]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah, yeah, because it's a crutch to do that constant self reflection thing. To have a guy that doesn't do that is like, sure, why wouldn't that be good? But then you doubt like, well, what's his inner life? How's that gonna matter if you can just turn off all this other like self awareness and just live in this present where this guy doesn't take responsibility for certain things. Well, that's nice for a little while.
- [66:03]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, that is nice. Well, isn't that the lovely thing about acting? Is that invitation though, outside of, of.
- [66:07]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I mean I, I'm still trying to figure out whether I, you know, have any. I, I try to engage some choices that are not me. Yeah, because. But I do think at, at a core level, and this is sort of an argument against the lack of self thing, is that when you see people act, I think even the best actors, no matter what they're doing, you do see them.
- [66:33]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean there's something about them that's also interesting or attract. There's something they have, I guess at the core that's interesting or maybe is that true for everybody?
- [66:42]
Marc Maron
Well, I don't know.
- [66:42]
Carrie Coon
There's an.
- [66:42]
Tracy Letts
I think some actors are, I mean there's, I feel like there are celebrities and there are actors. No, of course, but celebrities are always kind of doing themselves.
- [66:49]
Carrie Coon
But even the most immersive actor, you know, it's them. Yeah, kinda.
- [66:54]
Tracy Letts
I'm gonna take that on as a challenge to see who I can find that I think like remakes themself the most.
- [66:58]
Carrie Coon
But it's just interesting cause I've, you know, I've sat across from Ian McKellen, Sir Ian McKellen, telling him I don't really get Shakespeare and having him do it and then just go Back to Ian McKellen. And there was something very revealing about that approach that, you know, he's just this guy and then he does this thing. And I think more than other people, those Shakespearean guys, they can lose themselves. Like sometimes, sometimes those guys with that kind of deep craft can immerse themselves in something that is fundamentally not them. And you kind of buy it. And when they return back, you're like, what the fuck did you just do?
- [67:39]
Tracy Letts
So you see. But you don't see that on film generally. Like you don't experience that with films.
- [67:45]
Carrie Coon
I'm trying to decide whether I'm talking out my astronaut, but Even when you work with the most immersive guys. Like, I was in a room with Jeremy Strong for three or four days in a very small part where he was playing a big part. And he's a guy that lives in the character. But the funny thing about him is that when you're in the room with him long enough, he'll talk like the character, but he'll let you know. Like, I can still talk. I can talk about things that Jeremy talks about, but I'm gonna do it like this person. Like, this person.
- [68:13]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah, That's a whole. I mean, that's. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
- [68:17]
Carrie Coon
No, no one. There is no right or wrong.
- [68:19]
Tracy Letts
Well, do you want. When you watch yourself, are you. Are you. Do you watch yourself?
- [68:23]
Carrie Coon
And do you.
- [68:24]
Tracy Letts
And me too. And are you looking for the things that you. That are your habits and.
- [68:29]
Carrie Coon
Well, no, because of my. My experience is. Is still pretty limited, I don't think.
- [68:34]
Tracy Letts
If your experience is limited, how long do you think you can get away with saying that? I feel like you act a lot.
- [68:39]
Carrie Coon
Well, I've been doing more of it to kind of find out, you know, whether it is, like, whether the job or the actual acting is worth it. In relation to the sitting, it's really kind of this fundamental problem I have. It's like, okay, we're gonna act for three minutes, and then you're sitting. And then you're gonna sit for three hours.
- [69:01]
Tracy Letts
So it's tv and film's different than theater.
- [69:04]
Carrie Coon
Totally. But theater I haven't done since I was in college. But would you ever. I almost. I expressed interest in it, and then when they told me the schedule of what it would take to get something.
- [69:15]
Tracy Letts
Up, it's really hard.
- [69:16]
Carrie Coon
It's like, oh, my God, it's really hard. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, four weeks, you know, putting it together, previews, and then we'll see if anyone comes and just. But I'm on stage, you know, every night of my life.
- [69:26]
Tracy Letts
I'm doing that all the time.
- [69:27]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but what we were speaking about before, too, is sort of interesting about presence, you know, as a comic, that there's something happening to me now that's never happened before.
- [69:37]
Tracy Letts
What's that?
- [69:38]
Carrie Coon
Which is like, you know, everything's pretty immediate and pretty life or death for me, you know, in terms of what I'm trying to express. And I feel that there. That my intensity speaks to that when I'm doing stuff on stage. And I found that if, like, you know, look, you've got enough craft in place to where it doesn't have to be that dire. And it might be a relief for the audience if you weren't so, you know, intensely needy for them to understand you.
- [70:02]
Tracy Letts
Uh huh.
- [70:03]
Carrie Coon
And so. So, like, I. Cause I told my friend Sam, you know, in the midst of this, you know, global collapse and political collapse, I was on the phone with Lipside and I was like, you know, I just can't. There are comics out there that are just kind of laying back. And I said to Sam, I said, I just want to take it easy. And he goes, he says, that should be your new special. Marc Maron.
- [70:25]
Tracy Letts
Take it easy. Takes it easy. That's good.
- [70:27]
Carrie Coon
But it's stuck in my head that like, look, dude. And I think the revelation of it was just that my audience is like minded. They're sensitive, creative, grown up people who are experiencing a lot of despair and traumatic stress going on and there's no real solution and I don't have them. So I had this moment where I'm like, I will commiserate with you for the first 10 minutes because I'm in the same spot you are with the same feelings. And we can judge the other side, we could do whatever. But what's more important is like, how are we dealing with it? And then after that 10 minutes, I'm like, all right, now I will entertain you.
- [71:10]
Tracy Letts
Ah, okay.
- [71:11]
Carrie Coon
But that's new for me.
- [71:12]
Tracy Letts
Really?
- [71:12]
Carrie Coon
The idea of entertaining.
- [71:14]
Tracy Letts
Oh, that's interesting because of course I find you entertaining. I've seen your sets and I think of them as very entertaining. Even when you're talking about the things I'm most passionate about, like the end of the world.
- [71:22]
Carrie Coon
Right. But for me, it's very important.
- [71:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [71:25]
Carrie Coon
And it's not that it's any less important, but I can shift the tone a little bit where I'm like, all right, well, so we just talked about Hitler. Now I have this cat. Right.
- [71:33]
Tracy Letts
To the personal.
- [71:34]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [71:35]
Tracy Letts
And then how does it feel? Does it feel differently in your body when you do that?
- [71:39]
Carrie Coon
It does, yeah. Because you know, I'm not. What happens is if you get to that place, the self consciousness.
- [71:47]
Tracy Letts
Yes.
- [71:49]
Carrie Coon
And the need for connection changes. Right. Cause you have to, you know, you have to accept that, like, well, they're here to see me. So the need for attention has been fulfilled already. So why don't you open it up a little bit? Yeah. But in terms of the acting thing, with watching myself and not so much with comedy, but similar in that I know when I'm like, oh, so that moment you weren't there.
- [72:17]
Tracy Letts
Right? Yeah.
- [72:18]
Carrie Coon
And that's really what happens. But I just did this indie where I had to play lead. And it was the first time. And all I know about whatever the fuck I did there, you know, I was ready. I, you know, I kind of showed up for the job was that I never went home thinking I blew it somehow. That's good for a month.
- [72:35]
Tracy Letts
That's a nice feeling.
- [72:36]
Carrie Coon
It's good.
- [72:36]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. You like, they got what they needed and I can go to sleep.
- [72:39]
Carrie Coon
But also, like, I did everything I could.
- [72:40]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Yeah.
- [72:41]
Carrie Coon
I, you know, I showed up for the thing and I couldn't have done it any different.
- [72:45]
Tracy Letts
Well, that's good. And that's where your life is lived. Your life isn't lived in how the thing gets received in the world. Right. Your life is lived in the making of it.
- [72:51]
Carrie Coon
I guess it is.
- [72:53]
Tracy Letts
You can't control the other thing.
- [72:54]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but why are we watching?
- [72:55]
Tracy Letts
What do you mean, why are we watching?
- [72:56]
Carrie Coon
Why are we watching ourselves and wondering? And why are we saying things like.
- [72:59]
Tracy Letts
No one saw that movie because the next time you. Oh, well, yeah, no one saw that movie is a sad statement to make. But, like, also, I loved making that. The movie that nobody saw. That's where my life got lived. My life didn't get lived, you know, when it came out.
- [73:10]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [73:10]
Tracy Letts
And like, you get to then watch your movie even if nobody else does.
- [73:13]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [73:13]
Tracy Letts
And say, oh, there's that thing I do when I'm mad. Maybe next time I'm mad, I'll try not.
- [73:18]
Carrie Coon
I'll try to do a different thing.
- [73:20]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And like, that way you don't. Then you are remaking yourself, I think, in a more interesting way. I don't know how successful I am at that, but I just know that that's something I'm trying to do.
- [73:27]
Carrie Coon
So when you watch it, you can assess your choices and wonder if there are other ways.
- [73:31]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Be like, oh, no. Like, I do this thing with my jaw whenever my. I'm playing. Like, that's not. If you're. Again, it's just like the way you're. It's the same thing as reactivity.
- [73:40]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [73:40]
Tracy Letts
Like, if you're always acting in your relationships out of a pattern you have and it's. And it's unexamined.
- [73:45]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [73:46]
Tracy Letts
It's the same in acting. It's like, oh, I always do that.
- [73:48]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [73:49]
Tracy Letts
When I'm playing a character who's mad. It's like, why are my shoulders up to my ears every time? Why can't I stand up straight? You know?
- [73:54]
Carrie Coon
I, I in life, I don't know.
- [73:56]
Marc Maron
Why I can't stand up.
- [73:57]
Tracy Letts
And it was a fundamental question that our grandparents were always asking.
- [74:00]
Marc Maron
I, I know what it is, though.
- [74:02]
Tracy Letts
Oh, well, that's good.
- [74:03]
Carrie Coon
As long as, you know, I'm hiding my non existent stomach.
- [74:05]
Tracy Letts
Oh. See a. At least you know. See, that's not unexisted.
- [74:10]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. But I got it. Like I wrote on a note for that movie. I'm like, don't slouch. This guy doesn't slouch.
- [74:16]
Tracy Letts
Look at you taking notes.
- [74:17]
Carrie Coon
I know, but I don't think I wore it. They don't think I locked.
- [74:21]
Tracy Letts
You're like in some scenes you did, some scenes you did, but with acting.
- [74:24]
Carrie Coon
In terms of like, you know, a right or wrong way to do it. I don't think, like I was fortunate in going into that movie a couple weeks before I talked to Pacino.
- [74:31]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [74:31]
Carrie Coon
And I don't know, like there was some sort of mind blowing thing because like, he's not the guy you think he. And when you talk to him, he's just kind of neurotic, shy, you know, guy. And, and like what he was talking about in terms of why he acts and I don't know why I never really fully put it together, is that as an artist as opposed to just an actor.
- [74:53]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [74:54]
Carrie Coon
You know, he was in pursuit of truth. And I don't know why that was so mind blowing to me.
- [75:00]
Tracy Letts
Oh, wow.
- [75:00]
Carrie Coon
Because I don't think I ever framed it that way. I knew about being present, but I never saw the journey that presence implies truth in a moment. But the actual drive to act, you know, in any situation or any production is to find truth.
- [75:18]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. That's why I hate when people say actors are the best liars. I'm like, no, no, no. It's actually, it's the truth.
- [75:24]
Carrie Coon
Right.
- [75:25]
Tracy Letts
It's not lying. It's the other thing.
- [75:26]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah, well, there's. I think there are guys. Yeah. People who say, like, well, actors are just good at pretending. Yeah. But it's not when you're in it.
- [75:34]
Tracy Letts
It's not that. It's actually radically the other thing.
- [75:38]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. More so than in your life sometimes.
- [75:40]
Tracy Letts
Yes, yes. I mean, so many actors are so uncomfortable doing publicity or getting their picture taken. They're. Some of the most shy people I know are actors, you know?
- [75:49]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. I remember when I talked to John.
- [75:51]
Marc Maron
C. Reilly, you know, he was like.
- [75:53]
Carrie Coon
I don't usually do this. Cause I just don't want to. He says, I want to keep up the mystique.
- [75:58]
Tracy Letts
Well, there's probably something to be said for that. A little mystery is probably good. You shouldn't be operating at full disclosure.
- [76:04]
Carrie Coon
And then we ended up talking about clowns for an hour.
- [76:06]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah. Well, that's like. That's his stuff, right? He likes that.
- [76:09]
Carrie Coon
I haven't seen him in a movie in a while.
- [76:11]
Tracy Letts
I know. I'm trying to. I guess the last thing was Tracy's show. You know, the winning time about. On the Showtime show.
- [76:17]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right.
- [76:18]
Tracy Letts
That's the last thing I remember.
- [76:19]
Carrie Coon
So, like, when you, Like. All right, so when you get cast in this White Lotus business, you know, what do you draw from when you look at that and go, like, I can do this. You know what was appealing about that?
- [76:31]
Tracy Letts
Well, the appealing thing was working with Mike White. I've always been a fan of Mike's work. I think Enlightened is a genius television show. Chuck and Buck, I love.
- [76:39]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [76:40]
Tracy Letts
I just think there's nobody quite like him.
- [76:41]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah. He's.
- [76:43]
Tracy Letts
And the show is obviously, you know, in the business. Everyone was trying to get on the White Lotus.
- [76:46]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:47]
Tracy Letts
And there was a part for me, so I auditioned for it, and I don't know. She wasn't. I do have a. Whenever I read a script, I have a feeling like if I can picture myself doing it, then I'm like, yeah, this is mine. I'd like to go for this.
- [76:58]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, yeah.
- [76:59]
Tracy Letts
Or I'm like, oh, you know, the. You need. You know, I'm always casting the thing for. And I really felt that was.
- [77:04]
Carrie Coon
Who turned this down?
- [77:06]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. Five people before you got to me. Yeah. She's not. I mean, she's not that far from me. Like, I feel like the script is contemporary and accessible.
- [77:16]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [77:18]
Tracy Letts
And so there's not. It's not like the Gilded Age. Right. It's not like there's a dialect and a corset or anything. You're just, like, slouching around in your bathing suit and, you know, she's an alcoholic, which I completely understand. And, I mean, Mike's so good at casting. Like, there's something essential in the person he puts in a part that makes them appropriate for the part. And then he's great at selecting for performance. And he's also. Mike is not precious about his writing. He's pretty. Like, he responds to what actors are good at suggesting. And, yeah, he throws out new stuff. There's a lot of improv. And yet he's also not arbitrary. So it's very exact like, he knows what he needs, and if he's not getting it, you will stay there until he gets it. So like you were saying about your. It's satisfying at the end of the day because you're like, I don't think we would have gone home if Mike didn't get what he needed for the show.
- [78:02]
Carrie Coon
Right. You gotta trust the director to a certain degree. I can't imagine what it would be like to not trust a director.
- [78:07]
Tracy Letts
Well, you know, it happens. But, you know, you're like, well, I don't think you know what you're doing. So I guess I'll try to throw some stuff out there.
- [78:14]
Carrie Coon
The director I work with on that movie, I wouldn't say he's neurotic, but he's very compulsive in terms of how his brain works. So, you know, if he, like, he would give you. The hard thing for me, when I do it is like, where were we right before this? If you're shooting out of sequence.
- [78:28]
Tracy Letts
Oh. Cause you always shoot out of sequence.
- [78:29]
Carrie Coon
How the fuck are you gonna figure that out? But this guy was very diligent to the point where for the whole week he'd write out where you were. And I'm like, I can't read all this stuff. Yeah, you're like, actually, just tell me.
- [78:38]
Tracy Letts
Five words or less. Where are we in the story? Yeah.
- [78:41]
Carrie Coon
So what was it that got you into Al Anon first?
- [78:46]
Tracy Letts
Well, I mean, I don't wanna speak to my. People are all still around, sure. But there's, you know, I'll just say there's alcoholism in my family. And what I came to understand is that I had some emotional habits. Things about like, not trusting other people, lying.
- [79:03]
Carrie Coon
I was a compulsive liar and enabling.
- [79:05]
Tracy Letts
People pleaser stuff to absolutely, like, completely constitutionally incapable of any conflict or any boundary setting. So I actually had a boyfriend once who we. I needed to break up with him and I just literally stopped speaking. And he actually came over with like a pack of paper and a pencil and said, could you just write something down? Yeah, I mean, I could not speak. That's how terrible I was at asserting what I needed or wanted so much. So I think for. Maybe men can speak to this too, but I know for women it's like you spend so much time managing other people's emotions. As a middle child too, I was always aware everybody, you know, you're only as happy as the unhappiest person in any room. And then you, like, you lose complete track of what it is you even want you're like, is it me that wants this, or am I just, like, reading what this person wants me to read?
- [79:52]
Carrie Coon
Or you just become a reaction.
- [79:53]
Tracy Letts
Exactly. And I was just remaking myself in the image of whatever boyfriend I was with and staying with them as long as before, until I wanted to explode but couldn't say that either. You know, it's just like, terrible.
- [80:03]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [80:04]
Tracy Letts
And it was very. You know, like I said, controlling information is really egotistical.
- [80:08]
Carrie Coon
But that's interesting about.
- [80:08]
Tracy Letts
They can't take. They can't.
- [80:10]
Carrie Coon
Right. No. Right. Right.
- [80:11]
Tracy Letts
And also. Or that somebody needs you. Like, they can't live without you. There's that one, too. That was one I really loved.
- [80:16]
Carrie Coon
It's egotistical, but also to speak to that, like, what. What is self? You know, when you live like that, you don't have one.
- [80:23]
Tracy Letts
No, you don't.
- [80:24]
Marc Maron
It's.
- [80:25]
Tracy Letts
And you're. You're so hyper compartmentalized. Like you're just code switching all the time and there's nothing integrated about you as a person.
- [80:32]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. And amalgam of a person on the other side of that. Now that we're talking about it, I think that's why you get into performing as almost like, you know, a fuck you.
- [80:41]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [80:42]
Carrie Coon
You know what I mean? Like, you can own your own space.
- [80:45]
Tracy Letts
And there's unity in it.
- [80:46]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [80:47]
Tracy Letts
And there's a, like, the right kind of tension. Yeah. Weirdly, there's probably like, you have some control over the.
- [80:52]
Carrie Coon
But also, you have a thing.
- [80:55]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [80:55]
Carrie Coon
It's a compartmentalized thing.
- [80:57]
Tracy Letts
Yes.
- [80:57]
Carrie Coon
We're all working to do this thing.
- [80:58]
Tracy Letts
You also have freedom.
- [81:00]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [81:00]
Tracy Letts
Also, like, nothing you're doing inside of that performance is. No one else is being like, is that how you're gonna. You know, there's no one judging the way you're living your life, which I was also deeply uninterested in. I didn't want to.
- [81:11]
Carrie Coon
Well, sometimes it gets a little competitive, I think.
- [81:13]
Tracy Letts
Sure.
- [81:14]
Carrie Coon
That was the other thing that I kept thinking about when I did this movie was when I talked to Ethan Hawke about doing Training Day, and he said he was watching Denzel Washington movies like they were, you know, training films, like football teams watch the other team. Because he just did not want to get eaten for lunch. Yeah.
- [81:32]
Tracy Letts
I mean, that's real. You don't want to get eaten for lunch. That's true. If you care about what you're doing.
- [81:36]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. It saved me in a scene with. That scene with Sharon Stone. It saved me because I had to do one scene with her. And after the first two takes, I'm like. I'm disappearing, dude. I'm not in character. I'm just sitting there going like, sharon Stone is consuming me.
- [81:53]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I felt that way with Holly Hunter.
- [81:54]
Carrie Coon
I know you did.
- [81:55]
Tracy Letts
Oh, completely. I was terrified.
- [81:57]
Carrie Coon
And how'd you transcend it?
- [81:58]
Tracy Letts
I was just like, I just have to be really memorized and really prepared and just, like, be really present. I don't think I did. I think I was scared the whole time. She's terrifying. I mean, I love her so much, and she was marvelous to me in this film we made. But she's a terrifying scene partner because she has that thing inside of her where she's like a cat or like a live wire. And you just like, oh, you could kill me. You could actually kill me right now. You might. I wouldn't see it coming. And you just. She's so alive.
- [82:26]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. The only thing that stays me was this stuff I got from Pacino's book. And I think it was like, Stanislavski stuff. Go to the character. Why you there? Where did you come from? You know, what do you.
- [82:37]
Tracy Letts
Given circumstances. Right. And your intention. That's. That's good.
- [82:41]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, that's good.
- [82:42]
Tracy Letts
Like, that's like, you know, it's acting 101 in a way, but it's like, that's. You always are like, oh, the basics.
- [82:47]
Carrie Coon
Right?
- [82:48]
Tracy Letts
You have to go back to the basics. Yeah.
- [82:49]
Carrie Coon
I didn't even know the basics.
- [82:50]
Tracy Letts
Well, it takes you outside of yourself.
- [82:51]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. After melting down in my trail like Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, yelling at my manager, I'm like, I can't do this. It was a mistake.
- [83:00]
Marc Maron
It's fucking Sharon Stone up there.
- [83:03]
Carrie Coon
And then.
- [83:04]
Tracy Letts
That's hilarious.
- [83:05]
Carrie Coon
Having the moment where I'm like, dude, this is it. You know, you're here. Do the thing.
- [83:12]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [83:12]
Carrie Coon
Do the guy. What does the guy think about this person?
- [83:16]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [83:16]
Marc Maron
Why are you here?
- [83:17]
Carrie Coon
And be in it.
- [83:19]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Get outside of you and whatever your neuroses are. You can't. You gotta check that stuff at the door. You can't make it about you.
- [83:25]
Marc Maron
It was crazy.
- [83:26]
Tracy Letts
That's the nice thing, though, is it can't be about you.
- [83:28]
Carrie Coon
But everything's about me.
- [83:30]
Tracy Letts
I know, but that's the exercise you're doing.
- [83:32]
Carrie Coon
I know, but the moment where you think you fucked up a take and, like, that. Those first two takes, all I saw was an entire crew going, like, they're.
- [83:40]
Tracy Letts
Not actually paying attention.
- [83:41]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, I know, but in my. I was looking at every face going, it's like, narcissism you know, I guess it's helpful sometimes. It can't.
- [83:50]
Tracy Letts
I mean, it's funny. I don't. I've gotten good about. Not like Vicki Creeps said something in an interview, you know, the great actress Vicki Creeps, she was talking about. She said that she now approaches the work in a take. She's like, how wrong can I go? Like, how far outside of what this character is doing can I go? And she said, that's what science. They're actually, like, trying to narrow down into the thing by, like, kind of setting parameters that are far outside of what they're looking for. I'm like, that's a great way to think about it. And I just. I've always felt that that kind of self consciousness always has gotten in my way. So it's like, to get out of your own way, you have to be willing to screw up a take.
- [84:27]
Carrie Coon
Sure.
- [84:27]
Tracy Letts
You have to be willing to, like, sorry, everybody, that was so bad, you know, and try again. And as a young actor and as a young woman, where you're trying to be a good girl and a good student, you're trying to guess what everybody wants you to do, and then you're not really making choices. Choices. And you're certainly not making interesting choices, and you're not giving a range of choices.
- [84:44]
Carrie Coon
Right. But at some point, you got to believe that you're there because they wanted you.
- [84:47]
Tracy Letts
And you do. You have to believe that.
- [84:49]
Carrie Coon
That's.
- [84:50]
Tracy Letts
You're right. You have to believe that and that. I learned that, like, all the way back in Virginia Woolf.
- [84:54]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [84:55]
Tracy Letts
I was like, okay, you got this job. You have this job, and now you have to be in that room like you have this job, not like you're trying to get this job.
- [85:01]
Carrie Coon
That's right.
- [85:02]
Tracy Letts
You already have it.
- [85:02]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [85:03]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. And that's a really. That's like a little click, but it's really important.
- [85:06]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. So, you know, I interviewed Fincher.
- [85:09]
Tracy Letts
I love Fincher.
- [85:10]
Carrie Coon
He wouldn't let us release it.
- [85:12]
Tracy Letts
He wouldn't?
- [85:12]
Carrie Coon
No. I talked to him for, like, two hours.
- [85:14]
Tracy Letts
Why?
- [85:14]
Carrie Coon
Cause it wasn't. Something wasn't right.
- [85:16]
Tracy Letts
He's so controlling. God, I love him so much.
- [85:19]
Carrie Coon
Why? What was it about? Was it. Did you have the experience?
- [85:23]
Tracy Letts
Oh, it was wonderful to me. I had a wonderful experience. That was my first movie I ever made. Mark. I'd never made a movie before, and then I was working with David Fincher.
- [85:30]
Carrie Coon
Yeah, but, like, what about this? The reputation of, like, a thousand years.
- [85:34]
Tracy Letts
Oh, I mean, people knew they would get fired. You know, people were getting people get fired off of David Fincher movies.
- [85:39]
Carrie Coon
I mean, but what about the multiple takes?
- [85:40]
Tracy Letts
Yes, absolutely. We did. We often did 88 takes or 71 takes. And then every now and then you would do five, and he'd be like. He would always use it to. He. You know, Ben was so happy to be there. Ben Affleck, because he's, you know, he's a director. He was thrilling for him to be working. So he was always behind the camera, trying to figure out what David was doing and why he was doing it. Talking to the dp, and he's like, come on. You know, you have to be in the scene.
- [86:01]
Carrie Coon
You know?
- [86:02]
Tracy Letts
But he was just giving Ben so much shit all the time. So he would. He would. Whenever we would get something, like, I would get something in five takes, he'd be like, carrie, that was excellent. Ben, could you be a little less somnambulant? You know, like, he was such a shit. I remember there was one take with Kim Dickens. He's like, make sure you notice the cat. And then Kimmy walks in and does the take, and he's like, kim, it's the first time you've seen this cat? Not a cat. You know, it's just kind of his way.
- [86:25]
Carrie Coon
Was she the detective?
- [86:26]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Yeah.
- [86:27]
Carrie Coon
I love.
- [86:27]
Tracy Letts
I mean, she's a very dear friend. We had a great time down there. And Kate, they were all really, really generous to me on that job. But, you know, he's so. And my people are really sarcastic and really dark and just, like, always putting you in your place. So for me, it was love language. So I got along great with David. And I said to David, I was like, david, you hired somebody who's never made a movie before. I don't know the language. I don't. When you say screen direction, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about, but if you explain it to me, I can do it. And he was so wonderful. He'd be like, come here. Look at the frame. This is really tight. You gotta glide out on your foot. Okay. Glide. Okay. You know, and he just taught me so much.
- [87:00]
Carrie Coon
That's good.
- [87:01]
Tracy Letts
But he's really. But he's like. He's like an athlete in that. He's like. He's got this incredible field vision. He's seeing everything at once, right? And that's why, like, you can't make it about you. If it's about you, he'll tell you. Don't assume it's about you unless he tells you. It's probably about the fact that I remember I heard him say one time to the dp, he's like, here's your frame. He goes, that's not my frame, because my frame has 12 rafters and yours has 13. You know, like, that kind of. Of level of control. So intense. But I adore him.
- [87:27]
Carrie Coon
And the shift from, like. Because a lot of actors don't have the stage experience you have.
- [87:31]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Helpful and.
- [87:33]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Like. But how. Because it seems like there's a.
- [87:35]
Tracy Letts
Well, when you're doing a play, you.
- [87:37]
Carrie Coon
Rehearse for five weeks, but I'm always yelling. And, like, I don't.
- [87:40]
Tracy Letts
Are you yelling on. On set?
- [87:41]
Carrie Coon
Well, when I'm on set, it's just a natural thing for me to go, how's it going? You know, like, I don't like. And then you're working with actors who.
- [87:48]
Marc Maron
Are like, oh, the whisper ones.
- [87:50]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I know. We hate table. As theater actors, we hate film table reads because everyone's just, like, mumbling. It's like, I can't hear you can't hear what you're. It's just. We're just reading it out loud in a room. Could you read it out loud? I know Tracy and I are always laughing about that. Like, why are you mumbling in here?
- [88:04]
Carrie Coon
But. But the sort of shift from. Because you're still on stage in both situations.
- [88:08]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, in a way. I mean, I always feel like, you know, on stage, the thing about it is that your body is always telling a story in space. And so you have to be really economical because any move you make, everybody can see it. And you will either distract or add to the story, depending on what you're doing. Like standing in front of a chair but not sitting in it. You know, like, that kind of stuff. And so when you have that experience, I feel like then even on camera, you're maybe it's more embodied.
- [88:31]
Carrie Coon
Full body. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Cause he said that about Tracy.
- [88:34]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I always find that when people are in their bodies, I think it's really sexy. I just. It's very appealing to me. And I feel like I can tell actors who sometimes have, like.
- [88:42]
Carrie Coon
Even if they're trying to claw out of their.
- [88:44]
Tracy Letts
Too long. Yes, that, too. That could be. That's. That could be really visceral.
- [88:47]
Carrie Coon
I'm in my body. I don't love it.
- [88:50]
Tracy Letts
But you're aware of it all the time.
- [88:52]
Carrie Coon
Totally. Yeah.
- [88:53]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that counts. That counts. Absolutely. I give you credit for that. Yeah. Also in theater, the other thing people don't realize when they're like, when the kids want to be famous in tv, they don't realize. Like, I remember one of my jobs when I was doing a guest star spot, I held somebody hostage, and so I was like, screaming and holding a gun, and it was like a 17 hour day.
- [89:12]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [89:12]
Tracy Letts
So I was screaming all day long.
- [89:14]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [89:14]
Tracy Letts
Well, you know, if you don't know how to use your voice because you never filled an 1100 seat house in Wisconsin, you're gonna lose your voice.
- [89:20]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [89:21]
Tracy Letts
So, like, it's not easy to do something like that for 17 hours. And I feel like theater gives you a kind of stamina, too.
- [89:27]
Carrie Coon
So what's going on outside of White Lotus? What's going on with his three daughters? Is that up for anything?
- [89:32]
Tracy Letts
Oh, no. I mean, no. It was hopeful. Netflix took really good care of us, I think, and we had a great.
- [89:38]
Carrie Coon
It's a great movie. I like Asa. He's a great character.
- [89:40]
Tracy Letts
Thank you. I know. I know you got to speak to him. I adore. And Tracy adores him. So glad I got to work with him. And I love Lizzy and Natasha. We had a really special process.
- [89:48]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [89:48]
Tracy Letts
That we'll always have. We were hopeful that it could crack some. We're getting the Robert Altman award at the Indie Spirits. That's an ensemble award. Yeah. That's a wonderful award. When is that you get an ensemble award?
- [89:58]
Carrie Coon
Did it already happen?
- [89:58]
Tracy Letts
Oh, no, it's this month. Tracy's flying in from New Zealand.
- [90:01]
Carrie Coon
Is it down in Santa Monica? That. That.
- [90:03]
Tracy Letts
I don't know, Mark. I. I can. I'm one day at a time.
- [90:05]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. I went there once.
- [90:07]
Tracy Letts
Maybe. Maybe.
- [90:08]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. I think it's down on the beach. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
- [90:11]
Tracy Letts
Where all the toxic ash is washing away into the ocean now.
- [90:14]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Everybody's gonna try to talk about that in a heartfelt way.
- [90:18]
Tracy Letts
Oh, no.
- [90:18]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [90:19]
Tracy Letts
I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna. I'm gonna present an award, I think. But I'll avoid all the earnestness.
- [90:24]
Carrie Coon
I did. I think I presented with Aubrey Plaza, and then I think Patton was hosting it.
- [90:28]
Tracy Letts
That's. Oh, Patton. I do. I worked with Patton in Ghostbusters, so.
- [90:32]
Carrie Coon
Oh, yeah.
- [90:32]
Tracy Letts
Work with him. Yeah. Wait, he thought I was in. What's the Pedro Pascal's show?
- [90:42]
Carrie Coon
Oh, oh, the. Based on the video game the Apocalypse Show.
- [90:45]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Anna Torv is in it, and Patton, when he saw me on the set of Ghosts, she's like, oh, my God, my daughter and I love your show. Can I take your picture? I was like, honey, Patton I'm not Anatorv. That's Anatorv.
- [90:55]
Marc Maron
Did he argue with you?
- [90:55]
Tracy Letts
And he was like, oh, my God, it was so funny. He felt so terrible, but it was actually hilarious. I laugh now every. I see him. I just. It's great. He's just like. I'm like, no, Patton, that's not me.
- [91:05]
Carrie Coon
So when you do these movies, if it's like a Marvel movie or Ghostbusters, you just look at it. It's like, this will be fun.
- [91:11]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. I mean, you know, Jason Reitman's first Ghostbusters script, the Ghostbusters afterlife felt like an indie film. It felt like a Jason Reitman independent film. And McKenna Grace is a great young actress, and the fact that she was gonna be the protagonist of the movie was great. So that felt like an indie.
- [91:25]
Carrie Coon
He's good. He's an intense guy, and I. Yeah, Jason's really particular. His movies.
- [91:29]
Tracy Letts
I like Jason a lot. Yeah, he's. He's a friend.
- [91:31]
Carrie Coon
That's a friend. He did good.
- [91:33]
Tracy Letts
Yeah. Up in the Air, right? That was kind of the one that put him on the. The.
- [91:36]
Carrie Coon
I love that movie.
- [91:37]
Tracy Letts
I know. It's a great movie.
- [91:38]
Carrie Coon
There's movies like that there, like, that I can watch again. Again and again.
- [91:42]
Tracy Letts
Well, I mean, like, I have over 10,000 DVDs in my house, so we don't have time to rew.
- [91:46]
Carrie Coon
To really rewatch. No, I'm finding I do it more now just to keep my brain out of the.
- [91:51]
Tracy Letts
That's nice. Do you find it comforting?
- [91:53]
Carrie Coon
I get very engaged with movies. They fuck me up pretty hard because I think my lack of boundaries, like.
- [91:59]
Tracy Letts
Somehow or another, you're so permeable.
- [92:01]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. And so, like. So movies, like, when I leave a movie, I'm like, that happened in my life.
- [92:06]
Tracy Letts
Oh, Mark, how are we gonna get you some boundaries, honey?
- [92:08]
Carrie Coon
I'm working on it.
- [92:09]
Tracy Letts
You are?
- [92:10]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Hostility, I think, helped.
- [92:14]
Tracy Letts
Oh, that's okay. That's. That's another kind of reactivity to rely.
- [92:17]
Carrie Coon
On, I guess, an aggressive boundary.
- [92:18]
Tracy Letts
Maybe you need to go that. Maybe you need to go that far and then, you know, come back from it. Maybe.
- [92:23]
Carrie Coon
I probably have to go back to Al Anon.
- [92:24]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, you do. You do. You have to detach with love.
- [92:28]
Carrie Coon
I did a. I do a joke, a line that only people in Al Anon get about. I gotta decide whether I wanna put it in the special because it's kind of. It's all about boundaries. The arc of the bit is really just this whole relationship that was just horrible. And she had mental problems. I Have mental problems. And it got to the point where after we'd broken up, she was just coming by the house.
- [92:49]
Tracy Letts
Oh, no. Oh, that's not good.
- [92:51]
Carrie Coon
And you know, it's a little intense.
- [92:54]
Tracy Letts
Yeah.
- [92:54]
Carrie Coon
And I said, the truth is, I said I had to take out a restraining order. And I don't like to admit that, but what I don't like to admit more is the reason is that like, I didn't think she.
- [93:06]
Tracy Letts
You couldn't set the boundary yourself.
- [93:07]
Marc Maron
That's right.
- [93:07]
Carrie Coon
I didn't think. I didn't think she's gonna hurt me. I just didn't. I was afraid I going to get back together with. So I had to get the police involved.
- [93:15]
Tracy Letts
Totally. Oh, God. 28 year old me really relates to that. Mark. I would have absolutely gotten back together.
- [93:21]
Carrie Coon
But I talk about going to a men's al anon group, you know, because out of panic and it's just. I was just. It's just me in a room with 200 alpha doormats.
- [93:31]
Tracy Letts
Totally. Yeah. Yeah.
- [93:33]
Carrie Coon
It's so nice to see that side of masculinity.
- [93:35]
Tracy Letts
Oh, yeah.
- [93:35]
Carrie Coon
Just these guys are like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I can't seem to tell her anything.
- [93:41]
Tracy Letts
I can't break up with her.
- [93:42]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [93:43]
Tracy Letts
Oh, dude. I studied abroad because I had two boyfriends.
- [93:46]
Carrie Coon
Oh, really?
- [93:47]
Tracy Letts
I was like, I think I'll just go to Spain for a while.
- [93:49]
Carrie Coon
Oh my God.
- [93:51]
Tracy Letts
And my grandma wrote me this amazing letter where she was like, you know, she saw all of it happening. She didn't learn to say no till her 70s, which she was very open about. And she was like, pity's not the same as love. And it doesn't dignify the other person. It doesn't give them any autonomy, doesn't give any. You know, they're not making any decisions if you're not giving them all the information. Just like, I don't want to do this anymore. You can't say that to somebody. It's awful. And everybody then, you know, everybody eventually winds up where they should be, I think.
- [94:18]
Carrie Coon
Yeah.
- [94:19]
Tracy Letts
Oh, sometimes it takes too long.
- [94:20]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. It's like. It could have been a shorter story.
- [94:22]
Tracy Letts
It could have been a much shorter. People could have gotten on with it a little faster. I know it's terrible, but yeah, we'll be all right.
- [94:27]
Carrie Coon
You seem good.
- [94:28]
Tracy Letts
Yeah, I'm so good. I have an amazing life and I have a really good partner, as you know. He's really special. I know. He's a really special guy.
- [94:35]
Marc Maron
Yeah.
- [94:35]
Carrie Coon
Nice talking to you.
- [94:36]
Tracy Letts
You too. Thanks for having me.
- [94:42]
Marc Maron
There you go. A lot packed in to that conversation. White Lotus is streaming on Max with new episodes on Max and HBO on Sundays. Hang out for a minute, folks. Hey, people, check out the new Audible original podcast.
- [94:59]
Carrie Coon
That's anything but typical.
- [95:01]
Marc Maron
The Unusual Suspects with Kenya Barris and Malcolm Gladwell. This unlikely duo is speaking with some of the world's most influential figures to hear their unexpected success stories. Hear guests like Jimmy Kimmel, WNBA legend Sue Bird, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Dr. Dre, and others.
- [95:19]
Carrie Coon
Listen to the Unusual Suspects with Kenya.
- [95:21]
Marc Maron
Barris and Malcolm Gladwell on Audible. Now go to audible.com unusual suspects. All right, gang. On Thursday, I tried to get some answers about the state of our brains in this modern media and information environment. My guest will be Chris Hayes, who just wrote a book about all of this called the Sirens Call.
- [95:44]
Chris Hayes
The addiction metaphor is interesting because I actually think, like, to me, I think it's the reason it's different from booze, drugs, or cigarettes, and it's much more like food, is that it's unavoidable in the way food is. I mean, the thing about having an addictive or torture relationship with the food is that unlike other things, you can't abstain.
- [96:04]
Carrie Coon
Well, yeah, sex and food.
- [96:06]
Chris Hayes
Yeah, you can't. You can't abstain, right? And attention, you can't abstain from either. You're going to put your attention somewhere at all times. You're going to be in your head at all times. You can't outrun it. You're going to have to live with how you manage your attention, where it goes, how you regulate it in the same way that you're going to have to put food in your body. And so I do think the addiction metaphor is useful, but it's not useful in the sense that abstaining is not an option. I mean, you can abstain from the phone, right? But then you're gonna have, like, then.
- [96:39]
Carrie Coon
You still got the.
- [96:39]
Chris Hayes
You got the brain.
- [96:40]
Carrie Coon
You're gonna get real needy around the other the people in your life. You're gonna start annoying your loved ones. They're like, why you like this? I'm like, I'm just taking a break from my phone. And you've got to somehow match that. The amount I get out of the.
- [96:55]
Chris Hayes
Phone, you got to please entertain me.
- [96:56]
Carrie Coon
Yeah. Yeah.
- [96:57]
Marc Maron
That full talk with Chris Hayes is coming up on Thursday's WTF to get every episode of WTF ad free, 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 acast. Here's some guitar from the vault, some old stuff, some classic riffs. Yes.
- [100:30]
Carrie Coon
Boomer lives.
- [100:32]
Marc Maron
Monkey and La Fonda cat angels everywhere.
- [100:35]
Carrie Coon
All right. Okay, okay.